Curiosity Killed the Cat

Chapter 19: Laughing in the face of Death

"This has gone on long enough..." Tony glared at the three people sitting across the table. They all glanced at each other nervously. The single light overhead illuminated their faces.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but trust me, the latter will not be pleasant."

The three kept their mouths shut.

"Fine... hard way it is."

He opened a box in the corner and took out the object within. The light glinted off of it's glossy exterior. Tony made his way over to the other side of the table behind the three persons. He ripped the middle one out of his seat and held the object to his throat. They all immediately started protesting until Tony put his hand up to stop the chatter.

"Now... tell me what I want to know or your little friend here gets it."

"We know nothing, we swear!" The first one lied.

"I know you all were watching the cameras while it happened, so tell me..."

Tony's voice went dangerously low.

"Who ate the last slice of cinnamon roll cheesecake?"

Peter squirmed with the feather at his throat. "We will never tell."

Shuri and Loki nodded in agreement. Tony sighed. "Then you leave me with no other choice."

He brushed the feather softly along Peter's neck, who immediately fell to the floor laughing.

"Stop! You know I'm TICKLISH!" He screeched as Tony continued to tickle him.

"CLINT! IT WAS CLINT!"

"PETER!" Clint yelled.

"I'M SORRY HE WAS TICKLING ME!!"

Everyone descended into laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation.

Their laughter was cut off with the rumbling of the building.

"Probably Loki's mom."

When they all went upstairs to see what the commotion was, they realized that it was indeed Frigga. She was standing in the middle of the living area gazing out of the window.

"Amma."

She turned around and smiled at her son. She gracefully walked over to him and they embraced each other. She let go and her face turned grave and her eyes became a bit wet.

"Odin is dead."

Loki furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

"Word got out about how you were punished and the third circle revolted. They stormed the palace and were stopped, but the stress caused him to go into the Odinsleep... and he never woke up."

"Mother, I'm so sorry..." he said as he embraced her.

"It is not your fault, my child. It was a reckoning of his own making. That does not make it any less hard."

She pulled away and laid her hands on his arms. "But there is one good thing to come out of this. Asclepius heard of your plight and he has agreed to help you with getting rid of your scars."

Loki's eyes widened. Asclepius was a very solitary god and would not grant favors like this often to people outside of his pantheon. "How would he have even known about the scars?"

"Eris happened to be in Asgard at the time of the riots, and she relayed the message to him."

"I'm sorry I only understood about...half of that?" Clint stated with a confused look on his face.

Loki turned to him. "The third circle is the part of Asgard made up of the lowest castes, small merchants, farmers, etcetera.  I would help out there a lot when I had time. They are very kind people, despite what the nobles say. Asclepius is the greek god of medicine, and Eris is the goddess of chaos among other things. She also happens to be an old friend of mine."

Loki decided to leave out the part that if this was truly Eris' doing then she would most likely be coming along with Asclepius... and would probably bring along the others. This is gonna be fun.

-----------------------------------------------------

Thor, who was listening into the conversation from the hallway stormed down to the training area. There would be hell to pay for those who killed his father.