Ironfrost WIP
Fandom: The Avengers, 2012
Characters: Loki, Tony Stark, Nick Fury
Pairings: eventual Tony/Loki
Setting: Post-movie
This is the most "in-progress" of works-in-progress, considering I haven't even seen Avengers yet. I've read some fanfics though, and after a while I just had to try one of my own. Standard disclaimers apply: I do not own The Avengers, yadda yadda, blah blah blah.
“Super-max confinement... Appropriate... A threat of that magnitude...” To tell the truth, Tony's only catching one word out of every three. - He stopped listening after the first part: “We've got Thor's brother, and we need your help.”
“Lines of communication... blah blah ...The prisoner is not responding as we'd projected.”
“Super-max.” Damn, but Fury's gotten good at bureaucratese since he joined SHIELD. He's got to cut in or this will go on all day. “You mean you've got him in solitary?”
“Standard with intractable prisoners, Tony. I've shown you the research.”
In other words, yes. “How long?”
“SHIELD agents picked him up June the seventh.” Three months. Stark's seen the research, thank you very much. A sane man can usually last about a month before his mind starts to fragment, and Thor's brother was never any paragon of sanity.
“You know several human rights organizations have condemned solitary confinement as a form of torture?”
“I know Loki tortured plenty of people himself. And killed them. He unleashed a goddamn alien invasion for chrissake, and you're going to sit there and tell me we're being too hard on him? When did you get so squeamish?” Fury takes a deep breath. “SHIELD needs your help. - I need your help, Tony. We thought we'd be getting through to him by now.” There's a pause. “Frankly he's just getting further away.”
SHIELD's super-max facility is located in the hills east of Bakersfield. It's quiet, it's peaceful. - It's remote as hell, because no one would want to live here, baked by the cruel sun in the summer, and lashed by cold winds (but never any snow, god forbid something as interesting as snow should happen here) in the winter. It's also just a couple hour's flight from Malibu, and that counts the time in traffic getting to the airport.
Stark heads out as soon as he gets off the phone. He hasn't talked much to Thor since they resolved the problem with the Chitauri. He knows he took his brother back to Asgard. He heard there was some kind of punishment there: Banished to earth, he thinks it was. Deprived of his powers. Apparently SHIELD was looking for him when he got here, so they could punish him themselves as well.
It's one of the good days in the Mojave mountains, the wind only slightly above 40 miles an hour, the temperature hovering just around 110. Inside the SHIELD facility, it's cold as ice. , and quiet as hell. Fury takes him down three flights of stairs, along a corridor in a cell block that looks completely empty.
“Slow day at the office?” Stark cracks wise in a voice that echoes off the barred doors, and the empty cells behind.
“It's not a much used facility.” To the end of the first corridor, take a left and then down another one. “The one in Virginia is busier.” Another left-turn. They're going to be in Nevada at this rate, before they get to Loki. “To tell you the truth, we thought he'd be more of a threat than he's been.”
“He's lost his powers.”
“Yeah, well that would explain it,” Fury says.
They take one more corridor, then stop at the end-cell, and ...And nothing would explain this, Stark thinks, as he peers through the barred door at the shit-smeared walls and the bowed figure on the bed.
“That's him?”
Fury nods, but Stark still can't make himself believe it. This is Thor's brother? The trickster-god with the horned helmet and the scepter with the blue gem in it? He must have made some kind of a sound in his surprise, because the figure on the bed looks up. Dull green eyes stare his way, but there's no recognition in them, no change in the blank expression on his face.
“The psychiatrists say it's some kind of depression.” As he speaks, Fury is unlocking the door to Loki's cell. He steps back for Stark, who has to nerve himself to go through the door. “They gave him some stuff for it but ...apparently his physiology isn't enough like ours for it to work. He stopped moving a couple of weeks ago. Then last week he stopped eating. The guards say he hasn't even drank anything for two days now.”
Loki's cell is dim, close, almost unbearable to be in, even for the few minutes they've been here. It's not just the smell in here, Stark thinks, it's more than that. Something about the close walls and the low ceiling maybe, or the waves of hopelessness coming off the man on the bed.
“Dammit, Tony.” Fury's voice breaks in on thoughts he didn't much want to think anyway. “I'm admitting we were wrong here, okay? The solitary didn't work. It's time to try something different.
Different? Like handing him over to the guy who's had his own issues with depression over the years? What's this supposed to be, like the blind leading the blind?
“I'm begging you, Tony, as a friend. You're the only guy I know who's even got a chance of fixing him. If he's too much for you, you have the money to hire as many flunkies as you need. And if he does try to escape, your AI will have the place locked down before he gets to the door.”
“What if...” Stark swallows. He's not seriously thinking of doing this, is he? He's more fucking nuts than he thought. But, “what happens if I do fix him?” he says.
“Who knows. Maybe he becomes one of the good guys.” Fury laughs shortly, dismissing that one as the crazy idea it is. “Then I can hold up my head in front of Thor,” he says. “I won't be the guy that broke his brother.”
--------------------
Days go by before he visits his new house-guest. Getting him there was bad enough: The smell of him, the number of guards it took just to get him on the plane ...The bone-skinniness of his arm under his fingers. For some reason it's the thought of Loki's arrogance the last time he saw him that makes him most reluctant. For anyone who cares as much about appearances as he does, it feels like kicking him when he's down to look at him like this.
When he gets word from JARVIS that Loki's ready to be seen (after only about a week; apparently even without their powers, Asgardians heal fast) though, Stark's there the same day. Loki looks like a drowned cat, which is already a 100% improvement over how he looked when he got here. He sits on the bed in the (now heavily secured) guestroom, swimming in one of the SHIELD-issue jumpsuits Fury sent over with him. He looks up as the door opens, and Stark is relived to see that his eyes look alive at any rate.
“Would you like to gloat now,” he says, “or shall I make an appointment for you to do it later.”
What he'd like is a thank-you, but he's not likely to get one from the little megalomaniac on the bed, now is he? “You were right,” Loki says softly. “It was all on me. There was no throne, and the army wasn't effective.” -
Stark swallows the temptation to tell his house-guest just how “effective” his army actually was.
Stark's really fighting the temptation to feel sorry for him here. Loki's cleaned up all right, but he still looks like he's been dragged through ten kinds of hell, and he's so skinny a good breath could knock him down. He tells himself this is the guy that killed Coulson. He's the guy that stole the Tesseract and bragged about unleashing the Chitauri. Even sitting here on the bed looking pathetic, it's not his friends he mourns, or some of the people he killed, it's just his lost powers.
It's a losing battle though. Loki's green eyes meet his and he feels a twist in his chest. It's like looking into the eyes of a lost little kid. “Nick just told me to fix you,” he says. “What happens after that is up to you.”
Loki looks at him. “I won't give you much trouble, I'm sure.” Glancing down at his arm like it's a cheap suit, “without my powers, my body is pathetically weak. Your green monster could probably kill me with one blow.”
Yeah, well let's not get the Hulk into this. Stark's got enough trouble with one potential hurricane of violence running around the house. “Why don't we start with just leaving your room,” he tells Loki. You can come out to the kitchen with me and we'll get something to eat.” Something big, with lots of calories in it. He's not letting Thor see his brother until he's gotten some of the weight he lost back onto him.
Loki stands. Immediately the legs of his jumpsuit pool around his feet. Goddammit, Stark thinks, SHIELD couldn't be bothered to find one that fit? He moves slowly toward the door. “You're not afraid that I'll try to escape?”
Stark opens the door. Macaroni and cheese, he's thinking. Pop Tarts, whole sticks of butter wrapped in waffles and dipped in chocolate syrup. - What the hell's he got in his kitchen that has calories in it? “You wouldn't get far,” he tells Loki. “JARVIS would see to that.”
“JARVIS?” Loki asks, but that explanation can wait for another time.
“Kitchen,” Stark says. “Food. Let me tell you Loki, you need it.”
Characters: Loki, Tony Stark, Nick Fury
Pairings: eventual Tony/Loki
Setting: Post-movie
This is the most "in-progress" of works-in-progress, considering I haven't even seen Avengers yet. I've read some fanfics though, and after a while I just had to try one of my own. Standard disclaimers apply: I do not own The Avengers, yadda yadda, blah blah blah.
“Super-max confinement... Appropriate... A threat of that magnitude...” To tell the truth, Tony's only catching one word out of every three. - He stopped listening after the first part: “We've got Thor's brother, and we need your help.”
“Lines of communication... blah blah ...The prisoner is not responding as we'd projected.”
“Super-max.” Damn, but Fury's gotten good at bureaucratese since he joined SHIELD. He's got to cut in or this will go on all day. “You mean you've got him in solitary?”
“Standard with intractable prisoners, Tony. I've shown you the research.”
In other words, yes. “How long?”
“SHIELD agents picked him up June the seventh.” Three months. Stark's seen the research, thank you very much. A sane man can usually last about a month before his mind starts to fragment, and Thor's brother was never any paragon of sanity.
“You know several human rights organizations have condemned solitary confinement as a form of torture?”
“I know Loki tortured plenty of people himself. And killed them. He unleashed a goddamn alien invasion for chrissake, and you're going to sit there and tell me we're being too hard on him? When did you get so squeamish?” Fury takes a deep breath. “SHIELD needs your help. - I need your help, Tony. We thought we'd be getting through to him by now.” There's a pause. “Frankly he's just getting further away.”
SHIELD's super-max facility is located in the hills east of Bakersfield. It's quiet, it's peaceful. - It's remote as hell, because no one would want to live here, baked by the cruel sun in the summer, and lashed by cold winds (but never any snow, god forbid something as interesting as snow should happen here) in the winter. It's also just a couple hour's flight from Malibu, and that counts the time in traffic getting to the airport.
Stark heads out as soon as he gets off the phone. He hasn't talked much to Thor since they resolved the problem with the Chitauri. He knows he took his brother back to Asgard. He heard there was some kind of punishment there: Banished to earth, he thinks it was. Deprived of his powers. Apparently SHIELD was looking for him when he got here, so they could punish him themselves as well.
It's one of the good days in the Mojave mountains, the wind only slightly above 40 miles an hour, the temperature hovering just around 110. Inside the SHIELD facility, it's cold as ice. , and quiet as hell. Fury takes him down three flights of stairs, along a corridor in a cell block that looks completely empty.
“Slow day at the office?” Stark cracks wise in a voice that echoes off the barred doors, and the empty cells behind.
“It's not a much used facility.” To the end of the first corridor, take a left and then down another one. “The one in Virginia is busier.” Another left-turn. They're going to be in Nevada at this rate, before they get to Loki. “To tell you the truth, we thought he'd be more of a threat than he's been.”
“He's lost his powers.”
“Yeah, well that would explain it,” Fury says.
They take one more corridor, then stop at the end-cell, and ...And nothing would explain this, Stark thinks, as he peers through the barred door at the shit-smeared walls and the bowed figure on the bed.
“That's him?”
Fury nods, but Stark still can't make himself believe it. This is Thor's brother? The trickster-god with the horned helmet and the scepter with the blue gem in it? He must have made some kind of a sound in his surprise, because the figure on the bed looks up. Dull green eyes stare his way, but there's no recognition in them, no change in the blank expression on his face.
“The psychiatrists say it's some kind of depression.” As he speaks, Fury is unlocking the door to Loki's cell. He steps back for Stark, who has to nerve himself to go through the door. “They gave him some stuff for it but ...apparently his physiology isn't enough like ours for it to work. He stopped moving a couple of weeks ago. Then last week he stopped eating. The guards say he hasn't even drank anything for two days now.”
Loki's cell is dim, close, almost unbearable to be in, even for the few minutes they've been here. It's not just the smell in here, Stark thinks, it's more than that. Something about the close walls and the low ceiling maybe, or the waves of hopelessness coming off the man on the bed.
“Dammit, Tony.” Fury's voice breaks in on thoughts he didn't much want to think anyway. “I'm admitting we were wrong here, okay? The solitary didn't work. It's time to try something different.
Different? Like handing him over to the guy who's had his own issues with depression over the years? What's this supposed to be, like the blind leading the blind?
“I'm begging you, Tony, as a friend. You're the only guy I know who's even got a chance of fixing him. If he's too much for you, you have the money to hire as many flunkies as you need. And if he does try to escape, your AI will have the place locked down before he gets to the door.”
“What if...” Stark swallows. He's not seriously thinking of doing this, is he? He's more fucking nuts than he thought. But, “what happens if I do fix him?” he says.
“Who knows. Maybe he becomes one of the good guys.” Fury laughs shortly, dismissing that one as the crazy idea it is. “Then I can hold up my head in front of Thor,” he says. “I won't be the guy that broke his brother.”
--------------------
Days go by before he visits his new house-guest. Getting him there was bad enough: The smell of him, the number of guards it took just to get him on the plane ...The bone-skinniness of his arm under his fingers. For some reason it's the thought of Loki's arrogance the last time he saw him that makes him most reluctant. For anyone who cares as much about appearances as he does, it feels like kicking him when he's down to look at him like this.
When he gets word from JARVIS that Loki's ready to be seen (after only about a week; apparently even without their powers, Asgardians heal fast) though, Stark's there the same day. Loki looks like a drowned cat, which is already a 100% improvement over how he looked when he got here. He sits on the bed in the (now heavily secured) guestroom, swimming in one of the SHIELD-issue jumpsuits Fury sent over with him. He looks up as the door opens, and Stark is relived to see that his eyes look alive at any rate.
“Would you like to gloat now,” he says, “or shall I make an appointment for you to do it later.”
What he'd like is a thank-you, but he's not likely to get one from the little megalomaniac on the bed, now is he? “You were right,” Loki says softly. “It was all on me. There was no throne, and the army wasn't effective.” -
Stark swallows the temptation to tell his house-guest just how “effective” his army actually was.
Stark's really fighting the temptation to feel sorry for him here. Loki's cleaned up all right, but he still looks like he's been dragged through ten kinds of hell, and he's so skinny a good breath could knock him down. He tells himself this is the guy that killed Coulson. He's the guy that stole the Tesseract and bragged about unleashing the Chitauri. Even sitting here on the bed looking pathetic, it's not his friends he mourns, or some of the people he killed, it's just his lost powers.
It's a losing battle though. Loki's green eyes meet his and he feels a twist in his chest. It's like looking into the eyes of a lost little kid. “Nick just told me to fix you,” he says. “What happens after that is up to you.”
Loki looks at him. “I won't give you much trouble, I'm sure.” Glancing down at his arm like it's a cheap suit, “without my powers, my body is pathetically weak. Your green monster could probably kill me with one blow.”
Yeah, well let's not get the Hulk into this. Stark's got enough trouble with one potential hurricane of violence running around the house. “Why don't we start with just leaving your room,” he tells Loki. You can come out to the kitchen with me and we'll get something to eat.” Something big, with lots of calories in it. He's not letting Thor see his brother until he's gotten some of the weight he lost back onto him.
Loki stands. Immediately the legs of his jumpsuit pool around his feet. Goddammit, Stark thinks, SHIELD couldn't be bothered to find one that fit? He moves slowly toward the door. “You're not afraid that I'll try to escape?”
Stark opens the door. Macaroni and cheese, he's thinking. Pop Tarts, whole sticks of butter wrapped in waffles and dipped in chocolate syrup. - What the hell's he got in his kitchen that has calories in it? “You wouldn't get far,” he tells Loki. “JARVIS would see to that.”
“JARVIS?” Loki asks, but that explanation can wait for another time.
“Kitchen,” Stark says. “Food. Let me tell you Loki, you need it.”