Finally Belonging

by Yodeling Prospector

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

43. Chapter 43

This now has over 600 reviews, 250 favorites and 300 followers! :) Thank you so much everybody! Your support on this means the world to me!

I didn't even think about posting an April Fools day chapter like I did for ch 15 last year, where Tony and Loki (and the chauffeur) died in a car crash on the way to Dr. Carlisle's office. It probably would've been lame to repeat that, although it might not have ended in death this time. I'm not even sure what the gag would've been for this chapter.

Happy birthday to Robert Downey Jr!

Sorry if this chapter is heartbreaking again... things are going to get brighter and fluffier again soon. For example, Lila's party is coming up probably next chapter.

This chapter addresses a lot of stuff that last chapter didn't, so off we go! Keep in mind that Loki's confused, so his POV hopefully reflects that.

Tony can't help but smile at the sight of Loki and Sleipnir snuggling up together in the stall, the feeding bottle finished and laying on the ground next to Sleipnir. It's a very clean stall- either Sleipnir hasn't pooped much or someone cleans it out regularly, something that certainly hadn't been done in the dungeons.

There's a smile on Loki's lips, and although horses don't smile, it's clear Sleipnir is happy as well. It's frankly rather adorable, and he snaps a picture with his StarkPhone.

The image is slightly marred by the fact Loki still has blood, which is starting to dry, on his cheeks from when he'd scratched and hit himself. Well, that and Sleipnir's still very-underweight state.

On a brighter note, Sleipnir definitely looks better than he did only four and a half days, when Tony saw him in that video call with Thor, Jane and Darcy. Admittedly, Sleipnir still doesn't look too good, as he's very underweight and frail. Tony can't decide whether Sleipnir looks more frail now as a tiny horse, or when he'd appeared to be a full grown horse during the video call with Thor.

Off to the side, Bruce and Hank are discussing Sleipnir's medical condition, which has improved since Loki decided to be a magic medic, just like when the god had fixed Tony's leg.

Tony can't help noticing how similar Bruce and Hank are. They're both level-headed, calm and quiet. The two of them are scientists and doctors, although Tony wonders if Hank, like Bruce, is technically an unofficial version of that kind of doctor, more of a medic, really. Furthermore, Hank is big and blue, while Bruce is big and green when he's Hulk.

"I ship you!" He calls to the two men, grinning widely when his comment earns him an exasperated face palm from Bruce. But he can no longer ship Clint and Natasha in his mind, considering Clint's previously secret family is living under his roof. It's almost a pity, because he was proud of coming up with 'Clintasha' as a shipping name. 'Claura' just doesn't work as well for Clint and Laura. Plus Clint and Natasha could've been Super Spy Significant Others.

"Seriously, you should form some kind of primary-colored doctors club. Actually, I'm pretty sure you'd be the only members, but maybe that's what you want." Tony wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. "Come on, you'd made a great couple if you swung that way. Do you? I still ship it even if you don't. Maybe your shipping name should be 'Hulking Beasts' or something. Should I get t-shirts? One would need to be Hulk-sized, though."

Bruce chooses to ignore Tony, which is so lame. "To heal Thrush like Loki just did requires actually killing bacteria, not merely mending a bone. Well, not that healing bones as quickly as Loki can isn't remarkable itself, but I wonder if he needs to think specifically about healing bacteria. Or if Loki even knew he was killing bacteria."

Apparently, the disgusting, smelly black stuff on Sleipnir's hooves was called Thrush, a result of being in an unsanitary environment, and it's now gone, as is his inflated sheath, which just sounds horrible although human males don't actually have a sheath covering their most important body part like horses apparently do (something Tony didn't know horses had until today).

"So Loki can heal anyone?" Logan asks, puffing out some smoke from his cigar.

"He heals himself, too. He broke his arm jumping out of a tree earlier, it was healed like that." Tony snaps his fingers. "Didn't even really seem to notice it, certainly not as much as when I broke my ankle- actually, that's when we discovered he can heal others as well." Loki probably has way too much experience with broken bones and pain in general, though, and undoubtedly has a really high pain tolerance.

Off to the side, Bruce and Hank are now discussing whether or not Sleipnir still has a urinary track infection or if Loki had somehow cured that, too. Sleipnir had even said, with his way of projecting his thoughts or whatever it is he does, that it hurt to pee.

"Sleipnir's definitely looking better." Tony agrees. "Although he was a lot bigger when Thor called. What size is he, really?"

"I am not sure. We've seen him be both big and small." Charles remarks. Obviously, Sleipnir can become smaller like he is now, but so can Loki. Tony wonders if it works the other way around- if, as a kid, Loki could have turned into an adult. If he could, though, he could have just become a full-grown man and deterred child Thor from abusing him.

Somehow Tony doesn't think that ever happened.

Tony had actually been expecting Sleipnir's healing process would be considerably faster than a normal horse's- after all, Loki's body heals incredibly fast, as does Thor's, so it only makes sense. Loki had jumped out of a tree on the way to these stables and broke his arm, and it was healed in under a minute. Then again, Tony's leg healed almost that quickly when Loki used his magic on it.

Sleipnir's clearly not fully recuperated, but Tony's not as worried about Sleipnir dying. He'd looked like he could when he'd seen Sleipnir on that video call.

Right now, Sleipnir's eyes are closed, but Tony's not actually sure if he's asleep or not. Loki's eyes are open but quite unfocused, though there's a huge grin on his face. It's clear his mind is miles away from the actual stables as he murmurs stuff to Sleipnir.

Loki's uncharacteristically sitting in the same spot, when ordinarily he would have darted around any open space- like he'd done in these very stables earlier, running from horse to horse. Although he's remaining in the same place, he's still rocking side to side, mumbling.

It seems like he's talking about whatever's going on in his head, or the imaginary field they're in. Both Sleipnir and Loki had referred to "their field" before going off into Lala land. Probably the field in that song.

Back in Charles' office earlier, when Charles had gone into Loki's mind, things had seemed slightly similar to this. It was as if they'd both withdrawn to some world inside them. Loki had spoken aloud then, too, and when he talked to his friends back when they were invisible to Tony. Evidently, he actually voices what he says while converses with people in his head, and Loki most likely doesn't realize he's holding his half of the conversation aloud and in his head. Right now, he's telling Sleipnir about what Harry was up to in the first Harry Potter book since Sleipnir disappeared.

The lack of a brain to mouth filter (which many people accuse Tony of lacking one, too, when in reality he just doesn't care how most people react to what he says) probably contributed to the Asgardians thinking Loki was a crazy idiot for "talking to nobody" To be honest, when his friend were invisible, that was sort of what it had looked like.

Right now, Loki seems to be talking about Peeves from the Harry Potter books. Of course Loki had loved the poltergeist prankster who can fly (or float), and turn invisible. Loki had even taken a leaf out of Peeve's book and snuck up behind Tony once, invisible, and grabbed Tony's nose with a shout of "gots your conk!" and a fit of hysterical giggles.

Tony's not sure if Loki purposely became invisible for that, but the fact that Loki used being invisible to play a prank- even one he copied from a book- was a pretty big success when he would have panicked not long ago.

"I still don't get how he knew about my claws." Logan mutters through the cigar between his teeth, nodding at Sleipnir's stall, obviously referring to Loki.

"My guess would be that he and Sleipnir caught glimpses of each other's lives over the past several days, but couldn't consciously communicate with one another." Charles answers. "I know Sleipnir caught glimpses of Loki."

"Are they telepaths like you, Chuck?" Logan asks. "Sleipnir seems to talk in my head, but the kid's talkin' out loud..."

"Pretty sure they're telepaths, yeah." Tony nods. "And Loki's probably got at least a thousand years on you, so..."

Once Tony learned that Sleipnir wasn't imaginary, it seemed really obvious that they were telepathically communicating, and had probably always done so. Really, how else would Loki be talking to him if he was in the freaking dungeons?

Then, when Sleipnir was brought to Earth, there must have been something blocking the telepathic connection between Loki and Sleipnir and Loki had lost contact over the past several days. Maybe Sleipnir was overwhelmed by everything around him after spending who knows how long in a freaking dark dungeon where probably the only stimulation was talking to Loki.

"I believe they were telepathically communicating even when Loki was here and Sleipnir was... elsewhere." Charles says, and Tony frowns. Had Charles been snooping around in his head?

"No, Mr. Stark, I have not." Charles tells him, which only makes it seem more like he had been. "I simply reached the same conclusions as you have."

"Wait, so even when they were on different worlds, they..."

"You know where Sleipnir was." Charles tells him sadly.

"But even you can't do that stuff over long distances without Cerebro, Chuck." Logan tells Charles. "How can he do it to another world?" Logan lifts an eyebrow slightly skeptically at the idea of Loki and Sleipnir communicating on other realms.

"It just goes to show you should never judge a book by its cover." Charles doesn't really sound like he's lecturing Logan, but there is a bit of a reminder in his tone. "Loki's quite powerful, just like Thor, but in different ways, with his gifts."

"Actually, he's really freaking strong, too, just not as strong as all the others were." Tony mutters. Loki could easily overpower Tony (assuming Tony wasn't in his Iron Man suit), although he's not sure how aware of that Loki is. "But yeah, his gifts are even better than that." Tony snorts humorlessly. "Of course, he doesn't see it that way."

Tony remembers some conversation he'd had with Loki where he'd used a cliché but accurate line about Loki's powers being a gift, even though they were treated like a curse in Asgard. He has no doubt the same treatment has befallen many mutants, and he hates that thought.

He can tell that Hank had been slightly surprised, but pleased, that Tony, Bruce and Loki hadn't even really batted an eye at his blue fur. It would be kind of hypocritical if Loki or Bruce did, but it's obvious mutants don't get that kind of acceptance much.

"Sleipnir was constantly asking where Loki was, and why Thor was showing up instead." Charles remarks. "He said he could see Loki sometimes, too. But he couldn't really connect most likely because his environment is much more... stimulating now. He seemed to think I was Loki since I can communicate telepathically, like Loki almost certainly was. I never actually did get to see if there really was a door or some sort of passageway connecting them."

Whatever's connecting them, it's a really good thing it's there.

Tony has a feeling that both Loki and Sleipnir would have been far worse off without each other. Loki's mentioned numerous times that Sleipnir and the others had to go away, or that Loki himself had to stop talking to them, but they seem to have helped each other a lot.

"Do you have any idea why he won't put that can opener down?" Sleipnir still has the can opener that Tony had seen him with in the video call with Thor days ago.

"Actually, Loki was playing around with a can opener when I first brought him into my tower." Tony says, now almost positive that Sleipnir associates it with Loki. "He turned it into an action figure of himself a while ago."

"Then I can see why he's so attached to it." Charles says. Huh, so maybe he hadn't gone into Sleipnir's mind to figure out why.

"I can't believe he still thought I was you." Logan says to Tony, probably referring to Sleipnir. "I told him I wasn't."

"Yeah. I mean, I'll admit that you're not bad looking, you're pulling off the devilish rogue look pretty well, but you're still not America's most desirable bachelor." Tony grins.

"I'm Canadian." Logan answers. "What's Loki's story? Was he locked down there, too?"

"No, not that I know of." Tony says, although now that he thinks about it, he really wouldn't put that past them. "The Ass-Guardians just abused the shit out of him, for no reason except-" Tony stops when something catches his eye. Or, rather, someone.

Jormungand is slithering across the floor, slowly and silently, his tongue flicking out to do the weird smelling thing snakes do with their tongues.

Some of the horses seem really nervous about Loki's snake. Granted, Jormungand's pretty big, although some of the snakes at the zoo were a lot bigger. Do snakes prey on horses or something? Well, there's no way a snake would be able to eat a horse, but maybe horses have to worry about snakebites or something?

Then, quick as a snake (which is an apt description for, well, a snake) Jormungand lunges, grabbing the rat and squeezing it in his coils. The rat struggles uselessly as Jormungand slowly strangles it.

"Okay, that is not one of his hugs." Tony states, pointing. Honestly, whenever he sees Jormungand hug Loki, part of him still thinks it looks like the snake's trying to squeeze the god to death like it's doing with this rat right now.

Once the rat stops struggling, Sleipnir eats in one bite by growing a bit and then detaching his jaw and eating it in one bite. Tony's pretty sure the jaw unhinging part is natural for snakes, although growing isn't. Then again, Jormungand is a necklace Loki made out of a rubber hose.

"I really hope he doesn't spit them out somewhere in my tower." Tony mutters as Jormungand eats another rat. Stitch spits out toys, only the rats are alive, and would probably scurry around leaving droppings. And maybe reproduce and then he'd have a whole army of baby rats or something.

"Do not worry, Ssssssstark." Jormungand says. "I have no planssss on letting them out."

Well, this whole thing is weird. Is Loki telling Jormungand to eat or something? He never did before, even when worrying about Sleipnir eating. Also, he's still off in lala land with Sleipnir, so is he even aware this is going on?

"Hey, can I talk to you?" Tony asks Charles. "Alone?"

Charles nods, and sends his wheelchair gliding out the barn door alongside Tony. They stop a little ways away from the barn. It's rather chilly, since it's December, but they're both wearing coats.

"So what was it like?" Tony asks Charles eagerly, hiding his wariness behind his usual flippancy.

He's been incredibly curious what going into a mind is like, but had held off on the questions until after Loki was reunited with Sleipnir, but now he's about to burst with questions.

Since Loki's an alien, is his mind even the same as a human's? Well, Tony's always known there was something different about Loki's mind. But Loki's physiology doesn't seem too different from a human's, aside from the whole blue skin thing- and Hank and Kurt make the blue skin part a bit of a moot point, since they're humans. Or mutants, which are apparently a step up in evolution from humanity.

Certainly Asgardians, or Jotuns, are a lot more like people than the Chitauri were. The Chitauri actually seemed like the aliens you'd see in a sci-fi movie.

Tony wonders if he should clarify that he was asking what it was like in Loki's mind. But then again, couldn't Charles just pop into his mind and know what he meant, anyways? The thought of that happening makes Tony really uneasy. He doesn't need anyone digging around in his head, thank you very much.

Actually, Tony wouldn't need to clarify even if Charles stays out of his mind (he really hopes the telepathic guy doesn't peek into his head) because Tony's rambling a mile a minute as usual. "Was it like Disney World in there? I could totally see that, I mean, he loves Disney movies. You know, I really should take him to one of Disneyland or Disney World sometime."

Tony pauses, wondering if that could be a good Christmas present for the god. Heck, he could buy out the park for a few days, ensuring privacy and absolutely no wait on the rides. Although he's not sure if Loki would die of happiness or not.

Even as he's thinking this, Tony's still letting words fly out of his mouth. "Plus, you know, he's kinda like an overexcited kid, so I could totally see it being Disney World in there." Well, he could see it being like that most of the time, Tony thinks to himself, but not when Loki's having nightmares or flashbacks.

"Actually, there were a lot of Disney characters in his head." Charles says, smiling slightly. "But there was an even greater number of versions of you in there. You're very important to him, you know."

"I know." Tony nods, smiling slightly yet still more serious than normal. When he first took Loki in, he had no idea how important he'd be to the god, or how important Loki would become to him in turn. This isn't the first time he's wondered this by any means, but when did he get so sentimental?

"Well, what was I doing in there?" Tony asks on behalf of his doubles or whatever they were in Loki's head. Of course, he knows that he himself hadn't actually been in Loki's head, just like how the supposed Disney characters hadn't been in there. Well, actually, maybe Simba, Stitch and Lilo had, since Loki pretty much made them sentient.

"I mean, obviously I was being awesome, but I want details. Wait, please don't tell me I was doing some kind of song and dance number like in a Disney movie, or that I was dressed in drag." Tony's thinking about Loki's hula skirt and leafy bands around his ankles, wrists and head that the god's still wearing as Tony speaks right now. He'd made them with his magic on the walk over to the stables, before breaking his arm jumping out of a tree, and Lilo and Stitch are wearing hula garb too.

The hula stuff clashes horribly with Loki's long coat, although admittedly the night sky design clashes horribly with pretty much everything. Actually, Tony could totally pull some of Loki's weirder wardrobe choices, like hula garb and starry coats mixed with brightly colored shirts. Tony's kind of surprised Loki doesn't go for dark clothes with a bit of leather, like he'd been wearing when he landed on Tony's roof, but maybe wearing totally different clothes is one of Loki's ways of reassuring himself he's far away from Asgard, of distancing himself from that hellhole.

"You were fighting Asgardians." Charles answers. "Along with the other Avengers and Loki's friends- or, as I believe he calls them, his Monster Family."

"So, how were we doing?" Tony asks, hoping they were pummeling the Ass-Guardians to a pulp.

"Asgard still takes up a great deal of his head and casts a shadow over everything-" Charles starts.

Well, that makes sense. Almost all of Loki's ridiculously long life was spent in that hell- he's only been here a few days over two months.

It's really obvious- and perfectly understandable- that Asgard is still affecting Loki. He's had nightmares basically every single night he's been here and he has flashbacks on a fairly regular basis too- not that Tony can blame him after all the shit he went through. Tony's spent a lot of time the past two months trying to make Loki unlearn all the lies he was taught in Asgard about being a worthless, monster freak.

"However, your tower practically glows in there." Charles adds.

"It glows in real life." Tony points out. Well, at least the 'A' that used to be the middle letter of 'STARK' glows, as does some of the trim around the huge deck. He's really glad that apparently the tower is represented as a safe haven in there. That's kinda what Tony's been going for this whole time.

"To answer your earlier question, you were beating some of the Asgardians. Hulk seemed to be smashing an old man with an eyepatch... Odin, I believe."

"I'd pay good money to see that. Really good money." Odin deserves to be smashed until he's nothing more than a smear on the floor.

"I could show you." Charles offers. "I wouldn't even insist you pay what I'm sure would be an incredibly impressive sum."

Suddenly, Tony sees a crowd in his mind's eye, flitting by quickly. Despite being extremely chaotic and cacophonous, it's still easy to pick out the Avengers- especially Hulk- fighting the throngs of Asgardians.

Tony grins at the sight of one Hulk smashing an Odin into the ground, the roar of "PUNY GOD!" audible over the general din of the crowd. Tony wishes he could take a picture of that and frame it somehow.

This must be Loki's brain. It's quite fast and extremely jumbled.

Charles was right, there are a lot of Tony's. Some of the him's are brawling with Asgardians without Iron Man armor, although there are plenty of Iron Man suits flying around and blasting repulsors.

Loki's Monster Family is also fighting in the battle against the Asgardians. One of the many Fenrir's sinks his teeth into a random Asgardian warrior's leg- biting through the armor he's wearing- and the warrior falls, screaming in rage. A stronger-looking Sleipnir stomps on the body, while another Sleipnir mule-kicks a blond Asgardian- not Thor, though- in the chest. Jormungand's wrap themselves around warriors' and guards' legs, tripping them and squeezing them much to tightly to be one of the hugs he gives Loki. Hel is also holding her own quite well, despite being a pre-teen girl and therefore being dwarfed by the tall, muscular Asgardians.

There are also a lot of Disney characters and random animals in the crowd. Stitch, much like Fenrir, is delighting in biting people.

However, the Asgardians just keep coming, clearly outnumbering the Avengers and Loki's Monster Family. There are a lot of Asgardians that aren't even being attacked right now, and the jeer the insults Loki must have heard his whole life.

The stars twinkle in rearrange themselves in an oddly mesmerizing way, and Tony can see why Loki likes stars so much. He also sees the floating lanterns that Mother Gothel tried to tell Rapunzel were merely stars floating high in the sky.

The town itself is largely wrecked, with rubble strewn around, and there are fissures running through the scorched ground. Tony wonders if, before, it had looked like the set of some zombie apocalypse movie or something, but it's clear that there's been reconstruction. Some of the buildings, like Elsa's ice castle, are definitely recent additions.

Just as Charles said, there's what must be the Asgardian palace- a huge, bizarre golden building that looks like a ton of pipes clustered together standing on end. It looms over the town, and casts a shadow over the landscape.

Tony's pleased that Stark Tower's light is chasing away some of the shadows, though.

The image fades, and Tony realizes he's still in yard at Xavier's School.

"He really did get hurt bad up there." Tony says, completely seriously. He's had his suspicions all along, of course. It's really impossible to not notice there's something different about Loki.

Laura had asked, a few days ago, whether Loki maybe has some undiagnosed disorder, possibly autism or Asperger's Syndrome. Tony had never really considered it, but he doesn't think so. Admittedly, some things, like Loki's hand flapping and rocking back and forth, are commonly associated with autism.

But autism is something people are born with, and the brain works differently. Autism doesn't involve brain damage, and Loki's condition is evidently something he'd acquired, given the damage Tony's just seen. Jarvis had of course done research, and Loki's missing the hyper-sensitivity often found in the disorder, and the meltdowns caused by said hyper-sensitivity.

Loki's meltdowns are PTSD related, Tony's certain.

Seeing the damage was just proof, though, since Tony had basically known Loki's brain had been harmed already. There have been numerous clues- Loki saying on multiple occasions that he 'got stupider' (as he says the Ass-Guardians told him), and the way he covered his head when he expected a beating both tell volumes about him getting hit in the head a lot. Couple those facts with some offhand comments, including one around Halloween where Loki said he'd once gotten hit in the head with a frying pan like Flynn/Eugene from Tangled, and there was already really no doubt that he'd suffered some head injuries that had lasting effects on his brain.

Bruce had brought up the idea of getting a MRI of Loki's brain using one of the tower's medical floors, but he and Tony had both nixed the idea. For one reason, there's no way Loki would consent to laying still for a while inside an incredibly noisy machine, and two, Loki's magic would probably have screwed something up with the process and made the whole ordeal worthless as well as traumatic. Maybe Loki would've even blown up the MRI machine or something. Besides, who's to say MRI's would even work on Jotuns?

"Can you heal him?" Tony asks Charles quietly. He's not sure if the man's telepathic powers even include healing, but he did seem to help Loki out telepathically during flashbacks when he was in Loki's vicinity.

Charles doesn't answer right away. "Honestly, I am not sure. I can try my best, and I offered to help him rebuild the wall he talked about, but I am unsure as to how an alien mind will respond to my help, and how much I'll be able to fix."

Of course Charles isn't going to make promises that he might not be able to keep, Tony thinks.

"Loki did say that his friends and family have been helping him rebuild the wall." Charles adds. "Though I suspect that such help is more psychological than neurological, but both are obviously important."

Tony's an engineer and an inventor. His passion and life involve not only creating new things, but fixing broken things and making things work better. So, naturally, he wants to make Loki better.

Yet, he doesn't actually think of Loki as broken, despite the fact Loki's mind is undeniably damaged. Despite what Loki probably thinks about himself, what he'd probably been told by the jerks in Ass-Guard, Loki isn't broken. Broken implies something is useless and doesn't work until it's fixed, and that doesn't describe Loki. Loki is in no ways less than other people, and he's not like a broken machine, just one that doesn't work the same way.

So far, it's been more about fixing Loki's situation, fixing the god's warped view of himself after his life at the hands of the Asgardians.

Tony wonders how much of Loki is because of that damage. Probably the weird language quirks and All-Tongue glitches (Tony's not sure what the ratio of Loki using All-Tongue to not using it is).

Loki's understandable most of the time, but Tony's pretty sure that the god's thoughts are a lot more coherent and loquacious than his speech. Loki would probably like having whatever that glitch with his mouth is fixed.

While it'd be great if they can heal more of the damage in Loki's head, if it turns out they can't, Loki wouldn't be a tragedy or something.

The enthusiastic, excitably childish, caring, intelligent man who Tony's grown to love platonically and consider family- isn't wrong or bad right now. Tony doesn't suddenly think less of him.

It would have been nice to see Loki fighting the Asgardians himself in his own mind, but at maybe they can work up to that.

"Hopefully we keep beating the Ass-Guardians in his head, and kick their asses so hard it'll hurt to sit down for the rest of their miserable lives." Tony mutters, wishing they could do that to them in real life as well as in Loki's brain.

Loki actually has made progress in real life, much to Tony's delight. He even showed his Jotun form to Kurt when the blue mutant picked them up earlier today, and seemed just a little more comfortable in his blue form, although he's been in his pale, green-eyed disguise body basically the whole time they've been here at Xavier's School.

"I believe there is a fair chance of you overpowering them eventually, or at least muting them in his mind." Tony notices that Charles doesn't give a definitive answer, though.

"It didn't seem like total chaos back there." Tony tosses his head back towards the barn. "They said something about their field."

"There was a field, too." Charles nods.

The image shifts to Loki standing in a field with horses. Of course that'd be somewhere, considering Loki's lullaby that he uses to calm down, and it really does seem like his happy place. The field is, unlike the town, unharmed, with only horses and little glowing lights like stars travelling near the ground. The war with the Asgardians doesn't move into the field, and there are no cracks in the ground.

Fenrir is sticking close to Loki, who looks basically the same as in real life, and the huge wolf has an air of a bodyguard around him. Loki has one hand wrapped in Fenrir's fur and the other is tightly clutching Hel's dead hand. Jormungand is around Loki's shoulders, just like the necklace is always around the god's shoulders or waist, but Sleipnir is nowhere to be seen.

"Wait, so are you actually taking me into Loki's head?" Tony asks when the scene fades. After all, didn't Loki and Sleipnir say they were playing in Loki's field now? Except Sleipnir wasn't there. In the first part, with the battle, Loki was nowhere to be seen, so maybe Charles just took him to different parts of Loki's mind.

"No, I am merely projecting my memories of entering his mind to you." Charles says, and adds reassuringly

"Oh. Gotcha. So this was before the big reunion." Tony nods. "Wait, if you're putting those memories in my head-"

"That does not require going into your mind. I still have not entered your mind, Mr. Stark, as I know you do not want me to. I promise I will not without your permission."

Tony's not sure if there's really any way of verifying that Charles hasn't been in his mind, and supposes he'll have to trust Charles with that.

Tony's not good at trusting people.

Partly to ease his own uneasiness, Tony smirks and makes Charles perform a pinky promise, because it's funny. Loki and Bruce will probably get a kick out of hearing Charles made a pinky swear later. To his credit, Charles doesn't roll his eyes as he does it.

"Could you take me into his mind?" Tony asks both out of sheer scientific curiosity- he wants to know how this all works- and because it could be useful. Maybe it would help with Loki's flashbacks if Tony could somehow be in the scene, telling Loki that whatever the Ass-Guardians are doing is wrong, or just that the flashback isn't real. He knows from firsthand experience how easy it is to forget that, to believe you're really reliving the traumatic events.

He wouldn't really want to see most of what Loki went through, but then again, he kind of has. When Loki flashed back to the lip sewing incident, he'd unconsciously made it look like his lips were sewn shut, which was horrible to look at.

They still haven't really addressed Loki's PTSD in their sessions with Charles. Granted, this is only their second one, but still.

Loki freaking out about the feeding tube, even after they explained what it was, is also noteworthy. It wasn't as bad as when Tony accidentally set Loki off by pointing a turkey baster at him when they were watching Pinocchio after the first session with Charles (Tony still feels guilty about that), but a tube isn't quite the same as a turkey baster.

Still, Loki had panicked even when they explained what the feeding tube was and that it wasn't going to be used for something horrible like stitching lips shut. Tony has a feeling Loki's reaction would have been worse if Sleipnir wasn't there, and it seemed like Charles briefly had a mental conversation with the god as well.

Tony's not exactly one to mention PTSD- people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and all that, but Loki freaking out about anything vaguely needle-like or cord like coming anywhere near his face (or even just watching the cleaner prepare to sew on Woody's arm in Toy Story 2) is probably something they should work on decreasing.

Not that he blames Loki, of course not, but he definitely needs help. It's really unhealthy, having nightmares every night. Not even Tony has nightmares every night, al least not anymore. They had been a nightly occurrence after Afghanistan, and later the Chitauri invasion (that is, when Tony actually bothered sleeping after those incidents).

Loki's been through more shit than anybody on Earth, partly because of the simple fact that, at over a thousand years old, he's been alive about ten times longer than pretty much everyone on this planet, and had been horrifically abused all that time.

"No, I'm afraid the most I can do is project my memories of what's in his mind." Charles says.

That might have been too much to hope for anyways, but there's got to be a way to go into someone's memories with technology.

Tony might be jumping the gun with this. Would Loki even want Tony in his head?

They head back into the barn, and Tony honestly isn't sure whether he should share what he and Charles just discussed with Bruce or not. Well, Bruce has been present for all but Loki's first therapy session (although there have only been four total- two with Dr. Carlisle and two with Charles).

"By the way, you're way better than the previous person Loki talked to." Tony tells Charles. "I can give you a raise or something, although I get the feeling you'd do this for free."

"I would." Charles says. "Extra money is always appreciated to help the students, but as you can see from this place, I'm rather well off myself." It's true, he owns a mansion, and with all the tech on the lower floors, this school clearly isn't lacking in funds. They have their own plane.

Granted, this place still hasn't reached the level of Tony's houses, but that's kind of impossible.

"Well, you can always be more well off." Tony shrugs. "Don't be surprised if SI donates a few million to your cause." It's not just what Charles is doing with Loki. The whole concept of a school for mutants, a place where they're accepted, is definitely worth donating a few million to.

Bruce and Hank are currently talking about the school, and every so often Logan offers a comment as well. The man's eyes occasionally drift to where Sleipnir and Loki are, and Tony has a feeling that Logan's been playing a similar role in Sleipnir's life that he himself has in Loki's.

Loki's technically not a mutant, but he'd fit in here. Then again, so would Bruce, who had been a professor at Culver University before the whole Hulk incident, though Tony knows Bruce's passion is most likely science first and teaching second. Tony can kind of picture Bruce teaching science here, perhaps part time. He understand what mutants go through, especially the hate from the general public, more than most.

"Maybe I should invite your students on my next zoo trip or something." Tony says to the three mutants, although he's not sure if Hank and Logan are teachers here or not. Well, the next charity event isn't going to be a zoo trip, he's not sure what it's going to be, but maybe he can branch out to helping abused kids and mutants. Actually, he has a feeling a lot of mutants don't come from great home lives, so it's kind of killing two birds with one stone.

Loki, still seemingly off in his imaginary field, is muttering something, presumably to Sleipnir, out loud. Something about Tinker Bell and a broken moonstone that couldn't be fixed.

"Can he not telepathically communicate silently?" Logan asks as he raises an eyebrow at Loki's current topic of conversation. True, Tinker Bell's movies are aimed at six-year-old girls, not grown men. But theoretically Loki has Lila as an excuse now, although the god probably wouldn't feel embarrassed or need an excuse like that to watch Tinker Bell movies.

"I guess not." Bruce answers. "So he mentioned 'his field' and-"

"Yep, it's like in his song." Tony interrupts.

"It's like young Cosette's castle on a cloud, isn't it?" Bruce murmurs. Logan looks like he has no idea what Bruce is talking about.

Tony nods. From what he can tell, the starlit field with horses is sort of like young Cosette's castle on a cloud that she sings a song about in Les Misérables. Yes, Tony's seen it, he went with Pepper way back in 2006, as friends, because she claimed he owed her after a disastrous PR incident. According to Pepper, he was to 'show the paparazzi he could behave this time', since previously, when Obadiah Stane of all people had dragged him to see Rent, Tony may have been rather drunk and stumbled onstage in the middle of a scene to belt out his own rendition of one of the songs.

Under Pepper's tight leash, Les Mis had gone much better, and Cosette had mentioned that in her imaginary castle, nobody shouted or yelled, and as a child Tony definitely shared that wish, thanks to Howard.

Anyways, Loki's field and Cosette's castle are both imaginary wonderful places used to escape their crappy lives, and both Loki and Cosette have a song about it (although since Les Mis is a musical, basically everything was a song). Actually, they had fields and horses in Asgard, Tony is sure, so maybe it was partly real for Loki.

From what Tony saw, the field literally is a happy place, a safe haven in Loki's head. He's pretty sure Bruce had suggested Loki go there when meditating, though Tony's certain the field's been around long before Loki came to Midgard.

Tony really wants to do something about the dried blood on the side of Loki's face, from the god scratching himself about not feeding Sleipnir. Tony has seen Loki try to feed Sleipnir and Fenrir multiple times, and it never works. There's that saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but that doesn't exactly fit here.

It's probably not even really insane that Loki thought it would work, since he thought they were imaginary friends, right?

Loki has apparently been under the impression that Sleipnir's current condition of being very underweight is his fault, since he hadn't gotten food to Sleipnir just by eating it himself. The god harming himself is really a problem, though. Granted, Loki's self-injurious behaviors could be a lot worse than just hitting and scratching himself, but they're still not good.

They're going to have to convince Loki that it wasn't his fault, or he'll just keep blaming- and hitting- himself. It wasn't his fault. It was the damn Ass-Guardians.

But Loki probably won't believe them unless he knows the truth about where Sleipnir was and why he wasn't getting food.

Ugh, this is not going to be a fun conversation at all, telling Loki that his horse friend went through hell, too.

For now, they let Loki and Sleipnir play in their make-believe happy place.

---

Loki eventually comes back to the present, in the stables at Professor Xavier's school, and is delighted to still feel Sleipnir in his lap. He'd almost been worried Sleipnir would get lost in his brain again, and clutches Sleipnir even more to ensure he's still there.

He can hear Bruce and Hank quietly talking, and Tony though it seems like he's having his own conversation. Loki shifts around but doesn't go out of the stall, and they don't seem to hear him.

Sleipnir's cribbing on the wooden stall door, arching his neck and grunting as he grabs it in his teeth, and Loki hands him the can opener, which was by Sleipnir's hoof. Sleipnir takes that in his mouth, sucking on it slightly even though Loki's pretty sure he knows it's not food.

"Can't eat that Sleipnir." Loki says. He wonders where Sleipnir got it, but it makes him smile. He likes can openers.

Loki's not even holding Simba right now, clutching Sleipnir instead. Simba has wedged himself into Loki's lap between Loki and Sleipnir, seeming a little jealous at all the attention Sleipnir is getting. But Simba's seen the Toy Story movies, so he should know how it works and that he's not being replaced by Sleipnir. Besides, Simba's really the newer friend, not Sleipnir. If anything, Simba is Buzz with his Man of Iron suit and Sleipnir is Woody.

Sleipnir was really Loki's first friend, ever, his only friend until Fenrir showed up later, followed by Jormungand and finally Hel. But he had to stop talking to them until he came to Midgard, because back there he got hurt for it when people heard.

Loki's still grinning about how Sleipnir is with him now, although he hates that he can feel all the bones in Sleipnir's body. He can't feel all his own bones, or Tony's, but Sleipnir's a lot skinnier than Tony or even Loki himself, Sleipnir's too skinny and Loki needs to feed him to make up for all the times he hadn't.

He goes to grab the empty bottle to ask if they can put more in it. He'd made spaghetti out of the tube thing, but he doesn't think eating it would be a good idea, because what if it turns back into the tube? So he can't use magic to fill up the bottle or anything.

Loki notices a distinct lack of snake around his shoulders, neck or waist. Jormungand's gone!

Worriedly, he gathers Sleipnir to his chest and stands up. Sleipnir's a lot bigger than Simba, but he's still small enough that Loki can hold and carry him. He's also really lightweight- almost lighter than Simba is in his Man of Iron suit is, despite the fact Simba's a lot smaller.

"Jormungand?" Loki calls out, walking out of the stall. He sees Tony, Charles and Logan discussing something a little ways down the aisle in the barn, while Bruce and Hank are having their own conversation almost right outside the stall Loki and Sleipnir had been in.

Loki just got his missing Monster Family member back, he doesn't want to lose another! Is this how it's going to be, now, that one of them is always gone? He paces anxiously, hugging Sleipnir to his front tightly, desperately hoping he doesn't disappear again.

"Where?!" Loki asks, pacing anxiously. Before he can get too worried, Jormungand slithers out of a corner, and Melody still seems scared of him.

Good. Loki sighs in relief. Jormungand didn't go away, and while Sleipnir had been away the past several days, he's back now.

He hopes Sleipnir never goes away again.

Why did Sleipnir go away? Loki's been wondering that ever since Sleipnir left, and he still hasn't been able to figure it out. Fenrir is adamant that it wasn't because of Loki's utter failure to feed them, and even Sleipnir says it wasn't Loki's fault even though it was.

It's not like anyone beats Loki for talking to his Monster Family here, which is what the Asgardians did. The warriors, including Thor, and guards would mostly just shove him around and hit him, which wasn't very different from normal, but it was a lot worse when Odin heard him doing it. Sometimes Odin even had the guards whip Loki for it when he found out, or Loki would be personally punished by the Allfather himself with whips or just a normal beating. Sometimes both, one after the other.

The Allfather would tell him that he wasn't supposed to be crazy and talk to made up things inside his head. Odin sometimes got so angry that he'd roar sounds instead of words, like "Huuuaargh!" which was sometimes even worse than when Loki was told his friends weren't real, because he'd never have real friends. After all, they had jeered, nobody would ever want to be his friend.

They were wrong, though, weren't they? He has his Tony now, as well as Jarvis, Bruce, Hulk, Pepper, and Dum-E. He has them not only as friends, but as family too. And he has the Barton's, maybe, although they don't know what he really is yet, at least not Laura, Cooper and Lila. Maybe even Steve and Natasha- Steve saw Loki's true form on Halloween with Tony, Bruce and Pepper, and just like them, Steve doesn't hate him for it.

Here on Midgard, Loki hasn't even been mocked for talking to his Monster Family. Not even Dr. Car-something made fun of him, and she clearly knew his friends really aren't real, only in his imagination, like everyone on Asgard said. But Tony and Bruce talk to Loki's Monster Family like they're real, and Professor Xavier talked about them like they were, too.

So what made Sleipnir disappear this time?

It's probably something messed-up about Loki's stupid brain that made Sleipnir go away for the past several days. But Sleipnir actually has a body now, although his body clearly needs more food.

Obviously, things have changed from before.

"You have my thanks you, 'Fessor X," Loki bows in gratitude, realizing he merged 'you have my thanks' with 'thank you', but nobody comments. Then again, he's an idiot and sounds like one normally, so they're probably not surprised. "For getting the door open 'gain here. Helpings me find my Sleipnir!" He claps his hands, wriggling happily.

"I can't take credit for Sleipnir being here." Professor Xavier says tells him.

Oh. Wait, it had been Logan who brought Sleipnir in. Loki would hug him, except his arms are still full with Sleipnir and Simba. Instead he grins at the man and tries to lean against him, but Logan backs away.

"I don't do that, kid." Logan says, although he does run a hand down Sleipnir's neck. Logan doesn't have claws now.

"Logan doesn't hug." Sleipnir confirms with his eyes. "Or sing. But he's still really nice. Like Tony. I thought he was Tony sometimes."

"Tony, my Sleipnir's gots a body now." He hadn't had a body before.

"Yep, he's tangible, just like Jormungand and your toys-" Tony starts to say, and even reaches out and gently strokes Sleipnir, who Loki is still holding. Not only is Loki able to touch Sleipnir, but Tony can too! Well, Logan had been carrying Sleipnir before, Loki supposes. "-but Sleipnir here... well, he's not a toy, like Simba and Stitch. He has a real, biological body and everything." Tony trades a glance with the others in the room.

Loki's face crumples in confusion. The Asgardians, especially Odin, made it very clear in Asgard that his Monster Family was just in his head, because he's stupid and crazy. Even when they showed up as illusions they were still in his head and he couldn't touch them. Jormungand's body used to be a rubber tube, but he doesn't feel like that anymore. He feels real, too, but nobody else has said anything so surely Loki's going crazy.

Besides, he always got in a lot of trouble when he said they were real, because that's crazy talk.

"No, not real."

"Well, Sleipnir has a biological body, right? Having a biological body means he's real- as real as you and me with, y'know, organs and bones and blood and everything. That's really more Bruce's area." Tony says after a bit, and Loki's still not sure if Tony's really a mind-reader or not.

"Real?" Loki asks, though Sleipnir having a body does make him seem real. Nobody hits him for saying it, or sneers and tells him he's an idiot.

This is almost too good to be true, if he ignores the fact that he failed at feeding Sleipnir and now Sleipnir's really skinny.

But he can't exactly argue with the body fact, can he? He pinches himself. He's awake.

"You are real..." Loki says to Sleipnir. "Real real real real, 'cause I wished upon a star, like Gepetto an' Lilo! 'Xcept Lilo's falling star was Stitch's ship, but she stills got Stitch as a friend and Ohana anyways."

He really shouldn't be greedy when his wish about Sleipnir came true, but Loki finds himself wishing that he'd made his three Genie wishes to the Blue Fairy instead of just wishing that Sleipnir would come, because then all of them would be real. Or would they? Wouldn't that count as three wishes for the Blue Fairy, too? Does she grant multiple wishes?

Well, he's still not sure why the Blue Fairy would have granted his wish when he'd been bad (despite the song saying "makes no difference who you are,", the Blue Fairy commented first on how Gepetto deserved his wish because he'd brought so much happiness to others. Loki hasn't brought happiness to anyone, though).

But he can't think of how Sleipnir's real, otherwise. He hadn't found Genie's lamp or Tink's mirror, but the mirror's worthless because all three wishes were used up.

Loki realizes he must have actually said some of this aloud when Logan snorts. "A fairy?" He asks, and Loki's pretty sure the snort was Logan laughing at him. Logan clearly doesn't believe it was the Blue Fairy, given the look he's giving Loki.

"The Blue Fairy." Loki confirms. "She made Pinocchio so he could be reals, and he was... but he hads to be brave, truthful and unselfish first before he was real." Loki nods to Logan, before thinking of something else. Woody was a puppet with strings too, at one point, as were Jessie, Bullseye and Stinky Pete. They didn't have any color then, but now they're toys that most people think aren't real, even Cooper, despite the fact he's seen the movies.

"And Woody, I think?" Lila's toys move when he wants them to, and Simba came to life before Loki saw Toy Story. But all toys come to life. All of Loki's have at some point since the knew Loki now knows that, but some, like Simba, come alive a lot more than others. Baloo only came alive once for a few seconds.

"I don't think she made Woody real." Tony says.

"She must've mades my Sleipnir real." Loki says, rocking himself and Sleipnir side to side, bouncing slightly on his toes.

Tony, Bruce and Professor Xavier exchange a look, communicating without talking. Loki wishes he knew what they were thinking, but he quickly adds that he wouldn't use a real wish on that, in case the wish-granter is listening.

"Loki, it, uh, wasn't the Blue Fairy." Bruce says slowly.

"Fors Bullseye and Woody an' Jessie?" Loki asks, since they were all colorless puppets on the screen Woody watched in Tony's screen. Stinky Pete was, too but Loki doesn't like Stinky Pete.

"Um, yeah. But I meant she didn't make Sleipnir real either." Bruce fiddles with his glasses.

"She didn't?" Loki asks.

"I'm afraid not." Bruce is really smart, smarter than Loki (not that that's hard), so he's probably right. Besides, Jarvis would've seen the Blue Fairy, even if she only came after Loki was asleep, like when she granted Gepetto's wish for Pinocchio to be a real boy, and Jarvis hasn't said anything about her. The Blue Fairy only made Pinocchio alive but he was still a wooden puppet, and he had to earn his real body. Sleipnir's body is real, though, not wooden, and Sleipnir didn't even have a body for her to bring to life.

Loki's kind of disappointed it wasn't the Blue Fairy. Cooper would undoubtedly say she's ot real, but he says Simba, Stitch, Maximus, Bullseye, and Lila's Toy Story toys aren't real either. He's wrong about them, big time!

"But... my wish... my Sleipnir's backs an' he's even real now! That's what I wished upon a star, ands it came true even though I don't d'serve it."

"What do you mean you don't deserve this?" Tony asks. "You deserve to have your friends."

"But I didn't take cares of 'em!" Loki protests, realizing he should now. "Sleipnir, are you hungry?"

"I'm full." Sleipnir says in Loki's head, because he doesn't talk out loud like he did since he started showing up in Midgard. Maybe having a body made it so he can't talk out loud now? That's even worse than Loki's mouth being stupid. "Full is nice, but being too full hurts and then I throw up, so I can't eat more now because then I'll be too full and throw up."

"Fenrir?" Loki glances back at his wolf, who doesn't have a real body. He really should've wished for all his Monster Family to be real, even though he doesn't deserve it. "How do I feed you when you still in... int-angi-ble? Need a body... do you, 'cause I can't..." Loki frowns and points to his head. "How'd you gets your body, Sleipnir?"

"I'm not hungry." Fenrir says, and Loki's not sure if he's telling the truth. Fenrir still looks really strong as always, not too skinny like Sleipnir, but Sleipnir hadn't looked anywhere near this skinny when he went away, which is kind of confusing because why did he suddenly lose a ton of weight?

"Loki, listen. It's not your fault you couldn't feed Sleipnir in your head. He always had a real body." Tony starts to say, and Loki cuts him off.

"No! He just has it now, just now! Tony, you're smarter'n this." Loki shakes his head, giggling slightly. Tony's almost never wrong, but this is obviously wrong. Or maybe he's joking? He does that a lot, but he doesn't sound like he's joking and he's not smirking either.

"No, he was real. Uh, it's like how Elliot was real. Everyone said he wasn't, but he was. That's pretty much the only reason we watched that movie, because frankly, I thought it was really annoying." But that's not the same. Well, both Sleipnir and Elliot were invisible a lot. But Elliot could lift Pete even when he was invisible, and Sleipnir was never tangible until now. He never had a body, he was just in Loki's head. So he should've been able to feed him.

Loki doesn't want to talk about Pete or Elliot, though.

Jormungand squeezes Loki just a little tighter. Jormungand had never asked for food, even before Loki gave him a body.

Loki blinks and grins slowly, the pieces fitting together in his mind like a puzzle. He'd given Jormungand a body! He knows how Sleipnir's real now!

He had given Jormungand a body, with the necklace he'd made from the rubber tube. Somehow, he must have made Jormungand's body feel more real, too, because it doesn't feel rubbery. It hasn't for some time, actually, but he can feel Fenrir's fur even if he's intangible so maybe he got better at illusions.

Loki doesn't have to think about Jormungand hugging him anymore, he just does it by himself.

At one point Loki thought he'd made Simba real during Pinocchio, like how he'd watched the Blue Fairy do it, and that he made Stitch, Lilo and his other toys real, later. But he was wrong, because toys come to life anyways like in Toy Story, but Loki's toys (and Lila's) don't seem to think moving around him breaks the rules.

Mickey made brooms come to life, though, and Loki's pretty sure that brooms don't come alive when nobody's looking. But they have flying brooms at Hogwarts, so maybe? Tony doesn't even have brooms, just those Roomba robot things.

"They all hads a body already." Loki mutters. Pinocchio Simba, the brooms, the toys. Sleipnir didn't have a tangible body, so maybe it's not the same. Loki had transfigured Jormungand's body from a hose, but he still started out with a hose.

Loki had tried to give Sleipnir a body like he'd done with Jormungand, only with the hologram and origami rather than a rubber tube, but it hadn't worked. Or had it? Sleipnir has a body now, so maybe it had worked?

"Dids I made you? Like Jormungand?" Loki asks aloud. "Like Elsa?"

Elsa made Olaf and Marshmallow, like Loki made Jormungand's body out of a rubber hose, but Elsa just made Elsa and Marshmallow out of snow, not transforming or transfiguring their bodies into something else like Professor McGonagall.

Maybe it's like that, he made Sleipnir from thin air instead of transfiguring? But Olaf hadn't started out looking like a baby, and neither did Jormungand when Loki made his body out of a rubber hose, so why is Sleipnir even smaller than normal? He normally doesn't look this young.

That's a dumb thought, so what if Sleipnir looks like a foal? Loki can make himself into a child, and sometimes Sleipnir looked bigger in the pool.

"I made Jormungand, so maybe... you too?"

Jormungand gives Loki a look and hisses "You didn't make thissss me." It doesn't make sense, but sometimes Jormungand can say confusing things.

"But you didn't have a body, 'til I made it. Used 'ta be's my arms for hugs an' loves. Or rope" Loki tells him. In Asgard, he had a piece of rope and pretended it was a snake. He carried the rope around, like he does with Simba and his Jormungand necklace-belt now.

He would've gotten in Big Trouble in Asgard if he'd made that rope look like a snake like he'd done with the hose (except Jormungand just said he didn't for some reason). He also just turned the weird tube food for Sleipnir into spaghetti and Hank wasn't mad but they would've been furious there if he did that, or if he'd brought the rope to life.

"I can vouch for Loki, I saw him make you." Tony raises a hand, but is looking at Jormungand intently, as if trying to work something out.

"That wasssssn't me." Jormungand says. "The necklacccce Loki made issss under the ssssssea, where I came from."

Loki cocks his head to the side. "The sea?" Jormungand had often talked about swimming, even in Asgard, and he swam with him in the sea outside Tony's other house.

"I came to you when you were playing in the sssssssea." Jormungand hisses as if he's not sure how they don't know this already. "Outsssside Tony'sssss other houssssse in Malibu."

"Wait a sec, so you're really real, too?" Tony asks, pointing a finger at Jormungand quizzically, who hisses and nods yes.

"But where did you come from?" Tony seems puzzled.

"The occccean, asssss I sssaid." Jormungand hisses slowly, making it quite clear he thinks Tony's being stupid right now.

"Yeah, you told me." Tony grumbles, clearly not liking Jormungand's condescending attitude. "But how the hell were you in the ocean?"

"I am the Midgard Sssssserpent." That doesn't explain much, though. "I have been on Midgard for a long time. I can cccccircle all the way around."

"Around what?" Loki asks, confused. "Life? The Circle of Life?" He laughs and grins at Simba, who's in his arms with Sleipnir, wedged between Sleipnir and the inside of Loki's elbow. "It's the cirrrcle of liiiiiife!"

"Not life. I can circle around Midgard" Jormungand answers.

Loki giggles. Jormungand's being really silly.

Tony snorts. "Yeah- no, that's impossible. You can't just wrap yourself around the entire freaking planet Earth. I mean, if you suddenly became that big, you'd cause some major water displacement, probably cause a ton of floods. Nice joke, but you didn't fool me."

Jormungand simply grows, larger than he's ever been before, larger than the biggest snake at the zoo was. Maybe even bigger than the Brazilian Boa Constrictor that Harry talked to.

When he stops growing, he's as long as the aisle through the stables that they're standing in, and about as wide and tall as half the width of the aisle.

The other horses, including Paint, Melody and Baccara, are all panicking.

"Shh." Loki tries to soothe them. Sleipnir is the only horse that doesn't seem scared. "My Jormungand's not gonna bite. He's nice, see?" Loki laughs as Jormungand squeezes his legs. Even when he's only wrapped around Loki's legs once, he covers most of them because he's so big now.

The horses quiet down as Jormungand shrinks again, so he's now small enough to drape around Loki's shoulders, which he does. There's a bulge in his body now, as if he'd eaten something.

"So you're not the necklace, you're actually a real snake..." Bruce murmurs thoughtfully. Loki's still confused about that. "If Loki made that as a substitute body or something for you, why couldn't he make body substitutes for Sleipnir here, or the others?"

Loki had tried to make a hologram and an origami version of Sleipnir real, but it hadn't worked like Jormungand. Except the necklace wasn't exactly Jormungand, apparently.

"The necklace wasssssn't me." Jormungand repeats. "Ssssnakes are eassssy to fake and I wasss closssessst."

"Why on earth didn't you tell us you were real before now?" Tony demands increduously. "You didn't have to play dead and trick us into thinking you were still the necklace or whatever it was you were doing. If we'd known, you could've gotten food the whole time instead of just now because we would've known to actually feed you." Tony almost guiltily glances at Sleipnir and adds "Uh, sorry, didn't mean to rub it in or anything."

"I can go a long time without food." Jormungand answers. "I alssssso ate a lot before coming to Loki. I wassssss prepared."

Jormungand was always really good at planning, and being sneaky. He tried to help Loki avoid trouble, which sadly didn't always work. Loki used to be better at it, before Jormungand came.

"O-kay... so I've had a real snake living in my tower and thought you were some kind of toy." Tony mutters. "That's like Buzz in reverse, because he thought he was real when he really was a toy." Tony glances at Loki, and Loki giggles.

"Don't fly down stairs!" Loki tells his Jormungand seriously. Snakes can't fly, although Jormungand couldn't lose an arm like Buzz did because he doesn't have any arms. Sadly, Loki can't fly either, and he'd broken his arm jumping out of a tree earlier today.

"Please tell me you haven't been taking dumps in my tower." Tony practically begs Jormungand. "I guess Jarvis would've seen you if you did. How did he not notice that you're biologically real, though? Like, he should've realized Loki's necklace was suddenly a living snake. You are biologically real, right?"

Jormungand just gives him a look, and Tony sighs. "Right. I just saw you eat some rats not long ago. But, to be fair, Stitch eats toys and food, and he's a stuffed backpack- heh, he's like a cannibal. Well, no, not really because he spits them out. Anyways, I thought it was like that."

Jormungand's response is to spit out a dead rat- Tony says something about the rat being alive before- and then eat it again. "How would you have reacted to ssssssudenly having a live sssnake? Not well, I imagine."

"You eat?" Loki gasps. "Sleipnir eats now... but couldn't before. Jormungand, you didn't eats b'fore now neither, nope nope nope!"

"Yesss I did. I ate even before your necklaccce. Before your rope. I wassss elsssewhere, in the occccceans of Midgard. Hencccce why I did not assssssk for food."

Well, that kind of makes sense, because Jormungand never did ask for food, but the idea of Jormungand always being real is so bizarre and impossible.

Loki's mind is still whirling, and Sleipnir didn't have a body or eat before now.

Loki would like it if he wasn't the one to blame for Sleipnir's emaciated state, because he's not sure why Sleipnir and Fenrir don't hate him. And why is Fenrir saying, nonverbally, that he's not hungry? He was before.

Then again, Jormungand and Hel never ask for food, and Loki never managed to feed them either. They even say they don't need food when he offers. But Jormungand just said he was in the ocean or something, which is really weird.

If Jormungand's really real, that means he got more than his star wish for Sleipnir to be real. It's like he got part of his first Genie wish granted. But not all of it because Fenrir and Hel still aren't real.

"How dids you come real?" Loki asks, hoping Fenrir and Hel can do whatever Sleipnir and Jormungand had done to be real.

"Loki... Sleipnir was always real...

"But my Sleipnir-"

"Is real. Just like Jormungand, apparently." Tony interjects. "That's why you can't feed them from what you eat- because they were always real. You can't feed me just by eating either, right?" Tony spreads his hands as if that's final.

Tony's not in his head, though, and Sleipnir and Jormungand were! They didn't always have real bodies, certainly not Sleipnir.

This is making Loki's head hurt, all these ideas battling around and in him because this is the total opposite of Asgard, and even some of Midgard, probably. People here probably think they're not real. Like Dr. Car-something, and maybe Laura, because she asked if Jormungand was real.

"You wouldn't be able to feed me, either, even though I am in your head right now." Professor Xavier's voice floats through Loki's mind. "Trust me on this. You can't feed anybody in your head, it's just not possible." There's a bit of a pause, and then "I would not be able to feed you if you went into my head, either, there's nothing wrong with you."

"Wouldn't feed you?" Loki asks, and thinks. "My Jormungand and Hel don't ask for food. Never ever, nope nope nope."

They don't ask for food, and now that he thinks about it, that's weird. Even Fenrir never seems nearly as hungry as Sleipnir.

Maybe all the food somehow went to them and Sleipnir was left with none, but Fenrir got the second smallest amount?

"I feds them, not Sleipnir?" Loki asks, confused. But Professor Xavier just said that nobody can feed others through their brains.

Professor Xavier's voice tells him, in his mind, that that's not how it works. Well, he never really managed to feed them, but somehow Jormungand, Hel, and maybe Fenrir got food anyways.

"You didn't feed me." Jormungand says. "I had to find my food becausssse I wassss on Midgard. The reason Sssssleipnir did not eat wasss not your fault."

"Always on Midgard?" Loki asks. But Jormungand had been in his head when he'd been in Asgard.

"Bassssically." Jormungand hisses.

"B'fore me?" Loki asks, and his snake nods.

Loki has no idea what's going on anymore. How was Jormungand here before him? And if he was, why was Loki still on Asgard.

Jormungand must have started playing pretend without telling him. That makes the most sense out of any of this because most of this makes absolutely no sense.

"If I was on Midgard forever, I woulda gotten my Genie wish an' always lived withs my Tony!" Loki grins, before his face falls. "'xcept... Tony's younger'n me. Only forty three, that's nothing! Tony, we gotta get you gold apples! Bruce too! You can't die on me, can't leave!"

"I'm not planning on dying anytime soon." Tony tells him, pulling Loki close. But he still will! Or maybe Hel won't let him, but she doesn't really control who dies, just what happens to them after they do. And that's not even everyone.

"Need an apple." Loki repeats. But they're on Asgard. "Or the stone! It makes you immoral."

"Immortal." Bruce corrects. Loki knew that, it's his dumb mouth, but Bruce doesn't seem to be making fun of him. Tony had snorted slightly, but Loki thinks it was at the idea of a stone actually corrupting someone, rather than laughing at Loki.

"Yeah, an' it's here on Midgard so we gotta find it! Jormungand, do you know wheres it is?" He had said he'd been on Midgard all this time, right?

Jormungand shakes his head. "Sssssorry."

They need to find it! Harry found it in a mirror, and Loki's going to have to find the mirror that shows him his deepest desire, the Mirror of Erised. Which isn't the wish-granting mirror that Tinker Bell used.

Loki already knows what he'd see in the Mirror of Erised, or what he'd ask the fairies' Mirror of Incanta if Tink hadn't used the last wish.

He'd see himself with all his friends and family and none of them would die. And he would've always been with them and never been in Asgard.

"Where were you, Sleipnir?" Loki asks his horse, still cuddling Sleipnir to his chest. He'd looked everywhere, but Sleipnir's door was still shut. "I losted you, like Daisy losted Lotso, Big Baby 'n Chuckles. 'Xcept I didn't r'place you likes Daisy did Lotso. Hologram you wasn't you, origami wasn't you! You aren't gonna turn bad 'n evils like Lotso, are you? Big Baby wasn't even replaced but he turned bad 'cause Lotso said they were all r'placed!"

"I was here." Sleipnir tells him simply as Loki continues to card his fingers through Sleipnir's mane. "I don't think I'm evil."

It makes sense that Sleipnir reappeared when Loki came here, though. After all, there are other horses here, and a field, just like in their special lullaby about their happy place that they'd just been to in Loki's head. The stars aren't out right now, of course. It's daytime, so they're hidden but still there. It hadn't been nighttime all the time when he visited the horses in Asgard, either. But nighttime had been the best, both because of the stars and because Loki was almost always alone with the horses instead of getting chased away by someone in the stables like what sometimes happened during the day.

But Sleipnir was never in their pretend field in his head these past several days, until they played in it just a little bit ago, but that was after Sleipnir already showed up here, in these stables.

Maybe Professor Xavier knew this place would make Sleipnir show up again, or maybe he'd opened the door in Loki's brain? How else would the man have known Sleipnir would show up?

"Here, right heres?" Loki asks, looking around the barn. "The whole time?" He's getting more confused by the minute.

Maybe he's pretending too?

"No. Just since everything got bright. I couldn't find you but you came. I've been with Logan, Professor Xavier and Hank but they're not Tony, you and Bruce, respectively, I guess." Sleipnir's eyes flick between them. "And Rogue isn't Hel, and Jean isn't Pepper... there are a lot of other people here."

"Ands here's Paint and Melody an' Ba-cra. Can't forget horses." Loki exclaims, because horses are important. At least talking about people and horses here isn't confusing, aside from that Loki doesn't know who Rogue and Jean are. Baccara is really hard to say, though, like Xavier and Carlisle.

"These horses don't talk much." Sleipnir says, which is true. They don't talk at all, actually. Well, neither did the ones in Asgard, they just acted like Maximus and Bullseye but they could understand speech, maybe better than the horses here. "They're a little dumb, I think."

"They're certainly not as smart as you." Tony grins at Sleipnir. "You're probably smarter than a lot of people, because most people are idiots."

"My Sleipnir's the bestest!" Loki claps his hands and grins, glad that Sleipnir's alive here and not in Asgard, because the Asgardians would have had a very different opinion about him "But Paint and them, they can't talks none but are still nice likes Maximus and Bullseye!"

Maximus and Bullseye run over to Loki on their plush legs (though Bullseye has plastic hoofs) from one of the stalls, and Sleipnir looks at them. "You didn't see Bullseye on the screen, or Woody or Buzz or Jessie or Rex, right Sleipnir? They come real. That's where the song 's from." Loki starts humming You've Got a Friend in Me, which he'd sang to Sleipnir earlier.

"But you're the bestest horse! Sleipnir, if you was just bigger I could ride you! Or if I was a real small boy likes at the zoo, I coulds!"

Sleipnir goes rigid in Loki's lap, eyes wide and chest heaving even more noticeably because he's so skinny. He seems to be having a flashback.

Odin is on top of him, the bit on the bridle digs painfully into his mouth when Odin yanks on the reins angrily. Still, he stubbornly doesn't move. He's whacked on the butt to get him moving, and Odin's heels dig painfully into his sides. He wants him off, get off! So he rams against the side of the stable, thrashing violently until he manages to knock Odin off his back, but now Odin's mad and he gets another beating.

Loki slowly returns from the flashback, as Tony stands behind him, rubbing circles on both Loki and Sleipnir's backs, because Sleipnir appears to have just had a flashback too.

That flashback is one of his recurring horse dreams, only it's not like the nice ones where he's in the field with the Asgardian horses as one of them, and they love him even more, or the ones where Sleipnir comes out of him.

"Not real not real no. No real, just a dream." Loki murmurs. Flashbacks are like nightmares during the day, and he wonders why he can never catch a break.

In that flashback and the bad horse dreams, it's like he's Sleipnir, not himself, which is really weird. But since Sleipnir has the dream more, it's like it's Sleipnir's dream, not Loki's, or he is Sleipnir. Loki briefly thinks it can't be his dream because he's always himself in his dreams, but then he remembers he's not himself in the horse dreams, either, because he's not a horse, as much as he would love to be one.

He'd grown horse legs around Bruce that first night they slept in the fort, but he wasn't a full horse, and he only had two, not four. He was a centaur in his head, but that was just his imagination.

Sleipnir still seems really scared, wide-eyed and trembling in Loki's lap.

"I h-hate that dream. I buck and twist and sometimes shake Odin off and he lands in poop." Sleipnir starts, and Tony says that's fitting for Odin. Loki giggles. Sleipnir's eyes briefly flash in amusement, but then become more serious and sad. "I like that, because he's like poop, but then he always got really mad and the guards grabbed me and then I always wake up in The Dark."

Sleipnir has always hated darkness, just like Jessie's scared of the dark, because she'd been in a box for a long time. Bullseye had too, but somehow he doesn't seem to share Jessie's fear of the dark and boxes. Fenrir doesn't like the dark much either, but Jormungand and Hel don't seem to mind it. Loki hadn't exactly liked creeping through the dark palace halls either- well, he'd liked that it was harder for people to see him and there weren't as many people awake during the night just guards. But it was harder for him to see them too and a few unfortunate times, he'd bumped into a guard when rounding a corner or when they were just plain hidden in the shadows.

"Just a dream flashin' back, Sleipnir." Loki murmurs, because that makes him feel better. "Not real. You're here, safe here. Safe." He cards his hand through Sleipnir's long mane, even plants a couple kisses on his head. Aren't parents, even pretend parents, supposed to do that? Loki never, ever saw Odin kiss Thor though. Or Frigga, for that matter.

"I'm not entirely sure that's just a dream." Charles says softly from the side. But it has to be a dream.

"Sometimes I can't shake him off. That's worse. I try and try but he stays on and hits me and then I'm in The Dark again anyways."

Loki remembers comforting Sleipnir after that nightmare numerous times, and he starts humming their lullaby. He'd never been able to hug Sleipnir before, though, and he hopes it helps.

Loki squeezes his horse tightly, thinking apologies as he hums and rocks Sleipnir, because he realizes that he'd brought up a topic Sleipnir really doesn't like, brought up being ridden. He caused Sleipnir's flashback.

It's because of what he said...

"What did you just say?!" Odin demands, looming over Loki, who's kneeling on the ground because that's what you do before the Allfather, or there are consequences.

Two guards hoist Loki to his feet, gripping biceps so tightly that Loki wonders if he'll have bruises there later, although they won't last long. Because of the guards holding him, he can't even rock or bounce to calm himself down just a little, and he starts breathing quickly, heart hammering in his chest even more than it already was.

He'd just been comforting Sleipnir, who was scared from Odin being in Loki's face. Sleipnir was remembering one of Loki's nightmares about being a horse. It's not one of his nice dreams where he's in the field by the royal stables with his horse friends, but he's actually a mare instead of a Jotun, and they love him even more and he belongs.

Nor was it the vaguely familiar and somewhat connected dream he had not too many nights ago where he was once again a mare and his Sleipnir came out of him. He thinks maybe he could pretend he really is Sleipnir's mother sometimes.

But what Sleipnir was just remembering was one of Loki's dreams where Odin was riding him. The bit on the bridle hurt his mouth, his butt stung from being whacked with a branch, and the Allfather's heels dug into his sides. But no matter how much he flailed, Odin stayed on the saddle on his back, even though he should be able to get him off.

In that dream, it's almost like he was Sleipnir because he had eight legs just like him.

Loki can't tell Odin that's what they were talking about, though, or even that he was talking to Sleipnir because Odin hates it. He stands there in the guards' grip, staring at down at his bare feet and curling his toes inwards, hoping Odin doesn't try to stomp on them. Boots make his feet feel like they're choking, because nothing feels real to his feet when they're in boots. Horses are lucky, their shoes aren't like boots. The horses are lucky because they're not here right now, with an angry Allfather in their faces, although that's what he and Sleipnir have nightmares about.

He hears his Monster Family, and oddly enough, another voice that sounds familiar and makes him think of baldness and wheels, chairs and striped shirts. But he can't place that voice, and...

"Answer me!" Odin drowns out the kind voices as he grabs onto Loki's hair, pulling Loki's long black locks and shaking him by his hair so roughly that Loki's teeth rattle. He lets out a pained gasp and a sob. He can't help it. Tears stream down his cheeks no matter how hard he wishes they wouldn't and tries to blink them away.

The guards holding him sneer at how pathetic he is. He knows he always was, but he's even more pathetic now. He used to be better at keeping it in, used to be able to not let out a sound even when they beat him so hard that they broke some of his bones.

He's already sagging, his legs, which are shaking in terror and pain like the rest of him, are now useless at supporting him. Loki would surely collapse on the floor without the two guards' large, decidedly ungentle hands around each of his arms.

Loki doesn't answer, he can't answer, both because he doesn't know what to say, and he's so terrified that he'll probably have an even harder time getting the words out than he normally does, nowadays. It's so much harder than it used to be, because he's gotten even stupider, as everyone loves to point out. The servants and slaves love pointing ou that even they're infinitely smarter than him because they don't get dumber like him, just because they're hit in the head.

"I-I-I... that- just saids..." Loki stammers, heart pounding in his chest.

"Try to act like a civilized being, Jotun." One of the guards cuffs him in the ear before sneering, gloatingly and mockingly. "Use that Silver Tongue of yours. Oh, I forgot, you're a complete imbecile now."

"No..." Loki chokes out before he can stop himself.

"No back talk, you wretch! Now answer your King!" The other guard orders, cuffing Loki's other ear. Stars dance before his eyes and he wishes they'd stay there forever and block everything else out, so maybe he could just be away from here forever, alone with the stars.

But the stars fade, as the guards shake him roughly, and soon they disappear, leaving him in Asgard again.

They're probably messing his brain up even more because he can't take a few blows to the head like the slaves can.

"That-" Loki barely manages to get that word out.

He still doesn't know what to say, although his head clears a bit, thankfully. This was hard enough before his head started swimming.

The truth, which was that he was telling Sleipnir that Odin can't ride him, will get him in realms of trouble, because he knows he's not supposed to talk to his friends.

He could lie. He's really good at lying, or he used to be, but now he's so stupid that people seem to know when he's making something up. Also, this might be a rhetorical question and Odin already knows what he said, so he wouldn't get away with lying even if it came out really convincingly. Odin does that sometimes, tries to trick him making him think he doesn't know the answer when he does, to see if he'll lie.

No, Loki knows better than to lie, or Odin will once again take a needle and-

This time the guards shake him roughly, bringing even more tears as he tries not to think about the needle. The only reason that memory doesn't consume him is because his head's rattling as he's shaken.

That, and because in his head, Sleipnir sings their song, which makes Loki feel just a tiny bit better, although it's really hard to feel good right now.

Oddly enough, Loki sees a bald man in a chair with wheels. Professor Xavier? What's he doing here? He's saying something about this not being real, just a memory, and that's the voice he hadn't identified earlier.

Fenrir growls, saying something in Loki's mind about how he's going to gelda them all with his claws, but not his teeth because he wouldn't want that part of them anywhere near his mouth.

"Gelda you's." Loki blurts out before he can stop himself.

The guards let out angry shouts, slamming him back against a wall so hard that Loki feels blood coming from the gash he's just acquired in the back of his head. His vision goes completely white for a bit, ears ringing, and when his senses return, the guards are in his face, saying that an argr freak like him shouldn't talk about taking away others' manliness when he doesn't have any of his own.

But that wasn't even really what it was!

It's funny because when he tries to lie now, most of the time people don't believe him like the used to- although even then they often decided to beat him up regardless of if they fell for his lies or not- but when he just says the wrong thing, like now, they think he's telling the truth.

Loki spies Professor Xavier behind the guards, which is weird because he was never in Asgard. But now he knows, the voice from earlier was that man's. Professor Xavier is telling him that this isn't real, but it feels real.

"He's probably talking about one of his freaky figments." One of the guards mutters.

Odin beckons the guards to get out of Loki's face. Once they do, the Allfather takes up their position in his face and stares at Loki with his terrifyingly cold fury.

"I heard him, telling something invisible that you couldn't be riding it, my king." One of the guards finally speaks up for Loki, except Loki didn't know he heard.

Odin looks at Loki like he can read Loki's mind. "You were talking about me riding your... eight-legged monstrosity of a horse."

Loki doesn't say anything, but he can tell Odin knows that's what it was somehow.

"You imbecile! I cannot ride something that doesn't exist! It's just a figment of your stupid brain." Odin tells him. The guards laugh. Loki knows Sleipnir and Fenrir aren't real, but they're a trillion times nicer than anybody here. He wishes they were real, because then Fenrir could make them stop hurting him.

"I think I need to teach you to stop spouting your insane ramblings in my palace." Odin mutters as Loki shakes in fear no matter how hard he tries to stop it.

The guards grin wickedly as they let go of Loki, and he falls to the floor like a sack of rocks. One of them pulls off Loki's shirt and then pulls his pants around his ankles, and Loki knows what this means. A whip cracks in the air, and Loki flinches, biting down on his lip before a scream escapes. It hasn't even started yet.

"What are your 'friends'?" Odin growls.

"...Figments. Not reals." Loki only barely manages to force the words out through his fear, but he knows it'll be worse if he doesn't.

The whip cracks again and tears through Loki's bare back, leaving a bloody line. Loki tries to grit his teeth over a scream, but it comes out anyways.

He used to be able to be silent through the first several lashes, but he's gotten weaker, more pathetic.

"Good. You're learning. Again."

The next lash lands on Loki's equally bare butt. His world flares white in pain.

"N-not..." Loki gasps once the world returns, knowing what he's supposed to say. "... real."

The whip cracks again, leaving another bloody line through the back of his calves, and Loki screams.

Loki realizes he's now curled in a ball on his side, and for some reason Professor Xavier's voice is echoing in his mind even though he hadn't heard the man part of the time when he was being interrogated by Odin, but he had heard him some and seen him.

"Not real not real not reals! Figment!" He's screaming the words aloud as they pound in his head.

Jormungand's body is wrapped around him in a hug, and someone's on top of Loki. Sleipnir, he realizes after a bit. Sleipnir's almost sitting on Loki's curled body, nickering softly and nuzzling the bloody side of Loki's face.

He's in the stables, in Midgard, with his Sleipnir and Jormungand and Tony. And Simba, he realizes, feeling the familiar lion's armor and the little arc reactor. Simba puts an armored paw on Loki's chest.

He vaguely hears Professor Xavier saying that Sleipnir is real, and Loki thinks the man's voice is coming from outside his head now instead of inside, because Tony's saying the same thing along with him. Loki's pretty sure Tony can't go into his head, even if Tony sometimes seems to know what he's thinking.

"I can see why it's hard for you to believe all this." Professor Xavier says, not seeming quite as calm as usual.

Now everybody's looking at him. Tony's eyes are narrowed, and Bruce's eyes look just a bit greener than normal. Hank looks shocked and furious at the same time, and Logan might be trying to hide it but maybe he is too, Loki's not sure. Sleipnir seems to think Logan is, though, and whispers in Loki's mind that Logan had the same look on his face when Sleipnir first arrived, which is a little confusing.

Loki nervously scoots away, and finds himself in a stall, under the body of one of the horses. Paint, he thinks his name is.

He's pretty sure Professor Xavier's question was rhetorical, because he just saw it, apparently, so he already knows the answer.

Loki would bury his head in his knees, except he's still clutching Sleipnir and Simba, so instead he buries his head into Sleipnir sniffling.

He used to be better at not crying, he could get through five lashes without even making a peep. But he's crying now and what he just went through wasn't even a real whipping, just remembering it. It felt real but he doesn't even have the lashes on his back, so it wasn't and he's still crying because he's pathetic.

"Okay, I can't hug you now, because I'm not sure if that horse is gonna kick me or not." Tony says, not as flippantly as usual. "I'm guessing since you're like an actual Dr. Doolittle, as shown here and at the zoo, you're safe from being kicked?"

Loki has no idea who that Doctor Tony just mentioned is, aside from the fact he doesn't do much. He nods, though. He never had to worry about the horses, they never kicked him even when he crawled around their legs like he just did to get here. It's the guards and warriors he has to worry about.

"If you want to talk about it..." Professor Xavier offers quietly. "I'm here, and I'm sure Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner are willing to listen too." Both Tony and Bruce nod, and they've listened to a lot of his problems, and they really care.

He has friends and family here, even Sleipnir with a body now, but Odin said...

"Used to... not cry." Loki mumbles, and his voice chokes up. It's a cruel irony, that he's starting to cry again when he talks about not crying. But he used to be stronger, braver, wouldn't cry during the first several lashes of real whippings, much less flashbacks of them. He's not actually whipped now.

"There's no shame in crying." Tony says, but Loki's pretty sure he thinks there is, because he almost never cries himself. "Especially with what you've been through. I'd probably cry."

"Figment, figment!" Loki's chanting as Tony talks, the words echoing through his head. "Figment, figmen', just figments you freak... Allfather Odin says-" Loki stops, and Sleipnir nickers softly.

Odin said he's not real but he feels real. But he always got in a lot of pain when he said they were real.

Tony scrubs a hand over his face, looking annoyed. Hopefully he's not annoyed at Loki. "Odin is a lying, despicable, stupid piece of shit, remember? I'd bet a million bucks he was lying through his teeth, and unlike most people I could actually pay that bet if I lost, not that I would."

"Loki, I know there's probably a huge war raging in your head, because we're once again telling you the opposite of everything you've ever known." Tony says, and Loki blinks. Can Tony read his mind or something? "I hope we're winning. Remember Odin lied about other stuff? He lied about Jotuns and magic and everything! You shouldn't believe a word that ever came out of that bastard's mouth."

Odin had lied about magic, because he had it all along too, but why would he lie about Sleipnir?

"He sounds like the biggest assholein Ass-Guard." Logan says, and Loki wonders if Tony shared that name with him sometime or if they both just came up with it. It's funny, because it actually sounds almost exactly like Asgard, but says that they're asses. Not like donkeys but like jerks.

"He's the Allfather of Dickheads." Tony acts as if he needs to say the last insult. He's probably going to keep saying them until Logan runs out. Not that Loki's complaining, he likes hearing them.

Then Professor Xavier talks before Logan can add another. "Odin was lying about Sleipnir not being real. I... saw him riding Sleipnir." He says quietly. But that was the first flashback and Loki hadn't seen Professor Xavier there like he had in the second.

"Odin didn't rodes my Sleipnir really!" Loki almost shouts, bouncing and hoping Sleipnir doesn't get scared again. It's just a stupid dream like the dream where Sleipnir comes out of him, or that dream where Hans and Gaston killed Hulk, and Dr. Drakken and Shego hurt Tony and Fenrir. "'cause he wouldn't ride a monster! B'sides, said... 'You imb'cile! I cannot ride something that doesn't exist. It's just a figment of your stupid brain!'"

"Loki, you're not crazy. You not hallucinating." Tony echoes Logan's earlier words to Sleipnir. "You were never hallucinating Sleipnir, or Jormungand. Odin was a bastard for telling you that, and I really wanna have a chat with him in the Hulk suit. Sleipnir's here, not in your head. I mean, you feel he has a body, right?" Tony gives him a bit of a weird look.

"Not makin' sense, Tony, nope nope nope! My Sleipnir is in heres!" Loki exclaims, pointing to his brain. Sleipnir's talking in Loki's head, and his door's open again because they were just playing in their field! Love is an open door, and Loki loves his Sleipnir!

It's like Sleipnir and Jormungand are in his head and outside it, when for a long time they were just in it. But anyways, they were always in his head since they first showed up.

"You know how the O- Hulk is in my head?" Bruce asks, fiddling with his glasses. Loki nods. He'd asked Bruce if he ever lost Hulk in there, the first night Sleipnir was missing, and apparently Bruce doesn't lose Hulk like Loki lost Sleipnir. "Well, he's real, isn't he?"

Loki grins and nods. He's really glad that Hulk's real. He wishes Hulk would come out sometime soon- he hasn't seen him since watching Pinocchio. Hank had told Bruce earlier that he could turn into Hulk if he wanted, but Bruce hasn't yet. Loki really hopes he does sometime.

Jormungand said he was always real, and Tony says Sleipnir was too. But how were they in his head then?

"You seem to be a bit of a telepath yourself, which is how you can hear Sleipnir's thoughts, and Fenrir's, and Jormungand's." Professor Xavier explains to Loki, as if he'd read Loki's mind. "That's why they seem to be in your head."

"I can hear what Sleipnir's thinking, too." Tony remarks. "And I'm pretty sure I'm no telepath."

"I know I'm not a telepath." Logan says.

"Yes, well, Sleipnir seems to be able to make his thoughts known to anybody he is around, Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner, Hank and Logan included." Professor Xavier nods at the four of them. Tony and Bruce have talked to Sleipnir before, but that was when he spoke out loud. They never heard him when he was invisible.

Professor Xavier continues, once again seeming to read Loki's thoughts. "What I meant was that you were able to hear him when nobody else was, from a remarkable distance."

Tony mutters something about you definitely got that right.

But Loki hadn't been able to hear Sleipnir for the past several days.

"I'm here now, Loki." Sleipnir replies in Loki's head, like he has the entire time today.

"And I'm here." Loki grins and bounces himself and Sleipnir slightly, but glances at Professor Xavier.

"You're tel'port... tel-eporth... you's that word too, 'Fessor X, 'cause you're in my head?" Loki asks. The wordProfessor Xavier used is kind of like teleport, but different. Loki can teleport, but Professor Xavier probably can't teleport, because otherwise why would he use that wheeled chair of his? Can Sleipnir teleport?

"Yes, I am indeed a telepath." Professor Xavier says the word slowly and clearly, which is nice of him because it sounds so similar but now Loki can hear it ends differently than teleport. "That is why I could enter your head earlier. You hear Sleipnir in your head, correct?"

Loki nods, and Professor Xavier's voice suddenly switches from out loud to being in Loki's head. "Yet you can hear me in your head, too. I am not from your head, am I?"

"No?" Loki thinks. But that's different, right?

"I do not tell many people this," Professor Xavier's voice floats through Loki's mind. "But when I first started hearing voices, I thought I'd gone mad. It took a few years to realize I was hearing the thoughts of those around me."

Loki stares at him in surprise, and Professor Xavier is looking at him understandingly, sympathetically maybe.

"I don't..." Loki frowns, not sure how to put it into words. He doesn't hear Tony's thoughts, or Bruce's, or anybody's but his Monster Family. He doesn't even hear Simba's thoughts. So he's not really telepathic then, is he?

"You saw this barn before you came here, did you not?" Professor Xavier asks in Loki's head. He knows about that?! Of course he does, Loki thinks. He's been in Loki's head so he probably knows everything now. "And you saw Logan. The reason you saw them is because Sleipnir saw them. You weren't totally cut off from each other these past days."

He thought they'd think he was crazy for that. He hadn't really thought about it, maybe thinking the Norns gave him a vision. Don't they do that to Frigga sometimes?

"I saw ins my Sleipnir's head?"

Pacing, he accidentally walks into an open stall door and bumps Sleipnir. He freezes, noticing that Sleipnir's eyes are closed, and he looks a little pained.

"Sleipnir, are you hurts?" Loki asks, ready to start healing.

"No. Not anymore. You made my feet and sheath not hurt, and you have my thanks." Sleipnir snuggles closer to Loki. "It doesn't hurt as much here as The Dark, but it's louder and brighter."

He'd mentioned The Dark before, but Loki's still not sure what it is. Things being brighter than darkeness makes a lot of sense.

"You're not in The Dark now?" Loki asks, hoping Sleipnir's not, because he hated it there. He'd almost fallen in a dark crack in Loki's head when they were playing just a bit ago, and was really scared and Loki hugged him like he's doing now.

"Thor made The Dark go away, with an orange rock that glowed like your hands. And then everything was bright and loud like now. And he held me but I didn't like that." Sleipnir's eyes say. "I love it when you hold me, though."

Loki loves hearing that Sleipnir likes being held by him, because he loves holding Sleipnir and doesn't want to put him down ever, even more than how he never wants to put Simba down. Having both Sleipnir and Simba in his arms right now is amazing.

"Thor?!" Loki cocks his head to the side, staring at Sleipnir his brain's being stupid, but he never has any problem understanding Sleipnir, so why would he misunderstand him now? Maybe it's because Loki hit himself and probably made himself even more of an idiot, and that's why he's hearing Thor's name when it makes no sense?

After all, Thor always made fun of Loki for talking to Sleipnir and the others.

"Thor." Sleipnir repeats, and there's no way Loki misunderstood it, even if he is stupid. Sleipnir always seems to hear what Loki wants to say, not what actually comes out.

Loki laughs, realizing what it is. Sleipnir's jesting, pulling a prank and he almost fell for it!

He's getting some weird looks for laughing though, and his giggles die down. "Are you not... not jesting?"

"He really did get me out. And he brought me to... Jane and Darcy."

"Jane... Thor's love?" Thor had talked a lot about Jane, and had definitely mentioned a Darcy too. And Erik Selvig. Odin hadn't been happy that Thor had fallen in love with a Midgardian like Jane, which means Odin would be really unhappy if he knew that Loki has Tony and the others as his family.

Of course, the Allfather would be absolutely furious about Sleipnir being real, too, probably, because that means he'd been wrong when he said Sleipnir wasn't real.

"Yeah, Jane's really nice, and she studies stars. Thor took me there, and I met them even though you haven't. Thor cleaned me too, because I was really icky and squishy from The Dark." That doesn't sound like something Thor would do, though."He gave me food too."

"What?!" Loki cries. Even Thor gave Sleipnir food before Loki?! But Thor always said Sleipnir wasn't real and it's not fair! It's not fair Logan got to hold Sleipnir first and Thor got to feed him first!

"It was an apple and I threw it up. I like it a lot more when you feed me." Sleipnir adds placatingly, nuzzling Loki again. "And when you hold me. You're so much better than Thor. He's not even in our family. Logan holds me sometimes, better than Thor. I like Logan a lot, but not as much as you."

"Nice to know I rank over Thor." Logan mutters. "Even if he did get you out."

"But how'd Thor feed you? Get you outta..."

"Professor Xavier says The Dark wasn't really your head, Loki." Sleipnir's eyes tell him.

For some reason, that information rings a bell in Loki's head, but it's a little bell, like how people hear Tinker Bell's voice, not a big one like the bells in Quasimodo's 's as if some part of Loki feels that it not being his head isn't entirely new information, like he'd known it before but forgot it, which is crazy because it is new information.

Plus the dark is in his head. It's in the cracks in the ground, and Sleipnir was scared of them when they were playing, but at least the cracks aren't in their field.

Why does everything contradict each other? It's still stupid that he thought he knew The Dark wasn't his head when he's seen it in there, but he's stupid!

"But it was! By our field, r'member?" Loki asks quietly. "'m sorry I have The Dark..."

"Thor says it wasn't your mind too, because he found me there and took it away" Sleipnir says, but Tony says to not believe anything anyone in Asgard said, although that's really hard.

Loki glances at Tony, expecting him to tell him that he shouldn't believe that, except he doesn't.

If The Dark was Loki's head, Thor certainly couldn't have taken it away. So if he did take it away then it couldn't have been Loki's head because Thor can't go into heads.

Everyone here has been saying Sleipnir wasn't in his head. On the other hand, everyone in Asgard always told him he was- Thor especially, but now Sleipnir's saying that Thor changed his mind?

Loki squeezes his eyes shut and groans. His world's getting flipped over again, like when Tony first said he wouldn't hit Loki for doing magic or being blue underneath, or especially letting his blue skin show.

"Hey, kid, I don't know what your head's like, but the reason you couldn't feed Sleipnir is because he was being starved in a dungeon, got it?" Logan's scowling and Loki's kind of reminded of Fenrir with the way Logan's angry.

"Way to go about it subtly." Tony shoots his own scowl at Logan. "And I know that's weird coming from me, but come on!"

"It's like ripping off a bandaid." Logan shrugs. "Better to do it all at once. Not that I have much experience with that, I don't need 'em." Whatever that means.

"A... dungeon...?" Loki asks, mind reeling in total confusion, even though that vaguely rings a bell for some reason, too. An even tinier bell, but still.

Loki doesn't know Logan well enough, but when he glances at Tony, Bruce and even Sleipnir, he sees that they agree with Logan about the dungeon.

"Loki, I totally get it if you're gonna freak out now, I don't blame you at all, but... please don't." Tony wraps Loki in a hug, and Loki's breathing quickly, but he's surrounded by friends. Sleipnir, Tony, Jormungand, Fenrir (who's not tangible), Simba, Stitch, Lilo, Bruce.

Hel isn't here, though, but it's not like she's gone like Sleipnir was. Besides, she's not always there like Jormungand's been.

"Sleipnir...?"

"Fen and Hel and Jor weren't there. Well, Fen was, and we kept each other company, but then he almost got out and was really really angry. There was screaming when the bad men came, and then Fenrir was gone. I missed you Fen, but I'm glad you weren't stuck there anymore."

"I missed you too, Sleipnir." Fenrir's tries to nuzzle Sleipnir but his snout goes through Sleipnir's nose.

"Fenrir..." Loki frowns. Fenrir was there too?! "The Dark gots you in trouble?" Loki asks, although he really meant that The Dark is like a punishment, or Fenrir got in trouble in The Dark or something. He tries to think of a way to say it and blurts out "Cupboard under the stairs!"

It sounds like how the Dursley's locked Harry in his cupboard when he did things they didn't like, like magic or existing. Sleipnir hadn't disappeared yet when Loki read that part and he absolutely hated hearing about Harry's cupboard. He probably would hate seeing Mr. Potato Head being thrown in The Box at Sunnyside Daycare. That was punishment too.

Maybe Fenrir and Sleipnir were down there for existing? But Fenrir's not even real!

"It was like Harry's cupboard, kinda in a way." Tony agrees after a bit, looking really angry and sad at the same time. "Only..." He trails off.

"M'nacles?" Loki asks fearfully. Aladdin and Elsa were both manacled in the dungeons they were in (and Elsa's manacles covered her entire hands, kind of like Stitch's, except Stitch's locked his hands together whereas Elsa's were chained to the floor). Then Jafar, disguised as the creepy old guy, visited Aladdin, and Hans visited Elsa and then tried to execute her, but Elsa blew open the wall with her powers.

Loki had been manacled part of the time he was in the petri dish cell, and sometimes in Asgard, and he knows they're not fun at all, they make everything even worse.

"No manacles. Just The Dark." Sleipnir says, but Fenrir growls and thinks something about chains.

His Sleipnir and Fenrir were locked in a dungeon...

"That's why you couldn't feed them." Tony says, like Logan had. Loki doesn't know if Logan was telling the truth, but Tony doesn't lie. "So stop beating yourself up over not being able to feed them what you eat."

If Sleipnir was in a dungeon, maybe it really isn't Loki's fault that he couldn't get food through Loki's brain? Because apparently he wasn't in Loki's brain?

"Not my fault you's didn't eat?" Loki asks Sleipnir and Fenrir. He's still not sure how Fenrir can eat without a body though.

"It's not your fault." Sleipnir reassures him. "You just couldn't feed us. You're not bad."

"I'm not bad for not feedin' you?" Loki asks. He'd felt horrible about not being able to feed them. But maybe he really couldn't, and then he's not a horrible friend for letting them be hungry. He doesn't want to be a horrible friend.

"No, you're not bad at all. You're not bad at all. It's not your fault Sleipnir didn't get food." Tony insists. "It's the assholes who didn't feed him in the dungeon."

Loki feels really relieved that it really wasn't that he was just too stupid to feed them in his head. "I fed you now." Loki smiles slightly. He's glad he can feed Sleipnir finally.

But the relief isn't much relief, because not everything's good. They were still in a dungeon! Loki rocks back and forth anxiously, hugging Sleipnir tightly.

"I didn't hurt you. They did. Ass-Guardians. They hurt me, hurt you, they always hurt everyone!"

"Exactly. Nothing's your fault. It's the despicable scum who locked them in the dungeon who should pay for it."

"What dungeon?" Loki asks, even as he's already thinking it was below Asgard, although he doesn't know why he thinks that. It could be another realm, right?

"Below Ass-Guard. Did they ever shut you down there?" Tony asks quietly. "Because I wouldn't be surprised if they did."

The guards often voiced threats of dragging him down there because, as they said, he should either be locked away or preferably dead. Odin apparently said that wasn't supposed to happen because they never did take him down there, or kill him. Nobody killed him even though they killed any other Jotun as soon as looking at them, from the stories they told.

One time, Thor had shut Loki in the entrance of the dungeons and held the door so he couldn't escape once as a joke. Loki vaguely remembers feeling conflicting things. He was terrified but some part of him said he should go down because he had this weird feeling he'd find something there, but then it was almost like Sleipnir and Fenrir were telling him to not go any farther down, to stay away.

"I coulda gone down..." Loki mutters. "Coulda gone down to bring you foods for real. Gots you outta that bad, bad... horridible place!" Is that a word?

"Loki, no, don't even start that." Tony says. "Not everything's your fault. Actually, none of this is your fault. Blaming yourself isn't where we should be going with this."

"Coulda gone down!" It's still his fault! Loki raises a hand, angry at himself. He could have helped but he didn't!

Tony grabs Loki's wrists, not exactly gently but not harshly. It doesn't hurt. "Don't hit yourself either. I know I can't stop you from doing that, because you godly alien beings are freaking strong, but it's not your fault."

"How?" Loki demands. Letting them stay in the dungeon where they weren't fed is way worse than things he'd gotten beatings for in Asgard, so he'd deserve a really long beating, one that would end with broken bones and passing out. Sleipnir was right under him, hurting, and he wasn't there for him!

Jormungand tightens around Loki's arms, hugging him, but it's also probably to ensure he won't hit himself in the head again. Loki knows hitting himself in the head is stupid, because it only makes him even more of a broken idiot than he is already. Hitting himself in other places wouldn't mess up his head any more, but Tony and Sleipnir would probably be sad again if Loki did it more.

"Listen to me." Tony says seriously, with no hint of joking around in his tone or face like there often is. "I know twenty-twenty hindsight is a bitch, but you had no way of knowing they were down there."

Something about that statement seems wrong though, like he had had a way of knowing. He almost feels like he had known once, but he hadn't known that he knew, or he'd forgotten... that doesn't even make sense in his head, and certainly wouldn't if he tried to put it into words, because his mouth doesn't work.

He's probably being crazy, too.

He should have known, though. If he was more than a moron, he should have realized it was weird that Hel and Jormungand never asked for food but Sleipnir was always hungry and Fenrir sometimes was.

"Food coulds be there!" Loki meant to say that he could have taken food down for them.

"It usually wasn't." Sleipnir seems sad but matter-of-fact.

"If I'd went down there..."

"You would not have essscaped had you gone down." Jormungand insists. "It'ssss good you did not."

"Right, what Jormungand said." Tony gives Loki a firm look. "If you had gone down there, you probably would've just gotten locked up as well, and then you would still be there now, probably. I never would've met you, and that would be horrible. I like you."

"But if Thor would help! Could brung food!" Loki blurts, surprising even himself. Where in the Nine did that come from?

"He did help." Bruce says. "He got Sleipnir out. He should have done it earlier, but he did it as soon as he found out. I guess 'better late than never' still applies to this, but it really should have been earlier."

"Nobody woulda hit us none." Loki says, not entirely sure where that came from. People always hit him, including Thor. Why would Thor have stopped anyone from hitting him, or his friends? That's even more ridiculous than Dudley standing up for Harry!

He really is being stupid today.

Loki laughs at himself even though it's not funny. "Idiot! You didn't know!" He can't hit himself because Jormungand is still hugging him.

"Didn't know..." Tony starts to say.

"No! Knew my Sleipnir hads no food! An' Fenrir!" Loki wails. He knew that, but didn't think maybe that meant they were real. Either way, Sleipnir never got food, but at least Fenrir doesn't seem as hungry now as he did before.

"It's good you weren't there." Sleipnir nudges Loki. "It's good you didn't come down. Stop saying you're bad."

"Really? You're not mads I didn't feed you none?"

"You couldn't get hurt by The Dark. I didn't get hurt like you did. You hurt more." His voice in Loki's head makes it sound like Loki had it worse than he did.

How in the Nine Realms can Sleipnir think Loki had it worse?! At least Loki wasn't starving, he got food although he often felt too scared to eat when the warriors were in the feast halls. Surely starving is worse than beatings!

"I'm sorry." Loki chokes out, starting to cry.

"You made The Dark dungeon go away." Sleipnir says, tongue flicking out to wipe Loki's tears away. "When we played and sang and talked, I almost forgot I was there. There's nothing to apologize for. You helped a lot."

Sometimes Loki forgot he was in Asgard when he was with his friends, too.

"You helped." Loki tells them. Was he really good? Was this really not his fault? "Wasn't so 'lone in Ass-Guard withs my Monster Family."

"You really helped me. Helped us. Don't ever be sorry." Sleipnir repeats.

"I didn't helps 'nough." Loki says. Loki hadn't even talked to them for a while!So then they'd been alone, just like he'd been alone.

Were they as sad then as he was?

"Stop it. Stop blaming yourself. You did more than enough. It would've been bad if you went down to feed us." Fenrir gives him a firm look.

"I couldn't stop them when they hurt you. And they kept hurting you when we talked." Sleipnir counters sadly. "I really wanted to kick them whenever they gave you a beating, but I couldn't. I kick Thor now, sometimes. He doesn't even hit me for it or get angry..."

Loki is stunned silent right now.

Sleipnir had mentioned kicking Thor earlier today, too, but the idea of Thor not making someone pay dearly for that is almost unbelievable. Even when he sparred, he didn't just let people get away with hitting him, he always hit back, really hard.

Thor actually hasn't hit Loki since being banished to Midgard a year and a half ago, according to Tony, but surely he would have if Loki kicked him. He never got away with hitting anybody in Asgard, even though they hit him all the time, sometimes for fun. He'd learned that, like everything, the painful way, after lashing out a few times.

It was stupid to attack, really, because they were all stronger than him and it made things worse when they quickly overpowered him (especially when he was a child). A couple times, he'd managed to at least affect somebody with his magic, but he always paid a heavy price for that later.

But if Thor ever does hit Sleipnir for kicking him, Loki decides he'll try to hit Thor with everything he has- fists, frying pan and magic- to pay for hurting his Sleipnir. Even though he'd inevitably be overpowered and get a beating, he'd still avenge Sleipnir. Like an Avenger, like Tony.

No, Tony would stop Thor from beating him, Loki's sure. He wouldn't even get a beating, although he'd do it even if he did. It's not like beatings are new.

"And Fenrir got really mad he couldn't either." Sleipnir adds. "He almost got out a few times."

Fenrir's looking absolutely murderous right now. "I wanted to tear them apart, slowly and painfully, every time they laid a hand on you." He snarls, and he'd often thought- since he never speaks aloud- the same things to Loki in Asgard after Loki got another beating

Loki really wouldn't like to be the receiving end of that rage. He's never been scared of Fenrir, but he was scared of Hel at first because of her dead side (Hel says that's why she hasn't shown herself around Lila or Cooper yet).

"Gelda them." Loki blurts, like he had in the flashback he'd just gone through, and flinches. Saying that was what made the guards slam him into the wall and break the back of his head open.

"What's gelda?" Tony asks, whipping out his phone.

Jarvis, through the phone, says something about castrating, or maybe cats rating, and Tony's eyes go wide with horror.

Loki watches in confusion as Tony seems to almost unconsciously squeeze his legs together and blocks his private parts. Bruce does essentially the same, but not as dramatically as Tony. Logan doesn't even move, while Professor Xavier folds his hands over his lap, since he's sitting in his chair with wheels.

"You'd actually just... tear someone's balls off?" Tony looks at Fenrir in shock.

"Not with his mouth, his claws." Loki explains, remembering what Fenrir had said in his flashback.

"I wouldn't want their balls anywhere near my mouth." Fenrir's eyes say, seeming slightly disgusted at the thought, though he raises a paw and slashes an intangible claw for emphasis.

"I'm gonna have to watch you! You're vicious, you know that?" Tony actually laughs almost approvingly, though, despite his reaction of covering his privates.

"Fenrir threatened to rip my throat out when I was in Loki's head." Charles says rather mildly, as if he's discussing the weather instead of being threatened. Loki remembers that, but it had only been a warning.

Fenrir can almost be scarier than Odin, in a way, because at least Odin doesn't bite people. Well, Fenrir can't, he's just air even if Loki can feel him, he's still intangible. Sleipnir has a body now, like Jormungand, but Fenrir still doesn't. Loki wishes he did, because while he can kind of feel Fenrir when he curls up next to him now, it'd be nice if he had a real body. Plus then he could bite anyone who tried to hurt Loki.

"'Fessor X, he can't. No body, 'member?" Loki says. He wishes Fenrir had a real body like Sleipnir and Jormungand do. He wishes Hel had a real body too.

But at the same time, if Sleipnir didn't have a body, he wouldn't have been starving...

"...I think Fenrir does have a body, Snoopy." Tony says.

But Fenrir still isn't tangible like Sleipnir and Jormungand. Loki strokes a hand over his huge wolf and confirms this as Tony adds "Not here. Somewhere else, I mean..."

But Fenrir's here, he just doesn't have a body! Loki paces anxiously. Fenrir's real too... This is so much, too much.

"Loki, I know this is a lot to take in." Professor Xavier says gently. "Especially all at once. You shouldn't have to take any of this in. None of this should have happened in the first place."

Loki's still not done processing everything that had apparently happened. He's still trying to wrap his head around the idea that Sleipnir and Jormungand always had bodies, and now all this stuff was dumped on top of that.

"If you want to rage, I totally understand the feeling." Bruce gives a smile that's sort of a grimace.

Getting mad only ever made things worse in Asgard, because sometimes he'd hit people and then they made sure to really put him in his place. Fenrir raged, though, a lot. Sleipnir even says so.

"Fenrir... where's your body?" Bruce asks. Loki can't speak right now but he's wondering the same thing. "Are you locked up in a dungeon somewhere?"

"I shall return." Fenrir disappears, and Loki would have started to panic at the sudden disappearance even though he's not always visible, but Fenrir said he would be back. Does he really have a body somewhere?

Loki rocks and strokes Sleipnir in his arms.

When Fenrir reappears, he seems almost hesitant. Eventually, his eyes say something in Loki's mind about chains and caves.

"You're... chained in a cave?" Tony asks slowly. Apparently he'd gotten the message too. He really sounds angry. Tony hates caves, Loki knows. "So you're not in a dungeon?"

Fenrir confirms this, but says "Caves are similar to dungeons. Dark, hard, cold, wet." which makes Loki really scared for him. Fenrir quickly sends Loki a look and tries to press up against him. He still goes through, although Loki can kind of feel his fur, although maybe it's his imagination. "It's not as bad here as the dungeon, really. I get more food here. I'm not hurt, Loki."

"Really?" Loki hopes he really means it. Don't chains hurt?

"Why couldn't I have gone where you were when you disappeared?" Sleipnir asks Fenrir. "You get food..."

"You get food now, too, Sleip." Fenrir reminds him.

"Don't worry about me. I'm tough." Fenrir seems to puff himself up a bit.

"Fenrir, we gotta finds you..." Loki says, still hugging Sleipnir and Simba and kneeling down by his wolf to bury his head against his intangible fur that kind of feels like fur anyways.

"Do you know where you are?" Tony asks. "Aside from...?"

Fenrir slowly shakes his head.

"Well, we're gonna find you." Tony declares. "You know, all those assholes would totally deserve having their balls torn off. Well, I guess they didn't have any balls to begin with. Bullies never do, picking on those who won't fight back. Abusers are the worst sorts of bullies."

"I bit one of their hands in The Dark- the dungeons." Fenrir growls wordlessly but his voice in Loki's head is both angry and proud. It's like he's reading Loki's mind, which of course he is, because he's in there except maybe he's not, too. "And when they chained me up, I bit Tyr's hand off."

"You never told me that." Loki frowns in confusion. Maybe it's like how Captain Hook's hand was eaten by the crocodile, except the crocodile didn't bite it off- Peter Pan cut it off and threw it to the crocodile.

"Yeah, why did none of you ever mention this stuff before?!" Tony demands.

This is so surreal that Loki wonders if maybe it's really a game, like fighting Scar and Gantu. If so, Loki wants to make it happier.

Loki decides he's going to find Fenrir.

He runs around the stables, still clutching Sleipnir and pretending one of the stalls is the cave Fenrir mentioned, with Simba and Stitch running beside him. They fight some imaginary foes, and finally make it to the cave... which is really Sleipnir's stall.

Loki yanks the door open and runs to his Fenrir, while Stitch and Simba pretend to bite through imaginary chains. Once he's free, Fenrir curls up beside Loki and snuggles both him and Sleipnir. Jormungand wraps around them.

But Fenrir still doesn't have a body like they do.

Then, they pretend to beat up everybody who didn't feed Sleipnir (not Loki, but mean guards like the ones that beat Loki up) and everyone who hurt all of them. Stitch spits a frying pan into Loki's hands, which he swings in the air with one hand as he holds Sleipnir with his other arm.

Fenrir, Simba and Stitch pretend to bite their enemies. They're imaginary opponents, not even visible like Scar and his hyenas and Gantu, although Loki could probably make illusions of them. He doesn't though, so they stay invisible as they totally defeat them.

Loki imagines sending them to Helheim, and Hel makes them eternally sorry they'd ever hurt Loki or his family.

If only it was real...

---

Thor sits in the kitchen in the school with a bottle of beer, a few long 'hero' sandwiches (aptly named, seeing as they're defeating his hunger in a glorious battle in Thor's stomach) consisting of long rolls of bread rather than small flat squares, as well as some pizza, and a box of the delicious Tarts of Pop. Midgard has amazing food, although their beer isn't as good as the mead in Asgard.

Midgardian liquor is much weaker than that in Asgard. Thor has yet to get drunk on Midgardian liquor, even the stuff known as vodka (Tony has tried to get him drunk at many Avengers feasts). Apparently Steve never gets drunk, either, but instead chooses not to drink.

Most of the students at this school are still in their lessons, some of which are quite odd from what he's heard of them while wandering the corridors over the past several days. Really, what is the point of reading a book- written not even two centuries ago, by a dead Midgardian- about the life of a Midgardian lady named Jane? At first, when Thor heard someone mention Jane, he thought they were talking about his beloved Jane, who he had visited before coming to this school. Then he'd realized her surname was Eyre.

He'd heard Storm, who teaches English and Midgardian history, and her students in the English class discussing how this Jane, as a child, was unloved and hurt verbally and physically, which had made Thor think of Loki. Similarly, both this Jane Eyre and Loki had taken solace in books, if what one of the students said about this Jane is to be believed. Only there was something about a Red Room for Jane. Natasha had vaguely mentioned a Red Room once, and Thor isn't sure if they're the same one or not.

Storm had apparently noticed him standing out in the hallway a few days ago, because she sought him out later, asking if he wanted to read it, adding that she could lend him the book. When he asked if there were any glorious battles in it, she said there weren't any battles, and Thor doesn't know what could be of interest if there aren't any fights. Furthermore, according to Storm, both Jane Eyre and the book are fictional.

Why do Midgardians make up such dull stories? Thor wonders once again as he munches on one of his heroic sandwiches.

All the children- as well as the adults- here seem to have powers like Storm, Logan and Charles, but they're all different. Some of these powers are the same things Thor and the others had beaten Loki up for using in Asgard.

It's quite a shock, and sometimes Thor still finds himself thinking bad things about them like anyone in Asgard would, but he tries really hard not to voice them. He needs to stay for Sleipnir, even though Sleipnir doesn't seem to like his visits, and if he is not accepting of these mutants, he'll get kicked out.

Thor recently met a blue man here, who is not a Jotun, named Kurt. Kurt is capable of disappearing and reappearing elsewhere in the blink of an eye and a puff of smelly smoke. He would have been treated the same as Loki on Asgard, although perhaps he would have been able to evade their attacks for a time.

Hank is also blue, but he is quite muscular and Thor suspects he would be able to give a good fight against an Asgardian. Had he been in there, they may not have been able to treat him like a training post.

Hank and Kurt are... surprising. They are blue-skinned, yet seem perfectly civil. Not exactly what he had expected.

Thor had also had a conversation with a young boy named Bobby, who is capable of making ice just like a Jotun. Yet is not blue or a Jotun, just like the man, Frozone, who had fought a huge robot and is considered a hero in that movie, is not a Jotun.

Hadn't Loki mentioned someone else who can do that as well? He'd had a doll of a lady who apparently makes ice and was hated for it. It's quite strange and unmanly that he has so many toys, but Loki being strange and unmanly is nothing new.

While some of the mutants would not have been well-received in Asgard or by Thor himself, Storm is a mutant with powers much like Thor's own. Logan seems like he is a capable fighter and would not have been hated.

Yet, Storm and Logan stand among the others, even the blue ones, all proclaiming themselves mutants.

This school is a safe place for mutants, where they are accepted rather than hated and feared as they would be in Asgard and apparently are in much of Midgard as well.

Thor looks up as Logan and Tony Stark enter the kitchen together. He didn't even know that Tony was here.

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Who's paying for you eating everybody out of house and home, Pikachu? Or, more accurately, who's paying for you eating everybody out of Awesome Hogwarts-esque Mutant School and home? I guess since I'm a billionaire and a philanthropist I should just have them send the food bill my way so they can spend their money on education instead of countless boxes of Pop Tarts."

Logan barely acknowledges Thor's presence and gives Thor no sort of greeting whatsoever as he grabs a beer from the fridge.

"Logan, buddy, you've got to come to my tower sometime. I've got actual beer, not this sludge." Tony glances at a bottle of beer with a comical, over the top air of distaste. Yet, all the same, he pops off the top with a corkscrew and takes a sip from the bottle.

Logan sends Tony an unimpressed look as if to say this beer isn't sludge. Thor isn't sure if Logan would actually go to Stark Tower, but the man hadn't declined immediately like he probably would if Thor invited him anywhere.

Thor knows that Logan doesn't like him, and they've barely spoken after their initial conversation when Thor first brought Sleipnir to this 'school' place. Thor had tried to make conversation with Logan once a few days ago when they'd crossed paths in the barn, but Logan had just told him to perform the rather impossible act of having sex with himself and he'd used some weird Midgardian word for it.

During his stay at this school, Thor has gotten the impression that Logan is not particularly social or welcoming. One of the students, a teenage girl named Rogue, hangs around Logan a lot, and he seems to like her rather than just barely tolerating her presence. Furthermore, Thor's seen the Professor, Charles, and Logan together on more than one occasion.

Sleipnir had seemed to like Logan immediately, something Thor still doesn't entirely understand, especially since the man had just sprouted those lengthy claws. Yet, oddly enough, Logan is almost... gentle with Sleipnir, despite seeming somewhat gruff and reclusive most of the time, with most people, aside from Rogue and the professor.

Thor's even seen Logan carrying Sleipnir on his back when Sleipnir is small, and offering support when he's big. When Thor brought him, Sleipnir didn't weight much more when he was large than when he was small, or rather, the weight difference between large and small would have been greater if he was a healthy weight rather than skin and bones.

"I've actually got a party going on tomorrow, although it's not really the kind of party that involves alcohol." Tony's apparently still talking about Logan going to the tower, and Thor is very surprised at the last part of the remark. When has Tony ever thrown a party without alcohol?

"Thor, I think you'd learn a lot." There's something in Tony's tone there that Thor hasn't quite worked out. The billionaire then adds "Actually, I'll need to confirm you're on the guest list first." Presumably, that means checking with Lady Potts, because she seems to plan a lot of Tony's events.

After taking a sip of beer, Tony fixes Thor with a much more serious look.

"Okay, so you said that you didn't know Sleipnir was in the dungeons, and I'm gonna take your word on that." Thor's glad he's not getting blamed for that. There are a ton of things he can and should be blamed for, but the dungeon is not one of them. "And you didn't know he was real. But tell me, when you went to my Malibu house, did you notice anything about Jormungand? Because he's apparently real too. I'm not exactly surprised at that, but the fact he was literally under my nose for a few weeks and I didn't notice is kind of shocking."

Thor frowns in confusion, and Tony sighs. "Loki's snake. He claims he can grow to the size of Earth, and he was here all along...?" He raises his eyebrows. "That doesn't ring a bell at all? He called himself the Midgard Serpent."

"I know not of what you speak." Thor says. A snake that encircles Midgard? That sounds insane. Besides, the snake Loki had was nowhere near that big, it was perhaps big enough to be a belt.

Tony's studying his reaction. "No myths about him or anything? I mean, you'd think he'd be there, you have like dwarves and stuff in them. Don't you have that Heimdall guy who sees everything? I take it he didn't mention anything about Jormungand when you saved Sleipnir?"

"I did not have time to ask Heimdall about the others, as Father was coming." Thor explains.

"Okay, well, he's here so I guess it doesn't really matter. What about Fenrir- the wolf." Tony takes another swig of beer. Anger swirls in his eyes. "He was apparently in your glorious realm's dark hellish dungeons with Sleipnir at one point, but-"

"I checked the other cells." Thor answers. "I did not see a wolf. Unless he was in another form..." Can Fenrir even shift forms?

Thor still needs to free the other poor souls who are trapped there. Nobody deserves that fate which is worse than death, not even enemy warriors, or those who committed treason against Asgard, or slaves. Thor knows he saw at least one slave down there, though he's not sure who the other people were.

What if Fenrir was one of them, and he'd rescued Sleipnir but not Fenrir?

"He says he's not there anymore. He got mad when Loki was having the shit beat out of him and almost escaped. So he was taken away and chained in a cave, and he bit off some dude named Tyr's hand." Tony scowls darkly, although he seems rather satisfied at the hand part.

"Tyr?" Thor asks. Tyr had mentioned getting his hand bitten off by a wolf, but was that really Loki's imaginary friend? Except apparently, like Sleipnir and Jormungand, Fenrir isn't imaginary.

"Yeah, so he's in a cave. Which narrows things down, but there are still a lot of caves even on Earth, and he could be in another freaking realm for all I know. Are there like any significant caves or anything. Like, some ritualistic spot with a sign saying 'chain victims here for all eternity just because they tried to escape our shitty dungeons and rescue their friend'?"

"No. But I will ask Heimdall where he is." Thor says. Heimdall had told him about Sleipnir after all. Well, not specifically, he'd given him a map. Would he be able to answer Thor's question of where Fenrir is?

"Good. Because I don't care what it takes, he's going to be freed. I'm pretty sure he's in a worse place than Hel right now, although hopefully it's not worse than he's letting on. By the way, is Hel really ruler of the dead or whatever? That's what Loki says, but she didn't show up today. Maybe she was busy being your version of Satan or the Grim Reaper or whatever?"

This one, Thor actually has heard of.

"There have been recent rumors and tales of a new ruler in Helheim." Thor agrees, although of course he doesn't know for sure what the realm of the dead is like. "I believe Loki just decided to pretend she was his friend." It had always seemed really odd.

"Really, Point Break? We're three for four now and you're doubting the fourth? She seems sentient, I'm betting she's real. Although, if she rules the dead or whatever, she's not in any danger. Can you even visit the realm of the dead without, you know, dying?"

"Anyway, Fenrir's the one we need to focus on first." Tony says. "I'm hoping I can get your help on this, since you know a lot more realms and all shit that than I do."

Tony takes a sip of beer. "It'll help redeem you from being an abusive asshole." The man runs a hand over his face and through his hair, sighs and then starts to speak again.

"That... I was gonna stop dredging up the shit you did in your past. It doesn't do anybody any good. Look, over the phone, I kinda snapped at you." Tony stares into his beer bottle, looking like he'd rather not be saying this. "And, well, you did the right thing rescuing Sleipnir. Without you, Sleipnir would still be down there in that hell, or maybe dead. You could've just left him and we would have never known. But I still blamed you and took everything out on you as if you were the one who put him there."

Tony's just stating facts, but Thor wonders if this is supposed to be an apology.

"No, I could not have left Sleipnir, despite the fact I had to smuggle him out so nobody saw him." Thor declares. He truly would not have been capable of leaving Sleipnir down there, knowing what the conditions were like, without hating himself. "I would have never been able to forgive myself if I had turned and walked away."

He's not sure how whoever imprisoned Sleipnir and the others down there can live with themselves. Worst is that it was most likely Odin who ordered them to be imprisoned in such conditions.

"I wish you'd found him earlier. Because hopefully you would've been decent enough anytime in your life to rescue Sleipnir." Tony remarks. The even though you were an abusive asshole is unspoken this time, but Thor still gets the message.

"I wish I had found Sleipnir earlier, as well." Thor says completely honestly. "He did not deserve to be down there, nor did Fenrir."

Logan and Tony both give him looks that say 'you've moved up to stating the blatantly obvious. Of course they didn't deserve it'.

"If what you say is true, Fenrir only bit off Tyr's hand after the dungeons." Thor continues. Which makes it seem like it was a reaction to the dungeons. Having been down there, Thor sympathizes more with Fenrir than Tyr now.

"He wouldn't have deserved that place even if he'd done it before." Tony tells him firmly.

"Of course." Thor agrees, and he really means it. "Not even Frost Giants deserve that."

The look Tony's giving Thor right now somehow that what he'd just said was both wrong and right.

"Not even Loki." Thor amends.

He'd shut Loki in the entrance to the dungeons, leading down to the general cells with energy as walls and actual light, not knowing back then that the horrific dungeons were below it.

Thor's pretty sure he would have freed even Loki, or a random Frost Giant warrior, from the dungeons had he found them there. He did not have time to free the other miserable wretches down there when he'd freed Sleipnir, but he should do it soon.

It will be difficult to free them, though, if Odin tries to stop him.

Thor is Prince, destined for the throne, but the Allfather is still a lot more powerful than he is. He could simply strip Thor of his powers once again like he'd did when banishing Thor to Midgard.

Tony's comment about Thor being decent enough to rescue Sleipnir falls very flat considering Thor had participated in Loki's mistreatment and abuse for the majority of their lives and had never thought about rescuing Loki from Asgard- and Thor himself- for a thousand years. Then, only a few short months ago, Thor and Frigga had decided that sending Loki to Midgard would be best. This was long overdue, but Thor has a feeling that his mother had wanted to send Loki away from Asgard since long before they did.

"So since you didn't know Sleipnir or Fenrir were in that hellhole, I take it you don't know why they were there, or for how long?" Tony frowns. "Actually, I'm not sure I want to know how long Sleipnir was down there. Or Fenrir, although he probably wasn't there nearly as long and claims the cave isn't as bad. I'm not sure if that's just bravado or not- Sleipnir's illusion didn't look or act like it was starving, and then you found him."

"It is as you said. I only just discovered he was there, or that dungeons so cruel existed in the first place. My only guess for why he was down there is that he was viewed as a monster."

"Do you see him as a monster?" Tony asks as though he already knows the answer.

"Nay, I do not." Thor answers solemnly. At least, not now. However, in his younger days- had he known Sleipnir was real, had Sleipnir been in Asgard's halls instead of the dungeons below it- Thor probably would have viewed him as a monster, too. He probably would have treated the horse just as horribly as he'd treated Loki.

It's good that hadn't happened, although even Loki's life would most likely have been preferable to the dungeons.

Coming to Midgard would have been much better than the time Loki had spent in Asgard, although Tony has been alive for only forty-some short years, so he would not have been alive, much less an adult. Thor can tell that Tony and Loki like each other a lot, which is odd since Tony is perhaps the brightest man on Midgard and Loki is now nothing but a simpleton. They really have nothing in common and Thor is shocked they became such strong friends.

Thor wonders what things would have been like had Loki been at this school. However, it has apparently only been around for about half a century, and was started by none other than Professor Xavier himself, as well as Hank, the more muscular blue mutant.

Furthermore, according to the mutants here, Loki might not have been accepted everywhere on Midgard, so perhaps it would not have been too different from his experience in Asgard. Even though he's significantly smaller than the average Jotun, Loki is still a Frost Giant and is therefore stronger than Midgardians. He would probably be able to overpower a Midgardian attacking him, assuming it was not Captain Rogers.

Half a century seems negligible considering the lifespans of Aesir and Jotun, but Loki's only been on Midgard about two months now, and Tony seems to have helped him a lot.

It's a pity Tony does not have the lifespan of an Asgardian, because he will die well before Loki and Sleipnir, and Thor himself. Thor is quite fond of his shield-brothers, his fellow Avengers, and the thought of them dying is quite disheartening, to put it mildly.

If he were to eat Idunn's apples, Tony would have the lifespan of an Asgardian, but the apples are not given out lightly, and are never given out to mortals as far as Thor knows. He sincerely doubts Odin would let him gift one to Tony, and he'd absolutely refused to gift one to Jane. To Thor's annoyance, Odin clearly does not think Jane is a suitable lady for Thor to court.

"I wish I could offer you one of Idunn's Golden Apples," Thor tells Tony.

"Why? Do you actually care about Loki being left alone?" Tony asks. "Actually, I'm assuming his friends will live as long as he does, right?"

"Aye, they will. But you will not, unless you get an apple." Thor answers.

Stealing just one to smuggle out would be difficult, and for a Midgardian, the apples need to be eaten about every century or so, or their effects would fade.

As one of Midgard's heroes, wouldn't Tony deserve one of the golden apples of youth? Would he want one?

"Or the Philosopher's Stone." Tony mutters, rolling his eyes. "Although, that's like actual legend, like I thought you were. But Nicolas Flamel was an real historical person, Rowling didn't make him up. But alchemy isn't science... ugh, no, that can't be real." Tony groans and throws his head back. "But you couldn't either."

"What do you speak of?"

"It's a stone that grants immortality and turns any metal into pure gold." Tony answers. "Not that I need any more money, but... being immortal would be really weird. Like Cap, he outlived everybody."

"We were talkin' about Fenrir, right?" Logan interrupts. "Not some stone."

"Right. So, can I count on your help in finding Fenrir?" Tony asks, back on the most important topic. "Hell, I probably can't even get to another realm. Unless Dr. Foster's made an Einstein-Rosen Bridge yet?"

"I will lend my aid." Thor swears, dipping his head. "But do not expect it to be at all easy, Man of Iron."

"Yeah, I didn't think it would." Tony says. "So you're gonna ask Heimdall if he knows where Fenrir is."

"Aye. Friend Stark. Did Logan take you to see Sleipnir?" Thor asks, finding it a little surprising that Logan is with Tony. Although during that initial conversation Thor had with the clawed man, he was somewhat reminded of Tony.

"Technically no." Tony says. "Charles did. Loki was pretty shocked to see Sleipnir."

"Loki is here?" Thor asks, although he really shouldn't be surprised. Apparently Professor Xavier knew Loki before Thor even brought Sleipnir here, and of course if Tony was visiting Sleipnir, he'd bring Loki along.

Thor's glad he and Loki haven't crossed paths yet. He has no idea what he would say to Loki if he did see him.

"Yeah, in the stables with Sleipnir. We had to wait until Sleipnir didn't look like he was at Death's door..." Tony says as Thor churns with guilt. After all, Thor had constantly mocked Loki for talking to Sleipnir, believing he was merely a figment of Loki's imagination. He'd even beat Loki up over it, since it seemed weird and Father definitely hated it.

"Sleipnir has really missed Loki." Thor's unsure of what to say. The horse had made that quite obvious, although oddly enough he acted like Loki had suddenly disappeared once Thor brought Sleipnir to Midgard, even though Loki was not in the dungeons with Sleipnir and is closer to him now than when he'd been on Midgard and Sleipnir had still been in the dungeons.

"Loki missed Sleipnir a ton too." Tony says rather flippantly, giving a grin that doesn't quite reach his eyes. There's a lot of emotions playing through the man's brown eyes.

Suddenly, the man grins and completely changes the subject. "So, I've heard Sleipnir's been kicking you and you haven't hit him... which is good because you shouldn't be hitting him."

"I have not laid a finger on Sleipnir." Thor confirms truthfully. "Not even when he bit me, which hurt worse than his kick."

Tony and Logan both smirk at that. Logan's seen Sleipnir attack Thor a fair number of times and always seems to like watching Thor get kicked.

Thor hadn't even considered hitting Sleipnir the first time he had been kicked (Sleipnir is so frail it's hard to think that anyone would hit him) nor any of the other times. Each time it's happened, Sleipnir was scared, as if worried Thor really would beat him, although he's been just a bit less scared with every time Thor hasn't hit him.

Thor's even promised to Sleipnir that he won't hit him, but Sleipnir's eyes have just accused "You hit Loki."

Despite his apparent fear of getting beaten, Sleipnir's still taken to trying to kick or bite Thor whenever he gets near, and had even kicked him in his most tender area once. He's still not strong enough for it to really hurt, though.

He has been gaining weight, to Thor's relief, but he is still underweight. Once he recovers, his kicks will probably hurt a lot more.

Thor deserves to be kicked.

"Oh yeah, Sleipnir mentioned something about Alldaddy Old-Man trying to ride him, and bucking him off so he landed in a pile of literal shit." Tony says but doesn't even pause to give Thor a chance to reply and instead just keeps talking, not that that's anything new. "I mean, I didn't see it, and I don't even know why I'm mentioning this, because you clearly think Loki's crazy like you did back there..."

Why in the Nine would Odin ride Sleipnir? Odin couldn't ride Sleipnir if he was in the dungeon all this time. Thor frowns in confusion. "Man of Iron, I know not of what you speak."

Tony studies Thor closely. "So Odin didn't try to turn Sleipnir into his steed?"

The idea seems ridiculous. If Odin wanted Sleipnir as his steed, he would not have been in the dungeon. This seems like just another weird Loki story. "I strongly doubt he ever considerd riding Sleipnir." He tells Tony.

Still, Odin had locked Sleipnir and Fenrir up.

When he'd come to Tony's tower on the Midgardian holiday of Halloween, Thor had defended his father. Now, he just can't defend his actions anymore. Not only had Odin most likely been the one to lock Sleipnir in the dungeons, but he'd lied to Loki so many times. He'd gotten Thor to hate and torture Loki for his magic, even though Odin has magic himself.

Now it turns out he'd lied to Loki about Sleipnir not being real, and punished Loki for talking about or to Loki.

All that time, Loki had actually been talking to Sleipnir when Sleipnir was most likely alone in the horrid dungeons.

"Of course, nobody would ride a monster in Ass-Guard." Logan speaks up, to Thor's surprise, glaring at him with a very cold look as he says this. "They'd just lock the monster up instead."

"Right." Tony mutters equally darkly, and glances at Thor. "So... I guess it was just a dream? I mean, Sleipnir said it was but Charles doesn't seem sure. Plus you would've surely known if Odin was riding Sleipnir, since he's your father and you don't seem to have Daddy Issues or anything. Or, I dunno, you would've seen Sleipnir in the stables or something. Although I guess Loki would have, too."

"The Allfather's horses are in their own private set of stables. My horses, and the other horses, are elsewhere."

"Okay... so are you like banned from entering his stables? Have you never stepped foot in them?"

"I have only rarely been in Father's stables." Thor answers. "I never saw Sleipnir on any of the occasions I did enter."

"So pretty much he could've been there and you wouldn't know?" Tony sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Honestly I have no freaking clue, maybe it is just a dream."

"Are you sure this is not just Loki being weird?" Thor asks, since he still cannot imagine Odin riding Sleipnir. The Allfather always hated it when Loki talked about Sleipnir or the others. "He is a lot stranger than he used to be. Yet, at the same time, Loki used to be a lot stranger than he is now."

"First of all, don't phrase it like that." Tony tells him sharply. "And that seems kind of paradoxical, don't you think? 'He's weirder than he was, but he's not as weird as he was'."

Thor's not entirely sure he wants to go into how Loki changed with Tony. Tony wouldn't like it.

"Did you have words with Loki about Sleipnir?" Thor asks, meaning the dungeons. "Did he understand?"

"Yeah, we did." Tony then narrows his eyes a bit. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Loki's rather slow." Thor blurts. Loki used to seem smarter, but now his eyes are dazed and he's a simpleton. He even cries.

Tony doesn't know Loki was smarter, though.

"He's not some kind of idiot kid, okay?!" Tony says hotly. Logan doesn't say anything, but Thor sees that it looks like he doubts that statement.

Tony's eyes are only on Thor as he tells him. "He's almost certainly smarter than you, HammerTime. I've never seen you solve a Rubik's Cube, or read about animals, astronomy and circuits for fun. Or fold an origami Sleipnir without instructions."

Thor knew Loki liked reading, but he hadn't heard of the other stuff. He's not even sure what origami is.

"We just had to flip his world over and tell him the opposite of everything he's ever known!" Tony exclaims. "Of course it's gonna take a while for it to sink in that his best friend, who everyone said was fake, was really real and starving in a dungeon. He blamed himself for that, you know."

Why would Loki blame himself for Sleipnir being in the dungeon? It is not his fault in the slightest.

"You know, don't you?" Tony asks with narrowed eyes, staring at Thor. "You know what happened to his head. Well, I mean, even you're not that clueless."

"Aye, he is different. At one point, Loki had quite the silver tongue." Thor starts. That was one of the most obvious changes- well that and that he started crying when they beat him, but Thor doesn't really want to mention that.

He'd seemed to get stranger gradually for some things, although in retrospect some of that strangeness was him talking to a slowly increasing number of "imaginary" friends. He always seemed quite odd when he talked to thin air.

But there were a few times he seemed to get worse quicker, or forget things. Like after he'd been gone for a while and was asking where 'he' was... was he asking about Sleipnir? Heimdall had said something weird about Loki birthing him, which doesn't make sense. But Loki had stopped asking after a bit, and his eyes were slightly glazed, though not as glassy as they are now.

"He sure doesn't have a silver tongue now." Logan mutters.

"He once almost talked me into swearing an oath to never again lay a hand nor weapon on him." Thor tells them. Loki was weird then, but not to the point where it totally took away his silver tongue.

"Wait, he almost got you to promise not to beat the crap out of him?" Tony asks in shock, with some other emotions- awe and sadness, perhaps- in his tone as well.

"Aye, and to protect him from the others attempting to do him harm. At the time it is the last thing I would have wanted, but he made it sound... intriguing." Thor doesn't remember how Loki managed to spin that to make it sound like protecting him was something Thor wanted, but he had.

"And by getting you to protect him, all those jerk guards wouldn't bother him, because you're higher up than them. That's actually a great plan." Tony says, sounding impressed and mad at the same time.

There was something else about that incident. He remembers that Frigga was off in another realm, but there was something else Loki did, because Odin got really mad.

Thor hunts through his memory.

"Loki was also attempting to persuade me to help with something else..." He muses, and then he remembers. "A valiant quest to free those trapped in The Dark..." Thor's eyes suddenly go wide in realization.

That sounds a lot like Sleipnir and Fenrir, as if Loki had actually known about them being in the dungeons.

Tony seems to be thinking the same thing. "I take it you didn't, though? Help him, I mean? Well, they would've been out by now. But you just said you would have helped if you'd known. Did you lie to me?"

"I did not get the chance. Huginn and Muninn saw and reported to the Allfather." Thor answers. "I had no idea what he was talking about either, with The Dark. I thought him mad."

Odin had arrived, furious, and pulled Loki away, presumably to punish him. Frigga had been off in another realm at the time, and Thor suspects that was the only reason Loki had gone to him instead of Frigga, because Frigga liked Loki a lot more.

When Thor saw Loki after that, he was even odder than before, wandering around, dazed as if constantly lost. He barely said a coherent word for years afterwards as he dragged around a bit of rope with him everywhere.

No longer did Loki read books, which he did a lot before. He seemed to particularly like books about Hnefatafl, although he didn't own a board or pieces. Thor had sometimes found Loki playing Hnefatafl by himself before the incident (although now he wonders if he was actually playing with one of his invisible friends), using rocks and lines drawn in the dirt by the stables (because the stables or the library had always been his favorite places, it seemed).

Thor never had the patience for strategy games despite Odin saying warriors needed to learn strategy. Thor never studied the positions of the rocks on Loki's dirt boards, instead just kicking the pieces (or Loki) for fun.

He's ashamed of himself.

But what Thor's just realized now is that Loki had seemed to totally forget the whole incident with trying to get Thor's help. Just like how he never once mentioned anything about the time when he was missing from Asgard earlier.

Had Odin done something to Loki's brain? Something more than just hit it?

Loki's improved since then, though Thor still always thought him odd.

"Yeah, but you could have gone down there and checked!" Tony says. "He told you about them, right?"

"I thought he was mad." Thor mutters Loki already seemed crazy, talking to nobody, and right after Loki left, the effect of his words seemed to fade.

"How did he even know about Sleipnir or the others if they were in totally different places?" Tony asks, still clearly annoyed.

"Heimdall said something odd about Loki birthing Sleipnir." Thor blurts out, much like how he'd let slip that Mother and Father use magic and seidr just like Loki does. By hating Loki's magic, Thor had essentially been hating his parents as well, and he's not sure why Odin taught him to view magic as extremely unmanly when he himself wields it.

Thor's statement is answered with the sound of Tony's beer bottle shattering on the floor.

Well, this cleared up some things, like where Jormungand is, and left other things open, like where Fenrir is. Well, I gave you a bit :)

At least they've kinda gotten rid of some of Loki's self-blame... and poor Loki. So much was dumped on him, and like Tony said, it's kind of natural it hasn't totally sunken in yet.

I'm honestly not sure if Thor's gonna show up at Lila's party or not. It would be good for him to watch Frozen (I'm not going to do a whole movie synopsis, though, been there, done that) and asking Heimdall to look for Fenrir wouldn't take that long...

Wow, I'm STILL not done with the stuff at Xavier's School... sorry if it's taking too long.

Let me know what you think of this!