Chapter 3
Loki tried the door for the fifth time to no avail. He may not have been in one of SHIELD's specially structured cells, but that didn't stop the well-furnished Stark guest bedroom from feeling any less like a prison. There was an adjoining bathroom, a bed, a nightstand, a stack of clean clothes left conspicuously on the dresser, and four walls with absolutely no windows. It was a jail with a few more accessories, but a jail nonetheless. He'd eyed the clothes with distaste, preferring his tattered tunic to the sweatpants, boxers, and black t-shirt he'd been left. He was injured, yes, and captured by one of the lowly Avengers, but that did not mean he had to dress like some common street cur.
Let me out! He wanted to scream. Instead he made due by bashing his fist against the door, hoping that someone would hear it. When I get my powers back, these doors are the first to go. Then I'll send in a band of thieves steal all your precious suits.
Muffled voices bantered back and forth out in the corridor and Loki pressed his ear against the wooden surface of the door in attempt to eavesdrop. It was no use, the words refused to make themselves clear to him, although he could have sworn his named had been mentioned. Footsteps stopped outside the room and Loki had to stumble back in order not to be smacked in the head by the door swinging inwards.
"Look alive, sunshine!" the abominable Tony Stark singsonged cheerily. "You have a good sleep? Because I had an awful sleep, thanks to you. Now how about you pay me back by having some breakfast with me?"
Loki did not think that a breakfast date with Tony Stark was suitable restitution, and would have told him exactly what the man could do with his time had he been able to speak. But instead, he stood struck dumb by the Enchantress, forced to give Stark the satisfaction of his silence. It wasn't even worth writing the man a threatening message, so Loki ignored him.
"Not hungry? I don't believe that. And I got you something special too."
Pepper peeked her head into the doorway. "Tony? You've got a meeting in an hour and a gala appearance scheduled tonight. You really should—"
He shot her a bored look. "Cancel it. Don't you see I have company?"
"About that, SHIELD called this morning requesting that you—"
"Cancel it. Tell them I'll call them later."
The woman left in a huff, clearly displeased as she pulled out her cell phone and began tapping furiously. It was quite obvious that Tony Stark did not run Stark Industries. Tony followed her, pausing only to tell Loki to change before he joined him for breakfast. He said something about his resemblance to circus people, but Loki took it to mean the same thing.
Since when have I started taking orders from Tony Stark? He grumbled inwardly as he picked up the clothes that were left to him. Couldn't he at least have picked out something more flattering?
Loki emerged from the unlocked room, remembering to bring along the pad of paper—which had gotten exceedingly thinner since it had been given to him. He shifted uncomfortably, unused to the strange garments, and walked down the corridor in the direction he guessed the kitchen was in. He was relieved to see more windows as he walked into the more open room. There was even a skylight in the ceiling, which would come in handy should Loki feel the need to make a sky-bound escape.
"How's the mouth, Hellraiser?" Stark called from the kitchen. "Still the stuff of nightmares? Yup. I'm not going to sleep again tonight. You owe me another breakfast."
Loki frowned. I owe you nothing, mortal.
But, truth be told, it did feel like Loki had just clawed his way out of a nightmare. His body was healing, slowly but surely, but his mouth still stung with every twitch of his lips. All the expressions of which Loki was so fond—mirth, disgust, hatred, maliciousness, taunting—all of them sent stabs of stinging pain through his sensitive flesh.
"Ah, I see, still the strong, silent type? Scratch that. Just the silent type." Tony Stark emerged from the freezer carrying a container covered in frost and grinning from ear to ear. "Take a seat."
Loki reluctantly pulled up a stool and sat, watching while Anthony Stark doled out a sizeable bowl of ice cream and slid it his way. This was breakfast? It seemed more like a bribe. What does this man want from me? He shot Stark a 'you-can't-be-serious' look, disregarding the bowl and the spoon in front of him and taking up the paper and pen.
What is this about?
Tony laughed at him and pulled up a stool across from where he was sitting. "You want the truth? I want to know why you haven't opened your big mouth yet—or tried to leave, for that matter. I honestly had no idea you enjoyed my company this much."
You're sorely mistaken. I think I'd find better company in a pile of mud.
"That doesn't explain why you haven't taunted me in anything other than your finely penned words," the man pointed at the paper with his spoon before taking a taste of Loki's ice cream.
I'll take that as a compliment.
"Quit dancing, Loki," he snapped, "why can't you speak?"
You wouldn't understand.
"That's hardly an explanation—and I'll have you know that understanding is one of the many things I'm good at. But you know what? I'm not so good at this interrogation stuff. Maybe I should call in a few favours at SHIELD..."
This human was starting to get on his nerves. If he was going to contact SHIELD and Fury then he should just get it over with instead of stalling on the issue. If he was going to end up in a prison cell, then Loki would rather the man just follow through with his threats. It was getting difficult to take Stark seriously.
Call them. You're so desperate for their praise. Just call them and have it done. I'll bet they'll throw you a bone.
"Eat your ice cream," Stark pushed the bowl closer to him and got up from his stool. He ruffled Loki's hair as he walked by. "I'll be downstairs."
So much for that breakfast date Loki rolled his eyes before smoothing his hair down in annoyance. He waited until the man was gone before trying the frozen dessert. He had to admit, it was better than he thought it would be.
The silence was killing him. Not that he hadn't experienced long periods of silence before, it was just that those times he at least had the choice to speak if he wanted to. Now he couldn't say a word or utter a sound, no matter how hard he tried. Even his yawns of boredom were completely void of sound. The only method of communication he possessed was the pad of paper, and it had rapidly depleted after his bout of cartoon-drawing. Horn-helmeted figures stomped and crushed the Avengers until they splattered like road kill and screamed for mercy. The inked horned God laughed his refusal from his place on a jeweled throne, a shiny crown held high in his hands. He'd made quite an impressive flip-book cartoon out of it.
It gave him some happiness, at least for a few hours. But soon it began to dawn on him that maybe he would never speak again—that maybe his words would forever be confined to paper and he would remain powerless. Now that was a frightening thought. And worst of all was being trapped in the mansion of the biggest loud-mouth of the Avengers. Soon, everyone would know about his predicament. They might not even bother locking him up. He wasn't even worth their time.
Fury was a different matter. He would be harder to convince of Loki's muteness. He'd probably think it was just another of Loki's tricks—a desperate ploy to make the heroes spin circles while some serious evil was going on somewhere halfway around the world. He'd torture a confession out of him, or at least he'd do his best. The process itself was half the fun for that man, Loki was sure of it.
In the end he wasn't quite sure why he descended the stairs—whether it was out of boredom or fear or loneliness—but he knocked on the glass door at the bottom and Tony Stark let him in.
The door hissed open and Loki stepped inside, noting that the door had sealed itself as soon as he had passed the threshold. Stark was sitting at his desk, 3-dimensional blueprints of his latest additions to the Iron Man suit hovering about in the air as the man flipped through the pieces like they were book pages beneath his fingers. He disassembled and reassembled the pieces until they formed a complete suit with a new arsenal before he tossed the whole lot of it into an empty file folder.
"Back up those files, will you, Jarvis?" he called out before spinning in his chair to face Loki. Loki had been watching while Stark worked, impressed at the detail that the man put into every tiny aspect of the suit and the speed at which he processed the information and made corrections.
What was he thinking? He wasn't impressed by Tony Stark. The human was just as notoriously stupid as all the others.
"Feeling lonely?" the man asked, the teasing edge easily inflecting the question. All the same, Loki was a little surprised at how correct his assumption was and did his best to hide it. He pulled out the piece of paper he'd brought with him and tossed it in Stark's direction. The folded plane's wings caught the air and sailed into his enemy's hands.
"Love poems, for me?" Tony grinned. "Aw, Loki, you shouldn't have."
He flipped open the wings and the body of the plane, zipping through the message scrawled on its insides. Tony glanced up at Loki, eyebrows raised, and held up the note. Loki's eyes passed over it, even though he knew exactly what it said:
I crossed the wrong sorcerer, who in payment took my voice.
I can only guess why you have kept your friends in the dark about my capture, but I would like to know where we stand—empty threats and lies aside.
PS: This is my last sheet of paper.
"Now if you ask me, that was pretty easy to understand. All except this bit here. You're asking me to be honest with you?" Tony Stark's mouth was curved in a teasing smirk, but his eyes were darkly serious. "Fine—you be honest with me and I'll be honest with you."
That's laughable. It really is. Me? Be honest with you? You've got to be joking. You are joking, right?
Tony Stark held out his hand to fix the deal. "Don't bother shaking on it if you aren't going to follow through. You lie to me and I'll put you in a soundproof room and you'll never hear another voice ever again. Now have we got a deal?"
What an odd bargain—or should I say threat? Who does this guy think he is? Loki thought about it, considering what the truth from Anthony Stark was worth. Loki was a Liesmith and could manipulate words any way he wanted to, making even the truth sound false. He could make this turn in his favour if he was clever enough. He gripped Tony's hand in his own and shook it.
"Now, let's get down to business," Tony grinned. "Did you like the ice cream?"
Loki gave him a shrug before nodding.
"Good." He pulled out his phone and pressed the only number on speed dial. "Hey, Pepper? Yeah, yeah, I know. Tell you what—I'll give you a raise. Yeah, I just wanted to tell you that we're going to need more ice cream. Oh, and one of those small erasable board thingys. I don't want to keep buying paper. Loki is tossing it everywhere. No, not a chalkboard. Chalk dust makes me sneeze. Yeah, whatever you think is best." He hung up and slipped the phone back in his pocket.
"Now, where were we? Ah, yes, you were going to pronounce your undying love for me in wonderful prose."
Loki was beginning to feel like he had just done something very, very wrong.
A/N: I'm definitely not talented enough to make a flip book cartoon of the Avengers getting their asses kicked by Loki, but if you are interested in some fun cartoon drawings of those scenes that Loki drew I will consider adding some links along in the notes for the next chapter. Let me know what you think.
