Becoming, Part 1b
Because of word limits I had to split it.
Part 1b
Since the incident with the arrow in the common room, Loki has gone out of his way to avoid all Avengers who were not Stark (the only one he is reasonably assured will not cause him harm at this time) as much as it is feasible to do so. Fortunately the wall map of the other one’s time in his body has also allowed him to pinpoint their routines, so it is not terribly difficult.
Stark would be the easiest if he was avoiding him, next Banner who he has only seen during the Doctor’s visits to the lab when Loki’s presence was not expected. Their interactions have been brief and calm once they both got past the initial spike of anxiety, which was reassuring but still unpredictable and so best avoided.
He has no questions about what the Hawk and Widow’s reactions could be; that they have not acted yet is a pleasant surprise, especially given that the archer perhaps spends more time with him than any of his team mates. Each time Loki feels eyes on him both in and outside of the lab or glances to the ceiling he wonders how often the other Avengers see the agent now. Even when he sits in his quarters with the tablet the eyes are there. It is not everywhere, but he is followed.
As for their captain…
The captain stops him on his way out of the lab (really, he should just teleport at this point), calling his name from his seat on the far couch. None of the other Avengers are- (he stops to reach out)- no, the Hawk is listening from above, but the others are not present.
For a moment Loki is thrown. In his mind are cataloged interactions and probable responses for each of the Avengers, data collected over battles and the period of time he was not himself. It is how he lives his life now, the only guidelines he has.
Across the room Captain Rogers does not look at him as if he is the Other One, nor as he was before It. Loki cannot tell what the captain sees; it is unquantifiable, and therefore impossible to decipher how he should respond.
Rogers leans forward, elbows resting against his knees.
“How are you feeling?”
The question is vague and purposeless. Feeling about what? Thor? The tower? The complete betrayal he is trying to wade through? Loki shifts, worrying the hem of his shirt with the hand the Midgardian cannot see. “… satisfactory.”
The captain frowns. “What does that mean?”
Loki shrugs and scuttles out of the room as gracefully as he can. Rogers does not follow.
-
His quarters are usually quiet, Loki has very few visitors. There is the hum of the air circulating, the nearly imperceptible sound that leaks from the devices around him as electricity passes through, his own footsteps, all sounds that are part of Being in the tower.
The Avengers are gone which he knows not because he was told, but because the Hawk had left the vents above him at the same time the robots in the lab had informed him of Stark’s departure. Loki had briefly considered finding and turning on one of the screens on a floor he has access to, but dismissed the thought. It was only curiosity, and it would not do for the A.I. to inform the Midgardians that Loki had appeared to be concerned.
It can wait. Stark will most likely tell him about it later, he will not even have to ask.
He is not concerned until he realizes everything is silent.
Sitting up slowly, he reaches downs several floors to Dummy. Right before the connection disappears, he feels a pull sharp enough to make him wince. Then the aloneness is back.
Loki drops the tablet.
Dummy?
There is nothing, not even a whispered impression. Immediately Loki flings his consciousness into the walls and around the building. The circuits tremble briefly when he touches them with his mind, reaching out to the wires in the labs, running over them, over everything, searching. All is quiet and dark, buzzing in the wrong way (no no noNONO) until he finds a spark. It glows like the embers of a dying flame, reaching back to him as he tries nursing it to brightness.
A panel in his quarters lights up. JARVIS crackles.
“-ir is- can’t ac- - hy- i--tra-ng the t-”
“JARVIS, are you- what is going on?! JARVIS?”
Static claws out of the speakers, bits of noise that are indiscernible while still clearly being the A.I.’s voice. Then there is nothing, the lights flickering once.
Loki runs.
-
They are in the middle of a fight, made more complicated by their lack of Thor but not unmanageable, when the HUD flickers and JARVIS cries out for him in a panicky voice. Tony’s breath jerks out of him, disoriented by the absence of input, then the propulsion system is gone and the last thing he hears as he starts to fall, his stomach jumping up to his throat, is the broken up static sound of JARVIS initiating the Homebound protocol. Suddenly, blind in all ways except for the narrow visor of the face plate, Tony is shooting in the direction of the tower.
“JARVIS?!” he calls, voice breaking. “J?!”
There is nothing.
The suit is on auto-pilot, moving only toward the beacon signaling from the landing pad; his com is out, lost with the connection he doesn’t have any more to his A.I. Tony tries to move his hands, feet, anything. He can’t.
He’s not claustrophobic, to get in the suit he can’t be, but when he’s locked in place and can’t see and there is no response from the only one who is always always always with him then he thinks he knows what it might feel like. He’s shaking, adrenaline and fear racing through his body.
Halfway there, when Tony is beginning to panic about what he is going to find when he arrives because he Doesn’t Know What Happened, everything kicks back on. “Iron Man! Iron Man, report!” He can hear (Cap, desperate) for a second before a smooth voice echoes cuts in, the input lights back up around him.
“My apologies, Sir.” Tony tries to ignore how wet his eyes feel and the sound of his own ragged breathing. “A team infiltrated the tower and brought a disruptor strong enough to affect my core for a moment. The threat has been neutralized.”
“The fuck-?! You sure? You okay buddy?”
“I am…” JARVIS trails off.
“Do you need me there?”
“We are alright Sir, but-” another stop.
“Answer the question J. Do not lie to me.”
“Yes. I think I do.”
He swings back to pick up Cap (only because the, “Tony? What happened?! Are you alright?” in his ear hasn’t stopped). The battle is over by the time he arrives, so he leaves the others to shuttle back to headquarters and debrief. The next time he is commissioned to build a satellite, Tony adds a feature allowing JARVIS to upload and relay himself if needed. He’s not sure why he hasn’t done this before.
Upon their return, he and Steve find Loki standing with bodies strewn about him, goons in Hydra uniforms that shouldn’t have been able to get as far in the tower as they did. When he notices them his knives disappear into air and as if nothing has happened turns in greeting.
Tony is concerned.
Steve looks at him meaningfully.
“We should probably add this to the list.”
Clean up is done, somehow (magic), before Hawkeye and Black Widow return. Loki leans against the wall next to Tony when he is running diagnostics and backups on all of JARVIS’s systems; both the Asgardian and A.I. are compliant, doing what they are told with little commentary. Neither snips at the other once.
They Do Not tell Fury, but an hour later Tony is standing on the roof of the tower talking to himself and gods that he isn’t sure are listening. Three days later the dwarves come.
-
Loki is in his quarters when they arrive.
“Eitri!” He calls in surprise, reaching out before he realizes he’s moved. He corrects himself. The dwarf ignores it and embraces him anyway.
“Hello child.” Loki frowns, but says nothing; there are few from whom he will accept that endearment (he thinks it’s meant as an endearment, is not sure how to ask without sounding hopeless and pathetic); his maker is one of them. “How do you fare?”
Just next to the entryway Brokkr stands with the Captain and Stark who had followed him in. Frown deepening as he sees them Loki glances back toward Eitri, suddenly considering why he might have come.
“I am… satisfactory.”
Brokkr rolls his eyes.
“You fret. Stop.” Behind the dwarf Stark snorts, but is ignored. “My brother and I have merely been concerned with an anomaly that was noticed during our last visit. We wish to investigate its cause.”
“Oh.” Anomaly? Looking down, Loki finds that his hands have risen up as if in the middle of a gesture that he does not remember beginning. He changes it to a sweeping motion in the direction of the couches, hoping the awkwardness would go unnoticed, though he is fairly certain it has been. They seem content to let him pretend. “Sit. Please?”
Eitri places a hand on his arm, guiding but not forcing him in the direction of the furniture.
“What do you remember after your… fall?” he asks once they are both seated. His brother remains standing by the arm of the chair. “Did you encounter anyone?” The Midgardians hang back, clearly unsure of their continued welcome but using the lack of dismissal as tacit permission to remain.
It does not matter, they would watch through the feed anyway.
“I remember…” his thoughts trail off and for a second he remembers nothing, until he remembers Nothing and shivers. “There was one I met, who provided me with an army,” he says at last. In his peripheral vision the Avengers shift. “But I do not think he- he didn’t…” his thoughts dwindle, until there is only blankness.
Loki flinches.
He stops speaking.
Eventually Eitri lifts his fingers but moves no further, looking at Loki very seriously. “Would you mind?”
When Loki breathes out and closes his eyes the dwarf rests a hand on the back of his neck and he can feel the dull ache behind his eyes that he associates with someone looking at the spells that Make Him. All he can think is quiet and breathe until the hand is lifted; Eitri glances to his brother and makes an affirmative gesture.
“There is a latticework laid over you,” Brokkr says, still in his place by the chair’s arm. “All thoughts and decisions have been passing through its frame. While we are not yet certain of the exact purpose, it is not meant to be there. Perhaps this One that you speak of is the cause.”
“If you tell me everything he did during the invasion wasn’t his fault I might throw something at you.” Stark’s voice rings from the entryway, Brokkr does not look over.
“No. It is passive.”
Loki draws back into himself; he hears the Captain speak but cannot really see anything.
“Like a lens filter on a camera?”
Neither dwarf responds, Stark makes the faint noise he does when he’s had an epiphany.
“We must remove it. All will be well,” his maker runs a hand through his hair; Loki is mildly annoyed at the childish comfort he gets from the motion. “Just like the incident on your Nameday, after you were attacked. When you open your eyes it will be over, there will be no changes made to you.”
The words are earnest; Loki says nothing and only returns the dwarf’s gaze, brow furrowed. He has vague memories of Father and the dwarf speaking above him, but everything else is gray, all he knows is their voices.
Finally he offers a small smile; Eitri pets his hair again and waves a hand in front of his face.
The world goes dark.
-
Loki wakes up, blinks several times, and announces that he feels no different. Eitri circles around him like an overbearing mother until Brokkr (who had been sharing a drink with Tony at the bar) shoves him away.
“You should notice in time. If anything of concern occurs you will contact us, until then we will monitor to ensure there have been no lasting effects.”
They stay for a meal, Loki sitting next to Eitri and sipping from a glass of water as the dwarf eats, and then they return to their realm with promises to visit again.
He does not feel any different at all until the next day when he is escorted to look over materials for S.H.I.E.L.D. and an agent he does not know makes a derisive noise as he passes. His response to a similar action last week had been the near overpowering desire to smite the mortal, possibly with flames; this time Loki lets out heavy breath and pushes the irritation aside.
Then everything clicks into place and he freezes.
Oh.
Afterwards he sits on his couch in the lab until Stark comes back down. Hands moving in a slow wringing motion, he tells the Avenger what happened. Tony hums, sits down next to him, and asks if he wants to watch a movie.
“If you plan to patronize me with any more of your trite little stories then I will not be held responsible for my actions.”
“What? No.” Tony grins at him.
Then he puts on Wall-e.
After Loki almost breaks the closest computer system they change it to Shawshank Redemption, which is better. Marginally.
Part 2
Part 1b
Since the incident with the arrow in the common room, Loki has gone out of his way to avoid all Avengers who were not Stark (the only one he is reasonably assured will not cause him harm at this time) as much as it is feasible to do so. Fortunately the wall map of the other one’s time in his body has also allowed him to pinpoint their routines, so it is not terribly difficult.
Stark would be the easiest if he was avoiding him, next Banner who he has only seen during the Doctor’s visits to the lab when Loki’s presence was not expected. Their interactions have been brief and calm once they both got past the initial spike of anxiety, which was reassuring but still unpredictable and so best avoided.
He has no questions about what the Hawk and Widow’s reactions could be; that they have not acted yet is a pleasant surprise, especially given that the archer perhaps spends more time with him than any of his team mates. Each time Loki feels eyes on him both in and outside of the lab or glances to the ceiling he wonders how often the other Avengers see the agent now. Even when he sits in his quarters with the tablet the eyes are there. It is not everywhere, but he is followed.
As for their captain…
The captain stops him on his way out of the lab (really, he should just teleport at this point), calling his name from his seat on the far couch. None of the other Avengers are- (he stops to reach out)- no, the Hawk is listening from above, but the others are not present.
For a moment Loki is thrown. In his mind are cataloged interactions and probable responses for each of the Avengers, data collected over battles and the period of time he was not himself. It is how he lives his life now, the only guidelines he has.
Across the room Captain Rogers does not look at him as if he is the Other One, nor as he was before It. Loki cannot tell what the captain sees; it is unquantifiable, and therefore impossible to decipher how he should respond.
Rogers leans forward, elbows resting against his knees.
“How are you feeling?”
The question is vague and purposeless. Feeling about what? Thor? The tower? The complete betrayal he is trying to wade through? Loki shifts, worrying the hem of his shirt with the hand the Midgardian cannot see. “… satisfactory.”
The captain frowns. “What does that mean?”
Loki shrugs and scuttles out of the room as gracefully as he can. Rogers does not follow.
-
His quarters are usually quiet, Loki has very few visitors. There is the hum of the air circulating, the nearly imperceptible sound that leaks from the devices around him as electricity passes through, his own footsteps, all sounds that are part of Being in the tower.
The Avengers are gone which he knows not because he was told, but because the Hawk had left the vents above him at the same time the robots in the lab had informed him of Stark’s departure. Loki had briefly considered finding and turning on one of the screens on a floor he has access to, but dismissed the thought. It was only curiosity, and it would not do for the A.I. to inform the Midgardians that Loki had appeared to be concerned.
It can wait. Stark will most likely tell him about it later, he will not even have to ask.
He is not concerned until he realizes everything is silent.
Sitting up slowly, he reaches downs several floors to Dummy. Right before the connection disappears, he feels a pull sharp enough to make him wince. Then the aloneness is back.
Loki drops the tablet.
Dummy?
There is nothing, not even a whispered impression. Immediately Loki flings his consciousness into the walls and around the building. The circuits tremble briefly when he touches them with his mind, reaching out to the wires in the labs, running over them, over everything, searching. All is quiet and dark, buzzing in the wrong way (no no noNONO) until he finds a spark. It glows like the embers of a dying flame, reaching back to him as he tries nursing it to brightness.
A panel in his quarters lights up. JARVIS crackles.
“-ir is- can’t ac- - hy- i--tra-ng the t-”
“JARVIS, are you- what is going on?! JARVIS?”
Static claws out of the speakers, bits of noise that are indiscernible while still clearly being the A.I.’s voice. Then there is nothing, the lights flickering once.
Loki runs.
-
They are in the middle of a fight, made more complicated by their lack of Thor but not unmanageable, when the HUD flickers and JARVIS cries out for him in a panicky voice. Tony’s breath jerks out of him, disoriented by the absence of input, then the propulsion system is gone and the last thing he hears as he starts to fall, his stomach jumping up to his throat, is the broken up static sound of JARVIS initiating the Homebound protocol. Suddenly, blind in all ways except for the narrow visor of the face plate, Tony is shooting in the direction of the tower.
“JARVIS?!” he calls, voice breaking. “J?!”
There is nothing.
The suit is on auto-pilot, moving only toward the beacon signaling from the landing pad; his com is out, lost with the connection he doesn’t have any more to his A.I. Tony tries to move his hands, feet, anything. He can’t.
He’s not claustrophobic, to get in the suit he can’t be, but when he’s locked in place and can’t see and there is no response from the only one who is always always always with him then he thinks he knows what it might feel like. He’s shaking, adrenaline and fear racing through his body.
Halfway there, when Tony is beginning to panic about what he is going to find when he arrives because he Doesn’t Know What Happened, everything kicks back on. “Iron Man! Iron Man, report!” He can hear (Cap, desperate) for a second before a smooth voice echoes cuts in, the input lights back up around him.
“My apologies, Sir.” Tony tries to ignore how wet his eyes feel and the sound of his own ragged breathing. “A team infiltrated the tower and brought a disruptor strong enough to affect my core for a moment. The threat has been neutralized.”
“The fuck-?! You sure? You okay buddy?”
“I am…” JARVIS trails off.
“Do you need me there?”
“We are alright Sir, but-” another stop.
“Answer the question J. Do not lie to me.”
“Yes. I think I do.”
He swings back to pick up Cap (only because the, “Tony? What happened?! Are you alright?” in his ear hasn’t stopped). The battle is over by the time he arrives, so he leaves the others to shuttle back to headquarters and debrief. The next time he is commissioned to build a satellite, Tony adds a feature allowing JARVIS to upload and relay himself if needed. He’s not sure why he hasn’t done this before.
Upon their return, he and Steve find Loki standing with bodies strewn about him, goons in Hydra uniforms that shouldn’t have been able to get as far in the tower as they did. When he notices them his knives disappear into air and as if nothing has happened turns in greeting.
Tony is concerned.
Steve looks at him meaningfully.
“We should probably add this to the list.”
Clean up is done, somehow (magic), before Hawkeye and Black Widow return. Loki leans against the wall next to Tony when he is running diagnostics and backups on all of JARVIS’s systems; both the Asgardian and A.I. are compliant, doing what they are told with little commentary. Neither snips at the other once.
They Do Not tell Fury, but an hour later Tony is standing on the roof of the tower talking to himself and gods that he isn’t sure are listening. Three days later the dwarves come.
-
Loki is in his quarters when they arrive.
“Eitri!” He calls in surprise, reaching out before he realizes he’s moved. He corrects himself. The dwarf ignores it and embraces him anyway.
“Hello child.” Loki frowns, but says nothing; there are few from whom he will accept that endearment (he thinks it’s meant as an endearment, is not sure how to ask without sounding hopeless and pathetic); his maker is one of them. “How do you fare?”
Just next to the entryway Brokkr stands with the Captain and Stark who had followed him in. Frown deepening as he sees them Loki glances back toward Eitri, suddenly considering why he might have come.
“I am… satisfactory.”
Brokkr rolls his eyes.
“You fret. Stop.” Behind the dwarf Stark snorts, but is ignored. “My brother and I have merely been concerned with an anomaly that was noticed during our last visit. We wish to investigate its cause.”
“Oh.” Anomaly? Looking down, Loki finds that his hands have risen up as if in the middle of a gesture that he does not remember beginning. He changes it to a sweeping motion in the direction of the couches, hoping the awkwardness would go unnoticed, though he is fairly certain it has been. They seem content to let him pretend. “Sit. Please?”
Eitri places a hand on his arm, guiding but not forcing him in the direction of the furniture.
“What do you remember after your… fall?” he asks once they are both seated. His brother remains standing by the arm of the chair. “Did you encounter anyone?” The Midgardians hang back, clearly unsure of their continued welcome but using the lack of dismissal as tacit permission to remain.
It does not matter, they would watch through the feed anyway.
“I remember…” his thoughts trail off and for a second he remembers nothing, until he remembers Nothing and shivers. “There was one I met, who provided me with an army,” he says at last. In his peripheral vision the Avengers shift. “But I do not think he- he didn’t…” his thoughts dwindle, until there is only blankness.
Loki flinches.
He stops speaking.
Eventually Eitri lifts his fingers but moves no further, looking at Loki very seriously. “Would you mind?”
When Loki breathes out and closes his eyes the dwarf rests a hand on the back of his neck and he can feel the dull ache behind his eyes that he associates with someone looking at the spells that Make Him. All he can think is quiet and breathe until the hand is lifted; Eitri glances to his brother and makes an affirmative gesture.
“There is a latticework laid over you,” Brokkr says, still in his place by the chair’s arm. “All thoughts and decisions have been passing through its frame. While we are not yet certain of the exact purpose, it is not meant to be there. Perhaps this One that you speak of is the cause.”
“If you tell me everything he did during the invasion wasn’t his fault I might throw something at you.” Stark’s voice rings from the entryway, Brokkr does not look over.
“No. It is passive.”
Loki draws back into himself; he hears the Captain speak but cannot really see anything.
“Like a lens filter on a camera?”
Neither dwarf responds, Stark makes the faint noise he does when he’s had an epiphany.
“We must remove it. All will be well,” his maker runs a hand through his hair; Loki is mildly annoyed at the childish comfort he gets from the motion. “Just like the incident on your Nameday, after you were attacked. When you open your eyes it will be over, there will be no changes made to you.”
The words are earnest; Loki says nothing and only returns the dwarf’s gaze, brow furrowed. He has vague memories of Father and the dwarf speaking above him, but everything else is gray, all he knows is their voices.
Finally he offers a small smile; Eitri pets his hair again and waves a hand in front of his face.
The world goes dark.
-
Loki wakes up, blinks several times, and announces that he feels no different. Eitri circles around him like an overbearing mother until Brokkr (who had been sharing a drink with Tony at the bar) shoves him away.
“You should notice in time. If anything of concern occurs you will contact us, until then we will monitor to ensure there have been no lasting effects.”
They stay for a meal, Loki sitting next to Eitri and sipping from a glass of water as the dwarf eats, and then they return to their realm with promises to visit again.
He does not feel any different at all until the next day when he is escorted to look over materials for S.H.I.E.L.D. and an agent he does not know makes a derisive noise as he passes. His response to a similar action last week had been the near overpowering desire to smite the mortal, possibly with flames; this time Loki lets out heavy breath and pushes the irritation aside.
Then everything clicks into place and he freezes.
Oh.
Afterwards he sits on his couch in the lab until Stark comes back down. Hands moving in a slow wringing motion, he tells the Avenger what happened. Tony hums, sits down next to him, and asks if he wants to watch a movie.
“If you plan to patronize me with any more of your trite little stories then I will not be held responsible for my actions.”
“What? No.” Tony grins at him.
Then he puts on Wall-e.
After Loki almost breaks the closest computer system they change it to Shawshank Redemption, which is better. Marginally.
Part 2