Author's note: Well, this was a totally unplanned and impromptu chapter, written for AidennQueen who wanted to see more of eager-to-please!Loki. Not sure if this is at all what you were hoping for, but, well, it's how it turned out. ^^
Anyway, this chapter might be a little on the slow side, but in the next chapter, I promise there will be *something* happening… ;) *dun-da-dun*
He swallows the last gulp of coffee down, glad to finally bring an end to this miserable breakfast featuring a Norse god of mischief eyeing him like he's just admitted that he spends his evenings kicking kittens for fun. Putting his cup down on the crumb-littered tabletop, he scoots the chair out, getting ready to head down to his workshop to get some work done.
Of course, the pair of sullen, accusing green eyes on the other side of the table follows him closely, and he winces inwardly. Most of all, he'd just like to slink out of the room like a drenched puppy with its tail between its legs, but something tells him it would be a bad idea to simply leave Loki like this to stew and let his anger fester after everything that's happened. No, it would be better to give the god some sort of task to fulfil, something to keep his mind occupied and prevent him from inventing new plans for world domination to avenge himself on humanity for being idiotic dolts like Tony.
Though, he's not so sure what kind of work a Norse god of mischief is really good for.
But come to think of it, there is one thing he could take care of; there's still that newly washed heap of shirts in need of ironing. Sure he has Dummy to do that for him, but for all his bad-ass techno-skills, enabling him to build a suit that can fly and comes equipped with weapons exceeding the total firepower of many smaller nations' armies, he still hasn't managed to create a robot that can iron shirts as well as the average human. Heck, even he can do it better than Dummy, which is saying a lot, though he lets the robot handle boring stuff like that anyway. It's worth a few wrinkles and creases.
And even a spoiled prince who's no doubt spent most of his life being waited on hand and foot should be able to surpass Dummy's lacklustre ironing abilities. Hopefully, he won't burn too many shirts in the process before getting the hang of it.
"Alright, got another task for you," he says, waving Loki along, who looks as sullen and pouty as ever.
Yeah, definitely a good idea to occupy the god with something, he thinks to himself as he takes in that look. He's sure glad Jarvis is keeping a constant vigilant eye out, or he'd probably find his bed stuffed with thumbtacks or his shoes filled with super-glue, or whatever it is that indignant gods of mischief do.
"Okay, then," Tony says, placing the iron on the board before him and wiggling his fingers at the smooth underside. "That's the hot side. And there are the shirts." He makes a toss with his head into the direction of a heap of crumpled clothing. "Any further instructions you need?"
Loki shakes his head. He recognises the concept; they have it in Asgard too. Slabs of iron heated on a grate hanging over a hearth of glowing embers, which, when hot enough, are pressed down on wrinkled cloth to even out the creases. The procedure is, of course, carried out mostly for court ladies' finer dresses, but it hardly comes as a surprise that Tony would want this for his clothes as well.
It shouldn't be too difficult. Not that he has ever done it himself, of course, but he's seen others do it several times before as a child sneaking into the servants' areas, standing on his toes and curiously peaking over the edge of the work bench to watch the proceedings taking place, while hiding from the consequences of whatever mischief he had caused moments earlier.
Yes, it should be a simple task, one he can handle without further instructions.
Besides, Tony's terse manners are clearly informing him that the man has no desire to stand around here and explain simple servants' tasks to his slave. Or to stand around in his presence at all. No, Tony surely expects him to be able to execute this order without lengthy instructions or demonstrations. And there's no point in further provoking the man's ire by being obtuse. He can figure this out, previous experience or not.
"Good," Tony says in response. "I usually let Dummy handle this, but I'm sure you'll do better." With that, he turns and leaves, not wasting further time or words on his slave.
Loki remains standing in the middle of the room, one hand on the edge of the ironing board. For once, it would seem that Tony has given him a task that actually serves a primary purpose other than humiliating him. This time, Tony is expecting him to be useful, as opposed to a mere source of amusement providing him with the pleasure of seeing his hated enemy brought low.
Besides, he's already unwanted here, as opposed to wanted, and it would serve him much better to be useful rather than useless to boot. Perhaps if he is, maybe Tony will to some extent let the benefits of having a useful – albeit unwanted – slave around take precedence over the satisfaction of meting out revenge, so that it won't go beyond a point where that usefulness will deteriorate too much.
As much as the resentment is crawling in him at the thought, as much as it is making his throat sting with humiliation, he knows that his best bet is to make sure that Tony stays as content as possible, if he is at all to keep his nose above the water surface rather than drowning pitifully. And as disturbing as the thought is, he will most likely be spending Tony's entire life in this tower, and even though that might not be very many years when taking his own life span into account, it will still be a torturously long time if he has to live under the yoke of a disgruntled and displeased Tony, who might not see any other uses for his slave than being a handy outlet for the man's frustrations.
No, pride won't do him any good anymore; truth be told, it's probably one of the reasons that landed him in this miserable situation in the first place. He has truly fallen, reduced to performing servants' tasks at the behest of a mere mortal, but he's also aware that it's still full well possible for him to fall even further. And pride would be the first thing to trip him up, to send him careening right over the edge of that abyss yawning at his very feet. No need to jump into it voluntarily if he can avoid it.
His pride and dignity are still in there somewhere, and he decides to let them stay where they are, hidden and locked away. Maybe someday, he'll be able to bring them out again, as vain as that hope seems right now.
But as things are standing, he has no choice but to swallow all this degradation down, trying not to choke on it. His entire future here depends on Tony's attitude towards him, the man who now controls his entire life, every aspect of his existence.
And as horrible and loathsome as the idea of being turned into a bed slave would have been, it might still have given him a flimsy amount of protection (though far too hard-earned to be worth it) against other things, possibly ensuring he wouldn't be hurt too badly. But now, his future depends solely on how useful he can make himself, how pleased Tony is with him; that's the only thing that will offer him any form of safe-guarding, no matter how thin and weak the shield.
He eyes the iron, resting upright on the board, and then the crumpled shirts, Finally, his gaze drifts back then the iron again. At least it should be an easy task, something he can perform adequately, if perhaps not stellarly.
Bending down over the pile of Tony's freshly washed clothes items, he pulls out a grey shirt with the word 'Aerosmith' plastered across the front. Whatever that means. Spreading the shirt out on the board, flattening it out with his hand, he picks up the iron and places it against the cloth, pushing down to make sure there's adequate pressure to smooth the wrinkles out.
However, it doesn't take long before the sharp odour of something disturbingly burnt reaches his nose.
Damn.
Quickly, he yanks the iron away only to discover, to his utter horror, a big, charred hole in the cloth beneath. His eyes widen in dread. He hadn't expected that the iron would be hot enough to burn like this.
Panic welling up inside of him, he whirls around, half expecting an incensed Tony to storm through the door, demanding to know what the hell he is doing and why the fuck he can't handle even the most simple of tasks.
The door frame is mercifully empty, though, and his tense limbs relax marginally. Biting his lip, he looks to the sorry thing on the board before him, miserably taking in the sight of the burnt edges framing the very much conspicuous hole. The shirt is ruined. Whimsically, he wishes for his magic; only a faint tendril of it, and he could have easily sorted this mess out, without leaving a hint that anything was ever amiss.
And what is he supposed to do now? Sneak the damning proof into the trash, hoping that Tony won't notice that he's one shirt short? Confess in the hopes that it might get him off a bit easier?
Tony will be absolutely livid; of this there's no doubt. He eyes the hot iron, and then his bare arm sticking out of the sleeve of the T-shirt he's wearing, swallowing.
Perhaps Tony will decide to give him a very much hands-on lesson about the effects that a hot iron will have when held against… non-heat resistant material for too long. His skin prickles in phantom pain. It would no doubt have been considered a fitting punishment in Asgard for such carelessness; surely Tony will be of no different opinion. And worse things have certainly befallen slaves for lesser offences than this.
And as he stands there looking at the ruined shirt, unable to do anything at all to rectify his mistake, he feels a huge wave of frustration washing over him. He can't do anything right here. He's too unfamiliar with Midgardian customs and expectations and household appliances to make a good slave. Heck, not even in Asgard would he have made a good slave, having gone through life reliant on his magic to fix everything for him. But at least back home, he would have known what would be expected, known what sort of behaviour would be required of him.
Then again, he can pretty safely say that ruined clothing is most certainly not part of it, not even here in Midgard.
The fists at his sides are clenching. Uselessly. Impotently. Futilely. Such apt descriptions of his own existence and pathetic struggles here, where he can't do anything right, not even something simple like this. And all he ever does just seems to end up putting him into an even worse place than he was when he started.
He lets out a growl of frustration, desperately wanting to smash something but thinking better of it, knowing it will only make things worse. Oh, how the fates must be laughing at him and his pitiful attempts to cope with his impossible situation, ever-doomed to abject failure.
But in the end, no matter how many times his thoughts dizzily revolve around the mocking fates, Asgard versus Midgard, Tony's wrath, and his own situation, there's one fact that won't go away, its presence ruthlessly staring him into his face – he's still left with two alternatives, and he has to pick one.
Try to hide it, or confess.
In the end, he opts for the former, silently willing that Tony won't notice the missing shirt.
It is only many hours later, when he's lying in bed trying to fall asleep, that he realizes that Jarvis must surely have seen it all and reported his misdoings back to Tony.
It takes a long time for sleep to come to him that night, and when it does, his dreams are filled with hot irons and the sickly, nauseating stench of scorched flesh.
Well, at least he tried…
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