I'm posting all 3 parts at the same time.
"Thank you." Loki bit back the grin that threatened to curl his lips as Thor shot up from his rumpled blankets and scanned the room looking rather alarmed. He knew that laughing now would not help their already fracturing...whatever this was. He managed to keep his amusement to himself. When Thor's eyes honed in on his location he saw them narrow and the big blonde folded his arms defensively over his chest. He looked less formidable in his cotton pajamas than he normally did. He didn't ask any questions just glared at him so Loki moved to the explanation part.
"This is a dream," Loki clarified, "only it's not really a dream, it's just taking place where dreams do. It's a way we can talk without anyone listening in." Meaning Jarvis. It wouldn't do for the machine to listen in to this conversation especially since he didn't want anyone or anything listening into this particular conversation.
"Thank you," Loki said again. Thor's glare only slightly lessened in ferocity. Loki had given Tony the impression that Thor had asked for 'Loki's' help.
There were some things he had planned to do but sadly hadn't gotten around to it as he was barely able to put himself back together on time. One of those was telling Thor about the deception he had sprung. Thankfully from what he had gathered after waking much later with a raging headache was that when Tony had asked Thor about it Thor had at least eventually apparently figured out what Loki had been going for and had gone along with it. That was what he was thanking him for, if Thor hadn't caught on or hadn't gone along with it then everything would have been ruined. Though he could see by Thor's expression that the blond wasn't happy about it. Thor had never been very comfortable with lying, strangely enough, lying had never really bothered him before as long as he could come up with a good reason for it. He was going to have to give Thor something, something that would make up for everything. Unfortunately something physical wasn't likely to cut it. Loki swallowed harshly as he really didn't want to do this, he hated things like this and that he was even willing to think about it, let alone bring it up, he swallowed down the bad taste in his mouth and focused on the blond who was making his way out of bed to stand on the hardwood floors of the bedroom.
He had never been in Thor's room, or rather Thor's dream projection of the room. That wasn't really important he was just putting off doing what he had come to do, Thor's eyes were narrowing more and the longer he stood there the more suspicious he was becoming.
"It's hard," he finally blurted out, and now the anger in Thor's eyes was joined with confusion as his statement required elaboration.
"Sometimes," he qualified his statement even though he still hadn't said anything that Thor could understand. Thor looked even more confused. Loki sighed not entirely sure why he was putting himself through this.
"Loki-"
"Please don't speak, this is hard enough as it is." Some of the anger flared back into Thor's eyes but Loki paid it little attention.
"It's hard," he repeated, barely noticing that he had started to pace up and down on the hardwood floor. "We've known each other for a long time."
Thor lifted his eyebrows at that statement but stayed miraculously silent. Loki didn't really know how to continue speaking, it was a rare feeling indeed, what with his nickname of Silver Tongue.
"Over a thousand years," he added wincing as he remembered again what it was that differentiated the two of them. It was the reason why he didn't want to talk about it. It had been years since he had found out but it still hurt whenever he thought about it.
"It's-" he said before cutting himself off abruptly and looking down at the wood floor. He couldn't say it; he would have to say something else, something honest that would hopefully be enough.
"It's not that I don't want to be around you." Although sometimes his presence during holiday seasons made it more difficult. "It's just sometimes I can't look at you without remembering…" Loki trailed off not sure if he could go any further into that but at the same time not sure if he had said enough. "Our pasts are so intertwined and-"
"Loki it's okay." Thor interrupted and Loki looked up to see the blond's eyes were watering. Loki felt his own eyes sting before he put a stop to it.
"I can't say I understand everything you do, but I'm not angry anymore. I know you work a lot, I don't know why you feel like you have to do it alone but I'm sure that you know. I know that this is a slow process for you and I know sometimes I might want to go faster than you're comfortable with. I don't need to see you every holiday; I just need to know that it means something to you."
"Of course, it means something to me," Loki said automatically then blinked as he realized what he said, aloud, to Thor.
Thor blinked as well but then smiled broadly.
"That's all I needed to know."
Tony moved the video back again to the start again, staring at the screen as he watched it happen for the tenth time. It hadn't changed since the last time he had watched it, no matter how much he wished that it would. He put it back again and watched the bright green flash which signified when Loki had taken out the cameras in the entire building. The cameras had only been down for a few seconds, during which the camera lens was engulfed in a green glowing flash across the screen right before the appearance of Loki. The first thing he did as soon as he appeared on camera was slam his metal staff roughly into Rob's head. This was the part he kept watching over and over again.
Loki grimaced as he hit Rob. It wasn't the kind of grimace one might have if they were exerting energy to hit someone hard like he had thought might be the case the first couple of times around. The grimace on his face was more like a hint of regret. There was something so wrong about that look on Loki's face when he was hitting Rob. Loki was a psychopath who didn't care about anyone but him and Thor. Why would Loki have that expression on his face while hitting Rob? Why did Thor seem so clueless when he had first asked The Thunderer about contacting Loki. For a moment Thor had seemed like he had no idea what he was talking about. Of course moments later the confusion was gone making him wonder whether or not it had ever really been there in the first place.
There was something buried just beyond the surface and he knew that all he had to do was scratch at it a little bit to get the whole thing to unravel. The only problem was the sick feeling in his stomach that told him he didn't want to know the truth, he didn't want to know the reason. He paused the video, this time on Loki's expression. His grimace, the reason was in his grasp...only he didn't want it. It was rare for Tony to know something was off and to want to leave it alone. He loved a good mystery and really any puzzle that took his mind a bit of figuring out. It's what made him a good scientist; wanting to make the unknown known. This was not like him, this reticence...yet he didn't want to unravel this mystery, at least not right now.
"Jarvis close the program."
