Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 81

Tony pounds his fists against the door. "Alright, open up!"

Loki doesn't answer.

It just pisses him off more.

"Loki!" Tony slams it again. "Open the goddamn door!"

Silence.

"Hey!" Tony grabs the doorknob and twists it with as much force as he can, hoping to break the lock, only to learn that it's not even locked to begin with. He slams the door open, ready to march in and give the god a piece of his mind...

But then he finds Loki sitting cross-legged on his bed, a small collection of letters in his lap and tear stains down his cheeks.

Tony's anger slowly fades into concern. "Loki?"

Loki sniffles and hastily wipes his eyes. "I thought I locked that."

"Guess not," Tony says. He closes the door behind him and eyes Loki uncomfortably. "Are, uh..." Well, this is a stupid question. "Are you okay?"

Loki nods. "I'm fine," he says.

"Really?" Tony asks skeptically. "'Cause you don't look it."

"I'm fine," he insists. It's not very believable.

"You know, I came in here to yell at you," Tony tells him. "You're making that very hard."

Loki offers him a small smile. "I do like making things difficult."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Tony says. He glances at the letters in his pocket. "Who's your penpal? Or are you just into journaling now?"

"Oh, this..." He taps one of the letters. "Correspondence with Asgard's gatekeeper."

"I thought you couldn't talk to anyone in Asgard," Tony reminds him. That's kind of the point of him being here.

"Heimdall is the exception," Loki says. "Only when the situation calls for it."

"And the situation calls for it?"

Loki nods. He holds up a letter halfheartedly. "The Allfather knows I returned to Asgard. I thought I'd been careful, but not careful enough, it seems." He lets out a long breath. "Heimdall has been keeping me informed on his thoughts on the matter. At first, he wanted to have me executed, but it seems my mother has talked him down. I suppose that's good news."

"Okay, now what's the bad news?" Tony asks. "'Cause I'm pretty sure there's bad news."

"The fact that I spent nearly an hour anticipating my execution does not constitute not 'bad news' to you?" Loki asks, his voice filled with weak sarcasm. "It hardly matters now. Everybody lives, myself included. What have I to be upset about now that I know my life has been spared?"

"Well, there is the thing with Jane," Tony offers cautiously. That's what he really came here to talk about, though he'd planned to do so much more accusatively before he realized Loki was already beating himself up over other things.

"She is the last thing on my mind," Loki says. He sighs. "It has been an exhausting day, both physically and mentally. At the moment, I'm just waiting for JARVIS to tell me she's left before I go watch a movie."

Oh.

Awkward.

"Uh, yeah," Tony says uncomfortably. "About that. She might be staying the night." The longer she's here, the more likely it looks. She's doing a lot better now than she was an hour or two ago. At this point, she seems to be more tired than anything.

Loki sighs. "Of course she is."

A raven flies through the window, and Tony instinctively steps back, walking straight into the door behind him. Loki is unphased. He holds out a hand, and the raven flies into it, perching itself on his finger. There's a scroll tied to its foot, and Loki unties it, but he doesn't look at it, instead just laying it down in his lap with his folded letters.

Loki opens his hand and the raven flies off of it, landing on his shoulder. He reaches up and scratches under its chin. The bird doesn't seem to care very much about that, neither pleased nor displeased by the attention.

"And now you have a bird," Tony deadpans. Because why wouldn't he have a bird?

"He's from Asgard," Loki says, though Tony had assumed as much. "Is Dr. Foster leaving tomorrow?"

"I don't know," Tony admits. "We haven't talked about it, but I'm thinking she will."

"Good."

Tony crosses his arms and cocks an eyebrow. "Huh."

"What?"

"So, what, you're just jealous she stole Thor from you, or...?"

Loki scoffs. "Of course not," he says. "I couldn't care less about her either way. But I imagine she won't want to see me before she leaves."

Tony snorts. "Well, maybe if you didn't attack her..."

"I didn't attack anybody," Loki snaps. "I needed an answer and Thor refused to give it to me any other way."

"If Thor refused to tell you, maybe you weren't supposed to know," Tony says. He'd trust Thor's judgment over Loki's any day.

Loki rolls his eyes. "If I lie and tell you I'm sorry, will you leave me alone?"

"No, but I'll leave you alone if you don't," Tony says. He only came in here to tell him off for hurting Jane, but though he obviously doesn't feel any remorse, he clearly already feels like shit over other things. There's no point in beating a dead horse, even if it died by other means. "Look, Thor wants to lock you in your room until Jane leaves, but I'm not dumb enough to think that's gonna work, so if you want to watch TV or something, I can tell Thor to keep Jane out of the man cave for you."

"Thank you, but..." Loki holds up his newest letter from Heimdall. "I'd like to finish my conversation."

"Right, sorry," Tony mumbles awkwardly. He'd forgotten that he's kind of intruding right now.

"Tell Thor that I've spoken to Heimdall," Loki says. "The Allfather will certainly want to talk to him about his treason, but neither he nor his friends will be punished for it."

"Yeah, I'll let him know," Tony says. "You go have fun with your bird."

Loki perks up at that. "Oh, first..." He picks the bird up off his shoulder and sets it down on his bed, and it stands there obediently as Loki slides off of the mattress, lying down flat on the floor in front of it. He reaches under the bed, and when he crawls away, Snowflake is in his arms. He holds the cat out. "Will you take her? The raven is terrifying her."

Under no other circumstances would Tony agree to this, but the idea of a bird scaring a cat is too amusing to ignore. He takes the cat and cradles her in his arms. He can't tell if the vibrations he feels are silent purrs or if she's shaking from fear, but he'd like to think it's the latter because it's far funnier that way.

"Okay," Tony says, "I am going to go tell Thor that your dad's not gonna kill either of you, and you can go continue your conversation with the big dude in the sky."

"Thank you."

Tony nods once, then takes his leave — which, for the record, is very hard with a cat in his arms. He sets her down outside the door, and she trots along after him. And now he's off to tell Thor that he completely ignored those instructions to leave his brother alone. But, hey, at least Odin's not mad! It could be worse, right?