Inure
By: The Hatter Theory
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to characters and concepts by Marvel, Apple, Little Debbie, Red Bull, Dalmore, Macallan, Samuel Barber, or Sony. That should be all of them, if not, I don't own shite that clearly belongs to big corporations that can sue. Viola.
AN: Sort of important, I suppose. The overall feel of this was inspired by and written to Quiet by This Will Destroy You. It's on youtube, and it's worth a listen, especially to this. Anywho. Enjoy.
Tony stepped out of the elevator, back screaming at him as a less than pleasant reminder of his day. Despite the fact that they'd been battling get another pissed off mutant coming into their powers with absolutely no help from Xavier and his merry band of misfits, it had been the Hulk to hit him with the better half of a mack truck. Granted it had been an accident, and he'd been in the way, but that didn't stop the ache in his back, a bruise blooming from his shoulders down to his ass proving that maybe the armor needed to be a little thicker.
Scotch would dull it though, and he was heading for the bar and intent on at least one glass, if not a couple more, when he saw the dark shadow outlined against one of the windows. The window, actually. The one the owner of selfsame shadowy, sinister outline had thrown him through.
"Jarvis?"
There was no answer.
"I have disabled him. Please don't," Loki said as Tony reached for his cellphone. "I have not come to hurt you."
"You disabled my AI after you somehow magicked your ass into my tower. Next time try calling first. It's rude to show up unannounced," Tony muttered, already opening the phone.
It turned into a brick in his hand.
"Mother fucker," He snapped, letting it drop to the floor, already walking over to the bar.
"I will reactivate your AI once I take my leave. I have come for a drink, that is all."
"You poisoned it all, didn't you?" Tony asked, looking at the myriad bottles behind the bar. Each and every one of them could be an 'accident' waiting to happen. He was going to miss the Dalmore, which he'd only gotten one glass of before the whole mess with the mutant started.
"No. You once offered me a drink, and I would collect before I no longer have a chance."
"One of your buddies finally figure out a way to kill a god?" Tony snapped, putting on the bracelets that would activate the Mark VI.
"No."
"Then what's going on?"
"Thor has been strange these last few weeks, hasn't he?"
Tony opened his mouth for a witty retort, 'well Thor's always strange', but he paused for a moment, realizing that, yeah, the thunder god had been a little off his game, a little more withdrawn, and a shit ton more prone to disappearing to New Mexico or off the grid entirely, probably to Asgard.
"Ragnarok is coming. We can all feel it, like a machine winding down."
Ragnarok. Tony knew what that was, had read about it, because when norse gods decided to start visiting earth on a regular basis for booty calls or destruction, it was a good idea to know at least something about them. Even if they did eat poptarts or team up with psychotic bitches with an equal love of green, respectively.
"Shouldn't you be, I dunno, happy? I thought the end of the world was your thing."
Loki turned away from the window and walked over to the bar. Tony felt his body tense, reached for the bracelet and felt it turn to plastic beads right as his thumb touched on it.
"I'm really not here to harm you, steal from you, or otherwise inconvenience you. Just the drink."
No one bothered to point out that the god of lies was saying he was telling the truth.
"You didn't answer my question," Tony stalled, looking around for a weapon that would actually hold the god off or do some form of damage. Nothing. He suddenly hated not having clutter.
"I don't have a choice," Loki told him. Tony stepped towards the shelves and pulled down one of the bottles, the '62 Dalmore actually, never turning his back on the other man as he put it on the bar. Two scotch glasses came off of the shelf and he poured, taking note as the god sat down.
Dark bruises shadowed the gods eyes, blossoms of stain that made them looker deeper and more hollow than normal. His skin otherwise was pale, like it always was. Bordering on sallow and lined with what could easily be exhaustion. The god didn't look bad, but he didn't look good either.
"Choice?" Tony asked, sliding the glass across the bar and feeling (for once) like the bartender. The bartender with the borderline(?) psychotic (possibly) depressed (soon to be) drunk god sitting down at his bar.
He finished the glass in one gulp, rasped a breath, and poured himself another glass. What a way to drink a classic. He knew if there were gods of alcohol, they were probably cursing him. Or cheering him on for his hedonism. Possibly sympathizing.
"Ragnarok is a cycle."
"That implies it's not the end."
"It's not."
That made no logical sense to Tony.
"Sounds like it defeats the purpose," He said, taking a healthy swallow from his glass.
"I do not pretend to know it's purpose. Only that it is."
"But you have ideas. Of course you have ideas. You're the brain."
"Do not offer false appeals to my vanity, Stark. You can ask the question."
"Okay, what is Ragnarok?"
"The end of Asgard."
"You said it's not the end."
"An end, then."
"So how does it end?"
"With bloodshed and fire. With the death of the Aesir and myself, with the death of my-" Loki paused, looked at the glass before tipping it back and finishing it with a grimace. "My children." The clink of the glass against the metal bar top echoed in the wake of the statement.
Tony's hand stopped, hovering over the bottle for a moment before he grasped the neck and pulled the top off, pouring more into Loki's glass.
"I'd read that you had kids, but I uh, I didn't know if it was true." Mostly because he hadn't wanted to contemplate Loki with children. Loki with children, Loki's children, were both shit terrifying things to imagine, especially if even half the stories were true.
"It is true. I am even a grandfather." He said it quietly, voice a lament instead of boastful, like most people would have sounded. Tony figured, if what Loki was saying was true, and hey, god of lies but still, if it was true, then he wouldn't be happy either.
"You guys keep pretty well. Wouldn't have pegged you for a grandfather at all."
"Fenrir sired two children before he was imprisoned."
"So, what happens after? I mean, you've done this before, right?" He needed to get away from the children topic, because not only was Loki with kids a terrifying prospect, but Loki looking ready to actually cry over said children was fucking unnerving. Loki didn't cry. He screamed, he ranted, he used, and he would do a hell of a lot to manipulate, but he never, ever cried.
"Yes. And after, we are reborn, and we go through it again, living for however long until the next time."
That wasn't what Tony had been asking, but the statement itself was a condemnation, a dead man spelling out his sentence and trying to seem apathetic, trying to be indifferent and uninterested, but not quite pulling it off. He sounded tired. Not sleepy, but a beyond the bone weariness that Tony knew because he felt it, had spoken in the exact same tone when confronting the board or arguing with Fury or holding off Pepper when anyone asked about his life while he was trying to juggle Tony Stark the Genius with Tony Stark the Playboy with Tony Stark the Shareholder with Iron Man. But it was worse, because there was resignation there, and Tony had never, not once felt that. He didn't think he could. He didn't think Loki could, for that matter.
Except the god was looking more and more worn down, like he'd been holding it up and the closer that moment came, the more it pressed, until it was a world on his shoulders, chained to his neck.
"Why?" Tony blurted, because if what Loki was saying was true, then predestination had not only fucked him, but fucked his children and his grandchildren. Fate had to have a special sort of hatred for people like that, and Tony had known people with bad lives. But-
"I don't know. Maybe it's because gods live a very long, long time, and if we didn't self destruct now and again, if we didn't have a period of peace or if we didn't obliterate everything to have something new to make, we'd truly destroy ourselves. Or maybe it's simply a machine, a clock."
"You sound like you don't really believe either of those," Tony pointed out, topping off their glasses.
"I think those might have something to do with it," Loki admitted, staring down into his glass and swirling it. Tony could see his nostrils flare as he inhaled, the scent of the scotch wafting up to him.
"But?"
"But I think, I think none of it would matter. Ultimately I think Ragnarok is the culmination of Odin's mistakes, his failures. Everything coming to a head, falling down on his shoulders because the weight has become too heavy."
That he was one of Odin's failures hung in the air, unspoken.
"Seems selfish. Why take everyone with him? Why force anyone to do anything? Why do you have to do anything?" Tony asked, because predestination was one thing, but it was rarely real, not as real as people made it out to be, as people often used so they could feel better about being bad or low or selfish or powerful. He'd cheated death twice, and should have died hundred of times before and after both of those. He should have been an arrogant prick with concerns only for hedonism and ego, but he wasn't. He'd beat that fate.
"Patterns. Odin continues making mistakes. I do not think he will ever stop. Once, I was a known hostage of Asgard, taken from my family. Before that, I was an invited prince that was barely tolerated. So on and so on. In this life I was loved, but lied to and betrayed. I do not know what the next life will bring."
"So you remember all of this?" Tony asked. "Then why don't you guys stop and, I mean, shit, go to a therapist, sit down and figure it out, whatever."
"Odin knows, but I know only because I visited the oldest old ones, at the base of the tree. Apparently it is ritual, by now. The sisters have come to expect me when the time draws near."
It was said with a sense of derision, a self deprecating irony that Tony also knew very well, because he had done it often enough himself.
"I am cyclical, just as Odin is, I suppose."
"You could not go," Tony suggested. Loki gave him a dry look, one filled with the sort of pitying impatience saved for ignorant children that had no hope of comprehending.
"I cannot stop myself. It is, it is not a pull that can be ignored."
"Have you tried?"
"Ragnarok does not come often," He whispered. "But it comes. I have always known I am the catalyst for the end, the pin on which the world sits, wobbling precariously. I just did not know, until recently, that it came more than once."
"The sisters."
"They gave me the pasts I had lost."
"No wonder you look tired."
Loki let out a sound that could have been a chuckle, but it was too bitter, too decisive to be one. Tony didn't know what else to call it.
"I am tired, Stark. Tired and not drunk enough to contemplate the end of my world at my own hands."
"You could always drink faster," Tony said, shrugging and topping off his glass again before sliding the bottle at Loki.
"Crude, but perhaps the apocalypse will forgive inelegance," Loki shrugged, tipping his glass back and finishing it before setting it down and contemplating the bottle.
"Drunk is hardly inelegant," Tony lied.
"Drinking from the bottle is," Loki told him, grabbing the bottle by it's neck and taking a long, deep pull from it. However, Loki managed to make it look elegant, the tips of his fingers resting away from the bottle and his adams apple bobbing with each slow swallow. When he put the bottle back down, he inhaled deeply, body shuddering just enough that Tony knew it hadn't been his imagination.
"What's your favorite memory?" Tony asked, the question catching even him off guard. Loki gave him a bemused glance, obviously not comfortable with the question or thinking Tony was crazy for asking it.
"I am not a maudlin drunk."
"Maybe, I wouldn't know. But I'm asking," Tony told him.
"I do not need pity."
"I want to know." And he did, which surprised him. Suddenly it was important to know something that Loki held important, because even if he had been a dick in this lifetime, even if he had been his enemy, he would be gone soon, and Tony believed him. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the way Loki seemed to be getting smaller, like he was slowly collapsing with each exhale, parts of himself going with each breath, but Tony believed him.
"I don't know," Loki said. "I can think of nothing that has not been touched by Asgard, tainted by Odin."
"There's got to be something. You're too stubborn and pigheaded to let Odin touch every moment of your life."
"You might be surprised, Stark. He took my children, made my family a lie, I cannot-" Loki paused, eyes rapidly darting back and forth like he was sifting through the memories, sorting through trying to find something happy, a picture that hadn't been burned or doused and left to run by Odin's mistakes.
"There was a song," He finally said. "By a man named Samuel Barber. His adagio. When I heard it, I felt like I understood hope."
"If I promise, if I swear not to call for the others, will you give Jarvis back?" Tony asked.
"Even if you did, I have had my drink, and it is time for me to go. Machine, wake up," Loki said, voice tight and tired.
"Sir-"
"Jarvis, Loki is allowed here. Don't alert the others or shield. Don't record, either. And find Adagio by Sam Barber."
Loki was standing, ignoring him, straightening his shirt and looking anywhere but at him.
Until sound began to rise, low at first, low and strong, a subtle vibration through their feet. When it did, Loki paused, a shudder rolling down his spine, an almost pained movement that made Tony second guess his impulsive decision. Except Loki looked at the chair, then at the bottle, the chair, and then he grabbed the bottle by the neck, sloshing the contents and walked away, back over to the window where dusk was already falling, the edges of him bleeding into the dark little by little. The sun was already behind the skyline, and Tony imagined, as the song continued to play, that the darkness inside of Loki, the shadows that had been beneath his eyes and inside of him were seeping into the air, out into the world to bring night down on the city.
Tony saw him take pull after pull from the bottle, almost constant, the bottle itself never moving far from his lips. When he saw that it was almost empty, he turned back to the bar and grabbed an unopened bottle, one he had been saving for another end of the world that didn't party. By the time he had it opened, Loki had finished the first and he was walking over to the window, taking a deep pull from it and holding it out to the god.
"The 1926. Generous. I saw one at auction for over eighty thousand last year."
"That's probably the one," Tony told him. "I have someone go to those for me. And it was eighty five thousand," He corrected. Like it mattered.
Loki took the bottle and pulled from it while Tony took the other and tossed it onto the couch, hearing it thump onto the rug. Any one would have called it blasphemous, drinking a Macallan 1926 straight from the bottle without letting it decant or even breathing it first, but Tony figured it wouldn't matter. Even if he couldn't buy a thousand more, some things were worth blaspheming for.
"I hope," Loki whispered, voice thick as he handed the bottle to Tony, like a juvenile duo looking at the world and filled with angst and booze. "I hope I do not come back."
In another time, another place, Tony would have immediately said 'I hope you don't either'. And it almost fell out of his mouth, slurred and stupid. Except then, Tony wouldn't have really wished for it, not the reality of it. He would have wanted to not have to deal with Loki, to not have to clean up the mess created by Asgard. But he wouldn't have wished for Loki to die and fall into oblivion.
But he didn't want Loki to come back. He didn't want Loki to go, and not because he thought Loki would change, because he probably never would. Some wounds ran too deep in people, some cracks too long and wide and filled with hate to close back together neatly or at all. Loki was one of those people. But he didn't want Loki, or anyone, but particularly not Loki, to face down the same end he'd faced down before, who knew how many times. To feel that fate pushing down at you, back at you, over and over with no choice, was beyond torture. He took another pull from the bottle, something in the vicinity of his heart hurting. Rubbing his chest with his free hand, he tried to ignore that there was shrapnel just beneath the surface, that it felt like it was slowly burrowing deeper, deeper into the flesh and muscle.
"Can it be stopped?" He asked as he pulled the bottle away and handed it back to Loki.
"No. Not until Odin stops," Loki rasped, taking another deep gulp after he did.
The song ended.
"Again, please," Loki said to the air, eyes still over the city.
The song started over, became background noise as Tony watched Loki watching the city like he was trying to memorize the lights as they came on and flickered off, the great breathing machine that was powered on ash and oil. Vivid, burning green flicked back and forth, red rimmed and tired, leaking shadows and darkness and wetness.
When had he started crying?
One tear followed another, although there was no sound but the harsh breathing of a god's lungs and the sloshing of the bottle, both more quiet than the music but louder to Tony. First one path, and then another, and another until they diverged, soaking his cheeks.
Tony had heard stories of gods crying crystals and diamonds and amber and stone, had heard stories about tears turning to mistletoe berries and rain and floods, had heard of tears of blood and song and poison.
None of the stories mentioned that when gods cry they looked almost human, almost mortal, and yet so inhuman it was terrifying. Like seeing a statue slowly coming to life, begin breaking as they're becoming flesh, crumbling as soon as they warm. Tony inhaled deeply, accepted the bottle and continued watching, because soon Loki would be gone, and a different Loki would take his place. He might not even meet the new Loki, and the new Loki might never know he existed.
"I think I might actually miss you," Tony finally said, shuddering as the gulp warmed and rolled through him. He handed the bottle back, surprised by the half chuckle half huff that escaped the god.
"The Iron Man, missing a villain. Better not let that get out."
"Jarvis, you're not recording, right?"
"Correct sir."
The song had started over, flowing into itself. Tony didn't know how many times it had happened now.
"My reputation is safe."
Another half huff half chuckle and the sound of the bottle sloshing and emptying.
His back didn't hurt anymore.
The bottle fell as Loki's hand went to the glass window, pressed against it. Fingers spread out and glass exploded, fragments spraying the denim of Tony's jeans, scattering on the marble floor, clear shards that distorted and bent light through them and around them, warping shadows strangely.
Tony put his hand over Loki's not sure if he needed to give contact or find it, but knowing there was a gap between the two of them, one a temporary bridge had spanned. Swaying and unsteady, it would be gone by morning. But morning was still hours away, and Tony needed to feel something real before it vanished, needed to remind himself that Loki was real before he was gone.
Loki's hand was smooth, lined with the ridges of bone and knuckle, graceful hands. Tony's hand was smaller, rougher, less graceful. A working man's hands, the hands of someone that had to constantly touch and move and create and hurt. Tones of skin clashed, contrasted, and he slipped each of his fingers between Loki's eyes detailing differences he had never considered. His fingertips rested on the glass, sloping up to a palms pressing lightly between the bumps of knuckles.
The hands of two murderers.
The hand of a doomed man and a man still allowed to hope.
"What are you doing?"
"Offering comfort?" Tony tried, feeling stupid but too needy, too hungry for contact to remove the possibly offensive appendage.
"Sta-"
Loki did not finish the word, mouth clicking shut as he shook his head and continued looking back over the city.
"I don't remember when I last touched anyone," Tony admitted, voice rough and too loud to his own ears. He needed to give something, because Loki was allowing him, regardless of why, Tony didn't feel like being selfish, couldn't take without offering something in return. "Not without the suit."
Because Tony stark didn't like being handed things, he didn't like hugging, didn't allow medics near him, and since Pepper had put him in the 'friend' box eight months ago, he hadn't had the urge to find a one night stand for her to clean up. He hadn't touched anyone unless it was to punch them, or grab them, or put them in handcuffs, all through the metal of the suit.
"I cannot remember the last time I let someone touch me at all," Loki admitted.
No jibe, no witty, cutting sarcasm, just an honesty Tony hadn't expected or been prepared for, and one he didn't know what to do with. Loki lying, Loki manipulating, Loki hating, those he knew, those he could deal with. But Loki honest, Loki alone, Loki tired was something else, something volatile but damped down, like black powder that had been soaked with water. A muted threat that was flowing apart and unable to stop it.
Drunk (not unusual), foolish (not entirely a rare occurrence) and pitying (there was the one that never happened), Tony let his hand slide slowly over ridges and bumps, the sandpaper of his engineer's hands rasping like granite over marble. Though drunk, he felt everything, felt the chill of Loki's skin, felt the subtle lines of joints and muscle. Thin bone that felt hollow beneath the almost clumsy bulk of his own stayed still, still as a statue, still as a god contemplating his next ending.
He was fascinated by their hands, moved his up, palms going all the way up until it's heel rested on the tip of a fingernail, and then down again, his palm lifting and his fingers, fingertips feeling so much more than his palm, tracing light, allowing more to drink in with his eyes. Energy, cold electricity thrummed beneath his skin, buzzing like his arc reactor in his chest. The rigid swells of joints smoothed down impossibly long fingers, then up higher, down, the apex of fingers, webs pulled tight.
Loki's hand closed, trapping fingers, then opened abruptly, his hand sliding on the window and then breaking contact. The god bent down and picked up a curved piece of clear glass, and it occurred to Tony that he might have gone too far, overstepped a boundary that he had (stupidly) assumed nonexistent. Prone to such mistakes after imbibing, he was readying an excuse, a stumbling, fumbling sort of apology when Loki took the hand that had carelessly (carefully) traced the path of his own, and sliced across it.
Tony couldn't stop the flinch, although it was from the sight of the thin red line that swelled and grew, beaded and then puddled. Then another flinch and pain set in, throbbing and pulsing, blood beating out of him slowly and mixing with the buzz of sensation that lingered, a flush of warmth that threatened to extinguish the chill remaining.
Loki handed him the glass, and Tony took it, hand shaking in his inebriation, and swiped it across the offered palm, the palm of the hand he had been touching so carefully (carelessly). A thin red line spread, bled into a wider split, like the crack in a heart that was too full of hate to heal. Green eyes contemplated it with something akin to awe, an unexpected but hoped for result. Hope. Hope for blood and pain seeping out from a wound that might never have a chance to heal. A wanted wound.
"It hurts."
Pain, pain was the only thing that made it real to the god, and it hurt Tony, because everyone said pain reminded people they were alive, that it was weakness leaving the body, that it was reality and transformation, but nothing, no one should ever be so inured to it that it was the only way they could figure out if something was real, was there and not. A wanted fracture in a heart that was already riddled with ruptured lines and fissures. A clean space offered up to splinter and split, and he had.
Blood dripped onto the floor, was followed by the curved shard of glass that cracked and split as it fell. Tony let Loki explore his bleeding palm, flinched when the god drunkenly, carelessly (carefully) pulled at the torn flesh, forcing it open wider. The wound bled, and Tony grunted, exhaling the smell and burn of scotch through his nose.
He took the chance to do repeat the action, taking Loki's hand in his own, bleeding over white porcelain and pulling at a gouge he'd created, spreading it carefully (carelessly) so that it bled more, so that fingers twitched in response. Blood dripped to the floor, spattered on glass and marble, unheard over the repeating song that flowed in and out of itself just beyond Tony's comprehension. Slick and colder than his own, the blood of the god mixed with his as he spread the wound, slid his nail down the seam, rubbed it with the pad of his thumb, memorized the natural swirls whirling in a pattern disrupted by the fault line.
When he looked up, he saw green, dazzling, emerald, poison green focused on him, red rimmed and fever bright. Drunken, foolish, he carelessly (carelessly) leaned forward, pulled the bleeding hand to his stomach.
The kiss was cold, tasted of warm whiskey and the bite of mint, burned Tony's lips and tongue. Smooth skin against the rasp of a beard, like a working man's bleeding hands moving to twine with the smooth, wounded hands of a scholar, like the hot blood of a mortal slipping, sliding, twining with the cold blood of a god to puddle on the floor. Rough granite over stone trying to be gentle, trying not to break when pain was the only thing that made it real, that would imprint flesh and seep into blood that was spilling out, splashing down.
Loki was cold, always cold, a shadow just barely existing, waiting for sunrise to banish him. Tony wished the wound in his hand was wider, the blood leaking from the rupture hotter, wanted to spill heat and smear it over the shadow to give it form and make it real, to give it something tangible to hold onto when the light came. His hand traveled up, under, moved across swells and dips of lanky hollowness trying to cover and give and make and create.
Chill hands spread over his flesh, trailed blood on his cheek and through his beard, wound in his hair and slipped beneath his shirt, soaking up his warmth, stealing it. The flush of alcohol soothed the cold, gave heat even as Tony found relief from the burning in his blood, in his throat and lungs and veins, found relief in the spots of Loki seeping into him, moving over and through him.
Glass crunched beneath their feet, breath hissed out from their noses to blow into each other's lungs, recycled between them over and over, suffocation them, suffocating Tony until he was pulling, pulling at the cold flesh, stumbling through the room, bruised back making vague protest as it slammed against the bar. Clothes fell, discarded to reveal white flesh smeared with blood, blue light shadowed by a line of redblack darkness, muscle rippling fluidly beneath skin, tensing and tensing but never relaxing until they were falling into a door, silky thick black hair tangled and clumped with congealing blood as a careful (careful) hand threaded through it.
Softness and blankets and skin smeared with tangible pain, Tony was lost, losing himself in the shadow of Loki trying to cover him with himself, to give heat and make real, to create a prison for the ephemeral chill and keep it safe. Searing and agonizing, exquisite and terrifying he threw himself into giving and giving, headlong off of a building, out of a window where he savored every edge of broken glass cutting jagged wounds into him, pulling at the edges of himself until he was fraying, touching and stroking everywhere, covering with his touch and lips and losing himself in Loki losing himself in him. He gave heat, gave breath and sweat, gave blood, gave and accepted a need he had never wanted, soaked in the chill and vulnerability that he had never conceived but needed because those were the real things, the things to keep and he soaked them in, swallowed them down and hid them as a reminder even as he tried to give and save and salvage and redeem the void left behind.
Cold static rolled through him, burned him as he looked into bottomless green, bottomless black rimmed in red, saw no end because it was an endless set of endings, reflections that warped and distorted until there was nothing but the darkness pulling him in and drowning him, sending pleasure snapping along his spine, electrical charges exploding at the tip of every nerve. He was lost in the endless, being cut by the deep, clinging to the light because he knew that if he lost sight of it he would be consumed, falling forever in the endlessness with no hope of finding his way out.
Sweat stung open wounds, made the moment real as guttural sounds echoed, as flesh slapped wetly, and Tony tried to move deeper, closer into Loki, to cover him in sweat and blood and come, tried to keep him there and give him form. Even when they were exhausted, a sweaty tangle of shallow breath and shuddering limbs, even when they were slipping around, beneath, twisting into the bloodstained sheets he pulled the god close, wrapped around him to smother him, to give and give his warmth; a knot of tan flesh holding fast to white, pulling closer even when they were already suffocating each other, clinging in (and to) vain hopes as they fell asleep.
When Tony woke up, Loki was already gone. The sun was shining into his room, stubbornly, viciously filtering into his oversensitive eyes from the other side of his eyelids. His mouth tasted like blood, whiskey and bile. The scent of pine, musk and sweat was smothering him, and he pushed out of the bed, stumbling in the tangle of covers as he headed for the bathroom, his stomach already protesting the movement.
Acidic and scorching, he emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet, gripping the seat with hands covered in blood, one stinging from the edge pressing into a deep gash.
He hadn't forgotten the night before, didn't think he could. Even as he was spitting and flushing, walking to the sink and holding a glass under the tap he was thinking, replaying, regretting. Not because he'd done it, but because he hadn't done enough, hadn't somehow kept Loki there, hadn't kept him away, inside.
He swallowed two prescription grade painkillers, enough to kill his headache when they took effect but not to kill his judgment, and got into the shower, allowing the cold water to rinse away the smell of sex and whiskey and blood, to clean the dark streak of red from the arc reactor. While the chill blasted through him, reminded him, he picked at the puckered wound, saw it opening up to bleed again. It was deeper than he had thought it was the night before, the drunken haze covering it making it seem less than what it had turned out to be.
He picked, ran his thumb through it, let it bleed. Red swirled down his fingers and mixed, diminished with the water before slipping down the drain.
'Can it be stopped?'
'No. Not until Odin stops.'
A machine winding down, resetting. Tony was an engineer, one of the best, the best in the world, and the smartest. Turning the water off he got out of the shower, hurriedly dried himself off, making only a token effort with his hair and he pulled on the clothes he had been wearing the night before, stumbling through the suite as he pulled on a shirt that smelled of sweat and his boots.
The Mark VI bracelets were still pony beads. Tony smirked and walked outside onto the balcony.
"Jarvis, time to suit up. If the others ask, I'm unavailable. Off the grid, and fuck Fury for a few days, got it?"
"Yes sir. Where will you be heading?" The AI asked as the machines came to life, piecing the armor together seamlessly around Tony.
"New Mexico. Let Jane know I'm coming. Have her send all of her research to you. I want to read it on the way over."
"Yes, sir."
The suit finished, smooth lines of steel, and his back didn't hurt at all, wasn't stiff like it should be, and he made a note to check it when he got a chance.
Jane's research was popping up as he set the coordinates for the suit and let it go to autopilot so he could focus on the information scrolling in front of him, equations and pictures accompanied by long winded notes that Tony could sum up in two or three sentences.
Bridges and wormholes, energy and galaxies. Different star patterns, rainbows, science versus magic and the space where they blended. Tony grasped all of it easily, read through the profusion and found the concepts Jane had tried to relay, but clumsily. It was a new science, a theory, her theory, and he poured through it, ripped assumptions apart and questioned what she had confirmed as fact, prodding it with his own logic and knowledge and finding most, almost all of it sound.
Jarvis took dictation, notes appearing and disappearing into folders likes rapid fire blinks of blue light.
The ache in his hand persisted, and his wrists were pinched by plastic beads for the whole flight, until he touched down at the SHIELD observatory where Jane was working, her ever present lab flunky gushing as he walked into lab where there were very few pieces of equipment, but a lot of cork boards and dry erase boards covered in numbers and letters that would make sense to only a few people, of which he was now a part.
"I need the bridge opened. Think you can do it?" He asked, cutting through the curious welcome and gushing babbling.
The noise stopped, and the pair, along with the others in the room, four SHIELD agents, Selvig and three other scientists, stared at him, slack jawed and wide eyed.
"Tony, we can't open the bridge from our side. We're, I mean, we've run a couple of simulations out of curiosity, but the calculations are off, way off," Jane explained, perfectly plucked eyebrows knitting together. "It's difficult to get readings when Thor comes through, even when he asks Heimdall to keep it open for a few minutes."
"Well, now you have me and my funding behind you. I need to see the simulations. Now," He told her, already disengaging the manual locks on his gauntlet. His hand slipped free of the glove, revealing the angry red pucker of a scar.
"Tony, what's this about?" Jane asked, right as Darcy flinched and made a disgusted noise, vivid, bright eyes on his hand.
"I need the bridge opened. Yesterday. Important. Show me. The simulations."
"You want me to get something for that, it looks-"
"No. It's fine. Simulations, please Jane."
"Is something going on-"
"Yes, or else I wouldn't be here. I have higher clearance than you do, so I can see all of this. If you don't show me, I'll hack it."
"Fine," Jane said, hands coming up in a defensive gesture Tony hated. Her eyes were filled with concern and questions, and Tony didn't feel like answering any of them.
"Frizz, coffee."
"Who are you calling Frizz?" Darcy demanded, chin going up stubbornly. Tony resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose only by unlocking the releases on his other gauntlet.
"Darcy, dear, light of my life, I would love coffee, and I'm sure you would love more funding for a bigger paycheck and an ipod with more storage," He said, voice so saccharine sweet it dripped sarcasm. But Darcy, greedy, predictable Darcy and her love of music, eyed him shrewdly. Tony could see Jane waving and nodding rapidly in the reflection of the intern's glasses.
"And a gift card to the iTunes store. A big one."
"Five hundred bucks if you keep me supplied with coffee as long as I'm here."
"Deal."
She spun and bounced on her heel, a whirl of curls and color, marching toward the half empty coffee pot while Tony turned, gauntlets in hand, and followed Jane to the far side of the room where a computer with a massive flat screen sat, screen saver, not ironically, of stars passing by. While Jane typed in passwords and created an account for him with access to everything, he continued releasing catches and locks on his armor, disassembling it piece by piece with far less grace than Jarvis. Then again, he had only two arms, and it was on him. Jane politely looked at the screen the entire time, as if he was naked beneath the suit.
When the last piece was on the floor, leaning against the (thankfully) concrete wall, he pulled over another chair and sat down next to her, listening as she began explaining the simulation program. Mentally he took note of flaws in the program itself and kept them to the right of his mind while she began to explain the equations.
Darcy came back with a fresh brewed cup of coffee, 'not that burned crap' she'd said, and flounced away. Tony gave it three hours before she got sick of it and called him a douche.
Once Jane had finished explaining everything, he nodded a dismissal, which she clearly wasn't pleased with if the offense and frustration in her eyes said anything, but he was already in his head space, fingers itching to take over the keys. The moment she was out of the way he was pushing her chair to the side and sliding his into place, fingers flying over the keyboard, digging into the computer and opening up the coding for the simulation program.
"Tony, are you sure you're alright?"
"Fine. Working. Make sure Frizz keeps my coffee coming. Might give her a tip if she's nice."
Jane sighed the sigh that Steve would make sometimes when he was worried and frustrated with Tony, and it was one Tony had grown a resistance to, at least when he had a project to work on.
When Jane was gone he turned on his earpiece and started mumbling to Jarvis, who routed himself into the computer. Two heads were better than one after all. Jane wouldn't appreciate the logic now, but if- No, no, when he figured it out, he was pretty sure she would be too busy having feminine hysterics and hugging Selvig and Darcy to care (Tony didn't want a hug, didn't want anyone touching him at all).
People milled about the office, the circle of windows making it easy to keep track of time for those who were looking.
Tony wasn't.
He typed, fingers punching into the keyboard forcefully, relentless as he recoded the simulation program and tested it first with his own computer in the tower, Jarvis giving him the information he needed, and then on the not unimpressive but still not-as-good-as-his computer in the office.
It worked seamlessly. If nothing else Jane would owe him for that.
Darcy came and went, cup after cup of coffee, offering bandages until he snarled at her to leave him to work. She had huffed, he had registered the sound and not found it worth a reply, scanning through the already present equations and comparing them to the scant readings they already had. Only when he felt like his bladder was going to burst did he leave the computer, having Jarvis lock it so no one could get in, not even Jane. When he got back he saw Jane glaring at the screen, and then at him.
The wound on his hand itched. He scratched it, rubbed the blood onto his jeans and continued reading.
Jane came with food, which he ignored. Darcy came with coffee, and he asked for energy drinks.
His eyes itched, and he rubbed them.
Agents exchanged shifts, the scientists headed out, one by one, until it was only Darcy, Jane, and Selvig. Tony knew they were watching him, even noticed when they tried to remotely access the computer a couple of times. Darcy's handiwork was decent, but nothing compared to his skills, even when he was barely paying any attention. The ascii art he sent back, a fist with a middle finger saluting them was not appreciated, if the sounds across the office were anything to go by.
Selvig passed out in his chair and snored. Jane fell asleep, murmuring in her sleep, unintelligible incoherence that might have mentioned Thor or might have whispered something about energy. Darcy played on her iPhone, and left only to come back with a case of red bulls and a box of little debbie cakes that she dropped on the desk before going back to her game.
Tony worked, drank, rubbed his eyes, itched the scar open and rubbed the blood onto his jeans.
Night turned into day.
The others woke, went to breakfast. He stayed.
Jarvis offered input from time to time, but remained mostly silent.
The others came back. Darcy waved food under his face and he fought the urge to vomit on the keyboard, the savory smells wafting out turning his stomach. He told her he wanted more coffee instead. Only slightly surprising him (she was a greedy thing after all) she obeyed without complaint, bringing him more.
He managed to keep down a couple of the processed sugar cakes as he worked.
Equations, guesswork. He went from solid research to making further steps into the dark, trying to let logic guide him and praying something worked out, that magic really was just science he didn't understand, but could if he tried hard enough.
Simulation after simulation failed. Two turned into a dozen.
Focused, intent, he didn't quit. His only breaks were to use the restroom and splash some water on his face.
Morning turned to afternoon to evening. They didn't try to offer him more food.
Darcy dropped two cases of red bull and a box of star crunches in front of him and said she was going to sleep in an actual bed. Selvig agreed. They left.
Jane stayed. The agents stayed.
He drank, worked, ate more of the over sweet snacks and itched the scar open, the spot on his jeans was stiff with blood.
Jane broke the pattern, shattering it with all the grace of Thor hitting the Hulk with his hammer, carefully (carelessly). Tony tried not to think about the bottomless green, the bottomless black.
Focus.
"Tony, what's going on?"
"I'm working."
"I can see that. You've been going for over twenty four hours. Don't you need some rest?"
Tony knew it wasn't concern that was driving her. It was curiosity, it was a need to know. And how to tell her without telling the truth?
"No. I can go for a few days. Now please-"
"Tony, you've never been interested in this before. What. Happened."
Tony was going to tell her it was none of her business, except it was.
"Thor's been clingy lately, hasn't he?"
Jane nodded cautiously, slowly.
"I think-" He paused, trying to give the lie of 'I think' validation over 'I know'. "I think something is going to happen. Something really big. I need to get the bridge open, and I need to get up there."
"Tony, no one has managed to get the simulation to work, nothing-"
"You didn't have me," Tony told her, voice filled with the frustration that was beginning to creep in, slipping into the cracks left behind by the cuts from the deep. He pushed them away, clung to the light because if he didn't, it would be an end, an end without trying hard enough, without finding the answer, and he was too smart, had too much riding on the outcome to let something as stupid as frustration or worry waste energy he could put towards thinking.
Intangibles. He didn't need or want intangibles. He needed, and could create, solid variables.
"Right. Alright. I'll leave you to it. But I'm here, if you need any help."
"Gotcha."
Tony knew he wouldn't ask.
She went to her computer and fell asleep less than an hour later.
He continued working. Drinking. Bleeding. Pissing. Working.
Night turned to morning.
Darcy returned, a case of red bull in one hand, a gigantic mug in the other, and began brewing coffee just in case.
Just in case occurred at ten am, right before they left for breakfast. The mug held a full pot of coffee.
Work. Bleed. Piss. Type. Fail.
Start over.
Jarvis was silent aside from informing him that Fury was looking for him, Steve was worried about him, and Clint and Natasha were taking bets on if he'd run to Malibu or Europe with some bimbo. Jane and the others came back with food, which he refused. Darcy had brought more of the god awful too sweet little debbie snacks, and he ate those instead.
Bleed. Work. Piss. Fail. Steps further into the abyss of 'unknown' and making bigger, more improbable leaps of faith. Steps he would never have made before, would probably never make again.
Desperation tinged logic, and Tony tempered it, forced it to heel, to work for him instead of against him.
Fail. Bleed. Work. Piss. Fail. Fall.
Morning turned to afternoon.
And then Jane was shouting, shattering his concentration and jerking him forcefully back into reality as she called his name. Rubbing his eyes, he got up and walked over to her computer where a program was showing him spikes in something. Quickly scanning it, he surmised that it was a chart reading energy from different satellites.
"These readings are always right. The bridge usually opens to the minute when they say it will."
Tony knew it wasn't prediction, because the one thing he was positive of, was that it took time for the bridge to reach earth, that the readings were finding something like light from the sun before it hit the planet. Traveling, the speed of light between planets was one thing, between realms was different. The machines worked though, even if Jane didn't fully understand the process. He wasn't in the mood to tell her.
"Tonight?"
"About eleven."
Tony hoped it hadn't started, that Thor was coming to visit, that there was time.
He went back to the simulation anyway, telling Jarvis to set an alarm for nine.
Itch. Blood. Itch.
Fail. Piss. Work.
Fall. Hold steady.
Darcy brought him coffee and snapped one of the bracelets. He didn't hear what she said over the sound that erupted from his chest. She backed off.
Jane brought him coffee, at least he thought it was Jane. It wasn't Darcy.
Itch. Bleed. Rub.
The alarm went off, a piercing beep through the earpiece that broke his concentration and made him curse, coffee spilling over his hand, his non injured one.
The others were already getting ready, almost ready. He told them he'd meet them out there, he just need the coordinates. Jane supplied them and left with the scientists and two guards. Two stayed behind. Tony had Jarvis clear all of his simulations and theories, storing them on the server at the tower and then disconnecting from the SHIELD computer. He left the simulation coding as it was.
Two red bulls and the case was demolished. The last of the little debbie cakes went down like sand and rocks. He used the restroom, splashed water on his face, and picked at the aching spot on his hand, letting it bleed beneath the tap as cold water rushed over it, into it. This time he dried his hands on a towel and tossed it in the trash, not bothering to wrap the red stained paper in another to hide it. Turning, he pulled up his shirt, which was stiff with his own sweat, and looked at his back in the mirror.
No bruising whatsoever. Impossible after the damage done. He should have been bruised for a month.
Loki had healed it, like he thought. A small smile tilted up the corner of his lips as he walked out.
He began to suit up, piecing the armor around himself. Legs, hips, torso. Chest. Gauntlet one. Gauntlet two covering the wounded hand. Helmet tucked under his arm, he walked outside and looked at the sky.
"Time Jarvis?"
"Nine forty five sir," Came through his earpiece.
"Got the coordinates?"
"Yes sir. You should be there within ten minutes."
Tony put on his helmet and aimed his hands at the ground. He lifted slowly at first, not wanting to break the cement beneath his feet, and once he had what he carefully (carelessly) deemed a reasonable altitude, he added power and took off, following the map on the HUD towards the place where the Bifrost was supposed to open.
Shadows of the world blurred on the other side of his visor, shadows the bled into the darkness, and he imagined Loki was in them, curling up in the deep and praying for an eternity of oblivion, for a respite from waking, from breathing again.
Tony hoped it wasn't too late, that it hadn't started yet, the it was just Thor coming back to Jane one last time for a goodbye kiss. Hoped he could get up there, hoped whoever was guarding the bridge would give him a chance.
He landed at the exact coordinates, told Jarvis to keep an eye out for a hundred mile radius in case they were wrong (which they had never been so far, but-). Jarvis acknowledged him and went silent.
Waiting. Waiting.
The wound itched. He couldn't scratch it in the gauntlet. Instead he clenched his fist reflexively.
Waiting. Waiting.
The HUD registered the SHIELD vehicle coming into the area, getting closer as it navigated the terrain. Tony kept his eyes on the sky, as if he could will the Bifrost open, except he knew Heimdall would never listen to him, or to anyone else.
He tried anyway, before the others arrived, slipping up the faceplate and shouting at Heimdall to look, to see him like he was supposed to see everything, to open-up-the-way-to-the-fucking-bridge-damn-you.
It didn't open. He'd expected as much. But he'd hoped.
The jeep arrived, and Jane, Darcy and Selvig spilled out, looking weary and tired. Tony wondered if that was his fault, but it was a passing thought, banished in seconds as he looked to the heavens, faceplate back down and hiding his expression.
Raw from waiting, from the grains of sand in the hourglass scraping down his consciousness, he tried counting stars, tried pinpoint the exact area Jane had given him between those stars, looked everywhere, searched for the signs of a gap that would appear.
He'd never seen the Bifrost. The only visuals were of blurs from regular cameras, or thermal imaging photography, or every kind of spectrograph known to man. But nothing that gave a clear picture of the Bifrost, magic sending the readings haywire until nothing was discernible. Even Jane had only seen whirlwinds and blurs, there and gone again.
He made sure Jarvis was recording.
Waiting. Waiting. Itch. Clench.
When Jarvis reported an anomaly, Tony told Jane to start watching. She said it was early, but didn't complain.
There were no winds, no dust clouds to hide it.
A rip opened in the sky, spreading out like a shadow on black, the outline only apparent when stars disappeared to reveal a new sky, with different stars. Tony watched, waiting, poised and ready, muscles tensing and cording as he bent his knees slightly and plotted how much power he would need.
A rainbow swirled across the sky, stretching over a wavering path that looked like watercolors running into each other before fading onto a black canvas. Rippling and dull, like pastels muddying themselves, it glowed, standing out against the dark and outshining the stars, demanding attention. Tony told Jarvis to feed power into the repulsors.
Jarvis told him there was a strange anomaly that had not been present in other sightings.
Tony's stomach bottomed out. His fist clenched.
"The bridge. The rainbow bridge," Jane whispered, eyes wide and voice filled with awe. "It's beautiful."
Tony let his faceplate slide up, a thousand pinpricks of light reflecting in his eyes.
And then the stars began to fall.
Not by ones or twos, or even by dozens, but by the hundreds. Stardust falling like the black velvet of a pillow tipping to let diamonds tumble down, each one catching the light and bending it through it, flashing brightly like a comet that wouldn't go out.
"No," Tony whispered, running into the desert towards the falling lights. "No. No! You sonofabitch!" He slammed the faceplate down, triggered the repulsors, launched himself into the sky towards the lights, not thinking, not caring, but aiming for the source, pushing himself up to the sky and aiming, aiming-
"Sir, the suit cannot fly within the field of the Bifrost."
"Keep going," He commanded.
The suit kept going until the readings glitched, until the HUD flickered out, until it didn't.
And he was falling, eyes on the stars that were falling around, falling away, falling apart.
"Goddamnit," He rasped as his body impacted the ground, his teeth biting the tip of his tongue and drawing blood as the suit jolted and flickered back to life around him.
His back would be bruised, undoing all of Loki's work.
He got up, ignored the pain thudding through him, ignored the burn in his eyes and ripped his helmet off, getting an unobstructed view, a full view of the heavens offered.
Stars rained down, hundreds, maybe thousands, each one drifting away from him.
"Fuck!" He shouted, throwing his helmet at the wavering, rippling rainbow and the hole it was coming from. The helmet made it a few hundred feet in the air, then dropped like a stone. He didn't hear it land, didn't care enough to follow it's trajectory to see where it landed.
Helpless, hopeless, failure sank through him as he watched stars, souls, lights, falling like cheap, shiny debris.
"I'm sorry," He whispered to someone that couldn't hear.
One chance. One chance he'd never had. One chance he would never get again.
"I'm sorry." Strangled, uneven words shuddering out like an engine failing, stuttering and tripping over it's own faulty parts. Gears inside that creaked and cracked, gouging themselves as they tried to move out of their tracks and back into place, out of place, to just move when it was all falling apart.
Stars fell.
Jane's hysterical screaming and desperate sobbing echoed in the background. Darcy's loud voice telling her to calm down, to explain. Selvig's low baritone trying to sooth. The agents didn't speak, of course. All of it barely registered.
He watched, eyes burning as he remembered a god's silent tears. A god that had wanted oblivion, wanted peace, wanting an end that was a true end. Had hoped, had felt.
He was falling into the bottomless green, the endless black, shredding on the deep and losing the light even as it was falling into his eyes.
He didn't cry, because no matter how many tears he cried, it would never be enough to equal the terrible, horrible beauty that the sky had been as thousands of souls fell from it like glitter dumped carelessly to the ground. The remains of spirits pulled through the cogs of a machine they couldn't control, shredded into bursts of light.
Stars fell, an eternity of the rain of ephemeral, glimmering things, and then they didn't, the sky growing dull and dark as the wave crested and crashed to earth leaving nothing but the rainbow bridge behind. And then that too disappeared, leaving him with only the dull shadows of his own solar system.
He found his helmet and left New Mexico without saying goodbye. He knew Jane understood what the shower of stars had been, hoped the others could hold her up. He had fallen too far, too deeply to give her anything.
The glass of the bottle was still on the floor when he walked in, the lines and drops of blood still dotting the light marble floor like rust rising up from the stone.
In a quiet, rusty voice he told Jarvis to play Samuel Barber's Adagio. Shards of glass, some tainted with the rust brown of dried blood, some crystal clear, all reeking of whiskey, were gathered carefully on the paper of an ignored contract and slipped into a cigar box he'd emptied. The prized cuban cigars were dropped carelessly into the trash.
His back hurt.
He poured himself a glass of scotch and walked over to the window. Like a blur against the perfect darkness, a smudge of Loki's hand and his fingertips were imprinted on the surface. Taking a deep swallow that stung and burned the tip of his tongue, he rested his hand over the imprint of the god's. He didn't feel a residual heat, or even the hint of chill he had half expected. Nothing but a smear of oils. The wound itched.
The plastic bracelets turned back into the metal homing bracelets for the Mark VI. He shuddered, took another sip of scotch.
His hand stayed.
He tried to hear what Loki must have heard, tried to find the notes strung together that had made a damned god understand hope. Looked at the city and tried to see what the god had seen, had clung to, had wanted to take with him.
A star fell across the sky.
Brown eyes tracked it across the skyline, and he reasoned that he had known gods, knew sorcerers and magicians and supermen and mutants. His rational, logical mind pointed out that he had seen a bridge spanning realities and souls falling from the sky like gold dust from the hands of an ignorant child.
He made a wish.
AN: I'm sorry. I started by listening to this song and wanting to write the End with the stars raining from the Bifrost, and my hormones ran away with me and literally had me write this in one night with the song on repeat. The song by Samuel Barber is Adagio for Strings, which is also worth a listen. I hope you enjoyed. In the story, the mistake of Frigga's tears turning into mistletoe berries is intentional, Tony is drunk. Reviews are better than caffeine for the insomniac.