loki laufeyson (toberuled) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-07-08 20:22:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | iron man, loki |
Who: Loki and Tony
What: A chat with the god in the box.
Where: Loki's prison in Stark Tower, Marvel Door
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: None
Tony had a couple people watching the god in the box via computer screens all day, every day, every hour, minute, and second. He swapped them out more often than casinos swapped dealers, willing to put money into surveillance if it would prevent the god from getting out and bringing the building down around their ears, which is probably what he would do first. Then he’d probably track down Tony and try to kill him, which in the vast scheme of things probably wouldn’t be that hard. Loki got better at it every time, after all. Tony wasn’t as worried about that as he should have been, he was more concerned about what would happen to the people in the building, to Pepper, and even to Steve. Bruce was the only one who would probably survive almost anything, even if he wouldn’t be happy about it. While he risked the Hulk when he called Bruce to handle the patient, Tony felt better knowing he didn’t risk anyone else’s life going in there.
Even with all the protocols in place and the multiple security monitoring and failsafes, Tony wasn’t as nonchalant about the god in the box as he pretended to be. He took some of Silver’s advice on the matter, but only some, as some of it got a little too close to his own experience in the cave, and you had to draw the fucking line somewhere. Most of it involved separating the prisoner from any personnel or communications, a lack of anything with which to tell the time, and no amenities beyond the basics unless they were expressly requested. In the end, Tony was most relaxed when he had an eye on the guy himself, whether it was through the phone with Silver’s cooperation or physically, usually after the physical therapy sessions that were meant to build some muscle under all that scar tissue on his back. Most of the time he just watched the screens, but this time, he descended in the elevator, listening to the jazzified version of “Highway to Hell” that he inflicted upon anyone who got inside it.
Down below, the lights indicating the elevator’s descent added to the twinkling blue of the basement’s fixtures.
Loki was well aware he was being watched. He would have expected nothing less. But he didn’t give his watchers much to look at. He sat on the floor of his cell, inspecting the manacles around his wrists, testing, briefly, their tensile strength, well knowing the futility of the exercise. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t ask for food, or for water. He seemed to be lost in thought.
As far as out of the ordinary went, the only thing Loki did of note was to work at his glamour, at pulling it back over himself. It took some time to get it back in order, took trying over hours and hours to even get it to cover his arms for a few shaky seconds. But, eventually, he taught the cuffs that the enchantment was no threat, and was able to pull it back over himself completely, returning his appearance to its usual pale, Asgardian normality. He did feel better, when it was back in place, like he had managed to retake some small amount of control over his person, put his heritage back in the box where it belonged. Still, his hold over the glamour was weak. A touch of even mundane ice would likely displace it, or enough emotion to slacken his grip on it. Before, it had been passive, held in place for years with only a small, subconscious part of his magic. Now that the manacles had bound his power, even this cosmetic spell, something that had been woven into his very being since he was only a newborn, took effort.
He hoped it alarmed them, since it really wasn’t truly a sign of victory of any kind except the personal. He liked the idea that his watchers were unnerved by him, and every few hours, he cast a searching look up to the ceiling, where he assumed the cameras had been hidden, up there in the dark. Past those cameras, and the steel and stone tower beyond, past the stars above this world, he wondered if Heimdall had returned to Asgard yet to watch him from his post. He wondered if Thor was lying to him about the Allfather’s continued absence, and that he too stood in Asgard, celebrating Loki’s fall, observing his imprisonment as the humans did with their cameras and their bitten fingernails.
When the blue lights lit on the elevator, he cast an eye toward them before his gaze went back to the manacles on his wrists, studying the patterns worked into the metal. When the doors slipped open, he was still on the floor of his prison, head canted to the side. He was back to apparent normality, pale skin blotted with purple bruises at the chest. He glanced up at Stark before looking down again. “You had to ensure that I was still here for yourself,” he said, to his wrists. He smiled, just a touch, lips parted. “Of course you did. You didn’t come to talk. Am I living in your thoughts, Stark? Do you think about my presence here, wake in the night after a dream where I escape and wreak vengeance on you and those you love? Does my existence in your sphere gnaw at you?” Green eyes turned up, though he didn’t lift his head. “I can think of no other reason why you should have come to see me but fear.” He took a long, careful breath against his still-mending ribs. “You needed to see for yourself that I am adequately bound, and not hiding in your shadow, dogging your every step.” His smile narrowed to an edge. “How kind, that you think of me.”
Tony wandered into the lower basement. He was wearing a shirt the color of a mature Burgundy red wine and slacks of a slate gray color, and the combination made him look both wealthy and uneven in all that blue light. His own chestpiece barely showed through this fabric, and he wore it sometimes when he didn’t want people staring at his chest like some kind of cherished nightlight. Today it had just been the first thing to come to hand, the first thing, that is, that he didn’t have to raise his arms and attempt to pull over his head. The scars were healing well this time, and the physical therapy meant full range of motion would return, but he was still stiff, and he sure as hell didn’t want anyone seeing why.
So, hands in his pockets and not behind his back, Tony dawdled in the threshold to the big room. He cast his eyes up to make sure the energy patterns there were moving as they should, and then proceed forward. He didn’t have much visible response to Loki’s taunt. “Actually, they told me you’d lost the tuna fish look in your bowl and I came to see for myself.” Tony continued the movement when he reached the translucent containment cell, shifting to walk backward for a moment and then circling. “Guess you’re not happy about looking like your ‘guards,’ huh? I kind of like it. It’s got this Violet Beauregard charm.”
Loki glanced up in time to see Tony look at the patterns on the floor. They had to be significant in some way, then, more than just a show of power. If that was where his machines were that would sense if Loki escaped his prison, he would simply need to figure out how to trick them once he got his magic back. Once - not if.
He lifted his head, no longer making any pretense that he wasn’t watching Tony, even as Tony watched him. He didn’t turn, though, when he began to circle the cage. His eyes slitted to the side, but he did not deign to turn his head and spin in a circle to keep him in his line of sight. Stark didn’t know the first thing about what Loki did and did not like to look like, but he wasn’t foolish enough to snap at him and reveal a sore spot. “Just because I am a prisoner here does not mean there is no need for me to be civil,” he said. “I simply wanted to make myself presentable. Your comrade’s choice of binding has had unfortunate side effects. As a result of their duplicitous makers, I expect.” Let him think it was merely some magical mishap beyond his understanding. The truth of the matter was no business of Stark’s. “Are you curious how I did it?” he asked, turning his head to look at him then. Of course he was. The binding was supposed to be infallible, and if it wasn’t, then even Stark’s little cage wouldn’t hold him for long. “I would be more than happy to tell you, but you will be required to answer a question of mine.”
“If you wanted to be presentable,” Tony said, before taking the trouble with this final taunt, “you would have asked for a shirt.” He wasn’t hurrying with his circuit of the cage. He liked to have something to do when he was thinking, and he knew while he was moving he would have less of an impulse to do some physical experiments. For example, if he sucked all the oxygen out of that box, would the god still be able to make smart ass remarks? These kinds of questions are what make scientists the world over. Tony raised his eyebrows as he returned to view at the corner of Loki’s field of vision. “Nah, I’m really not required to do anything except keep you in that box. I admit you don’t go with the decor now, though. You want a cup of tea, look more bored and spoiled?”
Loki broke into a smile. “Spoiled? Now, who has been telling stories about me?” He didn’t seem perturbed that Stark hadn’t taken his bait, and watched him as he came around the corner again. “Thor, no doubt. You know, despite everything, we are still close.” His expression turned slightly. “Despite everything. Everything he’s done, everything I’ve done to shake him from me, he clings like a persistent insect. Nothing I do can sway him from me. Even now, I think he believes that he can bring me back to Asgard, and all will somehow be well.” He spread a hand. “And I can rest easily in the knowledge that he will never do me any permanent harm. Too soft. Too forgiving of family.”
Tony didn’t have family. But he understood that some people would never let go of theirs. Yinsen had been like that. He’d spoken of his family as if they were alive, talked about what they’d done as if they’d do it again. As he watched the maniacal man rage silently with all his silver words, Tony wondered at the strength of Thor’s character to be able to stay that course. It worried him even as he admired it. The former was no doubt Loki’s intent. “Actually I guessed. Good guess, it seems. If you don’t eat then you’re not going to care if I do?” It wasn’t really a question. The elevator started descending even as he spoke, and rather than a person, Tony pulled out a tray with a couple piled-high subs on it. There was, actually, a pot of tea, and no alcohol. It was like a bizarre non-Tony assembly of foodstuffs. He took a sandwich, left the tray, and kicked out a stool on wheels to sit on as he ate. “I don’t think you rest too easily about family,” Tony said, chewing. He wanted to keep Loki talking, learn about what he was while it was safe to do so.
"Not at all," Loki said, looking for all the world lean and hungry as they came. He looked over the food, but didn't request any. He would have liked some water, perhaps, and he did hunger a little, but it would certainly take more than a few days without food to kill him.
"Bad guess," Loki said. "If you want to talk about 'spoiled', talk to the blonde one who looks the part of the golden child as much as he acts it. Thor never wanted for anything in his life." Well, until the Allfather exiled him, of course, but that had been a temporary thing, bringing about a supposedly radical change in his formerly selfish and egotistical being. Thor certainly believed he'd changed, and he'd clearly found a cause in protecting precious, blue-green Midgard, and it was so convenient, too, that he'd somehow managed to become even more noble in his exile, ever the martyr and the beloved hero. Well, Loki was a different man himself.
"I cannot imagine where you came under that impression," Loki said, eyes hooded, voice dry as a riddled bone. "I have no family. Those I once counted as my family have either shunned me, helped to imprison me, or I've killed." He flattened his palms on his knees, bent butterflied from his torso and crossed at the ankle. The manacles clinked every time he moved. "What about your family, Tony Stark? As I understand it, you don't have any either. Not living, at least. Your father was a man of knowledge as well, was he not? A scientist."
Tony chewed his sandwich, apparently oblivious to the hungry look. He didn’t like the idea of starving somebody, but Silver insisted that Loki would ask when he was hungry enough. He pointed out Tony had offered, and that Loki wasn’t losing any visible weight or having any obvious physical effects. Tony scowled, but chewed again. He returned his attention to Loki, but belatedly. “Yeah. You should read his profile in Time. Very complete. I can’t imagine why your family doesn’t have warm fuzzy feelings for you after all that effort you went to trying to... well. Make them all dead.” Bright smile.
Loki smiled at him. “He told you that, did he?” he asked. “He is creeping up on my territory. They should call him the Liesmith, not me. Or you jump to conclusions.” He ran a thumb over the manacle around his right wrist. “I never did any such thing. I murdered one man, and the rest did not care that he died. Did not care what I did for them. Or who was rightful ruler. Why should it matter, when they had my better?” He rolled his shoulders. “One only keeps two princes in line to rule so that one may have someone to relieve the one if the other fails.” He leaned in. “Or to drive the one who is not chosen to rule mad.” He smiled. “But you are an only child, I believe, and know nothing of these fights. Single ruler to a lonely empire, I hear. I have read about him, since you mention it. I did a touch of...background research. One should know the world one is meant to rule over, after all. He has been dead some twenty years or so, has he not?” His tone had gone quieter, eyes intent. “Do you miss your father, still? Or do you bless that his expectations and plans for your life are as so much writing in sand, washed back by death?”
Tony blinked several times, and then smiled. It was an amused smile, and worthy of the one he was speaking to. He sucked on his teeth with his tongue, tasting the sprouts someone had added to the roast turkey, all smoke and hints of garden on the French bread. “Not really any of those things. He’s just dead. Permanent. And you’re the one that just told me you killed some of your family, not anyone else. It’s too bad you can’t take backseat on the whole line of succession thing. People use that as an excuse to murder people all the time, so at least you’re in good company.” Tony’s smile deepened. He imagined Loki wouldn’t like being “just like everyone else.” He thought that there was little to his relationship with his father for Loki to exploit. They hadn’t really had one, so that didn’t leave much.
Loki rolled his eyes. As if his motives had ever been that simple. "Yes, you have me pinned. Well done. In fact, I see the error of my ways, and I am thoroughly turned round on my wicked thoughts. You may release me." He shifted his legs to the side, leaning forward onto a hand. "I'm still waiting to hear why you came to visit me. You must have a burning question or two. I might even have an answer for you in return. Unless you came all the way down here just so that I could watch you at your repast?”
Tony took another bite of the sandwich and licked mayonnaise off the corner of his mouth, then his finger. “Oh, I’m not trying to redeem you. You’re fucked, man. Soon as you killed all those people, you were done, as far as I’m concerned. And you’re answering most of my questions, so we’re good, so far.” He made a gesture with his sandwich that made a piece of lettuce fly off in a different direction, and then stretched out his heels. His back twinged, and he let it.
"I am relieved to hear you aren't that naive, despite your disappointingly black and white philosophy," Loki said, and watched as shreds of his meal went flying with a touch of disgust. His method of eating did remind him of his brother, actually, and of his friend Volstagg. Gusto to the point of mess. "So?"
Tony shook his head slowly, licking his fingers and reaching for a silk napkin off the tray. He was going to have to leave soon, too much moving, not enough resting, not nearly enough alcohol. He didn’t notice the lettuce but he wiped his beard and actually poured himself a cup of tea into white china. He hadn’t had tea since the caves. He thought it would bring unpleasant memories, but it didn’t, they were oddly bittersweet, instead. “Last chance on the tea,” he said, watching the liquid swirl.
Loki watched him pour the tea, and answered, likely unexpectedly. “I will have some.” He fixed green eyes, bright as madness, on Tony’s. The question was, how was he going to get it to him? Had he devised some ingenious system of delivery, or would he actually risk his hide and step through the door? “I had Midgardian tea a few months ago,” he said, as conversational as if they were sitting in a parlor somewhere. “London, I think it was. 19th century, by your calendar. I enjoyed it. It lacks the bite I am accustomed to in my tea, but it was pleasant enough.”
Tony was distracted by the tea and memories of thrice-used black leaves brewed in a scrubbed-clean sock. He didn’t immediately respond, ignoring Silver’s quiet comment that he should force Loki to ask, not say. Moving stiffly in favor of his back and disregarding the caution of casual movement, Tony rose from his seat and drifted around to the edge of the cage, cup in hand. He picked up a container about the size of a shoebox with five out of six sides. With his hand against the glass to tame the security measures, he slid the fixture into an indentation built for it. A panel lifted for the contents of the box and shut halfway, now allowing Loki access. Tony had made sure the god wouldn’t even breathe the same air as the rest of the basement’s occupants, if any. He turned away almost immediately. “London, you said. You count time travel amongst your skills, or did you go trick-or-treating in the hotel?”
How irritating. But Loki picked up his tea from inside the box, holding the cup delicately by his rim, and completely ignored Tony’s question in favor of watching his limp. "I never did get an opportunity to apologize for how badly I injured you," he said, quietly. There was, perhaps, even a touch of something a little vulnerable there. Remorse, regret, wistfulness for things that could have turned out another way. "It was never my intention to do you such great harm as I apparently did. Power, especially the sort of power I wield, can get away from one in the heat of fighting."
Tony stopped his departure from the box, perhaps three steps, his spine practically crackling with the effort. He turned around. He had his own cup in his hand, all four fingers wrapped around it in a gesture not at all delicate. Moving with confidence, he approached the glass again, so close that Loki would be able to count the lines around his eyes and the silver threads coming through in his beard and hair. The lines creased, but the smile wasn’t real. “And what do you get out of apologizing to me?” he asked, tilting his brows up as if waiting for the punchline of some exotic joke.
Loki leaned in close to the glass, studying him for a moment. Stark was in the latter half of a human's life, brief flareouts of passion and energy. It was almost a shame. "Nothing," he said, and shook his head. His eyes, then, went from regretful to dark and intent in a matter of moments. "I just wanted to make sure you knew that if that was a minor slip, what I do to you purposefully when my bindings are released will make you wish I would merely slip, and scald your flesh to the bone."
Tony smiled. He wasn’t afraid of Loki, no matter how much pain he had caused him. In fact the pain mattered very little. It only served to make him warier and work harder to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again, at least, not that way. “It must really burn you up that you’re stuck in here, doing everything you can just to... well. Look at you.” Tony took a step back. He slid one hand into his pocket and took out his cellphone. The blue piece of glass focused, and then made a snap sound of fabricated photography. Tony winked at Loki. “For Facebook. Later!”
Tony turned, tipped his tea up to down it in one, and then tossed it back on the tray. He was gone before the pieces even stopped rattling. Loki could look at the remaining sandwich for a few hours until someone came to take it away.