Cold Hard Iron

chapter 1

Loki gasped when his eyes opened. It was as if a veil had just been removed from over his face and now he was seeing clearly for the first time in weeks. All of his unquenchable anger, and his horrid distaste for humans vanished, leaving a dull ache in its place. What had just happened?

He looked around at the rubble surrounding him on the floor and remembered the events that had taken place right before he had passed out. He had been flung around by that horrid green beast, and his magic had cut off his consciousness so that it could heal him properly.

He tried to sit up, but soreness had stiffened his bones. Healing magic like that took a lot out of a guy, even if he was a god. He remained in his crater in the middle of the penthouse of Stark tower, and it came to him just how finished he was. None of the paths that lie before him held any hope. Either the Chitauri would torture him until he begged for mercy, SHIELD captured him and put him in a fortified prison, or he was taken back to Asgard with Thor to receive some sort of horrid punishment there. It wasn't as if he completely regretted his plans, but they seemed so far-fetched and power-hungry now. Of course, SHIELD would never believe him if he told them that he had no interest in killing anybody anymore. He was just tired.

He sighed and allowed his gaze to wander to the shattered glass where he had launched Stark off of the tower. There had been an indiscernible flicker of guilt in the pit of his stomach when he had done this, and then the metal suit had flattened him and his had guilt vanished. Stark would survive and most likely beat him to a pulp in that iron suit.

Unfortunately the horrid beast had beaten Stark to it. Literally. Loki glanced through the shattered glass and out into the battle scene that he had started. Something caught his eye; a flash of gold and red. Stark was flying by quickly, and he was holding something rather large over his head. It was a missile. He flew straight up, and Loki guessed that he must be throwing it into the portal.

That genius… Loki grinned involuntarily. Now that he knew that the Chitauri would most likely lose, he didn't feel a need to think of himself on their side. He actually hoped that the missile would hit something of importance of theirs. Loki was a bit of an evil mastermind, but that did not mean that he chose to side with the other evil masterminds. And he had decided that he quite liked some of the humans; they were fun to use as pawns, and Midgard was an interesting place to spend one's time.

There was the slightest tremble of the ground, and Loki took this to mean that the bomb had gone off deep in the space of the portal. He looked outside and saw that all of the Chitauri's army was falling to the ground, dead. So the missile had hit the Chitauri mother ship, deactivating the soldiers that were linked to the main ship.

Loki vaguely wondered if Stark had gotten out of the portal, because surely he had flown in with the missile? And then there was the flash of something about human-sized falling from a great height. So the man of iron had made it out of the portal, but the rate at which he was falling suggested that he was either unconscious, had a dead suit, or was dead himself. He wondered whether or not the other Avengers were watching this and if they were going to save the falling billionaire.

Something large, green, and muscular plucked Stark out of the air. Stark was safe from death by falling, but who knew if he hadn't suffocated while he was in space, or maybe the beast would have a snack of him. Well, one couldn't spend all of their time thinking about whether or not one little measly human was dead or not. Even if that human seemed to be the one human immune to your powers, which really did interest Loki…

Loki reattempted to sit up, this time not hindered by his sore muscles, but by the fact that he couldn't quite dislodge himself from the broken stone flooring around him. He would've used his magic to help him out, but he had used that all up healing the many broken bones and cuts that the monster had caused him.