Nerves were pointless. Realistically there was only one way this conversation was ultimately going to go, it was just a matter of getting there. Which would be awkward and embarrassing at least, but it had to be done.

Rather than go through the knock-on-door-then-enter thing, which would have been minor sandpaper on nerves that wanted to be frayed, Loki opened the door to the room as an invitation to enter. (Thor was the only one he was expecting, anyway.) After that, he took a seat at the little table on the balcony, since the only other choice was pacing like a ninny.

The room was much less tidy and impersonal since Valkyrie had moved in. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said she wasn’t organized, so her things were scattered around, and Loki had relaxed his own tight rein on his things, so a few piles of books and other things had joined the clutter. It looked lived-in, now.

The Inn, while not technically all that small, seemed to get emptier and smaller with time. That was, in Loki’s experience, one of the features of imprisonment in general. The business of every day was simply filling the day, finding what novelty one could in order to vary the texture of time.

Today, for some reason, he’d opted to appear in the Inn’s fitness room slash sparring arena to watch Thor and the Valkyrie spar. He had no intention of challenging the winner, of course; Thor would demolish him and he generally preferred less public locations for anything involving Valkyrie and violence in his direction. But it would at least be interesting to watch the two have fun or bleed off aggression, and possibly play spoiler of sorts - a few little tricks to tip the scales one way or the other in case one of them got complacent.

Sniping from the sidelines was, after all, entirely his style.

Goldfish, it turned out, were hypnotic. They swirled around, sometimes in a school and sometimes random, mostly empty fish minds mostly a dull, whispery hum. Despite that, it was easy to see little fish stories unfolding and little cliques forming and breaking up. There were reasons Loki had filched a roomy armchair from elsewhere in the Inn and set it up near the tank: he, Valkyrie, or both together spent enough time fish-watching that comfort was called for.

At present there seemed to be a small cadre of goldfish endlessly circling the same decorative rock, chasing off all the other fish when they approached. It could have been just a gang with territory, but Loki and Valkyrie had decided it was a fishy cult, worshipping the rock as a god. Valkyrie had suggested a small statue of him more than once, to see if the fish cult would abandon their rock. He’d laughed, but he had created their world and provided their food, so... it wasn’t that ridiculous.

Regardless, the fish continued to circle their rock. Holy wars were something to work up to.

Loki had decided to solve a problem. It wasn't an active problem yet, but with Thor and Valkyrie both in residence, it was entirely possible that at some point alcohol would end up in short supply. Thor alone had managed to drink most of the alcohol in the Inn, and Loki thought that Valkyrie's tolerance was probably somewhat higher. That being the case, it seemed like a good long-term idea to start making booze. Specifically, Asgardian spirits strong enough to ensure that the king and his lieutenant had more efficient options than 'drink two whole bars'.

The only problem was that Loki didn't exactly know how the brewing and distillation process had worked. He'd never paid much attention to distilleries back home. Stills themselves were simple enough, according to a few books he'd collected from the library, but how the versions on Asgard differed... was it a matter of material? Ingredients? Something else?

It was almost certainly an area where Thor knew more than he did, so Loki sent a message inviting his brother to come up and help with a project. He made no particular effort to sound like he wasn't up to something, because it would be fun to see what conclusions Thor jumped to regarding the invitation.

Following Thor without being hugely obvious was already getting tricky, even after only a day. It wasn’t surprising, really; Thor was more observant and aware of Loki’s tricks than he’d once been, and the Inn was still a confined space. That really only meant that instead of being sneaky, Loki was trying artful.

For whatever reason, Stark was confined to Thor’s room. Some kind of breakdown, who cared? It was an opening. If Stark was confined, they couldn’t have lunch in the cafe as they occasionally did, so bringing lunch was an excuse to lurk around Thor’s area. It was also a way to be a little bit of a jerk in the guise of being a medical type. Stark was an iffy eater at the best of times. And yes, Loki himself wasn’t interested in food, much, but he maintained weight and muscle mass without difficulty, which was more than Stark could say.

But the fact that he had multiple good reasons was why he turned up at Thor’s door and knocked by kicking it because his hands were carrying lunch.

Loki had spent the last hour or two before sunset preparing, and the first hour afterward. He’d taken ruthless advantage of the fact that the Inn staff was desperate to give people towels and had carefully interwoven the. On the floor such that there was no chance of getting at the actual carpet below without effort. He’d selected a dagger from his collection - a very old one that he hadn’t actively used since childhood, one of a pair given to him by his mother - and sharpened it to an almost perfect edge. He’d opened up the balcony door to let the early-winter night chill in. He’d even out together a little aid kit (disinfectant, pads, bandages, needle and thread) for afterward.

In many ways, the hardest part was settling on the towels with the in-etched staff resting in front of him and forcing Odin’s enchantment away, knowing that he wouldn’t be allowing himself to go back to normal possibly for hours. And that, as soon as Thor arrived with a bowl and his hands, it would all have a witness.

Without an axe, breaking down a tree was a tough proposition. Loki worked a transformation on one of his knives, rendering it serrated, close to a saw. Breaking down the tree to component parts was a challenge, but it had to be done. Ash branched vertically from the trunk on a true mountain ash, which this was, which meant that any branch could conceivably make a decent staff. There was no ‘smaller branches at the top nonsense’.

Because he’d asked for help hauling, Loki was handling the breakdown himself, which meant that he was more casually dressed than usual in jeans and a t-shirt; his usual Asgardian leathers or Midgardian suits were not for working in.

He’d hacked off two branches by the time he became aware he had company. “If you’re not Valkyrie, you’ll just have to cope with the hallway being full of tree.”

One of the peculiarities of the Inn was that Thor was much less of a creature of habit than Loki. For all the god of mischief’s fondness for chaos, he tended to be comforted by a routine from which he deviated in small ways or abandoned on a whim. Thor just did whatever struck him and thus was less generally predictable.

That said, Loki knew his brother well enough that he was never that hard to find. It was a warmish cloudy day, Thor would be outside somewhere. Today, it was the gardens. Weeding, or something, trying to decide whether the grounds ‘needed’ rain, probably.

In case that was so, and because it would be easier to bail on a conversation going badly, Loki sent an illusion to the gardens. And didn’t waste time pussyfooting. “I have no intention of apologizing, you know.”

It was easier to just go out in the evening and come back after midnight. Two or three hours before dawn seemed best; in that case, if Loki couldn't sleep longer than two or three hours, why, it counted as morning and he didn't feel the need to try and force more. Two or three hours seemed maintainable.

Or they did, until landing (in crow shape) on his balcony, then walking into his room in his own shape revealed Thor tossing the room. "What the actual fuck, brother?"