fossilised | Jotunheimr

"Yes, sir. Thankfully, no canines appear to be in any danger. Although Prince Thor has killed seven pigeons and Prince Loki is building a fire in the centre of the park."

New Yorkers might ignore a lot, but they probably wouldn't ignore two men, one of whom was very attractive and muscled, sitting in the middle of the grass cooking and eating pigeons over a campfire.

Loki saw nothing wrong with this, all travellers cooked food over an open flame in every realm he had read of or visited, why should this be any different. He sat shearing the feathers finely from the flesh with a dagger as the flames licked higher.

"There is little meat on these, you would need a whole flock to feed just you."

Tony pressed his lips together and lowered his face towards the tablet where he was trying to design a better filtration device using cheaper materials. Most people would be working in the lab for this, testing then out, but Tony could do it in his head, and through chemical equations and imagination alone. “Tell me if the fire burns any dogs,” he muttered, knowing JARVIS would understand it was expanded to the trees and people too.

“Sir, there are videos appearing on Facebook.”

Why? Tony groaned and gestures to the tablet. “Look! I’m busy—. Damn it, get the suit ready. And give Rogers the new coordinates.” Tony dashed towards the armature that held his suit and willed it to rush the building process before he took off from the landing deck just outside of the living area of his penthouse.

Three minutes later, Thor stood as he spotted a red man barreling towards them in the sky. Tony landed a bit roughly and immediately turned his attention to the Facebook Livers, having JARVIS kill the phones for the next hour. “Go home. Even you— Love that top, looks great on you. Classy, go away.”

Tony's presence just attracted more people to stand around and gawk, and more than a few to get their phones out to try and take pictures or video without realising that they were dead right then. People began to crowd around, some of them shouting for his autograph.

Loki looked bemused as he also stood up to watch Tony Stark approach, even royalty did not get mobbed this way and what exactly was an autograph? Did he owe them some sort of tithe?

"Well met, Tony Stark, your armour is most impressive."

“I will deal with you and your creepy X-Ray vision in a minute,” Tony said, voice modulator making him sound more metallic and further away with a slight echo. He wasn’t sure how an alien knew he was Iron Man, but honestly, he didn’t know how Loki singled him out as king of the whole damned world either. His research skills were spotty at best.

When it became clear that the crowd wasn’t exactly leaving, because even Tony Stark couldn’t handle a bunch of fantastic joggers and dog walkers, the man in the armor returned to where the fire was still smoldering and let the faceplate of the armor flip back. “I need you two to stop making your way to the evening news. You’re going to be hard to explain. I have a car coming. Not to be ripped apart like last time please? You two are almost more trouble than you’re worth. Thank you at least for not being blue,” he grunted at Loki and pointed to the concrete restroom building where they needed to go. And hide. Immediately. He’d handle the rest here until Happy arrived at the closest entry with the car.

Again, Loki was suddenly thrust into a place where the language all seemed to make little sense and words that all had meaning individually created utter chaos when strung together. What was the evening news and why were they on it? How were they being any trouble? They had not caused any sort of raucous issue, or even interacted with the surrounding mortals.

"We are making no trouble or hardship, we have only stopped for refreshment. You may join us, if you wish, though there is little enough meat to go around."

"Sir," JARVIS said in Tony's ear. "CNN have a van approximately ten minutes away and approaching."

Of course. Tony briefly closed his eyes before he more forcefully ushered the pair away and tried to stomp out the fire. “There is obviously a vast cultural disconnect here. You can’t start public fires. Our news is global and there are people coming to record your images and send it out to every person in the next few minutes. This is bad. Please let me clean this up before everyone finds out about you.”

Thor finally dropped the bird he had been helping to pluck clean and offered his hand to Loki. “If Stark is to be our Guide, we must trust him.”

He’d learned that the hard way with Loki.

Not trusting the one person who was meant to be looking out for you got you in a lot of trouble. Mostly of the painful variety.

Midgard truly was bizarre if travellers weren't even allowed to start cookfires without creating some incident that would be felt the world over. But he was also amenable to following the advice of their guide, and so he stamped out the fire alongside Stark and clutched the few bird corpses that he had already plucked.

"Very well, lead on, we will go to your hideaway and endeavour to cause no more trouble."

For now.

There would probably be trouble when they came to wanting to take that gem from the sorcerer they had met before. He laid a hand on Thor's arm, a more familiar gesture than he had used before, but they were almost officially courting and so it seemed appropriate.

"Perhaps we can be shown where is appropriate to make a fire, these birds should not go to waste."

“There are plenty of places in New York to get food,” Tony said without sounding too exasperated (this has to be how Pepper felt on a constant basis with him). “And pigeons are street rats. You don’t eat pigeons. Nothing eats pigeons. They are filthy carriers of disease,” Tony said before he stayed behind to handle the news and to keep people from following Thor and Loki to the bathroom.

“There are many rules here,” Thor said before the smell of the place they watered made him balk. “You can not eat the wildlife and you must wait in a filthy outhouse? I do not understand! We have seen the marvels of indoor personal waterfalls. What is this?!”

Please explain this craziness to Thor.

“Midgard needs to be taken by hand and brought to the proper century!”

"When you are All-Father, I hope that you will use your time for unity. Too long has been spent on war and sundering, of stopping the free travel among the branches of Yggdrasil, and that must end. You could be the one remembered for bringing all to the fold and both teaching and learning from all."

That was the legacy that Loki wanted to be remembered for. He wanted to go down in history as the All-Mother and Loki-King of Jotunheim who had ruled during the most prosperous and golden age of all the realms. People would revere him and his consort for generations.

"Now is the time to begin to build those bridges. Look with compassion and learn, do not judge. That was your mistake on Jotunheim."

Thor was silent, not exactly because he was taking in the criticism but because there was criticism in the first place. He appreciated being led in the right direction but sometimes Loki was fairly harsh about it. He was frowning still, and quiet, when Stark pushed opened the door with his foot.

“Come on. We have to get back to the actual city.” Technically, Central Park was in the city but he didn’t trust any place with more trees than there were buildings.

When Thor finally spoke, it was not about seeking the Gem that they had come for, but to save some face with Loki.

“I require the texts of your culture. I do not wish to be seen as a fool while on your Realm.”

Tony glanced between Thor and Loki. “Uh. Put a pin on that. We have a few centuries for you to get used to and I don’t think you’re going to make it in an afternoon.”

Thor would be rewarded for his efforts with a smile from Loki and the Jotnar coming to his defence to Stark, not something he did often. But he knew that he needed to balance praise and support along with his teaching and criticism, or else he would drive Thor from him. Loki knew that someone who was rewarded for the right behaviour after learning would come to respect and love the teacher more.

"I think you underestimate the swiftness of Thor, our histories are much longer than mere centuries and our tutors have taught us to assimilate quickly. Texts of your culture would be of use to both of us, so that we no longer make such errors as we have made this afternoon."

He drew out a sculpture that he had collected from Jotunheim. Nothing too special, dwarven smiths could make things much better, but it was beautiful. A sculpture of a snowflake in perfect detail, crafted out of true ice by Jotnar magic and then set that way into a pendant.

"I offer you this small hearth gift as thanks for your hospitality, and in payment for the procurement of these texts."

For a man that had everything, this was so beyond anything he could hope to even craft for himself that Tony couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He didn’t usually do gifts. They didn’t usually interest him—

But wow. Wow, this was utterly amazing.

“Thanks,” he said, obviously buttered up well enough to spend the rest of the trip back to his Tower (after diverting Rogers again) showing the two aliens how to work a tablet computer to access the information they wanted.

It didn’t take long to be stuck in traffic with Thor already obsessing over cat videos, however, for the novelty of teaching American culture to go by the wayside.

Loki let Thor divert onto less meaningful means of entertainment, but he began to absorb the knowledge this thing could give him in the way that only a scholar with centuries of experience could do. He read faster than any human could, the text reflecting off the green of his eyes as he flicked ever quicker through the pages from war to economy to language and onwards.

There was so much, they had changed so much, done so much, in just a short number of years, and he was in love. This chaos was what embodied his soul, and he was addicted to learning about it now.

He barely noticed when they reached the Tower, having to be steered in with a hand on his elbow and his eyes never leaving the screen, muttering to himself in the snow-hissed language of his people when he found something new and interesting to dive into.

Steve was already there waiting when they arrived, looking both rumpled from the wind on the drive over and utterly perfect. "Hey-- took your time, Tony."

“We were picnicking in the park with pigeons,” Tony said by way of explanation as he lightly pushed Loki in the direction of the couch while Thor roared joyfully as a cat tried to fit itself into a box much too small for it.

Tony left them both there and nodded for Steve to join him in the kitchen, Pepper already there and wearing practically nothing as she sat with some of the designs that Tony had worked on before he left. She did smile at Steve and pull her legs further under the table.

“There’s fresh coffee—“

“We have aliens over for dinner, Pep,” Tony interrupted. “That okay? Good. I’m thinking Thai. Have you tried Thai yet?”

"Of course we have aliens over," she muttered, rolling her eyes as she eyed Steve who was blushing furiously at the level of undress that Pepper was in and had already averted his eyes to the wall. "And a gentleman, apparently, which is nice for a change."

It was a tease, she loved Tony even if he could be single minded and caught up in his own things. He was a good guy underneath it all, and she had every intention of being in this for the long haul.

"You didn't think to call ahead and give me a chance to not be in just my underwear?"

“Did I not do the work you sent over? I did the work. JARVIS told me it was clogging the system so I worked on that and then we out to stop CNN from covering the alien invasion in Central Park,” Tony said by way of explanation.

“You did part of the work and stopped half way through your revision. I know it’s been awhile since you’ve been in school but, at best, this is an incomplete,” Pepper said, giving Tony a look that was supposed to mean that he should take Rogers somewhere other than the kitchen so she could get up and get changed, but all it really did was call Tony over for a kiss.

“Plus, that’s not your underwear. I wish you would have breakfast in your underwear—”

“Tony,” Pepper warned and the older man rolled his eyes, grabbed the whole coffee pot, and nudged the beat red Rogers out of the kitchen.

“You need a girlfriend. After I finish my homework and we keep the world safe another few times, I’m setting you up. I think Pepper might have a sister or a cousin or something.” Yeah. He honestly didn’t know.

Steve ran a hand through his hair and focused on trying to cover the redness in his cheeks. It was hard, he had such trouble with pretty dames even now, even after Peggy had showed him that they were just like anyone else to talk to. He went all stumble footed and his tongue felt too big.

"--you don't even know if your girlfriend has a sister?"

That sounded a bit wrong.

"Tony, that's a dynamite lady in there, you ought to pay more attention to her."

“That’s why we work. She doesn’t need me to pay that much attention to her,” Tony said, which absolutely sounded wrong to Steve. Shouldn’t a guy like Tony, or any guy for that matter, want to? He couldn’t understand the older man’s mentality, and though they had developed an infuriating friendship since they’d gone out for pizza the last time Thor and Loki came for a visit a few months before, he would probably never understand him.

Steve just wasn’t sure about dating. How could he be when a lady took up so much time and he didn’t have the luxury of giving anyone that? That, and he was still that kid from Brooklyn. It didn’t matter what he looked like now, he was socially awkward and had no where near the talent his best friend had growing up when it came to talking to women.

Luckily, now was not the time for discussion. Tony had DUM-E follow them out with coffee cups and he offered the drink to the aliens sitting on the sofa, their knees touching. Thor was massive, but Tony was pretty sure he could give Loki his space if he wanted to. He poured them both drinks and almost before he finished getting Steve one, Thor had downed the liquid and shattered the cup on the floor. “Another!”

Tony groaned. “No, you broke your mug. No more for you. That’s the rules,” he said.

"If you had read more of the culture of Midgard, you would have known that." Loki chided as he took a sip from his own coffee and immediately wrinkled his nose at the bitter taste of the hot liquid, offering his mug to Thor instead. "Mortal manners dictate that you do not destroy their earthenware, it must be reused."

He finally set his tablet off to one side and nodded to both Tony and Steve in greeting, having been too caught up with what he had been learning before to properly offer the words he ought to have done.

"You must be wondering why we have returned to Midgard so soon. There is another Infinity Gem here, and we must retrieve it. It is vital that these all be gathered into safe protection before Thanos can recover them himself."

Tony could see the red flags immediately. Another one of those things? That seemed really unlikely. He smirked, shooed DUM-E away from his truly, horrifyingly messy attempt at cleaning up Thor’s initial mug of coffee, and dropped into the long black couch facing the one Thor and Loki were seated on.

“I’m just going to call bullshit right here,” Tony said, elbows on his knees as he put his mug on the coffee table. He didn’t bother with coasters. This was glass he had designed himself for cellphones and it didn’t smudge. “There just so happens to be another super dangerous item that you need my help breaking you into and you hope Rogers here will play Boy Scout and give you permission to take it?”

He glanced up at Steve and shrugged, as if to apologize without actually apologizing.

“It is true, friend Stark,” Thor said, following suit by putting his mug on the table as well. Gently. He paused to see if there would be praise and when there wasn’t, he straightened up again. “As amusing as your tiny animal portraits are, we have another task to complete. There are six gems in all. We have found another on Midgard. The others are being sought out and obtained as well.”

"It is important that Thanos does not regain control of any of these gems, his name as the Destroyer is aptly given as he has sent several worlds into ruination and extinction. Should he turn his gaze to Yggdrasil's branches, I fear that many lives would be lost and some realms ash by the time he was driven back."

It would be better to avoid any war at all.

"We have already met the one who holds the gem we seek, he is one of your mortal sorcerers, though I believe a large part of his magic comes from manipulating objects which have been infused with seidr."

His 'sling ring', his cloak, his amulet; none of this was innate power within him, only the discipline of how to use the objects provided.

“Why aren’t you hanging out trying to be a Magician’s Assistant then?” Tony did not believe in magic, not the way that other people might. That had little to do with Loki’s obvious skill because Tony did have an open mind when it came to somethings and he believed that science, ultimately, was the explanation behind everything Loki could do. But here on Earth? No way. Tony had the technological edge on everything (or so he assumed because Wakanda was not open to the rest of the world) and he would know about competition.

HAMMER was done. AIM had more or less been reigned in.

Steve glanced at Tony, so willing to write off what these two were saying, and tried to combat Tony’s blasé attitude with a little more clarity. “If you know the person who has another gem, what is it we can help with?”

Thor, decidedly, like Rogers much better than the impossible to understand Stark that Loki seemed amused by or at least fond of. “We have chosen Stark as our Guide. It would be unseamly not to abide by his role as such.”

Tony narrowed just one eye and bunched his brows together. “Guide, huh? Sounds… Like a lot of work. Fine. Who are we looking for? J, invite the guy to dinner.”

"We are seeking Doctor Stephen Strange, who we last saw in London."

Loki at least remembered the town name that they had found themselves in, where Stephen Strange had attempted to find out why they had come from another realm to invade Midgard and its peaceful isolation from everyone else.

"Doctor Stephen Strange was a renowned surgeon," JARVIS supplied. "However, he has since left the medical profession after an accident damaged the nerves in both of his hands, rendering him unable to perform surgery."

"His hands seemed well to me."

None of this made a lick of sense to Tony. He ran his hand through the back of his hair long his neck, glancing from Thor to Loki. “Do you... what? Need me to break into where he lives? I’m really not cool with stealing. As a prank, it’s fine. I’ll give you that. But we really need to stop breaking the law here. It’s bad for my brand.”

He wasn’t even sure if he could trust Steve to back him up here. The guy was a loose canon sometimes and really unpredictable.

And normally? Tony liked that.

“J, do we even know where this guy is?”

The AI took a few long moments to answer and it wasn’t anything Tony wanted to hear. “Sir, it seems as if there is no such man as Stephen Strange. I have isolated his image on the street just yesterday but it appears he no longer exists.”

Tony groaned. “Why is everything so weird lately?”

"I will be able to find him when we are close, the proximity of the stone he carries will call to me. But in order to get close, perhaps it might be wise to consult with other Midgardian sorcerers?"

Loki looked expectantly at Tony and Steve, waiting for them to provide the names of any sorcerers that they knew of. Surely Stephen Strange could not be the only one.

"Uh-- I didn't even know we had magic at all," Steve said apologetically. "This is a whole new ballpark for me."

"How can you not be aware of magic on your own realm?"

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