Still Holding On

Chapter 47

"Sir, Thor has just arrived," JARVIS announces.

Tony glances at the younger god warily. He doesn't seem too excited about it, but he doesn't seem upset, either. He looks back at the engineer, but he doesn't make a move to get up. Neither does Tony. Watching TV for the last few hours has been much more fun than either of them expect a visit from Thor to be.

"How long do you think he'll stay?" Loki asks.

"No idea," Tony says. "Maybe we'll have spaghetti for dinner in a couple hours and then call it quits."

"I suppose that's alright," Loki says. He doesn't sound all that sure.

"I'm thinking we can play a board game or something," Tony adds. "Instead of just talking. That might be insufferable."

"For hours on end?" Loki nods. "It most certainly would be."

So, with this settled, they both get up and head out to find Thor. It's easy to do; he hasn't moved from the lobby by the time they reach it. The big smile on his face doesn't quite match the smaller one on Loki's, but they still share a brief hug in greeting. It's a nice start to what will hopefully be a nice day.

"How have you been, brother?" Thor asks.

Loki shrugs awkwardly. "I've been alright," he says. "And you? How is Asgard?"

"Asgard is doing well," Thor says. "We've nearly put an end to the uprisings in the other realms. Everything is beginning to return to normal — or as normal as it can, given the circumstances."

"That's good," Loki says. He paused, brows knitting together in confusion. "How are you traveling between realms? We destroyed the bifrost."

"Oh, it's been fixed," Thor says, waving that off.

That only seems to confuse Loki more. "How?"

"Do you remember learning of the Tesseract when we were young?" Thor asks.

Loki nods slowly. "A lost relic from the vault."

"We found it on Midgard," Thor tells him. "We were able to use it to rebuild the bifrost."

Tony looks between the brothers warily. Thor doesn't seem to think much of this, but Loki certainly does. His thoughts are sealed away, but his confusion is clear on his face.

Instead of giving any questions or concerns he doubtlessly has, though, Loki just says, "I'm glad you could fix it. I would hate to be the reason Asgard was cut off from the rest of the Nine Realms."

"Fortunately, it was fairly easy to rebuild," Thor says. "And now the Tesseract is safely locked away. It's been lost on Midgard for far too long."

Loki nods slowly, processing that. He looks between the two men. "Is that how you know each other?"

Thor furrows his brows. "What do you mean?"

"Did you meet Tony in your search for the Tesseract?" Loki asks. "And Director Fury and Natasha Romanoff, I presume?"

Thor glances at Tony uncertainly. "I did." His tone is a little more closed-off than it had been. If he's hoping to hide from Loki the fact that he's hiding something from Loki, he's doing a piss-poor job at it.

"I think Fury had it," Tony adds. "I don't know; I wasn't all that into it." That's a nice, vague, non-indicting statement, right?

Still, Loki seems confused. He's silent as he takes that in, and Tony and Thor share a look. Was this a bad idea? Tony certainly wouldn't have brought up the Tesseract so casually, but he wouldn't have thought that of all things would blow this open.