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en það besta sem guð hefur skapað

Who: Loki Laufeyson, Tony Stark
Where: The lighthouse.
What: In which important lessons are possibly learned.

The whys and wherefores of the peculiar deal Loki had sought to forge are manifold, complex things, occasionally self-contradictory (if looked upon from the right perspective, which clearly isn't Loki's), often, perhaps, unexpected. It makes perfect sense to him, though, to seek knowledge both for its own sake and his own gain. It makes perfect sense to explore possibilities in terms of weaponry, defense, possible augmentation of his own already profound magical knowledge and prowess, while enjoying the process of acquiring that knowledge for its own sake. For its own sake and as an aspect of what is currently a rather contented retirement from the pressures of godhood, of prophecy and conformation to it both forced and chosen. Of the difficulties of defining choice when one is old enough to have been privy to long chains of circumstance, of causes and effects stretching back thousands of years, themselves not beginning at Loki's birth but rather at the initial unfolding of all things, if ever such an occasion occurred, and time immemorial since.

The point ultimately being, at this point in time, that there's nothing wrong with being prepared, seeing as the schedule for Ragnarök has, apparently, been pushed back indefinitely. One must do something with a schedule this suddenly and blindingly, to use an unfortunately apt turn of phrase, free. All the more so as what had filled it before was centuries more of agony and isolation with nothing to see but blackness, nothing to hear but his own screaming and the ragged wetness of his breath, nothing to smell but the slowly decaying entrails of his own child, binding him to hard stone, nothing to feel but pain and discomfort, nothing to taste but bile and stale air and his own blood.

After that, the simple pleasure of sitting on his own with a warm drink and something to read, however puerile, is profound, but it's bound to become disappointing with time, as all things do. After all, Loki is a sensual and hedonistic creature, but he is not immune to boredom.

And so this. And so waiting here, with the faint scent of the sea, of metal, of human things and human beings come and gone and come again in a long and weary cycle, much of which he has witnessed, one way or another. Not intolerable today. One sunrise more.

Loki waits, staring out a small and grimy window at the sea, the blurriness in his vision fading slowly but fading all the same. Specks of dust catch the light as they drift, idle, calm, and perhaps Loki would envy them were he prone to anthropomorphising the inanimate, that oh so human quirk, but he doesn't. Dust is dust. Nobody ever waxed poetic about dust being the means by which the universe experiences itself.

Loki thinks of himself as something similar, in his moods most grandiose or morose. An agent of entropy, nothing more, just one more thing contributing ultimately to universal disorder, an irrevocable process. Fate. The only fate, not like that dreamed up by the Æsir and then crafted by their own foolish hands. Just an agent. Just doing as he was made to do.

Which makes now what, exactly? Self-indulgence? The desire, as an agent of the universe to experience itself, to take in, therefore, all that there is, was, ever will be? Sating a thirst? A man lost for days in the desert solves nothing by drowning himself, and Loki's hunger for knowledge was packed away and hidden long, long ago, when he was taught it was less acceptable than the pursuit of strength, power, rulership, as is the Asgardian way. The Asgardian way, therein being the inherent problem. He is not. Never was. And at least two amongst the Æsir were aware.

So this, then, is a reclamation, perhaps. Old things in new tongues. Fitting, for a man whose every last thread has been cut. The reestablishment of foundations. So Loki, Son of Laufey, rightful king of Jǫtunheimr, awaits Anthony Stark in a rusting tower by the sea, and is content.

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This isn’t the worst thing Tony Stark’s ever done.

There are those who might suggest that it is. Those same individuals would remind him of Manhattan and the waste to which the Chitauri had nearly laid it. They would remind him of the lives lost at the SHIELD facility, of the man that died in Stuttgart, of the lives lost on the helicarrier. Not the least of those reminders would be of Phil Coulson, agent of SHIELD, babysitter of errant heroes, and perpetual nag to a spoiled brat billionaire who maintained accountability only to himself.

But those reminders wouldn’t be necessary. Tony’s forgotten nothing in the time since Thor and his wayward brother departed to Asgard. Like the names of those who lost their lives in Gulmira and all the others he’s found since learning that his tech had been used to slaughter innocent people, Tony still remembers. Yet he remembers other things, too. The mistakes he’s made, the second chance Yinsen’s quick thinking afforded him, Bruce’s words only a day ago, speaking of some great torture that Loki suffered, locked alone and shut away in the dark.

He’s no one’s judge, no one’s jury or executioner, and it’s with that open mind and willingness to listen, as well as an unhealthy lack of self-preservation, that he crosses the intervening ground between the house marked as his for the duration of his stay in the Twilight Zone and the lighthouse in which Loki has apparently holed up. That he stands poised on the brink of a possible opportunity to learn things no human has ever had the privilege to know undeniably puts a spring in his step. For Tony has always thirsted for knowledge, whatsoever that knowledge might be, and he always will, for as long as he should draw breath.

Some might condemn him for his willingness to speak with the enemy. They might brand him a traitor for his intention to share knowledge that might be used against him and his at some later date. But Tony has always walked his own path, regardless of the consequences, and here in this place, he will do no differently.

There’s no garish red and gold armor protecting him this time, no tinny robotic voice masking his own. There’s only Tony, surprisingly rather short without the suit, knocking on the lighthouse door, as close to noon as a man without a mechanical method of timekeeping can be. In his other hand, held loosely around the bottom, is a bottle of the best whiskey he could pilfer from the bar.

Twilight Zone or no, potentially crazy god or not, Tony Stark minds his manners when he wants to do so. And a gentleman never shows up as a guest at anyone’s house without bringing something.

The lighthouse isn't comfortable. It doesn't need to be. This isn't where Loki chooses to dwell, though he spends a great deal of time here since Barton dragged him up from the sea. At the moment, he's not quite willing to invite anyone into the house he's chosen as home, though. Not just yet. A matter of distances, a matter of trust, which is rather important given the number of death threats he's received since his arrival. Not, of course, that he expects any assassination attempts to be successful, but they would be annoying, and at the moment he's not keen on further aggravation.

The combined impression of the setting and his own appearance, though, must be strange. Stark saw him at his most manic, at his very best, sleek and dangerous and feral. Now that part of him hides beneath the surface, visible still in the inclination of his head when he opens the door but otherwise entirely effaced. Burned away, perhaps, by the caustic venom which ruined his eyes, left him with still-visible burns upon his flesh, his eyes still strangely clouded, not as clear and bright and sharp as they used to be. Soon, perhaps. And when the wounds go away, will he come back?

His hair has been trimmed as well, thanks to Barton's peculiarly spotty knowledge of Earth mythologies and fondness for mischief, and the overall impression is... not meek, but compared to what he once was, something close to it. Certainly far-fallen. Or greatly upraised, depending upon one's perspective.

Tony, it seems, isn't the only one without his armour.

Loki regards him silently a few moments, not surprised, no – that Stark would come is a given, Loki knows curiosity and how to play upon it – but still oddly gratified. Overtures of peace? No, not from either of them, likely. Long-sought company? No, not that either. A creature of his age is accustomed to loneliness. Being humoured, perhaps. Heeded.

Some pleasant thing, in any case, which settles into place as he steps aside to admit his guest. “Komdu sæll,” he intones, pleasant, formal. “I do hope you didn't have any trouble finding the place. I know it's not quite as overcompensatory as you're used to.”

Bruce mentioned poison. He mentioned bits of body parts, though he hadn’t really been clear on what that entailed. Tony’s expecting something, some difference, especially since Loki had mentioned three centuries passing since their last meeting. So maybe his appearance shouldn’t be surprising, but on some level, it is.

Tony doesn’t believe in gods. He only believes in magic now because he’s seen proof of it. But there’s still something, some slight twinge of some undefined emotion – disappointment, irritation, sadness, outrage, it’s too miniscule to know for certain - at the sight of the burns around Loki’s eyes.

There’s no subtle, awkward glance, no uncertainty in Tony’s demeanor. The door opens, and he looks directly at him, unflinching and unafraid. He sees the damage, tries to reconcile it with what he’s been told – and that isn’t much – since his arrival. Loki’s greeting prompts a half-smile to tug at the corner of his lips, and under his breath, Tony huffs a quiet chuckle.

“Big, tall building with a light at the top? Actually not that hard to find.” He steps inside like this is something they’ve done a thousand times before. Like they’re old friends and he’s just come for a visit. “And hey, don’t knock it until you’ve seen my dump. I’m guessing this place doesn’t have paisley wallpaper.” And the way he says that makes it sound like the worst thing in all the world.

“Here.” He lifts the bottle of whiskey, giving it a tiny shake. “Since we never got to have that drink three hundred years ago.”

“Mm,” Loki responds, clearly amused, as he reaches out to take the bottle and hold it up to the light that filters in through the grimy windows, “yes, I believe it stopped being fashionably late sometime after the first half century. Most remiss of you.”

He steps aside, letting the door swing shut behind him and moves deeper into the cramped ground floor of the lighthouse, still frowning faintly down at the label on the bottle of whiskey. “I accept the paisley wallpaper as suitable punishment, however.”

Long fingers trace the edge of the label thoughtfully and Loki hums. “A shame what it's become. A beautiful thing once, a meaningful thing, stolen and mass-produced and marketed to middle class ennui, and now this. Life, I remember. Long ago. Plenty, fertility. All things. Now, ugly wallpaper.”

Inevitable, really. Still a shame. “But then you Europeans always were particularly good at breaking and ruining. As we only encouraged in you, of course, in our naïveté. The novelty of being worshipped, the power. You see, even the gods err.”

Such gods as they are. It's such an old term, so very loaded, that it's difficult to let go of it. What's the alternative, anyway? Æsir, which Loki is not and never was. Jǫtunn, which he is but never learned to be. Alien definitions are insufficient. Human ones will do instead.

“But you've not come to discuss the history of your wallpaper.” And Loki's had nobody to talk to but himself for a very, very long time. “Nor my boyhood.”

He sinks down gingerly onto an old chair which creaks beneath his weight and sets the bottle down alongside it for the mean time. The glass thunks dully against the wood.

“Our deal, then,” he says. “Business.”

Not fraternization. “Where shall I begin?”

For the time being, Tony’s content to keep silent and listen while Loki speaks. Part of it is simple courtesy. Part of it is fascination; minus the little chat they’d had before he’d been tossed through the window, Tony has never gotten to have a real conversation with him. And part of it’s something that isn’t quite sympathy; if he’d been locked away for hundreds of years, he’d want someone to talk to, too.

And quite frankly, it’s interesting. Some of it rankles, of course. The insinuation that all he can do is follow in the footsteps of his ancestors, destroying instead of creating. The feeling that, even now, he’s being looked upon as less than, despite having knowledge that Loki wants. Logically, he can understand it. How else might humans look to someone who marks a lifespan in centuries instead of decades? Some of it’s amusing, that hint of humor that follows the remark about the paisley wallpaper. But the rest of it, the tiny glimpse into a mind that old, snags Tony’s curiosity and doesn’t let go.

He remains standing until Loki sits, glancing around the lighthouse looking for those little signs of life that marks a place where another lives. What he’s expecting from someone like Loki, he doesn’t know. But then he sits and Tony can’t remain standing without feeling as though he’s looming, so he takes a seat as well, close enough that they can converse at a reasonable level, but not so close that the proximity is uncomfortable.

“You’re assuming I know where to ask you to start. I don’t. Pandering to egos aside, I’ve never met anyone like you before.” Thor is unique, of course, but summoning lightning isn’t the same as magic. “Can you tell me how you do it? The magic, I mean. Or is it something that there aren’t words to describe?”

Loki considers the question a moment. "Perhaps, yes, some small and simple things, with more time than you'll want of me, no doubt. There are the limitations of physiology, but simple things I could perhaps teach you, yes. Though you would find the most expedient method unsavory, I expect."

The sharing of thoughts, experiences... one-way, Loki cannot read minds, but he doubts Stark really wants to be in his, or let him as close as the process requires. It also requires trust, and that much is out of the question, as it should be.

"Physiology is imperative; the Odinson is fond of likening our magic to your technology and though this is a vastly oversimplified explanation the purpose of the two is roughly the same. Imposition of order upon one's surroundings, the manipulation of energy to produce material result. The method isn't terribly different either, with the caveat that where your species creates new technologies to mediate this transference, I do so directly, which I may do largely because I am physiologically suited to amassing and storing a great deal of energy." He tilts his head to one side, licking his lips.

"We do not speak of it in terms of particles, physics, and chemistry but to do so would not be remiss. Magic operates within the laws of physics, but subtly so. One takes advantage of natural processes and twists them to one's will, though naturally in order to do so one must first learn to sense them. Your species knows. The detector came before the collider. One cannot manipulate what one cannot touch." As Loki goes on he becomes slightly more animated, though almost hesitantly so. Clearly this is an area of genuine interest to him, not simply a means to an end. Once he'd considered himself a scholar, and though those days are long gone his enthusiasm for the process hasn't waned completely.

"Therefore when I create an illusion--" a slight gesture of the hand creates a double of himself standing alongside Loki's chair and he looks up at it with lips pressed thin before sweeping his arm through it. The image flickers and disappears. "--what I manipulate is the behaviour of photons. Admittedly I have never had the opportunity to test this rigorously but I assure you this is the essence of the process."

He falls silent, eyes turning to Tony. How much of that was comprehensible? Loki's knowledge of physics, of human cosmologies, is slightly more than elementary, but only slightly, at least by his own assessment. Whether or not he's using the terminology entirely correctly is beyond him, but it's still more precise and more useful than attempting to couch it all in the highly abstracted, mystical language of the texts from which he learned, half of which aren't entirely translatable anyway, and the majority of which are rendered largely useless once this simple groundwork has been laid out. Such is the price of long life: stagnation.

Tony’s eyebrows rise. There’s no doubt that he would like to learn how to wield magic. Maybe then he’d feel like he actually fits in among the remarkable people with whom he’s found himself part of a team. But he’s assumed that he couldn’t. Or at the very least, that there would be none to teach him. That Loki could, that there’s a possibility, however tiny, that he might be persuaded to do so, is surprising. Pleasantly so.

In Tony, he has found an interested participant in the discussion of magic. There’s no denying the avid interest with which he’s watching him speak or the brightness of his eyes as he listens to his description of what he does and how he does it. It’s attention that he turns on the illusory double Loki creates, and Tony leans forward slightly to get a better look at it.

“Three dimensional projections.” He gestures to the empty space beside Loki that just a second ago held the double. “Sometimes incorrectly called holography. That’s humans call it. Holographic images that we – some of us – can make, usually with a combination of computers, lights, and sensors. I do most of my work with them, actually. It’s more sophisticated than, well, everybody else does, but the principle’s the same. I can—Damn, no, I can’t show you. All of my equipment’s back at home.”

Much of the arrogance that Tony projects drains away when he’s talking science with someone who might actually be able to keep up with him, and although their terminology is likely different, from what Loki’s already said, he thinks it possible that he’s one of those people.

“I can interact with mine. Manipulate them like you can manipulate that chair. Take them apart, put them together, and through a series of computer programs based on mathematical equations, the projections can respond to me just like a physical object can.” Blinking, he catches himself waving a hand in the air and shakes his head. “Sorry, tangent. That happens when I talk for too long. Point is, I get what you’re saying. Humans can’t manipulate the energy of the world around us, so we build machines to do it for us. But something about you can do it directly, you don’t need the third party to, to translate the energy into something you can understand, right? That’s the difference.”

"Oh, I would say that your species understands energy better than the Æsir do, on an intellectual level. It's the instinctual grasp that you lack. The sensation of it. This I could teach you, but not easily." Not without engaging in an act of intimacy that is likely to pass far beyond the threshold of comfort for all involved. Loki isn't entirely unwilling, but comfort is another matter.

The discussion of holograms interests him, however. His own illusions are perfectly manipulable, capable of motion, of sophisticated action, of sound, but they remain intangible, and dissolve as Loki's concentration does at the slightest touch. Persistent illusions wouldn't exactly be useful, as they would still be intangible, but they would still be interesting. The method by which humans make them interests him more, though, as does one other thing he's gleaned from the conversation thus far: "You would not be hesitant to demonstrate to me your methods? I doubt your friends at SHIELD would approve."

Which delights Loki, frankly; catching people out in doing what they shouldn't amuses him, as does encouraging them to continue. Highlighting conflicts, hypocrisy, the tendency both human and Asgardian towards self-delusion. Liminality interests Loki because it is what he experiences within the confines of his own mind and his own life constantly.

The human psyche is its own sort of interesting, and Loki sees no real problem with twisting and hurting where necessary to expose more of it. That he doesn't need to in this case is oddly refreshing.

"Similarly, though I wouldn't say your species is entirely incapable of doing some of what I do, you put yourselves at far greater risk in the process, a caveat you yourself may have partially bypassed already." He nods towards Tony, a general gesture but what he intends to point out is obvious: the arc reactor.

"A clever device." The error in Loki's calculations, once.

“I’m a fast learner.” It’s out of Tony’s mouth before he really has a chance to think about it, though in actuality, there’s nothing to truly think about. If it can be taught, he wants to learn, regardless of the difficulties involved in the process. “And by now I’d hope that you realize I’m stubborn enough to stick with something no matter how difficult it turns out to be.”

And certainly Loki has a point. SHIELD would not approve of him trading secrets with the enemy. But the sophistication of his technology isn’t anything he’s tried concealing, bar that of the arc reactor, and teaching Loki how to use the type of computer he’s accustomed to operating hardly qualifies as treason. There’s another reason, too, and that’s the simplest one of all.

“There’s a lot about me SHIELD doesn’t like. But then again, there’s a lot about SHIELD that I don’t like.” He waves it off, unconcerned. “People have been disapproving of my actions all my life. By now, I’m pretty desensitized to the whole thing. Besides, if I’m going to badger you incessantly until you teach me some of that magic stuff, it’s only fair I do the same on my end, right?”

Incorrigible as ever, Tony feels no awkwardness in following that up with a cheeky wink, never mind that Loki could probably reach over and snap his fool neck in the amount of time it takes him to draw a breath. His hand lifts, fingers twitching in preparation for tapping against the reactor, but he catches himself at the last minute and lowers his hand to his side.

“The arc reactor. It—I’d like to say I made it because I wanted to awesome things I couldn’t do otherwise, but it was build it or die.” It’s only because Loki knows about it that Tony’s willing to discuss it, and it’s because he knows that Loki doesn’t give a damn about him that he’s willing to be honest while doing so. “I didn’t want to die. So I evolved. Sort of. You knew a lot about us before you met us. Did you know about it? Anything at all?”

The wink earns a faint smile and a soft huff of breath. It's been rather a long time since anyone has treated Loki so flippantly, and its rarity makes it valuable. “I know what Barton told me. Little more than that. Only what I can sense.”

Enough to be getting on with, anyway. A bright spot of energy, burning in Loki's consciousness, nearly obscuring even the lightning strikes of Tony's heartbeat. Perhaps that was why the Tesseract's enchantment hadn't worked. By all accounts it ought to have done. Hadn't it?

Merciful, likely, that it didn't. That much has become plain in retrospect.

“And you offer me yet another of your weaknesses; do you really think this wise?” No. Of course not. That's the point, in all likelihood, but Loki says it all the same, and it sounds rather like... teasing. Though there is honesty, of course. He knows himself well enough to know that he is fickle and callous and prone to cruelty, that he would not regret taking a life if it became necessary. Or... seemed particularly appealing in the given moment.

“Worse, I am sorry to say: if I am to teach you what you wish to know you would have to give me still greater advantage over you. You would need to permit me to toy with your brain, that I might allow you into mine. Such a delicate thing, the human system. Who knows what havoc I might wreak, if I were permitted so close?” There is no mania, no grinding of teeth, no wicked grin, just that persistent little smile and the carefully, deliberately silken tone of his voice. It's a dare. Of course it is. The faint amusement on his face, in his words – a challenge, and deliberately so, though in the end, at the moment, the risk is minimal. This is just flirting.

The decision, however, the weighing, the process of reasoning, and the emotion which wars with it... fascinating. Instinct. Organism. Sentience. The need for stimulation coupled with the instinct to retreat from danger and how the both of their species long ago learned to walk the razor's-edge balance between the two in order to tease out from their own organic systems the maximum reward for minimum actual risk.

Danger quickens the heart. Risk is memento mori, and only the contrast with death gives life meaning. Much of the thrill Loki takes in instilling fear in others is vicarious. The power in it is nearly an afterthought next to the awareness of mortality and the thrill that brings with it – icy, yes, a chill in the pit of one's stomach, but Loki is a creature of ice.

“I could stop your heart, perhaps. I could set every last nerve ending on fire. Take away your genius and leave you, perhaps; so many wicked things, Mr. Stark, and you would have only yourself to blame for trusting me. Know that.”

It would be pointless to argue with him. Everything he’s saying is true. Tony knows it. Instead of making some token protest, or worse, brushing it aside like he trusts him not to do anything terrible to him, he deals with it directly, acknowledging the truth of what Loki’s said with a nod and a shrug of one shoulder.

“You could do a lot of things. Right now, I’m taking a risk. You could kill me. Cripple me. Turn me into a vegetable. You could do that thing you tried to do in the Tower and maybe this time it would work.” To distinguish between the brainwashing magic and the toss through the window, Tony reaches up toward the reactor again, once more stopping short of touching it directly. “You could break my neck, kill us all, the options are endless. It doesn’t really matter if I’m visiting you for a chat or to learn how to sense the energy of the world.”

He straightens again, smiling faintly without humor. “Life’s a risk, Loki. And all of this,” he gestures into the space between them. “It’s like playing with fire. Maybe I’ll get burned today. Maybe it’ll be a week from now. Or a month. I don’t know. I’m a genius, not a fortune teller. But here’s what I do know. I know that nothing that’s worth anything comes easily. I know that the greatest things are won by taking huge risks. And I know that sometimes, life surprises you in the strangest and most unexpected of ways.”

In a way, this is one such surprise. He’d never imagined he’d be here having a civil conversation with the guy who tried to take over his planet. “And it’s not just me who’s taking the gamble. It’s you, too. Sure. I’m human. What can I do, right? But people have been saying that about me for years, and the truth is, I can do a lot of things.”

He hasn’t looked away from him this entire time, but now his eyes seek Loki’s out, trying to look past the damage done to him to the man behind it. “So you have to ask yourself, is learning what I know worth the risk of letting me in enough to potentially change your life? For better or for worse, I couldn’t begin to tell you which it might be.”

Oh, and that is worth a laugh, bright and genuine. Not like it used to be, but not strictly unkind. “Life is change, Mr. Stark, but I can forgive you your naïveté. You have not seen very much of it.”

Change and stagnation, too, but that goes without saying. The planets are in constant flux, but they move in predictable orbits. “I have watched your species progress from creatures who named us gods and bowed before us to a race with the accumulated materials and knowledge sufficient to rival us, all within what is still something like my youth; yes, things do change. I have nothing but admiration for the human capacity for adaptation and growth. Mortal you may be but your short lifespan is what makes you great.”

As a whole. As individuals... Loki has known mortals. Loki has loved mortals, but there exists the constant dilemma. Such a short lifespan is nigh meaningless against the scope of his own... yet only that which ends is precious. What value does he himself have, when little anyone else could do could change him drastically? He is, will be, and that security renders him insignificant.

“Which is to say that on the contrary: I count on it. I do not lack for life, Anthony Stark. Toy with it as you will, if you can. If nothing else I shall have a hearty laugh at how spectacularly you fail to do so.” What has he to lose? The strings of his life have already been cut. Prophecy failed. Ties have been severed. One father, that looming figure, distant and lost after so long in the dark, and the other dead by Loki's own hand. Of them, of Thor, he is free.

It leaves him with so little. So much space to fill in. Yes, he counts on change. Any modification made to an empty whiteboard is change.

“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about failing to live up to your expectations,” he says lightly, shrugging with good-natured amusement. Loki has him there, he’s not going to do either of them the disservice of pretending otherwise. Nor is he going to deliberately make himself look foolish when it happens enough by accident.

“I’m not afraid of you.” The words are no sooner out of his mouth than he’s holding up a placating hand. “Which isn’t a dig or an insult or an attempt to goad you into doing something to make me afraid of you. I just want to be clear here. That’s not—My point is that I recognize the risk. But I’m not afraid to take it.”

He never has been. One day, he knows, it will get him killed. But a life that isn’t spent living isn’t worth having in the first place. That’s ultimately why he got into that car in Monaco, two years ago. That’s why he created the Iron Man suit. It’s why he’s fought so long and so hard to stay in a world that, more often than not, he feels like he doesn’t belong in. However heartbeats he has left before his old, broken-down hunk of junk heart has left in it, he wants to make every one of them count.

“So yeah. Deal accepted.” He looks at him, mouth quirking into a lopsided, wry smile. “You want me to start with the arc reactor? That’s like, I don’t know, the main event for everybody for some reason.” The smile turns just a tiny bit sly. “Or do you want to hear about my real accomplishment?”

"Why should you be afraid of me?" Loki asks breezily. "I can torment you and leave you alive, or I can kill you, and neither are particularly fearful prospects once they've ended."

Not in his mind, anyway. Only the short-sighted fear suffering rather than anticipating its resolution.

"I'm only an old madman." Only what he has been made. If others find him fearful, it is as much the fault of their own narrow perspectives as it is his deliberate provocation. Death is an inevitability, even for Loki, someday, and what he's not saying about life is that it's better not drawn out to such extremes as his own already has been. Not merely for the benefit of the species as a whole, but for the sanity and quality of life of the individual.

"You may tell your friends as much, if you like, though their suspicion of me is terribly amusing, if not precisely ill-founded." Though a great deal of time has passed between then and now, and a great deal of time passed before. Long years of contact with the human species and no outstandingly violent encounters before New York. Nobody ever seems to mention that.

"In any case, if you will not be dissuaded, what choice have I but to comply? With how vastly you and your pals outnumber poor little me, I fear I can see no other safe option," he adds archly, and gives a little sigh.

The comments about the arc reactor, about achievements, has tickled him, though. "Once it was I could've torn your little planet apart by its fault lines; I have no need of your little power source, though it does intrigue me. Tell me the whole of it, and I will show you what I can."

“I’m not reassuring them. There’s no point. What happened on Earth notwithstanding, you’re not the enemy here unless you choose to be.”

Despite what happened, Tony’s willing to put it behind them. There are things about what he’s privately referring to as the Flying Space Whale Invasion that don’t add up, now that he’s no longer in the thick of it and can look at the whole ordeal objectively. He believes, rightly or wrongly, that there was far more to it than a mad god wanting to conquer the world, and while many people died and a great deal of property damaged occurred, he sees no reason to rehash it.

“And if you do, fine. Then I guess we’ll deal with it. But I heard a little bit about what happened when they got you out of that box, and judging from what they found, I can’t really hold it against you for lashing out.”

He’s been tortured. Not for centuries. But time is a relative thing when it’s filled with fear and pain, and three months had felt far longer than they actually were. He knows how easy it is to see attackers when there are none.

Not about to harp on it forever, he waggles a finger in Loki’s direction, clicking his tongue in a tsking manner. “We gotta work on these mixed signals of yours. Makes figuring out what you want a hell of a thing.” From the way he’s smirking, however, it’s not as difficult as he’s pretending. “Right now, if you want a lot of energy and you’re human, you get it through nuclear fusion. Just like the stars do. Two or more atomic nuclei fused together under massive pressure and extreme heat. It’s dangerous, it makes a lot of radioactive waste, and it isn’t the easiest thing to control.”

He starts to tap a finger against his chest, only to stop before he makes contact. “So I used cold fusion instead. Which, if you ask any other scientist on the planet, technically isn’t possible. But here it is. Is that—Can you follow these terms or is it gibberish?”

Loki hadn't been seeing much of anything, enemy or otherwise, when he'd first extracted himself from that box. Yes, he'd mean to hurt. He'd meant to do damage. He'd wanted both to tear the place and everyone in it apart and to be stopped, to run, finally, onto the end of Heimdallr's blade, as was foretold, and be done.

But he's had time to rest since then. Time to think. Time to decide that he's had his fill of prophecy.

He's not at all had his fill of obscurity, though. The mixed signals are amusing to send, and safe. Hiding honesty behind obscurity saves everyone involved the task of trying to untangle the truth of what Loki is, his kindnesses and his cruelties and so many painfully honest things which render him no less complex and contradictory, in truth, as the images he projects.

“I follow.” Well enough to be getting on with, anyway. He's read on chemistry, on atomic and subatomic physics; enough so that he understands now, even if the process as it comes to mind first is less academic and more... “Perhaps someday I'll show you what it feels like, your hot fusion.”

Because he knows, distantly. Because he's reached out into the depths of that terrifying void and clung to the bright points there, sensed the turmoil and the immense, incredible power. He can share. Someday.

"But not now." No sense in handing over everything up front, is there? "Please, continue."

He gets Tony’s attention with that comment, and just for a moment, he’s sidetracked with trying to imagine what that might be like. To feel that level of power, yet not be consumed by it. He wants to know, of course he does, and the sharpness of his gaze, the intensity of it, is evidence enough that if Loki should ever offer the opportunity to experience it, Tony will take it without a second’ thought.

Inclining his head in a nod, he continues, taking only a moment to clear his throat. “That’s what the arc reactor is. A cold fusion reactor, capable of generating massive amounts of energy with no waste, no volatility, no real danger for anyone around it. If it’s destroyed, the explosion is…” Memories surface then, fighting with Obadiah Stane on the roof of Stark Industries, the bright flash as the reactor overload and nearly killed both of them in the blast. “The explosion’s devastating. But it’s not like a nuclear facility. It’s not always posed on the brink of meltdown. And it’s small. Even a large reactor can be housed in a way that doesn’t impact the environment too much.”

It’s killing him not to play with it. His fingers itch with it. Tony isn’t accustomed to sitting still. He’s always moving, always doing, even if that doing is only to unconsciously tap his fingers against something. But he doesn’t. The warning he received from the wristband is enough to keep his hands well away from it.

“It’s self-sustaining, it’s cheap, it doesn’t cost anything to run it, you don’t need people to monitor it. It could change the world if people actually used it for what it’s intended to be used for, instead of creating weapons to blow up their neighbors. Which is the danger, why I’m not passing them out like candy on Halloween.” When he talks, his words are sprinkled with references to popular culture. It’s automatic by this point, he doesn’t realize that he’s doing it. “Mine, the one in my chest, keeps me alive. That’s it. Sometimes it does more than that, usually by accident, but that’s all it was designed to do.”

“Mmm, they won't, though. Use them as they're intended.” Loki won't condemn Tony for hoarding that particular secret. He wouldn't even if it weren't for that conflict, for the inevitability of human selfishness. No, not just human. Selfishness is the mark of sentience. Unfortunate it may be, but it is, and to ignore that much is folly.

“Not that the arms dealer needs me to tell him that much.” Loki runs one pale finger along the length of one of the scars that partition his lips into a skeleton's smile, invisible now, hidden by an old enchantment he rarely lets fall, but still tangible.

“It's an impressive achievement, all the same.” Even if Asgard solved all its own energy problems long ago, even if the method is vastly different... no, because of this fact. How tiring it is, to hate a thing, to hate a place and a culture and a people so very fervently and to be bound up all the same in its cosmologies, in its mythologies and prophecies, its modes of thinking. This, here, this might not be of particular use to Loki, not yet, but it severs another rope.

“And you're proud of it, as you should be. This is good. If you really want to learn to see as I do, you'll have to love it.” Because the world will never be dark or quiet again, not as long as he carries it around with him. Perhaps, though, perhaps for a man like Tony Stark, a man who craves stimulation, that mightn't be a terrible thing.

No, he doesn’t need to be told about the willingness of people to slaughter each other. And he doesn’t need to be reminded of what he once was, either. It stings, much like he assumes that it’s intended to do, but he’s done this song and dance so many times with reporters that it’s easy to flash a meaningless smile instead of grimacing in annoyance.

Just as it’s easier to focus on the rest of what Loki’s saying. To ignore the parts he doesn’t want to hear – as he does so often throughout the course of his daily dealings with people – and pay attention to those that he does. Or at least, those that cause him the least amount of regret and guilt.

“Love what? My achievements? I do.” The arc reactor, not so much, but if he can help it, he is never delving into that tangled mess of issues with anyone, much less with Loki. “I’ve done better than this. This is just what everybody sees. This and Iron Man suit, razor-thin cellular phones and smart bombs. But all of that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

He has to ask. There isn’t any way for him to avoid it, curiosity as compelling as it is. “What do you see?”

Nobody needs to be reminded of what they once were – until it happens that they do. Loki clings to his past, clutches it like a drowning man does the hand which pulls him up from the water, no matter how much he hates it. Hates himself for being taken in, for his hope and his naïveté, hates the memory of times which were good, yes, they were good but they went bad. Now the bad has tainted all the rest and made it so very difficult to swallow, but the memories are valuable. They've taught him much.

And so the silence on that particular subject doesn't escape him, the empty smile. Dangerous. Alarm bells.

Good to know. Weaknesses are always good to know, whether or not he plans on exploiting them at the moment.

Loki echoes the lack of response with his own, a few long seconds, a considering stare. Assessing. Weighing. And then, with a businesslike sucking in of breath, he pushes himself to his feet and steps closer. It's impossible not to loom, tall as he is, and he doesn't care to try not to, either. After all, it's no threat – or none more or less foreboding than the simple extension of one of his hands.

“I can show you, if you accept. If you trust me.” All he has to do is take Loki's hand, just the barest contact of skin will do, but that's a harder task than it looks and Loki knows it. He knows his hand is like ice, as uncomfortable to human skin as his icy mind is to theirs. Not as dangerous as his amorality, as his icy conscience, but one might not know as much by touch alone.

Whether he’s sitting down or standing up, Tony will always be shorter than Loki. Shorter, smaller, weaker, even though the man’s not nearly as bulky as his brother. Foster brother. Tony’s still not entirely certain of the details of that particular relationship. At the time, there were more important things to concern himself with than nosing around Thor’s past, and afterward, there simply hadn’t been time.

He doesn’t like being loomed over. He doubts that anyone does. But there’s no fear on his face when he looks up at Loki, no irritation or anxiety twisting his features into anything but alert curiosity. Should Loki attack him, he knows there’s nothing he could reasonably do about it, and with that knowledge comes a certain sense of peaceful acceptance.

A normal man might waffle now. A normal man might, when he finally makes up his mind, reach out with tentative fingers to lightly brush those extended toward him. Tony Stark isn’t a normal man, and he never does anything by half measure. He smiles at Loki, a sharp, crooked smile as he says, entirely without rancor or self-pity, “Trust’s kind of a tricky thing for me.”

Yet he takes Loki’s hand without hesitation, placing his palm squarely against the one held out to him. And he’s cold. Oh, his hand is frigid, and Tony, not knowing about his past, about his heritage, doesn’t realize why. But he doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t snatch his hand back and hiss and grumble about discomfort. He simply curls his fingers around Loki’s hand, holding on, unwilling to be a passive participant in anything. Even this. Because Tony doesn’t back down. He never has and he never will, a gambling man to the bitter end.

“Show me.”

Interesting. Very interesting, but that's becoming par for the course now. The heat of Tony's hand relative to his own is something Loki expected, at least. It's been a very, very long time since the first time, but he still hasn't worked out whether or not it's pleasant, brushing up against something so very alive. So very alive that death is all over it, the inevitability of oxidation, of decay.

“The sensation will be strange,” he warns, reaching out, letting a thread of his magic slip between them, bright and electric as it rushes along points of contact, sparks off electrochemical reactions. The human body is an impossibly complex lightning strike of nerve cells, conductive channels which pulse with information constantly. The body is a machine, and Loki knows which levers to pull to craft what he wants, to build impressions, sensory input where there is none.

It's slow at first, inevitably. Delicate. A blossoming of sensation, like slipping into bathwater. What Loki feels begins to seep through the connection. The heat of Tony's palm, tangled up in so many complex, conceptual impressions, vague memories of people, hundreds of thousands of mortal things encased within his mind. Friends, enemies, lovers; all of them fleeting, come and gone but not entirely forgotten. What it is to occupy his form is there too, embodiment in an alien form. New scents, smells, new ways of seeing.

And other things, astonishing things. The sensation, not quite visual and not quite tactile, of motion, of energy, of all things. Of the arc reactor, which feels even brighter than it looks, an immense power contained in such a small device, a riot of constant change. In a world where even light has a quality, a tangible sensation, even with the sea outside in constant flux, the arc reactor is still the brightest thing for miles. It is stunning. Loki doesn't mind admitting as much, letting that response slip through.

“You see?” he murmurs. Even the vibration of his vocal folds is shared, what it feels like to speak with his voice, to shape words in a new accent, to process them with another's mind.

“Quite a marvel you've constructed for yourself.”

He has no idea what to expect, he’s not even entirely certain he knows what they’re doing, and when Loki warns him that it will be strange, he prepares himself for pain. Maybe it’s pessimistic of him to assume the worst, but pain has become part and parcel to his life since he became Iron Man and it’s easier to brace for that than do nothing at all. Yet there is no pain, just something that, for the moment, he cannot define.

It feels a little like electricity, like dipping his hand into a weak current and feeling it spark along his fingers, not unpleasant, not painful, just different. Odd. Perhaps even alien. Like he’s touching something he was never meant to touch. It takes him only a handful of seconds to realize that it’s magic.

There’s no way to quantify it and examine it, no method by which to observe it in its natural state. But he can feel its effects. Images of things he doesn’t recognize, there and gone like a shadow at the corner of his eye. Sensations that skitter over his nerves like spider-legs, too fast to grasp. It’s too much. It’s not nearly enough. It’s like standing on the edge of the world and looking out into something vast and magnificent, just beyond his fingertips, waiting for him to cast aside earthly fears and jump, lose himself in it and never look back.

And somewhere in the middle of what is arguably the most amazing moment of Tony’s life, Loki gives him back a piece of himself that’s been missing since it was carved out of him in the depths of a cave in the middle of a desert. Because he looks at this thing, this tangible, visible reminder of his weakness, his deficiencies, this terrible thing that’s marred his flesh, made him deformed and ugly, and he sees something incredible. Something more than just metal and wires and inorganic material that should never have been housed in a human body.

Like this, he doesn’t know if Loki can feel what he’s feeling. The awe and wonder, the absurd rush of gratitude, the weightless almost-giddiness it leaves in its wake. But if he can’t feel it, maybe he can see it as Tony grins at him, utterly without pretense. “You know, I don’t usually offer on the first date, but if you want to see it, really see it, I mean, I’ll show it to you.”

Edited 2012-12-10 02:39 (UTC)

Loki can't feel it, no, can't sense it in anything more but the sparking of neurons in particular areas of the brain. Pleasure, there. Amygdala, that's the name – there's the brief flash of the page of an old anatomy textbook, dusty-smelling even then, so many years ago. There, the constant sparking in the frontal lobe. Processing. Thinking. The seat of sentience, this amalgamation of electrochemical impulses.

And this, this is what amusement feels like in a mind so ancient that it's become tangled impossibly up in so many other things, prerequisites, related concepts, the whole of them so tightly bound together that amusement isn't anymore. Nothing so pure exists. The name is just an overtone, blended not-so-subtly with both gratification and pity, affection and disdain. It's a glimpse, perhaps, into what makes him so very fickle and contradictory: at any moment the balance could swing in another direction, impressions change and his mood along with it. His reactions follow them, manic and subdued, delighted and furious, pleased and disgusted, so rarely reaching a comfortable stasis.

But he smiles. Some things are contagious no matter the stretch of time, and whatever might hide behind it, however many complex things it might encode, it's still there.

“Generous of you. Suspiciously generous of you, in fact.” Teasing. Something that is distinctly flirtation. There's a great deal of that, when he's in a good mood, but that's all it is. Not strictly a lie, but not insistent, either.

“If you wish me to see, then by all means: show me.” Oh, he's curious, yes, but right now the curiosity comes second to what is almost a playfulness, this desire to be irritatingly evasive, which is not a game he's been able to play in a very long time. It simply doesn't work when he's on his own. There's only so far he can take lies to himself.

"There's a picture of you in the dictionary next to the entry for mixed signals, isn't there?" There's a teasing lilt to his voice, a subtle quirk of his lips and a gleam in his eyes that says that he's not completely put off by it. It's frustrating, yes. Especially for Tony, who's never really had to try to get anything out of someone else, be it a straight answer, time, or something more substantial. But there's a part of him, the part that isn't impatient and spoiled, that has to admit that it's kind of fun to play the game.

In a world where practically everyone caves to his whims, where next to no one is willing to stand up to his nonsense and call him on it, those rare few who do are valued above all others. There aren't many; Pepper and Rhodey come to mind the fastest. And Loki's nothing like them. They care, they're his friends, practically the only family he has. But Loki's an alien, fascinating, complex, dangerous, and he does whatever he does for reasons Tony can't begin to fathom.

It's fun. This exchange is fun. And Tony craves that almost as much as knowledge.

"Sure. Okay." He dips his head in the semblance of a bow, adopting a stuffy, overly formal tone that's completely ruined by the smirk that keeps trying to disrupt his expression of fake gravity. "I will so unfortunately waste your time and subject you to the viewing of this most dull of objects."

He doesn't let go of Loki's hand, unwilling to give up the connection until he's made to do it. Instead, he uses his free hand to unbutton the first couple buttons of his shirt. "It probably says something unflattering about me that I can do this one-handed so easily, right? That's okay, you don't have to tell me." The amusement drains out of his voice as he pulls back the fabric so that Loki can get a clear look at his artificial heart, his entire demeanor becoming quiet and serious. "Be very careful. Our kind hosts tampered with it somehow and I haven't figured out what they did yet."

"Of course they have," Loki responds faintly distractedly as he bends closer, squinting. "Much too dangerous. Too difficult to contain you if you have access to that."

A pause. "Or any of the rest of us, should we desire to take it."

His vision is still blurred and doubled, apparent through the connection between them, but he can process well enough. At this range it's not too bad, anyway; the relevant details of the device are still clear enough.

Curiosity comes through the link between them, genuine interest, the itch to let the threads of his magic reach into the arc reactor and explore, though he refrains. Other,eez abstract things too: scents that Loki associates with human in general, which one might expect him in all appropriateness to find unpleasant, but he doesn't. Simply alien, different, not of the self or the family or the species, the way the scent of an animal can be both familiar and yet alien to a human. Others associated with Tony in particular, the detergent on his clothing, his shampoo, faint traces of soap on his skin, so on. Metal, faintly, underlying it all. The sounds of breathing, of the sea.

Stray, disjointed thoughts drift by in a collection of languages. His own native tongue makes up the bulk of it, comfortable, musical, but there's English too. German, French, words and phrases pilfered here and there.

And then the desire to press his fingertips to scar tissue, Tony's, his own, compare perhaps the texture of the flesh, the sensation of it under his fingertips... a curiosity, but only a small one. He knows how human scar tissue feels. He knows what it feels like to create it.

In any case, it's not ugly. Not like that botched work with the awl that ruined his own flesh. Impressive. Creative. A lovely object in its own right. Not simply a bad joke. Loki taps a forefinger absently against his lips.

"You aren't the only one with whom they've been tampering, though." The quality of the information flowing across the contact between them changes, becomes what is clearly memory, both less immediate and more coherent than the stream-of-consciousness transmissions of before. The scene changes, slips away to some long-ago evening on Asgard, golden halls and a bed strewn with furs upon which Loki sits as all the cosmos spin around him. He can sense it all, for light years in all directions, stars and planets and obscurer things. Slowly it fades and now slips back in again, and Loki's consciousness shrinks startlingly down to the space of a few miles, just enough to encompass the town and its environs, no more. The effect is... suffocating. But still better than the box.

"I haven't yet worked out how," he says, but he doesn't sound particularly perturbed. After all, for him, it's only a matter of time. Rome fell. He knows. He was there.

"If you're going to take it, would you do me the courtesy of killing me first? I'll die without it anyway, and it's a horrible way to go." He knows this from first-hand experience. Maybe it isn't information that he ought to be giving away, but it isn't like Loki doesn't know about the reactor. He knew about it before this and no doubt he's clever enough to put two and two together. After all, who would mutilate themselves like this on purpose?

It's been a long time since anyone's studied the reactor like this. It makes him nervous, not because it's Loki, but because it's a part of him that he doesn't share with other people. Having eyes on it makes him feel raw and exposed in a way he doesn't like, and he can feel the nervous energy starting to pool in his stomach, urging him to fidget or shift or do something to expend it.

He focuses on what he's getting from Loki instead, letting the sights and sounds and things he cannot hope to understand distract him. It isn't difficult to do, and soon he's losing himself in them. For an instant he's there, sitting in the center of the universe, feeling it spinning around him. It's breathtaking and as awe-inspiring as it is humbling, and he feels again the insignificance he felt as he hung there helpless and suffocating in the emptiness of space, watching the Chitauri disintegrate in a ball of fire. Dimly, distantly, he hears Loki say that he too has been tampered with and suddenly the vastness of existence narrows down so fast to almost nothing that it hurts to lose it.

"Do..." He trails off, blinking as, without warning, the obvious solution to one of the problems he's been faced with since his arrival practically slaps him in the face. "Loki, can you--Are you seeing what I'm seeing too? Can you? Because if you can..."

He doesn't have a pen and a sheet of paper on him. He doesn't know where the cameras are in here, or even if there are any, but he assumes that there's at least one, and lest their captors overhear him, he can't ask. A quick glance around reveals nothing he can use to communicate properly, so he settles for improvising. Laying his free hand over their joined ones, Tony painstakingly draws the letters to the words he isn't saying on the back of Loki's hand with the tip of his finger.

We can talk without them hearing us?

Loki waits patiently as the letters are traced against his skin, head tilted to one side. Well...

“I'm afraid not,” he says aloud, without missing a beat, but...

No. But yes. Sort of.

I can project things to you, but the output you produce is much too complex for me to read in such detail, and even this much is difficult to accomplish without direct contact. A matter not of the limitations of magic but of the limitations of Loki's own mind, a matter of scale. Large-scale magic is just that, large-scale, and it may be incredibly complex but at least the raw material, or raw energy as the case may be, can be sensed from afar. Something as complicated as the human brain and as small as a neuron is another matter entirely.

I could... relay messages to consenting parties, should it become necessary, but I don't expect you'll find many of those. Some can be discounted out of hand. Banner. Coulson, likely. Barton. All the others who know him and plenty of those who don't, if word's already been spread about who and what he is.

It's for the best, likely. To trust Loki is to open oneself up to the potential of disaster. Such a network would give him easy access to entirely too many people.

Yet it would work. As long as he decided to play nicely, it would work.

An interesting dilemma, one of which Loki is entirely aware and one he has far more interest in simply watching unfold than he does any investment in a particular outcome, and so he lets that much stand. Either Stark will turn the world on its head... or he won't. Both outcomes are likely to be equally interesting.

“Damn.” It’s a low mutter under his breath, one that he’s not overly concerned with their hosts hearing.

He can’t say that he’s disappointed, per se. It would have been an easy solution if magic could have solved their privacy dilemma, but it’s never been a part of his life. He’s never had to rely on it for anything, never even believed in it until Loki had come to Earth with the Tesseract. Not utilizing something he’s never had isn’t that great of a loss.

“It would be too complicated,” he says a moment later, speaking because it’s easier than trying to write out each letter onto Loki’s hand. “And probably the kind of hassle that would have you throttling us before we really got anywhere with it. Some of them don’t even trust me. Imagine that.”

Catching himself starting to absently drum his fingers against Loki’s hand, he pulls it away and forces himself to be still. “I’ll think of something else that won’t end up giving you a massive headache. Unless, I don’t know, are there any people here you actually like? I could ask them.”

I could enchant something... perhaps. A set of objects, I would have to invent a method. It would take time. A great deal of energy. Enchantments take... investment. And it would leave him weak, likely.

Then, aloud: "I rather like the lot of you; have from the start, but that's nothing to do with anything. Reciprocity is equally important."

And liking something doesn't mean one would much regret breaking it. "My ire is directed at one of your number nearly exclusively, and as he happens not to be present I take no issue with the presence of yourself or your friends. On the contrary, you're all quite entertaining."

Where else would anyone dare chain him to a railing, cut his hair, and write obscene things on his face all in one day? Barton was a good agent when Loki needed him to be and he's a commensurately entertaining personage, if rather a terrible prankster. There's still time to fix that, anyhow.

"I doubt most of you find my presence equally so, as is wholly understandable, if rather short-sighted." Though also wise, likely. A good man he is not, if such a thing as good exists. Relying on a man without much in the way of a conscience, however content he may be at the moment to play nicely, isn't the best idea. Even Stark is a safer gamble than Loki would be.

Feigning scratching at an itch on his forearm, Tony removes his hand by way of passing over Loki’s and lets it rest there atop it again while he carefully writes out a short message in response to his unspoken words. I would repay you.

Not that Tony has the first clue how he could repay someone like Loki, who has everything at his fingertips already. But he keeps his promises when he can be bothered to make them, and he always pays back everything he owes.

“We’re kind of like a soap opera, aren’t we? Only slightly more volatile and capable of leveling large cities. I can see why you find us entertaining. I would too.” He shrugs a little, tone as light and airy as though they’re talking about the weather on a lovely spring day. “Sometimes I even do. A little controlled violence is good for the soul.”

Provided no one gets killed, anyway.

“And for the record, if that’s you fishing for a compliment, I don’t hate you. I don’t like some the things you’ve done, but then again, I don’t like some of the things I’ve done either. And when you’re not strangling me and chucking me out of windows, or trying to kill the people I know, I might even like you.” Loki has a sense of humor Tony can appreciate it. He saw it once in Stark Tower, after the fight was over and he was beaten but not cowed. And he just saw it again here, in the comment about the paisley wallpaper. “So, if you need reciprocity, you at least have it from me.”

I will experiment. The problem intrigues me; payment is unnecessary unless the cost of success is high. As it might just be. Still better than sitting around and staring at the sea all day, though.

"How much of their trust I'll need to secure will depend entirely upon how much you're willing to lie," Loki adds, aloud. Let them think him a fickle and dangerous thing, these watchers; better than to think he might be helpful. Liminality is important. All this talk of mixed signals skirts around a rather serious issue: the fact that as an outsider, as a sometime enemy, Loki is more useful than as a full-time ally.

Best that you speak little of me, particularly in front of the cameras -- and speaking of controlled violence, we would do well to arrange a bit of that as well. As a distraction, of course. A feint. Start banging on pots and pans and nobody's going to be interested in listening for whispers.

This, here, this distance, this subterfuge, is Loki's greatest use. What he has made of himself, what he has been made, is a creature that straddles boundaries. Thor may be able to stand with the rest of his team, and would were he here, no doubt, but Loki never will. His own fault, of course, and perhaps to his own detriment -- but, and this is of course the greatest irony in all of it, the others do. Any atrocities committed before are only likely to serve them now.

In that regard Loki is pleased. Aesthetically pleased above all else; contradictions please him. Disorder pleases him. The isolation does too, though it also doesn't. It's safer, though it may be lonely. Lastly it pleases him because of its value, because of the room he has to breathe and to act when he isn't bound by mores and obligations.

It should please Tony, too; he may not act with much of it, but he surely must know the value of subtlety. He certainly knows the value in distance, in being capable of operating and willing to operate both within and without established rules and boundaries. Loki is more than willing. That much should have been clear from the start.

"I'm not fishing for compliments, incidentally. Merely outlining an inevitable operational difficulty which is easily enough worked around with a bit of subterfuge... should you wish to walk that path."

How much is he willing to lie? It’s the question of the day, and later, when he examines it, he’ll find that he answer is somewhat troubling to him. The truth is, if it protects the people of the town, if it gets them home - all of them – then he’s willing to lie as much as he has to lie. Just like he’s willing to do whatever needs to be done to see them home safely. Whatever it costs him, he’ll pay. Whatever sacrifices he must make, he will.

Better that it’s him than anyone else.

“I’m kind of a celebrity,” he admits, answering the question with a statement that he only belatedly realizes might lose its meaning when told to an alien. “Even before the whole Iron Man thing, actually. I’ve spent most of my life in the public eye.”

Are there celebrities on Asgard? Tony doesn’t know, but he thinks that surely there are great warriors and heroes and whatever else a warrior world that takes its cues from Shakespeare must venerate. Maybe they don’t get hounded by the press and followed around by cameras wherever they go, but there’s got to be an equivalent somehow. Still, he accepts that it might be a human conceit, building people up so high only to tear them down again for the entertainment of the masses, and explains a little further.

“I’ve been lying for years. I’m actually pretty good at it.” He rolls his eyes, feigning indifference to what he’s just said. “I don’t think you really need to worry about me having a crisis of conscience.” For the greater good, he’s willing to set that conscience aside if he absolutely must.

You’re on, he traces against Loki’s hand, dovetailing the silent communication with the last bit he’s speaking aloud. Subterfuge, violence, and all. Let’s see where that path goes.

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en það besta sem guð hefur skapað

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ahhhh sorry this took so long T__T

no worries!

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