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Shedding his mask brought a wave of relief. It was necessary - wearing this false face to return to his Midgardian home, lest Loki's own, far more recognizable face be seen and tracked back to where none were allowed to know of as his. To do anything else would have been signing his own death warrant. Now, stepping past the threshold and shutting the door behind, Loki could shift out of his other skin like a snake's molt, a roll of his shoulders washing it away until only the form that felt the most him of any remained. He'd been intensely careful to draw no attention, do nothing that could lead others to him here, shifting into different forms instead of utilizing illusory magic, blending into escaping crowds, even resisting placing any wards that would leave any kind of seidr footprints that could be traced or tracked with any manner of new and improving Midgardian technology. And for four years, not a one had found Loki in his lair in plain sight.
Years of caution and hard work, destroyed in an instant by one very infuriating inventor.
Loki had frozen, blood running cold after he'd flipped on the lights in his condo and found Tony Stark relaxed and lounging in an armchair of Loki's pulled to face the door.
"Welcome home, Loki." His face was infuriatingly flat, no smile, no rage, no fear, just waiting and watching. His very existence in Loki's space was threat enough.
"Well." Tossing his keys on the side table, Loki walked further inside, staring Stark down. "I suppose, of all people, you would be the one to find me."
"Wasn't easy." Stark tapped his idle phone on the armrest, flipping it up to spin it between his fingers to tap against the upholstery again. "Had to really think hard on how you could be evading all our attempts to find you. For a while, we thought you lived completely off-world."
"I did, for a time, but the commute was too excessive."
Stark laughed, a flickering smile of amusement, quickly gone again back down to a simmering fire in his eyes. "I figured as much. Tracking magic only led us to everyone but you. Do you know how many magic users there are in the world that don't even know the gift they have? Had a bit of a crisis about that. Made some new friends, some new enemies, and some others for the surveillance lists."
"But no trace led to me."
"Not a blip." He shifted forward, elbows on his knees, feet planted wide but still seated as Loki came to a pause a few paces away. "Because even trying to hide magic leaves traces of it. Spell cameras not to see you, all the cameras you affect will have traces on them, and I can track even that from point A to point B. And you," he jabbed his phone in the air at Loki, "you knew that, didn't you?"
It would be too easy to acknowledge, too satisfying to let Stark know he was right, so Loki just let a grin break across his face as he crossed to take a seat on the sofa. "Never underestimate your enemy. Assume they know your every trick, and they're less likely to guess your next one."
"I did though."
"Less likely. Not impossible." He gestured to Stark for effect. "Obviously."
"Obviously." Stark agreed flatly.
"So now that we're both here," Reclining back, Loki threw his arms across the sofa's back and pressed: "Where are your Avengers then? Lying in wait, I presume."
"The Avengers are back at the compound." Mirroring Loki, Stark leaned back with far too much ease in Loki's home. This was the enemy's lair, was it not? Should Stark not be on guard? Was Loki not still a threat? "They probably think I'm... at the office or in my shop. Not here, certainly. They aren't currently aware I was searching for you at all, let alone that I actually found you."
"No?" Surely Stark didn't assume he would be free to come and go here? "That's a risk, is it not? I could kill you right now for invading my home."
"You won't." Stark stated confidently. "You're smart enough to assume I have a contingency."
"I thought you would be smart enough not to come alone."
"I don't like crowds." A dismissive wave of his hand and a fleeting frown before it smoothed back out to that steady, probing expression again. "But if I for some reason don't report to my AI, then he will provide this exact address to the Avengers, as well as all the information I used to track you in case you try the same tactic somewhere else." There it was. That was the daring but prepared Stark Loki knew. "I'm not interested in underestimating my enemies either."
Oh good, they were still considered enemies. For a moment, Loki hadn't been sure. "Just covering your bases then."
"Can't be too careful."
"How did you find me?"
"You always get away on foot, you had to show up somewhere, but none of the footage tagged you through facial recognition, meaning the face we were looking for wasn't there." A simple surmise already achieved by all, no doubt. "So I had Jarvis look for aberrations, people that couldn't feasibly be in one camera when they weren't in the one before without an explanation, faces that came out of nowhere when all the rest went from camera to camera in linear motion. I caught when you changed faces and just followed you home after that." That was... less simple. "Matched your mask to other clips, other times and places, confirmed it across the board, and used all that data to get a name - your name. Well not your name, but the name you made to get this lease. Pretty slick, actually. Everyone was thinking so hard on how you were hiding by magic, they didn't think on how you could hide without it."
"I'm impressed." It was no lie - Loki made assumptions on their tracking methods that had been proven correct for years. Actually getting caught was a surprise he'd been expecting far earlier, but no one had managed it yet. Not until now. "I am, however, also puzzled."
"I thought I explained it pretty well."
"Oh, no, you did, but I'm more interested in what you chose to do with the information. Anyone else would call backup, swarm this place, and already have tried to get me cuffed and on the way to top secret security. Instead, you felt the need to talk and tell me all of this. Alone. Why?"
"Because I was impressed with how you did it myself. And genius loves an audience."
"Did you presume my genius needed an audience or simply want one for your own?" Stark only offered that micro-smile again but not a word. "So you came to compliment and show off your own skills. Intriguing. You think your Avengers could get here fast enough to catch me after you sound the alarm?"
"You presume catching you was ever part of the plan."
"I'm wondering if you had any kind of plan in the first place."
"Wouldn't be much use. You'd wreck them anyway." Proudly, Loki would. "Never found much success with big, specific plans. I'm better at rolling with the punches."
"My question then becomes what your intent was in coming here, as it doesn't seem to be a fight."
Tony shrugged and tucked his hands into his lap, fingers idly tapping his phone screen, and Loki had to wonder if it was recording something even through the screen seemed to be off. "Wanted to see if I was right about the tracking software. Mad genius flaw, y'know, have to test my own creations, see if they work, fix 'em if they don't."
"So it did. Now you've made the mistake of being stuck here with me." He was already found, there wasn't much point in keeping his home clear of seidr anymore. Without a single flick of a finger, Loki drew the energies in around him, the lights flickering and dimming with a whining hum as the room fell into a hazy glow. Stark glanced at the surroundings with the slightest flinch, his spine setting straighter. "Did you really think I would let you just walk out of here? Genius really does have its flaws, Mr. Stark. Pride is yours."
Stark met Loki's gaze again at that, and almost immediately relaxed again, challenge lighting his face and curling in his smirk. "Pride is only one of my sins. Wrath is a close second. Did I forget to mention I came here to bargain a deal out of you?"
One of the nearby bulbs cracked and popped as Loki narrowed his eyes. "Explain."
"I'm not inviting you into the Avengers, just putting that out first. This would be a more private arrangement. See, I'm getting a little tired of playing Wile E. Coyote with the same roadrunners in the same stretch of desert. Same tricks, same crimes, fight 'em, maybe cuff 'em, they break out, repeat. It's getting damned dull."
"Wouldn't I be one of those roadrunners of yours?"
"Yes," Stark's eyes flashed. "And no. See, you don't play the same hand every time. One of the foremost magic users in the 'verse, and you hide out within a twenty minute drive to Avengers' home base, using simple fraud, fake identities, and some shape-shifting. That's ballsy. You took every preconception, and you used it to your advantage. We expect you to use magic, so you just don't, and you fall off the grid every second you want to be there, for nearly five years. Doom wishes he could."
"Victor Von Doom has no taste for subtlety."
"He couldn't hide in a crowd of lookalikes, so he bought himself a country that doesn't extradite. How boring."
"What's that have to do with me?"
"Other villains are your competition, same as mine. I wondered if you might help in... leveling the playing field. Under wraps, of course. Wouldn't want you to be a target."
Curious enough to keep listening, Loki released his hold and the lights returned to normal. All the better to see madness in Stark's face. "To what end would I help in this?"
"World peace, of course."
Brows pinched, Loki gave Stark a wary look. "You want me to help eliminate other criminals?"
"Listen, I don't care about some thief robbing a bank that was probably robbing their customers in the first place, or someone not paying their parking tickets for staying five minutes over an hour. I'm looking at the big ones. The ones causing mass destruction and murder and getting away with it because they think anarchy is true freedom and cut down anyone in their way or that people can't decide their own lives so it's better to choose and control it for them."
"And when that's done? You'll do what?"
"Corruption is everywhere. I want to fix it. World has a problem, I want to help create the solution. If not M and the Ten Rings, then some politician in Tennessee that thinks his religious opinion has authority over everyone's rights."
For a long moment, as Loki digested this information, Stark's plan despite his claims to hate them, Loki reached a very certain conclusion: "You're insane."
"Well, I guess I looked into the darkness a little too long and found it looking back." Not one flinch or blink, just an unwavering stare back at Loki. "I imagine you know what that's like."
Loki shifted slightly more uncomfortably in his seat on his sofa. "And I get a pass from your righteous hurricane of fury because... why? You like the twists of my brain?"
"Because after your initial puppeted invasion attempt, other than injuring us in the Avengers, you haven't sought much in terms of hurting the regular populace. Property damage, some mayhem, but statistics are already in that you cause less than a fraction of a percent of civilian injury or death compared to others in The League. You're top 3 in terms of theft, damage to government facilities, and collateral property damage made in attempts to apprehend you, but there have been logs made documenting multiple instances in which you made an effort to diminish or even prevent injury to the civilian population. Collateral damage to life isn't on your list."
Loki blinked, having to work to process that too. "Does that make me less of a villain in your eyes?"
"Not at all. Just a different kind. Much in the way I'm a different kind of hero. Did you know you actually have a following online? Statistics were from them, actually, not me; I just checked the receipts. I'm not the only one that noticed you have a different approach."
"I'm gentle on innocents, so you think I'll be fine in selling out my fellows?"
"Just the ones you already find... distasteful."
"Why should I trust you?"
And why was Loki bothering to even listen to all this? Why wasn't he throwing Stark out and vanishing off the planet with all his possessions in tow to wait out whatever chaos Stark had planned?
Is it only intriguing you because it's chaos that he's planning?
"Let's put all our cards on the table then." Flipping his phone up like an offer with his brows raised, Stark leaned forward to place his phone on the table between them. "I offer up my weapons, you offer up yours."
It was purely performative, and one shared glance said that without words. Nothing surrendered from their hands truly disarmed them. So long as they were conscious, Stark and Loki both were weapons all on their own. This was a gesture, an olive branch, a show of faith on even ground. He could still run and refuse this but...
With both hands, Loki withdrew the pair of daggers always concealed without magic, hidden at the small of his back, and laid them on either side of Stark's phone. Damned if Loki wasn't just too curious for his own good.
"Choose your words wisely, but... I'm listening."
"Babe, I've negotiated harder sells. You hear what I'm interested in doing, you'll find it way more fun than hanging out here and pretending you don't exist."
No promises there, but Loki had an inkling it would at least be a good story. Maybe enough of one to go along for the ride just to watch everything fall.
Maybe with Loki's help, it could fall into place.
"Alright then, Stark," Loki gestured and leaned back against the sofa's back once more, "entertain me."
The glow in Stark's face couldn't even be considered light - purely internal and so much darker and more sardonic glee than anything associated with something light. "Entertainment is my specialty."
Finally. Loki was looking forward to not being bored.