Dead Memories

41

Chapter Forty-One

Tony watched HELEN's security footage on their way back to New York several times to make heads or tails of what actually happened. And he continued watching it once they landed and got in a car to drive back to the Tower. Strange got in the back with Tony, while the super-assassin duo took the front seats. Normally, Tony disliked having someone else in the driver's seat, but Clint was one of the few people he actually trusted enough to be relaxed about it.

They were all silent, so there was only the sound of the security footage coming from the tablet. And oh, it was some spectacularly awful footage to watch, especially on repeat.

Obviously, having Loki at the tower was a recipe for disaster on its own, but Tony was surprised to learn that it seemed like everything had a lot more to do with Barnes and Steve than with Loki. Although, if he could, he would still give Loki the bill for the repairs, because oh boy was the entire floor trashed to all hell.

Vision did his best to not turn the whole thing into a brawl, but Tony was aware there was not much he could've done to prevent Loki from getting as pissed as he looked like through the camera. The guy had worse anger issues than Bruce. Their brief altercation also served as the first visual evidence Tony saw that proved Loki was getting stronger. He had to check with Thor, but he doubted Loki was capable of cracking a damn floor and wall and smashing every possible thing made out of glass just by clenching his fists before. There was some sort of a shockwave around him, but Tony needed more data he had access to right now to draw any solid conclusions.

Thor arrived to Steve's floor a few moments after Loki's little destructive magic trick and - wonders never ceased - he stopped Loki simply by asking him to stop. He just asked, nicely even. It was weird, but gift-horses and all that, Tony was glad that it worked.

Speaking of shocking turn of events, Tony switched back to Steve's bedroom surveillance camera. He didn't watch any of the private parts, although HELEN informed him there were plenty, which was... informative on its own.

The thing that caught his eyes the most was not the lover's spat, and not even Loki materializing out of thin air in all his half-naked, half-bandaged glory, but the symbols on Barnes' arm and the damn light-show that happened when Steve tried to get close to him. Whatever it was, it packed quite a punch.

'What do you make of this, Doc?' Tony asked.

Strange took the tablet from Tony right away. He watched the footage once already, but didn't offer any comments that time. Now he rewound it, skipped a few parts from what Tony caught from the audio, and he also switched cameras a few times.

'I see at least five different Earth symbols on that arm,' Strange commented.

'Yeah? And what does that mean?'

'Normally, I would dismiss it, because they are from very different sources. And usually nobody, outside spiritually-inclined teenagers, would use so many dissimilar mythological signs at once.'

'But?'

'This is obviously not the work of a person who comes up with things like wiccan feng shui.'

'That's a thing?'

'I wish it were not,' Strange said. He had to be joking, but Tony couldn't really read the guy that well yet. Maybe he was this serious and overdramatic by default, but Tony would bet that half the shit that came out of his mouth was nothing but dessert dry sarcasm and inside jokes with himself.