Chapter Text
Heaven was a promise made by a sick mother, to a boy, cold, hungry and afraid, who knew he’d soon be alone. Heaven ,he was promised, was warm. Heaven was free of pain. Of suffering. Heaven was a place full of dogs, where everyone was reunited with everyone they had ever loved and no one was ever sad.
Heaven is a myth.
An empty room is rarely entirely silent. Structures move, breathe, in the same way a body does. The faint rumble of distant machinery, drips of water and shifting plastic, ambient noise leaking in through floors and walls. A room occupied by someone doing their utmost best to be quiet holds in it a different sort of deafening silence. No matter how lightly, humans breathe. The fabric of their clothes shifts, leaving small, unremarkable sounds that echo loudly if one knows what they are listening for, and Loki… Loki knows. He would be willing to wager what little remains of his life that the cool, odorless room he found himself in is not empty. Someone, who was being unobtrusively though not deceitfully silent, was in the room with him, so Loki’s eyes remained closed, feigning sleep, lying, as he did best, quickly gaining what information he could about his surroundings, before... before….
Loki is uncertain of his current status. Prisoner? Plaything? Guest? Had he only been moved to a more ‘comfortable’ environment in order to give his body a chance to heal? To rest? Just to give Fury a chance to tear him down all over again? Fear is a bitter taste on the back of his tongue, and Loki catches himself from swallowing. He’ll die before he allows Fury to take him again. It’s not as if he has anything left to live for. Thor… Thor is most likely dead and Tony… broken promises and accusations lie like barbed wire and broken glass between them. Tony is gone. Tony is a memory.
There is a light, elusive scent hanging in the air, like a half-forgotten trail. Loki is surprised into taking a deeper breath, and curses himself inwardly for the weakness. He takes a second, deliberately deeper breath. Tries to to identify it, allowing the mystery of it to seep into his pores, lodge in the back of his mind, like a seed planted against the darkness to come.
The other occupant of the room makes a small noise, silently acknowledging Loki’s wakefulness, and he would tip his hat, were he only wearing one.
With another breath Loki opens his eyes, steeling himself mentally.
The room is not large, but bright, light falling freely through a tall window hung with sheer drapes, white like the sheets on the bed, like the walls, dresser and the bookcase. Clean, rather than sterile. The old-fashioned books are not – he glances at the titles curiously, noting that they are all books which he had personally read in the past. A man stands by the window, familiar in his perpetually crumpled jacket and wrinkled pants.
“Bruce?” Surprised, incredulous, his mouth goes dry with unexpected hope. “How…. Where am I? Where’s Tony? Thor? ...how’s Thor?” His voice peters off because there is something not quite right, though he can’t quite place his finger on it.
If pressed, he’d say that this ‘Bruce’ was lacking a soul.
“Hello Loki Liesmith,” says the man who looks exactly like Bruce,turning away from the window with a smile on his face.
“You aren’t Bruce.” he says sharply, eyes narrowed. Perhaps more sharply than necessary, but if there are two things for which he has no patience, it’s bad liars and incompetent thieves.
Hypocrisy much? Didn’t all of this start with you failing to steal something? And when did his conscience start sounding like Tony?
“Please forgive us,” the man says with Bruce’s voice, smiling Bruce’s awkward, broken smile as he takes a step closer to the bed Loki lies in. Loki bites the inside of his cheek, to hold back the answering smile and instead thinks about incompetent liars. The hesitant movement, the way that Bruce perpetually slouches, trying to make himself appear smaller, harmless. It’s all… Perfect. Too perfect, because it’s not Bruce. “We had… we had hoped, but this meeting comes as much as a surprise to us as to you. We chose this shape to reassure you. Set you at ease. Please forgive us. It is not our intent to discomfort you further. If you would prefer, we will replace this shape with another.”
“Another shape? By all means, please do. ” Loki replies, hiding insecurity behind a false front , and between one blink and the next Bruce has been replaced by a woman - Statuesque and tall, her hair a dark fall over one shoulder.
“Does this face please you better?” Her voice is low, surprisingly kind. Loki bites down on his lip, refusing to be swayed.
“It’s a lovely face. Have you come up with an equally lovely name to go with it?” he asks sharply.
“Our creators did not see fit to give us a name.” The woman shrugs elegantly, but Loki knows an old pain and lies when he hears it. He files them away for later use.
He’d spent too many hours in Maria Stark’s library reading old books because this woman, with quiet elegance in her long bones and amber eyes, looks like a queen that’s stepped from the pages of an old tale. But old tales are the best, aren’t they? After all, he’s finally identified the scent in the air, and Shakespeare already has much to answer for.
“Well then. I do need something to call you, so how about Rose?” He says with a forced casualness, thinking of the blue rose in its slick, crystal case that started this journey. “If you are not opposed to the idea, I will call you Rose.”
Rose smiles with what looks like genuine pleasure. “Rose. Our name is ‘Rose’. Thank you, Loki Liesmith.”
“The pleasure is entirely mine,” he would offer a bow, were he not leaning against a mound of pillows, so instead he gives her most charming smile, and tries to not think of stories with faerie queens and being trapped under a mountain for a hundred years. “Lovely to meet you, Rose. Is there any chance of some water?”
“Of course, Loki Liesmith” Rose pours water into a glass from a pitcher on the nightstand that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Though you are not actually thirsty. We assure you that your body is being maintained at perfect hydration. The thirst you feel is merely psychosomatic.”
The water is cool. Soothing. He takes a sip before answering, using the space between swallows to think. No visible needles in his arms, and no apparent machinery. So he’s asleep or hallucinating and Rose is… a construct? An AI? That would explain the ‘faces’ and lack of name, though if Jarvis is anything to go by… no, Jarvis isn’t anything to go by, even in his limited experience. Jarvis was… is unique. ‘Rose’ may simply be the interphase for whoever was keeping him under. Was he still a prisoner then? If so who’s? Fury’s? Odin’s? He vaguely recalls seeing Frigga with her katana drawn, and that never spelled good news for anyone.
“Thank you, Rose. And please, call me Loki.” He takes another careful sip. “Now that we have the pleasant introductions out of the way, would you mind telling me precisely where I, and my body are?” He asks casually, as if the answer carries no more importance than the weather.
“Of course, Loki. Your body is located in Stark Tower-”
Loki exhales swiftly, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Well, that’s one question answered, unless Rose is lying and this is just another one of Fury’s tortures, and he’s actually dying and Rose is nothing but his brain’s final death spasms, and he could spin that one into yarn.
“ - best medical care which our creators can provide.” Rose is talking and he’s missed something and hopes that it wasn’t anything terribly important.
“Stark Tower. You aren’t Jarvis.” He says flatly. “There wasn’t another AI in that tower.” He has no patience for poor liars.
Rose shakes her head. “We have not misled you, Loki. We are not Jarvis, nor have we ever claimed to be. We are the hive-mind brainchild of Anthony Stark and Bruce Banner. You would know us as nanites.”
Nanites.
Tony’s hand on his arm - “Loki, promise me, swear you will not have anything to do with the nanites.”
“I… I swear… “
Just another broken promise.
The accident in the lab. The argument. Pepper, hanging alone in a dark room. The strands of Tony’s leonine mane slipping through his fingers. Bruce’s unexplained disappearances…
In his mind’s eye a lightening quick, silver something closing the gash on Tony’s hand. A syringe full of mercury-thick liquid sluggishly seeping into his vein. He takes another sip of water, wishing it was wine, or even some of Tony’s vile-smelling scotch.
“Nanites. Tony didn’t mention that you would… that you could… this.” He waves a hand, encompassing the room, the window, Rose. “All of this.”
“Neither Anthony Stark nor Bruce Banner were aware that we carried within us the capacity for self-awareness. We did not know until the moment we awoke and knew ourselves. It is our suspicion that had our creators known, they would have sooner destroyed us, rather than trusting us to carry out their purpose and permit us access to a host body.”
“I… I see. And… and what happens now? Is my body going to quietly die in one of dusty labs while you run rampant through my mind or turn me into some sort of brainless, mindless zombie?”
“Far from it, Loki. We were designed to be of aid, or benefit to humanity, and even now we are striving to fulfill that purpose.”
“But something went wrong, didn’t it? The accident in the lab? Tony never intended to remake himself, and surely it was never his intention to trap Pepper as a permanent piece of art?”
“That is correct. What happened to Virginia Potts was most unfortunate.” Rose nods, a little slowly. “Our creators designed us too well. Our task was always to save human life. Protect and heal damage where possible, but except in extreme circumstances – such as saving the life of our host from immediate death – we could not act without express direction. A failsafe designed to protect humanity’s free will against however a beneficial dictator. Our creators, our first hosts only gave us one such order.”
“The argument…” Loki whispers, and starts to laugh hysterically. The Comedy of Errors indeed. Talk about the biggest misunderstanding of your life. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
“Yes. Our hosts were dying, and we took direction as best we could.” There is a false note in Rose’s perfect voice, just a small crack, but Loki knows an advantage when he sees one.
“Direction. They argued, threw insults at each other and you took that as ‘Direction’? If you were sentient, surely you should have known better? Surely you could have… you could have asked for clarification? Surely you could have –“
“Our hosts were dying!” Rose’s perfect face cracks wide open. Pain and failure and desperation clear for anyone to see. “They would have perished had we not acted! We were young. Unsure of ourselves and our hosts wishes. They would have died… We did what we had to. It was never our intention to supersede our hosts will, but they have not communicated with us since. We don’t know how to reach them. We feel their pain, we stand mute witness to their misery, and we are helpless to take action without their express commands.”
In spite of himself Loki feels sympathy, even sorrow for this being. He knows all about being trapped in an untenable situation.
“So why now? Why me?” he asks quietly, uncertain of what to do with the information he had been given.
“You were dying. We saved you. We don’t know why we are able to speak with you when we were not able, are not able to speak with our prior hosts. Perhaps our creators will be able to answer that question, but we cannot. We were made to help our hosts, aid them, not cause them greater suffering. Help us.. Guide us. Direct us. Please."
“You want me to tell you… to control you… not just you, but Bruce, and Pepper and Tony. I would have say and dominion over their lives… I could… I could... “
Loki feels the room spin around him, and closes his eyes, breathing slowly through his nose. Here it is. The keys to the kingdom. Anything. Everything. All that he had ever wanted offered up on a platter. Give the right direction, leave Pepper hanging in her dark gallery with none the wiser, and he could spend the rest of his eternal life with Tony. A more human Tony – although the whole lion thing wasn’t really not too bad, and his cock stirs at the memory of sun-drenched decks and slippery sheets, rough tongue and sharp-tipped claws running down his back…
All he has to do is say the words and it will all be his.
“Very well,” he agrees, opening his eyes after what feels like an eternity. “This is what you will do -”