PART FOUR
August 18th - unknown
They end up in a hospital in Germany before they get back to America. Tony's just got a bad arm, dehydration, and bruises here and there, never mind the arc reactor, but once he describes Loki's head injury and his resulting side-effects to the doctor looking after them, the doctor gets two nurses and has Loki rushed away.
After that, everything passes in an anxious rush for Tony. Updating him on Loki's condition isn't the priority, no matter how much he complains, so he and Rhodey sit around and try to distract themselves. Various people from the CIA and NSA and every other acronymical organisation try to debrief him, but Tony's tired and he can't focus.
He receives only occasional updates on Loki's condition. First, that he'd had an MRI scan, and there was a large hematoma in his skull, just like Yinsen had suspected. Next, that Loki was being prepped for surgery some time later. And much, much later, after he's had a sleep and then a cup of coffee, and then given the statements he needs to give: Loki is stable. And apparently as healthy as he could be under the circumstances.
Tony wastes no time in going to see him. He's in post-op, and asleep. Tony's seen him unconscious so many times in the last three (it was three, after all; they'd been short on their estimate) months that it seems like nothing has changed.
Something has changed, in reality. The mass of loose blood pressing into Loki's brain and causing him to be so sick has been removed. He talks to Loki's doctor, and she tells him that the head injury burst several veins in his skull and caused this. They've patched up the veins - yes, they were actually poking around in Loki's skull not long ago - and they're hoping that with the excess blood removed, the veins will heal fully. The doctor tells Tony that Loki must be remarkably willful, because such an injury would have probably killed another person in the long term under the circumstances.
Tony dozes off as he waits for Loki to wake up. He wakes up just over an hour later to Loki petting his hair, twisting his fingers through strands and looking at them oddly.
There's a vague smell of vomit and sweat in the air. General anaesthetic isn't always easy.
"I hear they sucked your brain out through the back of your head," Tony says, his mouth moving before his brain can catch up.
"Not quite," Loki replies weakly. "They let me keep the good bits."
"We're going home soon," Tony tells him. "They're just waiting until you're stable enough, just in case the changing air pressure makes your head burst."
"That's rather unlikely," Loki says.
"Still. We're grounded here. Worst comes to worst, I think I can make us another metal suit to escape," Tony jokes.
Loki just smiles and closes his eyes again.
-O.O-
People start organising their return. One of the first things they find out from the California end of things is that Loki is homeless. Absent and therefore unable to pay his rent, they'd leased his home to someone else.
Loki's irritated, but Tony just tells him he can stay at his house.
"Too big for one person, anyway," Tony shrugs when Loki thanks him.
Little does Tony know that this is precisely the reason Loki didn't buy a house and rented one on a month by month basis. So everyone's happy. Loki can start rebuilding what he's lost.
Loki already feels markedly better, even if he's recovering from having a hole drilled in his head. His hands aren't shaking and for once he's not seeing double or hearing whining. He hopes it'll last.
It feels to him like he spent the last few months in a coma, or maybe a fever dream. He's ready to come back fighting. Actually, he's had a few ideas.
Unfortunately, he's had more scans to determine how well he's healing, and his doctor isn't certain that the bleed has stopped, though they have slowed it down dramatically. And, unfortunately, there's nothing they can do about the slight scarring visible on his brain except keep him closely monitored.
Obie may not have killed him, but he sure did come close.
Once he's stable, they're flown home. Loki's still banished to a wheelchair in case his legs can't hold him up, but it feels unnecessary. Tony's in one, too, though, and he's only got an injured arm. Maybe it's a formality.
They land at an army base in California. Tony disembarks first, getting out of his wheelchair to greet Pepper with a sarcastic comment and a smile, while Loki is wheeled down. When Pepper sees him looking worse for wear, she actually hugs him.
Happy seems pleased to have them back too; Loki's not had much to do with the driver and bodyguard outside of official business, because he's never been a threat to his plans, but absence makes the heart grow fonder and Happy greets him with a "Good to have you back, Mr Laufeyson."
Tony's going to a press conference first of all. Loki goes too; he already knows what Tony is going to say, and it's going to make his job more difficult. Loki's expertise is in building weapons, and when Tony shuts it down, Loki will have to learn new skills quickly. But he doesn't want to stop Tony, because the last thing he wants is to stand directly against him. He wants to build bridges, not burn them, and his control over Tony isn't stable enough to influence him out of a big decision at the moment.
It's not like Loki's not adaptable. He will learn the complexities of his new role.
Obie lets them out of the car when they arrive at Stark Industries. He makes a show of introducing Tony, hugging him, and almost slamming the door in Loki's face.
Loki hasn't had a chance to talk to Obie yet. He's looking forward to it in a sadistic way.
In any case, Tony knows now. He's keeping up public appearances, but it's pretty clear to Loki that Tony believed everything he said about Obie, which is nice, because it's all true.
Obie tries to introduce Tony, who's sitting on the floor; Loki's sitting next to him, because while he doesn't really need the wheelchair, his limbs aren't the strongest after everything. It's not like he did calisthenics in the cave. Tony invites everyone else to sit down, and it's a mark of his character that they do.
In the background, Loki sees Pepper talking to someone official-looking in a suit. He memorises the face with his newly recovered photographic memory, just in case.
Tony's a natural-born speechmaker, or so it seems - he's had a million and one elocution lessons in his life - and the crowd hangs on his every word.
When Tony announces his intentions to the group, Loki watches as a number of emotions pass across Obie's face, up to and including anger, hatred and cunning.
Tony doesn't see any of that; he's addressing the crowd, eating a cheeseburger. The smell of it in the car had made Loki want to vomit, too rich and fatty for his senses to handle after so many variations on grains, then nutritious but bland hospital food.
Obie tries to silence Tony, tries to pulls him away from the podium. Tony's face twists in anger and disgust, just for a split second, as he remembers everything Obie did. He shoves the man away, finishes what he's saying and helps Loki up, taking his leave.
-O.O-
They head to Tony's house after that, both very tired, though Loki more so. He wasn't expecting how exhausting he'd find being out and about, mostly because he'd been okay in the cave. Apart from the last few days, but according to the doctors, the only things keeping him going then were stubbornness and adrenaline.
He falls into the bed that Tony steers him towards. It's soft and warm and it smells like home and Loki falls asleep in minutes.
He realises later that he's in Tony's bed, and it smells like home because it smells like the man he's been leeching off for months.
And yet, still no true guilt.
He falls asleep again quickly after that. When he wakes up next, Tony's in the bed too. In the cave, they shared a bunk for something like two and a half months, so it really does feel natural for them to be curled up with each other like this.
Loki hates it. He hates that his usual self-controlled and self-reliant traits have been shredded by a few unpleasant months.
And really, the cave could've been worse. The head injury aside, he was never tortured, beaten, starved, drowned, anything, and actually, he was only directly addressed on occasion. Living with his biological parents had been more unpleasant; funny how terrorists did him less physical damage than two people who were supposed to love him and care for him unconditionally.
The thought angers him more. Obie comes into his head somewhere in that train of thought and Loki's head clouds over with a dark, black rage that he doesn't think he's ever felt before; the senseless rage and violence of it makes Loki feel dizzy and nauseous and completely unable to do anything rational. It's promptly followed by Loki throwing up and passing out in the shower. JARVIS kindly turns the water off somewhere along the way, so Loki wakes up to Tony nudging him worriedly, dry and unconscious on the tiles.
"You think you need to go back to the doctor?" Tony asks.
That's the last thing Loki wants. "Side-effects of the general anaesthesia," he lies smoothly, picking himself up off the floor with as much grace as he can muster. "The surgeon warned me about it."
"If you say so," Tony shrugs. "Get dressed. We have work to do."
-O.O-
They really do. Their first priority is replacing Tony's clumsily crafted arc reactor with a sparkly new one.
Tony doesn't even need blueprints; making it in a cave while dying has etched the design onto his brain permanently. Between he and Loki, they make it surprisingly quickly, and replace it with a minimum of drama. It's an odd feeling, having his hand buried in Tony's chest cavity. Very powerful.
This takes a whole day and is a neat distraction from their problems. The next day, when they're both feeling a little perkier, Loki aims to show Tony his evidence against Obie. Unfortunately, this was on a hard drive in Loki's home, and his belongings have since been mostly thrown out or sold. He has some personal effects, and he's ordered a load of new clothes and whatnot, but the hard drive is not among them.
But JARVIS has clearly decided he likes Loki, and he's got back-ups. It's amazing, and Loki is surprisingly grateful.
The evidence is pretty conclusive. It becomes even more conclusive when JARVIS has a poke into Obie's computer and turns up Tony's ransom video.
The pair of them sift through all the evidence. There's enough to get Obie convicted of espionage, but as it stands, his role in the attempted assassinations and kidnappings aren't too clear from a forensic point of view; they need more.
It's a start.
Loki starts carrying a knife with him. He also makes sure he can access the voice recorder app on his phone easily. He knows Obie's angry he's still alive, and he's not going to be caught cold a second time.
That night, Loki and Tony both feel the need for some closeness, and it results in Tony and Loki kissing, and then a lot more. Loki's still angry at himself, but his body craves the human attention even if his mind is rebelling, and fucking Tony makes him feel so much better.
Between the two of them, they start working on remembering all the plans for the metal suit in the cave. Loki has the idea that they can make a better version, create something rather neat. Tony's more than enthusiastic.
They realise pretty quickly that while Tony has a great memory for the design, Loki's memories of the cave seem more and more fractured the more he thinks about it. Every detail remembered seems to be wrong in some way.
Evidently the surgery did help, but it hasn't cured Loki entirely, something they confirm when Loki develops a rather spontaneous migraine the next day and spends the rest of the afternoon crying out in pain and trying to stay sane through the agony. Tony wants to take him to a hospital. Loki keeps refusing.
They still share a bed. Loki can feel Tony inspecting the little scar on the back of his head some nights, surrounded by a landing pad of hair cut short, and he can sense how scared Tony is for him. It's good. Make him concerned.
But he hates the short hair. He hates everything it symbolises, having it hacked so unevenly short. It brings back bad memories.
The rotten, seething black moods come over Loki sometimes, and he feels like he would gladly break Tony's neck if it would release some of the sickening tension.
At least it's not all dark. He has other mood swings too, ones involving anxiety and depression and manic joy, and most of them involve headaches and nausea. All his effort goes into making sure Tony doesn't notice.
Owing to his head injury, he hasn't yet been back at work, and Pepper tells him to take as long as he needs because his department is being completely rearranged and she's covering for him. Loki's not convinced, but he's also not in a state where he can handle work of the organised variety.
As they work on the metal suit - which is going nicely, the reappropriated repulsors are functioning brilliantly - Loki decides to drop into work for a few hours a day. He has to get ready to continue there, to keep in everyone's good books.
He's a millionaire; he doesn't need to work. But it's his foot in the door with Tony Stark.
Loki's also there to work closer to Obie and the evidence against him. They've got most of it, they just need record of payment or something along those lines.
When he hears Obie will be out for the afternoon, he sneaks into his office. Finding the ghost drive takes a surprisingly short time, and there's more in there, stuff that JARVIS didn't manage to copy or archive when it arrived.
It's perfect and Loki is actually something close to happy when the door opens.
"Hook, line and sinker, Loki," Obie says amusedly.
It's a trap, and a pretty obvious one. Why else would the news of Obie's absence for the day spread so quickly?
But Loki's here on Tony's business. JARVIS let him in. He's in the right, at least from Tony's point of view.
Loki stashes the hard drive he was using in his pants. Not his pockets, the elastic band on his boxers. It isn't his most dignified move, but it might slow Obie down.
From some of the rumours swirling about Obie, he probably won't have any convictions about groping Loki in the name of protecting his own neck.
Obie's in the doorway. "JARVIS, deactivate voice track on surveillance."
"I cannot do that, sir," JARVIS says.
"JARVIS, deactivate voice track on surveillance," Loki repeats.
"Yes, sir," JARVIS says.
"He likes me," Loki shrugs. Actually it's just due to the access he has to JARVIS's mainframe. "And now we both have our voices off the record."
"Give me the flash drive, Loki," Obie says, advancing forward menacingly. "Give me the flash drive and you can go."
"You can try take it if you like, but I really was raised to get married before letting someone rummage around there," Loki says blandly.
To be honest, he really wasn't raised for anything much. Maybe that's why even now, when he's got millions, he feels a compulsive need to get more, cling on to what he has like it's sand slipping through his fingers. Being left at age seven with only bruises and the clothes on your back makes you possessive like that.
It's not healthy. It's not like he wouldn't survive if he walked away from Obie and Tony and weapons and everything. But he can't. He feels like he's only going to keep his head above water if he keeps taking and twisting the people around him.
He sincerely thinks Pepper and Tony are nice people, but that won't stop his hand twisting the knife.
Sometimes he wonders if he has a heart at all, or if it's just cold and hard and petrified from everything he's had thrown at him. Literally and metaphorically.
Either way, it doesn't pertain to Obie. Obie disgusts him for so many reasons; one of them, which is probably number one but could be two or three, is how much of himself he sees in him. Someone who has plenty and needs more.
Poor Tony. So many leeches clinging to him.
Obie stops his advance on the other side of his desk. "When I got the message that the Ten Rings had spared the two of you, Loki, I didn't mind that Tony had survived. He's useful. Like I said, he's my golden goose. But you? You're a threat. I wanted you dead and your skull a novelty paperweight on my desk."
"My skull wouldn't look so good," Loki replies, unconcerned. "I understand it's got healed cracks and a bore hole in it now."
"Yeah, they came close," Obie continues. His voice is always slow, deep and calm, even when every word he speaks is laced with hatred. "Not close enough. I will have you out of here, Loki, one way or another."
"Not if I catch you first," Loki says. "You left evidence. I didn't. Guess which case is more believable?"
Keeping with his cool, calm act, Loki struts around the side of the desk, perusing Obie's bookshelf and observing his trinkets.
"No one needs to believe me if they never find you," Obie says.
"Oh, come on. You just sound like some comic book villain now. Then you're defeated using some improbable turn of events, and shout 'curses, foiled again!' as you're led away in handcuffs. Et cetra," Loki says. He's determined to not say anything of substance. No confessions, no anything.
"You're quite the comedian. Maybe that's why Tony likes you," Obie says.
"Maybe he likes me because I'm just so much better at what I'm doing than you. For a start, I'm willing to go all the way. You haven't fucked around with Tony, for a start," Loki says. "I hope," he adds on the end.
Obie doesn't have anything to say to that. He just advances forward again, pinning Loki against the bookshelf.
"Make JARVIS turn off the video," Obie says, looming over Loki. He's not actually taller than him - Loki is about an inch taller - but he's bulky and imposing and his warmth and smell permeate Loki's space. He's certainly succeeding in making himself known.
"Or what?" Loki says with an angelic smile.
"Or I'll do things to you that the camera won't see," Obie says.
Loki realises that in their current position, Obie is shielding Loki from the camera. He could do quite a lot without JARVIS seeing anything.
"I just survived three months with a brain bleed in constant agony. You are barely a blip on my radar," Loki says.
"That's what you think. Give me the flash drive, Loki," Obie says.
"I don't think so," Loki says lightly, ducking down to dodge under his arm and make his escape.
Obie catches him by the throat. That's when the dynamic changes from a meeting of the minds to a meeting of the bodies.
Loki's strong, but Obie is just bigger, so when Obie pins him to the wall and squeezes his throat, Loki simply can't escape.
Lashing out at him doesn't do much. "Give it to me," Obie growls, knocking Loki's head against the shelf.
Loki's grasp on consciousness is fragile at the best of times. Now his head is filled with popping lights.
Obie doesn't seem to realise how weak Loki is, how easy it is to take him down, until he tries. Then he grins. He's enjoying himself, the easy rush of power that comes from attacking someone weaker than you.
"I can just say you had another of your episodes," Obie tells himself, egging himself on.
Loki's passing out when he gets his knife out of his pocket. It often surprises people to learn exactly how vicious a person who's dying or being attacked can be, and Loki's no different, calculating distances and angles and then plunging the pocketknife into Obie's back.
He feels it slide past bone. Then Obie drops like a stone, dragging him down and smacking his head on another shelf.
It hits just the wrong point in his skull and Loki's unconscious almost instantly, though not quick enough to miss the feeling of slick, hot blood on his hands.
-O.O-
Loki's quickly getting used to waking up with a throbbing headache and blurry vision. He does it every day. But he's not in a bed with Tony now, he's in somewhere starkly bright and clean.
Another effing hospital.
It doesn't take long for a nurse to realise he's awake. Tony arrives shortly after.
"What happened?" Loki asks. It's his first priority.
"You don't remember?" Tony says. He looks...not upset, but shaken. Like he wasn't expecting something.
Loki does remember. At least, he thinks he does. But just to play it safe - and head injuries can cause amnesia anyway - he says he doesn't.
"Obie's dead, Loki."
"Oh," Loki says. "How? And why am I here?"
"You stabbed him," Tony says bluntly. "JARVIS caught it on camera. You were in his office, he attacked you, you stabbed him in the spine. He bled to death, probably was paralysed too. You don't remember any of that?"
Loki widens his eyes, looks surprised and a little upset. Every moment from here until he's alone again, he has to act.
"I - maybe. I hit my head; I know that. He was choking me, I think?" Loki says, acting as though the memories were faint and slippery.
Tony nods. "You acted in self-defence. Nothing to be guilty about."
I'm really not. "He bled to death on me," Loki repeats. It's satisfying, those words in his mouth. Though the thought of being covered in Obie's blood is a little disgusting. Not the blood itself so much as the Obie part.
"Mostly. JARVIS told Pepper and Happy, they called an ambulance, but there was no time. You got him in the spine anyway," Tony says. So matter-of-fact. "Police will probably want to talk to you. Pepper's sorting out, you know, the business side of things."
"I'll be happy to cooperate," Loki says blandly. He inspects himself; he's clean and blood-free. They must have cleaned him. "Why am I here?"
"You got strangled, plus you hit your head. Twice. You already have a brain injury. It was for good measure."
"I'm fine," Loki tells him. He gets out of bed, dismissing the nurse, and Tony guides him towards the waiting-room where an investigator is waiting.
It doesn't take long for Loki to confirm that he probably won't be in too much trouble. There's clear video footage, though with the sound mysteriously turned off, of the crime. Obie attacked Loki, Loki defended himself. Coincidentally, this resulted in Obie's death. Loki's not weeping over that, but he does look sad for the investigators. Fact is, Obie has no close friends or family to force the prosecution.
As it happens, Loki has been planning a disposal of Obie anyway. This is perfect. Even the surveillance footage just shows poor little Loki being attacked by crazy Obie. If they lip-read the video, Loki said nothing overly incriminating. Hopefully they don't find Obie's private cameras.
But perhaps he's been too flippant. Tony's looking at him oddly; no doubt it didn't take him long to figure out that it was Loki who'd turned off the sound on the recording, and he probably has JARVIS decoding the lip-reading right now. Loki has to tread carefully.
They go home after Loki's given the all clear. It's night, and Loki just wants to sleep; scheming has to come second when his head is stuffed full of cotton wool and needles, or so it feels. Tony doesn't stay with him; he's been working all night sometimes, and no doubt he's using that as an excuse to keep away.
Loki just falls asleep, his head full of plans to land on his feet again after this unexpected turn of events. Nowhere does guilt or displeasure enter into those thoughts.
-O.O-
Tony knows he should be looking after Loki. The kid just killed a man, after all.
But he can't. He feels a little sick to the stomach, and Loki's the cause. JARVIS gave him the transcript of Obie and Loki's conversation before the attack: in itself, it's not too bad, though unfortunately, Loki is being shadowed by the bookshelf and then blocked by Obie and JARVIS can't pick up most of it. But he's been up for a few hours watching other recordings of just the two of them talking, away from everyone else, and he's come to a simple conclusion. Obie may be guilty as sin, but Loki's done something or is actively doing something just as bad.
Add that to Loki's apparent disinterest in the fact he just killed someone, and his bland lack of emotions and all those secrets that spill out of him at oh-too-convenient moments, and Tony has no real evidence, just a gut feeling that he should worry about the person upstairs.
He thinks about everything he knows about the man who's apparently his friend and occasional lover. He comes up with very little.
At first he distracts himself with Mark 2 of the metal suit. With Loki's help, it's almost done, and he'll be ready to have JARVIS assemble one for each of them in a few days.
But with that over, it's around 4am when Tony goes in search of evidence. Loki migrated to the US, that much is obvious, so there has to be files on him.
He turns up little. Loki's in his late twenties. He owned a weapons design company that Stark Industries bought. He was raised by some other businessman and his wife. As he digs deeper he finds out that said businessman and wife were only foster parents. Removed from his birth parents by Child Services. There's nothing of substance. Loki doesn't have Facebook or Twitter. He's unmarried and no one seems to know him well. He has a criminal record - a caution for some school altercation that got violent, another for shoplifting - though the item was returned - and that's it. He's not exactly a criminal mastermind.
Loki's kind of just a blank spot. He seems charismatic and open when he talks, but by the end of the conversation, he's said nothing.
No, Tony has no concrete evidence, but he feels odd about Loki.
Feels odd about himself, too. He feels like Yinsen's message is so much less important now that he's not in the thick of it. In fact, the thing that still sticks in his brain the most from Afghanistan is his breakout; his reclamation of power after having everything taken from him. The flamethrowers and using the metal suit to overpower people. Screaming and then silence.
He feels like he'd like that sensation again.
-O.O-
Coulson finally gets a hold of Pepper after being put off for so long. They talk, and end up saying little. SHIELD has an interest in Tony and Loki. That's really it.
Coulson doesn't tell Pepper, but they know about the metal suit, have satellite footage of it flying. They want it, quite simply.
Tony must have blueprints for it somewhere. No way he created something like that and never recorded it when he got home. It's clear from his reputation that Tony will be recalcitrant and the only person who might also have access to it, a Loki Laufeyson, will be no better.
They need someone on the inside.
