I'm kind of surprised I'm updating on Wednesday morning again. These chapters keep getting longer.
As always, thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed and favorited this story! Honestly, some of you reviewers seemed like you read my mind :) I can't believe I got 600 views in one day for all my stories (all but twenty of them were for this one). I had to resist the urge to jump up and down with happiness, since I was in public when I saw my stats.
I don't think I've given a specific time for when this story takes place yet. I imagine this story taking place about a year and a half after Avengers, which happened in April 2012 (apparently all the Marvel movies happen when they come out), which puts this around October 2013. So it's not happening in the present.
There's rock music playing in Tony's lab, but it's quiet enough to easily hear what someone's saying over it.
Tony has Jarvis pull up the blueprints for the other Iron Man suits and he surrounds himself with the holograms. He's going to need to design a new type of suit to fight the Hulk, but that doesn't necessarily mean he needs to start entirely from scratch.
The basic idea he has right now is pretty simple- that it would be harder for the Hulk to pick on someone his own size. Tony flicks through the blueprints and 3D models hovering before him and drags a copy of one next to the original.
To be honest, most of this stage- the making of the 3D model and the calculations- is done by Jarvis, although Tony does some things manually. Tony's main part of the suit-building process comes in later with actually making and putting all the electronics and weapons in the suit- in other words, making it more than just a metal shell.
Tony notices Loki sitting on one of the tables, swinging his legs and watching him with fascination. Quirking an eyebrow, Tony quips "Don't you have anything better to do than sit there and watch me? I mean, I know I'm attractive, but still, it's a little extreme, don't you think?"
"What are those things?" Loki asks, pointing at the holograms surrounding Tony and ignoring the last part of what Tony'd said. Tony explains that they're models of the suits, but Loki shakes his head.
"Why are they floating? And see-through? They're like Snoopy." Loki looks at them curiously, and Tony works out that by Snoopy, he's referring to the holographic Peanuts strips and he's asking about holograms in general. Tony hadn't really thought about Loki not knowing what a hologram is, but he suddenly wonders why Loki hadn't asked until now, given he's been exposed to them a lot (although mostly in the form of Peanuts comics).
"They're holograms." At Loki's blank look, he elaborates "They're formed by light beams from a laser or other coherent light source." Loki looks even more lost at the technological explanation.
"What're you doing with them?" Loki seems extra inquisitive today.
"Making another Iron Man suit." Tony answers vaguely, hoping that will be enough of an answer for the god. He turns his attention back to the suit, but still notices that Loki continues to watch him.
Loki stares in fascination at the things surrounding Tony, which Tony had just said are called holograms. These 'holograms' in front of Tony are a lot like the Peanuts strips in that they're floating and transparent, but some of these things are three-dimensional, which is amazing. A lot of them look like miniature, floating Man of Iron suits, including the thing Tony's working on right now. Tony's changing what it looks like, so it resembles a cross between the Man of Iron suit and the Hulk. Or maybe it's changing itself?
With the Peanuts strips, Loki had figured out he could swipe them around and spin them, but Tony's doing so much more. First of all, he's making something with them, which is really neat. But he's zooming in on parts and sometimes when he drags something it simply moves but sometimes there are suddenly two of the thing he just dragged.
It's entrancing to watch as the small suit floating in front of Tony changes more and more as parts stretch out and change size. Sometimes Tony's grabbing them but sometimes it seems like it does it by itself.
Tony looks up at him again and quirks an eyebrow. "Still watching me, huh?"
"How are you doing that?" Loki changes the subject. "It looks fun!"
"What, this?" Tony gestures to the holograms and Loki nods.
"It's simple, really, and Jarvis is doing a lot of it now anyways. Would you like to try it?" Loki didn't expect this question at all, but the answer is definitely yes. He nods again and claps his hands enthusiastically.
"Jarvis, would you mind finishing this while I give Loki a tutorial on holograms?" Tony asks as if he already knows the answer.
"Not at all, sir." Jarvis replies politely before turning somewhat snarky "It's not like you were doing much, anyways."
Tony mutters something that Loki doesn't catch, before calling out to him. "All right, Snoopy, come over this way." Loki follows Tony eagerly, though he can't help glancing back at the hologram that's forming.
"Is that suit for the Hulk?" Loki asks, since it looks a lot like the green creature he likes.
Tony looks up and says "No. Actually, it's for me."
"For you?" Loki wrinkles his brow, confused. "Why would you want a Hulk suit?" Maybe Tony wants to be the Hulk? But he's already Man of Iron, so why would he want to be the Hulk, too?
"Well, if I have to fight him again, hopefully this will help me keep the Hulk from hurting anyone or destroying my tower in the future." Tony explains.
"You're gonna fight him in it?" Loki doesn't want his friends to hurt each other. Aren't the Hulk and Tony friends with each other, too? Why would they fight if they were friends?
Loki stops thinking about the suit when Tony starts teaching him about holograms.
The lesson on holograms is rather short and pretty easy. Loki had seen Tony do all of these things, and he'd even noticed some of the movements Tony teaches him for working with holograms.
When Tony compliments him, a rather unfamiliar but pleasantly warm feeling spreads through Loki's body and he claps his hands and laughs.
Loki is actually a really quick learner, Tony realizes, rather impressed. He'd shown Loki a lot of the basics of using holograms- resizing, copying and pasting and so on- and Loki seemed to have it down after one demonstration. Once, he'd even seemed to know the gesture beforehand. When Tony asks him how he'd known how to resize holograms already, Loki responds "I saw you do it." Watching Loki flick through holograms now, it would seem he'd been doing it for years.
Tony had even gone into some of the basics of 3D modeling with holograms, which Loki had seemed really interested in.
"I'm gonna make something, like you!" Loki informs him happily while creating a bunch of random holographic shapes. Tony's glad he'd thought to have Jarvis give Loki his own folder so this stuff doesn't clutter up his files.
Maybe he shouldn't have taught Loki how to have things scanned, Tony thinks, as Loki scans himself, a bunch of tools, and then Simba, telling the toy to be still as if it was alive.
Tony goes back to his own work, and a couple hours pass. Tony glances at Loki periodically and gives the god little side comments. Loki talks to Jarvis a lot, but Tony's not exactly listening to what they're saying. Loki keeps glancing at the Iron Man suit holograms while fiddling with some basic holographic shapes, and the god's yellow shirt appears slightly green behind some of them.
Tony pauses. Hadn't Loki been wearing purple earlier? Maybe he changed clothes? But Tony's almost positive he hadn't left the room...
Grabbing a non-holographic tablet, Tony has Jarvis pull up the last ten minutes or so from his camera in the lab. Sure enough, Loki had been wearing purple earlier. Then, in the footage from about five minutes ago, there's a sort of shimmer around Loki and his shirt abruptly becomes yellow. There had even been a green shimmer around Loki's hands, but it had only been present during the split second his shirt had changed color. Loki's hands had been at his side at the time, and he hadn't seemed to notice.
Tony blinks. Of all the strange things Loki's done, this somehow seems like one of the strangest. But Tony decides to keep things low-key.
"Nice shirt." Tony says casually. Fortunately, Loki doesn't freak out.
Jarvis has watched Sir comfort Mr. Loki nightmare after nightmare. If he had a body, Jarvis thinks, he could perhaps do the same thing for Sir that Sir does for Mr. Loki- holding him close while reassuring him. He quickly switches his processing to something else- he doesn't have a body, so there's no use thinking about what it would be like if he did.
Mr. Loki's nightmares are clearly a problem since they interrupt his sleep. Mr. Loki has had nightmares over ninety percent of the time he's been here. It reminds Jarvis of when Sir first came back from Afghanistan when he'd had nightmares almost every night. Sir still has nightmares years later, although judging from Sir's mutterings, some of them seem to be about the invasion he helped stop a year and a half ago.
Whenever Mr. Loki has nightmares, there are the instances that Jarvis can't explain. His sensors pick up something he can't make sense of, and occasionally his heat sensors detect Mr. Loki's body temperature dropping to well past what would be dangerous for a human, yet Mr. Loki seems entirely unaffected. Additionally, Jarvis has been unable to find a source for the non-transparent holograms that show up during Mr. Loki's nightmares.
Jarvis had always noticed worrying signs about Mr. Loki's past, ever since the first day where Mr. Loki said he didn't want to go back to Asgard. These signs have hinted to a more and more horrific past. Most of these signs were somewhat vague in how horrible Asgard was to Loki, but sometimes it was abundantly clear how much Mr. Loki had to go through, such as when Mr. Loki mentioned having his lips sewn shut.
Jarvis likes Mr. Loki a lot- not nearly as much as Sir, of course, since liking someone as much or more than his creator would be impossible for the AI- but still, he likes the tower's new resident a great deal more than any other person. Mr. Loki is his second favorite person after Sir. Especially since Mr. Loki, like Sir, truly seems to consider him real. A lot of people treat him like a machine that, while advanced, is incapable of real thought or feelings.
Although Mr. Loki seems happy a lot of the time, it's clear he's far from healthy. Physically, he appears to be in good health, and although he's a bit on the skinny side, he's not underweight. Mental health, however, seems to be an entirely different matter.
"Sir? Do you have a moment?" Jarvis asks, perfectly polite.
"Sure, Jarv. What's up?" Tony asks, not looking up from his tablet. Loki had conked out really early tonight- it's only 7:45 pm. Maybe the lab had tired him out.
"Have you considered finding Mr. Loki a therapist?" Jarvis asks. Tony's eyebrows rise in surprise. Although he probably should have expected the AI would recommend that. He switches the tablet off and sets it aside before staring at Jarvis' camera.
"What, like a shrink?" Tony asks skeptically, wrinkling his brow slightly. Jarvis had repeatedly recommended that he go to see a therapist, both after Afghanistan and after the whole alien invasion and Battle of New York. But Tony had refused every time the AI had brought it up, not really wanting to go over childhood issues to some stranger while laying on a couch; how would that help, anyways? He can't exactly picture Loki doing that either- for one thing, Loki almost never stays in one spot for long unless he's asleep. Even when watching movies, he moves around a lot.
"I think it could be beneficial for Mr. Loki's health to see a trained therapist." Jarvis stresses the last part, as if correcting Tony for his word choice. "While you are many things, sir, you are neither a therapist nor a psychologist. Mr. Loki's issues are not something you can fix on your own. While your efforts with him have been valiant, I think it would be best for Mr. Loki to get professional help." Jarvis finishes gently.
Of course he's not a therapist. Hell, Tony's still amazed he can actually calm Loki down. Though he's made literally no progress with Loki's nightmares or convincing him that the Asgardians were wrong to treat him horribly.
Jarvis presses on, clearly trying his hardest to convince Tony of this. "I have observed numerous instances of Mr. Loki expressing signs of a very low self esteem, possibly self-loathing." A bunch of holographic videos spring up around Tony, and one of them begins playing from Loki's conversation with Bruce and Tony, where Loki is saying "They'd never like someone like me."
Tony blinks. He had been so concerned with the whole part about Loki's mouth being sewn shut that he'd forgotten entirely about that. But geez, there was a sort of disgust in his voice when he'd said that, a tone which certainly shouldn't be there.
Other holograms play, showing a lot of instances Tony does indeed remember, though there's one he doesn't remember at all, which turns out to be the conversation Jarvis had had with Loki when Tony had been telling Bruce about Loki in the lab. He watches the Loki in the video asking Jarvis what his opinion on Bruce was, and asking for confirmation that Bruce won't hurt him.
Jarvis speaks up again. "Furthermore, it is perfectly clear that Mr. Loki was not treated right in Asgard, and he seems to believe he deserves that treatment. With the help of a psychologist, he might be able to move on from that."
Tony sighs. Loki has barely been here two weeks, so it's not like they could have expected to make much progress (although Tony's still annoyed that they haven't). But still, Jarvis is right. He's not a therapist, and as much as Tony hates to admit it, he really can't do this on his own. Loki's situation is too big for that.
But there are some issues with the idea. "What about his... powers? How can we trust someone not to spread word of them to the public?" Tony counters.
"Well, sir." Jarvis says patiently, though he sounds as if he's explaining the obvious. "There is this nice little thing called professional secrecy, which should prevent them from revealing Mr. Loki's powers."
"Yeah, but that's one hell of a secret to dump on someone." Tony runs a hand through his hair.
"Not that I'm committing to anything, but if we do this, we'd probably have to fake some documents to even get him in." Tony says. Faking the documents would be pretty easy, though. Tony holds up a hand to keep Jarvis from speaking before continuing "However, they'd undoubtedly find out Loki is from Asgard at some point, and then they'd know they were faked, which could be messy."
"Perhaps if they knew ahead of time that Mr. Loki is from Asgard, it might not be an issue. Faking documents may not be necessary if they know." Jarvis suggests, though Tony's not too sure.
"Even if that doesn't become an issue, can you really picture Loki laying on a couch spilling his guts to a doctor?" Tony asks. "I mean, he acts like a child a lot of the time..."
"That is not the only type of therapy, sir." Jarvis sounds somewhat amused before becoming serious again "I want what is best for Mr. Loki."
"I'll think about it." Tony sighs, not wanting to totally agree. But he's actually not just saying that. He really is going to think about it. Loki's too important for Tony to try to heal with his lack of experience.
Over the next couple days, almost all of Tony and Loki's time is spent in the lab- sometimes they even eat in there. Tony continues to work on the Hulkbuster armor. Jarvis, meanwhile, runs large calculations and helps Loki with whatever he needs while Tony carefully designs the innards of the suit and the weapons it will have. This suit is definitely going to need its own arc reactor to power it.
When the model for the hulkbuster armor is done, Tony makes it life size- it's going to be about the size of the Hulk. When he sees it, Loki lets out a happy shriek and runs up to hug the model.
By the second day, Tony's realized that Loki's not just aimlessly fiddling with holograms, although it had seemed like that for a while. Loki had asked to use some of the "Man of Iron" holograms. Tony eventually decides to copy some of the armor models (without any of the innards) to Loki's folder for the god to fiddle with. Loki's folder is as secure as Tony's, and giving him the models for the outside of the suit- which anyone can see and thus model- doesn't seem like a problem. It's basically like giving him a model of a toy Iron Man. Loki seems to love tweaking them, and Tony realizes there's a method behind Loki's seemingly random tweaking.
It turns out Loki is indeed trying to make something- it appears to be an Iron Man suit for his Simba toy. It's a pretty ambitious first project, but it seems Loki's up for it. Loki models the holograms around his toy. He'll take a foot from one of the Iron Man models and carefully sculpt it so it fits around Simba's foot. Loki does almost all of it himself- the only thing Jarvis does is smooth it out. It actually looks pretty decent, Tony thinks. Loki grins when he tells him that.
Tony's glad Loki's found something fairly productive to do, though Loki doesn't work on it all the time- he still plays games, sometimes by himself and sometimes with Jarvis and Dum-E.
Simba still goes everywhere with Loki. Loki even brings the toy to the bathroom when he goes to take a shower or a bath (judging from the splashing sounds Tony hears on some days and the sound of a shower running on other days, Loki seems to switch between the two). Considering that Simba's voice box still works, it seems Simba hasn't actually gone in the water with Loki.
Tony thinks Loki might be a bit too attached to Simba. Tony's not even sure if little kids carry around beloved toys this much (not that Tony can claim to know much at all about kids). Jarvis gently points out that carrying around a stuffed animal is a healthier calming mechanism than turning to drugs or drinking. The AI manages to say this and still sound completely nonjudgemental of Tony's love of alcohol.
Loki continues to have nightmares and panics whenever he realizes he's used his powers. Tony keeps telling him that it's not a problem, but he's not sure his words are getting to Loki.
Although Tony's still really interested in Loki's powers, they're currently on a back burner as he works on the Hulkbuster suit. But he still keeps an eye out for them and has Jarvis inform him (when they're alone) if he missed anything.
Nothing else changes colors, but that incident had given Tony a lot to think about. If Loki can change the color of his shirt, maybe he can change the color of other things... like his skin. If he could do that, maybe he really does have blue skin. But at the same time, changing the color of a shirt seems different than changing the color of your skin.
Tony tries to subtly bring up the topic by talking about things changing colors, but as soon as the conversation gets less subtle and hints about his powers, Loki curls on the floor, muttering "no, no, no, no." With that, Tony's suspicion that Loki's from Jotunheim grows, though the god hasn't actually answered any of his questions about it. Theoretically, he could just be freaking out about his powers.
Besides, if Asgardians hate Frost Giants as much as they seem to, maybe suggesting that Loki secretly is one might not be a great idea. At least, not without more proof that he might have blue skin underneath.
Tony's out doing something as Man of Iron, leaving Loki alone on a different floor in the tower. Loki's not sure why he's here- they still use the bedrooms in the penthouse during the night and avoid the holes in the living room, but Jarvis isn't letting the elevator go up there. Right now, when he uses the elevator, Jarvis only lets him go to a couple different floors. Loki's not allowed in the lab when Tony's not there, either.
Loki decides to explore. He's always liked exploring. He'd never really thought about what was on all the other floors of the tower. There are several floors that seem to be living areas, though he and Tony are the only people who live here. At least, he thinks they're the only ones living here. These floors aren't nearly as fancy as the penthouse.
The floor he's on is actually pretty interesting. It starts out with a living room, but when he wanders around other parts of the floor, there are things he's never seen before. There's a room with a bunch of comfy seats facing a huge white thing hanging from the ceiling. Jarvis explains it's like the screen he and Tony watch, only the image is actually projected onto it instead of coming from it. Loki frowns. If screens show other worlds, how does that work?
Loki has worked out that Jarvis seems to be everywhere in the tower, which he really likes, since it means he can talk to Jarvis wherever he goes.
There's also a huge room one floor below with a huge pit full of water that he assumes is a public bath, like they have in Asgard, though it's a pretty deep pit of water for bathing in. Not to mention it smells really weird. Jarvis doesn't let him in there, so he just looks at it through the huge window it has instead of a wall. He holds Simba up so the lion can look, too.
There's another room full of all sorts of strange equipment, which also has a glass wall allowing people to look in from the hallway. Jarvis says it's a training room, and the equipment helps people be physically fit. The machines look fun to goof around on, but Jarvis won't let him in there, either. Loki sighs and moves on.
Finally there's a door that Jarvis lets Loki through, and Loki doesn't know what's on the other side of it until he goes through, since there aren't any glass walls.
His mouth drops open when he sees what it is, and then he grins and flaps his hands. It's a library! Or maybe it's just a huge collection of books, but that's sort of the same thing. Loki loves libraries. The Asgardian library had been a good place to hide from Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun and Thor. Loki had found it when they were still children. At first, it had just been a good place to hide, but soon it was both the safety and the allure of books that drew him in.
Sadly, even the library hadn't remained a safe haven forever. People still came across him more often than he'd liked. At first they ignored him, which was just fine with Loki. But after one day when Fandral had followed him in to keep tormenting him (it turned out he'd been unable to shake him on the way there), these encounters had grown more unpleasant. While he rarely got beaten up in there, he had been told to get his filthy hands off the books and stop infusing them with dark magic. In some ways, that hurt even more than getting a beating. Sometimes he'd have to stay away for a while before venturing back.
Loki looks around at all the books surrounding him in awe, and whispers "Whoa" to Simba. He trails a finger along the books' spines. Unlike Asgard, these books aren't bound in plain leather- they come in all different colors and some have pictures on the covers. A lot of them have really weird titles like Quantum Computing or Moby Dick.
He eventually finds a book with tiny white dots all over the cover, almost like stars, and realizes it's actually about stars and something called "Outer Space." He carries it out to the living room and plonks down on the ground.
He flips open the book and sees a chart of stars. Some of them form little pictures with names like Sirius. Loki always liked stars- in Asgard, he often stared at the night sky, wishing he could fly away to somewhere he wasn't hated. The stars had looked especially beautiful from the Bifrost. The Bifrost had been really awesome, since it was so colorful and it was literally surrounded by stars. It wasn't just the sky that was starry there.
Loki wishes he had his crayons and paper so he could trace this chart, but they're still in the lab and Jarvis won't let him go there. He mentions this to Simba, and Jarvis speaks up. "That could be arranged, Mr. Loki." A couple minutes later, Dum-E arrives with the materials and Loki hugs him before starting to trace the picture.
"Mr. Stark is returning now, Mr. Loki." Jarvis says and Loki grins. Finally! Maybe now they'd get to go back in the lab and continue working on their separate projects. Tony's been gone for hours, and Loki finished tracing the chart a long time ago. He'd started reading the book but it's full of unfamiliar words like thermonuclear astrophysics that weren't used in Asgard. He'd never run across the weird words in any of the Asgardian library's books, either. This book doesn't explain them in a way that makes sense and even Jarvis' explanations are rather confusing.
He's ended up just drawing different constellations for the stars while Jarvis explains more basic astronomy concepts that make more sense, especially since they don't require him to already know a lot of weird vocabulary. It's really interesting, though he's rather sad to learn that stars die. Sometimes Jarvis will show a holographic moving picture of something like a star forming or a model of a galaxy. When the hologram of the galaxy comes up, Loki spins around in the middle of it, laughing in awe and holding Simba up in the stars.
Once he's told that Tony's coming back, Loki grabs his star drawings and Simba and waits eagerly for Tony to appear.
The elevator door opens and Loki squeals Tony's name before running up and hugging the man tightly, laughing. Tony makes a strangled sound and Loki lets go of him worriedly. Did he hurt Tony?! How could he live with himself if he hurt Tony, who's never done anything to hurt him? When he can speak, Tony says "Don't hug me so hard. I swear if I wasn't in my armor, that would've cracked my ribs or something." Seeming to sense Loki's worry, Tony adds, as his armor is removed "I'm fine. Just go a bit easier on me, okay? Not all of us have god-like strength and durability."
"There's only one god." Somebody says, sounding vaguely annoyed. Loki suddenly notices the other people behind Tony.
There are four other people who got off the elevator with Tony- three men and a woman who looks vaguely familiar though Loki has no idea why. Loki stares at the people surrounding him slightly anxiously and he can't help moving so he's slightly behind Tony. At least there's another familiar face besides Tony's. "Bruce! Guess what Tony and I did today!" He grins at Bruce, who smiles back.
"Hmm. Tony locked himself in his workshop for hours on end?" Bruce asks, and Loki giggles.
"Kind of. But I was with him, and I worked on my project while he worked on his project! And when he was gone, I drew stars!" Loki holds up his drawing but ends up showing Tony first. Tony seems to know right away that Loki made the constellations up- apparently he knows there's not a Mike Wazowski constellation- although he says there really should be an "Iron Man" constellation. A Man of Iron constellation would be really awesome, Loki thinks. One of the other men says something about being surprised that Tony hasn't made that a reality by now.
Moving so that Loki's next to him rather than behind him, Tony says "Loki, these are the other Avengers."
Loki freezes for a second. "Is Thor here?" He asks, and even he can hear the fear in his own voice. Tony assures him that he's not, and Loki relaxes slightly. He bows slightly the other Avengers, since that's what you're supposed to do when you meet someone. Not that anyone ever really did it to him, though.
A blonde-haired man approaches, holding out a hand for some reason and introducing himself as Steve. He has the same build as Asgardian warriors, which makes Loki really uneasy. If this man grew a beard, grew his hair out, and changed his weird red, white and blue suit for some armor, nobody in Asgard would give him a second glance. With long hair and a beard, Steve would probably look a lot like Thor, actually. Loki instinctively moves away from him as he gets closer, retreating behind Tony again and hugging Simba tightly.
Loki watches warily as Steve stops, looking somewhat confused. Tony, on the other hand, is smirking slightly. Loki looks at the other people.
The woman is looking at Loki with calculating blue eyes that make him a little nervous, so he avoids looking at them. She continues to study Loki with her arms crossed and doesn't say anything, but Tony introduces her as Natasha.
"What's wrong with Thor?" The last man, who Tony says is Clint, asks. He has brown hair and blue eyes and doesn't make Loki as nervous as the other new people. Loki remembers Tony's descriptions of the other Avengers from that first day. This must be Hawkeye, Natasha is the Black Widow and Steve is Captain something-starting-with-Am. Loki suddenly realizes where he'd seen Natasha before- she'd been on the screen with the Hulk and Tony on Loki's first morning here.
"Let's just say Thor's got a lot to answer to the next time I see him." Tony says, somewhat darkly. Loki's not sure what bone Tony has to pick with Thor, but he's glad when Tony changes the subject. "All right! So, any preferences for dinner?"
"Anything but Shawarma." Clint says. Loki has no idea what Shawarma is, but Tony seems to like it, since he gets somewhat defensive.
"What's wrong with Shawarma?" Tony raises an eyebrow, and Clint says they eat it too much. "Oh come on. We have to eat it a lot. It's practically the official food of the Avengers." Tony exclaims, and Loki giggles at the expression on his face.
The word Shawarma is really fun to say- even more fun than the word waffle. Loki begins singsonging it to himself under his breath and he starts laughing because it sounds so funny. Actually, Shawarma might be the word that's the most fun to say, ever.
"You know, I think we might have to get some Shawarma just so Loki knows what he's singing about." Tony says, and Clint groans.
Tony ends up ordering a pizza for those who don't want Shawarma, which turns out to just be Clint and Steve.
While they're waiting for the food to arrive, Steve asks "How did you two end up living together?" Tony's a little surprised when Loki answers the question.
"I fell on his roof. At least, that's what Tony says. I was un...con..scious." Loki seems to struggle a bit with pronouncing that word but he gets it out. Tony casts a glance at Bruce. This conversation could easily stray into the topic of abuse, which is hulking-out territory.
It's rather funny that Steve, who is commonly regarded as the nicest Avenger, seems to be the one Loki's the most unsure around.
Steve asks Tony for a word in private. Slightly confused, Tony goes into the hall with the captain.
"Are you sure this is best for him?" Steve asks. Tony frowns. Does he actually mean...? He realizes Steve is indeed referring to Loki living here. Over the year and a half they've known each other, Steve's made it pretty clear that he doesn't approve of some of Tony's lifestyle choices, but this is taking it too far.
"It's a hell of a lot better than where he was before." Tony says icily, smirking at the offended look on Steve's face at the use of the word hell.
Much to Tony's annoyance, Steve keeps talking. "I mean, you don't always look after yourself. Is he really getting the care he needs here?" Tony is starting to get really pissed. What right does Steve have to ask this sort of stuff anyways? Besides, Loki seems pretty capable of looking after himself, except for the fact he can't order food. Heck, Loki takes better care of himself than Tony does of himself- Jarvis never needs to remind Loki that he should get some sleep or take a shower. Steve doesn't seem convinced when Tony tells him this.
Although it's not what Steve intended, the super-soldier's comment does remind Tony about what Jarvis had said about therapy and how Loki might not be getting the help he needs, help Tony can't provide. Tony makes a mental note to talk to Bruce later.
"You know, I'm not sure he is getting the right care. I'm sure a homeless shelter would do loads better than a billionaire who actually cares about him and can give him individual attention. Oh, and having Jarvis watch him when I can't totally isn't helpful at all." Tony smirks triumphantly when Steve can't seem to think of a response, and he walks off knowing he won.
The food arrives, and it's not long before they're sitting around the table in the kitchen on this floor, which is slightly less extravagant than the kitchen in the penthouse. The reason they're not the penthouse is because Tony doesn't want the others to ask questions about the holes in the floor. Loki is sitting in between Bruce and Tony, though Tony's not surprised that Loki has scooted closer to him than Bruce.
This certainly isn't the first team dinner they've had. Team dinners and movie nights end up happening a lot after missions (the Avengers- except for Thor- had just finished a mission earlier today before coming here). But this is the first time a non-team-member has been a part of them.
As usual, Loki puts Simba in front of his place on the table. Steve asks him about this, but Loki doesn't answer. Tony had asked Loki about it the first couple times he'd done it and had never gotten a clear answer either. In the end, he'd just let Loki do it, after a couple failed attempts at having Loki eat without the toy there. It's not like it's a big deal.
Tony had noticed some of the other members giving Loki odd looks when he had started singsonging the word shawarma. Natasha had almost completely hidden hers, but Clint and Steve had been rather obvious. Tony probably would have given Loki a similar look if he hadn't seen the god do the same thing for the word waffles on a hologram Jarvis had shown him once.
Loki gets some more odd looks when he offers Simba a bit of Shawarma and pretends to feed him. At this, Tony does raise an eyebrow. "You know Simba doesn't eat, Snoopy." Tony sighs.
"Yup! I know that!" Quietly, he says "I'm not that dumb." He sounds as if he expects to be told he's wrong about that.
"You're not dumb at all." Tony murmurs to him, going with his new(ish) approach of trying to boost Loki's self esteem. But really, Loki has proven that he's very smart, especially in the lab.
Tony notices the surprised looks some of his team members are giving him. They'd probably expected him to leap in with an insult. Admittedly, that's what he most likely would have done with anyone else. He notices Bruce giving him a small smile, though.
Loki hums to himself as he eats, which is yet another thing that Tony has gotten used to but gets some more glances from the other Avengers. So far, this dinner has been rather quieter than some of the other ones they've had. Some of the other Avengers still seem a little unsure around Loki and vice versa. Tony hopes that will change soon.
Maybe they just need a little more time to warm up to each other.
Bruce strikes up a conversation with Loki and Loki responds rather enthusiastically, sitting sideways in his seat to look at him. Natasha joins in, asking Loki some questions. Loki answers some of them but doesn't totally look at her when he does.
When Natasha starts asking Loki about his past and what he has against Thor, and Steve and Clint second her questions, Tony glances at Bruce. The conversation is once again getting dangerously close to hulking-out territory. Bruce begins to excuse himself, obviously thinking the same thing, and Tony figures that now's as good a time as any to ask him for a conversation in private.
Bruce accepts, and Tony glances at Loki, who has grabbed Simba and stood up expectantly. "Come on, Snoopy." Tony says. After all, this is going to concern Loki and Tony can't just make decisions for him.
Still, he can't help noticing that Loki looks relieved to be going with them instead of staying with the other Avengers.
Well I hope you enjoyed this! I'm not entirely sure this counts as things picking up like I promised last chapter. Hopefully it does.
Like last chapter, I had to cut this off somewhere or it would have gone on way too long. Loki's first encounter with the other Avengers will continue next chapter, though!
I want to update in less than a week, but I can't make any guarantees.