Chapter 12 - Runaways

Loki laid on his side, watching the colorful blobs of paraffin wax in the lava lamp by his bed sink to the base of the lamp, where the bulb inside the lamp heated them, causing them to expand and become less dense than the liquid they floated in, which made them float back to the top. When the lamp had first been delivered, he had gotten an entire science lesson on how it worked from Bruce. ("So, in other words, it works by means of your primitive mortal magic," Loki had said when Bruce had finished, just because he knew it would drive the man insane.)

Perhaps he should have taken Doctor Samson up on his offer of the mortals' version of a sleeping draught. It was an offer he rarely made; according to him, psychiatric medication ought to be a last resort when it came to "adolescents," which was why Loki never took anything other than the occasional mild sedative and was not allowed to self-administer it. He had certainly never been forced to take any substance against his will. Accusing the man of wanting to "drug him into submission" when he had only been trying to help had been unfair, and he had only upset Bruce again.

Loki got out of bed, and JARVIS turned the lights in his room up for him without being asked. He took the little plastic Iron Man helmet piggy bank from his bedside table, pulled the plug out of it, and dumped the change inside onto his bed. He counted out a dollar in quarters, then counted out four more, just for good measure. Coins in hand, he padded through the darkened common room into the kitchen, where he deposited them into the jar on the kitchen counter, the label of which proclaimed it to be the "Avenger's Swear Jar: Proceeds Go to the Maria Stark Foundation." It wasn't intended to prevent anyone from swearing; it was just an extremely effective way of raising funds for the portion of Manhattan that had been affected by the Chitauri invasion. The cause was a good one, so if anything, everyone swore a little more than they did before.

Loki dumped his coins into the jar. "Fiku min," he said aloud, then repeated it three more times. Before he could say it a fifth time, he sensed that he was no longer in the room alone. He looked up and saw the two Sokovian children Tony had brought home on the way to the elevator. "Kien vi iras?" Loki called out to them. When they turned, blinking at him in confusion, he realized that they probably didn't speak Esperanto, even though it was their realm's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. "Where are you going?" he called out to them in AllSpeak.

"We are leaving," Wanda answered in English. "We do not have a reason to stay."

"I thought you were here to exact revenge on my guardian, Miss Maximoff. Would that not be easier if you stayed?"

"He has a point," said her brother. "I know—we could stay here, and I can eat all of his food. Eventually, he will starve to death."

Wanda rolled her eyes at him. "You just want to stay so you can eat."

"Having enough to eat for once is nice," Pietro admitted. "Do we really have to leave now?"

"These people are not our friends, Pietro, and Tony Stark is not—" She stopped there, biting her lip, then reached out, her hand hovering in front of the call button for the elevator.

"If you're going to run away, can I come?" asked Loki.

Wanda narrowed her eyes at him. "Why would you want to come?"

"Because everyone around here has been taking me for granted lately. You saw how cruel everyone was to me at dinner." Loki didn't truly want to leave, but JARVIS wouldn't let them out of the building anyway. Still, trying to escape would be more fun than staring at density-changing blobs of wax all night, and he doubted he'd be able to sleep if he went back to bed.

The adventure was sure to end with a scolding from Tony, but it wasn't as if he didn't have one coming. He'd been a little disappointed when he hadn't received so much as a good ticking off after he'd been horrible to Doctor Samson and upset Bruce. Instead, Tony had just told him to go to bed again, and this time he'd gone. Later, Tony had come by his room to check on him as he always did. But he hadn't said anything about what had happened. He had only asked Loki if he were okay, to which he had lied and said yes. What was he supposed to say? "No, I'm not okay, Tony. I'm upset with myself for being horrible to Doctor Samson and upsetting Bruce again." He couldn't imagine coming out and saying something like that; and besides, that wouldn't get him what he needed and deserved, which was for everyone else to be as upset with him as he was.

Loki congratulated himself on how self-aware he had become.

In a flash, Pietro closed the space between himself and the kitchen. He stopped in front of Loki and took his hands in his own. "You are more than welcome to come with us, my little pierogi." Then he dropped Loki's hands, opened the refrigerator door, and began rummaging around in it.

"Pietro, what are you doing?" called an exasperated Wanda.

"Snacks for the road," Pietro called back as he grabbed several containers of leftovers from dinner. That there had been anything left between Steve, Thor, and this new bottomless pit named Pietro surprised Loki, but then, JARVIS had ordered at least three family sized portions of everything on the menu. Balancing a stack of containers in his arms, Pietro returned to the elevator to wait with his sister, and Loki followed him.

Wanda looked Loki up and down. "I suppose we could bring you along as a hostage."

Loki considered her in turn as he hit the button for the elevator for her. "I like the way you think, Miss Maximoff."

The elevator door opened, and Wanda, Pietro, and Loki found themselves standing face to face with a still exhausted-looking Bruce. Bruce's hair had started turning to silver recently, and it might have been his imagination, but there seemed to be more of it now than there had been before they'd left for Latveria. Well, this escape attempt has been foiled in record time, thought Loki. Then he noticed that he had the same duffel bag he had taken to Latveria with him.

Bruce blinked at each of them in turn. "What are you kids doing up?"

Wanda and Pietro just stared at each other as if they weren't sure what to say. Loki spoke for the three of them. "Wanda says she has no reason to stay here. Pietro is reluctantly following her, though clearly he would prefer to stay here and eat Tony out of tower and home. I've been invited along as their hostage, and I thought, 'Why not? It's been a while since I've attempted an escape.' But perhaps we could all just join in yours?"

"I uh, I was just—" Bruce stammered. Then the lights turned on, and all of them looked towards the door to the stairway, which had just opened.

Tony strolled towards them casually, his hands in the pocket of his robe. "Alright, everyone take a seat in the living room. I've asked JARVIS not to move the elevator from this floor, and to lock down the stairwells for anyone who isn't authorized to be on them, which includes anyone who was about to make a break for it. You're included in that, Brucie."

"Oh my, are we all in trouble?" Loki couldn't keep himself from smiling.

Tony arched an eyebrow at him. "How much more trouble do you need to be in? You're already grounded."

Loki sat on the couch next to Pietro. Wanda slumped into the spot on Pietro's other side, and Bruce perched on the edge of one of the chairs next to the couch.

Tony took the place across from Bruce. "Bruce, you might as well sit back and plan on being here for a while. Like I said, you're not going anywhere."

"You can't prevent me from leaving," Bruce told him. "I'm not one of the kids."

"I know I can't if that's what you really want, but right now, I don't think it is. You're just tired and freaked out, which is understandable. But sneaking out in the middle of the night without telling us?" Tony shook his head. "Not cool, Bruce. That's just super inconsiderate. If you were one of the kids, I'd do something about it myself, but since you're not, I'll just have to leave it to your boyfriend to punish you. JARVIS, could you wake up Doc and tell him to come down here?"

Bruce made a sound that was something between a strangled cat and a wheezing duck. "You knew about me and Leonard?"

"Of course I knew. First of all, I know no one's been sleeping in Doc's room since the middle of the summer, because it's the one occupied room in the tower where the air conditioner didn't get turned up at night. Then, when we were in Malibu, you guys made sure to pick rooms that were next to each other and had an adjoining balcony. Guess what? The air didn't get turned up in Doc's room all week. Earlier tonight, the guy ran up to you and had to stop himself from giving you a big smooch in front of everyone. Besides, do you really think Pepper wouldn't have figured it out, or that she could have known a secret that big for that long without me wheedling it out of her?"

Bruce slumped into his chair, defeated. "I'm just surprised you didn't say anything, if you knew."

"Hey, I didn't want to ruin your fun, sneaking around like a couple of teenagers. Onto the actual teenagers—" He turned to Wanda and Pietro. "As for you two, you're not in too much trouble, since you haven't even been here long enough for us to go over the rules. Loki, can you tell Wanda and Pietro what the rules here are?"

"Treat other people with respect, and also respect their privacy and possessions," Loki recited. "No threats of violence, no actual violence, and no trying to run away. Which is pointless anyway, because JARVIS will tell on you, and if you manage to get to the lobby, all the doors will be locked."

Wanda's nostrils flared and something flashed behind her eyes. If looks could kill, Loki would have been paying his daughter a visit that night. Then again, Loki could sense the chaos magic roiling just below Wanda's skin. Possibly, the girl could kill him with a twitch of her nose. He wondered what held her back.

"That's about it," said Tony. "Now, how many of those rules have you broken since dinner?"

"I was disrespectful to Bruce and to Doctor Samson, I threatened you with violence, and I just tried to run away—so three, at least." Loki couldn't stop himself from grinning. He just loved having the correct answers to Tony's questions. Odin's questions never seemed to have correct answers.

Tony tried to give him a stern look, but Loki could tell from the way the edge of his lips quirked up that he was at least somewhat amused by his behavior. "You understand that's not something to be proud of, right?"

"I'm not proud of it. I'm just owning my actions."

"Uh-huh. I'm not sure you understand what that means, but we'll talk about it later."

The door to the stairwell opened again, and Doctor Samson stepped out, wearing a robe and pajamas, his hair still mussed up from sleep. When Bruce saw him, he seemed to become fascinated with his own hands. A moment later, the man hovered over him, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Bruce, I don't think I even need to tell you how disappointed I am."

Bruce cringed, and Loki felt such sympathy for him that he felt compelled to create a distraction. "Doctor Samson, I am sorry I accused you of trying to 'drug me into submission.' I did it because I was tired and in a foul mood, like everyone accused me of being. I know I've no right to ask, but could I have that 'something to help me sleep' now?"

As Loki had intended, Samson turned his attention to him, his brow furrowed in concern. "Loki, I would never punish you by withholding treatment. I just assumed you didn't want it, and I wasn't going to force it on you."

"Kid, everyone knew you didn't mean what you said to Doc," Tony told him. "Is that what you've been stressing out about?"

"I suppose I found it unsettling when no one brought it up," Loki said, biting his lip and sniffling a little for the effect. "Perhaps it is because when we were in the mountains, Thor suggested you hadn't been strict enough with me lately. That made me think; you have been neglectful when it comes to correcting my behavior of late, and perhaps that is because you've stopped caring. Then, we return to the tower to find that you are in the process of replacing me." He made his breaths shallow and tried not to blink. Usually, if you just stopped blinking for about thirty seconds, your eyes would tear up naturally.

"Replacing you? What are you talking about?"

"Them," he said, nodding towards Pietro and Wanda. "It is clear you intend to keep them here."

"That doesn't have anything to do with—I'm not—come on, you know I'm not 'replacing you.' You can't be that insecure."

"Can't I? My biological parents left me as an infant to die from the elements, and the man I thought was my father cast me out. What reason have I to doubt that you might tire of me as well?" Loki screwed his eyes shut and bit his own tongue, hoping it would bring a few of the tears that eluded him.

"Come on, kid. I've told you every night since that trip to Malibu back in the summer that I love you."

That was true, he had. Every night, including earlier that night, Tony had come to his room to check on him, and when he left, he always said something to the effect of, "Good night kid; I love you, okay?" He'd repeated it so many times now that Loki had stopped noticing it. Loki was so shocked by the revelation that he forgot to keep hyperventilating.

Tony noticed. "Kid, have you been trying to fake cry?"

Loki shook his head, nodded, and then shook his head again. He made himself sniffle again and bit the inside of his cheek, but all that did was make him wince. Perhaps he wasn't hydrated enough.

Tony leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "You know kid, sometimes I think you might be more screwed up than me, and that's saying something."

"I think it would be a good idea for everyone here to go back to bed. Loki, I'm going to bring you a sleep aid, but I want you in my office at—" Doctor Samson looked down at his watch, then looked back at him, "—let's say eleven AM tomorrow. Maybe we'll try art therapy again."

"Can't we just play with the puppets instead?" Loki didn't mind "art therapy;" drawing random things and watching Doctor Samson try to interpret the images he chose as if they were a window into his psyche never failed to amuse him. The last time, he had drawn a purple hippopotamus with green polka dots having a tea party with a blue flamingo just to see what he would make of it. But as a natural born storyteller, working with the puppets gave Loki a true creative outlet.

"We'll see." The man turned back to Bruce; of course, keeping him from fixating on him forever would have been impossible. "Bruce, tomorrow we're getting your prescription filled, and as soon as possible, I want you to make another appointment with Doctor Sofen." The look he gave his lover didn't brook any argument.

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"You didn't have any intention of running away again, did you?"

Loki moved over to make room for Tony to sit next to him. "I knew JARVIS wouldn't let us leave the tower."

Tony blew out the breath he must have been holding as he collapsed onto the edge of the bed. "Kid, what am I going to do with you? I get the feeling that a lot of the things you do are just for the sake of getting attention. And that kind of makes me think that the best thing I could do would be to ignore your attention seeking behaviors, but I'm a little worried that ignoring you might actually kill you."

Loki nodded solemnly in agreement.

"Look, if it isn't too big an ask, could you just try to set a good example for Helter and Skelter? When you think about it, it's like you're a big brother now."

Loki wasn't sure how he felt about that. He supposed it might be nice to not be the younger sibling this time around, but he had been enjoying life as an only child. He had never been good at sharing, and he definitely wasn't sure how he felt about sharing Tony. "You are keeping them, then."

"I can't exactly throw them out on the street, can I?"

Loki resisted the urge to say yes, and to point out that as they spoke, there were approximately two and a half million children living on the streets in the United States alone. Tony couldn't possibly adopt all of them. "Only you would want to adopt someone who tried to kill you," he said instead.

"They keep saying they want to kill me, but so far, they haven't tried anything."

"I wasn't necessarily talking about them."

"You weren't yourself."

"Perhaps I was more myself than you think. I nearly broke your nose just the other day, remember?" They had never spoken about it afterward. Now that he thought of it, maybe that was why he had done everything he could since then to make everyone upset with him.

"You didn't mean to," said Tony, pulling him into a hug with his chin digging into the top of Loki's head, which was a little awkward, both because of Tony's sling and because Loki was a little tall to fit against him comfortably. Still, it was nice, and even though Loki didn't feel like he deserved nice, he couldn't bring himself to pull away. "You didn't even mean to hit me in the nose so much as my nose hit your forehead."

"Because I was trying to dislocate your arm."

"I made you feel threatened," Tony countered.

"That isn't an excuse for my behavior." Loki remembered what Bruce had said: "I'd apologize, but I'm not sure there's a way I can apologize for something like this." If Bruce thought he couldn't be forgiven for hurting Natasha when he hadn't been himself, how could he expect to be forgiven for what he had done to Tony?

"Look, maybe you need to work on developing coping strategies that don't involve violence, but I honestly don't think you couldhurt someone and mean it. You're not a bad kid, Lokes. If you were, you wouldn't be this worried about it."

"If I'm not bad, why did Bruce ground me?"

"Because there's a difference between being a bad person and doing things that you were told not to for safety reasons, dumbass." Tony eased out of the hug but kept his good arm thrown around Loki's shoulders as they both leaned back against his headboard. "So back to that, you have been breaking a lot of rules lately, andI wouldn't want to make you feel insecure by not being strict enough. So tell me, Lokes, what do you thinkI should do?"

For a moment, Loki thought it had been a rhetorical question, but then he realized that Tony was waiting for an answer. "You aren't going to make me choose my own punishment, are you? Because that's always horrible. If you make me do that, I'll pick something worse than you would."

Tony smirked at him. "I'm pretty sure that's the point of the whole 'choose your own punishment' scheme."

"Very well; in that case, I request that you beat me."

That wiped the smug expression from the man's face. "Kid, you know I'm not going to hit you for any reason—you do know that, right?"

Loki did know that, otherwise he wouldn't have suggested it. "I suppose you could trap me inside a tree until someone sheds a tear for me, or until the end of time, whichever comes first."

"Not something I'm really capable of doing." Tony's eyebrows furrowed together. "Please tell me that's not something Odin did to you."

"He's threatened it. I never wanted to find out if he was serious. But if you want to treat me as Odin would have, I suppose you could always lock me in the basement of the tower for several months and forbid my own mother from visiting me or sit back and watch as a couple of dwarves attempt to hold me down and sew my lips together."

"Whoa, hold on. The thing with the dwarves actually happened?" Tony grabbed Loki's chin with his good hand, tilting his face up towards him.

Loki wasn't sure what he was doing at first, but then he realized that he was looking for scars he wouldn't find. "Luckily, Thor was there, and he was having one of his rare moments of being a good elder brother. Or maybe he just felt like beating up a couple of dwarves and I happened to be under them. I can't be entirely sure."

Tony let go of him, but he still didn't look happy. The idea that Odin would have allowed him to be mutilated must have disturbed him, even if it hadn't happened. "Okay, you win. You don't have to choose your own punishment, because obviously you lack a safe and sane reference point. How long did Bruce ground you for anyway?"

"He never said."

"Let's just make it a week then, which is probably less than you deserve for—what was it you did?"

"Provoked an insane dictator after Natasha told me not to."

Tony's eyebrows climbed towards his hairline. "Right, I should have asked that question first, because a week is definitely less than you deserve for that. You're not leaving the tower for anything more fun than a dental appointment. And for all the other rules you've ignored lately, you're going to go to bed every night at nine."

Loki had always hated having a bedtime as a child in the palace nursery, and he didn't want one now. "Are you sure you couldn't just beat me?"

Tony's smirk returned. "I could have said eight-thirty. Also, we can negotiate the time after your punishment is over, but I've been thinking that you need a regular bedtime anyway."

"Surely, you jest."

"Jesteth I do not, oh ward of mine. I've already talked about it with Doc. He thinks going to bed at the same time every night might help you sleep better, and since you haven't been able to do that on your own—"

Loki might have argued that point, but the door to his room opened and Doctor Samson stepped inside.

"I truly am sorry for how I behaved earlier," Loki said, resisting the urge to call the man out as a traitor instead. He couldn't entirely suppress the urge to give him a dirty look, which might have been confusing for the man had he not seemed too distracted to notice.

"It's okay," said Samson, clearly forcing himself to smile as he handed Loki a small cup containing a single bright yellow tablet.

"You don't seem okay. Do you want to talk about it, Leonard?"

"Thanks, but if I need to talk about anything, I'll talk about it with my psychiatrist. Also, I've asked you before not to call me by my first name. I think it's important that we maintain a professional relationship."

"Even though everyone else calls you by your first name, and even though you're dating one of my parental figures?"

"I'm sorry, Loki, I know it must be a little strange for you—"

"I've known."

"Seriously? Did everyone know?"

Loki popped the yellow tablet under his tongue and settled into his pillows.

...φ(ｰ￣*)

Author's Note:

That's right, Loki speaks Esperanto now. He learned it when it was developed in the late 1800's and was a little disappointed when it didn't become the universal language of Midgard.

Next week: puppet therapy with Alligator Loki, Thorin the Goat, Natia the Spider, Brutis the Bunny, and Bob.