Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 146

Tony seems to take his indifference as a sign that he can feel the same, because he doesn't seem all that concerned anymore – which, objectively, feels like a bad idea, because if Wanda really did plan to do something to Loki, Pietro would still be acting the exact same way, and Tony should probably be a little more suspicious of it. Still, he won't complain about a good thing.

Tony leans against the doorframe, which means he probably doesn't plan to go anywhere any time soon. It's a bit annoying, but there's not a whole lot of difference between eating too many pretzels alone and eating too many pretzels with someone else around.

"How's America so far?" Tony asks conversationally.

"My parents are rolling over in their grave," Pietro deadpans.

Tony is – for possibly the first time in his life, Pietro would guess – not at all sure what to say to that.

"I like the food," Pietro adds, just to give him something to work with.

Tony huffs. "Now you just sound like Loki."

Pietro reaches into the bag of pretzels and throws one at him. Somehow, Tony manages to grab that itty bitty stick as it's bouncing off of him, and he plops it in his mouth. Pietro has to admit, for an ordinary non-superpowered human, that's kind of impressive.

"Anything I can do to make it more home-y?" Tony asks.

Pietro shakes his head. "America seems nice, but it will never be my home," he says. As an afterthought, he adds, "Unless you want to blow it up. Then it will feel like home."

Tony blinks at that.

Pietro just goes back to eating his pretzels.

The smart thing for Tony to do now would be to walk away, but, unfortunately, he does not. Pietro's half-convinced he broke the man. If he did, he feels it was warranted. After all, Tony broke him when he was ten years old; it's only fair to return the favor.

Still, the silence isn't all that comfortable, so Pietro breaks it by asking, "Do you people ever do anything?"

"What do you mean?" Tony asks, a bit cautious in his tone.

"Nobody has done anything since we got here," Pietro says. "Everybody just sits around and does nothing all day. Is that all you people do?"

"Uh..." Tony nods slowly. "Yeah, pretty much."

Pietro cocks an eyebrow. Is that really it? He's been living in a shit-show his whole life while the so-called heroes of the world have been lounging around in their pajamas?

"No, I'm kidding," Tony says. "We've got an eye out for any HYDRA bases left standing. As soon as we find one, we're back on."

"I do not mean that," Pietro says. "Nobody has any fun. You have all of the money in the world, and you use it to make a gym? Not..." He gestures vaguely. "A movie theater! A bowling alley! Or golf? Golf exists in America. Why does nobody want to play golf?"

"Because we're not 80 years old?" Tony answers, amused. "Nobody plays golf – but a bowling alley? That one sounds fun. I'll think about that one."

Pietro is fairly certain he has seen younger people than that play golf on the TV, but he doesn't question it.

"So you do nothing?" he asks. "What did you do for fun in your tower when you had no bowling alleys? You just sat on your hands and stared at the wall?"

"Of course not," Tony says. "We did things. It's been a weird couple months with the move and everything that's going on with Loki, but before all that, we had things like movie nights and game nights and the occasional party to spruce things up."

"A party?" Pietro repeats, intrigued. He's been to a couple of parties before, but they were rather boring, mundane parties. None of his peers could afford much more than a cheap cake to split amongst the kids. He imagines an Avengers party would be much more exciting than that.

"Can't really do that these days," Tony says. "Loki's barely talking to us. I don't think he'd appreciate a couple hundred strangers coming over."

Pietro balks at him. "You have hundreds of people come to your parties?"

Tony huffs a laugh. "Oh, yeah," he says. "It's always a whole big thing. Half the time, I don't even know who most of them are."

Pietro can do nothing but stare. He knew Tony was rich and obviously that comes with a very different lifestyle, but he never imagined this.

"I'm sure I'll get to throw another party sooner or later," Tony tells him. "Just gotta give Loki a minute to adjust."

"What about the tower?" Pietro asks eagerly. "Can we have a party in the tower? Loki would not need to know."

Tony shakes his head to himself, amused. "I don't know; maybe," he says. "Give it a couple weeks and I'll check in with him and see if he'd rather we have people over here or the tower. Either way, I"ll get you your party."

Pietro grins. "Maybe America is good for more than its food."