Hi, everyone! I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth but AP tests nearly killed me. School gets out in less than two weeks so I'll be free soon but it might be another long wait and I apologize in advance. I have the next five chapters written in dialogue but not action so that will hopefully speed things along but maybe not. I apologize for disappearing for so long and it (hopefully) won't happen again.
Not mine, never mine, usual disclaimers
The infectious ways of laughter soon influenced the other men until everyone was smiling. Even the bots were making increasingly high pitched chirps and bouncing their camera's up and down in their own, unique, form of laughter and merriment.
o~*+*~o
It seemed as though all of the expectations Loki had previously harbored for this night had been taken, consciously thrown to the floor, and happily danced upon by none other than Tony Stark.
The man had been right to place his faith in Banner. The man had a wealth of depth and strength that was hidden underneath all of his soft intelligence, thus making Loki feel ridiculous for hiding from the man in the first place. One pleasant meeting did not, however, mean that his guard was lowered.
Tony Stark had even revealed some hidden depths of his own. The revelation of the creatures he had created to help him and keep him company, the ones that Tony now fondly referred to as his children, hinted at an intelligence that was far greater than Loki had originally believed.
Even among gods it was considered an incredible feat to give life, intelligence, and emotions to an object that had none, or few, to begin with. Only the most powerful and practiced of mages could harness a wild spirit and place it into a plant or an unintelligent beast of some kind, yet Tony had gone a step further. The mere mortal human had not harnessed a spirit, nor used magic, but had instead created an intelligence that could learn and feel on its own through the use of technology.
The raw power that Tony Stark possessed, but rarely showed, was hinted at in a way that a lesser man would not have noticed because of the casual way it was spoken. Loki was fairly certain that most humans did not have access to SHIELD's network. In fact, Loki had been lead to believe that SHIELD was a rather private enterprise and was unknown to the general public entirely. These facts only added to the feat Tony had accomplished.
A man with Tony Stark's intelligence and a slightly different disposition could rule the world with ease. The man had so much influence already that it did not take a stretch of the mind to imagine such a scenario, yet he declined such a status and avenged on the side of the angels rather than succumb to darkness.
This in mind, it would not be so much of a change to add magic as a skill that Tony would put in his arsenal and Loki resolved to inform the engineer of his magic potential at the next available opportunity.
That opportunity, however, did not appear to present itself in any easily distinguishable form. While Tony had managed to cajole Banner out of the lab to get some much needed rest, the engineer was now engrossed in tweaking a holographic illusion of an Iron Man suit as well as sorting through some files that were marked as classified, not that it deterred Tony Stark.
The robots were racing around the laboratory playing a game that Tony had referred to as "tag" and, though Loki did not understand why the game was so interesting, it kept the bots amused and their pleasant chirps filled the room. While the near silence was not disturbing in the least, to Loki it was quite the opposite, the image it created touched somewhere deep inside Loki.
Here was a man, a mortal human, who had not looked to his peers for happiness and companionship but had instead looked inside himself, imagined, created, and succeeded. The image was one of brightness and contentment and Loki wanted to bask in it. It was the incessant urge to stay and smile and partake in their happiness that made Loki fidget from his reclaimed position on a semi-clean lab table.
"Loks," Tony started suddenly and making Loki freeze, "you okay?"
Stark was now turned to face Loki, though the raven haired man didn't know when that had happened, and was staring at the god like he was something that needed to be fixed and Tony genuinely wanted to do it, a look akin to concern. It was a curious look.
"Of course," Loki replied smoothly and without pause or inflection. "Why would I not be?" The answer was apparently not what Stark was looking for but the man still nodded through his wrinkled brow of introspection.
"You looked like you were thinking deep thoughts and weren't too happy about them," Stark mused as he spun around slowly in his chair, tapping his chin with a thoughtful finger and moving his gaze to the ceiling for answers, the holograms forgotten. The other restless fingers on the other hand beat out an incessant and unpredictable rhythm, stringing Loki's nerves tighter.
Nothing good ever lasted long. The concern for him had to be faked, it couldn't be real, and the drumming made everything worse. It was the tempo that built towards the crescendo, to the peak, where he would fall all over again.
"I was considering."
The lack of inflection in Loki's voice did nothing to change Stark's expression, the man only humming softly in thought as he continued to spin round and round and round.
"Considering what?" Tony questioned as he cocked his head in curiosity, the tilt mimicked by Loki. "My lifestyle, my home, my plan, my work, my personality, or you?" Though Tony did not change his tone nor his expression, the spinning and the drumming continued on, the tempo steadily rising.
"What will happen to me when I am recovered?"
The question was bit out almost harshly and made Stark freeze, the drumming and the spinning and the avoidance gone in a single squeak of sneakers on the linoleum floor. The positive side of things was how the mask of indifference had slipped and shattered. Confusion and relief was an odd combination.
"What do you want to happen?" Tony asked softly, almost hesitantly, as if he didn't know the correct answer himself, but his eyes held no hesitancy. The dark eyes looked at Loki like he could see into his soul and determine his worth with a glance.
How odd for the self-proclaimed billionaire, playboy, philanthropist to pick the safe response, putting the burden of answering back on Loki. It was clever but Loki couldn't answer, shouldn't answer, because he could not reveal how much he cared or how much he craved the true peace and comfort for the first time since his meager childhood. No hopes or expectations meant no let down.
"I wish to know your thoughts on the subject," Loki commented smoothly, attempting to loosen the tenseness in his muscles, and Tony's eyes flinched away.
"What subject?" Stark questioned blithely while purposely avoiding Loki's gaze.
"Me."
All at once, Tony's eyes snapped up to his, held for a second, and a small, breathy sigh escaped the engineer's softly smiling lips. The man's head shook slightly as he seemed to restrain both laughter and astonishment.
"Hold up a sec," Tony laughed out as he held out his hand to keep Loki from speaking and rose from his seat. The engineer slowly padded towards a mini fridge that was lodged under a nearby counter, stooped down and from it grabbed two glass bottles by their necks.
Turning back to a thoroughly confused god of mischief, Tony gave a wry grin. "My deep thoughts are not conductive for scintillating conversation and that seems to be what you want to talk about." A few steps and Tony stood right in front of him, that same smirk quirking his lips.
"Drink," Stark commanded as he handed Loki a bottle. "Plus," Tony continued as he padded over to a worn couch and fell into the cushions, "this is the only way we are talking about feelings."
"To repeat my previous query, what will happen to me once I have recovered?" Loki asked as he relocated himself to the couch and perched on the opposite side, Stark's calculating gaze bearing down on him the entire time.
"That question is full of potholes and amazingly unspecific," Tony countered as he snorted into his drink, his mouth once again curving into a wry grin that was just on this side of self-depreciating.
"How so? I believed it to be quite blunt." Cocking his head to the side, Loki raised an eyebrow in question before bringing the bottle to his lips and taking a small sip. Stark, after a moment of fiddling with his own bottle, sat the drink down in favor of staring imploringly at the raven haired man.
"The question hangs on your version of recovered. Does recovered mean you magic is back or just that you are strong and healthy enough to take on the world outside the tower?"
"Preferably both," Loki answered hesitantly, but not cautiously. He was a god, he would not allow himself to be cowed by a mortal, no matter how influential or powerful. He did, however, choose to elaborate on his statement when Stark waved his hand, snagging his beer on the way, with an expectant look on his face.
"After all, my magic should return far later than my physical being will heal. Even if every nuance of magic that returns is used towards my recovery, my magic will not return fully until I am completely physically healed." Loki took a large sip of his drink as Tony stared into a space somewhere between Loki and Stark's own mind.
The engineer looked intrigued by the workings of magic, as if it were another puzzle or branch of the mortal science that the man could uncover and master, and the raven haired man almost laughed into his drink at the conflicting wonder and confusion on the man's face. The amusement quickly dissipated when memories of this particular drawback to magic were drawn to the front of the injured mage's mind.
While Tony seemed intrigued by the near sentience of magic, Loki found his irritation towards it had not dissipated with time. It had always been one of his greatest achievement as a mage, to be able to endure so long with pain or severe injury before his magic kicked in unconsciously. It took will as well as power to stop the mind and body's automatic response to heal and stop the pain as quickly as possible.
"So your magic knows that your body is a vessel that needs to be maintained or it will be hurt?" Tony's eyes brightened as the engineer's mind already seemed to jump to possible explanations for the reaction, the man's calloused hands twitching towards the tablet resting on the table only for the man to restrain himself and take another sip of his drink.
"Yes. Magic is more than an essence but slightly less than sentient being. It can react to situations around you but it can not make actions of its own. It can animate other objects that can act but only on orders."
Loki leaned back into the soft cusions of the couch and stared at the ceiling that, somewhere, hid JARVIS's mainframe. "What you have here is far more powerful," Loki proclaimed with a tone as close to awe as he would allow himself in front of Stark as he gestured widely to the ceiling and tower in general.
"Tech versus magic."
The wonder and need to do and know that filled Tony's voice as the man staring of into the distance as if he could see the battle occurring in his own mind was something Loki could easily relate to.
As a child he had, for all intents and purposes, lived in the grandiose library on Asgard. The sheer volume of knowledge had pulled him in and hooked him as though he was enchanted and he was well aware that his thirst for knowledge had not been quenched, even after all of these decades. Tony seemed to be one of the only beings who could possibly understand the consuming need to know everything.
"That is a battle that I would like to see," Loki agreed quietly as the two men sat in quite companionship, both siping their drinks and imaging the possible scenarios for such a battle and debating the potential outcomes.
"What time is is?" Stark asked out of nowhere, breaking the silence and snapping Loki out of his pleasant imaginings of a friendly battle between him and Tony just to see what would happen when magic and technology went head to head.
"It is currently 9:57 a.m, sir," JARVIS aswered promptly. The answer did not seem to ease Tony's mind, however, because the man merely frowned up at the ceiling in confusion as the man topped off his drink and set it down with a light clink.
"And I have no meetings?"
There was a gentle pause where the entire room was silent for just one second, the innocent question so childlike that Loki had to smile softly.
"Today is Saturday, sir." The AI was gentle with his creator in that moment as Tony blinked owlishly up at the ceiling, the very image of the child he might have been but Loki had never known.
The softness was only temporary, however, and the man straightened himself once more, stood and wandered over to the bar to grab another beer. While Stark was not drunk by any stretch of the mind, the drink seemed to be his security blanket as he sipped it slowly to make it last without becoming intoxicated.
Returning to his seat on the couch with two more bottles, Tony handed Loki one of them which the injured god gladly opened and took a small swig of, he had finished the other bottle quickly as the drink was far less potent than that served in Adgard's dining halls, before pausing. "Is it not early for drinks then?" Loki questioned curiously even as he took another sip.
"It's five o'clock somewhere," Tony replied with a chuckle before taking a small sip of his own. For a moment both men looked nowhere and thought about anything, the silence full of thought before it was broken.
"Hey, Loks," Tony asked, the engineers eyes alight with his renowned intelligence and restlessness that comes from such a mind. "Would you like to try it? When you get better?" Tony has moved closer, probably unconsciously, to the god as he implored the man for an answer.
"Try what?"
"Tech versus magic!" Tony exclaimed excitedly, staring at Loki like he would be greviously injured if Loki did not agree. Of course, the man was ignorant of himself and Loki knew it was doubtful a better opportunity would arise to inform him of such.
"But the battle is going on right now," Loki stated as he cocked his head and furrowed his brow in feigned confusion.
"What? Where? I want to be involved." The addamance of Tony Stark could not be denied and Loki almost laughed at the irony he could find in this situation.
Restraining his laughter, the injured god deepened the confused look on his face as he continued.
"You already are."
"I am?" The childlike wonder and petulance at his own confusion fit Tony surprisingly well. Sadly for Loki the look was quickly replaced with the calculating gaze of a man with far too much intelligenc for his own good.
"Yes, Stark," Loki replied as simply as he could as he stared, unwaveringly, into the other man's peircing glare.
"How am I involved?"
"That was my mistake. You are not involved, Stark." If at all possible, Tony glared harder at the raven haired man. The mechanic's bright eyes narrowed into slits as if, by pure will power, he could make himself be involved.
"You are the battle and the battleground."
Now the menacing, ever calculating glare was replaced with the wide doe eyes of innocence and wonder. Tony's mouth formed a perfect "o" shape in his surprise and the man was, for once, at a loss for words.
"Your reactor versus your magic. It is a good thing they learned to work together, for your sake."
Again, soooo sorry for the delay but I hope that finally getting to the magic made up for part of it. The next chapter should be up in the next two weeks and if it isn't up by then you can start bugging me about it.
Please review!