Chapter Text
Nuking New York, well, it worked and that was exactly the problem. When the next portal opened over Moscow, no one was particularly surprised that the council voted to nuke that too like the Cold War had simply disappeared from their collective memory. Then Shanghai happened, Mexico City, London, Tokyo, Mumbai, Johannesburg. At some point, the aliens realized they could make the humans destroy themselves, and by the time they realized what was going on, it was already too late.
Tony still wakes with regular frequency from dreams of New York, jolted out of sleep by the gasping, empty feeling of knowing it was too late, of yelling at Jarvis to activate all the security measures the tower had to offer. He remembers the desperate last minute phone call to Pepper that she hadn't answered. (Sometimes in his dreams she does and those are always the worst of all.) He hasn't seen her since, but he's flown over the course of her last flight a hundred times and never once found a scrap of wreckage. So he tells himself that she's alive somewhere, getting along just fine without him. It helps him get out of bed in the mornings.
Steve, Bruce, Natasha and Clint are among Tony's fellow survivors and all four have come with him across the country to Malibu where his last working full-scale reactor powers the house and provides a measure of shelter to the rag-tag group of people that they've collected along the way.
It turns out that Steve's natural talent for leadership is an invaluable asset and that Natasha and Clint have an uncanny ability to drag supplies apparently out of thin air every time they go out. A man named Sam Wilson pops up one day out of nowhere, or more accurately descends from the sky on metal wings looking half starved but determined. He's friendly and loyal and he's got a smart mouth on him that makes Tony like him immediately.
Thor disappeared months ago, almost at the beginning of it all, taking Jane with him and leaving only a promise behind. But he hasn't come back and they've mostly given up hoping that he will. What is there for him on Midgard anymore anyway? As far as they can tell, the Asgardians have given Earth up as a bad job.
One thing he did leave behind, however, is a girl named Darcy who claims to be a scientist friend of Jane’s—and by extension Thor—based out of New Mexico. She’s irreverent and oddly charming and Tony likes her too even if Steve never quite seems to know what to do with her.
Most important, however, is the day about a month in when Tony hears the familiar, solid thud of an Iron Man suit landing on concrete and then the ping of an authorized access code. He’s already over the sofa and half way to the front door like a kid at Christmas when Jarvis announces Colonel James Rhodes has arrived on the premises.
Tony has sporadic communications with a group called the X-men who've apparently created their own little sanctuary in the midst of this chaos. He's heard things on the long distance wireless about other teams too—mostly superheroes and whatever humans they've seen fit to take under their wings—scattered around the world in Canada, England, Germany, Wakanda, Japan. The list goes on and it's nice to know they're not alone, even if that's just about all it means. They're really on their own out here and they know it.
Clint and Natasha do most of the scouting for supplies, driving a run down old van out into the wild and returning hours or sometimes days later with whatever they've managed to collect.
But just the two of them can't do everything. Clint and Natasha for all their skills only have so many hands and so big a vehicle and Steve and Sam have their hands full organizing the base camp. So the rest of them take shifts and that means that sometimes it falls to Tony, despite all protestations, to take his new favorite pick-up truck and go looking for things out in what they've not-so-affectionately started calling the The Wasteland.
That brings him to now, frozen in place by the realization that the tall, lanky, disheveled stranger standing motionless and half hidden between the slanting shadows of the abandoned mall is Loki. The Loki. The same crazed, alien god who started this whole mess to begin with and now he's lurking in a dim, broken mall like some kind of deranged rat.
Tony's not sure who moves first, but there's a vicious, razor-sharp knife flying for his face at nearly the same time he fires his repulsor right at Loki's chest. Both miss, and so begins their dance.
Tony vaults over a decorative bench and behind a potted plant that still looks pretty perky after ten months of apocalypse if only because it was never alive to begin with. The dusty, plastic leaves provide just enough cover to give him a moment to breath.
"Shit, Jarvis?" he asks of the simple black band on his wrist. But he's underground and Jarvis' long range capabilities are only so good these days. So it's frustrating, but not surprising, that he receives no response and therefore no assistance.
He's got the essentials on him: boots, gauntlets, some assorted armor over his shoulders and chest, but the helmet is back in the car and the rest is long gone, lost to old battles or other projects, and he hasn't found the parts or time to remake it all. There have been too many other necessities to fabricate, things that were more important to their collective survival than his Iron Man suit.
Except that as of sixty seconds ago, his suit has rocketed straight up to the top of the list of things that could potentially contribute to his continued survival and he's really regretting all the times he was forced to put it off. Loki isn't the type to pull punches and this is bound to be one hell of a nasty fight.
Loki's slower than Tony remembers, or he thinks he is, but perhaps time and anger have warped his memory of New York or maybe the lack of glowing, poisonous blue in the middle of Loki's spear means something. Tony ponders these things as he steps out of the path of that scepter, the cruel tip missing his throat by bare centimeters.
He escapes the blow by the skin of his teeth and manages to catch Loki off guard with a blast in the shoulder, knocking him back and earning a pained snarl of noise for his trouble as the spear clatters heavily across the marble tile.
Loki throws another two knives at him, one of which passes narrowly by his ear while the other opens a stinging wound across his thigh when he isn't quite quick enough to avoid both. Loki's better with these than the staff, Tony thinks with a startled gasp, and wonders why he isn't using more of them. It's not like Loki to neglect an obvious strength when it could earn him the upper hand.
The answer becomes obvious several exchanged blows later when Loki throws a glitter of green and gold light into his face unexpectedly and makes a bid for one of the knives lying on the crackled marble to Tony's right. Of course he doesn't have an unlimited supply, Tony thinks and wonders how he didn't learn that lesson from Clint and his constant bitching about running out of arrows. He thinks petulantly that he can be excused because Loki is magic, or something else that the scientist in Tony is infinitely interested in identifying, and therefore normal rules need not always apply.
The flash temporarily blinds him, leaving ghostly flares of light and color behind his eyelids. He gets lucky with a blind kick and manages to get Loki's legs out from under him. But Loki is quicker and manages to floor him on the way down, grab the knife and roll back to his feet in one smooth motion all while Tony scrambles backwards and staggers up to his feet with the help of some well timed bursts from his repulsors. So much for grace.
The knife Loki succeeded in retrieving ends up embedded several inches deep in one of the pieces of plating on his left gauntlet and god damn it, Tony's going to have to fix that now. That gauntlet was already running on super glue and a prayer and now it's completely useless as anything but a meager shield.
By some miracle, Tony manages to hold his own, but the fight is taxing on his already exhausted body and he knows that if they keep this up—as Loki seems perfectly happy to do—the conclusion is inevitable. There's just no competing with Asgardian stamina. So he decides to die with dignity, or at least with the last goddamn word as befits a man of the Stark line.
“You know what?” Tony gasps coming to a stand-still and holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Fuck it. Go ahead and kill me.”
It's such a bizarre move, so devoid of any sense that Loki can't help but not kill him in surprise.
“This is pointless,” Tony continues, giving him a look like he dares him to do it. “You obviously got fucked over by this whole deal too. What the hell are we fighting over? Victoria's Secret?” he says, nodding at a dark shop front off to their right.
Loki doesn't particularly care for the words—how crass Midgardians can be—but he identifies intimately with the sentiment. He did indeed get "fucked over" and he's far from happy about it.
They're fighting each other because they can, because they're enemies and that's what they're supposed to do. But at this point, on this barren world, what does it matter when there's nothing left to conquer and so very little left to protect?
Loki lowers the point of his weapon slowly, body straightening to its full height as he inspects Tony with suspicion.
"You wish to die?" he asks. He has met men like that before, but did not expect Anthony Stark to be one of them.
"Not really," Tony groans, starting to feel just how many bruises Loki has battered into his body now that he has a moment to breath.
Loki isn't really sure what to do with that and simply can't find the energy to analyze the intricate workings of the Stark brain. But at the very least, it seems that Tony isn't going to attack him, so he allows himself to sit—collapse—on the blown out wreck of some Midgardian machine he can't be bothered to identify. Perhaps it was a car in some previous life.
"Leave," he orders tiredly and isn't particularly surprised when this lunatic of a man drops down next to him with another groan instead.
Up close, Loki can see he looks the worse for wear, exhausted and older under a thin layer of grime and stubble.
“Radiation,” Tony explains with a vague wave when he catches Loki examining his face. “We all got exposed. Bruce brewed up some concoction that'll keep us going for a while, but it tastes like shit going down and twice as bad coming up, which is usually what happens.”
“I'm immune,” Loki admits sullenly.
“So's Bruce. Cap too,” Tony sighs deeply. “But I'm really just some regular old asshole under this armor.”
“What will happen to you?” Loki asks, curious despite himself.
“Probably catastrophic organ failure,” Tony shrugs like he's discussing whether or not they're going to get any rain later and not his own imminent demise.
“How unpleasant,” Loki hums, looking away to survey the mall as though there's even an inch of it he hasn't scoured since taking up residence here.
“Mmhm,” Tony hums in agreement.
Then, against his will, Tony's stomach rumbles.
“What?” he demands, glaring when Loki chuckles quietly.
“Nothing,” Loki smirks. “I just believe I understand the sentiment.”
“So gods get hungry too, huh?” Tony says, unable to stop the slight smile that creeps onto his face as he understands. One of these days, prodding sleeping super villains is going to get him killed.
“On occasion.”
“How long has it been since you've eaten?” Tony says, watching him.
“Since all of this began,” Loki admits, amused by the astonished expression on Tony's face.
"I can go for much longer without food than you pitiful mortals," Loki sniffs, mustering a little superiority for effect.
"But there's a Target over there," Tony says, gesturing. "Why do you think I'm here?"
"Sacked, long before I arrived," Loki sighs.
"What I wouldn't give for a decent liquor store," Tony moans by way of response, rubbing a hand over his face. "Still, I guess it's worth seeing what's left."
"Not much," Loki says and doesn't mention the truly impressive amount of supplies he's managed to hoard for himself.
"Maybe I'll bring the team home some underwear, then," Tony snorts and Loki can only glance at the pink and white striped displays covered in plush pink dogs and roll his eyes.
"And oh look, they're having a sale," Tony says, pointing to the American Eagle down the way. “Buy one, get one."
"You talk too much," Loki murmurs.
"Well excuse me, princess."
"Call me that again and I will end your pitiful life," Loki sighs, too lazy even to make it sound intimidating.
"Fine," Tony huffs and starts examining the wound on his leg, hissing softly when he makes the mistake of touching it.
"Where are your friends?" Loki asks, just to be certain he doesn't have to worry about more Avengers coming down on his head any time soon.
"Back at the house," Tony says which is frustratingly unspecific, but does allay Loki's immediate concern.
"Brave of you to come alone," he sneers.
"Gods crazier than a bag of cats aside, there isn't a whole lot out here I can't handle," Tony shrugs. Bruce was meant to come with him, but he’d gotten side tracked and Tony knows that Science-Bro-Code rule number one is that science bros don’t interrupt other science bros when the project gets good.
Loki frowns slightly at the description of his sanity, but decides not to pursue it.
"You don't have a first aid kit stashed down here somewhere do you?" Tony continues, not very hopeful that the answer will be ‘yes’. Medical supplies are rare and valuable and even if Loki had managed to acquire some, Tony's reasonably certain he wouldn't be in the mood to share.
Tony also has no way of knowing that his second guess is entirely correct.
"No," Loki lies easily.
"Damn," Tony sighs, levering himself to his feet with a hiss and taking a few limping steps towards the nearest clothing store in search of something to tie around the wound until he can get back to the house.
Loki continues to watch him like some kind of huge, horrifying, leather-clad bird of prey the entire time it takes him to pick the least offensively patterned ladies' scarf off a rack and tie it around his thigh.
"See something you like?" Tony jokes because honestly, Loki’s staring just a little too hard.
"No," Loki says with a smirk that's somewhere between cruel and amused and it makes Tony laugh.
"Must not be looking," Tony says and realizes far too late it sounds far more like flirting than he's really comfortable with. Loki doesn't seem to notice though, or else he chooses to ignore it which is small blessing either way.
"So are you going to bite my head off if I take a look around?" Tony says, all humor and bravado. But there's also a thread of real concern that he knows he'd never be able to hide from Loki if he tried.
"Most likely," Loki shrugs, leaning back.
It's actually oddly hilarious that Loki has taken up residence in a mall, holed up like some kind of angry animal that hisses and snaps at anyone else that dares come too close. But then again, that's really what the whole human race is doing these days: staking out these tiny, meaningless claims and defending them with everything they have. It is the end of days, after all.
"What if I give you a present?" Tony asks next because Loki has been surprisingly civil so far. Maybe he'll keep it up with a little positive reinforcement.
"I sincerely doubt you have anything I want, Stark," Loki sighs.
"What about food?"
And that has Loki's attention, his gaze snapping to Tony's face instantly.
“What do you want in return?” Loki says suspiciously and god, how he wants food, but he knows better than to agree to something so blindly. Kindness like this is rare and doubly suspicious when the offer comes from an Avenger.
“Nothing. Just let me look around for anything you haven't claimed. You'll definitely owe me one later though,” Tony tells him and at least Loki can tell he's being honest. It makes him nervous—he's never liked owing favors—but he's hungry and tired and he knows he can break the promise later if he absolutely needs to. Loki is a man of his word only when it suits him to be.
"Very well," he says, careful to keep his tone neutral. It seems unlikely, but Tony could also be leading him into some kind of elaborate trap, though for what possible end he doesn't know.
+
“What happened to you?” Steve says the moment he catches sight of Tony—ruffled, dirty and with a strip of fabric tied tight around his leg that Steve suspects covers up some form of wound. He's definitely limping as he ducks through the narrow opening between two pieces of rubble they've erected in the entranceway. A surprising amount of the glass in the house has survived—they probably have the best view of the nuclear apocalypse around—but they've also been known to get some extraordinarily desperate visitors and sheet glass windows aren't very easy to defend against small, angry mobs with a penchant for tossing rocks.
“You'll never guess what I picked up at the mall,” Tony replies and Steve instantly dislikes the slightly manic grin that accompanies the words.
“You didn't 'pick me up',” Loki says coldly as he ducks in behind Tony and then freezes the moment he realizes that not one, but three Avengers are all staring right at him like they're a split second away from tearing him into tiny, unrecognizable pieces.
"What the hell is this?" Clint says slowly and there's murder in his tone.
"Before you murder the guy, at least hear me out—" Tony starts, but is cut off.
"Why did you bring him here, Tony?" Steve demands and it's his soldier voice, the one that makes people want to stand up and salute.
"Uh," Tony says eloquently and finds that he doesn't, strictly speaking, have a good answer to that. "The Brady Bunch was a few weirdos short?"
"He needs to leave. Now." Clint demands.
Natasha says curiously silent, observing the scene playing out in front of her with an unreadable mask over whatever expression she might have had.
Surprisingly, Loki is the one to nod and take a step back in the direction he'd come, acquiescing easily to Clint's demand.
"At least give him a sandwich before he goes," Tony says. "He hasn't eaten since New York."
"Really?" Bruce says, appearing at the top of the stairs down to the workshop. Loki tenses instantly, all attention focused on Bruce like he half expects the Other Guy to emerge right this moment and pound him into the floor.
"So he says," Tony says. "I promised him food and he didn't kill me."
Loki glances at him briefly, interested in the lie. It's not a complete fabrication so much as a combination of unrelated statements designed to lead the other Avengers to a certain conclusion. It's very much like something he would have done and for a supposed hero, surprising.
Steve still doesn't look even the slightest bit happy about it, but relents in the end with the caveat that there will be a team meeting later on to decide Loki's ultimate fate.
Clint disappears almost immediately, which puts a damper on Steve's demand that the meeting take place as soon as possible, but also doesn't surprise any of them. Natasha continues to stare Loki down like he's some kind of puzzle, Bruce sits as far away as humanly possible while maintaining line of sight and Steve keeps his shield suspiciously close to hand while he goes about his business, all of which very conveniently happens to be nearby.
In the end, Tony is the only one willing to get close to where Loki sits, incongruous in half-shredded leather and dirty gold against the cushions of the expensive designer sofa. He brings Loki pasta in the end and gets a slightly bemused eyebrow as his only form of thanks.
"We don't actually have bread right now," Tony explains concerning the lack of promised sandwich. "It doesn't keep well."
Loki's only response is a noncommittal hum as he picks up the fork.