How Anticlimactic
Upon hearing J.A.R.V.I.S's announcement, Tony panicked and quickly dashed out of his bedroom, where he was watching TV before his AI notified Loki of an intruder. He heard footsteps coming towards the common room and sighed heavier than he ever had in his life when he saw who it was. Natasha Romanoff was standing in front of him, smirking a bit like she was trying not to laugh.
"Damn it, Nat!" Tony exclaimed. "You scared the hell out of me. Why are you here?"
"Thor told me to check on his brother, and after some searching, I found out he was here," Natasha replied smoothly. "Tell me, why are you housing a guy who threw you out of your own window?"
"It's complicated," Tony sighed. "He said he'd help me in whatever way I wanted if I helped him hide from two creepy aliens."
"And who are those creepy aliens? Should I be concerned about that?"
"Yes, yes you should. Because it turns out that one of them is incredibly powerful and is bent on destroying Earth once he has everything he needs to do it."
Natasha paused for a moment to process that. She eventually said, "Well, that's not the craziest thing I've heard. Who is this guy and why does he want to destroy the world?"
"You know what, I'll have Loki explain it all to you," Tony replied. "Just don't do anything that might startle him. He's a bit jumpy right now. Reindeer Games, come down here!"
A bit tentatively, Loki went down into the common room where Natasha and Tony were. Natasha's breath hitched when she saw the state Loki was in. She wanted to say so many things but decided on just saying, "Do you Asgardians ever get your hair cut?"
"I didn't expect to see you," Loki said quietly. "Why are you here? Did Thor send you?"
Natasha nodded and said, "He wanted to know how you were."
Loki gave a bitter laugh and said, "That's funny. What's the real reason why he sent you?"
"That is the real reason."
Loki went silent. After collecting himself he said, "I'm fine."
"You don't look like you're fine. You look like hell. Like you've been starved or something. What happened to you?"
"Natasha, don't," Tony warned. "He's kind of unstable right now. I mean, more unstable than he usually is. Loki, explain the situation with Thanos to her."
Natasha listened carefully to everything Loki told her about the Mad Titan, nodding and holding her questions until he was finished. "Could you tell me more about these Infinity Gems? I still don't know much about them."
"There are six Infinity Gems - Power, Space, Soul, Reality, Time, and Mind," Loki said. "Power gives the wearer of the Infinity Gauntlet increased strength and stamina, as well as the ability to manipulate energy. Time gives one the ability to time travel, speed up, slow, or stop time. It also allows the user to speed up or slow aging, as well as see into the future. Space allows one to travel through space. With the Soul gem, one can attack or steal souls. The Reality gem does what its name implies - altering reality. Lastly, the Mind gem gives one psychic abilities and the ability to control the minds of other people. The scepter I used to mind-control your partner contains the Mind gem."
Natasha was silent for a few moments as she took in everything Loki had just told her. "So this guy - well, this Titan - is close to having unlimited power over six important aspects of life as we know it. Great. Well, I hope you're not lying to me, considering you're supposed to be the god of lies."
"Why would I lie to someone who can easily detect lies?" Loki said. "That would be pointless. Besides, it would be hard to lie about something so complicated. I heard from Thor that Odin made you mortal until you can redeem yourself. How do you plan to do that?"
Loki was about to say something but Tony cut him off with, "He's kind of already working on that a little at a time. It turns out that he's really good with technology. In fact, he hacked my computer to tell me about what was going on and why he needed a place to hide. I decided to give him something to do because of how bored he was - take down Ten Rings websites and websites distributing illegal stuff. He took down hundreds of bad websites, including websites sharing child pornography. He actually seemed to enjoy doing so, so maybe even though he's a war criminal, he's not all bad."
"You're trusting him a bit too easily, Tony," Natasha remarked. "How do you know he's not going to betray you? He knows how to manipulate people."
"I would be rather stupid if I were planning on betraying him," Loki scoffed. "If I did so, he'd have his team come after me and put my head on a silver platter. Therefore, Agent Romanoff, your assumptions are incorrect."
Natasha raised her hands and said, "Sorry. I'm just trying to keep an eye out for Tony. I'll be leaving now - I just had to see how you were doing."
The assassin left the tower, and Tony said to Loki, "I don't think you're lying. You'd have to put a lot of work into lying about something so complicated. You know, you really need to take a shower. Your hair is more matted than a Persian cat's fur. Oh, I totally forgot - I need to get some chocolate for you. What kind would you like? I don't know the varieties they have on Asgard, but here on Earth, there are a few types and most of them are really good. There's dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate, which technically isn't chocolate, but whatever. Some chocolates have fillings like raspberry, cherry, or caramel, and some contain bits of fruit like cherries or nuts like almonds."
Loki's eyes widened at all the options and he took a few moments to think over everything Tony had said. "I'd like some dark chocolate please, and also some chocolate with cherries - well, if that's not too much to ask."
"It's not too much to ask at all," Tony assured. "I've got plenty of cash. Well, I'll order what you want now."
Tony placed an order of the chocolate Loki wanted and then sat down on the common room's couch. To his relief, there wasn't even a hint of the stench of vomit left on it. "Lokes, do you wanna watch a movie?"
"Could you please stop with the nicknames?" Loki said with a roll of his eyes. "And what exactly is a movie?"
"You don't have movies on Asgard? I guess you guys prefer live entertainment. Well, movies are basically long videos with a story to them. There are tons of different genres, like drama, documentaries, comedy, action, et cetera. I think you'd like action movies."
"Probably," Loki replied. Tony put on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a bit amused by how engrossed Loki was in the story. In the middle of it, he made popcorn and gave the bowl to Loki. "It's a bit late for this, but I made some popcorn. It's nice and buttery."
"I've never seen this food," Loki said, trying a bit of it. "I like it."
Loki devoured the popcorn, leaving almost none for Tony, but Tony didn't mind. He knew Loki needed any food he could get and he didn't want Loki to get even more skeletal than he already was. When the movie was over, Loki fell asleep on Tony. Tony cringed and shoved Loki off of him, though he secretly found the sight a bit endearing. He would never admit that, though, not even to himself.
The chocolate came rather late, so with Loki asleep, Tony decided to wrap it up in gift paper and surprise Loki with the box the next day. He even chose shiny green wrapping paper, a black ribbon, and gold bow. He smiled at his work, though he wondered why he was being so nice to the man who nearly destroyed New York. Maybe it was how helpful Loki was being.
Despite how happy Tony felt, he had a nightmare as soon as he fell asleep.