Edit: Ironfrost WIP (AKA Canst Thou Not Minister To A Mind Diseased)
Fandom: The Avengers, 2012
Characters: Loki, Tony Stark, Nick Fury, Thor
Pairings: eventual Tony/Loki ...maybe
Setting: Post-movie
I'm performing without a net here. Dirj, you'll know how much I hate proceeding when we don't have the whole story plotted out in advance. With this one I'm pulling it out of my butt as I go. It would practically be a NaNo fic, only I think it's going to max out around 10-15,000 words. Oh, and 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. Tony'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.
Tony 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?” Tony 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.”
They take one more corridor, then stop at the end-cell, and ...And nothing would explain this, Tony 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 Tony 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 Tony, 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, Tony 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 for 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...” Tony 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. “If you manage it, 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 Tony visits his new house-guest. When he does go, it's not by his choice. Loki was so vain before, about his authority and his superior power. Now he's got nothing, and it feels kind of cruel to look at him like this. But one of the guards he's hired to watch him stops Tony one day, as he's hurrying down the hallway from the main living area to his bedroom (and trying his best to avoid even looking at the room where Loki is doing who-knows-what, and in who-knows-what condition).
“You don't need to keep us on,” he says.
Without thinking, Tony glances toward Loki's door.
“No.” The guard shakes his head. “I shouldn't say anything, because this is an easy job, now, but he's taking care of himself. He doesn't need us any more. He never does anything dangerous. He never tries to go anywhere. And don't you have some kind of state-of-the-art security system for if he did?”
“Son, my security system is beyond state-of-the-art.” Tony looks at the door again. All he can think about is that first sight of Loki in his cell back in Mojave: The sight of it, the smell. What would he see if he opened this door now?
“You can go in,” the guard tells him. “It might be good for him if he saw someone he knows.”
“Oh I don't know him that well.” This banter is for one purpose and one purpose only: It saves Tony having to open the door and see Loki being not-Loki again. “He tried to kill me once.” But if he'd hoped the guard would take him up on that and continue the conversation, he's disappointed. He just shakes his head at what's obviously a joke, and continues toward the front door to go home.
Oh well, there's no way he can put this off forever. Tony opens the door. When the odor that comes out is air freshener and clean sheets, he breathes a sigh of relief. He looks in and sees Loki sitting on the bed. Loki looks like a drowned cat, but that's already a 100% improvement over how he looked when he got here. He's, swimming in one of the SHIELD-issue jumpsuits Fury sent over with him, probably because it looks like he's lost about 50 pounds since he and Tony first met.
“Tony Stark?” Loki looks up at him with eyes that at least show some recognition now, but, along with it, the same hopelessness as before. “Would you like to gloat now,” he says, “or shall I make an appointment for you to come back and do it later.”
“Gloat?” What he'd really like is a thank-you. It's not like he didn't save Loki out of some godforsaken SHIELD cell in the desert, or spent wads of cash nursing him back to health or anything. “I came to see how you are,” he says.
It's the perfect opening for a snotty comeback, and Loki, the Loki he remembers from before, was never one to miss an opportunity. Instead, he barely acknowledges that Tony's said anything, just nods, then looks down at his own knees. “You were right,” he says softly. “It was all on me. There was no throne, and the army wasn't very effective.”
Tony swallows the urge to tell his house-guest just how “effective” his army actually was. He's really fighting the temptation to feel sorry for him here. Loki's cleaned up all right, but he 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 the people he killed, it's just his lost power.
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. “What happens to me now?” he says.
“I don't know.” Tony thinks about Dr. Selvig. He thinks about Loki stabbing Thor. - Who does that? Who stabs their own brother? Then he looks down into green, hopeless eyes. “Nick just told me to fix you.”
Loki doesn't answer. Silence stretches on. “Dammit,” Tony says. “It's up to you what happens, Loki. Can't you visualize a future where you're not someone's enemy?”
A bitter snort of a laugh. “I'd be a pretty pathetic enemy.” Looking down at his arm like it's a cheap suit, “my powers are gone, remember?” he says. “Your green monster could probably kill me with one blow now.”
Hulk. “Hulk's not here,” Tony says flatly. “No one's here. It's just you and me. And don't get any ideas about trying something,” he says. “If you so much as take a step near me, JARVIS will be on you like ugly on an ape.”
He looks back down at Loki, and he doesn't know why he bothered saying that. His guest hasn't even moved. “Of course.” He's barely audible. Only his lips moving show that he's talking. “I would not insult your hospitality.” It's not Loki. There's no snap of malice to the words, no show-offy double meaning to please his smug little ego. For the first time Tony starts to wonder whether he can fix Thor's brother.
--------------------
He's wondering it even more a week later, with a house-guest who never leaves his room. He's no trouble, no trouble at all. People have cats that are more trouble than Loki. They have cats that eat more too, and by that, take it to mean lots more. Loki eats barely anything. Trays come back from his room and you can't see where there's food missing. He must be eating something, because he's still alive, but it's not visible, and he's still losing weight like a fat lady on Jenny Craig. He doesn't do anything, not even reading, which Thor said was one of his favorite hobbies. And he barely acknowledges Tony when he visits, not even to talk about his lost powers.
Naturally, it's at this point that Fury shows up. He arrives on his own, no SHIELD car, no entourage of security. “Tell me you've fixed him,” he says before he's even in the door. “Tell me I didn't give him to the wrong guy.”
Fixed him. Like he's a piece of malfunctioning tech. It doesn't occur to Tony that he didn't mind the phrasing when he talked to Fury in Mojave. What's changed about his attitude toward his pathetic little house-guest since then?
“Nick,” he says, “what the hell did you expect me to do.” They're going down the hall, and he opens the door to the guest room (Loki of course, does not look up).
Fury looks in. “He's clean now at any rate,” he says.
“Yeah. And Thor's going to be thrilled when he comes back and finds his brother a clean, dead corpse.”
Fury glances into the room again. “If you think about it, it's kind of an improvement this way.”
It's not, oh god it's not. - The thought goes through Tony's head, then right away the question, “did I really just think that?”
“Don't make this all on me, Tony.” Fury's words interrupt his thought process before he can get to the part where he might have to admit that he actually cares about the little megalomaniac.
He gives an exasperated sigh. “I don't know who's fault it is. Maybe the solitary did it, maybe that's just the last straw that broke the camel's back. He wasn't what you'd call sane when he was here before, was he? The point is, it doesn't matter. What matters is how we're going to get him back to normal.”
“Talk to him Tony,” Fury says. “That's what psychiatrists do, isn't it?” Yes, because so many people have mistaken Tony Stark for a psychiatrist over the years. “At least give it a try. Listen, if it doesn't work I'll send a SHIELD psychiatrist over and he can talk to him.”
“What am I supposed to talk to him about?”
--------------------
That night he's in the guest bedroom (in his pajamas of all things). He's got a glassful of double-malt for courage, and he sets it down on the desk, then pulls out the chair and sits down. Loki's in his usual place on the bed, wearing one of the SHIELD-issue jumpsuits that would fit two of him now.
“You know my father never talked to me much,” Tony says.
He's expecting what he gets, which is silence, and a pair of green eyes that look at him with about as much interest as if he was a fly buzzing past.
“He was kind of a big guy around here,” he says. “Not big by the standards of your father, but...”
“Odin is not my father.” Loki's voice is rusty, unused-sounding.
Adopted, right. He'd forgotten about that. “My father was Laufey, King of the Jotuns,” Loki says. “They are a defeated people, conquered by the superior strength of the Aesir.” He looks at Tony, adding, “as I was conquered by yours.”
Tony lets out a breath. “You weren't conquered.” Only of course he was. “Listen,” he bursts out, “you couldn't expect us not to defend our home, could you?”
“I wouldn't know,” Loki says. “I never had a home.”
Depressing little fellow, isn't he? Tony reminds himself that he's talking at any rate, that's got to be some kind of an improvement.
“My real father abandoned me. Odin took me in because he hoped I would be of use to him. Shall I show you my true appearance, Tony Stark?” Loki puts his hand on Tony's arm. He looks into his eyes. Tony feels his stomach crawl as he sees his green eyes turn dull red. He looks down and sees that the hand on his arm is blue, a deep blue, and the color is crawling upward to cover his whole body.
“I can freeze you in a block of ice too,” Loki says. “Funny thing: Odin took my Aesir magic, but I still have my Jotun powers. He has no control over those.
Tony's mind just forms the word “JARVIS”. Apparently his lips do too, because Loki gives a short laugh. “I'm not going to use them on you, Tony Stark. You're the only person who's treated me decently since I've been here.”
Tony can't pull his eyes away. The blue's not a bad color, he thinks, it's just ...not a skin color. And watching Banner turn green and Hulk up apparently hasn't done anything to prepare him.
“Shall I tell you how I learned my true parentage?” Slowly the blue fades and Tony's sitting with the Loki he's used to again. “I was a man grown,” he says, “fighting the Jotuns at my brother's orders. One of their warriors touched my arm. My flesh turned blue, where a normal Aesir's would have been frozen to the bone.”
He smiles, a rather toothy smile, and a light comes into his eyes that Tony doesn't like very much. “You can imagine how I felt. I tried to destroy the entire race in a fit of unconscious denial.” A snort, “then Thor of all people stopped me.”
“Odin admitted the truth when I confronted him.” He spreads his hands. “I am a man without a home. My real father abandoned me. My adoptive father, when it came time to decide, chose his real son over me. I have a plan though, Tony Stark.” His smile widens.
“Let me guess, you're going to try to destroy the world.” Really, sometimes humor is the only way to defuse a creepy situation. And this one's getting exponentially creepier by the minute. “Again.”
“I'm going to die.” Loki grins, his eyes glittering out of a face that already looks like a death's head. “Odin's punishment was a gift in disguise. I'm mortal now. Eventually if I don't eat, this body will die. I will have a home, if only in Hel.”
“Yeah.” Tony swallows. He wishes he didn't believe him, but Loki looks nothing but serious. He moves to get up. “I'll be contacting your brother now.”
“No you won't.” Loki's eyes turn stony.
“JARVIS.”
“Don't be a fool, Tony Stark.” Loki frowns. “I gave my word, and I will not hurt you. But if Thor comes, he will not find me alive.”
--------------------
...And so naturally Thor turns up the next day. He should have foreseen it, Tony thinks. The guy's a demigod. He comes when he sees a need, not when someone calls him. And who wouldn't see a need with their brother going around talking about suicide?
He at least tries to stop him outside the door though. “You're not going in.”
“My friend, I am going in.” Thor's hand on his chest is gentle, but Tony can feel all his power behind it.
“If you've been listening, and I know you have been listening,” Tony says, “then you know Loki doesn't want to see you. You know what he said he'd do if you came here.”
“I know he is my brother.” A gentle push from Thor is all it takes. Tony falls back against an inconvenient potted plant next to the doorway. He hears Thor's footsteps echoing on the marble floor as he goes through the entry-hall
He follows, wondering what he's going to find. Death? Devastation? Wasn't there a supervillain in some book, who's secret lair was set to crumble into dust as soon as you turned the key to go in? He's still thinking of Loki with his powers of course though. He comes in, and he doesn't hear Thor lamenting over a dead brother, just a lot of shouting.
“Brother! Put that down! Dammit, Loki!”
Tony finds his guests (naturally) in the kitchen, where Loki has (of course) managed to get hold of the big butcher knife, even though he couldn't be bothered to learn where anything else was, the whole time since he's been here. To be precise, he finds Thor holding his brother's wrist down against the granite countertop, while Loki grasps fruitlessly at the knife, and snarls up at him like a cornered cat.
“Get off me, you clumsy oaf! - You stupid beast!” Loki struggles, pulling with one arm and pushing back against his brother's massive chest with the other. “Do you think your brute strength can stop me doing what I want?”
Thor's brute strength is doing a pretty good job of stopping him. Not for the first time, Tony finds himself feeling sorry for Loki, who's giant colossal ego just makes him feel it all the more when he's defeated.
“I saw what you were doing.” Thor looks like he could hold off a million Loki's. He's using maybe one one-thousandth of his strength, if that. He's not even breathing hard, it's Loki who's getting all red and sweaty. “You can't think that I'd let you, brother.”
“I was doing,” - Loki pulls, fruitlessly, and growls a little under his breath. -- “...I was doing exactly what I told Tony Stark I'd do if he let you come here. He should have realized I meant what I said.”
“Do not fault Tony.”
Thor's grip must have slipped for a minute, because Loki gets his hand free. He lunges at his brother with the knife upraised. Only to have Thor stop him as easily as you'd stop a butterfly. “Put it down.” He squeezes Loki's hand until it comes open and the knife clatters to the floor.
“Do not fault Tony.” Thor holds his brother by both shoulders and looks at him, his blue eyes meeting Loki's angry green ones. “It was my choice to come here,” he says. “I knew you would not like it.”
“Beautiful diplomacy.” Loki spits it at him like it's an insult. “I suppose Odin's been giving you lessons? How to negotiate with anyone, from a Frost Giant to a traitor with a knife?” He snorts nasty laughter. “Only in this case they're one and the same thing?”
“You're not a traitor,” Thor says. “You're my brother, and I love you, and so do Father and Mother.”
“Yeah, I'm a traitor. I hope I started a war at any rate, a nice little mess for the All-Father to clean up.” Loki pulls. It doesn't make any difference to Thor's grip on him, but it makes his own feet, barely touching the ground to begin with, dance around in the air like a baby's.
It's as good a time as any for a genius-billionaire to step in and take control of the situation. “Everything all right in here?” Tony comes into the kitchen and gives them both the best smile he can manage. “No problems between brothers?”
Loki looks at him, positively debonair. - Or as debonair as anyone can get who's as skinny as he is now. “None at all,” he carols. “Everything is just fine.” He shoots a glare at Thor. “If you'll just tell this brute he's not wanted here? I've been mauled by enough mindless creatures for one lifetime.”
Thor gives Tony the sad, confused look your dog gets when he knows he's going to the vet. “My brother...”
“Your brother,” Tony cuts in, “is fine, Thor. He's not going to do anything crazy.” He glares threat at Loki, who glares back, but doesn't dispute it. “He's a guest in my house, and if he doesn't want to see you, I wish you'd respect that.”
If he expected a thank-you from Loki - Hell, if he expected appreciation for that matter! - Tony's in for a disappointment. Freed of his brother's grip, his house-guest brushes the wrinkles out of his clothes. He tosses his head. “You can't expect respect from oafs like this,Tony Stark. Manners are a product of civilization, and really, he's not very civilized, is he?”
Yeah, and you are, you crazy little shit? Tony's not the only one staring as Loki leaves the room. Thor's frankly gaping with his mouth open. “What's going to happen to my brother,” he asks.
It's official now: Everyone thinks he understands this stuff. Even if they're not from Earth, they think it. Tony takes a deep breath. “He'll be fine, big brother. He's a guest at my house. He can stay here as long as he wants. - I'll teach him to play Angry Birds.”
“He'll enjoy that.” Thor gives a shadow of his usual smile. “My brother has an affinity with birds.” His smile fades. “I want you to help him,” he says. “And I want you to contact me if he... Ahh, if anything goes wrong. I don't care if Father's banished him. I'll send Asgard's best healers here if he needs them.”
--------------------
That night it's Loki that's in the pajamas (bunny-patterned, to be precise), and Tony brings enough Dewars for both of them.
“You'd better not do that again.”
Loki doesn't look at him. He raises his arm, the sleeve of his goofy pajamas falling down around his elbow, and studies it as if it's the most fascinating thing in the room. “Apparently mortals can bruise,” he says.
“We can bleed pretty well too, and you'd better fucking not do anything to find out how that looks.” -
Loki's still ignoring him. His skin turns that creepy blue of his and he studies an arm that's suddenly a lot longer. “Apparently the Jotun can too.” He raises his arm to show Tony the dark purple finger-marks that circle his wrist. “That clumsy oaf doesn't know his own strength.”
“You mean your brother.”
Loki doesn't dignify that one with a response. “No more knives,” he says though. He takes the glass Tony's given him and sips. - He's so skinny you can practically see the Scotch go through his system. “Suppose we make a deal: I'll leave the cutlery alone, and you keep Thor Odinson from sniffing around and pretending he cares about me.”
Which he does of course. It kind of sticks out all over him. But never mind that for now. Psychiatrist-Stark is on the job. “I've got a deal for you,” he says. “What say you start eating again, and I'll make them all stay away. No Nick Fury, no Thor, no... - What's his name? - No All-Father. What's in Hel that you want so badly anyway, Loki? It's just a lot of dead people. Is it because you don't want to go back to Asgard? Why not stay in Midgard? - Hell, why not stay here? - Listen,” - He wasn't going to say the next part, but all of a sudden Psychiatrist-Stark is gone, because he's got an idea. “Forget about your powers. They don't matter here. Give me a month, Loki, and I'll make you a suit that can do everything you used to do.”
He thinks he's imagining it at first, when he sees the corners of Loki's mouth go up a little. He thinks it's some quirk of his alien Jotun form. Then he hears the warmth in his voice and he knows he's smiling. Bingo! Even in genius-mode, Psychiatrist-Stark can do the job. “So I can try to destroy the world again?”
“Maybe you won't want to destroy this world,” Tony says. “Maybe you'll want to save at least part of it, the part with me and JARVIS in it at any rate.”
“Maybe.” Loki's blue skin fades back into his normal pallor. His red eyes turn green again. “That's quite a deal: I eat, and you make me a suit.” He smiles again. “You may have given me the incentive I wanted.”
Sweet! Fucking sweet! He totally fucking did this! “How about you start eating right now,” says cagey Psychiatrist-Stark.
Loki nods. “And afterward you start the suit.”
“Hell yeah!” Make that roast beef sandwiches with extra mayo for two, and coffee to wash it down. Nothing's better than a big snack at 11:00 PM except a marathon session in the workroom afterward. Loki's in there with him (still with a smear of mayonnaise on his lower lip), peering over his shoulder and watching. The coffee's steaming in the old Black And Decker drip machine he's had since college. If there's any faint whisper of doubt left in his mind, about the possible risks of handing a suit over to someone who started a war with the human race and has only gotten crazier since then, it's a faint one, and very far away. Better living through technology is a religion in his family. He wouldn't be a proper Stark if he questioned it.
Characters: Loki, Tony Stark, Nick Fury, Thor
Pairings: eventual Tony/Loki ...maybe
Setting: Post-movie
I'm performing without a net here. Dirj, you'll know how much I hate proceeding when we don't have the whole story plotted out in advance. With this one I'm pulling it out of my butt as I go. It would practically be a NaNo fic, only I think it's going to max out around 10-15,000 words. Oh, and 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. Tony'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.
Tony 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?” Tony 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.”
They take one more corridor, then stop at the end-cell, and ...And nothing would explain this, Tony 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 Tony 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 Tony, 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, Tony 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 for 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...” Tony 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. “If you manage it, 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 Tony visits his new house-guest. When he does go, it's not by his choice. Loki was so vain before, about his authority and his superior power. Now he's got nothing, and it feels kind of cruel to look at him like this. But one of the guards he's hired to watch him stops Tony one day, as he's hurrying down the hallway from the main living area to his bedroom (and trying his best to avoid even looking at the room where Loki is doing who-knows-what, and in who-knows-what condition).
“You don't need to keep us on,” he says.
Without thinking, Tony glances toward Loki's door.
“No.” The guard shakes his head. “I shouldn't say anything, because this is an easy job, now, but he's taking care of himself. He doesn't need us any more. He never does anything dangerous. He never tries to go anywhere. And don't you have some kind of state-of-the-art security system for if he did?”
“Son, my security system is beyond state-of-the-art.” Tony looks at the door again. All he can think about is that first sight of Loki in his cell back in Mojave: The sight of it, the smell. What would he see if he opened this door now?
“You can go in,” the guard tells him. “It might be good for him if he saw someone he knows.”
“Oh I don't know him that well.” This banter is for one purpose and one purpose only: It saves Tony having to open the door and see Loki being not-Loki again. “He tried to kill me once.” But if he'd hoped the guard would take him up on that and continue the conversation, he's disappointed. He just shakes his head at what's obviously a joke, and continues toward the front door to go home.
Oh well, there's no way he can put this off forever. Tony opens the door. When the odor that comes out is air freshener and clean sheets, he breathes a sigh of relief. He looks in and sees Loki sitting on the bed. Loki looks like a drowned cat, but that's already a 100% improvement over how he looked when he got here. He's, swimming in one of the SHIELD-issue jumpsuits Fury sent over with him, probably because it looks like he's lost about 50 pounds since he and Tony first met.
“Tony Stark?” Loki looks up at him with eyes that at least show some recognition now, but, along with it, the same hopelessness as before. “Would you like to gloat now,” he says, “or shall I make an appointment for you to come back and do it later.”
“Gloat?” What he'd really like is a thank-you. It's not like he didn't save Loki out of some godforsaken SHIELD cell in the desert, or spent wads of cash nursing him back to health or anything. “I came to see how you are,” he says.
It's the perfect opening for a snotty comeback, and Loki, the Loki he remembers from before, was never one to miss an opportunity. Instead, he barely acknowledges that Tony's said anything, just nods, then looks down at his own knees. “You were right,” he says softly. “It was all on me. There was no throne, and the army wasn't very effective.”
Tony swallows the urge to tell his house-guest just how “effective” his army actually was. He's really fighting the temptation to feel sorry for him here. Loki's cleaned up all right, but he 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 the people he killed, it's just his lost power.
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. “What happens to me now?” he says.
“I don't know.” Tony thinks about Dr. Selvig. He thinks about Loki stabbing Thor. - Who does that? Who stabs their own brother? Then he looks down into green, hopeless eyes. “Nick just told me to fix you.”
Loki doesn't answer. Silence stretches on. “Dammit,” Tony says. “It's up to you what happens, Loki. Can't you visualize a future where you're not someone's enemy?”
A bitter snort of a laugh. “I'd be a pretty pathetic enemy.” Looking down at his arm like it's a cheap suit, “my powers are gone, remember?” he says. “Your green monster could probably kill me with one blow now.”
Hulk. “Hulk's not here,” Tony says flatly. “No one's here. It's just you and me. And don't get any ideas about trying something,” he says. “If you so much as take a step near me, JARVIS will be on you like ugly on an ape.”
He looks back down at Loki, and he doesn't know why he bothered saying that. His guest hasn't even moved. “Of course.” He's barely audible. Only his lips moving show that he's talking. “I would not insult your hospitality.” It's not Loki. There's no snap of malice to the words, no show-offy double meaning to please his smug little ego. For the first time Tony starts to wonder whether he can fix Thor's brother.
--------------------
He's wondering it even more a week later, with a house-guest who never leaves his room. He's no trouble, no trouble at all. People have cats that are more trouble than Loki. They have cats that eat more too, and by that, take it to mean lots more. Loki eats barely anything. Trays come back from his room and you can't see where there's food missing. He must be eating something, because he's still alive, but it's not visible, and he's still losing weight like a fat lady on Jenny Craig. He doesn't do anything, not even reading, which Thor said was one of his favorite hobbies. And he barely acknowledges Tony when he visits, not even to talk about his lost powers.
Naturally, it's at this point that Fury shows up. He arrives on his own, no SHIELD car, no entourage of security. “Tell me you've fixed him,” he says before he's even in the door. “Tell me I didn't give him to the wrong guy.”
Fixed him. Like he's a piece of malfunctioning tech. It doesn't occur to Tony that he didn't mind the phrasing when he talked to Fury in Mojave. What's changed about his attitude toward his pathetic little house-guest since then?
“Nick,” he says, “what the hell did you expect me to do.” They're going down the hall, and he opens the door to the guest room (Loki of course, does not look up).
Fury looks in. “He's clean now at any rate,” he says.
“Yeah. And Thor's going to be thrilled when he comes back and finds his brother a clean, dead corpse.”
Fury glances into the room again. “If you think about it, it's kind of an improvement this way.”
It's not, oh god it's not. - The thought goes through Tony's head, then right away the question, “did I really just think that?”
“Don't make this all on me, Tony.” Fury's words interrupt his thought process before he can get to the part where he might have to admit that he actually cares about the little megalomaniac.
He gives an exasperated sigh. “I don't know who's fault it is. Maybe the solitary did it, maybe that's just the last straw that broke the camel's back. He wasn't what you'd call sane when he was here before, was he? The point is, it doesn't matter. What matters is how we're going to get him back to normal.”
“Talk to him Tony,” Fury says. “That's what psychiatrists do, isn't it?” Yes, because so many people have mistaken Tony Stark for a psychiatrist over the years. “At least give it a try. Listen, if it doesn't work I'll send a SHIELD psychiatrist over and he can talk to him.”
“What am I supposed to talk to him about?”
--------------------
That night he's in the guest bedroom (in his pajamas of all things). He's got a glassful of double-malt for courage, and he sets it down on the desk, then pulls out the chair and sits down. Loki's in his usual place on the bed, wearing one of the SHIELD-issue jumpsuits that would fit two of him now.
“You know my father never talked to me much,” Tony says.
He's expecting what he gets, which is silence, and a pair of green eyes that look at him with about as much interest as if he was a fly buzzing past.
“He was kind of a big guy around here,” he says. “Not big by the standards of your father, but...”
“Odin is not my father.” Loki's voice is rusty, unused-sounding.
Adopted, right. He'd forgotten about that. “My father was Laufey, King of the Jotuns,” Loki says. “They are a defeated people, conquered by the superior strength of the Aesir.” He looks at Tony, adding, “as I was conquered by yours.”
Tony lets out a breath. “You weren't conquered.” Only of course he was. “Listen,” he bursts out, “you couldn't expect us not to defend our home, could you?”
“I wouldn't know,” Loki says. “I never had a home.”
Depressing little fellow, isn't he? Tony reminds himself that he's talking at any rate, that's got to be some kind of an improvement.
“My real father abandoned me. Odin took me in because he hoped I would be of use to him. Shall I show you my true appearance, Tony Stark?” Loki puts his hand on Tony's arm. He looks into his eyes. Tony feels his stomach crawl as he sees his green eyes turn dull red. He looks down and sees that the hand on his arm is blue, a deep blue, and the color is crawling upward to cover his whole body.
“I can freeze you in a block of ice too,” Loki says. “Funny thing: Odin took my Aesir magic, but I still have my Jotun powers. He has no control over those.
Tony's mind just forms the word “JARVIS”. Apparently his lips do too, because Loki gives a short laugh. “I'm not going to use them on you, Tony Stark. You're the only person who's treated me decently since I've been here.”
Tony can't pull his eyes away. The blue's not a bad color, he thinks, it's just ...not a skin color. And watching Banner turn green and Hulk up apparently hasn't done anything to prepare him.
“Shall I tell you how I learned my true parentage?” Slowly the blue fades and Tony's sitting with the Loki he's used to again. “I was a man grown,” he says, “fighting the Jotuns at my brother's orders. One of their warriors touched my arm. My flesh turned blue, where a normal Aesir's would have been frozen to the bone.”
He smiles, a rather toothy smile, and a light comes into his eyes that Tony doesn't like very much. “You can imagine how I felt. I tried to destroy the entire race in a fit of unconscious denial.” A snort, “then Thor of all people stopped me.”
“Odin admitted the truth when I confronted him.” He spreads his hands. “I am a man without a home. My real father abandoned me. My adoptive father, when it came time to decide, chose his real son over me. I have a plan though, Tony Stark.” His smile widens.
“Let me guess, you're going to try to destroy the world.” Really, sometimes humor is the only way to defuse a creepy situation. And this one's getting exponentially creepier by the minute. “Again.”
“I'm going to die.” Loki grins, his eyes glittering out of a face that already looks like a death's head. “Odin's punishment was a gift in disguise. I'm mortal now. Eventually if I don't eat, this body will die. I will have a home, if only in Hel.”
“Yeah.” Tony swallows. He wishes he didn't believe him, but Loki looks nothing but serious. He moves to get up. “I'll be contacting your brother now.”
“No you won't.” Loki's eyes turn stony.
“JARVIS.”
“Don't be a fool, Tony Stark.” Loki frowns. “I gave my word, and I will not hurt you. But if Thor comes, he will not find me alive.”
--------------------
...And so naturally Thor turns up the next day. He should have foreseen it, Tony thinks. The guy's a demigod. He comes when he sees a need, not when someone calls him. And who wouldn't see a need with their brother going around talking about suicide?
He at least tries to stop him outside the door though. “You're not going in.”
“My friend, I am going in.” Thor's hand on his chest is gentle, but Tony can feel all his power behind it.
“If you've been listening, and I know you have been listening,” Tony says, “then you know Loki doesn't want to see you. You know what he said he'd do if you came here.”
“I know he is my brother.” A gentle push from Thor is all it takes. Tony falls back against an inconvenient potted plant next to the doorway. He hears Thor's footsteps echoing on the marble floor as he goes through the entry-hall
He follows, wondering what he's going to find. Death? Devastation? Wasn't there a supervillain in some book, who's secret lair was set to crumble into dust as soon as you turned the key to go in? He's still thinking of Loki with his powers of course though. He comes in, and he doesn't hear Thor lamenting over a dead brother, just a lot of shouting.
“Brother! Put that down! Dammit, Loki!”
Tony finds his guests (naturally) in the kitchen, where Loki has (of course) managed to get hold of the big butcher knife, even though he couldn't be bothered to learn where anything else was, the whole time since he's been here. To be precise, he finds Thor holding his brother's wrist down against the granite countertop, while Loki grasps fruitlessly at the knife, and snarls up at him like a cornered cat.
“Get off me, you clumsy oaf! - You stupid beast!” Loki struggles, pulling with one arm and pushing back against his brother's massive chest with the other. “Do you think your brute strength can stop me doing what I want?”
Thor's brute strength is doing a pretty good job of stopping him. Not for the first time, Tony finds himself feeling sorry for Loki, who's giant colossal ego just makes him feel it all the more when he's defeated.
“I saw what you were doing.” Thor looks like he could hold off a million Loki's. He's using maybe one one-thousandth of his strength, if that. He's not even breathing hard, it's Loki who's getting all red and sweaty. “You can't think that I'd let you, brother.”
“I was doing,” - Loki pulls, fruitlessly, and growls a little under his breath. -- “...I was doing exactly what I told Tony Stark I'd do if he let you come here. He should have realized I meant what I said.”
“Do not fault Tony.”
Thor's grip must have slipped for a minute, because Loki gets his hand free. He lunges at his brother with the knife upraised. Only to have Thor stop him as easily as you'd stop a butterfly. “Put it down.” He squeezes Loki's hand until it comes open and the knife clatters to the floor.
“Do not fault Tony.” Thor holds his brother by both shoulders and looks at him, his blue eyes meeting Loki's angry green ones. “It was my choice to come here,” he says. “I knew you would not like it.”
“Beautiful diplomacy.” Loki spits it at him like it's an insult. “I suppose Odin's been giving you lessons? How to negotiate with anyone, from a Frost Giant to a traitor with a knife?” He snorts nasty laughter. “Only in this case they're one and the same thing?”
“You're not a traitor,” Thor says. “You're my brother, and I love you, and so do Father and Mother.”
“Yeah, I'm a traitor. I hope I started a war at any rate, a nice little mess for the All-Father to clean up.” Loki pulls. It doesn't make any difference to Thor's grip on him, but it makes his own feet, barely touching the ground to begin with, dance around in the air like a baby's.
It's as good a time as any for a genius-billionaire to step in and take control of the situation. “Everything all right in here?” Tony comes into the kitchen and gives them both the best smile he can manage. “No problems between brothers?”
Loki looks at him, positively debonair. - Or as debonair as anyone can get who's as skinny as he is now. “None at all,” he carols. “Everything is just fine.” He shoots a glare at Thor. “If you'll just tell this brute he's not wanted here? I've been mauled by enough mindless creatures for one lifetime.”
Thor gives Tony the sad, confused look your dog gets when he knows he's going to the vet. “My brother...”
“Your brother,” Tony cuts in, “is fine, Thor. He's not going to do anything crazy.” He glares threat at Loki, who glares back, but doesn't dispute it. “He's a guest in my house, and if he doesn't want to see you, I wish you'd respect that.”
If he expected a thank-you from Loki - Hell, if he expected appreciation for that matter! - Tony's in for a disappointment. Freed of his brother's grip, his house-guest brushes the wrinkles out of his clothes. He tosses his head. “You can't expect respect from oafs like this,Tony Stark. Manners are a product of civilization, and really, he's not very civilized, is he?”
Yeah, and you are, you crazy little shit? Tony's not the only one staring as Loki leaves the room. Thor's frankly gaping with his mouth open. “What's going to happen to my brother,” he asks.
It's official now: Everyone thinks he understands this stuff. Even if they're not from Earth, they think it. Tony takes a deep breath. “He'll be fine, big brother. He's a guest at my house. He can stay here as long as he wants. - I'll teach him to play Angry Birds.”
“He'll enjoy that.” Thor gives a shadow of his usual smile. “My brother has an affinity with birds.” His smile fades. “I want you to help him,” he says. “And I want you to contact me if he... Ahh, if anything goes wrong. I don't care if Father's banished him. I'll send Asgard's best healers here if he needs them.”
--------------------
That night it's Loki that's in the pajamas (bunny-patterned, to be precise), and Tony brings enough Dewars for both of them.
“You'd better not do that again.”
Loki doesn't look at him. He raises his arm, the sleeve of his goofy pajamas falling down around his elbow, and studies it as if it's the most fascinating thing in the room. “Apparently mortals can bruise,” he says.
“We can bleed pretty well too, and you'd better fucking not do anything to find out how that looks.” -
Loki's still ignoring him. His skin turns that creepy blue of his and he studies an arm that's suddenly a lot longer. “Apparently the Jotun can too.” He raises his arm to show Tony the dark purple finger-marks that circle his wrist. “That clumsy oaf doesn't know his own strength.”
“You mean your brother.”
Loki doesn't dignify that one with a response. “No more knives,” he says though. He takes the glass Tony's given him and sips. - He's so skinny you can practically see the Scotch go through his system. “Suppose we make a deal: I'll leave the cutlery alone, and you keep Thor Odinson from sniffing around and pretending he cares about me.”
Which he does of course. It kind of sticks out all over him. But never mind that for now. Psychiatrist-Stark is on the job. “I've got a deal for you,” he says. “What say you start eating again, and I'll make them all stay away. No Nick Fury, no Thor, no... - What's his name? - No All-Father. What's in Hel that you want so badly anyway, Loki? It's just a lot of dead people. Is it because you don't want to go back to Asgard? Why not stay in Midgard? - Hell, why not stay here? - Listen,” - He wasn't going to say the next part, but all of a sudden Psychiatrist-Stark is gone, because he's got an idea. “Forget about your powers. They don't matter here. Give me a month, Loki, and I'll make you a suit that can do everything you used to do.”
He thinks he's imagining it at first, when he sees the corners of Loki's mouth go up a little. He thinks it's some quirk of his alien Jotun form. Then he hears the warmth in his voice and he knows he's smiling. Bingo! Even in genius-mode, Psychiatrist-Stark can do the job. “So I can try to destroy the world again?”
“Maybe you won't want to destroy this world,” Tony says. “Maybe you'll want to save at least part of it, the part with me and JARVIS in it at any rate.”
“Maybe.” Loki's blue skin fades back into his normal pallor. His red eyes turn green again. “That's quite a deal: I eat, and you make me a suit.” He smiles again. “You may have given me the incentive I wanted.”
Sweet! Fucking sweet! He totally fucking did this! “How about you start eating right now,” says cagey Psychiatrist-Stark.
Loki nods. “And afterward you start the suit.”
“Hell yeah!” Make that roast beef sandwiches with extra mayo for two, and coffee to wash it down. Nothing's better than a big snack at 11:00 PM except a marathon session in the workroom afterward. Loki's in there with him (still with a smear of mayonnaise on his lower lip), peering over his shoulder and watching. The coffee's steaming in the old Black And Decker drip machine he's had since college. If there's any faint whisper of doubt left in his mind, about the possible risks of handing a suit over to someone who started a war with the human race and has only gotten crazier since then, it's a faint one, and very far away. Better living through technology is a religion in his family. He wouldn't be a proper Stark if he questioned it.