Chapter Text
Tony wonders if shawarma would go well with the iron taste of blood in his mouth.
His head has that deep ache that comes with getting the wind knocked out of you one-too-many times, his eyes feel honest-to-god chapped by the dust and dirt that seems to be caking his - well, everything, and oh god, his muscles are still shaking with exhaustion of being pushed a mile or two over their limits. People don't understand - flying is a fucking core workout. And the recoil from the repulsors? Ugh, J needs to remind him to fix that in the next mark.
Yeah, he could definitely deal with a day off tomorrow, a bath, and to invent a sort of lotion for his eyeballs, cause fuck no, he's not dealing with this again. So sure, he's rambling about god-knows-what, and his mouth has definitely disconnected from his mind (blame the adrenaline, blame the exhaustion, blame the shock), and he feels rather than initiates the thunk of setting his helmeted head back down on the pavement, feels it reverberate through his thoroughly aching bones and feels the vibrations echo back in a growl from his stomach. Hey, yeah, that schwarma place could be good. Sure, his usual go-to food has been the all-American cheeseburger, but hey just flew a nuke into space so why not live a little?
Oh god, he just flew a nuke into space. He just had a nuke plastered to his back. He just flew into space. He saw what they were up against and how much more was coming and that's still out there, in the pitch black -
Tony opens his eyes again, staring at the cheap blue of the New York sky, seeing it as an unsuspecting flimsy blue tissue paper holding back the nuclear blast and the goddamn alien army and -
And he's still rambling, his mind is running Mach 2, while is body is crumbling and decaying into the damn dust that seems to be everywhere, and it takes a century for his eyes to lock on to another's, to look away from the fragile sky about to drop on them -
Rogers settles back, and Tony is able to look him in the eyes, acknowledge the depth of this blue, and see the giddy exhaustion underneath that can only come post-battle, echoing the relief of his earlier statement of "We won."
"It's not over yet."
Well fuck, Thor, Tony really doesn't want to get up. Yet he knows exactly what the others are looking at, exactly what is waiting for them in his tower.
Okay, fine, one last thing. But if Thor doesn't think that Tony is going to have JARVIS track down that shawarma place and bribe them to fire up the grill or whatever you make shawarma in, then Meat Swing is definitely overestimating Tony's self-control.
"And then Schwarma after."
Of course, that's when everything goes to shit.
Well, not at first of course.
Cap calls the others to assemble from who-knows-where and to the Tower, where Tony's scans confirm Loki to still be lying in a Loki-shaped hole (And isn't that going to be a fun one to explain to the contractors?).
"If it's all the same to you... I'll have that drink now," the weasel weasles out, and Tony feels as tense as Clint's taut bow, despite the polite request. But hey, the man has a point - a drink sure does sound great. But he'd be damned if he's going to cater to the well-wishes and pretty-pleases of his Newest Stressor on a Long Line of Cardiac Issues.
"All right. Good one. Enough standing around, I'm closing up this door for later," Tony remarked, breaking the silence and the whole tension of holding-the-crazed-god-who-just-attempted-world-domination-at-gunpoint - or is it arrow point? He'd have to ask Clint later. "By the way, feel free to clean up," he throws not-so-pointedly in Roger's direction. God, it's going to take forever and a half to bring his Tower back, and that's ignoring the PR nightmare that'll haunt him every night -
- suddenly a night sky on the other side of the wormhole, stars that while Tony doesn't pointedly search for familiar constellations, he knows are unfamiliar, and obscured by an army larger than he could have thought, than they can handle, than he can stop -
Okay, let's grab that drink then.
The team patters off, Rogers and Thor securing Loki, Hulk aggressively staring them down, Barton being the only other logical one and going for the bar, Romanoff -
"Uh, magic wand?" She asks, holding it with the ease of one used to the danger of a knife, even if the knife is larger and golden and mostly likely imbued with some alien magic - Even Tony wants to back away from the scepter, to lock it up, to never feel the manipulation of magic (he wants to spit that word) like he did on the helicarrier ever again. Lucky him, for having an all-powerful AI at his disposal to already get started on just that.
"STRIKE team is coming to secure it," he replies, with impeccable timing. Fuck, what's that guy's name? Sit-on? Sit-com? Sit-something arrives, obviously not as important as Tony's drink as he grabs another tumbler down for himself.
"By all means," she hands the scepter over to... fuck, what is his name? She hands the scepter over to SHIELD Agent Number 32-or-whatever with a warning of "Careful with that thing."
"Unless you want your mind erased," Clint adds in, passing Natasha her drink. "And not in a fun way."
"We promise to be careful," SHIELD Agent - Sitwell! Named Sitwell deadpans, setting it in its case. Tony watches with a bit too much care, only finishing the last finger of his - scotch? Fuck if he knows, as long as it takes the edge off of today - when he can be sure that the scepter is loaded and secured into the ever-trustworthy control of SHIELD.
Good fucking riddance.
And yet, that's not when everything goes to shit.
Tony, scepter aside, some alcohol keeping his system alive and functioning, secures the Tesseract, makes snide comments with Barton, confirms with the others that he's taking them out for lunch, and is able to catch another glimpse of a patriotic and uniformed ass before things go to shit. Tony gets to see Cap off to coordinate search-and-rescue before things go to shit. Tony gets to have a minor crisis at Loki's near perfect instantaneous mockery of Cap coordinating search-and-rescue before things go to shit. Tony is able to feel a too-small dose of smug satisfaction at watching Loki get taken aback by the sudden gag before things go to shit. He's even able to save Pepper - bless her soul - and SI contractors a little bit of property damage by convincing the Hulk to take the stairs rather than strain the elevator, before things go to shit - or at least, he tries. Of course, his polite request of "all full, buddy" is met with a Hulk-fist in the elevator door, but still, that's got to be an easier fix than replacing the elevator cables, so that's going to have to count as one of the few wins today.
But still, things go to shit.
And Tony would like to officially blame it on Alexander Pierce.
Honestly, all Tony was expecting was a quiet lunch - dinner? what time is it anyway? - then seeing some friends off through space, before taking a long shower and well-deserved nap before bed. In no way was he expecting to have to pull rank in his own building (his name is plastered on the skyline, for fucks sake - okay, well, maybe not anymore but that's beside the point), suffer a random and definitely-not-at-all scary heart complication, and be a new subject in some experimental mythical defibrillation.
Yeah, things really can go to shit fast.
"That worked a treat," He says, grabbing Thor's arm and definitely not feeling anything resembling jealousy or attraction at the god's bicep. Still catching his breath, eyes wide and ensuring the comforting blue light below his peripheral to still be comforting and glowing blue. The fuck - "That - that was crazy!"
"I had no idea if that was going to work!" Thor exclaimed, both ignoring their post-battle exhaustion (or at least, Tony's exhaustion. Can gods get so winded so easily?) in favor of the new found adrenaline boost from yet another near-death experience. All things considered, things still haven't quite reached peak gone-to-shit-iness.
Because, of course, the case is missing, and of course, Loki is missing, and of course, Rogers finds himself unable to coordinate search-and-rescue, knocked out trying to stop Loki's escape.
Shit.
It takes another 47 minutes for things to calm back down to whatever-the-hell level of calm that follows an alien invasion, but Tony's heart gets back into gear, Steve is found on an upper level slightly disheveled (despite falling stories and through glass) and artfully sliced across one of those impeccable cheekbones (again, despite falling stories and through glass), and the Hulk has successfully calmed down by a few feet after making some poor agents piss themselves in a stair-infused tantrum.
Sure, Loki escaped with the Tesseract, and Secretary Who-The-Fuck-Cares is demanding justice, but Tony is now just past hungry, a tad over irritated, and a step beyond tired. He's ravenous, just had a near-death experience following an inevitable-death experience, and he still doesn't know what shawarma tastes like.
So, he borrows with a definite intent to return an off-duty SWAT van ("Look, buddy, you can either hand me the keys, or let the mythical god and 90-year-old legend watch you get beat up by a ballerina assassin while I hotwire this POS."), and piles the so-called Avengers through -
Well, actually, they only get a few blocks down before the brigade and destruction completely block the road.
"Alright, everybody out. Gotta burn off the whatever-we're-gonna-eat before we eat it." Tony calls, leaving the van door open. He has to walk around the van, around what seems to be excess fallen concrete infrastructure, and over a demolished car in order to make it to the street.
The dust still covers everything, washing the world in a dry gray. It seemingly settles, both in his lungs and in the quiet around him. Tony turns around, sees the team following the path up and over: Thor's hammer is tied back to his belt, his face set in a scowl, and his cape somehow still flowing effortlessly despite the stuffy, stale, dusty air. Romanoff and Bruce are helping Barton down the hood of the car, his arm being held protectively to his chest. St- Rogers is already next to Tony, cowl pulled off his head and hanging around his neck. His shield is still attached to his arm, and the blood on his face has elegantly dried in a slight dribble.
"Just a few blocks east, right?" Rogers confirms, not even bothering waiting for Tony to answer before continuing forward.
It feels... different, being outside. Outside of his armor, out here. Like, he lost his HUD screen but gained a few more human senses to experience it all. Without the whir of the repulsors or J's tones in his ear, the whole experience is too quiet, too daunting. Too real. They sidestep fallen lamp posts, step over chunks of buildings, avoid the Chitauri carcasses. Tony falls behind, distracted by the wreckage of a Chitauri flying scooter? chariot? fancy-alien Segway? Everyone else is silently walking ahead, and Tony can't tell if it's because they're all listening for any remaining pleas of help behind the distant groaning of collapsing construction, or a private form of mourning of the battle. Or maybe it's neither, and there's just nothing that needs to be said.
Whatever it is, they find their way to the shawarma place, Tony already confirming the manager's business and wiring what he feels like is a generous enough tip to reconstruct the joint and pay for the labor of keeping it open for the - Avengers? Team? Vagabond vigilantes? them. Thor helps the two remaining employees pull the table out from where it was wedged into the wall, and Tony watches as Steve personally thanks them for their service and helps pull the food out. One by one, they collapse into a chair and into the food. The silence reigns, but Tony finds it feels more... companionable than he would have thought. There was no blame, no arguing. There was no fight, out there or in here between each of them. The silence was exhaustion, was accounted to the post-fight numbing shock as the body recouped enough to catch up to the brain. The employee, who definitely deserves a raise, by the way, Tony should really look into that, started to sweep the broken glass of the storefront, and the light magic of silence broke with each sound of the bristles against the tile.
"We can't just let Loki get away," and of course, of course, it's Steve that has to acknowledge reality and throw them back into the real world. Of course, it's the soldier who finishes one battle to find himself already geared up for the next one. And, look, Tony already got his orders, alright? From himself. Orders to eat strange food, take a damn nap, and then get the suit back to working order (cause it's still out there, the freakin armada he saw is still out there, god knows how far away, still coming -), and he sure as hell is not going to change his orders for the revered Stars and Stripes right here, decorated with a dab of sauce in the corner of his mouth.
"The Captain is right. I fear where Loki might have already gone, through the power of the Tesseract. While he - "
"No, no," Tony interrupts. "It's shawarma time. No plan-discussing when it's shawarma time."
"Look, Stark, I don't like it either, but we need to-"
"Mhmm. Nope. Shawarma is sacred, shawarma is our day off, everything else can wait a goddamn hour," Tony shakes his head, frowning, refusing to yield and ready to renew the patent on Stark Stubbornness.
Steve's perfect brow wrinkled in Disapproval with a capital D, and wow isn't that a fun look to inspire in a national icon?
"Loki has just slipped out of custody and we re-"
"Shut it, Rogers," Tony accentuates with a pointed finger at Spangles and a sudden slam of his shawarma on the table, spraying lettuce or whatever this green stuff was out of his burrito? Pita pocket? What is shawarma? Why is that making him so freaking frustrated? "Loki won't be found any sooner, and I know for a fact that you're going to need to eat like, five more things of shawarma or shawarmans or whatever you call it -"
"It's just shawarma."
"Thank you, Bruce," the finger features his gratitude before going back to pinpoint his frustration at the Captain. "You're going to need to eat like five more shawarmas for the calories or you'll get hangry - yes, I just conjoined hungry and angry, get with the times - and Brucey-Bear over here is the only one I care to see hangry. And he's officially off the clock for the day."
The silence returned. Tony wasn't sure if it was an embarrassed silence following his lettuce-slash-green-stuff outburst, or an awkward silence at the acknowledgment of the green-stuff-slash-rage-monster. God, grow up people.
But then, the sweeping resumed, and damnit. Tony was this close to grabbing that broom and throwing it out into the street.
"Tony already has JARVIS running the same model scan we used earlier to track down the Tesseract. If Loki has gone anywhere on this planet, we'd know," Bruce explains. Tony just stares at his shawarma. He shawarma-stares.
"Aye, and I too need rest if I am to be able to search for Loki amongst the other dimensions," comes Thor's agreeance. Tony comes to the conclusion that he still doesn't know what shawarma is, and despite his genius intelligence, won't be able to decipher what meat and region this comes from until after a solid nap and a mug or three of coffee.
"Great," Tony picks his shawarma up again. It's food, it's not half bad, and he's hungry after all. "It's decided. We shawarm, we sleep, we hit snooze on the task of 'kick-ass' for 32 hours."
The sweeping continues, now a background rhythm to the once-again strangely-companionable silence. Not half bad.
Barton adds, "Is it shwarma, with an s-h-w, or shawarma, with an a before the w?"