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….
"What?" Tony turned around slowly. "Who are you?"
"My name is Loki. And I can help with your problem." I smile modestly.
Also, I should be playing with a cane right now. What do you mean, "no cane"? What are illusions for? So, with pleasure, I toyed with a cane pulled out of thin air.
Alas, my only audience member pretended he sees this ten times a day. Meaning, he didn't react at all.
"What are you talking about?" Stark began hastily buttoning his shirt, professionally pulling a carefree expression onto his face. "I don't have any problems, do you?"
"I have a couple," I answered in kind. "But let's return to the question of your imminent death, Mr. Stark. And by the way, you aren't planning a beautiful exit by blowing yourself up in the lab or, say, crashing in the upcoming race in Monaco, are you? Not that I don't understand the fear of a painful fading away in your own bed, but dying when you have a woman you love, without even explaining yourself to her, that's a bad plan."
"Uh…" Stark clearly lost his train of thought. "What woman are you talking about?"
"That unhappy, harried, but devoted woman protecting your wild head for ten years running."
"Ah, Pepper…" Tony abruptly covered his mouth with his hand, hiding an involuntarily emerging smile, and hastily looked away. Was it just me, or did he suddenly feel ashamed?
"So, returning to the topic, are you interested in healing, or have you already decided everything definitively?"
"Hey! I wasn't planning on committing suicide!" The indignation was quite authentic; there were no such plans yet, which couldn't help but please me.
"Well, wonderful!" I clapped my hands joyfully. "So, thoughts of handing over the suit or a simplified analogue to Rhodey haven't visited your head either? And settling affairs, like a will transferring all ownership rights to Pepper?"
"I…" Stark waved his hand in the air in a gesture of searching for words, but then turned this gesture into an accusatory pointing of a finger at me. "How do you know everything?"
"I am a God."
"Um…" he closed his eyes, tasting the sound, smacking his lips. "God… Loki?"
"Spot on."
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"Depends on how you look at it. I, for example, find it very amusing that a man standing with one foot in the grave just won't answer that he wants to live, and keeps steering the conversation away." Twirling the cane, I tilted my head to the side. "Admit it, are you a masochist?"
"The concept of 'sound caution' is more appropriate here," Stark took another sip of his slop and grimaced in suffering.
"You carry a nuclear reactor in your chest and personally fly in a tin can to the Middle East to shoot at militants; where do you even know the word 'caution' from?" I feigned sincere amazement.
"Mom told me in childhood," Tony was somewhat embarrassed but didn't struggle for words.
"Alright, alright," I raised my hands in a defensive gesture, "our cautious one. Are you going to get treated or what? Not that I'm in a hurry, but in about three hours Miss Potts will be barging in here, and then you'll have to explain yourself to her before the healing, because I won't do it."
"And what will you do?" Tony clarified somewhat mechanically, his eyes widening slightly in an obvious attempt to imagine the picture I painted.
"Most likely, tasting the contents of your bar and inserting provocative remarks in the right places," I answered with the most honest look.
"Hmm," the "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist" narrowed his eyes. "Can I have an example?"
"Why aren't you married yet?"
"Um…" the man perked up quite lively, gaining a couple of health and energy points while remaining seated. And immediately switched the topic, trying to look extremely businesslike: "I would like to know the price!"
"Well, the price will be small," I brought the index finger and thumb of my right hand together, leaving a gap of about a centimeter, showing how negligible the payment would be.
"After all, helping perhaps my best adept and follower will be pleasant even for me."
"Adept? Follower?" the engineer didn't understand.
"Hey, I am the God of Mischief and Magic, and you are excellent at both. That performance in the Senate, dipping everyone around in waste products, that was beautiful! I even felt sorry for Hammer. A little bit."
"So," the man rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I got the jokes part, but what does magic have to do with it?"
"You see, oh my slightly paranoid adept, the concept of 'technology' was born in human society due to the fact that humans do not perceive reality beyond three-dimensional space. Within Asgard, there is no fundamental division into physical and magical laws of existence, nor their opposition to each other, and therefore all areas of knowledge are called 'magic.'"
"Your ancestors gave this term a color of inexplicability due to their ignorance, but in fact, its correct translation in terms modern to you would be precisely 'science,' although in a much broader understanding. In the sense that the field of knowledge there is not limited to just physical three-dimensional space."
"Thus, in your modern terminology, I am the God of Science and answer for engineering activities to exactly the same extent as for various mystical aspects of existence. So with your genius in the field of invention, you also fall into my diocese, so to speak."
"Okay… Let's assume you are really a God," we somehow naturally switched to "thou" (informal), even though English doesn't separate thou/you, but by intonation and the very style of phrasing, one can always tell when a dialogue is "official" and when it becomes more personal.
Not that Tony bothered much with officialdom before, but still the fact pleased me.
"What do you want for your help? Building a temple?"
"Hmm," I pondered. "Not a bad idea, but no. A hundred years ago that would have been a good joke, but in modern society, religion is treated much more simply, and it won't cause that effect in the Christian world anymore." I allowed myself a slight dreamy smile dedicated to the image drawn by imagination.
"However," returning to reality, "you almost guessed. I want you to become my Priest!"
"Priest?" Stark repeated.
"Well, yeah, priest," I confirmed. "High Priest, to be precise."
"And what is a priest of Loki supposed to do?"
"Well," I scratched my chin, "prank those around you, force those in power to periodically gnaw on their shields from impotent rage, stylishly shock the public, especially mocking all sorts of trends harmful to society, like degenerated tolerance with its quotas on racial and gender characteristics in movies."
"And small things there: love good drinks, beautiful women, good music, in short, deny yourself nothing. Only no sodomy!.. and drugs! I don't like that. After all, what kind of sapient being are you if you can't make your life colorful enough yourself and are forced to rely on a chemical surrogate?"
"So…" Stark took a pause, shaking his finger at me again, though this time holding his glass with the same hand. "I will have to do everything the same as I usually do?"
"That's the point!" I smiled contentedly at the man. "You are my born priest!"
"And that's it? Is that all you need?"
"Well… yes. I'm a God; all those green papers or yellow circles of yours are of little interest to me. If you thought I'd ask for your suit, I don't need it either, and if I really wanted to, I'd create it myself."
"Really? Create it yourself?" he raised an eyebrow.
….
Bonus Chapter on every 500 power stones;
If you want to read ahead by 20+ chapters from here you can visit my Patre-on.
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