I am soo sorry for the long delay and i should probably not promise to update in a week and take two but that seems to be what is happening. Please don't hate my story because of my horrible time management system, it did nothing wrong! Seriously though, keep reading because I promise that it will get better and my promise of Stark learning magic will be fulfilled. Just bear with me.

Not mine, never mine, usual disclaimers

"Come on," Stark said teasingly, "let me help."

o~+*+~o

Why it was such a struggle to get the injured god to accept even the smallest offer to help completely escaped the great Tony Stark for the longest time.

It wasn't that the problem was challenging, it really wasn't, but because his mind automatically wanted to shy away from thinking about Afghanistan. The reason why the true answer evaded him so was because it was exactly like his own. There were so many other, less obvious and less like his own, reasons that could have caused Loki's reluctance. Of course, out of all of them, they would have to be the same.

Even before he had been kidnapped and tortured by men speaking strange things that he couldn't understand, even before he had been alone and unable to ask for anything unrelated to building the "missile" they required of him, he had hated having to need help. Howard, never father, had been the first one to drill it into his head as a small child. Tony Stark, young genius, had built his first circuit board at the tender age of four years old but Tony Stark, failure son to Howard Stark, had his the first circuit board broken by his father after it was shown to him.

Any other father would have been ecstatic at what their son had accomplished, building a working computer at the age of four was an unheard of accomplishment, but Tony not only had to live up to his father's expectations but also to the image of a dead man. Captain America was the son that Howard Stark never had, the man that Howard always praised, the symbol of golden perfection that Tony tried so hard to achieve for so long but never got. How could a normal, if genius, human boy ever compare to the super soldier with a perfect moral compass.

Meeting the man in person after hearing story after story from the father he could never please had been disappointing to say the least. In the stories Captain America was the protector, the shield against all evils, that defending the weak and the needy to make way for a better future. In reality, Captain America was just a man out of time, a man so full of righteousness that he walked around with a perpetual stick up his ass. Both Howard and Captain America did have one, very important thing in common though. They both had the same look of disappointment in their eyes when they looked upon him.

So the whole trust issues thing had been going on long before Afghanistan. Actually, Afghanistan was now the best excuse ever for his reluctance to ask for help. The only person he had ever truly asked for help from had been Ms. Potts. With Rhodey is had been more of a silent thing, a non-verbal conversation that either requested or rebuffed and offer for help but with Ms. Potts it had been aloud and there until she had set it on the ground and smashed it with the pointy heel of her stilettos.

After Afghanistan, three months of torture, near complete solitude, and consuming fear, all the ideas that Howard had beaten into him had only been buried deeper into his psyche. Even to the point of death he refused to ask for help. Rhodey had tried to do something but he never knew the true extent of the damage the palladium arc reactor was causing him. Ms. Potts hadn't even noticed. He really should have realized things were going to hell sooner but even geniuses are blind to love, real, fake, or mistaken.

Loki was so much like him in so many ways. The look on the inured god's face was the same as his own when he looked in the mirror after a beating from his father, after Afghanistan. They both had the same cocky, 'I am better than all of you' front that people believed so easily. If you had money and used it, or apparently magic too, every takes the narcissism as a natural thing that comes with the money. "Textbook narcissism" was what Natashalie had diagnosed him with and that is exactly what is was. Narcissism from the textbook, an act Tony had mastered performing. Loki had much the same gig going and that was why Tony knew he would win.

"Letting me help you is not going to hurt you."

At this remark, Loki only arched one eyebrow in question, as if letting Tony Stark bandage him up would actually pain him and wasn't the highlight of their life like it would be for most people. Then again, he wouldn't offer to bandage up just anyone. This was Loki, the trickster god who that has next to no memories of the invasion he lead or was believed to had led. Thank god for green eyes and frost giants because now he could sleep on a fairly regular basis. His version of a daily basis.

What startled Tony out of his internal musings was how Loki suddenly turned to face his and raised his arms over his head, exposing his chest in silent permission. Trying his hardest not to ruin the moment, Tony moved forward and wrapped his arms around the injured god in a move reminiscent to a hug but wasn't. Really. It wasn't. Just because he had his arms were behind Loki's back to start bandaging from behind it wasn't a hug. Not at all.

Before Tony had wrapped the bandage even once around Loki's chest he stopped, pulled away and grasped Loki's shoulders to turn him around, finding less resistance to the move than he would have expected.

The man's back was one of the few things Tony had not gotten to check that first day because man the dude was heavy and he had somehow gotten the bandage around his torso while he had been laying down, he wasn't about to take it off to check his back. The sight that met Tony's eyes when the god turned around made Tony almost happy he had not looked that first day.

Loki's back was a mass of red and purple. Where there were not pink stripes from a whip there were shiny red blotches from burns or blossoms of color ranging from purple to yellow in bruises. How a person could stand that much damage and pain was incredible and it suddenly made sense why Loki had passed out so quickly after laying on his back on the couch. While Tony had to give the injured man props for machoism, he couldn't believe how much had been hiding under the white linen.

Very slowly, Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out the salve that he had planned to use on the gash but, since that was sufficiently healed, had definitely found a better use for it. The cream was one of his own making, a combination of a numbing liquid and a highly advanced version of neosporin that helped facilitate the healing process while eradicating the pain. The only problem was that it was created with humans in mind and not frost giant gods with magic and there was no telling how it would react. Hopefully, it would help Loki heal without the magic he normally had at his disposal.

Loki flinched away as soon as his hand touched his back but quickly returned and pressed further back with a demanding look on his face. Apparently it worked almost better on gods than it did humans. Just Tony's luck.

By the time the salve covered the injured man's back, the god was practically boneless because having the pain one has grown used to taken away is a blessing above all others and he should know. For a short while he had been able to walk around without the arc reactor sitting heavily in his chest and limiting him from breathing to his true capacity. It had been a dream that didn't last.

His body had grown so dependent on the reactor that his body did not make the heat he needed to live, letting the arc reactor make it all, and the hole in his chest was worse than the arc ever was. In the end he created an arc that was smaller; allowing him to breath more fully, heat his body from the inside, and fill the hole in his chest but not in his heart.

Tony shook his head to rid himself of those despondent thought and looked back at Loki. Loki whose perfect posture was wrecked as he slouched over in bliss. Tony just knew that if the god turned around he would have a smile on his face.

"Come on, buddy. I need you to lift your arms again so I can wrap your torso."

Tony almost chuckled when, with a reluctant flop, the injured man regained his posture and raised his arms above his head in surrender. This time the not-hug was almost more awkward because his nose was practically brushing against the cool skin of the injured man's back and getting some of the recently applied salve. This was not the best through through idea for a certified genius.

The fact that the injured god was actually conscious and sitting upright significantly improved the speed and quality of the bandage. Not that it had been bad before but it was definitely easier than bandaging himself. He had gotten a lot of practice doing that with Ms. Potts being absent.

Once the white linen had been wrapped snugly around the god's torso, completely covering the rapidly healing slash, Tony lingered close to the raven haired man and checked over all the other, more minor, injuries the god had sustained. The mechanic's gentle hands ghosted over porcelain skin the was almost as white as the bandage and across the purple bruises that marred it. Those were healing at a significantly slower pace than the slash and Tony briefly wondered if it was Loki's body or magic's way of devoting it resources to the most needed source. Either way, this was a vast improvement from the man that had been laying on his couch just over 24 hours ago.

"Have you completed your examination, doctor?" Loki questioned, looking down on Tony with a raised brow like he was the crazy one and that made Tony chuckle softly.

"Almost," Tony said as he turned Loki back around, the god's complacency remaining. Dipping his fingers back into the jar of solution, Tony placed a small dot of the salve onto each of the larger bruises and contusions and gently rubbed them into the warmer than normal for a frost giant skin. The cream would not help the smaller injuries heal much faster but it would block out the pain until they had healed if it was applied enough.

With one last look over, Tony declared Loki as helped as he could possibly could, clapped his hands together, and looked up into Loki's piercing, emerald eyes. Tony froze. The urge to make a joke, move, or do anything to break the silence was oh so tempting but he didn't, couldn't. Loki was staring at him like he was looking for answers, answers that Tony had to have. They were the same questions that Tony had asked himself when he had looked into the mirror as a child.

"Thank you," murmured Loki, their eyes still locked, and while Tony heard the words he knew the real question was 'why are you doing this?'. Tony's smile was soft as he raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry, trying to get the raven haired man to talk but not attempting to force him. That would make him close up tighter than one of his suits and never get him to talk. Answers were still to be had and, though the previous urgency had diminished slightly, Tony did need to know what exactly had happened the last time Loki, or at least Loki's body, had visited New York.

With an almost undetectable sigh, Loki's shoulders slumped forward in defeat but also curled inwards as if to protect himself from the response. "What game are you playing, Stark? Why help me when, from what I remember, I did nothing to earn your trust or cam passion?" The raven haired man glared out from under his locks as he spoke but Tony replayed that last part in his head in shock.

"This is the first I've ever heard of you not remembering anything from your previous, um, visit," Tony drawled sarcastically. Loki's position remained completely unchanged.

"Would it have mattered?" Okay, that was a good point because Tony liked to think that even if Loki had said he remembered everything that the blue to green eyes and the amount of injuries the guy had sustained would have convinced him to help anyways.

"No, it wouldn't have," was Tony's response before pausing dramatically, the quiet after such a statement making Loki turn away from him, "because I would have helped you either way."

The look on Loki's face when he turned back around to face him just begged for evidence, begged Tony to prove to the injured man that what he was saying was true and not like all the lies he had grown up with.

"And why would you have helped a monster such as me?" Loki sneered right back at Tony and the mechanic knew that underneath all of the anger was a whole lot of fear and a whole lot of despair, that the anger was all a front but a very successful one. A front Toyn knew intimately.

"Because I am a monster myself."

After that grand statement, Tony stood up from the bed to stand directly in front of the shell-shocked god.

"Merchant of Death at your service," Tony said with a bow and a slight flourish of his hand.

Silence was all that greeted him in reply.

Ok, so the ending was kind of cheesy but I finally got Tony's backstory in there so that makes it even. Right? Anyways, I am in desperate need for reviews because last chapter only got two, that poor thing, so I am making a deal with all of you nice people that actually read this last note. If I get at least four reviews on this chapter and the previous one (the previous one already has two so that makes it a little easier) then I will put off my homework and write two chapters to be posted within the span of a week. Only if I get the reviews though. Deal.
I am also still searching for more ideas so if you have some add them in your review or PM me!

Please review!