Loki walks to the nearest town, picks the shabbiest motel he can find and curls up on the bed. He's got money. He's kept a couple of hundred under the spare tire in his boot since the first time he ran away, back when he'd first got the car. He'd ended up stranded in some nowhere town when he'd run out of money for bus fare and had to find a police station to call his brother. Wasn't his best moment. Probably better than this one though.
He shifts on the bed, tangles his fingers in the sheets and falls apart.
For a moment everyone just stares, Loki sighs, "Well? Are you coming or not?" And Tony seriously considers punching him in the face.
"Right, because they're gonna let us walk out the front door," Natasha snarls.
Loki shoots her an amused glance, "Because we're gonna be using the front door. Moron."
"This is a trap," Bucky mutters, "It's got to be a trap."
Tony thinks Bucky's probably right but right now Loki's their only chance (even if said chance is probably something like 0.07%.) "Loki, if you're lying about this I will personally let Natasha beat you to death with your own legs."
Loki quirks and eyebrow and smirks (damn him), "Well, do be sure not to strain yourself, Stark." He steps back, holds the door open and looks meaningfully at them. "No time like the present."
Tony lets Natasha go first, because he's a gentleman.
They make it as far as a backdoor, step out into the cold night air when a smiling man steps out from behind a tree (because at some point Tony's life has become a really cliched thriller movie) and waves a gun in their face. Loki pales and the whole thing is really very uneventful. They're led back to the room and this time Loki's locked in with them and Bucky at least has the decency to wait until the man leaves before sniggering, "Way to go, Loki." He sneers. Loki glowers at him and sequesters himself in a corner, drawing his hood up to cover his eyes.
"Well," Tony says, settling back down against the wall. "At least we got a chance to stretch our legs, right?"
Loki wakes up to weak sunlight pouring through the cheap net curtains and the sound of the couple in the room next door having really, reallyloud sex. He groans in disgust and gathers his things, pausing for a rust-filled shower before checking out.
He should probably go home. Call Thor or Odin or maybe even Tony. Tony'd come get him and he wouldn't be wearing that disappointed look, either. He stops in front of a pay phone, coins jingling in his pocket and glares at it for a long time. They'll have found his car by now, he thinks. Probably made a few newspapers, maybe even the local news station, Odin probably ensured that.
He may as well wait it out. Make them come to him this time.
He stands in front of the phone until a woman passing by asks if he's okay, if he wants her to call someone for him. He should probably find somewhere less conspicuous to figure out how this next chapter of his life should go. He assures the lady he's okay and wanders around until he finds the local library, it's quiet and no one will bother him. He sits by the computers, he knows this will all be traceable but he really doesn't care at this point.
Bucky nudges him with his foot and Tony jerks. He wasn't sleeping, he really wasn't. And he totally wasn't drooling. "What?" He hisses. He thought Bucky was asleep, Steve certainly is and Tasha maybe is, her eyes were closed and she looked sort of not terrifying. Loki certainly isn't, he's sitting too stiffly.
"Your dad's like, super rich, right?" Bucky says, voice rough with sleep.
Tony snorts, "Buck, we own a Stark Industries. You might have heard of it?"
"That's what I mean. Doesn't your dad have a tracker or something in you somewhere? Like a chip or something?"
"He's not a dog, James," Natasha chastises softly, eyes still closed.
"I know but..."
Tony laughs, "No, Bucky, I don't have a tracker. At least, I don't think I do. I'm insured against kidnapping though. If that's at all comforting."
Bucky mumbles something too quiet for Tony to hear and Tony stretches, looking over at Loki. He's angry and a little smug but Loki's still his friend, or whatever. And he did at least try to get them out of there, which was honestly more than Tony had expected. He stood, a little unsteadily, and bit back a yawn. He crosses the room and drops down beside Loki, who humphs and mutters, "Come to gloat, Stark?"
"I would never," Tony says. "Well, maybe a little. I mean running away to live with a very dangerous criminal you've never met wasn't your best idea."
"It was going great until you morons turned up," Loki bites.
"For a moment there I thought you were going to call us 'meddling kids,'" Tony says.
"Idiot," Loki growls. "You fucked everything up, I told you not to follow me!"
"Yeah, I can see how everything is going great for you, Lo."
"Shut up. He only did this because you turned up. They'll know I'm here now. He's got no choice but to send me back. Like Natasha said..."
Tony frowns, "Were you really happy here, Loki?" He asks quietly.
Loki draws his knees back up to his chest, "I wasn't unhappy," he says quietly, "I mean, he really was happy to see me."
Loki googles his father - his real father - more out of boredom than anything else. He has to scroll through two pages of search results before he gets to the night Laufey was arrested, the night he supposes Odin kidnapped him. It had been a massacre, six dead, Laufey was the only one charged with anything and even then he only got a few years for having illegal firearms. The jury was too terrified to convict him of more. There wasn't anything about a kid though so Loki browsed around, found a site on British gang warfare which had a whole page about him. He was a conspiracy theory, a rumour. There were interviews with former gang members on both sides about the night he was taken, blurred photographs, sensationalist gossip.
If people knew about this he'd probably be the subject of more intrigue than Stark.
He was really broken up about it, that's why he pled guilty at the trial, Loki reads. The baby was kept hush hush to try and keep him safe.
He wonders what his name would have been if he'd grown up with Laufey.
There's a picture of his father with a woman, her face is obscured by her hair, slightly blurred. She was facing away from the camera, hand raised in greeting for someone out of frame. His mother maybe.
They kept him unregistered, one of the statements says, trying to keep him safe from Odin.
Loki clicks off the page and gathers his things.
Heads out to the main road and sticks out his thumb.
He's waiting almost two hours before a car stops, a young couple. The man smiles, "Where are you heading, kid?"
"New York," Loki says.
"What's in New York?" the woman asks, after he clambers in. They're not going the whole way but it's a start.
"My Dad," Loki replies. "I haven't seen him since I was little. I'm heading up to surprise him."
Tony is still sitting beside him, annoyingly warm in this stupidly cold room. At least he's being quiet unlike the two idiots snoring against the other wall. Loki draws his knees up to his chest and curses them all. Everything was fine until they'd come. Why did they insist on following him? He'dtold them to leave him alone.
He sighs, "How did you guys get up here anyway?"
"Borrowed Barney's van," Tony says, with a small smile. "It was not the easiest journey."
Loki smiles despite himself, "How come?"
"Well, we had to leave Bruce and Clint back at Rhodey in case something like this happened for a start and the whole being held for ransom kind of sucks," he says with a pointed look at Loki.
Loki bites back a snarl. "I didn't ask you to come rescue me, Stark," he reminds him.
"You kind of knew we would though, right?"
Loki did know, that's why he left the note at the motel. But he's not going to say that.
Tony looks away after a moment or two, "No, Bucky and I had a falling out as well."
Loki curls his lip. "I thought you and he were the best of friends." (It's childish, Loki knows. He knows how Tony feels somewhere at the back of his mind and Loki doesn't - or maybe he does - he's not sure but anyway, Tony is his. Should be his.)
Tony snorts, "Oh, come on, Loki. You know me and him weren't anything beyond sex."
"Careful, Stark," Natasha interjects quietly (eyes still closed). "That's my brother you're talking about. Just because Laufey won't risk killing you doesn't mean I won't."
"Sorry, Nat."
Loki hides his smile this time. Idiots.
"Has Rogers figured it out yet?" he asks, nodding to where he and Bucky are sort slumped over each other.
Loki can just about make out Tony's blush, "I - uh - he - sort of? With help anyway."
Loki smirks, "You told him."
Tony grins, "Yeah. I was angry. It was dumb."
Loki doesn't really want to know what got Tony that angry. "What about Natasha?" he asks, quieter now and Tony smiles, opens his mouth to reply when Natasha says, "What about me?" Eyes open this time, narrowed.
"Nothing," they say in unison and it's so stupidly normal that Loki wants to kick himself. Nothing about this situation is normal. He's supposed to be angry with them.
"Better stay that way." Natasha mutters, settling back down.
"Her and Barton," Tony hisses, after a few minutes, "I have no idea what's going on there but they did share a bed once on this trip."
Loki smiles again. Dammit Stark, he thinks.
"You know, if you were really happy here," Tony says after the silence stretches too long. "Then I'm sorry. But we had to come after you, you get that right? You understand why?" He looks almost desperate and Loki has to look away. He's pleading and Loki can't. He was happy here. Away from Odin. Where he belonged. He's looking anywhere but Tony and his eyes fall on Natasha, Steve and Bucky. Morons. Rogers and Barnes hated him, he knew that much. Steve was only her out of loyalty to Thor - stupid, stupid, Thor - and Barnes was probably only there because of Steve. Natasha was only there to look after them all with that exasperated way of hers.
They weren't there for him.
Stark was, but that was it.
(But he remembers hating people with Natasha long before Tony was moved to their school, he remembers quiet talks with Bruce and Steve's unrelenting kindness - Thor had made friends almost instantly when they moved, Loki hadn't but Steve had never minded Loki tagging along, unlike Thor's friends in England. Even Bucky had been fun every now and again, he'd never objected to sharing his drink or his drugs.)
Loki shakes his head, bites his tongue. "Yes," he mutters quietly. "I understand."
"Is there anyway out of here?" Natasha asks, it must be morning by now at least. There's been nothing from Laufey, no food or water or toilet breaks (which Loki could really use right now.) "Or do we have to wait?
They're all looking to him like he's about to reveal a secret trapdoor or something but he's not sure he wants to get out. If he does what then? Is he supposed to just go back to Odin and pretend nothing happened?
"We're not getting out of here if Laufey doesn't want us too," he says eventually.
Bucky tuts like its Loki's fault, "So, we just have to wait for him to let us go? Will he even do that?"
Loki's studied his father's methods, both of them and while kidnapping hasn't ever really come up before he's pretty certain how this'll go. "Do you want the truth?" He asks quietly.
"Hell yes, we want the truth!" Tony says, frowning.
Loki sighs, "Laufey will contact Stark's father, Odin, and the media to say that he has us. He'll make a ridiculous demand that Stark's people will forbid him to pay and that your parents won't be able to afford. The FBI will get involved and they'll want proof which Laufey will give them. Then he'll turn nasty. He knows the police can't touch him and he won't care who he hurts. He'll leave Stark and I untouched but the rest of you..." he trails off.
"The rest of us what, Loki?" Steve prompts, eyes narrowed.
"If he doesn't get the amount he wants he'll hurt you. He might even kill one of you."
Steve closes his eyes, Bucky curses and Natasha hits the wall with an angry burst of Russian.
"I knew we shouldn't have come," Bucky growls and for a moment Loki thinks Bucky might punch him but then Steve is pulling him backwards and Bucky's arm falls to his side. "Should've just let this idiot be."
"Cool off," Steve says sternly and Bucky stalks to the other side of the room to kick at the wall. Steve turns back to Loki, "How sure are you that that'll happen?"
"Fairly."
He turns to Tony, "How much would your dad be willing to pay?"
Tony shrugs, shaking his head, "Couple of million, maybe? I'm insured for like ten million so I guess that... It won't be up to him though, it'll have to go through the board and I don't know..."
"So, we're fucked?" Bucky calls from the other side of the room.
"Basically," Tony mutters, rubbing at the back of his neck.
They sit in silence after that, there's not much to do but wait. Tony decides to be an unrelenting presence at his side again, sitting quietly again, fidgeting occasionally.
"For what's its worth," Loki says softly while Bucky and Natasha are arguing loudly in Russian, "I'm sorry."