Chapter Text
JARVIS, Tony Stark’s long suffering AI butler, pointed out “There are two hundred and twenty seven individual pancake recipes.”
Tony nodded cheerily “ Good to know”
“Twenty seven among them can be made with the current inventory of the kitchen “
“Cool.”
Bruce could have sworn that the AI let out a very human sigh before continuing “You are currently using recipe number seven, which is the one most guaranteed to result in what would be termed, in colloquial phrasing, ‘a whole huge mess.’”
“Hey, from scratch is the best!”
Bruce was sure that the AI did sigh this time.
“Fire extinguishing systems are ready and fully charged.”
Tony didn’t bother to reply, but Bruce gave the unfortunate AI a quick thumbs-up. Fire extinguishers were useful things to have on standby whenever Tony Stark was at work – whether in the labs or the kitchenette.
Steve, who had come in from his run about ten minutes into the great-breakfast-making- challenge, had taken one look at the pile of dishes on the counter and decided that his morning dose of coffee could wait.
Bruce, less quick at the fine art of swift and silent escapes, had been (along with a half asleep Clint who kept nibbling at the batter instead of mixing it) pushed into service. He looked down uncertainly at the bowl of batter he had been stirring for what felt like the last couple of hours- it sort of looked like what the YouTube video said it ought to.
…………………………
“Of course it had to land me here” Loki glared at the (now out of charge) TemPad in his hand. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t like he had had an abundance of options…But of all the bad options, this was indisputably the worst.
To end up in the Stark Tower of all places, exhausted and wounded (this version of Ravona – or whoever she was – had proved pretty quick with her knife)…
He hadn’t had time to program the TemPad to any specific time or place - just grabbed it off Mobius (or whatever he was in this timeline) and leaped before the agents could raise alarm. Only, he hadn’t counted on the thing being almost out of charge.
He was stranded here – at least, till the TVA idiots got their asses in order and decided to come looking.
The mage glanced around the top room of the Avengers Tower, staggering slightly as he forced himself to stay on his feet. Yes, he wasn’t mistaken (he wouldn’t have minded being proven wrong this time..at least, not much).
Stark Tower. Avengers Tower.Empty at the moment. And pristine. At least the damn thing hadn’t decided to dump him back into the Battle of New York.
The Beast…Nowhere to be seen, thank the Norns.
Going by the view from the Tower’s glass windows, this was either before his disastrous takeover attempt or long after it. No damaged buildings, no disaster zone appearance. Everything well in order.
Long after, he supposed. From what he had found out from the TVA briefings, the Avengers team simply didn’t exist before he turned up – not that he would get any gratitude from them for that…
Well, could still be Stark Tower – from what he had found out during his last, uh, visit to Midgard, it had been standing for quite a while. So, maybe it was just the Iron Man present, none of the rest of his lunatic teammates.
The possibility was…interesting, to say the least. Even during their fight that time in New York, he hadn’t really minded Tony Stark all that much. The guy at least knew how to hold a decent conversation, which was more than could be said for the rest of the Avengers, including his brother.
If he had landed at a time before that mess, if he met Stark one-on-one before things got complicated…
He wanted to slap himself when he realized the direction his thoughts had taken. The blood loss must have begun to affect his mind. As if things weren’t complicated enough already!
He couldn’t afford to stay here. Even without the possibility of running into Thor (a possibility that was rather illogically tempting), it wouldn’t do to give the TVA somewhere to home in on him.
Get out of here. Turn invisible, shapeshift into some human or a cat or something, get out.
There were no lack of places to lie low on Midgard – he had done that more than once in the past, when he had needed a break from his oaf of a brother and his equally braindead friends. He could hide out there, wait it out.
His body would heal, given time. The wounds, while certainly inconvenient, were not (at least he hoped not) fatal. Recover. Plan something. There had to be a way to get back.
Recharge the TemPad. There would be some way to get it right – get it back in full power, go find Sylvie, wherever she might be…
What makes you think she’ll want you back, a quiet voice asked in the back of his mind.
He pushed it back – it went quietly, it was used to that treatment.
Burn that bridge when you come to it. now get out. that was easier said than done, he realized the next moment.
Even attempting an invisibility spell sent a stab of pain through his skull. The world whirled round for a moment, then steadied in a somewhat blurry fashion.
Damn. He was way more tired than he thought. That fight with Sylvie, at the end…that had been the last in a long line. Count in the rest of the pounding his body had taken in the last couple of days, he wasn’t sure he could afford to risk any magic right now. Hel, he wasn’t sure if he could risk an escape by mundane means right now.
………………………
Tony glanced up from his culinary adventures (or, in Bruce’s increasingly exasperated opinion, the culinary equivalent of crimes against humanity), his head tilted to one side like a curious bird. “Huh. Looks like Rudolph is back early.”
Bruce groaned. Tony on his own was bad enough when he was on one of his hyperactive phases, but add one god of mischief into the mix…
Clint perked up. “I thought he and Thor would be stuck with Asgard politics stuff for the next week or so?”
Bruce shrugged resignedly as Tony darted out of the kitchen, a half nibbled pancake (at least, something that bore a slight resemblance to one) still in hand. “It’s Loki. What d’you expect?”
There could possibly be a…Bifrost Incident again, he supposed hopefully. Last time Odin had simply snatched both his errant sons off Midgard once both skipped one too many council meetings. some disadvantages to having teenaged (more or less) Norse gods in your team is that disapproving parents have unique methods of enforcing curfews.
……………………
Footsteps. Rapidly approaching footsteps.
Never a welcome sound to a fugitive, certainly not when stranded in enemy territory. It was out of sheer desperation that Loki tried once more to vanish. Like many choices made in desperation. It turned out to be a bad one.
magic takes just as much, if not much more than, energy as physical actions. After all, at its most basic, magic is the art of pushing against the boundaries of reality. Sometimes reality decides to push back.
It was with considerable effort that he managed to keep from collapsing. As it was, it was either sit down or fall down and he almost didn’t make it to the nearest couch.
Don’t fall down. Don’t make any noise. And for Yggdrassil’s sake, don’t pass out. you’ll be handing yourself giftwrapped and ready to them.
to whom?
He was no longer sure. A soft haze seemed to have descended over everything. Tired, too tired. He had been running and fighting for too long.
There were reasons, very good reasons, to remain alert, he knew, but right now he couldn’t call to mind what exactly they were. The couch was soft and cozy. Just go to sleep. A little while, just a little while.
The footsteps, the ones that had alarmed him to begin with (for some reason he couldn’t quite recall right now), were now in the room.
He heard someone call out “Rudolph!”, first with cheery good humor, then with alarm.
Something told him he should be more concerned, but being concerned took too much effort. No point bothering. The TVA would be turning up soon, anyway, nothing would matter… He heard his name being called – were they here already?
A hand on his shoulder, trying to shake him awake, but surprisingly gentle. “What happened? Loki, can you hear me?”
The voice sounded oddly familiar. Not well known, but he had heard it before, heard it not so long ago. He tried to open his eyes and see who it was, see if he remembered him, but already the voice was fading out, as if coming from a very long distance.
He was blearily aware that other voices had also joined in – somehow familiar voices. All concerned, some frightened. Where was he? Asgard? Couldn’t really think of another place where they would be concerned and not delighted about finding him hurt. Maybe he was somewhere in the past, maybe in some long ago time when it wasn’t too late…
The last thing he felt before all awareness faded was someone’s warm hand on his arm, someone telling him it was gonna be alright, that he was gonna be alright.
He could almost believe them.