I owe this fast update to a snow day, since I had more time to do homework and write.
I have been ecstatic this month seeing my fanfic stats! I never expected this story would get this kind of feedback! This story has gotten over 2,000 views this month (before this month I never passed the 2,000 mark for all my stories put together) and I got 7 reviews in one day! Seriously you all are the best. Thank you all so much! I get a huge grin on my face whenever I get an email from Fanfiction :)
Oh yeah- I'm not sure if I've mentioned this but the the attack on New York from the Avengers still happened before this fic. Only Loki obviously wasn't with the Chitauri. So that's technically AU, I guess.
This chapter was so fun to write. It's another long one, which some of you said you liked. They always end up longer than I expect. A new character makes an appearance. It's also entirely from Tony's point of view, but last chapter was mostly Loki.
Tony's leaning casually against the wall, but Loki's bouncing up and down excitedly next to him, as he often does. They're riding the elevator up Stark Tower, and Tony's filling the silence with whatever's on his mind. He's not sure if Loki's listening, but he's never really sure of that, so he just talks as if he is.
He'd been very surprised when Loki had confidently led him to where he had unknowingly shoplifted Simba. The employee at the store claimed to have seen Loki walking out, so it was apparently the right place. It had been kind of inconvenient for Tony to get his wallet out, but he'd done it.
Yes, Tony had bought Simba for Loki. It had been obvious Loki wasn't going to part with the toy unless it was pried from his fingers, and Tony wasn't about to do that. Tony had thought it would be weird to see Loki holding a stuffed animal (he was a grown man, after all, even if he seemed childish a lot of the time), but after seeing Loki clutch a can opener yesterday, this really didn't seem that strange in comparison. Loki had had such a contagious grin on his face when he'd heard he'd be able to keep Simba that Tony had found himself grinning too.
The employee had been shocked that Iron Man was buying a toy for "some random guy" as they put it, but they had actually been really nice to Loki, not even holding a grudge that he'd wandered off without paying earlier. The employee had even struck up a conversation with Loki about The Lion King and honestly smiled at Loki's enthusiasm. After that jerk at the clothing store, this person had restored Tony's faith somewhat in random store cashiers.
Tony had made sure to keep a hand either on Loki's shoulder or lightly gripping his arm at all times as they'd walked back to the tower. He's rather surprised that Loki never objects to his touch, especially since there have been many hints that he'd been physically abused. Most people from his situation would probably flinch away from any sort of contact, but Loki had only done that during his panic attack. Is that a sign that Loki trusts him?
He's going to have to keep an eye out for more panic attacks from the god. Right now, though, Loki seems to have bounced back to being happy, and Tony finds himself sort of jealous that Loki's able to do that.
As they ride the elevator, Loki starts curiously poking all the buttons for the different floors, but Jarvis overrides the commands and takes them directly to Tony's (and now Loki's) quarters without making a million stops along the way. Tony gives a small grin to the camera in the corner but doesn't say anything. Words aren't needed, really. He knows his AI knows that he appreciates not wasting an hour for the elevator to slowly crawl up the tower, stopping at every floor.
Once the elevator doors open, Loki lets out a very unmanly squeal and dashes around the living room, laughing, before turning back and looking at Tony, who's quirking an amused eyebrow at him. It reminds Tony of the scene near the end of Monsters Inc. when Boo returns to her room (Dum-E loves that movie, and yes, Dum-E watches movies. Tony definitely does not watch animated movies by himself a lot of nights, thank you very much. It's all Dum-E. Really).
"Welcome back, sir." Jarvis greets them now, even though he'd been watching them during the elevator ride. Mechanical arms remove Tony's suit as Loki watches, as fascinated as he'd been when seeing it a couple hours ago. "It's good to have you back, Mr. Loki."
"Jarvis!" Loki says cheerfully, as if bumping into an old friend he thought he'd never see again. He's looking around as if he'd expected to never see the tower again, either. Both of those had probably seemed like real possibilities when he was lost in the city, though.
"Jarvis, look, it's Simba!" Loki chirps. He introduces Jarvis to Simba as if the toy can hear him, and Jarvis surprises Tony by humoring Loki and greeting the toy as Mr. Simba. Huh. He'd have bet money that Jarvis would've told Loki that Simba wasn't real, Tony thinks as he heads over to the bar.
Tony definitely deserves a drink, not that he ever really needs a reason to drink aside from feeling like it. But he has a better reason now, anyways, which is that this morning had been freaking stressful. He gulps down some scotch as he leans against the bar, watching Loki interact with Jarvis.
Loki giggles and says, referring to Simba "He's not a Mister."
"I believe it's better than Ms. Simba." Jarvis replies and Loki lets out a wild giggle. The god then demonstrates Simba's talking ability. Tony doubts Jarvis is impressed with Simba's handful of prerecorded phrases, but the AI politely doesn't say anything of the sort. Loki squeezes one of the toy's ears and Simba roars playfully and starts a roaring contest.
Loki roars back and Simba urges "Louder!" Suddenly, a loud roar that sounds like it's straight out of Jurassic Park fills the room, and Tony's glad he hadn't been holding his scotch glass at that moment or he probably would have dropped it.
"Wow! That's really loud!" Simba says cheerfully, obviously not sounding as shocked as it should have if it had actually heard it.
"I believe I won," Jarvis says in what sounds like a mock-smug tone. Loki, far from being startled or scared of the roar, has collapsed on the floor in hysterics.
Once Loki's calmed down enough to speak, he does. "Jarvis," He stage whispers, as if sharing a big secret "You know Simba's not really real, right? Not like you."
"Yes, I was aware of that, Mr. Loki," Jarvis replies, and Tony manages to muffle his snort. He has a feeling the AI would be laughing if it was possible for him to do so. "But it was clear you wanted me to pretend he is real like you were doing." Jarvis continues. That alone seems like pretty good proof that Jarvis isn't just some unfeeling machine, for all the doubters out there. AI's aren't supposed to be able to pretend. Jarvis had even referred to Simba as he and not it and Tony can tell he'd done that on purpose, to appease Loki. Jarvis isn't snarky to Loki like he is to his creator, kind of like how Tony himself isn't very snarky to the god.
Tony finishes the remainder of his glass of scotch and goes over to Jarvis' camera in the living room. He has to stand on a chair to reach the camera, which is hidden in the wall near the ceiling. He really should just put that thing on an extendable arm sometime. He unplugs it and takes it out of the wall, essentially leaving Jarvis blind from that angle.
He wonders if there's something seriously wrong with Jarvis' sensors, because this morning there had been two Loki's showing up on the camera, and Jarvis had read Loki's body temperature as below freezing, but now it is apparently back to normal.
He hears rustling in the background but he's not really paying attention. He goes over the innards of the camera, but everything seems to be fine. That doesn't make sense; something has to be malfunctioning for there to be two Loki's in the video.
He turns around to see Loki has pulled practically everything out of the shopping bag. At least thirty articles of clothing are laying on the floor, including the blue shirt the god had been wearing. Loki had swapped it for the Snoopy shirt and is now just standing there, holding Simba and staring at Tony and the disassembled camera.
"Jarvis, can you tell Dum-E to come here? And tell him not to bring any fire extinguishers or anything." Tony says and Jarvis sends the elevator down to the lab to pick up the robot.
A couple minutes pass, during which Tony tinkers with the camera and Loki just stares at him It's starting to get a little creepy, to be honest. It gets really creepy when Loki smiles while staring, and Tony tries to ignore it. Then the elevator doors open and Dum-E rolls out.
"Pick those up, would you?" Tony says to Dum-E, gesturing to the clothes. However, Loki stoops down and neatly folds one of the shirts, far better than Tony or Dum-E would have been able to do.
Tony stares for a second, rather surprised. "I wasn't talking to you, Snoopy. Dum-E can do it." He gestures towards the robot, who waves at Loki with a happy beep. Loki seems completely unfazed that a large, unfamiliar robot is rolling up to him, similar to how he'd barely blinked the first time he'd heard Jarvis.
"Dum-E? That's a kinda weird name. Is Dum-E your slave?" Loki asks, and Tony winces. Yes, Dum-E's a robot but the idea of being a slave owner- even a robot-slave owner- doesn't sit well with him.
"No, he's not. He's my helper. Wait- do they have slaves where you come from?"
"Yeah." Loki answers, like it's no big deal. "Servants, too. They'd make me help them with chores a lot." Tony doesn't know who "they" are, but he doesn't like them. Thor always talks- boasts- about how magnificent Asgard is, but if they haven't grasped the concept that slavery is wrong, how great can it be? The way Loki talks about Asgard, it doesn't sound great at all. Especially to Loki himself.
Loki returns to folding shirts but Tony stops him. "Seriously, just let Dum-E do it. He likes being helpful." Tony says and Dum-E nods enthusiastically, clutching a shirt in his claw. Loki soon realizes that Dum-E's completely hopeless at folding shirts, though to be fair it's a difficult task to do with one claw. After 5 minutes, Loki takes pity on the robot and folds them when he thinks Tony's not looking, and Tony decides not to call him out on it as he reassembles the camera.
Tony hears Loki talking to Dum-E in the background, but he's not really listening until Hakuna Matata starts playing. He turns around and sees Loki holding Simba out to Dum-E so Dum-E can squeeze the toy's ear and make it sing and dance.
Tony sighs. He'd just gotten that song out of his head yesterday and now it'll probably be stuck in there again. Loki's Simba doesn't even sing the whole song, which makes it even easier to get one short verse stuck in his head.
He finishes putting the camera together and reconnects it to Jarvis before putting it back in the wall. Tony sighs, watching Loki play a hand (or claw) game with Dum-E. Taking apart the camera had gotten him basically nowhere, since Jarvis had said earlier that there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the camera. Why does he never find answers about things relating to Loki?
Tony heads towards the kitchen to grab something to eat. Loki immediately gets up and follows him, one hand holding Simba by a hind leg and the other leading Dum-E along by the claw. Dum-E rolls along behind Loki with a happy robotic squealing sound.
"I'm just going to the kitchen," Tony says, but Loki seems to want to keep him in sight at all times, as if Tony will vanish if he leaves the room.
Tony gets a Pop Tart and offers one to Loki. Loki lets go of Dum-E and looks at it curiously before taking a bite.
"So, was there another one of you here this morning? Jarvis saw one. What's the deal with that?" Tony asks conversationally, raising an eyebrow at the god. "Do you have an evil twin or something? Are you some kind of epic magician?"
Suddenly, Loki's happy mood is gone, replaced with a look of horrified realization. The god looks away from Tony and doesn't say anything. His hand clenches, reducing the Pop Tart to crumbs that rain down on the floor. Dum-E lets out a worried beep and tries to pick them up.
Tony bites back a sigh. "Hey, what's wrong?" Is Loki on the verge of another panic attack? The god seems to have retreated into himself.
About two minutes of silence pass as Tony, Dum-E and Jarvis wait for Loki to say something. It's probably a record for the three of them to all remain silent for that length of time. "Are you gonna kick me out?" The god finally asks in a scared voice.
"Of the tower? No, wasn't planning on it. I thought we went over this yesterday. Unless you try to murder me in my sleep or something, you're welcome here." Tony replies, somewhat confused. "What does this have to do with the other one of you?"
Loki doesn't answer the question about the other Loki the next three times Tony asks.
"I don't wanna talk 'bout it, 'kay?" Loki finally speaks in one big rush.
Well, now Tony's positive that there's something about Loki that he doesn't know yet. Well, okay, there are countless things he doesn't know about the god- he's only known him for a day- but he has a feeling this is something vital. Something Loki's keeping from him.
Tony sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He's disappointed- he wants to know what's going on- but Loki's remaining stubbornly closed-lipped about the subject. Tony can't really judge- he has his own secrets after all.
He holds up his hands in a placating gesture. "All right, we won't talk about that if you don't want to." However, he makes no promises about trying to figure it out anyways.
Loki looks even more relieved than Tony expected, but Tony can't figure out what the fuss was about to begin with. What's so bad about another Loki?
"Sir, Mr. Loki is requesting to come down." Jarvis tells Tony, who's in his lab. Jarvis sounds exasperated; Loki's apparently been asking about Tony nonstop. It's evening, and this is the first time Loki and Tony have been in separate rooms since returning to the tower, aside from bathroom trips (and Tony had needed to lock the bathroom door during those, just in case).
Whenever Tony had left the room, Loki had followed him. Even when the god was lethargic during the early afternoon, he'd still followed Tony around in an almost zombie-like way, Simba loosely held in his hand. Tony wasn't sure where the lethargy had come from, or why it hadn't started until a couple hours after returning to the tower. Maybe it was just Loki being tired after the stressful morning. Or maybe it was an extended period of Loki being "out of it." Given that the god had briefly tuned out of the world many times in the past day and a half, it seemed like a good guess. Now, however, Loki is back to being energetic and (mostly) lucid. As lucid as he ever is, at any rate.
Right now, Tony's looking over Norse mythology again. Like last night, he's drawn to Jotunheim. Loki had fit the freezing skin description earlier today, according to Jarvis. Tony had checked that sensor too and, like the camera, found nothing wrong with it.
When he'd gone down to the lab, Tony had left Dum-E in the penthouse with the god, and Jarvis is focusing most of his attention up there. Even though Loki seems to love Jarvis and Dum-E, he's still asking about Tony. Jarvis had turned on The Lion King, but even that doesn't totally distract the god, nor do holographic Peanuts comics or Jarvis and Dum-E themselves. Loki hasn't put Simba down once since Tony went to his lab, and Tony's not sure if the toy's been more than ten feet away from the god since he found it nearly twelve hours ago. He doubts it.
Loki keeps getting up and going to the elevator, asking about Tony, and the AI and robot keep temporarily distracting him for a minute or two before he's back at the elevator. Tony has a feeling that Loki would be having a full-out panic attack if Dum-E and Jarvis weren't there.
Is it really too much to ask for a couple of hours alone? Obviously, the answer seems to be yes. The god had seemed fine on his own this morning, so is this some kind of reaction to being lost? Tony has a feeling it is, and thinking of it that way makes him start to feel kinda crappy. Loki seems to think he's been abandoned.
Hopefully Loki won't be like this during the night, because there's no way in hell Tony's going to let the god in his bedroom while he's sleeping. They're going to have to work on this in general, because he can't possibly be with Loki 24/7, nor would he want to. People need breaks from each other, after all.
"All right, let him down Jarvis." Tony sighs, transferring all the holographic internet pages on Norse mythology to a non-holographic tablet so he'll be able to hide them from Loki. Tony's work will probably be a lot more efficient once Jarvis stops updating him about Loki.
"Thank you sir." Jarvis says, sounding relieved. "I'm sure Mr. Loki will be glad to see you." Tony snorts. That has to be the understatement of the year.
A minute later the elevator door opens and Loki dashes towards Tony, a huge grin on his face.
"Whoa, slow down there, Snoopy." Tony says "There are some rules you need to follow if you're going to be allowed to stay down here. First of all, don't touch anything. Second, I work down here so don't pester me. Got it?"
Loki nods. He looks like an overgrown child in his Iron Man pajamas, and he's holding Simba, of course.
"Wait there for a second," Tony says, rolling his chair over to the desk he'd been working at earlier. He grabs the device he'd been working on- a tracking bracelet that will give him Loki's location when he wears it, working the same way as a GPS.
He puts it around Loki's wrist and the god wrinkles his nose. "It's tingly. And it feels like a handcuff." Tony's not sure he wants to know how Loki knows what handcuffs feel like. He can't imagine a situation with Loki where they would need to be used on him.
Tony looks at the screen of his Stark Phone, which is showing the bracelet's location. Suddenly the little dot representing the bracelet blinks out.
After it doesn't reappear for half a minute, Tony takes the bracelet off Loki's wrist. He's about to start tinkering with it when he realizes it's showing up on the map again. What the hell?
He puts it back on Loki's wrist, and this time the dot stays there. But seriously, what is it with Loki and all these weird technological glitches? Tony removes the bracelet and puts it aside for now.
It would be better for everyone if they avoided another incident like today. Hopefully the bracelet will work, and maybe he'll tie a Stark Phone to Loki the next time they go out. Tony's been debating about going back to his Malibu mansion (Loki probably couldn't get lost there) but the tower's a lot more convenient for the whole Avengers aspect of his life. None of the other Avengers have moved into the tower yet, but he has a feeling it'll happen sometime. Thor's not going to be allowed to live here, Tony decides, if what Loki says about him is true.
"Give me some space, will you?" Tony tells Loki. Dum-E leads Loki to an open space and Tony pulls up the Norse mythology stuff on his tablet.
Half an hour goes by as Tony reads on his tablet. Really, the only criteria Loki's missing to be a Frost Giant is the blue skin and the size. Though those are sort of major factors. He could just ask the god, but for some reason he holds back.
He watches, amused, as Loki plays a pretend version of The Lion King. Loki's even roped Jarvis and Dum-E into playing with him, something Tony wouldn't have believed possible yesterday. Loki already has those two completely wrapped around his little finger (with Dum-E, that's not much of an accomplishment, but it certainly is with Jarvis). Tony tells himself that he hasn't succumbed, and won't.
Dum-E seems to be cast as Pumbaa. He doesn't do a whole lot other than dance during Hakuna Matata (performed by Loki and the Simba toy), but Dum-E's certainly enthusiastic about it. Tony's not sure if Loki's playing Simba or if he's having his toy Simba act out the part. Loki seems to switch between the two. He also plays Timon. He's bouncing from scene to scene, so it really makes no sense whatsoever- Mufasa's death comes after the adult Simba seeing him in the stars.
Occasionally Loki will stop and stare into the distance, seeming to drift into his own little world. Dum-E will gently nudge him when this happens and he'll snap out of it.
"My Dad just showed me the whole kingdom. And I'm gonna rule it all." Loki says, either as Simba or for his toy. Tony still can't tell.
"Yes. Well, forgive me for not leaping for joy. Bad back, you know." Jarvis says snarkily, and Loki breaks character and laughs. Jarvis has been assigned the role of Scar, and Tony knows the AI has a script pulled up somewhere. Jarvis does a lot better at reading the lines than Tony would have guessed, though. His AI's surprised him a couple times today.
Loki, on the other hand, doesn't have a script, yet he's rattling off lines from the movie. Had he memorized the whole thing after one viewing? (Tony's not sure if tonight's viewing counts since Loki hadn't been paying attention and he'd come down to the lab twenty minutes in). It sure seems like he has it memorized.
It could be some weird knack but, like with the Rubik's Cube, Tony has a feeling it's a sign of intelligence. Especially since, rather than just having the dialogue memorized, Loki seems to have processed the movie and has a good grasp of the characters. He'd actually done a pretty good job picking roles for Dum-E and Jarvis. Not that Jarvis is evil like Scar, but somehow the role suits the AI.
Tony's not sure if Loki's just good at mimicking the characters, or if he's actually a decent actor. Well, voice actor. The god's left hand is playing with his long hair, which kind of ruins the whole physical acting aspect and makes him look a tad crazy.
"Shh! Zazu!" Loki says, now rather close to Tony, before switching roles and replying "Right. So how are we gonna ditch the dodo?" Loki's speaking for both Young Simba and Nala, but the toy Simba seems to have the part of Simba at the moment since Loki's speaking to it rather than just holding it loosely by his side.
Loki's looking at Tony expectantly, and Jarvis pipes up "I believe you've been given the part of Zazu, sir." Loki giggles and nods.
"Sorry. No can do. I'm too awesome to be anybody but Mufasa, and you killed him off a while ago, so I'll just sit this out." Tony shrugs, sort of apologetically. He has to draw the line somewhere. Loki looks very disappointed in him, but eventually just uses his hand for Zazu, shaping it like a beak. He casts a look at Tony that seems to say "You see this? You got replaced by my hand. How does that make you feel?"
Tony rolls his eyes, but he does it when Loki's not looking before going back to work.
Later that night, he lets Loki pick a room. Loki seems amazed that the room is all his. He bounces on the bed joyfully until Tony stops him in the fear it will break. "Can Dum-E stay in here?" Loki asks hopefully. Dum-E had followed them upstairs and seems rather taken with the idea too.
Tony's going to say no, but he realizes that he won't have to worry about the robot messing up anything in the lab if he stays in Loki's room. He's not sure if he's going to do that every night, though.
He's not at all surprised that Loki keeps Simba with him when he climbs into bed, and Dum-E clumsily tries to pull the blankets over him before Loki grabs the robot's claw.
"Okay, Dum-E can stay in here for tonight. But that means you should stay in here, too. Don't just wander around the tower, and no going in my room. Dum-E, don't leave the room until I say you can. Got it?" Loki nods, and Dum-E beeps. Tony sits on the edge of the bed. Now for the harder part about the whole separation anxiety thing.
"Look... You don't have to worry when I go to a different part of the tower. Or even when I leave the tower." Tony's really not comfortable with this type of conversation, but he has to let the god know this. "...I'm not going to abandon you or anything."
"You're not gonna abandon me?" The god repeats, as if he's not sure whether to believe it.
Tony barely refrains from rolling his eyes. "We've been over this, Loki. No, I'm not going to abandon you. I wasn't here when you woke up this morning, but I came back, right? And I found you in the city, right?" Under his breath, he mumbles "How much more proof do you need?"
Loki nods and Tony grins. "See? Nothing to worry about. So you'll stay in here and I'll be somewhere else in the tower, and we'll see each other tomorrow."
He looks over to see that, like last night, Loki had conked out in what seems like seconds. How does he even go from being lively to asleep that quickly? It's like there's no middle ground of being sleepy and winding down.
Shaking his head, Tony leaves the door open a crack, and Jarvis turns out the lights.
His suit isn't responding. He can't fire his repulsers at the Chitauri invaders. He can only lay there, buried in the rubble.
He'd failed. He's Iron Man. He's supposed to be able to stop this kind of thing. But right now, he can't even avenge the world, let alone stop it from being taken over. He watches uselessly as the Chitauri destroy the city and obliterate innocent citizens. The noise is deafening. Cars are flipped and smashed to the ground and weapons are fired, but even that doesn't drown out the screams.
Tony's not sure where the other Avengers are. Not until he hears tortured screams behind him. He watches in horror as, one by one, the other Avengers fall. Their lifeless faces seem to stare at him, telling him he's the only one of them left. He struggles under the rubble, but it's too much, and he eventually stops, exhausted, staring up at the sky filled with Chitauri ships.
Then he sees Pepper. She's covered in scrapes and bruises but she has a determined look on her face. "Pepper! Get out of here!" He screams, but voice isn't even getting through his helmet.
She's joined by Loki, who's holding a mangled, headless Simba and asking "Where's Tony?"
Tony screams at them to get out of there as Chitauri soldiers come up behind them, but they don't notice him amid all the rubble. They turn and see the alien soldiers. "Tony will find us, right?" Loki asks Pepper in an unsure voice.
Tony tries everything to get out of the rubble. He tries harder than he's ever tried on anything in his life but he can't do it.
"No. He won't. Not this time." Tony hears Pepper say, and he doubles his efforts, even though by now he knows he'll get nowhere. He's failed. Completely and utterly failed.
The Chitauri soldiers aim their weapons, and in an instant, Pepper and Loki are no more.
Tony wakes up yelling and drenched in sweat. He doesn't know where he is. The dead faces of everyone he cares about flash before his eyes. No. No. They can't all be dead. He tries to lunge out of bed, still gripped by his nightmare, but he's tangled in the blankets and he falls to the floor. His breath catches in his throat, and he struggles to breathe as he lays there, shaking.
Dimly, he hears Jarvis urging him to breathe.
"In... Out... In... Out... Very good, sir." Jarvis' voice is calming. Slowly, the pressure on his chest lightens and Tony's breathing slows down.
He's not sure how long it takes, but he's eventually calm enough to function. He untangles himself from the blanket and leaves it half laying on the floor. He's not getting any more sleep tonight, that's for sure.
He checks the time. 1:42 AM. He's gone on less sleep than this before.
"Sir, if you want to talk about-" Jarvis begins, but Tony cuts him off.
"I'm fine Jarvis." Tony declines, as he always does after an episode. Sometimes he wishes he had someone to comfort him, but in the end his pride always wins over that part.
He leaves his room in his boxers, not bothering to put on any other clothes. He finds himself outside of Loki's room, and he silently pushes the door open. The god's hair is splayed around his head, and he holds Simba close. Dum-E has his claw resting on the back of Loki's hand, and the robot greets Tony with a soft beep.
Loki has a soft smile on his lips. At least one of them is having nice dreams.
He's kind of surprised the god had featured so prominently in his dream, next to Pepper. But somehow, in less than two days, Loki has managed to worm his way into Tony's heart, quirks and all. He's become one of Tony's few really good friends, someone Tony truly cares about. He hadn't really realized it until the nightmare.
"Keep watching him, all right?" Tony murmurs to both Jarvis and Dum-E.
Still in his boxers, he goes down to the lab and blasts some music. He loses himself working on an Iron Man suit until Jarvis interrupts him.
"Mr. Loki appears to be having a severe nightmare, sir." Severe nightmare. That sounds like what he'd just had. Loki had seemed so peaceful in his sleep. Then again, like Tony, he apparently has panic attacks, so nightmares aren't out of the question. Tony drops what he's doing and heads for the elevator. After it carries him to his penthouse, Tony dashes towards Loki's room.
He can hear what sounds like Loki pleading with someone, but it's in some other language. He bursts through the door and stops dead in his tracks.
There's a Loki in bed in the Iron Man pajamas, and his hands have some sort of glowing green mist around them. It almost looks like green fire around his hands. Then there's another Loki in black clothes trying to comfort him, speaking softly in another language as he lays next to the sleeping god and runs a hand through Loki's hair.
Tony stares. What the hell is going on?
The sleeping Loki is tossing and turning in bed, his face showing his terror all too clearly, and he's talking in his sleep. This seems much worse than his panic attack had been. Dum-E is whirring around, beeping nervously, and the robot's arm passes through the Loki in black clothes. That Loki shimmers out of sight.
Dum-E worriedly prods Loki, and there's an explosive gust of wind, blowing both Tony and Dum-E backwards. Tony's back hits the doorframe, and the jolt of pain tells him this isn't some weird dream, throwing out his current guess that he'd fallen back asleep in his lab.
For a bit he just leans there, wondering if he's gone insane.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this, even though I was kind of evil to both Loki and Tony during the last part of this and gave them both nightmares. Loki's sure going to be in for a shock when he wakes up and finds out he did magic. Especially since he got away with avoiding talking about it earlier.
Writing Loki interacting with Jarvis and Dum-E is so fun. I hope I didn't take too many creative liberties with what Jarvis is capable of.
Next chapter, Tony questions Loki about what happened, and Bruce shows up.