I'm sort of annoyed it took me more than a week to update, and for some reason I didn't write anything the first three days after I posted ch 26. I have no excuse. It wasn't even that I had writers block or didn't have time (although I did have the final exam for my online Spanish class today).
As always, a huge thanks to all my wonderful readers, reviewers, followers and favorite-ers. I never ceased to be blown away by the feedback this story has been getting- over 300 reviews and 200 followers now! And 40,000 views!
Some of these scenes ended up really long... I hope they're not too long or boring. Just to avoid any potential confusion, this first scene in italics is a dream. Also, I own nothing.
Loki shrieks, delighted, as he soars through the air. He's flying like how Peter Pan flies, without anything- not a suit like Tony's, or wings or even Pixie Dust, just his body as it's always been. Tony won't have to hold him in the Hulk suit anymore, because he can fly on his own! He loves it! This is so much better than teleporting, because it's a lot more fun, even if it's not instantaneous.
Loki spins in midair, laughing as Tony flies next to him in one of the Man of Iron suits. They start to race, neck and neck, until Loki's distracted by the figures below him. Still laughing with joy at the sheer freedom only flying provides, he soars down to where he races Sleipnir, Fenrir and Simba (who looks like he did on the screen), while Hel and Jormungand watch.
Then, Loki flies up towards the stars, screaming with joy from the thrill of it. He's trying to go up to the horse constellation, and it's just out of his reach. He reaches a hand up, trying to touch the stars, but it doesn't work. Nobody can touch the stars, because they're billions of miles away, even if they look so close...
He laughs as he plays his game, grasping for the stars that look just out of his reach.
But then, suddenly, everything changes and he's no longer flying.
He's in the tower's theater, but it's playing Frozen. But they'd watched that in a different theater. Tony, Bruce and Pepper aren't here. Loki looks around, getting more anxious. Where are they? They're supposed to be here, right? He'd just been racing Tony not long ago.
He hears a sword being drawn, and he turns to look at the screen, where Hans is standing over Elsa with a sword in his hand. Loki really doesn't like Hans.
But then, Hans turns to look right at him, which hadn't happened before and it's really scary, because Hans surely knows he's just like Elsa. Loki can tell just by the way Hans is looking at him. It's like Hans is looking into his soul.
Of course it has to get even worse. Hans steps out of the screen, still with the sword. Loki notices he's taller than Hans, but Hans doesn't seem to care.
Loki backs away from the man but collides with one of the seats and falls into it as Hans continues his approach. Now Hans is looking down at him, and Hans seems to be growing. Or is it him shrinking? Maybe it's just because Hans is looking down on him? "I know what you are, Jotun." Hans says, which is really the last thing Loki wants to hear, though he was expecting it.
This is even worse than when that Other-Loki that came out when he first saw Shego. Especially because Hans has that sharp, very lethal sword that's somehow glinting even in the dark theater.
"Stay away." Loki says fearfully, putting his hands out to try to block himself.
Hans, however, merely sneers, probably thinking him quite pathetic. "Don't even think about using those ice powers of yours."
Hans continues at him with the sword, and raises it above his head. Without even thinking about it, Loki's hands erupt with green energy and Hans is sent flying backwards. It's not ice, but it's still magic and that was always punished just as harshly in Asgard. He has to get away!
Loki turns to make a run for it, not caring that running is cowardly. He only half-notices that there's another Loki-illusion as he turns around. However, Hans is standing there when he turns around.
Loki blinks. He has no idea how Hans is now in front of him, when he'd been flying back the other way. Can Hans teleport? It's not like it matters, though. What matters is that Hans is there and he's dangerous.
"You think I'll be fooled by those tricks?" Hans demands, and the sword comes down towards Loki. The magic blast hadn't even done anything against Hans, really.
Without thinking, Loki throws up his hands and accidentally shoots a icicle at Hans, but Hans knocks it out of the way with the sword and sneers "Monster!"
The word echoes viciously all around him, as if a thousand people are shouting it out. Loki squeezes his eyes shut. No!
Loki knows Hans hates his and Elsa's powers, but it just happened. He knows he's in trouble now. Really big trouble, for all the magic he just did.
"You're just like Queen Elsa." Hans sneers it at him like it's an insult, but Loki likes Elsa.
"You were wrong 'bout Elsa!" Loki shoots back before he can stop himself. "She didn't kill Anna and you lied and you're bad!"
Loki glares at Hans. Hans tried to kill both Anna and Elsa, and that's not okay, and now he's coming after him, which is the most important part. He hates Hans!
"Why...?" Loki asks staring up at Hans.
"Why am I doing this?" Hans smiles coldly. "Because you're just like Queen Elsa, and seeing as I failed to get rid of her..."
"Besides," Hans continues. "I still need a throne, don't I?" His grin grows positively wicked. "I hear you're a prince, and even though I don't want to rule over a bunch of monsters, Jotunheim will have to do for now. Perhaps I'll move onto Midgard later."
Loki screams out Tony's name- or tries to, but it's more of a gasp because of the pain in his chest. Surely Tony will come save him, right? Tony won't let Hans do this. Hans didn't get away with what he did to Anna and Elsa, and he won't get away with this now. But looking up at him, it seems an awful lot like he's going to get away scot-free. Hans is too strong, just like Odin or Thor or anyone else, really.
Suddenly, there's an enraged roar and Hulk and Tony are here. Hulk's roar drowns out whatever Tony's saying. Tony's in a Man of Iron suit, just like when they were flying earlier. Loki practically sobs in relief because Hulk and Tony will surely be able to beat up Hans. Hulk lets out another angry roar, and Loki smiles because Hulk's angry at Hans, not him. Because Hans is the bad guy, worse than being like him or Elsa. So Hulk's mad at Hans for being mean to him, right?
There's no way Hans can hurt him now, not when his Tony and his Hulk are here. His voice is weak from the recent beating and Hans' knee pressing down on him makes it hard to talk, but Loki calls out to them. Despite the pain, he smiles slightly at the sight of his best friend and one of his other best friends.
Hulk's massive green fist connects with Hans' stomach, and Hans goes flying across the room. Hulk lets out a victorious roar.
However, to Loki's horror, Hulk's victorious roar turns into one of pain, and he falls forwards with the silver hilt of a knife sticking out of his back, the blade obviously buried inside.
Gaston steps out from the shadows behind where Hulk had been standing. He gloats about what he just did, nudging Hulk's body with his foot.
"HULK!" Loki screams at the top of his lungs. Hulk isn't moving. Loki tries to get up but stars dance before his eyes and pain erupts from his midsection, thanks to his recent beating.
Gaston can't get away with hurting his friend! Loki refuses to consider that Hulk's dead. At first Beast seemed dead when Gaston stabbed him but then he wasn't, and maybe the same thing happened to Hulk. Hulk can't be dead and Bruce can't be dead either! They just can't be!
Surely Rapunzel could heal Hulk. She healed Eugene even when he was dead, and Hulk isn't dead, Loki tells himself firmly.
Rapunzel's not here, but Loki realizes that he could heal Hulk. He's got healing powers, just like Rapunzel. He can heal Hulk! If he could just get free, Loki might be able to use his hair like Rapunzel does. Loki grits his teeth and tries to scoot towards Hulk, who he can only sort of see through the stars dancing in front of his eyes. They're not good stars, either.
Loki manages to get to his feet but is tackled to the ground. Hans is back, apparently having recovered from Hulk's punch. Loki struggles, but Hans has him pinned down again with a boot on his chest.
Tony flies into the air and holds out his hands like he's going to shoot the stars at Gaston and Hans, but another figure jumps in the air, with green energy around their hands. Loki can't tell if it's that Other-Loki or Shego, but Tony's fighting them.
It looks like he's losing. Loki can't tear his eyes away. How can Tony lose?! Loki watches in horror.
His attention is diverted as two other lifeless bodies are thrown on top of the equally lifeless Hulk- Natasha and Clint. Dr. Drakken strolls out from the shadows, presumably having tossed the bodies away. Maybe he'd mistaken them for Kim and Ron. Drakken just copies Hans, planting a boot on Loki's chest and looming over him with a scarily gleeful expression on his face.
Loki can't even see the fight going on between Shego (or is it the other Loki?) and Tony anymore, but he hears a pained sound somewhere between a grunt and a moan, and he can tell it's Tony making it even though he's never heard that noise from Tony before. The pained noises continue, getting louder.
Loki thinks that's the worst sound in the world, hearing his best friend being hurt. They're hurting Tony and they hurt Hulk, too!
Loki gnashes his teeth, since his hands are tied up, kicking and screaming, but Dr. Drakken and Hans continue to hold him down and start to hit him again.
Loki can't hear Tony making any sound now, and he doesn't want to think about what that could mean.
A low, rumbling growl echoes through the room, followed by a loud bark. Fenrir launches himself at Dr. Drakken, sinking his teeth into Drakken's arm. Drakken yells out, and Loki smiles weakly.
However, Fenrir is knocked away again by a blast of magic from Shego. He gets up snarling but lets out a whimper and collapses to the floor.
Loki screams with fury. A rage like he's never felt fills his chest. They killed Hulk and hurt Tony and Fenrir! They're going to pay for hurting his friends! Without thinking, Loki lashes out, snarling, trying to hit Hans with anything.
Loki hasn't lashed out in ages, he's not sure when the last time was. He ends up shooting another icicle at Hans while trying to hit him with a hand at the same time.
Hans evades this attempt easily and wrestles him down to the ground. Loki claws and snarls and slaps, but Hans pins him down and starts beating him, until Loki's gasping in pain on the floor. He huddles into a tiny ball as Hans kicks him mercilessly.
Sometime later, though Loki's not sure if it's a minute or an hour, the blows cease.
Suddenly flipped on his stomach, Loki's arms are yanked behind his back and cold metal cuffs snap around his wrists. Loki lies helplessly on the floor, pulling on his restraints without any luck. He's pretty sure his rib is broken, but he can feel it healing, although that hurts a ton too. Right now, even breathing hurts.
"Don't try that again." Hans says is a scarily soft voice.
Why had he tried something so stupid?! He knows what happens when he lashes out, when he fights back, and it never ends well for him.
Hans and Drakken smirk cruelly down at him.
And then, Hans' sword comes down towards Loki's head.
"Sir? Please wake up."
Tony groans and rolls over. "Not now, Jarvis." He moans over the AI, while Jarvis says something about a theater. He'd probably agreed to fund the construction of a theater or something, but he really doesn't care at all. Why the hell does he need to hear about it right now- or ever?
"Sir, I'm afraid I must insist you get up."
"You'd better have a good reason for this, or I'm demoting you to a toaster." Tony grumbles, glancing at the clock. Three in the morning. Wonderful.
"Then I'll burn your toast." Jarvis replies snarkily, before going back to business. "Mr. Loki appears to have had another nightmare." Jarvis explains. Tony frowns. Somewhat apologetically, Jarvis adds "I tried to console him myself, but he does not even seem to hear me."
"Ok. I'm on it." Tony sighs and rubs his eyes. He's actually been trying to catch up on all the sleep he's missed. He never slept spectacularly before Loki landed on his roof, either because he'd get wrapped up in some project and forget about such trivial things as sleep, food and other things necessary for survival, or he'd have nightmares of his own to worry about. His nightmares aren't nearly as bad as they were right after Afghanistan or the Battle of New York, but he's pretty sure he's got it worse than most people in terms of nightmares. Then again, most people don't go through what he's gone through.
This past month (plus a bit), Tony's been sleeping even less because of Loki's nightmares. Although it's not that much less each night than it had been before Loki's arrival, it adds up. Really, it would be better for both of them if they could sort those out.
He thought that maybe, after the progress they seemed to have made during the evening, Loki might not have a nightmare tonight. It's a lot later than Loki usually has nightmares, too.
Tony groggily gets up and heads towards the hallway. Stubbing his toe on the doorframe certainly wakes him up, though it has the side effect of making him swear loudly.
He heads towards Loki's room, but Jarvis interrupts. "Sir, Mr. Loki is actually in the theater a few floors down."
Well, that's unexpected. "Why is he in the theater?" Tony asks.
"I am not sure, sir, but it appears he teleported there in his sleep."
Okay, then. That's new. Well, not the teleporting. Loki's done that a few times, though Tony's sadly never been able to get a great readout on whatever the energy is. Teleporting in his sleep, however, is new. Tony heads towards the elevator and takes it down a couple floors.
Tony stops and stares for the briefest of moments when he enters the tower's movie theater. The lights are on, so it's easy to see. He gazes at the three identical Loki's in front of him, not even sure which is the real deal. Two of the Loki's are facing him while the third faces away, towards the blank screen. Of the two facing him, only one currently has open eyes, but those eyes have the glassy green gaze Tony's used to seeing. They all have messy, long black hair, and Iron Man pajamas. This is the first time Loki's made another Loki completely identical to himself, and Tony's pretty sure this is the first time there's been more than one illusion at a time.
They're also all muttering, rocking, flapping and jumping. Their eyes constantly dart around anxiously. Tony can't make out what any of them are saying. None of the Loki's even have Simba, which is a strange sight in of itself, and it could have been an easy way to identify the real Loki.
That's not all, though. There are two other figures as well. One is a certain eight-legged horse laying on the ground, singing Loki's song, although it's mostly drowned out by the Loki's muttering. And then there's the wolf that's pacing back and forth, growling. Tony ignores Sleipnir and Fenrir for now and tries to figure out which Loki is the real one.
Tony calls Loki's name, but none of them react. Tony slowly approaches the closest Loki, laying a hand on his shoulder. That Loki disappears, as does the second one he tries. Obviously, the remaining one is the real deal. Loki is now curled up by Sleipnir.
As he gets closer, Tony notices that there was one difference between the three Loki's- the Jormungand necklace. The two illusion-Loki's didn't have it on, but Loki does. Tony finds himself wondering if Loki had slept with it on, because that would be weird. Loki now has green magic around his hands and is currently trying to hug himself. Tony stares as the necklace grows to the size of a large python.
Loki's eyes are completely unfocused yet still scared as he rocks back and forth, now muttering something about stop it. He doesn't look up when Tony goes from crouching to kneeling next to him.
Tony gently puts a hand on Loki's shoulder, but Loki uncharacteristically screams bloody murder. Tony isn't expecting it when Loki shoves him away, so he's caught completely off guard. Stumbling, he falls back on his ass.
He notices that he's sitting in Sleipnir- the eight-legged horse isn't tangible, so Tony's butt is currently where Sleipnir's heart should be. Oddly enough, Sleipnir doesn't disappear like all of Loki's other illusions have, including when Sleipnir showed up before.
"Loki? It's me, it's Tony. You're safe." Tony says, moving so that he's no longer sitting in Sleipnir. Fenrir lets out a low chuffing sound.
Loki blinks and stares at him, as if only noticing him for the first time. "Tony?"
"The one and only." Tony smirks. Loki sighs in relief.
"Are you hurt? Do I have'ta sing?" Loki asks, tilting his head to the side and looking Tony over.
"No, no, I'm perfectly fine." Tony assures him. Loki stares at him for a bit. His brow furrows in confusion as he looks from Tony to Fenrir and back again, but he's clearly thrilled to see them all the same.
Then abruptly, the worry spikes and he asks "Where's Hulk-y?! Where's Bruce?!" The way he's asking this is close to panic and he glances around as if expecting someone to jump out at him.
"Dr. Banner is currently asleep in his bedroom, Mr. Loki." Jarvis speaks up. That's right, someone's still sleeping here, Tony thinks. Wow, he's really sleep deprived if he just made that connection. Really, sleeping is what both he and Loki should be doing right now, but of course they aren't.
Loki seems to be able to run on not a whole lot of sleep and still have tons of energy. Way more than Tony has, which is so not fair. That seems like a really nice perk of being Aesir or Jotun. Tony's had his fair share of nights without a lot of sleep, but they take their toll on him no matter how much caffeine he drinks.
Tony briefly wishes he could trade with Loki, but Loki is way worse off than he is, especially in terms of their pasts.
Loki seems very unconvinced about Bruce being fine, and Tony has to wonder why he's so anxious about Bruce's whereabouts in the first place. He doesn't think Bruce is going to hurt him or something... does he?
"But the knife..." Loki exclaims loudly, eyes wide and wild.
"What knife?'" Is Loki describing his dream? This couldn't have actually happened, Jarvis would have alerted him.
"A big, sharp shiny one." Loki says with his eyes squeezed shut.
From the corner of his eye, Tony sees the flash of light reflecting off metal. He looks over and sees a knife lying on the floor near the huge canvas that movies are projected on.
Whoa, okay. How did he not notice that here before? It has a silver hilt with a red stone in the middle, and it's really closer to a dagger than a knife.
"Loki, why is there a- Where did you even get this?" Tony goes to pick up the dagger, but his hand passes through it and it disappears. What?
Was that an illusion? It had to be, since it was too realistic to be a hologram. What else could it have been, anyways? Was that the knife in Loki's nightmare? Loki lets out an inarticulate screech, and Tony has a feeling he'd noticed the knife.
"Where's Bruce?" Loki asks again, sounding even more panicked. Tony repeats what Jarvis had said about Bruce sleeping, but Loki still seems unconvinced and very anxious about Bruce's whereabouts.
Hoping Bruce won't be annoyed, Tony tells Jarvis to wake Bruce up and tell him that Loki's asking about him. Bruce probably won't Hulk-out over being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night. At least, Tony sincerely hopes so.
When he turns back to Loki, who's staring at the spot the knife had just occupied with terror, he sees yet another new sight, leaving him to wonder why everything's crazy right now. Loki's currently-huge Jormungand necklace is wrapped around Loki's torso, even around his arms, leaving just his hands sticking out the front. His hands are flapping and flicking their fingers.
"Uh, what is this?" Tony asks, gesturing at the snake that's practically squeezing Loki in it's coils. At least it's a fake snake instead of a real one, but still, it looks like it's preparing to eat him. "Let's get this off. Why did this even happen?" Tony mumbles more or less to himself, moving towards the huge fake snake.
While unwrapping the snake looks pretty simple, Tony finds that it's actually quite difficult as it keeps wrapping itself around Loki again as soon as he tries to unravel it.
"The knife wasn't real." Tony says, trying to reassure Loki since he'd seemed worried about that, and Fenrir barks.
Tony continues to yank at the snake, but stops when he notices that Sleipnir is staring at him. This is kind of awkward
"Don't." The horse says simply. Slightly taken aback that Sleipnir actually spoke to him (Sleipnir's only ever sung Loki's song before now) Tony pauses.
"Don't what?"
Then, Tony hears Loki's voice say, barely above a whisper. "Pull. Don't pull the snake, please? Don't pull my Jormungand." Tony hesitantly removes his hands from the fake Jormungand that has Loki all trussed up. Sleipnir turns back to Loki and nuzzles the god, starting to sing that horse song again. Tony's pretty sure Loki doesn't feel anything when Sleipnir does that, since touching Sleipnir just feels like touching air, but Loki grins when Sleipnir does it anyways.
"You like that around you?" Tony asks, raising an eyebrow. Frankly, it looks like it's restraining him. He would've thought that sort of thing would set Loki off.
"Safe." Loki murmurs.
"Is this a Jormungand hug?" Tony asks, his tired brain finally putting the pieces together. Loki's mentioned on a couple different occasions that his snake friend hugged him. Loki nods, murmuring that it's better than before.
"Come on, let's go back to the main floor." Tony says, trying to pull Loki to his feet. Since Loki's hands are basically pinned in front of his body, he has to get up without using his arms. Loki manages this surprisingly well.
Tony leads Loki to the elevator, muttering "This is ridiculous. I feel like I'm escorting a prisoner or something." Loki jerks away from him with wide eyes, and Tony hastily says "Which you're not. You're not a prisoner."
Loki relaxes again, and Tony is somewhat surprised when Sleipnir and Fenrir follow them into the elevator.
When they arrive back at the penthouse, they're greeted by a very rumpled looking Bruce. His hair's messy with bedhead and the white t-shirt and navy blue shorts he's wearing as pajamas are all wrinkled. Tony realizes that those shorts are the super-stretchy shorts for if he Hulks out. Then again, he seems to wear a pair of those all the time now.
Bruce looks somewhat shocked about the snake that's essentially tying Loki up as well as their two animal companions.
Loki looks even more relieved to see Bruce, getting up and trying to hug him, a feat made impossible because his arms are pinned. Loki blinks and looks down at the former-necklace that's wrapped around most of his torso. The snake shifts so it's wrapped around his waist instead, freeing his arms.
Loki hugs Bruce, who looks confused as the god starts singing Rapunzel's healing song. A soft green light emanates from Loki's hands.
"Loki, I'm fine."
"You wouldn't get up." Loki mumbles down to Bruce, since he's a lot taller than him. Loki actually rests his chin on Bruce's head. "Gaston stabbed you in the back likes he did with Beast!"
So this was just an ordinary nightmare, instead of the PTSD flashback kind.
"Gaston?" Tony asks. Loki nods, glancing around fearfully as if expecting the character to appear at any moment. "Didn't he die?"
"But he stabbed Hulk with a knife, so he can't be dead, 'cause he dids it!" Loki exclaims, practically yelling and clearly panicked. "B'sides, Beast and Eugene were dead but they came back to life!"
"Loki, Gaston's not real. He's just-" Tony's cut off when Bruce sends him a look telling him to stop. Realizing how he'd almost slipped up Tony shuts up. If he explains how Gaston's not real, Loki would probably work out that none of the other characters are real, either. For now, Loki thinking the movies are actually real is a good thing because he's been taking in the messages in them and connecting himself to characters, using them to slowly start to believe everything Tony's told him about Asgard being wrong. He actually seemed to be doing a lot better earlier tonight. Well, technically, that was yesterday since it's three a.m.
"Gaston's not here." Tony amends.
"His knife is!" Loki shrieks, already running to his bedroom, Sleipnir and Fenrir right at his heels.
On their way to Loki's room, Tony tells Bruce about the illusion-knife, and his theory about it being the one from Loki's dream. That would mean Loki can make illusions based off of dreams and memories, but then again, maybe that's what that child Other-Loki was? Tony feels like he should test this new hypothesis, but not now. Judging by what Loki just said, though, that seems to be a pretty good theory.
When Tony enters Loki's room, the god is of course hugging Simba. He seems quite relieved to have the toy back. Sleipnir's singing Loki's song again, and Fenrir's lying on the floor.
Loki's not exactly calm by any sense of the word, but he is significantly calmer than he'd been in the theater or the living room. It's probably because of Sleipnir and Fenrir, as well as the Jormungand necklace wrapped around Loki's waist. But maybe it's also partly because of the stars on the ceiling that cast a low light in the room, the horses prancing across the walls and the soft rug.
Tony gives Loki a reassuring squeeze, reminding him that Bruce and Hulk are here and perfectly fine, and that Gaston is not here and never has been.
"Is this your happy place, Loki?" Bruce asks.
Loki's gaze flicks up towards the holographic stars, and then back at Bruce questioningly, but he's smiling slightly. Bruce, with a small grin of his own, says, "I should have guessed. Sometimes when I'm stressed, I like to close my eyes and imagine I'm somewhere peaceful. I think this room makes you calmer, doesn't it?"
Loki cocks his head to the side, but nods. "Safe. Like our field, Sleipnir." He grins at Sleipnir, who nods enthusiastically, and looks around him. "My room's my field now."
"Glad you like it." Tony says, although he sort of wants to get back to this dream topic.
Figuring he should reassure Loki a bit more, Tony says "None of that stuff with the knife happened, you know that, right? I know it seemed real, but it was just a dream, and the knife wasn't real either."
"Wasn't a flashback." Loki says, sounding glad about that. "Besides, you're here my Fenrir is okays too." Loki tells Bruce, looking much less anxious now.
"Exactly. Here I am, clearly alive." Bruce says, giving Loki a reassuring smile. Loki smiles back slightly.
"I can attest that Gaston is not anywhere in the tower, Mr. Loki." Jarvis pipes up. "Nor was he ever in here, unless you count a small plastic figurine." Loki relaxes slightly and glances at the figurines on his desk.
"What 'bouts Hans and Drakken and Shego?"
"None of them were ever in the tower, either, Mr. Loki." Jarvis replies smoothly. "If they were, they would need to get through me, which is no easy feat." In another situation, Tony might have found Loki dreaming about all those fictional characters funny. However, even though Loki seems to get that the nightmare isn't real, he still seems pretty traumatized by it.
"Do you want to tell us what happened?" Bruce asks gently. "Sometimes talking about it helps." Tony and Bruce wait for Loki to respond. Loki tries to start playing with Tony's hand, curling Tony's fingers until Tony yanks his hand away, because that's a little too weird. Loki instead fiddles with Maximus' tail, while hugging Simba close. He picks up the Hans figurine and stares at it. Loki's silent for almost a minute, and Tony's about to ask again when Loki starts.
"Hans came out of a screen with a sword, and he was gonna cut me, kill me! Like he tried'ta do to Elsa." Loki starts breathing quickly, and Bruce urges him to slow his breathing down. Loki only sort of manages to do so, and his body is still clearly tense now as he recounts what happens. Sleipnir nickers, clearly trying to reassure Loki.
The rubbery, yet realistic Jormungand suddenly looks a lot more realistic, just like Sleipnir and Fenrir. It starts to wrap itself around Loki's torso again, only it seems to be tangible, unlike the other two. Maybe that's because it's an illusion projected on something real (it had once been a hose), whereas Sleipnir and Fenrir just are illusions in thin air? Tony wonders if Loki's capable of conjuring solid objects without having to transform them from something else.
Tony puts an arm around Loki's shoulder and feels Loki relax a bit. Loki looks at Tony when he continues. "An' I don't wanna die, so I tried'ta gets away, but he was still there! And he got mad when I ax'dentally made ice." Loki's shaking now.
The god starts hitting himself with the Hans figurine, on his forehead, his stomach, his chest. Fenrir howls mournfully.
"Whoah, Snoopy, what do you think you're doing?! Don't hit yourself!" Tony goes to grab Loki's wrists to keep him from hurting himself as Loki lays on the rug and continues to batter himself with the small plastic toy.
"He beat me and then you and Hulk-y came, but Gaston stabbed him, and you couldn't help me!" As Loki says this, he rams the Gaston figurine into the Hulk toy's back, making it fall over on its face, clearly showing what happened. Tony sees a tiny silver dagger in the Hulk toy's back, with the tiniest dot of red in the hilt.
Bruce hastily averts his gaze and leaves the room, while Tony looks on with fascination. Maybe Loki can recreate things with illusions.. "Where's Bruce going? What if Gaston gets him?!" Loki asks.
"I think Dr. Banner just needs some time to himself." Jarvis explains. "Remember, Gaston is not in the tower, Mr. Loki."
"Wait, you don't think we could beat up Hans and Gaston?! We would totally kick their asses." Tony protests."You're talking about two people who stopped a freaking alien invasion and have taken out countless killer robots, and you don't think we could handle two ordinary men lacking any impressive weapons and abilities?" Frankly, Tony thinks, that's almost insulting. Besides, he thought Loki believed the Avengers (particularly him) to be unstoppable. Why would they be bested by the likes of Hans and Gaston?
"Alien invasion?" Loki asks. Why is that the part he focuses on?
"Yeah. The Chitauri. Huge army that tried to take over humanity and rule us all. They're what started the Avengers."
Recognition flares in Loki's eyes, and Tony figures that all of Asgard, even Loki, probably heard Thor talk about that. "Oh. Like with the weasels." Loki says, as if it makes perfect sense.
"Weasels?" Tony questions with a raised brow.
"Yeah. The old guy ruled all the weasels in Weasel-Town, even though he wasn't even a weasel. That's really not fair, you know, 'cause what if the weasels don't like a short old guy taking over? He's not even nice!" Loki ends this little speech in a kneeling position instead of his previous sitting one.
"...Are you talking about the Duke in Frozen?" He asks, connecting the dots eventually. Loki nods.
"Yeah! He said they were wesels, not weasels! He didn't even get 'em right!" It takes a second for Tony to grasp Loki's logic. People kept mispronouncing the Duke's kingdom of Weselton as Weasel Town, and Loki's apparently convinced that weasels are actually in the equation somewhere. Tony smirks slightly at this as Loki goes on. "He shouldn't be their ruler." Loki scowls at the injustice of it. "They should just bite him, 'cause they've got really sharp teeth."
"That's sort of what we did to the Chitauri." Tony says.
"You bit them?!" Loki laughs, chomping on air with his teeth.
Tony smiles slightly at Loki's antics. "No. I meant we didn't let them take over. We fought to keep our world." Tony nods.
Loki has a thoughtful look on his face and Tony wonders what message he's getting out of what they just said. "If I were the ruler, I wouldn't make them be wesels. I'd let them be weasels, so they'd be happy!" He gives Tony a serious look. "If you make them be wesels too long, they might forget how to be weasels."
By this time, Bruce has reappeared with tea and hot chocolate. He even has Mrs. Potts and Chip on the tray for Loki. Bruce grabs a mug of tea and starts to sip it, clearly a lot calmer. There's nothing like drinking a nice hot beverage to soothe one's nerves, Tony thinks, watching Loki sip hot chocolate out of Chip, looking a lot calmer. Well, for Tony, there's alcohol, but that's clearly not everyone's cup of tea.
To be honest, Tony's not sure what Bruce thinks about the whole nightmare Loki described, what with the Hulk getting hunted like that. That had happened in real life, too. Does Bruce ever have nightmares about it?
Realizing that the whole conversation's been derailed, and wondering if that's what Loki had been going for, Tony tries to get it back on track. "Okay, well the point is that Hans and Gaston couldn't beat us." Tony says.
"But no one's quick as Gaston!" Loki says. "No one hits like Gaston!" In a quiet voice, he says "You can't beat him if he's the best. He's like Thor!"
"We didn't let Thor hurt you, right?" Bruce asks, and Loki nods. "So, we wouldn't let Gaston hurt you either. Thor's much stronger than Gaston."
"Hans d'feated Elsa's big snow Marshmallow Hulk." Loki adds, shaking his head wildly.
"But we'd totally own Hans. Okay, I know your dream had a crappy ending. Worse than a B-rated action movie." Tony says flippantly, but he knows what it's like to have dreams where everyone you care about dies and you can't do anything to stop them. "But that's not how it should have ended at all."
Loki just stares at him blankly. Tony's not entirely sure what makes him decide to do what he does next- maybe it's inspired by Loki's story time earlier tonight and watching him play with toys countless times. Anyways, Tony decides to take a leaf out of Loki's book, reaches for the toys on the floor in front of Loki. Tony holds the Gaston figurine- which is at most four inches tall, so about half the height of the Avengers action figures- in one hand and Toy Stark in his other hand.
"Gaston just has a knife, right, or a dagger or something. At most, he has a gun like in the movie. Well, I have a freaking Iron Man suit, so this is what would have happened." He makes Toy Stark fly into the air and pretends to have the toy swoop down and knock Gaston down before blasting him with invisible repulsors. "See? I'm too awesome. I mean, guns and swords don't even do anything against my armor. Bullets just bounce off." Tony looks at Loki pointedly, hoping this will console him.
Of course, without his armor, Tony would be screwed against a gun, but he's not going to go into that. He doesn't like thinking about it anyways. Who does, really?
"But what 'bout when you're not in you armor?" Loki asks worriedly, and Tony's surprised Loki catches what was left unsaid. So much for not going into that. "Then you're hurt, right? And you're a mortal too!" Loki wrings his hands together, worry all over his face.
"Yeah, well, then I try to avoid swords and guns." Tony says, sounding much more carefree than he actually feels about the topic.
"Don't die." Loki tells him sternly.
"I'm still alive and kicking after everything, and I'm not planning on kicking the bucket anytime soon."
"But what if you get hurt?" Loki asks him urgently.
"Well... then I get patched up. I've got my own special healer now, right?" Tony grins at Loki.
"...Me?" Loki asks in a hushed voice. Tony confirms that yes, that meant Loki. Loki seems awed for some reason, and a small grin forms on his lips.
"Tony's healer." Loki says softly, clearly liking the sound of it.
"So, their weapons wouldn't do anything against me, and if they did, you could probably patch me up. I mean, you fixed a broken leg, so you've got to be able to heal other things, right?"
"Buts you're gonna die soon 'cause you're a mortal! You need an apple!" Loki shrieks, bouncing up and down.
"Hey, I'm not planning on dying anytime soon." Tony says. "I've cheated death a ton of times."
"You're not mad at him, are you?" Loki asks, looking to the side. Tony has a feeling Loki's not talking to him anymore. He pauses as if someone's responding, and then says "Don't let him die, 'kay, Hel?" Oh. Of course. Another one of his friends- a young girl, if Tony remembers correctly.
Perhaps seeing the confused look on Tony's face, Loki says "She works with dead people in Helheim."
"I can look out for myself." Tony declares, slightly weirded out by the idea of some random girl deciding if he dies. Not that he believes it, it's just a weird idea. "Are we going to get to meet Hel?" Frankly, considering Sleipnir and Jormungand are visible, it's odd that Hel isn't.
"Oh, I don't think you'd like seeing her right now." Loki says with a strange smile on his lips. "She takes some getting used to, you know."
"Where did your friends come from?" Tony asks, because it really is a strange cast of characters.
"My dreams." Loki says after a bit. "They were nice in my dreams, and I asked 'em to be with me when I was awake, too, 'xcept I couldn't see 'em then much. Everyone said they weren't real but they are!" Loki exclaims, flapping his hands. "They're real like Hobbes is to Calvin!"
They seem more real than that, but maybe that's just because of Loki's magic illusions.
Loki's looked calmer after asking Hel to keep Tony alive, but he casts an anxious glance at Bruce. "Cans you make sure my Bruce doesn't die, too?"
"Hey, they couldn't do anything against Hulk either." Tony says. "Trust me, stabbing Hulk would just piss him off, and nobody in their right mind wants to piss off Hulk."
Bruce looks pretty uncomfortable at this last part, but admits that Hulk is basically indestructible and that Gaston certainly wouldn't be able to do anything to him. As emphasis, Tony makes Gaston stab the Hulk toy. Loki seems to hate seeing that. But then Tony makes Hulk toy get up from where it had fallen and punch the Gaston figurine before stomping on it. Bruce doesn't seem to particularly like seeing this. Loki, however, smiles slightly, seeming relieved to see this version instead of what he'd seen in his dream.
"You weren't fighting Hans and Gaston, though." Loki stares at Tony, smile gone as if it had never been there at all as he's back to his worried look.
"I wasn't?"
"No," Loki says simply, and Tony asks who he was fighting, even though the question was implied. "You were fighting... Shego." Loki flaps his hands, bouncing up and down as he chants "It was Shego, it was Shego, it was Shego! Wasn't me! Nope nope nope! SHE-GO!" Loki seems to be trying to convince himself of this, and considering that whole Loki illusion incident after Loki was first exposed to Kim Possible, Tony can't really blame him. Loki had mistook Shego for himself, and if he'd seen that Other-Loki attack Tony in his dream, that would probably freak him out.
"I wouldn't believe it if it was you." Bruce says. "You're not really the type of person to do that."
"She did bad green magic and was winning!" Loki exclaims anxiously. "I think. You were fighting her."
"Hey, the magic isn't bad, remember? She just does bad things with it." Tony corrects, and Loki doesn't argue that point, instead going on about what happened.
"Dr. Drakken threw Clint and Tasha on top of Hulk. They were really really hurt! Dead, maybe. Hulk-y wasn't getting up, 'n neither were the others. And you wouldn't stop screaming!"
Tony puts an arm around the god and pulls him close, telling him that it's okay, that he's okay, that neither of them are actually hurt, and that Clint and Natasha are fine too. Okay, he can't guarantee about Clint and Natasha, but he seriously doubts anything's happened to them. He would have heard if two of his teammates were in critical condition or something.
"That's not realistic, either." Tony says. "Clint and Natasha wouldn't lose to Dr. Drakken. I mean, he's not even as good as a Doom-bot." He hunts around for the Clint and Natasha action figures, as well as toys to use as the two villains. Loki doesn't have any that actually look like them.
As he grabs the Clint and Natasha figures from Loki's desk, Tony spots something that makes him grin and pick that up, instead.
It's a Loki action figure that goes perfectly with the improved Avengers action figures. Tony glances between Loki and the toy. It's wearing miniature versions of the Iron Man pajamas and that starry long coat Loki made with his magic. Loki obviously made this with his magic, too. The action figure is almost eerily realistic, just like Toy Stark and the other Avenger toys, except for Thor.
"This is awesome, Loki." Tony says, once again truly impressed by what Loki's magic can produce. He holds it up for Bruce to see, and Bruce seconds the well-deserved praise. "When did you build it?" Tony's rather surprised that he hasn't seen this before.
Loki doesn't answer, but Jarvis does. "Mr. Loki made it after you left the room earlier tonight, out of what used to be a can opener." Tony briefly remembers Loki clutching a can opener the first day and pranking him with the same one just a couple days ago. He smiles slightly at the fact Loki would use that to make a toy of himself.
Loki nods slightly when Jarvis speaks. "B'fore I went to sleeps." He mumbles, confirming Jarvis' words.
Sleipnir says happily "It looks just like you."
Loki laughs. "It's a mini me!" Turning to Tony and Bruce, he asks "You like it?"
"Isn't that what we just said? It looks awesome."
Loki grasps at the charms hanging from the enlarged Jormungand necklace that's still wrapped tightly around his waist. The necklace- though it's closer to a belt now- looks as real as Sleipnir and Fenrir. Loki scoots up next to Tony and tries to hold the charms next to the Loki toy. Jormungand actually raises his head to put the charms near the toy Loki. The charms are smaller, proportionately, but Loki laughs and says "It's us!"
Sleipnir trots around in circles excitedly and Fenrir barks.
Loki lets go of the charms and picks up Simba. "You're kinda big for him." Loki says, and his gaze turns to the desk with all the figurines. With a huge grin, Loki picks up the young Simba figurine from The Lion King set and holds it up next to the Loki action figure. He laughs delightedly and says "There's his Simba, and I've gots my Simba, so he has Simba too. And we both have our Avengers."
Tony hands the action figure to Loki. Loki makes the Hans figurine slowly approach the toy of himself. "I know what you are." Loki says, presumably as Hans.
Loki has the Loki toy tell Hans to stay away, and suddenly throws the Hans toy backwards.
"What was that?" Bruce asks.
"I hit Hans with wind. And ice." Loki mutters.
"Hey, that's good!" Tony says, wondering why this hadn't come up before. "You defended yourself. Nothing wrong with that. Actually, it's strongly encouraged."
"Hans said it was bad. And he was there when I turned around, even though he went flying the other way!" Loki re-enacts it again when he says this, and for a brief moment.
"But he was wrong. Don't listen to Hans. He lied to Anna and Elsa." Bruce points out.
Loki frowns. "He wanted to rule a kingdom, so he hurt Elsa and Anna tryin'ta do it! That's bad! I wouldn't do that! And I wouldn't make weasels be wesels." Loki shakes his head firmly.
"Of course you wouldn't." Tony says. Somehow, despite all the abuse he's suffered, Loki's turned out to be a very kind person. Someone kind enough to care about the well-being of imagined weasels.
Loki could have turned out completely the opposite, though. Actually, it's almost surprising he didn't turn out differently. That one Loki illusion that Loki mistook for Shego, though, sort of seemed like the villainous type that would probably do something like try to take over the world. Tony's been thinking a lot about that other-Loki that showed up after Kim Possible. Although Loki mistook it for Shego, it seemed different than the character. Maybe that's what Loki would have ended up like had he been raised differently, although the way he had been raised is already bad enough.
"Seriously, Loki, you could totally beat Hans."
Loki looks very skeptical and lets out a snort. "Weakling."
"Loki, you're not weak."
Loki looks very dubious. Okay, maybe Loki's physically weaker than other Asgardians, but he's a lot stronger than ordinary humans. Cap and Hulk might be a bit stronger, and Tony could probably hold his own against Loki as long as he had his suits, but that's about it. Not that Tony can ever see this situation happening. So with just physical strength, he seems to have almost all of Earth's population trumped, just like Thor does, and then Loki has magic as well. Loki's magic also seems quite powerful, and
"I mean, you stopped the Incredible Hulk with a force field, for crying out loud! Do you know how hard Hulk is to stop?!" Tony asks incredulously, before immediately wondering whether bringing that up was a good idea or not.
Bruce looks like he'd rather be somewhere else, as he fiddles awkwardly with the Hulk action figure. "Trust me, that is not weak. You are not weak. You're strong."
Tony's not sure if Loki's going to freak out at the force field reference. Loki looks like he'd forgotten all about that. He stares into space absentmindedly makes the Anna doll repeatedly punch the much smaller Hans figurine in the face, basically just bashing them together. He ends up switching to using the Anna figurine, which, being part of the same set, is closer in size to Hans than the doll.
"Elsa stopped an arrow with ice." Loki says quietly.
"Exactly. She was keeping herself from being killed. She could have easily beat Hans. All he had was a sword."
"But he almost killed her! He woulda, too if Anna hadn't stopped him! I tried'ta help you, but he was too strong!" Loki almost sounds like he's apologizing. "It didn't work and Hans was even madder!" Loki says, slapping his own thigh so hard that a loud smack sounds through the room. Tony winces because that sounded painful, but Loki doesn't even blink.
"Fenrir tried to get Hans to stop, but he got hit too."
Fenrir lets out a whimper that sounds very apologetic, and he growls at the Hans and Gaston figures, trying to bite them, although his teeth presumably pass through them. However, since Tony can't see through the wolf, it looks like he's eating them.
"I tried to get to Hulk-y, but I couldn't." Loki says, sounding very distraught.
Fenrir, still trying to chew on the figurines, gives Loki a pointed look, as if to say look what I'm doing.
"Aaaugh!" Tony says for Hans. "We're getting eaten by a giant wolf!" Loki giggles and Fenrir barks what sounds like an affirmative before going back to trying to chew them. Loki cheers him on. "Loki doesn't have to worry about us anymore."
Loki laughs again but then seems struck by an idea.
"I'm free!" Loki shouts, holding the Loki toy and bringing it over to the Hulk toy. "Now Rapunzel and I can heal Hulk-y!" He grabs the Rapunzel figurine and sings Rapunzel's healing song. The dagger sticking out of Hulk's back disappears. Tony grins at how Loki's making a better ending.
Tony hunts through Loki's figurines for characters to use as Dr. Drakken and Shego, and decides on Jafar and Mother Gothel respectively.
Loki sips his hot chocolate and looks confused as Tony makes Toy Stark and Mother Gothel spar in the air, especially when Tony makes the Toy Stark overwhelm Mother Gothel.
When Tony explains that Mother Gothel is Shego, Loki seems to accidentally make the toy look like Shego. He doesn't seem particularly thrilled, but he doesn't totally freak out, either. He's seemed to have gotten over the fear of changing his toys or clothes.
Even though it's three in the morning, they end up re-enacting Loki's dream a bunch of times with Loki's toys, only with a better ending where the Avengers are not defeated at all. Loki seems to quite like making Iron Man and Hulk stomp on Hans and Gaston, and he even gets Elsa and Simba into it. Tony takes the Elsa part as a good sign.
They continue to think of new endings for the nightmare to make it less scary. Oftentimes, they veer away from what Loki's revealed about the nightmare to make up these new endings. Some of them are completely ridiculous, like Gaston suddenly deciding that he needs to comb his chest hair, but they make Loki laugh, and, more importantly, get his mind off of what he'd imagined in his nightmare, off watching his friends be hurt.
Tony's not going to admit this to anyone but himself, but this isn't half bad, sitting on the floor with Loki, playing with toys. It seems to help him forget, for a bit, about seeing his friends dead. Loki seems to think it's hysterical when Tony makes Jafar "trip" off the bed/imaginary-cliff and fall to the floor before getting run over by Maximus (although Jafar's cast as Dr. Drakken, that figurine didn't change appearances like how Mother Gothel morphed into Shego).
Making Loki laugh, especially when he'd been scared not long ago, makes this worthwhile.
While they have some ridiculous endings, which Tony feels might be influenced by his sleep-deprived brain, they also frequently play out a version where Tony and Hulk save Loki, which seems to make Loki feel a lot better.
Loki also makes a version where Beast prevents Gaston from stabbing Hulk in the first place.
One other instance of magic which Tony finds very interesting is, at one point when Loki's trying to control three toys at once, one of them moves on its own. Not in a living way like in Toy Story, but as if it's a puppet controlled by an invisible string. It's one of the figurines, so all it does is hop around, but it's still kind of cool. Tony wonders if that's the extent of that power or not. Considering Loki's illusions, couldn't he make toys look like they were actually alive?
Loki just watches the toy do this, and Tony can't tell what he's thinking, whether he thinks it's good or bad.
Loki goes back to re-enacting the nightmare.
"Snoopy, if someone's trying to hurt you, it's not bad if you keep them from doing so." Tony makes the Hans toy (they don't have any of the guards) approach Elsa, and Loki makes Elsa blast Hans with magic. There's a tiny flurry of snow when this happens, courtesy of Loki. Tony makes Hans fly backwards and moan his defeat.
"The snow was a nice touch." Bruce comments from where he's drinking tea. Loki has a mug of hot chocolate on the nightstand, but it's forgotten.
Surprisingly, Loki doesn't freak out about it, although he does mumble that it was Elsa. Of course it was him, but he doesn't seem to like saying so.
"Elsa made the snow Hulk guy. Marshmallow." Loki says, glancing at Bruce. When Tony asks Loki if he could do that, Loki just shrugs. "I like Marshmallow. And Olaf. He's funny!" Loki picks up his small Olaf plush with a smile. "I wish I could do that."
Making a huge snow monster wouldn't be a good idea. Still, Tony's surprised but pleased that Loki expressed a desire to do some type of magic. "Loki, you basically have." He gestures to Sleipnir and Fenrir. Loki smiles slightly but doesn't answer.
"If someone tries to hurt you, you should do what Fenrir does and fight back."
"They don't like that!" Loki protests.
"Well, the guards didn't like Elsa defending herself, but she did it anyways. Just as she should have." Tony tells Loki, who stares at him.
"How about when the guards were chasing Esmeralda?" Bruce catches on to what Tony's doing. "It was pretty awesome how she outwitted them, right?"
"She used magic to get aways." Loki says, understanding kindling in his eyes. "She tereplorted. No, tele-ported and she made them hit each other." Loki giggles and wriggles his body slightly, and Tony remembers he'd liked that scene a lot. "And Aladdin! They couldn't catch him."
"Exactly. You could do that too. Did you ever do that?" Tony can actually imagine Loki doing that. Loki tenses and starts rocking back and forth quickly.
Tony pulls him close and mutters soft nothings to try to get him to calm down.
"You can beat them." Tony tells him once he seems relatively calm again.
"Really?" Loki still sounds very skeptical.
"Really." Tony confirms. "Just like-" His eyes land on a drawing on the wall, and he grins. "Just like Boo beat Randall. Remember?"
"I'm Boo, 'cause they see a monster." Loki says. He seemed to like that analogy before.
"Exactly!"
Loki laughs and goes to his desk, where he finds the figurines of Boo, Randall, and Sulley. He starts to re-enact the scene where Randall has Sulley almost falling to his doom, while Boo looks on, terrified of Randall. But then, Boo beats Randall up with a baseball bat. Loki recreates this by setting Boo on Randall and using a finger as the baseball bat that Boo hit Randall with. Each time his finger hits Randall, Randall changes patterns, just like in the movie.
"Great job." Tony says, grinning at him. "Boo seems a lot weaker than Randall at first glance, but she beat him." Loki cocks his head to the side.
"How would you feel about learning self defense?" Tony asks the god. He's been thinking about Loki sticking up for himself ever since noticing Loki's distinct lack of doing just that. "That way, if someone does try to hurt you again, you'll be able to keep them from doing so." Loki stops midway through making both the Loki toy and Boo defeat Randall together.
"NO!" Loki screams, taking Tony by surprise.
"Why not?"
"Odin says it's forbidden." Loki says after a bit, as if that settles the matter. He's looking at Tony like he just suggested they go kill everyone.
"Yeah, well, Odin can suck it. His rules don't apply here." Tony says, before wincing internally. He really hopes Odin doesn't decide to decimate his tower for that. He can't deny that Odin could probably do just that, being a viking alien/god king. "He did magic too, remember? He was probably scared about how powerful you are."
"But he's the Allfather." Loki's silent for a bit, and then he says in a choked voice. "I never wanted to be there..." Then he starts to cry silently.
"I know..." Tony murmurs as he once again pulls the god into a one armed hug, rubbing circles on Loki's shaking shoulder. Loki's body shakes with silent sobs as he drops Elsa and hugs Simba, burying his head in his knees.
For about three minutes, they just sit there while Loki cries. Both Tony and Bruce speak in soft, reassuring voices.
"I hate it. Hate getting hurt." Loki says, once the tears have subsided. He wipes at his eyes.
"Well, we're going to do everything we can to make sure you don't get hurt again." Tony says. Loki smiles broadly at that and throws his arms around Tony. Clearly, he likes hearing that a lot, being reassured that he has people who care about him and will look out for him.
"Still, it wouldn't hurt if you could protect yourself." Tony adds.
"But it does, it hurts, always hurts more! I always lost!" Loki mumbles, looking like he's going to start crying again. Tony has a sickening feeling about where this was going, as Loki continues as if a barge was let out.
"Running didn't help much. Not even like Esmeralda." Loki whispers. "They always caught me... too fast." He fiddles with his fingers, chewing his lip and rocking back and forth, clearly anxious. Tony realizes that Loki's actually answering his question from a bit earlier. "Sometimes I thought I got away but they always caught me later. 'Cause I was always there!" Loki flaps his hands anxiously. "I gots in worse trouble later, even way later when the found me. They always got me 'ventually and it always hurt more then..."
Tony's not even sure what to say to that, but it seems Loki doesn't want to talk about it anymore. And it's clear they're not going to be able to convince him of that soon.
"Do you ever have good dreams?" Bruce asks curiously, fiddling with the Hulk toy, while Loki instructs him to make it hug the Loki action figure.
By now, Jormungand is back to just a snake necklace. Sleipnir and Fenrir are still visible, but they're not doing much of anything.
"I was flying with Tony before, and racing Sleipnir n' Fenrir and Tony." Loki says with a small smile on his face. Loki moves Toy Stark and the Loki toy as if they're flying.
"That sounds nice."
"It was. And my other friends were there, and I flew up in the stars." Loki flops over to gaze up at the holographic stars above him, reaching up like he's trying to grasp them.
Loki having control over his nightmare seems to help a lot, since he's not thinking about Hans and Gaston murdering his friends anymore. Tony starts to wonder if that could help with some of Loki's traumatic memories. It wouldn't be quite the same thing, obviously, since those aren't re-imagining a fictional dream, but isn't this sort of what they'd do anyways? Getting Loki to think about the memories in a less-threatening way and giving him control over them, so he might be able to conquer them? However, Loki hasn't revealed much about his traumatic memories- at least, not by talking about them. Perhaps, roleplay could help him.
Tony thinks about some of the illusions Loki's made. Maybe it could almost be like him reliving a traumatic experience through illusions. If they could get it to be like he's re-living them but in control...
Tony seriously thinks this could help, even if it is a bit... childish. But Loki played with toys before, so it's not anything new. Still, this actually seems therapeutic. He'll have to bring it up the next time Gwyneth comes.
Though there's no way he's going to try this with his own nightmares.
Clint, Steve and Natasha ride the elevator up Stark Tower. Tony had called them around noon, saying something about a training session and being overdue for some team bonding. Surprisingly, they're all free now. No missions or anything, obviously.
Since Halloween, Clint's been on the Helicarrier, on call for S.H.I.E.L.D. It's been slightly annoying. Not getting to spend as much time with his family as he'd like (there's not enough time in the world for that) is one of the worst drawbacks of being an agent and Avenger.
Anyways, he's in Stark Tower for some Avengers team building. Clint's looking forward to training, since the archery range in the tower is awesome, even better than what S.H.I.E.L.D has to offer. Although he likes the team bonding over scotch (okay that's really mostly him and Tony) even more.
They wind up going to Tony's penthouse first. Sure, Clint's been up here before for parties and such, but it's not exactly a normal occurrence, since they usually use the Avengers common area. Tony, Bruce and Loki are all there.
Just like the last time he and Natasha had been over here, music blares through the speakers and Loki laughs, delighted. "Oh yeah, hey yeah. I'm your basic average girl. And I'm here to save the world. You can't stop me 'cause I'm Kim Poss-i-ble..."
Clint doesn't really know much about that show, but he recognizes the theme song from one time Cooper and Lila had been watching reruns of it online. That's about all he knows, other than Lila telling Natasha she looks a lot like Kim and telling him he's a bit like Ron- only way cooler, obviously. Okay, he added that last part.
Somebody's humming along to the song, and of course it's Loki. The living room floor is covered with toys, not unlike Clint and Laura's own living room. From the looks of it, they mostly appear to be Disney toys, the only exceptions being the Avengers action figures. The Simba that Loki carried around everywhere the past two times Clint visited is among them, dressed in an Iron Man suit.
"Stark, I told you what I'd do if you play that song, right?" Natasha asks, annoyed. Tony holds up his hands.
Before he can say anything, Loki looks at Steve (with his usual glazed eyes) and says "I drew you."
"You drew me?" Steve asks, though he doesn't seem too perturbed by Loki's odd conversation starter.
"Yeah." Loki hunts around a stack of papers, frowning. Clint catches glimpses of several drawings of Disney characters in the stack. "It's not here." Loki mutters.
Loki darts off down a hallway and returns about a minute later with several sheets of paper. He grins and holds up a drawing of Captain America that could easily be mistaken as a child's rendering.
"It's great." Steve grins, and Loki beams. "I take it you like drawing? I'm rather fond of it, too." Loki nods. This strikes Clint as odd, because Loki had seemed a lot more nervous around the super-soldier the last time they'd both been here. Had Steve been here since then?
"Do you have a naked mole rat?" Clint realizes that question is meant for him, since Loki's glassy gaze is now directed at him.
"Uh, what?"
"A naked mole rat. They're called Heter-o...cephalus... gla-ber." Loki says the words stiltedly as he stares at the ceiling as if reading the words off of it, before his gaze swings down towards Clint again. "They live underground in... Africa? I think? I forget." Clint finds it a little odd that Loki can rattle off a scientific name like that- albeit with some difficulty, but hey, that's better than he could do- but then be unsure of if they live in Africa or not.
Then again, Loki's a little odd, Clint thinks, taking in Loki's appearance. Loki's wearing that bizarre long coat that looks like a night sky, and he now has a necklace that looks like a snake, with three charms hanging out of the mouth.
Okay, maybe Loki's more than a little odd. But it's not a bad odd, as far as Clint's concerned. Loki actually reminds him of his kids, in some ways, only with a grown man's body. But at the same time, even if he was in a kid's body, Clint doesn't think Loki could pass as a normal kid.
Loki continues talking. "Well, 'xcept for Rufus, 'cause he lives in Ron's pocket. So do you have one? 'Cause I'm not going to lie, that would be stupendous!" Loki laughs, and Clint's pretty sure he's heard that line somewhere, but he can't put a finger on it. "You look like Ron, so maybe you have a pet like him, too?" Loki asks in a rather hopeful voice.
"Nope sorry. No naked mole rats. Or whatever the hell the other thing you called them was." There's no way Clint can pronounce that scientific name. Clint guesses this is some sort of reference to the TV show. He refrains from saying anything more about pets, just in case he slips and mentions Lucky the dog on accident. Although that's not very likely. He's kept his family a secret from basically everyone he works with except Fury and Nat. Aside from Nat, none of the other Avengers even know.
"Oh." Loki looks highly disappointed in him as he picks up the Hawkeye action figure. His gaze shifts to something unseen and he asks "You don't smell one, huh?"
Is Loki still talking to him? Clint doubts it, though he's not sure who the god would be talking to otherwise. Loki continues talking to thin air. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Just grass and wood and metal and leather, huh? No Rufus." What on Earth is Loki talking about?
"Well, maybe this Clint can have one." Loki says as he holds the Hawkeye action figure. Clint wonders if Loki thinks that's supposed to make him jealous.
"Wow, he looks a lot better." Clint gestures to the action figure of himself, which actually looks slightly eerie with how realistic it is. It's definitely different than the action figure Loki had shown him at great length last time Clint had been here. It even appears to have removable clothes now, though Clint honestly doesn't want to know how realistic the toy is under the outfit, nor does he want to think about Loki undressing a miniature plastic version of himself.
The action figures of Natasha and Steve look much better too. Natasha points this out.
"Tony says I made 'em better." Loki says softly, with a tiny hint of something almost like pride in his voice. "I drew you too. Look!" He hands a sheet to Clint. Clint glances at it, simply seeing a drawing of him and Natasha in crayon and magic marker. Natasha looks at it over Clint's shoulder.
For some inexplicable reason, Loki is snickering. Clint shoots him a questioning look.
"You fell for it!" Loki says between snickers. "It's not you! It's Kim and Ron!"
Well, okay then.
"My Tony says you've never fought Dr. Drakken or Shego either, but that you'd win if you did." Loki nods earnestly, and Clint snorts at the fact Loki just referred to Tony as his.
Loki seems slightly calmer than he had last time. It's not a huge change, or even particularly noticeable, but it's there. Loki mentioning that he did something to the action figures- probably with those powers Tony had told them about- is also a new development, and it seems like an improvement.
"I have me, too." Loki says proudly, holding up a toy version of himself that fits right in with the Avengers figures. It's wearing what appear to be Iron Man pajamas and the same starry long coat that Loki's wearing now.
"Did you make that?" Natasha asks him. Loki grins at her and nods slightly, but then casts a slightly worried look at them, as if fearing their reactions.
"It's very nice." Natasha says sincerely.
Loki turns to his paper and starts to draw something. Steve sits next to him, grabbing a sheet of paper and starting to sketch. Loki stops drawing and stares as Steve draws circles and ovals lightly with a pencil, so they'll be easily erased later.
Clint notices that Tony keeps giving Natasha calculating looks.
Last time, Natasha had started out slightly suspicious of Loki (given their jobs as agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Clint can't exactly blame her). Clint could tell she was never actually going to whisk Loki off to the Helicarrier, despite what Tony seemed to think. However, Clint hadn't been sure about whether or not she was going to tell Fury about Loki or not. She hasn't, though, and Clint doesn't detect any hints of suspicion from Natasha right now. She apparently realizes Loki's not a threat.
Tony's clearly thinking along similar lines, because he pulls them aside and asks "You haven't told Fury, have you?" The unspoken about Loki after Fury is clear.
"No, Fury doesn't know." Clint answers. Although he tries to hide it, and does a rather good job, Clint's pretty sure Tony's relieved.
To be honest, Clint doesn't think Fury needs to know about Loki. He's clearly not a threat- he actually seems a lot more likely to be harmed than harm others. Although, that one time Natasha had threatened to eviscerate Tony, he'd seemed surprisingly formidable.
Okay, Clint knows that Fury would love to know about Loki's powers, but he hasn't told the Director yet. Neither have Natasha or Steve, and Tony certainly hasn't. To be honest, Clint doesn't know how far S.H.I.E.L.D would go when experimenting on Loki's powers.
"So, I take it Thor's not here." Clint says, looking around the room and noticing a missing teammate. It doesn't escape his notice that Loki visibly tenses at Thor's name.
"No, he's not. He was on Halloween, though. I thought you promised to show up, but I couldn't get in contact with you. How come you weren't here?"
"I had other plans." Clint says dismissively. In other words, he was taking his kids out trick-or-treating, although not at Stark Tower. "So... what happened with Thor?"
"Hulk-y hit him!" Loki exclaims, grinning at Bruce, and looking up from Steve's drawing, which turns out to be a sketch of Simba. "And Tony did too!"
"Tony and Hulk tried to give him a hands-on lesson about how Asgard's treatment of Loki was wrong." Steve elaborates in a disapproving tone, although he continues to draw.
"Really?" Natasha asks without any emotion in her voice. "Don't you think hitting him is giving the wrong message, if you hit him for hitting others?"
"That's what I said." Steve says, erasing a stray mark.
"They said I shouldn'ta gotten hit back there, 'cause I don'ts deserve it, nope nope nope." Loki informs them, and Tony grins at him.
"You bet." Tony tells him. Loki grins back and looks back down at Steve's drawing.
Tony and Steve give a brief summary of what happened when Thor showed up. Loki summed it up pretty well, actually.
"We need to have a serious talk with Thor the next time we see him, and make sure that he knows why it was wrong." Bruce says, and nobody offers any objections.
"If he still thinks it was perfectly fine," Tony mutters darkly. "I'm not going to be playing nice this time, either." Clint's with him on that. The way Loki was apparently treated was despicable. Frankly, Clint's rather annoyed that he missed the first time, but he's glad he was with his kids instead.
Steve presents Loki with a finished drawing of Simba. Loki gawks at it, and Clint has to admit, it looks pretty good. Almost like it came from the movie.
"Can you draw Elsa?" Loki asks excitedly.
Steve says that he doesn't know who Elsa is. "She's a good one. Not like Dr. Drakken."
"Okay... what does she look like?" Steve asks. Loki hunts through the toys on the floor and pulls out a doll that Clint recognizes as Elsa, from the Frozen trailers that Lila's been so excited about. The movie's not even out yet! Why does Loki have a doll from it? He sees there's another princess-looking doll in the midst of toys, with two red braids, and he realizes that's another character from the movie, and there's a small plush snowman too.
"What's with the princesses?" Clint stares slightly, because that seems a lot more suited to small girls like Lila rather than grown men like Loki.
"...Queen." Loki corrects. "Elsa's a queen! They never thought someone like us should be ruler, but she's a good one!"
"A good what?" Clint asks, wondering if Loki's seen the movie somehow.
"Frost Giant." Natasha mutters to Clint. Clint gives her a questioning look. Loki's staring at them, having apparently heard that.
"You figured that out?" Tony asks, surprised.
"Tony says they're not bad! Elsa's good, and Tony and Bruce say so too!" Loki exclaims before anyone else can respond, hiding behind Tony slightly.
Loki slowly heads over to look at what Steve's drawing.
About ten minutes later, Tony suits up in an Iron Man suit and they go down to the training area, a huge room full of every sort of exercise equipment imaginable, as well as an archery range, a boxing ring, and more. The team spreads out, doing their own things while Loki sits down near the shooting range, where both Clint and Tony are, with a huge book, a drawstring bag, and Simba.
"Hey, Loki. Wanna see me hit that target over there?" Clint asks, nocking an arrow in his bow and drawing back. He nods towards the moving target way on the other side of the huge room.
Loki looks from him to the target, his expression clearly wondering if Clint's being serious or not.
Smirking, Clint releases the arrow and of course hits the target smack in the center. Loki looks astounded, and Clint grins. It's always nice to have a fan.
Of course, Tony has to try and best him by shooting repulsor blasts, which Loki seems to think are stars. However, they keep having to stop and shepherd Loki away from the firing range. Eventually, Loki seems distracted by the exercise bikes, trying to figure out what they are at first and then fiddling around on them.
Clint climbs up to the rafters- which could also pass as catwalks- in the training room for his next shot. The rafters here are identical to the ones at S.H.I.E.L.D, so much so that Clint wouldn't be sure if he was in the tower's rafters or the Helicarrier's without looking down at what's below him. All the Avengers have seen his quirk of going in the rafters or the air ducts. Tony makes fun of him for it, yet at the same time Clint knows it's not a coincidence that the rafters here are so similar to S.H.I.E.L.D's. Tony's never done anything close to admitting this, of course, but Clint has a feeling Tony did it for his sake.
As he readies his arrow and aims, a voice less than a foot behind him says "I've never been up here before."
Whirling around, Clint's halfway through targeting his shadow before he realizes who it is.
Fortunately, he realizes it's Loki before he releases the arrow. Otherwise, Loki would have had an arrow embedded in his forehead.
How the hell had Loki gotten up here so fast, Clint wonders, and why hadn't he heard Loki come up? He's an agent, he should be ashamed of being snuck up on like that. Frankly, it's pretty embarrassing. Then again, his kids have sometimes managed to catch him by surprise.
Loki is understandably shocked about suddenly staring at the razor-sharp tip of an arrow only inches from his face. He lets out an earsplitting scream and flinches backwards.
Clint's gaze shifts to the freaking huge snake draped over Loki's shoulders as Loki scurries over to the edge of the rafter and leaps over the gap to another one in a way that reminds Clint of a bat, with the way that bizarre coat flutters around him.
Suddenly both Loki and the snake are just... gone. Clint blinks, looking around and seeing no sign of either of them.
Glancing down at his bow, Clint realizes that his arrow is covered in ice.
"Hey, Legolas, what's going on?" Tony asks, flying up in his suit.
"Loki vanished." Clint replies. "Into thin air."
"Oh. Well, he does that sometimes. Just-" Tony starts, and Clint's not sure if Tony's joking or if Tony thinks he's joking about the vanishing.
Jarvis interrupts with "Sir, I regret to inform you that Mr. Loki is nowhere in the tower."
Loki slams into something and it hurts. He frowns in confusion, because he's been rammed into stuff before, and it normally doesn't hurt like this. His whole body feels drained, as if he's a berry someone squeezed hard enough for all the juice to leak out and leave a sort of squishy skin. It makes him feel exhausted, as if he just ran for days straight.
He blearily opens his eyes and realizes he's still in the rafters, which jogs his memory to what happened before this sudden exhaustion and emptiness in his body appeared.
He remembers that Clint had been aiming a razor-sharp arrow right at his head, just seconds ago.
That had obviously more terrifying than a fist coming at his face, which usually meant several more cruel blows to follow. Fortunately, he hasn't really had much experience with arrows pointed at his head. Loki doesn't even know why Clint had almost shot him. All he'd done was follow Clint up. Even if he hadn't had an arrow, Clint would have looked very dangerous with the look he'd had on his face. The arrow just made it a hundred times worse.
Loki suddenly realizes that Clint must be in the rafters still, too. Is Clint still trying to shoot him? Loki likes Clint, which makes the idea of Clint trying to hurt him even more awful.
Loki sits up, and it makes his head swim slightly. He waits for it to pass, loosely hugging Simba and Olaf. He has to make sure that Clint won't shoot him.
He pulls himself to his feet using the railing. Looking around, he sees no sign of Clint. Maybe he doesn't need to worry about an arrow going through his brain anymore.
Then, he looks down and realizes that this is not the room he'd been in before, although it looks exactly the same from the rafters. It has some machines that are quite similar to the things in that room in Tony's tower. The people below him are definitely not the Avengers, though, and the room has a different layout. Where is he?
Some of the people are looking up at him and Loki backs away, not liking all those eyes on him and liking it even less when they start asking him who he is.
A hand grabs his shoulder, and a voice says "Identify yourself." The grip is rough, like in Asgard.
Loki panics and jerks away, but he still feels so drained, and he stumbles slightly, falling to the cold metal grate.
Someone grabs him again and then there are more hands grabbing him. Something sharp pokes against him which makes Loki freak out even more. He's lost in memories of other times this happened, and for a bit he actually thinks he's back in Asgard again, and the hands are the guards grabbing him to punish him for something...
Something is pressed to Loki's face and Loki drifts off into a sort of foggy state of half-consciousness.
Fury looks at the video feed showing the stowaway. The stowaway is currently slumped in a circular glass cell elsewhere on the Helicarrier, a cell which had originally been built for the Hulk. They hadn't been sure where to keep the man or how much security he'd need. Considering he'd made it on the Helicarrier, they'd decided on something high-security.
Fury has to say, he's rather intrigued. The man appeared out of nowhere- teleported, like Doctor Doom does. He's certainly going to be asking the man about that, as well as why he's on the Helicarrier.
They'd managed to sedate the man with gas. They'd originally tried to use a syringe, but hadn't been able to pierce his skin to do so and it actually broke the needle. Apparently, the man is disproportionately heavy for his lean body and needed to be supported by five agents once sedated.
They'd sedated the man for multiple reasons. For one thing, it stopped his panic attack, but it was also a quick measure to try to make sure he didn't escape by teleporting. He hadn't put up a fight, but they'd needed to make sure he wouldn't try to give them the slip when they weren't looking.
They have no clue who this man is, since he doesn't match anyone on S.H.I.E.L.D's files, but he can't have good intentions for sneaking onto the Helicarrier. Fury's not going to take any chances, and it will help to make sure he's nice and docile.
It's not just the man himself that's interesting. The man has probably the strangest stash of items and clothing. Fury can't see why a villain would have the items the man had, but he can't see why anyone would have those items. There's a stuffed lion with the Iron Man suit, a small plush snowman, a large fake snake that has a trace of energy around it, with small charms that include some sort of mutant horse, and a coat that would blend in perfectly with a night sky. The lion is now in S.H.I.E.L.D's labs, because of the Iron Man suit, with what looks like a real, albeit very watered-down, arc reactor.
Tony Stark had absolutely refused to share his suits with anyone, so how exactly this man has one- with an arc reactor, no less- even if it is for a toy is a mystery.
On the screen, Fury watches as the man stirs slightly. Clearly, the sedation is wearing off.
He already knows that the coming talk is going to be very interesting.
The reason for Loki teleporting to the Helicarrier (which Loki hasn't worked out yet) is when he was fleeing from Clint and jumping across the gap, he wanted to get to the other rafter and far away from Clint, so his magic decided to put him on an identical rafter very far away from the archer...
Hopefully that's not too much of a stretch. The reason for Loki's sudden exhaustion is that he's never teleported that far before, and his magic is depleted because of it.
I hope Clint and Fury's points of view were okay- especially Fury. I'm not sure how weird the last part is. Actually, I'm not entirely sure what I think of this chapter.
Hopefully I can update sooner. I won't have an online class anymore.