Cold Hard Iron

Chapter 8

Loki knew that telling the Avengers that he would help them was really a bad idea. But something about the prospect of working with Stark was alluring, and Loki could not for the life of him figure out why. It was another one of those feelings inside of him that were eating him alive, another part of himself that he couldn't trust. Of course, this new feeling was not nearly as painful as some of the other ones. This one was almost warm and fuzzy, but that made Loki distrust it even more. He would have to keep an eye on this.

Over the next few weeks the group spent most of its time going over plans and battle strategies and working together. Working together was the class that Loki found himself failing immensely, and getting in trouble for it too. He kept 'accidentally' hitting Thor with magic or insulting another member instead of giving status updates over the communication systems. The only person able to get Loki to do anything helpful was Stark, and Loki could tell that it was amusing him to no end.

Fury was also getting very fed up with Loki, and Fury was really not someone you should allow to get fed up. Loki was extremely powerful, no one could deny that, but he was unruly and tended to only think of himself when in battle. He would let another Avenger get hurt if it meant that he himself would not get hurt. After so many years of acting like this, Loki found it extremely hard to start thinking of other people. It wasn't as if he still wanted to get people killed, he just had the selfish actions hardwired into his brain.

He told Stark this on one morning that they were sitting at the bar together. This had become a sort of tradition between the two of them, waking up a little earlier to avoid the others for just a little while and sitting at the bar eating breakfast, or in Loki's case drinking a cup of tea. They would talk quietly about whatever it was in the group that was troubling them or other trivial things. Loki found that he looked forward to talking to Stark, who seemed to understand him more than anyone else. And Loki found his calm, humorous responses to things that were troubling him almost comforting, making things less heavy and hard to deal with.

"You know, Fury really is going to roast you alive if you fail another one of those teammate training sessions," Stark said, stirring his coffee.

"I know, I just can't seem to make myself work with your friends without doing or saying something wrong," Loki said. "It's sort of a natural instinct for me. I always have to look after myself or somebody is going to kill me behind my back or something like that."

Stark smiled. "You have found yet another thing that you share in common with me," he said in an almost astonished voice. "I don't play well with others, they told me. When it comes down to it, taking care of 'number one' is most important."

"But you seemed to work through that," Loki said.

"Well, I had to, otherwise you would have destroyed the Earth with your minions and all," Stark said lightly. Loki would have bristled at anyone else saying that, but coming out of Stark's mouth it hadn't meant harm.

"Good to know you learned," Loki said dryly.

"Hey, we'll find a way to make you useful and make you one of us. Wouldn't it be cool to call yourself an Avenger?"

Loki's mouth twisted as he thought about this. He supposed it would be kind of nice to refer to himself as a good guy, instead of the one everyone detested. He nodded, smiling slightly.

Stark checked his watch. "Hey, you know, I don't think we have any training today. Fury is going to be working with Thor and the people at HQ to figure out more diplomatic stuff, but we are totally free. What do you say to going down to the workshop and throwing your magic at stuff to see what it does to it?" he said, smiling like a little kid who was asking to go to the toy store.