Reading Time: 115 Minutes

Title: Even Perfect Strangers
Author: enigmaticblue
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action Adventure, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Bruce Banner/Tony Stark
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: *No Mandatory Warnings Apply.
Author Note: Inspired, in part, by the What If…? episode where Tony Stark lands on Sakaar.
Beta: thomasina75
Word Count: 83,104
Summary: Tony falls through a rip in space; two years later, he runs into someone both familiar and strange. Together, they might just find their way home—and save the universe in the process.
Artist: Twigen
Artist Appreciation: Many thanks to Twigen for the gorgeous cover art!

---

---

Part II: Leaving Las Vegas (Whoops, sorry, Sakaar)

Sakaar, Earth year circa 2017

The truth is, a person can get used to just about anything given enough time and limited options, and Tony is used to life on Sakaar.

His workshop is currently full of builds in various stages of progress. He has ten vehicles—some he’s constructing, some he’s repairing. He also has half a dozen robots, two large ones and four that are meant to be used as a group. And there are three suits of armor, each with a slightly different purpose.

Tony has micro transmitters that allow for better control of the robots and his suits than the headset. With the robots and the vehicles, Tony has cemented his spot as the Grandmaster’s chief engineer.

Before the Hulk arrived, before Tony had a place to retreat, he’d just been trying to keep his head above water. These days, he almost enjoys his life.

Almost. He still wants to get back to Earth, but Tony isn’t willing to leave Scrapper-142 or the Hulk behind. They’d be fine on Sakaar without him, of course, but Tony isn’t ready to let go of those connections.

Besides, what if Bruce returns? There’s no indication that he will, but Tony knows that Bruce is still in there somewhere; the Hulk has said as much.

Tony puts the finishing touches on Scrapper-142’s vehicle first, and then turns to the swarm he’s building. He’s refined the programming so they can operate independently, without him needing to control them. His last swarm had been used in the melee to great effect, and now he needs a bigger one.

The door chimes, and Tony calls, “Enter!”

Scrapper-142 strolls through the door. “Do you have it finished?”

“Of course,” Tony assures her. “It’s ready for you, and I included a couple of additional surprises, too.”

Scrapper-142 sits backwards on a chair. “Great. How’s everything else going?”

Tony waves to the workshop. “I’m staying busy.”

“Yeah, and it’s been months since you’ve talked about getting off this trash heap,” she points out.

Tony shrugs. “The Hulk is here, and he’s not interested in leaving. You’re here, and you don’t want to leave. That leaves me with two reasons to stay, and I still don’t have a pilot or a ship, for that matter.”

“And Big Green being here doesn’t make you reconsider going back?” she presses.

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s not like the Hulk has been real forthcoming about what brought him here in the first place.”

That’s part of it, too. Folks on Earth think Tony is dead, and he has no idea what the political landscape looks like, or if he’d be welcomed back. Or that Bruce would.

“He might not be welcome to return,” she points out.

“Maybe,” Tony allows. “I’m fine here for now. Maybe that will change in the future.”

Little does Tony know that things are going to change very soon.

~~~~~

Tony glances in the mirror, checking his reflection. His hair is longer than it had been when he first arrived, and Tony brushes it back from his face. He finishes trimming his goatee and wipes away the stray hairs with a wet cloth.

He’s been invited—read: commanded—to put in an appearance at one of the Grandmaster’s parties tonight, and he knows Scrapper-142 will be there as well.

Tony’s outfit is red and gold tonight, probably a nod to the armor he’d arrived in. Tony doesn’t doubt that the Grandmaster has chosen it for him deliberately, as a pointed reminder that Tony is stuck here.

He moves through the red and white hallways with confidence, although he’s not stupid enough to lower his guard. Tony steps through the doorway to the ballroom and snags a glass from a passing waiter. Tony’s face is familiar, so his entrance doesn’t make a stir.

A few people glance his way, but their eyes slide right over him. Tony begins to move around the room, greeting people idly, making his way over to Scrapper-142, who’s drinking out of her ever-present bottle.

And then Tony sees someone out of the corner of his eye, and not someone he ever thought he’d see again.

Tony sips his drink, his eyes narrowing, as he considers his options. He’s not going to take Loki’s presence lying down, that’s for sure.

Loki is wearing green and black leather, long, dark hair swept back from his face, and from the way he’s moving around the room, Tony suspects that he’s trying to weasel his way into the Grandmaster’s good graces.

It doesn’t appear that Loki has spotted him yet, and so Tony continues heading towards Scrapper-142. There are several contenders who stop him, wanting an update on their commissioned vehicles.

Tony doesn’t want to cause a scene, so he stops when Three Knives calls out. “How is my car coming?” he asks gruffly.

Tony pastes on a smile. “Should be finished tomorrow, just in time for the race. Come by in the afternoon.”

Three Knives grunts. “You sure the controls will work for me?”

“I can assure you that not only will the controls work for you, they’ll work best for someone with three arms,” Tony replies.

“They all say you do the best work,” Three Knives says reluctantly. “I guess that’s why you charge so much.”

“I charge what the market will bear,” Tony counters. “I’m in the business of building and selling, and a lot of that money goes into the materials.”

Three Knives nods his massive head slowly. He has reptilian features and a wide mouth filled with sharp teeth, and his rough skin is a mottled brown and green. Three Knives has been able to survive the Hulk on multiple occasions, and he wants to try his hand at the races. He blows air through his nostrils. “I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

Tony keeps an eye on Loki during the conversation, and then avoids everyone else on his way to Scrapper-142’s side.

“What’s up?” she asks. “You look like you have a secret.”

“I think I found your next target for the arena,” Tony says. “He’s a god—or something like it—so he might actually be able to stand up to the Hulk.”

Scrapper-142 perks up at that. “Truly? Why are you telling me?” she adds suspiciously.

“Because it’s the same asshole who brought the Chitauri army to Earth, and is at least semi-responsible for me being here,” Tony says. “And I might be holding a grudge.”

“Fair,” Scrapper-142 allows. “Where is he?”

Tony nods in Loki’s direction, where Loki seems to be edging his way towards the Grandmaster.

“I’ll take care of this,” Scrapper-142 says. “Do you think he would recognize you?”

“Oh, pretty sure,” Tony says. “He tried to use his scepter to brainwash me, and we were nose-to-nose.”

“Then you distract him, and I’ll sneak up behind him,” Scrapper-142 says.

Tony tosses back the rest of his drink. “You got it.”

He starts moving through the crowd, and then the Grandmaster calls out, “Mr. Metal Mojo Man!”

That puts the spotlight on Tony, drawing Loki’s attention, although his expression is more confused than anything else. By now, though, Scrapper-142 has swiftly made her way through the crowded room, moving like a ghost. She tosses the obedience disc, and it adheres to the side of Loki’s neck.

Loki slaps his hand over the disc. “What the hell?”

“What do we have here?” the Grandmaster asks, rising from the couch he’d been sitting on and swanning over to Tony’s side. “Did a prize just walk itself into my party?”

Loki is pulling at the obedience disc. “What is this? I insist that you remove it!”

In response, Scrapper-142 activates it, and Loki falls to the floor, writhing in pain. “He’s gone up against the champion before and survived,” she says, standing over Loki’s prone form. “He’s from Asgard.”

“Ass-gard, huh?” the Grandmaster asks, his dark eyes glittering with cruel humor. He crouches down next to Loki. “I have to admit, while the robots have been playing well, variety is the spice of life.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Loki grits out. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah, you’re a jumped-up asshole with delusions of grandeur,” Tony snaps.

Loki stares at him. “You. You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Tony has the satisfaction of saying.

“Topaz!” the Grandmaster calls. “Take him down to the challengers’ cells.”

Tony takes a step back, feeling a sense of satisfaction. Loki will be in the cells where he belongs, and Tony will get to watch the Hulk hand him his ass.

“Nicely spotted,” the Grandmaster says. “That one is slippery, and I think he’ll provide a good show.”

“Better make sure the guards know that he can do magic,” Scrapper-142 says. “Specifically illusions.”

The Grandmaster waves at one of the remaining guards on. “Tell Topaz to put him a suppression cell. No need to risk our guest getting out without providing a show.”

The guard salutes and leaves, and Tony shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.

“Well, a magic user,” the Grandmaster says, rubbing his hands together. “He, uh, he’ll need to be carefully managed, but we haven’t had one of those in a while. What did you say his name was again?”

“Loki,” Tony replies, wondering if Loki is going to get his own ridiculous nickname.

“Lo-Lo, huh?” the Grandmaster says. “I like it.”

He gets distracted by one of the other guests, and whatever he wanted to say to Tony is forgotten in the excitement.

“How good did that feel?” Scrapper-142 asks.

“Pretty fucking great,” Tony admits. “Although, I’m curious as to how or why he turned up here.”

Scrapper-142 shrugs. “What does it matter? Lots of things and people wind up on Sakaar.”

“Maybe, but it begs the question as to whether he’s going to be the last Asgardian we see,” Tony points out. “Last time I saw Loki, Thor wasn’t far behind.”

Scrapper-142 shrugs. “Let the big guy soften him up, and then he might be interested in answering some questions.”

“Good idea,” Tony replies. “You want to blow this popsicle stand?”

“I’ll bet Hulk would let us use his pool,” she replies.

They both know that the Hulk has alcohol in his quarters, so they slip out of the party and head in that direction.

Scrapper-142 just waltzes straight in, saying, “Hey, Big Guy.”

“Angry Girl,” Hulk rumbles. “Thought you had to go to party.”

“We did go to a party, and we caught someone trying to sneak in,” Scrapper-142 replies.

“I’d hate to spoil the surprise,” Tony begins.

The Hulk growls. “Hulk hates surprises.”

“Do you remember Loki?” Tony asks.

Hulk grunts. “Puny god.”

“Yeah, well, that’s who tried to sneak in, so you’ll have the chance to beat him up again,” Tony says. “You’re welcome.”

The rumbling sound coming out of the Hulk’s chest is clearly laughter, and then he shucks off his shorts as Scrapper-142 helps herself to one of the bottles lining a shelf.

Tony takes off his clothes and slides into the pool next to the Hulk, accepting the glass that Scrapper-142 offers.

They often end their evenings together here, naked and up to their necks in hot water. Scrapper-142 is an objectively beautiful woman, but she’s made her disinterest clear, and Tony has zero interest in the Hulk.

It’s just three unlikely friends in a hot tub together, away from the politics and maneuvering of the Grandmaster’s tower.

~~~~~

Tony isn’t going to miss this gladiatorial contest. No way is he going to miss Loki getting thrashed by the Hulk.

He catches the eye of Scrapper-142 who’s sitting in her ship above the arena, and she’s clearly not willing to miss this either.

The Grandmaster greets Tony with a lazy wave. “Couldn’t miss it, huh?”

“Not for the world,” Tony admits.

The Grandmaster lounges, and Tony supposes he should be grateful that the Grandmaster is such a raging narcissist. He’d never even suspect that Tony isn’t in awe, nor does he seem to care as long as Tony sticks to their bargain. The Grandmaster is a creature of id and whim.

Tony sits down on one of the chairs and props an ankle on his knee. One of the hangers-on perches on the arm of the chair and titters at him. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Metal Mojo Man?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Tony replies. “I just want to see the show.”

Marjeet enters the box. She’s a regular now, since she supplies Tony with a lot of the specialty parts he needs for his robots.

“Tony,” she murmurs. Thankfully, she’s agreed to use his actual name. She’s about the only one other than Scrapper-142 who does.

“Good to see you,” Tony replies. “You got my message about the fight?”

“You promised a show,” Marjeet replies, perching on the arm of his chair, thus providing something of a shield.

“I did,” Tony agrees. “We caught an Asgardian sneaking into one of the Grandmaster’s parties, and they tend to be the hardy sort.”

Marjeet smiles. “So I’ve heard. Your robots are wonderful, Tony, but—“

“There’s a certain spectacle they lack,” Tony supplies. “I understand.”

The Grandmaster stands to make his announcement, calling Loki a Prince of Asgard, which is probably directionally accurate. Given the boos that follow Loki’s entrance, though, the crowd is looking forward to the “Prince of Asgard” getting trounced just as much as Tony is.

Loki steps into the arena, and the cameras catch his defiant expression as he draws twin daggers. He clearly has no idea what’s waiting for him.

“Oooh, he looks feisty!” the Grandmaster coos. “This should be fun.”

“Fun for me,” Tony murmurs.

The Grandmaster raises his hands. “And now—your champion!”

Tony leans forward, and the Hulk emerges into the arena with a triumphant roar. He watches as Loki’s eyes go wide with clearly telegraphed shock and horror, and he backpedals several steps before he can stop himself.

The Hulk lifts his arms and turns to the crowd, basking in the adulation.

Tony smirks, remembering when he’d told Bruce that he needed to strut; Hulk doesn’t have that problem.

Loki’s form seems to flicker, and the Grandmaster’s smirk widens. “Bet he didn’t think I had protections up against his illusions. We can save those for another night.”

The Hulk turns without warning and swings his ax. Loki manages to dodge it by dropping to the ground and rolling. From there, it’s clear that Loki has decided that his best bet is to dodge and hope he can wear the Hulk out.

Unfortunately for Loki, that’s not going to work out so well for him.

The Hulk manages to backhand Loki while he’s in the process of dodging the Hulk’s ax, and the Hulk drops his ax to snatch Loki up by the ankles. He begins flinging Loki around like a rag doll, slamming him against the ground again and again.

After half a dozen of these strikes, Hulk drops Loki and roars, “Puny god!”

The crowd responds with a cheer. On the ground, Loki is twitching weakly, so he’s still alive, which means he’ll live to fight another day.

“Well, that was quite the spectacle,” the Grandmaster says, clapping his hands together. “I have to thank you and Scrapper-142 for bringing him to my attention.”

“My pleasure,” Tony replies. “I don’t know how his ‘magic thing’ works, but it might make the melee more interesting.”

The Grandmaster snaps his fingers. “I, uh, I like the way you think. Are you sure you don’t want to participate in the games?”

“I’m good,” Tony says. “You know me, I’m more of an ideas guy.”

The Grandmaster waves a hand. “Well, it was fun tonight.”

Tony excuses himself from the box, and heads for the Hulk’s quarters. He has an open invitation, and Tony shucks off his clothing and slips into the hot water.

The Hulk enters his quarters about fifteen minutes later, and he quickly follows suit with a grunt in greeting.

“Did you have fun?” Tony asks.

The Hulk just bares his teeth, and Tony takes that as a yes.

“I have to say, Big Guy, I don’t think that Loki is the end of it,” Tony says. He’s learned that the Hulk doesn’t really mind if he talks, even if he rarely participates in the conversation, at least in a meaningful way. “Last time I had to deal with him, Thor wasn’t far behind.”

The Hulk surprises him by saying, “Trash heaps.”

“Good point,” Tony says. “If Thor does show up, he’ll wind up on the trash heaps, just like everyone else. Guess I’d better start doing my own reconnaissance.”

The Hulk just grunts at that.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like we were best friends, but I figure I can get a better idea as to what’s going on from him,” Tony adds. “It’s unlikely that Loki will answer my questions.”

“This is why you ask me to get information,” Scrapper-142 says as she enters. “And it’s not great.”

Tony leans back to look at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I went to see Loki in the cells after the fight,” she replies, beginning to take off her clothes. “I was right. The Big Guy softened him up, and he was convinced that I might be able to help him escape if he told me the truth.”

Tony feels a slight misgiving. Tony has no desire to help Loki, if he’s being honest. Loki had been behind the Chitauri invasion, and therefore at least partially responsible for Tony winding up on Sakaar.

Still, there’s a reason that Tony doesn’t like the gladiatorial games, and he’s often thought that he wouldn’t want his worst enemy to be forced to participate.

A better man probably would help him escape—or wouldn’t have pointed him out to the Grandmaster in the first place.

“What are we looking at?” Tony asks as she slips into the water.

She shrugs. “An old enemy has returned to Asgard. I doubt there’s anything we can do about it. I doubt there’s anything we should do.”

“And if Thor shows up?” Tony asks.

She raises her eyebrows. “Are you really the patron saint of lost causes? Because you claimed not to be a hero.”

“I’m not,” Tony says quickly. “I only asked since Thor may appear.”

“Makes no difference to me,” Scrapper-142 says, although Tony doesn’t think she’s quite as blasé as she appears. “Asgard is a lost cause anyway. Everyone knows the prophecy.”

Tony knows just enough to be dangerous when it comes to Asgard, so he’s not willing to argue. What he is going to do is keep a weather eye out for Thor. Maybe Tony can keep Thor out of the arena.

He and Thor had been on the same side during the Chitauri invasion, so Tony feels a little bit of responsibility to look out for him.

Besides, Tony remembers his first time in the arena, and it’s a lot. He might wish it on someone like Loki, but not Thor.

“I guess we’ll see what happens, other than watching the Big Guy flinging Loki around,” Tony says. “Although that was plenty entertaining.”

The Hulk grunts. “Hulk smash puny god.”

Tony’s pretty sure that means the Hulk had a good time, too.

Scrapper-142 grins. “Yeah, you did.”

Sakaar, Earth year circa 2017

Tony pulls his hood up over his head as he steps outside, the clean scent of the Grandmaster’s tower giving way to the distinctive odor of the trash heaps. No matter how long Tony is on the planet, he’s never going to get used to the smell.

Today, he doesn’t need any specific components. He’s looking for Thor for the sixteenth day in a row, and he has no idea how long it’s going to take for one of the portals to spit out the God of Thunder. If it ever happens.

Tony knows Thor might not wind up on Sakaar, but he thinks there’s a good chance. He also knows that his best bet, if Tony is going to stay on Sakaar, would be to bring Thor to the Grandmaster. Tony isn’t quite willing to do that, so he’s just going to hope that he can coax Thor into playing along.

There are items and people being spat out of the portals constantly, and maybe something will come out of the portal that Tony needs. It doesn’t even have to be Thor.

And then one of the smaller portals disgorges the familiar form he’s been looking for, and Tony fires up his repulsers. Tony isn’t quite ready to debut his new armor, built out of parts of the one he arrived in and scraps of metal painstakingly pieced together. It’s not pretty, but he can at least fly, and it should protect him from the scavengers.

Tony hears the alarm blare after Thor lands with a bounce, and that’s going to bring the cannibals running. Smart money is on Thor, but the trash denizens hunt in packs, and they’ve been known to overwhelm strong fighters before.

Of course, that means Scrapper-142 will likely intervene, just in case she can ransom him to the Grandmaster. Tony is going to have to play this very carefully.

“Are you a fighter? Or are you food?” one of the denizens asks as he pulls off his mask.

“I’m just passing through,” Thor replies, and Tony is relieved to see that his expression is wary at least. He’s not letting down his guard.

Tony has been on Sakaar long enough to know that he needs to nip this in the bud—preferably before Scrapper-142 arrives.

He starts firing on the cannibals indiscriminately from behind Thor, and he calls, “Point Break! Can you still fly?”

“Stark!” Thor exclaims. “I thought you were dead.”

Tony keeps firing, and then begins to target the cannibals’ ship. They won’t want to lose their transport, and they start backing up, although not quickly enough for Tony’s taste.

“Can you fly?” Tony demands. “Because we need to get out of here.” He hears the familiar whine of Scrapper-142’s engine. “Now.”

“I don’t have Mjolnir,” Thor admits.

Tony doesn’t have the power that he would in the full suit, so he asks, “Can you jump, then? We need to get away from here.”

“Yes,” Thor says.

Tony keeps up his barrage. “Then go! I’m right behind you.”

Thor springs over the cannibals as Tony continues his barrage, then he flies after Thor. He sees Scrapper-142’s ship as it approaches, but he thinks they can get out of the area and to a place of relative safety before she sees them. At that point, Tony can assess the situation and the best strategy going forward.

Thor takes several long leaps, much as the Hulk might have done. Tony is able to keep up easily, and when Thor stops to catch his breath, Tony lands next to him.

Thor stares at him. “We truly believed that you perished.”

“Yeah, that seems to be the prevailing theory,” Tony says, keeping an eye out for any additional enemies. “I went through a rip in space and wound up here, probably a lot like you did.”

Thor blows out a breath. He looks much the same as he had years ago, when Tony first laid eyes on him. “What is this place?”

“Sakaar,” Tony replies. “It’s a trash heap run by a megalomaniac who calls himself the Grandmaster. Anyone who lands here typically ends up as food for the masses or in the arena.”

Thor gives him a suspicious look. “What does that make you?”

“I build things for the games, but I did my time duking it out,” Tony replies. “I’ve been watching for your arrival since your brother landed here a few weeks ago.”

Thor’s expression turns hopeful. “Loki? He’s here? He’s alive?”

“Pretty sure he’s regretting his life choices right about now, since he’s survived a few rounds with the Hulk, but yeah,” Tony says. “We really need to get somewhere else before Scrapper-142 decides to take you in as a prize.”

Thor frowns. “I’m no one’s prize.”

“You say that now,” Tony counters. “But if someone manages to stick an obedience disc on your neck, you’ll be singing a different tune. Trust me, it’s far better to find a way to approach things on your own terms.”

Thor suddenly seems to realize the import of what Tony had said a few seconds ago. “Wait, Banner is here, too?”

Tony snorts. “I didn’t say Banner; I said ‘the Hulk.’ There’s a difference. Now, did you not understand that we need to get somewhere safe?”

Thor frowns. “I will wait to ask the rest of my questions. Lead the way.”

Tony leads him back to the tower, trying to stay under cover as much as he can, knowing that Scrapper-142 is going to show up sooner or later. He’s never really challenged her for a prize before, but he knows that he’s right to do so in this case.

If Thor enters himself in the arena, he can probably get enough resources to survive. More than that, though, with Thor here Tony thinks he might finally find a way off Sakaar if he can convince the Hulk to leave, too.

But in order to do that, Tony needs to plan carefully.

There are a couple of side entrances where the guards don’t pay much attention to his comings and goings, even when Tony has a guest. Tony leads Thor through the market to one of those entrances, and then to his workshop.

He’s somehow unsurprised to see Scrapper-142 waiting for them, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “You stole from me. I’m the one who finds contenders for the Grandmaster.”

“I found him first,” Tony counters. “Or I rescued him first, take your pick. I told you Thor might show up, and I was watching for him.”

Thor is frowning. “I’m no one’s prize.”

“You would have been mine,” she snaps. “If I’d gotten to you first. Seriously, Stark?”

Tony shrugs unrepentantly. “He’s a friend from Earth. I figure if he willingly goes up against the Hulk in the arena, you’ll have a chance to make just as much betting against him. The Grandmaster might even let the contest play out.”

She shakes her head. “Not a chance. The Big Guy is too entertaining when he wins.”

Thor is clearly starting to become disgruntled. “Hey! I’m standing right here.”

“So you are,” Tony replies, starting to take off the armor. “But we’d be better off if Scrapper-142 is on our side.” He turns to her. “And I think it might be easier if Thor is a willing participant in this.”

She makes a face. “Fuck, you’re not wrong. Fine.”

Tony turns to Thor. “Are you willing to fight the Hulk?”

“What? Why?” Thor asks. He sounds bewildered.

“Because to get by on Sakaar, you have to bring something to the table,” Tony explains as patiently as he’s able. “Scrapper-142 brings in contenders, I build shit. You’ve got brawn.”

Scrapper-142 hums under her breath. “You know, if he claims to have come here just to fight the Hulk, that could work in our favor.”

“True,” Tony says. “So, what do you say, Point Break?”

Thor still looks bewildered. “I don’t understand anything.”

Tony sighs, realizing that he needs to back up. “Sorry. Look, your brother arrived about three weeks ago, so we know a little bit about what’s going on with you. What you need to know is that the Grandmaster controls everything that happens on Sakaar. We’ve both been here for years now, so we have a little leeway to make sure you keep your freedom, because ordinarily, Scrapper-142 would take you down to the cells, and you’d have an obedience disc on your neck.”

Thor frowns. “What would that do?”

“Shock you painfully until you complied,” Tony replies. “I had one for a hot minute, and it sucked. I’m trying to spare you that, but I need you to play along.”

Thor looks between them, and then his shoulders slump slightly. “I am a stranger here, and I’m willing to follow your guidance. My father is daad, and I must find a way to save my world.”

Tony has no interest in Asgard, but he sees Scrapper-142’s eyes narrow slightly. “What do you mean Odin is dead?”

“He died,” Thor says slowly. “Hela has taken over Asgard.”

Scrapper-142 closes her eyes briefly. “So, that’s how two Princes of Asgard wound up on Sakaar.”

Thor shrugs, looking dejected. “She broke my hammer, and exiled us. I must find a way to go back. But what do you know of Odin?”

“Stark told you,” Scrapper-142 replies cagily. “Loki turned up weeks ago, and I had a few questions for him.”

“As to going back to Asgard, leaving Sakaar is easier said than done,” Tony adds, changing the subject. He can tell that Scrapper-142 doesn’t want to reveal her identity just yet. “I’ve been here for years now.”

“Yes, but you’re you,” Thor says. “You aren’t the God of Thunder.”

Tony pauses. “Okay, granted, but it’s not as if I haven’t tried to leave. It really is harder than it looks.”

Granted, the attempt had been made before the Hulk’s arrival, and Tony’s become more comfortable on Sakaar than maybe he should. But Sakaar has a way of sucking up so much time and energy that you don’t have anything left past survival.

Tony glances at Scrapper-142 to see where her head is, and he can see the muscle ticking in her jaw. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” she finally says. “I owe Hela a reckoning, but…”

“We have time to figure that out,” Tony says. “First, let’s figure out how we’re going to introduce Thor to the Grandmaster.”

Thor is staring at her in suspicion, and what looks like growing disbelief. “Who are you?”

“None of your business,” she snaps.

“You know much of Asgard, and you seem to know Hela, when I only found out about her existence recently,” Thor says stubbornly. “I would know who I’m dealing with before agreeing to go along with your schemes.”

Tony glances at her, seeing that she still doesn’t want to tell Thor her identity, but he knows they need to give him something. “You should tell him. We need to work together in this.”

In response, she yanks up her left sleeve to reveal the tattoo Tony has seen on many occasions. He had no idea what the significance of it was, or if it had any. Thor clearly recognizes it, though.

“You’re a Valkyrie,” he exclaims.

She gives him an insincere smile. “There. Now you know. Moving on.”

Tony snorts. “Let’s talk about how we’re going to introduce Thor to the Grandmaster in a way that avoids the melting stuck, and stay on his good side.”

Scrapper-142 raises an eyebrow. “Does he have a good side?”

“Good question,” Tony admits. “Let’s pretend he does just for the sake of argument.”

Scrapper-142 shrugs. “I suggest you bring Thor to the party tonight and let him charm the Grandmaster.”

Tony nods. “I’ll do that. See you there?”

Scrapper-142 smirks. “Someone has to pull you out of any trouble you get into.”

“What about saving Asgard?” Thor asks. “The longer we’re here, the longer my people are suffering.”

“First things first,” Tony cautions him. “We’ll have more room to maneuver if we can introduce you to the Grandmaster without you getting slapped with an obedience disc.”

Thor shakes his head. “And what about you?” he asks Scrapper-142. “Is that also your answer as a Valkyrie?”

“I said I owed her a reckoning,” Scrapper-142 snaps, and Tony remembers when she’d threatened to kill him if he even thought of that word. “I didn’t say I wanted to join your campaign, so kindly go fuck yourself, your majesty.”

She stalks out, and Tony says. “Good job. I haven’t seen her that pissed off—well, ever.”

“You don’t understand, Stark,” Thor says hotly. “The Valkyrie were some of the greatest warriors Asgard has ever seen. In fact, I wanted to be a Valkyrie, until I learned they only take women.”

“And what happened to them?” Tony demands. “You mention them in the past tense.”

Thor shifts. “They all fell to the enemies of Asgard. I never thought I would meet one.”

“So, maybe she has a reason for not wanting to throw herself into another battle for Asgard,” Tony replies. “I suggest you hold your opinion until you have a little more information.”

Thor appears troubled at that, but he finally asks, “And what of my brother?”

Tony realizes that Thor might not entirely approve of his tactics where Loki is concerned, but then he shrugs. He has no regrets about not letting Loki run around doing whatever he liked on Sakaar.

“Your brother tried sneaking into one of the Grandmaster’s parties, and he got caught,” Tony replies. “Plus, he’s a god, so he can stand up to the Hulk for multiple rounds, and we were running low on actual contenders.”

Thor frowns. “I don’t understand. You—what did you do?”

“Nothing he wouldn’t have done in turn,” Tony replies. “And the last time I saw him, he was trying to take over my planet.”

“So, pitting him against the Hulk was revenge?” Thor asks.

Tony shrugs. “It was self-preservation. When you’ve been on Sakaar as long as we have, you might begin to understand. In any case, he’s still alive and in one piece down in the contenders’ cells. You can see him after I introduce you to the Grandmaster tonight.”

“Why not now?” Thor asks.

“If you want to find yourself with an obedience disc on your neck, rather than competing on your own terms, be my guest,” Tony replies impatiently. “If you don’t want to follow my lead, I won’t stop you, but I reserve the right to say I told you so later.”

Thor doesn’t look terribly happy with that response, but Tony is tired of trying to explain the way things work. He didn’t have anyone to explain things to him when he crash-landed here. No one helped him, and here he is sticking his neck out for Thor.

And Thor is a god. Tony could have easily left him to his own devices, and Thor would have been fine.

Thor makes a grumbling sound. “What is it that you do here?”

“Like I said, I build shit,” Tony replies. “And other people buy it so they can compete in the races. Sometimes I build robots to fight against the Hulk.”

Thor starts to wander around Tony’s workshop, and Tony says, “Don’t touch anything! Some of the things in here are commissions.”

Thor at least tucks his hands behind his back as he looks around.

“Do you know anything about what’s happening on Earth?” Tony asks.

Thor glances at him. “I can tell you nothing specific. After our battle against the Chitauri, I accompanied my brother back to Asgard, where he was imprisoned for his role in the invasion. From there, I fought many battles across the nine realms, to protect them from danger.”

Tony pauses as he checks over one of his vehicles. “And that didn’t include Earth?”

“No, as far as I knew, Midgard was not in danger,” Thor replies. “I did return briefly, but I did not seek news of the Avengers. My apologies.”

Tony shrugs. “You couldn’t have known. I take it your brother escaped.”

Thor nods. “And then my sister returned after my father died. She destroyed Mjolnir, and we could not stop her. We were traveling via the Rainbow Bridge when it was destroyed, and we were catapulted into space.”

“Explains why you both landed here, then,” Tony comments. “Since that seems to be a feature of Sakaar.”

“What is that?” Thor asks.

“Lost things make their way to Sakaar,” Tony comments. “And it’s pretty fucking hard to get off the planet.”

Thor frowns. “I saw the portals.”

“There are only a couple that work both ways,” Tony says. “And I already tried one of them. It spit me right back out here.”

“And the other?” Thor asks.

“What? The big one?” Tony asks. “Based on my calculations, most of the ships in use here would be torn apart.”

There’s a long pause, and Tony eventually glances at Thor, who appears confused. “Couldn’t you ask Banner?”

“Well, I could, if Banner was at all interested in coming out, or if the Hulk was interested in taking a back seat,” Tony says with asperity. “You’ll see.”

Thor stares at him helplessly. “What happened to you?”

“I got a lesson in futility,” Tony replies, and he knows his tone is probably harsher than it should be. “And it started with redirecting a nuke and getting stranded on a trash planet.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor says with disarming sincerity. “I’m sorry we did not know and did not mount a rescue mission.”

Tony looks away. “You said it. You couldn’t have known.”

“But I’m still sorry,” Thor says.

Thor’s sincerity touches something deep inside Tony, and he steels himself against it. He can’t afford to be soft.

“Well, sorry only gets you so far,” Tony mutters. “Look, tonight at the party, just remember that the Grandmaster isn’t exactly human, and he rules this planet with an iron fist.”

“Like my father on Asgard,” Thor muses.

“If that’s the analogy you need to draw to behave appropriately,” Tony replies. “He looks like a dilettante, but he’s not.”

Thor nods. “I understand.”

Tony isn’t sure that he does, but he can’t do anything else for him. “I hope you do.”

Thor is quiet the rest of the afternoon until it’s time to leave for the party. Tony stops by his quarters to change into some of his more formal wear—black tunic and trousers with gold accents. “There will be food and drink at the party. If the Grandmaster makes any suggestions that aren’t completely over the top, just go with it.”

Thor looks apprehensive, but he nods. “I will try.”

The large room where the party is being held is full of glittering people. Tony slots right in, but Thor stands out, wearing armor that has clearly seen a lot of wear.

All eyes turn towards them, and Tony hisses, “Look like you belong here.”

“I don’t,” Thor replies.

“Pretend you do,” Tony replies. “After this, there’s the after-party if the Hulk doesn’t kick you out.”

“And what is this?” the Grandmaster says, coming towards them, his arms outstretched. He’s in his standard brightly colored robe and tunic, with trousers and sandals. He’s wearing face paint, as well as nail polish on his fingers and toes.

When his eyes land on Thor, his smile is full of greed.

“Grandmaster, this is Thor,” Tony says. “We were briefly acquainted on Earth, but he’s come to personally challenge the Hulk.”

“A voluntary challenger!” the Grandmaster says in delight, clapping his hands together. “Have you faced off with him before?”

“Once,” Thor admits. “I’d like a rematch.”

“Well, I can certainly market that,” the Grandmaster says. “But perhaps a fresher look if you’re going to be on the big screen. That hair really has to go.”

Thor opens his mouth, maybe to protest, but Tony steps on his foot. Thor’s a god, so Tony doesn’t keep the pressure light.

“I could probably use all the help I can get,” Thor manages to say through gritted teeth.

The Grandmaster puts his hands on either side of Thor’s face. “You’re just adorable. Of course, we have to come up with an arena name for you.”

“He’s the Asgardian god of thunder,” Tony says. “But maybe Lightning?”

The Grandmaster stares at Thor in that way that he has, like he can find a chink in Thor’s armor and dig in deep. “How about Sparkles?”

Thor grins broadly, disarming both Tony and the Grandmaster. “I love Sparkles!” he booms.

That, of course, takes the wind right out of the Grandmaster’s sails. “Well, Lord of Thunder does sound a bit more menacing. I’ll send my grooming people by ahead of the match. Will he be in your quarters, Stark?”

“For now,” Tony replies. “Thank you, Grandmaster.”

“For my favorite engineer, anything,” the Grandmaster replies, and then heads off to find his next conquest.

“How did I do?” Thor whispers.

“Great,” Tony says. “Good job. I need a fucking drink.”

He honestly can’t wait to take a dip in the Hulk’s hot tub, but he has to get through the evening first.

Scrapper-142 sidles up to him out of the blue as Thor makes a beeline for one of the waitstaff that has a tray full of food. “I asked for more food to be delivered to the Hulk’s room.”

“Good,” Tony says. “Because I’m not sure Thor is going to get enough to eat here.”

“If I know Asgardians, he won’t,” she murmurs. “How did the introduction go?”

“Better than I could have hoped for,” Tony admits. “He said he would treat the Grandmaster like he would his father.”

She snorts. “Sounds about right. Better to limit exposure, though.”

“Agreed,” Tony replies. “We’ll join you as soon as we can get away.”

“Better hope the Big Guy doesn’t have a problem with him,” she murmurs.

Tony shrugs. “Figure once we convince Thor to take a dive, the Hulk will like him just fine.”

Scrapper-142 gives him a look. “And how are you going to do that?”

“Appeal to his sense of fun,” Tony replies. “We’ve both seen what a diva Loki can be. I’m betting Thor isn’t all that different.”

She shrugs, suggesting that she’s far from convinced. “It would be better to have a sure thing.”

“Always better to have a sure thing when you can get one,” Tony agrees.

Scrapper-142 slips out of the party, and Thor makes his way back over to Tony, a napkin in one hand, and his mouth full. “These are marvelous!”

“The Grandmaster has good food,” Tony agrees. “But we’ll have more in the Hulk’s quarters.”

Thor swallows. “What of my brother?”

Tony considers the question. He’s not worried about the Grandmaster thinking that Tony has any interest in helping Loki escape. But he might grow suspicious of Thor, and it’s too early for that.

“I’ll take you to see him, but you have to promise to leave him exactly where he is,” Tony insists. “The cell he’s in suppresses his magic.”

Thor grimaces. “I suppose we’d best leave him there, then. You have my word.”

Tony sighs. “All right. Let’s get it over with.”

Tony has some money on him, enough to bribe the guards to allow them to see Loki. Really, seeing Loki isn’t the problem; Tony just knows that Thor is going to insist on breaking him out if they do leave Sakaar.

Hell, Thor is going to insist on breaking Loki out eventually, even if it’s a terrible idea.

But that’s a problem for the future.

“Metal Man.” One of the Grandmaster’s guards is standing outside the entrance to the cells under the arena, and he eyes Tony with some distrust.

“We want to see Loki,” Tony says, reaching into his pocket. “This is his brother.”

The guard grunts. “Loki stays in the cell unless he’s fighting in the arena. Grandmaster’s orders.”

“And all we want to do is see him,” Tony says, cajoling. “Five minutes, that’s all we ask.” He presses a pouch of coins into the guard’s hand.

“Five minutes,” the guard agrees. “Are you racing in the next one?”

Tony shakes his head. “No, but I have six vehicles competing.”

The guard grunts. “Any pointers?”

“I wouldn’t bet against Three Knives this time,” Tony says, knowing full well that Scrapper-142 isn’t racing and she’s the only one who could beat him.

The guard tucks the pouch of coins away. “Thanks for the tip. Five minutes.”

Tony nods. “Let’s go, Thor. He means it.”

Tony has never been down here. The few times he’d been confined, it had been to his quarters or his workshop, and he’d never had reason to visit before.

“Loki!” Thor calls. “Are you here, brother?”

“You needn’t shout.” Loki’s voice appears just behind Thor, who quickly turns. “I’m right here.”

“Are you well?” Thor asks, resting his hands on Loki’s shoulders.

Loki immediately shrugs him off. “Well enough for someone getting thrashed once a week by that beast.” He looks around Thor to glare at Tony. “No thanks to him.”

“You were the one who brought an army to my door,” Tony replies without an ounce of remorse. Loki does look the worse for wear—he has a still-healing black eye, and his hair is in disarray.

Tony tells himself that he doesn’t care. Loki had brought an army to Earth to rule over it. If he has a few bad weeks, it won’t make up for all the death and destruction he’s already caused.

“You’ve seen him for yourself now, Thor,” Tony says. “We don’t have much time if we don’t want to be locked in here. I’ve heard the food isn’t great.”

Loki looks alarmed at that. “You can’t leave me here, brother!”

“It’s just for now,” Thor says soothingly. “I don’t have another choice. I’m going to face the Hulk in the arena tomorrow, and then we’ll make a plan to escape.”

“You can’t leave me here,” Loki says more desperately yet.

He’s going to wear down Thor’s defenses if Tony doesn’t get him out of here.

“Yes, we can,” Tony says. “Thor, stay here or don’t, but I’m leaving now.”

Thor disentangles himself from Loki, and they beat a hasty retreat with Loki shouting after them, “Damn you, Thor!”

Loki tries to follow, but the obedience disc stops him with a jolt at the door. Tony feels a certain reluctant sympathy, remembering just how painful that can be.

The guard has the remote in hand as they leave. “I nearly locked you in.”

“We still had a few seconds,” Tony counters. “But thanks.”

“Got any advice for the fight tomorrow?” the guard asks.

Tony just smirks. “I’ve already given you more than I should have. You know the Grandmaster doesn’t like a lot of insider trading.”

The guard snorts. “Fair enough.”

“What was on his neck?” Thor demands as they leave. “What caused him such pain?”

“That was the obedience disc I mentioned earlier, and you want to avoid those if possible,” Tony replies.

“How have you managed to avoid one?” Thor asks.

“Who’s to say I did?” Tony asks, leading him away from the cells. “I told you that I had one on my neck for a short time, but I fried it with the arc reactor. If I hadn’t, I’d be dead.”

“I don’t understand,” Thor mutters.

“I know you don’t,” Tony replies. “And it took me a long time to figure it out myself. Some days, I’m still not sure I have.”

It’s easier now with the Hulk and a respite from the Grandmaster’s world, but Tony wouldn’t say that it’s easy.

Tony presses his palm against the biometric reader, and the door opens for him. There’s a new feature in the form of a small table near the door, laden with food. “Help yourself,” Tony says, waving at it. “Join us when you’re ready.”

Thor stares at him. “Join you?”

Tony ignores him in favor of shucking off his clothing and slipping into the pool, where the Hulk and Scrapper-142 are already soaking.

“Did you take him to see Loki?” Scrapper-142 asks.

“We got five minutes to see that he’s not having a great time,” Tony replies. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” he mutters.

“Fun to smash,” the Hulk rumbles.

Tony holds out his fist. After a lot of practice, the Hulk has figured out what to do with that gesture, and will return the fist bump gently.

“What is going on?” Thor demands. He’s staring at them with a sandwich in hand, standing at the edge of the pool.

“We’re enjoying our usual evening soak,” Tony replies. “You can join us or not, as you wish.”

“This is what you do?” Thor asks. “You soak in baths, instead of—“

“Instead of what, your majesty?” Scrapper-142 asks archly. “Fomenting a revolution? You have no idea what life here is like, or what we’ve been through, so I suggest you either shut up or get out.”

“You’ll be happy enough for this pool tomorrow after you face off against the Hulk and lose,” Tony says.

Thor scoffs. “Lose? I’m not going to lose.”

“Yes, you are,” Tony replies. “Because if you don’t lose, the Grandmaster is going to slap an obedience disc on you to ensure he can make you lose any fight he wants to in the future. The only way you win is if you play his game.”

“Listen to yourself!” Thor shouts. “Who are you?”

Tony stands up. “I’m Tony Stark,” he snarls, spreading his hands.

“You are not the man I met on Midgard!” Thor bellows.

The Hulk stands up at that. “Metal Man friend. Thor stupid.”

“That’s your cue to shut up or get out,” Scrapper-142 adds. “Your Majesty.”

Thor stands there, staring at Tony, at the Hulk, at Scrapper-142, and then he says, “What the hel is my life?”

Tony sits back down, and Thor starts pulling off his armor in short, jerky motions. “My father is dead, my brother is imprisoned, my world is under threat, and my sister is responsible for it all. A sister I didn’t even know I had!”

Scrapper-142 leans back against the side of the pool, clearly interested in the show.

Tony leans back, too, and so does the Hulk now that Thor is cooperating. Thor finishes undressing, and then slides into the hot water.

And then he lets out a sigh. “Okay, I’m beginning to understand the allure.”

Tony shrugs. “It has its own charms.”

“If I do this, if I agree to lose to the Hulk—“

“No need,” the Hulk rumbles. “Beat Thor any day.”

“If I do this—“ Thor says even louder. “I want an agreement.”

“And what’s that, Your Majesty?” Scrapper-142 asks mockingly.

Thor’s blue eyes are entirely sincere. “Help me defeat Hela and save Asgard.”

“We have to find a way off the planet first,” Tony points out. “Which is easier said than done.”

“Then we find a way off the planet,” Thor insists. “Please. I cannot sit back while my people suffer.”

Scrapper-142 blows out a breath. “Fuck me.”

“Is that a yes?” Thor asks hopefully.

Scrapper-142 shakes her head, but it’s in the way that Tony knows is a precursor to agreement.

Hulk huffs. “Hulk bored. Fight everyone, everyone loses. No fun.”

“It’s a deal,” Tony finally says. “Fight the Hulk tomorrow, take a dive, and we’ll figure out how to save Asgard. Somehow.”

“I would agree to lose the fight, but I don’t know what I’m diving off of,” Thor says, confused.

“Just lose the fight, but make it entertaining for the crowd,” Tony advises.

And now Tony has to figure out how they’re going to get off the planet successfully. He doesn’t think the Grandmaster will allow them to make a second attempt if the first one doesn’t work.

But first, they have to get through the fight.

~~~~

The Grandmaster is as good as his word. He sends his barber to Tony’s room the next morning, intent on updating Thor’s look for the battle against the Hulk.

“Is this really necessary?” Thor asks Tony in a hissed whisper before submitting to the barber.

Tony sighs. “I told you, the Grandmaster is a creature of whim. If he thinks your look needs to be updated, you can fight him on it, or you can get a haircut and thank him for the favor.”

“This place takes from you bit by bit,” Thor mutters.

Tony sighs. “Now, you’re getting it.”

Thor reluctantly sits for his haircut, which ends up short and spiky, as well as the red face paint. He has his armor, but takes the axe being offered as a weapon. It’s mostly for show, since it’s not going to have any effect on the Hulk, but a show is what the crowd and Grandmaster demand.

“What now?” Thor asks.

“Now, we go to the arena by way of my workshop, and you make a good show of it to placate the Grandmaster,” Tony replies, looking critically at Thor’s face paint and armor. “I think you’ll do.”

They walk together to the hall outside his workshop, where Scrapper-142 is waiting for them. She looks Thor up and down. “I like the new look.”

Thor grimaces. “I’m not sure I do.”

“Hair grows back, Your Majesty,” Scrapper-142 says mockingly. “But the Grandmaster is enduring.”

Tony lets them into his workshop, then leads the way to the arena entrance. He and Scrapper-142 leave Thor at the mouth of the tunnel where he’ll enter the arena, across from the Hulk.

“Good luck,” Tony tells him. “Remember, you just need to entertain the crowd. That’s all.”

“Right.” Thor nods, as though steeling himself, and adds, “I’ll see you later.”

Once Tony is certain they’re out of earshot, he says, “I’m going to need you to keep Thor distracted this evening. Take him drinking, put him under the table, whatever it takes.”

Her eyes narrow. “What are you going to do?”

“I need to have a private chat with the Hulk” Tony says. “We have five days until his next fight, which means we have five days until he’s going to be missed, right?”

Her jaw firms. “Five days to get off the planet, then.”

“You and I both know we have one shot at this,” Tony says. “If we fail, the Grandmaster isn’t going to let us live.”

Scrapper-142 shakes her head. “I can’t believe we’re even considering this.”

“We were lucky we got Thor to play ball to this extent,” Tony replies. “And you know it. That idiot is just going to keep trying to leave until he’s dead or he succeeds.”

Scrapper-142 nods, although she doesn’t look particularly happy about it. “Fine. I’ll keep him busy, but we’d better get going. The Grandmaster is going to expect you at least to make an appearance, since you brought him Thor.”

Tony knows she’s right, and they move quickly to the lift that will take them up to the Grandmaster’s box. He’s already warming up the crowd when they make their entrance. Tony tugs on his red and gold tunic to straighten it, then grabs a drink from a passing tray. Scrapper-142, of course, has her bottle.

Tony takes his seat near the front of the box, and Scrapper-142 sprawls out next to him. After a few moments, the Grandmaster has finished his speech, and he sits down near Tony.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it,” the Grandmaster says with glittering menace, suggesting that he would have taken personal offense had they not been present.

Tony just salutes him with his drink. “Had to see the kid off to his first day of school, you know.”

The Grandmaster looks slightly confused by Tony’s comment, but doesn’t ask anything else. Tony has found that it’s sometimes best to drop an inscrutable line to shut the man up, since the Grandmaster doesn’t like admitting when he doesn’t understand something.

The crowd is roaring as Thor makes his entrance into the arena, and Thor plays to the crowd, raising his arms and appearing to lap up the adulation.

Tony doesn’t doubt that he is, although that’s probably going to dim in a moment when the Hulk makes his appearance.

Sure enough, the Hulk leaps into the arena, roaring out a challenge. Thor greets him with outstretched arms, as though he hadn’t just seen the Hulk the night before. “It’s my friend from work!”

Tony has to give it to Thor: when he decides to devote himself to a bit, he really gives it his all.

The idea had been to give the crowd and the Grandmaster a show, and Thor does just that, standing up to repeated blows from the Hulk, dodging others, calling thunder and lightning.

For a moment, it even looks as though Thor might win, and Tony can see the Grandmaster’s fingers twitch, as though he’s longing to activate an obedience disc.

Tony leans forward, willing Thor to do the right thing, the smart thing. If Thor wins, the Grandmaster is going to insist on a way of controlling him.

The house always wins, after all.

And then Thor pauses just an instant too long, and the side of Hulk’s huge fist catches him along the side of his head. Tony has no idea if that actually knocked him out, but Thor goes down and stays down.

The Grandmaster lets out a sigh of relief, and so does Tony, leaning back in his seat and gulping down the rest of his drink.

Their plans absolutely hinge on Thor remaining free of an obedience disc, and the Grandmaster’s control. If Thor appears to be willing to play ball, they buy themselves time and space to operate.

“I’ll make sure he has something to drown his sorrows,” Scrapper-142 murmurs in Tony’s ear.

“That’s quite the fighter you brought me,” the Grandmaster says, all smiles now that the fight has gone his way. “I was a little worried there for a second, but I needn’t have been, isn’t that, uh, right?” he asks Tony. “Mr. Metal Mojo Man is quite the team player.”

Tony smiles through gritted teeth. “Come now, Grandmaster. We all win when we know how the game is played, isn’t that right?”

“Well said,” the Grandmaster replies. “And this Lord of Thunder character, is he willing to play the game?”

“I explained that it would be best for his health if he did,” Tony says.

The Grandmaster’s dark eyes glitter. “And his brother? Perhaps that should be the next match. I heard he’s been to see our dear Lo-lo.”

“After a match with the Hulk, the Lord of Thunder is going to need a few days to recover,” Tony says genially, not wanting to tip their hands so early. “But a contest between brothers would be entertaining.”

Tony has no doubt that Loki would play his role, but if faced with Loki, would Thor?

Clearly, they have to get off the planet before it becomes an issue.

“So glad you see it my way,” the Grandmaster says. “Make sure your friend does as well.”

“I’d like to go congratulate your champion, Grandmaster, if you would excuse me,” Tony says.

The Grandmaster waves him off, and Tony takes his leave, stopping by his own quarters on the way. He has a few spare sets of clothes, and he grabs one of them now. There’s every chance this won’t work, and Banner won’t make an appearance, but Tony’s motto is to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

The Hulk is sitting next to his pool when Tony enters, and he sets the clothing to one side. “Hey, Jolly Green. Good fight today.”

The Hulk grunts. “Metal Man tell Thunder God to lose.”

“I did,” Tony admits readily. “You were there when I did so, in fact.”

“Hulk could have won anyway.”

“I’m sure you could have, but it’s sometimes better to let the Grandmaster have exactly what he wants,” Tony replies. He takes off his clothing and slips into the water. “I know you understand that, even if you’d rather you didn’t.”

Hulk heaves a sigh that seems to come from his toes, and then he starts to remove his armor slowly.

“Do you need help?” Tony asks.

Hulk grunts, and the rest of the armor falls free. The Hulk gets into the pool and stares at Tony through the steam. “Ask.”

Tony knows that the Hulk is smarter than a lot of people give him credit for, and here on Sakaar, he’s had a chance to develop in a way he hadn’t on Earth—at least so far as Tony can tell.

Here, the Hulk is a champion. He’s feted, given everything he could desire, even revered. Tony doesn’t know what brought the Hulk here, but he suspects it wasn’t good.

“I don’t know what brought you here, and I’ve never asked,” Tony begins. “I don’t know that things will be better somewhere else, but I need Bruce if I’m going to get off this planet. I need his brain.”

“Metal Man like Banner better,” the Hulk says sulkily.

“Did I say that?” Tony demands. “Have I ever said that? Have we not spent the last couple of years just hanging out with me not asking about Banner?”

Hulk slumps down into the water. “Hulk protects puny Banner.”

“Exactly,” Tony agues. “You survived Sakaar. You’re doing well here. But right now, if we’re going to get off this rock, I need Bruce. If we don’t succeed on the first try, the Grandmaster will kill us. And if we don’t get off Sakaar, Thor is sure to get himself killed trying.”

Hulk grunts, and then the green starts to recede from his skin, his large form shrinking down to that of a familiar stranger’s. Bruce seems dazed, and pitches forward. He’d have gone under the water had Tony not moved quickly to catch him.

Bruce clutches at his shoulders, Tony thinks mostly out of reflex, and Tony manages to keep him upright. The area of the pool the Hulk had been sitting in has a seat deep enough for him to submerge up to his neck, so Tony pulls Bruce to the other side, where it’s a little more shallow.

Bruce is breathing too rapidly, sounding like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. Tony grabs his shoulders and just waits. “What—where am I?”

“You’re on a planet called Sakaar,” Tony tells him. “We’re safe for right now. We’re in your quarters, so we have plenty of privacy.”

Bruce finally meets his eyes, and the panic is not exactly receding. “Tony? Tony Stark? Am I—am I dead?”

“No, not unless I am, and then we’re in one hell of an afterlife together,” Tony jokes.

Bruce pulls back slightly. “Well, if you’re joking, then we’re probably not dead, or maybe we are, I don’t know.” He starts to look around. “Wait, why are we both naked?”

“Because they don’t believe in bathing suits on this planet, and hot tubbing is generally seen as clothing optional,” Tony says, releasing Bruce’s shoulders. “You good?”

Bruce blinks at him. “I’m naked in a hot tub with a dead man on a strange planet. I have no fucking idea how I am right now.”

Tony grins. “Fair enough. You hungry?”

“Yes, but I would really like to be clothed for the rest of this conversation,” Bruce says with some asperity.

Tony has no body shame to speak of at this point, so he boosts himself out of the pool and grabs a pice of folded cloth nearby to dry himself off, then tosses it to Bruce.

He turns his back to give Bruce some privacy while he dresses, then hands him the spare clothing he brought while Bruce has himself wrapped up in the makeshift towel.

“Okay,” Bruce finally says, and that’s Tony’s cue to turn around. The dark blue of the tunic and trousers suit him, although Tony doesn’t have a spare pair of boots, so his feet are bare.

“Lookin’ good, Banner,” Tony says.

Bruce swallows audibly. “Are these your clothes?”

“Hard to explain that I needed another set for a friend,” Tony replies. “I was already pushing my luck by introducing Thor into the mix.”

Bruce shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” Tony replies. “Look, let’s go to my workshop. It’s not that far from here, and I have some snacks stashed. You can eat something, and we’ll get caught up.”

Bruce stares down at his bare toes. “What about this?”

“Bare feet won’t be the weirdest thing seen around these parts,” Tony replies. “They’ll assume you don’t want to wear shoes.”

Bruce’s expression is troubled, but he eventually nods. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Tony judges it prudent to keep a hand on Bruce’s shoulder as he guides him through the red and white halls of the Grandmaster’s tower and to his workshop. He’s under no illusions: the guards have access to his shop and can let themselves in any time they like. It’s best not to draw suspicion, and this way, anyone passing might think that Bruce is his conquest of the night.

Granted, it would be the first time that Tony allowed anyone in here who wasn’t Scrapper-142, or Thor, but there’s a first time for everything.

He opens the door and ushers Bruce inside, then locks it behind them. It won’t keep anyone really dedicated out, but will at least give them a bit of privacy.

“Sit,” Tony says, waving Bruce to one of the low stools he keeps in his workshop. “You look like you need it.”

He sits, not looking at Tony, but rather at the gray floor. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I’d say at the beginning, but that’s probably a waste of time, considering how much we need to cover,” Tony replies. “So, let me start, and you can fill in any gaps.”

Bruce glances up as Tony rattles his store of snacks. He’d built a container for the things, which are nut-like, but he has no idea what they’re actually called.

“Don’t worry, they’re good,” Tony assures him.

Bruce nods and takes a handful when Tony opens the container. “I’m listening.”

“So, I redirected the nuke and fell through a rip in space,” Tony says. “When I finished falling, I wound up here, on Sakaar. Since then, I’ve been getting by, mostly by building things. Here, the gladiator games and the arena races are all-important.”

Bruce is munching away, and he nods slowly. “The gladiator games is where the other guy comes in.”

Tony nods. “Scrapper-142 found you in the trash heaps and lured you back here with the promise of smashing anything your heart desired. The Hulk has been a huge hit.”

“How long?” Bruce asks.

“I don’t know,” Tony admits. “Time passes differently here. Maybe a couple of years, maybe more time. Maybe less.”

Bruce frowns at him. “You like the Hulk better than me.”

“Oh, my god, I just had this conversation!” Tony says. “No, I don’t. I left you be because the Hulk could survive here. I already tried to get off this planet once, and I nearly paid with my life. The Hulk is revered. He’s safe. But we need to get off Sakaar, and I need you. I like both of you for the record. Pretty much equally.”

Bruce lets out a rusty chuckle. “You’d be the only one.”

“I don’t know, give Scrapper-142 a little time, and she’d probably say the same,” Tony replies. He hesitates, and then gently asks, “Can you tell me anything about how you came here?”

Bruce shakes his head. “I was hunted. They were hunting me, and I let the other guy take over. I don’t—it was different this time, Tony. I told you before it was like an exposed nerve, but I—wasn’t anywhere. I was just gone.”

Tony reaches out and takes a handful of the nut-like things. “Did you have a nice nap at least?”

Bruce chokes on a nut as he laughs, and Tony obligingly pounds him on the back. “Thanks,” Bruce manages, his voice hoarse. “I just—what are we looking at, Stark?”

“I think I would prefer if you called me Tony,” he replies. “And I need your help to get off this planet and save Asgard.”

Bruce frowns at him. “What use am I going to be?”

“At getting off the planet? A ton, I hope,” Tony replies. “At saving Asgard, that’s probably more up to your greener half.”

Bruce shakes his head. “If I let him take over again—I don’t think I’ll come back. It will just be him.”

“I don’t believe that,” Tony says firmly. “You came back for me, when I said we needed you. I’m going to be there, calling you back again. Maybe you and the other guy just need to find the right balance again.”

“What balance?” Bruce demands. “There is no balance between us.”

Tony just raises an eyebrow. “That doesn’t mean you can’t find it. Please.”

Bruce meets his eyes, and he looks worried and sad and hopeful all at once. “Okay. Tell me what you need.”

~~~~~

Coming back to himself after such a long time being out of the driver’s seat—not even in the passenger seat, really, but more like the trunk of the car, isolated from everything—is a trip.

Not a great trip, but a trip nonetheless.

Finding himself in an alien hot tub with a dead man is just—

Bruce doesn’t know what it is. Strange. Uncomfortable. The fact that Tony seems more familiar with the Hulk than him makes everything that much stranger.

But then Tony offers him clothing and snacks, and he’s the same man he’d been during their brief acquaintance. Smart, funny, no bullshit, no tiptoeing around Bruce and his infirmity.

And that same rock solid assurance that when the time comes, he and Bruce—and the Other Guy—will figure it out together.

Maybe Bruce should doubt him, considering the fact that Tony disappeared for so long, but here he is alive, and that just makes Bruce trust him more.

So, here Bruce is, on an alien world, wearing borrowed clothing, his feet bare, and looking at all the data Tony has gathered since his first escape attempt.

“The thing is,” Tony begins, “near as I can tell, Sakaar is some sort of phenomenon. It sucks things in, and it doesn’t let go of them easily. I’ve heard the Grandmaster’s elevator speech, and it’s all about how Sakaar is where lost things are found and loved.”

“You think he’s done something to the polarity of the portals to prevent a two-way journey,” Bruce says. The longer he’s himself, the sharper his mind becomes.

Tony has apparently set up a few make-shift ways to take readings. “This was the portal I tried to leave through,” he says, pointing it out on the screen. “It looks like it goes both ways, but it spat me right back out here again.”

“And this one?” Bruce asks, pointing at the big one that clearly shows energy and mass traveling both ways.

“They call that one the devil’s anus, and I don’t know if we can steal a ship that can stand up to that kind of punishment,” Tony replies. “I have a suit that will help protect me this time, so it’s slightly less of a risk than it was. And, of course, you’re you and the others are Asgardians.”

Bruce understands what he’s not saying. If the ship breaks apart, the rest of them are unlikely to be killed, but Tony would be without the suit of armor.

“Surely, there has to be a ship around here somewhere that would work,” Bruce says. “I think I flew here in a Quinjet.”

Tony shakes his head. “That was scavenged not long after you arrived. Pretty sure I’ve even used components in my builds. No, we’ll have to steal the Grandmaster’s favorite ship, most likely.”

“Is that a problem?” Bruce asks. He has no idea how this world works, or what kind of a risk they’re talking about, but he knows it’s a bigger risk to Tony than it is to him.

Tony sighs and shakes his head. “Only if we fail. I don’t think I’ll survive another attempt.”

The way Tony says it so baldly makes Bruce believe that he’s serious. “Then I guess we have to make sure we succeed.”

“That’s the spirit,” Tony replies with a faint smile. “I wish I didn’t have to drag you into this, Bruce, but there was really no other option.”

“I think I was already in this,” Bruce feels the need to point out. Granted, he hadn’t known he was in it, but it’s not like Tony brought him to Sakaar.

Tony shrugs. “Still. It needed to be said.” He pauses. “The Other Guy hasn’t been especially forthcoming about why you came here. Scrapper-142 just found him in the trash heaps one day. You said you were hunted, but what about the rest of the Avengers, or SHIELD? Surely, they would have helped you.”

Bruce barks out a bitter laugh. “The Avengers did help. Steve gave me enough money to allow me to escape, and Fury got me clean ID. SHIELD was brought down from the inside, though, and the Army wasn’t going to stop until they had me in custody.”

“And the other Avengers?” Tony asks.

Bruce just shrugs. “I don’t know. The Army caught up to me not that long after SHIELD fell. For all I know, they were captured or killed.”

He has to admit that he’s at least a little bit curious as to what had happened to them, but he has no way of knowing.

Tony suddenly laughs, although the sound is without much humor. “It’s like watching my own version of It’s a Wonderful Life without any conclusion.”

Bruce immediately understands the metaphor. “For what it’s worth, I do think it would have been different had you been there.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you,” Tony says sincerely. “You and the rest of them.”

Bruce gives him a look. “If you hadn’t done what you did, New York City would be a radioactive hole in the ground.”

He believes that. Bruce would have sacrificed his own life to do the same, and that’s essentially what Tony had done. No matter what Rogers said, Tony was willing to lay down on the wire.

“Well, I suppose that’s true enough,” Tony says with a slightly rueful smile.

“How long do we have?” Bruce asks. “I assume there’s a deadline.”

“Two days,” Tony admits. “No more than three. If I know the Grandmaster, he’ll start chomping at the bit to pit Thor against Loki, and I doubt Thor will be on board for that.”

Bruce blinks. “Loki is here, too?”

“Yes, and the other guy has thrashed him at least once a week since he arrived,” Tony says with a grin. “But we have time to sleep, and something a little more substantial to eat if you’d like.”

Bruce realizes that he’s exhausted, although he’s a little afraid to go to sleep, worried about not waking up as himself again. After a moment’s hesitation, he says, “Yes to both.”

“Don’t worry,” Tony says, apparently reading his mind. “Think about it: for the last few years, you’ve always woken up as the Hulk. There’s no reason to think you’ll wake up as anything but yourself.”

He claps Bruce on the shoulder. “Come on. Hopefully, the quarters won’t be too tight. Scrapper-142 promised to drink Thor under the table and keep him there tonight, so it’s just you and me. If it becomes a trio, he can sleep on the floor.”

“How are you going to explain me?” Bruce asks as they leave the workshop.

“Most recent conquest,” Tony says easily. “The Grandmaster is pretty happy with me right now. I can get dinner delivered to my quarters.”

“I thought you needed me,” Bruce objects, although he can’t say he wouldn’t perform better after a real meal and good night’s sleep.

“So I do,” Tony replies. “But I also need you sharp, and you’re coming off a long stint asleep.”

Bruce gives him a long look. “And so I need more sleep?”

“Maybe you just need to go to sleep as yourself and wake up as yourself,” Tony counters. “If I’m wrong, just tell me.”

Bruce sighs. “No, you’re not wrong. I’ll be better for it, but if you need me…”

“I need you,” Tony says sincerely. “But we have time.”

Bruce wants to stay awake. He doesn’t want to risk going to sleep and not waking up as himself. Then again, he can feel himself drooping, and he knows that if he can rest awhile, he’ll be in a better place.

“All right,” Tony says. “I’ll get some food delivered, and maybe another pair of boots. We don’t want anyone to get too good a look at you. So, best to move quickly.”

He keeps an arm around Bruce’s shoulders the entire way back to a room that he uses his palm print to access. Maybe the Hulk had received affection during the time he’d been on Sakaar, but Bruce doesn’t remember it. He doesn’t remember anyone touching him this gently in a very long time.

Tony uses what Bruce can only assume is some kind of intercom to call for a meal and a new pair of boots.

“Is there something wrong with yours, sir?” comes the question.

“I spilled something on them that’s eaten away at the leather,” Tony lies easily. “I could use another pair.”

“Of course, sir, right away.”

Bruce finds himself sitting on the edge of Tony’s bed, which is really the only place to sit. “What is your role here?”

Tony shrugs. “Technically, I’m the chief engineer for the Grandmaster. I build racing vehicles, and some robots to challenge the Hulk.”

“Why do you say ‘technically?’” Bruce asks.

Tony sits down next to him. “Because everything on Sakaar is at the whim of the Grandmaster. He could decide tomorrow to throw me in the arena. It wouldn’t work, but I’ve seen enough of this planet to know that there really isn’t a life outside this tower either.”

There’s a frisson of fear in Tony’s voice that Bruce doesn’t entirely understand, but there are a lot of things that Bruce doesn’t get.

“So, here the great Tony Stark is subject to the whims of a madman?” Bruce tries to joke, although he knows it falls flat.

Granted, he probably had seen all he needed to with the garish red and white of the halls.

“Here, I’m just Mr. Metal Mojo Man,” Tony replies with a smile.

Bruce huffs a laugh. “Seriously?”

“Be glad he hasn’t come up with a nickname for you yet,” Tony says.

Bruce manages a smile. “Let’s not give him a chance. But—why haven’t you tried to overthrow him yet?”

Tony gets up, using Bruce’s shoulder as leverage. He rummages in a pile of clothing and pulls something out, then sits back down as he hands it to Bruce.

Bruce unrolls the cloth and sees a crude painting of the Hulk staring back at him. “What?”

“I tried to escape once, and nearly got killed for my trouble,” Tony admits. “It was sheer luck I managed to survive. After that, I knew I’d need to be better prepared if I ever tried again, and then—then you came. And I would go to your quarters and soak in the hot water for a couple of hours with the Hulk and Scrapper-142, and I would go back for more the next day.”

Bruce hesitates. “What are you trying to say?”

Tony puts his hand over Bruce’s. “I’m saying that you—and your greener self—made my life here more palatable, and now I need you to help me find a way off this planet.” The door chimes, and Tony adds, “Right after food and sleep.”

He stands and takes the tray from whoever is at the door, then tosses another pair of boots inside. “Thanks,” Tony says.

The tray holds a bowl of fruit and slices of bread, cheese, and meat. “Nothing fancy, but it should tide you over.”

“It looks good,” Bruce says.

And it is good. Bruce can’t remember the last thing he ate, but the fruit is sweet and sharp, and the bread soft and chewy. He folds it around slices of the meat and cheese and eats in quick bites.

He was hungrier than he realized, and once the tray is empty, he feels his weariness like a heavy blanket.

“Sleep,” Tony says, urging Bruce onto his side. “Like I said, if Thor makes his way back here, he can sleep on the floor.”

He settles down behind Bruce, not touching him, but pulling a blanket up to cover them both. “We’ll figure this out. One way or another,” he promises.

~~~~~

When Tony wakes up, he’s not alone in his bed. Granted, he wakes up alone more often than not on Sakaar, but he recognizes the wild, strange scent of the Hulk.

No, Bruce. And maybe it’s just the scent of whatever cleans his pool or keeps it smelling fresh, but it’s still on Bruce’s skin.

Bruce rolls over, pressing his face against Tony’s shoulder. He makes a snuffling noise, then says, “Tony?”

Tony is pleased that Bruce remembers where he is and who he’s with. “Yeah, that’s me.”

He puts a cautious arm around Bruce. “I do have a place where you can get cleaned up, but no clean clothes.”

Bruce huffs. “I went a lot of days without clean clothes. If I can get breakfast, we’ll call it good.”

“Breakfast I can certainly do,” Tony promises.

Bruce disentangles himself from the blankets, and Tony judges it to be early in the morning. There are still servants and guards around, though, so Tony calls for breakfast for two.

“It’s been a long time, Mr. Metal Mojo Man,” is the reply. “You haven’t had a guest for breakfast in ages.”

“This one is special,” Tony replies. “I might keep him around.”

He figures it’s best to sow the seeds now. If they don’t manage to escape, maybe they’ll still find a way to survive.

And if they think Bruce is just some random conquest, they won’t look too hard for the Hulk until his next match.

The Hulk is known for not really leaving his quarters between fights, so Tony thinks they have at least a couple of days.

He hopes anyway, because they’re on a timeline. Still, Tony is glad they’d taken a moment to rest, because Bruce is emerging from the bathroom, wearing Tony’s borrowed clothes.

The door chime rings and Tony takes the tray from the tower servant. “Thanks. Much appreciated.”

Bruce sits on the bed to pull the boots on, since there really isn’t anywhere else, and Tony joins him, placing the tray between them. The food isn’t much different than what he’d fed Bruce as a snack last night, but Bruce doesn’t complain, eating quickly.

Bruce doesn’t seem inclined toward conversation, but Tony is used to silence from the Hulk, so it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.

“Is this weird?” Bruce finally asks as they finish up their breakfast.

Tony has been thinking through his to-do list while eating, and he blinks at the question. “Huh? Is what weird?”

Bruce raises his eyebrows, motioning between them. “This.”

“To be fair, we’ve been naked in a hot tub together a lot for the last couple of years,” Tony points out. “Eating breakfast together doesn’t even rate.”

Bruce’s expression can only be called incredulous. “That was the Hulk.”

“I think we’ve established that I really don’t distinguish between you two,” Tony counters. “He’s my friend, and I think we’re friends, or we could be. I mean, we’re planning a fairly dangerous escapade together, so we should definitely be friends.”

Bruce stares at him for a few long seconds, and Tony think that maybe he’ll be rebuffed, but then Bruce lets out a rusty chuckle. “Yeah, okay. I’m on an alien planet, and you’re the only person here who’s even a little bit familiar.”

“Thor seems much the same,” Tony offers, standing up and offering Bruce his hand.

Bruce takes his hand and allows Tony to pull him to his feet. “Good for him?”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony says. “He was pretty alien then, too, wasn’t he?”

Bruce shrugs. “I suppose so. I didn’t have much of a chance to talk to him, so I wouldn’t really know.”

“You know what’s not alien?” Tony says, clapping Bruce on the back and leading him out to the hallway. “Science!”

Tony might be a little jazzed to have someone around who speaks his language again.

Bruce smiles slowly. “Really? Science hasn’t advanced here?”

“You’d be surprised,” Tony replies. “I get a lot of my material out of the trash heaps. I can do a lot with an IBM computer built in 1995.”

“It would at least be familiar to you,” Bruce says as they walk down the hallway.

Tony glances at him and sees the smirk playing around Bruce’s mouth. “Is that a crack about my age?”

“Since we’re about the same age, that would be shortsighted of me,” Bruce replies, although he’s definitely smiling now.

Tony squeezes Bruce’s shoulder and forces himself to drop his hand. “Step on in to my workshop, and see what I’ve been doing for the last few years.”

He feels a frisson of anxiety as he unlocks the door, although he tries to hide it. Maybe Bruce will look around Tony’s workshop and think that he’s wasted the last few years of his life, building racing machines and robots to entertain the masses.

Bruce walks inside and starts to wander around, his hands shoved in his pockets. Even in the tunic and trousers, Tony remembers that body language from the helicarrier, with Bruce looking diffident, like he’d rather disappear.

And then he wanders over to the robot head that Tony is repairing, moving a little closer. “Why does this look familiar?”

“Probably because you tore the head off last week,” Tony replies. “The Hulk did, anyway. We were running out of aliens for him to fight.”

Bruce grimaces. “And how many people did I kill?”

“To my knowledge, none,” Tony says. “The Grandmaster tends to pick the hardy sort to face him. And the Hulk likes to throw people around. There are others who prefer edged weapons.”

Bruce shoots him a look. “Really.”

“Really,” Tony says. “It turns out that there are plenty of alien species who can stand up to that kind of a beating. I’m probably responsible for more deaths than you are.”

Bruce scoffs. “Come on.”

“People like to see drivers flame out,” Tony says. “And I give people what the pay for. They buy a vehicle from me, and they get all the bells and whistles.”

Bruce wanders to one of the vehicles. “Like this one?”

“The Grandmaster commissions a certain number every week, and the more successful racers buy them from me, too,” Tony says, knowing that he sounds a little defensive.

“Hey,” Bruce says softly. “I’m not judging, just trying to understand. You had to survive here. I guess I did, too.”

Tony hadn’t known how much he needed that absolution. “Thanks. I don’t think Thor really understood.”

Bruce snorts. “Thor strikes me as someone who’s never really had to fight for survival.”

The door chimes, and Tony knows that’s Scrapper-142’s way of alerting him to her entrance. He goes over to let her in. “You survived.”

“Please, I can drink a prince under the table any day,” she replies. “I left him sleeping it off. I take it you’re decent.”

Tony steps aside to let her in. “Scrapper-142, Bruce Banner. Bruce, Scrapper-142.”

Bruce is looking at her with an indecipherable expression. “You seem really familiar.”

“We’ve spent enough time in hot water together,” she says. “But it’s nice to meet the other side of you. Stark talks about you a lot.”

Tony had no idea that he was still capable of blushing. “Not a lot.”

“Often enough that I knew exactly who I was looking at when I found you,” Scrapper-142 says with a smirk. “And to make sure you were both decent when I entered.”

Bruce looks like he doesn’t quite know what to do with that information, but he’s also blushing.

“Thanks for distracting Thor last night,” Tony says.

“Like I said, I have no problem drinking a Prince of Asgard under the table,” she says. “You know we don’t have much time before the Hulk is missed.”

Tony nods. “I realize that. We’re going to need to steal the Grandmaster’s favorite ship.”

She grimaces. “Better hope we actually make it off the planet. Are we talking about the devil’s anus?”

Tony nods. “Bruce and I are going to review the math, and I need to finish the space-ready suit just in case.”

Scrapper-142 grimaces. “I’m only doing this because I like the Hulk, and his other half is as cute as you said.”

“I never said he was cute!” Tony protests.

“It was heavily implied,” she replies dryly.

Bruce is currently looking anywhere but at Tony.

“That said, I have the access codes,” she says. “So, I can help with stealing the ship.” She pauses. “But we’re definitely going to have to talk about what we’re going to do with the other Prince of Asgard.”

“Loki?” Bruce asks.

“Thor couldn’t stop talking about rescuing his brother,” she confirms. “We’re going to have to try at least.”

Tony grimaces. “I figured. Well, at least Loki knows what will happen if he steps too far out of line.”

Bruce doesn’t look too happy at that. “I don’t want to be the enforcer, Tony.”

“You don’t have to be,” Tony says quickly. “Trust me, Loki is going to absolutely love you.”

“Why?” Bruce asks. “Because I’m not green?”

“Precisely,” Tony says. “Trust me, you got some payback on Earth’s behalf.”

Bruce grimaces, and Scrapper-142 says, “Maybe Earth didn’t deserve the payback.”

“Well, there are some people on Earth who are real assholes, but your everyday person who just wants to live their lives?” Tony counters. “Maybe they did. Or they will feel better when they find out the Hulk thrashed Loki six ways to Sunday.”

Neither of them look particularly convinced, and Tony says quietly, “I didn’t ride a nuke into space for the assholes. I did it for people like Bruce.”

“I hate that you had to ride a nuke into space, for the record,” Bruce mutters.

Tony smiles at him. “I hate that those assholes literally chased you off the planet, although I don’t hate that you’re here.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, get a room, you two,” Scrapper-142 mutters.

“We have a room, and you’re currently in it,” Tony says.

She flips him off. “Shift change is going to be the best time to steal the ship. That gives you some time to figure your shit out.”

“Bring Thor by tonight, and bring food,” Tony says. “We’ll have something by then.”

Scrapper-142 shrugs. “All right. I’ll leave you to get reacquainted.”

“Are we going to have something by then?” Bruce asks dubiously.

Tony gives him a look. “We’d better. We do have a bit of a deadline here.”

In response, Bruce rolls up his sleeves. “I might be a little rusty, but show me what I need to do, and I’ll do it.”

“If Scrapper-142 can get us the ship—and if she says she can do it, she will—then the first thing is the suit,” Tony replies. “I might actually be able to help if I’ve got that working.”

“And if things go south, you have a better means of escape,” Bruce says. “I get it.”

It’s not as though they’d spent much time together before Sakaar, only a handful of hours really, but Tony remembers how easy it had been to swap data back and forth. How they’d immediately developed a shorthand—or more accurately, already spoke the same language.

Once Bruce understands what Tony needs to do to finish the suit and make it work with the arc reactor, he immediately gets started on the code review, while Tony begins welding. He has most of the pieces ready to go, but he’d learned his lesson from his time in Afghanistan.

As soon as the suit is complete, the Grandmaster will know that Tony means to go back on their deal.

“Where did you learn to code?” Tony asks as he attaches a flamethrower to the shoulder.

Bruce gives him a look over his shoulder. “I spent a lot of years on the run. I had to learn a few things. Also, I do have seven Ph.D.s.”

“Isn’t that a tad excessive?” Tony asks archly.

Bruce just shrugs. “Let’s just say I felt like I had something to prove, and then I didn’t know when to stop.”

“I can understand that,” Tony admits. He knows all about not knowing when to stop.

“Come take a look at this,” Bruce says. “I think I have the targeting system figured out.”

Tony looks over his shoulder and hums. “It looks like it. Thanks.”

“Two heads are better than one,” Bruce says with a grin.

With Bruce showing clear competence with the coding, Tony can focus on the build. He doesn’t have Jarvis as his copilot, and so this suit isn’t going to be nearly as intelligent as the last one. Tony will have to do a lot of the functions manually, and he really wishes he had more time to practice, but that’s out of the question. This suit has to be space-ready, too, which adds another element.

“Okay, I could tinker forever, but I think that’s as good as it’s going to get in the time we have,” Tony says, although the words physically pain him.

Bruce gives him a look. “How much did that hurt to say?”

“I like to tinker,” Tony admits. “I can’t help it. Things can always be better, but sometimes you have a deadline.”

“Can you try it out?” Bruce asks. “I have some concerns about not test driving it first.”

“You and me both,” Tony replies. “I can try it on, and do a little bit, but flying is out of the question. I don’t have a way to explain the suit.”

Bruce stares at him. “Sure you do. You tell the Grandmaster that you’re throwing your hat in the ring and going up against the Hulk. If he presses it, tell him that it’s not ready yet, and you wouldn’t want to deprive him of an engineer.”

Tony can’t believe he hadn’t thought of that himself, but he realizes that he’s become complacent. He understands the risk that the Grandmaster presents, and he’s allowed himself to be cowed.

“What the fuck happened to me?” Tony mutters.

“What the fuck happened to me?” Bruce counters. “I spent the last couple of years green because I was too afraid to stay on Earth. I still don’t want to go back.”

Tony says, “We don’t have to go back, you know.”

“What?” Bruce asks.

“We’ve promised to rescue Asgard, but there’s nothing that says we have to go back to Earth after,” Tony says. “I can build shit. You have your brain, and your brawn. We’re planning to steal a ship. The whole fucking galaxy could be our playground.”

Some unnamed tension leaves Bruce’s face. “Yeah?”

“Why not?” Tony asks recklessly. “They probably think we’re both dead, so it’s not like we’re expected anywhere. Maybe we don’t grace them with our presence.”

“Maybe we don’t,” Bruce says slowly. “Maybe we just—“

“Live?” Tony asks. “Maybe we stop existing and just—live.”

Bruce nods slowly, and whatever he might have said next is interrupted by the chime at the door. Tony says, “To be continued eventually.”

He has a feeling that things are going to get very hectic very quickly.

Tony opens the door, and Scrapper-142 gives him a very disappointed look. “You look the same.”

“Should I look different?” Tony asks, stepping aside. “You’d better have brought food.”

“And alcohol,” Thor says, following Scrapper-142 inside. “Why would Stark look any different?”

Scrapper-142 just gives him a pitying look. “You’re too young for that information.”

“I’m 1500 years old!” Thor protests.

Bruce is blushing furiously. “How long do Asgardians live?” he asks, probably in a desperate ploy to change the topic.

“Longer than that,” Scrapper-142 says. “If we don’t get ourselves killed, that is. Where are we?”

“Suit is done,” Tony says. “I figured we’d be fine, but Bruce’s coding skills are better than I hoped.”

Bruce gives him a dirty look. “Excuse you.”

“Did you build a robot when you were barely out of diapers? No? If I wanted to build a nuclear bomb, it would have been a different story,” Tony says, unable to stop the flirting.

“You need to know coding to build a guidance system for a nuclear bomb,” Bruce points out. “And I kind of did that in junior high.”

Thor is looking between them in confusion. “What is going on right now?”

“They’re engaging in foreplay,” Scrapper-142 says. “And you should both stop it immediately, because we don’t have time. I have the access codes for the hangar and the ship.”

“What about Loki?” Thor asks. He’d apparently been tasked with carrying the food, and he starts unpacking the basket he brought.

Again, it’s all portable foods: bread, cured meats, cheese, small fruits, and other things that Tony still can’t name.

“Do you think you can spring him without him stabbing you in the back?” Tony asks.

Thor grimaces. “I don’t know. One time, when we were children, Loki turned himself into a snake, because he knew I loved snakes, and then when I picked him up, he stabbed me in the back.”

Bruce stares at him in horror. “Seriously?”

Thor shrugs. “That’s how Loki shows affection.”

“Wow, and suddenly I’m very glad I was an only child,” Bruce mutters.

Tony snorts, since the same thought was running through his head.

“I have a remote that will remove the obedience disc,” Scrapper-142 says reluctantly. “You can at least give him the tools he needs to escape without giving him a shot at ruining our chances of saving Asgard.”

Thor grimaces. “You may have a point.”

“Tony needs to test the suit,” Bruce says. “We’re going to tell the Grandmaster that he’s working out a way of challenging the Hulk.”

“I can help with that,” Scrapper-142 says. “I’ll follow him up to the arena and shoot at him. The Grandmaster would believe that.”

Tony is starting to feel a little more hopeful about this plan. If he can really the suit a test drive, then they have a little time to work out some of the kinks.

“I can go with Thor,” Bruce offers. “Loki knows who I am. It might scare him into behaving himself.”

Scrapper-142 looks a little disappointed. “I can’t watch?”

“It would be fun, but would probably destroy the effect,” Tony points out.

Thor grimaces. “I was hoping to talk to him alone.”

“You’re not going to be alone in that area of the tower,” Tony reminds him. “It’s going to be hard enough to get access, and once you do, we’re going to need to move quickly. I’ll send some money with Bruce so you can bribe the guards into looking the other way.”

“We test the suit,” Bruce says. “We fix any bugs tonight, and at shift change tomorrow morning, we steal the ship.”

“And we free Loki,” Thor adds. “Along with the rest of the gladiators.”

“That would provide a distraction,” Tony says.

“Nothing wrong with a good distraction,” Scrapper-142 says. “I can work with that.”

“The more spectacular the better,” Tony agrees.

Tony hadn’t wanted to risk not being able to get in and out of the suit easily in the future, or needing to rely on having special equipment. He’s therefore built neurotransmitters that will allow him to control the suit with a thought.

And with a thought, the suit forms around him, and Tony feels like himself—truly like himself—for the first time in five years.

Bruce is looking at him with a smile. “It’s a little less red and gold than I expected.”

Tony holds out an arm, looking at the blue and green metal. “I wish I had time for a paint job, but I didn’t have enough left of the old one for anything but the breastplate and the helmet.”

As a result, the suit isn’t nearly as shiny as it had been on Earth, and is far more mottled, with a red and gold trunk, arms and legs of various colors that had been salvaged from a variety of scrap. He’d been able to repurpose his old breastplate and helmet, but not the rest, to work with the neurotransmitters.

“It’s colorful, I’ll give you that,” Bruce says.

“Maybe when I have a little more time, I’ll polish it up a bit,” Tony replies. “But for now, let’s see how well it works.”

He has no problem walking out of his workshop and through the short tunnel that leads to the arena. There are no games or races scheduled for at least a few more hours, which both he and Scrapper-142 have reason to know.

Since the place is deserted, Tony risks a short flight, putting on speed once he’s in the air. The suit moves with him easily, even better than the suit he’d been wearing when he landed on Sakaar.

He’s in the air for about ten minutes before Scrapper-142 flies her ship in. She starts firing energy bolts at him without warning, and Tony dodges the first two, then blocks another with his arm guard. The suit absorbs the energy easily, as he’d planned.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Tony expected the interruption. He’s just glad it’s only him and Scrapper-142 in the arena. Bruce and Thor had remained in his workshop.

“The Grandmaster is always looking for something new, right?” Tony asks. “I’m just testing it out,” he says as he lands. He flips up his faceplate to look Topaz in the eye.

“And what is she doing?” Topaz asks, and Tony can see her knuckles turn white as she tightens her grip on the melting stick.

He doesn’t think she’d use it on him without an order from the Grandmaster, but he takes a step back just to be safe.

“Helping me test it,” Tony replies. “If I crashed and burned immediately, it wouldn’t be a very good show now, would it?”

Topaz doesn’t appear to be entirely convinced, and since she’s never far from the Grandmaster, Tony fully expects him to come into the arena at any moment.

Instead, she just turns on her heel and leaves without another word, and Tony assumes that she’s going to make her report.

So be it, Tony thinks. With any luck, they’ll be off this planet in a matter of hours.

He’s reluctant to put the suit to more of a test at this point, feeling as though it might be too much of a risk.

Scrapper-142 lands her ship and disembarks. “What did she say?”

“She wanted to know what we were doing, and I said I was working on giving the Grandmaster a show,” Tony replies in a low voice. “Which is exactly what we’re going to do.”

She grimaces. “I hope you’re right about that.”

~~~~~

Bruce and Thor had been warned to stay in the workshop while Tony and Scrapper-142 test the suit, but Bruce isn’t really sure what to say to him.

“Why did you leave Earth?” Thor asks.

“I was hunted, and I didn’t have another choice,” Bruce replies. “I don’t really remember it, though. They chased me until there was nowhere else to run, and the last thing I remember is letting the Hulk take over.”

“But why?” Thor asks. “You helped win the battle against the Chitauri.”

“Why did Fury make weapons, and blame his decision on you?” Bruce counters.

Thor grunts. “I am fond of Midgard, but they do try me at times.”

“I think they try everyone,” Bruce replies. “But they definitely did me.”

“I’m sorry for your suffering, my friend, and that I wasn’t there to ease it,” Thor says, and his sincerity makes Bruce smile, something he feels like he’s done far more often on Sakaar than in years.

After a moment, Bruce finally says, “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“After we have saved Asgard, you and Stark should spend some time there,” Thor urges. “We would provide you with such feasts! Such mead! You would be our honored guests.”

“That sounds pretty amazing,” Bruce admits.

“Wait until you see Asgard,” Thor enthuses. “When you feast in the golden hall, you’ll understand.”

Bruce figures it’s more likely that he’ll just be overwhelmed, but he doesn’t tell Thor that. “Thanks for the invitation.”

“The Hulk would also be welcomed as a great warrior,” Thor says enthusiastically. “On Asgard, you would both be accepted.” He grows quiet. “I wish my mother were still alive. She would like you.”

“I’m sorry about your mom,” Bruce offers.

“I have to save my people,” Thor says.

“We’ll help you all we can,” Bruce promises.

Tony is the first to return in his suit, looking a little put out.

“What happened?” Bruce asks.

“One of the Grandmaster’s guards walked in while I was testing out the suit,” Tony says. “I’m sure the Grandmaster is probably going to demand a command performance.”

“Before tomorrow morning?” Bruce asks.

Scrapper-142 strides in. “Try right now. You’re going to have to talk fast, Stark.”

Bruce watches as Tony closes his eyes and pieces of armor fly off to land in a pile. “As long as he doesn’t want a match tomorrow morning, I think we’ll be fine. Bruce, Thor, I think maybe it would be best if you stayed here for now.”

Bruce sighs and shrugs. He doesn’t know where else they’d go.

Thor nods. “We will remain here.”

Bruce doesn’t like Tony going into danger without him, but Scrapper-142 gives him a look that says she’s got his back.

“Mind if I poke around?” Bruce asks.

“Poke anything you like,” Tony replies with a smirk.

When they leave, Bruce starts to look around. He’s spent the day working on the coding for the suit, but he’d seen a few toys he wants to get a closer look at.

“Do you understand all this?” Thor asks as Bruce looks at a vehicle.

“Hm?” Bruce says absently. “Oh, most of it, I guess. I still feel a little rusty, but I spent the day working on the computer program for the suit. I think it turned out okay.”

“Stark will be fine,” Thor says. “I believe that. Just as I believe that we will escape this planet and save my world.”

Bruce is starting to feel as though his luck is turning around, but he doesn’t trust it.

He’s still poking around, enjoying the opportunity to be in the driver’s seat for a change. It feels good, even though he’s on an alien planet, and even though there’s no small amount of risk.

For the first time in years, Bruce feels like he’s with people who understand and accept him, and it’s an odd feeling—but a good one.

He’s still exploring when Tony and Scrapper-142 return, and there’s a sense of frustration rolling off Tony that Bruce can feel like a living thing.

“Is everything okay?” Bruce asks, although he’s slightly comforted by the fact that Scrapper-142 merely seems annoyed.

“I told him I needed at least a few more days, and he decided that I’d be going up against the Hulk tomorrow night,” Tony says, and then he takes a deep, audible breath. “Never mind. By then it won’t matter.”

Bruce straightens. “What else do we need to do?”

“How do you feel about bombing the shit out of the arena?” Tony asks, and there’s a hint of glittering rage in his eyes.

Bruce has a feeling that Tony could end up being a very bad influence on him. “Can we make sure it’s mostly empty when we do?”

“Of course,” Thor says. “Blowing up the arena is just another distraction.”

“Agreed,” Scrapper-142 says.

Bruce shrugs. “I could have built a nuclear bomb in junior high if I had the materials. I guess the question is how big of a boom do we need?”

Tony stares at him. “I could kiss you right now.”

Bruce smirks. “I wouldn’t be mad about it.”

Tony stares at him, and all the tension leaves his frame. “Maybe later. We have shit to do.”

“Let’s build some bombs, I guess,” Bruce says.

Scrapper-142 smirks. “Can I watch?”

“I probably should say no, since building bombs is basically foreplay for someone like me, but why not?” Tony asks.

“I guess I’ll—also watch,” Thor says awkwardly.

Tony gives him a look that might almost be apologetic. “Best not to let the Grandmaster get you alone. Scrapper-142 and I have had years of dealing with him, but he’s—good at what he does.”

“All right,” Thor says. “I guess we’re all staying here tonight.”

Bruce has no idea why he’s so comfortable with the idea of bombing the arena, but he feels as though he might be influenced by the Hulk on that front.

Or maybe none of this feels real yet, and so the idea of setting off a bunch of bombs also doesn’t feel real.

And Tony and Scrapper-142, who have apparently been here for years, are just fine with reducing the Grandmaster’s playground to matchsticks.

Given Tony’s anxiety levels when he returned, and based on the trauma that Bruce can just sense under the surface, maybe the Grandmaster deserves to have his kingdom reduced to nothing.

And then Bruce really thinks about it, thinks about what Tony hadn’t explicitly said, thinks about obedience discs, and realizes that they’re taking down an empire.

Suddenly, he doesn’t feel bad about blowing things up.

“I have an idea for how to take the whole place down to the ground,” Bruce says. “Assuming there aren’t innocents inside.”

Tony grins. “I thought you might, and we’ll make sure of it. The stadium doesn’t start to fill until about an hour before an event. If we spring the folks in the cells first thing in the morning, and we give them time to leave, we can blow the place as we leave.”

“Why not?” Bruce says. “I wish I could have blown something up on my way off Earth.”

“You’ll never find a more deserving planet for blowing shit up than Sakaar,” Tony says. “At least when it comes to the Grandmaster’s things. With any luck, it will take him a long while to rebuild, and maybe folks here will embrace a representational democracy.”

“Probably more like anarchy,” Scrapper-142 mutters.

“And that will still be their choice,” Tony insists.

“You mentioned something about obedience discs,” Bruce says slowly. “Is there a way to disable those wholesale?”

Scrapper-142 reaches into a pouch at her waist and tosses something at him. Bruce barely manages to catch it, but she says, “That’s the remote. I have no idea if there’s any way to do that, but you’re welcome to try.”

Bruce thinks for a moment, then looks at Tony, who holds up a hand. He tosses Tony the remote. “You figure it out, and I’ll start building bombs.”

Maybe the people on Earth wouldn’t have necessarily believed it, but it’s the better division of their labor. Tony might have made weapons of mass destruction, but he’s more familiar with Sakaar. Bruce just has to make shaped charges, and that’s not really a problem with his background in physics.

“It’s a deal,” Tony says. “Good to have you back, Brucie.”

And Bruce doesn’t even object to the nickname. He’s just pleased to feel like himself for the first time in a long time.

Part III: Let’s Blow This Popsicle Stand

Sakaar/Asgard, circa Earth year 2017

If Tony never sees the Grandmaster again, it will be too soon. He knows they’re under the gun, and he knows that since Topaz had seen the suit, the Grandmaster will want to put it to use, the sooner, the better. Tony had hoped that he’s bought himself enough favor to be able to wheedle a couple more days, but he really should have known better.

If Tony’s suit fails, if the Hulk smashes him, the ratings will be that much better. After all, Mr. Metal Mojo Man has been building robots for the Hulk to fight. How much better would it be for Tony to be in one of the robots?

At least, that’s the Grandmaster’s thinking, and when he presents the idea to Tony, he just smiles expectantly, folding his hands in front of his chest.

Tony can’t reply right away, and the Grandmaster raises his eyebrows even as Topaz fondles the melting stick. Finally, Scrapper-142 nudges him with her elbow.

“I still think it would be better if I had a few days to work on it,” Tony manages to say. “Really put on a great show for you.”

“Hm,” the Grandmaster says. “I know a little bit about you, Mr. Metal Mojo Man. I know what happens when you build a suit.”

Tony knows that menace, and he knows what comes next, and it’s usually the melting stick. The Grandmaster thinks that if he sticks Tony in the ring with the Hulk before the suit is ready, he’ll keep Tony off balance. Under other circumstances, he wouldn’t even be wrong.

“What happens when I build a suit, Grandmaster?” Tony asks, deciding to play dumb.

“You get ideas,” the Grandmaster replies. “And I’m the only one allowed to have ideas on Sakaar.”

“And all those lovely machines I’ve built you?” Tony counters.

The Grandmaster shrugs. “Still my ideas, since they were in service to my games.”

Tony hates the fact that he’s even a little bit right. “Tomorrow night. I’ll face the Hulk in the arena. You’ll need the time to advertise, and get your merchandise ready to sell.”

“I’m glad you can see reason,” the Grandmaster says. “Maybe Topaz should go with you.”

“Well, she could,” Tony allows. “That would be a thing that you could order, and I’d have to allow it.”

Topaz is never far from the Grandmaster, and Tony is betting that the Grandmaster isn’t going to want to lose her for that long.

“No, you’ve always put on a good show,” the Grandmaster says with a wave of his hand. “I’m sure you’ll do the same again.”

Tony nods, trying to keep any emotion off his face. The Grandmaster might not always acknowledge a weakness, but he will find a way to use it later.

“Stark,” Scrapper-142 hisses once they’re heading back towards his workshop, and are apparently alone.

“We knew we’d be under the gun,” Tony replies in a low voice. “And we knew there wouldn’t be another way out once we started down this road. We escape, or we don’t. No other option.”

Scrapper-142 nods. “Fine. Agreed.”

“Go big, or go home,” Tony says with a stiff smile.

He’s pleasantly surprised when Bruce doesn’t quibble at the idea of blowing up the arena, and he’s even more pleased when Bruce volunteers to build the necessary bombs.

For Tony, it’s about more than just depriving the Grandmaster of the thing he loves the most, or even creating a distraction. It’s the knowledge that the Grandmaster is something other than human, and will likely find a way to rebuild. The more damage they can do on their way off the planet, the longer it will take him to recover.

Tony hadn’t had an opportunity to really dig into the technology behind the obedience discs before. He has the one he’d short-circuited, but he didn’t think he had the time or resources to investigate.

Now, he has a deadline, and he’s kicking himself a bit for his lack of curiosity.

Bruce has built a series of shaped charges that, when set off, will bring the entire arena to the ground. They’re designed to be triggered by an RFID signal, cannibalized from one of Tony’s robots.

By the time he has enough bombs built, Tony has a good idea of how the obedience discs work, and absolutely no idea how to shut them down en masse.

But he can disable them individually, and if they keep the Grandmaster and his guards busy, it should be possible.

“The remote will remove the obedience discs,” Tony finally says. “I suggest you remove the disc from someone’s neck and give them the remote at that point.” He pauses. “And maybe don’t start with Loki.”

Thor and Scrapper-142 have been there all night, napping on and off, or just occupying themselves in some fashion—flipping knives, juggling, or just messing around with whatever they can find. Tony doesn’t really care, since soon he’s not going to need this workshop or anything in it.

Thor frowns. “Then who should we start with?”

“We’ll start with a revolutionary,” Bruce says with perfect assurance. “There has to be someone in the cells under the arena who wants to blow things up as much as we do.”

Tony tosses the remote to Bruce. “Your call, big guy. I figure it takes one to know one.”

“I never claimed to be a revolutionary,” Bruce protests.

“You jumped on the ‘blow shit up’ train readily enough,” Tony points out. “And Thor is going to want to start with his brother.”

Bruce nods and tucks the remote into a pocket. “I’ll find someone who wants to help your brother, Thor.”

Thor sighs. “I suppose that will have to be good enough.”

“Don’t worry,” Tony says. “If Loki wants off the planet, he’ll get a fair shot at it. But do you really want to give him a chance to stab us in the back?”

Thor shakes his head after a long moment of thought. “No. Our mission is too important.”

Tony looks at Scrapper-142. “What time is the change of guard?”

She frowns, and Tony has noticed that she seems to have an innate sense of time, even when there’s no clock and she can’t see the sun. “We have about an hour.”

“We have to place the bombs,” Bruce points out. “And it’s probably going to take about that long.”

“Would you take Thor?” Tony asks Scrapper-142.

She grimaces, but doesn’t argue. “Fine. Meet me outside the hangar when you’re done.”

“I’ll meet Thor outside the arena, near the entrance to the cells,” Bruce adds.

Tony has a couple of small carts he uses to transport supplies from the market, or the delivery ports, to his workshop, and they load the bombs up. Tony and Bruce take one, while Thor and Scrapper-142 take the other, heading in opposite directions after Bruce instructs them on how to place each one.

“So, this is a little weird,” Tony admits as they start moving around the arena.

Bruce lets out a rusty chuckle. “I suppose it is, but we’re also planning on taking on a god. Or an alien who’s a lot like a god.”

“On an alien planet,” Tony adds.

“It’s definitely weird,” Bruce says.

Tony glances over at him. “Are you okay with this? Because I know you were worried about losing yourself to the Other Guy again.”

“You brought me back once before,” Bruce says after a moment. “You said you could do it again, and I believe you. Plus, I figure while Thor doesn’t need a nuclear physicist, he might need a Hulk.”

“Going after a god, you might not have a choice,” Tony says after a long moment.

Bruce just shakes his head. “And it’s usually better when I choose it anyway.”

They set most of their bombs before Bruce says, “Be honest. How much are you going to miss that pool?”

“So much,” Tony admits after a moment. “We’ll have to find one wherever we land.”

Bruce smiles. “Deal.”

They place the last charge with about twenty minutes to spare until the guard change, and they wait until the moment is closer before the head back to the entrance to the cells.

Tony leaves Bruce in a sheltered alcove, wishing he could kiss him. “Be careful.”

“We have a couple of planets to save, right?” Bruce says, with a smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

Tony has to hurry after that, to get to the entrance to the Grandmaster’s hangar. Scrapper-142 is waiting for him at the entrance.

“What took you so long?” she asks. “Did you stop to flirt?”

“We stopped for thirty seconds to agree that we should find another hot tub,” Tony admits.

Scrapper-142 pauses. “Okay, fair. Very fair. Especially if clothing continues to be optional.”

Tony has become quite comfortable with nudity in the last few years. “Only if cool people are invited.”

“Would I invite anyone who isn’t cool?” she asks.

“Maybe the day after never,” Tony replies.

Scrapper-142 grins at him. “You ready to steal a ship?”

“I’ve been ready for years,” Tony replies. “But let’s do it right this time.”

~~~~~

Bruce feels as though he’s just going with things. He pressed pause on his life when he let the Hulk take over, and now he’s just—

Well, now he’s a guy who built a bunch of bombs and is trying to find a revolutionary among those in the cells under the arena.

His life is weird, but in a good way—at least right now.

Bruce meets Thor in an alcove outside of the entrance to the cells under the arena, and Thor leans in close. “What’s next, Banner?”

Bruce peers around the corner. “Well, there’s the new guard. I suggest you put him to sleep.”

Thor strides out and lands a sucker punch on the guard’s jaw, putting him down in one blow. “Easy enough.”

“Now, we just have to figure out how to rescue your brother,” Bruce replies.

When they enter the holding area, it’s dingy and seems to be built in a circle. There’s graffiti on the walls, and Bruce spots what looks like a rock monster and a bug the size of a small dog wearing armor leaning against the wall.

Loki darts forward. “Thor, tell me you’ve found a way to release me.”

“I have, brother,” Thor replies. “Or at least, I’ve found a way to help you rescue yourself.”

Loki stares at him, looking disheveled, but Bruce assumes that he’s had time to heal, because he’s not showing any sign of injury. He’s definitely showing signs of desperation, though. “What are you talking about?”

“Who’s the revolutionary around here?” Bruce asks.

“Did you say revolution?” the rock monster asks. His voice is a high, light tenor, completely at odds with his huge form. He sounds almost tentative.

Loki rolls his eyes. “Yes, that’s Korg. He’s always talking about revolution.”

“We’re talking the violent overthrow of the current regime,” Korg says earnestly, that same light voice throwing Bruce for a curve. “Although, I’d greatly prefer overthrowing the regime without violence.”

“What if we just gave you the means of escaping the tower before we blow it up?” Bruce asks. “And the means of helping everyone else here escape?”

Bruce has no way of reading Korg’s expression. “Me and Miek would be delighted.” Korg pauses. “You seem familiar, but that might just be because all humans look the same to me.”

Bruce shrugs. “I might just have one of those faces, too.”

“Maybe,” Korg says thoughtfully.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Loki demands. “Are you leaving me here?”

“I’m giving you a chance, brother,” Thor replies. “I’m sure you’ll be able to convince Korg to let you help him with the revolution if you decide to participate.”

Loki gapes at him. “What.”

“We’re saving Asgard, brother,” Thor says, his voice almost gentle. “And I can’t trust you not to stab me in the back along the way. But, Korg, if you want to rid a world of an oppressive ruler, Asgard could use your services.”

“I would be honored, Lord of Thunder,” Korg says.

“Lord of Thunder?” Bruce asks.

Thor shrugs uncomfortably. “The name the Grandmaster gave me for the arena.”

Bruce shrugs. He knows that the Grandmaster has a nickname for Tony, but Bruce isn’t really sure how Sakaar works, other than the Grandmaster rules with an iron fist.

Including giving people names they wouldn’t necessarily choose for themselves.

Loki grabs Thor’s arm. “You can’t just leave me here.”

Thor sighs as he looks at his brother. “Yes, I can. But feel free to join the revolution.” He gently pulls away. “Good luck, Loki.”

Bruce disables the obedience disc on Korg and hands him the remote. “Good luck, Korg. You have about thirty minutes until this place is matchsticks.”

“I don’t know what those are, but I will assume that means the arena is going away,” Korg replies as he takes the remote.

Bruce nods. “That’s what it means.”

“Good luck,” Korg says.

Loki still looks betrayed. “I can’t believe that you’re leaving me here!”

Thor gives him a look. “Well, if you want to keep the obedience disc and let Stark hold the remote, you’re welcome to come. Banner will also be there, and we might see the Hulk again if you were to betray us.”

Loki takes a long step back. “No, thank you.”

“That’s what I thought,” Thor replies.

Still, he looks troubled as they leave, heading for the rendezvous point. “Did I do the right thing?”

“Do you really want to put him in an enclosed location with Tony and me?” Bruce counters. “Even if he could be trusted not to betray us, I don’t think anyone would appreciate that.”

“No,” Thor murmurs. “Loki must walk his own path as I must walk mine.”

Bruce pats him on the arm. “I think we have to believe that we’ll figure out how to save Asgard, and Loki might still have a part to play in that.”

“Loki has always like the idea of revenge,” Thor muses. “And Hela is part of the reason that he’s here, too.”

“There you go,” Bruce replies. “Come on, we need to move quickly.”

He just hopes that Tony and Scrapper-142 are finding as much success as they have.

~~~~~

“How are we going to do this?” Tony asks at the entrance to the hangar.

Scrapper-142 looks at him. “You’re going to run, and I’m going to chase you, and when it looks like I’m going to shoot you to prevent you from escaping, I’m going to shoot the guards instead.”

Tony pauses. “Okay, yeah, that’s a better plan than I would have come up with.”

She slaps him on the back. “Go, and make sure to dodge. It will make it easier for me to shoot the guards.”

It’s been longer than Tony would like to admit that he’s had to run. He’s somewhat out of shape, although he does spend all day on his feet, working on his inventions.

Tony takes a deep breath, and he starts to run across the open hangar towards the Grandmaster’s favorite ship. He makes sure to duck and dodge, and a couple of Scrapper-142’s shots come uncomfortably close. He’s assuming she’s doing that for verisimilitude, but he wouldn’t put it past her to be doing it for her own amusement either.

Tony dives towards the access panel, putting in the code that Scrapper-142 had given him. He hears more shots going off behind him, but none of them hit him or the ship, so he assumes she’s taking out the guards.

Tony hasn’t been on this ship before; he’s pretty sure he’s not allowed after he stole the last one. Any orgies he’s been invited to have been in the tower exclusively. He doesn’t have an idea of how to pilot it any more than he did in the past, but Scrapper-142 had drawn a diagram of what he needs to turn on first.

Tony does exactly as instructed, and then she strolls into the ship. “The guards are all down. We should have about fifteen minutes before anyone figures it out.” She hooks her thumb over her shoulder. “Move.”

Tony moves to the copilot seat and focuses. The pieces of the suit fly into the ship, piling up in the back. “Okay, we’re good.”

Scrapper-142 looks at him. “I know you have the suit, but pay attention. We’re not getting off the planet without some resistance, and you might need to take over the controls or show Banner how to do it.”

“I don’t know how to fly!” Tony protests.

She just smirks at him. “I show you, you do it, then you teach it. One of my early instructors once told me that’s the best way to master a skill.”

“Fuck,” Tony says. “Well, I guess we’re going to figure it out.”

“Just watch what I’m doing,” she says.

He does watch what she’s doing, seeing how she pulls up on the throttle, how she moves the controls to maneuver out of the hangar.

There’s a spot just outside the arena, near one of the little-known access points that Tony had told Bruce and Thor about. Scrapper-142 sets down and opens the back hatch.

“You actually left Loki behind?” Tony asks when they board without the greasy menace.

“It’s time for my brother to make his own way, and he’ll have to convince Korg that he wants to help with the revolution,” Thor replies as Scrapper-142 takes off and points them at the portals. “But now we have to get off this planet.”

“Banner, come over here,” Scrapper-142 says. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I did Stark. You might need to fly this thing. Stark, get in the suit.”

Tony doesn’t need to be told twice. He cedes the copilot’s seat to Bruce and calls the suit to him. The armor forms around him, and Tony takes a deep breath.

He feels like Iron Man again.

Thor sighs. “I wish I had my hammer.”

Tony looks at him. “I’m sure you do, but you called the lightning in the arena. And we’re a team. We’re going to fly up the devil’s anus and save Asgard.”

“That was not a terribly inspiring pep talk!” Bruce calls from the copilot’s seat.

“There is no way to make flying up the devil’s anus inspiring!” Tony calls back.

He doesn’t get an argument from anyone, probably because there’s none to be made. Tony thinks it’s entirely possible that someone had chosen that name for the portal precisely to discourage folks from using it to get off Sakaar.

“We have incoming,” Scrapper-142 calls. “The alarm must have gone off!”

Tony is pretty sure he catches sight of Topaz in the lead ship, and he knows just how relentless she can be. “We’re going to have to take her out,” Tony tells Thor. “Even if we don’t make it off the planet, and the Grandmaster forgives us, she’s going to melt us just on principle alone.”

“What is it that you say on Midgard?” Thor asks. “Dibs?”

He might not have his hammer, but Thor is still a god, and he throws himself out the back hatch at the ship following them. Tony figures he’ll let Thor have that one. Tony can fly, so he can take one of the other pursuers.

Tony quickly realizes that they’re being swarmed. There are at least six ships in pursuit, with more joining every moment. He can hear and see the Grandmaster as he projects his holographic image over the trash heaps.

“Citizens of Sakaar!” the Grandmaster calls. “Mr. Metal Mojo Man is making off with my champion. If they escape, no more games! Bring them back to us!”

It’s not just the guards, Tony can see. It’s also those who haunt the trash heaps who will use any excuse to start hunting anything that might be a prize.

Tony can feel the differences in his suit from when he had Jarvis to help, and he has to work a lot harder. There’s a heads-up display, but no one to call his attention to something in his periphery.

He’s really going to have to work out more if he’s going to keep this up once he’s off Sakaar. Tony takes a couple of hits, but at least he’s done a good job with the armor, because he absorbs the energy without issue.

Tony zips under one of the ships he recognizes from the trash heaps that tends towards cannibalism—if you can call it that when you’re eating an alien. He targets the underside of the engine, and he punches right through the hull. The ship explodes, and Tony dodges away, seeing that Scrapper-142 has joined the fray, while Bruce is apparently keeping the ship moving in a mostly straight line for the portal.

Tony takes out another two of the smaller ships, while Thor and Scrapper-142 flit from ship to ship with giant leaps.

And then the arena blows up in a spectacular, and with it most of the tower. The Grandmaster’s image also winks out, and a few of the pursuers peel off, probably to either check on the Grandmaster or because they no longer see the sense in it.

It’s basically pure chaos, and Tony knows that he’s going to have to catch up to Bruce pretty soon.

He starts heading in that direction, firing at their pursuers indiscriminately. He hears a shout as he gets close to the ship they’d stolen.

“Stark! Above you!”

That’s the only warning he has before Scrapper-142 lands on his back, above the repulsers.

Tony knows instinctively what she needs him to do, and he keeps steady until he flies into the back of their stolen ship.

Thor manages to take out a ship that’s flying just below them and leap up into the back just before they have to close the hatch.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, guys!” Bruce calls from the front.

Scrapper-142 leans over Bruce’s shoulder. “Pull up harder on the stick. You’re doing fine. You’re going to go straight up.”

She’s more patient with Bruce than Tony expects, but that might be some bleed over from her friendship with the Hulk.

“This is kind of insane!” Bruce shouts as he points the nose of the ship straight up.

Tony flips his faceplate up and glances over at Thor. “You okay?”

“I left my brother behind,” Thor says.

“Did you leave him with a revolutionary?” Tony asks.

“Pretty sure that Korg is the alien version of Marx!” Bruce calls from the front. “Thor invited him to join us on Asgard.”

Tony gives Thor a look. “Listen to Bruce. Also, pretty sure Loki wouldn’t love being on a ship in tight quarters with me or Bruce.”

“No, he would not,” Thor says with a sigh. “But my younger brother asked me to save him.”

“You know the saying,” Tony says. “Something about teaching a man to fish, I don’t know.”

Bruce is clearly appreciating the distraction, because he says, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime. Or something like that.”

“We’re going in!” Scrapper-142 shouts. “Hang on to something! If this works, we’ll set a course for Asgard once we’re on the other side.”

Tony activates the mag locks on his boots that will secure him to the floor, and Thor braces himself against the hull.

As they enter the portal, it’s a lot like the first time Tony had tried to escape with the strange colors and warped sense of time—hell, the warped sense of space and their bodies.

This time, though, it doesn’t end, and the twisting in Tony’s stomach isn’t fear anymore, but anticipation and the weirdness of passing through the portal. And then there’s nothing at all.

When Tony starts to come to, he unlocks the mag boots and moves to peer out one of the windows, seeing only the vastness of space. There’s no Sakaar in sight.

“We did it,” Tony breathes, as the others begin to stir. The pressure of the portal had knocked all of them out, but they’re all swiftly regaining consciousness.

Scrapper-142 is looking around from the copilot’s seat. “Well, we made it off Sakaar,” Scrapper-142 corrects him. “Which is a battle in and of itself, but we still have a jump to get to Asgard.”

Thor blows out a breath. “Do you know the way?’

Scrapper-142 nudges Bruce in the shoulder. “Move, big guy. I’ve got it the rest of the way.”

“Are you sure you still know the way?” Thor asks, and there’s a challenge in his voice that Tony doesn’t completely understand, but then it’s not like he gets what the Valkyries mean to Asgardian culture.

Scrapper-142 turns to look at him and says with steel in her voice. “I’m a Valkyrie. We always know the way home.”

Her tone suggests that Thor is going to pay a price if he asks that question again.

Thor raises his hands in surrender. “Forgive me. I just know that it’s been a long time.”

“A Valkyrie doesn’t forget, no matter how much we would like to,” she replies.

She sets a course with sure movements, no hesitation evident, and then the lights of the stars streak the sky outside the windows. Tony has never really traveled in space before. He’s traveled through the rip in space and landed on Sakaar, and he’d made that one, desperate attempt to get off Sakaar, but this is new.

Tony remembers what he’d said to Bruce about traveling the universe. If it’s at all possible, if they can find a way to make it work, Tony wouldn’t mind that kind of life.

Bruce stands up from the copilot’s seat to join Tony. “It’s pretty remarkable, isn’t it?”

“Something like that,” Tony admits, his voice hoarse. “I want to see more. After being stuck on that fucking planet for years, I need to stretch my legs a bit.”

Bruce glances over at him. “And you need an entire universe for that?”

“Is the Earth really going to welcome either of us back?” Tony asks.

“Me? Probably not,” Bruce replies. “But they’ll give you a hero’s welcome.”

Tony shakes his head. “I’ve been thinking about that. You said it yourself, everyone thinks I’m dead. They’ve moved on. I had a will, Bruce. In case of my death, I had very explicit instructions that would have been carried out.”

“They’d still welcome you back,” Bruce protests, but he sounds less certain about that now.

“Maybe they would, but it’s not going to be the same as it was,” Tony says. “I hadn’t really thought about it much until—“

He stops, and Bruce supplies, “Until I showed up?”

“Or until Thor did,” Tony says. “He was the one who reminded me that everyone believes that I’m dead.”

“Well,” Bruce begins. “We’ve already stolen one ship. We can find a bad guy to steal another one from. Scrapper-142 can probably help with that.”

“It’s Brunnhilde,” she calls from the pilot’s seat. “Since we’re saving the world together.”

“Thank you,” Bruce says sincerely.

Tony is pretty sure that she’d offered her actual name to Bruce, not to him or Thor. But then she’d been fond of the Hulk, and Bruce tends to have that effect on people.

Well, maybe just him and Brunnhilde, but Tony’s willing to cop to that. He’s glad Bruce sees to have another fan.

“Just don’t make me watch you and Stark making out,” Brunnhilde calls back. “I saw enough of that on Sakaar.”

Bruce frowns. “Us making out? I don’t remember that.”

Tony chokes on his spit, and Brunnehilde laughs more freely than he’s ever heard her laugh. “No, just people making out in general. The Grandmaster liked his orgies.”

Bruce looks at Tony, as though checking on that information.

Tony shrugs. “She’s not wrong, but I’m not the sort to talk about my participation or lack thereof.”

“I’d really rather not know,” Bruce mutters.

“We’re coming up on Asgard,” Brunnhilde calls. “And since we don’t know what to expect, I suggest everyone get ready for Hel.”

Bruce frowns. “That sounds like it means more than what it sounds like it means.”

“My sister’s name is Hela,” Thor says. “My father banished her to Hel.”

“Oh, right, so your sister is literally hell on earth,” Bruce says faintly. “Great. That sounds like a lot of fun. Congratulations on being the one decent offspring, Thor.”

“Well, Loki was adopted,” Thor says weakly.

“Take the win being offered,” Tony advises. “Also, what’s our game plan here?”

“I have Hela,” Thor replies. “But she’ll have her own forces. I need you all to keep them busy.”

Tony isn’t exactly used to taking orders in the field, but this is Thor’s world, and Tony recognizes that. He flips his faceplate down. “You got it.”

They drop out of hyperspace, and Asgard fills the front view screen. “Is that Asgard?” Bruce asks. “I thought it would look nicer.”

Both Thor and Brunnhilde look at Bruce, who immediately backpedals. “I mean, it still looks nice! But it’s—on fire?”

“That would be Hela’s doing,” Thor says grimly.

Brunnhilde pulls up a display, and she says, “There’s a concentration of people in the mountains. I think that’s where they’ve fled.”

Thor takes a deep breath. “I’ll go to the palace to draw Hela off and keep her occupied. You focus is on getting them to safety.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Bruce asks, not without reason.

“I have a man on the ground,” Thor replies. “Heimdall is with them, and we’re in touch.”

“How are you in touch?” Bruce asks, sounding bewildered.

Thor smirks over his shoulder at them from the copilot’s seat. “Magic.”

“I really hate that word, you know,” Tony complains.

Thor just grins. “Yes, I thought you might.”

Bruce snorts.

Brunnhilde lands just outside the palace, but no one comes rushing out to challenge them; it doesn’t appear that there’s even anyone on guard.

“I’m going to get a weapon for the ship from the armory,” Thor says. “Since the Grandmaster apparently didn’t believe in guns.”

“Can you blame him?” Tony asks. “If someone steals his ship, he doesn’t have to worry about them turning the weapons on him.”

“Perhaps he wouldn’t have needed to worry about that if he hadn’t been a tyrant,” Thor rumbles.

“Do try to avoid alerting Hela that we’re here, your majesty,” Brunnhilde says sarcastically. “We already know who the Grandmaster is, and he’s in our past. Let’s focus on our future.”

Thor nods. “I’ll be back.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Tony asks.

Thor shakes his head. “No, I don’t expect to run into resistance, but if I do, I’ll call the lightning.”

He leaves, and Brunnhilde turns to look at Bruce. “What is it like not being green?”

“It’s a trip,” Bruce says. “And I’m not sure it’s a good one, but I like Tony, and I like you, and I even like Thor.”

Brunnhilde laughs. “They both grow on you, kind of like a fungus.”

“How is it for you being back here?” Bruce asks.

Brunnhilde shakes her head. “We’re not talking about that.”

“What are we looking at with Hela?” Tony asks.

She glares at him, but then gives in. She can’t get around talking about Hela, since they have to face her, or Thor does, with them as support. “She’s a nightmare. You weren’t wrong earlier, about Thor being the only decent offspring. Odin indulged her worst excesses, and then he was surprised when he couldn’t curb them.”

“You can’t correct someone as an adult you didn’t correct as a child,” Tony says.

Brunnhilde nods. “And then she did her best to destroy her own people, including the Valkyrie who stood against her. I lost everything, and I fled, and then I ended up on Sakaar.”

Tony can hear the pain in her voice, and he says, “Lost things might wind up on Sakaar, but we find our way home again.”

“I suppose we do,” she says.

“It’s our gain,” Bruce offers. “And maybe—maybe we were all meant to be here now.”

Brunnhilde gives him a dead-eyed look. “You’re an optimist.”

“That is literally the first time anyone has ever accused me of being an optimist, but I was hunted, and I woke up on a strange planet with friends. Maybe I’m due for some optimism,” Bruce says.

“I think I like the big, green guy better,” Brunnhilde admits. “But I can see why Stark likes you. It doesn’t hurt that you’re cute.”

Bruce flushes bright red. “Um. Thank you for being honest, I guess?”

“Someone has to like the Other Guy better,” Tony says. “I have to say I’m 50/50.”

Bruce gives him a look that might almost be flirtatious. “Haven’t you always been?”

Tony honestly has no idea if that’s a reference to his bisexuality, which was a bit more theoretical on Earth than it was on Sakaar, or the fact that Tony has always appreciated everything that Bruce brings to the table.

He decides that the answer either way is, “Yes.”

“I will not forgive you if you start making out with him in front of me, Stark,” Brunnhilde declares.

Tony has never met a button that he doesn’t want to push. “What if we asked you to join us?”

Brunnhilde gives him a look that promises retribution if he doesn’t drop it. “No.”

“I’m not really into—that sort of thing,” Bruce says awkwardly. “No offense. You’re, um, beautiful?”

Brunnhilde smiles at Bruce. “Cute and sweet.”

Bruce blushes an even brighter red.

Tony has gotten his rocks off a lot on Sakaar, but never with anyone he had any kind of emotional connection to, and he misses that. He hasn’t had that since Pepper.

“We’ll keep it PG, how’s that?” Tony asks. “G, even.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Brunnhilde says dryly.

“Safe for very small children to witness,” Bruce replies, apparently recovering.

Brunnhilde shrugs. “That works.”

Thor turns up maybe fifteen minutes later with a big ass gun and a bundle of clothing under one arm. “What did you find?” Brunnhilde asks.

“The ship needed a gun, and now it has one,” Thor says with a cheerful grin, handing her what looks like rolled up cloth. “And I found this for you in the armory. I thought you might need it.”

She takes the bundle of clothing with a strange look on her face, and then she takes a deep breath and smiles. “Thanks.”

“What’s next?” Tony asks.

“I’m going to go back to the palace and distract Hela, while you save my people,” Thor says frankly. “Please, Stark.”

Tony meets Thor’s sincere gaze, and he can see the love Thor has for Asgard. “Yes, of course. I’ll do my best.”

It’s the first time in years, other than when he’d pulled Thor in from the trash heaps, that Tony has been able to feel like he’s actually a hero. Maybe the cause is futile, but it’s just. He’s protecting innocents, and Tony hasn’t felt this clarity of purpose since Gulmira.

Thor looks to Bruce, and Bruce looks startled, but he says, “Of course, Thor. Anything I can do. I just—I don’t know about the Other Guy.”

Thor smiles. “I do. He was relatively gentle with me in the arena. I just ask that you be gentle with my people.”

“As much as I can be,” Bruce says.

“Good,” Thor says, and he smiles, bright and sunny again. “I’m off to go pick a fight with my sister. Heimdall will be watching for you. Good luck.”

“Your majesty,” Brunnhilde calls, then stops. “Don’t die.”

Thor smirks at her.

Brunnhilde grimaces. “You know what I mean.”

She takes the ship up, pointing it towards the rainbow bridge. “Stark, take over. I have the autopilot on, so it should be easy for you.”

Brunnhilde starts to strip off her black leather, unrolling the bundle that Thor had handed her. Tony takes the pilot’s seat and turns his back to give her some privacy, feeling as though this situation is a little different than stripping off to get into Hulk’s pool. In the years that he’s known her, Tony has never seen her in anything other than black.

Bruce sits next to him, and his expression is a little trepidatious. “I’m not a warrior, Tony.”

“The other guy is,” Tony says. “He did just fine against the Chitauri and on Sakaar. When this is over, I’ll talk him down again, okay?”

“You did it once before, right?” Bruce says. “I trust you.”

Tony doesn’t know if he deserves that trust, but it feels like a gift.

~~~~~

Brunnhilde steps out of the ship, and Bruce doesn’t know anything about the Valkyrie, but the uniform is both pretty and functional. Bruce can imagine a legion of women wearing that uniform, fighting like avenging angels.

Once the uniform is in place, she grabs one of the chairs from the ship and manages to strap the gun in place, racking a round and standing behind it, tipping it up, ready to aim.

She’s wearing a confident smirk, and she definitely has a swagger. “Are you boys ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Tony replies. “What about you, Bruce?”

Bruce grimaces and shrugs. “Sure.”

Tony turns the controls over to Bruce and moves to stand next to her. “How are we playing this?”

“Can you hover?” she asks. “Hela doesn’t know who you or the big guy are, or what you can do. I’d like to keep you in reserve.”

Bruce thinks he can see the trust that’s built up between them, because Tony just nods and flips the faceplate down. “You got it. Catch you on the flip side, Jolly Green.”

Tony flings himself out of the ship, then heads straight up. Bruce can just barely see him through the view screen.

“Hey, Banner, keep us steady and just out of sight of the rainbow bridge,” Brunnhilde calls, still maintaining her grip on the gun, looking out the open hatch. “You got it?”

“I guess so,” Bruce mutters. He’s really not sure what he’s doing here, but he knows the Hulk can be an asset, and there are a lot of vulnerable people in danger. It’s New York all over again.

“You’re going to be fine,” Brunnhilde says, her tone a little gentler. “Improbably enough, we’re all on the same team here.”

He glances at her over his shoulder. “How long has it been for you?”

“Too long,” Brunnhilde says. “You?”

“It was really just the one time,” Bruce admits. “And things went to shit immediately after that.”

Brunnhilde gives him reckless grin. “Not this time.”

Bruce turns back to the controls, keeping the ship just out of sight of the rainbow bridge. He really hopes she’s right about that.

He doesn’t have Brunnhilde’s sharp eyes, so he turns the ship so she can see the rainbow bridge from her position in the door behind the gun. He’s hovering above a golden tower that looks like something straight out of a fairy tale—which it kind of is.

Bruce has no idea where Tony is, but he assumes that Tony is also hovering out of sight.

“Oh, fuck,” Brunnhilde says. “Hela released Fenrir. Take us down!”

“I really should not be the one flying this thing,” Bruce mutters to himself as he actually flies the ship toward the rainbow bridge. He stops when Brunnhilde starts firing, trying to keep the ship steady to allow her to lay down fire between the clearly terrified Asgardians streaming over the bridge—and there are a lot of women and children in that crowd—and the big-ass wolf.

Bruce can feel the Other Guy in the back of his head, almost perking up at the sight of the wolf, wanting to know if he could best it. Bruce is just going to have to wait for the right moment.

Brunnhilde keeps firing, but Bruce can see that the Asgardians on the bridge are stuck between a rock—the wolf—and a hard place—a group of warriors coming from the direction of the palace.

Then Tony drops down out of the sky, landing between what looks like an Asgardian with an army of the undead and the civilians, while Brunnhilde keeps firing on the wolf.

Tony is helping to keep the enemy occupied and away from the crowd of mostly women and children, but the wolf is incredibly resistant to bullets.

“This damn dog just won’t die!” Brunnhilde cries out.

Bruce remembers what Tony had promised him, and he has no reason not to trust him when Tony had talked the Hulk into retreating once already. He moves the ship so it’s hovering just above the section of the bridge that the wolf is advancing on, and he sets the autopilot.

“I think it’s time to bring the Hulk to the party,” Bruce says.

Brunnhilde smiles and punches him on the shoulder when he comes to stand next to her. “You got this, big guy. I’ve seen you take on worse.”

“Let’s hope you and Tony are both right,” Bruce mutters and leaps out of the door, focusing on that rumbling desire in the back of his head that just wants to be back in the arena, where he felt at home.

Bruce isn’t sure whether he times it right or not, because he lands on the back of the wolf. He doesn’t transform right away, so he just grabs the fur and yanks hard.

That at least distracts the wolf, and it snaps at Bruce over its shoulder. Bruce throws a punch, and he’s gone between one moment and the next.

~~~~~

Tony hovers above the rainbow bridge, waiting for his moment. He wonders how Bruce and Brunnhilde are getting along. He wonders if Bruce is going to be able to welcome the change, and if he’s going to be able to talk the Hulk into retreating again.

He wonders if he’s going to watch a bunch of innocents die today.

Tony sees the crowd of Asgardians making their way across the bridge, including a lot of women and children. A huge wolf jumps onto the bridge between the crowd of Asgardians and the golden tower. When they turn around to go back towards the palace, an armored Asgardian leading what looks like an army of the undead comes between them and the palace.

The Grandmaster’s ship moves between the wolf and the Asgardians, so Tony takes that as his cue to protect the crowd from the undead.

He wonders if the dead can die all over again, but it looks like he’s about to find out.

Tony opens fire on the armored Asgardian and the undead as he dives in from above. He’s not sure what kind of intelligence the undead have, but just in case they need a leader, he focuses on the guy in armor with the tattoos on his head.

He has an axe, and he swings at Tony, but it’s easy to dodge the blow. The guy doesn’t appear to be all that bright, because he immediately starts ignoring the Asgardians to focus on Tony.

Which is a mistake, given that several of them are carrying swords.

With Tony engaging from above, and the Asgardians locking swords on the ground, they’re able to keep the enemy busy and start taking them out. Tony puts on a burst of speed, aiming for a knot of the undead, sweeping more than a dozen off the bridge into the water below.

Tony’s armor easily deflects the weapons, and he’d had time to create a way to absorb and use kinetic energy while he’d been building vehicles for the arena. He can feel the blows, but there’s enough cushioning from that and the armor that he’s not going to have bruises tomorrow.

At least, not from this.

Tony is doing his best to keep the bad guys tied up and away from the civilians, especially the children.

He hates to see wasted potential, and that’s exactly what a dead kid represents.

Tony hasn’t been in this kind of a fight since Manhattan, and he almost misses Cap calling out directions, because no one is in charge of this fight.

The big, bald guy in armor manages to get away from Tony, and the Asgardian shouts, “Heimdall! The sword!”

Considering the man is fending off a couple of women who look like they know how to use the swords they’re swinging, Tony figures there has to be something special about the sword this asshole is demanding.

Which means that there’s also a very good reason to prevent him from getting it, and there’s one easy way to do that.

Guys in armor don’t exactly float.

He’s a big guy, though, so Tony knows he’s going to need a running start. He flies straight up, shaking off about five of the undead soldiers, then turning on the gas to hit the center of the big man’s armored chest.

The guy goes flying off the bridge and lands with a loud, distant plop.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t do anything for the focus of the undead soldiers. They still advance without pause.

Behind him, Tony hears the Hulk’s roar, and he turns to see him battling the wolf. The wolf is putting up a good fight, but the Hulk has been in the arena for years now.

And the Hulk is clearly pissed. Even more than usual it seems.

He’s going to town on the wolf, throwing punches with abandon. Tony wants to cheer him on, but he still has an army of the undead to fight.

The wolf snarls, the Hulk roars, the undead army advances, and Tony wonders if it’s going to be enough. He’s doing the best he can, as is everyone else, but Tony already knows that sometimes your best is not enough.

Sometimes, you lose.

And sometimes, help comes in the most unlikely form in the nick of time.

Tony sees the ship come in, hovering at the side of the rainbow bridge, and the Kronian that the Hulk had beat up a lot in the arena shoots one of the undead to save the dude with the sword that everyone seems to want. Tony assumes that’s Heimdall.

Then Loki, that fucking diva, comes floating in on a cloud like some kind of savior from heaven, even though the Kronian and his friend are clearly doing the heavy lifting.

In that moment, Tony wants nothing more than to shoot Loki out of the sky, but he refrains. Right now, they need him, and when the Hulk isn’t occupied with the wolf, he’s going to show Loki just who’s boss here.

Tony will just have to look forward to that.

And Jolly Green listens to Tony.

Loki descends and moves into the crowd. He has his hands raised like a beneficent god, and Tony can see the crowd of Asgardians streaming past him onto the ship, which seems to be large enough to hold them all.

Tony is just going to keep fighting the undead and ignore Loki, even as Loki calls to the Asgardians, “Did you miss me?”

Even with Loki and his reinforcements, though, the army of the undead just keeps coming. The unarmed Asgardians are carefully making their way towards the large warship that the Kronian somehow managed to liberate. Anyone who has a weapon has joined in the fight, but there doesn’t seem to be an end to Hela’s forces.

Tony sees the Hulk slam into the side of the wolf, and they both go flying off the edge into the water below.

He wonders how Thor is faring, or if the only thing they’ll be able to do is to retreat.

Suddenly, Tony can see a lightning storm converge on the palace. Thor had displayed a few of his powers in the arena on Sakaar, but nothing like what he’d been able to do with his hammer.

Now, though, it’s clear that Thor has accessed an even greater power than before. He doesn’t just leap from the palace towards the battle, he flies, lightning striking the undead soldiers that are piling up, climbing over each other in their attempts to get to him.

Thor almost seems to float in, riding the lightning, electricity sparking through his whole body, his one eye—and when had he lost the other?—glowing blue.

With Thor joining the fight, the tide of battle seems to turn. He flies through groups of the undead, electricity hitting enemy soldiers from above, even as Thor’s body spins as though he’s drilling a hole through their forces.

Brunnhilde lands the Grandmaster’s ship on the rainbow bridge, cutting off any enemies who might come from the tower. Fireworks start going off, and Tony can’t imagine a better fuck you to Hela than that.

Brunnhilde begins fighting with twin swords, and Tony turns his attention back to the battle. He keeps an ear out for the Hulk, and he thinks he can hear him doing battle below them, still keeping the wolf occupied.

They manage to create a bit of breathing room, and Tony lands on the rainbow bridge next to Thor, who’s standing with Brunnhilde and Loki. Tony carefully doesn’t look at Loki.

“What now, your majesty?” Brunnhilde asks.

“Maybe you should hit her with another lightning strike,” Loki suggests in a snide tone.

Thor almost growls at him. “I already hit her with the biggest lightning strike in the history of lightning.”

“Do we retreat?” Tony asks.

Thor shakes his head. “It won’t do any good. The longer Hela is on Asgard, the stronger she grows, and she won’t stop here.”

“So, what?” Loki asks.

Thor shrugs. “There’s always Surtur’s crown.”

Tony doesn’t understand the reference, but Brunnhilde and Loki clearly do, because Brunnhilde winces and Loki says, “Bold move, brother.”

“Care to share with the guy from Midgard?” Tony asks.

“It will bring about Ragnarok,” Brunnhilde says. “You might call it the apocalypse.”

“It would be the end of Asgard,” Thor rumbles. “But Asgard is not a place; it’s a people. We only need to buy enough time for them to escape. After that, Surtur and Hela will destroy each other.”

Thor looks at Loki and says, “I need you to go to the treasury.”

Loki nods. “You do set an interesting challenge, brother. Very well.”

He starts to run towards the Grandmaster’s ship, and Tony takes a deep breath. “Where do you want me, Thor?”

“Brunnhilde and I will keep Hela occupied,” Thor replies. “You protect the people. Make sure they get on that ship.”

“What about you two?” Tony counters. “How are you going to escape?”

Thor gives him a slightly rueful look. “I can fly. We’ll figure it out.”

Having just seen what Thor can do—and Tony is starting to believe that he might actually be a god—Tony is concerned that Hela could peel him out of the armor, so he’s happy to follow orders this time.

Tony parks himself and his armor at the back of the crowd that’s filing onto the warship. He’s putting himself between the enemy and innocents, and he feels great doing it.

He backs up, protecting their backs as they finish loading. Tony can see Thor and Brunnhilde battling Hela, and it’s clear that they’re losing. She’s just too powerful, and Tony understands why Thor thinks burning the whole place down is the better option if it means stopping her.

Especially when the ship takes off, and Hela sends up a stone spike to anchor the ship in place. The undead—and where the hell are they even coming from at this point?—start climbing up.

Tony has a tool for just this occasion, though, and he deploys a small rocket he’d repurposed from one of his vehicles. It’s not big, but it does pack a punch, and that punch disintegrates the stone spike and sends the undead flying.

The ship continues moving away, but ponderously, laden as it is with Asgardians. Tony isn’t willing to leave until he knows that Bruce, Thor, and Brunnhilde can get off the planet.

Hulk leaps up from the water under the bridge and lands next to Tony on the bridge. “Metal Man okay?”

“I’m fine, big guy,” Tony replies. “But they’re going to start an apocalypse, so no smashing whatever comes out of the ruins, okay?”

“Puny god?” Hulk asks hopefully.

“I think he took off in the Grandmaster’s ship, but I wouldn’t put it past him to leave us here, so do what you need to do,” Tony says cheerfully.

The Hulk grunts and bares his teeth in what passes for a grin from him. Just then, the Grandmaster’s ship comes flying over their heads, but not too high for the Hulk to jump.

The Hulk leaps straight up, grabbing it and yanking it back down to the rainbow bridge, forcing the ship to land.

Loki runs out the back of the ship, apparently thinking that he can somehow reason with the same Hulk who had routinely smashed him in the arena, and wants to do that one more time.

“What are you doing, you great oaf?” Loki demands. “We need to escape!”

Tony is trying to keep one eye on Thor and Brunnhilde, who have regrouped, and one on Hulk and Loki. He has to admit that watching the Hulk grab Loki by the ankles and shaking him is far more entertaining than watching his friends get beat up.

A familiar blue cube shakes out of Loki’s clothing, and before Tony or Loki can do anything about it, the Hulk drops Loki from about six feet up, straight on his head, and picks up the cube.

Then he pitches it, right into the middle of the giant, flaming demon. If that’s a demon. Tony isn’t really clear about that, but it’s the description that seems to fit best. There’s a blue flash of light, and Tony knows they’re not getting the Tesseract back any time soon.

“What did you just do?” Loki screeches. “Do you know what that was?”

Hulk grins. “Thing of power the puny god wanted. Puny god can go get it.”

“I cannot believe you,” Loki says. “You artless, ill-bred lout!”

Brunnhilde stabs Hela in the back, and Thor calls lightning down on her, creating a large gap in the rainbow bridge. The ship with the rest of the Asgardians is getting farther and farther away, and Tony figures if they’re going to get off the planet, they need to go now.

“Hey!” Tony calls. “Time to go if we’re not going to get roasted!”

“The Tesseract!” Loki protests.

“Feel free to go fish it out,” Tony invites as Thor and Brunnhilde leap across the gap in the bridge. “But you’re on your own.”

Tony sees the Hulk make the leap to the warship, and Thor and Brunnhilde run into the Grandmaster’s ship. Loki still appears incensed, but he also seems to understand that the Tesseract is now lost unless he wants to burn along with it.

There’s a part of Tony that feels sympathy for Loki, because seeing such a powerful item like that be destroyed feels sacrilegious.

On the other hand, Loki is the last person Tony wants to have possession of it, so he can’t say he’s mad either.

“Let’s go!” Brunnhilde calls.

Tony gets onto the ship with Loki on his heels, and she takes off, heading for the warship. Tony figures it probably doesn’t hurt to have another, smaller ship if they need something a little more maneuverable.

They manage to dock the Grandmaster’s ship on top of the warship and get onboard. Loki stalks off immediately, muttering under his breath.

“I need to find my people,” Thor says. “Stark, I owe you a great debt.”

“You don’t,” Tony replies. “Or maybe I owe you one that’s just as great, and we can call it even.”

Thor grins. “Agreed. Friends need not count favors and debts between them. Come find us when you’re ready.”

Tony finally feels as though he can get out of the armor, and he releases it, letting it drift into a pile. He can get back into this suit of armor easily enough, at least.

He leaves it in a corner of the hangar, and stretches, hearing his spine crack. He’s exhausted, but Tony knows that he needs to locate the Hulk first. He has a promise to keep.

Tony makes his way through the halls towards the main observation bay where he’s pretty sure he’ll find the rest of the Asgardians and likely the Hulk.

He makes his way to the window just as what little remained of Asgard implodes and then explodes, leaving nothing but space rocks.

Tony sidles up next to the Hulk. “Good job making sure Loki didn’t get the shiny cube, Jolly Green. That would have been bad. Although, I wouldn’t have minded giving it a closer look.”

“Puny god just steal it from you,” Hulk rumbles. “Not let that happen.”

“You’re right,” Tony says. “I’m glad you were looking out for me.”

A young woman approaches them. “Lord Stark, Mr. Hulk? The king asked me to show you to your room. Or is it two rooms? He wasn’t clear on that.”

“Why don’t you show us the rooms, and we’ll take it from there?” Tony asks. “And thank you. I appreciate the help.”

“It’s our pleasure, Lord Stark,” she replies, flashing her dimples. “This way, please.”

“Come on, Jolly Green,” Tony says. “Let’s take a load off.”

They wind up in a fairly decent room, with Bruce’s space being just next door, and clearly not meant for someone the Hulk’s size. He has to stoop and turn slightly to the side to edge his way through the door, and that decides things.

Tony is going to have to get Bruce back.

“Hey, Big Guy, let’s sit,” Tony says. Tony sits on the edge of the bed, but the Hulk has to sit on the floor. “You did really good today. You smashed that wolf, and you kept Loki from getting the Tesseract.”

The Hulk grunts. “Metal Man wanted it.”

“I think you did the right thing,” Tony admits. “That much power anywhere near Loki is dangerous.”

“Puny god wants something, better not have it,” Hulk says with pardonable satisfaction.

Tony laughs. “You’re not wrong.”

Hulk sighs. “You want puny Banner.”

Tony shrugs. “I mean, yes, but have you seen this place? It’s not built for someone your size. If I promise to make you a place someday where you can be accommodated, would you give Bruce back? He was a little worried that you wouldn’t, and he trusted me to talk you around. Would you help me keep that promise?”

The Hulk sighs. “Hulk like Metal Man. Metal Man like Hulk. Puny Banner like Metal Man. Metal Man take care of puny Banner.”

“Just like you did, Jolly Green,” Tony says gently. “You got Bruce off Earth, and you took care of him on Sakaar. You did your job. You’re going to get to do that job again, I’m sure.”

And then Hulk sighs again, and the green begins to recede, and Tony is grateful that he gets to keep his promise.

 

---