Chapter Text
“You’re saying you and Loki both time traveled? To Asgard ?”
“That’s what I have been telling you for the past ten minutes, Brucie Bear.”
“That’s…”
“Insane? Yes, I know. You can do a psych eval later if you want. I might even sit still for it.”
Bruce pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. All of them looked like they were having a rather phenomenal headache trying to understand what Tony had just told them. Except for Thor. At first he had boasted about how lucky Tony had been to have experienced Asgard’s beauty, but with every word Tony had spoken, he had grown more and more quiet. Now, his face looked grim.
“Stark. You are saying my brother had access to Asgard’s library?” He asked, his voice as gloomy as his expression.
“Yes.”
Thor shook his head. “Then it is already too late.”
“What do you mean?” Steve asked when Thor didn’t elaborate further.
Thor sighed. Maybe it came from the image of his younger self still being so fresh in Tony’s mind, but he looked a lot older than he remembered.
“I fear the worst, my friends. With Loki unsupervised in his magical studies, it would be easy for him to break the Allfather’s bindings and unleash his revenge upon us.”
“You’re saying he’s on the loose?” Clint asked, his voice carrying all the alarm Thor’s didn’t.
“Aye.”
Everyone jumped to their feet. Only Thor and Tony remained seated. They both knew it was already too late.
As it turned out, Loki had fooled Jarvis with a simple illusion. Had the proper scanners been active, they would have noticed his disappearance much sooner, but they wouldn’t have prevented it either.
Tony had often admired how quickly Steve could turn into Captain America when the situation called for it. Right now, however, his commanding tone was nothing but grating.
“Do you know anything about Loki’s whereabouts? Where he could have gone?”
“No.” Tony brushed his thumb over a scratch on the edge of the table. It looked like someone had dug their nail into the wood, and considering he usually sat in this seat, it might very well have been himself. Though he did not remember which dull meeting had been responsible for the mark.
“Did he say something about what he plans to do?”
“No.” He could probably remove it with some sandpaper. Or fill it with vinyl first. That might leave it with a cleaner finish.
“Nothing about how he plans to retaliate?”
Tony huffed. “Believe it or not, he didn’t exactly share all his deepest, darkest secrets with me.”
“ Any clues on what his next target could be?”
“Probably a good night’s sleep.”
It was quiet for too long. Tony looked up to find an angry crease between Steve’s eyebrows—the sign that he was just about to reach his limit. “Are you taking this seriously?”
“Do I look like I’m not?”
Steve’s mouth dropped open. Tony prepared for some annoying lecture to be thrown at him, but ever so vigilant, Steve only sighed and turned his attention elsewhere. “Thor?”
“By destroying the bindings, Loki has broken the pact and will be declared a fugitive of Asgard.”
His words left a heavy silence in the room. They all knew what he was implying, and even if most of them held little sympathy for Loki, it wasn’t an outcome any of them had wanted.
“I’m sorry, Thor,” Steve said quietly. “You couldn’t do more than try.”
Thor smiled, but sorrow made the lines of his face heavy. “I will be heading to Asgard. The Allfather will need to prepare in case Loki directs his revenge toward it.”
“He might still come back.”
Everyone’s eyes snapped to Tony.
“What did you say?” Bruce asked.
“I mean, who’s to say he hasn’t grown a little attached? He’s been with us for three months after all. Maybe he just wanted to go out on a little stroll.”
Great. Now Bruce looked at him like the psych evaluation might just leave him with a fancy new jacket in his closet.
“I appreciate you trying to cheer me up, Stark,” Thor said carefully. He sounded like he was trying to figure out a peculiar puzzle, knowing it hadn’t actually been Tony’s intention but not knowing what else it could have been either. “But without the bindings, nothing holds my brother here.”
And he was right about that, wasn’t he?
Everyone was looking at him like he had gone crazy, and Tony couldn’t stand it. He itched. Not his skin, but something far below it that no scratch could soothe.
He didn’t bother excusing himself, just stood up and left.
The hot water felt heavenly. It wasn’t that he needed a shower, but he needed… something. A distraction from the fact that he was back exactly where he should be—his home, his time, his planet—and still, nothing seemed right. He let the scalding heat hit him until his skin was red and raw and only got out when the pain had faded too much and couldn’t distract him from his spiralling thoughts anymore either.
He wasn’t surprised to find Bruce waiting for him. Although he had expected him to linger around the hallway or maybe catch him in the workshop, not stand in the doorframe to his bedroom.
“If you had wanted to join me in the shower, you just missed your chance. Sorry,” Tony said as he strode toward his walk-in closet.
“Steve says he’s sorry,” Bruce called after him.
“Noted.”
“I don’t think he even knows what for.”
“Happens to the best of us.” Tony discarded the towel around his waist for a pair of jeans and a simple t-shirt. The clothes were soft, smelling of laundry detergent and bringing back at least a hint of normalcy. Bruce was still there when he walked back out, leaning against the doorframe like a blockage to the outside world.
“You know, brooding in the doorframe is usually not the type of foreplay I go for,” Tony joked when even walking up to him didn’t make him budge.
Bruce narrowed his eyes—not in distrust or annoyance but something else that made Tony feel more naked than when he had only been wearing a towel a few moments ago. “Tony, are you alright?”
“Never been better.”
“Did Loki do something to you?”
Tony snorted. “What? No.”
“The guy disappears into thin air, and instead of immediately locking down the tower or coming up with some way to locate him, you are taking a shower ?” Bruce crossed his arms, and Tony knew he had been caught. “So yes, I am asking: Did Loki do something to you?”
“I’m okay. Really. Loki’s not manipulating me or whatever you’re thinking. I just…” Tony faltered. Such genuine concern washed over Bruce’s face that it robbed him of his words. He was suddenly overcome with the urge to tell his friend the truth—the whole truth—not the fragmented recollection he had told the team. He would listen to him, no doubt, perhaps even believe him, but would he be able to understand?
No. Of course not.
Tony forced his lips into a smile and patted Bruce on the shoulder. “I’m just gonna need some time to adjust. Time travel is pretty damn disorienting.”
Bruce didn’t seem entirely convinced, but after a short-lived staring contest, he sighed and moved away from the doorframe. “Alright. Get some rest. I’ll get some security measures for Loki going, and we are waiting until tomorrow to interrogate Hughes anyways.”
Tony frowned. “Hughes?”
“The scientist we captured earlier?” Bruce smiled awkwardly. “Oh, it must have been a while for you, I suppose.”
“Yeah, no. I remember.” It was all slowly coming back to him—the raid, the plants, and the one plant that had been responsible for the entire debacle. “I think I’d like a word with him too, actually. And don’t think I’ll leave you alone in the lab.”
At that Bruce smiled. “Now you’re sounding like yourself again.”
It didn’t take long for them to put together a simple detection algorithm. If even a glimpse of Loki’s face was caught on any security camera in the country, they would know. Shield had launched their own search for the god, and Tony had gladly sent them all the available info they had on him, from heat signatures to fingerprints to even a goddamn strand of hair plucked from his bed.
Tony knew none of it would be enough to find him. Not that he wanted it to. But being in the lab with Bruce, talking to him, and putting his energy into something tangible was truly doing wonders for his psyche. And with the tower now on the highest security level—even a pigeon’s wings brushing against the windows would sound an alarm—Bruce’s earlier suspicion had eased as well. Or maybe it was just the late hour making him sleepy. When Tony looked over to him, he was stifling yet another yawn behind his hand.
“You can go to sleep, you know,” Tony said softly. He knew Bruce was only still awake to keep him company.
Bruce blinked at him. His glasses hung lopsided on his face, and a strand of hair was sticking upwards like an antenna. Sometimes it seemed impossible to think there was an entire Hulk hiding in him. “You gonna be alright?”
Tony clutched his chest. “I fear I may combust on the spot without your graceful presence.”
Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but all he managed to do was yawn once again. Defeated, he got up from his chair and headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Don’t stay up too late.”
“Sure thing, mom,” Tony called after him with a grin.
The door closed, and Tony was alone. He glanced at the clock. It was almost 1 AM already, but he didn’t feel tired. He had only been back for a few hours after all, and it had been morning when he had left Asgard. Not that the sleep he had gotten that night had been all too phenomenal, with Loki’s tossing and turning and— great . That much to not thinking about him.
Without Bruce’s presence in the lab, the space was eerily quiet. The bloodthirsty plant was dormant in the glass-encased room in the back, looking deceptively normal again. Tony couldn’t shake the feeling that it was watching him.
He tried to delve back into work and stop his spiralling thoughts about Loki and Loki and a future he would never get to witness, but nothing seemed to work. The lights were too bright, the electrical static in the air too strong. It crawled into him and ignited that itch again, bone-deep and unbearable.
So he did what he always did when his thoughts became too much: he went to his bar to drown them out. Old habits did die hard, especially when they brought so much comfort.
He had just cracked open his third bottle of beer—he thought it better to stick to something lighter after what the Asgardian liquors had done to him—when he heard footsteps behind him. Foolish as it may be, the sudden hope that it was Loki sparked in him. But they were far too heavy to be his.
“Thought you were beaming yourself back up,” Tony said as Thor sat down next to him.
“I will leave come morning,” Thor replied. He still had that heavy look from earlier on his face, as if gravity had amplified and was dragging him down.
Tony wordlessly pushed over a bottle of beer. Thor drained it in one go, and Tony pushed over a new one, knowing that the crate he had stored away would not survive the night. For a while, they drank in silence. It couldn’t be more different from the drinks he had shared with Thor and his friends in the past, and yet, he still made for a damn good drinking buddy.
“You know,” Tony said after a while when the stack of empty bottles on the table had surpassed the full ones. “You never said anything about Odin being an asshole.”
Thor’s eyes shot to him. At first they were wide with outrage, then an understanding washed over him. He really could be quite perceptive when he wanted to.
“You saw more in the past than what you have told us.”
Tony ran a hand through his hair. It kept falling into his eyes when he leaned forward. He should probably cut it. “Asgard is really not as perfect as you always made it sound.”
Thor seemed to barely hear the words. He edged closer, and when he spoke, it was with a desperation Tony rarely heard from him. “Stark. Do you truly believe my brother might return?”
Tony looked down at the bottle in his hand and traced the rim with his thumb. “No.”
Thor slumped back into the chair. The seriousness of the situation layered itself over them like a thick blanket that cut off their oxygen and left them with only one awful realization. If Asgard found him, Loki would be executed. He would die . And he could have prevented that so easily by simply staying here. Back when he had been hesitating at the door, Tony was certain he had considered it too, but in the end, neither the promise of safety nor Tony himself had been enough to convince him.
“What you said earlier…” Thor began, then paused, trying to find the right words. “It sounded like you were speaking in his favor.”
It wasn’t phrased like a question, but it felt like one. One, Tony didn’t quite know how to answer. Where Bruce would understand too little, Tony feared Thor would understand too much if he told them the full story of what had happened on Asgard. Tony took a moment to contemplate his answer, drinking from his beer and staring at the lights of the city outside the window. Now that he saw them again, he wasn’t quite sure why he had missed the sight while he was gone.
“When I was there in the past, I think I saw what you still see in Loki,” Tony said quietly. “And now I don’t know what to do with that.”
Thor put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. It was supposed to be a gesture of sympathy, but with his blue eyes still so heavy, Tony could not derive much comfort from it. He was glad when Thor retracted his hand a moment later.
“I know I haven’t always been the brother he needed. But I hoped he would recognize my efforts to make amends, that he would see the opportunity for a fresh start here.” Thor emptied the rest of the bottle, and Tony pushed over a new one. It was a practiced routine by now. “How does he not see any of it?”
“It’s not what he wants.”
“Then what does he want?”
Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t think he knows either.”
Thor sighed, but when he spoke, a familiar determination was pushing through his voice again. “Fate seems to tell me it is too late. But I cannot give up on him.”
He had always talked like this; bright eyes filled with a never-yielding hope for Loki’s redemption, while said brother would do nothing but glare at them with utter contempt. Usually they had met Thor’s enthusiasm with polite smiles, keeping what they actually thought to themselves, Tony included. Now he knew how Thor felt all too well.
“Are you gonna try to convince Odin to lessen his sentence?”
“Aye. Maybe he can still be persuaded if mother and I argue in Loki’s favor.” Thor turned to him. “Has he really told you nothing? Anything that might put the Allfather at ease? Or a hint of where he has gone? If I find him before the Allfather does, I can perhaps manage to convince him to turn himself in. It will be a life in the dungeons, but it will be a life nonetheless."
Loki would never turn himself in. But Thor was looking at him with so much hope that Tony didn’t have it in him to tell him that. He shook his head apologetically.
“I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”
Thor smiled weakly. “Thank you, still.”
“Of course.”
They emptied the rest of the beers in silence.
*
“You feeling better, Tony?”
“A good night’s sleep truly does wonders for your mood. Was nothing personal yesterday,” Tony said, ignoring the fact that he had not slept at all and was still a little dizzy from the many beers he and Thor had downed. But he did feel bad about having been so difficult the day before, in Steve’s eyes for no reason even. Thank god that super soldier serum seemed to have erased his capability to hold any grudges. Already, he was smiling again.
“That’s good to hear.”
“I call dibs on talking to him first, by the way,” Tony said, motioning to the one-sided mirror showing Hughes waiting in the interrogation room on the other side.
“You sure?” Natasha asked. She was usually the one who went in first for these kinds of things, prying out information without the person even realizing how much they were giving away.
“I got to feel the effects of his little plant firsthand. It's only fair.”
She shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
Hughes jumped from his seat when Tony entered the room. The man was stocky and short with a patchy beard, as if whatever had caused him to go bald had now wandered lower and was working away at it. “Mr. Stark!”
“Hughes.”
“Ah, finally we can clear up this misunderstanding.” He smiled and reached out with his hand. Tony didn’t shake it.
“Misunderstanding?”
“Why, yes. This wrongful detainment here.”
“Last time I checked, genetically modifying plants into being capable of killing people was indeed a criminal offense, but do enlighten me if I am wrong,” Tony said and lowered himself into the chair across from the man. Hughes, too, sat down, smile still in place.
“I would never use them for such things. They were merely explorations of science. Surely a man like you would understand the necessity for curiosity beyond what nature has given us.”
Tony rubbed his temple. How Natasha dealt so well with these types of people was beyond him; he could already feel a headache brewing.
“Let’s just get to the point. What was the purpose behind that plant you created?”
“I fear you will have to be a bit more specific about which plant you are talking about, Mr. Stark .” He drawled his name like it was stuck to his tongue, honey-sweet and utterly nauseating.
“Green vines, pink flowerheads with teeth , shoots little blasts that burn a hole right through you. That plant.”
“Oh, her!” The man’s bug eyes lit up. “Yes, she truly is a marvel, isn’t she? Such beauty! You would not believe me if I told you just how long it took me to get the DNA sequence for her color just right. I’m telling you, it kept turning out way more red than I had intended and—“
Tony slammed his hands flat on the table. Hughes flinched.
“Less rambling. More answering questions. What was her purpose?"
“My, now this is no way to have a civilized conversation.”
Tony smiled sharply. “This is not a conversation; this is an interrogation, and either you answer me now or you can do so in a few days when you realize that unlike your plants, your body needs a bit more than just sunlight and water to survive.”
Hughes shifted on his chair and threw a weary look towards the one-sided mirror, as if expecting help from those watching on the other side. None came.
“Alright, alright,” Hughes caved in, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. Still, he sounded nowhere near as compliant as Tony would have liked. “I like to call her the chameleon .” He paused, clearly expecting Tony to be amazed by the reveal. When he realized nothing was coming, he cleared his throat and continued. “First she will chomp a piece right off you, then she will prepare a toxin perfectly adjusted to be as harmful as possible against the attacker. Ah, genius, really. My little marvel.”
Tony frowned and thought back to Loki’s fingers trailing over the plant’s leaves and the burst of green that had changed everything. The incident felt like it had been ages ago. “Would it work with other things as well?”
“Other things?”
“Let’s say some kind of energy, something like magic .”
Hughes pursed his lips in thought. “I had not considered such an event taking place. I suppose the outcome might be different, though the core of its effect would not change.”
“Which is to deal out a very personal type of pain against its attacker,” Tony filled in.
“Certainly! Tell me, did you run experiments on her? You have to share the data. I did not even get to properly test her before you vandals interrupted me.”
“We burned her.”
In a split second, Hughes' entire demeanor changed. His smile fell, and a burning rage took over his features. “How could you!” he screeched and lunged forward, much quicker than Tony would have thought him capable of. But even with all his rage, he was still a man who spent most of his time sitting in a desk chair rather than doing any physical activity. Tony easily avoided the attack by pushing him around, pressing him against the table, and twisting his arm behind his back.
“You will pay for that,” Hughes hissed over his shoulder.
“I’m pretty sure it’s the state that has to finance that prison cell you’ll live in, not me.”
“Oh, you know very well what I mean. Once her sisters are grown, they’ll know to come for you.”
Tony twisted Hughes’ arm further back, and a truly pathetic shriek of pain silenced any further threats. A second later the door was pushed open, and Natasha strode in with handcuffs.
“Watch out. The dog bites,” Tony said as he helped her put them around the man’s wrists.
She shot him a look. “Next time I’ll go in first again.”
Hughes’ glare followed him all the way to the door, and even when Tony entered the observation room and the one-sided mirror safely obscured him from his vision, the uncomfortable feeling lingered.
Steve looked at him sympathetically. “Lovely fella, isn’t he?”
“For sure. Really grows on you. Hah, botanist joke, got it?” Tony joked and shot Steve a wink. Steve only sighed.
They watched as Natasha secured Hughes’ handcuffs to the chair. She was talking to him in a calm voice, and already his anger was smoothing out into a much more agreeable expression. It seemed even the outburst Tony had caused would not stop her from extracting more information.
“The dumb-dumb just gave away some pretty good info,” Tony said. “He’s got more of those plants somewhere.”
Steve hummed. Behind the window, Natasha was smiling politely at some remark Hughes had made. Tony knew it was far from a genuine one, but judging by the way the scientist beamed at her, the same could not be said for him.
“You didn’t actually burn the one we have, did you?” Steve asked.
“Not yet. It’s too dangerous to keep around much longer, but I want to take some samples first. Maybe they will help us locate wherever he’s hiding the rest of them.”
Steve’s lips twitched with a smile. “Just be careful not to get hurled through time again.”
Tony threw him a salute. “I’ll do my best, Cap.”
Tony left the two of them to it and went to the lab. He lost two robotic arms to the plant’s poison before finally getting a proper sample and getting to burn the damn thing. Its leaves caught fire with ease, and though its vines reached out in an attempt to escape the heat, Hughes luckily hadn’t thought to give it the ability to walk. After just a few minutes the flames had turned even the last bits of green to ash, and the plant's movement ceased for good.
Tony was just about to tell Jarvis to dispose of the remains when a sudden shiver ran down his spine. He turned around, thinking Bruce might have come down to join him, but the lab was empty. And yet, just like yesterday, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t alone.
Tony shook his head. Perhaps burning the plant had released some sort of toxin and was frying away his brain cells. Or the sleep deprivation had finally caught up to him. Either way, he didn’t pay it any mind and got to analyzing the samples.
*
The next day, Hughes was transferred to a jail to await his trial. Three days after that, he broke out.
It wasn’t entirely unexpected (villains breaking out with the help of their goons was far from a new concept), still, it was disappointing, especially since they had assumed he had been working alone. Now, they were looking at more than just one crazed man; they were looking at a potentially organized threat. All of that sounded rather awful, but a part of Tony was glad about it. A lunatic on the loose meant there was someone who took the topic away from Loki’s dreaded revenge and distracted them from the fact that neither their own nor Shield’s search for him had yielded any results so far.
But that did not mean they weren’t frustrated. Because the search for Hughes had been just as fruitless. The samples may have revealed that the plants were sterile and they wouldn’t have to worry about them spreading across the country on their own, but that did not bring them any closer to locating where the scientist kept them. Even the first time they had busted his lab, it had been more of a coincidence than a planned skirmish, and now they were looking for what was essentially no different than a needle in a haystack.
Steve and Clint were arguing in circles, Bruce was chewing on the back of a pencil, and Natasha was searching through the stack of documents they had all tried and failed to get some sort of information from. The tiny scratch on the corner of the meeting table had by now been turned into a proper cleft after Tony had repeatedly dug his fingernails into it.
“Loki mentioned something when he wanted to examine the plant,” Tony said, bringing the attention to him. “He suspected it might have some magical properties to it.”
Steve chewed on that for a moment, then sighed. “That doesn't exactly help us narrow down our search."
Surprisingly, it was Clint who voiced the thought that had been bouncing around in Tony’s head like a DVD screensaver logo. “Loki would probably track that guy down much quicker.”
No one agreed outwardly, no one denied it either. Because Loki had been useful, even when every word he spoke had been laced with venom, he had still done whatever they had told him to and a damn good job at that. The chair he usually sat in was empty, a hollow reminder of what had been, and Tony could barely resist getting up and throwing it out this very moment.
Thor returned from his visit to Asgard a week later. The first thing he spoke of was an attack on the palace, and every ounce of blood in Tony had run cold until Thor clarified it had been a group of dark elves attacking them, not Loki, and a dizzying amount of relief had filled Tony. While Loki was now officially declared a fugitive with a bounty promised to anyone who handed him over—be it dead or alive—it also meant Loki was still out there, was still alive, and that was all he needed.
Tony wished he could talk to Thor in private, but he didn’t stay for long. He claimed the attack by the dark elves was a sign of a potential war brewing between the realms and he would be needed on Asgard to strengthen their defenses. He said all those things with a steeled certainty that did not sound at all like it came from someone who was fearing for their people’s safety, and Tony numbly realized he was not too different from himself.
He too was trying to distract himself from Loki, focusing on the things he could do so he wouldn’t have to think about how helpless Loki’s disappearance made him feel. They had no idea where he had gone, and the knowledge that Loki did not even have anywhere to go kept clawing at the back of Tony’s mind.
But he didn’t allow himself to think about it. Overall, he was trying his best not to think. He worked and slept and when he couldn’t, drank until he did.
When he sat at his bar, alone and half-drunk, he would turn the golden dagger in his hands and wonder about the prince that had given it to him. He wondered if the future had been kinder to him. He hoped it had been. And he missed him. Missed his bright smile, his glinting eyes, and he also missed who he ended up becoming.
He wondered if there had been something he could have said to make Loki stay. A magic sequence of words, a promise, a confession, anything . In those moments, with the alcohol not yet lulling him into numbness and his mind still turning in useless circles, the air seemed to tremble with him as it had that day he burned the plant. The feeling of being watched and judged by the world made him down his next few drinks all the more quickly.
*
It happened 20 days after his return. He had slept well—no tossing and turning, no nightmares or nausea from lingering alcohol, just eight hours of restful sleep.
It should have been the first sign of trouble.
Jarvis' calm voice was telling him about the weather and nothing else, which was great considering Hughes was still out there somewhere plotting his revenge, and a sunny 15°C really wasn’t all that bad for November. Tony stretched his arms above his head, yawned, and flung his legs over the edge of the bed—only to yelp and flop right back into the mattress. Something sharp had dug into the sole of his foot, spreading a cramp-like pain all the way up his calf. After it passed, Tony peered down at the floor in search of the culprit.
What he saw made his mouth run dry.
Nestled between the strands of the soft carpet was a small, green Lego piece. All remnants of sleep left him. He picked it up, turned it in his hands and on its back, scribbled in tiny neat letters, he found an address.
*
“How do you even know about this place?”
“I have a hunch.”
Natasha raised a brow.
“A very good hunch,” Tony clarified.
The warehouse looked just maintained enough not to arouse suspicion, but not modern enough for anyone to expect something sophisticated inside either. It looked exactly like the first of Hughes’ labs they had busted.
With their scanners unable to penetrate the metal-reinforced walls, Natasha and he were acting as a scouting party while the rest of the team waited on a helicarrier nearby, prepared to join them as soon as they found out what was hiding inside. Tony had his suspicions, but he kept them to himself.
As soon as they reached the front gate, he dropped down his faceplate and raised his gauntlets. “Get behind me.”
Natasha obliged, her own weapons already in hand. He cut a hole into the gate with a laser, repulsors whirring in case whatever was hiding inside would immediately jump into a fight. But when the metal yielded and dropped down, the sight that greeted them made his breath hitch.
The entire place was filled with plants. Some of them had grown so high they curled back in on themselves where they reached the ceiling, framing the walls like a stucco of nature. Others had grown over what had once been research stations, roots twisting in between microscopes and leaves covering the tabletops.
And in the middle of the space, surrounded by his creations, was Hughes. He was sitting on a chair, presented like a Christmas present, with vines curling around his body and restraining him to it. His skin was an ashen grey, his eyes wide open but unseeing. Tony thought he could even see the tip of a root poking out from one of his nostrils. A dark spot tinted his abdomen, and a puddle of blood had dried to a black stain on the ground beneath him.
“He’s dead,” Natasha stated.
Tony’s throat was unbearably dry. “Yeah.”
They didn’t step inside, all too aware that while the plants looked dormant right now, a single hasty movement might bring them back into action. Tony ran his scanners and found that in the back, a few more people were tied together, bound with actual chains unlike Hughes.
Still, they were just as dead.
They were likely the lackeys that had busted him out of prison, and later they would realize that one of them had even held magical capabilities, confirming Loki’s very first suspicion.
“Who did this?” Natasha whispered.
Tony opened his faceplate. The cold wind hit his face, and a loose strand of hair danced in his eyes. “Loki.”
*
Tony drank from his glass. The whiskey burned down his throat and settled in his stomach, spreading a warmth that was usually enough to lull him into comfort. But not now. Not when it was there again, that prickling feeling that had haunted him for the past weeks. He sighed. It really should have been obvious where it stemmed from.
He emptied his glass, and when he spotted a shadowy figure reflected in the windows, he wasn’t surprised. Still, he took his time, slowly refilling his drink, swapping out the half-melted ice cubes for fresh ones, and settling back into the bar chair. The shadow watched him, cocked its head to the side. It had the gall to look impatient.
Tony took another generous sip of whiskey. He felt like he needed it for what was about to happen. “Jarvis, mute all alarms and delete the security footage of the upcoming ten minutes.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Loki’s form solidified in the middle of the room, his head still tilted to the side. “Ten minutes is all you can spare?”
He looked good, was Tony’s first thought. Slacks and a loose black shirt—still on earth then—his hair was combed back and fell in soft curls onto his shoulder. The dark circles under his eyes had smoothed out into a pale but healthy complexion, and his lips curled in a perfectly controlled smirk, giving away nothing of its sincerity.
It was irritating. He should look miserable, should wear the signs of the same bone-rattling despair that had settled so deep into Tony. Instead, he looked better than ever.
Tony fished the Lego piece out of his pocket and threw it at him. He wouldn’t have minded if it hit him square in the face, but Loki caught it smoothly in the air.
“I thought you were done working for the Avengers,” Tony snapped.
Loki arched a brow like he was dealing with some petulant child. “I merely had some unfinished business to settle.”
“So you killed him?”
“I did nothing. It was his own creations that turned on him.” Loki walked closer and slithered into the chair next to Tony with an insulting amount of confidence. “And he deserved it for what he put me through.”
The terror of falling in love with Tony Stark? He couldn’t bring himself to say it, remembering all too well how far Loki had gone just to try to rid himself of those feelings. And who was to say he hadn’t already done so? After all, here he was, unfazed, while Tony had spent the last weeks sick with worry.
“You cut your hair.”
It wasn’t fair. Loki had no right to suddenly sound so soft, to study Tony’s face as if his features were the most interesting sight he had ever seen.
“Very observant,” Tony muttered.
“It suited you.”
“Wasn’t quite keen on the press thinking I had taken to wearing wigs.”
Loki smiled, and it looked more genuine than the smirk he had worn before, almost warm even. “What a shame.”
He reached out, and for a moment Tony thought he might reach for him, but all he did was wrap his fingers around the glass of whiskey. He brought it to his lips and pulled a face.
“This is what you have been drowning yourself in? It’s awfully bitter.”
Tony snatched back the glass. “Could have told you that.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
“Get your own glass then.”
Loki didn’t get his own glass. It wasn’t that kind of visit, Tony was well aware. Although what exactly Loki’s reason was for showing up here, he didn’t know either.
Tony swirled the golden liquid and put his lips right next to where Loki’s had been a moment prior. The whiskey was indeed a bit bitter at first; Loki hadn’t been wrong about that, but it only enhanced the sweet, caramel aftertaste.
Dark eyes followed him, unashamed in their tracking of his tongue as he licked away a few droplets from the corner of his mouth. And although Tony couldn’t deny the shiver that ran down his spine at the sight, something about it was off. Everything about Loki was too controlled, too much like a performance, and especially too much like the Loki he knew before they had been flung to the past.
“You seem to be doing fine,” Tony said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.
“It is rather refreshing to be alone in my head again,” Loki all but purred. He rested his elbow on the table, propping up his head with his hand. The movement caused his shirt to move, and Tony realized that the fabric wasn’t just black but instead carried a satin-like green shimmer to it. The first few buttons were opened up, having slid down further with the movement, and now revealed an expanse of milky skin. Tony wasn’t sure if he should be glad or curse the dim light in the room for not giving him a clearer view.
Aware that he had been staring, he looked back at Loki’s face, only to find a self-satisfied grin. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Tony bit into his cheek until he could taste blood. “What are you doing here?”
Loki’s grin widened. “Enjoying my 10 minutes of visitation time?”
“A whole bunch of people are looking for you.”
“I feel flattered.”
“Odin wants to kill you.”
Loki huffed, more amused than alarmed.
“Thor wants you to turn yourself in,” Tony continued.
“And what do the Avengers want?"
“Not to be killed by you would be nice.”
A moment of silence passed. Loki narrowed his eyes, and the amusement faded from his face. “Do you think I would do that?”
Tony shrugged. “I thought I knew what was going on in your head before, and you proved me wrong. So, who knows? Or maybe taking revenge on Asgard is higher on the priority list. Heard they were having some security issues up there, now is a great time to strike.”
Tony knew Loki wouldn't attack the Avengers. Or Asgard, for that matter. But he needed to hear Loki say it, to deny those accusations and fight back with his own words as his past self would have done.
Loki didn’t say anything. He just shrugged and leaned back in the chair, the only sign of his discomfort the stiffness in his shoulders that he didn’t quite manage to hide. “You will be safe from my wrath for a little longer.” The joke fell flat. Loki’s voice was too strained, and Tony didn’t want any more games or flirtatious remarks—he wanted the truth.
“What are you doing? Why are you creeping around the tower when it was you who left in the first place?”
“Was I supposed to stay and keep humoring the Avengers in this slave contract of mine?” Loki spat out the word Avengers as if it were an insult.
“You could, fuck, I don’t know, you could become part of the team! You could find a place here, you know. And maybe we could…” Tony gestured weakly between them. “Maybe we could even try this . But you have to try too.”
Loki smiled a cruel smile that had nothing to do with those warm ones Tony had fallen in love with. “Anthony. You did not really think I would willingly stick around this parade of imbeciles, did you?”
“They are my friends.”
“Yes. Your friends. Not mine.”
Tony recognized the meaning behind his words all too well. It did not make them any easier to stomach. He gritted his teeth and swallowed down his frustration with another mouthful of whiskey. It seemed ridiculous that he had spent hours at the debrief earlier convincing his teammates that Loki had sent them the clue to help them, not lure them into a death trap, and now it was Loki who talked about them like he wouldn’t have minded them ending up in the same position as Hughes had been.
Loki must have noticed his agitation because when he spoke, it was again in that soft, almost apologetic tone. “If I were to stay here,” he began, and Tony blamed the dizzying hope that filled him at hearing those words on the whiskey. “Then Asgard would know. And in the off chance they don’t outright execute me, they would make sure to put those bindings on me again.”
Tony glanced at him. “Would that be so bad?”
Loki raised his brows, letting him know exactly what he thought of that.
“Just break them again,” Tony argued. “Cast some illusion, I’m sure you can think of something.”
“They would not be as easily breakable as the first ones.”
“We never used them for anything harmful.”
“As long as the dog gets no lashes, it’s supposed to be fine with its leash?”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you invaded Earth!”
Loki’s expression darkened. Tony didn’t care for it. He emptied his glass. He wanted to bang his head against the wall. Or bang Loki’s head against the wall. Or get drunk until he couldn’t think anymore. Yeah, that he could do.
“I can’t be him again. Even if I wanted to.”
Tony sighed. “I am not asking for that.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. I’m not. I don’t know why that doesn’t want to get into your fucking head. It’s like you’re barely listening to me.”
“Perhaps you just aren’t that good at talking.”
Tony bit his tongue. Loki was trying to rile him up, bringing out all the annoyance and agitation that would push the wrong words out of Tony for a short-lived victory in an argument none of them even wanted. He would not give it to him.
“What do you want, Loki?” He asked, turning to fully face him.
Loki furrowed his brows like he was trying to uncover some hidden scheme behind the question, and Tony felt his chest constrict. He looked so lost all of a sudden, almost scared even.
“I’m being serious,” Tony said, stern, but softly all the same. “If it all went your way, if you could have whatever you wanted, what would it be?”
It was quiet for a while. Tony could practically hear the seconds ticking by, turning into minutes, the sand slowly trickling into the hourglass they were stuck in. He remembered talking about this before, after they had fought and made up and Tony had felt like he had truly understood Loki for the first time. Back then Loki had no answer for him.
“In all those months we spent together…” Loki hesitated. He liked his lips and shifted on the chair and Tony was struck by just how different he suddenly looked from the arrogant god that had waltzed in here. “Were you ever happy?”
Tony blinked. “Yes.”
“And did you ever, even if fleetingly, think about what it might be like to stay there?”
Tony narrowed his eyes. He had no idea where Loki was going with this. But he seemed to be interested in the truth, and Tony would not be the one to deny it. “Yes.”
Loki breathed in deeply. In one fluid motion he got up, stepped close— so close —and grasped Tony’s face. His fingers were gentle, tilting up his head ever so slightly so they properly looked at each other. Every muscle in Tony’s body tensed, a fight against wanting to wrap his hands around his neck as much to pull him close as it was against the urge to push against his chest and bring distance between them again.
“Come with me,” Loki whispered. His eyes were wide and honest, their green so deep, and Tony could only think about how much he loved Loki when he looked like this.
“With you?” he echoed.
“Yes. We can go wherever you’d like. I can take you to any realm.” Loki smiled, and suddenly Tony was back at the lake, feeling the warmth of the sun on his skin and a much deeper warmth radiating from his chest. “I can show you what Alfheim really looks like, or I could take you through the great forests of Vanaheim.”
Through Loki’s eyes, Tony could see the endless stretch of greenery, the promise of comfort and safety, and a life without worry.
“We could go to the Asgardian markets, and you could search for that woman you found so brilliant. I could even show you the vast emptiness of Jotunheim if you so wished.” Loki’s voice was like a hypnotizing mantra, trying to reel him in deeper and deeper, but Tony heard the tremble in it, could feel the fingers on his face tightening their hold. He tried to pull away. Loki didn’t let him.
“Or we could stay on Midgard. You could show me what it is that you so like about this doomed realm.” More and more desperation crept into Loki’s voice until it shattered the beautiful illusion he had crafted. And now Tony was stuck with looking into glistening eyes.
Tony’s heart sank. “Oh Loki…”
“You don’t need them,” Loki hissed. “You don’t need this .”
“I am not leaving my life behind.”
How ironic that it was Thor who was called the god of thunder when dark clouds could draw up on Loki’s face within mere seconds and turn his expression into an unbreachable storm. He took a step back and spat out the words like they were venom meant to poison anyone who heard them.
“So you would do it for my past but not for me?”
Tony didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. Loki knew the answer to that question. He had been there after all, had seen with his own eyes that Tony had not budged in his decision even when the Loki of the past had tears streaming down his face and his heart shattered in two. But just like earlier, Loki didn’t acknowledge those truths. No, it was easier for him to lash out and hide behind lies.
Tony wasn’t even angry at him for it. He was just sad. Disappointed.
“And that’s what you think of me?” Tony asked while already knowing he would get no answer either.
Tony didn’t want to have to look at Loki anymore. He turned his back to him and pushed away the empty glass of whiskey. The smell alone suddenly made him feel like he was going to throw up.
“Your ten minutes are over,” he said without looking back.
They weren’t. Jarvis would have long sounded the alarms if they were.
It was quiet for a while, but Tony didn’t make the mistake of hoping for anything. And when the silence stretched into minutes and Jarvis still did not sound an alarm, he knew he had been right not to.