AN: Whew. This is going to be a long one and I'm not entirely sure where this is going. It will end in Tony/Loki I hope at the moment but aside from that who knows! Anyway, without further ado the warnings&pairings
Warnings: mentions/allusions to child abuse, internalized homophobia, (future) discussion of suicide, bullying, discussion of murder, possibly drug use later idk, we'll see. Crappy writing obviously.
Pairings: (atm) Tony/Bucky, one sided Buck/Steve & Tony/Loki, Peter(Parker)/Gwen Stacy, Steve/Peggy, Thor/Jane. Future Tony/Loki, maybe others.
Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine, do feel free to point them out though! Reviews make me write a lot faster by the way ;)
Bucky kisses like he's drowning and Tony thinks he just might be.
He knows Bucky's only pressed against him in Clint's tree house because his best friend Steve 'Captain America' Rogers is straight as and dating Peggy Carter (who scares Tony almost as much as Tasha does). And Tony's only letting him do this because being in lo- because crushing on your friend's little brother is just plain wrong.
Now, don't get him wrong, Tony's a 'rules-are-there-to-be-thrown-against-the-wall-and-then-crushed-into-dust' kinda guy but this one's iffy. Thor's a good guy, dim, but a good guy and Loki's well...Loki. It's complicated and Tony really doesn't want to think about it right now but as Bucky presses closer to him and bites down on his lip he can't help imagining how Loki would tastefeelsound.
Maybe Tony's drowning too.
He's just slipping his hand in to Bucky's jeans, making the older boy gasp and moan against his mouth when his phone rings. They spring apart like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar and Tony laughs nervously as he reaches for the mobile.
It's Thor.
"Hey, what's up big guy?" Tony says and Bucky narrows his eyes. Thor doesn't usually talk to Tony; they're sort of two different groups that overlap a little. There's Steve's group; Thor, Bucky, Peggy and Steve's other buddies that sort of blur in to one for Tony then there's his group; Bruce, Peter, Tasha, Clint and Loki.
As soon as Thor speaks Tony knows there's something wrong, something horribly wrong. "Stark? Is my brother with you?"
Tony's blood runs cold. "No, why?"
Thor makes this sound that Tony's pretty sure he'll remember for the rest of his life. It's this muted howl that completely shatters Tony's heart (and ear drums) and all Tony can think to do afterwards is croak, "So not good then?"
There are two things that Tony Stark has learnt about himself throughout his seventeen years of life: the first is that he's not one to do things by halves.
Case in point: he's not only gotten himself kicked out of the insanely posh boarding school his dad had picked out for him, he's gotten himself kicked out of every posh boarding school his dad's ever been able to buy him in to. On top of that he's managed to completely ruin his parent's marriage (and yes, he is just messed up enough to take credit for that.) Now, it's not that he doesn't love his parents, he does, just not together because Jesus Christ. Tony knows couples are meant to fight but God, having Howard and Maria Stark in a room together was a hundred times more painful than listening to those British boy bands on repeat that Pepper loved.
And anyway, it wasn't exactly intentional. He'd simply been hacking around for some interesting images of the head mistress to slip in to her next assembly when he'd found some highly traumatic emails between her and his father and well. Turned out they'd been having an affair for years. He'd tried to keep it quiet, really he had, but it wasn't that easy and he'd let it slip to Pepper and Happy had overheard and well, the rest as they say and all that jazz,
Long story short his mom had served his dad so quickly Tony was pretty sure the paper's had left scorch marks on the table and honestly, he wasn't too bothered by this. His parents were way happier without each other so Tony was looking forward to two rooms, two birthdays, two Christmases because hey, gotta make lemonade right?
But then it all went horribly wrong as it always does because the second thing Tony's learnt about himself is that whatever he does will alwaysbackfire horribly and result in something horrifying. (Seriously, he baked cookies with his mom once and brought them to class and half of them came down with some seriously awful food poisoning and don't even get him started on that time he helped that old lady across the street.) So after the divorce was finalized and Tony was all psyched up to help his mom pick out a new house she announced she'd been sleeping with Obi for the past few years and they ran off together to some tiny island with a name Tony couldn't pronounce. It made for some very bad press for daddio's company and lots of people were interviewed on TV about how disgraceful it was and how marriage meant nothing anymore and blah, blah, blah. It was all very traumatic.
So anyway, that's how two years ago, Tony found himself at this totally non-exclusive high school in Malibu, a world away from his old home in New York and Pepper and Happy and Rhodey with only his sullen father for company.
That's also how he got in to this whole mess. The mess being screwing one of his friends and finding himself in love with quite possibly the most confusing (and godamned attractive) guys he's ever met (who was now missing).
They find Loki's car by a bridge. It's empty and for Tony it feels like the world ending, a kaleidoscope of scenarios running through his mind and none of them good.
But the world doesn't stop turning. Tony bunks off school for a few days and Clint, Bruce, Peter and Tasha hole up at his and watch Loki's favourite movies, Loki's favourite shows. They spend a lot of time searching for him too; put up posters, Tony hacks in to a load of websites and with Peter's help they create a viral video to spread the word but nothing works. No one comes back with sightings.
It becomes a big news story, the youngest child of a wealthy, powerful man like Odin running away, abandoning his car. There are whispers around the city that Odin killed him in an argument, that Loki killed himself but Tony's brain just can't marry the words 'Loki' and 'dead' together so he mostly pretends he doesn't hear them. Missing is safe. Runaway. Vanished. But not dead. Never dead. "We'll find him guys, we'll find him."
Neither of them want to talk about why he's gone too much.
Just find him first.
After three days Howard starts getting snappy and they go back school.
When they walk in (altogether, always together) the whole school seems to stop and stare and whispers follow them all through the corridors. Bruce ducks his head, shying away, Clint and Tasha meet the whole thing with 'fuck-you' stares, Peter acts like their world isn't crumbling and Tony, well Tony just tries to get through the day without punching someone.
By lunchtime both Clint and Tasha have been sent to the Principal's office for decking students who used the words 'suicide', 'emo' or 'freak' to describe Loki so it's just him, Bruce and Peter around their usual bench. They're sitting in silence and there's this part of Tony that keeps expecting Loki to slink around the corner and grin and-
God, Stark, get it together.
"Thor's still not back at school," Peter says conversationally.
Tony tries and fails to think of a snarky comment but even he knows that there is a time and a place (and usually that time is always and that place is wherever the hell he pleases but not today) Luckily he's saved from trying to come up with an appropriate response to Peter's comment by Steve Rogers appearing by their table. He's flanked by Bucky (who glances nervously at Tony and then stares fixedly at the ground seriously, Tony wishes the guy could just grow a pair because legend has it once he was once the guy who protected frail little Steve Rogers from the bullies but now Steve's only out muscled by Thor he's sort of just lost himself and it's sad) and Peggy who's watching them all with a calculating gaze.
Steve's eyes are slightly shiny and Tony inwardly rolls his eyes. Tony hates Steve Rogers. Always has done always will. Steve was the kinda guy who made girls swoon and honestly, who swooned in this day and age? He was athletic, fairly clever, brave, confident, kind, helpful (he's a motherfucking hall monitorfor chrissakes). Loki hated him, Loki thought he was so fake. And most of all Steve likes ruining Tony's fun (stopping him sneaking alcohol in to school, stops him and Clint stealing shit, stops him and Loki bunking class) the only people in their group he hasn't pissed off are Tasha and Bruce. Sometimes Tony wonders if it is all an act.
"I'm really sorry about-about what's happened to Loki," Steve says and Peter inclines his head.
"Thanks man," he says, running a hand through his messy hair. "And you guys are Thor's friends, right? You must be hurting a bit too." Tony wants to growl at Peter but Bruce kicks him in the shins and gives him a pointed look.
"Yeah," Steve says, rubbing his neck. "It's just a shock, you know?"
There's this awkward moment where they talk about Loki and Tony sort of zones out this people didn't know Loki, they didn't know his eyes got darker when he was sad, they didn't know he was ticklish or that he owned every series of Doctor Who on DVD or that he kept a stash of romance novels under his bed. They leave and Tony forces himself to smile, ignores the look Bucky gives him full of why haven't you talked to me, Starkand goes through the rest of the day on auto-pilot.
Later, he's sprawled in Clint's tree house with Bruce doing homework (yes, occasionally he does it if only to correct the teachers errors) waiting for Clint to get back with pizza. Tasha's off doing whatever she does when she's not with them and Peter's off doing Gwen. Ahem, Peter's offwith Gwen, Tony totally doesn't believe Peter's defiling the police chief's daughter and he's not picturing it in his head. (He's also totally not filling in Loki's parts in his conversation with Bruce)
"You know," Bruce says as he folds his chemistry homework neatly away. "If you don't start doing something other than writing snarky comments on your work you're gonna fail."
Tony gives him a who-gives-a-fuck-grin finishes his comment on their teacher's pointless questions and says, "Hell, Bruce, I'm the only heir to a multi-billion dollar company. Who needs a diploma?" And Bruce grins and shakes his head. There's a bruise on Bruce's forehead, another one on his wrist, Tony wants to ask (he already knows, he's seen the way Bruce flinches when his Dad so much as looks at him) but it's usually him and Loki who do this. He bites back his question because Bruce looks at him and knows and looks away quickly.
The tree house has become Tony's second home. They built it together the summer he arrived, he remembers every second of it (especially Loki running home to fetch Thor to help them lift everything despite Clint's instance that he could do it himself which resulted in a broken foot) It's their safe room and it's sure as hell the most high-tech tree house around, water proof, sturdy, protected by automatic looks with face recognition software (okay, so maybe Tony may have over done it with that one) They'd decorated the walls with loads of Peter's stupid photos and posters and silly doodles. The amount of times he's run here in the middle of the night to escape his father's drunken rants only to find a bruised Bruce or Clint, or a sniffling Loki or once or twice a despondent Tasha or an angry Peter. They'd come here every night since Loki vanished, slept in sleeping bags and hoped he'd turn up.
He never did, though.
"Wonder where Clint's gotten to with our food," Bruce mumbles.
"Probably trying and failing to chat up the delivery girl or something," Tony says, standing up to peer out of the window he catches sight of Peter hurrying down the street towards Clint's garden. "Heads up, here comes Peter." Bruce frowns because usually when Peter's with Gwen after school he stays there (or she stays at his) until his Aunt May insists he come home (or that he walks Gwen home) Tony likes Aunt May.
Peter scrambles up the later and crashes inelegantly through the door. "Guys, guys, this is bad, this is really, really bad."
"Loki?" Bruce asks voice slightly shaky.
Peter's breathing heavily and Tony's chest does this funny constricting thing. When Peter's eyes meet his he knows Bruce is right. "Jesus, Peter," Tony says trying to keep his voice steady. "What happened?"
"I was at Gwen's," he pants, "Her dad called. They've arrested Mr Odinson, guys. They think he killed Loki."
The world slows down and the words echo through Tony's mind, imprinting on his brain. They think he killed Loki. Loki might be dead. Loki might have been killed.
He's seen Loki cry, he's heard Loki scream in pain (that time they crashed one of Howard's cars and Loki got cut up real bad and pinned between the crushed metal and the seat) he's heard Loki plead for help (times he doesn't want to think about) His mind replays each memory, overlaying them and knitting together an image of Odin standing over his crying son, knifebatfistaxegun raised.
He closes his eyes, tries to quell the nausea building in his stomach, no, can't be true, won't be true.
"What about Thor?" Bruce is asking. "What about their mother?"
Tony opens his eyes. Peter's face is grim. "Don't know about his mother but Thor protested, hit an officer apparently. He's been taken in too."
"Fuck," Tony whispers because seriously, fuck.
The tree house door swings open abruptly, making all three of them jump and Clint appears all smiles and pizza boxes. He glances around at their pale faces, "What'd I miss?"
And Bruce says, "We need to call Tasha."