It's Been a Long, Long Time

12

EXT. NEW YORK CITY SKYLINE - STARK TOWER

Iron Man arrived at Stark Tower where Selvig activated the CMS device holding the Tesseract.

JARVIS informed, "Sir, I took off the arc reactor. The device is already self-sustained."

"Shut it down, Dr. Selvig," Tony ordered.

"It's too late!" Selvig replied. "It can't stop now. He wants to show us something! A new universe."

"Okay." Iron Man aimed his hands toward the CMS and fired. The energy from his boosters shattered with a deafening crack. Selvig fell backwards. Down below, citizens of New York looked up at Stark Tower. Iron Man stared in disbelief at the CMS unharmed.

JARVIS said, "The barrier is pure energy. It's unbreachable. The Mark VII is not ready to be deployed."

"Skip the spinning rims," Tony told him. "We're on the clock."

Tony landed his suit and went through the gauntlet which unsuited him. Loki looked up at him, smiling. He proceeded to walk into the penthouse.

INT. STARK PENTHOUSE

Loki entered, holding the scepter. Tony casually walked down the steps, toward the bar.

"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity," Loki said.

"Uh... actually, I'm planning to threaten you," Tony corrected.

"You should have left your armor on for that."

"Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage. You've got the blue stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?"

"Stalling me won't change anything."

"No, no, no! Threatening. No drink? You sure? I'm having one."

"The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear?"

"The Avengers," Tony replied and Loki looked at him, confused. "It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type of thing."

"Yes, I've met them."

Tony smiled. "Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But, let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demigod; two Super Soldiers, two living legends who kind of live up to the legend; a man with breath-taking anger management issues; a couple master assassins and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."

"That was the plan."

"Not a great plan. When they come, and they will, they'll come for you."

From underneath the bar table, Tony pulled on colantotte bracelets, a honing device.

"I have an army," Loki said.

"We have a Hulk," Tony shot back.

"I thought the beast had wandered off."

"You're missing the point. There's no throne, there is no version of this, where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it."

Loki slowly walked up to him, raising the scepter. "How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?"

Loki tapped Tony on the chest with his scepter. Nothing. Confused, Loki tried again. Again, nothing.

"This usually works," Loki said.

"Well, performance issues," Tony reasoned. "You know? Not uncommon. One out of five..."