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]

"Have you seen this tent? I could charge $2300 per month in rent in Manhattan for this thing, easy. About the size of a studio these days, anyway." Tony didn't even miss a beat with the reply, blinking widely up at the dimly-lit ceiling from the nest of his sleeping bag and weapon bits strewn about. The night had been long, and made at least physically comfortable for the luxuries he had installed within his makeshift home. Mentally, the caffeine overdose combined with a lot of staring at the endless Nothing made for the wrong headspace for sleep, but his second wind would come soon enough.

"By the way, clap once if you're an auditory hallucination, make shadow puppets if you're also a visual one." A beat. "Uh, make yourself at home if you're the real thing. Mind the Mag-Charger, it looks like a lighter, but it's not."

[st_ratagem]

"I appreciate being given an option on reality." Thor tended to throw small objects to see if they actually hit. It was annoying, especially when the illusion was more than real enough for practical purposes. If all you wanted was to talk, why was physical presence necessary?

Ah well. A slight flick of one hand scattered some of the random junk so Loki could sit without sitting on it. What? He'd been invited. And there was nothing saying that he couldn't pursue his own aims once Stark got boring. "And fine, I wouldn't have considered any temporary structure to be on your list of personal goals."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Everything is temporary." Tony rolled to sit, then lifted to his feet to unzip the flap and step outside. Hit with the stiff, cold air of the desert night, he shrugged on a coat over the blank tank and emerged. "You, me, the stars in the sky..." He wandered to Loki's side near the dying fire, blowing on his hands.

"So. Come around here often?" Tony tossed a few fire starters into the pit, striking a match.

[st_ratagem]

"Rarely." Loki, of course, was utterly unbothered by the chill. That was one advantage that had always been inherent, but he'd somehow never really noticed: he didn't feel cold. "I've considered it best, up to now, to stay where I can potentially be found." He smiled slightly, an unfelt thing that didn't touch his eyes. Usually he did better, but he wasn't in the mood to make an effort. "Not that anyone seems concerned currently, mind you, but I expect at some point I'll be glad to point out that I made an effort to stay in the general eyeline of the populace. Barring some few excursions like this one, of course."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony quirked an eyebrow as he tossed the match in, striking a few more for good measure. Watching the potassium chlorate swell up in flame with that little 'kch!' was impossibly satisfying.

"No." Another match struck. "Someone definitely noticed. Someone who, as it stands, apparently dislikes eating lunch by themselves like some lonely kid in the cafeteria."

[st_ratagem]

"Yes, I had wondered if 'debilitating loneliness' ranked among your reasons for inflicting yourself with my company." Not that he'd ever admit it out loud, but that was probably a reason (low on the list, but a reason) he tolerated it. "Just now, though, I wasn't actually looking for you. I was looking for a decent spot to... practice, I suppose. Private, out of the way." Likely Stark's own reasoning for settling here.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"I have friends, and you have a bad reputation. So I must like you for you. Utter lunacy." Tony lowered to a thin blanket left on the ground to sit a good six feet from his guest, watching the fire devour the wood and grow. "I've also got a boyfriend. I think. Point is, we're both trying to be out of the way at the moment so I get it."

[st_ratagem]

"Literally not believable." Loki was well aware that his was not a likeable personality, but Stark was rarely serious so he didn't bother reacting beyond that. "I'm sure you still do. My brother is impossible to get rid of." It was annoying beyond belief, but also somehow one of the things Loki adored about Thor. "And you're trying to be out of the way. I was looking for lack of audience."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"And yet, here you are." Tony smirked for a moment, holding out his hands to the flame. "That's fine. All I had was Thor Jr. for company."

[st_ratagem]

He was a social creature, no point arguing it, so Loki just shrugged off the smirky question. Assuming one of the metal things was Thor Jr, though, "It's been two days, Stark, how have you gone insane from solitude already?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"There is a fine line between genius and insanity and I have erased it." Using a metal prod Tony stoked the flame. "Named one after you. It was the one I swore I packed but went missing on the first day."

[st_ratagem]

Loki laughed. "I'm touched. What are you using them for?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Target practice." A beat, and Tony took a swig of water from his bottle. "I wouldn't have shot Loki II. I only taze Thor Jr. anyway."

[st_ratagem]

"I don't care what you do to your test dummies. You can taze original Thor for all I care." Loki had no doubt Thor would say the same. What was tazing when he accepted being stabbed and smothered with pillows as a form of play?

That said, good on the Loki target dummy for disappearing. "I wanted to... test a theory. Likely I still will, but in a bit." Stark had explained, and... technically, however fake it was and however little Loki actually felt bound by it, they did have a deal that involved sharing information.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"I'm a man of science." Tony replied, nodding for Loki to go on. The fire was growing, and its warmth reached his front.

[st_ratagem]

"Sadly for you, what I want to test is magic." Almost certainly magic, even if it was inherent. Something he should be able to do, something he should have learned to do, if....

Bah. Loki concentrated, pushing away Odin's enchantment, forcing the lined blue skin and red eyes of Jotunheim to show themselves, letting the chill of a frost giant radiate as it would. (Enough, perhaps, to damp some of the heat from that fire.) Another thing that wasn't exactly a secret; Thor could share, if he was inclined. There was no harm in showing this to Thor's human. "No science involved."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

If Loki hadn't warned him, Tony would have immediately suspected this to be an honest hallucination brought on by the many extenuating factors at play. He sat, quietly, as Loki did his thing...whatever that was, exactly.

"...Alright, I'm glad you don't need my help. You look good, I guess, smurfified or no." Tony ended that statement with a questioning lilt, zipping up his jacket.

[st_ratagem]

"Not really." It was, after all, more than faintly horrifying to him still. Much less than it had been, he was used to it now to a greater or lesser extent, but... frost giants were still the monsters that Asgardian children were threatened with. Had been what Thor had more than once cheerfully threatened to wipe out.

Loki clenched a fist, willing the cold to focus there, and form ice. The air might have dropped a few degrees, but no ice. "This is what Jotuns - frost giants - look like, that's all."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Frost--sure." Tony's jaw was tight with the chill and he was tempted to offer to observe from within the comfort of his tent. "Giant? Relative to a chihuahua, I guess.

[st_ratagem]

Loki smiled tightly. Small for a frost giant baby, Odin had said. A gentler version of the undoubted real judgement on Loki’s infant self: worthless runt.

Laufey, had Loki ever spoken of it to his birth parent instead of killing him, would not have minced those particular words.

Loki tried one more time to call ice. As before, the temperature dropped, but no ice... and it was harder, somehow. Anger, possibly; anger burned, and he needed to be cold. So he released his fist and the blue both, allowing Odin’s enchantment to settle on him and normal desert-at-night temperature to settle on the area. “Yes. I’m aware. I expect that’s why the infanticide.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony exhaled in a quiet 'huh.' "It's not a bad thing. My old man joked constantly about exchanging me for a 'taller model.' Stark legacy best carried on broad shoulders or something. Told him if he cared half as much about his drinking problem as he did my height, this wouldn't be an issue for either of us. Dropped on the boarding school doorstep after that." Tony rolled the zipper of his jacket back down by half as the cold dissipated.

"Turning on the blue--is that what you wanted to test? It was kinda cool, pardon the pun."

[st_ratagem]

“I almost wish I’d been picked at about it. It could join the pile, and at least I’d have known.” Loki waved a hand, as accent rather than dismissal of the topic. “If you’ve never had the experience of finding out everything about yourself and 1500 years of life is a lie perpetrated by two of the only three people you’ve ever trusted, I don’t recommend it.”

He’d thought he was cursed. And he sort of was, just not in any resolvable way.

Facts were easier to manage. “The blue, I can call out whenever I want, now. I don’t because it’s effort to no purpose, but every frost giant I’ve ever seen could call ice. Shape it, usually into weapons. But I can’t, I don’t know how. I thought I’d address that.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

'Oh, so it's Talking Time.' Thor, Peter, Liz, Kitty, why not Loki? Though, unless the man really desires it, it was better to err on the side of discussing the practical.

"Well. Cat's out of the bag and we both need a few more tricks up our sleeve."

[st_ratagem]

"Very nearly my exact thought. An option or two virtually no one knows I have would be useful in more than one scenario." It was an odd sort of conversation, wherein talking around Thanos was the easiest of the available options. "Armor still misbehaving, I take it?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"It's difficult for everyone." Two days of mulling it over, and that was the best answer he could come to. "If you're trying to make a move, flattered, but I'm not hanging it up yet."