Acquittal

Chapter 7

disclaimer* Hey guys! Sorry this took me so long. It's been pretty stressful and the moments that I'm not working or doing school work have been dedicated to the sacred pastime of sleep. I'll try to be more proactive about updating. Enjoy!

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Tony sighed and fell against the wall, sliding down till he was sitting on the floor with his arms sitting atop his bent knees. He leaned his head forward then let it smack against the wall, he repeated this a few more times just to make sure that this wasn't just some huge screwed up dream.

Cause no, he couldn't have a mind controlled god of mischief unconscious in his guest bedroom. Cause that's crazy, and despite what everyone said, Tony Stark was not actually crazy...eccentric maybe, but not crazy.

The feeling of being slammed into his own body was jarring to say the least. It was like a nail being pried out of a piece of wood only to be reused and hammered into another. He collapsed to the floor in a dead faint, waking up just in time to stop Pepper from calling an ambulance.

Tony felt a small stab of malicious glee at the headache the sudden appearance and disappearance of the Norse god in Germany probably gave the Director.

Oh who was he kidding? He loved pissing off Fury. It was his favorite pastime.

"Stark!" Natasha shouted, ending his moment of solitude.

Groaning, Tony stood up, ignoring the creaking joints, and made his way to the kitchen room where the team had congregated.

Are they still a team? Technically, the Avengers haven't been formed yet.

Pushing that thought away for future deliberation, he sat down on a tall chair at the counter while the team stared at him expectantly.

"Well?" Bruce asked after a moment of silence once it was clear that Tony wasn't just going to start talking.

"Oh nothing much, just got a brainwashed god of chaos in my guestroom, but I shouldn't worry cause, you know, he's knocked out for an undetermined length of time. Other than that, everything's just peachy." Stark said in a false cheerful voice, the tense line of his shoulders, giving away how much the situation was weighing on him.

Truthfully, the others weren't doing much better.

Sighing and rolling his shoulders, he asked, "so how's Clint?"

"He's fine." Said Natasha, relief evident in her voice. "He and the other agents are being detained and evaluated for any remaining traces of the mind control. They're good so far and will probably be released soon."

The new development seemed to release a small amount of tension in the room. Sighs of relief were the only thing breaking the silence.

Until a loud explosion down the hall shattered it.

The Avengers were on their feet as soon as they heard it, heads swiveling towards the hallway entrance, dust lazily drifting into the dining room.

A tall figure stumbled his way out of the dust, covered in the white powder and turning his dark obsidian hair a muggy grey color. Catching sight of his eyes, Bruce cursed. His eyes were a rich vibrant green shot through with streaks of pale blue.

Approaching the god cautiously, Bruce stopped when he was a few feet away.

"Loki?"

Reacting quickly and with a shout, Loki swung a sloppy punch at the doctor. Bruce dodged and, swinging wide, Loki actually embedded his fist deep into the adjacent wall.

"Get away from me!" Loki shouted, panicking​ and looking at the Avengers with wide, scared eyes. Pulling his fist out of the wall, he backed up till his back was pressed against the same wall, not once taking his eyes off of them.

"Loki calm down!" Steve shouted, authority coloring his tone.

At the sound of his voice, Loki pressed himself harder against the wall, cracks spider webbing behind him. Tony could see the fine tremors going through his frail body.

"Steve." Tony hissed, shocking the rest of the team with the use of the Captain's real name. "Get away from him."

Steve, doing just that, glared at Tony. Ignoring him, Tony hesitantly inched closer to the terrified god.

"Loki?" Tony asked, softly. Getting closer, he could hear the faint noises he was making, low whimpers and wheezes that tore at his heart. Holding his hands so that he could see them, the inventor tried to make himself smaller, less of a threat.

The pitiful whimpers finally gave away to soft pleas. "Please no more. I don't want to. I don't want to. Just let me go. Please, just let me go."

Tony's heart broke. It was one thing to know that Loki was tortures, another to see the effects it had on him.

Tony tried his hardest to break him out of his terror induced trance, pressing closer and​ trying to ignoring the way that Loki's breathing sped up the closer he he got.

Speaking softly to the god, telling him that he's safe and​ that no one was going to hurt him, the Avengers watched with baited breath as Tony laid a gentle hand on his trembling shoulder. He tensed up, ceased all movement, and stared at Tony with scared blue green eyes.

"Hey, you're fine. Hela sent us. She's been really-"

"Hela?"

Loki's eyes had stopped darting from Tony to the other Avengers and focussed entirely on him. Instead of looking scared, he seemed slightly hopeful, as though he was finally starting to believe that he was free.

Tony watched as the blue in his eyes receded slightly, hardly noticeable unless you were looking.

"Loki." Tony said, the flinch was faint, but unmistakably there. "Your daughter sent us to help you" he chuckled. "Definitely your daughter. She's a spitfire."

Tony could see the slightest bit of tension bleed out of the god, his shoulders relaxing by a fraction of a millimeter.

Tugging slightly, Tony lead the god toward the couch in the open living room, stiff but strangely pliant. Steve looked like he was about to say something,but was stopped by the glare the Black Widow shot him.

Tony helped the god to lay down on his back. He never took his eyes off of Tony, the confused dual colored eyes sent a flash of sympathy through the inventor.

"You know? You're a pretty good dad." He said conversationally. "Hela's a good kid, a little scary though." He looked at the god with a self deprecating grin. "A lot better then my dad let me tell you. He didn't even know I existed half the time, the other half he was yelling at me."

He was smiling, but there was something hard in his hard that Loki, in his mad and delirious state, recognized. The look he shot Tony was far too knowing for his taste, so gently shoving the magician back, Tony attempted to make him go to sleep.

"Come on Rudolf, you are drugged with enough sedatives to knock out a bull elephant. Don't know how you're keeping your eyes open."

He made a move to leave when a deceptively strong, pale hand shot out and grabbed his arm in a vice.

"Stay." Those dual-colored eyes were looking at him beseechingly, a complete one-eighty from the terror he had seen just a few minutes ago.

"Okay." He said croaked, finding it hard to speak given the lump that had lodged itself in his throat.

He pulled a lounge chair and sat down next to the coach, Loki never taking his eyes off of him, Tony didn't think he was even blinking.

"Ok."