Tony sat cross-legged on his bed, spooning cereal and milk into his mouth while watching Loki. Loki was stretched out on one side with his head raised, eyes half-slitted shut and watching Tony in turn. Finally Tony sighed, and set down his mostly-empty bowl, picking up his coffee mug before speaking.
"So I'm feeling just a little freaked out right now," he said. "On the one hand you've been very, ah, honest with me, about the binding spell and it not holding you like it should any more, or at least I'm guessing that's why you were, um, human and awake. And not just today, but on and off for a while now. So there's that. And there's also this," he said, gesturing with one hand at the currently exposed wound in his arm, taking a large gulp of coffee before continuing. "There's no way this should be as far along in healing as it already is, not unless something is helping it along, and I kind of have to assume that something is or was you, especially since Jarvis tells me that you'd been touching it earlier. Before you went downstairs, and, um... went swimming."
He had to stop speaking for a moment then, remembering the almost visceral shock he'd felt at walking in on that; Loki, arched over backwards in the water, then rising to his feet, water sluicing down his slender form as he pushed his long hair back from his face. Totally nude, and not the least bit self-conscious about everything being on display. And given Tony's pre-existing attraction to Loki's physical form, pretty much an instant 'hello, I'm awake!' beginning boner moment. Even just the memory of it made things perk up a little, and him very thankful that he was old enough that it took time to get a decent stiffy. Leaving him plenty of time to sabotage it with a few distasteful mental images, and not having to deal with the embarrassment of such an obvious tell.
Tony frowned. "You and I need to talk. Really talk, and not just about this, this whole binding spell fading thing. You've been here over a month now, Loki, and there's not been any word from Thor, any news about how Asgard is progressing in their war against the chitauri. We're starting to feel a little worried here. Especially since, well, the word 'rescue' was never used, was it. If the chitauri aren't after you to rescue you, then Steve thinks, we think, that there's a chance they're after you to punish you. Now, we intend to protect you in either case, but it would really help if we had a better idea of what we're dealing with here. And while as a cat you can't make much more than an amusing range of meows and meeps and mrowls and purring and so on... there's Jarvis. You have an interface. If you can read you can probably write, and even if you only have a, a, have a pictographic understanding of words we can always put together a communication board for you or something."
He took a deep breath, and let it out. "But it'll only work if you choose to cooperate. I can't force you to talk to me. I can only ask. Please."
Loki lay still, watching him closely, then rolled to his feet, eyes narrowing for a moment. He meowed loudly, batting one paw in mid-air, and his usual interface to Jarvis appeared in front of him. A rapid series of paw-bats brought him to a keyboard display, and then Jarvis spoke, shifting his tones to a lower register, sounding not entirely unlike Loki's natural voice as he read out what Loki had typed. "_Ask."
Tony grinned. "Great. Is it okay if I get another coffee first? Actually, I'm probably going to need a whole pot of coffee for this, how about we just take it down to the lab. Quieter there and I can work while we talk."
"_Yes," Loki agreed, and dismissed the interface, then waited patiently while Tony changed from sleepwear to actual clothing and gathered up the remains of his breakfast.
Tony wandered around the lab for a couple of minutes, trying to decide what to work on. The sensor was still a priority, but he didn't think he could concentrate sufficiently on that while talking to Loki. Or rather, listening to Loki, as Jarvis read out his words. The needler... no, better yet, the improved armour for Clint and Natasha, who as the most unprotected members of the team needed better armour. Granted Natasha had apparently had some kind of augmentation back in Russia, something that gave her a healing factor rather higher than normal human, even if not to Steve's awesome level, she and Clint were still both the two most breakable members of the team, and Clint in particular seemed to have a habit of getting himself broken, throwing himself off buildings being just one of his favourites.
Tony settled at a workbench, calling up lists of experimental materials, suit patterns, his files of previous ideation and trials, and glanced over to where Loki was seated on the couch, interface open and looking patiently in Tony's direction. "Okay. So... why are the chitauri after you. Rescue, reward, revenge, other...?"
"_Revenge. I was their cat's-paw, and I failed them. Rule of earth was merely a carrot, and not a particularly tasty one."
"And there was a stick, to make sure you went that way whether or not you actually wanted the carrot?"
"_Yes. Torment, if I failed. A promise that there was no where I could hide where they would not eventually find me."
"Who holds the stick? The chitauri themselves? Or were you both working for someone else?"
"_The chitauri and I were merely pawns. There is a being known only as the Other. He is servant to a greater being yet. It was the Other who enforced my obedience. You are familiar with the ways in which such things may be done."
Tony shivered, and looked up from the design he was sketching out. "Yeah. Torture. You're saying they tortured you?"
"_Yes. I was already damaged after my fall from Asgard. The chitauri found me, lost and adrift, half-mad already from my time in the void. The Other took me apart, warped me to suit his purposes, tried to remake me into his obedient little tool. He was not entirely successful."
"Not entirely successful sounds to me like he did at least partially succeed."
"_I came here, did I not? I fulfilled at least part of his intentions, by stealing the Tesseract and opening the portal to give the chitauri access to this world."
Tony paused and looked over at him again. "Are you implying you planned to fail?"
"_No. Though you would not have liked the way I planned to win."
"Ah. Let me guess... something really messy and destructive?"
"_I had no reason to care about the lives of humans. Rather the reverse, if anything. Though my plan would have failed anyway, as it did not make allowances for the willingness of you humans to destroy their own kind in an attempt to seal the portal."
"The nuke, you mean?"
"_Yes. Even I, who turned far more destructive powers against the planet of my birth, did not foresee that humans would be so willing to make use of such a weapon against a city full of your own people."
"Yeah, that certainly wasn't our finest hour. So how did you intend to betray them? The Tesseract was right there, it wouldn't have been that hard for them to grab it, if that's what they were after."
"_It was protected, from everything but the sceptre they'd given me; I made sure to have Selvig leave a secret backdoor. I meant to wait until the main warship was passing through the portal, and then close it."
"The warship I kind of accidentally nuked?"
"_That's the one," Loki agreed. "Its power source would have failed catastrophically when the portal closed; the result would have been an explosion of a force similar to a large meteor strike."
Tony froze, then pushed his chair away from the table to turn and look at Loki, feeling more than a little horrified. "How big are we talking here? Do you mean, like... a dinosaur killer level event? End of life on earth as we know it?"
"_No. There would have been enough climactic disturbance to throw your societies into turmoil that I could then have taken advantage of without the need for chitauri assistance if I wished, but only on a small scale as such events are measured."
"Okay... I have to say, as much as I am all for most plans that involve sticking it to assholes who are trying to force people to do evil things, I don't think that's a plan I could ever have gotten behind. Especially as, if I was even still alive at the point when the big ship came through, I'd have been at ground zero for your little explosion. An explosion which you clearly believe you could have survived, but which I'm pretty damned certain there was no way in hell that me and the other eight million inhabitants of New York would have lived through. Not to mention large swathes of the rest of the eastern seaboard. Not to mention however many billions might have died due to the subsequent 'climactic disturbances' and related effects like widespread flooding, drought, crop-failure and famine, and related wars. I don't think I'm at all okay with just how thoroughly you planned to fuck us up, and all because your daddy didn't love you enough and you wanted to break your brother's favourite toy."
His hands were actually shaking when he finished speaking, his throat aching from the volume he'd reached at the end, almost but not quite yelling. God, he was so furious... and Loki was just lying there, watching him intently. Finally Loki stirred, typed a brief sentence.
"_It is not a plan I would be able to consider implementing now that I have lived among you."
"And that's supposed to make it better?"
"_No," Loki typed, then abandoned the interface, leaping down off the couch and padding across the floor, standing up on his hind legs with his forepaws resting on Tony's thighs, looking anxiously back and forth from his lap to his face.
Tony sighed. "All right. Yes, you can come up," he said, then lifted Loki up into his lap and wrapped his arms around the cat, kind of glad that Loki was in a form large enough for a decent hug. He rose to his feet and paced back and forth for a while, just holding onto Loki and listening to the deep purr at his ear, Loki's head tucked in on his left shoulder, pressing warmly against the side of his neck.
He was feeling kind of conflicted at the moment; on the one hand, he understood so very easily the impulse to destroy anyone and everyone who'd hurt him that badly, to do it as messily and nastily as possible; he'd been there. He'd come damn close to doing just that, in escaping from the Ten Rings, and later returning to take out even more of them. He hadn't killed all of them; far from it, the weapons he'd been able to outfit the suit with in the cave were not intended to be lethal, but even non-lethal weapons could kill, and the suit itself could kill, he knew there was blood on his hands by the time he'd flown away. But... they'd not been innocent, none of them, or at least as far as he knew none of them had been innocent. It was entirely possible that some of the men there had been there for reasons such as Yinsen had claimed to have, their families held hostage for their good behaviour. But at least he'd limited the damage he'd done, unlike Loki he hadn't cold-bloodedly planned the murder of millions of innocent lives as part of his fuck off gesture during his escape.
Though god only knows how many thousands of people had died over the years thanks to a Stark Industries weapon. Though that was different, it hadn't been his hands that had selected the targets, fired the missiles, pulled the triggers. And he'd stopped it, SI didn't make weapons any more and he'd destroyed what he could of any remaining stockpiles, though there would likely be old ordinance and still-functioning guns with his name on them floating around for years yet to come.
He realized he wasn't at all sure which of the two of them was being comforted and which offering comfort now, and maybe it was both at once, maybe they both needed it right then, Loki and he both reminded too strongly of times when they'd been helpless and hurting, of destructive things they'd done in their separate pasts. He sat down on the couch, and just cuddled the damned cat and waited for the shaking to stop. And laughed, when Dummy rolled over with the new Loki-blanket, the previous one having gone missing while Tony was down in medical, and waved it at him.
"Sure, cover us up," he said, rolling over to lie down, and waited while Dummy did his best to spread it over the two of them, straightening it up a little once the bot rolled happily away.
He lay there quietly, petting Loki. "All right. Yeah, I don't like the plan you had but I can understand why you made it. I could wish you'd considered some option that involved less wide-spread destruction. I'm damned glad you failed. I'm not angry at you or anything like that; the past is a thing that we can't change. I can only hope that you never, ever consider something even remotely like that again, though I have to say your track record is not exactly impressing me at the moment. One attempt at wide-spread destruction is bad enough, two is... two is really not good. I'm still willing to protect you, not just because I promised Thor but also because it sounds like this Other and whoever his master are just the kind of assholes that I'd hate enough to protect you from them even if I despised you, and I don't. Don't despise you. Not entirely sure I like you or trust you, but I don't hate you either. Not that you likely care about what I think of you, you've got that whole 'I am a god and you are but worthless peasants' schtick after all."
He fell silent for a couple of minutes. "Part of me wants to like you. I like, I like this you, the part of you that is here when you're in animal form, that hangs out with me in my lab and likes to sleep curled up beside me at night and listens to me ramble without complaining or running away or trying to change the subject. I know that's not all of you, but it's the part of you I've had time to come to know. I want to know more about you, even the ugly bits, maybe even especially the ugly bits. I want to try and understand you, because from everything I've ever heard Thor tell about how and why you ended up here, it sounds like the two of us are kind of scarily alike, it's like you're a darker, meaner, more broken version of me. And that both scares me and intrigues me; wondering what the difference is. Wondering how close I came to going to the dark side instead of trying to turn myself into a hero."
Loki's purring had stopped, his head lifted to look intently at Tony. He stretched out one paw, placing it on Tony's mouth, letting his claws curve out just enough to barely prick the skin before retracting them.
"Are you telling me to stop talking?" Tony asked. "You are, you want me to..." He broke off as Loki's eyes narrowed, the claws sliding out again. He gently took hold of Loki's paw and moved it away. "Right. Shutting up now."
Loki drew his paw free of Tony's grip and then shifted position slightly, stretching out on top of Tony with his chin resting on his forepaws, eyes drifting shut as Tony resumed stroking his back. He sighed, once, head rolling to one side a little, and then Tony found himself pinned down beneath a naked, sleeping Loki, Loki's head resting on Tony's chest, his arms draped around Tony's shoulders, their legs tangled together.
"Fuck," Tony mouthed, feeling himself blush in embarrassment and, okay, yes, maybe flushed just a little in arousal too, and feeling very, very glad for the blanket that was already draped over the two of them. "Jarvis, lock down the lab. No one comes in without permission," he said very quietly.
"Yes, sir," Jarvis answered equally softly.
Dummy came over and took hold of one corner of the blanket. Tony hastily grabbed it and tugged it free. "No. Dummy, no, leave that where it is. The blanket is just fine. Look, just go get me a coffee or something, okay? Good boy."
Loki woke slowly, aware of movement around him and the feeling of a body pressed to his own. There was an arm hooked around him, holding him in place, and Tony's voice singing softly, more mouthing the words than actually vocalizing them. He lifted his head, and found that Tony was holding him while typing in mid-air with one hand, ear-buds in as he listened to music that was loud enough to be just barely audible to Loki.
Tony broke off singing and typing as soon as Loki moved, reaching to yank the ear-buds free as he smiled nervously at Loki. "Awake again, I see. Man but you are a power napper as a cat."
Loki smirked. "And you cannot ever stop talking," he said, then shifted his weight to his own arms, pushing himself up a little, his expression becoming a more serious one as he studied Tony's face. "Part of me wants to know you better as well," he admitted, returning to their earlier conversation. "And for you to know me. Even the ugly parts, the dark side of me. I think you are perhaps the only person I've met who might truly be able to understand that side of me without... despising me for it."
He chewed on his lip for a moment, shifting his weight to one side so he could lift his hand to tuck his hair back behind one ear, then slowly reaching out to rest his hand against Tony's cheek. "I do not want your hate," he said softly as Tony's eyes widened, first in surprise, then his pupils dilating in desire as Loki leaned down over him. He paused, just the smallest of spaces left between them, lips almost but not quite touching.
He felt Tony shiver, felt the warm gust of his breath, then Tony lifted his own head just enough to close the distance between them, lips fitting to lips. A very brief, very dry kiss, before they both jerked apart, so close in action that it was impossible to say which of them had flinched first.
Loki smiled. "I do not think of any of you as worthless peasants any more. I'm not sure I ever really did," he said, then rolled off of the couch, gathering the blanket around his waist as he did so. He moved a few steps away, looking curiously around the lab, seeing it through human eyes for once instead of canine or feline. He turned back to look at Tony, who'd pushed himself partially upright, propped up on bent elbows, and was watching Loki with a curious expression on his face.
"Would you escape, if you could?" Tony asked. "If the binding spell failed right now, would you run away?"
Loki shrugged. "Perhaps. Though being here, protected by the Avengers, is likely as safe a place as any I can find. The chitauri exist a very long way from here; another dimension entirely, as your people phrase such things. The only way to easily bring them here was the Tesseract, and it is no longer here; it would be difficult for them to follow me."
"Difficult. Not impossible."
"No, not impossible. If Asgard does not keep them out, they might steal the Tesseract from the vaults there, and even failing that, there are routes from Asgard to here that they might take; Asgard touches many places, it is a nexus of sorts. There also may exist other means for them to gain access to Midgard, other places where the planes touch; the location of such hidden paths was once a hobby of mine."
Tony snorted, and swung his legs off the couch, sitting upright. "Is there anything we can do to prevent or detect them following you?"
"Perhaps. I will tell you what I can," Loki agreed, and then shrunk down, form changing yet again. Another cat. He was growing tired of the species, though it was serving its purpose quite admirably. He was perturbed to realize how low-down his viewpoint had shifted to, startled and then annoyed by the burst of laughter that escaped Tony's mouth, the wide grin on his face as he rose and walked over to Loki, stooping down to pick him up, his hands seeming much larger than before.
"You're trying to kill me with cuteness again, Loki. A kitten? A fluffy kitten? This is even better than the Pomeranian," Tony said, and cuddled Loki against the front of his shirt. "And don't you dare bite me," he added as Loki closed his teeth around the meat of his thumb. Loki rolled his eyes upwards to gauge how seriously he meant that, then eased backwards, licking Tony's skin briefly in apology.
Past time for lunch, Tony decided, and lifted the kitten up to perch on his shoulder, grinning as Loki made a startled sound and then wincing as his claws dug in through Tony's shirt and into his skin for a moment before the kitten found its balance. A grey tabby kitten with white socks and bib, and the dark blue eyes most kittens had before their adult colour began to show. He scratched Loki's chin as he headed to the elevator and upstairs. "Jarvis, where is everyone?" he asked when he noticed how empty and quiet the penthouse was.
"Captain Rogers, Ms Romanov and Mr Barton are all lunching with Agent Coulson in his apartment. Dr Banner is in his lab."
"Bruce eaten yet?"
"He is eating a large salad already, yes."
"Looks like it's just you and me for lunch then, Loki. Jarvis, how are repairs downstairs going?"
"Technically finished as of two hours ago. A Stark Industries representative is currently inspecting to ensure that the work has been completed to all requirements, and should be signing off on it shortly."
"Oh, excellent – let everyone know we'll be having an inaugural dinner and movie night tonight to take some of the shiny off the place. Call that caterer we had for the big party four months ago, see if they can send someone over to cook something nice for us, I know it's short notice, double their usual rate. Triple if they can be done cooking and out of our hair before the actual meal, we can serve ourselves."
"Of course, Sir."
Tony assembled a couple of sandwiches for himself, and warmed another container of cat food for Loki, setting him down to eat it on top of the table within reach of where he himself was sitting. Watching the kitten eat was entertaining; despite all the time Loki had been spending as a cat already, it seemed as if a kitten had slightly different operating parameters, and Loki managed to make a mess of his face, front paws and the table around the saucer in the course of eating his food. He sat there and attempted grooming himself afterwards, with a lack of balance and coordination that had Tony biting his lip so as not to laugh out loud. Judging by the attempted death-glares Loki was giving him – as much as failure in kitten form as they'd been when Loki had been a Pomeranian – Tony was not being successful enough at hiding his amusement.
"You get much messier and I'm going to have to bathe you, you realize," he pointed out as he picked up his last half-sandwich. "I doubt you'd enjoy that very much."
Loki gave him another glare, then meowed at him, a high-pitched but somehow still imperious sound.
"Right now you're even better at making a mess than Dummy is."
Another meow, then Loki rose to his feet and padded around the edge of the table, finding a chair and then teetering on the edge as he gauged the distance of a jump down to it.
"That's a big jump for someone your size, are you sure you don't want me to lift you down?"
Loki swayed forward, and made a leap that was as much a barely-controlled slip off the edge as anything else. He landed with a thump on the chair seat, and without even pausing moved to and off the edge of it, dropping down to the floor. He paused there, sitting down to lick at one paw, then scurried off. Tony hurriedly stuffed the last bit of his sandwich in his mouth, and followed to see what Loki was up to now. He found Loki stretched out in a sunny patch near the windows, reading something on his interface display.
Tony smiled, then returned to the kitchen to clean up from lunch. "What's he studying now, Jarvis?"
"Medical textbooks, Sir."
"Interesting."