Work Text:
Tony made it his mission to pour himself his drink very, very slowly.
An uncomfortable silence stretched as the pineapple juice bubbled out of the carton, but he refused to look at the Asgardian standing in front of him, his irritation building up along with the content of his single glass. He hadn't offered one to the intruder.
When the glass was filled, he took his time to close the carton and set it down on the counter. He stared at the bright yellow drink, jaws clenched, until the other man cleared his throat in evident discomfort.
“Lord Stark?”
Tony allowed his eyes to dart to the stranger. He was dressed in a typical Asgardian armor, as far as Tony could judge: showy, golden, probably too heavy to be genuinely practical. The helmet was mounted with a pair of golden horns, which stretched up from the side of his head to almost form a circle. It didn't help that the man looked too young and too embarrassed to own the armor. At least, Thor and Loki made the leather and big helmets seem natural. This guy had the spotty beard of a teenager and held to his spear like he didn't know what to do with it.
It wasn't hard to glare him into insecurity.
“So let me get this straight,” Tony said, detaching his words, once he was sure that the silence had gone on for too long. “Your prince attacked our planet. With an army. From outer space.”
The soldier actually gulped visibly, soldiering on to face the reproaches. It was almost too easy.
“We, puny mortals, kicked his godly ass into submission. We delivered him to you with chains, with a freaking muzzle to make sure he didn't talk his way out of what he had done, and we sent him via Rainbow Express directly to Asgardian court.”
“Directly to the Allfather”, the guard had the courage to correct. Tony glared.
“We were told that he would face Asgardian justice. That we would never see him back on Earth in our grandchildren's lifetime. And now, not half a year after this all happened, you come into my house to ask me if I've seen him, because you lost him?”
The poor soldier didn't lower his eyes, even though he was clearly uncomfortable. Tony wondered if he had been trained that way, or if it was a personal effort.
“No prisoner has ever escaped the castle's prisons before”, the man said quietly.
Tony scoffed, biting back a more aggressive retort. It wouldn't do to overdo it, not when the young guard was only a messenger. And messages went both ways.
“Well, I hope you'll figure that out for next time.” He brought the glass of juice to his lips and sipped the sour drink. The taste was too sweet to replace alcohol, too sweet to bring comfort, but it was the best replacement he had found so far. Something about the sting of pineapple brought a welcome distraction. “Did you warn SHIELD and the others yet? I'm a genius, but I can't search the whole planet by myself.”
“Aye”, the guard quickly answered, seemingly relieved to have a positive answer. “The Allfather sent word of the break-out throughout the Nine Realms. He asks for your cooperation and will reward the ones who find the prisoner generously. No effort will be spared to fix this!”
“Really? We didn't get a reward the first time”, Tony observed under his breath, but shook his head when the guard tensed to keep him from trying to answer. “How do I warn Asgard if I find him?”
“Our Guardian, Heimdall, will be keeping watch. Call upon his name, and he will turn his all-seeing eyes to you.” The young man straightened up a little, maybe remembering to look more like a fierce warrior and less like an embarrassed messenger in case the 'Guardian' did look his way. “Asgard has never failed at containing a menace to the Nine Realms before, Lord Stark. Rest assured that this incident will be behind us soon.”
“I'm counting on it.”
He responded with little more than minimal politeness to the bow of the soldier and finished his glass watching the man's retreating back toward the helipad/Bifrost landing pad. He eyed him up through his eyelashes, waiting a few long seconds after the colorful blast had stopped burning on his retinaes before slowly putting down his glass.
Not for the first time this week, he found himself rubbing at his eyelids and quietly wondering what on Earth he had gotten himself into. Sure, Tony, lie to your godly allies' face. There's no way that will end badly.
He crossed the penthouse quietly. Unsurprisingly, not a sound came out of the room he was headed for, and it was only after he knocked on the wooden door that a too-soft, too-polite voice answered him.
“Do come in.”
He did.
The guest room, like the other bedrooms on this floor, was a pleasant suite, inspired by one of the old beach houses his family had owned when he was just a child. Maria had supervised the decoration of every room in the house, and the result had been a resolutely soft, homey interior, full of cream colored linens and mahogany furnitures. The house had been sold early into Tony's teenaged years for reasons he couldn't remember, but somehow, the warm, comforting palette had stayed with him. When designing the living floor of the Tower, he had prefered to trust his Mom's tastes rather than a decorator's to make his hypothetical guests feel at home.
Of course, he hadn't actually imagined having guests on his own private floor. Maybe Rhodey, or Happy, or Pepper. After New York, he had thought that the other Avengers might want to visit him, and had wondered if he would feel comfortable letting them in the guest room.
He had not imagined welcoming this man here.
Loki sat in the bed, just as he had been when Tony had left him. He sat against the pillows with the sheets pulled up to his waist. It looked like he hadn't moved at all, and eyed him thoughtfully.
“They were looking for me”, the god said more than he asked.
“No big surprise there.” Tony leaned against the doorframe. Loki's green eyes, his regal elocution, his long pale hands; so many things that pierced his skin with panic and anger, so many alarms that should have made him call his suit immediately. “They told me you escaped.”
“I see.” Loki looked down at his own hands, lips thinned with displeasure. “What did you answer?”
“That I'd give a call if I found you. I think the guard bought it.”
He made himself move closer and sit on the chair next to the bed, acting casually despite the crawl that ran under his skin at the proximity with Loki. Which, really, was ridiculous.
Loki was eyeing him back without the smallest sign of agressivity. Gone was the maniac rage, the tearful madness that had made the villain laugh awfully during the invasion. In its place, Loki's face was a pale, gentle mask, betraying only cautious attention as his eyes seemed to study and evaluate Tony. Which, by itself, could have been unnerving, if Tony hadn't guessed that Loki had every reason to be wary.
There were a lot of reasons. He hadn't actually had enough bandages for all of them when the prince had first shown up.
“Was it truly the best course of action? It seems likely that Asgard would have answers to our questions.”
Tony had thought that he would never again see Loki's face outside of his nightmares -the bad ones, those that ended with nothingness and space and destruction. He wouldn't have bet in a hundred years that anything could ever replace the image of the would-be conqueror, standing tall and mocking at the top of his very own Tower, commanding destruction.
Then, Loki had showed up on his literal doorstep, three days ago, mangled and broken in ways that no living being was supposed to go through, and had politely asked if he was indeed Tony Stark. Tony would have laughed at the joke, if it hadn't been for the blood and the face and his heart stopping in his chest. He hadn't said anything at all. Loki must have taken his silence for assessment. He had bowed, a deep, deliberate gesture that had sent a river of blood trailing on his torn clothing from an unseen source.
“Then”, the god had said, voice strained yet humble, “I would ask that you grant me sanctuary.”
“Yeah”, Tony agreed. “Which is why I didn't ask. Until you remember who the fuck did that to you, I'm not taking any chance. The last thing I knew was that you were in Asgardian jail, and then you turned out here, looking more dead than alive. So for now, they're prime suspect.”
“You're taking this situation quite more seriously than I imagined you would.”
It was said so lightly, Tony almost wanted to call bullshit. Nobody could sound so mundanely dismissive of their own situation and not be faking it, like a performer overdoing it.
But he'd seen enough in the last few days to come to accept that Loki didn't do most things normally.
For one thing, people who had been chewed and spat out by a whole gang of sharks didn't survive to come politely ask for sanctuary to their enemy's place in the middle of a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Tony had been stilled by shock and disbelief, and several long seconds had gone by during which he had only been able to stare at Loki.
The god was a wreck. It was a wonder, in fact, that Tony had recognised him immediately: the pale face, the dark hair, the dark armor, everything that Tony would have given as Loki's distinctives were somehow twisted and wrong. The god had appeared to him in a dirty long shirt and torn pants, not only unarmed, but unmade. And there had been so much blood -on his forehead, on his face, on his hands, on his freaking bare feet, leaving stains on the white marble floor behind him. He looked like a bad Halloween costume, like a zombie pulled out of the ground and dragged through the mud.
His words had been so calm and so articulate, Tony had not even been able to reconcile image and sound at first, and had struggled to make sense of what he was looking at.
The man had straightened, his dirty black hair sticking to his face as he looked back up at Tony. He had opened his palms, mimicking the gesture of surrender he had made the first time they had met. Tony almost thought he would end the joke there, for this whole thing couldn't be anything else than a bad trick. But instead, the god had spoken with the same careful voice, his one visible eye boring into his.
“Mr. Stark”, he had said, and the title itself had sounded out of place, another uncomprehensible part of the charade. “You might not know me. I am Loki, second prince of Asgard.” His voice had strained, almost choked, but then he had carried on, only a little faster: “Son of Odin; brother of Thor. I am -far from home and, as you might see, in dire need of hospitality.”
It was unrreal; hearing him speak his name, speak Thor's name. He had to be mocking him, couldn't actually think for even one second that Tony wouldn't recognise him, wouldn't remember.
“Loki”, he repeated, although he meant it to be the start of a phrase, a threat, something rational, except words failed him. Was the blood Loki's? Why was he barefoot? His silence lasted one second too long; the god took it like an invitation and bowed again. A thick drop of blood actually fell from somewhere near his neck, splashing on the clean floor.
“Of Asgard”, the god absurdly repeated, voice raw and stiff, yet still polite. “I need but a few days of your protection -a place of discretion and peace to tend my wounds. I will not ask anything else of you, and you will have my gratitude.”
“Your gratitude?” It was so insane that Tony found his voice, the words coming out as a scoff of disbelief. “Am I supposed to have forgotten you? Is that, is it another one of your mind tricks that doesn't work on me? How about you stop bleeding on my floor and tell me what you're actually here for?”
Loki looked back up, and this time, his matted hair moved to the side enough to reveal both his eyes. Or maybe it really was only one. All Tony could see beneath the left eyelid was blood, dark and so much of it, and his stomach twisted in revulsion. He never had been able to stand looking at injuries for long; the idea that Loki was trying to disgust him into submission came to mind, no weirder than the rest of the situation, but at that same time, the god's face broke into an expression of pure despair.
“Mr. Stark. You are a hero of Midgard. A shieldbrother of Thor. I would not ask you for help if I could- if I could find any other place.” He blinked -no, only his right eye blinked. Was there still an eye in the other socket? Fresh blood was running over the peeling paint of darker, older one on his skin. It couldn't be real, because the guy was standing and talking and was Loki. “I am not sure what I may have done -what others have told you about me -but I ask only for a place to lie down, water to drink, walls around me. I will repay you.”
It sounded so sincere. So wrecked, and still, at the same time, it was the first hint of the Loki he had met before, lost somewhere in a subtle way in his words, like urgency, like impatience, like anger. Maybe Loki heard it too and considered it might not help his case. Or maybe he was in genuine pain. Either way, he paused, and Tony saw his shoulders were shaking slightly before he said:
“I fear that I am in grave danger. I do not ask this lightly, Mr. Stark. Give me sanctuary. Please.”
Tony had.
He couldn't even justify it to himself as he did it, let alone think of how he would explain to anyone why he had fallen for this weird trap when they found him dying from multiple stab wounds in his own house. Maybe he had told himself he could still call Mark XIV to him faster than Loki knew it. Maybe it was the fact that Loki hadn't tried to stab him yet.
Most likely, it was the please.
Not even because it came from Loki. Just because it had sounded so hard to say.
It felt familiar. Recognising that your life rested in someone else's hands, and having nothing to do but hope that they felt merciful with it.
Maybe he would have taken anyone else in, if they had showed up the same way Loki had. Because he couldn't imagine holding that sort of power over someone and telling them no.
Not even him.
“Yeah, well. I feel that the situation needs more than my usual level of serious. How are you feeling, by the way? Erik the Viking interrupted before I could ask.”
The Asgardian soldier had, indeed, arrived just as Tony had come to check on his resident god. Warned by JARVIS, he had told Loki not to move, earning a frown of doubts and protests he hadn't listened to.
“I feel good. Certainly good enough to get out of this bed”, came the reply now, polite yet repeating a previously discussed state of mind. “Evidently, no answer will find me so long as I rest here like a convalescent martyr.”
“Hey, you might be right. You're starting to sound pissed off enough to almost sound like yourself. It's comforting. Can I check your bandages anyway?”
Loki quirked an eyebrow, but something of a smile came to his lips anyway, poorly contained. Tony wasn't anywhere close to getting used to those gentle expressions on the god's face. There was a lot of uncertainty and cautiousness between them, but Loki relaxed quickly to Tony's barbs. Almost too quickly. It was insane, how the man had no problem trusting him, even as his silence agreed that his very home was a possible enemy.
“Go on.”
Tony did.
He was no doctor for sure -he didn't even have a first aid certification to his name. He had treated Loki with the best of his guesses and JARVIS' help.
The god had agreed to undress without a protest, but in the end, because he struggled to move his right arm, Tony had needed to cut through the green tunic with scissors to get it off him. The leather pants he wore had followed much the same way after a bit more struggle. Tony's plan had been to find out just how much of the blood was Loki's, and to get him into clean clothes. Part two had been delayed quite a while after he'd found the answer to part one: all of it.
Tony had quietly freaked out, staring at the almost naked deity that was now sitting in his kitchen, eyes shut in apparent relief, looking way too calm for someone in his condition, like Tony saying “Fine, you can stay” had cured him of all his troubles. Maybe it was a good thing that Loki didn't see Tony panicking and trying to pull himself back together.
He had brought in towels (white ones, because he was stupid, and they were probably ruined for good, not that he actually cared about that) and had started by washing away the grime to see a little more clearly. Dried blood flaked upon Loki's neck, his torso, his abdomen; as Tony removed it, thin, long cuts oozed fresh blood as they were disturbed. Loki winced, but said nothing.
It was unreal in several ways to be there, leaning forward over an almost naked man, in his kitchen, hands running carefully over an unfamiliar frame of thin muscles and pale flesh, still half-expecting Loki to suddenly stab him or something.
The blood was bad, but there was no sign of a wound deeper than the rough, superficial cuts were. Instead, Tony whispered a growing mantra of curses as he grew aware of the bruises: red, purple, black patches of skin spreading upon Loki's stomach, his ribs, his thighs.
“I believe my left shoulder and knee are broken”, Loki had spoken quietly, making him jump. The god's head was lowered. “Perhaps some of my ribs, too.”
“I... I can't fix that,” Tony admitted. “What the fuck happened?”
“It will fix itself”, the god had said helpfully. “But this is... Painful.”
No shit. It looked bad, and if Tony had seen it, he might not have even dared to clean the blood from the skin for fear of what the contact had to feel like. But it didn't help him. How the fuck was he supposed to help?
“Will normal painkillers do anything to you?”
“I have no ideas. I would like to try, if you can spare them.”
Tony had superstrength ibuprofen for his occasional headaches. It felt ridiculous to give them to Loki for his wounds; but maybe the placebo effect could at least give the god some relief? He handed him a glass of water and six white pills, and Loki accepted them without a wink of hesitation. That was another disturbing puzzle piece that Tony's mind was trying to put together with the others while he was in no state to think. The god actually asked for more water, and when the glass was emptied once more, he eyed it so longingly that Tony just brought the whole jug to the table for him to finish.
“I'm going to dress those cuts, okay?”
“Thank you.”
The cuts were more disturbing the longer he looked at them, because they, too, indicated things he couldn't piece together. Bruises could come from a number of things; a fall, a car accident, or whatever they had instead of cars up there. But the open wounds that sliced Loki's flesh were too precise not to have been done on purpose.
There were half circles, roughly drawn in the god's chest, starting from his neck like a necklace and getting bigger. All the lines bit into the sharp collarbones, and the largest circle had cut in the small pink circle of the nipple with careless ferocity. It didn't stop there either: lines bit at Loki's ribs in a diagonal pattern, each separated by maybe half a inch of bruised flesh.
“Jesus Christ, Loki. Who the fuck hurt you?”
The god didn't answer, though he briefly opened his eyes to look at him. Tony cursed under his breath again and began to disinfect the wounds, dabbing as gently as he could at the cuts. Loki shifted a little, but didn't try to move away.
It took minutes, and bloody pieces of gauze piled up on the kitchen table as Tony's mind raced. Loki was a bad guy, right? Anyone who hurt him was technically on Tony's side, right? They had surrendered him to Asgardian justice without asking whatever would happen -without caring about it -trusting Thor was a good man, not a torturer. Or maybe the others wouldn't have minded if Loki was sent to being tortured, because Loki was a bad guy and deserved it? No. Yes? SHIELD didn't mind roughing up prisoners if it meant saving lives. What about punishment? Had Clint and Natasha expected this? Agreed to this? Had Thor?
The Hulk had smashed Loki around like an angry child throwing a tantrum, and Loki had walked it off. What the hell could break his bones? Had it been an attempt to kill him? Was Tony saving his life? He wasn't sure he would have minded if he had been told Loki had been executed, but seeing him in pieces like this was another thing. Even if Loki was trying to trick him, acting like they had never met, could he have turned him down? Captured him, when he looked like he could barely stand? When he addressed him as a hero, and practically asked for his mercy?
He used clean cotton bandages to cover the cuts, moving behind Loki to dress the wounds that ran over his back. More bruises there, so dark, so deep. It looked almost grotesque, almost too much, like Loki had tried to look miserable and had overdone it. Was Tony falling for it? Was Loki laughing internally, here in the silent penthouse while Tony gently cleaned him up and bandaged him?
Please. Thank you. Mr. Stark.
“Okay, let's take a look at your face. What happened to your eye?”
“I can see. But barely.”
Still no answers, uh?
Loki allowed Tony to tilt his head back into the light. There were more cuts, half-circles on Loki's forehead, vertical lines starting below his eyes and slicing down to his chin like a mockery of tears. His left eyelid had practically been cut in two but, Tony noted with great relief, the eyeball didn't actually seem damaged. He found a few of those tiny butterfly bandages that were supposed to act like stitches for it and blessed Happy for fixing him a first aid kit.
Loki's legs were next, both sporting heavy bruising, especially around the left knee, which was swollen and ugly and actually made the god hiss when he tried to clean it.
“You sure this is gonna heal? Maybe I should get an actual doctor here.”
“It needs but some time”, Loki said between clenched teeth. “I'd rather my presence here remain discreet. I promise, it will be fine. I will be fine.”
The correction was another piece to add to the puzzle, Tony felt, but didn't comment.
Loki's arms were not too bad, except for his hands. More cuts there, a sort of triangles on the back of the hands and certainly at least two fingers broken on the right one, the pinky and the ring finger, swollen and dark at the joints. Tony bandaged those, at least, wrapping them together, just to give himself the illusion that he was helping.
“Okay, Gävle Goat, I did everything I could, though you look like a necromancer might have done a better job on you than I did. I'd appreciate if you'd told the truth and could not die in my house. That would be really hard to explain for me.”
“I will do my best to avoid it”, Loki replied with a small twist of a smile, which was gone as fast as it appeared. “I appreciate your help, Mr. Stark. Rest assured, I will do my best to repay your generosity.”
“Is that a threat?” Tony asked, almost before he could help himself.
“Does it sound like one?”
“Coming from you, Rock of Ages, everything kinda does. Usually, anyway.”
There was a brief pause, during which green eyes -well, one green eye, with the other shut- bore into his. Loki's face gave nothing away, no answer nor sign of recognition, no guilt or mockery; instead, it looked like he, too, was studying Tony wearily.
“I need some answers”, he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “And I trust you to tell me the truth, as I trusted you to welcome me. In exchange for your help, I will grant you anything you wish, if it be in my power.”
“You. Need some answers.” Tony stared at Loki.
The god seemed to misinterpret his disbelief as either mockery or judgement, because his shoulders tensed a little and tried to lift as though to hide his face, before a brutal flinch of pain made him lower them and grimace.
“Alright,” Tony said, when it became clear that Loki wouldn't argue, one way or another. “Well, first thing first, how about you grant me this answer: what the hell happened to you?”
Silence followed, and Loki's visible iris shifted like he was trying to fix his gaze on something likely to ground him. Seconds passed, thick with tension and discomfort, and Tony almost moved on to his second most important point (which maybe should have been point number one: what proof did he have that Loki wasn't deploying an elaborate plan to kill him?) before Loki seemed to steel himself and, with a grimace, admitted:
“That's the problem. I do not know.”
“Good news, your knee looks almost normal. Your shoulder and ribs are still pretty swollen, though.”
“I move in my sleep.”
“Yeah, and when you're awake, too. Don't play innocent with me, I've seen you reading past your naptime. Tell me again why you're not going to let me use ice on the bruising?”
Loki huffed grudgingly. Tony gave him a pointed look before returning his attention to the god's beaten form. Although the progress was good, the picture painted by healing bruises and red welts where his skin had been cut was still a disturbing one. He let go of the Def Leppard tank top Loki was wearing to cover the crime scene back, and Loki carefully smoothed the wrinkles out of the fabric before answering with a tone too precise and detached:
“None of your precisely elaborate mortal mixture will improve my condition even a little. I would know if plain ice was likely to make me feel better.”
“If ice makes you uncomfortable, there might be some part of the answer to that,” Tony remarked casually.
It was true enough, unfortunately, that no amount of ointment or painkillers had seemed to do any difference in Loki's naturally rapid healing. It had been far-fetched to hope Advils would fix someone who could withstand a beating from the Hulk, but Tony had still been disappointed enough that he had dabbled in experimental chemistry for the first time in ages while Loki slept to explore new combinations of molecules in the lab.
Because it had quickly become unbearable to him to see Loki in pain.
“You don't... Know.” Tony stared at Loki, not bothering to hide his disbelief at the pretense. “You look like you've lost a fight with a lawn mower, and you don't know what happened. Right.”
“My current condition is only a small part of it,” Loki had replied, not looking at Tony, and squeezing his thin lips shut in obvious discomfort before carrying on: “I know who I am. I know what I am. I grew up in Asgard alongside my brother Thor. I am a God. But... I cannot remember...”
“New York?” Tony prompted when a few long seconds stretched before the end of Loki's sentence.
The eye that looked back at him was wide with agitation... And confusion. Tony took a deep breath, as discreetly as he could. Loki was a liar, he thought. That was pretty much the one thing everyone agreed on: those old storybooks he had read after the invasion, SHIELD, even Thor in his efforts to defend his little brother had admitted that Loki was the most skilled manipulator there was. It was probably not a stretch to imagine he would fake injuries and memory loss both to spin a wild story and try to get Tony on his side. It was a crazy, risky bet -but wasn't it just the type of wild card he would use?
Except, Tony couldn't look into Loki's mutilated, confused eyes and convince himself it was a charade. Was he falling for it, tricked too easily by what he saw? He couldn't shake off the feeling that this was genuine. This new side of Loki, a polite, wounded man asking for help, with gentle words and scared eyes, was too at odds with what he had seen of him before.
“The place you live.” Loki's answer came with an edge of resignation, like he had searched for a better answer, and was unwillingly using this one. “The place we are, now. I knew I would find you in the tallest tower here.”
“You don't remember being here before?” Tony pushed, trying to make his voice carry as much doubts as possible.
“I do not.” Loki shifted, tensed, relaxed his shoulder with deliberate attention. “I do not remember meeting you. I do not remember how you met my brother, or if you ever came to Asgard. I don't remember seeing you fight or traveling with you like a shield-brother. I can't say if you ever held any affection for me, or I for you.”
“What do you remember about me, then? That made you come here blindly?”
Loki hesitated even longer this time. He briefly looked up at Tony, and froze when their eyes met, like he didn't want to look away, but would have rather escaped the scrutiny. His hand, Tony noticed, toyed with the bandages at his hip, right above the line of the sweatpants Tony had given him to wear. He wanted to insist, maybe to point out how ridiculous this was. Why would Loki have come here if he didn't know how Tony felt about him, uh? Why show up to a stranger's home, covered in blood, on the assumption that he was a friend of his brother? Why not go to his own brother, if not because he remembered his own criminal actions?
He waited, still. He remembered Pepper telling him that liars couldn't stand silence, that they would feel the need to speak to fill it, adding too many details to their stories and getting tangled in them. Loki didn't seem anxious to give answers. Instead, he looked like he might have prefered staying mute forever.
“How about I call your brother?” He finally asked, when it felt like the god had just given up on answering him. “Thor is probably looking for you.”
“Please don't,” Loki replied without the smallest delay, lowering his eyes again. “I don't... I think that... I can't go to Asgard.”
“You think so?” It was becoming harder to sound dubious and judgemental without feeling like a total asshole. If this was all comedy, Loki was an insanely good actor. “Why is that?”
Loki whispered something like a curse and brought his left hand, the one without broken fingers, to his face. He rubbed his good eye and, finally, explained himself with a flat, carefully factual voice.
“The last thing I remember is... falling from the Rainbow Bridge. My brother screamed my name, reaching for me. It's the last thing that is clear in my mind -but I know it was a long time ago. I have these feelings, as though from a bad dream, about things, and places, and people. Like I did about you. I know that the Allfather cannot know where I am. I know that I cannot turn to my brother for aid. I know that... That a lot of people are angry with me. That they hate me.”
His voice cracked just a little bit on the hate, but he swallowed and continued neutrally:
“This morning, I left Asgard by a secret path, hoping to remain unseen. I was wounded and looking for a place to rest and hide while I figured things out. I can't remember travelling to Midgard in centuries, but -it was in my mind. The name of New York, yes. The name of the -Avengers, allies of my brother. Earth's Mightiest Heroes. And amongst them, the one they call Iron Man.”
“Why me?”
“Because I knew that I could trust you.”
His voice dropped nervously on trust, like it was a bad word that one wasn't supposed to say out loud. But despite his discomfort, he looked at Tony, clearly waiting for his reaction, not taking back his words nor amending them in any way, even as long seconds passed.
“Me,” was all Tony could muster, disbelieving.
“Aye.” Loki produced a brief, stiff smile that moved the bandages on his cheek with it. “I don't know if we ever truly met. I don't know if we are friends or if you dislike me. All I know is that, when I wondered where to go, I felt certain that you would help me. That you were strong and clever enough to guard me from harm and compassionate enough to do so. It felt like madness, to go on with so little. But it was all I had. I couldn't make myself go to anyone else.”
Tony stared.
It was a lie. It needed to be a lie. A very elaborate, ridiculous trick. In which Loki made himself out to be vulnerable and alone to lower Tony's defense. He shouldn't trust him. He shouldn't believe him for one second.
“And what now?” He heard himself asking.
“I was hoping that, now, you could tell me who you are.”
“I remember what ice means to me,” Loki said, tone finite. “Let's get back to the Einherjar. What else did he say? Any hint?”
“Nothing much.” Tony agreed to drop the topic, letting himself fall in the chair next to Loki once more. “You supposedly disappeared a week or so ago -so, one day top before you showed up here. Apparently, it was very stealthy. You were sulking in your cell in the morning, and in the middle of the afternoon, the guards rang the panic horn because you were gone.”
“That doesn't make any sense. Nobody can escape Asgard's cells.”
“That's what they said, too, but it's starting to be pretty obvious that's what you did.”
“Are you taking this seriously at all?”
“Hey, I'm starting to be on the side of the escaped prisoner here. What can I say?”
Loki's lips twitched up, evidently despite his best effort at looking severe.
“Evidently, if I had known before that your loyalty was so easily swayed, Earth would have been doomed.”
“Yeah? Keep the evil talk for when you remember why you were being evil in the first place, Murder Muffin.”
“I defenestrated you. How can you take it so lightly?”
Well, that wasn't exactly what was happening. Tony was not taking any of this lightly. He had certainly not forgotten what Loki had done -to Earth, to Phil, to him. He was not sure he would consider forgiving it, either.
But it wasn't like he could throw his resentment at this man.
“Trust me, Loke. I've seen evil. You are not it.”
“And we sent you back to Asgard with Thor and the Tesseract. End of story.”
Loki had not spoken a single word since Tony had started summarizing the events of the invasion. He had not taken his eyes off of him, either -actually, Tony wasn't sure if he had even seen him blink. He thought the god looked stiffer and paler than before, but he couldn't be sure. Loki was very stiff and very pale both, and he had been since Tony had scrubbed the blood off of him.
Tony, in contrast, felt bizarrely at peace. He had not been excited to reminisce over what had happened during the previous summer. The events were still haunting his dreams with manic smiles and falls from dangerous heights and infinite darkness. But despite the unpleasant topic, he had been able to focus on watching Loki's reactions. His doubts about Loki's honesty had shrunk even further, though, as he had seen the god taking in his story without flinching.
“I see,” he said eventually. Without denying anything.
“Yeah,” Tony replied.
Loki was quiet for a few long seconds, his nerve betrayed in the tension of his body and in the agitation of his good eye, but not in his face. His voice, too, was calm when he questioned:
“I suppose, then, that you have summoned my brother while we spoke. Or your fellow Avengers, perhaps?”
“Not yet, actually.”
“If not for distraction, why did you tend to my wounds, when you knew they were rightfully deserved?”
It was Tony's turn not to reply immediately, letting whatever had shifted unpleasantly in his belly to settle down. Loki had looked arrogant and mocking even as he had been brought back to Asgard in chains, he remembered, not sure why the contrast was so uncomfortable to question.
“Why?” He should take a page from Loki's book, because his own voice was as agitated as he felt. “Maybe because nobody “rightfully deserves” to be carved like a fucking Halloween pumpkin, you know? Maybe? I'm pretty sure thinking as much is a prerequisite to get the hero card, not that I ever qualified for it.”
His retort shut Loki up, wether it was the reference confusing him or he doubted him. Tony didn't care. He looked at the bandaged god in his kitchen and cursed internally. If this was a lie, he had fallen for it a fair while ago.
“Does Asgard torture prisoners?” he asked. “Because Thor didn't tell us anything about that. And I guess that's on me for not asking, but -do you think this shit happened to you in prison?”
“I don't know,” Loki replied sternly, clearly more tired of saying it than Tony was of hearing it. “We do not torture criminals, not officially. Punishment ranges from fines to death, with imprisonment being a common penalty. If... Considering what you claim I did, I would have expected execution to be the outcome. Perhaps, with my status, the Allfather might have settled for a lifetime of imprisonment.”
That was the grimest thing Tony had ever heard, and he was not going to let go of the not officially bit. He was sickened by the perspective, wondering how he could once have just wanted the man out of his sight to the point of not asking what would become of him. A clean execution had sounded like an acceptable option, quick yet punishing the action without the shade of a doubt -but now, looking at the dread and resignation on Loki's face, that option felt sickening too.
What, for god's sake, had made him forget?
“So, if I find you, I need to call the name of your magical guardian. Other than that, Asgard will apparently spare no expense to find you. Never lost a prisoner before, and all that jazz. You're clearly making them very upset.”
“Ah.” Loki gave a smile that was half-grimace. “I suppose I should be very proud of that.”
“Well, regular Loki would be. Nothing about that this morning?”
“You sound almost hopeful. I have to wonder if you prefer me during those -episodes?”
The hesitation was almost funny, considering what Loki was referring to.
“Yes and no. You're way more pleasant to have around than, uh, the alternative. Less trying to kill me, and all. But he has a point. This isn't fair to you. Whatever makes you feel that you can trust me goes away when your memories come back. He's bound to be even angrier that we've been talking again.”
“Yet you've told me nothing but the truth about what happened between us.”
“I guess knowing it and living it is different,” Tony shrugged, studying the softness of Loki's features, even in the gentle crease between his furrowed brows. “Maybe I don't know the whole thing, either. Maybe you think I'm somewhat responsible for what happened to you.”
“Which doesn't make any sense.”
“Eh, I'm glad you think so.”
“You've taken me in and cared for me. You accepted my trust and trusted my tale in return, when you had no reason to do so. Even now, as I pose a threat, you are protecting me from unknown danger. There is no way I could ever blame you for my situation.”
It wasn't like Tony had argued against himself, but he didn't point it out: he knew the exposition, firm and almost a little defensive, wasn't meant for him.
So there they had been, with their stories shared, stuck at the crossroad of the tale: Loki had been a villain, Loki had hurt them all. Loki had been defeated, Loki had been taken away. Something had happened, and here was Loki, free and hurt and remembering nothing of his fate.
There had been nothing else to do. Tony had half-heartedly poked at Loki's wounds with new attention, but it wasn't like the bruises or cuts had a signature to them. So, he had offered Loki what the man had come for to begin with: a place to rest and recover, safely.
He had actually helped him to the guest room, wondering how Loki had walked on his broken knee before. As soon as the god had been allowed to lie down on the bed, he had given a sigh of infinite relief, and had actually fallen asleep before Tony could ask him if he was sure he didn't want to eat something first.
Tony hadn't even tried to sleep, knowing fully well that his mind wouldn't stop replaying the events of the day and trying to figure out what the hell he had gotten himself into. Insomnia was an old curse of his, and he wasn't going to fight it when it held that sort of arguments.
Instead, he had settled into the kitchen with a tablet and had asked JARVIS to pull up everything they had about Loki. He started over: from the meticulous report of SHIELD agents to the prose of Snorri Sturluson, he stopped over every picture they had of the invasion. He looked into the events of New Mexico and the studies about the Tesseract prior to the attack, like he expected to find something he'd missed before that would reconcile the violent invader who had thrown him outside of his window with the mannered stranger in his guest room.
He didn't.
The one thing he could figure out was that this Loki, even if he had in fact forgotten everything about New York, was not exactly squeaky-clean. The name of the god had been associated to the metal giant that had wrecked a small town in New Mexico over a year before the events of New York. Back then, though, Loki had not bothered to show up, simply sending the war machine to Earth to do its mission: killing Thor. The SHIELD reports said that Thor's survival had seemed impossible, and then the god had left the planet to 'have words' with his brother, not to be seen again until he joined the Avengers.
So, there. Not a pure, innocent angel, either. It didn't exactly help figure out what to think of him.
The hours of research, at least, were a catalyser for his mind as he went over the events of the evening. He pulled up an anatomy drawing and asked JARVIS to make a map of Loki's injuries. He thought of everything Thor might have ever said about Asgard. He made a list of everyone who might be mad at Loki, as though there weren't seven billion people on the list.
He caught a short nap right there on the kitchen table as dawn slowly tinted the sky grey and pink. When he woke up, he went to check on the god, even though JARVIS had confirmed already that Loki was still sleeping. Maybe it was the borrowed tank top, maybe it was the bandages on his face, but Tony stared for several minutes at his unexpected guest without being able to muster even a flicker of resentment or suspicion for him.
He left JARVIS to keep an eye on Loki and went to take a shower, readying himself to start another weird day. He had poured himself a bowl of chocolate cereals and was eating them directly off the kitchen counter when his AI told him that Loki was waking up.
The god didn't make a sound until Tony went to knock at the bedroom's door. Even then, there was a small delay before an absurdly polite voice called,
“You may enter.”
Loki was sitting up. The bedsheets were printed on the good side of his face, but Tony didn't think they were close enough yet to point it out as he poked his head in.
“Hey. Tony Stark here. You remember crashing at my place yesterday?”
“I could hardly forget,” Loki replied with an almost offended little frown.
“Just checking, Fifty First Dates. Do you need help getting to the bathroom? Or should I bring you breakfast?”
Loki did not want help getting to the bathroom. He refused very politely, then with tense dignity when Tony asked if he was sure, and he noted that Loki's voice did the raspy, angry thing it had done months before. His vague, sleep-deprived thoughts of this Loki and the New York one being two different people faded. He persuaded the god to use crutches to not put weight on his bad knee.
After that, Loki did go back to the bedroom, and Tony noted his forehead was shiny with sweat from the effort of moving around the penthouse. He winced internally, wondering just how much pain the young god had put himself through on the previous day, showing up all casual and bowing in his condition.
“What do you eat in the morning? I'm not exactly a good cook, but I think I got a pancake mix somewhere.”
“I do not wish to make you serve me,” Loki frowned. “I am already deeply indebted to you for helping me despite what I have done. I can manage.”
“What, without food?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you can manage, but you shouldn't. You need all the strength you can get. Not only are you convalescent, but I'm planning to grill you today.” Loki's eyes widened minutely and Tony realised his wording was maybe not the best, for a potential victim of torture. “I mean, we need to sit down and figure out what happened to you. Unless you had another plan?”
“I cannot say I found any better idea,” Loki admitted with a small headshake.
“Then it's settled. What do you want for breakfast? Toasts? Cereals? Poptarts?”
The revelation that Thor was fond of the latter seemed to do it, and Loki acquiesced to discovering the magic of processed sugars and artificial colorings. He ate carefully at first (even looking for proper eating utensils before Tony clarified that you had to dig in like a caveman), declared the food to be some of the oddest he had ever tasted, but nonetheless started shoving the Poptarts in his mouth with more and more urgency. Whether it was the power of carbs and sugars or actual starvation, Tony couldn't guess, but he kept the food coming before Loki could remember his delicate manners or concern about debts.
He probably should have been more pleased than he was with the idea of Loki owing him for his help. Assuming that the god was not faking his amnesia or plotting to kill him, it could still be good to have a man like Loki on his side. But then, assuming that both the wounds and the memory loss were real, how could he want to bind Loki to any obligation? Getting a villain in your debt was possibly brillant, but this one Loki...Wasn't.
“Okay, Morningstar. Let's see what we can figure out. According to J', the cuts were a few hours old when you showed up.” Tony opened a holographic notepad, and then quirked an eyebrow when Loki stared at it in confusion. “Yeah, that's my brand of magic. You don't remember that either? What about JARVIS?”
“Whom?”
Tony pointed a finger to the ceiling. The AI helpfully introduced himself:
“I am the intelligent system that sees to the protection of Mr. Stark and his property, Mr. Odinsson. If you attempt to hurt my master, I will immediately alert SHIELD and its affiliates of your presence here and deploy an arsenal to contain you.”
Right. So helpful. Tony gave a little grimace. It was all fair, but -JARVIS' protective tendencies were maybe not the best way to make Loki feel safe. Except, even as Tony opened his mouth to amend the statement, he was startled by a sound like a little gasp from Loki -and then the god was laughing, a brief-lived chuckle that ended in a hiss and a hand over his wounded ribs.
“It is refreshing to encounter a logical reaction to my presence here, Mr. JARVIS. I promise you, I have no intention of hurting my host.”
“I am glad to hear it, Sir,” said JARVIS, voice still sounding suspicious.
“Yeah, me too,” Tony said, a little weirded out by the reaction. “Let's keep not hurting each other, okay? That would be refreshing.”
“I'm not fond of needless violence, if this helps. Despite, I suppose, all evidences of the contrary.”
Loki's thin smile retained something of a grimace, either from the echoes of the laughter in his broken ribs or the subject of his words. Either way, Tony decided to keep his questions about New Mexico and trying to kill Thor for at least a little later.
“Despite that, yeah. Speaking of violence. Like I said, the cuts appeared to be fresh; but you've got fifty shades of bruises, so I'm inclined to think that this didn't all happen at once. Either you had more than one freak accident, or someone kept hurting you for a fair amount of time. Plus... I know Asgardians eat a lot, but you looked both starved and dehydrated when you arrived. You agree so far?”
“A fair assessment,” Loki agreed with a quirk of his eyebrows that looked somewhat self-depreciating.
“So, my theory is still that Asgardian jail is fucked up.”
“Judging from what you say I did, fucked up would sound about right.”
Tony scoffed, if only because there was something hilariously out of place about hearing Loki using the f-word. Still, the serious expression on the god's face didn't sit right with him.
“Yeah, well. Putting you in jail to protect other people from you and your potential murderous tendencies is a thing, but beating you up like that is definitely far from right. I believe in containment and reinsertion for human baddies, same goes for you.”
“I doubt all my victims would say the same, if they could voice their opinion.”
Not entirely false, but it was still disturbing to consider. Tony made himself shrug.
“You killed one of my friends. You almost killed me. I got nightmares about the wormhole almost every night I slept since New York. I think I get a decent say in the matter.”
“I am sorry, for what it's worth.”
Well, it was worth -something. From this almost-stranger, this man with no memories of his own crime, it was ridiculous to accept any apology, but still, Tony did appreciate the effort. It didn't bring back Phil, didn't save that foolish hero of a man or his misplaced optimism. Some part of him wanted to be mad at Loki for dodging the responsibility along with the memories, but mostly, he wondered where this Loki was coming from. And if this man was indeed the first Loki, the real Loki, and the New York monster had been the lie... What had happened to him?
Maybe it was getting even more important to him than why Loki had forgotten at all.
“Well, try not to invade Earth again, and we'll be cool, alright?”
Loki raised an eyebrow at him, maybe wondering if he was making fun of him. When Tony flashed him a grin, the god needed a few moments still before he returned a careful smile.
“I will do the best I can. You have my word.”
“And I fully appreciate it,” Tony said with a chuckle. “Right, so, with that being said. The cuts. They make some kind of pattern, right? It doesn't seem random.”
“A pattern?” Loki's fingers moved to his collarbone and the bandages there. “There are some on my ribs, too,” he remembered out loud, frowning.
“Actually.” Tony pulled up the map he had traced of Loki's injuries on the anatomy drawing and handed the virtual notepad to the god. “Does that ring any bell to you? Maybe some kind of abstract evil painting?”
Loki took the holographic screen with care. Despite his ironic suggestion, Tony eyed his reaction carefully. He didn't have much hope for a hint from the sadistic carving his torturers had made, but he didn't want it to make Loki panic, either. Although Tony had chosen the neutrality of a drawing, the scars were disturbing in their size and number: the arcs on his forehead and chest, the lines on his stomach, ribs and face, the triangles on his hands... There was something ritualistic about them that demanded Tony at least ask if they meant anything familiar, but mostly, they just made him want to find whoever had done them.
“This is-” Loki interrupted himself. His fingers stopped and clenched into a fist over his bandaged neck. It was only because Tony was looking at him closely that he saw the way his lips trembled for half a second before he bared his teeth in a sudden grimace.
“Anything familiar?”
For all answer, Loki whipped a bandaged fist out at his throat and hit him with unsuspected force. Choked out of air, he was thrown on the floor before he could even get out of the chair, too startled to even understand what was happening.
“L-Lok-” He was interrupted by a cough, trying to remember how to breath. It didn't stop him throwing an incredulous look at the god.
Loki hadn't moved from the bed, but something about his face sent a shiver down Tony's back. Gone was the gentle carefulness. In its place, the god was practically snarling. The screen had been thrown out of his hands, and he was suddenly clawing at his bandages, trying to get them off of him, pausing for one brief second as he caught a fistful of fabric from the tank top Tony had lent him. His eyes turned back to him, one injected with blood, looking more murderous than they ever had during the invasion.
“Stark.” Loki sounded positively enraged. “Having fun, are you?”
He threw the blanket off of him and made to get out of bed. Tony's heart forgot how to beat. Somehow, his brain found the time to observe, I'm such a dumbass.
Thankfully, JARVIS was not subject to his creator's frozen panic. Before Loki could destroy him, a pair of armors flew into the room, crashing a decorative glass bowl on the floor and standing in front of Tony.
“Shall I call SHIELD, Sir?” The AI sounded angry. Maybe he would call Tony a dumbass, too, if he wasn't in such a hurry.
Tony opened his mouth to say yes. But something -something very, deeply stupid, probably, made him hesitate. Loki was standing, facing the armors, and their eyes met.
Loki was no less terrifying with a Blue Oyster Cult top and half-mummified. It hadn't been the wounds that had made him look harmless -it was something in his face, in his eyes, and now it had shifted back to murder mode. Although he had briefly paused to look at the suits, his expression told Tony that they were just an interruption before he got to murdering him.
“Call your little friends if you will,” he drawled. “They'll find nothing but your warm corpse.”
“Calling SHIELD now, Sir.”
“Wait!”
Tony scrambled to stand in the stunned silence of his exclamation. Loki's hands were open at his sides, indicating that he was maybe about to conjure up knives from out of nowhere or that he was planning to gouge Tony's eyes out with his bare hands. But he, too, had paused. And frowned. It didn't last, though, before his lips twisted in an angry smile once more.
“Is this the part where you tell me I am in your debt? I am worse things than oathbreaker, Stark.”
“Yeah, no, I didn't plan to guilt-trip you into not killing me. Doesn't sound like a sound strategy.” Tony carefully held his own hands up in a traditional chill out gesture. “Would you just mind telling me why you want to off me? Or, you know, why now?” He glanced at the discarded screen. “I don't know what I did wrong, but I thought I was being helpful here. Is the whole thing a lie? Because that sounds like a massive waste of time for you, not that I complain-”
“Stalling will not help you.”
“Hey, J', you didn't call SHIELD, did you?”
“Not yet, Sir.” JARVIS sounded decidedly displeased about the course of action. “But I will take any aggression from your guest as an emergency sufficient to overriding your order.”
“Right, there you are,” Tony said.
Loki's eyes narrowed slightly. Tony noticed for the first time that a few fresh drops of blood had pierced through the bandages on his chest.
“Just -seriously. If you just wanted to kill me, why the whole... Thing?” He gestured vaguely at Loki and then stopped when the god's shoulders stiffened again. His face twisted then, with a grimace of pain, and Tony had the certainty that it was accidental. “You're actually hurt, aren't you?”
“As if that was any of your concern.”
“Well, you did show up here and ask me for help, so... Yeah?”
“And you so kindly obliged!" The burst of rage was unexpected, made Tony tense despite himself as Loki glared at him. "What did you do it for, Stark? Did you truly think I would owe you? Or was it just some sick amusement- the great hero, tending to the fallen villain: I suppose you thought yourself very clever? Enough,” he hissed when Tony opened his mouth to protest. “You will pay for your arrogance. You will...”
He paused, and his eyes went to the floor. Tony had frozen, watching the green fire that was suddenly lighting the god's hand, but in lieu of attacking, Loki grimaced again. His magic flames disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, and his hand, one second burning, flew to his broken ribs the next. He took a step back and then let himself fall back on the bed, mouth open in a gasp of surprise -or pain?
“Loki?” Tony's heart pounded in his chest.
“Oh,” said the god.
Tony didn't immediately come closer, and the armors stood still at JARVIS' command. Still, looking at the shocked green eyes, Tony knew right then and there that he had been right, at least in some respect.
There was more than just one Loki.
“I think it might be a matter of pride,” Tony offered. “I wouldn't be too happy if I found out that I was taken care of by my old enemy, I guess. He seemed to think I was making fun of him -well, you- somehow.”
“You're always making fun of everyone,” Loki observed with a small smile.
“Eh, you got a point. I just wonder what made him come out when he did. And why you forgot everything again.”
That was, of course, the biggest concern: while the “Angry Loki”, as Tony had mentally dubbed him, had showed up twice in the last five days, there had been no obvious pattern to figure out what triggered him. The first time had been with the medical drawing, sure, but the second and third one had happened at random, once during Loki's sleep, once while Dumm-E was making sandwiches for them both. What they did observe, though, was that Angry Loki remembered everything -Tony, New York, the invasion, but also everything that happened while Nice Loki was in control.
While his second apparition had also been spent threatening Tony and accusing him of making fun, he had seemed more irritated and nervous on the last occasion, like he was trying to persuade himself that Tony couldn't be trusted and that he wanted to kill him and leave Earth for good.
At least, this was the one thing that they knew: trying to use his magic was what triggered the return of Loki's amnesia. Now, why the heck it did...
“I can hardly answer that, can I?”
“Yeah, well. Apparently, our two best shots at getting answers are either here to arrest you or out to kill me. I'm starting to believe we'll never know what happened.”
“I can't exactly stay here forever,” Loki huffed. “Nor can you keep me hidden until the end of your days. In the end, I will have to face my father and brother and go back to Asgard -whether or not I can remember what happened.”
“I guess,” Tony admitted. It wasn't the first time Loki said it, and honestly, it made sense. What else was he to do? Encourage a wanted criminal to escape? “But I should talk in your favor. They need to make sure the prisons are safe. And use their magic healing power to make sure you're completely fixed, memory, cuts and all.”
“They might prefer me without the memories,” Loki remarked with a small, bitter smirk. "Not everyone is as masochist as you."
“That's too bad for them. Either they let you go free, or they make sure you're healed. You can't jail someone for something they don't remember doing. I'll hire lawyers if I have to.”
“They'll never let me go free. They'll think it's a trick.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“I've lived in Asgard for centuries. A year of missing memories doesn't change that,” Loki scoffed. “They'll think I imagined this as a cowardly way to escape the consequences of my actions.”
“Thor was heartbroken when we arrested you. Wouldn't he at least hear what you have to say?”
“I don't know. A year... Might have changed things between Thor and I.” He sounded way less confident about that. “But even when we were brothers, he feared to be associated with my unworthy ways. Most likely, he would rage that I managed to manipulate his fellow Avengers right behind his back.”
“Hey, that's offensive for me, too. Tony Stark doesn't get manipulated. Ask Romanoff about that.”
He'd said it with a pout, but mostly, he just wanted to see Loki relaxing -that little twist in his lips was all his reward. Loki's certainty that he wouldn't be believed by his own family was stirring unpleasant feelings in his guts, even as they discussed sending him back to Asgard more and more often.
“Well, either way,” he said, standing up, “you're not going anywhere until your ribs are a normal color again. You're stuck here for another day, no matter if your evil twin shows up. Do you want me to get you more books?”
“Where are you going?” Loki asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Well, Tony had been planning to go in the lab and get some thinking done about his grey-ing morality and ponder how he could persuade Angry Loki to trust him. He didn't see himself saying that, though.
“Honestly,” he said instead, “I just got a new toy in the workshop I'm dying to undress. I don't suppose you're into sport cars?”
“I don't suppose either,” Loki agreed. “What's special about them?”
Tony blinked. He wasn't mistaken -this was a clear attempt at making the conversation last, like Loki did not want him to leave him alone with books, as he had specifically demanded in the previous days.
“Honestly? That's a dangerous slope. I might need eight to ten business days to get you started before I get to the good stuff.”
“Aren't they just vehicles made for speed?” Loki sounded innocent, but there was a mischievious twinkle in his eyes that implied he was fully aware of the offense of his words.
“Oh wow -excuse you? You want to come down to the lab say that to my Hennessey Venom GT's face? Actually, scratch that -I won't let you hurt her feelings before I even get to work on her engine.”
“What kind of venom are we talking about exactly?”
“I can't even tell if you're serious. Did you ever even ride a car?”
“Not that I know off,” Loki admitted, no longer even trying to conceal his grin. “Come now, impress me.”
“Oh, I will, you brat. You asked for it,” he agreed wholeheartedly, sitting back next to the bed and pulling out his phone to pull up his gallery of pictures. “You're getting the whole lecture. And when I'm done, you'll have to say something nice to each of my baby. Though actually- you know what, let's start with the grandpa. You strike me as the kind of guy who would love the classics -it's actually known as the Royale. Meet Type 41 -before Bugatti made fast cars, they made cool cars. I got this one to go with a Gomez Addams costume when I was in MIT.”
“Fascinating. I understood most of those words.”
Tony scoffed, playing offended when really he wanted to laugh, and he leaned sideway toward Loki's bedside to show off his collection.
They didn't move much for the rest of the day. Tony's pondering progressed all the same, and he reached at least one conclusion.
There was no way he would let this man disappear back into Asgardian jail.
Loki's cuts healed completely in a little less than ten days. They left a spiderweb of pale scars, but no complications, which, considering his improvised caretaking, Tony called a big win. The busted knee and shoulder took a little longer, but really, it was hard to decide whether that was a normal delay, compared to a regular human.
Tony spent most of that time with Loki, even after he allowed the god to get out of bed, when his knee seemed strong enough to take it. He reasoned with himself that he was being careful; there was no telling when Angry Loki might make a comeback and threaten innocent civilians if left to his own devices. Spending good time with a big-mouthed prince, looking at expensive cars and learning about langskips riding and spaceship driving, was an unexpected, but admittedly fun bonus.
Besides, Loki was a good guest. He was nice to the bots, even JARVIS, who didn't hide his suspicion toward him. He nagged Tony about everything and argued all the time, but he washed his dishes all by himself without mentioning it. He asked Tony about why he drank pineapple juice instead of alcohol and respected the abrupt change of conversation that came along.
He was nice, really.
It was getting increasingly tempting to imagine that this Loki was a completely separate being from the New York one, with no reason whatsoever to go back to jail.
But Angry Loki came back.
Once, he had actually locked Tony out of the guest room like some kind of sulking teenager. Then, he had thrown a smoothie glass to the floor with its content and had seemed to lose his patience, asking Tony what in the Nine Realms he was playing at.
“Hey, nice to see you,” Tony had said, hands raised in his usual peaceful approach. “Um, I was making myself a tropical smoothie. And you asked for one. If you wanted another flavor, you know, you didn't need to smash the glass.”
“Stop mocking me,” the god practically growled, but his features lacked the aggressivity of the first times. Instead, he looked -tired. Or confused? “I tire of your games, Stark. What are you trying to obtain? What is your plan?"
“I'm not playing,” Tony replied, dropping the innocent tone as the seriousness of his guest reached him. “I'm... I just appreciate this. Whatever this is. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Are you truly that lonely?” Loki's lips pulled up into an unconvincing grin. “So miserably alone, so pathetic, that you crave the captive attention of a wounded man in need of shelter?”
“Who hurt you, Loki?”
The question landed almost visibly. Loki's grimace fell, his features taking a mask of exagerated neutrality, his shoulders tensing. There was still some stiffness in the right one, but Tony had put warming balm there half an hour ago to relieve the pain.
“What is your plan, Iron Man?” Loki asked once more, much more quietly.
“I'm sort of making it up as I go, to be honest. Can you tell me? I don't want to send him back. I don't want to send you back up there.”
“Why?”
“Who did this? Does Thor know?”
Loki eyed him warily, jaws clenched tightly, eyes darting back and forth to Tony and to the ground, the kitchen counter, the spilled smoothie, like he was taking everything in for a complex calculation. Tony thought he wouldn't get an answer, but, after a full minute, Loki's fingers closed in a fist, near his heart, over the circles of the scars, and he spoke very quietly.
“He doesn't. He would never allow it. Would never stand for anything so undignified...”
“So who was it?” Tony insisted, feeling how fragile this instant was, how easily Loki could take just the smallest step back and never finish this.
“His people. His valiant, noble, courageous people. Aesir warriors, loyal to the throne and the realm.” Loki's voice dripped with bitter sarcasm. “Did they bribe the guards of my cell? Or didn't they have to? How many in the Realm would answer the call of duty, to teach a monster its place?”
“That's not fair.” Tony's own words were quiet, in contrast, too aware that he didn't have the right to wince at Loki's sharp, dangerous tone. “I don't know what made you do what you did in New York, but -I know it wasn't just you. You're not...” Loki's eyes challenged him, shining with rage or tears. He swallowed and made himself finish, speaking the dangerous truth he had grown certain of. “You're not a monster.”
“But I am, Stark. A bloodthirsty creature of nightmare, a monster who usurped the blessed name of Odin's blood for its own sinister purposes.” They were tears. Heavy tears that built up in Loki's eyes until they overflew, and the god smiled maniacally, painfully, as they streamed down the scars on his cheek. “This is not about your world. None of them care why I did it. It was never the question. It was the answer.”
“I don't get it.”
“I was a monster from the day I was born, Tony Stark. And all I did was prove it. Prove to all that there was nothing but beastly savagery and betrayal beneath my treacherous skin. And those loyal warriors, they took the burden of making this obvious to all. Don't you see?”
Tony opened his mouth, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to tell Loki to calm down, or to admit that he still didn't understand. He wanted to figure it out, and he knew that this was his one chance, but the distress in Loki's voice was growing, making his words and body shake like a quiet earthquake. Before he could make his choice, though, Loki threw him a sharp smile, and turned -blue.
Tony didn't understand what he was seeing. His first thought was that Loki, using his magic, was leaving him in the middle of the enigma, letting himself forget again. But what had he used his spell for? Confused, wet eyes opened, and his heart skipped a beat as he found them to be no longer green and white, but as crimson and bright as gemstones. Loki's face was turning the same cobalt shade that had started spreading to his chest.
“Loki. Oh my god,” Tony started, confusion and worry battling for dominance in his chest. The scars -they had been nearly healed, but they were showing up, more than ever, silver and pale like moonlight. It was a vision out of a fantasy book or a sci-fi movie, but in that instant, it was just terrifying: how could the wounds deepen now? He could see them spreading now, smaller cuts appearing on his chin and cheekbones. Had Loki hurt himself on purpose?
Loki frowned, the god looking at the spilled smoothie in confusion.
“This is -what did I do?” He asked, clearly unhappy, before he stilled. He brought his blue hand up in front of his eyes and the blue of his skin turned livid.
“Loki? Are you okay? Does this hurt?”
“No,” Loki gasped, but it didn't sound like he was answering him. “What -what did I... Why?!”
The final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place with that single, horrified word. Thor had told them, so briefly, so awkwardly, that Loki was not his brother by blood. SHIELD had noted every anomaly about Loki's body they had found, his negative heat signature, his durability superior even to Thor's, making speculative notes about his specie. The old books, they called Loki an outcast of the gods, a... What was it?
“You're a frost giant,” he realised out loud. “This is how you really look.”
“It- it is not,” Loki protested in horror, taking a step back, away from Tony, and another-
“Hey, wait, wait,” Tony argued, and Loki stilled. His face changed completely, from fresh horror to resignation, and that ghost, mask of a smile as the god spread his arms lightly on his side. Turning to Angry Loki again.
“Skin like a drowned man,” he said, “eyes like a bloodbath, disfigured from birth. I suppose they thought themselves very clever, to make me look like me.”
It was so much to take in, so much to deal with. Tony didn't reply, just staring, too shocked to remember that it was rude and probably the worst thing to do at the moment. He catalogued the scars -but they were not scars, they were clearly natural, yes, but nonetheless tracing delicate patterns, intricate arabesques where the cuts had been crude and brutal in their imitation. He kept coming to the color of his eyes, red yet transparent, not like blood at all, not in the way they shone with the light. Actually, his first thought of a gemstone was the most accurate; not a dull comparison of a mere color, like some old love song, it was exactly what they reminded him off.
“Not what you expected, perhaps?”
Loki was showing teeth, in that thing that would have looked like a smile if Tony hadn't spent the last two weeks discovering what his smile actually looked like.
“Yeah, I admit, this wasn't part of my hypothesis.”
“I thought so.” The god gave a sharp sound that might have been a laugh, and extended his arms further. “So what are you going to do, Stark? Is now the moment you call your friends? I should be honest with you -with or without my magic, I won't let myself be captured again.”
“That's alright. I'm not... There's no plan to capture you. Just -couldn't you have... Warned the other you? He looked really distressed. You've got some kind of schizophrenic self-abuse going on, you know.”
“Is this all you have to answer me?”
Tony looked at him- really looked at him, forcing himself to stop noticing the frost lace that was growing around Loki's bare feet on the kitchen ceramic floor.
“So how did you forget?”
Loki had already started forming a reply, like he had been certain that something else completely was coming. He frowned and shut his mouth almost comically and Tony offered a shrug and a small smile.
“What? My theory was right. Asgardian assholes. That was just half the question, though. What made you forget what happened? And how did you escape?”
“This -do you expect me to believe that -that this is your only reaction? To harboring a monster? Caring for one?”
“You're really convinced of that, uh?” He bit back on the wave of overwhelming fury and sadness that washed over him as Loki stared back. This, he thought, was the first of the “beastly” quality Loki described himself with: some sort of wild, almost animal fear, like something deeply primal about him could not imagine that Tony was anything but horrified at his appearance. That settled it, he thought. “I took you in knowing you had attacked my city. Finding out that you can change hue is not going to make me freak out, Loki. Plus, you seem to think that this,” he waved the god's way, and Loki actually flinched back, “is tough on the eye. I mean, it's new, for sure, but -I wouldn't say drowned man or bloodthirsty. You look... Like a really cool alien. Which -I know you are an alien, but this makes it way more real, you know?”
“I am not of Asgard,” Loki pointed out. Like there was a possibility that Tony hadn't figured that out yet. “I'm a Jötun. A Frost Giant.”
“So? Alien, alien. Considering what I've just learned of Asgardian values, I'm encline to looking at other planets to see if they're any better. And you know what?” He added, seeing Loki looking like he wanted to protest or, maybe, start again with the incredibly racist discourse, “if all the Frost Giants are terrible people, then that's still not making me run away screaming. There are plenty of terrible human beings, too.”
“Do you...” Loki paused. He seemed to deflate a little, like the tension leaving his body had left him five inches smaller. His eyes wandered to the spilled smoothie again. “Do you always have answers to everything, that way?”
“I'm Tony Stark,” he shrugged, and felt great relief as the god gave him the closest thing he had ever had to a smile, in his not-amnesiac state. “That's just what I do.”
“This is horrifying,” Loki murmured, looking down at himself. “To my people. To Asgard, that is. I would... if I went back to Asgard looking like this... I would be killed on sight, before I was even recognised.”
“That's way more horrifying than any ugly look you could pull, Loki. Which, honestly... This really isn't that bad.” He smiled at the unconvinced frown of the giant. “How about you sit down and I make another smoothie?”
“You're treating me like I am my ignorant self,” Loki mumbled. He did sit, though.
“That's the nicest way I treat people, I'll have you know.”
Loki scoffed, but he did not protest. He sat at the counter, and looked warily at the way the marble reacted to the touch of his blue fingers. There was a little bit of smoke around his fingers. That was fascinating, but Tony tried not to be an overly curious asshole as he threw the fruits into the blender and started another round of smoothies. Dumm-E helpfully came to clean the mess (or, more accurately, spread it around some more) and Loki eyed him with too much curiosity and amusement in his eyes to be a proper villain.
“I've been trying to quit alcohol,” Tony said when he turned off the machine and its whirring sound. “For years, actually. But this is my best streak so far.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Loki was still there, still sitting, still blue, and looking at him with those garnet-like eyes in astonishment.
“Why?” He questioned.
“The official reason? It's better for my liver, and my brain, and my work. And I'm supposed to be a role model for the kids, although that's a lost cause, and all that stuff.” He popped a straw into the glass and placed it on the counter in front of Loki. “But really, it's because I'm a sad drunk. I'll party and do stupid shit to keep people around, but eventually, I wind up alone. I tell myself it's just a drink, just a way to make my mind quiet for a moment. And when it's just me and the alcohol talking- it feels like... Like nothing will ever be okay again. Like I'll never know joy again in my life. Not only that, but like there's nothing to be done about it. Like everything I do, everything I ever tried to do is useless. And I'll never be anything other than a sad drunk with blood on his hands.”
Loki looked at him, ignoring the smoothie.
“And in those moments,” he continued, “I feel so much pity for myself. For... Regular me. Who's trying and trying to do good. Who's straining and trying, without knowing or accepting what drunk me knows: that's there's just no hope. That everything is fucked.”
Loki stared some more. And Tony took a deep breath. He couldn't remember actually saying those words out loud before. They felt weaker in that form.
“So I'm quitting alcohol,” he said. “Because I'd really rather be naive than giving up.”
“That sounds foolish,” Loki said. And then, after a pause: “And brave.”
“Are you and he always going to be apart?” Tony questioned after the god bowed his head in the following silence.
“No.” The straight answer surprised him -he had been expected another mystery. But Loki smiled faintly as he moved the straw around the drink. “That's your answer, Tony Stark. I escaped Asgard, and the price I paid was my memory. I used blood magic -forbidden, risky magic. It was the only thing I could use to escape. I could have lost something else. The color of my eyes. My own name. Hearing.” He shrugged, like this was all factual, like there was nothing surprising about it. “Separating memories and magic... It could have been worse. Those weren't particularly good memories, either. But in the end... They will come back. We will be one again.”
“And what will you do then?”
“Run,” Loki said directly. “That's my plan, anyway. I can be their villain if that's what they'll make me. But I will not be their victim. I want to drink this.”
The last bit made Tony look up, confused. As he watched, though, Loki sighed and lowered his head. His skin turned back to its usual pale shade; the hand he held around the glass soon left an imprint in the frost that had spread from his fingers. And the god blinked, and his eyes were back -vivid green. It really was a lovely color, Tony thought, the fact plain and undeniable for the first time, but he already missed the scarlet diamonds.
Wait, he was starting to sound like some terrible love song.
“What,” Loki frowned. “What happened?”
“A visit from your knowledgeable self,” Tony replied. “I made you another smoothie.”
The frown only deepened. Loki evidently suspected something.
“Uh, he also showed me your blue skin? And he told me who attacked you,” he continued before Loki could freak out about that. “Asgardian baddies, like we thought. He thinks you and he will sort of fuse back together sometime soon. He actually didn't seem that angry, for once.”
“Well,” Loki said, but didn't continue. He looked at his hands for a few long seconds, before leaning forward to taste the smoothie. “Well,” he repeated. “This is good.”
Tony sat with him, reaching for his own abandoned drink. He tilted it Loki's way and they clinked them together, and drank.
Are you truly that lonely? So pathetic? The biting words were still at the back of his mind as he sipped his smoothie. He was, he thought. They both were. One seeing enemies everyone. One desperate to find allies. One literally split down the middle between hurt and rage. One filled with fear and despair.
But they were both moving forward. Slowly, clumsily. With no one to show them the way. They still did.
“Come on,” he said, when they had emptied half of their glass in contemplative silence. “I need a break. That was intense. You want to make fun of Star Wars some more? I want to make fun of Star Wars. Let's get the big blanket.”