Work Text:
It all started like this:
“What the hell is he doing here?!”
“Why, but, my friend, you said yourself that you would welcome my brother's help, if he were to offer it!”
“You said what, Stark?!”
And then Stark Tower was stuck with one more dangerous asshole going as he pleased around the place, and Tony was sort of to blame for it. And before long, well. There were unexpected side-effects.
---
It had been getting clearer and clearer during the last year and some that Wanda desperately needed to be taught how to better control her magic. Small accidents and bigger incidents had occurred, one at the time, making everyone cringe and try to fix it and to forget it, until the sum of it all had increasingly become harder to ignore.
“If you can't learn to control your powers, I will have to remove you from the team,” Fury had said, sounding angry and impatient.
“But I'm trying! I don't know what I'm doing!” Wanda had replied, sounding distressed and angry.
So that had been the next logical step: finding her a teacher. They had had high hopes, when a man named Doctor Strange had surfaced, wielding powers that could only be called magic, too. And though Tony was not sure how he felt about that man in his tower, he'd been ready to give it a try. He liked Wanda and he wanted her to feel at peace. He also liked not having building collapsing on him because she'd lose control of what she was doing, if he was being entirely honest with himself.
But Strange, for all he agreed to try, quickly disappointed.
“This is nothing like the magic I know,” he said as a matter of excuse to the assembled team, after a week of unconclusive efforts. It looked a little like a parent-teacher conference, only Wanda had eight protective parents and a suspicious brother. “She doesn't draw her powers from the Multiverse, not the way I do it. I don't -I don't understand the way it works.”
They believed him, if only because it was obvious it bothered him, not to understand. And SHIELD must have taken advantage of his natural curiosity to convince him to stick around, because just like that, they had another sorcerer on the team, and another permanent resident to the tower.
They went back to square one, just trying to understand something they didn't understand. Bruce and Tony tried scans and analysis. Steve and Bucky and Sam and Clint took turns training with her, hoping that improving her strenght could help her in controlling the rest. Bruce and Natasha sat her down with breathing exercices. And they all waited for results. And no results came.
And then, one day, Thor left for Asgard, to do his usual routine check with his father. And when he came back, he brought a psycho with him.
Tony was so shocked, for a few seconds, to see Loki again, that he didn't realise Thor had taken his sarcasm seriously. Because Tony had never imagined a world in which anyone would consider asking Loki to be Wanda's teacher.
“Thor, you're very kind,” Steve started, diplomatic.
“But we're trying to help Wanda here. Not let a crazy murderer out of jail to take care of her.” Clint, a little less diplomatic, continued. He was standing defensive in front of Wanda, with Pietro by his side.
And Loki just laughed.
Tony looked at him, then, really looked at him, afraid and angry and expecting disgust. But there was something different about Loki now, something that he had not seen in the man he had fought, three years ago. Asgardian prison had changed the god. Tony knew this, without quite knowing why he knew it.
The god looked less imposing, out of his armor. He was still tall, but he looked leaner, more delicate, especially standing next to Thor. His hair had grown out, falling heavy and dark on his shoulders and framing his pale, bony face. It was his eyes, though, that got to Tony. He had seen them full of rage and tears, full of madness and danger.
And it wasn't that it wasn't there anymore, not exactly. The light in those eyes -it was still mad. It was still dangerous. Less angry, perhaps, but still not quite sane. This was a different Loki, though he remained strange and cutting in his standing.
Tony... Tony didn't know how he felt about him. Somehow, he felt he should not have been more tense than when Steve had brought Bucky in, and they had had to deal with his murderous reflexes for weeks before he'd gotten them under control. But Bucky had been an unwilling enemy. Loki was a bad guy.
“If the girl doesn't learn,” Loki said, smiling, as if he didn't see how everyone except Thor tensed in reaction, “then you will have no need for enemies to destroy you and your Earth. Surely even you can see how much you need me.”
“Thor, we can't trust him with this,” Bruce said pleadingly, because it was easier to look at Thor than it was to look at his brother, alive and smiling and standing there, after all he had done.
“My brother has agreed to teach Wanda Maximoff in exchange for his time in jail to be reduced,” Thor replied. “He has been a dedicated instructor of magic before and has sworn to help at the best of his abilities now.”
Nobody believed that. Nobody wanted to believe that. But Thor was proud of himself and wanted to hear no protest about his genius plans. And like that, well, Loki started living in the tower.
Jarvis watched him twenty-four hours a day, keeping Tony posted on each of his movements in the guest room he had been given. Mostly, the god stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, probably contemplating whatever plans he had to take over the world. When he came out of the room, he smiled and greeted every Avenger he met, getting on everyone's nerves. Clint looked ready to set him on fire.
"This spirit that lives in your walls," Loki asked Tony one day, startling him. He had not heard him sneaking up. "You built him yourself? From nothing?"
"Don't expect me to tell you how to corrupt Jarvis," Tony replied, tense.
Loki merely smiled, shrugged, left. No incident. Just weirdness.
Two days later, sensing that there was no escape, they agreed to letting Loki have his first 'class' with Wanda. After breakfast, during which Loki sat next to Thor, drinking chocolate milk and eating Nutella straight out of the jar, most likely attempting to irritate everybody, Wanda sat in the living room with him. Thor, Strange, Tony, Clint and Pietro joined in to keep watch, with various levels of discretion.
“He'll make no progress and we'll send him back to jail,” Clint said to Pietro, clearly trying to be encouraging.
“I just hope he doesn't messes up with her,” the speedster said, seeming tense.
“I was not aware that we would have an audience,” Loki smiled. “I understand that you are trying to learn something?”
“If you would get on with it,” Strange said with tense politeness.
“Of course,” the trickster god said, and turned to Wanda. “So, tell me of your seidr, dear girl. Your magic,” he clarified, almost kindly.
It did little for Wanda, who seemed, understandably, tense. She glanced briefly at her brother, perhaps wishing she could escape the awkwardness of all this with him. Tony tried to send her an encouraging smile.
“Um, well, like I said to Doctor Strange,” she said after gathering her courage visibly, “scientists from Hydra gave me my powers, using that stone from the scepter. It took a few weeks of trials before there was a visible effect...”
She paused, carefully waiting for Loki's reaction, perhaps at the mention of the scepter; but he merely sat there, looking shamefully relaxed, long legs crossed. His smile was kind and encouraging, which made no sense, but looked good, Tony noticed despite himself. Loki merely nodded to encourage Wanda to keep going, and she sat a little straighter.
“It started with some sort of warmth running into my veins. Flashes of red lights, too. Then I managed to move objects with my mind. They trained me with small objects first, light things like wooden blocks, then pieces of metal...”
“Was it your idea, or theirs?” Loki wondered with a look of polite interest.
“Sorry?” Wanda replied, visibly tensed.
“Using your magic to move objects,” the god clarified. He smiled knowingly, with a warmth that should not have been possible on his sharp, dangerous face. His eyes seemed less mad, at the moment. He looked pretty. He looked trustworthy. His face was a pretty lie, Tony thought. “Did it feel natural to you? Was it how the red light demanded to be left out? Or did you try to comply with their demands?”
“Ah... I suppose -I tried to do what they told me.”
“Of course you would. Now, let's see...”
With no warning, Loki reached for Wanda. She startled back, and of course Pietro and Clint were standing up without hesitation. Loki raised his hands innocently and Thor looked at his teammembers in disapproval.
“Let's not get worried over nothing. I will have to touch you to see where the problem is, although I have a pretty good idea already.”
“You don't have to let him touch you, kid,” Clint said immediately.
“No, it... It is fine. What do you think?”
Courageously, or perhaps because she was the most tired of them all of this situation, Wanda held her hands out for Loki to take. He tilted his head graciously, although having noticed none of the suspicions aimed at him, and wrapped his long fingers around her wrists.
Long, delicate, pale fingers. A little too delicate. Pale and thin, he looked a little like a dying flower, in need of water and sun. Prison had not been kind on him, Tony thought, and then tried to shake himself out of these strange thoughts and to focus on the problem at hand, like his unnerved team mates did. Even Strange was frowning, although that might have been jealousy-driven. It was hard to tell with that guy.
“This might feel a little cold,” Loki warned the sorceress.
Nothing seemed to happen for a few long seconds. Then Wanda gasped, making everyone tense, and then she smiled and went, “Oh!”
Loki studied her face, and again he smiled.
“What are you doing?” Strange asked him.
“I can see... Oh... Is that how it is supposed to feel?” Wanda asked as she blinked several times, looking around her in wonder. Her accent was heavier, as if she was too distracted to remember the pronounciation of English.
“Miss Maximoff, I believe, was granted the gift of manipulating magic, without first learning to see and feel it”, Loki explained, as if teaching a class. “This would be the reason why she has difficulties controlling her seidr.”
“You're so... Green”, Wanda said, staring at Loki with wide eyes.
“Yes, I am. Thank you. Odin Allfather granted me the use of my magic while I serve as your teacher. I'll try not to let it distract you.”
There was a moment of uneasy silence dragging in the room. Nobody seemed to know what to do of this development -of Loki visibly doing what he had been brought here to do, and willingly at that. There was no reconciling the monster of New York and this man, and the discomfort was evident in the room as everyone tried and failed.
It had to be a trick. It had to, except Wanda looked so incredibly amazed, even as Loki released her hands and turned to face his public, and Strange in particular, like nothing had happened.
“Our seidr and your sort of sorcery are two different things, Doctor”, he explained lightly. “You tried your best. There's no reason to feel ashamed.”
“I don't.” He so did. And Loki looked smug, for a moment. It was a shockingly childish sort of look on him. Mischievious, yes, but not evil. And perhaps... Proud. Or satisfied?
Green eyes met Tony's for a moment, stopping his reflexions short as he froze. Loki grinned like he knew what Tony thought, and then he turned back to Wanda, all innocent again.
“It might take a little while, but you will learn to master it, I promise you. We can start as soon as now, if you are ready, but I must warn you that this will be an exhausting ordeal.”
“I'm ready!”
None of them could quite believe that this was happening, that they were really allowing the former supervillain to mentor their youngest recruit; but none of them could really formulate an actual opposition, and so it was.
---
Eventually, they got used to it.
They had to -because it was slow progress, and it would be taking a while, Loki had warned. In the first few days, everyone was tense, waiting for the moment when it would all blow up in their face. Whenever Loki showed up at breakfast table, all conversations stopped. When he went to sleep at night, Tony ordered Jarvis to watch him and warn them if he did anything even remotely suspicious. At least two Avengers were watching the courses taking place at all time, reluctant to leave Wanda alone.
But days passed. And nothing happened. And Wanda looked so excited, and happy. And for all that they kept looking at Loki with suspicions, and wondering when he would show his dark side again, the god seemed another man entirely. He was calm, dignified, reserved. He said please and thank you, and when he was with Wanda, he showed a personality that was patient and even kind.
If anything, that was more unnerving to the team -or at least to some of them, Clint the first of them. It was not that much of a stretch to imagine that Loki was trying to drive them crazy. "Did you truly not use anything other than your science, for Jarvis?" Loki asked one day. Tony didn't startle this time, but he did frown. "I don't see what else I would have used." "I don't see it either. It's rather fascinating," Loki shrugged. "Yeah, well. You're not the first to call me that, princess." After Loki had retreated, not even looking insulted, Tony looked up nervously at the ceiling. "Hey, J'. He's not being weird with you, right? You know you can give him only cold water in the shower if he's being weird." "I believe his behaviour uncharacteristic from our last observations, Sir, but not quite weird." Jarvis paused. "He is being quite polite, as a matter of fact." Well, nothing but that was weird. But Tony could not imagine what he would be trying to accomplish. For all that they could tell, he really was helping their young sorceress. After two weeks, Wanda was excited to tell them that she was starting to see the magic all around her.
“It really is everywhere”, she said, waving her hand a little like she was trying desperatly to come up with the words she needed to make them understand. “It's so -so alive. It feels impossible that I did not see it before.”
Her classes with Loki involved a lot of Loki casting spells and asking her to describe what she saw, and then teaching her about nuances and subtle differences. Even though it was quite a thing -quite a scary thing, in a way- to see Loki using his magic, it was near to impossible for them non-sorcerers to understand what he was talking about. After a while, even Strange grundgingly abandoned, claiming it was all nonsense.
Tony, though -Tony couldn't help himself.
Everyday, he sat down with the two of them in the living room. He was alone with them, by that point, with the justification of keeping Wanda safe. The two sorcerers usually worked from nine in the morning to the beginning of the afternoon, by which point they would go eat a truly enormous lunch. Loki advised his student to not work on her lessons for the rest of the afternoon, and to only give it a few minutes before going to sleep.
“There are limits to what you can accomplish in one day”, he would tell her patiently. “You are only mortal. It will come to you, but you must give it time. We do not want you getting yourself ill with too much effort.”
“How long did it take you?” Wanda questioned, sitting cross-legged on the couch. She had rapidly grown a lot more comfortable with the god than anybody else.
“My situation was a little different,” Loki replied patiently. “Magic was given to you. I was born with it.”
“You just used magic? Without practice?” Wanda looked a little jealous.
“I practiced a lot, I promise you.”
“'Tis true,” Thor said from the kitchen. “My brother has a lot of magic, but he did not become the mightiest seidrmadr in Asgard without work!”
The god occasionnally popped by to get a snack and just throw some encouragements Wanda's way. He punctuated his statement with a large smile and a wave, before heading back to his room with a bag of bacon chips. Shaking his head at the interruption, Tony was surprised to turn back to the pair and find Loki a little stiff. Looking more closely -were his cheeks red? Was he blushing?
“Mightiest in Asgard, uh?” He questioned, not sure he had seen right.
“Are you doubting me, Man of Iron? Surely you suspected Thor's father would have sent somebody else, were it possible.”
His tone was sarcastic and a little tense. It was the first time Loki looked upset since Thor had brought him in, something other than charming smiles and polite nods. Yet, amazingly, it was not a murder attempt.
“I wouldn't dare, princess,” Tony said, pensively. “I wouldn't dare for sure.”
“Don't be mean, Tony Stark,” Wanda intervened, before turning back to Loki. “So you needed long before you controlled your magic?”
“The more magic you own, the longer you need to master its full potential,” the god replied, though his eyes lingered a little on Tony. “I own... a lot. I still have work to do before I reach my full potential. But I was able to use most of my powers at will before I was two hundred years old. That is, early adulthood, or what you people refer to as the teen-aged years”, he added, finally turning back to Wanda and seeing her eyes widened in disbelief.
“So how long will it take me?” She asked.
“A few months. Perhaps a year”, Loki shrugged. “But you will make large progress before that long, you will see.”
Wanda grudgingly accepted, and the pair started again. Loki made a demonstration of using his magic to create colorful illusions of butterflies around his hands, and asked Wanda to try and tell whether he had given them a physical presence or not. Tony stared, trying to imagine a teenaged Loki, without madness in his eyes or sarcasm in his voice, sitting and learning with the same look of marvelling and joy as Wanda did now.
---
“Hey, Thor. Don't mind me asking, but, why does your brother look... happy?”
The god of Thunder looked down at him with a mighty frown. Tony figured he could have phrased that one better, but he couldn't bring himself to mind at the moment. The afternoon was well advanced. Wanda was watching TV with Pietro, resting. Loki was down at the gym, training with Natasha and Clint. (Nobody had been sure about that idea, but when it turned out that Loki wanted to train without his magic, and would willingly let the two spies team up on him and beat him up for it, well. Now it was a daily thing.)
“I do not understand your meaning, Anthony.”
“Your brother. Loki.”
“I know of him.”
“He seems happy, here. Like, pretty happy. Too happy for a guy living with his enemies. Why is that?”
Thor gave him another mighty frown. Tony had nobody but Pepper to thanks for his ability to face it without flinching. Eventually, the god of Thunder seemed to deflate, sighing a sigh that would have been a two on a hurricane scale.
“Sit,” he invited Tony with a vague gesture of his hand. “Why do you care?”
“I don't know,” Tony said, spreading his arms as he sat on one of the leather couch. “It seems odd to me. Also, it's a good look on him, you know -the smiling. I'm just wondering if that's how he normally is.”
Thor seemed to think, eyebrows furrowed for a little while, before he slowly shook his head. Tony was not sure if it was refusal to answer or denial, but after a few seconds, Thor clarified for himself.
“No,” he said. He sounded regretful, somehow. “I did not see my brother smiling much in the last few centuries. It is only when I saw rage and despair on his face that I realised how long it had been since he seemed happy.”
“Ah.” Well, Tony had some thoughts on not noticing that your little brother was slowly turning into a jealous, dangerous, homicidal maniac, but that was not his to say. “So how come he's happy now? It can't be because we defeated him.”
“It is no plot of his, if that is what you fear,” Thor said with a severe glance his way. When Tony gave him a 'really, you think that badly of me?' look that didn't seem to convince him, but he carried on after a sigh. “I will not allow you to mock him or try to reverse this change, Anthony.”
“I'm not planning anything that bad. I'm not that much of an asshole,” Tony protested. “I just want to know. Just tell me, Thor.”
“It is his magic,” the god begrundgingly said, after a last moment's thoughts. “I can see nothing other. Mages are not sought or loved, in Asgard, men even less than women. It is not- not a worthy cause to seek. There is a lot of it that you cannot understand.”
That was an understatement, from what Tony understood. He'd briefly heard Loki breach the subject with Wanda, when she had wondered if her gift was common in Asgard. Though the god had spoken of it like it didn't matter, with vague detachment, Tony had understood that most wives in Asgard were expected to know the smallest basics of magic, but that it was poorly seen to practice more. Volur, which were some kind of seeresses or something, he had figured, were feared and respected, some kind of pariah that you would insult, but only behind their back, because they freaked you out a little.
“When I came to Asgard to tell my father that Midgard was in need of a mighty mage to teach Wanda control,” Thor carried on, “he could not understand why. Loki didn't believe me, at first, responding that he didn't expect mockery from me. He was -he was not given opportunity enough to show his skill in the past, my friend. I know he will not betray Wanda, for he is truly happy to see a student of seidr as serious as he once was.”
“And just for that, he would give up on his grudge? Against you, against us?” Tony couldn't help but wonder, still sceptical.
“If you knew my brother like I do, Man of Iron, you would not doubt this,” Thor replied gravely. “There is a wonderful man beneath the surface you know. He is proud, yes. But he knows when to make the right choice. You merely cannot see it.”
Tony realised, as he was leaving the god to head back downstairs, that that was maybe the problem. He was coming to see him, that wonderful man. He was just not sure what to do with it.
Magic, uh? Magic made him happy?
---
“So, magic. How did you learn it?”
It was the beginning of the month. April, New York gray with melted snow and blue with sunny skies. Wanda had taken a day off her studies, with Loki's blessing, to go outside with her brother. The god, perhaps out of habit, sat in the living room with an Asgardian book. At Tony's interruption, he lifted his eyes and squinted slightly.
“I am not sure what you are hoping to accomplish today, Anthony Stark. My pupil is out, enjoying the sun. Surely you do not expect me to attempt to her life now?”
His eyes glinted, sharp and careful. Retreated behind a mask, or bleached of his make-up.
Tony twisted his fingers at his side. He somehow wished he had magic, too. He wondered how Loki would treat him, then.
“Just asking, Princess. Out of curiosity. I'm trying to be civil, in case you didn't recognise that's what this is.”
The god seemed to size him up, staying perfectly immobile, eyes unblinking. He was eating and sleeping regularly, Jarvis told Tony as much, and he was looking better now, after being out of jail for nearly two months. The bags under his eyes were gone. His skin, though pale, didn't look as waxy as before. Tony didn't know why it made him feel so satisfied.
“Why,” the god enunciated slowly, “would you care?”
“Why not? I like knowing stuff,” Tony observed.
Another brief silence. Green, green eyes. Did he train to make his look so intense? How did he shift from being so easy-going with Wanda to being so distant? Polite, yes, but so cold. Why did he insist on being such a mystery? Or wasn't it on purpose?
“I practiced,” Loki said, quietly. “For many centuries. There is no mystery in this.”
“It sounds easy, when you put it that way. It's not, though. Give the human a chance, here,” he invited, with a dramatic hand-gesture. “What does it even mean, practicing? You can practice running or talking another language, not shape-shifting or making butterflies with light.”
“Well, now. My entire life is a lie.”
Oh, the sass. The sass was back. What was Loki? The polite or the sarcastic? The smiling or the detached? Was he all those things at the same time? It was maddening. It was fascinating.
“I've seen you with Wanda,” he said, affecting a more polite tone himself, trying to help his case. “I know that you tell her to -focus, on energy, and... stuff. But I don't get it.”
“You have no magic,” Loki huffed, turning his eyes away at last. “Those things are not relevant to you, nor do I see why you pretend to wonder so much of them. Were you not the one protesting that magic was cheating, not three days back?”
“I was -wait, I was talking to Strange, then. Were you spying on us?”
His perplexed voice at least made Loki look back at him, if briefly, before he shrugged vaguely and feigned to return to his book. Tony thought for a moment, rewinding the god's last words in his mind.
“Look,” he said, after a few instants, pretending not to see when the god raised a pointed look at him. “I'm not pretending. I'm honestly curious. I want to understand, because it's just so -it makes no sense at all to me. You're teaching Wanda. Why not me?”
“You have no magic,” Loki repeated, now frowning. “There's no reason to teach you.”
“But I could learn,” Tony protested. “You said so before, right? That people could learn, even if they didn't have their own, uh, magic core-”
“Center.”
“That. I could learn like she does. You could teach me.”
“That is more work than you think. Wanda must learn for her own sake. You have no such need. I do not see why you would think to waste both our time for this,” Loki said, a little more drily than before. “I am trying to read, Stark, am I not?”
“Loki -please. Can you teach me?”
Again, those eyes on him. Wide. Silence. Tony met them, wondering if Loki could see that he was telling the truth. Wondering if it was the 'please' that surprised him, or his genuine interest.
“I want to learn,” he said again. “I've been trying those exercices you told her about. It's not working. But I want to learn, and if someone can teach me, you can.”
“But why,” Loki said, and there was the smallest pause, a quick blink, “would I want to?”
“Why are you teaching Wanda?”
“Because it allows me out of my cell,” came the reply, just the smallest bit too fast, or too dry.
“Well,” Tony smiled.
---
“You told me before that one could practice running, or speaking a foreign language, but that you could not imagine practicing magic. That is where I blame you for having no imagination.”
“Rude, and not true.”
“Keep your back straight and your breath even, Anthony Stark. Your eyes should be shut and at rest.”
“I thought you told Strange his meditating thing was not the Asgardian way. You just want to insult me.”
Loki shot him a pointed look. Tony grumbled as he sat a little more straight, taking a deep breath. He heard Clint and Wanda giggling from the couch. He was taking note of the archer's asshole attitude. And here he had thought he would have needed to convince Clint that Loki would not harm him. Ah. Talk about friends. A month of beating up Loki and Clint was warming up to him. Who was being manipulated now?
“Meditation to reach into another dimension is not the way of a seidrmaðr,” Loki said, “but it brings up a state of mind ideal to this sort of work. If you are not up to it, then merely tell me, Anthony Stark.”
“Fine, fine, I'm meditating, now. What's next?”
“Magic,” Loki started again, like there had been no interruption, “is running and learning a foreign language. It is memory, control, endurance. It is stretching your mind to look at the world in a new way and teaching your body a sort of movement it never imagined.”
“Now how do I do it?”
“Anthony Stark.”
The way he said his name -even in that reproachful way- was growing more disturbing each time. Tony sort of wished he had told him to change it the first time, to just go for 'Tony', yet he craved each sound of rebutal. He shuddered when cold hands closed on his shoulders. Loki's fingers were long, but didn't press hard into his flesh. It was unnerving and nice.
“I will show you my magic,” Loki told him, closer than expected. “You will feel it, sensations that your brain will try to comprehend. Your task is to understand it. This, Wanda can do. When you reach her level, then you will be ready to move on to the next step.”
“Instructions unclear.”
“Your spirit and your body work together to understand situational informations,” Loki said patiently. “Your nerves recognise warmth and pain and your brain sees a flame. You walk in something cold and wet and you know it is water. Now, your task is to comprehend this.”
As he spoke the final word, his fingers seemed to tighten into Tony's shoulders -except they didn't, not really. It felt a little like it, but then it was a spike, and he thought it was pain at first, and he went to cry out, but then he realised that was not it, either. It was -it was feeling the light or smelling a color and he felt it, so strong, so obvious, but he had no words in his mind to figure out, to make sense of it all.
“Hush now. Don't rush it. This will take a while. Hush, Anthony Stark.”
Tony realised he was panting, eyes wide open. The sensation had withdrawn, leaving him -shaken, his nerves felt like something had burned in them, but there was no heat.
“Oh,” he stammered. “Uh-ah. That's -that's weird.”
“Any other descriptive that comes to mind?” Loki sounded a little sassy now. Tony could hear his smirk. Oh, this was weird in an entirely different way. The hands left his shoulders and he shivered.
“It's, uh -it's strange”, he managed. “Can you do it again? I was close enough, I think.”
“Not now,” Loki said, voice full of satisfaction. “You need some rest. We'll try again tomorrow, if you feel up to it. I don't expect you to get through this exercice before two months, perhaps longer.”
It was a challenge, issued shamelessly. Loki's eyes were glinting, not mad but happy, when Tony met them briefly. There was pride and excitation and defying amusement in those green gems, a young man full of a life that Tony wanted to understand. Then Loki looked away, still smiling faintly, and turned to Wanda, offering to carry on with their lesson. Tony was being dismissed. He didn't want to think too hard on the little pinch of jealousy he felt in his stomach at that. Must have been a remain of the weird magic thing.
No matter. He had no time to waste.
Tomorrow, uh? Tony could do in a week what anyone else could do in two months.
---
On day two and three, Tony figured out more things that Loki's magic were not. It wasn't like pain, even though it shocked. It was not warm, even though it burned. It was not like metal, even though it tasted sharp.
On day four, he figured out his first victory.
“Green,” he proclaimed, panting and triumphant. “It's so green.”
Loki had been turning away already. He looked back at Tony, a look of surprise on his face. It was a very open reaction. It looked good on him -emotions. Tony was counting how many he had seen him showing, and he was proud of each added number.
“True enough,” Loki replied simply, with a tiny twist of his lips corner. “Not an entire description. But true enough. Keep trying, Stark.”
And it was clear that he had not expected that Tony would, not so. But each day, he showed up in the living room, and he waited stubbornly for Loki to do his trick, hands on his shoulder and magic in his body. Each day, Loki seemed less suspicious and more pleased with his presence.
On day five, Tony gave out a laugh, happy and disbelieving, as he solved another part of the puzzle, so obvious and so beautiful.
“It's cold,” he said, delighted. “It's like snow, it's -it's alive and biting and fresh, and -how do you do it? How is it so -why does it look that much like you?”
“I think you're in a little bit of a shock, Anthony Stark,” Loki replied. But he adverted his eyes, something he never did, and Tony thought he saw his lips curling up. “You still have a little bit of work to do.”
Tony didn't complain. Because he wanted to. Because he was longing for more and more and more of Loki's magic and his smile and he felt so annoyed when Loki turned back to Wanda and he had no more reasons to take his attention on himself, even as he stayed with them. And it was so strange, because Loki looked at Wanda the way one looked at a child, at their own child, with absurd pride, and it was weird and somewhat cute and it was part of Tony's own interest in Loki, in a way. But he was -jealous.
On day seven, he found Loki alone in the living room, reading.
“Wanda is taking a day off,” the god said simply. “Barton and Romanoff were called in by SHIELD. We can do this another time, if you do not want to be left alone with me.”
“No,” Tony said. “I want to.”
“You're very stubborn indeed.” Loki folded his legs gracefully, lowering his book. It was a huge tome, something heavy bound with leather, and Tony didn't realise until a few seconds later that Loki had taken it from the Tower's library. He felt both irritation and irrational joy at noticing it. It was a strange combination of feelings he was getting to know well. “What are you hoping to accomplish?”
“I want to understand.”
“You want to understand magic? Just for the sake of understanding?”
“I like understanding. Is that so weird? The way Thor taks about you, I thought you'd get it.”
“What is that to mean?”
The light tone turned sour as Loki closed the book and put it aside. A study of American litterature. He didn't seem to see the irony. Tony lifted his hands in his best show of good faith.
“Just that you seemed like a pretty scholarly type, before, you know, the whole invasion thing. No insult there. I feel more affinity with that than with Thor's warrior ways, really. I'm more a nerd than a jock myself, if you see what I mean.”
Loki raised an eyebrow at him in what was surely meant to be contempt. But Tony could almost see the gears turning inside his head. His heart beat, hard, for some reason, as he waited. Eventually, the god seemed to decide that the conversation was over.
“Sit down,” he said. “Let's see what else you can figure out.”
---
“So, Tony. I think we need to have a talk, you and I.”
“Oh god, Rogers, don't do that to me. I'm twice your age.”
Steve gave him a stare underneath a raised eyebrow. Tony sank back in his chair with a grimace, sipping his coffee vindicatively, to let the Captain know he was only complying because he knew resistance was futile.
“In case you forgot, I have a lot of projects to update. You'll have to let me into my lab eventually, for the good of the team.”
“You've been working very late, these last few days,” Steve said with a pointed look.
“Well, yeah. Sorry I'm dedicated.”
“You're spending a lot of time with Loki. I didn't know you were interested in magic.”
That part was... Unexpected. Tony had no immediate comeback. It had been so obvious from the start that nobody wanted to babysit Loki that he had never seen it as a topic of disagreement. He looked toward the living room, where the god was reading, again, looking innocuous. It was hard to tell if he was close enough to hear or not, with his godly senses. It was a little unnerving.
“Well, I'm full of surprises,” he eventually managed, looking back at Rogers. “What's your complain? I thought we were done with the fear for manipulation. Even Clint's pretty chill with him now.”
“Tony...”
“What? He takes great care of Wanda, no?”
“Tony. I was just going to say...” Steve looked somewhere between exasperated, which was not unusual, and... amused? “Just... Don't do anything stupid. You know Fury will be incredibly pissed. And Thor doesn't understand what's been going on. You should be careful.”
“What? Wait -what does that mean? What does Thor have to do with this?” Tony protested, startled by this angle of attack. Thor was aware that Loki was teaching him magic, wasn't he? So what was the big deal? But Steve merely shook his head slightly and glanced toward the living room.
“Don't let him toy with you too much, is what I'm saying. You know I won't say anything against it, but -just take care of yourself, Tony. You know how you can be when you're in too deep.”
Tony didn't know what to reply at all those implications -that he was in too deep, that Rogers said he somehow knew when he was in too deep and how he was then, and then, that idea of Loki toying with him- so he said nothing, startled, as Steve stood and walked off. When he looked in Loki's direction, he was shocked to see an almost invisible smile upon his lips. Somehow, he didn't think it was the book, and it made his stomach do something funny in his belly.
He straightened up before he could ask his legs what they were doing, and then he was in the living room, looking down at Loki. The god looked up at him. His eyes. How those eyes sparkled. Tony wanted to smile, suddenly, so impossibly satisfied to be the cause of this look.
“What is it, Anthony Stark?” Loki asked, innocently, as if there wasn't a sky full of shooting stars in his eyes. “Are you having trouble with the meditation exercices I gave you?”
“You know I do.”
“Yes,” Loki smiled. “I know.”
This was a murderer, a former nerd kid, a genius sorcerer. A man whose smile Tony wanted to look at, endlessly, like it was an enigma he wouldn't solve. He was not even shocked, not really. Somehow Rogers had figured him out ahead of him -but it had been obvious for a while, hadn't it?
“Mind if I sit there?” He asked after a few beats.
“Why, this is your house. Why ask permission to use your own furnitures?”
“Mind if I sit with you?”
“Are you hoping to learn from my mere presence? Magic-wielding is not a process one can master through osmosis, I am afraid.”
“Do you want me to sit with you?”
This time, Loki did not bite back. He merely met Tony's eyes, and then his smile curled up bigger, showing a dimple in his left cheek.
“You're welcome by my side, Anthony Stark.”
So Tony sat down, and turned on the TV, and Loki said nothing, and he kept reading. It was weird and nice. He'd never be one to stay still -but right now, it was... Yeah. Nice.
---
Then it happened like this: Wanda was sick.
She got up one morning complaining about a headache. By early afternoon, she had a burning fever. She threw up after trying to eat. On the next day, she was feeling just as terrible, looking ashen pale.
“What is it?” Fury demanded to know, on the comms. “She'll be fine?”
“It's probably just a virus,” Steve reasoned. “She's resting as much as possible right now. Hopefully, she will be better soon.”
“Is that what the doctor said?”
“She said that it was hard to tell,” the Captain admitted. “But there's no reason that it would be anything else.”
“Mmh,” Fury said, grimly. And then he said what nobody had wanted to say: “How do we know it's not his magic thing?”
“My brother has no ill intentions,” Thor protested immediately.
“We have no reasons to think that Loki would hurt Wanda, Sir,” Steve said.
“Keep close watch,” Fury simply ordered, and cut the comm. “Until she's better, he doesn't get anywhere close to her.” There was tense silence as nobody looked at the god sitting in one couch, reading, maybe pretending to, standing very straight.
“Fury's a dick,” Tony said, after a long few seconds. It hurt to see Wanda hurting. He had never understood how bad it was to see someone you cared for in pain, having nothing to do but wait. He wanted her to be better, right now. But he looked at Loki, and tried to be the voice of reason they needed to comfort them for now. “She'll be better real quick. My doctor is the best you can find, and we have the combined might of Bruce and Strange to help. She'll be up in a few days and you'll get to teach her again.”
“I see not why you believe I need the reassurance,” Loki said, without looking up from his book.
There was not much to add after that. There was not much to do, other than wait.
---
A day passed. Another one. Wanda took pills to help her sleep. Her fever kept burning. She managed to drink water, but eating anything heavier than broth was out of question. Whatever it was, it was biting, and hard. Nobody in the Tower showed any symptoms. Nothing the doctor could see would let her identify the source of the sickness.
After a week, everybody was losing patience. Clint and Natasha were the best at hiding it, but even they were worrying night and day. Everyone was careful to be quiet, to let her rest, with Pietro at her side. Everyone waited for updates. Everyone was on the edge.
Loki kept away. So much that it was an absolute accident when Tony stumbled upon him in the kitchen, late in the afternoon. Loki was boiling water for tea. Tony was looking at a tablet, trying to work on a project to keep his mind busy. He bumped into the god's shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said, though he felt annoyed.
“Yes, sorry,” Loki said, though he sounded dry and sarcastic.
Tony gritted his teeth and walked past him to get himself a bowl and a box of cereals. As he poured the content of the box into the bowl, the kettle started to hiss, a loud and annoying sound.
“I think your water is hot, Loki,” he said.
“Oh, thank you.”
“Wanda is trying to sleep, you know,” Tony snapped, irritated at the passive-agressive attitude, irritated at his own distress, irritated at the cereals falling on the counter.
“For all the good it does her, to be drugged with your primitive medecine. She was throwing up not half an hour ago. Not that you would know, locked up away as you were.”
His tone was so cold, it was hard to believe just how accusative he had dared to be. Tony was too shocked to react at first, and then he cursed, slamming the cereal box on the counter.
“Okay, genius. You think you care about her? You think you care more than we do? Show us how well you would do, then! While you're playing your jealousy games, I don't see you helping.”
“I am not jealous.”
“Oh, please. You think I don't see you playing victim? Boo-hoo, Thor was the favorite son. Well get over it, Loki! It was cute when you were playing coy with me, but Wanda is sick now and I won't have you acting like it's our fault she won't admire you!”
The poison in his words was out of him as soon as he had spoken them; and he immediately knew just how far he had gone past the line. Loki's eyes were wide, not with surprise, but with something harder. His lips thinned and blanched as he tensed, and then he smiled, a sickly smile.
“I was not aware that we had been playing, Stark. All I saw were your pitiful attempts at making everything about you, again and again and again. Well now the girl is out of the way, and me kept from her while you shove your head in the sand, so what is the issue? Is it that you don't like my attention now that you have it? Is it that you are finally realising that you never wanted it at all?”
“Loki, wait,” Tony tried, but the god was stepping away, his hands curled into tight fists.
“No. I know not what sort of games you thought you were playing with me, but I will have no more of it. Wanda is in pain, and I could help, but none of you will let me approach her in case I am the culprit, in case I am the sort of lowlife that would take revenge on the young and helpless-”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Tony said again, loud enough that Loki stopped for a second, “you can help her? All this time, you can help her, and you said nothing at all?!”
“Oh please!” Loki lost his cool. There was pain and anger painted over his face, so expressive where it had been so smooth a second ago, and Tony almost took a step back as his voice broke on his words, uncharacteristic. “As if you would -as if any of you would let me at her side now -as if the lot of you were not suspecting me, making Thor tell me to stay aside so not to offend you!”
“Loki, nobody did that, you paranoid basta- no, look, look, wait!” Tony interrupted himself, seeing the look in Loki's eyes, and not liking it. He stepped forward, and his hands went to his shoulders, and though he had half expected to be killed on the spot, he only felt narrow, tense muscle underneath his fingers, Loki's body shaking minutely. He didn't let himself wait to start again: “Loki, this is absurd. I trust you. Everyone, Steve -you know even Clint is starting to like you. What is that about? Of course we want you healing Wanda if you can!”
“Spare me your false words,” Loki snapped, but his voice was not anger. “You are running out of options is what is happening-”
“I never knew it was an option! Look -look, Loki, I've seen you with Wanda. I'm not -look, I'm sorry for everything I've said, or not said, or -this didn't feel so complicated to me, okay? I just -I was playing games because I liked you and I thought you did too, and I like seeing you with Wanda. Sure, I may be, uh, maybe a little bit, not quite jealous, but, I may take a lot of space-”
“You would allow me at her side?”
“Of fucking course. You know nobody cares what Fury says. This is my house, Loki.”
Loki didn't answer immediately. He seemed uncertain, and Tony thought this was more expressions than ever before on his face in such a short time, but it was not the way he liked it, not with distress and anger. There was only the sound of breathing, and Tony realised Loki was not shaking anymore. He was.
“I thought you knew how we thought of you, Loki,” he said again, more quietly, as he let go of his shoulders carefully. “How I thought of you. And Wanda.”
“You need attention and she needs a teacher,” Loki said, but he turned his head while he did, to avoid his eyes. “I need distraction and illusions.”
There was probably some layer to that that Tony didn't understand. That he would have to understand, someday. But he had never felt more stupid for not caring enough earlier. He bit his lips, still ashamed of his reaction of anger, still shaken from Loki's.
“Look. Please. If you know what she has, then help her.”
“It's not a lie, that I am to blame,” Loki said, after a beat. “Her practice of magic is taking a lot of energy. It leaves her much more vulnerable to illnesses.”
“You told her to rest.”
“I did not insist enough. She should not have been up so late, with her brother, everyday. She should have not practiced so much as she did.”
“Can you heal her? Beating yourself up for her is not helping, Loki.”
“I'll do my best, if you let me, Anthony Stark,” the god said, still not quite looking at him in the eye. But Tony felt unspeakable relief, as he was quietly confirmed that not everything was broken, not just because they were two idiots that were bad at communication.
Loki called him by his full name again.
---
“How is she?”
“Improving. She's tired, but the fever is almost fallen. She should be able to get out of bed tomorrow, maybe take a shower, a solid breakfast.”
“Nothing to add, Strange?”
“You do know I am a neurosurgeon, Stark, not a nurse?”
Bruce rolled his eyes and put away the thermometer as Tony and Strange exchanged one of their traditional glaring contest. He waved at Loki while walking past him, and the god nodded simply without looking away from the heavy book he was reading. Was that one from Tony's library? Mh. No complain to make, Bruce decided. Wanda was finally improving, after a week of merely not getting worse. He had nothing to protest there.
After Strange headed out, Tony sat back next to Loki, and turned on the TV. He watched. Loki read. They did not say anything, for a couple of minutes.
Tony rested his head on Loki's shoulder.
“That must be uncomfortable.”
“Is it?”
“There is a pillow right next to you. My shoulder is surely not this pleasant a support that you would choose it instead.”
“You have so much to learn about intimacy, Loki.”
“You are a terrible student of magic, Anthony Stark.”
“At least I try.”
“You do, yes.”
“Lesson number one. Be open about feelings.”
“We shall spend a long time on lesson one, I do fear.”
“We have time. I'm not good at magic, as you put it.”
Loki smiled, looking down at him with something like exasperation, or fondness.
“I like you, Anthony Stark. It is nice, spending time in your company. I know not why, but I find myself waiting for your annoying bantering and quiet presence. Is this a good sample of openness?”
“It's a start, yes,” Tony decided. “And you know what, Loki?”
“I don't suppose you will tell me?”
“I like you, too.”
---
It all started like this:
“What the hell is he doing here?!”
“Why, but, my friend, you said yourself that you would welcome my brother's help, if he were to offer it!”
“You said what, Stark?!”
And then Stark Tower was stuck with one more dangerous asshole going as he pleased around the place, and Tony was sort of to blame for it. And before long, well. There were unexpected side-effects.
Nice side-effects.