Chapter Text
“Uhm,” Clint hums, narrows his eyes, and lowers his bow, aiming it at the floor. “Is he dead?”
Tony examines the asshole extraordinaire currently adorning an asshole-extraordinaire-shaped hole in his living room’s floor they are all gathered around, and scratches his chin. It’s awfully hard to tell. He does look dead, with all the blood and that lying-completely-still thingy going on, but Asgardians seem to be fucking indestructible, so who could say?
Hulk roars, but it doesn’t work this time.
“Thor?” Tony prompts, but gets no answer and Thor continues to just stand there, staring at the unmoving figure with a dumbfounded expression on his face. “Jay?”
“My cameras are down on your level, Sir, but I’m getting a readout of life signs,” Jarvis says. The voice comes just from one speaker in the corner that was somehow spared when all the rest was destroyed, and even that is distorted and overlayed with static, which could mean further damage somewhere deeper in the network. “Although, they’ve seem to be fading in and out for the last twenty-three minutes and I have nothing in my database to use it as a baseline to compare the readings to.”
Clint grunts in displeasure, and – as awful as it might seem – Tony understands where he is coming from. The whole awful mind control affair notwithstanding, it would make it easier for everyone – including Thor’s lil bro himself – if Loki decided to just shove off. No such luck, apparently.
Well, that seems to be still up in the air. Loki’s chest rises as he draws a quick, ragged breath. He chokes and coughs and blood bubbles on his lips and trails down from his nose and the corners of his mouth, which means there’s blood in his airways or lungs, which means internal injuries of an unknown scale.
That finally seems to knock Thor out of the stupor. He falls to his knees and places his hand under Loki’s neck to lift him up.
“Wait!” Tony finds himself saying, even though he wouldn’t be able to give a reason if someone asked why.
Thor frowns, but stops for a moment and glowers at Tony.
“We shouldn’t move him,” Rogers takes over, bless his heart, then drops to his knees next to Loki and leans over, with his ear an inch above Loki’s lips. His brows furrow and the wrinkle between them only grows deeper when he presses his fingers to the god’s neck. “He isn’t breathing and the pulse is barely there,” Steve reports.
Thor stumbles back a step, his face now completely lost, with an expression of panic mixing with shock. “No… That’s not possible. He can’t just… die,” he mutters.
“He will if we don’t do something,” Steve says and the urgency in his tone makes Tony sure he isn’t exaggerating.
The decision pretty much makes itself in his brain, without his conscious participation. “Jay, is the med bay still operational?”
“Yes, Sir. Doctor Powell is on duty, as well as her entire team. Should I make the call?”
“Yes.”
Having a private medical center on the lower levels of one’s home becomes less of a whim and more of a reasonable precaution if one’s flying around in a metal tin, fighting crime.
“Friend Stark?” Thor says, his gaze – just as lost as it was a minute ago – now parked on Tony.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get your brother sorted out in no time,” Tony says cheerfully and it’s just as optimistic as it’s baseless of a promise. Tony’s seen enough death and grave injury over his tenure as Iron Man to know how it looks. Loki has been out for a good while already, even for a human it’s not a good sign and who can say what it could mean for someone as sturdy as the Asgardians? Even without that, he doesn’t look so hot, with blood still dripping from his lips and the wounds on his face and neck – and that’s as much as Tony can see, with the armor hiding the rest – and there’s enough of it already pooling in the hole the god still lies in to suggest that – even if he lived somehow – it wouldn’t be without lasting effects and a long, painful recovery.
Still, letting him just die here without trying to help would be a shitty thing to do. They are supposed to be the good guys after all.
Thor nods, his lips pulled into a thin line. Tony can see a query forming in Thor’s brain and showing up on his face, but the elevator dings before he gets it out. Four paramedics step out, carrying medical equipment and a stretcher.
Tony moves away and signals the others to do so as well, leaving the EMTs to do their job, as they are loading the unconscious god onto a stretcher and placing a brace around his neck and an oxygen mask on his pallid face.
Thor is watching their machinations with suspicion, but doesn’t protest, then – once the paramedics lift the stretcher – he follows them into the elevator.
“I’ll go with them,” Steve offers and – when nobody voices an objection – trudges behind Thor.
Tony’s rather sure Rogers’ initiative is dictated as much by his bleeding heart as it is by his sense of duty and strategical thinking, but he isn’t going to look the gifted horse in the mouth. They need someone to keep an eye on the Asgardians – both of them, since Loki might be still a threat and Thor’s just as unpredictable when it comes to his reactions to his brother – and Steve has better chances of survival than Tony (now that his armor needs repairs), or Barton, or Romanoff. Hulk simply wouldn’t fit into the elevator.
Barton lets out a sigh once the door closes. “Remind me, why do we even bother?”
Tony shrugs. “I’m guessing Thor wouldn’t take it too kindly if we just left his shithead of a brother to die in the pool of his own blood in a hole in my floor,” he says, and realizes it’s not the only reason and there’s a part of him that hopes Loki doesn’t die. Mostly to have an opportunity to ask him what the fuck this mess was all about.
---
Fury calls him thirty minutes later.
“I’ll send my med team over to pick him up,” he says, once Tony informs him how the fight has ended.
“Don’t,” Tony says quickly, then amends, “I mean, I don’t care, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to make it anyway, my team is already on it and Thor might be kinda hard to convince after you promised him he could keep his baby brother as a war prize.”
Fury grunts in displeasure, then agrees. “What about the Tesseract? Is it secured? I have Selvig with the device Thor requested at the ready, but the Council is growing restless.”
“You can tell the Council to shove it, along with my regards,” Tony snarls into the microphone. “They fired a fucking nuke at us! A nuke, Nick!”
“Stark. I understand you’re upset, but–“
“I almost died carrying a missile my own fucking government fired at me, got my home wrecked and currently have a dying Norse god in my med bay. You’re goddamned right I’m upset! Give me one reason why I shouldn’t be!”
There’s a rustle on the line as Fury sighs. “I’ll get back to you later. Just let me know if anything changes.”
It’s one of the times Tony wishes they were still using landlines. He could smash the handset down if that was the case. He cannot, so he just snarls “fine” and drops the call.
Still, it means he dealt with Fury for the time being and now only has to wait for Loki to die to start sorting this whole mess out.
---
Loki doesn’t die, and, by the time Tony goes down to the infirmary the next morning – having showered, eaten, and slept for twelve hours – he’s still kicking. Figuratively speaking, because he’s still unconscious.
Romanoff’s already there, sitting by the glass pane dividing the Hulk-proof enclosure that currently contains Loki’s bed from the hallway. That’s the only window in the room, all the other walls – and the floor and the ceiling, Tony wasn’t fucking around when designing it – being made of twenty inches of reinforced concrete with additional, puncture-resistant padding on the inside. It used to be empty, containing nothing that could be ripped off the wall and used as a projectile, but now houses an array of medical equipment and a hospital bed. And its current tenant.
The medical staff have removed Loki’s armor, replacing it with a thin hospital gown, and – along with his deathly pale skin and all the tubes running to the IV ports in his arms and chest and to the hole in his throat – it makes the god look a lot less intimidating. Actually, he looks rather frail, and pretty goddamned mortal.
There’s a thick, metal manacle snapped on Loki’s bony wrist, but the chain and the other shackle on its end just dangle down from the bed, without being attached to anything.
“What’s that about?” Tony asks Romanoff, then points at the chains when she frowns.
“Thor’s idea. Apparently, it does something to block Loki’s magic and he got it on before the nurses kicked him out of the room. He still thinks Loki is faking it.”
“And you don’t?”
She shakes her head then hands him the tablet from a nearby table. “Doctor Powell’s report.”
Tony reads through the list. Just the three top bullet points are enough to understand what Romanoff meant – a broken spine, a suspected spinal cord injury, and a punctured lung – but the list keeps on going. Some of the entries are obvious as for the source – a concussion, broken ribs, damaged organs, and blunt force trauma injuries – and can easily come from being repeatedly plummeted into a concrete floor by Hulk. Others are a bit more enigmatic. Older, half-healed fractures, burns and severe scarring, symptoms of dehydration and acute malnutrition, nerve damage from exposure to extreme temperatures.
The like.
It reads more like a hardcore mashup of seven different pathology reports than a doctor’s note on someone who’s still alive.
“Uhm, are we sure this is right?” Tony asks, still staring at the screen.
Romanoff nods. “I’ve seen the scans. It’s as bad as it gets. It’s a wonder he was able to stand on his own, more so to fight, even before Hulk got to him.”
Tony claps into the empty seat next to her. “Any ideas where these came from?”
“He’s been tortured and it went on for quite some time," she says. She keeps her tone calm and matter-of-fact, but her words still send a shiver down Tony’s spine. "That’s my only hypothesis, but I’ve seen similar sets of injuries on torture victims too many times to be wrong about it."
“By whom?”
She shrugs. “Whoever held his leash during the attack, if I had to guess.”
Tony curses under his breath. It would be a lie if he said he didn’t suspect someone else had to be behind Loki’s frenzied offensive. Thor had no idea where the troops came from, Loki’s whereabouts in the last months were unaccounted for and the whole goddamned plan made absolutely no sense, especially in the context of Thor’s assertions that Loki is smart, cunning, and a good tactician.
But there’s a difference between a willful collaboration and being forced into doing something against one’s will.
Tony presses his fingers to his eyelids, but it only makes it worse, Yinsen’s dead, unseeing eyes now gazing at him from his memories. What would he have done if not for Yinsen? What would he have done if he had no one to help him, no one to guide him, no one to talk him down when he freaked out? Would he build the goddamned Jericho?
It looks like Loki did.
“I guess we will have to wait and ask him who that was when he wakes,” Tony says.
“If he ever does,” Romanoff says glumly.
---
Loki doesn’t wake up that evening, nor anytime within the next three days, and – even though his state remains stable – he doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
“I don’t get it,” Bruce says. Once he’d slept off hulking out, he joined Tony, Romanoff, and Steve in their voluntary vigils in front of Loki’s cell-slash-hospital-room. He isn’t saying it, but Tony is pretty certain he feels guilty about the whole deal. “He was resilient enough to live through receiving all these injuries, and yet he isn’t healing now.” Bruce looks down on the pad in his hands and frowns. “His body reacts properly to anti-inflammatory drugs and the doctors stopped all the bleeding, but his state isn’t improving. It’s almost as if something was… blocking the recovery.”
Tony narrowly escapes facepalming himself to death. “He’s a fucking wizard, Bruce,” he says and springs up.
“Huh?”
Tony taps the panel next to the door, then – when it spills “insufficient clearance” error – he beats it into submission with an admin override. “I’m not an expert or anything, but, just logically, taking away his mojo definitely isn’t helping, right?” he says and steps inside.
He had no reason to come into the room until now, staying on the other side of the glass, and it strikes him how much worse Loki looks from up close – pale and lifeless, with deep shadows under his closed eyes.
Bruce follows Tony inside and stops a couple of steps away from the bed. Tony approaches it and examines the cuff, visually at first, and – when that doesn’t yield any conclusive verdict – he picks up Loki’s limp arm and tries to twist the shackle around, unsuccessfully. It fits too tightly, pressing into the flesh so hard it leaves reddened marks where metal meets the skin and cuts off circulation. The skin itself feels clammy and cold to the touch, to a point that the metal actually feels warmer in comparison.
“We don’t even know what it does, Tony,” Bruce reasons.
“Well, currently the best case scenario is ‘nothing’. It’s not like he can give us a slip like that, can he?” Tony says and frowns. He cannot see any obvious way to open the shackle – it’s made out of a multitude of interlocking parts that look like they should be moving but don’t. “Damn. Jay, any input?”
“The spectral analysis proved inconclusive, Sir, as it doesn't appear to be made of any alloy known to mankind. My sensors pick up a mild electromagnetic field and traces of non-ionizing radiation, but the material is too dense for my scanners to process and I am unable to determine if it's a part of the device's functionality or an effect of the materials' properties. A full, destructive analysis of a sample is required for further information.”
“It doesn’t look like we’re getting a sample until we get it off,” Tony says with dejection and lets go of Loki’s hand. It flops down to the bed limply. “And we need Thor to do it.”
Bruce sighs, and yeah, Tony is totally ahead of him there.
---
He knocks on the guest suite’s door, waits a few seconds, and knocks again. “Thor? It’s me, Tony.”
Since the medical staff – aided by Romanoff’s lifesaving powers of persuasion – told the older Asgardian that no, he could not take Loki back home in that state and no, he shouldn’t fucking chain him up and put a mouthguard from hell on him either, Thor has been mostly hiding away in the rooms Jarvis pointed him to, only sometimes going out to join them for meals.
At least by now, it looks like some of their arguments have made their way into his thick skull and he seems to get that it’s not, in fact, and act on Loki’s part, even though he still refuses to acknowledge how serious his brother’s state is and brushes off the suggestions that it was more than just the damage from the battle that got him there.
Tony’s about to knock again – or perhaps just barge in, it is his tower after all – when the door opens.
Thor’s missing a shirt and his hair is tousled, and it looks like he just got out of bed. Tony saves the “it’s three pm” comment, they’ve noticed by now that Thor has problems adjusting to the Earth’s daily cycles a while ago.
“Man of Iron,” Thor says and stifles a yawn. “How can I help you.”
He doesn’t invite him in, so Tony just slinks through the crack, ducks under Thor’s arm, and walks inside.
The main living area is a mess, with beer bottles, pieces of armor, and empty takeout boxes – it looks like Thor’s been using Jarvis, and the food delivery services he offers to all guests, to compensate for the meals he’s missed – lying wherever they landed. Tony dismissed his room service right after the attack started and Thor’s not big on cleaning after himself, apparently.
Tony pushes an empty pizza box out of the way and sits down in an armchair. “We need to talk.”
Thor collapses onto a couch on the other side of the low table. “What about?”
“Your brother. First, you need to remove the shackle. Second–“
“I’ll do no such thing!”
That takes Tony by surprise. “Why? He cannot run away or use his magic if he’s unconscious, right?”
“It doesn’t matter. It takes but a moment, and he’ll use the first opportunity he gets to escape the punishment for his crimes. I swore a vow to the All-Father I’d bring Loki to justice and I intend to keep my word.”
“Here’s the second part of my question. What sort of “justice” are we talking about here?”
“I know not, friend,” Thor admits, after a moment of silence.
“Any guesses?”
There’s another beat of silence, before Thor answers. “The punishment for treason is death,” he says in a hollow voice.
Tony takes a mental note of the wording. Not aggravated assault, not murder, not attacking an allied nation. Treason. As if the whole fucking universe rotated around Asgard and everyone else were there just to play set dressing. “And what if the whole coercion thingy checks out?”
“It matters not. A worthy man would withstand it.”
Tony goes through the list of Loki’s injuries that is now burned into his brain. “It looks like your brother did quite a lot of ‘withstanding’,” he says.
“Then he ought to lay down his life instead of claiming innocent ones.”
“Would you?”
“Of course!” Thor exclaims, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and it rings just as solemn as it is fake.
One could never know for sure, until it happens. Even carrying the nuke through the portal, Tony still didn’t think about dying. It wasn’t a conscious act of sacrifice, just a heat-of-the-moment call. He didn’t know what he would find on the other side or wasted even a second on wondering if he would make it back. He just did it, because it felt like the best option at the time. And he did live, even if it was just a fluke. Would he act the same if he knew for certain it meant death?
He doesn’t know, and he suspects Thor doesn’t know either.
“Well, it’s different here.”
“Loki’s of Asgard, not of Midgard.”
“Is he though? You said he rebelled against your father and you intend to drag him home in chains to be killed. That doesn’t shape up like a peaceful return home.”
Thor grits his teeth.
“I can see you still care about him.”
Thor purses his lips and looks away. “I still hold hope that the All-Father will find mercy for my brother in his heart,” he says quietly, the pompousness from before gone from his tone.
“And what if he doesn’t?”
Thor doesn’t answer.
“Maybe it would be better if Loki stayed here?”
“And what difference would it make? Loki brought war to your doorstep. Your leaders ought to hold as bitter of a grudge against him. What does it matter if he dies by a mortal hand instead of Aesir?”
“Woah there. Nobody said anything about killing. As I said, it’s not the same here. Attenuating circumstances do matter. If he cooperates and comes clean and his testimony checks out, he has a solid chance to walk away, free.”
Thor’s face draws in as he considers Tony’s words. “You argue for my brother after he ruined your home and threatened you with death.”
Tony shrugs. “Shit happens,” he chuckles. “Besides, I’m not a huge fan of seeing people who don’t deserve to die to be killed. Or anyone, for that matter.”
“You might have followed a wrong calling then,” Thor points out.
Tony laughs and shrugs. It’s not that he has no answer, but he suspects it isn’t going to convince someone who operates on Thor’s mindset and level of intensity. It’s different to defend oneself or others in a dire situation – to kill to protect a life – than to carry out a cold, calculated act of revenge, even if it’s to follow the letter of the law. It doesn’t make one just, it makes the law faulty.
“So, what would it be?”
“I… I have to think about it.”
“And the shackle?”
Thor frowns.
“He won’t heal with it on. We’re trying what we can to help him, but there’s only as much as we can do,” Tony persuades.
Thor stares at him for a while, then nods curtly.
Tony gets up, pats Thor on his – honestly pretty damn impressive – bicep and heads to the door. “Thanks, He-Man. So, shall we?”
Thor grunts and follows him out of the room.
---
“What now?” Thor asks and stashes the shackles into his pouch of holding that doesn’t look nearly big enough to hold the bulky restraint yet it does.
“You tell me,” Tony says. The manacle left a reddened welt on Loki’s ashen skin and the sight riles him way more than it reasonably should. “You’re the expert here.”
“Loki always healed quickly. I knew not that he was aiding it with his magic,” Thor says with a pout. At least he looks a bit guilty about it, so that’s progress.
“I suppose we’ll have just wait and see,” Bruce says and gestures at the hallway.
“I’d like to stay here for a moment if you don’t mind,” Thor says.
Tony nods. As long as Thor cuts down on the bullshit vengeful behavior, there’s no reason why he cannot stay.
Tony and Bruce retreat from the room and Tony resecures the door behind them, Thor stays inside. For a moment, he just stands there, staring at his brother’s lifeless body, then drags a stool over and sits by the bedside. His massive hand covers Loki’s bony one and he gently runs his fingers over the damaged flesh where the shackle sat, as if he could wish the marks out of existence just by his touch.
“What have you told him?” Bruce asks.
“The truth.”
---
Tony pops to the infirmary a couple of times throughout the day. Sure, Jarvis would notify him if something has changed, but he still feels the urge to check for himself, not entirely sure why.
His last visit, just before the bed, is a few minutes past midnight, and he finds only Steve sitting in the hallway. Loki’s still out, but he started to breathe on his own somewhere during the afternoon and the tracheostomy tube was removed, replaced by a length of bandage wrapped around his throat.
“Where’s the thunder boy?” he asks.
“He fell asleep, so I told him to go to his room.”
“He listened?”
“Not right away,” Steve says with a small smile.
“Yeah, he looks like the type,” Tony jokes.
Steve sighs and drags his hand through his hair, the smile fading. “I asked Thor what would happen to Loki back home,” he says.
“Yeah, we talked about it too.”
“On one hand, it’s their law and it would be wrong to interfere. On the other, it’s just so…”
“Messed up.”
Steve nods. “It’s their father who ordered it, too. He ordered Thor to bring in his own brother to be executed. What kind of father does that?”
“A shitty one.”
Steve sighs again. “I know it’s wrong, but I begin to think it would be better for Loki if he never woke up,” he says quietly.
Tony can see where Steve is coming from. If one’s choice is between fading away peacefully in one’s sleep and standing trial in front of one’s estranged parent then facing a – most likely bloody, because Asgard doesn’t sound like a place that’s up to date with the newest humanitarian standards – execution, that call is easy to make. But Tony isn’t entirely sure it is indeed the only choice. Even if they don’t manage to convince Thor, there are still options. They can trick him, hide Loki somewhere safe, tell Thor he ran away…
Tony chuckles to himself and shakes his head. Is he really considering sticking out his neck for a genocidal maniac that threw him out of his own window?
Well, it looks like he does.
He claps his hand down on Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Cap. We’ll figure it out,” he says and means it.
---
“Sir, there is a disturbance in the infirmary,” Jarvis says, a second after playing an alarm that woke Tony up.
“What kind of disturbance?” he asks, jumping out of the bed and instinctively reaching under it to retrieve his suit, only to realize it’s not there. He still hasn’t gotten around to fixing it, with so much going on. “Is Mark Four operational?”
“It is, Sir, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Captain Rogers and the nurses are dealing with the issue as we speak. I’m just notifying you because you requested an update if there was a status change.”
“I assume there is,” Tony says, quickly pulling on his pants and shirt. Jarvis’ assertion did calm him down somewhat, but he still intends to check.
“Indeed, Sir. Mr. Odinson has woken up.”
“That’s the disturbance?”
“He appeared confused and attacked Captain Rogers when he approached.”
“Is Steve all right?”
“Yes, he appears unharmed. Mr. Odinson’s attack did no significant damage.”
“Have you notified Thor?”
“I haven’t, Sir.”
“Don’t.”
---
When he arrives in the med bay five minutes later, the situation looks fully under control. Loki’s back to lying unconscious in his bed, now secured down with leather straps holding down his wrists and ankles and Steve is sitting in the hallway and has a wound on his forehead cleaned by a nurse. It doesn’t look serious, just a scratch that shouldn’t be much of an issue even for someone who isn’t Steve Rogers.
Tony waits for the nurse to finish and leave before asking. “So, what happened?”
“It was my fault,” Steve says. “Loki started muttering something so I went in and spooked him.”
Rogers can be fierce in battle, but with his peacetime demeanor, he wouldn’t spook even a blind kitten.
Tony picks up the tablet. “Jay, show me the recording,” he says and a video pops up a second later and starts playing.
Steve was being generous calling the muffled cries and pleas coming out of Loki’s lips a “mutter”. The recording doesn’t do a good job at catching all the words but the tone in collaboration with the look on Loki’s face is enough to give Tony enough of an idea. Whatever vision Loki’s brain is serving him in his sleep – his eyes are still closed – is a terrifying one.
The door opens and Steve rushes in and bends over the bed, shaking Loki’s arm. Only then do the god’s eyes fly open and dash around in blind panic. He throws Steve’s hand off and swings at Steve’s face, nicking his forehead with his nails as Steve tries to dodge and move away.
Four nurses and a doctor rush in. The nurses pin – now hissing and struggling – Loki down to the bed and the doctor administers a shot into his neck. Loki fights for a few more seconds, his moves growing more and more sluggish, then goes slack.
Tony sighs and turns the video off.
“As I said, it was my fault,” Steve says. “I don’t think he even realized where he was.”
Tony sits down and presses his fingers to his eyes. He’s still at it, when the night shift doctor walks in.
“Mr. Stark,” he acknowledges.
Tony waves him to go on because he can’t recall the man’s name and his plaque is turned the wrong way around.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” the man says as if it was somehow his fault. “The life signs of the patient were improving since the late evening, but we didn’t expect him to wake up this early. We all operate blindly here. The patient’s biology is very unlike the human one.”
“What have you given him?”
“Just a sedative. It should keep him under for a couple of hours without causing any serious side effects. With an emphasis on ‘should’, since all of the drugs we’ve been administering constitute an experimental therapy in this case.”
As if called out, Loki shifts and opens his eyes, immediately throwing away the “couple of hours” assumption. He tugs on the cuffs holding him down, then tugs again, to no avail. Tony isn’t aware of any special materials used in the medical restraints in his facilities, so it’s most likely an effect of Loki’s diminished strength rather than the quality of the leather straps.
The doctor moves to open the door.
“Wait. Let me talk to him first.” He isn’t sure what that could achieve – it’s not like he could by any means amount to a friendly face – but he feels an urge to try anyway. He can't make it any worse by just talking, can he?
“Okay, but just for a moment. I need to examine the patient,” the doctor agrees and Tony prefers to think it’s so because it’s his true, professional opinion and not because Tony is paying his – most likely outlandish – wage.
Tony walks inside. He can feel Loki’s gaze on himself the whole time, as he’s dragging the stool that got kicked away during the struggle and sitting down. “Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” he says.
Loki’s green gaze slowly focuses and recognition blooms on his face. “Stark,” he rasps.
“The one and only.”
“Who do you think you are to dare to bind a god!? Release me, before I make you regret you were ever born on this gods-forsaken realm!” Loki howls and yanks on the cuffs again. The frame of the bed protests with a whine, but the restraints somehow hold, which seems to enrage Loki further. “I’ll rip out your heart and feed it still beating to your offspring while you watch! I’ll rend you limb for limb and leave your carcass for the crows!”
Tony folds his arms at his chest and waits it out. Loki goes on for a while in a similar vein, growing less and less coherent, but soon expends himself and collapses back to the bed, panting.
“Are you done?”
Loki rolls his eyes and tries for a mocking laugh, only managing to send himself into a coughing fit.
Tony gets up, pours water from a jug someone left by the bed into a plastic cup, and brings the cup to Loki’s lips.
The god scoffs and turns his head away.
“Suit yourself,” Tony says and drinks the water himself then puts the cup away, not missing the way Loki’s eyes trace it. “By the way, I have no kids.”
“What?” Loki blurts out, surprised.
“The part about feeding my still-beating heart to my offspring. I have no kids. That I know of, at least,” Tony says and flashes a smile.
Loki looks at him with a deepening frown, the rage ebbing down, bit by bit. “Where am I?” he asks at last, his tone cold but collected.
“Want to take a guess before I tell you?”
Loki glowers at him for a while, apparently enjoying the exchange a lot less than Tony, then takes a look around. “Some pathetic mortal prison.”
“Not so pathetic from the look of things,” Tony says and points his chin at the restraints. “And no, it’s not a prison. Just a nice, cozy room in my tower.”
Loki goes for another take and it looks like he isn’t convinced. “Where’s Thor?”
“In his bed, as far as I know. We can call him in a minute, but I wanted to talk to you before we do.”
“Whatever for?”
“Want to take a guess before I tell you?”
Loki snarls at him, teeth and all, and Tony laughs. “I don’t know if you realize it, but you’ve been on the brink of death for the last, what, four days?”
Loki shifts in place, wiggling his shoulders and turning his arms around. “Your beast did it to me,” he says and, surprisingly, there’s no anger in his voice, just cold detachment.
“Well, Hulk did finish the job, yeah. But I’m more interested in where your previous injuries came from.”
“A childhood accident,” Loki says with a pitch-perfect poker face.
“Mhm,” Stark murmurs.
“Why do you care?”
“Want to take a guess before I tell you?”
Loki lets out a drawn-out sigh and tips his head back, then stares at the ceiling. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. Just call Thor and get it over with.”
“Are you in such a rush to face your justice?”
Loki shrugs and it looks careless enough, but a flinch crosses his gaunt features like a shadow. “What does it matter to you? Do you regret you wasted your effort on a prisoner whose fate is sealed already?”
“Well, I probably would, if that were true. Luckily, it isn’t.”
Loki laughs, a cheerless, mirthless laugh, and smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re speaking of, do you?”
“I know enough. You go home, the All-Daddy lopes your snazzy head off.”
“Exactly.”
“Which brings up two questions. Actually, one question, in two parts. First, why are you in such a rush to go there? Second, why do you want to go there at all?”
Loki turns his face back to Tony. Now that the pretenses are off, he looks just dead tired. He clears his throat, coughs, and wipes his lips on his shoulder. “It has nothing to do with what I want. It simply beats the alternative,” he says numbly.
Tony gets up, pours another cup, considers for a second then reaches to Loki’s wrist and undoes the cuff. Loki frowns, his gaze slowly drifting up from his now free hand up to Tony.
Tony hands him the cup. Loki takes it, brings it to his lips, hesitates for a moment, then downs it in a few gulps and gasps in obvious relief. Tony refills the cup for him.
“Care to elaborate what exactly that alternative is?”
Loki looks at him, his eyes wide. There’s fear in them, but also sadness and hope. He lets his eyelids fall and takes a long, wheezy breath. “There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice you can hide from him," he says in a thin, hollow voice.
“Ugh, it sounds like a quote.”
“It is.”
“So it’s a ‘he’,” Tony muses. “That’s something. Will I get a name?”
“The name won’t tell you what to seek to know. But yes, it’s a man who sent me here. A man who fashions himself a god.”
“You two must’ve had a lot of common subjects to talk about over brunches then,” Tony jokes, and the joke lands flat, for Loki is only glowering at him with grave offense painted on his face. “Too soon?”
“If you choose to make light of my warning it might just as well mean your demise. Yours and your entire kind. Getting rid of his army did nothing to stop his aspirations, merely delayed them. And I assure you, his ambitions are great.”
“Great how?”
“He seeks to collect the Infinity Stones and alter the entirety of reality to his own desires.”
It’s Tony’s turn to just stare blankly.
Loki huffs out a laugh. “You aspire to speak to me as an equal, yet a child of Elder Races would put your knowledge of the principles of the universe to shame.”
“Or, alternatively, you could cut down on the condescension and explain it to me,” Tony counters.
“I tire of giving you explanations,” Loki says. It’s an evasion tactic, that much is certain, but it also doesn’t look that far from the truth.
“Okay, fair. How about we take a break? You take a nap, I’ll find you something to eat in the meantime.”
“You think you can bribe me with scraps, like some scraggly mongrel?”
“I’m not sure, but you still look like you could use a good meal. Then a few dozen more.”
Loki huffs in indignation, but his expression mellows out quickly. “What of Thor?”
“What about him?”
“He won’t be overjoyed when he finds out you’re entertaining his prisoner with a conversation and a feast.”
“I feel like you’re overreacting here a bit.”
“Am I? Does he not want to drag me home in chains?”
“He does. Kinda. I’ve been working on it and for now, the whole affair has been put on hold.”
Loki blinks.
“I’m sure we can convince him to let you stay if you work with me. Starting with a promise to not stab him again once he shows his mug here maybe?”
Loki’s eyes grow wide and his eyebrows furrow. His face is awfully expressive if he’s not trying to hide behind a mask. “Are you… offering me a refuge?” he asks.
“I guess I am,” Tony says with a shrug and gets up. “Anyway… I’m gonna go now and send the good doctor in. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bite his head off while he examines you. The labor unions will never let me hear the end of it if you do.”
He approaches the bed and Loki places his free hand next to the cuff. Instead of resecuring it, Tony reaches the other one and undoes it too, then continues to the ones holding down Loki’s ankles, ignoring Loki’s increasingly confused stare. “What are you doing?” Loki asks warily.
“Those were only for our safety if you decided to throw a fit again. Seeing that it doesn’t look like a real danger anymore, you should be fine without them.”
Loki sits up, folds his hands in his lap, and stares at them intently as if trying to find what part of it was hiding the trick. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
“Don’t mention it. As long as you don’t murder or maim anyone, we’re good. Okay?”
Loki lifts his head and nods and Tony leaves. And if he’s smiling to himself a little, who can blame him?
---
He instructs Jarvis to order some food, then stands there, watching through the glass as the doctor carries out his examination. Loki takes it with a surprising amount of patience, allowing the man to do multiple passes with the handheld scanner, shine light into his eyes, draw his blood for testing and replace the dressing on the incision they had to make in Loki’s abdomen to fix his ruptured guts.
“He seems so… normal,” Steve says and Tony knows exactly what he’s talking about. In comparison to how Loki was acting a few days ago, this makes for like a total one-eighty.
“I know, right? Who would have thought that getting smashed by Hulk can work as therapy?”
Steve sighs. “I’m not sure if it’s just that. If this is how he is on a good day, what was that behavior from before?”
“You think something was affecting him?”
“I don’t know. But that would explain why he acts like he does and yet he did what he did.”
“People are capable of doing a lot of damage when under pressure.”
“Maybe. But maybe there was something more to it?”
Tony shrugs. “I guess we’ll have to find that out as we go.”
The doctor removes the bandages from Loki’s throat and the IV ports from his arms, leaving only the central catheter on his shoulder, then vacates the room.
“What’s the verdict?” Tony asks.
The doctor – Dr. Amin (the plaque is the right way around now) – rubs his face with his hand and sighs. “He seems to be healing and it looks like we’ve been fearing about the lasting effects of the spinal injury for nothing, but other than that… From fifteen years of experience as a general medicine practitioner I can, with a good amount of surety, say that I have no clue. It looks like whatever injury that’s left is no longer life-threatening, but I’ll not give you that in writing.”
Tony thanks him with a nod and the man wanders off.
“So, what now?”
“I promised our ex-wannabe alien overlord a snack and I intend to deliver.”
---
He goes to pick up the takeout and bumps into Bruce on his way back. Bruce goes through the bags, shakes his head with overdone disbelief, and removes almost everything but veggie rice and chicken broth with noodles. Then he makes some peanut butter toasts and some herbal tea and tells Tony to deliver that to Loki instead.
Loki doesn’t seem to mind, just devours everything in record time as if it was his first meal in weeks, which Tony suspects might not be as far from the truth as he’d wish.
“Mr. Stark, I have to inform you that the older Mr. Odinson has woken up and is heading in your direction,” Jarvis’ voice sounds from the speakers. “ETA three minutes. Should I call the others in?”
Tony considers a moment and nods. “Yeah, do that.”
Loki makes a panicked motion and starts to get up.
“Hey, chill. We’re going to just talk to him, nice and easy, and explain everything, how about that?”
Loki’s face suggests he doesn’t think highly of the idea, but he stays put, his fingers curling and uncurling nervously where they rest at his sides.
There’s a commotion on the other side of the glass as Thor’s frantically trying to get the door to open by yanking the handle.
“Wait a mi–“
Thor swings his hammer at the glass. It shatters and falls to the ground in tiny pieces.
So much for Hulk-proof.
“Loki!” Thor calls – a direct warning obvious in his tone – and charges, his weapon still up.
Loki’s resolution crumbles and he scrambles to his feet, away from the bed and into the corner. The IV line, still connected to the port on his shoulder, tugs at the container that’s feeding it and the stand crashes to the ground.
Before he can think twice and realize how pointless it is, Tony dashes to block Thor’s approach. He stands between Thor and his target, his hands raised in placation.
Thor stops just short of crashing into him and glowers.
“How about we talk this through first?”
“Move out of my way, Man of Iron. My brother has awoken and doesn’t need your help anymore. I’m taking him to Asgard.”
“Thor, please be reasonable. We’ve talked about it. You agreed to let him stay.”
“No, I said I’ll think about it. And I did. And I know I have to do this. I won’t let my father down again!”
A suppressed whine tears forth from Loki’s throat, but Tony doesn’t dare to look away from Thor. There’s no other way to win this fight for him than on wits alone and it looks like Thor’s reasoning is failing him at this very moment.
“Friend Stark,” Thor says and places his hand on Tony’s shoulder. He isn’t pushing, not yet, but the threat is there nonetheless.
Steve rushes into the room and stops next to Tony. Then Bruce walks in, then Romanoff, still in her pajamas. They take stands at Tony’s sides too, creating a wall of people between Thor and Loki.
“You can’t do this, Thor,” Steve says.
“I can and I will,” Thor says and sets his jaw. “I’ve got a duty to my home, I’ve got a duty to your realm as well. And I will fight everyone who decides to stand in my way.”
“We are on your side! Are you really going to fight us over this?” Bruce asks, more than a little distraught and Tony prays he’s capable of holding back Hulk. There’s no telling what would happen if he didn’t.
“I don’t want to, but I will if you insist on interfering.”
“He’s your brother, for fuck’s sake,” Romanoff chimes in. There’s no way for her to know what Tony has learned in the last couple of hours, yet she still isn’t backing off.
“He isn’t. He said it himself. Now move,” Thor snarls and adjusts his grip on the hammer.
Romanoff falls into a fighting stance and Tony really doesn’t like where this is going.
“Stop it,” Loki says, his voice frilly but decisive and Tony finally turns to him. He’s standing with his back to the wall, leaning on it heavily – it doesn’t look like his wobbly legs can hold his weight all that well. The thin gown he’s wearing reaches only a bit above his knees, revealing the deep, half-healed gashes on his shins and the scars around his ankles that are too easy to guess the origin of.
He tugs the IV line free, pushes himself off the wall with a visible effort, and shuffles forward, his every step as unsteady as it is full of resolve. He walks around the group and stands in front of Thor. “There’s no need for more bloodshed. I’ll go with you,” he says and brings up his hands.
The red mark the shackle left on his skin has faded, but Tony can still see it.
“No,” he says sternly. “Don’t do this, Loki. We were just starting to sort it out!”
Loki smiles and doesn’t stop when Thor snaps the manacles on his wrists, the gear-like pieces moving around and tightening. Thor checks his work with a tug at the chain, then produces the muzzle and brings it to Loki’s face.
The door to the hallway flies open and a smudge of red and gold whooses through the air and crashes into Thor, knocking him off his feet and pushing him into a stack of medical equipment. Tony grabs Loki’s shoulder and dashes to the doorway.
They tumble out of the room, and crash to the floor.
“The red button!” Tony yells as Steve.
Steve whips around and smashes his fist on the switch, just as Thor scrambles to his feet with an angry roar on the other side of the glass and tosses the remains of Mark Four aside. An emergency gate falls down with a rumble and a dull thud of sixteen tons of reinforced concrete falling a height of one story, blowing dust and piece of glass on them.
Romanoff, who barely made it before the gate fell, springs to her feet.
There’re some muffled roars and more thuds as Thor rages inside.
“Are we sure it’s going to hold him?” Steve asks. Not “what the hell, Tony?” or even “are you mad?”, just this.
“I hope so,” Tony says, rolls to his knees, hisses, and picks a shard of glass that got embedded in his palm. “Damn. And thanks, Jay.”
“My pleasure, Sir.”
Loki pushes himself to the corner and presses his hands to his stomach, a growing blotch of red staining the gown.
“Bruce?”
Bruce shakes his head and takes a look around. He doesn’t seem entirely there and Tony is only grateful he kept enough clarity of mind to not hulk out.
“You brought Asgard’s rage upon yourselves,” Loki says, his voice strained. “And for what? For one measly prisoner who’s dead already?”
“We’ll see about that. And hell, if it ain’t worth it.”
Loki sighs and lets his head fall backward. Bruce drops to his knees. “Let me see,” he says and Loki allows him to lift the gown with just a sliver of hesitation.
“The stitches came apart,” Bruce says. “I’ll have to redo them.”
“Can it wait till we get to the upper floors? I think we should evacuate the level, just in case.”
Bruce considers for a second and nods. “But do it quickly.”
“Jay?”
“I’m on it, sir,” Jarvis says and, a moment later, airs the warning over the PA system.
There’s a bang and the entire building seems to shake. “Uh oh, it looks like we pissed him off big time.” Tony remarks and scrambles to his feet, then goes to help Loki up.
The god stares at his extended hand with a frown.
“Come on, we can’t just stay there. And even if you think we fucked it up, it’s done already, so let’s see where this takes us, shall we?”
Loki huffs in annoyance but reaches to grab Tony’s hand, the chain between his wrists clinking. He tries to heave himself up, but his legs are not obeying him. Steve approaches and grabs his arm. Bruce positions himself on the god’s other side.
Loki frowns, but doesn’t protest when they lead him to the elevator.
---
The penthouse’s living area is still ruined and missing most of the windows – Tony didn’t have time to even think about booking a construction crew to fix it, were that something that was even remotely possible with half the buildings in New York needing renovation all of sudden – but the main suite on the other end of the level is in much better shape, so this is where he guides them.
Bruce and Steve set Loki down on Tony’s bed and Bruce goes to retrieve his bag, but Tony knows it won’t help much on its own. Loki’s mojo is once again blocked and the effects are already showing – he appears paler than a couple of hours ago, however that’s even possible, the bleeding isn’t stopping and he looks like he can barely keep his head up.
There’s a rumble of thunder and a lightning strikes the roof of the tower. Loki shudders and curls up and Tony peers outside. The sky was blue and clear a moment ago, but now there are dark clouds gathering outside, even though it seems to be limited only to the tower and its immediate surroundings.
“That’s sure to draw some attention,” Tony remarks and goes back to perch on the side of the bed. “Any ideas how much time we have before Sky Daddy sends reinforcements?”
Loki chews on his lower lip for a moment before he answers. “The Bifröst is still broken and the All-Father would need time to recoup after channeling all the dark energy he used to send Thor here.”
“Meaning?”
“Either they won’t come at all or they will send just a small group, if they can find a mage to guide them through the dark paths, which isn’t certain. It’s not the kind of knowledge that’s common or worth mentioning amongst the Aesir mages.”
“We can deal with that,” Tony says with a relieved sigh.
“A small group of Thors still sounds pretty terrifying,” Romanoff points out.
“Thor is… an outlier,” Loki says. “Most Aesir warriors cannot match up to him in a field.”
“That’s even better,” Tony says.
“That still leaves Fury on the table. How long you think it’s going to take before he realizes something’s going on and sends a strike team to bring us in?” she asks and points outside.
“Then we better talk to him before that happens,” Tony says.
“We as who?” she asks, her eyebrow raised.
“I’d love to have a little chat with Nick, but I’m kinda busy here. Besides, he’s your boss.”
She makes a face. “Fine, I’ll talk to him. Anything in particular you want me to tell him?”
“Yeah, make him send Selvig over with the device.”
She glowers at Tony for a moment, but doesn’t ask for details, either figuring out what he intends to do or just trusting his judgment. But most likely the former, she doesn’t strike Tony as the trusting kind. “Fine, I’ll call him,” she says and leaves the room.
Tony turns back to Loki. “Can I see?” he asks, pointing at the shackles.
Loki shoots him a doubtful glare, but brings his hands up for Tony to examine. The shackles look like before and the fit is just as seamless, forcing Loki to flex his fingers from time to time to keep the circulation going.
“I thought you couldn’t take them off,” Steve points out.
“Well, I didn’t want to try anything that could be destructive when we had options. We don’t have them anymore.” He turns to Loki. “Okay, anything you can tell me about those?”
“If I had to guess, they are made of Uru and are enchanted to react only to those who are authorized to open them,” Loki says.
“Uru?”
“A Dwarven metal, perfect for holding enchantments.”
“Right,” Tony mutters. “Well, we don’t have that, so we’ll have to defeat them with awesome powers of science and engineering.”
He gets up and digs through the drawers, retrieving a toolset. He keeps most of his advanced tools in the workshop, now divided from where they are sitting by a level containing an enraged Norse god, but he still keeps the basics close, in case something required immediate repairs.
Bruce returns and sets up his own tools on the bed. “Okay, lie down and try to relax. I have nothing to give you even local anesthesia, so I’ll have to–“
“Do it,” Loki says and pushes himself down, from a half-sitting position to lie down flat on his back. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Then he stops moving altogether and lies there perfectly still, as Bruce removes the ruined dressing, plucks out the couple of stitches that came apart, cleans the wound with some alcohol and a piece of gauze, and applies new ones. Tony had a wound stitched up in field conditions without the privilege of being passed out once and it’s one time more than he would wish to experience it. He knows better than to think it doesn’t hurt, but none of it shows up on Loki’s face.
It's probably nothing, compared to what he went through before coming to Earth, Tony realizes, and it’s not a comfortable notion to hold.
“I’m done,” Bruce announces and applies new dressing. The incision looks much better, but it’s still an open injury that Tony knows won’t start healing before he deals with the shackles.
“My turn,” he says and sits down.
For a moment, Loki doesn’t react and Tony starts to suspect the god fell asleep. “Loki?”
Loki opens his eyes and looks at him, but his gaze is bleary and unfocused.
“Can you tell me how the magic suppression work?” Tony asks.
“It… it locks the energy inside, so one could not either draw it or use it. For crafting spells, or for healing or for…” he pauses and the rest of the sentence dissolves into thin air, unspoken.
Tony might not know much about magic, but he knows enough about physics and biology to realize that energy in a living organism isn’t used only for bells and whistles. If that conversion is blocked, it will slowly shuts down the organs, one after another, and it would be even quicker for someone with not much reserves left. From that, it’s not far to the realization that they might not have enough time for Tony to work the shackles out.
“Is there a way to work around that?”
Loki’s brow furrow and he squints his eyes. The light behind them seems to be already fading. “Another mage could remove the enchantment.”
“We don’t have that, sorry. Any other ideas?”
“With a powerful external source, I could try to break the spell myself. Something with a mind on its own, like the scepter.”
“SHIELD took it, after the battle,” Bruce says.
Loki lets out a sigh and closes his eyes, his breaths growing more rapid and more shallow. Bruce presses his fingers to Loki’s wrist above the shackle and frowns.
“Well, we don’t have the scepter, but…” Tony says and turns to Steve. “The vault on minus two. Jarvis will let you in.”
Steve nods and hits into a run without asking for details.
They sit here, Tony and Bruce on two sides of Tony’s enormous bed, with Loki between them, every rise and fall of his chest a labored effort, and Tony realizes he doesn’t want Loki to die, and not only because of the invaluable intel he can still provide. No, there’s something fascinating about him, the quiet pride and the rapid-fire intellect hiding underneath his curt, clipped comments and the asshole façade.
Steve returns with a metal suitcase, places it on the foot of the bed, and flips the lid off.
Loki’s eyes fly open. He cranks his neck to look down, then just gapes, for a long while. His eyes then dash to Tony, to Bruce, to Steve and then back to Tony, wide and disoriented, shining in the blue glow of the Tesseract.
“The SHIELD’s technicians were meant to pick it up along with you and Thor. Since that got delayed, I just locked it in the basement,” Tony explains and gestures Steve closer. None of them can touch the cube, so Steve just brings the entire container forth.
The irony is not entirely lost on Tony – this is what Loki came here for, that’s what the whole battle was about, and now they are just handing it to him – but he pays it no attention. If Loki decides to misuse it, they can deal with it later. Besides, he’s almost certain he won’t.
Loki hesitates and it’s not until Tony gives him an encouraging nod before he reaches to the cube with both hands and gently places his fingers on the exterior.
A sharp gasp escapes his lips and he throws his head back. His spine arches and he squeezes his eyes shut. He stays like that for a moment, then breaks the connection and collapses back to the bed with a soft moan.
The gears start shifting again and the grip of the manacles loosens. Loki doesn’t move to take them off, so Tony helps him, slipping the bracelets off.
“Thank you,” Loki breathes.
“No worries.”
“Take it… Take it away, please. I won’t be able to withstand the call much longer,” he says and Steve snaps the suitcase’s lid shut and steps away. Loki lets out a long, relieved breath and the strain holding his body in its grip slowly drains away. He makes an attempt to get up.
“No,” Tony says, places a hand on Loki’s shoulder, and drapes the covers over his lower body. “Rest. You need it. We’ll deal with the rest.”
Loki gives him a very unconvincing nod, but stays in bed.
---
Romanoff returns a few minutes later.
“How did it go?” Tony asks.
“On the plus side, Fury isn’t going to court-martial us all on the spot and he’s sending Selvig and his team to the tower,” she reports. “On the minus side, I’m pretty sure he’s not yet done yelling at us and you’ll have to do a shit ton of pro bono projects for him to make up for it.”
“That’s better than what I was expecting to be honest.”
“Yeah.”
“Great, let’s deal with the elephant in the room next. By 'the elephant' I mean Thor. And by 'the room' I mean the room.”
---
A part of the emergency gate grinds and moves away, creating a small window of reinforced glass. Tony peeks inside and comes face to face with a furious Thor. The rest of the room is in ruins, with no scrap bigger than a fist left in one piece, so it looks like Thor’s been venting his frustrations on inanimate objects in lieu of their faces for the last two hours then some.
“You’ll not get away with it,” Thor snarls.
Tony flashes a grin at him. “It looks like we just did. Anyway, I’ve got a proposition for you. You can either sit here until you chill out and you’re ready to talk to us like a reasonable person. Or you can get the fuck off my house, go home and never return.” He hauls the Selvig’s device up – the cube is already glowing inside – and presents it to Thor. “Your choice.”
“I won’t leave without Loki.”
“Okay, have a good stay sitting on your ass then,” Tony says and turns away to close the window.
“Wait.”
Tony sniggers and turns back to Thor. “Yes?”
Thor drags his hand through his hair. “I’ll take the device.”
“Good choice,” Tony says, approaches the airlock, places the device inside, and pushes the switch. The lid on the side of the corridor closes and the mechanical servos move the cubicle until the corresponding panel inside the room slides away.
Thor picks the device up and studies it for a while.
“Don’t fuck around with it,” Tony warns. “It’s calibrated for one trip and one trip only. If you mess it up, you’ll end up… wherever.”
Thor sighs and grabs the handle, then stands there, considering. “Tell my… Tell Loki that…” He grits his teeth and shakes his head, then turns the handle. It activates with a deluge of blue light, and – when the flash subsides – Thor is gone.
They stay in the hallway for a while, staring into the now empty room.
“Why do I get the feeling it’s only the beginning?” Romanoff says, her voice dark.
“Well, we’ll get there when we get there,” Tony says with a shrug. “I don’t know about you, but I’d kill for a coffee. And some breakfast.”
---
They go back up to the ruined penthouse. The wind is whistling past, but it’s pleasant now that the stormy clouds dispersed and the late spring sun is high in the sky.
The dining table somehow survived, lying overturned by one of the walls, but not all chairs did, so Tony and Bruce have to bring some more from the conference room. Tony takes one more than they need, just in case.
The food arrives a while later and they sit down to eat.
The door to the main suite opens and Loki walks inside. His gait is still a little unsteady, his hair is wet and he’s wearing a shirt and pants that look considerably too short for him, which means he took his time to raid Tony’s bathroom and wardrobe.
“Hey!” Tony calls. “Want some shawarma?”
That’s what they decided to order, because they didn’t get the opportunity for that after the battle ended.
Loki nods and joins them at the table. Bruce places a box and a plastic fork in front of him.
“You know,” Tony says. “I half-expected you to jump ship now that Thor fucked off and you have your magic back.”
Loki shrugs and peeks into his box, picks a small piece of meat, and chews through it carefully. “I’m still a wanted man on your realm,” he says.
“We can deal with that later. So, you’re staying for now?”
“I suppose.”
“Welcome to the team,” Tony says, then starts laughing both at Romanoff's eye-roll and Loki’s surprised expression.