Starting Over - Loki (COMPLETE)

33) The Tesseract

"What were you two gossiping about?" Tony asked casually.

"Oh, everything and nothing," Loki replied with equal flippancy. "Steve wants a job and an apartment and I said that one of us would end up footing the bill. End of story."

"Ah," was all Tony said.

"What did you want, Tony?"

"I wanted to apologise and thank you."

"I wasn't expecting that," Loki joked.

Tony ignored him.

"I tore into you about Rogers when you weren't feeling your best and then you saved my life."

"Indirectly," Loki pointed out. "I did the ground work and you made the element. But you were feeling far less your best than I was."

"You asked Coulson for a favour when you didn't even know he would be able to help," Tony said.

"The favour was you," Loki commented. "I wasn't going out of my way by any means."

"Stop trying to dismiss it," Tony insisted. "You made a decision and your judgement, as always, was unfailing. I want to thank you and apologise."

"So you've said."

"And?"

"And what?" Loki raised an eyebrow. "Tony, you saved your own life; you owe me nothing. As for the apology, how were you to know that Steve is perfectly fine?"

"How was I to know that he wasn't?" Tony retorted. "I shouldn't always assume the worst of everyone."

"I do," Loki replied cheerfully. "I just don't tell people that."

Tony shook his head, amused.

"I thought I should mention," added Loki, "That I told Steve we could put him up at the tower. As such, it might be a wise idea to actually build this hypothetical tower so that we can house the homeless who come knocking on our door."

"Way ahead of you," grinned Tony. "Planning permission was approved today and I sent a list of materials to a building company. Together with the R&D department they should have a tower high in the sky in a month or two."

"That's optimistic."

"You don't know how much I'm spending on this tower, Alden."

"I think I could guess," Loki replied with humour. "Otherwise, do I want to know?"

"Probably not."

"Anyway, we should go to this reunion," Loki stated. "You said we were all required to attend."

"About that..."

Loki gave Tony a sharp look. He knew at once what was up.

"You hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D, didn't you?"

"Only a teensy weensy bit," Tony wheedled.

Loki stared at him.

"Fine, a lot," he admitted. "But I wanted to know their plans for the Tesseract."

"And?"