A/N: Written for the Chocolate Box 2018 exchange. Comments always welcome :)
Tony felt a frisson of anticipation when he noticed Loki waiting for him on the balcony. His guess had been right. Of course it had been right, he was a genius. Still, Loki's presence in his Tower was at least one immediate worry less. Along with half a dozen new ones.
Tony let none of his thoughts show on his face as he stepped onto the landing platform and let the machine disassemble his suit. He caught Loki's small smirk, however, before his face blanked into a cool mask of disdain. They walked in step into the Tower, an unconscious synchronicity that made something in the back of Tony's mind itch.
"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity," Loki's low voice sent a thrill down Tony's spine, the same one he'd felt every time he'd heard him speak. The slow, predatory way he walked towards him did nothing to help that feeling.
"Uh...actually, I was going to threaten you," Tony said, injecting as much casualness into his voice as he could. He hid his arms behind his back, taking care to not let Loki see his bare wrists. Tony knew he'd left his homing bracelets by the bar, now he just needed to stall Loki long enough to reach them. It shouldn't be too hard. Loki had all the air of a big cat toying with its food, in no particular hurry to end the small amusement.
The only ones in a time crunch were Tony and the rest of humanity.
"You should have left your armor on for that," the amusement in Loki's voice swept through Tony and he suppressed a shiver. He masked the movement with a shrug of his shoulders as he made his way to the bar.
"Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage. You've got the glow stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?"
Loki's gaze lingered on the bottle Tony was offering, but he shook his head.
"Stalling me won't change anything."
Oh really? Stalling him was already changing plenty, Tony thought as he noticed the bracelets and slipped them on. Loki didn't notice, even though he was watching him intently, brow furrowing with an emotion Tony couldn't name. Tony could not afford to lose control of this dialogue, not now.
"No, no, no! Threatening. No drink? You sure? I'm having one."
One he desperately needed. He wasn't afraid of Loki, not really (and wasn't that strange?). But something about his presence was making him want to break out in a cold sweat nonetheless. There was a thudding pressure in his ears. Loki was so close and it would take so little for him to get even closer. Tony needed him -
He blinked, pulled from his thoughts by Loki speaking.
"The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear?"
Not much. But Tony was nothing if not good at bluffing.
"The Avengers. It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. `Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type of thing."
Loki smiled and Tony's heart gave a lurch. What the fuck was wrong with him?
"Yes, I've met them."
"Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one," Tony spoke, barely aware of what he was saying beyond the rush in his ears and the itch in his palms. He listed the Avengers, the thump in his ears growing ever louder, even as he finished with, "And you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."
Loki was staring at him, a dazed look in his eyes. He blinked and some clarity returned when Tony stepped away from the bar, getting closer to Loki.
"That was the plan," he said, voice soft, almost absent minded as he stared at Tony's lips.
"Not a great plan. When they come, and they will, they'll come for you."
He'd meant to anger Loki, make him argue more. Instead, Loki approached him, a slow measured walk that made the rush of blood in Tony's ears even louder. No, this was too soon; the Avengers were too far away and his suit was not ready yet. He needed to move.
"But how will they have time for me, when they will be so busy fighting you?" Loki said, voice strained and almost a whisper.
But Tony froze, even though everything in him screamed for him to move. He couldn't move, not yet. Something was about to happen, something he needed to stay still for -
Clink.
The sound of the scepter hitting his arc reactor broke his paralysis. He flinched away, even though his skin felt like it was burning to get closer.
"That usually works," Loki's gaze flicked towards the scepter, the light of it reflecting eerily in his eyes.
"Well, performance issues, you know how it is," Tony let his mouth run off. He took a step back, not willing to trust in the scepter failing a second time. But rage flared in Loki's eyes, an ugly ill fitting expression flitting across his face as he grabbed for Tony's neck. Tony could see he was fully prepared to snap it like a twig.
He couldn't move away in time and Loki's cool fingers wrapped around his throat and -
Time stopped and something in Tony flared to life, deeper than his mind or heart, rushing underneath his skin. The previous pounding in his ears faded to a dull throb, a steady heartbeat that synced so perfectly with his own - oh. Oh!
Tony only had time to register Loki's astonished gaze before the two of them were on each other, their mouths clashing in a frantic kiss as though they meant to devour each other.
Mine, mine, mine, Tony chanted in his head, gripping Loki by the hair to pull him closer, even as a whirlwind of chaos and a pure wall of emotion not his own and too tangled to decipher slammed into his head. He could feel the feedback as his own mess of a consciousness reached Loki, the two tangling together into the most intense soulbond Tony had ever felt.
How? Why? Why now?
The questions rushed through his mind and Tony both did and didn't care about the answer. It felt like hours passed. It felt like seconds. All that mattered was getting even closer, closer, closer until he couldn't tell where he ended and Loki began and -
- and he'd been warned so many times not to get lost in the initial rush of a soulbond. There were so many stories of the bonded losing themselves, some romantic, most not, but he needed -
Tony wrenched away with an effort, panting and aching. And not just in his pants. His entire being was crying out to never let go, to get closer, to complete the bond.
They pulled apart, wide-eyed and breathless.
"Stop the invasion," Tony blurted out, still gasping from the kiss, still reeling. He knew, he knew Loki's heart was not in the invasion, not truly.
"Not unless you can provide me with a better way than your Avengers to slaughter the lot of the Chitauri," Loki said. He was leaning in for another kiss when he seemed to register what he'd said. He paled, his fear hitting Tony like a physical force. But not for himself, for Tony.
"Wait, wha-"
Loki's grip on him grew harder; his hands were shaking. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong and it washed over Tony like a dark cloud. Loki's eyes were wide and very, very green. Tony could feel his heart wrenching panic through their painfully new bond and cried out when Loki wrenched his presence away from Tony.
"Run," Loki choked out and shoved him away, this time physically.
Tony ran before he was even aware of what he was doing, the pounding in his head returning and bidding him to run run run get away get away before I -
"JARVIS!" he yelled, "Deploy! Now!"
He was not nearly fast enough to avoid Loki. Unlike before, his touch was not a rush of heat and connection, but a cold, dark thing that left Tony reeling at the whiplash.
Loki's hand was at his throat again, but Tony couldn't feel him. This time, Loki's grip on him seemed to burn. The bond, so achingly new, felt severed.
Tony was spun around, brought face to face with Loki again. There was none of that stunned appreciative look anymore. Loki's face was now nothing but the face of a killler, burning eyes reflecting the eye-searing glow of the gem in his scepter.
"You fool! Did you think His Will could be overpowered by a bond to such a weak thing as you? You will all fall before Him!"
Tony didn't even have a chance to answer or even think of a response, too stunned by how utterly unlike himself Loki sounded. Before he could reply, the case that held his latest suit struck Loki in the back, sending both of them careening into the window. It broke under their combined weight.
In the chaos, it also loosened Loki's grip on Tony's throat. So instead of dying from a snapped neck, he was now falling to his death. Great.
"JARVIS!" he screamed again.
No sooner had he said it, he felt the comforting weight of metal snap around his homing bracelets. The suit enveloped him. He blasted himself upright into the air with plenty of height left to spare and scanned for Loki, hoping to catch him before he fell.
But Loki had managed to grab hold of the broken window. He was dangling from it with only one hand gripping the broken edge, the glass driven deep into his palm. His blood was making the glass too slick for him to climb back up, especially since he was still gripping his scepter with the other hand, refusing to let go.
He was snarling, twisting like an animal, feet scrambling for purchase against the smooth glass.
Tony hovered over him, just staring, unsure how to proceed. The severed bond was an agony in his soul and he wanted nothing more than to help Loki up and to safety, to ignore everything happening around them, to make sure he was safe.
Except Loki literally bared his teeth at him when he noticed Tony in his armor hovering near him. He stopped trying to get up and raised his scepter, aiming.
"Oh shit," Tony said and barely managed to dodge out of the way of the blast. By the time he righted himself and got his bearings, Loki had managed to pull himself up to the safety of the penthouse floor.
Tony aimed his repulsors at him. He hesitated.
Loki looked dazed. He was still lying on the ground and Tony could see his hands were absolutely shredded from the glass that had been in the window frame. The scepter was lying a few feet away from him, the gem inside it still blazing an ominous blue.
Loki groaned and put his hands to his temples, curling in on himself. He whimpered, a thin whine that Tony shouldn't even have been able to hear, but that cut through Tony like a knife.
With a painful stutter, the bond between them flared to life. Tony jerked, almost falling out of the sky. What the Hell? Soulbonds should not act that way - either they were or weren't. But that thought faded from his mind as Loki's own confusion, exhaustion, anger and fear rushed through in its stead.
Loki finally looked up, drawn face unerringly meeting Tony's eyes, even through his helmet. He was so scared, shaking with exhaustion and pain and Tony ached to make it better. To stop this, figure out how he could help, why was Loki doing this if everything Tony was feeling from him was telling him he did not want to.
Loki opened his mouth to say something and -
He fell back, his entire body convulsing with the force of his scream as the sky above them opened and the bond snapped once more.
Tony's eyes narrowed and he looked up to the sky, the dots connecting into a picture he did not like at all.
"Right. Army."
That would have to be taken care of before he could get down to the bottom of what was happening between Loki and him. He'd told Thor just yesterday to not touch his stuff; he'd been more right than he'd known. Nobody messed with his stuff and got away with it.
He blasted off up into the air, the absence of the bond burning like a brand. He was going to make the Chitauri and whoever was their puppet master pay. And then he was going to get Loki.
He had a soulmate to save.
END