Written for a prompt on Round 14 of the norse!kink community at LJ.
After creating J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony decides to create something that would be as close to a human being as possible. Physically, his creation is capable of feeling pain and pleasure (well, he can feel everything a human body feels), but Tony is not sure if Loki will be able to really feel emotions. Loki is not like J.A.R.V.I.S. Tony wanted to create an artificial human, not another robot, connected to some devices or anything of that sort, in which he succeeded. At first Loki is child-like, though he looks like an adult, but he develops into something more and gets his own personality in time.
When Thor takes time to visit Midgard and visits his friend Tony, he sees Loki and falls for him really hard. When Tony rolls his eyes and explains that Loki is his creation and not really a human, so he can't really feel human emotions, it doesn't stop Thor's interest. But then he has to go back to Asgard. He promises to visit again soon. When he leaves, Loki complains to Tony that he's not okay, that something is wrong with him. When Tony scans him and finds nothing wrong, he starts suspecting that his creation's development goes further than expected. He monitors Loki's physical and especially emotional health and gets an evidence that Loki feels emotions. And then Tony realises what exactly makes Loki feel that unusual pain. Loki misses Thor! Loki often looks brooding and unhappy until the day Thor comes back.
"You got to be fucking with me," he said as soon as the tube's surface was clear enough to show its contents. "And I really, really don't like when people fuck with me, unless it is the kind of fucking where fluids are exchanged, fun is had and everybody leaves satisfied. And at the moment I'm not satisfied. Bruce, tell him I'm not satisfied."
Bruce of course did nothing of the sort, although Tony forgave him because it was obvious the man had more urgent matters in his hands - his slowly turning green hands.
"I thought all specimens had been destroyed," Bruce said through clenched teeth.
Fury seemed completely unfazed. Tony would have been more pleased by another human being failing to show utter horror at Bruce, but at the moment he would have happily accepted a terrified Nick Fury.
"All specimens from the seized lab were destroyed," the Director stated. "This one is something else."
And now that more of the surface defrosted Tony could see Fury was right. All the other creatures SHIELD had seized were eerily similar to Steve, close enough that the Cap had spent some days looking seriously disturbed until DNA testing proved there was no biological relation. It simply was that, not surprisingly, HYDRA had a type: blond-haired, blue-eyed, white-skinned, powerfully built male Caucasians.
But the specimen in front of them was, as Fury had said, something else. Its skin was white all right, although Tony was ready to bet that put side by side with the rest of the clones, this one would make the others look tanned in comparison. It probably was an illusion created by the sterile surroundings and the shocking contrast its black hair made.
The biggest difference, though, was in its built. All the others had been obviously engineered to eventually become supersoldiers, and it showed. This one, although muscled, reminded him more of a dancer. Damn tall, but lithe and with fingers that wouldn't look out of place doing something that required precision.
"What was this one made for?"
Beside him Bruce growled, and Tony almost felt ashamed of his curiosity. Almost.
"Command, according to the notes we found."
"Holy fuck."
"That can't be right," Bruce said, surprise replacing anger. "No matter how much they filled their Arian ideal, HYDRA still saw them, these, the specimens as inferior. They wouldn't be put in charge. And even if they did they wouldn't have the capacity to—"
"Apparently this one does. Or has the potential to."
Tony had had enough.
"We saw their plans. Their installations, their entire process does not allow for something like this. Nothing allows for something like this. These are drones, Nicky, empty-headed meat suits. Hell, even Doom's bots have more of a spark in them."
"It is impossible," Bruce agreed.
Fury looked at them both for a moment before signaling at the Agent that had accompanied them.
"It was a pet project of the head scientists," he said, taking a black object from the Agent's hand. "So well hidden we almost didn't found it … and apparently it was unsanctioned."
He offered them what Tony realized was a portable hard drive. Neither Bruce nor he made to take it.
"Why are we here, seriously?" he asked, feeling his hands itch. He wanted to take it, it was knowledge, and if Fury was right … "Because I have a charity thing tonight, and as much as I hate those things, Pepper is seriously going to skin me with how late we already are."
Fury left the drive on a close shelf and shifted his attention to the creature floating in the tube close to them.
"This one will not be destroyed," he finally said, and something in his tone gave Tony a seriously bad feeling.
"Are they going to activate it?" No need to specify who they were.
"They certainly are going to try. And according to the notes," Fury said, signaling at the shelf, "there's a good chance they'll be successful."
None of them said a thing for a long moment.
"You want Tony on this."
"I want both of you on this," Fury said, looking at Bruce directly in the eye. "Mr. Stark as the leading expert on artificial intelligence—"
"—and me as the leading expert on how to keep your inner monster under control."
A pause, and then, "Yes."
Motherfucker.
"Thanks but no thanks," he said, taking Bruce's arm and pulling him in the door's direction. "If you excuse us, or even if you don't, see how much I care, we really really have to leave. Tiny weenies do not eat themselves, if you know what I mean."
"Stark."
"Keep walking," he mumbled to Bruce, even if Bruce didn't even pause.
"You'll have free reign with the programing, as long as it prevents it from becoming a threat."
And that made both of them stop.
"You are just saying what we want to hear."
"Yes, but that doesn't make my words less of a truth." Fury put his hand on the tube's surface. "This creature is one of a kind, the only specimen produced from a process that has been lost, the installations where it was created long ago destroyed. All the scientists involved are dead, its DNA cannot be duplicated and what is left of their notes is incomplete," he said, waving in the hard drive's direction.
"They are still going to try to reverse engineer it." He knew they were.
Fury at least didn't try to deny the truth.
"Yes."
Tony and Bruce shared a look, and Tony knew what they were both thinking. It was one of the reasons why they were both part of the Avengers Initiative despite their mistrust for SHIELD in general and the committee that tried to control it in particular.
If this was something that was going to happen anyway, then the best they could do was help to set the boundaries.
"Can we call it Fido?" Tony asked while Bruce went to pick the drive.
"It had a denomination but its meaning has been lost with part of the files. L-O-K-I," Fury enunciated. "We believe it was in German."
"Loki, seriously?"
"Point Break is going to be thrilled," Tony declared, grinning. He was already planning the Viking helmet he was going to put on its head the next time Thor showed up. He finally had the perfect Christmas gift for the god that had everything: his own fake-Norse-god-that-only-existed-on-mythology.
It was going to be fun.
"Wouldn't it have been easier if Stark put this into its programming?"
In the other side of the gymnasium Loki fell again while the men in charge of his physiotherapy rushed to catch him. It was his best attempt so far, almost crossing the path from side to side on his own. Bruce was proud of him, but he could understand why Steve found the sight of an adult body being driven around by an almost empty mind uncomfortable.
"It would have needed too detailed instructions and there was not enough time after we took him out of the cryogenic chamber."
Steve flinched, but that wasn't unexpected.
"Why not keep it there until the instructions were ready, then?"
"He had to be moved," Bruce explained, reaching easily for the lie both he and Tony had agreed on. "The building he was on was to be demolished, and the chamber couldn't be disconnected from the mainframe."
In truth Tony could have easily built a better chamber at Stark Tower, but they both feared the switch might cause irremediable brain damage to Loki. Of course, nobody really cared about Loki's brain integrity but Bruce and Tony, and they had decided against sharing their real reasons with the rest of the world.
And that's how they had ended with a learning AI that had to be taught everything but the most basic body functions. Fortunately SHIELD had under their payroll several therapists specialized in brain damage, and between them and Tony's continued programming Loki could already eat and use the bathroom on his own. He still made a mess of himself from time in time, but at least Bruce didn't have to clean it.
"The file said it has superhuman strength." Ah, that explained why Steve was present despite his discomfort. "Isn't this dangerous? Should they be around it? After all, if it can't control its own—"
"Could you call him by his name? Or just … just stop using 'it', please."
Steve of course looked surprised by Bruce's request. "But it—I mean, the, that, just …" The Captain frowned, and it was almost cute to see him silently discard words. "We are not talking about a human being here, Dr. Banner."
"Neither are Jarvis or Dummy or You human beings, but everybody uses their names when talking to them or about them. And it is a known fact that you use he-she pronouns when talking to little kids about their pets, Captain Rogers."
"That's different."
Ah.
"Certainly, Loki is only something that used to be human until other humans decided to experiment on him".
And yes, he was being rude with Steve and hitting him where it hurt most, but Bruce could too easily see himself in Loki's place. Moreover, in certain accounts Loki was already more human than the Hulk, and if Loki's programming was anything close to Jarvis' levels, which Tony was in fact trying to surpass, he should at least be given some respect.
Steve sighed.
"He has the potential to be dangerous, Bruce."
That made Bruce chuckle. "Don't we all?"
"Are we sure Stark didn't have anything with do with his creation?"
Natasha smiled at Clint. "Stark hates working with messy materials like flesh and its squishy stuffing." Rogers chocked on his spit. She winked at him. "His words, not mine."
Stark gave her a high five when he passed by her side, his focus on Loki, who was currently reading a screen and speaking quietly to Jarvis inside of the lab.
"He would be shinier had I had a say on his design."
Clint squinted at Loki. "I don't know, he already is kind of shiny, in a too pretty kind of way."
"Hey! No messing around with our baby boy. Daddy Hulk, tell him our baby boy is out of limits."
"Are we sure he was intended for command?" Natasha interrupted. This was one question Fury wanted answered, and now was the perfect time.
Rogers shook his head. "He doesn't fit with the rest of HYDRA's ground forces."
"No, but he would have been perfect for Special Ops."
They all turned to look at Loki at Natasha's words, and as if sensing their attention, Loki looked up to find them all focused on him. He flushed and sat down, hunching over as if trying to hide without being too obvious about it.
"Spy?" Bruce asked, smiling reassuringly at Loki and receiving a timid half-smile in return.
"And assassin. He has the right body for the job, and according to both your notes his control over it grows at a surprising rate."
Stark's notes had said 'beyond the intended programming, probably related to the interface'. SHIELD had correctly assumed there was more in Loki's body's engineering beyond his enhanced strength, which was why they were currently trying to force Fury into having him strapped on a table and experimented on.
Fury had been able to keep them at bay, but he still wanted his answers, and he really wanted for Stark and Banner to be more careful with what they reported. Given the look both scientists shared, apparently Natasha had already been successful on the second task.