The warm water from the shower is like liquid crystal against his skin. He doesn't think he will ever grow tired of this. Nor of the rich lather from the Midgardian washing product that makes his hair smell like artificial fruit but feels wonderful as it covers his hands with fluffy softness. Nothing like the pathetic sliver of coarse, slimy soap and cold water from a barrel he had to make do with in Vanaheim.

Still, he doesn't dare to stay in the shower for too long in case his presence in here is timed by Jarvis and then reported to his master. It won't do to indulge, or Stark might think that Loki is getting above himself and his position.

Once he's dry and dressed he heads out into the kitchen, already marvelling at the breakfast that will be awaiting. Stark is nowhere to be seen but his dirty dishes are in the sink, so probably he has already left for business outside the building. He's unable to stop the twirl of unease in his stomach that this sight automatically produces since it means that his master was up and around making his own breakfast while Loki was still sleeping lazily as if he had no duties whatsoever to take care of.

But Stark did tell him that it was alright, so…

The concept will definitely take time to get used to.

To soothe that twirling unease, he immediately sets to work doing Stark's dirty dishes before preparing his own breakfast. Jarvis has instructed him on the usage of the dishwasher, but he'd rather do this by hand. It feels more like real work, more like he's actually doing something useful as opposed to merely delegating the task to a machine.

Having conscientiously dried everything off and put it back on the shelves and in the cupboards, he heads towards the refrigerator, his mouth already starting to salivate at the thought of the contents inside. Contents that he's free to actually eat, as opposed to merely deliver or serve or prepare for others.

He picks out a couple of eggs from their paperish container and then stands there watching them as they boil on the stove. His old self would have laughed at the mere suggestion of there being any pleasure to be had in watching eggs boil, but knowing that he will get to eat them after so long of subsisting on the most unappealing and tasteless of fares makes all the difference.

When the eggs are finished, he takes two slices of bread from the freezer and defrosts them in the microwave oven, a genius Midgardian invention without any equivalent in either Asgard or Vanaheim. He even goes as far as smearing a layer of butter on them, in his head repeating Stark's words that he could eat anything in here, despite the inherent discrepancy of a slave eating buttered bread.

Having put his luxurious meal on a plate and filled a glass of water, he sits down on the floor with his back against the pantry door to enjoy his little feast. The eggs are creamy as he bites into them, and the slices of bread sweet and soft, nothing like the hard bricks that passed for bread back in Vanaheim. He savours every bite, pushing back the instinct that tells him to wolf it all down before someone comes to take it away from him.

When the plate is empty, he leans back for a few moments to revel in the feeling of satedness, of merely sitting here with a full stomach without futilely wishing that there was more food to be had. He never much used to think about it before, always assuming he would soon be able to eat whenever he was hungry, but after all that time in Vanaheim, this is now nothing short of a luxury.

But he can't sit here lounging around uselessly for the rest of the day. Stark told him yesterday to tidy up around the house while he was away, so that is what Loki will spend the day doing until the man returns with perhaps some new set of orders for him. So he cleans up after his breakfast and gets to work; Stark has already shown him where the necessary supplies are kept, and if there's something he's good at after his stay in Vanaheim, it's cleaning. As much as he'd rather never touch another cleaning rag again, it's a relief that the task is a readily understandable one. Stark could have easily given him entirely different orders on the assumption that Loki's familiarity with things Midgardian is more extensive than it really is, a situation that would likely not have ended well.

So he scrubs the floor, cleans the windows and dusts the furniture, careful to do away with every hint of uncleanliness. It's an unusual feeling to be working without having an overseer hovering in the vicinity, ready to strike down at the slightest show of tardiness or slowness. Even if Jarvis is no doubt constantly on the watch-out, the voice makes no comment on the quality or speed of Loki's work and he feels himself relax more and more, settling into a steady rhythm of wiping and scrubbing.

And for the first time since coming here, there is enough time and space for his thoughts to wander and truly consider his position here. Why he's here. Somehow that why still seems like the most mysterious part, despite Stark having clearly enumerated the reason he decided to take Loki with him when he left Vanaheim.

I felt sorry for you.

Yes, somehow Stark seems to feel genuine pity for him. A long time ago, in another life, he would have hated pity. Hate, resentment, anger – all those would have been feelings he could have dealt with had they been directed at him. But not pity.

But now he realizes that it's not a bad feeling to be the recipient of. For someone in his position, it's better than he could have hoped for. He's lucky to receive it. If he hadn't, he would still have been in Vanaheim, eating horrible food, working his fingers to the bone, and perhaps in this very moment being kicked in the stomach or worse by an overseer displeased with his efforts.

But now, he won't have to see Ulfgrimm again. Now it's only Stark that he needs to please. And as capricious as the man might be, he's still vastly preferable to the Vanir that were lording over him back there. Stark is… different.

Yes, different. Or Loki wouldn't be here sleeping in an actual bed, taking a warm shower in the mornings, eating the most delicious meals, and spending his time not being beaten. He still can't quite wrap his head around the fact that Stark even promised not to subject him, his own slave, to any physical punishment. It's perhaps the most confusing aspect of them all.

After his misery in Vanaheim, this simply feels too good to be true. So much better than he could ever have hoped for. And the fact that it was Stark of all people who provided him with all this is even more unbelievable.

There's a cluster of smudgy fingerprints on the large screen in the living room, visible at an angle. He diligently wipes at it, determined to remove every proof that it was ever there. The smudges are persistent, though, resisting his efforts. He presses harder, and then his fingers slip, accidentally pressing a big button beneath the screen. Without warning, the screen blares to life with sound and image, and he reels backwards in shock at the unexpected sensory onslaught, slamming into the ornamental pedestal behind him as he automatically takes a step back. The potted plant perched on top falls to the ground with a dull crash, in an instant transformed from a pretty decoration to a mass of broken porcelain and clumped earth littering the floor.

Oh no.

His immediate reaction is one of panic at the thought of the brutal punishment awaiting him for this blunder, but an instant later he remembers where he is and his heart rate slows down a few paces. Yes, there will surely be punishment for so wantonly destroying his master's property, but Stark did promise it wouldn't be anything worse than those stinking pipes in the basement. Loki can deal with those disgusting things if he has to. At least the pipes won't hurt.

Still, he has to clean up this mess, preferably before Stark's return. Loki will have no choice to confess his offence – the man will of course notice the conspicuous absence of the potted plant, even in the unlikely case that Jarvis were to neglect to inform him – but he doesn't need any visual corroboration to aggravate his confession.

He finds a plastic bag in the kitchen and sets out to pick up the broken shards, trying to avoid making contact with the sharp edges. His ambition is not quite a success; one piece of porcelain, deviously obscured by a mound of dirt, slashes across his palm as he reaches out to pick up its neighbour. He hisses at the sharp flash of unexpected pain, automatically pulling his hand toward his chest. Blood is already welling up from the cut, pooling in his palm and threatening to drip on the floor.

And wouldn't that be the thing to top it all off, him bleeding on Stark's floor after having already soiled it with dirt and broken porcelain. He'd better get a towel quickly and-

"Ops, that doesn't look so good."

Startled, he whirls around on his knees, coming face to face with Stark. How the man could get in here and waltz up to Loki without him noticing he has no idea – it would certainly never have happened to his old self – and now Stark is watching him with an eyebrow raised, as if wondering what on earth just happened.

He swallows, hoping his voice will hold.

"I'm sorry, Master," he says, lowering his eyes and hoping Stark won't be too angry at his incompetence, despite the proof of it being spread out all over the floor. "It was an accident," he adds superfluously, as if there existed even the slightest hint of a possibility that he would walk around here intentionally breaking his master's things.

"You're bleeding on my floor," Stark remarks.

He is?

A quick look at his cut hand confirms this, and he winces. As if things weren't bad enough already.

"Come on," Stark orders, waving a hand at him before turning his back and heading for the hallway.

Loki stands up to follow what is no doubt the way to his punishment. At least Stark won't harm him, so whatever he has in store for his bungling slave is unlikely to be that terrible. He curls his bleeding hand into a fist and covers it with his other hand to stop any more blood from dripping onto the floor, cursing the jittery nerves that made him flinch so violently merely from some unexpected sound emanating from a screen.

He follows as Stark leads him into the… bathroom?

The man walks up to the sink and turns the tap on, making water splash against the white porcelain bowl. "Okay, you better wash that mess," he orders.

So Loki does, placing his bleeding hand beneath the lukewarm stream and watching as the water in the bowl turns a coppery red. It stings sharply at first, but soon the edge of the pain is blunted, turning into a dullish ache.

Stark is busying himself with something inside a cabinet mounted on the far wall, so Loki turns the tap off and reaches for some paper towels to press against his palm to staunch any further bleeding. Luckily it's not a very deep cut, and it will heal soon enough. Now that his body is no longer suffering beneath the hunger and hard labour that was wearing it down for so long, his healing abilities will be considerably quicker and more effective than they were in Vanaheim. Even his back is mostly healed by now.

Having apparently found what he was looking for, Stark returns to put down some implements on the sink and tells Loki to sit down on the edge of the bathtub. So he does.

"Hold out your hand. The bad one," the man says as he unscrews a bottle containing some transparent liquid, and pours some of the contents into a fluffy white pad. Loki knows full well it's going to sting before the pad touches his palm – the concoctions Asgardian healers use to clean wounds always do – and the prospect doesn't bother him much, but the whole process is not necessary for such a minor wound, even if it might be for Midgardians whose healing abilities are much less developed.

Perhaps his scepticism is visible on his face, because Stark immediately answers his thoughts as he dabs the drenched pad against Loki's palm.

"I don't know about your fancy fantasy realms, but let me tell you that Earth is pretty damn full of germs and shit. Could get kind of messy if you had a serious infection or something. And fine, maybe you aliens aren't susceptible to measly infections, but I'm not taking any chances here. I'm cleaning this up."

Of course, Loki makes no protest. It's Stark's imperative how he wants to deal with his wounds and not Loki's place to question it. And despite the burn of the cleaning liquid, he has to admit that it's not so bad. In fact, it's actually a little bit… nice, even? Stark's hands are warm and the grip around Loki's wrist as the man dabs away is firm and yet somehow soft. For so long, being touched for him only equalled being hurt or at least manhandled. But Stark's touch is gentle, nothing like the rough hands that handled him in Vanaheim without the slightest care or concern for his welfare. Stark's touch is… different.

And Loki finds himself overcome by a forcible wave of guilt that he once tried to invade this realm and kill the man in front of him. Why had he ever wanted to do that? Of course, this is far from the first time he's felt regret for what he did in Midgard and the suffering he caused with his selfish actions, but now those feelings have turned more vivid, so much more tangible, as he sits here on the edge of a bathtub in Midgard with Stark tending his wounded hand.

"I'm sorry," he says, the words slipping out of him as if by their own volition, "for-"

"Eh, don't worry about it," Stark interrupts him. "I'm not going to have you punished, it was just a potted plant. It's fine, I'll have Dum-E clean it up."

"No, I mean for trying to… kill you back then." How horrible it sounds when clothed into words like that, but it's unfortunately nothing but the ugly truth. There is no way to make it sound better.

Stark stops his dabbing and looks up, eyebrows raised. "Oh, you mean that." He's silent for a few seconds, pondering before continuing. "Well, about that, then. How about we let that remain in the past, where it happened. Things change, and I guess sometimes even people do too. So if you want forgiveness, yeah, I forgive you. The situation being what it is, it's better to look forwards than backwards or we won't ever get anywhere."

Loki bows his head, not sure what to say except a murmured 'thank you'. Stark is a much more magnanimous man than he could ever have imagined. He watches as the man proceeds to wrap his hand with some kind of soft linen-like material until his entire palm is covered with white cloth.

This is also wholly unnecessary, of course, but Loki doesn't mind, because it's… nice to be touched without being hit or pushed or dragged along for punishment.

Author's note: Third time's the charm… of Loki accidentally making things go flying through the air when they should have stayed put. :D