Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 121

"Sir, Captain Rogers would like to enter your lab," FRIDAY says.

"Let him in." Tony swivels his chair to face the doorway, taking a much-needed break from puzzling out the issues with the inner-tower security.

It only takes a few seconds for Steve to appear. He doesn't come inside, instead opting to lean against the doorway, his arms folded across his chest.

"No word from Loki yet?" Tony asks.

"Nope."

"Has he said anything to you?" Tony asks. "At all?"

"Nope."

Tony frowns. "Are you here to talk to me about something, or are you just trying to make me feel bad?"

"That depends," Steve says. "Is it working?"

"No, actually, I felt like shit before you showed up, so you can't really make it much worse," Tony tells him. He says it flippantly, but he's not lying. He really does feel like shit about this, and the fact that Steve doesn't seem to be here with good news is not helping. "What do you want? What's up?"

"Is FRIDAY hooked up yet?"

"Oh, yeah, I finished hooking her up hours ago," Tony says. Bruce helped him out with it. It was the most productive way to get them both away from Loki, not that it seems to have helped much at all.

"So she can see Loki?" Steve asks. "She can tell us if he leaves his room?"

Tony sucks in a breath through his teeth. "Not so much," he says. "I had her introduce herself and he blew all the sensors on his floor. He, um..." He chuckles awkwardly. "He's not a fan."

"So Friday can't keep tabs on him," Steve surmises, frowning.

Tony shakes his head. "We can't see a thing."

"Dammit." Steve smacks his head against the wall, exasperated.

Tony's not sure this will work — he's not sure it's a good idea at all — but he feels like he has to do something, so, reluctantly, he says, "I can try installing a microphone outside his room. We won't know what he's doing, but we'll at least know if he opens his door."

"I know that he opens his door," Steve says. "He ate lunch. I'm assuming he'll eat his dinner. He's just not talking to me."

"Hey, if that's enough for you, that's fine," Tony says, "but we can always do more. She can tell us if anything sounds wrong up there."

Steve hesitates, but it seems he's sold on the idea because finally, he nods. "Fine. Just don't let him know what you're doing. If he doesn't want to be surveilled, he's not going to be happy that we're doing it anyway."

"Got it," Tony says. "But that means I gotta talk to him when I do it so he doesn't hear me sneaking around. That okay with you, boss?"

"Just don't say anything stupid," Steve says.

"I think I can manage that," Tony says. "I still have a few kinks to work out with FRIDAY, but I'll put up the mic later."

"Thank you," Steve says. His tone is a little cold for his "thank you" to sound very appreciative. The fact that he leaves right after that without saying any sort of goodbye doesn't help.

He waits until he knows Steve is gone, then pulls up the holographic display he'd been working with. If all goes well, he should have FRIDAY all set up by the time the sun rises tomorrow morning, Loki's microphone and all.

~~~

One of the perks of being a world-renowned engineer is that Tony can make very small microphones. It's visible, yes, but if you're not looking for it, you're not going to find it. When Loki calms down and Tony gets to put up all the sensors again, he's putting this kind up. He'd like to see Loki find these to blow up.