Working Title : Loki & Annie

119 Mister Fix-It

Tony had perfected the sarcastic wave before he'd reached double digits, he had been as an ass from an early age. Now he shared his assery with the soldiers in the patrol units that were pulling out of the driveway, each with two of Ross's bootlicker thugs in them. It had taken only a few words for the police to slap handcuffs on them despite the threats that the ones who were still conscious were able to make.

Strange was speaking to the highest ranking officer, explaining without revealing too much. He was good at it but he had to work at it. He glanced at Stark and saw there would be no help coming from him.

Tony strolled over to a small group of people who stopped talking when he got close. Not needing an invitation to start his conversation he grinned, "Well, that will give Ross a headache."

Sherise narrowed her eyes, "Don't act like this isn't your fault."

Tony's head jerked back as he gave her an only slightly faked look of confusion, "My fault? How do you figure this is my fault?"

"Calm down, honey." Mike placed a hand on his wife's arm which she shrugged off while the two other officers made a face as they stepped back before walking off to do something less dangerous. Even Tony gave the big man a sympathetic look.

Sherise deliberately turned her head slowly to look at her husband and her expression clearly showed she was asking if he had lost his mind. "No. No, I will not calm down." Her head turned to spear Tony with a glare, "Did you," Her finger pointed at him, "Or did you not," Her tone made clear she already knew the answer to the coming question. "Refuse to let those two. Aliens. From. Another. Planet," Her voice carried an accusation, "Stay in your fancy tower?" She continued despite Tony having opened his mouth to answer. "And did that or did that not cause those two to come and stay with my friend." There wasn't even a question in her tone, she was just stating a simple fact. "My friend who through the stupid goodness of her heart let two aliens live in her spare room which led to her being kidnapped off the street." She had folded her arms and was now furiously tapping one foot on the sidewalk, "Well?"

Mike's eyebrows rose at the kidnapping comment, he would be finding out the details later. This was getting much too complicated for his peace of mind, he loved Annie like a pain in the ass little sister but his family's safety came first.

Pausing to ensure he was allowed to answer Tony spoke up, "You said alien a lot. A lot a lot." Tony's charming smile slipped when Sherise narrowed her eyes. "Okay, look, I screwed up, I know that and that's why I'm fixing it now." He wasn't going to go into the particular about why he had made the choices he did. He didn't even like to think about why himself because they made him feel guilty and he hated feeling guilty. It was a useless emotion to make decisions on. "It's what I do. I fix things." He tried the smirk again with the same results.

"How?" Mike deliberately spoke before Sherise could. "How exactly are you going to fix this mess?" He waved his hand upwards to Annie's apartment.

"Well, first off, I've already called for someone to fix the stairs, maybe I can toss in a new coat of paint too." His attempt at lightening up the tension failed. He wanted to cross his arms but that just looked awkward when he was in his suit so instead, he raised his arms in a shrug while waving them around, "Okay, listen. I've offered our girl a place to stay where no one can reach her. Or the kid. No one gets into my Tower who I don't want there." This sentence came out with all the certainty he had inside him. It was one of his foundations of sanity that inside his Tower he was safe.

"Yeah, overnight isn't going to cut it." Sherise didn't look convinced nor did she sound like it. "You'll have to do better than that." What that better was she didn't know but she knew she would know it when she heard it.