Finally Belonging

by Yodeling Prospector

What happens when a brain-damaged Loki who's been abused and unwanted his whole life lands on Tony Stark's tower?

32. Chapter 32

As always, a huge thanks to all you awesome readers, reviewers, followers and favorite-ers. You all are the best!

I'm really, really bummed that I took so long to update. 15 days, ugh. I had to move into college, and then college actually started and it's already more hectic than last year (at least so it seems) Plus this chapter was really hard to write for some reason, even though I knew what was going to happen. But you get a chapter that's over 40 pages... Wow, that sounds really insane when I write it.

My campus actually had a showing of Lilo & Stitch, and I of course went. It's my favorite movie. Also, I have a couple Disney pins on my backpack (2 are Stitch), and Stitch is on the back of my mac, as a sticker that makes it look like he's holding the Mac apple.

Okay, I'll shut up now. I hope you enjoy the chapter. It was really fun to write, even if it was hard.

Loki, Tony and Bruce are all back in Tony's lab. To be honest, Loki likes Tony's lab in the tower more, because Dum-E's there. This house has M-O, the cleaning robot from Wall-E, which is pretty awesome, but he still misses Dum-E.

Loki hadn't even noticed he'd returned to his real body, instead of his shorter child body like Mowgli's, until after they'd finished watching the movie. Well, this isn't his natural body because his real skin is blue, not pale like it is almost all the time because he rarely shows his Jotun form. He'd shown his real body once, accidentally, and had turned into it once for Hulk but had quickly turned green instead.

Tony and Bruce are working on something together, but they're just looking at a holographic screen. They're not blowing up stuff like they sometimes do. Okay, that's mostly Tony, although it has happened when the two of them work together. Loki hasn't seen Bruce blow up anything in his own lab, though.

Despite the talk he'd had with Tony last night, Loki is still reluctant to even try to fall asleep, even with Tony's guarantees that the watch he's wearing and Simba's Man of Iron suit (which Simba's wearing again) will somehow tell Tony exactly where he is. Loki's not entirely sure how that works, but maybe it's like Heimdall, who sees anything, or maybe it's some sort of magic. Although Tony acts like he can't do magic, so maybe it's something else.

Still, he's quite tired. After all, he hadn't slept at all last night, but he thinks the tiredness is more from transforming into a child, into Mowgli. That had probably drained a lot of magic, like when he'd tried to teleport out of the petri dish cell. He doesn't even want to think about what he knows, from experience, would have happened if he'd transformed like he had earlier tonight in Asgard. Sometimes, he'd actually gotten away with a disguise or turning invisible, but more often than not, he'd somehow been found out. Odin would be furious, and that would have undoubtedly led to pain in Asgard, maybe a whipping instead of just a normal beating.

Despite not wanting to fall asleep, the exhaustion of the day makes Loki succumb to sleep. He dreams of going down to Tony's lab, only this time the glass door, hidden in the glass wall, doesn't open. Loki bangs on the glass, franticly screaming, but Tony doesn't let him in. He just turns around and looks at him, as Loki bangs frantically on the glass. Then, Tony turns and starts to walk away.

As he begs Tony to let him in, Loki suddenly realizes there's someone behind him. It's not quite Odin and it's not the Eyepatch Man, Fury- instead, it's a cross between them. The man's beard is long, like the Allfather's, but instead of being grey, the beard is black like Fury the Eyepatch Man. He's wearing a long leather coat, like Fury, but also has armor kind of like Odin's, and both his eyes are covered with eyepatches. The man raises a fist to hit Loki and-

Tony's hugging him, telling him it's okay, it was just a dream. It takes a bit for Loki to work out that he's awake now. However, he realizes that he's on the floor, near the stairwell, on the other side of the glass, just like in his dream.

He still can't get the image of Tony walking away in the dream. He shakily tells Tony that he wouldn't open the door, wouldn't let him in.

Tony says "Hey, I won't lock you out of my lab. Okay, maybe if I'm doing something dangerous like blowing stuff up, but that's so you don't just get hurt." It's still odd, having people care if he got hurt.

Tony then abruptly gets up and goes back in the lab. Loki stares at him in disbelief. This is just like his dream!

"Please don't shut me out again, please don't slam the door..." Loki sings softly, looking at Tony in disbelief. Only now, when he raps on the glass, Tony turns, grins, and the door opens.

"See?" Tony asks, still grinning.

Loki smiles slightly and flicks his fingers. "Love is an open door!" It's family love, but that's still love. After all, Elsa's family love saved Anna, not Hans' fake love (Hans is a real jerk), or even Kristoff's romantic love. Thinking back to some Peanuts things Jarvis had showed him, Loki adds "Love is hating to say good-bye... An', and love is... bringing someone a glass of water in the middle of the night." Or hot chocolate, he adds in his head as he nods and claps his hands, although he winds up saying it out loud accidentally. Oh well, at least he hadn't said something stupid. That particular message about the water, written on a pink background from what Jarvis claimed was some retired Peanuts book called Love Is Walking Hand in Hand, had been next to a picture of Charlie Brown giving Snoopy a glass of water as he laid on his doghouse.

"Sure." Tony says after a bit. "It's a platonic, friendly sort of love."

"Family." Loki corrects, not knowing what platonic means. He asks, and Jarvis explains it means it's not romantic. Loki nods and steps outside the lab again. Tony looks at him in confusion, and Loki asks for the door to be shut again. The door shuts by itself (or maybe it's Jarvis doing it?) and they repeat the process of Loki knocking and being let in the lab several times.

It was just a stupid dream, and Tony really doesn't ignore him like that. What's real is Tony letting him in. Tony wouldn't just leave him like that. How could he even think that, when they're family? Then again, Elsa had locked Anna out

Once he's no longer thinking about Tony ignoring him, it suddenly dawns on Loki that he woke up outside the lab, and hadn't he been inside when he'd fallen asleep. Loki doesn't remember actually falling asleep, but he doesn't remember leaving the lab, either.

"Tony, did I te-le-port asleeps?" He asks, stumbling slightly over the words like he often does when trying to speak in English.

"Sorry, but yeah you did. At least it was only over there." Tony says, pointing to the spot outside the lab. Loki frowns. This is just like when he'd teleported to the theater when he dreamed about facing Hans there. It's all too obvious that he ends up teleporting to where he's dreaming about, since it happened then and again right now.

Still, he's really, really, really, really glad he hasn't teleported back to Asgard when he has nightmares about there. Silently (he thinks, although maybe his mouth blurts it out like it often does), Loki thanks the Norns for never letting that happen.

He hates teleporting now. Although, at least he hadn't wound up in that place with Fury and Son of Coul again, where they stuck things in his face, made him feel weird with gas, locked him up, and held him down. But he'd teleported to that other room with the rafters in the first place, which led to the petri dish cage. What if he has a nightmare about that and winds up there again?

Tony and Bruce say, around the same time, that just like any other power (like the powers Stitch and his experiment cousins have), teleporting is neither good nor bad. It can be bad when Loki accidentally teleports to somewhere he doesn't want to (which so far, is basically the only thing that's ever happened when he's ever teleported here. Then again, in Asgard, he had occasionally managed to teleport away from someone pursuing him, but the punishments that followed those incidents, sometimes doled out by Odin the Allfather himself, made escaping like that a lot worse than just sticking around for the original punishment they had planned.

Tony crouches down and says that his phone told him exactly where Loki was. Smirking slightly, Tony challenges him to hide somewhere on the grounds, adding that he'd be able to find him. Loki grins and rushes upstairs towards the front door. This is like a hiding game, and he wonders if he'll be able to trick Tony and hide somewhere Tony won't find him. He pauses for a second. Wait, doesn't he want Tony to find him, because then Tony'll be able to find him if he teleports again? Yeah, that's the whole point of this, but it still would be quite fun to beat Tony and stump him with a hiding place.

It's dark outside when he rushes out, but the fountain is lit up, like it had been the night they watched Shrek. At first, he climbs up his tree, and Jarvis' voice comes out of Simba's suit, informing him that he's in the tree. Loki knows that obviously, and it makes sense that Jarvis would know, since he's in the suit, which is in the tree, too.

Jarvis says that's the point, that if he knows where the suit is, he can tell Tony where it is. Jarvis also adds, sounding amused, that this tree is where Tony expected Loki to hide, and that perhaps he should hide somewhere else.

Loki hides a couple more places, and Tony and Jarvis apparently know where he is every time. It's really awesome, Loki thinks, that Tony can find him like that. As Tony said earlier, he'll be able to find Loki quickly if he ever goes missing again. Loki likes that a lot. Tony walks out after the last one to prove he knows where Loki is.

Smirking, Loki dashes off, singsonging "Now you can't ask Jar-vis!" The next part isn't in a singsong. "Can't ask, nope nope nope! Gots to find me with no help!" Snickering, he clambers down to the beach.

Tony finds him rather quickly (Loki wonders if he'd been cheating) and they walk back to the lab together.

Loki supposes that teleporting somewhere unpleasant wouldn't be too bad if Tony can find him quickly as he just demonstrated he can, but Tony points out that travel time isn't always quick, whereas teleporting is instantaneous. Tony laments that he himself isn't able to teleport, and it dawns on Loki that he truly wishes he could. Loki thinks it would be kind of nice if Tony could teleport, too, because then he'd be able to instantaneously show up and help him get out of things like petri dish cages.

Well, Tony can't teleport, but he can. If Loki was able to just teleport right back here after accidentally winding up somewhere unwanted, that would be nice, but he don't know if he can. The worst part about last time was that he couldn't get away. Still, here, at least he won't be punished for this sort of thing, because Tony's not even doing anything remotely like punishing him right now.

Okay, so Loki doesn't necessarily hate the teleporting itself, as he'd thought not long ago at all, but he does hate ending up in weird places and he definitely hated being punished for it in Asgard, he thinks as they walk down the stairs towards the lab.

Jormungand, who often tried to help Loki be sneaky or go unnoticed in Asgard, suggests that he try to teleport back into the lab. Loki frowns slightly at the suggesting his snake friend/monster-family-member made in his head. But then he remembers what he'd just thought a couple seconds ago- if he could actually teleport back to Tony, like he'd tried to do in the petri dish cell, then maybe he wouldn't have to wind up being stuck somewhere scary like said petri dish cell in the first place. He'd hated that.

Loki bites his lip nervously, still clinging onto Simba. He's awfully glad that Simba always seems to teleport with him, especially now that his armor apparently tells Tony exactly where he is. His bag is still in the lab, though, since it hadn't been on Loki's back when he fell asleep, although Loki's not entirely sure when he'd fallen asleep in the first place.

Glancing between where he stands now and the lab on the other side of the glass, Loki imagines disappearing from his spot and reappearing there. Nothing happens, and he tries jumping a bit. Still nothing. He concentrates on him being over there, while jumping, but he doesn't move. Instead, a Loki-illusion pops up in the lab, also jumping up and down, and then another one pops up next to it, like when he'd made two Loki's in the petri dish cage.

Tony glances at him and says "Please don't freak out. There's nothing wrong with doing that. I actually think they're kinda cool. You could prank people with them and tell them you have an evil twin or something." Loki stares at him for a bit, and eventually nods. Apparently, this had happened when he'd tried to teleport out of the petri dish cell. He hadn't succeeded in that, but he had apparently made himself invisible and sent over an illusion of himself and Hel.

"Can't gets back in there." Loki mumbles, scowling at the illusion of himself. He's supposed to be there, not that one.

Tony gives Loki a slightly confused look and asks "Are you trying to teleport?" Loki doesn't think Tony would be angry about that, and he cautiously nods. Tony grins at him and says "Nothing wrong with that."

Loki tries again, but nothing happens. Groaning in annoyance, he enters the lab and swipes the Other-Loki's out of existence.

---

The following day, a fair number of packages arrive. Tony's actually at the house when they do, and is obviously glad to not be stuck in a meeting, although he apparently has one in a short while. Tony hands Loki an already-opened cardboard box, as if he'd been making sure it was the right one.

The first thing Loki pulls out is a couple pairs of swim trunks, in red, yellow and green, which he seems confused about until Bruce explains what they are. The second thing is something Loki obviously loves at first sight.

It's a plush backpack in the form of Stitch, making it look like the blue alien is hitching a piggyback ride on the wearer's back. Tony had told Bruce that he had at first thought of buying Loki a talking Stitch plush to go with Simba, who also talks, but this seems even better, considering Loki totes around that drawstring bag a lot.

Loki immediately puts Stitch on his back, claiming Stitch is hugging him as he pulls the straps to make it look like the arms and legs are wrapping tighter around him. He obviously thinks that Stitch is just a stuffed animal with straps for easy carrying, and Bruce points out the zipper. Loki quickly figures out the zipper on Stitch's back, although he seems kind of confused as to why he needs to open up Stitch's back to put his smaller toys in there.

"Why don't they go's in his mouth?" Loki asks, confused, as he looks the backpack over, poking his finger in the hole in Stitch's back. "He opens like Simba, but there's nothing in him." Bruce assumes Loki's referring to the battery box that's accessed through the velcro on Simba's stomach.

"That's the point. Stitch is a backpack. You put stuff in him, just like you put stuff in your bag." Tony says, gesturing to the drawstring bag Loki had taken off in favor of Stitch. Bruce suddenly realizes that this is the first time he's ever seen Loki wear anything blue- before, he probably would have refused to put on anything in that color, even if it was a backpack.

Loki puts as many figurines as he can in and happily straps Stitch on his back. Bruce has a feeling Stitch might join Simba (and Toy Stark, when Tony's not here, at least) in being a constant companion.

The next thing Loki pulls out of the box is something Bruce hadn't known about- a horse mask. Loki, however, looks disgusted and horrified, and it turns out he thinks that it's an actual, dead, horse head. Tony quickly explains, while receiving a glare from Loki at the idea of dead horses that it was never actually alive, that it's just a costume, like people wear on Halloween.

Hearing the truth settles Loki down, and he puts it on. "Look, Sleipnir! I'm you!" He laughs as Sleipnir appears. The eight-legged horse looks amused. "No, I'm Spirit!" Loki trots around on his long legs.

Tony casts a confused glance at the very long, flat packages, and Bruce smiles. He'd actually ordered those. After all, Tony can't be the only one spoiling Loki. Besides, it's not like Bruce's been paying rent or spending his own money on groceries since moving into the tower- he'd insisted on doing both at first, but Tony had looked at him like he was insane and stubbornly paid for everything himself anyways. As if he hadn't already been paying enough for the lab he gave Bruce or the new area they're making for the Other Guy, not to mention paying to fix all the damage the Other Guy did to the tower... Still, Tony insisted it's nothing, waving aside his concerns and threatening Bruce with buying him a small country if he didn't shut up about money. Bruce had been pretty sure he was joking about that, but the idea of owning a small country felt so strange and wrong that he'd let it drop. He still feels bad about it, though.

Bruce reveals what's in the long, flat packages- surfboards. He'd been somewhat surprised to learn from Jarvis that Tony- who seems to own so much random junk- doesn't own a single surfboard. Loki had seemed fascinated about the whole idea when watching Lilo, Stitch, Nani and David do it.

Loki grins and says to Tony "Now we can ride water!" For the briefest second, some expression saying something akin to 'hell no, I am never doing that' flashes across Tony's face before he smooths it out. Loki doesn't seem to notice, already back to inspecting the boards, showing them to Simba and Stitch.

"Hey Bambi, how about we show Bruce what we picked out for him?" Tony says in a tone that's a bit too neutral.

Bruce blinks in surprise, not knowing that he was going to be getting anything. Or that Tony and Loki apparently ordered stuff together.

Loki, still wearing the horse mask, hands Bruce the remaining box. Upon opening it, the first thing Bruce notices is that it's full of stuffed toys. He pauses, confused, since this seems like something they'd get Loki. Then, he realizes what the stuffed toys actually are- Beast, from Beauty and the Beast, Shrek, and Hulk.

Loki hands the Hulk plush to him and says "Hug him!" Bruce falters at first and Loki gives him a reproachful glare. Feeling somewhat stupid, Bruce hugs the Hulk plush, and in his mind, the Other Guy seems actually happy.

Loki seems to expect Bruce to lug the plush toys around with him everywhere, as he does, but obviously Bruce isn't going to. They settle for Bruce keeping the toys on his bed, and as Bruce is frog marched to his own bedroom by Tony and Loki, he's regaled with a long lecture from Loki about how Shrek, Beast and Hulk aren't monsters. Once the three toys are settled neatly against Bruce's pillow, looking rather small on the huge bed in Bruce's room, Loki turns to Bruce. "You're gonna have to sleeps with Hulk-y, 'kay?"

The rest of the day, Loki wipes out incredibly numerous times when trying to surf. He'd been rather disappointed to learn that Stitch also couldn't go with him in the water. Despite being rather horrible at it, Loki seems to be having a ton of fun, and Bruce has Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride thoroughly stuck in his head after Loki sings it countless times. For a bit, Bruce had actually joined Loki on the water, even though surfing really isn't his thing. He hadn't even bothered trying to ride a wave, whereas Loki had immediately started trying to ride huge waves despite having no surfing experience. Bruce has to admire Loki's courage as he stares a huge, incoming wave straight on, with a huge grin on his face.

That night, as Bruce is about to go to sleep, Jarvis actually reminds him of what Loki had said, saying somewhat apologetically and somewhat bemusedly that he'd promised to tell Loki whether or not Bruce actually did as instructed. Bruce sighs, and, feeling rather stupid, tucks the Hulk plush in next to him. The Other Guy gives a pleased sort of growl in Bruce's mind. Bruce wakes up to find that, in his sleep, he'd started hugging the stuffed Hulk.

The next few days pass in a rather similar manner. Bruce and Loki stay in the mansion during the day while Tony goes to do stuff at Stark Industries for varying amounts of time. Sometimes he's gone for most of the day, sometimes he's gone for a couple intervals but comes back for a couple hours. He obviously likes those days more, and Loki obviously likes them a lot more, too.

Loki spends almost all his time either surfing, in his tree, or on the beach. He seems to really like building things in the sand, and is actually really good at it. Then again, Bruce has seen green around Loki's hands and seen the sand shape into some very detailed structures, such as a four foot high version of Rapunzel's tower. Loki actually seems really excited about that and puts all his Tangled figurines around it before re-enacting some movie scenes with them.

Loki's built a lot of things out of sand, including little dwellings for most of his toys. He's connected them all with lines he's drawn in the sand with his finger. When Bruce asks if he's building a town, Loki replies "A city! A circuit city like on Tony's boards and in the book. Those are c-pac-i-trs." He points to a couple buildings, which Bruce notices have little tunnels going through them. "They store energy. And those are re'sis'trs. They stop it more." Those buildings, Bruce notices, have not entrances or exits and are built right on top of the lines.

When he looks down at the beach from the house, Bruce realizes it actually does look sort of like a circuit board. Bruce tells him this and Loki nods. "Sometimes, though, sometimes they're stars, and the lines are const'llations. Look, there's the monkey's tail, and the lion." Bruce doesn't see them at all, honestly, but he nods.

Sometimes, when Loki's getting sand wet so it will stick together, he seems to accidentally freeze the water moistening the sand. Another time, he's building a castle and actually coats it with ice. Loki actually doesn't panic about that, and Bruce realizes it looks like Elsa's ice castle.

"Stitch, Elsa please." Loki says, reaching a hand back towards Stitch's mouth. Bruce watches in fascination, even though he knows what's going to happen. It still completely astounds him when Stitch opens his mouth and spits out the requested toy, before closing his mouth again. Honestly, the Elsa doll should have only barely fit in the backpack. It's only now that Bruce notices that Elsa's skin is blue, with ridges over it, and her eyes are red.

"When did you do that?" Bruce asks. Loki quickly looks at him, almost worried, and hides the doll behind his back. "No, no, she looks really nice." Bruce insists, and Loki slowly brings Elsa out from behind his back.

"Little bit ago." Loki replies. "I tolds her you wouldn't hate her for being blue, 'cause you don't hates me." He nods slightly, and proceeds to set Elsa up near the ice castle, singing "the cold never bothered me anyway."

Tony returns a couple hours later.

"Didja miss me?" Loki asks Tony with wide eyes and a wider smile once.

"I just saw you four hours ago." Tony replies. Loki continues to stare at him. "Well, I'd certainly rather be with you guys than in a meeting so boring it makes my ears bleed."

Loki looks horror-struck and Tony had needs to reassure him (over Loki trying to heal him), that his ears hadn't actually been bleeding. Loki looks extremely relieved, but peers around Tony's head at both of his ears, as if to make sure anyways.

"Tony, Tony, 'cmon we're gonna surf!" Loki grabs Tony's hand and starts dragging Tony towards the beach, not seeming to notice or care that Tony's still in a business suit.

Tony manages to pull his hand out of Loki's grip, but not without a lot of effort, it seems. "You go, I'll watch."

"No! You come too!" Loki pouts.

Tony says that he doesn't want to surf, and Loki asks why he doesn't.

"I... don't like water." Tony answers eventually.

"Stitch didn't like water firsts, but he liked surfing, once he tried it." Loki counters, trying to drag Tony towards the beach again. Tony, it seems, has had enough.

"I told you I'm not going surfing!" He snaps at Loki, and Loki pauses, looking at him with wide eyes. Tony quickly retreats into the lab, and Bruce tells Loki that surfing's not for everyone.

Loki doesn't seem up for surfing right after that, and instead looks rather guilty as he sits in his tree. The branches rock him back and forth slightly. The next time Bruce looks up, Loki is gone.

Not quite worried yet but definitely not entirely calm either, Bruce walks into the house to ask Jarvis where Loki is. Jarvis replies that he's present and accounted for, and is in the basement. Bruce hopes he's not bothering Tony, if only because Tony might not react well if he's upset. He goes down the stairs and discovers that Loki, having apparently noticed that Tony drinks a lot of alcohol, actually brought Tony down a couple bottles in the hopes of reconciling by bringing them. It seems to have worked, since Tony hadn't kicked him out of the lab, although he'd also had almost twenty minutes to calm down beforehand. However, Jarvis tells Tony to stop drinking before he's even had half a bottle, and Bruce takes them away when Tony's not looking.

After that incident, Loki doesn't ask Tony to go surfing anymore.

Tony and Bruce are both very intrigued with Loki's apparent ability to shape-shift, as he had when turning into 'Mowgli'. Bruce can tell it wasn't merely an illusion (although Loki could probably do that, too) because Loki's body had actually been smaller than usual. Both of them are secretly hoping he'll do it again. Bruce is starting to wonder if the reason Tony bought Loki a horse mask was to see if Loki would transform into a horse when wearing it or something.

However, Loki remains firmly in his usual tall, pale form.

Recently, Bruce has heard Loki mention a little creek a lot. Jarvis eventually finds the most likely reason for this, which is that he's actually talking about the Native American man, named Little Creek, in that horse movie on the plane (Bruce hadn't paid attention to that movie and thus had no idea that's what Loki was talking about for a while). Due to that, Bruce and Tony get the idea to show Loki Pocahontas and Bruce briefly explains about Native Americans, like Little Creek, the man who helped Spirit and owned Rain, the female horse.

Fairly early on, the Native Americans and the colonial settlers start singing a song, each group singing about how the other group is full of savages.

"They're savages! Savages!

Barely even human

Savages! Savages!

Drive them from our shore

They're not like you and me, which means they must be evil

We must sound the drums of war!"

Loki stares at the screen in confusion, asking how both groups can be savages. Tony claims that no group really views themselves as savages, adding that there's no way the Jotuns in Jotunheim view themselves in the same negative way the Aesir do.

"So the Aesir are rac-race-ist?" Loki asks, clearly only sort of remembering how to say the word racist.

"I mean, yeah, they sound like total racists." Tony replies, and Loki cocks his head to the side.

"They fought lots've wars with the Jotuns, you know." Loki says. "'Cause, they hated them and stuff."

"Do you's think that... that Jotuns... that they thinks that Ass-guardians are savages too?" Loki asks. Bruce thinks it's kind of funny that Loki's started copying the whole Ass-guard thing that Tony no doubt started, and making fun of Asgard like that might be therapeutic or something. "Like how the monsters thought kids were monsters?" Loki asks.

"Yeah, like that." Tony grins.

"Y'know, the hat guys thoughts that Little Creek was a sa-vage too. And they weren't nice to Spirit, 'cause they caught him and he had'ta make him get off his back and stuff."

Honestly, Pocahontas is a pretty good movie for showing that racism is wrong, even if it's nothing like what actually happened in history. Neither Bruce or Tony mention that, though. Loki seems quite intrigued with Grandmother Willow, the tree Pocahontas talks to.

When that movie ends- Loki seems to love watching movies outside, and Tony seems like his greatly misses his sofa as he sits on the grass- Loki darts off to his tree and pats the trunk.

"Hi tree!" He says happily, and the tree wiggles slightly as green glows around Loki's hand. The granches reach down towards him and the tree actually picks Loki up and sets him on another branch. He settles down with his head against the trunk. "Cans I name you Willow-Willowy?" Loki asks the tree, as if he actually needs the tree's permission. "'Cause, you're like Grandmother Willow, 'xcept not quite. You look kinda different, and you don't got real droopy stuff on your branches."

He pauses and says "You're different, a different tree from her, right? But Lilo and Stitch, and Anna and Elsa, and Pocahontas and John Smith are all differents, and they don't care. And my Tony's different from me, and he doesn't care even though Odin did, and Thor." Loki wrings his hands together anxiously.

"Tree's aren't rac'st, are they?" He frowns thoughtfully. "Grandmother Willow's a good tree, and you're a good tree, too, Willow-Willowy. And you're not better'n bushes either, even though they're not trees. Bushes can be good to hide under, you know..."

Bruce smiles slightly and goes off to bed, and Jarvis informs him that he has to sleep with his stuffed Hulk again.

---

After even more hacking, which Jarvis had been happy to assist with, Sir had found a phone number for Professor Xavier. Jarvis had offered to call the man himself. Jarvis normally handles this sort of thing, anyways, and while Sir seems quite interested in Professor Xavier, Sir can be a bit tactless sometimes, and a great number of people find him annoying or just plain dislike Sir (Jarvis doesn't like any of those people, and he especially dislikes the people like that one reporter, Miss Simhan, who recently made Sir out to be the villain.

Jarvis dials the number listed in the files for Professor Xavier, which had been accompanied by a note saying that it's for a landline phone and thus video calls aren't an option. Sir had been mockingly outraged at the idea of anyone still using a landline phone when they're so out of date. After all, Stark Phones are on the market, although they're not as sophisticated as Sir's own Stark Phone or even Mr. Loki's.

The phone rings, and rings, and rings. There's not even an answering machine.

After eight minutes and fifty-six seconds, Jarvis hears the sound of a phone being picked up, and he politely asks "Is this Professor Charles Xavier?"

"It is. May I ask who's calling?" Professor Xavier asks in an equally polite tone. He sounds somewhat unused to actually using a phone, as if he normally communicates some other way. He also sounds like the calm, reserved type, like Dr. Banner.

"I am Jarvis, assistant to Mr. Anthony Stark." Jarvis introduces himself, omitting the fact that he's an AI. "I imagine you've heard of him?"

"I imagine there are very few who haven't heard of him, even before that incident with the aliens a while back." Professor Xavier replies, sounding somewhat amused. "Why exactly is Tony Stark's assistant calling me? How does Tony Stark even know this number? I didn't think it was generally available." He doesn't actually sound annoyed about them having the number, simply curious, which Jarvis definitely counts as a good sign. "I'm assuming he didn't know of me until recently, because, from what I've heard, he would have tried to contact one of us immediately upon finding out." That does sound like Sir, all right.

He debates how to respond. Professor Xavier might not be too happy to learn that they'd hacked into a secret database to find his number, although he supposes there aren't many plausible answers.

"Mr. Stark did not find out about you until five days ago, and we only just learned of this number." Jarvis answers smoothly. "Are you aware that a government organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D has files on you?" Jarvis asks, after a bit. Sir had actually authorized him to release this information to Professor Xavier, probably wondering himself if the man knew.

"I know they are aware of us and that they have this number, though I insist they don't keep tabs on any of my students." The professor replies. "Tell me, did you find out about anyone else?"

"There were a few files on a man who goes by Wolverine, or Logan." Jarvis replies. He remembers reading about the man's 'healing factor', which sounds a lot like Mr. Loki's ability to heal quickly and heal others.

"Ah, yes. I thought they had some stuff on him." Jarvis isn't sure whether the man's annoyed about that or not. "So may I ask why you're calling?"

"I am not calling in any relation to S.H.I.E.L.D. Rather, Mr. Stark and I were wondering if you could help a-" Jarvis debates what to call Mr. Loki. Technically, he's not officially family, and to almost all of the world, Sir doesn't have any family. Sir might not want it spread around that he thinks of Mr. Loki as family quite yet. "-friend." Jarvis finishes the sentence with no discernible delay in between the words, despite having to debate it. He is an incredibly fast thinker, after all.

"May I ask who this friend is?" Clearly, Professor Xavier is smart enough to be somewhat suspicious of anonymous, potentially made-up friends, although his tone doesn't actually betray any suspicion.

"Certainly, Professor. His name is Loki Laufeyson, although he strongly dislikes anyone mentioning his last name."

"Why are you calling me, as opposed to someone else? What makes you think I could help?" Professor Xavier asks, and while Jarvis detects no hostility or suspicion in the mild tone, he has the sense this question is some sort of test. Jarvis intends to pass it. He chooses what he says next carefully.

"As I understand it, Professor, you run a school for mutants, and I believe many of them have troubled pasts." Jarvis pauses for a bit but Professor Xavier doesn't respond, clearly waiting for him to continue. "Like, I believe, your students, Mr. Loki has some rather unique abilities as well as a very unpleasant history." That reason alone would make Professor Xavier a good candidate, but they'd also read something in the man's file about telepathic powers, although Jarvis isn't sure if he should mention that quite yet.

"Ah. Yes, I do have experience with that. Do you want to get Loki enrolled in my school?"

"No. We are quite happy having him here. Mr. Stark and I were wondering if you would offer your assistance as a sort of therapist. We tried another therapist, but she didn't really work out too well." Jarvis continues. "Before we continue, I must ask if you have any sort of hate for Mr. Stark or the other Avengers, especially Dr. Banner and the Hulk. If you do, I'm afraid Mr. Loki might not be too big on you, to say nothing of Mr. Stark himself."

"I have nothing against them. After all, they did stop an alien invasion on their own, although we would have jumped in if needed." Professor Xavier replies "However, the majority of the world is not exactly accepting of us. Now, I must ask you, do you have any sort of hate towards mutants."

"I certainly do not, and I am almost certain that Mr. Stark has no ill feelings against mutants. Neither does Mr. Loki, and if I had to guess, both he and Dr. Banner would sympathize with you, as they have faced similar prejudice and outright bigotry."

"I see." Professor Xavier responds, sounding satisfied with that answer, and falls silent for a bit. "Judging by the fact you haven't said Loki is a mutant yet, especially after you just had the perfect window to do so, I assume that Loki is not one, correct?" His tone betrays nothing about his thoughts or feelings on that.

"No, I don't think he quite classifies as a mutant, as he's from another realm, as he calls it." Jarvis replies. "I think a more correct term is 'alien', or perhaps even 'god', if one believes certain stories."

"God?" Professor Xavier asks, surprised.

"If one believes Norse mythology, yes. I'm assuming you've heard of Thor Odinson?"

"I have, both from Norse mythology and from news of the Avengers, although they do seem to equate to the same person. Although I'm not entirely sure how accurate the myths are. Some of them seem a little far-fetched." Professor Xavier says lightly, a touch of amusement in his voice.

"Well, Mr. Loki, grew up with Thor Odinson, in Asgard." Jarvis replies. "He was abused there for being a different race, as well as having some rather incredible powers." Surely, as a mutant, Professor Xavier will understand that people can be cruel to those who are different.

Professor Xavier makes a noise of understanding, and then says "Grew up, you say? You know, I'm more experienced helping children and teens than adults, which is why I run a school." He says this good naturedly, before assuring him. "That's not to say this is entirely out of the question."

"Although he is technically an adult, in appearance anyways, I believe Mr. Loki's mental state is closer to that of a child's. However, that is not saying I believe him to be an unintelligent simpleton." Jarvis says, and Professor Xavier gives a sound that's basically a verbal nod. "Although, recently, he managed to make himself physically resemble a child."

"He can change his appearance?" Professor Xavier asks curiously, obviously interested. "Do you know if he is able to alter forms as well?"

"I am not sure, but that is not the only thing Mr. Loki is able to do." Jarvis replies.

"It's not? Please, do tell." Professor Xavier sounds, if possible, even more interested now.

"It is not." Jarvis confirms. "Mr. Stark and I are not sure what the extent of Mr. Loki's powers are, and we are not sure if he is either." He pauses as he recalls various instances of Mr. Loki using his powers. "First of all, his race seems to be naturally cryokinetic, and we are trying to convince him that making ice and snow isn't a bad ability to have. I believe we are making a little bit of progress." Thanks to Elsa and Slushy, that is.

"While the Cryokinesis seems inherent to all members of his race, he has a whole host of other abilities. So far, he has demonstrated that he is capable of changing himself, changing objects and things around him, as well as temporarily animating them. He's shown abilities for making things fly and defy the laws of gravity- although he himself has not defied them-, casting very convincing illusions, teleporting, creating force fields, and turning invisible. He's also capable of healing himself and others extremely quickly."

"That's quite a list." The reply comes after a bit of silence, and Professor Xavier sounds impressed.

"Indeed it is. Mr. Loki hasn't ceased to surprise Mr. Stark and myself." Jarvis replies, unable to prevent some fondness from seeping into his tone. "As I understand it, Professor, you have some powers of your own?"

"I am a telepath, and I'm quite... adept with minds. What I can do unnerves a lot of people." The man replies. "Despite the fact I rarely go into a mind uninvited."

"I see. So you're a mind-reader, of sorts." Jarvis asks, although he hides his skepticism exceedingly well.

"I suppose you could call it that. Now, you say Loki was treated poorly for these powers?" Professor Xavier asks sympathetically.

"All evidence suggests that he was punished for using them, and he's suffered through some indeterminate number of beatings and other forms of corporal punishment in his very long life, as well as having his lips sewn shut. He has very frequent nightmares and occasional flashbacks about his treatment there, and I cannot blame him in the slightest. I believe the man who decided to take him in- knowing full well what he is- did not act as Loki's father, as he was supposed to. I believe he whipped Mr. Loki for using magic on more than one occasion, despite being able to use it himself."

"I see." Professor Xavier says with a very chilly undertone, clearly not a huge fan of that whole concept. Then again, who is, aside from the perpetrators? Jarvis is entirely with him there. If he ever got to talk to the Allfather, he'd give him a verbal dressing-down that would hopefully leave him quivering in his boots. After all, it seems he's the cause of all this.

"I would be happy to talk to Loki, and we'll see how things go from there."

Jarvis brings up that it would probably be better for everyone at first to have at least the first session at one of Sir's residences. Professor Xavier seems to agree. "Now, I know that Stark Tower is in New York City- it's sort of hard to miss- and my school is, well, somewhere nearby. I'd be happy to come visit you, although there is one crucial detail I need to know. Is it wheelchair accessible?"

---

"Hawkeye, how many of them are we looking at?" Steve's voice sounds slightly tinny coming from the comm in Tony's helmet as he rockets through the air as Iron Man.

"One hundred and thirty-two, total, but we've destroyed twenty-three of 'em." Tony answers before Clint can. One of the nice things about his HUD is it can retrieve and display information like that at a moment's notice, because Tony built it and his tech is awesome, just like him.

Yes, once again, Victor Von Doom has decided to unleash an army of robots on a city, only this time, it's Phoenix, Arizona instead of New York City. Not that Doom always decides to send them to the Big Apple- Tony's fought Doom-bots in numerous places such as London, Tokyo and Sydney to name just a few. Really, this is a lot more convenient than it could have been. Traveling around the globe is a pain. Doom definitely likes attacking cities. However, they've also fought Doom-bots in Latveria, the nation that Doom himself rules.

A blast from Tony's repulsors scorches the nearest Doom-bot, but much to Tony's annoyance, it doesn't actually fall down. That is, until an electric arrow lands in it and shocks the thing senseless. The Doom-bot falls to the ground, twitching, and then falls limp. "Make that twenty-four down." Clint says.

"That doesn't count as a full kill, Clint." Tony mutters in his comm. "I did most of the work. That's like, twelve percent of a kill on your part."

"You're kidding, right?!" Clint asks as he unleashes another arrow from the building he's on. "You're the one who only did twelve percent of that, but if you really want, I can give you fifteen. Remember, if all of us take down more of Doom's bots than you-"

"Yeah, yeah, I buy you all dinner." Tony mock-complains,

That was a very foolish wager, Friend Stark." Thor's voice booms in Tony's ear and Jarvis rapidly lowers the volume. Why does Thor still shout when his voice transmits directly to their earpieces? Then again, Thor's often louder than required.

Thor, Mjolnir extended in front of him, whips past Tony before hurtling down to the ground to smash into one of the bots, while frying another with a bolt of lightning summoned from the sky.

It's really weird fighting with Thor again, and even weirder hearing him banter like that. In the weeks since Loki arrived, Tony hasn't once fought alongside Thor, until now, obviously. He can't deny that Thor's a tremendous help with his lightning and everything, but it's still odd, because he's recently been viewing Thor in a rather negative light.

Tony ignores what Thor said.

"Really? I'm kicking all your asses. You all are going to be buying me dinner, and I'm in the mood for something expensive tonight."

Natasha, who had rolled her eyes and exasperatedly muttered boys when they'd started this whole betting thing (as she does most times they do this) pipes up "Stark, we've taken down twenty of the twenty-five."

Tony frowns as Jarvis informs him that's indeed correct. "Yeah, well, that's only four fifths. I've taken down a fifth of them on my own. Last time I checked, there are six of us, so I'm doing more than my fair share."

"HULK SMASH TWO!" Hulk roars, holding up a pair of wrecked Doom-bots as if to make sure they add them to the count against Tony, before leaping and hitting another Doom-bot with one of its broken comrades and flinging the other broken bot at another.

"Yeah, but you bet that you'd take down more than all of us combined." Clint says, sounding smug as an arrow flies through the air, whizzing past Tony's head to embed itself into a Doom-bot below him. "Looks like dinner's going to be on you."

"I'm moving Hulk over to my team." Tony says, mock pouting. "Hulk, you're with me."

Hulk grunts and gives a sort of feral grin. "Hulk smash puny robots with Metal Man?"

Tony grins. "You got it, buddy."

"We're still going to crush you, so you're still buying dinner." Clint says.

"You know that has no effect on me, right?" Tony asks rhetorically. "I'm loaded and I end up ordering basically every dinner I eat. It's not like I cook or anything. That's really more of Bruce and Loki."

"Loki cooks?" Clint sounds surprised. Nobody voices anything about Bruce cooking. After all, he had to make his own meals when on the run and everything, and presumably made his own stuff since the Avengers formed, since he'd been living on his own until recently moving into the tower. (Not to mention, Hulk normally hates hearing about Bruce). Natasha, Clint and Steve probably eat a lot of S.H.I.E.L.D-issue crap, like the MRE Tony had seen spit on the side of the glass cell Loki had been in. Tony's never tried it, himself, but it's not like anyone actually says those things taste good. Thor undoubtedly is just served heaps and heaps of food in Asgard and is probably just as hopeless as Tony when it comes to making anything more complex than a sandwich.

An hour later, they're still fighting, as disabling Doom-bots isn't as easy as they make it look. In fact, they rarely go down after just one attack, and more stupid robots cropped up around twenty five minutes ago.

It really sucks to be the other Avengers, Tony thinks with a slight smirk. They're out there in the heat, doing a lot more actual physical fighting than he is, with the exception of Hawkeye, who's shooting arrows. Tony can see the sweat on Natasha's face. Yeah, it really sucks to be them, he thinks, relishing in his currently air-conditioned Iron Man suit interior.

Tony casts a quick look around him. Normally, there aren't quite as many Doom-bots, and the Doom-bots sure are doing a number on a couple city blocks, despite the Avengers' best efforts to prevent it. Okay, it's not as bad as the damage to New York City after the Chitauri incident, but it's a lot worse than what would be preferred. He really hopes there weren't civiliansin some of those buildings that got demolished.

Hawkeye does a rather good job at sniping Doom-bots with all kinds of arrows- explosive, electric and the like, a great deal of which were made by Tony himself. However, progress is slower than Tony would like, and it seems like some of these are upgraded Doom-bots and the old weak spots don't work as well.

Finally, the last Doom-bot falls, and Clint's voice sounds victorious. "Guess you're buying us dinner, Tony. And weren't you saying earlier that you're in the mood for something expensive? Looks like you're going to have to buy six servings."

"Yeah, yeah." Tony sighs on somewhat fake annoyance. However, he is actually annoyed about the current state of his armor. The paint job's ruined, as it has several scratches and even a couple minor dents. Tony wonders if Loki could change the armor's color to make the scratches go away- after all, Toy Stark's armor looks basically like a miniature version of the real deal, and that actually seems to disappear when Toy Stark is in Tony mode. Plus, Loki could spruce up the design a lot quicker than having Jarvis paint it.

"Alright, you-" Tony points a finger at Thor "-still have a lot of questions to answer, so don't think you're off the hook."

"Are you inviting me to feast with you after this victorious battle?" Thor asks, sounding surprised.

"Eh, I'm not sure yet. Maybe." Tony replies. He honestly does want to talk to Thor soon, but he figures he should get Loki's opinion rather than just springing a visit from Thor on him. Speaking of Loki, he should probably check how he's doing.

"So I take it Loki's fine?" Tony asks Jarvis. He'd had Jarvis try to keep Loki in the house while both he and Bruce are gone, in the off chance S.H.I.E.L.D tried to do something stupid like kidnap Loki, since it would be a lot harder for them to get to Loki when he's in the house. Fortunately they apparently haven't, though Tony still wouldn't put it past them. Perhaps they're biding their time, but if they ever try to kidnap Loki on purpose, Tony's going to completely and utterly destroy them.

"Yes, sir. Do you think that I would not inform you if something urgent happened?" Jarvis replies, sounding exasperated.

"Touche." Tony replies, grinning.

"Although I thought you might like to know that he hid all your left shoes under the sofa."

"My left shoes...?" Tony repeats, confused.

"Yes, sir. I believe he got the idea from Lilo & Stitch, when Jumba said Stitch would reverse street signs, back up sewers and steal everyone's left shoe."

"Ah, I see. So Mr. Mischief strikes again?" Tony asks, smirking slightly.

"It would seem so, sir." Jarvis says fondly. "He actually lifted the entire sofa up to hide them." Tony blinks in surprise, because he often forgets how strong Loki is. He's probably not as strong as Thor, sure, but he's definitely a lot stronger than most of Earth's population, Tony included.

Jarvis pauses for a bit, before continuing in a neutral tone "At one point, he seemed about to draw on the wall. It almost seemed like he intended it as a joke, judging from the smile on his face. I told him that, while you're quite fine with hanging his drawings on the wall, you might not want them on the actual walls themselves."

There's another slight pause and Tony gets the feeling Loki hadn't taken that the right way. His theory is soon proven correct as Jarvis speaks again. "Mr. Loki got rather worked up and anxious after that, clearly expecting your reaction to be a lot worse than it probably would be." Yeah, whatever Loki was expecting has to be worse than anything Tony would actually do.

"He said he was sorry exactly twenty-nine times in the span of three minutes, and he claims he was not actually planning on drawing on the walls. While he said this rather convincingly, his actions beforehand seemed to prove otherwise." Huh. So Loki can actually pull off lying pretty well, although Tony's noticed that sometimes his body language gives him away.

"I had to calm him down and tell him you weren't going to do anything horrible to him or start hating him forever." Jarvis goes on. "I think he's worried about me telling you, even though I prevented him from actually doing anything."

"Okay." Tony sighs, thinking he really should have seen something like this coming. "You know, you did just tell me, J, so you kind of made his worry come true."

"That was not my intent, sir. I thought you should know."

"So what's he been doing since then?"

"Mr. Loki has been watching episodes of Lilo & Stitch: The Series, as well as Kim Possible, sir. However, he has not reached the crossover episode between the two shows, although I look forward to watching his reaction when he does. I've been playing them for him in order, you see." Jarvis says. Tony didn't even know there was a crossover episode with both Stitch and Kim in it, but he also kind of wants to be there to witness Loki's reaction, since it'll probably be hilarious.

As he thinks this, Jarvis continues talking. "I also introduced him to the concept of video games, starting with an online game called 625 Sandwich Stacker, which is a tie in to Lilo & Stitch: The Series. Mr. Loki seems quite taken to it, although I suspect that I will have to make sure that he does not try to replicate it in real life, as it involves catching sandwich ingredients as they fall, and throwing food like that is somewhat wasteful."

"Geez, J, you sound like his mom. So he's been playing that ever since you told him not to draw on the walls?"

"Not quite, sir. Around an hour ago, I showed him that there is a television series about Timon and Pumbaa from The Lion King."

Tony smiles slightly at what he imagines Loki's reaction to seeing a whole show about Timon and Pumbaa- he was probably even more overexcited than when he'd first learned that Lilo and Stitch have a whole show about them. Although Loki's practically obsessed with Stitch now, he still clearly loves The Lion King most, perhaps because it was the first movie he saw and he's carted Simba around since day two here on Earth.

"I can put him on for you, if you'd like, sir." Jarvis says, and suddenly in another part of Tony's HUD, there's a picture of Loki. Loki's eyes aren't focused at first, and but they focus somewhat when Loki notices Tony's image on the holographic screen that Jarvis has undoubtedly pulled up in front of Loki. From what Tony can see, Loki's sitting on the couch, arms full with Simba, Maximus, and his Stitch backpack plush. In one hand, tightly grasped, is Toy Stark. According to Jarvis and Bruce, Loki carries Toy Stark around with him constantly when Tony himself isn't there. Something else Jarvis has reported is that Toy Stark is almost always in Tony form when Tony's not there. Loki clearly likes Tony for Toy, not for being a billionaire, a genius or Iron Man. It's pretty nice, actually.

From the looks of it, Loki has his entire toy collection set up on the sofa, as if the toys are watching the TV with him.

"To-ny!" Loki exclaims excitedly, singsonging Tony's name happily. "You know you're on a... thing, like Dr. C, right?"

"A screen? Yeah, I know." Tony laughs.

"Just like Timon! He's on it... a screen toos." Loki says, grinning. Tony can't help but notice that Loki hasn't given any indication of the incident where he supposedly was going to draw on the walls. Almost as if he's hoping Tony just won't find out about it...

"So he was." Tony says, and Loki immediately steers the conversation elsewhere.

"Tony, guess what!" Loki says, his green eyes wide with enthusiasm. "Stitch has a cousin, 'xper'ment 523, and he's... like me and Elsa, 'xcept he's not actually a Jotun."

Tony nods. "So what, he has ice powers or something?"

"He does!" Loki nods. "He did stuffs like Elsa with 'em, too. Like he covered the whole island in snow, and Elsa froze Arendelle, you know."

Tony nods vaguely as Loki keeps talking. "He dids lots like Elsa. He, he made snow for Lilo to play in, like Elsa did for Anna, and Stitch didn't like it at first but then he hads fun and he likes snow now. Like, sliding on ice and making... snow-mans and stuff. I wanna make a snowman sometime." Loki nods vaguely, reaching over to grab Olaf from the line of toys on the couch. "I wanna make a snowman like Olaf!" Tony briefly corrects the snowmans part.

Returning to the topic of the episode, Loki says "Lilo named 'xper'ment 523 'Slushy', but Gantu got him, and he made a really big ice castle fort'ress, only Elsa's was cooler, I think. And he fighted Splodeyhead, and he made weapons out of ice like Jotuns do's, and he made a really big hammer." Loki frowns slightly. "Like Thor's Mjolnir." Loki's frown increases.

"So what's his one true place?" Tony asks, not bothering to correct Loki this time. So far, Lilo & Stitch has been a great show for showing Loki how powers can be both good and bad, since basically all the experiments start out 'evil'.

"Making... ice food?" Loki says uncertainly. He clearly doesn't know how to say it, and Jarvis explains that it's shaved ice in cones, so not quite ice cream. Loki still looks lost.

"Hey, Jarvis said you looked like you were going to draw on the walls, and I'd really rather you didn't do that, okay?" He still isn't entirely sure if he should bring it up just yet (maybe he should wait until he can do it in person instead of over a screen, but then again, the Avengers are coming over after this), although his mouth just sort of goes off without him.

Loki's eyes go wide and he immediately starts frantically talking. "Sorry! 'm Sorry. Wasn't gonna really do it, nope nope nope! Just pr'tend, like a jest, like coo-kies that aren't real. Sorry sorry sorry sorry!" Then, in a smaller voice, Loki says "Please don't be mads."

Tony sighs. "I'm not mad. I mean, you didn't actually draw on the wall, did you?" Loki hurriedly shakes his head no. "And even if you did, well I've done some crazy stuff to my own house, like shooting up a glass wall with a repulsor, so I can't exactly blame you. Not that that's an invitation to do it, mind you, just like how I really don't want you putting pepper in my coffee or something. Or, I don't know, turning my hair pink or something. Yeah, don't do that, either."

"'Kay." Loki says after a bit. "Won't... I won't."

"Good." Tony grins. "See, no harm done. By the way, you can still hang your drawings up. Just do them on paper, okay? Actually, you know, you can draw on holograms, so if you had a hologram cover a whole wall, you could make a mural or something." Steve might like that idea, actually, Tony thinks as Loki grins, though he's not sure whether it's at that suggestion or at the fact Tony said he can continue to hang stuff on the wall. Maybe it's both.

"Now, the Avengers are coming over, I thought I'd give you a heads up."

Loki grins and claps his hands. "Clint and Tasha and Steve, right? Hey, do you thinks Clint and Tasha will be Ron and Kim?" He cocks his head to the side, still smiling slightly at the thought. "Clint's hair's a little darker than Ron's. Hey, do you think he'd like a Rufus of his very own? I cans draw him Rufus!"

"I don't think he'd like having his hair changed- although I think that would be hilarious and you have my full blessing to do so- but you can probably talk him into being Ron sometime. And sure, go ahead and draw Rufus." Tony answers. Loki goes offscreen and comes back with a sheet of paper, asking Stitch for the pink marker. His Stitch backpack proceeds to spit out the requested item. Tony's still somewhat amazed by that, and he'd had Jarvis scan the backpack once when Loki wasn't wearing it. He's going to figure out how it works, even if it takes years, though it probably won't. Genius, remember?

As Loki starts to draw, Tony goes to the topic that had been the main reason for the call. "However, I was wondering if 'the Avengers' might include Thor this time. Would you be okay with that?"

Loki looks very anxious as he chews slightly on his bottom lip with wide eyes.

"I'm not going to let him hurt you, or even say anything against you, and neither are Bruce, Jarvis, Natasha, Clint or Steve." Tony says, giving Loki what he hopes is a reassuring look. "Basically, we're not going to let him do anything to you, just like we didn't let him on Halloween." Smirking slightly, he adds "Besides, if Thor tries to hurt you, I'm pretty sure Hulk will come out again, and he won't like Thor doing that. I won't either." It can't hurt to reiterate that. "So, yeah, he won't hurt you."

"'Cause I don't d'serve it?" Loki asks, and he actually sounds partially convinced that this is true, even while asking for clarification. Tony grins.

"Exactly, Rudolph. Ding ding ding, we have a winner." That might have come out slightly more sarcastic than intended, not that Tony would have cared with anyone else. It's just that that's what he's been trying to have Loki get the whole time, and Tony's definitely not a patient person. He's not sure how Loki will react, but Loki stares at him blankly. "You don't deserve to be mocked by other reindeer or left out of their reindeer games. Got that, Reindeer Games?" That sort of has a nice ring to it, Tony thinks, and it goes with the Rudolph and Bambi.

Loki gives him a look that seems to be half amused and half wondering if he's actually serious. "'M not a reindeer, Tony, not like Sven or Rud-olph. Hey, Bruce saids I was a monkey when I was in Willowy, but I think he was just being silly. You and him are more monkeys than me, 'cause you're really close to chimps and g'rillas."

Tony nods vaguely, and Loki starts laughing. "Chimps are apes, not monkeys, Tony!" He says as if Tony had fallen for the best joke in the world. "Go-ril-las too."

"So do you mind if Thor comes? I figured we can work on him a bit more." Tony goes back to the main topic. "As I said before, he won't hurt you. I'll beat him up again if he tries."

Loki smiles slightly at that. The smile falls as he considers it some more. The god bites his lip and wrings his hands together anxiously, but eventually murmurs "He can come."

Tony hadn't actually expected that, and he hopes he hadn't pressured Loki into it, so he says "If you don't want him to come, he won't. This is up to you, buddy."

Loki cocks his head to the side and stares at him off into space, eyes even more unfocused and glassy than usual. For a bit, Tony's worried he simply checked out and that he won't get an answer. After almost a minute (during which Tony almost bursts with unsaid things), he waits for Loki to respond, eventually breaking the silence with "Snoopy? You there?"

Loki's eyes sort of focus, but he doesn't say anything.

"So, I was asking about if you're okay with Thor coming over or not." Tony prompts, and Loki slowly nods. "Really? That's... great. I'm proud of you, Snoopy." Really, Loki has every reason to never want to see Thor again, and Tony honestly hadn't expected him to agree to this.

"Okay, I'll see you in around an hour and a half." Tony signs off and points at Thor. "All right, Hammer Time. You can join us." Thor's face brightens.

He pauses, wondering if this next part is a good idea. Eventually, he decides to go with it. "You didn't seem like a total dick on the Helicarrier, and if that continues and you continuously treat Loki right, maybe you can have a second chance." Tony's voice drops to a quiet but no less dangerous tone. "Don't waste that chance. By the way, if you do anything to harm Loki, if you even look at him menacingly, you're going to have to face me, and I'm going to be very pissed off."

"Same here." Clint adds, and Natasha silently nods.

"You'd probably provoke the Other Guy." Bruce says sleepily. Hulking-out clearly took a lot out of him, especially because he'd Hulked-out only a couple days ago.

"We clear, Point Break?" Tony asks. Thor nods, looking somewhat less cheerful. Tony smiles coldly. Good.

---

Loki starts to pace anxiously, not even feeling like watching more of Stitch, or even Timon and Pumbaa, even though he really, really likes them. Had he seriously just agreed to let Thor come over? What had he been thinking? Since when would that ever be a good idea?!

He finds it slightly odd that Tony even bothered asking him beforehand, but he figures that the last time Thor had been over hadn't actually been that bad.

Well, in some ways it had been really bad. First of all, he doesn't exactly like being around Thor that much, since Thor used to hurt him before being banished to Midgard, and then Thor had started to tell Tony and the others how horrible Jotuns are. Loki had thought they'd start to hate him then, but they'd reassured him nothing changed.

He had sort of enjoyed hearing them tell Thor off last time, even if it had been surprising. He'd really liked hearing that they didn't hate them, and hadn't even let Thor tell them that Jotuns are horrible monsters. A slightly more vicious part of Loki had really enjoyed seeing Thor being roughed up a bit by Tony and Hulk, because it's like what everyone in Asgard had done to him, only now it's Thor on the receiving end.

He knows Tony, Jarvis and Bruce won't let Thor hurt him- they hadn't last time, and they especially won't now that they're family. Although he doesn't think he has to worry about that, he's still slightly nervous.

Last time, though, Loki had his Man of Iron suit, and it had made him feel safe. Sometimes when he wears that suit, he imagines he's Tony and then he's really brave. Thor hadn't even tried to hit him last time, and hadn't even known who he was at first. Loki wishes he could look like Tony now, so when Thor comes, he wouldn't know who he was.

Loki wanders into the kitchen, since he's getting sort of hungry.

As he rummages though some cupboards for something to eat, he frowns in confusion. His hands look... different. They're not as pale and his fingers aren't quite as long. He's not entirely sure, but everything looks a bit higher up than it normally does. He decides not to think on this too much when he stumbles upon several boxes of Pop Tarts in one of the cabinets. He likes Pop Tarts a lot, ever since he'd eaten one the day he got Simba. Sometimes, Tony has them in the lab and Loki will eat them there, too.

Loki knows Thor likes Pop Tarts a lot, too. He vaguely remembered Thor mentioning them in Asgard when, the last time Thor had been over here, Jarvis had mentioned Thor had eaten twenty-six boxes of them. And Jarvis had said that Thor was more of a burden than Loki himself is.

Loki glances back at the remaining four boxes of Pop Tarts after shoving a part of a strawberry one in his mouth. He chews it as he thoughtfully as he regards the other boxes of Pop Tarts, head cocked to the side. As Jarvis said, Thor eats a lot of Pop Tarts, and Loki doesn't like the idea of Thor eating them all. After all, Loki likes them a lot, too, and why should Thor get all the Pop Tarts?

He snatches the foil-wrapped pastries out of the boxes and, after wondering for a bit what he's going to do with them, stashes them under his bed. He hadn't needed to lift up his bed like he had with the sofa, which isn't tall enough to crawl under. Jarvis asks him why he's hiding this, and Loki just tells him not to tell anyone. Loki scoots back out from under the bed before going back to the kitchen and taking another bite out of his strawberry Pop Tart, which he'd left on the counter when stashing the others away.

Looking at the now empty boxes, he pauses thoughtfully. He could put them back and make Thor think they still have Pop Tarts- that would be funny, and Thor wouldn't even be able to hurt him with Tony, Jarvis and Bruce here. Loki snickers slightly and starts to put the boxes back in the cabinet, only to remember that they weigh a lot less now that there aren't any Pop Tarts in them. Sure, he could just put empty boxes back, but that doesn't seem good enough.

Loki winds up rummaging through a drawer he'd opened earlier that has a lot of random stuff in it, trying to find things to make the boxes weigh more like they would if they had Pop Tarts in them. He ends up getting majorly sidetracked inspecting all the other things and asking Jarvis what they are, but that's fun too, and it gives him another idea.

He puts enough things in the boxes so they'll feel like they're full of Pop Tarts and then, after putting the boxes back in one of the highest cabinets attached to the ceiling, proceeds to stuff the cabinet full of all the stuff in that drawer, until he has to slam the door shut quickly to prevent it all from falling out. He sees a flash of green around his hands (which still look different) when he does this, and figures that his magic might have kept the things in the cupboard.

Still, he's pretty sure his magic won't keep the stuff in later, when Thor opens it. He smirks and claps his hands, telling Jarvis not to tell Thor about this and just tell him the Pop Tarts are in that cabinet. Jarvis agrees, and Loki goes off and digs another Pop Tart out from under his bed, unwrapping it and biting in. He grabs Toy Stark and Simba from where he'd set them on the floor when rummaging under hes bed for the Pop Tarts. He holds one up to Simba's mouth and says "Too bad you can't taste 'em, 'cause like, you don't even gots a tongue."

It's only when he goes to the bathroom and sees his reflection in the mirror that he realizes why his hands look different. He's shifted forms again.

---

Tony arrives back at the mansion after an hour and a half flight, during which he'd blatantly rejected several calls from Fury. He's still not over the Director's treatment of Loki, and certainly isn't going to attend any meetings Fury tries to make him attend. Tony's the first one back to the mansion, which is just as well, really. As Black Sabbath blasts in his helmet, he flies into the tunnel that leads directly to his underground garage/lab/workshop. Once there, he has Jarvis remove the armor- at least the dents aren't in places that make taking it off tricky and painful.

He hears footsteps above him and assumes Jarvis has told Loki of his arrival. Sure enough, he soon hears footsteps coming down the stairs and then sees the feet, bare of course, themselves. It's probably a trick of the light, but they seem less pale than normal.

He quickly realizes it's not merely a trick of the light when the rest of the person follows. It's not Loki.

It's him. He's looking at himself.

Tony stands there, staring.

The man standing in front of him is identical in appearance, as if he suddenly has a twin or clone he doesn't know about.

"Uh, Snoopy, is that you?" Tony asks his new doppelganger. "Did you pull another Mowgli incident?" Figures. Tony had been hoping to see Loki shapeshift again, but he'd done it when he hadn't been here. He can watch the video feed Jarvis undoubtedly recorded and try to make some sense out of whatever energy readings the scanners had picked up, but it won't be nearly as awesome as seeing it in person.

The other Tony nods, and Tony can definitely believe it. "While I can certainly understand why anyone would want to look like me and be insanely attractive, I'm not going to lie. This is freaking bizarre." Tony mutters.

Still, once he's gotten over the shock of seeing himself, it's painfully obvious it's really Loki in his body. He's carrying Simba, which is basically a dead giveaway, and he also has his new Stitch backpack hanging off his back. Loki's eyes- now the exact brown as Tony's own, are wide and slightly glazed, as always.

It only brings the point home, even more, of how different Loki is. Tony realizes that this would have been him, if he'd somehow wound up like Loki, and it's not exactly a comfortable thought in the slightest.

Through the red shirt, Tony can see the glow of an arc reactor, and he really hopes that is's not actually going into Loki's chest like his own does. Although he doesn't tell anyone about it, the arc reactor is a sort of constant pain that he's grown used to, since he has to. (Tony can well imagine Bruce Hulking-out if he found out about how deep the arc reactor actually goes).

Still, Loki can't know how deep the arc reactor actually goes in Tony's chest, right? After all, Loki's never seen Tony change the reactor or anything, so how would he know? And even if he knew, that doesn't mean the reactor in his chest would do the same thing when he transforms.

No, Tony tells himself, it's probably just glowing, like on Toy Stark.

Loki's looking at him anxiously, with Tony's own eyes, although they're now somewhat glazed, which is creepy as hell. "Do you need... singing heals? Like Rapunzel?"

"Nah, I'm fine. Out of curiosity, could you heal people without singing?"

"Prob'bly?" Loki says, unsure. "But I like singing."

Tony finally just says what's on his mind. "Uh, you know you look... different, right?"

Loki grins and nods. "Like you! I like it lots." He claps his hands and bounces on his toes, holding Toy Stark up next to his face. "See, we three... the sames."

"Why? Did you do it on purpose?" That would make this even more bizarre.

Loki cocks his head to the side (although it's really Tony's head, or it at least looks like it. Geez, this is messing with Tony's brain, seeing himself like this). "No. But I like it. Safe." He nods.

"It's safe?"

"Yeah, 'cause Thor won't hits me if I'm you. Like when I was Man of Iron on Halloween." Loki nods decisively. "Cans I go out've the house now?" Loki-Tony asks. "You're not gonna start locking me up like Mother Gothel or Frollo, right?"

"No, I'm not." Tony says absently, still not entirely sure what to make of this situation as Loki gallops off down the tunnel that Tony had used to enter the garage, apparently knowing exactly where it leads.

---

Clint pilots the Quinjet, which also carries, Natasha, Steve, and a sleeping Bruce to Tony's mansion, while Tony flies ahead in his suit. Thor is flying with Mjolnir, but Tony had given the thunderer strict instructions to not arrive until notified through the comms that he can do so. Thor's currently somewhere behind the quinjet, while Tony's far ahead of it.

Clint is somewhat surprised that Tony had invited him to dinner, too, especially after what happened with Loki disappearing the last time Clint had been over here. Then again, he's even more surprised that Thor's coming along to their team session after the most recent battle. Well, Thor is part of the team, but Clint would have thought that Tony is holding a grudge against Thor for what he did to Loki or something. Not that that would be uncalled for or unjustified, because it sounds like Thor did some pretty awful things to Loki in their pasts.

While Thor has admitted to being an arrogant, spoiled jerk of a prince (although not precisely in those words) prior to being banished to Midgard, Clint hadn't really imagined, when Thor had admitted this, that he'd been a part of abusing an innocent person like Loki.

Clint hadn't known Thor before the Asgardian was banished to Midgard. Even though the first time Clint saw Thor, the thunderer was busy knocking out a ton of highly trained agents in New Mexico, it's still a little hard to imagine Thor, who is often exuberant and smiling outside of battle, abusing Loki like it turns out he did.

Clint had found out on the Helicarrier after Tony got Loki out, that Thor had actually spoken out against Loki being put in the Hulk's cage like that. Still, Natasha and Clint had ripped Thor a new one for his treatment of Loki once Tony left, although Clint had started voicing his displeasure when Tony was still there. Clint hadn't actually put an arrow through Thor like he said he wanted to, but even without that, the experience was decidedly unpleasant for Thor. Thor had certainly deserved that, though, and Clint had enjoyed giving it to him, with help from Natasha and Steve, though he seemed to have partially gotten it out of his system already.

Clint always hated the idea of abuse, and that hate only increased by a tenfold after becoming a father himself. He's with Tony in that Thor still has some serious explaining to do. Thor hadn't actually rejected that notion when Tony declared it less than an hour ago.

Looking down on the place as he flies over it, the archer can't believe that Tony actually lives here. Sure, he knows Tony is loaded, but in some ways this is even more impressive than the tower. Sure, the tower's bigger and everything, but this house is built on a freaking cliff right near the ocean. How much better can you get?!

Before Clint even lands, he spots Tony in a tree. Hey, he's not called Hawkeye for nothing.

As Clint lands the quinjet in Tony's massive yard around thirty five minutes later, his stomach growls. He can't wait to cash into that dinner that Tony was basically doomed to owe them from the start. Surely even an arrogant egomaniac like Tony would have realized he'd never win that bet.

Once he lands and gets out of the quinjet, Clint approaches the tree Tony's in. Sitting around in a tree really doesn't seem like Tony, even if the billionaire is very eccentric. "Hey." Clint says simply, looking up. He sees a couple books and toys up there in the branches with Tony.

Tony just hooks his knees over a branch and dangles upside down, staring at him. His eyes are wide, unfocused and somewhat glassy. Most of Clint's brain screams at him that this can't be Tony, despite the undeniable fact that man hanging upside-down in front of him looks exactly like the billionaire genius inventor. He rules out the possibility of a long lost twin and starts to wonder if Tony and Bruce had somehow managed to clone Tony with some science-y stuff in Tony's lab.

"Hi, Loki." Natasha says, having walked up beside Clint. Clint sees Tony's face (or is it Loki's?) take on an expression of surprise. Clint looks at her, and she shrugs. "He can change his appearance, remember?"

Right. Loki's apparently actually blue, even though he ordinarily looks very pale. Still, Clint didn't think Loki could change his appearance this much. Despite looking exactly like the world-famous billionaire, inventor and superhero, there are lots of little cues that make it obvious this is Loki. Natasha probably picked up on all of them in a matter of seconds.

If this were another situation, Clint would be very suspicious about Loki being able to change his appearance. Natasha had actually been suspicious a while ago, when finding out Loki can change his appearance like that, but she seems to view it as harmless now.

"Look, Loki, about last time," Clint starts. "Well, I didn't mean to put an arrow near your face. You just kinda startled me, is all, you know?" Considering Loki still hasn't said anything, Clint's starting to wonder if Loki's still annoyed at him. Not that Clint could exactly blame him if he decided to hold a grudge.

"Do's you need..." Loki starts, eyes directed towards Clint, but not entirely focused on him. "me to fix-it?"

"Fix what?" Clint asks, before remembering he has some minor injuries on his arms and face, which he'd disinfected on the quinjet while Natasha took the controls for a bit. Frankly, getting out of a battle with only a couple scratches and cuts is an accomplishment.

Loki doesn't answer, just moves his head so the top of his head brushes Clint's arm. He starts to sing what Clint recognizes as Rapunzel's healing song from Tangled. Of course, with Lila, he's seen that movie. She's really into that princess sort of stuff and talks nonstop about Frozen, even though she hasn't even seen it. Technically, it's not even out yet, although Tony and Loki had apparently seen it early, somehow.

As Loki sings this, the scratches and cuts disappear. Clint stares, because that's basically what Rapunzel does in the movie, only Loki's copy of Tony's hair doesn't glow at all. He doesn't feel the injuries either, but then again, he'd mostly ignored them up until now. He touches his arm, and it feels- and looks- like it had never been injured at all.

"Whoa..." Clint breathes, because that's astounding and a lot better than having some S.H.I.E.L.D medic poke at him. He grins at Loki, who grins back a little unsurely. His gaze drifts towards Natasha. Since she was fighting on the ground instead of sniping things with arrows from a building, one would think she'd sustain a lot more injuries, but Natasha's really, really good.

"So, are we good about the whole arrow thing?" Clint asks.

"Tony said I froze it, like Elsa." Loki singsongs the last two words. Clint nods and says that yes, he did indeed freeze the arrow.

"Oh, yeah!" Loki says, pulling himself up to a sitting position on the branch he'd been hanging by his knees from. "I drewed Rufus for you." He holds up a plush backpack of Stitch and addresses the bag. "Stitch, Rufus please."

To Clint's astonishment- and Natasha's, although she hides it well- the Stitch backpack spits out a small sheet of paper. Loki hands it to Clint, and he sees it has a small pink creature with huge buck teeth. "Sorry he doesn't look better. Like, not even not-flat." Loki says.

"It's fine like this." Clint answers, slipping the tiny drawing in his pocket. It's small enough to fit in without being folded.

Clint hears Steve and Tony walk up, having an argument of some sort.

Steve had apparently asked Tony if he'd told Loki whether or not Thor was coming over, because the billionaire just gives him an annoyed look. "No, I just decided to spring Thor's arrival on him, since that went so well last time." Tony's voice positively drips with sarcasm. "Speaking of him, I guess I should tell him he can come over. You still okay with that, Rudolph?"

Loki looks at him and asks "You gonna beat him up if he hurts me?"

"Hell yeah I am." Tony replies, and Loki nods.

Clint has noticed that Loki's speech is a bit odder than usual, and when he asks- admittedly somewhat tactlessly- about this, Loki starts talking about English being weirder when All-Tongue is off. Clint remembers All-Tongue, and how Loki had been able to respond in every language Natasha threw at him. Why on earth would he decide to go without that, especially when it makes him sound odder?

In his comm, Tony says to Thor "All right, Princess, you can get over here. We're gonna have a little team chat, so don't try backing out."

---

Thor arrives when the rest of them are in the main living room, debating what to have for dinner, or, in Bruce's case, nodding off on a sofa. Loki had also tried to drag Natasha and Clint into a game about Kim and Ron, whoever they are. Shawarma had been shot down as an option by Natasha.. Steve doesn't really want to have Tony spend a ton of money on them, but Clint seems to have no reservations about that, although he seems like he's mostly teasing when he suggests more and more exquisite foods.

Once Thor arrives, Loki is extremely clingy with Tony, immediately grabbing Tony's sleeve as if to ensure Tony doesn't give him the slip.

Of course Thor looks confused about the two Tony's, but he actually seems to figure it out pretty quickly. He frowns. ""You-"

"Yeah, whatever you're going to say, just stop." Tony interjects quickly, glaring at Thor. "You stay out of this, princess. Remember our deal? I think you've done way more than enough damage in your lifetime. Besides, Hammer Time, isn't changing his appearance exactly what your parents did to him in the first place? Because, you know, if you think he's a freak for doing that- which he's not- then your parents would also be freaks. Worse, your father would be a freak who abuses other freaks. Odin isn't exactly as stellar as you think he is, huh? Although that should be obvious." Tony finishes with a dramatic eye roll.

Thor doesn't actually say anything about the transformation after that. Around five awkward minutes pass while Tony keeps talking, sometimes lecturing Thor and sometimes about random things that apparently pop in his head, like why red grapes are infinitely better than green ones, Thor's stomach positively rumbles, sounding eerily like the thunder he controls.

"Friend Stark, do you have any of those delicious Tarts of Pop available?" Thor asks in his usual booming voice as he heads towards the kitchen. Tony and Clint both roll their eyes, and even Steve knows they're called Pop Tarts.

"They are in that Cabinet over there, Prince Odinson." Tony's AI creation, Jarvis, says. Despite visiting Tony, and thus encountering Jarvis, numerous times over the year and a half the Avengers have been formed, Steve still isn't entirely sure what Jarvis is. Sure, he knows he's a machine of some sort, but he seems so human. Back in his time, there had been all sorts of stories about machines and robots taking over humanity, but Tony assured him he doesn't need to worry about that. Tony had basically said to treat Jarvis like he's human, though. Steve can swear he hears slight note of amusement in Jarvis' voice, but that shouldn't be possible for a computer. Thor, however, doesn't seem to notice.

Loki snickers at something, but he sometimes did that the other times Steve visited.

There's a very loud clattering as what sounds like dozens of objects fall to the floor. Everyone enters the kitchen, looking confused, except for the Tony that is Loki.

There's a mountain of random objects at Thor's feet- everything from screwdrivers and a matchbox that opened and spilled matches across the floor, to random cooking utensils, including a small pasta strainer. There's even a small pillow that looks like it belongs on one of the sofas.

"What happened?" Steve asks even as he works out that obviously the cabinet had been full of all that stuff.

"What do you think?" Tony replies sarcastically. "Thor just decided to dump all that stuff on the floor."

"Friend Stark, I swear I did not do this." Thor says, clearly not recognizing the sarcasm.

He grabs a box of PopTarts and opens it, only for his face to become even more confused as he pulls out a small paperback book and a pair of mismatched socks.

Had Tony been having some sort of wild, drunk party again? Steve wouldn't be surprised if that's the case, and while Tony looks confused, too, perhaps he'd been so drunk that he doesn't remember it. Clint looks amused and Natasha just raises an eyebrow. Bruce isn't actually in the kitchen, and is probably resting on a couch.

Meanwhile, Loki turns to leave the room, and Steve is pretty sure he hears another snicker.

"I take it we are out of the Tarts of Pop, then." Thor says sadly, opening the other box and finding just a stack of tissues.

"Yeah, well, too bad." Tony shrugs, not looking sympathetic. "Now, we really need to talk about some things. Actually, I've got a list here." He whips out his holographic Stark Phone and reads something off it that Steve can't see. Looking up at Thor, Tony fixes him with a hard stare. "First of all, what the hell is with you guys treating Loki as a servant?!"

Thor looks honestly confused, and Thor's never one for disguising his emotions. "I know not of what you speak, Friend Stark." Ton levels him with a skeptical glare, but Thor looks entirely genuine.

"You mean you know nothing about the servants making him help them with chores and berating him all the while?"

Steve hadn't heard of this before, and he frowns, not liking it at all. Thor shakes his head, and Tony points an accusing finger at him. "Well, now you do. And by the way, when you become king, you'd better abolish slavery. Seriously, we did that over a century and a half ago. Get with the times. It's wrong, horrible, and disgusting. Seriously, why the hell do you have servants and slaves? Just pay them all and be done with it. And don't count any of them as property, because you can't own another person."

"Why would the servants even make Loki help them?" Steve asks, confused. No offense to Loki, but he doesn't exactly seem like great help with a lot of areas, although Tony had mentioned Loki cooking with Bruce. Maybe he did that.

"Well, because they could." Natasha says, crossing her arms but not betraying any emotion in her tone or facial expression. "These Frost Giants-"

"Jotuns." Tony corrects. "I think Frost Giants is derogatory, sorta like the N-word here or something."

Natasha nods slightly. "Okay, these Jotuns are clearly considered the lowest class, and even if half the stories about huge wars with them are true, they're probably even less popular in your kingdom." She fixes Thor with a look, and he doesn't deny it. "Well, being a servant, or worse, a slave, has got to be immensely frustrating, so they probably decided to take their annoyance out on the one person nobody cared about."

That sounds pretty plausible, although Steve has to wonder who Loki took his annoyance out on.

Okay, second thing- what's up with those apples in the myths? Aren't you guys naturally immortal?"

"Nay, we are not. Idunn's apples grant us immortality, if we continue eating them. Furthermore, we are not actually immortal, Man of Iron, we simply live a good five thousand years longer than you Midgardians do."

"So what would happen if a human ate one?" Tony asks, and Steve is pretty sure he's just being an inquisitive scientist. After all, what would he need with an apple?

"If they continued eating them, they would live as long as the Aesir." Thor replies.

Tony nods and asks suddenly "How old is Loki?"

"We have both passed our first millennium," Thor starts, and Clint lets out an impressed sort of whistle. "Although I am a little older than Loki."

"Loki seems so much younger." Steve muses out loud, and Tony fixes him with an annoyed stare.

"He's older than you, Spangles, which is really saying something. You're, what, grandpa age by now?" Tony quips, and Steve frowns.

"So, what's up with the whole Jotunheim thing? Loki said that Heimdall wound up saving him." Tony says, and Steve remembers this coming up on Halloween.

"The Frost Giants somehow invaded my coronation, and I was going there to confront them. I am not proud of what happened." Thor lowers his eyes slightly. "Loki is a prince of their realm, and Father took him as a babe to be a bargaining chip. However, it turns out that he was not wanted in Jotunheim, either. A fight broke out, and Heimdall, the gatekeeper, wound up rescuing Loki."

Thor pauses a bit and says "I never wanted him to die." He says sincerely.

"I thought you hated all Jotuns." Tony sneers. "I'm surprised you didn't tell him he was going to get eaten by them or something."

"I believe Fandral might have actually told him that. As a child, I was told stories of Jotuns eating Aesir children, but I have never heard of that actually happening. I declared I was going to slay all the Frost Giants, but I never meant him even then." Thor guiltily adds. "I hurt him, but I never wanted him dead."

"I still don't get what you have against these Jotuns." Clint says, crossing his arms.

"The Aesir and Jotuns have fought many a war against each other, and are mortal enemies."

"Yet on the Helicarrier, you told Fury that Loki isn't dangerous."

"Aye, he is not." Thor says.

"So clearly, not all Jotuns are like that." Tony says, giving Thor a pointed stare.

Dinner, which is Chinese food (very expensive food that's probably only delivered to Tony). Tony goes to get Loki and wake Bruce. Loki still looks like Tony, and he comes in the room clutching Tony's sleeve, with Simba tucked under one arm. He's also nonchalantly eating a Pop Tart.

Thor frowns. "I thought we were out?"

"Last one." Loki murmurs, staring at the ground and taking another bite. The look of horror on Thor's face is rather funny.

Loki still seems very anxious during the meal. He's a lot quieter, and he moves around even more than usual, fidgeting anxiously. He's also set up a small army of toys in front of his plate. Simba's there, of course, as are a Tony Stark action figure and other characters that Steve doesn't recognize.

Loki slides under the table, and is eventually coaxed out by Tony and Bruce, who are sitting on either side of him. There are a couple other times it seems he's debating about repeating this, but he only actually crawls under the table the one time, even if he slinks low in his seat, as if he's half sliding under a lot.

At one point, Thor hurls a glass to the floor. He doesn't do that all the time, but apparently that's pretty common in Asgard. Tony fixes Thor with an annoyed look and says "Hey. Don't break my stuff." He then turns to Loki and says, not bothering to lower his voice at all, "See, Bambi? I told you he was worse with cups than you are. Accidentally dropping one is nothing." Loki smiles slightly at that.

Loki doesn't eat much and quickly scurries into the living room. The rest of them find him near a sofa with a ton of toys on it. Loki immediately latches onto Tony's arm again.

There's a bit more awkwardness, where Tony mostly keeps the silence at bay with random comments.

Loki starts rocking back and forth and singing something. However, he seems off in his own little world.

"You think I'm an ignorant savage

And you've been so many places, I guess it must be so

But still I cannot see

If the savage one is me

How can there be so much that you don't know?

You don't know..."

At first, it seems like there's a message there, directed at Thor, until Loki starts softly singing under his breath, something that sounds like you think you own whatever land you land on. Steve's starting to wonder if maybe it's just a coincidence, and the first part wasn't directed at Thor at all. Loki could just be singing a song he likes, and he doesn't exactly seem to be present at the moment.

"You tell him, Snoopy." Tony gives Loki a light, friendly shake, and Steve's honestly surprised. Normally, Tony doesn't seem quite this affectionate with people.

Loki seems to relax slightly when Tony's hand is on his shoulder, and Tony doesn't move away when Loki snuggles close to him. The two of them still look like twins or even clones, which is still somewhat strange but also funny. However, it's still pretty easy to tell them apart from the way Loki acts, the slightly glassy eyes, and his clothing and the stuff he's carrying. Even if they were wearing the exact same things and didn't have anything else (like Simba and the alien backpack), it would be easy to tell them apart. Looking like Tony only makes that difference- whatever it is- all the more striking.

Loki continues singing, something along the lines of thinking the earth is a dead thing, but how every rock, tree and creature have voices and spirits. It's starting to look a little less like Loki's directing a message towards Thor and more like he's just singing a song he likes.

Then, the lyrics become somewhat relevant again, and Loki sings louder

"You think the only people who are people

Are the people who look and think like you

But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger

You'll learn things you never knew you never knew."

Loki looks at Tony for reassurance, and Tony gives him another nod and shoulder squeeze. Loki's grip on Simba tightens considerably as he looks back at Thor.

"My Tony says you're wrong." Loki says quietly, and immediately tenses up. Tony pulls his doppelganger closer, and Loki relaxes marginally. "He's my family now." Thor, meanwhile, looks between Tony and Loki, (currently another Tony) with a shocked expression that matches Steve's own. Family? That seems so unlike Tony. But Tony nods in agreement and gives Thor a cold stare.

To be honest, if he'd been here when Tony first decided to let Loki live with him, Steve would've thought it was a bad idea. He would've expected Tony to perhaps treat Loki like a new bit of technology, putting him aside when the novelty wears off. However, Steve's somewhat surprised with how this has turned out. Tony good for Loki, and Loki's good for Tony in turn.

"My Bruce and Hulk-y are family, too." Loki mumbles. "And my Jarvis and Dum-E and Pepper."

"My Tony, he's real smart." Loki starts after a bit, bouncing up and down anxiously on his toes and putting Simba's face up against his own. "Super smart, like." Tony looks like he thinks that's an understatement. "So he knows what he's talking 'bout, more than me usually." Loki says. "An', and Tony says you shouldn't hit me, 'cause I don't d'serve it."

Tony's doppelganger drags the inventor over to a sofa with a ton of toys sitting on it, although it's only one sofa out of many. The Tony that's really Loki pauses, cocking his head to the side and frowning slightly as he glances at his hands. One of them is gripping Tony's shirt in a death grip that will probably end up ruining it, although surprisingly, Tony doesn't object. The other hand is occupied with holding Simba's fuzzy head up to his face. After a bit of thought, he sits down, practically pulling Tony down with him, and puts Simba on his lap, thus freeing that hand to lean over and grab one of the dolls sitting on the couch. It's a doll with a platinum-blonde, almost-white braid, wearing a blue dress. She also has blue skin and red eyes, and Thor stares at it.

Loki looks at the doll with a small smile, and then starts talking, not taking his eyes off the doll.

"This is Elsa." He nods, holding the doll up for them to see, although he still doesn't look at them. "She's... she's a Jotun, but she's not a monster, nope nope nope!" He shakes his head vehemently as he says this. "My Tony mades it real clear she's not. Well, the old dumb Duke guy thought she was, he said so too, but she's not! She made slides and stuff for her and Anna, and they made Olaf, 'xcept he wasn't living then. She doesn't normally look like this though." As he says that, Elsa's skin changes from blue to a pale color, and her eyes become blue instead of red.

Loki turns to grab another doll with two reddish braids hanging over her shoulders, although the right braid has a bit of white in it. Loki introduces the doll as Anna and makes the two dolls hug.

"Is this Anna of Jotunheim, too?" Thor asks and Loki stares at him with wide, worried eyes, as if he'd been trying to forget Thor was there and was just reminded of his presence.

"No! Elsa was the only one in Arendelle, she was... like me. Anna, she wasn't, but she still loved Elsa and she didn't hit her none for making ice or being a Jotun, but she knew 'cause of the ice and snowy stuff. Anna loved Elsa, like family, even though Elsa wasn't." He frowns at Thor, and it's painfully obvious he's jealous about that. "But she was, too, 'cause families and Ohanas don't have'ta be all the same. Like, Stitch isn't even from the same planet as Lilo!" Loki gazes at the blue creature hanging off his back, pulling the straps of the plush backpack tighter so it's like the alien- Stitch, apparently- is hugging him tighter from behind.

Thor shifts uncomfortably, eyes cast downwards slightly. Loki's now brown eyes glaze over a bit more as he continues with the story.

"But then, she acc'dentally hit Anna with ice, but it wasn't her being bad 'cause she didn't mean to, but Anna got really hurt. The trolls fixed her but Anna didn't even know 'bout the magic anymore 'cause a troll changed her memories. So she remembered, but not the magic. Then her parents told her magic is bad and made her not use it, and she got real scared-like when she did, 'cause they didn't want her to." Thor's starting to look more guilty, as the story changes to them disapproving of her magic, like Asgard clearly had. "And Bruce says that they probably didn't hit her, and that if they did they were real monsters, not her."

Right now, the real Tony has a cross between a smug smirk and a genuine grin on his face as he regards his 'twin.' He's clearly pleased, even though he still looks somewhat astonished that Loki's saying all this.

Steve finds himself nodding along, agreeing wholeheartedly with Bruce's point about the real monsters. "What happened next?" He asks, as Clint sarcastically mutters something about spoiler alerts.

"Well, Elsa was going to be the Queen of Arendelle, 'cause her parents got drowned in the ocean. And she was gonna be Queen, even though she's a Jotun and they weren't, and the King and Queen knew that and still picked her?"

"Why would they allow her to rule?" Thor asks, but immediately shuts up when everyone, except Loki, glares at him.

"She's a good queen, 'xcept at her corn-o-ration, no cor...o...nation..." He casts a quick glance at Tony, who nods, and Loki grins a grin that looks odd on Tony's face. "She accidentally made ice, even though she tried really hard not to. And then she made it snow all over Arendelle, 'cause she was really scared. And the mean old Duke man called her a monster, and she ran 'way."

He nods, looking at the doll again. "She went in the mountains, and she made Olaf and a really cool ice castle!" Loki grabs one of the toys from the line on the sofa, a small plush snowman, and holds it up for them to see. "This is Olaf. He's a snowman, and he's real. He wasn't when Elsa and Anna first made him, but he is now." He hugs the toy briefly. "Anna didn't hate Elsa for makin' him, at all. Anna really likes Olaf, 'cause they're friends, and she didn't hate Elsa."

It definitely seems like some of this is directed towards Thor, and Steve finds himself surprised at Loki's subtlety.

"Anna found Olaf and then Elsa, but she accidentally hurt Anna a-gain, 'cause she was still scared-like. And the Duke, he tried'ta get his guards to kill her, 'xcept they didn't manage. 'Cause, she used ice to stop 'em, and my Tony says it's not bad for her to do that. He says she kicked their asses epically, and that it doesn't make her weaker for using ice." He doesn't sound entirely sure about that, though, and the last part sounds like he's quoting Tony directly.

"Elsa made Marshmallow too, and he has spikes and roars and stuff, like a monster, but he really likes crowns, and they make him smile. But Anna and Kristoff and Hans thought he was really scary, and Hans fought him with a sword." Loki pauses and adds "He's like Hulk-y, but he was just trying'ta protect Elsa. Anna didn't hate her for that either, nope nope nope! 'Cause she's nice. But then Anna got worse, and Hans is a jerk, and Anna kinda turned into ice." Well, that doesn't sound like a very happy ending, Steve thinks.

"But then she thawed Anna and they were all happy!" Loki nods decisively and fiddles with Elsa's braid.

At one point, Thor gets within a five foot radius of Loki, and something odd happens. Loki's blue alien backpack- which is named Stitch, apparently- growls at Thor, and Simba roars. As if that's not odd enough, there's suddenly a humongous gray wolf snarling at the thunderer.

Before Thor even does anything, Loki flees the room and what looks to be an eight-legged horse appears and goes with him, singing some sort of lullaby about finding a field with horses. Tony follows after them. Steve wonders if Loki's having another panic attack. Still, he has no idea what just happened. He looks to the others, but they look somewhat confused, too.

"What were those monstrous creatures?" Thor asks. "That horse had too many legs!"

"The wolf was Fenrir and the horse was Sleipnir." Bruce says tiredly as he gets up from the sofa. "They're Loki's friends, and his chosen family." Bruce sends a reproachful look at Thor, but he doesn't Hulk-out, but his eyes do flash green and he looks like he's having to make an effort to hold the Hulk in. "He's sort of like Marshmallow, who Loki just told you about. From what I've heard, you didn't like him talking to them. So what did you do? Beat him."

Bruce takes some deep breaths. "But maybe if you'd been a better brother- not that you acted like a brother at all- he may not have needed to... create his own friends and family."

"He is not my brother." Thor says. "We are not even of the same blood."

"Haven't you ever heard of adoption?" Clint asks curtly. Thor looks down and doesn't answer.

"What do you have against his powers, anyways?" Bruce asks.

"I used to believe magic is not practiced by men." Thor answers. "It's a very womanly art, and I had not known that my father was versed in magic. I was unaware that it was the Father and Mother who hid Loki's true form. For a while, I believed it was Loki himself, since he can change his appearance." Thor pauses thoughtfully. "I am not sure why Father is so adamantly against magic when he can perform it himself, but he absolutely hated Loki's magic."

Thor frowns slightly. "I remember the first time I saw Loki use magic. He made green light, almost like fire playing around his hands. I was... entranced, even though he was a Frost Giant." Thor says. He pauses for a bit. "Then I remember Father whipping Loki after, and telling him that men don't perform magic. That's when I first heard magic was unmanly and... that does not seem right, considering Father can wield magic himself."

Clint snorts. "Of course it's not right." He says derisively. "At least you're getting it, though... but I'll notice you don't seem to have a problem with him getting whipped, even though he was a child. Who the hell can whip a child?"

"It's easy to justify abuse if you see someone as less than human." Natasha says, crossing her arms. "That way, you can tell yourself their pain doesn't matter. History's shown it countless times."

"Loki and I are not Midgardian." Thor replies, confused, and Clint rolls his eyes.

"She didn't mean literally human. She meant, like, less than an animal or something."

Thor looks away, ashamed. "Aye, Lady Natasha. Up until recently, after my failed coronation, I believed that Jotuns deserved to be hurt and even killed. We killed the ones that showed up at my coronation, and killed even more in Jotunheim. I know now that it was wrong."

Well, at least there's that.

After a while, Tony and Loki re-emerge. Loki still looks like Tony, and he's eating yet another Pop Tart. Tony's smirking at something, especially when Thor looks at the Pop Tart longingly.

Tony announces that they're going to watch a movie called The Incredibles. Steve knows next to nothing about it, but he agrees. They all sit in a media room, and Loki makes sure to sit as far away from Thor as possible.

The movie starts out with an interviewer asking Mr. Incredible if he has a secret identity, and Mr. Incredible replies that every superhero has a secret identity. That's really not true for the Avengers, though. Admittedly, Tony was the one who announced to the world that he's Iron Man. Steve can occasionally blend in, but not as often as, say Natasha, who actually has several fake aliases she goes by.

"No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back into jeopardy again." Mr. Incredible says, and that basically sums up what it's like for the Avengers. "Sometimes, I just want it to stay saved, y'know? For a little bit... I feel like the maid. 'I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for ten minutes?"

The movie then shows Mr. Incredible start to chase down an armed robber driving away from police, until an old lady asks him to get her cat Squeakers out of a tree. Steve actually has gotten a cat out of a tree before, but it was for a little boy instead of an old lady. Mr. Incredible winds up using the uprooted tree the cat was in to block the robber's car.

Thor remarks loudly that Mr. Incredible reminds him of Steve himself.

Once Mr. Incredible goes back in his car, he finds a boy named Buddy who claims he's Incrediboy. Apparently, he's a big member of the Mr. Incredible fan club, but all the same, Mr. Incredible ejects Buddy from the car and speeds off.

After Mr. Incredible stops a thief on a roof and runs into Elastigirl, and falls in love with her.

Later, on the day of his and Elastigirl's wedding, Mr. Incredible is fighting the cleverly-named Bomb Voyage.

Buddy, who still calls himself Incrediboy, once again tries to tag along with Mr. Incredible, even showing off the rocket boots he made and Mr. Incredible still tries to get him to go home.

"This is because I don't have powers, isn't it? Well, not every superhero has powers, you know. You can be super without them. I invented these. I can fly. Can you fly?" Buddy replies, and everybody glances at Tony. Loki even laughs and points out the obvious- that Buddy flies, just like Tony.

Tony says that his suit is way cooler than Incrediboy's rocket boots, and then quips to Clint and Natasha that it's not like they have superpowers either so they shouldn't be looking at him like how they are.

Mr. Incredible then saves a man who tried to commit suicide by jumping off a building,

Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl marry, and Elastigirl tells him he needs to be "more than just Mr. Incredible."

The movie cuts to newsreels of Mr. Incredible being sued by Oliver Sansweet, the man who he'd prevented from committing suicide. Oliver's lawyer claims that Oliver didn't want to be saved and that he suffers from daily pain from Mr. Incredible's actions. To be fair, he does have a neck brace, but it's still a stupid lawsuit. Mr. Incredible angrily declares that he saved the man's life and that he should be thanking him instead of suing him. The train incident also cost the government millions.

Then, newspapers show other lawsuits, like for an 'X-Ray vision Peeping Tom'. A lady on the newsreel declares that superheroes' secret identities should become their only identities, and the public supports it. The government apparently quietly relocates them and they live out their lives as ordinary citizens.

"They shouldn't have to do that." Steve says, very annoyed. "They should just let them do what they need to do." They were helping people for crying out loud, and now the people hate them for it. It's absurd!

"I agree!" Thor rumbles wholeheartedly. "Why should they seek to control what their heroes do?"

"I admit it's kind of dumb for them to write them off entirely." Tony muses. "But couldn't they, like, at least have some sort of government agency telling them what to do?"

"You're saying that?" Steve asks Tony incredulously. Really, he would have thought that Tony would be with him on that one.

"Shut your patriotic mouth, Capsicle." The real Tony says as both Tony's glare at him, although Loki might just be imitating the real Tony.

"There's no need to start a civil war here, people." Bruce sighs, and Natasha just gets Jarvis to start the movie up again.

Bob (Mr. Incredible) hasn't totally adjusted to a civilian life. He works as an insurance claims agent but hates it. However, he helps people find loopholes to actually get money when they should. He and Helen have three kids. The eldest is fourteen year old Violet, who has a crush on a boy named Tony Rydinger but actually turns invisible to avoid being seen by him. There had been something about Loki turning invisible on the Helicarrier, Steve remembers. He notices Tony glance at Loki, who, after glancing at Thor, seems to be hyperventilating. Tony pulls him close and loudly declares that what Violet just did was awesome.

"She's got a really silly name." Loki says with a small giggle. "Purple Plant." He laughs, flicking his fingers. "She's named afters a plant!"

"Aye, the Purple Flower has a most amusing name." Thor booms, and Loki flinches, but looks surprised Thor's agreeing with him.

"It's Violet." Natasha explains. "But Violet is purple, as well as a flower. Is that what... All-Tongue translates it to?" Both of them nod, although Steve noticed that Loki had used the word plant when Thor had used flower, which is more accurate.

Next on Bob and Helen's list of kids is ten year old Dash, who can run incredibly fast and uses that skill to put a tack on the teacher chair. Baby Jack-Jack hasn't shown any signs of having superpowers yet.

At dinner, Helen tells Bob about how Dash got sent to the principal's office again, for putting a tack on the teacher's chair. The tapes barely caught him doing it. Mr. Incredible accidentally cuts through a plate and excuses himself.

When Helen asks Violet why she's not eating, Dash replies that she'd eat if they were having Tony loaf for dinner, since Tony's the boy she has a crush on.

Loki looks over at Tony and says sadly "You're right. There are other Tony's." It's a little ironic, because he still looks like Tony himself.

"Well, I'm the best Tony." Tony replies, and Steve's not sure if he actually thinks that. Loki clearly does, though and he claps his hands excitedly as he nods in agreement.

At Dash's comment about Tony-loaf, Violet launches herself across the table at him and they proceed to fight. Dash dashes around and Violet eventually stops him with a force field, which Dash complains about. Helen tries to stop the fight by stretching and putting both of them back in their chairs, but they both charge under the table and continue their fighting there. Bob comes back and lifts up the table.

Lucius Best (a.k.a. Frozone) a longtime friend of the family, arrives, and the fight abruptly stops. Dash proceeds to spit liquid at him and Lucius freezes it in midair.

Loki actually seems to find that hysterical, and he wriggles his body around and flicks his fingers as he laughs. Thor, confused asks "Is this man of Jotunheim?"

"Probably not." Tony shrugs. "Just because he has ice powers doesn't automatically mean he's from Jotunheim."

"Like Slushy." Loki says quietly. Steve has no idea who Slushy is, but Tony grins at Loki.

Lucius and Bob leave for what they claim is bowling night. Helen starts to lecture Dash about going to the principal's office, and when she mentions the word 'normal', Violet interrupts.

"Normal? What do you know about normal? What does anyone in this family know about normal? We act normal, Mom. I want to be normal! The only normal one is Jack-Jack, and he's not even toilet trained!"

Bob and Lucius don't actually go bowling- instead, they do undercover superhero work, although Lucius actually wanted to go bowling. After they rescue people from a burning building, they somehow end up in a jewelry shop, where they get stopped by the police, who think they're robbers. The two of them are told to freeze, and Lucius slowly reaches for a drink of water. The cop tells him that he's now had a drink so he should- "I know, I know. Freeze!" Lucius says, freezing the cop solid with ice.

Loki actually laughs at the pun.

Helen and Bob have an argument when he gets home, and Helen says he needs to stop the superhero work.

Later, Bob ends up losing his job when his boss discovers he's telling deserving customers how to actually get coverage for things like having their house robbed. Bob notices a man being mugged, but his boss doesn't let him rescue the man. Fed up, Bob ends up throwing his boss through several walls and loses his job.

He winds up getting an assignment from a mysterious lady named Mirage, to defeat a rogue robot called an Omnidroid. Bob lies to Helen, telling her he's going on a work conference, and goes to fight the Omnidroid.

Thor seems very excited during the battle, loudly proclaiming that Mr. Incredible is a "valiant warrior" and that he himself would like to go up against one of the Omnidroids.

Mr. Incredible starts to adjust to family life after that, but he takes his old, blue super suit to be fixed by a very eccentric woman named Edna Mode. She also makes him a new, red one to replace it.

A while later, Bob gets yet another assignment from Mirage. This time, she uses a phone instead of a device with a screen, and Helen overhears and starts to worry Bob is cheating on her. When Mr. Incredible fights this Omnidroid, he loses. He discovers the maker of the Omnidroids is Buddy, now calling himself Syndrome. Buddy had apparently gotten rich designing weapons.

Everyone pointedly doesn't look at Tony during that part, except for Loki, who just looks confused at the concept. Admittedly, Tony had merely taken over Howard's company, and Tony had stopped Stark Industries' production of weapons years ago.

Helen discovers Bob's old super suit had been patched up by Edna, and she pays Edna a visit, only to discover that, not only as Bob returned to superhero work, but Edna made super suits for the whole family. Activating a tracking beacon on Mr. Incredible's suit, they discover where he is.

Helen takes a jet to go rescue Bob, and it turns out Dash and Violet have stowed away onboard, leaving Jack-Jack with a babysitter, Kari. Syndrome attacks the plane with missiles, and Helen tries to get Violet to protect them with a force field. Violet is panicking, having never done it before. The jet blows up and they all fall into the ocean, and Steve notices Tony's on his phone instead of watching the movie.

Helen, Dash and Violet are unharmed and manage to swim to the island, although they're presumed dead by the other characters.

Once on the island, in a cave, Helen tells Violet and Dash to use their powers if anything happens, and Violet says that she said never to use their powers. Helen snaps at them and says that she knows what she said, but it's changed now. She tells them that these bad guys aren't like the ones they used to watch on Saturday morning cartoons, that if given the chance, these bad guys will kill them even though they're children.

Helen goes to save Bob, but Violet stops her, apologizing about the force field.

"You have more power than you realize." She tells Violet. "Don't think, and don't worry. If the time comes, you'll know what to do."

The next day, Dash and Violet encounter the guards. Violet turns invisible while the guards chase Dash using what appear to be a cross between flying saucers and circular saws. This ends up with Dash realizing he can run on water.

Syndrome ends up capturing all the Incredibles and claims he's going to release an Omnidroid on Metroville, and that he's going to sell his superhero gadgets so "When everyone's super, nobody will be."

Syndrome sends on Omnidroid to the city, and at one point, the Omnidroid almost stomps on Dash and Violet, but Violet stops it with a force field. Helen gets the kids to safety, and they watch as the Omnidroid flings Bob into a building.

Then, Frozone appears, trying to freeze the Omnidroid's legs. Mr. Incredible finds the Omnidroid's remote, and tosses it to Dash. The Omnidroid shoots at Dash, and Frozone ends up rescuing him, skating on a trail of ice he himself makes. He also, later, gets the Omnidroid to slip on ice. Violet, currently invisible, manages to grab the remote.

Eventually, Bob manages to destroy the Omnidroid with its own rocket powered hand. It turns out theat there are multiple calls on Helen's phone from the babysitter, Kari, growing increasingly more and more panicked, until there's one where she says Jack-Jack has 'special needs' and that there's a replacement sitter. Helen gets worried, not knowing about said replacement sitter.

They find Syndrome at their home. He tries to kidnap Jack-Jack to raise him as a sidekick, but Jack-Jack exhibits a lot of powers, including bursting into flames, turning into metal and turning into a little monster. Syndrome winds up getting snagged in a propeller by his cape, and the explosion blows up the house. Violet, however, saved everyone with one of her force fields.

"That was totally wicked!" A little boy on a tricycle shouts.

Three months later, they're at a track final for Dash. Tony Rydinger, Violet's crush, approaches her and says she looks different.

"Is different okay?" Violet asks.

"Different is great." He replies. Loki looks awed.

Dash manages to curtail his super speed to only get second in the race, and as the Incredibles leave, another villain, the Underminer, appears.

After the movie, Tony turns to Thor. "You know, just because people can't bench press a thousand pounds doesn't mean they're not heroes. I mean, I built my suit. Would you say I'm not a hero."

"Of course not." Thor replies. "You are indeed a hero, Man of Iron."

"Well, what about me?" Clint asks, crossing his arms. "Am I weak for not waving a hammer around?"

"I actually was weak once." Steve says, although Thor already knows this. Steve's pretty sure Loki doesn't. "I was a ninety-pound Brooklyn kid with asthma, before the serum. You didn't start thinking less of me when you learned. Or did you?"

Thor says he doesn't think less of him. Loki stares at Steve in bewilderment, his glassy gaze traveling over Steve's body. Poking one of Steve's biceps, Loki says "You were weak? You're not weak. Hey, you used lotta weird words there. What's... brook-lin? As-ma? Seer-um?"

Steve smiles at him. "I used to be really scrawny." He starts to try to explain the words but Jarvis beats him to it.

Tony cuts in. "Then what the hell do you have against Loki, when you don't hold the same things against us? None of us fit your cookie-cutter Asgardian mold. What would you have done if Odin had taken me in? Would you all have abused me, too?"

Thor looks even more ashamed when it's put like this. "Or, on the flip side, how would you have felt if you'd been raised by humans who hated you for your ability with thunder?"

Loki has dragged Tony and Natasha into a game where they play Mr. and Mrs. Incredible. Steve's somewhat surprised that Loki hadn't picked him to play Mr. Incredible, considering he's the most like him.

Loki accidentally makes a force field, and casts a terrified look in Thor's direction before going in what seems to be a panic attack.

Tony leans down to comfort him, while curtly Thor to just leave. He tells Loki that it's not a problem, that force fields are good.

Loki calms down a lot quicker once Thor is gone. He also morphs from Tony's body to his actual body- well, not the blue one, but the pale one that looks otherwise identical to the blue one. He eventually says "Force fields are good, right, 'cause Violet pro-tected her family with 'em."

"You go it." Tony answers. Loki's face crumples in confusion.

"Then why, why'd..." He buries his face against Tony's chest. "Why'd they hurt me for it? Why'd Odin hates it so much, so much hurt..."

"Because Odin is a dick." Tony says harshly. "And an idiot." Tony continues. "Force fields are incredibly useful- heck, I'd love to have them around my suits- and Odin could have realized that they're useful and had you help protect people or something. But instead, he decided to be a bigot. A hypocritical bigot."

---

Thor walks out onto the vast grounds of the mansion, although they're not nearly as vast as Asgard's own gardens. He's carrying something that the mechanical servant, Jarvis, instructed him to deliver to Heimdall for Tony.

The fountain outside is lit up, as if by magic, but it's probably some sort of Midgardian science instead.

Now that Thor thinks about it, the two aren't very different at all when one gets down to the crux of the matter. Not that Thor could really explain it at all, but he knows that they are.

Tony is a man of science, but that doesn't make him weak. In fact, his Man of Iron suits are some of the most incredible things Thor has seen.

Tonight's given him a lot to think about. Ever since learning that Odin and Frigga can do magic too, he's been forced to re-evaluate how he viewed magic his whole life. He'd always believed it to be the cowardly way out, but that would mean that Tony, inventing suits with science, would be a coward too, and Tony is no coward.

That's not all, though. That one man in the movie- Frozone- had shown that there can actually be good things about using ice powers like Jotuns have.

Thor calls for Heimdall to open the Bifrost, and once he arrives at the gatekeeper's dome, he hands over the basket apparently from Tony. As he hands it over, he catches a glimpse of the tag on it, which reads For not being as much of an ass as everyone else on Ass-guard.

Thor's eyes narrow slightly, but Heimdall doesn't seem to notice as he pulls out a ticket wedged between the fruit in the basket. He raises an eyebrow. "What in the Nine Realms does Man of Iron think I am going to do with a Midgardian Spa Voucher?"

Thor chuckles lightly, but it's a far cry from his usual booming laugh as he continues to think.

What's most on his mind is how he's treated Loki all those years. He'd thought about it a bit after his banishment on Midgard, after he'd almost gotten Loki killed in Jotunheim, but he's thinking about it even more now.

He knows now that Loki isn't a vicious, unthinking monster, but until recently, he'd treated him as such. After all, he'd only ever heard stories of Jotuns being portrayed in that manner, and perhaps that's how Loki would have ended up, had Odin taken him to Asgard.

Thor doesn't know why Odin decided to take Loki to Asgard, just to treat him horribly. And perhaps for the first time, Thor has really taken note of how much their treatment hads affected Loki, with the absolutely terrified look he'd sent him.

Midgard has vastly different views about what is considered strength, and Thor has come to accept a lot of them. Clint, skilled archer as he is, is far weaker than any Asgardian and would definitely lose to them. But that doesn't make him weak.

Furthermore, the other Avengers don't seem to regard Loki as weak, even when he sends terrified looks at them. And they'd always mocked him for being weak, but hadn't they also punished him for fighting back in the ways he knew how? Turning invisible and making force fields, rather like that girl, Violet.

Thor starts to feel sickened.

Certainly by Midgard's standards, Thor had wronged Loki greatly. Immensely. So immensely that there's probably no making up for it.

But still, shouldn't he try?

Well, at least Thor's making some progress...

Wow, this thing is longer than Poetic Justice now, and that's my favorite Avengers fic ever. Plus when I was reading it, I was like "there's no way I'm ever going to write something that long."

Loki taking on Tony's body is an idea I've had since almost the very beginning.

Yes, I seriously threw in some shameless Civil War jokes in this chapter. Also, I totally think Thor would've been Team Cap. Also, credit for the spa voucher/fruit basket idea for Heimdall goes to Nessaiya.

I saw some pictures online of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston on the set for Thor: Ragnarok, and I fanboyed way too much about Loki, at least according to my brother, and then I realized Bruce is going to be in it too, because Mark Ruffalo's on the set, too. Also, I was playing some app called Avengers Academy, and according to my brother I totally fanboyed in that, since I ran over to him and showed him when I got Loki (you start out with Iron Man, although all the characters are teens in that app). Honestly, my brother's totally right. I am a complete fanboy. Unfortunately, (although I'm not sure if these are rumors or not) Loki might not be in Avengers: Infinity Wars, even though I thought he was going to be :( That would really stink, if he's not.

Oh, and I saw a headline about how the two of them visited a little boy with brain damage.

This is also totally random, but does anyone else remember those Trivial Pursuit Pop Tarts that had questions and answers written on them? Apparently they're not even made anymore, and I never really ate too many Pop Tarts to begin with, but I remember eating those a couple times. It's odd, because I could have sworn they were called "Quiz-berry" Pop Tarts, but apparently not. Yes, I actually went and looked that up when I was writing about Loki eating Pop Tarts.

Okay, I'll shut up again. Hopefully I can update sooner. Sadly, I'm still having trouble with that one shot where MCU Loki meets my Loki.