It was almost an hour later when Stark finally called out again.

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?!"

Loki jumped and nearly ended up sending himself into the ocean. "Pardon?" he asked, his heart leaping at the chance to speak to Stark again.

The man turned around and squinted at him. "Oh, you're still here?"

"Where else could I have gone?" Loki replied tersely.

"I just forgot you were here," Tony shot back, turning away again to look up at the sky. "But seriously, it's been over an hour."

Loki stood and picked his way across the rocks carefully, settling himself down next to Stark with an exhausted sigh. "It has been longer, actually. You were unconscious for some time."

"You're not exactly making me feel better."

"I just thought we should be more accurate in our time estimate," Loki replied with a faint smile, watching the man out of the corner of his eye. He was still pale, glassy eyed, and he was shivering again. "You look worse than before."

Stark finally looked at him and have a weak smile. "You don't look so hot yourself, hot stuff."

"I do feel colder than before, which is unusual for me," Loki muttered and looked down at his raw wrists. "Perhaps I did more damage than I originally thought."

Tony leaned over immediately and began lifting Loki's hands up in his own to inspect the shackles. His eyes grew more focused as he poked his way around each one, careful to no touch the wounds under the metal.

"If I had about four tools, no, scratch that. If I had two tools, I could get these off."

"I doubt that," Loki replied incredulously, "they are sealed with magic, Stark. One cannot break them with some simple meddling."

Tony gave him a strange look and let go of his hands. "I bet you fifty bucks I can get them off."

Loki smirked and arched a single brow. "What need have I for so many male deer?"

Tony snorted and wiped his nose quickly before responding. "You're right, you don't need any deer. What do you want to bet with then?"

With no hesitation, Loki replied, "You."

Tony made a gurgling noise and turned his head away so fast, Loki could hear the bones in his neck protest. After minute of staring in the opposite direction, he turned back with a small blush across his cheeks.

"You might want to go into a little more detail there, home wrecker."

Loki watched him carefully as he began, "I want time with you. We have spent months speaking to one another, but never face to face. I find you... I find you fascinating." He paused and added with a smile, "and entertaining."

"Are you asking me to be..." Tony faltered, his mouth opening and closing as he looked for words.
"Nope, I still don't know what you're asking."

"Stark," Loki spoke slowly, "I don't want to live in a cage anymore. I need to feel the air on my skin, taste something other than the strange breaded things Thor makes. I need to be free." He paused with a frown. "As free as I can get, at least."

"And freedom is... Me?"

"Freedom is your tower," Loki replied. "Only you can convince SHIELD and Thor to move me from that pathetic cabin. They trust you enough to watch over me, do they not?"

Tony contemplated it for a while, his teeth worrying his lower lip while he digested Loki's words.
"You overestimate their trust in me. You should know by now from our conversations how little they trust me with these days. I'm a wreck, a wash out. Steve tells me every day what a no good boozer I am, and Fury doesn't even ask me on missions anymore. I have to invite myself. Which is awkward, I'll tell you."

"You are none of those things," Loki said, his irritation growing. He had been inside the man's mind for months now, and had only seen him intoxicated twice. He did hear Stark's comments when his teammates started talking to him about his shortcomings. By the sounds of it, they were all under the wrong impression.

"Did you not tell them what you have really been doing awake during your long nights ?" Loki asked, a hint of a smile forming.

"No," Tony replied, starting to sulk. "They wouldn't understand it. They would think you're controlling me or something."

"Are you so sure that I am not?"

Tony gave him a look that made Loki laugh. "I see. You are correct, of course," Loki continued, "I am not controlling you. But I see no reason why you should keep your new information a secret."

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because I have no way of explaining how I know so much about magic suddenly?"

"Didn't you study that Doom fellow a year ago?"

"I told you about that?" Tony asked, letting out a huff of laughter. He was starting to fade again and his words began to slur together. "Man... I tol' you everything..."

Loki reached over and pulled him against his body before he collapsed on the rocks. "Not everything, Stark. But a lot."

Tony's eyes fluttered shut. "Is funny..."

"What is?" Loki asked in a quiet voice, his hands running through the mortal's hair unconsciously.

"Tha' you know more 'bout me... Than all...of them..." Stark trailed off with a soft sigh and feel asleep.

"That is not funny," Loki whispered to himself. "That is sad..."

The plane was empty when Tony opened his eyes, which was a sure sign that something was off because there should have been people in there with him. Tony frowned and tried to remember who was supposed to be there. Wasn't one of them a doctor? No, he wasn't supposed to be there.

"Anyone here?" He asked, his voice raspy with disuse. He felt as though he had been laying in the desert for hours, dehydrated and weak. On cue, a man walked out of the pilots cabin and approached him. He was a red and brown colored blur to Tony. Even as he bent down and examined him, he failed to come into focus. The man blob growled and pushed Tony out of his chair to the floor.

Okay, maybe not a friend then.

"Get off my plane," he ordered the blur as it walked back into the pilot's cabin and shut the door. He stayed on the floor and tried to focus on something, anything around him. He failed and decided to settle with crawling around until he could see properly. But before he could get far, the plane started to sway and buck around in the air, sending Tony skidding across the carpet.

He slid to a stop and his hands clutched sand.

"What the... ?"

Tony sat up and squinted into the almost white sky. The sun was so bright it bleached the world around him. Tony took in a few shallow breaths and groaned as his lungs struggled against the dry air. He remembered this feeling, he had been here before. Lungs at half their capacity, heart rate through the roof, blood caked all over his skin, and sand as far as the eye could see.

"Afghanistan," he croaked and closed his eyes. Even closed, the backs of his eyelids burned red with the light. There was no peace in the desert. He opened his eyes once more and started trudging through the sand, trying to keep in the shadows of the taller dunes.

Tony needed to find something, he just didn't know what. So he searched around in no particular direction, each breath he drew in growing less and less satisfying. He was drowning in air. He gave one final look around before he keeled over into the sand.

He hit water.

He was drowning again, this time his lungs filling with salt water. Tony desperately clawed his way in what he hoped was up. He opened his eyes and felt the salt prickle and burn them. There was a small amount of light coming from above him, so he aimed for that.

What felt like hours later, he broke the surface and took in a deep breath. It hurt, it always hurt.

"Tony," came a voice close by.

"H-help!" Tony cried out in response, struggling to keep above the waves.

"Tony, stop struggling."

"I... no..."

"Stop struggling," the voice commanded.

Tony flailed around in the water for a minute more before he let out a frustrated cry and let himself go limp. His body sunk beneath the waves quickly, as though weighed down with rocks. The further down he drifted, the quieter and darker it got. He smiled to himself and let everything go.

"Tony."

With a small frown, he decided to ignore the voice, and sank deeper into the dark waters.

"Tony Stark, if you do not stop floating around and wake up this very second, I shall stick seaweed up your nose."

"Excuse me," he muttered into the darkness, "why are you interrupting my dream?"

"Because the plane is coming back and I would rather not face the your friends with you unconscious in my lap."

Lap?

Tony's eyes snapped open and found Loki peering down at him with a worried expression.

"Ah, there you are," he said with a faint smile. "I though I lost you down there."

"Loki... Were you creeping around in my dreams?" He asked, blinking a few times. His face felt wet, which made no sense. "What'd I miss?"

"I may have joined you after you started thrashing around in your sleep," Loki replied, looking up at the sky again. "You did not miss much, but I hear the plane returning. I assume someone will come for us one way or another."

Tony sat up and wiped his face off, sticking a tongue out to lick the water from his lips. It was salty. With a frown, he glanced back at Loki. The god was avoiding his gaze, keeping his face turned strategically away to look for the plane.

"Loki."

"Hmm?"

"Look at me," he ordered.

"Why?" Loki replied, still scanning the sky.

"Stop being a prig and look at me."

Loki jerked his head down with a snarl and glared at him. His eyes were ever so slightly red, and that's all Tony needed to know.

"Okay, you can go back to sky gazing now," he said and made a shooing motion with one hand.

Loki sneered at him and scooted away with a huff, muttering something that sounded like "childish".

There was the sound of a plane coming closer. Tony reveled for a moment at the god's powerful hearing. He said he heard it, what, almost twenty minutes ago? Tony smiled and managed to stand up with a limited amount of wobbling.

"Wanna take bets on who's going to jump?" He asked, scanning the sky one more time and spotting a smaller plane approaching.

"Are we betting again?" Loki ask, joining him to peer at the plane. "We never came to a conclusion on the last one."

Tony hummed and looked at him thoughtfully. "Alright."

"Alright, what?"

"Alright, I'll bet me if I can get those off your wrists," Tony replied with a weak smile. "The thing is, you're gonna have to pretend they still work around everyone else. At least until I get you set up in the tower."

Loki's face morphed from smug amusement to a wide cheerful grin and sparkling eyes. Tony remembered, just then, that Loki was a god in all aspects. Physique included.

"Then, yes, we have an accord."

"Good, deal. Now," Tony pointed at the plane, "I bet it's captain sparkle pants."

Loki squinted at the plane and frowned. "It seems to be Thor, actually." He gave Tony a smirk. "It seems you lose this round."

"Yeah, yeah," Tony muttered, "you and your magical eyesight."

The wind started to pick up around them as a figure drew closer in the air.

"What do I win?" Loki called out over the waves as they grew more turbulent.

Tony shrugged and looked at him. "I don't know. What do you want?"

Loki was starting to give him a strange look as the waves crashed harder against the rocks. Thor was calling something out as he approached.

"I want..." Loki closed his mouth and frowned.

Thor landed with a thud and ran towards them with a wide smile plastered across his face. "BROTHER! STARK!"

Both men flinched as the blond pulled them into a rough group hug and continued to shout into their ears, "I am ever so glad to see you both alive and well!"

"Alive, not so well," Tony grunted into the metal plates digging into his face.

Thor let them go and clapped Loki's shoulders heavily. "Brother! You performed admirably today! To save the Man of Iron so selflessly!"

Loki's humor had long since run dry, leaving a disgusted sneer on his face. "I do not need your condescending felicitations for such a thing."

Thor looked a little put out at this, so Tony decided to steal the spot light. "Thor, my man. My buddy," he began, leaning a little against him. "Please get me the fuck off this rock."

"Of course!" Thor agreed and slipped an arm around each of them easily. Loki met his eyes around Thor's neck.

"This is not what I had in mind for our rescue," Tony thought to him.

Loki's eyes widened a fraction before he cracked a small smile. "I cannot say I favor this one myself."

"Hold on to me tightly" Thor instructed as he spun his hammer and took off without further warning.

The air was stolen right out from Tony's lungs, and for a moment he panicked at the memory of his dreams. Constantly drowning.

Then Loki's voice crept into his mind again. "Calm yourself. You are safe."

Tony squinted through the tears forming in his eyes from the wind and tried to smile at the dark-haired god. Of all people, Loki was reassuring him. Again.

"Thanks for saving me," he thought back.

"Thank Thor, he is the one rescuing us."

"No," Tony shook his head slightly. "You saved me first."

"Fine."

Loki looked as if he wanted nothing more than for the conversation to end, so Tony dropped it. They were catching up to the smaller jet quickly, before Tony remembered something.

"Hey, Loki?" he called out.

Loki raised an eyebrow in response and waited.

"What did you want as your prize?"

Loki's eyes stayed on him even as they twisted in the air with Thor's landing in the open bay of the plane. The blond god was talking to them and Natasha said something from the pilot's seat. Tony managed to stumble into one of the smaller side seats and buckle in. There was more talking, but he found himself no longer able to focus.

"Stark?" Thor inquired, leaning over him. "Lady Widow, something is ailing the Man of Iron!"

Tony nearly grinned at Thor's worry and found his eyes drifting back to Loki who was now seated across from him. The god was tense and unable to buckle himself in due to his shackles. He swayed with every movement of the jet, but his eyes remained fixed on Tony.

"What did you want, Loki?" He thought just as his consciousness began to fade.

"The same answer as the first one."

"What's that...?"

"You."

The last thing Tony saw was Loki's painful smile before he passed out.

Thor was insufferable for the entire journey back to the tower. As happy as Loki was to be going anywhere but their cabin, the company was not to his liking.

As soon as they arrived, Steve had attempted to separate him from Stark and place him into some underground holding cell. Tony was carried out of the room by a fretful Doctor Banner and Loki was lead down to his new cage.

It was clearly designed in a similar fashion to the SHIELD cell he had less-than-fond memories of. To top it all off, before they were to tuck him away, he got to observe Stark's group's behavior first hand. It only served to infuriate him more.

"This is what happens when you let Tony organize things," the Captain was yelling at the Widow.

The red-head simply glared at him, staying surprisingly loyal to Stark. Loki was aware that they had some past behind them, but she didn't seem to be the type for sentiment. Apparently, Stark was special.

"It was his birthday, Rogers. If you can't even allow him that," Natasha replied coldly, "you're the one with a problem."

"He nearly died! Again!"

"And that's his fault how, exactly?"

Thor cleared his throat and stepped up between the two. "Stark did nothing wrong, Captain. We should be rejoicing that he has returned with so little injury."

Bruce, who had returned in the midst of the argument, shifted from his place by the door and spoke up, "actually, how is it that he's so lightly wounded?"

Thor beamed and gestured towards Loki with a grand sweep of his arms. "My brother healed him, regardless of the damage he sustained in doing so!"

"Please, do not drag me into this," Loki drawled, leaning back against the wall. He had kept his composure, but inside he was screaming. The shackles had torn painful gashes across his soul and magic core. Each one was bleeding magic, except that it had no where to go thanks to the shackles. So he stood there and smirked even as his body filled with unusable magic, like blood pooling under the skin.

Rogers turned his glare to him. "Why is he even here?"

"He had to come with us, he's the only one who knows what happened other than Stark," Natasha answered calmly.

Loki sighed as the group fell into bickering after that. The captain and Clint wanted him gone, where as Natasha, Thor, and Banner seemed to want to interrogate him there. Banner came as a surprise to Loki, considering the past they shared. The archer was glaring venomously over everyone the entire time, as if his accusing eyes would set fire to Loki. Loki stared back, and instead of keeping his face emotionless like he originally planned, he decide to show how he felt.

Loki grunted as he let in all the pain. With his mental barriers down, he could feel everything suddenly and it was too much. He fell to one knee and struggled to breath as crushing pain came from everywhere. Apparently he had broken some ribs in the fall into the ocean, and one of his wrists had snapped somewhere along the way. He hadn't had time to heal during any of the times he had the shackles free. The other damages were a dull ache compared to the fire blooming from his punctured lungs. No wonder it had been so hard to breath. Sometimes not allowing yourself to feel the pain could be more dangerous than suffering through it.

Thor was by his side in a second, his booming voice asking if he was unwell.

"I'm fine," he hissed and looked up to find the archer smiling at him. Loki gazed back and pushed all the pain he was feeling into his eyes. He was tearing up, which was shameful in itself, but his battered body also started to shake uncontrollably.

"You are not well, brother!" Thor whined, holding him up to get a better look at him. "Have you been hiding your pain this whole time?"

"I'm surprised that you guessed as much, seeing as you are usually ignorant of my pain," Loki growled and closed his eyes. He wanted the team to see he was capable of suffering too, but he didn't want the brotherly affection it brought with it.

"You are the one who hides it so well, brother."

Loki opened his mouth to snap at him, but found it filling with blood. He choked and covered his mouth, feeling embarrassed further by his state.

Curse it all, my lungs have given up too quickly.

"What's going on?"

Everyone looked up at the voice and met Stark with a widearray of different greetings. Thor cheered for his return, but remained firmly by Loki's side. The others came forward and offered hugs and back slaps. One would think he had just returned from battle, rather than sleeping off a fever.

Loki followed him with his eyes until Stark's attention snapped to him. There was only a second of surprised before the calculating started.

"He needs those cuffs off," he said at last, coming over to crouch next to them. There was a spark of amusement in his eyes that he failed to hide, even as he looked over Loki.

"I am only allowed to remove them once he is at home," Thor recited as if reading from a manual. He looked at Stark as if he had gone mad.

"He can't heal unless you do, and if he can't heal, I'm pretty sure he's gonna drown in his own blood in a second here."

Thor's face paled considerably at his words, and he looked between both men. After a moment he whispered,"I did not bring the key."

Tony patted his back and smiled as he stood up. "I got this covered. Bring him with us."

Loki could hear Steve sputtering even as they left the room. Words like 'irresponsible' and 'madness' drifted through after them. Loki bit his tongue and promised himself that the man would be punished someday. Someday soon, he hoped.

"What's going on, Loki?" Came Stark's voice in his mind. It sounded concerned, upset even; where his face remained impassive. The mortal was as good a liar as he was.

"I did not allow myself to feel the pain until now. Which... May have been a mistake," Loki replied hesitantly.

He felt, rather than heard, Tony's laugh. It still brought him such fascination, how easily they had connected. He had struggled so hard to break past the magic barrier on the house and seek out a weakened mind to control. Then he found Tony Stark, sitting in a meeting with the Avengers while making up nasty names for each of them.

After some more careful examinations, Loki discovered that Stark was not weak in mind at all, just very open. So he attempted to sneak in and undermine the man's control over his brain.

Of course, it failed spectacularly, and what he got instead was something of a friend. Which was not, exactly, what he wanted, but apparently something he needed.

"Brother," Thor interrupted his thoughts, "do you promise to behave while the shackles are off?"

Loki sneered and managed to croak, "I shan't promise any such thing."

Thor's face darkened for a moment before Tony intervened. "Point Break, when does he ever behave? Don't take it like the rise of satan now." Tony strode into the room and pointed to a stool by a work table. "Sit him there."

"I cannot allow this with peace of mind if he does not swear to behave," Thor stated, still ushering Loki over to the stool.

Loki was still sneering until Tony caught his face in his hands and jerked his head up to look at him.
"Swear so we can get on with this," he ordered, looking Loki directly in the eye.

Loki managed to mutter, "you have my word..." Before twisted his head from the man's grip.

"You wanted these off, didn't you?" Stark's amused voice entered his mind.

Loki swore a colorful streak of curses at him, in almost every language he knew.

Tony, unfortunately, laughed out loud and had to stifle it while he picked up tools. Loki looked askance at his brother and held back a laugh of his own. Thor was looking a mixture of appalled and very confused at Stark's laugher. Perhaps a little frightened as well.

"Alright," Tony began as he turned around and brought his tools with him. " hold em up, Loki."

Loki glared at him for a solid minute before complying. The metal bit at his already sore skin, and the weight of them aggravated his broken wrist even more. He was unable to hold back the wince.

"Hang in there, Rudolf."

Loki bit back any scathing remarks and nodded, keeping his eyes on the shackles and not on the face that was pressed close to him. Stark's fingers were surprisingly delicate as they lifted the metal away from his skin. Loki forced himself to look up and caught the brown eyes narrowing at Loki's bruised wrists.

"This one's broken, isn't it?" Stark asked, not looking up from his work.

"I believe so, yes."

All he got was a grumble in response before the man slipped a large ball of cotton between the shackle and his wrist. Loki still felt the pressure, but it was a thousand times better than before.

"Thank you," he muttered, turning his eyes back to the scarred hands that had begun to pick and prod at the locks.

Stark nodded and started to work, now solely focused on the task in front of him. Loki had seen him in action before, often they would have conversations that would end abruptly when Stark began to work. Loki would still linger in the back of his mind, listening to the strings of thoughts he could hardly understand. It was stunning, how Stark processed information. He made connections that a lesser man would never dream of.

That was how their project had started in the first place. Stark was building a new weapon for his suit, something that didn't stun, but didn't kill either. He wanted them awake, but paralyzed. Loki had commented on seeing something of the sort in Stark's file. That had earned him a stony silence until he tried something else.

"Perhaps I can be of assistance, then?"

Loki felt the man scoff and lose focus on the invention in front of him. "And how exactly do you plan to do that, Casper?"

"I needn't be present to teach you about magic."

That had caught the man's interest in full. And so started their secret project. He gone come far, on his own and under Loki's tutelage. But there was only so much he could do without an actual source of magic. In the end, he had spent many hours awake trying to recreate the effect and failing. His friends had taken it was a mental break down. A relapse to the time where his woman had left him.

At first they seemed concerned, and came to him gently to question him. As Stark brushed them off over and over again, their concern grew to annoyance. Loki was convinced that the Captain was simply jealous of Stark's intellect, until the man threatened him with locking him away in a facility.

Tony had been unresponsive for a long time after that, ignoring any of Loki's attempts to get a rise out of him. It was a while after Loki had given up that the man finally spoke to him again.

"They think I'm a crazy drunkard. It's like they can't see me at all."

Loki hummed and tried to think of a response. He felt a sadness creep over the connection and fill him. It felt a lot older than it should, if it was for his team's recent loss of affections.

"Perhaps you hide yourself too well," Loki said at last.

"I know I do," Tony replied quietly, "but sometimes I just wish someone would see that."

Loki had seen it, he had known from the start. Since they first spoke face to face, no mask or helmet between them. The man smiled, even as he spoke of revenge and battle. He drank calmly, wearing no armor or weapon. Loki knew, even then, how impressive the mortal's mask truly was.

There was an audible 'pop' when the cuffs snapped open. Loki could not hold back the whimper of pain as the built up magic clawed at his insides to escape. He met brown eyes for a second before the magic exploded from him in a wave.

Both Stark and Thor were throw backwards, each landing heavily with a grunt. Stark, unfortunately, went back first into the table behind him and fell to the floor. Loki panicked and tried to reign the magic back into himself, all the while healing his wounds. The holes in his magic were slower to heal, but he forced the untamed magic to assist him with them. After a long moment, his body grew whole again. He felt wonderful for the first time in years. Wonderful, and free.

"I should have expected that," Stark mumbled from the floor.

"I did not intend to harm you, if that is what you mean."

"That's not what I meant," Tony replied as he stood up. He winced sharply and placed his hands on his back. "I meant the overflow of magic. I'm surprised you didn't level the whole building."

Loki clicked his tongue and came over to him, laying a hand on his side. Stark blinked at him in mild confusion until he felt Loki's power bleed into him to heal his bruised back. "Mm, thanks."

"Of course," Loki replied smoothly.

"So, how does it feel?"

Loki smiled and flexed his fingers against Stark's hip before responding, "pleasant. Quite liberating, in fact."

Stark wriggled a little under his touch and met his eye. "Are you talking about losing the hand cuffs, or fondling my waist?"

Loki smirked and opened his mouth to answer, only to be interrupted by Thor.

"Brother, you promised!"

Loki turned sharply and narrowed his eyes at the oaf. "There was nothing I could do about that. Have I not proven myself already by healing your precious comrade?"

Tony snorted at his words and slipped away from his touch while Loki was distracted. He glanced back at the mortal with a small frown and let his hand drop. He could still feel the warmth on his fingers.

"Man of Iron, now that he has healed," Thor began, looking at Loki with regret, "it is time to place them back upon his wrists."

"Actually, about that..." Tony replied with a grin.

Loki hide his smile and leaned back to watch the fellow lie-smith work.