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Loki watches on TV as Tony, battered up, arm in a sling, nevertheless manages to command the whole room. He does so in an entirely different way than he used to, though, subtle – he's clearly affected by what he has gone through, though Loki shies away from the word traumatized – sort of… drawn. Weary. He's not enjoying it anymore, not like he used to.
And then he shuts the weapons factory down and Loki watches as Stane ushers Tony away from the microphone, immediately moves in to do damage control – "what we should take from this is – Tony's back!" – in his usual patronizing, vaguely condescending manner. Tony gets ushered away, out of the camera, and Loki loses sight of him.
That's when it hits Loki like a punch to the gut. Tony is back, JARVIS told him the moment he found out, and Loki had been relieved then, had cried then, but this – this is the moment where he truly realizes that Tony is back.
"Where is he?" he rasps.
"In the car with Miss Potts," JARVIS replies promptly. "They are heading towards the arc reactor now."
Loki nods and curls up, presses his knees into his forehead and tries not to hyperventilate.
JARVIS' voice is what keeps him from it in the end, as it has so often in the past three months. "If I may be so bold, sir," he says, a bit hesitantly but far less so than he would have been at the beginning, back when they still thought they would hear from Tony within the week. "Perhaps you should try to get some sleep."
The sensibility of the idea cannot be denied; Loki doesn't know the numbers (though he's sure JARVIS could tell him down to the minute if he asked) but the amount of sleep he's gotten lately has been less than ideal. He actually hasn't slept at all since Tony was recovered, foolish as it might have been. Maybe he can catch a couple of hours now.
But he shouldn't do this here. Tony will come back now, and he wouldn't be happy finding Loki here.
"Sir," JARVIS says when Loki, instead of getting in, smoothens out some creases in the sheets. They've had this argument three times since Tony has been found; the first time because Loki's second reaction towards the news had been panic that Tony wouldn't want him here, the second time because Loki started cleaning up after himself, hiding all signs of his presence, and the third time just an hour ago. That time, Loki hadn't just been preparing to leave; he'd been about to. JARVIS had only barely managed to keep him here by telling him of Tony's impending press conference and that he was going to miss it.
There's nothing like that to keep him here now. "I can't, JARVIS." He's not going to go through all this again.
"Surely you cannot believe I will not tell Mr. Stark of your presence."
Loki freezes. "What?"
"As much as I am loyal to you, Mr. Laufeyson, my loyalty lies with Mr. Stark just as much," JARVIS points out. Of course it does, Loki doesn't know why it never occurred to him.
JARVIS knows him, knows both of them, and he's banking on the fact that Loki can't – couldn't have, back then, lived with the knowledge of Tony being aware of his running away – it would have felt like a defeat. And as much as he wants to say he has changed, he's grown up, moved on from things like that… he hasn't.
He closes his eyes in defeat, resolutely neither looking at the nightstand where he put Tony's collection of photos of him nor thinking about what Tony would say if he found out that Loki all but lived here for three months and then didn't have the guts to stay and fess up about it.
"Okay," he says, pulling the sheets off and crawling beneath them. They don't smell of anything, just clean and fresh because he hadn't wanted Tony to smell him on them and had washed them. He refuses to feel ridiculous about it now. "Wake me before he gets here."
That should give Loki enough time to panic and calm down before he sees Tony again for the first time in two years.