To Loki Laufeyson, blue was a cold reminder of hunger and loneliness. Dim as it was, in his mind it always appeared as a blinding color; a dark shadow hovering over him every time a drop of red wine -sour drinks of the Gods- touched his parched lips during an asgardian banquet. It was the beasts and monsters, and the legendary heroes, that haunted his dreams and his darkest nightmares; the odyssey of a righteous firstborn, and the killing of his misguided adversary. It was the cold that kindled in protest under his pale skin, when the light of the sun touched him on a warm summer afternoon. It was all the grains of sand that, with the passing of the years, had formed in his chest a dirty mound of hate.
Hate was Loki´s world; the only truth –that in its more warm and choking vastness- he would allow himself to embrace. For a spiteful man should always embrace the truth, especially when he doesn´t know more than one.
Loki, after centuries inhabiting this inhospitable world, was, indeed, a spiteful man. At least, he appreciated –like any of them would- the gray pleasure that is born in the absence of movement and sound; in the security that one can only find in a lonely and well calculated existence. And he was fine living in that great pool of black and white tones, no matter what others (his family, his former friends, or mere strangers) could think about it. Maybe that had something to do with the color blue, but if it did, he never acknowledged it.
Something that people don´t normally understands, is that for spiteful men life usually travels a path full of troubles and incidents. The difficulties, disappointments and betrayals that Loki had suffered, would have been enough to turn anyone into a bitter adult. Once he had been a resigned child, committed to obedience and patient wait: those times were over. Long ago his defeated and slightly distressed face turned into one more sad and bitter; long ago he promised himself never again tolerate to be wronged by others.
In that moment, Loki took a choice. He decided to defy his realm and his king, and everything he had known until then; most important, he decided to defy the man who –for all his grievances- had turned him in what he was. He went down to Midgard –distant land of mortal men- to take on the color of powder and ash, and become intoxicated by the ocher smells of war. To kill those who had wronged him, and hate.
Tony Stark didn´t felt cold, nor he was cruel or bitter, but he also knew the unmistakable smell of hatred. It was the smell that enveloped his father, of skilled and ruthless hands, and somber clothes. The mere voice of Howard Stark had a smell of acidity and pestilence to Tony.
He was always a smart boy, and fate was never ruthless or hostile to him. For him everything was easy except, probably, dominate his curiosity. The only thing that had ever wronged him in some way was the cold rectitude that his father (An honest and successful man, who had made a career out of rightness and safety) imposed him. To Tony, his childhood (and young adulthood too) had been a brilliant and fast lightning. His talents gave him everything a young man could wish for, and circumstance taught him that the right to own something couldn´t be gained without effort. That was his father´s philosophy.
His talents provided Tony friends and honors, and the friendships and honors he gained filled him with pride -and an unhealthy vanity that he was not fully aware of-. He was an intelligent boy of fifteen years when he was expelled from school for having cross-linked the cables of the elevator´s board, adding some switches to the buttons, so when someone touched them they would suffer an unexpected electroshock. At sixteen, he was already studying engineering at the university.
He grew up to be an important and very popular person; for he felt the need to be popular and this one -like all his other needs- was easily satisfied. He always had plenty of time to talk and drink; to draw blueprints under the thunderous music of Metallica, to hear who was worth listening to, and to correct and redo things that others could not. And he was fine with it, because his life was pleasant and easy, and the complicated lives of others were not his problem.
But that was before Iron Man, and the Arc Reactor.
He realized, then, that life was an institution very different to all colleges and universities where he had studied; that it was something he could not win with insolence or wit, as he had done with the directors of the school. It took him even longer to realize that the people he had surrounded himself with ever since his father´s dead, would never understand that completely. Someone would always question his decisions during the board meetings of the company, someone would always scorn the brilliant monologues that spilled out of his mouth during a night-gala, or the love -slightly reaching obsession- he had for his job and for his suits. That his virtues and wins would always be flaws for them.
Ever since then he felt lonely, slightly depressed, and hateful. And there, between the tough, angry armor of Iron Man, he found an answer, a dream and a disaster
So, this first chapter is more a prologue or a pilot than anything. I meat to write it as a character study for both Tony and Loki. Next chapters would be longer and with more content ;-)