Cold Hard Iron

Chapter 6

Tony groaned when he opened his eyes. What had happened last night that had made him feel so crappy? Oh yeah, he had gotten pretty drunk last night, but with whom and where? He remembered something about a nice restaurant with too much wine, but the events were kind of blurry. And then he remembered the tour of New York that he had given to Loki and things started to click into place. So, he had taken Loki to one of his favorite restaurants here in New York and they had drunk way too much wine, which in itself wasn't all that unusual for Tony.

And then Tony came to his senses more and realized that he was not in his bed. In fact, he was not sleeping on a bed at all. He became utterly confused when he opened his eyes and was about to backpedal off the couch, but a voice stopped him in his tracks.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Tony turned his head and was faced with the group. All of the Avengers were standing there, holding their suitcases, with various expressions of alarm and surprise and fury on their faces. Romanoff was hiding a grin, Banner just looked frightened, Rogers was blushing slightly and frowning, and Thor looked rather angry. It was Barton who had asked the question on everyone's minds, including Tony's.

Tony quickly climbed off of Loki, who was stirring, and stood up, straightening his shirt, which had not been changed from last night.

"What is going on here?" Thor asked, moving forward and standing right in front of Tony. Tony suspected that if he did not start talking fast he would probably get Mjölnir to the head. At this point, Loki had sat up on the couch and was holding the side of his head, also hung over from last night. His hair was only a little askew, whereas Tony's looked like it had been in a wind tunnel.

"Um, it is really not how it looks," Tony said, holding up his hands.

"You better explain quickly, man of iron, or you shall face the consequences," Thor boomed at him, and Tony took a step back.

Loki stood up. "Thor, when you let me out of the cell I felt the need to get off of Asgard. You see, if the Chitauri knew I was no longer there, then they might stop attacking. I was about to jump off of the Rainbow Bridge, but the aftermath of an explosion hit me in the back. I fell off of the bridge unconscious and ended up here, in Stark Tower. Stark helped me until my magic was able to heal me." His quick explanation was met with stares from everyone.

Thor relaxed just slightly. "That still does not explain why you are still here, and why you were sleeping on the couch together."

Tony shrugged. "Fury came over here and told me that he did not want Loki out of our sight if he was going to be staying on Earth. He told me that Loki would stay here with me and we would keep a tracker on him." Tony explained, and Loki held up his wrist, showing off the silver band around it.

"Brother, you wanted to stay on Earth?" Thor asked Loki.

"Yes, I did not want to get caught by the Chitauri, and since I was brought here I thought I would take that to my advantage, especially since I was literally handed a nice place to stay."

Thor just nodded. Barton raised a hand. "I still would like to know why you were sleeping on top of him, and I believe that I am not the only one."

Tony shook his head. "We were out on the town, got some dinner, got a little drunk. We came back here and fell asleep on the couch." He remembered something else that had happened last night, but he was not going to be discussing that with the others. He had done some odd things while drunk, but this was something that he would be looking into, something that was not going to let slide. It was just too strange.

The others nodded and got onto unpacking, finding their rooms, and other things. Thor did not leave though. "If it is alright with you, I would like a private word with my brother," Thor said to Tony, who shrugged and went to find Banner. Loki looked a little peeved at having to get a 'talking to' from his adoptive brother, but there was no getting out of that.