Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 43

Loki cocks his head to the side. "Stark?"

Tony drops the Iron Man suit to the ground and whips around to look at him. "Holy sh—" He slaps a hand over his chest and lolls his head back, taking in a face full of falling snow before he returns his gaze to Loki. "What the hell?"

"What are you doing?" Loki asks.

"What am I doing?" Tony scoffs. "What are you doing? How did you get here?"

"I'm not here," Loki says.

"The hell are you talking about?" Tony gestures to him. "You're right there!"

Loki fights the urge to roll his eyes. They've been over this. "Would you care to throw something through me again so we can move past this?"

Tony throws his hands up. "Oh, that's just great. Your dad won't let you on the balcony but he'll let you freakin' astral project all over everything."

This time, Loki can't help but roll his eyes. "I'm sorry my restrictive life-long imprisonment isn't harsh enough for your liking."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Tony demands.

"Looking for you," Loki says. "The news said you were dead. I wanted to verify that before I started celebrating."

Tony's brows shoot up. "They think I'm dead?"

"So I've heard," Loki says.

"Good."

Loki stares at him. "What?"

"If he thinks I'm dead, he might not look for me," Tony says. "It should buy me some time, at least."

"What are you talking about?" Loki asks. "Stark, what is happening right now?"

"I may or may not have pissed off a terrorist and now he may or may not be trying to kill me."

Loki scoffs. "Why would you do that?" God, he's an idiot! An egotistical, over-confident idiot! If he really does get killed over this, it's his own damn fault.

"Because he hurt Happy," Tony says. "And nobody hurts my friends and gets away with it."

Oh.

Okay, maybe he can be a little sympathetic (even if this still is entirely Tony's own fault).

"Where is Happy now?" Loki asks. He's never actually met the man, but he's heard of him. He's caught a glimpse of him outside once or twice — which is one of the only ways he ever finds out that Pepper is in New York; Happy tends to come with her. He seems like a decent guy. Loki would like to think Tony got him out of harm's way after that.

"The hospital," Tony says. "He still hasn't woken up. They, uh..." He takes a deep breath. "They're not sure when he will. If he will."

Oh.

That puts things in perspective a little bit. If Loki was in his shoes, he probably would have pissed that terrorist off, too. It serves him right, whoever he is.

Tony grabs hold of the Iron Man suit and begins walking again. Loki stays by his side, not quite ready to leave this conversation behind yet.

"What do you plan to do now?" Loki asks him.

"I don't know."

Loki scoffs. "You don't know?"

Tony shakes his head. "Nope."

"Stark!"

Tony looks over at him. "Alright, wise guy, what's your brilliant plan? My suit's dead, I have no phone, I'm freezing, and I'm hundreds of miles from Malibu and from Manhattan so I have nowhere to go. What do you think I should do now?"