Awkward Emotional Self-Actualization and You? (title subject to change)

[st_ratagem]

Loki hadn't been sleeping particularly well since Thor's detailing of the 'more' and 'worse' he'd been hiding for weeks. Had he been the sort to have heartfelt conversations with people (shudder) and described Thanos as 'the stuff of nightmares' it would have been nothing more than factual. Not that Loki wished the information about his possible future gone, or not told - if he didn't know, he couldn't plan - but it was... difficult. The experience of Thanos as a 'valued ally' had been horrific enough that he'd been carefully Not Thinking of what waited for him as a total failure.

But he had to think of it now. And did, every time a nightmare woke him and ensured he stayed awake. (Eventually, he would have to deal with the sleep deprivation issue. At the moment, he felt he was managing well enough that it was not a priority.) Among the various possible plans evolving in the back of his mind were a few hedges, and among the hedges was one very clear thing: frost giants had natural ice powers. That was a weapon that, if he could develop it, could grant him a moment of surprise in the right pinch.

He had to try, so Loki turned into a wolf (black with green eyes, it was his pattern) and picked a random direction to run in. Isolation would likely be best, he thought. No witnesses.

But isolation and no witnesses was not on the agenda, as it didn't take terribly long for him to run into a fairly spread-wide campsite populated by metal statue-things and fairly stinking of Tony Stark. After a few seconds of blank staring at one of the statue-things, he turned back into himself and remarked to the space at large, trusting Stark would show himself, "Somehow I never considered 'living in a tent' to be on your list of personal goals."

Comments

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"I have. Enough to protect my watch from riff-raff on the Subway if I was ever possessed to take it, but it's a moot point when your opponents are alien warlords and you are a meat popsicle." Despite popular conception, Tony was far from helpless without the suit, but he had no illusions about his chances against the likes of his teammates without his tech to level the playing field.

[st_ratagem]

“Nonstandard weaponry, then. I actually don’t mean any offense,” for once and a wonder, “but I find it puzzling that you seem to insist on letting your enemy define the battleground. You have a brain, why let physical force be the deciding factor?”

Loki waved vaguely at himself, for illustration. “Take me. My knives are, for the most part, the least dangerous things I can bring out. However much I enjoy them.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

As Loki went on, Tony found it a good time to activate his armor and start the timer. When it passed the five-minute mark, he'd move on to proper defensive troubleshooting.

"Subterfuge? That's a mental load I could be spending on what I do best. My research--that is my current strategy. Trapped in a floating spacetime anomaly may be my best chance at stopping the show before it starts but I need to know I'll be bringing anything back with me to make it count. You dig? Too many unknowns about how we even relate all this to home." If the truth of the matter was they were getting stirred up to waltz blissfully back into their lives as if nothing occurred, the uselessness of it all would have made him laugh.

[st_ratagem]

“Hobble yourself if you like, that’s your decision. My brother is living proof that punching things instead of using them is a viable tactic.” Loki shrugged. “Fortunately, my survival plan A relies only on my brother not lying to me, which is among the safest bets I can make.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony merely quirked his lips beneath his mask. "I'm touched you care."

[st_ratagem]

“I don’t. I’m making conversation.” Partially a lie: Thor would be upset if Stark got himself killed, and Loki was staggeringly disinterested in being wept on when it was avoidable.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Regardless," Tony remained unconvinced, "If you're bothering with the struggle at all, then you must believe that nothing is written in stone."

[st_ratagem]

“If it hasn’t happened yet, I see no reason it should be allowed to happen.” Loki smiled easily, even though none of it was funny or light. Except the part where he was somehow the optimist of his remaining family. “Hence my plans.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Ever so slightly, Tony's body relaxed in the cradle of Iron Man's exoskeleton. It was the most tension he had released over the last two days. Loki boasted more than a few failed schemes, but the man was a fox. Seeing him reach this conclusion independent of Tony's motivational prompting was like a shot of validation.

"Any comparable situations you've ever found yourself in in your 1500 years?"

[st_ratagem]

“Not to my knowledge, but I can’t see the future. I’m not a witch.” He stared into the fire, the better to continue to ignore the odd sense of having a conversation with a robot. They weren’t generally good conversationalists. “There’ve been several near-misses with death, I’ve faked my death at least once in a significant way, I’ve invited people to kill me, I’ve failed to kill myself, but I’ve never had solid foreknowledge.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

On the HUD, Tony glanced at the time. Three minute mark. Iron Man continued to simply lounge.

"Sounds exhausting."

[st_ratagem]

"I'd say it's spaced out and that I like to keep busy, but most of that has been in the last decade, give or take. So I'll simply agree." It had been exhausting, and looked to continue to be. Assuming, of course, that plans worked and a reason to toss them aside didn't come up in that future moment.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Gotta live your best life at some point. Why not have it come with putting your old boss in his place." The Iron Man armor was beginning to destabilize in patches, but held about 80% steady.

[st_ratagem]

Loki had to laugh a little. "No, no, that's not my plan. Not on the face of it, anyway."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"What is the plan? If I can wine and dine the conflict away, I'd love to know what vintage he appreciates." Not that he expected Loki to be forthcoming, but it was worth a shot.

[st_ratagem]

“According to Thor, at one point I’ll be in possession of a highly functional starship and the Tesseract.” Stark would approve of this plan no more than Thor did, but it didn’t matter. It was the best breaking point available with the highest likelihood of effectiveness. “Therefore I intend to take those things, find Thanos, put the Tesseract in his hands, and convince him not to kill me.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Iron Man tilted his head. "I'm guessing Big Bro hasn't caught wind of this one."

[st_ratagem]

“He has not. He’d argue with me about it, despite the near-total absence of down side.” True, Thanos would gain the Tesseract, but he was already going to. Their people would stay alive, Heimdall would stay alive, and if Thanos couldn’t be convinced to spare Loki, he’d at least die out of Thor’s line of sight.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Patches of skin and cloth could be seen in rippling circles, though the nanites struggled to self-correct.

"He has a thing for rebuking us lone wolf types, I'll admit."

[st_ratagem]

The armor was definitely misbehaving, but Loki wasn’t technologically inclined enough to even begin to guess why. Had it been magic, he’d have suspected some fault in concentration or something off in spell configuration. But it wasn’t magic.

He rolled his eyes. “There’s no ‘us’, Stark. You do the same thing he does. To a lesser degree, maybe, but the same. Any perspective or decision that isn’t yours is clearly wrong and worthless because it’s not yours and yours is right. Which is of course what you’re fighting about: whose reality wins.” And they were definitely fighting, because Thor had turned up asleep in Loki’s room two nights running without a peep about ‘Tony will be looking for me’.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Sorry, forgot, no solidarity for the trickster. It would intrude on your brooding time. Loner tendencies aside, I do live in a world where I can accept there are emotions that exist outside of my own without writing them off in a hopelessly cynical fashion." From behind his armor, Tony's face was as blank as his face plate, and had been for quite some time.

"That being said, I'm only gonna do the Thor thing a little and point out how this whole thing is disturbingly like a suicide mission." 'Like' was being coy about it. "That qualifies as a 'near-total absence of down side?'"

[st_ratagem]

"Oh, I don't brood. I have better things to do with my time." Brooding had to be restricted to appropriate times, after all, or it tended to take over. There were always more entertaining things to do than sit and pout about whatever. "And yes, absolutely. Why would it not? Much lower body count on the whole. Only two failure points, one of which was always certain and the other merely possible." Verging on probable, but if there was a path, he would find it. "A clear win, nearly across the board."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Whether it was through his steadily improving nanotech or a will to not let anyone see the expression he was currently making, Tony's armor held steady as he turned to watch the fire again.

"Hm."

[st_ratagem]

"And of course, from your side the only point of failure is the certain one." The possible/probable would be a relief to all but Thor, for a near-certainty. Loki sighed. "He's always going to get the Tesseract, keeping it from him is a non-starter. It'll be too much in the open. And if I fail to convince him, I doubt my death will be quick. There may be an opportunity there, but if not at least there's a chance my brother never hears of it. I would simply disappear. Comfortable sort of thought, isn't it?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Approaching the five minute mark. Tony squeezed along his armor's left forearm.

"To whom?"