Work Text:
Loki visited nearly every day that week. It wasn't like either of them had many friends, right now. When Loki was done consulting with Heimdall, when hospital visiting hours were over, there was nothing else compelling their attention.
Sometimes they talked, and sometimes Loki just watched as Tony worked himself deep into the gut of some machine or other, muttering to himself, sometimes asking the space around him for a reading or a tool. FRIDAY and the bots responded.
The bots were fascinating to listen to, in Allspeak. They had no overt linguistic output, but they spoke, nonetheless. The undertones were simple yet earnest. FRIDAY, on the other hand, spoke in little twists of shorthand and reference, like Tony, learning complexity as she went. Curiosity permeated the space behind her words.
But Tony was the most gratifying to listen to, because slowly the resonance and the confidence came back into his voice, as they talked.
All Loki had to do was listen. All Loki had to do was stay. All Loki had to do was what he'd wished, for so long, someone would do for him.
"They have minds, these creatures you've created," Loki commented one day. "They speak. Even the most potent of magical creations in the other realms do not have this. Mjolnir has perception, but no voice. No will of its own. Even your Dummy has more than that. You've created wonders. You've created life, free will."
Tony snorted. "Yeah, and look what's happened because I did that." Ultron, Johannesburg, Sokovia, the departure of Bruce. Of Pepper. The whole team falling apart, exploding like the time bomb his best friend had pegged it as from the beginning. So much pain, and he traced it all back to himself. Loki could hear it all, had become extremely adept at hearing what stood behind Tony Stark's words.
But Ultron truly came back to the staff that Loki had brought to Earth.
"Even godhood has its limits," he told Tony, sitting down, leaning against the car that Tony was buried in, "and you must recognize yours. Ultron was never truly one of your creations."
"Oh, really?" Tony asked, without extricating himself. "Then who would you say created Ultron, truly?" The sarcasm was thick and murky.
Loki inclined his head, acknowledging the doubt. "There are many factors," he said, "as in any creation so complex. You were, of course, one of them. But the staff, the Mind Gem, was, perhaps, a larger one. The staff has a mind of its own, by nature. That is the first thing you must know. All the infinity stones do, but particularly that one. The Mind Gem. It... twists things, to its own power." Loki shuddered a little clasping his hands together, then took a breath and continued. "It created Ultron for itself, I suspect, just as Ultron created the body of Vision, with the Mind Gem, for himself. The deception, that he was somehow your Ultron, was, in great part, only one of the gem's twists. It was only the singularly strong personality of your greatest achievement, JARVIS, that stopped Vision from becoming only what the Mind Gem intended itself to be - itself, embodied, empowered. The Infinity Stones gravitate towards those who will use them to take power, because they were created for the purpose of power, and they long to be used. JARVIS... if I understand correctly... JARVIS was the embodiment of all the limits you saw necessary to put on your own inclination to use power. Fusing him with the home the Mind Gem had made for itself was... possibly the only way that the gem could be made safe for the people of this planet. Norns know, none of them have ever been truly kept safely in check, not while in use, not on an inhabited world. Not around other thinking beings. You... saved the world, from the Mind Gem."
Tony had emerged during this and was now squatting next to Loki, peering at him. Questions swirled through Tony's head, so fast that Loki could hear them go by, but not make them out. Finally he said, "That's some theory." How could you possibly know all of that?
Loki heaved a sigh. "Of the Infinity Stones, Asgard keeps a history. Of the Mind Gem... I had my own tricks, when I first came into contact with it. I survived its influence better than most would have, and saw more than it wished me to. Thanos used it, as it used him, but Thanos wants some things more than power. He wants death. So he was able to send it away, hoping that it would cause Earth's civilization to implode. And it almost did, although I was able to delay it somewhat, at the expense of my own sanity."
Tony watched in silence now, all attention on Loki, his eyes gone marginally softer and sadder.
"When the Stone came here," Loki told him, "it put people under my power, as Thanos had said it would. Except for you. Perhaps because it sensed you would be more useful as a tool if allowed your head, allowed your own will and tendency to accumulate power. But when you sacrificed yourself, proving yourself too principled to be manipulated outright into taking power, it engineered a more circuitous route - falling into Hydra hands, creating the Scarlet Witch, using her to manipulate you into helping it gain a powerful body. If it failed, it would still have Hydra, it would still have Wanda. Powerful destructive forces in their own right. Both have done a great deal of damage on Earth since I was last here, I know. But the body Vision was its ultimate goal, its dream made flesh, and you tricked it, trapped it inside of a mind more principled even than yours."
"Huh." Tony blinked at him. "So I'm like Aladdin, I rubbed the lamp, yeah, but at the end of it all at least I put the genie back in the right bottle?" He sat, his eyes going back to the tool in his hands as he pondered that.
"Apt," Loki agreed. "Its own ambition trapped it in the end, perhaps the only thing that could. There are things too big for any of us, in this universe. As we are gods to the average human, we are ants to greater forces. There are layers and layers and layers of control. Even those of us who appear to have a great deal of power, there is only so much we can control. There are too many factors, too many influences to account for. And I think, in the final count, that you have done more good than harm."
"And you?" Tony asked bluntly.
"All I can say for myself is that I did what I could, when I had the presence of mind to do so. Which has been not nearly enough."
Tony looked like he wanted so badly to be angry, but just couldn't be. The muscles around his eyes twitched. Thoughts churned in his mind, were almost spoken, were discarded.
I should be as mad at you as I was at Bucky. You killed someone I needed.
I hated Captain America so much for taking my dad from me. But then Cap started to be important to me too. And then Bucky took him away from me. Took them all away.
But when I think it through, I don't know that there's anyone I can blame.
You know, I kind of hate that you make me think these things through.
But I keep coming back to blaming myself, because if I can't control myself, what even is my life? How is it even mine?
"How do you deal with that?"
Loki chuckled darkly, looking down. "Go mad and stay mad," he said, "or pick yourself up and keep trying. But I think you know that even better than I."
Tony groaned, let his head thunk back against the car door. "No magic that gets you out of that tight spot, huh, North Pole?" reindeer games/ice/void-cold/he sees you when you're sleeping/the gifts you've given, the things I needed most/but not this, and it was top of my list.
He laughed again, a little softer now, but still bitter. "I think wishing to change the nature of people and their influence over others is where the magic came from that started this mess. Created the Stones." Not that lies and manipulation can't do the job just as handily. Look at us both, how we were lied to, how it broke us before we ever met the Mind Gem. "But as long as there have been thinking creatures, we have been dangerous to each other."
"Oh, I believe it." You're dangerous to me. But I don't think I could do this without you. People need each other. No matter the risk. No matter what they've done in the past. "So the gem got into your head? That's what the whole 'kneel before me' performance was about?"
Loki sighed. "And Thanos's torture, and the secrets kept from me by those on Asgard. The pressures to be like the Aesir, to follow in Odin's footsteps. Too many factors to count. Too many to calculate. How much is me? By what measure am I a being that can be trusted?"
"And if you were, how long would that last?" Things can always spiral out of control again.
"Exactly," Loki agreed. "So. Given all of this. How much can people ever really trust each other?" How much could you ever come to trust me?
"Only about as much as we can ever trust ourselves." I could come to trust you as much as I trust myself. Which, in the end, isn't all that much.
Loki rather approved, really. "I couldn't have said it better myself."
Tony sighed, turned his head towards Loki. "Now what?" he asked.
Loki thought about that. Thought about small steps, normalcy, caring. How long Tony had spent buried in his work of late. "As a good host," he answered, "you should offer me food."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, Jeepers Creepers. Invite yourself for dinner, why don't you." I guess other people get to have good ideas too, once in a while.
He set down his tools, and ordered food for them both.