Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 4

The next day goes smoothly. There's no sight of Loki, and Tony's only problem is that he now wants Cheez-Its but they're sitting in Loki's room. Natasha, for the record, did not think it was hilarious that Loki hates Cheez-Its, but Tony chalks that up to her not seeing his reaction firsthand. It was definitely hilarious.

That night, Tony is sound asleep when JARVIS says again, "Sir, Loki has opened his door," just like he did the night before. Tony groans. What, is this guy nocturnal or something? Can't he come out while they're already awake?

"Tell him to go back to bed," Tony mumbles.

"I don't believe he would listen to me, sir," JARVIS says.

"No, probably not," Tony agrees. He reluctantly pushes himself to his feet. This is going to be fun. Not.

He heads down the stairs — he doesn't have the patience to wait for the elevator — and over towards Loki's room, but, unsurprisingly, he's long gone. Tony hadn't expected to find him so easily last night, but since he did, he'd hoped he'd have the same luck today.

His next stop is the kitchen. He doesn't expect to find him there, but it's the only room of the tower that Tony knows that he knows. He's decently sure yesterday was just good luck — Loki had something else in mind and food was his backup plan in case he got caught — but it seems like a good place to start, if only to rule it out.

But, to his surprise, Loki actually is in the kitchen, a glass of water in his hand as he looks through the fridge. Tony raises an eyebrow. Well, that was easy.

"What, done with your Cheez-Its already?" Tony asks mockingly.

Loki doesn't dignify that with a response.

"You know, since you liked those Cheez-Its so much," Tony says with a grin, heading for the closet, "I think you'll really like goldfish."

Loki looks over at him, and he almost looks interested. He probably expects an actual fish. He's going to be so disappointed when he finds out it's just another type of cheese cracker.

Tony opens the closet, and his gaze immediately lands on the box of Cheez-Its that he'd been yearning for all day. He scoffs and crosses his arms, looking at Loki as though he were a misbehaving child. "You didn't eat your Cheez-Its!"

"They're not food," Loki says.

Tony bites back a laugh, trying to maintain his stern parent facade. "You're not having anything else until you eat your Cheez-Its."

"I will stab you," Loki deadpans.

Tony clicks his tongue. "And I believe that." He closes the closet door and joins Loki by the fridge. "What are you looking for?"

"Real food," Loki says.

"Like what?"

Loki pauses. "Meat?" he says uncertainly. "You mentioned fish. Or... chicken? There are chickens on Midgard."

Tony bites back a laugh. "Yep. Yes, there definitely are chickens on Earth." How is this the same guy that killed over a hundred people a few months ago? This literally feels like babysitting a child. "Move."

Loki steps out of the way, and Tony opens up the freezer, digging around until he finds an old bag of chicken nuggets. He's not entirely sure that they aren't expired, but what's the worst that will happen? Gods probably can't even get food poisoning. And if they can, as long as it doesn't kill him, Tony doesn't care. (He wouldn't even have that parameter except that he doesn't want to know what Thor would do if he came back and Tony had accidentally killed his brother with a chicken nugget.)

Tony dumps a few chicken nuggets on a plate, laying them out so they're not stacked on top of each other but they cover almost every inch of the plate. He slips them in the microwave for a few minutes, and then they have to wait.

Tony leans against the counter, keeping a cautious eye on Loki but doing his best not to stare. Loki seems unphased. He finishes his glass of water and goes to the sink to refill it. Tony debates telling him that the fridge dispenses clean, filtered water, but decides against it for no reason other than he wants to make Loki's life just a little bit worse.

When the microwave beeps, Tony takes the plate out, then quickly drops it down on the counter, muttering, "Hot, hot," under his breath. He slides the plate towards the god. "There you go. Chicken."

Loki looks down at the chicken nuggets skeptically, but, after a moment of hesitation, he reluctantly picks one up and examines it.

"You want some ketchup?" Tony asks.

Loki gives him a puzzled look, which leads him to believe that they probably don't have ketchup on Asgard. Instead of answering, Loki just takes a bite of his nugget as it is. He makes a face, but when he finishes chewing that bite, he takes another, so it can't be too bad.

"How is it?" Tony asks.

Loki looks down at the last little bite of chicken in his hand for a moment. Finally, he just says, "It will suffice."

"So you at least recognize that it's food," Tony remarks. "That's good. That's an improvement."

Loki doesn't acknowledge that. He finishes eating his nugget, then takes his plate and his cup of water and walks out of the room without another word. Tony stands in the doorway until Loki is out of sight, just to make sure he's heading back to his room, then he does the same. That was absolutely not worth waking up for.