AN: Thank you, puddingcup, paisley-15 and cara-tanaka for your kind reviews, and I hope you and all readers enjoy this next chapter. I also apologize for the delay, since I lost my muse a while ago. Fortunately, Thor 2 (and a series of in-real-life events) revived it and now I'm back and hopefully posting with some regularity…
Morning comes and, with it, the realization that Tony and Loki can't remain idly sitting on the couch, eyes lost to the TV screen. With a sigh, Tony stands and stretches, groaning in relief when he feels a couple of vertebrae pop. Loki's thoughts are muddled, the memories of last night still not thoroughly processed, and this leaves him standing up and heading for the shower in his room in a daze. He shuts his eyes tightly before getting in, refusing to look at his own miserable, tired face before at the very least cleaning himself up a bit. The steam from the shower soothes him immediately, even if he still has to avoid getting his arms wet. The soap stings his healing wounds, but in the end he feels a lot better after having the water rain on him for a while. With a small sigh, he turns off the shower. A couple of gashes on his forearms have reopened, though he ignores them in favor of wiping the steam off the mirror above the sink with one hand and finally looking at himself.
With his long, black hair framing his face in wet tendrils, he looks even paler than he should. His eyes look sunken and tired, and he purses his lips in disgust when he sees the red marks the needle has left in his face. Very few of them retain the form of punctures, instead having been elongated into small lines because of his wild thrashing… Loki shuts his eyes, shaking himself and refusing to think of that again. He grabs his clothes off the rack, dressing himself swiftly in dark blue jeans and a grey shirt, and towels his hair more or less dry.
His room has been tidied while he was in the bathroom, his asgardian gear taken away for cleaning, presumably. It had been a while until Loki had gotten used to Stark's various robots managing the tower, but in the end Loki has to admit it's good to know he can rely on them to do their work. He makes his way over to the bathroom again, returning with a damp towel to clean his forearms with as he takes a seat on the desk. If he thinks it through, he knows it's very unlikely his magic will have returned to him overnight, but he still holds out hope as he focuses and tries to maneuver the energy over into his forearms, forming it into a healing spell.
Hope, he remembers, is a very cruel thing.
Instead of healing the cuts like it had last night, the green fire he manages to conjure sears into his skin like hot knives, effectively and fairly painfully stopping the slight bleeding. He lets out a hiss and can see smoke drifting up from his skin on the places the spell was supposed to heal.
A warning, then, not to get too greedy with whatever power he has. "Thank you, Allfather," he gripes quietly when the shock of the sudden burn has subsided. He gives a breathless, humorless laugh and looks toward the ceiling, absently wondering if everyone does the same when addressing Jarvis.
"Could you do some energy readings for me, please?" he asks the A.I.
"Certainly, sir," the omniscient voice replies, "would you like me to chart the results?"
"Yes," Loki says, searching his head for a spell simple enough to perform with his current limitations. He settles for a tiny green flame nestled in the palm of his hand. The spell emits a soft glow, but no actual heat, and Loki frowns at it as it starts to sputter and finally dies.
"Time?"
"Forty-two seconds," says Jarvis.
Loki sighs, cranes his neck to both sides, and nods. "Again."
_.oOo._
By the time he's finally satisfied with the results Jarvis shows him, the bandages on his arms have unraveled. He carelessly tucks the ends underneath the rest of the fabric and heads out of his room to find Tony.
Despite only coming to the tower to crash after his wilder adventures (also known as saving Thor's ass), Loki knows his way around the tower and it's not long before he's knocking on the glass door of Tony's workshop, having encountered Bruce in the kitchen and been told to fetch the elusive engineer for dinner.
"Hey, Prince of Darkness!" Tony calls from behind a soldering mask, "Give me a while and I'll be out."
Loki stands with his back to the glass wall and toys with forming shapeless, incorporeous ice crystals in the palm of his hand, finding these much easier than some of his common spells. Several minutes later, Tony walks out the door, having changed his shirt and washed his face and hands.
"Loki, what the hell?" Tony starts muttering when he sees the sorcerer's hands, "Dammit, Jarvis, I asked you for one thing!"
"In my defense, sir," Jarvis interjects softly, "you also asked me to aid Mr. Laufeyson if he wished it."
Mentally, Tony notes the grimace in Loki's face at the use of the word 'Laufeyson'. He still thinks that goes over better than 'Odinson' would have, but reminds himself to have Jarvis try a few variants later.
"Loki," he admonishes gently, taking the left forearm in his hands and poking gently at the loose bandages, trying to avoid the slowly disappearing ice Loki is cradling, "if you know this is going to happen, why do you insist on making it worse?"
Loki looks down and winces as Tony keeps poking. The skin of his hands is sore as if scalded, but he still prefers it to the feeling of deprivation his blocked magic gives him. All the same, he sighs and takes a deep breath as the crystals vanish. Ignoring Tony for a moment, he asks, "How long?"
Jarvis replies, "Two minutes and three seconds, sir."
He nods slowly and lets Tony unravel the rest of the fabric, apparently deciding the rows of symbols don't need to be rewrapped (Loki measured some healing spells before and the cuts are all but scars now, barring a single symbol on the pad of his left forefinger). Loki gestures to the elevator with a mutter of "Dinner," and they start moving towards it.
"You have heard Thor give his opinion on magic, yes?" Loki asks as the doors close.
Tony says, "Yeah, that what you call magic is the equivalent of science, right?"
"Do you agree with him?"
Tony shakes his head. "I think science is too complicated for magic to compare. I don't mean to say that magic isn't difficult, but the way I see it, it's more instinctual. You don't have to measure and think and process data and experiment, you just tell magic what to do and it obeys. Am I making any sense?"
Loki chuckles low in his throat, flexing his stiff fingers back to mobility. "Your basic idea is not wrong." Tony rolls his eyes; he'd forgotten how condescending Loki can get, but lets him continue anyway. "Magic and science are by no means the same, even if they are different approaches to one thing: Energy. You are right about one thing, though. Magic is instinctual in a way." They have almost reached the kitchen and Tony is still listening raptly. Out of the corner of his eye, Loki sees Banner turn his head, clearly interested by the topic, as he serves something that smells like Indian spices and tomato and hands Loki and Tony their dishes.
"You can teach someone how to do science," Loki continues after humming Banner his thanks, "setting parameters and recording results and analyzing data can all be taught. Magic is different. You have to be born with it, there is no way to learn it. You midgardians have found ways to harness energy through science, but that is different from how a sorcerer interacts with it. A sorcerer's power comes from being so intrinsically bound to energy that it becomes possible to control it. In this, though, lies the reason I have to keep doing this," Loki holds up his left hand, the ice crystals solidifying on his palm.
"But you said your magic was bust," Tony says from across the table.
"It is," Loki replies looking at his hand in concentration, "these are mere parlour tricks, I told you. However, even to tempt me with this meager amount of power is, I suppose, part of my punishment."
The ice flickers out of existence again and Loki sighs, looking towards the ceiling until Jarvis says, "Three minutes and twenty-one seconds."
"Well," Tony interjects, "at least that's still better than the last time."
"Not good enough," replies Loki, digging into his food with more force than is necessary. Both Tony and Bruce exchange a glance, clearly thinking this ties into Loki's second-born-complex, and the rest of the meal is spent in an awkward silence.
_oOo_
Throughout the next week, Loki discovers the limitations of the contract etched into his skin. He hopes, but is not entirely certain, that Odin has made it so that he can regain his magic once he is deemed "worthy". In the meantime, though, magic sings to him, boils in his veins, always just a hair's breadth out of his reach. This leaves him increasingly annoyed and tense, hands now more often than not trembling with restrained energy.
Loki takes to his room more often than not ever since he walked in on Steve and Bruce whispering over the kitchen counter. He manages to catch a soft, "Thor wouldn't do that." from Steve before deciding he's really not in the mood for this. He manages to avoid confrontation with Clint and Nat by the very mature decision of refusing to come down to dinner, marking the end of the second week he's unwillingly resided at Avengers Tower.
In the end, when the collapse comes, it isn't loud. There's something to be said for the irony that, even though he is not the god of lies, he has become that much of an expert deluding people that no one even realizes how far gone he is. Himself least of all. But when his magic crackles, searing his nerves and trying to find a way out, turning inwards in fury, he remembers why he can't give up.
He has to fight the tiny runes sealing his power, sealing his senses, dulling life itself, because it's magic that will finally set him free. It's the knowledge that somewhere, galaxies far away, there is this one being whose energy resonates with his own, who is product of his past, who is made of his flesh, and whose very core sings with Loki's own.
_oOo_
There is one more foray into trying to destroy the symbols (which Tony has figured out is what the self-harming is meant to do), after which the mortal says teasingly, "Loki, we have got to stop meeting like this," as an attempt to coax him out of hiding, relegated to nurse duty again. It backfires spectacularly in his face only days later when he walks in on Loki trying to change the bandages around a patch of skin that looks uglier and meaner than some of the local villains. As it turns out, gods, or perhaps just this god, is balls at cleaning and healing without magic.
"Seriously, Hocus Pocus, what's got your robes in a knot?" Tony asks him while applying the last of a series of butterfly bandages on Loki's forefinger, covering a jagged line that crosses a single symbol Tony thinks is an "s", "I haven't seen you move around the tower for a few days. If it weren't for Jarvis, I'd think you'd died on us."
Loki swallows and says slowly, "I've merely been trying to work around the runes." His voice is gritty from disuse.
Tony tsks softly, mouth curving up in the beginnings of a grin, "You're gonna have to do better than that if you want me to buy it."
"Has it occurred to you that I may have no intention of 'selling it'?" Loki replies, eyes flashing angrily for a moment before turning back down to examine his scarred forearms. Anything other than looking at Stark's smug face.
"Look," Tony starts, making eye contact, "I built a suit in a cave full of terrorists." Loki cocks an eyebrow, unsure of where this is going, "I know a thing or two about hiding secret plans."
Loki flinches almost imperceptibly because there's no way the only person in this tower who still thinks he's innocent believes he has another plot for world domination in the works.
"You have been avoiding us," Tony continues, mindless to Loki's distress, "and even though I get Bruce, Clint and Nat, why would you avoid me and Steve? Especially since we're the ones who can get you news from Asgard. Or Bruce and I could try to bypass the symbols altogether."
"There is no news from Asgard that would interest me," Loki says nonchalantly. He is, of course, lying through his teeth and thinking of the last time he heard Thor make vague mentions of Slepinir.
"Oh, really?" Tony raises his chin defiantly, "Because even if Thor was the one to sow your mouth shut," Loki flinches, "I still remember there being a prize on your head. And Odin, taking away your mumbo-jumbo when you need it most. It sounds to me like you could use the support of a few recognized superheroes right about now," he points to himself and the door, in turn.
"You know nothing, you insolent little mortal," Loki almost hisses, stretching to his full height and towering over Stark, "I am a god, and you dare insinuate I am helpless?"
"I'm not insinuating anything, I'm saying it outright. You have no magic and no weapons. There's a reason you're desperate to regain your magic, and it's deeper than whatever weird kink you sorcerers have with energy. You can't solve this with violence or you would have taken off with the kitchen knives long ago."
"Shut up, Tony." Is all Loki can say. They're both standing in front of each other, Tony even leaning into the balls of his feet and crowding Loki, who's only getting angrier by the minute.
"This isn't my fault and you know it. You would gain nothing of hurting me or the Avengers." There's a look of realization growing on his features, and Loki is afraid. "Not even harming Thor would do you any good." There's a moment of silence, broken only by Loki's angry and panicked huffing, and then Tony backs down, sits again and leans his elbows on his knees.
"You don't resent Thor what he did. You feel it was justified; he saved your neck. Literally!This is between you and Odin."
Loki deflates slowly, coming to sit as well, and says, very softly, "Quiet. Shut up, Stark."
"It's not about the throne," Tony says in a breath, eyes coming to rest on Loki's forearms and then lifting to meet an insecure gaze, "It was never about the throne. It was never just a brother problem."
"Stark, please…" Loki whispers, breaking his gaze and looking down at his shoes, but he doesn't know if he's asking Tony to continue or to drop the subject.
"It's always the same rune that won't heal… Every time you overdo it, it's always the same rune that ends up bleeding. So, Loki… Who is 'S'?"
Loki snarls and shakes, and yes, Tony has definitely overstepped his mark. "Out!" he yells, arms clutching the armrests of his chair, and getting up to give Tony a hard shove towards the door as he fails to comply. The engineer glares, but raises his hands nonetheless, walking backwards out of the room with a disgruntled expression. Loki goes to his bedroom, indulging in his flair for the dramatic as he throws himself on the bed, and lifts his left hand up towards his face, tracing the sharp lines and angles of an "s" with a fingernail. This particular one, he knows, will be the last to heal, and he has taken to poking and stroking the raised skin with his thumb. He falls asleep long minutes later, stroking his thumb over medical tape.