Again, thank you all very much for the reviews :3 It makes my cruel black heart quiver with joy.
…and that was a really creepy thing to say. Apologies .
"He's got to go soon."
"I don't know, I think they're kinda cute."
Clint shot Tony a withering look, but didn't bother to reply.
Despite Pepper and Coulson's best efforts, Avengers HQ still contained a significantly higher number of cats than was necessarily helpful. Apparently, getting rid of more than a thousand of them was near-impossible, and thus far Loki had (unsurprisingly) refused to offer any advice.
Tony skirted round the edge of the kitchen, making for the toaster. He opened the bread bin, only to find three tabby cats inside, peering up at him owlishly. Slamming it closed again, he turned back to his teammates.
"Okay," he said, grudgingly. "Legolas there may have a point."
"I had hoped that, given time, my brother might see reason." This from Thor, who was standing at the edge of the room, giving Clint a suspicious look. Tony sighed internally. Thor had many good qualities, but the huge blind spot he had where his brother was concerned was not one of them.
"With all due respect, Thor," Steve butted in "wouldn't it be easier to just take Loki back to Asgard? Surely you'd be better equipped to deal with him there than here?"
Thor looked uncomfortable at that, and for a moment made no response.
Interesting, Tony thought.
"I…would not take my brother home against his will," Thor said eventually. "Not now. It would go ill, and not just for him."
"You seemed perfectly willing before."
Thor inclined his head. "Yes. But…my father is prone to wrath, and I fear…" He broke off with a sigh, and made a frustrated gesture with one hand. "I know not. But I would have him remain here. For now."
"We've been getting good results," Bruce spoke up cautiously. "Useful results, the kind of information we can use."
"I'm gonna agree with anger management man there," Tony said, pointing to Bruce with a spoon. "The guy's a scientific treasure trove."
"Be wary, Tony Stark," Thor said grimly. "My brother has been quiet of late, but if bored, he can become…difficult."
Across the room, Clint reached up to open a cupboard, only for several kittens to fall out.
"I wonder what it's like when Loki decides to be difficult," Natasha deadpanned.
Over the week, Loki's cell - and the area around it - had become a makeshift laboratory, a jungle of wires and monitors and half-built machines. Tony strolled in to find Loki sitting in the centre of his cell floor, Tony's notes spread out around him. He was hunched over, biting his lip, rapt with concentration. His eyes skimmed back and forth, impossibly quickly, and his lips moved slightly, as if he were repeating the information to himself.
Tony watched him curiously. After a couple of days in captivity, Loki had apparently given up on his armour, and he now wore the kind of clothes that could have come from Asgard or Earth - black pants (and damn, were they skin-tight), a green shirt.
Loki delicately pushed a piece of paper aside with two fingers, and Tony wondered why he found his notes so interesting-
Suddenly, it struck him.
Loki was a sorcerer and a scholar. Thor had told Tony many times, fondly, and generally under the influence of some kind of alcohol, that back in Asgard Loki had often spent whole days poring over ancient texts, scouring the libraries for one spell or another. That he had preferred the company of books and scrolls to that of mighty warriors and - as Thor had put it, and man, the way the Cap had cringed at his choice of words - "lusty wenches". That he valued knowledge more than gold.
That was it - Loki was curious. He liked knowing things, finding out how they worked. He liked information.
Well, Tony thought wryly. That makes two of us. Strange, to have something in common with a Norse god.
He strode into the room, ducking under a bundle of wires, announcing his presence with a cough. Loki looked up disinterestedly.
"Should I be concerned," Tony said "that you've managed to get my notes into your locked, reinforced cell without any of your guards noticing?"
Loki smirked at him.
"Maybe you should be more selective with your employees," he said, running his fingertips over the pages of notes. Suddenly, he raised his arm and made a sharp, twisting gesture. The notes rose an inch into the air and disappeared with a soft huff, reappearing on one of Tony's worktops. The computers beeped uncertainly, picking up on the energy fluctuation.
For a moment, Tony simply stood by one of the computers, idly tapping at a couple of keys, examining the data readings. And then-
"Fascinating," Loki said. "The way your science and my magic combine."
Tony looked at him quizzically, and was rewarded with a rueful smile. It was a soft, slightly embarrassed expression, a world away from Loki's usual flashes of rage and manic grins.
"It's bizarre," Loki continued softly, absent-mindedly tapping at his collarbone with one hand. "Science and magic are so very similar, but the ways we measure and examine them are entirely unalike. Different ways of thinking."
"You think they're similar, then?" Tony said tentatively, because, hell, if he could just get Loki to explain, the things he could find out-
But then Loki straightened up and smirked, and when he next spoke his voice had regained its usual sharpness.
"Come now, Stark," he said, with a razor-sharp grin. "Where's your scientific curiosity? Work it out yourself."
Later that evening, Tony lounged back on his (incredibly expensive) sofa, a glass of (incredibly expensive) whiskey in his hand, and mulled it over.
It wasn't that surprising, not really. He had always known that Loki was clever. Trickster, right? It went with the goddamn territory. And he'd heard enough from Thor about Loki's spells, his tricks, his wit. So, the burning intellectual curiosity? Not that shocking. Still, it had been strange to see him crouched over those notes, fascinated, this…creature that Tony associated more with fire and rage than with books and formulae.
He wondered idly what Loki did, locked up in that tiny ten by ten cell, day and night. He wondered what he would do, if their situations were reversed. He would find a way to entertain himself, he was sure of it.
Suddenly the urge to find out was almost overwhelming.
"JARVIS!" he said. "You up?"
"I am at your service, sir," the AI reminded him.
"Show me the CCTV from Loki's cell."
An image flickered to life in the centre of the room.
Loki wasn't sitting in his usual corner. Instead, he stood against the back wall of his cell, tension written into every muscle. Suddenly, he was every inch the enemy again, all sharp edges and jagged lines. His mouth moved - he was talking to someone.
"Give me noise, JARVIS," Tony murmured.
"- back to where you belong."
It was Thor's voice, no doubt about it. The other god must have been standing on the other side of the glass, peering in. Tony wondered if he often came down to talk to the thing that had once been his brother.
In his cell, Loki sneered.
"Where I belong, Thor? Where I can be mocked and ignored. Where I can spend my days next to great, preening imbeciles like Fandral and Volstagg, enduring your drunken jests and endless boasting - where I belong! Where I belong is in Jotunheim, Niflheim, Hel, some frozen wasteland with other monsters like me!"
Thor's voice was soft.
"Come home, brother."
"Asgard is not my home!" Loki spat, his eyes ablaze and his hands balled into fists. "And you are not my brother!"
There was a long silence then, punctuated only by Loki's angry, ragged breathing.
"I will always consider you my brother, Loki," Thor said quietly. Tony heard faint footsteps, and the hiss of a door sliding open and then closing again.
Loki was left standing in his cell. His eyes were wide and wild, his teeth gritted and bared in a feral snarl. For a long moment after Thor had left, he stood perfectly still.
Then the life seemed to go out of him. His shoulders slumped, and for a moment he shut his eyes, as if trying to block out a bad memory. He leant back against the wall, and slid down into a sitting position. Then, slowly, he raised one arm, and trailed his fingers through the air. They left trails of green-gold light behind them, thin streaks that bloomed out into intricate patterns, vines, sprays of flowers. He flicked his fingers, and three tiny, crested birds flew from his hand.
For half an hour, Tony watched the chaos god in his basement trace beautiful things in the air. There seemed to be no purpose to it - it was almost as if Loki were playing a game. As if he were distracting himself.
Eventually, Loki stopped, let his arm fall, and pulled himself to his feet, his face perfectly blank. He padded over to the bed in the corner of the cell, curled into a ball on top of the covers, and seemed to fall asleep. Tony realised with a jolt that Loki looked young like this - curled up into himself, his head resting on his arms.
"That's enough, JARVIS. Lights."
JARVIS obliged without a word, and the room slid into darkness.
The next day, the computers picked up a vast energy flux. It was enormous, affecting not only Tony's workroom or the whole of Avengers HQ, but-
This can't be right.
Tony set the parameters wider and wider, but the readings didn't change. Whatever it was was affecting the whole state, if not the whole country.
"What have you done?"
Loki looked up at him with a frown.
"This is not of my making."
Tony scowled at the monitors. After half an hour of activity, the energy disappeared. Neither of them could find an explanation.
And here we have the first hints of an actual plot o.O
