Hey guys. So, this is the second chapter of "Warning Signs". Special thanks go to my beta Hel Lokison!
Unfortunately, I do not own the characters, they still belong to Marvel.
So, please feed my muse with your feedback. The more comments, the better! ;)
Warning Signs Chapter 2 – Panic continued
He has no idea how he has made it all the way to the outskirts of New York City without another panic attack. Now, standing in a row with the other Avengers, waiting for Loki to arrive in the middle of nowhere on an uncultivated field, he feels the slight tingle of dizziness again. Next to him, Thor stares at the sky, peering for a sign of the Bifrost opening. While driving here, Thor told them right down to the last detail of the rebuilding of the destroyed rainbow bridge. It has been an unnecessary long and exhausting story, like every tale and story the big, broad-shouldered guy has ever told them, but Tony has been glad to hear the excited jabbering of the demigod, loud enough to drown his own thoughts.
Now, however, there is silence. On the screen in his helmet, Tony can see his heart rate going up and he tries to breathe in deeply. His knees again feel like jelly and he is extremely glad for wearing the Iron Man suit with the visor folded down, so no one could see how nervous he is. No, not only nervous. He is in panic again.
His thoughts drift off for a second, back to the fall through the window, back to his nightmares, back to the pair of peculiarly green eyes. You are no one. By now, he believes it.
"JARVIS, give me some music," he mutters under his breath and JARVIS, his favorite A.I. in the world, starts playing AC/DC. Tony tries to concentrate on the beats and the song text, but he doesn't fully succeed. The pair of green eyes is still etched in his mind, fixating him.
"They are coming," Thor suddenly whispers, still staring at the sky above them. Tony moves his head, and really, there is something off with the sky. He can't exactly tell what it is, but there is a sudden change in the atmosphere around them, something that sends shivers down his spine. JARVIS turns the music off and Tony can hear an electrostatic buzz, before the sky glows in all colors of the rainbow for a moment. There is a flash that turns his vision blazing white, something that sounds like a sudden collision with the ground and they are here. Unspectacular, really.
Two guards in full Asgardian armor, equipped with all kinds of swords, knives and spears, stand before them in all their alien glory. They nod approvingly when they see Thor and murmur something Tony cannot understand, and Thor broadly smiles at them. Another guard steps forward, holding the blue cube – the Tesseract – in his hands. He examines the group of Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents shortly and fastens his gaze on Tony's armor a moment longer.
"Odin All-father sends his best regards to Midgard." He strides forward again and when Fury takes a step in his direction, he hands him over the Tesseract. For a moment, Fury's face lights up like the one of a child on Christmas, but Tony is not entirely sure if he hasn't imagined this, because one moment later, Fury wears the same stern look as before.
The two guards in the center diverge and there he is. Loki, crouching between them, face turned away. His black hair has grown longer and hides his face and his clothes are not the usual green and black leather, instead he is clad in shaggy prison clothing. He looks small, vulnerable and awfully human, when he tries to straighten up himself he fails miserably. His arms are full with what Tony has thought of tattoos for a moment, but instead there are runes all over them, which seem to be carved in his skin.
Tony shudders again. Is this the man that has almost leveled New York City to the ground? Is this the one who torments him in his nightmares? What he sees right now is a young man, weakened and wounded, unsteady on his feet. He is even paler than he used to be and dirty all over; Tony notices that he doesn't even have shoes on.
Loki sweeps his hair out of his face, his handcuffs clacking onto each other. He has his eyes half closed and is staring on the ground and Tony can see the dark circles under them. This looks nothing like the God of Mischief. This looks more like a beaten child, pale and thin and bruised all over.
He opens his eyes and stares at him.
Green.
Tony makes a step back, gasping for air. His sudden movement doesn't go unnoticed and for a second, everyone is staring at him, but this changes, when one of the guards clears his throat.
"Loki Laufeyson does not possess any magical power at the moment. Odin All-father wishes for you to treat him as one of your own and to introduce him to your people's customs and habits. He will remain with you until he understands and respects your race and is proven worthy of entering Asgard again."
Wait. This does not at all fit into their plan of locking Loki up in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, does it? Confused, Tony looks over to Fury, who gives the guard a short nod. The guards take a few more steps in their direction and Loki is dragged between them, feet barely touching the ground. When they reach Fury, they let go of Loki and instantly, two SHIELD agents take over.
As sudden as the Asgardians have arrived, they are gone again. They bow in front of Thor a last time, and everyone mutters their good-byes, before they step back into the circle of flattened ground.
"Farewell, our Midgardian friends," one of the guards utters, and again there is a white flash following a short color-outburst and a blink of an eye later they are gone.
"It pains me seeing him like this," Thor suddenly mutters, jolting Tony out of his thoughts. He blinks a few times, processing what Thor has said, then he shakes his head. He is glad not to be able to answer Thor's questioning glance, because in the same moment everyone starts moving towards the vans.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who have taken care of Loki suddenly stride towards to him and Thor, Loki still only half-conscious. "Could you please take him to the van over there?" one of the agents asks them and off they go, leaving the God of Mischief behind. Thor instantly lifts Loki like a puppet and flicks him over his shoulder, approaching the vehicle.
For a moment, Tony stands there, taking in the scene, trying to digest everything, but it won't work. His knees are still jelly; his heart rate is still off the charts. For a second, though, there is peace – the strange kind of peace you can find standing amidst an ever moving crowd of people.
"Are you coming, Stark?" Thor is calling suddenly, and the peace is gone. What remains is the faint tingle of panic, like always these days.
A few minutes later, he is cooped up in the van, none other than Loki next to him. Thor sits on Loki's other side, sadly smiling at his brother, who is staring into empty space.
"Brother, I am glad to see you again," Thor begins, but there is no response whatsoever coming from Loki. Tony is actually glad about this, the mere thought of Loki's voice is giving him the creeps.
On the drive back to Manhattan, no one says a word. Tony and Bruce exchange glances, but otherwise they sit in dead silence. For most of the drive, Tony forces himself to look out of the window, trying to forget the person next to him. But somehow he ends up staring at Loki, who is sunk down on his seat, not moving the tiniest bit. Without his armor, the Asgardian doesn't exactly look threatening. Quite on the contrary. Loki's once sleek black hair now falls down onto his shoulders in loose curls, and together with his slim face, it makes him look younger – in his early twenties at a max. His arms, curled around his stomach, are over and over carved with runes – on some of them Tony could still see the dried blood.
He must be in pain, Tony thinks, and the panic which is rearing up inside him since he entered the car, settles down a bit. Seeing his enemy powerless and in pain is somewhat comforting.
Nevertheless, he is relieved when he gets out of the car at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. The cell they're taking Loki is small. Essentially, it is a plexiglass cube, with a small bed inside. The cube itself is situated in the middle of a rather big room with no windows. There are at least a dozen neon tubes around and inside of Loki's cell, illuminating every inch of it which makes the god of mischief look like an exhibit.
After locking him up, Tony is leaning against the wall, taking his helmet off for the first time in hours. Next to him, Steve and Bruce look expressionless at the figure in the cell, and Thor still doesn't seem too happy. One of the heavy doors to the room opens and Fury enters, Clint and Natasha in the tow.
"Captain, you're first. Watch over him, tell me instantly if something seems strange to you." Fury receives a short nod from Steve.
"The rest comes with me."
As soon as the door shuts behind them, Fury begins to walk up and down in front of the rest of the Avengers.
"You have heard the Asgardians. Odin expects us to teach Loki how to be a decent human being. So after we are perfectly sure Loki does not possess any magical power, he will be released from this cell. He will still be in our custody, though. He will be given a room and it will be your duty to take care of him until he goes back to Asgard."
"What if that never happens?" It is Natasha, playing with one of her knifes, who asks that.
Fury darts a stern glance at her. "He will return eventually." With that, he strides down the hall, his black coat sweeping behind him.
An hour later, Tony and Bruce are back home. "Wow. I never thought I would make it through the day." Bruce only grins at that and pats his shoulder. "Good night, Tony."
When he enters his room, he finds himself in company. Pepper is sitting on his bed, wearing a gorgeous black dress and high heels. She rises as soon as she sees him and smiles, but her smile doesn't reach her eyes.
"Pepper, what's up?" Tony walks up to her and puts his hands around her waist, but she takes a step back instead.
"We need to talk, Tony." She sits down again on the edge of his bed and Tony does the same. An uncomfortable silence falls between them. What the hell is wrong? And why doesn't Pepper say anything? Tony opens his mouth and closes it again, not quite knowing what to do.
"I'm sorry, Tony." Despite the words being barely a whisper, they resonate in Tony's head. Sorry? Sorry for what? He doesn't want to hear it.
"Pepper, I –" He doesn't want to hear anything of this.
Please, don't do this to me. Please, stop. Let's forget about this.
He wants to touch her, to kiss her, to tell her that everything is going to be alright, but deep inside of him he knows that, in fact, nothing is going to be alright.
"I'm sorry, Tony. I can't do this anymore."
She's breaking up with him. Just like that. He buries his face in his hands for a moment, trying to grasp what she just said, but he can't. He doesn't understand.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in.
The panic is coming back. It's taking control again.
"Pepper, please, just go. Please, leave me alone. I want to be alone." He can't ask why, he isn't sure if he wants to know why, anyway. It must seem rude of him to just kick her out like that, without giving her a chance to explain herself, but there is no way she is going to see him falling apart.
"Please, Pepper. We can talk later."
Breathe in.
Don't cry.
You are no one.
He tries to ignore the voice in his head, even when Pepper is gone. He doesn't take the elevator to his labs, instead he takes the stairs, one step after another, trying to keep his mind focused on his every movement. It takes an eternity to reach the labs, but at least he is breathing normally again.
"JARVIS, music. "
There is work to do – refining his Iron Man suit, working on his cars, whatever. Work that requires his utmost concentration. He decides to do some improvement on his gloves, but after a while, his mind drifts off to Pepper.
"JARVIS, turn the music louder. I don't want to hear my thoughts."
The music blasts out of the speakers almost unbearably loud, but Tony still can't think of anything else besides how shitty this day went.
I'm not running from my feelings, he tells himself, but he knows this is a lie. So he pours himself a drink instead of continuing working. When the liquid touches his lips, then his tongue, when it flows down his throat, there is relief at first, but it doesn't last for long.
Pepper. Pepper has broken up with him. Before he realizes it, the bottle is half empty. He doesn't care for pouring the liquor in a glass anymore, but drinks it straight from the bottle, while listening to angry music.
JARVIS must have noticed his mood swing, because soon Tony finds himself listening to a sad ballad. The bottle is almost empty by now.
He is tired. So, so tired. The thought of Pepper still weighs heavily on him, but his senses are numbed now, his body feels heavy and so he slides off his seat, landing on the ground.
Green eyes. They are here again. Even in his drunken state he feels his pulse rising at the mere thought of them. He forces himself to think of Loki as vulnerable, beaten and in pain, but his brain won't obey.
You are no one. You hide behind your armor and your heroic deeds. But you are no hero, Tony Stark.
He wants to protest on his own thoughts, but somehow they are true – Tony Stark, the former merchant of death hides behind Iron Man, the superhero. Who was he?
He recalls Steve asking him the same.
Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away, and what are you?
Genius.
Billionaire.
Playboy.
Philanthropist.
But right now, he is nothing more than a bunch of misery.
With that in mind, Tony Stark drifts off in a dreamless sleep.