A/N: Continuation of the previous chapter: how the Tony/Loki confrontation would have gone differently...

The bad news was that when he arrived Loki was down there on the balcony, armored and dangerous, with the scepter in his hand.

The good news, though, was that the scepter could be fired at a distance but Loki wasn't firing it. Hopefully, that meant he wanted to talk.

Tony landed, nutted up and started the suit removal sequence. Loki nodded at him and headed inside.

Once they got indoors Loki took off his own helmet, and from nice and up close Tony could see that he was smiling. "Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity."

The scepter was crackling dangerously. "Uh, you might notice I'm not really dressed for roughhousing anymore," he said. "You mind putting that thing away?"

Loki shifted his grip. "Oh, the touch of the scepter can be incredibly gentle," he purred. "Allow me to show you."

Tony backed away fast, hands raised. "Whoa there, pal. Not on a first date."

"You should thank me for the offer." Was he offended? "The Chitauri are coming, and you can fight with them – as I am – or they will kill you."

"Mm." Tony meandered away, towards the window. "So, here we have a slight variation on the we can rule the galaxy as father and son speech: instead of offering me halfway ownership of a galaxy, you're offering me brainwashing and slavery." He pretended to think about it. "Mmmm... survey says... not a good deal."

Loki shrugged. "Barton was perfectly happy." He re-gripped the scepter. Fidgeting. "Was. But I can no longer sense his mind. What happened – did you kill him?"

The question was casual – too casual. Barton had served his purpose and Loki wouldn't give two shits about someone who had served his purpose; why bring him up?

"No," he answered, just as casually. "We just broke the scepter's hold on him, that's all."

Loki went still.

"Oh, you didn't know we could do that?" He gave a grade-A Tony Stark smirk. "Well sorry to burst your bubble there, Voldemort, but: not as foolproof as you thought."

"How?"

Tony knew better than to monolog at length, but he couldn't resist bragging just a little. "It was actually pretty easy: Cognitive recalibration, via a hard-ass blow to the head."

"Mm. Hard blow to the head. I see." Loki ran a hand through his hair. Glanced down to his helmet on the coffee table. Glanced back to Tony.

Whoa. Tony raised eyebrows. "So... what would happen if I went right now and put my suit back on?"

"I can't see how that would benefit me or my allies, so: I would stop you."

"Why are you trying to help me?" he asked suddenly. Loki froze. "...You know, by offering to induct me into your little scepter club?"

The god relaxed. "You remind me of someone I like," he said.

No prizes for guessing who; Tony was willing to bet that Loki liked very, very few people. "You think so? Because, when I was ordered by a bunch of bad guys to help them carry out their evil plan, what I did was I pretended to cooperate, while actually building something that would destroy them."

Loki's smile was nasty. "Oh, I've heard. But I'm not too impressed; your bad guys weren't able to see into your thoughts and manipulate them."

That smile was not readable; he needed more information. "Definitely wasn't playing on expert level, I'll give you that," he said easily. "If I had been...?"

"Then you'd have had to excise every disloyal thought from your brain, on pain of torture most severe," Loki said calmly. "But here the scepter does help – it dulls any rebellious feelings you might have. Dampens impulses that might be problematic."

Dulls. Dampens. Not eliminates.

"Got it." And he did. "So... what exactly would the Chitorry want me to do? Because killing innocent civilians is a non-starter for me. Hard limit."

Loki waved the concern away. "No, the civilians are beneath our notice. It's the Avengers that must be destroyed. And they will be, whether you help or no."

"And the offer is, if I help you, then I get to live." He hated that he could play this scene convincingly; he wished that capitulating was something he just didn't even know how to pretend to consider.

"Yes. I know you're worried that you'll hate yourself, and you might, but at least you'll be alive to do the hating."

He glared, then dropped his eyes.

Loki took that for a yes. "Relax; this won't hurt," he said, and stepped up with the scepter raised.

At the last second Tony turned, so that the point glanced harmlessly off his shoulder. "Wait. Once you do your thing with the thing, I won't be able to suit up – Jarvis is under instructions never to release suits to me if I'm not in my right mind. I have to get dressed now, while I still can."

Loki regarded him suspiciously a moment, and then suddenly demanded: "Jarvis. Is that true?"

"Yes, sir," Jarvis said without hesitation.

Loki shrugged. "Then, get on with it."

Tony overrode Jarvis's warnings and got inside the mark VII - except for the faceplate. People had a hard enough time trusting him when they could see his eyes. "Okay: suit's under manual control," he said calmly. "No interference possible from Jarvis or SHIELD or anyone else. Except for, you know." He gestured to the scepter. "Wetware malfunction."

"Excellent." Loki raised the scepter again.

-and Tony blasted him across the room with both cannons. Followed him and blasted again.

Bits of wall were raining down on them and Loki slid to the floor. Tony fell on him hard, straddled him with all the weight of the suit, and got to work. The beating would have killed a human easily, killed most non-humans too... but this was an all-or-nothing enterprise; if it didn't work and Loki got angry, he was in real trouble.

"Sorry- sorry- sorry-..." He was saying it with every blow. But the floor cracked and Loki's skull didn't, and he started to worry that even the suit wasn't going to be strong enough. He got up, grabbed the god into a bear-hug, and took off towards the windows.

"Aagh- Stark!" Loki yelled his name as they went through the shatterproof glass, and stopped fighting him in favor of hanging on desperately. He was shrieking something. Probably what are you doing. That's what people usually said when Tony started to implement a good idea.

Tony flipped his mic on. "This is for your own good," he said. Mic off. "Or, it's going to kill you. We'll know which pretty soon."

He stabilized in the air outside the tower, looked around for a building under construction. He could see massive metal beams, surely strong enough for this.

He flew close, tossed Loki up and re-gripped him – by the legs. Loki struggled but it was no use; Tony spun him around two or three times for speed, and then smashed him hard enough to dent the steel.

Loki went limp, unconscious at least, and Tony returned to the tower with the god cradled against his chest.

When he woke up Thor was standing over him – grim and impassive.

"Thor." He felt his lips curl into a sneer, and he waited...

But the hot rush of hatred, scorn, impotent malice never came. He let out a long shaky breath, feeling suddenly lost. "Thor," he repeated, trying to find lucidity. Where was he? Why did he hurt so badly?

Thor's face changed abruptly. "Loki," He swooped down, and Loki meant to flinch away but found he could not move. "Brother I'm so sorry, I'm-... Are you all right?"

Thor was reaching past his head now, up to his arms... and suddenly a great weight was lifted off his hands. "Pinned me with your hammer, did you," he chuckled. Where was he? "Some things never change."

He sat up slowly, aching everywhere, and saw that there were people clustered around him. People he could name immediately, though he didn't immediately know why. "Romanoff," he said to a firm beautiful woman all dressed in black. "Captain," to a man in blue.

"Hey." Tony Stark, the Man of Iron, knelt by him suddenly and shook him by the shoulders. "I'm sorry to interrupt your gentle wake-up process here, but we're on the clock. Do you know what's going on?"

He blinked up at Stark's face, trying to understand. "I trusted you," he remembered. "I signaled something to you, and you understood me."

"Oh, gods." Thor's voice was thick as if he might cry. "I have wronged him."

Loki twisted around to look up at him. "What? Wronged who?"

"Hey. Loki? Pay attention." Stark grabbed his chin and faced him forward again. "Look at me. You get the nutshell-in-a-nutshell version, because we really don't have time for this. The army is coming. The Chitorry. Right?"

The Chitauri. He recoiled, remembering them suddenly, repellent and insectile, with hard shells and dead eyes and hungry, clicking jaws. "What about them?"

"They're coming," Stark repeated. "That's what you told me. You built some kind of portal device that's going to let them come into this world – and it's starting to boot up, so let's get a move on. We have to shut it down."

They're coming. The knowledge pooled like sludge in his stomach.

"Jarvis? Jog his memory."

The wall flickered, and suddenly was a screen. The Chitauri are coming, his screen-self said. You can fight with them – as I am – or they will kill you. He could hardly stand to watch himself, much less allow all these mortals to do it. It was like waking from a night of drunkenness to find everyone laughing at him for behavior he couldn't remember. The violation made his skin prickle.

"Turn it off," he growled.

Stark did it with a wave of his hand. "Do you remember now? About the portal? Please tell me you have a plan for screwing them with it somehow."

The Bifrost will build until it rips Jotunheim apart! The memory came to him suddenly, so forcefully that his teeth bared and he reached for Gungnir that wasn't there.

He had remembered that night more and more often lately. He had felt in some way that it was important, but he'd known better than to dwell on it or wonder why.

"The Bifrost," he said. He didn't like thinking aloud, mumbling like an idiot, but he knew he was not thinking very well and perhaps it would be good if others could follow along and help him. "Yes. I've been thinking of it. Of how the Bifrost could be used for transport but also for destruction. A portal-... no, not a portal but a... a bridge." He seized on Selvig's word. "It creates a bridge, for a moment, but if you leave the connection open too long it will begin to, to pull at the fabric of their world. Their space. Whatever it is."

"It will rip it all apart," Thor put in. In wonder. "As Heimdall always warned us. Loki, you are brilliant as always."

Rip it all apart. Rip them all apart. Yes. He loved it. He felt savage. "How you have changed!" he sneered. "Time was you'd be annoyed if I found a way to win without you rushing off to smash things."

Stark cleared his throat. "Well, uh, in that case, Thor buddy, this is your lucky day. We've got something incoming, and my guess is it's not friendly."

The group went to the window. (Loki went with help, which he hated, but he wasn't quite proud enough to insist he could walk on his own). "What on earth," said the Captain.

"Not earth," Thor said grimly.

Loki had to laugh. "I told you they were coming. I told you!" He was right. Right as always! He knew he was hysterical but that was no help; he laughed anyway.

Someone was laying hands on him. Shining light into his eyes. "Look at me," said a steady, quiet voice. "Do you know what concussion is? You're sitting this one out."

"I'll babysit him," the woman said. "Until someone can tell me what the hell those things are and what you want me to do about it."

The Man of Iron clunked up to them. "Fine. Yes. Here's the plan: we engage the baddies and keep them busy. We can't let them start firing into the crowds."

"I took care of that already," Loki said. Giggling, still. He really was brilliant – even when he wasn't in his right mind. What did that say about his right mind? "I told them not to bother with the civilians. That the Avengers were the ones they should target. What?" Everyone looked furious at him. "What's the matter?"

"Dude, you put out an intergallactic hit on us," said the Iron Man's mechanical voice. "Screw you."

Thor's arm fell on his shoulders. "Loki did what he thought was best. Do not criticize him." He was forcibly turned so that the blue eyes could bore into his. "Loki. I will do battle with those foul creatures." He spoke slow and clear, as if Loki was the halfwit. How things had changed! "You must stay here and manage the portal. See that it causes the destruction you have promised."

Oh, he liked destruction. He laughed. "As you wish, brother." He tried to be serious and think. Think of the portal. "I'm obviously not at my best. I need Selvig. Where is Selvig?"

"I'll take care of it." Romanoff again. "Thor. Tony. Go. Cap, Bruce: Clint will take you in the jet and figure out a way to deploy you."

Once the room emptied out, the woman tugged him by the arm and handed him his helmet. "Come on, Selvig's outside. Wear this. If those things come for us, are you able to fight?"

He tried for a smile, but he could feel that there was too much teeth and no mirth at all. "Your gutters will run with blood and ichor," he said. "They will not take me alive again."

If she was disturbed, it didn't show. "Good. Come on."

As she led him away she was holding his hand, and he had to laugh one last time. Not as unhinged now though; he could hear it. "So it seems you're here to tend my wounds after all, Agent," he purred. "Just as I initially suspected."

"If you're trying to be the biggest ass on the team," she said, bored, "Give up. Tony's got you beat by a mile."

On the team. It was a warm rush but he tried to ignore it; sentiment was a waste of time and he had work to do.

The End. Let me know what you think. I'm just psyched for things to work out well for Loki for a change...