Penetrating the perimeter was a piece of cake when one could just fly over the fence. Tony congratulated himself on the idea of adding the booster covers, the thrust loss was minimal and it was just so convenient. Not flashy though, that's why he knew the feature won't make it to his next, not stealth-oriented designs.
He stayed by the wall, allowing Jarvis time to scan the crisscrossing signals.
"I'm in the main network, sir," the AI informed after a moment. "But I won't be able to access any of the subsystems until we get in range."
"Sure thing. Can we disable surveillance over the entrance?" The doorway was located in a length of concrete wall that created one of the sides of a grassy mound, a good hundred yards away from the closest building.
"Of course, sir. I'm looping the signal now."
Tony smiled to himself and walked through the yard like he owned the place.
The side exit led straight into the evacuation staircase and – just as he expected – it was deserted. No one of sound mind takes thirty flights of stairs when they can use an elevator.
He reached level minus ten before he ran into the first sign of trouble. In the form of… well, a doorway. The staircase ended there and there was just the reinforced door leading onto the level. The oldest designs they found had it ending where he stood, but all the newer ones showed it running all the way down to the technical floor, so Tony quickly assumed it was a modification done to the original plans during the construction. Too quickly, apparently. It didn't look like it was blocked later, the further part was just never constructed.
"Jay, any idea why I'm seeing what I'm seeing?"
"My best assessment would be that the plans were falsified to hide the fire safety concerns, sir."
"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Fucking Nazis."
"If I may suggest a solution, sir, level six is currently under reconstruction for a new purpose. It should be empty at this time of the night."
"Does it connect to other staircases?"
"The main one, by the elevator shaft, and it has a ramp leading up into the hangar bay, sir."
That wouldn't cut it. It was too close to the hub and there ought to be people there. "What about the auxiliary one leading to the mechanical rooms?"
"According to the original plans, it starts on your current level. The new ones show it running two floors up, sir."
"Let's assume, for now, that it's bullshit as well. So this floor is the only way to reach it?"
"Not necessarily. There's that unused fueling shaft, leading to a mechanical room on minus fourteen, the one we disregarded because it ends before it reaches the surface and has no access point nowhere in the facility."
"We're sure it's there?"
"It is on the original plans, sir."
Okay, that should do.
Tony scaled the staircase, going one floor up. Jarvis' scouting showed minus ten was operational with staff in positions, and that wasn't something Tony wanted to deal with, if he had other options.
"This is the place, right?" Tony said, consulting the plan he brought up on his HUD. He pulled the shelf aside. The wall was just cast concrete, like all the other outside walls.
"It appears so, sir," Jarvis confirmed.
"Okay, let's see," he said and activated his beam. He cut a small piece of the wall, just big enough to put his hand through and pushed it inside. It tumbled down the shaft, crashing down to the bottom and Tony sincerely hoped no one heard that. Then he cut a bigger opening and pulled the wall inside. It resisted, but yielded when he fired the booster on his hand.
Tony stuck his head inside, lighting his way with the propulsor on his palm. Even with that, he could see only a few feet down. The shaft was narrow and the walls were uneven and shiny with accumulated moisture seeping from the ground for decades. There was a solid chance he was the first person to look inside since the day it was built eighty years ago.
He initiated the hover mode and went into the shaft, then started slowly descending. Just a dozen feet below the entry point he met his first obstacle: crisscrossing wooden beams blocking the way, but the laser ray took care of it quickly. He continued downwards.
A pebble fell from above and bounced off his helmet, then another, quickly after the first one. Then came some bigger pieces and something that looked like muddy dirt cascaded down the wall. Uh oh. Then a piece of concrete in the size of his head flew by and he had to dodge to avoid it.
He killed the propulsors and fell down the shaft, bracing for landing. He expected to boost through, but the bottom slab held – courtesy of the lower weight of the armor. He cut around with his beam, more debris falling around. He came crashing into the room on top of a piece of a concrete slab. Propulsors fired and he swerved out of the way, just in time, because a rumble of crushed concrete, rusted rebar and slurry dirt came down the shaft, burying one of the electrical substations and damaging a couple of other ones. The lights blinked out.
"Jarvis?"
"I killed the failure alarm system before you came through the ceiling, sir."
The backup generators whirred to life and the lights came back on.
"Thanks, Jay. What would I do without you?"
"I'm going to assume that was a rhetorical question, sir."
Tony regarded the pile. "Here goes our exit strategy," he said. It wasn't all that viable anyway, the shaft would be hard to fly up through even on his own, and more so while hauling another person along. And that was only if he didn't need to restrain Loki to force him to cooperate. He didn't want to do it, but Romanoff seemed biased, so he had a hard time trusting her assurances in that regard. The eventuality was not out of the question and Tony came prepared, if that turned out necessary.
He turned to the backup generators. Those were the old, gas-powered ones and Tony couldn't help but admire the bravery of the engineers who designed a gas backup power setup so deep underground. Hopefully, it wasn't petroleum gas, that would be problematic. How was the air delivery for combustion solved? There ought to be fans to get it, they couldn't rely on natural ventilation that far underground, surely, but how would they work without power in the first place? Some sort of tertiary system or did they not take full power loss under consideration?
He shook his head. It wasn't important. As long as those babies didn't run out of juice while he was here, he couldn't care less.
"Okay, so where to, now?"
"I'm inside the detention level subsystem, sir. I've located Mr. Odinson's cell. Do you want me to display the feed?"
"No, just lead the way."
Tony crossed the threshold of the dungeon – heavy metal door closing behind him with a piercing shriek – and stopped dead in his tracks. He might have even tripped over his own feet if the servos in the greaves didn't whirr to life to compensate for the sudden halt.
The cell was just a square of untreated concrete, fifteen or so feet wall to wall in both directions and half that to the highest point of the vaulted ceiling, still showing the grooves left by the formwork used to cast it when the base was built somewhen in the thirties. There were no furnishings other than the steel platform in the middle of the room, its legs bolted fitly into the floor, with an industrial lamp emitting cold, fluorescent light right above.
There was a person on the table.
Tony knew for sure he wouldn't recognize him if he didn't know who he was looking at.
Loki was lying flat on his back, thick metal manacles pinning down his arms, legs and neck, leather straps holding down his chest and hips. His mortifyingly thin form was wrapped in scraps of a tattered, worn-out prison garb, cut open in areas where his jailers needed to access his body, for reasons Tony immediately decided not to dwell upon. The visible parts of his flesh – feet, hands, one exposed shoulder and lower arm, the side of his abdomen – were sickly pale, the skin pulled taunt over the bone, at least in places that were not open wounds or swollen bruises. A tangled mess of matted hair spilled around his head like tar.
Tony stared in shock and the longer he looked at the battered figure, the sicker and angrier he felt. He might not have the best record on ethics and Loki was an alien, his adversary and a hardened criminal, but… fuck, there were fates Tony wouldn't wish even for the worst enemy. And this? This checked all the fucking boxes.
An unmarked drip bag was hooked to a pump, forcing the unknown liquid into the central line under Loki's collarbone and Tony didn't even want to speculate what it might contain. He just hoped it was meant to provide at least some nutrients, because, yeah, the muzzle Thor slapped onto his lil brother's face sixteen fucking months ago was still sitting just as tightly on it, except now the metal was not nearly as shiny as it was originally, old blood and grime staining the indents and seams.
It wasn't what sent Tony's stomach churning and made him see red though. Nor it was the fact that Loki did not react to his arrival in any way but stayed motionless, unconscious, or perhaps dead already. It wasn't even the second set of shackles and a thick chain pulled taut between Loki's ankles, absurdly redundant, considering the firm grip of the bands strapping his legs to the table. No, it was the blindfold, a simple strip of rough, dark cloth placed over his eyes, that pushed the whole image beyond cruel and inhumane and straight into the perversely evil zone.
They locked him up in a hellhole two hundred feet below the ground, bound him, starved him, sunk their needles into his flesh and who the fuck knows what else, yet they couldn't bear to look him in the eye.
Tony could almost feel the rough burlap wrapped around his own head, no matter how hard he tried to not think about it right now. It was the worst thing he remembered from the Afghan cave, the uncertainty and the anticipation of the unknown somehow worse than the pain and torture itself, at least in his memory.
Loki's chest rose and fell, a change so minute that Tony wouldn't notice it if the sensors didn't alert him to the movement. The man was still alive then and Tony realized that he was, hopefully, not too late. He couldn't find it in him to rejoice at the discovery though.
"Jarvis, change the mission classification from 'prisoner transfer' to 'hostage recovery'," he whispered, all the leftover doubt evaporating from his thoughts. He stepped closer, opening his visor. Cold, stale air hit his nostrils, filled with an acrid smell of an industrial disinfectant, not entirely able to mask the stench of sweat, blood and just pure misery that permeated the cell.
"Already on it, sir," Jarvis chirped. "I'm working on gaining the access to the control panel for the restraints. It seems to be located inside the cell but needs to be enabled first."
"Thanks," Tony muttered and looked around. There was a small screen built into the wall next to the door, obviously a newer addition. It was dead and it did not react when Tony tapped it with his gauntleted finger. "Keep me updated."
"Will do, sir," the AI responded and fell silent, switching the line of communication back to the DHS' server array. Or was it Hydra's? Tony was not sure where the distinction lay at that point and did not particularly care. They could all go to hell.
Tony took another step forward, his titanium-osmium-alloy-clad boot scratching the floor. Loki's jaw twitched and he stirred, his limbs straining against the bonds. Then he lifted his head, just an inch or so off the table, the metal band around his throat holding him down and preventing further movement. He twisted his neck as if to look at the intruder, but the thick cloth sat over his eyes firmly and Tony suspected even the alien super-sight was no match for it.
He commanded the armored glove off. It folded into the vambrace neatly, leaving the propulsor and its wiring on his palm. He pulled the blindfold off.
Loki squeezed his eyes shut in an instant; the fluorescent illumination had to feel harsh after who knows how long of seeing only darkness. He tried opening them, just for a split-second, before the light blinded him again.
Tony reached inside the lamp and twisted one of the tubes around until it came loose and went off. He repeated the process until only one bulb was still glowing.
"Try now," he said.
The second attempt went a little better, Loki squinted and blinked a few times, gradually getting used to the – now considerably diminished – brightness. Then the green eyes slowly focused and surveyed Tony for a long while, slanted and bleary at first and growing wider and more aware as recognition crept its way into Loki's gaunt features. He swallowed, hard, and his body recoiled, like the simple action caused pain. It might have just as well, the skin on his neck was one open wound and the manacle fit so tightly his bobbing throat was scratching against it.
Loki let out a resigned sigh and his head rolled back with a clank. His eyelids fluttered close and he stilled again.
"Chill, Buttercup, I come in peace," Tony said, flashed a sheepish smile and, without further ado, started undoing the straps. Loki winced when Tony pulled on the belt running across his chest to release the buckle. "Hold on, just one more."
He unfastened the second strap and gave the cuff around Loki's skinny wrist an experimental wiggle. The U-shaped piece of steel-like alloy trapped the limb flat against the surface without any give, palm up, not allowing Loki to even rotate his arm, the ends sunken and locked under the tabletop, out of view. It wobbled slightly and the spurs ratchetted inside the mechanism under the weight of Tony's hand, latching even tighter and getting a sharp exhale out of the Asgardian when the edges bit deeper into his chafed, bruised skin.
"Sorry, that wasn't on purpose."
The glare Loki sent his way was quite impressive, all things considered.
Tony tried again, making sure to just pull on the cuff instead of forcing it further down, without much effect. And once again, with his other hand that still had the armored glove on, actuators buzzing. Metal whined under stress and bent, pinching the sides of Loki's hand, and forcing another flinch out of him. Tony stopped; he was doing more damage than good like that. Ripping the shackle off should be the last resort anyway; he was an engineer, not a brute, as much as his hands itched to just tear every single wretched piece of equipment in the torture chamber to scraps. And then to just go on, until there's nothing left of the entire base other than a smoking crater in the ground.
"Jarvis, how's progress?" he prompted. Loki's eyes darted around the room in confusion but, of course, found no one Tony might be talking to. His eyebrows pulled into a tight frown. Tony tapped the communicator in his ear as a way of explanation, but it didn't ease Loki's uncertainty. He seemed pretty out of it.
"I'm accessing the internal control system for the detention block as we speak, sir." Jarvis reported. "And if I may offer a suggestion, I would advise removing the IV line as soon as possible. The logs mention the test subject is to be kept under sedation at all times."
"Right…" Tony mumbled. The test subject. The very term grated at him in all the wrong ways, providing a lot more backstory to the scene before his eyes than the words alone contained. He stepped around the table. Loki's left arm had another set of shackles of yet a different design clasped on it. It appeared to serve no other purpose than to add to the wholesale discomfort, which, at this point, wasn't anything Tony would put past Loki's caregivers. Above the metal, the flesh was dotted with track marks and smaller bruises from injections around them, up until the elbow, where the marred skin hid under the frayed edge of his sleeve. Green eyes traced Tony's every move. "I'm going to unhook the IV now. Is that okay?"
He was not sure what made him ask, just as he didn't know what he would do if Loki said no. It felt like the right thing to do, Loki's usual company probably didn't ask for permissions.
The god stared at him for a moment longer and then inclined his head, just a little bit. It was enough for Tony. He retracted the second gauntlet and reached to remove the tube from the port, then hesitated. A central catheter like the one on Loki's shoulder was typically connected directly to a major artery above the heart. Tony's medical expertise was too lacking to determine what would happen if he just removed the tube. Was there a non-return valve built into the port? Should he plug it? He looked around briefly, but there was nothing suitable for the purpose, so he just closed the shut-off valve that sat on the tube and ripped the other end from the pump. The device jammed and started wailing. Tony gave it another quick glance, making sure it's not connected to any external system, then simply ripped it off the bar it was fastened to and threw it at a wall. It was a stubborn contraption though and the high-pitched alarm didn't stop until he stomped the remnants with his boot for a good measure. That scratched the itch for destruction a tad. "That will have to do for now."
The IV bag got torn at the seam and its contents, looking sort of like watered-down milk, spilled to the floor, filling the air with a pungent, chemical odor. If one went just by their sense of smell, it was nasty, whatever it was.
"The control panel is unlocked," Jarvis announced. "You should be able to release the restraints now, sir."
"Thanks, buddy," Tony said and whipped around. The screen lit up and Tony flipped through the menus until he found the release command, right next to a couple of other cheerful options that raised the hair on his neck, like the shock level settings and a temperature slider with a scale starting well below zero Fahrenheit. The shackles unlocked, one after another, with sharp, metallic clicks. Tony pulled them free from their sockets and tossed them to the floor, starting with the one he inadvertently tightened earlier.
Loki frowned, seemingly surprised with this new development, but did not make an attempt to move for a long moment. Then he tipped his head slightly to lock an intensive stare on Tony and dragged his left hand up to his chest. With Loki's deteriorated muscles straining against the weight on his arm, it took a lot more effort than it should. He positioned his hand perpendicularly to his body, palm opened, then curled his right hand into a fist and pulled it up. It brushed against his palm and hit his chest; the movement unsteady but still desperately decisive. The gesture culminated with the index finger pointed at his throat then fluidly shifted to one hand tracing a circle over the chest, palm inwards. Loki let out a tired breath and slumped, his head and arms falling back onto the table with metallic clanks as the shackles and the backside of the muzzle hit the surface. His limbs were shaking, and his chest was heaving, the small bout of activity expending the last of his meager reserves. The piercing gaze was still firmly fixed on Tony though.
"Jarvis?" Tony prompted. He recognized the obvious attempt at communication, but he couldn't decode what it was that Loki was trying to tell him. "Can we translate that?"
"Yes, it appears to be the ASL standard." There was a five-second-long pause, as the AI queried the internal database and cached requested data for easier access, his limited, offline processing power divided between suit operation, hacking the security system and the task at hand. Tony tapped his fingers on his thigh impatiently. "I believe Mr. Odinson just asked you to kill him, sir," Jarvis provided finally, his voice as neutral as ever, "very politely."
Tony felt sick again.
"Hey, Hunger Games, no one is killing anyone today, okay?" he said and pumped all confidence he could muster into the sentence. "Unless we run into one of the sick fucks who manage this place on our way out. Then, I can't make any promises."
Loki blinked at him, a deep wrinkle forming between his eyebrows again.
"Our common friend would not be pleased if I didn't get you out of here in one piece," Tony added and offered Loki a wan smile. He intended to make it more warm and reassuring but it somehow came out that way. "I would owe you one if you could spare me the awkward conversation that will certainly happen if I'm back empty-handed."
That seemed to have some sort of an effect although Loki's expression indicated that he didn't really compute much of what Tony just said. The god took in a long, jagged breath and pushed himself off the table with his elbows. He stayed like this for a couple of seconds, his nostrils flaring, then attempted to sit up, only to fall flat onto his back again, the weakened limbs unable to hold his weight. He squeezed his eyes shut and his hands curled into fists, breath coming in quick, wavery bursts.
"One more thing," Tony said, allowing Loki another moment to gather his strength. He circled the table again and stood at its foot. The plate concealing the laser ray in his gauntlet retracted and he turned it on and aimed at the chain connecting Loki's ankles. The beam activated with a prominent electrical buzz and left a deep scorch mark on the metal tabletop – and, when he peeked under – in the machinery below and even some on the floor – but slid over the links without doing any damage. Tony frowned. The laser was calibrated to cut even through an inch-thick iridium plate, so the element that gave the chain the silvery sheen had to be even denser than that. He turned up the power by twelve hundred watts, the highest the device could take without overheating, and gave it another go, with a very similar result.
"Run the spectral analysis," he said and pulled the visor back on to look at the detailed readings.
"Preliminary sensor data suggest the alloy has a density of at least thirty-two grams per cubic centimeter, a tensile strength of at least three gigapascals and major energy retaining properties."
"A vibranium alloy? Really?!" To make some fucking fetters? Who the hell is funding this facility and how much are they afraid of losing Loki if they are willing to invest millions of dollars in ultra-rare materials that are not supposed to exist anymore, just to slow him down? Oh well, Tony is going to fuck those plans right up tonight, big time, stealing not only their favorite guinea pig, but also their state-of-the-art bondage gear.
"It looks like it, sir, although further analysis is required to confirm."
"We have no time for further analysis," he pointed out and retracted the face shield again.
"The arc reactor blast at over eighty percent power could have enough strength to damage it," Jarvis suggested.
The suggestion was as accurate as it was unhelpful. Firing the main reactor beam directly at the chain was likely to destroy it, albeit along with everything within the very confined space they were currently occupying. "Thanks, but no thanks. I like my internal organs still within my body."
Loki eyed him warily yet again and Tony rolled his eyes. He pulled a spare communicator out and slid it across the table, so it landed next to Loki's right hand. "Put it into your ear." Loki picked the gadget up and turned it in his fingers in front of his face, studying it with distrust. "It's a comm-link, not a wiggly brain worm. Now put it in."
Loki did and his eyes went wide right away as Jarvis introduced himself.
"Meet Jarvis. You two have already met. You know, when you were ruining my penthouse and throwing me out of my window?" Tony said with a smirk. He could swear there was a nervous twitch that crossed Loki's features at the mention. No matter, it was best to get that out of the way as soon as possible. "Thanks for that, by the way. Now, where were we at? Oh right, getting the hell out of here."
With what looked like the last-ditch effort, Loki managed to pull himself into an awkward sitting position, propped up with his shaky arms. The blindfold slid off his forehead and back over his eyes. He took it all the way off and tossed it to the floor with a pointed disgust, the wide motion almost bringing him back down before he caught himself at the last possible moment. Then he looked at the smoking grooves in the metal table and the undamaged chain with a confused frown.
"Yeah, there's nothing else I can do outside of my lab, at least not without doing us both more harm than good. And I would rather not waste precious minutes on trying to pick it apart right now. Will you be able to walk with those on?" The chain was rather short and would make running impossible, but Loki looked like he was barely able to stay upright as-is, running was most likely out of the picture anyway. He regarded the shackles for a moment longer then nodded, slightly. It wasn't too convincing but that was probably all Tony was going to get, so he took it. "Right. I'm ready to go anytime you are."
Loki dragged his legs over the side of the table then slowly slid off the edge until his feet touched the floor. The chain jingled as he moved, and his toes curled on the cold concrete. He stayed like that, leaning on the pedestal, panting, his hands gripping the edge tightly, turning his knuckles white. His eyes darted towards the door then back to his feet.
Tony protracted the gauntlet on his right hand on instinct alone and clenched it into a fist, ready to send it flying towards Loki's face the moment he decides to dash.
He did not. He did, however, try pushing off the table and standing up, only for his legs to give way immediately. Tony was not at all prepared and too far away to catch him so he could only watch as Loki crumbled to the floor in an ungainly heap, his knees and palms connecting with the hard surface with a sickening scrunch. The Asgardian stayed down on all fours, breathing heavily, his head down, fingers splayed flat on the floor, quivers running through his frame. He strained, his spine arched, and he tried to regain a more vertical position, only to collapse again. A desperate growl escaped his throat. He cowered, as if struck, and made no further attempts to get up.
Tony stepped around the table, clasped his hands on Loki's sides and unceremoniously collected him off the floor, the emaciated physique almost weightless in Tony's machine-aided arms. Loki shot him a baleful stare of token protest but did not struggle when Tony set him down, back on the table, and gripped his shoulder when he swayed. Loki's head drooped, hair falling over his face, his arms dangling uselessly at his sides. He leaned forward and Tony was sure he would just fall flat on his mug again without the support.
Tony stood there, flexing his fingers and biting his lip, unsure what to do.
He could call Romanoff down, but reactivating external communication would trigger the wave sensors, making the staff aware of the trespass and, worst-case scenario, of the location of the interloper; if they did not already suspect something fishy was going on, that is, he made quite a mess in the generators' room. And shutting the security down would take too long. Each of the sensors was running on a standalone sub-system just like the detention block and accessing each and every one would take time, especially in a way that would leave no hint as to who did it. Not to mention that – even if the signal went through undetected in a stroke of luck – it would take Natasha at least another twenty minutes to reach the lowest level of the base and they might not have as much time before someone finds them, even by randomly wandering in to check on the prisoner. Or to prod a hot iron poker into his ribs, or whatever it was that caused the burns on Loki's stomach.
If Tony knew it would look like this, he would not object so vehemently to Romanoff coming along. She warned him Loki might be in a rough condition, but even in his most daring thoughts Tony did not expect to find the super-strong, mouthy Asgardian like… this. The last time Tony checked, Loki was fucking bulletproof and it took the Hulk redecorating Tony's polymer-reinforced composite floor with his face just to stop the crazy god from laughing at them for fifteen minutes…
But here he was, and Tony was the only one here and he was quickly running out of options, with his entire legacy and the livelihood of everyone he cared about on the line. He really did not think this through, did he? He focused on technicalities and never spared a thought for an actual way of moving Loki out, more concerned with Romanoff's assurances on how the guy would cooperate when presented with an option. Tony assumed he would just lead him out if that's the case. Loki was cooperating all right, but it didn't amount to much right now.
Tony could not hope to carry him all the way through the facility, it would mean leaving them both vulnerable to an attack and the corridors were way too narrow and too twisted to just blindly fly through and hope for the best, especially with the semi-conscious tangle of limbs the god was slowly but surely dissolving into in tow. Not to mention that it would destroy the entire secrecy idea; keeping his presence here unknown was still a priority, or else he had nothing to return to.
Still, he couldn't continue standing here, hoping Loki would just randomly decide he is not dying anymore, and he is good to go. No, that was the surest way to get caught. And the best Tony could hope for upon capture was a quick death, if the alternative was whatever the fuck they've been doing to Loki for the last year-then-some (although, Tony suspected, he wasn't nearly as interesting of a specimen for the purpose). And the only ally he had around was the man who tried to kill him not that long ago, currently half-dead himself and unable to fight or even to sit up on his own…
Jarvis would warn him if he either lost connection to the monitoring system or found someone coming close, but in the offline mode he could rely only on the central unit of the suit, and that was already quite loaded so something had to give, and Tony couldn't count on Jarvis' processing power to do all the thinking for him.
No, he needed Loki back on his feet, there was no other way.
Loki's huffed out a sigh, tensed and made an effort to straighten up, just for long enough to get a series of quick, shaky signs in – he had to grab his left forearm with his right hand to even raise it above the waist level – only to double down soon after. Tony caught him this time.
"Do it and go, before they come," Jarvis supplied in a way of translation and the decision cemented in Tony's mind, just like that. He was going to drag Loki out of this hellhole, by his hair if he had to, because there's no way Tony Stark is doing what the insane god tells him.
He would figure out the rest later.
"Yeah, well, that's not happening," Tony said. "Jarvis, initiate the 'damsel in distress' protocol."
Loki startled and tried to jerk away when the pieces of the Iron Man suit peeled away from Tony and started wrapping themselves around him. First the chest piece, then the line of armor along the spine and around the abdomen and forearms. By the time the neck guard unfurled and covered his throat, the first shock wore off and his eyes went wide with terror, his body straining fruitlessly against the confinement; the impression of his predicament probably way too alive in his mind still for him to react rationally to being immobilized again.
"Sir, I'm going to release a partial control of the suit to you in a moment, once the assembly of the core pieces is completed," came Jarvis' even voice, aimed at Loki, but relayed to Tony's ear as well. That got Loki to calm down somewhat and to stop hyperventilating. "An upright position is required to finish the process. I'm turning the controls over to you, sir."
The actuators hissed and whirred to life as they unlocked and Loki wiggled his fingers tentatively, looking down at his metal-covered hand in disbelief. Then he tried moving his arm up, unaware of the effect the strained motion would have on the sensors, and almost ended up punching himself in the face. He would have if Jarvis did not block his arm at the last possible moment.
"It takes a while to get used to, sir."
Loki glanced up at Tony, then slowly lowered himself from the table again, one foot after the other. He stood up and took one small, unconfident step. Unlike Tony, he had no subdermal receptors and intercranial implants precisely calibrated for the armor's operation and he needed to rely solely on mechanical controls and Jarvis' assistance, not to mention it was most likely his first time using such tech. All in all, it was still a far better trial run than Tony expected.
Loki just blinked as the armor finished assembly, then his yelp of surprise got cut short as the visor closed.
Jarvis went on to explain the basic functions and the HUD elements briefly and Tony used the time to regard the man currently wearing his armor. It was quite an unusual sight. The design was finetuned to Tony of course, but it was the pinnacle of technology too, which meant it was elegant and scalable and would work on most body types, to an extent at least. Even then, Loki's figure was pushing it as far as it would go, too tall and too thin for all the plates to fit quite right where they belonged, further emphasizing the slimmer design of the mark forty-one. Then there was the new paintjob Tony almost forgot about. And the silvery vibranium chain, sticking out from between the plates, adding a dark and twisted touch to the familiar shape of the armor before Tony's eyes.
"A fair warning," Tony said, pulling his glasses from his pocket and turning on the interface overlay. "The suit is running on backup power, most of the offensive systems are disabled and Jarvis is authorized to lock you down the moment you even consider doing anything untoward. To me, or to anyone who is not actively trying to kill us. It covers running away too. Are we clear?"
Loki put up a fist and moved it up and down twice.
"That's a 'yes', sir," Jarvis translated.
"Great. Now let's go."