Tony made it his mission to make Loki less racist. Bruce wryly remarked that Tony had several scandals that needed to be smoothed over by his PR department and Pepper.
"None of them were me being racist!" Tony protested. "Rhodey's my best friend."
Natasha gave Tony a flat look. "You do know that's one of the worst arguments to make,"
The next day, a stack of blue, leather-bound books was delivered to Loki.
Loki still toppled the pile and tore some of the pages, though not with any more spite than usual.
Tony made it a point to page through the books, pointing out that their contents were exactly the same as all of Loki's favorites. "We can work on literally not judging a book by its cover, before we get to the metaphor."
Loki soon turned back to his old favorites with dark green, red or black covers. He would occasionally page through the blue books, but attacked Kurt on the second visit to the mansion.
Clearly, they'd need even more than a stack of books to work past Loki's biases.
JARVIS was one of Loki's favorite people, despite technically not being a person. So Tony recruited his loyal AI in the campaign to make Loki less bigoted against blue beings, be they mutants or residents of other realms.
Loki stared at the blue holographic, neural-net sphere that pulsed with the rhythm of JARVIS's voice.
Loki didn't seem offended at all, but it dawned on Tony that Loki didn't necessarily have a problem with the color itself. Sure, he pummeled blue clay, but he'd shown a clear fascination with Tony's arc reactor, without a hint of violence toward it.
Tony had to wonder if Loki even realized that the pulsating sphere represented his favorite voice, since it seemed he didn't recognize symbols for yes or no. It wasn't every day one saw a holographic sphere talking, but then again, most people didn't live with a disembodied voice, either.
Loki swayed his head back and forth, ignoring the sphere as he let JARVIS's voice wash over him as usual.
Thor hovered near the tower the next time the Avengers went to battle, not helping as much as he usually did. There was no attempt to abduct Loki this time, but Steve still talked about teamwork as they returned to Loki, who was being watched by Coulson.
Before they'd changed out of their suits and gear, Loki caught sight of Steve in his Captain America suit. Loki attacked, this time attempting to claw the suit off of Steve.
Steve didn't block with his shield, despite having it strapped on his back. He pulled off his blue cowl to show Loki that he was still Steve.
"He is our shield brother," Thor admonished, while Bruce mumbled that he wouldn't want to see Loki's reaction to the Hulk.
Loki tugged and scratched at Steve's blue legs, and remained unsettled until Steve changed back into civilian clothes. Oddly enough, blue jeans were still perfectly acceptable.
Jean continued to work with Loki on levitating objects, while Kurt tried to coach him in teleportation. Thor appreciated their patience, since Loki showed little progress in controlling his magic. Things still seemed to happen by accident, and Loki continued to appear taken aback by his own actions.
Some days, Loki was happy to watch Jean levitate things, excitedly flailing and sending the floating objects smashing into the walls or floor.
On other days, Loki wanted nothing to do with magic lessons. He would scream and scratch himself, pitch himself onto the floor and crawl out the room. He enjoyed watching the effects of his own magic, but clearly hated being told what to do, even if it was worded as an encouraging suggestion.
Somewhat shockingly, he sought solace in Beast's literature class. Loki lay on the floor, listening to the students read aloud and discuss themes and character motivations. Loki mostly avoided looking at Beast, but watched him peacefully as Beast read a passage from Julius Caesar.
Thor beamed, and settled next to his brother. This progress might seem small to many, but it seemed huge that Loki could look at Beast and not attack him.
All the same, whenever Beast or Nightcrawler approached him, he continued to seem outrage at the idea of having to spend time around blue people. He always chased Kurt off whenever Kurt approached, but he sometimes tolerated Beast coming to read to him.
Nowadays, whenever Loki demanded that Thor read, Thor would make up a story involving courageous, intelligent blue characters riding noble steeds. Sometimes Loki screamed over Thor's story, since he knew it wasn't the story in the book.
Other times, Loki would listen with quiet acceptance. Thor made a point of selecting new books to make up stories for, though given how Loki focused on his favorites, it didn't always work.
One of Loki's new favorite books was a bird field guide that he'd picked up on a trip to the book store. He always sought to Clint to look at that book with him, and Clint made a point of saying how nice the bluejays looked.
Steve drew blue people, and encouraged Loki to use blue, even if he was scribbling over some of Steve's art.
Tony tried to send Loki on little missions to gather blue things, without much success. Loki usually strayed to mess with one object or another, and rarely brought anything back. But Tony considered it a success when Loki played with Bruce's blue yoga mat, or a blue button down shirt.
Professor X spent a lot of time talking with Loki about prejudice, whether it be against mutants or magic, or even Loki's own prejudice against blue beings. Loki never seemed to be paying attention, and Thor wasn't sure how much Loki really understood. Was the Professor somehow inserting the ideas into Loki's head?
Thor doubted it. Loki had been inconsolable the one time the Professor had linked with him telepathically.
Thor wished Loki would be more open to telepathic connections. He felt there was so much the Professor could tell them about what Loki understood, how to best teach him, what he was capable of learning.
It seemed like they were wasting a huge opportunity, having such a powerful mutant talk to Loki in the same way the rest of them did. But Loki was clearly determined to keep it that way.
Thor let the Professor communicate telepathically with him, enter his own head. He kept his face open and encouraging to show Loki that it was nothing to fear. Loki shouted as soon as the Professor looked toward him after.
After another half an hour of the Professor talking while Loki raided his bookshelf, Thor gathered Loki into his chair and pushed him out of the office. "I wish I could know what was on your mind, brother."
Still, he'd loved his brother for over a thousand years without the help of a telepath. Even if Loki never accepted the intrusion, even if Thor never knew for sure what Loki was thinking, it would not diminish his love in the slightest.
Clint may not have been the most organized person- Natasha frequently called him a human disaster, in a way that wouldn't seem affectionate to most- but in a tower with a sentient AI, who needed to keep track of their stuff?
So Clint wasn't all that concerned when one of his quivers went missing. He simply asked Jarvis where he'd placed it.
JARVIS reported that Loki had called it to him with magic, and was using it like a new cauldron.
"Did he make it roomier?" Clint asked, remembering how Loki had stuffed his cauldron full of items that should have been far too large to fit inside. Clint honestly thought that would be fantastic. A quiver with unlimited arrow capacity- even Tony couldn't design that.
Clint left Loki to it with his quiver, though he picked up the arrows scattered carelessly on the floor before Loki could set off the explosive models.
Loki dragged the quiver around, stocking it with long, thin items, many of which had points. Several of Steve's pencils found their way into the quiver, along with both pool cues. Loki got ahold of a fire poker from somewhere, and stole chopsticks as they munched on Chinese take-out.
"Are you arming me?" Clint asked, grinning. "You know, I think Stark's been slacking. So thanks, Loki."
Loki didn't present the quiver to Clint, didn't make a show of handing it over. He simply left it on the floor and crawled off somewhere else.
Clint, however, made a show of firing every single item in his quiver. And of course the amazing Hawkeye managed to shoot a pencil and chopsticks, and threw the pool cue and fire poker like javelins.
Loki laughed hysterically and snatched the pencil out of the air as it flew.
Tony really should have seen this coming, and was lucky he hadn't lost his head.
He'd heard Clint and Thor say that Loki made live chicks appear out of eggs; he'd seen the tower toaster literally eat bread, just as Clint had reported had happened at his secret safe house.
But this was like something out of a B-rated horror film.
One of Tony's Audis drove around the garage, its hood snapping open and shut like a crocodile's mouth. It chomped at other cars and chased poor Dum-E.
The car crashed into a workbench, scattering machinery and tools, eating several of them. Loki sat amidst the mayhem, laughing so hard he could hardly catch his breath.
Tony never expected to fight his own car, but Loki certainly had a gift in keeping them on their toes. Once the car was reduced to a smoldering wreck of scrap metal, courtesy of Iron Man's repulsors and lasers, Tony turned to Loki, who was sitting nonchalantly in the wreckage of the lab.
"I'm going to have to start wearing my suit whenever you're in here," Tony accused, without much heat.
Loki tugged on his own three-piece suit, looking entirely too innocent.
"Next you're going to be shooting your own energy blasts and shooting lasers out of your eyes," Tony muttered, and looked expectantly at Loki. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go ahead."
Loki had crawled over to the carcass of the car, pounding it with his fist. It did indeed look as if Thor had hammered it into submission.
Tony grinned, an idea forming in his head.
The next time they headed over to the mansion, Tony told Loki, conspiratorially "If you bring Scott or Logan's bikes to life, I'll buy you a whole bookstore."