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?

38. Chapter 38

I really thought that, with half the month off on break, this would be up sooner than now, but I kept changing it. The first scene in this is sort of like a flashback, since it takes place before Thor discovers Sleipnir in the dungeons.

The rest of this is what Tony and the others are up to the same day that Thor finds and rescues Sleipnir (which is November 30, 2013) so there's not a whole lot of Sleipnir in this chapter. Hopefully you don't hate me for postponing when they find out about Sleipnir, but this is an idea I almost included in several earlier chapters but never got it how I wanted until now. I feel that idea wouldn't work after they found out about Sleipnir. I think this chapter is fun anyways, even if it is sort of going off on a tangent.

Also, keep in mind this is like a year and a half before Age of Ultron theoretically would take place, so Clint's kids are younger. I think they were 10 and 7 in the movie, so they're going to be just over 9 and almost 6.

As always, thanks to everybody, since you're all awesome, but a special shout-out thanks to the eternally awesome Nessaiya, who lets me bounce ideas off her probably way too often and provides me with a ton of ideas in turn, like helping me work out the logic behind a major part of this chapter. She also went above and beyond, since she wrote a good deal of Tony's charity speech for me after I sent her my train wreck of a speech draft wondering how to fix it.

Clint grins widely as he lands the Quinjet in the grass. It's really, really good to be home. He's cutting it close, but at least he'll be home in time for Thanksgiving dinner. It would be a shame if he wasn't with his family for the holiday, but that is a possibility as an agent and Avenger.

He sighs and smiles at Natasha.

Natasha, being a close friend of Clint and his family, has accepted his invitation to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Years ago, Clint had been worried that Natasha and Laura wouldn't get along when he introduced them and shared his secret family with Natasha. That hadn't been an issue in the slightest. Laura and Nat sometimes seem to get along too well and gang up on Clint, and Clint often feels like they're telling each other stuff about him behind his back, although he has no idea how, since he's pretty sure they don't have a texting thread or anything.

The kids call her Aunt Nat (or Auntie Nat, in Lila's case) and Clint and Laura have decided that, if they have another girl, they'll name her after Natasha. She's actually very good with kids, or at least Clint's kids, for someone who has little experience with them.

Clint and Natasha head through the chilly November air towards Clint's farmhouse. Clint opens the front door to hear a loud, high-pitched voice shout "Mooooommmmyy! Cooper hit me with his lightsaber!"

"No I didn't! Besides, Lila shot me first!" Cooper's voice protests just as loudly, accidentally disproving his innocence with the word first. "In the eye!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"IT'S HIS FAULT!" Lila's voice has somehow gotten even louder. "He told me to so he could block it!"

Clint finds his bickering kids in the kitchen, complaining to Laura, who's obviously trying to cook. Cooper's dressed as Darth Vader, minus the helmet, and is holding a lightsaber in one hand and the suction cup arrow that he claims hit him in the eye.

Lila is holding the toy bow the arrow belongs to and wearing a curly red wig and a light blue dress. It's her Halloween costume from a month ago- Merida from Brave- who is Lila's favorite princess. Clint likes to think it's because Merida is a great archer (though she has nothing on him, of course) but at one point Lila said it was because she had red hair like Auntie Nat, which is so not fair. Over her costume, she's wearing Buzz Lightyear wings.

"Honey, I'm home!" Clint announces dryly, and his family looks up in surprise. Obviously, neither his wife nor kids heard him and Natasha enter- the kids were too busy whining and Laura was apparently trying to deal with them and watch over Thanksgiving dinner at the same time.

"Daddy!" Both kids plow into him before he can get to Laura. Cooper practically headbutts him in the stomach with surprising force for a nine-year-old.

"Oof. Hey, guys!" Clint hugs his kids tightly before leaning back to look at them seriously. "What's this I hear about shooting each other in the face?"

"She started it!" Cooper points at Lila with the suction cup arrow.

"I don't care who started it. Don't shoot each other in the face."

"He told me to!"

"Don't do it even if someone says to. It won't end well. Now, leave your mother alone." Both kids nod, chastised. Clint moves forwards to where Laura is pulling a turkey out of the oven. Once she sets it down, he turns her around and kisses her.

This earns a disgusted "Eew!" from Cooper and he quickly runs out of the room, only to say in surprise "Aunt Nat's here too?"

"Auntie Nat!" Lila squeals and runs to where Nat had appeared from the living room. Natasha bends down, scooping Lila up. Lila shrieks with laughter and almost jabs Natasha with the toy bow she's holding, but Natasha dodges, of course. Lila's excitedly talking Natasha's ear off, pointing out how her Merida wig is red like Natasha's hair.

"This looks wonderful." Clint says to Laura, looking at all the food.

Dinner is wonderful. Sometimes Clint wishes it could be like this all the time, no missions or battles. He did manage to get this upcoming week off, by some miracle, and he's planning on spending it with his family.

His wife and kids tell him what's been going on in their lives, although he calls them regularly. Cooper and Lila are both doing well in school, although Cooper apparently needs to work harder in math. Cooper hastily tries to change the subject by saying they're learning about the human body in science. Clint knows a lot about the human body, and where to put an arrow to kill someone, maim them, and so on.

At one point during the meal, Lila asks if they can see Frozen sometime. It only came out yesterday, although Loki had seen it well before and definitely liked it, and it seems like the rest of the world is going completely nuts over it too.

Clint grins. It was going to be a surprise, but... "I already bought tickets so we can all go on Saturday." There's no way Clint's going to a movie theater tomorrow on Black Friday. Lila shrieks before chattering excitedly to Natasha about all the stuff she'd seen in the trailers on TV, barely remembering to eat.

Cooper doesn't seem quite as excited, since he says princess movies are for girls, but he does admit that the snowman seems funny. Also, while Cooper will vehemently deny it if anybody asks him, Clint knows his son still secretly likes a lot of the Disney Princess movies, especially Tangled.

Clint manages to get some alone time with Laura after dinner, even though they're stuck doing the dishes while they talk, since there's no way everything's fitting in the dishwasher. He can tell she's been worried about him. She always is. His job is almost more stressful for her, since Clint's very frequently in danger.

"How are you planning on spending your week off?" Laura asks as Clint hands her a freshly-washed dish to dry. The kids go back to school next week, but Clint has the week off and will at least see them in the mornings and after school.

"Catching up on all the Netflix I've missed." Clint grins. "Why?"

Laura playfully swats him with the dishcloth. "You'd better do something other than laze around on your butt." She clearly knows he hadn't meant it.

"Yes ma'am." Clint jokingly salutes her. "Actually, I was planning on putting hardwood floors in the sunroom." It's something he's been meaning to do for a while but never had the time.

Once they're done, they join Natasha, Cooper and Lila in the living room. Lila is reading a book aloud to Natasha, snuggled up right next to her, while Cooper builds the Lego Millennium Falcon he'd gotten for ninth birthday not long ago.

Once the kids have been put to bed, Clint goes to pour three more glasses of wine, but Natasha announces she's leaving, so he the glass that was going to be for her back. As he pours the wine, he sees Lila lighting candles to create a nice, peaceful atmosphere.

Less then a minute later- they've barely settled on the couch with their wine glasses- there's a loud thump from the on the other side of the outside wall, causing the candle on the shelf on that wall to teeter dangerously, though it thankfully doesn't set anything on fire.

Clint bolts up and peers out the window. It's dark outside, dark enough that even Clint- who has the codename Hawkeye for a reason- can't really see muchwithout a flashlight or night vision goggles, but he catches the faintest sign of movement from outside the darkened window.

This isn't good.

He sprints towards the door, hoping the thud against the house hadn't woken the kids, and grabs his bow. As he slings his quiver over his back, there's a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" His eyes narrow in suspicion as he knocks an arrow.

"It's me." Natasha opens the door and walks in, trusting Clint won't shoot her. "I just took care of four guys who certainly didn't expect me to be here. Otherwise they would've called in more numbers."

"You mean we were attacked?" Laura asks faintly as Clint's heart hammers in his chest. This is his worst fear- an enemy finding out about his family. There's a reason he keeps his family so secret that they're not even on S.H.I.E.L.D's files (if they were, Tony would've found out about them long ago from hacking into them, Clint is sure).

"How did they find us?" Clint asks, voice not betraying his fear, as he follows Natasha outside, and the two of them proceed to tie up the goons and relieve them of their weapons.

A few minutes after dumping the trussed-up people unceremoniously in the barn (Clint might've been a bit rougher than he had to be, since these people had threatened his family) they find their answer.

"With this." Natasha holds up a tracking device that was hidden on the bottom of the Quinjet. Clint had disabled the built-in tracking on the Quinjet with Fury's permission, as he always does when he uses on to visit his family, so agents won't wonder why a Quinjet frequents a random farmhouse that isn't a S.H.I.E.L.D safehouse.

"How did that get there?" Clint frowns "The Quinjet was in the Helicarrier before we flew it." They hadn't encountered anybody on their flight. Surely someone at S.H.I.E.L.D would've noticed if it had been slipped on from a prior mission or something. Had someone at S.H.I.E.L.D planted it? But that doesn't make any sense

Clint shakes his head. He'll think about that later.

Right now, they have to leave. There could be more people coming. The people that are now tied up in Clint's barn could have shared this location with any number of people that Clint wouldn't want meeting his wife and kids.

---

Bruce watches with slight dismay and apprehension as a Stark Industries helicopter lands on the balcony of Stark Tower and Tony gestures at it, proclaiming "Here's our ride."

"You didn't tell me we were going to travel like this." Bruce says, with his hands in the pockets of the coat Tony had insisted on buying for him when he saw the shabbiness of Bruce's old one. Tony's dressed in a crisp business suit- which makes Bruce look even more rumpled than usual in comparison- and holding a bag of spare clothes.

"Well, someone here doesn't really like cars." Tony glances at Loki, who looks rather insane wearing only a t-shirt with the Charlie Brown zig-zag stripe, his starry long coat which is very lightweight for a coat, sweatpants and flip-flops. "Plus, traffic sucks. And this is still flying, which is always awesome, even if it's not as great as my suits."

"Well, the other guy-"

"Hulk-y, not other guy!" Loki interrupts, green eyes boring into Bruce rather more intently than usual, as if he's trying to look inside Bruce to see the oth- Hulk.

"Right. Um, Hulk... doesn't really like confined spaces." Bruce finishes, fiddling with his glasses as Loki's eyes become slightly more glazed again. The Helicopter is definitely going to be cramped, even though Bruce himself isn't particularly big.

"You've handled windowless rooms in the Helicarrier." The genius billionaire points out. "And this has windows you can look out while flying over the city. The big green guy's gotta like that, right?"

"Hulk-y, we're going to the zoo!" Loki jumps and flicks his fingers.

"Uh, I don't think the Hulk's going to come out." Bruce shifts uneasily. At least, he hopes he won't come out.

The Hulk actually responds to that, rumbling quite loudly, but almost... happily?... in Bruce's mind "ZOO. HULK SEE ANIMALS."

Bruce smiles tightly and asks mentally "You want to see animals?" That's surprising, but so is his other form settling down to watch movies with Loki curled up next to him -Tony had shown Bruce pictures of the time they'd watched Pinocchio-, building sandcastles with Loki in Malibu, and hugging his Hulk plush in the "cool-off floor", sometimes also called the "chill floor" (both are Tony's names).

'Angry' clearly isn't the Hulk's only setting.

The reason they're going to the Bronx Zoo is some PR event for Stark Industries that Tony set up shortly after that night he was out and returned with Pepper. It's also a kick-starter for Tony's new anti-abuse charity, and children with less-than-ideal pasts have been invited to spend the day at the zoo. As a child, Bruce could have fit that description, and he's really proud of Tony for doing this.

The zoo seems like a great idea for Loki as well. After all, Loki obviously loves animals, judging by some of his book preferences and ever-growing army of origami animals that he's been making since they started with Pepper a little over a week ago.

Bruce just hadn't expected he'd come along, too.

He hadn't been planning to, but Tony had claimed that Bruce needed to get out of the tower, and hadn't even listened to Bruce's arguments, practically dragging him to the balcony where the helicopter just landed. Besides, Tony had said, someone should stick with Loki when Tony's giving a speech or dealing with the press, and Bruce found he really couldn't argue with that.

Bruce mentally asks the Other Guy if he's going to be okay with the helicopter, and gets a somewhat-affirmative grunt in reply. Which is odd because normally the Other Guy isn't very good with tight spaces or flying, let alone both combined.

He's also kind of worried about being around so many kids. Kids are loud and unpredictable. What if they provoke an incident?

"STUPID BANNER." Hulk says in Bruce's mind. "Hulk no hurt children. Hulk NOT MONSTER."

Bruce honestly doesn't know if this makes him feel better or worse, but Loki's holding onto Bruce as if he might suddenly decide to bail on them, which admittedly he'd been considering.

They crowd into the back of the helicopter, and the word 'crowd' is very apt, Bruce thinks wryly and rather uncomfortably. The zoo will undoubtedly be crowded too. Bruce doesn't like crowds, but he can adapt to them. He had been force to adapt some of the time when on the run- although he usually aimed for remote, desolate places, he couldn't always avoid crowds. There are certainly crowds in New York City, too. Since moving into Stark Tower with Tony and Loki, though, Bruce hasn't really had to deal with crowds at all, which is really nice.

Pepper is already in the back of the helicopter, and Loki and Tony both grin when they see her, although Bruce is certain Tony already knew that she'd be there. "Pepper, we're gonna see animals!" Loki's voice rises to be heard as the helicopter's propellor starts chopping the air.

Pepper's reply is drowned out by Loki's surprised, excited shriek when the helicopter lifts off the ground. Loki practically crawls over Tony to press his face against the window, holding Simba up. Stitch and Lilo both look up from Loki's back. Loki and the three toys all gasp at the view of flying over the city- even Stark Tower doesn't provide a view quite like this. Jormungand looks up but doesn't seem as excited about the aerial view of New York City.

Tony and Pepper both try and point out famous landmarks. The Empire State Building is very close to Stark Tower and the top is visible from the penthouse but from the helicopter they can see the whole thing instead of just the top bit visible from the penthouse. The Statue of Liberty is technically visible, but it's a ways off and it's hard to make out many details except the arm sticking up, and they can't even tell she's holding a torch.

"There is green here." Loki not looking at Lady Liberty, but staring down at Central Park, which despite being pretty close to the tower, is largely obscured from the tower's view by other buildings. "I thought it was just the weird hard stuff."

"You mean concrete?" Tony asks after a bit, sounding confused.

"I don't like it at alls." Loki states matter-of-factly before adding, as if he'd just thought of the best idea in the world, "We should live in a forest!"

"Sorry, but that's not gonna happen." Tony says, not exactly apologetically. Tony may be the big name in clean energy with the arc reactor powering Stark Tower, and he has a gorgeous lawn in Malibu, but he really doesn't seem like one to go out and enjoy nature, let alone live in it.

Loki goes to stand up before seeming to realize that there's not room to do so, especially since he's so tall. He shimmers and starts to shrink. A few seconds later, Bruce is looking at a skinny, pale boy that appears to be ten or eleven in human years. Loki now has short black hair rather than his shoulder-length locks, but the same pale skin and glazed green eyes.

The short hair makes him look really different. The only time Bruce has seen Loki with short hair is when he morphed into Tony, and that obviously doesn't count.

"More room now!" Loki claps his hands and clambers onto Tony's lap to see out the window. Loki certainly takes up less space in the helicopter this way.

Bruce blinks and glances at Tony, who's glancing at him in return before they both look at Loki again. Tony had shown Bruce a recording from before Bruce moved into the tower, in which what they suspected was an illusion of Loki as a child had shown up during one of Loki's nightmares.

However, that illusion's eyes weren't nearly as glazes as Loki's are now, and there's just something about the way Loki moves that that illusion didn't seem to have.

"Is this what you looked like as a kid?" Pepper gushes over Loki's cuteness, while Tony subtly checks his phone, probably looking at the footage of that child illusion.

"I'm not Mowgli?" Loki asks as if he already knows the answer, staring at his hands.

"No. You're definitely you, but smaller." Tony snaps a picture on his phone and shows it to the mini Loki on his lap. "You know, I saw an illusion of you when you were around this size once, but it didn't quite seem like you."

Tony looks like he's wondering if he should have brought that up. Loki stares out the window, though he doesn't seem quite as enthusiastic about it. "Different hands." He mutters, flapping them slightly. "Different."

"You're adorable." Pepper tells Loki, gently holding one of his small hands. Loki's other arm is wrapped tightly around Simba as he looks at her dubiously.

Tony turns Loki around on his lap so they're looking at each other, Loki swings his legs, which are just a bit too short to reach to floor, out to the sides.

"You know, you look like Harry Potter. Not Daniel Radcliffe's Harry in the movies, but the books say he's skinny with black hair and green eyes." This has the effect of Loki smiling slightly. As both Bruce and Tony had hoped, Loki really likes Harry Potter himself, even if he the Dursleys scared Loki away from the book for a bit. There's a lot of reasons for Loki to connect to Harry, after all.

"I don't gots a scar or glasses." Loki says quietly, reaching for Tony's sunglasses. "Glasses, right? Like Harry's? How come they're black? That's silly, 'cause you can't see through 'em, nope nope nope, 'xcept if your Heimdall, maybe."

Tony puts the sunglasses over Loki's eyes, so he can see that people can, in fact, see with sunglasses on. They look huge on his smaller face. Loki takes them off and turns them around, seeming amazed that they're so much darker on one side than the other, before Tony takes them back. The now-small god then insists on trying on Bruce's glasses, laughingly proclaiming he's Harry Potter, even though Harry's glasses have round lenses and Bruce's are more rectangular, with less obvious frames.

Bruce takes them back before Loki can change them with his magic.

After a minute or two, Tony blurts out "Bambi, how are you this small and so skinny, yet you're still making me lose feeling in my legs. Seriously, you're way heavier than you look." Besides, he looks just a bit too big to be sitting on Tony's lap.

Loki frowns slightly and shrinks down even more, going from looking like he's ten or eleven to looking like he's five or six. Simba, Stitch and Lilo look really big next to Loki now.

"Huh. I'm pretty sure you'd weigh more than this, even when you're this tiny." Tony picks Loki up off his lap slightly.

Loki's clothes actually shrink with him this time- otherwise, he'd be practically swimming in them, although his flip flops remain sized for adult feet and are now rather useless. Of course Loki doesn't seem to mind that at all that he has to go barefoot.

Pepper gushes over how Loki's even more adorable than minutes ago when he looked like an older kid. Loki still doesn't look like he believes her, but he smiles slightly. He really is a cute kid, Bruce has to admit. Loki has now squeezed between Tony and the window, resting his head back against Tony's chest, where it just so happens to be right over Tony's arc reactor.

"How was your Thanksgiving?" Pepper asks. She'd visited them in the tower but hadn't actually stayed for dinner.

"We saw Snoopy! He was really big and flying!" Loki exclaims, wriggling excitedly. They'd been able to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from the roof of the tower and Loki had loved the whole thing, but especially the Snoopy float. "An' we watched him on the screen eating turkey and we ate turkey. And Jelly Beans, but you Midgardians don't even hunt them, that's what Tony says." Loki barely pauses for breath as he chatters on. "The turkeys just grow up and you kill them but they aren't wild so it's not a valiant hunt, nope nope nope! Thor would prob'bly laugh at you guys for that. He doesn't hunt everything he eats buts he eats what he hunts."

"Thor can laugh all he wants. Besides, the pilgrims probably hunted their own turkeys for a while." Tony says.

"Dids you know Steve eats lots 'n lots 'n lots of turkey. Lots of every food, really. Almost more'n Volstagg." Loki looks rather surprised to her Volstagg's name come out of his mouth.

"So you guys did have Steve over for Thanksgiving?" Pepper asks, smiling.

"Wouldn't have been my first choice." Tony mumbles under his breath. "The rest of the Avengers bailed out on me."

"I guess I'm not an Avenger anymore." Bruce says dryly.

"You live with me. You were going to be there regardless. It's Legolas and Spider-Spy who ditched us." Tony fake-sulks like a petulant child, and Pepper rolls her eyes. Loki giggles.

"Well, Steve doesn't have any family, so I bet he was very grateful you invited him." Pepper says. Steve actually had acted quite thankful and courteous, and the super-soldier and billionaire engineer actually hadn't seemed to get on each others' nerves much that evening.

"I would love to see Howard's face if he knew Captain America actually bothers hanging out with me." Tony says more or less to himself with a touch of bitterness in his tone. "I think he might die again out of shock."

It had been the first Thanksgiving Bruce had since he'd been on the run. Well, last year he hadn't been on the run, but he'd been once again working as a doctor in remote corners of the globe.

It had been a nice evening, but in some ways it was a very unconventional Thanksgiving. Sure, they had the turkey and the football game was playing in the background. Bruce honestly hadn't known they had Thanksgiving football back before Steve went in the ice, but apparently it started in the twenties.

After watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (and rewatching the Halloween one despite it being out of season), Loki had seemed to really want Jelly Beans, so they actually had Jelly Beans on the table along with more normal courses, which had been catered in. Loki also had insisted on wearing Tony's Hulk costume from Halloween (which had become large enough to fit Loki thanks to his magic).

It's clear Loki vastly prefers Halloween as a holiday, which is somewhat surprising considering Thor's first visit was on Halloween. Somehow, that hadn't seemed to ruin Loki's impression of Halloween, which is good.

Nothing too strange happened during their Thanksgiving meal. Loki hadn't brought the turkey or silverware to life or anything. Given several of his toys have come alive- and that Stitch and Lilo seem to be magnets for trouble- that was a huge relief, especially since he could've gotten the idea of living silverware from Beauty and the Beast. Not even Mrs. Potts and Chip became animated.

(However, on a different night, the spaghetti they made somehow turned into live worms. Loki had seemed to think that was hysterical once he'd realized nobody was angry about it, although he claims it was an accident anyways).

Tony, Bruce and Loki give Pepper a brief rundown of their evening, Loki adding somewhat irrelevant remarks sometimes, although some of what he said actually is relevant, but sounds random until Bruce or Tony explain it.

"Steve... drawed pictures." Loki says, and Bruce tells him that it's drew. "Steve's really good at drawing. He drew Mickey makin' stars move with magic, I think. And Jasmine petting horses on Magic Carpet with Aladdin under Mickey's stars."

During their feast, Steve, Tony, Bruce and Loki had wound up talking about Disney movies Steve had seen back in the day, and it turns out he had seen Pinocchio when it came out (Bruce doesn't think Loki really understood what they meant). After the meal, they ended up watching another old Disney thing that Steve apparently saw- the Sorcerer's Apprentice clip in Fantasia, where Mickey borrows the sorcerer's hat and brings brooms to life. Loki had loved the part where Mickey stood on a cliff and controlled the stars, which ended up being a dream as he woke up and found out the brooms had flooded the place.

The image Steve chose to draw, which was exactly what Loki told Pepper, had depictions of the characters that looked like they were right out of their respective movies (albeit combined into one scene in Steve's version). It was a great choice for Loki, since it featured people flying, stars, horses and a positive depiction of magic.

Tony had acted rather jealous when Loki declared the drawing was the best thing ever.

"I see you have Lilo now." Pepper glances at the doll that's basically the same size as the Stitch backpack, and then at Tony. "We didn't buy her with Pinocchio and the others, did we?"

Tony shakes his head. Stitch had simply spit Lilo out one day and Bruce, Tony and Jarvis still aren't sure where she came from. Their current theory is that Loki made her unknowingly with his magic, which is also what seems to bring his toys to life.

Stitch and Lilo cause a surprising amount of trouble when they come to life, considering they're both just plush. The two of them cause even more than Simba, despite being alive less often than Loki's beloved lion toy. Bruce supposes that's to be expected, considering that Lilo and Stitch are... well, Lilo and Stitch, and they cause mayhem in the movie and show, too. Especially Stitch. Five days ago, before Lilo mysteriously appeared, Stitch spat out a chainsaw, and had actually chopped up a workbench in the lab. Bruce isn't sure if hiding the chainsaw would really do anything if the alien could just spit it out again. Stitch has somewhat mellowed out with Lilo around, though.

Loki nods and grins back at Lilo, who's being hugged by one of Stitch's extra arms. Lilo, in turn, grins at Pepper. "Lilo without her Stitch... is likes Timon without Pumbaa, Calvin without Hobbes, Linus with no blanket. It doesn't work, nope nope nope."

"Like Loki without Simba." Bruce adds. Loki laughs and hugs Simba tightly as if to prove it, while Lilo and Stitch hug each other on Loki's back, Stitch using his two lower arms that aren't attached to the straps.

Lilo, true to character as a fan of all things weird, likes all of Loki's friends, but had taken an especially huge shine to Hel, an alien ruler of the dead, who claims to rule Helheim. Bruce checked the myths- they don't mention her, but Helheim has Hel in it, although she could be named after Helheim rather than the place being named after her for all Bruce knows.

Stitch and Fenrir get along well, but the blue alien backpack and Jormungand seem to have a grudge against each other. Loki said it's because Jormungand beat Stitch and Stitch doesn't like it, but Bruce doesn't remember that.

"Christmas is right around the corner now." Pepper drags Bruce from his thoughts.

"Kriss-mas?" Of course Loki has no idea what that is.

"The next big holiday." Tony answers. "You're gonna love it, Snoopy. You give and get gifts, you decorate trees with lots of little lights, and if the weather works out, there's even snow." Loki's confusion has partially given way to excitement, but he still looks like he doesn't really know what Tony's talking about.

Tony keeps talking after a brief pause. "There's a whole religious part to it too, but I'm an atheist, so... yeah, we're not exactly gonna do that. And you're practically from Norse mythology so that wouldn't work anyways."

"We're getting close." Tony reassures Loki a few minutes later. The god has started squirming around again, part in an effort to see out the window now that he's much smaller, and partly due to restless excitement which makes him even more energetic than usual.

"We're gonna go see an-i-mals! At... the... zoooooooooooooooooo!" Loki chants, muffled slightly with his face pressed against the window. "Z-O-O! Z-O-O! Zoo zoo zoo zoo zoo."

"Speaking of which," Bruce gives Loki a pointed look. "What are the rules, again, Loki?"

"No letting snakes out like Harry." Loki reluctantly recites after a bit, pouting. "Harry went to a zoo and talked to a snake and then the glass went 'way." Loki tells Pepper. "And then he got locked up. Sleipnir hates that part and weird letters are coming now."

Surprisingly, Loki hadn't given up on reading the Harry Potter series, like Tony and Bruce thought he would that day a week ago when Bruce and Loki read the first chapter when Tony was at some party, and Loki assumed that the Dursleys' hatred of magic was normal.

Tony had been adamant that Loki would love it overall despite his initial freak-out, but let continuing it be Loki's decision.

A few night ago, Loki had started reading it again, only this time, he'd gotten Tony to read it aloud to him. Bruce never thought he'd see Tony laying on Loki's bed, making different voices for the characters, but then again he used to never think he'd see the somewhat obnoxious billionaire murmur comforting nothings into someone's ear while hugging them like he does all the time with the god.

"Harry talked to a snake, like my Jormungand."

Jormungand, who has grown to be larger than a necklace and is simply draped around Loki's shoulders, raises his head and hisses what the snake that Harry talked to in the book said. "Brazil, here I come. Thanksssss, amigo."

Loki laughs delightedly, flicking his fingers. "All-Speak says that amigo, that it means friend. Harry's got a snake friend just like me, but Odin gots mad like Uncle Vernon when I talked to my Jormungand." Loki wraps his hand around Jormungand as if to ensure he's still there.

Bruce is starting to wonder if Loki derailed the conversation on purpose in the hopes Bruce and Tony will forget about the rules.

"Not just snakes. No letting any animals out of their cages." Bruce says seriously, and Loki looks rather disappointed to be on this topic again, so maybe his theory has some merit.

They'd talked about this extensively before, but it's good to go over it, especially right before they arrive.

"But Harry's snake, the Braz'lian Bo...boa ...Constri-tor said that he wanted to get out. Like how I wanted to get out of the petri dish." Loki protests.

Bruce and the.. Hulk can certainly relate to wanting to get out of a cage, but Bruce just shakes his head firmly.

"No going into any animal exhibits either." Tony adds, and Bruce could totally see Loki wandering into the lion's exhibit if they let him. That wouldn't end too well.

"What if I do?" Loki asks, more like he's honestly curious, though there might be just a hint of a challenge in his tone. This past week, Bruce has noticed that Loki's gotten just a tad more rebellious after he realized that smashing wine glasses on purpose didn't get him a beating. He's started poking around the lab more (and thus breaking Tony's rule of don't touch anything) but he at least listens to Tony when he says not to touch something dangerous. Which is a lot of the stuff in Tony's lab, actually.

"Then we leave immediately and won't see any more animals." It's not exactly a punishment, since anyone who falls into an animal cage probably doesn't stick around the zoo after the incident. "Same goes for if you let the animals out."

"You're not gonna lock me up like Harry?" Although it sounds like a question, Bruce really hopes Loki knows the answer.

"Of course not! Remember I said that Vernon and Petunia locking Harry in the cupboard was horrible?" Tony sounds like he wishes he didn't have to say this. They'd talked about the cupboard, and Sleipnir seemed to especially hate the idea, saying he doesn't like the dark. "But you shouldn't get near these animals. Real lions aren't exactly going to say Hakuna Matata. They'll probably try to eat you."

"Simba wouldn't." Loki protests at the same time Simba says "I wouldn't."

"Simba's different." Bruce tells him. He's still a toy even when he's seemingly alive.

"The rules apply to everybody, though, not just you. They don't want anybody letting animals out." Pepper says, and Loki seems slightly less annoyed to hear that it's not a rule only he has to follow. How many of those had there been in Asgard?

"So you're not gonna do any of that, right, buddy?" Tony asks, grinning.

Not seeming happy about the rules but reluctantly accepting them, Loki sighs, and says as if trying to sound formal, "You have my word. I swear it." It reminds Bruce of Thor.

Loki sticks his pinky out at Tony and grins "Pinky promise!"

---

Finally, the helicopter starts to descend. Loki's practically vibrating with excitement when the helicopter lands, bouncing on Tony's lap. Thankfully, he's not as heavy as before. Tony can lift him almost two easily. Surely a kid that age- which is maybe five or six? Tony's not good with ages- should weigh more. Loki especially should weight more since he usually weighs more than he looks, but maybe magic made him lighter?

Reporters and paparazzi stand a short distance away by a sign that reads 'Fordham Road Gate' Around half of them hold cameras, some of which are flashing as they take pictures while others are taking videos. The people not holding cameras hold mics or something to jot notes on, and they probably would get closer if they were able to.

However, Tony had hired a large team of security guards, most of whom work security jobs at his company, to make sure the press keep their distance while he's trying to enjoy the trip with Loki. The security team is also supposed to ensure kids (or Loki) don't decide to go in some of the more open zoo enclosures that aren't blocked by glass, although Loki could teleport through glass. Tony really hopes he won't. Since most of them are SI employees, they're getting paid extra for working when they could've just come as guests and enjoyed the zoo themselves.

Just like that time they'd been caught by camera-wielding paparazzi while pulling out of the tower's garage for the first appointment with Dr. Carlisle, Loki ducks and tries to hide from the cameras with his eyes screwed shut, obviously hating all the flashing.

Stitch starts growling and thrashing on Loki's back, and Loki's Lilo doll shouts "No! Don't crowd him!" like she had in the movie when tourists on the beach were taking pictures of Stitch dressed as Elvis. At least the alien backpack doesn't go on a destructive rampage and break all the cameras like he had in that scene, although that might only be because they haven't left the helicopter and a Stitch backpack can't break out of a helicopter like his cartoon counterpart could.

Even with the press a reasonable distance away thanks to the barrier of security, Tony doesn't want a million pictures of Loki, nor does he want a million questions about who Loki is. Not to mention, he knows bringing Loki out into that would make him panic even more, and Stitch would probably freak out as well.

What will people think if they see Loki's toys moving here, Tony wonders? They'll probably think that they're robots (especially if they notice who Loki's with). Maybe Loki's toys will be still around other people, like in Toy Story?

Tony rocks Loki's small body on his lap and murmurs. "Bambi, it's okay. They're just cameras, just bright lights." Wait a second... maybe he thinks it's lightning? Tony realizes as he makes shushing sounds. "It's not lightning, since there's no thunder." It dawns on Tony that Loki probably doesn't like the din of shouting reporters, either. The shouts are muffled by the helicopter door but not totally blocked out now that the helicopter's propellors have stopped chopping the air.

"Shh. I'm going to lure them away with Pepper, and they won't bother you when you get out. Trust me, just wait with Bruce for a bit, and I'll see you soon. Can you do that for me, Snoopy?"

He gets a shaky nod in reply. For another minute, Tony continues to comfort Loki, before exiting the copter with Pepper, quickly shutting the door to shield Loki and Bruce from prying eyes.

Tony strolls easily through the sea of flashing cameras and mics pressed in his face by loud reporters. He's used to this sort of thing. The security guards clear a path through the throng of reporters, who follow Tony away from the helicopter and into the zoo. Just as he planned.

This is actually the first time Tony's been to a zoo, ever. It's not like Howard would have even considered taking him (and if he had thought of it, he would've decided it was a waste of time), and Tony just never felt the need to go as an adult. The Bronx Zoo is farther away from Stark Tower than the Central Park Zoo, but better since it's larger and has more animals, including lions. Tony can't wait to see Loki's reaction to them.

Even though they said they wouldn't be answering questions, some of the reporters and paparazzi shout questions at Tony and Pepper anyways. They ignore them aside from reiterating that they're not answering any questions as the security team tries to clear space for them through the crowd of people waiting to hear the opening speech.

Tony reaches the podium, set up in a relatively open area near the restaurant and gift shops as other zoo patrons start to arrive. Pepper shoots him a smile as he stands in front of the growing crowd of people. Pepper seems really proud that Tony came up with this charity.

Tony doesn't even have to try to get the attention of everybody there, even the little kids. It's one of his many talents.

"Well, you all know who I am, even though I didn't swoop down in my Iron Man suit." Tony says, which gets him some laughter from the adults and a lot of disappointed moans from the kids, who clearly wanted to see him suited up. "Trust me, I know it would've been awesome, but that's not what I'm here for today."

In a more serious tone, he continues. "I'm hear to talk to you about something important."

The journalists obviously don't really know what to make out of this. A serious Tony Stark is a rare sight. In the past, Tony Stark had been serious at the press conference after his stint in Afghanistan, when he shut down the biggest and most prestigious part of his own company. A serious Tony means everyone has two options- either agree with what he's doing, or stay out of his way. When he's serious, nobody can change his mind, no matter how hard they try.

And there have been many who tried.

Tony pauses a bit to sweep his gaze over the crowd, his hands grabbing the podium as he looks at the people in front of him. He actually wrote a speech this time... okay, Jarvis wrote most of it, but Tony did more than he usually does for these sorts of events because he actually showed up, for one, and he did help with the speech. He bends the note cards in his hands and meets Pepper's eyes.

She sends him one of those tiny smiles that tell him that she's really proud of him. He's gotten those smiles from her more often lately, and he has a hunch that it has to do with how he's been since Loki came into his life. He's less of an asshole to Loki than anyone else, in part because he somehow knew, even when they first met, that Loki wouldn't react well to his usual jabs, insults, and snarky comments. He no longer skips meals and locks himself in his lab for days on end, which is part of why he and Pepper broke up.

The moment he opens his mouth again he knows he's going to wing this thing, as always. He sets down his notes.

"Every year, between 500 million and 1.5 billion children worldwide endure some form of violence. Estimates of child maltreatment indicate that nearly a quarter of adults worldwide suffered physical abuse as a child, one third experienced emotional abuse and one sixth experienced physical neglect."

Eidetic memory is really nice sometimes. It sure helps being able to glance at something once and recite it afterwards number by number.

He just wishes he'd never had to see these facts as he trains his eyes on the audience.

"Every ten minutes, somewhere in the world, an adolescent girl dies as a result of violence."

Some people gasp, the cameras are trained on him. The reporters are quiet, they let him talk, there's no Christine Everhart interrupting in the middle like that time years ago, when he announced to the world during a press conference "I am Iron Man."

Like that speech, this thing will go surely viral, even if the headline or video title makes this out to just be a publicity stunt by reading 'Eccentric billionaire Tony Stark randomly decides to help abuse victims in hopes it will boost PR' or something. Whatever, they can see an uncaring self-centered ass if they want to.

Of course, none of these people know of Tony's inspiration for this charity. Not that he should have needed Loki as inspiration, he should've been helping abused kids years ago instead of building things that went boom.

Tony knows he can't magically fix this problem. But even if he can raise that number to happening every eleven minutes, or even fifteen, it will be worth it.

"Children with disabilities are 3.7 times more likely than typical children to be victims of any sort of violence. They are more likely to be victims of physical or even sexual abuse. In almost 40 percent of the cases, the parent or caregiver of the child is the abuser. In fact, 90 percent of alleged abusers were in some way related to the child." It makes a horrible sort of sense, as those people spend the most time around children.

He can see some of the SI employees in the crowd pulling their kids closer as if to prove they don't fall into that category. He sees the caregivers of the kids from foster homes or orphanages move closer to their charges, glancing down at certain ones. He can hear some of the kids complaining, probably asking when the man up there will be done so they can finally go look at all the animals. He wants to laugh but somehow can't. There are still some things he has to say.

"Childhood should be full of giggles and puppies, but sadly, life sucks sometimes." He pauses so that truth can sink in. Life does suck sometimes and it unfairly beats some people down. "Most of you should've already heard what kind of charity this is for, if you got the memo. Or if you listened to any of what I've just said. Anyways, it's a new charity, but it shares many of the same goals as I.S.P.C.A.N., which stands for The International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect."

There's a divide where most of the SI employees look like they have no idea what I.S.P.C.A.N is while a lot of the foster parents or caregivers seem to have heard of it. The kids just look bored.

"This charity is going to try to find children who aren't being treated properly. Neglect is the most common form of maltreatment, but it rarely ends there. We want to help parents and caregivers to leave the vicious circle, as many abusers were once victims themselves. If necessary, removing children from the hostile environment is the first step, but there is so much more that can be done."

It is a vicious circle, indeed, and somehow it needs to be broken. Of course, not every abuse victim becomes an abuser by any stretch, but many abusers were abused. Once more, Tony relies on numbers and facts to make clear that this is not just a whim of a guy who grew up with the world served to him on a silver platter by a butler in a mansion. That this isn't just for PR and he actually cares about this.

"Children who experience child abuse and neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30% more likely to commit a violence crime. 14% of all men and 36% of all women in prison were abused as children. About 80% of 21-year-olds who were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder."

So far, Loki's only crime has been been shoplifting Simba, but he was panicked about being lost in a huge city in an entirely new world, and seemed not to understand he was in a store, so Tony's letting that slide. (Thankfully the cashier hadn't called the police and had been quite good about the whole incident, although Jarvis had subtly removed a social media post about Tony showing up with a man that was posted later that day.

Fury treated trespassing (aka teleporting) onto the Helicarrier like a crime, but Tony's not counting that either. There was still no reason to lock Loki up and interrogate him like a criminal.

Tony realizes these thoughts made him pause for a second or two- his mind often operates at a million miles an hour- and he continues his speech.

"The attempt to find children a permanent loving family is only the start. Caregivers often report that their children have high levels of PTSD symptoms, as well as other problems like nightmares, feeling scared, worried or anxious, having trouble concentrating in school, feeling lonely, not wanting to play, and having intrusive thoughts. These can also lead to behavior problems. In short, without intervention, child abuse causes lifelong issues."

As much as he may not want to admit it, some of Tony's issues are probably caused by Howard.

The audience is still silent, so he tells them what exactly will be done with all the money he will spend on this charity. A lot of it's coming from his own pocket.

"We will help to develop the network of Childrens' Advocacy Centers in our country. When police or child protective services believe a child is being abused, the child is brought to the CAC—a safe, child-focused environment—by a caregiver or other 'safe' adult. At the CAC, the child tells their story to a trained interviewer who knows the right questions to ask."

Some people are already nodding in approval. "Then, based on the interview, a multidisciplinary team that includes medical professionals, law enforcement, mental health providers, prosecution, child protective services, victim advocates, and other professionals make decisions together about how to help the child. Finally, they offer a wide range of services like therapy, medical exams, courtroom preparation, victim advocacy, case management, and more."

While researching, Jarvis had discovered something called Das Kleine hinterm Komma, German for 'Cents behind the comma.' where employees can donate the cents behind the dollar amount of their paycheck. So at most, they'd donate ninety-nine cents each payday, and they could vote on what charity to give the money to or whether they want to build something with it.

It sounds like an awesome system, since each employee donates very little. In a giant company like Stark Industries, it really adds up, even if only a quarter of the employees decide to participate.

Tony starts to describe this method of donations to the crowd, only to realize that the kids look about ready to die of boredom, and decides he'll just make sure an email's sent out. This way, even the people who aren't here can hear about that.

That's more or less all he wanted to say, he knows that Pepper prepared a ridiculously long brochure for particularly inquisitive or nosy press, so they'll probably find more information than they would ever want about all this. They had made it clear beforehand that Tony won't answer any questions. He doesn't really want to explain why he's suddenly branching out into child support and anti-abuse campaigns.

Besides, he has a feeling that he already has been talking too long. Some of the kids are straying away from their parents to look at the gift shop in the plaza, to the dismay of their parents. Tony quickly trains his eye on the kids who had been rescued from bad home situations and their caregivers. Mostly, he can't actually tell who's who, unless he happens to recognize the parents, but some he can tell.

One little boy has a bandaged jaw and both his arms are in casts. It could have been an accident from a really bad fall on the playground or down the stairs, except the boy has the wary, guarded look Tony recognizes from Loki, the look Tony wore whenever his own father was actually around in his childhood. He must have only been recently removed from the "care" of his parents or whoever was his guardian. Theoretically, he could've been raised by his grandparents or or taken from a bad foster home or something, Tony has no idea.

Tony recalls his own time with a broken leg and how Loki had healed it. Except, even if Loki healed this boy's broken arms, how the hell would they explain that?

There's a tween girl who doesn't have any injuries Tony can see, but whose eyes constantly flick around, looking for danger.

"I know some of you have faced dangers or horrors that you never should have had to face. I may not know what exactly some of you went through, but it is not your fault, and it does not make you weak. You are much stronger than you probably realize and the people taking care of you now are doing an amazing job." If they weren't, Tony's charity would go about fixing that.

The boy with the broken jaw and the wary teenage girl watch Tony in awe as if they never expected a superhero to call them strong. They probably didn't expect anyone to call them strong. Tony smiles slightly at them and scans the crowd for Loki and Bruce, but he doesn't see them anywhere.

"Just because you come from a bad situation doesn't make you weak." Tony repeats firmly for all the kids in the audience who came from abusive pasts. The next part is inspired by all the times Loki's connected to a fictional character, and he starts with one of the recent additions to Loki's list, which some of the older kids might like more. "Look at Harry Potter. He spent most of his childhood with the Dursleys, who are horrible people that locked him in the cupboard under the stairs, and he turned out to be an awesome wizard."

Looking at the little girl in the front clutching an Elsa doll, he adds "For you princess-inclined people, Elsa-" He can practically hear Loki's voice in his mind, correcting him that Elsa's technically a queen, and decides maybe he shouldn't mention Elsa anyways. Frozen was just released to theaters on the day before Thanksgiving, after all, so most people probably haven't seen it, since that was only three days ago. "- no, scratch that. Uh, Rapunzel was kidnapped and raised to think the world was a horrible place. Quasimodo was similarly isolated and led to believe not only that the world was dangerous, but that he was a monster as well. But the real monster wasn't Quasimodo, it was Frollo, the one who hurt him and lied to him."

"Batman wasn't abused, but he watched his parents' murder. He grew up to be a ba-" Tony has to stop himself from saying badass in front of the kids since some of them are toddlers. "-billionaire who fights crime with his own technology. He's got nothing on me, of course." There's a bit more laughter from some of the adults and teenagers. Tony even has the same situation of losing both his parents at the same time, like the Dark Knight, only Tony was older than Bruce Wayne when it happened to him.

"But I'm not going to take up more of your time with talk about the billionaire with the billowing, black bat cape, or reveal more Disney knowledge than most people would think I have. We're in a Zoo, after all, so go check out the monkeys, giraffes and whatever other animals they have here. So knock yourselves out. Not literally. Don't knock each other out, either. No boxing matches." He stares significantly at two brothers who are swinging madly at each other to combat the boredom of standing there listening, while their parents hold them apart. The parents look embarrassed that Tony called them out on that.

Kids that had been tugging on their parents are finally able to dart off. Over the commotion, Tony leans to the mic and adds, with a significant glance at the reporters "Once again, I will not be taking any questions or conducting any interviews. In fact, this press conference is now over, so scram. I don't want to see any reporters here."

In other words, Pepper had said he shouldn't just tell them explicitly to leave him and everyone else the hell alone, although he really would've liked to say that. Then again, there are little kids here, so cursing in front of them probably isn't a great idea.

He spots Pepper in the crowd, and she gives him another smile, which he returns. He saunters down from the podium as the press and paparazzi reluctantly shuffle out, escorted by the security guards. No doubt they wanted to stick around and try to film Tony.

Tony finds he's received a snarky text from Jarvis, reading 'I see my time is valuable enough to spend carefully writing speeches that you then decide to improvise.'

"You should know that I never follow the cards."Tony simply speaks into his phone, since there's no point texting when Jarvis will get it either way. "Besides, I used the statistics, didn't I?"

"Yes, I suppose you did, sir." Jarvis also speaks out of the phone rather than texting.

As he's having this exchange with Jarvis, Tony takes a quick trip back to the helicopter to grab his casual clothes. Who wants to go around a zoo in a suit? Also, it's a bit of a disguise. Ordinarily, Tony would want to be the center of attention, but he's here to spend the day with Loki.

The other people here might not recognize him now that he's swapped his shades, and donned jeans, a baseball cap and an entirely different coat. Since it's cold, he could even wear a muffler to cover his goatee without looking like a bank robber, but he decides not to.

It's not a great disguise and rather cliché, most people probably wouldn't expect Tony to stick around a zoo anyways. Tony meets back up with Pepper, who's wearing a winter hat that covers her bun, not as a disguise but simply because it's cold. It makes her slightly less recognizable, though.

Now to find Loki and Bruce. Tony gets Jarvis to track down Simba's suit, and heads off with Pepper to meet them. Like Loki, it's Tony's first trip to a zoo, too.

---

"You're so cute! Why don't you fly?" Loki coos at the birds in the pond and on the rocks below him. They're flapping their wings but barely fly, and most aren't even bothering flapping, just waddling or swimming towards him. Loki had made an origami bird rather like these ones a few days ago. It was really easy, less than ten folds, and he'd made it fly once.

These birds almost look like they're wearing suits like the one Tony's wearing- the black and white, cloth kind, not Man of Iron suits. Loki smiles at the silly mental image of the rather chubby birds all red and gold with arc reactors in their chests.

Right now, Loki and Bruce are in a building which had a sign outside reading "Aquatic Bird House and Sea Bird Aviary". Loki even knew the words bird and sea without All-Tongue. There isn't a sea in here, but these weird black-and-white birds are swimming in a pond. He doesn't recognize these birds- the animal book he read didn't have much on birds.

"See? This place isn't so bad." Bruce says, although it sort of sounds like he's telling himself as well as Loki. "It's not like they're locked in dirty cages."

This place is indeed much nicer than the petri dish Loki was stuck in. There's water, and leaves and trees. Maybe the animals don't need to be let out. Admittedly, the pond in here isn't as great as the river they'd passed almost as soon as they got out of the flying thing. Loki had wanted to go in it, but Bruce made another rule that he can't. The rule hadn't seemed quite as annoying after Bruce pointed out that he can go swimming anytime in the tower and that they're here to see animals anyways. Loki can't go in the pond that's in here, either, since these birds are here, but he had run his hand through the water in a fountain outside this bird building.

He's really glad he and Bruce are alone right now, although he wishes Tony and Pepper were here too, he thinks as he clutches Toy Stark. He'd seen a pretty big crowd a fair distance off outside, when they were walking here, so they might not be alone for long, although Tony was talking to them.

He'd heard him, dimly, when he had stopped to look at Bison with Bruce before they came in here. Loki's seen Bison before, in the movie with Spirit the horse and as a picture in the animal book, but he had never seen them in real life until a couple minutes ago. They're really big and strong looking, but look so soft as well.

Tony had been talking to a crowd about numbers and people getting hurt and crimes. All the flashing camera things that Stitch ate in his movie were pointed at Tony, thankfully. Loki hates those, they make him think of lightning, and Tony somehow knew that, when Loki hid from them in the flying thing. It's really nice of Tony to take the flashing in his eyes so Loki doesn't have to.

Loki and Bruce went in this bird building instead of going into the crowd. Bruce seemed to understand without asking that Loki really doesn't like crowds- after all, in Asgard, being surrounded by more people who didn't like him never boded well, and it's not like he could really hide in a crowd if everyone hated him. As they were going into this building, Loki had heard Tony mention Harry Potter, Rapunzel and Quasimodo and say the same stuff he always says- that the Dursleys and Frollo are the bad guys, and Harry's magic is awesome.

Loki really loves hearing that, but he wonders why Tony was telling all those people in the distance. Also, who's the Man of Bats and does Tony actually know him? Tony made it sound like Man of Bats is kind of like Tony himself, and Man of Iron. Tony's definitely right when he proclaimed himself more awesome, though. Loki can know that without even knowing who the Man of Bats is.

"...can't fly." Bruce says, snapping Loki out of remembering what they'd heard Tony talk about when walking outside and looking at the Bison. He says a word that sounds like 'Pain-Gwin', whatever that is. All-Tongue translates the pain part. Loki knows pain, and he really doesn't like the sound of that.

Seeing his look of confusion, Bruce says "That's the name of the birds" and then says that word, Pain-Gwin, again. They certainly don't have these 'Pain-Gwins' on Asgard, and they hadn't been in that book on animals. Clearly that huge animal book still didn't have every Midgardian animal in it, since it skipped all the birds.

Loki had really liked these birds, but if they have pain in their name, maybe they cause pain?Maybe the birds want to stab him with their beaks. He doesn't even feel the urge to join them anymore, although Tony and Bruce said he can't visit animals anyways. There's not even glass, like there apparently was in front of the snake Harry talked to, so there's nothing stopping them from getting at him.

"They're not going to hurt you." Bruce says as Loki hastily steps away. There's no glass, and there's glass in front of the other pain-gwins he'd looked at before these. Those ones didn't have white stomachs like these do, so it didn't look like they were wearing suits, and those ones flew, so maybe Bruce is lying about these ones flying. Maybe someone else let these pain-gwins out.

"But pain!" Loki protests, unable to fully get what he wants to say out, shaking his head anxiously. "Pain, pain, pain, pain painpainpain!"

"Are you hurt?" Bruce is giving him a concerned look. "Did you, uh, step on something sharp? That's what shoes are for, you know, although we don't have any in your size right now."

"No! Pain! In their names! PAIN-gwins."

"No, it's penguins." Bruce corrects with a gentle smile. "P-E-N-G-U-I-N-S. Penguins. There's nothing about pain in there, and they won't hurt you. They can't fly, so there's no way they could even to get to you."

Oh. It's nice that they don't have pain in their names. Loki thinks he likes them again.

"But they gots wings, Bruce. Wings make you fly!" Loki very briefly tears his eyes away from the birds to look at Bruce skeptically, wondering if Bruce is jesting. Everyone knows wings make things fly, although some of the birds are swimming.

Dreamily, he adds "I wish I had wings." He throws his arms wide (though they don't reach as far as usual), wishing he had wings. He doesn't want wings like a bird, because then he wouldn't have any arms. He wants wings on his back, like Tink. Sadly, wings don't grow out of his back like when Loki gave himself a tail after 'Fessor X and Charles left.

"They can't fly with their wings." Bruce says.

Why? Are these broken penguins that can't fly?

"Those ones fly." Loki points to the other penguins, the flying ones that are behind glass.

"Those are puffins. They're different animals. Puffins can fly, but penguins can't." Bruce tells him.

The penguins no doubt want to fly as well, Loki thinks as all the penguins look at him. It must be really upsetting, to have wings and not be able to fly, and Loki's still not entirely sure if Bruce is jesting with him about them being unable to fly or not.

Loki jumps up and down, flapping his arms, laughing. Maybe the penguins will get the hint that that's what they're supposed to do. Bruce is saying something about flippers, but Loki doesn't really hear it.

The penguins slowly float up and start flapping their wings wildly as they go higher, beaks opening and closing. They make a honking sound that's really funny, like they're happy that they're flying like the puffins.

Loki laughs and jumps faster, higher, but he still doesn't join them in the air. After a bit, he turns to Bruce. "You lied. Penguins fly."

"You did that." Bruce says gently.

"Like with Toy Stark and Peter an' Tinker Bell and my origami?" Loki glances down at his hands, which, being smaller than even when he's Mowgli or when he had a slightly bigger child body today, make it slightly harder to hold onto Simba and Toy Stark. There's green magic around his hands and Toy Stark starts floating too, even though he's not in his Man of Iron form.

Oh. So it is him. Why is it that he can make his toys, origami and, apparently, penguins fly, but can't fly himself? It's really not fair, although his Man of Iron suit is going to fly soon. He grins, imagining what it will be like.

"Loki, I don't think the penguins like floating." Bruce says, watching the penguins rise higher in the air. Loki stares at him. Who wouldn't like flying?!

"They're used to swimming. Their wings evolved into flippers." Bruce says, looking at a little sign Loki hadn't noticed before. It has a picture of the penguins and some text, which turns out to be information on them.

Bruce reads aloud. "These, uh, magellanic penguins, live in South America." He pauses and looks at Loki, smiling. "You know, some penguins live in arctic regions, with a lot of ice, although it's slowly melting because of global warming."

Before Loki can figure out what that means, or how to return the penguins to the ground, two boys come up, and Loki quickly hides his hands behind his back so they won't see the magic around them. The older boy is blonde, and the younger one has black hair, which makes Loki think of himself and Thor.

"Mommy, look!" The black-haired boy, who's smaller than Loki, shouts as he grabs the older boy's hand and they run hand in hand over to a woman who must be their mother. Maybe the boys are brothers, then. "They're flying!"

The woman smiles down at her sons like a mother should. The penguins are slowly returning to the ground, and by the time the boys pull her over to look, they're back on the ground. Loki checks his hands. No more magic tendrils around them.

"Lucas, penguins can't fly." The mother looks from the penguins, which are back to waddling and swimming, to the sign Bruce and Loki read. "Look, it says so right here. Penguins can't fly."

"But they flew!" The black-haired boy, Lucas apparently, protests. Dr. C had called Loki 'Lucas' the first time he saw her, Loki remembers. She hadn't even gotten his name right!

"We saw them!" The older boy nods, still holding Lucas' hand. "We know we're right." He says quietly to Lucas, and the boys smile at each other. Loki watches them, a tad jealous. Why couldn't Thor have been like that? Why couldn't he be nice like this boy? Why couldn't he be nice like Anna was to Elsa?

What if these people figure out the penguins were only flying because of his magic? They might be like Ass-Guardians (as Tony calls them) or the Dursleys.

Loki darts away but stops to look at pink birds with really long necks and only one leg that looks like a really long, skinny stick.

These Flamingos, as the sign proclaims them, are pretty funny. They don't look like they're on fire, though. Fire isn't pink, so how are they flaming? Loki wonders who names Midgardian birds, because they're really not doing a good job. Like how penguins don't have anything to do with pain, or pens, since it's spelled with pen in it.

According to the sign, these flaming-os really have two legs, but one's folded up under their body. Loki balances on one leg like them for a bit, staring at the nearest flamingo.

"Hi!" He chirps, grinning at the bird. The flamingo looks back at him, cocking his head to the side like he's a mirror image of Loki. He seems very relaxed, a lot nicer than Huginn and Muninn. He's a much prettier bird, too. Odin's ravens are mean and ugly.

Loki laughs. "Your neck's like a snake. Like my Jormungand."

The flamingo bends his neck, and Loki knows he's agreeing. Jormungand curls up on Loki's shoulder and rears part of his body up like he's a neck on Loki's shoulders, and Loki holds Simba up on top so they make a ducks his own head, tucking Toy Stark and the toy Dum-E that Tony made under his chin.

Jormungand's the neck, Loki's the body balancing on one leg, and Simba's the head, though he's a bigger head than the flamingo..

The flamingo seems to find that funny, and Loki hears a laugh behind him.

"Okay, even I have to admit this is like the most adorable thing ever." Loki hears Tony's voice and tries to look out of the corner of his eyes. Tony's wearing different clothes, even different dark glasses, than he'd been wearing in the flying thing. He's also holding his phone, and Loki can see through the hologram that he and the flamingo are on the screen.

"Hey Snoopy. Don't mind me, I'm just taking your picture." Tony grins.

"Not Snoopy now! Me an' Jormungand and Simba are a flaming-o!" How can Tony not see it?

Tony looks between him and the flamingo, smirking. "Right. So, so should I give you a new, flamingo-y nickname. What kind of flamingo names are there, anyways? Pencil-Legs? I mean, your legs are short now, but normally you have the longest legs I've ever seen on a guy who's not in the NBA."

Loki has no idea what that last part means as he abandons his one-legged stance and launches himself at Tony, wrapping his arms around Tony's legs, standing on his toes on the tops of Tony's shoes. It's kind of weird, having to look up to see Tony's face, but he has to do that as Mowgli too. He just has to look up even more now, since he's even shorter than when he's Mowgli.

Tony quirks an eyebrow. "You know I can't really move when you're holding my legs like this, although at least you're light enough that you're not crushing my feet."

"You could waddle like a penguin." Bruce suggests. Loki giggles, squatting down and trying to walk like a penguin, although Tony doesn't. Tony's not even wearing the black-and-white suit that looks kind of like the penguins.

"Tony, guess what?" Tony squats down so Loki can whisper in his ear. "I made the pen-guins fly."

Tony laughs "You did?! That's hilarious. You know penguins can't fly normally, right?"

Loki nods, grin fading into a slight frown. "Can't make me fly, though."

"Maybe you will fly sometime." Tony winks at Loki, and Loki giggles.

In between trying to teleport to help Tony figure out a way to beat that Doom guy and making Origami (Tony's even better than Bruce at figuring out how to fold stuff without Jarvis' help) Loki and Tony have been working on making both Loki and Simba's Man of Iron suits able to fly. Loki had watched, fascinated, as Tony started a couple days ago. There was even some circuit stuff involved, like in the book Loki read in Tony's other house. The circuits connected the boots to the arc reactor and back again.

Tony's been letting Loki help and at one point even said he's even more help than Dum-E, who hands them tools when they're working (usually the wrong ones, according to Tony). Tony made a couple somewhat rude remarks to Dum-E, but hadn't said anything mean to Loki. It's a really nice change from being constantly belittled and told he's worthless when he had to help the servants and slaves, even though he'd deserved it.

Tony had said to keep the flying boots a secret from Pepper, though. Yesterday, he'd said something along the lines of "She's no fun and will make us stop, saying that you'll kill yourself or something. Even though it's flying armor, which protects people, sheesh. Besides, you're like the most durable guy I know, aside from maybe Cap and Hulk."

Loki starts humming so his mouth won't blurt anything out like it often does and reveal their secret to Pepper. He realizes a little late that he's humming that You can fly song from Peter Pan, but Pepper doesn't comment.

Tony smirks at him, clearly noticing what Loki's humming, before abruptly saying that he wishes he could have seen the penguins fly. Tony would really hate being a penguin, Loki thinks, since it seems to mean no flying and lots of swimming, and Loki's learned that Tony doesn't like swimming.

"I've taken the liberty of looping back old video feed of the penguins to replace the video of that incident." Jarvis' voice comes out of Tony's pocket. "I've sent the real video to your phone, sir."

"Great. Thanks J."

"My pleasure, sir. By the way, Mr. Loki, I am quite fond of the picture Sir just took of you." Jarvis' voice becomes slightly reprimanding. "Although he really should have asked for your permission before taking it."

"I'm pretty sure if you're in a public place, people can take pictures of you. Isn't that what the press does?" Tony replies. "You don't mind if I take pictures of you, right, Loki?"

Doesn't Jarvis do that all the time? Although they're moving pictures- videos. Loki's seen some of the videos from Jarvis' cameras. He shakes his head, not minding if Tony takes pictures,and grins up at Pepper, who's taller than Tony. "Pepper, look at the flaming-os!"

"I see them, Loki." Pepper grins. "By the way, it's pronounced fla-min-go, not flaming-o. Flamingo. They're very pretty, aren't they?"

"Yeah, they're real pretties, like you. And they really got two legs, but stand on one. He said it feels nice." Loki points at the flamingo he'd been looking at earlier. The flamingo hadn't actually said it aloud, hadn't even said it with his eyes like Fenrir, but Loki thinks that's what he said.

The flamingos actually make him think of Pepper, actually. They're tall, pretty, and graceful. He'll have to remember to ask Jarvis how to make them out of origami later, and give one to Pepper since she gave him her origami frog and paper snowflakes they made that one night. He doesn't have pink paper, but maybe he can change the color of another sheet with his magic...

"You think I'm pretty?" Pepper asks, giving Loki another smile.

"So what? I always thought you were smoking hot, still do." Tony tells Pepper, before hastily adding. "But you're brilliant, too, of course. Why else would I choose you as my CEO? So Snoopy- or Pencil-Legs- Bruce, did you guys hear any of my awesome speech?"

"Some." Bruce says. "You're doing a really great thing, by the way."

"I heard you talk 'bout how Harry an' Rapunzel and Quasimodo had bad homes." Loki bounces slightly. "Who's the Man of Bats?"

"Yeah, that was kinda for you, buddy. Well, for some of the kids, too." Tony grins. "Batman is a fictional superhero. You saw a guy dressed as him on Halloween, remember? Long black cape, pointy-eared hood covering half his face, bat-shaped symbol thingy on his chest." Oh, yeah, Loki remembers seeing him. Edna would tell him no capes, and Thor doesn't follow that rule either. He'll probably still wear a cape, even after watching what happened to all those caped people in The Incredibles.

Loki practically skips as they leave the bird house and go back outside. He loves being outside, and this is the first time he has been since they left Tony's other house and went back to the tower, which was over a week ago. He really misses that house, with the big yard and the ocean and beach and his Willow-Willowy tree.

Honestly, he'd been starting to feel just a little bit like Rapunzel or Quasimodo, stuck in a tower, but he shouldn't be greedy. He's really lucky that he's not being beaten, and that Tony, Bruce and Jarvis are his family. They can't be faking like Mother Gothel to use him for his healing powers, though, because they hadn't even known of them until Loki healed Tony's leg when it was broken in that weird, hard green thing. Plus they've touched his Jotun skin. Sure Mother Gothel and Frollo acted nice at first, but they weren't. Tony's different. This place is awesome, and Mother Gothel or Frollo certainly wouldn't have taken Rapunzel or Quasimodo here. Mother Gothel didn't really comfort Rapunzel like Tony comforts Loki, either.

There's another bird house, called Birds of Prey, right next to the sea bird one. In this one, there's something called a Bald Eagle, which Tony says would be Steve's favorite animal for some reason. That bird was in Spirit too, like the bison. The Bald Eagle poops while they're there, and Tony takes a really funny picture of exactly when that happens, claiming he has to send it to Steve.

There's also a white bird that's sleeping. The girl in front of Loki points at it and says "Look, Dad. It's Hedwig! She's beautiful." but the sign says it's called a Snowy Owl and that owls are nocturnal, which means they sleep during the day. Loki frowns, confused why the girl called the owl "Hedwig."

Tony grins, telling Loki he'll get the reference once Harry goes diagonally.

Sometimes Tony makes no sense. Right now, Harry has been getting odd letters and Uncle Vernon, fed up with it, is trying to flee. It said Harry was stuck in a car for hours, which must be terrible.

Loki gets Tony to snap a couple pictures of the snowy owl, and Tony tries to show Loki how to take pictures, but looking at the animals on the screen is weird.

Bruce volunteers to be the photographer. That's a word they don't have in Asgard, but Loki knows it means someone who takes pictures, like Lilo does to tourists.

Loki's kind of surprised they'd name an owl after snow, even if it is white like snow. In Asgard, they never would have named something snowy, because snow is just in the wasteland of Jotunheim... and Midgard apparently. They never would've said something with the word snowy in its name was beautiful, either, but Elsa's snow was beautiful, especially her ice castle.

"She's boring." The girl sighs.

Since the owl is sleeping, she's admittedly not quite as fun as the flamingos. But waking her up would be rude, and apparently owls sleep during the day, according to the sign.

Once the girl and her dad move on, though, the owl opens one eye and winks at Loki. He giggles and winks back, and the owl goes back to sleep. Harry's snake had somehow winked in the book, even though snakes don't have eyelids.

Sadly, this bird house doesn't have hawks. Jarvis told Loki a bit about hawks, like that they have very good eyesight and that's why Clint's called Hawkeye, but Loki hasn't actually read anything about any of these birds.

Once they're outside again, as Loki gallops alongside Tony, looking for the next animal, he notices there are a lot of kids here. A lot of them are holding onto adults' hands.

Tony mentions that there's a sea lion pond ahead, and Loki rushes forward eagerly. Lions! What's the sea part, though? Maybe they're like Ariel where their bottom half is a fin, only their top half would have to be a lion instead of a human. That would be really awesome. Or did he mean the letter C?

"C'mon Simba! We're gonna see sea lions!" Loki shouts, running for the pond, which isn't very far away. Simba can't swim, because then his electronics would stop working. Simba doesn't answer or move, which used to be the case all the time unless someone squeezed his ear, although since they watched Pinocchio, he's started to come alive more. Loki wonders why he's not now.

Loki stares into the pond, looking for the lions. But there aren't any lions anywhere. There are just some wet, dark creatures with four flippers, which look absolutely nothing like lions. Some of them are wriggling in a sort of walk on their flippers, while some swim. If they were a brighter color, they could almost be one of Jumba's experiments, since they look pretty weird, Loki thinks.

The ones on land stop and clap their front flippers at Loki, making a barking sound. Loki claps his hands in response and barks back.

"Geez, Snoopy, are you trying to ditch us?" Tony asks, coming up beside Loki, followed by Pepper and Bruce. All of them are breathing just a bit heavier than usual. "I knew you could be fast when you wanted to, but your legs are a lot shorter than mine are now. It's so not fair that you still can outrun me with your superpowers." Tony grumbles the last bit.

Loki laughs. That makes it sound like he's Dash. He has the powers of Dash, Violet, Frozone and Elsa. He wishes he could literally roll into a ball like Stitch.

Tony reaches out and grabs Loki's hand, the one not holding Simba. Tony's hand is a lot bigger than his own now, which makes it seem extra safe. It's also somewhat cold, not that Loki minds the cold- he actually likes it.

"You don't want to get lost, right?" Pepper's looking at him, not the... things. Loki nods. "We don't want you to get lost, either."

Nobody in Asgard would've said that, Loki thinks, as Tony adds "Even if I could track Simba's suit, it'd be better if we stuck together. So no more running off without us, okay? Just keep holding my hand." Loki doesn't mind holding Tony's hand, because it means his Tony's close and he's safe, even if there are a lot of other people here who might be magic-hating Muggles.

"Where ares the sea lions?" Loki asks. Maybe he went to the wrong place? These things are nice, but he wants to see lions!

"These are sea lions." Pepper tells him.

Loki laughs. Surely she's jesting! These aren't lions.

"Or they could be seals. You never know." Tony whispers conspiratorially. "Maybe they're trying to trick us."

Tony right about them trying to trick them into thinking they're lions, which they're clearly not.

"I'm pretty sure there's a difference between seals and sea lions, Tony." Bruce rolls his eyes. "Have you read about sea lions, Loki?"

One of the books mentioned them, but it didn't have a picture.

He spots one of those signs a little bit away, and goes to it, still holding Tony's hand. Loki reads the sign, which has a picture of these creatures, and learns that these things really are sea lions (and that they're different from seals because they walk on their flippers while seals walk on their bellies).

Feeling rather let down after getting his hopes up- they were supposed to be lions!- Loki sulks and pulls Tony away from the sea "lions." Whoever named them that is even dumber than whoever named flamingos that have nothing to do with flames.

"You know," Tony says. "They do have lions here."

"They don't count." Loki throws a scornful look back at the 'sea lions', which have stopped barking and clapping.

"I meant real lions, like Simba." Tony grins, as Loki gasps, staring at him and almost wondering if this is a jest. Tony doesn't seem to be lying, though, and Pepper and Bruce both nod.

Loki laughs and starts to run off, still holding Tony's hand, but Tony's words stop him. "Whoa, Snoopy, slow down, buddy! You practically pulled me over." Loki looks up, but Tony isn't angry, he's smirking. "Also, you're going the wrong way."

---

To prevent Loki from potentially running off despite the reminder and putting Tony in the embarrassing situation of being literally dragged around someone who looks like a six-year-old but is actually an alien god manchild with superhuman speed and strength, Tony scoops Loki up in his arms. Thankfully, he's light enough to carry now.

On a whim, Tony swings Loki around so he shrieks with laughter, still giggling as Tony puts him on his shoulders, like some other adults are doing with kids. Somehow, rather than sitting on Tony's shoulders, Loki ends up crouched on them, toes curling like a monkey as small hands clutch at Tony's face for balance.

"Aack! Loki, no, don't- Ah!" Tony yelps and pulls a hand with fingers worryingly close to poking under his shades away. Almost as soon as that's done, he has to move another hand that somehow ended up with a finger in his mouth, which is just disgusting since it comes out covered in saliva. Loki seems to it's gross too, and Pepper catches Loki wiping that finger on the brim of Tony's baseball hat.

"Sorry." Loki mumbles.

Once his face is no longer being invaded by small hands, Tony notices a weight on his baseball hat. Probably Simba, he thinks. "Do you want to get off?" He asks the boy on his shoulders. "Because I kind of want you to get off."

Loki's only response to this is to cling tighter to Tony. Tony sighs, knowing there's no way he'll be able to pry Loki off him. Why did he think this was a good idea?

"You shouldn't even be scared of this height, Snoopy. This is how tall you are normally, right?" Tony asks as he tries to maneuver Loki in a sitting position instead of crouching on his shoulders. At least he succeeds at that.

Loki leans over Tony's head to try and peer at him upside-down. "Little taller now, I think. I'm not scared!" He wriggles on Tony's shoulders and chants "Lions! Lions!"

"Okay, we're going. Now keep your fingers out of my mouth, or I might accidentally bite them off." Tony mutters. It's a hollow threat and even Loki seems to realize that, albeit only after a couple seconds where where he goes completely still, body tensed as if in anticipation of Tony suddenly gnashing out. However, he's already relaxed by the time Tony tells him explicitly that he didn't mean it. Tony doesn't think he could bite off a human's finger, much less a super-durable guy like Loki. Wow, that just got weird.

For a brief interval, Loki's actually pretty still. Then his bare feet swinging out and repeatedly kicking Tony in the chest until he grabs them and holds them over his arc reactor. Loki could probably overpower him- although he's theoretically weaker in this child body than he is in his adult body- but he doesn't.

Instead, Loki starts squirming around on Tony's shoulders, bounces while shouting "Lions!" in rhythm. He seems so restless, yet he clings to Tony whenever he tries to put him down.

"You're seriously going to have to stop doing this." Tony says. Loki doesn't reply, just drops so he's hanging upside-down with his knees still hooked over Tony's shoulders and his feet still held over the arc reactor. To his credit, Loki did technically stop, even if this isn't exactly comfortable either.

They make their way across the zoo, passing several animals Tony knows they're going to backtrack to later. Finally, they reach the African Plains exhibit and Tony sets Loki down, grabbing onto his hand again as Loki reads out African Plains and starts bouncing from foot to foot.

There are both indoor and outdoor viewing areas for the lions. Tony, Bruce and Pepper share a look and head towards the indoor one, since the lions all seem to be inside. That's good. At least this way, there's glass separating them from the lions instead of just a rail.

"LIONS! LOOK SIMBA!" Loki squeals, scrambling down from Tony's shoulders and sprinting towards the glass. He seems beyond words after that, just jumping in delight and laughing when he sees the big cats behind the glass. It's not just his hands moving now. His whole body practically wriggles with happiness.

Shockingly, the lions aren't scared off by the noise, which probably travels through the glass, or all the movement. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

A large male lion makes his way towards Loki, making the kids that had been staring at him before groan when he moves away. Loki's no longer shouting. Instead, all his attention is focused on the lion in front of him, cocking his head to the side. The lion, about four feet tall, is taller than Loki when he's in his child form.

Loki presses Simba's head against the glass, and the lion rubs his mane on the other side of the glass, right where Simba's head is. "This is Simba. The Lion King, 'xcept he's a prince right now, so not yet. Mufasa's the King of Pride Rock now."

Loki starts rubbing his own head against the glass, arms splayed out as if trying to embrace the lion through it.

Even though Bruce is the self-designated photographer and is living up to his title, Tony has to take pictures of this on his own. It's too cute, although Tony wishes in some ways that Loki had been in his usual adult body, since that's what he's used to. Plus Loki's usual shoulder-length hair would sort of match the lion's mane.

"Don't you have to bow, 'cause he's your prince?" Loki nods, as if answering his own question, confirming that subjects should bow to their princes. He doesn't mention he's a prince himself.

Tony has to be imagining that the way the lion's rubbing his maned head against the glass now almost looks like he's shaking his head no to Loki's question.

Loki acts like it was an answer, but then again he talks to toys when they're not seemingly alive. "Oh! Are you not part of Pride Rock? That's in Africa, an' we're in 'Merica, like Steve, so maybe Simba's not your prince here?" Loki pauses as if getting a confirmation from the lion. "They don't haves the Midgardian Day of Giving Thanks in Africa, so I guess it's the really the 'Merican Day of Giving Thanks?" Loki very briefly glances at Tony's reflection, not even turning away from the lion, but Tony nods anyways.

"Did you haves turkey?" Loki asks the lion as an afterthought while Tony, Bruce and Pepper all have fond smiles on their faces. The other adults and even some kids also watch Loki talking to the lion about The Lion King and Thanksgiving. A man looks between Simba's Iron Man suit and Tony before shaking his head, clearly deciding that he must be mistaken about Tony being Tony. The billionaire hides a smirk.

Loki glances down at Simba, who hasn't come to life at all at the zoo, as far as Tony knows, and neither have Stitch or Lilo. It's like they don't actually want these people seeing them alive, like in Toy Story, and that Tony, Bruce and Pepper are the only ones they trust aside from Loki himself.

Loki squeezes Simba's ear, and Simba roars, before asking "How loud can you roar?" Tony's heard Simba's prerecorded conversation more than enough times to know that Simba never starts with that phrase. Maybe he's very subtly 'alive' right now.

Loki roars at the lion, and Simba blurts out the next prerecorded line "Louder!"

As if on cue, the lion roars, really, really loud. A couple children start crying, while older ones and even some adults back away, startled. Tony might have taken a step back himself.

That has to be a coincidence that the lion roared then, right? Maybe he hadn't liked the little lion outside the glass? Maybe he got annoyed at Loki talking?

Loki, however, his shaking with laughter as Simba's voice box says "Wow! That's really loud!"

Tony smiles, remembering a similar interaction where Jarvis borrowed a roar from Jurassic Park, after Tony found Loki when they'd been separated in New York City.

Some of the other children, who had been annoyed that the lion's attention is focused solely on Loki, gasp when they notice the new arrivals. A lioness approaches, shortly followed by three other lions, two females and another male. Those three look like they're adults, too, but slightly younger than the other two.

The kids get rather annoyed when those lions entirely ignore them as well and head straight for Loki. Some of them hit the glass, trying to get the big cats' attention, and their parents drag them out after that. The rest of the kids appear ready to move on a few minutes later, since the lions aren't doing anything, and kids have short attention spans.

Bruce informs them that the sign says that triplet lion cubs had been born three and a half years ago to a lion named M'wasi and the lioness Sukari. A year prior to that, Sukari had given birth to a female lion named Moxie, the first lion birth at the Bronx Zoo in thirty-one years.

Tony could've sworn Loki was too absorbed with the lions to be listening, but as the new lions approach him, Loki cocks his head to the side and plops on the ground. "You're Sukari?" He asks the largest female lion, showing he indeed had been paying attention.

"I like that name. Sounds kinda like Sarabi, Simba's mother. Are you gonna go hunting soon? Lady lions hunt, not male lions." He giggles as that and bounces to his knees, fingers fluttering.

"Their food's provided for them here, they don't actually have to go out and hunt it. Kind of like us." Bruce says.

Loki doesn't acknowledge that, instead addressing the male lion "And you're M'wasi. That's a M name like Mufasa!" He claps his hands, singsonging "Su-kari! Sa-rabi! M'wasi! Mu-fasa!"

"This is your pride, right? Your family, ohana, lion prides are family." He leans up really close to the glass and whispers low enough that Tony's probably the only one who hears him. "We can pretend you's all in my Monster Family, 'kay? I wish I could come in and hug you, or you could come out and play. But my Tony and Bruce and Pepper saids we're gonna leave if I do."

Loki turns to give them a rather annoyed look, reminding them just how dumb he thinks that rule is. The male lions' gaze flicks to Tony probably randomly, except it kind of seems like he's agreeing, which is ridiculous.

"If I was a lion I could go in." Loki mutters. "I had a tail like Simba's but it was blue." He suddenly looks struck by an idea, although he doesn't actually seem to grow a tail.

"Please don't turn into a lion here." Tony says when Loki mentions the tail, because what if he somehow turned into a lion and wouldn't or couldn't turn back? How would they smuggle a lion out of a zoo? Loki doesn't seem to hear him.

"I'm a lion! I'm in your pride!" Loki declares louder, clapping his hands and crawling up to the glass. "Rawr! Rawr!" He curls his hands like claws and scratches them against the glass.

Now that nobody is around, Simba bats the glass while Stitch roars from Loki's back. The lions naturally seem a lot more taken to Simba than Stitch, but they still focus mostly on Loki.

Tony gawks when the lions paw the glass and pretend to bite his head through the glass in a way that seems playful rather than wishing they were actually eating him, although their roars still sound ferocious. Loki, who normally tenses at the slightest attack, doesn't seem to feel at all threatened if his laughter is anything to go by. He follows suit with the biting, head tilted in a way that almost makes it look like they're trying to kiss through the glass, or it would, if their mouths weren't open wide with teeth showing.

When Tony mentions this, he just gets an exasperated look from Pepper, who apparently doesn't think it looks like that at all. She's undoubtedly thinking that Tony can find an innuendo in anything. She's not wrong.

Loki spends a good five minutes pawing at the lions through the glass and play-fighting with the lions. Considering Loki's past, Tony's surprised he's actually having a playful fight and not panicking about being fake-attacked. The lions' roars are still very loud, after all. He also romps in front of the glass on his hands and knees. Tony gets a lot of those five minutes on video.

During this, Stitch spits out Loki's entire collection of figurines from The Lion King, as well as some of Loki's origami animals, including multiple lions and horses, a zebra, a rhino and an octopus. Pepper looks surprised at the dozen or so paper horses Stitch had spit out, but she has no idea how many origami animals are scattered in Tony's lab now.

Loki lines them up in front of the glass with Simba, as the big male, M'wasi, lays down on the ground with his pride, eyes flicking to the mini animals.

Loki introduces the lions to all of his Lion King toys, telling them not to eat Timon or Pumbaa.

"I made these." Loki points to the origami animals. "Do you guys really eats zebras? They're like striped horses, but different an' not as awesome. My Sleipnir's the best horse ever, but Pegasus is really great too, 'cause he's stars in the sky with wings- a constellation. There's a lion constellation, Leo, but Hercules killed him."

Huh. Loki's mentioned various constellation myths a couple times before now, Tony thinks. Had he heard about them in Asgard? Wait, is there some basis to Greek Mythology, like how Asgard represents a lot of stuff in Norse myths? They haven't watched the Disney adaptation of Hercules yet, but Tony's pretty sure it's different from the myths.

Loki lays on his side next to his row of animals, reaching out towards the glass. "We're getting off the subject. Let's talk about you. Are you... happy?" He asks in a serious voice, and Tony realizes he's quoting the scene of Cobra Bubbles meeting Lilo. Loki doesn't take his eyes off the lions as if waiting for an answer.

"You have your pride here, right?" That's apparently a rhetorical question, since Loki doesn't wait for any response from the lions. "Family's 'mportant. I gots two families, my Midgard ohana an' my Monster Family. Do you have any uncles? Scar's Simba's uncle, and he's bad like Uncle Vernon is to Harry." Loki holds up his Scar figurine, and their eyes flick between Loki and Scar, who Tony realizes looks the most like Loki with green eyes, a dark mane, and a lean body. Tony finds himself wondering if Loki would look like Scar as a lion.

"And you get food brung to yous? Sleipnir an' Fenrir say they don't get 'nough." Loki pauses a bit, looking sad. Tony's seen him try to feed both his horse and his wolf, but they seem unable to eat since they're imaginary. He does seem really concerned about the lions, and the food question is a sort of like what a social worker would ask a child who might be neglected.

"Do you gets to go outside?" One of the lions walks over to the door that connects to the outside exhibit, like she's actually answering. Tony's not sure what to think. Loki nods. "Good. Do you see stars? They're not fireflies, nope nope nope! Simba and Timon were wrong and Pumbaa was right! I like stars. You get to see stars, right? Even back there, I had stars. An' horses, but you'd... you'd eat 'em."

They've been in the lion exhibit way longer than anyone else- a couple more rounds of people come and go.

Tony suspects the only reason they don't have to drag Loki away from the big cats is because there are still more animals to see.

Tony's not really one to walk around looking at animals- hence why he'd never bothered going to the zoo as an adult before now- but the huge grin on Loki's face and the awed look in his wide green eyes at the sight of the animals definitely makes it not a waste of time. Having Bruce and Pepper makes this outing more fun, too.

In contrast to when he's dashing around like a kid with no attention span, Loki takes the time to read all the signs aloud and absorb the animal facts on them (apparently he already knew all the lion facts). Since he looks like a young child, maybe in first grade, it looks like he's reading well above his level, even if he stumbles over a lot of the words. Tony has a feeling a lot of stuff doesn't come out of Loki's mouth the way he wants it to. Reading these signs, however, is nothing compared to that huge animal tome Loki read or even Harry Potter.

They see tigers, bears, and giraffes before eating at a the zoo's Dancing Crane Cafe, which has huge windows overlooking some natural scenery. They get a table by a window, but Loki still seems really anxious about the large number of people in the restaurant with them, and Tony suspects it has something to do with feasts in Asgard. Rather than eating, Loki hides under the table and folds a couple origami cranes out of napkins.

Surprisingly, in the Mouse House, Bruce mutters to Tony that Hulk really likes the mice. Apparently, he's saying 'PUNY CUTE' in Bruce's mind. Loki curls into a small ball on the ground and tries to scurry like a mouse. He still has way too much energy after running around all morning and he hadn't even eaten. It's really unfair.

By the time they reach the gorillas, after visiting bears, tigers, leopards, monkeys and more birds, Tony's admitted to himself that there's no way he's imagining what's been happening. All the animals react in some way to Loki, often flocking towards him, to the irritation and confusion of whoever is watching them at the same time.

Tony watches as Loki somehow manages to get a gorilla to play a sort of made up hand game with him, where Loki pokes the glass and the gorilla pokes wherever Loki's finger is. Admittedly, gorillas are pretty smart and can even learn sign language, but when the gorilla starts tracing the invisible dots, Tony's fairly sure that's not normal. (Wait, are they making constellations? Tony hears Loki mention Leo, Hydra and Orion, but then it looks like he's getting the gorilla to trace the letters of the alphabet too)

The last place they visit happens to be the reptile house. The interior is dark, withglass-covered cages lit up. Loki comments that it's like the description of zoo that Harry and the Dursleys went to, adding happily that he doesn't have to deal with Thor or Odin, while Harry was stuck with Dudley, Vernon and Petunia.

A pair of round glasses materialize on Loki's face after Bruce won't give Loki his, and Loki now looks even more like Harry Potter- not like Daniel Radcliffe, since Loki's still in his own child body, but still recognizable as Harry. His starry long coat kind of matches, in a weird sort of way.

There are touch exhibits here, containing lizards, harmless small snakes and even a chameleon. Loki reaches down eagerly with other kids, crooning and holding the chameleon up to his face with a snake wrapped around that wrist.

The chameleon goes through a whole rainbow of colors for now apparent reason other than to make Loki giggle. Several children look on jealously and try to grab the poor chameleon, which Loki clutches protectively to his chest, telling the kids that they're scaring it. The chameleon changes color to camouflage in Loki's hands.

For a second, Tony debates about buying the chameleon for Loki, as the god slowly holds it out for a boy who hadn't made grabby hands for the chameleon. The chameleon doesn't leave Loki's hands to go in the other boy's, though it does stick out its long tongue on the boy's palm.

Suddenly, there's a scream from a parent who frantically pulls their child away from the touch exhibit. Tony glances down and realizes that, somehow, Jormungand has ended up in the touch area... and he's not his nice necklace size, either. No, he appears to be the size of a large python, like when he wraps around Loki's waist or shoulders. Jormungand's hissing to the other snakes without actually talking like he normally does.

Some kids reach out eagerly while others shy away. Most parents shout and pull their precious kids back from Jormungand, who's hissing and rearing up in a way that Tony can tell is playful but the other adults obviously can't.

Loki stands there, petting Jormungand and letting a smaller snake slither between his fingers like it's nothing. The chameleon rests on Loki's shoulder like Pascal on Rapunzel's.

There's a rather mischievous grin on Loki's face as he watches the chaos of parents frantically pulling their kids away, as if this is all a huge prank. It probably doesn't seem like a joke to the parents when Jormungand slowly slithers off the table and through the sea of legs, hissing and playfully snapping at people.

Loki even starts laughingly shouting "Boo!" at people in a way strongly similar to Boo from Monsters Inc until Loki starts hissing and trying to flick his tongue out like a snake. By now, thanks to Jormungand, people are fleeing the reptile house.

Tony yelps in surprise when he suddenly feels something slither up his pant leg, and he looks down to see it's Jormungand.

Loki cracks up at Tony's yelp of surprise, and Tony wonders if this is what the mischievous glint was about.

Then he realizes they have reptile house to themselves, everyone else having fled. Maybe that had been the point of all this? Clearing away the crowds? Surely people are going to report a loose snake, although Pepper will probably find a way to diffuse this all. She runs Stark Industries and fixes worse issues than this on a daily basis.

As he thinks this, he realizes Pepper is actually talking to a zoo employee, although Tony can't hear what she's saying, she seems to be convincing them of whatever story she's feeding them, since they meander off to the other end of the reptile house after that.

Loki is now over at the tank in the wall holding a snake, which Bruce identifies from sight as an Anaconda. Apparently knowing that sort of stuff is crucial while on the run in remote parts of the world.

"Jormungand's my snake." Loki is saying to the Anaconda, and Tony notices he no longer as the chameleon on his shoulder. Maybe it ran off. "He lives with me, He didn't even get a body 'til I kinda made it on accident." There's a bit of a pause. "I didn't let him outs."

Wait, he's acting like the snake thinks he let Jormungand out? Or does the snake actually think that? No way, that can't be possible. Then again, half of Loki's powers should be impossible too.

Loki glances at the sign. "An-ocon-da." He reads out. "So not like Harry's snake from Brazil." He frowns as he reads silently, and then says. "Wait, you can be in Brazil, too!"

"Don't let him out." Tony says in case Loki means he'll let this snake go to Brazil, letting the warning be clear. Of all the snakes for Loki to let out, a venomous Anaconda would probably be the worst choice.

Loki looks at the snake and whispers "See? Can't let you out. Sorry. Were you bred in captive'ty too?"

Suddenly, something small and green crawls out of Loki's pocket, crawling up to stand on his shoulder. "You're s'posed to stay in there." Loki frowns at the chameleon, which he'd clearly been planning on smuggling out in his pocket.

"I didn't let him out, nope nope nope." Loki says when he sees Tony, Bruce and Pepper looking at him. Maybe he wasn't actually talking about Jormungand when he said that to the Anaconda. "Followed the rules."

"Okay, technically you did. But there's a rule saying you can't take animals." Tony fights the urge to roll his eyes. Since the petting zoo's been closed since October, Tony didn't think they'd have to make a rule for that since he didn't think Loki would be getting up close and personal to any animals, and somehow it slipped his mind when Loki was at the touch tank.

Pepper squats down. "They live here, and you don't have these habitats in the tower. They wouldn't living without nature." She tactfully doesn't mention that living in a zoo really isn't the same as being free in the wild.

"Pascal lived with Rapunzel in her tower." Loki points out, crossing his small arms as if to say so there. "And he can change colors like me. Camouflage." Loki's shirt turns red under his starry long coat as the chameleon also turns red to match.

"Cans you do blue?" Loki asks the chameleon in a whisper. It slowly turns blue, by itself and not because of Loki's magic, Tony's pretty sure.

"Loki, you can't steal a chameleon."

"Wasn't stealing!" Loki protests. "He wants to come!"

Tony definitely isn't going to get the chameleon for Loki now. That would be like rewarding Loki for trying to steal it (admittedly, Tony had bought Simba for Loki after he shoplifted him, but this seems a little different somehow).

Tony groans. "Look, Lokes, it's not a debate. The animals stay here, end of story. Theft is against the law. You know what that means, right?" Tony's fairly certain theft is against the law in Asgard, too. Or would it be considered animal-napping instead of theft?

Loki nods nervously. "Means you broke the rules the Allfather made, so you get a beating. Or a flogging if it's really bads" Loki's body is visibly tense. "But... but you promised that you'll never ever hit me like there."

"I'm not hitting you, and I'm not going to." Tony says in a gentler tone and Loki relaxes somewhat.

"An' you saids you're not gonna be locking up like Vernon, so no dungeons like some crimnals get." Loki continues slowly. Why is Tony not surprised that they still have dungeons in Asgard? Hopefully Loki was never locked in them.

Suddenly looking terrified, Loki clutches his hands to his chest protectively and asks "Are your guards gonna... gonna... Jasmine's hands almost got chopped off for bein' an apple thief!"

"What?!" Tony exclaims louder than intended. "Hell no! They don't chop people's hands off for stealing here."

"So what's the punishment?" Loki asks in a tiny voice.

"Nothing, if you don't steal." Bruce gives Loki a pointed look. Loki hesitates, but at a look from Pepper, he slips the chameleon back in the touch exhibit before pulling the little snake that was curling around his fingers earlier out of his pocket and putting that back, too. Figures Pepper would be able to get Loki to part with them. She makes Tony go to board meetings, so there's nothing she can't do.

They leave after that. They've already seen all the animals, but also partially because of the stunt Loki just pulled.

"They wanted to come." Loki says again under his breath as they head back to the helicopter.

"Mr. Stark, we need to talk to you about something."

Phil Coulson is standing beside Tony's helicopter in his usual business suit and sunglasses. Clint is next to him. Like Tony, Clint is dressed in casual clothes, a warm coat, and shades, and he's leaning casually against the copter. Tony takes the time to note that his own shades are infinitely cooler than both the agents' sunglasses combined.

"I didn't know spies frequented zoo charity events." Tony directs that comment at Coulson. Loki stops, holding Simba tightly and hiding behind Tony's leg, his eyes accusing Coulson of never giving Simba back like he said he would. It had been Clint who had retrieved the lion.

"It's a charity to help prevent child abuse, right?" Clint asks, pulling out his wallet and handing Tony a twenty dollar bill, which Tony didn't really expect. "It's not much, but I'm not a billionaire. You know you look like Harry Potter, right?" Clint asks Loki. Tony feels Loki give a tiny nod against his leg.

"Why are you here? I know it's not for the animals. Are you here for Loki?"

"No, we're not." Coulson says. Tony raises a disbelieving eyebrow. He has no doubts that Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D are still interested in Loki, in multiple ways, probably. They might consider him a threat, which is ridiculous, although someone else with his powers might be. They're certainly still interested in his powers and could view him as a potentially useful tool or test subject. No doubt, they'd want to harness those powers as their own.

Having someone who can teleport and take on anyone's appearance is like S.H.I.E.L.D's wet dream. Sneaking into supposedly secure places (like the Helicarrier) would be a joke for someone who could teleport and espionage would be a lot easier if you could look like anyone. And S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't even know about some other powers of Loki's, like Stitch spitting stuff out that had been somewhere else, but if they did, they'd probably want to know if the alien backpack could spit out top secret documents.

Tony feels Loki's small hands grip the back of his pants tighter, and he hoists Loki up into his arms, holding him close to further protect him in case the agents in front of him try anything. Loki's small hand rests against Tony's arc reactor.

Nobody makes a move towards Loki. S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn't attempt a kidnapping with tons of civilians nearby, since trying to kidnap Loki would certainly bring out the big green guy in Bruce. Tony seriously doubts that Hulk would intentionally hurt innocent bystanders- especially children- but they could be caught in the crossfire. And S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn't want to owe Tony a new helicopter, and Tony would certainly be billing them if it got wrecked in that situation.

If S.H.I.E.L.D was planning on doing something idiotic like trying to kidnap Loki, they wouldn't do it here. That doesn't say anything about later, though.

Tony's fairly certain Clint wouldn't kidnap Loki anytime. He seemed genuinely annoyed about Loki being held in the Hulk cage on the Helicarrier, and genuinely sorry that he'd caused Loki to accidentally teleport onto the Helicarrier in the first place by instinctively pointing an arrow at him.

"Son of Coul," Loki suddenly addresses Coulson and shimmers. He starts to grow until he's his normal size again, taller than the rest of them, even Pepper. Obviously, Tony's no longer holding him. "You lied. You said you'd give me my Simba if I answered and I did but you didn't! You stole him and that's 'gainst the law here too, like why I couldn't bring the chameleon home."

"I'm the one who got Simba." Clint raises a hand, and Loki smiles slightly at him.

"I'm not going back to the petri dish, nope nope nope!" Loki shakes his head vehemently "My Tony said he made it so you can't put me or my Hulk-y in there ever again. No more cuffs neither."

"So why are you here?" Bruce asks warily, fiddling with his glasses. "Is it Avengers business?"

Clint eventually speaks up. "I need a favor, but first I need to know if I can trust you with a secret."

"What kind of favor?" Tony replies flippantly almost as soon as Clint's finished his sentence. "What kind of secret? Please tell me it's nothing creepy like wanting help hiding a body. Actually, I guess you have Natasha for that." Clint smirks, but Tony can tell the archer's not really thinking about anything funny.

"You've kept Loki a secret." Clint says, partially to himself.

"Miss Potts, will you excuse us?" Coulson asks. "You and Mr. Laufeyson can leave." Loki bristles at the mention of his last name. Pepper smiles politely and nods. As the two of them head towards the helicopter, Tony continuously moves, putting himself in between Coulson and Loki just in case. "Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner, will you come with us?"

"Hang on." Tony frowns suspiciously. "How do I know you're not trying to distract us so you can kidnap Loki?"

"We mostly just need to talk to Tony." Clint says pointedly. Bruce and Tony exchange a glance and Bruce heads to the chopper as well. Tony knows that, if anyone tried to kidnap Loki, Hulk would show up to protect him, which makes Tony feel a lot better. Bruce probably wouldn't even be opposed to letting Hulk out to protect Loki, although he may not even have a choice.

"I'm assuming your offer of a living space in the tower still stands?" Clint asks as the helicopter takes off with Bruce, Pepper and Loki.

Tony genuinely grins, rubbing his hands together in excitement. "Finally! I knew you'd come around eventually! I still don't get why you didn't take advantage of this earlier. I mean, my tower totally kicks S.H.I.E.L.D's quarters' asses any day. If buildings had asses that is." Tony abruptly switches subjects. "You can have your own floor, of course. I can throw in an archery range on your floor if you want, although there's the one in the gym.

Coulson holds up a hand, and Tony stops his rambling. They head towards a waiting car.

During the drive, Tony gets a brief briefing (heh) that'll probably be much longer later. He's told that Clint had been attacked on Thanksgiving. The culprits had been taken out by Natasha and restrained, but apparently, they had hollow teeth filled with cyanide, waking up and offing themselves before S.H.I.E.L.D could get to them and interrogate them.

"No offense, but can't you look after yourself?" Tony asks. "I mean, don't you get attacked on like a daily basis? One of the perks of the job."

"It wasn't just me that was attacked." Clint answers. "I need somewhere really safe for them, and your tower is really safe."

"Ooh! Is it a girlfriend?" Tony asks, before singsonging with a grin and eyebrow wiggle "Is it Natasha?"

Clint denies it, and Tony pats his shoulder. "Sure it isn't, Robin Hood."

Their destination turns out to be a hotel room, and Clint and Coulson exchange a glance, before unlocking the door.

Natasha's standing in the doorway, looking ready to fight, and Tony levels a glance at Clint. "Really, Legolas? I thought you said it wasn't her. You two are totally banging, aren't you?"

"What's that mean?" A little girl's voice asks from somewhere behind Natasha, and Tony blinks. Once she steps aside, two children- a girl about the age Loki appeared to be at the zoo and a boy around the age of the first time Loki shrunk in the helicopter before shrinking into an even smaller child, rush towards Clint's legs, shouting "Daddy!"

Tony gawks. What?! Clint is a father? There's another woman, too, who Clint embraces. Huh. Tony had Clint pegged as a fellow bachelor rather than someone with a wife and kids.

"Uh, just to be clear, this isn't some kind of cover up? Agents in training, that sort of thing?" From the looks he's getting, it's apparently not.

The boy stares at Tony in disbelief and excitement. "You're Iron Man."

"Yes. Yes I am. And you're someone that I literally had no idea existed." Turning to Clint, Tony adds "Well, now I know why you bailed on me for Thanksgiving dinner."

---

The bundle in Thor's arms feels oddly still, and for a brief moment, Thor thinks that Sleipnir might be dead until he realizes he can feel the horse's chest rise and fall as he breathes, and when he pays attention for it, he can even make out the heartbeat. He's not sure if it's a normal heartbeat or not, though.

Ah, so Sleipnir is merely tired and gone to sleep. Or did he pass out? Perhaps his body was too weak from lack of nourishment to handle traveling through the Bifrost and remaining conscious at the same time.

Either way, at least he's not dead, although he looks like he should have died long ago, as would have been the fate of any Midgardian horse. Then again, Sleipnir is not Midgardian. Somehow, he was birthed by Loki, although Thor isn't sure how. Did he somehow become female? How does a Frost Giant even give birth to a horse?

Nearby townspeople stare at Thor, as there had just been a flash of light when he and Sleipnir were dropped off by the Bifrost. In their eyes, he had shown up out of nowhere. Thor had been planning on asking Heimdall about Loki's other friends (or family? Sleipnir's family, at least), but Heimdall had said he needed to make a quick exit.

Less than a second later, the people recognize him and become enthralled to see one of the Avengers who had saved Midgard. Ordinarily Thor would happily pose for pictures for their Book of Faces (Midgardian civilians often ask for that sort of thing), but right now he's dirty and hiding a starved horse bundled in his poop-covered cape.

One unfortunate mortal woman gets too close and smells the stench coming from both Thor and Sleipnir, though Sleipnir reeks much more, having been among the filth longer. The lady backs away, practically retching, and Thor gives her a brief apologetic look before heading towards Jane's lab.

He wonders why Heimdall hadn't dropped him off at the Tower of Stark. If Sleipnir is indeed Loki's child, he belongs there with his... what is Loki? His mother? Father?

Parent. Loki is certainly Sleipnir's parent, seeing as he gave birth to the horse.

Now that Thor thinks about it, showing up at Tony's residence with Sleipnir in the state he's in would not go over very well at all. Perhaps it's good he's here instead of at the Tower of Stark. At least he can get Sleipnir cleaned up and fed a bit.

Thor isn't sure if Sleipnir's well enough to travel by Mjolnir, though. The trip from the Bifrost already did this to him.

Puente Antiguo is quite small, so it does not take long to reach Jane's lab- it takes longer to walk from his chambers to the throne room in Asgard than to walk across the whole town. Thor assumes that Jane is actually here, or Heimdall would not have dropped him off in this town. She hasn't been in Puente Antiguo the whole time, of course. A few months ago, when Thor visited her, she'd been in a Midgardian land called London, and she's been bouncing around the globe for her research over the past year. Arriving where they'd first met is rather odd, but wondering why she's here isn't important.

Jane is already outside her lab, no doubt having been informed of the Bifrost's opening by one of her scientific instruments. She calls his name with a grin and runs to embrace him, until she gets close enough to smell him and Sleipnir. Her reaction isn't as extreme as the other Midgardian lady's was, but it would be hard not to react to the horrible odor.

"Thor, why are you- What happened? Did you just get out of battle?" She asks, concerned.

As Jane is asking this, Darcy leans casually in the doorway and pretty much talks over her. "Dude, you missed Thanksgiving. Jane was all mopey since we came all the way here just to have dinner where we first met you-"

"There was research to be done, too." Jane inputs hastily, looking somewhat embarassed.

Darcy rolls her eyes. "Yeah. You were planning on studying chemistry together, or the mating habits of people from other world-thingies. Whatever you call them."

"Realms?" Thor asks.

Darcy ignores that and points a finger in his direction while slowly approaching from the doorway. "But you didn't even show up, so we have like six extra turkeys that you were-" She too stops when she smells them. She's far enough away that the smell isn't completely overwhelming, but she still obviously smells something terrible. She backs up.

"I am truly sorry for missing the holiday." Thor honestly would have loved to spend that day- or any day- with his beloved Jane. "Unfortunately, I was occupied by other things and it slipped my mind entirely." Thor hadn't known about Sleipnir being real before today, but a week ago he had accidentally revealed that both his parents are seidr users. The Midgardian Day of Giving Thanks had fallen in the week since he outed his parents as magical.

"Don't you have showers up there?" Darcy glances at Thor's bundled cape, which is indeed covered with a certain brown substance and giving off a distinct odor, and asks from a safe distance "Did you have to, like, take a dump on that or something? How else do you get covered in literal shit?"

"What happened to your cape?" Jane asks, obviously not giving Darcy's theory of Thor relieving himself in it any credit. "And what's in it?"

"Someone who needs help." Thor says. "I will show you inside." He kicks off his filthy boots before going in. Maybe he'll just trash them alltogether.

They walk into Jane's lab, and Thor gently lays Sleipnir on the floor, wishing it was softer, although it's not like Sleipnir's used to comfort in any sort of the word. Thor frowns when he thinks about that and slowly unwraps his cape (making sure that the filthy bottom is folded up over a cleaner part so it doesn't touch Jane's floor). This exposes the starved horse that currently is the size of a newborn foal.

Jane and Darcy both gasp at the sight in front of them, looking like they're trying not to throw up, not that Thor can blame them in the slightest. Sleipnir makes a horrific sight.

The fact that Sleipnir's passed out probably makes it seem like Thor just dumped a horse that starved to death a while ago on their floor. That is, it would seem like that if Sleipnir's chest wasn't visibly moving with his breathing, which at least seems to be normal. Thor's not a healer, but he takes the fact that Sleipnir's not rasping or wheezing to be a good sign.

"Um, why do you have a spider-horse thingy?" Darcy asks, eyes locked on the pitiful sight before her. "You're not gonna eat him or anything... right?"

"I discovered him in the... worse part of the Asgardian dungeons." Thor kneels next to the unconscious Sleipnir.

"Your dungeons do that to people?!" Jane exclaims, horrified. After a bit, she adds "I mean animals."

"Most of our dungeons are far less cruel. They are simply meant to keep prisoners contained, rather like your... 'jails', I believe, not starve them." Thor assures them. "I swear I did not know this was happening, and if I had, I would have put a stop to it."

He's not going to let the lower parts of the dungeon exist when he's king. As he said, the point of the dungeons is merely to lock people up, like the clean, brightly lit upper dungeons with the guards. Not to let prisoners rot away in the darkness, like the lower dungeons Sleipnir was in. The ones Thor hadn't even known about.

Thor would like to think that Odin didn't know, because he doesn't want to think that his father could do something so cruel, but there's no way he couldn't know.

"Now, he requires sustenance!" Thor declares, glancing at the unconscious Sleipnir.

"And a bath." Darcy says. "You too. Seriously, you guys are making me wish I didn't have a nose."

Since Sleipnir's unconscious, Thor isn't sure how to feed him right now, anyways. Perhaps they should start with the bath. Thor changes into a spare set of clothes here, already smelling better himself. It was really his clothes, not him, that reeked. Sleipnir, on the other hand...

Thor draws a hot bath, gently placing the still unconscious foal in. Slowly, gently, he tries to scrub all the dirt and other even more disgusting matter from the horse's fur. It probably helps that he's unconscious, as this way he can't fight or flinch away.

The only bright side that Thor can see is that at least Sleipnir isn't beaten bloody or anything.

Then again, they'd reduced Loki to a bleeding heap on the floor on more than one occasion, and he always healed quickly (quicker than anyone Thor knew) and never scarred, so it would make sense if Sleipnir was like Loki, and all Asgardians.

Thor feels a new wave of guilt over his treatment of Loki, and he hopes that at least Sleipnir had been spared that. In some ways, it's almost good Thor didn't know about Sleipnir, since he probably would've treated Sleipnir as terribly he had Loki.

Thor just doesn't know if Sleipnir suffered abuse in the dungeons or not.

About an hour into the bath, Sleipnir regains consciousness, though he seems rather lost and confused, not even seeming to notice Thor's touch for a while. Thor talks to fill the silence and includes several apologies, but Sleipnir doesn't seem to be listening, instead seeming to retreat back into himself.

After another forty-five minutes, Sleipnir shimmers and grows back to the size he'd been when Thor first saw him. He barely fits in the bathtub, now. Thankfully, he's at least reasonably clean as Thor hauls him out and drapes a towel over him.

However, there is still rather horrible, smelly fungus on Sleipnir's hoofs, and Thor had not been able to get rid of it. Perhaps it requires a healer.

Thor slowly walks Sleipnir out of the bathroom, making sure to support his legs. Darcy comments that Sleipnir is looking better, although his starved state is still rather horrific.

Now, they need to provide Sleipnir with much needed sustenance. There had been some sort of animal store when Thor was banished here, but they had been unable to provide him with a horse, which means they're unlikely to have food for a horse either.

There's a green apple on a table with a bite already taken out of it. Sleipnir perhaps isn't quite as out of it as he seems, since he's giving the food a look of such desperate longing that Thor feels tears leak out of his eyes. Not that Thor usually has any qualms about crying.

As if he hardly dares to believe it's real, Sleipnir closes his teeth around the fruit as if it's one of Idunn's Apples. His eyes widen at the crunch, and then he's practically inhaling the fruit, barely pausing to chew as he eats even more ravenously than Volstagg ever has, with a hunger no being should ever have to know.

As Sleipnir basically inhales the rest of the fruit, cores and all, Thor can actually see his stomach expand from there being nothing in it.

Something in the back of Thor's head tells him there's something more wrong than just having to witness someone so hungry, but he can't figure out what it is. That is, until Sleipnir proceeds to vomit up everything he just ate and collapse in his own puddle of sick, undoing all of Thor's work.

Apparently his starved stomach couldn't handle the apple. Thor feels he should have known that. What if he's doing this all wrong?

Thor wonders if Tony or Bruce could help. Bruce might be able to, isn't he a healer? Sleipnir may be too weak to travel by Mjolnir. He'd already been weak from neglect in the dungeons and traveling through the Bifrost hadn't seemed to help matters.

It's a good thing Midgardians have devices that let them communicate over great distances.

Thor isn't exactly looking forward to the conversation with them, though. It can wait a little. After all, Sleipnir needs another bath already.

Well, at least Thor's being nice to Sleipnir. I feel bad for him. He finally gets to eat but even that goes wrong. And Thor will be calling Tony next chapter about Sleipnir, by the way :) I'm not entirely sure if I like how Jane and Darcy turned out... there might be more of them next chapter. Next chapter will definitely have more with Clint and his family and what happened with them.

Sukari and M'wasi are actual lions at the Bronx Zoo, and they really did have lion triplets back in 2010 which is awesome. I did so much research on that place that if someone went through my browser history they'd think I was going to go there, which I wish I could. Apparently lions are mostly grown after three years, so that's why the triplets weren't cubs in this story.

On a totally unrelated note, I made an origami penguin a few days ago, partly because I've been thinking about it while writing this story and partly because I had just watched Kubo and the Two Strings, which was awesome!

Sadly, I kind of doubt my update times will get any faster like they used to be. With school going on, I'm mostly hoping they don't get even slower.