Bend Around the Wind by Scyllaya

Chapter 25: Icarus Wings

Chapter Twenty-Five

Icarus Wings

Andromeda Galaxy

Filipima System

Open Space

Loki's been... irritated, angry, and snappy a lot more than usual in the past two weeks. Tony expected him to be a little more... well, bitchy after the whole passing out thing, but this surprised even him. The god spent an incredible amount of time meditating in their room, when he was absolutely not to be disturbed. Sure, the whole thing with the Filipima Space Patrol was a reminder that he was nowhere near his full-power, so it was no surprise that he wanted to work more on regaining it. It was still ridiculous. He talked with Juyu more than he spoke with Loki, which was saying something. Most of the time he was silently brooding or glaring, but once in a while Tony caught him looking at him with an unreadable expression for a few moments before he turned and left, looking angry. So yeah, Loki was definitely still pissed about the extra trouble Tony hung around their necks.

He was also certain that Loki was bothered by showing his cards, so to speak. Tony did his best to not even hint at what happened after they got away from the Patrol because of that. Loki trusted him, he knew that for sure. He considered him safe and trusted him to keep him safe when he was weak. That was a big deal. A big fucking deal. He also knew that Loki never wanted him to know that, so bringing it up would be just like rubbing Loki's nose in it. And Tony was not that big an asshole to point at a moment of weakness like that. Loki was prideful, it would make him angry beyond words. It was best to treat it like it was no big deal. He did that with most things about Loki. Sometimes Tony felt like Loki expected to be pointed at or looked at like he was a freak of nature when it came to his peculiarities. He wondered about that, but he did not know enough about Asgard to make any accurate guesses and he knew for a fact that it would be unwise to ask Loki about it. He turned against his own people and family for a reason, right? And there was that whole adoption thing Thor mentioned that he still knew nothing about. But he did not ask, not now anyway. Don't disturb the sleeping lion as they say, especially when said lion is very grumpy to begin with.

For that exact reason, while he was busy working on his suit, he still took the time to make the armour pieces he promised for Loki's boots. He could not do the vambraces unless Loki told him exactly what kind he wanted, so those were not ready yet. He left the metal to cool after he finished with the straps on them while he cleaned up on his workshop table.

He was finally finished with the DNI prototype for his suit. It was nowhere near as complex and perfect like the one the ship had, but he would not need to control so many systems with it either, so in theory it was supposed to work. He was also almost completely finished with the boots and the gauntlets. Now modifying the Mark V model - when he did not even have the original blueprints - was really quite a feat, if he could say so himself. Well, who was he kidding? It was an incredible feat, the modified design was better than the original, he was a genius. Unlike the original Mark V, he needed this suit in three main pieces instead of one. Luckily the smaller crystals they bought last time proved to be just what he needed for it. Each boot and gauntlet had a small energy source to operate on its own to a certain extent. They certainly had enough power to keep them connected to the DNI and to start the automatic assemble when needed or even to operate on their own for a while without having to connect to the main part of the suit. To not make any of them too thick and heavy, the boots contained the full-length armour for the legs, the gauntlets for the arms and the main chest piece had the helmet, and waist areas. It was great too, that in their deactivated form, the gauntlets almost looked like vambraces, so he had his fingers free. He would have to make quite a few tests in order to make sure that the three pieces connected smoothly. Well, it was technically five pieces, but the controls for the two boots and two gauntlets were connected, because they would always be activated together. The suit would still use power from his arc reactor of course, but the additional crystals gave him a lot of extra energy, so he did not have to rely on his reactor alone. The reactor kept him alive, it would be not too smart to tinker with it much, unless he had a sure way of building a new one. He did not.