A/N: AT LAST I AM HERE! Sorry for the delay between posts...I've had the most ridiculously busy week ever, check my tumblr for more info! Anyway, I wrote this last night at stupid o'clock as I'm going to be busy again for the next week or so, so please forgive any grammar errors - I shall edit when I get back! I'm not super happy with how this turned out, but I missed it so much I just HAD to get something down. Enjoy, and I now need to fly off again!

What is this life and why do I have it.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Title from song by Leonard Cohen

Chapter 17. Who By Fire.

It was three days later, and everyone was still there.

Things still felt a bit weird, but much less so, and to be honest nobody was even sure if it'd ever stop being weird – houseshares involving a narcissistic billionaire genius, two grade A assassins, two Norse gods, a star spangled human time capsule, and a scientist with a penchant to grow to four times his size and turn an alarming shade of green were never really going to fit into a registered demographic. Not that they were technically in a houseshare – nobody had mentioned anything about staying permanently, and it couldn't happen anyway, they all had separate lives to go back to at some point – but as yet none of them had bothered to bring up an ETD (estimated time of departure). In addition, Fury had almost imploded when Tony had ever so casually informed him that his guinea pigs were all currently holed up in his living room, and Tony had been genuinely fearful that his remaining eye was going to pop out with the amount of bulging he'd seen it do over the video feed. In the end, Steve had had to come through and have a nice little chat with the Director, because it seemed everything Tony said was just driving him closer and closer to breaking point; Fury was not someone to take kindly to people arranging things behind his back. Especially not things that involved an entire team of people capable of destroying most sentient things in the known world. Tony figured the thing that angered Fury mostly was that he could see the plan was a good one, and he was pissed off at not suggesting it himself. Then again, that may have just been his ego talking; it was responsible for most of the things that happened in his head after all, and nearly all of those that came out of his mouth. Regardless, somehow, Steve had managed to sweet talk the Director and for now, a group hiatus to Miami was something that had entered the official approved book of SHIELD missions.

The fact that Loki made up one eighth of that group, a ninth when Pepper popped over (she usually organised dinner every night), was something else that was also becoming less weird as every day passed, and Tony was certain it wasn't just him who felt so. Clint was still edgy around the god, which was understandable – he hadn't yet forgiven him for rooting around in his mind – and Natasha was generally as silent and unfathomable as always, but nobody flinched when Loki came in the room, everyone answered each other in polite, almost friendly tones, and Bruce had actually apologised for 'hulking out' on Loki in the penthouse. Steve was acting typically Steve like; which involved maintaining a diplomatically pleasant persona with an undertone of authority and control just peeping through. He was willing to give Loki and Tony the benefit of the doubt, but he wasn't about to slip into domestic bliss; he had his guard up and he was protective, both of his friends and world peace. Which translated, in their situation, to house peace.

Although Tony had been the one to suggest the plan, he surprised even himself at how well it had been received, though he'd never admit that to anyone. Only Thor counted as a slightly unpredictable variable, given that Loki still seemed reluctant to actually make proper amends with him, either through lack of will or ability. Although he had maintained his silent acquiescence of a few days ago, and willingly tolerated Thor's presence in the same space as himself, even deigning to interact with him when he absolutely had to. Tony caught him staring at Thor a few times when he thought no one else was looking, and it made the billionaire smile to himself – Loki was as stubborn as he was unsure, and until he managed to beat one of those inner demons, he wasn't going to give Thor any rope off his own back. Luckily, Tony can remember being exactly the same, and he can also remember the moment he'd practically lassoed the people he'd been avoiding. Loki would come round, eventually, and Tony could chalk that up in his book of successes as well, inflating his ever growing ego when he did so. Mediator of the gods. He liked that.

Unsurprisingly, Tony remained the one that Loki interacted most with, and as the days went by Tony was getting to see more and more of the Loki that Thor had told him about, the mischievous, sneaky, highly intelligent, smooth talking trickster; and the more Tony glimpsed, the more he knew he would have got along with Loki, in another world, another place, another time. Not in the way they 'got along' now, united mostly by past damage and personality flaws and daddy issues; no, Tony was starting to recognise the other side of Loki that was also very, very similar to himself.

The more Loki spoke, the more Tony wanted to hear him speak; he was fascinated by the way Loki's brain worked when it wasn't controlled by alien monsters or fogged up with guilt and regret and pain. Loki talked in language that ignited curiosity in Tony; he recognised the wit and genius lying so close to the surface – the god had a certain power over words, he knew just what to say, what inference to hint at, what emphasis to place; either to attract or fend off attention, spark or finish a debate, impress or hide under the radar. Tony had noticed recurrent 'looks' from other members of the team at times when Loki was particularly vocal, word sparring or even just talking with the billionaire, and he fancied there was something searching in their looks, something puzzled and apprehensive. He ignored them though, much the same way he ignored the part of his own head that seemed to escape and look at him too, forcing him to watch himself have a conversation with Loki that was scarily close to friendly and familial. He told himself nobody had anything to stare at; he was doing it for Loki's sake, for the greater good, he was helping Loki, helping Thor, helping all of them by introducing Loki to a little bit of humanity.

Loki's sake.

Because he had enough friends already, did he not? He could flirt with Pepper, banter with Steve (although most of the 'banter' came at the Cap's expense, which was just as fun, but in a different kind of way), discuss sciency stuff with Bruce and word spar with Clint when he got too grouchy from being kept apart from his arrows for too long. They didn't look at him funny then, did they? So what if he generally ended up talking to Loki more than doing any of these?

Loki had also taken to following Tony down to his workshop, something that Tony had expressively forbidden before – but now, given the influx of people to the house, he figured Loki probably needed a place other than his bedroom where he could go to escape the others when Tony wasn't around. And if Tony wasn't around, it meant he was in the workshop, so it made sense for Loki to be there too. And Tony actually enjoyed having the company at times, Loki was extremely intelligent and seemed to understand most things that came under his vision after the merest cursory glance; Tony was almost jealous. Even better, although he'd suggested it half jokingly that time in the kitchen, Loki actually seemed to want to indulge Tony by offering him advice and suggestions; and by explaining to him the number of ways in which Tony's formulas and equations and codes weren't really all that different from his own incantations and spells and gestures – all were instructions, reliant on forces and reactions, just manifested in different ways. Tony was fascinated and he didn't care if he showed it; he was like a little kid learning something new, and learning something new had always been one of his favourite things to do. The little flare of excitement that blossomed in his chest whenever he got something to work because of something Loki said was like a drug, addictive and inspiring, and over the last few days Tony had made more advancements in his work than he had for the last fortnight or so. In addition to this increased level of productivity, Tony enjoyed the background chatter that came with Loki's presence, whether it be a serious discussion about technology and force fields and magnets and power, or brief banter about the others. Loki had the same wicked sense of humour as Tony, and the more Tony coaxed it, the more it started showing naturally, and less and less of the shattered and tired Loki that Tony had arrived at the house with managed to show through.

They were in the workroom now, although it was hours and hours after dinner, and everyone else in the entire state was probably and sensibly asleep, but Tony was working on his new project – a holographic image projector communication system – and hence had inevitably forgotten that humans need to do things like sleep and rest and switch off now and again. What with everyone around all the time, not attending their usual day to day activities wherever the hell they might be, and Fury wanting even more regular feed updates, and Pepper living over at the villa, Tony had come up with the idea of creating a machine that scanned in your physical likeness and then transported it wherever you needed to be, making it so much easier and quieter for everyone to conduct their business conversations and whatnot without having to jam up the phone and video feeds in his house. Loki, being such an expert in actual physical body transportation and teleportation, was an actual godsend – ha, no pun intended – in helping with the design and coding of the particles needed to be processed by the machine, and the two of them had been shut up in the workshop all day, breaking only for fajitas earlier in the evening at Peppers insistence. They'd been working side by side for the majority of the time, and Tony had almost forgotten that this was Loki, that this time last week this would have been laughable; he fitted into Tony's inventor life even easier than Bruce did, as if he'd always been around, as if he'd never been the villain and never gone batshit crazy on all their asses.

Swearing at a particularly problematic bit of code – Tony had managed to program a live voice projection, but so far, no pixels of the hologram were willing to follow it – he stood back from his desk and kicked at a rogue blueprint on the floor, bending to pick it up to see if it contained the hidden mysteries of the universe he was so desperately seeking.

''Seriously Loki, can you not just, like, zap your power into the machine here and have it construct a me? I've scanned me in so much, I know I'm in there somewhere. Damn pixels just won't assemble and I'm getting sick of them; I don't think I look my best when I'm made up of millions of mismatched holographic squares''.

Loki gave a wry smile, even though Tony, still bent over his retrieved scribbling, didn't see.

''As I've said before, a number of times, as I recall - my magic would blow up that machine, it's far too powerful. Things made by your science can only contain your science, all I can do is offer my help in getting it to mimic my magic''.

''Damn fucks sake''. Tony cursed again and waved the piece of paper around, moving over to a StarkScreen. Pulling up various tabs of numbers and algorithms and interconnected dots and shapes and arrows, he cross referenced them with what he had written down, pulling at various parts of the screen, minimizing and maximising and moving things around in a mini-frenzy.

''I just don't fucking know why my image won't transpose. I must be missing something, a command, a key, somewhere…''

Loki would never tell Tony this, even on pain of death, but he enjoyed listening to the mans mumblings and enjoyed watching his expression change when he went off in his own world of invention and creation; he enjoyed seeing the familiar glaze that covered Tony's eyes and the sparks that followed. It was how he himself felt when he was learning, reading, practising, drinking in knowledge.

Running a hand through his hair in frustration, Tony bit his lip; while chewing he seemed to come to some sort of resigned conclusion.

''Right, I'm getting sick of staring at myself. I know, I know, I never thought I'd say that either. But I want to know if the problem is anything to do with my arc reactor messing up the scan data… I need another body to test. I'll have to do you. Go stand over there, by that probe.''

Looking up as he finished talking, Tony caught Loki staring at him, nonplussed and not moving. He sighed. ''It won't hurt, you watched me do it earlier. Go on, I need another sample, and I'm not waking any of the others up. It'll take two seconds.''

Loki continued to just stare at him; figuring he was missing something – because really, he hadn't exactly asked Loki to strip naked and do a dance now, had he? – he inclined his head in a questioning way, as if to say what, come on, just get over there!

Loki let a small smile curl at his lips, not a malicious one, more mildly amused. ''Have you forgotten who I am, Tony? If you think if your arc reactor causes the machine to mess up, how do you propose it will process my magic? Besides, I'm not even technically human…am I really the best trial dummy?''

Nonetheless impressed at Loki's logic, Tony was too tired and frustrated and buzzing with impatience to care.

''I don't know, probably, maybe, we'll see anyway, if there is a problem then it points even more at artificial energy being the reason for our dead ends, so no harm done either way really – just go and get probed, yeah? Humour me.''

Tony's eyes were smirking despite the fact that his voice remained on the exhausted side of disheartened, of all the things he was, 'mature' probably found itself pretty far down the list. Accidental innuendo was the best kind of innuendo.

Clearly the accidental innuendo hadn't escaped Loki either, for the god raised his eyebrows in reply and crossed his arms, a shadow of a laugh playing at his lips.

''You wish to probe me Stark? No wonder you didn't want to wake the others…although I do hope humour isn't the sole reason you make that particular requests of people. Might be seen as offensive by some, to laugh during such a…ahh…compromising situation.''

Smirking properly now, Tony pointed at the probe attached to the newly built scanner a few feet away, and made a shooing motion at Loki.

''Get. Now. And be thankful I don't need you to be naked.''

Tony watched Loki move over into the space next to the probe machine ready to be scanned, almost trembling with excitement. He didn't just want to use Loki as a second prototype, if he simply needed one of those, he could have called up to Natasha or Clint or Pepper; he wanted it to be Loki because it was an excuse to use him, to examine him, to have the god connected with his experiments, however simple they happened to be. Tony wanted to study Loki, to learn about him, see what was underneath the exterior, both physical and personality wise. He wanted to see what made Loki tick, what made his magic work, how he did things, how he thought things, what he thought, what he understood, how he understood it. Every single dimension and facet and layer of Loki fascinated Tony, and he wanted to be the one to see it all, piece by piece, unravelling the alien from other planet, another world, another life. Loki was a piece of science, and Tony always liked to have the biggest and the best. He always wanted to be first, to be cleverest, to have the most exciting ideas. Scanning Loki for use in a telecommunications device wasn't exactly going to be groundbreaking, it wouldn't turn Tony into the next Einstein or Fleming, but it was a start. Loki might not have been aware of Tony's desperation to analyse him, not just his magic, and if he had been, he probably wouldn't have agreed – but for now, Tony had Loki right where he'd been wanting him, and no there is no fucking innuendo there, for once, goddamn it brain, did I give you permission to be 14 years old again?

Swiping a few files around on the screen in front of him before pushing some buttons and pulling a lever, Tony caught Loki's eye, about to issue that would begin the body full body scan.

''You ready?''

''As I'll ever be, Stark. Hit me. But be gentle.'' Loki answered in a relaxed drawl and his mouth slightly turned up as he spoke the final words, clearly gods weren't also above really bad smutty humour.

''Any way you like it, protégé''.

If Loki was a woman, and they was in any other situation, Tony would definitely have classed this as flirting, but it wasn't and so he didn't. Instead, he ignored Loki's look of obvious indignation at being classed as anyone's 'protégé' and flicked a switch in the bottom corner of the screen he was stood beside, watching as a blue light burst into life somewhere above Loki's head, and a plume of blue light seemed to fall almost like rain, forming a dome of miniscule virtual dots around the god. Illuminated by the light, Loki's skin seemed even more pale than usual, glowing an eerily translucent shade of light blue; the dots also reflected in is irises, combing with brilliant green to give a shocking shade of ultramarine. Tony gasped despite himself, not just at the fact that the scanner seemed to be working and not blowing up on immediate connection with Loki's non-human form, but with pure surprise at just how stunning the contrast of colours was inside the dome, the contrast that was the different parts of Loki's body reacting to the piercing glare of the lasers. Realising a second later that he'd actually just connected Loki with stunning, he cleared his throat and tore his gaze away – the light was getting too bright anyway – and focussed on the image that was slowly developing on his screen, the image that was the spitting likeness of Loki, albeit scaled down to roughly a tenth of his size. However, the image also seemed to be glowing, it was shining almost as bright as the real thing, positively burning with colour and pixels in a way that Tony's image didn't. Was this the imprint of Loki's magic, or was Loki always this shiny in photographs? It was a breathtaking picture, mesmerizing, and Tony felt himself staring whilst trying to keep the fact that he was doing so hidden from the real object of his attention standing not two feet from him.

As the machine finished the scan, filling in Loki's feet, the blue dome disappeared and real-Loki's skin and eyes turned back to their normal colour. The image, however, continued to radiate light, and it didn't seem to be causing the machine any adverse effects by being inside it, at least not yet. Tony typed in a few codes and assigned Loki's name to his likeness before giving him a personal number, storing 'Loki – God of Mischief' to 'Available Contacts - #02'. Swivelling the screen round to show Loki, Tony tried not to let his bubbling overexcitement spill over into voice; he tended to get very 'child at an adventure playground' when something he did worked the way he wanted it to.

''Now I've got you, see. It worked! I think…Well, we'll see if we can get this image to project back out of the database again, and carry your voice and stuff, but I think it will, it's a much stronger representation than the one of me, and there's no pixels missing!'' Tony aimed a high five at Loki; realised mid way that Asgardians probably didn't go in for those, failed to retract his arm properly, and ended up kind of brushing down Loki's arm with his fingertips, not in a soft or meaningful way but in a 'err sorry I did not engage motor neurones quick enough no I don't know what I'm doing either don't worry I'll stop in a second' kind of way.

Even so. Ok. Right. He'd pretty much just stroked Loki. Loki looked as surprised as Tony, firstly to find himself not on the receiving end of a slap (high five declarations tend to look pretty menacing to those unfamiliar with them) and then at having the other man paw all the was down his arm, seemingly without warning or purpose or intent. Shoving the screen in Loki's face, Tony tried to cover up the awkwardness as fast as possible, ignoring how cold and smooth Loki's skin had been and how, strangely, it seemed to have left a ticklish heat sensation on the tips of his fingers.

Loki raised an eyebrow at the screen, surprisingly impressed with what he saw; it was like watching a mini Loki spin 360 degrees on the spot. The image looked solid enough, it was his perfect likeness, it even seemed to radiate his mildly amused facial expression he remembered having as he noticed the look Tony was giving him when he'd been inside the lights. It was a faint ghost of his real smile, a smile he'd inexplicably wanted to repeat just a second ago when he'd felt Tony's touch, gentle and unassuming and awkward on his skin

A shiver ran down Loki's lower arm at the same time Tony curled his fist up into a ball. Both of them noticed the other's movements.

As both men stared at the little Loki, both wondered what the hell had just happened, if anything had actually happened at all, what the hell they were thinking, what the hell they thought the other one must be thinking, and why they were even thinking about it if they weren't even sure what the thing was or even if it had happened at all.

Loki also thought about the last time he'd thought about thinking in such a way. He couldn't remember.

Tony could remember. The ticklish heat sensation suddenly burned like fire.