My workload was so much lighter in January, and then it just exploded this month. Plus I have midterms :(
As always, I'd like to give a huge thanks to all you amazing readers, reviewers, followers and favoriters! I can't believe this story's gotten over 3,000 views this month, despite only being updated twice! I got over 400 views on two separate days, and I was on cloud 9! And this whole story has gotten over 90 followers and 7,000 views total and it hasn't even been up two months! Seriously, you all are the best, and I can't thank you enough!
I forgot to mention this last chapter but the reason I had Bruce hulk out twice (which might have seemed repetitive) is because I wanted him to know someone liked the Hulk before that fight happened.
Tony looks around the penthouse in a mix between annoyance and disappointment. There's that gaping hole in the floor that sticks out like a stain on a blank sheet of paper, but there are also a couple craters in the floor with cracks forming spider-web-like patterns around them. They're a lot like the lovely crater Loki had left in his roof, only smaller since these had just been caused by the Hulk pounding his fists into the floor during his mega-tantrum.
His poor TV lays in a forlorn, broken heap of scrap metal that doesn't even seem useful enough take down to his workshop. Shards of glass litter the space around it. It had been one of his largest screens, too. Though he has one that's the same size in his bedroom, and there are slightly smaller televisions in practically every other bedroom. Oh, and he has his own theater, too. So it's not like it's the end of the world. He's really not lacking in big screen TVs.
At least the Hulk hadn't come across his well-stocked alcohol cabinets (yes, plural. Tony, for one, believes it's impossible to own too much alcohol). To put things into an even bigger perspective, at least nobody had gotten hurt. He asks Jarvis to arrange to have the room fixed sometime soon, and the AI politely replies with his usual "Certainly, sir."
To be honest, despite the damage, Tony's rather disappointed Bruce didn't stick around; he'd left right after apologizing for the damage the Hulk had caused. Tony had protested a bit, but in the end let him leave, since Bruce seemed set on that. He figured the guy needed some alone time (there, see? Nobody can say he's a total jerk who doesn't do nice things for people. Though anyone who sees him with Loki would have a hard time arguing that anyways).
Given all the confusion following the Hulk incidents, Tony hasn't thought much- until now- about Loki's most recent incident, where Loki had made that weird shield thing. At least, he's pretty sure it was Loki- he'd had the green stuff around his hands, and where else would it have come from? And then there had been that time earlier when he made a bunch of Jenga blocks defy the laws of physics.
Tony's even more intrigued by Loki's... powers. Even though Loki had done the impossible, Tony has still been hesitant to call it magic. It could have been some weird fluke, he tells himself, although he doesn't really believe it. The blocks were obviously supposed to fall, and the shield is hard to pass off as a fluke. But that still doesn't mean it's magic. Because there has to be some scientific explanation for it, and magic is basically just a way to avoid explaining things.
Then again, it's not like he has any great explanations for the weird green energy that looks like fire, the random gusts of wind and the intangible-yet-totally-real-looking-other-Loki's than he does for the new things that happened during today's two incidents. He's been thinking about those repeated phenomena occurring during Loki's nightmares for a while and he still hasn't come up with anything beyond vague speculations, which is really annoying.
Whatever these occurrences are, Loki's still obviously terrified of them. Or maybe he's more scared of people's reactions to them? It's a fair assumption that a lot of reactions to it in Asgard consisted of violence, given the way Loki curls up on the floor as if trying to make himself as small a target as possible. But Tony knows he hasn't reacted violently at all, yet Loki still seems petrified.
Yes, Tony knows that switching your reaction to something can take a while if you've reacted one way for a long time. But he wishes he could speed this up a bit. Loki's reactions haven't really changed at all, even though Tony's reaction to these incidents is undoubtedly very different from Asgardians' reactions.
He sighs and looks over at the god next to him, who he still has an arm around. Loki is tracing a long finger along the little embroidered patch on Simba's paw, which strongly resembles the picture of Simba that Rafiki had painted in the movie. Tony hadn't even noticed it until now.
Loki looks over at him with wide, curious eyes and suddenly asks "Why's it a triangle?" The question is completely irrelevant and Tony has no idea what Loki's talking about until he adds, while tapping Tony's armored chest "Normally it's a circle... Are there two now?"
Oh. The arc reactor, that Loki had somehow known the purpose of, and now can tell there are two of them. "Yeah, there are two of them. They're miniaturized arc reactors. This one's in my suit. But some of the suits have circular ones, and some don't have them at all." Tony replies vaguely, not exactly wanting to go into why he needs one in his chest, even though Loki somehow knows it's keeping him alive. He doesn't even say why they're in some of his suits (the reason being that some suits use enough power that they would strain the one in his chest).
Loki accepts the vague answer and replies "I like the circles, 'cause they're more you. But the one in you is the best." He nods to himself, but best certainly isn't the word Tony would use to describe it. When he asks Loki why he thinks that, the god gives him a look and replies matter-of-factly "Well, 'cause it's keeping you alive, of course!"
Tony again asks Loki how he knows this, but like that first day, Loki's answer isn't very helpful. Loki basically says the same thing- that if it could talk, that's what it would say- but adds that it "likes helping" Tony. Why does Loki always anthropomorphize the arc reactor? Tony decides to steer the conversation away from this particular subject.
"So, Snoopy, I didn't know you could be that fierce. Not many people would stand up to the Hulk." Tony changes the subject, before adding "I'm impressed." It's not something he says to many people, but he honestly was impressed that Loki had done it, especially since his usual reaction was to curl into a ball instead of confronting people. Besides, anyone who yelled at the Hulk had guts and Loki had held his own against the big green rage machine. But it had contrasted so greatly from Loki's usual demeanor...
"He tried to hurt you!" Loki exclaims loudly, going from sitting to kneeling, flapping his hands anxiously and looking at Tony with wide eyes. "He shouldn't have done that! Hurting people is bad! I dunno if I like him anymore..." He finishes quietly, almost sadly.
"Why would that stop you from liking him? You don't need to hold a grudge against him. I'm perfectly fine." Tony tells him, before elaborating. "He's wrecked my tower and thrown stuff at me before, and I still like him." Okay, maybe like was a bit too strong of a word for his feelings for the Hulk, but he certainly still likes Bruce, and he doesn't have anything against the Hulk. Long story short, this incident hadn't changed his feelings. Bruce hulking out was a given- it had happened for less important things than discussing abuse on other times he visited. Like when Tony had rigged the toaster to blow up in his face as a joke one morning when Bruce had ended up crashing in the tower for the night.
But he can't help but notice that Loki hasn't even brought up the Hulk shoving him, even though he'd said hurting people was bad. Sure, it didn't look like the shove hurt that much, but Loki seems a lot more concerned with the Hulk hurting Tony than himself.
Loki nods, seeming to understand, and says "So he can still be my friend?" Tony confirms it and it seems that's the end of that. Tony suspects a good deal of Loki deciding not to hold a grudge against the Hulk has to do with Tony saying he shouldn't.
"Hey, thanks for having my back." Tony says, but Loki just stares at him, confused. Tony smirks slightly and rephrases it "Thanks for keeping those things from hitting me when I was down. I didn't know you could do that, but hey, you learn new things about people all the time." Unfortunately with Loki, those things often hint to a horrible past.
"Maybe you can be my new bodyguard, now that Happy's been promoted." Tony says jokingly. Hopefully Loki knows he's not being serious. "I mean, you just knocked those things away as if they were nothing. And whatever that shield thing was, it was awesome!" Although Loki would be qualified, in terms of strength at least, his personality doesn't exactly fit, even if he does seem protective.
Seeming to totally ignore the stuff about bodyguards, Loki flinches violently when Tony mentions the shield. Tony mentally slaps himself as Loki curls up defensively, saying "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"
Tony tells him it's not a problem and that there's nothing to apologize for, but Loki obviously disagrees. He hugs his legs to his chest with a terrified look on his face and exclaims "No! It's demented! It's messed up! I'm a freak!" Loki screws his eyes shut and his voice changes, taking on a sneering tone.
"You stupid, worthless freak! I can't believe we have to put up with you." Loki is rocking back and forth and sounds as if he's repeating something he's heard people tell him countless times. Watching it is both heart-wrenching and disturbing."You shouldn't even be here. He should have left you to die."
"Who told you that?" Tony growls, wanting to have a nice little chat in his Iron Man suit with whoever had. There are just so many things wrong with that statement. While Tony's said a lot of really inappropriate things in his time, that's going to far, even for him. Because whenever he'd said something wildly inappropriate, or even when he threatened Dum-E, he'd never actually been serious like that. He'd always been joking with a very crude sense of humor, or just blowing something off.
"Volstagg." Loki is looking worriedly at him, and Tony realizes he probably thinks the anger is directed at him, which definitely isn't what he's going for. Tony mutters where Volstagg can stick his opinions. He knows he's heard Thor mention the other Asgardian. Of course, the thunderer talked very highly of him, but apparently Thor wasn't nice to Loki either. He wonders if Thor said those sorts of things to Loki.
"You know that's not true, right?" Tony sincerely hopes the answer is yes. However, given the fact that Loki doesn't respond, he's pretty sure that means that Loki's answer is no. He hates that Loki seems to have such a low opinion of himself. Nobody's self esteem should be that low. Honestly, if anyone needs an ego-boost, it's Loki. Tony can practically hear Clint's quip about how he should find a way to transfer some of his own ego to Loki.
"Look at me," Tony urges, rather gently, and tips the gods head so they make eye contact. "You are not stupid, or worthless, or a freak. And you certainly as hell shouldn't be dead." He stares intently at the god. "And I actually think the stuff you do is really awesome, so you don't have to worry about being hurt for it."
There's a flicker of something in Loki's eyes for an instant, but it's gone before Tony can identify it. Loki doesn't seem to believe it. Tony sighs. He can say it as much as he wants, but if Loki doesn't believe the words, they're not going to get anywhere. He knows if Loki's been taught otherwise his whole life, it will take more than a couple days and a couple words to change his mind, but Tony really hates that they're not getting anywhere with this.
"Now what was this about someone leaving you to die?" Tony refuses to put should anywhere in that sentence.
"I'm adopted." Loki says, and he quickly covers his mouth as if he'd said something wrong. Tony's about to ask Loki if he's perhaps from Jotunheim, but for some reason he has a feeling asking right now wouldn't be the best idea.
Besides, Loki's still missing the blue-skin requirement.
Loki stares fearfully at the man pinning him down by straddling him and practically sitting on Loki's torso, making it hard to breathe. Loki can't move his arms, which are squeezed against his sides by the man's knees. Loki tries to wriggle free and kicks his legs desperately, but someone presses those into the floor and holds them down as well.
Odin stares back down at Loki. Loki knows he's in for it, given that Odin is the one who's going to be punishing him. The Allfather's uncovered eye is really scary, since instead of its usual cold, impassive look, it now looks angry and dangerous. He'd been furious about the statue of Buri being broken.
"Loki Laufeyson," Odin starts, and the crowd around them jeers at the mention of Loki's heritage. "For your attempt to deceive us..." Odin starts a rather long speech, but Loki barely hears it, too busy worrying about whatever is to come.
A servant bows and presents the Allfather with a small, plain wooden box. From this, the Allfather produces a bone needle and a long leather cord. Loki wrinkles his brow and frowns in confusion as Odin threads the leather cord through the needle. What's all this about?
His confusion very quickly morphs into worry as the needle moves towards him. He tries to twist his head away and is rewarded with a sharp blow on the side of his head that makes stars dance in front of his eyes and his ears ring. Then, whoever hit him holds his head still so he's staring up at the Allfather and the needle again, and Loki realizes that it's Thor.
Although he desperately wants to, he can't pull his eyes away from the needle approaching him. He tries shutting them but instead they continue to watch, horrified.
The needle pierces through his upper lip and Loki screams as the cord is dragged through the hole. Briefly, his world is reduced to nothing but the agonizing pain, but his senses return and he feels something warm and wet around his lips, and he knows it's blood.
Then he feels the needle prodding his lower lip before it's stabbed through there, and Loki screams again. He struggles, not even thinking about how he's always punished later for it. He just needs to get away. But he can't even move, since he's being held down by Odin, Thor, and whoever's at his feet.
This process repeats, sending Loki's world into nothing but agony again and again. Between these periods, Loki realizes he can't even scream any more. It gets harder and harder to open his mouth due to the stitches Odin is sewing, until he can't open his mouth at all.
Loki lays there, his crying muffled by his closed lips, as Odin cuts the extra length of cord and gets off him. He curls into a ball as he tries to wipe the blood from his face, but touching the area sends new waves of pain, so he leaves his mouth surrounded by blood.
And then, they start on him for the whole magic bit. They kick, punch, and smash him, hurling him around like a doll and laughing at his muffled cries. They're even harsher than usual, and they go at it for longer. Loki knows he deserves this- he'd been bad in multiple ways by using his magic and lying- but he wishes he didn't. He wishes he wasn't a monster that has to be punished constantly, that he wasn't a demented magic-using freak.
He tries to tell them he's sorry, so sorry, but he can't get the words of his mouth. His tormentors cease hitting him, instead asking him what he's trying to say. He screams but it comes out as "mmmphh! Mph! mmphh..." They continue to taunt him, telling him to "use his words" and not grunt like the savage monster he is, although one of them switches to sneering at him to stop making inarticulate sounds like a baby.
Then they continue with his beating, but they stop to tell him to speak up whenever he begs them to accept his apology and leave him alone. Loki screams in a mix between frustration and pain as he flaps his hands furiously. It's not like anyone ever listens to him and they never leave him alone when he begs them to, but it's still awful to not be understood at all. Sometimes when he apologizes, the beatings won't hurt quite as much as when he doesn't, but then again, sometimes they don't change at all after his apologies.
At last, they leave him alone, a broken heap on the floor. Gradually, his injuries heal, though it hurts almost as much when his bones shift back into place as when they were broken. The cuts in his lips have already healed around the stitches when he grabs the end of the cord that's holding his lips together. He pulls and it hurts so much he wants to throw up, but the cord doesn't budge.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he yanks on it, despite the explosion of pain it causes, but the cord remains as is. He tugs and tugs, but all it does is send fire through his lips. The cord still doesn't budge. He scrabbles at the cord furiously even though it brings even more pain. He needs to get them out!
But the more he scratches at the stitches, the tighter they seem to get. They start pulling his mouth shut so tight that his mouth seems to be getting smaller and smaller.
Suddenly, his mouth is gone, and in it's place there's just a stitched line on smooth skin, like on a rag doll.
Loki wakes up screaming as someone grabs him.
Tony's been insomniac this whole night, which isn't exactly a new occurrence, and he'd given up on sleep hours ago. He's lounging on the couch in the Iron Man pajamas he'd bought along with Loki's. Loki had asked when he was going to wear them, and Tony figures that there's no point sitting around in his boxers if he's not going to sleep, so once he'd given up on sleep, he'd changed into them.
Since Tony's up, Jarvis doesn't even need to wake him up to speak with him. "Sir, Mr. Loki is having another nightmare." Tony had actually been expecting this report for a while. There's only been a couple nights during Loki's time here that he hasn't had nightmares, one of which was the first night.
Tony sets aside his tablet, where he'd been going through blueprints, and gets off the couch, stretching, before heading to Loki's room. He swings the door open and his shadow is cast along the strip of light coming from the hallway.
He stops dead in his tracks when he sees the child staring at him. The boy is small and looks as if he'd just lost a WWF match. Tony is about to tell Jarvis to alert social services when he sees one of those intangible Loki's trying to calm Loki down, and it dawns on him that the child is probably intangible just like the other Loki's that have shown up, or Jarvis would have alerted him earlier.
Looking back at the child, he can definitely see a resemblance. The child has the same green eyes, but he seems different than Loki. Does Loki have a son or something? Tony turns his attention to the god. He's muttering in his sleep, and it gets loud enough for Tony to discern the words, which are in English this time. It's a heart-wrenching combination of "No", "Stop", "Please!" and "I'm sorry!"
That green fire-like stuff is around his hands, but nothing weird is happening, aside from the two apparitions, which Tony ignores. Loki's begging gets louder until it abruptly stops.
Tony's on his way over to the bed when it starts. Loki begins clawing at his own mouth with a violence that shocks Tony. Loki scratches himself hard enough to draw blood which runs over his face in little rivers. Tony has a feeling he knows what Loki's nightmare is about, and his stomach lurches at the thought.
He rushes over and grabs Loki's hands to try to stop him from scratching himself, and the adult other-Loki disappears when he brushes against it. The energy stuff feels sort of weird, but soon all his attention is focused on struggling to pull Loki's hands away from his face. He's instantly reminded of how strong Loki is when his pulling at the god's hands produces almost no result.
Soon after he grabs Loki's hands, the god wakes up with an earsplitting scream that completely startles Tony, although he's already denying it.
Loki struggles briefly as he screams, and Tony barely manages to keep holding on to Loki's hands as the god makes a move to scratch his own mouth again.
Tony's not going to lie- trying to hold back an insanely-strong god is freaking exhausting. He's breathing heavily and sweating rather profusely.
Loki of course notices the green stuff around his hands, and the fight leaves him almost instantly. Tony cautiously releases the god's hands, ready to grab them if Loki moves to harm himself again, but it seems there's no need.
As usual, Tony pulls Loki close and murmurs softly to him until Loki finally calms down. It takes at least fifteen minutes. When Loki's calm, Tony takes him to the bathroom to wash the dried blood off his face.
However, when Loki catches sight of his reflection with the dried blood around his lips, he freezes. Tony's not sure if it's another panic episode, but he seems completely checked out and his eyes are unfocused.
Tony sighs and grabs a washcloth and a bottle of disinfectant from the medicine cabinet, and starts to wipe the blood from Loki's face. However, he soon realizes the disinfectant is unnecessary since Loki's cuts have healed already.
Once the god no longer looks like a vampire who's just had a feast, he guides Loki out. Fortunately, Loki follows him, even though he still seems elsewhere mentally. Tony deposits Loki on the sofa and goes to make some hot chocolate for Loki and coffee for himself, which he'd been doing anyways the past couple nights but especially needs tonight (he certainly couldn't pull an all-nighter without caffeine).
Loki seems to be mostly present when he hands the god his mug of chocolaty warmth. Jarvis had ordered marshmallows that were delivered two days ago, but Loki just plays with them and shows no interest in actually eating them- he ended up picking them out of the hot chocolate with his spoon the first time. So Tony has left them out since then.
He sits down next to Loki and sips his coffee while Loki sips his hot chocolate and looks at him with wide green eyes.
The nightmare Loki'd been having is unfortunately one he's very familiar with and it always starts like how it actually happened in real life, but occasionally it's Thor holding the needle instead of the Allfather. The pain in the dreams always seems as real as the actual pain had been.
Sometimes he just wakes up when the beating starts, and sometimes, like this time, it's when it gets even more nightmarish and his mouth becomes a stitched line. That part is even scarier than the rest of it, because it shouldn't happen and it's so freaky.. It's worse than the nightmares where his disgusting blue skin is showing and he can't hide it and then even people he's somehow positive have never seen him or heard of him before immediately know he's a monster and automatically hate him.
Of course when he'd woken up this time, his horrible magic had been showing as it always does, although he hadn't seen any fake versions of himself. He'd woken up trying to pull the stitches out, but someone had been holding his hands and he'd eventually realized it was Tony. Then he'd realized he'd been screaming, which had to mean he still had a mouth and it wasn't sewn shut.
Tony had been there to make him feel better, which helped a lot. Now that Tony comforts him after his nightmares, Loki's not sure he could return to how it was in Asgard, where he'd lay there, shaking, terrified and still gripped by his dream, until his body would calm only out of sheer exhaustion. It took a while.
He's not sure why Tony bothers to comfort him, but it's a really nice feeling. Tony had even helped clean the blood off his mouth. When he'd seen it, he'd frozen. It was too familiar. Loki doesn't know how the blood got there. Wait, it was from the stitches, right? He frowns. No, that happened a while ago, and this isn't even Asgard, so it couldn't be that, could it? It had just been a dream, though he'd only realized that once Tony calmed him down. This is so confusing.
Right now, he's sitting on the couch sipping hot chocolate (Tony has some other drink called 'cough-y' that smells really good but tastes awful- Tony had given him a mug of it once in the morning).
"We're wearing the same thing!" Loki exclaims, suddenly noticing that Tony's wearing the Man of Iron pajamas.
Tony looks down at himself and says "Huh, so we are. What do you think? I bet I still look really hot in these things." He looks at Loki, smirking, but Loki's confused. It's not like it's that warm in these pajamas. Tony says a lot of weird things people in Asgard never said. But that's okay, because Tony's a thousand times nicer than anyone in Asgard and some of the stuff he says is funny.
"Never mind." Tony rolls his eyes at the ceiling. "It's too bad I didn't get these in a larger size, so that I could wear them over an Iron Man suit." Loki giggles slightly at the mental image.
The man's looking at him with concern in his brown eyes, though Loki has no idea why it would be there. Tony, for some reason, asks him if he has a son, and Loki shakes his head no. Where had that come from? He asks, and Tony starts saying something about a boy, but he trails off, fixing an assessing gaze on him.
"Did the Asgardians always hurt you?" That question's a no brainer, Loki thinks, although Tony doesn't seem to pleased with Loki's answer. Maybe he'd said the wrong thing? Loki hopes Tony's not mad at him.
Tony stops sipping his drink and asks quietly "Were you dreaming about the incident you mentioned earlier?" It takes Loki a bit to figure out he's asking about the lip-sewing incident. He nods slightly, and Tony puts an arm around his shoulder, a gesture Loki greatly appreciates.
Tony exhales for a bit and says "That's what I thought." Loki wrinkles his brow, wondering how Tony could guess, but Tony goes on.
"You know they were wrong to do that, right?" Tony's voice is firm, but his arm is still nice and comforting.
Loki's not sure he heard the words right at first, and now he's not sure what Tony's talking about. He cocks his head to the side, confused.
"They had no excuse to do something like that to you. Hell, that's torture." Tony says, staring intently at him. Loki frowns. Maybe Tony's crazy or something. Tony hadn't seemed to like the idea earlier, either.
"Earlier, you said hurting people was bad. The Asgardians hurt you, so aren't they bad?" It sounds more like a statement than a question.
"I was bad!" He explains. Looking down at his lap, he mumbles "I d'serve it. When they hurt me. Hav'ta be punished." Even if Loki hadn't liked it one bit, he had deserved it. Frost Giants deserve anything anyone does to them. How could anyone not make sense of that? Surely Tony will understand, since he's really smart.
But Tony gives him a rather sharp look and says "That's no excuse. They had no right to hurt you like that. Nothing you could possibly do would deserve something like that." Tony gently tips Loki's head up. Fixing him with an intense stare, Tony asks urgently "Do you understand?"
Loki doesn't, really. Why would he not deserve it, when he's bad in so many ways? He's bad for simply existing, and he's even worse when he does magic or lies. But then again, Tony had said some weird things earlier, about how he wasn't wasn't a worthless freak. Loki wanted so much to believe those words, but he knows Tony's wrong for once. Tony had also said something about liking what Loki does, and for a brief moment Loki had thought he'd been referring to his magic, and he'd almost laughed at how stupid he was. There's no way Tony meant that. He was probably talking about his drawings or that colorful cube thing he'd said Loki was good at that first day.
Loki looks at Tony, who's clearly expecting a reply from him. It still seems like there's concern in those brown eyes. Loki's pretty sure he knows what answer Tony wants to hear, even though it doesn't make any sense. So Loki cautiously nods.
Tony continues to look at him with a level gaze as Loki goes back to sipping his hot chocolate.
The workers come mid-morning to start the repairs on the penthouse. Clearly, Jarvis had set out to find a service that didn't have a waiting list. Or maybe he'd bumped them to the top. If that's the case, Tony's not sure whether Jarvis had hacked in or bribed their way up with money- both methods had been used by the AI in the past.
The workers seem awed that they've actually stepped foot in the living quarters of the famous Tony Stark. Tony has, of course, experienced this sort of celebrity worship for a good deal of his life, and it inflated once he became Iron Man. So it's nothing he isn't used to.
He gives the workers a witty greeting and indicates what he wants fixed, although that part is pretty obvious. Still, it never hurts to make things clear. Then, on a whim, he slips a crisp hundred dollar tip into each of their hands, since he's feeling generous. Besides, that sort of thing usually makes the service even faster, although some of the workers seem like they're about to faint with happiness.
Tony goes to Loki's room. He'd sent the god to change out of his pajamas and Loki hasn't reemerged, although the door is open now. Loki, now in a sleeveless purple shirt and sweatpants, is sprawled on the floor, scrolling through holographic Peanuts comics. He watches Loki flick his fingers as he laughs, pointing at the strip with his other hand.
He knows he hadn't convinced Loki of anything regarding Asgard being wrong during either of their conversations. It's horrible that Loki seems to think he deserves having his freaking mouth sewn shut. Tony's not entirely sure how to get him to believe the truth- that he doesn't deserve that, that he's not a worthless freak- but he's going to make sure Loki believes it sometime.
It takes a little bit for Loki to notice Tony's even there since he seems absorbed in the comics, but when he does, he looks over at Tony curiously. Tony leans casually against the wall. "Hey Snoopy, are you up for coming down to the lab with me?" He knows the god won't say no to that, and to be honest, he wasn't planning on leaving Loki here with the workers, since he'd probably get in their way.
Loki gets up and hugs Simba to his chest with his arms while fiddling with his own hands. He skips over next to Tony and grins excitedly, and Tony's struck with how different Loki is in normal life than he is after an incident or nightmare. They leave Loki's room, and Tony returns the construction people's stares until they look away. He notices Loki looking at them apprehensively, and he pulls Loki along quickly to the elevator.
Once they're in the elevator, Loki relaxes and grins again, bouncing on his toes like he does a lot. When they reach the lab, Loki cheerfully calls out to Dum-E, who beeps and waves at the god with equal enthusiasm. When he hears Jarvis greet them, Loki looks even happier, and he randomly says "Guess what? Tony wore his Man of Iron pajamas last night and I wore mine, so we were both Man of Iron! 'Xcept he's actually Man of Iron."
"Yes, I am always aware of what Mr. Stark is- or isn't- wearing." Jarvis says dryly, and Tony snorts, although it seems to fly right over Loki's head.
"Hey, Jarvis, create a new folder." Tony says as Loki goes over to Dum-E.
"Starting another project, sir? What would you like me to name it?"
Tony thinks for a moment until he comes up with a suitably awesome-sounding name.
"Call it Hulkbuster."
Hopefully you enjoyed this! The last scene will continue next chapter. I just felt I had to cut this off somewhere. Things will pick up soon, I promise! Actually, they'll pick up next chapter.
I'm hoping to update once more this month. Spring Break's coming up, so that should help me update quickly :)