Chapter 3: Tell Me You Never Wanted More Than This.

Thor finds Loki in a badly-lit alleyway, his back turned on the city, shoulders hunched, leant against the wall. He walks up to the slim, dark figure and reaches out a hand but Loki moves away from his touch. "Come home now, brother." He says gently.

Loki doesn't answer for a moment or two but when he does, it's so quiet and filled with self-loathing that Thor barely hears it. "I have no home."

Thor makes a noise of anguish in his throat and he croaks, "Asgard is your home." And the way his voice breaks reminds Loki with a swooping sensation in his stomach of when Thor was a child gearing up for a cry.

He turns around to look at Thor now, at his over-bright eyes, the pain on his face but Loki remembers the time Thor shoved him back and told him to remember his place. "Asgard is my prison."

Thor opens his mouth to speak, hesitates, then tries again. "Then where would you go? You do not want to— you cannot— surely, you are not thinking of staying on Midgard? It is impossible."

Loki's eyes flicker suddenly upwards, and Thor tracks his gaze to Stark Tower. He looks at his brother, incredulous. "Loki, you. You wish to— to stay with... Tony Stark?"

"Can it be?" Loki whispers, voice dripping with soft malice. His eyes move back to Thor and they are cruel. "Is this the final proof that Thor Odinson is as idiotic as he appears?"

Thor's face crumples at the insult. "Loki—"

"Your Man of Iron is most impertinent."

Now Thor's face goes blank, confused by the abrupt turn in the conversation, like Loki had just remembered Tony's impudence, and by the spikiness of Loki's voice; he sounded in that moment more like how he was as an adolescent, haughty and easily upset. The idea of Tony Stark teasing Loki brings forth memories of a scrawny, dark-haired youth skulking around, muttering about idiots after being taunted by Fandral and Sif.

It makes Thor smile, in a way. "Oh yes?"

"He called me... pretty." Loki spits out the word like a mouthful of poison.

Thor's small smile widens into a grin. "That is Tony Stark. He is flirtatious to a fault. He drove Captain Rogers to distraction with his antics..." There is a sour look on Loki's face. "But of course, you care not for that."

"I would see your merry band of Midgardian heroes slaughtered."

Thor sighs, and his melancholy irritates Loki into speech once more. "You speak nonsense, regardless. I have no desire to reside with that crude, brainless mortal. He is nothing to me. He saw me weep like a child, offered me weak Midgardian alcohol, then proceeded to prattle incessantly whilst he himself became inebriated. And if I did hold such a ludicrous wish as the one you have suggested, it would not matter. Tony Stark would see me arrested or dead the moment he became sober."

Thor, with the sole interest it seemed, of increasing Loki's ire, smiles. "Perhaps not, brother. You spoke of him being brainless? He is not. Tony Stark is a man of incredible intellect. In many ways, the two of you are very alike."

Thor expects something explosive at this, but Loki merely sniffs, clearly unhappy and vaguely offended by the comparison. Then he says, "Stark... He said much the same."

Thor chuckles meditatively. "Maybe you should stay with the Man of Iron—"

And now the explosion. "I don't want—!"

"He may do you some good."

"Thor, you are the most insufferable—!"

"I shall speak with father."

"You will do no such th— why is it that you are incapable of listening?" Loki pushes past Thor, striding to the mouth of the alley until he feels a large hand close around him arm, halting him. "Release me, Odinson."

Thor forces Loki to look at him and his eyes are warm and they make Loki uneasy. "Loki, brother, you saved Asgard, you saved our people—"

"I did nothing of the sort." Loki snaps. "That thing would have destroyed the whole of Asgard. I thought only of my own survival."

But Thor shakes his head. Loki is lying, and badly. Loki saved Asgard, because he wanted to save Asgard. Whether he sought adoration or wished to best his brother, it was unclear, but Asgard was safe due to one man and one man only. "Your silver tongue fails you this time, Loki. But, pray, do not fret, I will speak to our father, I will make sure he hears me. I shall speak with Director Fury of SHIELD and I shall speak with Tony Stark. I will discuss your place on this realm but only if you swear to me now that you shall behave."

"Behave? Me?" Loki gives Thor a ghastly smile, showing all his teeth and not reaching his eyes. "Maybe I will just kill Stark now and be done."

Thor growls, his grip on Loki's arm tightening to a point where it hurts Loki, and would have broken a human's arm. But Loki does not protest or cry out, he simply looks down at Thor's hand, and a smirk curves its way up one side of his cheek. "Do you recall, when we were but very young children, you attempted to catch my arm, and I bit your hand?"

Thor does not laugh. "You will do no more murder, Loki. Not here, not anywhere. Never again."

Loki looks Thor dead in the face then, straight into his eyes. His expression is unreadable even to Thor, and there is no glint of mischief or anger in his eye. "We shall see." He says. "Brother."

Loki's arm dissolves from under Thor's fingers, with the rest of him, as Loki disappears with a hint of green into the grimy darkness.

And then Loki and Tony lived happily ever after, THE END! Thank ye for reading. Hope you enjoyed :)

Edit (11:14AM, Thu 12 Jul 2012): Okay, wow, so it appears I have failed my duty here, so let me reassure everyone who's asked and for the people who added this to Story Alert and anyone who has only just read this- THERE WILL BE ANOTHER CHAPTER! Only ONE because that's all my creative juices can come up with and that's all I have time to do! I apologise that this ending was not satisfactory for many of you, you've sucessfully pressured me into writing more.