TITLE: I used to be a god, but then I took an arrow to the eye. Chapter 3/3
PAIRINGS: None
Yup, this is the last chapter!
~o~ I used to be a god, but then I took an arrow to the eye ~o~
Chapter 3
Tony knew Loki had been clipping his toenails while he slept, and after staring at the feet of the other Avengers after they came out of the shower or padded barefoot into the kitchen on the morning he had deduced two things: 1) Loki was only cutting his toenails, and 2) He was rapidly getting a reputation as a foot fetishist so he better quit staring at everyone's feet.
These facts led him to two possible explanations: 1) Loki was lying about not being the cause of Ragnarok, and out of all the Avengers only his toenails were worthy of creating a boat to transport the dead, or 2) Loki was cutting his toenails for a prank.
This caused him to decide to take one course of action: keep Loki busy, because a bored Trickster with one eye was 1) More likely to play pranks that may end up with Tony losing a toe when he slipped, and 2) More likely to actually start Ragnarok simply for something to relieve the tedium.
He decided to come up with a list, some tasks that would be easy for a person with one eye to take part in, and named it Operation Dalek. After a while he had one thing on his list: "Looking through a periscope", and since he didn't actually own a submarine just yet he started to write a list of things he wanted to do, where Loki could tag along too.
~o~
"What have you guys been up to today?" Natasha asked, as Tony walked into the kitchen followed by Loki, who was no longer wearing the huge bandage, just a small dressing held on by tape, which he picked at constantly.
"We've been to see a movie," Tony said.
"You have a good time?"
"Oh yes," Loki said. "We ate popped corn, and drank large beverages, and saw a play about lions and it was wonderful, if a little blurry."
"Lions, huh?"
"Yes, it was thrilling. There was a astonishing scene where beasts ran everywhere, and the silly lion was banished, and his dead father appeared in the sky."
"Wait, that's the Lion King," Natasha said. "You took him to see the Lion King?"
"Sure did," Tony replied.
"You took someone who only has one eye to a 3-D movie?" Natasha asked, and Tony nodded.
"I really wanted to see it though," Tony said, and then he turned to Loki. "You enjoyed it, didn't you?"
"Oh yes, it was magnificent," Loki said. "I am not ashamed to admit I found it very emotional, and may have wept a little at the end."
"A little?" Tony asked. "People were throwing popcorn at you to get you to shut up."
"I couldn't help it," Loki said. "The part when the hero was thrown from a rock and devoured by wolves was just devastating."
"You mean Scar?" Natasha asked. "But… Scar is the villain."
"Yeah, I've tried telling him that a dozen times," Tony said. "He doesn't seem to get it."
"Can we watch another movie soon?"
"You know what we should watch?" Natasha asked, and Tony shook his head. "How To Train Your Dragon."
"Ohhhh perfect choice!" Tony exclaimed, then he turned to Loki and said, "You're gonna love it. I'll order pizza."
~o~
"How does it look?"
"Pretty good actually," Bruce replied, as he shone a light into the hole where Loki's eye used to be. "The socket is fully reformed, so no more shampoo in the brain, and your eyeball has started to develop."
"Excellent news. Do I have to keep wearing the dressing? It is very irritating."
"I think you could do with some kind of covering over it, not necessarily the dressing, perhaps an eye patch?"
Loki grimaced, and shook his head. "I'm not overly fond of the idea of wearing an eye patch. To be honest, I've always found my fathers eye patch a little gaudy for my tastes, but don't tell Thor I said that. He will be most upset."
Bruce was slightly taken aback that the man who frequently wore a bright gold horned helmet was calling an eye patch gaudy, but then he said, "Well, maybe we can pick a different style. We could get you one like Fury's"
"Oh!" Loki exclaimed. "I like his eye patch. Something like that would be very much more to my taste."
"Well, I'll give him a ring, see where he gets his from, and see if we can get you hooked up with one as soon as possible."
~o~
"What do you think?" Loki asked, as he showed off his new eye patch for the Avengers, who were gathered round the kitchen table eating lunch.
"It looks magnificent, brother," Thor replied.
"Do I look as 'bad ass' as Director Fury?" Loki asked, and Clint choked on his pasta.
"Indeed you do."
"Director Fury supplied us with the name of the market where he buys his eye patches, and Stark was kind enough to take me there this morning."
"That's not the only place we went," Tony chimed in.
"Yes, Stark also took me to a magnificent trading hall, and he purchased a hat as a gift for me."
"A hat?" Steve asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Maybe you should go put it on and show everyone," Tony suggested.
"Is it not impolite to wear a hat to the dinner table on Midgard?" Loki inquired.
"Kinda, but you wouldn't be wearing it, you'd be modelling it. There's a slight difference."
"Alright," Loki said, as he dashed excitedly from the room.
"You didn't buy him what I think you did, right?" Steve asked. Tony smiled and shrugged.
Thor looked confused, and said, "I do not understand."
"Do you like it?" Loki asked as he proudly marched back into the room wearing a tri cornered pirate hat, and Tony smirked.
"Oh my god," Natasha spluttered, gagging on her drink.
"That is a wonderful hat, brother," Thor proclaimed. "I have never seen one like it."
"It really is wonderful," Tony agreed. "In fact I think you should wear it every day."
"Tony," Steve interrupted, "sometimes you can be a real jerk, you know?"
Tony opened his mouth to protest, when Jarvis interrupted. "Sir, you have an urgent message from Shield. It appears there is a disturbance and the presence of the Avengers has been requested."
Everyone jumped up, and moved out of the kitchen, preparing to suit up on their way to the Quinjet hangar on the upper floor.
"Can I come?" Loki asked, as Tony moved past him.
"I think you should stay here, Captain Jack," Tony replied. "Don't want you getting hurt."
Loki moved out into the corridor, and watched everyone disappear leaving him alone in the tower once again.
~o~
Tony was the first to arrive back home, and as he hovered in the air over his landing pad, he was rather surprised to find it occupied by a table with a giant sun umbrella in the middle of it, and Loki sat on a reclining chair in the shade.
"Did you pick that spot on purpose to piss me off?" Tony asked, as he landed at the side. "There's plenty of room over there for tacky garden furniture."
Loki lowered his book, tilted back his pirate hat, and squinted at Tony. "Perhaps. Although this spot did seem the most aesthetically pleasing for a round table."
"How exactly am I supposed to get my armour off if you're sat there?"
Loki huffed in displeasure, placed his book on the table, raised a hand, and Tony's armour vanished. "There we go, all safely tucked away, back wear it belongs. Care to join me for a drink?"
"I think I'd prefer a real drink, if you get what I mean," Tony replied, eyeing the jug filled with a brown liquid, fruit, and what looked like leaves.
"This is a real drink," Loki said, creating another glass, and filling it from the jug. "It's called Pimms. Apparently it's a traditional summer drink. I found the recipe on the internet, but I've found it's much nicer with ginger ale, not Lemonade as they suggested."
Tony looked at the drink, noting that there was a slice of cucumber floating in it, which was definitely something new, and tentatively took a sip. "Hmmm, that's actually really good."
Loki waved his hand, and created another reclining chair. "Please sit while we wait for the others to return. Tell me about the battle."
"You didn't miss much really, just a few Doombots running around trying to smuggle a bomb into the city on the boat. Killed them, defused the bomb, posed for a few photos."
"Sounds like fun," Loki replied wistfully.
"Yeah well if you hadn't ried to steal that book, and got Clint all riled up you'd still have two eyes, and you wouldn't have to stay behind," Tony said. "What the hell was so special about it anyway?"
"Thor said he would read it with me," Loki replied quietly. "Whenever I spend time with Thor it usually doing something that he wants to do. It is nigh on impossible to get Thor to do anything with me that I like. I just wanted to spend some time with him."
"And now you get to spend a lot of time with him, of course most of that time he's cutting up your food for you and trying to feed you like a baby."
"Will you please let me come next time?" Loki sighed.
"I'm not saying this because I don't want you to come, but you're injured, it wouldn't be safe for you to be out there."
"But you need me!"
"Need you?" Tony asked. "I seem to remember we managed to kick your ass, so whether we actually need you is debatable."
"You didn't defeat me, you defeated the Chitauri," Loki snapped. "If they hadn't bungled their end of the plan I would be ruling this realm right now."
"I guess you would have delighted in having us all publicly executed, right?"
"The others maybe, you I would have kept as my personal slave."
"Nice," Tony replied. "But I seem to remember someone who happened to look an awful lot like you, getting dragged off to Asgard in chains."
"You think that was defeat? That was part of my back up plan," Loki said. "Go back to Asgard, recuperate, and find new allies with which to take over Midgard."
"Didn't exactly go to plan then?"
"Well no, Banner has apparently been through a lot of treatment with a mind healer himself, and filled my brothers head with information about something called… family therapy?"
Tony nodded. "Seemed to work though? I mean you're here, trying to save people rather than wipe us out."
"I believe it worked out very well," Loki replied. "Although I was not a willing participant at first. I tried to escape many times until they tied me to my chair, but I was allowed to state my list of grievances without being interrupted or judged, and it was good to simply express myself for once."
"How long did that take? 2, 3 weeks?"
"Of course not," Loki said. "I lost my voice after the first four days."
They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the sunshine, the slight breeze, and the cool drinks.
"It has helped though," Loki said quietly, as he stared off into the distance. "I felt like no one had ever really listened to me before that. It was nice simply to be heard. Do you know how it feels to be ignored by your own family?"
Tony sat and gazed across the skyline for an uncomfortable moment. "Yeah… My dad didn't really have a lot of time for me."
"Oh, I'm sorry Stark, I didn't know," Loki replied.
"Funnily enough he knew Steve, back before he became a capsicle. It felt like he spent more time talking about Captain America, that actually talking to me. I mean you've seen Steve, how on earth was I supposed to live up to a legend."
"That must have been hard," Loki said, genuine empathy in his voice.
"No harder than growing up in the shadow of Thor I'd imagine."
Loki hummed, and continued to stare out across the city with a slightly sad look on his face, and Tony wasn't quite sure what to say. He knew he should say something comforting, something that showed he really understood, but he had no idea what that would be, and then he decided he could no longer stand the awkward silence.
"Dude, seriously, put some clothes on, if you're gonna lay out here," Tony said. "Half of NYC can probably see you."
"What?" Loki asked, then he waved down at his loincloth and said, "This is traditional Asgardian wrestling gear."
"You look like your wearing a diaper."
"A what?"
"You know, what a baby wears."
"A nappy? It does not look like… Oh, I suppose it does really."
"I guess you could do with a bit of colour, might stop you looking slightly less like a ghost."
"I am wearing sunblock."
"Figures," Tony said, laying back in his chair. "You know, I quite like this, relaxing in the sun after a job well done, but you know what we could really do with?"
"What?"
"A hot tub. Maybe put it up top where the portal machine was, get some nice planters, a few inflatable palm trees," Tony replied, and Loki looked slightly confused, as Stark stood up and wandered into the tower.
"Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir?"
"See if you can find anywhere local that does express hot tub delivery and installation, preferably today. No expense spared, of course."
~o~
Six hours later, as Loki and Thor, both dressed in Asgardian wrestling gear, played a furious game of Swingball, the Avengers sat sipping champagne in the newly installed hot tub, watching the sun set over the city.
"Now this was definitely one of your better ideas," Natasha said.
"Stop hitting the ball in that direction!" Loki screeched. "It's cheating! You know I can't see it when it comes that way!"
"Nay, brother," Thor said. "That is the point of the game."
"I don't want to play anymore if you won't play nicely!" Loki raged, and smashed his racket over Thor's head.
~o~
~o~
The Doombots were back, this time attempting to force their way into the Natural History Museum, but every attack on them by the Avengers failed.
"Why the hell aren't they going down?" Clint shouted, as he watched his EMP arrow bounce uselessly off the chest of a bot.
"They've got some kind of shield around them, but Jarvis can't even detect it," Tony answered.
"I believe the shield may be magical," Thor said as he called Mjolnir back to his hand.
"Clint, take the quinjet," Steve ordered. "Go get Loki."
~o~
"Loki!" Clint shouted as he ran through the tower, before he finally entered the kitchen and found him pouring an extremely large spoon of sugar into a hot chocolate.
"What are you doing back?"
"We need you, come on, get moving," he said, grabbing his elbow.
"But Stark told me to stay here," Loki replied, pulling his arm away.
"We're getting killed out there," Clint said. "The Doombots are back, and he's placed some kind of magical whammy on them to make them invulnerable and we need you to break it."
"No," Loki said, shaking his head. "In my present state I would only be a burden on the team."
"Look, I know you can fix your eye, and I'm pretty sure you aren't because you think you owe me something, but you don't, so get that eye fixed and get your magical little ass out there and do something about those bots."
"You say I owe you nothing, but I don't believe you."
"What?" Clint asked.
"You really did want to shoot me," Loki continued. "It may not have been on a conscious level, but deep down you still harboured resentment towards me."
"Maybe," Clint said. "Maybe a little, but I shot you by accident."
"And accident where you miraculously hit your target perfectly?" Loki asked.
Clint thought for a moment, and then said, "OK, maybe I was angry, and upset, and maybe I didn't shoot you on purpose, or maybe I did without thinking about it, I don't know anymore, but I'm sorry."
"It is not you who should be apologising to me," Loki replied. "I'm very sorry for what I did to you, Agent Barton."
"You know what, my name is Clint. I don't like it when you call me Agent Barton. It reminds me too much of before."
"Clint… Do you accept my apology sincerely?"
"Yes, I do," Clint replied. "Now are you gonna fix that eye?"
"No."
"No?"
"No, I will let it heal of it's own accord to allow you to see my penance," Loki replied, "but I will join you in battle."
"Good enough," Clint said. "Come on, let's go."
~o~
The bots were impervious to damage, surrounded by a deflection spell similar to the one Loki used so often, but it didn't take him long to decipher the magical threads, and spot the pattern in their weft.
"Can you disable the spell?" Clint asked, as Iron Man flew down the street, blasting the bots with his missiles, and knocking them off their feet, but they quickly climbed back up, undamaged.
"A few seconds more, and I should be able to work a counter spell."
"Everyone regroup," Steve shouted. "We're wasting our time attacking them while they still have their shields."
The Avengers moved back to Loki and Clint's position, gathering behind them as the bots advanced down the street.
"I think you need to hurry," Steve said, as the Doombots moved closer.
"I am doing my best," Loki replied. "I almost have it."
Hulk snorted impatiently as the bots walked towards them, and Thor shuffled from foot to foot in his eagerness for battle.
"I have it!" Loki shouted, as he raised his hands, and aimed a bolt of magic at the closest Doombot, and missed it completely. "Oh, it appears my aim is not very good."
"I'll help," Clint said, standing behind Loki's shoulder, so he could reach round and guide his hand. "Shoot!"
Loki blasted the bot with a massive blast, and it's magical shield dissipated in a cloud of sparks. "Aim again!"
Clint held Loki's hand, and together they blasted each bot in turn, leaving them defenceless and vulnerable.
"Let's go!" Steve shouted, and the Avengers advanced together, smashing the Doombots until they were little more than scrap metal.
~o~
"Hey," Clint said the next day, when found Loki alone in the kitchen, flipping through a discarded newspaper.
"Good afternoon Agen... I mean good morning Clint."
"How's the eye?"
"Much improved. I can see light, and shapes, but it's too blurry to be uncovered just yet."
"How long till it's better do you think?"
"Banner thinks a few days at most."
"Good news."
"Very much so."
"I brought you a present," Clint said, putting a brown paper bag on the table.
"A present?" Loki asked. "Why would you buy me a present?"
"I felt bad about shooting you. If I was still angry with you I should have told you, I shouldn't have let it simmer away. Come on open it."
Loki picked up the bag, and pulled out the copy of Schedel's Liber Chronicarum. "It is the book from the library."
"It's only a reprint," Clint said. "I had a hell of a time finding it, but I hope you like it."
"It is a wonderful gift, thank you very much Clint." Loki said, handling it as if it was a rare and precious thing.
"Go on then," Clint said, and Loki looked slightly confused. "Tony told me why you wanted it. Thor's just finished in the training room. Go find him."
"Thank you," Loki said, getting up from his chair.
~o~
"What you doing?" Tony asked, as Clint sat on the brown leather sofa, gazing out of the huge windows.
"Just enjoying the view," he replied, as he watched Loki and Thor curled up on the reclining chairs, protected from the heat of the bright sun by the large umbrella, laughing at the book that was propped up between them.
Thank you to everyone who has read this or left reviews. They are all very much appreciated :-D
There will be a follow up to this story, I just don't know when it will be ready.
