Time To Dance - For Loki

[starkingenuity]

"JARVIS, lights, thirty percent."  His head is absolutely aching. pulsing behind his eyes to match the not-quite right heartbeat that twitched against the base of the reactor.  There's no snappy answer from an AI that acts as if playing to Tony's fiddle is just another boring part of his daily tasks as the quirky robotic butler.  "JARVIS, stop

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[laevsilaufeyson]

Tony Stark might be used to waking up in strange places, but Loki Laufeyson is not. He sits up sharply, hands going immediately to his own chest to check for his armour -- no. Something Midgardian and nondescript, comfortable but not at all his usual fashion. What the bloody hell had happened

[starkingenuity]

The message he gets from Fury is enough to make Tony spit bullets. He sort of gazes, angrily, at his phone and then throws it across the room. It's not like him to hurt technology, but it's also not like him to play babysitter to someone that deserves only death. Tony wouldn't head up the firing squad but he might buy them all a really nice dinner after with an expensive bottle of champagne.

All right, no, he wouldn't do that either. He didn't really believe in killing, not any more, not since Afghanistan. That didn't mean he had to like the idea of--

Tony arrives home by personal jet and insane hangover, stopping off in the kitchen before he heads on up to where he knows he's being waited for.

"Please tell me that this is just a surprise party and not--"

But no. There was the containment room, there was Fury. And there was-- No one else. "We're keeping this on the hush hush."

Tony rolled his eyes. "So you came to me. That's smart. I'm going to tell everyone, accidentally or not, in about ten minutes. You know that

[laevsilaufeyson]

Loki is going mad. His head, his head is going to split in two. He can't reach out and grasp anything, can't touch anything that isn't contained within his own slight, pathetic form. Universe at his fingertips yesterday. Today, nothing. It isn't just annoying. It's a shock to his system.

That's what does it in the end. Not the buzzing that makes his head spin every time he closes his eyes, which makes him nauseous and miserable. Not the puncture mark in his arm or his aching shoulder (tranquilliser darts, he remembers now). Not even the ignoble fact that he's being kept here... experimented on?

He's tried to think. Who it might be. Why. S.H.I.E.L.D. top the list, nevermind that Asgard has labelled him provisionally untouchable. Safe. Reformed. More or less. Or... or perhaps Victor. Victor the madman, Victor his old friend, insane but clever, wonderfully clever. And wounded. They had found a commonality of interests and they'd acted upon it. Broken things. Been fond of one another, perhaps.

But von Doom had always wanted to know

[starkingenuity]

"Oh you have got to be-- JARVIS, I need all of the records and files from security footage for the last twenty-four hours, looking for Fury and his goons. I want that cross-checked with whatever codes they may have used to get in here and just what sort of containment that is." The AI, as always, sounds slightly fed up but does as it's told. Tony is pretty sure he loves his electronic butler more than anyone else in this world other than himself. JARVIS gets him. No one else can say that. Not even Pepper

[starkingenuity]

And that hand had stayed on his shoulder the entire time. That cool hand, the one he suddenly wishes would move up the back of his neck and into his hair and-- Tony clears his throat once the call ends and stands up, the hand slipping from his shoulder. He's pretty sure he's boiling right now, though his face isn't red. Small favors, sometimes, are not to be overlooked.

Settling his hands on his hips, the genius engineer turns to lean back against the desk. "Jarvis, I need all cameras shut off. I need their shielded. Anything that might be transmitting outside of Stark Tower is to be completely blacked out."

"Already done, sir." Thank god for smart AIs.

He wets his lips and turns his gaze back up towards Loki, not letting it linger. Not that he can help it, it does so anyhow. He swallows, throat dry.

"So that was fun," Tony says, crossing his arms across his reactor. He fels vulnerable, like Loki is going to stab him or pluck the reactor from his chest or-- "Christ I need a drink. Hold down the fort, I'll be home

[laevsilaufeyson]

"As you like," Loki responds. "No doubt I can find some way to occupy myself."

Going through the work room, perhaps. Discussing with Jarvis, should he prove amiable to conversation, the merits of being an artificial intelligence. Scoffing at the television.

Or all of the above. And when that grows dull he pilfers some tools and moves back to the room that was built for him to reassemble his television. It isn't just an attempt to better understand how this particular instance of the device works, though that also intrigues him, but also an attempt to understand the process. He's only rebuilding, not creating, but there's still some element of pleasure to it.

He can see how it might be addicting. How it might become an obsession. And that's an interesting conclusion. Tony Stark is an addict; that much is obvious. Loki simply hadn't been quite aware that he's addicted to so many things.

It's a problem to sleep on, now that he can sleep properly. And he does, spread out on the bed in his little cell, dreaming of things he won't

[starkingenuity]

Tony does not arrive home alone. Stark Tower is a mass of activity at all times of the day and night considering that his company's headquarters are below. He might have the top ten floors to himself, well, and Pepper before she pretty much told him to screw himself in her not quite unpleasant and overly emotional way that left him bleeding inside, but there's a constant scurying around just the same. That does not mean that there are always people on the top most floor. Thor, often enough when he comes to visit Jane. Steve more often yet, though he believes Tony to be trying to corrupt him -- and he is. Clint and Natasha aren't the visiting types. Bruce is away on a lecture circuit

[laevsilaufeyson]

Loki is a light sleeper on the best of days, all the more so when he's expecting at any moment for Fury to decide to get rid of him or capture him again and move him elsewhere. His first reflex is to slip out of bed, wide awake and crouched... but no. The nature of the sounds, the energy signatures of two people... obvious. And more or less as he expected.

Though he didn't think Stark would be stupid enough to bring anyone home when there's a man who very much likes to torment him waiting there. A man waiting mirthfully in the dark, creeping forward in silence. And waiting. Letting them get along a bit. Why not? He'll interrupt when the moment is perfect, when it's most apt to be frustrating.

Doing as he is would be bad enough, funny enough, that annoyed, puppyish pout rewarding enough but since when has Loki Laufeyson ever settled for enough? He wants it all, everything, every last bit of nearly sadistic mirth he can pull out of the situation

[laevsilaufeyson]

"I should warn you," Loki tells the interrogator, the tip of the blade coming to rest lightly against the flesh just below her eye, "my aim is compromised. Normally I'm very good, you see. Normally, but your idiots shot me. Did you know? All of this searching could have been for nothing. I could've bled out on the floor of that restaurant and you'd never have known

[starkingenuity]

Tony doesn't see it happen but he can hear it. The woman is dead before Loki can react, can pull her blade too far away for her to slam her own skull into it. He's not prepared for this. Death never sits well with him despite being the cause of quite a number of them in the last few months. "Jesus Christ!" he cries out, head jerking around as Jarvis displaces the life signs, or lack there of, for the woman laying dead on the floor, half propped against Loki in her evening dress, half skewered. He turns away too quickly and the world bashes itself against his skull. He has to brace himself

[laevsilaufeyson]

Oh well. Loki shoves the woman from the end of her blade and moves on. Battle gear. Horns. She wants them to know who's coming

[starkingenuity]

This is not a contest. Battles are not for wagering on among the sane people. But Loki has three down and Tony had two. There's one left in the bottlenecked doorway and there's just no way he's going to lose it to her! Hand out, energy filtering from his reactor into the suit's and piling up for a burst in his wrist transformers, Tony blasts the remaining bot from over Loki's narrow shoulders and strides past her to the hallway.

He isn't sure what to say when he moves to catch up with her and realizes her delicate, snow white skin is now a devilishly beautiful blue. Or her eyes, that horrible, bloody red. He swallows and locks eyes with the goddess through the mask. Even hidden, he knows she can see right through the metal.

"We'll talk about this later, young lady," he said, an air of arrogance about him, and turns down towards where he knows three of the Avengers are being held.

He still is unsure about Hulk and Thor.

"This way."