Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tony Stark had, until now, been having a good day.

It was a Saturday. The good kind of Saturday. The type where he woke up at the perfect hour of eleven-thirty in the morning, feeling refreshed and not, for once, hungover from the previous night’s copious amounts of alcohol. The type where there were none of those pesky SI meetings scheduled for the day. The type where he was free to lock himself up in the labs of his Malibu home and tinker away to his heart’s content. And that's exactly what he'd been doing.

Of course, when JARVIS had reported a sudden spike in magical energy close to the Western coast of Norway and urged him to investigate it, his day hadn’t been ruined one bit. After all, this was standard Iron Man procedure: you discovered a possible threat, you investigated it, you eliminated it. Plus, why would Tony want to miss investigating a, ahem, magical anomaly? Besides, flying all the way across the Atlantic ocean to Tonsberg would be fun, he’d thought.

No, Tony Stark had been having a perfectly good day, thank you, until he’d arrived at the source of the magical anomaly.

More specifically, what had ruined his perfectly good day was the fact that said source of magical anomaly had been none other than Loki himself.

“Why hello there, Merlin,” Tony announced, landing a few feet away from the demigod in question. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Tony got up. Paused. Blinked. Did a double-take.

Loki was pale even compared to his usual levels of pallor, an almost ghastly white edging on grey. His hair was a ragged mess, and Tony was pretty sure the red linings on it were highlights of blood. His leather armour seemed extra loose on his frame today, as if he was wearing a size bigger than what fit, but Tony was pretty sure the armour wasn’t what had changed in size. His cheekbones were gauntly sharp, almost as if a void now existed where his cheeks were supposed to be. He looked almost… starved. Yeah, starved was the right word for it.

“Iron Man,” Loki stated—questioned, more like, by the tone—turning around to face him, although his gaze was oddly a few degrees off of Tony, his hands raised in a defensive gesture. “Anthony Stark,” he stated, and this time Tony noticed that his voice sounded suspiciously more like a dry rasp, as if he hadn’t used it in months.

Except for screaming, probably, that is, the part of his brain still recovering from The Cave supplied merrily.

“In the flesh,” Tony replied, trying to keep himself unfazed. The whole starved look was probably an illusion anyway, he told himself.

Tony was pretty sure he heard Loki mutter a resigned “So this is how I die, then,” to himself.

All right, this was giving off some solid horrible vibes, and not in the A Feral Demigod of Evil and Trickery is Going To Kill Me sense, either.

It wouldn’t take all that much to actually kill him, a traitorous part of Tony’s mind mused. In this state, a few repulsor blasts straight to the chest should do it. This... wasn’t the Loki that had taken a smashing from the Hulk and shrugged it off jollily mere moments later, no. This one would probably be done for with a few well-aimed normal-people punches.

If it wasn’t all an elaborate illusion, that was, he reminded himself. God of Deceit and all.

“Yeah, I’m not killing you, Bambi,” Tony replied matter-of-factly. “Not unless you give me any solid reason to.” And wow, did that sound reassuring. Loki only smirked a feral smirk in response, his eyes— 

This was when Tony noticed his eyes.

Unlike his usual perfectly slicked back style, Loki’s tangled, bloody mess of hair now covered most of his forehead, but did not veil his gaze. His brows, way more unkempt than how he’d seen them in New York, were furrowed in rapt attention, his head tilted in a scrutinizing gesture. Except he couldn’t be scrutinising Tony, no. Not with eyes like that. He instructed JARVIS to zoom in on Loki’s eyes, biting his lips in panicky suspicion as his AI complied.

He almost immediately regretted it.

The sclerae of both eyes, instead of the usual white, were a bloodshot red, veins clearly bulging out. The irises, instead of the stark blue, were a bulging, sickly opaque light grey. The eyelids were a swollen corroded pink, the lashes missing as if burnt away. The skin below and above both eyes was charred a gruesome red and white, reminiscent of a recent third-degree burn. No, Tony was pretty sure that was exactly what it was.

Morbid was the only word for it, and Tony’s morbid curiosity instinctively drove him to move closer to get a better, well, look, just as the rest of his rational brain to back away and his stomach declared that it was going to be sick.

“If it’s incentive you wish for,” Loki then announced, as his hands began to glow a dark, cadaverous green in preparation for an energy blast, “I’ll gladly give you plenty.”

Tony readied his repulsors even if he wasn’t feeling too good about this, as the demigod attempted to charge forward.

Which, of course, was when Loki collapsed to the ground.

Was this how, a few hours later, Tony Stark ended up with Loki Odinson, Alien Norse Demigod of Mischief, Full-Tilt Diva With A Kneeling Kink, and Harbinger of PTSD lying three-quarters dead in the medbay of his home? 

Why, yes. 

Why, yes indeed.

Truth be told, Tony really, really didn’t want to be doing this. At least not by himself. He couldn’t exactly leave him there or hand him over to SHIELD, not in this state, which meant he’d have to get Loki to recover. Sure, he had the best medical team in the world, but it was way over at the Avengers Tower in New York and actually more like the Avengers Medical Team; sure, he could just hire another team of doctors, but they’d be trained in human biology and Loki was, well, not human. Tony was the only person aside from SHIELD and the rest of the Avengers to have any sort of data on Asgardian biology, and while he could call up Brucie Bear, he’d likely panic, and then Hulk out, and—fuck.

He’d have to do all this himself, wouldn’t he?

Tony was no expert in medicine, but with JARVIS’s help, he’d like to think he’d done a pretty good job of hooking him up to the IV and the cardiogram and ensuring his vitals were stable. Even with all the data he’d somehow gotten from Thor on Asgardian biology, he was still running on the sample size of one. But even with the subtle differences, if Thor’s anatomy and physiology were similar enough to tolerate human treatment, surely Loki’s were too? 

He'd gotten a minor head wound from falling straight on the rocks that Tony'd patched up quickly and effectively with the ease of dozens of times of practice: it was quite common in battle. He'd checked for signs of concussion or haemorrhage, but thankfully there were none. He hated head wounds, though; too much blood for his liking even in very minor ones.

Sure enough, he'd learnt soon, starvation was the correct term. Coupled with dehydration, and possibly chronic sleep-deprivation. Severely reduced metabolic rate. Bradycardia at a glorious, glorious heart rate of 33 beats per minute. Its symptoms were clear as day too: pretty heavy sweating despite a core body temperature of 35.3 degrees Celsius—above the hypothermic range, but only barely—and he had, after all, fainted. Catabolysis was well in its initial stages: he had lost muscle mass, his chapped, greyish skin seemed to hug his bones tightly and his sternum and ribs were beginning to become visible on his bare chest. His wrists were bruised a bright reddish-pink, bearing cuts that looked suspiciously like they’d been caused by metal cuffs. Oh, that, and several nerves in his lower arms were burnt pretty horribly. There was no way he should have been able to use his hands in this state, and yet he'd attempted a whole-ass energy blast only a few hours ago.

And that wasn’t all. 

Tony’s stomach churned nauseously in rebellion when he noticed them. Both his chest and his back were a criss-cross of scars, whole layers of them, one on top of the other. Burn marks too; covering his left shoulder and upper back, reminiscent of second-degree burns—no, JARVIS told him there were patches of badly tended to third-degrees in there too. And there were more on his arms and his thighs. A quick X-ray by JARVIS further revealed several, several fractures and a clumsily healed lower-level spinal laceration. Signs of past temporary paraplegia, JARVIS said. Otherwise unhealed neuralgia around the lower lumbar plexus region. Not recent, these wounds, at least not as recent as those around his wrists or his eyes. Loki's from a Space Viking culture, who knew if he’d been involved in a particularly terrible war a year or two ago, a part of Tony suggested. That’s where all these wounds could be from, it suggested. And yet… and yet, when viewed holistically, there was something strangely… methodical to them. Calculated. Purposeful. 

Tony tried not to arrive at that conclusion, but it all screamed torture. 

Tony Stark had a bad feeling about this.

He quickly re-rechecked that Loki was in no danger of dying anytime soon, and despite the looks of everything, a more thorough medical examination by JARVIS did reveal he would survive, most likely. This was one tenacious bastard.

As for his eyes, well. 

For now, he’d simply cleaned the burns thoroughly and almost drenched the eyes when irrigating them, but when the pH had absolutely refused to rise from a 5.9 in the left eye and a 5.7 in the right no matter what he flushed them with, he had to stop, not knowing what else to do (minus get a surgeon for what JARVIS said was clearly near-absolute glaucoma) and unable to look at that sickly grey for any longer. JARVIS had done a comprehensive scan of the wound and had been unable to identify the exact cause of the injury. At first glance, it had looked similar to a wound caused by an acid attack to Tony, but further examination had revealed that it had most likely been caused by prolonged exposure, not one-time assault. It was caused by a highly corrosive substance, that was for sure—there had been slight residue remaining—but it wasn’t a substance JARVIS had been able to identify. However… However, he had said that if one substituted neurotoxins for high-concentration caustic chemicals, its chemical composition came closest to some form of snake venom.

Snake venom.

Tony was in no sense a mythology nerd, no. But Tony did know the infamous Snake Punishment in the Norse mythos.

And even if one bit of that particular story was true—if one bit of anything regarding Loki in Norse mythology was true—then Tony Stark had just landed himself in the Cosmos’s single largest pile of issues. And he was fucked.

Absolutely peachy, if you asked him.

“All right, what now, JARVIS?” he questioned when he was done with a satisfactory medical examination (and totally not because he couldn't bear to look at Loki any longer).

“I think I should inform you that within the past seven hours you have received three missed calls from Director Fury.” It had been over seven hours? Yikes. “While we were lucky Mr Odinson appeared in a secluded area and there were no reported sightings, SHIELD must doubtless have recorded the energy spikes over Tonsberg as well. SHIELD must doubtless also have noticed that Iron Man went to investigate.”

“Aw, crap. Leave it to good ol’ Nick to stick his eyepatch in everybody’s business. All right, JARVIS, what’s the best cover story we got?”

“Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“May I ask when you’re going to inform SHIELD or the other Avengers of Mr Odinson’s presence in your home?”

“Yeah, how about… not now. I’m not letting SHIELD get their hands on him; I think we both know the extent to which SHIELD is willing to fall to get shit they deem necessary done,” and my, wasn’t that a nice euphemism for torture? “And I’m not gonna allow that. The rest of the Avengers, well. I’m not really sure who to trust.”

This, Tony knew, was a bad idea. No, scratch that. This was an absolutely horrible, terrible, stupendously stupid idea. But it also wasn’t an idea Tony was going to back off now.

“Speaking of which, Sir?” JARVIS asked.

“Yeah?”

“It appears Director Fury’s calling again.”

Oh, well.

Tony Edward Stark was a better liar than most credited him for being. It came free with the Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist package. While he was no expert like a certain, ahem, Ms Rushman, he could easily twist the truth to his advantage, mislead, omit key details here and there, even make up wild yet utterly believable stories on the fly. An expert in the art of bullshitting, if you will. An art good ol’ Nick soon fell victim to yet again.

Enough scientific jargon about ‘gravitational field disturbances’, ‘gravitonic-dark energy interactions’, and ‘spacetime fluctuations that were really happening a lot these days, what’s up?’ and a well-placed and frustrated “Look, how about you ask Dr Foster for more details? It’s still unfair you band of looneys have the best astrophysicist in the world on hire,” later, Fury had finally given up on pestering him, and, by the sound of it, was so Done™ that he would likely not call for another three months, minimum, unless the world was ending.

More importantly, though, this talk with Fury had given an idea to Tony. He now knew exactly what to do, and hopefully, he could handle seeing it.

“Hey JARVIS, see if there’s any surviving footage of Loki’s arrival at the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility,” he told his AI the moment Mr Pirate Assassin’s annoying face had disappeared from his screen. “Actually, scrap that. Give me all SHIELD footage of Loki. Leave nothing out.”

"Sir, I wish to report that Mr Odinson seems to have awakened."

“Oh. Okay, shit,” replied Tony. “What’s he up to?” he questioned, his paranoid and slightly unhinged brain flipping through a thousand possibilities ranging from the near obvious ‘freaking the fuck out’ to the somewhat stupid ‘planning my assassination’. In his defence, though, this was Loki he was dealing with! No possibility could be too paranoid! 

“Lying on the bed, Sir,” JARVIS drolled, his voice the incorporeal AI equivalent of an eye-roll. Then, sobering up immediately, he added, “He seems to be having difficulty processing where he is, and his breathing is heavy enough to qualify as hyperventilation.”

“Oh. Right. Shit. Gimme a sec.” So he was freaking the fuck out. “I’ll be right there.”

It took him perhaps five minutes to get to said right there. He knocked softly at the door to the medbay, before wondering whether Loki was capable of replying right now, and gently swinging the door open. At least the knocking had given Loki a heads up though, he guessed. JARVIS had said that he’d calmed down a bit in the few minutes it had taken Tony to get to the medbay, so at least he wasn’t going to have to deal with a demigod in the middle of a panic attack—damn, he was thinking too much about this. 

Loki was lying still on his bed tracing the lines where the bandages on his head ended and the skin began. He tilted his head minutely at the sound of the door opening, yet made no other response, his fingers still on the bandages and then over his closed eyes (how Loki could use his hands with those burned nerves was beyond him). The IV machine seemed to have moved minutely, and if he looked, he could tell that Loki had tried to rip off the bandages securing the intravenous line in place off. Thankfully, JARVIS had seemed to successfully dissuade him from that before he’d actually ripped something Tony had so painstakingly set up.

"Uh uh, I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Tony softly chided, grimacing at how violently Loki flinched at his voice. On the other hand, though, he did get the demigod’s fingers to stop prodding at the bandages or at his eyes, so sue him, but he’d count it as a win. “Those are bandages, because of course you had to get a head wound, princess. You don’t want ’em removed just yet. Oh, and don’t touch your eyes either, unless you want an infection.” How he’d not gotten them infected already, Tony would never know, but it was a good thing.

“Anthony Stark. Iron Man,” Loki muttered, face blank.

“The one and only,” Tony replied as he pulled up a chair and sat down beside Loki’s bed, taking out his Starkphone from his pocket. “JARVIS, vitals?” he questioned, as his AI complied.

“Current heart rate at 46 beats per minute,” JARVIS announced, as a graphic of Loki’s current vital functions popped up on his screen. Still bradycardic, then. But what did he expect? Starvation. Low metabolic rates. Hell, his heart rate was probably higher only because of the mini panic attack he’d doubtless gotten on waking up. “Body temperature at 34.2 degrees Celsius.” Shit, last he checked it wasn’t as low. Wasn’t a core body temperature below 35 degrees Celsius hypothermic? He wasn’t showing any other symptoms of hypothermia, though. No shivering, but… shit, didn’t moderate or severe hypothermia—“No signs of hypothermia detected, though,” JARVIS interrupted, assuaging his fears. Thank fuck.

“I wouldn’t call that good.” No, he’d call no part of this situation good by any measure. “But hey,” he added, now looking up to see Loki, “you’ll live. So how’re you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?”

“I’m alive,” Loki stated. He sounded… baffled.

“I don’t think that would be classified as a feeling, that would be, I dunno, more like a general fact,” Tony replied, getting up to get a better look at his heart monitor (no, it wasn’t because he was low-key fidgeting, no) and pointedly ignoring Loki’s startled flinch at the sudden scraping of Tony’s chair. “So yeah, you are alive, You’re welcome.”

He probably shouldn’t have been, honestly. Alive, that was. Tony, judging by the results of the scans, was looking easily at weeks of starvation and dehydration coupled with sleep-deprivation and outright torture. Even with a superhuman metabolism, Tony decided, he probably shouldn’t have been alive, let alone perfectly coherent.

And yet, defying all odds, here it was, the steady, albeit pretty slow, rhythm of the heartbeat monitor.

“Why?” 

“Why what?” Tony arched an eyebrow.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” he asked, tilting his head minutely. He seemed to do that a lot. “I was right there, weakened. I… I collapsed right there in front of you. It wouldn’t have taken much to end it.”

“Was I supposed to?” Tony replied in the most neutral tone he could muster up, suddenly uncomfortable and wondering if he was masking that fact well.

“Don’t jest, Stark,” Loki shot back. “We both know the answer to it.” His voice was filled with calm certainty, as if he's just stated the fact that gravity existed.

“Except our answers seem to differ on this, Lokes. I’m not killing you,” Tony reaffirmed, and Loki gave him a smile one expected from someone who knew they were being lied to but hadn’t decided to call the liar out yet. “You’re in no state to be thinking clearly anyway, Bambi,” he added, deeply uncomfortable with the stark suicidal implications of the demigod’s behaviour.

Self-harm tendencies, delirium, depression, apathy: all symptoms of starvation, a part of Tony’s brain reminded him. What else did you expect? This guy has possibly not eaten or drunk anything in weeks for all you know. It was a miracle this guy was even coherent.

Yeah, somehow, Tony didn’t think starvation was the only reason for all that suicidal jazz.

Loki seemed to mull this over in his head for a second. “...I see,” replied Loki, tone blank. “What information do you seek of me, then?”

“I don’t—you think I’m keeping you alive for an interrogation? You don’t have to tell me—” Tony started, defensive, but his reassurance wasn’t exactly true. Maybe he should actually be honest here. “Actually, I do have questions, but—” But whatever had happened to him, it had been terrible. No, that was the understatement of the century, actually. Supervillain or not, did Tony really want to force him into reliving all that trauma all over again? You bet he didn’t. No, his questions could wait. “—But they can wait. You should focus on recovering first.”

“...What happened after I was sent to Asgard, is that what you wish to know?” Loki guessed correctly, tilting his head upwards as he suppressed a wince and sighed quietly. Tony thought of stopping him: he was in no condition to talk this much, but Loki began before he could say anything. “Very well, as you wish. This was the punishment the All-Father sentenced me to, you see. I was to be bound on a frozen rock as a snake slowly dripped its venom on my eyes Till the End of Days, apparently,” he answered, dramatically drawing out the last few words, his lips forming a bitter smile. “ Evidently, Ragnarok must be upon us.” He attempted a chuckle, but it came off as a pitiful cough.

“Punishment,” Tony repeated, eyes wide, not knowing how to begin digesting this.

So the mythos did have a bit of truth in them.

Fuck.

“For invading Earth ?” Tony questioned, his eyes wide and his stomach churning, protesting at the thought. Alien invader or not, this was what he’d left Loki to suffer? He— 

This startled a crazed, rasping laugh out of the god.

“You really think the All-Father cares for your realm,” Loki wheezed, his chest lurching violently as he clearly struggled for breath, but did not stop laughing, as if Tony’d just told him the world’s funniest joke. “No, my punishment was solely for treason against the realm of Asgard, against Odin, nothing more. Do not delude yourself thus.”

Tony was left speechless.

“What—What about Thor?” Surely Thor couldn’t have — 

“What about him? His younger brother never existed, and his Loki is dead; all that remains is a broken, vengeful shell needing to be burned,” he answered, looking almost madly gleeful about it, as if he’d made the world’s best joke. Tony, on his part, was not exactly sure what the joke was supposed to be. “He cares not if I am to be executed or imprisoned or chained forever in a dark cave. And… and why should he?” he stated matter-of-factly, although now his smile was laced with a hint of sadness. Resignation.

No. No, he told himself. Yeah, Thor could be a jerk at times, and he had certainly said some less than flattering things about his brother before, but he cared for Loki! This had to be a lie, or at least highly exaggerated, Tony told himself. You’re dealing with the God of Lies here, Tony, he reminded himself. This was a lie, he was lying, he had to be.

Lying. With that calm resignation? Yeah, right.

Tony was going to be sick.

“How did I escape, you ask?” Loki now rasped, inhaling with conspicuous effort. He was in absolutely no position to talk this much, but he didn’t stop. “I was left alone in an extradimensional cave. The Allfather made sure there were no natural paths across dimensions for me to escape. Yet, he forgot that the Convergence was steadily approaching. Two or three convenient gravitational spacetime anomalies later, here I am,” he told him. 

If that explanation raised more questions than it answered, Tony didn’t mention it.

“There, I’ve answered your question,” he said, taking in a deep breath and wincing from the pain of it. “Will you now—”

“Listen, I’m not going to—”

“As one I’ve gravely wronged, it would be well within your rights to seek redressal in the form of my death. The All-Father would not intervene if that is what you worry about.”

“That’s not what I—”

“What then?” Loki’s sudden smile was positively feral. Challenging. Even in this state, it managed to send a chill down Tony’s spine. “Would you rather instead summon Odin All-Father, request completion of my term?”

“Listen up, Lokes. No one is gonna go running up to His Majesty de Sade,” Tony assured him vehemently. “Not without a loaded shotgun and a hell lot of malicious intent, that is.” Because yes, Tony was an asshole, but he wasn’t that big of an asshole.

The slow, steady beep of the cardiogram was the only sound in the room for a moment.

“... What?” Loki's tone was one that clearly asked ‘have you lost your mind?’ and you know what? Maybe Tony had. 

“I’m saying that at this point, I’m totally 100 % down for smacking him dead with a metal bat the good old way. No, wait, that asshole deserves way worse, actually.”

Loki was now silent, his face blank. 

“Anyway, uh,” said Tony, looking away and changing the topic, “So, will… this—" Tony made a broad hand gesture to encompass, well, everything— “heal eventually?” Thor had some incredible healing, hopefully Loki did too? 

He’d seen Thor heal from scratches, fractures, minor burns, not chronic starvation, dehydration, magical chemical burns, torture, and an otherwise collapsing body.

“...Given enough time, I suppose it will,” he replied softly, tone sincere enough that Tony could at least begin to hope he wasn’t lying.

“Even your eyes? I mean, we’re looking at abso—oh, goddammit, I didn’t mean to say looking at, but uh, you get the point right?—near-absolute glaucoma. I think it would require surgery,” to reduce the pain, at least; the blindness was probably permanent, or it was in humans, at least, “right, JARVIS?”

Loki went stiff.

Ohkay. Potential minefield. “It’s up to you, though,” he added quickly. “No surgeries or anything unless you want to. Plus, you said it could heal naturally, didn’t you?”

“No,” he rasped, shaking his head quickly. “No. No surgeries.”

“Are... you sure, though? Surgery can be the—” Aaand he shouldn’t have said that, judging from the expression of utter unmasked terror that crossed Loki’s face for half a moment. “I mean, it’s up to you,” he amended quickly, panic flaring up at his misstep. “No surgical procedures without the patient’s explicit consent,” Tony reaffirmed, shaking his head for emphasis. “None, unless you want it.”

“...I’m—I most certainly am sure, Stark,” he replied tightly, then, with obvious effort, shifted his head slightly away, signalling the end of the conversation.

All right, Tony conceded. It wasn’t as if Tony could handle this conversation much longer either. Especially not his stomach.

“Okay then,” he said. “Go back to sleep, Merlin. I’ll come check on you later.”

Loki did not dignify his statement with a response.

If Tony dreamt that night about Afghan caves and palladium coursing through navy blue veins and nukes through portals, well, he was determined not to let a certain newly resident mage find out. 

“Have you forgotten the fact that I attempted to conquer your planet?” Loki began as soon as he entered the medbay. Day two of Mission Fix Reindeer Games. He should probably have come up with a better name, though. “Do you not wish to enact revenge?”

“Uh, no?” Tony answered, staring at the cardiogram beside the bed. 43 beats per minute. Not good at all, but slightly better, unless Loki had athletic heart syndrome, which… was quite possible, actually. “Actually,” he said, turning to Loki, who sat in the bed, his blank stare turned towards Tony, but slightly off by a few degrees, his head tilted. “I’d like to thank you.”

He’d watched almost all footage, SHIELD or not, of Loki's 'invasion’. Some things were pretty clearly visible in hindsight; some things took their time to become apparent. But in the end, the huge, huge mound of evidence that had been thrust on Tony couldn’t exactly be ignored. And it all said one thing.

“What?” Loki questioned quietly, baffled.

“Yeah, I went through all the SHIELD footage I could find of you. Your arrival at the dark energy facility, the full records of the Helicarrier, even managed to retrieve video footage from that one underground base you used as a lair. Did some research, flipped through your medical record again, even read up some crazy-ass Reddit conspiracy theories.” Yeah, he actually had flipped through Reddit conspiracy theories, no kidding. “The evidence is pretty clear. You rigged your invasion, didn’t you?”

After being tortured for who knew how long and while being influenced by the Sceptre, he did not add. He still had difficulty digesting that. He’d probably always have difficulty digesting that. 

It also meant that the Chitauri would be back, his brain supplied merrily. Tony bit his lip, determined to pointedly ignore that fact for now. Now wasn't the time. 

Hell, he almost wished he could go back to this time yesterday, when his only concerns were the ways to improve the aerodynamics of the Mark XXII suit. When Loki’d simply been the bad guy who had been defeated, dealt with, who wouldn’t bother them ever again. When stuff was more… black and white. He’d liked not knowing. Ignorance was bliss and all.

“And what if I did?” he said finally.

So the Reddit conspiracy theories were true after all.

Tony did not know whether to be relieved or appalled.

“I do not see how that changes anything,” Loki stated plainly, almost condescendingly, as if he should not even have to state that.“I was still responsible for the deaths of hundreds."

"You were brainwashed into attacking, Loki," he insisted. "There's a little something in legalese called under duress and coercion."

"Tell yourself what you will; the red still remains on my ledger. On the wielder’s whim it may be, but it’s the sword that does the killing.” Behind the veil of that matter-of-fact tone, though, Tony heard something he’d veiled in his own countless times.

Guilt.

Nasty predicament, innit, the part of Tony’s mind that had never left The Cave commented dryly.

“How’re your eyes?” Tony questioned instead of responding to Loki’s statement, as he took out the halogen penlight from the medical tray beside the bed. He really shouldn’t be deflecting things like that, honestly, because, of course, excellent way to build some semblance of trust, Stark, but. Well, how the hell was he supposed to respond? He really shouldn’t be doing any of this; he was objectively the least qualified person to be doing this. It didn't help that Loki was being a Tony-trigger on top.

In response to the non-sequitur, Loki sighed resignedly. “... Hurt.” Obviously. Loki had vehemently refused to take any intravenous anaesthetics after the initial one had worn off yesterday and the oral analgesics simply didn’t seem to be doing the job well enough. “Dark. I see nothing, it’s…” he trailed off, going stiff. Tony frowned.

A louder beep from the cardiogram. 

Tony’s head snapped towards the machine. Loki’s heart rate had risen. Hit 60 bpm straight from the higher 40-something. Panic attack?

Shit.

“Hey, Lokes. Loki.” Tony called out, frowning in concern. He’d been perfectly okay a minute ago; what had…? Was darkness a trigger? Shit.“Loki. Hey. Can you hear me?” 

As if snapping out of it, Loki winced with a jolt. He shook his head, his chest heaving and breath laboured. "I—" he rasped, before steeling himself and attempting again, voice cleared this time, “I do not understand. Why are you doing any of this?”

“To practice my medical skills, obviously,” Tony replied, because clearly, he had to respond with sarcasm when faced with an emotionally charged question. Then, sobering up, he added, “It’s because you’ve been through literal hell, were slowly starving and dying of dehydration around this time yesterday and have lost your vision, idiot.” He carefully pulled the chair closer to the bed, trying his best to avoid any scraping, and sat down. “So, uh, how come you speak English?” Tony asked, really, really, needing a change in topic.

Loki paused at the sudden non-sequitur, probably wondering how Tony managed to jump topics so quickly. “I do not,” he answered quietly after a moment, shifting slightly to turn away from Tony. “It’s All-speak, a telepathic language that translates most languages of the universe for the user," he explained, and Tony was glad Loki took the distraction. "All- speak is a bit of a misnomer too, for it translates languages regardless of its sensory medium.”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘regardless of sensory medium’?”

“If the user can experience a sense, any language communicated via it is accessible to them, be it verbal, written, communicated through hand gestures, or through patterns of touch,” Loki elaborated softly.

“So basically like a real-life Babel Fish, but better?”

“I know not what you are referring to, Stark.”

“Irrelevant, honestly. Maybe I’ll introduce you to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy one day,” he replied, switching the penlight on. “All right, we’ll have to check the pupils for any sort of light reflex now, okay?" He told him, placing his thumb on Loki’s chin to get the examination done.

Loki flinched. 

Violently.

Oh. Oh fuck. Fuck. Shit. He’s been tortured, idiot. Besides, ask for consent before any physical contact! He reprimanded himself. Basic decency! “Sorry, I should have asked before touching you,” he said immediately, withdrawing his hand from his face. “Uh, may I touch your chin?”

“Of course,” his reply was just a bit too quick, his voice just a bit too tight. 

Tony's heart might have broken a little bit.

Nonetheless, Tony had to check his pupils. So he bit his lips, ignored the pang of guilt, and got on with it.

None. No pupillary response at all in the left eye. Left direct reflex, absent. Left consensual reflex, absent. But then, what had he expected? His irises had been burnt by an unknown magical acid, of course they wouldn't contract or expand in response to light.

Unable to bear the silence any longer, Tony decided to fill it with talk of random, mundane things. He couldn’t go on for long, however: that chatter died down after a “Are you incapable of keeping silent, Stark?” from Loki. It had been rude, honestly, but Tony had complied, managing to instead inspect the wounds in silence. Maybe his new primary source of sensory information — his hearing, now that he had lost his vision — felt overloaded by the incessant chatter. Or, equally likely, he just found Tony annoying.

“Do you know what I really am, Stark?” Loki broke the silence after a few minutes. “I’m not Odin’s son or Thor’s brother by blood. I’m not even the same species as they.”

“Yeah, Thor mentioned something about adoption. I didn’t know it was an inter-species thing, though,” Tony replied, before the full implications of those words slowly dawned on him. 

Different species. Oh, fuck.

“And you’re telling me that now?” Tony couldn’t help but demand. Loki only smiled wider at it for some crazy-ass reason. “I could have—”

“Thank the Norns, you finally see what a terrible idea it is to—”

“—Fucked up so horribly, hell, I probably did fuck up somewhere because I assumed you were Asgardian and knew nothing about your species’ biology!” Tony exclaimed, frustration, concern, and panic flaring up in equal measure.

“—Nurse a Frost Giant monster in your home,” Loki completed sardonically, his tone both mocking and pained.

Awkward silence.

“What?” Both of them said at the exact same time, in the exact same tone of incomprehension.

“...All right, first things first. Are there any major biological differences between your actual species I need to know about? Everything," he demanded. "Full disclosure. I do not want to fuck this up badly at this point.”

Loki stared—at least, kept his head oriented in Tony’s general direction for a few moments—at him blankly in incomprehension, before smiling weakly, tilting his head slightly away from Tony’s gaze. An instinctive move to avoid eye-contact, Tony guessed, except Loki couldn’t exactly see now. “I belong to a race of monsters: the Jotuns, Frost Giants.” Frost Giants? Hadn’t Thor described them as cobalt blue and ten feet tall? Loki wasn’t— “I am a shapeshifter, however,” he added, “so no, there are currently no major physiological differences between my body and that of an average Aesir, aside from minor, mostly negligible ones like overall lower body temperature.” Right. Okay. 

What was with the ‘monster’ remark, though?

“My blood-father once attempted to conquer Earth too. To make it a second Jötunheim. To rid it of humanity,” Loki added, unprompted. “None of you would be alive had the All-Father not intervened, had Asgard not prevented Jotunheim from embarking on its monstrous quest, culled it of its ambition.”

“Yeah, look. You’re neither your biological father nor your adoptive father,” Tony stated clearly, now really uncomfortable by what Loki was saying. “And their actions do not define you.” 

Because the implications of those lines...

Okay, inference one: there had been a war. Between Asgard and Jotunheim, and the battlefield had been Earth. All right. Inference two: Loki’s biological father had been the… king of Jotunheim? At least held enough power and status to begin an interplanetary war. Okay. Inference three: Odin had fought Loki’s biological father and won. Inference four: Loki seemed to abhor his birthplace.

Given that Loki was Odin’s ‘adopted’ son... conclusion one: Loki had been… kidnapped? Taken hostage by Odin? Conclusion two: he was raised on… what? Internalized racism? 

Was Tony overanalyzing Loki’s remarks?

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’m still a monster.” Loki’s smile this time was wider. Pretensive, Tony could see. Loki was pretending, pretending that those words didn’t sting. Pretending to be unfazed, to be okay. Tony knew all about that smile. He’d seen that in the mirror thousands of times.

To answer Tony’s earlier question to self: no, no he most certainly wasn’t overanalyzing anything.

Well, shit.

“All right. Get this, Lokes. I know absolutely nothing about your species, but I can tell easily from the sample size of one,” he pointed at him, then remembered that Loki couldn’t see, so he added quickly, “said sample is you, by the way, that nope, Frost Giants are not monsters. Nope.” 

“That opinion of yours wouldn’t survive first contact, Stark,” Loki replied with all the confidence in the world, entirely missing the fact that it had, in fact, been formulated after first contact, since Loki was a Jotun himself. “You’ve never seen what one looks like. Monstrous, bloody, crimson-black eyes. An icy flesh of hideous cobalt blue. You’ve never seen what their homeworld looks like, either; it’s a dark, expansive wasteland of frost. Eternally shrouded from sunlight, it has nothing but winter. Only savages inhabit it,” he told him, his expression matter-of-fact, but he looked… conflicted about it. As if he was repeating what he’d always known, but wasn’t so sure of it anymore. As if he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince Tony.

“Uh, the movie Avatar? Stitch? The Smurfs? Thrawn? Thrawn’s even got the crimson eyes covered. About the ice, uh, Elsa?” Tony offered. “Well, what I’m trying to say is over here we actually find blue-coloured skin pretty cool. And ice powers too. And red eyes. So, yeah, no. My opinion on the Jotun wouldn’t change based on appearance. And while we’re at it…” Quick, look for a tangent, Tony! “I’ve been meaning to ask, how many of those myths are actually true?’

“Not the one regarding Sleipnir’s origins, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Loki replied quickly.

“That wasn’t what I was wondering,” Tony lied.

“I’m blinded, Stark. Not an idiot,” came the reply.

No pupillary response in the right eye either. No direct reflex, no consensual reflex. None at all. Tony really wasn’t sure if there’d ever be one again, right now. 

“Enough,” Loki said a few moments later, his voice strangely quiet. “Enough of the myths are.” Louder this time. “Perhaps they might convince you to get rid of the snake you’re so intent on nourishing in your bosom.”

“I’m not killing you, Loki. I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again. And you’re not thinking straight either,” he replied emphatically. “And get this, Loki: You. Are. Not. A. Monster. Is this Asgardian racist propaganda? Sure does smell like Asgardian racist propaganda.”

Loki laughed. The same manic laugh of his that preceded and/or succeeded something insanely self-deprecatory. “If you truly believe so, then perhaps you’d be pleased to know that I attempted to destroy their realm upon finding out my origins. Genocide, I think you call it. I attempted genocide,” he said, and Tony froze. “Still think I’m not a monster to be vanquished?”

He had committed—

He had—

What?

Tony swallowed. It had to be a lie. He’s trying to provoke you, his brain told him. It made no sense, anyway! How the hell would he ever be able to—but— 

But. If he remembered correctly, Thor had almost certainly alluded to something like that.

Tony’s stomach revolted.

It was his job as Iron-Man to stop people like that, who used their powers for unmitigated destruction. To eliminate threats to innocents, prevent deaths, avenge those he couldn’t save. And even if Loki was sort-of innocent in the New York debacle, if there was any truth to what he’d said here...

As if somehow managing to see the look of horror on Tony’s face, Loki smiled a bitter, victorious smile, baring his teeth almost like monstrous fangs.

No. He shook his head. No, but that wasn’t the point. Tony could think about all of that later. He had more on his plate that required urgent attention. It doesn’t matter what he’s done, Loki deserves a second chance, another part of his mind countered, if only to repent and repair what he can. 

Because otherwise, you don’t either, the Merchant of Death reminded him cruelly.

No, this wasn’t—gah, Loki was being a Tony-trigger now. Tony shook his head vehemently, focusing on what needed to be said here instead. “All right, Loki,” he told him. “ Stop trying to provoke me into killing you. It isn’t gonna happen. Why are you so intent on getting me to kill you anyway?”

“I could ask the same of you, Stark. Why are you so intent on keeping me alive?”

Tony didn’t know what to reply to that.

He hated himself for it.

“For what purpose have I been taken hostage?” Loki questioned as soon as Tony entered on Day Four, a couple of books in his hand. Loki’s opaque, unseeing irises were fixed on the ceiling, his head was unbandaged and the torn white fabrics of the bandages lay placed on the nightstand in a manner way more organised than what he would expect of someone who had just lost their vision. He looked more fatigued than usual (if that was even possible) and Tony knew, thanks to JARVIS, he hadn’t slept last night. For exactly the same reason Tony avoided sleep too.

“Okay, why are the bandages off your head, Loki?” Tony questioned, frowning in disapproval, pointedly ignoring Loki’s question and instead eyeing the white shreds of gauze.

“They itched,” Loki replied tersely, as Tony watched Loki frown as he opened and closed his eyelids slowly. Seriously? This guy could take who knows how many months of torture but had a problem with gauze his head because it itched?

“JARVIS, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I would have, but it seems Mr Odinson’s—” Tony noticed Loki wince at that name— “head injury has healed fully, Sir. The gauze is no longer required.” 

Sure enough, Tony noticed as he went closer, the wound was gone. As if it had never existed.

“Oh, okay, that was quick,” Tony replied in unmasked disbelief. Turning to the cardiogram, Tony further noted his heart-rate today stood at a decent 61 bpm. The burns under his eyes appeared to be slightly healed up too. His eyes on the other hand… still the same nausea-inducing red sclerae and stony grey irises. “How are your eyes, though?” he asked nonetheless, swallowing.

“Hurt,” Loki replied; an answer Tony was expecting. Then he added, “Slightly less than before, however.”

Huh. Could Tony hope that perhaps his eyes were, despite the looks of them ...

“You haven’t answered my question,” Loki said quietly.

Tony frowned, trying to recall what the question was, then replying assertively, “Hostage isn’t the correct word, Lokes. You’re more of a, well, patient. You’re absolutely free to leave, once you’ve recovered properly. Back to healthy.”

Honestly, if it were not for the fact that Loki’s magic was impaired and the little that was left in his reserves was being used solely for healing his body, Loki might have disappeared already. And, Tony guessed, nothing good would have come out of that for anyone including Loki himself.

“...‘Healthy’ is a rather subjective term. You are the one who decides when I am ‘healthy’ enough to be ‘discharged’, yes?”

Oh, shit. Verbal trap. He couldn't say no, because that would be an utter lie, and would probably end in a huge-ass mess if Loki actually attempted to leave in this state. Saying, yes, on the other hand… well, no other choice left now. “Uh… considering the fact that you’re currently in a highly mentally compromised state, well… yeah.”

Loki’s smile was bitter. “Hostage.”

“ Look, I haven’t taken you ‘hostage’ for any reason. The only reason I get to decide when you leave is because you’re clearly suicidal right now, and in no way fit to be—”

“I’m not suicidal, I—”

“—Yeah, right,” Tony shot back. 

“—I’m merely trying to remind you of your duty to this realm as an Avenger. It’s your duty to fight monsters, to eliminate threats, isn’t it?” Loki challenged, his grey irises now staring hollowly in his general direction. “I seem to think I qualify for both.”

“Yeah, no. Not gonna happen.” Tony replied emphatically, before he noticed something. “Oh hey! There is a pupillary response!” he exclaimed, both disbelief and hope lighting up in him in equal measure. “I just found a minute pupillary light reflex in your right eye, Lokes! You know what that means.” This should have been impossible in human beings, and yet. “JARVIS, we did, right? We’re doing a scan of your eyeballs after this,” he announced. “If you're okay with it, of course,” he added quickly.

“Certainly, Sir,” the AI replied after witnessing Loki’s nod.

One did not simply recover from absolute glaucoma. And yet here Loki was, showing a pupillary response when barely four days ago there was absolutely none. Sure, the response was minute as hell, and in no way even close to a healthy level, but it was there. Loki’s eyes could, he hoped, actually recover. Recover from prolonged torture via magical snake venom. Fuck, Tony had no idea how to respond to that.

Loki, though, seemed to have other things on his mind. “For what purpose are you doing this?” Loki stated again, louder this time, more demanding.

“Uh, because you clearly need to recover from all the shit you’ve been put through in the last year?” he pointed out. “Listen. What I’m trying to get at is that I’m only trying to help you, Loki.”

Loki’s eyebrows shot up, his mouth seemed to try to form the word ‘help’, but paused. A tense, awkward silence reigned for a moment as Loki seemed to try to process what Tony’d just said. “...And… what payment do you expect in return for this?” Loki questioned, his voice tense.

“I don’t— Oh for God’s sake —”

Loki flinched.

Shit. 

Right. Calm the fuck down, Tony. Frustration isn’t gonna help.

Tony took a deep breath. Swallowed. “I’m sorry for raising my voice, Loki,” he apologised, then paused, trying to formulate what to say next. Exhaling again, he added, voice much more level, “What I’m trying to say is —is that I don’t expect anything in return, Loki. I’m only trying to be a decent human being. Now, I’ll check for a pupillary response in the left eye next, okay? May I touch your chin?” The other nodded tersely in response.

Tony switched the halogen penlight on.

Loki winced at the touch this time, but said nothing.

“...Does ‘being a decent human being’ entail nursing an enemy of your realm in your home?” he began quietly after a few moments. "Would the rest of your realm agree? Do the rest of the Avengers agree? Come to think of it, I certainly haven’t seen — heard —” Loki winced —“a certain hawk around recently.” He challenged. “What of the thousands you are depriving of justice, those who’ve lost their kin thanks to me? What of the thousands more you risk in allowing me to live? Admit it, killing me is the best course of action.”

“Does killing you bring all those people back? Does it fix the billions in property damage? Does it take away all the pain the invasion caused everyone? Nope, nope and nope.” Tony pointed out. “It only causes further suffering. To you, I mean. So yeah, it really isn’t the best course of action, pragmatically speaking.”

“...Forgive me if I have trouble believing you.”

Tony sighed. “All right. You want me to demand something in return?”

Loki’s shoulders immediately stiffened at the statement, his brows wrinkling in anxiousness. Yet Tony could see relief in the tension, as if this was at least familiar ground. There was resignation too, as if this was inevitable. As if a give or take with the enemy he could handle, but a drop of unprompted kindness baffled him. No more guessing, at least, was that what Loki was thinking? 

That was probably what Loki was thinking.

“Don’t go around killing people on Earth, unless in self-defence. You can do that, right?”

Loki turned his head towards him, his opaque eyes gazing hollowly off into the void as he frowned. Trying to give Tony a blank stare, he realized, only he couldn’t exactly stare now.

“...That’s a highly indirect way of neutralizing a threat to your realm. And one riddled with countless loopholes, may I add,” Loki finally responded sardonically, but beneath the masks, Tony could see an expression of shocked incomprehension. The ‘demand’ was already a given, after all. Loki was probably expecting worse.

“Oh, and another thing,” he decided to add, but somewhat regretted it on seeing how Loki seemed to brace himself.

“Yes?” Loki questioned, and despite his best attempts, he couldn’t stop a hint of nervousness from bleeding into his voice.

“Call me Tony.”

And if he 'accidentally' left the books he'd brought along, all of them written in Braille, lying right there within Loki’s reach on the nightstand, well, what about it? 

And if Tony did not fail to notice that the copies of Shakespeare's works written in Braille he'd left there 'accidentally' had all changed positions the next time he visited, well, what about it?

Three and a half weeks. Weeks. That’s how long it took.

“I can see shadows now. Smudges. Feel the intensity of light,” Loki answered in response to Tony’s ‘How’re your eyes?’, his voice deliberately maintained at a neutral tone, but Tony could hear the relief that bled into it. The hope in it. “The pain’s still there, but it has lessened much.”

The irises of Loki’s eyes had begun to return to a healthier colour: they were now a soft moss green with the pupils clearly differentiated, although not at normal function yet. The sclerae, instead of the cadaverous bulging red, were a faint pink, close to white. The pH was now on a 7.0 and a 7.1 in the left and right eyes respectively: within the healthy range. JARVIS’s scans had shown that his oculomotor nerves had almost fully recovered, and the optic nerves were getting there. The rods of his retina were well on their path to recovery, hence the sensation of the intensity of light, and JARVIS had assured them that the cones would also recover in a few weeks' time.

“Yup, your eyes are actually getting better. At an incredible rate, lemme add. It’s amazing, really. Your magic is amazing.” Tony grinned as he saw Loki couldn’t help but flush minutely at the praise. Happened every time you complimented his magic, which Tony did very, very often, because, well, it was magic! And it was fixing Loki’s body at an insane, insane rate! And even if Loki couldn’t really do much with it aside from healing, it was beyond cool.

And, of course, when he’d noticed how Loki glowed every time he complimented his magic and made the (correct) guess that Asgard had scorned it, he’d made it a habit to praise his seidr every chance he’d gotten.

Because it didn’t remind him of how Howard had never bothered to say a word of approval about his achievements, not at all.

“Hey, JARVIS, tell U to get us both a smoothie,” he told his AI as he set the penlight down, his AI responding with an “Of course, Sir.”

His muscle mass had begun to return too, and his skin now resembled porcelain instead of cement in its colour. The scars on his wrists had vanished, and the burned nerves in his hands (that Tony had since learnt were caused by attempts to do magic when bound in magic-restraining cuffs that sent jolts of searing pain down the wearer’s nerves when they detected magic) had healed too; the pain had lessened, and so had the scarring. The spinal fractures and neuralgia were almost gone, and burns on the shoulder and the back had subsided, although they still did scar pretty horribly. 

Loki was actually healing.

Once his vitals had arrived at semi-healthy rates, Loki’d begun to gain weight rapidly. Tony’d first suspected that Loki was forcing his magic to create an illusion, but the machines didn’t lie, did they? No, his weight actually did increase, his metabolism had begun to recover, his electrolyte balances had arrived at semi-healthy rates. Soon enough, Tony’d given in to Loki’s insistence to remove the IV, instead deciding to move him to a liquid diet, and getting him off the hospital (medbay) bed permanently. The relief on Loki’s face when the intravenous had been removed was palpable. Tony wondered, remembering how Loki’d gone pale(-er) when Tony’d raised the idea of surgery for glaucoma and how he’d vehemently refused intravenous anaesthetics, if needles had had something to do with the torture, but had never asked.

U had happily taken over smoothie duty ever since.

Loki exhaled quietly, blinking slowly a few times, as if to test out the improvements in his vision, hesitant optimism palpable on his face. Tony was suddenly struck by just how hard losing his eyesight would have been for him; Loki, even blinded, was still a very observant person, and with his eyes, he must have been used to analysing faces, expressions, body language, surroundings. God of Lies, Tony remembered — Loki must have been used to picking up visual cues in expressions, minute ticks of body language immediately. It must have been hard on him, temporarily losing an ability that essential to him.

And then being found in a severely weakened state by someone who he’d had no reason to think of as anything other than an enemy, a part of his brain added.

This was when Loki steeled himself visibly and said, tone carefully neutral, “Is this not enough to allow me to leave, if there is any truth to your claim that you have only kept me here to help? I am beyond fit enough to fend for myself, Stark. Besides, I don’t doubt I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

“A: you’re not even close to any definition of ‘healed’ when you can’t even see colour. Nope, wait until your cones are functional again, Lokes.” And if ‘health’ included mental and emotional health too, then… let’s just say he was a long, long way from any sort of ideal, but he did not mention that. “B: no, you haven’t overstayed any welcome, Reindeer Games,” he chided gently. “And hey, it’s Tony, remember?” Loki forgot that often, switching between Stark and Tony.

“... I do not understand.”

“Understand what?”

"Stark is your name, yes? It's what most of your acquaintances refer to you as," Loki pointed out. "Why do you object to me calling you by that name?"

"Yeah, it is, but honestly? Stark kinda reminds me of Dad. I'm just Tony. That's what I like to be called, usually, since that's my name too.” Tony explained. “And hey, sorry for not bringing this up earlier, I really should have done so way, way before, but you don’t like to be called by Thor’s surname, right? What do you want to be called?”

Loki frowned, seemingly mulling over the question. It was a minor thing, but Tony could tell it was important to the demigod. He should really have asked earlier. Tony was an idiot.

“Just… just Loki,” he said, a faint, hesitant smile beginning to form on his lips. 

Tony, on his part, beamed.

From behind them, Tony heard U whir noisily towards them, two strawberry smoothies in its mechanical hand. Turning around, he gently took the two glasses from U, mumbling a quiet, “Thanks, U.”

“Here you go,” he extended one of the glasses to Loki, who after half a moment of carefully grappling his hands in the air, trying to locate the glass, finally found it and took it wordlessly.

Tony remembered with a shudder that one time he’d asked Loki when he’d eaten a full meal the last time, and gotten asked what year it was in return. Loki’s last proper meal had apparently been before whatever shit had gone down in Jotunheim (and Tony was gradually growing surer and surer that Loki’s initial ‘attempted genocide’claim was false, even though it was very hard to get Loki to really talk about it), meaning he hadn’t had one in over a year. A full year without food. His cells had consumed his seidr reserves instead to keep his vitals functioning, and even then, he’d lacked enough magic to prevent pretty bad muscle atrophy and a near-starved metabolism when he’d finally escaped the colossally fucked-up mess Odin had put him through. Loki’s magic really was something.

“...Regardless,” Loki continued after a few moments of silence, lowering the glass in his hand, “once the Allfather finds out I’ve escaped, there will be retribution. Not just for me. Sheltering me here for longer will only bring you suffering."

“Right. Is that why you’ve added protective wards around the mansion, then?” Tony countered, smiling faintly. Of course he'd detected them, and although he wasn't able to identify a spell/ward/sigil/whatever’s purpose simply by its energy signature (yet), it wasn't hard to guess. "Yeah, I found out." Tony didn’t quite approve of Loki diverting his magic to uses aside from healing, but he did understand the necessity of those wards. And it was an improvement, he guessed. Loki was putting efforts in his self-preservation now.

“They won’t help,” Loki shook his head. “They’re not strong enough. I’m assuming Odin has other matters to attend to, what with the Convergence soon at its peak, but eventually, Odin is bound to find out. Trust me. This endeavour only ends in pointless suffering for everyone involved.” He added then, averting his green-grey gaze, tone much softer, "That's all I bring to anyone.”

"I don’t think so, Lokes," Tony insisted emphatically, his brain refusing to even acknowledge the idea that the All-Daddy might come knocking up at his door. Even Loki’s self-loathing was easier to deal with. “You don't.”

“You should, given all the suffering I've already inflicted on you.” Loki sighed. "And all of Asgard, Jotunheim and New York would like to disagree." 

Well, a good chunk of Sokovia would like my head better on a pike than on my neck too, what about it? The Merchant of Death joked sardonically; Iron Man shuddered. The 2006 war of Sokovia had been a fun time.

An odd whirr in the background. Tony turned around to see U standing right there next to the kitchen counter, preparing another pair of smoothies. "No one asked for another, U!" he called out, before bringing his attention back to the conversation at hand.

Tony took a deep breath. Inhaled. Waited. Exhaled again. Decided what he should say next, as painful memories, dread, and determination flared up within him in equal measure. All right, Tony. Here goes. "Have I ever told you the story of how I got my arc reactor in my chest?"

Loki frowned in confusion. “You haven’t, but I fail to see how it’s relevant.”

“I was an arms dealer, y'see. The best and biggest of them all, actually. The U.S. military’s single biggest supplier. I made missiles, guns, grenades, bigger missiles, you name it. All of this wealth I have? Almost all of it made from weapons. ”

“I’ve been told,” Loki replied tersely, tilting his head. 

"Right, you might know this — well, who doesn’t — but you don’t really get what I’m saying here, do you?” he asked, smiling a self-deprecatory smile. “You've killed hundreds, maybe thousands. My weapons —" he shook his head — " I've killed tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, Loki. In Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sokovia, Ethiopia. I've killed American soldiers, I've killed terrorists, but mostly I've killed innocent bystanders."

"But you only made the weapons," Loki countered quickly, and Tony bit back the urge to point out that corporate lobbying was very much a thing that existed, thank you, because that was beside the point. "That doesn't--"

"'On the wielder's whim it may be, but it is the sword that does the killing,’'' Tony quoted. "Your words, not mine. Then don't you think that by the same logic, the weaponsmith holds equal responsibility for the crimes committed by their sword?"

Loki was silent. Droplets of condensed water were beginning to form on the smoothie glass in his hand. 

“You know why I made all those weapons? My father did, I inherited the company. Continued his legacy, never really stopping to think for once the legacy I was carving for myself. I designed all those missiles myself, y’know, made them bigger, smaller, stronger, capable of killing more with less. I continued without pausing to think about what I was doing, the lives I was taking. Yeah, Iron Man can pretend to be a hero all he wants, but Tony Stark is not it, chief. All of that came to bite me in the ass.”

Loki opened his mouth as if to argue, but Tony beat him to it. "What about you? I know about New York, what about the rest? Exchange of stories. My, ahem, ‘hero origin story’,” he said, tone dripping with sarcasm, “for your ‘tragic villain tale’."

“I —” Loki hesitated, but after a  moment, sighed in acquiescence. “... It was my fault, the whole debacle with Jötunheim, with… that desert town." Puente Antiguo, Tony recalled. "I arranged for Thor’s coronation to be disrupted, and brought Frost Giants into the realm, because I thought he wasn’t ready to be king. And well, he wasn’t. But I never intended for the rest to happen; everything just… slipped out of my hands. Thor threw a tantrum and marched straight into Jötunheim, started a war over being called a ‘princess’. In the ensuing battle, a Jötun grabbed my arm, and it changed colour. I… upon returning to Asgard, I decided to confirm my suspicions; they were true… and suddenly everything made sense. If only I hadn’t…” — his breath hitched — “it wouldn’t have ended in... ” He trailed off.

Loki sighed, visibly trying to collect his thoughts. Tony waited. It was hard to open up to anyone, he knew; there was always this fear nagging at you, that if you said it out loud, it would all become real again, that you would break again and be unable to pick up the pieces. So if Loki was braving it, if he was willing to share his story, Tony would give him all the time he needed. It was his job to just listen. 

"I'm not making much sense, am I?" Loki chuckled finally, shaking his head, tone self-deprecating. "Very well, let me try again.” He exhaled. “Thor, in his infinite idiocy, broke a thousand-year-old treaty and started a war. Then got himself banished. Odin revealed to me my true heritage — I’d never known I was not Asgardian, and they did not plan on telling me until the fact could be used to make me a political pawn — and conveniently fell asleep, leaving the throne to me. I… I felt a need to prove that I was… not one of the Frost Giant monsters. I wanted to be the worthy son, for once. So I sought a quick solution. I killed their king — my birth father — and unleashed the power of the Bifrost on Jötunheim. It would have destroyed the planet, had Thor not intervened in time.”

Oh.

Tony paused to think. He knew that feeling; he knew that need to prove himself all too well. And he knew neglect, he knew the fear of never truly belonging; those, he’d felt all too often. And he knew how it felt to have a bitter truth to rear its ugly head and turn your life upside-down, for something you’d always taken for granted snatched from your grasp.

But here was the contrast. His wake-up call had made him realize what he needed to do, given him a new direction, told him to carve a different legacy than one of dollars and dynamite and blood. Loki’s… had been precisely the opposite. Learning that his parents had lied to him… for his whole life? That he was someone he’d been conditioned his whole life to hate? No, whereas Tony’s awakening had given him a chance to rebuild, Loki’s had only shattered everything.

“I was an idiot, thinking that I could ever attain any form of true affirmation or love on Asgard. It was a futile endeavour, attempting to prove my worth in Odin’s eyes; it had always been a futile endeavour. I should have known. Should have known that no matter what I did or who I became, to Odin I would always be a stolen relic. Should have kept my wits, thought my way through.” Loki swallowed audibly. “No, I played directly into Odin’s hands, his… every belief he’d inculcated in me. Jotunheim suffered for it.”

Otherwise, this… was fucked up. Horrendously, colossally fucked up. But not in a Holy Shit, the Guy I Saved From Starvation Tried to Destroy A Planet kind of way, no. 

Because what Loki'd attempted… wasn't exactly genocide, no. This was more like… handing a teenager who’d just had the biggest mental breakdown plus identity crisis of their life the nuclear button. In the middle of the Red Scare. While nuclear war was actually going on with Russia. Yeah, that was a pretty neat analogy. Except add more internalized racism and child neglect. And planet-destroying Einstein-Rosen Bridge technology.

Tony knew Thor was over a millennium old, so Loki must be close to that same age. Which meant over a thousand years. A thousand years of imperialist conditioning; it wasn’t easily removed. Hell, especially not when most humans had trouble letting go of everyday, mundane beliefs. And you don’t exactly grow up in a highly racist, imperialist and sexist society to become a champion of human rights. But Tony also could see in Loki’s expression of genuine guilt that the lad was trying.

And that was what mattered.

When Loki did not add anything else and instead tilted his head toward him, Tony realized he was expecting a response.

“All right, first up,” he began, not truly knowing where to start, “what the hell was Odin and, and whoever handed you the throne, thinking?!” he exclaimed indignantly. “‘ Oh, we’ve only lied to him for, you know, his entire life, that’s not a big deal, right? His feelings of hurt and betrayal and anger are not justified at all! Let’s hand him the throne, unsupervised! He doesn’t need any support after learning his entire life’s been a lie! It’ll work out fine! What could go wrong, right?’ ’’ he announced, tone dripping with sarcasm and anger on Loki’s behalf. “I mean, it’s fucked up. This whole thing is.”

"...Are you saying it wasn't my fault?"

"Of course I'm not. You were the one who made the decision to do everything in the end. But."

"But?" he asked hesitantly.

“But your decisions were influenced by a truckload of extenuating circumstances, Lokes, and that's an important thing to consider," Tony asserted, then biting his lip, he added, "What about me? I was just a spoiled rich white kid looking to make more profit. You think I didn’t know that the weapons I created were killing thousands? You think I couldn’t have stopped production anytime I wanted?” Tony questioned rhetorically, remembering with a shudder… everything. The most famous mass murderer in the history of America, he’d been called. The merchant of death.

“Nope! What it took me to actually see for once was betrayal by a father-figure and three months of torture in an Afghan cave. That's what happened; my father-figure only kept me around for his own greed, and when I became a problem, paid to have me killed. I survived, this is when I got the reactor, but it was not fun. Iron-Man was what I made to escape.”

Loki blinked in what Tony guessed was surprise.

“I... see why you sympathize, at least,” Loki said hesitantly. "I can see the parallels."

Too many of them for comfort, Tony mused. Looking at Loki was sometimes like looking at himself through the shards of a broken mirror; a reflection of himself, but more shattered, more tragic.

Tony smiled brokenly. "I guess what I'm trying to get at is, you're no more a monster than I am, Lokes. Nope, you’re way less of a monster than I am."

So stop being so hard on yourself, Loki.

“But…" Loki countered, "you triumphed, didn't you? You rose through the flames like a phoenix from its ashes. You defeated your captors. I —” Loki trailed off, diverting his gaze. “I broke. I gave in, I lost.”

“Are you kidding? You rigged your own invasion, Loki, while being mind-controlled for God’s sake; you kept the tesseract from whoever actually led the Chitauri, lost them the Sceptre, and managed to escape. I don’t think there’s been a bigger fuck you in the history of fuck you s, Loki.”

Loki laughed brokenly. “And look where that got me.”

“That’s in no way your fault. Odin’s the biggest dick in the history of the cosmos. Fuck him and his bigoted, imperialistic, hypocritical, gold-plated shithole of a realm.”

"I know…" Loki sighed, "fuck Asgard." It had almost become sort of a mantra between them, by now.

A whirr of his bot’s movement made Tony turn around, only to find U standing there, another two glasses in its hands. It’d probably be giving him puppy-dog eyes if it had a face. 

“I told you not to, U,” he chided the bot softly, who made a defiant whirr in response. Tony took the two other smoothie glasses from its mechanical arms and set them on the table. “Honestly, you’re killing me with your smoothie obsession.”

U whirred again, turning away and heading back.

“And…” Loki attempted a hesitant smile, “what if I tell you I was directly responsible for the Spanish Inquisition?”

“Hey, now you’re just making shit up.”

Loki chuckled softly. It sounded more like a chuckle now.

“Star-” Loki paused, his breath catching in his throat. He closed his mouth, letting out a deep exhale. He tilted his head back then, asking quietly, as if trying the word out on his tongue, even though he’d said it before, “ Tony ?”

“Yeah?”

It was quiet, barely audible, but there. “Thank you.”

“...Don’t mention it,” he replied offhandedly after a moment of surprise, pulling up a cheeky grin.

Tony only belatedly noticed that Loki’s eyes appeared to be wet.

“It’s… the colours are still faint, but yes,” Loki nodded, setting the book in his hand down on the table before the couch. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Tony noticed from the cover. In alphabetic English, not Braille. “My vision is improving. Quite rapidly.”

Seven weeks. 

Seven weeks, and his metabolism was finally looking somewhat healthy; consistently normal resting heart-rates, near-optimal electrolyte balances, and he’d gained a lot of weight too (it stood currently at an insane, physics-defying 475 pounds, and Loki actually told him it was a slight bit underweight for an Aesir. Despite everything that had happened, Tony’s brain might have broken a little bit at that). The sclerae were an almost perfect white by now, the irises now a forest green. The burns around them looked more like bad dark circles instead of burns from a distance. The spinal fractures were gone, and the scars and burns on the shoulders and back were beginning to fade.

“Great! Your vision’s almost fixed, then. You’ll be free to go in almost no time!”

These seven weeks with Loki had been anything but easy. It wasn’t just the frustration of handling Iron Man duties at the same time, or the ordeal of keeping SHIELD off their scent, or the whole mess of explaining the situation to a very wrathful Pepper (who’d found out; of course she’d found out), no. It was also about how his heart broke just a little every time the demigod said something self-loathing. About the constant dread of one day finding the rainbow light of the Bifrost descending on them, of finding Odin right there. It was about how often he looked at Loki only to find himself instead looking at a more shattered version of himself.

And yet. Yet Tony cherished their short but positively enlightening talks about science, magic, and the gaps in between they’d had on some of the good days. Yet Tony often found himself beaming every time Loki attempted a genuine, if hesitant, smile. Yet Tony sometimes looked at Loki and saw hope.

Tony would miss him, when he left.

“Indeed,” Loki said as he glanced away, looking… conflicted?

“...Hey, everything all right?” Tony questioned, frowning in concern. “Reindeer Games?”

“What then?”

“What when?”

“Once I’m truly fully healed and free to leave?” 

“Didn’t you want to leave? You could — oh .” Realization hit Tony like a raging wave as Tony grasped the meaning behind Loki’s words. 

Loki’d been so focused on surviving for so long he wasn’t sure how to live.

“I… I know not where to go, Sta- Tony. ” Loki shook his head at his accidental initial use of his surname. Loki tended to fall back to using Stark  instead of Tony whenever he felt particularly vulnerable. Tony wondered if it was some sort of coping mechanism, sheltering him from a potential blow by emotionally distancing himself from the person beforehand by using less affable forms of address. “I don’t exactly have a loving home waiting for me somewhere." His tone was dripping with sarcasm, but also pain. "And… I’m afraid I’m still not sure if I…” Loki trailed off, grimacing. Tony’s brows furrowed.

“Tony.”

“Yeah?” he asked cautiously.

Loki sighed, swallowing. “Please answer this truthfully. No honeyed words,” he said, biting his lip. “Do you — do you truly think I’m redeemable? That… I can be anything more than all the blood I've spilled?”

“Honestly?” Tony began, inwardly cringing as Loki shoulders drew forward tensely, bracing himself for what he probably thought were surely admittances of his inherent evilness or something. “I’m the last person you should be asking that. Why do you think I know? Can anyone really become free of all the wrong they’ve done? Can somebody really offset all their crimes with the good? Does such a balance even exist? Redemption, retribution… even justice for that matter. Real, achievable things or just… idealism?" How many times had he asked himself that? Whether he could really pay the debt of all the lives he'd taken with the ones he'd saved. Whether he could ever rid himself of the guilt. And Loki's expression told him he'd done the same too. "Am I getting too philosophical? I think I’m getting too philosophical.”

Loki didn’t reply.

Tony sobered up again and swallowed once, saying, “The operative word here is... live, I think. It’s what any of us can do: keep going, try to do your best to undo the damage you’ve done, try to make the world a better place despite all your past actions to the contrary, try to learn to live with the guilt and the pain. Live… and keep trying.” he said. “Not… not waste your second chances.” 

For a moment, it seemed as if Yinsen’s figure was right there, listening, watching.

Shaking the thought away, he shrugged lightly, adding, “I’m not one to be preaching this, though. I can barely do this myself,” he admitted.

A pained expression crossed Loki's face.

An awkward silence stretched on for a few moments, until Tony broke it with a “You know what? I’m getting hungry. Are you getting hungry? JARVIS, get U to make us both some sandwiches, will ya? Oh, and smoothies too.”

“Certainly, Sir,” his AI responded. “Do you wish for some too, Mr Loki?” Loki seemed to mull this over for a moment, before replying in the affirmative softly.

“Good. Apple smoothies it is.”

“...I was never supposed to live, you know,” Loki muttered quietly, tilting his head upwards and sighing. “The Void was supposed to be the end of it all.”

He wasn’t supposed to —

He what?

Thor had said ‘fell’.

The implications of the statement hit him full-force on the face. No, he must be misinterpreting something; Loki’d never mentioned this before, and Thor had said ‘fell’.

“You…”

“At the end of the bridge, I let go,” Loki quietly confirmed his worst suspicions. At Tony’s speechless, appalled look, he added, “Thor told you I fell, did he? That’s because he wouldn’t admit I took the cowardly way out. I couldn’t face Odin after he rejected me, told me that I truly was nothing more than a pawn that had outlived its purpose, said ‘no’.” He admitted, averting his gaze away towards the floor. “I thought it’d be easy. An easy escape from the pain. I chose to run away from my problems and the Fates handed me more.” 

“Loki…”

“To wish for, or to attempt to take one’s own life is considered cowardice of the highest degree on Asgard,” Loki smiled a self-loathing smile. “It’s proof that one lacks the courage even to live.”

“...Listen. I’ve said this a million times, and I’ll say it a million more: I don’t care about Asgard’s bullshit. And that’s exactly what it is: bullshit.” Tony told him,  “For what it’s worth, I think you’re the single bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“I wished for the truth, Stark; I asked for no honeyed words,” he snapped, but then immediately winced at his own loud voice. “You… can’t possibly mean it.”

For all the prideful façade Loki put up sometimes, Loki really had it almost embedded in his brain that he didn’t deserve acknowledgement. Years of neglect by Odin, Tony’d guessed almost immediately when he’d noticed Loki’s chronic, thinly veiled self-loathing. He could almost see Howard’s reflection in there.

“Of-fucking-course I mean it, Loki,” he assured him emphatically. "You hit your lowest and the universe got itself a shovel and started digging,” Tony replied. "And what did you do? You told it fuck you, dived in the trench it was digging head-first while doing a flip, and no matter how deep that trench became, you managed to climb out."

“And I’m not just talking about everything that happened after, no. Listen, I may not know a lot about Asgard, but from what I do, you survived a literal hell-hole way before the Void happened.”

Loki’s frown deepened, but he did not say a word. Tony heard the whirring of one of his bots in the background.

“Hell, let's take the most obvious example. I remember Thor’s offhanded remarks about magic. Hell, I’ve talked to Dr Foster a couple times to get more info on them,” and he’d seen that look on Loki’s face that Tony had found in the mirror all his childhood. One that yearned desperately for words of affirmation yet knew better than to expect them, “and wow, Asgard did not need sexist on its resumé, but here we are. Doing magic is unmanly? Somehow lesser than swinging axes around? Bullshit. Utter bullshit, I’ll tell you. You were the only nerd on a planet of jocks, weren’t you?”

“... What’s your point?”

“You survived a highly, highly racist, sexist, and generally bigoted environment. And ‘brave’ is exactly the word I’d use for that. You handled a thousand years of people treating you like shit and didn’t break. Because guess what, people need affirmation, they need appreciation. No kid deserves to be neglected that way,” Tony asserted, memories of Howard flaring fresh in his mind.

“I am — was — royalty, Stark,” Loki countered weakly. “It wasn’t —”

“Yeah, and it makes no difference if those around you think you don’t belong,” interrupted Tony, almost challenging Loki to tell him if he was wrong in his assessment. “If the guy at the top of the pecking order decides you’re to be pecked at by everyone, that’s what happens. Take Zuko, for example. He was a prince too. Didn’t stop everyone from treating him like shit, initially.” And holy hell, Loki didn’t even get his personal Uncle Iroh, did he?

“...I’m afraid I know not who you are referring to.”

“Oh. Right. Not from Earth. Right, remind me to show you A:TLA — Avatar: the Last Airbender, it’s a TV series — once you get your vision back completely. You need to see it. Everyone needs to see it.”

“I’ll…" he attempted a tense, broken smile, "I'll add it to the list.”

“Anyway, my point is. You made that journey alone, You’ve been through literal hell, and you came out, well, not exactly singing, but you came out  alive. Fighting. And I think that’s what matters the most.” He assured him.“You’re not a coward for giving up when you did, Lokes, nope. You’re strong for persevering until that point. You’re strong for continuing to persevere after that point.”

Loki was only staring at him now.

“And you know what? Fuck Asgard,” he added, really really wanting to waltz straight into the Great Benevolent Realm of Golden Eternal Assholes and spit on the All-Daddy’s face. “Fuck Odin.”

“I know,” Loki shook his head hesitantly. “I know, but… To tell the truth, I sometimes miss how things were, back then. Where I could pretend that Thor and Frigga actually cared. Pretend that Thor’s friends were mine too, that they didn’t just tolerate me for his sake. When I could hope to one day finally be worthy of Odin’s regard, when I could hope to be worthy of Asgard’s acceptance. That hope kept me going. This…” Loki made a broad gesture to encompass everything, smiling a bitter, broken smile, “it’s been… lonely.”

Pretending as if nothing was broken. Had a certain appeal to it, Tony knew. Looking the other way, closing your eyes when the ugly truth attempted to shove itself in your face. Lying to yourself, Tony knew that all too well.

But Tony hadn’t been alone. Not once. He knew loneliness, only because he’d pushed everyone away, not because there hadn’t been anyone beside him. No, even after all he’d done, he’d had people who’d never given up on him, not once.

Loki hadn’t.

Tony was really, really tempted to throw a nuke straight into Odin’s face, this time.

“I can understand. Really. I survived Afghanistan only because I wasn’t alone. I had someone to have my back. His name was Yinsen, y’know. Died so I could get out. I... killed his family with my weapons and he died so I didn’t,” Tony said, self-deprecation bleeding into his voice despite his best efforts.

Don’t waste your life, Yinsen’s words echoed in his mind. Tony could sometimes only wonder if he wasn’t. If what he’d done after Afghanistan could ever possibly outdo all the blood he’d spilt before. If he would ever really become worthy of Yinsen’s sacrifice.

Tony shook his head, shaking his thoughts away. This wasn’t the time for self-loathing. “I’m only alive because I have Happy and Pep and Rhodey to have my back, to drag me out when I’m at my lowest. You didn’t. And — give yourself some credit here — you managed to survive a highly toxic environment, the literal void of interstellar space, torture followed by more torture all without a single person to have your back. Alone. It’s… a power move. And tragic.” 

The wind rustled against the glass panes of the room, and Loki’s gaze slowly diverted to the ocean beneath, watching the waves reflect the golden-orange hue of the evening skies above.

“Well, it’s hardly liable to change, is it?” Loki laughed a bitter, pained laugh.

“Wrong,” Tony replied, a cheeky smile now crossing his face. “You have me now.”

Over on the kitchen counter, U switched on the blender. Its soft whirr filled the room.

Loki blinked once. Frowned, tilting his head towards Tony in incomprehension. Shook his head minutely, seeming unable to process what Tony’d just said.

“I said what I said,” Tony shrugged, the beginnings of a grin tugging at his lips. “You’ve got me now.” 

Loki was left completely speechless now, gaping at him openly, his soft-green eyes clearly communicating words his lips were unable to form. Silence reigned in the room, the only source of sound being the whirr of U’s blender and the soft rattle of wind on the panes.

“I — ” Loki’s breath hitched in his throat. He blinked, a tear spilling off his eyes despite his attempts to hold it back. 

Tony extended his arms, gently but firmly clasping Loki’s shoulders, then, when the other made no move to resist, pulling him closer. Loki hesitated at first, yet didn’t back away, gradually leaning into the touch, slowly placing his head on Tony’s shoulders and carefully clasping his hands around Tony’s back. His frame was stiff, guarded. Tense as a bowstring. Awkward, as if he didn’t know what to do with this sudden hug. Afraid too, as if he was worried it might be refused, rescinded, or merely an illusion, something that was for a moment so within his reach only to be snatched away before his very eyes.

They stayed like this for a few moments; silent and awkward, yet Loki's shoulders relaxed eventually as he gradually grew more eased in Tony's arms. Almost clung to them, once he realized the embrace was not going to be withdrawn. He shuddered softly a few times, his breath hitching, and Tony felt his T-shirt dampen around his shoulder where Loki’s forehead was placed.

The silence slowly grew into a comfortable one.

“It’s all right, Lokes,” Tony gently patted his back as the other sniffed softly. “I’ve got you.”