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Chapter 6

Phil drove the last leg to New York City.

It didn't matter that Tony was used to taking phone calls during independent flight - cell phone laws were cell phone laws. The last thing they needed now that they were in New York state was being pulled over, even if their governmental status would probably get them away with a warning or nothing.

"Hey, Pepper."

"Are you close?"

"In-state. I hope everything's ready by now?"

"It is. And Bruce and Clint are both here ready to help out." A pause. "Please tell me you aren't driving."

"Phil's driving. I took this morning."

"Mind telling him hello?"

He turned in his seat and held the phone towards the driver's seat. "Hello, Phil."

"Hi, Pepper!"

Tony turned back and brought the phone to his ear again. "Yeah, about Clint and Bruce. Clint needs to not be there for his own sake when we bring Loki in, and Bruce probably needs to be gone for Loki's sake. Or at least where Loki isn't going to see he's there." Tony hated saying it, but with Loki being worse the past few days...

"He got worse?"

"I think so. None of us have any way of knowing, but he definitely looks more dejected since we crossed the Mississippi. Trying to make sense of him is taking everything Natasha's got, and if we didn't have her..."

"I'll warn Clint. I'm not sure I agree with you about Bruce."

"Pepper... he's recognized all of us who fought him. All of us." Tony rubbed his forehead with his other hand. "He'll probably remember that where Bruce is, the other guy is too. And that didn't go well when last they met."

The telltale rustle of a hand covering a phone mike.

"Pepper, don't!" Tony said as loudly as he dared with Loki in the back of the van.

The muffled sound of, "Bruce! I need you to talk to Tony!"

"No, I don't!" he shot back helplessly.

He sighed. At least Pepper's ideas usually turned out for the best. And when they didn't, they were still good ideas.

He'd just have to trust her and let her enjoy her 'I told you so' later. Same as always.

"Tony, Bruce here. What's going on?"

"We're nearly back to the city. Loki's... emotionally worse."

"What do you need? I don't know a thing about his biology, and I've not got half the knowledge of alien psychologies Natasha has. Now, if he was a cholera-stricken confused human five-year-old, those I know how to deal with..."

"He's recognized the rest of us. I don't know in how much detail, but enough to know we've hurt him in the past."

"Oh." The difference the two sentences made in Bruce's displayed emotions made Tony feel vaguely ill. "I see."

"Bruce... I..."

"Something to consider," Bruce said evenly, "is whether or not he'll deduce I must be around somewhere since everyone else is. Will knowing where I am or not knowing where I am scare him more?"

"I don't... ugh. Do you know if he saw the other guy coming when they met?"

A very dark chuckle. "Yes. By about a second. But he was facing that way."

Tony rubbed his temples. "Then maybe it would be better for him to know where you are. Damn, this is getting complicated."

"Tony, think of it this way: he isn't your responsibility. He's Thor's. You're just providing a safe place for him to heal where he won't be hunted because of where he was born and to whom. If he really remembers the battle well enough to identify us, then he knows you've hurt him in the past. Shelter's probably more than he expects from you as it is."

"Water's more than he expects from anyone as it is, Bruce," Tony hissed.

A few very deep very audible breaths.

The other guy knows Pepper, Tony quickly reminded himself. The other guy likes Pepper. And she isn't afraid of him, not after that upstate trip they took when Phil was still injured. And really, after that trip, the Hulk was far more likely to look to her for aid in identifying someone to smash than to harm her even in the case of a sudden emergency transformation.

Which was good. Very good.

"Really?"

"Bruce, I wasn't kidding when I told you he has to be force-fed."

"But water? Seriously water?"

"Seriously water."

A pause. "Tony, I... I think I have a hypothesis."

"Please tell me you can test it in the lab. The lab makes sense. I have half a mind to move into the lab and not come out until either he's fixed or I've figured out marketable cold fusion."

"Tony, cold fusion requires..."

"I know, that's the point."

A laugh from Bruce and matching titters from the back of the van.

"So what's the hypothesis?"

"That it isn't from the injury."

"Bruce, what do you mean?

"Oh look, Pepper wants the phone back. Here you go, Pepper."

"Bruce, don't..."

"Hi, Tony. Look, if dinner's going to be on the table when you get here we need to go ahead and arrange it, so can you give me an idea what you've been giving Loki?"

"Fast food cheeseburgers. The plain kind. Condiments are okay, but pickles are a problem and forget lettuce or tomato."

"So something that can be made bite-sized."

"Exactly."

"Alright, we'll have something on the table for everyone."

"Thor's been feeding him separately..."

"...and that's going to change immediately if I have anything to say about it, Tony. I'll see you tonight." She made a light kiss noise into the microphone.

"Pepper, don't..."

Click.

"Pepper will have everything set for dinner when we get there," he announced shakily.

He glanced over at Phil.

Phil was barely holding in a chuckle.

Tony settled for glaring at him the rest of the way home.

It was completely predictable, to Phil at least and he was fairly sure Tony had figured the same, that Clint would take a good look at Loki's current state, do a little mental figuring, and promptly look ill.

He spun on his heel and made for what was probably the nearest bathroom he knew about.

Well, that's one introduction done with, on the Earth side at least.

Loki didn't seem to know what to make of Pepper, but then they had never met. After a few moments of her talking softly to him despite everyone reminding her he'd shown no signs of understanding language, he seemed to settle on considering her trustworthy and kind.

And then he caught sight of Bruce and the party was on.

For the standard Avengers' definition of 'party' which included everything from the low end of discovering someone you cared about was an abuse survivor and hadn't told you yet to the high end of a full-scale extra-planetary invasion.

In this case, said party involved an alien prince faking a fainting spell on the floor of Tony Stark's personal garage, and the only reason they were actually sure he was faking was that Thor swore he'd seen Loki faint before and his breathing had not slowed nearly that far back then. Meaning he was probably consciously slowing it down.

Bruce knelt beside him. "Hey, Loki. Nothing to be afraid unless you make there be something to be afraid of, okay?" He reached out a hand and started brushing Loki's hair back. "See? I'm not hurting you. Everything's fine. And now we're all going to go upstairs and eat."

No response from Loki.

"What were you saying about a hypothesis?" Tony asked.

"Later," Bruce answered back in the same near sing-song tones he'd been using. "When Loki doesn't have to listen to us arguing. Damn, I've known scared sick street kids who were better off than this."

"Thus the warning," Phil told him.

"Right. Tony..."

"Hey, it's okay. You didn't expect anything coming from me to seem like bigotry, and oh look it did. But he's just so..."

Bruce nodded.

Thor obviously couldn't take it anymore and picked his brother off the ground. "My apologies, but I fear he will not be ready to eat or drink anything until long after he recovers from this and our journey."

Tony nodded. "Probably couldn't keep anything down right now. We try eating together tomorrow?"

Everyone agreed. Pepper left with the brothers so they could find the temporary room Tony had picked out for them for at least as long as it took the renovations to get further along.

"Hypothesis?" Steve asked.

"Failsafe." Bruce's voice was grim.

Tony stared at him. "You mean this was meant to happen."

He nodded. "If I'm right, it won't get better on its own. He'll keep fighting everyone who tries to feed him."

"And I can barely figure him out as it is, without some form of real communication going on," Natasha griped. "Now if we could read his mind, that would be useful."

Phil seemed thoughtful. "Well, as I recall one of the neighbors was investigated by SHIELD for supposed magical phenomena after Thor let us know more advanced realms than ours believe in magic."

It took Tony a moment to realize just which neighbor was meant.

"Oh no, not in my tower. Not the charlatan."

"There were things we couldn't explain that happened while the investigation team was there, Tony." Phil sighed.

He crossed his arms. "No. There's no way a magician can help with a real problem. No use getting Thor's hopes up, either."

Natasha's glanced between them. "Who do you mean?"

"I'm wondering that myself," Steve added absent-mindedly.

"It doesn't matter, it isn't real, he can't do anything, now can we please go eat?"

Natasha shook her head. "I have to go check on Clint first, make sure he's all right now we've got Loki tended. I'll see you all in a little while, but don't wait on us to start."