"Good morning, Loki. I wish to inform you that Master Stark requests your immediate presence in the living room."
His eyes snap open at once, Jarvis's voice cutting through the whirling fogs of his uneasy dreams like a knife. A second later, he's sitting bolt upright, cursing himself. Stark is already awake, and has had to call upon his servant to arouse Loki from his sleep. Unforgivable.
It takes him mere seconds to dress, then he's out of the room and half-running down the corridor leading to the living room. Stark must be livid by now. And he might not have punished Loki for his missteps since his coming here, but this is by far the worst he's done so far. There will definitely be punishment this time.
"Hey, Loki, what-"
He quickly throws himself down at Stark's feet before the man can unleash any of his anger. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I wasn't-"
"Alright, so what is it about this time?" Stark sounds harried. "What did you do? Or perhaps should I say, what do you think you did?"
So the man wants him to first confess to his crime, obvious as it is. Well, he can do that. "I overslept and wasn't here to serve you when you woke up." Then he holds his breath, waiting for the expected punch to the face.
"Uh-huh. And how are you supposed to know at what time I get up each morning? Did I tell you to get up at a specific time today? Or even hand you an alarm clock to start with?"
He flinches when Stark walks up to him, an arm automatically going up to shield his face from the expected blow that must be coming. But Stark stops in his tracks and doesn't approach further. The sigh that leaves him is the deepest Loki has heard from him yet. "Alright, so I can tell there's another one of these little talks that we need to have right there. But we'll deal with first things first."
A beat of silence.
"Now, I asked you this once before, but I'll repeat the question. What realm are you currently in?
"In Mi- on Earth." At least he remembered to use Stark's preferred designation, for what little good it will do him.
"Yup. And that means, whatever the deal was back in Vanaheim, forget all that shit. It's my rules that go here."
"I don't understand your rules!" he suddenly hears his own voice yell. "I don't know what you expect of me!"
Too late, he realizes that he has raised his voice against his master and his insides freeze up in fear.
But rather than Stark slapping him so hard that his head spins for his insolence, there comes a strange sound from somewhere above him. Shocked, he looks up, realizing that Stark is laughing.
"Well, I'll be damned. Do I detect a hint of the old Loki somewhere in there?"
Loki shrinks back, horrified. The old Loki was the one who attacked Stark's world, who brought an entire alien army down upon it. Why would Stark find the resurgence of that version of him funny, as opposed to doing his utmost to strike it down by force? Just like the Vanir had?
"Okay, as I have much better things to do than stand here harping on you, I'll keep it short and simple – if I need you up at a specific time or to do something specific, I will have Jarvis wake you up. And then I will also expect you to get up. Otherwise I don't really give a shit how long you sleep in the morning."
Stark makes a longer pause after that, seeming to consider carefully what to say next.
"Now, for the next order of business," he finally continues. "We're going to discuss a subject called 'punishment'".
A shiver goes down Loki's spine; he full well remembers what he had to endure in Vanaheim. Even if he doesn't think it will be as bad here, Stark has yet to show his hand in that respect.
"Come along," Stark gestures at him in a come-hither motion before heading towards the elevators, and Loki hesitantly stands up to follow.
As they're inside, Stark presses the down-most button, the one marked with the Midgardian letter 'B'. One of the letters Loki does recall, now.
There's a soft whooshing sound and a sudden surge in his stomach, not wholly dissimilar from the kind teleportation causes. A little while later, the carriage stops, having reached the bottom, wherever that is.
"The basement," Stark says, as if reading Loki's thoughts. On cue, the doors part to reveal a dark, dank chamber. Even standing inside the elevator, Loki can feel a draft of musty staleness reaching his nose.
The man steps out and into the chamber. There are other corridors and rooms connecting to it, leading off to unknown places in the darkness. The walls are covered with a whole network of pipes, some big enough for a man to crawl through, and others no thicker than his wrist.
"This is basically where all crap from upstairs passes through before going on to the public sewers. These ones here come right from my workshop." He walks up to one of the widest pipes and knocks on it a few times for demonstration, making the air reverberate with the clang of hollow metal. "Let's take a look, shall we?" With that, he turns a tap to the side and then grabs a wrench lying on the floor on top of a small collection of other tools. Whistling, Stark proceeds to screw the pipe apart, working on separating one section from its connecting neighbour. They disengage from each other with a dull plopping sound, and a foul stench wafts up from the open ends.
Stark looks down one of the pipe ends, as if there was something interesting down there and not just a thick disgusting sludge of greenish brown sticking to the insides. The overpowering reek emanating from it has Loki wrinkling his nose in revulsion, not sure how Stark can remain so wholly unperturbed, as if his entire sense of smell had suddenly gone non-existent.
"Nasty, huh? Nothing dangerous, though; thanks to those Health and Environment goons I have a whole separate system where all the stuff goes that makes fish grow three heads and what have you." He throws one last look down the filthy, dripping pipe and then turns his attention back to Loki.
"So, to get to the point, in case it's not clear already. You mess up enough to piss me off –and believe me, I'm not that easy to piss off – I will have you down here spending the day cleaning the insides of these pipes. And, that's as bad as it's going to get for you."
Loki frowns, not sure he's understanding correctly. Sure he would hate to have to clean these disgusting pipes, but it's not-
"Corporal punishment? I don't do that. There will be no hitting, biting, or pinching. Well, or whipping, but I already mentioned that." His rather flippant tone changes to something a notch sharper. "I think I have a pretty good clue of what went on back there in Fairyland, but I'm not someone who gets my jollies from beating up on other people, especially not people who are… uh, who have…" He gestures vaguely somewhere in Loki's general direction. "Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I'm not sure how much these talks are really helping or how much is getting through to you. Sometimes I kinda wonder if I'm just talking to myself here." He shrugs. "Perhaps things just have to grow on you for a bit."
And with that, Stark continues with screwing the pipe back together, Loki watching him dumbly. A few moments later Stark draws himself up and wipes his hands on his pants.
"Now, we've got some actual work to do!"
He has no idea what Stark's idea of 'actual work' is, especially not when it seems to involve both of them, but he soon finds himself standing in the man's workshop, staring at the impressive array of tools and gadgets strewn over the room in what seems to be no particular order at all. And on the nearest table lie the books from Vanaheim. He feels a little thrill at that; Stark must have already started the work with incorporating the knowledge held therein with his own scientific endeavours.
"So pouring over this it would seem that even though you don't have your mojo anymore, I could still probably get some interesting and hopefully useful data readings out of you. That magic stuff seems to leave some kind of residue that can still be measured." He points towards a chair. "Have a seat."
Loki sits.
Stark walks over to him carrying a flat device with a large, golden-ish metal ring attached to its underside. He connects the cable at the end with one of the screens standing at the table next to them. The screen flickers and then starts to display several rapidly changing sets of numbers that eventually slow down and settle on specific digits.
"Just calibrating," Stark says, eyes glued to the screen as he waits for the last numbers to come to a halt. When the screen is finally frozen and nothing further happens, he turns towards Loki, raising the device in his hand.
"This is a scanner, and it's going to take some readings from you. Nothing dangerous at all. But I have two instructions for you during this, so listen up closely. While I get a feeling the first one is not going to be much of a problem, I'm a bit worried about the second one." ¨
Loki waits, resolving to do his best even on what seems to be the more difficult set of instructions. He will not displease Stark again.
"Okay, first of all, you keep as still as possible while I run this. That means no nose scratching, no ear flapping, no thumb fiddling. Makes for more exact readings. Think you can manage that?"
Loki nods. For all his abject failures to comply with Stark's wishes so far, even he should be able to manage this.
"Good. Now for the more difficult part. If this starts to hurt, I want you to tell me and I'll turn this thing off. Got it?"
"Yes, Master."
"Now repeat the last instruction I just gave you."
"I'm to tell you if it hurts."
"Right." He looks Loki right into the eye. "Next question. Are you actually going to tell me? Because if you're still gonna have as much trouble following orders as you've had up until now, we're not doing this."
"No, I will tell you." He's not sure why this is so important, but orders are orders.
First it only tingles as Stark runs the device over him in slow-motion up and down his torso. The numbers on the screen start to rise almost immediately and then there are suddenly three meandering graphs showcasing… well, whatever it is they're showcasing.
"Huh," Starks mutters to himself.
After a while, it's starting to get vaguely uncomfortable, the tingling having changed into prickling. But it's still not so bad.
"Well, look at that," comes Stark's assessment of whatever it is he's seeing on that screen.
Then it's starting to burn a little, but nothing too unpleasant. Yet.
"I'll be damned," Stark comments, his eyebrows going upwards.
Then comes the first lance of actual pain, a sharp stab that takes him by surprise.
"Holy shit," Stark exclaims, leaning forwards, his eyes now glued at the screen.
And Loki realizes the conundrum he's suddenly stuck in. When whatever readings Stark is getting from him are apparently so enthralling, Loki shouldn't disturb the proceedings with his admittance of pain. But on the other hand, Stark had issued him instructions, and for once he thinks he knows what the right course of action is here.
Another lance of pain, more intense this time, pierces his body.
"Master? It… hurts a little bit. Nothing much, just some-"
And with that, Stark simply turns the machine off, those clearly so fascinating readings flickering once and then dying right in front of him.
End note: I gotta say, after writing Poetic Justice, it's really fun to have Tony being totally up-front from the start and being all, alright, we need to talk about this. And this. And this shit too, because you seem to have the totally wrong idea about stuff.