Tony found Loki exactly where he'd expected: sitting just on the edge of the roof with his legs dangling over. It had become something of Loki's safe spot in the months he'd been living with the Avengers, and it was unofficially dubbed 'Loki's (and Thor's, though not at the same time) pouting spot' just as Bruce had 'his' spot in the lab and Clint had his 'nest' in the gym roof. Tony didn't really mind; he'd been the one to invite them here, after all, and it was hardly a hotel.
"If you're going to jump, please try to avoid people walking by," he called over.
"My apologies for my brother's destruction," Loki apologized before adding, "as well as my hand in it."
"You've said that a lot, haven't you?" Tony snorted, sitting down beside the god, "and no biggie – thanks for fixing it."
Loki inclined his head slightly, "The first part, yes."
They sat in silence for a few moments, Tony unsure of how to broach the subject he was assigned to and Loki perfectly content not to speak. Finally, aching for something for his hands, Tony cleared his throat.
"So, uh – you and Thor… want to talk about whatever that was?" he suggested.
"Not particularly," Loki answered.
If pressed, he'd lie and roundabout his way away from the actual topic (he had plenty of experience with that), mostly because he wasn't sure to which part of it Tony referred. The part about the Jotunns apparently worried about Loki – and Norns damn them all, what is that about? – or he and Thor's familiar arguing over who was better loved. Either way, he had little desire to repeat them to another.
"You sure? 'Cause I can always just get JARVIS to pull up the tapes," Tony warned casually.
As expected, Loki bristled at this suggestion and turned cold eyes on him. In their own way – that lacked any sort of modesty or concern for dignity – the Asgardians were very discreet people; Clint had once joked about sex tapes, only to have Thor enraged at the blatant disregard for one's privacy, and Tony had kind of been banking on that as leverage even as faint guilt flickered.
"Do as you please, Stark," Loki answered finally, his voice like ice, "you will understand little to none of it."
"Eh, I don't know. Steve and I were there for the whole 'daddy loves me best' part – I think I kinda' get that, at least," Tony shrugged.
"Because of your father's utter indifference throughout your life or his general disdain for anything you accomplished?" Loki queried.
Despite himself, Tony gritted his teeth in surprise at this sharp jab. He'd forgotten that threatening and cajoling didn't really work with Loki. Fuck, he didn't know what did; generally, when they talked, not that they did all that frequently, Loki was a willing participant. Given the steely veneer now, though, he pretty obviously wasn't.
"Hey, my dad didn't let me fall off a fucking bridge," Tony snapped.
Immediately, he knew it was a misstep by the way Loki flinched and the pulse of green at the trickster's wrist, but he wasn't altogether sorry. Sure, Loki had 'daddy issues', but who in the tower didn't? They all managed to avoid turning Stark Tower into the world's tallest matchstick. Then again, that wasn't exactly the point.
"What was that? On your wrist?" he asked, trying to even out his tone.
Loki didn't answer, just kept his gaze stubbornly forward. After a few moments of this treatment, Tony huffed a sigh; god – gods? – these guys were childish.
"Clint told me about you putting a calming spell or whatever on both of us. Can you at least explain that?" he demanded.
"You fell through the Void for less than a minute, Stark; I fell for three months," the god finally replied, his voice entirely devoid of emotion.
"Oh," Tony managed, grasping the enormity of that, "So. You get nightmares too."
Was that even possible? Neither Thor nor Loki had ever said anything about dreams – but then again, when had any Avenger mentioned their nightmares? Still, it seemed odd to picture either god waking up from a bad dream. Loki's rough bark of laughter, however, said that maybe they were human in this aspect, too.
"Yes, Stark," he drawled (and how the hell was he making this sound so damn condescending?), "memories of the void come calling at night."
Ignoring the fact that he could have said that with about ten fewer words, Tony leaned back to survey Loki silently for a moment. He was the best liar Tony knew, which made sense – God of Lies and all that – but he had a strange penchant for honesty. If he didn't know better, Tony would say it was like a kid trying to please those around him; if the truth was unpleasant to other's ears, lie until you'd built a façade they liked. He was maybe just projecting, too.
"How old are you and Thor? Our time," he inquired abruptly.
Loki glanced up in surprise at this abrupt change again; wariness lingered in his eyes as if preparing for being called a child or some other insult. There was a moment or two of silence as he ran through the mental math.
"Thor would be just around twenty one, I believe, and I'd be somewhere between eighteen and twenty," he finally offered, "though some would place us both closer to twelve."
Amusement flickered through Tony's mind, and he would have laughed at the accuracy of the last remark, but his brilliant brain was hung up on that first remark. Because what kind of teenager was married, had like a dozen kids, had nearly destroyed two planets, been brainwashed and was gradually working off his title as Public Enemy No. 1?
"But you're married! And have kids!" he blurted.
"I've been married since shortly before my last name day – just under a millennium ago," Loki explained, amusement clear in his voice, "and ignoring the technicalities, I won't be what you consider twenty-one until Thor's coronation."
"But I thought Thor's coronation was what you interrupted like two years ago?" Tony objected.
"When you are immortal, time is hardly limited to forward progression," Loki scoffed.
"Okay, Mr. Time Lord," Tony muttered, "That kind of makes sense. Right. So, you got de-aged after fucking up Thor's coronation and all?"
"In Asgard's eyes, yes," Loki conceded, "Just as Thor was until after his banishment. Now, Asgard merely waits for him to believe himself ready."
"What do you think?" Tony queried.
A thoughtful expression slipped over Loki's features, equal parts sorrow, rue and hope, and he took a quiet breath.
"He will make a good king, as I've always said," he finally answered, "and there will be no interruptions in his coronation so long as I can stop them."
Tony grinned and deftly bypassed the handy, jackass remarks that sprung to his lips about brothers and sappy Loki. Contrary to popular belief, he did have a brain-to-mouth filter – it just generally was more fun to not.
"So, you two good?" he asked instead.
Loki snorted, somehow managing to keep his dignity despite the huff, and a faint grin flicked briefly onto his lips.
"Given Thor's unconditional forgiveness," he mused dryly, "I suppose we must be."
"Yeah, you should probably apologize to him," Tony suggested, full well knowing that it was pointless. So far as he knew, Loki didn't apologize – not that Tony could really nag him without being a hypocrite.
As expected, Loki scoffed as he stood up languidly. Tony stood as well, though he paused a moment to look thoughtful. He still wasn't really sure of the other Avenger God's mood, but it was probably best to keep the brothers separate for now.
"You play chess?" he asked.
Loki nodded slightly, "Of course."
He hadn't for a long time – not since the last time he and Thor had played, many years before the doomed coronation, but he forced himself not to think of that. Thor had undoubtedly lost or broken the set now or bartered it for something more valuable; after all, a nameday gift from a little brother was hardly worth keeping into adulthood. Closing off the quiet cry of want the memory caused, Loki turned and followed Tony into the tower.
Quiet raps sounded at Thor's door and the god glanced up reluctantly.
"Come in," he sighed.
Steve cracked the door cautiously, ready to bolt if there were any signs of Thor's anger still running hot. The rest of the team had agreed that any sign of lightning or sparks in general were pretty much the sign for Steve to run. While he seemed to have a sort of similar resilience as the Asgardians, no one really wanted to find out if he could stand up to divine lightning (well, Tony might, but then again…).
"Hey, uh, you okay? We didn't hear you, uh, come in," he stammered.
"My apologies, Captain," Thor inclined his head formally, "both for the destruction I caused and for failing to inform you of my return."
"It's fine," Steve soothed, inching cautiously into the room, "We were just worried – after your…argument and all."
A heavy sigh slid from Thor's lips.
"It is not a burden for your shoulders," he said.
"You're our friend, Thor; we want to help you with whatever's going on," Steve objected gently.
He was still keeping close to the door but could see Thor's entire back from where he sat on the edge of his bed.
"Do you play chess, Son of Roger?" the thunderer inquired abruptly.
"Uh… sort of?" Steve replied uncertainly.
"Would you care to play a round with me?" Thor invited.
Steve didn't really know how to play beyond the basics that Bruce had taught him a few months ago, but he wasn't about to drop the unhappy god's invitation now. Moving from his spot by the entry, he quickly walked over to the table in front of Thor's balcony, where the god had started laying out a chess set. Once he'd sat down, the captain paused to gawk at the board and pieces. Made of some gleaming stone, the board was trimmed in a pearlescent white and each piece was uniquely and intricately carved.
"Gosh, Thor," he breathed, rolling a white knight in his hand, "Where'd you find this?"
Thor hesitated, his hand lingering on a white bishop.
"My brother...made them for my nameday many years ago," he explained.
The memory was still bright and sharp in his mind of that nameday. Mostly, because Loki had enchanted the entire palace so that anything Thor touched turned into berry tarts – including Sif, when Thor tried to pull her in for a kiss. Loki had been absent the entire day, of course, until he showed up in Thor's room in the middle of the night, his grin nearly a beacon in the blackness. Startled, Thor had assumed that another nightmare had woken his brother – though that was ridiculous, because Loki had stopped coming to him for comfort long before that – until Loki had slipped a finely wrought box into his hands and whispered a cheerful congratulations. He'd vanished too quickly for Thor to take out his anger at being pranked, but Thor had made sure to give him a – brotherly – pounding the next day before thanking him for the fine gift.
"Wow," Steve breathed in surprise, trying to imagine Loki carving the entire set, "How?"
"Magic," Thor chuckled, "He enchanted it as well so that we could continue our games even while in separate realms. When he…fell, I had hoped to reach him through it. He would call it foolish; after all, he surely has forgotten it by now."
"His…fall really beat you up, didn't it?" Steve asked, immediately berating himself for such a stupid question, "I'm sorry – that was really dumb. It's probably still-"
Thor chuckled and waved the offence away with a hand.
"It is nothing, Steve," he reassured, the name still strange when he'd known the man for so little a time, "Loki's absence was deeply felt by all of Asgard, no matter how he may scoff at the thought. I was not the only one to lose a brother with his fall."
Steve nodded slightly, sliding his rook out. While he couldn't compare his life to that of thousands-of-years-old deities, he got the whole losing a brother deal. Throughout the war, he'd lost many – Bucky most prominent among them. He didn't think the loss of a blood brother could cause a more painful ache than that one.
"Do you think you guys will ever be like that again? Like you used to be," he queried, curious.
"No," Thor admitted reluctantly, "We are both much too changed to return to the way we once were. I can only hope that we can find something better and new, now."
His mother had always told them that they were two parts of a two-piece puzzle – entirely different and unique but reliant on each and whole together – and Thor couldn't help thinking that that puzzle had been dropped in a puddle and torn to bits by wolves, but he also didn't believe that ragged edges couldn't be met.
"That's…I think that's a good plan," Steve replied after a moment.
"If nothing else, I have always been able to best Loki in the arena of stubbornness," Thor grinned cheerily, "and that has certainly not changed."
AN: For those of you wanting to hear what the brothers had to say...sorry? I don't think either Loki or Tony are very direct people, and while Thor and Steve are, both [to me] are too polite to broach a subject that might be too awkward/painful. That said, I actually want to write the next chapter :D [I really didn't want to write this one. Chapter Nine kept popping into my head and doing the disco till I paid attention.]
DragonSiren7 - I love Deadpool! [or at least, how much I've seen on the interwebs and my Deadpool-obsess friend has shown me] Unfortunately, I can't think of how to work him being Loki's kid into the story - largely because I don't have a very good grasp of his character. But it's a cool idea...I'll see what I can do (: