Fic: Stuck (MCU, Loki/Tony)

[bookishwench]

Loki looked ready to murder someone. Seated at the bar in Tony’s penthouse, he had one arm up on the countertop, his fingers drumming in a slow, deadly cadence as his whole body slumped forward in a perfect image of frustration.

“It’s been over two hours,” he said, aggravated huskiness creeping into his voice. “Why is this still a problem?

The problem was the current center of attention for everyone else in the room. Tony, still locked firmly inside the Iron Man suit, was standing completely motionless in the middle of the room as the rest of the Avengers stared at him.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Bruce said. “None.”

Three hours before, the group of them had been doing battle against a very strange alien race that even Thor and Loki had never before encountered. Their weapons used a kind of highly concentrated electricity, and Tony had taken a direct hit from two of them simultaneously. Loki’s heart had gone into his mouth at the sight of his lover falling from the sky like a stone, but in a handful of seconds, the suit had begun functioning again without any other obvious problems.

The rest of the fight had gone well, and the aliens were vanquished. As was usual, the heroes returned to the tower, each to their own floor, to shower, eat, and sleep. However, there was usually a different protocol Tony and Loki followed. After landing on the roof, Tony usually shed his suit as Loki waited, watching with anticipation, then the pair of them would enthusiastically celebrate their victory on any and all surfaces for the better part of the night. The post-battle endorphins were a thing of beauty, and what had begun more than a year ago with something they had both considered a bizarre, one-night aberration had slowly turned into not only a recurring tradition but an actual relationship. When Steve had accidentally blundered into the kitchen one morning after a particularly challenging battle and found the pair of them making waffles together, their cover was blown, in no small part because they both happened to still be naked at the time.

Slowly, the rest of the Avengers had come to accept the pair of them, though Loki remained the least trusted member of the team until three months later. That was when Steve found Bucky and brought the recovering former Soviet assassin to the tower. He almost never spoke. Added to that, he had an unnerving tendency to sleepwalk. It wasn’t unusual for any of the tower residents to wake up at three in the morning to find Bucky in their room, standing perfectly still, his metal arm gleaming in the moonlight, staring at them in the dark. Even FRIDAY couldn’t figure out how he got there, and locks did nothing to stop him. Steve apologized so many times for the nighttime wanderings that even Tony had rolled his eyes and waved it away, but Bucky still made everybody’s skin crawl. This had the unexpected side effect of boosting Loki’s popularity from least trustworthy to second least trustworthy. It wasn’t much, but he’d take it.

Currently, Bucky was sitting next to Steve on the couch, not commenting on anything that was happening, and considering what had been going on, that was odd enough. When Tony had landed after the battle, everything had seemed fine. He’d raised his face plate and walked into the penthouse where Loki was waiting for him, sprawled across the couch where Steve now sat. However, halfway into the room, Tony had simply stopped.

“See something you like?” Loki had asked, raising an eyebrow at him suggestively.

“Uh, yeah, and the view’s great, but that’s not why I’m standing here,” he said, frowning.

“Then why are you?”

“I don’t know. The suit’s locked up,” he said, and his face contorted as he tried to move. “Nope, nothing, nada. FRIDAY? What’s up with the suit?”

“I’m running diagnostics now, boss,” she said, and there was a pause during which Loki rolled his eyes and dramatically flopped down on the floor. “It seems to be the result of the two different charges hitting the suit simultaneously. The emergency back-up power came on, but when it ran out of juice, the suit just… stopped.”

“Okay, so, we’ll fix it,” Tony said. “Get me out of it.”

“Now,” Loki said, trying to throw a threatening look at the disembodied voice.

“That’s just it. It won’t open. I’ve been trying every system command, and nothing is working,” FRIDAY replied, her tone miffed.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got a boyfriend who knows magic, then,” Tony said, grinning at him. “Babe, get me out of here.”

“As you wish,” he said, gathering his magic to teleport Tony directly to the bedroom only to find the spell was deflected. He frowned. “Something’s wrong.”

He tried again, this time aiming to move him only out of the suit and no further, but again, he was blocked.

“Okay, this is getting disturbing,” Tony said, moving his eyes around since he couldn’t turn his head.

“The aliens must have some sort of anti-magic protection, or perhaps magic of their own,” Loki said, looking at his hands, then shaking them as though expecting that to clear the problem. Of course, it did nothing.

“Uh, I think we’re going to need some backup here,” Tony said. “FRIDAY, send in the troops.”

Slowly, since most of them had already collapsed into bed and had just been awakened from a sound sleep, the others arrived. Steve had tried pulling the suit apart, but he couldn’t budge it. Bruce had brought in highly technical equipment from the lab and hooked the suit up to it, trying to reboot it, but nothing happened. Thor even attempted hitting it with Mjolnir.

“Okay, Fabio,” Tony had said, his head vibrating. “I think you knocked the fillings out of my molars, but let’s not try that again to find out.”

“I could attempt summoning lightning,” Thor suggested.

“I’d rather not end up cooking like a Thanksgiving turkey in this thing,” Tony said.

“Last time, it increased your suit’s power,” Thor reminded him.

“Yeah, but I still had power to begin with. I get the feeling this would be more like having lightning hit a nine iron while I’m golfing instead,” Tony said. “Nat, what have you got?”

She looked up from her laptop.

“The suit’s completely dead, Tony. I can’t hack my way in or get it to respond at all.”

“Wait, lemme try,” Clint said. “I’ve got an idea.”

He walked over to Tony, thumped the chest of the suit a few times with his fist, nodded, then walked to the opposite side of the room. Pulling an arrow from his quiver, he squinted at a spot just to the left of center on Tony’s chest. He fitted the arrow onto his string, pulled it taut, and drew in a breath. Then, he released the tension.

The arrow flew across the room with a whistling noise, pinging against the spot Clint had marked, and dropped to the floor. Absolutely nothing happened.

“Well, that’s all I’ve got,” Clint said, shrugging. “Next?”

“Why are you even on this team?” Tony said, giving him look of supreme annoyance.

Even Wanda had given it a go, her magic swirling around the suit and looking for any potential weak points.

“Aside from his face, he’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox,” she said. “It’s good the face plate is up. If it were down, I doubt he’d be able to breathe.”

“Okay, Bruce, you want to call a Code Green here and see if you can do something?” Tony said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “I might hurt you.”

“Really starting not to care,” he said.

“What about a blowtorch?” Steve suggested.

“Not worth it. I made the suit to withstand garden variety attempts to force me out of it,” Tony said.

“I could try hitting you with my shield?”

“I’m not looking forward to getting hit with vibranium, but if it works, I won’t complain. Much.”

Steve picked up the shield, stood a few yards back, and threw it at the suit with as much power as he could.

It clattered to the floor, landing next to Clint’s splintered arrow.

“See?” Clint said. “That’s what it feels like!”

“We could always try unplugging it and plugging it back in,” Nat said, a subtle smirk curving her lips.

At that point, Loki had poured himself a very large brandy and thrown it down his throat in one go, winding up in his current position, still drumming his fingers.

“Maybe we could call NASA in the morning?” Bruce suggested.

“Nah, I’ve got better toys than they do,” Tony said dismissively.

Loki squeezed one hand into a fist and hit himself several times on the forehead before rounding on Tony and yelling, “My patience is at an end! If you do not get out of that suit right now, I swear I am going to copulate with Captain Callipygian over there!”

He was pointing directly at Steve, who looked both confused and embarrassed, when suddenly, Bucky moved.

Everyone except Tony took a step back as his boots stomped loudly towards the bar. He stalked behind it and opened a drawer, rummaging through it until he found what he was looking for: a can opener. He vaulted over the bar, landing next to the frozen suit, and inserted the pointy tip into a seam under the left arm. He twisted it viciously. Immediately, the suit fell to pieces, leaving Tony standing in his undersuit, his mouth hanging open.

“How did you do that?” he said. “That’s impossible!”

Bucky continued to scowl at him, then moved his gaze to Loki, who turned three shades paler than usual. Without breaking eye contact, Bucky walked backwards across the room, returning to the couch. He grabbed Steve around the waist, paying no attention to the squeak the other man made. Bucky hoisted him into the air and slung him over his shoulder like a red, white, and blue sack of potatoes.

“MINE!” he snarled.

“Understood,” Loki said, nodding vigorously.

Bucky growled, baring his teeth. Then, still hauling Steve, he plodded to the elevator, continuing to move backwards as though expecting Loki to try to stop him. His mechanical hand firmly clutched Steve’s buttocks as he pushed the elevator button and waited for the door to open. Everyone spent an uncomfortable ten seconds not knowing where to look, then the pair of them got in. As the doors shut, Steve could faintly be heard saying, “Bucky? Uh… down?”

“That looks like an excellent idea,” Loki said, throwing Tony over his shoulder and immediately vanishing.

“Okay,” Bruce said into the ensuing dead silence. “I’m… going somewhere else now.”

Awkwardly, Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Wanda, and Thor wandered over to the elevator. Thor pushed the button, and they stood around waiting for it to come back up.

“Screw it,” Wanda finally said. “I’m taking the stairs.”

An outpouring of agreement broke the tension, and amidst exclamations of a “A can opener?” “I still think lightning would have done it.” “Why does everyone pick on my arrows?” “No, seriously, a can opener?!” they trudged off to bed.