I am really annoyed at myself for taking so long to update, but it's a long chapter (my longest ever) so I guess that counts for something. Maybe? I went through like three different versions of this chapter before I got something I liked. Hopefully you all like it too.
Also at the end of this chapter, they watch my all time favorite movie, though it's also a good movie for them to watch for Loki's sake. I mention some other movies, but the one I'm talking about is the only one that goes into any depth. You'll see. I'd always planned it because I love it and it fits the story, but it was also recommended by thephoenixandthedragon4ever, spot'scrazygirl, Bittersweet Alchemist, justaislinn and maybe some other people. Sorry if I forgot anyone, I just searched the movie in my email and those were the people who came up. I guess that's a bit of a spoiler for those who requested it, but you requested it anyways, so...
There are also going to be some spoilers for that, obviously. And the usual disclaimer stands, about not owning it or quotes from it.
Tony's not sure if Loki's asleep or not, but he wouldn't be surprised if he was. The god looked exhausted, a far cry from his usual self with seemingly endless energy and enthusiasm. He had been kneeling next to Tony but is now slumped in an awkward-looking position. The way Loki's long legs are currently folded under him reminds Tony of a deer lying down, like Bambi or something, and the innocence on his face matches it.
Loki's arms are still wrapped around him, but his grip has loosened, which probably means he's asleep. At least, Tony hopes he's just asleep, instead of knocked out cold somehow. Olaf has tumbled from Loki's grasp, and Tony wonders how he still has that toy if they took Simba away. Then again, Olaf doesn't have an Iron Man suit.
The fact that S.H.I.E.L.D confiscated the Iron Man suit that Simba had on infuriates Tony. There's a reason he didn't want them to get their hands on his suits. They'd probably try to build their own army of them or something. Not that Simba's suit has any weapons or anything, but it does have a miniaturized arc reactor.
Tony carefully fastens the tracking watch on Loki's wrist, hoping Loki won't be reminded of the handcuffs he'd just removed. Still, he wants to get the watch on as soon as possible, in case Loki teleports accidentally again. He slips the Stark Phone into Loki's pocket, clipping it there should it fall. Jarvis is also on Loki's Stark Phone and would be able to operate it if needed. In his HUD, Tony now has two screens showing him the location of both the watch and the phone.
He picks up Olaf and, unsure of what to do with the toy since it's just a little too big for Loki's pockets- winds up slipping Olaf in the neck hole of Loki's t-shirt so the snowman's snuggled under the god's chin. Loki smiles slightly, though Tony's not sure if it's because of that or something in his dream, which at least seems to be pleasant for once.
Seeing Loki in handcuffs in the first place was somewhat shocking, and it makes Tony want to shoot something with his repulsors. He settles with blowing up the cuffs that were around Loki's wrists with a repulsor blast. Loki had actually started freezing the cuffs,, from the looks of it. Like when he'd frozen the arrow, Tony wonders if he got that from Elsa or if he would have done so before seeing Frozen.
"Have you found him?" Clint's voice asks through the comm right by Tony's ear, and Tony is not startled- just a little surprised, since he wasn't expecting any team chatter like they have on missions.
"Yeah, I got him out of that cell. Where are you guys?"
"In a quinjet, headed to the Helicarrier." Natasha replies, and Tony can't say he's surprised about them coming along, at least. He just hopes they'll be on his side instead of Fury's, he thinks as he carries Loki out of the cell.
Suddenly, loud footsteps enter the room and Tony turns around to see Thor. He still looks out of place on the Helicarrier, in his armor and billowing red cape (how is it even billowing with no wind?) Mjolnir is currently hanging loosely from his right hand.
"What are you doing here?" Tony snaps at him. Hopefully he's not here to start a fight or something, although in some ways Tony would enjoy that. But Loki's completely vulnerable now that he's unconscious.
"I was unsure of if he was still in the cage." Thor replies.
Tony snorts. "As if you'd care, Point Break. I bet you liked seeing him locked up like that, huh? I bet you loved the terrified expression on his face."
"Actually, I did not." Thor says, shifting slightly.
"Really?" Tony quirks an eyebrow and gives him a disbelieving smile, wondering where this is coming from. From what Loki's said, Thor was a complete jerk to him, and undoubtedly enjoyed his suffering.
"In fact, I came here with the intention of letting him out." Thor replies. "I do not jest, Friend Stark. There was no reason for Director Fury to have him restrained like that."
"Says the person who thinks he's a total monster." Tony's voice hasn't risen at all, but he can tell it's taken on a chilly quality. "So, if you were going to let him out, why'd you wait until I already let him out?"
"I have not been here for long." Thor counters. Tony rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, and I've been here for even less time, but I'm the one who let him out." Tony finishes with a satisfied smirk, knowing he won.
Still, at least Thor isn't a total jerk right now. Then again, he seemed like a decent guy before Tony learned what he did to Loki. It's annoying, because Tony can't just write him off as a total asshat. Sure, he's done some terrible things, but as the Merchant of Death, Tony can't really talk.
"Hey, Jarvis? Take Fury off this screen, will you?" Tony taps one of the holographic screens near the cell Loki had been in. A moment later, the screen shows a bunch of controls. Tony taps a command and the floor below the cell opens up. Another tap and the cell simply drops out of the Helicarrier altogether. Tony closes the trapdoor with a satisfied smirk on his face, knowing that even this Hulk-proof cell will break from the fall.
"Alright, J. Put the masterpiece back up." The image of Fury in a bikini is back, making Tony's smirk grow.
"Stark, stop messing with our systems. I want you to take this goddamn picture off all the screens immediately." Fury calls out loudly from somewhere down the hall, sounding really pissed despite not even having entered the room yet.
Tony ignores him. Messing with their systems is fun, and hacking them has provided some very useful information- the most recent example being showing them where Loki was. Or, about a year ago, telling Tony and the other Avengers that Phil Coulson was not actually dead, like they all believed. The blatant deceit hadn't gone over well with any of them.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Fury demands as he walks in the room, followed by Phil Coulson. Obviously they've noticed the missing cell and the freed prisoner.
"Funny, I was going to ask you the same question." Tony says, glaring at the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"You can't just let a prisoner out." Fury stares at him with his one remaining eye, but Tony stares right back, not backing down. "And why the hell did you drop that cell? Do you know how much that thing cost?!"
"It was about time you got rid of it." Tony counters, not feeling sorry in the slightest. Loki doesn't need to be locked up in there. Neither does Bruce, and the cell was built for him- or, rather, for the Hulk.
"You can't do that!" Fury fumes, and Tony rolls his eyes.
"I think you might need to rethink that, Nicky boy, because I just did." Tony grins broadly at Fury, who's sending him a murderous glare, before getting serious. "Besides, he shouldn't have been a prisoner. Why the hell was he locked up?!"
"I already informed you this man is of no harm, director." Thor states, to Tony's great surprise. Had Thor actually vouched for Loki?
"He managed to get onto the Helicarrier." Fury says as if that settles everything.
"He got on here?" Tony asks.
"He seemed to just teleport on here and thus successfully infiltrated our base." Fury says. Tony frowns thoughtfully. He'd sort of assumed S.H.I.E.L.D had picked Loki up somewhere for some reason. He hadn't considered that Loki actually teleported onto the Helicarrier. Why in the world would he have teleported there? Fury goes on. "That's not exactly harmless."
"It is if he didn't do anything worrying once he got here- which I highly doubt he did." Tony glares at the director. "We'll get back to that, but first things first, I believe you took some things of his." He switches to speaking to Jarvis "Hey Jarv, any idea where Simba and the suit are? Loki said something about them being taken."
"I am aware that Mr. Loki said that." Jarvis replies dryly in Tony's earpiece inside his helmet. "Now, I believe they are in the labs, sir, along with Mr. Loki's Jormungand accessory." They can't even really call that a necklace anymore, because half the time it wraps itself around the god's waist like a belt.
"He also said something about Agent Barton shooting an arrow at him, and he clearly dislikes Thor. Those indicated that he could be a potential enemy, after he teleported onto the Helicarrier. Those don't point to good intentions. This man could be anything- a mutant, alien, enemy. I can't be sure if he's up to anything."
Seriously?! This guy's a professional spy, he's supposed to be able to read people really well, and yet he didn't realize that Loki's not an enemy?! Furthermore, didn't anyone realize that there's something a little bit off about him?! Tony's not exactly great with people, and he noticed within minutes of meeting the god, yet the thought never seemed to occur to Fury?
"Well, he's not an enemy. The only reason Clint tried to shoot at him is because he was startled, and just automatically aimed his bow.
"Who is this man?" Fury asks, though it sounds like he's demanding an immediate answer. He glances at the unconscious Loki, who Tony has deposited in a chair near one of the holographic screens outside the cell. These screens also show the photoshopped photo of Fury in a bikini, and the real Fury glares at them for a bit.
"Why do you need to know?"
"Stark, don't push me." Fury grinds out.
"You don't need to worry about him." Tony says, and Fury clearly doesn't believe him at all. Phil Coulson, however, looks like he agrees.
"I don't think he was a trained professional sent to infiltrate us." Phil speaks up for the first time.
"Yeah, because he wasn't. I'd bet my tower he had no clue where he was."
"He did seem a little... off." Coulson says, mostly to Fury. "I mean, in addition to the teleportation and other odd powers." At least someone here has some sense.
"He could have easily been faking, for all we knew. Besides, we couldn't just let him go without knowing who he was first." Fury says impassively, though he sounds like he's starting to second-guess the faking part.
"If he was faking, he'd deserve every Oscar ever." Tony mutters.
"I don't think he was faking, Boss, especially when he had that panic attack." Coulson says.
"He had a panic attack?" Tony asks slowly, not liking where this was going at all. Of course, he'd guessed that Loki would be having some sort of panic attack every time he landed, but he's not sure what S.H.I.E.L.D would have done to him. They do have psychologists that are supposed to help with anxiety or other things that might affect agents.
Fury nods in confirmation. "He seemed to go into a panic attack, so we had to sedate him."
"What the hell! You freaking drugged him?! What is wrong with you?! If someone's having a panic attack, that doesn't mean you just drug them into a stupor." Tony exclaims, imagining what it would be like if he'd been drugged during one of his own panic attacks. Okay, so that technically would work, but it still doesn't seem right.
Perhaps Loki isn't simply asleep, then. Tony can't believe the stupidity of this. Well, actually he can, but he wishes people weren't this stupid. Loki, as an alien, could react very differently to whatever drugs and sedatives they administered. Admittedly, they probably hadn't known that, but still, some people don't react well to certain drugs. Right now, Loki's breathing seems abnormally slow. "Those drugs better not have done anything serious to him or you're going to deeply regret it." Tony flips down his visor to look more intimidating. "How much did you drug him?"
Fury remains silent.
"If you do not answer Mr. Stark's question, Director Fury." Jarvis says rather cheerfully. "I would be quite happy to rip some rather important information from your systems, including what you are not telling us."
It turns out that the amount of sedatives Loki's gotten over the past hour or so, through multiple doses of gas, is enough to knock out ten horses, but at least it had been a normal sedative instead of some weird drug S.H.I.E.L.D mixed up or something.
Holy crap. No wonder Loki's asleep with that dosage. It would have killed an ordinary human, most likely.
Fury wouldn't have done that to an ordinary human. Would he? But he probably hadn't known Loki is an alien. Perhaps they'd just dosed him until he calmed down?
Tony is so tempted to clock Fury in the jaw with the full power of his Iron Man armor. He almost goes to do just that but manages to stop himself. If he did that, he'd have an entire Helicarrier-worth of agents out for his skin, including quite possibly Natasha and Clint. Doing that is sort of stupid, especially when he has to worry about protecting Loki, who is currently totally helpless due to his unconsciousness.
"These... sedatives." Thor interrupts, half to himself and half to them. "I believe I was subjected to them during my banishment to Midgard, when I was in the building with the healers." He frowns slightly. "I did not particularly enjoy that."
"Did you do anything before they sedated you, or were you just pointlessly subjected to it for no reason?" Tony asks as he pointedly glares at Fury.
"I told the Midgardian Healers not to touch the Son of Odin, and then tried to escape rather violently." Thor admits, before turning to Director Fury. "You said this man tried to escape. Did he become violent? Because that does not seem like him."
"Of course not." Tony scoffs. "Everyone in your Castle on a Cloud tried to beat the fight out of him." There's still some fight left, but it's buried most of the time, it seems. Tony actually manages to stare down Thor, who looks like a kicked puppy. "It doesn't matter that he tried to escape- he would have been well within his rights to do so, since you had no reason to lock him up in the first place." Tony doesn't even care that his voice is rising.
"We had an unknown human- who turned out to be an alien- in our hands, who had just teleported into our base. For all we knew, he could have been with Dr. Doom, or he could have been behind the Chitauri attack." Fury says.
If this were another situation, Tony would have snickered at that idea. Really, Loki behind that huge attack on New York? Or in league with Doom? Why would anyone even think for a second that those could be possibilities? That would be like someone thinking Fury is going start skipping around throwing flower petals around the Helicarrier. He vaguely wonders if he should get Jarvis to have the screens show something like that sometime.
"Seriously? Not everyone is an enemy, you know. Here's a tip. If you find an alien- or anyone of uncertain origins- that doesn't mean you should just start experimenting on them. I mean, unless you have some weird sort of fetish for that 'E.T. phone home' scene, I can't see why that would be your first reaction." Tony says. Heck, that wasn't even his first reaction when Loki landed on his roof and started healing before his eyes, and never let it be said that Tony doesn't want to know how everything works. "Did he really seem like the enemy type to you? Did he fight back at all or give you any reason to handcuff him?!"
"You still haven't answered my question, Stark. Who is he? He said his name is Loki, after trying to trick us into believing he was named Flynn Rider and Eugene something-or-other."
Tony smirks slightly at that, which does not help Fury's mood any. Though he has to wonder why Loki picked Eugene, when he sort of designated him as "Tony's" character. Not that wondering that is important right now.
"Well, he didn't lie about the Loki part." Tony admits eventually. After all, Thor's right here and Fury could just ask him.
"What about him not having a last name?"
"What are you doing, stalking him? Besides, he wouldn't show up on your databases anyways, since he's not from Earth. Or has your little intelligence agency not figured that out yet?"
"He has a last name. Laufeyson." Thor inputs. "But Tony Stark is right, Director- you Midgardians would not have heard of him, as he is from another realm."
"He grew up in Asgard, being treated like crap by basically everyone." Tony says with a pointed glare at Thor, who actually looks sort of ashamed. As he should, although Tony's slightly surprised. Still, Loki had mentioned that Thor hadn't hit him since being banished to Midgard, so perhaps he wasn't a total jerk to him recently.
"So he's an alien with a sob story." Fury states unsympathetically. "How did he end up here on Earth, exactly?"
Tony really hates these never ending questions. "How is that any of your business, exactly?"
"I can make it my business. Why didn't you tell me when you encountered an alien species?"
"Because there was no reason to tell you! It's not like he was going on some crazy power-seeking quest or something. He's literally the least threatening person I know."
"Still, I want to know how an alien ended up with you."
"He landed on my roof a little over a month ago." Tony's not in the mood for this questioning, but Fury could easily figure that information out anyways so there's not exactly a point in hiding it. "The point is, you didn't know anything about him, and your first instinct was to lock him up and experiment on him?" And people think he's an asshole. He's at least been putting off trying to figure out Loki's powers until Loki's not terrified of them. He had thought that they might be getting to the point where Loki would let him test some of them and ask him to do certain things, and now Director Cyclops and his band of minions had to go ruin that by potentially making yet another potentially traumatic event for Loki.
In his comm, Tony hears Clint say they've arrived. Tony not-so-subtly tells them to try to find Simba, the armor, and the Jormungand necklace. Surprisingly, they agree.
Fury protests about them taking stuff, to which Tony replies "Oh, you mean like how you took that stuff from him in the first place? By the way, here's a question for you- what are you doing with the Iron Man suit?" He stalks forward a couple steps. "I thought it was clear I didn't want you getting your hands on my suits."
"He had a suit." Fury throws a glance at Loki.
"Yeah, for a stuffed animal. How is that threatening, exactly? Never pictured you as one to be scared of stuffed animals, Fury."
"He said he has a suit, too." Coulson inputs.
If it was someone else, Tony would have been surprised to hear that information like that had been revealed, but he's not entirely surprised that Loki had brought it up.
"Yeah, and that was a Halloween costume. It doesn't have any weapons or anything, and it can't even fly."
"His suit here had a miniaturized arc reactor."
"And how do you know it's real? Have you been messing with it?" Tony intensifies his glare, and then says "Jarvis, delete any information they've gotten from Simba's suit, and Loki himself in general."
"Stark-" Fury has a vein pulsing near his temple. In the comm, Tony hears Natasha say that they found Loki's possessions.
"Look, if you're going to say that I can't do that, I think I can. Jarvis is in your systems and has restricted your access-" Tony indicates the screens, which are still just showing a hot pink bikini clad Fury, and are thus totally useless. "Now, if you're going to say I shouldn't do that, well, you shouldn't have gotten that information in the first place."
Steve, Natasha and Clint enter the room. Bruce is evidently still in the tower, apparently not trusting himself to be in this situation. Which is a shame, really, because Tony honestly wouldn't object to Hulk smashing up some of S.H.I.E.L.D's equipment.
Clint's carrying Simba, in the now-rarely-seen natural form without armor. Said armor is in pieces in Steve's arm, since they don't have the briefcase to reassemble it. Natasha has the Jormungand 'necklace', although right now it's in its larger, belt-like form.
Natasha and Clint both deposit the toys (or sort-of accessories, in the fake Jormungand's case) in Loki's arms. Still apparently asleep, he snuggles up with Simba while the Jormungand wraps itself around him in what's a hug, according to Loki, although Tony still thinks it looks like it's trying to squeeze the life out of him. Everyone but Tony stares at the sight. Fury looks far too intrigued for Tony's liking.
Tony's only ever seen Loki do that when he's awake, though. But then again, he's made illusions of himself in his sleep and done some other magic, so it's not exactly surprising that this can happen in his sleep.
"Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers." Fury stares at the three of them. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Did I give you permission to return those objects?"
"Don't let Loki hear you calling Simba an object." Tony mutters under his breath.
"With all due respect, sir, I don't think you should have taken these in the first place, and you shouldn't have locked this man up." Steve says. "He really isn't a threat or an enemy, and locking innocent people up isn't really humane." Oftentimes, Steve's strict moral compass gets on Tony's nerves- like when Steve points out the many supposed flaws in Tony's lifestyle- but right now he's really grateful for it. Steve normally takes Fury's side on things, seeing as Fury's higher up on the chain of command, but not if Fury does something Steve deems is immoral. Like experimenting on an innocent person (or alien).
"Locking him up is like locking up some random person you find on the street." Clint adds.
"He's not some normal person. He has some very interesting abilities, and I'd like to know what they are." Fury states.
"Yeah, well, too bad." Tony says, crossing his arms. "Besides, Thor has some abilities, too, but I don't see you experimenting on him."
"This man has something extra." Fury says, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, he does, but you're not going to find out what they are, because it's none of your business."
"They could be dangerous."
"But we've said they're not! Sheesh, you're worse than Natasha." Tony quickly holds his hands up when Natasha just crosses her arms and glares at him. "No offense, Natasha." She seems annoyed enough for him not to call her Tasha, and Tony isn't stupid enough to even think about calling her Kim Possible right now.
Tony turns back to Fury. "Yeah, he's got powers, and sure, they could be used for bad purposes, just like guns can be used by evil people. But he hasn't been doing anything nefarious with them. In fact, we've had to convince him that using them at all doesn't make him a freak." Tony glares at Thor, who looks reasonably chagrined.
Really, what part of this makes any sense? A strange man lands on their ship, so they decide to freaking drug him with sedatives and run tests on him?! What part of that follows the basic concept of human rights? Well, technically, Loki's not a human, but they still apply in principle.
"What do his powers do, exactly? So far, I've seen him teleport like Doom, and I've seen him apparently turn invisible and make clones of himself. And he just brought that freaking snake thing to life. How is that not dangerous, Stark?
"Maybe because it's not doing anything dangerous. That's actually a hug, believe it or not." Okay, Tony knows that sounds crazy and everyone probably thinks he's not being serious, but he is.
"Doesn't look like a hug to me." Fury mutters. "Looks like it's restraining him. How do we know that he doesn't have a whole army of snakes that he's going to use to attack us?"
"He has no army." Thor pipes up, and Tony's once again surprised at his input actually helping their cause.
"Hey, Hammer Time, you know who that is?" Tony asks, gesturing at Jormungand. "Jormungand. You know, someone you beat Loki up for talking to, for supposedly 'not being real'. Well, look at him now." Admittedly, Tony's pretty sure this is just an illusion, but Thor doesn't need to know that.
Thor's expression is simply one of shock, as if he's not believing his eyes.
Fury remains impassive. "Is that all he can do?" Fury asks. Tony's not sure he wants to answer that, because that would just make Fury more interested in Loki. He sincerely hopes Thor doesn't answer, but by the way he's still gawking at Jormungand, he's not sure that's too much of an issue.
"I'm not even sure what he's capable of, but I am sure that he's not going to be going on a malicious rampage, ever really, so you don't have to worry about him. And by the way, they're not living clones- they're illusions. And why do you care if he can turn invisible? We're in an invisible ship."
"I still want to know about these abilities of his." Fury deadpans.
"Yeah, well, too bad. You're not going to be experimenting on him. Loki's not a freaking lab rat. Now listen. You're never going to get your hands on him again, and if you ever somehow manage to, trust me, you're going to be very sorry. Same goes for you, Point Break."
Tony claps a hand on Thor's shoulder before rounding on Fury again, giving him a not very friendly grin. Oh, you're curious, Mr. Jack Sparrow-wannabe? I've been curious about his powers too, but I haven't been going around sticking instruments in his face and not even telling him what the hell I'm doing or why I'm doing it, like you had your little agents do. For all he knew, they could have been weapons.
Fury looks like he partly disagrees and he'd really be quite glad to get his hands on Loki again. To be honest, Tony can totally understand the desire for information, for understanding these powers. Grasping the teleporting could help them defeat Dr. Doom.
The key difference is, he's not going to yank the answers out at Loki's expense, although Fury seems quite content to. Then again, that's why Tony had wanted to keep Loki a secret in the first place.
It's a really good thing Loki hadn't landed here in the first place. Otherwise, he might have just spent the rest of his life as a secret test subject or something. The thought makes Tony's stomach churn. He'd probably never even get to see the light of day if he was locked up in the mostly window-less Helicarrier.
Tony guesses they have Heimdall to thank for that, since according to Thor, he was the one that dropped Loki off. Perhaps he knew S.H.I.E.L.D would be a bad place for Loki. Tony thinks that it might be a bad place for anyone to be experimented on, actually.
Loki had said that Heimdall had gotten him out of Jotunheim once when Thor and his friends brought him there.
Tony pauses thoughtfully. "You're hard to convince, Director Cyclops. How about this. You know that R&D lab I so generously offered to pay for? What would you do if I changed my mind? Or, better yet, what if I decided to cut out all my funding?" Tony smirks, because he knows Fury's not going to give up Stark Industries funding. Without it, a lot of the S.H.I.E.L.D's operations would go under, and Fury clearly knows it.
Fury looks like he's about to have an aneurysm.
"Well, if you don't want anything like that to happen, stay away from him."
"Why are you so concerned with this man?" Fury asks.
"You really need to ask yourself that question. Now, I have better things to do with my time than this, and I'm sure you do, too. I think you were scheduled for sulking in a corner right now, so I suggest you get to it. I don't want to hold you back, after all."
"You still need to get that off the screens." Fury glares at the photoshopped image of himsefl.
Tony sighs and rolls his eyes. "Fine. Jarvis, you know what to do." He can't hide a smirk at what's coming.
The image of Fury in a bikini is replaced by a version of the Nyan Cat video with Fury's head superimposed over the rainbow-farting cat's.
Clint lets out a couple of loud coughs that are obviously trying to cover laughter, while Steve looks both confused at to what's on the screen and very disapproving about his commanding officer being made fun of.
"I would say it's been fun chatting, but it really hasn't." Tony grins.
"Stark, get this video off the screens now."
"Fine. Jarvis, get the video off the screens." The image of Nyan-Fury disappears, but the music continues. When Fury tells him to shut that off, Tony smirks. "Sorry. It's on loop for twelve hours, and there's no way to shut it off. Don't bother trying, you're not going to get anywhere, unless you want to blow up every speaker in the place.
Not wanting to hang around any longer, Tony scoops up the still unconscious Loki and says. "All right, Point Break, you're getting off the hook this time, but we're still going to continue our conversation from Halloween sometime."
Clint approaches the thunderer and says, surprisingly nonchalantly "You know, I'm sort of tempted to put an arrow through you. Actually, make that a bunch of arrows. Stick you up like a thunder god pincushion, you know?"
Thor frowns, looking like a kicked puppy that's not sure as to why it's being kicked.
"What you did could get you locked up for a lifetime here. Extreme domestic abuse, from what I've heard. Hell, it's practically torture. I'm not a huge fan of it, you know." Clint crosses his arms and glares at the taller man. "There's no excuse for it, so don't even bother."
Right now, all the Avengers are giving Thor hard looks, since none of them are fans of people who inflict pain for fun.
It dawns on Tony that Thor could actually provide a very important answer right now. "Hey, Hammer Time, are these drugs going to hurt Loki?"
Thor looks at him like he's an idiot. "Your Midgardian drugs are not strong enough to harm an Aesir or Jotun, even one as weak as Loki."
"Loki's not weak." Tony glares at him. "That's another thing we're gonna have to talk about. Right, well, I guess you can look forward to that." Tony says over his shoulder.
Addressing Fury and Coulson, he says "Now, even if you do mind, I'm going to be borrowing a quinjet."
After all, he can't carry Loki and all his stuff just flying in his suit.
Bruce had opted not to go along with the rest of the Avengers to the Helicarrier. Yes, he cares about what happens to Loki, of course he does. Loki's his friend, and one of the few people who doesn't treat him like a monster because of the Other Guy. Heck, Loki doesn't treat the Other Guy like a monster.
The thing is, the Other Guy's never been too fond of the Helicarrier in the first place, and even seeing that glass cell made specifically for him put the Other Guy on edge, even though they'd only seen it on a screen. Actually being there in person probably would have been a lot worse, especially with all the emotions revolving around whatever they've done to Loki. Bruce is trying not to think about that too much, but it's really hard.
His mind keeps coming up with images of Loki being hurt in increasingly awful ways, some of which Bruce wouldn't exactly put past S.H.I.E.L.D. In the video feed from when Tony was hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D (which, in retrospect, had been a great idea, considering that's where Loki was, as unlikely as it seemed), there had been two Loki's. At least one of them had obviously been an illusion, and both had looked rather scared.
Bruce can perfectly understand why Loki would be scared. However he'd wound up at S.H.I.E.L.D, he probably had no idea why he was locked in a glass prison. Or, an even worse thought, maybe he's had experience with being locked up for no reason in Asgard.
Bruce forces himself to take deep breaths and go to his happy place, trying to prevent the Other Guy from coming out.
Jarvis informs him that Tony has found Loki. Loki's condition apparently isn't certain, but he doesn't seem to be too worse for the wear.
A little bit later, Jarvis announces that there had been a delivery a while ago, and apologizes for forgetting to announce it earlier. Bruce tells him it's fine, since they had much more pressing things to worry about than the mere arrival of a package. Dum-E brings it from the elevator to one of the many coffee tables in the living room.
Some time later, while Bruce is meditating, he hears something land on the huge balcony outside the penthouse. He realizes it's a quinjet, but to his surprise, Tony steps out of it, carrying Loki, who appears to be unconscious.
"God, I need a drink." Tony remarks once he comes through the glass door. However, instead of heading to the bar, he heads towards Loki's room. Bruce follows him, watching Tony lay the unconscious Loki on his bed. Loki's hugging Simba, who has a rip in his back, and the god's head is using Maximus as a pillow.
"What happened to him?" Bruce asks in a whisper, not entirely sure if this is risking the Other Guy coming out or not.
"They sedated him." Tony says just as quietly. "Multiple times, with what seems to be some pretty strong stuff. But he looks like he's doing all right to me." Sure enough, Loki's breathing appears normal, though when Bruce finds a pulse, he's not sure if it's normal for a Jotun or not.
"So... how hard was it to get him out?"
Tony rolls his eyes. "Please, I'm Iron Man. The hardest part was getting Fury to shut up about Loki, actually. But I made it clear that if he touches Loki again, he's going to pay. Same for Thor."
"How was Thor?" Bruce has a feeling Thor probably made things worse.
Tony pauses slightly, and says "Thor was actually sort of weird. He sort of stood up for Loki. Well, at least he told Fury that Loki's not dangerous."
"That's good." Bruce says, somewhat surprised. But Thor had told the truth, since Loki really doesn't seem dangerous, although he is quite powerful.
"Yeah..." Tony says somewhat distractedly. "I figured now would be a bad time to talk to him, since I have no clue when Loki will wake up." With a slight smirk, Tony adds "Knowing Loki, he'll probably wake up way before what should be humanely possible."
"He's not human, remember?" Bruce says with a smile of his own.
"Thor said that our 'Midgardian drugs' aren't strong enough to harm an alien, even one 'as weak as Loki.'" Tony sighs. "So, he's sort of getting there, but he's not perfect."
Bruce doesn't answer, but really, Thor's grown up among prejudice against Frost Giants. It doesn't make it right, but Bruce can't really blame him for going along with it.
Tony notices the box on the coffee table and opens it. He pulls out a smaller, purple box and holds it up for Bruce to see. It's a figurine set for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which they hadn't been able to find during their excursion to the Disney Store.
"Oh yeah. I broke the Hulk cage in the Helicarrier." Tony says casually.
"You what?"
"That big glass cell they had Loki in? There's a trapdoor under it, and I dropped it out. After I got Loki out, of course." Tony gives Bruce an intent look. "You don't deserve to be in a cage, Bruce, and neither does Hulk. That's why I'm not making Hulk's room here seem like a cage."
Tony's shown Bruce the plans for Hulk's room here, and it's currently under construction. It's actually quite large and very nice, even if it is made to keep Hulk in it.
"Thanks." Bruce says quietly. Really, it means a lot. Tony's not what the media often paints him to be. He's not an uncaring jerk.
"No problemo." Tony says nonchalantly, getting up and stretching. "Right, well, I'm going to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D and watch the full surveillance." Tony says, strolling towards the bar. He hunts through the various bottles, grabs something, nods approvingly, and pours himself a glass. He drains part of it with a satisfied sigh.
"Jarvis, alert me when Loki wakes up, will you?"
If a disembodied voice can give the impression of rolling its eyes, Jarvis' does. "You don't need to tell me to do everything, sir."
Tony replies with some sort of quip that Bruce only half listens to as the billionaire engineer pulls up a holographic screen and starts tapping away.
Loki wakes up to the feeling of something soft beneath him and a very familiar lion in his arms. He grins, immediately recognizing Simba even without seeing him, just by the way the lion feels. He can also tell that Simba's not wearing his Man of Iron suit by the fuzziness when he runs a hand over Simba's back.
The soft feeling beneath him, he realizes, is a bed. He opens his eyes, where he sees stars. He works out that they're the holographic stars in his bedroom. He's not in the petri dish cage anymore. He's home.
His grin grows even wider.
Loki fiddles absentmindedly with Simba's ears. He's not sure when he'd gotten Simba back, but he doesn't remember anything since right after Tony came into the room his cell was in. Simba's not in his Man of Iron suit, and Loki really hopes that's not gone forever.
He realizes Simba has a rip in his back and he frowns, not liking it. He squeezes Simba's ear, but Simba doesn't sing or dance like he normally does. "Why won't you talk?" Loki mutters, but Simba doesn't respond like he normally does. Dejectedly, he hugs Simba to his chest.
"Simba can be fixed, Mr. Loki." Jarvis says. "I'm sure Mr. Stark will be able to make him talk again. He did make me, after all." Jarvis adds dryly. Loki grins. Simba might be okay!
Jarvis continues talking. "I think there's something you can do about the rip in Simba's back, Mr. Loki."
Loki's eyes go wide. He'd fixed Tony with his magic, so maybe he can fix Simba's rip. Fixing things is good, right? He hugs Simba close and starts to sing "Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine..."
When he finishes the song, he looks down at Simba and sees the rip is gone. He hugs his lion tightly, grinning. Curiously, he squeezes Simba's ear, but Simba still doesn't do anything.
He sees Olaf sitting on his dresser next to Elsa and Anna. Smiling, he goes over and grabs Elsa, whispering "I did what you did, you know, with the cuffs. And my Tony said it was good, even though the white-coat-people said not to do that, but I think my Tony's right and they're wrong." He nods, hugging the doll to his chest with Simba and grabbing Toy Stark and the Hulk toy. He looks at the Clint one for a bit, sad that Clint tried to shoot him.
"By the way, I'm quite glad to see you awake again, Mr. Loki." Jarvis' smooth voice flows through the room again, and Loki grins.
"Thanks Jarvis." He cocks his head to the side as he remembers. "Were you in the petri dish? 'Cause I thoughts I heard you but then I thought it was fake, like pretend or a dream, I dunno, but then Tony was there." Loki frowns slightly. That hadn't come out quite right.
He's been trying to speak in English without All-Tongue, thinking maybe if he can read and write it like Bruce and Jarvis have been teaching him, he can speak it too. Bruce or Tony hadn't even suggested it, he'd come up with it all on his own, because he quite likes the idea of being able to really speak to his favorite people instead of just using All-Tongue and speaking the language he spoke in Asgard. Besides, he likes it here a lot more than Asgard, so why should he still speak Asgard's language? Tony said he's never going back there.
The downside of all this is that it often makes his mouth sound even stupider than it had before, which if he believes Fandral, is hard to do. But Loki has a strong feeling that Tony would say that Fandral's the stupid one if he heard him say that. It's a weird thought but a nice one.
"I was in fact there, Mr. Loki, as I was in Mr. Stark's suit as always and I transferred myself to their ship temporarily." Jarvis replies. "I trust you know that both Mr. Stark and myself are quite mad about how you were treated on the Helicarrier."
Loki doesn't want to think about that. He didn't like being held down, didn't like the metal things.
No! He's thinking about it. Loki tries to focus on the room around him, looking at the stars and the horses prancing across the walls. It's his happy place, as Bruce says.
"Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner are in the lab. I hope you don't mind that I have informed them that you are awake, and they're on their way in." He doesn't mind that Bruce and Tony are coming, not in the slightest.
"See? I told you he'd be up really early." Loki hears Tony's voice say almost triumphantly as footsteps approach his door. There's a knocking, and Bruce pokes his head in.
"I heard you're up." He says. Tony pushes past him and strolls into the room. Bruce walks in after and sits at Loki's desk chair.
"Hey, Bambi." Tony says, lounging against the wall nd swirling some sort of alcoholic drink in his hand. His voice isn't slurred, though, and he's got a box in his other hand.
"What...?"
"You can have multiple nicknames, you know, to keep things interesting so I don't just call you Snoopy all the time." Tony raises an eyebrow.
"I like Snoopy." Loki says.
"I think you'd like Bambi, too." Tony says. Loki just stares at him, still not knowing what a Bambi is. Tony seems to get that, because he adds "Bambi's a cartoon deer from a Disney movie. I don't really remember what happens, but we can watch it sometime if you want." Tony pauses and asks "Do you guys have deer in Asgard?"
Loki nods. Of course they have deer! They even ate it in Asgard, sometimes. He never really liked it much as a food. But he would like to watch the movie Tony's talking about.
"You know, Rudolph could work too." Tony says, grinning for some reason. Loki frowns. Rude Olf? Is he really rude enough to warrant being called that? And what's an olf? Tony goes on explaining, saying something about a reindeer with a red nose and how "All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names, they never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games."
Tony seems to decide that those are both good nicknames, because at the end of all that, he calls him Rudolph.
Loki wonders what kind of games Reindeer play. Sven had liked trying to get Olaf's nose- maybe it's that? Or maybe they play like Simba and Nala. He glances at Simba again. He's still not sure when he'd gotten Simba back...
As if reading his thoughts, Tony says "Clint got Simba back for you while I was dealing with some other people."
"Clint did?" Loki's not sure if Tony's still trying to be funny. "Is he still gonna shoot me?"
"No, no he won't. He didn't even mean to aim his bow at you. He was just startled, that's all. He feels pretty bad about it." Bruce says. "He still likes you, by the way. He's not annoyed about you freezing his arrow."
Loki chews slightly on his lip. "I froze it? Like Elsa?" Elsa hadn't been bad when she'd frozen the Duke's guards' arrows. But Clint's a hero here on Midgard, so what if it's different?
"Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that." Tony assures him, which means he clearly doesn't think this is different from Elsa doing it. "You were keeping him from shooting you. Not that he was actually going to shoot you." Loki frowns, not seeing any sense in that until Tony goes on. "He was just startled, and his automatic reaction is to grab his bow. He wasn't trying to hurt you, and he didn't mean to scare you."
"So's he still my friend?" Loki had hated the idea of Clint not being his friend anymore, since he likes Clint.
"I'd say so." Bruce says. "Even if people fight sometimes, they can still be friends, you know." Loki knows that. He thinks. After all, Tony and Hulk fought, and they're friends, and sometimes Pepper gets annoyed at Tony but they're still friends, too.
"Anyways, this arrived earlier today." Tony hands the box out to him, and Loki looks at it curiously. He reads the word hunchback and when he turns it over, he grins. It's toys from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, little figurines just like Quasimodo had. He sees Quasimodo himself, as well as Esmeralda, Phoebus, and even Quasimodo's gargoyle friends, Victor, Hugo and Laverne, and Esmeralda's goat.
He opens the box and takes them out, fiddling with Quasimodo and Esmeralda.
"Where's Simba's suit?" Loki asks, because Simba doesn't have it on right now.
"Don't worry. We got that, too, and your Jormungand necklace-belt thing. Which I supposed you noticed." Tony glances pointedly at the Jormungand necklace, which is now actually a necklace and is around Loki's neck. Loki laughs. Of course he noticed! It's around his neck!
"Simba's not talking, Tony." Loki says mournfully. "But I fixed him, just likes I fixed you leg. Look, no rip." He grins and holds Simba up, and Tony grins back.
"But he still won't talks or dance, nope nope nope." Loki sighs.
"Let me have a look at him." Bruce says. Loki hands Simba to Bruce and he opens the velcro on Simba's stomach (they don't have velcro in Asgard, but Tony had explained what it was. Loki's sandals use velcro, too).
Bruce winds up sending Tony to fetch a tool called a "screw driver" which he twists in Simba. "All right, I have a diagnosis." Bruce says with a small smile, as if he's not being entirely serious as he pulls out a small cover to the box inside Simba. "He needs new batteries. I think they might've been removed. Wow, he takes C batteries? Hey, Tony, do you have any batteries?"
Loki has no clue what they're talking about, but Tony's rambling. "I don't know. I mean, most stuff is powered by the arc reactor, but some things still use batteries. Like, some of the video game controllers and stuff. Hey, Jarvis, do we have any C batteries?"
"In the junk drawer by the refrigerator, sir."
"How would I find anything without you, Jarvis?"
"You wouldn't, sir." Jarvis replies dryly. Loki giggles.
Tony comes back with some weird cylinder things and starts explaining how they power things, using all sorts of weird words like cathode and electrode. Loki's not sure he really gets it, but it's fascinating, that little cylinders can give things energy.
Once those are in, Loki squeezes Simba's ear, and Simba asks "We'll always be pals, right?"
"Right?" Loki grins.
"You know," Tony says with a raised brow. "If you want, I could fix Simba up with some Artificial Intelligence, so he says more stuff." Loki shrugs.
"Well, now that we've fixed Simba- How are you feeling?" Bruce asks. "Are you hurt anywhere?"
"No rips anywhere. Not like Simba hads."
"That's good, although I bet those would've been gone by now anyways." Loki likes that Bruce actually cares whether or not he's okay. Tony cares about that, too. It's really nice having friends, he thinks.
"I'm glad you like us as friends." Bruce smiles at him slightly, and Loki realizes he'd spoken aloud again. But despite having said so many things unintentionally, Tony and Bruce never make fun of him for it.
"So how do you feel?"
Loki cocks his head to the side. "Hungry. Their food was really gross." As if to prove the point, Loki hears his stomach growl.
"I'm not sure MRE's can count as food." Tony mutters. "Nice, spitting the chili on the glass, by the way." Loki giggles.
"We should probably get some dinner." Bruce agrees. "Any suggestions?"
"Waffles!" Loki answers immediately.
"That's not really a dinner-" Bruce starts, but Tony cuts him off.
"No. We're having waffles, as a sort of 'glad to have you back' meal." Tony says decisively, and Bruce suddenly looks like he knows some sort of secret. Loki doesn't think too much on it- instead, he simply cheers and gets out of bed, and they head towards the kitchen.
Sometimes Loki and Bruce make waffles "from scratch" as Bruce says, but there's also a box in the so-called freezer of waffles that just need to be heated. Loki doesn't mind the fact that they're really cold when they come out of the freezer, but they're really hard and sort of impossible to eat.
Loki fiddles absentmindedly with the band on his arm. It's only then that he really looks at the thing. He'd worn it when going out to meet Dr. Carlisle, but hadn't paid too much attention to what was on it. There's a weird circular thing on the band with little numbers.
"Tony, what's this?" Loki asks, holding up his wrist after putting waffles in the toaster (when they make them from scratch, they use a thing called a waffle maker. Loki thinks that's more fun).
"That? A tracking unit. It tells me where you are at any given time. I want you to start wearing it all the time, so if you disappear with your powers that would put ninjas to shame, I'll be able to find you. That's also why your phone is in your pocket, by the way. You should probably start carrying that around, too."
"But you found me and I didn't have it." Loki says, confused- not that he objects to the idea of Tony finding him. No way.
"Yeah, well this will tell me exactly where you are, so I won't have to go looking first. It'll probably save a hell of a lot of time."
"Oh. But what's this?" Loki taps the circular thing with the numbers and the weird, moving, tiny stick-like things. There are three, and one of them's moving a lot faster than the others.
"It's a watch."
"What's it watching?"
Bruce chuckles lightly at that and says "No, it's called a watch. A wristwatch. It's sort of a miniature clock you wear on your wrist."
Loki's not sure what Bruce is talking about, but he'd gotten what Tony had said. He obviously likes the idea of never getting lost again. This time had been even worse than when he'd gotten lost in the city, and that had been bad enough.
"Loki, look. I know it might be too early to talk about what happened, but you need to know that it wasn't your fault and you didn't deserve to be locked up like that." Tony says, looking at him intently. "I don't want you getting any wrong ideas."
Tony puts a hand on Loki's shoulder and says "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure they never get you again. You're safe." Loki grins, wrapping his arms around Tony, and Tony returns the gesture.
Those words make Loki relax a lot.
"Do you want to talk about it? We're here, if you want to talk." Bruce says quietly.
Loki just wants to forget it ever happened, so he shakes his head no. He wants to forget about the Eyepatch Man and the petri dish cell.
"All right, but we're always here if you want to talk to us." Bruce says gently. "You could talk to Dr. Carlisle, too. Hey, Tony, when's Loki's next session with her?"
"Why are you asking me?" Tony asks with a smirk.
Bruce smirks and says "I don't know. Hey Jarvis, when's Loki's next session with Dr. Carlisle?"
"It was going to be tomorrow, but seeing as you're leaving for Malibu early in the morning, I'm afraid it's not possible to actually meet her in person. However, I've arranged to have it done via a video chat around three p.m."
"Great." Tony says. "Am I going to be in a stupid meeting then?"
"You will not, sir. Miss Potts and I made sure to leave your schedule open for that time."
The toaster dings and the waffles pop up. Loki grins, grabs them and then goes to the box that's cold on the inside- the fridge, according to Tony, although half of it is the freezer and apparently different- to get maple syrup, which might be the best part of waffles. Although Loki likes the design with all the squares, too. He heads to the table, where Simba, Quasimodo and Esmeralda are, and drenches his waffles in maple syrup.
"Oh, yeah." Tony says after he sits down with his own plate of waffles. "I think we met Hel. Sort of. She didn't really do anything, but she was there with... another version of you."
Loki cocks his head to the side and peers at Tony. "What?"
"When we were looking for you, you sort of showed up. You even told us about the petri dish cell, and I think Hel was there with you. She's the girl that looks like a corpse on one side, right?" There's a bit of a pause and he says "I just talked about it, didn't I?" Bruce nods.
Loki nods and fiddles with his fingers. "Uh huh. That's her ands sometimes I call her Hela, but I like Hel more and she doesn't care. You know she works with dead people, right? She says you're not gonna die anytime soon, 'cause you gots to stay here with me 'cause you're my best friend."
"Hey, remember I'm not going anywhere. Now, when you say she works with dead people, what does that mean exactly?"
"She rules Helheim. I read 'bout that in a book and she tolds me more. It's where you go when you die, but some people go to Valhalla, I think. I dunno. But she decides what happens to people in Helheim, and she saids that I wouldn't be hurt there even though I'm a Jotun." Maybe he shouldn't have said all that, but he'd been rambling. Still, Tony doesn't laugh or anything.
"I thought you guys were immortal?" Tony asks. Loki's not sure what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything.
"Never mind. So yeah, I guess we met Hel."
"You didn't thinks she's scary? I did, at first." Loki admits.
"No. Please, she wasn't even attacking me or anything." Loki giggles, because Hel wouldn't attack Tony!
Loki asks Hel in his head "You were here?"
"Yeah, we were going to teleport, remember?" Hel replies in his head. Loki nods. He does remember.
"Yeah, buts it didn't work, nope nope nope." Loki pouts, before pausing. He sees Tony looking at him, and Loki realizes he'd said that aloud.
"What didn't work?"
Loki pauses. He's pretty sure that Tony won't think teleporing away is bad. He glances at his Quasimodo and Esmeralda figurines, which he brought to the table with him. "Esmeralda was good for tel-eporting away froms the guards, right?"
"Yeah, there was no reason to let herself get caught." Tony nods as he takes a bite of his own waffle. "Why, did you try to teleport?"
Loki blinks but nods. Maybe that hadn't been as sneaky as he'd hoped.
Tony grins. "Good for you."
"It didn't work." Loki pouts, but then he starts to wonder. If Tony saw him and Hel, something must've happened. And when he tried to teleport, he felt really drained without a reason. Maybe he'd sent Hel and one of the Loki-illusions here instead? Tony said they were illusions.
Tony is apparently thinking along exactly the same lines, because he says basically what Loki just thought.
"You know, the other-Loki told us where you were. Pretty handy, don't you think? It's a heck of a lot cooler than video chats. It's like going there, only not." Tony says, before asking "Did you hear what we said?"
Loki shakes his head, wishing he had heard. Then he would have known Tony was coming for him. He never doubted that Tony was looking for him, but he'd had no idea how long it would take.
He could have known Tony was on his way when the white coat people came in.
"Um, I'm not sure if you want to hear this, but I think you turned invisible, too."
Loki perks up, actually liking that. He'd always liked the idea of people not being able to see him. It would have been really nice in Asgard, and there had been some times where it seemed that people really hadn't seen him. But Loki has no clue whether he's invisible because he can always see himself.
Still, he had noticed that the guards had looked at the Loki illusions instead of him in the petri dish cell. Maybe he really had been invisible.
"That's good, right?"
"It's freaking awesome. You don't even need a cloak like Harry Potter."
Loki's not sure what Tony's talking about, but it's clear he supports the idea of invisibility, even if Asgard wouldn't. But Tony says Asgard is wrong about that stuff. Loki smiles slightly and takes a huge bite of waffle, loving the taste of maple syrup.
After dinner, they wind up watching two movies: Bambi and Wall-E, which is apparently Dum-E's favorite movie. It's about a robot who collect trash, but he meets a femal robot that he really likes and follows her into space. Loki fiddles with Dum-E's claw as he watches Wall-E the robot travel among the stars.
Tony sips some coffee as he works his way through S.H.I.E.L.D's secure data in the comfort of his private jet. His jet does in fact have a full internet connection- Tony can never be too far away from technology, after all. He doesn't even need to worry about his devices screwing with his jet's systems, thanks to his own technological awesomeness when it came to designing Stark Phones and Stark Pads.
Okay, so he hadn't clocked Fury in the jaw like he'd been tempted too, but going through S.H.I.E.L.D's classified data is perhaps even better. Knowledge is power, after all, and for an intelligence agency like S.H.I.E.L.D, having their secrets discovered is a pretty crucial blow.
Tony had always made it a point to hack into them anyways, sometimes when he's just bored, but right now he's going all out. Letting Jarvis into S.H.I.E.L.D's computers yesterday in order to freeze all the screens also came with the handy side effect of getting a ton of classified data.
So here he is, on his jet, cracking open Fury's secrets.
The reason he's on the jet is because they're on their way to Malibu for that conference Tony hadn't been able to get out of, which he's still dreading. The reason Pepper isn't with them right now is because she's already in Malibu.
Tony had decided to take Loki with him, although he could have theoretically left Loki with Bruce in the tower. Of course, now he's going to end up leaving Loki with Bruce in the mansion while he goes to stupid meetings, but Loki will still be able to see him in the mornings and evenings. Convincing Bruce to come along with them hadn't been that hard. Tony suspects that Bruce will like being able to go out of the Malibu mansion to a nice, lush yard instead of ever-busy and loud NYC. Bruce really doesn't seem like a city person, and Tony has a hunch Loki isn't big on cities either.
Bruce seems rather uncomfortable around all this luxury, despite living at the tower recently. He seems especially uneasy around the stewardesses, as if he's not used to being waited on like that. Well, he probably isn't, but still.
A five and a half hour flight really doesn't seem like Loki's thing, Tony discovered fairly quickly. He'd also discovered that Loki hadn't known what a plane was, at first thinking it was some huge metal bird that was going to eat them. When Tony explained that it was going to fly, Loki had looked at him like he was crazy. Of course, once it had taken off, Loki had clearly believed him and seemed to think it was the greatest thing ever. This is sort of his first flight, as neither the Helicarrier nor the Quinjet, in which he'd been unconscious, really count.
They're about two hours into the flight, so not even halfway. For a bit, Loki had seemed content to stretch himself across two leather, sofa-like seats and read Peanuts strips, but had soon grown restless and started running up and down the length of the plane. Tony's jet is fairly big for a jet, but there's still not much space to run around.
Once Tony managed to get Loki to stay more or less in one place, the god had proceeded to scatter the floor with toys, books and art materials like he so often does in the tower. However, this posed a large tripping hazard for the flight attendants, so Bruce had tried to get him to condense it to a table in front of one of the seats.
Movies are really their lifeline right now. Tony made sure to have a bunch of Disney movies for Loki to try to keep him grounded during the flight. Tony thinks that The Incredibles should wait for a team movie night (with Loki, of course, even though he's technically not part of the team). He's told Loki about how Violet and Frozone have powers like his- for Violet, it's turning invisible and making force fields, and for Frozone it's obviously the ice powers.
He half wonders if he should invite Thor to the movie night when they watch it, provided Loki doesn't freak out. But just like seeing examples of his powers being used for good things helps Loki, it might help Thor see past some of his prejudice if he saw (admittedly fictional) superheroes using Loki's powers.
Then again, he has to wonder if Thor's view of magic has changed since learning both his parents can do it. Thor clearly respects his father- perhaps a bit too much, considering Odin's vastly different treatment of Thor and Loki. Loki doesn't even get the short end of the stick; he gets hit with it instead. Thor had tried to deny that Odin's magic is anything like Loki's, but he can't really believe that.
Tony takes another sip of his coffee, only to realize it's definitely not coffee. It's hot chocolate.
He raises a brow at Loki, who's smirking at him. Tony has to give Loki credit- he hadn't even noticed the god switching their mugs. It's kind of nice to see this prankster side of Loki.
"Well, you got me. I didn't notice you switch these." Tony says, and Loki's smirk turns to a real grin. "But the joke's on you pal." Tony adds with a smirk of his own. "You don't even like coffee, whereas I'm perfectly content to drink your hot chocolate." He raises the mug with a smirk and Loki stares at him with an expression of utmost horror.
"No!" He protests, hastily pushing Tony's mug of coffee so it's back in front of him. Tony chuckles and says "Hey, I'm just messing with you." Loki looks very relieved as Tony pushes the mug of hot chocolate back across the table.
Loki had finished watching a DreamWorks movie called Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron not long ago. It was about horses and Loki had clearly loved it, because, well... horses. He had asked about the DreamWorks logo in the beginning, clearly used to seeing the Disney logo, and Tony hadn't been sure how to explain movie companies without going into long explanations as to what movies are, so he'd skipped it. Which might be a good thing, because that would have then lead to Loki figuring out that movies aren't real and perhaps questioning everything they've been trying to correct about what he was told in Asgard.
Surprisingly, Loki hadn't really freaked out during that movie, but he hadn't during The Lion King or Bambi (or at least there hadn't been any triggers, although Loki certainly didn't like the fire in the beginning of Bambi or watching Scar kill Mufasa).
While Loki had been watching that, Tony had found a lot of blueprints for weapons in case there's another alien attack, like with the Chitauri. Some of the weapons are, quite disturbingly, weapons of mass destruction, enough to level entire cities. And Tony know his weapons, having manufactured them before taking up the Iron Man shtick.
He frowns, not sure what to make of this. What if there is another alien attack? The Chitauri don't seem to be coming back (or maybe they're biding their time) but if those aliens exist, there have to be others. Well, he knows there are others. There are the Asgardians and the Jotuns, for starters, and there could be a ton more...
It would be really nice if the Earth just had a sort of shield around it to prevent invasions in the first place...
"Hot towel for you, Mr. Stark?" One of the flight attendants asks. Tony accepts one with a distracted thanks and only a brief glance at her (despite the fact she's very hot) as he continues to go through the files.
"How about you sir?" She turns to Loki, who's busy watching Lilo & Stitch. Tony's told him it has a happy ending, but so far it's mostly freaked him out. The beginning scene of Jumba's trial, during which Stitch was trapped in a glass dome clearly brought back memories of the glass cell Loki had been in just yesterday. The fact that Stitch (or Experiment 626) was referred to as a monster certainly hadn't helped things. Tony and Bruce had both been quick to tell Loki that they weren't calling 626 a monster because of his blue skin.
Tony had been ready to shut that movie off and put in The Lion King, which he knows Loki would like, but shockingly, Loki had objected. He seems to really want to watch Stitch find a family, so perhaps telling him the ending was a good idea. Still, Tony can't help but notice that Loki scooted closer to him during the scene with the glass dome, as if wanting to make sure he wouldn't pop up in S.H.I.E.L.D's glass cell again.
"Sir?" The stewardess asks when Loki still doesn't answer as he rocks back and forth, staring at the screen.
"Hey, Snoopy, she's talking to you."
"Why'd she call me that?" Loki asks. "Jarvis called me that too when I first talked'ta him, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember. And you asked him to call you Loki." Tony says before gesturing to the flight attendant, who's clearly masking her confusion behind an air of professionalism.
"Sir?" She asks yet again, offering the hot towel to Loki.
"I don't like hot things." Loki says, despite the fact he's drinking hot chocolate. Though Tony supposes, as a Jotun, Loki fares far better with cold than heat. Perhaps that doesn't apply quite as much to food. "You look like Sif." Loki says out of the blue. "But you're nicer." He grins at her.
The stewardess nods, looking somewhat uncomfortable but also somewhat charmed in by Loki's smile. "He's adorable." She whispers to Tony, who rolls his eyes. Loki's a grown man, not a five-year-old child, despite how he usually acts.
She turns and offers another hot towel to Bruce, who accepts one quietly, and then leaves them to themselves. Tony returns to going through classified information.
Tony has always made it a point of hacking into the secret agency. He never trusted them in the first place, and that lack of trust was furthered once he'd figured out that they'd faked Coulson's death.
He flips through various files, some of which contains stuff he already knows. He's already hunted out and deleted any information they'd gotten about Loki or Simba's Iron Man suit, since they had no right to that information in the first place. Loki should have never ended up with them.
Tony glances up at Loki, who's watching Lilo punch a red-haired girl with glasses. Loki's rocking back and forth but doesn't seem to be that upset.
Tony comes across something very interesting, its allure only growing as he goes through the information. It's about a whole secret society.
"Hey, Bruce, have you heard about these... X-Men people?"
"What?" Bruce asks, looking up from his book.
"They have all these files on some school for mutants run by a guy named-" He skims around for the name he'd read not long ago. "Charles Xavier."
"Never heard of them." Bruce murmurs.
"Neither have I, but this actually looks really interesting." Tony turns to go back to the information, but Loki suddenly lets out a very loud cry of "No!"
Tony glances at the screen and sees basically the Disney version of Nick Fury- a bald black man in dark clothes and sunglasses instead of an eyepatch. He even gives off the same mysterious secret-agent-like vibe.
Tony pauses the movie and says "That's not Fury."
"But he's angry." Loki says, hugging Simba and Maximus tighter. Tony puts a hand on his shoulder.
Tony laughs. "No, Fury is the name of the man with the eyepatch from yesterday. This isn't Fury, even though he looks like him. Just like how Shego wasn't you, and Kim and Ron weren't Natasha and Clint, remember?"
Loki nods slightly, looking a little less anxious. "The Eyepatch Man was really scary." Loki hasn't talked much about what he'd gone through in the Helicarrier yesterday, though Tony had watched the footage. Maybe Loki will talk to Dr. Carlisle about it.
"Director Fury?" Tony asks, almost certain who the Eyepatch Man is. "Yeah, he kind of lives up to his name."
"He's like Odin." Loki says, his voice almost a whisper.
"Well, this isn't Fury, and Fury and Odin aren't going to hurt you again, if I can do anything about it." To be fair (although the thought makes Tony rather uneasy) Tony's not entirely sure if he could do anything against Odin, but Odin probably won't be trying to get Loki back, given that it sounds like he never particularly liked him. Well, that's a bit of an understatement, considering he sewed Loki's lips shut for lying.
If they'd seen this movie before Loki's little trip to the Helicarrier yesterday, Tony doubts this would have been an issue at all, but now...
"Do you want me to shut this off?" Tony asks. Surprisingly, Loki's not actually freaking out, even if he seems pretty anxious, and he seems to want to keep watching. Then again, they'd made it through Frozen even with all the triggers in it.
After the man, Cobra Bubbles, talks to Nani and Lilo about Nani's fitness to act as Lilo's parent, he leaves. Nani chases Lilo and they start to fight. Loki, already riled up from the majority of the stuff before this point in the movie, is rocking back and forth and singing under his breath. "If you find the field where the horses roam, and you need a place to call your home..."
The fight ends with Lilo going to her room and both Lilo and Nani screaming into pillows.
Not long after, Loki tugs on Tony's sleeve. "What is it, Rudolph?" Onscreen, Nani and Lilo are sitting on Lilo's bed, talking about something. Tony hasn't really been paying attention, but it sounded like they were fighting earlier, after Cobra Bubbles the social worker came. Perhaps Loki wants it shut off now?
"Like us." Loki announces as he continues to point at the screen. "Remember?"
Tony has no idea what he's talking about. "We're like... Lilo and Nani?" He asks, confused.
"Nani bringed pizza." Loki says as if it makes perfect sense. "They fought and Lilo's in her room, and Nani bringed pizza."
"Okay...?"
Loki sighs and says, as if explaining to a particularly young child. "Pizza stops fights. Nani saids that a rabbit would be better than Lilo, and you asked when I'd get it through my thick skull that this isn't Asgard."
Tony would have laughed at the pizza line- actually, he'd started to- until he'd discovered the real reason Loki brought this up. Loki's talking about the incident the evening after his first therapy session, where Tony had snapped at him under the table and Loki had run to his room, terrified.
"Um, yeah, I guess it is kind of like that. But it's not because of the pizza." Tony bites back a smirk at that, thinking it probably wouldn't help. "They're just not mad at each other anymore. People can get mad at each other occasionally, you know, but that doesn't mean you stop liking them."
Loki nods. "Like you did."
Tony doesn't exactly like the look Bruce is giving him right now, but luckily the conversation is dropped when Loki turns back to the movie. Lilo confesses that she hit Myrtle Edmonds, and Nani asks her why.
"People treat me different." Lilo answers glumly, and Loki looks very sympathetic.
"They just don't know what to say." Nani answers. Their conversation is soon interrupted by a falling star.
Loki seems to really like the idea of falling stars, for obvious reasons, though he seems somewhat confused about the idea of Lilo wishing on one.
Lilo wishes for a friend, and Loki looks very sympathetic, like he had when the girls in Lilo's hula class teased her. Tony wonders how many times Loki had made the same wish, and he wonders if that's what made Loki's imaginary friends.
The 'falling star' is actually Stitch's spaceship. He's run over by a truck and taken to a pet shelter, where Lilo and Nani wind up going. Lilo picks out Stitch, much to the clerk's horror. Frankly, the fact that people think Stitch is a dog is sort of hilarious.
Stitch basically only sticks with Lilo to avoid Jumba, his creator who's been sent to capture him, and Pleakley, the skinny alien who was sent with him. At one point, Lilo sees Myrtle and the other girls, and she announces they're her friends even though they bully her. She proudly shows them Stitch, but Myrtle says that Stitch is the ugliest thing she's ever seen, and the other girls chorus "Yeeaaaah" really obnoxiously.
Loki laughs in delight when Stitch knocks Mertle off her tricycle and steals it.
When Lilo brings Stitch home, he immediately starts destroying things. Loki actually seems to find some of Stitch's antics funny, like turning on the blender without the lid on so liquid sloshes everywhere. Nani, fed up, starts to drag him out of the house.
"He was an orphan and we adopted him! What about Ohana?" Lilo shouts.
Nani protests that Stitch hasn't been there that long, and Lilo says "Neither have I! Dad said 'ohana' means family." Nani pauses. "Family means nobody gets left behind." The sisters say together."
Tony glances at Loki, who is staring at the screen so intently that he seems unaware of anything around him.
"Or?" Lilo prompts.
"Or forgotten." Nani sighs, but lets Stitch stay. Lilo takes him upstairs, where Stitch proceeds to wreck most of her room.
Lilo asks Stitch why he doesn't try to make something instead, which kind of reminds Tony of how they've been convincing Loki to do good things with his magic. Not that he's done bad things with it while he's been here, but Loki believes a lot of the things he's done to be bad.
Stitch winds up making a replica of San Fransisco but ends up destroying it all the same.
Later that night, he wakes Lilo up and curiously looks at the book of The Ugly Duckling. "That's the ugly duckling." Lilo explains while pointing to a page in a book, where a baby duckling is shouting I'm Lost! "See, he's sad because he's all alone, and nobody wants him."
Tony notices that Loki's gone uncharacteristically still again. Lilo continues talking, point to a page where the Ugly Duckling is surrounded by other ducks. "But on this page, his family hears him crying and they find him. Then the Ugly Duckling is happy, because he knows where he belongs."
Stitch takes the book thoughtfully, and heads off to his own bed that's a pineapple crate.
Throughout the movie, which Tony has wound up watching with Loki, it keeps striking Tony how similar Stitch's story is to Loki's own. Both are blue aliens who landed on Earth from not-ideal conditions and wound up with another sort of outcast. They hit it off initially and slowly build a real friendship that eventually becomes familial.
Tony wonders if Loki's making the same connections. He also thinks about how Lilo's life is somewhat similar to Loki's, in that she was bullied by her peers and wished for a friend more than anything.
They watch as Stitch makes Nani lose her job at the restaurant. Cobra Bubbles comes and tells Nani to get a new one. Once Stitch throws a book at him, he declares that Stitch needs to be a model citizen. One of Cobra's sunglasses lenses pops off, so that it kinda looks like Fury's eyepatch.
Loki, however, seems to be focusing on the fact that Stitch threw a book at him.
While Nani tries to get a job, Lilo tries to teach Stitch to be a model citizen, using Elvis Presley as an example. Lilo and Stitch wind up inadvertently ruining all of Nani's chances, the last being on a beach.
David, who has a crush on Nani, takes them out surfing, which Loki seems to find fascinating as he bounces along to the beat of the Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride song.
However, Jumba and Pleakley try to capture Stitch, which leads to Lilo going under the water. Unfortunately, Cobra Bubbles sees the whole thing, and says that Lilo's going to be taken away to foster care the next day.
That night, Stitch leaves with the Ugly Duckling book. He opens it up in the forest and shouts "Lost!", clearly waiting for his family to come.
The next morning, he hears a rustling in the bushes, but instead of his family, it's Jumba. Jumba notices the book and asks what Stitch is doing.
Stitch says he's waiting for his family.
"Ah." Jumba replies. "You don't have one. I made you."
"Maybe... I could..." Stitch says slowly, hopefully.
"You are built to destroy. You can never belong." Jumba tells him.
Without warning, Loki's screaming at the top of his lungs and hurling the closest things- his markers and pencils- across the plane at the screen. Tony's thankful it's a holographic screen, because the pencils actually imbed themselves in the wall behind the screen.
Tony wraps his arms around Loki's arms, both to try and calm him down and to get him to stop throwing things across the plane. Loki jerks away from him but stops throwing stuff.
"Loki, Jumba is so wrong about that. Stitch does have somewhere he belongs, just like you do. You belong with us." Tony says. Loki stares at him and slowly seems to relax.
"Really?" Loki asks.
"Of course. Nothing's going to change the fact that you belong with us." Tony says. Well, unless Loki goes on a homicidal rampage or something, but that really doesn't seem likely.
"Who does Stitch have?"
"Lilo." Tony answers. "Stitch has a happy ending, just like Quasimodo, Elsa and Esmeralda. You'll see." He puts a hand on Loki's shoulder and Loki doesn't flinch away anymore.
"And Genie?" Loki asks. "Genie got free."
"Yeah, and Genie." Tony had actually forgotten about him.
Loki turns back to the screen. He seems to find the fight between Stitch and Jumba at Lilo's house somewhat funny, like when Stitch hits Jumba with a blue Volkswagon Bug.
Lilo's house winds up blowing up, and Cobra Bubbles comes for Lilo. Lilo sneaks out of his car and runs into Stitch, who hands her a burnt photo of her family. She's understandably very annoyed at him, and tells him he ruined everything.
Suddenly, they're captured in a net by Captain Gantu, who was sent to capture Stitch after Jumba and Pleakley's repeated failures. He loads them up in a glass container on his spaceship, which Loki doesn't seem to like much.
Stitch wriggles out, only to be confronted by Nani and finally captured by Jumba, who locks him in handcuffs and slams him rather violently against a tree.
Nani winds up confronting Jumba and Pleakley about Lilo's whereabouts, and they eventually agree to help rescue Lilo, freeing Stitch.
This leads to, in Tony's opinion, a rather unexciting spaceship battle around the mountains. It's certainly a lot less exciting than what he does.
At one point, Lilo calls out to Stitch from the glass capsule she's stuck in "Don't leave me, okay?"
"Okay." Stitch says before hijacking a truck.
Stitch ends up rescuing Lilo, who exclaims "You came back!"
"Nobody gets left behind." Stitch replies, and Tony notices Loki staring at him. Maybe he's thinking about Tony getting him yesterday.
When they arrive back on the beach, however, aliens are there to capture Stitch. Loki looks really worried, rocking back and forth again and wringing his hands together.
At first, it seems like Stitch is going to be taken away, and he asks if he can say goodbye, after correcting the Grand Councilwoman about his name being Stitch, not Experiment 626. As Lilo hugs the handcuffed Stitch, the Grand Councilwoman asks "Who are you?"
"This is my family." Stitch explains. "I found it all on my own. It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good."
Then, Cobra asks Lilo whether she bought Stitch. She runs up to the Grand Councilwoman and shows her the adoption form, saying that if she takes Stitch, she's stealing. The Grand Councilwoman decides that Stitch can stay on Earth with Lilo and frees him from the handcuffs. She then asks Cobra Bubbles why he looks familiar, and he says he was in the CIA previously. Tony smirks. This guy really is like a Disney Fury, being a secret agent and all that.
The credits show photos of Stitch with his new family, which sort of includes Jumba and Pleakley.
"Stitch isn't a monster anymore." Loki says in an awed voice. "Like Quasimodo. Like, Stitch was a monster, but he's nots now, an' he's good."
"Yeah. He didn't have to be a monster, so he decided not to be." Tony says, glancing briefly at Bruce. "Anyone can change, you know."
"Jumba changed too." Loki mutters. He'd seemed confused about that at first.
"Well, if Stitch can change, so can he." Tony shrugs. "Stitch changed, and he has a family now."
Loki laughs, wriggling around like a puppy. "And Lilo loves him even though he's blue and he wrecked stuff." Loki says. "And he loves her even though Myrtle says she's weird."
"You bet. Stitch found where he belongs."
"In Asgard, sometimes..." Loki starts to say, fiddling with his fingers.
"Sometimes...?" Tony prompts when Loki doesn't say anything for a bit.
"Am I 'llowed to tell you?" Loki asks.
"Of course. You're not going to get in trouble." Well, unless it turns out he murdered someone, but Tony really doesn't think that's what Loki's going to say. He's not even sure why he keeps thinking that.
"Promise you won't laugh at me, 'kay?" Loki says, looking at him intently. Tony and Bruce both nod, and Tony really hopes that whatever Loki's going to say isn't funny in some way or he might accidentally break that promise. But they'll cross that bridge when they get there.
"Sometimes... we pretended we was a family." Loki says.
"Who did?" Bruce asks quietly, as if he didn't like where this was going.
"Me an' Sleipnir an' Fenrir and Jormungand and Hel. We was a monster family." Loki says quietly, staring out the window instead of at them. He traces a finger over the glass to some pattern seen only by him, and he hugs Simba with his other arm. "Is that okay?"
"Of course it's okay. And you guys aren't monsters, Loki." Tony can't think of how anyone could possibly find something to laugh at this. In the fact that Loki felt he needed to make up his own family because nobody around him would accept him as theirs. Not even Odin, the man who decided to take Loki in in the first place.
"So did you guys adopt each other as siblings?" Tony asks, trying to alleviate some of the sombre mood. But seriously- they're all different species, except for perhaps Hel and Loki, who are at least both human-ish. The rest of them are animals.
Loki shrugs, but then says "Sometimes, we pretended I was the father." He seems to find the expression on Tony's face funny, since he giggles.
"You were the father?!" Tony asks somewhat incredulously.
"Yeah, 'cause I was around first and, like, I mades 'em in my head, I think? So that kinda makes me their father, like how Jumba made Stitch and Elsa mades Olaf 'n Marshmallow the snow Hulk, right?"
Tony still can't help but notice that there have been an increase in what he's guessing are All-Tongue glitches, with removed syllables and random S's added to words. Not even that, but he's made some grammatical errors that he hadn't made before, like saying bringed instead of brought, or that we was thing he'd said. Why would Loki be going backwards? Maybe the drugs had affected his speech? Tony tries to think of when these glitches had increased but is unable to think of an exact time.
"I suppose so. More like a creator, but I guess you could be a father figure." Tony says, because while it's a bit of a stretch, he supposes he could kind of be considered Jarvis and Dum-E's father. Almost as if reading his thoughts, Loki says "Jarvis says you made him and Dum-E."
'Xcept once-" Loki flicks his fingers against the window. "Once, I hads a dream where I was in my field with my horses, and I turned into a horse!" He claps his hands, delighted, and says "I loved it! I wish I coulda been a horse there when I was awake, too."
Tony wonders how this is related to pretending they were a family, until it hits him. "I see, so you were a horse like Sleipnir."
Loki nods happily. He starts snickering and can barely get a word out. "A-and" Loki now has his knuckles stuffed in his mouth.
"And...?" Tony prompts once the god's snickering has subsided, only for it to start back up again.
"And I hads another dream where-" Another bout of snickering. "my Sleipnir came outta me."
"Sleipnir came out of you?" Tony knows that his own expression is a mirror of Bruce's- a look of total confusion. Loki seems to find their faces hysterical, as he starts cackling and wriggling around in his seat, until he's gasping for breath.
Eventually, he calms down somewhat, but still seems to have trouble getting the words out between his snickers and giggles.
"Yeah! That's how L-Lady Frigga said babies are made, you know. You gets real fat for a while, and then a baby comes out, 'xcept it's not like pooping, nope nope nope! 'Cause babies aren't poop." Loki says this entirely seriously, it seems, as if there was actually someone challenging that.
"You know that only works for women, right?" Tony says, trying his hardest not to laugh, though he can feel a smile already forming on his lips that refuses to be forced down. "And how does a horse come out a human? I mean, unless you have some other abilities we don't know about..."
"I was a horse then." Loki replies as though Tony's being dumb, although he'd only mentioned being a horse in the first dream. "A mare." Loki stresses, before adding that a mare's a girl horse, in case Tony didn't know. He actually didn't, not that he'll admit that.
"Why were you a mare?" Wow. Okay. Loki's mind certainly is... interesting. Well, he'd always known that, but still... There's no way Loki can just switch genders. Or species. "I'm not even sure I want to know." He mutters.
Loki answers anyways. "I dunno. 'Cause it was a dream?" Loki shrugs, and Tony supposes he's reading too much into this. After all, who doesn't have weird dreams? Never let it be said that Loki's dreams are boring. "But Sleipnir sometimes called me Mummy when we pretended, 'cause of thats."
"Okay, so you pretended you were a family?" Tony prompts, wondering if this is going somewhere or just a story in it's own right. He also wonders if Loki had just made up the whole mare part right now to mess with them, as he'd seemed to love the results. Considering that Loki's revealed a mischievous side recently, Tony actually wouldn't put it past him.
"Yeah, but then they had'ta go 'ways, and family's not supposed to leave. That's what Lilo says. 'Nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten'... I didn't forget them."
Tony isn't sure what to say to this, and Bruce looks like he's about to say something, but Loki beats them both to it.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I think I gots another family now, so it's not just my monster family anymore. And nobody can say it's not reals, nope nope nope."
Tony spares a glance with Bruce, wondering if this is going where he thinks it's going. "Who's in this family?"
"My Tony..." Loki mutters almost wistfully, leaning up against Tony. Tony puts an arm around him without really thinking about it, the habit so automatic after calming Loki down over the weeks. Tony's about to ask whether it's just him when Loki goes on.
"My Tony 'n Jarvis 'n Bruce 'n Hulk-y 'n Pepper 'n Dum-E 'n Simba... It's my family, my Ohana, and nobody gets left behind or forgotten, ever! Not even when Thor comes not when they're in petri dish cells. Ands they don't see a freaky worthless monster, nope nope nope!"
Loki's fiddling with Toy Stark and the Loki action figure. Suddenly, they change colors and Tony shares a glance with Bruce when he realizes the Loki one is blue.
Then he notices that Toy Stark is covered in the same design that's on Lilo's dress- white leaves on a red background.
"Of course we don't see a monster." Tony says. "You're not a monster, remember?"
"Like Boo and Stitch and Elsa and Quasimodo aren't monsters?" Loki asks, looking at him with wide eyes. He waves his Quasimodo figurine in Tony's face.
"Just like that." Tony smiles.
"My family's never gonna leave me behind, right? 'Cause you didn't leave me in the city ands you didn't leave me in the glass either."
"Never." Tony says. "We're never going to leave you."
Loki smiles even more. "And you're never gonna forget 'bouts me, right?"
"Trust me, there's no way I'm ever forgetting about you."
Loki stares intently at him, clearly working out whether to believe this or not. Then, he sticks out his pinky. Grinning, Tony interlocks their pinkies and says "Pinky promise."
Loki grins. "Pinky promise." He echoes, before Tony interlocks their other pinkies, claiming it's a double pinky promise, which makes Loki collapse into a giggling fit. For a bit, nobody says anything.
"You know what else?" Loki asks.
"What?"
"I thinks... I think I love my family." Loki flaps his hand wildly and laughs as he singsongs the words my family like it's they're the greatest words in the world.
Smiling slightly, Bruce asks "What do you love most about your family?"
"That my very own Tony's in it, 'cause he's my best friend and he's the nicest person ever! And he doesn't let anyone hurt me."
"Bambi, you're making me blush." Tony says teasingly as he smiles slightly and pulls Loki closer. To be honest, he actually sort of likes this idea. Sad as it may sound to outsiders, Jarvis and Dum-E really are Tony's family, and he already considers some of the Avengers to be sort of like family. Mostly Bruce and Clint. Loki, to be honest, had already sort of felt like family (maybe it's because they've been living together), but he's not sure Loki knows that.
Quietly, so quietly he doesn't even think Bruce hears, Tony whispers "And I've got my own Loki in mine."
Um, I'm a little worried Tony was slightly OOC in this last part. I was going to throw in that line from Iron Man where Yinsen says that Tony's a man who has everything and nothing, but I couldn't think of a place to fit it in.
I hope nobody objects to this new familial relationship. I feel like they were bound to reach this point eventually. Loki's been thinking those things for a while, but I don't think it occurred to him that they could be family if they weren't related. But he did start referring to Tony as 'his' Tony.
I can now say with certainty that this is never going to be FrostIron, because... ew. That just wouldn't work now, even if Loki does get more mature.
Oh yeah, the reason I put the pizza from way back in chapter 16 that Loki referenced while watching Lilo and Nani was so Loki could make that reference. Or at least that's why the pizza was in that scene :) Also, the small reference to a scene in Wall-E was from when he was in space, before he got to the Axiom.
I think the airplane scene was the most important one in this chapter, especially some little bits of it.
To be honest, given Fury's job, I can actually understand why he'd be so paranoid. If I could manage to pull off that job (which I couldn't), I'd probably end up like him.
I really hope I can get back to updating once a week instead of like every ten days. I hate this slump I've been in.
Well, until next time!
