Chapter Text
If he’d had the thoughts to spare, Tony would have been grateful that Mobius understood home right now meant his family. He stepped out, fully armoured, into his living room and fell to his knees as the door vanished behind him.
The noise drew Pepper, at once flying downstairs in full Rescue armour. “Tony?” As soon as she saw him, her suit nanites melted away. She knelt beside him. “Oh my god, are you okay?”
His heart galloped, his breaths never feeling enough to stay alive. Tony knew how to handle an attack like this, he’d been trained. Now that FRIDAY was reconnected, she automatically stilled his HUD to calming hues and minimal stimulation. He tried to focus on one gently shifting tone of colour. Yet, the trigger was entirely new.
“Not hurt,” he managed to explain. “Panic.” That was enough for Pepper to give him space. He took in deep breaths and gave attention to what needed to be done first. Being at home and inside his suit helped to assure his brain that everything was safe. How is anywhere safe when we’re all sitting on a delicate thread in the hands of a volatile god?
“Where is Morgan?” he asked.
“She’s safe. She’s in her room, or she should be but I know she’s creeping down the stairs behind me. Sweetie, Daddy’s here, but you need to give him a minute, okay?”
Morgan sat down on the stairs and clutched her knees, watching.
“Mrs Potts,” FRIDAY’s voice piped up within the house. “The police have arrived.”
“I’ll handle it,” Tony insisted. He pushed himself upright and let the anxiety wash through him as best he could. “FRIDAY, call Mackenzie.” His HUD switched back to proper visuals but with limited extras. It usually pleased him to have many things happening at once, but right now it would be overwhelming.
Every step an effort, he strode out to meet the authorities pulling up the road.
“I want to thank you all for your prompt service,” he called, ignoring Mack when he popped up in the corner of his HUD. The man would listen. “The situation here is under control. I intend to make a statement to the press when the time is right, but you should know the one behind the invasion of my home, Loki’s abduction, and the attack on Prince’s Bay is a man called Quentin Beck. The so-called ‘hero’ naming himself Mysterio is a fraud who seeks to slander my name and he has used stolen and unsanctioned technology to fabricate terrorism. Since his return, Loki has done nothing to harm the people of this planet. That is all I have to say for now. I’d appreciate if you’d work with SHIELD to track Beck and his associates. I will check in soon.”
“And where exactly is Loki now?” Mack asked as Tony made back for the house.
“Gone. Don’t know for how long, but don’t waste resources looking. You won’t find him.”
“Does that mean you’re hiding him, Mr Stark?”
“No, it means where he is you wouldn’t understand and none of us can reach it.”
“You’d be surprised. We’ll keep in touch.”
***
“That was keeping things light, was it?” Sylvie glared at Mobius.
“Look, I’m sorry, I screwed up. I thought if he could understand how much Loki has changed, what an amazing thing he did for all of us like Tony did for his universe, it would help put things in perspective.”
Though Mobius spoke quietly, Loki suspected he was meant to hear the excuse. He sat with his back to them, looking through reports as though he actually wanted to engage in their mediocrity, anything not to think about how everything was ruined. He shouldn’t have expected less.
“You’re an idiot,” Sylvie hissed.
“Today I am, I’ll accept that,” said Mobius. “I’m not a matchmaker. I’m good at my job, handling Lokis, and making really great cups of coffee.”
“So how are we going to fix it?”
“You’re not,” said Loki, setting papers down. “I chose to interrupt that timeline. He has a family. I’ve no right to let whatever that was continue.”
Sylvie folded her arms. “You’re the god of mischief. You’re supposed to be egging this sort of thing on. It’s time to take what you want.”
“I’m more than that now. No, not more. Just different. Stark isn’t a plaything. I can’t simply drop myself into the story and change it for my own ends.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Don’t tempt me, Sylvie.”
“That’s what we do.”
“And is that the sort of god you want holding everything together? Because it’s not what mortals can tolerate.”
Before either of them could say anything further, he rose from his seat and let the mantle of God of Stories wash over him once again.
“I’m going back. I need some time to think.”
He stalked for the observation deck and, beyond that, the Void.
***
Finally out of his armour, if not all his defences, Tony sat on the bed he shared with Pepper. Morgan curled in his arms. He knew he needed to talk to Pepper alone, even if he didn’t know exactly what to say, but he couldn’t deny his daughter a little time. He didn’t want to be like his own parents and keep her shut out of everything, which would probably come back to bite him in the ass considering how much exposure she’d already had to Avengers stuff. She was smart, hecking smart. Even she’d cottoned on to the ‘man with the stick’ being bad news and had gone off to tell her mom, regardless of the crap Beck had tried. But she was still a kid.
Tony told them about Beck’s setup. Pepper had heard what he told the police but he gave a little more detail of the events, albeit in language clear and decent enough for Morgan, including how Beck had pretended to be him to get close.
“One of Loki’s friends helped save the situation. She stopped Beck’s bad movie from going out and painting me as a villain. All I need now is to stop Beck and make sure you two are safe.”
“Convenient Loki’s friend was there to help,” Pepper pointed out. “How do we know he and Beck weren’t working together?”
At first his expression soured, irritated that Pepper was once again on the attack, but Tony had thrown this same accusation at Loki, even before he knew what more Loki was. He let the feeling pass and shook his head. “I don’t have proof. I only know what my gut tells me, which is that Loki never met him. Even if Loki were bad, Beck is beneath him and it makes no sense why he’d let himself be revealed like this.”
“Maybe so he can cut you off from the rest of us? He’s all about manipulation, Tony. If he can get humanity to cast you out, he takes you all for himself.”
It wasn’t impossible. Loki could have known who Beck was with the knowledge in his possession. Yet, the idea still jarred. There were so many better ways Loki could have done this, without involving an idiot like Beck. Loki could have changed his shape and worked his own illusions. It didn’t feel right. Thinking about Loki was making his head spin and his heart race, and not in the way that kiss had.
“He wanted a home. Making everyone hate us doesn’t make sense. If he wanted that, then why bother impressing the Avengers? Why try to do better?”
“More tricks.”
“He brought Nat back.”
Pepper aborted whatever she was about to say and stared in confusion. Morgan withdrew from her hug enough to give him a similar look of puzzlement.
“Aunt Natasha’s alive,” he said. “Loki took Clint and I to Vormir where we lost her. He did something with his magic and he brought her back. She’s with Clint right now. You don’t believe me, call him. It’s not been announced yet, but Nat’s okay.”
Morgan gasped and clapped her hands.
“I...” Pepper began. “I don’t know what to say.” She looked like she wanted to burst with something. Relief? Joy? Rage? “All this says to me is he’s playing with all of us. You should stay away from him, Tony. Loki always had an agenda.”
“His agenda was me, but you can stop worrying because he knows I don’t want to be friends anymore. Probably won’t even see him again.”
Pepper scoffed. “Do you know that? I’m gonna go clear my head and work out where I’m going to take Morgan until this Mysterio mess is over.”
She left the room before he could think of anything to change her mind. Why were her sights always so locked upon Loki? She couldn’t possibly know what had happened between them. It was probably the right thing to confess it to Pepper, but the way things were going she would pack her bags and end it all. What would be the point in making everyone suffer for a mistake that couldn’t happen again now that he’d shunned Loki? Shunned the most powerful being he had ever met, which was saying something when you were pals with someone who’d taken a sun to the face.
“Dad, why don’t you want to be friends with Loki?” Morgan had moved back to sit opposite him now, animated since news of Natasha’s return. “He did all these nice things.”
“Well, honey, sometimes people do nice things for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t mean I’m not glad he did them, but if you do things for selfish reasons that doesn’t automatically mean you get to be friends.”
“What did Loki want?”
“I think he wanted to be my friend.”
“Is that a wrong reason?”
Tony smiled at her directness. “No, not really. I think he might have wanted to be a special kind of friend, like your mom and me. Only I’m with your mom and it wouldn’t make her happy and that would cause all kinds of mess. Not to mention, he’s been a very bad person. He’s killed people. We don’t just forget that.”
Morgan pursed her lips. “He’s trying though. He helped save everybody, and you said he brought back Aunt Natasha.”
“I did. He did. Thing is, sweetheart, Loki is really powerful. I found out he’s more powerful than anything I’ve ever seen and that’s... that’s really scary. He’s not like us. If I hurt him like I hurt you and your mom when we fight, he might hurt a lot of people. He might do something really bad and it will be my fault, too.” It was strange to boil things down so simply. Somehow it felt therapeutic, a way to ignore the knot of twisted feelings in his gut.
“But you and mom are really scary and you don’t hurt other people.”
“We hurt you. Wait — do you really find us scary?”
She gave a wicked little grin and played at stretching her hands backwards. “You fight all the time. Especially about Loki. You fought before though.”
“Are we scary when we do that?”
“No. You make bad people scared when you go and shoot them,” she replied, somewhat relishing it. “You’re not shooting Loki, so maybe he isn’t so bad.”
Tony laughed softly. “Even if we pretend he’s not a big, scary god, if I even thought about liking him like your mom, that isn’t fair on you. If I liked someone else, I wouldn’t be able to live with you and I don’t know if I could bear that. Could you?”
Morgan pouted. “Oh.” She appeared to give it some thought, then added, “Can’t friends share?”
Tony clapped a hand over his mouth and snorted. He cleared his throat. “Uh, well, some grownups do share special friends, but it’s very rare and you can’t make people feel things.” This was insane. Why was this conversation happening? About Loki, of all people. Was he even people now? “In any case, that can’t happen for us. If I liked Loki like that.”
“Okay. What about normal friends?”
“It’s hard to be normal friends if one of you wants to be special.” Or if one of you is playing skip-rope with the multiverse. God, what am I even saying?
“I don’t think Loki has many friends. He seems lonely.”
“Are you thirty-five years old? When did you get so astute?”
“No,” she giggled. “I’m five. What’s a-toot?”
“It’s when you’ve had too many Pop Tarts. I can’t be friends with Loki.”
“Because he’s scary?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But you’re friends with Hulk, and you said Hulk SMUSHED Loki on the floor.”
“There’s no winning with you, is there?”
“Nope.”
“Thing is, Loki scared me and I ran away, and if I wanted to make him happy, it will upset your mom, and I don’t blame her for that. A lot of people wouldn’t like me liking Loki. Grownups are really complicated. If I screw this up, it won’t just be Loki that’s lonely. It’ll be me and your mom, too.”
Morgan sighed. “That sounds hard.” The remark wasn’t as deep as it came across. She didn’t understand and that was for the best.
“Yeah, pumpkin, it is.”
“So, what are you gonna do?”
“Well, second, you and your mom are gonna play spies hiding from the bad guys. First, it’s gonna be a tickle attack. Rargh!”
He savoured Morgan’s shrieks not least because they blotted out his turmoil for half a minute until she escaped and ran off after Pepper. Beck should have been at the forefront of his mind as a threat to everything he had, but what was he in the face of Loki? He remembered the terror of the nightmare, of being in space while the Chitauri swarmed toward Earth. He had lived the alternate reality of it. That same squeeze of vertigo on his heart was happening anytime he thought of what Mobius had told him. It was too much. Wasn’t it?
Morgan had unearthed the simplicity of what he had done. He had learnt Loki was Space Jesus and he had fled like a coward. Him. Iron Man. And that wasn’t the only revelation he had run from.
“Ah, hell.”
Beck could wait. If anyone was going to nuke his life, he was going to damn well do it himself.
Following an awkward and all-too-short goodbye to his family, Tony suited up once again and set off for the Tower.
Thankfully there was no one in the common room when he touched down. People on the streets would’ve seen him fly in, which meant the press would find out. It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t find him where he was going.
The TemPad was where he had left it, stuffed down the back of the couch. He found the coordinate history for the last time he had used this device, the place where Mobius had first mentioned Loki’s tree, and opened the door.
When he stepped onto the old observation deck, he found Mobius already there, staring out of the window. Tony had been about to ask if Mobius had expected him, but the man seemed to be just as surprised to see him.
“You’re back!”
“Yep. I’m here to talk to your superior. Tall, dark, dramatic, rhymes with hokey. Seen him around?”
“You just missed him.” Mobius put his hands in his pockets and nodded ruefully to the distantly glimmering time tree.
“He’s out there?”
“Back to his throne. Not sure how long for.”
“I’ll fly out to him.” Tony started for the airlock.
“Wait!” Mobius warned. “Tony, you can’t. Even with the timelines stable, the energy out there is too much for your armour. Our Loom repair suit can last but it won’t fly out where Loki is. We don’t even know if a whole tree of raw time is survivable to anyone but him. What he’s doing is impossible.”
The click of Tony’s tongue crackled through his speakers. “You know I take that as a challenge, right?”
Mobius gave him a soft smile that showed just how long he had dealt with the frustrations of disobedient tricksters. “Let him have this.”
“Fine. Can we call him back?”
“No.”
“Then how do I talk to him?”
The analyst’s smile continued, paired with a twinkle in the eye. “Ain’t that the existential question?”