Day 2: Relearning

Loki woke up first, with a start when he realized that he wasn't in the palace or in one of the tents used for the royal hunt. He was reaching for a blade when he saw Tony beside him, sprawled half over, half under the blankets but still wrapped tightly in sleep. Loki started breathing normally again, remembering this place and its strangeness. He slid noiselessly out of the bed, and went in search of Clint.

The human warrior was asleep on the sofa, but as soon as Loki got within ten feet, Clint jolted a little and turned, hand under his pillow. Loki smiled at him, letting him know that his vigilance was appreciated. Clint smiled back, eyes crinkling, and relaxed into a slow, thorough stretch.

"Whattya think, little prince? This world look any brighter this morning than it did yesterday?"

Loki considered, then nodded. He ventured closer to ask quietly, "Do you really not care if I'm Jotunn?"

Clint shook his head. "Nope. Couldn't care less where anyone's from or who their parents are or what they've done in the past. Only care what they mean to do in the future." Loki looked skeptical. "Hey, I should tell you the story of how I met Natasha." He sat up the rest of the way, and patted the cushion beside him, and Loki sat.

"The part of the world we're in now is called America. There's an even bigger chunk of land on the other side, going way up into the north where it's always cold, and it's called Russia. For a long time, we were kind of in a war with them, but neither country would outright attack. Instead we sent spies and assassins at each other. Russia had one particular spy that was very dangerous, called Black Widow. She'd been trained since she was younger than you how to kill, how to blend in, how to follow orders. Even after the war, there'd always be someone to find her and give her orders. She killed a lot of people, and made my bosses pretty upset. So they sent me to kill her."

Loki was watching with wide eyes, of course already realizing the identity of Black Widow.

"I found her, and I took my aim, and I looked. She was a sad sight, never really known anything but following orders, and never really given a choice about whose. I decided to give her one."

"But she was still human, like you?" Loki said, trying to smother his growing hope.

"Kid, never underestimate the human capacity to hate another human for being different from them. Russians, people here used to call 'em reds, hunt 'em down."

"And now she's your friend?"

"Very good friend. We watch each other's backs."

Loki smiled.

"Everyone should get a chance to learn what's up and decide for themselves what to use their skills for. Doesn't always happen, but it should."

Loki looked up at Clint with growing determination on his small face. "Then I choose. I wish to fight for you and the others here."

Clint blinked. "You don't have to. You're just a kid, and we've got plenty of human heroes around here."

"But none of you can help Tony. You need someone who can do magic."

Clint looked at him speculatively. Then he smiled. "Well hey, that's awesome if you want to help with the magic project. Even if we can't turn Tony back, he'll still have gotten to study real magic. Watch out when you tell 'im, though. He'll probably explode due to sudden happiness." Loki smiled at the joke.

Bruce woke up next, filled with a weird mixture of agitation and contentment. It wasn't until he heard quiet voices coming from his living room that he remembered why. The haze of warmth that came from waking up in a home, with a family, was quickly quashed by both the memory of why that was impossible, and worry over Tony. That didn't seem very productive, either, so he turned his attention to breakfast. He wandered out into the living area, where Clint and Loki both looked up from the couch where they were talking quietly to smile at him in greeting.

"Tony still asleep?" he asked, and Loki nodded. "Scrambled eggs and toast all right with you?" he asked.

"You got coffee, too, and it'd be perfect," Clint said.

Bruce shook his head with a frown. "Sorry, just tea. I've got some pretty high-caffeine blends, though."

Clint waved his hand. "Nah, whatever blend you want works. As long as it's hot and I can put cream in it."

Bruce smiled and picked out one of his own masala chai blends, heavy on the tea and cloves with nothing too sharp.

Tony came out of the room when the eggs were nearly done, looking extremely groggy and (Bruce tried not to attach too much to the thought) absolutely adorable.

"Morning, Tony," he said, smiling warmly. Tony scrunched up his face and mumbled inaudibly, shuffling towards the eating area. "Food's just about ready. You want tea, Tony?" Tony shrugged expressively once more, so Bruce fixed his chai with justa little more sugar than he liked himself, and set it in front of Tony. Tony drank it automatically, but Bruce thought he seemed to enjoy it once he woke up enough.

Bruce gave Clint and Loki their tea black, putting the cream and sugar between them so that Loki could watch and imitate if he wished. Clint sipped first from Loki's cup, then doctored his own with sugar and plenty of cream, then took a long satisfied sip. Loki watched, then tasted, then added cream and even more sugar than had gone into Tony's cup.

Breakfast was calm and pleasant and companionable overall, and Bruce tried not to think about the fact that that made it better than the majority of the moments that composed his life. Towards the end, Bruce, Tony and Jarvis resumed their discussion on the nature of Asgardian magic, and Tony tried very hard to hide the fact that his eyes kept drifting curiously to Loki. It became apparent that he'd failed when Loki caught him at it and said, "Tony, it's all right. I'll tell you about my magic today."

Tony bounced up and down on his barstool, whooping, before remembering that Loki got overwhelmed by things and managed to hold himself back to just the bouncing and some frenzied but quiet chattering with Jarvis.

Tony and Loki didn't seem inclined to eat any more after that, so Clint and Bruce finished up their own breakfast and the whole entourage went about getting dressed and heading back up to the workshop. Once they were there, the onslaught began.

"So you can do magic?" Tony asked Loki.

"A little. My father doesn't like me studying it."

"Why not, Thor has some magic powers, right? Bruce told me he could call lightning down out of the sky."

Loki frowned. "Then he must have been entrusted with Mjolnir. The Allfather has many such things in his vault. Objects of power are one thing, but this - " Loki pointed to himself and the other boy. "This was cast by a sorceress. I can tell. This is seidr. Witchcraft." Loki scowled. "I have heard many on Asgard call it a woman's art."

Bruce hummed and nodded in understanding. "In that case, thank you very much for being willing to talk to us about it." Then he got down to business. "How much is a little? Can you do many things with it? Do you understand how and why it works?"

Loki sighed, closing his eyes to try and focus. "I know that many seidr spells work to manipulate life energy. I've mostly done illusion but there are many other spells I know but have never been able to practice. Illusion draws on the caster's life energy. I've never cast a spell actually on someone else."

Tony's eyes sparkled with interest. "Can you cast illusions? Can I see?"

"All right," Loki agreed, putting away his doubt over the circumstances and beginning to focus on the energy.

"Jarvis, you ready to record?" Bruce said, just to confirm.

"Yes, Doctor. All possible sensors are online and recording now."

Loki held out his hand in front of him, focusing on the space above it. Piece by piece, as if it were both being constructed and brought into focus, the image of an apple appeared there, its skin slick, reflective, an almost glowing golden color. Everyone stared at it in silence for perhaps five seconds, and then it fell apart again, becoming thin air.

Tony, of course, as the first to speak. "Wow! What was that? Jarvis, what was that? What did you see?"

"Light and other electromagnetic frequencies, the source of which I cannot account for. The illusion appeared consistent from all angles once it was fully formed. Other frequencies occurred more strongly during the construction, and, to some extent, the disollution phase, and were focused in Loki's body, especially his arm."

Tony was already going over the displayed readings himself, but he nodded to Jarvis. "This is different than the Tesseract."

Bruce agreed. "There are some similarities, but the whole thing looks different enough that I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have figured out anything useful about Asgardian witchcraft just from studying the Tesseract data."

Tony nodded, grinning. "Thanks, Loki! That was awesome."

Loki looked taken aback, but pleased. He took a breath, considering what he could do next. "If you tell me more about how this spell was cast, I will know better what kind it is and what may work to counteract it."

"I got a pretty good view," Clint said. "I can fill you in."

Loki nodded, making himself comfortable on one of the benches. Clint sat next to him. "You - older you - and someone called Amora - the person who cast the thing - were attacking the tower. But you weren't really doing that much damage. I think Amora was the one who summoned the lizard things. You were really just standing on the landing platform trading insults with Tony."

"Flyting," Loki murmured with a smirk and a glance at Tony.

"Yeah, Amora called it that too. Anyway she got really annoyed that you weren't helping her fight, even though keeping Tony distracted probably was more important. Iron Man, when he gets serious, is not someone you want to mess with."

"My superhero name is Iron Man?" Tony cut in. "Sweet."

"Yeah, but you two just kept on teasing each other instead of fighting, so Amora got really fed up with both of you, called you children, and just kind of..." Clint imitated the arm motion that Amora had used to throw energy at them. "Poof! And you were both all little."

Loki nodded, looking very thoughtful. "Not planned, then. Driven by emotion."

"What's that mean?" Tony asked.

"It's probably not a complicated spell," Loki answered. "But it will be a strong one. If it had been cast purely in jest, it would have worn off by now. But if she was very angry, it may be permanent."

Bruce took that in, then let out a tremendous sigh. "What would it take to break it?" he asked.

"Simple reversion... I think. But the caster would have to want things to go back to how they were." Loki suddenly looked guilty and somewhat sick. "I couldn't do it. I like Tony now."

Clint pulled Loki into his lap, smoothing his hair again. "That's fine. That's good. I'm glad you like Tony, and I like who you are right now too." Clint frowned. "If someone did the reversion thing on one of you, would the other turn back too, do you think?"

Loki turned his head quickly to look up at Clint. "I don't know," he said in a small voice. "Clint, I don't want to turn back."

"I know, shh," Clint whispered. "I like you now. We'll figure it out."

They sat there for a while, Clint gently rocking and the babble from the science contingent becoming more and more indecipherable, until Loki relaxed somewhat. Not all the way, by a long shot. Clint thought that if he felt like that, he would be in serious need of some range time. Then he remembered just how much he and Loki seemed to share.

He didn't have any bows with a short enough draw for a seven-year-old - although, he reflected, thinking about Loki's hand gripping his when the kid was very scared, draw weight wouldn't have been a problem - but maybe he could think up a comparable distraction.

"Hey, I've got an idea," Clint told Loki. "I'm going to teach you how to play darts."

They were both very good, and very well-matched. Comparable arm strength, both with sharp eyes, and although Loki had less experience with the game, it was still more similar to throwing knives than it was to archery, so Loki could make use of his existing skills. Soon they were daring each other to make increasingly complex trick shots.

While that was happening at the far end of the workshop, Bruce and Tony were continuing to examine and correlate the readings, now trying to figure out what it was that Loki referred to as 'life force.'

"We must have it, or Asgardian witchcraft wouldn't work on us," Tony said. "Do you think that means I could learn to do magic?"

"I don't know," said Bruce. "Humans might have the life force itself, but lack the mechanism for controlling it. Although," said Bruce thoughtfully, "strong emotion triggering physical changes that include unexplained displacement of mass, does sound familiar. I may have managed to tap into mine, although I still don't have any kind of measurable control over it."

Tony frowned, then asked Jarvis what Bruce was talking about. Footage of the Hulk smashing Chitauri came up on one of the screens. "Doctor Banner's alter ego," Jarvis explained. "Otherwise known as the Hulk."

Bruce looked around to see what Tony's reaction would be, somewhat anxious. "Woah," Tony said, then looked up at Bruce, grinning. "That explains what you're doing living in superhero HQ."

"The Hulk is dangerous," Bruce said, frowning at Tony. "I try not to let him out unless it's absolutely necessary. You ever see him? Run. Don't expect him to stop, to recognize you just because I know you."

Tony nodded, eyes wide. Bruce had mixed feelings about the fear he'd caused. It was good. It could keep Tony safe. It was what he'd intended to do. But it looked wrong on Tony Stark's face, even the tiny seven-year-old version.

"But I only change if I'm very angry or in a lot of pain, so you probably won't see him."

Tony nodded. "I can work with that," he said, and smiled before delving into the files on the Hulk, seeing if they could give any insight into reverting one's life force to itsoriginal state. Then he got caught up in all the medical projects that were on the servers.

"Wow, grownup me makes a lot of cyborg parts."

"Yeah, there are a lot of advaced prosthetics we've been working on. They're really helping a lot of people. It's good work."

"Guess that's one reason it's good to have an MD in the workshop. You do the part with the squishy bits?"

"Actually you've gotten a really good grasp on musculoskeletal and cardiovascular medicine, as well as anti-rejection measures. I just go over the stuff for you, contribute here and there."

Tony frowned, continuing to look through the folders curiously. "What's this?" he asked, pointing to a file marked, 'arc reactor insertion site model.' "Why is there a stupid arc reactor in the biomedical folder."

"Uh, you may not want to look at that," Bruce said hesitantly.

"Why? You let me look at all the missing limbs and stuff," Tony said, then trailed off as the file opened to reveal a 3D model of a torso with a large block of electronics embedded in its chest. Tony looked at it, alarmed. "Weird," he said. Then he looked at the file summary pop-up off to the side. "Wh - Wait. That's me?"

Bruce groaned. "Jarvis... you couldn't have blocked off these files or something?"

"I do not feel the need to explain myself to you at the moment, Doctor Banner."

Bruce heard the silent promise of 'later,' and decided he would hold the AI to that. Now, he put a hand on Tony's shoulder and surveyed the file along with the boy. "Yes, that's older you," he said. "You got a serious injury under less than ideal conditions and you had to improvise."

"Am I, like... dying?"

"No," Bruce was quick to assure him. "The original model had a palladium core, which was causing some side effects, but this model? Very safe. It does its job, keeps your heart from getting damaged." He put his arms around the boy. "There are a lot of reasons I'm tempted not to do anything to change you back. Mostly there are a lot of bad things that have happened in your life that I don't want you to have to remember. But I would never, not ever, change you back just for you to die."

Tony leaned into Bruce's chest, then. He surveyed the glowing lines of the device. "Does it hurt?" he asked quietly.

"You'd never admit it," Bruce said, "but I think it does, sometimes."

Tony sighed. "But grownup me does lots of important stuff I guess. Saves people and makes them new arms an' stuff. Guess you need him."

"That's not what I'm worried about. I think grown-up Tony has a lot of hard things about his life, but he'd still want to get it back. But, Tony, if we never find a way to change you back? I won't mind at all having you around instead."

Tony relaxed into Bruce's chest, but what he said when he spoke was, "It's all right if he's more important. Mom was always telling me how important Dad's work was and that we shouldn't interrupt him."

Bruce sighed, and held the boy close. "It seems like it hurts pretty much to be you, too," he said. He reached out and closed the file with a gesture, then put a hand on Tony's head. "The work is fun, but it's not what's important to me. What's important to me is you, and you are yourself, no matter what."

Tony sighed. "I wanna stay here," he said. "It's nice here. You're nice."

Bruce hugged him tighter. He didn't know quite what to say in answer, but fortunately, Jarvis interrupted then, saying, "Sirs, Captain Rogers would like to know if you would care to join him on the common floor for lunch and a movie."

Tony looked up at Bruce, and Bruce smiled back. "Maybe that's enough work for now, huh? I could watch a movie."

"Yeah." Tony grinned and bounded off in the direction of Clint and Loki. Bruce followed more slowly.

The dartboard they had been using now contained a cluster of darts in the very center, and had a couple of other very intentional clusters of pinpricks, but was otherwise untouched. Bruce chuckled. "Wow. Did either of you miss? At all?"

"Nope," Clint said. "Not once." He ruffled Loki's hair. "Thinking of training him up to be the next Hawkeye."

Loki gave him an enormous smile, and Bruce thought it was odd to see the expression on that face that was so clearly Loki's. Bruce shook his head at the thought, because it was so sad, and he was beginning to see why Clint was so eager to make Loki feel safe and welcome.

"Everyone ready to head up to lunch?"

Steve had made sandwiches, and they all sat around and ate them, the boys only eyeing Steve suspiciously a little bit. Tony, after he'd finished his first sandwich, frowned speculatively at Steve.

"Hey, Tony," the captain said. "How is everything? Settling into the tower all right?"

He was still all smiles in the name of old fashioned politeness, and Tony was still deeply suspicious of it, but he just stared at Steve for another moment, then asked, "Why are you friends with grownup me?"

The smile fell off Steve's face, which was a relief to Tony. Then he looked the boy in the eye, saw that he needed an answer, a true answer.

"The Tony Stark I know is brave, pretty much fearless, and he'd do anything to keep the world safe." Steve smiled again, a little crooked, but genuine this time. "He never just thinks about the small scale. It's always about the world and every person in it. He's extremely generous." Then Steve laughed. "You wouldn't know it at first, though. He'd like everyone to think he doesn't care, that he's too busy being rich and successful to worry about what anyone else is up to."

Tony looked up at him, biting his lip. "You want him back, huh?" he asked the captain.

Steve's eyes widened, and he frowned, pain dominating his features. "Tony," he said, "yeah, I do, but... the worst part of this curse is that I'd love to get a chance to know you, to watch you grow up. And I know I can't have both, but I wouldn't want to take away the experiences you've already had just to keep you as cute as you are for a while longer."

Tony looked suspiciously at Steve when he said that, trying to figure out if he was serious. Eventually Tony decided that Steve was incomprehensible, and went back to his sandwiches.

They decided to watch How To Train Your Dragon, because Steve hadn't seen it yet, and Tony was fascinated by the concept of computer animation, and Bruce had missed it when it came out as well. Clint argued hard for Brave, but Bruce pointed out that thanks to him, Bruce and Steve had seen it several times already.

"Oh well, this is good too, and at least it's got a couple crossbows," Clint said. "Hey Loki, are there any real dragons out there in the realms you know?"

Loki nodded, looking at the movie case. "They are much bigger than that creature, when full grown," he said, "and intelligent and ruthless foes. I have never fought one."

Clint chuckled. "These guys are nothing like so serious," he said. "We can mock the silly dragons."

They ended up all on one couch in front of a huge screen, giving a better view than any theater. Loki sat on Clint's lap at one end, then Bruce next with Tony leaning against him, and finally Steve, who Tony had now stopped giving suspicious looks and started relaxing around.

Tony kept asking Bruce about how the animation was done, and Bruce answered as well as he could, in simple enough terms that he thought Steve even followed. Loki kept up a quiet running commentary in Clint's ear about how inaccurate the dragons were. And at one point, Clint rested his arm casually along the back of the couch. Bruce smirked at him, but then leaned back into it anyway, not willing to fight against the feeling of contentedness that filled him, being surrounded by children and beloved friends.

After the movie ended, a battle royale began, one named 'Kids versus dumb dragons,' in which Clint was Loki's night fury, Bruce was Tony's giant green dragon, and they were tamed and ridden into battle against Steve, the evil queen dragon, with throw pillows as weapons.

Bruce realized that was the first time the boys had actually played since they'd been found. As much fun as they'd had in the workshop, Tony learning the systems and Loki playing darts, that was all part of training to meet the expectations of their fathers. This was the first thing they'd done that was purely for fun. And they had Steve to thank for that.

As things wound down, the three 'dragons' all lying on the carpet dying of their injuries and Tony and Loki collapsed on the couch giggling and occasionally smacking each other with pillows, Bruce turned to the captain and said, "Thanks, Steve. They needed that."

Steve smiled back and said, "I'm glad they're getting comfortable. I get the feeling they didn't have much of this the first time around."

Bruce nodded grimly.

"Can we keep 'em?" Clint asked quietly. Then he rolled over so he was half on top of Bruce, wriggling around and playing up his imaginary injuries and groaning until the boys had a renewed fit of giggles watching them. Bruce rolled his eyes, but smiled, and slung an arm around Clint. The question tickled at the back of his mind, but he had been effectively distracted from it.

The rest of the day was spent in similarly childish pursuits, and soon it was time for bed and no one was really upset that they hadn't gotten any more work done. The boys got tucked in, Bruce giving Tony a little kiss on the forehead and Clint taking the belt with the hidden knives gently out of Loki's hands and stting it on the bedside table, saying, "We've got your back, buddy."

Then the adults left, and a sleepy but still conscious Tony was looking idly at the ceiling of the dark room, thinking.

"Do you miss your parents?" he asked Loki.

"Yes," answered the prince immediately.

"And they're still back home on your planet? Are you gonna leave and go back home again?"

Loki thought for a moment. "No?" he answered, sounding not at all certain.

"Why, you want to see 'em, right?"

Loki couldn't articulate an answer that made any sense, so he just shifted uncomfortably and said, "Thor is strange now. Everything is strange."

Tony hummed his sympathy. "I miss my parents. My dad is super smart and builds amazing things and my mom is always nice and sometimes she sings to me. But I think it's okay if I like Bruce and grownup me's friends better because I can't see my parents again."

He rolled over, turning in Loki's direction. "Don't go, okay? I've never had a friend my age, not a real one who's not scared of me because of my dad or really boring. You're a warrior and you can do magic which makes you the coolest person I ever met. So forget your parents, okay? Clint can teach you to be the best archer in the universe and we can figure out how magic works and watch movies and Bruce said that Jarvis can make movies like that if we tell him what to make them like and you can grow up to be a superhero, Cap'll teach you, he was the first one ever. So stay here? Please?"

Loki sniffled, so Tony closed his mouth with a snap. "How can I be a hero if I am Jotunn?" Loki managed without too much garbling.

"I dunno what they are, but they can't be worse than... Night Furies," Tony said, trying for low and ominous. Whether or not he succeeded at all, the ultimate objective was achieved, because Loki laughed. Tony continued. "Like Clint said, you just need the right teachers." Loki gave a smile and a final sniffle, then wiped his nose on the sleeve of his pyjamas and settled himself for sleep.

Outside, in Bruce's kitchen, he and Clint were sitting on the stools at the counter, sipping herbal tea and going over the day together. Clint was talking about one of Loki's trick dart shots, with a huge smile dominating his face and expressive arms waving everywhere. Bruce was watching him, realizing how truly attached Clint had gotten to the young version of Loki. It sent his thoughts cascading over each other and into places he'd been trying to avoid.

"Hey, Doc, what just happened? Looks like your brain overloaded."

As often happened with Clint, the flippant words went with a sincere enough sentiment. Bruce sighed and looked at his tea. "I've been throwing myself into this puzzle, trying to get things back to normal, without really considering anything else. But, at this point, does anyone really want them to be changed back?" Bruce sighed. "I don't know what the right thing is. For the world, for me, for Tony. There are so many factors. He can't be Iron Man now, but the world would get so many more years of his inventions. For me, getting attached is bad because the deeper my feelings get, the more chance the Hulk goes off leash if something goes wrong. On the other hand, I really think it's too late to help that. And for Tony..." Bruce bit his lip. "That's the hardest one. We don't even know what will happen to all his memories from this time period if he's changed back. Whether he'd really want the Arc Reactor and all his memories of torture if he had a chance to live without them. But mostly I wonder if growing up here and now would really be any better than the childhood he did have."

Clint looked at him, fond exasperation clear in his eyes. Then he took Bruce's face between his hands and kissed him sweetly on the forehead. "Okay, first," he said, looking Bruce in the eye, "I'll admit I'm liking things the way they are now. It's great to have an excuse to play house with you and spend half the day living the childhood I never got. But I think we both know that nothing's really going to tip the scales for either of us except what's best for them."

Bruce nodded, recognizing the now-obvious truth of that.

"And second, not even going into the whole issue of what crap fathers they had the first time around. You," and he kissed Bruce again on the cheek to punctuate, "are so good at this," one on the other cheek, "any kid would be lucky to have you," and then Clint kissed lower on the first cheek, just catching the corner of Bruce's mouth, "and that is enough beating yourself up over what's gonna happen with Tony, either way he'll have you;" and the other corner was graced with a kiss too, "now please will you relax and let yourself think about what you want for yourself," and then there was a peck on the lips, "especially if it involves me?"

Clint didn't move again, just watched for Bruce's reaction, which was to say, "You're treading dangerous ground," and then lean forward to kiss Clint.