A.N: Set after the end of Ironman 1, and before the beginning of Ironman 2
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A week after almost accidentally killing himself, Loki finds himself down in Stark's shop with him – apparently the mortal has decided that his cat is safer where he can keep an eye on him –and he is sitting contentedly watching idly as Tony uses one of his computer terminals to view surveillance logs from the past days.
Loki does not know what his mortal is looking for – but he does know what he can find on that computer, and when Tony finally goes to work on his armor, he quietly pads over to the computer and sifts through the recorded surveillance video. He knows which date he is looking for - the day the Stark industries Arc reactor went up in flames was well recorded in news – and Loki guesses that this was the day Stane had tried to kill Stark.
When he finds the recording, Loki wishes that he had not. The speakers are turned down to a low volume – too low for a mortal to hear from the other side of the room – but in his cat form Loki can hear everything – every word that Stane speaks, dripping with sickly sweet admiration for Tony's unparalleled genius while he's ripping out his life, every breathless anguished gasp that might have been a scream of pain and sheer horror if Tony was not too paralyzed to even scream.
Loki finds that he admires Tony for finding the strength to glare at Stane instead of succumbing to the horror and simply shutting down. He admires the accusation and anger in Tony's gaze overpowering the hurt and betrayal – but he can also see the horror and anguish, both mental and physical, in the mortal's eyes; he can hear it in each terrible strangled gasp. And with each grimace of pain he sees seep into Tony's mostly paralyzed features, Loki feels his heart – the heart he thought had frozen into nothingness – break a little more.
In the recording, Stane packs away the arc-reactor, still yammering on in his paternal concerned drawl, and then departs, leaving the dying Tony with a final sentence:
"Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this, I would have preferred that she live."
In that moment, Loki knows that he hates Stane more than anything in the nine realms. It would have been one thing if Stane had just killed Tony – but that was not enough for the bastard. Instead Stane paralyzed Tony and then calmly, methodically extracted the life from his defenseless form… he drawled on about the magnificence of Tony's creation while letting shrapnel rip apart his heart… and in the end when he had what he wanted, and Tony was dying, Stane just had to twist the knife and dig it deeper by promising to kill the woman Tony loved.
As Stane walks out of the frame with a truly sickening grin on his face, the air is rent by a sound akin to metal ripping, and it is only when Loki feels hands close around his chest and lift him that Loki realizes the sound was him – hissing with every ounce of rage and hurt in his little body.
He is brought into Stark's arms, and can feel the subtle flinch as Tony looks at the screen and realizes what is on it. That is the only reaction the mortal shows, but when he turns the screen off without wasting a moment, Loki knows exactly how deep the trauma runs, and he realizes that he actually admires Tony Stark – a Midgardian. He admires him for finding the physical and emotional strength to survive that assault, for his unparalleled genius, for being able to keep his sanity and his purpose despite all that he has suffered through.
And when Tony sits down muttering "You sure know how to pick 'em.", and sets Loki on his lap, running hands through his fur in an effort to calm the tense cat, Loki does not pull away as he normally would. Instead he places his front paws on Tony's chest, finding solace in the warmth and the steady strong heartbeat that remind him that Tony's still alive.
Tony says nothing more, and after a while he goes back to his work. This does not surprise Loki who knows that all Tony wants, most likely, is to put that awful memory firmly in his past, but he is surprised by the realization that he no longer thinks of Tony Stark by his surname. Loki knows he has become fond of this fragile mortal, and he hopes he will never, in the course of conquering Midgard, have to hurt him.
Loki finds himself oddly content to watch Tony upgrading his armor – machinery that is as much a work of art as an embodiment of incredible power, but the image of Stane's smiling face lit by the arc reactor he had just ripped from Tony's chest keeps invading his thoughts, and for the first time, Loki realizes that there are worse things he could have been than a Frost Giant.
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