Chapter 2: Both Cradled You and Crushed.

Loki doesn't know where he is going, or if he'll even be alive when he gets there, until there is more than just the blackness of teleportation around him. His feet slam into the ground, and he falls forward into his knees, then allows himself to keel over, onto the floor, as his chest constricts and tears burn their way out of his eyes.

He lies there for a few moments, curled in on himself, unaware and uncaring about his surroundings. He trembles and sobs and knows the burning in his ribcage as the phantom pain of heartbreak.

"JARVIS, is this a dream?"

Loki goes instantly still, snivelling quietly but ready to fight. He knows that voice.

Then another voice that seemingly comes from everywhere replies, "I'm afraid not, sir."

"Ah, well then. Right. Okay. Plan B. Hey, sweetheart, on the floor, if you wanted that drink I offered you a while back, you should've just dropped me a line. No need for the water works."

Loki rolls onto his back on what he now recognises as granite flooring, groaning as he put a face and a name to that obnoxious voice. "Man of Iron."

"The one and only."

Loki places one hand over his wet eyes, presses down, exasperated. "Midgard."

"Your favourite."

"No."

"Oh, yes."

Loki cannot name a place he would rather be—Hel is horrific, he knows this, his daughter rules there, but Midgard. It reminds him of his failure, of the Chitauri enslavement. But he is not on Asgard, and he is certainly not on Jotunhiem, and that is all he really desired.

"You know, I may sound calm about this but I'll have you know I am silently flipping my shit because aren't you supposed to be under lock and key in Asgard like you have been for the past year and a half where you can't kill people or blow things up or try to subjugate planets. This is unless I missed some kind of memo—"

"Be silent, human." Loki snaps, sitting up and getting shakily to his feet. He can feel his magic pulsing through him, strong and vibrant, like true blood through his veins, but he is still tired from his efforts to break free from his incarceration, and the rush of his old power has made him slightly nauseous.

Tony Stark is sat behind his bar, bottle of amber liquid near him, holding a half-full glass in one hand, watching Loki like someone might watch a mildly offensive but still guiltily amusing television programme. Loki can feel the tears still on his face. "Do not look at me." He snarls as he turns away and wipes his eyes furiously, humiliated. He passes a hand over his face, removing the blood from his upper lip, then encircles each of his wrists in turn with two fingers radiating green, healing the blistered scars left by the runes.

Tony is talking to him. "You just appeared in my house and fell over. I'm in shock here. In fact, why have I not raised an alarm yet or got my suit? Have you hypnotised me with your voodoo or something? Because that isn't cool and I feel I should have got some warning."

Loki turns back to glower fiercely at Tony. "I have not enchanted you." He stalks forward until he reaches the bar, eyes on Tony. "Your lack of action is bred from your own stupidity." Tony toasts that by swallowing the rest of his drink.

Loki frowns, nonplussed; Tony had baffled him upon their first and last meeting — he did not speak to or act around Loki with fear or contempt, he merely treated him as an acquaintance that he found vaguely aggravating sometimes. "And yet I too cannot help but wonder, Tony Stark, why you have not got SHIELD agents swarming here to clap me in irons and haul me away? I could kill you. I want to. But it frightens you not, the idea that I could pull your spine out through your throat without laying a finger upon you?"

Tony rolls his eyes at the mention of SHIELD. "Ugh, SHIELD. SHIELD. Don't get me started on those guys. And anyway, you won't kill me. If you were going to, you would have done it by now. And don't—" He says this loudly, aiming one finger at Loki, who has opened his mouth to protest. "Don't bother lying, Liesmith. I got your number. So, you don't try to kill me, I don't raise the alarm. Do you want that drink?"

Loki stares at Tony for a long moment. "Is your mind addled, Tony Stark?"

"Probably." Tony laughs. "I'm well on the way to shit-faced too, so…" He shoves a fresh drink forward into Loki's slack hand, and Loki gazes down at it, like he's never seen anything of the sort before. "I haven't poisoned it. Take little sips."

Loki bares his teeth at Tony. "Do not patronise me, Stark, I am not an infant. I know how to drink." However, he does only take a small sip of the ochre drink. He then baulks, pulling a face and putting the drink down.

Tony laughs again. "You no like?"

Loki purses his lips in such a way that makes Tony believe that yeah, his guy was raised as royalty. "It is different to Asgardian alcohol. It is weaker but less… sweet."

Tony wiggles his eyebrows at this, grinning. "Someone got a bit of a sweet tooth?"

Loki's face is expressionless, and his skin is so pale and his eyes so piercing, that it unnerves Tony for a moment. "You use a phrase pertaining to your realm alone. I have never heard of such a thing."

Tony looks like he's fighting back raucous laughter, but he takes a drink, composes himself. "So, Prince of Darkness," He begins, as if breaching a difficult topic, looking at Loki from under his eyelashes. "What's got you down? Thor break up with you?"

To Tony's alarm, Loki suddenly lets out a harsh sob, closing his eyes and pressing his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. He appears to breathe deeply for a moment before saying in an oddly quiet voice, "Speak not that name to me."

"Ah, okay, you don't wanna talk about your problems." Tony's voice is so light, so conversational as he sips his scotch that Loki would actually be prepared to use his teeth to tear his throat out. "That's cool. I don't want you to start crying again anyway."

Loki glares. His narrowed eyes slip down to the faint blue glow emanating from Tony's shirt and they widen for a moment before he says in his smooth, charismatic voice, "I'd much rather we spoke of you, Man of Iron."

Tony notices Loki looking, looks down at his arc reactor, and laughs loosely. "Ah ha, no. No, no, no. Sorry but no dice, honey. We aren't discussing the arc reactor."

"Arc reactor." Loki appears hypnotised by it, by the light of it. "What does it do?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong but I think I just said no."

But Loki doesn't seem to be listening, focused solely on his own speculation. Tony supposes that for Loki, this is an all-new and rebellious type of magic he can't grasp; and yeah, good and evil aside, Tony understands that, that need for knowledge. "I believed it merely powered your suit but it is more, is it not? It protected you from the Tesseract's invasion. So it is more than simply a device to aid your armour, it is… It is armour, in and of itself. Armour for your heart."

Tony lays a hand on the arc reactor then, as if touched by Loki's words. "See now, that, that was beautiful. Fucking poetic." Another sip of scotch but Loki is not alarmed by Tony's alcohol consumption; it merely reminds him of uncouth Asgardian feasts with far too much ale in the hands of very stupid people. "But see, now you've said that, do I have to say something cute about the horns on that freaky helmet you're so fond of?"

Loki disregards this babble, still too fascinated by Tony's gleaming device. "Does it keep you alive?"

Tony raises his eyebrows as he refills his glass. "Now, do you really think I'd tell you if it did?" He takes a large gulp of amber liquid then looks at Loki's practically full glass then at Loki himself, with comically wide, hurt eyes. "Rudolph, I don't offer my extremely expensive scotch to just anyone. Only very, very attractive women." He takes a sip of his own drink and winks at Loki's scowl. "And weepy Gods."

Loki's hand nearly crushes the glass as it convulses, and Tony can hear it protesting against the extraordinarily strong grasp. "I was not 'weepy', mortal. I was—you cannot conceive—" The glass breaks in his hand, the scotch spilling out onto the bar; Loki hisses and uncurls his fist to reveal bloody splinters of glass embedded in his palm. He looks at Tony, who appears unfazed and is pouring two fresh glasses.

Tony catches his eye. "I don't really care if you don't drink this one, I'll drink it for you. Actually, these are both for me."

Loki's face is blank, his voice brittle. "I… apologise for breaking your glass, Tony Stark."

"Eh, you broke my window. I reckon you got a fetish."

Loki is pulling the pieces of glass out of his hand and running a glowing green finger over the cuts to heal them as Tony says this. He looks up, one eyebrow raised in amusement. "Well, quite."

Tony downs a glass in one then, and beams indulgently at Loki. The smile is very intimate, very friendly, and it makes Loki's skin itch. It does not help that Tony is gawping at him intently, like he's trying to memorise the sharp angles and hollow dells of Loki's face.

And then. "You're kind of pretty, you know that?" Loki rolls his eyes now. Humans. "No, no, don't roll your eyes, Mischief. I bet you grow on people, huh?"

"For the love of Valhalla, Stark, think about what you say."

"But in an evil, psychopathic way, I mean."

"Tony Stark." Loki's voice isn't so much angry as is it annoyed. He sounds like Pepper Potts, more like a disapproving parent. "Have you, in your intoxicated state, foolishly mistaken me for some woman who will bat their eyelid at your bizarre and drunken flirtations? Let me assure you, I will kill you if you do not desist."

"Yeah, bizarre and drunken flirting. Do you have bizarre and drunken flirting in Asgard? I mean, we're not married or something now, are we?"

Now the rage comes back; this human speaks too much, and too rudely, for Loki to endure it for long. It builds in Loki's voice is like a gathering storm. "Stark, please. I do not jest when I threaten your life."

"You know what I think?" Tony asks, a little too loudly because he's tipsy, slamming down his empty glass for no real reason. "I think that you're thinking what I'm thinking and that is that we're actually kinda similar 'cause we're geniuses and we're arrogant and hello, daddy issues and it's making your frosty flesh crawl."

The anger breaks, yet again, because Tony knows how to push people's buttons, and Loki's nostrils flare dangerously. "Thor told you about my true heritage."

"Well, yeah, after some encouragement. I mean, he said you were adopted, then we wanted to know what your beef was or if you were just that nuts that you wanted to take over Earth."

Loki blinks. "My beef?"

"Your beef. Your problem. Your issue. Your reason for that big, crazy, raging vengeance gig you got going on."

"Midgardian vernacular is exceedingly strange."

Tony toasts once more, a little wobbly, and downs the other drink. "That's us Earthlings. Weird as anything. I heard you turn blue. I like blue."

"You tread thin ice, Stark. It would be unwise for you to attempt to extract information from me about my true form or goad me in any way concerning my familial…how you say, beef."

"Vern-ac-cular not so strange now, huh?" Tony's mouth struggles around the word as he keeps from slurring; Loki is loath to admit it, but he has seen Asgardians in worse states and less articulate than this human when inebriated. Nevertheless.

"You are vexing beyond comprehension, human."

"Aw, stop, you'll make me blush."

Suddenly, randomly, as Loki is grinding his teeth together and Tony's eyes are laughing at him, there is an almost deafening clap of thunder above Stark Tower. It makes Tony look to the windows in surprise so he doesn't notice Loki go rigid as a board as a jolt like a flash of lighting ricochets down his spine.

"That was weird, didn't realise there was gonna be a st—whoa!" Loki has lunged forward, grabbed a fistful of Tony's t-shirt, and yanked him across the bar, scattering the scotch glasses, so that they are practically nose to nose. "Okay, Loki, I said you're gorgeous and all, but you're still a murderous alien war criminal and I don't know if I am actually drunk enough—"

"Shut. Up. Stark." Loki snarls into Tony's face. "Thor is near—"

"Thor— what— JARVIS, that true?"

"It is, sir." The AI chimes from somewhere in the ceiling. "Thor Odinson entered the building precisely eighteen seconds ago and is currently ascending the stairs."

As if on cue, Tony hears distant, rumbling footsteps.

"Um, okay, thanks for telling me when he actually came in JARVIS, you're now grounded. Did he break down the door or—"

"I could sense him," Loki interrupts. He's on edge, terrified maybe— he's breathing quickly, eyes darting around. Tony can feel his hand shaking. Thor's nearly in the room; that much is evident by the noise: it's literally like there is thunder coming up the stairs to greet them. Loki pushes Tony back into a standing position on the other side of the bar and unfurls his fingers from Tony's shirt, withdrawing his hand. He's practically panting, eyes hooded, his hands twitching as he waits for his fate to come crashing through the door.

Tony looks at him, mildly dismayed by what he's seeing. He reaches out a hand to Loki but doesn't touch him. "Hey, Loki. Jesus Christ, Loki, breathe slower, you're giving me a heart attack. Reindeer Games—"

Loki's eyes open wide, he looks at Tony when he says the nickname. He appears to become less jittery, his body smoothing out until he looks far more regal. He swallows. "I—I thank you, Man of Iron, for your, ah…hospitality." His voice sounds strangled in his throat.

He bends at the waist slightly, in a strange sort of bow, dipping his head. It's so formal that Tony wants to giggle. Instead, he just lifts both hands and spreads his fingers. "Philanthropist." Then he frowns. "No, wait, that doesn't work. God-anthropist? Viking-alien-anthropist?"

Loki actually chuckles softly, almost affectionately, a genuine laugh. "You fool."

And then Thor bursts into the room like a tornado, brandishing Mjolnir. Loki's head snaps to look at him, and then he blinks out of sight.

"LOKI—!" Thor bellows belatedly, one hand stretched out. Then he sees Tony, and hastens over to him. "Man of Iron." He gasps, clasping Tony's upper arms with his hands. "Are you well? My brother did not harm you?"

"Yeah, hi Thor, nice of you to drop by! M'fine, you know. Loki just got me drunk and we talked about the good times. "

Thor frowns slightly, his tight hold on Tony loosening. "That—that is good news." He smiles then, that big, golden, Nordic smile. "I am pleased, very pleased." He claps Tony on the shoulder, making the smaller man stagger forwards a few steps.

"Yep, it's all dandy, verily, whatever you Asgard types say." Tony rubs one of his eyes. "Hey big guy, not to be rude, but don't you have a naughty little brother to go spank?"

Thor looks a little amused and a lot bemused by Tony's words, but he becomes serious quickly. "Yes, I must find Loki. Farewell, Tony, until we meet again. It has been good to see you if only very briefly."

Tony had clambered back onto a bar stool and placed his head on his arms on the bar top. "Uh-huh, fare thee well, toodles, nice hair, please fix my door on the way out."

And then Thor is gone in a pounding of feet and a flurry of red cape.

Tony sits up. "Now, JARVIS, honestly here because I'm rather pissed and you know how I rely on you, are you quite, quite sure that none of that was a dream?"