Two years. A lot happened in two years. He and Pepper broke up, and said blond was now happily engaged to someone else. Steve got married, Clint and Natasha got married, and Bruce was well on his way to becoming sociable. Even he had changed. The brunette sat at the island in his kitchen, coffee replacing his usual alcoholic taste. After so long, drinking just seemed to lose its flare. And the last thing he wanted was to look more the idiotic drunk than he already did. It was a slow process, but being as stubborn as he was, it wasn't anything he couldn't overcome.
Sir, your guest is outside again.
Of course he was. Tony sighed heavily and stood, heading to the elevator. The one thing he wanted to do right now was relax. To be able to take time off work and go somewhere no one could bother him. Some remote island no one knew of. And instead, he was stuck here, in Stark Tower, like a babysitter. He reached the upper floor, and made his way out to the patio. And there he stood, wearing a white button down and black pants: Loki, the god of Mischief and Lies. What a cruel title.
"Not going to jump, are you?"
"I wish to be alone, Mr. Stark." His voice was cold, but filled with that same heaviness Tony had started to note over the past several weeks. He shook it off, and walked over.
"You know I can't leave you alone. For as much as I'd love to."
"You humans are really that afraid, aren't you? Even as I am, stripped of everything." The thought amused Loki, and lately, it was the only comfort he had anymore. What a fitting punishment: stuck in the world he'd tried to destroy with nothing but his sins in his face; a debt to be paid. Of course, no one even knew what to do with the criminal. Locking him away didn't seem horrible enough to many. They wanted Loki to suffer, but torture had proven to be something the god was well used to. He'd be strapped into a room alone, without food or water, and would simply laugh until it drove someone away. Many of SHIELD's employees quit, preferring their sanity over their anger. It was even starting to wear Fury down.
"People aren't afraid; their paranoid. Of course, if it were up to me, you'd be dead."
"I would embrace death if it meant I'd never have to see this place again." The god turned his attention to Tony, and a cold rage flooded his green eyes.
"You're getting off easy on this one. Don't push your luck."
"Or what Mr. Stark? You'll take justice into your own hands?" Loki smirked darkly, but the fury in his eyes burned bright. "What will you use as your excuse? The death of the agent? Or the near destruction of your world? Or maybe the haunting idea that I'm still here."
Tony gripped the collar of Loki's shirt suddenly, and he held his upper body over the railing. Loki felt his heart race, but he kept himself calm.
"Watch it Loki."
"All it would take is one good push Tony."
It was tempting. Really tempting. But Tony pulled Loki back and practically threw him inside.
"Behave."
"Of course Mr. Stark." He spoke dryly, and the god took a seat at the island. And Tony couldn't get over that nagging. At first, Loki had been nothing if not intolerable. He'd lost his powers, but that didn't stop him from creating as much chaos as he could. And then he stopped. Almost completely. Instead of his cruel pranks, Loki had resorted to icy words and overall avoidance of the Avengers. Tony didn't mind for a good while; he enjoyed the silence that had followed the storm of Loki's rage. But the constant quiet bothered him. He was alone there with Loki, and the fact that they rarely spoke struck Tony so hard. He looked at the former god, his wine brown eyes scanning him as if for some answer to his behavior. Tony could remember so well the first day that Loki had appeared, recently stripped of his powers and title. He was wounded from the fall, and though every fiber of Tony's being told him to let the man die, he didn't. He couldn't. It would have been easy for Tony to let Fury do as he wished to the fallen god. In fact, it would have been enjoyable. But after seeing Loki's condition for himself, he decided his vengeance had already been appeased. Torturing Loki any longer would just be cruel, and the man was now covered in the scars of their revenge. He did his best to hide them though. As Loki had put it, he never wanted to see the grotesque marks again, and Tony couldn't help but wonder why.
"Divert your gaze, Mr. Stark. I find it profusely rude when bugs stare up at me."
Tony blinked, and he realized he'd been staring just a little too hard at the fallen god. He quickly looked away and went over to get more coffee.
"I was waiting for you to do something."
"You ordered me to behave, and I shall do such."
"All right, what's wrong with you?" Tony fixed his gaze on Loki again, and was greeted by a pair of deadly green eyes. Loki sat back, his head held high and he scoffed at Tony's comment.
"I don't understand your question."
"Something's going on. Are you plotting something?"
"Why would I further waste my time on petty schemes? It's already been proven that my greatest attempts to destroy this world are nothing short of failure."
There it goes again. Tony looked into Loki's eyes, and saw something in them that threatened to drain his energy. No matter what the man was doing, no matter what situation he was in, his eyes were always full of a burning ferocity unlike anything Tony had ever seen. He tried to imagine what Loki was thinking, but never came up with an answer that made sense.
"You're upset about that? That we did our job?"
"I will not stoop to the level of exposing myself to a mere mortal, a bug that has more place under my boot than on this earth."
"I'd be offended if you weren't mortal too."
Those words struck Loki, and the fallen god stood, graceful and deadly as always, and went to his room. But there was something odd about him nonetheless. He'd changed, and what had caused that change was starting to annoy Tony. He almost preferred the Loki that would try to kill him, the Loki that would put all his effort into making everyone's life miserable over the silent Loki. This one was so cold and hard to understand. It was almost as if he had real feelings. Tony shook his head and chugged is coffee before going to his room. He needed sleep before he thought himself into a coma.