This is a fanfiction I started years ago. I want to clarify that I do not in any way view neuro-divergence as brain damage, but Loki was abused to the point of sustaining brain injuries as well here.
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Nobody had ever really wanted Loki around. After all, he was a Frost Giant, a monster. But for some reason, Odin had rescued Loki as a baby when he'd defeated Laufey, Loki's father and leader of Jotunheim. Apparently, Loki could make a good bargaining chip.
So everyone in Asgard put up with the Jotun, if only barely. Not that they were particularly nice to him. Loki was never loved. Even Frigga had been turned away by the coldness of his Jotun skin, before he'd been disguised to look like an Asgardian. But everybody knew what he was underneath that fake skin, and they bullied him relentlessly for being a Jotun monster. They claimed the fake skin was so they didn't have to look at his ugly blue form.
So Loki grew up alongside the royal family but never considered a part of it. He spent most of his life trying to avoid people as much as possible. But somebody always found him and tormented him for something. For being a scrawny weakling (by Asgardian standards), for being a complete failure at fighting. If they ran out of new reasons to bully him, they always fell back to the fact he was a Frost Giant.
When his magic started to show up, naturally but unwanted, things got even worse. Magic was frowned upon in Asgard, and Loki didn't have a good grasp of his magic in the beginning. When he'd accidentally turn somebody's hair pink or blow up a vase or have three illusions of himself running around, he would be punished.
Loki had received countless beatings in his life- often for no reason whatsoever besides boredom or annoyance from whoever was beating him- and had apparently suffered one too many blows to the head. Although his body healed quicker than anyone in Asgard (most likely because of his hated magic), injuries to the brain were different. They stayed. People started voicing the idea that damage to his brain had made him weird, and even more of an idiot than they already thought he was.
Eventually, everybody grew tired of Loki. They doubted he'd make much of a bargaining chip in his state. So why put up with him anymore?
Most of Asgard would have been just fine locking him away in the dungeons or just killing him, but Thor had convinced them to dump him in Midgard, where Thor himself was a member of a group called The Avengers.
So Loki had been sent off to Midgard, and the last Asgard saw of him was him reveling joyfully, semimaniacally at the sight of Heimdall's dome and the rainbow-colored Bifrost.
A voice with a British accent interrupts the silence. "Sir, a man just landed on your roof." Jarvis says. Tony is busy in his lab, so it takes a bit to pull his mind out of what he was working on and register the words. When he processes what the AI had just told him, Tony's first thought is "What the hell?"
"What is a man doing on my roof and how did he get there?" Tony asks. Is he some sort of evil megalomaniac villain trying to break into the tower? Should he suit up? Jarvis can't supply an answer other than that the man appears to be unconscious. Well, Tony supposes that there's no need for his suit. Tony closes the holograms he was working on and exits the lab. As he climbs the stairs leading to the roof, he has no idea what to expect.
Still, once he gets on the roof, he's surprised at what he sees.
Tony stares at the unconscious man lying in front of him in shock. He is almost absurdly pale, which contrasts with his black hair reaching just past his shoulders. The man's dressed entirely in clothes that would have easily fit into a renaissance festival.
But Tony's attention is drawn to something else, something freaky. The man's injuries are literally healing before Tony's eyes. The minor ones like bruises fade quickly. The changes in the more severe injuries are almost imperceptible, but they are there. But they're obviously going to take more time.
How is this even possible? People can't just heal like that. Not even Thor can, and he was once worshiped as a freaking god. Who the heck is this guy? Is he a mutant or something?
To cap it all off, the man's lying in a freaking crater that undoubtedly formed from his fall. Geez. This guy seems indestructible. Unfortunately, his roof isn't. He's going to have to get it repaired soon.
Tony can't just leave him lying on the roof like this. Besides, the scientist in him wants to figure out how the man is healing like this.
He stoops down to pick the man up but is unable to do so. The guy weighs a ton. Sure he's taller than Tony, but his weight is totally disproportionate to his body. He calls the Iron Man suit to him and finds he's able to lift the man. He carries him back into his tower. Walking downstairs in the suit while carrying him is more difficult than he'd thought. He manages to do it without falling and deposits the man on the sofa in his living room.
Tony's currently assuming the man is a god, since he shares a lot of characteristics with Thor.
He tells Jarvis to keep watch over the man and inform him when he wakes. Then he goes down to his lab.
"Jarvis? Do you have the camera footage of this man landing on the roof?"
"Of course I do, sir. Would you like me to pull it up?" The AI replies, polite as always. He's actually politer than usual right now. Jarvis' snark seems to be off for now.
Upon Tony's assent, the AI pulls up a holographic screen showing the sky. Tony watches the video. Some kind of green hole shows up and the man falls out of it before colliding with his roof. He rewatches the clip several times.
He then sets Jarvis to researching similar occurrences. The only one the AI finds is New Mexico. A.K.A. Thor's first appearance on Earth. That means this man's almost definitely from Thor's magic fairyland.
After that he tinkers with an arc reactor.
"Your guest is awake, sir." Jarvis informs him. Tony checks the time. It's only been an hour and a half. He wouldn't have been surprised if his guest had remained unconscious all day. But considering the mysterious man's rate of healing was faster than even Thor's, he shouldn't really surprised.
Walking into the living room, it's quite clear his guest is awake. The man is sitting up, though he's hunched forwards slightly and rocking back and forth. His head is turned away from Tony, towards the backrest of the couch. Long, pale fingers fiddle with the Rubik's cube Tony had left on the coffee table.
The man lets out a giggle as he turns the sections of the colorful cube, which unnerves Tony greatly. He's assuming this man has never seen a Rubik's cube before, but still. Giggling about it? There's something unnerving about the giggle itself too- it just sounds odd.
The man turns his head when he hears Tony coming, and Tony stops dead in his tracks. The man's eyes are a startling green, but what really catches Tony's attention is that they seem to be looking into thin air. They eventually focus on Tony- not on his face, but on his hands, as if the man expects Tony to lash out at him. Something about the man's eyes is just unsettling. They're just a tiny bit too wide and they look at him with a mix between wariness and curiosity as Tony sits down in a chair facing him.
"What's this?" The man says, gesturing with the cube. His voice sounds British and far too innocent for a grown man's.
"It's a Rubik's cube. You're supposed to get all the sides to be one color." The man cocks his head at an angle, and Tony elaborates. "So one side is all white, one's all blue, one's all green and so on."
"I like it. It's fun." The man giggles again and wriggles around in a way that reminds Tony of a puppy. Tony thinks Something is wrong with this man
"You had quite a fall," Tony says, not really knowing where to start. He'd felt a lot more comfortable with this conversation before, but now he's pretty sure something's up with this guy's mind.
Looking away, the man just shrugs, as if to say "It wasn't too bad." A beat passes, and Tony asks "How do your injuries heal so quickly?" The man looks blankly at him. Tony sighs. Maybe he didn't know. That would make two of them.
But then the man speaks again, in his soft voice. "In...jur...ees?" It was clear he's never heard the word injuries before. He sounds just like a little kid testing out a new word.
"Yeah. It's when you get hurt, like a cut or broken bones..." Tony's never really thought about how to explain a word like injuries. Jarvis then proceeds to rattle off the dictionary definition of injury.
The man nods. "Oh. That. I've had injuries before. They just go away."
"But how?" Tony asks. The man seems unwilling to answer, however. Tony sighs and moves on.
Tony notices the man doesn't look too perturbed by Jarvis' disembodied voice. Most people seem a little unsettled by it the first time they hear it. Tony wonders if he hears disembodied voices a lot. There's no way of knowing without asking.
Tony's probably the only person who would just blatantly ask such a thing. But the man just shakes his head. "Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I don't. Why? Do you?" The man asks it as if there's nothing wrong with hearing voices.
"Um, no." Is what Tony can think of at the moment. This conversation is getting very weird, admittedly because of him, and he tries to make it slightly normal.
"What's your name?" To be honest, he probably should have asked that earlier. Politeness, and all that. Plus he'll be able to stop thinking of this guy as The Man.
"Loki!" The man- Loki apparently- chirps brightly, clapping his hands.
"Loki...?" Tony prompts, waiting for a last name. Loki doesn't give one, and Tony sighs and moves on.
"So are you from Asgard?" Tony asks, trying to seem casual.
Loki nods and asks "This isn't Asgard?" His face lightens when Tony says it's not Asgard. Clearly, Loki's not too fond of the place. Why not? Wouldn't he want to be with all his fellow alien gods?
"Don't send me back! I can't go back!" Loki fearfully pleads, picking up the Rubik's cube again and fiddling with it, randomly twisting sections. Tony sits there, having no clue what to do. He's never been good with comforting people.
Tony wishes Pepper were here- he's not particularly good with people in general, let alone conversations like this.
He realizes that she could be here. He steps far enough away for some privacy but judging from the slightly glazed look of Loki's eyes, he's checked out and his mind is elsewhere.
So Loki is a god. Tony wonders what he's the god of. Weirdness? Maniacs?
Or maybe he's just crazy, he think as Loki giggles again for no apparent reason.
As he waits for Pepper to pick up, he glances back at the god. Loki is looking in his direction, but they aren't focused on Tony. He's not even looking at the Rubik's cube he's twisting in his hands.
"Hey, Pep," He says, turning away once Pepper answers the phone. "Can you come over and help me?" Much to his relief, Pepper agrees to. She doesn't even ask what he needs help with. He doesn't know how he'd answer. Oh, yeah. I have a man in here claiming he's from Asgard but he seems terrified of it. He's probably a god. He randomly fell onto my roof and I'm wondering if his elevator goes all the way to the top floor. That's not exactly something that sounds sane over the phone. Or in real life, but at least here she'd see Loki.
He hadn't noticed Loki walk up behind him, but now he's looming behind him- though not in a remotely threatening way. The man's eerily light on his feet. He slips something into Tony's free hand.
Tony looks down. It's the Rubik's cube- and it's solved.