This story passed 20,000 views total! Huge thanks to everyone who's read, favorited, followed and especially reviewed this! When I first posted the first chapter almost 4 months ago, I didn't think anyone would read it at all.
This chapter starts out immediately where last chapter ended, and I'm jumping back just the tiniest bit. Also, I mention a couple things from Thor but they're sort of AU, so keep that in mind.
If you recognize anything in this chapter, I don't own it! By the way, there are also MAJOR spoilers for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the Disney movie, not the book).
Hopefully the first part of this isn't boring. I'm a little worried it might be. But it's important. As I stated least chapter, I have no idea what having a broken bone is like or what you do after, but a couple things online said if you have a broken leg, you're supposed to stay off your feet and that it hurts to stand up anyways because all the blood rushes to your leg in a cast or something... Hopefully that's not totally wrong.
Loki's really glad Bruce is going to be staying here, since he likes Bruce. But he's rather disappointed that Hulk hasn't come out since fighting with Tony. He wants to see him again. It's not fair that the past couple times Bruce has come here, the Hulk hasn't come out at all- especially since Bruce is the Hulk, so he could always just transform into him like he had before. "Can Hulk-y come out sometime?"
Loki thinks that's a great idea. Hulk's his friend, so obviously he wants to see him again, and Tony is Hulk's friend too.
Loki giggles at the current facial expressions of the other three people in the room, which are hilariously shocked. Bruce is gaping and looks like a fish. He says he doesn't think that's a good idea, and Tony and Pepper agree. It seems they'd be perfectly fine with Bruce never becoming Hulk again. Why does everyone else dislike the Hulk so much?
Tony glances at the thing on his wrist and comments in a surprised tone about how it's only nine thirty, stating that he thought it would be a lot later considering everything that happened. Apparently it's only been two hours since Tony fell. Tony looks up at them and says "Huh...Well, I guess we can salvage some of the evening. Anyone up for a movie?"
Tony apparently already has one picked out. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He shares a look with Bruce and Pepper for some reason, though Loki's not sure what it meant.
Bruce declares that Tony's going to stay in bed, so they have to watch it here. Tony protests, but Bruce and Pepper team up and actually win the argument. Bruce leaves for a bit and comes back with some weird box that he sets up, that Loki eventually realizes shines a picture on a flat surface, like in the theatre. Bruce then drags three chairs over, which both spin and have wheels. They're really fun, Loki thinks as he spins around and then rolls the chair around the room, propelling himself with his legs. Eventually, he rolls back up to the bed Tony's currently in.
Pepper also leaves the room, claiming they need something called "popcorn" and returns later with a big bowl of misshapen white things covered in butter. This popcorn stuff is actually really good, Loki thinks as he munches some. He likes food he can eat with his hands, although now his hands are sort of slimy.
Tony throws a piece in the air and catches it in his mouth, acting like it's a huge accomplishment and proclaiming himself world-champion. Loki loves that game, and he's really good at it. He throws a piece almost to the ceiling and catches it easily. Tony stares at him in shock, and Bruce says that Loki's just usurped Tony for the title. Loki grins and stifles a giggle.
Dum-E even comes to this floor, to Loki's surprise and delight. Dum-E hands some kind of cord to Bruce and pats Tony comfortingly with his claw before Loki slips it into his hand. According to Tony, Dum-E loves watching movies, which makes Loki wonder why this is the first time they're watching one with him. Tony says that Dum-E can't exactly go down the steps in the theater. That makes sense, although they used to not even watch movies in the theater. Loki's really excited that Dum-E's here, though.
"By the way," Tony starts, giving Loki a serious look. "This movie has a happy ending, okay?" Loki's not sure why he's saying that, so he continues spinning his chair and wheeling it back and forth slightly.
The movie starts with a guy and a puppet version of himself telling a story to some children, asking something about who's the monster and who's the man, and then it shifts to a woman running. After a bit, Loki realizes that it's now showing the story that the puppet guy's narrating. Eventually, the woman is caught and her bundled baby is taken from her. The man who takes it- Frollo, according to the narrator- gasps and claims the baby is a hideous monster. He almost kills it but doesn't in the end, though the monster baby's mother is already dead.
Loki stares at the screen in horror, hugging Simba tightly and curling up in his chair, no longer spinning it. Dum-E beeps worriedly as he holds one of Loki's hands and swings it back and forth slightly, which Loki really likes. Tony has a hand on his shoulder and spins the chair side to side slightly, which helps too, but Loki's still horrified.
Was this what Allfather Odin had been like when he'd found him, a baby Frost Giant runt, in Jotunheim? Loki doesn't know why the Allfather took him back to Asgard when he rightfully hated him like everyone else there, so maybe it was something like Frollo where he was guilted- or scared- into it? Nobody but Odin himself seemed to know why he'd brought Loki back. Loki knows he should be grateful that they'd taken him in, and he's been told so countless times. But it was kind of hard to be grateful sometimes when they were hurting him, which made him bad, right? After all, he deserved their treatment, so being anything but grateful would make him even worse than he already is. He had already been bad without that tacked on.
Loki obviously doesn't remember being taken to Asgard by the Allfather, since he was a baby at the time, but he's heard that the Allfather was fighting some sort of war against the monstrous Jotuns, and that it had taken a while for the Asgardians to figure out how to hide Loki's hideous blue skin. How they'd even done that is a mystery to Loki, and he never had gotten an answer on whether it was magic or not. It seemed like the occasional times when Loki had managed to disguise himself as someone else, but magic is bad, so they wouldn't be doing it... It's too confusing, since those things don't add up.
When he feels a warm hand- warmer than Dum-E's claw- gripping his arm, and three voices speaking softly, Loki's pulled from his thoughts. Realizing that Tony's the one gripping his arm, Loki moves from his chair, which Tony had seemed barely able to reach, and sits beside Tony on the bed. Tony doesn't say anything about a personal bubble like he sometimes does, instead muttering in an almost pleading tone "Shit. Please tell me this isn't another Avatar incident."
Tony, Bruce and Pepper are all looking at him with concern, while Dum-E beeps worriedly and pats Loki's leg. "Do we need to stop?" Pepper asks gently. "What's wrong? Is this too much? If it is, just say so. But I promise, even though things seem bad for a while, it has a happy ending."
Tony had said something about a happy ending before. Loki likes happy endings. He glances at the screen, only it's different now. It's not the horrible scene with the man and the baby. Now, it shows a red-haired man with a hunched back and a somewhat strange face holding a baby bird, only neither the bird nor the man are moving. "Who's that?"
"Quasimodo." Pepper answers. "He's the baby that Frollo took, but he's obviously not a baby anymore." Loki frowns. He's the monster baby? Loki had been expecting to see someone like him, but he doesn't have blue skin or red eyes or those ridges on his skin (he does, however, have that hunched back and rather strange face but it's not monstrous). Loki glances down at his own skin. Then again, he doesn't look like a Frost Giant now, either, which is really nice. Maybe this Quasimodo guy has blue skin underneath.
Loki looks at Tony, who's giving him a rather knowing stare. "He's not quite like you or Genie in terms of hue, if that's what you're wondering. But even if he was it wouldn't matter. Not one bit, got it?" Tony stares at him, but Loki looks at Simba instead. Tony keeps saying that blue skin doesn't matter, and that both Genie and that Avatar guy weren't- and more importantly, shouldn't- be hated for their blue skin. But Quasimodo apparently doesn't even have blue skin, so what's so bad about him? Sure, he looks kind of weird, but not nearly as bad as what he looks like in his true form Loki thinks as Tony starts talking.
"Look, I don't know what's going through that head of yours, but please tell me you know that murdering someone because they're ugly is wrong. Or attempting to murder someone." Loki stares at Tony blankly, and Bruce rewords it as killing people. Oh, that. Yeah, Loki knows that's wrong, though it's apparently okay to kill people in battle. But that wasn't a battle, and Quasimodo's not a Jotun, so it's wrong. Tony seems very relieved when Loki nods.
"Ok, good." Tony replies. "Now, let's nip any misconceptions in the bud right now, okay?" Loki wonders why he says all these weird things. "Quasimodo's life is rough for a while. A lot of people are mean to him because they think he's ugly, but that's wrong, just like the villagers were wrong about Beast, remember?" Loki nods. Beast was nice, and the villagers were wrong to try to kill him.
Pepper pipes in, saying that nobody has the right to be mean to someone just because of what they look like. Bruce seconds that, though he's been looking somewhat uncomfortable during the whole conversation.
"So, what's it gonna be, Snoopy? Do we keep watching, or call it quits?" Tony waits for an answer. Loki's rather surprised that Tony's even bothering to ask for his opinion, but it's really nice that he is. Then again, Tony's really nice in general. However, from Tony's tone, it sounds like he hopes he'll choose to continue. Maybe Tony really likes this movie?
That beginning was really freaky, Loki thinks, but it looks better now. Loki nods hesitantly towards the screen. Tony asks for clarification that he meant continue watching, and Loki nods again. The man and the bird on screen start moving.
Quasimodo seems really nice, Loki thinks, and he wonders if he and Quasimodo would be friends if they met. He hopes they would. Quasimodo's only friends seem to be three stone statues of gargoyles named Victor, Hugo and Laverne. Loki wonders aloud how they're moving and Pepper explains that they're really not- Quasimodo's just imagining them.
Frollo appears not long after and points out that stone doesn't talk. So he clearly doesn't see them. Pepper's right- they're like what Sleipnir, Fenrir, Hel and Jormungand were to him, because nobody saw them. Quasimodo's not beat up for talking to them, but he's rebuked by Frollo.
Then, Frollo starts singing about how evil the world is and how it'll hate Quasimodo for being a monster, and Quasimodo agrees he's a monster. Wait, so Quasimodo is a monster after all, even without blue skin. Loki was never told that other realms were evil, but he had been told that Asgard is the best of all the nine realms (while Jotunheim is obviously the worst). They'd said that Asgard is definitely better than Midgard. But Loki likes it here on Midgard- or Earth, as it's apparently called here- a lot more than Asgard, and Thor had recently been trying to get people to stop putting Midgard down.
Loki's sort of confused by Frollo, since he's being nice by taking care of Quasimodo, which is good, and he says in the song that he was Quasimodo's friend. But he'd almost killed him as a baby, which is bad. Which is he? Loki turns his attention back to the movie as Quasimodo finishes the song with a catchy solo part about wanting to be 'out there.'
Frollo also repeatedly tells Quasimodo that anyone else would have drowned him as a baby, which consistently reminds Loki of being told that he could have- should have, even- been left by Odin to die in Jotunheim because he's a monster. Apparently he'd been lost when the Allfather found him.
Additionally, Frollo talks about some group called 'gypsies.' He hates them, a lot like how everyone in Asgard hates Jotuns. Maybe it's really another word for Jotuns? No, that's not it, he realizes. Loki's kind of confused about these gypsy people, but according to Frollo, they're really bad. Frollo wants to kill them, and Loki wonders if he's going to fight a whole battle against them like how Asgard and Jotunheim fought a ton of wars.
At one point during the Festival of Fools, Esmeralda is doing some kind of dance around a spear that's sticking out of the ground like a pole, and Tony remarks that they need to spice it up a bit. This earns him a smack from Pepper for some reason.
When Quasimodo is crowned the King of Fools, he seems really happy and everyone's cheering for him. Loki grins. Maybe this is the happy ending Tony was talking about.
But it doesn't last, since the crowd starts jeering and throwing food at Quasimodo. Tony puts an arm around Loki's shoulder, and Loki's breathing slows down, though he hadn't even realized it had sped up in the first place, and his body relaxes slightly. He's really glad Tony's doing that, because this isn't as hard to watch as it would have been if Tony wasn't calming him down.
Tony had said the crowd was wrong, and Tony's repeating that to him over and over right now. On screen, the captain of the guard, Phoebus, is asking Frollo for permission to stop the cruelty, and Frollo says that a lesson has to be taught, not caring at all what Quasimodo's going through.
That makes sense, Loki thinks, and it matches Asgard, since nobody there cared what he went through. Actually, the fact that they're hitting him with rotten food instead of fists and that Frollo isn't joining in is different. They hate him, Loki realizes. They hate him! But what Tony's saying contradicts that, and Phoebus asking for 'permission to stop this cruelty' it is really weird. Nobody had asked something like that when people were harassing him, because why would anyone else want to stop it?. Bruce, however, mutters that Frollo's the one who needs to learn a lesson, and that the 'Other Guy' would be all too happy to teach it to him. Loki stares at him. What Lesson does Frollo need to learn?
Suddenly, it's silent, and then Tony's arm is around his shoulder and the man's speaking to him. "Okay, here's a tip. Take everything Frollo says with a grain of salt."
Loki stares at him. Maybe Tony really has lost his mind. What does salt have to do with this? Bewildered, Loki asks where the salt he's supposed to take is. Tony bursts out laughing, but it's not in a mean way like everyone in Asgard laughed at him. Bruce explains that it's an expression, meaning you shouldn't believe all of what someone says. Tony then amends his statement to "Actually, don't believe anything Frollo says, because most of it's total crap- and no matter what he says, he has no excuse to hate Quasimodo. He's wrong to hate him and it's even worse that he lets him get hurt because of it."
That would mean Frollo's lying, right, if his reason for hating Quasimodo isn't right? Which would mean he's lying about Quasimodo being a monster, and that he needs to be taught a lesson through public humiliation. But how are those lies? They make sense, and really, getting hit by thrown food doesn't seem nearly as bad as getting hit like he had. Tony, Pepper and Bruce all claim they are lies, though, which is really weird.
The three voices of Tony, Pepper and Bruce, as well as Tony's touch are really calming, and Loki then hears a forth voice, which turns out to be in the film. It's Esmeralda, defending Quasimodo. Apparently, she's one of those gypsies Frollo had been talking about, so she has to be hated, too, right? As Loki's thinking this, Tony is saying "Oh, yeah, Frollo hates her, too, for a bunch of stupid reasons that aren't legitimate reasons."
Loki watches, fascinated and more than a little jealous, as Esmeralda apologizes to Quasimodo and sticks up for him. Loki would have given anything to have someone in Asgard do even one of those things, even though people were right to hate him. Even more astonishing is Esmeralda defiantly telling Frollo that he mistreats both Quasimodo and whoever Esmeralda claims her people are- does she mean gypsies? Loki thinks she might, though he still has no idea what they are. Esmeralda goes on to say he's cruel to those most in need of his help, obviously referencing Quasimodo. Loki's not sure anymore if the crowd is right in treating Quasimodo like that. Frollo certainly thinks so, but Esmeralda and the captain of the guard, Phoebus, think otherwise. Tony, Pepper, and Bruce all agree, and say it's wrong.
Loki wonders if Tony, Pepper, Bruce and Hulk would have supported him against a crowd in Asgard, even if the crowd was right. Tony seems to read his thoughts and says "I'd do everything I could to kick the ass of anyone trying to hurt you, Snoopy." Loki stares at him in awe as Tony gives him a somewhat crooked grin, muttering something about how he'd love to beat the crap out of some Asgardians.
Bruce says, in a rather dark tone, that the Other Guy would love to "play" with the Asgardians. Loki doesn't get that, since they really weren't fun to play with as children. He was always cast as the evil Frost Giant- for obvious reasons- whenever Thor and his friends would let him in their childhood pretend games, and the good guys (usually Thor played Odin) would always beat up the evil Jotun (Loki's not sure why everyone but him stopped pretending stuff eventually, but they started to just beat him up without the game).
Loki's not entirely sure whether to believe Tony and Bruce about beating up his tormentors. They're nice now, but maybe they wouldn't be if everyone else around them wasn't, or if they knew what a monster he really is. Actually, Tony's almost certainly telling the truth- he said he'd protect him from Thor, after all. He wishes he could know for sure about Bruce, though. However, they both claim that Esmeralda is doing the right thing, but how is not standing up for him wrong?
Suddenly, the movie pauses and Jarvis speaks up. "I apologize for the interruption, but I'd like to inform Mr. Loki that Esmeralda is by no means bad for what she's about to do, despite what Frollo says. Do you understand, Mr. Loki?" Loki's confused as to why Jarvis is saying this, but he nods. He's not sure what's going on, but Tony actually pulls him a bit closer, as if sensing something's going to happen.
As the movie resumes, Esmeralda does some disappearing act, and Frollo angrily says something about witchcraft. Loki blanks on that word for a bit, but then he realizes it means the act of doing magic. No! He curls up into a ball, hugging his knees with Simba squeezed in between his knees and torso. Esmeralda's going to be in a world of pain soon, Loki realizes with horror as the guards go after her.
Guards and warriors like the Warriors Three always win, even if you temporarily escape- and disappearing like that to get away is the worst possible thing to do, because the punishment is brutal. He knows that firsthand, even though it's only happened a handful of times in his whole life. He never ended up far from his tormentors, sometimes as little as a few yards away, and he would be so shocked that they'd descend upon him before he reoriented himself. He has no idea how he'd done it those few times. Right after the first time he'd done it, he'd thought if he could control it, he might be able to get away more. He'd actually tried to replicate it, even though doing magic is bad. It hadn't worked at all, and the punishment he'd gotten had convinced him not to try it again (they could somehow even tell he'd tried it). So clearly, mixing magic and escape is a horrible idea.
Doesn't Esmeralda know that?! She's acting like she just played a brilliant trick instead of doing something that will probably get her beaten for an hour. The guards will catch her- guards always catch people eventually, and when they do, the punishment's going to be a million times worse for what she just did.
Loki squeezes his eyes shut and curls up next to Tony on the bed, clinging to him. No! He doesn't want to watch her punishment. Loki tries to drown it out by humming to himself, not even realizing that Jarvis has paused it again. Quasimodo doesn't do magic, but Esmeralda does, and Frollo hates her too. Magic's bad, even there! It'll always be bad, and anyone who does it is horrible! But Jarvis had said Esmeralda wasn't bad for it...? Why does everybody here have to be so confusing?!
Loki really appreciates it when Tony pulls him into a hug.
It kind of makes sense that Esmeralda does magic instead of Quasimodo, though, because according to everyone, magic is not only bad, but also very unmanly. Loki's apparently the only male most people know of who does magic (not that many people do it at all), which just makes everything even worse.
Right beside him, Tony is speaking, but the words are all jumbled and meaningless in Loki's brain. Loki's not sure if the All Tongue isn't working, or if his humming is drowning Tony out. Maybe it's both. Or it could be that he's remembering the handful of times he'd disappeared like that.
Loki's not sure how long it takes, but he's eventually calm enough to get what Tony's saying.
Tony's reminding him that what Frollo says isn't true. Loki's really confused. Magic's bad, and Frollo says magic is bad, so how can that be a lie? Tony just stresses what Jarvis had said, about how what Esmeralda just did isn't bad, no matter what Frollo and the guards think. How can Tony think that magic isn't bad, when it's badness is just a fact of life, like grass being green? But then again, Tony had said he wanted to change stuff magically. As crazy as it is, Tony really seems to think that magic isn't bad.
Then, Jarvis informs him of how, instead of Esmeralda getting caught and punished (which he insists she doesn't deserve at all), the guards are going to lose spectacularly. Tony adds that they're going to get their butts kicked, and asks if he'd like to see that. Loki nods hesitantly. It would be fun to see guards lose, but it can't actually happen, can it?
Apparently it can, and in hilarious ways, too. The crowd catches Esmeralda when she jumps, but then the crowd moves aside to let the guards plummet to the ground. Loki bursts out laughing, pointing at the screen. When a guy on stilts kicks three screaming guards into the air, Loki laughs so hard that he almost can't breathe and his body shakes uncontrollably. At one point, Esmeralda disarms three sword-wielding guards with another guard's hat. Loki wishes he could do that.
Then, she disappears under a blanket, which has to be magic again. Loki freezes for a second before going back to sit next to Tony on the bed again, wrapping his arms around the man. Once again, the others say she's not bad.
There's one scene later on where Quasimodo tells her that Frollo said all gypsies are evil, but she's not like them because she's not evil. That's really confusing, Loki thinks, and Quasimodo seems just as confused. That's like saying there's a good Frost Giant, when they're all savage monsters. How could someone be a Frost Giant and not be a monster?
Esmeralda then says Frollo is cruel, and Quasimodo replies that he's not cruel and that Frollo took him in when nobody else would, because he's a monster. Loki completely understands that. But then Esmeralda tells him he's not a monster, saying there are no monster lines on his hands. Wait, what? What are monster lines?
Loki glances at his own hands. He knows that when his hideous blue form isn't hidden, his hands have ridges on the back of them. Those must be monster lines, he thinks dejectedly. He even has them on his forehead in his real form, like a huge label across his face that reads "MONSTER!" As if the blue skin isn't enough of an indication.
Esmeralda doesn't see a monster when she looks at Quasimodo, even though a lot of other people do, Loki realizes.
Loki's really confused about Esmeralda. She's one of those 'gypsies' Frollo hates, though Loki's still not sure what they are. Plus, she does magic. So she's a monster, too, or an outcast, as she'd called herself in a song. She's all those things, so she must be really bad, right? Just like Loki himself?
Yet at the same time, Esmeralda's really nice and, well, not evil like Frollo says gypsies are. Quasimodo points this out right as Loki's thinking it- maybe he's reading his mind? Esmeralda responds that maybe Frollo's wrong about both her and Quasimodo, but Loki can't help pretending that she's saying it to him, too. Not that she would actually say that to a Jotun, but it would be nice if she did.
Not everyone hates Quasimodo, Loki realizes over the course of the movie. He's really lucky, actually; he has Esmeralda and Phoebus, and they don't think he's a monster even though everyone else does. Esmeralda had just said all those amazing things to him. Plus he doesn't seem to get beaten up, and his imaginary friends hadn't needed to go away to protect him. Eventually, Quasimodo doesn't think of himself as a monster either, but he doesn't look as monstrous as Loki does in his real form, and he doesn't even have monster lines.
Loki paces anxiously as he thinks that, hating that he can't move around and be next to Tony at the same time. He's not sure why Tony's lying in bed; it seems very unlike him, but Bruce insisted on it for some reason. It has something to do with the weird thing on his leg.
Loki finds himself wishing he were Quasimodo, because being the hunchback would be better than being who he is. Even Esmeralda's not as bad as he is, despite doing the disappearing magic thing. Actually, no, he wishes he were someone else entirely, not Quasimodo. Maybe Tony, because then people wouldn't hate him, and he'd have those awesome suits and he could beat up anyone who tried to hurt him, because if he were Tony he wouldn't even deserve to be beaten because he wouldn't be a freaky monster.
But Tony had said he'd beat them up. Loki grins, thinking that if he were Hulk, he could do that, too.
Towards the end, Frollo is about to stab Quasimodo, Quasimodo rebels against him and tells him he's wrong about the world. Loki's pretty sure Quasimodo's right about that, but all the same he's really in for it now- he's going to be punished horribly. Loki wonders if he'll be put in those chains he was trapped in after he accidentally led Frollo to the Court of Miracles while looking for Esmeralda. The weird part was when Quasimodo had been in the chains before, he'd been alone, and he hadn't looked like he'd just gotten a beating either. Loki squeezes his eyes shut and covers his ears, expecting pain filled screams to fill the room.
Only Quasimodo isn't really beaten then, either- although Frollo does try to kill him, which is probably worse. He also reveals the truth to Quasimodo about his mother, which means he had been lying the whole time. So maybe Tony was right about him lying about all the other stuff, like Quasimodo being a monster and gypsies being bad?
Frollo eventually falls off a building. The very end shows the village people no longer hating or being mean to Quasimodo. Loki stares in shock. Phoebus and Esmeralda not seeing a monster was strange enough, but everyone changing their views? That seems really unrealistic. People don't just stop hating someone.
"See, I told you it has a happy ending." Tony says, and then adds "It was hard watching some of it, wasn't it?" Loki nods. "But you made it all the way through. I'm proud of you." Loki stares at him, startled. Tony's proud of him?
Then the puppet guy on screen asks, again, who's the monster and who's the man? Loki tilts his head, thinking, as he stares at Simba. Everyone thought Quasimodo was a monster at first, but then they didn't think so anymore. So Quasimodo's not the monster, even though he looks more like one. Is Frollo the monster? He doesn't look like one, but he'd tried to kill Quasimodo and the gypsies, and he'd also set someone's house on fire. Those seem like monstrous acts.
"The monster on the outside's not the monster on the inside, and the monster on the inside's not the monster on the outside." Loki blurts out. "Did someone switch their minds?"
"No. It's what's inside- who you are and what you do- that counts, not what you look like." Pepper says. Like with Beast and Hulk, Loki thinks. Hulk had saved Midgard, right? Quasimodo helped Esmeralda and Phoebus. They did good things, while he just does bad things like magic.
"Just because other people say you're a monster doesn't mean you are one. Just look at Quasimodo." Tony says, and adds "Remember how everyone in Monsters Inc. though Boo was a monster at first?" Loki giggles. That was ridiculous!
Before ending up here in Midgard, he didn't even know it was possible for people like Quasimodo and Esmeralda to go from being hated to liked, although Tony, Pepper and Bruce claim that they never should have been hated in the first place. He's not sure if they're still monsters or not, but they aren't treated like them now, and nobody says they are. Maybe they stopped being monsters, or maybe they're just not hated-monsters anymore.
They're really lucky, to have that happen to them. Loki wonders if they'd be liked here in Midgard. The things they watch take place in some world full of people who look like drawings, (or, in Sulley, Mike and Boo's case, don't look entirely real). Obviously, that's not here.
"So you wouldn't hate them?" Loki asks quietly.
"No, we wouldn't hate them, because they shouldn't be hated for that." Tony says, before asking "Isn't that what we've been telling you?"
So they wouldn't hate Quasimodo or Esmeralda, but would that still stand true if they were worse, like him? None of this even applies to him!Right?
Loki bolts towards the elevator, wanting to be alone. He takes it up to the penthouse and stares at the night sky from the window. Seeing it inside isn't nearly as good as seeing it outside, especially since it all just looks black from inside. He can even see his reflection. So maybe he should go outside.
Sometimes in Asgard, he'd go outside at night and wander around, maybe visit the horses or climb in a tree. He could never leave the palace, though, because he had nowhere to go and there were guards anyways. Sometimes he'd stare up and think. Or wish he could be somewhere else. He'd do that almost all the time, actually, and now he really is somewhere else. He loves it here, but it's so confusing, and now he's more confused than ever. Just trying to work through all the contradictions makes his head hurt and he doesn't want to think about it right now. Maybe looking in the night sky will help.
He takes the elevator up another floor or two and goes up the stairs towards the roof. He's never been up here before, except he'd apparently landed here when he'd been dumped from Asgard. But that doesn't really count because he doesn't remember it; he'd been knocked out sometime in between leaving Asgard and waking up on Tony's couch.
He opens the door to the roof and steps out into the air. He gazes up at the sky, but there really aren't many stars, which is sad because looking at them is always comforting. It's also not quiet like Asgard was in the nights. There's still noise coming from the city below him, even though he's really high up, and he realizes he actually misses something from Asgard. He misses the quiet, and the gardens and the horses. But other than that, it's infinitely better here and he wouldn't go back for anything.
Although, if they wanted to send him back, it's not like he'd really have a choice, would he?
Tony watches as Loki bolts from the room, although his superhuman speed isn't taking effect now. Obviously, Tony can't catch up to him on crutches, but he's not sure if they should go after Loki anyways. If he's going away, he probably wants to be alone, at least for a little bit.
To be honest, Tony's sort of surprised they reached the end of that movie. He hadn't realized how many triggers it had, and then there had been some he hadn't even thought of. Something in that scene in the beginning with Frollo and baby Quasimodo struck a chord with Loki. Tony's not entirely sure what it is, but it's probably something demented and horrific about Asgard. When he thinks about it more he realizes it's probably connected to that quote from one of Thor's friends that Loki had spouted after the second Hulk incident, the one about how Loki should have been left somewhere to die. The idea of him being told that is so disturbing on so many levels that it's stuck around in Tony's head as prominently as that whole demented lip-sewing thing.
Esmeralda disappearing was another trigger that he hadn't expected, and he hadn't even remembered it was in the movie. He's really glad Jarvis had paused it before that part (he's betting the AI had been watching ahead of them digitally so he could spot stuff like that, despite not being asked to). Esmeralda was just doing it is a trick, like magicians, but Loki had seemed to think it was real... Loki can't possibly teleport, Tony thinks. But supposedly Dr. Doom can, so why not Loki? After all, it's not like the god hasn't done a bunch of other strange things. However, Tony hasn't seen a single instance of teleportation from Loki.
But if Loki can teleport, that would probably be something he'd use a lot, to get away from his tormentors (plus it would just be so freaking convenient. Dr. Doom is lucky in that sense). So Loki probably can't teleport, Tony thinks. Why would he run away when he could escape that way instead? But if he couldn't do it, why would he have reacted like that?
Loki hadn't totally freaked out at any of the scenes, though they'd needed to calm him down for a while. Still, he hadn't hidden under anything, though that might have been because he'd been clinging to Tony, and he hadn't refused to watch the rest of the movie. Tony's glad they'd made it through the whole thing, because it would have been really easy for Loki to jump to the wrong conclusion if they ended it early.
Tony's now learned that telling Loki when characters are wrong in their views before or while some trigger event is happening is a good idea, because then Loki hopefully won't get the wrong impression like he had with Avatar. Also, if he can predict Loki freaking out and start trying to calm him down before he loses it, he doesn't totally shut down.
Tony looks at Bruce and Pepper. He'd told both of them earlier about how Loki hates his other form, and Bruce seems to get that all too well.
"I think that was a good movie to show him." Pepper says, as if reading his thoughts. "It seems like it helped."
Tony agrees. He thinks Loki had gotten the message of the movie, about not hating people for their appearance, which is definitely a plus. But whether or not Loki believes it applies to him is an entirely different matter. Loki had been systematically taught to accept abuse and believe that he deserves to be treated in whatever inhumane way someone feels like treating him. He'd even been taught to think he deserves to be punished for using the one thing that he might have possibly been able to use to defend himself- his powers. He'd been completely at his tormentors' mercy, and they probably weren't very merciful.
Tony really wants to teach them all a lesson, but seeing as he's stuck on Midgard, he'll have to settle with just teaching Thor...
"I hope he doesn't think he's an exception to that moral." Tony says. "Maybe one of us should talk to him."
"I'll do it." Bruce says, and Tony looks at him in surprise. Bruce gives a sardonic smile and says "Who's better? I know how he feels."
"Are you going to be okay?" Tony asks, hoping that counts as subtle, although Bruce apparently sees right through it because he says that he has the Other Guy in check now. After a moment of consideration, Tony shrugs. He trusts that Bruce is capable of telling if he's at risk of letting the jolly green giant out or not.
According to Jarvis, Loki is on the roof. Tony's a little surprised, but it's not like he'd ever forbidden Loki from going up there. Loki's not a prisoner or anything; he can basically go wherever he wants- within reason. Tony doesn't let him in the lab unless he's in there himself, and Jarvis doesn't let Loki use the elevator to go to any of the Stark Industries floors or the lobby, the latter because then there's the possibility of him wandering off and getting lost in the city again.
Bruce heads off after telling Pepper and Dum-E to make sure Tony stays off his leg. As soon as Bruce is gone, Tony sends Dum-E back to the lab, but Pepper gives him a look that tells him he's going to stay off his feet whether he likes it or not.
Pepper looks at him and asks "I've been wondering- if he acts terrified every time he does magic or whatever it is, why does he change stuff like you said he did?"
"He always uses his powers accidentally, or in his sleep." Tony says. "As for changing things, he was just talking about how a normal teapot and teacup could look like Mrs. Potts and Chip, and then they did. Once the waters smoothed out again, I found out that he likes them, which seems like a good sign because he hates how he made them. The toys of me and Bruce took a little prodding though."
"Prodding?" Pepper asks, starting to looks sort of annoyed, though Tony's not sure why. Partly for a distraction, he picks up the Tony Stark action figure, which Loki had left on the bed. He hasn't looked at it closely until now. The resemblance between the plastic toy and himself is uncanny, almost like someone shrunk him down. Considering how childish Loki's drawings appear, he's amazed at how good the toy looks. Of course it looks good, he reprimands himself mentally- it's a toy of him for crying out loud.
The plastic brown eyes even seem to be watching him, which is pretty creepy. The toy's wearing astonishingly detailed replicas of the clothes Tony's wearing now. Tony looks from his rock band t-shirt to the toy. Okay, the design on the shirt is totally totally different (the toy's shirt has Mufasa on it) but it's still amazing. But the cherry on top is the blue-white circle This toy certainly puts the other action figures to shame.
"Well, he wasn't doing it on his own." Tony says as he experimentally pulls at the clothing. It comes off, he realizes, though the action figures he'd bought the god hadn't had removable clothes. He immediately starts undressing the plastic version of himself, ignoring the reprimanding look from Pepper. What? He's a playboy, and he wants to get a closer look at the arc reactor.
Tony continues speaking as he undresses the toy. "I wanted him to have another example of getting something positive out of his powers, and I figured if he changed things into stuff he wanted, that might help. He seemed to like Mrs. Potts and Chip after getting over the panic of changing them. so... yeah. I asked him what it would be like if they changed." The toy's shirt is now off, and its body is very accurate, though admittedly Loki has seen him in boxers. Mrs. Potts and Chip are really accurate, too. Tony's not sure if Loki has a really good memory or if his powers automatically make things look like how he wants. Tony looks at the arc reactor and rubs a thumb over it, realizing it's just a glowing circle. Tony has no idea how Loki had done it. There's definitely light coming from it, since it's shining on his thumb.
He realizes that for one thing, the toy's going commando without any underwear. Also, the figure's private area is about as PG-ed as a Ken doll's, since he's missing a very important part. Tony's not sure whether to be glad or disappointed, but next to the realism of the rest of the figure, it looks rather strange.
"You knew he'd freak out when he realized what he'd done, and you tricked him into doing it?!" Pepper demands, clearly starting to get angry. Geez, when she puts it that way, it doesn't sound at all like what he'd been going for. He just wanted to make Loki less scared of his powers. Yet, at the same time, Tony really can't deny that he'd pressured Loki into it. He's starting to feel like crap again.
But if he doesn't try to get Loki to have nice experiences with his powers, how is he supposed to get the god to stop freaking out every time he uses them? How are they ever going to get him to not hate them if they keep skirting around the issue?
It's not like forcing Bruce to Hulk-out would make him hate the Hulk less, though.
Pepper's right, Tony realizes with reluctance. He probably shouldn't have tricked Loki into doing it like that, especially considering how the god reacts. Pepper manages to force him to admit this realization, and then she just says "tell Loki that."
She leaves soon after, because, as she says, she has a job to get to tomorrow morning. Tony knows that, of course.
He sits there, alone, thinking of all the things he needs to get Loki to understand as he glances at the action figure of himself. He's not going to hand it back to Loki naked. Although, that would be sort of funny. Still, he ends up grabbing the miniature clothes, almost identical to the ones he's wearing, and dresses a miniature version of himself.
It's a rather strange experience.
He shoves the toy into his pocket, as much as it can fit in, anyways. Then, he grabs his crutches and attempts to stand up, telling Jarvis to not even dare informing Bruce, because he's going to be staying off the injured leg. However, when he stands, blood rushes to his leg in the cast, and geez that hurts!Although the painkillers help a lot.
He falls back onto the bed, and now he's not even sure if he's able to support himself on crutches. But he doesn't want to stay down here.
He calls Dum-E back to this floor, and Dum-E lets out a beep that's probably supposed to be comforting but is also overexcited at the idea of helping his creator. Leaning on his robot for support while using crutches at the same time, Tony manages to hobble back to the elevator, take it to the penthouse and hobble over to the couch before collapsing onto it.
"Get me some scotch, Dum-E. And don't break anything." Tony mumbles from the couch. He doubts anyone could deny he deserves it.
Bruce hadn't even needed Jarvis to tell him where Loki was, because, thanks to the Other Guy, he has a really strong sense of smell. He grabs his coat and heads up towards the roof, which is where the trail is leading.
Loki is standing near the edge of the roof, hugging Simba and rocking from side to side as he stares at the night sky. Bruce makes sure to make enough noise so he won't startle him, because there's the dangerous possibility of him plummeting to his death. Would he die? He's apparently about as durable as Thor, and Bruce isn't sure whether Thor would survive a fall from Stark Tower.
He notices that Loki's not wearing shoes, nor is he wearing anything to keep him warm at all. Just a Snoopy t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Bruce is about to say something, but he remembers Tony telling him about Loki not getting cold because he's a Jotun. Apparently, Loki sees himself as a monster, something Bruce can sympathize all too much with. Even if Tony hadn't mentioned Loki's view of himself, it was obvious from watching the god's reactions to The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Loki's also wearing a green drawstring bag, and Bruce sees something familiar sticking out of the front pocket. "Is that me?" Bruce asks, although he's now certain it is. Tony had said something about Loki changing a Hulk toy into a Bruce one.
Loki sends him a terrified look and Bruce hastily apologizes for bringing it up, saying they can talk about something else. Loki's silent for a minute as he stares upwards, seeming to drift off into some private thought, but eventually he speaks.
"The stars are all gone," Loki says mournfully, staring up at the night sky. "And there were a lot more back there..." Loki hasn't glanced at Bruce once since that terrified look, and Bruce isn't sure if Loki's talking to him or Simba.
"They're not gone, there's just a lot of light pollution here." Bruce explains. "All the lights in the city make it harder to see the stars, like how you don't see the stars during the day, but they're still there."
"Really?" Loki asks, and Bruce confirms it, adding that the fact it's somewhat cloudy right now hides them even more.
Loki continues to gaze into the night sky "So they're still there, even if you can't see them." Loki repeats, meaning he'd absorbed what Bruce had just said about light pollution. Bruce hadn't been sure if he was even listening while he explained it. Loki giggles. "I like that. I like stars. Did you know they can make little pictures called constellations? There aren't enough to see right now, but you can make them into anything you want! Look at the moon! It's a full moon. Have you heard the stories where the man turns into a wolf on the full moon?" Loki bounces enthusiastically and grins at him.
"Werewolves?" Bruce asks with a small smile. Loki giggles and nods, saying that it's kind of silly. "Oh. So they don't have werewolves where you're from?" Bruce asks teasingly.
Loki shakes his head, and then says. "You're kinda one, right? Well, you don't turn into a wolf and it's not 'cause of the full moon, but you turn into Hulk-y when you're angry. That's what Tony said."
That's like comparing apples to oranges, Bruce thinks. There's a bit of silence, since Bruce has no idea what to say to that and he doesn't really feel like expanding on that anyways. Loki speaks again and Bruce is pretty sure he's addressing him this time. Fortunately, it's not about the Were-Hulk theory.
"Do you ever want to fly?" That's really not the sort of thing someone should be saying near the edge of a roof, and it makes Bruce very uneasy. He doesn't think Loki's suicidal or anything, but if he jumped off to try to fly...
Seeming oblivious to Bruce's concern, Loki continues "I always wanted to fly, to go up and away from there, and I'm here now! I love it here!"
"I'm really glad to hear that." Bruce says, and he honestly is. "Let's get away from the edge, shall we?" Bruce pulls Loki towards the center of the roof. Loki doesn't protest and lets himself be pulled along, still gazing up. Apparently the sky is more interesting than he is, even with a supposedly depressing lack of visible stars at the moment.
"Tony can fly and so can Thor." Loki goes on, and Bruce gets the feeling he's not talking to him anymore. "I flew a couple times, I think, only without the flying part. Like-" Loki clamps a hand over his own mouth. Bruce has no idea what that statement was supposed to mean but Loki gives the impression of just having said something he shouldn't. He actually looks at Bruce now with scared eyes. "I dunno, it might've been a dream." Loki adds quickly, but Bruce is pretty sure that's some sort of cover up.
Bruce gets a feeling he shouldn't draw attention to it though, so he doesn't say anything. Loki relaxes slightly, which means that was probably the right thing to do.
"Give me your hand." Loki says suddenly, actually looking at him now, even though his eyes are still somewhat glazed. His voice sounds different than usual, but Bruce can't put a finger on what exactly is different. Bruce stands there, somewhat confused. Loki simply shifts so he's hugging Simba to his chest, seemingly in order to have both hands free, and grabs Bruce's left hand. He brings it close to his face and studies it, informing Bruce that he's going to have a live for a while.
"Oh, are you a palm reader now?" Bruce asks with a slight smile. "Glad to hear I'll be living for a while, anyways." Shortly after gaining the ability to Hulk-out, he would actually have been sorry to hear that, but well, that was a really bad time in his life.
Loki ignores him and traces a finger across Bruce's palm. "This one means you're shy." He informs him, and Bruce suddenly realizes this is very close to one scene between Esmeralda and Quasimodo. Apparently, they've jumped into some sort of role play re-enactment, yet at the same time it's strangely relevant. Loki stares at Bruce's hand some more and says "That's funny. I don't see any."
Bruce asks what he doesn't see any of, but he remembers the next line, which Loki supplies. "Monster lines! Not a single one, nope nope nope!" Loki says, breaking character and shakin his head so his hair flies out wildly around it.
"Yeah, well, what about the Other Guy?" Bruce mutters before he can stop himself.
"Hulk-y's got really big hands." Loki says with a grin. It seems like a random comment until he goes on. "Really big. So if he had monster lines, you couldn't miss them. But he didn't, so he's not one- not a monster. Or maybe he's a good monster like Sulley and Mike, 'cause they didn't have them either, and good monsters almost aren't monsters at all!"
Bruce is unsure of what to say to that, but he likes Loki all the more for what he says about the Other Guy, though he'd already liked Loki before he learned his opinion about him.
"Tony said that Hulk-y helped save Midgard, and I saw you kill those evil metal things when Tony was Man of Iron." Bruce wonders if Loki had misspoke when he said you in that second part, because every other time he's talked about Bruce and the Other Guy as if they're separate people, which they sort of are. "Quasimodo saved Esmeralda and he's not really a monster anymore, and you and Hulk-y saved Midgard. So you guys aren't monsters either." If only it was that simple, Bruce thinks. Still, Loki has clearly picked up on the moral of the movie they'd just watched, which has to be a good thing.
Some people wouldn't agree with Loki on that assessment, Bruce thinks. He's one of them, actually, at least for an out-of-control Hulk. When the Other Guy is out of control, he really is a monster.
The Other Guy doesn't seem to like that thought, and Bruce has to force him down. He closes his eyes and focuses on taking deep breaths.
"How come he never comes out now? I wish he would." Loki says, frowning. Bruce sighs. As much as he likes hearing what Loki says about the Other Guy, it's not exactly true. Letting him out like that wouldn't be a good idea.
"Sometimes the Other Guy can be-" Bruce hesitates. He can think of plenty of accurate descriptions for the Hulk- destructive, uncontrollable (sometimes, though thankfully not nearly as often as before), monstrous- but he doesn't want to say any of those and anger the Other Guy, since he already seems annoyed with him just thinking them. "-not nice." Bruce finishes lamely.
"Mean?" Loki supplies a word for not nice as if Bruce couldn't actually come up with one. "But he gives really good hugs." Loki says, as if that settles the whole issue.
"Yeah... you remember... what the Other Guy did... right?"
"He hugged me!" Loki grins but then his smile falters. "And Tony fought him in his suit and he hurt Tony." Exactly, Bruce thinks. Loki glares and says "That wasn't nice! But even Tony's not always nice."
Despite himself, Bruce bursts out laughing at that. Loki is using Tony Stark- the genius billionaire who gets on so many people's nerves and is practically the king of assholes- as some kind of standard for kindness that other people should aspire to?! A lot of people would probably suspect that Tony had gone into so many spiels about his awesomeness that he ended up brainwashing Loki or something, especially if they'd heard that comment Loki had made when he first met Bruce about Tony being the nicest person ever. Bruce still hasn't totally ruled that out as a possibility. Regardless, deep down, Tony's a nice man- although, oddly enough, it's not even that deep when he interacts with Loki.
"He got mad, like Hulk-y, except he didn't change." Loki says, seeming unfazed by Bruce's laughter. "But he said he didn't mean to snap and he doesn't hate me and he won't hit me, and he says I'm not bad." He sounds rather awed over this, and seems as though he's still not entirely sure if it's too good to be true.
"You aren't bad, and you aren't a monster, either." Bruce says. The Other Guy roars in agreement with that statement, to Bruce's surprise. The Other Guy seems to really like the Hurt Nice Man as he thinks of Loki, and he had seemed really supportive of Tony's idea of beating the tar out of the Asgardians who had hurt Loki.
Loki sticks out his hand. "Look at me now." Bruce looks at Loki's hand. He's a scientist and doesn't believe in palm reading, but really the only reason it's involved right now is because Loki's re-enacting that scene. However, he has no idea what comes next, and they've sort of deviated from it anyways, so he decides to just go with improvisation. "You don't have any monster lines on your hand." Maybe that'll help Loki realize it.
Loki brings his own hand up close to his face and studies it, looking like he really liked hearing that. But he also looks very doubtful, as if he thinks there are monster lines somewhere on them (though why they'd be on the backs of his hands is anyone's guess).
"You know monster lines aren't even a thing, right? They're just made up. Having lines on your hands doesn't make you a monster." Bruce drops the act, since it hadn't been going the way it should. Loki looks up at him in surprise, lowering his hand. "So, um, if you do have lines or something, that doesn't mean you're a monster."
"Loki, look at me. You. Are not. A monster." Bruce says slowly and clearly. "Trust me when I say I know monsters, and you're not one of them."
"That's what Tony said," Loki stares at him with wide eyes. "He knows monsters too, and he said I'm not one."
"Well, Tony was right." Bruce says quickly. "Maybe they thought you were one there, but we don't think you are here, okay?"
Loki stares at him for a bit. "Maybe Frollo's wrong about both of us." Loki quotes, before literally almost crushing him into a hug. Bruce makes a strangled sound, and of course his heart rate and pulse go up.
Loki relaxes his grip, and Bruce sighs in relief, gasping for air.
Then, he realizes something. In all honesty, the Other Guy should have come out at that, regardless of whether Bruce wanted to Hulk-out or not. He always Hulked-out when Thor hugged him, and this was almost as intense. But he hadn't this time. In fact, the Other Guy seems suspiciously relaxed and content.
Loki wakes up suddenly, eyes flying open. At first, he's not entirely sure if he's really awake or if he's still dreaming, but a quick pinch on the arm tells him the answer.
He hadn't been dreaming about Asgard this time, thankfully, but this dream was still bad.
Loki can actually remember the dream, but it was all so random, and he's not sure what parts were the dream and what parts weren't. Bits of it pop up in his head. Watching the movie with Tony and the others, watching Quasimodo and Esmeralda and Phoebus. Quasimodo's gargoyle friends with Sleipnir, Fenrir, Jormungand and Hel. He'd liked seeing them again, but they'd gone too soon, replaced by Tony, Pepper and Bruce telling him he's not a monster. Bits of the dream continue to flash through his mind. Quasimodo being liked by the crowd. Bruce telling him he's not thought of as a monster here. Genie saying neither of them are freaks.
And then it had changed. His horrible skin had been showing, and he couldn't hide it, or hide at all. Tony, Pepper and Bruce had found him and seen what a monster he really is. Tony and the others (mostly Tony) had taken back the nice things they said, realizing he really is a monster. They'd started treating him like he deserves. You don't belong here, we're not putting up with you anymore. Get out of here, monster. Go back to Asgard. Nobody wants you, you stupid, worthless Frost Giant. How could you possibly think otherwise?
Loki chokes back a sob and buries his head against Simba. It's not like he ever thought they wouldn't react that way, but hearing it had hurt even more than he thought it would.
But it had been a dream, right? He's pretty sure, and it feels a little different from his memory-nightmares. He's not completely terrified and lost like he is after those. But there's a horrible sense of dread and fear lurking in the air around him, or maybe it's in him. In some ways, nightmares that aren't memory-nightmares are even worse, Loki thinks as he huddles on the bed, not daring to move.
"Do you require assistance, Mr. Loki?" Jarvis asks. Loki relaxes at his voice and lets out a long breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Where's Tony?" Loki asks anxiously. Normally he's here to make him feel better, and Loki hasn't seen him since going up to the roof. Loki hunts through his bag of Avengers toys. Toy Stark isn't even close to as good as Tony, but Tony's not here. Neither is Toy Stark, he realizes, staring at the action figures on his bed.
"Mr. Stark is currently asleep, but I can wake him if you wish." Jarvis says. "I'm afraid you'll have to go to him, though, as Dr. Banner has insisted he stay off his feet as much as possible."
Loki really wants to, but at the same time venturing out seems terrifying right now for some reason. He can't help thinking there's something (a Frost Giant, maybe) lurking in the shadows that's going to jump him. Logically, Loki knows that there's a very small possibility of something bad being out there, since the only people living here are him, Tony and Bruce. But it's hard to remember that right now when it's dark.
He makes it to his door, but once he opens it to the the vast openness beyond, he balks and scurries back to his bed, crawling under it- Tony had said he can do that again. Even the hallway makes him feel too exposed. He's not as exposed here, but Tony's not here either.
It was a dream, right? But was it all a dream? Did they watch the movie and did they really tell him those wonderful things?
Yeah, they did, he realizes. The movie was real and being on the roof with Bruce was real too but Loki doesn't remember anything past going inside.
Watching that movie had been really nice, but it was so different from Asgard, like a lot of stuff Tony's said.
Tony, Pepper and Bruce had all said what you look like doesn't matter, but he really does have a monster's skin underneath. Neither Quasimodo nor Beast are nearly as hideous as him, so while what they look like doesn't matter, what he looks like does. Besides, Frost Giants are more than just ugly- they're savage killers. Everyone knows that. As if that's not evidence enough, everyone said Loki's messed up inside, too, not to mention he does magic. He's even worse than Esmeralda... but Esmeralda hadn't been bad, right? At least, not according to Quasimodo, even though she had done magic. Regardless of Esmeralda, he's still bad.
Loki knows he's bad- but here he's told he's not, which is rather confusing. It's like when Esmeralda told Quasimodo he wasn't a monster. Eventually, Quasimodo hadn't even been treated like a monster anymore. It's like he stopped being one.
Tony, Pepper, Bruce and Hulk like him anyways, it seems, despite all the reasons not to. Tony even knows about both his magic and his true form, and he still acts really nice- but the man's never actually seen his hideous true form. Loki hopes he never does. He hopes nobody ever does.
Maybe they don't really know about Frost Giants here. After all, Tony's never mentioned any stories of them kidnapping bad children and eating them. Loki had nightmares of that happening even after he grew up, because he's still bad, even if he's not a child, and he'd been told they'd make an exception for him. Apparently, it doesn't even matter that he's one of them, because according to Volstagg, they're savage cannibals.
Loki hears a beep, and he's pulled from his thoughts. Glancing in the direction of the sound, he sees the bottom part of Dum-E, and Dum-E's claw goes down so he can see it. Dum-E beeps again, in an encouraging, comforting way.
"Mr. Stark has granted you permission to enter his room. Perhaps Dum-E can keep you company on the way there." Jarvis suggests, and Loki likes Jarvis and Dum-E even more right now. They'd realized what was wrong and they're not making fun of him for being scared.
He crawls out from under his bed and grabs Dum-E's claw while hugging Simba with his other arm.
Having Dum-E with him makes things seem a lot less scary, and he almost forgets about worrying something will snatch him away from the shadows.
Not being hated ever again would be really nice, Loki thinks as he shuffles alongside Dum-E. He doesn't even deserve that, though. Not like Quasimodo, because he's actually a bad monster. Jotuns are evil monsters so he has to be one, right?
Frollo had said all gypsies were evil, but apparently he was wrong because Esmeralda was one and she wasn't evil. Nobody's wrong about Frost Giants though. Loki wonders if all the Jotuns in Jotunheim hate each other and beat each other up for being Jotuns, like the Asgardians do to him.
He stops thinking about this as he enters Tony's room. He hasn't been in here since hiding under Tony's huge bed the first day. He immediately dashes towards the man, practically diving onto the bed next to him.
"Whoa! Don't dive bomb the bed like that- you could break it!" Tony says as Loki crawls over to him. Tony winces. "You just jolted my ankle! And you're invading my personal space bubble again."
Loki mumbles an apology but he doesn't want to move away from Tony.
"Just so we're clear, you coming in here isn't going to become a habit. The only reason I'm letting you in now is because Bruce practically Hulked-out when he found I'd gone to the couch. He would kill me if I went around crawling under beds with a broken ankle." Tony says, before muttering something with the words Jarvis, reporting and traitor.
What?! Loki sits up, shocked and horrified. Bruce would kill Tony?! He though Bruce was nice! Tony seems to be reading his mind and says "It's just a figure of speech, Snoopy. It means he'd be angry, not that he'd actually kill me." Oh. Loki sighs in relief. He doesn't want Tony dead. Though he wonders why they say so many weird things here.
"You were almost falling asleep on the floor when you came down from the roof with Bruce." Tony says. "So, I take it you had a bad dream or something?"
Loki nods. "Wasn't a memory-dream." He mumbles.
"Oh, so it wasn't a flashback?" Tony asks. Loki shakes his head. Most of his nightmares are of things that actually happened, but sometimes he has fictional ones, like now. At least, he hopes it's fictional.
"It's not real, right?" Loki needs to know. He's pretty sure it was a dream, but he needs to know for sure. "You didn't say those things?"
"Say what things?" Tony asks, sounding concerned.
"The mean ones." Loki says, and he's not able to stop himself from going on, from telling Tony about the parts concerning them not wanting him and sending him back to Asgard. But he manages to stop himself before he mentions the other things.
Tony, who'd complained about a personal bubble earlier, pulls him into a hug, saying he hadn't said any of those things and isn't going to. So the bad part of the dream really wasn't real, and Tony didn't say those things that felt like getting stabbed in the heart.
"Loki, I'm not sending you back there. What kind of person would I be, to send you back to hell?" Loki's kind of confused about that second part, but he really likes the first part. He doesn't want to go there ever again. Tony continues, in the tone he uses when he's smirking. "Besides, I've gotten used to having you around."
"What about when I'm bad?" Loki whispers.
"Depends what you define as bad." Tony says. "Remember what I said when you first came here? That as long as you don't try to murder me, you're still welcome here. Well, that still stands, and I can honestly say I don't think it's going to be an issue. You don't strike me as a murderer. Heck, you haven't done anything remotely violent since you got here."
Tony stares at him for a bit before continuing. "Now, if by bad, you mean having a smurf form or doing things you'd learn in Hogwarts, well, neither of those are even bad in the first place, so no worries- Hakuna Matata, remember?"
Loki giggles and quotes, without singing "It means no worries, for the rest of your days. It's our problem-free philosophy...HAKUNA MATATA!" He bounces as he laughingly shouts the last part before squeezing Simba's ear so Simba sings part of the song and dances.
"Sheesh, not so loud." Tony says. "But you're right about the no worries part." Then he scoots over and grabs something from the bedside table. "You forgot him back on the medical floor." Tony says and Loki realizes he's holding Toy Stark. He giggles. Tony's holding a mini Tony!
"By the way, he looks amazing. Much better than the original Iron Man toy, if you ask me. Actually, he seriously does my incredibly good looks justice. I bet Barbies would fight tooth and nail over him, even though he's like four inches shorter than them and tragically unequipped."
Loki takes the proffered toy and fiddles with it as he stares at Tony. What in the Nine Realms is he talking about?
"You know what I meant, right? I mean, you have to know. You're, what, a couple thousand years old? Surely someone gave you The Talk- I mean, I knew by the time I was thirteen."
Loki furrows his brow. What talk? Also, thirteen? That's still an infant! Tony's got to be joking about that. He frowns some more. Hadn't the movie mentioned that Quasimodo was only twenty? But he wasn't a baby when they'd said that. Maybe they'd been talking about when he was a baby, Loki thinks, or maybe he'd misunderstood it...?
Tony looks at him and says "You know, birds and bees, 'insert tab A into slot B', that sort of thing?" Now Loki's even more confused.
"Okay, please just tell me that you know how babies are made." Loki frowns at that. Why hadn't he just asked that to begin with? And what do birds and bees have to do with sticking certain body parts in other parts?
Loki nods and gives a brief rundown of what Frigga had told him. Tony gives a rather dramatic sigh of relief and says "Thank god- I was worried you were going to say they grow in a cabbage patch!" Loki giggles. Who thinks that?!
"Seriously, good job with this." Tony says, tapping Toy Stark. Loki flinches at the reference to his magic. "No- don't start that. You did nothing wrong." Tony quickly adds, putting an arm around his shoulder. Loki relaxes and frowns in confusion he processes what Tony said.
Wait- Tony actually likes Toy Stark? But he'd done magic to make him. Loki has to admit that he likes Toy Stark, but he hadn't thought Tony would. Then again, Tony said he wished he could change things, which is still completely insane.
"Pepper says I should apologize for tricking you like that." Tony says, though he doesn't sound particularly pleased to be saying that. "She's right. I shouldn't have done that."
Loki's not sure what trick he's talking about but he nods anyways.
Loki smiles slightly as he looks between the action figure and the real Tony, remembering the real events of the evening. They hadn't taken back all those nice things they'd told him.
Right now, he has a couple people who have been telling him he's not a monster, as weird as that is. Loki just wishes they were actually right about that. But they seem certain that they are right.
As inexplicable as it is, they also do really seem to like him- certainly Tony, at any rate, since he's still nice despite every reason not to be, and even promised not to hit him. Everyone in Asgard said nobody would ever like him, but Tony likes him, so that would mean the Asgardians were wrong about something. He didn't know that was possible.
Although, if they ever see his true skin, they won't like him anymore. His dream made that even more obvious than it already had been. No matter what they say about looks not mattering, nobody looks at blue skin (complete with lines that apparently aren't monster lines) and red eyes with anything but disgust and revulsion- quickly followed by hate. Quasimodo's lucky, and so is Hulk because they're not hideous like him. But in his skin now, he doesn't look like a monster. Under this illusion, he looks no different from anyone else.
Still, that doesn't change everything wrong inside of him, like his magic.
But Bruce had said they don't think of him as a monster here and Tony's said weirdly similar things about skin and magic not mattering.
Tony's been treating him really kindly despite all the reasons not to, like how Esmeralda treated Quasimodo. If this continues, might it the same way for him as it had for them?
If he keeps his real form hidden, maybe they'll keep liking him.
Loki knows he shouldn't get his hopes up because they could be crushed, but he can't help it. He knows it's too much to ask for since it's more than he deserves, but still he can't stop himself from wishing that he might get a happy ending too.
With that thought, he drifts off to sleep, a small smile on his lips.
So, some more progress for Loki! Yay! Though it's still not 100% as you could probably tell... I hope this wasn't boring (I'm a little worried the movie part might have been, but there were a lot of important parts in it).
In the very beginning of this chapter, I said that Hulk hadn't come out since the fight with Tony. However, he did come out when the Avengers visited as mentioned in chapter 11 but Loki doesn't know about it. Also, I have do an explanation for Loki's teleportation only occurring a couple times, but I haven't revealed it yet. I'm reasonably sure it's currently ot guessable :)
I was planning on including a lot of other scenes, but this seemed long enough... That seems to happen a lot. I thought that first chapter that was over 9,000 words was going to be a one-time occurrence, but it seems like once I hit a new length for chapters, that becomes the norm...
I might be able to update even more frequently once I'm on summer break, which is really soon! Yay!