Lima to Stockholm
Chapter Eight: Peer Pressure
Loki stood in Odin's study between the Loptr-clone and the clone of his normal form that he used as a placeholder whenever he needed to leave the royal apartments as he tried to decide who he wanted to be for the upcoming magic lesson. After several minutes he held out his hand to Loptr. The younger of the clones gave him a dirty look but obediently matched Loki's hand with his own.
Loki felt a swirling vortex of memories as the clone's recent experiences swept through him. He felt it reach for his childhood memories, wanting greater depth to it's existence. Loki resisted the clone's digging for a moment then got caught up in Tony's empathetic response to learning of Frigga's death and the clone took what it wanted. When the magic settled Loki, Loptr stretched adjusting to his smaller frame and the heightened intensity of his emotions.
Loptr poked his head out into the garden to check that Tony wasn't around then nodded to his older counterpart. While the Loki-clone headed back to the library, Loptr ducked into Tony's room.
"Harry Potter, you're just in time!" Tony exclaimed holding up a small box and dish arrangement. "I need my favorite wizard to do a little magic for me."
Loptr grinned. "What does it do?" he asked pointing to the box.
"With any luck it'll let me screw with magic for a change," Tony replied grinning, "Not to slight you but I want to give sorcerers as much reason to hate science as I hate magic."
"Okay…" Loptr eyed the box with new wariness. "What do I do?"
"Just cast a spell," Tony said. "Something small would probably be better… On and come over here. The range on this thing is crap."
A mischievous light entered Loptr's eyes as he formed a ball of magic between his hands. Tony pointed the dish at him and suddenly the well ordered ball of power became a bag of snakes. The magic wrested itself from Loptr's control in a blast of uncontrolled power that slammed the boy into the wall behind him.
"Loptr!" Loki heard Tony shout but it was all he could do to hold on his child-form. In a blurry haze he sensed Tony dropping to his knees behind him and felt cautious hands palpating the back of his head searching for blood or swelling. "Loki! Get your ass in here!" Tony exclaimed. "Come on kid, be okay. Damn it, damn it, that wasn't supposed to happen."
Loki sighed in relief as his magic stabilized without reverting him to his adult form. He blinked blearily up at Tony and smiled, "For science?" he asked repeating one of the engineer's favorite justifications when he nearly blew himself up.
"It looks a lot worse from this angle," Tony muttered. He steadied Loptr as the boy sat up. "Maybe you should just stay still until someone who knows more about first aid than me has looked at you."
"Asgardians are sturdier than you Midgardians," the Loki-clone announced dismissively as he joined them. "He's fine."
"You could at least check him," Tony snapped.
Loki and Loptr shared a look, "I'd do him no favors by coddling him," Loki said his thoughts straying to Frigga.
"Since when is it 'coddling' someone to check and make sure they're not hurt after some idiot blasts them halfway through a wall?" Tony demanded angrily.
"He'd get as bad in the martial arts training required of every highborn Asir boy. If he tries to use his magic his instructors will take it upon themselves to correct him," Loki sneered. To make matters worse all the weapons he'd shown real talent with were lighter ones, Loki recalled, daggers more befitting a woman or a peasant's spear suited his speed and his relatively light build where heavier weapons only handicapped him against larger fighters like Thor or Volstagg. Sif had spent long, brutal hours training to master the sword she'd inherited when her father died without a male heir but Loki had his magic studies to keep up with. Fandral had employed a less laborious method of sparing himself mockery, whenever anyone made a derogatory mention of the light sword that he handled so well he simply made a comment about how at least he didn't need magic to keep up with the real warriors and then he'd stood back as his detractors turned their attention to Loki.
Tony's mouth thinned, he wrapped an arm around Loptr's shoulders. "Your dad decided getting involved would be coddling you, and your mom went along with it," he said, recognizing that Loki was speaking from personal experience. A stray thought crossed Tony's mind, 'Howard would have done something if I'd ever been physically attacked by one of my teachers instead of just my classmates.' Although the grades Tony had skipped meant his bullies had technically been adults by the time he'd gotten to college while he'd still been a child. Rhodey had used that, the potential legal consequences of anyone over eighteen laying a hand on Tony, to derail more than one confrontation after befriending Tony in college.
"Odin was king, Loki said. "He said much by saying nothing at all. He did not forbid me from fighting with my magic. And he did not forbid my instructors for attempting to beat it out of me."
"What about Thor?"
Loki laughed, "Thor begged me to concede. He said I was only harming myself with my stubbornness. He said that I would be accepted if only I would do things the right way, no matter how ill-suited I was to Asgard's definition of the right and proper way of being."
"So what did you do?" Tony asked.
"I fought with the weapons that suited me, I fought with magic. I continued even when they called me a coward, when they called it base trickery. My instructors said I was useless and pitiful and proved it to the other trainees by forcing me to my knees over and over again every time I dared to bring my magic into the arena. In that way they demonstrated Asgard's superiority of force of arms over those like the elves who cravenly use magic to fight. But I didn't quit. I kept fighting my way until our instructors couldn't beat me anymore." Loki smiled, his expression brittle and false. "Once they couldn't defeat me their insults became the jealous braying of powerless fools. I took the hand of the last of my instructors who dared try to say that magic had no place among the warriors of Asgard and then it was him who had no place. I won, therefore I was right but they didn't forgive me for playing their game better than they could."
"I hate Asgard," Tony said quietly. "I've always held on to the belief that society would evolve along with our tech. That we'd get over that sort of idiocy. You're living proof that no matter how advanced a society becomes there's still room for prejudice… Hell, you're proof that we'll never even get over the whole jocks versus nerds thing."
"I'll still take this over life under Thanos' thumb," Loki said.
Tony absently drummed his fingers against the spot where the Arc Reactor had been as he paged through screens of notes he'd assembled about the Vanir's evolution as they'd turned their tech to enhancing themselves.
It hadn't just been an innate ability to effect magic fields that they'd sought, it had been healing, strength and longevity. If the histories could be believed the increase in strength had been an unplanned side-effect. The genetic alterations found in the earliest records reminded Tony of a slightly less ambitious version of Extremis and Tony had stabilized Extremis by dialing it back considerably. But over several generations the changes built on themselves and had transformed the Vanir from a healthier, hardier individual into something more comparable with a super soldier. "Us humans and our need for instant gratification," Tony muttered to himself thinking of Bruce and all the others who had suffered in attempts to recreate the experiment that had created Captain America.
"Wish I knew how they got away from thinking of it as a weapon," Tony said. He'd actually had his doubts about the history's claim that the Vanir enhancement program had only been meant as a means to improve the quality of life. In Tony's experience for every Bruce Banner or Maya Hansen who looked at the serum and saw advancements in health care there was a General Ross or Aldrich Killian waiting in the wings to weaponize it. Tony knew exactly how much easier it was to get military funding, get good at making night vision for military applications then once you could make them cheaply suggest that it might be useful avoiding deer while driving at night too.
Still the broad distribution and multi-generational timeline claimed by the Vanir histories was backed-up independent evidence that the entire population had been enhanced by the time the Bifrost connected Vanaheim and Asgard. That spoke against the Vanir enhancing their population as a tool of war. An arms race was always about having better weapons than the other guy so you play your cards close to your chest, which wasn't really a possibility when every last teenaged Romeo in the population could hand over your research to the other side.
From what Tony had seen Asgard was nothing if not a warrior society, it seemed like their development of enhanced people paralleled Vanaheim's so how did they NOT focus on its applicability as a weapon? How did they decide to enhance the entire population, maintain a level playing field, instead of scraping tooth and nail for an advantage? Tony just couldn't figure out what he was missing.
He could fill in the holes in their technological records because of Extremis, because he'd shared a lab with Bruce Banner and reviewed Helen Cho's work since he was funding it. He'd seen Steve Roger's DNA work-up because Steve allowed Bruce to take a blood sample in hopes of helping Bruce to stabilize his own condition. Tony lived in the heart of Earth's cutting edge work in the field of human enhancement, all he needed was the sketchiest of outlines to understand what Vanaheim had been up to so long ago, but the societal drivers remained a mystery which was only deepened by his own ability to see the potential for weaponizing any technology almost without trying.
"And how did a patriarchal society end up engineering an ability like magic and then putting it solely in the hands of their women?"
The oddly domestic, oddly coherent dreams continued and as the months passed Tony found himself dreading sleep less. There were still the nights that were haunted by his parents' brutal murder but those dreams were tapering off and there was always the chance that sleep would mean watching his and Pepper's imaginary daughter growing older.
Nettie was turning into a toddler and he dreamed of teaching her to use tools while Pepper sat on the couch in his lab with a stack of her ever present paperwork. Harley and the Spider-kid wandered in and out of his dreams, usually on opposite sides of the country but sometimes together. He saw their progress in fixing Rhodey's legs and it was frustrating that he couldn't reach out and point them in the right direction but they were finding their own way.
In Malibu Harley's sister hung around in the background teaching FRIDAY strategy games and playing with the 'bots. Tony wished he'd paid more attention to her because people who saw his AI's as thinking individuals were few and far between Occasionally he caught glimpses of Happy making goo-goo eyes at Harley's mom.
In New York FRIDAY's boyfriend was becoming a regular presence in the Tower's upper levels. Amadeus Cho was smart and smart-mouthed and way too much like Tony as a teenager in Tony's opinion because clearly the universe hated him. Even if it was all some bizarre flight of fancy, Tony was still pleased to note Vision's habit watching the boyfriend suspiciously.
"What I can't figure out is why Loptr doesn't show up in the dreams," Tony said idly to Loki one evening. "I keep thinking he ought to be there."
"Why would he be part of your dreams of Midgard?" Loki asked, startled.
"It's not Earth I'm dreaming about."
Tony watched as Loki and Loptr practiced casting illusions, scanning them with the instruments he'd built to detect magic. The two of them were playing an elaborate game of hide and seek where the hider would fill Tony's workshop with illusionary people and objects while the seeker would try to determine which one was actually the other in disguise, preferably without brute force disillusionment spells.
Loki's illusionary people wandered about the room and conversed with each other naturally, giving him the ability to slip from one disguise to another without being detected, unlike Loptr. Loptr's people had a stiff, static quality to them, a uniformity of features and lack of spontaneity that gave him away.
Tony looked up from his readings and surreptitiously caught Loptr's eye. He nodded toward an older woman who hobbled about using a cane, glaring ferociously at any of the other illusions who crossed her path. Loptr grinned, he wandered idly about the room inspecting the various illusions while sidling up to the one Tony had indicated. Then he turned and suddenly lunged at the woman, shattering the illusion with his touch. Loki tumbled to the ground and ended up with Loptr sitting on his chest. Both Tony and the boy laughing.
"Hmpf," Loki sniffed as he rolled to pin Loptr and cast a ball of magical energy in Tony's direction.
Tony threw up an arm and the energy exploded as it struck his gauntlet. Most of the force was channeled back toward Loki but Tony still stumbled back a step, it had the kick of a bazooka.
Loki lowered his guard and let Loptr scramble away. "Impressive," he told Tony as he rolled to his feet.
Tony smiled, "Since I met you I have hated magic, now it's your turn to play catch up. It's your turn to try to figure out how it's possible that I'm doing what I do."
"That is nothing new," Loki said. "The only difference is that you're doing it intentionally. I still don't know how you blocked the Mind Stone's power but, perhaps, now you do? If we can harness that then there is hope for the universe."
"I'm getting close, it wasn't what I built the Arc Reactor to do, but it distorts magic-fields," Tony said. "If you'd been a few years earlier… Well, Palladium doesn't have the same effect. How many of these stones does Thanos have anyway?"
"There are six Infinity Stones in all of existence. When I fell into Thanos' clutches he had two Stone, the Soul Stone and the Mind Stone. I took the Mind Stone with me when I defected from Thanos' service and you eventually gave it a home in your Vision. The Tesseract is the third, the Space Stone. It has remained in the vaults of Asgard since Thor brought it back to us. Five years ago, during the Convergence a fourth Stone appeared, the Reality Stone or the Aether. After I was revived I convinced Odin to send it far from Thanos' reach. Evidence of the Power Stone's use has been seen in a distant area of space, although closer to the place where I hid the Aether than I would like. A year ago similar evidence placed the Time Stone on Earth. If Thanos gains any more of the Stone it could spell disaster for all life," Loki declared. "First we must prevent him from acquiring any more of the Stones.
"I believe Thanos' personal power to be greater than the power of any single Infinity Stone and the Soul Stone vastly amplifies his abilities. If we hope to defeat him, we must nullify the power of the Soul Stone. The Tesseract, the Scepter and the Hamingja are all ancient devices, deriving from a time before the rise of Asgard. We were able to contain the Aether once it was removed from Malekith but you are the only person in the memory of my culture to build a new means of accessing the Stones' power: Vision. Beyond that you nullified the Mind Stone's power, if anyone can find the means of robbing Thanos of the Soul Stone's power it is you, Tony Stark."
Tony grimaced, "Way to pile the pressure on."
"Once we've stymied Thanos' efforts to gain more of the Stones, fought our way past his armies and defeated the Soul Stone's power, all that will be left for us to accomplish is killing Thanos himself… His rise to power was legendary in Buri's time and his immortality is more than mere rumor." Loki smiled the broad, insane grin that Tony remembered from the Battle of Manhattan, "And you thought my plan to conquer Earth was an exercise in futility. But this time I promise you that I do not lack for conviction."
"Joy," Tony muttered. "It wouldn't be any fun if it wasn't impossible right?"
Several nights later Tony interrupted Loki's reading of the Vanaheim histories by breaking into laughter. "What is so amusing?" Loki asked.
"Just… I can't wait to tell Loptr," Tony started snickering again.
"I demand you tell me," Loki said sounding more like a pouting child than someone who'd once tried to conquer the Earth.
"Your society says guys who can use magic are freaks?" Tony said grinning. "Can we say karmic retribution leading to jealous denial?"
Loki skimmed back over what he'd read then turned to Tony for enlightenment. While All-speak rendered the words of the ancient text familiar to him there were too many lost concepts that the author had presumed his audience would be familiar with that which Loki feeling like he was the one reading in a foreign language rather than the translator.
"I've been puzzling over it for ages," Tony continued. "Given Asgard's dark age notions around gender and the fact that magic is an engineered ability not a natural one why do women have it and not men? Answer: Someone fucked up. According to what you just read, back when your Mom's ancestors were tinkering with their genetics, they MEANT for guys to be the ones who got magic."
"Where does it say that?" Loki demanded.
Tony waved off Loki's confusion. "There's this whole set of genetic disorders on my planet that almost only affect guys, X-linked recessive inheritance. Guys only have one X-Chromosome so they only need one bad gene for the disease to show up but women have two so if either of their X-Chromosomes are good then they'll just be a carrier," he explained. "That's what the ancient Vanir were using as their template when they were inserting the ability to manipulate magic fields into your genes. But the joke's on them because magic isn't a simple genetic trait and it actually takes an interaction between a couple genes, all conveniently not found on the Y-chromosome, for the ability to manifest. The odds of getting everything you need are much, much higher if you've got two X-chromosomes. In fact it's so high that most of the guys with magic were probably XXY." Tony grimaced, "Which might have help to lead to some of the stereotyping you and Loptr get pounded with. But hey, it's speculated that my country's first president had the condition.
"Anyway, while your people's patience served them well with their path to the super soldier serum, it bit them when it came to magic. They were generations down the road before they realized that they took a wrong turn at Albuquerque, too late to backtrack. So, of course, the only thing the guys could do then was insist that they never wanted magic in the first place and relegate high tech fields to 'women's work'... Is it just girls who get magic in all the realms or were there some realms that weren't so hung up on preserving a patriarchy?"
Loki made an effort to collect his scattered wits. "Among the Vanir and Asir male magic users are all but unheard of but among the Elves, both Dark and Light, the ability to do magic is practically universal for both sexes, although their magical strength doesn't compare to mine. Dwarves make machines to control magic, they look on the other race's sorcerers with great suspicion. I have no idea what is considered normal for Jotunheim, Muspelheim or Niflheim."
"Dwarves don't use magic? You mean instead of re-engineering all this Asgardian tech to work for me I could have just been asking Odin to shop on Nidavellir instead of Asgard?" Tony exclaimed.
"You learn more this way," Loki said archly.
"Asshole," Tony returned.
"You know the real story about New Mexico?" Tony asked Loki idly as he kept one eye on the scan he was running on Gungnir. "Thor gets all flustered every time I try to work out what's missing from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files and I figure you won't have an issue telling embarrassing stories about your big brother."
The Mind Stone's coding had been blindingly obvious, leaping out at him the moment he scanned the gem. Tony had initially suspected that the coding on the spear would also be found at the molecular level but he'd wasted weeks missing the forest for the trees. The spear had been forged using a technique similar to Japan's thousand folds method, but without the inevitable homogenizing effect. The folds in the spear were still distinctly two layers. The method lacked the utter perfection of the Mind Gem. The coding was harder to translate for the errors and less complex for the need to have repetition to patch those errors. Easier for Tony to imagine how to duplicate the feat, but much less impressive once he'd dove into dissecting the technology behind it.
"Thor was ashamed?" Loki asked. "He should be. He picked a fight he couldn't possibly win, nearly got me, himself and his idiot friends killed. Not to mention nearly reigniting the war with the Frost Giants, all because one of them called him 'Princess'."
"Why am I thinking there's more to the story?" Tony asked.
Loki wondered if he was spending too much time as Loptr because he answered as if Frigga had called him on a falsehood. "I might have had something to do with arranging a small provocation, setting the stage for Thor to parade his foolhardy pursuit of glory before Odin's eyes. I didn't force him into anything, I even advised him against rashness, not that he listened."
"Yeah," Tony's laugh had a dark edge. "I was good at that game when I was younger too: Telling someone not to do something with just the right infection to ensure that they would so I could plead innocence later."
Loki shrugged, "In all honestly, it did go much farther than I'd intended," he said. "Back then I never would have risked Thor's life. And my own was endangered by Thor's thoughtlessness more than often enough without my assistance. It was Heimdall's fault! I neglected to account for his willingness to slit his own throats if he but suspected that it would inconvenience me."
"Thor led us to Jotunheim," Loki continued falling into a story-teller's rhythm. "Almost immediately we were discovered and surrounded, outnumbered four to one, not to mention that each of the Frost Giants was twice our size. Well, Volstagg may have counted as two-thirds a Frost Giant, more if girth is the primary measure of size. Only a fool would have provoked a fight against those odds but Thor's pride kept him from seeing the danger we were in, he struck the first blow and violated the truce between Asgard and Jotunheim." Loki looked down, "One of them touched me. I thought I'd been infected but the truth was worse. Fa- Odin came to our rescue, he was furious with Thor, at long last. For Thor's arrogance Odin summoned the ancient magics of Asgard, stripped him of his god-hood and sent him into exile on Midgard. As both a reminder of his failings and a path to redemption Odin sent Mjolnir to Asgard after Thor, having bespelled the hammer to unleash Thor's power only when one who was worthy grasped it."
"Wait," Tony interrupted. "Odin put the 'whosoever is worthy' clause on the hammer?"
"Yes, why?" Loki blinked at Tony's sudden intensity.
"It's changeable?" Tony pressed. "Not something embedded in the core nature of the weapon?"
"I suppose."
Tony shut his eyes, calling up memories of the scans he'd performed on the Mind Stone. He turned to the readouts from the spear skimming through the first few repetitions of the programing, mentally filtering out the errors in the coding. "It was meaningless," he said.
"What?" Loki asked.
Tony swept a hand through the holographic readouts sending them spinning into nothingness. "Vision wielding the hammer, it has nothing to do with worthiness, just processing speed, viral coding overwriting Mjolnir's programing because Vision didn't know that he wasn't supposed to be able to wield it." Tony's voice broke, "I thought the Hammer proved that I'd built something unquestionably good."
"It does not mean you did not," Loki replied quickly. "Do Vision's action not prove his worthiness more surely than any momentary test?"
"You don't understand," Tony said. "I can't- If I'm going to build weapons again, I have to be sure. Without that, I can't."
"You have to!" Loki exclaimed. He grabbed Tony, lifting him off the floor and shaking him. "You can't abandon me now."
"Back off!" Tony snarled powering up the repulsor.
And Loki did. "That won't be enough to stop Thanos," he said as he left the room, locking the door behind him. "You can't fight a war alone," he said as he left Tony alone to stew.
Two days passed.
Tony glared at the servant who silently left his meal by the door and retreated without so much as looking in his direction. "The roomservice here sucks. I ordered mead, beer, wine, whatever the fuck you Ass types ferment, I want some," he demanded.
Five days.
In Odin's form Loki leaned forward, trying to make eye contact with the heavily cowled Niflheim ambassador. "There has been documented, confirmed activity from the Space Stone, the Reality Stone and the Mind Stone. There are signs of the Time Stone and Power Stone's use as well. Look to your texts, verify for yourself what it means. The end of days is upon us."
'And no matter what you do we'll all die if Stark won't get over himself and figure out how to stop the stones,' Loki thought to himself.
Four hour later he was in talks with a representative of Jotunheim. "As reparation for the damages done to your world by Asgard's legitimate regent, we return the Casket of Ancient Winters to you," Loki declared solemnly.
"Why now?" the Frost Giant demanded in a voice like the groaning of ice in glacier. "It has been six years since Asgard's cowardly attack on our world."
"Have you examined the signs?" Loki asked. "I wish to restore Jotunheim's strength at arms because the enemy of all life is once more on the move. I have tried to ask you for an alliance against our mutual foe but you refused me. Still Jotunheim is closer to his current position than Asgard. Even if you won't fight with Asgard you may yet serve to aid our cause: The better fight you put up the more his strength will be sapped before he reaches my kingdom."
'The trick I was counting on may yet fail me, betray me, but I won't surrender without exhausting every last gambit at my disposal. The mad titan wouldn't accept my surrender anyway.'
Seven days.
Tony turned away from the collection of tubes and flasks he'd assembled in the center of his workbench and grabbed the bowl of plum skins and mashed potatoes that he'd set up in the sun in hopes that it would ferment. He scrapped off a little of the top and put it under a microscope. "And we have yeast. We are in business."
Twelve days
Loki came back from the throne room to find Loptr reaching for the door to Tony's workshop. "What are you doing?" he demanded as he grabbed his younger self by the collar and dragged him away from the door. The boy vanished into Loki in a swirl of loneliness and hostility.
Fifteen days.
Steve held Tony's arms in an unbreakable grip while Natasha delicately removed the arc reactor from his chest.
"I was your friend!" Tony protested struggling futilely.
Natasha rolled her eyes, "Your ability to delude yourself was convenient but really Tony stop being ridiculous. You read the report, no one ever wanted you on the team."
"I'm sorry Tony," Steve said with sincere regret as Tony felt the shrapnel in his chest start to move. "I wouldn't do this but Bucky needs it."
"I'm not sorry," Clint remarked barely sparing Tony a glance. "Can't we hurry this up?"
Steve let Tony fall to the ground as blood bubbled up in the engineer's throat. Steve pulled Barnes' arm over his shoulder and walked away without looking back. Natasha and Clint fell in on either side of them. The arc reactor glowed in Natasha's hand as they vanished in the distance.
"Don't go!" Tony tried to shout after them. "Don't leave me!"
"Oh Tony, Tony, you thought they cared about you?" Obie shook his head sadly. He sat down beside Tony and watched disinterestedly as the younger man began to choke on his own blood. "You never do learn do you? No one wants you except for what they can use you for."
Seventeen days.
Loki's female clone added several harmless but high tech devices, toys really, to the tray bearing Tony's lunch. Then she sent the new, nearly mindless clone Loki had created to serve Tony until the engineer relented and started working on making weapons again on it's way.
Twenty-two days
Tony yelped as the wires he'd stuck into the keyhole heated to white-hot almost instantly, melting in the lock. "Fuck you Reindeer Games!" he shouted at the door. "Like I want to see you anyway!" For good measure he kicked the door, it made a hollow, empty sound as the armored toes of his boot met the heavy wood.
Thirty days.
Loki sat in his bed, his arms wrapped around his head, trying to block out the sound of Tony screaming. Over the weeks since Loki stopped speaking to him, stopped using his powers to send Tony glimpses of his loved ones on Midgard, Tony's nightmares had become steadily worse. Loki silenced his monitoring spell but the sudden quiet was unnatural after more than a year of hearing Tony's movements, his breathing whenever Loki was alone in his room.
It didn't take long for the oppressive silence to drive Loki from the room that had been his mother's.
Before he went out Loki spent some time staring into a mirror while he adjusted his appearance. He made his hair a reddish-brown and muddied his green eyes into a common shade of hazel. He broadened his shoulders and rounded his face then added a beard with a grimace. He examined himself for any remaining traces of Loki in his appearance then when he was satisfied that there were none he dressed himself in undyed leathers to complete the image of an attractive but thoroughly unremarkable Asir guardsman. He got halfway out the door then spun back to the mirror. The beard vanished like a bad memory. He lost the breadth he'd added to his shoulders plus a bit then took a few inches from his hieght, trading them for a woman's willowy figure. He reformed his clothes into a simple skirt and blouse.
Several hours later he returned to his rooms, rushed straight to the bathroom and scrubbed himself raw.
Thirty-five days.
Tony was at least seventy percent certain that his homemade booze wasn't poisonous, it only tasted like paint-thinner. He threw back another glass and glared at the Toothpick of Destiny. "Why couldn't you just work as advertised," he growled at Gungnir. "Is it so fucking bad to want to know I did something right just once in my fucking life. But no you have to take that away from me."
Forty days
"How are you even here?" Loki demanded as he dragged Loptr away from Tony's door for the dozenth time. "I command you to cease being!"
Loptr squirmed free of Loki's hold and darted into the garden. "I hate you!" he screamed. "You and your stupid pride! You ruin everything."
Loki summoned a burst of magic and suspended the boy in mid-air long enough for him to force the clone to be reabsorbed into himself. The rush of the boy's emotions left him almost dizzy, the boy's furious desire for the one person who made him feel safe went to war against the adult's refusal to back down. Loki turned and saw the Odin-clone frowning at him severely. "What do you expect me to do old man? Just let my magic run wild?" he demanded angrily.
Then he cast a barrier around the door the strength of which far exceeded his younger self's abilities, just in case. A moment later Loki recast the spell to ensure that he kept all the active magic on Loptr's side of the door. On Tony's side it would simply power the resultant explosion if the engineer chose to use his magic dispelling tech on it.
Fifty days
The bathtub gin burned as it went down but working on weapon designs while more than half-drunk was a time honored tradition as far as Tony was concerned. He'd finished analyzing the spear, he knew how to replicate the so-called spell woven into its metal. He already had the best biometric locks ever designed by man making sure that only those he chose could use his armors. With what he'd learned from the Gungnir he could lock every weapon that he made so that it could only be raised in the defense of Earth.
Tony laughed harshly and poured himself another drink. Ultron had been designed to protect the Earth, that hadn't stopped the AI from looking at the cesspit that was humanity and reasoning that what they most needed protection from was themselves. It hadn't stopped Ultron from concluding that the best way to save humanity was to wipe out so much of it that society would crumble. It hadn't kept Ultron concluding that the hope that the survivors would rebuild something better from the ashes of an extinction level event was the best way to save humanity from itself.
"Goddamn, fucking Zeroth Law. Babies shouldn't try to decide what's best for humanity."
Sixty Days
"How can I stand by while a pretty girl looks so sad?"
Loki looked up from his mead in shocked disbelief as Fandral claimed the seat next to his with a charming smile that Loki had seen turned on too many girls to count. Loki turned away.
Fandral put an arm around Loki's shoulders. "Believe me you'll feel better for getting it off your chest." For the briefest moment his eyes fell to Loki's cleavage but he quickly recovered and gave him a sympathetic look. "I can be a very good listener when it means looking into eyes as lovely as yours. And if there is a dragon to slay or a scoundrel to smite to restore the smile to your face know that I am your man." Of all of Thor's friends Fandral had been Loki's most despised, and yet he knew the man had spoken truly. As much as Fandral was looking for someone to warm his bed, Loki knew from witnessing it in the past that if Fandral's lady-love of the night had need of a hero he'd put aside base desires at least long enough to undertake her quest.
Fandral folded his arms on the table then leaned his chin on them. He stared up at Loki patiently.
After several minutes Loki gave in. "I am doomed to lose him," he said. "Even if I win I still won't be able to keep him and I have no one else."
"Cryptic," Fandral replied. "My first impulse is to offer myself in 'his' place but I suspect it isn't so simple?"
Loki gave Fandral a lopsided smirk, "Your reputation precedes you, good Sir. Every woman who catches your eye must inevitably lose you to the next."
Fandral bowed his head slightly, not denying it. "Then allow me succor you in your moment of grief," he shrugged carelessly, "anticipated grief."
Loki hesitated. Fandral was less brawny than was typical for an Asir and his reputation didn't have to exaggerate his looks. Loki didn't say yes but he didn't say no either. After allowing Fandral to ply him with more drinks until the tavern closed Loki didn't protest when Fandral's offer to walk him home ended at Fandral's own rooms.
As they undressed each other Loki used his magic to turn Fandral's hair dark and give his skin olive tones. "You're a Seidkonur?" Fandral asked as he turned his hand back and forth, staring at it.
"Do you mind?" Loki asked.
"Well, I don't particularly care if it's not me you're with in your mind," Fandral replied. "I'm happy with your body in my bed. It will wear off won't it?"
"As soon as I'm gone."
Ninety days
Tony had designed upgrades for War Machine and Spider-Man, for Harley, Happy, Pepper and FRIDAY that would defend them against magical attacks and the direct effects of the Infinity Stones. He even made defensive armaments for Mercedes, Marlena and May in case there was more to his dreams than wistful thinking.
He designed new missiles for Iron Man and War Machine that should punch through the side of a Chitauri warship with ease and redesigned the Widow's Bite to pack more punch than they ever had- Black Widows were Spiders right? And Peter was going to need harsher offensive capabilities against the Chitauri. He made plans to give Vision greater access to and control over the Mind Stone's power.
Tony withheld critical details from all the written plans, because he was going to build them himself. Only that meant he couldn't go any further with the equipment in his workshop. To start with he was going to need a forge.
The Jericho missile Ten Rings had wanted from him so long ago was a fly swatter next to the weapons he was designing to take on the Chitauri fleet. Tony knew he'd have to forge the metals for the key components himself to build it into the very core of his new weapons that they could only be used by the people he trusted to have them. Still there weren't enough people Tony trusted for them to defend an entire plant on their own. He thought about creating new AIs to bulk up their ranks but Ultron's spector stayed his hand.
Tony created anti-magic armors that were scaled back enough to mass-produce and committed the entire design to record. He made versions that could be installed in tanks and planes. Odin could give it to his own armies and to those of Earth, Tony wouldn't stop him. He wrote up plans to borrow the Tesseract to see if he could find a way to separate the Arc Reactor's Anti-Infinity Stone properties from the energy output properties that made it such a tantalizing power source for weapons. Still Tony knew that Thanos had the reserves of an entire quadrant of the galaxy to throw at the Earth, defensive measures wouldn't be enough to keep him from swarming the planet… It wouldn't keep Thanos from destroying the planet if Earth frustrated him enough.
Tony made a second pass at what he'd learned from Gungnir and started working out the coding he'd need to key everything he built to self-destruct when Thanos was dead. Then he went back and did the work again to ensure that it would maintain enough functionality to get its user home safe before becoming completely useless.
He re-engineered the still to increase its output. Then he started designing equipment for Thor, Bruce, Loki, Odin, T'Challa and his bodyguards, for heroes he'd never met but who had seemed to be doing more good than harm. They still wouldn't be enough to oppose Thanos and win.
He hoarded the still's output for a few days and got blindingly drunk. His head pounding from the worst hang-over of his life, Tony sat down and started designing gear for the renegade Avengers. Still not enough but with the Earth in the balance he couldn't discount resources just because they'd betrayed him. Rogers could still be counted on to defend the Earth, Barnes needed a place to live after all.
Ninety-nine days.
Loki slipped back into Odin study, still in one of his female forms, his clothing in disarray. "Loki," the Odin clone said disapprovingly. Loki flinched and instantly shifted back to his normal form. His gaze dropped to the floor as he felt the remains of the night's activities resettling on his skin.
"This impasse has gone on too long," Odin stated. "Fix things with your armor-smith."
"Who do I have to be to make him understand?" Loki demanded in return.
Odin frowned but before he could say anything they heard a crash from the garden. Both of them ran out and saw Loptr sprawled in the flowerbed, broken bits from the porch railing that had been across from Tony's door scattered around him.
Odin knelt beside the boy as if to check him for injuries but Loki grabbed the clone's hand and reabsorbed him. In return he got a rush of pain and gut clenching fear. 'What if I never see him again?'
"Tell me!" Loki repeated. "Who am I supposed to be?" His form destabilized and he rapidly cycled through Odin's form, several generic male forms he used for errands, his favorite female form, Loptr.
Staring up at Odin through Loptr's eyes a memory hit Loki with the force of a freight train.
Thor's shoulder dug into his side uncomfortably as his brother all but carried him into Odin's study. Loki's vision greyed out with every jolting step Thor took.
"You should be training," Odin said sternly.
"But Dad! He hit Loki really hard. I thought he was dead!" Thor protested, his voice high and panicky. Loki felt blood dripping off his ear and chin, plastering his hair against his skull.
Odin scooped him up. The sudden change sent a wave of nausea through Loki. He twisted away from his father, retching miserably. "Go back to your training Thor," Odin ordered.
"But Dad!"
"Head wounds bleed, accustom yourself to it!" Odin snapped. He spun on his heel, carrying Loki deeper into the Royal couple's quarters. When Thor moved to follow Odin kicked the door shut in his face. "Frigga!"
The feel of his mother's hand on his head, her magic rushing through him relaxed Loki. He passed out as Odin lowered him onto a divan. He awoke later. Frigga was still stroking his hair, his brain was full of fog and his eyelids too heavy to lift.
"I don't know what I was thinking when I bought him home," Odin's voice rumbled. "He doesn't belong here."
Odin reached out to Loki but he shied away, stumbling over to lean against the wall by Tony's door, still cycling uncontrollably between forms.
"His Midgardians endlessly extol the virtue of being oneself." Loki giggled as he slid his back down the wall until he was sitting in a huddle. "Have you ever heard anything so absurd? I've proved, over and over again, I can have anything I want:" He took Odin's form "respect" Loptr's "love, caring," a female form, "lovers vying for my favor…" for a moment he took his normal form then blue spilled across his skin like paint, "life. All I have to do is erase myself from the picture."
"Loki, I- I didn't want-"
"Go away!" Loki exclaimed. "You're nothing, a shade, a figment of my imagination. If you're going to play Odin at least be believable! You apologizing on his behalf is a level of patheticness I refuse to stoop to. Just go away."
Odin's shoulders slumped as he left Loki curled up on the floor outside of Tony's room.
Ninety-nine days.
Tony tugged on the doorknob leading to the garden. "I made them you idiot." He started shivering. "I made them. Come back." But Loki had long since silenced his monitoring spell to keep himself from giving in to Tony's misery and didn't hear.
In Afghanistan Tony had never considered giving in to his kidnappers, the torture they'd subjected him to had only made him more determined to resist, to see them dead. But the Ten Rings had never had a target like Thanos to point his weapons at. They'd never thought of leaving him completely alone. They'd never made him like them.
Note: Well, this chapter took longer to write, is longer than normal and still didn't close out the plotline that I was trying to resolve.
When I started this chapter I didn't think the biggest stumbling block would turn out to be deciding if I think of Loki as gay or not. My lean in fiction is everyone is bi or more accurately all it takes is a sufficiently skilled writer to make any pairing work. But because Loki was just looking for sex not a relationship in a society with strongly defined gender roles his choice to go out as male or female does end up saying something about his preferences.
Summary of the limits on Tony's anti-magic tech: He can cause spells cast directly at him or within a few feet of him to destabilize explosively. So if someone tries to use a spell to pick him up and throw him he can counter it. If the person uses the same spell to pick up a car and throw it at him he'd better dodge. The more power in the spell the bigger the explosion. Tony has done some work to try to make the caster take the brunt of the explosion but he still catches some of the force.