As always, thanks to all my amazing readers, reviewers, followers and favoriters- especially those of you who are frequent reviewers and have reviewed most, if not all, of my chapters. You know who you are, and so do I :) I'm not exactly great at responding to reviews (truly sorry about that) so in case I don't, just know that I notice and appreciate every review- and every view, follow and favorite :)
So in the author's comments at the end of last chapter, I said Loki singing Rapunzel's healing song didn't have anything to do with him healing Tony. I don't think I worded that well. What I actually meant was that he didn't need to sing the song to heal Tony, but that singing it made him think about healing Tony, which made Loki heal him unknowingly.
For some info in this chapter, I actually went and looked at S.H.I.E.L.D files of various characters online. Hopefully it's actually accurate. I also scrolled back to October 2013 on a calender, since that's when this story is taking place right now. If anyone wants to get really specific, this chapter starts on October 24th (exactly a week before Halloween and three weeks after Loki's arrival) which is where last chapter ended.
I've hit new lengths for my longest chapter. Somehow these things never get shorter and I didn't know where to cut this off. Also, this is now the longest story I've written. Anyways, on to the chapter!
After they finish watching Tangled, Bruce yawns and says he's going to bed. It's rather early, but Tony grins. Bruce had said a couple days ago that he was only staying for Tony's leg, but that's no longer an issue and he's still here.
Tony actually really likes having Bruce here. Having another science genius around is awesome, but there are other perks. Tony's glad Bruce had been there earlier today, because it had given Tony a chance to unwind after that interview while Loki was apparently sufficiently distracted and left him alone. Tony's not sure if that would have been the case if Loki had been with just Jarvis and Dum-E.
Tony really doesn't want to know what would have happened if he'd run into Loki while still in his foul mood, but it definitely wouldn't have been pretty.
Bruce had been reluctant to stay here at first because he could Hulk-out, so Tony's actually a little surprised that he's sticking around now that Tony's leg is better. Not that Tony's complaining.
Really, it doesn't even make sense that Bruce is so concerned about Hulking-out here, because it's better to do it in the tower than anywhere else. Bruce won't need to worry about being charged for damages or anything. More importantly, there are actually fewer people here than where Bruce lives now, so there there are less people in danger if Bruce Hulks-out accidentally. Here, neither Tony nor Loki are in too much danger- Tony because he has his suits and the Hulk generally tolerates him anyways, and Loki because he has superhuman durability and the Hulk actually seems to like him.
Tony thinks Bruce has to be underestimating his abilities with the Hulk, given there haven't been any incidents of the big green rage machine rampaging through New York while Bruce has been living in the city. New York doesn't even seem like a place the Hulk would like, with all the crowds and everything, yet Bruce has been keeping him in check. Although Bruce seems to almost never go out and socialize.
Bruce has already headed off to bed, leaving just Tony and Loki. The two of them go up to the penthouse and Tony kicks back on the couch.
"So, did you like the movie?" Tony asks, although he already knows the answer.
Loki grins and nods, clapping his hands. After a bit, he says "Rapunzel's like me!"
Tony asks what he means, wondering if Loki will mention the similarities in healing people. It seems like the obvious connection. "She's like me 'cause she has green eyes and doesn't wear shoes." Is that it? That's kind of a major disappointment. After a bit, Tony asks if that's all, and Loki shakes his head, quietly adding "And she's like me, 'cause was adopted by someone who didn't really like her. Like Quasimodo."
Tony's noticed that babies being taken seems to set Loki off. There's obviously some connection, because Loki was born in Jotunheim, not Asgard.
"Mother Gothel thought Rapunzel was the flower, you know?" Loki says before Tony can start asking about his adoption. "She even called her that, and she only loved her hair, not her. She kissed her hair and hugged her hair." Considering that Loki had seemed confused on whether Frollo was good or bad, it's strange that he's picked up on Mother Gothel's less-than-true love. Maybe it's because he knows that Frollo's bad and sees the similarities between him and Mother Gothel. Actually, Tony hadn't even realized that was the case with Mother Gothel, and he's very surprised Loki picked up on her show of affection towards Rapunzel's hair, especially given how he sometimes seems oblivious to things that seem obvious, like how he'd seemed confused about only Rapunzel being able to heal people.
Tony asks if those are the only similarities between him and Rapunzel, wondering if Loki will mention the powers. Loki glances at Simba, as if silently asking the toy's opinion on something. After a bit, Loki adds "Rapunzel did magic with her special hair, but it was good magic, 'cause she helped Eugene." There's a bit of a pause and Loki cringes at his own use of the word magic. Then Loki asks, as if expecting to be told otherwise "Right?" Tony honestly didn't think he'd ever hear the phrase good magic pass through Loki's lips, but it's definitely progress. Tony tells Loki that he is indeed right.
"You do good, uh, magic too. More than just this time, you know." Tony says. Since magic is the word Loki just used, Tony supposes he should use it too, at least right now. Besides, healing oneself quickly is one thing, something that can be achieved by science- the super serum flowing through Steve's veins and the Hulk's invulnerability are two examples. But healing someone else quickly, as Loki had just done, is an entirely different matter. As far as Tony knows, not even Thor can do that.
Loki looks very unconvinced about his powers being good in general. They'd had a similar conversation after Loki healed his leg as they went back to the theater earlier tonight, but clearly it wasn't quickly puts an arm around him in the hopes it will prevent him from freaking out and gives him a stern look.
"Loki, you literally just did what Rapunzel did. You fixed my leg, like she healed Flynn. If it's good when she does it, which it is, it's good when you do it- no ifs, ands or buts." Loki had seemed to accept that earlier, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate it. Apparently, Loki had never done that in Asgard, so he probably doesn't have any bad memories associated with it, so once he'd gotten over the fact it was magic and had been told it was good, it seemed to cease worrying him. He doesn't even react badly when Tony says this again, which is very good news.
Tony continues speaking "Besides, this is at least the third time you've helped me by using your powers. Remember that force field you made?"
Loki starts to curl in on himself and Tony pulls him closer, talking louder to be heard over Loki's muttering. He's muttering something about no tricks, a large portion of which consists of the words no, bad, monster and freak. Clearly, making force fields is by far a worse offense in Loki's mind than healing someone is. Time to shatter that idea, Tony thinks. "That force field helped too, and making it was a good thing to do, no matter what you've been told before. If you hadn't done that, I would have been trampled"
"So, let's see. You did good... magic by healing me and defending me," Tony ticks them off on his fingers. "Not to mention pushing me away from the hole when I broke my ankle so I didn't fall two stories. That was you, I wasn't flying, and I'm really glad you did that."
Loki's muttering has died down by now, and Tony continues. "So, we now have a couple instances of your awesome powers majorly helping me out." Loki's looking at him like he's crazy, but there's a spark hope in his eyes, too, although it's clear Loki's trying to squash it in case it's wrong.
"I helped you more than now?" Loki asks in a disbelieving tone. Tony proceeds to rattle off all the instances of Loki's powers helping him again, in case Loki hadn't heard over his muttering a minute or so ago. Loki doesn't offer any protest this time, and Tony grins.
Tony continues talking, trying to turn the spark of hope into a fire. "It's not just awesome when you help me, you know. Your powers are awesome all the time." Tony almost feels bad for Loki, given how confused and conflicted he looks at the moment.
Time to spell it out some more.
"Your powers are a gift, not a curse." Tony adds. Okay, that's an incredibly cheesy line, but it's true nevertheless. "Remember how Rapunzel called her powers a gift? She was right, and yours are too. You can literally take people's pain away." Loki's staring at him. "And remember how everyone liked Genie's powers? They actually wanted him to use them. Well, ok, part of that was because he granted wishes, and Jafar was an evil bastard, but Aladdin wasn't and he liked Genie's powers. Guess what? I'm like that- I like your powers, even though you don't grant wishes. Actually, do you?"
Loki doesn't answer. He's staring off into the distance and twisting his fingers together. Tony doesn't know how much Loki listened to, not that that's anything new. He sighs "Ok, here goes... You ain't never had a friend like me." Tony sings the line off-key and Loki giggles. "Okay, I've got your attention now? Good. By the way, I'm betting you never have had a friend like me."
"Seriously, Snoopy, I would love to be able to do some of the things you've done. It would be awesome to not have to worry about injuries ever again, and I'd love to be able to change stuff like you can. I could make myself the sexiest man alive." Smirking, Tony adds "Oh, wait- I already am."
Tony waits a bit, to let Loki process everything he's said. Tony can see the wheels turning in Loki's head. Tony's not sure if they're wheels of believing what he just said, wheels of wondering if Asgard was wrong or wheels of something else, but it's definitely a good sign. Maybe he really had been listening the whole time.
"Is there really a flower?" Loki asks suddenly. It takes Tony a second to catch on and once he does, it doesn't even seem as off-topic as it had at first. The flower was what had given Rapunzel her powers, after all.
"You mean like in the movie? No, there's not. Otherwise we'd probably be alongside you demi-gods, being immortal and super durable and all that." Tony says.
"You're not like that?" Loki asks, sounding genuinely surprised.
"'Fraid not, Snoopy. I mean, you saw what we had to do to my broken ankle. We had to put it in a cast, whereas you guys can just snap your fingers and you're fixed. I wish I could do that. You guys live a hell of a lot longer too. I'm only forty three, and if all goes well, I have maybe another thirty five years or so to go." Less, if you ask some people- cough, cough, Pepper- who seem to think Tony's drunk himself to an early grave, or that he'll just kill himself doing something crazy. He's actually stopped some of his destructive habits- since Loki's arrived, Tony hasn't forgotten about meals while working in the lab, since he needs to make sure Loki has stuff to eat now. He's not even a total alcoholic like he used to be, although that had started changing about half a year before Loki arrived.
"Forty three?!" Loki exclaims, mouth practically hanging open. "That's barely older than a baby! It's like a little kid!"
"Well, we humans live for like a hundred years at most, though most people live to be around eighty." Tony says.
"You're a human?" Loki asks, sounding surprised. Tony confirms it, and Loki thinks for a bit. "Chimpanzees live for fifty years, so they're mortals, and bo-no-no-no-bo-bos live for forty years." Tony's briefly taken back by this sudden information (and the many added syllables to what he realizes is bonobos). Then he remembers Loki's been reading that huge book on animals. Apparently he'd read the ape section sometime. The significance of Loki referencing the section on apes, which are closer to humans than any other animal, suddenly dawns on Tony, because normally Loki talks about horses.
"Hey, do humans have red butts like ba-boons?" Loki asks out of the blue. He giggles and Tony arches an eyebrow, smirking.
"Would you like to check?" Tony asks jokingly. However, Loki doesn't seem to pick up on that, and actually stares at Tony as if expecting him to pull down his pants and moon him. Tony rolls his eyes, telling him that wasn't a serious question and that no, humans do not have baboon butts.
That last part sets Loki off wriggling around and snickering uncontrollably. "Maybe you have a tail like Simba!"
Tony barely refrains from saying something dirty. Loki becomes more serious after a minute and speaks again. "So you weren't joking 'bout thirteen?" Loki asks, and Tony has no idea what Loki's talking about. This seems like the umpteenth time that's happened.
When he asks the god what he means, Loki paces back and forth, flapping his hands. "They said Quasimodo's only twenty, and you said you knew 'bout babies being made when you were thirteen but I thought you were joking!" His voice keeps getting louder, faster and more panicked in general. Tony quickly pulls him into a hug and tries to calm him down without much success.
Apparently they've jumped back to the topic of lifespans, although Loki hadn't given any clues to this at first. The god continues his panicked rant. "And they said Rapunzel's eighteen. So that means you're mortals, and you just said you only have thirty years left and that's nothing and then you're not gonna be here 'cause you're gonna be-" Loki lets out an earsplitting scream instead of finishing. He's actually shaking now, and Tony sighs. He didn't even expect to have this conversation and doesn't know how to handle it.
So apparently Loki hadn't known that humans have much shorter lifespans than Asgardians. It's rather strange- Thor has slipped and called humans mortals in front of Tony and the other Avengers a couple times, and it seems like the common Asgardian term for humans, along with Midgardians. Loki has to have heard of mortals on Asgard, since he had known of Midgard and even had a vague idea of the Avengers when he came here. So why is it a surprise to him that humans are mortals?
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere right now." Tony says decisively, patting Loki's back as he continues to hug the god.
Seeing as how Loki's a good deal taller than Tony, it's sort of hard for him to bury his face against Tony's shoulder, but he actually squats down to bury his face against Tony's arc reactor. "But what 'bout when you do?!" Loki's voice is now quiet and Tony wonders if he's worn himself out.
Tony's not sure what to say. He actually hasn't thought about it. What will happen to Loki once he's dead? Sending him back to Asgard isn't an option as far as Tony's concerned. He'd already been treated horribly once there, and Tony doubts that Asgard will get better for him anytime soon, if ever. So Loki will probably stay here on Earth. He certainly seems to like it here. But wouldn't it be really depressing for him, to live way longer than everyone around him? He'd outlive generations of people here and watch all his friends die around him.
"You need an apple." Loki says. Tony has no what on earth he's talking about. "Idunn's apples!" Loki exclaims, as if Tony's dumb. "Like the flower in 'Punzel's hair!"
Loki's eyes suddenly widen even more and he says "Hair! You said I have special hair, just like her, and she made Mother Gothel into a... a not-mortal!" Tony had actually said Loki has special powers, and Loki himself had said he didn't have special hair, but apparently that's irrelevant now. Loki grabs Tony and starts to sing Rapunzel's song fast-paced, like when Rapunzel had made Mother Gothel younger.
Somehow, Tony knows it doesn't work. He's glad, actually. He's not sure how he would feel about being immortal. Sure, humans have been imagining immortality for basically as long as they've existed, but would it actually be nice at all? Anyways, it's not something he'd want thrust on him, even if there are only a handful of people he'd really miss not having in his life- Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce and, quite honestly, Jarvis and Dum-E, even though they're not people. And now Loki, even though he's only known him for about three weeks.
Loki seems to realize nothing's happened, too, because he frowns. "You need an apple." He says again.
Figures that the first time Loki seemed willing to use his powers is a time they don't work, Tony thinks.
The next day, Tony finishes the innards of the Hulkbuster suit while Bruce is in his own lab. In the Hall of Armor, so as to be unnoticed by Bruce, Jarvis paints the outer shell to Tony's specification of awesomely badass. Clearly Jarvis' code needs some tweaking, Tony thinks, because he actually had to ask what that entails beforehand.
Loki basically just watches Tony the entire time that day, as if expecting him to drop dead at any second. He hovers around, to Tony's annoyance, although the god still moves around a lot. Tony hates the staring. It's rather creepy having those eyes following his every move, but the only way Loki will stop watching him is if he's close enough to touch him. It's rather like when Loki had followed him around for the rest of the day after getting lost in the city, actually. If he's close enough to touch Tony now, Loki will sometimes draw, and he presents Tony with a drawing of Flynn Rider.
On the second day, Loki doesn't seem to need to be glued to Tony's side anymore, to Tony's relief. Loki still watches him a lot, but he also fiddles with holographic shapes and draws even more drawings, a lot of which are of characters from Tangled. Drawing characters after watching a movie is something he's done for every film they've watched.
There are a ton of drawings of Maximus, and a picture of Maximus with Sleipnir soon bookmarks the horse page in that animal book Loki's been reading. There are also a ton of illustrations of Flynn Rider, Tony has a collection of at least eight, and it's only been a day since they've watched the movie. There are a couple with just Flynn and some with both Tony and Flynn together. Loki also presents Bruce with drawings of the Beast, in both Beast and human form.
There's an amusing picture of Tony wearing Flynn's signature outfit with Rapunzel and a Loki with Rapunzel-length hair. Yet another drawing has Loki, Rapunzel and Esmeralda. Loki goes on to point out at length how all three of them have green eyes, bare feet and a constant animal companion, which is admittedly a rather strange coincidence. Plus they all have powers (or at least fake powers, in Esmeralda's case). Loki actually mumbles that similarity after a bit, with only one prompt of anything else from Tony.
Loki also continues to re-enact scenes from movies, and according to Jarvis (who's gotten roped into various roles over the weeks), Loki's accuracy has gotten up to ninety three percent for Tangled, and Jarvis can't even accurately measure it because Loki often spins scenes off into his own version. Tony remembers Jarvis saying that Loki's first game of The Lion King had not, in fact, been verbatim, although he'd done really well at paraphrasing- well enough to make Tony think he had it down word-for-word. Apparently it's almost verbatim now, and Tony doesn't doubt that all the other movies they've watched helped. Perhaps Loki's secretly been trying to memorize them?
Tony's been working on other projects, too. He's started trying to make a Hulk-proof material for the Hulk's tantrum room and has run countless simulations with the help of Jarvis. With a combination of the titanium alloy in his Iron Man suits and a touch of Vibranium, Tony thinks he's created a Hulk-proof material. Now he just needs to get the room built.
Bruce is really interested in All-Tongue and how it works for Loki. Loki's started spending more time in Bruce's lab for Bruce to study it, or all three of them will be in Tony's lab. To be honest, Tony really likes the alone time (he's had a lot less time to himself since Loki moved in). As much as Tony's grown to like Loki, he needs some time to himself. Besides, Loki being with Bruce in his lab gives Tony time to work on the projects relating to the Hulk without Bruce seeing.
Although tests on Loki's powers have yielded no comprehensible results, Bruce has started testing Loki's language. Bruce knows a couple languages in addition to English- Latin, Portuguese, Malay and Punjabi- and will often say something in one of the other languages out of the blue to see Loki's reaction. Tony's been roped into it too and tests Loki's comprehension of Spanish, Italian and Dari.
Loki seems to get the gist every time, but sometimes will appear to completely blank on a word or three, asking them in a questioning voice like he had with injuries the first day and other words since then. Admittedly, some of them are words that probably have no equivalent in Asgard, like keyboard, but sometimes they're just ordinary words that somehow Tony's pretty sure Loki knows anyways- like injuries.
Some of the time Loki's response will sound like English (apparently he's not actually speaking English though, so there's probably some sort of translation going on) and sometimes it will come back in the language Tony or Bruce had just spoken in. The way Loki speaks is different than how Thor speaks, but they're not sure if that's due to some difference in All-Tongue or just a difference in Thor and Loki themselves. Loki had presumably picked up the Man of Iron instead of Iron Man quirk from Thor, but they're not sure about the rest, like his nope nope nope or why he sometimes edits syllables out of words.
Loki can clearly read in different languages (Bruce has tested him on some others). Actually, perhaps it's more that somehow Loki is able to translate the languages, so it doesn't exactly count as reading them. Having a translator doesn't count as knowing a language, although Tony's not sure if the translator being in one's head counts or not.
Loki's written language is perhaps even more interesting. Bruce has also asked Loki to transcribe stuff he says in order to get samples of Loki's writing. It doesn't seem to match any written language known to man, or at least it doesn't match any written language on the internet, although those are basically one and the same. Jarvis has been trying to decrypt what Loki writes, without much success. Tony and Jarvis aren't entirely sure how accurate Loki's translations are, though. Actually, Tony wonders, somewhat uncharitably, if Loki really knows how to write at all or if he'd been pretending or maybe even delusional. In terms of Jarvis' decryptions, it doesn't help that Loki's handwriting is truly atrocious, even after Tony teaches him the right way to hold a writing instrument (getting him to actually hold it that way is still a struggle, too- Loki seems to hate the way it feels). Assuming it is an actual language, Tony has a feeling Loki's writing might be nearly illegible to people who know how to read it.
Although Loki hasn't brought it up, Tony can't get Loki's question about what will happen to him once Tony dies out of his head. It's not exactly a pleasant thing to think about, so Tony tries to avoid it by throwing himself in his work. However, Jarvis shows Bruce the footage when Bruce asks what he missed.
Tony has Jarvis look up those apples Loki had been talking about. According to Norse myths, Idunn's apples are what grant the Aesir (the race that Thor is, instead of a Jotun) immortality. Huh, those actually do sound like the magic flower in Tangled. Considering Loki mentioned them, they might actually exist, or maybe he'd read about them in a book on Norse mythology- he'd been flipping through the Poetic Edda earlier, before he'd found that animal book. He'd slammed the Poetic Edda shut with a panicked look on his face and had hidden it under a couch cushion.
Then again, Loki talks about Disney characters as if they're real, despite Tony's explanations of how movies work, Loki seems to believe that animated movies take place in some alternate universe or something.
Apparently, Bruce has now watched Tony's disastrous interview. Somewhat ironically, he starts telling Tony that he's not a bad person. However, whenever Loki starts asking about the Hulk, Bruce hides in his lab.
At one point when Bruce is holed up in his lab for that reason, Tony asks Loki if he'd like to learn to write so that they'll actually be able to read it. To Tony's surprise, Loki says that, yes, he wants to write in, as he puts it, "Midgardian squiggles." Tony corrects him, explaining that Loki's going to learn to write in English, which is one of many languages on Earth.
Tony sets Jarvis to teaching Loki how to really read English (at least until Bruce comes out of his lab) instead of just grabbing the translation from his head or whatever he does. After all, he'll have to actually know how to read it in order to produce it. Tony goes back to his work, figuring this will keep Loki busy for a while.
Naturally, Jarvis starts with the alphabet, displaying and naming each letter. Loki blurts out words after the letters, the first one being "bomb nation." That's very unsettling and terrorist-y, Tony thinks as he looks up and listens in. It's a good thing Loki hadn't said it near any government officials or he'd have a lot of questions to answer and perhaps handcuffs around his wrists already. Tony's not sure why Loki said that, but even so there's no way Loki's a terrorist. It isn't until Loki says damnation for D and eternal damnation for E that Tony realizes he's mimicking Quasimodo's alphabet lesson, which means he'd really just mispronounced abomination. This theory is confirmed when Loki stops blurting words after providing both festival and a stuttered forgiveness for F.
Loki has the alphabet entirely memorized by the second time Jarvis goes through it, and he actually says it along with Jarvis the second time. Jarvis hadn't been singing it, but Loki puts it to some tune Tony's never heard before. Loki then proceeds to completely ace Jarvis' quiz where he has to identify letters that flash up on a screen on his first attempt. Loki literally doesn't miss a single one, although he does have to think about the difference between lowercase d and b. He also easily identifies the QWERTY layout on a keyboard. Considering Loki's handwriting, typing seems like the best option.
To say Tony is surprised is an understatement, but he really shouldn't be. Tony reminds himself that Loki had solved a Rubik's cube really quickly the first time he'd seen it. He clearly has an incredibly sharp mind, but considering how he acts, it's sometimes easy to forget that.
Loki wanders off after that, bored. Tony should have known better than to think that would occupy him for a while. Since when has Loki ever had a long attention span? Loki comes back ten minutes later and presents Tony with yet another drawing of Flynn Rider.
Bruce is somewhat skeptical when Tony tells him later that Loki's mastered the alphabet already, but Loki proceeds to ace another quiz.
That evening, Tony has Jarvis measure Loki and starts looking for an Iron Man costume online. Some of them are rather realistic, although they're just the armor pieces without any of the important innards and they're not made of the same material. It occurs to him that they could just make Loki his own suit of armor that wouldn't be too different from those realistic costume versions. They have a week. Jarvis uses the measurements of Loki to start modifying a 3D model of the outer shell of the armor to fit the god, much like Loki had done with Simba.
Loki has managed to talk Tony into dressing up as the Hulk. Jarvis had helped Loki with that endeavor, surprisingly. If it wasn't for the fact that Jarvis was programmed to always remain loyal to him, Tony might have started to get worried that Loki would be able to turn Jarvis against him. Although Tony's almost certain Loki would never do such a thing.
Tony's a little worried that Loki might have started to wind him around his little finger like he had with Jarvis and Dum-E. Tony had sworn that would never happen to him. It's not happening, he reassures himself. Dressing as another Avenger is actually a funny idea.
Anyways, Tony winds up looking for a Hulk costume for himself on the internet. Most of them aren't as realistic as some of the Iron Man ones, for the obvious reason that the Hulk is harder to make a costume of because his proportions aren't the same as a human's. He finds one that looks pretty decent and orders it.
Bruce is going to be going as Captain America, since he's more recognizable than Hawkeye.
In the past two days, since Loki healed Tony's leg, Tony's explained a bit more about Halloween to Loki and knows exactly what they're watching tonight. He grins as he successfully locates It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown in his massive DVD collection. Loki's going to love this. They don't watch it in the theater, which means Dum-E joins them.
Loki's reaction when he realizes that they're watching the Peanuts characters is, of course, priceless (and also rather loud). At some points, he laughs for no apparent reason, as is his wont. If Loki notices it's shorter than the movies they've watched, he doesn't say anything. He also doesn't seem to make the connections between some of the characters dressing as witches and witches doing magic. Tony points it out, but Loki clearly doesn't believe him. Loki seems very intrigued by the pumpkin carving part.
At the end, Loki seems to think the Great Pumpkin is actually real, and Tony is unable to convince him otherwise. He sighs. Despite Tony's explanations that this isn't the case, Loki seems to think everything on the TV is real, especially after Tony explained that some things that happen on news channels are happening in real life at that very moment, like the Avengers fight in Philadelphia that Loki had watched on his first morning here. This is another reason Tony's not sure whether to believe the stuff about Idunn's Apples.
On a whim, Tony gets a bunch of pumpkins delivered to the tower (from a store that doesn't do deliveries, meaning he really just sends his chauffeur out to get them. Tony sort of wishes Happy was still that person, though. When had he gotten so sentimental? He mentally kicks himself but honestly, Happy was great).
Anyways, they now have a ton of pumpkins, for the purpose of carving jack-o'lanterns. Tony lets Loki go at it (though he first needs to reassure Loki that he's not killing the pumpkin like Linus accused Lucy of doing). Tony's a little surprised to find himself watching the god like a hawk at first. He's not entirely sure whether to trust Loki with a knife. To be honest, if Loki cut himself, it would undoubtedly heal really quickly and be no big deal, but he actually hates the idea of Loki getting hurt in the first place.
Jarvis uses a laser to carve a picture of Snoopy into one of the pumpkins, to Loki's delight.
Whenever he reads over the next couple days, Loki will look at a word and, just like before, apparently know what it means from whatever translation happens in his head. But there's also a big change. Now that he knows the alphabet and the letters don't just appear as meaningless symbols to him, Loki will focus on the letters and spell each word out. He'll say the word to himself, spell it out, and then say it again. Anyone listening in would probably think they were eavesdropping on a spelling bee, Tony thinks to himself.
Sometimes, Loki will type out a passage from a book, often using that huge tome about animals. Considering how reluctant Loki is to hold a pencil the proper way, Tony's rather surprised that Bruce convinces Loki to switch from hitting the keys with one finger to typing with both hands on the keyboard.
Major progress in terms of Loki's powers is made in the afternoon of the third day. Tony accidentally cuts himself on a bit of sharp metal and as he sucks on the cut, Loki rushes over. The god sings Rapunzel's healing song and Tony and Bruce watch in fascination as the cut heals before his eyes. Loki doesn't freak out that time, even though he clearly sees the green glow around his own hands, though that might have been because they had quickly assured him that what he'd done was good. That apparently hadn't been necessary, because Loki just grins and hugs Tony when he sees he's better.
Loki still uses his powers other times, though never on purpose. Although he hadn't freaked out about healing Tony this recent time, he still seems to hate these occurrences. Other-Loki's pop up, and he changes the appearance of even more things. Bruce and Tony both try to calm him down when these incidents happen.
By now, there have been a lot of instances of Loki accidentally changing the way his clothes look. Most of the time, these occurrences are just changing color, but a couple times he creates something else entirely, so some of the stuff in Loki's wardrobe barely resembles the original garments Tony had bought.
Loki seems to have a very... unique sense of fashion, because he's created some very bizarre clothes, seemingly entirely on accident. Tony's not sure which creation is the strangest, but it's a toss up between the long coat that looks like a starry night sky or the sweatpants that morphed into footed-pants resembling Simba's legs and paws, complete with a tail on the butt (Loki doesn't wear those pants much, since they cover his feet, but he seems to like the starry coat). Tony buys Loki a Hulk shirt to replace the one that morphed into said coat, and makes sure Bruce sees it right away in case it changes. Loki's pajamas have remained unchanged, which Tony's glad about
In addition to changing his clothes' appearance, Loki changes his own appearance a couple times. Tony's not even surprised- after all, given he can completely change objects, why shouldn't he be able to completely change himself? Besides, he apparently has blue skin since he's a Jotun, even if Tony's never seen it. So obviously, what he's been seeing isn't even Loki's real appearance. That's a sort of strange thought.
The first time this happens, Loki's hair becomes blue (Loki really freaks out that time, though he doesn't notice until it's pointed out). The other time, his hair, now back to black, grows down to his ankles like in one of the pictures he'd given Tony. That lasts for a couple hours and it's a tangled mess by the time it changes back to its usual length, falling down to brush Loki's shoulders. Loki later says ruefully that he doesn't know how Rapunzel keeps her hair so straight. Tony finds it strange that Loki's hair is the only thing to change so far, but maybe it's a coincidence.
Additionally, Toy Stark has switched from looking like Tony to looking like Iron Man a surprising number of times over the past three days. The Bruce/Hulk toy changes forms a fair number of times, but not nearly as often as Toy Stark. Each time, Tony or Bruce (whoever happens to be around) tells Loki the changes looks amazing, which they really do.
One of the later times it happens, Loki's playing with the Tony version of Toy Stark, and Tony casually remarks that Toy Stark should suit up in Loki's game, since the Avengers are fighting Thor. That also seems like progress, although according to Jarvis, Loki had played a similar game in Bruce's lab during Tony's interview, and Bruce had told him that it's okay to make Thor the bad guy.
When Tony looks over again, Iron Man is indeed there. Whether or not Loki had done it on purpose or not is a mystery to Tony. Loki tenses, but relaxes when Tony tells him it looks awesome. One quick hug later and a couple reassuring words later, it's almost like it never happened. That's much better than it had been.
Loki still freaks out when he changes his clothes or his appearance, but changing the action figures now produces a milder reaction. Tony's not entirely sure what the distinction is, but it's probably something to do with the toys not being him.
Loki smiles a bit as he holds the Iron Man toy up to show Tony before proceeding to stomp it on the Thor toy.
Tony quickly banks left to avoid getting shot out of the sky and fires his repulsors in retaliation at the offending Doom-bot.
The Avengers (minus Thor, who still hasn't shown up from Asgard, as far as Tony knows) are fighting off another hoard of Doctor Doom's killer robots. The fight has been going on for at least an hour and a half, and all the citizens have been evacuated by now. So far nobody's died, and Tony really hopes to keep it that way- well, except for these stupid Doom-bots, but they're not exactly living in the first place.
Unfortunately, some citizens had been rather seriously injured, and Tony hates that he hadn't prevented that. He's going to sleep even less until he knows that they're in stable conditions (which he'll find out, one way or another). Sometimes, Tony wishes there were a way to prevent all this crap from happening in the first place, that the Avengers weren't even necessary. But there's no way to enforce world peace. Is there?
He'll have to think more on that later.
When Tony had arrived to help fight an hour and a half ago, Natasha had questioned him about it, asking him about his broken leg. Tony had cursed himself for that- of course Natasha would have noticed, although where she'd found out is a bit of a mystery because she doesn't seem like the type of person who watches talk shows. He'd been spared answering immediately when he almost got shot out of the sky by a Doom-bot and had needed to stop talking to deal with it. It had been rather convenient, and the next time Natasha had asked, he'd told her that it had just been a mild sprain. He's not sure if she believes him or not.
The Hulk is currently smashing two Doom-bots together and looking very pleased with himself. Tony gives him a quick thumbs up as he flies past.
A while later, the last Doom-bot has been compromised. S.H.I.E.L.D agents gather the pieces, presumably to analyze and study later. Tony grabs a bot for the same reason. These Doom-bots are a slightly newer model and are bound to have some differences. He flies it back to his tower, quickly dumps it inside, and flies away again, telling Jarvis to make sure Loki doesn't touch it. Oddly enough, he doesn't run into Loki, but he supposes that's just as well, since Loki wouldn't want him to leave again.
Clint, Natasha and Steve are busy with something else, so Tony flies to Hulk to try to get him to transform back into Bruce. The Hulk has wandered off a bit, so they're alone. "Hey, big green," Tony says, flying in Hulk's line of vision. "I think it's time for you to go now."
"Metal Man blast Hulk!" The Hulk says, and it takes Tony a second to realize he's referring to their fight in the tower. Well, dang, this really isn't how this should be going.
"Hey, I'm not going to shoot you." Tony hastily reassures him, wishing he had the Hulkbuster armor. "You just helped defeat the Doom-bots, after all."
Thankfully, Hulk switches to looking rather pleased with himself. "Hulk smash!"
"You've already smashed everything that needs smashing, big guy." Tony tells him. "So I think it's time for you to go now. You did your part." The Hulk, however, doesn't seem to want to go.
"Why Metal Man blast Hulk?" Great, this topic again? So much for steering away from it. It's a dangerous topic (for Tony anyways), yet Hulk won't let it go.
"I wasn't sure if you were going to hurt Loki." Tony says. Hulk usually isn't anywhere near this talkative- this is the longest conversation he's ever had with the Hulk and it's been a really short conversation so far.
"Hurt nice man?" Hulk asks, cocking his head to the side in a manner rather reminiscent of the guy they're talking about.
"Yeah, I thought you'd hurt him." Tony says, knowing he's treading dangerous water. Then again, when has he let that stop him before? Hulk snorts angrily, and Tony continues "You didn't really hurt him. Loki's a lot tougher than he looks." Tony tells him, rather surprised he's having a conversation with the Hulk in the first place, let alone this conversation. "Although you still shouldn't have shoved him." Tony adds.
Hulk seems annoyed, as if Tony's being particularly dense, and he smashes one fist into the palm of his other hand. "No! Hurt nice man not hurt by Hulk! Hurt nice man hurt before!" At that, Tony realizes that Hurt Nice Man is how Hulk thinks of Loki. Wait, Hulk knows that Loki was hurt before? Does he know because Bruce knows, or had he picked up on it himself? Either way, Tony's very surprised.
Clearly, there's more to the big green giant than what first meets the eye. Just like Loki.
"Yeah, Loki was hurt before." Tony says. Hulk roars in anger, but it's not directed towards anything around him. Huh. It's as if he's angry about Loki's treatment.
"Hurt Nice Man nice! Shouldn't be hurt! Hurt Nice Man hugs Hulk!" Hulk exclaims, much to Tony's surprise. Hulk honestly does seem to like Loki, and it seems like Loki would be pretty safe around him. Tony's not sure what connection Loki and Hulk have, but it seems to be genuine. This is probably another thing about Loki that has to be a secret, because Tony can totally picture Fury wanting to use Loki as just some sort of Hulk tamer.
"Hulk no see Hurt Nice Man! Hurt Nice Man mad at Hulk?" Hulk asks, almost sounding worried. But Hulk's never worried.
Ok, wow. This conversation is shocking, especially since it had seemed to start off really bad. "No, no, he's not mad at you." Tony says. "He's been asking to see you at every opportunity."
Hulk actually seems glad to hear that. "You actually like him, huh?" Tony asks after a bit.
Hulk nods. "Hulk see Hurt Nice Man soon?" Maybe Hulk will be able to see Loki again. Perhaps, once the Hulk-proof room is finished, Bruce might let the Hulk out willingly in there.
"Maybe, big guy." Tony replies.
He manages to talk Hulk into turning back into Bruce.
"You know, I just had a really interesting conversation with the Other Guy." Tony tells his Science Bro. Bruce looks rather surprised. Tony smirks slightly and continues. "Hulk seems to hate the idea of Loki getting hurt, and he really does seem to like Loki. Or, as Hulk calls him, 'hurt nice man.'" Tony's smirk becomes somewhat more of a genuine smile "Who'd have guessed they'd have their own nicknames for each other?"
Bruce quietly says that Hulk does like Loki. "He even asked if Loki was mad at him, and asked if he'd see Loki soon." Tony adds. Apparently, what the Hulk said is all news to Bruce. Tony's not entirely sure how the Hulk and Bruce are connected mentally. Bruce sometimes seems to know what the Hulk thinks and sometimes doesn't. Tony's not sure how much of Bruce's thoughts the Hulk gets.
They make it back to the other Avengers, and Tony declares "All right, everyone! To the tower!"
"Since when were we going to the tower?" Clint challenges, handing Bruce a shirt. Bruce wears those super-stretchy pants all the time (often under other pants), so he never actually tears through that pair of pants if he Hulks-out. They still fit when he's Bruce, thus he never winds up naked after a battle like he used to. For some reason, the Hulk refuses to wear a shirt, so they need to keep providing those.
"Since I said so, Legolas. We need some team bonding," Tony says before adding with a smirk. "Or some team bondage. Whichever you prefer." He's rewarded for this comment by an annoyed Steve, which is a nice reward.
Tony huffs in annoyance at some of his teammates' protests that they have other things to do with their lives. Eventually, he says that Loki might like to see them again. Really, he wants them to like Loki and vise versa, both so Loki will have more friends and so Tony can have as many people on his side to confront Thor when the thunderer decides to show his face again.
Bruce is obviously going back to the tower, since he lives there now.
Apparently Steve's not going to be stopping over today, though. Oh well, he can be annoying, anyways, Tony thinks, and Loki had seemed nervous around him. Besides, Tony already knows Steve's going to confront Thor about his treatment of Loki, what with Steve's unwavering moral compass and everything. For once, that's not annoying.
Eventually, Clint and Natasha agree to stop by later, once they've taken care of all the post-mission stuff. Tony rolls his eyes. Honestly, what is it with S.H.I.E.L.D agents and protocol? He could never be one. Actually, Clint's probably just talking about showering and changing clothes in the Helicarrier.
Tony and Bruce head back to the tower. The streets are deserted, since citizens haven't been allowed back yet. Bruce seems to like the lack of people. They reach Stark Tower and take the elevator up to the penthouse. All the employees had also been evacuated, so Loki is literally the only person in the building.
As they take the elevator up to the penthouse, Tony asks how Loki is. According to Jarvis, Loki has been in the library the majority of the time, although being in the library doesn't actually mean he'd been reading all that time, but Jarvis says Loki had read some of that animal book. Apparently, Loki had also acted out a large portion of both Tangled and The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Jarvis, Dum-E and his toys. Apparently they'd sort of merged into one story, and Simba had been thrown in somewhere along with, for inexplicable reasons, Boo from Monsters Inc. Fortunately, Jarvis is good at improvisation.
Tony brings the Doom-bot to his lab and starts to look it over. He tells Jarvis to let Loki down, and to activate Protocol Annoy the Avengers, which he'd sadly forgotten about last time. A couple minutes later, Loki arrives with Dum-E. Tony notices that Toy Stark resembles Tony now, and he's wearing Flynn Rider's clothes. Toy Stark had been in the Iron Man form not long before Tony left to fight the Doom-bots. Loki's wearing that long coat he'd made with his powers, that has the night sky pictured on it.
"Do I need to sing again?" Loki suddenly asks in a quiet voice as Tony removes his armor. Loki looks him over carefully for injuries.
Bruce still looks amazed that Loki's volunteering this ability already, and frankly Tony's still shocked too (it's only been four days since he healed Tony's leg). However, Loki doesn't seem scared of the healing ability at all now. It seems all the stuff about Rapunzel really worked. Or maybe it's because he apparently hadn't even known he could do it, so he doesn't have any bad memories about doing it in Asgard. It's probably a combination of the two, actually.
Tony says he's fine, and Loki checks him over once again to make sure.
"I saw it again!" Loki suddenly exclaims. When Tony asks what 'it' is, Loki explains. "I saw you as Man of Iron and Hulk-y fighting those things!" He points at the broken Doom-bot. "I saw it out of the window this time, and I saw Steve too."
"I saw Hulk-y," Loki repeats "but he didn't see me." He sounds very upset about this. "Does he still like me?"
"He asked about you, and he seemed to hate the idea of hurting you when he shoved you." Tony says. Tony glances at Bruce, silently asking if he feels like letting the Other Guy out, but Bruce shakes his head and mouths Not now. At least it's not never.
"Maybe you can see him again sometime, just not right now." He actually means it. Clearly, the Hulk wanted to see Loki again, as bizarre as it sounds. Bruce doesn't say anything but looks rather uncomfortable.
Clint arrives about ten minutes later- without Natasha, oddly enough- and his arrival is announced by music from some live-action Robin Hood movie (not the animated Disney version). Apparently, he had just gone to the Helicarrier to shower. Bruce, Tony and Loki go to meet him on the Avengers' usual floor. The archer gives Loki's coat a disbelieving look and glances at Tony. Tony shrugs.
"You really have quite the sense of style, don't you?" Clint smirks. "Where the hell do you even get a coat like that?"
Loki doesn't answer, and Tony and Bruce remain silent. It's Loki's choice whether to tell him or not.
"You're like Orion, 'cause you've got a bow." Loki tells Clint out of the blue, peering around him looking for said bow, which is no doubt back on the Helicarrier. "'Xcept you don't have a club, like Orion has. You have the Hawk's Eye though, right?" Like Man of Iron, Loki had probably gotten Hawk's Eye from Thor.
"Uh, yeah. Something like that." Clint looks very confused. "Why is Simba in an Iron Man suit?"
"I made it for him with holograms, and Jarvis and Dum-E made it real!" Loki grins, bouncing on his toes. "Tony put an arc reactor in it, and I love it. I love arc reactors. There's a really big one here and I can feel it when we leave, but barely up here. I'm gonna be Man of Iron for Hal... Hal-lo-ween?" He casts a quick, questioning glance at Tony and Bruce, who both nod. "Halloween! Bruce taught me that one! H-a-l-l-o-w-e-e-n!"
Clint gives a somewhat patronizing "Good job" as if he's wondering if Loki's for real. Clearly, he's having doubts about Loki's intelligence, or his sanity. Maybe both. Tony's surprised at how much that irks him, considering he'd made the same mistake.
"Hey Katniss, lay off him." Tony says. "Snoopy here is just learning to write in our language, because even Jarvis hasn't been able to decode the language he writes in. Apparently everyone in that messed-up viking land that treated him like crap has some kind of translator in their heads. He just learned our alphabet a few days ago, and he's already this far. Let's see you do that."
Clint looks shocked. "Sorry, man." He mutters. "Seriously, good job." It's much more sincere this time, and Loki gives him a hesitant smile.
Jarvis informs them that Natasha is coming, and Tony grins in anticipation of Protocol Annoy the Avengers being executed again.
When Natasha steps out of the elevator, music blares from the speakers, singing "Call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me!" Clint bursts out laughing and doesn't stop even when Natasha glares at him.
"Hey Kim Possible," Tony says, smirking. Natasha turns to him with a steely expression that promises a painful death.
"Stark, if you ever call me that again, I will eviscerate you." She deadpans. She can be really scary sometimes. Loki looks at her fearfully but then his demeanor suddenly changes when he looks at Tony.
"No!" Loki shrieks, shaking his head wildly and jumping up and down. "You don't hurt Tony!" Loki puts himself in between Tony and Natasha and gives Natasha one of his surprisingly formidable glares, like he'd given the Hulk when he attacked Tony. The temperature in the room plummets and Tony shivers. He wonders, again, why Loki acts so scared all the time if he can be like this, before remembering that Loki had probably been taught not to stand up to himself.
Loki and Natasha stare at each other for a bit, but the moment is broken when Bruce, clearly wanting to avoid conflict, tells Loki that Natasha's really not going to do that. Loki suddenly asks "Jarvis? What did that word mean? It was something bad." It's sort of weird that he asks that now, but he'd clearly recognized a threat when he heard it.
"Do you mean eviscerate, Mr. Loki?" Loki nods and Jarvis says "Eviscerate means to disembowel, which means to cut open and remove the organs of something."
Loki scrunches up his face. "Eew." Afterwards, he glares at Natasha again, stomps his foot and yells "No! You're not doing that to him! And Bruce says so, too!" Then, his anger seems to vanish instantly, and the room starts to heat up again, spurred on by Jarvis turning up the heat considerably. Loki seems somewhat disappointed when this happens.
He speaks to Tony but continues to eye Natasha warily. "I thought her name was Natasha? Or Black Widow. Not Kim Possible."
"It's not Kim Possible." Natasha says. Loki asks who Kim Possible is, and Tony briefly explains it's a cartoon show. He doesn't actually compare Natasha to Kim's out loud, mostly because Natasha is still giving him a warning look.
"I thought he was helpless." Clint says about Loki, glancing at Tony with a surprised expression on his face. Natasha seems to be thinking the same thing and is giving Loki a calculating look, clearly wondering what else he's hiding.
Loki's proven he's far from helpless, yet he never seems to stand up for himself. He'd undoubtedly been taught not to, and the thought sickens Tony.
"You have Avengers toys." Natasha says abruptly, glancing at Toy Stark and the Hulk toy sticking out of the front pocket of Loki's drawstring bag, which is in her view now that Loki's back is turned to her.
Loki nods, sending her an uneasy look. He rummages around in the bag and pulls out the Black Widow and the Hawkeye action figures.
Loki cautiously approaches Clint and shows him the Hawkeye figure, which has a tiny bow but no arrows. Clint glances at it and then at Toy Stark. "Hey, how come Tony's toy looks so much better than mine?"
"Because I look better in real life, birdbrain." Tony replies.
"The Hulk looks better, too." Natasha observes before turning to Loki. "Did you change those ones or something? Can you change the way things look? Tony said you can change your clothes, and you obviously didn't buy that coat."
Loki lets out a wild scream and Tony glares at Natasha "I also said that he doesn't like being reminded of that stuff. What the hell are you doing, interrogating him?!" It actually did sound like an interrogation. Seriously, what is wrong with her? Last time, Natasha had seemed to accept that Loki's powers were something she didn't need to pry about.
Even Clint is against her on this, telling her to cut it out. He pulls her aside and starts muttering to her, but Tony can't make out the words over Loki's scream.
Despite what Natasha said about S.H.I.E.L.D not needing to know about Loki or his powers last time, Tony's not sure if she'll keep that opinion. Especially if she knows Loki can heal people. After all, S.H.I.E.L.D agents are frequently injured, and Tony wouldn't put it past Director Eyepatch to try to use Loki as a healer. Fury, being his usual warm and cuddly self, probably wouldn't give a crap that Loki's scared of his powers, either. Actually, Tony wouldn't put it past Fury to want to experiment on Loki's powers in general. Of course, Tony's been very interested in Loki's powers himself, but Fury would probably have the experiments forced on Loki no matter how Loki felt about them, and some of the experiments wouldn't be too pleasant either.
Tony gathers Loki into a hug to try to calm him down, glaring daggers at Natasha. Why are S.H.I.E.L.D agents so freaking paranoid? Well, this particular agent, anyways.
After a couple minutes of hugging and soft spoken words from Tony, Loki finally calms down.
Natasha's slipped on a nicer demeanor as easily as slipping on a glove. Freaking spies, Tony thinks.
"I apologize. I forgot that upset you." Natasha says in a very convincing voice. Like hell she forgot, Tony thinks. However, she doesn't bring it up again. Tony's tempted to kick her out of the tower, but Clint pulls him aside and says it would actually be better if she stayed, because the more she gets to know Loki, the less she'll suspect him. Tony's surprised but glad that he has Clint as an ally on this matter.
Apparently, she's worked out that Loki can change his appearance and is suspicious that he could be anyone, perhaps a wanted criminal. There is logic to that, but it's also very paranoid. Loki is Loki. The end. Tony's certain of that, and he doesn't give the Loki-is-a-disguised-criminal/villain theory any credit at all.
At least Natasha's apparently convinced that Loki's terror was genuine when he freaked out. It was, obviously, but Natasha is the type to suspect it was a ploy to gain sympathy or something stupidly paranoid like that. Then again, she'd tricked people into sympathizing with her, and as the saying goes, the thief thinks everyone else is a thief. Fortunately, for once, she's creepily good at reading people, so she's hopefully starting to see that such an idea about Loki is insane.
She'd certainly appeared believe Tony when he'd told them of the abuse last time and had even suggested Loki might have PTSD.
Tony can practically see her cataloging various things in her mind, like how Loki only holds the Thor toy by it's legs, while the rest he holds by their torsos a lot of the time. It seems sort of trivial, but Tony hasn't been able to help noticing it and Natasha apparently does too.
At one point, she mutters something in Russian and Loki responds to what she says. It sounds like English to Tony but apparently sounded like Russian to Natasha. This leads to an explanation from Bruce about what he and Tony suspect about All-Tongue, and Natasha starts speaking to Loki in Russian, Italian, German, French, Mandarin and a couple languages Tony doesn't recognize and certainly doesn't understand.
The rest of the visit is rather uneventful, and thankfully the topics of Loki healing Tony or connecting with the Hulk don't come up at all. Admittedly, Tony tries to steer the conversation as far away from anything related to Loki's powers as possible. It helps that Loki wants to avoid those topics too and will often blurt out something random, constantly sending the conversation in new directions.
It seems like Clint's right, because an hour or two go by and Natasha now seems to have the right impression of Loki- that he's not a threat. Hopefully that's actually what she's thinking, but accurately reading Natasha is never exactly easy, or even possible.
Loki doesn't seem nearly as put off by Natasha's earlier behavior as Tony is. He'd shown her the Black Widow action figure and actually given her a wide smile. It seems that anyone who shows an ounce of kindness to Loki is a friend in his mind (expect perhaps Steve, for some reason). Unless that person threatens Tony, that is. Then Loki will snap with surprising ferocity. Once these instances are over, though, they're seemingly forgotten.
Like Tony had noticed last time, Loki's rather taken to Clint, who tells him he should make some arrows for the Hawkeye figure (although he doesn't give any hints about using his powers to make them, so Loki doesn't freak out). Clint, in return, still seems to like Loki, despite his slightly condescending attitude at the beginning of this meeting. Aside from that, he's been really great to Loki today.
Tony privately asks Clint whether or not he'll come to their side when Thor shows up, and Clint says he'll be there to give Thor hell for his treatment of Loki. Tony grins and claps him on the shoulder.
So now the only uncertainty for other Avengers confronting Thor is Natasha, but things with her don't seem as bad as they did a couple hours ago. Then again, one can never be sure about what Natasha's thinking.
Loki looks around in confusion at the room Tony's led him to, unsure of why they're here. There's a tent in this room, for some strange reason. Who uses a tent inside? There's also a sofa, some chairs, a desk, a table and an awesome rug.
The rug in here is really nice. It has long green hair that sort of looks like grass, and it's really soft. Loki wiggles his bare toes in the hairs and sinks down onto it, rather like when Rapunzel first left her tower and splayed out on the grass. He hums some of the song she sang then and then says "I like this." He sighs contentedly as he runs his hand through the rug's long hair. He imagines it's really a patch of grass instead of a rug; there's a sad lack of grass here.
"Yeah, I figured you might like it- that's why I picked it out. If you want, I can get you one for your room." Tony says and Loki sits up and looks at him as he continues speaking. "It'll probably make it a bit more comfortable under your bed. Would you like that?" Loki doesn't answer. He's not sure what to say- he would like it, but he doesn't want Tony to think he's a burden- although he is, so Tony probably already thinks so. Why Tony's keeping him around is still beyond Loki. Actually, he still doesn't know why the Asgardians kept him around as long as they did.
"Why would you care if I like it?" Loki asks, confused. Tony's the one who got this rug, so why would someone else's opinion (especially a monster's) factor in? Wouldn't Tony pick what he liked?
"Because I made this room for you, buddy." Tony says, crouching down next to him. "Remember how we went and talked to Gwyneth last week? Well, she's going to be coming here instead, and this is where you'll be talking to her from now on. Which is going to be really soon, actually. She's supposed to be here in like ten minutes." Loki looks around the room curiously. Tony made this room for him? The thought that Tony would go through the effort for him is really nice. Tony's probably the only person who would, though, and he still doesn't know why.
Loki's not sure who Gwyneth is, and when he asks, Tony sighs. "You know, the lady we went and talked to, before we went to the shoe store. What was her name again, Jarvis? Dr...?" Loki suddenly realizes he's talking about Dr. Car-something. Tony stops speaking and Jarvis supplies the name Dr. Carlisle.
So that's what the something in Dr. Car-something's name really is, Loki realizes. It sounds like car-lie-uhl and Loki wonders if her name really does have something to do with cars or lies; maybe she lies a lot? Aren't surnames supposed to tell you about the person? After all, Odinson means Thor's the son of Odin, and Laufeyson (Loki hates his last name) means he's the son of Laufey the Frost Giant. But Tony's surname is Stark and that doesn't really have anything to do with him. Does it? Potts doesn't seem to have anything to do with Pepper, either.
Tony points out that the large tent Loki had noticed earlier, telling him it's a retreat in case he doesn't feel like crawling under tables (though there's a table too, apparently for that purpose). Loki crawls in the tent. It's even better than under the table!
There's also a box full of random objects that Tony says he can fiddle with, and Loki recognizes a certain colorful cube and that other... thing he'd fiddled a lot with that first day. Tony says the second thing is called a can opener. Loki grins and sings can opener to himself as he turns the crank as he shows it to Simba. He also quickly solves the Roo-bix cube. Isn't that what Tony had called it? What's a roo-bix? He asks Jarvis how to spell it and realizes it's Rubik's cube. It's apparently named after some guy named Erno Rubik, who, according to Jarvis, invented it. Loki shows the finished cube to Tony, who gives him a thumbs-up. Loki has learned that that gesture means good job or I'm good, and he beams.
"Hey, what do you say today you try to talk to her without me?" Tony asks and Loki hugs Simba before absentmindedly fiddling with the can opener again. "I mean, you don't have to worry about me abandoning you." Tony reassures "I'll still be in the tower, unless I have to go kick some ass as Iron Man again, but then I'll have Jarvis tell you, okay?"
Loki shrugs, and then nods hesitantly after a bit. Tony grins at him and squeezes his shoulder a bit, and Loki smiles a little in response. Jarvis then speaks up. "I will indeed inform you if Mr. Stark leaves the premises, Mr. Loki. I will be here the whole time, although I will most likely be a silent observer."
"Why?" Loki tilts his head to the side and frowns. He likes it when Jarvis talks to him.
"Well, Mr. Loki, you're supposed to talk to Dr. Carlisle during these sessions. You may talk to me anytime, although I do not have a background in psychology as she does. So while she is here, it would be better if you talk to her instead of me." Loki nods slightly as he goes over to his drawstring bag and fishes Toy Stark out of the front pocket. He looks like Tony right now, only he's wearing Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert's clothes, like in a drawing he'd given Tony. Loki actually really likes it, since he can pretend Toy Stark is Flynn.
Dr. Carlisle arrives about five minutes later. She has a brief conversation with Tony, and then Tony comes over and squeezes Loki's shoulder again. "See ya, Snoopy." He says before heading towards the elevator. Loki squeezes Simba and Toy Stark a bit tighter and presses his hand against Simba's arc reactor. It's okay, he tells himself. Jarvis is here, even if he won't talk much, and Tony's still in the tower. Tony said he'd be okay.
Dr. Carlisle greets him, and Loki bows slightly in response. Why does nobody here do that, he wonders?
"Hi Dr Carlil... Calrile... Your name's really hard to say." Loki scrunches his face and shakes his head in frustration. He remembers her name now and knows what it's supposed to sound like, but his mouth keeps messing it up, like it's a tongue-twister. He tries singsonging it but just messes up even more. Dr. Carlisle says he can call her Gwyneth, but that isn't much better. Why can't she have an easy name like Tony or Bruce or even Esmeralda? Loki accidentally asks that out loud, but she doesn't seem offended, thankfully. Eventually, they settle on him calling her Dr. C and Loki grins. He knows what C is now- C is for constellation. Dr. C is a lot easier, even in his head.
Dr. C sits down and pulls that recording thing out of her bag, asking if he minds her recording their session again. Loki wordlessly shakes his head no, and she starts it up. "So, Loki, do you have anything you want to start out telling me? What's happened since you've seen me?" She gestures for him to sit on the couch. Loki does briefly, but he soon slides off the couch and onto the rug.
Tons of ideas flash through Loki's head, but he blurts out the main thing on his mind right now. "Tony's not here."
"What do you like so much about him?" Gwyneth asks. "I see you definitely like Iron Man." She glances at the toys he's holding.
"I'm gonna be Man of Iron for Halloween!" Loki tells her. "That means I get to dress up as him in more than just pajamas. Jarvis is making me a suit!"
"Well, you only have to wait two days. Why did you choose to be Iron Man?" Dr. C doesn't seem to like Tony too much. She'd glared at him last week, Loki remembers, although her voice is neutral right now.
"He's Tony! He's nice and strong and nobody hurts him!" Loki crosses his arms. So there, he thinks, sticking his tongue out at Dr. C. She really shouldn't dislike Tony.
Dr. C asks if this is the case, and Loki answers as he always does. "Tony's the nicest person ever!" Really, he is.
Dr. C then asks him what makes Tony the nicest person ever.
It's, well, everything. Nobody else has ever treated him as well as Tony does. Tony, who hasn't hit him once and who's apologized for getting angry and snapping. Tony, who got him Simba and the Avengers toys and made this room for him. Tony actually seems to care whether Loki's upset or not, even if he's a monster, and Tony tells him everything he ever wanted to hear, even if it's unbelievable. Tony tells him he's not bad and he's not a monster even though he's a Jotun and that he's not going back to Asgard. Tony even tells him that his magic is good. It's crazy. Although, there is something good about his horrid magic. He can heal Tony.
It isn't until Dr. C asks him about magic that Loki realizes with terror that he must have spoken those thoughts aloud. How else would she know?
No no no no nononoNONONO! Loki screams in frustration and an explosive gust of wind shoots out around him. His stupid stupid mouth has betrayed him again. There's green around his hands, and he accidentally just told her about doing magic and being a Jotun and now she sees and she knows! She knows! Loki flees to the tent and curls up in the corner.
He can't say anything else! This is already horrible and he's said way too much! Loki clamps a hand over his mouth, muffling the screams like the stitches had. Dimly, he hears Dr. C talking but it soon is drowned out. STITCHES STITCHES STITCHES! "Don't you dare try to get away again. Now stop moving or we'll make you." They make him- hands hold his head and legs down, and a sharp blow stills him. Odin's weight is baring down on his chest. He can't move! He can't move!
He did magic, lied, tried to get away! "You need to be punished. Don't you dare try to get out of this if you know what's good for you!" A needle coming towards his face. He wants to be away but he's still there and he can't escape. Not even with magic and he'd be in even worse trouble if he did, so it's good he can't do it right now. Now there's stabbing, white hot fire as the cord drags through is lips. STOP SCREAMING YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE THIS!
He needs to get them out! He grabs at the stitches, but someone's grabbing his wrists, holding him back, saying something. No, they're not quite holding him back, he realizes. He can still freely move his arms around, dragging the person's hands with him. That's a first. He scratches at the stitches and the person gets louder.
"Loki! Can you hear me? It's Tony, you're in my tower. You're not in Asgard anymore!" It takes a bit for the words to make sense. Tony? Loki's pulled into a hug and the voice gets a bit softer, murmuring in his ear, telling him he's safe. He feels the arc reactor, too. Yeah, definitely Tony.
Slowly but surely, the memory fades and he remembers where he is. Wait, when had Tony gotten here? He'd been gone. As if reading his mind, Tony says "I guess you weren't ready to do this without me, huh?" Loki just shrugs.
"I thought last time it was just because you thought I was going to ditch you." Tony says. "You know I'm not going to do that, right? I'm not sending you back either." Hesitantly, Loki nods, but he still doesn't know what would happen if Tony saw his Jotun form. He's already accidentally changed his appearance a couple times with his magic, but he thankfully hasn't shown his true form yet.
He can't believe he just told Dr. C all that stuff about what Tony says about magic and Jotuns aloud. He's almost positive his mouth was closed the whole time, but somehow he had, and now she knows he's a freak and a monster. Tony's crazy for telling him otherwise, and Jarvis, Pepper and Bruce are crazy for agreeing. Everyone else says he's a freaky monster, because he is. Surely Dr. C will be no different than the majority, instead of being crazy like those who say otherwise.
Tony coaxes him into talking to her again. Loki crawls out of the tent, still clinging to Tony, Simba and Toy Stark. Dr. C and Tony exchange a look. Instead of glaring at Tony like last week, Dr. C is actually giving Tony a faint smile. Good. "Just so we're clear, this is confidential. No spreading that around." Tony's tone leaves no room for arguing.
Dr. C says "Of course." in a rather impersonal tone before turning her attention to Loki.
"Do you have flashbacks often?" Dr. C asks. Loki's not sure what a flashback is. "What you just had, I'm assuming it was a memory of some kind?" Loki nods, wondering if she can read his mind. "What is it like when you remember stuff like that?"
Loki cocks his head to the side, confused. "I hate it."
"Ok. I'd probably hate it too." Dr. C says patiently. "But what I meant, was this- say the memory is of eating breakfast. Is it like you're remembering what you ate for breakfast, or is it like you're eating breakfast again?"
"Eating it again." Loki mutters, wondering who would experience one of these memories- flashbacks, apparently- about eating breakfast. Maybe if his breakfast tried to eat him, he might have flashbacks about it. Loki shudders at the thought of breakfast turning on him.
"You're not alone in having flashbacks, you know, and having them doesn't make you weak in any way." Dr. C gives him a stern look, rather like the ones Tony gives him when he's saying something like magic not being bad. "I've worked with a lot of people who have had flashbacks, however, not everyone has them. In many cases during a flashback, someone is reliving a traumatic event that happened to them. Is that what was happening to you?"
Once Loki gets that traumatic means something bad, he nods. Next to him, Tony's body feels tenser, but he doesn't look any different. Maybe he's imagining it.
"Is it just flashbacks, or is it other things?" Dr. C asks. Loki cocks his head in confusion, and she says "Sorry, I guess that was kind of vague. Some people who have flashbacks have other symptoms as well, but not everyone with flashbacks has these. Some people also have nightmares where they are reliving the event, a lot like flashbacks, actually. Or they might avoid certain situations that trigger them."
"Nightmares!" Loki says. "Doesn't everyone have them? Tony had one, and I sang my special song to him and made him feel better. Sleipnir sang it to me there, when I woke up scared."
"Loki, be quiet." Tony suddenly snaps, and Loki flinches away from him. "Okay, moving on. Not another word." Tony says in a somewhat dangerous tone. Dr. C is giving Tony a calculating look as he glares back at her challengingly. "I'm paying you to help Loki, not to pry into my life."
Tony apparently wins the staring contest- of course Tony wins. He also tells Loki that he didn't mean to snap at him. It's weird, that Tony's acting like he's done something wrong by being angry at him.
Dr. C changes the topic, asking how often he has nightmares, and Loki mumbles "All the time." She seems rather shocked at that and asks how long it's been going on. Loki shrugs. He's not sure. He used to escape in his dreams and play with his friends and actually see them, but he doesn't know how long it's been since that happened. Or maybe it happened recently and he doesn't remember? He doesn't remember every single dream from every single night, after all, but all the recent ones he remembers have been nightmares.
"What do you do when you have a nightmare or a flashback?" Dr. C asks. Tony testily tells her that she'd just seen it, so it's stupid that she's asking. Loki wonders why she's asking until she says that she wants to hear his opinion.
"Get really scared." Loki mumbles. "Go under beds. And tables. And in tents."
"Why do you like going under things?"
Loki shrugs. "Safe." Nobody will see him unless they look under, and it's just him and Simba until Tony comes. "Tony hugs me. He gives really good hugs, like Hulk-y!" Tony comes and hugs him and tells him everything's all right, and helps chase his fears away. Tony doesn't even make fun of him for being scared like everyone in Asgard does.
Loki's worked out that Tony doesn't hug many people- both Bruce and Pepper have told him that. He likes that. It helps him believe that Tony really does like him.
"He tells me nice things, too." Loki had kind of already told Dr. C that.
"Aw, Snoopy, you're making me blush." Tony says, smirking. Loki giggles.
"He says I'm not bad. He says I'm good, like Rapunzel and Esmeralda and Quasimodo, 'cause he says they're not bad either."
Dr. C asks him if he believes that, or if he thinks he's bad, and Loki actually laughs, though it's not a happy laugh. Of course he's bad! He's a Frost Giant! They're all bad, they're all monsters! But... Frollo was wrong about gypsies, because Esmeralda wasn't bad, and he was wrong about Quasimodo too! And Mother Gothel was wrong about the world being evil because she was really just telling Rapunzel that to keep her in the tower.
"Tony says they were wrong to do that stuff to me. So do Bruce and Pepper and Jarvis." Loki mumbles eventually. Asgard really did seem a lot like Quasimodo and Rapunzel's lives with Frollo and Mother Gothel respectively. But Frollo and Mother Gothel were lying. Could Asgard actually be wrong?
No, that's ridiculous. He is a monster and magic is bad!
But healing Tony isn't bad! That's magic.
Dr. C asks Loki to tell her what sort of things give him flashbacks or make him feel panicked. That's easy. Magic, Asgard, blue skin, red eyes. Green, when it's around his hands, but it's his favorite color even though it's the color of his magic. Actually, Loki's somehow pretty sure his magic is green because it's his favorite color. If it was blue, that would be horrible. He hates blue- it's a horrible color.
"The stuff Tony talks about." Loki eventually mumbles. He hunts through the box of objects and pulls out some stretchy coil of wire that flops around a lot. It's really fun, and Tony says it's called a Slinky. Loki slowly sounds the word out and singsongs "S-l-i-n-k-e! Right?" Tony gives him an actual smile, not a smirk, and tells him that it actually ends with a y, but that he did a good job. Loki feels his face going red at the praise.
"Okay, Loki, when you start to feel panicked, I want you to tell yourself the stuff Tony tells you about not being bad. Can you do that for me?"
Loki frowns. Why would he tell himself that?
"Even if you don't believe it, just tell yourself that, anyways." Dr. C says. "Can you do that?"
Loki shrugs. "Maybe." Why would he lie to himself, though? It seems kind of stupid, but he knows it's best to do what's asked of him
Apparently, it might make the flashbacks easier, though, and Loki thinks that sounds really nice.
Tony honestly hadn't thought that Loki would freak out like he did, since last time Loki had mainly freaked out when he thought Tony was going to ditch him at Gwyneth's office. So, he'd figured that this time, since Loki's appointment was in the tower, it would be fine.
He hadn't exactly thought about how Loki would react to whatever they were talking about, though, and he certainly hadn't expected another flashback. He'd been in his lab, working, and Jarvis had informed him when Loki was having a flashback. He'd rushed over immediately, not even thinking that maybe Gwyneth would have preferred if he waited. Although she doesn't seem to be succeed much in calming him down, despite having worked with trauma patients before. Then again, maybe she normally doesn't hug patients.
Anyways, Tony had ended up in Loki's therapy session again.
Gwyneth left about five minutes ago, with a considerable amount of money transferred to her digitally by Jarvis. She'd left Loki instructions to tell himself that he's not bad after he has a flashback or a nightmare. Tony honestly doesn't care about the money, since he could spend ten times the amount without blinking, but why had that tiny bit of advise cost as much as it had? Also, that seems like kind of lame advise.
Tony and Loki are in the penthouse now. Tony's kicked back on one of the couches, sipping scotch, and Loki's currently staring at him, obviously wondering something. Bruce is reading on a tablet on one of the other sofas, a little bit away. He'd asked how it went, and Tony had shrugged.
"Something on your mind?" Tony quirks an eyebrow at Loki. Loki briefly runs a hand over the top of his head with a confused expression. Tony rolls his eyes. "It's an expression, Snoopy. What do you want to ask me?"
"Why- " Loki starts, and Tony gives him a go on gesture, flashing what's supposed to be an encouraging grin.
"Why'd you get so angry 'bout nightmares?" Loki asks hesitantly, as if fearing his reaction.
When Loki had brought up that he had nightmares too, Tony had snapped. He doesn't want anyone to know about that, especially not someone like Gwyneth. She'd been giving him all-too-calculating looks.
Tony hadn't meant to snap at Loki like that, and he actually feels pretty bad about it.
He sees Bruce look up. Bruce gives him a knowing look before getting up and leaving to give them some privacy. The act is actually a rather subtle hint on what to do.
Tony runs a hand over his face and sips some more scotch. Loki had seen that one instance of Tony's nightmare, but apparently he was under the impression that everyone has them.
"I don't like people knowing about that." Tony says eventually.
"Oh." Loki frowns "So no talking about it?"
"Not with anyone else." Really, they should have gone over this earlier.
"But everyone has them." Loki looks really confused. Apparently he still doesn't get it.
Tony sighs and runs a hand over his face. "No, they don't."
"They don't?" Loki asks.
"Nope. Just us lucky ones."
Loki cocks his head to the side and bites his lip. Tony's not sure if he caught the sarcasm or not. "Us? Like what Dr. C said? Then why do you? 'Cause they're about getting hurt and nobody hurts you." Wait, where had that come from? Since when did Loki think he didn't get hurt? He supposes it makes sense, since Loki's never seen anyone hurt him.
Tony really can't see a way out of this conversation, and he hates that. But a little voice in the back of Tony's head tells him Loki was going to find out about his demons eventually. That interview had made that pretty clear.
Tony really hates talking about this stuff. But if he got Bruce or Jarvis to tell Loki of his past, they might tell more than he wants Loki to know.
"You're wrong," He says. "I have a lot of enemies, actually." Enemies that hopefully will never find out about Loki, but Tony doesn't say that aloud. Loki just blinks and stares at him, clearly waiting for him to continue and remaining uncharacteristically silent and appearing more present than usual.
"I have a lot of enemies, and well... I'm like you." Tony takes another swig of scotch. "Some of my enemies have hurt me. A lot." Another swig.
"You saw my nightmare." Tony says, deceptively calm. "It was bad. A flashback, as Gwyneth said."
"My first Iron Man suit was built in a cave in Afghanistan." Tony says at last. His grip on his glass tightens and he tries to force the memories down. "I was... hurt a lot there. It was my own personal hell, like Asgard was to you. That's what I was dreaming about." Tony finds a new respect for Loki in how much he actually reveals about his own past, especially during his first therapy session. Tony has a hard time even admitting the small amount he had. "I managed to build the suit and get away."
Loki pulls him into a hug. "You're safe." He murmurs, like Tony has done to him so many times before. Loki starts singing that song about horses, which he's done every other time he's tried to comfort Tony. Apparently one of Loki's imaginary friends sung it to him when he was scared, and so that's how Loki tries to comfort others. How does having an imaginary friend calm you down even work, though, when you need to think of everything they do.
Eventually, Tony continues talking.
Tony doesn't tell Loki that much, though. He says that the cave is where he got his arc reactor, but he skips over the agonizing surgery. He'd already told Loki about the shrapnel and the reason for the arc reactor a while ago.
He doesn't mention Yinsen, or the fact that Stark Industries used to make weapons. Loki doesn't really know anything about Stark Industries in general, though. Tony doesn't tell Loki about the terrorists wanting him to build weapons instead of the suit, and he certainly doesn't go into detail about the torture, only telling Loki again that he'd gotten hurt a lot in vague terms. He closes his eyes as memories surface. Loki's hug tightens a bit and his singing gets louder. By focusing on Loki's song, the memories start to fade.
So Tony doesn't Loki everything, and he's not sure when he will. Maybe never. Frankly, compared to everything Loki's told him, this is nothing. But to be honest, he never thought he'd even tell Loki this much.
Loki probably doesn't want to hear about that anyways, Tony tells himself, and he doesn't want to talk about it. But there's something else. Selfishly, Tony doesn't want Loki to know about his darker side, about the Merchant of Death, about everything that stupid Marla dragged up at that interview.
Tony often acts like he doesn't give a crap what people think of him, and that's true to some extent. But he does care about how those close to him view him.
Loki is like Jarvis, Tony's realized, in that he pretty much likes him unconditionally. Unlike Jarvis, Loki isn't required to do so. Tony hates to think about what Loki would think of him if he knew all that stuff, since perhaps knowing that stuff would make Loki see him in a negative light like half of the media does.
Tony silently curses himself for a sentimental fool, but deep down, he's worried about losing his friendship with Loki.
I'm a little worried Tony was OOC in this last part. Also, in Loki's therapy session here, Loki didn't actually say all the stuff aloud this time. Jarvis told Gwyneth about it when originally talking to her, and it coincidentally lined up with Loki's thoughts. But as you can see, Loki's not sure about that.
I probably should have cut this chapter off earlier, because it's so long, but cutting it off before now didn't seem right for some reason. I dunno- should I have ended it earlier? I actually had part of another scene written for this chapter, but I decided to move that to next chapter. But that gives me a head start :)
I hope there wasn't too much stuff happening in this. The Kim Possible reference was partly based on a meme I saw online, that Robert Downey Jr. actually shared on his Facebook page (which I silently stalk). Plus that show is awesome.
I know Loki has that flashback of having his mouth sewn shut a lot, but it's also one of the worst things he went through so it's bound to be prominent. There are going to be other incidents though (although there have been already).
In totally unrelated news, I finally found a My Singin' Simba online for a cheap price- less than ten dollars (that's the toy that Loki has in this, and the one I remember playing with at my cousins' house. I think I now associate it more with this than with that memory, which is a little strange). He hasn't arrived yet but he's supposed to get here soon :)
One would think as a college student, I'd be spending my money on other stuff, but nope. My roommate this past year really hated that I had so many toys, even though that was nothing compared to the number of toys I have at home.
Hopefully I can update again soon. I'm taking Spanish online, though, and that starts Monday :(