tushanshu | [video]

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[ Loki is leaning a bit too close to the terminal screen when he starts to record his little post. He seems a little too bright-eyed given the circumstances, and there’s an odd rapidity to his speech when he starts talking. ]

I have to admit, I am disappointed. [ He holds up a touchscreen phone so his audience can get a look at it. ] These Starkphones are simply not designed for the rigor of interdimensional travel, and the lack of service is a failure I cannot abide. How will I chronicle my doings without the aid of Instagram and Facebook? Nor can I go on to spread knowledge of this failing with a review!

At least the natives of this realm are accommodating, though I don’t think this makes for an adequate replacement of my phone.

[ He pauses only briefly before switching gears. ] Now, moving onto more important matters… I have a few questions about the quality of native cuisine and where the best breakfast can be found.

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[ Tony takes the phone carefully and heads toward his desk, waving the kid to follow him. ]

Come on. Have a seat. You want something to drink or eat or anything? There's pizza. Well, Turtleworld equivalent.

[ And then, something maybe he should have asked earlier crosses his mind. ]

What's your name anyway?

[ He could go for wine, maybe, but that was not the right impression to be making. He follows along and takes a seat.

Nonchalantly: ]

I am Loki of Asgard. Do you have chocolate milk?

[ Whoever said his heritage was of frost giants was nuts. He's just a total troll. ]

[ Opening his mouth to make a comment about chocolate milk, Tony's brain catches up to his ears and he twists around to look at him so fast that it nearly makes his head spin. ]

Loki?

[ So not the same Loki he remembers. ]

Seriously? What the hell happened to you?

[ Maybe not the best way to talk to the guy who threw him out of a window, but really, Tony's never been keen on things like self-preservation or fear. ]

[ He brings his feet up, rather rudely putting his heels up on the edge of the chair as he peers up at Stark. He apparently has it in him to look indignant. ]

I was dragged through the interdimensional aether to a giant turtle and my phone is broken. That is what has happened to me.

You're also pint-sized. And less of a dick.

[ And he drinks chocolate milk. Who knew? ]

But I do keep my promises, even across interdimensional lines, so one glass of Turtleworld chocolate milk coming right up.

[ Glancing at Loki - even he had a childhood, imagine that - one last time, Tony takes a detour to the kitchen, rummages around for about a minute finding a glass and the drink in question, and meanders back out again to hand it over. ]

How'd your phone break anyway?

[ Wow, rude. He is holding himself back here for the chocolatey milk and the inevitably fixed phone. ]

It was a casualty in my efforts to assess where my friends were.

[ Read: drew ancient runes using the touchscreen, failed at casting the spell, and dropped it when he almost fainted. There were witnesses and it was embarrassing. ]

It fell when my spell failed.

Good to know. That means I can fix it. If it'd been damaged by magic...

[ He trails off with a shrug, giving Loki the milk before taking another side trip to his desk to grab some tools. Then it's back to where his guest is sitting so that he can sit down in a nearby chair, close enough for Loki to keep an eye on the phone. Again, as promised. ]

I saw it a few times. Your magic. Never did get an explanation for how it worked. Dropped phones, on the other hand, are easy to fix. You ever see the inside of one?

The urge to eviscerate my phone had never struck me before.

[ Though he is curious now as new things interest him. He takes a sip of his drink and leans over a little. His eyes are bright and quite sharp. Once, he had been less curious about mortals and their particular doings. That had been a distinct mistake that he was loath to repeat now. ]

What you mortals do with your technology fascinates me.

[ Seeing him leaning over, Tony angles the phone so that they can both see the circuitry now that the back panel's off. It takes only a cursory look to find the problem: the processor had been jarred off its mounting and a few of the connectors were damaged. ]

I think we're probably even on that front. The things you Asgardians do with magic is pretty fascinating to me.

Here, see? [ He points to the little black square, off-kilter and wobbly. ] That's the problem. Three minutes, I'll have it as good as new.

Huh, I was expecting something more dramatic.

[ The relief is clear in his voice, though he'd been going for fairly dry and failing at it. This Tony Stark was a very useful Stark to have around indeed, and he hadn't had to trick him.

Yet.

He smiles into his glass of milk before speaking again. ]

The one nice thing about this is that you likely almost never have to sacrifice small and fluffy things to demonic forces to troubleshoot problems. It's a solid point on the favor of science.

I can make it more dramatic if you want. Nothing like summoning demons, obviously, but I could get a few sparks out of it. Maybe a tiny electric sizzle.

[ He’s joking, of course. He could do those things, but that would damage the phone even more, and while he’s confident that he could still fix it, given the lack of technology in this world, he doesn’t really want to chance it. ]

Is that really something you have to do? Sacrifice things to interplanar entities for your magic to work?

Not once you've figured it out, unless it's something really big. For example, I almost never have to steal human children anymore.

[ Maybe too far? He considers that briefly and has the apparent decency to cringe. ]

I'm joking, of course. Anything that would take that kind of sacrifice might try to take my soul and semblance instead. It'd be a real downer.

[ And he knew all about that. ]

[ Loki evidently has a strange sense of humor. But Tony's isn't much better. He smiles a little at the joke, almost absently working on repairing the phone. ]

So why try to make a deal with that kind of thing in the first place? It's sounds like more trouble than it's worth/

Curiosity, mostly. Not all the best spells are tucked safely away in books, and the ones that are might be in those sorts of hands.

[ An insatiable thirst for knowledge was generally a positive trait, but Loki often took things to extreme that he had to regard as a wistful fancy for the moment. Dealing in souls could get a lot of information, and it was always an interesting game.

He can't say that, so his expression brightens. ]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here that does dangerous things in pursuit of new knowledge.

[ No, he definitely isn't, and Tony saying as much would make him the biggest hypocrite on the turtle. ]

Nothing worth anything is ever easy. Or safe. I get that.

[ To say nothing of the fact that safe is very, very boring. ]

Have you been to see the ghosts yet? They're not demons, but they're weird.

It's on the list, somewhere after playing on my phone and a very long nap. The dead aren't worth dealing with unless you're on your game.

Otherwise, they'll drive me to drink.

Maybe they're just bored. I know I'd be if I had to stick around forever.

[ Of course, maybe that's why he wasn't too terribly bothered by them. He already drinks.

After another moment spent working on the phone, Tony snaps the back onto it and holds it out to Loki. ]

Angry Birds enabled. Give me two, maybe three days, and I'll have a power source made for you so that it doesn't lose juice and you don't need to recharge it.

Generous of you, Stark.

[ He takes it back, setting the now almost empty glass to the side so he can turn it back on. His eyes, however, are trained on Tony as it boots up. ]

So why are you helping me?

[ There's no long-winded obfuscation to surround the question. It's uncharacteristically to the point for him, but he has a feeling that was the better tactic. It's almost as if he's legitimately confused, and maybe he was. He's fairly sure his name carried the normal sort of weight in this Stark's world.

Just fixing the phone was something that he could have written up to pride, as he'd expected when he'd pursued it, but this was just unnecessarily helpful. Stark had to be after something. Maybe bugging his phone? He'd be in for a disappointment. ]

[ Because he's bored. Because he's indulging a whim. Because he doesn't know who he is anymore. Because he's lonely and as obsolete as last year's computer. There are a lot of reasons, most of which are so deeply buried in his subconscious that he isn't aware of their existence. ]

It's a phone, Loki. Not world domination. Power's sketchy here and without upgrading the battery, it's just going to go dead in a few hours.

[ He shrugs then, because maybe that's not answer enough for the guy. ]

The Loki I knew was crazy, homicidal, and like practically everybody else in the world, he tried to kill me a few times. But he was interesting and he had a sense of humor. And if there's any truth to our stories about Asgard, maybe he had reason to be crazy and homicidal. You're not him. Maybe you're like him, maybe you're not. But you're here, same as me, and I think we're all gonna need a little help.

[ It was really too bad that Loki had such a suspicious turn of mind, but that was just his nature. He couldn't treat this as nothing but helping him, not when he couldn't determine what went on in this Stark's head.

Still, he visibly relaxes and no longer eyes Tony like this is a trap. ]

That's... a terrible sense of self-preservation you have there. But, still, you'll be the first I tell if I do find a way to betray everyone around me and take over the world with my phone. Just a friendly heads up. You can come help with that, too, if you like.

[ His eyebrows rise, like he didn't know he had any self-preservation at all and is somewhat shocked to hear it being spoken of like it has anything to do with him. ]

Buy me a drink first and I might even lend a hand. First things first, though. You want to figure out how to handle the turtle problem before you make a bid for supreme ruler. Far as I know, this is the last one in the world. If it goes, I think we all go.

I suppose you can't rule without a kingdom, so you have a point there.

[ He's joking there. Maybe. It sounds like he's joking, but even he has a terribly hard time telling what thin line he's treading sometimes.

He laughs, tilting his head down in a way that doesn't entirely obscure his wolfish grin. Moments like this made it very hard to seem as young as he should. He toys with his phone as he carries on. ]

We'd have fun if it could be managed. Fine wines, our captors in chains, and maybe a small horde of fangirls grateful for our heroic exploits. And a turtle. I've never had a pet turtle.

All of that sounds quite nice, doesn't it?

What do you feed a giant turtle? Or a bunch of kedan? They’d have to be dropped off somewhere, otherwise they’d just try to usurp power again.

[ He only has a dim idea of what these potential drop off points are. He knows that occasionally the turtle reaches land. What he doesn’t know is why no one ever leaves. Unless the kedan don’t allow them to. ]

I’m all for getting rid of them, though. What they’re doing to people here, it needs to stop. All of this? [ He waves a hand, the gesture meant to encompass the entire city. ] It’s not what it looks like. We’re effectively slaves for their army. They just put us up in nicer prisons than most.

They're making some poor decisions if they want calm chattel.

[ "Murder them all for the indignity forced upon us" makes for a very tempting first thought as to what to do with their captors, but he doesn't share it. More than the fact that Stark was almost always one of the moral sorts, it makes his stomach twist uncomfortably.

He missed his taste for casual slaughter sometimes, and hated that part of him that jeered at him when he considered the methods of the good old days. ]

There is an infinite multiverse out there, you know. If someone had a mind to avenge this slight against us, well, you could tuck the kedan almost anywhere with sufficient preparation. It could be a perfectly humane option if you wanted it to be.

[ He swipes through his photos, settling on one of his little team out to eat. He angles the screen slightly, just contemplating the picture for the moment. If he had them, this would have gone very differently. Too bad he couldn't just order them up. ]

Humane's kind of my watch word these days. I gave up the whole mass murder thing a few years ago and you know how it is with temptation. Gotta avoid it in case you fall off the wagon.

[ He says it with breezy nonchalance, like it's not something that he has issues with. Or nightmares about. Acknowledging it makes it real, though, and trivializing it takes some of the power away. At least in the light of day. ]

The trouble's finding another reality to shuffle them off to. A world full of dinosaurs or carnivorous marshmallows won't really fit the bill.

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