Thor Fic: "In the shadows of the crossroads" (Loki, Avengers, R), 3b/10
LINK TO BEGINNING OF CHAPTER
If Tony was being honest with himself - and he so rarely was, unless it was sarcastically - there were maybe two times in his life when he was at his happiest. When he was showing off, and when he put his mind to work on something.
Which was why even though knowing he was technically acting as Thor’s inadvertent wingman (Thor wasn’t fooling anybody, no matter what the big guy might have thought) he was actually really quite pleased that they had invited Dr. Foster over for a laboratory play-date.
He hadn’t just been trying to butter her up: he thought her work truly was impressive. Even though it had required a bit of homework on his part to understand all of it - a task that had been harder than one might think, considering it still took a little effort on his part to even read the word “wormhole”.
But, he thought, standing there with a gratified version of his usual smugness, it all paid off in the end. Spending hours with both Bruce and Dr. Foster as they poked through diagrams and gushed over his tech was definitely his idea of a good time.
At present he had taken a step back, watching as Bruce demonstrated how one of Tony’s laser generators worked to the other scientist. Jane was asking questions and babbling animatedly, drawing a smile out of Bruce, her eyes bright with intellectual fire in a way Tony could appreciate.
Off in the corner her so-called assistant had long grown bored with the technobabble and found herself a computer terminal where she was currently playing Chinese checkers against JARVIS. And losing, badly, judging by her scowl and frequent muttering.
She seemed happy to be ignored and Tony was all too willing to ignore her. He spared the slightest disinterested glance to make sure she hadn’t wandered off somewhere, and then went back to watching the far more remarkable-to-his-interests woman.
Dr. “Call me Jane, please, seriously” Foster was not at all what he would’ve pictured if tasked with coming up with the woman Thor would’ve chosen to bestow his affections on. He probably would’ve pictured something taller, and maybe blonder, with toned physique and an icy stare -a Nordic supermodel, basically. Instead he’d fallen for a quiet, tiny, almost mousy physicist. She seemed an odd choice for godly infatuations.
That was, until she opened her mouth and started talking about her work, and it became clear there was much more to her than met the eye.
So maybe Thor had a thing for brainy girls. A bit unexpected; Tony approved. But then, it was well-established he had quite the thing for driven, independent, fiery women. He could certainly understand why Jane had caught Thor’s attention.
There was the sound of heavy footsteps at his back and Tony felt a slight prickle along his neck, like he was standing close to an electric generator.
Speak of the devil, he thought as he turned around and found the thunder god standing there, as if he’d somehow been summoned by thought of his name.
“Hey.” Tony shuffled a few steps closer, greeting him quietly. “How’s it going?”
“It goes…fine, friend Stark.” Thor barely looked at him. He stood there with his arms at his sides, his shoulders not quite as high. His head wasn’t hanging but there was something about his attitude as if it should be.
Thor stood there, all six foot and change of him, with his massive muscles and his mane of blond hair, taking up the entire doorframe, and yet he somehow seemed smaller than he really was. Deflated.
He watched Dr. Foster with a subdued hangdog expression; gazing at her as if she was even further beyond his reach than the few feet that separated them.
He turned to address Tony and his blue eyes were infinitely sad. “How have things been here?” he asked with a beseeching sort of curiosity.
Aw, jeeze, Thor, Tony thought. Here was a demigod that could probably bench-press a tank if he wanted, and he looked like a kicked puppy. Somebody was definitely whipped by love.
He almost groaned out loud. And to think he’d mostly been bewildered when Thor had not-so-subtly requested maybe Tony could put in a word to get Jane to stop on by.
He would’ve figured Thor could sweep any woman off her feet, easy. Instead it looked like the guy could use all the help he could get.
He found himself resting a hand on the much taller man’s shoulder in an attempt at sympathy. “It’s been, uh, going great. You know, giving your girlfriend the grand master tour. Been spending most of our time in the lab so far; no surprise there. But I’d say she’s been enjoying herself. Haven’t offered her a bed to spend the night in yet, but I’m sure once the chance comes up she’ll take it…”
“If that is what pleases her.” Thor’s voice was wooden. He’d pulled out from under Tony’s hand and drifted listlessly closer to the lab, watching Jane through the glass. “It is of course her decision.”
Tony cleared his throat, rubbed his beard with a frown, and just when he was trying to find the best way to suggest to Thor he stop moping and go sweep the girl off her feet, the lady in question looked up and noticed the Asgardian standing there.
She froze, and the smile slid off her expression in surprise.
Undeterred or possibly immune to social awkwardness, Bruce gave no pause as he lifted a hand in a friendly wave. “Hey.”
“Dr. Banner,” Thor nodded, “it is good to see you again. And you, Darcy,” he greeted the girl, who had turned in her seat, mouth open uselessly, eyes bouncing back and forth between Jane and Thor in a riveted fashion. “And…you, Jane. No matter the circumstances, it pleases me whenever our paths cross once again.”
His voice was softer, intent, words coming heavily in a rumbling sort of sigh.
Tony was one hundred percent straight. He’d fallen asleep that time Pepper had tried to get him to watch The Notebook. And even he was screaming mentally at Jane to stop standing there and kiss him.
“It’s good to see you again, too, Thor,” she said at last in a similarly subdued and reluctant way, which wasn’t at all satisfying to their audience. “I, um. Wanted to thank you, for inviting me…everything here is amazing.”
“Yes. I knew you would like it.” Thor smiled, at least, in way to suggest that he was happy at having made Jane happy, even if it was only a little. He seemed to remember they weren’t alone, and looked to the sides hurriedly. “But of course, Stark and Banner deserve some of the thanks as well. Hopefully they haven’t minded-”
“No, no,” Tony cut him off with a gesture before this could possibly get any more awkward, “not at all. We’re only too happy to have the doctor. She is…quite the woman.”
And he punctuated that by ending with his eyes resting significantly on Thor, in an unblinking stare that was one part thumbs-up, one part ‘make a move, you numbskull’.
Thor frowned at him in passing confusion but otherwise didn’t seem to get the message. Of course not.
“She’s been taking Tony to school on some of the finer points of particle fusion,” Bruce put in, aloof in a way that seemed like perfectly willful obliviousness. “It’s been fun to watch.”
“Oh,” Darcy butted in herself, only she added an elaborate stage yawn, “is that what she’s been doing?”
Jane shot her a disapproving look as she continued, undaunted, “Come on. Let’s go check out the kitchen and the swimming pool, already. We’ve been in here for,” she looked at her watch, “six hours, oh my god.”
“Maybe a change of scenery would be a good idea,” Tony offered. The wheels in his head were already turning fast as he tried to set up a scenario where Thor could make his play. “After all, we can always come back to this later. Bruce and I can clean up here, and maybe Thor could get started on showing you gals the rest of the way around. We’ll catch up in a minute. Or, you know, five.”
Thor and Dr. Foster exchanged a quick look, the latter worrying her lower lip pensively.
Tony might have been holding his breath a little (which was something he would never admit) when JARVIS choose that very second to interrupt.
“Pardon me, Sir.” The disembodied voice sounded anxious enough Tony immediately realized it was urgent. “But I’m afraid that the building’s security has been breached by what my records are indicating as a top-level threat.”
There was no time to be annoyed. Instead he leapt into investigative mode. “JARVIS, give me details.”
“Lower level.” A helpful holographic map projected itself in mid-air out of nowhere, a bright green orb serving as the ‘threat is here’ indicator. “It appears to be in an unfinished section, in what’s currently empty storage space.”
The AI’s voice sounded as bemused as Tony felt. He came closer nonetheless for a better look, as out of the corner of his eye he saw Bruce fold his arms and rest one hand against his mouth.
“Nothing down there,” Tony stated the obvious. “So why break in?”
“Unless that’s the point. Breaking in, I mean.” Bruce had a bitter sort of smile on his face. “If all they wanted was to gain access to the building in the first place.” He elaborated with a gesture: “And, in the process, us.”
“But who would-” Tony fell abruptly silent and behind him he heard Thor draw in a sharp breath as they must’ve simultaneously had the same realization. Oh god, no. “JARVIS. Have you identified the intruder?”
“Affirmative. Both energy signatures and facial scans point towards the hostile subject known as Loki.”
Of course. Of course; out of all the people on their hit list currently, who else was both nutty and nasty enough to literally hit them where they live? Probably for no other reason than just to prove that point.
Tony gave a highly incredulous sound. Even knowing it was pointless he had to demand, “How did he get inside without triggering any alarms?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say.” JARVIS was almost drowned out by an increasingly loud whooshing sound - Tony spun around in time to nearly be blinded by a flare of encompassing light as Mjolnir landed in Thor’s palm and, with a brilliant flash, his full armor appeared on his body. “I only just became aware of him several minutes ago. Somehow he was able to mask himself from all of the building’s sensors. There’s no way of telling how long he’s been here.”
“Okay; you really shouldn’t do that indoors,” Tony chided Thor automatically, not having any pertinent response to JARVIS’ information outside of colorful mental swearing. “You’re gonna bust out somebody’s retinas.”
Thor ignored him, naturally. The look on his face was angry and incredibly grave. “Jane and Darcy, please remain here.” He pointed to them. “You will be safe.”
He waited only long enough for Jane to nod back at him fervently before he took off running.
“…Well, great. And he’s off,” Tony muttered. “Want to lay even odds he’ll actually use the elevator, or just fling himself out a window and go soaring down?” He shook his head and smacked his palms together absently. “Right. JARVIS, wake up the Mark-42. Bruce-”
“Actually.” His teammate took a step back, taking off his glasses to play with them. “Depending on what Loki actually wants, you and Thor can probably keep him occupied. I can always tag in if you need me.”
He gave a self-depreciative smile. “Until then, think I’ll stay here. I wouldn’t want to break anything, unless I had to.”
Tony weighed the options and decided he was probably in the right. Besides, that little Norse bastard was crawling around doing who knew what inside his building: he didn’t really want to stick around and argue.
“JARVIS, seal this wing down behind me. Alert security to go on red alert and put the whole facility in lockdown mode.”
He adjusted his position, arms and legs akimbo in time for the pieces of the suit to soar in and assemble around him.
“Now let’s go bag ourselves a gate-crasher.”
He barely heard Darcy squeak out ‘Okay, that is so cool’ behind him before he fired up his rockets with minimum thrust, enough to give him that extra burst as he went half-running, half-hovering down the hall.
From a certain perspective it was possibly a comical sight, an armored Iron Man crashing down the hallway, occasionally shouting at astonished employees to move out of his way, sending them ducking and flailing back inside doorways. Luckily the tower’s main function as Avengers’ headquarters sort of ran contrary to the point of having a multitude of staff. Mostly they were maintenance and cleaning types, relegated to the lower levels. There really weren’t that many people in the building.
Something Tony would be doubly glad of if they couldn’t stop whatever Loki was doing in time and he burned the whole place down.
Tony’s mind raced along faster than the speed he was physically traveling. Loki coming back to try and bite them was no great shocker - but why here, why now? What exactly was his move that he ended up playing his hand so soon? Unless he was trying to psyche them out; remind them that he knew where they lived, and had the power to strike at about any moment.
It was unspeakably annoying, but it was also damn effective. The whole team wasn’t even here to deal with him - Natasha had gone off the day before on some top secret mission and taken Rogers along with her. Barton, as far as he knew, was on a mission as well.
At least that was what he thought. But he turned out to be proven wrong, as he rounded a corner and was suddenly met with the sight of the SHIELD agent nimbly climbing out of an air duct and dropping down right in front of him.
Tony skidded to a halt just in time, his metal boots drawing sparks off the floor.
“Christ, Barton, you have got to stop doing that!”
“I don’t think we really have time for pleasantries,” came the other man’s retort, brusque. He tapped at the side of his head, indicating his earpiece. “I heard Thor blundering around. We’ve got a home invader?”
“It’s Loki,” Tony told him, and judging from the stiff nod he got in response, he was only confirming what Barton had already guessed. “Little bastard slunk his way inside. Bypassed every camera I put into the place. No idea how.”
“Right now I’d say that’s the least of our worries.” Barton was trying his damnedest to stay professional, but there was that slight dark note that always entered his tone whenever Loki was the topic of conversation. “Think he’s trying to steal something? Or maybe he’s after Jane Foster?”
Tony knew better than to even ask how he already knew about her.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Here’s an idea: let’s go ask him.”
He’d realized how close they were to a set of elevators. Stomping over to the nearest one, Tony glanced up to make sure the car was still somewhere on the floors above, and then called out, “JARVIS, give me a shutdown on elevator shaft three.”
Then without even waiting for confirmation he pried the doors open manually. Ignoring the unhappy creak of metal-on-metal, he stood with one foot half over the edge of the long straight abyss, the HUD mapping everything out for him despite the pitch black darkness.
Without further pause Tony dove in headfirst and kicked his thrusters on, zooming toward the bottom of the empty shaft.
There was a clink behind him, what was now already far overhead. He glanced back without turning: a small virtual window showed him the view to his rear as Barton used one of his arrows as a grappling hook and was smoothly rappelling his way down after.
“Well, three out of six ain’t bad, right?” Tony muttered to himself. Four if they counted Bruce.
He was hoping they wouldn’t have to count Bruce, but it was really quite reassuring to know the Other Guy was in reserve, just in case.
Reaching the hallway he repulsor-blasted the doors open: it was his building, he knew he could afford the repairs. Pepper might have a few things to say later, but - whatever.
On the actual floor he slowed down to a methodical walking pace, letting JARVIS feed him information from the system on what was up ahead. The security grid was still kicking back a lot of static, which was worrisome, to say the least. His breath came even but audible in the enclosed space of his helmet as his pulse pounded, system soaring with adrenaline that came with the anticipation of an oncoming fight. He could barely make out the whirs of metallic joints that came with the suit in motion. Barton flanked him behind and to his right, moving in almost perfect silence.
The room Loki was supposed to be in was one hallway away, around another corner. Thor came into view a few feet in front of them, stalking the same direction with his hammer at the ready. Tony was more relieved than he would have thought at realizing they’d caught up to the thunder god first. But letting Thor take on his brother alone was asking for excessive collateral damage. Things between them always got way too messy.
“Hey, Thor,” Tony said quietly as he could. The Asgardian turned his head enough to meet his gaze. Every muscle was taut, his pose battle-ready, but he gave his two allies a short nod.
Good. They were all on the same page here, for once. No Loki-tackling unless they were in it together.
He turned his helmet toward Barton and was rewarded with another exchange of nods. The archer slipped into position closer behind him, hugging the wall, as Thor held his ground waiting for them to catch up. They were moving almost in a single-file line right up next to the wall’s very edge as they finally came around the corridor.
Tony’s eyes slid along the blank expanse of white paint in front of him until they found the gap that was the open door to the room. The inside was dark, but there was a creepy glow coming from somewhere. And he could make out Loki, and another figure.
He tried to take in as much as he could in milliseconds. Loki was standing there, armored but un-helmeted. The glow was coming from a strange circular design on the floor; the HUD went crazy trying to scan it, claiming it was giving off all kinds of impossible energy. Okay then, so magic. Terrific. Always fun.
The second person in there with Loki…appeared to be a woman. He didn’t know her, and facial stats were giving him nada, so apparently she wasn’t in anybody’s database.
His first, kneejerk guess from what he could see was she was an alien of some kind. Her shape was human enough but her skin was bone-white while everything else about her was black, and the overall imagery came off as unsettling bordering on gruesome.
There was a conversation going on but they were too late to catch any of it. The instant they got close Loki’s mouth shut and his head whipped around, turning on his heels to keep them at his front instead of his side when he realized they were there.
His eyes darted swiftly, taking in the three of them, and his hand half-raised in preparation to either defend or attack.
Tony aimed a gauntlet at him. “Hi. Thanks for stopping by. You know, it’s kind of funny though, considering I don’t remember inviting you. So why don’t you leave your housewarming gift somewhere and show yourself to the door?”
“What is the meaning of this, Loki?” Thor demanded in a low roar. “What foul undertaking you have commenced with now?”
Barton, ever the eloquent soul, let his bow do the talking for him, namely the sound it made as he fitted an arrow into place and drew the string taut.
And Loki…frankly stunned the hell out of Tony by not immediately attacking them. His mouth gave a spasm and he looked briefly aside, shaking his head in what looked a strange mixture of exasperated amusement and pure pissed-off annoyance.
“Naturally, you chose the most inopportune moment to uncover me,” he remarked. “Your interference at this point is…meddlesome.”
“‘Meddlesome’. Oh, I’m sorry.” Tony flipped his faceplate up, the better to be brutally sardonic. “You wanna know what’s ‘meddlesome’? You summoning boggarts in my basement. That’s what’s meddlesome, here. I don’t suppose you would like to explain?”
Loki’s mouth twitched into a humorless smirk. “I’ve not much reason to waste my time explaining myself to the likes of you.”
“Yeah, insult us all some more again,” Barton deadpanned. He didn’t move a single other muscle, arrow pointed resolutely. “That always works out so great for you.”
The smirk vanished and something flitted across Loki’s face - recalling, one would guess, for a moment that he’d indeed been defeated by them once before and how agonizing and humiliating it had been. Anything he was about to say, though, was cut off before he could get started.
There was an inhuman hiss, sharp as a knife made of white noise, from the woman trapped within the glowing magic circle. Despite better instincts such a definitive sound caught all their attentions instantly.
“These are not your allies, are they Odinson.” It was a statement, not a question. But god, that woman had such an ugly voice. It was deeply unsettling.
Also unsettling? The fact that the longer Tony looked at her, he realized her image was hazy, and flickering intermittently in and out. Like a ghost. Because clearly her black-on-white and ghoulish appearance wasn’t sinister enough.
“I’m sorry,” Tony managed, cordially; “And, who the hell are you?”
“Do not speak to her,” Loki ordered sharply - which of course made Tony immediately want to. He stopped himself though, because something lingering in Loki’s tone made him think twice. It sounded like he was…not afraid, exactly. But wary. Worried, about what could happen here.
Loki had forced his way through the wrong side of an unstable dimensional tear, setting off a chain reaction that demolished an entire top secret government base. He’d sicced a massive army of creatures he’d just barely had control over on a metropolitan area.
If something was wrong here and it had him leery of the outcome? Tony was prepared to sit up and take notice.
Thor gave an impatient sound, a wordless repressed shout, through his teeth. Reaching out with both fists he snatched Loki up by the front of his clothing, near his collar, bodily dragging him out of the room into the hallway.
Loki wrapped his own hands tight over Thor’s, until the knuckles turned white, but otherwise made no move to resist.
‘You two have the most dysfunctional relationship ever’, Tony did not say, out loud, because some things even he didn’t think were that funny.
“Enough of this,” Thor snarled, his face and Loki’s inches apart. “Talk! I know a summoning charm when I see one. Who or what is this creature you have brought here? What treachery do you now attempt?”
Loki had his head leaned back so he wasn’t bumping into Thor’s. “For once, no treachery. Well…save that I chose the Iron Man’s domicile for this,” he admitted, smiling. “But if something went wrong, I preferred that the collateral be lucrative.”
“You are such a charmer,” Tony told him in the exact same tone he would’ve asked him to eat shit. Loki’s smile only grew wider.
What a difference time made: when last they had fought Loki, nearly everything he did only made Thor look sadder and sadder. At some point along the way, however, the big guy’s well of patience must’ve run dry. Because as of right now, he looked more than willing to introduce his brother’s skull into the drywall if it meant getting some quick and straight answers out of him.
The interrogation of Loki was put off a bit, though, by the sound of several pairs of feet arriving behind them. Tony turned and discovered half a dozen of the building’s security guards.
“Mr. Hogan sent us, sir,” the lead one panted. “We came as fast as we could.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tony responded with precisely zero enthusiasm. “That’s great. Real helpful. Uh…” He looked swiftly for some busywork to keep them out of the way. “Hey, why don’t you guys make yourself useful and keep an eye on that whole situation there?”
He pointed to the darkened room, the neon bright floor patterns, the creepy ghost woman. She smiled unpleasantly at the group of men, revealing a mouth of fangs.
There was a marked moment of hesitation before the security men filed inside the room, closer.
“Do not touch anything,” Loki ordered after them, blandly.
“Um,” Tony began, holding up a single armored finger - as much about to point out his people weren’t Loki’s to command, thanks, as he was to question why they should listen to anything the sorcerer had to say.
Thor interrupted though, with a shake of his head. “No. In this case, he is right.” His grip on Loki released and he pushed him back a space, visibly annoyed. “Any contact with the spell threatens to break it, and release whatever was inside.”
“You hear that, boys? Hands to yourself.” Tony readjusted his focus back on Loki. “Now, where were we?”
“I think he was just about to explain what the hell he’s doing here,” Barton put it. Seriously, it was like he was made of stone: he still hadn’t wavered so much as half an inch. “And fast, if he knows what’s good for him.”
Mentally Tony admired his commitment to the team, considering he was pretty sure the secret agent could’ve cared less about answers: he just wanted to see Loki captured, or preferably gone for good.
But Tony definitely needed an explanation. “Yeah. So how about it? We’ll skip right over the how you got in - for now. I’m gathering the choice of location was a matter of convenience. What’s your reason for summoning up what looks like the illegitimate lovechild of Elvira and the Cryptkeeper?”
“Who is she, brother?” Thor snarled.
Loki tilted his head back again, this time like he was trying to retain his air of superiority. “In truth I don’t actually know,” he admitted.
There was a beat. “Oh, so this is like magic Chatroulette?” Tony offered gamely. “There are much easier ways to find a date, you know…”
“Must you speak in nothing but lies and riddles?” Thor’s voice rose again. “Is she another of your allies?”
Loki’s expression soured. “Hardly,” he said, sounding several shades of displeased. “In fact the very reason I created the summoning spell is that I know she is a potential dangerous foe.”
“Go on,” Tony drawled.
Loki’s eyes moved slowly, taking in each of the three of them in turn as he spoke. “For some time now I’ve been aware of some sort of…malevolent force out there, among the cosmos, eclipsing the connection I feel to the worlds across worlds. I wished to learn more of this threat, and so, I was able to muster the strength to reach out and bring it here. For questioning.”
“Makes sense, to a point,” Barton remarked. “Someone fires a shot at you, you turn into it, figure out where it’s coming from before you try and fire one back.”
“Back it up for a space here.” Tony frowned. “What’s this ‘worlds across worlds’ business? And all the…other stuff you just said that made no sense to me at all.”
The responding gaze that got from Loki was a whole new level of disdainful. “Our realm of existence, vast as it is in ways you cannot fathom, is not all there is. Beyond the furthest reaches, there are other worlds. Worlds occupied by similar beings living similar destinies, though sometimes the sameness is far less than the differences.”
“Are you talking about parallel realities?” Tony said disbelievingly, though he felt he might finally be catching on. “Like, a whole other Earth, and another Asgard-”
“Another set of Avengers,” Thor said softly, looking stunned. “Another version of myself.” His eyes flashed onto his brother. “Another Loki.”
There was something dark that glittered in Loki’s gaze for the brief moment he held his brother’s eyes. “Indeed. A multitude of my alternate selves, all connected in a way we are usually unaware of. Trim a single leaf and the branch it sprouts from continues on unbothered. But trim another leaf, and another, and another, a hundred leaves, all in rapid succession, and the rest of the organism begins to feel it.”
“And that’s what you think that creep in there is doing?” Tony jerked a metal-coated thumb over his shoulder. “Going door to door across the universes and killing you off in each one?”
Loki straightened, moving his arms in a way that seemed strangely reminiscent of smoothing down ruffled feathers. “She comes from some other realm, far away from our own. But some version of me angered her, made her enemy.”
Suddenly he moved forward, slipping past Thor before he could be stopped, coming closer to Tony who he directed his words at.
Looming over him the taller man pressed palm flat against the center of Tony’s chestplate, near to the light from the RT. Knowing Loki was trying to mess with him, Tony held his ground.
“She seeks to find him out and have her revenge,” Loki said, in a tone that was all false outrage and mock reasonableness. “Until then it seems she’ll take out any other version of me that gets in her way.”
“I see,” Tony replied thickly, otherwise refusing to give a reaction.
Thor snatched at Loki by the corner of his arm and pushed him back out of the way again, glowering. Loki allowed it, evidently deciding since his head games plot had failed not to try any other.
Barton said archly, “Someone hates you so much that they want to kill you multiple times, over and over. Hard to imagine.” Loki shot him an aggravated look.
“Gee, though, if you know all that, wouldn’t that make bringing her here to you incredibly stupid?” Tony had to ask, semi-rhetorically.
But Loki shook his head with adamant stiffness. “You fail to see the obvious. She is not really here. Only a fraction of her is. Her…spiritual essence, let us say. Meanwhile her physical self lies as if in a trance back wherever she came from. There is nothing what I brought here can do to physically harm me.”
“So then why do you care so much about not letting the genie out of its bottle?”
“He said there was nothing she could do to cause physical harm,” Thor said darkly, meaningfully, as he glanced to meet Tony’s gaze.
Well, that was nice and ominous. He shut his eyes for a second to try and clear his thoughts.
“Okay,” he said out loud. “That’s great, and all. Let’s say I even pretend to believe you. Now where does that leave us?”
“Exactly where we started,” Barton argued. “None of this makes any difference to us. This guy here still needs to be locked up before he can do any more damage.”
Thor stole a look at Loki before saying, “Agreed. But, the rest. Is it not…troubling?”
“It’s none of our business,” the archer retorted. “If there really is a problem, let him sort it out himself. Assuming he can.”
Thor’s brow wrinkled, and he didn’t seem entirely happy with that suggestion. Tony - wasn’t sure how he felt, himself. He wasn’t burdened by an overabundance of concern for Loki’s wellbeing, but there was something about the whole general scenario that was, as Thor had put it, “troubling”. Somehow, the idea they could muck around with alternate realities and then just let it go didn’t seem right.
He was waiting for Loki to say something again. Or if not to put his two cents in, to at least make a move finally.
But he looked up in time to see Loki shifting his weight back a little on his heels, stepping just enough to peer past them into the nearby room.
“You really don’t want him to do that,” he remarked.
The problem with the suit was, even in a more flexible model like the M-42, he couldn’t turn really fast. Still Tony spun around quickly as he could possibly manage, just in time to see one of the guards wandering way too close to the evil spirit lurking inside her glass jar.
“No!” Tony yelled, and stretched out a hand, alarm bells going off in his head at the sight.
Too late. The man was directly in front of the figure leering at him, and couldn’t seem to resist sticking his hand through the invisible barrier.
Maybe she’d even lured him over somehow. They would never know.
Everything happened way too quickly for any of the Avengers to make a move. The guards’ hand seemed to hit something and there was a small explosion. The room lit up in a burst of blinding light and sparks flew. The ghost reached out, lighting quick - the man made a cry of pain.
There was another pop, and a flash, even more dramatic than the first. Tony flipped his visor down instinctively and turned away with a wince. For a moment no one could see anything, and he felt the ripple from outplaced force brush against him.
When they looked again the other guards had either been knocked down or thrown against the wall. There was soot, scorch marks, and the design Loki had made on the floor was already half gone, what remained flickering fast and fading.
There was no sign of the woman. The guard she’d attacked was crawling slowly on the floor, dragging his body forward. His movements were jerky and disoriented.
His eyes bulged, unseeing and frantic. Something dark trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Tony had precisely enough time to start taking one step forward to try and help him. Then the man froze where he was, lifting up off his elbows partially - and then violently he began to spew something from his mouth.
Tony skidded back again with a curse, feeling Barton and Thor pressing up close behind them. As they watched, shocked, something black and sticky wasn’t so much vomited as it seemed to be crawling its way up from the hapless victim’s throat.
The black stuff wriggled, and shimmered, and when there was finally enough of it lifted up into the air, twisting around in a consistency like smoke until it blinked in and out once more and finally resolved itself into the semi-translucent image of the same woman.
She had one hand to each side of her head, fingers pressed to her temple with her thumbs at her chin. Eyes closed she rolled her neck, seeming to catch her balance until she dropped her arms.
Meanwhile the man lay on his back near her feet, eyes and mouth both open, obviously dead.
“Ugh.” The woman twitched, as if had been some usual, minor inconvenience. “I hate doing that.”
Tony stared down at the body of the lifeless security guard through the filters of the HUD, gaping senselessly as series of computerized markers helpfully pointed out how dead he was.
There was panic threading its way up and down his spine, bordering on the same screaming sense of high alert, high definition he’d been plunged into during the battle in Manhattan; that sense that he tried to ignore even while his instincts were telling him he was in way over his head. That the things he was encountering had left the realm of natural, and normal, far behind.
Bodiless specters that flickered like light bulbs and killed gruesomely. Things from another world.
Well, this is a whole new kind of horror show, he thought. Telling himself to keep breathing steady, that it was okay, he could handle it (somehow) he stepped into the room, placing himself between the rest of the guards and the killer witch-ghost. He might’ve complained ceaselessly about their presence to Happy, but they were still his people, his responsibility.
Once he’d braced himself he looked back the way he came, agitatedly.
“Don’t suppose you’d care to offer any - suggestions.” He trailed off as he realized Loki was nowhere in sight. “And of course he’s gone.”
Loki had probably disappeared the second they were distracted by what his former captive was up to. Never mind he had started the whole mess in the first place. She was solely their problem now.
It didn’t surprise Tony in the least.
The woman stood in place, looking up and around with half-interest. Her image still flickered in and out like a bad channel on a very old TV set. Other than that, though, she appeared unnervingly solid. And…present.
She glanced over at Tony, taking him in with a gaze that didn’t seem quite human. Her eyes were too cold, too hard, and she never blinked or shifted slightly in her gaze. She was just downright creepy.
Dismissing him after a moment or two, she turned and walked towards the way out, casual as she pleased.
Thor took a wary step back, never taking his eyes off her as he lifted his hammer at the ready. Barton had re-sheathed his bow. Drawing a small knife he moved to intercept her.
But the woman didn’t attack him. She didn’t do anything to show she even registered him. She moved forward and then walked right through him - in her wake Barton suddenly had to grasp the nearby wall for support, face pale as he struggled for air, making short choking sounds.
Without looking back the lady in black kept right on walking down the hallway, around the corner and out of sight.
When he came closer, alarmed, Barton reached out and grabbed onto Tony by the arm of his suit. “Don’t touch her,” he warned through clenched teeth, still catching his breath.
Tony nodded. “Got it. You going to be okay?”
The other man wheezed, but he shook his head impatiently, pulling away to stand on his own.
“You know when people say ‘Feels like somebody walked over my grave’? I never got that. Until just now.”
“Stark!” Thor yelled. “She is heading for the lift devices!”
“Go on,” Barton instructed Tony. “I’ll catch up.”
There really wasn’t much space to argue. Tony rushed after Thor, who was making a beeline after their target. She had already reached the elevators though.
“I think I will take another look,” she was murmuring to herself out loud, thoughtfully. “See if I can find a few things out about this world.”
She looked back, saw them standing there, and gave a mocking smile, her eyes widening a bit.
“Oh, thank you for your hospitality.” She snapped her fingers; her form flickered especially strongly and at the same time there was a flare of electricity as the elevator doors slid open. “But I can find my own way from here.”
She walked inside the elevator, through the elevator, and was gone.
“JARVIS? Please tell me she’s giving off some kind of energy signature and you can track her.”
“Faintly, Sir, but yes. Though it will take me some moments to calibrate.”
“Do it fast.” To Thor, he went on, “We know she’s gotta be going up, right? So, let’s go up.”
Thor nodded swiftly in agreement. He spun Mjolnir around by the handle until it resembled a pinwheel, while Tony fired up his thrusters.
They burst through the ceiling and up into the next floor, then the next, then next, without any pause, two soaring rockets making adjacent holes as they battered through one level to the next.
And he had just finished with the renovations not that long ago, too. Right then though he didn’t give a damn. If there was anyone he wanted traipsing around the inside of his building less than Loki, it might be this monster woman who couldn’t be kept out by doors, bodies or walls. Who knew how many interns she might slaughter if they didn’t evict her, fast.
“JARVIS?”
“I believe I’ve located her, Sir. She’s within the residential floors now, somewhere within the common living space.”
The residential floors. The rooms he’d designed and put in specifically for the members of the team. Could it be a coincidence that was where she had gone?
“C’mon. Punch it. No, no, Viking One - there’s been a change in course.” He managed to successfully flag Thor’s attention and got him to follow as they smashed out a window instead. “This’ll be faster.”
Shards of broken glass rained all around. They were nothing to him in the suit, of course, and Thor acted like he didn’t even feel them.
Outside of the building there was nothing to slow them down and nobody to look out for. They had free range to soar as fast as they could, all the way to the floor JARVIS was pointing them at. They re-entered the building at that point the same way they had exited.
“Man, I don’t even want to think about the bill for today.” He’d have to make sure Pepper had a glass or wine or five before she saw it. Maybe a Valium. “Honey, I’m home!”
Glass crunching beneath his boots, Tony stomped his way around, using both his visor-assisted eyes and the plethora of feedback data he was getting to search for his target.
“Where the hell are you, Corpse Bride?” he muttered aloud in frustration.
Not that he really knew what he’d do when he found her. Loki’s claim that she wasn’t really ‘here’ on this physical plane was possibly iffy, but he’d already seen proof that solid objects passed through her. It wasn’t as if all his ammo did any good.
Maybe the lightning from Thor’s hammer would work, though? Since it was allegedly also magic and all?
He looked to his ally. “You see anything?”
“Nay. Not yet.” Thor peered around with almost comical intensity. “There!” he yelled, and Tony looked just in time to see a black and white specter flitting out of sight.
“Come on, after her.” Thor rushed off and of course Tony found himself immediately well outpaced. That was the thing with the armor: it was only in the air that it was built for speed.
“Okay, screw this.”
Lifting his arms he let the Mark-42 release itself, components falling to a heap around him on the floor. It wasn’t as if it was doing him any good at present anyway. He could always collect it later.
Kicking a piece of armor aside absently he jogged after Thor.
He caught up to the both of them without too much trouble. The sinister otherworldly woman was walking around at her leisure, though there was a purposeful intent to her stride. She was already past the den and lounge area, and was making her way down the hallway between rooms, turning herself in the occasional circles to better take in her surroundings.
“The timing seems right,” she was saying to herself. “No. This place does not seem much far removed from the world I originally started again. Although, really, who can tell? It is so hard to know for sure…”
Thor was following her in heated pursuit though he was being careful to stay a short distance back. She never acknowledged that she noticed him there, nor Tony when he joined them.
“What is she talking about?” Tony asked Thor in a heated murmur. “What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid your guess is as good as mine.” Thor’s head moved this way and that, never daring to let the woman out of his line of sight.
And just when Tony was thinking things were calm enough it might be a good time to try his theory about Mjolnir working on her, a door slid open behind them.
“Hey, guys…” Darcy wandered out - what was she doing up here? - careless as she pleased, until she spotted the ghost woman and stopped in her tracks. “Oh my god.”
She and the others must have moved upward to take shelter, not having any idea what was going on in the basement or how long it might last. That was Tony’s best guess, which he was forced to make while trying not to panic.
Jane was visible through the open doorway just behind Darcy, a fact which was making Thor’s eyes go wide with horror.
Of course, Tony pretty much expected the invader to ignore their presence as much as she had nearly everyone else so far.
But that wasn’t what happened. Her head turned at the sound of the voice, searchingly. And when she saw the two women her eyes went wide.
“You,” she gasped. She stalked forward, hands outstretched with fingers curled like claws, upper body bent as if about to pounce. “You little harpy. You’re here?”
“Thor,” Jane breathed quietly, holding completely still, terrified of drawing any further attention to herself.
She hardly needed speak his name, though. Of course Thor was already rushing to her defense.
“Stay you back, you ghastly conjurer,” he bellowed furiously, moving to intercept and protect Jane. “If you lay one hand on her I shall-!”
The woman continued onward heedless. And to everyone’s surprise, they realized her focus wasn’t at all on Jane. It was on Darcy.
“Oh, I remember you,” she continued, her voice a rough hiss, fixated. “I could never forget. That face. Oh yes, I know you, little lass. And you won’t get away from me, any more than he will.”
Darcy shrunk back, Jane’s hands going protectively around her shoulders. Behind the younger woman’s glasses her eyes were wide, face an equal mixture of fear and bewilderment.
As if recalling she was powerless physically, the woman stopped when she was an arm’s length away. Though her expression was no less crazed her demeanor grew more thoughtful.
“And if you’re here, so close to the rest of them, then it must be so,” she concluded out loud. “I must be on the right track.”
Everyone else remained frozen in place, helpless, exchanging confused glances with one another. Thor looked incensed, poised to attack but aware of his own futility. Both girls just seemed terrified. And Tony, for once, couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
What in the world was going on here today?
The woman turned away again, still muttering, gesturing grandiosely to the air over her with both hands.
“This place…it must be near to the other. Oh, it must. They cannot lie too far apart on the spectrum.” She took one purposeful step, then another, and then she was moving fast. “In fact, I think I can feel it.”
Thor and Tony followed her once more. Jane and Darcy stayed right where they were, not that anyone would blame them.
This time the woman entered the kitchen, ghosting partially through one of the walls. The doorway was nice and wide, Tony having purposefully designed around Thor’s broad shoulders. They both easily fit through in their haste.
Considering the little amount of time the team had actually had to live there so far between missions, the expansive deluxe kitchen area Tony had seen fit to provide had mostly gone unused. There were a lot of clean tiled walls and marble countertops, everything laid out in an orderly and useful fashion, with just about every appliance a person could dream of. There was a fridge, a walk-in freezer, a double stovetop, and a dining table spread out in a nice wide area for sitting down and eating in. Of course, the whole room was empty, inactive.
But the woman wasn’t acting as if that was the case. She acted as if she saw, or maybe heard something, eyes searching over what looked like the empty air overhead and between objects.
“Yes, yes…very close. Very close indeed…”
Before Tony could say what he was thinking to Thor, which was he was starting to suspect their new friend might be as delusional as she was generally dangerous, from the corner of her eye he saw her reach out and grab…something.
Just when Tony thought what happened so far couldn’t possibly get any weirder, it turned out he was about to be proven incredibly wrong.
There was a strange loud noise, a mixture of more static and the resonant echo of paper tearing. The air around the woman’s hand was warping in a funny way. She was making a gesture like she was peeling back a long scrap of wallpaper.
And the image of the very room in front of her was coming along with it.
“Oh no.” The words were out of Tony’s mouth before he could help himself, practically numb with incredulity. “No way. This is not happening.”
But it was. Like pulling back an especially thick curtain, somehow, with what looked like her bare hands, the otherworldly ghoul swept aside the very fabric of their reality, revealing what was on the other side.
It looked almost like a clever magic trick. When she stepped back out of the way the room was split nearly in half by an imaginary line she’d drawn by her actions. The air was thicker in that space, images slightly distorted, looking like some kind of force field.
One side of the kitchen held Tony and Thor. The other side appeared to be an almost identical kitchen, with slightly different décor and appliances. Except there was one other big difference: their version of the room had been empty, while this new one was not.
Gathered around the doppelgänger kitchen, leaning against the counters and sitting at the table, sharing donuts and coffee as they had a comfortable chat were…themselves. They were laughing and acting casual in a way that jarred with the team Tony knew. They weren’t really ‘there’ yet.
But he saw Natasha there, and Barton, and Steve. No sign of Bruce. But there was also another version of him and Thor.
“By Valhalla,” Thor breathed, shocked and almost reverent.
“You said it, pal,” Tony agreed. He took a step forward and then couldn’t bring himself to move any closer. He studied their counterparts carefully from a distance.
There were little differences all over the room. The other him had more silver-gray in his hair. Cap’s uniform was different, and so was Thor’s armor. Natasha’s get-up was the same though her hair was much longer, similar to the spiral curls she’d been sporting when she and Tony first met. Barton had a scar running across one arm that Tony knew he didn’t in this world.
So there they were. The Avengers of another reality. Their parallel selves.
It was impossibly cool. It was also more than a bit disorienting. The ground didn’t feel entirely steady underneath Tony’s feet.
By now the people on the other side of the tear had also noticed what was going on. The smiles had gone from their faces as they stared back across the collision of the two worlds in wary dismay.
Other Thor wandered closer, trying to get a better look, while the rest of the team hung back, watching attentively with postures ready for a fight if need be.
Can they hear us? Tony wondered. Should I wave? He lifted his hand and made a faint, passable gesture.
There was a beat and then, hilariously, the other Tony gave a brief twitching smile and waved back.
Apparently, the two of them were about on the same mental wavelength. Not that it was really that much of a surprise.
The second group of Avengers appeared collectively more unsettled than they were nervous or afraid. Things like this didn’t happen every day, even to people like them - but they probably didn’t expect they had anything to fear from themselves.
But then the other version of Thor laid eyes on the black-haired woman. He did something of a double-take, and then his vision honed in on her with laser-like focus.
“You,” he exclaimed. The words were fainter and distorted, like being carried underwater, but his voice could still be heard loud and clear. The astonishment was swept from his face as it contorted into a mask of rage. “Selene Kinslayer!”
He rushed at the rippling wall between them, pounding with his fist as if he meant to break in.
And the object of his ire pointed at him, her face triumphant. She stepped backward gracefully, laughing all the way.
It was not a pleasant sound. If there had been any lingering doubt in Tony’s mind until now she was a villain, that laugh of hers proved it.
“I found you,” the woman - Selene, apparently - crowed. “I knew it! This world is but one step away from the one I mean to reach.” She spread her hands, indicating the space around her, and then chuckled to herself some more, pleased.
There was one last glance of the frightened, angry look on the other Thor’s face before Selene reached out one hand in the direction of the veil, made a fist and twisted it. There was a ripple across the space and then the tear closed, the other world disappeared.
She continued, “And now that I have a good idea where this is…it will be much easier to find the way.”
She kept on moving backwards, still facing them, her form fading and flickering faster now.
“Thank you all, so much. Farewell.”
Thor was shaken but watching her with all the more suspicion now after seeing the way his other self had reacted to her. Too late he lunged forward, trying to attack.
But Selene gave a bow, one arm swept back as she bent forward, and with one last low chuckle, vanished completely from sight.
“Well,” Tony had to say sardonically after a long, tense, hair-raising pause, “what are the odds, you think, that we’ve seen the last of her?”
LINK TO PART FOUR
If Tony was being honest with himself - and he so rarely was, unless it was sarcastically - there were maybe two times in his life when he was at his happiest. When he was showing off, and when he put his mind to work on something.
Which was why even though knowing he was technically acting as Thor’s inadvertent wingman (Thor wasn’t fooling anybody, no matter what the big guy might have thought) he was actually really quite pleased that they had invited Dr. Foster over for a laboratory play-date.
He hadn’t just been trying to butter her up: he thought her work truly was impressive. Even though it had required a bit of homework on his part to understand all of it - a task that had been harder than one might think, considering it still took a little effort on his part to even read the word “wormhole”.
But, he thought, standing there with a gratified version of his usual smugness, it all paid off in the end. Spending hours with both Bruce and Dr. Foster as they poked through diagrams and gushed over his tech was definitely his idea of a good time.
At present he had taken a step back, watching as Bruce demonstrated how one of Tony’s laser generators worked to the other scientist. Jane was asking questions and babbling animatedly, drawing a smile out of Bruce, her eyes bright with intellectual fire in a way Tony could appreciate.
Off in the corner her so-called assistant had long grown bored with the technobabble and found herself a computer terminal where she was currently playing Chinese checkers against JARVIS. And losing, badly, judging by her scowl and frequent muttering.
She seemed happy to be ignored and Tony was all too willing to ignore her. He spared the slightest disinterested glance to make sure she hadn’t wandered off somewhere, and then went back to watching the far more remarkable-to-his-interests woman.
Dr. “Call me Jane, please, seriously” Foster was not at all what he would’ve pictured if tasked with coming up with the woman Thor would’ve chosen to bestow his affections on. He probably would’ve pictured something taller, and maybe blonder, with toned physique and an icy stare -a Nordic supermodel, basically. Instead he’d fallen for a quiet, tiny, almost mousy physicist. She seemed an odd choice for godly infatuations.
That was, until she opened her mouth and started talking about her work, and it became clear there was much more to her than met the eye.
So maybe Thor had a thing for brainy girls. A bit unexpected; Tony approved. But then, it was well-established he had quite the thing for driven, independent, fiery women. He could certainly understand why Jane had caught Thor’s attention.
There was the sound of heavy footsteps at his back and Tony felt a slight prickle along his neck, like he was standing close to an electric generator.
Speak of the devil, he thought as he turned around and found the thunder god standing there, as if he’d somehow been summoned by thought of his name.
“Hey.” Tony shuffled a few steps closer, greeting him quietly. “How’s it going?”
“It goes…fine, friend Stark.” Thor barely looked at him. He stood there with his arms at his sides, his shoulders not quite as high. His head wasn’t hanging but there was something about his attitude as if it should be.
Thor stood there, all six foot and change of him, with his massive muscles and his mane of blond hair, taking up the entire doorframe, and yet he somehow seemed smaller than he really was. Deflated.
He watched Dr. Foster with a subdued hangdog expression; gazing at her as if she was even further beyond his reach than the few feet that separated them.
He turned to address Tony and his blue eyes were infinitely sad. “How have things been here?” he asked with a beseeching sort of curiosity.
Aw, jeeze, Thor, Tony thought. Here was a demigod that could probably bench-press a tank if he wanted, and he looked like a kicked puppy. Somebody was definitely whipped by love.
He almost groaned out loud. And to think he’d mostly been bewildered when Thor had not-so-subtly requested maybe Tony could put in a word to get Jane to stop on by.
He would’ve figured Thor could sweep any woman off her feet, easy. Instead it looked like the guy could use all the help he could get.
He found himself resting a hand on the much taller man’s shoulder in an attempt at sympathy. “It’s been, uh, going great. You know, giving your girlfriend the grand master tour. Been spending most of our time in the lab so far; no surprise there. But I’d say she’s been enjoying herself. Haven’t offered her a bed to spend the night in yet, but I’m sure once the chance comes up she’ll take it…”
“If that is what pleases her.” Thor’s voice was wooden. He’d pulled out from under Tony’s hand and drifted listlessly closer to the lab, watching Jane through the glass. “It is of course her decision.”
Tony cleared his throat, rubbed his beard with a frown, and just when he was trying to find the best way to suggest to Thor he stop moping and go sweep the girl off her feet, the lady in question looked up and noticed the Asgardian standing there.
She froze, and the smile slid off her expression in surprise.
Undeterred or possibly immune to social awkwardness, Bruce gave no pause as he lifted a hand in a friendly wave. “Hey.”
“Dr. Banner,” Thor nodded, “it is good to see you again. And you, Darcy,” he greeted the girl, who had turned in her seat, mouth open uselessly, eyes bouncing back and forth between Jane and Thor in a riveted fashion. “And…you, Jane. No matter the circumstances, it pleases me whenever our paths cross once again.”
His voice was softer, intent, words coming heavily in a rumbling sort of sigh.
Tony was one hundred percent straight. He’d fallen asleep that time Pepper had tried to get him to watch The Notebook. And even he was screaming mentally at Jane to stop standing there and kiss him.
“It’s good to see you again, too, Thor,” she said at last in a similarly subdued and reluctant way, which wasn’t at all satisfying to their audience. “I, um. Wanted to thank you, for inviting me…everything here is amazing.”
“Yes. I knew you would like it.” Thor smiled, at least, in way to suggest that he was happy at having made Jane happy, even if it was only a little. He seemed to remember they weren’t alone, and looked to the sides hurriedly. “But of course, Stark and Banner deserve some of the thanks as well. Hopefully they haven’t minded-”
“No, no,” Tony cut him off with a gesture before this could possibly get any more awkward, “not at all. We’re only too happy to have the doctor. She is…quite the woman.”
And he punctuated that by ending with his eyes resting significantly on Thor, in an unblinking stare that was one part thumbs-up, one part ‘make a move, you numbskull’.
Thor frowned at him in passing confusion but otherwise didn’t seem to get the message. Of course not.
“She’s been taking Tony to school on some of the finer points of particle fusion,” Bruce put in, aloof in a way that seemed like perfectly willful obliviousness. “It’s been fun to watch.”
“Oh,” Darcy butted in herself, only she added an elaborate stage yawn, “is that what she’s been doing?”
Jane shot her a disapproving look as she continued, undaunted, “Come on. Let’s go check out the kitchen and the swimming pool, already. We’ve been in here for,” she looked at her watch, “six hours, oh my god.”
“Maybe a change of scenery would be a good idea,” Tony offered. The wheels in his head were already turning fast as he tried to set up a scenario where Thor could make his play. “After all, we can always come back to this later. Bruce and I can clean up here, and maybe Thor could get started on showing you gals the rest of the way around. We’ll catch up in a minute. Or, you know, five.”
Thor and Dr. Foster exchanged a quick look, the latter worrying her lower lip pensively.
Tony might have been holding his breath a little (which was something he would never admit) when JARVIS choose that very second to interrupt.
“Pardon me, Sir.” The disembodied voice sounded anxious enough Tony immediately realized it was urgent. “But I’m afraid that the building’s security has been breached by what my records are indicating as a top-level threat.”
There was no time to be annoyed. Instead he leapt into investigative mode. “JARVIS, give me details.”
“Lower level.” A helpful holographic map projected itself in mid-air out of nowhere, a bright green orb serving as the ‘threat is here’ indicator. “It appears to be in an unfinished section, in what’s currently empty storage space.”
The AI’s voice sounded as bemused as Tony felt. He came closer nonetheless for a better look, as out of the corner of his eye he saw Bruce fold his arms and rest one hand against his mouth.
“Nothing down there,” Tony stated the obvious. “So why break in?”
“Unless that’s the point. Breaking in, I mean.” Bruce had a bitter sort of smile on his face. “If all they wanted was to gain access to the building in the first place.” He elaborated with a gesture: “And, in the process, us.”
“But who would-” Tony fell abruptly silent and behind him he heard Thor draw in a sharp breath as they must’ve simultaneously had the same realization. Oh god, no. “JARVIS. Have you identified the intruder?”
“Affirmative. Both energy signatures and facial scans point towards the hostile subject known as Loki.”
Of course. Of course; out of all the people on their hit list currently, who else was both nutty and nasty enough to literally hit them where they live? Probably for no other reason than just to prove that point.
Tony gave a highly incredulous sound. Even knowing it was pointless he had to demand, “How did he get inside without triggering any alarms?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say.” JARVIS was almost drowned out by an increasingly loud whooshing sound - Tony spun around in time to nearly be blinded by a flare of encompassing light as Mjolnir landed in Thor’s palm and, with a brilliant flash, his full armor appeared on his body. “I only just became aware of him several minutes ago. Somehow he was able to mask himself from all of the building’s sensors. There’s no way of telling how long he’s been here.”
“Okay; you really shouldn’t do that indoors,” Tony chided Thor automatically, not having any pertinent response to JARVIS’ information outside of colorful mental swearing. “You’re gonna bust out somebody’s retinas.”
Thor ignored him, naturally. The look on his face was angry and incredibly grave. “Jane and Darcy, please remain here.” He pointed to them. “You will be safe.”
He waited only long enough for Jane to nod back at him fervently before he took off running.
“…Well, great. And he’s off,” Tony muttered. “Want to lay even odds he’ll actually use the elevator, or just fling himself out a window and go soaring down?” He shook his head and smacked his palms together absently. “Right. JARVIS, wake up the Mark-42. Bruce-”
“Actually.” His teammate took a step back, taking off his glasses to play with them. “Depending on what Loki actually wants, you and Thor can probably keep him occupied. I can always tag in if you need me.”
He gave a self-depreciative smile. “Until then, think I’ll stay here. I wouldn’t want to break anything, unless I had to.”
Tony weighed the options and decided he was probably in the right. Besides, that little Norse bastard was crawling around doing who knew what inside his building: he didn’t really want to stick around and argue.
“JARVIS, seal this wing down behind me. Alert security to go on red alert and put the whole facility in lockdown mode.”
He adjusted his position, arms and legs akimbo in time for the pieces of the suit to soar in and assemble around him.
“Now let’s go bag ourselves a gate-crasher.”
He barely heard Darcy squeak out ‘Okay, that is so cool’ behind him before he fired up his rockets with minimum thrust, enough to give him that extra burst as he went half-running, half-hovering down the hall.
From a certain perspective it was possibly a comical sight, an armored Iron Man crashing down the hallway, occasionally shouting at astonished employees to move out of his way, sending them ducking and flailing back inside doorways. Luckily the tower’s main function as Avengers’ headquarters sort of ran contrary to the point of having a multitude of staff. Mostly they were maintenance and cleaning types, relegated to the lower levels. There really weren’t that many people in the building.
Something Tony would be doubly glad of if they couldn’t stop whatever Loki was doing in time and he burned the whole place down.
Tony’s mind raced along faster than the speed he was physically traveling. Loki coming back to try and bite them was no great shocker - but why here, why now? What exactly was his move that he ended up playing his hand so soon? Unless he was trying to psyche them out; remind them that he knew where they lived, and had the power to strike at about any moment.
It was unspeakably annoying, but it was also damn effective. The whole team wasn’t even here to deal with him - Natasha had gone off the day before on some top secret mission and taken Rogers along with her. Barton, as far as he knew, was on a mission as well.
At least that was what he thought. But he turned out to be proven wrong, as he rounded a corner and was suddenly met with the sight of the SHIELD agent nimbly climbing out of an air duct and dropping down right in front of him.
Tony skidded to a halt just in time, his metal boots drawing sparks off the floor.
“Christ, Barton, you have got to stop doing that!”
“I don’t think we really have time for pleasantries,” came the other man’s retort, brusque. He tapped at the side of his head, indicating his earpiece. “I heard Thor blundering around. We’ve got a home invader?”
“It’s Loki,” Tony told him, and judging from the stiff nod he got in response, he was only confirming what Barton had already guessed. “Little bastard slunk his way inside. Bypassed every camera I put into the place. No idea how.”
“Right now I’d say that’s the least of our worries.” Barton was trying his damnedest to stay professional, but there was that slight dark note that always entered his tone whenever Loki was the topic of conversation. “Think he’s trying to steal something? Or maybe he’s after Jane Foster?”
Tony knew better than to even ask how he already knew about her.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Here’s an idea: let’s go ask him.”
He’d realized how close they were to a set of elevators. Stomping over to the nearest one, Tony glanced up to make sure the car was still somewhere on the floors above, and then called out, “JARVIS, give me a shutdown on elevator shaft three.”
Then without even waiting for confirmation he pried the doors open manually. Ignoring the unhappy creak of metal-on-metal, he stood with one foot half over the edge of the long straight abyss, the HUD mapping everything out for him despite the pitch black darkness.
Without further pause Tony dove in headfirst and kicked his thrusters on, zooming toward the bottom of the empty shaft.
There was a clink behind him, what was now already far overhead. He glanced back without turning: a small virtual window showed him the view to his rear as Barton used one of his arrows as a grappling hook and was smoothly rappelling his way down after.
“Well, three out of six ain’t bad, right?” Tony muttered to himself. Four if they counted Bruce.
He was hoping they wouldn’t have to count Bruce, but it was really quite reassuring to know the Other Guy was in reserve, just in case.
Reaching the hallway he repulsor-blasted the doors open: it was his building, he knew he could afford the repairs. Pepper might have a few things to say later, but - whatever.
On the actual floor he slowed down to a methodical walking pace, letting JARVIS feed him information from the system on what was up ahead. The security grid was still kicking back a lot of static, which was worrisome, to say the least. His breath came even but audible in the enclosed space of his helmet as his pulse pounded, system soaring with adrenaline that came with the anticipation of an oncoming fight. He could barely make out the whirs of metallic joints that came with the suit in motion. Barton flanked him behind and to his right, moving in almost perfect silence.
The room Loki was supposed to be in was one hallway away, around another corner. Thor came into view a few feet in front of them, stalking the same direction with his hammer at the ready. Tony was more relieved than he would have thought at realizing they’d caught up to the thunder god first. But letting Thor take on his brother alone was asking for excessive collateral damage. Things between them always got way too messy.
“Hey, Thor,” Tony said quietly as he could. The Asgardian turned his head enough to meet his gaze. Every muscle was taut, his pose battle-ready, but he gave his two allies a short nod.
Good. They were all on the same page here, for once. No Loki-tackling unless they were in it together.
He turned his helmet toward Barton and was rewarded with another exchange of nods. The archer slipped into position closer behind him, hugging the wall, as Thor held his ground waiting for them to catch up. They were moving almost in a single-file line right up next to the wall’s very edge as they finally came around the corridor.
Tony’s eyes slid along the blank expanse of white paint in front of him until they found the gap that was the open door to the room. The inside was dark, but there was a creepy glow coming from somewhere. And he could make out Loki, and another figure.
He tried to take in as much as he could in milliseconds. Loki was standing there, armored but un-helmeted. The glow was coming from a strange circular design on the floor; the HUD went crazy trying to scan it, claiming it was giving off all kinds of impossible energy. Okay then, so magic. Terrific. Always fun.
The second person in there with Loki…appeared to be a woman. He didn’t know her, and facial stats were giving him nada, so apparently she wasn’t in anybody’s database.
His first, kneejerk guess from what he could see was she was an alien of some kind. Her shape was human enough but her skin was bone-white while everything else about her was black, and the overall imagery came off as unsettling bordering on gruesome.
There was a conversation going on but they were too late to catch any of it. The instant they got close Loki’s mouth shut and his head whipped around, turning on his heels to keep them at his front instead of his side when he realized they were there.
His eyes darted swiftly, taking in the three of them, and his hand half-raised in preparation to either defend or attack.
Tony aimed a gauntlet at him. “Hi. Thanks for stopping by. You know, it’s kind of funny though, considering I don’t remember inviting you. So why don’t you leave your housewarming gift somewhere and show yourself to the door?”
“What is the meaning of this, Loki?” Thor demanded in a low roar. “What foul undertaking you have commenced with now?”
Barton, ever the eloquent soul, let his bow do the talking for him, namely the sound it made as he fitted an arrow into place and drew the string taut.
And Loki…frankly stunned the hell out of Tony by not immediately attacking them. His mouth gave a spasm and he looked briefly aside, shaking his head in what looked a strange mixture of exasperated amusement and pure pissed-off annoyance.
“Naturally, you chose the most inopportune moment to uncover me,” he remarked. “Your interference at this point is…meddlesome.”
“‘Meddlesome’. Oh, I’m sorry.” Tony flipped his faceplate up, the better to be brutally sardonic. “You wanna know what’s ‘meddlesome’? You summoning boggarts in my basement. That’s what’s meddlesome, here. I don’t suppose you would like to explain?”
Loki’s mouth twitched into a humorless smirk. “I’ve not much reason to waste my time explaining myself to the likes of you.”
“Yeah, insult us all some more again,” Barton deadpanned. He didn’t move a single other muscle, arrow pointed resolutely. “That always works out so great for you.”
The smirk vanished and something flitted across Loki’s face - recalling, one would guess, for a moment that he’d indeed been defeated by them once before and how agonizing and humiliating it had been. Anything he was about to say, though, was cut off before he could get started.
There was an inhuman hiss, sharp as a knife made of white noise, from the woman trapped within the glowing magic circle. Despite better instincts such a definitive sound caught all their attentions instantly.
“These are not your allies, are they Odinson.” It was a statement, not a question. But god, that woman had such an ugly voice. It was deeply unsettling.
Also unsettling? The fact that the longer Tony looked at her, he realized her image was hazy, and flickering intermittently in and out. Like a ghost. Because clearly her black-on-white and ghoulish appearance wasn’t sinister enough.
“I’m sorry,” Tony managed, cordially; “And, who the hell are you?”
“Do not speak to her,” Loki ordered sharply - which of course made Tony immediately want to. He stopped himself though, because something lingering in Loki’s tone made him think twice. It sounded like he was…not afraid, exactly. But wary. Worried, about what could happen here.
Loki had forced his way through the wrong side of an unstable dimensional tear, setting off a chain reaction that demolished an entire top secret government base. He’d sicced a massive army of creatures he’d just barely had control over on a metropolitan area.
If something was wrong here and it had him leery of the outcome? Tony was prepared to sit up and take notice.
Thor gave an impatient sound, a wordless repressed shout, through his teeth. Reaching out with both fists he snatched Loki up by the front of his clothing, near his collar, bodily dragging him out of the room into the hallway.
Loki wrapped his own hands tight over Thor’s, until the knuckles turned white, but otherwise made no move to resist.
‘You two have the most dysfunctional relationship ever’, Tony did not say, out loud, because some things even he didn’t think were that funny.
“Enough of this,” Thor snarled, his face and Loki’s inches apart. “Talk! I know a summoning charm when I see one. Who or what is this creature you have brought here? What treachery do you now attempt?”
Loki had his head leaned back so he wasn’t bumping into Thor’s. “For once, no treachery. Well…save that I chose the Iron Man’s domicile for this,” he admitted, smiling. “But if something went wrong, I preferred that the collateral be lucrative.”
“You are such a charmer,” Tony told him in the exact same tone he would’ve asked him to eat shit. Loki’s smile only grew wider.
What a difference time made: when last they had fought Loki, nearly everything he did only made Thor look sadder and sadder. At some point along the way, however, the big guy’s well of patience must’ve run dry. Because as of right now, he looked more than willing to introduce his brother’s skull into the drywall if it meant getting some quick and straight answers out of him.
The interrogation of Loki was put off a bit, though, by the sound of several pairs of feet arriving behind them. Tony turned and discovered half a dozen of the building’s security guards.
“Mr. Hogan sent us, sir,” the lead one panted. “We came as fast as we could.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tony responded with precisely zero enthusiasm. “That’s great. Real helpful. Uh…” He looked swiftly for some busywork to keep them out of the way. “Hey, why don’t you guys make yourself useful and keep an eye on that whole situation there?”
He pointed to the darkened room, the neon bright floor patterns, the creepy ghost woman. She smiled unpleasantly at the group of men, revealing a mouth of fangs.
There was a marked moment of hesitation before the security men filed inside the room, closer.
“Do not touch anything,” Loki ordered after them, blandly.
“Um,” Tony began, holding up a single armored finger - as much about to point out his people weren’t Loki’s to command, thanks, as he was to question why they should listen to anything the sorcerer had to say.
Thor interrupted though, with a shake of his head. “No. In this case, he is right.” His grip on Loki released and he pushed him back a space, visibly annoyed. “Any contact with the spell threatens to break it, and release whatever was inside.”
“You hear that, boys? Hands to yourself.” Tony readjusted his focus back on Loki. “Now, where were we?”
“I think he was just about to explain what the hell he’s doing here,” Barton put it. Seriously, it was like he was made of stone: he still hadn’t wavered so much as half an inch. “And fast, if he knows what’s good for him.”
Mentally Tony admired his commitment to the team, considering he was pretty sure the secret agent could’ve cared less about answers: he just wanted to see Loki captured, or preferably gone for good.
But Tony definitely needed an explanation. “Yeah. So how about it? We’ll skip right over the how you got in - for now. I’m gathering the choice of location was a matter of convenience. What’s your reason for summoning up what looks like the illegitimate lovechild of Elvira and the Cryptkeeper?”
“Who is she, brother?” Thor snarled.
Loki tilted his head back again, this time like he was trying to retain his air of superiority. “In truth I don’t actually know,” he admitted.
There was a beat. “Oh, so this is like magic Chatroulette?” Tony offered gamely. “There are much easier ways to find a date, you know…”
“Must you speak in nothing but lies and riddles?” Thor’s voice rose again. “Is she another of your allies?”
Loki’s expression soured. “Hardly,” he said, sounding several shades of displeased. “In fact the very reason I created the summoning spell is that I know she is a potential dangerous foe.”
“Go on,” Tony drawled.
Loki’s eyes moved slowly, taking in each of the three of them in turn as he spoke. “For some time now I’ve been aware of some sort of…malevolent force out there, among the cosmos, eclipsing the connection I feel to the worlds across worlds. I wished to learn more of this threat, and so, I was able to muster the strength to reach out and bring it here. For questioning.”
“Makes sense, to a point,” Barton remarked. “Someone fires a shot at you, you turn into it, figure out where it’s coming from before you try and fire one back.”
“Back it up for a space here.” Tony frowned. “What’s this ‘worlds across worlds’ business? And all the…other stuff you just said that made no sense to me at all.”
The responding gaze that got from Loki was a whole new level of disdainful. “Our realm of existence, vast as it is in ways you cannot fathom, is not all there is. Beyond the furthest reaches, there are other worlds. Worlds occupied by similar beings living similar destinies, though sometimes the sameness is far less than the differences.”
“Are you talking about parallel realities?” Tony said disbelievingly, though he felt he might finally be catching on. “Like, a whole other Earth, and another Asgard-”
“Another set of Avengers,” Thor said softly, looking stunned. “Another version of myself.” His eyes flashed onto his brother. “Another Loki.”
There was something dark that glittered in Loki’s gaze for the brief moment he held his brother’s eyes. “Indeed. A multitude of my alternate selves, all connected in a way we are usually unaware of. Trim a single leaf and the branch it sprouts from continues on unbothered. But trim another leaf, and another, and another, a hundred leaves, all in rapid succession, and the rest of the organism begins to feel it.”
“And that’s what you think that creep in there is doing?” Tony jerked a metal-coated thumb over his shoulder. “Going door to door across the universes and killing you off in each one?”
Loki straightened, moving his arms in a way that seemed strangely reminiscent of smoothing down ruffled feathers. “She comes from some other realm, far away from our own. But some version of me angered her, made her enemy.”
Suddenly he moved forward, slipping past Thor before he could be stopped, coming closer to Tony who he directed his words at.
Looming over him the taller man pressed palm flat against the center of Tony’s chestplate, near to the light from the RT. Knowing Loki was trying to mess with him, Tony held his ground.
“She seeks to find him out and have her revenge,” Loki said, in a tone that was all false outrage and mock reasonableness. “Until then it seems she’ll take out any other version of me that gets in her way.”
“I see,” Tony replied thickly, otherwise refusing to give a reaction.
Thor snatched at Loki by the corner of his arm and pushed him back out of the way again, glowering. Loki allowed it, evidently deciding since his head games plot had failed not to try any other.
Barton said archly, “Someone hates you so much that they want to kill you multiple times, over and over. Hard to imagine.” Loki shot him an aggravated look.
“Gee, though, if you know all that, wouldn’t that make bringing her here to you incredibly stupid?” Tony had to ask, semi-rhetorically.
But Loki shook his head with adamant stiffness. “You fail to see the obvious. She is not really here. Only a fraction of her is. Her…spiritual essence, let us say. Meanwhile her physical self lies as if in a trance back wherever she came from. There is nothing what I brought here can do to physically harm me.”
“So then why do you care so much about not letting the genie out of its bottle?”
“He said there was nothing she could do to cause physical harm,” Thor said darkly, meaningfully, as he glanced to meet Tony’s gaze.
Well, that was nice and ominous. He shut his eyes for a second to try and clear his thoughts.
“Okay,” he said out loud. “That’s great, and all. Let’s say I even pretend to believe you. Now where does that leave us?”
“Exactly where we started,” Barton argued. “None of this makes any difference to us. This guy here still needs to be locked up before he can do any more damage.”
Thor stole a look at Loki before saying, “Agreed. But, the rest. Is it not…troubling?”
“It’s none of our business,” the archer retorted. “If there really is a problem, let him sort it out himself. Assuming he can.”
Thor’s brow wrinkled, and he didn’t seem entirely happy with that suggestion. Tony - wasn’t sure how he felt, himself. He wasn’t burdened by an overabundance of concern for Loki’s wellbeing, but there was something about the whole general scenario that was, as Thor had put it, “troubling”. Somehow, the idea they could muck around with alternate realities and then just let it go didn’t seem right.
He was waiting for Loki to say something again. Or if not to put his two cents in, to at least make a move finally.
But he looked up in time to see Loki shifting his weight back a little on his heels, stepping just enough to peer past them into the nearby room.
“You really don’t want him to do that,” he remarked.
The problem with the suit was, even in a more flexible model like the M-42, he couldn’t turn really fast. Still Tony spun around quickly as he could possibly manage, just in time to see one of the guards wandering way too close to the evil spirit lurking inside her glass jar.
“No!” Tony yelled, and stretched out a hand, alarm bells going off in his head at the sight.
Too late. The man was directly in front of the figure leering at him, and couldn’t seem to resist sticking his hand through the invisible barrier.
Maybe she’d even lured him over somehow. They would never know.
Everything happened way too quickly for any of the Avengers to make a move. The guards’ hand seemed to hit something and there was a small explosion. The room lit up in a burst of blinding light and sparks flew. The ghost reached out, lighting quick - the man made a cry of pain.
There was another pop, and a flash, even more dramatic than the first. Tony flipped his visor down instinctively and turned away with a wince. For a moment no one could see anything, and he felt the ripple from outplaced force brush against him.
When they looked again the other guards had either been knocked down or thrown against the wall. There was soot, scorch marks, and the design Loki had made on the floor was already half gone, what remained flickering fast and fading.
There was no sign of the woman. The guard she’d attacked was crawling slowly on the floor, dragging his body forward. His movements were jerky and disoriented.
His eyes bulged, unseeing and frantic. Something dark trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Tony had precisely enough time to start taking one step forward to try and help him. Then the man froze where he was, lifting up off his elbows partially - and then violently he began to spew something from his mouth.
Tony skidded back again with a curse, feeling Barton and Thor pressing up close behind them. As they watched, shocked, something black and sticky wasn’t so much vomited as it seemed to be crawling its way up from the hapless victim’s throat.
The black stuff wriggled, and shimmered, and when there was finally enough of it lifted up into the air, twisting around in a consistency like smoke until it blinked in and out once more and finally resolved itself into the semi-translucent image of the same woman.
She had one hand to each side of her head, fingers pressed to her temple with her thumbs at her chin. Eyes closed she rolled her neck, seeming to catch her balance until she dropped her arms.
Meanwhile the man lay on his back near her feet, eyes and mouth both open, obviously dead.
“Ugh.” The woman twitched, as if had been some usual, minor inconvenience. “I hate doing that.”
Tony stared down at the body of the lifeless security guard through the filters of the HUD, gaping senselessly as series of computerized markers helpfully pointed out how dead he was.
There was panic threading its way up and down his spine, bordering on the same screaming sense of high alert, high definition he’d been plunged into during the battle in Manhattan; that sense that he tried to ignore even while his instincts were telling him he was in way over his head. That the things he was encountering had left the realm of natural, and normal, far behind.
Bodiless specters that flickered like light bulbs and killed gruesomely. Things from another world.
Well, this is a whole new kind of horror show, he thought. Telling himself to keep breathing steady, that it was okay, he could handle it (somehow) he stepped into the room, placing himself between the rest of the guards and the killer witch-ghost. He might’ve complained ceaselessly about their presence to Happy, but they were still his people, his responsibility.
Once he’d braced himself he looked back the way he came, agitatedly.
“Don’t suppose you’d care to offer any - suggestions.” He trailed off as he realized Loki was nowhere in sight. “And of course he’s gone.”
Loki had probably disappeared the second they were distracted by what his former captive was up to. Never mind he had started the whole mess in the first place. She was solely their problem now.
It didn’t surprise Tony in the least.
The woman stood in place, looking up and around with half-interest. Her image still flickered in and out like a bad channel on a very old TV set. Other than that, though, she appeared unnervingly solid. And…present.
She glanced over at Tony, taking him in with a gaze that didn’t seem quite human. Her eyes were too cold, too hard, and she never blinked or shifted slightly in her gaze. She was just downright creepy.
Dismissing him after a moment or two, she turned and walked towards the way out, casual as she pleased.
Thor took a wary step back, never taking his eyes off her as he lifted his hammer at the ready. Barton had re-sheathed his bow. Drawing a small knife he moved to intercept her.
But the woman didn’t attack him. She didn’t do anything to show she even registered him. She moved forward and then walked right through him - in her wake Barton suddenly had to grasp the nearby wall for support, face pale as he struggled for air, making short choking sounds.
Without looking back the lady in black kept right on walking down the hallway, around the corner and out of sight.
When he came closer, alarmed, Barton reached out and grabbed onto Tony by the arm of his suit. “Don’t touch her,” he warned through clenched teeth, still catching his breath.
Tony nodded. “Got it. You going to be okay?”
The other man wheezed, but he shook his head impatiently, pulling away to stand on his own.
“You know when people say ‘Feels like somebody walked over my grave’? I never got that. Until just now.”
“Stark!” Thor yelled. “She is heading for the lift devices!”
“Go on,” Barton instructed Tony. “I’ll catch up.”
There really wasn’t much space to argue. Tony rushed after Thor, who was making a beeline after their target. She had already reached the elevators though.
“I think I will take another look,” she was murmuring to herself out loud, thoughtfully. “See if I can find a few things out about this world.”
She looked back, saw them standing there, and gave a mocking smile, her eyes widening a bit.
“Oh, thank you for your hospitality.” She snapped her fingers; her form flickered especially strongly and at the same time there was a flare of electricity as the elevator doors slid open. “But I can find my own way from here.”
She walked inside the elevator, through the elevator, and was gone.
“JARVIS? Please tell me she’s giving off some kind of energy signature and you can track her.”
“Faintly, Sir, but yes. Though it will take me some moments to calibrate.”
“Do it fast.” To Thor, he went on, “We know she’s gotta be going up, right? So, let’s go up.”
Thor nodded swiftly in agreement. He spun Mjolnir around by the handle until it resembled a pinwheel, while Tony fired up his thrusters.
They burst through the ceiling and up into the next floor, then the next, then next, without any pause, two soaring rockets making adjacent holes as they battered through one level to the next.
And he had just finished with the renovations not that long ago, too. Right then though he didn’t give a damn. If there was anyone he wanted traipsing around the inside of his building less than Loki, it might be this monster woman who couldn’t be kept out by doors, bodies or walls. Who knew how many interns she might slaughter if they didn’t evict her, fast.
“JARVIS?”
“I believe I’ve located her, Sir. She’s within the residential floors now, somewhere within the common living space.”
The residential floors. The rooms he’d designed and put in specifically for the members of the team. Could it be a coincidence that was where she had gone?
“C’mon. Punch it. No, no, Viking One - there’s been a change in course.” He managed to successfully flag Thor’s attention and got him to follow as they smashed out a window instead. “This’ll be faster.”
Shards of broken glass rained all around. They were nothing to him in the suit, of course, and Thor acted like he didn’t even feel them.
Outside of the building there was nothing to slow them down and nobody to look out for. They had free range to soar as fast as they could, all the way to the floor JARVIS was pointing them at. They re-entered the building at that point the same way they had exited.
“Man, I don’t even want to think about the bill for today.” He’d have to make sure Pepper had a glass or wine or five before she saw it. Maybe a Valium. “Honey, I’m home!”
Glass crunching beneath his boots, Tony stomped his way around, using both his visor-assisted eyes and the plethora of feedback data he was getting to search for his target.
“Where the hell are you, Corpse Bride?” he muttered aloud in frustration.
Not that he really knew what he’d do when he found her. Loki’s claim that she wasn’t really ‘here’ on this physical plane was possibly iffy, but he’d already seen proof that solid objects passed through her. It wasn’t as if all his ammo did any good.
Maybe the lightning from Thor’s hammer would work, though? Since it was allegedly also magic and all?
He looked to his ally. “You see anything?”
“Nay. Not yet.” Thor peered around with almost comical intensity. “There!” he yelled, and Tony looked just in time to see a black and white specter flitting out of sight.
“Come on, after her.” Thor rushed off and of course Tony found himself immediately well outpaced. That was the thing with the armor: it was only in the air that it was built for speed.
“Okay, screw this.”
Lifting his arms he let the Mark-42 release itself, components falling to a heap around him on the floor. It wasn’t as if it was doing him any good at present anyway. He could always collect it later.
Kicking a piece of armor aside absently he jogged after Thor.
He caught up to the both of them without too much trouble. The sinister otherworldly woman was walking around at her leisure, though there was a purposeful intent to her stride. She was already past the den and lounge area, and was making her way down the hallway between rooms, turning herself in the occasional circles to better take in her surroundings.
“The timing seems right,” she was saying to herself. “No. This place does not seem much far removed from the world I originally started again. Although, really, who can tell? It is so hard to know for sure…”
Thor was following her in heated pursuit though he was being careful to stay a short distance back. She never acknowledged that she noticed him there, nor Tony when he joined them.
“What is she talking about?” Tony asked Thor in a heated murmur. “What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid your guess is as good as mine.” Thor’s head moved this way and that, never daring to let the woman out of his line of sight.
And just when Tony was thinking things were calm enough it might be a good time to try his theory about Mjolnir working on her, a door slid open behind them.
“Hey, guys…” Darcy wandered out - what was she doing up here? - careless as she pleased, until she spotted the ghost woman and stopped in her tracks. “Oh my god.”
She and the others must have moved upward to take shelter, not having any idea what was going on in the basement or how long it might last. That was Tony’s best guess, which he was forced to make while trying not to panic.
Jane was visible through the open doorway just behind Darcy, a fact which was making Thor’s eyes go wide with horror.
Of course, Tony pretty much expected the invader to ignore their presence as much as she had nearly everyone else so far.
But that wasn’t what happened. Her head turned at the sound of the voice, searchingly. And when she saw the two women her eyes went wide.
“You,” she gasped. She stalked forward, hands outstretched with fingers curled like claws, upper body bent as if about to pounce. “You little harpy. You’re here?”
“Thor,” Jane breathed quietly, holding completely still, terrified of drawing any further attention to herself.
She hardly needed speak his name, though. Of course Thor was already rushing to her defense.
“Stay you back, you ghastly conjurer,” he bellowed furiously, moving to intercept and protect Jane. “If you lay one hand on her I shall-!”
The woman continued onward heedless. And to everyone’s surprise, they realized her focus wasn’t at all on Jane. It was on Darcy.
“Oh, I remember you,” she continued, her voice a rough hiss, fixated. “I could never forget. That face. Oh yes, I know you, little lass. And you won’t get away from me, any more than he will.”
Darcy shrunk back, Jane’s hands going protectively around her shoulders. Behind the younger woman’s glasses her eyes were wide, face an equal mixture of fear and bewilderment.
As if recalling she was powerless physically, the woman stopped when she was an arm’s length away. Though her expression was no less crazed her demeanor grew more thoughtful.
“And if you’re here, so close to the rest of them, then it must be so,” she concluded out loud. “I must be on the right track.”
Everyone else remained frozen in place, helpless, exchanging confused glances with one another. Thor looked incensed, poised to attack but aware of his own futility. Both girls just seemed terrified. And Tony, for once, couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
What in the world was going on here today?
The woman turned away again, still muttering, gesturing grandiosely to the air over her with both hands.
“This place…it must be near to the other. Oh, it must. They cannot lie too far apart on the spectrum.” She took one purposeful step, then another, and then she was moving fast. “In fact, I think I can feel it.”
Thor and Tony followed her once more. Jane and Darcy stayed right where they were, not that anyone would blame them.
This time the woman entered the kitchen, ghosting partially through one of the walls. The doorway was nice and wide, Tony having purposefully designed around Thor’s broad shoulders. They both easily fit through in their haste.
Considering the little amount of time the team had actually had to live there so far between missions, the expansive deluxe kitchen area Tony had seen fit to provide had mostly gone unused. There were a lot of clean tiled walls and marble countertops, everything laid out in an orderly and useful fashion, with just about every appliance a person could dream of. There was a fridge, a walk-in freezer, a double stovetop, and a dining table spread out in a nice wide area for sitting down and eating in. Of course, the whole room was empty, inactive.
But the woman wasn’t acting as if that was the case. She acted as if she saw, or maybe heard something, eyes searching over what looked like the empty air overhead and between objects.
“Yes, yes…very close. Very close indeed…”
Before Tony could say what he was thinking to Thor, which was he was starting to suspect their new friend might be as delusional as she was generally dangerous, from the corner of her eye he saw her reach out and grab…something.
Just when Tony thought what happened so far couldn’t possibly get any weirder, it turned out he was about to be proven incredibly wrong.
There was a strange loud noise, a mixture of more static and the resonant echo of paper tearing. The air around the woman’s hand was warping in a funny way. She was making a gesture like she was peeling back a long scrap of wallpaper.
And the image of the very room in front of her was coming along with it.
“Oh no.” The words were out of Tony’s mouth before he could help himself, practically numb with incredulity. “No way. This is not happening.”
But it was. Like pulling back an especially thick curtain, somehow, with what looked like her bare hands, the otherworldly ghoul swept aside the very fabric of their reality, revealing what was on the other side.
It looked almost like a clever magic trick. When she stepped back out of the way the room was split nearly in half by an imaginary line she’d drawn by her actions. The air was thicker in that space, images slightly distorted, looking like some kind of force field.
One side of the kitchen held Tony and Thor. The other side appeared to be an almost identical kitchen, with slightly different décor and appliances. Except there was one other big difference: their version of the room had been empty, while this new one was not.
Gathered around the doppelgänger kitchen, leaning against the counters and sitting at the table, sharing donuts and coffee as they had a comfortable chat were…themselves. They were laughing and acting casual in a way that jarred with the team Tony knew. They weren’t really ‘there’ yet.
But he saw Natasha there, and Barton, and Steve. No sign of Bruce. But there was also another version of him and Thor.
“By Valhalla,” Thor breathed, shocked and almost reverent.
“You said it, pal,” Tony agreed. He took a step forward and then couldn’t bring himself to move any closer. He studied their counterparts carefully from a distance.
There were little differences all over the room. The other him had more silver-gray in his hair. Cap’s uniform was different, and so was Thor’s armor. Natasha’s get-up was the same though her hair was much longer, similar to the spiral curls she’d been sporting when she and Tony first met. Barton had a scar running across one arm that Tony knew he didn’t in this world.
So there they were. The Avengers of another reality. Their parallel selves.
It was impossibly cool. It was also more than a bit disorienting. The ground didn’t feel entirely steady underneath Tony’s feet.
By now the people on the other side of the tear had also noticed what was going on. The smiles had gone from their faces as they stared back across the collision of the two worlds in wary dismay.
Other Thor wandered closer, trying to get a better look, while the rest of the team hung back, watching attentively with postures ready for a fight if need be.
Can they hear us? Tony wondered. Should I wave? He lifted his hand and made a faint, passable gesture.
There was a beat and then, hilariously, the other Tony gave a brief twitching smile and waved back.
Apparently, the two of them were about on the same mental wavelength. Not that it was really that much of a surprise.
The second group of Avengers appeared collectively more unsettled than they were nervous or afraid. Things like this didn’t happen every day, even to people like them - but they probably didn’t expect they had anything to fear from themselves.
But then the other version of Thor laid eyes on the black-haired woman. He did something of a double-take, and then his vision honed in on her with laser-like focus.
“You,” he exclaimed. The words were fainter and distorted, like being carried underwater, but his voice could still be heard loud and clear. The astonishment was swept from his face as it contorted into a mask of rage. “Selene Kinslayer!”
He rushed at the rippling wall between them, pounding with his fist as if he meant to break in.
And the object of his ire pointed at him, her face triumphant. She stepped backward gracefully, laughing all the way.
It was not a pleasant sound. If there had been any lingering doubt in Tony’s mind until now she was a villain, that laugh of hers proved it.
“I found you,” the woman - Selene, apparently - crowed. “I knew it! This world is but one step away from the one I mean to reach.” She spread her hands, indicating the space around her, and then chuckled to herself some more, pleased.
There was one last glance of the frightened, angry look on the other Thor’s face before Selene reached out one hand in the direction of the veil, made a fist and twisted it. There was a ripple across the space and then the tear closed, the other world disappeared.
She continued, “And now that I have a good idea where this is…it will be much easier to find the way.”
She kept on moving backwards, still facing them, her form fading and flickering faster now.
“Thank you all, so much. Farewell.”
Thor was shaken but watching her with all the more suspicion now after seeing the way his other self had reacted to her. Too late he lunged forward, trying to attack.
But Selene gave a bow, one arm swept back as she bent forward, and with one last low chuckle, vanished completely from sight.
“Well,” Tony had to say sardonically after a long, tense, hair-raising pause, “what are the odds, you think, that we’ve seen the last of her?”
LINK TO PART FOUR