"Why this ?"

"Whoever it is, they'll see what they want to see," he rushed to explain, looking at Stark right in the eyes because he really needed to get his attention, even if that could have been perceived as insolence from his part, "Please, Anthony, let them believe what they want. I know you don't like it, but please."

"Being seen as a rapist isn't in the top-ten of the things I most like, but if that's what it takes to keep you here and out of trouble I will, don't worry."

"Thank you," Loki gave him a grateful smile before letting his face shift to a blank expression, his eyes lost and staring hopelessly at a point on the floor.

"Come in," Tony called when he was sure Loki had staged everything to give the right impression. No, it was the wrong impression in any civilised place, but he couldn't linger on that thought too much if he wanted to keep a straight face in front of whoever was going to cross the threshold.

It was the same elf of the previous day who opened the door, and Tony thought he had never hated someone so quickly.

"What?" He snapped, and it didn't take that much of an effort to assume a commanding and annoyed tone in front of that shit-head.

"The Council would like to know if you would grace them with your presence at tonight's banquet or not, sir," he bowed his head a little, but the smirk on his face after seeing the hopelessness brightly painted on Loki's face was still visible.

Biting his tongue for a second to avoid telling that idiot to go fuck himself at light speed, Tony decided to play along; he had to remind himself he was doing it for a good cause, not siding with that wicked people, "Thank the Council but no, I'll have my dinner here. And make it a good dinner, I'm hungry," he gave Loki a sly smirk and immediately hated himself for it. The only thing he could do to try ease the tension that was accumulating in Loki's back – to put on a better show or because he believed Tony had finally put down his mask and was starting to behave in a more common way he didn't know – was to rub small circles on Loki's side, using Loki's long hair and the blanket to disguise the gesture.

"Of course, sir. May I add something?"

"If you have to."

"There's no need to treat the slave so gently, sir, you can simply toss him on the floor when you're done using him."

This time Tony's hand clenched on Loki's waist, the odd protectiveness he had developed in a few hours finding grounding the possibility of holding him close.

"I'll keep it in mind."

"I'm glad of being of assistance, sir. Have fun, godling," he taunted, shooting Loki a cruel smile.

"One last thing," Tony interrupted him before the elf could leave, "If I want bruises on him, I'll put them there myself."

The elf seemed a little confused for a moment, but then he nodded, "Of course sir."

"I'll hold you personally responsible if my orders will be contradicted."

"Yes, sir."

Tony waited a few moments after the door was closed to remove his eyes from it and focus them on Loki, "You okay, Bambi?"

It took Loki a couple of seconds to answer, "Yes, I… I think so. Thank you."

"You don't really look fine, Lolo," he hinted at his ashen complexion; Loki had been pale even the first time they had met, but that moment brought paleness to a whole new level.

"It's just…" Loki had no idea of how to put it without offending the man that at the moment was ensuring his safety.

"For a moment you thought I had turned to their side, right?"

The expression in Loki's eyes for how he had been able to decipher the shift in his mood was guilty.

"No, hey, I understand. That's what what you're used to in this fucked up place, you've no reason to trust me unconditionally, I can only try to gain your trust," he pulled the blanket up to Loki's shoulders and removed his arm from under it, not wanting to touch him directly; it was just a guess, but he thought Loki would have preferred to have a layer of fabric between them.

"This doesn't excuse…"

"It does, Loki. It so fucking does. You have every right to be wary of me, last time we met we were enemies and what you've suffered here…. I've no words that aren't swears, really. You told me what meeting an enemy here has meant to you, and that's what I am to you, or at least I hope I was. Please, believe me when I tell you I'm disgusted by those people, and that I won't be mad at you if you don't. Trust takes time, I don't expect it right now," he used his now free hand to brush Loki's hair away from his face.

Loki was beyond words.

"Thank you," he managed to utter once more, nestling against Tony's side and hiding his face in the crook of his neck.

"Any time, Bambi. So now…okay, that'll never not be spooky," he commented when the tray with his dinner appeared out of thin air.

Loki turned slightly around, his hand still clasped around Anthony's shirt. It was only in that moment that Loki realised the man had been so busy taking care of him he hadn't even had the time to change in more comfortable clothes, "It's just inoffensive magic."

"I know, but it's strange. You'll have to explain me how it works, sooner or later."

"For my explanation to be useful I'd need to understand your level of knowledge of magic."

"What about zero?" He sat up bringing Loki with him, guessing that an upright position would have maybe helped Loki to refocus.

"It'll be a long talk then," Loki warned him, but Anthony was an eager student and listened keenly to the lecture, asking question when words like seidr puzzled him and stopping Loki when there was something he didn't understand to have him repeat.

And the feeling of finally talking about magic again, oh, it was wonderful. Loki had missed his magic since the moment he had been stripped of it, at least being allowed to talk about it was like a soothing balm on a nasty wound. He was a mage, that was what defined him in the first place, and that essential part of himself was suppressed by that thin metal circle around his left ankle Odin had personally applied after pronouncing his sentence.

"Oh well, it's still spooky," Tony shrugged, but he had achieved his purpose; not that he wasn't interested in how magic worked – he would have loved to learn more on that front – but what he wanted to obtain from that talk was for Loki to relax by speaking of something he was so familiar with. He had noticed that morning the warm tone Loki had used to try explain to him that same subject in a few words, so he had guessed he would have obtained even a better result by allowing him to talk at length. He had to consider Loki an experiment, try what he was comfortable with and use it to calm him down when he needed it, and find out what put him on the defensive and avoid it at all costs.

"It would be easier if I could show you."

"You can't?"

"If I still had my magic I would've been out of here in five minutes," he hissed before raising worried eyes on him, afraid of having misstepped.

"Yeh, it figures. Stupid question."

Each moment that passed, Loki was more surprised by Anthony and of how well he fitted the impression he had had of him years ago. Anthony didn't know how things worked there, but he was eager to learn, to understand, to get to know the traditions and the customs of the place he was in even though he deemed the people who inhabited barbaric.

"Okay, my brain is burning now, so stop with the lessons for today. Have you been eating something since this morning?"

"No," he answered and he was little confused by Anthony frowning, "Slaves only have one meal a day, and what you've so generously given me this morning is way more than what they usually give me."

"Yeah, forget about that. With me you'll have food anytime you want it," he patted Loki on the shoulder and got up from the lounge chair, "Come sit at the table with me, it's dinner time."

They could have easily had their dinner on the plush chaise longue, but Tony was trying to make a point: from what he had gathered that morning – when Loki's first instinct at approaching a dining table had been kneeling next to it – sitting at a table with people he was supposed to serve was foreign to him, while staying on a piece of furniture where other people could lie comfortably was something he was… very accustomed to. Tony had no intention to dwell on that thought, but he wanted to show Loki the differences, try to gain his trust even through small gestures that in the civilised world would have meant nothing but could have made Loki a world of good.

"I… Anthony, your offer is really kind, but I can't accept it. I've already eaten your dinner yesterday, and I really shouldn't have. I can keep you company if you wish, but I can't eat your food again."

"Pray tell, Mr. Mastermind, why do you think I've told Mablung over there to bring more food?"

Loki stopped dead in his tracks. All he had got from that sentence was Stark's cruel tone, the feeling that the short parenthesis of safety was over, not his words.

"Sit down, c'mon," Tony insisted with a soft voice, and Loki complied like under a spell; even if he had wanted to resist to that invitation he wouldn't have been able to, the chance of being treated as a free person too tempting to dismiss it.

They ate in silence again, Tony piling up everything that came under his fork on Loki's plate since the latter didn't dare to make that move first. The man who had been a god, reduced to being afraid to make the wrong choice over what to eat after he had basically been starved.

If he were to think about that Tony wouldn't have managed to swallow even one more bite, and he was sure Loki wouldn't have either.

"So you like grape, mmh?" He asked after passing Loki the bowl with the fruit.

"I… yes, but if you like it…"

"No, eat it, I hate grape, really. The only kind of grape I like is the fermented one."

A small smile formed on Loki's lips at that as he picked another from the bunch. "It has always been my favourite kind of fruit, yes."

It was Tony's turn to smile at that small piece of information Loki had decided to disclose, "Now you can have how much you want."

Tony had no idea if it was the fact he was being treated with a little humanity, or the taste of something that reminded him of better days, but Loki seemed to actually relax, the tension in his back easing a little and his composure shifting from the one of a scared animal caught in a spotlight to one more fit for a prince.

In the time Tony had spent fantasising about Loki he had imagined their first dinner together – in the remote eventuality there had ever been one – to be something way different, in his penthouse or in a fancy restaurant, certainly not in the hellish place where Loki had been enslaved.

"About the garden over there," he pointed with his glass to the cloister that could be seen through the huge open windows, "Any poisonous plant I should know about?"

"As long as you don't try to eat them there's nothing to worry about."

Oh yes, Loki was definitely relaxing in his presence. Not to the point of insulting him directly for such a stupid question – honestly, who the hell would have thought of placing urticating plants in a garden made to please the guests' eyes? – like his former self would have probably done, but that was already a step forward.

"Okay, so I think I'll go exploring a little more, feel free to join me if you want, or do something else, like take a bath or sleep, I don't know, whatever you want," he patted him on the shoulder while getting up and left him alone, giving him some time for himself. He was winging it, but he guessed Loki wasn't used anymore to be left in peace in a safe place.

Loki was indeed confused about what to do now.

Anthony's behaviour was already something strange he had yet to figure out, but being left alone with the permission of doing what he wanted, that was even worse for someone who hadn't been entitled to have his own freewill over the past four years.

Loki looked around for a little while, nibbling at the bunch of grapes, then he settled for two of the options he had been presented with: he would have joined Anthony in the patio – the least he could do was to keep him company – but he would have had a bath first. He couldn't pass the possibility of taking another hot bath when he had one.

He didn't feel as filthy as he normally did, and that was only thanks to Stark, but he had aways loved baths, how the warm water washed over him, allowing him to relax and to stop thinking for at least some minutes, how everyone left him alone in those moments… No, he couldn't think about that. That was before. Now he was being treated kindly, but he couldn't fool himself thinking things were going back to how they had been.

His magic was gone, his freedom as gone, the only thing he could hope for was someone's charity.

He swatted those thoughts away and headed for the bathroom, opening the water and choosing the same soap Anthony had picked for him the previous day. The least he could do was smelling of something the man liked, even though he could have avoided bathing for that; the scent of the liquor he had used to disinfect his wounds still persisted on his skin.

On a whim he decided to look for the rags Anthony had made him abandon upon his entering in his chambers and took on the chance to finally wash them; that was something he had wanted to do for weeks, to remove the blood, the sweat and everything the guests of the palace had left on them. Without lingering too much on those thoughts he put his old tatters in the sink and used the same soap he had been pouring in the bathtub to get them clean; he was eager to have his bath, but he remembered all too well how disgusted that morning he had been to put on those filthy rags on his clean skin.

It wasn't an easy task to accomplish, but with some effort he managed to return them to a decent state. They were still rags, but at least they weren't soiled anymore. He spread them out on one of the bars meant to hold up the towels to let them dry and finally he could focus on his bath and that resemblance of humanity it gave him; he got out of the clothes Anthony had given him and folded them neatly to avoid getting any crease on them and sank into the warm water.

The white bubbles enveloped him, surrounding him and making the whole world disappear; it was so relaxing to finally let his guard down for some minutes, to have the impression he could even though he could have been proved wrong in his assumptions, but even that luxury had been foreign to him. There had never been anyone of the people who had come to torment him and that he had had to entertain who had allowed him to feel even the smallest spec of safety, even if it was just a pretence to make him regret his naivety. Sometimes he had thought they wouldn't have been that bad with him, but never that he would have had a moment of respite.

But here he was, enjoying the simple pleasure a warm bath could give him, his eyelids getting heavy, his heartbeat slowing…

"Hello, sleepyhead," was the next thing Loki heard.

He startled awake, his arms flailing in the water scrambling in search for a handhold, with the only result of splashing some in his eyes.

"Hey, hey," Tony laughed, "Don't drown, Bambi."

Loki stilled only when he felt the man's hands on his shoulders, "I'm sorry, I…"

"You simply fell asleep in the bathtub, nothing to be sorry for."

"No, I… I should've kept you company, not abandon you."

"Don't take it the wrong way, Lolo, but I don't need to have you watch my every movement. You're nice to have around, don't get me wrong, but I'm rather used to being alone."

"I still shouldn't have remained idle all evening," he bowed his head, his shoulders shrinking between Stark's hands.

"No, hey, relax. It's fine, it's alright. I didn't come here to reproach you or something like that. I only wanted to tell you I'm going to bed in case you wanted to join me, and let me tell you that since you're already half asleep it could be better to switch the bathtub for a mattress."

Loki lifted his eyes on him, searching Anthony's face for any sign of anger or irritation, but he found none. His expression was open, calm, something Loki had seen only in the last day and a half after four years of furious glares addressed to him.

"I… I'd like to."

"Good. Now rinse your hair, it's full of soap," he turned around and started rummaging in the drawers, "I guess you don't have phons here."

"What?" Loki asked when the cascade of water he had been pouring over his head was over.

"Never mind, a towel will do."

Loki was startled when Anthony handed him the fluffy towel, but accepted it nonetheless as well as the bathrobe that was once again offered to him.

"Take all the time you want, at worst I'll be asleep," Tony waved and left to give him some more privacy.

It didn't take much to Loki though, since a couple of minutes later he was already crawling on the bed, the white towel still around his wet hair.

"There are some clothes for you to sleep with. Still too short, but I don't think that's a problem."

"Why are you giving me more clothes?"

"You can't go around in the same clothes all day, not with me at least."

"Oh, well, thank you then," he was probably still too much asleep to actually protest that that was too much for him, so he simply changed the robe for the clothes and curled up next to Tony and let sleep claim him once again.

The previous day had gone rather well, Tony thought, at least if he didn't consider the beating Loki had taken.

Maybe with the due precautions they would have managed to avoid even those accidents.

It was still hard to look the members of the Council in the eyes after what Loki had told him, but he had to soldier on and not let anything slip; if he had guessed correctly there would have been objections to Loki returning to him had those people realised his only purpose was to keep Loki away from that hell that was the rest of the palace.

Certainly he could have used the importance of their transaction as a bargaining chip if things really went bad, but he preferred to keep that as his last resource; keeping everything hidden was easier, and it allowed him some room for manoeuvring if they were discovered.

There was certainly still room for improvement in their arrangement, maybe something that didn't involve Loki clinging to him as an octopus, even though Tony didn't exactly mind that. It would've still been best for Loki's sanity to understand that there was no need to actually touch him to be sure of his protection. On the other hand it was probably good for him understand that physical closeness could be something nice, not a threat.

Tony kept walking down the hall shaking his head.

He wasn't the best person to give advice on mental sanity, not when he had abandoned his shrink the moment she had told him something that he didn't like – he didn't remember what was the matter in question, probably his drinking habits if he were to guess – and at the same time he couldn't simply ignore Loki's situation and just be glad of the chance of having him curl up against his chest.

That whole situation was a mess he couldn't refuse to acknowledge or dodge if he still wanted to be able to look at himself in a mirror, and he was way too vain to simply stop that.

When he had his hand on the doorknob he took a moment to brace himself. He had no idea whether Loki was already inside or not, in any case he already felt the urge to be drunk.

Oh, this wasn't good for him, not at all.

Not at all promising.

He wasn't sure if in Slavery Hell hours worked like they did on Earth, but he was quite sure that could be considered as mid afternoon, and his one and only appearance at a AA meeting had taught him that the desire to gulp down an entire bottle of scotch before dinner wasn't good.

Oh well, he couldn't wait in the corridor forever, so better be over with that and enter in his chambers, where at least he could have been sure not to meet any of those people who made his stomach turn.

He opened the door and immediately wished he hadn't.

GUYS IMPORTANT NOTICE: THIS FIC IS RECEIVING VERY LOW FEEDBACK AND EVEN VIEWS ON THIS SITE, SO I'M NOT THAT ENCOURAGED TO UPDATE REGULARLY HERE AN SOMETIMES I EVEN FORGET THAT I'M PUBLISHING HERE.

NOW, I KNOW THERE ARE A FEW PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY FOLLOWING THIS, SO I CAN TELL YOU THIS: THIS FIC IS ON AO3 UNDER THE SAME NAME, I'M AT CHAPTER 18 THERE AND I UPDATE REGULARLY TWICE A WEEK. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN FOLLOWING THIS FIC I'D STRONGLY ADVISE YOU TO GO THERE.

I'M NOT SAYING I'LL NEVER UPDATE HERE ANYMORE, BUT IT'LL BE A RANDOM EVENT.

THANKS TO ANYONE WHO'LL DECIDE TO STICK WITH THIS STORY!