Tony shifted uncomfortably, scattily wondering if this was Asgard's waiting room, and whether there was even a single piece of furniture on the planet that wasn't made of marble. Every now and then, a lady would saunter by, gracing Tony and the guard with a gentle smile, before carrying on to continue doing nothing for the rest of her life. Before an hour had passed, he decided he might have underestimated SHIELD as he heard very familiar sounding steps echoing through the hall. Fury sat down on the piece of marble that was, quite frankly, definitely already claimed by Tony's personal bubble. Tony gave his a stupid look, opening his mouth to offer a snarky comment, but was interrupted.
"Don't worry, Stark. We're getting him the hell out of there."
For a man with only one eye, he sure was a good observer, seeing as Tony had practiced his indifference face for at least half an hour to make sure he wouldn't be reminded just how illogically worried he was. And then Fury sighed, somehow appearing almost vulnerable, and Tony felt a little better.
"I came here because I thought Loki'd put a spell on you. I have the rest of the Avengers and half the world's army standing by to transport up on my signal. I'll be honest with you. I didn't think it was possible you'd disagree with any sort of punishment for Loki."
Tony straightened defensively. "And you would?"
Fury gave him a tired smile. "You know all of SHIELD's secrets, Stark. You know we're not above torture when it's deemed necessary. We don't need any more information from Loki, so it wouldn't have been necessary, but still I'd give the kid an ass whooping. But this..." he trailed off, absentmindedly massaging his temples. They sat there in silence for a while, until a guard entered the hall, telling them the All-father will see them now.
"I'll take care of this. You go get Loki," Fury said confidently, his voice making it very clear that this was going to end the way he decides it's going to end. He left with the guard, and the one which had been standing in the room since Tony came in earlier, and probably a couple of decades before that, escorted Tony back down to the dungeon. The confidence Fury gave him seemed to fade more with each step he took and Tony wished the journey could last longer, preferably forever. But they reached the door a lot sooner than infinity, the heat already suffocating him, even though he knew he couldn't have felt it through the walls.
"Could you turn down the heat or something?" he blurted nervously, but the guard made no attempt to address his question or obvious fear and simply opened the door with an almost bored expression on his face. The stench that hit him was the same, only worse, as if decades had passed inside the room since last time. His vision was clouded and sparks danced in front of him, his ears seemingly detecting white noise mixed with ancient cries of old prisoners. At the time, it actually seemed quite plausible that the sadistic room was capable of swallowing the voices and savouring them so it could listen to them later. You could almost laugh at how unbelievably horrifying the low, horrendous groans and high-pitched screams of utter despair were. But Tony made his way bravely through the hot air once more, each step accompanied by a shuddering breath. Loki's eyes were closed, Tony's presence unnoticed. Hoping Loki is and would stay unconscious, Tony went to reach for the chains at his feet immediately, but only managing to yank them when they burned his hand. An animalistic scream so loud filled the room that Tony could feel the walls vibrate. He stumbled back and fell to the floor, a cloud of brown dust rising around him. Through his own panicked breathing he could hear the ragged breaths coming from the wounded animal in front of him. He rose quickly and steadied his breathing.
"Loki, it's me, Stark," he said, as if that would somehow calm the blue beast down, raising his hands up. "We're taking you to Earth."
Loki's eyes were wide open, filled with nothing but pure pain. He was panting loudly, staring at the ground intensely, and Tony wondered if he'd heard him. "I need to get you out of those chains," he tried again.
The red eyes shot up, the black pupils impossibly dilated. "Do not. Touch me," he hissed between breaths, his entire body trembling, causing more pain. The fatters had only moved slightly yet blood was running down his ankles, dripping to the ground. Even in this state, he managed to look convincingly threatening.
"Tell me what to do then," Tony urged him. Loki fought to calm himself down, closing his eyes gently.
"The All-father must break the spell that is disabling my magic," he whispered.
"I... I can't do that, Loki. We can't give you your powers back," he said almost apologetically.
"It would take me days to heal myself. Weeks before I'm able to use my magic for anything else," Loki insisted, though calmly, and there was strangely no desperation in the prideful creature's voice.
Tony found the proposition reasonable, and was happy to leave the place to find Fury. His hand froze in a knocking position inches from the door. He frowned. Something was off. Something was very, very wrong here. He was being impossibly understanding. Fury was being impossibly understanding. Thor and Odin had known Loki his entire life, which probably meant for centuries. And Tony knew, for a fact, that Thor truly cared about his brother with all his stupid, naive being, and still he agreed upon this punishment. How sure was he that Loki really hadn't cast a spell on him? He was a scientist, but he didn't know anything about magic; for all he knew Loki couldhave been able to do this despite his physical state. A simple spell, one that didn't require much energy. Empathy... Loki could have simply enhanced it. Surely that wouldn't take a lot of effort. And what better way to trick them than by mocking what humans took such pride in; their sense of empathy.
Tony opened his mouth to speak as he turned around to face Loki again, but stopped dead in his tracks. A small, carefully delicate smile greeted him. Suddenly, the hot air around Tony condensed into a small, hovering ball in front of his face, before violently entering Tony's mouth and settling in the middle of his windpipe, expanding slightly so that not a molecule of air, no matter how clever and persuasive, could slip through. Tony fell to his knees, uselessly grabbing at his throat.
"Thank you," he heard the echo, "for your useful sentiments."
Tony woke up in a hospital bed, in a room which smelled, although terrible, like Earth. He was immediately and repeatedly told to relax, which he didn't do at all until Steve arrived, after which he was told to relax a few more times by the captain. Only then was he finally told that he'd been out for a few days, that Loki had managed to escape, and that, just as he figured right before he passed out, landing face first in the corpse dust, Fury had indeed managed to convince Odin to break the spell disabling Loki's magic, after which Loki was able to summon enough of it to teleport himself to an unknown location. Before, of course, shoving the ball down Tony's throat and nearly causing him to suffocate on condensed air. The news papers would've loved that one. Steve made sure to point out several times that this was by no means Tony's fault, causing him to laugh dismissively, assuring him he was not only aware of that, but also fairly pissed for once again being the one to nearly die because of Fury's incompetence. Of course, Steve knew just as well as Tony that he was, in fact, blaming himself. Loki was the god of lies. No amount of sympathy could have made him forget that simple and important fact. Or at least it shouldn't have. And he knew that no amount of pain would make Loki forget his hatred for Thor, and everyone else who dared to disrespect him. He would never have accepted their help, let alone pity. And yet somehow, seeing him hanging from the chains like an abused animal, all that was needed to make those thoughts disappear was a small, extra amount of empathy.
With each day passed, Tony's complaining and nagging about wanting to leave the damn hospital grew. He needed to get the hell out of there, eat some real food and start actually putting together the device he had been constructing in his mind. Sure, things were still a bit hazy, but he was absolutely confident that it would work. He would be able to trace Loki down and, with some help from Odin's infinite wisdom and knowledge, successfully disable Loki's magic. And keep it that way. And then... well, he wasn't quite sure what he would do after that. But he sure as hell wouldn't let Loki simply forget what happened.
»That little shit,« Tony mumbled to himself, just as somebody walked in.
»Anthony Stark,« came the deep voice, and Tony didn't bother looking up.
»Yeah, yeah, I know,« he moaned miserably, not in the mood for another person, or god, giving him the exact same speech as everyone before them. Thor sat down awkwardly on the chair next to the bed.
»Anthony, both I nor the All-father blame you for-«
»Yes! Yes. I know. No one is blaming me,« Tony exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. »Believe it or not, the whole thing hadn't traumatized me half as much as you people have managed to in the last few days. I'm not a little girl.«
Finally looking up at Thor, he was somewhat surprised. The god looked almost worn out, his shoulders slumped, his eyes tired and filled with regret.
»My brother...« he said quietly, »he did not try to kill you. He disappeared the ball as soon as you were asleep.«
»Then why the hell have I been sitting here for a week?«
Thor sighed. Defending his brother was a routine for him now. He knew Loki's resentment had roots in their childhood days, and Thor regretted all those times he did not treat Loki with respect. But unlike Thor, who was a noble, but simple man who experienced simple emotions, Loki had always been a creature of extreme complexity. Thor would never dream of fully understanding him, but he had learned, although too late, that Loki felt the sting of mockery very strongly. He never got along well with other children, speaking of things they did not care about, using language they did not understand, and Thor's fault laid in his lack of action when others would pick on Loki. They trained together, and the children would mock him for his defeat, and laugh when he tried making up for the lack of strength with agility. Thor had since tried very hard to remedy it, Loki's feeling of betrayal slowly reducing. 'It was their fault, never yours, brother, never', Thor told him countless times. Loki knew he would never belong, but it was okay, because it wasn't his fault. Then everything changed. The day when Loki learned of his true heritage.
'I'm finally free,' he told him, 'free of the obligation to care about you, brother,' he spat, mockery and disgust dripping from his voice. But Thor knew that what Loki truly feared was Thor being freed of the obligation of loving him. He knew Loki was a time bomb of the most dangerous kind. Powerful, but fragile. So determined never to accept love, he was starved of it to the bone. But so skilled was he in the art of deceit, that he could put fake flesh on the bones, the well-fed body on display for all to see how superior and deserving he was. Thor was the only man in existence who saw the skeleton. Loki's hateful glares and harsh words spoke to him only of loneliness, craving and pain. 'Never your fault,' Thor mouthed at the Destroyer's hollow eyes, 'never your fault,' he whispered as Loki fought desperately to pierce his heart with the spear, 'never your fault' before Loki dropped him from the sky in a glass prison. But it didn't matter to Loki, because it couldn't have been their fault. He was the monster. Everything made better sense now.
»I will help you find him, man of iron,« he said wearily, as he made his way to the exit. »We will disable his magic and put him in one of your jails.« Closing the door behind him, he still heard the humourless laugh.
»You know what, I think you can keep him.«
