It's not that Tony doesn't like falling to his death. Well, maybe "like" is too strong a word. It's more that he appreciates its value as a perspective-setting mechanism, a way of grounding himself. If you will. It's just that, right now, he has a pretty good picture of his own insignificance as stacks of reflective office windows streak past him on his way toward the pavement. He tries to make out faces behind the glass, tries to see if anyone, any bored, procrastinating office drone, will witness his possibly-final moments. While they sit in scratchy, carpet-walled cubicles making the civilized world turn, he's diving past, red and bright as a flame, a guttering, dying candle of justice that tried to give them something to work at turning.
Okay, so maybe "insignificant" is also the wrong word. But the pavement's approaching uncomfortably fast and he'd really love for the HUD to come back on so he can look through his faceplate like it's more than a very expensive windshield about to be driven into his skull.
"Sir, power has been restored."
"You're a lifesaver, JARVIS." He fires both his hand repulsors at the ground, flips so he's parallel to it, and loops off. He's going to find that little green shit who pushed him off the building like he weighed little more than paper and teach him a thing or two about the effect of velocity on force. And sure, Loki isn't actually green and he has something like a head and a half on Tony, but Tony's a goddamned superhero and he doesn't give a shit.
Of course, Loki's waiting for him right at the building's ledge, arms spread out as if welcoming all the chaos below him. He hasn't brought an army this time, just a couple of nasty enchantments that the team's prowess at physical violence isn't doing too much against. But they're being kept busy by falling buildings and the like, so Tony's on his own up here.
"I'm engaging Loki," he says over the comms.
"Try to hit him this time," Barton quips, barely audible over static that's probably due to another apartment complex being reduced to rubble.
"Go save your civilians," Tony replies as he lines up his shot. Repulsor blasts, both hands and his chest. Full power. But before he can shoot, there's a sudden, bone-chilling silence and the HUD goes dark. Again.
This time, though, the thrusters in his boots are still going, carrying him straight towards Loki. He doesn't have time to twist away before he bodyslams the god, lifting him up off the roof and carrying them both skyward. Loki's hands come up to Tony's faceplate, cupping it, and he's whispering something Tony can't hear in a language that twists his lips like nothing Tony's ever seen and he feels something soft pushing into the back of his brain. Well, it's not his brain per se: the sensation's not that physical. It's a pressure on his thoughts, his awareness, and when he shakes his head sharply to clear it he feels whatever it is slide into place.
The suit is still propelling them upward and out, away from the battlefield. Tony's not sure how that's happening. His hands have come up around Loki's back, holding him in a firm line against Tony's armor, and Tony's not sure how that happened either.
What he does know is that they're flying over the river now and that they shouldn't be nearly this far already and he's pretty sure the suit's moving much, much faster than it normally does. Well, much faster than when Tony doesn't want to shatter people's windows with a sonic boom.
They're over California. Tony can see the familiar runway array of LAX and the low, clinging smog that coats the city proper. He realizes that he should let Loki go. Just drop him into the Pacific and let him drown. Because he doesn't want to bring this fight across the country when the rest of the team is still in New York. But the thought is slow and viscous and can't seem to spread to the action centers of Tony's brain. In the meantime, they're falling slowly, almost gracefully, down onto a familiar white roof.
As soon as he feels something solid under him, Tony forces his arms open. Loki stays pressed against him, and through the helmet he can see the god smirking. Tony reaches up and raises his faceplate. Cool Pacific air strikes his face, feeling gritty and sharp with salt.
Loki speaks first. "The infamous Man of Iron. What a coward you are. Running away from a fight with the enemy in tow."
"What did you do to my suit." Tony has to grit it out. He feels like his vocal cords are stuck, locked in his throat and raw. His mouth doesn't want to form words.
The thought enters his head that he's angry. Really, really angry; physically angry, the kind of angry that makes his jaw clench and his wrists ache and his shoulders twitch. He wants to punch, wants to break, wants to fight this crippling docility he feels settling into his bones, that stills his hands and makes him stand there while Loki takes off his armor piece by piece. He's not nearly as afraid as he should be.
"Or is it not cowardice at all?" Loki continues, winding his way around Tony's body. Tony can feel the joints of his armor unlock as Loki trails his fingers along them. Already his chest plate is gone, and his headpiece, and as Loki reaches up to stroke his neck there goes that plating, too. He wants to flinch away when the god's fingers touch his skin, but finds himself shivering instead. "Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's something much different. Much more—" and his fingers linger at the hip joints of the armor as he watches it peel slowly off Tony's stomach "—intimate." The hip pieces fall to the roof with a crash that resonates inside Tony's skull. Loki looks feral before him, too smooth and too sharp to be human. He looks forged,not birthed, and Tony can tell that the fires that wrought him were dark and hot and old.
Something deep in Tony says no. It rejects the vastness that he sees contained before him and seeks instead something small, something close. It wants to be anywhere but here, exposed on the edge of the world with infinities of space and time trailing their long fingers down his thighs.
But instead of running or fighting or doing something—anything!—adversarial, Tony groans. He almost chokes on it, but it rips itself from his throat and he can tell at this point that his body has other plans from his brain and that he has no power to change that. The feeling is foreign and he rejects it.
There's the burn of extreme cold on his skin as Loki melts his undersuit away and Tony arcs into the feeling.
He refuses to be a slave to his body. He's won battles against his own weapons and against people who wield superhuman powers like breathing and his answer has always been to defend himself and get stronger.
Loki lays himself up Tony's length, soft enough that his armor must be gone along with Tony's, and he curls a fist in Tony's hair and forces his head back. The pressure against Tony's mind squirms and wriggles and when Loki sinks his teeth into Tony's neck, right below his ear, it settles and spreads and Tony wants.
Loki's body is cold and it's the perfect counter to Tony's which is suddenly too hot, much too hot, and he grips onto Loki's arms and shudders as the god laves ice down Tony's throat with his tongue. There's cloth under this hands and Tony tears at it: he wants to see what it is that has a hold on him like this (wants to lick the razor edges of Loki, wants to watch his blood drip down the sculpture of the god's frame) because even if Tony hates where he is and hates Loki for bringing him here, this is power and Tony likes the taste of it.
There's violence in his movements as he throws Loki off of him. The god disengages smoothly, grinning like a shattered mirror. Tony wants to hurt him, wants to smash him into the smooth white roof and leave his blood to stain there as a signal: Tony Stark went up against a god and won. But he can't—his body won't let him—so when he advances on Loki it's jerkily, like he's a marionette with a broken string, everything moving by design but his head, which is stiff and stuck and filled with terror and adrenaline and rage.
He pushes Loki to the ground, gripping his shoulders so hard he can feel Loki's clavicle grinding against its socket. They're close but not close enough and Tony wants to force Loki open and make him take back whatever it is that he's filled Tony with.
It's not all he wants. But it's all he'll admit to wanting.
He starts with Loki's mouth, invading with his lips, his teeth, his tongue. The god tastes like bitter stardust and the blackness between galaxies and he bites back, fights back against Tony's warmth, kiss for searing kiss, bite for bite, taking and teasing and ultimately rejecting the parts Tony wants him to accept. So he plants a foot in Loki's chest and bends him backwards and attacks his neck, his shoulders. Loki arcs against him, rigid, and he's still winning, the shit, taking what Tony's forcing and turning it so Tony only wants more.
Tony stands and pulls at the tatters of his undersuit. He feels like he's flailing against a ghost, fighting something huge and elusive with weapons he can't control. He's cornered and out of options. And Loki has the gall to speak to him.
"Such insignificant resistance, Anthony Stark. I'm beginning to question if you were worth the journey."
Tony's going to rip that tongue out of Loki's mouth. He's back on top of him with his undersuit pushed down to his knees and Loki's naked too—the fucker wants this!—and he's not letting Tony take his mouth, sliding just out of the way to avoid Tony's desperate bites.
Their torsos are flush and Tony can feel ice along the length of his cock and he can't help but groan. He scratches his way down Loki's sides, trying to draw blood, and when he finds Loki's ass he shoves his fingers in—three of them, crooked so all Loki can feel is knuckle—and finds the god warm, wet, and open for him. Loki's grin (the same grin, the grin that taunts) is broken by a low, long, smooth moan as Tony starts ramming. He levers himself upright and puts his weight on his knees, reaches for Loki's balls with his free hand and squeezes. The god's face contorts as he howls. Sweat breaks out on his chest and forehead and his hands come up to rest on Tony's shoulders.
They pull. Hard. Loki wants Tony to go harder.
If Tony could have, he would have stopped right there. He would have run as far and as fast as he could, would have hidden from Loki and his magic and his sick plans. He would have given up Stark Industries and Iron Man. If only he could have stopped.
Instead, he slams himself into Loki as his hands come up around the god's neck and press onto his windpipe. And when Loki's legs come up around Tony's back to pull him in deeper, Tony bashes Loki's head against the roof. Loki's eyes go glassy and he groans. The sound wraps around the inside of Tony's skull and stays there, a silky, impenetrable darkness.
This is sensation. This is feeling and intensity and desire that burn white-hot and blinding. Tony wants and he hates and he wishes he had thumbscrews and nails and chains and ways to contort Loki and break him, but all he has is his body to stretch and bludgeon and cut. He feels something building in his gut, something high and tight, and when he releases it he finds himself coming, buried in Loki. But the god isn't broken yet, and Tony still feels that tug at the back of his awareness, so he keeps going, rubbing himself raw and sore on the slick walls of nowhere and emptiness until Loki starts to shake and gasp against him and Tony's hand comes around Loki's cock, squeezing and tugging, rough and raw.
Whatever he was trying to force back into Loki drains into the sky instead. The black satin is gone from his mind and all he can feel is sore and dead and weak.
He realizes he's still stuffed inside Loki and pulls out. The god oozes out form under him and clothes coalesce around him, conjured from nowhere.
"I thank you for your services, Anthony Stark. I'm sure your fellow Avengers will enjoy hearing tales of your conquest. How you took the enemy from the midst of battle and used him for your own purposes. My brother, especially, will relish the tale."
And he's gone, silently, suddenly, a ghost of his smile sticking in Tony's vision like a camera flash.
Tony's kneeling on his roof at the edge of the world with the discarded remains of Iron Man strewn around him. The roof is cold and white and smooth. He stares into the smeared reflection of his face and can't bring himself to move.