Well, this update was faster than some others I've had. Fifteen days isn't bad. Thanks to my semi-beta readers, Nessaiya and RenneMichaels.
REALLY long chapter alert, the longest yet. I hope it isn't too long or boring...
A few reviewers from last chapter had some good points that I tried to address in this chapter. In the first part, actually. Also, thanks to AbstractionDesolation for suggesting Pete's Dragon (the original from 1977, not the remake from last year), which I've never actually seen, but it has a lot of relevant themes. Obviously there are spoilers for that. I spoiled it for myself too, since I just watched youtube clips and looked it up on wikipedia...
There are also major spoilers for the Toy Story movies, which are some of my favorite movies ever. But even the most recent of those movies, Toy Story 3, has been out for almost seven years (wow, it's really been that long?) so presumably if you haven't seen them by now, you're not going to.
After Tony calls Thor back about taking Sleipnir to Charles' school, he heads towards the elevator and down to his lab, mind still racing. Well, it always is, but he has a lot to wrap his head around, so even though it's not even 9:30 in the morning, he's holding a glass of scotch.
Sleipnir's condition itself hadn't really been the shocking part of what he's learned this morning. Animal abuse and cruelty happen on Earth, too. Hell, so does inhumane treatment of humans. Nothing new there, even if it shouldn't happen. There are undoubtedly plenty of horses and other animals on this planet that were treated just as horribly as Sleipnir apparently was, but those poor creatures probably hadn't made it, whereas Sleipnir has somehow survived. Probably because he's an alien horse with super-durability.
But Tony had just had both the fact that Sleipnir is evidently real and that he was in such a horrible state dumped on him all at once. So maybe his reaction to the news had been a little over the top, but who can blame him? Sleipnir means a lot to Loki, and the god is Tony's friend and even family, in the same sort of way Bruce and Rhodey are.
Tony had definitely snapped at, and wrongly accused, Thor during the initial conversation when he first found out about Sleipnir. It hadn't exactly been fair of him to act that way, Tony reluctantly thinks as Jarvis makes the elevator descend. Sure, Thor was horrible to Loki, but he's clearly trying to do the right thing now. Thor had evidently been the one to get Sleipnir out of the dungeons. He could have left Sleipnir there, and Tony would have never found out. The only person who would've known would be Thor and whatever asshole put Sleipnir there in the first place. Odin, probably.
So Thor's actually a good guy in this situation, just like he's one of the good guys as an Avenger. Tony hadn't really had anywhere else to direct his anger at that moment, and he hadn't apologized when he called Thor back just a few minutes ago telling him there's going to be a jet picking him up. Tony's never been good with apologies.
Yes, Thor treated Loki terribly and that shouldn't be automatically forgotten or forgiven, but Tony's certainly no saint, himself. He once was the freaking Merchant of Death, something he can never, ever make up for no matter how much good he does as Iron Man or how many philanthropic acts he commits. Not to mention, two of his teammates are freaking assassins who killed who they were told to. But the Avengers don't bring up each other's dark pasts at every opportunity.
Tony hates it when people dredge up his darker past and what his company used to do, yet he's still flinging Thor's treatment of Loki in the thunder god's face at literally every opportunity. Loki's abuse didn't have anything to do with the conversation about Sleipnir, and it was pretty clear Thor wasn't actually responsible for Sleipnir's treatment. Yet Tony still rammed a reminder about Loki and even an accusation about Sleipnir down Thor's throat.
After stepping out of the elevator and immediately being greeted by Dum-E in the bot's normal over enthusiastic way, Tony has Jarvis pull up a holographic screen showing the pool again. Clint and the kids are in a wave pool (yes, Tony has a wave pool, as well as a an olympic-sized pool) while Laura relaxes in the hot tub. Cooper and Lila are jumping over the pool's waves, and often run over to tell Laura something. Eventually, Cooper joins his mother in the hot tub.
At the deep end of the wave pool, away from the others, Loki is sitting on the surfboard with Simba, Stitch, Lilo and Maximus. It's clear the stuffed horse from Tangled doesn't even come close to replacing Sleipnir in Loki's mind, but maybe he wants a horse near him now that Sleipnir's gone? Well, he always liked Maximus anyways, maybe Tony's reading too much into it.
Jormungand slithers in the water around Loki's surfboard, and Tony almost thinks he's going to flip the surfboard over, but he doesn't, and Loki's non-water-friendly toys stay dry. Loki grins as the waves make the surfboard bob up and down and eventually a large enough wave is made that it carries the surfboard across part of the pool, but the grin isn't one of Loki's blinding smiles that seem to light up the room with pure happiness.
According to Jarvis, Bruce is not going green on his cool-off floor, but is instead making himself a cup of tea.
"So, J, what have you found about the guy who decided to ruin Clint's Thanksgiving, Victor Baker?" Tony asks. Also, that guy's name sounds like some cheesy pseudonym for some baking contest winner, not a murderous mechanic.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, sir, and I started searching while you were discussing it last night." Jarvis reports. "Victor Baker had been working at S.H.I.E.L.D for three and a half years, before this incident and his subsequent suicide. He was a mechanic who often worked on Quinjets, and there were no signs of tampering before this occurrence. There was also no trace of the cyanide tooth on his medical records, but those are from a year ago."
"So, no idea why this guy decided to track and attack two Avengers?" Tony asks. Why would a random mechanic do that? Did he hold a grudge or something? Maybe he was really a double agent?
"I'm afraid not, sir."
"What about the other assholes? Weren't there three of them?" Tony asks.
"That part is even more strange, sir. I have not been able to find anything about them in S.H.I.E.L.D's files, although I have not been able to break into those restricted to only Director Fury."
"There's nothing about them?" Tony asks, surprised. "That's.. I mean, it's not like Mr. Murderer Mechanic would bring two random thugs off the street on his assassination attempt of two of S.H.I.E.L.D's best agents who kick ass for a living."
"I do not believe they are part of S.H.I.E.L.D, sir." Jarvis says. "I have been running a facial recognition software based on the pictures Agent Romanoff took with her phone, which she sent to me last night.
"You said that you didn't have access to Pirate-Eye's stuff?" Tony asks. Technically, they could hack into it, but that would be very time-consuming and Fury would blow a gasket. Not that Tony really cares about that last part- he enjoys driving Fury crazy- but it would probably make things worse, now.
Tony glances back at the screen showing the pool. Fenrir's paddling around in the water now, which occasionally seems to splash, but maybe that's an illusion too? Is Fenrir an illusion? Sleipnir apparently isn't. Tony had asked Thor, but Thor had said the others weren't in the dungeons.
A few hours later, Tony is working on an Iron Man suit while Jarvis multi-tasks. The AI has just finished calling Fury, who didn't have any info on the two people who were with Victor Baker. The Director does seem really annoyed that someone tried to attack Clint's family (evidently, he knew about them, and Tony learns that, when Clint joined S.H.I.E.L.D, Fury had actually helped the archer agent set up what had been a safe house for his family up until a few days ago).
Jarvis is also starting to work on Lila's birthday present, since Loki's out of the lab. They can't do it when Loki's in here, because one, Loki would probably accidentally tell Lila about it and ruin the surprise, and two, there's a chance Loki would want to keep the blue-skinned space ranger doll for himself, since Tony and Jarvis are making it. So Loki not knowing about it is just easier for everyone.
The AI is also undoubtedly looking up everything under the sun about caring for horses, both medically-speaking and in general.
To top it off, Jarvis found another story about imaginary friends being real, and it's not Sesame Street. It's a Disney movie called Pete's Dragon, which came out in 1977, the same year as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope back in 1977. A New Hope was released on May 25, 1977, four days before Tony's seventh birthday. The only reason Tony had gotten to go see it was because the Stark family got invited to opening night. Tony immediately loved Star Wars, of course, and it had been his best birthday as a kid, even though his parents had barely paid attention to him, although that was nothing new.
Pete's Dragon is apparently live action except for said dragon, but Tony's not actually sure if Loki would watch it. They've never made it through a live action movie because that style bores Loki for some reason, but maybe a cartoon dragon would mean he'd stick with it?
Loki enters the lab, still damp from the time in the pool, as Tony's working on upgrading the scanners on his Iron Man armor. If Victor Von Doom ever shows his face, Tony's going to scan the tar out of him and figure out if his teleportation is the same as Loki's. Jarvis hides the plans for Lila's gift, but Tony has a feeling the AI is still making a 3d model, even if it's not visible.
Loki definitely looks a lot less happy than normal as he hugs Simba and Maximus tightly. Fenrir and Hel appear by Loki's side, the large wolf sticking extremely close. Loki looks enormously relieved to see that his other friends haven't disappeared like Sleipnir, and simultaneously disappointed that Sleipnir doesn't appear with them.
Hel sometimes looks like a zombie on her dead half, like the undead thing Jack Sparrow became in Pirates of the Caribbean, and sometimes her dead half just looks like an ordinary skeleton. Right now, her dead half looks like a skeleton, and Tony wonders if she even has an eye on that half, or just an empty socket. Her hair is covering it up, though.
Dum-E squeals and rolls happily around Loki before beeping, concerned. Loki smiles slightly at Dum-E as the robot tugs on Loki's starry long coat with his claw.
"How was swimming?" Tony asks. Loki seems to love the water, something Tony has the exact opposite opinion about.
Loki doesn't answer, but his Lilo doll says it was fun surfing, and Stitch nods. In the movie, Stitch had been wary about surfing at first, because he risked drowning in the water, but came to love it.
Lilo seems really excited that Hel is here and starts talking to the older girl excitedly. She'd never been at all perturbed by Hel's odd appearance.
Loki starts to take his Stitch backpack off, but Tony holds up a hand, stopping him. He really doesn't trust the blue alien backpack running loose in his lab, especially after the chainsaw incident that ended with a lab table being hacked to pieces and going to furniture afterlife. Or the dump.
Stitch flattens his huge ears and bares his teeth at Tony, muttering something uncomplimentary that sounds like "Ika patootie" in his alien language. Tony wonders if All-Tongue actually works on Stitch's language, apparently called Tantalog- Jarvis once pulled up a list of translated Tantalog phrases used in the movie and show that he'd found somewhere on the internet, but it only had a hundred or so words and phrases. That doesn't exactly constitute a complete fictional language that could actually be translated, like how people can actually learn Klingon.
Looking for a distraction, both for Loki and Stitch, Tony has Jarvis display holographic versions of the photos they'd taken at the zoo.
Seeming a bit less sad now, Loki starts showing Fenrir and Hel some of his favorite animals. Jormungand had been there the whole time, of course, and so had Simba, Lilo and Stitch, although they'd been lifeless most of the time at the zoo. Tony's not sure if they're aware of what's going on around them when they're just normal toys or not.
Lilo's chatting excitedly to Hel about zombies while looking at the zoo photos, although she clearly thinks her photos of tourists are better (even though they only exist in the show and movie, and Loki's Lilo doll doesn't actually have any. Lilo does have her weird rag doll, Scrump, and the green and white camera she uses in the movie and show, but it apparently doesn't work).
Fenrir and Stitch are pointedly ignoring each other. The two dog-like creatures don't seem to get along all the time. Fenrir seems glad to look at Loki's photos, especially the ones with Loki in his child body, until Stitch decides to try and poke Fenrir to annoy him, even though Stitch's fabric claw goes through the wolf. Loki's wolf growls warningly, and Stitch just cackles. Loki shoots the alien a warning look.
Bruce comes down to the lab, seeming not at all surprised to see Loki's other friends here. Unlike Loki, he's also not surprised that Sleipnir isn't present, but Bruce knows the truth.
Tony can't help but wonder about Loki's other friends. After all, Sleipnir's real, and Loki had acted like the rest of his Monster Family would know where Sleipnir is. Hadn't he said something about Fenrir being in The Dark with Sleipnir, last night?
But then again, Fenrir hadn't known where Sleipnir is, and Thor had said he checked the dungeons for the others and hadn't found them.
Are they real, too? Or maybe Sleipnir's the only real one? There's no way for Tony to know.
Simba loves looking at the pictures of the lions, although not as much as actually seeing them in the zoo, obviously.
Loki moves on from the photos after a bit and fiddling with holographic 3d models. Tony's at least glad that he's doing something instead of just moping. He watches as Loki fiddles with a 3d model of a young horse. Then, he duplicates the holographic legs, so it has eight.
It's obviously supposed to be Sleipnir, and it even becomes gray, looking a lot like the illusion that used to show up, only it's not the same. Loki stares at the hologram with an unreadable expression. "No! Not my Sleipnir!"
This is even worse than witnessing Loki's misery about losing Sleipnir last night. Both because Tony knows what shape Loki's horse was found in, and because he has to literally bite his tongue to avoid revealing the truth. If, by some chance, Sleipnir doesn't make it, it'd be cruel to give Loki hope beforehand only to yank it away.
Loki furrows his brow, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he starts wiggling his fingers and waving his hands, body swaying slightly to a rhythm seemingly only he can hear. Green energy flares up around his hands like fire.
Well, at least Loki doesn't panic about the green around his hands like he did when he first arrived two months ago.
"Uh, what are you doing, Bambi?" Tony asks. Nothing's actually happening, as far as he can see.
Instead of answering, Loki just looks at Simba, like the lion's hiding a secret as he tries to climb up Loki's leg. Jormungand slithers around the god's shoulders, and Loki glances at him, too. The snake basically seems like a sometimes-living toy, like Simba or Stitch.
"I can do it, like the brooms." What on earth is Loki talking about? "I dids it with my Simba, Stitch an' especially Jormungand, like the Blue Fairy so why... I can'ts! Not now, it doesn't work! Why? 'cause it's holograms? Holograms aren't bodies!"
Oh. Loki's trying to bring the hologram to life, like how he'd made Jormungand out of a rubber tube, and brought his toys to life. But those started out as objects, not holograms. Admittedly, Jarvis can make holograms seem very lifelike, but it's not actually the same.
Loki angrily swipes the hologram out of existence, grabs some paper, and starts folding. He ends up with an eight-legged origami horse, and Tony had seen a flare of green magic around the god's hands when he was making it. The origami Sleipnir looks quite impressive, even if it's tiny.
It tosses its head and starts galloping on its eight paper hoofs. Loki had brought origami animals to life for brief periods, but they were still paper and never lasted as long as Simba, nor did they seem quite as real as Simba or Fenrir and the others.
Unlike when Loki made Jormungand out of a rubber hose, the origami Sleipnir doesn't become any more realistic than a paper horse, but that's probably because Sleipnir's actually real.
Loki just scowls at the origami horse, clearly thinking it's not the same either. He snatches it up and crumbles it into a ball, tossing it aside. "Not my Sleipnir!"
"Hey, um, I'm sure Sleipnir's safe and happy, where he is." Tony says after a bit.
Loki gives Tony a rather annoyed look that clearly asks how would you know?
Tony has to stop working and concentrate on physically restraining himself from blurting out that Sleipnir's alive but very malnourished.
Instead, Bruce grabs Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Loki had originally started reading the Sorcerer's Stone, but Tony had ordered the original British version to fit Loki's accent. When it arrived, Bruce had shaken his head and pointed out that Loki's not British, which is obvious, but he still has a similar accent).
Tony continues working on the scanner upgrades while Bruce reads aloud to Loki. Tony's read aloud to Loki before, too.
This time, though, Loki says that he wants to read it, so Bruce passes the book over to the god. At first, Loki reads silently, until he glances at Tony and Bruce. When he reads aloud, he doesn't fumble quite as much as he had even a few days ago.
Before their trip to the zoo, they'd gotten through Harry's own zoo trip, and the mysterious letters arriving. Loki had, apparently, first thought they were delivering letters of the alphabet, and when Tony asked incredulously how they delivered messages in Asgard, Loki muttered something about Odin and ravens, and scrolls.
Right now, they're at the part where Hagrid arrives. Loki really seems to like Hagrid, and is in awe of Diagon Alley, although they need to explain the concept of banks when they reach the Gringotts part. Loki actually seems to have temporarily forgotten to mull over Sleipnir's disappearance as he reads to the remaining three members of his Monster Family, his toys, and the two scientists.
Loki thinks it's hysterical that Harry needs to buy a stick, as Loki calls wands, to do magic. It's ridiculous, Loki points out with a snicker, since Harry had done magic without a wand, and had even teleported to the top of his school. Tony says that maybe the wands help wizards focus magic or something.
Loki finally gets what all the Hedwig comments at the zoo were about, although Harry doesn't name Hedwig until after Diagon Alley.
By the time Pepper returns later that afternoon from whatever mind-numbing meeting she'd been at, Loki has gone back to asking about Sleipnir.
Bruce convinces Loki to come up to the penthouse with him once Pepper enters the lab. She's one of the few people with almost unlimited access, along with Bruce and Loki themselves.
Pepper starts to bring up the cuddling incident in the fort from this morning, and Tony shakes his head. "Nope. I really can't have this conversation right now. I've got enough on my plate already."
Pepper gets her patented look that tells him she's not taking any crap, and Tony just explains the whole situation regarding Sleipnir and how that's kind of taking priority.
Before Tony's even done explaining how Sleipnir is real, Pepper looks like she wants to rush up to the penthouse, wrap Loki in a hug, and not let go while she finds Sleipnir and wraps him in a hug too. Then she looks like she wants to kick some ass.
Tony knows both feelings, and he's not even the cuddly type, although he cuddles with Loki a lot in an entirely platonic way.
"Loki doesn't know." Tony tells her, and Pepper looks like she agrees that waiting to tell him might be best, although she, like Tony, clearly wishes they could just tell him immediately to alleviate some of Loki's sadness about Sleipnir being gone.
Tony calls Charles to see how Sleipnir is doing, even though it's only been about eight hours since Tony even learned about Sleipnir's reality. Sleipnir's probably at Charles' school by now, Tony hopes.
As soon as Charles picks up, he says "I thought I'd hear from you, Mr. Stark. Sleipnir has settled in as well as can be expected for him. Two of my friends and colleagues, who have acted as medics in the past, have checked him over."
"How's he doing? He's not going to die, is he?"
"No, I believe he will get better." Charles says, and Tony breathes a huge sigh of relief. "He's malnourished but somehow does not have any serious diseases."
"Right, well, I'll grab Loki and we'll see you in a bit." Seeing how upset Loki is, he should just go to Charles' mansion/school right now. Tony goes to hang up, but Charles' voice stops him.
"I never told you the location of my school." Charles points out, although he doesn't exactly sound surprised at the idea of Tony knowing it.
Tony snorts. "So? I can find out like literally anything." Well, he hasn't found out the identity of those other two attackers at Clint's house yet, although the key word is yet. Finding the mansion's location hadn't been particularly hard.
"Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Really, who uses the word youngster? It's almost as bad as younglings, like what Yoda calls little kids. Anyways, your address is 1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center. Northeast corner of Westchester County, New York. It really wasn't hard to look up, even when you left all the mutant stuff out."
Before Charles can reply, Tony adds "Don't worry, I'm not gonna pass that off to mutant-hate groups or anything. And I have nothing against mutants, which you probably should've noticed during our last session. Anyways, I can fly over so Loki can visit Sleipnir whenever I want, and we're coming now. I can't stand seeing Loki like this, and I bet Sleipnir misses him too."
"Sleipnir does seem to miss Loki a great deal, although he still seems confused about where he is." Charles confirms, but then says patiently. "Mr. Stark, I understand your concern, but you may want to wait."
"Why?" Tony demands. "Loki's been beside himself. Like, he literally cried himself to sleep last night because he can't talk to Sleipnir like he used to, even though Sleipnir's closer now than he was a week ago." Charles makes an interested sort of sound at that, and Tony continues. "He keeps asking about him and keeping them apart is just mean. And you literally just said Sleipnir misses Loki too."
"Yes, but I don't imagine Loki would react well to seeing Sleipnir in the state he's in now." Charles says. Who the hell would take that well?
Charles has a point, though. Actually, Tony had even thought that he didn't want Loki to see Sleipnir like such bad shape when he'd first seen the starved horse, but was ignoring that at the moment.
"I'd suggest waiting a few days until Sleipnir is really settled and hopefully a bit healthier. I will call you as soon as I think he's ready." Charles promises.
Tony nods. "Great, can we just schedule Loki's next appointment for then, too? I mean, I'd probably royally screw something up with trying to tell him, which is why I haven't told him, which is why Loki's distraught because, to him, Sleipnir is gone." Yes, waiting makes sense, but it's really hard seeing Loki so upset.
Charles agrees, and adds that he'll send a jet to pick them up when the time comes, even when Tony points out he has his own jet, but Charles says he'll get one to pick them up anyways.
Loki is playing with the kids when Tony and Pepper go back up to the penthouse, and the kids had apparently been wondering where Loki was for most of the day. "Were you really building a huge robot that saves animals, Mr. Stark?" Cooper asks.
Tony blinks. What? Where in the world did that come from?
"Uh, no. And I'm not Mr. Stark. That's way too formal. I think I'm more the 'coolest uncle ever' type. I mean, if Natasha can be your Aunt Nat or whatever, I can be Uncle Tony. I'm way more awesome than her, after all. Uh, don't tell her I said that." Natasha would probably do something horrible to him if he said that to her face, so he doesn't.
"Tony, you can't just declare yourself an honorary uncle to somebody else's kids." Pepper sighs.
"Of course I can. I just did, didn't I? And who wouldn't want me as an uncle?" Tony counters, grinning.
They eat dinner with the Barton family again, and then decide on a movie night. Lila and Cooper seem amazed that Tony has a private movie theater, and rather surprised as well, as if the tower and pool hadn't clued them in.. After some bickering, they decide on Toy Story (Lila's suggestion) because Loki seems really curious when he hears that Woody, Buzz and Jessie have their own movies. Loki points out that Boo had Jessie, although that was just an easter egg since both movies were made by Pixar.
Tony sits between Loki and Pepper as the movie opens with Andy playing with his toys, Woody in particular. Lila shouts out a couple lines along with the movie and tries to slide her own Woody doll down the railing for the theater stairs as Andy slides Woody down a banister onscreen.
When Woody comes alive for the first time after Andy takes his baby sister Molly downstairs for his birthday party, Loki blurts out "My Simba does that!" All four members of the Barton family look at him, ranging from a look that says duh, he's a toy (Lila) to looks of disbelief (Cooper and Laura). Clint looks like he isn't sure what to think. Clearly part of him is telling him that toys aren't alive, but another part is probably wondering if Loki's powers could actually do that. After all, Clint has seen Stitch spit out and eat toys.
It would be hysterical to see the looks on their faces if Simba came alive right now, but he doesn't.
Tony had actually forgotten that Jessie isn't in the first Toy Story movie, but he hasn't seen them for some time. Like almost any Disney or Pixar movie they've seen, Loki's engrossed in it, as it's revealed Andy's moving and the boy gets a surprise Buzz Lightyear gift for his birthday. Loki clearly loves that Buzz has wings, although he'd seemed to love that about Lila's toy, too. He laughs when Buzz "flies" around Andy's room, which was "falling with style" according to Woody.
The fact that Loki has no idea what a gas station is when Andy and his mom stop at one and Woody and Buzz get left behind because they're fighting, once again highlights that there's still a lot Loki doesn't know about Earth. Similarly, the arcade at Pizza Planet is mostly new to the god, but he mentions something about Lilo and shells when an alien is grabbed in the claw machine by Sid. According to Lila, the little green, three-eyed aliens are the scientists in that Buzz Lightyear show she likes, along with that Mira character Tony's making a toy of for Lila's birthday.
Surprisingly, Sid's mutant toys don't even freak Loki out, not even the weird one that's a baby doll head missing its right eye mounted on an Erector set spider body with pinchers. The spider baby is easily the creepiest member of Sid's mutant toys anyways, but Tony would have thought that Loki would freak out about the fact he's missing an eye, like Odin or Fury. Then again, they both wear eyepatches, and honestly, Hel looks even weirder than any of Sid's mutant toys.
Clint had mentioned, before the movie started, that he'd used the analogy of Sid's room being like Asgard with his kids. Lila actually hugs Loki when Sid throws Woody around and burns his forehead with a magnifying glass, telling Loki that Sid is bad. Loki looks somewhat startled at the hug, before asking Lila's Woody doll if he's alright.
"He's not actually real." Cooper says exasperatedly. "Besides, he's not that Woody. Mom and dad got him at a store with Jessie and Buzz a few years ago. Woody and Buzz are just made up, it's just a story they made up."
Buzz learning that he's actually a toy and isn't real seems kind of like a twisted parody of Sleipnir actually being real. When Buzz tries to fly and instead crashes at the bottom of the stairs and loses an arm, Loki looks very sympathetic.
The one trigger in the movie is when there's thunder and lightning as Sid straps Buzz to The Big One rocket, because of course dramatic scenes always have thunder, which only increases setting Loki off when it's already a trigger. Ironically, the storm is actually what make Sid postpone blowing Buzz up. Woody and Buzz reconcile overnight, and when Sid tries to blow Buzz up the next day, Woody and Sid's mutant toys come to life and scare the toy-torturing boy senseless.
When the movie's over, they leave the tower's theater and the Bartons go to their floor. Afterwards, Jarvis drops Tony, Loki, Bruce and Pepper off in the penthouse, while Loki hums You've Got a Friend in Me.
Once they're alone, Simba becomes animated again. The lion had already acted lifeless around the Bartons and at the zoo, even before they watched Toy Story. Simba, and the rest of Loki's toys, actually seem to follow the Toy Story rule, although Loki, Tony, Bruce and Pepper seem to be exceptions. Well, and they don't seem to care about Jarvis seeing them.
Fenrir and Hel also appear, and once again, Loki looks like he'd been thinking maybe Sleipnir would show up with them this time. The dejected look on Loki's face when he sees his horse still isn't hear makes Tony's heart clench painfully. Pepper and Bruce look like they're having similar internal, someone-just-squeezed-my-heart-so-it-hurt reactions.
"Simba?" Loki asks, and the lion looks at him. "Is that why you don't come real around Lila and Cooper and at the zoo? 'Cause it's 'gainst the rules? I didn't know that 'til now."
"Most toys don't move." Tony points out. Loki surely noticed that, after all, Simba didn't start coming alive until recently.
"'Xcept when there's no people." Loki says, nodding. "Woody, Buzz an' Rex and the others can't come alive 'round people. But they can, Woody did with Sid, but he was breaking rules. Is my Simba breaking the rule, 'cause he comes 'live around me?" Loki looks at Simba with wide, worried eyes. "You're not gonna gets in trouble, right, for breaking the rule? Hobbes comes alive around Calvin, just Calvin, and he never gets troubles."
Hobbes is just an imaginary friend projected onto a lifeless stuffed tiger, though. Sort of like what Simba probably was for Loki before becoming animated.
"I'm not going to get in trouble. I'm a prince, I can do what I want!" Simba says somewhat cockily.
"How come Pinocchio can move near everybody's? He doesn't gots to flop over and play Dead Possums like they all did. Is it 'cause the Blue Fairy made him living and then real? Did she make Woody alive? But I made Simba alive, I think."
"Uh, yeah, because Pinocchio was going to be a real boy someday, I guess." Honestly, Tony never would have thought of that.
Loki's eyes widen. "The Blue Fairy! When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires will come to you! Lilo wished on a star too, 'xcept it was Stitch's spaceship!"
Loki darts up the stairs and outside to the landing platform for Tony's suits, rather than the normal balcony, and stares up at the sky.
Tony follows him out into the cold night. There aren't many stars visible, which isn't exactly new.
Loki doesn't pull his gaze away from the sky when he speaks to Tony. "Which one's the wishing star? The second to the right? That's to Neverland, but maybe that works too. But they're alls the Second Star to the Right sometimes if you turn. So it's magic!" Loki spins around, as if proving his point. His long coat billows out.
Loki stops spinning and stares at the sky pensively for a bit. When he speaks, he's clearly not addressing Tony. "It's me again. I need Sleipnir to be my friend. So that he won't run away. Maybe makes him reals, too, as real as Tony and Bruce." He looks down from the sky and around, clearly expecting Sleipnir to magically appear. Sleipnir doesn't.
After a bit, Loki huffs in annoyance and heads back inside. He grabs his tiny Jiminy Cricket plush and larger Pinocchio doll that had been plush but is now a wooden puppet, albeit without strings like in the beginning of the movie. "Why didn't it work!" He asks the toy cricket. "You saids If your heart is in your dreams, no request is to extreme, anything your heart desires will come to you. But the Blue Fairy's not here 'n neither is my Sleipnir!"
"Loki, I'm sorry." Pepper says gently. "I'm not sure the Blue Fairy's coming."
"He's left!" Loki says, before casting his eyes down and muttering. "It's good he's gone. He didn't even wanna be here anyway... we don't need him." It's clear he doesn't mean this last part, since his voice chokes up, and Tony gets the feeling he's quoting someone. Lilo, Tony realizes. He's quoting Lilo from when Stitch left.
Then, Loki's voice takes on a cruel tone. "Idiot! He's not real, you're talkin' to nobody!"
"Don't say that. I'm sure he'd love to be here." Tony says.
"And he's not nobody." Pepper says before Tony can.
"Ohana means family." Loki's Lilo doll speaks up, and Tony realizes the quote Loki spoke is from Lilo. Loki's Stitch backpack finishes the rest of the Ohana quote together. "Family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten."
"Then why's he not coming back?" Loki asks tearfully. "He's my family, and I loves him. Love is an open door, but his door's... the door still won't open!" Bruce has a look on his face that says he'd had a similar conversation with Loki last night.
If they keep having heart-wrenching conversations like this, having to wait until Sleipnir's better to take Loki to see him is going to be hard.
"Do you think my Sleipnir's mad 'cause of Simba?" Loki asks. Tony's not sure if he's been thinking this for a while, or if the question's influenced by the fact Woody was jealous when Buzz became Andy's new favorite toy.
"No." Hel says. "He has to know you love him. I knew you loved me, even when I didn't talk."
"And he's not mad 'bouts food?" Loki looks at Fenrir for confirmation, and Tony gets the feeling he'd asked that during his conversation with Bruce last night. Fenrir shakes his head, actually shakes his head no.
"If Genie was here, he could gets my Sleipnir back for me." Loki exclaims, still seeming annoyed at the Blue Fairy.
"Would that be one of your three wishes?" Tony asks, expecting Loki to immediately nod yes. However, Loki actually shakes his head no.
"What?! How would that not be one of your wishes, Snoopy? You just wished on a star for Sleipnir to be real!" Tony stares at Loki incredulously. "And you tried to make a hologram of him real earlier!"
"Only three Genie wishes." Loki says seriously. "Gots ta choose 'em carefully. Can't ask for more wishes, and you can't get Genie to kill anybody or resurrect thems or make 'em loves you, nope nope nope! Not allowed!"
"You don't need to resurrect Sleipnir anyways." Hel says. "He's not dead."
"So what would your wishes be?" Tony asks. "I mean, you wouldn't have to wish to be a prince like Aladdin did, you already are one. So are you gonna wish for a pony or something?"
"I means... I want my Sleipnir, really. But, more than that, too! I only gots three, unless the Blue Fairy lets you wish multiple times, 'xcept she didn't even help now." Loki sounds rather annoyed at the Blue Fairy, even though she doesn't exist. Pepper, Bruce and Tony exchange looks.
"I want Sleipnir, but my Hel and Fenrir too..." Loki pulls up a holographic document as he clearly tries to figure out how to say what he's thinking, scrolling through the pages of animal facts, movie scenes and song lyrics he's transcribed, even the stories Loki's made up. "I wants..."
Loki stops scrolling, and through a combination of slowly typing out words and muttering things for Jarvis to transcribe that Tony can't make out, eventually comes up with a list of three wishes. Loki won't let any of them look at it until he's done.
When Loki's finished, the three of them lean forward and read:
1. I wish all my friends and family were real, and would not die before me. All of them. So I'd never be without any of them.
2. I wish I always lived with my Tony and Bruce instead of stupid Asgard Ass-Guard. I would have always been happy with my Tony, never hurt and not as stupid.
3. I wish for your freedom, Genie.
Tony is perhaps unfairly shocked at the level of thought Loki had put into these wishes. Instead of just wishing for Sleipnir (and it seemed astounding five minutes ago, when Loki said that one of his Genie wishes wasn't the wish about Sleipnir he'd just made to the stars), he wished for all his friends and family, and Tony's certain he's included in that.
"I wouldn't mind living with you, either." Loki glances at Pepper and adds or Pepper to the text of his second wish. "'xcept you don't live here and if I'd lived with you 'stead of Asgard I wouldn't be living with my Tony and I need my Tony. Why don't you live here, Pepper?"
Actually, Pepper had lived in the tower for a while, but had decided she needed some space. Even though the tower has a ton of space.
Tony changes the topic.
"Wow. Those are some really thoughtful wishes. Most people would just wish for a trillion dollars or something. But, as much as I wish you didn't have to go through all that shitty abuse, well, I wasn't born anywhere near where you were. So you couldn't exactly live with me your whole life, since you've been alive way longer." Tony says apologetically and keeps talking a mile a minute.
"And believe me, you certainly wouldn't want to live with my dad. Also, Aladdin already freed Genie, so I'm not sure you'd have to wish him free." Now Bruce and, surprisingly, Loki, are giving Tony assessing looks, while Pepper just looks understanding. She knows Tony has Daddy issues.
"He didn't beats you, right?" Loki asks worriedly, and it's obvious he's talking about Tony's dad instead of Genie.
"No, Genie didn't beat me." Tony says flippantly. Even Loki gives him a look for that, and Tony says "My old man didn't beat me either." Howard was just never around, and when he was, he was usually drunk and belittling whatever Tony did, because Tony was never good enough for him, could never live up to the great Captain America, who was believed dead at the time and in reality was in some kind of cryogenic suspended animation in the ocean.
"What's are your three Genie wishes?" Loki asks Tony.
"You know I can literally buy anything I want, right? Like I could have my own private island or even buy out a small country if I wanted to. Actually, I might already have my own island, I'm not sure. Point is, there's literally nothing I'd have to wish for that I couldn't just get anyways." Tony says, smirking, although he knows that's only referring to material things.
Honestly, he'd wish that he could change his past of the Merchant of Death, except then he probably wouldn't have been Iron Man and never would've met Bruce or the other Avengers or Loki. He wishes he could prevent all the hardship both Bruce and Loki have gone through. He wishes Yinsen hadn't died.
Loki doesn't seem fooled about Tony being able to buy any wish, because he clearly gets that not all wishes are for purchasable things. Heck, none of Loki's wishes are something you can buy.
Loki's eyes go wide and Tony can see the metaphorical lightbulb over the god's head of long black hair. "You'd wish fors... to be outta the water, like Aladdin's second wish after he got throwed ins the water all tied up, couldn't get out."
To someone else who was familiar with Aladdin, and how Genie used Aladdin't second wish to save Aladdin from drowning after the guards tied him up and threw him in, this may sound like a reference to that, but Loki's clearly talking about what Tony told him about his own experiences.
Loki knows, has even seen, how Tony reacts to being submerged in water, with the whole pool freezing incident, and during their break from Pinocchio, Tony somehow told Loki he'd gotten hurt in water. The fact that guards threw Aladdin in to drown him is sort of close to Tony's experience being waterboarded.
Pepper clearly knows what's going on, but back when they'd shared a bed, she'd witnessed a few of his nightmares of being waterboarded. She'd been his rock, as always, offering help even when his pride turned it away.
Bruce is giving Tony a very assessing look, clearly knowing it's not simply Loki referencing the movie like some people would think. Tony wonders if Bruce worked out the connection with the cave in Afghanistan yet.
Tony quickly changes the subject.
"So, we still have time, and Jarvis recommended a movie, Pete's Dragon. Um, I've never actually seen this one." It's apparently one of Disney's less-known movies- Tony didn't even know about it until today- but then again, it's mostly live action.
"I remember that movie." Pepper says with a fond smile. "I loved it when I was a little girl."
After some rather lengthy credits in the start of Pete's Dragon, there's a shot of a boy seemingly floating through the air, and Loki seems quite jealous that "he's flying, like Peter Pan", before Pete starts talking to an invisible creature named Elliot that he's evidently riding on.
Loki also comments that Pete looks real, clearly wondering why they're watching this, although Loki obviously knows what talking to someone who's invisible is like.
Rather ugly obvious villains suddenly pop out from behind trees and start calling for Pete, before bursting into a song. It's a surprisingly dark song about how they're going to torture and kill Pete in various ways, from drowning him to tying him to railroad tracks and cutting him up. They're apparently his adoptive family called the Gogans, and are abusive assholes like the Asgardians.
Even before the Gogans' song, Loki clearly assumed they were going to beat Pete for "being freakish talking to nobody." However, it's a kids' movie, so of course they don't beat Pete and instead the Gogans are knocked in the mud by an invisible dragon.
Fenrir makes a sound, and Tony gets a feeling the wolf wishes he could have done stuff like that to the Asgardians, but he's intangible.
Pete's cartoon dragon is named Elliot. The dragon becomes visible around Pete the following morning. Elliot is green and rather pear shaped, with a long neck. He has wild pink hair and tiny pink wings that would never actually be able to lift him off the ground.
Pete feeds Elliot apples, which clearly hits a sore spot for Loki, since he's unable to feed Sleipnir or Fenrir. Loki even tries again, and mutters that they're lucky on the screen. They're only twelve minutes in, and already there's yet another song, about Pete and Elliot loving each other. Ugh, how much singing is there going to be in this? It seems like even more than most of Disney's stuff, and more annoying in Tony's opinion).
Pete ends up in a town called Passamaquoddy. Elliot remains invisible, but causes a lot of mischief that people stupidly blame on Pete despite the fact there's no way a small boy of about ten could leave huge footprints in cement. Honestly, those people are idiots.
Loki's only half paying attention as he tries to make origami dragons that look a lot cooler than Elliot, and Tony's only half paying attention to the movie. "Is he really there?" Loki asks. "They all don't see him, an' he looks different from them. Like a drawing, like Simba onscreen. Does he really gets to eat? You can touch him, right, like my Jormungand! 'Cause otherwise he would never knock over stuff, an' Pete couldn't ride him. An' you couldn't see his footprints. My Sleipnir doesn't have hoofs-prints."
"Yeah, he's real, um, even if he's a cartoon and people don't see him. And you're right." Actually, Jormungand sort of does sound like that version of a tangible "imaginary" friend, but then again, so do Simba and Stitch.
Elliot reveals himself to a drunk man, which leads to yet another song in a pub. Huh, there are a lot of Disney pub songs, like in Beauty and the Beast and Tangled.
"He's getting Pete into troubles, 'cause they don't see him, an' they says he's not real! Fake! Fake, you idiot boy, you're making him up you freak!" Loki says, his tone making it clear he's been in Pete's situation before. Except he probably got worse than just raps on the knuckles like Pete does at school for Elliot's antics.
Pete meets Nora, who can't see Elliot and believes he is imaginary. Nora and Pete become friends and eventually become a family, while Pete is continuously hunted by the Gogans, and Elliot is soon hunted by Dr. Terminus, whose name is incredibly cheesy. Apparently, dragon body parts are a gold mine of random cures.
"Here." Grinning, Loki passes Tony a drawing he's been working on during the movie, and Tony feigns a sudden, intense interest in what's happening with Pete and Elliot when he sees it's a drawing of him and Pepper cuddling in the fort from that morning. Bruce is smirking far too much, and Pepper looks slightly embarrassed.
Long story short (although somehow this movie is over two hours, two very long hours in Tony's opinion), the Gogans and Terminus end up failing, Elliot ends up revealing himself to the town and they finally believe he exists. Pete lives with his new family consisting of Nora, her husband Paul, who had been missing at sea earlier in the movie, and Lampie, Nora's father and the drunk old man Elliot had revealed himself to earlier.
In the end, Elliot has to leave Pete to help other children, and it's made clear the boy will never see his dragon again as he says goodbye. Oh, great. Maybe this wasn't the best thing to show Loki...
"At least he gots to say goodbye." Loki mutters. "Never got to with my Sleipnir... What'f, what if he's gone forever? He can't do that! Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten!"
"Hey, maybe Sleipnir isn't gone forever." Tony says, really hoping Sleipnir won't die on him and make that statement false. "I mean, he had to go away in Asgard and he came back, right?"
Loki scoots closer to Hel, Fenrir and Jormungand. "You're not leaving like Elliot just did, guys! No! And my Sleipnir's gotta come backs!"
After Pepper leaves, even though Tony had offered to let her stay, Loki asks if they can sleep in the fort again. "Okay, but this is the last time." Tony says. "You can build a fort on a floor nobody uses much, but I kind of need my living room back, okay?"
Loki nods, and Tony actually changes into pajamas this time. Last night, they'd just fallen asleep in the fort in their usual clothes. A few minutes later, Tony walks out of his bedroom, now wearing the Iron Man pajamas he'd bought for himself along with Loki's. Of course, Loki's wearing his own Iron Man pajamas. Loki laughs about how they match each other. Both Toy Stark and the Loki action figure are wearing them, and Simba's of course wearing his Iron Man suit.
Loki frowns and looks at Bruce. "Now Bruce 's lefts out."
Bruce insists that he's going to sleep in his bedroom, though, so Tony and Loki are alone this night in their sleepover in the fort. Well, okay, they're not alone in any sense of the word. Simba, Maximus, Stitch, Lilo, Pinocchio, Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Violet, Jack-Jack, Dash and Frozone all seemingly come alive at some point, and Jormungand, Fenrir and Hel are present as well. They're all apparently sentient, even though the other toys don't come alive nearly as much as Stitch and Lilo, who aren't alive as much as Simba.
"Are they really not real?" Loki asks as he lays in the tent with Tony, his toys, and his friends.
"Who?" Tony's confused. Is Loki asking about his friends being real, or toys being real? They already established Elliot was real in his movie, right?
"Everything." Loki says, throwing his arms out. "Cooper saids they just made 'em up, the stories. That, that Woody and Buzz don't really come to life, that they weren't Andy's before Lila's. That it's all made ups, not reals. Is that why the Blue Fairy didn't come?"
Tony sighs. He'd never exactly corrected Loki on thinking movies were real. Loki's clearly realized that people don't actually look like animated characters, and at one point had seemed to decide that there was some cartoon realm where all the characters lived.
"I'm real, even if Cooper says I'm not!" Simba says. Loki laughs, seeming to like that Lila and Cooper don't know that toys really can come to life.
Tony debates about mentioning that The Jungle Book was an actual book before Disney made it into a movie. Heck, even Tangled is based off the famous fairy tale of Rapunzel, and Peter Pan didn't start out as Disney either. Actually probably most Disney movies are based on some other story.
"You know," Tony tells him. "Up until I met Thor, I thought he was just a story. Actually, I thought all of Asgard was just made up."
"Kinda wish it was." Loki mutters. "That's parts of my second Genie wish, I guess."
Meeting Thor, and, more recently, seeing all the powers Loki's capable of- including bringing toys to life- has definitely changed Tony's views on what's impossible. Hell, aliens aren't even a theory anymore, thanks to both the Chitauri and Thor and Loki.
"And before I met you, I thought a lot of the stuff you do was impossible, like turning invisible and shapeshifting into me or a kid, like what you did at the zoo." Tony snorts. "And I never thought I'd see living toys. You've made things real, literally, that I was absolutely positive were just made up. Looking at you again, Simba. And all you guys." Tony says, glancing at Loki's toys.
Yep, magic definitely seems real, even if there's got to be science behind it. So it wouldn't be that much of a leap if genies, flying carpets and talking animals like in Disney flicks are real. Hell, Sleipnir's a talking animal, at least as an illusion.
Maybe there are even fairies or something in one of the Nine Realms. Thor and Loki have both mentioned elves as if they really exist.
Man, if, before he met Loki, Tony could have listened to the thoughts he's having now, he would have concluded he'd gone insane.
"Here," Cooper says, handing Loki a circular white plastic thing with three oval-ish holes and round edges. Two of the holes are smaller ones next to each other like eyes, and there's a bigger hole on the bottom that looks like a smile. Loki grins and holds the thing up to his face, although it's a little to small to be a mask.
Lila giggles at him and does the same, but Loki's getting the feeling it's not really supposed to be a mask.
Is it some kind of shield? Loki wonders as he holds it out by the center part, where the's a sort of curved T formed by the center plastic bits between the holes intersecting. It would be a really dumb shield, because it's so small and someone could stab through the holes.
In it, there's a long, rectangular white thing with a bunch of buttons. Lila's holding a similar long white thing with buttons, about the size of a small dagger but not at all sharp, and not in one of these round things. Maybe it's some kind of club, and this is the shield to block it? Loki doesn't want to fight them with actual weapons.
They're on the floor the Avengers sometimes meet on, not the penthouse or the floor Cooper, Lila, Laura and Clint now live on. The kids seemed really excited about the boxes by the screen here on this floor, and all the discs and weird things with buttons like what Loki's holding now. Video games, apparently.
Tony, Bruce and Clint are all out. Loki knows they're off doing Avengers stuff. They've been gone for a couple hours, and Loki's worried that Tony won't come back, like his Sleipnir still hasn't, but Jarvis repeatedly assures Loki that Tony is fine. Loki's pretty sure Jarvis worries about Tony, too, even if he never sounds like he does and always sounds calm. Dum-E definitely worries about Tony, as do some of the other robots.
Right now, it's just Loki, Laura, and the kids in the tower. Plus Jarvis and all of Loki's toys and Jormungand, but only Jarvis know Loki's toys are alive. Lila treats her Toy Story toys, especially Jessie, like they're real.
In the hours Tony, Bruce and Clint have been gone, Loki had built another fort on this floor with the kids, and they played a hiding and seeking game throughout the tower.
Sometimes when he'd been the Seeker, (kind of like Harry, only not on a broom and looking for kids instead of the Golden Snitch), Loki had just asked Jarvis where Lila and Cooper were hiding. Yes, he'd cheated, but it had been hilarious to see the kids' shocked faces when he found them really quickly, even when they were hidden on another floor.
He hadn't cheated all the time, though. A lot of times he hadn't asked Jarvis where the kids were, and had just looked, himself. They'd been hiding in the Snoopy doghouse in his therapy room, once, although they'd actually been trying to climb up it when he arrived. Loki had spent a bit of time laying on top of it, like Snoopy. It fits his nickname.
When the kids were looking for him, he'd repeatedly changed his hiding spots. He's really good at hiding, he'd had lots of experience in Asgard.
Jormungand's even better than Loki at thinking of hiding places, especially for when Loki was the one seeking the others, and he had actually looked instead of cheating by asking Jarvis.
Jormungand, Simba and Jarvis all told Loki that he had turned invisible once, when Lila and Cooper almost found him. He did that sometimes in Asgard, too, except sometimes they found him anyways and then he got beaten even more.
The last place he'd hidden was in the air vents. It's really cozy in the vents- well, it's not soft by any means, but he likes that it's small and dark, like under his bed. Plus he can crawl through the vents and go to different parts of the tower, and he can't do that under his bed. Fenrir doesn't fit in the vents, though. And Sleipnir would hate it in there, Loki thinks.
Jarvis says that Clint really likes going in the vents, and Tony had mentioned that once, too. Loki's noticed Clint also likes perching up high.
Jarvis would't let Loki go in the elevator shaft, though, like both Buzzes, Rex, Hamm, Slinky and Potato head went in one in Toy Story 2 last night, and Rex defeated Zurg. Zurg had said something about being Buzz's father, and everyone else had immediately said something about some people named Darth Vader and Luke, who lost a hand from one of those lightsaber things, except Cooper and Lila's lightsabers couldn't even cut off the hand of an origami person made of paper.
Apparently, after Cooper had found Lila and they were both searching for Loki when he'd been hiding in the vents, the kids had gotten distracted here on the Avengers' floor by these video game things. Jarvis had told Loki that the hiding game seemed to be over and directed Loki to where he is now. Which means Loki had won the hiding game!
"Pick a character." Cooper says, as if he and Lila are waiting for Loki, snapping Loki out of his thoughts.
Oh! They're playing pretend. Maybe Jarvis will be Scar again.
"Pumbaa." Loki grins, and switches to his deeper, more gravelly Pumbaa voice. "Has anyone seen my friend Timon? Simba you didn't eat him, did you, whens he was dancing hula?" Timon does the hula, just like Lilo. Which means grass skirts aren't only for girls, because everybody wears them during the song before Stitch's show.
Maybe Loki should use his magic to make himself a hula skirt later, except the kids still don't know about his magic. Even though he's done some things with it around them (admittedly, one of those things was turning invisible when playing a few hours ago, but a few days ago, he'd made force fields and snow but passed them both off as holograms).
"No, you have to be a Mario character." Cooper tells him, like he should have somehow known that. What's a Mario, anyways? "This is Mario Kart, not Disney Kart. I don't even think there is a Disney Kart. Well, there's Sugar Rush in Wreck-it-Ralph, but that's just candy people."
"Vanellope races karts!" Lila chirps. Loki's even more confused now, and Cooper points at the screen.
On the screen, there are a bunch of little heads in boxes, but there are two other big characters- a gorilla, and a woman in a blue dress with platinum-blonde hair covering her right eye, who has a fat, star sort of creature floating next to her. The woman kind of looks a little like Elsa crossed with the Blue Fairy.
If they're pretending stuff, why can they only pick from these weird characters on the screen? Loki doesn't even know who any of them are. Besides, he can pretend to be anyone, like Pumbaa.
"Just pick someone!" Cooper groans.
Loki nods and points at the Elsa-Blue-Fairy person with the star and says he wants to be her, hoping he's doing the right thing. Lila immediately protests "No! I'm Rosalina! I always play as her! Pick someone else!" Apparently, he'd been wrong.
Pointing at the screen with his finger apparently doesn't work, even though most screens do that, and they say he has to use the thing in his hands to pick one. Loki still has no idea what the thing in his hands is or how to use it, other than that the kids were waving them around earlier.
The kids stare at him in disbelief before trying to coach him in it. Apparently, he has to point a certain part of the "We remote" at the screen.
"Haven't you played Wii before?" Cooper asks, shocked.
"We played a lot. R'member, we were just playing hiding games!" Loki says, confused. How does Cooper not remember?
Eventually, Loki somehow apparently picks a character in a red helmet (or is it a hat?) and red and blue clothes. A high-pitched voice says "Baby Mario." Cooper laughs about babies, saying Loki's a baby. That had been one of the insults that they'd used a lot in Asgard, but Jormungand gives Loki a look that says that Cooper's talking about the baby onscreen, not Loki.
Then, the characters are sitting in car-like things that are spinning in place, and Loki cocks his head to the side. "Cars are dumb." They are, they strap you down so you can't move and they're small and Loki really doesn't like them. Although, the RC car Woody and Buzz rode didn't look that bad. They just sat on him instead of in him, plus there were no straps, and he was alive, three things that make him better than any of Tony's cars.
"They have bikes, too." Lila says, and the Rosalina person onscreen is on one of the two-wheeled 'bike' vehicles. Anna had a bike in Frozen that she rode down the stairs as a kid, and Stitch stole a similar, pink and purple vehicle from Mertle, except it had three wheels, so it probably wasn't the same thing at all. But Stitch, Jumba, Nani and Pleakley rode on a bike sort of thing after Jumba freed Stitch and agreed to help Lilo, even though minutes earlier, Jumba had just captured Stitch, handcuffed him, and smashed Stitch's head repeatedly against a tree.
Somehow, Stitch hadn't gotten stupid after being smashed in the head a lot by Jumba, which just shows again how weak and pathetic Loki is because even the slaves hadn't become idiots like Loki has. But Stitch really doesn't like needles either, after getting one plunged into his head by a guard when hanging upside-down from the ceiling of Gantu's ship, before he escaped and landed in Hawaii on Midgard. Being scared is weak, and Stitch is even scared of water, like Tony, but Tony and Stitch aren't weak!
"Earth to Mr. Loki..." Cooper's voice snaps Loki out of his thoughts. They used to call Tony 'Mr. Stark', but Tony told the kids to just call him Tony last night.
Loki picks a red bike with a face on it and arms, and there's a bit of text saying Bullet Bike, and then a bunch of stats that Loki doesn't get a chance to read before the screen changes again. Loki says he wanted to look at them, but Cooper says it's too boring, as pictures of random locations show up at the bottom of the screen.
But then the screen is split up, and the characters in bikes and cars are sitting on some kind of path, and there are numbers counting down in the middle. The cars start moving after 1, and Loki has no idea what's happening. Cooper tells him he has to push the 2 button, and he does, but he can't even tell what's happening or where he's supposed to look, because there are four different movies all on the same screen.
Cooper and Lila are turning their remote things for some reason, so Loki tries to do that too, but this game is still really boring and confusing. There are just three screens showing car things swerving around a beach, and one screen that shows little heads traveling around a sort of loop thing.
Loki finally figures out where he's supposed to look, and that he's supposed to be driving this Baby Mario person, but it's impossible.
Lila has been shrieking a lot, but now shouts something new about blue shells, and apparently they're bad. Why are blue shells bad? Because they're blue? But blue isn't bad... right? Cooper seems to think the blue shells are great, though.
Then, a few minutes after that, Lila suddenly thinks they're great and Cooper hates them.
This game really isn't fun at all, Loki thinks, as Baby Mario runs into yet another wall. He puts down his white wheel thing, bored.
He ends up pulling apart another one of the boxes that was near the TV. This box is white and slightly curved inwards.
He hopes Tony won't mind that he broke it, but there are circuits inside. He likes circuits, they look really neat, and he'd read a book about them. Tony's been teaching him more, and even let him help with the circuits in his suit, but they haven't worked on that since before the zoo.
Loki gazes at the circuit boards and then gives them to Stitch. Lila and Cooper aren't looking, and don't notice that Stitch eats them, which gives Loki an idea.
He then turns to the couch, where Woody, Buzz and Jessie are. Boo had Jessie, but Jessie had been in Toy Story 2, which they'd watched last night.
In that movie, Jessie, who had been in a box for years along with Bullseye and Stinky Pete, really doesn't like the dark. Sleipnir doesn't like the dark either, and he really hadn't liked hearing about Harry's cupboard under the stairs.
Loki had maybe freaked out during the scene in Toy Story 2 where the old guy threaded a needle when Woody was completely vulnerable and lifeless after his arm was torn off completely. But the needle was used for something good- reattaching Woody's arm, instead of pain pain pain. Woody hadn't even seemed to feel it, although he'd felt Sid burning his forehead with a magnifying lens. Loki wonders if that hurts more than needles in general.
There seems to be a lot of detached arms in those movies- Buzz lost his left arm in the first movie until it had been fixed by the mutant toys, who weren't bad like Woody and Buzz first thought. In the second movie, Woody got a rip in his right shoulder, so Andy hadn't taken him to Cowboy camp. Then, he'd lost his right arm completely after being kidnapped by Al. It had been sewn back on by the old guy with the needle.
Then, Stinky Pete had torn Woody's right shoulder again, at the airport. Loki had disliked Stinky Pete the Prospector from the very beginning, even before he showed his evilness. Finally, Andy had stitched up the rip in the end, once the toys, including Jessie and Bullseye, made it back to Andy's house.
During the scene when Jessie remembered her old owner, Emily, Lila had tightly hugged her own Jessie doll and declared she'll never abandon her in a box and drive away in a car. Also, Loki's pretty sure Jessie doesn't like being under beds like he does, because she fell under Emily's bed and was forgotten for a long time.
Loki really hopes he'll never get abandoned like that. Emily had loved Jessie once, but then just left her and it was really sad. Last night, Tony had promised, once again, that he won't abandon Loki. But he will, if he dies.
Tony says Sleipnir hasn't abandoned Loki, but it sure feels like that sometimes, because Sleipnir never answers. Loki feels like Anna when Elsa wouldn't let her through the door.
Loki really hopes Tony's staying safe, wherever he is right now, because Tony can't die. According to Jarvis, Tony's still fighting, but his armor hasn't even gotten so much as a dent. Loki looks at Toy Stark, hoping the real version of him doesn't get hurt at all.
He scratches at his nose. Sometimes, it feels really itchy, like there's something in it. It feels like there's something in his throat, too, and for a brief second, the world morphs into a sort of barn, but it's not the Asgardian palace stables. Loki starts to breathe quickly. Did he teleport? How is he going to get back to Tony?
"Ha! First!" Lila shouts victoriously, and Loki realizes he's still on the floor the Avengers meet on, with Lila and Cooper. Or did he teleport back? At least Simba is with him.
"I would have won if I you didn't use your stupid blue shell." Cooper declares angrily. "You cheated!"
"No I didn't!" Lila says, before turning to Loki and laughing. "You're awful at this, Mr. Loki. You're in twelfth place. I passed you twice, you were still on lap one!"
"It's his first game, Lila." Cooper says. "You still didn't know how to play, huh?" He pauses and looks at the wheel thing and box Loki left on the floor.
"You pulled apart the Xbox 360?!" Cooper asks, looking at the pieces of the box Loki had taken the circuits from, apparently an X-Box, whatever that is. X's don't look like boxes. "I was gonna play Minecraft on that... You don't even know what Minecraft is, do you? Are you still playing this?" Cooper gestures with his own wheel thing.
Loki shakes his head no. "Nope nope nope! It's dumb."
"It's more fun if you know how to play. I'll show you more this time, Mr. Loki!" Cooper promises, but Loki just shakes his head again. Cooper and Lila ask a few more times if Loki wants to play, before finally seeming to get that his answer is no, and they start playing without him, their attention once again solely on the screen.
Loki turns to his other toys currently on the floor- Simba, Maximus and Bullseye. Bullseye is new- Tony had given Bullseye to Loki this very morning, and Loki's been carrying him around with Maximus and Simba. Tony's given Loki every toy, except Simba because Loki found him, and Lilo just sort of showed up one day when Stitch spit her out.
Lila had been extremely jealous that Loki got Bullseye, saying she's the one who has Woody and Jessie and that Bullseye goes with them. Jessie is obviously Lila's favorite toy, and she'd wanted Bullseye for Jessie to ride. Lila had begged to play with Bullseye, and Loki had let her for a bit because he'd gotten to play with Buzz.
Lila had tried to trade her colored pencils for Bullseye permanently, but Loki already has colored pencils and likes his new toy horse too much. Bullseye even came alive along with Simba in the air vents, but he's not nearly as good as Sleipnir.
Loki still misses Sleipnir a lot, but Sleipnir showed up in his dreams last night, and they were both trying to get to each other, running and screaming, but Loki couldn't hear Sleipnir and he never got close enough no matter how fast he ran.
He'd also dreamed about a barn he knows he's never seen before, because it's not the palace stables in Asgard. But it felt safe.
And then, of course, he'd had nightmares, too. Although the dream was Sleipnir was kind of a bad dream, actually, because he couldn't get to Sleipnir.
At least his other Monster Family members haven't disappeared on him like when they all had to go away in Asgard. He really hopes that they won't instead of just them not having left him yet.
Simba and Bullseye both move now, but they're really quiet because they're not alone with Loki. Well, Bullseye's always quiet. He's like Fenrir, in that he doesn't talk and sometimes acts like a dog, even though he's not. Fenrir's closer to a dog than Bullseye is. Stitch and Lilo remain motionless on Loki's back, but maybe that's because they're almost never quiet if they're alive and would surely make enough noise to attract Cooper and Lila's attention.
Woody had said that moving around people was breaking rules, and Simba had agreed, but it's only against the rules if anyone else sees them. Lila and Cooper are both looking at the screen with the cars and bikes and thus don't notice Simba and Bullseye moving, and the music and sounds from the screen drown out any sound from Simba's armored feet or Bullseye's plastic hooves hitting the floor.
Loki wonders if Woody, Buzz and Jessie would move around him, or if they'd think of it as breaking the rules because he's not a toy. Then again, Bullseye moves around Loki, so why wouldn't they?
As he thinks this, Bullseye is nudging Woody and Jessie with his plastic mouth. Jessie reaches up to pet him, her face morphing from the frozen plastic smile to a more gentle one. Then, she and Woody climb on Bullseye's saddle, which has a weird horn on it, and the toy horse gallops across back and forth behind the couch, racing Simba.
Loki pokes the button that makes Buzz's wings pop out, and then imagines him jumping off the couch and soaring, not crashing to the ground.
Buzz stands up, climbs onto one of the couch's armrests, and falls with style across the couch to land on the other arm rest with hardly a sound.
Loki looks back at Cooper and Lila, just to make sure they're still focused on the screen, although he guesses the toys would've played dead like possums if they had looked. As Lila and Cooper race their stupid fake cars and bikes, they remain unaware of everything the toys are doing literally right behind their backs. It's really funny, and Loki can't help laughing.
His laughter gets their attention, which he hadn't planned for, but the toys immediately stop moving. Simba stays standing like he always does in Toy Mode, but Bullseye and Maximus fall over, making Woody and Jessie end up splayed on the floor.
It looks like the kids are picking a new place or something, and they soon turn back to the screen. The toys remain lifeless, as if to make sure they won't turn around.
The screen makes it look like they're flying over the Bifrost, and Loki laughs, jumping up and down. "The Bifrost!" Loki liked the Bifrost. It was one of the few nice places in Asgard, although he almost never got to go there.
"The what?" Lila and Cooper ask at the same time. They seem to have no idea what the Bifrost is, even though it's literally right in front of them on the screen, with all its colors. There are even stars around it. What else would it be?
"Bifrost, rainbow bridge!" Loki has to wonder why all these people like Rosalina are driving on the Bifrost. Are they going to Asgard or from Asgard? If they were smart, they'd drive away from Asgard, and Loki suddenly wishes he'd had one of those cars or bikes to drive away with them, except what if then he hadn't met Tony?
He's pretty sure most of these people wouldn't be allowed into Ass-Guard, like the green creature that sort of looks like Rex, only with a huge nose and a shorter tail, and orange little bumps on his back. Cooper says he's named Yoshi.
Laura comes out of the elevator, smiling at them and sitting on the couch with a book. "Why aren't you letting Loki play?" She asks her kids sternly.
"We did, Mom!" Cooper insists. "He didn't want to play Mario Kart."
"Then why don't you find a game you all can enjoy? There seem to be tons." Laura gestures to the many cases lining the shelves.
Cooper starts asking Loki if he's played certain games, and Loki shakes his head no to each one.
"How do you have all these video games and have no idea what they are? You have like every video game system ever, even the really really old ones from like a hundred years ago. Like that, the first Nintendo, the NES." Cooper still seems shocked.
"Actually, young Mr. Barton," Jarvis says, sounding amused. "The Nintendo Entertainment System was released in North America on October 18, 1985, and was released over two years prior to that in Japan. So it has only been twenty eight years since its release in North America, not one hundred. People did not have televisions in their homes one hundred years ago."
"That's still so old. You have a phone, right? Or an iPad?" Lila asks Loki, like there's no way he can't say yes to one of them.
Loki nods after a bit. He doesn't know what an 'eye pad' is, but he has a phone, like Tony's. That's what the weird box thing that he kept losing is, right? Both kids sigh in relief at hearing he has a phone.
"What apps do you have?" Both kids ask eagerly. What's an app? "Can we see it? Please?"
Loki's not entirely sure where it is until Jarvis helpfully informs him it's in his room. He heads up in the elevator to the penthouse with Lila and Cooper before going into his room. Loki sinks down into his field-like carpet, and Lila joins him on the soft floor, delightedly watching the holographic horses run around the walls. She's holding her Jessie doll, and holding Jessie so she can watch too. She treats Jessie like Loki used to treat Simba, before he started coming to life, like pretending she's real almost makes her real.
It's funny, Lila doesn't know that Jessie was actually moving earlier, even though she's seen Jessie move in the movies. But how are those not breaking the rules?
Loki starts to show them all the constellations floating near his ceiling, and they seem interested for a bit until they're asking about his phone and something about clashing clans, birds that are angry (but never any other emotion for some reason), and cutting the rope.
Loki sighs and grabs his phone from his desk, passing it over.
The kids are at first just excited about the holographic screen, though not as excited as when they first saw holograms a few days ago, although they soon move on to playing some sort of game on it.
Somehow, despite apparently being experts on these game things, neither Cooper nor Lila have ever heard of 625 Sandwich Stacker.
Clint arrives back at the tower with Tony and Bruce after defeating another horde of Doom-bots with the Avengers, although Thor wasn't there. According to Tony, the Asgardian still with Loki's horse, Sleipnir, at some kind of school, which is odd.
Thankfully, Natasha and Steve agreed to handle all the briefings and paperwork that usually come after missions.
Thor hadn't been at the battle, but Tony's been talking everyone's ear off about how he'd "scanned the crap" out of Doom and how it's going to help a lot with some device he's working on to block the megalomaniac from teleporting.
Clint had invited Steve to the tower in a few days for Lila's sixth birthday party. Steve hadn't seemed overly surprised that Clint had kids, somehow, and had then repeatedly asked what sort of present he should buy for Lila. Clint tried to say that Steve didn't have to get Lila anything, but Steve was having none of it.
It hadn't helped that Tony was boasting that whatever Steve gets for Lila will pale in comparison to the billionaire's own present for Clint's daughter, listing that the Mira Nova doll is custom, one of a kind, and something Lila really wants. Technically, all of those are true.
Jarvis addresses Clint almost as soon as he enters the tower.
"Agent Barton, you're just in time. Young Mr. Barton and young Ms. Barton just now attempted to make a call on Mr. Loki's StarkPhone. I blocked it, assuming that you do not want word of your location getting out."
"Thanks, Jarvis." Clint grins. Jarvis is the best. "I take it Laura knows?"
"You're quite welcome, and yes, I have informed Mrs. Barton as well. She says that you should join her in talking to your children. They are in Mr. Loki's bedroom at the moment."
Clint heads up to Tony's penthouse and finds Loki's bedroom door open. Holographic stars float near the ceiling of Loki's room, and holographic horses run around the walls. There are also a ton of drawings, presumably mostly Loki's, although some sort of look like Steve's work, taped to the walls. The carpet strongly resembles a grassy field, and Loki's splayed out on it, looking a tad worried as he holds Tony's pant leg with one hand. Tony's out of his Iron Man suit, and is holding a StarkPhone, presumably Loki's.
Laura's sitting at the desk chair, and Lila and Cooper definitely know they did something they weren't supposed to, just by Laura's demeanor and their own demeanor, but clearly have no idea what they did wrong.
"Dad! Mom says we can't call anyone." Cooper tells him as he walks into the room.
"She's right." Clint says before getting a welcome back kiss from Laura, much to the disgust of the two kids. He beckons for the kids to follow him.
"But why?" Cooper asks as they go into the penthouse living room. Tony and Loki stay in Loki's bedroom, and Clint wonders if Tony's going to talk to Loki about the phone.
"Because. Who were you even trying to call?" Clint asks, sitting on one of the sofas. The fort the kids and Loki made a few nights ago has been disassembled.
"Evelyn." Cooper answers, clearly hoping that will change their mind about calling. Evelyn is their next door neighbor, although since they live on a farm, she's a bit farther away than most people's neighbors are. Evelyn is nine, the same age as Cooper, and the two of them have been in the same class as each other since preschool. This, coupled with the fact that they're neighbors and can play with each other even when their parents can't drive them anywhere, have made Cooper and Evelyn really good friends, despite being the opposite gender, and at the age when kids mostly befriend people of the same sex.
Evelyn seems to be the one non-familial exception to Cooper's 'girls are icky' mentality, and Lila absolutely adores the older girl. Evelyn, who is an only child, adores Lila in turn and makes sure to include her in things, even when Cooper doesn't want his little sister involved.
"She'd be so jealous if she knew we were in Iron Man's tower! And that there are holograms!" Cooper exclaims excitedly, before adding irrelevantly "Mr. Loki is really confusing, and sometimes what he says doesn't make sense. And he doesn't even know what video games are, he never played them aside from like one stupid little Disney game!"
"I bet you confuse Loki, too. He is from another world. And Cooper, you can't tell Evelyn that we're here."
"Why not? She wouldn't tell if I told her not to. It'd be a secret."
"Remember I said that bad people tried to attack us?" Clint asks, and both kids nod.
"Yeah, and Auntie Nat kicked their butts!" Lila shouts, punching the air and doing a karate kick. Clint and Nat have been teaching Lila self-defense for a little over a year and a half, and Cooper for almost four and a half years, since he's three years older than Lila. It's important for them to learn to defend themselves, especially considering Clint's job and the many people out to get him. They'd started earlier than most kids, because they can get one-on-one instruction whenever Clint or Nat are there, although they also take classes in town (it's a bit of a drive from their farmhouse, though).
Real villains aren't like the bad guys in the cartoons the kids watch, though. Real bad guys don't care about hurting children. Helen had told Dash and Violet this in the cave on Syndrome's island in The Incredibles.
"Yes, but they may try to hurt us again if we go back. They know where our house is, and could tell all sorts of bad people."
"Then you could just beat them all up! And shoot them with arrows." Lila nods decisively.
Well, Clint isn't one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes for nothing, but there still is the chance of being outnumbered. And he doesn't want to risk his family's safety.
"I could, but I don't want to risk it. They could send lots and lots of really bad people.
Cooper frowns worriedly. "Who are they?"
"I don't know. Bad people." Clint says. He's definitely not going to tell them one of them was a S.H.I.E.L.D mechanic. Not that the kids know a whole lot about S.H.I.E.L.D in the first place. Most of Clint's work is classified, after all, and most young kids have no filter between their brain and their mouth so he wouldn't share much with them anyways.
"What if they try to hurt Evelyn? And her parents?" Cooper whispers fearfully in Clint's ear, perhaps so Lila doesn't hear.
"They won't." Clint says. After all, the attackers were clearly after Clint and his family specifically. Evelyn and her parents don't even know that Clint is Hawkeye. So far, they haven't recognized him from the news footage on the Avengers, but then again, he's normally wearing sunglasses as Hawkeye. He often wears an obvious hearing aid as a civilian, too, instead of the inconspicuous ones Tony designed for him to wear as an agent or during battles.
People who know his domestic life probably wouldn't expect him to be a superhero, especially since he's told them he's a traveling circus performer, as an explanation for his frequent absences. He doesn't have fond memories of the circus, but he manages to avoid talking about his "job" with most people.
"They're going to be fine." Clint assures Cooper, who nods hesitantly. "The bad guys aren't after them."
"So are we never going home?" Cooper asks. "Are we going to be here forever? Will I ever see Evelyn again?"
Clint sighs and exchanges a look with Laura. They honestly don't know. Their home- which was a safe house- isn't safe anymore. It's the one place the kids have known all their lives, and they won't be able to return until they know it's safe.
It may never be safe again. Clint really hopes they don't need to leave their life behind entirely, though.
"We need to stay here, where we're safe, sweetie." Laura says softly. Cooper doesn't even scrunch his face at being called sweetie.
"Lila, I'm afraid we can't have your birthday party at home." Clint starts to say. Lila's face falls. "We're going to still have your party, of course. It will be here, but-" Clint starts, and Lila cuts him, her face now much happier.
"Yay!" Lila cheers at the top of her almost six-year-old-lungs. "I can't wait 'til my friends see how big our floor is! And how big the pool is and all the cool holograms! It will be the best party ever! We can swim and play video games, and we're in a tower like Rapunzel's, but it's Iron Man's tower!"
And now for the bad news...
"Lila, honey." Laura says softly, halting the girl's excited chatter. "We're having the party here, but... your friends can't come. I'm sorry."
"What?" Lila stares at them in disbelief, as if she thinks they're playing a prank on her. They'd never trick her like this, though.
"They can't know where we are, either. It's just going to be us, and Aunt Nat if she can make it. And probably Mr. Stark, Mr. Loki and Mr. Banner."
"And the other Avengers." Clint adds.
"You mean like Captain America?" Cooper asks excitedly, and Clint nods, grinning at his son's excitement. There are only two Avengers the kids haven't met now- Steve and Thor, although Clint isn't sure if Thor's even invited. Both the Captain and the Asgardian seem like they'd be great with kids, Clint's always thought that. Even now, he still thinks Thor is probably really good with kids, despite how he'd apparently treated Loki.
"Yeah, like Captain America." Clint says, and Cooper cheers.
"Wow! I'm gonna get to meet Captain America? He's so cool! Too bad Bucky Barnes died... I really like him in the books. He's always got Cap's back."
"Don't mention Bucky around Cap." Clint tells him seriously, and Cooper nods. Steve is still misses his best friend a great deal. To the super-soldier, it's only been a couple years since Bucky's death, whereas to the rest of the world, it's been over seventy.
"Lila, I know you want your friends, but we're going to see Frozen. That'll be fun, right?" Clint tries. Lila still looks disappointed, but not quite as much as before.
"But I want Kim and Cydney and Evelyn to come! They really wanna see it too!" Lila shrieks loudly, sounding like she's close to tears. "Why can't they?"
"I know you want your friends, and I'm really sorry they can't come, but it will still be fun. You'll see." Laura tries to console Lila, who is now sulking and ignoring them.
"If they can't come here, we can go home and have my party there." Lila says simply, as if they hadn't just said they can't go home.
"We can't go home, remember, princess?" Laura reminds their daughter gently. "And we can't call anyone either. The bad people might find us if we do. Promise you won't call anybody."
Both kids nod solemnly.
"At least you'll have Dad at your party." Cooper tells his little sister, and the utter disappointment and hurt in his tone about Clint not being able to show up for his own party a week ago makes Clint feel like someone reached in his chest and savagely twisted his heart. He really needs to make that up to his boy, and he hates that his job pulls him away from his wife and kids so often.
"And at least you actually have a dad who's not shi- I mean, at least you have a good dad. A lot of people don't, you know." Tony says as he strolls into the room, before Clint can usher his family to more privacy than the living room of the penthouse, which isn't even their floor. Although it's not exactly like this was a super private conversation. Tony already knows everything that happened, after all.
"I don't even have a father. Well, dids, but he didn't even wants me an' the Allfather hates me." Loki mumbles before echoing Tony's message. "You at least gots Clint."
"Mr. Tony's your daddy!" Lila says simply.
All four adults, even Loki, laugh slightly at that. "Uh, Loki's way older than me. By like centuries." Tony says. "It's literally impossible for me to be his dad."
"You're like his Daddy." Lila clarifies, and then looks at Loki. "You're lucky. It's not even your birthday or Christmas, and you still get presents. Like Bullseye." Lila tells Loki jealously.
Both kids obviously think it's unfair that Loki gets gifts at random times (Laura had explicitly forbidden Tony from lavishing Cooper and Lila with expensive gifts, both to avoid spoiling them, and because Cooper just had a birthday, whereas Lila's is in a few days and Christmas is coming up fast).
"He also never got any presents before he met me." Tony says. "And he's way older than you. You've probably still gotten more presents than he has, and you're not even six. Dang, Snoopy, I've got to buy you more stuff. Just name it and you'll have it."
"You already know my Genie wishes." Loki mumbles, and Tony looks pained.
"Were you poor?" Cooper asks Loki, thankfully not saying anything about genies not being real.
"No, the palace was real shiny." Loki answers. "Just hated me, so I never gots a party or gifts. I think I said that to you b'fores?"
"The palace?" Lila asks "You lived in a palace?"
"He's a prince." Tony smirks as Lila's eyes bug out. Lila quickly drags Loki into a make believe game where she's the princess and Loki's the prince.
Later, Clint, his kids, and Tony are trying to find a video game that Loki will actually like, while Tony has passed off his data on Doom to Jarvis.
Loki at least gives Wii Sports Resort a try. The Mii characters on Tony's Wii have been seriously upgraded, to look like more realistic versions of Clint and the others, rather than the usual cartoon characters with no arms and balls for hands. Presumably, either Tony or Jarvis hacked into it.
They need to coach Lok a lot on how to play (sometimes he doesn't even face the screen when he swings his remote, or he just swings it wildly when it's somebody else's turn, as if he expects it to do something). The god asks a million questions about bowling, clearly fascinated, although some of the questions are totally random. He still sometimes drifts off into playing a game with his toys when it's not his turn, and ends up with a terrible score.
Clint completely crushes everybody in archery. And that evening, they watch the final movie in the Toy Story trilogy. The caterpillar room at the daycare isn't nearly as bad as Asgard, of course, but the whole concept of the place being heaven for the toys on top, like Lotso, and hell for the toys on the bottom still stands. Lotso is even an evil dictator, like Odin. Loki seems to hate him almost as much as Stinky Pete, who Loki never liked.
Chuckles the Clown's flashback of when he, Lotso, and Big Baby had been lost by Daisy sets Loki off, especially when the three toys finally make it to Daisy's only to realize she'd replaced Lotso. This is what causes Lotso to snap and become bad, and there's thunder and lightning in the background. It takes a good ten minutes for Tony to calm Loki down after that.
When the toys are in the dump, Loki asks why Wall-E doesn't come help.
All three Toy Story movies involve various toys getting separated from Andy before making it back to him in the end. Loki seems to really like the idea of lost toys finding their way home.
In the end, when Andy gives all his toys, even Woody, to Bonnie, both Laura and Loki cry, while Clint totally doesn't. It's a sad scene, but Clint has a feeling Loki's crying isn't just about the movie.
On Thursday, December 5- two days after the battle where Doom actually showed up with his Doombots, and one day before Lila's sixth birthday and the party, Bruce and Tony get a call in the lab from Charles. Loki is elsewhere playing with the kids at the moment, but he still spends a lot of time in the lab with them. On the screen Jarvis is displaying, Bruce watches Loki and Lila play a game where they, along with lifeless toys, including Lila's beloved Jessie, are searching for Maximus and Bullseye. A lot of Loki's games have revolved around horses since he noticed Sleipnir was gone. It's somewhat heartbreaking.
Charles tells Bruce and Tony that Sleipnir is healing remarkably fast and that they can come visit him. He adds that Sleipnir's not well enough to come live with them yet, although the tower isn't exactly a great home for a horse anyways, Bruce thinks. He's fairly certain Tony's thinking of moving them somewhere more suited for horses, once Sleipnir's ready to come live with them, and he's fairly certain the Barton's had lived somewhere rural before, so they'd probably like that.
Charles still insists that he send someone to pick them up in one of his jets, despite Tony protesting that he has his own private jet.
Charles also suggests that perhaps they should have the therapy session with Loki before taking him to see Sleipnir, which is a very good idea. Bruce is certain Loki wouldn't want to have a session after reuniting with Sleipnir, which makes perfect sense.
Loki joins them in the lab a few minutes later, clutching Simba, Maximus, Bullseye and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which he quickly buries his nose into. He's at the tail end of the book, having read it on and off the past few days, always insisting on reading aloud when either Tony or Bruce are there.
Of course, they'd had the debate of which Hogwarts house people would be in. Loki, it turns out, hates the name Ravenclaw, because he doesn't like ravens. Bruce himself is a self-professed Ravenclaw. Bruce knows Thor would be a Gryffindor. Tony bounces between saying he's Gryffindor and Ravenclaw- or Gryffinclaw, as Tony calls it..
Loki seemed to want to be one of those houses so he could hypothetically stay with Tony, but had said he'd have to be Slytherin to stick with Jormungand. He seems to sometimes view himself as a Slytherin, which is odd because they're not portrayed particularly well in the books. Honestly, Bruce was thinking Hufflepuff for Loki, because he's definitely loyal.
Ironically, the troll showing up on Halloween is rather like how their Halloween party had been interrupted by the arrival of Thor, along with the incident leading to Harry and Ron befriending Hermione, like how Loki had been less scared of Steve after hearing the Captain stick up for him. The Christmas scenes in the book gave Loki a tiny idea of what Christmas will be like when it comes in just twenty days.
Loki thought it was weird that Harry needs a cloak to be invisible, but he thinks he's seen Loki actually try to turn invisible. Loki had mentioned something about turning invisible when playing Hide and Seek with the kids.
Bruce knows Loki can turn invisible, but like with a lot of his magic, including teleporting, Loki has a hard time controlling it or doing it intentionally. Loki says he sometimes got saved by turning invisible in Asgard, but that sometimes it hadn't worked or they'd found him anyways and then it "hurt even more." In the cell in the Helicarrier, he'd turned invisible and made illusions of himself instead of teleporting like he'd been trying to do.
Since the battle with Doom, Tony has thrown himself into the teleportation blocker, having gotten a lot of great data since Doom actually showed up for that battle. Bruce follows most of what Tony says to him, talking a mile a minute, and it seems Tony's getting close to finishing the teleportation blocker.
"Sir, the X-Jet, as Professor Xavier calls it, has just arrived, and Mr. Wagner is requesting to be let in." Jarvis announces a few minutes later.
"Mr. Wagner...that's Kurt, right? The blue guy?" Tony asks, and Jarvis confirms it. Loki grins, using his really long legs to propel himself across the floor in a rolling swivel chair towards the elevator.
Loki sits in one of the spinning wheeled chairs and uses his legs to propel it across the floor towards the elevator.
"And 'Fessor X is here?" Loki asks. Is he trying to be like Professor X, by being in that chair?
"No, actually, just Mr. Wagner." Jarvis says. Loki blinks in confusion.
"We're going to Charl- Professor X's school." Tony tells him, stopping himself from saying Charles not because Loki isn't allowed to call the man by his first name, but because Loki still apparently thinks of Charlie Brown whenever anyone says that. "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."
"'Fessor X is easier than Xav...aver." Loki still stumbles over his last name.
Tony claps Loki on the shoulder. "You totally fit the gifted part, but you're not really young. But I know you're gonna like it a lot." Bruce knows there's a hidden meaning about Sleipnir in there.
In the elevator, while spinning around and around in the chair, yet somehow not seeming dizzy, Loki slips into his Jotun form. He still doesn't look comfortable in it, but clearly decides he's going to be blue when Kurt's around. Bruce really admires that decision. He wouldn't have blamed Loki at all if he'd decided to never show his Jotun skin on purpose, yet he's done it a few times, including to get Bruce to agree to let Hulk out.
The doors open, and Loki kicks off the wall to propel his swivel chair, but the wheels get caught in the little crack where the elevator doors close. The chair tips, spilling the god onto the ground. Unfazed, Loki gets up, rights the chair, and starts madly pumping his legs to glide across the floor towards Kurt. He ends up teleporting when the chair's rolling, perhaps because it's vaguely like flying.
When Loki reappears a fraction of a second later, he falls into Kurt, knocking them both to the floor.
"Your skin is very, very cold." Kurt says, to Loki's obvious horror. Kurt disappears from under Loki with a puff of blue-black smoke and reappears a few feet away with another puff.
"Sorry!" Loki sounds panicked. Bruce has a feeling Loki thinks Kurt will hate him now, and he knows Loki hadn't wanted to teleport in the first place or get close enough to touch Kurt, let alone land on him.
"It is nothing to apologize for." Kurt assures Loki.
Bruce recalls hearing somewhere that Jotun skin is apparently so cold it can burn even the Aesir, yet that's never actually happened with Loki. Perhaps that's not true, or Loki can somehow regulate his body temperature. After all, Loki did freeze his Iron Man costume suit on Halloween, which Tony and Loki were trying to make fly before the zoo trip but have been sidetracked recently. Loki also made a whole pool freeze with his ice powers.
Loki looks at Simba, who's still in his hands, with relief. If he had teleported somewhere far away like the one Helicarrier incident, Jarvis would be able to track the location of Simba's suit. It's a good thing Simba still goes everywhere with Loki, in that regard.
Loki actually tries to teleport back to Tony without any prompting, and manages to teleport at least closer to Tony on the second attempt.
Kurt smiles. "It looks like you have been practicing your teleporting."
"You know Jack-Jack can teleports? And fly! I can't fly." Loki says jealously. "He can be metal, too, and fires and he can turn into a kinda little red Hulk-y."
"And shoot lasers from his eyes." Tony adds, gesturing as if his fingers are lasers shooting out of his own eyes. Bruce thinks Kari, the babysitter who watched Jack-Jack when the Parr's were going to Nomanisan Island, deserves some sort of medal for babysitting a baby with uncontrollable, dangerous powers.
"Wait, you know someone who can shoot lasers, right?" Tony points at Kurt, who nods, saying the man goes by Cyclops.
"It's still bad at it. Even Jack-Jack's better than me." Loki mumbles, and it seems he's back to talking about teleporting. "I practiced, for my Tony, but 'm bads."
"You're not bad." Tony says firmly.
"Bad at it." Loki pouts. "Have to be able to get back to my Tony, in case I'm losts again."
"Well, you can hardly expect to master this power in a week. It took me much longer to learn, and still I have not mastered it." Kurt says mildly, with a slight smile on his lips. "The fact that you are less scared of it now is already a huge success, is it not? I was scared, too, when I first started teleporting."
"You were scared?" Loki asks in disbelief. Kurt nods, saying that it was really unsettling accidentally popping over somewhere without meaning to.
Loki certainly looks like he agrees.
"Last time, you could not even do it every time you tried. It seems you at least go somewhere now, when you want to, instead of going nowhere."
Loki shrugs. "Tried'ta do it back in Ass-Guard, but I didn't go far and then they got me an' I was in Big Trouble. It hurt even more when I did." Loki shudders, twisting his fingers anxiously. "And I tried in the petri dish 'xcept instead I just send-ed...?"
Bruce murmurs sent to him, and Loki nods."I sent-ed my Hel and 'nother illusion me to my Tony and Bruce. I couldn't get out even though I got there by tel'porting and I didn't even wanna be there!" Loki's still really annoyed about that. Bruce tells him that sent is one of those words that doesn't end with -ed for the past tense. Loki purses his lips, mumbling about how Midgardian English doesn't even follow its own rules. Like how Odin didn't need to follow the no lying and no magic rules.
"My Tony's tryin'ta build a thing that stops tele-porting." Loki adds. "That's whens I practice, but I can't do it much 'cause I get tired an' it's hard."
"I don't have anything against teleporting." Tony says hastily, to both Loki and Kurt, it seems. "Frankly, I'm jealous as hell that you guys can do it, and I really wanna work it into my suits. Flying's great, but flying all the way around the world gets pretty dull. The blocker isn't supposed to be for you or anything. But Dr. Doom can teleport, and the slippery bastard always manages to get away. Well, most of the time he doesn't even show up in the first place, just sends his robots, the coward. So, it's to catch him. I'm not going on an anti-mutant spree or something."
"There are many who would, but I did not think you were one of them." Kurt says. "I saw the battle on TV. I am not sure my teleportation works the same way as Dr. Doom's."
"Yeah, I didn't think so." Tony mutters.
"How do you go where you wants to?" Loki asks. "Wanna be able to get back to my Tony."
"Perhaps I'll show you later. I hear you can do much more than teleport." Kurt has obviously seen Loki in both his natural blue Jotun, form and his pale Aesir/human-looking form.
"I can turn into Tony." Loki says quietly, glancing at Tony, who smiles slightly. "An' Mowgli. Oh, ands after you left last time, I had Stitch ears and a Simba tail, 'xcept that was blue, not yellow. And then I got horse legs a little bit ago."
"I would like to see that." Kurt says, as if he actually genuinely wants to see. "Blue suits you, by the way."
After a nod from Tony, Jarvis pulls up a picture of Loki with the ears and the tail, from the evening of the first day Kurt and Charles had come to the tower.
Loki grins slightly. "Pinocchio, he grew jackass ears ands a tail but didn't like it one bit. And the boys didn't like bein' jackass donkey animals, but I don't think I'd mind." Loki announces as he climbs the stairs, at the top, he positions Pinocchio and lets him fall down the stairs, like in the beginning of his stage show with Stromboli, while singing "I've got no strings to hold me d- oof!"
Kurt tells him that he doesn't have to show him a tail if he doesn't want to, but Loki really seemed to like having a lion tail, and he'd liked the horse legs he'd sprouted when Bruce had that conversation with him a few nights ago. The god bites his lip in concentration but seems unable to grow one now.
"Don't we have somewhere to be?" Tony says pointedly, and Kurt nods. They head out and climb aboard the jet. There are two rows of seats facing a center aisle, and Loki puts up a fight about strapping himself into the harness, which is even more than a normal seatbelt, since it covers both shoulders.
During the flight in the jet, Tony glances at his phone and frowns, tapping away with intense concentration and muttering something about being disconnected from Jarvis and stuff about stealth shields and blockers.
"Don't cut me off from Jarvis." Tony tells the blue man tersely
"Oh, I forgot all the stealth features were on." Kurt says, and flips a switch on the dashboard.
Apparently, this X-Jet has some kind of stealth feature that blocks the signal to other potential tracking devices on it. If S.H.I.E.L.D had that, Bruce thinks, the whole attack on Clint's house wouldn't have happened and Bruce still wouldn't have known by now that Clint actually has a family. He certainly wouldn't have met them or been living in the same building as them, or been on the invite list for Lila's sixth birthday party in two days.
"I totally would've been able to disable that, but I guess you just saved me the trouble." Tony mutters, before speaking into his phone. "J, you with us?"
"I am now, Sir. I was getting quite worried when I lost contact with you." Jarvis' voice comes out of Tony's StarkPhone. As always, Jarvis sounds perfectly calm and collected, but Bruce is certain Jarvis was more worried than his tone lets on.
"Yeah, there was some stealth tech that blocked my signal." Tony says. "It's not gonna happen again J."
"I'm quite glad to hear it. I prefer to keep track of you, sir, as well as you, Mr. Loki." Jarvis' voice is entirely sincere, unlike the AI's sarcastic banter with his creator.
Not long after, the jet goes down, and Bruce sees a mansion that actually looks like a castle. Loki seems more focused on the huge yard.
Tony looks at the window and whistles. "Whoa, this is literally like Hogwarts. I mean, it's a boarding school for people with special powers and it even looks like a freaking castle. I mean, seriously, this is awesome."
Then, the grass actually opens up to form a large circular hole leading to a sort of hanger underneath the ground. Tony clearly thinks that's the greatest thing ever, proclaiming "this is even more awesome!", while Loki seems to dislike the idea of grass opening up to reveal metal that's, in his words, not real.
Tony is still grinning. "So do you guys actually teach science here, because they kind of totally skip over science and math in the Harry Potter books, and honestly, that should be a crime. And, well, this jet shows you at least don't shun science here."
"Yes, we teach those. Professor Xavier is the physics teacher." Kurt answers, as he lands the jet in the hanger. The ceiling closes above them.
Tony whistles as he goes into the hanger, which is silvery and metallic. The engineer gives off his usual vibe of wanting to bury his hands in all the technology and stay for hours. Which Bruce knows Tony would certainly do, if it weren't for the fact the rest of them are currently leaving.
A round doorway opens automatically, leading to a path of hallways that's pretty much all black, with white lights spanning the entire length of the walls and ceiling.
Bruce doesn't like the lack of windows, and Hulk is starting to get agitated in Bruce's mind. It's a relief when the upper floors of the mansion turn out to be styled quite like an old English country house, rather than the cold, trapping metal of the lower floors and the jet.
There are various teenagers moving around the hallways, along with some adults. A couple curious glances are sent their way, but the first person who stops to talk to them is an adult. A blue man.
This man is a lighter shade of blue than Kurt is, and he doesn't have all the lines on his skin. He's older than Kurt, and big. He's definitely more muscular than either Kurt or Loki, something that clearly makes Loki a little uneasy. But Loki liked Hulk from the beginning, despite the fact the other guy is even more ripped than Thor or Steve, who Loki seemed scared of at first.
"You're like Kitty!" Loki blurts out, laughing. "'xcept you gots a lion mane like Mufasa and M'wasi!" Bruce wonders if this man is the one known as Beast, that Charles had mentioned during Loki's last session. He has blue fur on his arms, probably everywhere on his body, but not his face. Bruce's own arm hair is nothing like that, and neither is the Hulk's body hair. What would Hulk look like if he was covered in fur?
The man looks slightly confused, saying something about not being able to travel through solid objects. Maybe there's a mutant named Kitty who can do that? Apparently, the Mira Nova character Tony's making a doll of for Lila's birthday can "ghost" through objects.
"Boo's kitty. Sulley." Loki clarifies.
Loki puts a fist over his chest and bows as the blue man introduces himself as Dr. Hank McCoy. He seems quiet and calm, much like Bruce.
"Bruce's a doctor, too. A good one, not like Doom 'n Drakken." Loki is saying. "And he's my Hulk-y."
"I'm also known as Beast." Hank says, not looking at all surprised to learn that Bruce can turn into a huge green monster. Not a wholly bad monster, Bruce adds mentally to Hulk, who grunts.
"Hulk good monster, even if Hulk angry. Like Hurt Nice Man Loki's wolf, Fenrir." Hulk says in Bruce's head.
"Not Belle's Beast." Loki says, shaking his head. "Nope nope nope! Can I call you Hank? 'cause otherwise I'll keep thinking 'bout Belle's Beast. Like how I can't think of 'Fessor X as 'Charles' without thinking Charlie Brown. Marcie calls him Charles."
"I'm not that Beast." Hank agrees. "And yes, you may call me Hank."
"You not a Jotun, Hank?" It comes out as a question even though Loki sounds like he knows Hank isn't. "Kurt looks more like me, but he isn't one, either. Elsa is, though, an' maybe Frozone. You know his real name's Lucius, and Frozone's just his superhero name. It sounds likes Frozen, it does, it does, an' he can make ice just like me an' Elsa and Slushy. Lila says Periwinkle's a Frost Fairy."
"No, I am not. I'm a mutant." Hank tells Loki, and Loki starts chattering on about how Sid's mutant toys really weren't evil like Woody and Buzz first thought, that they actually fixed Buzz's arm, and Janie and Pterodactyl.
"Dr. Banner?" Bruce realizes the blue man is holding out a hand to shake. "I've read your work on gamma radiation." He grins. "And I've heard you can somewhat resemble me, only green, and bigger."
Somewhat awkwardly, Bruce shakes Hank's hand and nods. "Yeah. Um, I didn't think you'd be interested in my work."
"My specialty is mutant genetics, but what happened to you isn't all that different, although it was caused by external events rather than your genes."
Bruce knows all about how the gamma radiation changed his DNA, and after the accident, threw himself headfirst into trying to find a cure. He never did, although he supposes he wouldn't be where he is now if he wasn't Hulk.
"You are in a school full of mutants." Hank tells Bruce. Usually people, especially people like Ross, use the word monster. But Bruce has been trying to convince Loki that being a monster isn't necessarily a bad thing. He has a feeling Hulk is included in Loki's 'Monster Family'. "Nobody would mind if the Hulk came out."
"He gives really good hugs!" Loki pipes up, grinning, and Tony's clearly listening in as well. Tony had been the first person who actively encouraged Bruce to let Hulk out and even tried to make Bruce become big and green.
Way back when they first met on the Helicarrier, Bruce thought Tony was crazy. Okay, he's thought that sometimes since then, too.
He never thought Hulk would get a whole floor to himself, and Tony made that possible. Now, Bruce is being invited to let Hulk out here, where there are blue people and who knows what other kinds of people.
He fits right in here, it seems.
Knock knock kno-knock knock. The rhythmic knocking on Charles' office door is followed by Loki humming, and Tony's voice saying "Snoopy, you don't need to go into a whole rendition of 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman' just because you knocked like that."
"Come in, gentlemen." Charles calls in response to the rhythmic knocking on his office door. Even without their voices cluing him in, he would have known who it was. He can pick up on their thoughts, after all, without even going into their minds. Besides, it would be a reasonable guess to assume it was Loki, considering they have an appointment scheduled at this time.
There's a fourth presence, one that he'd vaguely picked up on at the tower during their first session, but it's shrouded and Charles can't discern anything about it.
The three men enter. Charles sees that Loki is hugging two plush toy horses- the horse from Tangled, and Bullseye from the Toy Story sequels, tightly to his chest, along with Simba, as always. He still has the Stitch backpack, but there's a Lilo doll next to Stitch as well.
"Hey, Teach. What's up with this place?" Tony asks, smirking and quirking an eyebrow at Charles. "I mean, you have all this great technology and awesome lower floors, but all the stuff in the main part of the mansion is so normal and boring."
Charles smiles slightly. "Really? I don't think are the words most people would choose to describe any of this." Still, he's rather pleased that Tony seems completely unfazed by mutants. Then again, considering what the other two men Tony is with are capable of, why should mutants surprise him in the slightest?
"Well, you don't use any of that technology up here, this is like an old English country house or something. You could stand for some more modern decorations, I could give you tips, I mean you've seen my tower, it's the best." Charles knows that Tony's mouth usually runs a mile a minute, and suspects the genius is trying to fill the silence with something that's not about Sleipnir.
"So when are we gonna get to the big event?" Tony asks impatiently, while almost bouncing from one foot to the other like an excited kid on Christmas. He still hasn't technically mentioned Sleipnir, although it's obvious that's what the big event is.
Tony is clearly very impatient and wants to bring Loki to Sleipnir right away, despite what Charles said about having a session with Loki first, but at least he knows that Sleipnir is getting better and is unlikely to die, so he doesn't have to worry about Sleipnir as much as he had been.
Loki himself is considerably more willing to have a session and wait, but unlike Tony, he's not anticipating the reunion because he doesn't know about it, although he's apparently been wishing to be reunited with Sleipnir ever since he disappeared.
Charles isn't sure how Loki will react to the news about Sleipnir. It might be wise to get a good feeling of where Loki's mind is right now, in case he reacts particularly strongly or shuts down when he learns. Besides, even before Thor brought Sleipnir to Charles' school, Charles had been planning on trying to establish a connection with Loki's mind.
Waiting another hour or so, so they can have this session, isn't the end of the world.
Besides, Sleipnir is having physical therapy right now, with the aid of Logan, who Sleipnir's taken a huge liking to. Despite his gruff exterior, Logan seems to be a magnet for hurt students, or horses, in Sleipnir's case. The mutant had been planning on leaving the day Sleipnir arrived, but once he met the horse, he decided to stick around. Logan tries not to show it, but Charles can tell he has a softer spot behind his gruff exterior for the eight-legged horse in turn.
"Hi 'Fessor X! Wow, you gots lots of shiny stuff in here. What's that?" Loki asks, curiously inspecting the slightly-shiny chess board on Charles' desk.
"Horses!" Loki claps his hands delightedly, grabbing the four knight chess pieces, which are basically horse heads. "How come they don't gots any legs an' bodies?"
"It's a chess board." Tony answers Loki's question. "The horses are knights."
"Like Ron and Harry played?" Loki asks. "Ron was a knight on the big one! 'Mione was a castle."
"Yes, it's like that." Bruce explains. "Remember how Harry noticed that Wizards' Chess is different from Muggle chess because in the wizard version, the pieces move by themselves, talk and smash each other when captured? This is Muggle Chess, although you could make it Wizards' Chess."
"But 'Fessor X is not a muggle, right? So why's you got Muggle Chess?" Loki sounds confused. "They don't have chess in Asgard. I read books 'bout Hnefatafl but nobody would ever play it with me. I coulda won sometimes, if they'd let me play, I thinks. Maybe."
Charles had seen Thor watching a few students play chess the other day, and Thor had commented that "such games are useful for developing battle strategy, which Father says every warrior should be well versed in", so perhaps he had played Hnefatafl. Thor had admitted that he'd often just charged blindly into a fight without thinking things through.
"Does the rule stand here?" Loki asks, looking from Tony to Charles to Simba. "'Cause I don't think 'Fessor X is a muggle."
Simba suddenly starts to move as if he's alive, only he's still a toy.
"You're alive?" Charles asks, surprised. Simba isn't the only one moving, either. The other toys Loki currently has out are moving too.
"Loki brought me to life." Simba says. "When we watched Pinocchio, after you left last time. The same day."
"That's amazing." Charles says truthfully. Instead of looking proud, Loki just casts his eyes downwards. Charles catches thoughts about the Blue Fairy and Genie.
"You are always welcome to use your powers here, just like anyone else." Charles tells him. "This is a safe place for people with gifts."
"My Tony saids it's like Hogwarts." Loki nods slowly.
"And since you're the headmaster, I guess you'd be Dumbledore." Tony says to Charles. Loki tenses, and Tony glances at him. "Right, I forgot you don't like Dumbledore, Loki."
"Why don't you like Dumbledore?" Charles asks, and he gets a brief flashing image of Loki's thoughts, comparing Dumbledore to another bearded old man with long hair, only this man has a golden eyepatch over his right eye.
"He just left Harry with the Dursleys!" Loki says before clinging onto Tony anxiously. "Are you gonna leave me here, 'cause it's like Hogwarts? Harry and Ron stay there, but I don't wanna stays here if I can't be with you, Tony."
"I'm not going to ditch you here." Tony promises, putting an arm around Loki's shoulder. "Remember, I'm not leaving you."
Loki wrings his his hands together so hard that his fingers look like they could snap, and Charles catches some several thoughts cominf from the god about how Sleipnir did that. He quickly presses a small plastic, twisty toy called a Tangle into Loki's hands. It helps with some of his students, and Loki starts to twist the colorful plastic sections, bending the toy into different shapes.
"...My Sleipnir saids that, an' he's gone 'gains." Loki blurts his thoughts aloud, though it's obvious he hadn't meant to, and his glassy green eyes get slightly wider as he looks worriedly at Charles. His long fingers tighten around the Tangle toy, wringing it even more ferociously.
Tony puts an arm around Loki's shoulders, and glances at Charles at the mention of Sleipnir. The billionaire is biting his tongue to keep from saying anything.
"You can talk about anything here." Charles tells him gently. "I promise I won't make fun of you, and I won't tell anyone unless it's absolutely necessary. For example, if you attempt to commit suicide." Not that Charles thinks Loki will do that, although he'd apparently given Tony and the others a scare about that once.
Oaths apparently hold a tremendous weight on Asgard, and Loki looks a little convinced, mumbling something about pinky promises.
"Hagrid was Norbert's mother. Norbert's a dragon, 'xcept not like Elliot. A Nor-wegan Ridgeback dragon. Hagrid had to let Harry and 'Mione takes Norbert 'way in a little crate. What if he was scared? Hagrid was sads 'cause his baby had'ta go." Loki says quietly. "Norbert, he killed a toy bear, chewed it like Scud! Maybe it was Lotso, he would d'serves it more than a innocent bear 'cause he's evil but he gots tied to a... truck thing?"
"It's perfectly understandable that Hagrid was sad." Charles says.
"You don't know my Sleipnir, do you? He's nots a freak, not a bad monster! But they saids I'm a freak for talking to him, my Jormungand, Fenrir ands Hel in Ass-Guard! So don't you now think I'm a freak, 'Fessor X?! Dr. C didn't seem to really believe they's real, just in my head! They are, but..."
"I know Sleipnir's real." Charles says before adding firmly. "He most certainly is not a freak, and you are not a freak either. You talk to him in your head, correct? When I first developed my powers, I thought I was going mad, hearing voices nobody else could hear. It was a few years before I realized I was actually hearing other people's thoughts."
Loki doesn't comment when Charles says he knows Sleipnir, seeming too focused on him saying that neither Sleipnir nor Loki himself are freaks.
Charles is positive that Loki was somehow communicating telepathically with Sleipnir whenever he talked to him, which was fairly remarkable even when they were both in Asgard. After all, telepaths aren't exactly common.
If Loki had indeed been telepathically communicating with Sleipnir when he was here on Earth, and Sleipnir was still in Asgard- another realm entirely- that would be absolutely astounding. Charles is easily the most powerful telepath here on Earth, and he uses Cerebro to extend his abilities across the globe.
If Loki was communicating with Sleipnir without any aid like Cerebro, even when they were on separate realms, Charles' power might be dwarfed next to Loki's.
Yet, Loki and Sleipnir apparently haven't been able to communicate since Thor rescued Sleipnir and brought him to Earth, despite the fact that they are a lot closer, distance-wise, than they'd been even a week ago, when Sleipnir was still in the dungeon.
Charles' theory for this lack of communication is that Sleipnir has been simply overwhelmed by everything around him. In the dungeon, he undoubtedly had nothing to do aside from communicate with Loki or look through Loki's head or watch what Loki was doing, which would make the dungeon seem like Loki's head.
If he hadn't been able to do either of those things, Charles suspects Sleipnir would have gone insane. Here, though, there's so much more for Sleipnir to take in than just darkness.
Charles hasn't delved into Sleipnir's mind yet, since Sleipnir isn't well enough, but he has witnessed a few of Sleipnir's flashbacks. He's not surprised that Sleipnir has flashbacks, just like Loki. They've both been through more than anybody should have to bear.
Charles has talked a fair deal to Sleipnir the past few days, although Sleipnir communicates telepathically rather than through actual speech.
The horse is quite bright, certainly smarter than normal horses and probably even a fair deal of humans, yet he still doesn't seem totally convinced he's not still in Loki's head. Sleipnir clearly believes that the dungeon, or The Dark, as he calls it, was really inside Loki's head.
Apparently, Sleipnir sometimes gets flashes of what Loki is doing, but when he tries to communicate with Loki, Loki doesn't seem to hear him.
It's been quite clear that Sleipnir has been missing Loki a great deal, as well. He also seems to have an intense fear of the dark, and it's all too obvious where that comes from, despite the fact the horse is still confused about the darkness of the dungeons not being Loki's head.
"Can't finds him, no matter how hard I tries to open the door with loves! And I can't make him real, not like my Jormungand, an' the Blue Fairy didn't do it even though, when you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are!" There's a snapping sound. Loki's pulled the Tangle apart, although it was made to be taken apart and put together again. Loki doesn't seem to realize this, and stares at the pieces, until Tony gently takes them from Loki's hands and reconnects them, showing him it can be fixed.
Loki stares at the rebuilt Tangle toy in his hands, fidgeting with it. Nobody says anything, because it's clear Loki's planning on saying more but is trying to get it out.
"Dream about him, sometimes, but we can'ts hear each other, not even shouting. Can't reach an' meet, no matter how fast we runs. But he's there, why can't we? Last night, there was a man withs dark clothes, 'n dark hair, somes on the side of his face. And he hads claws coming right out of his hands, like big long metal ones. Longer than a cat's!"
Loki had a dream about Logan? That is interesting. Apparently, he's been picking up a bit of what's happened to Sleipnir as well, or perhaps Sleipnir did manage to communicate for a bit. Sleipnir's been quite fond of Logan. Logan, under his gruff exterior, seems to have a soft spot for the eight-legged horse.
"Perhaps he's been trying to talk to you just as much as you've been trying to talk to him." Charles suggests. "You try talking to Sleipnir in your head, but you are unable to like you did before, correct?"
Loki stares at him, clearly trying to discern whether or not Charles actually believes him, or is going to make fun of him later.
Slowly, he nods. "'s likes his door's shut, at least not shredded like Boo's was, I don't thinks? But love is an open door and I loves Sleipnir, but I can't get it open! You can't lock people out like Elsa, Sleipnir!" Loki ends with a sort of angry sob as he yanks the Tangle fidget toy apart, on purpose it seems, and flings the tiny curved pieces across the room.
"I don't hate you." Loki whispers, as if apologizing for getting angry. "Sorry sorry sorry sorry."
"I'm sure Sleipnir doesn't think you hate him." Charles says, although Sleipnir had seemed to worry Loki had forgotten him. Charles has tried to convince the horse that's not true.
For a bit, Loki just rocks back and forth. "Sleipnir?" He asks, before knocking his knuckles on the side of his head in the same rhythm. Knock, knock kno-knock knock.
Loki's Stitch backpack spits out dolls from a new Disney movie, one with two strawberry-blonde braids in her hair and the other with a single platinum-blonde braid. Loki stares at the dolls. Green energy flares around his hands and the dolls morph into child versions of themselves.
Loki starts to sing, moving the two dolls around. It seems he's singing for the red-haired little girl doll.
"Do you wanna build a snowman?
Come on let's go and play!
I never see you anymore,
Come out the door.
It's like you've gone away.
We used to be best buddies, and now we're not.
I wish you would tell me whyyyy!
Do you wanna build a snowman?
It doesn't have to be a snowman.."
"Go away Loki." Loki mutters. Maybe he'd been talking about Sleipnir all along, since he'd first knocked on his head as if it was a door, even if he was acting it out with the dolls, Charles thinks as Loki finishes singing a heartbroken "Okay, bye..."
"I may be able to help you open the door." Charles offers. Tony perks up at that, clearly thinking they're going to go visit Sleipnir. Charles holds up a hand. Taking Loki to see Sleipnir would help, but maybe something actually damaged however they telepathically communicate, rather than it being that Sleipnir is simply overwhelmed. "I can go into minds."
"You're gonna look into my insides?" Loki asks, eyes wider than normal. "It's all squishy in there."
"Not quite that far, just your head, if you'll allow me. It's entirely your choice." Charles smiles gently. "I promise I won't mess around in your mind, or look at any of your secrets." It usually takes a lot more than a single reassurance for most people to be comfortable with the idea. It's perfectly understandable for one to be wary of having somebody else inside their head.
Tony Stark certainly seems to hate the idea of anyone going into his mind. Charles doesn't need to go into the billionaire's head to tell that. Tony does a great job at hiding what he's thinking- no doubt from his experience growing up in the eye of the press and having extensive experience with the press and paparazzi his whole life. It's undoubtedly increased, too, from when he was a kid to when he took over Stark Industries. Then, even more when he became Iron Man and yet even more when the Avengers were formed.
Loki stares at the floor. "Won't matter none. If you do... Are you gonna do what the trolls did to Anna? They fixed her head."
"Not really." Tony says. "They changed her memories, so she didn't remember Elsa's magic at all."
Loki nods, as if that's what he meant. "But her head was still real colds and they fixed it!" He turns to Charles. "'Fessor X...? Can you takes mem'ries out? I wouldn't care, I don't think, if you tooked out some. I'd be happy if they'd be gone, the scary ones that make bad dreams and flashing back... like 'bout the Ass-Guardians, that's what my Tony calls 'em."
Tony, Bruce and Charles all look at him sympathetically, all of them understanding why not remembering some things would probably make Loki happier. "But I don't wanna forgets my Sleipnir, or the nice things." Loki adds.
Charles is definitely capable of blocking memories, but he doesn't think he should.
"That would most likely do more harm than good." Charles tells him. Blocking traumatic memories would probably help Loki's PTSD, but he would have to make Loki forget the majority of his life. Having gaps, especially huge gaps, in one's memory can be worse than remembering.
Logan would certainly be able to attest to that.
"Can you look for my Sleipnir? He's gotta be in here somewheres." Loki taps his head. He seems surprisingly unconcerned with the idea of Charles going into his mind, but then he pauses, unsure.
"You know I'm stupid, right? It's gonna be real dumb in there." He mutters, clearly ashamed, gaze on the floor as he rocks back and forth. "Can you make me less of an idiot like they mades me?"
"Loki, you're not stupid." Tony says. "You solve Rubik's Cubes. You memorize almost whole Disney movies, and know a ton more than I do about animals and stars. You've been doing great not using All-Tongue, and heck, you were even helping me with circuits earlier. You are not stupid. Trust me, I don't go around telling many people that they're smart, because most people really are idiots, but you are not one of those idiots, you hear me, Bambi? I've seen how smart you are in two months. The Ass-Guardians had a thousand years and they didn't see it. They're the real idiots."
"If you don't want me to go in your mind, I won't." Charles looks at Loki, who eventually raises his eyes to meet Charles'.
"But you can makes me betters, right?" Loki asks with wide eyes. "You helped with the flashing back memory, 'bout when they said nobody would ever likes me."
Charles closes his eyes and starts to enter into Loki's mind.
As he slips through the usual initial layer of darkness, he's not entirely sure to expect. After all, Loki is an alien from a world full of beings that were once worshipped as gods, who have fallen into mythology. Presumably, there's going to be some difference between his mind and those of humans or even mutants.
Upon entering Loki's mind, Charles is immediately bombarded by what can only be described as complete and utter chaos. It catches him off guard, as he hadn't been expecting this.
Loki's mind appears to Charles as a town built in a forest, only it looks like several natural disasters wreaked havoc, leaving the ruins of buildings and trees all about. It actually reminds Charles of the wreckage in Manhattan right after the Chitauri invaded and were thwarted by the Avengers, except this isn't a city.
There should be some central node or platform from which Loki's thoughts originate, but Charles can't locate it. Typically, one encounters a representation of the person whose mind they're in, letting them converse inside the person's mind, but Charles hasn't spotted a single Loki yet. Furthermore, many minds are represented by a room showing what the person is thinking now, with the other mental activities in rooms spanning off from that, whereas this has everything at once.
Thoughts simply rush by, each vying for attention as strongly as the next, much like the hubbub of the surroundings. From what Charles catches of them (which isn't much, since they are fleetingly swift and often drowned out by the almost overwhelming noise in the rest of Loki's mind), Loki's thoughts are much more articulate than most of his speech.
Above him, stars constantly twinkle in and out, rearranging themselves into various constellations in a way that is extremely distracting yet oddly calming and mesmerizing at the same time. It would be quite easy, Charles thinks, to lose oneself in watching them, as he watches a jet made of stars fly across the sky, although it flaps its wings like a bird. It seems to be racing a penguin, also made of stars, before they both explode and scatter into tiny pinpricks of light, like normal stars, before they form into Mufasa, like the scene in The Lion King. There are also floating lights that look like lanterns, and what seem to be tiny stars flying around near the ground.
Loki's mental noise is a lot more active than most, making it hard to focus on any one thing when something else constantly calls for Charles' attention. A less experienced telepath would undoubtedly be thrown off by all of this myraid of madness.
Charles, however, forces himself to ignore it, and continues to observe his surroundings as he stands there. Yes, he's standing. After all, when he goes into people's minds, he doesn't need a wheelchair, and can "walk" mentally
The ground below Charles' feet looks as if it had once been a field, because there are bits of grass poking up. Most of it, however, appears to have been burnt quite badly, as if a wildfire had spread through here. Similarly, there's a tree that's split down the middle of its trunk, looking like it was struck by lightning, furthering the image that some sort of disaster happened here.
There are also numerous fissures running through the ground, splitting it apart, like how earthquakes are portrayed in movies, even though the ground doesn't actually split open in real life. Some of them are small enough cracks to step over. Others are far too wide to cross.
This is clearly a very damaged mind.
A crowd jostles Charles as it moves continuously, none of the members going in quite the same direction as any of the others. It's pandemonium, especially the noise coming from individuals, temporarily distracting him from the actual location itself.
There are quite a variety of beings in the crowd, too. People, animals (some of which don't seem to be from Earth, like the huge scaled creature with horns) and animated characters form the huge mass of beings. Some walk leisurely, others appear to be in a rush, and some stand around casually.
Some members don't bother with the ground at all, but fly instead, such as Iron Man, a pegasus (but not the Disney version of Pegasus from their adaptation of Hercules) and the glowing lights that Charles eventually realizes are Tinker Bell and some other fairies. They can fly over the wide over the large fissures in the ground. However, the majority of the crowd, including Charles, is not gifted with the power of flight, so they have to actively avoid the cracks, which definitely makes travel more difficult. Some are far too wide to simply be stepped over.
Charles wonders what happens to anyone or anything that falls into the fissures. Are they lost forever? Charles can't see the bottom of them, not even the little ones.
Loki's brain is somewhat like that movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in that there are cartoon characters next to real people. It's rather odd seeing an entirely realistic Tony Stark next to Flynn Rider from Tangled, because Flynn actually bares some resemblance to Tony, only without the goatee.
Charles gets brief glimpses of other Disney or Pixar characters in the crowd- ranging from Bambi, Genie and Peter Pan, to Sulley and Boo and several superheroes from The Incredibles, as well as Buzz Lightyear. Wall-E is next to some sort of robot with a claw arm that looks real instead of CGI. Not all the characters are Disney. He spots Charlie Brown (which makes him think of Loki mistaking Charles for him), as well as several other Peanuts characters, with Snoopy being the most prominent. Hobbes, from Calvin and Hobbes, is also visible.
The most prominent characters are Stitch and Simba. There are multiple versions of Stitch and even more Simba's, both as the animated characters from their respective movies, and as the toys (or backpack, in Stitch's case) that Loki never lets out of his sight and apparently brought to life. Some of the Simba's are wearing Iron Man suits like Loki's Simba is, but some are naked like in the movie. An adult Simba, or maybe it's Mufasa, is wearing an Iron Man suit, even though Loki's Simba toy is still a cub. There are also realistic lions mixed in the crowd.
There are a lot of Tony Starks in Loki's head, and Charles sees the other Avengers as well, particularly Bruce and Hulk. Some other very prominent, reoccurring figures are Sleipnir, a girl who looks like a skeleton on one side, a huge wolf, and an even larger snake. Sleipnir was so starved in real life when he first arrived that he was as bone-thin as the dead side of the half-dead girl.
Charles doesn't think these representations of Sleipnir are what actually connects Loki to the horse, though, since there are so many of them, and they're mixed in with fictional characters that Loki certainly doesn't have a connection to.
Some of these figures are doing battle with versions of Thor or other people who appear to be Asgardian. Several versions of Iron Man blast some viking-looking man with a repulsor while a suit-less Tony grapples, barehanded, with yet another Asgardian on the ground. A little ways off, Hulk smashes an old man with an eyepatch and long, gray hair into the ground like a rag doll, roaring "Puny God."
However, there are more figures of that Asgardian with the eyepatch over his right eye that remain unscathed.
The Asgardians clearly outnumber the Avengers by a lot, but Earth's Mightiest Heroes are holding their own against them, even defeating some of them. But there are plenty of Asgardians who aren't being defeated.
Pulling his attention from the cacophonous crowd and battle, Charles focuses once more on the surrounding landscape.
All around, there are ruins of what were obviously once buildings but are now simply piles of wreckage, mostly wood but some metal.
What happened to cause all this destruction? Charles wonders, aghast, as he tries to make his way through the crowd to move to different parts of the town. He's actually jostled by a huge man with wild black hair and a beard, who he thinks might be Hagrid, since there's a small boy who looks like Harry Potter. They don't look like the actors in the movies, instead resembling what Loki apparently imagines they look like from the books. Harry looks... rather like Loki, and it's not just because of the green eyes and black hair.
Some of the damage, like the fissures, sort of make it seem like Loki's mind had been torn apart from the inside, since earthquakes originate from under the ground, not an external force. As soon as Charles thinks this, one of Loki's thoughts flits by, letting Charles briefly glimpse a purple alien creature with a club-like tail that looks as if he's from the same series as Stitch. Richter, Experiment 513, the thought says. His One True Place is making Quake Shakes.
Was that a coincidence, that Loki happened to be thinking about an earthquake experiment as Charles was thinking about the fissures? Surely this experiment didn't cause the fissures in the ground.
But why would Loki's mind have done this to itself? It almost has to have been from someone else.
There are buildings that appear unscathed, but Charles feels that they were built up amid the wreckage rather than somehow avoiding the wrath of whatever had destroyed the others. A fair deal of these are medieval buildings, but there's also a beautiful ice castle that looks like something out of a Disney movie. He also spots Snoopy's doghouse, which one of the Snoopy's is laying atop of in his iconic way. Next to the cartoon doghouse is a more realistic doghouse.
Two structures tower above the rest of the town. One of these buildings is Stark Tower. It practically glows, the extremely modern style of it looking rather out of place in a medieval town built on a field but looking very much like a safe haven at the same time.
The other giant building is an odd structure resembling a golden pan flute, or pipes standing on end. Despite being golden, it seems rather sinister and casts a long shadow over the town.
The pan flute building is opened up like a dollhouse, revealing the countless rooms and hallways. The hallways are ornately decorated, almost more lavishly than anything on Earth, with lots and lots of gold. There's a huge hall full of tables brimming with food and drink, what appears to be a throne room, and, farther off, some sort of workplace.
This has to be the Asgardian palace, judging from the decorations and the people walking within. Most of them look a lot like vikings, like the Asgardians doing battle with Iron Man, the other Avengers, and the wolves. In the palace, Charles sees several versions of Thor at different ages.
The Asgardians outnumber all the other figures in Loki's mind by a considerable amount, although it makes sense, since Loki spent the majority of his very long life there. He's only been on Midgard for a few days over two months.
Scattered around in hallways and the banquet hall, but clustered in the work area, are people wearing simpler clothes. Servants, Charles thinks. But there are also people who wear little more than rags and have shaved heads, clearly even of a lower status than the servants.
Circling above the palace are two large ravens that look extraordinarily odd. They have what appear to be some sort of spear as beaks, and instead of talons, they have hands like an old man's.
Charles gets the feeling that these ravens did not originate in Loki's mind, that they are the work of someone else. To make matters worse, they seem malevolent.
The light from Stark Tower does chase away some of the shadow from the Asgardian palace, but the palace still darkens the town below.
Charles turns his attention to the smaller buildings in the town.
Several other buildings seem to be in various stages of reconstruction. Some are simply wooden frames, the bare bones of the buildings, so to speak. Oddly, there are a couple rather unsteady-looking structures made out of what appears to be children's building blocks and cardboard boxes. There's even a fort made of couches, blankets and pillows.
Since there are complete buildings and buildings that are being rebuilt, Loki has evidently healed somewhat from whatever left his mind in this state. But the ground that everything stands on clearly hasn't healed much, if at all.
It's often a good idea to make a connection when entering a new mind that one intends to enter again. Charles can even establish a mental link with someone, rather like what he expects Sleipnir and Loki have, although he hasn't actually seen any evidence of one in Loki's mind yet.
Ordinarily, minds are relatively clear and Charles' presence would be noticed immediately, but as he's been quietly observing this whole time, he's unintentionally hidden in the crowd bustling around him.
Charles finally finds a area that's not crowded. It's a field, by some stables, and horses are grazing on grass. This area somehow seems to have avoided the damage to the rest of the ground.
"Loki?" Charles calls out to make his presence more known in hubbub of Loki's mind, although he's now in a slightly less crowded area. "Loki?"
Panic starts to build in Loki's mind, so that some of the surroundings blur.
"It's me, Loki. Professor Xavier." Charles tries to calm Loki down. Otherwise, the rising panic in Loki's head will completely envelop him, as well. "You invited me into your mind, remember?"
Fenrir stalks out from behind some of the horses. He's huge. Even now, when the wolf is standing on all fours, his back probably reaches somewhere between Charles' stomach and chest... and Charles isn't even in a wheelchair right now, he's standing up.
Yet, there's something else about him. Charles had seen many versions of the wolf, as well as Loki's other friends, in the crowd. This Fenrir is different, he feels as real as Charles does at the moment.
It seems Fenrir is another actual, real person (or animal) in Loki's mind just like Charles, rather than a product of it like everything else.
An obvious warning growl rumbles from the wolf. He doesn't speak aloud, but just like with Sleipnir, Charles can hear the wolf's thoughts. Even if he couldn't, both Fenrir and Sleipnir are very expressive.
'If you harm anything, I will rip your throat out.' Fenrir's mental tone and body language convey that he's dead serious about that as his eyes flash dangerously.
Charles has no doubts that this Fenrir would actually be able to do that. It would not end well for him.
"I would never willingly bring Loki harm. I'm attempting to heal him." He tells the wolf.
The wolf relaxes a touch and nods, but gives him a look that, despite not being able to make the universal gesture of two fingers pointing to his eyes and then Charles, says quite clearly 'I'm watching you.'
"Professor Xavier?" Loki's voice asks. The first representation of Loki that Charles has seen in Loki's mind slowly comes out from the same hiding spot Fenrir had come from, behind the horses.
The fear and panic in Loki's mind lessens when this Loki sees it's Charles, and the surrounding area becomes more focused once again.
"Yes, it's me." Charles smiles. Loki fists a hand over his chest and bows.
In his mind, Loki looks basically the same as he does in real life, with bare feet and the night sky long coat. Even though Loki's eyes are still somewhat glazed in his mind and he gives off a childlike vibe here as well, it strikes Charles that he hadn't said 'Fessor X, or stumbled over Xavier, like when he's speaking aloud.
"This is my field." Loki gestures to the area around them, smiling before collapsing in the grass. One of the horses nuzzles him. "Bruce calls it my happy place. When we meditate, he says I should go here when I'm scared."
Hel, Simba, Stitch and Lilo emerge with Loki. Simba is in his Iron Man suit, and currently looks like the toy Loki has, rather than the movie version like some of the Simba's in the crowd.
Loki and Hel are holding hands, and the tall man doesn't seem at all concerned he's holding the girl's dead hand. Despite the fact that Loki's an adult and Hel's a child, it's clearly Hel is providing more comfort for Loki with the gesture than the other way around. Charles gets the same sort of feeling from Hel that he did from Fenrir, that she, too, might be real.
"You're standing up!" Loki says to Charles suddenly, eyebrows shooting up in surprise as he stares at Charles' legs. "I thought you had the chair with wheels because you couldn't walk?"
"I don't need a wheelchair here." Charles says, walking forward a bit to prove it.
"So why do you need it out there?" Loki asks with innocent curiousity. Charles briefly explains that his spine was broken.
"I'm real sorry I can't fix you like Rapunzel probably could." Loki pauses thoughtfully, and a sudden thought flies over to Loki from out of one of the buildings. Loki comments on it. "Wait! In my dream, they were trying to get me to walk and I almost couldn't. They were fixing me! So they just do that with you, and then you're fixed? Maybe?" Loki's face shines with somewhat naive hope.
"Physical therapy can't help me." Charles says, wondering when Loki had physical therapy. He catches a glimpse of the thought, and the location looks like a barn. Actually, it looks like the school's barn, that Sleipnir's in...
"Who was trying to get you to walk?" Charles asks.
"Oh. The claw man in my dream! ...Lo-gan?" Loki answers, nodding. "He's like my Tony, kinda I think. Maybe that's why I dreamt him?"
For the second time, Loki's mentioning something that actually happened to Sleipnir, only he seems to think it happened to him.
"No. I know Logan. I mentioned him the last time I was at your tower. He goes be 'Wolverine' sometimes." Charles tells Loki.
"Did Fenrir scare you?" Loki asks out of the blue. "I was worried he was gonna disappear when he went out alone. But he's real good at protecting me, even if he couldn't bite the Ass-Guardians." Before Charles can even open his mouth, he asks "Hey, did you find Sleipnir yet? He's still not here in our special field, like our song." Loki hums a melody that Charles remembers Tony singing to calm Loki down last time, and it seems to make Loki's mind more peaceful. "I've looked about a million times since he went missing. His door's still closed, like Elsa. At least my Fenrir and Hel are still here."
Loki's hands tighten around Fenrir's fur and Hel's dead hand, clearly trying to ensure they'll stay there.
"Where's Jormungand?" Charles asks, plucking the name of the snake from Loki's brain.
"I think he's outside a lot." Loki says, and Charles is briefly confused. They're outside now, since they're under the starry sky, and then he wonders if Loki means the snake is outside his brain. "His door's open all the time now. Maybe that's why Sleipnir's won't open...?" He sounds as if he's just considered this.
"No, that's not it." Hel says.
"Where are these doors?" Charles asks.
Loki cocks his head to the side, once again seeming to debate about whether to trust Charles and deciding to, before beckoning for Charles to follow and setting off. Fenrir, Hel and Simba stick close by him, while Lilo and Stitch run ahead.
The rubble, the crowds and the larger fissures all make progress rather slow.
Occasionally, Loki actually floats a few inches off the ground, but he doesn't rise any higher, probably so he can keep his hold on Hel and Fenrir.
Oftentimes, his Loki guide gets distracted watching the stars or interacting with some of the people in the crowd. He only interacts with the fictional characters, though, not any of the Tony representations or the ones of Hel and Fenrir, which sort of confirms some of Charles' suspicions.
"Hi, Elsa!" Loki says excitedly, when they're near the ice castle. A CGI version of the platinum-blonde doll Loki had been playing with nods regally to Loki, but there's a fond smile on her face. She looks like the adult version of the doll instead of the child, and is wearing an ice blue dress and translucent cape.
"Loki." Elsa shoots a couple snowflakes into the air. Loki grins and does the same, flapping his hands slightly.
"Where's Anna?" Loki asks, and the CGI version of the strawberry-blonde haired doll with two braids runs out of the ice castle, along with a living snowman who giggles and introduces himself as Olaf, adding that he likes warm hugs.
"Still no luck getting the door open?" Anna asks Loki sympathetically. Elsa looks rather sad and guilty all of the sudden, and Loki nods dejectedly.
"I bet he's going to open it real soon!" Anna says optimistically, bouncing from foot to foot. "You won't have to wait thirteen years like I did."
"No, you won't." Charles promises.
"You don't have to hunt through a million doors, either." Sulley says, stepping out of the crowd. The big, fuzzy blue monster is holding Boo.
"Kitty!" Loki laughs. "Hank really does look like you. But I look more like you than my Tony, who looks more like Boo. That's funny, because he says I'm like Boo. They all thought you were a monster in the monster world, Boo, but you're not!" Loki suddenly looks worried. "They're not going to shred my Sleipnir's door, are they? Like with Boo's?"
"I don't see a door shredder anywhere." Sulley answers, as Boo babbles something about Kitty.
At one point, Charles catches a brief glimpse of a little boy and a younger girl, both with brown hair. The Loki with Charles quickly blocks them from view, shooing them back into the crowd. Charles catches the children's names, though- Cooper and Lila.
Loki goes well out of his way to avoid the Asgardians, even in his own mind. They jeer insults at him. "Idiot!" "Worthless!" "Freak!" "Frost Giant scum!"
"They're wrong." Charles tells Loki. There needs to be fewer Asgardians, and they need to be silenced. Fenrir snarls furiously at them, but sticks by Loki's side like a bodyguard rather than running off to join the fight going on between the Asgardians and the other figures in Loki's mind, including the other, less real Fenrir's. Stitch, now with antennae, back spines, and four arms, is delighted to join the battle, though, cackling maniacally as he fires some kind of plasma gun he'd found somewhere.
Loki seems to notice Charles still glancing at the ruined buildings and fissures in the ground, particularly the large one that they need to work their way around.
"Told you I'm all messed up in here." Loki says, kicking at a bit of rubble and somehow not seeming to hurt his bare foot.
"You know, I think you're an extraordinary young man." Charles tells him sincerely, and then cautiously remarks "It looks like you got hurt a lot."
Loki doesn't answer, but he stops walking, gazing at the sky. Charles waits for him to say something.
"Once there was a great big stone wall that he built with his horse. Really big, to keep the warriors out, so he could have the sun and the moon." Loki starts telling a story, as he starts walking again, stepping over small cracks and rubble.
Charles is not at all surprised that the damage is a sensitive topic Loki wants to avoid. Yet, Loki had mentioned stuff about it before. He won't push Loki to talk about it.
"The horse ended up lifting most of the stones, since they were so big." Loki continues. Once again, Charles is struck by how different Loki's language in his head is from his actual speech.
This story sounds familiar, and Charles realizes it's one of the Norse myths, the one about a giant and his horse building a wall around Asgard on a set deadline. When it looked like they would certainly build the wall before the deadline and thus win Freya's hand in marriage (although Loki didn't mention Freya or marriage at all), the horse was distracted by a mare, and then the deadline passed so the smith technically hadn't fulfilled his end of the bargain.
Of course, there's no telling how accurate the myths are without asking Thor or Loki, although he's not sure how reliable of a narrator Loki is. The god certainly seems to be telling it differently.
"But then the warriors attacked it. And sometimes..." Loki huffs in annoyance, staring angrily at the scorched, cracked ground.
Charles just waits patiently for him to continue.
"Sometimes they hit it so hard, some of the stones got loose and fell away! The wall was rebuilt, but the enemy warriors always hit it again, breaking it again and again." Loki kicks at a bit of rubble, somehow not injuring his bare foot.
"So we had to keep building it, but out of wood sometimes, not stone." Charles catches a glimpse of Pinocchio in the crowd, and wonders if this is a reference to that.
The fact Loki said we this time hasn't slipped Charles' notice either.
"It wasn't even as much of a real wall, it wasn't as strong." Loki picks up a spare bit of rubble from one of the buildings and chucks it at the ruined building.
"I'm sorry." Charles says.
Loki doesn't answer, just continues his story. He slows down a bit, and when he speaks, his voice is slower, and lower.
"Odin was really mad about the horse, and then wall got damaged even more than when the warriors hit it. So broken it was almost all gone." Loki mutters softly. "And the horse hasn't been able to help fix it yet, because he had to go away, so the wall's still broken." Loki doesn't continue, and it seems that's the end of the story.
Wait a minute, the part about the horse going away... Loki's mentioned countless times that Sleipnir went away.
"Is the horse Sleipnir?" Charles asks, although at first Loki had been referencing the wall myth, but now it seems like he's talking about Sleipnir.
Loki nods, blinking back tears. It seems his story switched midway from the wall myth to one about Sleipnir, then.
"This isn't the wall around Asgard, is it?" Charles gives voice to his hunch. He looks around for a wall, but they're not anywhere near where a wall would be built around the edge. He wouldn't be surprised if there really was a wall, but at the same time, the wall could probably represent the damage done to the whole town of Loki's mind.
Loki doesn't answer, but Charles catches an affirmative thought.
Apparently, the wall is part of Loki's mind.
"Do you know who did that to the wall?" Charles asks slowly. "Was it Odin?" Loki had mentioned Odin right before mentioning the total destruction of the wall.
"Ravens." Loki mutters. One of them caws loudly overhead.
"Those ravens?" Charles points at the two bizarre ravens in the air above the Asgardian palace, with the spears for beaks and the old man hands instead of talons.
"Maybe? Or maybe Odin? They look like him, with Gungnir and his hands. I don't know." Loki sounds really confused. "Doesn't matter, I'm broken now! It's the wall's fault, the wall wasn't strong enough! I wasn't strong enough! Stitch got his head slammed into a tree by Jumba and he didn't end up stupid like me!"
"Loki, this is not your fault. If the warriors hadn't hit the wall, if they hadn't hit your head... they deserve all the blame. It would have happened to anyone, it doesn't make you weak." Charles says firmly.
"Should have made the wall stronger!" Loki insists.
"Even the strongest wall will fall if it's attacked enough." Charles tells Loki quietly. "And walls take time to rebuild. If people keep attacking, that makes it harder to rebuild it."
"It's really hard." Loki mumbles.
"I may be able to help you rebuild it." Charles tells him.
Loki looks up, eyes wide with hope. "My Tony helps sometimes, too. My whole family does. Like how Lilo's ohana helped rebuild her house."
"You've already been rebuilding, clearly." Charles gestures to some of the intact buildings, and the ones in the process of being repaired.
"Then why can't I fix Sleipnir's door?"
"Because it's not broken." Charles says simply, and smiles. "Now, I have something that will brighten your mood."
"What?" Loki asks, hopping up and down.
Charles smiles even wider. "Are you ready to meet Sleipnir again?"
Wow, this is over 500,000 words now. I honestly have no idea how long this is going to be.
So next chapter is the big reunion, finally! :)
Sorry I'm so evil and made you wait another chapter. Hope you liked this.