Sorry for the delay, I haven't really felt like writing lately.
Tony and Loki belong to Marvel
Their month was almost up, and Tony had a surprise for Loki. He brought him down to the workshop and handed him a metal staff about half as tall as Loki with a grip on the end.
"All you gotta do is twist the handle," he said
Loki did so, and the metal bar was suddenly crackling with glowing green electricity.
"That should cut through just about anything, so don't go dismembering yourself."
Loki studied the staff, moving it left and right and almost slicing a table in half.
"Whoa, easy Obi-Wan!" Tony called, motioning for Loki to twist the handle again. He did so and the green static dispersed.
Neither one of them noticed Erika until she said, "No Way! You built him a light saber?"
Tony grinned. "I though it would be fitting, and in case you're wondering, yes, I did think about making it red. He's a Jedi now, though, not a sith lord, so I felt green was appropriate."
"Yeah, okay, but you made a light saber. A freaking light saber! And it works!"
"I do not understand this conversation," Loki said.
"I thought you'd seen Star Wars," said Tony, and Loki shook his head. "Okay, we're going to fix that as soon as this 'invading army' crap is over."
Erika looked at the staff in Loki's had. "Can I have one?" she asked hopefully.
"No," both Tony and Loki said at the same time, and Erika pouted.
"So, when are you going to tell the rest of the team?" Erika asked when it was just her and Tony in the kitchen.
"About what?" Tony asked, eating a spoonful of coco puffs.
"About you and Mom," Erika said, and then crunched down on a bite of fruit loops (she ate her cereal dry, because milk was disgusting). She chewed and swallowed, and then added, "And I'm still not used to calling a guy 'Mom.'"
Tony sighed. "We talked about it—"
"Whoa, so you can talk about important emotional crap?"
"Ha ha, very funny," he said dryly. "As I was saying, we talked about it and figured it was better to keep that part of it out. At least, give them a little longer to get used to him, then maybe, if the timing works out . . . ." Tony shrugged. "Who knows?"
Erika bit her lower lip. "Alright, so I'm assuming you want me to keep the whole 'Jormungand and Hela are my siblings' thing a secret, too?"
"You assume correctly."
They fell into silence, the only sound coming from Erika eating her cereal. The silence was broken when Erika put down her spoon and said, "I still can't remember him very well. It gets clearer every day, but my clearest memory is still the day of the funeral."
Tony sighed. This was so not a conversation he wanted to have at the moment, but he was trying to earn 'good parent' points and actually talk to her about important things. "Look, Kiddo, I don't know if you'll ever—if your memories will . . . ." he trailed off and sighed tiredly. Fuck, this was hard.
"You don't think I'll ever remember him clearly," Erika finished. "Because of how young I was."
Tony nodded hopelessly.
Erika poked at her cereal, suddenly not feeling very hungry. "Do you remember him?"
"Yeah," was all he said, because he didn't know how to tell his daughter that the Loki that was with them now wasn't the same Loki he'd known all those years ago, that this wasn't his Loki. His Loki was prideful and arrogant, yes, but also understanding and compassionate. His Loki liked the odd cruel joke now and again, but nothing harmful.
His Loki's eyes were the brightest Tony had ever seen, but those same eyes were now cold and dark, and full of hate.
Loki was different, but Tony didn't know how to put his thoughts into words, so he stayed silent.
"Jarvis, where's our resident psychopathic god wandered off to?" Tony asked his AI later that day.
"Master Odinson is currently in the training room, Sir," Jarvis reported.
"Thanks a bunch, Jar-Jar," said Tony, changing directions and heading for the elevator that would take him to the training room.
"I wouldn't recommend going down there, sir—Master Odinson seems to be in an unpleasant mood," Jarvis warned.
Tony waved the AI's warning off. "Relax, Jarvis, I've dealt with His Royal Moodiness enough to know what to expect."
". . . . . Very well, Sir."
The elevator dinged and Tony stepped into the small enclosure, whistling as he went. His whistling trailed off when the elevator doors opened and he was met with a sight that was . . . well, it was really disturbing, actually. Scattered across the floor were various parts of practice dummies, and standing in the middle of the chaos were six practice dummies all in a neat row.
The disturbing part? Those last six dummies were dressed as the six members of the Avengers.
Tony watched wide-eyed as Loki's throwing knives were embedded in dummy-Thor's head, dummy-Natasha's belly, and dummy-Hawkeyes arms. He brought out the staff Tony had made him and turned on the power before using it to hack the dummies to pieces.
Tony winced as dummy-Tony's head rolled across the floor. He gulped and clutched his own neck.
"New training exercise?" he asked hesitantly, and yelped in surprise when a dagger embedded itself in the wall mere centimeters away from his head. "Whoa, easy there Rambo!" he exclaimed, edging away from the knife.
He wasn't quick enough, though, and Loki was suddenly across the room and had him pinned to the wall.
"What the hell are you doing?" Tony asked, panic making his voice rise—Loki was without magic, but he was still strong enough to snap someone's neck (which, according to Thor, should have been impossible—Loki's strength should have vanished along with his magic).
Loki said nothing, only stared at him with hatred burning in his eyes.
"Seriously, calm the fuck down and tell me what the fuck is wrong!"
Loki slammed him against the wall. "You wish to know what is wrong?" He asked, his voice on the verge of being a growl. "Very Well, Stark, I will tell you—what is wrong, is that I am stuck here, on a useless excuse of a planet, with none of my magic. I am surrounded by and forced to live with the very people who took great pleasure in beating me into the ground, and now I have the Mad Titan's forces after me, with only Midgard's sad excuse for a military for protection! And, to top it all off, you pathetic mortals have dragged my children into a war that they cannot hope to win! Now tell me, Man of Iron, does that answer your question as to what is wrong?!"
Tony tried putting his hands on Loki's arms, but the god snarled at him and slammed him into the wall again. "Touch me again and I'll crack your skull against the concrete!" Loki spat.
Tony swallowed and forced himself to breathe evenly. "Babe, just calm down—"
"Enough of your demeaning pet names, Stark!"
Okay, new plan—approach the subject slowly and try to find a calm, peaceful solution.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
Or not.
"Were you not listening, Or are you just too stupid to remember what I just told you?" Loki snarled. "I'm on an alien planet, practically defenseless, surrounded by enemies—what part of that did you not understand?"
"Yeah, you're pissed about the no magic thing, I get that," Tony said back, starting to get angry. "Seriously, though, are you just now realizing this? When you've been here for, what, six months? You seemed okay with everything yesterday—what, you just suddenly decided to go berserk?"
Tony's tirade was cut off with another slam against the wall, and his head knocked against concrete hard enough to make his vision swim.
Loki dropped him and spat at his feet. "You're pathetic," he spat. "I cannot for the life of me understand why I ever allowed you to come near me, let alone bed me. You are weak, you and that stupid, shallow girl!" He glared at Tony as if he was the dirt under Loki's boots.
"Hey, that 'shallow girl' is my daughter!" Tony rasped, his own anger starting to boil. "She's yours too, or did you forget?"
Loki sneered. "I want nothing to do with that pathetic child, and I have no more patience for you either one of you!'" He spat, and before Tony could reply he let the training room.
Tony sat there and tried to calm himself down. He was trying to make sense of what just happened, and he had three theories. Theory number one—Loki's docile state had been caused by shock or fatigue, maybe from going from Prison on Asgard to living in Stark Tower, and now he was only just realizing his situation. Theory number two—Loki had been pissed all along but managed to keep a lid on it, but the lid finally blew and it all came spewing out. Theory number three—and this one wasn't very likely—Loki had grown used to living at the tower and was trying to drive a wedge between him and the towers residents, so that when Thanos came he only would come for Loki.
Theory one was good, but unlikely, and theory three had Tony convinced he'd been watching too many movies. So, theory two it was.
Now the only question was, how does one calm an angered god?
I am stuck here, on a useless excuse of a planet, with none of my magic.
Truth; He was stuck on Midgard, with no magic and only half his strength, with no hope of ever being free again.
I am surrounded by and forced to live with the very people who took great pleasure in beating me into the ground.
Truth; hadn't that been the plan, though? Hadn't he hoped that "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" would stop the invasion?
Now I have the Mad Titan's forces after me, with only Midgard's sad excuse for a military for protection!
Truth; Better than no protection, though, and he should count himself lucky that they were willing to go up against Thanos, even if it was solely for the protection of their planet.
And, to top it all off, you pathetic mortals have dragged my children into a war that they cannot hope to win!
Truth; If it weren't for these events, his son would still be in the ocean and his daughter in the Realm of the Dead. If nothing else, though, he was glad to see Jormungand again.
You're pathetic
Lie.
I cannot for the life of me understand why I ever allowed you to come near me, let alone bed me.
Lie.
You are weak, you and that stupid, shallow girl!
Lie.
I want nothing to do with that pathetic child, and I have no more patience for you either one of you!
Lie, lie, lie. All of it lies. They were the best thing—the only good thing—about his current situation. They were his family, and he'd be damned if he dragged them into his fight.
A/N: For Loki's staff, imagine the shock sticks that the Lieutenant (Mustache Guy) uses in Legend of Korra.
Loki had been through so much, and the Loki in The Avengers is obviously different from the Loki in and before Thor. I still like to believe that the old Loki is in there somewhere, and he still cares about his family.
