One Day Down, Chapter 145

“Take it easy Tony; we need to get you unhooked from everything first.” Bruce smiled a bit and called in the nurse to remove the breathing and feeding tubes.
Loki was sitting in his cell, getting increasingly annoyed at the guards pacing about outside. He watched their every move and tracked them. Thor always brought it in his meals.
"Loki, do you remember anything at all?" Thor asked.  Loki glared him from the corner of his eye on his bunk.
Thor sighed, taking that as a no. He set the food on the table then turned to leave, his heart heavy. He just wanted this to be over. He hated seeing his brother in a cell like this.
Tony spent the rest of that day getting used to being awake again. He had all the tubes and support removed, but was told to rest. He didn’t listen, of course.
“I want to see him.”
“Tony, he doesn’t remember anything yet. It’s too soon.” Bruce argued with the inventor, trying to knock some sense into him. He knew it wouldn’t work, but Bruce had to try.
“I don’t care! I want to know that he’s alive!”
“Tony, he’s fine! You know we wouldn’t do anything to hurt him!”
“Then let me see him Bruce!”
“Tony, he doesn’t know who you are! He doesn’t remember that you two are married or that you have a son! What are you going to do? Go see him and get trampled like the rest of us?”
Tony clenched his jaw and looked away. He didn’t want to sit like a good boy and wait for things to just get better. He wanted to hold Loki; he needed to feel the god against his heart.
"Look Tony, I know you want to see him. We all want to see him back to his old self again. We have to take this slowly. He's missing eight years of his life right now. All he remembers you as is the Man of Iron." Bruce explained. "Clint and Fury both tried to trigger some memories and they only made his head hurt." Bruce explained.
Tony didn’t say anything, but he nodded his head a bit. Deep down, he knew it was a better idea to wait. He knew he should give Loki space to recover from everything that had happened, but he didn’t care. He wanted his husband.
Bruce sighed a bit then remembered something. He took a gold ring from his pocket and set it on Tony’s lap.
“He was still wearing it when we caught him.”
Tony looked at the ring and pressed it to his lips.
"Figured it would be best if you held onto it until he got his memory back." Bruce said.
Loki was pacing his cell again. He always knew when someone new was watching him.
"Come for another visit? How many more lies do you have to tell me?" He asked.
Natasha walked in coolly but kept her distance.
“I didn’t come here to lie to you Loki. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Does your head still hurt?”
Tony sighed heavily and ran his hand over his face. He put the ring in his pocket and looked out the window; it was raining.
“He will regain his memories, right?”
Bruce nodded then chuckled a bit.
“And if not, then you can just get him to love you all over again. Maybe with less getting tossed out windows.”
Tony couldn’t help but smile at that.
"What do you care?" He asked. He walked over to the wall of glass she stood out of. "What you show me is not me. I have no more children, nor do I have a relationship with the Man of Iron." Loki growled.  "When I get out of here, you'll be the first."
Natasha didn’t show any emotion at Loki’s words; she’d received threats like this before they were friends. It wasn’t necessarily anything new. The redhead shrugged and nodded her head a bit.
“Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, I’m just here to see how you’re doing.”
Tony sat in silence with Bruce for a moment, just looking at his hands.
“The first time he ever slept in bed with me, he had a nightmare. He was scared, but he wouldn’t tell me about what. I asked him for weeks what it was and then he told me…” Tony paused for a moment, swallowing back the knot in his throat. “He said he was afraid of losing everything. He didn’t want to wake up one day and find out that he was dreaming.”
Bruce looked at Tony then sat on the bed next to him.
“He hasn’t lost everything Tony. He’ll remember.”
Fury watched from a video feed. Steve was by his side.
“We should treat him now like we did then. It might help trigger something." Steve said.
"No, we keep him right here. Too much has actually changed. We’ll give him a few more days." Fury replied.
"Very well Sir."
"I brought some more pictures." Natasha said.
"I don’t want to see any more of your filth. Get away from me!"
"Agent Romanoff, time to leave it be." Fury ordered.
Natasha paused and looked back. She pursed her lips but didn’t argue. She took the pictures and turned, leaving the cell.
“Why did you stop me?”
“It might be too soon for this just yet. We need to give him time in between to recover from the shock. This isn’t easy for him to absorb.” Fury looked into the cell at Loki. “He thinks he’s a prisoner, an enemy of the earth. It’s hard for him to understand how much he’s changed.”
Steve sighed heavily and shook his head.
“I heard Tony’s awake. How’s he doing?”
“As well as Stark can get. He’s adamant that he wants to see Loki, but that would make things worse for both of them.”
"Might trigger something." Steve said.
"That's what I'm afraid off. It might be too much letting Stark see him. You know Stark is persistent and won’t stop." Fury said.
"So in other words we're just going to have to dance them around each other?" Clint asked.
“If that’s what it takes, yes.” Fury looked at the Avengers sternly. “We don’t have the luxury of snapping him out of this. Loki isn’t like any other patient with amnesia. He has powers and if he wants, he could trick us all and make us release him. And then what?”
The others sighed but knew Fury was right. They couldn’t afford to push Loki too hard, or they’d risk making Loki forget everything for good.
“What do we do about Tony? You know he won’t stay away.”
“He will if you tell him the damage he’d be causing. Stark may be stupid, but he isn’t cruel. He’ll stay away if we tell him to.”
Loki finally settled on to his bunk for a bit of sleep. He was tired and they'd caused him enough pain for him. Thor came back around with Loki's evening meal but found him fast asleep.
"I want my brother back."
He looked at Loki sadly, but knew he couldn’t stay long. His brother didn’t remember everything they’d gone through together over the past years. He turned and quietly left the cell once again.
Tony was starting to get impatient. It had been almost six days since he’d woken up. Why couldn’t he just go and see Loki? He wouldn’t even have to talk to the god. He just wanted to know Loki was all right. He sat back at the tower, looking at the repairs that still needed to be done. He had his suits rebuilding the wall and replacing glass.
“Sir, how is your wound healing?”
“It’s fine Jarvis, just looks like a scratch now.”
Loki still didn’t remember anything but he had noticed the skin where his wedding ring once sat.
Bruce thought Tony could have a look at Loki from a distance. Let Tony see Loki but not Loki see Tony.
"Tony? Ready to see Loki?" He asked. "There are rules to this. You stay at the distance I put you at and you are not allowed to talk to him. Not yet."
Tony was more than eager to see his husband again. He didn’t bother to get cleaned off; he knew it wouldn’t make a difference if he was covered in oil stains or not. He went back to SHIELD with Bruce and could feel his heart racing in his chest. He wanted to see Loki again, of course, but something in him felt afraid.
When they arrived, he could feel his nervousness twisting his stomach.
“You okay Tony?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He looked at Bruce and smiled a bit.
Bruce stopped him.
“This is as far as we go.” Bruce said. "We can see and hear him but he can’t see or hear us." Bruce explained.
"He just started to calm down yesterday." Steve said entering the room.
Tony looked at the two and nodded. He didn’t like this, but he supposed it was better than nothing. He looked through the glass at Loki and felt his heart tighten. He hadn’t seen the god in a cell like this in years.
“Is he alright?”
“He’s stressed out over everything that’s been going on. It’s hard for him to process what we’ve been showing him.” Bruce looked at Tony then at Loki.
“Does he remember anything yet?”
“A little bit, but it’s not enough. He thinks we’re holding him after the Chitauri incident; I don’t even think he realizes he was fighting with Skrull.”
"He'll wear a hole in the floor. He's been pacing when he thinks and we let him." Bruce replied.
"We think it helps him process it. The more we leave him alone for now the better. Thor brings him meals." Steve added. "Fury tried showing him pictures but he was showing ones of you and him with Remus far too soon. It only pissed him off and made him lash out more. He even started digging at old wounds between him and Thor.”
Tony clenched his jaw when he heard this. He didn’t want to open his mouth to say anything; he knew he couldn’t count on himself to not say something stupid. He was pissed. One because Loki was trapped like an animal and two because he knew Fury would poke him. He knew this would happen. Tony watched Loki pace for a while and it calmed him almost. The god did that a lot, actually. Loki would pace in the room when he was upset about something or go out on the balcony. He wouldn’t say anything; he’d just walk back and forth, thinking. Tony put his hand to the glass, sighing at how cold it felt.
“He’s trying to force himself to forget.”
Bruce and Steve looked at Tony puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“The room’s cold.” He said simply, watching Loki. “He’s thinking about whatever is it you’ve been telling him, but he doesn’t want to…” He stopped himself.
Steve and Bruce shared a look and then look back at Tony.
"Tony we need more than that. You understand him better, you have to help us out here explain it to us." Bruce said.
"Please Tony." Steve pleaded.
“He’s trying to reason with himself. That’s what he does when he paces like that.” Tony said, slightly exasperated. He should have known Loki would do something like this. The god hated dealing with such emotional things, so he did what he knew best: he pushed it out of his mind.
“He’s probably trying to convince himself that you’re all lying. That you found some way to bypass his lie-detector.”
“But why would he do that?” Bruce frowned puzzled.
“Because that’s what he does. He doesn’t deal with things like this, he ignores them.” Tony could feel his blood starting to boil. No, he’d gone through too much with Loki to see it all fall apart like this.
“We’ll keep trying.” Steve reassured Tony, but the man pulled away from him.
“Try all you want, but it won’t change anything. It took me two years to get him to talk at all.”
Bruce sighed.
"But when we push too hard he shuts down everything." Bruce said.
"If we push too much it could make things worse and possibly make him forget even more." Steve sighed.
"We're backed into a corner here. And there's no telling what he'll do to you if he sees you. We've been trying to keep things like they were back when he first came here thinking maybe it would help." Bruce replied.
Tony scoffed and shook his head. It would help, it had to. There was nothing Loki feared and hated more than being back in this cell. But at this rate, it would take two more years, maybe longer. Loki wasn’t exactly the type to open up about what was on his mind.
“Can I have a second alone with him?”
“Tony, you can’t…”
“I’m not going to go in the cell. I’m staying here, I just want to be alone with my husband.” He looked at Bruce and Steve, clearly upset. The two men exchanged worried glances but nodded. They left the smaller room and stood posted near the cell door. They had to be sure Tony wouldn’t try to get in to see Loki.
Tony sighed heavily and pressed his forehead to the glass.
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing in there? I know that look on your face, I’m not stupid.” Tony felt a knot in his throat. Maybe it was better that Loki couldn’t hear or see him.
Loki stopped pacing. He felt a pair of eyes on him. Looking in the direction, he felt them coming from he stared for a long moment. He growled at the cell walls and went back over to his bunk to cocoon himself in blankets and hopefully get the eyes off of him.
"He's got to come back." Steve said.
“He has to. If not for his sake then for Tony and the boys.” Bruce shook his head.
Tony kept watching Loki, his breathing shaky. He pressed his hand to the glass, even though the cold was starting to burn his skin a bit.
“You’re not allowed to ignore me!” He hit the glass without realizing it. It was bullet proof, not to mention covered in spells to keep Loki in; it wouldn’t break. But it did tremble in its frame.
Steve looked over to the other door when he heard a faint thump. What was Tony doing in there? He was about to go over when Bruce stopped him.
“Just give him some time. He doesn’t like getting emotional around people.”
Steve looked at him and decided to let Tony have a few minutes. To keep himself busy, Steve left to get Loki some more blankets. It came to his thought that he should give Loki the fur blanket that he and Tony kept on their bed but what with Loki locked away in a cell, it might be best for Tony to keep it so he didn’t go crazy.
Tony watched the god still, not even letting himself blink. A bit of frost began to cloud the glass and he chuckled dryly. This reminded him so much of the time Loki locked himself in the bathroom. It was before they were dating. The god had been upset about Thor visiting earth and decided he didn’t want to see his brother. He never talked to Tony about it, but the inventor didn’t leave Loki alone. Eventually he made Loki so mad that the god left the bathroom. He punched Tony, of course, but he went and saw Thor.
“I need you to come home now.” Tony spoke quietly. “I need you to come back to me. I don’t have the boys and I don’t have you and Nelim’s too scared to go back to the tower. I don’t have anybody.” Tony sighed and pressed his forehead to the glass. “I’m sorry. I never should have let those things take you in the first place.” He looked to where Loki was, but the god wasn’t moving. Tony stood there in silence for a while, trying to make this situation better than it was. Well, at least he got to see Loki.
After a while, Bruce and Steve walked back into the room with Tony.
“How are you holding up?”
“How do you think?”
“Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
Steve caught them on the way out to the garage.
"I need a few things that might help him. Blankets or two from the tower." Steve said. "Little things like that." He said.
"I'll see what we can turn up and bring it back with me." Bruce said. Steve nodded and left them.
Bruce looked at Tony and patted the man’s shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay Tony.”
“What if it isn’t? What if we can’t fix this?” He looked at Bruce then got into the car. His body felt heavy.
They arrived at the tower and Tony handed Bruce one of Fenrir’s blankets.
“The boys all share it, but Fenrir uses it the most. Maybe it’ll help him to smell someone he actually remembers.”
“He doesn’t remember that Fenrir is here with him.”
Tony nodded a bit.
“He must think Fenrir is still living in another realm.”
Bruce nodded.
"I'm going to take a few books for him as well. Maybe it'll help keep him from all that pacing." Bruce said.
"Sir, perhaps you would also like to pack a few outfits for Loki to wear." Jarvis interjected.
"That's a great idea. Thanks Jarvis." Bruce smiled at the ceiling.
Tony packed Loki’s favorite clothes and handed them to Bruce along with some books.
“Loki isn’t as fragile as you think.” Tony looked at Bruce. “He’s going to push you when you try and show him things and he’ll push hard. You just have to push even harder.”
Bruce chuckled a bit.
“I’m not you Tony. None of us are. I don’t know how you did it, but you broke through Loki. I don’t think we’ll have the same luck.”
The good doctor left and Tony was alone in the tower again. He looked around; he’d never noticed just how horribly cold it was now that he was alone again. He sat at the island and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Sir, is there anything I can do?”
“No Jarvis, there isn’t.”
"I'm sorry Sir." He said.
Bruce took the stuff back to SHIELD and went to visit Loki. Thor had just brought him lunch, so he was sitting at the small table eating.
"Hey Loki, I brought you some stuff. More clothes to wear and a few books." He said.
Loki ignored him as he picked at the sorry excuse for a meal. Bruce left everything on the bed before moving to leave.
Bruce walked out of the cell and watched Loki from the other side of the glass for a moment, curious to see what the god would do.
Tony dug up one of his bottles of Scotch.
“Sir?”
“Don’t worry; I’m not going to get drunk.” Tony sat back down at the island. ”Even though really, I think I should be allowed to.”
“You have gone through enough over your alcoholism Sir. Now is not the time to fall back into old habits.”
“I know, I know.” Tony poured himself a drink and sipped it. It had been so long since he’d had a drink, that it actually burned his throat. He sighed and set the glass down.
“This will work Sir. Please, do not give up now.”
Loki got up and wandered over to his bed, looking at the books first. He set the clothes to the side. He'd go back for them when he had gotten washed up. Taking the blanket, Loki wrapped himself in it and picked one of the books to read.
Tony sat for several hours, sipping his drinks slowly. He was buzzed, though not drunk.
“Sir, are you alright?”
“Can I ask you a favor, Jarvis?”
“I do not see why not Sir.”
“Do you think you can patch me a feed from Loki’s cell?”
“Of course Sir. One moment.” The AI began hacking through the system, though it was really quite easy. Fury hadn’t exactly counted on Tony trying to get into the cameras in the old cell. Soon enough a feed was brought up on Tony’s tablet. He looked at it and smiled a bit.