Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Loki wasn’t dead, but it was a close thing.

Darkness and stars, waves crashing against the shore. His blood was pounding in his ears, and flowing wetly through the fingers he pressed over his chest. He barely had made it up the cliff side, arms shaking and chest screaming, the darkness encroaching his vision no longer just the shadows of night but specters of his own demise.

When he pulled himself up to the ledge of the manor, Loki burst through the window without second thought. He had no time to think

“What— JARVIS, lights!”

Loki lifted his head and realized his mistake, stomach sinking. Iron Man had stumbled to his feet, pale in the sudden brightness of the living room, stack of paper toppling and sheets blowing off the table in the sudden gust of wind that blew in from the seaside. Iron Man dropped the screen in his hands, panic in his eyes, and his hand flung out to summon his armor. Loki could hardly blame him. He himself was less than thrilled to find the man at his countryside manor.

“Don’t move, don’t call for help.” His voice came out hoarse, rasping with wetness, and his vision blurred. He steadied himself on the white walls, left a trail of red hand prints, feet slipping in his own blood. “You may yet live, mortal.”

“Not sure I can say the same of you, E.T., I can see right through that hole in your chest.” Iron Man’s armor began assembling around him, a gleaming cocoon latching onto his forearms and encasing his torso and legs. The blue light of his heart caught in his eyes, reflected as it might in Thor’s. He was wrought in electricity and danger.

“Don’t think me not deadly.” Loki’s lips peeled back in a snarl, stained with the taste of blood. He took a step into the room, fell heavily against the curved bar that sat in the middle of the floor, bottles shattering against the floor. His balance was worse off than he would have liked. He had thought he was dying, he had been sure, or he wouldn’t have had that heart-to-heart with Thor—

“Seriously, I don’t think I can beat you up like this, it wouldn’t be fair.” Iron Man’s voice had turned mechanical and steady behind the closed visor, eyes obscured by bright lights. “Where’s your keeper, huh? Does Sparky know you’re bleeding on my carpets?”

“Thor has better things to do than watch me die,” Loki summoned a fizzling amount of magic, threw Iron Man into the wall with a telekinetic boom, cracked the plaster. It left him shaking where he stood, nauseous, knees weak. Pathetic. “You had better run while you can.”

Iron Man picked himself up smoothly, joints whirring. “Jarvis, engage protocol Sexy Times.”

A set of drones detached from the walls, rotors whirring as they moved through the air in chaotic patterns, reminiscent of mosquitoes. Loki took one out with a throwing knife, but before he could gauge their intent, they began to shoot out glowing bindings. Loki repelled two of them easily, the third one caught his thrown out arm and bound it to his collarbone, another wrapped his waist and elbow, skimmed the wound. Loki snarled and tore at the chains around his arms. A third set encased him, stilled both arms and fingers. Try as he might, he could not build the strength to bust them, not when he was seeing double and his life was flowing in a wet stream down his front.

He ducked and rolled under another volley from the little machines, grunted through the pain, came up stumbling, and threw himself back out through the window, into the warm night. There was a moment of weightlessness, Midgard’s single moon hanging brightly in the air, stars glinting above. Loki began plummeting towards the waves, curled into a ball to ready himself for the impact. The wound in his chest was screaming.

Iron Man—his presence foretold by the the enormous noise and light of machinery—grabbed him by the back of his shirt, yanked him out of the air sharply, drove the air from his lungs.

“Hey, no killing yourself, either. That seems both too easy and pointless.”

Loki couldn’t do much with his hands bound, but he wasn’t helpless. He let a word of power hover on his lips, let the wind build up around, setting Iron Man spinning. He released it with a whisper and the hurricane threw them into the cliff side with a crack. Iron Man released him on impact. Loki tumbled down the rocks, no way to break his fall, hitting his shoulders, back, face. He impacted hard on his front, wheezed with the pain radiating from the open wound in his chest, bad enough to for the world to go black for a moment. When he came to, Iron Man kicked him on his back, hands glowing with malevolent blue.

“Stay down,” Iron Man said.

“Since you’re asking so politely,” Loki rasped. He couldn’t get up if he’d wanted to.

A beat.

“Not a fan of unbidden guests. What the hell are you doing in my home? Again?”

Loki closed his eyes. He should have thought this one through, but thinking was hard when his head was filled with cotton and panic. He could not return to Asgard, not in his condition, not without Frigga there. (Oh, how that one stung, how he hoped Malekith would suffer.) Ironically, despite the havoc he had wreaked, Midgard was the one place in the universe he was known least. A millennia of diplomatic visits did mean most authorities in the Nine had received word of Asgard’s escaped prisoner and would happily extradite him to Asgard.

(There was another reason he was here. What was it? He couldn’t remember.)

“I thought you in New York, looking after your little band of heroes.”

“This is my home. I’m taking a vacation. Pepper is going to kill me, by the way, and I’m putting that on you. How the hell do you even know of this place?”

“The Hawk was aware.”

The force in Iron Man’s hands seemed to glow brighter for a moment. Clearly, the episode of mind control had not left them with a happy memory.

Loki softened the statement: “I came for medical aid.”

There was a pause, suspicion obvious. “Pal, you knocked on the wrong door. We’re gonna get you locked up somewhere nice and dry, and then we’ll wait for your brother to pick you up. I’m sure they got band-aids on Asgard.”

Loki couldn’t help the smile spread over his face, held in the manic, exhausted chuckle that wanted to rise in his chest. It would have been too much to ask that surviving the Kursed’s sword would be enough to free him from prison.

“No funny business, Bozo.”

When Iron Man grabbed him by the shackles around his chest, Loki bit down on a howl from the fire-bright pain. He had lost more blood than he could afford, and the wound felt wrong, feverish and infected. He slipped in and out of consciousness throughout the flight to the manor and the rough trek down the stairs—Iron Man’s bedside manner truly rivaled Thor’s.

When he came to, he lay on a hard metal surface, lights blindingly bright, a workshop in disarray around him. Sweat was beading cold on his neck and back, he felt weak enough that the pain had begun to fade mercifully away, leaving him shaky and oddly detached from his body. Less pleasant was the nausea creeping up his throat, the taste of blood.

Loki couldn’t remember ever having been cold. He was cold now, painfully so.

“—obviously … Honey, the guy looks like he’s about to die on the table. … If you’re coming over, that makes me liable for your death, so I’d appreciate it if you refrained. … I know … I love you.” There was a continuous noise of clumsy, metal hands rummaging through tools, clattering, cursing.

Loki began working his fingers under the glowing chains, but the movement pushed against the wound, leaving him gasping with pain. They shouldn’t be giving him such trouble, it made no sense.

“I saw that! No moving!”

Loki stilled, breathed through gritted teeth, stars in his vision.

“JARVIS, get me Point Break.”

“I apologize, sir, it appears that Mr. Odinson has turned off his phone.”

Low cursing. Iron Man’s mask appeared above him from one blink to the other, swimming in and out of focus.

“You don’t happen to keep tabs on your family, do you.”

Loki closed his eyes against the pinpoint glare of glowing eyes.

“Hey! You still there?”

“I’m bleeding out, you absolute moron,” Loki managed through numb lips.

A beat. Steps moving away. “JARVIS, call strongest Avenger.”

There was a muffled conversation that Loki only caught snatches of through the white noise in his ears. (“I wish I was joking … I don’t think he’d still be here if he was faking …”) He lost track of time until Iron Man appeared in his field of vision again.

“Here’s the deal: I’m fixing you up. You’re on the verge of death and I’m not a monster.”

“Your realm seems to disagree on that.”

“Zip it, Merlin.” He hesitated. “You want, uh, Advil? … cocaine?”

Loki gave him an incredulous look. “Your backwards mortal drugs would do nothing for me.”

“I can tell you were popular growing up.” Iron Man popped his visor, face beneath it grim and suspicious. “I’ll unbind an arm at a time and we’ll secure them to the table. Any sign of violence, I’ll blast you wide open, got it?”

Reluctantly, the bonds were released and refastened, chains running below the tabletop. Loki briefly thought about taking the chance to fight for his freedom, but the pain had stolen his strength, addled his mind, left him weak as a babe. At this point, Iron Man’s mercy might be his best chance to survive this.

“Wanna tell me what happened to you?”

“I could not burden a good friend with such lurid details.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Weren’t you supposed to be in prison or something? Is Asgard’s security that shit?” Cool metal began clipping the shirt open.

“Thor broke me out.”

Iron Man paused.

“You know, I wish I didn’t believe you.”

Loki gave a weak chuckle that devolved into a death rattle of a coughing fit, the pain worse than getting stabbed had been. His chest felt hot and tight, and that was definitely blood on his lips, which could mean that either his stomach or lung had been punctured.

Iron Man waited it out, then kept clipping through the fine leathers, shears creaking in complaint.

“Your tailors just hate cotton, don’t they? How many animals died for this ugly-ass piece of armor?”

“If it was armor, you wouldn’t be able to ruin it like that.”

“You broke into my home in your jammies?”

Loki ignored that, closed his eyes against the flow and ebb of nausea, the pounding pain. Iron Man peeled the wet shirt back from his torso, revealing the damage. He took a rapid step back, eyes averted, stumbled and leaned heavily on the desk by his side, tools clattering to the floor. Everything smelled of blood, Loki’s mouth was filled with the taste of it.

“I’d be glad to dress it myself.”

Iron Man’s voice was strained. “I’m sure you would.” Loki could hear him breathe deliberately, slowly in and out. Resigned himself to waiting, shivering. His body was slowly growing numb, which was both alarming and a relief.

When Iron Man returned, he had taken off the armor’s gloves. Though his hands were shaking slightly, he showed himself surprisingly deft at caring for the chest wound. He worked in silence for a while, then, as his hands grew steadier, kept up a stream of chatter: ‘are you sure you’re not dead yet,’ ‘are organs optional on Asgard,’ ‘and this is why they tell you to not run with scissors.’ Loki would gladly have passed out for most of it. He couldn’t get enough oxygen, barely aware of his surroundings by the time Iron Man was done.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

“I would miss your sparkling wit.” Loki wasn’t sure any of the words actually left his lips. The shivering had stopped, he felt like he was floating, weaker than he had ever been in his life. Not even the torture the Titan had put him through had left him this close to death, and for a split second, he thought to welcome it: the thought of being free of the grief of losing Frigga, the pain of betrayal, the mind-shattering fear of having to face the Titan again.

The thought didn’t last long.

He would be damned if he was broken this easily.

**

Tony wondered why he even designed universe-spanning cell phones if Thor couldn’t ever remember to answer it. He paced the length of the workshop, not taking his eyes off the supervillain that had crashed the getaway he’d been promising Pepper for the better part of a year.

“JARVIS, get me Jane Foster.”

“An excellent choice, sir.” A moment of silence. “I cannot establish a connection, sir. Police data, however, indicates she was reported missing in London two days ago.”

Tony would be damned if tall, dark and murderous didn’t have anything to do with that. “Pull the footage of her last whereabouts.”

Tony threw himself into his work chair and began flicking through the camera feeds JARVIS was clustering across his screens. Doctor Foster exited a restaurant with some woman, was driven through traffic, parked the vehicle in a warehouse district. The feed abruptly cut off after a young man opened the trunk. “Where’s the rest?”

“I fear that much of it has been erased, sir.”

Predictable. He hesitated, then pulled out his phone and dialed Pepper.

“Tony! Oh God, are you alright?”

“Yep, told you it’s all under control.” Tony positioned himself so he could keep an eye on the supervillain bleeding all over his work table.

“It’s not! How could it be under control, Tony, you have a supervillain—”

“Honey, you’re overreacting—”

“—that crashed through your window— I’m not overreacting! I’m reasonably alarmed by your—”

“Bruce is on his way, we’re going to be just fine.”

“—blasé way of dealing with an international, with-with an alien—”

“I wouldn’t call it blasé. I’m taking precautions. I’m getting someone to help. You heard that part, right?”

Pepper let out a shuddering breath, the air crackling loudly in the phone speakers, and Tony could picture her, eyes closed, hand pressed to her chest, trying to calm herself.

“I promise, I’m being careful.”

“You’re never careful, Tony.”

“Well, gotta start sometime. There’s not point to you worrying, either way.”

A brief, heavy silence.

“Pep?”

“I wish I could be there.”

“Absolutely not.” The thought of having Pepper in the same room as Loki alarmed him within reason. Which meant that it alarmed him a lot.

“I know, I know. It wouldn’t help, I just … you get so convinced you’re the only one that can handle an emergency. Last time he was involved, you almost … you …”

“What do you want me to say, that I’m not going to fight him if he wakes up and decides to turn murder clown?”

A shuddering laugh. “I do wish that, sometimes.”

Tony didn’t know what to say to that. “Well. I’ll keep you updated. And, again, I’ll make it up to you.”

“You better.” But there was a smile in her voice. “I love you.”

“I know, honey.” Tony hung up, looked at her face on his call screen for a moment longer—a photo taken at the Malibu beach, an unlikely candid during a shoot for an interview, freckles and sunlight dappling her laughing face. The screen went dark. He spun the phone in his hands absentmindedly, eyes drawn back to the still and pale figure restrained and crumpled on his work table. “You better not make me regret this.” He popped an earbud blasting old-school rock, turned on the news to run in the background, and began the almost meditative process of hacking first SHIELD, then the MI6.

It took the better part of two hours before he got something to run decryption on. Tony stretched, went to get himself a whiskey. Sipped it standing up and watching Thor’s little brother.

He was deathly pale, lips tinted blue, brows creased, greasy hair plastered to his neck and scalp. His breathing was shallow and exhales tinted with whimpers of pain. Tony had done his best to dress the wound—familiar enough to evoke gut-wrenching alarm—but the bandages were already dripping red. Loki had begun shivering sometime in the past hour.

One of the flickering screens drew his attention: it showed one of those alien jet skis from New York in close up, spread in parts across a white work table. Tony took out one of his earbuds and unmuted the feed as it cut to a strained-looking reporter in front of a hospital.

—in critical condition with as of yet unknown illness. The police raided the facility after an anonymous tip, finding the workers unconscious.

The screen cut to older footage of Chitauri tech stored in unlabeled shipping containers. Partially disassembled, to be sold for parts on the black market. The story had been dominating the news for the past week.

“Sir, it appears your heart rate is elevated, stress markers unusually high. Unless you wish to experience another panic attack, I’d suggest you turn off the news and attempt to rest.”

“You know what they say about sleep, JARVIS.”

“It aids vital functions such as the modulation of immune responses, cognition, and psychological well-being.”

“Not the one I was thinking of.” He watched the news flicker on for a while longer, when the feed cut to images of New York, black hole yawning over his tower. Tony shut off the screens, but the image didn’t leave him. Dark void yawning, endless stars, an explosion that should rightfully have killed him—

Right. Time to work on the Mark V.

“JARVIS, set an alert for news stories on that whole thing. Chitauri weapons popping up in unlikely places.”

“If I might suggest—”

“Just do it.”

“Very well, sir.”

He poured himself another whiskey, then grabbed a blanket from the lab’s ratty, stained couch and threw it over the national security risk that had decided to make itself his problem. Then got to work on restraints that would hopefully held overpowered aliens for longer than a few hours.

**

Against odds, he woke briefly to the return of pounding pain in his chest. A blanket had been draped over him, its warmth enough to return life to his numb fingers.

Iron Man was tinkering in a corner of the room by lamplight, out of his armor as though he had discounted Loki as a threat. Their eyes met briefly, gaze held in silence. Iron Man’s face was unreadable.

The next time he woke, it was to the concerned face of the Hulk’s human form. His adrenaline immediately spiked, though he did his best to not let it show.

“Good morning, Bruce,” he greeted him softly.

“He’s awake,” Banner announced, looking distinctly disturbed, sipping from a mug and watching him closely.

Iron Man bustled into view, carried by the manic energy of someone that hadn’t slept in too long. “You sure? Looks a little dead to me.”

Loki glared at him, though he had a hard time focusing. “If you were to kindly release me, I might show you how dead I was.”

“And there he is.” Iron Man sounded defiantly cheerful. “Didn’t get an answer out of you last time, so let me ask again: you don’t happen to know where your brother is?”

“Asgard,” Loki said in clipped tones. “Fighting an invasion. I doubt he’d come to your aid on something as meaningless as containing me.”

“Not exactly what I wanted to hear, Merlin.” Iron Man threw a meaningful look to the Hulk and the both ambled off to a corner of the room to speak in what they probably thought were hushed voices. Loki had almost forgotten how crude Midgardian hearing was.

“Man, Tony, I don’t know, this feels bad.”

“What, do you think I should have killed him? Because he was slipping in his own guts by the time he got here. Really felt like a bad call.”

“Shouldn’t we at least call in SHIELD?”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t,” Loki told them calmly.

He felt more than saw their appalled gazes.

“You stay put, we’ll be right back,” Iron Man shouted and they vanished into a side-room, voices still carrying. “Listen. Remember the whole thing where SHIELD was making weapons based on the Tesseract? Not a big fan of how that was run, not super into giving them alien anything at the moment.”

Loki phased out the chatter and tested his restraints. He was still pitifully weak, but the cables did stretch easily enough. He reached for his magic. Low, but there. There was the rift he’d come through from Svartalfheim, the one just below the cliffs. Loki scraped his reservoirs and magically muted all sound in his immediate vicinity. He tore through the chains, severed muscles in his chest screaming, rolled off of the desk and came to his feet silently, faltering only slightly.

“Sir, your guest seems ready to leave.” The voice from the ceiling froze Loki in his tracks. He cursed himself. Of course there would be surveillance.

“Oh no, he isn’t!” Footsteps began running towards him. One of the armors came alive behind its glass cage, whirring into action, and began assembling around Iron Man mid-sprint.

Loki half ran, half limped to the staircase, made it partway up before he had to duck under the first blast of blue energy. The glass panes to the workshop shattered. Loki kept running.

“Tony, should I—”

“No smashing inside my home, please!”

The glass upstairs had not yet been repaired and he almost made it to the ledge above the crashing waves, ready to leap—Iron Man tackled him from behind, threw him to the ground, pain exploding through his chest so that he briefly blacked out. Loki screamed and released a pulse of magic, throwing Iron Man off. He came to his feet, stumbling, more fell than jumped over the edge. He caught himself mid-air on the rocks, losing skin off his palms, pushed through the mind-numbing pain, and began climbing downwards, towards the rift.

Iron Man blasted through the window and came for him, descending fast.

“What do you think you’re doing, huh?”

“Getting out of your hair, you utter imbecile.”

“So you can wreck another capital? Nuh-uh, I don’t think so.”

Iron Man descended and Loki threw up a shield to hold the armor mid-air, then released it with a burst that hurled his opponent into the ocean.

Loki’s hands slipped, shaking with exhaustion, and he tumbled down the rock face for a few feet before he caught himself. His body was on fire, he couldn’t feel his hands. The rift was right by the water’s edge, within a cave. He couldn’t climb any further, his strength was leaving him, vision blurring. He closed his eyes briefly, sent a prayer to the Norns, and let go.

He hit the ground hard, wound screaming. He didn’t give himself time to adjust, for the pain to lessen, rolled over. There copper and salt in his mouth as he began crawling to the tunnel. Red, armored feet blocked his line of vision.

“I admit that you don’t look like you’re going to conquer anything any time soon.”

Loki released a telekinetic burst, barely pushing Iron Man a foot backwards.

“That all you got, Malfoy?”

“There is a portal right behind you. It leads to a barren planet of eternal darkness. Just let me go and be someone else’s problem.”

“Yeah, no. Last time you came through a portal, it was with an army.”

“Your technology cannot hold me and Thor has better things to do than help you out. Kill me or let me go!”

“Tony? Everything alright?” Banner’s voice was faint over the crashing of waves and howling of wind.

“All good! Stay calm and carry on!”

“So, uh, Thor is in London!”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“He’s on CNN. There’s a big spaceship smashing up the Greenwich College, honestly, the footage is insane. They’re jumping through Einstein-Rosen Bridges left and right.”

Loki took the chance to heave himself to his knees and try to crawl to safety. Iron Man blasted the ground before him, making him flinch to a stop.

“Alright, hands up, you’re coming with me. And you can tell us what the hell this all is about.”

**

The restraints Iron Man put on him this time were different, almost reminiscent of Asgardian strength: wrist-to-wrist, fingers interlocked and folded and bound as though in a prayer, arms and legs strapped back to the table once more. Loki briefly closed his eyes and let himself drift in as haze of pain and semi-consciousness.

Iron Man wheeled over a chair to sit on backwards. From his hands dangled a gag similar to the anti-magic one Thor had brought from Asgard. “Alright, anything out of your mouth that I don’t like and this goes on.”

Loki groaned an acknowledgment. Blinked as tinny, excited voices began filling the room. He craned his neck and saw that Banner had put on a news report. Scenes of Thor zipping into the air and disappearing into a portal, Dark Elves crawling through marble buildings and over clipped lawns, a battleship appearing out of nowhere on a plaza, then toppling over and disappearing without making impact.

A wild-eyed woman reported on scene: Thor seemed the main friendlycombatant in this extraterrestrial clash. The last time we saw anything like this was in the Battle of New York—

The screen flickered to show old footage of the Hulk tearing a Chitauri glider out of the sky. Banner winced and switched channels.

A couple of men in formal wear gathered around a table. These spaceships are like nothing we have seen before. Analyzing the Battle of New York—

Banner switched channels again. An aerial view of the destruction.

“Put up the multi-channel view. Less opinions by morons, more footage.”

“I hate that stuff, I can’t concentrate with all the overlapping noise.”

“What? Nonsense, you’re just doing it wrong.” Iron Man fiddled with his phone and the one image of destruction exploded into a hundred, all moving and producing noise at the same time.

We do not have further information—

Thor had last been seen vanishing in a beam of light in Central Park—

Witnesses report that bodies of these aliens have been taken by the MI6—

“See, this is terrible. Now I’m not catching anything.”

“Okay, okay. What if I mute all but one?”

Notable astrophysicist Dr. Eric Selvig had recently been committed to a mental institution for delusional behavior, though now it seems his claims hold some truth—

There was footage of the Doctor running in naked in between ruins, apprehended by guards. Loki felt his heart sink. He had never fared very well under Loki’s control, pieces of his mind fracturing as soon as they came in contact with the stone.

The screen switched to footage of Thor and Loki battling atop Iron Man’s tower and Loki couldn’t tear his eyes away. He barely recognized himself, the snarl, the hollow cheeks, the glint of madness. Then again, he hadn’t looked into a mirror since Frigga’s death.

“You looking a little pale there, Merlin. Not happy with the parallels they’re drawing?”

Loki took a minute to realize he had been addressed. “If you’re indicating that I arranged this attack on your realm, I assure you, I did not.”

“You said Thor broke you out. Why?” Banner had his arms crossed, attention flicking between the screens and Loki’s face.

“He’s a sentimental idiot.”

Iron Man jangled the gag he was holding up, lifted an eyebrow. Loki ground his teeth.

“He needed help committing treason.”

Banner and Iron Man exchanged a glance. “Isn’t the king of Asgard your dad?” Banner asked hesitantly.

Loki smiled at him.

“Jesus, he’s creepy with all that blood in his teeth.” Banner looked distinctly disturbed.

“Yep.” Iron Man stared at him for a beat. “Hey, you want some water? You drink water, right? Thor does. How often do Asgardians need fed and watered?”

“He’s lost that much blood and you haven’t given him water?” Banner shot Iron Man an accusing stare.

“I assure you, I’m fine.”

“Got it on record. If you’re starving, that’s on you. Why would Thor defy your king, huh? Bright idea that you put in his head, by any chance?”

“Oh, my dear brother doesn’t need much incentive to break the rules. He certainly never feels the consequences for it.”

“Those guys in Greenwich. I bet that’s invasion on Asgard he was talking about.” Iron Man pivoted in the swivel chair to face Loki again, pointing at him with the gag. “Pretty sure Thor doesn’t know to open portals, but you do, and that’s what he needed you for. To get those guys out of Asgard. So you two brought another army to Earth, this time to stop them from smashing up your own country. Am I getting that right?”

Loki remembered the moment that the scepter failed to bend Iron Man’s will. What an asset he would have been, what a mind. He’d have liked to pick through it for a bit. “Look at you, putting the pieces together.”

“Again, I’m gonna shut you up if you annoy me.”

“The Dark Elves were going to destroy the universe as we know it. A cosmic alignment of realms would have allowed them to cast the Nine into eternal darkness. Odin looked to lure them to Asgard for the sake of revenge, while Thor would not risk his own people.” Loki affected a bored tone for the retelling. “So, yes. Thor exposed Midgard willingly to his enemies. I guess mortals do not rank quite as highly on his list of priorities, but considering how fast you reproduce, it should hardly matter.”

“Okay, sounds like it’s gag time—”

“Wait.” Banner placed a hand on Iron Man’s shoulder. “Why Earth?”

“I don’t know. In case you haven’t noticed, they left me to die before they got here.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you deserved it, too.”

Banner shot Iron Man a reprimanding look.

“What? You afraid I’m going to hurt his fragile feelings? Then he should stop killing people. And smashing up my property.”

Banner sighed. “You say you helped Thor save … something. Asgard, the wider universe. Why?”

Loki looked at his hands, bound and useless. The light of the screens flickered over them, battle scenes of London, of New York, shadows of monsters cast against the sky. “How could you hope to understand the whims of a god?”

“Yeah, we know you’re a delusional egomaniac, no reason to drive it home. I doubt you contributed to the ‘saving’ out of the goodness of your heart.”

His contributions had been a trick of the eye, words of deceit, a distraction for Malekith. Fighting half a score Dark Elves with the smallest dagger Thor could find him. Shielding Jane Foster, who hated him to his core, taking a sword through his chest to save a brother estranged.

Thor hadn’t even bothered to take his body home for a funeral. He was disgraced, worse than exiled. The king that took him in, speaking of mercy and love, would have had him executed for a crime no worse than his own. Hadn’t even cared enough to understand the threat which Loki had faced in darkness and isolation. The one that would come for Odin himself soon enough. And Thor would have left Loki’s body to rot on enemy soil, his soul bound to bones that nobody bothered to burn, no way for him to Valhalla.

Iron Man clearly grew tired of waiting: “It’s not like I cared, anyway.”

“Hey, I’ll try Doctor Foster again,” Banner said.

A spike of panic in Loki’s chest. He waited for Iron Man to turn and make some inane comment, then quickly whispered a spell of silence to encase the little screen in Banner’s hand.

“Great, I’m not getting any bars.”

“That’s odd. JARVIS? Call Doctor Jane Foster.”

Loki repeated the spell, frantically encasing the whole network of the artificial mind that lived in Iron Man’s ceiling. The effort left him panting for air, weak enough to that he felt briefly paralyzed.

Iron Man scowled as his servant didn’t answer him. “The resident supervillain is messing with something, isn’t he?”

“Don’t call Thor,” Loki rasped.

“You don’t exactly get a vote, Houdini.”

“Let me explain—”

As he opened his mouth, Iron Man shoved the gag in—metal and rubber and bitter oil, pressing against the roof of his mouth and flattening his tongue—and it fastened it at the back of his head with a whirring lock, almost organically.

“Yeah, not interested. JARVIS?”

The spell to keep the mechanical servant silent held and Iron Man muttered a curse. He gestured for a screen to appear midair, began tapping away at it, scowled some more. Then pulled out a phone that Loki had not managed to enchant. Loki sagged with defeat as the call connected audibly, let go his control over JARVIS’s voice and abilities. Iron Man lifted an eyebrow at his screen as JARVIS came back online, threw Loki a quick glance.

“Hey Doctor Foster, great speaking with you. Tony Stark. … No, this is not a prank call. I’d tell you something only I would know, but then you’d have no idea it was true, would you. You happen to have Thor anywhere close-by? … Yeah, we got something of his. Not to give away to much, but it starts with a ‘Loki’ and ends with ‘his homicidal brother.’ … Yep, safe and secure. Want a picture? Say cheese. Wait, forget that, you can’t say anything. Wonder how that happened.” Loki scowled silently at the flashlight. There was some more chatter as Iron Man picked up bits and bobs at random, began typing away on a screen, watched the news, all senses occupied. Loki listened up to the point that Jane Foster gave confirmation of Malekith’s death. Something in Loki’s chest loosened at that. He closed his eyes as they began prickling with tears.

His mother had been avenged, then.

Iron Man pocketed his phone and swiveled on his chair and clapped his hands. “Let’s get lunch. What do you want, Brucey? Wait. JARVIS, that new Thai place. Get something I like.”

“I shall place an order, sir.”

“I’d ask you what you want, but you officially lost your mouth privileges.” Iron Man paused. “That sounds terrible, doesn’t it.”

Loki didn’t bother looking at him, turned his head away to watch the endless feed playing on the screens. A single tear slid down the side of his face, dripped along the shell of his ear. Another fell to the cold metal under his cheek.

“See, wouldn’t this be more fun if you hadn’t disabled my butler? No one to blame but yourself, really.”

“Is Thor on his way, then?” Banner asked.

“Foster said he’ll take a day, reporting back to Asgard and so on.”

Loki stopped listening. He was bone tired, in pain. He dreaded the confrontation with Thor, almost as much as he hoped for some measure of relief in Thor’s eyes, some amount of forgiveness—he shut that thought down and concentrated on the mayhem unfolding on camera.

**

Bruce was staring at Loki as though he still couldn’t believe his eyes. He hadn’t lost that slight edge of hysteria since Tony had shown him to his workshop and presented him with the patient.

“Hey, you want any more Chicken Satay?” Tony scraped meat off of the skewers and straight into the pot of peanut sauce.

“He really doesn’t look good.” Bruce tore his eyes away. He picked through his food listlessly, continued to tear a wonton into ever-smaller pieces. “That wound? If he was human, he’d have been dead within minutes.”

“Yeah, creepily resilient those aliens. Wish I could dump him at some hospital and be done with it.” Tony stared at the chicken drowning in yellow sauce, remembered the puss-filled hole in his local supervillain’s chest. He pushed the pot of food away, drummed his fingers against the table. Picked up his phone and began scrolling through the news feed, absentmindedly. “You know what gets me? He says he came here for medical supplies. And it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Why choose an enemy’s home for that?”

Bruce dropped his chopsticks and sighed, gave up the pretense of eating. “You think he has a secondary motive.”

“Don’t you? Also seems odd that he pops up at the same time that the whole black market scheme on the alien tech comes to light. Or does it? I honestly don’t know anymore.”

“Maybe he counted on you nursing him back to health,” Bruce suggested mildly, took off his glasses to clean.

“That’s a terrible assessment of my character.”

Bruce gave him a long, thoughtful look, the kind that made feel Tony deeply seen and horribly inadequate (and little in love with his friend, though he’d never admit it out loud, not when Pepper was the best thing that ever happened to him).

“What?”

Bruce shook his head and leaned back, arms crossed, looked to Loki again. “You noticed he was crying, earlier?”

“So he’s sad because he’s hurting. I honestly don’t care. He’s killed a hundred-fifty people in the week he spent on earth.”

“He’s supposed to be in prison, isn’t he? And pretty well known, being a Prince? I wonder where else he might have gone had he not come here. Whether anyone else would have patched him up.”

Tony stopped scrolling and stared at a familiar face smirking up at him from his phone: Justin Hammer overturns conviction, ready to take Hammer Industries ‘in new direction.’

“Oh no, you aren’t,” Tony murmured. He slid his phone over to Bruce: “Are you seeing this? Why do I even bother putting bad guys behind bars.”

Bruce looked over the article clearly humoring him. “I thought the government shut them down.”

“The government gave them financial aid after their stocks crashed. Saving jobs. That’s not the problem. He is.” He tapped Hammer’s picture.

Bruce gently took the phone and turned it face down, looking Tony in the eye. “Can we concentrate on the issue at hand.”

Tony shrugged, crossed his arms, annoyed with the dismissal. “You’re saying Reindeer Games might have made a terrible choice because he didn’t have another. I’m not convinced.”

Bruce shrugged. “Me either. I really don’t know the guy.”

Tony turned that over in his head. They had no way of gathering information on Loki unless Thor happened to stop by. And his views were clearly colored by sympathy and familial ties. Hell, they probably knew worse than nothing. He made a face. “I hate to suggest it. But I guess we could ask him.”

Chapter Text

When he woke, the first thing he noticed was the pounding pain in his chest, the cold shiver of his skin. He felt sick in a way that didn’t make sense for a flesh wound.

Banner was nowhere in sight. Iron Man was tinkering with something, quietly humming an off-key melody, listening to a single ear bud. The news feed was still flickering across the back of the wall, a good percentage of it showing Greenwich.

“Morning, honeybuns.” He lifted an armor-encased hand to adjust a screw. “Your brother called to say he’d take another day or so. Seriously thinking you weren’t lying about his priorities.”

Loki stared at the ceiling. He didn’t care anymore. So what if he spent the rest of eternity rotting away on Asgard? At least it wasn’t … at least … when Thanos found him … Norns, without a disguise, without a place to hide, no way to run, death might be preferable. Not that it seemed like it would be an option, not with him bound as he was— His arms began shaking, panic compressing his chest. He began counting slow breaths in, slower breaths out. White noise ebbed and flowed around him, anxiety building as pressure in throat.

“Hey, you alright there?”

Loki’s face was wet and he quickly turned his head away, swallowed convulsively around the gag as mucus ran down the back of his throat.

Iron Man thankfully remained quiet on his side of the room. The panic didn’t last long, but it left Loki drained, breathing through his nose with difficulty. His skin was itching where tears began to dry on his cheeks and he internally cursed the indignity of being kept prisoner, once more. What irony, that in his initial effort to be free of Asgard, he had not managed to stay out of captivity for longer than a few days at a time.

Banner entered the room outside of Loki’s vision. There was a bit of quiet conversation—quiet, as it was happening through typing and small pings of messages—and Banner gave a sigh.

“You’re a coward, Tony.”

“In my defense, Pepper usually handles this kind of stuff.”

“‘This kind of stuff?’”

“Well. Not anymore, obviously. She’s running SI.”

“I’m telling you this as a friend, Tony: you have issues.” There was some rummaging, shuffling of feet and Loki tensed, turned to watch Banner approach him. The doctor gave him a somewhat awkward smile, lifted a plastic bottle and box. It smelled like food, nauseatingly so. “In case you feel up to it.”

Loki was thirsty. His jaw hurt from the gag. He also felt eternally repulsed by the thought to have someone else feed him. He shook his head.

“I’ll put it here. You can, uh … signal in case you change your mind.” A clattering noise on a table nearby, out of sight. “How are your wrists? Can you feel this?”

Banner touched his hands, which were bound over his abdomen. It was brief and Loki was aware that it was done for diagnostic purposes, but he still flinched from the touch.

“Seems like you do. I’ll take a look at the chest wound, now.”

Loki fought not to react. A rustle and soft scrape against infected flesh as the blanket was pulled back. Bandages were unwrapped, a cool, alcoholic-smelling mist sprayed to wet the padding before it was removed. Banner inhaled sharply.

“Not to alarm anyone, but this looks worse than it did this morning.”

Loki couldn’t help but take a look. The wound was puffy, its edges black, the tissue around it oozing yellow, angry red. His pulse pounded within the wound with nauseating, dull pain. Loki averted his gaze, stomach sinking.

“Yikes. Mine never looked like that, and we treated that in a cave.”

“Do you have any idea how lucky you were.”

Tony muttered something about not feeling very lucky. “Hey, Malfoy, isn’t your kind supposed to be hyper resistant to infection?”

Loki didn’t bother acknowledging him.

Banner had donned thin rubber gloves, pointed to different parts of the wound. “You see the discoloration? This is necrotizing. I need to remove that tissue.”

Banner reached for Loki’s head and he tensed in answer. The gag came off with a whirring and a click. He worked his jaw to relax it. Banner grabbed a tissue and wiped away spit where it ran down his chin, and wasn’t that just a confirmation of how low he had sunk.

“If you die, I’m blaming your brother.” Iron Man was practically vibrating with nervous energy, wide eyes flickering from the wound to Loki’s face.

“Loki, can you think of a human pain killer that would work on you? Or antibiotics? Something to bring down the inflammation?” Banner asked.

“No. Mortal medicine is generally useless.”

Iron Man looked highly doubtful. “If you thought that was true, why did you bother invading my home, huh?”

“The blade must have been poisoned. I wasn’t aware.”

“A toxin might do that,” Banner said. “It also means that the tissue throughout is affected. Tony, this requires major surgery.”

Iron Man shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’re not qualified because I read your CV and I know it’s not true.”

“This wound runs all the way through. It’s not only unethical to treat this without anesthesia, it’s likely impossible to get in there without relaxing the muscles. Never mind that he might go into organ failure from the pain alone. And the poison would be in his bloodstream, what we’re seeing is probably not all that it’s doing. This might be destroying his liver or kidneys as we’re speaking. We need an antitoxin to treat this.”

“And Midgard doesn’t have anything that’ll work, huh.” Iron Man looked at Loki, assessing. “JARVIS, get Foster on the line.”

There was a brief pause, then Jane Foster’s voice: “Hello?”

“Jane, great to catch you. Any update on the Thor situation?” Iron Man spoke in a clipped, flat voice.

“Sure. He’s on Asgard, I think?” A hint of annoyance.

“Great. Let him know that his brother is actively dying in my lab and to please move his ass over.”

A beat, then a sigh. “There was a complication. Since Queen Frigga died, Odin would execute Loki on return.”

Loki chuckled at the aghast stare that Iron Man gave him. He closed his eyes in resignation. Odin had always had a cruel, unforgiving side. And without Frigga there to calm him, it would run rampant. Oh, the Nine were in for centuries of strife.

“He killed his own Mom? That’s low even for him,” Iron Man said.

“What? Oh! No, no, no. One of the Dark Elves did.”

“Why would they execute him for that?”

“Well, Queen Frigga was the one to convince Odin to spare Loki after New York. And since he broke out—”

“Thor broke me out,” Loki snarled. “As you’re well aware.”

A beat. “I didn’t know he was on the line.”

“Say the word and I’ll gag him,” Iron Man offered. “Either way, I cannot hold him here, not without violating Geneva conventions to hell and back. Not that I think Asgard signed those. Or would have. Point being, I’m neither a hospital nor a daycare for supervillains.”

“Thor is arguing against Odin’s verdict, but it’s … there’s a process. They don’t know where Loki is—apparently, he’s cloaked from Asgard’s detection—and Thor thinks he’ll lead them to you if he comes by.”

“Listen. If Thor wants his brother alive, he’ll have to pick him up right now. He’s been poisoned and— hey, Reindeer Games. What were you poisoned with?”

Loki had no idea. “The blade of the Kursed.”

Iron Man gave him a doubtful look. “That. Anyway. Pass it on to Thor? And tell him to charge his goddamn phone.”

Foster made a frustrated noise. “I cannot … Okay. I will find a way.”

There was a discordant ping as the call disconnected, and Iron Man stared at him. “Your dad’s not the forgiving type, huh. You know what, don’t answer that, I refuse to feel bad for you.”

Bruce set up a bag on a nearby table that unfolded into panels bristling with small blades, forceps, plastic-wrapped gauze and supplies. He shot Loki a nervous glance. “I will clean this best as I can. But it will hurt.”

“As though my pain was a concern of yours,” Loki said pleasantly. “Or have you forgotten who we are to each other, monster?”

“He grows on you, doesn’t he,” Banner said dryly.

“Like a tumor. So. If you don’t need me—” Banner gave him a level glare and Iron Man deflated. “Yep, I’ll be right here.”

“I do need you to hold him down. People tend to not lie very still when you cut them.”

Iron Man hesitated, then came close, looking as though he expected Loki to jump him any minute. He leaned over him, placed hands firmly on his shoulders. Loki gave him a look through his lashes.

“No need to be nervous, Anthony. This isn’t my first time.”

Iron Man looked briefly surprised. “What, with Bruce right here? Shameless.”

Loki watched Banner’s movements like a hawk, the wiping of the wound area, then a small, glinting blade pressed to his skin, blood welling up around it. He tensed against the sharp pain that turned into burning pressure, intensified by its slowness, teeth gritted, hands clenched, did his best to not lash out. It was bearable if he didn’t look at it, think of it, and it didn’t last as long as Thanos’s torture ever did. It still took all his will to not twist away, muscles shaking with the effort to keep still. He met Iron Man’s eyes: unreadable, sharply intelligent.

“Enjoying yourself?” He snarled.

“I’ve had better,” Iron Man deadpanned.

By the time Banner put the blade away, he was shivering and sweating profusely, fresh blood running down his ribs in watery rivulets as Banner washed the wound with a clear solution. The sword wound was as long as his palm, an inch of flesh taken from the middle, leaving it gaping and raw.

“I’ll do the same to the back to reduce further infection, but I cannot go past the rib cage without pain killers.” Banner looked frustrated as he packed the wound. “This will fester unless treated properly.”

Loki briefly closed his eyes against the sinking realization that he would die a prisoner, in enemy hands. Or a traitor, at the hands of his wish-father. Or, if Thanos found him, tortured to death. What way out was there, what options did he have left? His life had been forfeit the moment Thor set foot back on Asgard after his banishment, but the game had been rigged against him from birth, Loki himself a plaything of fate. He felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest. Banner and Iron Man looked to him, alarmed.

“Why don’t you shorten this charade and end my life now.”

“Uh, not a fan of killing prisoners. Pretty sure that one’s in the hero-codex.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want me dead. Release me and I’ll give you reason to defend yourself.” Loki suddenly could not stand to be at the mercy of yet another set of people that thought they were doing good. He strained against the bonds, but managed nothing but to open up the wound further, the pain nauseating. He stopped, panting, furious, eyes fixed on the ceiling and teeth grinding together so hard that they creaked.

Banner exchanged a glance with Tony. “Maybe we fix his back when he’s less …”

“Unhinged? Yeah, that sounds like it’s gonna happen.”

“What is there for me but misery, imprisonment, an undignified death? Don’t you pride yourselves in mercy? Or do your words only carry value when the consequences don’t make you uncomfortable?” Loki’s voice cracked under the accusations.

“Pretty sure your brother is gonna take offense if I kill you right now, and I personally enjoy being alive, so stuff it,” Iron Man said. “Nutcase.”

Banner hovered for a moment, then stripped off his gloves and sighed. “I’m going to take some blood, do some research, see if I can find anything that might help. You okay watching him for a while longer?”

“Yep, seems like a hoot.”

**

Iron Man didn’t put the gag back on, but also didn’t speak to him for a few hours. Enough for the pain to dull to a low pounding, the adrenaline to leave and the shaking to subside. Loki felt bone tired, the festering heat in his chest worrying now that he knew it was poison eating at his flesh, turning his organs to slush.

He needed healing that Midgard couldn’t provide. The pain made his mind sluggish, made him lash out. He was aware he could be handling this better. He needed to find a way out.

“You should at least drink something. You look terrible.”

Loki opened his eyes to find Iron Man hovering, arms crossed, face pale and deep circles under his eyes. “So do you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, my murderous ward.” Iron Man picked up the cup of water, stuck a bright pink straw into it and waved it around. “Here comes the airplane, open wide.”

Loki stared at the straw, then at Iron Man.

“I’d promise it’s not poisoned, but why would you care?”

Loki reluctantly lifted his head and closed his lips around the piece of plastic. He drank in slow sips, each swallow intensifying the pounding pain in his chest. The water revived the taste of iron and rot in his mouth before washing it away. Loki drank half the glass, then sank back against the table, exhausted.

“So, have you always been this cantankerous or is that new since you got into the world conquering business?”

“It’s part of my charm,” Loki deadpanned.

“Do Asgardian ladies fall for that?”

“The lords, too.” Loki quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, I find that hard to believe. Not that you don’t have great assets—that are currently rotting away—but personality? Yikes.”

“Truly, I can see how you earned the title ‘playboy.’ Your flirtations must be unrivaled.”

“Hah, very funny, Bozo. Also? I really hate that you know things about us. You downloaded all that from Barton’s mind?”

Loki looked at him in genuine surprise. “I asked him.”

Iron Man stared at him, arms crossed, mind working to rearrange something in his head. “So you just, what, sat down with him over coffee? To gossip about the Avengers?”

“Where necessary. But you’re not a difficult man to find information on, Anthony Edward Stark, son of Howard Stark. Merchant of Death. Your reputation comes with dangers. I read about your cave.”

Iron Man’s face was wiped blank at the mention of it. “Yeah? Which of the media clowns did you get? Personally, I like the one that said I was working with the Ten Rings the whole time. Or the one that said Hammer built my armor, can you imagine? Legal had a field day with those guys.”

“You have enemies, I am aware.”

Iron Man gestured to encompass Loki. “Is this your attempt at manipulation, you gonna bring up my dripping red ledger any time soon?”

Loki gave him his most innocent smile. “Oh, this is just a bit of fun.”

Iron Man snorted. “Right. Waiting for you to tell me we’re not that different.”

“I am Prince of Asgard, Master of Magic, Silvertongue, Liesmith, unrivaled in the Nine. And see where it put me: cast out, used, into chains, to the brink of death. Over and again. Is that so different from your story?”

“You ever try using those powers for something that wasn’t murder or world domination?”

“Oh? Such as you have?” Loki’s words were mild, dripping with sarcasm.

“Clean energy doesn’t invent itself. Then there’s grants, charities, donations, and, you know what?” Iron Man snapped his fingers as though he had only just thought of it. “I recently saved the world from an alien invasion. Yep. Sounds pretty decent to me.”

“For decades, you supplied war, ruin and death, and now you pretend you could leave that stain behind. All I see is a man, broken and alone, eaten up by the insatiable need to be seen.”

“Says the guy that wears golden antlers the moment he’s on camera.”

“Do they outshine your glowing armor?”

Iron Man made a face. “The difference is that I don’t go around killing civilians.”

“Oh. But that’s not it. The difference between us is that, when they put you into chains to exploit you, Anthony, you were given a chance to free yourself. Companions that stood by your side. And when you carried the battlefield home with you, donning an armor and weaponry to continue the ruin and destruction personally, they called you a hero. How would you have fared without them, Iron Man? How would you have fared in my place?”

Iron Man seemed as though he wanted to say something, then appeared to change his mind. “You know what, I will stop talking to you. You’re a manipulative bastard, and I’m right to dislike you.”

“Is it I whom you dislike?”

“You want to be gagged? Because I feel that you want to be gagged.”

Loki averted his eyes, affected boredom. Waited for Iron Man to turn and walk away. His heart was pounding, sending spikes of feverish pain through his body. There was a string to pluck, an inquisitive nature to Iron Man to exploit. It might not be enough to buy him his freedom, not with the Avenger’s monster around, but sometimes a play only revealed itself mid-game.

And thinking about Iron Man was easier than thinking of the consequences of the wound that was eating his strength, his magic. His mind.

**

Tony was still vibrating with nerves after that car crash of a conversation. He scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. He was used to people trying to get under his skin: reporters, business partners, investors. Most people had reasonable interest to manipulate him and he had made it a sport to deflect, humiliate, and take them down.

And yet, Loki’s words had sunk into his thoughts like tenterhooks. The idea that they were similar enough that, under even slightly different circumstances, they might have gone down the same path was as ridiculous as it was maddening.

(Did Tony believe that it was true? What would have become of him without Yinsen, Rhodey, Pep?)

He angrily shut the blueprints he’d been staring at for the better part of an hour, glowered at his captive. Loki was asleep, face pulled into deep, pained lines, breathing shallow and laborious, skin so pale it seemed tinted green. For all his height, when tied down, chest exposed and and broken, ribs and cheekbones prominent as though he hadn’t been eating for weeks, he seemed small. Pitiful, even.

The bandages were once more soaked with blood. His own chest erupted with phantom pain. There was a sharp memory of the smell of machine oil they used in that cave in Afghanistan. He felt briefly unsteady, world swimming around him.

“Tony?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” Tony snapped around to see Bruce hover in the entrance to the workshop. “Had a good nap? Want a drink? I could use a drink.”

Bruce gave him a suspicious look, then cast one at Loki. “Are you alright?”

“Right as rain.” Tony did find his old coffee mug and a half-full bottle of Macallan, generously mixing the whiskey with the brown sludge at the bottom of the cup, and downing it fast.

“When did you last sleep?”

“I’ll stop you right there.” Tony lifted a hand. “You’re firmly encroaching on Pepper’s territory. Won’t stand for that. Pep is is the only one allowed to ask that.”

“I’m just trying … never mind.” Bruce looked both frustrated and annoyed. He sank into the workshop’s couch with a heavy sigh. “What of him then?”

“What of him? E.T. is still a giant asshole and needs to phone home.”

Bruce squinted at him as though trying to figure something out. “Okay. He said something to you, didn’t he?”

“Nope.” Tony dropped into his desk chair and refilled his mug with whiskey, drinking it down in two large gulps, until the warmth spread readily through his limbs. He stared at the ceiling. “Okay, yes. He implied that he was forced to invade New York. That there was another party that held a gun to his head.” Bruce was silent on the other side of the room. Tony lowered his gaze to look at him, found him broodingly watch Loki. “You think he’s lying, right.”

“I think that the whole conversation is moot if he dies tomorrow.” Bruce muttered. “He’s declining rapidly.”

Tony looked at Loki’s shrunken form, the intermittent shivers going through him. There was a sudden rush of guilt for having him chained to a steel table. Loki had barely been able to stand when he brought him back, yesterday.

“You should take a break, Tony. Stop worrying about it for a bit. I got this.” He didn’t look happy about it.

Tony didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t want to leave this room, this problem behind. It felt like he should be able to solve this, he hated not being to able to solve a problem. He sighed, exhaustion pulling on him noticeably now that Bruce had brought it up.

A chime alerted him to a live news story: a government van filled with Chitauri jet skis crashed outside of New York. The driver had fallen sick in the middle of traffic, leading to a pileup including dozens of cars. And the black vans on the scene might as well have been branded with the SHIELD logo.

“I’m going for a fly. Call me if anything happens.”

**

The flight from Malibu to New York took an hour, during which JARVIS scraped the databases of the CIA, FBI, and SHIELD and put together a picture: a lot more Chitauri tech had been changing hands than the news were reporting on, and the sickness affecting researchers was far from an isolated case. Not that anyone seemed to speak about it. Or seemed to care. By the time Tony arrived at the car crash, he was wide awake and furious.

He landed inside the cordoned-off area, connecting hard with the rain-glistening pavement, light of the arc reactor bouncing off of dark puddles. He marched for the toppled truck, ignored the shouts of police, and only paused as two agents in a black rain jackets pointed their guns at him: one tall and wily, the other short and broad. Laurel and Hardy.

“Mister Stark, you’re approaching government property. Stay back,” Hardy told him.

Laurel was listening to radioed instructions, finger in his ear.

“Seeing that I’m an official consultant with the Avengers initiative, I got a right to be here. You got Fury on the line? Put him on speaker.”

Laurel paused to look at him. “Sir, he’s asking to speak to Fury.”

There was a pause. The agent shot him a suspicious look, then pushed a few buttons and handed him his phone. Tony opened his visor as a measure of goodwill, turned to survey the scene and speak into the mouth piece. “You’re not answering your phone, darling. Is it something I said? I won’t promise not to do it again. Also, I’d like to report government misconduct.”

A tired sigh on the other end of the line. “Stark, get the fuck out of my operation. This is none of your business.”

“Let’s agree to disagree. I kept those aliens off your property, now I’d like you to take care of what they left lying around. Because what I’m seeing? Not a fan. I’m one minute away from calling CNN on that factory you tucked away on the Mexican border, you know, the one that adheres to the levels oversight and security that are usually reserved for illegal hot dog stand outside baseball stadiums.”

“Trust me when I say we’re handling it.”

Tony felt his hackles rise. “Hey, you remember the last time we trusted you with alien stuff? Yeah, not gonna do that again. I came into this situation thinking we could talk like adults, but maybe I’ll just take this crate off your hands. No bad feelings, but you shouldn’t be trusted with the level of responsibility.”

“If you’re so much as thinking about touching anything on scene, I’ll have STARK Industries dismantled. Publicly. Tomorrow.”

“You know what, I have a whole R&D department salivating to get their fingers on something like this. Let’s talk numbers. I’m offering to do your disassembly at half-price of those illegal immigrants working in a fire-hazard of a building. I’ll throw the actual research in for free.”

“And I guess that you’re going to keep using the findings?”

“Babe, let’s not kid ourselves, I’ll be basically be paying you for this. And I’m in your servers, anyway.”

Tony imagined he could hear Fury grind his teeth on the other end of the line. “I’ll have to take this up the chain.” Which told Tony that he’d been facing a lot more issues than JARVIS had found out about.

“Great, pleasure doing business. I’ll just grab the tech and deliver it to HQ while you’re working on those NDAs.”

“Stark, do not dare—”

Tony ended the call and threw it back at Laurel—who caught it awkwardly enough to drop it with a curse—then flipped down his visor. “Stand down, boys, I’ll get started on securing that weapon tech. Orders from above, feel free to confirm.”

Laurel and Hardy stared at each other for a second, then each answered their phones separately as they began ringing. Tony didn’t bother to stick around for that part. He turned over the half-busted crate, grabbed the alien jet-ski-looking thing within and flew it home, engaging additional thrusters to carry the weight. To their credit, none of the agent stopped him, just watched with round eyes.

Well. This would be a hell of a thing to explain to Pepper.

**

“You did what?” Pepper’s voice was loud enough that Tony flinched and gestured for JARVIS to lower the volume.

“Secured a contract.” Tony dumped the glider outside of the mansion and told JARVIS to keep an eye on it. It seemed innocent enough, just sitting there. He flew towards and into the garage, doors opening for him and lights coming on as he landed. “Paperwork should arrive in your inbox pretty soon.”

“You’re not even working for SI anymore! You can’t just commit our time like that!”

“Nah, I was thinking of opening a subsidiary.”

“You’re … what? When were you going to tell me?”

Tony stepped out of the suit, the armor closing behind him seamlessly. He rubbed his eyes—he didn’t remember when he had last slept. Was it thirty hours? Forty? Loki had arrived at night, two days ago. That seemed too long. “Yep, that’s my bad, only just thought of it. STARK Interstellar, something like that.”

“What would you even be doing?”

Tony thought of the alien junk strewn across the US, of the ailing Asgardian chained to his worktable, of invasions and intergalactic threats, and something that would protect this world. Would protect Pepper. “I think we’ll find work to do.”

“I … I have no words.”

“Just put me through to accounting, what’s his name—”

“Gary?”

“Sure, get me Gary.”

Pepper sighed heavily. “Okay. You and Gary work it out.”

Tony counted that as a win.

**

Loki spent most of the evening drifting in and out of consciousness, watching the endless stream of news playing along the back of the workshop. Banner took a shift watching him but was disinterested in talking, occasionally looking up from a book to ask whether Loki needed anything. (They had nothing he wanted.)

Loki realized that Iron Man had returned at some point, voices fuzzy and distorted. He turned his head and his vision swam, overhead lights dragging rainbow hues as they passed by his eyes. His skin was clammy and, now that he was awake, he was shivering violently.

“How are you feeling?” The question was over-enunciated in a way that suggested it had been asked before. Loki tried to focus, but it was with difficulty that Banner’s face swam into view.

“What an idiotic question,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure any of the words actually left his lips.

“Shit.” Banner disappeared. A straw was pressed to his lips, again, and Loki drank, slowly, until he felt to tired to swallow anymore. Something cold was placed on his forehead, the discomfort of it almost painful until additional blankets were heaped over him.

Loki sank into restless sleep.

**

The call didn’t connect the first time, and he and Bruce stared at each other in tense silence. He tried Jane again. Nothing. Admittedly, it was late night in Malibu, which made it very early morning in London.

“I don’t think we can save him, Tony.”

“He’s a dick for putting this on me.” It came out more fiercely than intended. The guy might be a murderous asshole, but that didn’t mean he should have to die tied to a table in his fucking workshop. And if Asgard didn’t take him, Tony didn’t know another place that would. Not one that wouldn’t dissect him while he was still briefly alive. Tony buried his face in his hands. “Fuck.”

“I doubt there’s a point to restraining him, anymore,” Bruce said quietly.

“Fuck!” Tony shoved a busted piece of the armor to the floor, the clanging loud enough to calm some of his anger. Loki didn’t even stir, bruises under his eyes so deep they looked painted on.

Bruce watched him, hands on his hips. His voice was maddeningly calm. “If you need a moment—”

“Let’s move him to a guest room.”

He was ready for the whole thing to be a sham, a ruse, for Loki to jump up the moment he was unbound and let them relive the nightmare that had been New York. Instead, his hands fell limp to his side. He was unexpectedly heavy, skin cold and clammy to the touch. More like a corpse than a person. Carrying him to the elevator and into the bedroom was awkward, even with Bruce’s instruction, and when they dropped him on the clean sheets, they immediately stained with the dust and dirt of his skin, the red and yellow from the soaked bandages. Tony stomped off, teeth clenched, to dig through his drawers for an old, soft pair of pajama bottoms.

He wasn’t a monster.

He didn’t give a shit about Loki.

“Just cut off those pants, way too many buckles. Scene kids.”

Bruce helped without comment.

**

Loki woke in semi-darkness, a lullaby chiming softly in the distance. Frigga’s voice. He couldn’t place why that seemed odd, and instead let himself be soothed.

He was floating in a cocoon of omnipresent pain, too hot and too cold in waves. Sweat was slicking his chest and limbs, heavy bedding smothering him. He moved an arm and realized he was no longer bound. Instinctively, he reached for his magic, but his pools were empty. Fighting the poison.

Someone spoke to him. Loki’s head was lifted, gently as Frigga might have during days of childhood sickness, a glass of water pressed to his lips. He drank a few sips, then turned his head away.

He didn’t remember anything after that.

**

Tony slept for a couple of hours after they put Loki to bed, then found himself wide awake, staring at his bedroom ceiling. It was like those manic nights he tended to work through, fueled by caffeine and drugs, first at MIT chasing the next high of perfect understanding, of accomplishment, then by the need to ward of panic attacks after Afghanistan, after New York.

He grabbed a laptop, threw on a hoodie and sweats, and made the trek down to his second guest room. He knocked quietly, startling Bruce from dozing in the armchair. The room smelled like sickness, sour sweat.

“You should be sleeping,” Bruce told him.

“What did I tell you about sleeping advice. Move over, I’m taking that spot.”

Loki gave a small whimper, twitched under the blankets. They both watched him until he stilled, breathing labored and pained, then exchanged a glance. “I don’t know what to do for him. I give him water when he comes to, refill the ice pack occasionally.”

“Well. This is depressing. Why has my house become depressing.” Tony opened a window, then plopped down in the seat. He waved Bruce away. “Go sleep, I can sit here and pretend to watch the intergalactic criminal for a few hours.”

Bruce gave him a wan smile but agreed and left.

Tony opened his laptop. Fury had sent the NDA, which Tony sent straight to legal. He pulled up the scans of the Chitauri jet ski JARVIS had taken, rotating them on the screen. He set to cataloging and differentiating the fuel and cooling systems, the cables running through, the organic matter that had to serve a purpose he didn’t fully understand. It took a few hours before the mania receded and left him jittery and exhausted, but calmer.

He turned to watch the resident supervillain sleep. It seemed less like rest and more like unconsciousness, deep and too still.

The whole scenario was bizarre. Tony had canceled work for the next two weeks: a congress, three graduation speeches, the monthly board meeting—which he admittedly would have skipped, either way. There were investors to meet, galas to attend, grants to give out. Missions to go on, most likely.

All that for a guy he would have gladly killed on the battlefield a few months ago. And yet, watching him die like this didn’t only seem undignified. It felt inhumane. There should have been something they could do, pain killers at the very least. (Pepper kept asking to come up here, and at this point, Tony wasn’t sure that she would be in any danger if she did.)

He wondered how Thor would take the news if he returned from Asgard to bring home a corpse.

“Nope. Not doing this.” Tony and pulled up the hundreds of pages of paper work Gary needed him to sign to establish STARK Interstellar. He might as well read them.

About two hours later, a slight movement startled him from his work. Loki had turned to look at him, eyes fever bright and shot-through with red, hair plastered to his head, skin ashen. He moved his lips to say something that Tony didn’t catch.

“You need something?”

Loki’s lips formed soundless words and he gazed into the distance, unfocused, unseeing.

Tony laid a reluctant hand to Loki’s forehead, and the bright eyes closed, brow drawn. “Mother.” Loki’s voice rasped weakly against his throat. Tony froze. “I’m sorry. I didn’t meant it.” He kept muttering, much of incoherent, but what he caught made Tony wish he was anywhere else.

Loki’s skin felt only slightly warmer than Tony’s own, but hell if Tony knew what temperature Asgardians should run. He grabbed the ice pack and jogged up to the kitchen, crossed to the tastefully lamplit bar with a quick steps, began filling it with crushed ice from the freezer. His hands shook and a good amount of it spilled onto the floor, landed atop his socked feet. He paused to lean heavily on the bar, stare blankly at the counter top, breathing steadily, deliberately.

Fuck.

He wasn’t made for this kind of stuff.

“JARVIS, call Pepper.”

“Calling now, sir.”

Tony slid onto a bar stool, head in his hands, stared at the picture of her on his phone. Sunlight, freckles, a strand of hair loosened by wind.

“Are you okay?” Peppers voice came out alarmed and slightly sleep-drunk. Tony checked the time. It was four a.m. in New York. JARVIS usually warned him when he tried to call her in the middle of the night.

“I need a contractor to come fix this window. The gulls keep getting into the trash. There’s pad thai containers all over the carpet. It’s a mess.”

“Are you … are you serious right now?”

Tony buried his face in his hands, drinking in the relief of speaking to Pepper. “Yep. You should honestly come see the damage. I think you’d agree that I need two guys and a window pane in here. I’d put up some plastic but I haven’t really left the house— ”

“Tony—”

“—and I have no idea where you put the trash bags. Have you hidden them on purpose? Because I think you might have. I think you don’t want me to save the trash from gulls or fix this window—”

“Tony! I’m catching the next flight.”

Tony cut himself off and took a moment breathe, look out into the darkness over the ocean. Waves lapping against the shore, the lights of a boat far out at sea, a horn in the distance. He was suddenly tired enough to sway in his seat.

“I woke you, didn’t I.”

“It’s alright.” Her voice was soft and forgiving and, God, Tony wanted her to be here.

“Take the jet. It’s in New York.”

“Okay. I'll see you soon.”

The call disconnected and Tony took a long breath that did nothing to steady him.

Chapter Text

Tony had delivered the crushed ice, then abandoned his vigil over Loki. He had been dozing on the couch, too wired too sleep, too exhausted to work, scrolling endlessly through the news. Some part of him knew it was a poor distraction, reading every interview that Hammer had given since his release from prison, then climbing down a rabbit hole of the health crisis brought on by the Chitauri tech. More cases of sickness were appearing by the day, among them a paramedic that had attended the car crash.

He didn’t even notice Pepper’s arrival until her heels clicked to a stop in the doorway, perfectly collected, every hair in place. She looked at the state of the flat—glass swept into a heap by the broken window, the blood-stained carpet pushed up against the wall, empty liquor bottles and takeout containers strewn about—then at Tony. She dropped her luggage and handbag where she stood and came straight to him. He fell into her embrace, clung to her like a lifeline.

“You smell good,” he told her.

She smiled audibly. “That’s just my shampoo.”

“It’s great. Use it all the time.”

“I do.” She pressed her lips to his cheek, warmth and comfort, but stepped away when he tried to pull her into something more substantial. “Tony, what happened? Where is Loki?”

“Second guest room, Bruce is watching him. He’s no danger to anyone, he can’t even stand.”

“Oh. That sounds terrible.” She sounded relieved.

“It’s been a nightmare.” Now that she was here, the exhaustion so strong it made his knees weak. He wanted nothing more than to go to bed, preferably with Pepper there.

“He’s not getting better?”

“He’s dying.”

Pepper cleaned enough space on the couch—electronics, Bruce’s books, an assortment of candy wrappers—to sink down on its edge. “What have you been doing this whole time?”

“Watching him. Helping him. Pep, there’s nothing we can do.”

Pepper was looking at him, patiently, and Tony felt as though he was being judged. As though he was missing something obvious.

“What?”

“You could call SHIELD, the military, anyone. This is not your responsibility.”

“It is.” Tony sank down by her side, leaned against the back of the couch, eyes closed. “It was. What if he gets better and decides to go on a rampage? SHIELD can’t do fuck all to keep him contained. What if they study him and use the knowledge to somehow make a doomsday device? Or clone him? Hell, what if they lose him? Have you been following the mess with the Chitauri tech?”

“Well, I feel like I have to, now that you’re working with it.” Pepper’s long, delicate fingers carded through his hair and he leaned into the touch, let her lightly scrape the back of his neck. She was quiet for a moment. “I know you thought Thor would come to help.”

He had thought Thor would come. “Asgard wants to execute him.”

“Oh,” Pepper said softly, voice shaking slightly. “Well. He did do a lot of harm.”

Tony didn’t want to think about any of this any more, wanted his brain to stop running a million miles an hour trying to find a solution to an impossible situation. He turned to Pepper and kissed her instead, desperate to get away from this. She melted against him willingly enough. “Let’s go to bed.”

“It’s noon. And I don’t feel comfortable with him around.”

“You worried he’s a threat? He’s not. Here, I’ll show you.” Tony got up, pulled her to her feet.

“I don’t know, it just feels wrong,” she argued but followed him on clicking heels as he crossed the space quickly, jogged down the first flight of stairs, “I could not … he’s really dying?”

Tony lead them down the hallway to the slightly ajar door of the bedroom. He didn’t bother knocking. Bruce looked up from a book, greeted them both with mild surprise.

Sunlight should have filled the space with warmth and life. Instead, it felt artificial in its brightness, the room washed out and lifeless. Loki was still and jaundiced, the movement of his breathing almost too subtle to detect. He had stopped accepting water and Bruce had put him on an IV, the rubber tube vanishing under the blankets. A miasma of sickness hung over the room.

Pepper stood frozen for a moment, then walked inside as though drawn by an invisible force, eyes fixed on the villain in the bed. She covered her mouth with delicate fingers, shoulders tense. She wore white, today: skirt, heels, jacket. Blinding in the cool sunlight, ethereal against the soft beige of the wall. Tony remembered vaguely that she had picked the interior design of this room, specifically and pedantically. The art on the walls was hers—all modern, bright blocks of colors and shapes—the dying plant in the corner had been lush and alive under her care. The blanket that had been pushed to the end of the bed, warm white and comfortably textured, was soft and reminiscent of her touch. All of it had grown bleak in the face of Loki—hated, feared, poisoned—and his death that loomed too large within the space.

“He’s fighting some kind of poison we can’t identify. He’s going into organ failure,” Bruce said quietly. He sounded and looked tired, rumpled. The blood tests he had run told them nothing. There was nothing left to do but wait: either for Thor to get back to them or for Loki to die.

Pepper nodded silently. When she turned, it was with reluctance. She gave Bruce a gentle smile.

“Can we get you anything?”

“Tony said you won’t be able to stay long. Spend your time with him. I’m fine, I’m a doctor.” Bruce smiled back at her.

Pepper placed a hand briefly on his forearm, squeezed, then walked out with Tony trailing her. As the door closed, she let out a shuddering breath, brows crinkling with a deep concern. “This is terrible.”

Tony took her soft hand, pressed her knuckles to his lips. Even her skin smelled clean and sweet, like lotion.

“Let’s go to bed,” he repeated, a plea.

“I don’t …” She hesitated a while longer, complicated emotion passing over her face, bit her lip, then nodded: “Okay.”

**

Pepper insisted he shower while she straightened and aired out the room. When Tony stepped out of the hot water and returned, damp and wrapped in a towel, he finally felt like he was home, again.

Making love to her atop the crisp, white sheets was cleansing his mind, had his restless circles of thoughts fall away. Her taste was a gift, her smooth, soft skin a blessing. She was so gentle with him, her hands feathering against his back, then through his hair as he dipped between her thighs. And as he drew the first noise of surprise from her, he felt the tight knot of anxiety unravel in his chest. She arched her back under his touch, thighs shaking, her sighs a melody. He crawled up her body to kiss her, sink into her, moving in gentle rolling motions until he himself came undone. He pressed his forehead into the crook of her neck, breathing sweet perfume. Her arms around his shoulders pulled him close so he felt sheltered, cut off from the world. Nothing existed but Pepper.

They lay side by side, Pepper’s back turned. Her hair had fallen out of her updo, stray curls drifting across her nape of her neck. He brushed one of them aside and she sighed.

“I wish I didn’t need to worry about you,” Pepper said quietly.

“You don’t.”

“That’s the problem, Tony. I have to worry, because you don’t think to.”

“Let’s not do this right now, okay?”

A deep breath lifted and her shoulders and Tony let a finger trail over her arm, tracing freckles, resting on a small, silver scar she had had since childhood. She had told him how she got it but he couldn’t remember. “What will you do if … if he recovers? Will you just let him go?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you should know. If you’re doing this, you should know.”

“Pep, he’s as good as gone.”

She turned around to study his face, worry deepening into a crease on her forehead. Her voice turned whisper-soft. “And in watching over him, you let him into your heart.”

Tony rested his hand against her side, so slender it seemed fragile, her ribs prominent under his fingers. “He was delirious last night. His mother died recently, and he talked to her for a while. Mostly apologizing.”

Her expression turned to misery. “Oh, Tony.”

Tony blinked and a single drop of moisture fell from his eyes. He turned on his back and wiped at his face. Thought of the last conversation he had with his Mom, the fight proceeding it. The things he had never told her. “Shit.” He’d never thought he’d be this affected. He had meant to watch Loki until Thor showed up. Nothing more.

Pepper was quiet for a moment, and she sounded unhappy when she spoke. “I wish he wasn’t dying in our guest bedroom, but the world is likely a better place without him.”

“I don’t know, Pep. I think there is a lot more gray to his story than we know.” He realized that he still hadn’t asked Loki much about New York, about the invasion, his motivations. He had to at least try, didn’t he.

“That gray killed a whole lot of people.”

“So did STARK Industries. In fact, the whole company was built on the premise of killing people.” He was annoyed with himself. “This shouldn’t be getting to me just because it happens where I can see it. It shouldn’t be getting to me.”

Pepper sighed. “He’s suffering, of course you’re suffering with him.”

“You know why I want to open that subsidiary?”

Her voice was flat and a little wry. “I thought we decided against business talk in bed.”

“Promise, very little business involved. Pep, we don’t understand what we’re facing.”

She bore that in silence, waited for him to fill it.

“New York, Asgard, Greenwich. We have no idea what is coming for us. Thor might, but Loki most definitely does, and if we’re unlucky, we missed our chance to ask him. We need all the information we can get. This isn’t about the money or business. It’s about being prepared the next time something like this happens.”

“There you go, again,” Pepper said. “Trying to save the world all by yourself.”

“I’m not. I’m opening a subsidiary. People to do that.”

“It scares me, Tony.”

“Business law is pretty scary.”

She gave a halfhearted laugh. “It scares me what you might do when you think you have to. Because no one else might.”

Tony turned to look at her. There was a crooked smile on her lips, no joy behind it. “Wouldn’t that be worth it, though.”

“Not to me. I just wish you’d think your own well-being was as important as that of others.”

Tony met her eyes. Persistent nightmares haunted his sleep. His moments of stillness only gave room to panic. New York was a stain on his soul, Afghanistan a hole in his heart. And death toll attached to his name only ever seemed to be rising. The only thing that calmed him, grounded him, was knowing that Pepper was safe.

“I’m doing my best. I promise.”

It didn’t feel like a lie.

**

He woke oddly clear-headed, as though he was walking through a clairvoyant dream. The ghostly song was gone—a hallucination, he realized, and yet, it had brought him a moment of peace and its absence left him with a profound sense of loss. For a while, he lingered with that grief: the tightness of his chest, his throat, the immeasurable sadness that still took him in waves when thinking of Frigga. Just a few seconds. Then he pushed himself up. Nausea and pain exploded through him, and he realized his arms wouldn’t support him. He sank back down, breathing heavily.

“You up or down?” Iron Man quipped.

Loki hesitated, but there was no getting around the admission. “I need to use the restroom.”

A beat. “Yeah. I’ll get Bruce.”

Banner had the problem explained to him, threw his hands up in resignation, then as good as carried Loki to the en-suite bath. It turned out to be the most humiliating experience he had had in a few centuries. No amount of illness should make it necessary to be held up while pissing.

“Next one is your turn,” Bruce let Tony know.

“You’re the doctor!” Tony told him.

“You really don’t need an M.D. for that.”

Tony stared after him stomping out. He turned to Loki: “You’re not my ideal house guest, just so you’re aware. Really could do with someone that uses the bathroom on their own.”

Loki was too exhausted to care. Any thought of escape was gone, replaced with the urgency of his discomfort. There were bruises across his abdomen that hadn’t been there the day before. His organs sat wrong in his body, too large and painfully tender, skin hot and tight across his chest, crawling with nausea.

“I will warn you that I might throw up in the foreseeable future.”

“Yep, should have seen that coming.” Iron Man vanished briefly, then placed a trash can next to the bed. “How did you get that wound, anyway?”

Loki grunted.

“Seriously. It can’t possibly be more embarrassing than me watching you throw up into a bucket.”

“No one forces you to be where you are.”

“Nuh-uh, I know better than to turn my back on you. Can’t have you take over Malibu. I like this place.”

Loki couldn’t bring himself to smile at the weak attempt at humor. “Thor found himself outmatched. I came to his aid, in vain.” A failed play at redemption. All he got for saving his brother was a drawn-out, painful death. (And Thor’s life, a nagging voice at the back of his head insisted.)

“Not gonna lie, I’m having a hard time picturing you helping Conan.”

“Thor never fared well on his own. He overestimates his abilities.”

“I thought you hated his guts. Were you trying to kill him?”

A familiar, many-headed beast reared his head: ancient yearning for Thor’s recognition, the slow-burning hatred when his efforts were met with disdain. Thor’s smile would lift his heart, his petty jokes throw him into despair. They were closer than brothers, they were mortal enemies. How could he not try escape the madness that was loving Thor? To wish for Thor to be gone so Loki might breathe?

“I tried to kill him twice. He stood in the way of my kingship.”

“Yep. You got me convinced. You don’t sound crazy at all.”

“Malekith—the leader of the Dark Elves—killed our Queen. It was revenge that had us fighting side by side. A pact of necessity, dissolved now that the creature is dead.”

“Ah. And now your Dad wants to behead you for crimes.”

“I am sure he thinks it reasonable punishment.”

“Makes this whole spiel kinda pointless, though. You know how often I have spoken to Jane in the past day to get you some heavenly Advil? It was a lot. At least twice. Hell only knows what Thor is doing.”

“So you wouldn’t send me to my death.” Loki realized with a sudden blaze of clarity that, if he was to die, he wanted to see it once more: the golden towers, the ever-blue sies, the orchards in bloom. On Asgard, even the shadows were bright, the marble and metal reflecting gold and white. No chance of hiding for someone like him. And yet, it had been his home.

“Yeah, no, Asgard sounds like a bag of dicks.”

That startled a laugh out of Loki, and the pain was bad enough that he did lean over the side of the bed and emptied his guts, miserably. The thin gall in the bucket looked like it was mostly blood, both curdled and fresh. (Had his stomach been punctured or was it just breaking down? It didn’t matter anymore.)

Loki rolled on his back, wheezing, world swimming in and out of focus. Iron Man steadied his head and wiped his face with a wet cloth. Loki closed his eyes and silently wept for the pain, for the tenderness, for the humiliation. When the shaking subsided, Iron Man was once more a silent presence by the bedside, looking conflicted and pale.

“So, uh. I should probably ask you a few things about New York.”

Loki’s voice came out as a rough whisper. “Go ahead, then, do that service to your world. The forces that would bind me to secrecy cannot touch me in death.”

Iron Man looked put out at that. “Yeah, right. So. That army. Thor said he hadn’t seen anything like it before. Where did you get them? Any more of them coming, anytime soon?”

“The Chitauri operate as hive minds. They are scattered around the fringes of the universe, far away. Without the Tesseract, you face no danger of them attacking again.”

“Uh-huh, and you, what, befriended them? Enslaved them? Told them that Earth was a universal tax haven?”

“Thanos—” A shiver of fear ran through his body, fading into numbness with the realization that Thanos could not see him anymore. The Mind Stone’s influence should have faded. And even if Loki was wrong, if his children came for him in this moment, he would likely be too late to harm Loki. He started anew: “I briefly was regent over Asgard. It ended with a battle against Thor and a fall into the void, where time loses meaning and one’s mind will tear itself asunder. A Titan, enemy to everything alive, found me there.”

Iron Man, for once, was quiet, listening intently.

What irony, Loki thought, that his enemy would pay him mind when his wish-father hadn’t. And if he revealed his weakness now, what did it matter? A mortal’s judgment could not reduce him further than his sickness had, and still, his voice was shaking when he continued. “He took my body and broke it, shaped my mind until it gave. He had me subdue the Chitauri for him. Failure would have meant my sure death, and he would eventually have succeeded without my help.”

“Wait. You had a business deal with this guy, didn’t you?”

“He likes to think himself fair. He offered me Kingship over Midgard.” He would have pulled this realm from her troubled and fractured ways as Thor, in all his heroism, could not. (There was a nagging sensation at the back of Loki’s brain that there had been more to it, but it was hard to navigate the mire of his mind.)

“Yep, I think I heard you say something like that, once or twice. What would this giant would get out of the deal?”

“Titan, not Giant.”

“Whichever. What were you going to give him?”

Loki opened his mouth, but the place where that answer should have been felt hollow, raw. The creeping horror at touching upon the tatters of his own mind was softened by the knowledge that it didn’t matter anymore. He exhaled softly. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“The memory was removed. He needed the Tesseract, as he still needs the Scepter.”

“Great. Awesome. So he’s coming back for that?”

Loki smiled wryly. “Let’s assume so.”

“Uh-huh. Hey, Bruce?” Iron Man spoke into watch, its face lighting up. “I think you should come in here and hear what Organ Failure has to say.” There was a brief pause. “Seriously, I would offer you something for the pain, but nothing we have around works on Thor.”

Loki shook his head weakly, the motion setting his head spinning.

**

After repeating the information for Banner’s sake, Loki was exhausted enough that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. They changed his bandages and he fell unconscious halfway through the process, merciful darkness softening the pain.

When he came to, the world outside had gone dark, Iron Man sitting by his side in a small halo of lamplight, tinkering with a snarl of wires and machinery, feet bouncing in rhythm to the music quietly emitting from a single ear bud.

“Do you never sleep?” Loki asked, the words barely a whisper.

“Turns out that being quiet and still aren’t chief among my skills.” Iron Man shot him a neutral look, assessed him like a project. Loki wondered what there was left of him to see. The pain had reduced to a dull, ever-present pressure that made movement difficult. Speaking hurt, but it barely mattered. Loki felt oddly at peace, as though his body and its state were a distant memory.

“I would never have guessed.”

A hint of a grin pulling at Iron Man’s lips, vanishing quickly. “So. Hey. I’ve kinda been thinking. It really sounded like that giant guy … what. Tortured you, messed with your mind, and sent out half-crazed? Am I getting that right?”

“Don’t insult me by excusing what I’ve done.”

“Wow, you’re a douchebag. Really don’t see what Thor is trying to rescue, here.”

“He won’t.”

A beat. “He’s trying. Not that I care. I mostly wish you’d stop bleeding on my sheets.”

Loki smiled. “You should have seen his face when he thought me lost. He was relieved to grieve me.” Thor hadn’t taken his body home, had only stayed until he thought Loki dead. No wonder he took so long.

“Okay, I’ll give you some leeway cause you might be hallucinating at this point, but I’m seriously not your conversation partner of choice for family issues. I got a PA for that. Or used to. I could get you Bruce if you like.”

Loki looked at the ceiling in silence. Endless white. Midgardian interior design was dreadful. He thought of his rooms in Asgard, the murals, the carvings, the mosaics. The endless comfort of intricate detail, informing his dreams since he’d been a boy.

“Seriously though. I’ve been speaking to Doctor Foster. Thor’s ready to start a revolution over Odin forgiving your war crimes.”

That didn’t seem right. “If he does, it’s because he lusts for the fight.”

“You think he’d risk his title to let off some steam?”

“I know that for a fact.” Thor had always been reckless and had rarely felt the consequences of his actions. It seemed Odin had forgiven him for his most recent bout of treason, easily as ever. He remembered a time when Thor loved him, openly. How young they had been. How desperately Loki missed that time.

“You and Thor have more issues than Playboy, and that’s been running for seventy years.”

“I thought that you, of all people, would be familiar with the taste of betrayal.” Loki turned his head to see him better, and even that small movement hurt. Dug through his tired brain for the information he had on Iron Man, ample research done for what had seemed good reason. “Exploited for your talents, ignored when they’re not useful. Sought for your status, never for yourself. Discarded by one father, betrayed by another. Choosing showmanship over love, for the latter is unattainable and the alternative never being seen at all. Anthony. I know you.”

“Your idea of small talk is creepy as fuck.” Iron Man pointed out. “Not a fan of the psychoanalyzing. Very villainous.”

“If not a villain, what am I.” Loki felt suddenly too tired to keep his eyes open.

Iron Man remained silent for a long time, and when he spoke, it was so quiet that Loki didn’t think it was meant for his ears. “I think I’m trying to find out.”

He didn’t answer. What was the point.

**

He didn’t remember much of that night: The glare of overhead lights turning on, the intense pain of inflamed flesh exposed, then the bright burn of hands on the wound, a sobbing scream that must have torn from his lungs. The horror in the hushed voices stayed with him when the words did not. Welcome numbness and darkness thereafter.

**

Doctor Foster—Jane, she had insisted—was pacing, her pretty face pale with misery. “He should be in a hospital.” She muttered, crossed her arms over her chest and watched the rising sun through the window front, the tarp over the broken one flapping in the wind.

Pepper had cleaned up the dishes piling up in the kitchen, tidied the piles of takeout containers, scheduled for someone to come repair the damage. She kissed him goodbye and left to manage the company with his name written across.

That had been yesterday morning.

Fuck it. Tony got up and poured himself two fingers of whiskey. Jane gave him a judgmental look. He lifted his glass to her. “I apologize for my appalling manners. Want any?”

“No, thank you,” Jane said in clipped tones. “It’s five in the morning.”

“What’s the word on Asgard getting him out of here?”

Jane sighed, shoulders rising and dropping, delicate brow wrinkled in concern. “Thor didn’t say much. He just dropped off the medicine and went back. He didn’t exactly ask permission from his dad before he took it.”

“You’re not worried Big Brother is tracking you?” Tony raised an eyebrow.

Jane looked slightly embarrassed, tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. “No … no. Thor had … Heimdall cannot see me.”

Before Tony could ask who Heimdall was, Bruce came into the room, wiping bloods off of his wrists and looking exhausted. “Tony, I need help with sutures.”

Tony stared at him, wide-eyed. He pointed his thumb at Jane. “Take her, she’s a doctor.”

“Of astrophysics,” Jane took a quick step back, stumbling over a chair behind her and catching herself with an awkward clatter.

“I will tell you exactly what to do,” Bruce said mildly. “It’s not difficult. And he’s remarkably hard to kill.”

“Well, when you say it like that.” Tony wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, then realized he should probably wash them. He did that, downed the rest of his whiskey squared his shoulders and followed. Jane trailed them nervously.

They had set up a desk into the sickroom, spread plastic sheeting across it, brought in one of the flood lamps from the workshop for better lighting. Bruce snapped on a fresh set gloves, put on a mask.

“There’s a small hole to the stomach that needs sutures. I just need you to hold something.”

Bruce moved a bowl filled of fleshy waste out of the way. The freshly carved hole in Loki’s chest was gaping, ribs and organs exposed, skin held back by clamps. It seemed a miracle that the alien wasn’t dead. A rivulet of blood was running down the sheeting and had begun dripping on the carpet, alarm-bright red. Tony was hit with an overwhelming memory of motor oil, smoking lamplight, piss and blood on warm sand—Afghanistan. He turned abruptly away to steady himself on a side table, knees folding under him, sat on the floor, lids pressed shut, heart hammering hard enough to send his chest aching. Waited for the panic to pass.

It hadn’t been this bad when he dressed the wound, when he’d seen it before. It had been horrible and he had hated every second of it. But it hadn’t triggered flashbacks.

“Tony, are you—”

“I’m fine,” Tony cut him off. “Just. Give me a moment.”

“What do you need me to do?” Jane’s voice was shaking but her steps were confident when she walked past.

“Grab some gloves and a mask. The anesthetics are working fine, he won’t feel anything. Here, hold this here, it will drain the … yeah, like that.”

There was some wet sound, a nervous laugh from Jane, then silence apart from the occasional metallic clatter of tools on metal a tray.

“I thought you were a physicist. Where did you learn to do this?” Jane sounded steadier, genuinely curious.

“I’m an M.D., and I spent some time on humanitarian missions in Calcutta. Any surgery we did was in the field, though … nothing this is invasive.” Bruce said. “Working on this guy is insane. See that incision? I made that half hour ago and it’s already healing. You couldn’t do this to a human, not without ventilation, and you’d probably need blood transfusion.”

Jane laughed nervously. “As long as you’re sure he’s not going to bleed to death.”

“Yeah.” Bruce didn’t sound overly confident. Silence. Tony breathed, tried to clear his head, calm his heartrate. The smell of blood settled on his tongue, mingled with bitter herbals which he attributed to the Asgardian medicine. Tony concentrated on the latter.

“The wound goes all the way through, so I need to check on his back. If you could …” There was some shuffling, rearranging.

“You don’t have to stay, Tony,” Bruce said. Tony shook his head, heaved himself into a chair, looked at his hands. They weren’t shaking, though he felt like they should be. He clasped them tightly enough that it hurt. Until he felt in control again.

All in all, it didn’t take long. Tony looked up when they rolled Loki back onto the bright red patient transfer board. There was a large bandage taped over his chest, hiding the wound from sight. Tony tried to no think of it. He got up, grabbed the other end of the board, giving Bruce a brief nod. They lifted Loki from the table and to the bed.

“Okay.” Jane discarded the gloves in a bucket, nervously shook out her hands and released a held breath. “I think I shouldn’t stay longer than I have to. Do you need more of the antidote?”

“If the instructions Thor left are correct, it should be enough.” Bruce gave him a nervous look and Tony couldn’t stand being around them anymore.

He fled the room, leaving Jane and Bruce to clean up, up the stairs, onto his patio. He kept walking, past the seating area and fire pit, the deck chairs, the pool, to the edge of his property where nothing but cliffs and a straight fall down separated him from bright blue sea, salt sharp in his nostrils. The sun was rising, deep red and oranges, and the concrete of the banister bit into the palms of his hands, cold in the mild Malibu air. He watched it until he could think again.

When he looked down at his hands, he realized there were blood stains on his skin. Not much, just a few drops between his thumb and forefinger, soaked into the creases of his skin like roots into soft ground.

Chapter Text

Loki woke in the healing halls. Something had gone wrong—that part didn’t worry him, something always went wrong when he went adventuring with Thor, and he felt fine. He sat up in the bed: bright white marble without stain, murals showing the golden apple tree, rows of cots and the circular nursing station in the center. Usually, these rooms were bustling with activity. Loki called out, his voice echoed endlessly in the cavernous room.

He was utterly alone.

**

Loki woke on Midgard. He shifted and the familiar smell of the Allsoothe rose around him, herbal and sharp. Frigga leaned over him, hand on his forehead.

“Sleep, my bird, you will be fine.”

Loki’s throat closed up with grief as he studied his mother’s face. He could not think of words to say.

This was a dream.

**

Loki woke on Midgard, dreams slowly dissipating, clear-headed and free of fever. The light was golden, the sun low, the plant by the window throwing wild shadows across the white ceiling. He touched his chest: bandaged, hollow, oddly numb. The smell of Allsoothe persisted. Which meant that Thor had been here. But by his bedside, it was Banner that was sitting in the armchair, glasses slipping down his nose, head resting on a hand, book in his lap. Fast asleep.

The strangeness of the situation took a moment to sink in. In his enemies’ home, he had been healed and nursed back to strength. And he still did not understand why.

Which mean it was time to leave.

Loki pushed himself up on shaking arms, sat up. A needle was still situated at the crook of his arm, a tube running away from him and towards a hanging bags. He lifted the blankets and made a face as he realized how mortals dealt with a bed-bound patient’s bodily functions. He pulled the needle from his arm first, then removed the catheter, hissing at the unpleasant sensation.

He swung a leg out of bed and immediately collapsed on the floor as his knees gave out, pulling the bedside lamp with him in to shatter on the floor. Banner startled with a yelp, dropped the book and knocked the glasses off his own face.

“Jesus, what are you doing?” Banner was clutching his chest as through trying to still his heart.

Loki cursed inwardly at his own foolishness. “What concern of yours is it if I wish to rise.”

“God.” Banner fumbled to collect and adjust his glasses. “You’re not supposed to get up yet.”

Loki hissed, color rising to his cheeks, grasped for an excuse. “I wish to bathe.”

“Uh. Give me a second. You’re on a catheter—”

“I’m not.”

Banner closed his eyes briefly, seemed to calm himself. “Okay, alright. I’ll help.”

“No.” Loki snarled at him.

Banner gave him a tired look. Then he retrieved a wheelchair from a corner of the room and locked it in place in front of Loki. “Can you get into the chair without help?”

Of course Loki had seen wheelchairs before, but they were rare enough on Asgard, used within the hospitals and by the elderly and frail. Healing was swift among the Aesir, a matter of a couple of days under attention of the healers, and when it came to lost limbs, the prosthesis created by Nidavellir were highly sophisticated, custom made, and easily available. Few would choose to be bound to a chair in a city that rose as high as Asgard, that was created of bridges and stairs.

Using one felt like an insult.

He grabbed the side of the bed and tried to pull himself up. Pain exploded back through his torso, too much for whatever anesthesia he had received to handle. He slumped against the mattress, panting, waited for the worst of it to pass. Frustration raced through him: he should be better by now, well enough to stand if nothing else.

“I’ll lift you from behind.”

“Stop treating me like an invalid.”

Banner’s lips thinned briefly. “You were as good as dead three days ago. That was before I scraped half of your liver out of your torso.” Infuriatingly even, calm, the voice of caregivers and teachers in Loki’s life. It made him feel small, unreasonable. He didn’t appreciate it.

“Why would I trust the Avenger’s monster with my well-being? What is the last thing you touched that you didn’t destroy, that you didn’t see crumble in a fit of rage? What use is all the knowledge if no one will look past their fear to listen, Doctor.”

Banner looked unimpressed, hands on his hips. “Did that make you feel better?”

Loki was shaking with the effort of keeping upright, never mind keeping up the hostility. He averted his gaze.

“Great. Bend your knees, feet flat on the floor. I will lift you from behind.”

Loki obeyed. He flinched as Banner grabbed him beneath the hips, pulled him up easily, as though he weighed nothing. I took some maneuvering, and Banner did most of the work to guide and seat him while Loki mostly concentrated on keeping his balance. Wordlessly, Banner began pushing the chair, not to the attached bathroom but a wider one down the hallway. The doors opened automatically and revealed a spacious, oddly empty washroom, as well as a set of bars mounted next to all facilities. Loki paused. The adjustments looked new, clearly created for him.

(Had they arranged this on purpose? Had they crippled him? Three days. Loki should have healed by now.)

(He couldn’t imagine that they would. Iron Man was too softhearted.)

Banner showed him where to find wash cloths and soap. “Do you need—”

“I’ll manage,” Loki cut him off. Glared for a moment before exhaling slowly. “Thank you.”

Banner nodded and left him to it. (He likely kept watch through Iron Man’s invisible servant.)

Movement caught his eye and Loki found his own reflection staring back at him from a wall-length mirror: hunched over in the wheelchair, skin pale and almost yellow in the artificial light, bruises painted under his eyes, hair lanky and matted with grease. He looked at his hands, which felt sticky with old sweat, and noticed dirt and blood under the fingernails. He felt disgusted with himself, his own weakness, with the needs that his body imposed on him.

Briefly, he closed his eyes and allowed himself respite from the dragging exhaustion. Then he lifted his arms to the uncomfortably high sink, arms shaking, and washed the blood from his hands and wrists.

**

Banner escorted him back. The trip to the bathroom alone left him exhausted, so he didn’t protest at being helped back to bed: Banner’s chin on his shoulder, arms around him in an awkward, necessary hug, and he lifted him, gently and firmly, from the wheelchair and onto the bed. He drank water, a small amount of broth that settled in his stomach like lead. Burning with defensive rage, with humility, until he was too tired for either.

And he slept.

**

Tony’s thoughts stuttered to a halt, though it took him a moment to realize what interrupted his flow: JARVIS had turned off his music and the lights on. He blinked, looked up from his code and met Bruce’s eyes through the holographic model of his second basement gently spinning mid-air.

“He woke up,” Bruce announced and dropped onto the workshop couch.

Tony checked the nanny cam in Loki’s bedroom, one of many screens flickering at the back of his workshop: a motionless heap under the blankets. He stretched and walked around the projector table, sending the hologram spinning as he passed it. “Good job us, saving the villain’s life. Any suggestions what we’re going to do with him?”

“I’m trying not to think about it.” Bruce seemed mostly tired. “I’d take a whiskey, though.”

“Music to my ears.” Tony found two mostly clean glasses and a bottle of Macallan and poured generously. He walked over to Bruce and clinked glasses before handing him one with a flourish. Bruce fished a dead bug out of the tumbler, then took a sip.

“We can’t just release him, can we, and we can’t hold him forever. Never mind that he’s trying to bring out the Hulk most days.” Bruce sighed.

“Just a real charmer, isn’t he.”

“I have no idea who’d be equipped to lock him up. Apart from Asgard.” Bruce looked pained at the notion.

Tony felt incredibly reluctant to send their murdering alien to his death. Something something, getting attached to someone you nurse back to health. It also seemed like a waste of resources and time. Fucking hell. Tony sauntered back to his desk, sipping his drink, thinking. “So what if we do just release him.”

Bruce began laughing, then choked when Tony raised an eyebrow at him. “You can’t be serious! No!”

Tony tossed back his whiskey, absentmindedly scrolling through the data SHIELD had sent over detailing past experiments. “I keep thinking about the giant guy that dug around his brain. All in all, it sounded that he was both under threat on his life, and not in his right mind.”

Bruce took a moment to mull that over, worrying at the fabric of his jeans. “You think he’s telling the truth?”

Tony shrugged. “As far as death bed confessions go, I’ll believe that he believes it.”

Bruce sank deeper into the couch, looking thoughtful. “It’d honestly not be surprising. He seemed deeply unwell, back in New York. Definitely not fully there.”

“You think it should make a difference in how we handle this?” Tony had been turning that thought in his brain ever since Loki mentioned it. How much should any of this matter? A whole lot. What if he tried taking over the world again? Then, logically, it’d be better to let Asgard go Marie Antoinette on the guy. But that’s not how being an Avenger worked, was it. (That wasn’t how Tony worked.)

Bruce sighed. “He also grinned like a child while carving an eye out of someone’s face.”

“You know that Barton seemed perfectly content to kill in Stuttgart. Think about how much the exposure to the scepter messed with us. Do we believe he was immune to that? I doubt it. Thor wasn’t.”

“I don’t know, Tony, he’s pretty unrepentant. Given past actions, that’s a big amount of trust to put in someone you shouldn’t be trusting at all.”

“I never said I trusted him. Honestly? He hits me as the type that’d rather not admit to weakness. Big time.”

Bruce laughed tiredly at that. “God. He just tried to threaten me when he couldn’t even get up from the floor.”

“Never said he wasn’t an asshole.” There was an obvious enough pattern to the data Tony was scrolling through. The sickness appeared to affect people based on distance and length of exposure rather than any environmental factors. Walls seemed to have no effect, neither did hazmat or masks. “JARVIS, calculate safe distances and time spans for handling this crap.”

JARVIS gave confirmation and the sluggishly rotating blueprint of the lower basement lit up in colored blocks: safe zones. Large enough for him to set up a control station on one end while he stored the technology on the other and gather info remotely through the Mark V. He had no intention of catching alien cancer.

Bruce was silent for a moment. “It’s probably normal that you’re trying to protect him. We’ve been spending an solid week helping him.”

Tony poured himself another two fingers of whiskey. Fuck that, make it four. “I’m not trying to make excuses. I’m trying to find a solution where we don’t kill a prisoner in our care.”

Banner gave him a level look. “I don’t want that, either.”

Tony turned his back on his project, arms crossed, faced Bruce. Bruce carried his exhaustion in the shoulders, slumped and round, diminishing him, accentuating the contrast to the Hulk. Tony was suddenly flooded with warmth and gratefulness for his friend’s support. He owed it to him to make this work. “Ideal scenario: we lock him up where people are equipped to deal with him and never think about him again.”

“You’d send him back to Asgard if they’d take him as a prisoner.”

“Barring that, let’s ignore his past and the option of capital punishment for a second. From a standpoint of pure damage control, we only need to know whether he’d hurt anyone again. And quite honestly, I want the intel he has on these here.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the hologram of a Chitauri jet ski.

Bruce watched it thoughtfully. “Tony, I don’t like this. We’re not trained in risk assessment for someone like Loki.”

“You want to call in Nat? Because I’m drawing the line, she’s gonna run straight to SHIELD and make a mess of this. I don’t do messy. It’s us or nobody.”

Bruce silently stared at his empty glass for second. “We need to be careful with this stuff. You have all of that sitting somewhere on the property, don’t you?”

Tony waved Bruce’s concerns away. “Inaccessible without codes or a nuclear bomb. No one is getting in there.”

Bruce didn’t seem convinced, gears visibly turning inside his head.

Tony sat down next to him, couch sagging under both their weights, tipping them together so their shoulders touched. He turned his glass in his hands, watching the whiskey tip this way and that, his fingers distorted through the amber liquid. “What happened in New York was a beginning. There is a whole universe out there that knows of us, and we have no idea what it’s filled with. Do I like or trust this guy? Absolutely not. But we’re not going to get better information on what to expect, alright?”

Bruce nodded slowly.

“Loki fell right into our lap. It’d be stupid not to take the opportunity to at least talk to him.”

Bruce let out a long exhale and met Tony’s eyes, a hint of green in his sclera. “Alright. As long as you’re just talking and he’s posing no danger. But if he gets violent, I’ll let the Hulk deal with it.”

Tony smiled at him, sharp and full of teeth. “I’m counting on it.”

**

“Rise and shine, time to stuff that hole in your chest.”

Loki blinked up at Iron Man’s face in confusion, confused dreams fading from his mind.

“Yeah, you’re right, that sounded dirty. Did that sound dirty, Bruce?”

“I’m not getting involved in this.” But Banner sounded mildly amused, and it left Loki feeling unsettled. When had they become this relaxed around him?

He began sitting up, still weak as a kitten. At least his elbows didn’t give out, this time. He pulled his legs under him to sit cross-legged, let Banner moisten and remove the large bandage.

“Yikes, I can’t believe that this is the thing getting better. Looks like a heat map of Antarctica.”

Loki looked down himself. Black, blue, purple. The padding in his chest was stained in dark red and yellows. He was glad he couldn’t feel much of it. “How much tissue did you have to remove?”

Iron Man looked to Banner.

“A couple of pounds of muscle and liver, which is where most of the bleeding came from,” Banner said calmly. “Your stomach was perforated, leaking acid into your guts. A human wouldn’t have survived this.”

“I’m no mortal.” Loki began pulling out the wadding. The smell was appalling.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Iron Man grabbed his wrist before he could dig further. “At least disinfect your hands, fuck. Don’t you have basic hygiene on Asgard?”

Loki restrained himself from snapping, instead exhaled slowly. “The poison is countered, yes? I’m neither a child nor senile, dirt won’t harm me.”

Iron Man stared at him, then at Banner. The latter shrugged and Iron Man released him. Loki grabbed forceps that had been laid out on the table next to him, dug into the wound to pull out the remaining wadding. A cold sweat was building on the back of his neck and that his hand was shaking, but he couldn’t feel much. Nothing besides the horror of seeing his body cut open and taken apart, irrevocably altered.

Blood dripping onto blank metal. Loki knew better than to struggle under punishment, best give them no reason to draw it out. He had misjudged what he was getting himself into, badly, and there was no one coming to save him. That hope had gone out of him long ago.

He threw wadding and pincers to the table in disgust, clattering on the metal tray.

“Let me clean it, just to make sure. Stay upright, please,” Banner gently steadied his shoulder, took up a fresh set of gloves and a spray bottle of clear liquid. Dull pain and waves of nausea radiating from the wound as he worked steadily, the cleaning fluid running into a towel, staining it a watery red.

“I’ll apply more of the numbing agent. It’s a kind of a salve, so I have to touch the open wound to apply it. You shouldn’t feel too much of it, but there will be pressure. You wanna lie down?”

Loki glared at him and Banner shrank back slightly.

“Well. Let me know if you’re feeling nausea or pain.”

Iron Man silently pivoted on his chair and pushed a plastic bowl into Loki’s lap. “No throwing up on my sheets.”

Loki ignored him. Banner had been right about the pain, but what he did feel was far from pleasant. He grasped the bowl as thought it would keep him upright, breathed through clenched teeth, felt a steady shiver setting in as he turned to treat his back.

“I think he should lie down,” Iron Man announced. “Seriously, he’s gonna fall over. I don’t want him in my lap, not before he’s found out about shampoo. What do you do to that hair of yours?”

“Will you shut up,” Loki hissed through gritted teeth.

“Tony, either be helpful or leave.” Banner sounded calm but distracted. Iron Man sat back, arms crossed, eyebrows raised in challenge.

By the time Banner was bandaging him, a large, square piece of fabric that glued to the undamaged skin, Loki did have to lean heavily on Iron Man, who for once managed to keep his silence. Banner began cleaning up and removing the medical equipment, much of it into a lidded bin. He then dropped a couple of pills and a glass of water on the nightstand.

“Take the antidote when you’re sure it’ll stay down.”

Loki picked them up, let them roll in his palms: panacea. And suddenly, he longed for a time when his worst mistakes could be fixed by a scolding and a healer’s assistance. He had courted danger long before they thought him a villain, in a misguided attempts to prove himself, when he had known himself as other, but not yet monstrous. There was that hunting trip on which a bilgesnipe had almost torn off his arm, its venom more malicious and fast-acting than whatever was crawling through his system today. (His brother had cried that day.)

“When did Thor come by?” He tipped back the pills, the sweet bitterness a welcome memory as he washed them down.

“He didn’t. He sent Jane Foster.” Iron Man said.

Loki leaned against the headboard, head pounding, disappointment heavy on his chest. Of course Thor hadn’t come. Why would he, he hadn’t when Loki was lost, had left him when he thought him dead and useless. He wasn’t sure why the thought robbed him of air.

“Uh-oh, you’re not going to cry, are you? I’m ill-equipped for crying.” Iron Man turned around and hollered: “Bruce?”

“Can you not have a modicum of dignity and shut your bleating goat-mouth for one minute.”

“Listen, pal, let’s not strain the concept of dignity too much. I’ve cleaned up your blood, vomit, and bodily fluids I’d rather not name, but I’ll draw the line at tears. Keep those to yourself.”

Mortification and fury colored Loki’s cheeks, and he vividly thought of throwing Iron Man out another window.

“Great! That I can deal with.”

Bruce poked his head in, looking between the two of them nervously. “What is it?”

“All good, emotions have been averted.”

Bruce looked ready to clobber Tony. “I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me unless it’s an emergency.”

There was a moment of silence in which Loki averted his face until the heat of shame had left his cheeks.

“So. You wanna watch a movie or something?”

“I wish for you to leave.”

“I get it, sugarplum, but no can do. I’m on supervillain watch.”

“Pray tell, where would I go when I can barely walk.” Loki hated the way it came out, utterly pitiful.

“Didn’t stop you before.”

It had, this time. Loki kept his silence.

“Alright. I’m picking the movie, seeing that you have no opinion and probably don’t even know any. An absolute shame that needs to be remedied.”

Iron Man chose a tale of a cursed ring and the journey to destroy it. And even though it was distorted through a human lens, the way it spoke of evil and the artifact that enabled it settled uneasily within Loki. Eventually he dozed off, dipped into dreams filled with monsters of old.

**

When Loki saw Thanos for the first time, little more than a shadow at the far end of the ‘interrogation’ room, he recognized him a Titan. Knew him to be older than legend, old enough to know the kernel of truth before the fairy tale was written. And when the Other asked him to give up Asgard’s defenses, asked about Odin’s vaults, for the first time in a long time, Loki knew to be afraid for more than his own life.

**

A shadow loomed large in the flickering light, face hidden and silhouette distorted, too close, close enough to hurt. Loki’s heart jumped into his mouth and his hand grabbed the assailant’s neck, fingernails digging into soft skin. Words formed on his lips, practiced million times, and the spell tore through his arm, ready to crush the fragile throat—

It fizzled and died.

Loki’s hand was slapped away, slammed to the mattress, arm pinned.

“Stop that!”

He found himself staring up at Iron Man.

“I …” Loki couldn’t find the breath to speak, his chest not expanding the way it should.

Iron Man released him and Loki snatched his hands away, touched his own throat as it closed up, wheezing. Something was wrong. The poison had damaged his lungs, the medication was faulty, the spell had backfired— Why could he not breathe?

Iron Man backed off, palms out, movie still playing behind him, blue light of his arc reactor glinting off wide eyes. His voice was low, suspicious. “Hey. It’s just me.”

“I’m not …” Loki rasped, stared at his hands, shaking. His magic had died at his fingertips. If this had been an attack, he had no way to protect himself. Thanos would have crushed him like an insect.

He needed to calm down, to think. Again, he reached for his magic and it stuttered and fizzled. He wasn’t thinking straight. Loki focused on the wall behind Iron Man’s head, found a bland piece of art. Plain bars of color on white canvas, stacked like bars. He was fine. Pastels, oranges, reds, he was fine. A sunset on water, a burning horizon, the inside of his own eyelids, bruises on his stomach, blood on his lips, he was fine, he was fine—

“You, uh … ” Iron Man was talking and Loki tore his eyes away to look at him. He couldn’t concentrate, the words fell through his mind like liquid through spread fingers. Iron Man grabbed and held up something tasseled and soft. A knitted blanket, white, intricately patterned. Loki latched onto that. He already knew that someone other than Iron Man had furnished this house. He could feel them in the softness of the sheets, smell them in the bathing soaps, the gentle, abstract art. Love and care surrounded Iron Man like a cocoon, while the man barely seemed to notice. A layer of safety. It might have been the mundanity of it that returned the breath to his lungs.

“I apologize, I thought you another,” he said weakly.

Iron Man didn’t comment, just held out the blanket, and Loki stared for a moment. He wasn’t cold, though he was shivering. Specters of the past haunted his dreams and a blanket would do nothing to change that.

“Thank you,” he accepted it, careful not to stain it with blood.

**

“Hey Pep,” Tony walked through the living room to drop down on the couch. The windows had been repaired, separating his home from the early morning darkness, damp and cool. The workers had left dusty footprints on the carpet, but apart from that been quick, silent and invisible.

“Hey,” Pepper smiled softly from the screen. Her tablet was propped up and at her back he was a sun-doused kitchen of the flat she kept in New York. Her hair shone like spun copper in the morning light.

“How is it going? You look great.”

“I’m fine. I looked over the subsidiary paperwork. Gary says you can’t put only yourself on payroll, and not for that amount of money. It looks odd.”

Tony shrugged. “Put down a consultant, name to be defined.”

“As long as you’re sure. SHIELD has been calling about clause three—”

“I’m not changing it. They’re getting a weak point analysis and recommendations on future attacks. I’m not giving them instructions on building Chitauri weaponry. Firstly, it’s boring and derivative, secondly, I’m not a weapon manufacturer. Thirdly, it wasn’t even that impressive.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling them.” Pepper sounded calm and in control and Tony remembered why he loved her.

“If they keep riding your ass, tell them to call me directly.”

Pepper nodded and blew out a sigh. “How is … your problem?”

Tony noticed a gull landing on the windowsill outside, hopping by the formerly broken window and hopefully tapping it. He wondered how long it would take for the local bird population to understand their steady supply of leftovers had been cut off. “The ‘problem’ has begun using the bathroom on his own, so that’s a massive improvement.”

“Any word from Thor?”

“I’m sure he’s just stuck in traffic.”

Pepper’s face turned worried. “Tony, I don’t like this. You can’t be saddled with him.”

“We’ve been over this. I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him. But I also don’t trust anyone that would take him.”

“You’re going to keep him around, aren’t you.”

“I haven’t even told Rhodey, that’s how little I want anyone on Earth to take custody.”

Pepper looked at her hands, folded before her. “Tony, you cannot save the world by yourself.”

Tony clutched at his chest in dramatic consternation. “I’m shocked and insulted. Have you been watching me the past few years?”

“I have. You almost died, multiple times.” Pepper sounded pained and Tony felt bad. He didn’t like this development in their relationship: the guilt that sat hot and heavy in his chest whenever Iron Man came up. He was Iron Man, for God’s sake, it’s not like he could stop. (He couldn’t, there was no way.) “Have you thought more about contacting Asgard directly?”

“No. I want to talk to him, which I can’t do if they kill him.”

Pepper visibly steeled herself. “That would be terrible, but also something he brought onto himself.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Of course we know that! He killed hundreds of people!”

“So have I!”

“Not like that!”

“What’s the difference, because I can’t tell!” The words filled the room, too loud, too large. As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. There was nothing he could do to make up for the damage STARK Industries had wrought in supplying terror and war.

Pepper had turned pale, her coffee forgotten. “It was never your fault. You had no idea where your weapons were going.”

“I should have known. There’s no excuse for it.”

“Tony, you changed that as soon as you realized. You, as a person, changed.”

“I had help with that.”

“You don’t know that he didn’t!”

“That’s exactly it. I don’t. So I’m going to talk to him, and I’ll find out whether he’s a threat.”

“That-that’s insane! He’s manipulating you!”

“He’s having panic attacks in my guest room. I’m pretty sure he’s not doing it on purpose.”

“Even if he’s in pain, he’s a terrible person. You’re only feeling responsible because you found him in when he was dying.”

Tony shrugged, defensive, guard up. “So what? I wouldn’t have stood a chance without Yinsen.”

“Tony, I cannot do this again. I cannot … I can’t watch you destroy yourself!”

“Then don’t!”

Her phone rang and she looked off-screen, eyes ringed with white. “I have to take this.” She looked like she wanted to say something else, couldn’t find the words, her phone insisting for her attention the whole time. “I’ll talk to you later.” The screen went dark.

Tony stared at the empty call screen. He flung the tablet to the couch, buried his face in his hands and groaned in frustration. He didn’t want to fight with Pepper. This was supposed to be easy, comfortable.

How did he keep fucking this up.

**

Helpless. He couldn’t defend himself.

The thought dug into Loki’s mind like a parasite, gnawing, ugly, insistent. He allowed Iron Man and Banner to care for his wounds, to bring him food and drink, all while watching him as though he’d try to wring their necks at any moment. (As though he could.)

The only time they left him alone was for him to use the facilities, and even then Loki doubted that their artificial servant wasn’t watching. The bathroom had been stripped of most of its cabinets, of nooks and crannies to hide anything in; Loki could tell it was a new development from exposed drill holes, the rectangle outlines of furniture in gray rubber. JARVIS had eyes in the center of the ceiling, the corners of the room, likely behind the mirrors. Where else? Was there a dead angle? He didn’t have the luxury of careful planning when the need to know was a silent scream in his chest, building and building until it was filled to bursting.

He let Iron Man wheel him to the restroom and waited for the door to close. Loki needed time alone more than anything else, and he itched with the need to be clean. Washing his hair was as good an excuse as any to take additional time in the washroom in case it was needed.

Slowly, arms straining with the effort, he wheeled himself over to the wash basin, studied his face in the mirror—less a walking corpse, but still sallow, bruises under his eyes—ran a hand through his hair, lank and greasy. He grimaced. What once had been perfumed oils had turned into a matted mass, thick with black dust and sand from a dead world. The sink filled quickly with warm water and after some consideration, he finger combed his hair forward, leaned over the basin and scooped hands full of water over his scalp. He spread liquid soap and scrubbed, rinsed, painstakingly, once, twice, three times until the water was a murky gray and the washing fluid began to foam white.

The pain in his chest had turned into an insistent pounding of blood under the careful administration of Allsoothe, but the continuous motion of lifting his arms over his head awakened it anew. By the time he felt clean, his shirtfront soaked from spilled water, shivering with exhaustion, limbs and mind heavy and dull, the wound radiating with hot pain.

Utterly pathetic.

Hadn’t it been for the nagging insistence of his fears, he would have waited, given himself time to recover. But he had to know. He had to.

He bowed his head, pretended to catch his breath. (Did catch his breath if he was being honest with himself, which he resented.) He hid his hands below the marble counter, signed the incantation for a simple illusion rather than spoke it, and reached for his magic.

For a moment, he thought his reservoirs were dry, and fear rolled through him like dust storm, blinding and disorienting, only halted when he stumbled across a sluggish trickle of power. What used to be a vast ocean his core was reduced to a puddle, barely enough to wet his soles. A green shimmer crawled down his arms played over his hands, fading before the working could form. It left him light-headed, vision sparking white.

This was bad.

The door flew open. Iron Man grabbed the chair handle, more threw than turned it around, metal hand seizing the front of his flimsy, soaked night shirt and lifting him an inch off the seat. Loki grabbed the arms of the chair and snarled, found himself staring up into the glowing eye slits of the armor, looming and large.

“What the hell were you doing?”

“What concern is it of yours?”

Iron Man flipped his face plate open and he looked somewhere between astonished and furious, yet his voice remained even and steady. “What concern is it of mine? We’re not playing this game. You’re not stupid, you know the deal: we don’t kill you and you play nice. What did you just do?”

“Wash my hair, you moron.”

“Don’t be obtuse.”

“Then I did nothing, as you might well have observed.” Loki’s voice shook with frustration.

“I’m calling bullshit, you’ve used your mojo around JARVIS often enough. He knows what to look for.”

Loki gritted his teeth. “Release me.”

“Answer me, and I’ll think about it.”

They were locked in a glare. Loki’s muscles were shaking with the effort of not going limp like a rag doll in Iron Man’s grip.

“You trying to lose your privacy privileges, Malfoy? Do you think I want to watch you fucking pee?” Iron Man gave him an angry shake that turned Loki’s limbs to jelly. He lost his grip on the chair’s armrests and sagged, one hand flailing up to grip at Iron Man’s wrist, missing once, before he could clutch it to hold himself up. His chest was on fire, and he felt his face heat up in shame and anger, teeth creaking in an effort to regain control.

Something unreadable flickered across Iron Man’s face, and he finally lowered Loki back down. Carefully, as though he was fragile, and fury surged through Loki when he recognized the pity for what it was.

“For fuck’s sake, just tell me what you were doing.”

Loki pressed his shaking hands together in his lap, controlled his feelings. He was out of breath and adrenaline high.

“Did you call for backup? Huh?”

Loki couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “Who would I be calling in your expert opinion?”

“Chitauri, giant dude, villain friends? We gonna have another invasion on one of my properties? God, don’t let it be that. Pepper would kill me.”

“I did not contact any allies.” As though he had any left. He weighted the lies against the price of the truth. (Oh, he hated this game in which is only bargaining chips were his pride, his self-worth.) “No. I tested my magic. It …” He swallowed convulsively and suddenly found he couldn’t bear the weight of Iron Man’s glare anymore. He stared at his hands, knuckles white and holding onto each other, because there was nothing else left for Loki to cling to. “It seems unavailable to me, at the moment.”

“Good start, now elaborate.”

A shiver ran down his shoulders, spine, exhaustion settling into a gentle trembling. “My magic is depleted. I expect it’s a side-effect …” Of what? The poison? His near-death experience? (Of breaking one too many times.) Loki couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“Uh-huh. And why would I believe that?”

Loki gave a mirthless laugh, “I’m still here, am I not?”

“How do I know this is not exactly where you want to be? Last time we stuck you in a cage, you treated it like a vacation.”

“Did I?” Loki didn’t have the energy to find that funny.

There was a moment of silence. Then Iron Man cursed quietly under his breath, took a step back. The suit opened up with mechanical whirring, its innards gleaming metallic, and released Anthony Edward Stark, mortal and unassuming in his printed t-shirt and torn jeans. Still stronger than Loki, and wasn’t that pure irony.

“I’m warning you. Abuse any of your freedoms and they’re gone.”

‘Freedoms.’ An ugly sneer spread over Loki’s face. Stark reached for the handles of the wheelchair and he grabbed his forearm sharply, craned his neck, forced him to make eye contact.

“I’m under no illusions of my position,” Loki said softly, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Forgive me if my gratefulness is not on par with your kindness.”

An odd emotion crossed Iron Man’s face. “This has nothing to do with kindness.”

Anger surged within Loki, and it left an aftertaste of fear. “Oh? What do you gain then, Anthony, if it doesn’t make you feel good and needed? Would you style yourself my new master? What purpose am I to serve for you? How would you use me?”

Time briefly stopped, eyes locked, and Iron Man looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “I—”

“Don’t dare to think you could control me,” Loki snarled, fingernails digging into skin in a way that must have been painful. “I will not bend to another, again.”

Iron Man’s gaze flickered briefly from Loki’s face, his exposed neck, eyes dark and face slack. He swallowed, looked almost afraid and—

Oh.

Loki released him and broke eye contact before realization could show on his face. His heart was racing, fury giving way to confusion. He hadn’t thought it an angle, not in his pitiful state. (But mortals bonded easily, didn’t they, given their short life spans and proclivity for trust.) He knew how to play that game: in political circles, at dinner parties, in the dimly lit palace gardens, tipsy on just the right amount of sparkling mead, charming another trade deal, another concession, admission out of someone. But this was something else entirely.

What Loki needed—administrations of an Asgardian healer—Tony Stark couldn’t give and what he wanted—his freedom—he wouldn’t. But Loki might still find a way for this to be useful.

Eventually, Iron Man moved and began pushing him back to his room, uncharacteristically quiet.

**

Tony stared blankly at his screen, work forgotten, long after Loki’s breathing evened out.

There were times when his nightmares—falling through an endless starscape, explosion blooming before him, unable to breathe as someone held his face under water—mixed with others. Snatches of dreams in which Loki, eyes wild, half crazed, had never thrown him through that window, but instead grabbed him and pushed him up against his bar, hand on his throat, and— well. He tended to blame his healthy libido for those and tried not to think about it.

He had never expected it to surface when he was awake.

“I’m insane,” he whispered at his laptop. And maybe this was what Pepper meant when she called him suicidal.

Chapter Text

The following days settled ebb and flow of wound care, pain, and the boredom associated with sickness. His body failed to heal at its normal pace, and it endlessly needed: to eat, to drink, to divulge itself of the waste, to be moved about with painstaking care. And to rest, and rest, and rest, until Loki wanted to scream in frustration.

Three days passed in sleep after the backwater procedure that counted for surgery on Midgard, and it had been another three since. And yet, he could neither keep his balance when he stood, legs shaking like that of a newborn animal (or a dying one, he thought darkly), nor produce more than a few sparks of magic. His pools of power were refilling, but the process was painstakingly slow.

His body was a tool that had abruptly stopped functioning and that Loki found himself furious with it.

When the manor atop the cliffs went quiet, when his enemies were at rest and Loki watched the stars through the large windows, he waited with trepidation: for Thanos to find him, for the Allfather to send his armies.

For Thor.

**

“I’m bored,” Iron Man announced, snapped to his feet and pointed at the wheelchair. “We’re going to the lab. Promise not to do anything nefarious.”

Loki rolled his eyes, but put down his book and began the laborious process of getting to his feet. He braced himself against wheelchair’s arm rests, but could already tell that it was too far away and that he would fall. That had happened exactly once and he was not keen to repeat the experience. He hesitated and Iron Man did what so far only Banner had dared: abruptly leaned down and grabbed him around the chest, chin on his shoulder, and lifted him half off the bed. It made for an odd moment of forced intimacy that Loki both hated with a passion and had come to rely on. Iron Man then pivoted to unceremoniously dump him into the wheelchair, then quickly stepped back as though burned.

“Yep, that wasn’t weird at all. Let’s go.”

Iron Man grabbed the handles at the back of the primitive vehicle, pushed him out of the bedroom, through the hallway, into an elevator and down into the lab. The glass pane Iron Man had shot down in pursuit of him was still missing.

“Considering that you’re bed-bound, I’m not going to put you into restraints. Don’t make me regret it.”

“I shall simply sit here and be bored, then, would that please you?” Loki said, perhaps slightly more churlish than necessary.

Iron Man gave him a suspicious stare. “And now I don’t trust you to do that, at all. I’ve got work to do, Merlin. No distracting me, no touchy. Read your book.”

With one last look over his shoulder, the artificer went to collect his tools for his latest project. Briefly, Loki thought about wheeling himself away from Iron Man’s workbench, to explore. Even if his strength barely sufficed, a bit of telekinesis tended to aid him well enough in moving the chair around.

“You’re going to hover, aren’t you?” Iron Man made a face as he returned to his desk, piece of armor slung over his shoulder. He began throwing tools from drawers onto the workbench, clustering around a half-assembled metal arm. With a gesture that much looked like magic, he summoned a blueprint above the physical version of his project.

“I’m not touching anything,” Loki said innocently, cheek resting on his fist

Iron Man gave him a halfhearted glare. “JARVIS, time to party.” Lights dimmed, music began blaring from the speakers and a silent news feed flickered across screens at the back wall.

Loki had watched the most lauded engineers of the universe—Dwarven mastercraftsmen—work before, but the singleminded precision and attention to detail with which Iron Man dove into his work reminded him also of his own craft. Which Loki suddenly missed with a vengeance.

It had been over a year since he’d had any access to his own library, projects abandoned half-way to completion. He thought of his sprawling, sun-doused desks on Asgard, linden trees outside his windows illuminating his research in shades of green. The contrast to Iron Man’s workshop could not have been starker, but the intensity of the work was familiar.

Loki studied the blueprints Iron Man was referring to in the process, bright blue outlines hanging mid-air. His fingers itched to reach out, turn it this way or that, and he instead studied the way that the engineer transferred illusion into reality, welding, bending, shaping until an idea turned solid.

Iron Man turned around with a hum and flinched when he almost barreled into Loki, clearly having forgotten he was there. He made a swooping gesture and the music turned down.

“Ever heard of personal space?”

“I’m right where you left me.”

“Well, we’re changing that,” Iron Man grabbed the back of the chair and wheeled him into the middle of the floor, out of reach of any tables. “There, what do you need for enrichment, huh? Books? Movies? No internet, I don’t trust you with that.”

“I’d enjoy some information on your craft,” Loki requested.

Iron Man narrowed his eyes. “If you’re trying to find a weak point in my armor, good luck, there aren’t any.” He actually grabbed a book-sized screen from a nearby table. “JARVIS, get me a primer on engineering on this thing, and some college physics for reference. Protocol toddler: no internet, no phone calls, no digital assistant. Kill Bluetooth and location. And it’s bedtime when I’m not in the room.” He handed it to Loki. “There. If you try anything nefarious, it’s gone. Have fun and don’t bother me.”

Loki turned the device in his hands, looking for a way to switch it on. It glowed to live the moment his fingers touched the screen, a rectangle of brightness in the dark room. He found the files after a moment—a substantial amount covering the limited basics of human science—and began reading the, indeed very dry, source material. He had to look up more terms than he had expected, the Allspeak failing him more often than he’d have liked, but the digital library was extensive enough to allow him falling into a comfortable rhythm of research.

“JARVIS,” he asked after a while, quietly enough that Iron Man wouldn’t hear him over his music. “Would you guide me to writing utensils and paper?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we do not have any available in the workshop. Mister Stark firmly believes in a paper-free environment.” The voice was located to his side of the room, but Iron Man still perked up, watched him with narrowed eyes.

“Are you seducing my servant? Stop that.”

“I’d expect JARVIS rather resistant to any advances. I would like to take notes.”

“There is software on the tablet. Use that.”

With JARVIS’s help, Loki located the digital notepad in question and made a face. Allspeak translated books well enough, but it wouldn’t help him with the Midgardian keyboards and its semi-random order of letters. Latin wasn’t exactly his forte, but he had received lessons as a boy; it would have to do. He was working to type his observations into the tablet for a moment, clumsily, before he realized Iron Man was watching him.

“I thought you were working,” he commented dryly.

Iron Man got up, grabbed something from a table that he twirled mid-air, then held it out to him. A small stick of plastic.

“It’s a pen. You can write on the screen like paper.”

Loki accepted it. Drew a few runes. Found he could still scroll up and down, switch between book and note taking. “Thank you. This will do.” He flicked a glance to Iron Man who was still watching him, almost unnervingly intensely.

“I see you found actual shampoo.”

“I see you’re still struggling to give someone a compliment.” Loki flicked quickly to a passage on hydraulics before copying the formulae over.

“Very funny. You actually understanding any of that stuff?”

“Even Thor would recognize most of this. Though the simplifications you use are off-puttingly inaccurate, and your concept of gravity esoteric, at best.”

“First: rude. Second: What do you mean by that?”

Loki took him in: the barely contained curiosity, the hungry glint in his eye. So much attention, focused on an off-hand comment. Loki created a new note and drew the unifying formula, first in Asgardian, then in shaky Midgardian notation, applying what he had learned in the past hour. Explained its workings, its uses. The constants, the variables, the implications. Iron Man pulled up a chair, quiet and wide-eyed. Loki paused.

“I don’t have a translation for this part.” Loki tapped the letters Yc. “The energy of an iota of magic is equal to its frequency multiplied by Yngvild’s constant. I’d frankly have to look it up past the fourth digit.”

Iron Man was staring at him blankly. “You’re saying we’re missing a whole branch of physics that would explain quantum mechanics.”

Loki shrugged. “If you say so.”

Iron Man leaned back, hands pressed to his face and stared into empty space, eyes moving as thought tracking invisible writing. He remained so for maybe a minute, then inhaled sharply, held a hand out to Loki, making grabbing motions towards the tablet. “Let me copy that real quick.”

Loki handed it over, silently amused.

“Don’t go anywhere.” Iron Man got up, pushed his project to the corner of the table, robotics forgotten, and copied the formula down. Began scribbling frantically, pulled up a few different texts on his screen, rearranged and rewrote equations. Stared at his work, pale as though seeing a ghost. Got up and went over to Loki, grabbed his chair and pushed him towards the work station.

“You’re bored, so I’ve decided you’re helping.”

“Is that the reason,” Loki smirked.

“Yes, take a minute, be smug about it, stupid mortals and all that. Done? Good.” Tony tapped the screen. “Now explain this part.”

So Loki did.

**

I was well past dark when Bruce found them: Loki curled up on the workshop’s couch, napping, and Tony buzzing with the need to share what he had been putting together over the past six hours.

“Brucey-bear!” Tony found a mildly used mug, dumped out the screws it had been collecting and filled it with fresh coffee. He couldn’t remember whether Bruce liked milk but it frankly didn’t mater, seeing that he didn’t have any. He dropped two teaspoons of sugar in, stirred, and pressed the mug into his hands. “Drink this, wake up, sit down. I need to show you something.”

“Oh god,” Bruce muttered, scrubbed his face. “Can I have some food first?”

“I’d say yes, but frankly, this can’t wait.”

Bruce looked slightly more alert at that. Also, slightly more worried.

“Not to get you to excited, but the resident supervillain just revolutionized quantum mechanics.”

Bruce deflated visibly, took a sip of the coffee, then made a face.

“Do you need creamer? I think I got some. Somewhere.” Tony began rummaging for some of those little packets Pepper kept around.

“How much coffee did you put in this? The smell alone is giving me heart-palpitations.”

“No idea, DUM-E made that pot. I promise, it’s better than the first.”

Bruce sighed, but took another sip, then pushed it at Tony. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to wake up the other guy.”

Tony shrugged and took a large gulp. Little sludg-y, he’d admit. Definitely better than the first pot. “Alright, ready to have your mind blown?”

They talked through the next hour while drinking coffee—tea for Bruce—argued while Bruce made midnight pancakes, then shouted at each other with their mouths full, and afterwards went into heated discussion while filling up the digital whiteboards in the lab. Bruce, as anticipated, did enjoy having his mind blown quite a bit.

When Loki woke up sometime in the small hours of morning, he looked suspicious to be regaled with toast, tea, and then be included in the brainstorming session. It took Tony most of the morning to realize that Loki was smiling more and more frequently, answering questions patiently and politely, and generally came alive under the attention. There was a good amount of fondness radiating off of him that, combined with the sharpness of his mind, took Tony utterly by surprise. It also was alarmingly attractive. Loki smiled softly at something that Bruce said and Tony found himself wondering what that mouth looked like fallen open, wanton, panting, calling Tony’s name, hair fanned across his pillows.

Which was bad. It was really bad.

“May I help you?” Loki lifted an eyebrow and Tony realized he’d been staring.

“Yngvild’s equation.” Tony said quickly, stepped closer and tapped the screen Loki had been using as a whiteboard. His hair smelled familiar, sweet and heavy. “You haven’t explained this part.”

Loki fell into a sort of mini lecture, though he spoke of science in cadence and flow of a story teller, voice low and smooth. Not that Tony heard any of it. The proximity of their bodies was taking up most of his brain space, the inches separating them pressing against his awareness. Loki suddenly turned to him and gave him a questioning look, curls tumbling over his shoulder, resting against sharp collar bones revealed by the low-cut henley Tony had loaned him. Tony realized that he had leaned in close to see what Loki was doing, that they were inches apart.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Tony murmured before he could stop himself, heart hammering.

Loki gave him an appraising look, searching Tony’s face for … Tony didn’t know for what. But he didn’t pull away. What if Tony leaned in? Would he open his mouth, grow pliant under his lips, his hands, what would that voice sound like if—

Goddammit.

“This has been lovely, but I need to hit the hay,” Tony announced and got up.

Bruce actually looked relieved. Tony shot him a dirty look, then remembered that he had not slept at all last night and didn’t remember getting more than a few hours at noon the day before. Bruce probably thought him on the verge of a breakdown. He liked to keep track of silly things like that.

Tony gave him a good clap on the shoulder, awkwardly aborted a similar gesture towards Loki and headed off.

He needed to call Pepper. He was probably just cooped up. His brain did these things—Bruce had also started looking dangerously attractive, but at least he didn’t smell like his girlfriend’s goddamn shampoo—and he needed an outlet.

Tony grabbed his phone to text Pepper, hovered over a missed message and phone call from yesterday night.

“We need to talk”

Well. Fuck.

**

“We need to talk”

Tony stared at Peppers’ message, open on his phone, then deliberately closed it and went to scroll the news, again.

STARK Interstellar is expected to become the first line of defense against threats from outer space. Witnesses describe Iron Man strong-arming the military into releasing the alien technology—

“You bet I did,” Tony muttered. He was chewing on his thumbnail, leg bouncing, one ear bud dangling as Justin Hammer appeared on screen.

‘Stark’s not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. We’re business men, he and I, and what I see? This is him getting back into weapon manufacturing, back into a game. You know, he lost a lot of credibility putting that secretary of his in charge— ’

Tony skipped the rest of the interview with Hammer, fast-forwarding to shaky cell phone coverage of him threatening Laurel and Hardy. He had to admit that it wasn’t a great look. Maybe there was a reason people told him to get enough sleep before going out on missions.

He also was pretty sure that for the past half hour, Loki had only been pretending to read. Instead, his eyes kept sliding over to Tony’s screen where he had been scrolling news feeds instead of doing work. He snapped the laptop shut and turned to Loki.

“So. Second opinion time. What do you think of the data?”

Loki glanced at the papers spread across his lap—it had taken Tony a while to locate his printer, but this was easier to control for tampering than screens—and picked up a few. Numbers were circled, connections drawn, small runes on the side showing what Tony had learned to recognize as Asgardian math notation. “Nothing stands out by itself, but some of these values could point to the presence of, for lack of a more accurate term, magic.”

“Are you being serious?”

Loki gave him a carefully blank look. “It is not a given, I’m missing information that Midgardian technology could not hope to record. I’d have to inspect it to be sure.”

Tony grabbed the paper, looked at the numbers Loki had underlined, crossed out, worked into new combination. “Yep, I have no idea what any of this means. Are you going to teach me or what? Chop, chop, unfold that beautiful mind of yours.”

Loki smiled, visibly pleased by the attention, and launched into a lengthy explanation that came close to breaking Tony’s brain in mostly pleasant ways. By the end, it was difficult to remember that he was not supposed to be friends with this man, that being his single source on turning science inside out and reshaping it wasn’t going to make up for mass murdering tendencies.

Which gave Tony a splendid idea.

“Alright, what you’re saying is that I have no chance of detecting any of this crap, right?”

“Unless you wish to learn magic,” Loki agreed.

Tony paused. “I’m getting back to you on that. I assume it’s not a three-step process and finished by the weekend?”

“I studied for centuries to be where I am.”

“Yep, don’t have the time. Other suggestion: seeing that you’re mostly up and about, how’d you like to clean up your mess?”

Loki’s smile faltered, face closing off. “I have been answering your questions on the Chitauri, have I not? What else are you asking?”

“Yeah. Your bug army? Apart from doing a whole lot of damage, they left their stuff and corpses all over town. We got rampant black market deals, the government is trying to round it all up and is failing. And this stuff is getting people sick.” Tony took out three HoloSpheres, threw them to the ground and activated them to project one of the Chitauri jet skis he’d been studying midair. “JARVIS, give me the variations.” The machine split into the three distinct models he’d identified so far.

Loki’s face was perfectly blank as he studied the 3D imaging, face pale in the blue light. “I do not know what you are alluding to, but I will tell you what I know.”

“Great. Let’s start with the most pressing issue. Why does anyone spending more than a day around these end up in a hospital?” Tony was watching him closely, looking for a lie. (Hoping he’d be able to detect it.)

A flicker of emotion, gone as fast as it was there. “Even healthy mortals easily acquire infection. Have you considered transferable disease?”

“So it’s not a safeguard.”

“It’s not by design. No.”

“We don’t think that’s it’s transferred physically. See, for example this researcher.” He pulled up a security feed of a woman working in a SHIELD lab onto this laptop. She knelt by one of the jet skis, packaged into layers of bright protective gear, and took it apart layer by layer. “She tested for bacteria, microbes, toxins, you name it. Wore hazmat the whole time, didn’t even breathe the same air. She developed a brain tumor over the course of a week and has been in a coma since.” The feed fast-forwarded through multiple workdays, ending as the woman suddenly collapsed in the middle of the floor.

“I am not …” Loki exhaled, frustration breaking through his careful facade. “I have not studied the healing arts in any capacity. I cannot tell you what ails your kind, nor why.”

“I’d say radiation, but the jet ski in my lab scans for nothing. Zip. Nada. Bruce has no idea, either.”

Loki gave him an incredulous look. “You acquired one. Upon realizing they kill your kind.”

“Nothing I do is without risk.” Tony pointed at him: “And you have spent a lot of time around these, without side effects. So. How would you like to become an official consultant with STARK Interstellar?”

“You want me to do your research for you.” Loki’s face was perfectly blank.

“It’s the least you could do. You’re responsible for the whole thing, and you owe me. Big time.”

Loki stared at the jet skis spinning mid-air a while longer, jaw clenching. “Turn that off.”

He killed the projection with the press of a button, collected the HoloSpheres.

Loki sank back against the headboard looking shaken. Tony crossed his arms, gave him a minute to work through whatever that haunted look implied, impatience finally winning out. “Will you do it?”

“I …” Loki closed his eyes. “Do I have a choice?”

Tony shifted from foot to foot, refused to feel bad for taking what he could get. “Honestly? Not a great look if you refuse. At least give me a reason.”

Loki hesitated, then shook his head. “I’ll do it.”

Relief flooded Tony. He had not gotten anywhere in the few days he’d had with the handful of jet skis, and while he had several ideas how to proceed, he’d be glad to do this fast. People were still dying out there and he didn’t want that on his conscience. Not more of them, not while he was harboring Loki, the guy whom he’d failed to protect them from in the first place. “Great, we’re starting tomorrow.”

Loki chuckled, pressed a hand to the wound, breath deliberately slow. His voice was decidedly bitter when he said: “Starting when I can move on my own, you mean?”

“Yeah. Okay, that’s fair. I’m waiting on another shipment of that stuff, anyway.”

Loki nodded reluctantly, the prior joy and openness replaced with tired suspicion.

And if losing that budding trust stung, Tony could take it. It didn’t matter, shouldn’t matter. He wasn’t even supposed to like this guy.

And he didn’t.

**

Loki was visibly withdrawn over the next couple of days, brooding, his look turned haunted more often than before. Enough so that Bruce approached Tony about it over breakfast: “He hasn’t insulted me in a solid forty-eight hours.”

“Learned some manners, I guess?” Tony shoved the box of donuts at Bruce and picked through the assembled sandwiches a pimply teenager had dropped off half an hour ago.

“He’s been looking as though he’s about to have a nervous breakdown. Did something happen when I wasn’t there?”

Tony scratched the back of his neck and looked to the monitors. JARVIS was displaying video footage of Loki’s room showed him unmoving in his bed, face turned towards the window. Fast asleep. “So. Did I tell you about STARK Interstellar?”

“You might have mentioned it. About a hundred times. I’m pretty sure I’m caught up on your progress, actually.”

“Yeah, so, I can’t get close to the tech SHIELD dropped off without either cancer or Pepper killing me.”

“Right.”

“But he can. So I made him lead consultant.”

Bruce fumbled and dropped his tea cup, cursed and jumped up as hot liquid spilled over both his shirt and pants. Tony found himself half standing, grabbing some napkins from the pile of takeout boxes and shoving them at Bruce.

“You-you’re joking, right?” Bruce asked, in the middle of getting out of his blue button down and blotting tea stains out of the t-shirt beneath. “I know you wanted to ask him questions, but … you wouldn’t really do that. Not even you would do that.”

“You were there when he put Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle through the grinder, right, or was that your evil clone?”

“He’s insane! And a criminal! And those are literally the weapons he was using to try and reach world domination!” Bruce paused, rolled his eyes to the ceiling and held up a finger indicating silence, counting under his breath as the green on his neck and collar bones faded back to pink.

“Uh, take your time.”

He did. When he spoke, it was calm and even. “Sorry about that. But, Tony, you can’t be serious.”

“Actually, considering he’s not only the best but the only source of information we have on the origin and function of that stuff, it makes perfect sense.”

“I thought you were just going to talk to him.” Bruce groaned as though in pain, dropped his face into his hands. “Why would you do this? Why am I here?”

“I’m letting you know that I’m beginning to feel a little judged.”

“You cannot trust him.” The words came out muffled behind Bruce’s hands.

“I don’t.”

“You do! If you didn’t, why would you put him in vicinity of both transportation and weaponry? What makes you think this is a good idea?”

“Because he doesn’t want to do it.”

Bruce looked at him through his fingers. “Seriously?”

Tony shrugged and stretched, interlocking his fingers behind his head. “If he planned to take the stuff and escape, he’d jump on the opportunity, right? Instead, he’s sulking like a teenager since I brought it up.”

“I have to be honest. I don’t think that’s enough.”

“Just …” Tony deflated, sighed. “Don’t trust him, trust me, okay? I think it will work out.”

Bruce hesitated, then let out a long sigh. “Just keep me informed, please. And let me know if it turns in to a Code Green.”

Tony smiled. “Sure thing.”

**

The next time Tony was on villain watch, he brought a wooden chest that had been passed down to him from his father. It had taken him a while to find, buried deep in his junk room and filled with memories. He sat with it, quietly, for a while in his office, hand carefully placed atop the lid. It wasn’t the set he had learned to play on, but it was close enough, deeply ingrained with memories of the family home, back when he still thought he could grow to fulfill his father’s expectations. (It had never been enough, not for Howard.)

When he entered the bedroom, he waited exactly long enough for Bruce to close the bedroom door behind him.

“Scoot over, we’re playing chess.”

Loki looked up from his tablet, reading something that looked like advanced physics, baffled.

“Yep, I can’t believe it either. But you’ve been in a bad mood and it shows. So I’m introducing you to a game. Scoot.”

Loki did scoot, arranging himself cross-legged against the headboard.

Tony set up the board, giving himself white—he wasn’t a saint—and explaining the rules as he went along. “Don’t feel bad if you lose, Malfoy, I used to played chess for fun in my head.”

“Sound entertainment for a friendless child.”

“Uh-huh, bet you were really popular on Asgard.” Tony and opened with the Petrov Defense.

Loki gave him a bland smile and mirrored his move. Tony put his knight into play and watched Loki analyze, then do the same. Tony took the rook. Loki steepled his fingers.

“Not so easy, huh?” Tony grinned.

“It’s remarkably similar to a game of my childhood,” Loki muttered, put forward his second knight. Tony took it.

It was over in a few more turns. Loki took the loss with equanimity, quickly reset the game board, giving himself the white pieces, this time.

“Hey,” Tony complained. “You’re the bad guy, you should get black.”

Loki gave a small grin and opened the way Tony had, before. They played about a dozen short matches, all quickly over as Loki tested and learned the rules.

As Loki was brooding over his next move, Tony leaned back and crossed his arms.

“What’s your plan here, huh?”

Loki hummed thoughtfully. Moved his bishop in a way that allowed Tony to capture it and put him in check.

“I mean, when you’re back on your feet—literally—and presumably ready to take over the world or something.”

Loki paused. “I assumed I’d help you save your quaint little realm, from now on. Wasn’t that what you invited me to do?”

“You know, you don’t sound like you mean that.”

“I’m wondering why you’d expect a straight answer.” Loki moved his king out of check, leading Tony to pursue.

“Listen, this is whole situation is weird as fuck. You know it is, I know it is. Hell, I’m still not sure why you came to my doorstep. Does our relationship as mortal enemies mean nothing to you?”

“World-walking only leads so many places. My powers were drained and my choices limited. I will admit I chose a place I recognized.” Loki didn’t lift his eyes from the board.

“Yeah, about that. You said there is a portal to another planet right under my home?” Tony had tried not to think about it too much.

A ghost of a smile touched Loki’s lips. “Only to those that know to find it. I assure you, the skill is far and in between. On Asgard, I was the only one to wield the skill of world-walking.”

“Still sounds like you’re gonna lead your next army through my backyard,” Tony muttered.

Loki shook his head, toppled his own king in defeat. He looked Tony straight in the eyes, face oddly intent, a touch of mania to his eyes. “Given the choice, I would take my own life before I’d submit to the mad Titan’s will again.”

“Cheerful. You didn’t get that choice the first time around?”

Loki laughed without mirth and reset the board. “Oh, I had plenty of choice. But that one? No.” His face took a haunted quality. He abruptly turned away to gaze out of the window, watch the waves and the horizon, breathing fast and shallow, fists white-knuckling the fabric of his pajama pants, eyes too wide.

Tony pretended not to notice, poured a glass of water for himself to sip and began packing up the chess board. Loki’s hand shot out, closed over his wrist so suddenly that Tony flinched. The touch was firm, but controlled not to hurt.

“Not yet. Not before I beat you.” Loki’s voice was thin between fast breaths.

“As though you could.” Tony gently set down the pieces. He retreated to the room’s desk and opened his laptop to work for a while longer until Loki calmed down. He didn’t get much done, the text blurring together, leg bouncing. He felt like he wanted to run from the room, crawl out of his skin. The tension was thick enough that every movement felt awkward.

Loki began resetting the board with shaking hands and Tony took it as a sign to shut his laptop and help. They played the next few matches in silence, apart from Tony clearing his throat nervously, and Loki lost each of them miserably but unwilling to stop.

“Okay, pal, I’m calling it. This game isn’t going anywhere.”

“Take me to see the chariots.”

“The what?”

“The Chitauri vehicles. You called them ‘jet skis.’”

Tony put a hand over his mouth, leaned back. Took in his prisoner-turned-patient-turned-lab-partner: pale, exhausted, shivering. Deep shadows under his eyes. Determined set to his mouth. Tony knew the look all too well. “Yep, alright. Come on then.”

Chapter Text

“JARVIS, protocol Jules Verne.” Iron Man crossed his arms. “I hope you appreciate that I’m not making you sign an NDA for you to ignore.”

“Pray tell, whom would I reveal your secrets to?” Loki raised a mocking eyebrow, covering his nervousness. Going by the assessing look Iron Man gave him, he didn’t quite manage.

A circle of light glowed to life on the floor, and the ground of Iron Man’s workshop shook beneath the wheelchair. A platform began descending smoothly, the shaft’s walls aglow with blue strip lights. The moment the elevator’s hatch closed above them, the weight of stone and concrete pressing in from all sides, Loki felt he was walking into a trap.

The elevator took them deep below sea level, so far that Loki couldn’t hear the ever-present waves beyond a deep, reverberating hum. He braced himself as it slowed down, doors opening before them. The room was cavernous, a well-lit, sterile warehouse, triple the length of the manor itself. Behind them rose a platform with tables, monitors, keyboards arranged in a semi-circle. At the far end of the room, crashed and destroyed Chitauri chariots and weaponry was laid out across tables and on floors, crates piled against the back wall.

“Please remember to remain within the blue zone, today, sir.” JARVIS’s voice echoed eerily in the chamber. Holographic walls appeared to separate them from the alien technology. They were staggered in tiers of blue, yellow and red.

“I calculated safe distances based on footage from former experiments. Pep would kill me if I got sick from this stuff.”

Iron Man jogged up to the platform with a desk that erupted in holographic displays and spotlights. He fell into a swivel chair, spun in a circle once, clapped and gestured to activate a kind of control center that erupted around him. As helmet constructed of light closed around his head, and a suit of his armor began glowing behind him, launched itself into the air. It alighted next to Loki with a dull ca-clunk.

Iron Man—Stark—gestured to the screens around, voice echoing in the empty space. “I can take data from here, through the Mark V, fully remote. Problem’s that none of it has been useful.” He paused. “As long as you’re comfortable doing this, I’m ready.”

“You simply wish for my opinion, I assume?”

Star shrugged. “You know what I’ve been working on. Tell me what I’m missing.”

“Very well.” His nerves were still on edge, jaw clenched against intermittent shivers. There was a hint of panic rising at the thought of facing the shadows of his past, the crimes that Odin would put him to death for. He rose, legs unsteady but holding, telekinesis wrapping around weakened muscles like an armor of his own. He felt Stark’s eyes on him, assessing whether he was a threat. His nerves calmed and control returned at the muted fear in Stark’s eyes. He smiled, condescendingly. “Do not worry. If I wished you harm, you’d already be dead.”

“Charming. Go do your job, asshole.”

Loki concentrated on each step as he walked the length of the room, knees weak long before the final perimeter, the shimmering wall of red light washing over his skin. A memory surfaced—a shivering, dank thing from dark pools of his mind.

Low red lights in deep darkness. The stench of his own blood, iron and copper, pain intense enough to consume him. They had given him a choice: to remain suspended in a cage, barely alive but for the wet sound of his breath, the erratic thump of his heart. Or to aid the mad Titan in his quest to break open the vaults of Asgard for the Tesseract

Thanos would succeed, with or without Loki’s information. But they wanted it, either way.

So they hadn’t taken his voice, though they filled it with screams, and Loki still had his mind, though he his sanity was slipping by the day. Lies were dancing in his mind, a thousand of them, forming as fast as the Other cut him to ribbons.

Loki stumbled, caught himself just as Iron Man landed by his side, walked to one of the chariots. The suit turned around, smooth and human. A ruse. There was nothing but hollow space behind bright, glowing eyes.

“This is the model from the security footage, the one that runs a fire sale on brain tumors.” Stark’s voice spoke from the empty armor.

Loki steadied himself on the machine, which gave creaking way under his weight, part of it breaking and crashing to the ground, and waited for his hammering heart to be still. He felt his mind wandering into darkness, into danger. He needed something to calm himself, to ground him in reality.

He noted that the fuel tank was dented in a way that would lead to the sludge within fermenting. Under the pretense of checking on it, he lowered himself to the floor, then he pulled on the tank’s lid with shaking arms. The metal groaned, pain screamed through his body and he paused, breathing fast, teeth gritted. He sat on one of the chariot’s protruding blasters, a little more heavily than he would have liked, gestured from Iron Man to the tank. “Open this, please.”

“Little weak there, Rudolph?” Iron Man grabbed the deformed lid and pulled sharply, leading the fuel to decompress and erupt in a small explosion, splattering him with clear, stinking slush.

Loki felt the anxiety lift as Iron Man stood drenched, stock still. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you.”

Loki raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “I had only just bathed.”

“What is this stuff?”

“Fuel. You might want to test it for contamination.”

“Has anyone told you that you’re a dick.”

Loki finally allowed the grin to spread over his face, low chuckle following as he met Iron Man’s gaze. He was still for so long that Loki wondered whether the man had wandered off while his machine stood on standby.

“Anything else or are you just gonna sit there and make fun of me?” Iron Man asked.

Loki looked across the machinery graveyard. Torn cables, fluids leaking, chariots half-assembled and pieces missing. Piles of blasters. Something had felt off ever since he had gotten past the perimeter barrier, something that he had thought was anxiety. But the force that dug sharp fingers into his mind was familiar, and not his own.

“Give me a moment.” Loki turned his attention inward. There were tendrils plucking at his weakened core, roots insistently digging into his mind. Loki grabbed at the growth.

“It’s on Midgard!” he managed and curled up, weeping, as far his bonds allowed. (It was for show. For show.) The branding iron dropped in a clatter against the floor.

“What is on Midgard?” the Other hissed.

“The Tesseract! The one in the vaults is a fake.”

“Why should I believe you?”

Why, indeed, when he’d been asking for ways to infiltrate Asgard and steal that very artifact?

Loki laughed, high and mad, and for a moment he believed it when he said: “Because I wish to see them all dead, I wish to see Asgard burn. But you won’t get past her defenses, as you are, you stand no chance. You need the Tesseract, first.”

The Other paused and the pain settled in, dulled from a sharp, maddening brightness into an ever-present hum. Loki whimpered. (He could endure the pain, had endured the pain for days now.)

“You know where,” the Other said.

“I can find it,” Loki promised, and hoped. Bright and intense and pure, he hoped that if he stepped foot back on the Nine, Heimdall would see him, that if he drew attention to precious Midgard, his not-brother might pursue, that Loki wouldn’t be tortured to death on this rock—

(The memory tore.)

He would take Midgard. Odin had abandoned the realm, let her people tear each other apart in strife. And for all that Thor claimed to love and protect Midgard, he but went down there to play in the mud: slay monsters, lay with his mortal. An arrogant child.

No, he would rule Midgard, would prove himself, force his wish-father look at him—

(This didn’t make sense. This wouldn’t get him what he wanted.)

Thor was screaming under the touch of ice, skin crackling black until his voice gave out, and the monster cut him apart, a clean slice parting his skin. A sliver of raw heart sat on the blade, the best part of the kill, and Loki sucked it down, hot iron on his tongue—

(Loki shuddered back to himself, horror bright in his mind. He yanked sharply, held the writhing shade, shrieking, away from where it had been digging through his nightmares. He crushed it.)

Loki resurfaced, shaking, sweat cold on his back. Blue light rose like smoke from his clenched fists, dispersed harmlessly. He put his head into shaking hands, barely kept from keeling over. He had bitten his tongue and the copper taste was nauseating.

A hard, unyielding weight on his shoulder. Iron Man’s glove. “Hey.” Stark’s voice came from far away. Loki looked up to meet the glowing gaze of Iron Man. “What just happened?”

“Get me out of here.”

Stark didn’t argue as picked him up, carefully, as though he was fragile. Loki didn’t care about the sludge on the armor, concentrated on shielding his mind against the hurricane of whispers rising around the magic-imbued technology.

Iron Man set him down by the wheelchair and Loki made it the last few steps on his own, collapsed into the seat. Stark rose from the platform, shoulders straight, fists clenched at his side. He descended quickly, didn’t take his eyes off of Loki.

“Looking kind of pale there. You gonna throw up? No practical fluid jokes on this side of the barrier, please.”

Loki shook his head, locked eyes with him. “I found your problem.”

**

They went through decontamination—a chemical shower, useless in Loki’s opinion and leaving him drenched and uncomfortable, even in new clothes—and then back up to the workshop. Stark called Banner to join them for the debrief, who seemed troubled and pale at the thought of Loki being anywhere close to the Chitauri tech. (“It’s junk,” Stark argued, not fully truthfully. “What do you think he’s gonna do, throw scrap metal at me? He can do that up here.”)

“The Chitauri never joined the mad Titan of their own volition. Do you know how their hive mind operates?”

“I know that when we took out the main ship, the rest of them collapsed,” Stark said.

“I never got how that connection worked,” Banner said.

“The Chitauri mind link is one of the strongest I know of. The pain experienced by their mother in death would have been amplified a thousandfold across her children. The shock would be strong enough for their bodies to fail.”

“The reports I pulled from SHIELD did say that their vascular system just kinda burst. Exploded from stress,” Stark said. “So. Yeah. That checks out.”

“The mother ship itself is a hybrid: half machine, half organic. To control a colony, one would walk into the center of the breeding chambers and access heart of the monstrosity. Their mother.”

Banner gave him a wide-eyed look. “What do you mean, breeding chambers.”

“They’re reptilian in nature. They lay eggs.”

Banner looked horrified. “That’s … nightmare stuff. Have you … have you done that?”

A pulse of light in the darkness, dimming as Loki stepped into the belly of the ship. The muted glow of the scepter glistened off a thick layer of slime. Stacks of clear-shelled eggs covered floor and walls, shadows of monsters-half-formed moving within, and above them all, she rose. A young leviathan curled up at her feet, his legs skittering as it rearranged itself to snarl at Loki. His heart was lodged in his throat, nostrils filled with her reptile stench. (His mind grew wild and confused at perceiving her, rebelling in its cage.) “I have a proposal.”

Loki ignored the question, instead focused on Stark. “Their technology is built to amplify and enhance their form of communication, and after exposure to the mind stone’s energy, it appears an echo of it remains embedded: a shadow to lodge into your mind, to eat and grow and make a nest. A parasite.”

Stark and Bruce exchanged a glance. Stark muttered: “You remember the scepter. Thor was ready to throw hands while close to it.”

“So were you and Steve,” Banner said.

Since Loki had escaped Thanos, he had felt clearer, and less … on edge. More like himself. He wondered whether the Mind Stone— Pain, sharp and bright, erupted in his head and he retreated from the thought. “I cannot tell how it might influence the feeble minds of mortals.”

“Charming. Well, it appears to kill at least some us.” Stark walked to one of his terminals and pulled up holographic projections of the researcher’s vital signs, scans of her brain. There was simulation of a red area spreading rapidly, crowding the mortal’s brain. Stark pointed to it. “This thing hasn’t stopped growing. Not responding to radiation, appears inoperable.” He turned to Loki. “You’re telling me that this is a magical parasite? God, I hate that string of words. Is there a way to get that out of her?”

Loki wanted to say no. Wanted to not get into the messiness of what it would entail. He stared at the video feed of the unconscious woman, hooked up to cables and wires, pale and small in a bed. It appeared she couldn’t breathe on her own.

(He had brought this to Midgard.)

“How many are affected?”

“And still alive? Seven people. Probably a lot more that haven’t been connected to the research, considering that the tech was lying around New York for several weeks during the clean-up. And it’s circulating on the black market, so there will be more. Lots of people would have gotten into contact with it.”

His magic was still stunted, the healing process too slow, arduous. The poison had done damage he couldn’t begin to understand, and he had begun to suspect that part of his magic was tied up in maintaining vital bodily functions. Overextending himself might set back healing, might arrest it fully. He had no way of knowing. Not without a Soul Forge or a similar imaging device, which Iron Man did not have available.

This mortal woman, even if healed, would die of old age in a measly few decades. It was barely worth the effort. (How many mortals did it take to make up for one Jötun? How many more for an Asgardian?)

(How many of Loki to equal one Thor?)

Loki met Stark’s intense gaze, expectant, too cautious to be hopeful.

(Sentiment.)

“There are a few things I could try.”

“That … that you could try? Personally? In the hospital?” Banner seemed alarmed.

“Unless you wish to learn magic and the intricacies of the Mind Stone over the next week.” Loki’s voice was dripping with derision.

“I’ll take it,” Stark said.

“This is such a bad idea.” Banner sank into a chair with a thousand-yard stare.

“It’s a great idea. Trust me,” Stark clapped a hand on Banner’s back. “Also, he’s not going alone. We’ll be there to observe.”

Loki absentmindedly listened to Stark and Banner bickering. Watched the artificial rise and fall of the mortal woman’s chest. He knew better than to get attached.

(‘It's a heart beat. You'll never be ready.’)

He glanced to Stark, slowly convincing Banner that Loki was to be trusted.

It would never be worth it.

**

His disguise consisted of soft pajamas, a wheelchair from the hospital lobby, and a bit of magic to avert the eye. They passed by a window and with his hair an soft mess of curls and frizz, the shadows under his eyes, shoulders rounded and naked feet, Loki didn’t recognize himself. He doubted anyone else would.

Iron Man drew the eye as a distraction, followed by a team of journalists, cameras flashing as he introduced himself to the front desk, here to visit the children’s ward to hand out autographs—conveniently across from the intensive care unit.

Banner wore green cotton beneath a long, white coat, pushed Loki in the wake of Iron Man’s smiling entrance and excited entourage, took the less busy elevator.

“Someone is gonna catch us on camera, this is an absolutely terrible plan.” Banner fumbled and almost dropped the plastic card that Stark had provided him with—a kind of key—and opened the intensive care unit’s doors while the nurse station was distracted by the red-and-gold spectacle Stark was putting on.

“I am hiding us from their technology,” Loki let him know. And if the strain added to his general appearance of malaise, it was part of his disguise, wasn’t it.

They made it down the hallway with nary a glance from the staff, entered the mortal woman’s sick room without interference. She was so covered in cables and tubes, surrounded by blinking machinery, it was hard to see the woman underneath it all.

Banner grabbed a plastic chair from her bedside, dragged it to the corner and unplugged the security camera up-high in the corner. When he climbed down, he wiped his palms on his scrubs, shooting nervous looks at the door. “Alright. I’ll lock that.”

Loki ignored him, let the spell drop with a breath of relief and wheeled himself closer to the woman. He inspected the machinery surrounding her. “What are these measuring?”

Banner returned, fidgeting nervously, and pointed to one after the other. “Heart beat, breathing, blood pressure, temperature, and that’s a long-term EEG for brain activity. This here shows intracranial pressure—see that bag? They’re draining built-up spinal fluid.”

Loki honestly had no idea what normal mortal values would consist of. He wasn’t even familiar with the units they used. “What do these tell you?”

“Uh,” Banner checked the displays, readjusted his glasses, then went to the back of her bed and leafed through a paper chart. “We already know most of this. She’s supposedly unconscious but her brainwaves indicate REM sleep. She is dreaming.”

Loki waited for him to elaborate, but Banner only shrugged. He had known that Midgardian technology had a long way to go, but this was ridiculous. “Have they done a Soul Forge imaging?”

“What?”

“You might have a different name for it. It differentiates matter based on energy emission.”

“Do you … you don’t mean a PET scan, do you? You’d inject radioactive fluid into the bloodstream and measure that.” Banner pulled out a screen that Stark had uploaded medical files to and was rapidly reading notes, scrolling.

“No, not at all.”

“Uh, I don’t think we have that. What about this?” Banner shoved the screen into his hands. “That’s a brain MRI.”

Loki stared at what looked like black-and-white images of sliced cabbage. “I’m not a healer, this tells me nothing. Soul Forge readings are intuitive. It allows you to detect invasion or mutation within a patient, such as cancer, possession, mind control. An Asgardian healer might put her through imaging as soon as cancer was suspected.”

Banner looked exasperated. “This is a magic thing, isn’t it.”

“As much as your ‘EEG’ is a ‘science thing.’” Loki released a slow, annoyed breath. He’d have liked to know what he was getting into, but it appeared he’d have to tangle with the parasite without much preparation.

“I will need time. Make sure we’re not disturbed.”

Loki looked at the woman in the bed in more detail for the first time since entering the room. A snarl of cables ran beneath her patterned, white tunic. A tube with liquid was taped to her nostril, a large one for breathing ran into her open mouth, another disappearing into the crook of her elbow. Cheeks hollow, skin pale. It seemed morbid, over-engineered, inhumane to keep her alive—and difficult to believe that she would wake. It was with reluctance that Loki lifted a hand and put it to the back of her head, hair greasy and so thin under his fingers that he touched scalp.

He could feel the magic immediately, a second heartbeat beneath the mortal’s own. Greedy tendrils pulsed under his fingers, tightly ensnaring their host. Loki closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink into her soul.

The SHIELD lab in upstate New York. Mira was shut in with the alien transporter—no one in, no one out. Everything hurt: moving, pressure, breathing, and she was so very tired. The clothes against her skin were sandpaper. She was almost sure she was running a fever, but she couldn’t leave, not yet. She needed to make at least a some impact before she could go home, or the project would go to Stephen. Again.

She suddenly wasn’t alone anymore.

Atop the transporter—half broken, cables sticking out—there was the outline of something bipedal, non-human. Wavering like a heat mirage. She blinked and it turned its head, looked right at her.

(A whisper by her ear: “This isn’t real.”)

The creature rushed her. She jerked away, fell backwards, pain shooting through her arm as she landed awkwardly on her wrist. She cried out in pain. Everything turned black.

Loki opened his eyes to bright hospital lights. His skin and joints were burning as though inflamed, head pounding. He closed his eyes for a moment, gathered himself as he reminded himself he was not mortal, that he wasn’t helpless putty in the hands of something large and unfathomable.

“Did it work?” Banner sounded nervous.

“Not yet.” Because Loki had forgotten himself, let himself be consumed by the memory when he shouldn’t have. (His walls were pathetically thin these days.) He concentrated on the physical connection to her.

Mira was working on the transporter. Everything hurt. Stephen would get the project.

She looked up from her hands, black gloves covering yellow hazmat, breathing loud in her own ears. She wasn’t alone. The figure atop the transporter wavered, blue light, smoke, eyes pinpricks of light, stars within in a nebula.

(Loki separated himself, stepped in front of her, concentrated on the walls surrounding him.)

(The creature looked to him, and it grew into something larger.)

They were as far from Midgard as one could reasonably go, and while they believed him enough to entertain the idea, Asgard was so much closer, still reeling from the loss of the Bifröst. And so, in the past days, when they realized that he could not tell them the location of the Tesseract, there had been no more questions.

That didn’t mean they tired of his pain.

Loki was in darkness, blood running into his eyes, copper in his mouth, the Other stood above him, a darker tint among the shadows. There was a blade at his throat, never cutting quite deep enough for the damage to last, to not heal overnight. So he swallowed, despair and blood, and he smiled, teeth stained red. There was one last, great offer he could make.

“You haven’t figured out how to travel the distance, have you—”

Loki came to himself with a gasp, snatched his hand back as though burned. His skin felt flayed open and he swiped at his brow, looked at his fingers. No liquid, no blood. He could still feel it burning his eyes.

“Are you—”

Loki whipped around, stumbled up from his seat, dagger in hand. His legs were trembling blade extended. Banner was wide-eyed, had taken half a step back, a hint of green creeping up his neck.

“Uh.”

Loki fell back into seat heavily, dagger clattering to the floor. “I …” He looked to Mira, comatose, caught in a short and intense nightmare. “Let me try once more.” He put a hand to her brow, clumsily, missing her brow the first time. Closed his eyes and sank forward.

The transporter. Pain. Fucking Stephen.

(Loki stepped out and in front of her.)

The thing rose like a specter from the machine.

(Its eyes immediately locked onto Loki.)

(It rushed him and Loki opened his arms and welcomed the invasion.)

They threw him before the mad Titan’s throne and it took all his willpower to stay on his knees and not collapse, blood slicking his back.

“So you seek to serve me,” the Titan said.

Loki tried a winning smile, but felt like a grimace of pain. “I do.”

“What is it you offer, Princeling.”

Fear burned in him, bright as a bonfire on the darkest night of Yule. Loki could not avert his eyes from Thanos’s. “I wish for nothing more than Asgard’s destruction. But your armies would burn out against her defenses, and why should you waste them when the stone you seek isn’t there. I have studied magic for most of my life. Given the right power source, I would open a portal to Midgard, where the Tesseract lies.”

There was a flash of interest in the mad Titan’s eyes.“There is potential in you. You have offered her so many souls, half a planet within minutes.”

Images of Jötunheim burning under the storm of the Bifröst, a beautiful, silent explosion in the vastness of space.

(This wasn’t real.)

Loki inhaled sharply: hope. Madness, for sure.

“You have a habit of collecting fathers. And now you seek to become my child.” Thanos touched him, lifted his chin with a grip that could have crushed him, reduced his head to pulp, and Loki’s breath sat in his lungs, burning and bright.

“None of them were worthy.” Loki’s voice was shaking, but barely.

“No. They failed you, didn’t they.” Loki wasn’t sure what Thanos was searching for in his face, but when he let go, he knew he had fallen short. “So much spite. Forgive me if I don’t trust a known traitor.” The infinity stone glowed bright in his fist.

Loki knew that the only way out was through. So when the Titan grabbed his head in his fist, as though it was a piece of fruit, and the mind stone glowed bright yellow, Loki shut part of himself away, safe and secure, in a cage of his own making, and gave the rest over.

(Something in Loki woke, wild and mad, and pushing back. Loki grabbed Thanos’s fist with both hands, crushed the stone, and the dream shattered.)

Loki woke, breathing heavily, in time to see blue smoke pour from Mira’s mouth, bypassing the breathing tube, dissolving into thin air. He exhaled and a hint of smoke rose from his mouth, as well.

That had been too close.

He leaned back in his chair, so weak he could barely sit up. His head was pounding with exhaustion, skin ablaze with Mira’s dream-pain, fear bright and sharp in his throat and only slowly ebbing. He was nauseous, but he barely remembered a day that he wasn’t, recently.

“That was … did you do it?”

“Yes,” Loki said quietly. “I cannot do anything about the physical growth in her head, but the cause of it is gone.”

Banner’s face lit up with tentative hope. “Great, let’s get out of here, then.”

“I cannot hide us on our way out,” Loki admitted weakly.

Banner stopped mid-way pushing him to the doorway. “Okay. That’s … that’s fine. Nobody is going to recognize you. We just need to get out of this one room unseen …” He got out a phone, typed something and sent it with a small swoosh sound. Waited for an answer, eyes locked on his screen.

Loki closed his eyes against the jarring brightness of the light, felt like his body was crawling with malaise. A ping of a message arriving.

“Alright, the cameras are out for a minute. Keep your head down,” Banner instructed.

Which was easy, considering Loki had no intention of facing the world.

**

The next day, they had gathered in the living room, screens showing the researcher’s clinical charts. It was too early for any improvement to show, but Loki was insistent that the woman now had a chance to fight her illness. The growth would be arrested, either way.

“It’s not sustainable,” Loki said. He was huddled up in an armchair, looking sickly. He wasn’t touching the takeout that Tony had arranged on the couch table, either. Come to think of it, Tony wasn’t sure he’d seen him eat anything since they returned from the hospital.

“You said it worked fine,” Tony argued.

“Considering how fast the magic tried to latch onto me, anyone close to her might become infected. I cannot remove the influence at the rate it might spread, it is impossible.”

Tony looked to Bruce and he stopped eating wontons for long enough to nod and gesture with his chopsticks at Loki. He spoke around his food: “Also, he turned really pale and shaky doing it. And kind of stabby.”

“You tried to stab the patient?”

“He tried to stab me,” Bruce corrected, shot Loki a suspicious look. “Though I think it was an accident.”

“You should know better than to talk to me mid-spell.” Loki didn’t meet his eyes, feigning sudden interest in the unchanged scenery outside the window.

“How? You never told me that was a thing!”

Loki ignored him, locked eyes with Tony: “What you need is a Soul Forge to locate and erase the spell within the victims’ bodies.”

“Okay, E.T., what’s a Soul Forge? Cause it sounds like a video game.”

“It screens molecular states within the body, identifies foreign material, and may be used to remotely remove it by a skilled practitioner.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Bruce said. “I think he means a quantum field generator.”

Tony lifted both eyebrows, threw his empty container of egg rolls onto the low table and stretched, falling back against the couch. “Well, that’s a topic for Dr. Foster, isn’t it. And this thing would cure people?”

“It does on Asgard.” A shiver ran through Loki and he wrapped up tightly in that white blanket from the guest room. On second thought, he did look small and miserable. Tony refused to feel bad for the guy considering he had not only brought death but also this sickness to Midgard.

(Who was he kidding, he felt terrible about it.)

“So, do you know how to build one?”

Loki hesitated. “The instructions should be found on Asgard, within the artificers’ library. Thor would have access.”

“Not it,” Tony put a finger on his nose and lifted both eyebrows at Bruce.

Bruce sighed. “Alright, I’ll call Jane.”

Tony waited for him to leave, then turned to Loki. “Nobody ever tell you that you need to eat if you want to grow big and strong. JARVIS ordered enough for three, so don’t be shy.”

“I’d be glad to skip the condescension.” Loki glowered at him from inside his blanket, drew his knees up to his chest.

Tony picked up a container of donuts and offered it to Loki. “If you don’t eat anything else, try the sweet stuff.”

Loki looked at if for a moment, as though suspecting some kind of trick. Then long fingers emerged from the blanket, so gently and formally accepting the paper box that Tony felt slightly ridiculous. He sank back into his seat, picked up a piece of fried pastry, and sniffed it. Pulled a small piece off of it to eat. Lifted quizzical eyes to study Tony.

Tony realized he had been staring. He pointed at his own nose and tapped it. “You got powdered sugar right there.”

Loki wiped at it, carefully, managed to get more on his face and made a sour face as he realized. “There is no need to smile over my misfortune.”

Tony wiped the half-grin off of his face. “What else would I do, you seem to enjoy wallowing in it so much.”

“I was perfectly fine resting, you were the one to insist I join you.” Loki put the half-eaten donut carefully onto a plate, wiped his hands and face on a napkin and retreated back into his blanket nest.

Tony thought about it for a moment. “You didn’t seem that strained back in New York, you know, back when you were raining explosions and death on us.”

Loki didn’t react for a moment, blankly looking over the food laid out. When he spoke, it was very quietly. “My recovery is … slower than it would be on Asgard.”

“Something a Soul Forge could fix?”

Loki avoided his eyes when he admitted: “It is possible.”

Ah. Tony had wondered why he was suddenly so eager to cure the lowly mortals. “Yeah. If I find out you’re lying about the benefit to the sick humans—”

“It is exhausting to be constantly doubted,” Loki snapped, then immediately looked like he regretted having spoken. “I am not going to trick you, Iron Man. I recognize that I’m … in your debt.” He made a face as though he’d bitten into something sour.

Tony’s ever-racing thoughts stilled. Loki did say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ as much as the next person, but this was the closest he had come to admitting they saved his life. “You’re welcome.”

Loki nodded. Then, as though as a sign of goodwill, picked up one of the takeout containers at random and began eating, if in small bites and without visible pleasure.

“If you owe me, does that mean I can call whenever I need teleportation somewhere?”

“Don’t push it.”

**

Tony had tried fidget toys before; he found he grew bored of them fast. Which is why he was building himself one that would get him through the rest of this godawful mess of a meeting, filled with the exact kind of people he had thought he’d never speak to again after handing SI over to Pepper. He had kicked his shoes off and his feet were up on his desk while Fury’s cronies were talking themselves into a tizzy on his screen.

“Tony,” Pepper said now, the slight exasperation in her voice barely noticeable if you didn’t know her, especially since she was locked into one tiny square among rows of identical-looking SHIELD in ties. “Would you mind catching us up on the progress?” Tony tossed the palm-sized metal ball from one hand to the other, finished wiring up the last of the LEDs. The people on his screen were mostly looking sour, and Nick Fury was positively glowering.

“Are we done discussing merits of either canceling this project altogether or handing it to an idiot like Hammer? Yeah? Great.” Tony spun the fidget toy in his hands and it opened up into whirring rings with a satisfying glow and hum. “Alright, kids, we got the first chariot decontaminated, a model A.X15-Delta, aptly named so by the SHIELD creative department. Just kidding, who are you guys hiring to name things? Give me a call next time— no, scratch that, I’m already bored. Anyway, you guys will get the analysis as specified under clause 5.1 in the contract you signed,” he lifted his eyebrows for Fury’s sake at that, “sometime by the end of the week.”

“Stick to the point, Stark,” Fury bit out.

Tony threw his fidget toy towards the wall, and, as programmed, it neatly returned to his hand with a satisfying smack after a couple of yards of flight. “We’re currently working on sensors that can identify contaminated vehicles and cases of sickness across the country.”

“That wasn’t part of the contract,” some guy in a too-tight suit interjected. Tony hadn’t bothered learning his name. Seriously, though, he should switch tailors, those lapels were basically flying off of his chest.

“No reason to thank me. You people have been trying and failing for, how long? I think it’s been three months and you can’t even figure out what to look for. Can’t stand incompetence, makes me itchy.”

“What Tony means,” Pepper said, without even a hint of hurry, smile perfectly professional, “is that STARK Interstellar is offering aid in the current epidemic, given the resources at hand and the responsibility we have towards the well-being of the people of New York. Tony tends to do the necessary work the moment it becomes necessary. We hope you understand that he wanted to test the viability of his approach before offering it for consideration.” Pepper was taking it like a champ, considering that Tony hadn’t exactly kept her up-to-date on the developments. Oops.

“I have a problem with you cherry-picking what you deem important and not telling anyone,” tight-suit guy said. “These alien artifacts are government property, and the project a matter of national security, I don’t understand why we chose a contractor playing it as fast and loose as SI.”

“I suggest we could discuss this in private, after the meeting,” Fury said, voice showing so much restraint that Tony thought he was about to burst.

“To get back to the point,” Tony said, spinning his fidget toy until it opened into a mass of glowing lights, too fast for the eye to follow. “Give me a week, you’ll have something to attach to a satellite and shoot into space. Should be a breeze to collect the remaining Chitauri scrap using that. Or anything else that emits the same signature, you know, like cancer patients.”

The fidget toy spun out of control, leading to Tony trying to catch it mid-air, and suddenly and loudly exploded. He cursed and pressed a bit of his balled up t-shirt to the cut in his palm. There was a moment of silence on the call.

“Nobody tell you guys that staring is rude? Was that all or can I get back to work?”

“We’ll be in touch,” Fury said and after a round of ‘goodbyes’ the screens flickered, one after another, to black.

Tony turned off the video call and his phone rang immediately. He glanced from the cut in his palm—barely bleeding, but stinging—at his phone: the photo of Pepper, smiling, candid. (He suddenly realized he hadn’t seen her this happy in a while.)

He answered. “In my defense, they were being absolute dicks wasting my time for the first twenty minutes of that call.”

There was a moment of silence. When Pepper spoke, she sounded oddly subdued. “No, that’s not why I wanted to talk to you. I …”

Tony waited, heart in his throat. ‘We need to talk,’ her last text message had said.

“I’m coming to Malibu on the weekend.”

“Yep. Sure. Sounds great.”

She gave a short laugh. “No objections, this time?”

“No, we’re all good. Honestly, he’s the best-behaved villain around. He gets prickly, but it’s all talk, no heat. Did I mention he healed someone the other day? Inoperable brain tumor, now fully on the way to recovery, woke up yesterday. Don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

There was a smile in her voice. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Tony echoed, staring at his cut hand, flexed his thumb. A single drop of blood welled up, running down his wrist.

“I’ll see you soon, then.”

“Yep.” Tony hung up. He glowered the broken fidget toy on his desk. “You made me look bad, do you know that?”

He didn’t even know what he put in there that could have exploded.

Chapter Text

A storm was brewing over the ocean, clouds turning gray and the light milky over black waves. Thor would have known exactly when the lightning began, waited with shining eyes for the thunder. He was radiant in his joy, infectious, addictive. Always had been. Thor loved storms.

Loki watched the horizon through large windows, drinking in the brief silence of the living room. It was midafternoon, light rapidly changing as the clouds raced by. Gulls were circling, their cries a lament. The front door closed heavily and Loki sighed, squared his shoulders, wiped any weakness from his face.

“He’s in there?” Stark’s woman was whispering, nervous.

“Bruce is on break, so, yeah. He’s where I go.”

“You’re not even wearing the suit!”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“What if he decided to harm you?”

“It’s under control. Also, don’t be alarmed, but he’s probably listening. Superhuman hearing and all that.”

Loki smirked at the noise of distress she made. He then turned to the entrance of the room, footsteps approaching. Stark entered first, expression a warning. Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, followed with visible hesitation.

Loki smiled, all charm. “The Lady Potts. I wondered when we would meet.”

“Mister Odinson.” She gave him a suspicious look. Her finger alighted briefly on her hair, making sure it stayed in the braid wound at the back of her neck. Her fingernails were manicured carefully, flawless makeup covering up freckles, dress unwrinkled despite the long trip. She hid her blemishes well. Loki had done his research, though it had been a while ago, and he hadn’t focused on Virginia Potts. He knew that she had risen to a position of power abruptly, in unlikely fashion. He also knew that she was capable. Most importantly, Iron Man trusted her without reservation.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer Loki.” He spoke softly, as he might to a skittish horse.

“Pepper,” she replied automatically, seemed to gather her courage. A small purse was left on a sideboard, suitcase neatly parked by the door, and her heels clicked efficiently as she made her way across the room towards him, her smile another form of armor.

Loki reached for his magic, strengthened his muscles, pushed himself from the couch to steady legs. Her eyes jumped between him and the wheelchair by his side. She extended a hand and he took it to bow over, bring close enough to his lips that his breath ghosted over her skin as he repeated: “Pepper, then. A pleasure.”

She twitched away, took a step out of arms reach, weight shifted on one leg as though ready to run. “You seem to be doing better.”

Loki glanced briefly at Stark, who was watching them intently. He sank back into the chair, making sure not to loom. The movement had less grace than he wished for. “I am on the mend. Anthony has seen to it.”

Pepper pressed her lips into a thin line. “Tony, would you give us some space.”

“There’s no way I’m leaving you two alone.”

She turned to him, the tilt of her chin commanding, her back ramrod straight. “If he’s as harmless as you say, there shouldn’t be an issue.”

Iron Man hesitated, then pointed at Loki, scowl on his face: “Behave.”

Loki gave him a bright smile. “Or what? You will kill me?”

“Something like that.” Iron Man wavered a moment longer, then closed the door behind himself.

Pepper never took her eyes off of Loki. Her words, when they came, were clipped. “You’re taking advantage of him.”

“I assure you, I asked for none of this.” Loki sank back, watched her. She seemed more self-assured with Iron Man gone. Interesting. “Do you wish for true privacy, Pepper? He is watching us through his servant.”

There was a flicker of fear across her features. “You control JARVIS?”

It would cost him, but he wished for her to speak her mind without hesitation. (He wished to know whether she was a threat.) “Nothing of the sort. Though I could briefly deafen him. If you wish.”

She bit her lip, looked at her soft, slender hands. There was steel in her voice when she agreed. “Do it, then.”

Loki looked to the ceiling, spoke the word, released the spell of silence around them. It briefly felt as though he had missed a step in the dark, the world going blurry as the power left him. He blinked, looked to her, eyebrows raised. “So?”

She carefully sank down onto an armchair that had been placed at a right angle to the couch. “I will, for now, assume that he is right. That you’re not a threat and not trying to harm him.”

Loki inclined his head, watched her carefully.

“He saved your life. And I need you to repay him by leaving, quietly, without doing harm.”

Loki chose his words carefully. “Even if I wished to, I am watched at all times.”

“I don’t believe you,” Pepper said quickly.

Loki lifted his eyebrows. “Have you tried escaping Iron Man before? The Hulk? It is neither easy nor remotely safe.”

“He just left you alone for ten minutes. I’ve seen footage of New York, don’t tell me that’s not enough for you to escape. What are you still doing here?”

“My powers are limited, at the moment,” he murmured.

“No. You are here for a reason. What is it?”

Loki hummed noncommittally. (Some nights he wondered why he was had stopped even considering escaping. He could try to find a Soul Forge on Vanaheim, in disguise. It wouldn’t be easy, but he would have his freedom. Yet, the thought barely crossed his mind.)

“Fine,” she said, nervousness putting an edge of steel in her voice. “Here is what I think: You knew he’d not harm someone in need of help, not even if that someone had tried to-to kill him before. I think you’re going to use him as far as you can, and even if you don’t mean to, you’re going to hurt him in the process.”

“I would have been a fool to seek out an enemy in the state I was in,” Loki said quietly. “No. I’m sorry to disappoint. I had little control over where I would end up, and this path was the safest out of very limited options.”

A hint of understanding lit up her features. “You had nowhere else to go.”

“Oh, don’t project your issues onto me.” Loki gave her a smile, as fake as it was pleasant. “You spend all your time either working for him or mothering him. If one takes away Stark, both the company and the man, what is left of you? For all your pretense, your refined appearance and speech, you are still a little girl, looking for protection, hoping against hope to be loved. You fear not for him, but for yourself.”

Her mouth fell open and her forehead wrinkled in consternation. “You are horrible. You cannot say these things to people!”

“But you can call me a villain and liar? Please,” Loki leaned back, bedded his cheek on his fist, studying her with distaste. “The double standard is unbecoming.”

“That’s … you have proven that you are a villain! You killed people!”

“I worked for someone that employed death to further his power and wealth. So have you.”

Pepper seemed speechless.

“You must understand that I will not leave. Not unless he wishes me to.”

She gathered herself visibly. “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you do not leave him alone, I’ll alert someone that will lock you away. For good.” Her voice was shaking with fear, but her gaze was filled with anger, determination. “I won’t stand by while you corrupt him.”

“He would not forgive you.”

“You don’t know him. Or me. But I assure you that my threat isn’t idle.”

“I would, but I cannot,” he hissed at her. “Do you think I enjoy this? Being at the mercy of the Avengers?”

“I think you enjoy playing them,” Pepper’s voice was breaking. She glanced at the wheelchair, swallowed. “And it stops now.”

His hands dug into the fabric of the armrest until it creaked, close to breaking. He relaxed them purposefully. His voice was smooth when he asked: “Having gotten that off your chest, do you feel vindicated?”

A nervous exhale. “My feelings are none of your concern.”

She rose and left. Steps spaced perfectly, gracefully, without a look back. Loki sagged in his chair, let go of the spell of silence, of the careful control, the effort leaving him lightheaded, frustration rising to the surface.

He watched the horizon erupt into lightning.

**

Tony managed to stay in the lab, even after the sound cut out. It was Pepper’s choice, and he needed to respect it. Needed to take the gamble that Loki wouldn’t do anything. He tried to work, leg bouncing, but instead he found himself watching the living room feed, the expressions on their faces, the conflict building. Pepper got up abruptly and Tony rose at the same time, stepping out of the workshop to meet her.

“Hey. Good talk?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” The tight control in her voice spoke of fury. He caught her by the arm and she spun around, eyes sparking.

“I’ll have to go check on him.”

Pepper let go of a sigh. “I don’t … I wish you wouldn’t.”

He shrugged helplessly. “We’re trying our best, Pep.”

She rubbed her forehead, tired. “Alright. I-I need a shower. I’ll be in the bedroom.”

“I’ll be there in ten, okay?”

“Okay.”

She kissed him on the cheek. She smelled like herself, sweet and clean. (She smelled like Loki. He really needed to switch out the soap in the guest bathrooms.) He headed into the living room to find Loki moping on the couch, staring out into the rain.

“How’s it going? Is the weather emo enough for you?”

Loki looked at him, assessing him carefully. “I would talk with you.”

Tony hesitated for a moment, then approached, suspiciously. He sank down onto the couch. “Okay, what’s up. You gonna suggest we take a break, see other people?”

Loki spoke quietly, face averted, too low to hear over the rain pelting the window, and Tony scooted closer. Close enough that their knees were touching when Loki let his thighs fall open. Loki turned to look at him. “Miss Potts worries I would corrupt you.”

Tony snorted. “As though you could.”

Loki’s face twitched into a smile, actually amused. “Don’t underestimate me.”

“See, this is the kind of stuff you can’t say if you want people to like you. Seriously.”

“She’s afraid of me. But I think she’s mostly worried for you.”

“You’re not exactly inspiring trust.”

“Usually, she’d be right to be afraid. But I’m in no state to do any harm.” Loki smiled, self-deprecating. He was picking at his fingernails, gaze averted.

Okay, that was wildly out of character. The guy hated admitting his weakness. “I mostly think you wouldn’t gain anything by doing harm.”

“I wouldn’t,” he admitted freely. “Maybe I don’t want to.” A coy glance.

“You’re playing me, aren’t you.”

“Really?” Loki’s smile turned delighted.

“What are you trying to do, seduce me? You should know that I’m immune to that crap, stable relationship and all.”

Loki collapsed backwards into the cushions. Looked to him, through his lashes, mouth quirked into a smile. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

Oh. Wait. Was he actually? “I think it’s a valiant effort.”

Loki gave a throaty laugh. “Well. That’s good to know.” He turned abruptly, curled a hand around the back of Tony’s neck and leaned in, close enough that their faces were an inch away. Tony stopped breathing “I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

Tony was speechless, stared into predatory, glittering eyes, felt his knees going weak. The length of Loki’s thigh was pressed against his, grip strong on his neck. He abruptly remembered that night that Loki woke from nightmares, didn’t recognize him, tried to choke him, echoes of the moment he’d thrown him from the tower. It sent his heart hammering, adrenaline spiking. He tilted his face up to respond, lips almost brushing Loki’s, and he could think of nothing but kissing him, hard enough to taste copper. He cleared his throat. “You’d have to try harder than that to make me uncomfortable.”

Loki’s eyes darkened and he shifted, noses touching, breath mingling. Tony’s heart was in his open mouth, thoughts washed away by the overwhelming draw, the curiosity, the danger—

Tony jerked away, put a hand on Loki’s shoulder and distance between them.

“Okay, enough. Jesus, I have a girlfriend, who is very much in the other room.”

“Is that a deterrent or a challenge,” Loki smiled, but let himself be pushed back against the couch. He turned pliant under his hand, eyes expectantly fixed on him.

Holy shit. What was happening. Tony got up, rapidly backed away, hands lifted. “Absolutely not.”

“A shame,” Loki murmured, turned to instead watch the storm, feigning disinterest.

Tony stared at him, emotions in disarray, face flushed, half-hard. “I’m getting Bruce.” Yep. Getting Bruce sounded great. Bruce could deal with this. “Stay where you are.”

Loki made a non-committal sound and Tony fled the room.

**

The strategy was crude enough, but it was the easiest way to get through to Iron Man, to bind him a little longer while Loki was recuperating. And it wasn’t as though Loki hadn’t been thinking about it: kissing him, tasting him, feeling his weight atop of him— Loki cut off the thought, rubbed a hand over flushed cheeks.

It had little to do with Pepper Potts being here, posturing over the man courting her. That ugly, bitter feeling in his throat, that angry tightening in his gut when Iron Man looked at her, soft and adoring. It had nothing to do with any of that. It did have to do with her threat and that he needed Stark to counteract it.

Loki read the same sentence in An Introduction to Thermodynamics for the fifth time. He couldn’t concentrate.

“That’s a scary expression you got on your face there,” Banner muttered, typing on his laptop without so much as looking up. “Did something happen?”

Loki gave up on reading and stared out the window, hand over his mouth. “Not at all.” He couldn’t stop thinking about Pepper Potts in Iron Man’s bedroom. It didn’t help that he could hear their muffled voices, a floor up, at the end of the hall. (He could barely think of anything else.) He needed a distraction, and there was something he had been wondering about for a while, now. “Why didn’t you call SHIELD when you first arrived. I understand Iron Man was too plagued with guilt to kill me. But you? You should know better than to coddle me.”

Banner looked up, both eyebrows raised. “Are we really doing this?”

“Indulge me,” Loki gave him his best smile, spread his hands in a gesture of invitation. “What do you gain from ‘saving’ me, Bruce?”

Banner sighed and closed his laptop. Propped his up his chin and looked at Loki. “Tony asked for my help. So I’m helping.”

“Against your better judgment?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Banner’s expression had turned dark when his eyes locked onto him. “The other guy is pretty effective against you in case you make a bad decision.”

Loki didn’t enjoy that memory. “That cannot be all.”

“There are a few factors that interest me.”

“What are the factors, Doctor?”

Banner studied him. “You never talk to me, not like that. It’s really getting to you, isn’t it. That Pepper is here.”

Loki bristled at that, clenched his jaw. He looked away until he had his face under control.

Banner gave him a wan smile. “Sorry, it’s really none of my business. But that’s one of the factors: under all your armor, you’re just another guy. Not one that I like very much, though I think you’re trying hard to be unlikable, too.”

“Do you.”

“We barely have a conversation where you’re not threatening me.”

A flicker of amusement. “Your calm side is terribly boring.”

Banner gave him a blank look. “I’ve come to enjoy boring.”

“So that’s it? A favor for a friend and a bit of doubt.”

“And, even though you were the one to bring it about, you’re helping us fix a pretty dire situation right now. I’d like to see where it goes.” Banner shrugged. “I’m not forgetting the destruction you brought about, but as far as signs of regret go, it’s a start.”

“Regret? Don’t insult me, Doctor.” Loki grinned, without mirth. “I’m not that soft. I knew what I was doing, and feelings won’t undo any of it.”

Banner hummed thoughtfully. “You know, I still don’t get why you started a war with us. You didn’t try very hard to win.”

Loki clenched an unclenched his hands, slowly methodically. Memories that had resurfaced in the hospital room were warring with convictions that felt stale. Loki couldn’t remember which of them were real. “Why would I fight a battle when I don’t plan to come out victorious.”

“I wonder.”

Loki let the silence hang for a moment, fingers drumming against the arm rest. Stark and Pepper were having an argument, muffled through the walls, that quickly devolved into something else. And Stark was unashamedly loud. Loki’s chest hurt as though constricted by an iron band, anger rising sharp and ugly—

Ah.

Loki had managed to play himself on this one, hadn’t he. (What a fool he was.) He asked before he could think on it too much: “Does Thor ever speak of Asgard?”

Banner accepted the change of topic with grace. “Not really. I haven’t talked to your brother nearly as much as to you.”

It made sense, Thor’s time on Midgard had been short and Banner and he had little in common. And yet, it oddly unbalanced Loki. Those two were allies, after all, and he and Banner were … what were they at this point? Prisoner and ward didn’t quite describe it.

“Asgard needs little explanation anywhere else in the universe, but Midgard is unique in its isolation. Tell me, what do you know of it?”

“I know that, despite all your scientific advancements, you still prefer swords and ride horses everywhere. You guys aren’t really into space ships, are you?”

“It’s much easier to control who comes in and out of your golden realm without a space port, isn’t it? The only point of entrance to Asgard is closely guarded by a single man, old as time itself, and the mode of transportation might be used to annihilate you as easily as to bring one home.”

“You do a lot of that, don’t you. Handing a lot of responsibility on a single person.”

“It is the way that it’s always been. Roles are uniquely set, with little option for deviation.” Loki felt bitterness creeping up his throat, words sticking I his throat. “There was no one powerful enough to ever challenge Odin’s rule, to deny his claim to the Nine. And thus, the Realm Eternal has grown fat, self-righteous and complacent.”

Banner made a non-committal noise, but he was listening intently enough.

“Asgard’s politics are stale and corrupt, the status quo choking anything that does not fit in. There can be no suffering or dissent in the pristine world of the All-Father’s benevolent rule, so at best it is ignored. There is rot in Asgard that no one suspects when the city shines with gold and snow-white marble, and cherry trees bloom, mountains rise tall and crisp in ever-blue skies …” Loki cut himself off abruptly when he realized he was rambling. He felt homesick to his core, every breath painfully tight in his lungs, his eyes burning.

Banner was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, he sounded reluctant. As though he didn’t really want to ask. “You still were royalty. By definition, these kinds of systems are in place to benefit you. How did you go from that to trying to conquer Earth?”

“None of that ‘benefited’ me, you fool,” Loki spat.

Banner just shrugged, watched him carefully. The monster lurked behind his eyes, a brief flash of warning.

Loki took a moment to process how far afield this conversation had gone. Speaking of his home to Banner would have seemed impossible two weeks ago. “I’m not Aesir. Take away the title, and any Asgardian would have killed me on sight. When Thor returned from banishment, he challenged my right to the throne. In battling him, I fell from the Bifröst and into the void. The powers that found me …” he fell silent, horror rising slowly from the pit of his stomach. Memories of blood dripping from his mouth, the feeling of his own skin hanging in strips from his body, the endless despair and darkness resurfacing from the depth. “My ally at the time offered me a different throne. One on Midgard.”

“And you didn’t think your Dad wouldn’t try to take Earth back?”

“What?”

“Wasn’t Odin already claiming, I don’t know, ownership of Earth?” He made a face, the concept apparently distasteful.

“At best, I expected it would draw out Thor.” Banner still didn’t seem to understand, so Loki broke it down: “How often has Asgard interfered in Midgard’s wars and slaughter? Not once after he drove back the Frost Giants a thousand years ago, an age-old enemy that had been a thorn in his side for a long time. The Allfather does not care for the loss of Midgardian lives, though he pretends when it conveniences him.”

“He did sent Thor to stop you.”

“To wipe out the creature he raised and that had turned on him.” Loki’s voice turned so bitter he felt he was choking on it, teeth bared and hands clenched to fists. “To put an end to the shame that I brought him. That he claimed to protect Midgard at the same time was mere lip-service, a lie so obvious that only Thor might believe it.”

“Right.” Banner looked at his hands, folded firmly in his lap. He let out long long-suffering sigh. “Not to sound like Tony, but I think I need a drink. You want anything?”

“No.”

“Give me a moment.”

Bruce walked to the bar, rummaged through the cupboards and poured himself a glass of something amber. Loki steadfastly ignored the noises coming from Stark’s room. (The man had no subtlety. He was astonished Banner didn’t hear any of it. Mortals.)

“My father was … well. Not great would be an understatement.” Banner said, leaned against the bar and watched the ongoing storm outside their windows. He drank a sip of his alcohol. “He mostly just ignored me, but he beat my mom, and he almost ended up killing her. After leaving home, I never saw him again. Didn’t even go to the funeral.

“He thought I was born wrong, from the very beginning. Because his father had beaten him, and he beat his wife. I was just one more of the bunch: a monster.”

The word stilled something in Loki. Calmed him in its honesty.

“In some ways, I became what he expected me to be,” Banner drained the rest of the liquor. “The Hulk eventually forced me to control my anger, so I learned to do that. But you know what stuck with me?” He looked to Loki, eyes flashing green for the briefest moment. “Where I came from and who raised me doesn’t absolve me. Any mistakes I make are my own. And it is up to me to fix them when I can.”

Loki thought of the blood on his hands, of a whole realm all but lost. The memory was tinged with rage, with madness. It ran down his back like ice water. (He barely recognized his past self.)

And he thought of how different Odin had treated him and Thor, even when they were little. Even now, part of him yearned for nothing more than Odin’s acceptance. How strongly he still felt himself to be in the shadow of Thor.

Loki found that this conversation had been a poor distraction. He felt flayed open in ways that had nothing to do with physical wounds.

“And why would you be telling me all this?” he asked.

“You’re a smart guy, I think you can figure it out.” Banner smiled lopsidedly. “You were ready to kill us all, back in New York. Where are you at with that?”

“You know that I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

“No, I mean.” Banner seemed to be looking for the right words. “If we let you go, what would you do if you could? Where would you go?”

Loki looked away. He didn’t know. A fugitive of Asgard, an endless, yawning nothingness stretched before him. He couldn’t return to anything he owned, any place he’d ever been. He had no allies, no purpose. He might go in disguise, if he had the strength to maintain it. He might try to find healing somewhere else. “I have no reason to kill you, or any of humanity,” he said. “Though I do wish to strangle Stark on occasion.”

Banner looked alarmed. “That’s a joke, right?”

Loki gave him a cool glance.

“You can’t just say stuff like that. I have no idea whether you’re joking.”

“I’m joking.” Loki allowed.

Banner visibly deflated. “You’re not lying about any of this, are you?”

Loki considered answers that would satisfy, answers that sounded true. And found that he wanted nothing more than to curl up in a dark place and lick his wounds for a while, stay hidden, out of sight.

“I am not.” (Stark and his woman had fallen quiet.) “Tell me, Doctor, do you play chess?”

Banner gave him a calculating look, but let the abrupt change of topic go without comment. “Tony taught you?”

Loki gave him his best shark smile. “I will go easy on you.”

Loki proceeded to lose with as much grace as he could muster.

**

The sex with Pepper was fantastic, maybe more so for being angry. And after, she announced she would stay and work from home for a while.

While she commandeered his office as well as the living room with phone conferences and paper work, Tony buried himself in the workshop, going over arc reactor technology with Loki as a feasible way to power a Soul Forge. He had dimmed the lights, the cars shining in the light of the holographic blueprint of the arc reactor that JARVIS was projecting midair, next to a block of stats that Loki was carefully going over, translating them into Asgardian units. It was one of the first moments that he looked slightly impressed with something Tony had invented.

“It seems feasible. But you realize I’m not an artificer,” Loki told him when Tony asked for his opinion.

“What, you’re telling me you learned all that in high school?”

Loki held eye contact for a little longer than strictly comfortable. “I never said I was unlearned.”

“That’s my point. So, what do you think?”

Loki reached into the reactor projected midair and pulled it into his lap, where he was sitting in the wheelchair, begun turning it, taking it apart—looking for what, Tony wasn’t sure. He dropped his hands, seeming dissatisfied, and turned to Tony in one smooth motion, his eyes locking onto the soft glow beneath a thin cotton t-shirt. “If I might see the actual construction, it would tell me more than this limited depiction could.”

Tony froze. This wasn’t something he usually did. He did not run around showing people his arc reactor, not blueprints, not pictures, but especially not the real thing.

“I doubt you need that.”

“I doubt you know what I’m looking for.” Loki shot back.

“Yep, why don’t you explain it.” Tony crossed his arms protectively over his chest.

“It’d be a simple diagnostic spell.” Loki began to sound annoyed.

“Not an answer.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “The details would take a week of arguing the basics of magic. I wish to proceed with the project, and you have asked my opinion.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. “That’s a weak excuse.”

“Surely, you realize that I do not benefit from harming you. And I thought you wished for my opinion?” Loki looked perfectly innocent, which meant that he surely had a secondary motive. Then again, he’d see an arc reactor either way when the Soul Forge was finished. Provided it didn’t blow up in their faces because the arc reactor was incompatible, which might happen if they didn’t properly evaluate compatibility of Stark technology an Asgardian magic.

What the hell.

Tony stripped his shirt before thinking about it any further, sat down in the desk chair and wheeled it over. He tapped the glowing battery in the middle of his chest. “No messing with this, you got me? I’ll blast you if anything feels weird. I’m serious. JARVIS? Protocol Blast Loki If He Does Anything Weird.”

“Eloquently put, sir,” JARVIS intoned.

Loki’s eyes lit up at the sight of the reactor, caught somewhere between curiosity and awe. Tony had a moment of clarity and a terrible sense of déjà vu, of lying paralyzed on the floor as Obie bent over him. He was about to call it off when Loki extended a hand and his fingertips ghosted over the scarring on Tony’s chest, sending a shiver through the numb tissue. Oh. Well. That wasn’t weird at all.

“I read about the incident …” Loki stilled, both hands and words.

“You and the whole world. Got hit by one of my own rockets.” Tony heard how clipped his voice was. He didn’t care, he wasn’t going to revisit this. The thought alone made his hair stand on end. “I know I’m an attractive guy, but we got work to do. Chop, chop, do your inspection thing.”

Loki snorted. He let his hand rest over Tony’s heart, shadows dancing across his face as he blotted out most of the blue light. “You might feel this. Don’t be alarmed.”

Tony braced himself, thinking that this had been one of his worse ideas, as Loki’s hand began glowing green, brow drawn in concentration. Static electricity danced across his skin, a cold, prickling sensation. It made the hair stand up on the back of his arms, a shiver that took his whole body. Loki flicked his gaze up to hold his, a shimmer washing over his skin, hair lifting as though under water, and time hung briefly suspended. Tony’s heart was hammering under Loki’s hand, tension humming under his skin, nerve endings alight as pulses of power ghosted across them.

This was intimate in a way that Tony hadn’t been prepared for and he suddenly had enough. He grabbed Loki’s hand to dislodge it, and as their fingers touched, there was a moment in which his sensations maddeningly doubled: as though Loki’s hands were his own, the power flowing from his core to Tony’s. Loki made a surprised noise, hand twitching under Tony’s, and his lips parted. His pupils looked darker than they had a moment ago. Tony forgot he had meant to push him away.

“Sir, Miss Potts is on her way,” JARVIS announced.

Tony jerked away as though burned, guilt washing through his chest, up his throat like rising tide. Loki turned away and back to the projection, face closed off as though nothing had happened.

“Tony? I need you to check your emails, there is—” Pepper stopped in her tracks when she spotted Loki. Tony stood, grabbed his shirt and pulled it on, walked towards her.

“Board giving you a hard time?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” She gave him a deeply suspicious look. Tony didn’t blush, never had, but in that moment, he could not withstand the scrutiny. He looked away. She gave him a professional smile, the kind that she had practiced to perfection through years of being his PA. “Are you making progress? With your project?”

“Uh-huh, yep. Sure am.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She stepped over to the projected blueprints, to which Loki added writing in a language Tony couldn’t read. “I thought one had to sign an NDA before seeing these.”

Loki dropped his hands from his work, gave her the most charming of smiles. “Mortal rules do little to bind me. Do you wish to understand the ‘project,’ Pepper?”

“If you could find the words to explain,” she smiled back.

“It might be difficult to grasp for … someone like you.”

Pepper gave a little laugh, which was utterly charming and had alarm bells go off in Tony’s head. He felt caught in the middle of a war zone, both wanting to flee and fascinated with what was unfolding.

“I’d be grateful if you could find simple terms, then. For someone like me.” Pepper’s voice was perfectly even and polite.

Loki’s smile widened and he picked apart the arc reactor’s blueprint to walk her through the basic functions of it in layperson’s terms, proving that he had listened to Tony’s explanation earlier. Tony got closer, apprehensively watched Pepper’s face lit up in the blue light, concentrating on Loki’s face more than his words.

Loki’s gaze alighted on Tony, suddenly predatory. “Anthony might explain it better. He built it, after all.” He stood as though he didn’t need the wheelchair at all—which always unsettled Tony briefly—rested his fingers lightly on Tony’s chest, only half overlapping the glowing circle on his chest, visible through thin cotton. Tony froze in place, stared at him. Felt Pepper’s eyes on them like physical weight. “But once in physical vicinity, I recognized the reactor’s energy signature through what you might call magic. Do you play an instrument, Pepper?”

“I fear I never learned.” Pepper remained politely attentive.

Loki’s smile turned condescending. “Forgive me, I forget how short mortal life is. Regardless, think of it to as music. Frequency, pattern, intensity.” He tapped a rhythm out against the hard glass of the reactor under Tony’s shirt. He finally had the presence of mind to bat Loki’s hand away, take a hasty step back. Loki continued, unfazed. “A recognizable overlap of waves creates the distinct opening notes to a song. Even if played on a different instrument or in a different key, that song remains recognizable. Are you following, so far?”

“I believe so,” Pepper said, sharper than the question warranted, and when she met Tony’s eyes, he knew he was in trouble.

“The Arc Reactor’s song is reminiscent to that of the Tesseract, a very powerful artifact that I was once sent to find on Earth. You might remember the incident.” He craned his neck to meet Tony’s gaze, curiosity burning intently in his eyes. “And I wonder why and how you created something that reads like an infinity stone, Anthony Edward Stark.”

“I also have questions,” Pepper said brightly. “Maybe JARVIS could get Bruce to babysit you while I discuss them with ‘Anthony.’” She looked to Loki. “I trust you’ll find something to entertain yourself for a while.”

“Indeed,” Loki agreed, sparks flying between them.

She grabbed Tony by the sleeve and pulled him to the doorway. Tony followed unwillingly, turned around and pointed at Loki: “Don’t touch anything!”

Pepper snorted in disgust as she closed the door behind them, kept leading Tony away and into the kitchen. “I didn’t think you had it in you.” She rounded on him, pointed at his chest. “Tell me you’re not sleeping with him.”

“My judgment isn’t that bad.”

She glared at him. “Tell me in a way I believe.”

“I’m not!”

Understanding dawned on her face and her expression turned to one of horror. “Oh god. You are attracted to him. That’s why you’re protecting him, that’s why he won’t leave.”

“Pep, even if I wasn’t with you, which I am—”

“No, there is something. Is it— he didn’t use mind control, did he? God—”

“—I wouldn’t be sleeping with a crazed supervillain!”

“—I wouldn’t even know— Of course you would! You’d sleep with anything that has two legs. Apparently, it doesn’t even need to be human at this point!”

“That is unfair and you know it!”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t have slept with Miss Romanoff in a heartbeat!”

“I didn’t, though, did I.”

“Because she would have killed you!”

“I was dying at the time! Cut me some slack.”

“And now you’re acting like you’re trying to kill yourself!”

“That’s ridiculous and a baseless accusation.”

“You’re self-destructive, danger seeking, you don’t sleep, barely eat, you are punishing yourself!”

“Anything good in the pop psych section at the airport? You sure sound like you’ve been reading your way through it.”

“What if I am! You are not exactly a model partner, Tony!”

“Well, I’m trying! And I am not sleeping with the supervillain!”

Silence descended briefly as they noticed Bruce, frozen in the doorway. “You’re … you’re not? That’s good … great even.” He backed away. “I, uh. I’ll grab a coffee later.”

“Thanks for the support, Bruce!” Tony called after him as he all but ran for the lab.

Pepper had stepped to the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out over the ocean, hand covering her mouth and looking shell-shocked. “How is this my life? Why did I choose this?”

“Pep, I—”

She lifted a hand to silence him, voice shaking. “No, I cannot deal with this, right now. I’m … I’m going back to New York in the morning. I have work to do, I’m barely catching up as is.” She already had her phone out, walking past him without looking up. “I’m taking the jet. And I still need you to check your emails.”

He stared after her as the noise of her heels turned the corner and down the hallway, call connecting and Pepper speaking into her phone.

“You’re wrong! Just so you know!” He called after her, words ringing in the empty space of his home.

**

Tony checked his emails: SHIELD wanted him to stop building the sensors to identify contaminated material—no reason given, but Tony could just see their beady little executive eyes lit up with paranoia—and hand over any progress he had made, so far. They were threatening to void the contract if he didn’t comply.

Tony shot them an angry email, detailing where they could stick their threats. He hesitated for a minute, then put Pepper in CC. He closed his laptop with a scoff.

**

Loki woke with a start, uncertain of the reason. His skin was crawling, a hazy memory of nightmares. Moonlight filled the room, limning the arm chair by the ceiling-high windows in which Banner often slept. He wasn’t here, not tonight—they had extended him the occasional courtesy of privacy since their stint at the hospital. (As though he was fool enough to believe JARVIS wasn’t watching at all times.)

Loki realized the light of the clock by his bedside was out.

“JARVIS,” Loki murmured, quietly sat up, hand reaching for the wheelchair. “What time is it?”

Silence. JARVIS usually responded, even if it was to tell him that information was restricted. The absence of his voice had Loki’s hackles rise. He forewent the wheelchair, reached into his shallow reserves of magic to strengthen ailing muscles. Silently he rose, breath hitching at the amount energy the small trick cost him.

Loki opened the door quietly, crept down the hallway on bare feet, mind racing. Stark’s mechanical servant would not give him access to the security feed even if he could respond, so there was no way to see what was happening in the house. Loki arrived at the elevator and called it, but the lights remained dead. So he moved on, steadied himself against the wall in the eastern stair well, muttered the words to a locator spell. He closed his eyes and let go, the power rippling outwards in an invisible wave. Anything alive alighted as a disturbance, one by one, based on distance.

Almost immediately: one floor up, one presence alone in Stark’s bedroom, asleep. Likely Pepper.

Another, in the hallway, moving towards the bedroom. Stark.

Banner, on the far end of the manor in his own room. At rest.

And then, one more source, in the depths of the lower basement. Loki paused. That didn’t make sense, if Stark was on the way to his bedroom, he couldn’t simultaneously be in the high security basement.

He opened his eyes, world briefly blurring around him and knees weak. He cursed inwardly: there was an intruder, either in the basement or on the way to the bedroom. He hadn’t been able to astral project since he woke from surgery, and he would be likely to pass out if he tried. The decision began and ended with this: if the intruder wanted Chitauri weapons, Loki would gladly be rid of them. If they wanted to harm someone, they were seconds away from reaching the fragile, mortal woman. Loki had no time to alert anyone, not without electronics or magic, so he began moving.

The spell to silence his steps was more important than the spell guaranteeing an even gait, so he let go of the latter. He pulled himself up the staircase leading to the second floor, legs shaking, breath coming too fast.

He hobbled down the hallway, leaning heavily against the wall. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to conjure a weapon if necessary, he grabbed a small, abstract statue from an alcove. It was crude and ugly, but it was made of hefty marble and its base had a sharp edge.

He turned a corner and froze: the clean-cut silhouette of a large man, stark against the moonlight that reflected off the ocean outside the windows. He stretched to open the bedroom door in near silence, metal glinting in darkness, and descended the staircase that led down into Stark’s bedroom.

Loki ran—tried to run—and thanked the Norns the spell of silence hid his heavy, uneven steps, the impact as he fell against a picture frame, glass mutely cracking and cutting his hands. He reached the door, leaving bloody hand prints against the manor’s walls, in time to see the shape stand bend over Stark’s woman.

In the enormous bed, she was as small as a child: brow unwrinkled in her dreams, a pale arm falling from the softness of the sheets, bright hair feathering out over pillows, a spill of sunlight to the black-and-white scenery. Fragile as a bird, framed by person-sized bronze statues like silent sentries. And on the other side of the bed, rising incomprehensibly large, a nameless villain.

The man’s eyes met Loki’s. He lifted an arm with a gun.

Loki concentrated, let magic flow back into his legs, pushed his muscles into a screaming burn. He dropped down the side of the staircase and rolled in time to evade the bullet, came up beneath the man an yelled, dagger held high. A muffled shot echoed in the stillness: the bullet passed right through the illusion. Loki appeared behind the attacker and, arms shaking, pushed one of the bronze statues atop him. The man staggered under the weight and Loki brought the small, heavy statue down on the back of his head, sharp edge splitting skin and shattering bone. The dying man fell like a mountain. Blood splattered across white carpets, bedding, across the skin of Pepper, wide-eyed and abruptly awake.

She screamed and scrambled away, backwards, until she hit the headboard. Loki crumpled where he stood, barely managed to catch himself to sink against the side of the bed rather than fall on his face. His body was screaming with pain, nausea pounding through him at the overexertion. He tasted blood at the back of his throat, and he had known he shouldn’t have cast that last illusion. It seemed the safest bet, but he should have known better.

“Who is that? Why is he here? Why are you here? Oh God, is he dead?”

Loki closed his eyes, let her babble as she got up. The lights turned on—so that worked again—and there was the sound of a drawer opening, of a mechanical gun being armed and aimed.

“Don’t move!”

Loki concentrated on not throwing up.

“JARVIS, where is Tony?”

“JARVIS has been incapacitated,” Loki managed. His head felt like it was going to burst if he moved, lose his stomach contents if he spoke above a whisper.

A moment of silence. Then, calm and threatening: “You disabled JARVIS?”

“Not I,” he hissed.

“What do you want from me? Is this, is this some twisted kind of revenge?”

Loki took a moment to breathe through another bout of nausea. Answering her seemed as foolish as futile. There was a moment of stillness, then quick steps, some more rummaging. The noise of a phone connecting. Stark’s voice on the other end, alarmed.

“Loki just showed up in my bedroom and killed a, a man … he says JARVIS isn’t working.”

Stark immediately jumped into damage control. No hesitation, no panic bleeding into his voice. Loki allowed himself to relax as Pepper followed instructions: removed the gun from the assassin, checked his pulse with fumbling fingers and couldn’t find it, removed further weaponry from his body and put it out of reach.

A brief pause, as Pepper was listening to Tony, breathing too fast.

There was a shuffle on the stone floor, too close to be Pepper. Loki barely had time to look up: a shadow bend over him, blotted out what little he saw of the room. Time slowed. Loki’s movements were too sluggish. A hand was slapped to his throat, large enough that it wrapped around his neck in its entirety, thumb to forefinger. It lifted him, jaw creaking, and squeezed. His larynx crumbled like paper, the pain barely registering over the shock. He scrabbled at the hands, lungs working frantically to no avail, mouth open like a fish. Loki looked into the face of the man that would kill him as his vision began to fade to black. A mortal thug. Pathetic.

Loki went limp in his grasp.

(What a relief to let go.)

A single shot fired through the night. Warm liquid splattered his face, iron on his tongue. Everything smelled like blood.

Loki dropped like a stone, took heaving, rattling breaths. He turned over and, finally, he threw up, permanently staining the white shag carpet. He was drenched in cold sweat, sound fading in and out as his own pulse thudded in his ears. Loki suddenly felt incredibly light-headed and he tipped forward, the world fading away.

**

The elevator needed time to reboot and Tony didn’t wait for it to come online, the Mark V closing around him mid-run. He flew up the shaft, manually opened the hatch. By the time he got to the bedroom, Pepper stood in the hallway in an old, white t-shirt and pajama bottoms, crying and pale-faced.

“Tony, I shot him.”

Tony took the last steps in a sprint into the bedroom. A gigantic man lay on the floor like a fallen bull, no breath lifting his muscled shoulders, one of the bronze Rodin toppled over besides him. Tony turned him onto his back with some effort: Caucasian, broad features, balding. The shot from Pepper’s pistol had taken one of his eyes out, leaving a bloody crater in the face that Tony didn’t recognize. Definitely dead.

“JARVIS, run—” he stopped himself when he remembered JARVIS was gone. He spotted Loki, in a puddle of vomit, crumpled like a discarded doll, unconscious, an checked him over. Breathing, bright red bruising setting in around his neck. Unconscious, but alive. For now.

“Pep, are you hurt?”

She was hugging herself in the doorframe, gun still tucked under one arm, trembling so hard her teeth were chattering. Unresponsive, staring at the ruin of the man’s face.

“Pep. Hey, Pep!”

She whipped around to him, hair falling into wild eyes.

“You did good.”

“Did I? I-I-I just killed a person.”

“You protected yourself. Are you hurt?” Tony repeated.

Pepper shook her head. Her spine suddenly straightened, she snapped around, gun lifted, feet planted firmly, aimed into the empty hallway. With a warm glow of pride, Tony got to her side, repulsors aimed towards the running footsteps, just as Bruce rounded the corner.

“What happened? I heard a gunshot!” Banner looked a little green around the gills.

Tony relaxed. “All good, the guy’s dead. Hey, would you check on our house guest, he’s passed out, seems he was beat up. I’ll do a perimeter search, get JARVIS online.”

“You don’t know that-that they’re not waiting for you, what if this is a trap?” Pepper latched onto the suit’s arm, expression pleading.

“I’ll be careful.” Tony gently dislodged her fingers.

“You’re never careful!”

“How about this. I’m getting JARVIS back up and then I’m doing a perimeter search.

Pepper looked like she wanted to protest and Tony took off flying before she could. He carefully didn’t think about the possibility of his home crawling with intruders while he was leaving Pepper alone. (Bruce was there. She’d be fine.) He went back down to the lab, manually restarted the mansion’s security.

“Sir, I must apologize, it seems I’ve missed the last twelve minutes of activity.”

Tony briefly closed his eyes, relief crashing over him like a tidal wave. He got up from his desk and settled into a routine sweep of the house. “No worries. JARVIS, protocol Waldo. We had an intruder, someone smart enough to disable you.”

“Indeed. I cannot detect any further signs of life within the mansion, sir. Satellite images shows no movement outside.”

There was little hope the cameras would have worked through an EMP—if that was what had happened. It shouldn’t, Tony had protection in place for that kind of thing. And generator in the subbasement hadn’t turned off, so Tony couldn’t be sure. “Do we have footage of his entry?”

“I do apologize, sir.”

“Not your fault. Run facial recognition on the guy on my bedroom floor.” He hesitated, then decided he had to check. “And analyze Loki’s actions since his arrival in Malibu based on existing footage. Let me know if anything seems to connect him to this.”

Finishing the manual perimeter check took twenty minutes and yielded nothing. He returned to the master bedroom, adrenaline finally lowering enough that the fear set in. The corpse on his floor looked like a dummy in the bright lights, a movie prop, and the blood staining the walls, bed, and carpet turned the scene into an abandoned battlefield. It smelled like iron and foul acid. Loki was awake, if incredibly pale, and had moved—or been moved—to a chair. They had taken off his stained shirt and his hands dug into a blanket around his shoulders as though it would shield him. He was talking in quiet, rough tones to Bruce. They fell quiet when Tony stepped inside.

“How are you doing, Merlin?”

Loki gave him a shadow of a cocky grin. “I have survived worse.” He sounded like someone had sandpapered the inside of his throat.

“Pepper wouldn’t have, from what I can tell. Survived this, I mean. I appreciate it.”

Loki inclined his head in acknowledgment.

Tony made eye-contact with Bruce, quickly checking he was comfortable and doing alright. “I’m gonna check on Pepper.”

“She went to your office, I think.”

Tony turned around to find her. Even after he entered his office—he never used the room, he didn’t even know why he owned it—it took him a minute to see her. Pepper was sitting on the far wall, behind the desk, curled up and hugging her knees, eyes red from crying.

“Hey, is this seat taken?” Tony asked and sat down on the floor in front of her.

Her eyes were hollow when she looked at him.

“How are you holding up?”

She gave him a watery smile. “Terribly.”

“Yeah, not surprising. Not the best night’s sleep you’ve gotten recently, huh.”

“God, and I’ve been sleeping so little the past weeks. I have an investor meeting in the morning.”

“I think those guys can wait. You know what, you were right to put in all those guest rooms way back when. We don’t even need that master. I was thinking about remodeling, anyway.”

“I’ve … I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

A sinking feeling in his stomach. “Uh-oh. Don’t like the sound of that. What did I do, is it the dirty plates I left out? I promise I’ll do better.”

“Please, don’t do that, don’t deflect. I really … I haven’t known when to … since you took in Loki … Oh God, this is a mess.” She pushed hair out of her eyes, fresh tears running down her face. Her forearms were splattered with dry blood, as was here white t-shirt. “I can’t do this anymore.”

The floor fell out from under Tony. Had he seen this coming? If he was being honest, he’d been waiting for it since the day she agreed to move in. “Pep, you’re upset, anyone would be. Take some time to rest. When was the last time you had a vacation? You need a vacation.”

“On my last vacation, you took in a mass-murdering alien and told me I couldn’t come home,” she said through tears, sobs breaking up her words. “You being … doing what you do, it is hard. But you’re not even trying to meet me in the middle. I don’t … I cannot fix this.”

“You don’t have to. I fix things. That’s my thing. I’m the engineer, I fix stuff.”

“You fix everything but yourself, you’re obsessed with making yourself worse. You’re spending all your time in the workshop, or-or making decisions that might actively get you killed. You’re not dealing with what happened to you. I don’t know how to help you, you’re not letting me, and you’re refusing to help yourself.”

“So, what are you saying. You’re breaking up with me?”

“I think I am.” Pepper looked at him with such profound, heart-breaking sadness that Tony had to turn away. He swallowed hard, once, twice, felt like he was in free fall. Concentrated on the soft carpet under his hands, looked at its brilliant patterning, the kind of thing that made a room feel like coming home. Pepper had probably picked it.

“Okay. I get it. I can see why …” He squeezed his burning eyes shut, rubbed them, then blinked heavily. “I’m a mess right now. I get it. It’s okay. Don’t feel bad about this, alright? Try to … you need to get some sleep.”

“Tony—”

“It’s fine. Just … take care of yourself, alright? Promise me.”

She nodded.

“I love you, honey.” Tony got up and walked away, out of the room, down the long hallway. Donned his armor, grabbed the first bottle whiskey he could find. He flew up to the roof of the mansion, sat down, feet dangling high above jutting rocks and crashing waves, gulls soaring with echoing cries, sun rising, whiskey burning a track down his throat.

**

Pepper was gone by the time he returned.

Chapter Text

Her step pattern gave her away through the closed door: the distinct ca-clack of her pristine, white heels, approaching, hesitating. She dithered in the hallway, and Loki imagined her, one hand raised, knuckles poised. Loki realized he couldn’t concentrate on the the principles of thermodynamics he’d been reading by moonlight, curled up in the arm chair by the window. His knees were drawn up to his chest, a wall against the world, and he wanted to tell himself that it was comfortable. However, his body was a hurt animal that made itself small, hid from shadows in the night. His gaze flickered to the door, to the distraction.

“If you have something to say, I suggest you do,” he said, loud enough that she should hear, his voice still raw. His throat would hurt for a while, and he resented it, this new reality of not healing over night, of having to worry about damage that lasted. When the door finally unlatched and she stepped inside, she brought with her golden light from the hallway. It flooded the room, her red hair a loose halo around her head, cascading over her shoulders. There were shadows under her eyes, no powder hiding her freckles, her suit exchanged for a loose t-shirt and sweatpants.

Even she was too tired to wear her armor, tonight. (Was it still night?)

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, squinting into the darkness, looking for him. It sounded like an excuse.

“You are not.” Though he was exhausted enough to fall asleep on the spot, thoughts of last night’s quarrel kept him on edge. He had overheard her and Stark’s argument. What would she do if Stark held no more power over her? He looked to her expectantly, demeanor a carefully bored facade, one eyebrow lifted. “Well?”

She hovered in the door, grip on still on the handle, ready to close it and leave Loki behind. Ready to flee. “How are you?”

Loki sneered. “That is not why you’re here.”

She sighed, defeated. “No, I’m not. I … I don’t know what happened, last night. But I don’t think it was your fault.”

“I would hope so,” Loki said dryly.

Her jaw worked for a while, as though she was testing out words that she couldn’t bring herself to say. But when she looked him in the eye, she seemed certain, her shoulders squared, spine straight, face open and eyes sparking. “I think I was wrong. I think you mean well. I won’t send the authorities your way.”

There was no reason for her to tell him this. None but kindness. Something loosened in his chest.

“Is that all?” he asked.

The smile she gave him was brief, filled with pain. “Please look out for him. He will need a friend.”

He inclined his head in agreement. “I will.”

“Well then. I am on my way to the airport.”

“May the wind be at your back and your road ever lead downhill.”

She laughed, surprised herself with the sound. “And yours, I suppose.”

For a moment, she stood awkwardly, then took a step back. The door closed behind her, latching silently. Loki stared at it in the darkness for a long time, heart pounding and thoughts chasing each other in his head.

**

Tony didn’t bother announcing himself, and in the hour it took him to fly from Malibu to New York, he watched recent footage of Justin Hammer bad-mouthing Pepper.

“Stark’s secretary is playing at clean energy …”

“… CEG, chief executive girlfriend …”

“… Potts can hardly be blamed, not everyone is cut out to lead a business …”

He arrived in Queens at the beginning of business hours and hovered outside gray concrete-and-metal cube that sat like a discarded box amid similarly ugly office complexes: Hammer Industries headquarters. Pedestrians pointed and shouted, office workers gathered nervously behind gold-tinted windows as he coasted by. It didn’t take long for him to find Hammer’s office.

“Sir, may I suggest—”

A repulsor blast shattered the window, shards spraying over green leather couches and scattering across expensive rugs. Hammer yelped and jumped up from his swivel chair. JARVIS sighed over the intercom, which Tony thought a tad dramatic.

“Let me call you back.” Hammer fumbled his phone with visible alarm. Tony stumbled slightly upon landing, barrel-aged whiskey flowing through his veins. He turned his weapons on his former business rival that should have rightfully remained behind bars.

“Hey, Tony! Wow, okay, okay. Not that I’m not excited to see you, but you realized I have a busy schedule? If you go down to the front desk, they’ll pencil you in.”

The office door began to creak open and Tony sent a squealing repulsor blast at the threshold, eliciting shrieks from the other side. He stepped over crunching glass, grabbed Hammer’s desk and threw it to the side, crowding the man against the shelves filled with gold-lettered books.

“Police are on their way. Consider this a warning.” Tony grabbed him by the lapel of his light-blue suit, watched his face grow pale and afraid. “Don’t you dare to mess with Pepper ever again, or my next visit will turn a lot less friendly.”

“Uh, what?” Genuine confusion broke through the fear. “Back up, you lost me. An attack? That sounds violent. Yeah, kinda like you blowing in through my window.” He sucked on his teeth as his eyes shifted to survey the damage over Tony’s shoulder.

“Stop playing dumb,” Tony knocked him into the shelves and Hammer yelped. “You’ve been buddy-buddy with Stern for years.”

“Tony.” Hammer laughed nervously, a hand hesitantly closing over the one that Tony had twisted in his suit jacket. “What are you talking about?”

Tony paused. Hammer’s reaction seemed genuine enough. And Tony was angry, and he had had a lot to drink and very little sleep. Had it been too obvious? Apart from sizable contributions to Senator Stern’s campaign, Hammer and he had been seen golfing, dining together, and appearing at the same parties.

Fuck.

Tony shoved him for good measure and let go. “The CEO of my company was attacked last night: ex-con, served time in a cell next to yours. He got out a week ago, arranged by Stern. First thing he does is get a gun, break into my home and almost killed Stark Industries’ CEO.”

“Okay, hold up. You’re jumping to conclusions. I get why you think this looks bad but … you think I’d ask a senator to, what, kill another person?”

“To assassinate my … CEO.”

Hammer dragged a hand down his face, stared into space. “Aw man. Tony, I think you got played. You can’t believe everything you see. It’s a complex world outside of your superhero gig.”

It was hard to overstate how much Tony despised this guy. Sirens were going off outside and Hammer looked alarmed as he watched police men spilling onto the pavement outside his office.

“You’re gonna tell them this was a misunderstanding, right?”

“Don’t care. Bill me for the damage.” Tony walked back to the shattered window, put a foot on the ledge to propel himself into the sky.

“I thought we were friends!” Hammer’s voice faded out as Tony soared.

“JARVIS, go over our Stern’s financial data, again. I want a full picture.”

“Regrettably, I do not have access to private bank accounts, sir.”

“Which bank?”

“The senator holds an account with the Armed Forces.”

Well. Tony would gladly take the challenge of hacking them.

**

His SHIELD satellite phone rang off the hook for the rest of the day. At least it did until Tony turned off the sound, threw it into a drawer, shut it, and told JARVIS to turn up the music.

It was well after dark when the music had died down and JARVIS informed him that Nick Fury was on the line, again. There was a bottle of whiskey clutched between Tony’s knees, and the blueprint of the mansion and its security features slowly rotating mid-air. He knew, by now, where the electromagnetic pulse that had taken out JARVIS had likely originated—straight above the mansion, a mile or so up, and the knowledge made Tony’s skin crawl, sat at the bottom of his stomach like a fist-sized stone. Someone had gotten past his defenses and had … had almost killed …

Tony finally threw open the drawer and answered.

“I need you to pick up your goddamn phone when I’m calling you.”

“Good evening to you, too, Nick.”

“It’s six-fucking-a.m.”

Tony checked the clock on his laptop. Huh. So it was. Hard to tell when he was in the subbasement, not like it had windows. “Are you just calling to waste my time or is there a point to this? I got work to do.”

“What the hell were you thinking, blowing up Hammer’s office. Do you even care how bad that looks? I got enough people breathing down my neck about that goddamn contract, I don’t have time to play your fucking PR agent, too.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Nah, not really.”

There was a heavy silence in which Tony imagined Fury standing at the edge of his flying fortress and deciding whether to throw his phone into the ocean. He sounded like he could do with a break.

“I’ve been instructed to terminate our business arrangement due to breach of contract,” Fury said with dangerous calm. “I still expect you to fulfill the last milestone you missed. I want the results of your scans, ASAP.”

Tony found that he didn’t care. It was hard to care when you were most of the way through a bottle of whiskey.

He took another sip.

“Look, honey, I’ve had this stuff for four weeks and am making real progress. You guys spent three months on it and all you produced were hospital bills. We both know I’m your best bet.”

“Not anymore. You’ve missed the last meeting, you’re days away from being arrested for property damage and wasting police time, and I know you just had fucking a break-in when we agreed on water-tight, secure storage. What do you expect me to do, here, Stark?”

Tony slumped in his chair, stared at the ceiling. He had a blueprint of the Soul Forge pinned up there, just in case it inspired solutions. It hadn’t, so far.

“Nope, sounds reasonable. You want me to store your jet skis until you figure out how to decontaminate it? Seeing that I’m not done with that part.”

Fury paused. “How much.”

Tony smirked. “For storage?”

“Don’t play dumb. Your decontamination process.”

Tony imagined renting out Loki to SHIELD. Yikes. “Not for sale, sorry.”

Fury began swearing a blue streak and Tony cut through it: “Give me a week and I’ll find a solution that won’t get your agents sick. Seeing that you just canceled the contract, I’ll send you a bill.” He hung up.

The phone began ringing again immediately and Tony threw the SHIELD-issued phone across the workshop, towards the open trash can. It bounced off the wall with and landed next to the can. It also kept ringing, muffled. SHIELD really was a cockroach in a nuclear wasteland. Tony flicked his wrist, repulsor unfolding from his wrist watch, and reduced it to cinders.

He stared at the blue print hovering mid-air, then at the parameters of the high-altitude nuclear EMP attack floating next to the simulation. “JARVIS, remove atmosphere from the equation and let’s run this again.”

“If I may, sir, you completed that simulation earlier today.”

JARVIS highlighted a set of results that was dated to roughly one in the morning. Tony rubbed his eyes. Maybe he was a little tired.

“Let’s try that with an explosively pumped flux compression generator, then.”

“Which is exactly what you said at 2:32 a.m., sir.”

Tony paused. He opened his eyes and the set of results stared back at him. Failed.

“Might I also remind you that sleep greatly improves memory and learning. Sir.”

“No reason to get sassy,” Tony shot back. He was running out of ideas. Ever since becoming Iron Man, he’d been terribly aware of the vulnerabilities of his suit, which meant that hadn’t built a system that wasn’t radiation-hardened in years. An EMP shouldn’t have been able to touch any of it, least of all JARVIS’s core. Even Bruce had confirmed that gamma radiation was unlikely to cause the effect they’d seen. His defenses were solid.

Tony paused.

He discarded all calculations based in existing technology. “JARVIS, give me parameters that would get through the rad-hardening. Don’t care about viability, just give me stats. Stop after two-hundred variations.”

“Certainly, sir.” The simulation began flickering as JARVIS tested and replaced numbers, aborted and started over. A list of successful results began ticking in and Tony scrolled through outcomes ranging from unlikely to outraging. One of the data sets caught his attention, then another: a tickle at the back of his brain, a sense of déjà vu.

Tony was good with numbers and ranges, with the way they related to each other. He hadn’t seen this exact set of data before, but that didn’t mean he didn’t recognize the pattern: circled on paper, spread out on bed sheets, Loki glancing at him with suspicion from his sick bed: ‘… for lack of a more accurate term, magic.’

And Loki had manipulated JARVIS before.

“Son of a bitch.”

**

Tony burst through the door of the bedroom and all but threw the paper at Loki, who stared at him for a moment, then at the scattering of sheets across his lap. He made no move to pick them up.

“Did you possibly need something?” He sounded perfectly calm. He still looked exhausted, bruises blooming in a deep purple ring around his neck, but his voice had settled back into a smooth baritone.

“The blast that took out JARVIS. That was magic wasn’t it,” he pointed at the theoretical data. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Loki’s attention sharpened, and he picked up one of the papers, smoothed it out. Glanced at a couple of others. Finally, he shook his head. “These numbers are meaningless. I have told you before—”

“That my tech can’t detect magic? Yeah, but you did recognized the signs before.”

“It could be magic, it could be something else. I’d have to …” He paused, shot Tony an assessing look, and Tony got the distinct impression he was gauging what he wanted to hear. “Something woke me that night, but it was a brief phenomenon. I couldn’t confirm it in hindsight.”

“Yeah. Awfully convenient, isn’t it? You knew immediately what was happening when none of us had any idea.”

Loki’s expression was unreadable.

“Game’s up: did you arrange this?”

The paper crinkled in Loki’s tight grip. “Did I arrange the murder of your woman?”

“I’m talking about my surprise birthday party. Yes, the murder attempt, asshole.”

A brief flicker of pain danced over Loki’s face, swallowed by cold fury. Teeth flashed and his brows darkened his eyes. “Go on, then, follow that thought to its conclusion. I would arrange for her murder, so I might stop it so clumsily that I almost die at the hands of a mortal, need saving by Virginia Potts—”

“Yeah, you’re right, your plans tend to be flawless,” Tony hurled back.

“—and what do I gain in this plot you thought up for me, you fool? What is worth setting my healing back by days, maybe weeks, what warrants risking my life? Your respect? Your trust?” Mockery and derision were dancing in Loki’s too-bright eyes.

It did sound unlikely. He had been helping Loki, even when he didn’t trust him. “You need me, and you know it.”

Loki smiled, sharp and brittle, utterly false. “Don’t insult me. If that scene had been of my making, you would never have known. No, Anthony, all I attempted was to save someone that loathes me. Because I am incapable of learning.” He flung the paper from him with disgust, the messy stack dissolving into a flutter of sheets, scattering and sliding too the floor.

“Yeah, that was real mature. Totally doesn’t make you look like you’re throwing a tantrum.”

“You are the one behaving like an erratic, angry child!” Loki’s eyes flashed with disdain.

“I am asking a reasonable question,” Tony said with forced calm, arms crossed tightly before his chest and fingers digging into his upper arms.

“I could save a babe from a burning house and you’d blame me for the fire,” he spat.

“If you had come to Earth to gift every citizen a puppy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“What have I done since you took me prisoner but be helpful?”

“Are you trying to tell me you give a damn about Pep?”

“Of course I don’t! Why do you think I’d save the woman you love?” The disgust on Loki’s face was almost comical.

Tony briefly blanked on a comeback, then arrived at the obvious answer, which had his brain short-circuit: Loki didn’t care about Pepper, he cared about Tony. Tony who had saved him, who sheltered him, whom he watched with speculation and growing fondness when he thought Tony didn’t notice. He cared enough to save someone important to Tony, enough so to risk his own life.

“Uh.”

As though a switch had been flipped, Loki suddenly looked mortified, heat blooming in his cheeks. Tony felt awfully out of his depth.

“Yeah, that …” That kind of made sense, didn’t it. Loki had mentioned before that he thought he owed him a debt, had taught him about magic and science, had, reluctantly, agreed to heal that patient at danger of being discovered, had played along with anything Tony asked of him, complaining as he might. (Tony thought about Loki leaning in, lips almost brushing his, the mocking laughter in his face, Tony’s stomach in free fall.) “Okay.”

Loki looked sharply away, fixing his gaze on an empty patch of floor, jaw clenched and silent.

“I might have jumped to conclusions,” Tony admitted, taking a step back.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Loki’s voice dripped with sarcasm. He still wasn’t looking at him.

Tony wanted to be out of here. This had been a terrible idea but, God, he hurt so bad and he had become used to having someone, something to blame. He didn’t do well with unsolved mysteries, that wasn’t really his thing. He didn’t do well with being unable to fix this, his helplessness readily turning into self-destruction. Which was probably part of the reason that Pepper had left him, and the thought shattered Tony’s composure. He was horrified to find his eyes burning with unshed tears.

“I shouldn’t have.” Admitting it was tearing his chest open, vulnerable in a way he hated.

Loki seemed to relax minutely, shifting from hurt to nervous, fingers worrying one of the papers that lay scattered across the blankets. “I will not ask for gratitude, given our history. But I do not offer my help lightly, and I would have you understand that.”

Tony swallowed. There was a palpable shift in the room, and Tony suddenly, abruptly, realized that Loki did not merely need him. He had come to rely on Loki in turn, both in his work and … Whom was he kidding. He really, really liked Loki. A lot more than he should, than was probably healthy, more than he could explain. There was a zone free of judgment that filled any room Loki was in, and it was like breathing freely for the first time in months, years even. Tony had enabled some horrible shit in his time on this planet. Loki did not care, Loki looked at Tony in a way that made him feel naked, that pierced cloth and skin, and Loki saw him in ways that no one else seemed to.

Fuck.

“You know I appreciate your saving Pep.” His voice was flat and emotionless and he couldn’t meet Loki’s eyes when he said it, though he could feel the prickle of his gaze.

“I do now,” Loki agreed quietly.

This was dangerous. Tony wanted to not be here, at all, but he found he didn’t want to move. The thought of being alone with his thoughts was terrifying. He could work, of course, for another two days before he would collapse, safely and free of dreams. He would have done that if Loki wasn’t here. Or he could go bother Bruce, which sounded like a reasonable thing to do. But caught up in limbo between that and staying with Loki … Well. Shit.

Shit.

When Loki spoke, it was tentative, hesitant. “I fell asleep during the movie you showed me, the one about the cursed ring. I wish to know how it ended.”

Tony closed his eyes briefly and exhaled. What the hell.

“Yep, that’s a tragedy. If you know nothing else of Earth media, you should know Tolkien.”

“I am not certain that is true.” A tentative smile.

“Oh, I will convince you.”

Loki picked up the papers thrown in accusation and Tony helped, stacked them in a pile to be forgotten atop Loki’s desk. He got them drinks and settled in by Loki’s side, carefully not thinking anything of it.

It was Tony who found some much-needed sleep halfway through the seconds movie, this time.

**

It had been almost a week since the-thing-he-didn’t-think-about. Tony had gotten nowhere trying to figure out what had happened, or who had engineered it—the Armed Forces Bank was surprisingly resilient when it came to hacking attempts—which was one of the main reasons he didn’t-think-about-the-thing. So Tony distracted himself. He was riding the perfect flow, complete immersion, code all but writing itself as fingers flew across the keyboard, when JARVIS interrupted AC/DC mid-track, leaving Tony half-deaf.

“Sir, you have a call from Colonel James Rhodes”

“Tell him I’m busy.”

“Connecting now.”

“JARVIS!”

“Hey Tony.”

Tony suppressed a sigh, fell back into his chair, swiveling in aimless circles. “Listen, Rhodey, I’m working, I don’t really have time.”

“Uh, yeah, about that. Not super impressed with your stunt the other day.”

Tony closed his eyes, counted to ten. At least half-way to ten. To three. “Hammer deserves to be behind bars and you know it.”

“Uh-huh. Funny how they didn’t even arrest him, then, and you’re drowning in law suits from what I can tell. Made your stocks nose-dive, had my supervisor question any contracts upheld with SI. You sure this has nothing to do with Pepper asking me to call you?”

That one hurt. He was working, nothing was supposed to hurt while he was working. He had been so careful to not think about it. He got up and grabbed a bottle of alcohol from the edge of his desk, popped the cork to drink the liquor straight—rum, why did he have rum in the workshop—and stepped onto the basement elevator. “What did she tell you? That I need cheering up, that I’m wallowing? I’ve got projects, just me and my work, like the good old times.” The elevator gave a dull clunk and began moving down, into the belly of his research.

“She said you guys broke up. Tony, what did you do this time?”

“Who said I did anything? Maybe it was her.”

“We both know it wasn’t her.”

Tony sighed, rubbed his temples. “Well. It’s hard to explain and you know what? It’s honestly none of your business.” That he was hiding a villain in his basement to help him prevent an epidemic. It wasn’t that Tony didn’t trust Rhodey. He just didn’t trust his employer.

“That hurts, man.”

“Sorry, Pal, NDAs and all that. Anything else? Because I wasn’t kidding about the work.”

“I’m coming to Malibu on the weekend. You can explain over some very nice liquor.”

“That’s really not—”

“See you then.”

Tony realized that Rhodey had just hung up on him. He stared straight ahead as the elevators opened and revealed Loki giving him an curious look. He was directing the Mark V to dispose some junked alien tech remarkably close to the control platform. Right. Superhuman hearing.

“My private phone calls are none of your business. What are all those jet skis doing this side of the glow-y wall, huh?”

“I cleared them. They are safe for inspection by a mortal team. Though your prototype self-destructed, again.” The Soul Forge’s prototype was an ugly and unstable thing, rigged together from duct tape, a metric shit ton of pure gold, and two sleepless nights of translating Thor’s blue prints. It had exploded catastrophically twice so far—three times, considering the smoldering heap at the other end of the hall—and thus was nowhere close to being used on people. Loki, however, assured him that in tandem with his magic, it made his process of decontaminating the technology easier and supposedly less dangerous.

“Well, I’m the mortal team, so I’m inspecting it.” Tony climbed atop one of the less broken jet ski thingies and began poking at the the controls, trying to figure out how the panels were attached and would open for maintenance.

Loki rose from the wheelchair with more elegance than he had the days prior. The bruises on his neck had faded to an ugly yellow spotted with purple, individual fingers still visible against pale skin. Combined with the pallor and thinness, he would have seemed pitiful—were it not for the sharp intelligence, the challenge in his eyes. A sense of danger that rose from him like perfume.

“This one might be operational with minimal repairs. Would you like to see?”

“Talk me through it, Merlin.”

So Loki did. It took a bit of tinkering, Tony running for supplies and tools twice, before they got the machine to light up with a gentle hum. It began hovering a foot over ground, gentle and responsive, and it was utterly exhilarating.

He took the jet ski for a spin, got used to the slow maneuverability, then sped all the way into the yellow zone and back. He returned with wind in his hair, grin on his face, and jumped from the vehicle with a bit of a stumble. Even Loki gifted him a proud smile, arms crossed over his chest. Tony patted him on the shoulder and picked up his bottle of rum that he had left sitting by the tool box, took a generous swig and offered it to his extraterrestrial guest. Loki took it carefully, sniffed it. Tony plonked down on the metal stairs, ran sticky hands through his hair and immediately grimaced at the engine oil against his scalp.

“So, you don’t need the chair anymore?” Tony gestured at Loki’s legs, of which he had a very nice view from his sitting position.

Loki’s expression grew guarded. “It depends.”

“On what?”

Loki hesitated to answer. He took a small sip of liquor and passed the bottle back to Tony: “On how much magic I I use to aid it.”

Ah. So he was propping himself up with magic. He did seem to tire more quickly when standing, so that made sense. “You want me to get you a physiotherapist or something? We should talk to Bruce, he probably knows what to do.”

Loki wrinkled his nose. “Absolutely not.”

“Your loss.” Tony shrugged and took a sip of rum. God, that stuff was sweet. He thought about Rhodey coming by. He thought about Pepper. His hands were sweating and he wiped them against his thighs, cold shiver running down his neck and shoulders and pooling as dread at the base of his spine. He hated thinking about her. (He missed her so bad it tore him apart.) “Did I even tell you that Pep and I broke up.”

Loki hummed thoughtfully and, with the help of the handrails, he laboriously sank down on the stairs next to him, overlooking the hall. Even in its familiarity, it was an ominous place to work: so large it echoed, brightly lit, the foreign tech looming large at the other end of it.

(It was the perfect place to hide, and Tony had felt calmer the moment he stepped off the elevator.)

“Kind of blaming you. You broke through my window on our first night of vacation. Not great timing on your part, should have checked with my assistant.” Tony grimaced as he realized he had no assistant left. Pepper’s secretary managed his calendar. Maybe she still did. He hadn’t checked his calendar in a while. He drank and passed the bottle back.

Loki obligingly sipped from its neck, tongue flickering against his bottom lip. “For what it’s worth: I hadn’t exactly planned on it, either.”

“I’ve been a mess. You’ve made me a mess, that whole thing with New York? Can’t sleep ever since. Can’t get it out of my head.” The yawning darkness. The explosion. The mind-numbing fear. “I close my eyes and it’s there, nothing I can do. I drink too much, I work too much, nothing helps.”

“By her definition?”

Tony paused and remembered who he was speaking to. “By general human standards, I think.”

Loki clasped his hands in front of him, looked at them intently, brow furrowed. “For a mortal, she is strong. Protective of you. But she very much works ‘by human standards,’ doesn’t she.”

Tony drank from the bottle, long and deep.

“She has never understood who you are, who you must become. There is blood on your hands she would rather not see.”

Tony felt his eyes burn dangerously. That had always been the problem, hadn’t it. He could not explain what he was going through, not in a way that made sense to Pepper. If he wasn’t Iron Man, if the armor didn’t hold him together, didn’t give him purpose and direction, then he was broken and aimless, and Tony didn’t think he could deal with that. “She’s not wrong, you know. I’m not exactly a role model.”

Loki scoffed and extended his hand towards the bottle. Tony handed it over gladly enough.

“Never deny the darkness within, Anthony. Averting your eyes won’t erase it, only make it unknown.”

“Would you stop calling me that. I’m Tony.”

Loki drank and met his eyes, glittering with mirth, bright green. “Only if you, in turn, will start calling me by my chosen name.”

Loki’s hair was slightly frizzy, likely from the explosion, curls falling into his face, smile pulling on his lips, a hue of pink to his cheeks. There was still a light tremor to his limbs, a carefulness in the way he moved. Bruises around his neck, a hint of insanity around his eyes. Loki was deeply broken.

Loki was beautiful.

“Loki,” Tony said.

Delight played over Loki’s features and he leaned in, slow and sinuous. Tony’s heart gave one heavy thump, rapidly sped up, as Loki held eye contact, face close enough that they were inches away. There was a smile on his lips, playful tilt to his chin. He reached across him— and picked up the bottle of rum, and pulled it back into his lap.

Oh.

“You know what you’re doing, don’t you.”

Loki chuckled, a deep, understated sound that reverberated in Tony’s chest like a drum beat. “You just ended things with the woman you courted, Iron Man. I’m not going to do anything.”

Tony rubbed his neck, thought about it. Thinking about it hurt a whole lot.

Fuck it.

“You would have, the other night. In the living room.”

“Would I?” A self-satisfied smile, gone as soon as it appeared.

“What if I wanted you to do something.”

Loki’s eyes flickered to him, briefly, taking him in, assessing. Then averted his eyes, disinterest plain. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I gave my reason.” Loki said, not bothering to look at him.

Tony kneaded his hands. His innards felt like an open wound, and the thought of Pepper tore through them like a knife. Tony wanted a distraction, badly, and sex had always been one of his favorite ways to clear his head. Too bad he wasn’t exactly in the party scene anymore. (Too bad he really fucking liked Loki.) “I resent that, you know.”

Loki hummed agreeably.

Tony briefly closed his eyes, then pulled himself together. There were other kinds of distractions available, and if he thought of Pepper’s crying, hunched form in the office one more time, he was going to scream. He clapped both hands on his thighs and got up. “Alright. Let’s get some readings on this thing to compare to the contaminated crap.”

He jogged up the stairs to the platform and dropped into his chair, began typing commands into the panel. He could use JARVIS, but the precise instructions he had in mind flowed more easily from his fingers. It was good to focus on that.

Loki came to stand by his side to watch him quietly, with intelligent eyes. Tony wondered, not for the first time, how much of it he understood.

“JARVIS, I need jet ski number twelve arranged to be isolated from the rest. Move it to the yellow area.”

“Of course, Sir.”

The Mark V flew out and did its work while Tony formulated parameters based on assumptions and observations. He scanned for anything he could think of, and the resulting array of data was wide and complex. Detailed to the point that it was unhelpful. Exactly the kind of puzzle Tony enjoyed solving. He repeated the process with every contaminated piece of material he had left, then with the non-contaminated ones. It took a few hours, and Loki left and returned a few times, bringing water, snacks, a book.

When the final piece of scanning was done, Loki leaned in to scan the data, one hand on his desk to steady him and close enough hat Tony could feel his body heat.

Tony found he couldn’t think.

“Would you mind backing up?” he griped.

Loki shot him an assessing look, then straightened, hands clutched behind his back and unimpressed. “I think you have something useful to transfer to your SHIELD, don’t you.”

“Yep,” Tony muttered, finding patterns, averaging and isolating factors rapidly.

“Don’t forget the heat signature,” Loki muttered.

“What do you think I’m doing,” Tony shot back. “JARVIS, check the results and compile a report to send to SHIELD, would you?”

“Of course, sir.”

Tony swiveled his chair around to look up at Loki, who was smiling down at him indulgently.

What a dick.

Tony wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt.

“Right. Once we have the rest of the data, do you want to blow this crap up so SHIELD can’t play with it?”

Loki grinned, bright and mischievous. “A marvelous suggestion.”

**

Tony Stark destroyed the Chitauri tech entrusted to his care—government property, it stated in the contract that Fury had revoked, to be protected at all cost—in bright, orange fireworks over the Malibu ocean. It was a spectacle. And it made Loki laugh in a way that Tony hadn’t seen before, open and with shining eyes, and in a way that distracted Tony briefly from his personal misery.

He didn’t even care about the yelling fit Fury had the next morning. That stuff was best out of the hands of humanity, and Tony could not leave it up to people that profited from war to call those shots.

Since he had become Iron Man, he had known it was him against the world. Nothing had truly changed, there.

Chapter Text

The blueprints bathed the whole workshop in blue light, gently rotating above Tony’s head. Tony’s eyes were burning from staring at too-small runes for hours long past when his body had been clamoring for rest. After the third reminder from JARVIS on the benefits of sleep, Tony had removed that piece of code. He knew, and he didn’t want to hear it.

“What are you doing?” Bruce sounded genuinely worried, descending the stairs to the workshop, slowly taking in the room.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tony turned back to his work. He was leaning on his standing desk and scrolled through another page in the Soul Forge’s construction manual on his STARK pad. It was close to incomprehensible, even with Loki’s translations overlaying the Asgardian. And he was going to figure out how to stabilize this thing if it killed him.

“Are you pretending you’re not suddenly very, very close friends with the supervillain?”

Tony gave him a cursory glance, then pulled up a list of diagrams. “JARVIS, update the blueprint with my latest notes, please.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tony turned to Bruce, leaning on the desk casually, hands clasped. “We’re colleagues, we’re building this medical device. If we weren’t working closely together, I’d be doing something wrong. Would love to have you on this project, by the way.”

“Really? You never even asked me to join,” Bruce raised both eyebrows.

“Didn’t I? Well, I have now.”

“I’m here to do you a favor watching the supervillain. Who you decided doesn’t need watching anymore. When did that happen?”

“When he saved Pepper,” Tony said without thinking. He shrugged. “Well. He saved Pep and we talked it out. All said and done, I think he’s on his own side, which, if you were to draw a Venn diagram with our side, would happen to form a neatly overlapping circle.” Tony turned around and walked towards the hologram JARVIS was putting together atop a projector table. The Soul Forge assembled mid-air, rough drafts overlaid with finer mechanics as well as magical descriptions Tony had no hope of figuring out. He highlighted and separated them for Loki to look over, later. Some parts were vague or missing, but the shape of it was there: the (magical) power source, the channels, the cooling system, the theory of the energy transfer. There were a few things he had definitely missed in the first, hasty assembly of a prototype. But that’s what prototypes were for, weren’t they.

“I won’t say that saving Pepper and helping us with this epidemic aren’t good things. I’m not sure it balances out the rest.”

“It doesn’t. But he made a choice to save someone he doesn’t know or like very much when it easily could have gotten him killed. Sounds like a decent change of heart to me.”

Banner watched as Tony took the inner workings of the holographic Soul Forge apart, bit by bit, trying to figure out why it kept exploding. “I just don’t think that he’s predictable. Or sane in the traditional sense of the word.”

Tony paused and turned around. “None of us are predictable, Bruce. Pepper could have died because I’m not safe to be around.”

“The difference being that I trust your motives.” Bruce said casually, a smile pulling on his lips, and it filled Tony with a kind of glowing warmth that was hard to discount. Tony waited for him to elaborate, but Bruce seemed disinclined to argue further. Instead, he joined Tony, curiosity bright in his eyes, and began scrolling through the annotations Tony had left on the Asgardian blueprints. “I don’t think half of these materials exist on Earth.”

“You mean the power source? Got that covered, the arc reactor can handle it.”

“Is that why I keep hearing explosions?” Bruce grinned.

“You want to try building one of these? Because you’re welcome to.”

“What about these—”

“That’s gold. Asgardian notation is weird as fuck.”

Bruce stared. “The whole thing is solid gold? I thought that was paint, maybe an alloy, you know, like Iron Man.”

“Apparently pretty cheap on Asgard. They built half the city out of the stuff.”

“That tracks.” Bruce kept scrolling, squinting. “What’s this?”

Tony took a look. The annotation next to the cables was tiny and missing a translation, and he had just assumed it indicated more gold. It had seemed a safe assumption, but it might be his issue. “Yeah, no clue. Good catch. Gotta ask Loki.”

“The power output of this thing would be ridiculous. You sure this isn’t a weapon or something?”

“Might be, at the rate it combusts at,” Tony turned to him and gave him a long look. “I kind of need your brain on this. You’re a doctor, this thing is supposed to heal people.”

Bruce hesitated. “I’m not comfortable with any of this.”

“I’ll not vouch for Loki, but these blueprints come from Thor. Pretty sure he wouldn’t hand his homicidal younger brother anything to build a weapon.”

“It’s just not that easy. Doing science with good intentions doesn’t mean you won’t create something terrible. I know that better than most.” Bruce looked apologetic.

“Which is why you’re the perfect candidate to keep me in line. I bet you’d feel better if you knew what we’re doing.” Tony clasped his shoulder. “Come on, you know you want to.”

Bruce hesitated, then let out something between a sigh and a laugh. “Only to keep you in check.”

Tony fought hard not to grin ear to ear. “That’s all I’m asking.”

**

A plate—a stale roast-beef sandwich—firmly knocked his hands out of the way and clattered on top of his keyboard. Tony cursed as it managed to delete a good three lines of code.

“What is this. I’m working.”

Loki sniffed haughtily. “You left that behind. The smell permeates the whole kitchen.”

Tony didn’t remember making himself a sandwich. He did remember briefly going to the bar and realizing he was almost out of good whiskey. He sat back and took a bite out of the dry piece of bread, washing it down with some Midleton, straight from the bottle. Loki was watching him like a hawk, so he offered him the whiskey.

“Want some? Last bottle in the world, get it while it’s hot.”

Loki accepted it, took a sip, looked thoughtful. “I will never understand why you drink this. The flavor is downright unpleasant.” He handed it back.

“Should go well with your unpleasant personality.”

“Your manners keep astounding me.”

“You’re just insulting my liquor because you don’t get drunk.” Tony pointed out.

Loki smiled, small and private, as though he was remembering something pleasant. “On this? No.”

“If I ever visit Asgard, I’ll have Thor take me drinking.”

Loki’s smile faltered. “The lesser races are not exactly welcome.”

“Who would have thought,” Tony muttered, eyes on his code. Failsafes in case the Soul Forge overheated again, easy enough as long as he had all the parameters. Which he didn’t. He pulled up the blueprints on a different screen, tapped them. “This here. The resistivity is marked as half that of silver. What are you guys using?”

“That’s rautt-silf.” Loki frowned as he spoke. “It doesn’t translate, does it.”

“Yep, never heard of it.”

“Rautt-silf is commonly found in the mines of Asgard and Nidavellir.” Loki reached across him, suddenly very close, traced some of the lines scribbled and annotated in Asgardian. “Using a replacement, excess heat might become a problem along these channels.”

“You could have mentioned that after the first time it blew up.”

Loki laughed, eyes crinkling. It was a pleasant sound that pooled in Tony’s chest warmly, calming his frenzied mind. It was hard to look away from him, hard to concentrate on his work. The light of the screen reflected in Loki’s eyes, caught in his soft hair. The Henley Tony had loaned him draped softly over his shoulders, an open button revealed soft, white skin at the hollow of his throat.

“We could extend the cooling systems,” Tony suggested.

“Considering the density of the mechanism, you would have to redesign the whole core.” Loki turned to him, and Tony kissed him. Loki made a startled noise and froze, lips unyielding against Tony’s. When he pulled away, Loki was staring at him, face rigid with surprise.

“Yep,” Tony said, “that might have been a miscalculation.”

Loki’s eyes darkened, flickered to Tony’s lips as though trying to process what had just happened, and when they met Tony’s once more, there was such desperate longing in them that all conscious thought fled his mind. He laid a hand against Loki’s neck, drawing a broken noise from his lips, and leaned in to kiss his open lips—

Loki abruptly leaned away, grabbed Tony’s wrist and pushed it from him: “No.”

Tony felt like he had missed a step in the dark. “Huh?”

“You’re not thinking clearly. You’re mourning, you’re half-drunk. And you need to finish your meal, to rest. And to bathe, direly.”

“Don’t boss me around. I’m not a child.”

Loki wrinkled his nose. “You’re mortal. According to some Asgardians, you’d be close enough.”

“I resent that, just so you know.”

They looked at each other for a moment longer, both reluctant to break eye contact.

“I need my hand back.”

Loki flushed and let go of him as though stung.

Fine, then. He could pretend nothing happened. Watch him pretend nothing happened. Tony turned to wolf down the dry sandwich that tasted like nothing, taking another swig of liquor to calm his nerves. “Asgard really is a grab bag of racial prejudice, isn’t it.”

Loki had turned away, was staring at the screen unseeing. “Indeed.”

And Tony suddenly realized that he did feel exhausted. “Alright, I’m going to bed. Last chance, wanna join?”

Loki huffed a laugh. “You’re a wreck.”

“Rude.”

“I’m not willing to be your distraction, Stark.” Though his eyes rested on Tony’s collarbone, hung briefly on his lips before they returned to his eyes.

“Come on. It’d be fun.” Tony leaned down, grabbed the armrests of Loki’s wheelchair, leaned in. Loki’s eyes flicked to his, he tilted his face up, noses close enough to touch.

He laid two fingers against Tony’s lips. “No.”

Tony hovered for a second, then sighed and pushed himself up. “Don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

**

Stark had been welding strips of iron for the better part of the morning, wearing a sweat-soaked undershirt and leather gloves. His arms were glistening in the light of his torch as he constructed the casing for the second prototype of the Soul Forge, heaved plated steel from one part of the workshop to the other.

“DUM-E, hold that up for me. Don’t—” The clanging was deafening and Stark didn’t even swear this time. “Yep, that’s it. I’m going to sell you for parts. Go get me a coffee, I might change my mind.”

Stark watched his robot scurrying away, beeping apologetically, and met Loki’s eyes.

“Like the view?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Loki said, but he felt heat rise to his cheeks as he spoke. Damn his pale skin.

“Oh, I don’t mind.” Stark aired out his stained undershirt with one hand, lifted an eyebrow at Loki, then pulled it over his head and dropped it to the floor. “You’re welcome,” he said and returned to his work.

Loki lost track of his reading completely for a moment, watching the muscles in his back bunch and relax with the rise and fall of the hammer.

He should not have let himself be kissed. He had lain awake all night, cursing himself, his stomach crawling with nerves as though he was an adolescent. Yes, he profited from Stark’s attraction to him, however fleeting it might be. That did not mean he could afford to become attached, not like this. (Not in the world-shattering way that he had tried to warn Thor away from. It was a heartbeat, the blink of an eye, there and gone.) Especially not when Stark was clearly looking for nothing but a warm body to distract him from his personal misery.

Loki let out a long, silent breath through his nose and finished the comparative analysis of the arc reactor’s power output versus Asgardian batteries. None of the blueprints specified the latter to satisfaction, so Loki was drawing on hazy memories of his lessons attended centuries ago while trying to make sense of the power requirements Stark had calculated in turn. The range he arrived at was unsatisfactory in that it was too wide.

The background music stopped abruptly, cut off by the disembodied voice that was Stark’s servant: “Sir, you have a call from Ms. Potts waiting.”

Stark paused, hammer sinking from where he had lifted it to strike metal sheeting. He seemed deep in thought for a moment, a far-away look in his eyes.

“I’m busy. Tell her to send an email.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Stark grabbed a towel from a nearby desk, slung it over his shoulder, and dropped into his swivel chair, spinning as he dried his face. He then put his elbows on his knees, hiding his face in both hands, stilling almost completely save for his breathing, fast, shallow. It was loud in the absence of the grating music.

Loki watched him for a moment, hovering, unsure (and didn’t he hate that, the uncertainty of it all, as though he was eight-hundred years old again).

“Hey, you want to spar?” Stark’s voice was muffled through his hands.

Loki hesitated. “I don’t know that I’d be a good sparring partner at this moment.”

“You barely need the chair, don’t pretend.”

Loki didn’t mention that it cost him enormous effort and a good amount of magic to walk without swaying.

“I can’t exactly ask Bruce, can I.” Stark laughed, slightly hysterical. “And I’m going to fuck up the casing if I keep working on it right now.”

But Loki was familiar with requiring destruction to feel in control again. “I could teach you to throw knives.”

Stark huffed a laugh. “Okay.”

So Loki summoned his knives—and he was glad to realize he could access his pocket dimension once more, no matter how queasy it made him, how the sweat on the back of his neck was cold and darkness played at the edges of his vision—and he taught Stark to hit his training dummy precisely, accurately in the heart.

Stark clearly had no experience with knives which, paired with an abundance of confidence, meant he fumbled them a few times, leading to curses and shallow cuts along his hands and lower arms. But he wasn’t a slow study, either, and he put up well enough with Loki’s sharp, sarcastic commentary and direction.

The thing about Stark was that he didn’t stop. He bandaged the cuts and kept going. And going. Until his hair was slick with fresh sweat, until the movement of his wrist was automatic, until nothing else mattered. Until he hit, within their set parameters, perfectly every time.

Loki thought of his own practice with throwing knives, finally finding a weapon that suited him well, that could complement his usage of daggers. He thought of how similarly determined he had been to excel, how little time it took for the knife to stop being an unwieldy piece of metal and become deadly in his grip.

And when JARVIS announced that Bruce was awake and asking about dinner, Stark smiled, all sharp pride, knowledge of his own worth radiating off of him as he returned his knives to him.

Their fingers brushed and Loki’s mind stilled. Another time, another life, in which their lifespans weren’t thousands of years apart. Perhaps, loving Tony Stark wouldn’t have felt impossible.

**

Progress on the Soul Forge was slow: miscommunications, mistranslations, and missing materials halted construction. Their biggest problem was the overheating of the mechanism in the absence of rautt-silf, but under Stark’s hands and Banner’s watchful eyes, they figured out replacements that, if unwieldy, worked at least in theory. They had called Jane about procuring some of the metal, and while she promised to ask Thor, she arrived in Malibu empty-handed and frustrated.

“There’s nothing he can do, the trade itself is really restrictive and that stuff is basically unique to Asgard. It’s not exactly something he can smuggle out unnoticed.” Jane’s apologetic voice echoed in the hallway. “His dad barely lets him out of his sight as is.”

“We now have two world-renowned scientists, one genius engineer, and an alien wizard working on this thing. We’ll figure something out.” Stark’s voice carried from outside.

She paused when they entered the workshop together. Her eyes were fixated on the glowing blueprint hovering in the center of the room.

“I remember this. I still can’t believe you’re building an actual quantum field generator.” Her eyes shone in the blue light, bright and intelligent, flickering back and forth between the half-assembled prototype sitting in the corner and the floating diagram. She set down a couple of books that bore the stamp of the artificer’s libraries—Loki would have recognized it from any distance—and he was hit with a wave of nostalgia that was as unexpected as unwelcome.

“Jane. Lovely seeing you.” Loki rose from his wheelchair and stepped out of the shadows of the workshop where the humans might see him more clearly. Stark met his eyes: was there a silent warning in them?

“Oh.” Jane briefly looked surprised. “You seem better.” She seemed to be fighting an internal battle, then drew a fortifying breath and stepped towards him. “I never thanked you for saving my life. On Svartalfheim.”

Loki stared at the hand she extended towards him for half a second before he remembered to smile, took it with the slightest bow to bring it to his lips. “I’ve told you before. I like you.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t expect that feeling to ever be mutual.” Jane made a face and extracted her hand with haste, rubbing it as though to remove his touch. It was ever difficult to find mortals with manners.

Loki’s smile grew wider still, all teeth. “And yet, you’re helping me. You have my thanks.”

“It’s not just your life that’s at stake.”

“Did no one ever teach you that accepting gratitude is part of social grace?”

She bristled and Stark stepped in before she could reply. “Lovely seeing you two get along, but if I may direct us back to the project at hand. Loki is our only source on Asgardian science, and Jane the foremost astronomer in—is it the Northern hemisphere? The world? Also great with quantum mechanics. Point being, play nice, you two.”

Jane turned bright red. “I was just—”

“I would ask you to mind your own business, Tony,” Loki said coolly.

Stark lifted both hands in an offer of peace, exchanged a look with Banner, and retreated. “If you start an actual fight, I’m banning you from the workshop.”

Loki maneuvered himself back into his wheelchair. He waited for Stark and Banner to turn their backs, talking through materials and tools. “Thor is taking a risk in sending you. Surely, you’re being watched.”

Guilt flickered over her face and her hand flew to her sternum. A thin gold chain glinted in the blue light and Loki sensed a faint magic thrum—a subtle emission, hiding rare and powerful magic, the kind that was technically illegal, at least on Asgard. Had it not been as familiar, had she not drawn attention to it, he might not have noticed it at all. Which was the point.

“Ah. I wondered what happened to my possessions.”

“You’re okay with me having it?”

Despite his irritation at seeing the amulet given away—it had been difficult to procure, and he had fond memories of using it—Loki kept his face neutral and waved her concerns away. The presence of the seal against the back of his neck, placed deliberately to hide him from Heimdall’s gaze, reminded him that he didn’t need it. “A trinket which has long outgrown its usefulness. Keep it.”

“Thor kept all of it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your things. The books, and clothes, and … all he could save, really.”

Loki felt exposed under her expectant gaze. He looked away, to the blueprint of the machine she was going to help them build. That without Thor’s underhanded efforts, without his silent support, they would have had no chance of putting together. There was a flare of anger in his chest: who did Thor think he was, his savior? Did he expect this to make up for his slights? Suddenly, after centuries of mockery, of disregard, after throwing him into a cell, leaving him for dead— The wheelchair’s armrests creaked under his grip and when he took his hand away, there was a long crack running up the plastic cover.

“He’s delusional if he thinks I’d return ‘home’ to claim them.”

Jane stared at him for a moment. “Okay, then,” she said, and it sounded judgmental. “Should we get to work? Believe it or not, I will need your help reading Asgardian.”

“Thor hasn’t taught you?”

Jane laughed briefly. It sounded surprised, bitter. “I’m not sure how high on his list of priorities that is, but he doesn’t have much time. It seems you’re taking up all of it, even when you’re not there.”

It didn’t often happen that Loki found himself speechless. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

“I’m sorry, it’s …” She blew out a sigh. “Well, I’d say it’s not your fault, but it kind of is.”

“Oh, please don’t worry that you’d hurt my feelings, I’m used to taking blame for Thor’s failures.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Wow. I thought you two were raised for diplomacy.”

Loki gave her his most diplomatic smile. “You have made it clear that you don’t care for me. What should I be doing in your opinion? Grovel?”

“You could be civil.”

“I’m being perfectly civil. You’ll know if I decide to stop.”

Jane rolled her eyes as though he was being childish. Loki didn’t like it. “It’s just … he cares for you so much. Could you at least acknowledge that it means something?”

“It means he’s a trusting, sentimental fool,” Loki muttered, but he found he couldn’t hold her gaze any longer. He looked at his hands, realized they were twisting around each other, and forced them to be still. His chest hurt, and it wasn’t the wound, closed and scarred over. Part of him thought that if Thor cared, he would be here. At the same time, he knew it would have been madness. He was wanted by Asgard. Heimdall could not see Loki, but Thor was rarely alone even when no one suspected him of harboring his criminal brother. He would be watched both physically and magically. Coming to see Loki would be a greater risk than they could afford.

“If you say so,” Jane said, but her tone had lost its bite. Her next words had the sound of a peace offering: “Do you want to go over the design?”

“We were just talking about that,” Stark called from the other side of the workshop, not even pretending he hadn’t been listening the whole time. “I’ll walk you through it.”

Loki watched them go over the basics, talk science, magic, mechanics, Jane’s brow crinkling in concentration and occasionally shooting a question at Loki. She was sharp, Thor’s mortal, of wit and tongue, barely glancing at hurdles that would be impossible to clear for most mortals before taking them in stride.

He could see why Thor had chosen her, Loki thought, but it was Stark he was watching explain his work.

**

Inevitably, conversation turned to the sickness they were hoping to cure. While the danger the Chitauri weaponry posed had been widely televised, the connection to the Mind Stone was news to Jane. She looked more than a little disturbed by the thought.

“Is illness a common side effect of the Infinity Stones?” she asked, and Loki recognized the haunted look in her eyes.

“We were hoping to run tests on anyone that had been mind-controlled.” Banner threw Loki a careful look that he refused to return. “Once we’re sure the Forge functions as a diagnostic tool instead of frying them.”

“Okay,” Jane said, her gaze passing through the blueprints and into empty space, slight frown on her face.

“You should consider undergoing imaging once it is done.” Loki spoke quietly, focused on their work.

“I suppose I should,” she said slowly.

“What? What’s happening here? You were nowhere near the battle,” Tony demanded. “Didn’t SHIELD ship you off to the Scandis during the invasion?”

“Jane was briefly host to the Reality Stone. Considering the frailty of the human body, it’s reasonable to assume that she might suffer some long-term effects.” Loki wondered whether Thor had even considered any of this worth mentioning to her. Wondered how Thor treated those he proclaimed to love nowadays. And suddenly, he had the burning need to confirm for himself the extend of Asgard’s negligence. Odin had proven his incompetence when it came to the Stones before, refused to understand the danger they all were in. He turned to her, smiling. “Tell me, what have they done with the Aether?”

Jane blinked, then frowned at him suspiciously. “Why are you asking?”

Memories of Sanctuary were rising from the depths, the crevices and nooks of his mind— Loki banished them firmly. “One might say that it’s relevant to my safety. Do you require proof, or does my word suffice?”

She watched him closely. “Thor mentioned taking it nowhere.”

“What?” Banner asked.

“It’s a clever way of describing some fringe planet, I think,” she said.

“Knowhere,” Loki repeated slowly. A headache was setting in, it was hard to think. He rubbed his temples. “Why Knowhere?”

“He didn’t elaborate. It is with a collector of sorts.” Jane suddenly looked at him oddly. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” But his vision was blurring, his mind heavy. The humans exchanged a glance before deciding, apparently, to grant him the space to recover and returning to their talk.

Loki thought that it was better that he knew. He had heard rumors of the Collector—one of the ancients—after his fall, before he met Thanos. And it surprised him that Odin would entrust him with such power: Tivan had a reputation for being selfish and uncaring. But as long as Thanos didn’t know … Well. A counterintuitive choice might do the trick and hide the trail.

Only time would tell.

**

Beneath Tony’s hands, the plain task of creating a working cooling system had turned into that of creating a cooling system elegant, small enough to fit the original designs of the Asgardian machine. The plans he developed called for large tanks, unwieldy to transport. What he needed was something small enough to be transportable so it might be used in both hospitals and in the field. He seemed unable to make it work with earthly materials.

Restlessly, he tapped the pencil against his lower lip, eyes flicking from one digital sketch to another. He had created an element before. How hard could it be to make this one? But the translations fell short of informing him what rautt-silf actually was: he didn’t even have weight, density, or atomic number. He doubted that Loki would know; why would he? But it was worth a try, wasn’t it?

He looked up, mouth open in question, and found Loki missing.

“J, where’s our favorite alien at?” Tony asked.

“Mr. Odinson has been working in the study for the past hour.”

Well. No one had ever accused Tony of being overly attentive.

Bruce and Jane were immersed in quiet conversation, sketches of a user interface spread between them as Jane described the usages and gestures she had observed when seeing a Forge before. Tony rapped his knuckles on the table and let them know he’d be out for a moment.

It was odd to make his way to the study, the room only Pepper had ever used. A memory hit him with surprising intensity: sunlight flooding the room as she stood by the window, on some kind of call, smile on her lips as she lifted a single finger for him to wait. (And goddammit, Tony was done hurting over this, wished that the grief would leave him alone, wished for a day he wouldn’t remember that he had fucked this up.)

He didn’t bother knocking as he pushed open the door: Loki sat at the desk, the night sky dark outside the windows, the desk lamp a single point of illumination within the room. Printer paper was spread out before him, and when he looked to Tony, his eyes seemed briefly blue—an illusion created by the tablet in his hand. He blinked and turned off the screen, the lamplight turning his irises green.

“Needed a break?” Tony wandered over, fingertips trailing the desk before he sat down on the surface facing Loki.

“I work more easily in solitude.” Halting words, the first after a long silence. Loki released a slow sigh and rubbed his eyes, leaned back to stretch.

“What are you working on?” Tony asked as he picked up one of the papers. Sketches of some odd, alien architecture, littered with Asgardian script and notes. Rough blueprints of hallways and doors, as though half-remembered, guesses about security measures and traps. The art Loki had created from memory—skillfully, at that—was unsettling: the shadows were deep, lines thick, angles sharp, walls and ceiling pressing in and imposing. Loki seemed to have worked with whatever was available, pencil strokes broken up by boxes of yellow and blue highlighter.

Loki crossed his arms and looked at his work. “Asgard’s vaults, where the Tesseract remains. There are weaknesses to its defenses that none know but I,” Loki restlessly leafed through the papers, spreading them. “If we could relay them to Thor before—” Loki broke off, a small frown appearing on his face. “There is a chance that—” Suddenly, he looked pained, lowered his head into a shaking palm.

“Hey, you okay?” Tony asked.

“A moment,” Loki muttered. He remained almost bent in half for a minute. When straightened with a sigh of relief, he looked pale.

“Headache?”

Loki simply shook his head in response. Seemed briefly confused. “What need do you have of me?”

He seemed to have lost his train of thought, and Tony didn’t like this one bit. They were almost done with the Soul Forge and likely not a moment too soon. “I want chemical data on Asgardian silver. I’m working out how to build this thing without it, but it’s a pain in the ass and it looks like shit.”

Loki gave him a bemused look. “I am neither an artificer nor an alchemist. My answers would hardly be satisfactory.”

“Alchemy, huh? What else do you teach in God-school, herbalism and astrology?”

“Keep speaking and you’ll find new ways to make a fool of yourself.” Loki looked both slightly amused and like he was trying to solve the puzzle of Tony’s presence.

Tony shifted, crossed and uncrossed his arms, ants crawling over his skin even as he spoke. “Also, you left. So I came to check on you. That’s not a weird thing to do. Don’t pretend it’s weird that people come check on you.”

“I see.” Loki’s lips stretched as though he was trying not to smile, and there was a soft, unspoken question in his eyes. Oddly light and unbalanced, Tony felt as though he might tip towards Loki at any moment.

“Yep,” Tony said. He thought about kissing Loki. He thought about Loki’s nose pressed against his cheek, body going pliant beneath him. Thought about straddling him, slipping a hand under the soft cotton, caressing cool, smooth skin. Wondered what the scar on his chest felt like now that it was healed over, what noises Loki might make as he found out.

Loki’s eyes were transfixed on him, and Tony realized he had stopped breathing.

Tony was not … he was not going to cross the line Loki had drawn in the sand. Not right now. (Not when Pepper’s absence still loomed as large.) So he stood, hands in his pockets, though he couldn’t tear his eyes from Loki’s knowing face. “Going back to the lab. You coming?”

“Let me finish these,” Loki said, voice low and face thoughtful.

“Yep, great. Sure.”

Tony stood there for a moment longer, tension thick with their silence. And when he finally left, it was with a great distraction that left him unable to concentrate on his work for almost an hour.

**

“Thor’s not … he’s not doing great. He’s tired whenever he returns to Earth, tense. He’s not talking about what he’s doing on Asgard, but he’s mentioned leaving the Nine Realms a few times. I can’t tell whether he’s serious about it, he always phrases it like it’d be an adventure, you know.”

“You think he’s in trouble with his dad?” Bruce was stirring something that smelled a lot better than dry toast Tony had been planning to eat. They’d been speaking in quiet tones when Tony entered the kitchen, so he had sat down at the bar-top with a whiskey and his tablet to continue working. As far as background noise went, it was oddly soothing. Almost like being back in the Tower.

“I think he has a lot of pull, but his dad is … well. Since their mom died, Odin has been somewhat irrational.” Jane rummaged through the kitchen drawers, pulling out tools Tony hadn’t been aware he owned. “Thor isn’t king yet, there is only so much he can do without committing treason or something. Do you want these peeled?”

“Yes, please. You’ve been to Asgard. What’s it like?”

“Has Loki not …?”

“Yeah, he’s mentioned some, but he’s not the most direct source of information. He tends to focus on how people wronged him.” Banner sounded wry.

There was a smile in Jane’s voice. “They never think about what we might not know, do they. Thor takes so much for granted. It was fascinating to see how advanced their science was. There was more technology in an Asgardian children’s toy than in my whole lab. And their libraries, god.”

“Would you go back?”

Jane laughed. “In a heartbeat if I could. Thor’s dad is …” She hesitated. “Quite honestly, he’s arrogant and dismissive. He doesn’t exactly think humans are people.”

Tony thought that both Thor and Loki were arrogant and dismissive and wondered whether Loki thought humans were people. What it meant for the invasion if he didn’t. (It wasn’t a pretty picture.) He realized he had been staring at the same picture of the Soul Forge’s convoluted wiring without making progress in the past five minutes. He set the work aside.

“So Odin is a douchebag. That would explain a few things about his kids, huh.” Tony leaned on the counter and watched them work.

“Welcome back.” Bruce grinned, so Tony winked at him.

“Oh God, there’s so much that I think I’ll never understand about them. Their lifespan is mind-boggling. I can’t believe people that have lived for a thousand years still behave … so young, you know.” Jane laughed, but it sounded slightly exasperated. She was visibly struggling with peeling carrots, which made Tony feel a little better about not knowing that he owned a peeler. Or carrots.

“I know what you mean,” Bruce said, leaning on the counter, watching the onions simmer. “They seem afraid of not hating each other.”

“Yeah.” Jane drew the word out. “Though I don’t think that they hate each other, at all. Thor would never say that.”

“Don’t tell the resident Wicked Witch, he might throw hands,” Tony said. “Different question. You said Thor wants to leave the Nine Realms. What are those, exactly?

“A handful of planets that are connected by what Thor calls a cosmic nexus, whatever that entails. There are constant Einstein-Rosen Bridges open between those realms, stabilized by a phenomenon they call ‘the World Tree.’ It made interplanetary travel, trade, and war a reality long before space travel was even a thought. It’s fascinating. Those planets are ruled by Asgard, and if Thor pisses off his dad badly enough, he’d have to leave the whole system to escape that.”

“Thor would never leave the Nine.”

Tony jumped, guilt needling him, and wondered how long Loki had been leaning in the doorframe. He’d left the wheelchair behind and put on a good show of not needing it. His steps were even, but the clench of his jaw spoke to the concentration it took. He was also dressed in something Tony hadn’t seen him wear before: a green tunic falling to his mid-thigh, soft leather pants, the boots they had taken off of him when he had been unconscious and close to death. Tony wondered where those had come from.

“So you’ll dress up for the in-laws but not for us? Should I be offended?”

Loki ignored him, sank down next to him on a bar stool, hiding the tremor in his hands by folding them before him. “He would not give up the throne. It is his life’s ambition to rule Asgard.”

“Yeah? Maybe you should acknowledge what he’d risk to help you, then.” Jane chopped vegetables with more vigor than strictly necessary. “But you guys never talk to each other, do you? It’s all ‘Loki wants this,’ ‘Thor wouldn’t do that,’ without ever checking that any of it is true. For God’s sake, you’re both grown men.”

Loki watched her, thoughtfully, until she became visibly uncomfortable. She put the knife away and pushed her cutting board at Bruce, who thanked her with a nod.

“What?” She brushed hair out of her face, put her hands on her hips and stared back at him.

“If you wish, I would teach you our mathematical notation. So that you may read and understand our science, the next time you visit Asgard’s libraries.”

Jane was caught off-guard, mouth forming a small ‘oh.’ “You’d teach me Asgardian?”

“No. There are spells for that, but they do poorly with translating mathematics.”

“Why would you offer that?”

Loki shrugged, face blank. “You’re helping. Consider it a gesture of gratitude.”

“Okay. Yes, that’d be helpful. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Loki inclined his head and glanced at the plates and cutlery set out on the dining table. “If you’d kindly find some paper, I’d be glad to start after dinner.”

“Hey, what about me?” Tony was done giving them space. “I’ve been working on this thing with you for weeks, and you never even brought it up. What am I, chopped liver?”

“You’re a terrible student.” Loki said dismissively.

“I’m objectively great at everything I do.”

“I translated what you need to know in the blueprints.”

“What if I go to visit Asgard, huh? Ever thought about that?”

Loki finally broke his unbothered facade to roll his eyes in annoyance, which Tony counted as a win. “You may sit in, as long as you’re being quiet.”

Tony grinned at him and Loki’s face softened into something that was almost a smile.

**

The study session went as well as one could expect, Stark being anything but quiet and well-behaved. And the following morning, Jane greeted him cheerfully, the glint of suspicion replaced by excitement. So Loki smiled, and Loki made polite conversation, and Loki answered the twenty questions she had thought of instead of sleeping.

It was a pleasant surprise to have the mortals listen to him, and there was a heady kind of power to know that Jane might turn to him for things that she would or could not ask Thor. Jealous, they had called him. In some ways, Loki knew they were right. Of course he had known his talents to be valuable and meaningful. The jealousy had less to do with Thor receiving attention for his virtues, and more with Loki receiving none for his own.

“He misses you, you know,” she said out of nowhere, cradling a coffee cup gently, as though it was a living thing. Her eyes were large, a deep brown, seeing more than Loki wanted them to.

“And you think I care. Why?” Loki said and finished looking over her attempts at transforming equations. He put his pen down, finding nothing wrong with them. Her face dimpled with a small, proud smile when he pushed the paper back at her.

“I’d care. If I had a sibling, no matter how estranged. I’d care whether they loved me.”

Loki reconsidered whether he actually wanted Thor’s woman’s doting attention. “Your fictional sibling has not promised to lock you up and throw away the key, have they.”

Jane’s smile faltered. “I know it’s complicated. You’re not exactly … well. You have done enough to redeem yourself in his eyes.” She didn’t meet his eyes for the last part.

“Have I now,” Loki said without inflection. “Thank goodness my brother so graciously raised me from perdition. I might just jump for joy.”

Jane’s mouth pressed itself into a thin line. “You should count yourself lucky. If someone tried to kill me, I don’t think I’d ever trust them again.”

“Would you like to slap me again? I wouldn’t mind, if it made you feel better.” He gave her his best mocking smile to go with the offer.

Jane actually flushed at that, but she lifted her chin, set down her cup as though she was considering it. “You deserve more than a slap.”

“And all of Asgard agrees with you.”

“Not Thor,” she insisted. “And if you abuse his goodwill—”

Loki couldn’t help himself: laughter bubbled up in his throat, wry and mirthless and endlessly pouring out. He shielded his eyes with one hand, stared down at the paper in front of him, densely packed with equations that might or might not lead to someone healing him. Berated by the mortals to whom he had to cozy up because they held the key to his recovery. Pathetic.

“What?” Jane asked, suspicious and aggravated.

“No, no, please keep threatening me. It’s hilarious.”

She bristled visibly, pushed away from the counter. “You’re such a dick.”

He was still laughing when he propped his chin up on his fist, watched her: furious and tense, fists balled. “Let me know if you come up with anything unique, I’d love to hear it.”

She stared at him for a moment longer, then whipped around and left the kitchen without another word.

Chapter Text

Rhodey stood by the front door, a bottle in each hand. “I know it’s not the fancy stuff, but I remember you drinking Captain Morgan just fine in college, so take it for the gesture it is, alright.”

Tony scanned him, head to toe. “I already have a Captain in my life. I suspect I’m allergic.”

“Now you’re just being an asshole.”

“Sorry, did you say something? I was too busy trying to figure out why you’d bring me cheap whiskey. Seriously, pour it out. That bush looks like it had a hell of a week.”

The landscaping outside the mansion had definitely seen better days: it was both overgrown and dried-out at once. After more than a month, banning all house staff was beginning to show in more substantial ways than dishes piled high in the sink. Rhodey rolled his eyes but set the bottles down and pulled Tony into a hug: the kind that involved a lot of back slapping and an arm slung over his shoulder. He began to move past Tony and into the house.

“Ah-ah,” Tony stopped him with a flat palm to the chest. “Not so quick. Phone, watch, anything electronic stays outside. I’m serious, if you smuggle as much as a Walkman in here, JARVIS will know, and you’ll sleep in the driveway.

Rhodey lifted both hands in defeat. “Fine. You’re being paranoid but you’ve been through a lot—”

“You have no idea. And you won’t, unless you get rid of your phone right now.”

Rhodey followed his instructions, and Tony watched the lid of the storage box seal.

“I apologize, Colonel Rhodes, I assure you that all of this, in Mr. Stark’s opinion, is entirely necessary” JARVIS bathed Rhodey briefly in a blue light show as he scanned him. “Sir, there is nothing else I can find on the colonel’s person that might function as a recording device.”

“Seriously,” Rhodey muttered, but followed him inside. “Tones, I know you’re taking taking the thing with Pepper hard but— what is that smell?”

“I’ve been working on cooling agents and one of the more novel solutions ate straight through the floor.”

“What do you mean, ‘through the floor?’ What have you been doing in here?”

“Drinks first. Bourbon?”

“Sure, though it’s not even noon—” Rhodey had stopped and was staring at blackened crater visible through the windows on the pool deck. “When you said it had melted through the floor, I thought you meant of the workshop.”

“Right next to the cars? Don’t be ridiculous. Plus, the workshop has gotten a little crowded. Your arrival kinda makes this a party.” Tony poured them both whiskey and set one tumbler firmly down on the bar top, looking Rhodey straight in the eye. “Here’s the deal. I’m always glad to see you, but I really don’t want to talk about … I won’t talk about it.”

“Okay,” Rhodey said, though his expression softened in a way Tony had hoped it wouldn’t, and it made his insides all wobbly. He turned around, wandered over to look out of the window at the prototype of the supercritical water conductor he had been building. It did look a little wild to the untrained eye, Tony assumed, and was way too large to be of use at the moment.

“So, what are you trying to cool down?” Rhodey asked, coming to stand by his side.

Tony shot him a look. He still hadn’t made up his mind on how much he wanted to tell Rhodey. But now that he was here—solid and available—it was difficult to remember that Rhodey had once had taken his suit straight to the military.

“I’ll tell you when it’s done.”

Rhodey gave him a sideways look that implied he would try to find out all by himself. Which was fine. Loki was set up in the secret second basement and, apart from some sarcastic commentary, didn’t object to hiding while Rhodey was here. When Tony left him, he’d been fairly immersed in translating the instruction manuals that Jane had brought. And Jane and Bruce kept working on the Forge enthusiastically enough. Tony trusted them to keep his secret. (Though he had the feeling they spent a good amount of their work time actually gossiping about him, especially since JARVIS refused to show him any recordings.)

“You know who I’d like to talk about? Senator Stern.”

“Fine,” Rhodey sighed and took a sip of his whiskey. Then lifted his glass in pleased surprise. “What is this?”

Tony turned to the bar to hand him the bottle of the William Larue Weller. “You like that one? I got a ton, just ordered them, take a few home. Better yet, drink it while you’re here and tell me all you know about corrupt politicians.”

“Will do. Wow. Yeah, we can use the Captain as fire starter.”

Tony laughed, easily and without second thought, for the first time in a while. He realized he had missed Rhodey.

“Come on, I’ll show you my progress on the coolant.” Tony didn’t actually need to melt down any more of the lead-bismuth eutectic, but he was glad to have something to do with his hands while he acclimated to Rhodey’s presence. And complaining about the challenges he’d been facing all day was making him feel better. They ended up sitting on the chaise lounges by the pool, the bottle of bourbon rapidly diminishing while they were talking about college days, memorable parties, Avengers missions, and anything in between. Tony hadn’t smiled this much in a while.

“You wanted to talk about Stern. This got anything to do with you breaking into Hammer’s office?” Rhodey had lost his jacket and was fully stretched out on one of the chaise lounges. His eyes were closed against the low-hanging sun of Malibu fall.

Tony hesitated. He felt warm, content. Almost happy. He was sure that, if he got up, he wouldn’t be walking in a straight line. He should probably order some food before he kept drinking.

He poured himself more whiskey.

“Someone broke into the house and tried to murder Pepper. Two weeks ago, I think.” It was hard to keep track of time when he barely left the workshop and sleep seemed optional at best, impossible at worst.

Rhodey was very quiet, intently studying Tony. “That’s when you guys broke up, right.”

Tony really didn’t want to talk about. “Same night.”

“Hell, Tony.” Rhodey seemed like he didn’t know what to say. Thing was, Tony didn’t really want him to say anything.

“I traced the guy. He spent time in prison with Justin Hammer, and Hammer made sizable donations to Senator Stern, who argued for early release for a bunch of ‘low risk’ prisoners. Very much against popular opinion, not exactly the kind of choice that’d get him reelected.”

“So you think Hammer engineered it.”

“I did. He’d have reason. If Pepper had been scared enough to resign, that would have destabilized SI. Stock market and all. He thinks SI is going back into weapons.”

“I haven’t heard anything of an investigation.”

Tony snorted. “What, you expect me to call 911?” He didn’t even know what he’d ask of the police that he couldn’t do himself, and better and faster at that.

“I expected it to be in the papers,” Rhodey said.

Tony laughed. Looked out over the ocean, watched the birds circling over the cliffs. Thought about the headlines the day after he had paid Hammer a visit. “Well. I think I managed to get it in the news all by myself.”

Rhodey sighed. “Look, man. You weren’t thinking clearly. Pepper was … I’d never seen you that happy ever before. I’m sorry.”

Tony set down his whiskey to bury his face in his hands. He breathed into the darkness of the shelter of his own body as guilt and misery tore through him in alternating waves. The plastic of the sunbed creaked as Rhodey sat down next to him and placed a palm firmly between his shoulder blades. Tony concentrated on the sensation: the pressure of Rhodey’s fingertips, the warmth of his palm. It helped. When he trusted himself to speak, he rubbed his face and inhaled firmly.

“The thing is that I don’t think Hammer did it. Sure, he’s a skeevy asshole. But he’s also a bad liar and he had no clue when I confronted him. Plus, it’s not really his style.”

“Yeah.” Rhodey said and poured himself more bourbon. He was slightly unsteady at that point, some of the liquor hitting the pool tiles instead of the glass. “Ah, hell. This stuff is expensive, isn’t it.”

“Fuck if I know.”

Rhodey laughed, and Rhodey drank. “I get why you want to find out who’s behind it.”

“Yeah. Which is why I need your password.”

He made a face. “Not now, okay? We’re having a moment, I want to enjoy it.”

Tony leaned his head on Rhodey’s shoulder and briefly wondered whether Rhodey would be willing to go to bed with him. He remembered having a discussion with him about this back in college and how it had ended with a resounding ‘never.’ To be fair, Tony had been sixteen and Rhodey twenty-two, and that might have had something to do with it.

Tony thought of Loki. He thought of pressing Loki against a wall, hands under his shirt, seeking skin, open-mouthed kisses. Thought of brushing his lips against his neck, drinking in the sound of his moans. Thought about going to his knees, Loki watching him with pupils blown wide.

But Loki was proud, and Loki wasn’t going to sleep with him just because Tony was sad, and wasn’t that an absolute shame.

“You wanna call some hookers?” he asked.

“Hell no.”

Tony sighed and settled for ordering pizza and watching the sunset with his best friend.

**

Tony woke to Loki sitting on his bed, just out of reach, cross-legged and reading, wearing some of Tony’s pajamas: flannel pants, which stopped mid-calf on his legs, and a band t-shirt.

“What,” Tony managed, drowsy from both sleep and last night’s bourbon.

“You gave my room to the Colonel, and the basement is a fairly depressing place to spend the night.” Loki’s voice was calm, low. He licked the tip of his index finger and turned a page, not looking up. ‘Quantum Physics,’ the cover of the book read. Tony was sure it wasn’t one of his. He didn’t really do books. Articles, studies, sure. Not physical books.

He slung an arm over his eyes, headache pulsating against the daylight. He really should get up and get the some Advil. It felt like a chore.

“There is water on your nightstand,” Loki said without looking up.

“Can you mojo away headaches? Cause that’d be awesome.”

Loki remained quiet. Tony tried to go back to sleep, but he was parched. He groaned, leaned over and sat up halfway to drink the glass of water. He flopped back down, feeling battered and nauseous, curling in on himself.

“Your friends are up and having breakfast, in case you were wondering.” Loki seemed completely unbothered, by now flat on his back, book propped up half on his chest, slight crease between his eyebrows. “You go in such circles to find explanations around magic, don’t you. All this nonsense about ‘uncertainty’ when the answer is so obvious. You’re missing a puzzle piece and, rather than go look for it, you explain why the picture is supposed to have a hole right there.”

It took Tony a moment to realize he was talking about quantum physics. He groaned. “Rhodey didn’t see you, did he?”

“What do you think?”

Tony snuck a peek at Loki, who was looking straight back, green eyes intent on Tony’s face, book resting against his sternum. In his bed. Tony suddenly felt very odd about the whole arrangement. He also had no idea what he had done last night after eating pizza.

“We didn’t … did we …?”

Loki gave him a pitiful look, which probably meant ‘no.’

“How did you make the reactor?” Loki asked in a complete non-sequitur.

“Hm?”

“The arc reactor. How did you create it?”

“Oh.” It was entirely too early for this. He pulled the blanket tighter around him, blocking the sunlight. “My dad came up with the math. Had the Tesseract for a while.”

Loki hummed thoughtfully. “How many of its properties does it share?”

“With the Tesseract? Not many. It’s a battery.”

“May I take another look? We were interrupted, last time.”

Tony grunted noncommittally.

The mattress shifted and Tony opened his eyes to find Loki suddenly very close, bending over him, hand hovering over his chest. There was a visible tremor to his fingers, tension across his brow. The breath caught in Tony’s throat, headache forgotten. Adrenaline surged through him and he grabbed Loki’s wrist as it began shimmering green.

“Wha— what are you doing?”

“Diagnostic spell.” The magic shimmer died down and Loki watched him carefully. “Release me, please.”

Tony sat up though it felt like his head was filled with thick, liquid pain that sloshed about with every movement. “You can’t go around doing magic while I … what are you doing here?”

Loki’s hand went lax in his grip, face calm and unreadable. “I am currently studying the effects of the Mind Stone on human physiology. Is it odd that I wonder about the Infinity Stone in your chest?”

“It’s not an Infinity Stone.” Tony let go of Loki’s hand, rubbed his face with both hands. Now that he was sitting up, he felt like he was going to throw up. God, he hadn’t had a hangover this bad in a while.

“Let me take a look and ascertain that.”

Tony suddenly remembered the last time Loki had sent magic through the arc reactor, the electric feeling of it. The memory left goosebumps on his skin. Unbidden, the fantasy about going to his knees before Loki hit him again. It seemed like a chore in the state he was in, but it was enough to convince him. He tiredly leaned back against the headboard. “No funny business.”

Tony wasn’t wearing a shirt, and Loki’s hand came to rest against his sternum. His fingers were cool against Tony’s sweat-dampened skin, against the welts of scarring, and the slight pressure against the reactor felt odd. Intimate. He watched Loki closely.

Whatever he did was different this time, more localized. There was a sparkling quality to it, like carbonated water, and it oddly settled Tony’s stomach. This close up, Loki’s eyes were almost blue, reflecting both the light of the arc reactor and the ocean outside. He should probably be more nervous about this than he was. Light enveloped them both, that prickling feeling washing over Tony for long seconds before it died down, leaving Loki looking pensive.

“So?” he asked.

“It is … odd,” His hands still rested against Tony’s chest, and Tony found he didn’t mind. “The reactor mirrors the Tesseract imperfectly, but it is more than a power source. I believe …” Loki’s brow wrinkled and he suddenly looked pained, palm pressed to his forehead and lips pulled into a snarl. Tony wondered what the hell was happening, but before he could formulate a question, Loki looked to the door: “Please ignore me hereafter.”

Rhodey came in without knocking. “Up and about, we have bank statements to search. And Bruce made pancakes.”

Tony groaned at the prospect, and swallowed the pain killers Rhodey pressed into his hands before he let himself be pulled to his feet. He spared one last glance at Loki, but there was no one there. It took Tony a few stumbling steps down the stairs to realize that he had turned invisible.

By noon, he wondered whether he had dreamed the whole episode

**

It took pancakes, bacon, eggs, coffee, and more medication before Tony felt halfway human again. With the use of Rhodey’s military account and a couple of strategic phone calls placed by JARVIS—never underestimate the power of social hacking—Tony managed to gain access to the Senator’s accounts with the Armed Forces Bank. JARVIS filtered the statements for all larger payments made to Stern.

Tony considered the list, which was the length of his arm. “JARVIS, I want anyone that’d hold grudges against SI or would benefit from destabilizing the company.”

“Of course, sir. Though I must warn you that based on your recent actions, the list of people cross with you is rather long.”

The list unraveled on the screen and Rhodey made a face. “You weren’t kidding, that’s a lot of grudges.”

“Mr. Stark aims to stay relevant.”

“Very funny,” Tony muttered while Rhodey laughed, delighted. They idly read out names for a few minutes, throwing out vague theories on why someone would try to harm SI. They went back to the original, longer list fairly quickly, looking for more useful patterns.

“I don’t like this,” Rhodey said. He looked worried, arms crossed tightly, lips pulled into a straight line.

“What, that some shady person would send a killer after SI? No kidding.”

“No, I don’t like the amount of anonymous offshore accounts showing up.” Rhodey tapped a few of unknown names strewn throughout the list. “‘Clark Kent k.d.’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes a.d.’? Come on, they could at least try. And where the hell even is Sokovia?”

There was, indeed, a lot of that country showing up on the bank transfers from oddly named accounts. “JARVIS, can we trace the shell companies those back to real people?”

“I shall try, sir.” They studied the list as JARVIS updated it.

“Do you actually think they targeted Pepper?” Rhodey asked out of nowhere.

Tony paused. His mind was still sluggish, which he resented, and thinking about Pepper hurt. He wanted to say ‘no,’ but he genuinely wasn’t sure. God. He hoped that she was safe now that they were separated. “I think they went for whoever they found when I wasn’t there.”

Rhodey seemed doubtful. “Look at your actions right after the attempt and tell me that SI didn’t lose contracts over it. I hate to tell you, man, but your press hasn’t been great ever since you showed up on the scene of a traffic accident and ran off with a bunch of alien weapons. You’re kind of predictable. Going for Pepper is more effective than going after you; both when it comes to discrediting you as an Avenger and harming SI.”

And importantly, SHIELD had called him right after the attempt to walk back the contract. To revoke his access to the Chitauri tech in his basement. (Tony’s lawyers were still busy with that one. He paid them enough to not worry about it.)

“Sir, I have Captain Rogers on the line for you,” JARVIS broke his thoughts.

Tony perked up, threw Rhodey a look. “Let him know I’m not alone.”

“That makes it sound like we’re in bed,” Rhodey deadpanned.

Tony waggled his eyebrows at him.

“Of course, sir.”

There was a moment of silence, then Rogers’ voice, slightly stiff: “Tony?”

“Skip the pleasantries, what’s up, Cap?”

“Hello Captain,” Rhodey sounded apologetic.

“Colonel Rhodes,” Rogers greeted him, marginally warmer. “Tony, you recently provided SHIELD with some kind of technology allowing them to locate alien technology.”

Tony didn’t like the sound of that at all. “They found something?”

“There is a high density cluster of pings in an Eastern-European country,” Rogers said. “Have you ever heard of Sokovia?”

Tony and Rhodey exchanged an incredulous glance. “For a fact, I have.”

“Great. You’re our expert on Chitauri weapons. We need you suited up and in New York asap. Can you do that?”

“Mind if I bring War Machine?”

“I’d glad to have the Colonel on board,” Rogers agreed.

“Sure thing, Captain.” Rhodey was grinning ear to ear.

**

After a brief stop in New York they arrived in Sokovia six hours later. The fortress was a caricature of a villain hideout: while the building was playing at medieval charm—metal gates, a wooden draw bridge that Iron Man and War Machine soared over—the construction looked no older than a few decades. The grout was even, the stones smooth, the windows large. They scattered and herded a dozen armed guards without greater issue, the bullets that hit them reflecting off their armor, and locked them into a storage room.

“War Machine is lowering the draw bridge. I’m going in,” Tony radioed as he landed in the courtyard. He blasted his way through heavy double doors: the splintering wood and screeching metal were deafening.

“No heroics, Tony,” Cap warned him.

“I’m confused. Explain the concept of the Avengers to me again.” Tony faced a dozen guards with rifles. He kicked part of the door upright and crouched behind his makeshift shield, bullets hammering into the heavy wood. The vibrations were numbing his arms, and Tony cursed inwardly as it reawakened his nausea. He put all his power into the hind thrusters and, using the door as a battering ram, carved a way through the yelling rows of combatants. Three of them were crushed against the stone. They fell like puppets. Iron Man spun around and blasted weapons out of the remaining men’s hands. The unarmed guards began running, and the ones that were down lifted their hands in surrender.

“Bridge is coming down,” Rhodey said over the comm, and the ground shook beneath Tony’s feet.

Tony was breathing hard; he should have been in better shape. Maybe he had been drinking a little more than he should— He discarded the thought quickly and took stock of his surroundings. There was a grand stairway spiraling upstairs beneath chandeliers, its walls lined with paintings of men in military uniform. But the main source of the noise came from a ramp leading downwards, wide and tall enough enough to drive tank through: yelling, running, the clattering of equipment. Yep, that did seem to be the more interesting course of action.

“I’m gonna crash the party in the basement.” Tony flew downwards, dodging bullets and dispatching guards as he went.

The stairs opened onto a balcony overlooking a large, domed room. Men in white coats and guards armed with rifles scrambled like ants at its bottom. Scattered throughout the room was Chitauri Technology. When he looked up, Tony forgot to breathe for a moment: suspended above him hung the rotting corpse of a leviathan. Memories of New York flashed through his mind, apprehension crawling down his neck and shoulders, sweat slicking his hands. His heartbeat was a drumbeat against his ears.

And on a platform in the middle stood a single man in relative stillness, the eye of the storm amid the movement: shaved head, monocle, black turtle neck. All he was missing was a white cat to pet. And in his hand glowed the Scepter.

More importantly, Tony recognized the man. On the HUD unfurled his name and biography: Baron von Strucker, agent of SHIELD. And one of the silent participants of the Chitauri tech meetings. One of the people that knew exactly what Tony had been doing, and had tried to stop him from doing it. “Son of a bitch,” Tony breathed.

“Tony, report.” Cap sounded alarmed.

“Looks like SHIELD’s got a mole infestation.” The guard below were screaming and aiming weapons at him. Tony set JARVIS to auto-targeting, fired to disarm. He’d have to get the Scepter out of von Strucker’s hands. He engaged his thrusters and sped towards the Baron.

Von Strucker met Tony’s eyes, a condescending smile on his lips, and precisely, almost gently, touched the scepter to a panel in front of him. A wave of blue light burst from the machine, spread as a bubble of amorphous energy: shouts went through the room as the lights went out, screens dark.

Tony realized what was going to happen before the wave hit him, drenched him like a bucket of cold water. The suit turned into a brick, HUD going dark, comm silent. (No amount of rad hardening helped against magic.) Tony yelled as he kept hurtling forward, with no way to steer, encased in dead weight of the suit. Von Strucker stepped out of the way, almost lazily, and Tony hit the ground by his feet, crashed through the railing of the platform and fell, ass over teakettle, to the flagstones below.

The impact punched the air from Tony’s lungs, vision going black as he desperately sucked in shallow breaths. Tony lifted his head enough to confirm what he had feared: the arc reactor was dead. Bullets were pinging off his suit before something else drew the guard’s attention.

Tony knew he wasn’t going to go into cardiac arrest any time soon. Hell, he’d read everything there was on heart conditions following his time in Afghanistan. He knew the estimated time frames, the science, the pathology of foreign objects traveling within a muscle. The time the EMP had hit the mansion, it had taken out all electronics for twelve minute. The shrapnel would take hours, maybe days to reach his heart. Twelve minutes were nothing.

And yet.

Cold sweat drenched his neck, his vision swam. He tried to reach for the valve that, in an emergency, opened the suit. He couldn’t move. The fall had been awkward and his arms were pinned. Pain pressed on his chest and shot through his shoulders. He knew that this wasn’t a heart attack. But he was trapped in his armor, and he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’tbreathe.

“Tony!” Rhodey’s face appeared above him, his undersuit dark and sleek. In the background, the explosions barely registered over the sound of Tony’s own breath, too loud. He concentrated on the way the dim light from the slender windows caught on Rhodey’s skin, the way his face crumpled into a mask of worry. He yanked open the hidden panel on the side of the suit and, turned the crank, and the Iron Man suit split down the middle. Rhodey grabbed one side of the gap and pulled, unfolding the chest, legs, arms in a chain reaction.

Tony sat up and convulsively breathed in the dank basement air. The suit had filtered it out, before, but the dead alien above them stank of sweet rot. The floor seemed to move beneath him like a boat on stormy water. There were noises of fighting around him: gun shots, shouting, falling debris and general destruction. It seemed far away, as though glass separated him from the scene.

Rhodey’s hand on his shoulder. “We need to get out of here.”

“Power will be back in ten minutes,” Tony gasped.

“That’s plenty of time to die from a gunshot wound.” Rhodey pulled him up.

Tony briefly swayed on his feet, pain exploding through his chest. There was no reason, he was fine. Tony pressed a palm to the cold, dark reactor in his chest. “What about Mister Monopoly?”

“The Captain is taking care of him.” Rhodey glanced up to the tall platform they had their backs against. He pressed a gun into Tony’s hand that felt odd and unwieldy. His hands were shaking so bad he almost dropped it. “Tony. I need you to hold it together.” Rhodey’s voice was steady, patient. “Can you do that?”

“I’m fine.” He’d have to be, there really wasn’t another option.

Before Rhodey could answer, a group of armed combatants began shooting at them Rhodey pulled behind a stack of crates and shot at them from their cover. Tony had to stop thinking about dying, had to stop thinking about how fucked he was without his suit, without the reactor.

“Cover my nine and let’s get out of here.”

Rhodey was moving before Tony had sorted out the analog clock. Luckily, Rhodey was alert enough to keep them both save. They were sprinting to the next point of cover, Rhodey firing to disarm as he ducked behind a desk. Tony shot twice, missing both times, then scooted down next to Rhodey and slammed his back painfully against metal file cabinets.

“Are you even trying to hit anything?” Rhodey quipped, glancing over the top of the desk.

“Very funny.” Tony’s eyes were on the computer on the table above. It was out at the moment, but it wouldn’t be forever. He dug through the single pocket of his undersuit and found a dongle—establishing a direct connection to STARK’s secure servers—that he inserted into the tower’s USB port.

“Would you concentrate on the situation at hand,” Rhodey told him.

“That’s what I got you for, honey.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes, fired two more shots into the chaos.

They wove through the fight and made it to the hallway leading up and out, passed by War Machine’s dormant shell, flayed open like a discarded tin can. Even at a passing glance, it looked like hours of repairs. They found a secure room to wait out the power outage: single entrance, not windows, defensible view onto a straight hallway.

Tony collapsed in a chair, feeling shaky and jittery, massaged his aching arm. He watched the arc reactor for any signs of life. If it didn’t power back up— he shut down that train of thought before he started hyperventilating, before panic swamped him to the point of uselessness. He concentrated on the broadness of Rhodey’s back in the dim light, guarding them. He still wasn’t trusting his best friend to not do anything stupid. But, still, Tony needed to tell someone.

“That guy on the platform? He’s SHIELD,” Tony said. “Sat in on meetings with Fury. That Scepter he has is officially in SHIELD storage.”

Rhodey gave him a wide-eyed glance, then returned to guarding the door. “And he’s based in Sokovia. You think that’s your connection?”

Von Strucker had been in the meeting when Tony announced to SHIELD he was going to develop sensors. The pushback had been immediate. None of the arguments really had made sense, but Tony was used to people simply not liking him.

‘Give me a week … Should be a breeze to collect the remaining Chitauri scrap. Or anything else emitting the same signature …’

They had wanted to keep him from finding the Mind Stone.

Tony was positive the EMP blast that had taken out JARVIS was identical to the one that just killed the suit. The security breach alone had been was enough for SHIELD to pull the contract. Should have been enough to halt the development of the sensors. (Too bad Tony hated half-finished projects.)

“Von Strucker sent the hitman as a distraction,” Tony said numbly. And Iron Man making a spectacle at Hammer Industries the cherry on top. The thought that attempt on Pepper’s life had been an aside in what was a political mess, that she had been collateral, filled Tony with boiling rage.

If von Strucker was sitting at the center of SHIELD’s power structure like a spider, who else was part of that web? Fury wasn’t part of that conspiracy or he wouldn’t have sent the Avengers to Sokovia—Tony would bet he’d made the decision without consulting with his higher ups.

Fuck.

“You can’t talk to anyone about what we’ve found here,” Tony told him.

Rhodey stared at him, then nodded slowly. “Alright. I want answers, though.”

Did Rhodey need to know about Loki? (No. There was no way he’d take it well.) Tony released a slow exhale, breathing through the anger. He needed to be rational, calm. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

By the time the arc reactor flickered to life and Tony’s comm came back online, Steve’s crackling voice let them know that von Strucker was in custody and his minions either scattered or captured.

Which meant the hard part was about to begin.

**

Nat held the scepter without reverence: just another weapon, another tool. She flicked the short hair out of her face. A bruise puffed up her cheekbone, a trickle of blood ran from he temple. And yet, she radiated calm efficiency as she set the scepter into a padded trunk, layers of foam and steel separating it from the world.

Steve halted in his conversation with Clint, face drawn in worry, and turned to Tony and War Machine as they reentered the destroyed room. Tony felt naked in what were basically black spandex-pajamas. He could, theoretically, get back into the suit right now, but the memory of being trapped inside left him with something akin claustrophobia. Before he could make up his mind, Steve approached him. He had pulled his mask back, leaving his hair in fluffy disarray.

“Are you two unharmed?”

“Yes, sir,” Rhodey replied, face plate open and scanning the battle field. “Though I had hoped to be of more use.”

Tony plucked the comm out of his ear and showed it to Steve, lifting both eyebrows as he turned it off with a push of his thumb and an almost silent click.

Steve’s mouth hung open for a moment as though to ask a question, then he copied Tony’s movement. Clint and Nat followed suit after exchanging glance.

“You mentioned something about moles?” Clint got straight to the point.

“Yup. I’ve met von Strucker before, in official SHIELD meetings.” Tony nodded in the direction where they had stashed the prisoners.

Steve looked at first disbelieving, then crossed his arms over his chest, face closing up.

“Are you shitting me?” Clint burst out. “There’s no way SHIELD is part of this.”

“Then why is Nat holding the glowstick of doom? That was supposed to be in SHIELD storage.”

“It wasn’t made public, but we knew it had vanished months ago.” Nat’s voice was calm as she flipped the lid closed and rose in one a fluid, cat-like motion. “Clint and I have been on multiple missions to track it down.”

“When were you guys going to relay any of that, huh?” Tony’s anger was ice-cold. “You know I’ve been working for SHIELD and you didn’t think it worthwhile letting me know how badly they’re fucking up? Looks like I was helping some megalomaniac halfway around the world doing … what exactly?”

“Human experimentation,” Clint said, voice quavering, eyes not meeting his. He was standing with his hands akimbo, stance wide, scanning the Chitauri weaponry around with a haunted look.

Tony found himself speechless for a moment. “Are you serious?”

“We found two teenager on the upper levels. Volunteers. They were supposed to be exposed to the stone in hopes it would enhance them in some way.”

“These people experiment on children?” Rhodey burst out.

“And there are fresh graves in the woods. A few dozen at least,” Clint said. He rubbed the back of his head with jerky motions. He glanced to the ceiling, to the looming, gigantic alien corpse, and pulled a face, eyes catching the blue light of the screens around them. “I want to get out of here.”

“Yeah, we shouldn’t stick around. All of this crap is infectious.” Tony hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the rows of computers. “I’m transferring any data they got to STARK servers. And I expect we’ll find more evidence that links this asshole back to SHIELD.”

“Fury was the one to send us,” Steve protested.

“Fury also contracted me for a project that von Strucker then blocked from within SHIELD,” Tony shot back. “An organization isn’t made up of a single person. Are you seriously this naive?”

Steve frowned at that. “What was the project?”

What the hell was the point of keeping it secret. He ignored Rhodey’s burning glare on the back of his neck. “I’m building equipment to cleanse the junk the Chitauri left behind,” Tony pointed to the leviathan suspended above, “and to cure the people that are dying because of it. Asgard is involved in providing the technology.”

“You’ve been speaking to Thor?” Natasha sounded surprised.

“Jane,” Tony corrected. He didn’t believe for one second that she hadn’t known that. She had been keeping tabs on him ever since he became Iron Man. “Either way, the last thing I want for Asgardian science is to end up in the hands of some maniac. Like von Strucker. Or whoever he works with.”

“I thought you were back to building weapons,” Clint said. Tony absolutely believed that he had no idea, spy or not.

“Stop watching cable news,” Tony shot back. “Point being, SHIELD revoked my contract. The moment I began building sensors to find that,” he pointed at the metal box sitting idly by Natasha’s side. Her face was blank, eyes wide: taking in everything, judging nothing. Not before she reported back to Fury, likely. Tony suddenly didn’t want to keep talking about this, not in front of her.

Steve turned and walked a few paces away, scrubbed a hand over his face and looked up at the leviathan. Surveyed the destroyed room. “Okay.”

Tony waited for a moment. “That’s it?”

“What do you want me to do?” Steve threw him an annoyed glance. “We’ll hand von Strucker to the Sokovian authorities, the US will file for extradition. SHIELD will come in to secure any evidence.”

“You want to give SHIELD access to the evidence?” Tony asked incredulously. “To the people that will, at best, bury it?”

Steve shrugged. “You’re downloading it all right now?”

“Sure am.”

“Then we’ll be able to draw our own conclusions,” Steve said.

“We could set it on fire,” Clint suggested.

Nat let out an exasperated huff but didn’t comment.

“I know you think you’re joking, but that would actually get rid of the magical ick stuck to the Chitauri crap,” Tony said.

“What about the Scepter?” Steve asked.

“What about it? We’re not handing it back to Fury.” Tony lifted his chin in challenge. (Damn Steve for being tall enough that he had to look up at him.)

“Do you seriously suggest it’s safer with you?” Steve’s voice took on a dangerous tone.

“Avengers tower is pretty damn safe. And I promise not to experiment on minors.”

Whatever Steve had meant to say, his mouth snapped shut.

“Didn’t you have a break-in a couple of weeks ago?” Nat asked calmly.

“All break-ins on my properties were directly linked to the glowstick in your trunk,” Tony nodded to said steel case. “Without the Scepter? I’d like to see them try.”

There was a moment of tense silent as Steve worked through the argument, brow drawn and face cast in half-shadow.

“We’re taking the Scepter. For now,” Steve finally agreed. “We’ll review the data. If it turns out that von Strucker is our only enemy within SHIELD, then we still hand the Scepter to the authorities.”

“And if not?” Tony asked.

Steve’s expression turned stony. “Then we have bigger problems than pissing off Fury.”

**

They handed von Strucker to the police until a request for extradition could be filed. Though going by the grim atmosphere—Steve did hint at child abuse when he pushed him at local officers—Tony wondered whether he’d get out of prison alive.

Natasha and Clint took the kids to Sokovian child protective services. Tony never got to see them, and he didn’t really want to. As he boarded the Quinjet, back in the suit and pushing von Strucker’s EMP device up the loading ramp, the feeling of shakiness returned. He was more exhausted than the battle warranted, and his mind was running in endless circles that made rest unlikely.

There was one good thing about the whole debacle: watching the castle go up in flames, feet up on the Quinjet’s controls, drinking something way too sweet and sticky from a can with Clint. Grim satisfaction burned bright in Tony’s chest. Pepper’s assailants had been apprehended and method of the attack—the Scepter—found and removed.

He was under no illusion that von Strucker had operated on his own. And he didn’t care about who came after him. He wanted these bastards on his doorstep, wanted them focused on Iron Man. He needed to draw them out so if he wanted to eradicate them. And if the controlled explosion wasn’t enough to send that message, Tony was sure he’d be able to think of something.

However. Von Strucker had destroyed the last remnants of the illusion that Tony might return to a somewhat normal life: one shared with normal people. There wasn’t a friend, a lover that would be safe from Tony’s enemies, not while he was Iron Man. (And Tony could not stop being Iron Man, he could not.) The finality of the knowledge burned a hole into his chest as the grief over his breakup poured out of him, silently. He sat in the odd privacy of along side the grim-faced Avengers on the six-hour flight back home, all of them captives of their own, black thoughts.

It broke his heart. And it provided a certainty that made things easier: he would never return to Pepper.

**

Loki did not know what mission Tony attended—Bruce was vague on the details—but that shouldn’t have distracted him from working. He continued taking notes on the dense and heavily abbreviated artificer’s manuals that Jane had provided. While he wasn’t an artificer, while he had trouble understanding the language used, he had read enough of Asgardian and human science to make sense of the words. And yet, he could barely focus on the page. Too often, he found himself staring into space, wondering about Tony’s safety. It was embarrassing how quickly the knot in his chest dissolved when JARVIS announced Tony’s return.

Rhodes had also returned and, according to JARVIS, was packing. Which meant Loki would be able to resurface soon. He had been banned to the sub basement for the time the Colonel stayed with them, and while Loki didn’t mind a few hours of it, it was a dreary place to wile away time by himself. They had set up a field bed in a corner which he had quickly surrounded with the stacks of books that JARVIS had ordered for him and, more recently, from his pocket dimension—gifts from Frigga that he still had barely made a dent in, and the grief still choked him every time he allowed the thought.

He wiped his face clean of relief when the elevator began moving. Tony was still in suit and carrying a comically large apparatus on his shoulder.

“Got you something.” Tony set down a metal box with a heavy clunk. Then he peeled himself out of the Iron Man suit, movements slightly hastier than usual.

“A lovely and selfless gift,” Loki noted with heavy sarcasm.

“It’s an NNEMP generator, the thing that took out JARVIS,” Tony said over his shoulder as he retrieved a tool box. “Help me figure out how it works.”

“It is artifice, then?” Loki did find himself intrigued by that.

“It created a magic field of some kind,” Tony agreed as he dragged his tools over and crouched down on the floor, beginning to unscrew a side panel and exposing its innards. “This guy used the Mind Stone to activate it.”

Loki’s thought process stuttered to a halt. “Excuse me?”

“Seems like SHIELD couldn’t keep the Scepter out of enemy hands. Absolute clown show.” Tony began digging through cables and began unscrewing a large cylinder from the center of the machine. He sat back, brow crinkled. “JARVIS, scan this, please.”

The box was briefly bathed in blue light. “All done, sir.”

“I see,” Loki said at length. There was a gentle pressure on his temple, a shadow of the headaches he’d been experiencing recently. He didn’t want to think about either Thanos or the Infinity Stones. And yet. He had to know, didn’t he. “Did you bring the Stone with you, then?”

“It’s in New York,” Tony said, then dragged the box with a screech towards Loki and pointed towards the dark snarls of its guts spilling out. “Is that Asgardian?”

Loki took a moment for the meaning of Tony’s words to catch up. The pain settled in behind his eyes and along the back of his neck. Loki briefly pressed his eyes shut in an attempt to clear his head, then blinked. There were runes scratched into the metal surface of machine. “… no. It’s not.”

“J? Help me out here.”

“The alphabet seems to be of Germanic nature, sir, used as recently as the twentieth century in Dalarna to transcribe Swedish. The translation, however, seems obscure.”

“It’s spell work, as passed down by Odin to your people, though muddled and weakened by an inept user,” Even All-Speak stumbled over some of the words, switching between the intent of the writer and the actual, mistake-riddled words. Loki dusted a fingertip across the etched lettering, done by hand. It was sharp enough to catch on his skin, not sharp enough to draw blood. His head was swimming. “Effective within its limitations: it prepares a place or weapon for a connection with an Infinity Stone. Humans have used these for centuries.”

Tony stared at the runes, then at Loki. “You mean the Tesseract.”

“It was buried in Norway until very recently,” Loki agreed. “The church it rested in was filled with inscriptions of similar nature, mostly to hide it. This array channels the magic purely as a power source. I am surprised the Stone let itself be used in such a … demeaning way. It likely was much less efficient than the wielder hoped it would be.”

Tony shifted awkwardly. “You makes it sound like the Stones are, what, sentient? You believe that?”

A sudden memory took Loki by surprise: the Mind Stone’s tendrils sinking into his mind, their greedy hold a violation. It barely did Thanos’s bidding as it enveloped him, set his mind at ease, opened him to the satisfaction only revenge could provide. A shiver of old fear ran down Loki’s skin, like thick, cold oil. He let it pass over him, controlled his face, the tremor of his limbs. Aware of Tony’s eyes. “I have wielded one of them. I know them by study as well as experience. Yes, Tony, anything as powerful as the Stones develops a low level of sentience.”

“Okay.” Tony sounded doubtful. “Basically, you’re saying this thing wouldn’t work without the Stone.”

“Yes.”

Tony tapped a screw driver against the palm of his hand, thoughtfully scanning the machine. “I thought so. I’m still going to take it apart. Gotta figure out how it works.”

“Of course,” Loki said, fondness spreading warmly in his chest. Tony cast him a glance that lingered slightly longer than was comfortable.

“The guy I got this from had a bunch of Chitauri stuff close by,” Tony said haltingly.

“And you stayed too long, didn’t you,” Loki said. They both knew the rules Tony had worked out. It was a combination of length of exposure and proximity that made infection in humans likely.

Tony looked away sheepishly, scratched the patch of skin behind his ear. “It should be fine. But there was a lot going on.”

Loki could probably have waited for his headache to pass, but the thought that Tony might be harmed … He extended a hand and Tony stared at it for a moment from his cross-legged position on the floor. Then he reached back, his palm warm under Loki’s fingertips.

The diagnostic spell was easy, at this point. Loki had cleared enough of the Chitauri weapons and it barely took thought (though it haunted his nightmares). He looked at Tony and—allowing his eyes to unfocus, his mind to open—he saw a flicker of blue in his eyes. The Mind Stone.

“This might tickle,” he said and pulled him closer. “Stay seated, please.”

“Is that code for ‘hurt like a bitch’?” Tony gave Loki a lop-sided smile.

“We shall find out.” Loki set a palm to the side of his face, thumb resting on his cheekbone where he had seen the Mind Stone’s specter: a drop of ink dissolving in water. He let his magic chase it, sent a pulse through Tony’s body that neutralized the influence, leaving him dizzy. Tony shivered, eyes locked with Loki’s, wide and dark. (Loki remembered Tony kissing him—artless, impulsive, utterly thoughtless. Remembered how direly he’d wanted to lean in. It would be easy, now, to bend down and kiss Tony’s parted lips.)

There was a flicker of blue light at the corner of Loki’s vision. When he turned, it was gone.

Loki let go and folded his hands between his knees. “Your friends likely suffered some exposure, as well,” he said quietly. “But we are close to finishing the Soul Forge. They could wait for a day.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said, still looking slightly dazed. He cleared his throat, wiped a hand across the side of his face that Loki’s hand had been touching, cheeks gaining color. “Yep. I’ll go … I’ll work on that. You mind if I leave this here?”

“Not at all,” Loki said and watched Tony dust off his knees, throw one last look over his shoulder, then leave the basement fast enough that it seemed he was fleeing.

**

It was almost time for Loki to leave.

He knew that. Once he was healed, there was nothing keeping him here.

Loki stood atop the roof of Iron Man’s mansion, overlooking the crashing waves that reflected moonlight. It was a mild night, salt heavy on the breeze, lights of a nearby city mirroring the stars above. It reminded him of the balmy nights of Asgard’s harbor.

He should go to New York, collect the Stone and leave the Nine, hide it where no one might find it. (Or he could take it to Thanos, control him, kill him. The thought was insane, laughable. But it was there and the urge to enact revenge upon the Titan was strong.)

Loki closed his eyes and let his mind expand. His magic bloomed around him, large if not strong. There were rifts all around him, far more than on Asgard or any other world. And it made sense, didn’t it: Midgard was at the center of the Nine.

A path to Vanaheim was so close he could touch it. Vanaheim would make a fine way point: he could collect clothes, books, weaponry from the small home he maintained there, and be gone again before Odin caught up.

Once he was whole again, he’d walk away from it all: from Asgard, Sanctuary, Midgard. From the pains he inflicted on others, from the ones inflicted on him. He would find a place to start over, be reborn. The longing to let go of his past, to let it all burn, was so strong that it his eyes stung. The night blurred and he wiped tears from his cheeks before they could fall.

(He would walk away from Tony.)

(What other choice did he have.)

Chapter Text

“If we put it into hospitals, we want it to be as intuitive as possible, you know.” Jane pulled up the final sketches of the interface she and Banner had been working on. She had pulled her hair back from her face messily and kept brushing strands behind her ear as she zipped from one screen to the next, showing him the graphics, flow charts, and notes. “Tony would provide the holographic table, and this is where you come in: we need an API. We don’t really know how to translate Python into magic.” She gave him a lopsided smile.

Even having read the artificer’s primers cover to cover, Loki was fully out of his depth. He knew his solutions would be a beginner’s effort. But what good was there in letting her know? Asgard was not going to send any help. If Loki wanted to heal—if he wanted to heal the humans that had suffered from exposure to Chitauri weaponry—he’d have to do this himself. “We will need a runic connector. It’s a poor replacement for a magic user, but low-level gamma radiation should work as a signal.”

She crinkled her pretty nose. “Is radiation the only solution here?”

As though he’d know. “Please, keep questioning my every word; I’m sure it will hasten the construction along.”

Jane let out a slow breath, annoyance tightening her mouth. Then she began sketching into the 3D model they’d been working on. “I’m sure Bruce can procure some cobalt-60. What level of gamma radiation are we talking about?”

Loki opened his mouth, paused, then consulted his notes on Midgardian measurements. He threw a number and a unit at her and hoped it would work. Jane wrote it down, raising an eyebrow at his irritated tone.

“Please leave a note for me to test the first setup extensively,” Loki added as he dropped the tablet onto the desk with disgust, not meeting her eyes.

“Okay,” she said, no judgment in her voice. “Let’s go over the list of commands we want to implement and see how you’d match those up to … runes?”

“Why not.” He already knew he wouldn’t be able to answer half her questions.

Her phone rang, and both of them stared at Thor’s face, foolishly grinning up at them from the screen. Jane was frozen in the middle of note-taking. She met his eyes briefly, as though to ask for permission. Loki felt oddly detached from the scene and couldn’t take his eyes from Thor’s smiling face. He nodded. So she pressed the green button and activated the speaker.

“Hey,” she said quietly, looking at Loki.

“Hi, Jane.”

Thor’s voice sent shivers down Loki’s back. He suddenly wanted his big brother so badly that it hurt, as though he was five years old again and Thor his whole world. He wanted to strangle him for leaving him on Svartalfheim, for turning his back on him, over and over again. For the unfairness of it all, for the rift between them. The strength of his reaction surprised Loki more than anything else.

“I can’t really talk right now; I’m with a co-worker,” Jane said, lifting both eyebrows at whatever she saw on Loki’s face.

“Oh,” Thor said. There was a moment of silence. “When you say co-worker—”

“Yeah, you know him,” Jane confirmed.

More silence. Loki lifted a fist to his mouth, knowing he could not speak, not when Heimdall might be watching Thor.

“Let him … Would you let him know that I wish I could be there? With you both,” Thor said.

Loki closed his eyes. That moron was going to give him away. Loki should leave, give him no reason to say anything incriminating, anything that might lead Odin to him. He found himself frozen in place.

“I have.” There was a smile in Jane’s voice.

“Good.” Thor’s voice sounded as full of conflicting emotions as Loki felt. “He’s doing better, then?”

“He is. And he might go through treatment as early as this week.”

A shaky exhale crackled over the phone line. “Good. That is good,” Thor repeated, a smile in his voice, so relieved that it hurt. “I really …” He stopped, the silence heavy. Very slowly he said, “You should know that I have a glimmer of hope.”

The word sounded odd, and Jane frowned, unsure how to answer. It took Loki a moment to realize Thor was quoting himself: You should know that, when we fought each other in the past, I did so with a glimmer of hope that my brother was still in there somewhere. Loki’s throat closed up.

“Please give him my well wishes.”

“I will,” Jane agreed quietly, her face shifting to pity. Loki realized that his vision had blurred, tears running down his cheeks. His face averted, he wiped them away, burning with shame. “Any news from Asgard?”

“Oh. The council took a vote, and they still wish to see Loki executed. Father insists on a trial.”

Loki wanted to laugh. Blunt as a sledgehammer, as usual.

“Well,” Jane’s voice was shaky. “I would hardly call that news.”

“And Father asks about you. Heimdall cannot find you.”

Jane sat up ramrod straight, her face filled with alarm. None of it showed in her voice: “That’s odd. I’ve been working underground the past few days. Might that have something to do with it?” The lie did not sound rehearsed, which made Loki think that she had practiced it a lot.

“If it’s far enough below the surface, it might,” Thor agreed quickly. His part did sound rehearsed.

“I really don’t appreciate him spying on me. Honestly, he’s so paranoid.” Jane began gathering up her notes, packing anything that was hers into a satchel leaning by the desk. Loki pushed the folder with the sketches of Asgard’s vaults towards her, and she grabbed them, stuffing them in alongside everything else.

“Watch how you speak,” Thor said, but there was a smile in his voice.

“I know, I know. How were things on Vanaheim?”

“The uprising is beaten back. All is right with the Nine.” There was some more awkward conversation, both of them aware that Loki was listening in. When she hung up, she let go of a stressed sigh.

“You took a risk in coming here,” Loki said.

“I know.” Annoyed. She looked down at the work spread between them. “I really wanted to see it in use.”

It took Loki a moment to realize she meant the Soul Forge. “You will,” he assured her. “But only if you leave before Odin sends someone to find you.”

She leaned across the table and surprised Loki by putting a delicate hand on his arm. Her grip was sure, her round face determined. “Don’t give up on him. He’s fighting for you.”

“Then he has his work cut out for him.”

**

It was done.

The Soul Forge gleamed golden in the spotlights Tony had hauled into the workshop, the arc reactor in its center glowing a soft blue. Tony had declared that the coolant needed to settle and busied himself giving the machine a final once-over.

Loki had not been able to think of anything else since then. He had sat down with a book that had been lying open and ignored in his lap as he alternated between glancing at the workshop clock and the Forge. At this moment, he was watching Tony crouch beneath the table fiddling with screws that likely didn’t need tightening, testing the wiring, and running hands over coolant channels that he had sealed this morning. Double- and triple-checking his work.

Loki stood from his chair, magic wrapping around his muscles like a cage, gently placed the book on his seat, and walked up. He let his hand glide down the curved field generator, the gold smooth and cool under his touch. Tony had left no imperfections in this version of the Forge, all roughness of the prototypes gone and replaced with careful, polished perfection. Found himself surprised that he had no longer any doubts in Tony: his mind, his intentions, his worth. This would work.

“You’re quite extraordinary,” he told Tony quietly.

Tony came up so fast that, with a dull crack, he hit his head on the underside of the table. He cursed under his breath, then turned to Loki, rubbing the back of his head and looking startled.

“I’m aware, but keep talking.”

Loki sat down on the table, controlling the tremor of his hand as he steadied himself. He looked down at Tony’s assessing expression: gears clicking away inside his head. He’d been watching Loki in a way that had made his skin feel tight for days now; he could almost taste Tony’s thoughts.

And Loki knew he shouldn’t encourage this. But he was feeling light-headed, euphoric even. (He would leave him, and soon. He pushed that thought away.) He recognized his boyish mood for what it was: recklessness was ever his poison. He wished to give in just a little, see what Tony would do.

(This would end in bitterness and devastation, and Loki was unwilling to think of it, unwilling to sour the warmth spreading in his belly and chest.)

“It’s a good thing, then, that I don’t like you for your humility,” Loki said.

“You’re finally admitting you like me, huh?” A lift of an eyebrow.

“Did I say that?”

Tony snorted and stood, brushing dust from his knees. “Of course you like me. I’m very likable. And devilishly handsome.”

Loki laughed and didn’t deny it.

Tony was visibly wrestling with the decision. He hid his hands in his pockets, as though to keep them from doing something he couldn’t take back. “Ready for your big show?”

Loki felt his smile widen. “Are you?”

That seemed to be enough invitation, and Tony stepped between Loki’s spread legs. This close, his smell was sharp on Loki’s tongue: aftershave, electrical fire, metal. Warm musk and fresh sweat. He lifted a hand to Loki’s neck, calluses scraping against the soft skin beneath his ear, and Loki’s thoughts stuttered to a halt, breath hitching. All of a sudden, his heart was in his mouth, the world around them melted away, and he was surprised by how much he wanted this, how little he cared about the consequences. Tony’s face was open and questioning—Loki had rejected him before. So Loki tilted his head back in invitation, let his lips part—

“This is a workplace,” Banner said loudly.

Tony jerked back, and the moment was broken. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” he shouted over his shoulder. “What are you even doing here?”

“I’ve been here the whole time.” There was a hint of exasperation in his tone. “You were the one that wanted to run the test tonight.”

Loki rolled his eyes, regret and relief settling in his chest in equal parts. (It was better this way.) “Let’s get started, then.”

They had agreed on the first test subject being Loki. They thought Banner was the most qualified to run the machine and Loki the second-least likely to die in case it blew up. Loki trusted Tony to have worked out the kinks, but he had also seen the prototypes go up in flames, and he wasn’t afraid of a bit of fire. (Better him than the Hulk.)

“Get comfortable, honey,” Tony patted him on the shoulder. Loki wrinkled his nose at the pet name (ignored the way the touch seemed to linger) and reclined with his hands by his sides, hair fanning out over the table inlaid with runes.

Banner stepped up to the control panel, which sat on a desk a safe distance away, and powered up the holographic interface with a gentle hum. A vibration rose from both the table and the tall generators and settled like a living thing against Loki’s skin. The surface began glowing white; the pillars threw out an energy field. They coalesced into a bright field of gold and red above him. He couldn’t see any details from his point of vantage, but it seemed to be working exactly as it should, as every medical imaging he had undergone on Asgard had.

And yet, it looked different from what Loki was used to. Tony was frowning, and Banner adjusted his glasses nervously.

“Okay, help me out; what am I looking at?” Banner said.

“I think it’s working as intended.” Tony pushed a button, and the image above Loki froze. “Loki. You should see this.”

Loki got up while the image above remained stable. He took a few steps back, far enough to see the light-filled reconstruction of his own body in the whole. Banner pulled up scans from the Asgardian instruction manuals on a nearby screen, rows of examples of what they should be seeing: skin, muscle, and organs outlined in blue. The nervous system spun a silver network through the body, while inherent magic showed up as a variety of colors. Red highlights indicated interference or corruption.

The still image that hovered above their Forge did not contain any gentle blues; it was bright red. Parts of it were shot through with so much of Loki’s magic that the greens and golds were blinding, making it hard to see details. At closer inspection, it was filling in gaps like glue. His body was a cracked piece of clay, barely held together by his own essence. Loki felt his mind retreat, his legs grow unsteady.

“Okay, let’s not jump to conclusions. Do we know what any of this actually means?” Tony asked.

“I shouldn’t be alive,” Loki heard himself say, an urge to laugh clawing itself up his throat. “My magic is the only thing that keeps me breathing.” Oh, this was too good: death would not have him, and neither would life.

Banner gave him a hard stare. “Can you heal a condition like this? On, let’s say, Asgard?”

Could they? Who knew. Who would be willing to try and save the wretched second prince, the Jotun traitor, when the Allfather was clamoring for his head. Asgard held no answers for him, no salvation. Loki gave a half-broken laugh. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve been getting better,” Tony argued. “You weren’t able to stand six weeks ago. That has to mean something.”

Loki swallowed his hysteria. “My magic is strengthening, very slowly.” Of course it wasn’t coming back at a normal rate: almost all of it would immediately go to stabilizing his body. “In order to walk, to ban the tremor, I am constantly using it.”

“Walk me through it. The green-and-gold stuff on here is your magic, then?” Tony convulsively swiped through more sample illustrations from the instruction manual, looking for something comparable.

“It is,” Loki agreed.

Banner brushed past Loki and stepped up to the still image of his body, suspended midair. He wrinkled his brow. “Does it always look like that?” He gestured to a core of bright green light sitting at the solar plexus, a high concentration of magic. “Are you sure this is magic and not something else?”

Loki let out a slow, steadying breath and closed his eyes briefly. If this was going to kill him, it already would have. He could panic later. Out of sight. He pushed his feelings down and away and focused on the practicalities of helping Banner figure out a puzzle.

He stepped up to inspect what the doctor was pointing at. The magic seemed split into two distinct colors: a golden layer wrapping tightly around the green, digging into it like a root system. It was beautiful in its own way, unsettling in another. “I am not sure,” he admitted slowly. There was a memory tugging at the back of his mind, something he should remember.

Tony stopped flipping through the scans of the manual and tapped the page. “What about this?”

Magic parasite, the title read. It didn’t quite look the same, but it showed a secondary color intermingled with the patient’s magic, reducing and replacing it.

“So,” Banner began, hesitantly, “without saying that this is definitely it: we know that the Chitauri technology had some kind of magic parasitic effect, right? How sure are we that Loki was immune to that?”

Loki calmly met Banner’s eyes. (Anything to not look at his own body rendered in light.) “I worked with them for years. I would have known if it was an issue.”

Banner didn’t seem convinced. “What if it worked like a virus and your magic like an immune system? You almost died from a poison. Would that maybe allow it to take a hold?”

It was … it didn’t seem right. This couldn’t …

“JARVIS, would you scan Loki for influence of the Mind Stone?”

Loki stared at Tony’s grim face. JARVIS briefly doused him in light, and Loki shivered against the brush of the sensors.

“Sir, there is a strong match.”

“Great.” Tony’s voice was flat and practical. “No problem. This is what we built that thing for, right? To remove that influence. So let’s do that.”

This didn’t make sense. It wasn’t the Chitauri technology. It never had been. No, this was … Understanding trickled through Loki’s mind, pooling as dread at the base of his spine. And as he pushed at the sudden, overwhelming knowledge, an inkling of pain began to set in against his temples. And in that moment, that pain was intimately familiar. “No,” he breathed.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Tony frowned.

“He never left.” Pain was building in his temples, and his voice was shaking. “I thought he was …” He felt he was going to be sick, and he steadied himself heavily on the desk, bent over, and put his hand to his mouth, cold sweat on his back. They were in immediate, terrible danger.

Banner shot Tony an alarmed glance. “What?”

“This is Thanos.” Loki bared his teeth and forced himself to breathe steadily through the pain of the headache.

The Other.

His inquiring, punishing presence. Oh, how he had hated Loki, how Loki had fought his control. But for all of Loki’s posturing and mocking, the Other’s influence over him had been strong and immediate. They would not have let him go, otherwise.

“He used the Stone to lay a channel into my mind, propped up by my own magic. Through that, his servant formed a bond with me.” A constant silent passenger, a madness at the back of his thoughts. The Other had seen through his eyes, taken over his actions, and influenced his thoughts and moods. How much time had Loki lost to his unskilled meddling, to his intrusive touch? And of course, of course his influence remained bound to Loki’s magic, likely sapping as much of his strength as his broken body did. “Thanos—”

Pain exploded through his skull, enough to have him double over. He clutched at his head and keened, lost in agony. Time lost all meaning.

When the blackness faded, for a moment, he thought he might have done something, might have hurt his allies— But he merely found himself on his back. Tony was sitting cross-legged on the floor by his side, talking quietly to Bruce.

Nausea pounded through him. Loki reached for Tony’s forearm, missing once before landing heavily.

Tony’s gaze was sharp, fear barely concealed. “You with us?”

“Remove it,” Loki hissed through clenched teeth, aware he was begging and not caring. “Remove his influence from my mind.”

“Yep. Let’s get started,” Tony sounded artificially calm. He lurched to his feet and pulled Loki up with him, helping him as he stumbled. His magic refused to aid him, his mind too scattered, and Tony half-walked, half-carried him to the Soul Forge, still showing the image of his broken body in stasis. Loki didn’t care, clinging to Tony with trembling arms as he lowered him down. And before Tony stepped back, Loki grabbed his arm, clung to him for a moment, and forced him to meet his eyes.

“If this doesn’t work, you must return me to Asgard.” Fear was a heavy weight on his chest, a wild animal scrabbling against the confines of his body. He could not go back to being Thanos’s pawn once the Other decided it pleased him. He would not. “And you must have Thor’s aid against Thanos.”

Tony stared at him for a moment, expression unreadable. “Won’t be necessary. I built this thing with my own two hands. It’s gonna work.”

That did nothing to settle his fear. “This isn’t a time for hope and blind faith.”

Tony grinned at him, too many teeth in that smile. “I don’t need faith; I’m just that good.”

“Such hubris.” Norns, Loki did like him.

Tony’s smile was fleeting, and he set a hand on Loki’s shoulder, warm and heavy. “Bruce?”

“We’re good to go,” Banner said. “Loki, you’re aware I’ve not done this before. I need you to tell me if anything feels wrong.”

Loki wanted to laugh. As though he cared. As though anything Banner could do would be worse than what awaited him if Thanos found him. “My comfort is the least of our worries.”

“Of course,” Banner muttered under his breath.

The Soul Forge reset with a rising hum; the image above resumed, showing the sluggish flow of Loki’s magic and the twisting of the Mind Stone’s energy overlaying it. Tony’s hand on his shoulder was a gentle blue in a sea of blood red.

And as Banner began using the Soul Forge to operate, Loki watched the Forge’s white tendrils wrap around the Mind Stone’s influence, teasing it apart from the stream of Loki’s magic. It came up in sticky strands that tried to latch back on and needed to be burned away. Even as Banner kept working, the Mind Stone’s energy kept spreading, greedily, to fill in the gaps left in between. It seemed futile, and the procedure was dragging out to little avail.

“This isn’t working,” Loki said firmly. “You’re too slow.”

Banner was frowning, shaking his head. “If I work more quickly, I might harm you.”

“You cannot do surgery without drawing blood. There is no harm worse than leaving me as I am.”

Banner still hesitated, exchanging a glance with Tony.

“You cannot leave me like this.” Loki’s voice cracked. Banner’s attempt at decency could not be his reason to fall back into Thanos’s hands. “I’m not human; I’m not frail the way you are.”

Banner swallowed and nodded. Took a slow breath in and out. And when he went back in, he ripped the Mind Stone’s influence out, tearing up chunks of Loki’s magic with it. There was no careful disentangling. Instead, he was scooping out a sapling with the nourishing earth still attached.

At first, the change was barely noticeable, but the further Banner proceeded, the more Loki was hit by waves of tremors, vision darkening. Cold sweats took him a quarter through, and he began seeing things that weren’t there: the shadows in the workshop moved oddly, and the hum of the Forge turned into disembodied whispers he could not understand. A voice, so close to his ear that he could feel its breath, promised him a slow, agonizing death. When he turned his head, there was nothing there. His breathing was fast and shallow, and he held on to the knowledge that this was the Mind Stone playing tricks on him. He turned to Tony, and while his ally was there, his hand steadying him and face filled with guilt, it wasn’t he that stilled Loki’s fears.

Mother.

She stood behind Tony’s shoulder, her face gentle with comfort, the lines of her dress sharp against the odd blurriness that coated reality. ‘Pay them no heed, my love. Hold on. It is not yet your time.’

Loki calmed and closed his eyes and ears against the hallucinations.

It wasn’t soon thereafter that the signs of magic exhaustion set in: his head swimming and pounding, hot and cold washing through him in waves, nausea rising in his throat. He sat up halfway once, trembling arms almost collapsing under him, painfully dry-heaving while Tony set a hand between his shoulder blades. Banner stood white-faced and frozen by the panel, and Loki snapped around to fix him with bleary eyes. “What are you doing?” Loki rasped. “You cannot stop; it will gain ground!”

“You’re not—”

“Death is a kinder fate than this!”

So Banner drew a deep breath and continued.

Halfway through the procedure, Loki began losing time, his mind fever-bright and filled with all-encompassing, glaring dread, his body shaking with convulsions more than once. The knowledge that he was going to die rose in him with utter clarity.

(Wouldn’t that be easier? Wouldn’t that be sweeter than the continuous slog through a world that consisted of nothing but disappointment and pain?)

Frigga’s words returned to his mind: it was not yet his time. So Loki held on, resignedly, through Banner tearing his magic from him, through the Mind Stone’s screaming tantrum of letting him go, until consciousness blissfully abandoned him.

**

Loki’s eyes rolled back, his lids fluttering to show a thin line of white.

Fuck.

God-fucking-damn it.

“Okay. I’m calling it—”

“No!” Tony couldn’t take his eyes off Loki. This was not supposed to happen. “You heard him. We’re not stopping before we get that thing out of him.”

“He can’t even tell me if something is wrong!”

“You think he’d have told us before?” Tony and Bruce stared at each other. Bruce was breathing slowly and with great control and clutching at the panel so hard that his knuckles turned white.

“Tony, we might kill him.”

“He asked us to!” The words were too loud, and they cracked in his throat. Loki had told them that he’d rather die than face … whatever had been done to him in the past. “He asked us to.” This was how this all had started, this was what it came down to: Loki had no one else. No one to save him or care for him. And Tony knew what that meant.

They had to see this through.

Bruce breathed once, twice, then lurched to grab the surgery stylus. And began anew.

Tony couldn’t let himself think about it. He couldn’t let himself feel. So, barely daring to breathe, he watched Bruce’s work unfold in the light show above, glanced at Loki’s slack, and pale face. The Forge would have told them if his vitals gave out; Tony knew that. He had built in the safeties for that. And still, he shifted his palm to rest against Loki’s pulse: there but weak.

The procedure seemed to take hours, though the clock told him it had been mere minutes.

“Tony, move your hand.”

“What?”

“There’s something in his neck, and I can’t see around— thank you.”

Tony stepped back. He realized he was shaky with nerves, and he crossed his arms over his chest to hold himself still. “There’s ‘something’ in his neck? I thought you were a doctor.”

Bruce was scowling and tense as he bent over the enhanced view on the panel. “It’s like a cluster … two clusters of something. Right between C5 and C6.”

Tony didn’t want to leave Loki, but he did need to know what was going on. He walked over to lean over the controls to try and figure out what Bruce was looking at. He had enhanced the view of Loki’s spine until the two vertebrae filled the whole holographic display. Two swirling nexuses, side by side, one bright green and the other brilliantly white. “No idea. Doesn’t look familiar. Seriously, is it me or are those Asgardian diagrams completely useless? To think I stayed up all night when I could have yelled at people on twitter— Whoops, you got a runner.”

The golden energy of the Mind Stone spasmed, exploded from the little nest at the back of Loki’s nest, and was spreading like thick liquid along channels Bruce had just cleared. Bruce cursed, tearing it back out as fast as he could.

“Yep, those have to go,” Tony said.

Bruce hooked the green nexus with both hands—at a button press, the stylus extended a set of pincers—and began peeling it away. The cluster came up like an old sticker, tearing and reluctant, oozing with golden energy. When it was free, the whole thing dissolved mid-air.

“Let’s hope this is the last one,” Bruce muttered. He grasped the white nexus in the same manner. Tentacles of light erupted from the nexus and moved wildly, trying to climb up and around the stylus and sink into Loki’s spine. Whatever they were anchored to was strong, feeding them more energy than anything else in Loki’s body had. (Tony really hoped it wasn’t essential. God, did he hope they weren’t actually killing Loki.)

“Tony, could you—” Bruce didn’t finish the sentence; his face shuttered in concentration.

Tony grabbed a third stylus—then almost dropped it, his hands were shaking so hard—and jammed it into the center of the mass without finesse. He grasped, twisted, and pulled. There was physical resistance that he hadn’t expected—that really shouldn’t be there, this was a hologram for Christ’s sake—and he steadied himself against the table. Bruce was loosening the hooks the magic cluster had sunk into Loki’s bones, rapidly pulling up golden strands; they regrew faster than he could burn them out.

Tony realized he was afraid. He was half-convinced that they shouldn’t be doing this. But what choice was there? Loki had asked him to; he had begged him.

He leveraged his physical strength against the weird goddamn white thing in Loki’s neck and pulled without concern for what he might break.

And eventually, with little drama, it gave way with a soft pop. Tony stumbled backwards from the sudden lack of resistance. The last of the golden energy dissolved in a rain of sparks.

“That’s it?” Tony asked, pulse racing as though he’d fought a battle.

“Yeah, though we should—”

The air pressure changed. Tony’s ears popped; Bruce’s eyes widened. He grabbed Tony and pulled him away from the Forge. With a boom and crackle, a wave of freezing cold hit Tony’s back, setting his skin ablaze. He stumbled and turned.

“That wasn’t me,” was all that he managed.

In a ten-foot radius centered around the Forge, his workshop had frozen over: an inch-thick layer of ice covered the wall, the floor, the Audi. (Damn. That car had always been dangerously close to the workspace.) The Forge itself was wreathed in icicles. A thick, white fog hung in the workshop—which made sense; it had been humid the past days, and the moisture had turned into some kind of ice fog—and some of it fell out as fine snow. It was snowing in his garage.

Tony shook out of his stupor and ran towards Loki, slipped and almost fell on the ice, then slid to an abrupt halt against the table, catching himself with both hands.

Loki was blue. Also, still unconscious. (Was he? The Forge had stopped measuring his vital signs when it froze. Tony had built it to withstand fires, not the Arctic.) He fumbled to find Loki’s pulse and jerked back in shock when he found him as cold as a corpse. Tony stared at him.

Sometimes he forgot that Loki was an alien. He put two fingers against his ice-cold neck, pressing them into soft skin.

Loki’s heartbeat was steady, if weak.

“Oh god,” Tony said, and his knees buckled under him. He clutched at the side of the frozen table, rested his forehead against the edge, and breathed, eyes pressed shut until he saw stars. “He’s alive. And he froze over my workshop. Why the hell is he blue?”

Bruce walked up behind him and examined Loki in a more medically-sound manner. There was a stethoscope involved and one of those little flashlights Tony hated because they left him half-blind for a minute.

“Do I need to check you out, too?” He peered at Tony with a half-smile, but he seemed to mean it.

Tony laughed and sat cross-legged on the ice. Snow was melting into his jeans, and he didn’t care. “No, I’m great. And he’s okay?”

Bruce sighed in a manner that conveyed the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders. “I know his temperature is a good deal below a human's, but this? He’s running at 39 degrees. Just the sudden expansion of fluids in his system … And does that look like a healthy skin color to you? Because I don’t know. I don’t know!” He threw his hands up in a gesture of helpless exasperation. Then he sat down heavily on the table and rubbed his forehead, still looking at his patient. “Yeah. I think he’s okay.”

“Aliens. What can you do?” Tony had finally scratched enough snow together to form a tiny snowball. He threw it to splatter on Bruce’s shoulder.

Bruce just laughed—it sounded relieved—and didn’t reciprocate. Coward.

**

He came to in his sickbed, the sun setting, casting a soft red glow over the room. He turned his head to find Tony asleep against the headboard, tablet slipping from his hand and chin resting on his chest. There was a softness to him, his masks and armor torn away and replaced with a humanness that Loki should find pitiful. Instead, it filled him with an overwhelming fondness. With a sense of safety.

The only other time he had seen Tony asleep was shortly after he and Pepper had broken up: he had been so drunk that he smelled like a brewery, frown on his face and drooling, and Loki had spent hours watching him. Considering what they were and weren’t to each other, though this thoughts had kept wandering, in endless circles, back to the soft glow on his exposed chest.

(He remembered that it didn’t make sense for Loki to be there at all and remembered the overwhelming need to inspect the arc reactor once more. The headache that followed. Now he knew that the Other had, without doubt, watched through his eyes, called from the other end of the universe to inspect this weaker imitation of the Space Stone.)

Loki was too tired by far to feel more than a dull sense of fear in the face of inevitability. But as awareness returned to him, so did discomfort. His throat was on fire, his thirst so strong he couldn’t have spoken if he tried, and he needed to use the bathroom.

He pushed back the blankets—and froze.

His skin was blue.

For a moment, his mind refused to make the connection. He stared at his black nails, the ridges on the back of his trembling hand trailing in concentric circles up his arm, vanishing beneath the soft sleep shirt he did not remember putting on.

He had never taken time to look at this body. Never tried to remove the transformation rune that Odin had imposed on him as a babe, which seemed to only disable in self-preservation; in the presence of extreme cold. Loki had tried not to think of it: of his true form that revealed him as both a monster and an enemy of Asgard.

The rune must have been torn away with the Mind Stone’s influence after Loki lost consciousness. He felt naked, exposed. More than anything, he was exhausted by the horrors he’d been going through and the fears that persisted in his mind.

He took a breath and tried to push himself up, instinctively reaching for his magic to steady himself and finding his reserves dry, his arms shaking so badly that, with a gasp, he collapsed back to the mattress. His head was spinning. He closed his eyes against gravity tilting, concentrated on breathing for a moment.

“Hey.” Tony’s voice was thick with sleep, and the mattress shifted. Loki opened his eyes to find Tony above him, blinking in an attempt to look alert. He looked more tired now that he had slept than Loki had seen him staying up three days in a row. “Oh wow, didn’t see your eyes before. Very patriotic color scheme; the Captain would approve.”

“Water,” Loki croaked.

“I got you.” Tony reached over him, his body heat a warm wall engulfing Loki, and retrieved a glass from the nightstand. He slid an arm beneath Loki’s shoulders and propped him up with well-practiced movements. He held the glass to his lip.

Loki drank two glasses, greedily, engulfed by Tony’s pressing heat. The relief overpowered all thought for a moment. When Tony lowered him back down, Loki wondered.

“How long?” His voice came out as a raw whisper.

“How long did you sleep?” Tony looked to him, then to his wristwatch, eyebrows lifting in apparent surprise. “Twenty hours.”

“And you?” Loki couldn’t help the smile.

“Twelve or so,” Tony admitted, sounding regretful, rubbing and stretching his neck as though it pained him. “So.” He looked at Loki again, briefly hung on his eyes (red), scanned his skin (blue), curiosity burning in his eyes. “Bruce might have mentioned that you’re not … whatever Thor is.”

“I scare you,” Loki said before he could stop himself. He felt light-headed, a black hole opening in his stomach. Oh. So there was the dread.

Tony lifted an eyebrow. “Well. Bruce did freak out for a minute when he thought your temperature was way too low, but what else is new?” Tony didn’t look scared. He looked intensely curious but not scared.

Loki was terrified. It scared him to death to be confronted with who he was beneath white skin, green eyes, and the promise of a throne. His station, his ambition, his privilege. Beneath all, he was a creature, no better than one of Odin’s hunting dogs, to be culled if he misbehaved. He pressed his eyes shut and tried to stop the spiral before it started. But what he thought he could ignore just minutes ago was, now that Tony had pointed it out, impossible to bear.

“Hey.” Tony’s hand came to rest on his hair, and Loki looked up at him, searching for something to pull him out of the darkness that threatened to swallow him. “So you’re blue. Big whoop. One of my best friends turns green and gigantic and into a whole different person. This? Doesn’t compare to that. Not even a little. If you’re meaning to scare me, you’ll have to work harder. Way to drop the ball on the freak factor.”

Loki couldn’t help it: he laughed, his voice still rough with disuse. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Look who’s talking.” Tony’s lips twitched into a smile, his hand a warm reassurance against Loki’s scalp. “You okay?”

“Of course,” Loki replied automatically. He still felt like his guts had been exposed for the world to see. But in the face of Loki’s weakness and otherness, Tony was calm. “I wouldn’t have been without you.”

Tony gave him an odd look that woke a fluttering of nerves deep in Loki’s belly. They stared at each other for so long that Loki’s smile melted away, something unknowable and large filling him to bursting.

(Fool. Loki was a fool.)

Tony abruptly looked away, reached for the tablet that had slipped out of his lap, and turned it on, staring blankly at whatever was open on it. “How is your magic?”

“Unusable.”

“Yep. Bruce worried about that.”

Loki found he didn’t care. His remaining magic was obviously engaged in keeping him alive, and he had been defenseless in the presence of Tony and Banner before. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was familiar. “I will likely recover more quickly now that the Stone’s influence is gone.”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony’s brow furrowed, and he made a note on his tablet. “We think we got it all, but in the homestretch, you kinda turned my garage into Winter Wonderland. We had to stop there. We were planning on a check-up, first thing tomorrow.”

Oh, lovely. So he was a Frost Giant and had lost control over their freakish abilities. “Did I …” Loki stopped himself. Tony looked unharmed, and surely he’d have mentioned if the Hulk had made an appearance. “Is the Forge undamaged?”

“Worked just fine after it thawed.” Tony shrugged. “I do have one question. You mentioned some kind of bond with a servant and that we all were in danger.”

Loki hesitated, considering what Tony knew. Tested his magic channels for any remaining connection, but he found none. (Then again, he hadn’t known before, had he?) “The Mad Titan has a servant only known as ‘the Other.’ He has mastered the arts of both telepathy and torture.”

Tony grimaced but didn’t look away.

“He was the one to convince me to join the Mad Titan’s cause. And he watched me fulfill my tasks through my own eyes, the power of the Mind Stone aiding his natural talents.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “What does that mean? For us, for Earth?”

“Thanos will come to Midgard. For me, who failed him. And for you, who created a facsimile of the Space Stone you carry close to your heart.”

Tony’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “I told you, this baby is a battery.” He tapped the arc reactor in his chest.

Loki had to smile at his naivety. “And to a magic user, it may be ease the process of opening portals between worlds.”

Tony’s face went slack in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“If you were to study artifice on Asgard—” Loki shut his mouth with an audible click and looked away. Asgard was closed to him, as it was closed to the other lesser races. And thinking of a future for Tony? That was more than he had meant to express. (Tony would be dead within a century. The thought plunged him into sullen numbness, a reminder that he should not, could not, think of Tony as an equal.)

“So, if I called your brother, you’re saying he could get me books on this stuff?”

Loki lifted a shaking hand to rub his burning eyes. He felt sticky, he still needed to take a piss, and he was so, so endlessly tired. “It’s possible.” But what was the point? “I need to go to the restroom.”

Tony rose without question, without comment on Loki’s odd looks and cold skin. He helped prop him up, set his legs to the floor, and lifted him to gently deposit him in the wheelchair. Loki remembered how different this scenario had felt the first time around: how Loki had resented it, how Tony had shied away. They parted from the forced intimacy, and Loki met Tony’s eyes; a moment of hesitation hung between them. Then Tony noticeably pulled himself together and began pushing him towards the bathroom.

After relieving himself, Loki went back to sleep, and Tony stayed by his side, working or reading; Loki did not know or care. (As long as he stayed.)

**

Loki awoke in the middle of the night with a terrible sense of foreboding. His magic was returning, a trickle of power, slow but steady, and yet. Something was out of balance. Loki felt for the back of his neck. Where before there had been an anchor pushed into his very skin, there was nothing: the trickle of magic flowed with no hindrance. Odin’s had not been the only seal that had been torn out. He should have known; he should have checked.

Heimdall could see him.

Loki sat up in a panic, hair hanging past his face, pushed his trembling fingers into his skin, muttered the incantation, and envisioned the runes. He felt his pools of magic drain as they seared against his neck, leaving him light-headed and queasy.

Petrichor drifted from the open window, filling his senses with alarm. Thundering rainbow-brightness stole the stars from the night sky. And hope fled him.

It was too late.

Odin had found him.

Chapter Text

A palm on his neck. Tony woke to Loki bending over him—skin white, eyes blazing green—and his heart skipped a beat, then picked up at a frenzied pace. Loki’s fingers twitched, and Tony’s skin tightened in response. God, Loki was a beautiful man.

“Yeah, okay,” he managed, his voice breathless and rough with sleep. He cleared his throat, tried to locate his hands for something resembling reciprocation. “Okay, if you’re up for it—”

“Shut up,” Loki hissed, eyes flaring, and a jolt of electricity ran down Tony’s spine. He felt like he’d missed a step in the dark.

“Ow! What—”

Loki’s attention jerked to the window, eyes wide and panicked. An explosion shook the room: splintering glass, blinding light, a boom of thunder. He flung himself atop Tony as shards and debris rained down on them. Wind howled, and Loki’s voice cut through the madness.

“Odinson! So you’ve come to betray me!” His teeth were bared, his eyes wild. Tony realized he hadn’t seen Loki like this in weeks.

“Brother! You misunderstand!” Thor’s shadow loomed large against the lightning outside, and he crossed the room with two wide steps. Electric arcs were traveling up his exposed arms and chasing away the darkness. (In that moment, it was difficult to not be afraid of Thor.) His hand clamped down on Loki’s upper arm, and he pulled him up and off the bed. Loki struggled against him, but for all his ire, his body was as broken as the Soul Forge suggested. He wouldn’t be able to stand, much less fight.

“JARVIS. A little help?” Tony muttered. He rolled off the bed and to his feet.

“The Mark IV is on its way, sir.”

“Does it run in the family or do all Asgardians hate windows?” Tony shouted.

Thor’s focus shifted to Tony; he abruptly seemed flustered.

“Stark, I … I thank you for harboring …” The lightning fizzled out around Thor. Caught in the rainstorm as he had been, Thor looked like a drenched golden retriever: blue eyes wide and hair lank around his face, his cape plastered to his back and calves. Comprehension was dawning as he looked from Loki to Tony and back.

Well. Tony had unmistakably been in the same bed as Thor’s little brother, who was still hanging from his arm, hissing and spitting.

“If you haven’t come to incarcerate me, then what are you doing here?” Loki struggled to stay upright in Thor’s grip, his chest heaving and clinging to his arm for dear life.

“The Einherjar will arrive any minute. We need to leave.”

“Would you release me—”

The moment Thor let go, Loki collapsed to the floor, a puppet with its strings cut. Thor simply stared as he crumpled at his feet, shock on his features. Tony cursed under his breath and kneeled by Loki. He pulled him into a slightly more dignified sitting position, while Loki positively radiated fury. His breaths, though, were pained and shallow.

“I thought you were … Jane said you were doing better—”

“How glad I am you take your woman’s words over asking me.” Loki tried in vain to sit up fully. He contented himself with leaning on Tony, flipping his hair out of his face. “A marvelous match, Asgard shall be glad for your rule.”

Anger clouded Thor’s brow. “Don’t you dare—”

“We don’t have time for this,” Tony interrupted them, and, wonder of wonders, both of the aliens in his guest room shut up and turned to him. “Thor, what’s your plan?”

“We need to get Loki off-world immediately. Heimdall found you, and he sent me ahead. Father is dispatching troops as we speak.”

Loki stiffened in what Tony recognized as terror, though he masked it well. “That is no plan at all. Do you have a means of leaving?”

“You can walk between worlds …” Thor’s words trailed off as he regarded Loki’s shivering form on the floor. “I could hide you until we find a way.”

“You’re not taking him anywhere,” Tony said calmly and set Loki gently against the footrest of the bed. He stood as the door to the bedroom opened and the Mark IV zoomed towards him, assembling around his bracelets. The mask closed over his face with a comforting whirr. “No offense, but I don’t trust you to not fuck this up.”

“Iron Man—”

Thor’s plea was cut off by a second thundering impact, shaking the home in its foundation and illuminating the sky.

Loki laughed softly. His voice was a sing-song while his eyes were too wide: “And that would be Odin.”

“Sir, there are visitors at the front door,” JARVIS said. The TV in the room flickered to life to show security footage of a dozen soldiers in golden armor.

“It’s a party. And they didn’t even bring gifts.” Tony flinched as his front door disintegrated under the onslaught of blasters. He remembered with some urgency, “JARVIS, would you warn—”

A roar shook the mansion as the Hulk burst through the wall, grabbed a soldier by the neck, and bowled him into the line-up. The Asgardians scattered.

“Well. I guess that works.” Tony hadn’t liked the window front that much.

“Can you walk us out of the Nine?” Panic was showing through Thor’s scowl.

“We’ll find out,” Loki said. “But first, kneel by me.”

Thor hesitated for a moment—longer than they had—then stiffly lowered himself. “What do you need, brother?”

Loki laughed, a shrill and brief sound. His voice was thick with both grief and fury. “There isn’t much left you could give.”

“Loki, I …” Loki decisively clasped his neck, and Thor’s hand reached for his brother in turn, raw emotion glistening in his eyes. Tony looked away to give them a semblance of privacy. There was a brief flash of green light and a yelp from Thor. “What did you—”

“Don’t scratch it, you oaf.”

“It’s a binding,” Thor accused.

“The seal hides you from Heimdall’s gaze.”

“Is that all it does? Don’t think I forgot about Alfheim—”

“Stop fighting, kids, we need to go.” Tony watched the screen as the first Einherjar were spilling into the living room, the Hulk busy decimating their ranks outside. They were running out of time.

Loki spoke quickly. “I have studied the rifts. On Midgard, they are as numerous as the stars in the sky. There is one on the roof leading to Vanaheim.”

Thor pulled Loki to his feet, and while he swayed and looked like he might keel over, Thor’s grip was a vice. He threw Tony a glance both filled with gratefulness and confusion. “My friend, if our ways must part—”

“Shut up and lead the way,” Tony said.

Thor grinned, all handsome white teeth. With a swing of Mjölnir he raced into the pouring rain, then took a sharp turn up and landed on the roof with an impact that cracked the concrete. Tony followed. From this vantage he could see the Hulk fight Asgard’s soldiers with a vengeance.

“How strong are these guys? Do we need to help Bruce?”

Thor let out a brief laugh. “The Hulk would not fall so easily.”

“By the door.” Loki pointed to the rooftop exit that Tony had been unaware existed. (He did know that the roof was occasionally cleaned. He had thought those guys brought ladders.) Thor, an arm slung over his shoulder, hauled Loki over to the exit. Once they reached it, Loki freed himself and leaned heavily on the wall. His hands ghosted across the solid concrete as though searching for cracks, eyes turned inward in concentration.

Thor wiped wet hair out of his face. He was looking at Loki with something like wonder, something like grief. Like he was afraid his brother would disappear any moment.

The sky turned into a riot of colors and light, and another stream of pure energy touched down outside the mansion. In all that light, the rainbow bridge deposited a single man atop a horse on the street leading to the house. He held a golden spear that matched his armor, and his white hair was whipping in the storm. He met Tony’s gaze briefly, then immediately turned to Thor.

Loki had briefly twitched at the descending light but remained immersed in his task. Thor had turned ashen, gripping his hammer tightly. That wasn’t a great sign.

“Hulk! Get out of here!” Tony shouted.

The Hulk turned, snarled at him, then jumped back into the fray. His fists came down like an explosion, cracking the ground, and soldiers went flying from the crater he had punched into rock. His enemies scattered before him, but not before the Hulk grabbed one by the waist and threw him at the new arrival.

The lone rider lifted his spear, and a beam of crackling light caught the soldier midair, then flung him to the ground. The man groaned and struggled to get back to his feet. And the rider—Odin, Tony assumed—started galloping towards them.

“There,” Loki murmured, and a faint glow suffused his skin. His hair lifted, his fingertips breached the concrete as though it was putty. The wall itself split, a glowing fissure appearing mid-air. It opened an inch, and through it shone darkness and stars. A shiver ran down Tony’s back. That portal looked wrong, the way the one over New York had.

Then the light sputtered out, and the rift snapped shut with a crackle. Loki gave a pained grunt and sank to his knees, pale as a ghost and looking like he might be sick. He steadied himself against the wall. Tony was by his side immediately.

“It won’t work.” Loki looked at Tony with despair. His hair was plastered to his head, as were his nightclothes. He was shivering miserably, likely with fear rather than cold. “I can’t do it. It’s over.”

“Not true,” Tony said with a calm he didn’t feel. “You’re smarter than that. Think: How do we get out?”

The man on the horse was galloping towards them, weaving around the Hulk as though it was easy—Tony knew that it wasn’t, that the Hulk had reach. At his soft whistle, the horse jumped—wow, that animal had way too many legs—clearing the battling soldiers and two stories of concrete in an absurdly high arc. The Hulk’s roar followed it through the beating rain and relentless wind. And he came straight for Loki.

“No!” Thor bellowed, and he began to sprint. He jumped, raising his hammer. Lightning was playing over his skin, flaring from his eyes, and the rider in turn leveled his spear.

The men clashed mid-air, the spear sliding off Thor’s armor as lightning hit both rider and horse in a beam from the skies, so bright that Tony had to turn away. When he opened his eyes, Thor stood battle-ready on the roof of Tony’s home, hammer singing in his hand. Odin landed a mere fifteen feet away, his horse unperturbed by the battle.

“Stand aside, my son,” Odin commanded. His one eye was glowing with unnatural light, cape whipping in the wind. His spear rested easily in his hands.

“Father, this isn’t right!” Thor bellowed back, voice shaking. “Loki has redeemed himself! He saved more than my life that day. He saved Asgard!”

“And is that for you to judge?” Tony wasn’t sure what Odin did, but the air was suddenly heavier, the darkness of the clouds deeper, and both the wind and the rain picked up.

“If you have a way to get us out of here, now would be a great time,” Tony said.

Loki looked to Tony, terror in his face—and whatever he was going to say fell away as his eyes landed on Tony’s chest: the arc reactor. He laid a hand on it, and while Tony was sure he shouldn’t be able to feel the touch, there was a ghost of warmth against his skin, a prickling he couldn’t explain. “Do you trust me?”

Tony said the only thing he could: “I do.”

A flicker of a smile. “Then you’re a fool. Close your eyes.”

Tony had a bad feeling about this. He still pressed his lids shut.

“Thor, now!” Loki called.

The black behind Tony’s lids turned to orange and then white as the intensity of Thor’s lightning seared the world away. A foreign whisper against Tony’s ear, a prickle of magic against his skin, and a heavy hand landed on his back. He opened his eyes as the world dissolved into a vortex of color and light.

**

Tony was stretched, drawn out until his bones popped, then snapped back like rubber. He landed heavily on his feet, stumbled past Loki, and collapsed against a wooden wall. He popped up the faceplate, groaned, and did his best not to hurl.

When he was sure his dinner would stay down, he lifted his head to scan the room. The contrast to the battle they had left was unnerving: sunshine and birdsong drifted in from open windows, and trees cast green shade over bamboo mats. They had landed in some kind of Asian-themed countryside cottage. There was a recessed seating area around a central hearth filled with cushions. Bookshelves were lining the walls, and herbs were hanging from the rafters. All of it was dusty and disused. Thor stood by the window, both hands on the sill and leaning out, looking equally sick.

“I swear you make this unpleasant on purpose,” Thor accused.

Loki sat on a green rug in the middle of the room, forehead bedded against his drawn-up knees. “I’ve never done this before, you idiot,” he muttered.

“What did you do?” Thor asked.

“Transported us via the arc reactor,” Loki gestured to Tony, then groaned and dragged himself to a pile of pillows in the seating area and collapsed. “Norns, couldn’t Odin have waited one more day?”

“You used dark energy?” Thor asked. His brows were drawn in a frown, his blond hair hanging in strings around his face.

“Just listen, you oaf. Your fellow Avenger unwittingly created a copy of an Infinity Stone. I used it to transport us through space.”

“You need practice,” Tony said.

“You’d have to come along for that,” Loki said, voice muffled against the pillows.

“Great, I’ve always wanted to see Mars. Speaking of it, where are we?”

“My home on Vanaheim,” Loki said regretfully. “And we cannot stay.”

“This wasn’t a wise choice. I’m sure this place is being watched.” Thor straightened and scanned the landscape with jarring intensity.

“I chose the first place I could picture with ease; I apologize it doesn’t live up to your standards. You could have come up with an actual escape plan instead.”

“Father was already on his way. I had to warn you! How was I to know that you’re …” He looked briefly baffled, then gestured at Loki.

“Ailing?” Loki asked with heavy sarcasm. “I wonder, since you didn’t bother to check.”

“You know I could not. Even sending Jane—”

“Yes, thank you for sending that woman who hates me!” Loki’s voice was increasing in volume, breaths heaving, and color rising to his cheeks. “Have you ever thought of asking Fandral instead, who might at least have some insight into Asgardian politics? No! All comes down to your infatuation with this one mortal. Have you forgotten that others have loved you at all? As though we never did anything for you!”

“You’ve given none of them reason to aid you!” Thor’s fist came down on the windowsill, and the wood cracked. “Look at your actions, and tell me that any Asgardian would consider you their shield brother!”

“Really? Is that it? You don’t care, then, that I’m a monster of old?” Loki was shouting at full volume now.

“I care that you betrayed me!” Thor crossed the room in two steps, hand flung out to seize him. Loki tore up his arm and scrambled backwards—

Bang. Thor paused. At the center of his chest sat a smoldering mark. The smell of electrical fire filled the room in the wake of the repulsor blast. Thor looked at Tony.

“Shout all you want, but don’t put a hand on him,” Tony said.

“This isn’t your battle, Iron Man,” Thor growled.

“This wasn’t a battle at all until you made it one. Take a step back, big man.”

Lightning arcs climbed up his skin and crawled over his eyes, which were too blue to be human and filled with rage. For a moment, Tony worried that he would have to fight Thor. But Thor retreated, if not far. “You betrayed me,” he repeated, gaze shifting from Tony to Loki and back. “And I tried to speak with you, make peace, over and again. You left none of us a choice but to fight you!”

“And you won, didn’t you,” Loki snarled. “You beat me and locked me up. And you didn’t even bother to visit, not once. Did you care that I was rotting in the dark? Or did you remember me as one might a tool when you needed my help?”

“Of course I care! Loki, you broke my heart! You broke Mother’s heart! Do you know what it did to her? To hear you were well and alive in one breath and that you were slaughtering mortals the next?”

Loki was quiet for a moment. “I won’t explain myself to you now. And I will not apologize.” His voice hitched. “Not again. Not after you left me for dead.”

That was all it took for the animosity to evaporate. Thor’s face crumpled into misery. “I didn’t know you were alive.”

“Then you thought me unworthy of Valhalla.” Loki’s face contorted in grief.

“I was going to come back for you,” Thor said desperately. “I shouldn’t have left you there.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“I meant to bring you home. Loki, please, you have to believe me.”

Loki swallowed thickly, once, twice. When he looked at Thor, his eyes were rimmed red, and tears spilled down his cheeks. His next words sounded painful. “And I should have let you come home. Thor, I—”

Thor fell to his knees and hugged his brother tight to his chest. “All is forgiven.”

Loki convulsively pulled Thor closer, burying himself against the side of his neck. When he took a breath, it was desperate and wet.

Tony felt like the worst kind of third wheel. He flipped open his faceplate, retracted the gauntlets, and turned to the bookshelves. He picked up books at random—he couldn’t read the spines—to flip through.

Most were filled with tiny, dense runes, many with loose notes crammed between the pages, making him think that these were instructional texts. One book showed a planet, flat as a disk, floating in space with water spilling endlessly over the edge. Tony paused. The illustrations were moving, if subtly, water pouring and ships sailing. Magic, of course.

The reunion remained as tearful as awkward when Tony snuck another glance. He wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or sad that he didn’t have siblings; it seemed exhausting.

He wandered to the window, giving the two of them more space, and tore a twig off some hanging herb that was hung from the sill; it was old enough to crumble beneath his fingers.

The part of the planet that Tony could see from Loki’s living room window was beautiful: it smelled like spring, like rain and new greens, white blossoms drifting from trees in the breeze. The water of either a large lake or an ocean glinted in the distance between snow-capped mountains. Straight out of some painting.

“There is a packed travel bag in my room.” When Tony turned around, the brothers had disentangled, and Loki had pressed both palms to his eyes. Thor was blinking hard at the ceiling, eyes rimmed as red as Loki’s.

“I’ll get it.” Tony pointed between sliding doors leading off the central room. “Which room? That one? Yep, got it. I’ll find your bag.”

Loki and Thor kept speaking in low voices that Tony more than willingly shut the door on. He stood in a small room filled with polished wood: a few chests and a dresser, a desk inlaid with gold filigree. There were neat stacks of paper, rows of labeled bottles, and mounted to the wall was a collection of daggers. It was dark and dusty, and what appeared to be a lamp neither had a button nor reacted to Tony touching or tapping it, so he opened the window behind the desk. He managed to knock over a beaker filled with some old liquid. It didn’t break but spilled some stinking green sludge on Loki’s bamboo mats. Tony felt that one was on Loki for leaving whatever it had been to turn bad in the first place.

“Packed bag, packed bag,” he muttered to himself. Behind a screen, there was a ground-level bed covered in heaps of pillows. No bag, though.

He threw open the dresser. Green silks and linens, black leather and metal, all ornamented to the point of gaudiness. There was also more jewelry than he had expected. Tony traced a leather-and-gold choker and imagined it on Loki’s neck, then swallowed around a suddenly dry throat. “Packed bag,” he reminded himself and left the rings and bracelets alone.

He went through the chests next: endless rows of what looked like spices to Tony but, knowing Loki, were probably potion ingredients or something witchy like that. He paused. Wedged between the chest and the wall sat an ornamented saddlebag. He opened it and found it filled densely with clothes, a dagger, and a bunch of stuff that looked like it had been purchased at a ren fair.

“Gotcha.” Tony grabbed it. He hesitated a moment, then turned and took one of Loki’s bracelets from his dresser. A leather thong, nothing that would be missed. He couldn’t really explain why he wanted it, but going by the state of the house, Loki wouldn’t miss it. With a hint of guilt, he opened the armor and tucked it against his body.

He almost collided with Thor on his way out, who glanced at Tony, then at Loki’s room—he had left in a state of chaos, all things considered—and then put a hand to Tony’s chest to push him back inside. He closed the door behind him.

“Hey, no touchy.” Tony shoved his hand away.

Thor’s face was serious and his voice low. “I need to to know your intentions—”

“Oh my god. Are you giving me the shovel talk? This is a shovel talk. Right now? Are you serious?” When he’d thought the whole reunion thing couldn’t get any more awkward.

“What shovel?” Thor looked confused.

“Listen, I’m fairly sure my intentions are reciprocated, so how about you ask your brother about all that? You two just figured that whole talking thing out. Great job. Give it a spin, go practice. Let me know when you’re done, I’ll be waiting in here.”

Thor gaped at him for a moment, then blinding grin bloomed on his features. He clasped Tony’s shoulder in a manner that might have crushed his bones had it not been for the armor. “I am glad, my friend. You two suit each other. However, I meant to ask whether I can rely on your help on the next leg of the journey.”

“Oh.” Tony didn’t blush easily, but he felt his face heat up now. He resisted the urge to shut the faceplate. “What can I say? I’m helpful. That’s me.”

Thor kept grinning at him, so wide it looked slightly manic, and gave him an overly friendly shake. “And I know you wouldn’t take advantage of him while he’s weakened. You’re a better man than that.” Tony’s armor creaked under his grip.

Called it. This was totally a shovel talk. Tony dislodged Thor’s hand—or rather, he pushed at it, then glared until Thor let go—and took a step back, out of reach. “Listen, Sparky, I’ve not once been the reason he’s felt down. That score is somewhere around two dozen for you, zero for me. I’ll just say it: I’m winning. So how about you step up your game before you promise me creative death if I break his heart?”

Thor looked briefly stunned. Then he took a step and jabbed a finger at Tony’s chest.

“You don’t know what you speak of—”

“I do, but go on.” Tony leaned in, daring him to start a fight.

“—and your mortal brain could hardly grasp—”

“Oh, we’re going down that road?”

“—what it means to love a sibling for a millennium—”

The door banged open, and Loki stood on shaky legs, clutching the doorframe, color high on his cheeks and teeth bared with both effort and exasperation. “This will cease now, or I’ll leave you both behind!”

“Loki, I—”

“No, Thor! This is my home, and I forbid it!”

Thor positively looked like a kicked puppy, and Tony almost felt bad for him. Almost.

“Got your bag, where’s the horse?” He held it up by the strap.

Loki’s attention sharpened to a laser focus. He slid to the floor in a stuttering motion, one hand on the wall for support, and sat down cross-legged. “Bring it here.”

Tony sat down by him—a little awkwardly in the armor, but he hadn’t invented super flexible joints for nothing—and Loki tore the travel bag from his hands. He began rummaging through it, pulling out crinkled linen and odd pouches, finally holding up a carved rock the size of his palm.

“Will that work?” Thor’s voice was doubtful.

“I don’t have another use for it,” Loki said. Before Tony could ask for an explanation, Loki lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. The words locked in Tony’s throat. It was not as though he hadn’t seen Loki shirtless. He had seen Loki shirtless plenty of times. He had never seen Loki shirtless outside of a caretaking situation, and somehow, that made a difference.

Loki closed his fist around the stone, arms shaking with effort. It cracked, then was crushed in his fist, and he pressed the dust to his chest, where it glowed brightly—and then crumbled to the floor. It left a smattering of dust on Loki’s skin.

Tony waited. Nothing happened.

Loki stared at the dusting of sand in his lap, muscle jumping in his jaw. Then he reached for his shirt to put back on, silently. He grabbed the dagger from the pouch while he was at it, buckled it to his hips.

“It was worth a try,” Thor said, uncharacteristically quiet.

Tony turned to Thor but before he could ask the question, movement caught his eye: a shadow passed through the trees outside the windows.

“How close are you to your neighbors, and do any of them wear head-to-toe golden armor?”

Thor snapped around, wild-eyed. “We need to—”

The sky lit up with now-familiar rainbow light and thunder—scorching trees and ground and leaving Tony half-blind.

Loki clutched at Tony’s shoulder, pressed a hand to the reactor, magic rising with a hum. “Thor!”

Thor turned around and slid to his knees next to them. Loki reached for his brother but held eye contact with Tony as the world diffused into a blur of color and endlessly stretching shapes.

**

It wasn’t better the second time they jumped, a fumbling, desperate escape; amateurish, really. In a great heap, they spilled onto black sand.

Tony got up only to fall to his knees a few paces away, breathing heavily through his nose. Loki collapsed on his back with a heavy thud that shook his bones, groaned from the aches and pains of draining his magic. He tested his pools: dry and raw. Even thinking of spellcasting made him feel dizzy. In hindsight, no matter his disgust towards it, he shouldn’t have sealed away his Jotun form so quickly—it had cost him precious resources he now lacked.

Lightheaded, the world spinning around him, he stared up into the dark sky, stars hidden behind the ever-present haze of clouds. He hadn’t meant to come here. But it had been on his mind, of course it had been, and the arc reactor was as opinionated as it was stubborn.

“Svartalfheim? Really?” Thor asked groggily. He sat on the ground, cross-legged and head in hands.

“I’m aware.” It sounded tired to his own ears. “It wasn’t a conscious choice.”

“All might be well. Father recalled the sentries weeks ago.”

“Nothing is well. It will take time to gather the energy, but Odin can find and reopen that rift.” Loki struggled to sit up, and Thor was by his side momentarily, propping him up. Looking up at his face against the dark sky, Loki was hit with a sense of déjà vu. He wasn’t dying this time, but the weakness in his limbs, the nausea, the pain tried to convince him otherwise.

It did something to Thor, too: he pulled Loki close and pressed his face to his hair.

“I’ll not let him kill you,” he promised thickly. “I won’t lose you, too. Not again. Not after Mother.”

Loki’s chest tightened with grief. He had barely thought of Frigga since leaving Asgard. He’d taken some of her books from his cell with him: texts on mythology and history, magic and artifice. All topics the love of which they had shared. But whenever he opened them, he felt petrified, limbs heavy and eyes unseeing, the letters blurring before his eyes.

Thinking of Mother was akin to standing at the very edge of the Bifröst, an endless drop into the beckoning void. If he looked too closely, he’d fall, and he’d lose himself. These days, there was so little left of him that he recognized. So he couldn’t; he didn’t dare think of Frigga.

It seemed that Thor could and had.

He let out a long, shuddering breath, clutched at Thor’s back, and held him in turn, reassuring himself that this was real. That Thor understood. For all that he wouldn’t say it out loud, he had missed his older brother—not the one that invaded Jötunheim nor the one that fought him on Midgard. But the brother he had once loved and known he was loved in turn. He’d been missing his best friend desperately and for centuries.

“Help me up,” he said.

Thor pulled his arm across the shoulders and hefted him to his feet. Loki hated how weak his legs were, that he could do nothing to strengthen this body.

“Where to?” Tony asked. He stood awkwardly off to the side, as he had throughout Vanaheim, though he kept a careful eye on Thor. As though he still wasn’t sure whether Thor might become a threat.

He scanned the barren landscape: sand in every direction, broken and ruined ships jutting up at angles, and hills rolling like waves on the horizon.

“I need to rest before I can teleport again. This planet holds underground cities with ruins full of hiding places. If we could find an entrance—”

“I know of a few,” Thor said.

Loki couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice. “You do.”

Thor mirrored his surprise. “Aye. I told you I meant to bring you home. I searched these caves, though many of them are collapsed. The closest one lies just beyond those hills.” He pointed towards the distant, sinking sun: an orange ring against gray skies. Loki hadn’t even considered it: that Thor had come back for him seemed outlandish. It didn’t change anything, not really. Loki still didn’t forgive him his lack of communication, the endless wait. He knew it would have been foolishness for Thor to seek him out and had been furious at him for showing up earlier today.

And still.

Irrationally, angrily, Loki blamed him for not coming sooner.

“Great, let’s go.” Tony snapped the mask over his face and expectantly looked to Thor. Loki slung his arms around Thor’s neck. Mjölnir whirring in his grip, Thor carried them off, and Tony followed with squealing blasters.

The entrance was hidden until they were above it: a mere hole in the ground, sand trickling inwards into a gentle slope. Thor landed hard, the impact leaving a crater in the soft soil, and set Loki to his feet. He swung Mjölnir a few times, summoning a wind that kicked up dust and revealed an ancient staircase. It almost immediately began filling in, again, the sands of Svartalfheim reclaiming what was theirs to bury. Thor supported him up and half-carried him down the stairs and into darkness.

“That’s a deathtrap, someone call OSHA.” Tony stomped down after them, awkward in his armor. The arc reactor brightened as they descended, providing enough light for mortal eyes to see by. It also threw long shadows ahead of Loki and Thor, eerily bringing to life the reliefs depicting life on Svartalfheim. It was odd to see how alike these scenes were to the carvings that ringed Asgard’s Central Market or her city walls. Bor’s time seemed a long time ago, when in truth, Loki remembered their grandfather telling him stories by the the Midsomar bonfires, all of them so fascinatingly bloody that Frigga had forbidden it.

By the time they reached the bottom of the staircase, the pale light of day had blinked out. Before them opened a city inside a cavern so large that it disappeared into darkness. Bridges of metal and stone connected platforms. Gigantic stalagmites and stalactites were dotted with windows and ringed with balconies, staircases, and elevators. There was the thundering of a waterfall glinting faintly in the distance in the headlights, and mushrooms that once had been cultivated grew wild among bioluminescent mosses. Loki knew that once, the city must have lit up like a star-filled sky, thick with life and gardens, art and sculptures. In the wake of Malekith’s madness, nothing remained.

“Iron Man, watch over him. I will find us shelter.” Thor lowered him onto an ancient stone bench, and Loki slumped against the wall. He swung Mjölnir, electricity sparking from his eyes and hammer, and took off.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Tony watched him leave, the light from his arc reactor falling short of illuminating Thor’s path as he jumped from platform to platform. Loki wasn’t sure how much Tony could see—likely, the wonders of the ruins eluded him.

Tony snapped open his faceplate and wandered over to Loki, though his eyes were wide as he took in the carvings along the pillars and walls.

“This isn’t how I thought I’d spend Friday night, but how could I say no to a sleepover?” He sat by Loki with a sigh and a glance at the staircase leading up. All seemed quiet and calm. “You didn’t bring a spare toothbrush, did you?”

Loki absentmindedly shook his head, watching Thor vanish inside a tower in the distance. “I never understood those.”

Tony lifted both eyebrows, utterly taken aback. “What? Toothbrushes? Teeth rot if you don’t— I can’t believe this. How old are you again?”

Loki had never considered that. “The fragility of mortals keeps astounding me.”

“Okay, sometimes I forget you’re an alien, and then you say something really goddamn weird and kinda racist. Or beam me halfway across the galaxy. Or freeze my workshop.” Tony had begun looking at him differently in recent days: with a sense of wonder. He’d done it almost constantly since Loki had … since he had turned …

“Did I damage it?” Loki asked carefully.

“What?” Tony seemed distracted.

“Your workshop.”

“Oh. I didn’t really check. The Forge works.” Tony cleared his throat and took off his helmet to scratch the back of his head. His hair both stood up and was flattened at odd angles, and Loki couldn’t stop looking at him.

“You really don’t mind?”

“Well, I’ll mind a little if the Audi doesn’t start, but I’ve been wanting to get the new model anyway. And orange is very 2000s, kinda outdated. What do you think of a hot-rod red?”

Loki had no idea what he was referring to. But he suddenly and with glaring clarity understood that Tony truly didn’t care that Loki was a Frost Giant. He cared so little that he didn’t even understand the question. He could not care, because he had never been taught to, didn’t have a reference frame for it; to him, Loki was just blue. And Tony didn’t mind him being blue.

Loki felt as though he was seeing Tony for the first time.

“That sounds hideous,” he said.

Tony grinned at him, and despite the urgency of their situation, when their eyes locked, time slowed. Loki’s heart gave a traitorous thump before speeding up, and he regretted, suddenly and intensely, that he hadn’t let Tony close. He had been so afraid to open up to him for reasons that hardly mattered: Tony had been hurt and grieving, Tony had needed a distraction, Tony was mortal and his lifespan so, so short. And now it might be too late to find out what they could have been to each other.

Loki would never get to admit that he was desperately, irrefutably, pathetically in love.

“Hey, hey, hey. We’re going to get you out of here.” Worry broke through Tony’s facade. Loki realized that his eyes were burning with unshed tears.

His hand moved on its own to find Tony’s cheek and brush a gentle thumb past his earlobe. Tony’s skin was soft and warm right there, behind the shell of his ear. His fingers carded through wild hair, a gentle scratch where it was too short at the neck. Tony searched his face—a question in his eyes—and Loki felt his lips part in answer.

“Oh,” Tony breathed, his face softening on the exhale. His eyelids fluttered shut as Loki leaned in.

And he kissed Tony.

Loki’s mind turned blank, and his chest filled to bursting with heat. A press of soft lips, nose to cheek. A flicker of tongue, and Tony inhaled sharply, then opened his mouth to him. He set a hand on Loki’s waist to pull him closer. A whirr and snick, and his gauntlets retracted. Loki shuddered against Tony’s fingers digging into his sides, rucking up the thin shirt he’d worn to bed, pressing him close to the cold, smooth armor so that the light of the arc reactor dimmed and painted a circle of brightness on Loki’s own chest. Loki changed the angle to comply and deepen the kiss. Tony smelled like electric fire and engine oil and sharp perfume.

It was everything. Loki could get lost in this, and for a moment, he did.

The earth shivered beneath them. It was a faint noise, but enough to pull Loki back to reality. They parted, and Loki was breathless, felt like he was floating.

“Okay. Yeah, I could do that again.” The color on Tony’s cheeks was high, his lips reddened, and he seemed dazed.

Norns, it was tempting. Instead, Loki set a finger to his lips and looked to the exit, listening. But the noise didn’t repeat.

Mjölnir’s whirring announced Thor before he landed with a crash on the platform. “We need to go! Father is here.”

Loki whipped around to him. “He couldn’t be. Not this fast!” Odin was powerful, but gathering that amount of dark energy this quickly? It could put him to Sleep. For whatever reason, Odin considered this an emergency.

“I got him.” Tony’s wide eyes vanished behind the helmet, and he lifted Loki with ease, one arm under his knees, the other around his shoulders. Thor nodded—their eyes met, and Loki saw his fear—then Mjölnir sparked in his grip, and he took off towards the city. Tony followed him, blasters squealing, up and then sharply down into the dark belly of the cave.

“Turn off your lights!” Loki had to shout over the noise of wind rushing and blasters humming.

“JARVIS, you heard the man. Night and heat vision.” The headlights shut off, and the world went dark save for the arc reactor, the moss, and the crackling electricity of Mjölnir. It was barely enough light to navigate by for Loki, which meant Tony couldn’t see anything.

They were trailing the underside of a hanging tower, and Thor landed on a large balcony with a crunch of gravel. He looked towards them in the ghostly light of the mushrooms, and Tony stumbled to a halt next to him. The arc reactor was near-blinding in the darkness.

“Can’t you turn that off?” Thor asked.

“Never thought I’d have to.” Tony didn’t set Loki down, just kept carrying him as he jogged over uneven ground.

Thor looked past them, stance wide and ready, and adjusted his grip on Mjölnir nervously. His eyes were scanning the darkness in the distance.

“The city is a labyrinth. Father might not—” The wind picked up to a howl, and Loki felt the blood drain from his face. He looked over Tony’s shoulder, and his fingers dug into Iron Man’s armor so hard that the metal creaked.

Odin. Riding Sleipnir at a full gallop through empty air, wind strong enough that Tony braced himself against the ground.

“Go!” Thor roared, his resolve turning to anger. Mjölnir spun into a whirring wheel of light, its crackling hum filling the air. The earth rumbled at the sound of distant thunder, so far above.

“Thor, I’m—”

But Tony engaged his blasters and launched them upwards, leaving Loki no time to finish the thought. Which might have been well, for Loki barely knew what he’d meant to shout at his brother’s back, as Thor stood between him and death, a shield as he had been centuries ago.

Loki wished that it had never come to this. Regretted how things had played out between them. He’d lost Thor a long time ago, and he felt comfortable blaming Thor for that. But what had torn them apart—what might be impossible to repair—had been Loki’s betrayal. His attempt on Thor’s life. All was forgiven, Thor said as though he meant it. Loki would never be able to believe it.

I’m so sorry.

They landed on the first floor, and Tony stumbled over an unseen obstacle, crashed into a wall, and caught himself at the last moment.

“Okay. I’m turning on the lights,” Tony said.

“Don’t bother. We’re leaving.” Loki looked up at him—Iron Man’s mask glowed eerily in the dark—and laid a hand over the arc reactor, dimming its light.

He could do it.

He had to.

Loki concentrated the puddle of magic left to him, barely there. He needed more than that if he wanted to guide the reactor. And he now knew where to find it—it glued him together, kept him whole.

Loki dipped into his life force and drew magic from there.

Blood and bile at the back of his throat, an uncontrolled shiver in his limbs, blackness crowding his vision to a pinpoint focus on Tony’s cold mask.

The arc reactor knew him by now, and when Loki reached for it, it evaded—playful, dastardly thing, its joy at being called to as vivid as its stubbornness. Loki chased it and grasped its wriggling energy. He searched his mind for a destination, images flashing past his inner eye: somewhere safe, somewhere secret. A place he knew intimately, and that pleased the reactor, for Loki knew, by now, that it was as likely to make the decision for him as to let Loki take the reins.

The libraries of Andlang.

He had visited them as a child with Frigga: weeks of his mother teaching him magic, spent browsing and reading and learning. It was a fond memory, a soft one. There had been a favored reading nook that they shared. He fixed that place in his mind, Frigga smiling at him in a beam of honeyed sunlight. He felt the arc reactor’s approval.

Loki spun a thread from his ailing magic, twisted it until firm, and flung it across the universe. He drew it through that little light-filled room of his memories, tethered it tightly, and brought it back and around the reactor. He repeated the process a few times and then pulled. The arc reactor never liked that part, and it resisted the caging, but Loki knew better than to let go. Space puckered around them like fabric might under a seamstress’s needle. Realities overlaid; Loki smelled Andlang’s books, saw the stained glass windows, heard the whispers of readers; he felt Iron Man’s armor against his skin, saw the dark dankness of the ruins, and heard the clash of battle. He used his last resources to spin Tony into a cocoon of thread beside him so as to not tear him to pieces in the jump—and spasmed. His body exploded in pain, then numbness. Then nothing.

His heart stopped.

He floated in darkness.

**

It is not yet your time.

“Hey!” Tony shouted, and there was panic in his voice.

Time resumed. He gasped as though breaking from water, his heart searing in his chest as it picked up its rhythm. Not yet, he thought. Not yet. Hot liquid spilled from his nose and over his lips. He wiped it away with a shaking hand and looked at it: his blood looked black in the light of the arc reactor. The skin on the back of his hand was blooming with bruises, blood pooling beneath the skin. Loki stared at it. He had taken a step too far, using magic his body direly needed. But it was done. And he yet lived.

The connection was weakened, the thread frayed, and his body felt raw in a way that it shouldn’t. But Tony was securely tethered, and he could still see the library, though hazily. Loki reached into the arc reactor and set it to the lattice of thread he had spun. It unfurled slowly, testing the connection. And accepted it.

“Brace yourself,” Loki whispered hoarsely and felt Tony tense. The arc reactor squeezed them through the tiny hole that Loki had poked into the fabric of space-time, stretched and warped reality oddly. They were flung to the other side, and Loki’s stomach turned over in a way that was by now familiar.

“Every time,” Tony said faintly and fell to his knees, faceplate shooting open and deadly pale. He set Loki down abruptly—Loki’s head bounced against the cold floor—and braced himself, breathing deliberately.

Marble floors.

The floors of Andlang’s libraries were wooden.

Loki blinked up at the ceiling and was greeted with the familiar murals of Frigga’s private library: tales of her family, of bringing the Vanir into the fold of Asgard’s royalty, all spiraling outwards from the central motif of her and Odin’s marriage. The soft green shade of Fensalir’s gardens played across the spines of ancient and familiar books.

He wanted to scream at the stubbornness of the damned reactor. But why wouldn’t something that Tony Stark had created be the most temperamental, opinionated piece of artifice ever created? The Space Stone hadn’t been nearly this bad. (Then again, Loki hadn’t been nearly as sick when using it.)

“I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore?” Tony asked faintly.

“We’re nowhere useful,” Loki said around a raw throat. Oh, he hated this. Yes, they were a good few miles outside of the capital. But what use was that when his shields did nothing to hide him from any handmaid gaping at the sky? “This is Asgard.”

Tony didn’t say anything for a while. Loki listened to the silence of Fensalir. Surely, there were servants around to tend the place. Without Mother to hold feasts and gatherings, there was no practical use for the manor. (His throat closed up painfully at the thought.) But Odin was sentimental and rarely let go of a thing he thought of as his.

The suit’s joints whirred, and Tony picked him up. His skin chafed where Tony lifted him, his joints ached. Hel, he could feel his bones press uncomfortably against organs, skin, and muscle. Nothing in his body seemed right, and blood was still running down his face. Loki limply dangled in his grip, and Tony adjusted them until his head rested against Iron Man’s cold chest.

“Okay, what’s the plan?”

Loki laughed without a voice, broken and barely more than a rasp. “Don’t take the double doors. There is a small exit that opens to the gardens.”

“What then?” Tony began walking, eyes alert and face open as he took in the room. The light was as soft as Loki remembered, the colors muted blues and golds. Too familiar to be safe.

“I know passageways that lead away from this world.” Loki had learned them from Frigga and from his own extensive studies. Odin had never shown interest in Buri’s ancient journals, and so Loki in a rebellious phase had dug into them with fervor. If they managed to make it to a proper, stabilized rift, Loki wouldn’t have to use magic to flee, and Odin wouldn’t be able to trace them. There would be nothing to trace. “Across the forest, over the lake, towards the mountains.”

They stepped out of the soft light of the library and into the gardens. They were ever in bloom, and at this time of year, the peaches were flowering. (A memory of Frigga’s quiet singing as she worked, gloves on her hands and dirt on her knees.) Hlidskjálf was glinting in the distance, the golden towers limned in sunlight, and Loki was gripped with a sudden, undeniable sense of homesickness, chest tight and heart heavy. Even though all of it had been an illusion, he had been happy. Right here, in Fensalir, surrounded by books and learning and magic. He had been so happy for a while.

“North,” he said.

“So. Whatever is going on with this planet’s magnetic field isn’t working for JARVIS.”

“Beyond the elm trees.”

“Uhm.”

“Look to the cluster of hostas.”

“Uh-huh. Where are we going?”

Loki blearily looked up into Tony’s confused face. “Have I found a topic you’re ignorant of?”

“Listen. If you want a botanist, I got the number—”

“Spare me.” But Loki had to smile. “To the left.”

Tony shut his faceplate. “See, I got that just fine.”

A flicker of light caught Loki’s attention, and his senses came alive. He turned to the library windows: within, a thin line had opened mid-air, parting reality. The light of day dimmed, swallowed by the dark energy as Odin stepped out of the hairline fissure.

Loki stopped breathing. All reasonable thought was swept away in a tidal wave of terror.

“Fuck!” Tony ran a few paces and, with a roaring blast, they lifted into the air. Beneath them stretched Myrkwood, and the smoke rising from Vatnsfjörd pointed Loki in the direction of Urd’s Lake long before it came into view.

“Fly low. There is a chance he hasn’t seen us,” Loki said.

Tony crossed the ocean of trees and dove towards the lake, putting the forest between them and curious eyes. They skimmed the crystal-clear waters, the shadows of serpents chasing them. Water rose in a spray, and foaming waves trailed them. Iron Man engaged a secondary set of thrusters, and, with a jolt, the speed increased such that Loki’s breath was torn from his mouth, wind stinging his eyes until they watered.

They slowed down before reentering the forest. “Which way?” Tony asked. His voice was calm and mechanical. It was the lack of quips that revealed his worry.

“It’s the mountain that looks to be wearing a crown. There is a natural cave running through its center.”

Truly, Loki had found it by accident. For a while, Nida’s caves had been Loki and Thor’s favorite playground. Their laughter mingled as they reenacted the war on Jötunheim and Svartalfheim, fought imaginary monsters, and chased shadows.

Iron Man lifted from the trees to race up the jagged cliffs. Loki felt a sudden prickle at the back of his neck, and he turned to look over Iron Man’s shoulder: though a mere speck in the distance, Loki recognized Odin striding through thin air, pausing atop an elm tree’s branches. On the Realm Eternal, the lightest branch dared not bow under his feet.

The Bifröst touched down and swallowed both Odin and the tree from sight.

“Hey! You with me?”

Loki shook out of it. “Follow the curve of the ravine—”

Light exploded before them, and Tony yelled as he barely swerved around, avoiding being torn in half by the power of the bridge. Below them, on the mountain’s rocky slope, Odin stood atop the smoldering rune circle. He looked up, and he jumped, black magic propelling him upwards. Too fast for either of them to react. Time hung suspended. Loki cried out in warning.

Gungnir tore through the armor as though it was paper. The scream of metal on metal swallowed Tony’s roar, his shoulder run through by the spear. And from Tony’s limp arms, by the front of the tunic, Odin grabbed Loki.

“This is over,” he said.

Loki’s heart and mind stilled. He observed the scene as a spectator. Odin’s eyes turned black, smoke pouring from his lips, and with one word he opened a swirling vortex. His arm shot out to grab Tony’s neck.

“Begone!” He commanded and threw him like a limp puppet into the portal. It closed behind Tony.

“No!” Loki unfroze and, as they began plummeting, clutched at Odin. His voice was so hoarse it kept breaking. “He’s done nothing! And his world needs him!”

“Be still. Heimdall!” the Allfather called, the steel blue of his eyes shimmering through the swirling black. He pulled Loki—weak and terrified—into a strangling embrace.

“You could have let me go.” Loki said. “It would have cost you nothing.”

Eyes filled with regret, Odin replied, “It might have cost me everything.”

Before they hit the ground, light enveloped them and tore them into a million shimmering particles.

Chapter Text

His breath was loud and panicked in the silence. Tony was falling through an endless expanse brilliant with stars, static in the distance. He had no indication how fast he was moving or in what direction. He was spinning slowly around his own axis, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, no anchor to hold him. His stomach flipped over like it did shortly before falling asleep, like it did in the middle of a nightmare. (He hoped he’d wake up before he hit the ground.)

Mortal. The voice was terrible, and he didn’t hear it as much as feel it like a shockwave. It rattled his teeth, vibrated through his bones: a judgment. You may yet be of use.

The darkness opened beneath him into blinding white.

**

He landed on the foyer floor of Avengers Tower with a crash that briefly turned the world to black, his shoulder screaming with pain. He could not move; he couldn’t feel his right arm. He opened the faceplate and sucked in air, but the rest of the suit refused to follow his command.

“JARVIS, open. Now,” he commanded. His voice was too high, his breaths hard and fast, making it hard to speak.

“Sir, I cannot open most of the—”

“J, please,” Tony begged. “I can’t— I have to—” He was aware of shouts rising around him. The lobby’s lights burned too bright, leaving trails of rainbow hues as he moved his head. A woman leaned over him and said something. He didn’t know her; he didn’t care. Was he dying? He felt like he was dying.

“Parts of the shoulder mechanism are lodged in the wound and are staunching the bleeding, sir.” JARVIS's voice was gentle and soothing. “An ambulance is on the way.”

Tony tried to move, but it was the flopping of a dying fish; he couldn’t stand, and it did nothing to calm him down. He groaned and let his head fall to the side. Endless rows of feet: polished dress shoes, high heels, slacks. The elevator dinged, and among the throng of people, a pair of bright red boots dashed across polished marble. Captain America slid into a kneel next to his head, hand on Tony’s chest as though he tried to feel his heartbeat through the titanium alloy. Oh, thank God. There were few times when he had been gladder to see Cap’s stupid face.

“Tony! What happened?”

“I’ve changed my mind about family therapy. Great concept.” Feeling began to return to his shoulder, and he suddenly wished that it hadn’t.

“Are you okay?”

“Peachy” Tony gave him a sarcastic thumbs-up.

“Where’s Loki? Do we need to mobilize the military?” Steve asked in clipped tones, inspecting the mangled shoulder.

“Nope. How do you … ?”

“Cell phone footage from California. You just can’t stay out of the news, can you?” Steve gave a half-hearted smile at that.

Of course some idiot had filmed that. The moment the Hulk was out, someone usually managed to record it. Steve didn’t look him in the eye, and he’d likely seen enough to know that Tony, Bruce, and Thor had been fighting by Loki’s side rather than against him. “I can explain that. Not right now, though; now is bad.”

“We might have to hit him in the head really hard.” Clint peered down at him with an arrow loosely nocked, lowered to point at his toes. He and Natasha had appeared out of nowhere, in full spy mode. “Worked for me.”

“Nope, no need. Do I look like— Oh, fuck.” What he would give for some painkillers right now. He wanted to curl up around his arm and never move again and breathed through the pounding, pressing pain.

“We need info on the Hulk and Thor,” Natasha said. Her voice was soft, but her face remained neutral, assessing. Whatever she saw in Tony’s eyes, she deemed him not a threat. She turned to Steve, eerily at ease as she often was in the midst of crisis. “Whatever Loki did to Stark seems to have worn off. But Banner is still gone.”

They believed that Loki had mind-controlled them both. He didn’t think Loki could even do that without the Scepter. Fuck, what if Odin had come for that, too? “Where’s the Scepter?”

“I don’t think you need to know that right now.” Steve sat back on his heels, his face closing off. He exchanged a grim look with Natasha, who nodded and walked away. The ambulance arrived outside the ceiling-high windows, and its blue light caught in her hair as she was swallowed by the shadows of the elevator.

“Hey,” Tony said. “What was that about?”

Steve rubbed a hand over his mouth, thoughtful. He didn’t look at Tony when he said, “There have been a lot of coincidences recently. Frankly? I don’t like the picture they’re painting.”

Tony took a moment to appreciate what this looked like from Steve’s perspective: after picking up Chitauri weaponry, Tony had vanished from the team for months, opting out of all missions—until Sokovia, where they picked up the scepter. He had then told them to stash that in his tower and conceal it from SHIELD. He had also revealed that he was collaborating with Asgard and then aided Loki in fleeing Earth less than an hour ago.

“Okay, I can see how this might look bad.”

“Then you get why I’ll stick to your side for a while,” Steve said. He rose to give room to the paramedics swarming him. JARVIS opened parts of the suit not busted by the goddamn spear, leaving room for a young man with a rotary saw to remove the shoulder connectors. The vibration of the metal carried as though someone was digging directly into the wound. It hurt like a bitch, and Tony nearly passed out a couple of times before they managed to separate him from his suit and roll him onto the stretcher.

“Hey! Don’t let anyone take Iron Man, you hear me?” Tony called over his shoulder.

Clint incredulously looked from Tony to the bloodied metal shell and back. But he did give him a thumbs-up, so that was something.

**

The hospital stay was a blur, minutes of hectic movement followed by hours of boredom. Intense pain bled into a drugged haze of discomfort. He did have to go into surgery to remove the remaining metal stuck in his shoulder and stitch up blood vessels, muscles, and skin. Tony hated all of it. Hated to be at other people’s mercy and unable to do anything.

When he woke up, he wasn’t surprised but merely disappointed to find that they’d cuffed him to the bed. Steve was by his side, a sketchbook open on his lap. At the rattle of the chain, he looked up.

“Kinky,” Tony commented, showing off the cuff and lifting an eyebrow at Steve. His throat was dry, thoughts sluggish, whole body numb. Not a surprise, considering the amount of painkillers he was on. “Though you could have asked. Consent is a big hit with the kids.”

Steve, predictably, looked about as embarrassed as he should, if not for the right reasons. He lowered his pencil to scratch the back of his neck. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a kidnapping victim. With all due respect, what the hell?”

“Nat has some questions for you. Once you’re up for it.”

“Okay. Why doesn’t Fury sit in and spare her the legwork?”

“She doesn’t really need to. SHIELD keeps a close eye these days.” Steve half-covered his mouth with his hand, and he gave a subtle nod to the back of the room.

Tony glanced up. There was a camera in the far corner, right above the TV. Another pointed at the door. Not like he should have expected anything different.

Tony cleared his throat. God, he was thirsty. A glass and pitcher sat on the low table next to the bed, and he reached for it but came up short thanks to the chain. He suddenly had a whole lot more sympathy for the situation he had put Loki in. “Pass me the water?”

Steve leaned over to pour a glass and handed it to him. Tony had to sit awkwardly bent forward to drink; it was fairly humiliating. He drained the glass in one go, let Steve refill it, and drank some more. Even when his stomach was sloshing, his throat still felt raw. He sank back, suddenly exhausted.

“How about we take this heart-to-heart to my place? You, me, and Bruce. If he’s around. Is he around?”

“SHIELD is still looking,” Steve said, brow furrowed. “He hasn’t wreaked any more destruction after leaving your house, though.”

The words hit Tony like a gut punch. The Hulk had been a backup—both he and Bruce had been aware of that—but he’d never meant for Bruce to deal with all that by himself. For the Hulk to run off with Bruce as a blind passenger. “You, me, and these handcuffs, then.”

Steve released a put-upon sigh. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Everyone thinks they’re a comedian nowadays,” he told the door as it shut behind Steve.

The room had a window, though he couldn’t see much but the endless blue sky from where he lay. No clouds blocked his view of the vastness of space. Loki had pulled him through all of that, to the other end of the universe.

(Loki had kissed him in the ruins of an ancient alien civilization.)

He couldn’t think of Loki. Literally couldn’t; his mind turned to white noise when he tried, buzzing under his skin with the knowledge that a storm was coming.

He didn’t know for how long he’d been staring into middle distance, but the noise of the door opening made him jump.

“Hey,” Clint greeted him, scratching his nose while he took in the room. “How you feeling?”

“I’m awesome,” Tony said dryly. Then to Steve, “You realize this one is a SHIELD spy, too, right? I want my lawyer, the one with the glasses. Call Pep, she knows what I’m talking about. Better yet, give me my phone.” He held out his hand, which, again, was cuffed, and stopped mid-trajectory. They were police cuffs, too, not even the nice Velcro hospital straps, and the metal dug into the soft flesh of his wrist.

Steve rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, leaning against the far wall.

“Not here in an official capacity.” Clint dragged the chair noisily from one end of the room to the other, stood on it, and unplugged the visible surveillance cameras. He then pulled something that Tony recognized as an RF signal detector and began sweeping the room. Using a throwing knife, he pried open the smoke detector as well as the hospital phone and killed bugs in both.

Then he sat down on Tony’s bed, hands dangling between his knees and giving him a lopsided grin: “How’s that for spy stuff?”

“Admitting you’re a spy is a rookie mistake.”

“We’ve looked through the Sokovia files.” Steve pushed off the wall and wandered to the window, scanning the hospital courtyard as though it was a battlefield. “And Nat has been our ears on the inside. You were right. SHIELD is compromised.”

“Oh, thank God! So I don’t have to convince you of that.” Tony slumped against his pillows.

“Have you ever heard the name ‘HYDRA’?” Steve wore that thousand-yard stare that usually meant he was thinking of a time in which Tony hadn’t been born yet.

“Let me google that— oh, wait, I’m cuffed to a bed and you took my phone.”

Clint snorted a laugh. How about that: at least one of his kidnappers had a sense of humor.

“It’s a paramilitary terrorist organization. Nazis. They’re the ones responsible for Sokovia. Senator Stern is a believer, as was von Strucker.” Steve’s tone was equally resolved and bitter. “I thought I had left them in the past, but it seems that losing the war wasn’t enough to shut them down.”

“We identified a dozen SHIELD agents in leadership positions with ties to HYDRA.” There was a faint smile on Clint’s lips; self-deprecating. “Tip of the iceberg, if you ask me.”

“Well. That’s a nightmare. Too bad I can’t help you with that while I’m cuffed to a bed.”

“Not sure we can trust you right now, buddy,” Clint said.

Okay. Yeah. It couldn’t have been that easy. “Fine, I’ll dance. You get three questions; shoot.”

“What is your deal with Loki?” Steve said.

Tony remembered Loki being torn from his arm, the fall through space, and Loki’s roar of denial. His mind went blank and remained so for a few seconds. When he came back to himself, he blinked and cleared his throat. “Doesn’t matter. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.”

“Not good enough.” Clint was still twirling the throwing knife between his hands. Tony couldn’t stop watching the nervous movement. “We’re supposed to be allies, and you should have told us. I’ve followed that guy before, against my will; I want to know why you did.”

Coming from Clint, that was fair. Tony wiggled the fingers of his right hand in the cloth sling. They felt fat and clumsy, and the movement sent a spike of discomfort to his numb shoulder, but they were working just fine. “Be a good little spy and hand me that consent form.” Tony pointed to the nightstand. Clint was indeed a good little spy and threw the form into Tony’s lap. Awkwardly bending over his cuffed hand and maneuvering the one in the sling, he fumbled the paperclip from the top of the sheet.

“Okay. So. Loki showed up in my living room uninvited, eight weeks ago, with his guts practically in his hands. Seriously, we thought he was a goner. I called Bruce, the only person with an M.D. that I trust. Plus, the Hulk comes with credentials on beating the shit out of Loki in case things went sideways.” Tony concentrated on straightening out the paperclip. It was bendier than expected, and Tony was rusty, but it would do. He jammed it into the lock and dug around it until the first tumbler gave way. “Before Loki showed up, he had apparently saved Asgard in some big way. Thor’s trying to protect him; his dad wants him dead. We managed to patch him up, but he’s not been healing properly.”

“So you hid him?” Steve’s eyebrows rose to his hairline.

“Asgard would have killed him. The military and SHIELD were both terrible ideas—and after Sokovia, don’t tell me they wouldn’t have put him through experiments, excuse me, torture.” Tony shrugged with his good shoulder. “Which meant anywhere with surveillance was out, including hospitals. So we kept him until we figured out what to do with him. Which I maintain to be both logical and sane.”

“You sound awfully defensive for someone believing that,” Clint said.

“Here we go.” The cuff clicked open, and Tony straightened from his cramped position and shook out his wrist with relief.

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Clint pointed to the dangling cuff.

“What? You think I’ve never gotten out of handcuffs before?” He waggled his eyebrows.

Clint grinned. “Fair. No details, please.”

“Why didn’t you tell the team?” Steve’s brows were drawn as though he genuinely didn’t understand. God, Steve could be naive at times.

“I told Bruce, the one guy that wouldn’t rat me out to SHIELD.”

Clint was still inspecting the handcuffs and seemed to think on that for a while, then shrugged, conceding the point. “Yeah, he’s right. I’d have reported it in.”

“I’d like to point out that Bruce is on my side,” Tony said quickly. “He also chose to not tell any of you, right?”

“Right,” Steve said slowly, as though that wasn’t a fantastic point to make. Everyone agreed that Bruce had common sense. “And what was Loki doing at your home for two months?”

(Tony thought of Loki leaning over him, eyes wide and too green. Don’t think about it.)

“Mostly moping. No, sorry, I’m not being fair. He’s been helping clean up the mess he’s made. Heard of a Soul Forge before? Course you haven’t—and you wouldn’t have, since you would have thrown Loki into super prison. It’s an Asgardian thingamajig to remove the epidemic the Chitauri tech is spreading. I don’t know whether you’re aware of that; it’s all over TV— do you have a TV, or is that too newfangled for you? Either way, we built one.”

“You did,” Steve said slowly, doubtfully.

“And this thing that you’re building,” Clint spun the knife in his hands, “does it work as intended?”

“What do you mean, ‘Does it work?’ Of course it works, I built it.”

“As intended?” Clint repeated pointedly.

Steve looked far from thrilled. “Loki’s last machine led to an alien invasion.”

“Yeah,” Tony dragged the syllable out. Fuck, this wasn’t going to be easy. Or believable. And it would be so much easier if Bruce were here. “So here’s the thing. New York with all the death, destruction, and doom? Wasn’t his idea. He was kind of mind-controlled during that episode.”

Clint’s face went slack with surprise. Then he seemed to grow broader in his anger, shoulders tightening and muscles tensing. The knife lay easily in his palm, though his grip on it shifted. Ready to throw. “You gotta be joking. You don’t really believe that.”

“I don’t have to believe it, because I know it.”

“Fuck, Tony,” Clint said. “How do we know he didn’t get into your head?”

“He doesn’t have the Scepter.”

“The one he asked you to get from Sokovia?” Steve asked flatly.

“He didn’t even know about that!” Tony shouted. “And I literally stashed it on the other side of the country, in what’s probably the most secure location in the states!”

“That you could access at all times,” Steve replied.

“God fucking damn it, if he did mind control me, he did a shit job of it, unless he really likes arguing. Just ask Bruce when he’s back. Ask Jane, ask Pepper. The most nefarious thing going on in my home in the past weeks was a lot of squabbling. Well, and a lack of cleaning—seriously, we got a gull infestation at one point.”

“Tell me something bad about Loki,” Clint said apropos of nothing.

“Excuse me?” Tony thought he had misheard.

“Just do it.” It was an order coming from Rogers.

“He’s a sarcastic, manipulative shit, and he’s ruined at least three of my carpets. Do you know how hard blood stains are to get out of Persian wool? I honestly don’t. Point is, the guy has no manners.”

“Odd choice, but passes,” Clint shrugged. “Did you know it’s really hard to think critically about the guy that controls your mind? Also helps that your eyes aren’t blue and you’re not sweating like a bitch.” Clint paused, then sounded like he was only half-joking: “Though I still kinda wanna hit you in the head.”

“Do it, and I’ll sue you,” Tony retorted.

“Great,” Steve rubbed his eyes. “Either way, he’s gone. Did you at least get any intel out of Loki? About the attack?”

Right. With Loki gone (don’t think about it), this part of the conversation was slightly easier than Tony had anticipated. “Yep. JARVIS got recordings of multiple conversations on that.”

“I’d like to see those.”

“Do you also want my diary?” Tony asked with heavy sarcasm.

“And a paperclip to unlock it,” Steve deadpanned, fingers drumming against his very nice biceps impatiently. “Still, none of this explains what happened yesterday. It looked like he opened a portal to somewhere.”

“He ran away from his dickish dad. Doesn’t matter, didn’t work. He’s probably already dead.”

Tony paused. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to think it.

He felt oddly like he was floating, like he was losing his equilibrium. Steve said something that was distorted and far away, that he couldn’t hear over his own too-loud breathing.

Loki might be dead. Even if Loki were still alive, he would die light-years away while Tony was trapped on Earth. Hell, he’d not even know when Loki had died until Thor returned and deigned to tell them.

Fuck.

Fuck, he’d never see Loki again, because Loki was dead. His eyes prickled, and he pressed a shaking hand to them, refusing to let them see. He felt sick; his chest felt too tight. He wasn’t going to cry in front of these people. He wasn’t.

It took a while for him to calm down, and when he finally blinked, a single tear ran down his thumb and into his palm. He wiped it away. Silence blanketed the room. Steve was looking at his shoes. Clint was testing the edge of his blade against his thumb, a fine scraping against skin. When he noticed Tony watching him, he cleared his throat. “You realize he was using you. Right?”

“I’m aware,” Tony said, his voice rough. “I was using him right back in case that helps.” There was no way he’d try to explain more than that to Clint. Tony wiped another angry tear from his cheek. “Great talk. Did I pass? Have I won your damn trust?”

Steve slowly exhaled. “We’ll talk to Nat, Pepper, and Jane. We’ll let you know.”

**

“Tony!” The mix of rebuke and worry was intimately familiar, and while he rarely welcomed it, it was so unmistakably Pepper that it filled him with relief.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

Pepper’s heels clicked across the linoleum, and she pulled him into an embrace that he wouldn’t have dared, not yet, not so soon after they’d broken up. The fabric of her white suit felt expensive and clean against his unwashed skin.

“Ow,” he said when she squeezed him.

“Sorry, sorry.” She lightened her grip. “God. Why do you keep doing these things?”

“My actions are perfectly reasonable. And I’m fine.”

“You’re obviously not.” She held him at arm’s length to inspect his bandaged shoulder. When she looked up at him, there was a softness to her that was uniquely hers. It settled him. She pulled up one of the visitor chairs, smoothed her skirt, and sat down. “What happened?”

And for a split second, he considered lying. Considered not putting this on her, the misery that was not hers to bear, but she was asking, and her eyes were wide with worry, and she knew him too well to accept anything but the truth. Something inside of him gave way. “Pep, he’s probably dead.”

She didn’t need to ask who he was talking about. Pepper knew the stakes, knew the consequences, and her face opened in shock. “No. Asgard caught up with him?”

“His dad did.” Tony’s throat was closing up. “I couldn’t save him.”

“Oh, Tony.” Pepper’s face crumpled into misery, and she took his hand, soft fingers resting against his palm. “I’m sure you did all you could. You always do.”

“It wasn’t enough.” Tony looked at their interlocked hands, feeling like he would burst with the truth of it: Loki was gone.

She didn’t speak for a while, and when she did, it was with surprise, as though she only now realized. “You love him.”

Tony’s composure shattered. He took his hand from hers to cover his eyes. Tears began streaming down his face, as though a dam had burst, pain pouring out from his mouth and nose and eyes. He drew a loud breath, chest heaving, throat closing up. His chest hurt badly enough that it felt like he might be dying, and he didn’t care, because Loki was gone.

His eyes were pressed shut when Pepper’s soft fingers curled around his neck to draw him close. She held him, anchored him when he didn’t know up from down, when time lost meaning. And he cried uncontrollably, messily, loudly. Snot smeared against her crisp, white suit, blood that had gathered under his fingernails on her blouse. Staining her.

Loki had filled a void that Tony hadn’t been aware of, a wound that he hadn’t noticed. And now that Loki had been removed, violently, he was hemorrhaging. He couldn’t stop the grief, panic, and horror from pouring out of him endlessly. And it didn’t help; it didn’t fix anything.

Loki was dead.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he pushed away and leaned back into the pillows. His face was hot, eyes burning. The ceiling was blurry with his tears. He was exhausted, a headache settling in. Pepper silently handed him a box of tissues, wiping her own eyes as she did so. It took multiple wads of the thin tissues to clear his nose and dry his eyes.

“I didn’t know it was this …” Pepper paused, looked at the box of tissues in her lap. There was a wry smile on her lips, and her voice shook when she continued, “Well. I did know you were pulling away.”

Tony blinked at the ceiling, feeling like she had punched him in the gut. He had no idea what to say to that, couldn’t even meet her eyes. In some ways, he did feel guilty; as though he’d gone and fallen in love with someone else on purpose. His voice was rough with tears. “That’s not fair, Pep.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry about …” She laughed hollowly, the tissues in her lap crinkling as her fingers dug into the flimsy cardboard. “God, I don’t know.”

“I would never have gone behind your back. I’d never have pursued him while we were together,” Tony said, finding his calm voice again. It was slightly nasal. “You know that.”

“I do,” she agreed, though her voice was breaking. “I know you were working to protect me in every way you know. I know that you couldn’t, not as you needed to. I feel terrible for resenting any of it; I don’t want to, and I will get past it with a little more time.” Tony kept looking at the box of tissues, rumpled and scuffed at the corners. The cheap floral print that contrasted garishly with her suit. When she continued, it was with a hint of desperation. “We’re still friends, right? Because I’d have to leave SI otherwise, and I really, really love my job.”

Tony finally looked at her earnest, sad eyes. And, God, he had loved that woman. He still barely knew who he was without her. Didn’t want to remember who he had been on his own, just that it hadn’t been good. So he did the only thing he could: he made a joke. “You think I have that choice? If I tried to run SI, the board would resign.”

She laughed wetly. “Okay. God, I feel so selfish. I’m sorry, let’s … I knew he was in danger, but I never thought he’d really …”

“He wasn’t supposed to.” Tony felt tired. Exposed, raw, as though his ribcage had been cracked open. It had been his responsibility. He was supposed to be in control; he was supposed to have shielded Loki while he recovered. That’s what Tony did: he fixed things. He protected people. “He was so afraid.”

“Anyone would have been.”

“Odin was … I couldn’t …” Tony’s voice broke again. He had no tears left, and the sob that broke from his throat was dry.

“Oh, Tony.” Pepper’s eyes filled with tears once more, and she dabbed at her face before her makeup could run. She held his hand as grief tore Tony to raw, bloody pieces.

She stayed with him for hours, and when they ran out of things to talk about, she got ice cream and turned on the terrible daytime TV. He couldn’t help but burst out crying at random intervals, until his face was dry with salt and his whole body hurt.

Tony dreaded being alone that night.

**

Odin cradled Loki close, a facsimile of a parent’s embrace, and his boots connected with the observatory’s floor in a hitching two-step. With a pained exhale, black smoke rose from his lips.

“Take him to the cells.” Odin released his not-child. Loki’s legs gave beneath him, and though the pain of his knees hitting the marble registered dully, he felt he was watching the scene as an outsider. All he could think of was Tony's cry of pain as his shoulder was run through, right before he was flung through the portal. He had no idea where it led and had never seen a thing like it.

“Loki, I’m sorry.” Thor’s voice yanked his attention to the far wall of the observatory. He was restrained by a group of Einherjar, and he didn’t struggle to free himself. But then again, what good would it do? To defy the King of Asgard in public was to open a political divide. Pointlessly, seeing that Thor could hardly spirit them away without the Bifröst.

Loki couldn’t tear his eyes from the grief on his brother’s face.

Guards pulled him to his feet, clapped him into chains, and carried him away, the procedure as familiar as a recurring nightmare. Only this time, he felt numb and found neither quips nor bravado to hide behind.

**

They took him to the healers to examine him, though they did little more than prod him, run a few tests, scowl at the results, and give him painkillers. They also cleaned the blood from his face and removed anything that could function as a weapon before they sent him off.

The cell was familiar but devoid of the amenities that Frigga had provided the first time around. The guards left Loki to slump against the sterile wall and sealed him in, the dark halls distorted by the golden shimmer of the energy field.

Feeling slowly returned to Loki as a dull throb. A shiver set in as the panic began to rise in waves, and he closed his eyes and breathed. He made an effort to collect himself. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him at his lowest. If his body didn’t work, at least his mind must not fail him.

He was calm by the time that Odin came, out of battle armor, clad in the softer golds reserved for family dinners and close friends. They opened the cell for him, and he stepped inside, ducking on the step as though the ceilings were too low to contain him.

“Loki,” he said, standing with his hands clutched behind his back, face unreadable.

“Allfather.” Though his voice was cracking and rough, Loki dropped a mockery of a bow from his cross-legged position on the floor. “Please make yourself comfortable in the splendid rooms you furnished me with.”

“So you’ve found your tongue.” As disapproving as he had been during any of their fights. But Odin looked tired. His callous use of dark energy would send him into Sleep sooner rather than later.

“What do I owe the honor of your presence, my King?”

“Your trial will be held in two weeks’ time,” Odin replied. “We’re awaiting the arrival of Lodhur, Njörd, and Eitri.”

Two weeks and a trial were far more than Loki had expected—he had thought that even throwing him into the dungeons was but a formality while someone fetched an ax. Pleasantly he said, “A waste of time when you have already decided that the head of one more Jotun should decorate the steps of your throne.”

Some strong emotion contorted Odin’s face, and that at least gave Loki satisfaction.

“We gave you every chance to prove yourself heir to the throne. This is your own doing.”

Loki laughed, low in his throat. “No, you did this by taking me in, old man.”

Odin looked at him with something more than regret: as close to grief as Loki had ever seen. And briefly, he thought he might have gone too far. That Odin might break. The thought was repelling. He recognized the feeling for what it was: a child’s wish to not see his father weak. Loki looked at his fidgeting hands, unable to hold Odin's gaze. He stilled them.

“You asked me why I didn’t leave you be,” Odin said after a long pause.

“Oh? And are you willing to explain yourself after a millennium of silence?” But Loki’s voice was flat, free of the sarcasm he aimed for.

Odin knelt by him, and the movement seemed to cause him pain. His joints were stiff, his face weary. (A seed of worry grew in Loki, and he squashed it.) Odin laid a firm hand on his shoulder, and Loki balked at the transgression: they didn’t know one another in the way of gentle touches of parent and child and hadn’t for centuries.

“Shortly after you vanished, our spies brought back word of Thanos,” Odin told him quietly.

Loki felt his mask shatter. “Thank the Norns someone trustworthy reported to you,” he spat. “Since you didn’t care to even speak to me!”

Odin’s face closed off. “I heard of your use of the Mind Stone from Thor. But I didn’t understand until I saw the plans you drew. Due to your actions, the Titan will break into Asgard.”

Loki had already drawn breath to spit more vitriol, but he found it stuck in his throat. The blueprints of the vault. He had drafted them so that Thor might guard them from Thanos. He remembered the urgency to lay them out, sudden and pressing enough that he had left the workshop and retreated to the quiet of Tony’s study. Of course. It hadn’t been his own impulse, but that of the Other. Loki had been their last connection to the Tesseract, and when they were ready, they had him compile a map. The Other had seen through Loki’s eyes as he laid out the details, the means for robbing Asgard’s vaults.

“I didn’t know I was still in his employ.” His voice was a whisper. He felt nauseous with the truth. “I am free of it now.”

Odin just looked at him for a moment, assessing something Loki couldn’t see. Then he looked through him, his eye flaring black, and pressed a hand to his forehead, and Loki grasped his adoptive father’s wrist. But he couldn’t stop it, and Odin pushed into his ras, past the physical boundaries and into his soul. His fingers and palm sank into his head as though it was nothing. Loki had read of such things and had thought them fairy tales.

“No!” Loki gasped. He pushed one hand against Odin’s throat, squeezing. He was too weak, and the Allfather’s face remained stoic, unchanged.

“Brace yourself,” Odin said and did something. It felt like Loki’s skull was cracked open. He wanted to weep, but all that escaped was a strangled whimper. Odin slowly pulled his hand from Loki’s head. Between his fingers, golden tendrils of light turned into blue smoke. “The corruption runs too deep. It cannot be cleansed. You won’t be free of this disease, not until the one that laid these channels dies.”

Loki was panting. His throat was raw, as though he’d been screaming. He waited for the blackness at the edge of his vision to retreat. He sagged back, his skull painfully cracking against the stone. “Why bother with me? You could kill the Titan; you might be his match.”

“If he holds even one of the Stones, he will be too powerful for me to face.”

Loki closed his eyes. He remembered the pressing need to ask Tony of the location of the Scepter: Avengers Tower, New York. He’d wanted to know who held the Aether, and Jane had told him. What a good spy he had been: the location of three Infinity Stones laid at Thanos’s feet.

Truly, he should have died on Svartalfheim.

Odin squeezed his shoulder: half an apology. And his voice broke when he spoke. “My son. This gives me no pleasure, and I wish that there was another way. But I need to stop this cycle before it throws not merely the Nine but all of the universe into destruction unparalleled since the war on the Dark Elves.”

Loki let numbness wash over him. “I’ve never been your son.”

“You always will be,” Odin said.

“I am not yours!” Loki shouted around a raw throat and knocked away Odin’s touch. He would not be made lesser by this man. No longer. “Don’t insult me by pretending otherwise!”

And for the first time that Loki had known him, Odin inclined his head in concession. “I see now that I’ve made mistakes with you.” His breath hitched as though he wanted to say more, once, twice. In the end, he rose and turned his back. “I will send Eir to take care of your wounds.”

Why bother, Loki thought.

When he was alone, Loki curled up on his side in the empty space of the cell and faced the wall. The betrayal ran so deep that it left him ravaged, scraped raw of any warmth, of love and anger and hatred alike. A child again, he felt powerless and utterly dependent on a father that would never love him. He began crying quietly, tears running down his cheeks until he could not see, until his head hurt, until he could not breathe through his nose. At some point, he crawled to the adjoining bathroom to clean himself, though he was too weak to craft an illusion and save his pride, to keep the guards from seeing either his tears or his shaking limbs.

**

They’d let him return to Avengers Tower under constant observation, which meant that Clint was following him like a snarky shadow. It might have helped had he not been constantly chewing something: popcorn, chips, or knock-off Cliff Bars. It was driving Tony insane.

After two days, he’d taken apart the coffeemaker, the dishwasher, and the microwave and then ‘gotten distracted,’ leaving all of it in pieces around the common room. Which meant Steve finally allowed him back into his workshop for long enough to retrieve something to tinker with.

That they’d locked him out in the first place was both outrageous and ridiculous; it’s not like Tony couldn’t have overridden whatever safeties they had put in place. But if they needed to see that Tony was harmless, fine. He could make that much of a concession for a week—or rather however long it took Bruce to return and relay his side of the story. (The twinge of guilt did get a little sharper with every passing day. Tony really, really hoped Bruce would be okay.)

When he stepped out of the elevator and into R&D, he hadn’t been prepared to see the Mark V in pieces on the floor. The way he stopped in his tracks and stared at the blood-crusted, hacked-apart wreck must have been fairly obvious because Clint patted his good shoulder in awkward sympathy.

“They banged it up pretty good, but all the pieces should be there.” Clint hopped to sit on a table, picking up bits and pieces of half-finished projects.

“Stop touching that before it explodes,” Tony lied.

Clint did drop the arc reactor shell and held up both hands, eyebrows lifted in fake innocence. “Can you even fix that thing?” Conversationally. Tony hadn’t realized how friendly a guy Clint was until he was stuck in the same room with him for hours on end.

“Do you even know my name? Of course I can fix it.” Sure, the shoulder was scrap metal, but he had enough spare parts to build a new one in a day—if he had use of both of his arms, anyway. He knelt by the Mark V and traced the sawed-off shoulder seams. The metal was sharp enough to cut him, and he stuck his fingers in his mouth to catch the drop of blood. His eyes caught on something out of place in the middle of the metal hull: something black and soft.

Tony swallowed the taste of iron around a throat that was suddenly raw. The floor was unstable beneath him as he carefully picked up the bracelet he had taken from Loki’s home in Vanaheim. He sat down heavily on the floor, running a finger over the leather: runes were impressed on the black leather, absorbing the light in a matter shade of black, a silver clasp weighing it down. It was softer and sturdier than any leather Tony had ever felt, and he suddenly wondered what alien beast had died for this.

His hands were shaking, and it took him a few tries to clasp it around his left wrist. It sat there, snug and inert, and it burned against his skin. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe.

He felt like an idiot.

It was a piece of leather that had been stored in a dusty, abandoned home on a foreign planet. Loki probably hadn’t even remembered he owned it.

Clint’s watchful eyes prickled on his neck.

Tony rubbed a hand across his face and inhaled sharply. “Right.” He got to his feet and scanned the workroom. He dumped out a crate of spare parts, not caring that they scattered with great racket across the floor and rolled beneath shelves and desks. He set down the crate on one of the workbenches and threw in the parts of the half-finished fidget toy alongside tools and parts.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket, and Tony retrieved it awkwardly. He did a double-take, then fumbled and almost dropped it in his haste to answer. Dread and hope were trying to choke each other out in his chest.

“I thought you didn’t know how to operate a phone,” he said.

A moment of silence, then Thor said, “I call Jane all the time.”

“Buddy, I can never reach you.”

“Oh. Lightning seems to interrupt the battery.”

Of course it did. And of course Thor had never bothered to tell him. “Great. Bring it in, I’ll fix that. Why are you calling? Is this about Loki?”

“He’s imprisoned, awaiting his trial two weeks from now.”

A pent-up breath shuddered out of Tony, and he pressed his eyes shut. He briefly thought he’d pass out. “Alright,” he said, keeping his voice level. “How do we get him out?”

“Man of Iron, I would gladly have your help in saving my brother. The Nine have been called to preside over his fate. And though Midgard has never before held a voice, I would convince Father that you deserve representation. Do you accept the burden of standing for your people?”

“Sure, we all know I’m the best humanity has to offer,” Tony said. “When do we leave?”

“I shall pick you up two weeks hence. I shall relay the details then.”

“Great. Awesome.”

Thor hung up, and Tony stared at his phone, dumbfounded. Thor had never, not once, answered his phone, and Tony had been half-convinced that he’d dropped it into the ocean and been too embarrassed to mention it.

“Was that Thor?”

Tony nodded slowly. “First time for everything.”

“So Loki is alive?” Clint’s voice was carefully neutral.

“He is.” Tony, wide-eyed and stunned, looked at Clint, who was sitting in his workshop with a crinkling bag of trail mix. Clint offered him the bag, and Tony let him shake some almonds and cranberries into his open palm. His gaze lingered on the bracelet that Tony had put on minutes ago.

“Don’t expect me to jump in joy. But good for you.”

Tony stared at him. He hadn’t expected even that much from Clint, given his history with Loki. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Clint patted his good shoulder—once, twice—then popped a cranberry into his mouth. And that was that.

**

Bruce returned a few days later, wearing no shoes and clothes that looked like he’d stolen them from someone’s backyard. He was unshaven and thin, but his eyes were not as wild as they had been in the past coming out of a mission. Natasha hugged him close, and her relief, for once, seemed genuine.

The media was convinced easily enough that Tony had been abducted and returned, and SHIELD was already keeping an eye on him through Natasha, so they didn’t question his story too much.

However, it took Pep, Jane, and Bruce to convince the remaining team that Tony was reasonable and that Loki was not a threat. It still wasn’t an easy conversation when Thor—arriving disheveled and in full armor, speaking too loudly and over any objections Clint was raising—told them that Asgard was making a mistake in executing his brother.

“Father has allowed Midgard a voice in the trial, as they have suffered greatly from Loki’s crimes.” Thor’s eyes were darting between them. “Yet it would be unwise for any but Tony to aid an attempt to thwart the execution. My brother has shielded him from Heimdall’s eyes.”

“Unwise to assume I’d thwart any of that.” Clint stood against the far wall of the Avengers’ living room, alternating between scowling out over Manhattan and towards his teammates.

“Who’s Heimdall?” Steve asked.

“The Watcher Eternal can see and hear all. He’s on our side, but when commanded, his oath binds him to report to the Allfather.”

“So it’s Sparky and me.” Tony’s shoulder was stabilized against his side, and in his other hand, he was spinning the fidget toy. At least he’d figured out why it was exploding, though eliminating it was more complicated than he had expected. He thought of it as a kind of fun surprise.

“Aye.” Thor clapped a heavy hand on Tony’s uninjured shoulder. “Those who love Loki best shall save him.”

No one seemed even a little surprised by that declaration.

“Does that make sense? What about your shoulder?” Bruce asked.

Thor grinned magnanimously. “Fear not. Knowing how weak you mortals are—”

“Yes, thank you for rubbing it in,” Tony spoke over him. “I’ll be just fine; the suit will stabilize that whole area.” He had already adapted and tested it. If he got into a fight, it wasn’t going to be fun or pain-free, but it would work.

“You cannot represent Midgard as Iron Man,” Thor said.

Tony stopped short. That wasn’t a good thought. “Well, I’m not going in my PJs.”

“Father knows Iron Man as the one that sheltered Loki and would recognize you. It would be foolishness to risk his suspicion.”

“Wouldn’t he already be suspicious given that you chose Earth’s representative?” Bruce asked.

“Father does not care much for Midgardians. Unless Heimdall reports otherwise—which he won’t if he cannot see or listen to us—he will assume no danger from a mere mortal.”

Sometimes, Tony forgot that it wasn’t just Loki that talked about humans as though they were second-class citizens. “The Mark V folds into a suitcase. Big Daddy won’t even know I have it on me.”

“A sound plan. And for your wound, I have brought a stone.” Thor was digging through a pouch he had brought and pulled out something smooth and gray and the size of his palm. Tony recognized it from Vanaheim: it had crumbled uselessly in Loki’s hands, and he had looked at it as though his world had been shattered. Tony admitted that he was intensely curious.

“Great. What are we waiting for?”

This healing stone, when crushed, did in fact stitch up his shoulder with great sizzling, blinding pain and the alarming smell of burning sulfur. (Tony would later maintain that it had been Steve that screamed like a little kid during the process and not Tony himself.) He was deeply disappointed when Thor told him that the stones were rare and that he hadn’t brought extra for blasting apart in the lab. But who was Tony to argue with results, even when Bruce prodded and pinched his shoulder and looked like he would have liked to cut it right back open to see what exactly had been done to his flesh.

Steve assured him one last time that they had the HYDRA situation under control—by which he meant that they were still gathering information—and that Tony wouldn’t be missed if he was gone for a week. They handed Thor the Scepter to be transported to Asgard and stashed securely out of the hands of HYDRA, so that was one less thing to worry about, at least.

Tony was jittery with nerves when he stepped out onto the roof by Thor’s side, a suitcase of clothes in one hand and the Mark V in the other. Thor hollered Heimdall’s name to the skies, and not a minute later, from the smog-filled skies of New York, roaring rainbow light poured over the both of them and whisked them away, across and beyond the universe known to man.

To Asgard.

Chapter Text

The universe rushed by in thundering light, and when they arrived, it was without warning. Tony stumbled on solid ground, almost losing his balance. He was still blinking stars from his vision while Thor strode ahead into a brass cupola. It was a contraption of turning rings, its electric hum drowning out the sound of his steps.

“Sif! Since when are you Guardian of the Bifröst?” Jovially, Thor threw his arms wide.

She pulled a sword as tall as herself from the central pedestal and clasped forearms with Thor. “Heimdall had an urgent message for the Allfather, but that doesn’t mean the Council stops arriving. The observatory has to be manned at all times; it’s more tedious than we give Heimdall credit for.”

Tony set down his suitcases and took in the glimpses of Asgard. The air was sticky with the scent of an ocean, and as the Bifröst was powering down, its hum was replaced with the rushing of waves. He wandered to the edge of the dome, which opened towards an endless starscape at the edge of a blue sky. Below him glinted an ocean, and mist rose from the oddly shaped horizon: it stretched as an oval before him, not corresponding to the curvature Tony had expected. And he remembered the illustration in one of the books he had picked up in Loki’s home on Vanaheim.

“Are you kidding me?” Tony murmured to himself. Then he shouted over the thundering of the waterfall, “Are you telling me Asgard is flat? Where does the water go? How does gravity work?”

The two Asgardians paused their exchange, and Thor grinned broadly. “Loki mentioned you might want to visit the libraries, and I think he was right.” He clasped Sif’s shoulder, and she trailed him towards Tony. “Tony, meet Sif, Asgard’s greatest shield maiden—and my very good friend.”

Sif eyed him up and down, clearly unimpressed. She didn’t bother addressing Tony directly. “Another mortal scholar? Are you starting a collection?”

Tony didn’t like being ignored. Something, something, probably his parents’ fault. He flexed his hands idly, mentally going through the motions of opening his suitcase and donning his armor. “I’d go through the dance and song of pleasant society, but the big guy and I have business to attend. So, if you don’t mind.”

She snorted a laugh and slid her ridiculously large sword into a sheath on her back, muscles rippling under her naked arms. Granted, that was pretty hot. In an intimidating kind of way. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“We need to see Father. An Infinity Stone has been recovered on Midgard.” Thor pointed to the case he had sat by his feet, the Scepter all packed up to be stored away from prying eyes.

“Truly?” Sif lifted her eyebrows with pleased surprise. “The Allfather is in Hlidskjalf, likely tending to King Lodhur—the Elves arrived an hour ago.” She pointed down the shimmering walkway that stretched over the ocean. At its end, a city rose in golden and white layers in a perfectly blue sky. “They took the horses back to the stables. Too much traffic in the past hours.”

Thor slung the Scepter over his shoulder and unlatched the hammer from his hip. “And without them, we’ll make better time.”

Tony both recognized the gesture and didn’t like what it implied. He took a step back, his raised hand signaling, Stop. “If we’re flying, I’m suiting up.”

“That would be unwise; the Allfather might recognize Iron Man.” Thor seemed entirely too pleased for that argument to land well.

“You’re not carrying me!”

“Come on, it’s going to be fun!”

**

A minute later, Thor landed with a crash by the city gates to Asgard, and Tony cursed as he stumbled from Thor’s sweaty grip.

“I’m never doing that again.” Thor laughed and patted him on the back.

Tony straightened his suit jacket and sunglasses to the curious looks of guards and civilians, then stumbled as Thor pulled him out of the way of a runner. Tony did a double take when he saw the man’s scaled skin and swishing tail vanish into the colorful masses. Even knowing that they were on a different planet, Tony hadn’t really expected to see aliens on Asgard, not the kind that looked like they wore rubber prosthetics and had sprung out of a sci-fi movie from the seventies.

Thor put a patronizing palm on Tony’s back as they walked through the heavily guarded gates, and Tony shook the touch off immediately.

“I can walk by myself.”

“I wish not lose you in the crowds.” Thor’s head was on a swivel, taking measure of the masses. It was about as bad as Times Square during rush hour.

Tony clutched his Mark V’s suitcase tightly—the one containing clothes and necessities followed him on whirring wheels, steered by a clone of DUM-E’s source code—and followed in Thor’s wake.

“Something big going on? Or do you guys just need to invest in public transit?”

Thor threw him a surprised look. “The trial, of course. The Council of the Nine has been called, and they travel with an entourage.”

“Of course, I should have known,” Tony said sarcastically.

Despite Asgard’s sprawling streets and generous plazas, Tony could hardly walk without someone clipping or jostling him. It was as though he was invisible next to Thor’s bulk. After Tony almost got into a fight with a green-skinned, lumpy-looking alien, Thor gave up on walking and hailed a driverless, flying boat out of the busy skies—and why wouldn’t that be the main form of taxi on Asgard? The rest of the journey went much smoother.

From above, the city shone with the kind of elegance created by pure wealth. It was spotless, the walls bright white, floating parks lush with greenery and flowers. And at the center of it all rose the palace, throwing shadows over the cities while bathing it in the golden reflection of the sun.

Their boat sped towards the palace’s central tower and pulled into a harbor situated high above ground, golden piers rising from the walls with a mechanical whirr to meet them midair.

“Heimdall, my friend! I never thought I’d see you entrust someone else with Hofund!” Thor climbed onto the helm and easily hopped across the ten-foot gap, rocking the boat. Tony clutched at its rails, feeling faint as he stared down the hundred-foot drop.

Tony waited until the boat had come to an almost complete stop, inches from the pier, before he threw his luggage over the gap. He still fumbled climbing out, his sneakers slipping on the metal grid and the boat shifting under his feet. His heart was in his throat, and he felt dizzy. This was ridiculous—he was perfectly fine with heights, but he was usually flying and armored, for God’s sake.

He made his way across the grand plaza to find Thor standing inside the golden gates to the gigantic hall. An empty throne loomed in the far distance. Thor was conversing in quiet tones with a heavily armored man.

“—the Collector,” Heimdall was saying just then. “The Allfather is sending a search party to Knowhere as we speak.”

“That is worrying news.” Thor stood with his arms crossed and his brows drawn. “We had thought the Aether safe with him.”

“Our king will be glad to know that one in the vaults.” Heimdall nodded to the case slung over Thor’s shoulder. “You will find him in the council chambers.”

“Thank you, my friend. May the Norns keep you safe.”

Heimdall’s stoic face cracked into a smile. “And may your words reach them, for the Dwarves are about to arrive.”

Thor laughed and slapped him on the back as though that was the funniest thing he had heard all day. They clasped arms, and Heimdall strode past him, waving Tony on. Heimdall’s glowing eyes slid past Tony, dismissing him as soon as he passed.

Later that day, he knelt at the center of the throne room as Thor introduced him as ‘Midgard’s emissary.’ Odin presided far above them, and between the glare of his armor and the shade of his helmet, his expression vanished completely. Tony didn’t get a chance to speak before Thor ushered him on towards the guest wing of the palace.

And while the rooms Thor left him were testament to his status—the view of the city was stunning and the attached baths the size of a pool—Tony couldn’t help but feel unmoored on this strange planet. His skin was itching with the need to do something flashy and stupid, just so people would look at him.

While Tony had never been surprised by Loki’s hostile attitude—he had been their enemy, after all—he hadn’t expected all of Asgard to dismiss his mere presence.

**

The Soul Forge imaging showed what Loki had feared: while his body was healing under the careful administrations of Eir, the influence of the Mind Stone was spreading once more. With every consultation, every new image, it grew through the arcane vortexes along his spine and sank greedy roots into his brain.

“We had almost removed it before; the device shorted out before the job was completed.” Loki held out his hands to let her assess his tremors—after two weeks of medication, they were barely present. “I know it is possible.”

“It is not. Stand on one leg for me.” Her eyes were so light a blue as to be white; as a child, Loki had long thought her to be blind.

Loki followed her instructions with a long-suffering sigh and a clinking of chains, stopping him short of what she instructed him to do. It was all slightly ridiculous. But the chains confined the magic beneath his skin, and he could hardly blame them for not taking the risk.

He did wonder why they were bothering when he was to be executed soon. In fact, he would have loved to ask Odin, had he ever shown up in the dungeons.

“Are you telling me that Midgardian doctors surpass Asgardian healers?”

“I’m telling you that you are lucky to not have died attempting it. The other leg.”

Loki shifted, and for a moment, he almost lost his balance. Eir clucked her tongue and instructed him to sit down, then ran a cold metal rod over the sole of his feet.

“Yes, I can feel that,” he said before she could ask, not bothering to keep the impatience out of his voice. He gestured across the room, at the Soul Forge; the latest image was still hovering there, the bright red having faded into purples and deep blues. He was almost hale. “I have personally removed the Stone’s influence from Midgardians. If they survived it, so will I.”

“You are not Midgardian, though, are you?” She didn’t bother looking him in the eye as she rolled up his linen garb to test for nerve damage in his calves, then forearms and hands.

“I hope you’re aware that I don’t believe you. I think you’re afraid for your reputation,” Loki said in pleasant tones.

She stood and spread her hands before her, a flash of white magic running up her elbows to the tips of her fingers, disinfecting them and signaling the end of their session. “I expect you again in two days time. Continue the stretches and inform the wardens of any changes to your health.”

“Of course, High Healer,” he dropped a mockery of a bow, chains dripping from his neck and wrists, and left before the guard could begin tugging him out the door. At least, they didn’t have to wheel him around anymore. Though the small gain in independence hardly mattered when he was led through the servant passages like a dog on a leash.

For the first time in years, Loki perfectly understood his place on Asgard. It was with bitterness that the acceptance came—as well as an odd sense of relief to have his fears proven true.

**

“We have assembled for the judgment of Loki Odinson—let the accused stand before the Council of Nine.” Odin’s eyes were shadowed by his antlered helmet. Loki recognized his father in his terrible coldness, the casual cruelty he wielded as a weapon.

Loki felt nothing but a sense of finality when he met Odin’s eyes. “I am Loki of Asgard, no more and no less.” He might have claimed Frigguson had it not hurt so much.

“Loki of Asgard,” Odin allowed. “You will be judged for your crimes against your home, Jötunheim, Midgard, and all Nine Realms. If found guilty, your life is forfeit. Do you understand these terms?”

“Any child would.” Bored and sarcastic; the cadence came easily to him.

“And are you ready to answer for your crimes?”

“If you ever stop monologuing.”

A glint of irritation shone in Odin’s eyes, and Loki allowed himself a thin smile.

They ushered Loki off to the side, where his chains were fastened to a marble pedestal. It was all a bit much, in his opinion; he hardly needed to be chained to the floor. The throne room was all but empty: the grand doors sealed against prying ears and eyes, the guards trusted and handpicked. Rarely was the throne room this quiet: their words echoed, and any time Loki moved, the golden chains tinkled like a dissonant concert.

Odin sat high above, Gungnir in hand, and Thor stood at a guard’s position, protecting Odin’s blind side. He was growing paler as Loki kept talking and held out a hand, palm pushing toward the floor: slow down. Loki rolled his eyes at the sentiment. The assembled Council—Lodhur of the Elves, Njord of the Vanir, Eitri of the Dwarves—sat one level below, in thrones that were lesser in size while just as ornate.

“You have been accused of the following. Regicide. Patricide. Fratricide. Genocide. High treason. Unjust war and warmongering for the sole sake of destruction …”

Loki let out a sigh and stared into the middle distance as the list commenced.

“… destruction of the Bifröst, leading to economic and political collapse across the Nine—”

“If I may,” Loki lifted a finger and an eyebrow, his chains rattling as he came up short. He scowled at the damned pedestal. “I would point out that Thor destroyed the Bifröst. And that it seems incredibly shortsighted that the only way from and to Asgard should consist of a bottleneck—”

“Do I need to muzzle you?” Spittle was flying from Odin’s lips, color rising to his cheeks, and he gripped Gungnir tightly, her triple points catching the dull sunlight at his back. “You may defend yourself at trial, but I will not tolerate your insolence during the opening ceremony!”

Ah. So there was anger to be found. This might yet be bearable. Loki lifted both hands in a mockery of appeasement. “My apologies. Please continue.”

When the list came to a close, Odin asked, “Do any have to add to that?”

The list was long enough to be ridiculous, and Loki considered bringing up that thing with Otr, just to vex Odin. But knowing the Dwarves, Eitri might actually try to make it stick.

“I once stole a meat pie on my fiftieth birthday,” Loki offered instead. Odin ignored him, but Thor looked like he might faint any minute.

Lodhur looked to his fellow kings, an elegant eyebrow rising in question. “I think these suffice. I’d like to be home before harvest.”

That startled a chuckle out of bearded Njord. And they were both right: this trial could easily last months.

“Nidavellir has voiced many complaints towards Loki in the past,” Eitri said slowly, arms crossed. As an elder Dwarf, he towered over the others and barely had to look up to meet Odin’s eyes. “I would ask you all to consider those past transgressions in your final judgment.”

There was general agreement, and Odin continued, “Let’s hear the witnesses on accusations of treason committed on the eve of Thor’s coronation.”

Ah. Letting the Giants into Asgard’s vaults. It had seemed a bit of fun. He had, after all, been aware of the Giants’ movements at all times and was sure they would be destroyed before they ever reached anything valuable.

Also, he had thought that no one would find out.

But the more Loki listened to the accounts—the guard that had rung the alarm, Thor’s reluctant recall of the argument in the vaults, then the Warriors Three and Sif, one after another—the more he realized that this wouldn’t be easy. That this trial was going to touch on things he’d rather not think about, over and again. By the time the statements had concluded, his stomach had twisted into a painful snarl. Laid out in detail, it was high treason, indeed.

Odin bid him to take the floor and defend himself, and Loki drew a fortifying breath. He waited for the Einherjar to take up his chains and stood before the Council of the Nine. He forced an ease he didn’t feel.

“If you would like to be precise, then yes, I acted against Asgard’s law. I maintain, however, that I did so for the benefit of Asgard and that her laws might need mending to allow for such.” Loki’s voice rang clear against the shadowed ceilings of the throne room, his childhood home. He lifted a tempering hand at the incredulous exchange of glances between Njord and Eitri.

“Let us look at the circumstances: the Jotuns emerged mere feet from the vault, avoiding casualties but not detection. From there, they ran into the Destroyer’s waiting arms. The Council must see that the attempted theft was designed to fail.” Loki began pacing, chains clinking and forcing the guards that held them to move with him.

“The goal was purely to buy Asgard time. For, as a brother, I knew for a fact what Asgard could only assume: Thor was not ready for the burden of the throne. How could he have been? Barely past boyhood, he had only known peace.

“I delayed his ascension so he might grow into the role.” He opened his arms, imploring the audience, and his eyes briefly caught Thor’s, whose face was blotchy with shame but who nodded his assent. “My methods were born of desperation, and I came to them as a last resort. They would have been fully unnecessary had there been other channels to question Thor’s rule.”

“How handy that your schemes won you the throne,” Eitri muttered.

“A temporary regency that I could have neither foreseen nor possibly wished for.” Loki dismissed the accusation with a flick of the wrist. “And hardly the point. The consequences of that day proved I had been acting in service to Asgard. Or could you argue that, back then, Thor would have made a worthy king? When, the very same day, he incited war with Jötunheim?” He gestured to Thor. “Don’t take me at my word. Prince Thor is right here!”

“No, he’s …” Thor cleared his throat and shot Loki a glare. “He’s right. I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t know it.”

Loki spread his hands with a little bow: see? “I propose that a rise towards kingship should be approved by the Council, as is practice on Alfheim. Don’t you agree, King Lodhur?”

Lodhur sighed and leaned back. “Someday, I would have liked you to see your manipulations employed in service of the truth rather than muddling the waters. The fact remains that Loki acted against the Allfather's direct wishes. It is treason.”

“And yet hardly an issue to be discussed by a full Council.” Njord rapped his knuckles on the table impatiently. “This matter in particular should be revisited in the context of the days that followed. And the day grows late.”

“We shall commence in the morning.” Odin took up Gungnir, and as he turned to descend, something caught Loki’s eyes. Already on his way out, Loki stopped in his tracks and stumbled against the pull of the chains as the guards led him on.

The Space Stone sat, newly embedded, between Gungnir’s wings.

**

“I overheard him speak to the Council; he suspects you know of more Infinity Stones and will relay their whereabouts to Thanos. That’s his name, isn’t it?” Thor asked quietly. He sat on the steps to the cell, leaned against the pillar, and idly watched the darkened hallway. Asgard’s dungeons were near empty in times of peace, and no prisoners were within earshot. Night had fallen, and Thor had used his privilege to buy them a bit of privacy, sending the guards to watch them from the opposite end of the dungeons.

“I’m glad you’ve been listening to someone.” Loki sat cross-legged on the other side of the golden force field.

He thought of the Space Stone and wondered what his once-father was planning. Odin must have brought the spear to Nidavellir to have it reforged; not many weapons could hold Infinity Stones, and there was little reason to have the Tesseract destroyed—unless Odin wanted to keep the Stone within reach at all times.

Where was the Scepter, where the Aether? Loki didn’t know how Thanos had traced the energy of the Tesseract the first time around, though at times, he itched to find out. Three more Stones were floating about the universe.

But Loki couldn’t afford that knowledge.

Though Eir’s treatments had nursed him back to health—which once more proved that Midgardian medicine was snake oil, at best—she still refused to put Loki through the same treatment that Banner had afforded him. Which meant he was being watched (—meant that Loki might lose time, wake up with blood on his hands, and that the fear thrumming at the back of his mind had been justified this whole time).

And so, he couldn’t ask. He set a finger to his lips, reminding himself that he couldn’t ask.

Thor released a slow sigh into the silence. “You could have told me. I would have … On Midgard, when you were fighting us. I knew you didn’t want to be there. I could have helped.”

“You couldn’t have.” He’d been too far gone. Thor’s pleas on Midgard had only filled him with scorn. How could Thor—no army at his back, Asgard and the Nine in disorder—possibly have stood against Thanos? “But it hardly matters now, does it?”

Thor seemed malcontent. He had brought a small bowl of walnuts with him that he kept cracking in his fists, leaving a sprinkling of shells on the floor. “I keep thinking that keeping your knowledge on the Stones contained must be his sole purpose in imprisoning you.”

“You give him too much credit,” Loki said bitterly. “And I hate to disappoint, but I know of no other Stones. I wouldn’t expect you to believe me, though.”

“Of course I believe you. I trust you, brother,” Thor said earnestly.

“You’ve always been a fool.” And still, he couldn’t ask. He cast about for a distraction. “Tell me, did each of the Council members bring their honor guard? I’ve never seen this many Light Elves in the palace.” Or that many foreign soldiers, for that matter.

“It seems you warrant some pomp.” Thor shrugged and grinned.

“I used to rule this whole sham for a while.”

“I thought you’d like the attention.”

“To be paraded around in chains?” Loki was offended. “It’s a kind of fame not even you would enjoy.”

Thor looked at his hands, suddenly shy. “I was arrogant, wasn’t I. Before my exile.”

“Were?” Loki asked incredulously. “Thor, arrogance is your defining trait!”

Thor picked up a bowl of nuts and threw it at Loki’s head. Against the force field, it exploded into sparks and smoke.

Loki grinned, delighted. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Don’t be an ass!”

It was as good of an apology as Loki could ever expect. And there was little point in rejecting it now. “I don’t think arrogance to be that bad a trait in a king. Let your advisors temper it, and you will be fine.”

But Thor didn’t seem pleased by that. And when he continued, his voice was small. “Maybe it would have been better if you had gotten your wish. If you had been crowned, and I your advisor.”

“If I thought you’d give a single advice worth following, I’d agree.”

“You’re insufferable.” Thor sank against the wall with a huff and gestured between them. “I’m trying to have a moment; stop being so … so much like you.”

Loki’s grin melted into a softer smile. He had missed Thor. He wasn’t going to say it again, but he had missed Thor so much that his presence grated, for it made him mourn what could have been. Decades of animosity still lay between them, a dark and unknowable gulf. Crossing it was an awkward and stuttering affair, for they had forgotten what it was like to like each other. If only they had started up mending that gap a few years earlier, they might have been friends before Loki’s death.

(A shiver of fear ran down Loki’s spine, and he tucked it away among the host of worries that were pointless to dwell on.)

“Has Tony arrived yet?” Loki asked with terrible hope, the kind that threatened to tear one apart.

“Aye.”

Loki drew breath to speak and found that the words turned to ash in his mouth. What was there to say to Thor on the matter? Nothing, truly. “Another mortal on Asgard. Father must be furious.”

Thor shook his head. “He was easy to convince. I think he’s been coming around since he met Jane.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Loki said absentmindedly. He wondered what Tony was doing and what he thought of Asgard. Whether he’d see the libraries, study artifice while the trial lasted. Wondered what he had said to Odin upon arrival—whether he had gotten to speak to Odin at all. A mortal addressing the Allfather in Hlidskjálf—what an absurd thought.

“I wish to see him.” The request burst out of Loki before he could stop it.

Thor was as caught off guard as Loki by that. “He would be noticed. Do you expect me to smuggle him in under my cape?”

The disappointment was as immediate as the anger. “You’re here.”

“Because I keep excellent relations with the staff!” Thor said it as though that was some kind of achievement. It sounded exactly like the kind of thing he wouldn’t have said before his exile. “But they wouldn’t look the other way if I brought a mortal.”

“Then your scheming needs practice.”

“We can’t all be little weasels, can we?”

“Better a weasel than a bilgesnipe.”

Thor narrowed his eyes at him, as though he was considering which of those was worse. “You will see him tomorrow, either way.”

The trial would be opened to the public when they were done discussing sensitive matters, such as the lacking security measures of Odin’s vaults. Half of Asgard and layers of deception would separate Loki and Tony then.

There were things he hadn’t told Tony, and for good reason, and the impending revelations had been beating like a drum against the inside of his skin. Nervousness tightened his stomach, kept him awake, and turned the food in his mouth to dust. Then again, none of it might matter.

“Do you think he truly means to kill me?”

Thor was looking at his hands as though they held answers, when really they were so large and so empty without a weapon to hold. “I haven’t recognized him since Mother’s death.”

Loki recognized him just fine. But it was true that Frigga’s tempering presence was missing from Odin’s side. “That’s a ‘yes,’ then.”

Thor sighed and let his head fall back against the pillar with a thump, staring into the twilight of the dungeon’s ceiling. “I truly don’t know.”

**

Cold light filtered through the golden lattices and braidwork that shuttered the hall, much like bars might a prison. Concentric platforms of marble rose to face the throne, an amphitheater where people would sit or stand, depending on class and occasion. As an emissary, Tony had been granted a seat in the theater, but gawkers were crowding into the standing spaces and clogging up the hall all the way to the gates.

Thor, gray-faced and pacing, had explained the process the days prior: Loki would stand guilty unless proven otherwise. Any citizen of the civilized realms might speak for or against him as witnesses, though the Council would decide whom to hear or deny in the end.

Tony’s knee was bouncing. The trial hadn’t even started yet, and he was going to vibrate out of his skin. The bracelet he had taken from Loki’s home in Vanaheim sat tightly against his skin, and he touched it as he kept looking over his shoulders, to the side and main entrances; anywhere Loki might appear from.

Sif sat down in the space next to him, putting her elbows on her knees and cracking her neck. “Don’t expect this to be over fast.”

Tony glanced at her. Sif tended to look irritated, but he’d begun wondering whether that had less to do with her general outlook on life and more with the matter at hand; all of Thor’s friends had seemed ambivalent about the trial and its preferred outcome, but they were willing to give Thor the help he had asked for.

For now, they were allies.

“Is it a national holiday?” Tony hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the crowd.

Sif scoffed and swung her ponytail over her shoulder without sparing him or the whispering masses a glance. “People take pleasure in the dramatics. The streets are cleared, businesses have closed down. The taverns are going to make a fortune tonight.”

Fandral sank into a seat on Tony’s other side. Great, now he was boxed in between two near-strangers. He had met the lot of them, but that didn’t mean he knew or liked them much. “And they spoke about Jötunheim this morning. I’m sure that tale is making the rounds; few knew the details of that adventure.” He flashed Tony a smile. “How are the libraries?”

While Thor and his friends had been part of the closed trial both yesterday and this morning, Tony had been parked in the public library like a goddamn toddler. He’d given up on reading after about an hour of blankly staring at words and pacing between shelves. “Dusty, full of books. What happened on Jötunheim?”

Sif and Fandral exchanged a glance in silent conversation. Sif shrugged and faced forward, which seemed to be a cue.

“A few things,” Fandral said. “One being that all of us—including Loki—went for some reconnaissance that turned into ill-thought-out monster hunting.”

“‘Monster hunting’?”

“Don’t you do that on Midgard?” Fandral asked conversationally, affably even.

In the past, Tony had played nice with people that hunted big game. After he’d watched one of them shoot a white tiger from a safe distance, he’d made sure to avoid them. “Some people, yeah. Problem being that the things they hunt are close to extinction.”

“Midgard has an overpopulation problem, doesn’t it? Too many mortals, too few resources? I never thought that’d include the monsters.” Fandral mentioned it like a mildly interesting fact he’d heard at a dinner party. Tony’s skin itched under the scrutiny of Fandral’s well-intentioned, maddening ignorance, the patronizing friendliness.

“Little more complex than that. What went wrong on Jötunheim?”

“Well. There were a few misunderstandings, a few provocations … We ended up slaying maybe a hundred Giants before we ran. That was before we knew Loki was one of them, of course.”

“Sounds like a political minefield.” Tony felt as though he had missed a step in the dark. His brain was catching up more slowly than he’d have liked. “Hold on.”

Fandral raised both eyebrows in question.

“When you say ‘monster hunting,’ you mean you went to hunt Giants?”

“Not initially, no.” Fandral tugged on his ear in embarrassment. “You have fought alongside Thor, haven’t you? Frankly, he can be … rash. More so before his time on Midgard.” He looked unhappy with the word choice and unwilling to say more.

“Yeah, fine, I can picture that.” Tony was still reeling. “Here’s my problem: you’re calling— you know, scratch that, there’s plenty of reason to call Loki monstrous, he occasionally threatens to kill your loved ones. But I think we’ve got a chicken-and-egg problem on hand.”

Tony pressed the bracelet into his skin until it hurt, his mind running a hundred miles an hour. He remembered watching a recording in which Loki had spoken to Bruce: he’d called himself a ‘creature.’ He remembered the smile on his face when Nat had called him a monster, the cruel satisfaction. And his interest in the Hulk had been poignant from the very beginning; Tony suddenly doubted it had been a purely strategic decision.

“When you say you went hunting, you literally killed, let’s say, Loki’s cousin twice removed for sport. Just some guy with hobbies and kids and a job. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Fandral’s brows knitted in a way that told Tony he had thought about that before and that he hadn’t liked the conclusion he came to. He didn’t seem to have an answer.

“What if that doting parent is trying to gut you like a fish?” Sif commented dryly.

“That’s not hunting, then, is it?” Tony snapped. “Here’s the thing: I have this friend that turns into a monster—great guy until you get him angry—but that’s not what happens when Loki turns blue. Sure, he changes color; he’s chilly to the touch, but that’s hardly monstrous, not in comparison to the alien hive mind that recently smashed up my planet.”

Tony had been watching the doors for Loki, but the silence following that statement weighed heavily. He turned to find all four of them watching him—Volstagg and Hogun were in the middle of taking their seats.

“What?” Tony didn’t like the level of scrutiny.

“None of us have seen him out of disguise,” Hogun said. “And the touch of a Jotun is deadly.”

Oh. Well. It didn’t surprise Tony as much as it should have, really. He remembered the shock on Loki’s face at realizing that he had created an ice skating rink in Tony’s workshop. “Loki runs about forty degrees Fahrenheit, that’s five in Celsius, two-eighty in Kelvin, and ‘definitely above freezing’ in Asgardian chicken scratch. None of you guys have met a Jotun out of battle, have you? And you’re judging whether to execute this one, which, statistically speaking, won’t have a great outcome for the Jotun when you’re barely convinced he’s a person.”

“Of course he’s a person. Though we were all surprised to find out about his parentage. He doesn’t seem like one of them.” Fandral looked away and ran a hand down his goatee, his eyes flickering through the hall; colors ran mainly beige and brown, but there were dots of green or orange or red here and there. Despite the variety, Tony couldn't see a single person with blue skin.

Sif made a disgusted sound and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest plate. She looked like she was making the deliberate decision not to speak.

Tony found himself fiddling with the bracelet and forced himself to stop. Goddamn, he should have brought his fidget spinner.

“So,” Fandral seemed eager enough to change the subject and barely concealed his curiosity, “Thor mentioned you fought Loki on Midgard?”

This was painful. Fidget spinner. Seriously, what good was it sitting in his too-fancy room? “Yep.”

Fandral gave him a once-over, head to toe. It wasn’t subtle, either. “You are mortal, though?”

Tony gave him a grin that was all teeth. “Are you asking for a demonstration? You won’t like it.”

Fandral’s smile was patronizing. “I’m sure.”

Tony felt a prickling along the back of his neck and turned to find Sif giving him a speculative look. Surrounded by Thor’s friends in full armor and weaponry, he suddenly felt very naked in his jeans and button-down. The Mark V suitcase sat by his feet, and he pulled it closer; a reassuring weight against his calf.

Sif drew a breath to speak but was cut off by the announcement: “The accused: Loki of Asgard.”

The words rang like a bell, and the whispers around the hall fell silent. Tony turned so fast his neck gave a twinge.

Loki strode ahead of a dozen guards as though it was his choice that they trailed him, chains in hand. He seemed self-assured, his chin held high, not bothering to look at the crowd assembled. And for the first time in months, he was walking without a hitch, without so much as a sign that he was ailing.

The relief that flooded Tony at the sight of him was dizzying. He briefly closed his eyes, then sat forward and clamped his hands together between his knees, pressing them until his bones creaked.

Odin stood, and the butt of his spear hit the marble with a resounding clang.

“Loki of Asgard. Are you ready to hear the charges brought against you?”

“As much as yesterday and this morning—honestly, could we skip this whole sham? I have grown tired of the theatrics.” Loki heaved a full-body sigh: exasperation, affected boredom. He looked over his shoulder and lifted an eyebrow. “Though it seems you have assembled quite the crowd. Well done.” Loki’s gaze stuttered past Tony; the crack in his facade was there as fast as it was gone.

Tony remembered the terror in Loki’s face when he realized Odin had found him. What had been a mere two weeks ago seemed like ages. This Loki was changed: guarded, but healthy. It seemed Asgard had provided the cure when Tony could not.

And they were putting him on trial to be executed.

**

There were some formalities, reading out names of the Council members, a vague summary of the previous days that likely made sense had you attended. From there, they moved straight into accusing Loki of killing his brother.

Yeah, that didn’t surprise Tony much.

Loki’s eyes flickered between the Council and Thor, who grimly watched the proceedings from Odin’s side.

Tony found himself enraptured by the tale of Loki almost killing Thor. He had read the SHIELD reports on the battle in Puente Antiguo, though hearing the facts laid out from Asgard’s point of view was something else. The destruction wreaked on Earth and the lives lost weren’t given any consideration. Instead, hours of discussion were focused on the abuse of Asgardian weaponry, on precedent—kings killing family members—and on how secured Loki’s position as regent had been at the time.

“How worried are we about this one?” Tony leaned back to address the warriors.

Sif muttered something unflattering under her breath.

“All charges will be dismissed.” Fandral’s face was carefully neutral, and he was patting his coiffed hair to make sure it was still in place.

“That easily?” Tony’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline.

“Loki was the regent,” Hogun said. “There are very few things that he could be charged for, and in doing so, Odin would admit that he, as king, is open to judgment in turn.”

“Why is it on the agenda, then?” Tony asked.

“Thor pushed for it,” Fandral nodded to the front. “Watch.”

The whispers in the hall fell silent when Thor descended to take the floor. When he spoke he looked directly at Loki.

“Shortly after my banishment, the political climate was fraught with complications and upheaval. You had not intended to take the throne, facing an impending war with the Jotuns. Father and I left you to manage a realm that was precariously imbalanced.

“I do not fully understand why you made those decisions then, but I know in my heart that you would not repeat them now. In defeating Malekith, you saved all of us from devastation. Without your sacrifice, your readiness to give your life, Asgard would have faced further war within her borders, and all the Nine would have fallen into a millennium of darkness.

“Let what happened in the past not stand between us. I love and forgive you, as a brother and friend.” Thor stood for a moment longer, letting the words sink in. When he then returned to Odin’s side, climbing the tall staircase, his steps rang loud in the dead silence. There was genuine grief on Loki’s face, his gaze following Thor.

Fandral lifted an eyebrow at Tony: see?

“Pretty sentiments hardly change what he has done,” Sif said quietly, anger simmering behind her eyes and fingers tapping her arms. “He’s always been jealous, but none of us thought he’d go that far. None of us knew of the depth of his hatred. He’s a liar and a traitor, and he couldn’t bear seeing Thor crowned.”

“Of course, the coronation was rather early—” Fandral began.

Sif’s whisper turned into an angry hiss. “So what? He couldn’t sit quietly and help Thor by giving council? We all were ready to do that. But no, he decided that killing him—”

“Sif,” Fandral said sharply. He meaningfully looked over his shoulder, to the surrounding audience throwing them curious glances.

“We’re here to aid Thor,” Hogun said.

Sif sat tensely, muscles in her jaw jumping. “I’m going to get some air.” She stood and pushed past Volstagg with such vigor that he almost fell from his seat. Several heads turned to watch her stomp away and the crowd parted easily before her.

“Okay, what’s her issue?” Tony asked.

“She’s in love,” Volstagg rumbled, arms crossed over his belly and eyes soft. “And Thor hasn’t even noticed.”

Fandral shot him a reprimanding look. Volstagg lifted his shoulders as though to say: it’s true.

As predicted, by the end of the day it was decided that Loki would face no punishment. And being led out, heavily guarded and in chains, he still projected the air that he was allowing this to happen and that he could get out this predicament at any time.

Tony, on the other hand, was ready to combust and hiding it badly. If it hadn’t been for the crowd clogging up the exits, he’d have been gone the second the trial adjourned.

Thor managed to catch his eye while jogging down the stairs from the throne. His smile was both stiff and too wide as he clasped Tony’s shoulder. “My friend, we have much to discuss.”

**

Early evening found them on Thor’s private balcony. Thor was leaning over the marble railing, limned in the light of the sinking sun: loose hair formed a near-white halo around his face, and the reflection of Asgard’s palace painted his skin a bright gold. Before him stretched the flat disk of a planet he was born to rule: teeming with life between high-rising buildings, floating platforms containing plazas and markets, the ocean that tumbled into endless spray into the wider universe; all of it polished and perfect, and utterly impossible.

“You guys really like your kitsch.” Tony gestured with his piece of flatbread at the gold, and marble, and general decadence. Thor sighed and wandered over to drop into a cushioned seat between carved pillars and flowering vines.

“Midgard’s architecture is more practically minded,” Thor agreed as he picked his way through the platters laden with food.

“No kidding.”

“Is the juice to your liking?” Thor lifted his eyebrows with a bit of mockery that made his relation to Loki abundantly clear. He took a long drink from his ‘ale’; from five feet away, it still smelled like drain cleaner.

Tony took a sip of what was extremely strong, extremely sweet wine. “Does it come in a box with a straw? I’d love to take some to the trial.”

“I could ask the kitchens—”

“Joke, buddy, it was a joke.”

Thor laughed and shoveled more food onto his plate. Tony looked from the bowls overflowing with meat and vegetables to the tray laden with puddings and pastry. He turned his half-eaten piece of bread in his hands, then threw it onto the table and leaned back, arms crossed over his chest.

“So. How do we get him out?”

“At this time, it would be best if the trial turned out in his favor.” Thor said around a full mouth. “If he were cleared of the charges, he’d be free to live out his life on Asgard as he pleased.”

“Isn’t Odin the one in charge of the ruling?” As Tony understood it, Asgard had never adopted a separation of powers: Odin led the armies, laid down the law, and judged those that vexed him.

Thor didn’t meet his eyes and picked over his plate. “The Allfather makes the final decision, though the Council of Nine may weigh in.”

Figured. “Yeah, why do I get the feeling he’s not getting cleared of anything?”

“Father wouldn’t have called for a trial without reason. Some of his deeds have weighed heavily on all Nine Realms, not merely on Asgard. The Council might sway his opinion.” Despite his words, Thor didn’t seem convinced, turning a piece of pastry in his hands, lost in thought.

“What about swaying the Council?” Tony asked.

Thor shrugged and didn’t meet his eyes. “We are working on it, but Loki has made enemies across the realms.”

“So I need to get him the arc reactor.” They had previously discussed this as their best backup plan. Tony had also made it clear that he wasn’t willing to just hand his technology over to Thor unless absolutely necessary.

“He wouldn’t have the opportunity to use it. He can use magic within his cell, but he cannot cast spells that extend past its boundaries. While he is imprisoned, he cannot teleport.”

“And you can’t just open the door?”

Thor looked disgruntled at that. “I broke him out of the dungeons once before. Father has since changed security measures.”

“He needs to take a single step out of the cell. How hard could that be?”

“The chains he wears suppress his abilities.” Thor looked worried when he suggested, “I could overpower the guard when they take him out for his trial.”

That sounded both risky and like they wouldn’t get a second chance if it failed. “Let’s make that plan C. Can we even get the reactor to him with those restrictions in place?”

Thor nodded. “There is a hatch we can use for passing small items, such as food and drink.”

“Great, and he can hide while he’s inside.” Tony mimicked the gesture Loki used to open and close his pocket dimensions. “I want a look at those chains. If we can disable them, he’d be able to get himself out.”

Thor looked hopeful. “That would be a solid plan if it could be achieved.”

“I built a Soul Forge; how much harder could this be?” Though anything used in the punitive branch of Asgard’s justice system was probably built to higher security standards than their medical devices. Meaning Tony might have to create a new set of chains and exchange them for the set they slapped onto Loki each day. “Get me translated blueprints and a workshop, and we’ll figure it out.”

“The artificers libraries will have both.” Hope glimmered in Thor’s eyes, and his smile was blindingly bright. “I am grateful, Iron Man.”

**

On day three of the trial, Tony brought a primer on Asgardian artifice with him. He ended up barely listening to the accusations of the day, only looking up for Loki’s snarky commentary.

There was a memorable moment when a physical fight broke out after Loki said something particularly incendiary about the rainbow bridge’s flawed construction.

“Honestly. Has no one ever thought having no other means of transportation might pose a problem? We know it can be destroyed through Thor’s hammer. Are we willing to accept that any Dwarven-forged weapon might spell the Nine’s doom?”

It took a while for the guards to separate the Dwarf and the Elf. Tony winced as a chunk of hair came away bloody from the Dwarf’s head. No one else lifted so much as an eyebrow, and Loki watched with a slight smile and a curious head tilt.

“So that’s kind of normal for Asgardian trials?” Tony asked.

Sif shrugged. “Tension runs high. And most trials don’t put Elves and Dwarves in the same room.”

“Can’t throw a stone these days without hitting one of them, can you?” Volstagg said.

“May I recommend you stop throwing stones, then?” Fandral joked.

Thor’s friends continued bickering until the trial resumed, but the gist was that Asgard was crowded with visitors from all realms; just as Thor had suggested, it seemed Loki had made a host of enemies across the universe.

**

Tony spent that night breathing the dust of ancient scrolls, reading up on magic restraints. Sleep was a faint siren call that couldn’t touch him in the face of shelves filled with knowledge. He soaked it up by flickering lamplight and under the watchful eyes of the librarians.

Loki had been right. The artificer’s libraries were an engineer’s wet dream.

**

Day four saw Tony with his fidget spinner going in endless circles, flickering, expanding into spinning wheels, and snapping back into his palm. He could hardly bring the books filled with diagrams of chains where others might see, but his mind was working through what he had read throughout the night, dawn, and breakfast, only put aside to jog to the palace. He had arrived minutes after the trial had already started.

“On the genocide of the Jotuns—”

Tony’s thoughts came to a screeching halt. He looked at Loki, who simply stood there, relaxed in a performative way, inspecting his nails. He seemed neither shocked nor disturbed by the accusation.

The summary of the events in question explained little: Loki had pointed the Bifröst at Jötunheim, effectively erasing half of the planet and making the rest uninhabitable, leading to an exodus that scattered the remaining Jotuns across the universe.

Tony’s hands lay still, the fidget spinner a gently humming weight in his palm. His voice seemed to have stopped working, and he cleared his throat twice before addressing the warriors. “Would someone care to catch me up?”

Hogun leaned forward and spoke in a half-whisper. “Loki arranged for the assassination of the Allfather by the Jotun’s King. While he saved Odin, he used the provocation to launch an attack.”

“How is this not at the top of the agenda?” The battle of New York had counted over two hundred casualties, and it had taken Tony time to come to terms with that, only laying his doubts to rest when he’d been sure that Loki had neither wished for it nor would do it again. But this was … “How many died?”

“Jotuns?” Fandral asked and looked to Hogun for confirmation. “A few million, right?”

“Between four and twenty million. It is guesswork. The number of Jotuns hibernating at the time is uncounted, and there are no bodies left to confirm.”

“Wait, and these guys were civilians?” Tony asked faintly.

“I’d argue that point. All Jotuns are trained to fight,” Fandral said.

Tony felt like he was staring up into that abyss that had opened above New York. Eight million people would have died had that nuke landed. How many Chitauri had been killed instead? How many people on Earth had he saved? How many had Tony killed by providing weapons to those that abused them?

Tony had tried to count; sleepless nights spent combing through news reports, research papers, and raw data. It was impossible to get an accurate number. And even his best estimates didn’t matter, for no amount of lives saved could balance those scales. There was blood on Tony’s hands. How much did it matter that he had never personally pulled the trigger?

Twenty million civilians. Genocide.

“He wore the crown at the time,” Sif said flatly. “Bringing it up is a technicality.”

“Bor wiped out the Dark Elves and he was celebrated as a hero.” But Fandral looked grim and pale, his hands clenched and eyes darting between the current speaker and Loki.

“Never like this,” Volstagg rumbled. “Never without cause. Asgard and Jotunheim had a truce, and Loki broke it. And for what?”

“I never understood that,” Fandral said softly, as though to himself. “He’s one of them. Those were his people. How does he live with it?”

(Tony hadn’t stopped building weapons until he fell victim to his own technology. And some days, Tony couldn’t live with it.)

Heimdall had taken the stage, speaking of the events of the day and what he had observed: Loki had immobilized him, hijacked the rainbow bridge, and then attacked Thor as though all reason had fled him.

For once, Loki had nothing to say. He was looking at the tips of his boots, shoulders a tense line, expression closed off. Heimdall said something particularly unflattering about Loki’s illusions, and Loki looked up long enough to scowl. His eyes slid to Tony in the crowd, and he froze, eyes wide and questioning.

It wasn’t Heimdall’s words that worried him or Odin’s forbidding glare; Loki was watching Tony for his judgment.

It hit Tony like a sack of bricks: Loki hadn’t told him on purpose because the thing Tony could barely forgive—the battle of New York—was the tip of an iceberg of atrocities. Loki had wielded power over nine planets, each with a population equal to Earth’s, and he had used that power to destroy one of them.

Suddenly, Tony was absolutely sure that he’d never mentioned it because he needed Tony’s help.

The force of his anger blindsided him, and he felt he’d suffocate if he breathed the same air as Loki for another second. He stood, grabbed the suitcase, and, without a word of explanation, left the room. Loki’s gaze trailed him out of the shadows of Asgard’s throne room and into the bright light of day.

**

“Cleared your head?” Fandral asked him when Tony returned from his walk, halfway around the palace and through a couple of picturesque gardens, until he stopped feeling like he was going to scream. The look in his eyes was knowing.

“It’s not my fault none of you people take lunch breaks.” He sat down, setting the suitcase down heavily. He hadn’t needed it, but he didn’t dare leaving it behind in this place. Everything felt dangerous.

Fandral was silent for a moment. “A lot of this is news to you, isn’t it?” he asked, quietly enough that none but their little group heard. The question wasn’t without kindness.

“How about you mind your own business, Puss in Boots?”

Fandral snorted and exchanged a glance with Volstagg, who suggested, “Don’t do it.”

Fandral considered that for a moment, watching the trial play out. “Did Loki give you that bracelet?” What a harmless-sounding question when it was spoken with a smile.

Tony’s hand flew to his wrist, where it sat, a burning reminder of his loyalties. He had thought about tearing it off on his walk. He couldn’t, and didn’t that tell him a lot about his own humanity in the face of moral quandary? “What? Are you jealous?”

Fandral grinned and shook his head. Then he asked, lightly, “Does his silver tongue hold up in bed?”

“Fandral,” Hogun said flatly, a warning.

“We were all thinking it,” Sif commented, not taking her eyes from the current speaker.

Tony took a moment to process that. There was a white-hot rage boiling through him, searing his thoughts away and leaving nothing but the need to hit something. Tony didn’t dare move. He breathed, slowly, in and out, until it calmed to a simmer. His hands were tightly clenched around the bracelet, leather searing against his skin, teeth grinding, and his irritation, the frustration of the day, was eating away at him. The trial was drawing to a close, the sun low enough that it would be only another hour or so before they’d put Loki away again.

What the hell.

He stood, grasped the suitcase, and fixed Fandral with a glare. “You wanted a demonstration? I’m giving you one. You and me, outside. Now.”

Fandral gave him a regretful grin and shook his head. “Thor would have my head.”

Sif stood, her ponytail swinging and her eyes sparking with the promise of violence. “Let him try to take mine. I accept your challenge, Iron Man.”

Chapter Text

“Let him try to take mine. I accept your challenge, Iron Man.” Sif stood abruptly and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. She pointed to the exit with her chin. “Let’s use the arena. The games have been canceled anyway.”

Tony hesitated for a second, but, hell, he needed to hit something, and if it was neither Loki’s nor Fandral’s face, he’d take Sif’s. He had trained with Nat often enough to know that slender, soft hands still made him bleed. “Ladies first.”

She snorted in an unladylike manner and led them to a side exit. Thor’s warriors were following, visibly eager to escape the trial.

The daylight was blinding after the half-shade of the throne room, the air cutting, and the sky a deep blue. They boarded one of the skiffs bobbing mid-air and embarked towards a floating arena, sized to hold half of Asgard’s population. The silence was tense when they alighted at the edge of the sandpit. Tony awkwardly climbed out of the skiff hovering a foot above the ground, landing with a bit of a wobble after the Asgardians’ easy jumps. An alarmed set of guards jogged towards them, though a hollered greeting from Sif slowed them down. It seemed that they weren’t technically supposed to be here and that she was respected enough that she could bend a few rules.

Sif walked into the open space, hips swinging in a way Tony would have found alluring at any other time. At the moment, he focused on the ease with which she hefted up the shield, the way her feet found purchase in the sand. The sharp edges of her double-sided sword glinted in the sunlight, anticipation tensing the muscles of her naked arms.

“What is this, exactly? A fight for Loki’s honor?” Tony took in the arena: there was no usable terrain to speak of, just ground and sky in the center of a golden bowl. He could work with that.

“If you want it to be.” Sif sounded like she didn’t give a damn. “I’m just tired of listening to him lie and scheme his way through that trial.”

“Okay. If I win, you’ll stop saying that kind of crap about him.” Tony dropped the suitcase on the side of the pit and kicked it open. Grabbing the handles, he lifted the chest plate and let it assemble around him. Sif smiled sharply at him as the helmet closed over his face.

“Well. You’ll first have to beat me.”

JARVIS was still coming online when she sprang for him.

Engaging the thrusters, Tony evaded her in the nick of time. Her blades sparked across his chest. He sent a series of blasts after her: the first one caught her by surprise between the shoulder blades; the second one hit her arm as she turned; the third and fourth hammered against her shield. The blade was spinning in her hand, and a grin was forming on her face.

Her battle cry echoed when she ran for him, and Tony took off into the sky with a boom and a cloud of dust. She jumped, easily clearing the height of a house, and Tony scrambled to twist out of the path of her sword. She redirected to hit him with the other end. Tony caught the blade with a gauntlet and stopped it short, metal screeching. It embedded itself in the armor, cutting through joints; Tony’s armor was built to withstand bullets and explosions, but, fuck, Asgardian weapons were something else.

She set a boot to his chest and pushed off, dislodging her sword from his grip, ponytail trailing her backflip in a perfect arc against the blue sky. Tony sent her off with a cluster of blasts that she shielded against.

The fight was quick and intense. Sif was good—tactically better than Thor, if not physically stronger—but Tony eventually managed to grab her from behind and eliminate her range almost completely. She dropped her sword to grab his head and pull, the helmet groaning in its hinges, and Tony engaged the hind-thrusters to slam her face-first into the ground.

She bucked, and his busted gauntlet sparked; he lost his grip. She flipped herself over with a roar, teeth bared, and punched him hard enough that he fought for his balance. They grappled and rolled in the dust, the kind of fight that you got into in dark alleys behind bars, not in golden arenas. It was ugly and messy, and Tony didn’t care, had no time to care, frustration and anger pouring out of him. He managed to grab her neck; the repulsor hummed alive in warning, illuminating her skin to rose red from within.

“Gotcha,” he panted.

Sif stared up at him, chest heaving, blood streaming from her nostrils, and sand in her hair. Her grin was fierce and joyful. “I yield.”

“Smart,” Tony said and let the repulsors die as he got up. He held out his hand.

She took the gauntlet without a second thought, letting him pull her up. Wincing, she rolled her shoulders and limped to collect her sword. “Norns, I needed that. Let’s drink to shield brothers and allies.” Tony hesitated, and she laughed and thumped him on the shoulder, hard enough that he stumbled forward. “The trial is done for the day. Let’s feast for tonight and take our minds off things.” She seemed to mean it, too.

Tony was not sure he wanted to go drinking with the lot of them. He still followed her to the skiff. Fandral paused commenting on the fight to his companions to give him an interested look.

“You want a turn, Puss in Boots?”

“I will pass,” Fandral said. “Though I never thought I’d see a mortal, of all things, fighting for Loki’s ‘honor.’ I’d have loved to see his honor make an appearance anytime in the last decade.”

Tony had had enough of this guy. He snapped up his palm and blasted the smug smile right off Fandral’s face. He stumbled and almost fell.

Volstagg seemed alarmed as he caught Fandral’s arm, Sif laughed, and Hogun subtly reached for his mace. Fandral straightened and brushed singed hair from his eyes—the repulsor had left a dark-red mark on his face—and glared daggers at Tony. “I won’t fight you, if only because Thor thinks of you as a friend.”

“Then how about you shut your trap,” Tony’s throat strained with the effort to repress shouting, “and start treating Loki like a person rather than a caricature and a pariah. Fine, you guys have history, but guess what? People change all the damn time. I don’t give a fuck whether you like him; he deserves to be heard, and he deserves a chance to clean up his mess!”

Loki had done terrible things, and Tony genuinely couldn’t argue if someone decided he deserved to be locked away for the rest of his life. Tony knew Loki regretted what he had done under Thanos, that he blamed himself despite the mind control, and that he wanted to fix the damage he’d done if he could. But the thing with the Frost Giants was so convoluted that Tony had no idea what to think. With the information he had right now, he wasn’t even sure that Loki wouldn’t do that again. He just didn’t know.

Because nothing in Tony’s life could ever be easy.

Fandral stared at him, wild-eyed with anger. “Have I ever given you the impression I wasn’t giving him a chance? You’re seeing enemies where there are none and friends where there are traitors.” He spat blood into the sand between them. “And I do hope his dick was worth it when he shows his true face.”

Tony’s broken gauntlet clicked when he tightened his fist. “What is this obsession with his dick, huh? Are you jealous?”

Fandral’s hand landed on his weapon the same moment that Volstagg grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Leave it be,” Hogun told him. “You’re achieving nothing right now.”

Fandral stared past Tony and took a deep breath. “It’s been a long day. I will leave while we’re still allies.” He turned around and walked away.

Sif had watched the exchange from the sidelines. She had wiped most of her face clean of blood, but a single smear from her nostril to ear remained. When the warriors got on the skiff, she told them to go on without her and watched them take off. Instead, she cocked her head and considered Tony. “I’ll get us a ride.”

Tony wanted her to fuck off. He just wanted to fly out of this mess; he missed flying, he missed clearing his head away from the crowds, he missed not feeling powerless. But he didn’t want Odin to spot Iron Man in the sky, either, simply because Tony couldn’t find an outlet for his frustration.

“Fine.” He stepped out of the armor—folding up, it hitched around the broken gauntlet—and picked up the suitcase.

Sif had the guards send for a skiff, and they waited in silence long enough for bruises to set in and Tony’s limbs to stiffen, long enough for him to begin regretting some of this whole foolish episode. He should know better; he should be better than beating up some random, bigoted asshole. But when Sif climbed into the boat, she held out a hand to help him inside without visible animosity, so that was something.

“I guess I’ve made an enemy today,” he admitted as she pulled him up.

She laughed and shook her head, eyes sparkling with mirth. “Fandral deserved that one, and he knew it. It’ll be fine.”

The boat alighted by the palace’s balconies closest to Tony’s quarters, saving him the usual trek through hallways and elevators. They disembarked, and when he turned to say his goodbyes, the hesitant expression on Sif’s face stopped him.

“These kinds of battles are difficult, the ones waged with words rather than steel. My personal feelings aside, I’m glad you get to fight for him.”

“Never got the impression you cared much.” Tony was still feeling querulous.

Sif barked a laugh, and she tossed her hair over her shoulder; strands had escaped her ponytail, blood matted her hairline, and dust had set into the pores of her skin. “Oh, I don’t like him. But he was our friend for a long time, and he blindsided us— You know the story, and I won’t repeat it, but it made me realize that I haven’t known him in a while. I’m aware my anger has less to do with him and more with …” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat and started again. “If Thor had never been sent to Midgard …” She trailed off again, and her eyes glazed with memories as she looked out over Asgard’s skyline, over the glinting roofs of a peaceful world.

If Thor hadn’t been sent to Midgard, he would never have met Jane. But Tony had seen the way Thor looked at Sif—as a friend, a companion—and he wondered whether anything would have turned out differently had he stayed. Hell, he had no interest in getting caught up in this, either way.

“Yeah, well. I’m not exactly happy with Loki right now.”

Sif sighed. She looked wistful and sad in the light of the sinking sun. “You weren’t there when Odin sent Thor to Midgard. It was an awful mess. Thor was gone, our king was on the verge of death, the queen was grieving, and Loki … he shut us out, treated us like subjects rather than friends, and Thor like an enemy. He didn’t accept help from anyone. And the things he did …” She looked down sharply and bit her lip, considering her next words. “There is one open secret that Loki wouldn’t have told you about.”

“Oh boy, what a surprise,” Tony deadpanned. He wasn’t sure he could take anything else right now.

“He is a practiced liar.” Sif shrugged. “You do know that Loki fell into the void at the end of his regency?”

“Thor mentioned it.”

“It was an attempt to end his own life. Make of that what you will.”

“Okay.” Tony wished he was surprised by that. But Loki had clamored for Tony to kill him back when he was poisoned and dying. Shit. Why did Tony have to fall in love with the most broken, most dangerous person he could find? “Anything else you want to throw at me? Any other tidbits I can think about all night instead of sleeping?”

Sif laughed and shook her head. “For what it’s worth, I hope that you’re right about him. I hope he has changed, for his sake as well as yours.” She clasped his shoulder in goodbye, and her hand landed closer to the neck, halfway to the intimate Asgardian greeting. If Tony couldn’t bring himself to return it, he still appreciated it.

**

The better part of a week passed, and Tony didn’t attend the trial. Instead, he spent all his time in a small workshop located high up in the towers of the palace. It was more familiar than his official rooms, and he began sleeping in the shop rather than taking the elevators back down.

Tony was still polishing the last of the ornamented chain links when his alarm went off; he startled so that he spilled his tea over the library books, then cursed and wiped off the paper, splattering his pants in the process. He donned his watch—just in case, seeing that he couldn’t bring the suitcase—scooped the chains and his spare arc reactor into a backpack, and snuck through darkened corridors to meet Thor by his rooms.

They took small passages, likely built for servants, to pass unseen. Tony didn’t know how Thor had arranged it, but they didn’t encounter a single soul on their way down to the dungeons.

At the top of the staircase leading down, Thor stopped and turned to him. “I will let you speak to him by yourself, but keep in mind that we don’t have much time.”

Tony slung the backpack from his shoulder and pulled out the chains, flowing like golden liquid in the firelight. Forging them, he’d thought the design unnecessarily complicated, but the result was stunning. These, of course, would not repress Loki’s magic, though the visual and haptic effect should be the same. “I will see you in twenty.”

Thor nodded, grim-faced, and turned to break into the guard rooms and make the swap.

As Tony descended into the darkness of the dungeons, his stomach filled with butterflies. He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. Doubt, nervousness, residual anger beat against his skin like a drum.

The dungeons were an echoing cavern, dark and dimly lit by the glowing walls of the cells and wall sconces. Tony passed dozens of cells, mostly empty. They were holding Loki at the far end of the dungeon, out of earshot and eyesight of casual inhabitants. He turned a corner and came to an abrupt stop as he spotted Loki, closer than he thought he would be.

Loki was sitting against the back wall of the large, gold-shimmering cage, eyes wide and shocked. He didn’t look like he’d been sleeping, either, his features sharp and hollow with exhaustion.

(Loki had killed millions before he ever made it to Earth.)

“I assume we don’t have much time.” Loki rose, and there was an ease to his movements that Tony had never seen before, not even during the invasion: smooth, as though he was made from water, deliberate, and efficient. A predator.

(What else had Loki not told him?)

“We don’t,” Tony agreed flatly. He walked up to the cell, looking for the hatch that Thor had described to him. “How do you manage to look both worse and better than the last time we talked?”

“I did spend weeks under the careful administrations of the royal healer.” Loki’s eyes followed him as he walked around to find the cell’s service hatch. It was secured with a code, four simple digits.

“And your magic?”

“As though it was never gone.”

“Good then.” Tony said. He began punching in the code to unlock the door. The arc reactor was pressing against his back, and doubt was gnawing at his guts, slowing his hands until it seemed impossible to move.

(Giving Loki the chance to run if he needed to was the right thing. Wasn’t it?)

“Oh,” Loki said softly. “I thought I lost that.”

Tony’s hand stilled and hovered over the last number. The bracelet had slipped from his sleeve, black leather and a hint of the silver clasp visible. Loki’s eyes were glued to it, and when they flickered to Tony’s face, there was a question in his eyes.

(Was he doing the right thing? Or was he simply, foolishly in love?)

“I took it from Vanaheim.” Tony had forgotten he wore the damn thing (he never took it off, not really, though he now wondered whether he should). “Don’t read too much into it. Seems like I don’t know you half as well as I thought I did.”

Loki hadn’t moved and was watching him intently. His eyes flickered from Tony’s stilled hand to his face. The smile that stretched his mouth was as fake as they came.

“Have I scared you?” he asked softly.

“You’ve been lying to me.” Tony closed the control panel with a snap and rested his hand on it, his thumb running along the seal of the lid.

“No.” Loki said and turned to him. He didn’t wear a cape, his clothes were simple and comfortable, but the gesture seemed designed for one to flow out behind him: grand enough to address an audience. “I have never lied to you. Not once.”

“Don’t get technical with me. You failed to mention that you wiped out half a planet, no mind control involved. You let me think that you were innocent.” Tony took a step back, spine straight and fists by his side.

“If you truly believed that, I won’t take blame for it. Innocence is a concept for children. None of us are without blame.” Loki’s voice dipped into a lower register, and a shiver ran down Tony’s spine.

“Bullshit. You knew what you were doing.”

“What was I doing?”

“That’s what I want to know. No one commits genocide on a goddamn mood swing!”

“Thor's ancestors have.” Matter-of-fact, calm.

“I know you measure everything against your dad’s morals, but, surprise, I don’t give a fuck about him!” Tony slammed his fist down on the lid of the control panel. “I care about you! You cannot pretend this doesn’t matter!”

A muscle in Loki’s jaw jumped. “I admit, I thought you might not forgive this one.” His voice quivered on the word ‘forgive.’ Loki dropped his eyes. He offered no further explanation. Whether he was searching for honest words or ways to dissemble, Tony didn’t know.

“Goddammit, Loki. At least give me a reason.” Tony made sure his voice was hard; he pressed it flat in his mouth until it wasn’t a plea.

Loki’s hands twitched. His thumb and forefinger were rubbing against each other nervously. He still didn’t look Tony in the eye. The silence was heavy, a gulf between them, just another wall that separated them. Tony swallowed to stop the rant that was building in his chest. He wanted to know—he had to know—and Loki clearly was trying to find a beginning.

After what felt like an eternity, Loki softly began, “You know what it is like to be born for a purpose.”

Tony’s stomach sank. He had never thought of his own childhood in those exact terms, but he knew what Loki was going for.

“Seven hundred years. That’s how long I was prepared to inherit the throne. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t think about ruling the Nine, and I dreaded it as much as I anticipated that burden. It was the only trajectory I was given, the only favorable outcome to my life. When Odin announced that Thor would be king, I knew I had failed.

“Do you know what that is like? To be presented with who you’re supposed to be and constantly fall short? To labor in the shadow of another’s greatness, to try until you bleed, and to finally, after centuries, understand it was futile? That there was no way out? That you would never be equal to those you thought kin?

“I never had a chance. No matter how I bettered myself, no matter how hard I worked, I was a Frost Giant. I shouldn’t even exist on Asgard, never mind rule it.

“When I learned of my heritage, I didn’t want to accept that. I couldn’t believe myself to be that.” He met Tony’s eyes, and there was desperation in his face. “You must understand, it felt completely ridiculous. It was like finding out you’re an animal in disguise, and that everyone around you has been pretending, for your benefit, that you’re one of them. It didn’t seem real, and I still thought I could change Odin’s mind. I had to believe I could prove myself, that he had meant it when he pitted Thor and me against each other, over and again. It was the only way I could rise above my ancestry. So I took stock of all that stood between myself and Father’s—” He cut himself off with a noise of distress at the obvious slip-up. He swallowed convulsively, once, twice, closed his eyes, and breathed. His fingers wiped away tears before they fell. And he relaxed, the way a landslide settled atop a devastated patch of countryside.

“I could not remake myself as Aesir. So I remade the world until it didn’t matter: I removed Thor, saved my king’s life, wiped out the Jotuns. All that remained was my loyalty to Odin, strong enough to outshine all that I wasn’t. I had to make myself the only choice to be chosen at all.” His face was stony. “It was foolish of me. And it didn’t change a thing.”

Loki fell into bitter silence, and Tony let the words sink in.

Loki had been at a breaking point; his whole world had been destabilized. No one should have made Loki king—regent, whatever. No one should have put that power in his hands when Loki had only just found out he was a literal monster.

Tony got it. That didn’t mean Tony liked it at all.

He took another step back. Loki’s eyes tracked his feet, then flickered back up to his face. A mask, as immovable as porcelain. And Tony wondered whether, all this time, he had only seen what Loki had wanted him to see. A practiced liar, Sif had called him.

“Do you even regret any of the harm that you’ve done? Or were those tears all for yourself and for show?” Tony’s voice was rough, and he felt queasy.

“That is your question?” Loki asked evenly. He scanned Tony, searching for something. “My regret would make a difference?”

“Not a fan of you having to ask.” Tony’s fingernails dug half-moon bruises into his palm.

“They are dead, Tony. I killed a race of people you didn’t know existed a month ago.” Loki spoke as though talking of the weather. The contrast to his earlier vulnerability was so stark that it was giving Tony whiplash. “Well, most of them. A few stragglers have gone on to become pirates and vagabonds, extorting the weaker races. They aren’t missed. No one cares that they are gone. I suspect you think you do because you don’t know any of them.” Loki shrugged. “Well. You know me.”

“Fuck you.” The words exploded out of him. Tony had mourned Loki; he’d been torn apart when he thought Loki was gone. And when this trial concluded, if Loki died again, Tony was not sure how he could live with that.

Loki sighed and passed a hand over his eyes, features relaxing into exhaustion, as though Tony’s anger had broken a spell. “You should leave.” And Loki looked relieved. As though Tony had given him what he wanted.

An attempt to end his own life.

“I don’t believe you.”

Loki laughed, bitterly and without mirth. “Which part, Iron Man?”

“I don’t believe that you don’t care. Look at me and tell me you wouldn’t change that day.” Tony walked up to the cage to hold Loki’s eyes, close enough that they were but a foot apart. Loki twitched as though he wanted to shrink away from him. “Tell me that, if they let you out of this cage, you’d do it again. Because I don’t believe that you would.”

Loki opened his smiling mouth to speak. And remained silent. He kept looking at Tony, and over time, the mask slowly slid from his face until nothing was left but Loki, his emotions plain as day: Loki was terrified, and Loki regretted, and Loki was so deeply saddened that no words could express it. “What I wish doesn’t matter. I cannot undo it. If death is my payment, then the price is low.” His voice was trembling. “I need you to leave. I thought I wished to see you, but I cannot bear it.”

Tony looked into Loki’s eyes, and he saw his own nightmares: the uncounted number of people that had fallen to STARK weaponry and the nuke wiping out thousands of Chitauri. Yinsen had given Tony a second chance, and Tony was using it to make up for his past.

And Tony wished this was easier. But no one could tell him that Loki didn’t deserve that much: living with the burden to try and make up for past mistakes.

Tony flipped open the access panel to punch in the code, and a hatch opened in the wall, the size of Tony’s palm. Tony slung the rucksack from his shoulder and dug out the spare arc reactor; glowing blue and unmoored from the suit, it looked more like the Tesseract than ever. Loki stood within his cell and stared.

“Does that fit in your pocket dimension?” Tony asked.

“Of course.”

Tony placed it inside the hatch and pushed it toward Loki. As one side of the cubby closed, the other opened. “They’re not going to kill you on my watch.”

Loki extended a hand, fingers uncurling gracefully, and accepted the reactor as though it was the greatest gift. He closed his fist, and the reactor vanished from sight with a gentle green light. When he looked at Tony, his eyes were filled with pained hope.

For a wild moment, Tony imagined disabling the alarms, opening the cell door, and world-walking with him to some unknown planet. Odin would hunt them for as long as he lived, but what did it matter?

(Thor didn’t know how to open the cell doors, and therefore Tony didn’t. Security would be upon them immediately. Thanos was still looking for him. Loki likely was marked with some kind of tracking spell or device. And Asgard would happily execute a human for the crime of breaking a criminal out of the dungeons. It was idiocy, all of it.)

(But damn if Tony didn’t want to just take Loki away from here and be done with this all.)

“Does Asgard do conjugal visits?”

That startled Loki into a laugh, so Tony counted it as a win. “You don’t want to know what that sounded like in Asgardian.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s not a concept if you don’t have a word for it,” Tony grinned. “Anything you need? Snacks, magazines, spending money— do you guys do commission?”

“I feel that I’m learning a lot about the Midgardian penitentiary system right now.”

“Also, you need to stop interrupting people at the trial; it makes you look like the bad guy.”

The corners of Loki’s mouth twitched into a smile. “It also makes them look like idiots.”

“Can’t help being the smartest guy in the room, can you?” Tony said, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. “Unless I’m there, of course.”

“Your hubris is, as usual, astonishing.” It sounded fond.

“Pretty good for a guy that’s not even seven hundred, right?”

“For a fifty-year-old, it isn’t bad.”

“Excuse me, I’m forty-two years old.”

Loki just laughed quietly and looked at him in a way that made Tony’s skin feel too tight, warmth spreading in his chest. But Loki grew somber after a while, and when he spoke, it was to change the subject. “There is something you should know: Odin is aware of Thanos.”

That reframed everything Tony thought he knew. “He knows Thanos messed with your mind?”

“He does.”

“Right.” Tony looked at his sneakers, distinctly incongruous on the gold-veined marble. This didn’t make a lick of sense. “Why am I here, then? What am I testifying to if he knows that you weren’t at fault for Midgard?”

“I’ve been wondering,” Loki said. “He has indicated that he means to remove me from causing further ruin as Thanos’s agent.”

“Why hold a trial, then? Why not lock you up and throw away the key?”

“Not only that, but the trial draws out unnecessarily, padded with offenses easily dismissed—” Loki’s words broke off, and his eyes flickered towards the staircase, suddenly sharp. “Someone is coming.”

Tony didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to return to his grand, empty room, or to Thor, even. “We’ll get you out,” he promised.

“Just be there. If … if this doesn’t work …” Loki seemed stunned for a moment, uncharacteristically lost for words.

When Tony understood, it punched the air from his lungs: Loki was asking to not die alone. “Okay,” he said voicelessly, because what else could he do? Deny that death was a possibility? And though he hoped direly that it wouldn’t be necessary, he’d fight tooth and nail to get Loki out. “You know I won’t let it come to that.”

Loki laid a hand against the pillar next to the force wall, which sparked at his proximity. “Don’t make promises that you cannot keep,” he said quietly.

He lifted a hand in goodbye and began walking away, then suddenly remembered a very important detail and turned on his heels, walking backwards. “Those kinky chains they put on you? I heard they had a flaw. Third link from the neck, twisted clockwise. Give it a try.”

A slow smile spread over Loki’s face in understanding. “How many days did you make it without a workshop?”

“Two?”

Loki laughed.

“In my defense, I needed one of those days to find the libraries. Which are boring as hell unless you get special access.” Tony shrugged and turned around, and only then allowed himself a grin and the warm feeling of victory. (He was doing the right thing.) He took the stairs out of the dungeons two steps at a time, and when he reached the hallway, he could hear raised voices.

He cursed inwardly and ducked into an alcove, watching Odin, bristling with anger, pacing and pointing. Thor had planted himself between Odin and the guards, his face stony.

“Do my commands mean nothing to you? Have I raised an unruly child or a future king of Asgard?”

“Father, I—”

“Don’t argue with me!” Odin pointed to the guards. “Back to your stations, and I will know if you let my fool of a son distract you again.”

The guards stood to attention and barked their obedience before taking their posts. They moved past Tony and down the stairs. At least one of them saw him, but none of them said a word. Odin’s back was to Tony, and he waited for the men to leave before he continued speaking in low tones.

“Have you lost trust in your king?”

Thor flushed and lowered his gaze. The lie was obvious when he said, “Of course not.”

Odin heaved a world-weary sigh. “I need you to set aside your feelings and leave Loki be. This is a matter that exceeds familial loyalties.”

“It isn’t right,” Thor said, dropping any attempt at deception. “If you pardoned him, he would stand for Asgard! He has been aiding Midgard in rebuilding and healing after the Chitauri invasion, and he would do the same on any of the Nine!”

“And do you believe that enough?” Odin let out a bark of mirthless laughter. “What’s done is done! The Norns have woven him tightly into their tapestry, and there is no extracting him without tearing it apart; cutting him free now would spell Asgard’s doom!”

“I don’t understand,” Thor said pleadingly, and he sounded much younger than Tony was used to.

“Leave it be, son.” Odin clasped his shoulder to lead him away. “Come, sunrise is almost upon us, and there is much to be done. Even in the face of Loki’s trial, Asgard still has need of her king.”

Tony waited with bated breath until they had left and then snuck, as quietly as he could, through the silent corridors of Asgard’s palace.

**

“—an army of the Chitauri hivemind into Midgard, under orders by one called Thanos—”

The fidget toy spun in Tony’s hands as he listened to Heimdall’s description of the battle, oddly detached from a spectator’s point of view. Tony recognized the scenarios: most from debriefings and footage that had burned itself into his mind, some from memories that still plagued his dreams.

Heimdall had barely finished the story of the capture of Loki before Tony rose from his seat. His blood was pounding in his ears—stage fright as he had not known it since his late teens—and he climbed down to the central aisle. Meanwhile, Thor had taken the stage and was adding detail to Heimdall’s observations, answering clarifying questions by the Council.

“You offered him the salvation of returning him home, and he still continued with the destruction?” the Elven king asked, fingers drumming impatiently against the arm of his throne.

“I thought him too far gone to save,” Thor answered. “After surviving his fall from the Bifröst, he was forced into our enemy’s service. I did not recognize my brother then, for it was the Titan commanding his mind and looking out of his eyes.”

The Council’s attention, as one, shifted to Loki, whose mouth pressed into a flat line, muscle jumping in his jaw.

“And you expect us to believe that?” the Elf asked. His pitch-black eyes were terrible to behold, and a shiver of fear ran down Tony’s spine.

Loki’s jaw worked, his reluctance plain as day. On Earth, he had protested the mind control for weeks and given the truth away in grudging piecemeal. ‘I knew what I was doing, and regret won’t change that.’ Only once the Soul Forge had shown the Stone’s lingering effect had he admitted the extent to which it had influenced his actions and ambitions. Seeing the pity, disgust, and disbelief that were afforded him now, Tony understood the reluctance. Loki was treated as a traitor and barely Asgardian to begin with—if these people believed his mind had been compromised, too, it might not be an asset.

Finally, Loki said, “The Titan wielded the Mind Stone, if imperfectly, and he wasn’t shy to use it on his followers. The Chitauri were under his influence as well; through the hive mother, he secured their loyalty and removed their sense of self-preservation.”

“I would like to see proof of this wild tale,” the Dwarf said.

“I can assure you that it is true.” Odin hadn’t spoken all morning, and the ring of his voice made the room fall silent. “Though even I don’t know how Loki came into the service of the Titan himself.”

“Clearly, he didn’t mean to invade Midgard!” Thor argued with sudden passion, bolstered by Odin’s support. “Why would you control one that willingly—”

“Your brother will speak for himself,” Odin cut him off.

Tony held his breath. He had never asked that question, but not for lack of curiosity. Some demons were best left untouched. And this issue reeked of the caves of Afghanistan: the kind of experience that Tony thought was best was left forgotten.

But Loki was smiling, sharply, with a hint of madness. “Should I be grateful that you finally bother to ask? Glad for this opportunity to tell you of the threat hanging over the Nine?” His laughter danced in the utter stillness of the throne room. “Thanos is coming for all of us, and here we are, squabbling over my past mistakes as though there wasn’t a war to prepare for—”

“If you cannot answer the question, admit as much!” Odin’s voice rang with anger, and suddenly, he wasn’t a king but a father. Tony took a step in Loki’s direction before he could stop himself. He wasn’t sure what he had meant to do.

“I was tortured to be broken!” Loki bellowed, and his eyes were wide with fury and shining with unshed tears. “Is that what you want to hear? I pledged my loyalty so I could leave his wretched dungeons for long enough to devise my escape. And, despite what you all think of me, it seems I’m not that good a liar, because he didn’t believe me. So, yes, he used the Mind Stone to ravage my magic and mind, and my ambitions were twisted to his desires.

“If you wish to put me out of my misery like a misbehaving dog, then stop humiliating us all in this second-rate theater production! Stop being a coward and just kill me!” Loki was breathing heavily, teeth bared, hair in disarray, and hands flung as wide as the chains allowed. Silence descended over the hall like a heavy blanket.

The one to break it was Heimdall, climbing the stairs to the throne with sudden haste and bending down at Odin’s side to speak into his ear. The king still looked furious when Heimdall straightened and stood at attention.

“The trial is henceforth closed to the public. Those we wish to hear will receive word in time. We will continue in the evening.”

A great shuffling and murmuring filled the hall, rising quickly to a din that drowned out Tony’s thoughts. Loki turned around and glared at the floor, but his hands were shaking, his breath coming too fast.

Tony’s knees were weak when he was bid from the hall, never having gotten to speak in Loki’s favor.

**

Tony, Thor, the Warriors, and Sif received a runner at the tavern, where they were in the process of reaching various states of inebriation. Food had been served, though Volstagg was the only one eating.

“This is going to be fun,” Tony said and poured himself another glass of wine.

Thor, who was pale as a sheet and had been completely silent so far, cleared his throat. “We need to get him out tonight. That kind of insult to the Allfather rarely stands unpunished, not when spoken in public.”

“It’s not going to matter what I say, is it?” Tony said and sipped his drink.

Thor shook his head slowly. “Likely not.”

“Loki is a prince and Odin’s child,” Hogun said. “It might make a difference.”

“It hasn’t seemed to make much difference, so far,” Tony muttered.

“For calling the Allfather a coward, anyone else would have been executed on the spot,” Sif said.

“His lineage is all we can rely on to save him,” Thor said.

**

By the time the trial started, the sun was setting on the horizon, casting the throne room in golds and reds. And though the hall was less crowded, it was hardly empty—on the contrary, the quiet presence of the Council’s armed guards seemed more oppressive.

The intensity of Odin’s glare was unsettling, and if Tony hadn’t been raised on speaking in public, he might have thought better of attempting it now.

He stood before the Council and craned his neck to look up at Asgard’s ruling class, stacked before him like layers on a cake. Thor, who stood by Odin’s side, nodded his encouragement. So Tony mimed a little half-bow he had seen people drop—and if it was sloppy on purpose, who was to blame him—and began.

“Hi, Tony Stark, representing Earth and so forth.” It was genuinely weird to see no recognition in any of the faces when he introduced himself. That generally didn’t happen to Tony. “We have already established that Loki wasn’t at fault for the Chitauri attack, so I’d like to focus on a topic slightly to the left.”

The most normal-looking guy on the Council sighed and deflated slightly. Tony pointed at him as he paced.

“I’m agreeing with this guy; this trial takes forever and it shouldn’t have to. Let’s take a shortcut: whatever you want to punish him for, release Loki to Earth’s custody and let him help clean up that mess. You know why I’d want that? Because he’s already been doing it, and it’s been working out great.”

Loki was watching him with barely veiled interest, shooting looks to Odin every now and then to watch for a reaction. Tony would have loved to know whether he was getting anything, because Odin was about as easy to read as a Nat.

“This one is a mortal?” The Elf asked and, holy hell, Tony seriously couldn’t look into those pitch-black eyes without kind of freezing up. There had to be a scientific explanation for it, but there was one phenomena that Tony was not excited to study in his lab. “Why are we wasting our time with this drivel?”

“Charming. Let me explain.” Tony made an effort to look at anyone but that guy. “I know it’s unusual for a human—that’s what we call ourselves, humans, not mortals—to speak before this Council. I hope to set a precedent for that becoming the norm. Let me explain why.

“A few months ago, Thanos trashed a good part of New York City, and he took from us the last illusion that we were alone in the universe.

“You call yourselves protectors of the Nine, and you count Earth as one of those. So where was Asgard at the time? Where were your troops and your promise of protection? We appreciate Thor’s help, but in the end, he’s just one guy.

“That war left Earth’s governments scrambling to mount a defense against extraterrestrial threats. We’ve been facing a deadly, alien epidemic that has been spreading throughout our cities. And still, we haven’t heard from Asgard.

“You know who helped us fix that mess? Loki.

“Loki, while recovering from near death, in hiding, and hunted by you guys, has begun to offer the kind of help Asgard, as a protector of the Nine, should reasonably extend. He has cured people, cleared out the infected material, and he has given advice and information when you have been absent and silent.

“That conflict didn’t need to be as deadly as it was. But Asgard has made the decision to isolate Earth and effectively cut us out of a larger conversation that we, by rights, should be part of.

“So I ask you to step up, to take your self-proclaimed responsibility seriously, and to build diplomatic ties with the realm you have conveniently been ignoring. We have plenty to offer, but you guys need to bother talking to us.

“And I’ll warn you now: we will not stay quiet or confined to our planet in the next decades, and we’re finding out, right now, who our allies and our enemies are. And, as Thor might tell you, we are not to be trifled with.

“All I ask right now is that you do not execute Loki but release him to Earth so that he may continue to help us rebuild what has been broken. We would count that as a diplomatic effort and the beginning of a larger conversation.”

Tony came to a halt and looked up at Odin; the Allfather’s attention had been split throughout Tony’s speech, his gaze drifting away from Tony to face some point in the distance that Tony couldn’t make out.

“Also, are you listening at all?” Tony made sure his voice carried.

Odin rose to his feet, his eyes raised to the ceiling. At the top of the stairs, framed by the throne and illuminated by the window behind him, he looked impossibly tall. “Given the Council’s agreement, you may have your will, Iron Man. If Asgard still stands at the end of the night.”

“My King!” Heimdall walked past him with long strides. “They have breached the shields—”

The windows darkened, and the blood-red light of sunset was blotted out by something large. Panicked screams drifted into the hall. An explosion bloomed, brighter than the sun, illuminating the throne room in sharp lines of the decorative lattice. The ground trembled.

Odin’s staff came down on the marble with a ringing noise. “Civilians will vacate the area! Warriors to their generals!” He began striding down the steps to the central area of the throne room as the hall erupted into chaos. The Council rose as one and began shouting orders to their assembled guards. None of them seemed surprised.

Oh. Oh, shit.

The increased military presence suddenly made a lot more sense.

Odin’s gaze flickered to Tony as he passed by. “Protect my son at all costs. He cannot fall into enemy hands; his mind is vulnerable.”

“You planned this,” Loki’s voice was thin but rose over the chaos. “You couldn’t let Eir heal me, because you planned for him to see the Stones through my eyes! You drew out the trial, and you assembled the Nine’s armies under the pretense of calling a council. You planned to lure Thanos to Asgard.”

And Odin met his eyes with the first hint of emotion that Tony had seen from him: a deep sadness. “Before your mother died, she had a vision of a catastrophe swallowing the universe. The Titan needs to be stopped, and you are the key.”

Loki’s face twisted into a broken smile, tears in his eyes. “So I was useful to you, in the end.”

Before Odin could respond, the ceiling caved.

Chapter Text

Explosions shook the murals of Asgard’s halls, cracks ran through images of peace and prosperity, and they tore apart the haloed faces of the royal family. Beneath it, more sinister images became visible: wars so old they were almost forgotten. These walls and pillars had held Asgard’s halls for millennia and yet crumbled like sand.

Ragnarök.

Ice poured down Loki’s spine, for he recognized the black bulwark that parted the cloud of smoke and debris. With a mockery of gentleness, it touched down on the eastern edge of the amphitheater. It was the farthest point from Loki in the room and closer than it had been in almost a year.

The seats of the theater had been filled to half, and the soldiers and officials now scattered, either running towards their officers bellowing commands or fleeing the impending battle. Someone flung open the golden gates to the port, and the sky was filled with a dark fleet. Hlidskjálf’s shields were melting in the purple sky.

“Thor! Protect the vaults!” Odin bellowed.

Thor had hunkered down in a fighting stance, lightning sparking from his whirring hammer, ready to face the threat head-on. At Odin’s command, he reluctantly tore himself away, and he pointed Mjölnir at the back exit. “My friends! With me!” The Warriors and Sif began running.

All around the room, the Aesir, Elves, Vanir, and Dwarves drew their weapons. Only a fraction of the soldiers had been in the throne room, and a good number more were spread throughout the city.

Loki barely noticed any of it, for his eyes were glued to the black ship, which was tilting precariously atop its perch. A seam of light cracked its center, and the exit ramp lowered.

Illuminated by a rectangle of blue light stood Thanos.

He towered over his children, made even broader by his full armor. The double-edged sword was nameless, for Thanos did not name tools, and it was as formidable a weapon as the glove on his other hand. And set into one knuckle, the Aether was aglow with the promise of destruction.

Thanos’s eyes found Loki, and Loki forgot how to breathe. He knew he should run, but his feet wouldn’t move. He couldn’t look away. He was bound, without magic, the Other was right behind Thanos—

“Loki!” Tony’s voice broke through the panic, and he shook Tony’s hand from his arm. Loki suddenly remembered that Tony had done something to the chains. Third link from the top. He twisted it, and his bindings fell away with a heavy clunk against the marble floors, returning his magic to him in full.

They needed to leave now. He grabbed Tony, one hand on his shoulder, the other pressed to the arc reactor glowing under his shirt. His palm blotted out the dim blue light. Tony caught onto his wrist, and there was barely controlled fear in his eyes.

Afraid of Loki or the war, Loki didn’t know.

“I will take us away.” Loki’s voice was too high, breaking when it should be stable. Panicked. The spell to put them on Vanaheim—or anywhere safe, if the blasted reactor was trusted to read his desires at all—was already on his fingertips, the arc reactor singing to him with the willingness to transport them away, away, away.

“I don’t have my suit. I left it by my seat,” Tony shouted over the rising din of battle. His fingers were digging into Loki’s wrist. He couldn’t have budged his hand if he tried, but the set of his jaw didn’t allow for discussion; Tony needed his armor. If they ran into anything even remotely dangerous, he was as good as dead without it. Loki knew that.

It still took all his will to let go.

“Quick, then.” A blast of energy hurtled towards them, and he cast a shield blindly. The squealing blast ricocheted and hit the wall behind them. Pillars and plaster came crashing down.

On the other end of the room, Thanos was slowly disembarking, taking in the scenery as his army streamed past him. The open area before the throne was boiling with violence. It appeared that, even without the Mind Stone, Thanos had pulled a tribe or two of Chitauri to his side, but most of his forces were a mixed bunch—the rabble of the universe. Loki was looking for the Other, but he had vanished in the crowd.

Taking two steps at a time, Tony ran up the western steps of the theater, which was mostly empty at this point save for a few stragglers. Loki went with him, holding the shield around them and summoning his daggers.

The spare arc reactor hummed at his fingertips, begging to be used, and he knew he could simply leave if danger became imminent. But leaving Tony would equal Tony’s death, and the thought of that was so unbearable Loki didn’t dare touch it.

In the end, both of them would die if they didn’t leave—of that Loki had no doubt.

Loki had seen this kind of war before; when Thanos was present during invasions, it had always been a massacre. Killing had been one of the prime goals; not a single thought was given to mercy. What exactly his plan was, Loki had never known, and in the face of his bare need for survival, he didn’t care to.

After Thanos had laid pathways of control into his mind, once the Other had taken over, he had been first among the roiling masses, the low-level fighters. He had been proving himself, running the gauntlet, surviving by a hair’s breadth, over and again. His main goal had been to escape correction, for the Other would blithely take his mind from him when necessary. Loki had only needed to wake up once—blood on his hands and bruised to hell, wielded as a tool and weapon—to know he had to avoid it at any cost. And he had done well enough on Midgard in riding that line, convincing Thanos he was doing enough while allowing room for the invasion to fail.

They reached the row of the amphitheater where the suitcase should be, but the fight was thickest surrounding it. Tony stood frozen, assessing the situation. Loki was barely paying attention; he was tracking Thanos as he descended. Thanos hadn’t even unsheathed his sword. A flick of his wrist killed two Einherjar, and his massive fist closed around the head of a charging Dwarf; he crushed it like a ripe melon, gore dripping from his hands. Thanos was carving a path of blood towards Odin, who stood tall before the throne. The shadows were darker surrounding the Allfather, and his eyes were as black as a starless sky. Loki felt oddly detached from the scene, as though watching a memory. A nightmare.

“Can you get me in there?”

It took effort to take his eyes from Thanos. “I can. We might not make it back out.”

Tony was visibly fighting an inner battle, ready to sprint out of the safe bubble of Loki’s shield. “How about teleporting us to STARK Tower so I can get an armor and then back?” There was a wry smile in his voice as though he knew the answer.

“The arc reactor is imprecise. A minute mistake might land us on the other end of the universe instead—or in my mother’s gardens. But it will get us out and to relative safety.” That much, Loki was certain of. The arc reactor was not malicious; it tried to work with Loki, even if it interpreted his commands with the broadest strokes. And, much like its creator, it was distractible and opinionated to the point of obstinacy.

“Then I need the armor.” Tony sounded resigned.

Two fighters were running at them at full tilt, so Loki threw knives at them; one to the eye, the other to the knee. The fighters toppled, and Loki kicked their bodies into the pit to be trampled. “Follow me.”

Loki sent a shockwave of magic ahead of them, parting the fighters like a ship might the waves. At the end of that wedge sat the suitcase, red and gold, kicked half off the edge of the marble steps. He ran, pushing warriors out of the way as he went, killing the ones fighting for the wrong side. Tony was pulled along in his wake, ducking out of the way of battle.

“Got it!” Tony opened the suitcase while Loki shielded him.

A shiver of awareness spread from Loki’s nape, goosebumps running down his arms and back. Loki forgot to breathe.

Oh.

Oh, no.

This wasn’t right; he was supposed to be on the other end of the room. (Loki shouldn’t have looked away.)

“My child.”

Slowly, as though in a dream, he lifted his face. Thanos stood above him, his terrible face framed by his golden helmet. Loki opened his mouth to respond, but his tongue had turned to stone.

“It seems your father betrayed you again,” Thanos said, with a gentleness that filled Loki’s guts with ice. Thanos reached out, his hand open: an invitation to follow, the way a child would a parent. Loki’s hand twitched to take it so he wouldn’t displease. “Running won’t get you far. It never has. But I could forgive your failure and your disobedience.”

Loki wanted to laugh at the pure hubris, but instead his vision was blurring, tears running down his face.

“You are valuable, child. You know where the Stones are. Help me remake the universe, as you had sworn to. There is no further need for controlling your mind if you give in now.”

Loki’s logical mind had shut down, overtaken by the voice in his head that screamed at him to comply, to not fight this, because the punishment would cost him so much more—

A squealing, blue streak of light exploded into Thanos’s face. He blinked and lifted his head to look over Loki’s shoulder.

“I have to ask: do you eat people, or are you just ugly and purple?”

Loki unfroze, took a step back, and blindly reached for Iron Man. He needed to get them out, both of them—

“This is a private conversation.” Thanos lifted his fist. The single gem in his gauntlet sparked, and a red glow laid itself across Iron Man’s helmet. Tony clutched at the faceplate, then opened it. A blank canvas of skin stretched where his mouth had been, and he stared at Loki with wide-eyed panic.

For a moment, Loki could do nothing but stare. Tony could still breathe, but that didn’t seem to help much. With movements made sloppy by fear, Tony fired a blast at the Aether; it deflected uselessly.

Thanos sighed. With a glow of the gauntlet, the ground shivered, then shot up in fine strands. Iron Man’s boots lit up in an attempt to escape, but a tendril caught him by the calves, then another, and he was pulled out of the air, his repulsors stuttering. Stone spun Iron Man in a cocoon that left only his head unimpeded. Tony was straining to get out, but clearly couldn’t budge his prison. He was wildly looking around, trying to find a way out.

“Undo it.” Loki’s voice was thin and shaking. “Kill the rest if you must, but spare this one, and I will follow you.”

“Ah,” Thanos said. The glow of the stone faded, and the marble stopped moving. Tony’s mouth reappeared on his face, and he took a long, gasping breath of air. “So you have found love. I cannot expect your loyalty for me to surpass that, can I?”

Loki’s breath was fast and shallow. He was getting dizzy. He reached for a smile, but his hands were trembling when he spread them, and his timing was all wrong. “Love is for children. Nothing binds me to this man but a debt.”

Thanos shook his head. “You are wrong. Love surpasses all else. A shame that yours makes you less useful.”

Thanos closed his hand, and the stone surrounding Tony began crushing him, the armor creaking and bending. Tony made an animal sound of fear, barely a scream.

“No!” Loki flung a blast of magic at Thanos. It should have been enough to tear a hole into solid rock, but Thanos barely spared him a look while controlling the stone.

“Be quiet. I’m giving you a chance to be made new.” Too fast for Loki to react, he seized his throat and lifted him off the ground.

Loki clawed at his hand, reached for his magic, but in his panic he was lacking control. It sprang from him in green waves that fizzled and died against Thanos’s skin uselessly. He was struggling, violently trying to breathe against the constriction. He didn’t even think Thanos was trying to kill him; he was simply done talking to Loki for a while.

This was it then. Tony would die, and Loki would return to Thanos’s service.

He should have known.

Hot tears sprang to his eyes at his own inadequacy. He hadn’t even been able to save Tony. If he had to return to groveling in the shadows, to Maw’s torture and the Other’s discipline, then at the very least, he would have wished for Tony to be safe. To live. Tony was beloved by his friends. Surely he would have found happiness with them, if only for a while until Thanos razed it all to the ground.

Out of nowhere, Thanos roared in pain. He flung Loki to the floor, and Loki rolled and came to a stop like a rag doll. He looked up, heaving for breath.

Golden prongs shot from Thanos’s arm, their barbs retreating with a pound of his flesh. Gungnir struck once more, lightning fast, but Thanos ducked and lunged for her wielder.

Odin twisted out of the way midair like a wraith, his feet not touching the ground. His eyes were obsidian black, smoke pouring from his nostrils. The use of dark magic had sunken his cheeks, and the veins at his temples stood out as though poisoned.

“You’re a fool to set foot on Asgard,” Odin’s voice carried like a terrible thing, like the echo of a landslide at the bottom of a valley.

“Am I the fool? Or is it the little king that stands in my way?” The Reality Stone glowed blood-red, and the wound in Thanos’s arm knitted shut before their eyes. He closed his hand around his sword hilt. “Odin One-Eye. You have grown old.”

Gungnir stabbed at him, but Thanos wove out of its way like a dancer and drew his sword to parry. His hand clamped around Gungnir’s shaft, the gauntlet holding it firm—a move that should not have been possible, no one caught Gungnir out of the air—and twisted it out of Odin’s hands as though it was nothing. The Reality Stone glowed, and the spear melted like butter. In Thanos’s bloodied palm, only the Space Stone was left solid. He held it up to the light.

“A fake. I heard that you think of yourself as cunning.” The stone crumbled to dust between Thanos’s fingers. “Where did you hide it?”

Odin’s fist closed by his side, and the marble that encased Tony crumbled. He barked at Loki, “Run, you foolish child!”

Loki twisted around and grabbed Tony, pushing him back as he smacked a hand to the arc reactor.

“Work with me,” he pleaded with the reactor, though he looked at Tony. And Tony nodded, pale as a sheet and still trying to catch his breath.

There you are, a voice rang in Loki’s mind. His eyes jerked to meet those of the Other, standing above the chaos next to the throne.

“No,” Loki whispered.

**

Tony didn’t comprehend—or rather didn’t want to think about—what had been done to him or how. But he knew they needed to get out. Thanos had shrugged off repulsor blasts and magic as though they were nothing, and Loki seemed too afraid to fight him with any sort of strategy. Odin had bought them valuable seconds, and Tony would gladly let Asgard deal with this attack on their own.

“Work with me,” Loki begged and held him by the shoulder, the other hand splayed over the arc reactor, and his hands began glowing green. The next moment, his face went slack. Loki looked at him with eyes that were bright blue.

“Oh shit.”

Loki slammed him to the staircase, rattling him inside the armor like marbles in a tin can. Tony engaged the thrusters too late, and instead of going up, he took them both sideways and through the fighting masses. He evaded swinging swords, rolled them between the legs of a giant, then took them up and above the fight. He kept spinning mid-air as Loki's fingers dug into the metal plates to dismantle his armor. A dagger materialized in Loki’s hands, and Tony banked just in time to throw him off-course; it scraped his midsection instead of piercing it.

“Loki!” he shouted as he slammed him to the wall high above the floor. Not hard enough to knock some sense back into his head, going by Loki’s wordless snarl. They slid down while grappling, Loki wedging fingers into joints of the armor. His hands were glowing with magic, and the Mark V began creaking and peeling in a way that was deeply unsettling.

“Oh no, you don’t!” The uni-beam powered up and erupted with a roar. It blasted Loki backwards and away, while Tony hit the wall so hard that the stone cracked.

Tony came to his feet to find Loki circling him. They had made it to a balcony overlooking the throne room, open on three sides. A row of chairs had been pushed against the back wall.

“I know you’re in there. I just need to knock you in the head hard enough, though I’d really appreciate it if I didn’t have to.”

“You know nothing.” It was odd how much Loki still sounded like himself—like he had when Tony had first sheltered him, all smooth disdain and simmering aggression—when he picked up a nicely upholstered chair and threw it at Tony. Tony blasted it out of the air and considered his surroundings. He needed a club or a nice and hard surface. A pillar or the floor might do—if he could get a good hold of Loki.

“Yeah? Care to enlighten me?”

“Do you expect me to thank you for patching me up? For imprisoning me? Did you think that your affection had been anything but useful? That it mean something?” Loki’s smile turned pitying, a brand of insanity rolling from him that made Tony’s blood run cold. “Oh, look at that. You did. You truly thought that a god would get attached to a mortal.”

Something in Tony shuddered. He knew Loki wasn’t in his right mind—he was literally out of it—but there had been a hint of doubt in his chest this whole time. If nothing else, a month of separation had rekindled it. Tony was almost certain that Loki loved him, but no matter how he had changed in the weeks past, Loki still thought that humans were beneath him. Tony couldn’t shake the thought that he’d leave once Tony became too boring, too bothersome, too mortal for him.

This was distracting as hell, and he needed to focus.

“If I’m so powerless, why bother killing me? Sounds like a waste of time.”

“You do pose a threat, don’t you? You and the rest of Thor’s little band.”

“What, are you going to pull another army from your ass and try to invade Earth again?” They still were circling each other, and Tony had picked out a lovely spot of wall behind him. He just needed to keep him talking until he was in position.

Loki laughed, a dark and raw sound. “As though Midgard were worthy of my attention. Thanos is razing Asgard to the ground as we speak. Why would I rule you gnat-like people when no one will see? When Thor and Odin lie dead, what do I care for your lot? No, I will gladly watch you go up in flames.” But there was a sheen to his eyes that spoke of unshed tears, a layer of desperation that the control of the Mind Stone couldn’t hide.

“Okay then,” Tony said. “And why would he wish to kill us at all?”

“Thanos’s intentions—”

Tony fired his thrusters and tackled Loki around the midsection, sending them careening into a pillar. The marble cracked under the impact, and Loki’s head bounced off stone in a way that had Tony worried about breaking his neck.

Loki curled up on the floor, cursing, then he blinked up at Tony with eyes once more green. Blood was seeping out from beneath his shaking hands, coating the back of his head and neck.

“Fuck, are you okay?”

Loki laughed mirthlessly. “Hardly.”

“That whole mind-control thing is a trip.” Tony held out a hand to pull Loki up. “I think I’ll put you back into chains, and not in a sexy way. Well, slightly sexy way.”

Loki came up wincing. “Whatever is necessary to keep me from killing you.”

“Hey. I’m not that easy to kill.”

Loki looked behind Tony’s shoulder, and panic seized him. “Get away from me—” His eyes glazed over blue once more.

Tony cursed inwardly. He was still holding Loki’s hand and used the momentum to throw him to the ground. Loki grabbed him and pulled Tony down with him. He twisted while falling and threw Tony on his back, hard enough to briefly stun him.

“Let’s end this,” Loki told him sweetly. He straddled his midsection, his hand glowed, and his fingertips caressed the arc reactor, dissolving the protective casing with a crackling shimmer of magic. He was undoing the mechanics with a set of whirs and clicks that followed the path of his hands. The suit went dark.

Oh. Oh shit, Tony hadn’t been aware he could do that. He bucked and tried to get up, but without the arc reactor powering the suit, he couldn’t get the leverage. His armor had turned into a metal prison.

Loki kept peeling away the chest plate, screws turning and landing on the stone with gentle clinks, and cables lifting out of the way. Eventually, cold air hit Tony’s chest. Loki reached inside, and the fabric of Tony’s shirt dissolved under his touch. Tony flinched when he lifted the reactor from his chest, its blue light reflecting in his eyes. Deep shadows radiated out from his too-wide grin.

This was bad.

Loki knew his weaknesses. Loki knew his suit. And apparently Loki could just tear his engineering apart.

“Don’t do this,” Tony pleaded.

Loki let the arc reactor hover between them. The glass cracked. Mid-air, it disassembled, a twisted mirror of the exploded-view drawings Loki had studied in Tony’s workshop. That Tony—foolishly—had let him study in his workshop. Loki extracted the core element and held it between forefinger and thumb.

“Don’t—”

“But why shouldn’t I when it’s so easy? And when it causes you such pain?”

With a bright flash of green, it crumbled to dust, and the parts of the arc reactor clattered to the ground in a rain of parts. Tony stopped breathing.

Fuck Tony for ever trusting Loki at all.

Loki grasped the suit’s helmet, metal groaning under his fingers. Tendrils of magic snuck past the plating. For a moment, Tony thought he was going to die, but Loki merely lifted the faceplate—oddly carefully, just as he had disassembled the suit as though trying not to damage it—to look Tony in the eye.

“Look at you. So afraid,” Loki purred, thumbing a tear from the corner of Tony’s eye. “How should I kill you to best pay you back? For locking me up and drawing out my suffering for days? How to best deny you your dignity as you have denied mine, how to best treat you like an animal on a leash?”

Loki ran a hand down the inert armor, a mockery of a lover’s touch. It left a prickling of magic in its wake that sent goosebumps crawling across Tony’s skin. The emergency hatch was supposed to only open under the hands of a select few people, but Loki’s magic did something, and with a gentle whirr, it retracted for him. Against all logic, Tony thought he could feel Loki’s fingers digging into it, intimately, before they turned the wheel.

Tony tensed in preparation. The titanium alloy sprang open down the center of the suit, and cold air hit Tony’s skin. He sprang out, palms and knees hitting the hard floor, scrambling away from the carcass of a suit. But Loki was upon him in seconds, pinning him to the floor with a knee to his back. Tony couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, his whole world was taken up by Loki’s cold cruelty, the anticipation of pain, the need to get out.

“This isn’t you, you don’t mean any of this.” His voice was strangled as Loki easily bent his arm onto his back, using the other to push down his head.

“Oh, but he does,” another voice said, nasal and sneering. With his cheek pressed to cold stone, Tony looked up at a hooded figure. Beneath a helmet, only the lower half of his face was exposed: a gash of a mouth was smiling down on him. “The Mind Stone is ingenious in that way. It only enhances what is already there.”

Loki turned him on his back, sitting on his chest and pinning him by the throat. Tony clutched at his forearm in panic. But Loki’s grip was gentle, if firm, holding Tony in place.

A dagger manifested in his hand, and he set it to Tony’s solar plexus, right beneath the arc reactor. He drew it back—and it came to a stuttering halt at the highest point. Loki seemed to be fighting himself. His fingers resettled more comfortably around the hilt, and still the blade didn’t move.

Wait a moment.

Tony realized that the freak controlling Loki was telling the truth; the Mind Stone enhanced old beliefs that Loki still harbored. But even then, Loki didn’t want to harm Tony, or he would have killed him by now.

“Loki!” Tony’s voice was too thin. “Stop. Please, stop. You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to follow Thanos, you never have!”

“Only a fool would believe that. We all either fall in line or die at his hands.” Loki’s voice was smooth with conviction. And still, the blade didn’t fall.

Tony didn’t think. He set a shaking hand to Loki’s neck, brushed hair back from his face.

“You were fool enough to fall in love with me.”

The blue light in Loki’s eyes stuttered out, and he heaved a breath, horrified, frozen in the moment. The creep hovering above them seemed unaware that his spell had been broken.

Tony had a second. The armor was too far away, he was in jeans and a goddamn button-down, and he was effectively pinned to the floor. Loki seemed frozen in place with panic.

He hoped this would work.

Tony covertly reached into his pocket. The fidget toy snapped into the palm of his hand and began spinning with a flick of his wrist, building up momentum with a whir.

The Other’s head tilted as though listening for the source of the noise. Tony flung the fidget toy at his face, where it exploded with a bang and a bright flash. The Other reared back with a hiss.

There was a whirl of movement, green and gold. When the world became still, Loki stood before Thanos’s servant, his dagger buried to the hilt in its chest, teeth bared in a snarl. Loki tore out the blade and stumbled backwards. The Other went to its knees, blood seeping through his robes.

“You think yourself so clever. But Thanos will still win,” he said with an unsettling grin and keeled over, his robes muffling the impact.

Loki’s knees hit the floor, staring at the dead servant before him. He had killed the thing that had tormented him, that he had been afraid of for months.

Tony closed his eyes with nauseating relief. “I’m surprised that thing didn’t dissolve into a swarm of bats.”

Loki began laughing, the high-pitched kind that was pure nerves and had nothing to do with joy. He flicked the hair out of his face and grinned at Tony. “I’m fool enough to fall in love with you, am I?”

“Aren’t you?” Tony shot back. “Thanos can’t do that to you, can he?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” A flicker of doubt crossed Loki’s face. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s reassuring,” Tony said sarcastically and sat up with a groan. His back hurt like a bitch.

Loki still looked dazed as he got to his feet, looking out over the boiling battlefield. He seemed to be collecting his thoughts. “We need to help Thor. If he’s protecting the vault, that’s likely where the other two Stones are.”

Loki walked over to him and flung out his hand. There was a moment of animal panic, and Tony flinched away, a hand pressed over the hole in his chest. Loki’s face fell, and he let his hand sink to his side.

“How badly have I hurt you?”

“It’s nothing I can’t walk off.” The rim of the arc reactor’s slot pressed into Tony’s shaking hand. Now that he was out of immediate danger, he couldn’t stop thinking about that—the shrapnel in his chest, the way he was back on a timer. His chest felt like a metal band was constricting it, pain shot down his left arm. God, it was all so pointless. Nothing was going to happen to him for days. He knew that. He knew that.

But he had told Loki how the shield around his heart worked, and Loki had abused that knowledge to tear it apart. Even after being thrown out of a window, Tony hadn’t felt this vulnerable.

“Not to be needy, but I really could use that backup reactor.”

“Of course.” Loki’s voice was smooth, and his expression unreadable. With a flare of green light, the arc reactor appeared in his hand, glowing blue and unharmed. “I apologize.”

“It’s fine,” Tony lied, but at least he felt like he could breathe again. He held out his hand to accept it.

And waited.

Loki seemed to have forgotten him and was blankly staring at the floor of the throne room below. Faintly he said, “Asgard is lost.”

Reluctantly, Tony tore his eyes from the reactor to look at the battlefield below. The fighting in the amphitheater had calmed, and in the center of it, in the open space before the throne, Thanos towered above Odin.

His sword had pierced the shoulder of Asgard’s king.

Thanos tore free his blade, and Odin stood for a moment as though frozen. Then he crumpled, all tension leaving his body, blood pouring down his front. The Titan kicked him on his back and carefully placed the tip of his sword against his chest. His voice carried over the din. “Tell me where you hide the Stones, and I will spare your children.”

Loki looked at Tony, his face drawn in regret. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” The arc reactor glowed, and with a whirl of magic, he was gone.

Tony gaped at the empty patch of air. “Are you fucking kidding me!”

**

It was a gamble. For one, the arc reactor had led him astray before. For two, he hated leaving Tony by himself in the throne room. But they didn’t have time, and there was no other way that Loki could see.

“I’m sorry,” he told Tony, as though that meant anything. (Loki would always betray the ones he loved, wouldn’t he?)

Let me do this one thing right, he begged the reactor, and it glowed obediently as he pictured the vaults. It created the lattice of light and power, and when he could tell it was curious to explore other paths to artifacts of power, he gently reined it in.

He landed in disorienting half-darkness and to the noise of fighting, the stench of blood. He curled around his stomach as nausea took him. The shadows lit up with bright-hot orange, and Loki threw himself out of the Destroyer’s way. An explosion took out three Chitauri.

“Loki! There are two in the vaults!” Sif called. She was bleeding heavily, her shield lost, and battling encroaching soldiers with her double-sided sword. The Warriors were holding the lines further up.

“Where is Thor?” Loki called while already running.

“Back in the throne room! He received word that Odin—”

Loki didn’t need to hear more. He sprinted past the Destroyer and was glad that it still thought him loyal to Asgard. He took out the couple of Thanos’s soldiers with a dagger each. The Scepter rested on a pedestal to the side, and beyond it he found the Tesseract.

Odin had never meant to wield it. He had set the replica into Gungnir purely to lure Thanos to Asgard. The old fool had overestimated his own power.

Loki didn’t have time to think as he picked up the Tesseract. He cast a glamour, and when he caught his reflection in the marble, his eyes were glowing an eerie blue. It sent a shiver down his back. It would have to do.

“Norns guide me.” He let the power of the Tesseract flow through him—easy and smooth after the unruliness of the arc reactor—and opened a portal to the throne room.

**

Odin was on his back and seemed unable to move. Thanos’s sword was digging into the golden armor above his breastbone, but his attention was on Loki as he stepped out of the portal with the Tesseract held high, an offering that shone like a beacon above the roiling waves of battle. None had dared to step into the circle of Thanos and Odin’s battle, and the fighting around him ceased entirely as Loki walked through the rows of fighters. He stepped through Odin’s blood and left black footprints on Asgard’s marble.

“Loki, no.” Odin’s voice was strangled with pain.

“For you,” Loki said, his eyes fixed firmly on Thanos as he sank to one knee. The steps to the throne of Asgard framed the Titan’s bulk, and fear shivered through Loki like a living thing. “The Scepter is right through that portal.”

“Oh,” Thanos said gently. “I see that you needed some guidance.”

He reached out, and Loki fought not to tremble or flinch as Thanos tilted up his chin to look into his eyes. He let his face remain slack.

Thanos ran a thumb over his cheek—gently, parental—and he released him. “You just bought your own and your brother’s lives.”

Loki swallowed and held his gaze firmly on Thanos.

“This seals your fate, little king.” The double-edged sword spun in his hands, and he drew it back in one sharp pull.

There was the moment that Loki had needed.

Thanos was nimble, too fast for his bulk, and he evaded attacks with unnatural ease. Loki’s only hope was to catch him, assured of his victory, in a single, unstoppable motion.

Thanos spun his blade to swing at Odin from above, perfect form executed for maximum damage, his body moving in one smooth line.

Loki opened a portal to the void. It was the size of his palm and placed a hair’s breadth before Thanos’s chest.

Thanos’s face opened up in surprise, but the motion was too well executed to arrest now, and he passed through the portal. It ate through him and greedily teleported skin, ribs, and the center of his heart halfway across the universe. Thanos fell to one knee, gasping. Blood poured from the hole in his oversized heart, and he stared at Loki.

“I should have known it would be you.” And he fell away from Odin, the impact of his death shaking the room like an earthquake.

The Tesseract dropped from Loki’s limp fingers, the portals closed, and he collapsed to his knees. He stared at the dead mountain of a body. A man that evoked terror in Loki, so large he couldn’t put it into words.

It was over.

Thanos was dead.

A hand grasped his sleeve, and he turned to Odin.

“Oh.” Loki felt numb as he knelt by his father. Thanos’s sword had found its target and was pinning him to the floor. It was so large it effectively cut Odin’s right breast in half; it had gone through his lung and cracked his ribs. This was bad. No healing stone could fix a wound like this.

Loki had not thought this through. He should have found a way to avoid this. He touched Odin’s breast, wondering whether he should press down on the wound, and hot blood coated his hand in seconds.

“My son.” The black oil-sheen faded from Odin’s eyes and left nothing but cloudy blue. A hundred millennia had passed before those eyes. Odin had been there at the dawn of humanity, had outlived dozens of possible heirs. He was the founder of Asgard as they knew it: prosperous, shining, ruler of Nine.

Odin was ancient. And Odin was dying.

“I will find Eir.” Loki felt as helpless as he had after Thor’s coronation, when Odin had collapsed in the vault. He twisted to search the fighters around him—the tide had turned after Thanos’s death, and his troops had begun fleeing. “Thor!” he hollered across the battlefield, his voice breaking at the top of his lungs. But no blond head appeared among the masses, no lightning struck close by.

Odin’s hand gripped his arm tightly. “No, Loki. Stay with me. Neither Eir nor the Sleep can save me now.”

Loki looked at his hand. Odin’s blood was pitch black. The darkness had poisoned him; he was as pale as a wraith, and his veins stood out darkly beneath paper-thin skin. This was the reason Frigga that had never taught Loki these skills, that Odin refused to pass them on. It was powerful magic, more corruptive and older than anything Loki had ever seen.

“You knew this would kill you,” Loki realized.

“Father!” Thor hollered. He pushed through the crowd and knelt by Odin’s side. His cape flared out and smoothed down in a wide circle, and where it touched Odin’s blood, it turned black. “Father, stay with me.”

“My son. I trust you to rule wisely.” Odin’s hand closed around Thor’s, but he looked at Loki. “Loki, I cannot ask you to forgive me. But I ask you to advise your brother well. It is what your mother wanted.”

“You cannot leave now!” Loki said. “You’re not … You haven’t … I’m not done with you!”

Odin opened his mouth to respond, but there was a softness in his eyes that told Loki it was too late. He was gone before his last words were spoken. Under Loki’s hands, his body turned to starlight, rising past the great darkness of the throne room’s ceiling and into the deep-blue sky.

As Odin disappeared, Thor grasped Loki’s forearm and held onto him as though afraid that he, too, would dissolve any moment. Tears were running freely down his face. “I … I was too late. I was fighting my way out of the vaults, and-and it took me too long …”

Numbly, Loki said, “It’s not your fault. He poisoned himself. He’d been overusing that magic for months.” To fight Thanos, yes, but also to hunt down Loki. To test that his connection to the Other remained and make sure Loki made an effective bait.

Loki suddenly wondered. What if the Soul Forge on Midgard hadn’t failed? Maybe Loki had been free of Thanos’s grasp for a few precious hours. It had hurt when Odin reached into his head, so much that Loki thought death might be kinder. And he’d never seen Odin as apologetic as he had been back then, as concerned. What if Odin had rekindled a parasite his body was winning against?

Loki would never know. But he was sure that—had it been necessary for his plan to work—Odin wouldn’t have hesitated.

That knowledge quelled his tears.

“It was long past his time, Thor. The Sleep is not a natural thing.”

“He was our father.” The words were almost unintelligible through Thor’s tears.

“He was yours.”

“He loved you, he raised you, just like me,” Thor pleaded, as though it would mend that rift.

“I don’t see how that matters when he treated me like a tool.” Loki’s voice broke.

And even in the face of Thor’s grief, even as he pulled him into a crushing hug, as they both kneeled in their father’s cooling blood, he knew that he would not mourn Odin. He had spent centuries trying to live up to Odin’s standards, to bend to his will.

No more.

With both Odin and Thanos gone, it was over—and if Loki didn’t know who he was in their absence, he didn’t have time to consider that right now.

“Thor, they’re all waiting for you. To your feet, shoulders back. Like a king.” Their mother’s words fell easily from his mouth.

Thor nodded, his face splotchy and unhappy. Loki held eye contact as they rose, clasping forearms, in a circle of their people and outlined by the fading light of Odin’s ascension. The fighting was still tapering out at the edges of the throne room, but Thanos’s army was capitulating in waves. His children had fled first in the face of their father’s demise.

King Lodhur limped over, drawn by the spectacle. As did all the others, he looked to Thor with expectation. So Thor took a deep breath, and Loki nodded to him encouragingly.

“As many others today, my father has given his life to protect the Nine,” Thor called and looked over the crowd. “We have fought, and we have almost won. My brother and I will ensure that the legacy of the fallen is one of prosperity and peace. My friends, my people, let us finish this fight, and then let us feast. For the Nine!”

“For the Nine!” resounded his cry, and weapons bristled, gleaming in the light. But as Thor was getting ready to lead an army, Loki looked up.

“I will join you shortly,” he told Thor. He picked up the Tesseract, opened a portal to the balcony, and stepped through.

**

Tony was flat on his back on the floor next to the open suit. His breathing was fast and shallow, and he was wide-eyed and staring at the ceiling. Both of his hands were protectively pressed over the hole in his chest.

“You know that I get a damn panic attack every time I think the reactor stops working? For one, it’s totally pointless. The shrapnel in my chest isn’t going to kill me for at least three days. My body still thinks I’m having a damn heart attack every time. It’s a goddamn scam.”

Loki had to pull his awareness away from the Other’s crumpled form, mere meters away. Some part of him feared that this all was a dream, that he would rise any moment. He walked over to Tony with a sinking stomach. “I didn’t mean to put you through that.”

“Too late, it’s already happening.” He held a badly shaking hand out without looking at Loki. “You’ve got something of mine.”

Loki summoned the arc reactor and placed it in Tony’s hands, hoping against hope that he would be forgiven. Just once more, he needed Tony to forgive him. “Is there anything I can do?”

“You can take a step back.” Tony clutched at the reactor, inspecting it. He looked very pale in the blue light. Then he sat up and took off his shirt with jerky movements. The metal casing gleamed in the light of the reactor, making the shadows within appear an inky black. It took Tony two tries to slot it inside with a click. He squeezed shut his eyes for a moment, hand pressed over his eyes, knees drawn to his chest. Dizzy, Loki thought.

Loki sat down on the floor at a distance he hoped would suffice. His skin was itching with guilt. “I did not mean to keep it so long. A lot happened in a short span of time.”

“You could have taken me with you, you know.” Tony’s voice was too high and muffled against his knees. “God, I hate this.”

“I was teleporting into the middle of battle. I couldn’t risk your life.” Norns, what if Tony had died? What if Loki had killed him? He swallowed thickly around that pointless fear.

“Let’s not talk about it.” Tony seemed to be breathing deliberately. “Did you kill the big, purple asshole?”

“I did.” Loki still couldn’t quite grasp that. Thanos’s corpse lay dead at the center of the throne room, eyes open and staring.

“Good,” was all that Tony said.

Loki pressed his hands together in his lap and waited quietly. In theory, he should be helping Thor. But he was sure that the rest of the battle would go smoothly, whether he was there or not. It would be fine. Thor could look after himself.

No one else was going to look after Tony.

It took a few minutes before Tony started to get up. His eyes were rimmed red, and he still wasn’t looking at Loki. “Right. I think I’m done being on the floor for at least a week. Where is the battle at? Should I fix and fire up the armor?”

“Thor has it under control.” Loki rose but didn’t dare approach Tony.

“Okay.” There was a moment of silence in which he seemed unsure of what to do with himself. His left hand was rubbing the arc reactor unconsciously. He finally looked at Loki. There was no anger in his eyes, but nothing else, either. They were hard and flat, like flintstone. “I heard Thor’s little address to the people. Are you okay?”

Odin’s blood was still drying on his hand. Loki flexed his fingers against the itchy feeling, and it came away in flakes.

“I’m fine,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie. There was so much to feel that he didn’t feel anything at all.

Tony opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it again. He still looked pale and exhausted, but the tension went out of his shoulders.

“Would you stop looking like you want to combust with guilt. You’re giving me anxiety, and I’ve had enough of that for one day. I just need a moment to work through how you made off with my life-sustaining battery to go save the universe. Not a great, but understandable.”

“I …” The words of explanation dried up in Loki’s throat. “I apologize.”

“Stop that. It’s fine.” The exhaustion on Tony’s face marked him a liar. Loki didn’t want to think about the damage Tony had suffered, almost all of it at his hands. And he didn’t want to let him out of his sight until Tony was healed.

When Tony held out a hand, Loki felt dizzy with relief. He let Tony pull him into a hug.

Oh, so maybe he was feeling something. Because his throat closed up, and his eyes were burning, and his chest was so tight he couldn’t breathe freely. Tony held him while Loki waited for that to pass. When the tears had stopped, he wiped his face and dropped a kiss on Tony’s lips. It was chaste, communicating nothing but affection and ‘thank you.’

“I’m not holding it against you, but that was extremely wet. And not in a sexy way.”

Loki snorted a laugh and leaned into Tony. “Your priorities never cease to astound me.”

“How about this one: you could admit that I was right. I told you I’d get you out. And I did, didn’t I?”

Loki hummed and pressed a kiss to his hairline. It smelled like explosions, and dust, and iron. “I think I got myself out in the end.”

“Come on. You couldn’t have done it without me.”

Loki didn’t say it out loud, but Tony was right. His mother had seen Loki at the center of Ragnarök, and true to prophecy, Loki had drawn Thanos to Asgard. But to win against him, they had needed Tony: to recreate an Infinity Stone, to save Loki’s life, and to free him from his chains.

To trust Loki when no one else did.

Tony had been right: Loki was a fool. Not for falling in love with him, but for taking so long to admit it.

Chapter Text

Even with Thanos defeated and his children gone, they knew the fighting would last through the night, so Loki opened a portal to return Tony and the useless armor to his rooms. From thin air, he procured a bottle of chalky white liquid to press in his hands.

“Drink this; it will help with … with the wounds.” Tony couldn’t remember ever seeing Loki abashed. He was now. He had been the source of most of Tony’s current ailments, and they were both aware of it.

“Great, thanks.” Tony set it down untouched. Theoretically, he knew he could trust Loki, but it was as though his body hadn’t gotten the memo. It had not even been an hour since Loki had taken the arc reactor and left Tony behind without explanation. “I’m okay. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Right.” Loki dithered. “I’m sorry.”

Fighting his instincts, Tony reached for his hand. “I know. I told you, it’ll be fine.”

Loki’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I should go and help Thor.”

Loki stood, and Tony couldn’t help but flinch at the sudden movement. A muscle jumped in Loki’s jaw. He didn’t comment. The Tesseract sprang to his hand, and, with a flash of green light, he opened a portal into the middle of the fray and stepped through.

The moment he was gone, Tony collapsed on the floor, his head in his hands. He wanted to weep; anxiety was buzzing under his skin. He pressed a hand to the arc reactor and reminded himself it was firmly anchored in his chest. He was safe. He was safe. It didn’t keep him from feeling like he couldn’t breathe.

Loki had been under mind control. It wasn’t his fault that he had almost killed Tony. They had fought tooth and nail to remove the Mind Stone’s influence, and it just hadn’t worked. It wasn’t his fault that some alien creep had taken advantage of him.

And teleporting out with the arc reactor? For all that Tony felt like shit, he got it. Loki had seen a single shot to save his home and his people, and he had taken it. It was the right, even the heroic, thing to do, Tony knew that. Had their roles been reversed, he would have made the same decision. There really wasn’t anything else that he could have done.

But this, right now? This fucking sucked.

By the time his heart had calmed and his hands stopped shaking, the sky was turning from black to blue, and the background noise of the fight was waning like waves against a distant shore. Tony discarded any thought of sleep.

There was one thing that reliably calmed him down, and it was just his luck that the Mark V was in need of fixing.

“It’s you and me, baby, like good old times.” He grabbed the battered suitcase and stood. His ribs and back complained, and he straightened his spine very carefully. Fuck, he wasn’t getting any younger.

He pulled the cork of the potion Loki had left him with and downed it, grimaced at the taste: chalky and bitter and leaving the inside of his mouth feeling fuzzy. (Chlorophyll tasted better than this crap.) For once, the effect of an Asgardian medicine wasn’t instantaneous; he was hurting all over, and bruises were blooming along his limbs and torso.

“Walk it off,” he told himself.

So Tony limped through the dark hallways of Asgard’s crumbling castle, dragging a busted suitcase to his workshop.

**

The Asgardian guest workshops were quaint things; three of them were installed side by side, up in the highest floors of Asgard’s grand castle, and each of them was outfitted in carved wood and decorative metalwork.

Tony’s was the only one in use right now. It was slightly small for his taste—the open floor space was large enough to work on his armor but too small for, let’s say, taking apart one of those skiffs. (Which he was itching to do.) But there were workbenches filled with tools, and mounted screens gave him digital access to archives chock-full with centuries of knowledge. A panel by the door allowed him to order supplies, books from the library, and custom-forged parts from Nidavellir. And conveniently, the serving staff had set up a narrow bed in a corner for him when they had realized he wasn’t returning to his rooms at night.

Fixing the Mark V took a couple of hours, but Tony found, once again, that his exhaustion rarely translated into rest. Loki found him bent over the Mark V’s helmet, at around noon.

Tony had a sense that someone was by the door even before it creaked open and closed by itself. He lifted the helmet with both hands, and a glance through the visor confirmed both that it was Loki and that his magic sensors were working. Loki appeared in a flash of green light.

“They didn’t have the guts to stick you back in a cell, did they?” He set down the helmet and went through the drawers for a specific screwdriver.

“They would have, had there been any cells left. I’m technically under house arrest.”

Tony looked up at him. He seemed to have come straight from the battle. Loki was dangerous—Tony’s whole body told him so: heart rate going up, sweat on his palms, his skin tingling—but Loki was also hurt and exhausted and looking utterly relieved to be in Tony’s presence.

Loki had grabbed the back of a chair and turned it around to face Tony. He hesitated, now that he was taking in Tony’s posture—defensive at best—and his eyes landed on the screwdriver that Tony held like a weapon.

“You haven’t slept.” His voice was even, but his eyes betrayed concern.

“Neither have you.”

“I will leave if you wish.”

Tony really didn’t want Loki to go. He sighed and rubbed grit out of his eyes. “No. No, don’t do that. I told you I’ll be fine. Just … let’s not make it into a big deal, okay?” He knew what Loki was capable of when at his lowest—betrayal, destruction, murder—and he had decided to look past that and to believe that Loki had changed. Loki having hurt him in the past hours did not diminish that. This was a Tony problem, not a Loki problem. Tony would deal with it by himself. He always did.

Loki finally sat down, carefully telegraphing his movements. “Should we talk?”

Out of his armor, he looked smaller; his shoulders were rounder. He had pulled his hair into an uneven braid, and strands were escaping. While his face and his hands seemed to have been quickly washed, blood and dirt still splattered his neck and boots.

What a pair they made: distrusting, afraid to hurt each other, beaten and bloody and tired. This should feel like a triumph, and Tony couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but exhausted and nervous.

“What do you think talking would do?” Tony sat down on the edge of his desk so that Loki looked up at him. “It wasn’t your fault you attacked me. And I know why you took the arc reactor.”

Loki looked crestfallen. “I didn’t have time—”

“I know.” Tony spoke over him. His fingers were itching with the need to take something apart, so he folded his arms over his chest, forcing them to be still. “I get it. I just need a moment for that to settle in. If I’m being honest, I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams, and I’m not a fan.”

Loki was silent, waiting for Tony to lay down the rules. And that had been their dynamic from the start, hadn’t it? Tony was the one calling the shots, had to be the one calling the shots because Loki could kill him with a careless thought. And the first time Loki had done something of his own accord, he had broken Tony’s trust.

Tony knew it shouldn’t bother him this much. It really shouldn’t.

“Is the fight over?” Tony asked.

“It is.” More silence.

“What about the trial?”

“It will conclude once the Council has recovered. And even then, Odin’s funeral takes precedence.”

The tone of his voice—flat and factual—had Tony look up. Loki’s face was carefully blank, as though he feared Tony might explode.

Tony couldn’t do this right now. The conversation they needed to have felt like a trap, like a bomb that might explode. It was too soon. He needed to sleep, to shower, and to eat something. (At least one of those things should be feasible.)

But Tony feared that letting it fester wasn’t a good idea. Loki being unstable was the last thing he needed right now. And no one but Tony would even bother to ask him about it, would they? (Thor might, which tended to go great.)

Fuck.

“Your dad just died,” Tony said before he had time to overthink this. “How are you … Are you okay?”

Loki smiled as though that question was ridiculous. “He wasn’t my father, Tony.”

“Fine. The man that raised you. How about that?”

Loki leaned back and shrugged. “I’m indifferent to his death.”

Yeah, right. What a load of bull.

Tony wanted to be alone so badly his skin was itching, but the thought of Loki leaving made him feel raw and hollow. Tony didn’t want to talk or listen, but he wanted Loki to be honest with him and himself for once in his damn life. And Tony’s need for take care of himself was warring with his need to take care of Loki. He couldn’t rest before he knew that Loki was doing okay.

He groaned in frustration and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. Why could nothing ever be easy? “Come over here.”

The chair scraped across the floor as Loki rose and approached him with hesitant steps.

(Loki wasn’t going to hurt him.)

Tony looked up at him with a tingle of fear. He knew Loki saw it, too, because Loki stopped a couple of feet away.

“Your wounds—”

“All better. Thanks for the magic potion, Gandalf.” Tony laid a hand on his neck. Loki’s mask crumbled, revealing concern and sorrow. His hands were glued to his side, open and nonthreatening.

“You’re scared of me.”

“I’m never scared.”

Loki laughed in surprise—it wasn’t a happy noise—and the sound reverberated against Tony’s palm. “You’re a bad liar.”

“Hey, that’s rude.” Tony swallowed, once, twice. This, right now, was more important than Tony’s comfort and boundaries. It felt like Tony had to carve the words out of his ribs, one by one. “Fine. It scares me when someone fucks with the arc reactor. Or the suit. It scares me, and I’m angry that it scares me.”

“I won’t do it again. Ever.” The words were bordering desperation in their sincerity.

(Loki would never harm him. Not unless he wasn’t himself.)

“Not unless the world would burn if you didn’t.”

“Tony, I—”

“It’s okay,” Tony promised roughly. “Seriously. It’s okay. Being a hero sucks.”

Loki seemed caught between disgust and the impulse to laugh. “Never put me in that box.”

“Okay. No boxes.” Tony still hesitated, fingers carding through the hair at the back of Loki’s neck. It was stiff with blood. He had bled a lot when Tony had slammed him into that pillar.

(There was no one left to abuse Loki’s broken mind.)

Tony nudged him forward, and Loki sagged against him, holding on as though Tony were an anchor at stormy sea. This was a role Tony knew; he had played it for SI, for Pep, for the Avengers. Tony was great at holding it together. He could do this. He breathed in Loki’s smell—smoke and perfume, blood and soap—and the tension in his shoulder melted away. This was alright. This felt okay.

He could do this.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Loki said quietly.

“I know.” Tony kissed the side of his head and held him.

Eventually, Tony guided them to the cot he had set up in the corner. Tony kicked out of his jeans and shoes, and Loki left his leathers—boots and a vest—in a pile on top of the nearby stool.

The cot was so narrow that Tony—a restless sleeper—had fallen out once before. But Loki didn’t complain; he just wedged himself against the wall, folded up his long legs, and pulled Tony against him, back to front. Loki hugged as though he was trying to melt into him: the planes of their bodies pressed together with no room for air. And Tony couldn’t tell whether his heart was beating this fast because he was afraid or because Loki held him so close that every breath shifted both of their bodies, first against each other, then in sync.

Loki’s hand slipped under his hoodie, and Tony sucked in a sharp breath. He arched into the touch, and Loki kissed the back of his neck. Goosebumps sped down Tony’s body, and he shivered, heat pooling in his abdomen. But Loki’s hand came to a rest right beneath the waistband of his boxers and stopped there. It seemed that Loki just wanted to hold him, skin to skin. Which was distracting as hell, but Tony was okay with that.

“I feared you might not wish to see me again,” Loki said against the back of his neck.

“I did, though. Want to see you.” It was true, despite his fear, and pain, and doubt. None of it compared to the dread Tony felt at the thought of losing him.

“I’m not sure I deserve that much,” Loki said, so quietly it was barely a breath.

“So what? You didn’t deserve to suffer either, what’s the difference? I want you to …” Damn. Tony turned around in his arms and almost fell off the bed. Loki grabbed him before he could lose his balance, and they stared at each other, wide-eyed and inches apart. “I want … Loki, I …”

Loki looked so lost that it broke Tony’s heart.

“Fuck this.” Tony curled his fingers into his shirt and kissed him.

Loki made a soft noise of need and opened his mouth. Tony gasped and grabbed the back of his neck, and Loki pulled them flush together. They kissed until Tony’s lips were swollen and he was half-hard, with Loki’s hands under his hoodie and flat against his naked skin. But they were both exhausted, and eventually they slowed down, their breath mingling in the small space between them. Loki’s eyes were falling shut as he was watching Tony’s face.

“Okay, enough.” Tony kissed his nose and turned around. “Time to sleep. Night night, sweet dreams, catch you tomorrow. Tonight. Whichever.”

Loki pressed his forehead against Tony’s nape. The ensuing silence lasted long enough that Tony thought he might have in fact gone to sleep. When Loki spoke, his voice was a low rumble.

“Tony. I do love you.”

Tony felt his face go numb. His heartbeat was loud in his ears.

Loki wasn’t the first person to claim to be in love with Tony. Not the first person Tony had been in love with, either. But the way Loki looked at him was different from the way anyone else ever had, as though his opinion was the only one that mattered. No one had ever hugged Tony like this, like they wanted to crawl under his skin and hibernate there. No one had needed him quite as desperately as Loki did, with an intensity that was all-consuming and identity-shifting.

It was also exhilarating and terrifying, and Tony was definitely out of his depth.

“I know,” Tony said with quiet astonishment. Tony love Loki, too, but the words wouldn’t pass his lips.

Loki pressed a chaste kiss against his neck and curled around him. Eventually, his breathing calmed and evened out. His grip on Tony’s midsection never eased.

Great. Now he was aroused, and his heart was hammering out of his chest. How was he supposed to sleep after that?

Tony was staring ahead into the light-filled workshop, his head bedded on Loki’s arm. The din of soldiers and the clean-up crews drifted in through the open windows. Something in the workshop—likely the ventilation—made a constant, soft whirring noise. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine it was DUM-E getting into something inadvisable.

He would be home soon enough. And he would take Loki with him. He had time.

**

Loki felt unmoored in the days after the fight. The Council had taken injury and was recovering, but, either way, the trial would not resume in the midst of clearing the rubble and laying out the dead.

Loki could have joined and helped with the rebuilding—Thor assured him he would be welcome, and it could only help his public image—but he couldn’t bring himself to face the outside world, not just yet. So he spent his time in the workshop, sitting or lying on the narrow cot and watching Tony tinker. The Mark V had been repaired and upgraded, but Loki wasn’t sure Tony was capable of not working.

Books were piling up in every corner of the workshop—most of them on artifice, some of them on magic and advanced physics—and Tony was tearing through them as though on a deadline. When he wasn’t reading, he was building knickknacks: sensors, a new fidget toy, a square box that scanned, digitized, and translated whole stacks of books within seconds.

Loki slept. And he watched Tony. He ate when Tony brought him food, and he held him when Tony crawled into the small space beside him. He dreamed of his childhood, when Frigga’s arms were so large that they encompassed him fully.

He woke up crying once, and Tony was by his side in seconds, petting his hair and pulling him close. When asked whether he wanted to talk, Loki declined. He didn’t want to talk about anything, really, which was both new and a very odd feeling.

Hours ran through his fingers like water, and days bled into nights and vice versa. Time stopped existing for a while, and Loki was floating, weightlessly, in a space where he could pretend that none of it mattered.

The spell wasn’t broken until Thor came to the workshop.

Thor spoke quietly to Tony, who was blocking the entrance by pure force of personality, hands on his hips and spine straight. Thor tried to peer around him a few times, but prince or not, no one was allowed in Tony’s workshop without invitation. That didn’t change simply because Thor technically owned the rooms.

Eventually his brother left. Tony deflated and came to sit by Loki’s side.

“So. You’re going, right?”

Loki gave him a sour look from where he was lying. “I’m not attending Odin’s funeral.”

Tony studied him suspiciously. “Because you don’t care.”

Loki folded his hands over his stomach and stared at the by now familiar ceiling. “I don’t care; it doesn’t matter, and either way, I’m confined to my rooms.”

“Really. I could have sworn you didn’t give a crap, seeing that you’ve slept in my workshop for three days straight.”

“And I have heard no complaints, so I will continue to do so.” Loki rolled on his side and put his back to Tony.

The truth was that he didn’t want to leave. The room was flooded with warm light during the day and a soft, cool breeze at night. It smelled like Tony. The noises of Tony’s tinkering hands and the soft rustle of paper were soothing. They were like the endless waves lapping at Asgard’s shores; if he listened for long enough, he managed to think of nothing at all.

But when Tony had set his mind to something, he was stubborn. “Well, since I’m still representing Earth, it’s a PR issue. And I’m of half a mind to establish trade with the Dwarf planet, so that means I have to go. It’s business 101.”

Had Loki not felt so numb, he might have smiled at that. “If you were infinitely more obnoxious, you’d have made a good Dwarf.”

“Was that a joke? Does that mean you’re feeling better? Also, your compliments need some work.”

“I was never feeling bad.”

Tony gave him a look that spoke volumes. “Here’s the thing. If it’s a PR issue, it means I could use someone to come along and give me pointers on Asgardian manners.”

Loki held up a finger. “Let me thus impart the first rule for courting the Dwarves: never be seen with Loki.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”

Opened their eyes to each other’s vices, Loki thought. But he had no patience for telling the tale of Hreimdar. “It’s a long story, and it was a long time ago. The point is, King Eitri of Nidavellir does not love me well.”

“Fine. What is the second rule of courting the Dwarves?”

Loki had had enough of this. He swung his legs off the bed and began pacing, picking up the book on astronomy he had been eyeing for days and leafing through it idly. “The second rule is that you don’t have a chance, Tony, not in this moment in history. Being a mortal, you’re stepping on Asgardian toes by existing alone.” He put the book in his pocket dimension for later perusal and fixed Tony with a glare. “And the way you scurry from the Ljósalfar would be insult even if you weren’t.”

“Yeah, well, they give me the creeps. Let me be clear: I’m going to this funeral whether you’re coming or not, because your big brother—who happens to be my co-worker—asked me to. And I’d appreciate if you came along.” Tony slapped his thighs and got up. “I have two hours, and I need a shower. Make a decision by then.”

Loki heaved a deep sigh and caught Tony around the waist before he could leave. “Fine. If it’s a political issue, then at least let me help you with your garments. If you wish to be respectful, your suits won’t do.”

Tony’s mouth twitched.

“If you laugh at me, I’ll change my mind,” Loki warned.

“I’m not laughing,” Tony protested as he trailed Loki out the door, but the grin was plain in his voice.

**

It had been a while since Loki visited the guest wing, but he knew the layout perfectly well. And, had Tony not caught his elbow, he would have walked straight past Tony’s quarters.

He had only caught a brief and distracted glimpse of them earlier, and it wasn’t one of the lesser dignitary’s suites he had expected. Instead, the rooms were sprawling, containing a meeting room, offices, and a set of large balconies. Whole parts of the home—for that was what it was—had been set aside for the use of servants and staff, respectively. Asgard had provided for Tony the exact set of rooms that would be appropriate for the lesser kings and members of the Council, such as Lodhur. This was Thor’s work, without a doubt. Odin would never have arranged this.

A shame that Tony wasn’t even using them.

“What are you grinning about?” But Tony was smiling in turn, undoing the buttons of his shirt as he was walking.

“I was just thinking that you might have a chance to gain Eitri’s ear, after all.”

“Uh-huh, tell me more?”

“I would recommend forging the bond through Thor—” Loki lost his train of thought.

Loki and Tony had slept in the same bed—if the miserable little cot could be called that—for the past days, and Loki was keenly aware that Tony was interested in sex. He still hadn’t expected Tony to simply undress in the middle of the extensive living quarters, leaving a trail of clothes on his way to the baths. He shot Loki a look that was a question and an invitation both.

Loki was by no means a blushing virgin, but for reasons he couldn’t explain, he could hardly concentrate while writing out the order for a set of appropriate garments—they didn’t exactly have time to tailor and forge anything, so something from Loki’s closets would have to do.

He heard Tony enter the water as rang for a servant. When he closed the doors to the main rooms, he hesitated, wondering whether he should leave until Tony was done.

“If you don’t take a bath, you’re banned from my bed,” Tony called through the open doors.

Loki laughed and closed his eyes briefly, pressing his forehead against the cool gold of the door. Tony was right; he was sticky with sweat and dirt from a fight that had been over for days. What was wrong with him? He had never let himself go, not even in Thanos’s service.

He followed Tony’s voice and found him getting soap in the bathwater.

“You’re aware you’re supposed to wash before you get in?”

Tony gave him an unimpressed look and rubbed suds into his scalp. “This thing is the size of a swimming pool; I can’t imagine it matters.” He dunked his head underwater, and bubbles floated away from him and dispersed in the communal pool. To be fair, the baths were sized to serve a dignitary and entourage. Soft lights hovered high against the roof and bathed the cavernous room in twilight. The brightest part of the baths waws the pool itself, which was gently lit from within.

“I thought you had interest in Asgardian manners? What happened to that?”

“I’m not getting slippery and naked with my business partners—unless they’re really good looking—so I don’t care.”

Loki snorted, and turned around and stripped. He wrinkled his nose at the state of his clothes and threw them into one of the cubbies, where they would be taken out to be washed. Loki had, of course, changed into something clean and appropriate to share Tony’s bed, but that didn’t mean that he had been clean at the time. And he simply … he had forgotten. It hadn’t seemed important. “Did something happen to your footman? Surely Thor provided you with one, seeing that you didn’t bring your own.”

“Yeah, he kept hovering, so I got rid of him. Didn’t seem sad about it, either. Something, something, all Asgardians think they’re better than me. You guys have an attitude problem.”

“Which will change once Midgard is part of the Council.” Loki sat down by one of the wash basins and went through the toiletries the servants had provided. It took him a moment to find soap and oil that smelled right. He tipped back his head and poured cold water through his hair. It drained as a dusky brown. He was disgusting.

“So that’s happening, huh? Asgard is getting Earth a seat on the Council?” Tony turned around with some splashing, propping himself up on the rim of the pool.

“Since you advocated for it, and Thor—future king of Asgard—seems incredibly fond of you, yes. It is only a matter of time.” Loki procured a cloth and went through the steps of methodically washing himself. Tony had fallen silent. He had begun to be silent around Loki a lot more in the past days, seeing that Loki hadn’t been in a mood to talk. Loki usually didn’t mind it, but now color rose to his cheeks.

“It’s rude to stare.”

“I’ll stop staring when you stop looking like that.” Tony had folded his arms on the rim. The arc reactor’s light was distorted and broken by the rippling water as it illuminated Tony’s face. The effect made him look more than mortal. “Kettle black. You’re staring right back.” Tony seemed smug about it, too.

Loki snapped his fingers, and the pool edge beneath Tony’s elbows tilted and became slippery, dumping him into the water with a yelp.

Tony came up spluttering and indignant. “That was a lot ruder than the staring.”

Loki snickered and stretched out his legs to wash, ducking as Tony ineffectively tried to splash him from the pool. “Your aim is off, Iron Man.”

“Since when am I ‘Iron Man,’ huh?”

“Since you have engaged me in battle.” Loki magically redirected some of the water Tony had flung, and blew it back into his face as a fine spray.

He made a spluttering noise and wiped it from his eyes. “Fine! Peace! I yield.”

“I accept your surrender.”

“Unbelievable.” Tony climbed out of the pool with a great splash, but he seemed done playing. He came to stand behind Loki and ran fingers across his scalp. Loki let his hands sink to let him work. No one had washed his hair since boyhood, and while Tony wasn’t as careful as Frigga had been, it was still close enough to make Loki’s chest tighten.

Loki closed his eyes and tipped back his head, letting himself briefly get lost in the sensation. Tony grabbed one of the bowls and filled it with water, rinsing the soap from Loki’s hair. Loki shivered at the cold splash down his back, and he wiped it from his face where Tony had been a bit imprecise.

“Oops, sorry. I didn’t get soap in your eyes, did I?” Tony was half-laughing, though, more relaxed than Loki had seen him in a long time, and Loki couldn’t help but smile back, blinking at him through wet eyelashes. Tony’s eyes lingered, and his smile faded. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “Anyone ever tell you that your clothes don’t have to close up as high as they do? I might be biased, but seriously. You could show a bit of all this.” Tony ran a slippery hand across Loki's shoulder and down his collarbone.

Loki caught his wrist before his fingertips could reach the scar on his chest—it had healed well but remained ugly and tender—and pulled him into a kiss.

“I get it, I talk to much,” Tony said into his mouth. Loki settled a hand on his neck, and Tony twisted to sit in his lap. Loki’s breath hitched against the feeling of Tony’s naked ass on his thighs. Loki’s skin was slippery with soap, and he grabbed Tony’s hips to pull him closer. Tony hummed appreciatively and opened his mouth into the kiss. Loki stroked a hand up his side and chest—and everything came to a screeching halt.

Tony sprung away from Loki as though electrocuted, his hand slapped over the reactor. He slipped on the tile and caught himself on the basin; his eyes were too wide and his chest heaving.

“That didn’t … I mean, I didn’t expect to—”

“I didn’t mean to touch it.” Loki held both hands up, palms out, signaling peace.

“No, it’s fine. I didn’t mean …” Tony seemed a bit stunned by his own reaction. He was clearly embarrassed. “Shit. I mean, it’s not going to be weird forever. It’s just—”

“I understand. I hurt you,” Loki said evenly. Worse, he had terrified him. Loki still didn’t know what exactly he had done to Tony under mind-control—his memories tended to be hazy and scrambled when the Other took over—but he was keenly aware that it had shattered something between them. It was a wonder that Tony had let him get close at all. If he regretted that now, Loki could hardly blame him.

He stood and, with a spell, dried and clothed himself in soft and high-closed linens.

“Loki, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine. I heard your garments arrive.” Loki left quickly, emerging from the twilight of the bathroom into the bright daylight of the living quarters, and he closed the doors against Tony’s forlorn expression.

Loki sagged against the closed door and looked out of the arched windows. The cleaning crews seemed to be making good progress; how long had it taken to rebuild after the war against the Dark Elves? Loki hardly remembered. He had been confined to the dungeons during that attack, too.

(He hadn’t gotten the chance to attend his mother’s funeral.)

Loki was asking so much of Tony. Tony had hidden him, sheltered him, and helped him heal. Tony had listened, demanded he do better, and forgiven him when he did. What had Loki given in return? Insults. Betrayal. He had almost killed him.

It seemed he was moving in endless circles, never getting anywhere. Like he was doomed to repeat the same mistakes, to hurt and betray the people that loved him.

Everything he touched fell apart.

Loki cut off that train of thought before he could sink into melancholy.

He straightened both his spine and his garments, and he walked towards the main bedroom. He was glad to see that the clothes had, in fact, arrived, and Loki laid them out on the bed, inspecting their cut and color.

Once the trial was over, Tony would return to Midgard, and Loki would carry out his sentence. (Or flee if the judgment was unbearable. Without Odin, no one would chase him if he disappeared. No one would mourn his absence.)

And Tony would never have to see him again.

A single drop landed on the silver breastplate, and Loki stared at it. He hadn’t realized he was crying. He sat down by the breastplate—it had been his main armor as a young man, and he hadn’t worn it in centuries—and whispered a spell, dragging his fingertips through the tear and up the curve of the metal. In his wake, the armor shifted until it resembled the stacked lines of the Iron Man suit. He placed his hands on both shoulder pads and shaped them to hug Tony’s frame. Then he ran them down its sides, remembering what Tony’s body had felt like under his hands. The armor adapted easily.

Tony appeared in the door in his underwear, and Loki surreptitiously wiped his eyes.

“These are appropriate for the occasion.” Loki stood and gestured to the bed.

“Did you just make that?” Tony crossed the room and ran a hand over the armor with his eyebrows raised. “This is good. This is good enough that I should sue you.”

Loki rolled his eyes and picked up the tunic to throw at Tony. “This one first, please.”

“Yes, yes.” Tony began dressing and struggled with the clasps and buckles, seeming at a loss over how to use them to shape the garments. Loki first mocked him, then helped him. He kneeled to adjust the length of the pant leg with a quick spell, then buckled and tied Tony’s boots. When he looked up at him, he was being uncharacteristically quiet, and his ears were slightly pink.

Loki cleared his throat and rose, holding out the breastplate to fit over Tony’s chest. Tony lifted his arms and let him buckle it on. They stood inches apart when Loki reached around him to connect the straps on his back, and there was a moment in which they both lingered. Loki took a deep breath and broke the eye contact. He stepped back.

“Ta-dah.” He turned the mirror with a flourish of the wrist so that Tony might look at himself: maroon tunic, silver armor, leather boots and gloves.

“Yep, I’m ready for the renfair.” Tony was fiddling with his cuffs but barely spared a glance at the clothes. He was watching Loki with thoughtful eyes.

“You are ready for a royal celebration,” Loki corrected. “Stop tugging at that. You’re wrinkling the silk.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let me just—” Tony stepped up to the glass and kept fiddling with his collar, pulling it out from beneath the breastplate, which in turn distorted the shoulders of the tunic.

Loki clucked his tongue and batted his hands away. “I understand these are uncomfortable if you slouch. Which is easily remedied by not slouching.”

“Wow. Are you channeling my mother or your own right now?” But Tony held still while Loki fixed his collar. “So. Are you coming?”

Loki’s hands stilled. He didn’t have an answer.

Tony covered Loki’s hands with his. “Okay. Listen. I don’t mean that you have to go. I just … I didn’t want to go to my parents’ funeral. Jarvis made me, and I was glad he did.”

Loki imagined sitting it out, watching the souls rise to Valhalla while hiding in Tony’s workshop. The thought was unacceptable. Even if Odin wasn’t his father, Loki was of Asgard. He would bear witness to the king’s death and to the ascension of the warriors that had fought to protect Asgard.

He took a step back, and when his heel touched the floor, with a shimmer of magic, he clad himself in armor—the one Frigga had gifted him for his coming of age ceremony.

“Come on, then.”

**

It was cold that night. Across black waters drifted the barges, first among them that of Asgard’s king. Empty it lay, but for Odin’s ravens that perched eerily silent on the bow. Like shooting stars, the burning arrows lit up the sky and briefly bathed the harbor in light. One after another, the barges burst aflame, and as the smoke drifted across the water. The taste—wood, cloth, and charred flesh—coated the roof of Loki’s mouth. The souls of the fallen ascended, their light reflecting on the water. When the choir began singing, a great storm of voices joined their song, louder than Loki had ever heard. By his side, Thor’s voice rose, rough with tears.

In Asgard’s eyes, Odin had saved the Nine Realms through a cunning plan and heroic sacrifice. His cruelty towards Loki felt like an aside, a footnote hardly worth mentioning. There was no space for any Jotun spawn in the grand epic of Odin’s history. And when Loki’s eyes burned with tears, it wasn’t for the loss of a father, but for himself that he cried.

When the crowd dispersed, Thor pulled him into a hug. Loki felt numb in his arms. “Will you come to the feast, brother?”

The words stuck in Loki’s throat. Tony squeezed his hand, and the warmth of his hand returned Loki’s voice to him. “I think not. I have not the heart to listen to eulogies tonight.”

“Then we must part here.” While disappointed, Thor accepted his decision with surprising grace. He turned to Tony. “Will you look after my brother?”

“Not to do you a favor, Point Break.”

Thor clapped him on the shoulder and gave them a brave smile before leaving.

When he was out of earshot, Tony turned to Loki. “What do you want to do?”

Loki stared out over the waters, once more quiet and dark, and above them the endless stars. In a childish impulse, he looked for the ones that had newly joined them in the sky: his mother, his father, the fallen soldiers. It was hopeless. Asgard’s sky was bright with the light of the dead, awaiting Ragnarök to rise once more.

His breath went out of him in a shudder, white fog climbing into the sky. “I could use a drink.”

**

Loki briefly thought about the bars, the halls, then about retiring to his own quarters, but none of it seemed right. They ended up ordering wine—as well as something that wouldn’t kill Tony upon ingestion—to the workshop.

He changed out of his armor with a snap of his fingers and settled down in the cot without a second thought. It was an odd feeling of safety, sequestering in here with Tony. It reminded him of the hiding spots he had found as a child in the castle, some of which he had shared with Thor. He didn’t remember what they had talked about in those hours away from court and mentors and family, but he remembered the laughter, the joy, the warm fondness he had held for Thor in those early years.

Tony pulled out a chair from beneath the workbench and sat down with a sigh. He began undoing the buckles of his armor but grew increasingly impatient as his fingers slipped over the small silver clasps on his back, not familiar with the buttons to open them.

“Would you stop looking smug and help me out?” Tony said after a while. “What happened to your manners, huh? I thought you were raised for court.”

Loki grinned and sat forward to help loosen the buckles under his arms and behind his shoulders. “I can’t help that you’re entertaining to watch.”

“You enjoy my misery, huh? I thought you had ditched the villain lifestyle.”

“Did I make any such claim?” Loki joked. “Besides, frustration is a good look on you.”

He lifted the breastplate away, brushing his hands over Tony’s tunic to adjust its fall. Tony watched him with eyes that were too wide, seemingly lost for words. It took Loki a moment to remember to let him go, pulling his hands into his lap.

There was a knock on the door, and Tony startled. “And that should be the alcohol.” He accepted the tray from the servant, sending them away before they could step inside and see Loki. Tony kicked the door shut with his foot and unceremoniously set the tray down on the cluttered work floor by the cot.

“So. Odin is gone,” Tony said while pouring Loki a glass of wine. “Don’t make that face. We’re going to talk about it. You’ve already tried not talking about it for three days straight; I think we have explored that approach.”

Loki accepted the goblet and sighed theatrically. “What is there to talk about? The king is dead. Long live the king.” He toasted to no one in particular and took a long drink of sweet, Elvish honey wine. It burned pleasantly on the way down, and he could feel the tension ebb out of his shoulders.

Tony kicked off his boots and set his socked feet on the cot next to Loki, sipping a drink so dark it was almost black. “If it doesn’t matter, why have you checked out since it happened, huh?”

Loki stilled his nervous hand from fiddling with his tunic. “That’s not the only thing that happened during that fight.”

“Don’t I know that,” Tony said with heavy sarcasm. “Come on, Loki, just talk to me. That’s what we do, right? We talk, and somehow stuff gets better.”

Loki couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You’re laughing now, but if you don’t talk to me, I’m calling Bruce. Good luck explaining this mess to him.”

“Fine. What do you wish to hear? That he was a good father? That I’ll miss him? That I regret the way he died? He wasn’t, and I don’t.” Loki thrust out his empty goblet, and Tony refilled it obediently.

“Cool. What about the move he pulled to save us?” Tony asked as lightly as though talking of the weather. “Pretty sure Thanos would have killed us both.”

“Is that it? One good deed erases all else that he’s done? It doesn’t work like that, Iron Man.” Loki hadn’t expected his voice to rise the way it did. He controlled the volume with some effort. “He has lied to me, treated me like a tool, and ignored me until I was useful. The only reason he didn’t kill me was my mother’s pleading, and when he had need of me, he hunted me down like an animal, without care for my well-being or wishes. Are those the actions of a loving parent?”

Tony watched him for a moment, clearly thinking. “Yeah, he was a shit dad. But that’s not what this is about, right? It’s about the thing you told me in the dungeons.” He pointed at Loki with his glass. “Because he was a king, your whole life revolved around him. You never got away from him.”

“Around the throne.” Loki knew it was a pointless distinction.

“And now Thor is getting that, too.”

Tony had always been relentless in drawing him out, and Loki didn’t know why it made him so angry right now. This is not what he had wanted. He wished for comfort and quiet, and Tony’s refusal to cooperate made him want to break something. Loki set his goblet down hard enough to spill wine on the floor and stood. “I don’t see the point in listening to this.”

“Oh no, you’re not leaving.” Tony grabbed a handful of Loki’s shirt, and Loki tore it from his grasp.

“Won’t I? Good luck trying to stop me.” He was across the room in three strides.

“If you’re leaving over this bullshit, why the hell am I here?” Tony rarely shouted, which was probably why it shocked Loki into stillness. Loki found himself frozen with his hand on the doorknob.

“I owe you nothing,” he said and knew it wasn’t true.

“This is not about debt, it’s about trust! In case you haven’t noticed, I’m bending over backwards here! The least you can do is try!”

“Fantastic news, I trust you, too!” Loki snarled over his shoulder. “I still don’t wish to speak of this! Is that too much to ask?”

“Maybe! Yes! You’re fucking miserable, and I’m done watching you do this to yourself!”

“How glad you must be that you won’t have to for much longer. When are you returning home, Tony? How many days do we have left?” Loki was aware of the cruel edge in his voice, and he didn’t care.

Tony was stunned into brief silence. “What the fuck, Loki? Are you accusing me of leaving? Because that’s rich coming from the guy—”

Loki whirled around. “Is it? When you cannot hide that you’re flinching when I come too close.”

“—that was running away from this conversation— What?”

“Don’t pretend you’re fine, Tony; I know that you’re not. We’re not fine.”

“I’m trying to be!” Tony shouted. “I’m trying to get us there, so why don’t you stop being melodramatic and fucking talk to me!”

“You were the one that didn’t want to talk!”

They were both breathing heavily. It took visible effort when Tony admitted, “Okay, so maybe I was wrong. I was also really damn exhausted at the time. Loki, come on. Work with me.”

The fight went out of Loki. He sagged against the door and clutched his hands before him, calming himself. He was being childish. He might as well give Tony what he wanted and get this over with. “So you wish to talk about Odin?”

“That would be a start.”

Loki sighed and tried to find something to say that was true. He let his hands fall and looked at Tony. “It barely feels like he’s gone. Like a tree grows around the wire that shapes it, I have grown around Odin’s teachings. I hear him in my thoughts; words of who I am and what I’m worthy of, and I can barely tell his voice apart from my own. And he isn’t even here to answer for what he’s done.”

Tony looked at him with something that wasn’t quite pity, but close enough to set Loki on edge. Tony sat down and gestured to the cot with raised eyebrows. Loki allowed himself a moment of stubborn defiance, then crossed the room and sat back down. He took his goblet to drain in a few gulps. Tony took it from his hands to refill it, then he swung his feet back up to rest comfortably against Loki’s thigh.

Tony spoke slowly, as though testing out the words. “Both my parents died in a car crash. I didn’t get a chance for last words, or goodbyes. So I went off the rails for a while. A decade or so. That’s how I built up a lot of reputation that you like to rub in my face so much.” He sniffed and looked out of the window. “I think my dad did his best to love me, we just weren’t very compatible.

“Any time I tried to do what I wanted, we got into fights. Because I slacked off in class, or didn’t skipped out on some stuck-up party, or didn’t make small talk with his business partners. I rebelled to get out of that, for a while, and then I ended up rebelling just for the sake of it. It got a reaction out of my dad, and that was something, right?” Tony took a long drink and collected his thoughts. “I think he taught me a bunch of things he hadn’t meant to teach me. He never really let himself be happy. The order was always work first, then other people, and then, at the very end, he did stuff that he wanted. And that’s a thing I … I think I’m a bit too much like him, sometimes.” The forlorn look in his eyes was at odds with his controlled tone of voice.

Loki settled a hand on Tony’s leg, anchoring himself in the feeling. His anger was slowly dissipating.

“He, uhm. He took a video of himself, in which he called me ‘his greatest creation.’ Always thought that’s an awful lot of credit to take for someone that was never around. So, yeah, I think he … I think he loved me. I just wish he’d have told me that to my face, once or twice, so it wouldn’t have taken me four decades to figure that out.” Tony tapered off. “I think most people get kind of fucked up by their parents.”

“You have thought about this a great deal, haven’t you?” Loki drew slow circles into the skin above his ankle.

“Yeah, well. Pep almost made me go to therapy over this crap.” Tony shrugged and lifted an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t think you were such a cuddler.”

“I’m not.” Loki pulled his hand back into his lap.

Tony got up to refill Loki’s goblet, then sat down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Warm and solid. “It wasn’t a complaint.” He put his head on Loki’s shoulder. His speech was a little slurred, and it made Loki inexplicably fond. “Ugh. I’m crap at this kind of stuff. You should have taken me up on calling Bruce. He’s got this stable and well-balanced thing going on that I can’t figure out.”

Loki let his head fall against the wall, putting a hand on Tony’s thigh. Tony wasn’t wrong; he didn’t mind the closeness. (And he felt less like he was drowning when he was touching Tony.)

“Odin used to tell me loved me, but I don’t think I ever believed him.” Loki didn’t take his eyes off the ceiling. The murals in the artificer’s workshops were centered around the virtues of truth and discovery, and one of them depicted Odin hanging upside down from Yggdrasil: the invention of magic and the discovery of runes. Loki focused on his stoic face, blood dripping from the empty eye socket. “I knew what it looked like when he did love someone. Thor was right there, after all.”

Tony was quiet for a while. “But you loved your dad, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and Loki pressed his eyes shut against the surge of pain. Tears ran down his face. He wasn’t grieving Odin; he never would. But he was grieving all the things that Odin hadn’t been. Loki was grieving for the childhood he never had, for the person he could have been had he not been focused on living up to an ideal that was impossible to reach. Had he not been so focused on being loved back by someone that didn’t know how. Loki would always have fallen short, and, deep inside, Loki had long known that something was wrong with him for Odin to hate him so.

The truth was that Odin hadn’t hated him.

For all his claims that he loved him, until he had need of him, Odin had barely acknowledged Loki at all.

He drew up his legs and bedded his forehead against his knees, and, as though he were a child again, he sobbed into the soft linen fabric. Tony plucked the goblet from his hands and set it aside. Then he laid an arm around him, shushing him with soft, nonsensical words of comfort. Loki held onto Tony, and buried his face against his neck, snot and tears soaking into his shirt.

There was a great darkness inside of him, the place from which he drew to frighten and hurt others, in which he found the cold cruelty to ignore their suffering. It was as though someone had lanced that festering boil, and as he was crying, it was slowly draining, leaving him lightheaded.

Tony guided them down to lie on their sides, allowing Loki to press close until his tears dried up.

**

He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep in Tony’s arms until he woke. It was still fully dark outside, and even the revelers celebrating their king’s passing to Valhalla seemed to have gone to bed. Which meant it was likely an hour or two before sunrise.

His nose was stuffy, his mouth fuzzy with sleep and alcohol, and he needed to pee. Tony, of course, was awake. He had turned around so that his back was pressed up against the curve of Loki’s chest and hip and was reading something on the small, lit-up rectangle of his phone.

Typical.

Loki wriggled out of the small space and climbed over Tony, who cast him a questioning look.

“Bathroom,” Loki mumbled but took note of the way Tony’s eyes followed him. He padded across the stone floor and to the small bath across the hallway, suddenly wide awake.

In the low light of the abandoned bathrooms, he pissed, then washed his face and rinsed his mouth. He brushed back his hair, which had come undone and was falling in curls around his face. He looked at himself: pale but no longer sickly, with a hint of red on his cheeks.

“What are you doing?” he whispered to his reflection. He wasn’t sure that Tony could be any more clear in signaling his desires.

He finished washing up, heart pounding, and returned on soft soles to the workshop. He closed the door behind him with a soft click and returned to where Tony was once more watching him in the dim light of his phone.

Loki plucked it from his hands to set it on the workbench, and Tony let him, rolling on his back with wide eyes. Loki drew back the blanket and straddled his hips, then bent down to kiss him.

Tony opened his mouth, his hands coming up to dig fingers into Loki’s hips, squirming beneath him. Tony was half-hard, meaning he probably had been aroused even before Loki woke. Which made Loki a little frantic in turn.

“I won’t touch your chest,” Loki said quietly. “But that would be easier if you undressed yourself.”

“Yep, okay,” Tony breathed between kisses. “Let me sit up, then.”

Loki shuffled backwards on his knees and opened his own tunic with fingers that seemed to have forgotten how to work buttons. He was unable to look away from Tony for long.

Tony wriggled out of his pants, and he managed to kick Loki in the process—the bed was tiny. He laughed and apologized, and Loki wanted to press him into the mattress and not stop touching him until he came fully undone, hold him close with nothing between them but skin. It was a yearning akin to thirst; unnoticeable but for its growing discomfort until it became utterly unbearable, until it wiped out every other thought.

Loki crowded him into the corner of the bed, against the wall, and ran his hands up and down Tony’s thighs, drunken on the feeling of his soft skin and the rasp of hair, stopping short of his cock. Tony whimpered into his mouth.

“Wait, just—” Tony put a hand to Loki’s jaw to dissuade him from his mouth, and Loki kissed his palm instead. Tony laughed, a little high-pitched, and moaned when Loki pressed in between his thighs. “I said, wait,” he repeated. Loki stilled with some effort and watched Tony’s glittering eyes in the darkness.

“What is it?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m very much into this. But you remember the … you remember destroying the arc reactor, right?”

Loki sobered and sat back on his heels, withdrawing. The mind control did mess up his memory, but there was little point in telling Tony that. Tony caught his hands before they could leave his hips, pressing them into his skin.

“No, no, nope. We’re not stopping. I just … would you mind lying down?” Tony’s blushes rarely reached his cheeks, but his ears were bright red at the request. “It’s just— when you took the suit apart, you were on top, and, uh. That was hot in all the wrong ways. It’s not a great memory right now.”

Loki’s hands on Tony’s hips felt suddenly dangerous. If he squeezed too hard, he would shatter Tony’s bones.

“We don’t have to—”

“No.” Tony grabbed his shoulders, fingers and nails digging into his skin. “I’m not sure whether you have noticed, but this has been torture. If we don’t fuck, I’ll blow something up. Just lie back, and give me some space, and keep your hands clear of this baby.” Tony tapped the glass case in his chest.

Loki was … Norns, he was done getting this wrong. “I would lie on my stomach.” His heart was speeding up, and he felt hot all over. “Take me that way. I wish not harm you, and you’re looking to limit the ways I could err in touching you.”

For a moment, Tony looked dumbstruck. “You mean … oh shit, you bottom? Yeah, okay, I don’t know why I didn’t expect that. I can work with that. You got … I mean, I probably have lube somewhere in this workshop, though it may be made from some kind of animal fat, who knows what—” Tony interrupted himself when he saw Loki’s face. “Are you laughing at me?”

“You’re adorably eager.” Tony glared at him with such offense that Loki did laugh. “I can provide lubrication, yes.”

“‘Adorable.’ Remind me why I wanted to have sex with you. You’re a menace.” Tony pushed Loki on his back, and Loki went gladly.

“And you enjoy it,” Loki teased.

“I’m pleading the fifth. I want my lawyer.” Tony nudged his legs apart so that one of them was hanging off the bed and shuffled backwards until he slipped off the cot and onto his knees.

Loki’s mouth went dry when he realized Tony was about to take him in his mouth. Loki bedded his head on his arms and watched, swallowed around a too-tight throat as Tony rolled his balls in his hands and looked up at him, his other hand stroking Loki’s until he was fully hard. With no warning, he swallowed him all the way down.

Loki let his eyes flutter shut and strained to not buck up into the tight heat, his breath coming so fast it was making him dizzy. Tony hummed around him, and Loki stifled a moan. Tony clearly was practiced at this, and over the course of the next few minutes, Loki could do little more than tense his thighs so his hips wouldn’t move and make soft, needy noises.

“Tony,” he gasped. “Tony, I don’t wish to … not yet, please.”

Tony released him with a wet pop and lazily kept stroking his cock. His lips were bright red in the dim light, and he grinned. “Little bit speechless, princess?”

Loki kicked at him—he missed him on purpose—and Tony grinned and ducked.

“Fine, roll over, then. Elbows and knees, if you don’t mind.” Tony patted his thigh.

Loki did. Bedding his head on his forearms, he effectively couldn’t see what Tony was doing. It was an exceedingly vulnerable position, with his ass in the air and his knees shoulder-width apart. It reminded Loki why he didn’t have sex often and why he didn’t always want it.

Tony parted his ass cheek and rubbed a thumb against his hole, and Loki shuddered hard. And he remembered why he liked sex very much, actually.

“You’re one tall bastard, aren’t you? For all that I love the view, I think you do have to lie down, or this won’t work.”

“Do you just like ordering me around, or is there a point to this?” Loki grabbed the pillow and shoved it under his hips and lowered himself, shivering as Tony guided him into a position he liked.

“Would you like me to order you around? Is that a request?” Tony teased. He covered him with his body to kiss the back of his neck. Tony’s skin was hot and solid against his, and it felt so good that he moaned helplessly and rutted against the sheets. Tony’s weight atop him turned Loki’s thoughts into white static; it made him feel safe and grounded. If Tony were close enough to suffocate him, it wouldn’t be enough. Tony’s cock was heavy between his ass cheeks and rubbing against his perineum and balls.

“Okay, time for lube.” Tony was slightly breathless as he brushed hair from Loki’s ear and kissed it, and Loki shivered, head to curling toes. “Though I get the impression you really like this part.”

Tony was right. Heat was burning through Loki in roiling waves. He hadn’t taken a lover in a while, not a male one, not in this form, and it was … it was a bit overwhelming. Loki summoned the bottle of oil and handed it over his shoulder. Tony dragged a hand down his sides, then slicked his palm and reached beneath Loki to grip his cock, and Loki groaned into the dark space created by his arms, holding almost perfectly still, apart from the occasional shiver as Tony slowly stroked him. Heat pooled in his balls, in his abdomen, tugged at his thighs, and Loki whimpered helplessly.

“Not yet, please,” he gasped. “I don’t wish to come yet.”

“Okay,” Tony kissed his shoulder and sat back between Loki’s legs. He dropped the oil trying to open it with slick fingers, cursing softly. “You know that it’s really endearing that you get polite when you’re out of sorts?”

Loki took a moment to collect himself, panting. Norns, he was close to drooling. “I’m always polite, unless other people are idiots.” He missed the skin contact, and he looked up to see Tony grinning, bright and giddy. Loki didn’t think he’d ever seen him smile that wide. “I’m glad to see you’re enjoying yourself.” It was supposed to come out teasing, but Loki’s voice was a bit husky for that.

“You are very pretty to watch.” Tony pressed a slick finger inside, and Loki let his forehead drop to the mattress, breathing slowly and relaxing. Norns, it felt good. Tony added another finger, then a third. “Okay, are you really practiced, or is this an alien thing?”

Loki would have asked what he meant if Tony didn’t choose that moment to brush his prostate, and Loki bucked with a guttural moan, his cock leaking at the pressure. Tony put a hand on his lower back to keep him in place. Loki tensed to hold still, unable to keep himself from whimpering as Tony finger-fucked him.

“Okay,” Tony said breathlessly. “I don’t think you need much of this, let’s just—” He removed his fingers, and his cock was pressing up against Loki’s hole, drawing one ass cheek to the side to ease his way in.

He slid in easily, lowered himself on his elbows, and covered Loki with his body once more, then stilled. Loki was lost in the sensation. This was all he wanted, having Tony as close as he could possibly be, his breath on Loki’s neck, sweat-slick skin sliding over his. The arc reactor was digging sharply into the scar tissue on his back, probably leaving red welts, and Loki wouldn’t have cared if it drew blood. Tony smelled like soap and fresh musk and himself—always just slightly like engine oil—and Loki still tasted his kisses on his tongue. He wanted to live on this edge, where the boundaries between them blurred, so heady with arousal that Loki might forget who he was.

(Just for a moment, he wished to forget.)

“Please.” It came out raw.

Tony took that as a sign to move, adjusting his position until he found good leverage and an easy rhythm. He never moved far enough away that Loki couldn’t feel his weight or lost skin contact. Loki’s fingers dug into the sheets to keep him from touching himself.

“Wait, let me—” Tony shifted a bit higher up, and the next thrust hit Loki’s prostate. He bucked with a moan, his cock dragging against dry linen. “Good?”

“Please keep asking inane questions.”

“Where did your politeness go?” Tony laughed breathlessly. Loki was lost in the movement of their bodies, in the building arousal, the maddening drag of his cock against damp sheets, the stretch and pressure, Tony’s weight pushing him down, anchoring him. When he came, it was without Tony’s touch. The orgasm was blinding, shattering the last of his composure and drawing animal noises from his throat. Tony fucked him through it, and Loki’s body couldn’t decide whether he wanted to push into the relentless, demanding drag or away from it. His hands were clawing at the sheets and he was panting, open-mouthed, whimpering through the oversensitivity.

Tony came soon after, hips stuttering to a halt and collapsing on top of Loki. He eased out of him and turned him over and kissed him sloppily: his mouth, his cheeks, his throat, until Loki laughed and pushed him away so he might breathe. His skin was alight with the intense glow of fondness. He felt larger than he had just an hour ago, more present in his skin.

Tony lay still on top of him, chest to chest, sticky, both of them slick with cooling sweat, and catching their breath. The sun was coming up, and the rays of red and gold caught in Tony’s tousled hair and beard, highlighted the high points of his nose and cheeks. His eyes were luminous in the early sunlight.

“I liked that,” Tony said.

“I hadn’t noticed.” Loki didn’t want to speak just yet. He just wanted Tony to stay close.

“We could do it again.” Tony suggested.

And … that didn’t sound bad. Loki let a hand wander down Tony’s side and to his ass. Tony caught his hand.

“Ah-ah. In twenty minutes, after a glass of water. I’m not that young.”

He wasn’t. Loki was highly aware that, at just half a century old, Tony was most of the way through his life. Loki buried a hand in his hair and kissed him, his chest filled to bursting with something bitter-sweet and heavy. “I can wait.”

Chapter Text

The throne room had been cleared of debris, but the rebuilding of Hlidskjálf hadn’t yet begun. The eastern side of the hall opened into the deep blue sky, and sunlight flooded the hall. Never before had the gold of the throne shone as brightly as today.

Despite the rebuilding taking its toll on Asgard’s people, the stands were filled to bursting, and a tide of whispers rose as Loki entered the room. Loki caught little of it as he walked to the pedestal: slayer of Thanos, savior of Asgard.

“Long live Prince Loki!” A few voices echoed the sentiment throughout the hall.

Loki found himself taken aback. He hadn’t thought … he had thought the credit would go to Odin. He looked for Tony in the audience, but in the sea of faces, he was lost.

The lesser kings of the Nine ascended to their seats. None had weathered battle unscathed, and Lodhur limped as he took the steps, one by one.

Lodhur cleared his throat, and the hall fell silent. There was protocol to follow in opening a trial, but Lodhur abandoned it halfway through. Instead, he recounted the last days, and addressed the hardships that Asgard had been through. Only in his retelling, Loki came to know that the Council had taken on Thanos’s children, while Odin had fought the Titan himself. Odin’s sacrifice was mentioned, as was Loki’s role in saving Asgard.

“Taking the past days into account, the Council of the Nine has arrived at a verdict. Loki of Asgard, kneel before the throne.”

The throne, of course, was empty, and Thor oversaw the proceeding from its side. He wasn’t king—not yet, at least—but at his command the Council had foregone the formality of chains. Loki thought it was awfully trusting of them. He crossed the room with the weight of Asgard’s gaze on his back, guarded by men that, if he ran, couldn’t stop him.

“I await your judgment.” Loki knelt in the very spot in which Odin had died. His eyes landed on the groove that Thanos’s sword had carved. They had scrubbed his blackened blood from the floor, but some had sunk into the veining of the marble. The stain was permanent.

“We have found you guilty of high treason when leading foreign combatants into the vaults.”

No surprise there.

“Your actions as regent were within the law of the Nine and need no further discussion. As for the strike against Midgard, the Council has come to believe that you were an unwilling participant. On all accounts but the first, the charges will be dismissed.

“Furthermore, your recent actions to protect the realms have created extenuating circumstances.

“Hear now your punishment.”

Loki held his breath and waited.

“Loki of Asgard, for an uninterrupted span of five years, you will serve as the Allfather’s agent on Midgard.”

“Five years?” Loki was baffled enough to repeat. Surely, he had heard wrong. That couldn’t be all.

“Five years, as dictated by the Midgardian calendar, to start at a date of the Allfather’s choosing.” Lodhur repeated. Eitri looked like he had bitten into a sour apple. He had never liked Loki, and the feeling was mutual. Convincing him of a sentence this light must have taken time.

Loki paid no heed to the closing words as the Council dismissed itself. Njord and Lodhur were in quiet conversation as they descended the stairs, shooting both Loki and Thor curious glances. The chatter of the spectators rose to a roar; a few people broke into applause.

He had been sentenced for the crime of treason, and people were cheering for him. It was entirely surreal.

Loki was back on Asgard, kept his place in the royal line of ascension, having regained Thor’s trust and that of the people. Loki almost laughed. It was like the past years had been a fever dream. As though none of it had happened.

Well. ‘None of it’ might be too strong a sentiment.

“This is the longest I’ve ever seen you kneel.” Thor was grinning down on him.

“I thought I’d get it all out of my system before you are king and I your lowly servant,” he said and grasped Thor’s proffered forearm to be hauled to his feet.

“About that—” Thor paused as he looked over Loki’s shoulder.

“Am I interrupting? Because I can leave if I am. I absolutely can move the celebration to a later date—we’re celebrating, right? Five years of community service is nothing for you guys.”

Loki turned to face Tony, a helpless grin spreading over his face. “Yes, we will celebrate.” He had meant to show Tony Fensalir, and he was reasonably sure that Thor—future Allfather, what a ridiculous thought—would not stop them.

“You can crash at the Tower, you know. I have a few floors set aside that I wasn’t using for anything. In case we ever got another Avenger. Which we didn’t, so they’re free.” Tony was tense and had his hands firmly buried in his pockets.

Thor clasped Tony’s shoulder and squeezed it. “My friend, we will feast, drink, and dance for a week. And then, we will make plans for the future. But I must ask your patience for I have need of my brother’s advice”

Tony’s eyes flickered from Loki to Thor and back.

Loki clasped Tony’s neck and stroked a thumb over his cheekbone, a rasp of beard against his palm. A faint flush colored Tony’s ears, and he shifted nervously. Norns, was he fond of this man. “I will find you.”

“Okay.” Tony still hesitated for a moment, as though gravity was pulling him two directions at once. Then he took a step forward and quickly kissed Loki’s lips before turning around and walking off. He looked back once before he vanished through a side exit.

Thor cleared his throat, and Loki realized he’d been staring. When he turned to Thor, he was wearing his most shit-eating grin. Loki’s face burned. “I dare you to say something.”

“I have no desire to find frogs in my bed.” Thor gestured for him to follow.

**

Thor found them a small, abandoned office to speak in private, so dark they had to turn up the lights after the brightness of the throne room. Thor sent for wine and ale, took one look at Loki, and then added an order of breakfast. Loki rarely ate when nervous and hadn’t managed more than a few bites that morning. He hadn’t thought that Thor would remember.

Loki sat on the wooden desk and was absentmindedly leafing through expense ledgers when the food arrived. Thor was prowling the room like a caged tiger and making distracted small talk, picking up things and setting them down elsewhere, likely creating future trouble for the officials using these rooms. It went on for a few minutes before Loki couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Out with it. Why have you dragged me into the treasurer’s office when, by all rights, I should be celebrating?” Loki asked between popping grapes into his mouth.

Thor stilled, one hand on the sill of the small window. “Everyone assumes I will be king. Even you haven’t questioned it.” Thor looked troubled, and the pause, during which he was choosing his words, weighed heavily. “Brother, I don’t think I’m ready.”

Loki had been about to sink his teeth into a honeycake but found himself gaping. “What do you mean, you’re not ready? Of course you’re ready! Odin is dead, which means you’re ready to be king!”

Thor barked a laugh. “That’s how it works, isn’t it?” He was tracing invisible patterns into the windowsill. Then he leaned on it and turned to Loki. “Unless, of course, you were to do it.”

Something short-circuited in Loki’s brain. Thor didn’t want the throne. How had Loki not seen this coming? “What? Why?” he asked dumbly. “You’ve always wanted to be king. It was all either of us ever wanted!”

“I’m not a child anymore. After the destruction of the Bifröst, chaos reigned across the Nine Realms, and I have been at the helm of the battle to restore balance.” Thor’s voice grew assured, and he gestured animatedly to make his point. “I was great at it, Loki. I understand our people better than ever. I protect them and carry word of their needs to Asgard. As king, I would lose that connection.

“You know how Odin labored in his study and the meeting chambers. There were days we didn’t see him at all! And I’m not like that, brother. I’m not like you. I can’t do that kind of work, not well or easily. I’m better suited to serve our people in the field than from an office!”

“That is all very well, but I won’t be king either!” Loki was seconds from throwing his honeycake at Thor.

“Yes, you can! What was all the ‘kneel before me’ and the stabbing me about if you didn’t want to be king?”

“Alright. For one, I wanted Odin to take me seriously. That ambition expired, thoroughly, when the old man croaked. For two— Thor, just think! I cannot be king!”

“Loki, you’d be a great king!” Thor pushed himself off the window sill and snatched a handful of almonds from Loki’s tray. “You think like him, you speak like him, and for reasons I do not understand, you like politics—”

“Asgard does not need another Odin!” The honeycake was crushed in his hand, and Loki stared at it. His appetite had fled him. He gently set the destroyed pastry down and wiped his sticky hands on a napkin.

“Do it with me, then. Share the throne and the burden.”

Loki snorted with disgust. “Have you thought of that just now? Don’t be ridiculous; a throne is not a toy to be shared. And can you imagine us working together? It would be a disaster.”

“We worked together against Malekith!”

“I almost died!” Loki gave him an incredulous look. “Thor. Have you paid any attention over the past millennia?”

“Neither of us is who we used to be.”

Loki shook his head. “There has to be a better way.”

“Loki, there is no better time than now to change the rules! The people love you!”

“Oh, they’ll get over that. At the first unfavorable ruling, they’ll remember the crimes that the Council forgave. They’ll remember that … that I’m …” But Loki couldn’t bring himself to say ‘Frost Giant.’ He looked at the scuffed wood floor and crossed his arms over his stomach, churning with nerves.

“Just think about it. I cannot leave Midgard unprotected. The Avengers have need of me, and Jane …” Thor tapered off, looking devastated.

Loki sighed and rubbed his forehead. “The protection of Midgard can be arranged. And I agree that it should receive a voice on the Council. But that is hardly the issue. Thor, you need to be realistic: even if I did want to be king, I have just been convicted of treason. I can barely be your advisor, and not even that before fulfilling the terms of the sentencing.”

“There is no rule against it.” Thor said so quickly that Loki was convinced he had looked it up in preparation. “There is no rule against becoming king while you’re convicted of any crime.”

“Of course there isn’t. And by the terms of the judgment, I myself could decide when to carry out my sentence,” Loki muttered to himself. Thinking it through, he was almost sure he himself could simply void the sentencing if he were to take the throne. Asgard’s king was as good as untouchable.

Outside the window, he caught a mere glimpse of the realm eternal: white and golden and gleaming with prosperity. His home. In some ways, Loki understood Asgard better now that he realized he would forever be an outsider.

It was as he had told Tony: he had been shaped for this role, and Loki knew he’d do well. Almost certainly better than Thor. Thor faltered before necessary cruelty in a way that would be hard to overcome. Loki had no such reservations; he was used to being hated in ways that Thor wasn’t, and he could endure it if it was necessary. He had sacrificed enough to know that he could carry on while bleeding.

Loki imagined himself as king, as he so often had. And though the childish exhilaration was still there, the shadows of that vision had darkened. Asgard knew he was a Jotun. All of Asgard had seen him in chains, and his crimes had been discussed in detail before the populace. Though he had been spoken free of most of them, and despite the laughable sentencing, it would take time to rebuild credibility. Neither the nobles nor the lesser kings would easily support him, and any would betray him at the drop of a hat. Most certainly, working with Eitri would be a nightmare.

It would be a hard road. But Thor might be right; with Thor’s support and Thanos’s blood on his hands, Asgard might eventually learn to respect him.

At his fingertips lay his life as he had imagined it since boyhood: the throne, a position equal to Thor’s. The promise of his upbringing fulfilled. And at what price? The freedom to follow his whims, a life on Midgard of all places?

(Tony. It was at the expense of Tony.)

(Tony had less than a century left. Loki had no illusions of the demands of kingship. If he were to accept this, there would be no life with Tony; there might be moments carved out in between obligations and diplomacy. By the time he came up for air, Tony would be dead.)

Loki stared into the brightness of Asgard until his eyes watered. If he wanted to accept this, he’d have to do it now, before Thor was declared Allfather. (Before he rescinded the offer, as he likely would when he realized that this was a mere case of cold feet.)

“Thor, are you sure of this?” he asked instead. “Do you truly wish to share the throne?”

Thor’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and he looked at Loki with mock gravitas. “Do the Norns water Yggdrasil’s roots? Of course I’m sure!” He broke into a grin. “You’re my brother. I am glad to have you by my side.”

Loki knew what this was. A thousand times, Thor had convinced Loki to come on this adventure or that trip, to get into exciting and new kinds of trouble. A thousand times, Loki had rolled his eyes and, despite knowing better, agreed to follow Thor, to guide his steps, or to cover for him. And, once more, in the light of Thor’s invitation, which shone brighter than the future Loki had hoped for, all else grew pale.

Norns, did Loki want to give in.

“I cannot believe you brought this up the second the trial was over,” Loki said with disgust. “Could you not have given me a day?”

Thor laughed and pulled him into a hug that Loki didn’t return. “You have time. As Asgard rebuilds, the coronation must wait.” But he sounded relieved, as though he knew he had already won.

**

“Fury has gone dark. SHIELD is unraveling,” Steve said. “We’re going after them a week from now, and we could really use Iron Man’s help.”

Tony was leaning against the doorframe of Asgard’s hospital wing—healing chambers, whatever—and watched the Soul Forge come alive under the administration of Loki’s physician. (She had kicked him out of the room after he’d crawled beneath the Forge to check out their cooling system.) Loki was now listening to her explanations with crossed arms and a frown firmly fixed on his face.

“Yep, just let me finish up on Asgard. I’m almost done here.”

“I’ll send you the mission brief.”

Loki caught his eye, and Tony held up a finger. One moment, he mouthed. “I have to run. Anything else, send me an email I can ignore. You know how to write emails, right? Ask Nat.” He hung up without waiting for an answer.

He wandered into the room, addressing Loki. “What are we doing? What’s the hold up?”

“Prince Loki mentioned there were complications during the procedure on Midgard,” the physician said. She carried herself with the kind of stiff grace that had Tony automatically straighten his spine.

“To put it mildly.” Tony inspected the Soul Forge’s imaging, and he ran his fingers through the gold and green, intertwined to the point he could barely tell them apart. There was no red left in the image, no visible damage, thank God, but something else bothered him. His hand cradled the spectral image of Loki’s head. It was shot through with a small sun of golden light. The Mind Stone’s influence ran deep. “Is this worse than it used to be?”

“Prince Loki has been healing, and the parasite has been strengthened as he did, I fear.”

“By which she means that I am drinking a jug of assorted potions per day to rebuild what the Mind Stone destroys. All for the good of Asgard,” Loki said with cheerful sarcasm. “Truly, I am glad I could help Odin save the Nine.” Tony couldn’t begrudge him the anger. At least he had started talking about Odin again.

“Hold on. Let me connect you with the guy that fixed that the first time around.” Tony was already pulling up Bruce’s number. “You know, we should probably get him up here, get you two working together, and get a training program started. We have a number of cases on Earth, and our doctors should learn from your people.”

Her smooth face wrinkled in confusion. “That would be most unorthodox. Even a single Soul Forge outside of Asgard—”

“Yeah, I was hoping for a few dozen by the end of the year. Just think of it as helming the diplomatic efforts with Earth.” The call connected. “And look at that, the man of the hour just answered his phone.” He turned on the video, and a taken-aback Bruce appeared on the other end, looking a bit rumpled. “Doctor Banner, are you up for a bit of an intergalactic brainstorming session? Because I have someone that would love to talk to you about Soul Forges.”

“Uh,” Bruce said.

“Great, say hi to … Who are you again?” Tony flipped the phone so that she could stare down the length of her nose at the screen.

“Royal High Healer Eir.” She gave Loki a perplexed look, and Loki waved for her to carry on.

“Fantastic. She’s in charge of the Soul Forge and hit a snag or two. You two work that out.” Tony pressed the phone into Eir’s hand. She looked as though Tony had just handed her a live rodent.

Tony pulled Loki to the other side of the room. “So they suddenly can heal you?”

“It appears the Allfather had given orders to forbid treatment before the trial concluded, and that the orders, seeing that the Council didn’t know of them, hadn’t been lifted once unnecessary.” Loki was seething, his tone sharp-edged and his words bitten off.

Odin was lucky he was dead, because Tony was overcome with a sudden urge to strangle him. “Well, he’s emphatically not in charge anymore. When is the procedure happening? Tomorrow, tonight, maybe right now?”

Loki seemed malcontent. “The wounded are taken care of, so she wishes to proceed as soon as possible. If she can figure out how to operate safely.”

Tony shuddered, remembering the last time Loki had gone through treatment. “So … does she think this one will be, you know, less …”

“Painful? Horrifying? Pervasive to the point I’m hallucinating my dead mother?” Loki shrugged with a nonchalance he couldn’t possibly feel. “She can’t say, which is why she’d agree to talk to Banner despite your brash discourtesy. If I were to die on her table, it would wreak havoc on her reputation.”

Well. No one ever said that Loki didn’t know how to be blunt for shock value. “You’re healthy; you’re not going to die.”

“You said it yourself: it has become worse.” Loki cast a look in Eir’s direction. Having gotten past the initial awkwardness, she was deep in conversation with Bruce and had begun taking notes. “Enough of this. Were you talking to Steve Rogers, or do you have another annoyingly self-righteous friend I haven’t had the displeasure of meeting?”

Tony indulged him in the change of topic. “Yep. He wants me back on the mission in a week.”

Loki looked crestfallen. “You’re leaving, then?”

“I mean, I was thinking you’d come with me. You know. Considering you were exiled to Midgard.” Something about Loki’s expression didn’t add up. “What? What, did I miss something?”

Loki shifted on his feet and was picking at his hands nervously. “No. I do have something I would speak to you about, but not here or now.” He hesitated, then asked in a rush, “Would you meet me at the Eastern port in an hour?”

“Are we going somewhere? I’ll have you know that I hate surprises.” But Tony found he didn’t mind.

“I am sure you will be fine. Bring clothes for an overnight stay.” There was a hint of mischief in his smile.

Eir cleared her throat, and Tony’s questions died on his tongue.

“Your royal highness, if it were agreeable, I would ask Doctor of Medicine Banner to join me for surgery.”

“Just ‘Doctor Banner’ is fine,” Bruce’s tinny voice came from the speaker.

“I will gladly arrange for permission with the Council. Doctor Banner, please prepare to travel in the morning.”

**

It took days to prepare Fensalir’s halls for a longer visit, but for the sake of a single night, Loki gladly agreed to having just the dining room, the green bedroom, and adjoining facilities opened up. He throttled back the skiff and touched down in the courtyard. The surrounding woods lay in deep shadow, contrasting with the bright pinks of the sinking sun. The manor itself was lit up and teeming with servants, and the smell of late summer bloom still hung in the air. Loki felt himself grow calm.

He realized how few places there were in which he truly felt welcome. Fensalir had always been one of them.

“Is there an entrance, or is it ivy all the way down?” Tony was smiling as he took Loki’s hand and hopped out of the skiff and onto the mossy courtyard. “This is ridiculous. If there isn’t a portal to Narnia in my closet, I’m going to be disappointed.”

“It’s my mother’s estate. You might remember the gardens.”

They had passed through here running from Odin. Recognition bloomed on Tony’s face. “It looks different at night.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Loki smiled up at the lit stained-glass windows, peeking out beneath the greenery. Fireflies filled the early dusk, and colored lights illuminated the gardens. He greeted the butler by the open front doors, instructed him on how to handle Tony’s luggage, and let him know they’d take a stroll before dinner. Then he led Tony on the circular path around the manor.

“Thor and I spent most of our summers here. This is where my mother first taught me magic.”

Tony was uncharacteristically quiet as Loki pointed out the tree in which he had hidden for three days to escape some punishment, the pond that Thor tripped into trying to impress a lady, and the fields where his mother taught them to tell hemlock from yarrow.

“It’s beautiful,” Tony admitted when Loki was caught up in silent memories. “It seems like a good place to grow up.”

“It was. This part of my childhood was wholly good.” Loki let his fingers pass through the ferns bordering the path, fine leaves feathering against his skin. He had thought that it wouldn’t be the same without Frigga. Instead, he kept expecting to round a corner and see her, humming softly, sleeves rolled up, and hands covered in fresh dirt.

(She wasn’t, of course. She was gone.)

“I spent all my summers in very pretty places, but I barely remember them.” Tony sounded factual and distanced. His eyes were trained on the path before him, but he didn’t seem to see the gardens anymore. “My mom dragged me to Rome and Venice and Tokyo, and I spent the whole time locked up in some hotel room tinkering or programming or reading.

“You know how people talk about childhood friends? I didn’t have any. And anyone that tried to befriend me did for a reason, none of which had to do with me. I wasn’t a very likable kid, so I can’t really blame them.” Tony was very good at wearing expressions like masks, at giving away as little of his soul as possible. So when he looked at Loki and there was a deep sadness mirroring Loki’s own, it meant everything.

“It wasn’t that different for me. There was Thor, of course, but we grew apart soon enough.” It wasn’t a difficult admission. Tony already knew as much.

“Yeah, I can’t see the Warriors and Sif being your best buddies.” Tony sniffed and took a path at random, leading them further away from the manor and towards the small waterfall at the edge of the property. Away from the prying eyes ears of servants and gardeners.

“They weren’t so bad, not always. At times, we were united in caring for Thor.”

“Really?” Tony gave him an incredulous smile that quickly vanished when he saw Loki’s expression. “Yeah, I can see that. You know, you’ll have the chance to find new people on Earth.”

Loki laughed in surprise. “It might be difficult to find someone that doesn’t hate me.” In binding his exile to Midgard, the Council had followed Tony’s suggestion and Odin’s agreement. But it hadn’t been kind.

“So you need a little PR. Who cares? We’ll put you on Oprah or something. It’s going to work out.”

“And you would put me up in your quaint little tower? Filled with people that fear I would mindlessly slaughter them at the slightest offense?”

“The Avengers will come around. They’re decent people. Actually, they all have done shitty things. Which should make it easier to convince them to give you another chance.” Tony stopped by the pond that was fed by a cascade of small waterfalls. Brightly colored fish drifted close to the surface before vanishing once more in the murky waters.

“You are promising things you cannot know.” The fall air was sticky with humidity, and it was difficult to breathe among the cloying smell of late bloom.

Tony ducked to pick up a couple of smooth rocks, rubbing them between his fingers and inspecting them. “You weren’t yourself when you attacked New York. It’s just a matter of convincing them, and I can be very convincing.” Tony threw a flat stone across the water surface, and it skipped a few times before vanishing beneath the surface. The fish scattered where the surface was disturbed. “You’re not a villain, you’re not getting another army, and you’re not trying to rule anything any time soon.”

The gardens fell away as Loki’s thoughts chased each other in endless circles.

He wanted to speak of Thor’s offer of the throne. It was half the reason he had brought Tony here: to ask his advice, to find out whether they could make it work. But now that the words sat hot and urgently in the hollow of his throat, it felt as though he’d be begging permission instead.

Tony had always been single-minded about who he wanted Loki to be. And to a degree, Loki understood. There was violence in their past. That any kind of love had grown between them was a wonder in of itself.

But Tony didn’t know this part of Loki: the courtier, the politician, the Prince. He knew him as an invalid, a prisoner and criminal. As a danger to himself and others. As such, Loki taking any kind of throne was too closely linked to the war on Midgard. Tony wouldn’t be rational about it.

Loki lost his breath when he realized that, no, he couldn’t tell Tony. He needed to make this decision for himself, for Asgard, and for Thor.

(And he’d lose Tony if he said yes.)

“Hey. Are you okay?”

Loki swallowed the words that he couldn’t speak. “Tomorrow’s procedure is weighing on my mind.”

“Yeah.” Tony shifted the smooth rocks in his hands. They clicked and ground against each other, barely audible over the gurgling of the waterfall. “Well. Bruce is going to be there. That should help.”

“I’m sure it will.”

“You could recover in New York, you know. If you want to get out of here.”

“Do you so direly wish to see your nagging captain?”

Tony snorted and threw his handful of stones, hard. They sank without skipping. “Fine. I’m staying until you feel better, HYDRA be damned.”

Loki took Tony’s hand, feeling the dirt of river rocks on his palm. He interlaced their fingers, pressing Fensalir’s earth between their skin. “And I would be glad to have you by my side.”

Tony looked up at him; his pupils were wide to swallow what little light there was. Tony drew breath as though to speak—but just as Loki’s words had been caught in his throat, these too wouldn’t pass his lips.

Loki leaned down to kiss them from his lips in acceptance, and Tony’s eyes fluttered shut.

They spoke of things of no consequence over dinner, and when they retired for the night, the reassurance they sought needed no words.

**

They returned to Asgard in the early morning, in time to meet Bruce at the Bifröst. He spent the way to the castle in wide-eyed awe that wasn’t diminished by the working crews hauling debris through the streets. Tony was genuinely glad to have another non-Asgardian around. He had been feeling like he was going slightly crazy in the past weeks.

Bruce and Eir spent a few hours in discussion, and they went to surgery the same day.

“These guys make us look like amateurs,” Bruce whispered, a little starstruck by the efficient practicality with which Eir operated. It helped that it wasn’t just she handling the Soul Forge’s controls but five healers working in tandem.

Tony was still bitter about Asgard not getting this crap out of Loki a month ago, so he gave Bruce a tight smile and no answer.

Loki twitched as the foreign magic was plucked from his body in long strands, continuing up the base of his spine. The imaging hovering above his body showed that the green light of his magic diminishing at the same rate. He was bathed in cold sweat, eyes worried and feverish. Tony brushed hair from his forehead and held his hand.

“Hang in there. They’re almost done.” Tony pressed his lips to Loki’s knuckles, and Loki closed his eyes in acceptance.

Eir addressed Tony across the table as her hands were moving in an intricate dance of uprooting and untangling, pruning and trimming. “Please take a step back. We must take the risk of damaging the transformation rune.”

Tony remembered the workshop freezing over the last time that had happened. Tony gave Loki’s hand a squeeze and let him go.

The rune at the back of Loki’s neck disintegrated as soon as Eir touched it, and one of the healers sprang into action immediately. A cocoon of golden energy wrapped around Loki. As his skin turned blue, a thin layer of frost spread rapidly across the inside of the shield. On Loki’s next exhale, it melted. Loki opened bright red eyes to look at Tony, pleading silently.

“You’re okay.” Tony couldn’t hold him through the shield, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and stayed in Loki’s line of sight.

A couple of minutes later, the light of the Soul Forge extinguished like a candle blown out, and the golden shields fell.

“In order to remove the parasite, we had to drain your reserves. Anything else would have given it fertile ground to grow back.” Eir pulled up data on Loki’s energy fields, depicted as oscillating graphs. Bruce was looking over her shoulder, watching her fingers fly across the interface. “Seeing that your physical health is no longer depending on your magic, you should be fine. You might experience some dizziness and nausea, for which you may continue to take the potions as prescribed. Bed rest until the side effects diminish, and no magic for a week.”

“That won’t work for me,” Loki laboriously sat up, then swayed in place looking pained, “unless you do me the favor of redrawing that rune.”

Eir looked detached and unimpressed. “Since the Allfather’s death, you are the only sorcerer left on Asgard adept at transformations.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Loki looked unsettled. His eyes kept flickering towards his exposed hands and away.

Eir waved a hand across the screen and it vanished. When she turned to Loki, her eyes were kind. “Every Asgardian, from the eldest to the children, knows of your heritage, my Prince. In fact, many of us have been aware for centuries.”

Loki’s face snapped towards her. “What?”

Eir’s words were soft but firm. “I was your mother’s midwife, and I cared for your health since you were a babe. It was my task to know, your highness.”

Loki looked stunned. “No,” was all he said.

“This might not be easy. But most demons are most easily born when faced.”

Loki’s smile was edged with mania. “Not this one, not in these halls. If you insist on being unhelpful, you may leave.”

“My prince—”

“High Healer Eir! Ten minutes of privacy!” Loki’s voice was breaking. When he turned to the room, his eyes were shining with moisture. “I thank you for your service, all of you. Now leave me be.”

Bruce drew breath to say something, so Tony grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. He pushed him to follow the gaggle of healers. “Touchy subject. Just wait outside, okay?”

Tony closed the door behind them and turned around to slump against it. Tony didn’t exactly feel qualified to do this, but they’d been here before. This was fine. He took a deep breath, then pushed himself off the door and approached Loki. “So. This can’t be a surprise.”

Loki looked lost, surrounded by the silent machine that had taken him apart. Its glow had been extinguished, and the dim light filtering through the latticed windows painted stripes on his skin. He looked smaller than usual and painfully out of place. “I had expected to be able to change back.”

Tony crossed the room and sat by his side. Cool air was radiating off Loki’s body, and condensation covered the table where his hands clutched the edge. “I could get my armor, and we’d make an escape through the window. We’d fly straight up to your rooms.”

It had been a joke, but Loki seemed to contemplate it. The raised lines on his face wrinkled in thought. Tony couldn’t look away.

“No matter how I leave, someone is going to see.”

“People have seen. I have, Bruce has. Oh, and there was a whole gaggle of healers, I'm not sure you noticed.”

Loki’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, the light scattering on his blue skin.

“This is ridiculous.” Loki stood and immediately swayed like he was going to faint. Tony caught his elbow. He was very cold, but his skin was soft. Loki cursed under his breath and sank back onto the table. His tongue darted out, powder pink, to lick his lips. Loki drew a breath to speak, turned to Tony—and paused. “You’re staring.”

“Huh?” Tony looked up from Loki’s lips to his eyes. Even his pupils were red, though a very dark shade. “Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.” It probably wasn’t a great thing to do while Loki was trying not to freak out. “You know, I get that you really hate this form, but, in case it helps, that’s highly subjective. I don’t hate it at all.”

“It doesn’t,” Loki glared at him, “help.”

Tony pointed at Loki’s nose. “See, that there, that’s a scary look. But before, you were just …” Tony tried to find a better word and couldn’t. “It’s really not that bad.”

Loki tore his elbow from Tony’s grasp. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s kind of pretty.” Tony took a step away from Loki’s death glare. “What, do you hate compliments all of a sudden?”

“It’s not pretty,” Loki snarled and gestured up and down his body. “This is what death looked like to a whole generation of Asgardians.”

“Not to me.”

“I am glad that you don’t share the memories of your ancestors, but for once in your life, your experience is not the point!”

“I know. Believe it or not, I’m a smart guy.” Tony didn’t love how aggravated Loki was getting, and it was probably best to steer the conversation away from his looks. Sometimes, he wished he had a better filter. “Just, you know, you were asking why I was staring. That’s why. Because you’re—”

“Don’t.”

“O-kay.” Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s happening? Why is this so bad?”

“I tried to explain it, and it seems you haven’t been listening!” A lot was happening behind Loki’s eyes, and Tony couldn’t parse half of it. “I can’t … It’s … It’s like being transformed into a foradh. A skrímsl. A worm. It is humiliating, it’s degrading, and it isn’t me. It isn’t who I am. I’d peel off this skin before I … before …”

Tony was so far out of his depth. “It’s just for a week.”

“Is that all?” Loki’s laughter was sarcastic enough to cut glass. “A week? Oh well, that’s not so bad then.”

Tony was so tense his neck gave a twinge. He clasped his hands behind his head and began pacing. “Okay. I get it. I’m bad at this. I have no idea how to make this better. You’ll have to tell me what to do, okay?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.” Loki was staring towards the barred windows, looking trapped and jittery. “Find a way to get me to my quarters unseen.”

“Big hood and some gloves? And we’ll clear the hallways.”

Loki goggled at him. “That’s all you can come up with?”

“Or I’ll fly you up.”

Loki snorted in disgust. “Fine. Find me a disguise, then.”

“Give me a moment. And don’t do anything stupid.” Tony all but fled the room and slammed the door behind him. He waved down one of the healers.

“What’s going on?” Bruce hissed. He’d been waiting close to the doors, but Tony still jumped when he appeared at his shoulder.

“Okay, I do need your help. We’re going to get him to his rooms, okay?”

One of the junior healers approached him, and Tony rattled off his list of demands: clothes that would hide Loki and the hallways cleared. He paused, then added a bottle of liquor. The healer nodded until he got to the last request, then immediately began arguing.

Eir broke up the stream of admonishments by handing Tony a vial of black liquid.

“Take two sips, wait five minutes. Repeat until the distress is bearable.”

“Thanks—”

“As for you,” her eerie eyes were pinning Tony in place like a pin would a butterfly, “don’t taste it if you want to live.”

“Gotcha.” Tony closed the door in her face. Cheery bunch, those healers. He returned to where Loki had settled on the tiled floor, his back against the side of the Forge with a thousand-yard-stare.

“I could turn back,” Loki said quietly. “It’s risky, but I could.”

“Two sips, actual doctor’s orders.” Tony handed him the vial and settled down on the tiled floor next to him. “What would happen if you did?”

“If my magic is truly depleted, it would draw on my life force.”

“So you’d hurt yourself?” Tony couldn’t keep the alarm from his voice.

“Most certainly. Death is but one possible outcome.” Loki inspected the label on the black liquid—unreadable to Tony. “I see that my weakness was a bit obvious.”

“I tried to get you liquor, but you know doctors. So, about the magic—”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do it,” Loki said firmly and took a small swallow of the liquid. He set the vial down by his knee, closing his eyes. “After the past year, it would be terribly embarrassing to die of that.”

Tony sagged against the Soul Forge next to Loki. “I’d also be very angry with you.”

“As you should be. It’d be idiotic.” Whatever Loki had ingested seemed to be working; the tension was melting from his shoulders, and his eyes unfocused.

“What’s the stuff she gave you?”

Loki smirked a bit, which was a good sign. “Fun, if you have nothing better to do. And you don’t have to fight orcs.”

Oh. Now Tony was curious. “Okay, what’s the story?”

“Later.” Loki looked at the door a second before Bruce opened it.

He was holding a bundle of clothes, and Loki sighed and pulled himself up on shaky legs. Tony helped him dress. He was bodily swallowed by the black cloak and its enormous hood.

“This is humiliating.”

“Well, I can’t see your face, so it seems just right.” Tony threw a large scarf around him for good measure, and they made their way past the goggling healers and out into the hallway. Loki remained unstable on his feet and leaned heavily on Tony, but the hallways were utterly devoid of people, and they made it to Loki’s rooms unseen.

“Stay or leave, Doctor Banner, but do close the door behind you.” Loki pushed off Tony’s shoulder and steadied himself against the walls as he hobbled into his sprawling set of rooms. There was a central fireplace facing an open balcony. Loki picked his way out to one of the couch-bench-hybrids by the fire and collapsed bonelessly.

“Uh,” Bruce whispered to Tony. “Do you want me to stay?”

Tony grabbed him by the shoulders and looked at him earnestly. “Do I want your help with the possibly suicidal space prince? You bet. I lodged my foot so far into my mouth earlier, I might need some surgery.” Tony patted his shoulder. “Oh, and order us some alcohol—the purple juice is good.”

Bruce sighed and went to find a servant after they had shooed them all away.

Tony wandered into the open space of the living room—grand enough to host a few dozen people—and sat down by Loki’s side. The benches were uncomfortable as fuck, made from metal and curving up on the sides, and Tony shuffled around the throw pillows for a while before giving up. “How are you doing?”

“Fantastic,” Loki drawled with heavy sarcasm. He was ridding himself of the cloak and scarf to join his shoes and gloves on the floor. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his face. “Seeing that you got rid of my servants, would you turn off the heat, please?”

“You want me to douse the merry bonfire burning in your living room? How do you do that, bucket of sand?”

Loki gave him an incredulous look. “Of course not. The controls are on your side.” Loki pointed, and Tony leaned over the side of the chair. He turned the dial all the way down, and the fire immediately lost its warmth. Tony stared. He could have sworn that fire was real. It smelled real.

“Magic?”

“Alchemy. I’m surprised you haven’t come across it in your readings.” Loki had pulled the vial of black liquid out of nowhere and toasted him, then downed it in one go.

“That wasn’t two sips.”

“And if you lose a single word about this to anyone, I will remember, and I will retaliate.”

Tony felt a grin spreading on his face. “What about video? Photos?”

“Please do try, I haven’t played a good prank in a while,” Loki deadpanned. He tucked his very cold feet under Tony’s thigh. The comfortable silence was filled with the crackling of fire, gentle bird call, and the noises of heavy construction in the distance.

“I know so little about Jotuns,” Loki said out of nowhere. He was watching the fire with half-lidded eyes. “I know the nursery rhymes and poems, of course. I know their skin burns you with cold. They form weapons from ice, like this.” Loki snapped his wrist in a dramatic gesture. Nothing happened. He scoffed and let it sink. “Under King Laufey, my birth father, they invaded Midgard, and Odin freed your people in glorified battle.” Loki frowned. “And that’s all. That’s what I know.”

“Sounds like enough to hate them.” One of Tony’s hands was resting on his cold ankle and rubbing slow circles into his skin.

“It was.” Loki looked tired. “Enough to enact war on them in play. Enough to lie awake late at night and watch for red eyes past my window.”

“Should I talk to the chef? Do you need a strict diet of naughty children?”

Loki giggled, then looked surprised by the noise. It was oddly adorable. “Please don’t.”

“Do you want to know more about Frost Giants?”

“No. Maybe.” Loki groaned. “I don’t want to be one, Tony. I really don’t.” It sounded pitiful, but it was nowhere close to the desperate anger he had voiced earlier.

“You won’t be for long,” Tony said gently.

“A week can be very long.” Loki laboriously turned around, almost falling off the bench while arranging his limbs, and let his head flop into Tony’s lap. It was so trusting a gesture that Tony didn’t dare breathe for fear of disturbing him.

Loki looked up at him, his expression soft. His freshly washed hair was pooling on Tony’s leg. “Your breath is fogging.” He laid a finger to Tony’s jaw, then flinched when he caught sight of his own fingers. Tony clasped his hand so that none of the blue was visible and kissed his cold fingertips. Loki grinned, wide and dopey, and Tony’s heart squeezed with fondness.

The door opened with a soft click. Over his shoulder, Loki called, “There should be glasses in one of the cabinets.”

Bruce rummaged through the drawers for a while, then settled down by the fire and poured both Tony and himself a glass of wine. He began pouring a glass from a different bottle for Loki, but Loki stopped him. “This doesn’t mix well with wine.”

Bruce lifted a questioning eyebrow.

“He took a bunch of the good stuff,” Tony said, “and he didn’t bother to share it.”

“Believe it or not, I prefer you alive.” Loki seemed a bit distracted with Tony’s hand in his hair. “And I got you liquor.”

“I got us liquor,” Bruce corrected.

“I’m paying for it. Asgard. Whichever.”

“What was that story about fighting orcs while high?” Tony asked.

Loki smiled mischievously and told them a story of Fandral procuring said drug in the middle of a campaign. “A civil war on Vanaheim. It was a grim battle: with every enemy we vanquished, we had slain one of our own people.” It all was suitable entertaining until they had been ambushed in the middle of the night. “Had it not been for Sif’s steadfast sobriety, we would all have arrived at Valhalla’s gates stumbling and confused.” The battle had been a bumbling failure, and when Tony and Bruce weren’t laughing at the tale, they were laughing at Loki’s repeated fits of giggles. The story culminated in a dire dressing down by Odin, during which Thor had thrown up on his own shoes.

“I sometimes forget how much history you and Thor have.” Bruce was wiping tears of laughter from his face.

“Throughout the centuries, we were many things to each other. In those early days, I would have done anything for him.” He fell silent, as though the words, even in his state of inebriation, rang a bit too true.

Tony cleared his throat and filled the awkward silence by telling them of one of the more disastrous Iron Man missions. It happened to involve a goat herd, which tickled Loki’s sense of humor a great deal. They traded stories from there on: Bruce’s experience at medical school, Tony’s wild parties, and so forth.

At some point, Loki turned away from the fire, burying his nose against Tony’s hip bone. Tony petted his hair, and Loki made a soft noise of contentment. Bruce was wearing a half-smile, watching the two of them, slightly tipsy and looking relaxed. And Tony was both a bit embarrassed and very fond of Bruce. Definitely grateful for his presence.

“Stop staring. Tell me about Earth, Brucie. What’s new with the Avengers?”

So he and Tony talked quietly about HYDRA, about Bruce’s most recent research into the spreading Chitauri disease, about Asgard, about Tony’s Asgardian workshop, and about his intentions of building diplomatic ties with the Dwarves.

There was a lull in conversation, and Bruce topped off their glasses. Tony shifted, and Loki stirred. He was wiping drool from the corner of his mouth and wrinkled his nose. “I fell asleep.”

“Yep,” Tony agreed and grinned when Loki stretched like a cat. “Do you want to go to bed?”

Loki smiled up at him. “A fine suggestion. You are a very smart man, Anthony Edward Stark.”

Oh boy. “I am.”

Loki got up and would have fallen over had Tony not caught him.

“Doctor Banner, my shield brother,” Loki smiled at leaned towards Bruce, catching him off guard.

“Steady there,” Tony wobbled under Loki’s weight. Loki let go of Tony in order to hug Bruce, who had frozen in his seat. Loki was hugging Bruce.

“Uh,” Bruce said and patted his shoulder awkwardly.

“You vanquished my father’s forces. I never thanked you for that.” Loki pushed himself away, heavily leaning on Bruce’s shoulder to not collapse. He looked at Bruce with great earnestness. “Ask any boon of me, my friend, and it shall be yours.”

Tony did his best not to laugh. “Okay, honey, now I’m sure it’s bedtime.”

Loki hummed as Tony pried him away from Bruce. He clung to Tony’s neck so that Tony had to balance to keep his weight.

“Little help?” he asked Bruce.

They deposited an indeed very silly Loki in his ridiculously large and soft bed like a sack of bricks. Loki held onto Bruce’s sleeve before he could leave.

“How do you deal with it, Doctor Banner?”

“What?” Bruce looked at Tony, who shrugged.

Loki looked at him with the intensity of the inebriated. “Being a monster. How do you deal with it?”

“Uh.” Bruce carefully sat on the bed next to him. “I don’t know. I’m not really in charge when … the Hulk takes over.”

“How are you dealing with it right now?”

Bruce scratched his neck, looking uncomfortable. “I … I try not to think about him when I don’t have to. But deep down, the Hulk isn’t … he’s not bad. He’s selfish in many ways, and the only emotion he’s familiar with is anger. But he also saves and protects the people that are important to him. So … I guess that’s it.”

“You don’t think of him as part of you.” Loki’s brow crinkled as he thought about it. “Does that help?”

Bruce stiffened. “I, I mean. I guess. The Hulk really … he really is his own person.”

“I see.” Loki’s eyes had fluttered shut. “It’s so hot.” He let go of Bruce’s sleeve, curled up fully clothed, and was asleep within seconds. It was barely past noon.

Tony led Bruce out of the royal bedchamber and closed the double doors quietly. Bruce still looked a bit dumbfounded when they settled around the central fireplace and Tony poured them more wine. With Loki gone and after that loaded question, the conversation became awkward and finally stuttered to a halt. Both of them were quietly watching the flames.

Like hell Tony was going to psychoanalyze Bruce, too.

“Thor said something about showing me around,” Bruce said eventually. “Do you want to come with me?”

Tony turned the wine glass in his hands. The firelight caught in his drink, turning it from black into a deep, blood red. He had been thinking about Loki waking up in the early evening and freaking out. How long did that silly juice last? He didn’t want him to be alone when it ran out. “No, I’ve seen it all, I think. I’ll stick around in case … you know.”

Bruce looked like he wanted to ask a question. Instead, he nodded, finished his drink, and saw himself out.

Tony tiptoed back into the bedchamber and crawled under the covers with his laptop, hogging the blankets against the cold radiating from Loki.

Tony worked quietly and watched over him, but Loki didn’t stir for the rest of the day or night, his breaths even and slow.

**

Loki woke to the brightness of very early morning. The heat had already begun to settle in, and his skin was slick with sweat. He sat up and caught a glimpse of his own hand. The inside of his palm was a lighter shade of blue, and the raised lines circled his wrist like shackles. Loki was sure that he would never feel at home in this body, but it didn’t evoke the same sense of dread anymore.

Yesterday had felt like a nightmare until the gledhi-stundir had kicked in and muffled negative emotion to the point of dullness. He grimaced at the disjointed memories of confessing his undying friendship to Banner or some such. But there were other, more pressing matters on his mind.

Tony was still asleep. Silently, Loki rose and padded to the dressing room on naked feet. He drew a deep breath and turned to the mirror.

From the glass looked a monster of fairytales, a foe of old wars. He couldn’t hold his own gaze; the red was jarring. Beneath the blue skin, his bone structure hadn’t changed, and that he still looked like himself made matters worse, in some ways.

He felt like he was touching a stranger when he dragged a finger across his cheek. The ridges were soft and overly sensitive. It was no wonder, then, that he felt them so strongly through his clothes. He shuddered but couldn’t help the morbid curiosity that took him.

Loki pulled the tunic over his head and pushed his trousers to the floor and stood before the mirror naked.

Lines ran up his arms and shoulders, down his chest and sides, converging towards his genitalia, then out again to run down his thighs. He pushed the secondary mirror into position so he could see his back. The patterns unfolded in smooth curves and parallel lines and in concentric half-circles on his shoulders.

Pretty, Tony had said. If they hadn’t been so alien—if they hadn’t been on a Frost Giant—Loki might have been able to see it. The patterns accentuated the same body parts that many humanoid races were drawn to: they optically broadened the shoulders, slimmed the waist, and heightened his cheekbones. He wondered whether they served any purpose other than the colors did on a bird: to distinguish, to attract, possibly to repel. (Animal.)

He heard Tony get up and felt a surge of white-hot shame, as though he was doing something morally depraved. He wasn’t, though, was he? He forced himself to not react as Tony padded up to the doorway.

“Good morning.” Tony’s voice was rough with sleep.

“Is it?”

Tony leaned in the doorway, looking exhausted and his clothes rumpled. He had never changed out of his jeans, and he had apparently worn his jacket to bed. He had probably been cold in Loki’s presence. (Monster.)

“You should go back to sleep,” Loki said.

“I think I’ve slept enough to last me a year. Am I allowed to look at you now that you’re looking at yourself?” Tony’s face was neutral and open, the sleepiness dispersing quickly.

“If you must.”

Tony didn’t come closer, but he did look intently, as though he had never seen Loki before. Loki met his eyes in the mirror, and his heart fluttered at his keen interest.

He already knew that Tony didn’t mind him in this form. He hadn’t expected … He wasn’t sure he liked that Tony actually found this body attractive. For one, he had a hard time believing it. For two, it made him feel diminished rather than wanted.

“Enough.”

“Okay.” Tony lifted both hands, palms out and signaling peace, and turned his back.

“I will change back today.” Loki felt jittery when he dressed in a set of light clothes that fell past his wrists and covered most of his neck.

Tony paused. “Or I could get you more of those drugs.”

“No.” For all that Loki had been glad for them, he did not enjoy losing control of his actions. He had revealed more of himself than he was comfortable with the night prior, and while he trusted Banner and Tony, he didn’t ache to repeat the experience.

“Is this a good idea?”

“My magic is strong enough.” Loki hoped he was right.

“It’s not been even close to a week.”

Loki walked back to the bed and sat down cross-legged. “Are you suggesting I hide in here as though I were a prisoner still?”

Tony made a face. “You know, most people take a couple of days to recover after an invasive medical procedure.” Loki’s face must have told Tony what he thought of that because he sighed in surrender. “At least let me get Bruce in case something happens.”

“I would rather you didn’t.”

“Then I’ll get your creepy space doctor,” Tony said evenly. “It’s one or the other. Choose.”

“Fine. Get Banner if you must.”

By the time the humans returned—and finished their urgently whispered conversations outside the bedroom doors—Loki was jittery, and his skin was itching. When Banner came inside, looking awkward and unsure, Loki waved away any pleasantries.

“Believe me, Doctor, the less time you spend in my bedroom, the gladder I will be.” Loki took a steadying breath. “I will begin.”

Tony was pale and unhappy, and Banner looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Loki ignored them both as best as he could and pushed his fingers against the back of his neck. He closed his eyes and formed the words in his mind.

The seal was complex. One of the reasons it had come up so easily during surgery was that Loki had reapplied it with haste on Midgard, without a chance to look up the runes, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

He set anchor points against the curve of his vertebrae, then stretched the rune circle between them. Magic poured through his hands like water: too fast and with little control. He briefly felt weightless, and Tony’s hand on his shoulder returned a sense of gravity to him.

One by one, he stitched the runes into both flesh and soul, and the longer it took, the harder Loki had to concentrate on not letting the thread of energy tear. He tasted blood at the back of the throat before he was done with the working. The runes were swimming in his mind, the words running into each other, and he fought for focus. He tied off the spell with haste and came back to himself, shivering violently.

Nausea pounded through him; his head felt like it was being split in half. He groaned and fell to his side, curling up to block out the daylight. Tony and Bruce were both speaking, but Loki found it impossible to listen. His ears were filled with the dull rushing of waves.

A hand settled between his shoulder blades, grounding him. It was slightly cool. The air didn’t pain him to breathe anymore. Thank the Norns.

“Welcome back,” Tony said softly. “How are you feeling?”

No matter how Loki squinted, Tony’s face wouldn’t shift into focus.

“There is medicine in the nightstand. White liquid.”

Tony leaned over him and rummaged around for a bit, then pressed a small vial of all-soothe into his hand. Loki drank it, hummed against the nausea that reared up to meet it, and swallowed thickly to make sure it stayed down. He closed his eyes and tried not to move and waited for the pain to subside.

Eventually Bruce left, and the blankets were shuffled around next to Loki as Tony settled down beside him. A hand came to rest on his head, softly petting his hair, and it actually felt good. It felt fantastic.

Loki gingerly turned around and buried his face against Tony’s chest. Tony drew him close and sheltered him in his warmth that was no longer oppressing, blocking out the day.

Having so recently woken, it took time for Loki to sleep. But he lay awake in Tony’s arms for a long time, feeling light and safe, thinking of nothing at all.

Chapter Text

For the next couple of days, Loki barely got out of bed. Tony was aware he was missing his check-ups with his doctor, but he hadn’t expected Eir to simply barge into Loki’s rooms with an entourage of staff, determined to see to her patient.

Her fury was of the cold kind that translated into hard stares and clipped words. According to her, Loki had set back his healing by an indeterminate amount of time, which Loki accepted with tired equanimity.

Tony felt like she would have had a lot more to say, had Loki not looked like death warmed over and been wincing at her very touch. She lined up a set of healing draughts on Loki’s nightstand, and when she left, she didn’t spare Tony as much as a single glance. As though any of this was his fault.

While Tony didn’t want to leave Loki alone, it only took one morning of quiet reading in Loki’s bedroom—feet propped up by the fire, goblet of wine at his elbow, watching Loki snooze—before he felt like he was going nuts.

So he fetched the Mark V and a couple of things from the workshop and set to work on the living room floor. It still irked him that Sif had so easily cut through the metal, and he was buzzing with the need to do something about it. By the second day, he had moved most of his workshop out onto Loki’s balcony, reasoning that it was the least likely to catch on fire from errant sparks. It helped that Asgard’s weather was perpetually mild and sunny.

He was smoothing the edges of a newly forged chest plate when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He whirled around and almost got Bruce with the angle grinder.

“Woah—”

“Shit, I’m sorry—” Tony turned off the power before he could take any skin off Bruce’s arm—he really didn’t want to introduce the Hulk to Asgard today—and pushed up his welding goggles. “Wow, you really shouldn’t sneak up on someone operating heavy power tools.”

“I was shouting your name!” Bruce nervously adjusted his glasses and carefully sat down on one of the bowl-shaped benches. He slid a bit too far to the center, sending his feet dangling. Tony really had no idea who had thought that was a reasonable shape for a bench. “Steve has been calling.”

“He hasn’t.” Tony checked his phone. Five missed calls from Grandpa. “Okay, he has, but to be fair I was a little busy.”

“I can tell.” Bruce lifted both eyebrows at the state of the balcony. It was covered in parts for the brand new Mark VI, paid for by the royal coffers of Asgard.

Tony scratched his nose. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to get my hands on Uru alloy outside of Asgard. Or on tools that can handle it.” He tossed the grinder onto his workbench and crossed his arms. “Okay. Since you’re clearly here to convey a message: what does Cap want?”

“The whole HYDRA thing is getting urgent. The longer we wait, the more likely they are to notice that Nat’s been spying on them.” Bruce shrugged. “He wants to know when we’ll be back to help.”

Tony sniffed and looked past Bruce to the open bedroom door. “Yeah, well. I’m kind of tied up.”

Bruce was watching him more shrewdly than Tony would have liked.

“What?”

“Are you tied up?” Bruce asked. “Loki is doing better, right? He’s sleeping a lot, but he’s recovering. And then he’s going to do some kind of community service on Earth. In New York?”

“Yep. He can have the empty floor below Thor. And why do I get the feeling that you’re judging me right now?”

“I’m not.” Bruce lifted both hands to ward off the accusations. “I was wondering about, you know, your plans. You haven’t really said anything.”

“Are we talking about this? Okay. Then you and your sexy big brain need to scoot over because I’ve been on my feet all night. All morning. Both.” Bruce freed some space on the bench, and Tony sat down, throwing the goggles aside. “Wow, Asgardians really hate their butts. Have you noticed how uncomfortable all this furniture is? And all that gold is a lot. You know it’s an issue if I think it’s garish.”

“Yeah.” Bruce gave him a half-smile. “So, uh. How have you been doing?”

“Fantastic. I saved the universe, I’m living in a space castle, my armor is going to be impenetrable when it’s done— Oh, did you check out the libraries? Because you really should give their magic primers a chance, they absolutely revolutionized—”

“Tony—”

“What? You asked me how I was doing.”

“What’s this thing between you and Loki? Why are you working out here? Don’t you have a workshop?”

Tony sighed and sank against the armrest, turning to face Bruce. “I’m not leaving Loki while he’s still,” Tony vaguely gestured in the direction of the bedroom, “like that.”

“Sleeping?”

“Unsteady on his legs and … you know.” Loki had remained subdued and directionless since the battle. Tony wasn’t sure what to do about it, but he felt that he should be doing something. He just had to figure out what.

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “I honestly don’t. I’m asking. I kind of thought he had all the help he needed. I mean, I met three of his staff and a nurse just walking from the front door to the balcony.”

Tony blew out a long breath and took in the mess he had made of Loki’s balcony. He did have a workshop, didn’t he? It wasn’t even far away; ten minutes by elevator because Asgard’s palace was fuck-off gigantic. “I … He’s … Bruce, you should have heard how these people talk about him. He doesn’t have anyone on Asgard. Apart from Thor, and Thor is distracted with, you know, all of that.” He pointed at Asgard’s skyline, which consisted of a lot of broken masonry. The noise of construction had been a constant companion in the past week, to the point that Tony didn’t notice it anymore.

“Is he your, you know, boyfriend?”

Tony stared at him. “What are you, twelve?”

Bruce seemed embarrassed, as he should. “I don’t know! What’s a better term then, partner? Friend with benefits?”

“Okay, that’s weird and invasive. Why do you want to know?”

“I’m confused!” He hesitated before he added, “And Steve is asking whether we can count on you.”

“So it’s about work? Wow, Brucie-bear, I thought we were friends.”

“It’s a bit about the Avengers. But it’s mostly about us being friends. I don’t have that many of those. I’d like to know that you’re okay.” Bruce didn’t exactly do puppy-dog eyes, not the way certain Asgardians in Tony’s life managed, but his expression did convey honest concern.

Tony groaned and sagged against the back of the bench. He didn’t want to pour out his heart, and he didn’t owe this conversation to anyone. But this was Bruce, and Bruce had helped him keep Loki’s guts in place, which meant he probably deserved an honest-to-God effort. “I’m pretty sure we’re …” He scratched his head. “I mean, we’re … I don’t know what to call it. It’s not like it was with Pepper.”

“But it’s comparable to Pepper?”

“Nothing compares to Pepper, that woman is a saint. This thing with Loki is … I don’t know. It’s intense and … different.” He looked to Bruce, hoping he’d understand the intricacies he tried to awkwardly press into two adjectives. But Bruce was more patient than that and waiting for him to elaborate. “It’s a bit like … it’s …” It was like flying; being around Loki gave him sweaty palms and turned his stomach upside down, it made him feel like he could do anything. He wouldn’t give it up for the world. “It’s good.”

Bruce smiled at his clasped hands. “So you want him to stick around.”

“Yes. Absolutely, I do.”

Fine, they still had some issues with the arc reactor, and Loki was picking and choosing the words and touches that passed between them with care, and they weren’t great at talking about what exactly was wrong. But that was a question of time rather than principle. They would be fine.

“And I worry about him. These people chewed him up, spat him out, and expect him to carry on like nothing happened. He’s not doing great, and he … he needs something to hold onto.”

“And you want to be that? The person he holds onto?”

“Why not? I’m good at it.” And he really, really didn’t want to leave Loki here by himself. (He needed this to work. He was in too deep to lose Loki now.)

“Alright. Thanks for telling me.” Bruce’s silence was buzzing with the things he wasn’t saying, and Tony didn’t like it one bit.

“You’re absolutely judging me.”

“I’m not.” Bruce took one look at Tony’s expression and sighed. “Maybe I’m just thinking that what you have is a terrible starting point for a relationship.”

“What, would you be happier if I had found him on Grindr or whatever the kids are using these days?”

“It’s just that you two have a really weird dynamic.”

“Do we? I hadn’t noticed.”

“The whole time you’ve known him, there has been some kind of ongoing crisis. I get that you two have grown close, and why, but the whole thing is a bit nuts.”

Tony shrugged. “I’m Tony Stark. Everything I do is a bit nuts.”

“You have this thing where you really need to save people. And I think you’re still doing that right now.”

Tony scoffed. “No, I don’t.”

Bruce gave him a look.

“Okay, fine. Maybe I do. A little.” His leg was bouncing, and he shifted uncomfortably.

“There is a whole cadre of doctors looking out for him. He might not be happy here, but he’s definitely safe for a couple of weeks.”

Tony was scratching a fleck of dirt off his jeans. It left behind a black smear. “Yeah, I know he’s safe.” That didn’t mean Loki didn’t need him. It had nothing to do with saving Loki, and everything with … with what?

(He needed this to work so badly, and some part of him was afraid that, if he stopped holding them together for even a minute, they would fall apart. The pain of Pepper leaving him still sometimes caught him unawares. Tony couldn’t do that again, not so soon after.)

“You want to look out for him, and you want to be close to him. I get that. But you haven’t really done anything else in a few months, and it’s … maybe it’s time to take a step back and get some perspective.”

Tony snorted. “You just need my help with HYDRA, admit it.”

Bruce let out a self-deprecating huff of air. “Steve thinks we do. But JARVIS has been helping out with recon, and Nat seems happy enough with what we got. If you need to sit this one out, I think we’re going to be fine.”

“I fully agree, you guys got this.” Tony clapped his hands on his thighs and got up. “This has been great, let’s not do it again. Can I get back to work now?”

“I’m going to leave tonight. You could come with me.” But Bruce looked like he already knew the answer.

“I’ll think about it.” But Tony was already taking stock of the Mark VI’s progress, mentally putting in another order of materials to the Dwarves.

**

Tony didn’t go with Bruce that night, and he didn’t call Steve, seeing that Bruce had already conveyed the whole lecture.

There was a little nagging voice at the back of his mind that insisted that, just maybe, Bruce’s concerns held some truth. Loki and Tony had bonded in the eye of a storm, in relative seclusion. Now that the real world was challenging that arrangement, it put tension on a relationship that was new and far from stable.

But Tony was good at fixing things, and he knew what he was doing. They’d have time once they got back to Earth, and that’s all they needed. Time and space, away from Asgard.

So he pushed that voice down and waited for Loki to recover.

**

A letter bearing the royal seal had arrived on his breakfast tray. Loki eyed it with disdain.

Having made it out of bed for the first time since the transformation, he was sitting by the window of his bedroom and stirring the cooling porridge until it formed a glob in which the spoon neatly stood up. Loki made a face. He picked up the envelope and dragged himself towards his study with a long-suffering sigh.

Halfway there, he caught sight of his balcony. Tony had mentioned, in half-whispers late at night, that he was tinkering. And still, Loki hadn’t quite expected the state of creative chaos.

Furniture and potted plants had been displaced, work benches and an anvil, of all things, were set up in a half-circle around an armor stand. Currently, the decorative fountain he had imported from Vanaheim was using it to quench red glowing metal, and as steam rose with a hiss from Tony’s tongs, streaks of ashen water sopped down its side. Oils and corrosives had spilled onto the marble floors, staining them permanently.

And at the center of it all stood Tony, unaware he was being watched and chiding the metal sheet as though it were one of his robots before throwing it onto a workbench.

Loki wondered whether he should be upset with the destruction. Instead, considering the mess that Tony had unleashed on his life, he felt laughter bubble in his chest.

They would leave it all behind either way, and Tony could go back to accidentally blowing walls out of his own home.

So Loki shuffled outside to watch Tony work and let himself fall on one of the benches that had been pushed all the way to the walls, sprawling out with a leg dangling over the side. “Has your workshop become too small for your ego?”

Tony startled and spun around, tongs still in hand. “Look who’s up. At the rate you were sleeping, I was waiting for a spontaneous brambles hedge to block the doors.”

Loki ignored the obscure reference and looked at the letter. He knew what it would say even before he tore it open and scanned the content.

“Did you get fan mail?” Tony pulled off welding gloves and the thick leather apron and wandered over to Loki.

“Hardly. The Council summons me to discuss the terms of my exile.” Loki threw the letter into the air, and, with a whisper and a snap of his fingers, it folded itself into a paper skiff that sailed off into the sky.

Tony put his hands in his pockets and watched it glide towards the edge of the realm. “That’s a cute trick. Does that mean you’re feeling better?”

“I do.” He didn’t mention that even that scrap of spellcraft had left him dizzy. Where his magic should be flowing, it felt as though someone had scraped out his skin with a dull knife. “I will let you know that the ‘cute trick’ takes a century of practice.”

“Wow. That sounds like a monumental waste of time.”

“After another century, you might lift boulders with your mind.” Loki took one of Tony’s hands and tugged him closer. Tony sat down by his side.

“Or I could take a year to teach you how to build a drone that lifts boulders all by itself.” Tony’s grin was bright, and the attention he paid Loki was undivided. It still was disorienting when that happened, and Loki’s skin was prickling under his gaze. He wanted Tony closer.

He set a hand on Tony’s thigh and let fingers wander up.

Tony snorted a laugh. “Oh, you are feeling better.”

“Bed rest is extraordinarily boring.” Loki hooked a finger into one of Tony’s belt loops. He looked up at Tony, and it surprised him how shy he still felt about this, how hard his heart was thumping against his ribs, and how his mouth went dry when Tony’s eyes wandered towards his clavicle.

“I could help remedy that.” He leaned down to kiss Loki, and it was chaste until Loki opened his lips with a moan. Tony grasped the back of his neck and pressed into his mouth, turning Loki’s thoughts to white noise.

Though Loki wanted nothing more than to touch him, he kept his hands still on Tony’s thighs as Tony straddled him. They had slept with each other a few times by now, and it was easiest to let Tony set the pace.

“Okay, how kinky is balcony sex around here? Because I wouldn’t do this at home, unless I want my bare ass on the cover of a gossip rag.”

Loki laughed. “It is shielded from outside eyes.”

“Magic? That’s handy.” Tony’s eyes flickered to the doors leading inside with a hint of discomfort. Ah. There was one thing that Loki had noticed to be consistently different on Midgard.

“We can go to bed if you mind the servants.”

“They would stay.”

It took Loki a moment to grasp that the statement was a question. “I could send them away, but it’s unnecessary. It is part of their job to know who is allowed in my quarters and for what reasons.”

“Huh. And you’re fine with them peeking.”

Loki scoffed at the ridiculousness of that question. “They’re servants, Tony. They’re trained to be unobtrusive, of course they wouldn’t watch. And none of this is a secret.”

“Wow. I feel like there is something here we should talk about at some point.”

Loki was going to give a snippy answer, but Tony set a hand to the hollow of his throat, tracing the shape of his Adam’s apple. Loki’s words died in his chest at the light pressure, the question that it held. His heartbeat was thrumming against Tony’s palm. He held perfectly still, watching Tony’s brow crinkle in concentration as he drew a line up Loki’s chin and set a thumb against his lower lip, letting it rest there, warm and dry. His fingers spanned Loki’s jaw, and there was something possessive in that gesture. A pushing of boundaries that sent white heat through Loki. When Tony stroked his thumb against his lip, Loki stopped breathing.

“I should have known you’d like that.” Tony murmured, and the words sent a shiver down Loki’s spine.

Loki’s tongue flickered out to taste Tony’s skin—metallic-bitter-salt—and Tony pushed his thumb into his mouth. Loki closed his lips around it and sucked, watching Tony’s eyes darken and his breath quicken.

“Okay then.” Tony cleared his throat, his voice raw. “Okay. Let’s go to the bedroom. I don’t care for the audience.”

Tony swung his leg off the bench with sudden urgency and pulled Loki to his feet. He kept a hand at the small of his back, and it was also unmistakably controlling. Loki’s chest was tight, his breath shallow.

“Just checking again—no bullshit, please—how are you actually feeling?” Tony asked as he closed the bedroom doors behind them.

“I’m fine.” Loki sank onto the edge of the bed. At the look that Tony gave him, he rolled his eyes. “By the Norns. I’m well enough to bring down a Bilgesnipe. I’m well enough for sex.”

“You’re sure you want this?” Tony wandered over, set his hands on his hips and watched Loki carefully.

“Very much so.” Loki set a gentle hand against Tony’s hip, feeling skin and muscle beneath the jeans. He wanted Tony’s skin against his, he wanted Tony’s cock in his mouth, he wanted to stop thinking. Loki wanted.

He wasn’t sure what showed in his face, but Tony’s eyes darkened with hunger.

“Okay. I suggest,” Tony leaned down to set a brief kiss on his lips, “that you lie back and let me do the work.”

Tony undressed him, complaining about the unnecessary complications of Asgardian ties and fasteners, and Loki quietly laughed into the kiss that Tony pressed on his lips. They kissed until need was running under Loki’s skin like a current, until he gasped and leaned into every touch of Tony’s skilled hands, until Loki was half-hard and Tony was getting there, fast.

It was tender and slow.

It was also a bit too careful.

“Tony,” Loki asked as Tony’s lips wandered down his neck. “Are you worried about hurting me?”

Tony hummed and sat back, stroking Loki’s inner thighs. His hips were twitching as Tony stopped short of his half-hard cock, over and over again. “You are, by your own admission, sick.”

“I am not.” Loki took Tony’s hand. His face was hot, both from building arousal and from the request he was about to make. “I don’t need this to be gentle.”

Tony gave him a lopsided grin. “Don’t need or don’t want?”

“I enjoyed what you did on the balcony.”

Tony slowly leaned forward, steadying himself by Loki’s head, looming over him. He set a hand to Loki’s throat and pushed down, just a bit, just enough for it to be a promise. Loki’s mouth went dry and he swallowed, feeling the constraint against his throat. His cock twitched.

“You mean this?” Tony’s voice was husky, and he was watching him intently.

Loki needed two tries to speak. “Yes. Please.”

Tony stared for a moment, then nodded. “Sure, yes. As long as you tell if there’s something you don’t like … Just tell me, okay?”

“I will.”

The sex that followed was new in that it was rough. As though some of the violence that had passed between them on the battlefield had followed them into the bedroom, as though it was balancing the scales for the injury Loki had dealt to Tony. And if Loki had been worried that Tony didn’t want this, he was now getting the impression that he was getting as lost in it as Loki, his erection heavy and flushed between his legs long before he had Loki suck it.

Loki still hesitated to touch Tony, but Tony absolved him early on by telling him to not touch at all—neither Tony nor himself. Which meant that Loki stopped thinking under Tony’s attention, tha, as Tony drove him to the edge of orgasm over and again, he was helplessly lost in pleasure. And as much as Loki felt a teetering imbalance build between them—the way Tony manhandled him and Loki let him—it made him desperate to take what Tony was giving him. By the time Tony pushed into him, Loki had been reduced to a whimpering mess, and urgent confessions were spilling from his lips.

Afterwards, slick with sweat and still breathing hard, Tony kissed him with uncharacteristic care, and Loki clung to him a little tighter than usual. He felt light-headed with relief, and a bright, glowing happiness sat in his chest.

“That worked for you, right? Because if it didn’t, I might have to invent time travel to undo it, and that would take a year or two.” His insecurity shone like a beacon through the joke, and Tony’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“If you had paid attention, you might have noticed that I enjoyed it very much.” Loki set a careful hand to Tony’s neck and stroked the soft patch of skin behind his earlobe, a warm glow still bright in his chest.

“For the record, I never doubted that.” Tony leaned in to capture his lips. Loki realized he was smiling and couldn’t stop, which was ruining the kiss a bit. “What are all these teeth doing here? Don’t you want to be kissed all of a sudden?”

Loki snorted a laugh, and Tony propped himself up on his elbow to look down on Loki with a wonder that filled Loki with bone-deep warmth.

Tony drew a breath as though to speak, then paused. The silence grew heavy.

“I—”

Loki waited. Tony seemed on the verge of something.

Tony released his breath all at once and let himself fall back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling, looking vaguely frustrated. “So. Does this council meeting mean that I get to take you home?”

“We’ll see.”

Loki’s good mood evaporated at the thought. He still hadn’t told Tony about Thor’s request. There was no real point to it, either. If anything, seeing himself as a Jotun—blue and monstrous and utterly out of place—had solidified his belief that taking the throne was a disastrous idea.

Everyone knew what he was; everyone had heard what he’d done. Despite Thor’s naive assumptions about the absolution the trial had granted him, Loki knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

Thor would simply have to do it by himself.

Looking at Tony, he suddenly wondered whether there might be another way. “You have mentioned that Midgard doesn’t have a king or a unique ruling body. How do you govern yourselves?”

“Politics? Seriously? We’re in bed, honey.”

“I’ve been in bed for four days,” Loki pointed out. “If I’m going to be an agent of Asgard and stationed in your backwater realm, then I should know about your statecraft at the very least.”

“First tip: ‘backwater’ isn’t a term that promises great starts for diplomatic relations. Jesus, what did you study growing up again?”

“Very funny,” Loki deadpanned.

With a thoughtful frown, Tony sat up, blankets pooling in his lap, and scratched the back of his head. “First off, Earth isn’t a single people. There are countries with more or less arbitrary borders, each of them with their own system and set of bigoted views. And the way they work together? Oof. Seriously, if we’re doing this, I want a drink, and I want snacks.”

So Loki called for both.

Between sipping wine and picking through a tray of cheeses, honey-glazed nuts, and fruit, Tony went into rambling explanations of a handful of Midgard’s different systems. Loki listened and interrupted to ask questions about democracy, parliaments, and constitutional monarchies. He could easily map the terms to governments that used to be in place—sometimes still were in place, on a regional level—in the Nine Realms. But Midgard was so diverse that he felt he could make a study of each of them and their individual flaws.

After a while, Tony hopped into a pair of pants to get the suitcase that held his armor. He detached the helmet and sat it down on the bed.

“JARVIS isn’t connected to the internet, but he has a good amount of knowledge downloaded.”

He held down a few buttons on the inside of the helmet, and it began to glow. From the eye slits, a bright light erupted and cast a projection of a map of Midgard onto Loki’s walls. JARVIS’s cool voice greeted them and answered Loki’s questions about individual governing bodies on Midgard with competence and a hint of sass.

The longer they were talking, the clearer it became that monarchies had been largely superseded by different, more stable forms of government.

“How did that shift happen?”

“Seriously, what are you planning? You’re not going to overthrow Thor, are you?” Tony’s humor was dry on the best of days, but even for that, his tone fell flat. Loki paused to look at him and tried to gauge whether it was a real question. Tony hadn’t been looking at the map, but when his eyes flickered over to Loki, there was old suspicion in his eyes. It stung more than Loki had thought it would.

“No, Tony, I neither wish to see Asgard descend in chaos, nor do I want to rule this realm.” For a moment, he felt the words pressing out of his chest, the need to explain what he was doing and why. But Tony’s distrust, evident in the way he was watching Loki from the corner of his eye, had him pause.

He wouldn’t understand. The words caught behind his closed teeth, and Loki swallowed them. And though no lies had passed his lips, Loki felt he had betrayed Tony’s trust.

Later. He would tell Tony later. When he had declined the throne and it wasn’t an issue anymore.

In the end, Tony nodded and continued to treat the conversation as a thought experiment. But the rest of the conversation turned awkward, and after a while, it tapered out, leaving an uneasy silence behind.

Some patterns were harder to break than others.

**

The Council chambers were glowing, the bright sunshine softened by gauzy curtains. Dust floated in a single beam that had escaped confinement, burning a bright line across the golden table. The ancient wood paneling filled the room with the warm smell of nostalgia.

“Considering the current destabilization of Asgard, we want to postpone the sentence to a time of greater convenience.” Lodhur’s black eyes were unreadable.

“Let me guess. That time of convenience will never come about.” Loki was standing across from Thor and the Council, the semi-circle of a table providing a barrier between them. Along its curve, nine grand chairs were placed, and five of them stood continually empty. And though there were lesser chairs provided for advisors and guests, Loki felt that he was neither today. He didn’t sit.

The Council exchanged glances. “I believe that Prince Thor has spoken to you about a shared position of power.”

“He has. What surprises me is your agreeing to his offer. King Eitri, are you prepared to work with me on revisiting the trade agreements of Nidavellir? Do you wish me in charge of your gold claims on Svartalfheim?”

“I would handle those.” Thor folded his hands on the table, radiating an authority that he didn’t hold and an optimism the conversation didn’t warrant. “King Eitri and I have become great friends over the past weeks.”

“I wish nothing to do with you, Loki,” Eitri said slowly. “And if Odin still lived, I would not entertain this. But even I can tell you are no longer the man that once incited a civil war on Nidavellir for his own amusement.”

“Almost incited a civil war,” Loki corrected.

“However,” Eitri glared at him, “it is not my people that need a familiar face in charge. All realms profit from stability within Asgard’s borders.”

“There are a few things to clarify, of course, such as the order of ascension of future heirs—” Njörd began.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t fill these halls with Jotun spawn.” Loki walked to the windows, his hands trailing over empty chairs of lesser kings—a relic of a different time. He shot them a smile that was too sharp as he came to stand behind the chair of Jötunheim. “You know what I am, Njörd, all of you do. And I suspect you did so from the very start. Or did Odin lie to you, too, when he returned from the war with a babe in his arms?”

“Loki—” Thor’s warning tone was easily ignored.

Loki leaned on the back of the chair. “Do you truly wish me in charge of the Nine? Or would you drag my past crimes into the light when it is convenient and dispose of me? Who of you would betray the betrayer?”

“We do not consider you a Frost Giant but an Asgardian first and foremost.” Lodhur rearranged his long sleeves with perfect calm against the table surface.

“Ah, of course. Asgard-raised, if not born, almost as good as an Aesir.” Loki scoffed and let his smile fall away. “Don’t take me for a fool, Lodhur. These secrets mattered when I was a mere boy; they made me a target when I knew nothing of them, and they will matter as long as Asgard’s claim to power is staked in her dominance over the lesser realms.”

Thor half-rose from his seat. “Loki, this—”

Loki whirled around to face Thor. “Silence! You asked for my help, so you will let me speak!”

Thor froze, then slowly sank back down. He clasped his hands before him on the table, his shoulders tense and his jaw clenched.

“No. I do not wish to rule a people that would have cheered at my execution a week ago. But I will make another suggestion.” Loki walked to the windows and threw open the curtains to reveal the city below. Blinding light flooded the chambers, bouncing off the golden table, and the Council squinted against the glare. Only Thor, accustomed to the brightness of lightning, grimly looked on.

“The Realm Eternal is a realm never changing. Though it rules over nine, only four are invited to this table. This divide, purposefully created, has led to war over and over again; with the Svartalfar, with the Jotuns, and you all know that Muspelheim has been toeing that line. And it will be Asgard’s doom if we don’t address it.

“Odin died for his hubris.” Loki’s voice shook only slightly at that. “He thought he alone knew what was best for the realm.

“Oh, of course he informed you, the lesser kings, of his plans, but did he leave a single decision to you? Let you change even a hair on his plan? I doubt that he would.”

Loki waited for a moment, but the only one that looked like he would speak was Thor. Loki silenced him with a glare.

“Odin’s mistake was a lack of trust in his allies, and he almost condemned you all to share his fate and join him in Valhalla. We do not need another king who pretends our walls cannot fall to the weapons of savages.” Loki opened his hands, beseeching. “Brother, Council, this is my advice.”

And Loki laid out his plans for an elected parliament that would work in equal power besides an elected leader, creating a system of checks and balances that Asgard was sorely missing. He also suggested establishing a true Council of Nine rulers, who would govern the Nine Realms as a supranational union, putting Asgard and the lesser realms on equal footing in decisions made for protection, trade, and power.

“If both are accomplished, then this plan establishes a balance of power that everyone would profit from. Let no single king hold complete power over the Nine ever again.”

Lodhur’s black eyes turned on him, and the doubt in his face could not hide his keen interest. “You speak with boyish naivety. Things of that magnitude must change slowly unless you wish them to break, Prince Loki.”

And maybe Loki wanted Asgard to break. Some things needed to break before they could heal; Loki knew that better than most.

“Then you had better start soon. But I don’t need to push you on this, do I? I have sat in on your meetings, and I have seen your resentment. You have long wished for freedom from the yoke of the Allfather’s rule.” Loki folded his arms and leaned against the windowsill and left the Council to discuss the proposition. He watched the idea catch fire as easily as a spark on dry tinder. Yes, they would have to work with Giants and mortals, but that was a comparatively small price to reclaim their power from Asgard.

Loki felt that his work was done, so he nodded to Thor as the discussion heated up, turned on his heel, and left. He had barely pushed out the heavy double doors and into the hallway when Thor’s running steps caught up with him. He grasped Loki’s shoulder with a murderous scowl. Loki should have expected as much. The doors swung shut behind them with a reverberating boom, and Thor dragged him into a nearby alcove, barking at the guards to give them space.

“What the hell was that!?” Thor slammed him into the wall. With a shimmer of magic, Loki changed into more comfortable clothes, leaving Thor gripping nothing. He stepped out of the way and danced a step back when Thor chased him, clumsy with rage.

“I gave you advice,” Loki said lightly, a smile on his face and hands up to signal peace. “The way our mother thought I should. Weren’t those Odin’s parting words of wisdom?”

“Are you mad? What kind of world would we live in if we invited Surtur onto the Council? He is fated to bring Ragnarök about!”

Gall rose in Loki’s throat. “It would be a world that treats Giants as the Aesir’s equals. No doubt you have trouble imagining that.”

“Don’t you!? This is Surtur, Loki!”

“Fine, then release Muspelheim from Asgard’s grasp and let them reclaim their realm! Those territories have been worthless for centuries!”

Thor was pacing, his state of agitation such that his hand flew to the belt loop that usually held Mjölnir’s handle over and over again. “If you wish for equality, you could just take the throne. Create the change you clamor for. But this proposal of yours would tear Asgard apart!” Thor’s fist slammed on the wall, leaving the stone cracked and crumbling.

“It seems that you’re doing that just fine by yourself.” Loki pointedly looked at the small crater Thor’s anger had left behind.

“Your jests have gotten us into enough trouble!” Thor shouted.

“Don’t you get it, Thor? I can’t do it, not by myself and not by your side.” He turned on his heel and began walking, forcing Thor to trail him. Loki felt sour words rising in his throat, hot and black with self-loathing. “I belong nowhere. I am not Asgardian enough to rule this realm and too much of an Asgardian to garner trust with the Giants. None of them would let me speak for them.”

“Then gain their trust. Loki, that’s the point!”

“It won’t work!” Loki laughed, a high-pitched sound that echoed in the hallways. Not having watched where they were going, he faced a sudden dead end. Large windows opened onto the Realm Eternal, and Loki leaned heavily on the window sill.

“Thor, I killed Jötunheim’s king, and I devastated their realm. I cannot gain their trust, and I cannot rule them. I would do worse than Odin by them. I am a Frost Giant, and I loathe them.” The admission broke something in him, a long-festering wound torn open to drain foul pus. He lowered his gaze, unable to look at the brightness of Asgard a moment longer, tears in his eyes.

Thor deflated with a sigh and sank against the window’s ledge, setting a careful hand on Loki’s shoulder. “I forget sometimes. You are only yourself to me.”

Loki was angry for only a moment, and he didn’t know why he had thought that Thor would understand him better than that. He had never even seen Loki’s true skin—Loki himself had made sure of that. A tear fell on the windowsill by his hands, and Loki took a deep breath. He blinked until his vision was clear once more.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said when he trusted his voice. “I wish this change not for myself but for those that come after me.”

Thor turned his face into the light that Loki found blinding. “For argument’s sake, if we were to do this—and I’m not saying that we are—where would we start?”

Loki took a breath. “Well, first off, you’ll have to—”

“Not I,” Thor cut him off. “We. This is your plan, and I’m not attempting it alone.”

In Thor’s eyes, Loki sought a softness to push into, a weakness to exploit. For a way out of the trap he had laid for himself. He found none; Thor’s eyes were illuminated by the sun so that they seemed to glow from within, a steel blue, unyielding, and filled with determination.

“You won’t let me out of this, will you?”

“Not if you wish to set this plan into motion. I do not have your vision to execute whatever madness you have dreamed up.” Thor’s demeanor softened. “I will take the throne by myself if I have to, but I do not covet it.”

Loki let that sink in, feeling light-headed, like reality had moved a few inches to the right and was continuing in a parallel path he hadn’t predicted. The decision had such weight that he couldn’t process it, not just yet.

“Then we will do it together.” And he talked Thor through it. The political traps, the likely complications, the cultural and historical relevance, and the danger of bias, for which Midgard had truly been a marvelous study field.

Eventually, they moved to the war room so that they could take notes and make use of the literature there. They talked through lunch, they ordered food, and continued talking while Thor stained Loki’s writing with grease and Loki spilled tea over a stack of ancient scrolls.

Time was flying. They bickered and argued, they got into a screaming fight, they apologized grudgingly, and they kept working. Loki had not expected to change the workings of Asgard’s government himself and found it a more complex task than anticipated. (Certainly more difficult than throwing a bomb into a meeting room and running off to a different realm. Imagine that.)

They parted late at night, long after they had grown tired of the topic and each other. Loki’s thoughts were still running a million miles an hour; he had research to do, and a lot of it. He was halfway to the libraries before it sank in all the way: he would be king of Asgard. One of a pair, either way. He found himself giddy, and he found himself terrified.

As he stood before the shelves, stretching high and wide into stale darkness, and clapped his hands to conjure lights that hung among the shelves like large fireflies, he became aware of the monumental task he had set for himself and Thor.

It filled him with an edge of excitement, with the power of change that was as heady as the rush of destruction and death. This was what Loki had been raised for, what his whole life was pointing towards.

He would tear down what was wrong with Asgard, and he’d rebuild it anew. If he did it right, then it was the work of a lifetime.

Which meant he’d lose Tony.

Loki’s excitement deflated. He needed to do this, but he needed to do it fast.

One year. Tony could wait one year. He would speak with him; he would carefully lay out his words for a topic that was delicate and hard to navigate. And he would explain why he had to stay.

After a year, he’d hand the crown back to Thor and the responsibilities to the newly established parliament to finish what Loki had started. There was a nagging voice that told him it was impossible to accomplish. He closed his ears against it; it would work, because it had to.

Loki climbed the ladders of the library and sought the books he’d need: histories and politics, social and cultural studies, genealogies of the Giants, the Elves, the Mortals.

And Loki set to work.

Chapter Text

Under Tony’s busy hands, the Mark VI took shape, and he finished the chassis that very afternoon. Nothing to do until he got this baby to Earth to install JARVIS. So he stored the armor in wooden crates, labeled it for transport to Malibu, and retreated to Loki’s central hearth, where he sprawled on the bench before the fire for some light reading.

When Tony had to turn on the lights to keep working, Loki still hadn’t returned. Which was odd; his meeting had been in the morning. It also was long past dinnertime, as Tony’s stomach informed him loudly.

So he made his way to Loki’s dining room, where he shoveled some flatbread, hard cheese, and pickled vegetables into a bowl. He also grabbed an apple and a bottle of alcohol—all under the judgmental eyes of Loki’s head servant.

Tony popped a cheese cube into his mouth, holding eye contact. It didn’t seem to faze the guy much.

He was old enough to be someone’s great-grandfather and tended to look at Tony like something he had stepped in. Probably had a name, too, not that Tony could remember. He tended to anticipate what was needed within Loki’s rooms at all times, providing it so discreetly that Tony sometimes jumped to find his wine replaced, or a fresh towel provided, or a spill cleaned up. Noticeably, he only did these things when Loki was around. Noticeably, he only did these things for Tony when Loki was around.

Tony stopped a few inches from his face, curious whether he would twitch. He didn’t. “Hi. Thanks for this.” He held up the apple. “Do you know where Loki is at?”

The man took a step back and bowed precisely. “He hasn’t returned after the Council meeting, Emissary Stark.”

“Uh-huh. So you’ve noticed that he’s late, right? Should I worry?”

He straightened his back but kept his eyes glued to his shoes. “I could not possibly hope to advise you on your feelings, Emissary Stark.”

Sassy. “Is this like a riddle situation? Do I need to ask a direct question? Okay, here it is: Where is Loki?”

“I could not say, sir.” He didn’t sound very apologetic.

Tony was watching him, turning the apple in his hand. He took a bite. “Okay then.”

The guy knew exactly where Loki was. Which meant he had either decided to obfuscate all by himself—wouldn’t have surprised Tony—or been ordered to. By Loki.

Loki had been behaving oddly the past few days—his silences had grown longer and his banter distracted. He spent most of his time scowling at dense Asgardian tomes—which Tony couldn’t decipher, seeing that Loki didn’t need a translation spell—and dismissed Tony’s questions about his books and his mood alike. Tony had chalked it up to the recent confrontation with his heritage, but now he wasn’t as sure.

Tony kept watching the moon move past the arcs of the balcony, listening for the horn that announced the change of the hour, and was reading the same three paragraphs over and over again.

Disgusted, Tony threw the book aside and retrieved materials to record his thoughts on artifice in human engineering, falling into an easy flow of writing, fact-checking, and cross-referencing.

An indefinite time later, the front door clicked open, and Tony heard Loki exchange a few words with his servant.

Tony looked up from his work. Loki was pausing in the entrance to the living area, looking exhausted and surprised.

“You may use one of the desks if you wish to organize your research.” Loki stepped down into the recessed sitting area by the fire and took in the spread of Tony’s work. Tony was sitting cross-legged in what resembled an explosion of books and loose note paper.

“This is fine. I’m just filling the time until we return to New York.” He stretched, and his shoulders crackled and popped.

Loki looked like he was going to say something, then he shook his head. He settled down on one of the couches, unlaced and kicked off his boots, and drew up his feet. He picked up the book Tony had thrown aside earlier. “So you have finally gotten around to alchemy.”

“If you ask me, it’s unnecessarily esoteric.” Alchemy was, at its core, chemistry that took magic into consideration, yielding an additional seventeen variations on the periodic table.

“Quite.” Loki flipped to the table of contents and smiled as he scanned the entries. “Ah, good old Kvasir. Did any of his writing require explanation?”

“Uh, yeah, actually.” He got up. His right knee complained, and he massaged it. He wasn’t getting any younger, was he? He sat down by Loki’s side and took the book from him, leafing through it until he found the passage on transmutation. He pressed it back into Loki's hands, wrinkling the page. “This here. I didn’t get that.”

“Yes, I can see the problem.” Loki said dryly and brushed the wrinkles from the text with a shimmer of magic. “Kvasir drove me half-mad as a student. He’s notorious for leaving out what he deems self-explanatory.” He settled into explaining the chapter. He spoke lightly, with the authority of someone well-versed in a topic. Tony hung on his lips as he breezed through the translation from magical principles into scientific ones. Tony was highly aware that he had picked up most of that within a couple of weeks on Earth.

Hell, Tony sometimes forgot how damn smart Loki was.

“Are you even listening?” Loki quirked an eyebrow.

“You’re describing radiation-free nuclear fusion, using magic to redirect energy to and from the astral plane. Basically, it’s a miniature sun, but without the heat.”

“There could, in fact, be a lot of heat if you get the parameters wrong. Our workshops are located on the top floor for a good reason. Kvasir wasn’t the only one to set them on fire on occasion.”

“Also, as I suspected, all of this is totally useless to me since I don’t use magic.”

“There is that, of course,” Loki smirked.

Tony stared at him. “You know that it’s really hot how smart you are?”

Loki set down the book and leaned in to kiss Tony. Tony opened his mouth willingly, his heart picking up speed. Loki hummed and sank back as Tony pushed in, kissing him until he felt calmer and more grounded, more at home in his own body and more comfortable with Loki.

Tony slowed them down after a moment. It was too late, and he was too wired to want sex. He pulled back, and Loki looked up at him with color high on his cheeks and an unguarded adoration that stole Tony’s breath. He needed a moment to remember he had meant to ask a question.

“How was your meeting?”

Loki’s soft smile slipped from his face. “I would need an hour to catch you up.”

“Well, sum it up. Do you know when we leave? What about the coronation?”

Loki stiffened, and his face went blank. He sat up and put some distance between them.

Right. “We don’t have to talk about Thor getting the throne, but I need a schedule, honey.”

“It’s fine. I just …” Loki looked conflicted. He pressed a fist to his lips, as though he was keeping himself from speaking. He shook his head and rose to his feet. “It’s very late, and I would like your full attention for the topic. I’d rather not discuss it tonight.”

That didn’t sound good. Goddammit, Tony had known something was up. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow. After the feast.”

Which was in the evening. Tony wanted to protest, but Loki was visibly shutting down, and he did look very tired; the wrinkle of his brow and the way he was kneading his hands were clear signs of stress. Tony had been pushing him a little harder than he probably should, and what it had gotten him most recently was an argument over Loki being a Giant—not one of Tony’s proudest moments—and a nervous breakdown. If Loki was requesting space, Tony should be able to give him that.

Right?

Right.

But there was no way Tony could sleep with that hanging between them.

“Alright. I’ll come to bed in a bit; I just want to finish this thought.”

And Tony had intended to join Loki eventually, but the next time he looked up from his notes, his eyes were itching, and he blinked sunlight from his eyes. He crawled under the covers just as Loki got up, who was rolling his eyes and kissing him goodbye.

**

Tony dreamed of the portal over New York. He stood by Loki’s side, looking up, limbs frozen while the city around them was crumbling under the Chitauri attack. He knew there was a nuke coming in, but there was nothing he could do but watch it approach.

“You’re getting it all wrong,” Loki said calmly.

“Then help me. Tell me what to do.” Tony looked at Loki’s profile.

When Loki turned towards him, his eyes were blue and empty. He reached for Tony, and Tony couldn’t move, fear paralyzing him. “Tony, wake up.”

Tony woke with a start. Loki was bent over him, a hand on his shoulder. Tony almost hit him in surprise.

Loki let go and took a step back. “I apologize. We’ll be late to the feast.”

Tony needed a moment to remember what he was talking about.

“Right.” His voice was a croak. He sat up and realized Loki had laid out clothes for him, similar to the ones he had worn to the funeral. His heart was pounding, and a sense of impending doom sat in his stomach. He was hyperaware of Loki’s every move as he changed into formal attire.

Tony set his unease aside, rubbed his face, and got ready to leave.

**

The feast marked the end of the cleanup efforts and the most important restorations of Asgard’s infrastructure. It was a return to normalcy.

Loki had made sure they’d arrive before anyone else, waved off offers of drinks and canapés, and immediately gravitated towards the festively decorated tables.

The tables and benches had been arranged in the floating gardens at the foot of the palace, easily seating a few hundred people, and a bonfire was stacked at the center of an open-air dance floor. The manicured woods sparkled with fairy lights, inviting revelers for quiet walks away from the main event.

As expected, Loki found their name cards at the head of the table. They’d be seated by Thor’s side that evening—as were the members of the Council. Loki shuddered at the thought of making polite conversation with Eitri that night. No, they could definitely do better. He rounded the table as the servants set out silverware and goblets, scanning name cards for alternatives.

“How would you like to sit next to the head of the artificers guild?” Loki asked Tony lightly. “Oh, and let’s put fair Lady Gefjun next to Lord Freyr. That should be entertaining. They engaged in a tryst that ended very publicly. And the rest of this could use a little stir.” He snapped his fingers, and a rush of magic ran down the table, mixing up the name cards. The servant that had been hovering a few feet behind them startled and looked pale. Loki didn’t mean to get her into trouble. “In case anyone asks, you may convey that the Crown Prince revisited the arrangement.” The servant bobbed a curtsy.

“Why am I not surprised that this is what you do for fun?” Tony snapped his fingers as though he’d just remembered. “Right, villain and drama queen.”

Loki laughed quietly at the judgmental tone. “The aristocracy is filled with braggarts and fools. Drama is all that they’re good for.” Loki led Tony back to the covered veranda and positioned them at a standing table in good view of the entrance.

“Oh god. Are you one of those people that are up to date on the gossip?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Gossip is an essential part of politics.” Loki waved down a server carrying drinks. “I might be a bit out of the loop, seeing that I’m missing almost two years at court.”

“That’s what I have a PA for. Had. I should get another one.” Tony didn’t seem enthused by the thought.

“I will gladly keep you abreast of the guest list.” Loki plucked two goblets from the offered tray and pressed one into Tony’s hand, then leaned on the table sipping Elvish wine. As the guests began filtering in, he bent down to Tony’s ear and conveyed a bit of information on each of them. For all his protestations, Tony did hide his laughter at some of the wilder stories, shooting Loki fond glances that did nothing to discourage him.

When the artificers guild arrived, shuffling and twitching like a cluster of confused prey animals, Tony took his elbow and dragged him along.

“You’ve been filling my head with hot air for half an hour. I need to talk about something of consequence, so you’ll introduce me to these gentlemen.”

Loki did make introductions and felt no need to insert himself further into the conversation. He did feel a bright warmth grow in his chest, though; Tony made a good enough first impression and left the artificers dumbfounded with the astute connections he made between Midgardian science and Asgardian artifice. It was validating to see how much Tony had learned in the short time he’d been studying the subject.

(Given a thousand years or so, Tony would be unrivaled among artificers in the Nine.)

(Carefully, Loki set that thought aside.)

When dinner was announced, Tony kept talking science with the artificers as they found their seats, barely coming up for air long enough to accept another drink from a servant.

Fandral’s smile faltered as they approached. Oh. It appeared Loki had accidentally shuffled some other people into their vicinity he’d rather not speak to.

That finally got Tony to pause mid-sentence to look at Loki. “Seriously? That’s the guy you put across from me?”

“Hail Prince Loki, hail Iron Man. Well met.” Fandral leaned across the table with an apologetic smile and an offer of an arm. “I must beg forgiveness for my past transgressions. Tempers were running high, and in the light of recent history I must admit … I might have been mistaken. Was mistaken.” His eyes flickered to Loki and quickly away.

Loki couldn’t help but wonder what had happened between those two.

Tony sighed and shook his hand between candelabras and floral decorations. “Fine. But I got my eye on you, D’Artagnan.” Tony did a double-take as the lady Sif arrived. “Wow, what does the other guy look like?”

Sif rolled her eyes—one of them blackened—and arranged her dress to climb over the bench. “Some of us keep our skills sharp even when the war is over.”

Fandral leaned in and said, “It happened while rebuilding the pub. It was a beam.”

“That you forgot to secure while you were flirting with the foreman.” Sif grabbed his ear and dragged him to sit back on his ass. His laughter was pained as he pawed at her hand.

Sif let him go when she spotted Gefjun a few seats down, stiff as a board, next to a very uncomfortable-looking Freyr. “Odd seating arrangement.” She shot Loki a questioning glance.

“Really? It seems perfectly normal to me.” Loki sipped his wine and avoided her eyes.

Sif leaned across the table to hiss, “You are such a child. I can’t believe this is the first thing you do after … Do you even know what she … ugh.” She stood and stomped off. Whatever she told Freyr seemed to translate to ‘scram,’ seeing that he scrambled out of his seat and meekly settled down by Fandral’s side.

Oh well. It wasn’t a bad outcome. Fandral was overly accommodating for reasons that Loki would have to ask Tony about later, and Freyr was a fine conversation partner as long as one cared about Vanir politics. Which Loki did.

The wine was flowing, the food kept coming, and laughter filled the air. The evening flew by, and, as had always been the case, people mostly ignored Loki unless he made himself known. Loki found that he didn’t mind much, not tonight. Tony’s hand was on Loki’s knee, conversation was easy, and his smile filled Loki’s chest with pleasant warmth.

Loki couldn’t stop looking at him. In the armor Loki had fashioned for him, among the floating lights and limned by the bonfire, Tony looked bright and brilliant. Like he belonged on Asgard. For a moment, it was easy to imagine a life in which Tony stayed by his side.

Tony could spend his days tinkering in his workshop, building diplomatic ties with the Dwarves, reading his way through the artificer’s library, maybe apprenticing with one of the masters. If there was a single mortal that could prove the worth of their whole race, it was Anthony Edward Stark.

It couldn’t last, of course. (And one day, when that bitter truth caught up with him, it would tear him apart.) So Loki let go of such childish fantasies and focused on the evening that still lay before them.

Eventually the tables were cleared, and the music turned from gentle to lively. Couples and groups gravitated to the dance floor, and Loki was tempted to see whether Tony could be taught a step or two—he had been a socialite on Earth; surely he’d match Loki’s footwork just fine. (Surely, for once, Tony would follow Loki’s guidance instead of the other way around.)

“Brother! There you are!” Thor threw wide his arms, and Loki suppressed both an eye roll and a smile when Thor drew him into a hug.

“Unhand me, Thor.”

Thor heavily dropped onto the bench next to him and slung an arm around his shoulder. “I wished to speak to you.”

There was a nervous energy to him that filled Loki with a sense of foreboding. “What have you done?”

Thor squeezed him as though it were a joke. “Nothing yet. But the battle and the rebuilding have reminded me what is important. Courting of the Lady Jane, short as it was, has mattered to me a great deal.” Thor grinned with boyish excitement. “I will ask her for her hand.”

“You wish to marry her.” Loki said with flat disbelief. “You? You wish to settle down?”

“And why shouldn’t I?”

“Wow. Have you even seen her in the last six months?” Tony asked. “You know you’re going to need a ring, right?”

“My friend, she shall have golden rings to deck her halls with splendor.” Thor was positively giddy.

Loki shook his head in disbelief. “For your sake, I hope she is as much of a fool as you are.”

Thor laughed good-naturedly. “She certainly isn’t.”

He stayed to chat a bit longer to chat with Tony about Avengers business, flagging down ale after ale. Loki began feeling antsy. Any minute they stayed, Thor might give something away that he hadn’t told Tony yet.

“Iron Man, It fills my heart with gladness to see you by my brother’s side. Will you stay on Asgard for the coming years?”

Loki felt the floor drop out from under him.

Tony laughed. “I hope it won’t take Loki that long to pack.”

“Thor, if you would excuse us.” Loki hastily rose to his feet, pulling Tony up by the hand. “May I have this dance?”

Tony looked to the dance floor, still a half-smile on his lips. “As long as you don’t expect me to do any of that.” He nodded to a couple of Elves that were flinging each other in the air in repeating patterns.

“There are easier steps to begin with,” Loki agreed.

“Then you should wait for another tune.” Thor was looking from Tony to Loki and back, and Loki was very aware that he was catching on. Thor was not as dumb as he looked, though Loki often wished that he was. “Only a couple of days remain until the coronation. Do you truly want to return to Midgard for that short a time?”

“Right, so we do have a date for the coronation.” Tony threw Loki a sharp glance. “Anything else you want to catch me up on, honey?”

Like a switch had flicked, Thor’s whole demeanor turned reproachful. It was such a perfect imitation of Frigga that under different circumstances, it might have been comical. “Loki! Haven’t you—”

“Thor, stop,” Loki hissed.

“He has to know—”

“I’m aware! Thank you for spoiling the evening, I was going to talk to him tonight.”

“You’ve known for—”

“And thank you for lecturing me about my love life when you barely talk to Jane!”

Thor lifted his nose in the air, as though he was somehow better than Loki at this. “You’re mistaken. I talk to her all the time. It’s the foundation of a stable relationship.” It sounded so much like he was parroting Jane’s—likely incessant—reminders that Loki wanted to slap him.

“Stop. What is happening?” Tony’s voice was flat with suspicion.

Well. This was not how he had planned to do this, but there was no helping it. Loki reached to clasp Tony’s shoulder, but Tony took a step back, tension running across his shoulders. So Loki inclined his head and gestured for him to follow. “Let us find some privacy.”

Tony was quiet as he followed Loki, the set of his jaw hard. They circumvented the dance floor and found space in the twinkling darkness of the trees. Loki’s heart was in his throat. He stopped and waited for Tony to face him, then drew a deep breath and spoke before he could think better of it.

“Thor has asked me to stay on Asgard.”

Tony took a moment to process that. “How is that supposed to work? You’re going to Earth, Council’s decision. There was a trial, if you happen to remember.”

Loki was aware of the absurdity of it all. “I am. But the Council would suspend the punishment until a ‘more convenient time.’”

“When?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“No, when did he ask you?”

Loki couldn’t hold Tony’s gaze. “The day the trial concluded.”

“That was two weeks ago.” Tony sounded stunned. He took a step back, his hands hanging by his side as though unsure what to do. “You agreed to it, didn’t you? You agreed to stay.”

“I … it wouldn’t be for long. I will have to figure out how to arrange it, but I will keep the time as short as possible.” Loki picked at his fingernails. Guilt was churning in his guts. “He does not wish to be king.”

“Why is he asking you to stay, Loki?” But he looked at Loki like he already knew the answer.

“To share the burden of the throne.” Loki did not dare breathe.

Tony took a moment to answer. When he spoke, it was dangerously soft. “You told me you didn’t want to be king.”

“I don’t, but it’s not that easy. There are ways in which Asgard must change, and no one else even sees the need for it. No one else cares.”

Tony’s jaw was clenching and unclenching rhythmically. He was staring in the direction of the dance floor without seeming to see it. Thor was there, swinging a brilliantly happy Sif in circles. People were watching him, as they always did. Thor was the center of everything he attended.

In the darkness of the gardens, the near-anonymity of a large party, Loki was overcome with a feeling he remembered all too well. He felt small. Unimportant, overlooked, unloved. Not second to Thor; to be second-best, one needed to be seen. When Thor had told him to mind his place, he had meant the shadows. The only reason anyone looked at him was because he might become a threat, because he might gain power over them. It was as it had always been.

And for that reason, as long as Asgard was his home, some part of Loki would always covet the throne. But he was painfully aware that the things he wanted to gain from the position—respect, attention, love, all the things that Thor had received effortlessly all his life—were nothing but a pretty fiction he had been telling himself.

No, the throne would not give Loki what he needed, but giving it up willingly was the end of something he wasn’t ready to face, and it would tear something inside of him apart. He still was going to do it, for Tony. How could he begin to make Tony understand?

“Tony—”

“A moment.” Tony squeezed his eyes shut and pressed both hands over his face. When he came up, it was as though he had donned his armor: his expression was as smooth and impenetrable. “Okay. I can see why you’d want that. You have done worse things to get a throne, I just thought you had moved past that and that you were going to come back to Earth with me. I was wrong, no big deal.” He turned and walked away so abruptly that Loki scrambled to catch up.

“Tony, let me—”

“You should do what is right for you. Seriously, if you think you have to do this, why should I stop you? I can’t anyway, can I? You’ve made your decision.

“I just don’t think this is. Right for you, that is, this isn’t right for you,” Tony kept talking, faster and faster as he walked deeper into the shimmering darkness of the gardens and away from the celebration. “You want to stay on Asgard? Understandable. You love Thor—don’t tell me you don’t; you’re terrible at pretending to hate him—and you want to be close to him. Great. We should be close to people we love.” Tony’s voice was high and breathless at this point.

“It’s all great. Apart from the bit where you didn’t tell me, and you lied to me. But it’s just one more thing to forgive, isn’t it? Was that the kind of wishful thinking that went into that decision? Well, yeah, I’m probably forgiving you for that, too, so you’re right, why should you tell me things? Why would you treat me like I matter? Who cares what I want?”

“Tony, listen—”

“But you know how you told me you won’t ever be free of your dad? This cements that; this makes it permanent. You can’t step into your dad’s footsteps and call it freedom. I would know because I fucking did that!” Tony came to a stop and slammed a fist into the trunk of an ash tree, breathing heavily, staring blindly at nothing. A shudder of leaves descended around him, and the fairy lights swung in the branches. “I did that.”

Loki stood with both hands extended, not sure whether he was trying to ward Tony off or help him. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“You are hurting me!” Tony snapped his mouth shut and swallowed convulsively. He looked shocked by his own outburst.

“Tony, I’m not trying to hurt you. I didn’t … I wasn’t sure I was going to do it. I didn’t mean to upset you. There was no point to telling you before I had an answer.”

Tony’s bark of laughter was ugly. “That’s not how this is supposed to work.”

Something twisted in Loki’s stomach, and guilt turned into a simmering heat. “I was born to take the throne, it is my fate to grapple with this. I cannot simply ignore it when the Norns so clearly open that path to me. This is my purpose.”

“No one is ‘born for a purpose.’ This isn’t fate, or destiny, or anything like that! This is your decision! The least you can do is own that.” Tony looked at him with an intensity that would have cowed Loki had he himself not been getting furious. It took him effort to keep his voice level.

“You aren’t born of royalty. You don’t know what it means. There is no alternative to ascension.”

“Why the hell is Thor finding a way out then, and you aren’t?”

“Maybe I don’t want to!” Loki shouted. “I’m done running, Tony!”

“No, I think you are still running.” The words were cold, and they cut Loki to the core. “You told me you don’t want to be put in a box. Newsflash, this right here? This is you crawling back into the box your father built for you.”

The look that Tony was giving him was one that he had always feared but that Tony had never turned on him: disappointment. None of this was a surprise to Tony. Loki had done exactly what he thought he would do.

How fast it all crumbled when Loki voiced any desire at all. How quick Tony was to think the worst of him. How little room there was for explanation. This was what he had feared; this was what he had hoped to avoid. Loki clenched his fists to keep himself from reaching out and took a step back. “And what does it say about you that you can’t even listen to my explanation?”

“I have listened. That is all I do, Loki, but I cannot listen to things you don’t tell me!”

“I am telling you!”

“You are. Congratulations on getting what you’ve always wanted; you might want to practice looking happy about it. If you come to your senses and realize you fucked up, don’t expect me to be waiting for you.” He turned and began walking away.

“What would be the point, seeing that you’ll be dead in a century!” Loki shouted after him, and his voice broke against the cruel edge of the words.

Tony’s steps faltered briefly, but he didn’t turn around, just kept walking.

Loki stared after him. The night was cool and dark, thick with the smell of bonfires and autumn bloom, and the breeze was cool enough to leave goosebumps on his skin. Loki rarely was cold, and certainly not on a mild night like this, but he began shivering in the damp shadow of the forest. Though he stood perfectly still, he couldn’t catch his breath.

What the hell had just happened?

**

Tony’s feet carried him through the crowd on their own, as though he was floating on a wave of white-hot anger. He bumped into revelers multiple times—people were ignoring him as they had from the minute he had arrived on Asgard.

A hot lump sat in Tony’s throat, and as he broke from the crowd and marched through the quiet hallways, away from the laughter and music.

So this was it.

In the end, Loki had betrayed him.

**

“Loki.”

Slowly, Loki turned towards the voice. He didn’t know how long he’d stood frozen in the darkness of the forest, staring after Tony.

“Sif. You have a talent for showing up where you’re not wanted.”

Sif looked unimpressed. “I was about to say the same thing.” She was leaning against a tree, not heeding her floor-length dress as it collected brambles and leaves. In the background, Loki vaguely noted another woman vanishing into the night. At a second glance, Sif did look a bit disheveled, and her lip paint was smeared. “You are an idiot, do you know that?”

“I have no patience for this.” Loki summoned a dagger to rest loosely in his hand.

Sif scoffed as though the gesture was more laughable than intimidating. She nodded in the direction that Tony had vanished.

“You’re really going to send him off like that? All that for the sake of the throne? I know you’re jealous of Thor, but even I hadn’t predicted this.”

She must have heard most of the fight. Loki’s face was burning with fury and shame. “And who are you to judge me? As though your pathetic love life is superior to mine. Your pining for Thor gets you nowhere, and you distract yourself with, who was that, the Lady Gefjun?”

Sif reached for her sword instinctively; it wasn’t on her back, not at a party. “Heed your words; you’re lucky I’m in a good mood.”

“As if you could take me in a fight.”

“Keep talking and find out that I can,” Sif shot back. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Pray tell, what are you here for? To laugh at my misery?”

“Do you know why I haven’t gotten rid of Thor’s mortal?”

Loki lost his angry momentum over the non-sequitur. “Are you talking about killing her? Are you being serious?”

“I don’t have to,” Sif shrugged. “Jane is going to be around for a few decades, and then she’s going to die all by herself. If she makes Thor happy, I can wait. My feelings won’t change.”

Loki snorted in derision. “That’s pathetic.”

Sif leaned against the tree nonchalantly. “I could kill you with that blade you’re holding. It wouldn’t even be hard.”

Loki doubted that very much. He still vanished the dagger.

“We are long-lived, Loki. They are not. Not once in the time I’ve known you have I seen you happy, and … ” Sif looked like she was wrestling with the next words. “Ugh. You’re slightly less irritating when you’re not a miserable prick. Whatever you’re getting out of staying here, it will still be there a century from now. That man that just left? He’s not.”

“Are you stupid? The throne is going to go to my moronic brother, and he’s not going to give it up.”

“So you really want to be king again?”

Of course he didn’t. But he wasn’t about to bare his soul to Sif of all people. “Are you threatening to commit treason, Sif? Don’t count on my leniency this time,” he sneered.

“You know you needed to be stopped.” Sif didn’t show even a hint of remorse. “Loki, I don’t want you to be my king. You don’t want to be my king. You don’t even like most of the people you’re supposed to rule.” She nodded back to the light and festivities, to the boom of Thor’s resounding laughter. “Thor does. He loves them. All of them.”

“A shame that he doesn’t know what Asgard needs.”

“And you do?” Sif’s face was a mask of derision.

Loki lifted his chin. “Ending the monarchy would be a start.”

Sif’s mask slipped, and she stared at him with complete surprise. She laughed out loud. “You wouldn’t. Not you, Loki. For you, it’s always going to be about the power that other people hold and that you can’t have.”

Loki wondered what she saw when she looked at him. And he suddenly realized that it didn’t matter that she had never seen his true skin. She had always known he was different—through signals that Odin sent. Some people—those with true power—had known that Loki was a Jotun long before he did, and they had treated him accordingly.

“You have hated me as long as you’ve known me, Sif. Have you ever wondered why that is?”

“You lie and scheme and cannot face an honest fight. You betrayed Thor when he was at his lowest. You're pathetic.” Sif looked ready to spit in his face—Loki knew the expression because she had done it before.

“And you are a shining example to maidens everywhere, abandoning hearth and home to brawl in the streets, showing up to a feast with your face swollen and your dress dirtied like a common whore.”

“I am continuing the tradition of the Valkyries,” Sif snapped.

“The Valkyries are long gone, and we like to relegate them to legend. Asgard lets you feel that you’re out of line every step of the way.”

“You—” Sif took two steps in his direction, fists lifted and ready to slug him. He danced a step back and lifted both hands to ward her off.

“There is a point to this. What I am is seen as no less dirty than your drawing a sword. How much harder do you work than Fandral, only to barely be acknowledged as his equal? How often have your people sneered behind your back that you’re riding your sword’s hilt at night?”

Sif flushed bright red, and her face was contorted with anger, the tense lines of her shoulders shaking. “Don’t compare us. We're nothing alike.”

Loki scoffed. “I agree. But in the eyes of Asgard, we are. Long before I learned of my heritage, others had known. Eir knew Frigga hadn’t been pregnant, and it spread from there.

“Sif, You hated me before you ever knew me, long before I began my studies of magic. You ignored me because it was what everyone did, and you ridiculed me because it was easy. You followed the herd, as I have in quarreling with you.”

Sif looked too angry to be convinced. “What difference does it make, since you turned into a lying snake either way?”

“And when you train a tree’s branches, what choice does it have but to curve under the strain of the rope? Asgard doesn’t allow for the aberration. Her power is founded on convenient bigotry.

“Asgard needs to break so that it can be rebuilt anew, and the Nine need to be ruled by the people they have sworn to protect.”

“That sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.” But Sif’s murderous scowl had faded as she listened. She was clenching her jaw, thinking, and looking into the glittering darkness. “Have you even considered telling Thor any of that?”

“What makes you think I haven’t? He agreed to it.”

Sif let that sink in. Then she shrugged, as though it didn’t surprise her. “When he realized how much paperwork was involved, he really gave up on the throne. Which is what I was trying to tell you from the start. He’ll gladly abdicate a century from now.”

“You can’t know that,” Loki said stubbornly.

“I’ve known him for as long as you have. But your vision has always been twisted with jealousy. Loki, I know his heart better than you do.” Sif’s expression softened as she spoke of his brother. “Thor is a good man, willing to listen to his friends and his advisors. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how he changed.”

Loki couldn’t deny it. Since Odin had cast him out, Thor had become a different person.

“If you truly believe this is worth pursuing, there is no need to do it now. Come back once your mortal has outlived his years. We will stand by Thor’s side in the meantime.”

To his surprise, Loki realized that he believed her. Thor didn’t want to be king, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it. He had asked Loki for help, and in Loki’s absence, he would ask others.

It felt like the world clicked back into place, and a burden was lifted from his shoulders.

Loki let go of a long-suffering sigh. He never had thought that Sif would be the one to return him to his senses. It was honestly humiliating. “I’m holding you to that promise.”

Sif deflated a bit, and Loki felt it too, that the hard part of this conversation was over. “And you have changed as well, haven’t you?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“A bit.” There was a thoughtful look on her face. She nodded to Hlidskjálf. “Do I have to tell you to chase him?”

Loki began walking but stopped, conflicting emotions halting his steps. “I … I don’t think I have ever wanted to thank you before.”

Sif looked taken aback. “Please don’t. Just go; I don’t want to look at you anymore.”

“Likewise.”

They parted ways, and Loki didn’t look back.

**

Loki walked the path that Tony had taken, faster and faster, until he broke into an all-out run. The fireworks were about to start, and the revelers were stopped as though dumbstruck, clogging the pathways and watching the sky. Loki pushed through the crowd, apologizing as he stepped on slippers and gowns. Briefly, he caught Thor’s eyes and proceeded to ignore him. Through terraces, hallways, and up stairs, he ran at full tilt towards Tony’s workshop.

Loki tore open the doors—and found the room still and abandoned.

Tony’s armor was gone, and so were Tony’s clothes and his suitcase.

“No.”

The scanner Tony built to digitize library books was still there, a white paper rectangle sitting atop it. Loki picked it up: ‘To be delivered to Tony Stark, Earth. Don’t know who I am? You really should. (Ask Thor.)’

“The Bifröst.”

He left the note fluttering behind as he dashed from the room. His heart was in his mouth, white noise in his ears. He couldn’t think past what route to take, what corner to turn. He found the nearest port, where a single skiff was in the process of docking in the dark of night. Faint laughter rose from the dazzling passengers.

“Out! Royal order, get out!” The women scrambled while their male companion looked ready to argue. Loki grabbed him by the scruff of his embroidered vest and flung him onto the pier. Loki clambered into the rocking boat and slammed his hand on the steering wheel. It didn’t move. The damn thing was locked. He flung out a hand in the direction of the partygoers. “The keys, please!”

“Prince Loki?” A woman, her head heavy with a towering pile of braids, held out the charm that unlocked the skiff. “Has something happened?”

He snatched them from her hand. “Nothing you must worry about.” He started the skiff, and it purred to life, lighting with the promise of extraordinary speed and great comfort.

“My skiff! How do I get it back—”

“Speak to the guards!” Loki took off for the Bifröst, shimmering like a homing beacon against the black waves.

The wind on his face and his heart beating fast, Loki knew Tony had been right. Asgard would always put him in a box, and he was done with being confined.

Loki raced parallel to the Bifröst, and he barely slowed down as he pulled up by the observatory. He jumped from the skiff to the bridge and stumbled, letting the vessel drift off into the night, and jogged the short distance towards the dome.

“Heimdall!” he called.

Heimdall didn’t turn from his eternal watch over the stars, but with a shiver and a prickle against his neck, Loki knew that his attention had shifted.

“Your royal highness,” Heimdall said. “I think you have lost something.”

“Anthony Stark will arrive any moment. Don’t let him through before I've—” Loki’s words faded when he saw Heimdall’s face. It was always hard to read, but today, there was something like pity in his glowing eyes.

“You’re late. The mortal has left.”

How long had Loki spent in the gardens, staring at nothing and speaking to Sif? If Iron Man had flown, he would have been faster than any skiff.

“I …” Loki faltered and came to a slow stop by Heimdall’s side, looking out over the vastness of space. “Where did he go?”

Heimdall just looked at him stoically.

“Where, Heimdall? Malibu? Avengers Tower?”

“Neither. He asked me not to reveal his destination.”

All tension left Loki’s body. He felt dizzy. Steadying himself against the side of the arch, the thundering of the waterfall drowning out his heartbeat, he slowly sank down. He sat, one leg dangling past the edge and over the endless drop into the void. He had fallen before, but he wasn’t afraid. Not of that.

“My vows to the royal family haven’t changed. I would tell you if you ordered me.” Heimdall’s voice revealed no emotion.

“You only ever do what you want. You don’t have me fooled, Watcher.” But the words sounded hollow.

“Maybe so.” A pause. “Do you wish to know?”

Loki stared into the darkness. Tony had left and asked that Loki not pursue. And, if Loki was being honest, no matter how it hurt, it might be better this way.

They were a mess.

Tony was carrying wounds from a battle that Loki couldn’t remember and that, no matter how he tried to avoid it, he was going to aggravate. Loki had lost Tony's trust. And while he felt like he was losing himself in Tony’s absence, his presence robbed Loki of all agency.

The moment a single variable changed, the moment that Loki had made a decision for himself, they had begun falling apart.

“No. Don’t tell me.” The words stole the air from his lungs, and Loki heaved for more. There wasn’t enough of it out here, in the darkness and the cold, at the edge of the void.

**

It was early in New York, the sun was just coming up, and traffic was sparse. Tony blinked up at the white apartment building. It looked nice: marble and large windows facing out over Central Park.

He’d never visited her before, never even wondered where she lived when she wasn’t in his space, and only realized now that it was a bit odd.

He rang the doorbell, and the intercom connected with a sizzle a couple of minutes later.

“It’s five a.m., so this had better be good.”

Tony swallowed around the lump in his throat, scrunching shut his eyes against hot tears. “Pep, it’s me.”