Author's note: Just a note to "Anonymous" who posted some interesting comments about how Tony is handling the situation with Loki. Actually, I don't think from Tony's POV, there's really any dichotomy. He's trying to handle this situation as if Loki had been put in charge as his prisoner, not his slave. And of course, if Loki *had* instead been made to serve his punishment in a "normal" prison here on Earth, he would have been subject to exactly the same things that Tony is subjecting him to (being touched without permission, being expected to obey, having to perform manual labour, etc). So in Tony's mind, this latest incident is one of "potentially dangerous prisoner possibly trying to escape", not "slave disobeying my orders".
Obviously, that's not how *Loki* is seeing and interpreting things (to him, their relation is still master-slave, whereas Tony is thinking of it more as warden-prisoner), but that is another kind of dichotomy… ^^
The first day, he sits on the bed, staring at a faint crack in the ceiling. Of course, spending a week locked up is not a harsh punishment by any means, and in Asgard a slap on the wrist like this wouldn't have been considered a punishment at all, but after having so recently stood outside for the first time in so long, the confinement is weighing heavily on his shoulders regardless. It serves as another cruel reminder of his inescapable situation, of the things he can't have, of the sentence he will have no choice but to serve for the rest of his life.
There's nothing in here, nothing for him to do. No books or anything else to keep his mind or body occupied. There's only a clock on the wall, its hands moving slowly but relentlessly.
He's familiar with the way humans tell time, and it would seem that they attach a lot of significance to it, breaking it up into its smallest possible parts. They're so exact, the mortals, measuring time in tiny little bits and pieces like this. Tony even wears one of these time-telling devices around his wrist, apparently worth a small fortune here in Midgard.
They're not as particular in Asgard. Midday, in an hour, in the evening – that's usually specific enough, for most intents and purposes. Not like here, where every moment in time can be assigned its own specific set of numbers, giving it a clear and defined identity. He doesn't know why that should be so important, and it feels like a travesty for someone like him condemned to spend perhaps millennia in slavery.
The first evening, he thinks back on his time spent in the dungeons. He's glad he didn't have a clock in there, because being so conscious of time just makes its agonizingly slow passing harder to deal with.
When dinner arrives, courtesy of the robot servant, he eats it slowly for lack of other things to do. Before he goes to bed, he hangs a shirt over the clock so he doesn't have to watch the hands moving with excruciating slowness.
The second day, he sits in a chair by the window, looking out on the vast blue sky above.
The second evening, he avoids the window, not looking out of it even once. He can't bear to see the sky outside any longer when locked up in here.
The third day, he doesn't bother getting out of bed, but remains lying there until evening comes and he once more falls asleep.
The fourth day, he fantasises that the door will open and that Tony will stand there in the frame. That he'll talk to him, spouting off his usual lengthy ramblings. At this point, even they would be a welcome break in the silence and monotony.
When the door finally does open, he's disappointed that it's only the robot delivering his meal. The loneliness is eating at him; at least in the dungeons there were guards to bait, other prisoners to shout at through the bars, even the occasional visitor passing by his cell, and he finds himself missing someone to talk to. He's never been locked up alone like this for days on end. Even in his cell at SHIELD, there had been guards stationed to watch him, agents to interrogate him, Director Fury to come by and threaten him. Back then, he'd wished for privacy and solitude instead, not for company.
He glances towards the door again.
It remains closed.
The fourth evening, Jarvis' voice unexpectedly comes on-line.
"Mr Stark would like you to join him for dinner," it says, pleasant and polite as ever as the lock to the door clicks open.
Well, perhaps this time, he's going to get a better answer out of the god as to what he was actually doing out there on the roof. Or trying to do. Or hoping to do. Whatever.
Maybe Loki will lie. Maybe make something up. Maybe not say anything at all. But there's no point in speculating. He'll have to deal with the answer, of lack thereof, once he gets there.
He fiddles with the fork in his hand as he waits for Loki to join him at the table. He has to admit, his conscience has started to grow a bit guilty after his having kept the god locked up in there for several days.
Yeah, so Loki knew full well he wasn't supposed to be opening any doors, but… what would Tony have done is his situation if the opportunity had presented itself?
Yeah, exactly.
They eat in silence. He wonders if Tony is still angry, though it doesn't really seem like it, and if he'll be sent back to his room for the remaining three days after the meal is finished.
"So what were you actually doing out there on the roof?" Tony suddenly asks without any preamble as he stabs a meat ball with his fork. "Why did you walk out there at all? And how did you even know that the door would open?"
Well, he supposes there's no way he'll be able to evade those questions.
"I could open a window for the first time since coming here. So I assumed the same might go for the door," he says, answering the last question first, then reverting to poke at the food on his plate.
"Alright. And exactly what were you trying to do out there?" Tony repeats his question, not satisfied with Loki's half-evasion.
He is silent for a while before answering. While he's reluctant to admit to any weakness in front of Tony, he can't ignore a direct question from him either.
"I just… wanted to go outside," he finally says quietly to the fork in his hand, not meeting with Tony's eyes, immediately regretting the words as soon as they've left his mouth. They're sounding so pitiful, so weak, so desperate. And, even worse, almost pleading. He hates himself for sounding like that. It's not like him, shouldn't be like him.
A silence follows, and as it presses on, he slowly lifts his gaze from its resting spot on the tabletop. Tony has stopped eating and is regarding Loki with a long, contemplative look, and he's not sure he wants to know what the man is thinking in that moment.
"You… wanted to go outside," Tony repeats, as if he's not sure he heard correctly the first time. "That's all?"
"Yes," he admits, trying not to sound too pathetic, hoping the questioning session will be over with that.
"I see," Tony says, still with that contemplative look on his face.
There are no more questions, and they finish their meal in silence, Loki still wondering whether Tony is angry at him.
Though, at least he doesn't get sent back to his room again when the meal is finished.
Such a simple explanation, and yet not given until now. So simple that at first, it had been tempting to reflexively dismiss it as a lie, as a cover-up for something more devious and fit for a god of lies and deceit. But eventually, the more he thought it over, the less likely that interpretation had seemed.
Of course, Loki had no way of knowing that Jarvis had been taken temporarily off-line. If his opening of a window happened to coincide with those few minutes of non-surveillance, probability theory dictates that this was only one in a very long line of attempts that he must have kept making, despite getting his hopes crushed by the same answer from Jarvis each time. A quick check with Jarvis confirmed this; this incident was far from the first time Loki had been trying to open a window, though he'd obviously never succeeded until now.
And he has to admit, if Loki was putting on a façade back there during dinner, it was a damn good one.
To say nothing of the fact that Loki didn't actually go for the main door leading out from the tower, only the one leading out to the roof.
Tony whistles as he steps out of the elevator, relieved to be home again after having attended another one of those tedious board meetings filled with self-important people who love to talk even though they have precious little to say. The kind of meetings that he used to neglect because Pepper would deal with them and cover for his absence one way or the other, but that he now has no choice but to attend, be it however sporadically.
Throwing his jacket off to the side he proceeds to loosen up his tie, and then stops in his tracks as he passes an open door and sees Loki sitting at a bay window like a silent shadow. The god is sloppily reclining in the corner, one leg up and one arm slung across the knee, head leaning back against the narrow white-plastered wall, eyes locked on the sky outside. Not that there is anything particularly strange about the sight as such, but what gives him pause is that the god is still hunched up in the very same spot as when Tony left the house to listen to a bunch of people in fancy suits telling him how he should run his company, which was over four hours ago.
And he is struck by how little Loki looks anything like the deranged maniac who tried to conquer the planet in what suddenly feels like a very long time ago, though it's only been months. In fact, he only looks tired and dejected, like one of those pitiful animals at the zoo placed in cages far too small, reduced to doing nothing but prowling their confines in endless circles, back and forth. Though Loki doesn't prowl, he just sits there, wordless and emotionless, gazing longingly out the window.
Tony stands there for a few moments and then turns on his heel, heading for his workshop. He has something he needs to finish down there.
And the sooner, the better.
Hmm, what might Tony be building down there in his workshop… a tickling machine so our resident down-and-depressed god of mischief might finally laugh a little? A mechanic blow-up doll so that Loki might turn his thoughts into a more pleasurable direction? Or *gasp* something else entirely? Guess next chapter shall tell… ^^
Please review. :)