Loki had just enough time before the building completely fell on him to make a small shield around himself. He would have put one around Stark too, but unfortunately there just wasn't enough time for that. Loki really hoped that Stark hadn't gotten crushed.

Loki made it out of the building slowly, coming out to find that the Chitauri were nowhere to be seen, and the Avengers team was standing around staring anxiously at the building, not knowing where to start in the rescuing department or in the defeating the Chitauri department. They looked up excitedly when they saw Loki, but seemed to deflate when they noticed that it wasn't their beloved Stark. Everyone but Thor deflated. Thor seemed extremely happy that it was his brother that was alive.

"Stark is still in there, we must find him," Loki said urgently to them. Rogers stepped toward Loki.

"Saved yourself, did you?" he asked harshly. Loki bristled.

"Yes, but only because that was the only available option. I couldn't get to Stark in time before the building fell," Loki said sharply. "And it is better to get one out alive to help save the other than both of us dying."

Rogers fell silent but still fumed. They all glanced back at the building. "Come on, we gotta find him," Barton said, walking toward the building quickly.

They began their search, moving the difficult rubble aside slowly. And finally there was a shout by Banner. "Found him. Here, somebody help me pull him out!"

The others all grouped around, all helping to pull the rubble off of Stark, who seemed to be unconscious. They got him completely out, and Loki carried him over to the side of the building on the grass, setting him down gently and kneeling next to him. And then Loki noticed that there was a distinctive glow missing from the center of Stark's shirt.

Loki frantically pulled up Stark's shirt to see a huge crack in the arc reactor, which was as dead as a doornail. "Oh no, his arc reactor is dead," Loki hissed, and the other Avengers gave various cries of surprise and grief. Loki leaned down and heard that Stark still had a very weak heartbeat, but that would not last much longer with that device not working.

"How can we help him, does he carry an extra with him?" Banner asked, kneeling next to Loki and Stark.

"He has never said anything about an extra," Loki said, closing his eyes in concentration. He thought back to the displays he saw of the device on Stark's computer. He remembered his brainwave that he had had, the thought that maybe his magic could power an arc reactor if needed. It was worth the shot. He would not let Stark die, not if he could help it. Stark had saved him, and now he was going to repay the favor. Not to mention the fact that Stark was now his only real friend, the only person that he found he really wanted to be around. No, Stark was not going to die on his watch.

"I would stand back if I were you," Loki told the others and they were confused at first, until Loki let magic flow down his arm and pool around his hands. It swirled madly, working into one of the largest casts that Loki had done in a long time. He closed his eyes tighter and concentrated on nothing but the magic, and when he opened his eyes again they were much brighter green than they usually were. He held up his hands, placed them on the arc reactor in Stark's chest, and let the magic flow heavily into the device.

The arc reactor glowed with power under Loki's touch, but he knew that if he pulled away now it would just fall dead again. No, he needed much more power. He gritted his teeth and summoned as much magic as he could muster, causing his hair to fizzle with sparks and the air around him to shimmer with green light. Connections opened that had never been opened before between Loki and the power he was casting, and the sensation was amazing. He felt like he was on fire, but the fire was ice cold and tingly. The others had backed away quickly and now were standing a fair distance away, watching with awe.

"Come...on," Loki grunted, and he let go with a final surge of power. The magic was still swirling heavily around the center of Stark's chest, and when it all finally sunk in the arc reactor was glowing steadily green, instead of its usual bright blue glow. But it was still glowing steadily.

Loki sagged, completely drained from the magic usage. He had not used that much magic in a really long time, if ever, and he was feeling slightly light-headed. There was still magic swirling around him and it was making him feel really peculiar.

And then Stark's eyes fluttered open. "Ugh... why do I feel like a building has just collapsed on me?" he groaned. Loki immediately straightened, smiling.

"That is because a building did, indeed fall on you," he responded, smiling genuinely, and then because he was high on magic and relief he sprung on Stark, kissing him roughly on the mouth. This time was much different than the first time, though. Neither were incapacitated by drink, and they both had recognized their hidden feelings a little more and knew each other a lot more. No, this time they were both kissing each other completely aware of what they were doing, and Stark was wrapping his arms around Loki's neck, pulling him closer, and Loki had his hands on Stark's shoulders. Both had kind of forgotten there were five other people watching them, though, and maybe the whole SHIELD base as they were still on the cameras. They broke apart when somebody had cleared their throat.

Loki sat up to find that there were five Avengers staring at him with wide eyes and surprised expressions. Rogers was bright red, Banner had his mouth open slightly, Romanoff was hiding a smile, Thor was just genuinely confused, and Barton looked like he was going to kill something or someone.

"Brother, did something from the building knock you in the head a little too hard?" Thor boomed, moving toward Loki. Loki stood up and faced Thor.

"No, I know exactly what I am doing, and if you have a problem with it you should keep it to yourself, because, Thor, I do what I want."

Stark had managed to get to his feet. "Guys, settle down," he said, raising his hands in front of him.

Thor turned on him angrily. "You have seduced my brother!" Thor thundered, raising Mjölnir at Stark, who began backing away quickly, eyes wide.

Loki jumped between Thor and Stark, facing the blonde god with a dangerous expression on his face, magic still coming off of him like a crazy aura. He looked ready to murder somebody, and Thor took a step back.

"If you lay one hand on him, Thor, you will suffer the consequences, and I will not hold back," Loki whispered, his soft voice much more frightening than Thor's loud shouts.

"Brother, I am merely worried about your choices, that is all," Thor said in a quieter voice than before. Loki shook his head.

"I do not want you worrying about my choices. They are mine to make."

Stark had stepped from behind Loki to look at Thor. "What happened to you telling me that I am good for Loki?" he asked, an eyebrow raised. Loki looked back at Thor, curious as to what Stark was talking about.

Thor seemed slightly speechless. He backed away, shaking his head. "I need time to process this, brother," he finally said.

The speechless Avengers had finally come to their senses. "Okay, I personally had no idea that either of you played for that team," Barton mumbled.

Stark scratched his head. "You know what, neither did I until Loki started to confuse me," he confessed. "Now I know that it is impossible for me to be completely straight if I enjoyed that so much," he said, gesturing to Loki with a smile. Loki seemed a little astonished, especially by the fact that Stark was able to talk about things like that so freely.

There was loud static from all of their earpieces and they all scrambled to turn down the volume. "What is going on down there?" came Fury's booming, angry voice.

They all looked at each other, expressions of wonder written on their faces. What would they tell Fury?

"We have cameras set at every angle, you know, and you seemed to be very distracted for people who have revenge to get on a race of aliens who just almost killed a fellow Avenger," Fury said. So, he had seen everything. His voice suggested only a little surprise.

There was a loud explosion in the distance from the direction of the city. "The Chitauri have not left, people, and we may still be able to stop them if we get our act together," Fury said, and the whole team straightened up and got ready for whatever craziness it was they were about to get into. "Our plan may not have gone to the dogs just yet."

"You know, I have to say I am rather tired of those guys," Stark mumbled as they heard a helicopter coming to pick them up to fly them back up to the helicarrier. They all climbed aboard, squeezing slightly to be able to fit the whole group.

Loki stood next to Stark, extremely relieved still about his being able to save him. Stark looked down at the glow that was showing through his shirt.

"So, you used our research to save me, didn't you?" Stark asked him quietly.

"Yes, it was a wild hypothesis that saved your life. Good thing my hypothesizes are usually correct."

"Hey, guess what, Reindeer Games?"

"What?" Loki asked nervously.

"We are now completely even. You no longer owe me, you are out of my debt," Stark said, smiling. For some reason this absence of a commitment to Stark made Loki feel a little sad. Stark frowned, and Loki knew that he had seen those feelings written on his face.

"Hey, that does not mean that you can't be in the Avengers anymore, you proved your worth to the gang when you saved my life," Stark continued, bumping his shoulder against Loki's, which was not the best thing to do in a very crowded helicopter. Banner grumbled at Stark when Loki was pushed into him.

Loki frowned at Stark. A few minutes later he spoke so only Stark could hear him. "Thank you, Stark."

XxX

"We need to get rid of these guys once and for all, because they are really ticking me off," Fury said as he paced behind the conference table for a second time that day. The Avengers, now officially including Loki after what he had done, were sitting there, wanting to get into some action but having to wait on Fury to make a good decision.

"Come on, they're out there literally waiting for us," Steve said restlessly. Fury just shook his head.

"The last plan we made suffered greatly and two of us almost died from how bad it was. We need something that will actually work. At least we did get some of the Chitauri here from Asgard," Fury said, still pacing.

Tony was sitting at the table, looking like he was paying close attention, but he was actually lost deep in thought. Loki had kissed him again, this time completely in control of his actions, and Tony had enjoyed it. He looked down at his chest at the green glow beneath his shirt and sighed. He kept looking over at Loki, wondering what the god was thinking, and also just staring to stare. Now that Tony really thought about it, Loki was good looking in a dangerous sort of way and Tony couldn't help but feel chills when he thought of kissing him. Tony groaned inwardly. He was in it deep.

He was jolted out of his inner turmoil by an explosion and the ship vibrating dangerously. Fury had started barking orders to the people in the main computer bank and then faced the Avengers.

"It's your lucky day, people, they have brought the fun to us," he said to them. They all looked out the large windows in the front of the room to see a few Chitauri speeding by on their little flying machines, shooting at the large ship with their weapons.

The Avengers stood up and got their various weapons ready for use. Tony clicked the button on his wrist and the compact suit that they had brought back up from the warehouse fastened to him quickly. Steve, who was already in his outfit just pulled the mask over his eyes and hefted his shield. Clint picked up his bow and snapped the cord out, making it ready to load and fire. Natasha just stood up, pushing the hair out of her eyes and smiling excitedly. Thor picked up Mjölnir and held it out, ready to hit anybody in his way. Bruce stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do exactly, as turning into a giant rage monster right now was not a good idea. Loki summoned his magic that now seemed much more willing to follow his commands and smiled at Tony dangerously, his magic flitting around him in a way that was hypnotizing and made him look very powerful. Tony was very glad that there was a mask currently hiding his face, because his mouth was agape in awe and surprise.

"Alright, fellas, let's kick some Chitauri ass," Fury said darkly, and the Avengers moved out towards the deck to secure the helicarrier.

When they made it out, they were immediately bombarded with the fire from the Chitauri. Tony glanced at the others, who were now firing, hitting, or smashing their various weapons at the aliens. Bruce had glanced once around and then let out the 'other guy', and now he was flinging himself at the flying creatures and pulling them off of their mounts with ease and flinging them out into the sky.

Tony blasted off of the ground and engaged his weapons system, firing as quickly as he could at the many hostile forces. "Hey, this is a lot more than thirty Chitauri," he said into his communications system as he dodged one flying right at him.

"They must have been hiding most of their troops," Fury responded, interference making his voice choppy. "Just try to keep them from destroying the engines," he said.

"Gotcha," Tony said and took off to go fly near one of the engines to keep it safe. It was easy at first, but soon he was met with floods of them, all firing at him. He continued to dodge and fire, but there were too many for just him to fight.

"Hey, I need some backup over here!" he called over the comm as he narrowly dodged a blast from one lucky Chitauri. A few seconds later Barton was there, letting arrows pepper the Chitauri from his spot inside the ship shooting out a window, and Tony continued to go after them in his suit. There were soon decidedly less aliens attacking the engines.

"Alright, I'm headed back to the others, they still have a ton around them," Barton said, and with that he left Tony to continue guarding the engine by himself.

"Hey, does somebody have the other engines?" he asked the others.

"Yeah, Thor's at the other one," Steve told him, and then Tony heard a yell that sounded suspiciously like Loki's voice. He wondered what was going on up there.

"Hey, Stark, Thor, we need you up here," shouted Steve, and Tony started flying back up to the main deck.

The small group that was on the deck was completely surrounded by a large number of the aliens that were now on foot. It looked like a madhouse with so much fighting going on that it was hard to make out who was doing what. The only person that Tony knew was right below him was Loki because the magic that was surrounding him was so bright. He was using it to fling balls of energy at the unfortunate Chitauri who collapsed when it hit them. He also had acquired a sword of some kind and was hacking at the Chitauri near him while he threw magic everywhere. It was a sight to see.

Tony landed near him and began shooting and punching every alien he could get a hand on. There were still so many, though, and it was getting harder and harder to fend them off.

"Hey, JARVIS, how's my power looking?" he asked the AI.

"Actually, sir, it appears that the power source is not depleting any. You seem to have unlimited power due to the magic in your arc reactor," the AI responded.

Tony smiled. This was going to be fun. He used the computer system in his helmet to focus a target on all of the Chitauri he could currently see, careful to make sure that he wouldn't hit any of his fellow Avengers. This would take a good amount of power, but of that he had no limit. He lowered his center of gravity so that the aftershock wouldn't knock him over and then gave a command to JARVIS.

"Deploy shocker," he told the AI. A blast of pure energy forked from his suit and hit all of the Chitauri and they crumpled to the ground, senses overloaded. This weapon Tony had installed was worse than using a Taser and it was only for emergency situations, as it depleted power very quickly. Well, since he had unlimited power at the moment, and this situation had gotten pretty dire, it was definitely worth it.

The Avengers stopped, the opponent they were fighting having dropped unconscious. "What was that?" Barton asked as he looked around his feet in surprise.

"That was a very special weapon in my arsenal that I can only use if I have power to spare," Tony said, flipping up his mask and smiling. "And apparently having magic in your arc reactor means that you get unlimited power."

"That weapon was very helpful," Thor said, pushing his hair back into position, having been a little ruffled from the fight.

"Yeah, and it seems that the Chitauri are all gone," Tony responded, looking around the skies to see if he had missed one.

A door to inside the helicarrier opened and Nick Fury stepped out. "Nice work," he grunted, stepping over the unconscious Chitauri to get over to them. "We have taken care of all of the Chitauri here with us, but who knows how many are back in Asgard."

"Hmm... well based on the numbers of Chitauri here there cannot be that many back at home. We should be able to finish them off by ourselves," Thor said, scratching his chin. "I wouldn't be surprised if my warriors have already finished them off."

Fury nodded. "We have done well."

"We? I didn't see you out here fighting with us," Tony said, and then gave a command to JARVIS. His suit began to fold up and turned back into the little case with a handle.

"I was in there making sure that you guys were in the right positions so that we didn't get killed," Fury said sharply.

"Just messing with you," Tony mumbled.

"I must get back to Asgard immediately," Thor said. "Loki, you must assist me in getting there," he said, turning to Loki.

Loki had sat down on the ground and was looking rather pale. "What is wrong, brother?" Thor boomed.

"I used so much magic saving Stark and then fighting. I'm just a little lightheaded," he said weakly, letting his head rest in his hands. "Don't have enough energy to muster to get you back home."

Thor stood there for a second, staring at Loki, and then his shoulders slumped. "Well, I will have to wait then," he finally said.

Tony sat down next to Loki on the warm pavement of the runway. "You did good, you know," Tony began. "You behaved like a real Avenger."

Loki looked over at him and gave him a weak but genuine smile. "You know, that is one compliment I never knew I would ever receive," he responded.

"Well, it's your lucky day," Tony chuckled, draping an arm around Loki's shoulders. "We sure kicked butt, you know." Tony noticed that the area around them was strangely Avenger-free. The rest of the gang had become very interested in something that was on the other side of the deck. Tony smiled at this.

Loki had glanced at Tony, surprised about the arm on his shoulder, but eventually relaxed into Tony's side, a small smile playing on his lips. And then he looked nervous for some reason.

"So, um...about earlier," he began slowly.

"Earlier?"

"You know, after I saved you and all."

"Oh, earlier."

Loki ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Yeah, I just got excited and I was energized from the magic and all," he said.

Tony stopped and frowned. "So the only reason you had for kissing me was because you were excited and high on magic? There was no other reason?" Tony asked.

"No?"

"Well, that's a little disappointing," Tony mumbled, pulling his arm off of Loki and putting both hands under his chin. He was going to play this out a little bit and see what he could get out of Loki.

"Disappointing?" Loki's face was confused.

"Yeah, I was hoping that it was something else that made you kiss me. Are you sure that those were the only reasons?"

Loki looked uncomfortable. "Well, I haven't examined the other reasons enough to be able to share them," he mumbled.

"What other reasons?" Tony asked, only half faking his curiosity.

Loki sighed. "I may have done it because... I," he began slowly, and then took a deep breath, and his next words came out in a rush. "Because I like you, Tony Stark. I like you more than I should, more than is explainable by friendship."

Tony sat there in silence for a few seconds, looking out into the clouds in contemplation. "Well, that's good," he finally said simply.

Loki turned on him, surprised. "What?"

"I said, that's good. Because then I wouldn't seem completely stupid when I tried this," he said, and then pulled a completely bewildered Loki closer to him, pressing his lips softly against Loki's. Tony had decided that he too he was way too fond of Loki than camaraderie would allow. And it just felt way too good kissing him for it to be just normal friendship.

They pulled apart, and Loki stared at him with mixed emotions on his face. "Am I right when I say that I am not alone in such feelings?" Loki asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Tony shrugged. "You've hooked me, Reindeer Games," he said simply, smiling at the god sitting next to him. He placed his arm around Loki for a second time and they sat there peacefully for a while, and Tony realized he didn't want to be anywhere else at that moment. He would enjoy this while it lasted, because wherever Tony was there was always trouble, and he knew that he would tick somebody off soon, because that is just what he did when something was happy and was working.