Loki had begun to cry within the confines of his prison cell in Asgard. The crying was loud, prisoners shouted and yelled for him to stop his yowling. The guards hit the glass, ordering him to be quiet to no avail. Not one of them noticed his hands being clasped to his head, or his fingers digging into his scalp.
The crying had been near constant for a week when he began screaming. Thor and Odin had both come down to his cell to attempt to quiet him. They tried talking to him and yelling at him, but he didn’t react to them. If either attempted to touch him, his screaming would become louder, and he would desperately shuffle himself from them.
Another week had passed, Loki’s screaming wearing on everyone within earshot. His voice was hoarse, and scratchy. Halfway through the week he began coughing up blood, his throat bleeding from the strain and trauma.
Odin asked Frigga to go comfort her son. She was distraught by the hoarse screaming that got louder as she approached. The prisoners who would bang on the glass, shouting profanities at any opportunity were silent. Many with their hands or pillows covering their ears.
The guards granted her access into his cell, and she sat next to him as he continued to scream. She began softly talking to him, and after a long while his screaming ceased. He coughed and cried, and she watched and the blood dripped down his lip, adding to the blood stain on his face. A while later he looked up into his mother’s eyes. The usually bright green in his eyes were dull, and there were flashes of blue. With each flash she saw in his eyes he choked out another sob. His nails dug into his scalp, and his chest tightened in pain.
She continued to talk to him softly, until eventually his hands fell from his head and he leaned into her. Loki’s sobbing eventually quieted down into a whimper, and his eyes closed. Frigga held her son, and lowered his head to rest in her lap.
After a few hours she lifted his head and put a pillow under it, leaving the room to talk to her husband. She realized quickly that his head had been poisoned by the tesseract. The theory was proven correct when Odin recalled Loki’s eyes being blue when he was sentenced to prison. Thor agreed, stating Loki’s eyes were blue during the battle of New York.
She had only barely begun to look into healing his mind when she was killed. Loki had begun screaming less with Frigga’s visits to him, but his screaming became louder than before when he heard of his mother’s murder.
Thor was being sent to deal with the threat upon Asgard, which would leave Odin alone to try and deal with his kingdom, his wife’s murder, and Loki’s ailments. Odin ordered Thor to take Loki to midgard and find somewhere secure to keep him until a cure could be found. So Thor brought Loki to the Avengers tower. Tony, albeit reluctantly, had a floor of the tower fitted to accommodate Loki.
Most of the Avengers were gone on their own business. Clint was spending time with his family and Natasha had trailed along and joined him. Steve was out doing his own thing, learning about what he had missed. Bruce has returned to his time in Africa, although he actually kept contact. This left Tony alone in a tower, with a god screaming a floor below him.
Tony had gone down daily to bring Loki food, but each day the food from before had been untouched. He hadn’t bothered with the god until one day he took a good look at the god.
Blood was dripping from his lips, his eyes were bloodshot. One hand had fallen from his head, showing the fingers raw, bits of scabs underneath his nails. Thor had told him that something something tesseract had done something. Thor wasn’t the best at explanations. Then again, Tony wasn’t the best at listening.
Tony went and got a damp towel and slowly walked up to the god. He lifted the towel to Loki’s lip, but as soon as he got close Loki backed away. Loki looked at Tony for a few seconds, which were just enough for Tony to see a flash of bright blue flicker in his eyes. He shut his eyes nearly immediately and let out a scream that quickly dissolved into a coughing fit.
Tony sighed, this wasn’t what he signed up for. “Look, I get you don’t want to be touched but you’ve got blood everywhere.” Loki stopped shuffling away and held mostly still as Tony began dabbing the blood from his lips and chin, only flinching away a handful of times. The crying didn’t cease however, and the coughing continued.
Once Tony was done cleaning Loki’s face he stood up and left. Not long after the screaming returned, not as constant, but still there. Tony sat down and thought, when he had last seen Loki his eyes had been a brilliant blue. He could easily compare it to the brilliant color of the Tesseract. But now Loki’s eyes were as green as an emerald.
The Longer that Tony sat and thought the more he realized wasn’t right. Loki looked desperate and terrified, fingers dug into his head as if he had a horrible migraine. If he was coughing up blood, the screaming must have been happening for a while. Loki seemed relatively calm until his eyes flashed with blue, the color of the tesseract, and then he would scream. His screams sounded painful.
Tony had a phone call to make.
After a while of calling Clint repeatedly he finally got an answer. “Tony, that thing is fucked up. Imagine the worst migraine of your life. You can't fight your way into control and if you try it's like getting punched in the brain.”
That got Tony to stop in his tracks. “Oh holy fuck. I know what's going on. That box is fucking with his brain even though its literally in another world!” There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Uh… Ok i guess. Look, I've got some stuff to do. I’ll talk to you later Tin-Can.” Clint hung up quickly, leaving Tony mumbling about the archer’s audacity.
Tony started paying more attention after that, taking notes about Loki’s actions when his eyes flashed. Clint’s descriptions about a migraine certainly seemed to track. It seemed to happen around every thirty seconds. Eventually it led Tony to 2 possible conclusions.
There was some sort of tesseract fragment in his brain that would pulse.
Or
The tesseract was trying to control him from worlds away.
Out of the two neither made complete sense, but they were his only ideas.
After a few days he was able to get Loki to let him touch him. It didn’t last for longer than a handful of seconds, he would pull himself away with every strike of the tesseract. Tony knew he would have to sedate Loki if he had a chance of figuring out which of his theories it was. So, with the knowledge he had hacked out of S.H.I.E.L.D’s database on Thor, he bought horse tranquilizer. Loki wasn’t human so it wouldn’t kill him. Probably.
Once it arrived, Tony loaded the whole thing into a syringe. His armor was sitting on standby in case Loki tried to kill him. It didn’t seem likely, but better safe than sorry. When Loki’s eyes flashed with blue Tony gripped his arm and stuck the needle into the vein in his arm, and for the first time in a while Loki spoke.
“What did you just do to me?” His voice was hoarse, and he began coughing as soon as he finished speaking. Tony dropped the syringe and tried to help him, but Loki glared at him “Don't you touch me,” his voice began to waver and soften. The tranquilizer was starting to kick in “you arrogant mortal.” With that, his eyes closed and his breathing began to settle.
“Sorry, but I don't think you would have held still for any of what we need to do.”
Tony carefully picked up the unconscious god and carried him to his lab. He was quite glad that he had bought a shit load of medical equipment after Afghanistan. He started with an x-ray of Loki’s head, which didn’t show anything that shouldn’t be there. After he did a C.T. scan, which also turned up with nothing external. So it turned out that there wasn’t some sort of tesseract shard in his skull, which was good!
But that meant he couldn’t just find a way to remove a shard. He had to block an outside source. An outside source that he knew very little about.
So with his limited knowledge, he took a measurement of Loki’s head, and drew some blood for some basic blood work. With those completed he carried Loki back to his level. Laying him down on the floor with a pillow under his head.
Loki woke up with the never ending pain in his head, but was slightly surprised to feel a pillow under his head and the lights in the room dimmed. It was softer on his eyes, and while his head still hurt terribly, the dimmer lights helped a little.
The tesseract continued to cause him pain, and he laid there crying, choking out sobs. About twenty minutes had passed when Tony came back into the room. Tony was wearing a dirty t shirt and was carrying a metal helmet with wires coming from every single direction.
“Shit. I thought you’d be out a little bit longer.” He said as he knelt down to Loki’s side. The god had his eyes pointed down into the pillow, and with each flash of blue he dug his face a bit deeper into the pillow.
Tony sighed and reached his arm underneath Loki, and carefully lifted him up. Loki groaned and turned his face into Tony’s chest, making Tony’s arc reactor close enough to Loki’s head that he could lightly feel the pain of the tesseract. The shocks that rattled the god’s brain stabbed his heart. Tony gasped at the pain, before lifting Loki’s head from his chest.
“Loki,” Tony said, quietly as to not startle him “I’m going to put something on your head, it should help okay?” Loki only groaned again in response, leaning his head over the other way.
Slowly, Tony lowered his contraption onto Loki’s head. Loki’s usually well kept hair was a disaster and kept getting caught in Tony’s device. He had to keep brushing hair out of the device but eventually he managed to get it placed onto his head.
After a moment of the device being on his head, Loki’s strained breathing slowed. His eyes looked confused but much softer. After a moment he looked at Tony before letting his eyes close and head loll over back into Tony’s chest. The pain had finally stopped.
From what little Tony knew, he was willing to believe that Loki had been awake for a month straight, except when he had been drugged to sleep. It made literally no sense to Tony except that maybe it had to do with him not being human. Gently, Tony laid the god down again, setting his head on the pillow. Once he was sure Loki wouldn’t move, he stood up and headed back to his workshop.
Tony spent the next day in his workshop working to find a more subtle and comfortable way to block out the influence of the tesseract. He thought about how he had been experimenting with Nano-technology, but he wasn’t sure that it would work with Loki’s biology. Let alone that he could do it.
He spent his time working on a less bulky design that would be more comfortable. His new design was simply a beanie, with a shit load of electronics. Lightweight and functional. He could tell it worked since it made his head buzz when he put it on. He did some final closings on the beanie and sat down when J.A.R.V.I.S. allerted him to Loki beginning to wake. He sighed as he got up from his chair, grabbing the beanie on the way.
When he arrived, Loki was sitting up, one hand keeping him upright and the other rubbing his temples. He looked over when the elevator doors opened.
Loki’s voice was still hoarse as he spoke, though his voice was barely above a whisper “So, the one who strikes me down helps me? A mortal man who hides behind a suit of armor.” He began coughing, and when he stopped he looked down at the blood on his sleeve. Sighing, Loki rubbed his throat, looking away from where Tony stood.
“Although,” spoke the god “I suppose a thank you is in order Mortal. So, thank you.” His eyes were sad, but for the first time in a while they were green. Not a single hint of blue could be seen in the emerald eyes.
Tony shrugged as he walked to Loki, and sat by his side. “Hey, I’ve got a new model of the wad of junk on your head. It’ll be more comfortable.” He held up the beanie “Not really what I see as your style, but it’ll be more comfortable to sleep in.”
Loki looked at him, “But, you’ll have to take this off.”
Tony nodded.
Sighing, Loki nodded back and unclipped the janky helmet. As quickly as he could he ripped off the helmet and snatched the beanie from Tony’s hand. He placed it onto his head quickly, and sighed.
“Thank you.”
Loki reached a hand out, but began pulling it back. Tony smiled a little and pulled Loki into a hug. The god tensed for a moment, but quickly melted into it, snuggling closely into Tony’s neck.
When they finally pulled apart Tony smiled “Now, how about we get you some food. I know you haven't eaten since you got here.”
Loki began laughing, although his laughter was merely silent exhales of hair. “You, one of the richest men in midgard, plan to cook? For a prisoner?” He had a bit of a smug smile on his face when he spoke.
“Me? Ha! No, we’re going into town and getting dinner. I’ve been getting delivery food for us both for a few weeks now. I want some solid sit-down, and you’re coming with me.” Tony stood up and brushed his shirt straight, before holding out his hand to help Loki stand.
Loki took his hand and pulled himself up, leaning heavily on Tony. “Iron man, I am a known criminal. I cannot simply walk the streets of midgard!” Tony yawned in response. “You’re famous! You cannot walk without the paparazzi cornering you!”
Tony began laughing “I’ve got my ways. Just blend in. My name is Anthony, no one calls me that. A baseball cap, a hoodie, and a few fake tattoos and I’m a whole different person. And you are my friend Luke. And since you just got out of the hospital, we’re getting dinner.”
“I’m sorry?” Loki raised an eyebrow “I just got out of a hospital? Really?”
Tony looked at him smugly “You can barely walk without leaning on me. You’re getting a pair of crutches.”
Loki found himself a half hour later wearing jeans, a green hoodie, and using a pair of arm crutches. Where Tony had a pair hiding out eluded him, but it made it so he could walk on his own. Tony helped him get into the car and the two of them drove to a small Italian restaurant on the outskirts of town.
The two got themselves a table in the corner and ordered their food. Loki ate more than Tony had honestly expected, but Loki enjoyed his food. The two talked a bit before Tony paid the bill and the two returned to the tower.
Tony led loki to the avengers common area, and Loki sat down awkwardly on the couch. Loki was surprisingly quiet, and so Tony tried to bring up conversation.
“So, you never did get that drink i offered you. Would you like something? I’ve got alcoholic and non alcoholic. Nothing as strong as asgard’s alcohol I’m sure, but its still alcoholic.”
Loki looked at Tony for a moment, judging if he was serious before answering “If you have any wine that would be nice. Whatever’s strongest is perfectly fine.”
Tony grabbed a bottle of wine from the cupboard and poured Loki and himself a glass. He handed a glass to Loki as he sat down and they both took a sip. Tony sighed, setting his glass down and putting his hand to his temple.
“Alright, somethings wrong. Whats going on goat helmet?”
Loki scoffed “Goat helmet? Really? You couldn’t come up with anything better than that?”
Shrugging Tony replied “Meh, work in progress. Now answer the question.”
Loki’s nose scrunched up and he glanced over at Tony “Why? Why would you bother with me? My oaf of a brother left me here to sit while Odin likely does nothing sitting in his throne, yet for some reason you helped me. You spent the time and money trying to help free me from the tesseract and then took me to dinner? You must want something from me.”
Tony stared at him, confusion clear on his face. He said nothing for a moment “You actually think I want something?”
Loki nodded, and Tony shook his head “Look, a lot of people think I’m just a selfish assshole. I mean, i guess thats true, I put my name on the side of a massive building. But I try not to be an asshole. I’ve stopped my companies weapons manufacturing, we make little things now. Phones, computers, those little vacuum robots. I’ve tried to help cover some of the cost of damages to the city.”
“Ah, I see.” said Loki “So I’m a charity case?”
Groaning, Tony shook his head. “You aren’t understanding. I didn’t help for because i wanted anything. I helped you because I hate seeing people in pain.”
Loki didn’t say anything for a minute, “Mortals. As strange as ever I do beleive.” Loki scoffed, a bit playfully. Tony smiled and placed his hand on Loki’s shoulder.
“You know, you don’t seem nearly as terrible as you were during the battle of New York.”
Loki looked down and swirled his wine “Well, the tesseract wasn’t only controlling your archerer friend.”
After a few seconds, Tony connected the dots. “You weren’t in control of yourself, were you?” Loki shook his head slowly.
“It was my idea. I wanted to prove to Odin that I was worthy of the throne. I was given use of the tesseract and an army. I didn’t want to be nearly so brutal. My plans were taken out of proportions. I wont push away the blame, I am at fault.”
“Meh, doesn’t sound like you should get the full blame for that.” Loki glanced at Tony before downing the rest of his wine.
“Look, you’re trying far too much to be kind. Lets change the subject please.” Tony nodded, picking up his own wine and taking a sip.
The two talked for a while on various subjects, until Loki grew tired. He fell asleep quite quickly, leaning against Tony. Tony had also started to drift off by the time Loki fell asleep, and so Tony fell asleep with Loki leaning against him. Perhaps they were both softies in one way or another.