Duty or Love?

The City That Never Sleeps

New York was a beautiful place. The streets were always busy with people going around their daily lives, tourist would had come to see the sights such as Times Square, The Empire State Building and Central Park. The City that never sleeps they call it. To Tony it was his second home. He had before lived in Malibu in California. His big modern mansion is where he had spent a majority of his life after becoming CEO of stark industries but now that he had given Pepper the honour of running his company, he had time to work on bigger projects like the Stark Tower and sustainable energy. He flew over the city scape in his Iron Man suit, a dot of red and gold in the sky is what every pedestrian saw below. In the distance he saw Stark Tower standing high and mighty among the other buildings. The other members of the newly formed Avengers were still on their way to New York. After figuring out that Loki was going to make his big stand at his home, Tony flew ahead of the rest in order to confront the enemy. No way was anyone going to use his home as a battle ground. Nearly at the tower, he saw on the highest point of the building, Dr Erik Selvig working on hooking up the tesseract to the power source. Soaring high in the air, he went to confront him. "Sir, I've turned off the arc reactor, but the device is already self-sustaining." His AI Jarvis informed him as he rose above Selvig. "Shut it down, Dr Selvig." He ordered. Selvig turned to look up at where Stark was hovering above him. "Its too late! She can't stop now! She wants to show us something! A new universe!" Slevig shouted in the air. His eyes were blue as the ocean but as Tony had noticed, he sounded deluded. "Ok" Tony readied his blasters before taking a hit at the bay where the tesseract was stored. As the contact was made between the blast and the tesseract, Tony was rebounded back into the sky and Selvig was thrown to the ground below the machinery. "The barrier is pure energy. Its unbreachable." Jarvis informed him as he gained his bearing in the sky. "Yeah I got that. Plan B." he said as he looked down to the large balcony to see Loki overseeing the commotion of him trying to shut down the tesseract.

"Sir, the Mark 7 is not ready for deployment." Jarvis said knowing what Tony was thinking. "Then skip the spinning rims. We're on the clock." Stark ordered. Tony lowered himself to the landing bay on the floor where Loki was. His armour detachment begun removing his suit as he walked towards the indoor bar area. Loki noticing where he was going and followed him inside. Both of them eyed each other up as they made their way inside. "Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity." Loki asked as he entered the room. "Actually, I'm planning to threaten you." Tony replied as he made his way down the stairs to the main floor. "You should have left your armour on for that." Loki pointed out making sure Tony was aware that he had the sceptre in his hands. "Yeah. It's seen a bit of millage, and you've got the glow stick of destiny. Would like a drink?" he asked as he made his way over to the bar. "Stalling me won't change anything." Loki was smart. But Tony being Tony knew he was smarter. "No, No. Threatening." Tony corrected. "No drink? Are you sure?" he asked the God again. "I'm having one." He said as he poured himself a whiskey. Typical Tony. They were supposed to be on a mission and her was drinking. Loki begun to get agitated at the Mortal's annoying pleasantries. He turned away from the bar and went to look out of the window at the landscape of New York. A landscape that was soon to become a battlefield. "The Chitauri are coming. Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?". "The Avengers." Tony replied simply. Loki looked confused. He had never heard of such as thing. "It's what we call ourselves. We're sort of like a team. 'Earth's mightiest Heroes' type of thing." He explained. "Yes. I've met them." He smiled. "Yeah. It takes us a while to get any traction. I'll give you that one. But let's do a head count here." He begun. Your Brother, the demigod, Drala, your warrior Girlfriend or whatever you want to call her." Loki sneered at his remark and turned away hiding his hurt and anger at hearing her called that. Tony took his chance while his back was turned and put on his bracelet sensor for his new suit. "A super soldier, a living legend that kind of lives up to that legend. A man with breath taking anger-management issues, a couple of master assassins. And you, big fella. You've managed to piss off every single one of them.". Loki turned back to Stark, a big smirk on his face. "That was the plan.". "Not a great plan." Tony criticised. "When they come, and they will. They'll come for you." He warned. "I have an army." Loki threatened. "Worked out great last time. An army who you wouldn't let hurt a certain someone. Thought you wouldn't let something as little as love get in the way of your goal." Loki's eyes went dark. "How do you know that?" he asked darkly. "I saw the footage. Shoot me I was curious as to what went down. You two are really confusing. You know that?" Tony joked. "Silence!" he shouted. "Mind your place Stark. My army will come and destroy each and every one of you." He flinched at the thought of Drala being killed by them, but he needed to be strong, to not let his emotions get in the way. "You have an army. We have a Hulk." Tony explained to the God. "Oh, I thought the beast had wondered off.". "You're missing the point. There is no Throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top." Tony made his way to stand Infront of the God. Loki stood at least a foot maybe more above him, but he didn't let that make him feel threatened or intimidated. "Maybe your army come and maybe its 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 stalked closer to Tony raising his sceptre. "How will your friends have time for me when they're so busy fighting you?" he raised his sceptre; a blue glow surrounded the top and lowered it onto Tony's chest. Instead of mind-controlling him. nothing happened. Trying again, the same thing happened. "This usually works." He stated confused. "Well performance issues, it's not uncommon." Tony chimed in, never being not able to take an opportunity to make a snide remark. "One out of five..." he tried to continue but Loki grabbed his chin and threw him to the floor. "Jarvis anytime now." He asked as if to no one. Loki pulled him to his feet and wrestled him into a tight grip. "You will all fall before me." Tony ignored the Diva's rant and shouted to what Loki thought was thin air. "Deploy! Deploy!" before the suit could be seen deploying properly, Loki lifted him up and threw him out of the window.