The leaves filter the light until there is a faint glow over his skin, dappled patches of brightness leaking through the canopy overhead. It's a day that is hot in the most awful way; sticky and airless and intrinsically lethargic.

They're both sprawled under that huge tree in Luke's backyard, because Tony doesn't want to deal with Howard and Luke's in trouble with his dad (again, for, like, the billionth time). They're both sweating, and too fucking lazy to move, a tangle of Luke's long limbs and Tony's stockier ones.

Tony's talking, because the even the goddamn end of the world isn't capable of shutting Tony Stark up. He's going on and on about how he wants his new baby to sound badass, but, y'know, robot-y.

His 'babies' are all Artificial Intelligence units he's developed from scratch, with only Luke for aid. Luke's the only guy he'd trust with this sort of shit, the tech that is kinda his life.

The first was Dum-E, who can't do shit but is awesome simply cause they made him. And there's You, and Butterfingers and TERRA the Terminator (that happened cause Luke was high and spent hours creating a bot for the sole purpose of getting on his dad's nerves).

And now, JARVIS. It stood for Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System; okay, it was a shit name, but Tony wants a tribute to the real Jarvis and it was better than Totally Epic Robotic Rover of Awesomeness.

And he's been weighing the merits of a Russian woman versus a cowboy accent versus a British butler.

And Luke hasn't spoken a damn word for a fucking hour and that causes Tony to slowly trail off with a suspicious look on his face.

"I'm thinkin' I'll program it to call you His Royal Highness of Asshollery."

Luke grunts.

"We'll invite Amora over. Every damn day."

Luke doesn't react.

Tony rolls onto his side and regards him with that can be termed as a very nasty stink eye. Luke is staring into space with the kind of stare that means he's thinking.

(Last time Luke had that look, the whole of Hammer Corp found a video in their inboxes that depicted Justin Hammer dirty dancing on Luke's kitchen table. Tony is terrified of that look.)

Luke doesn't move. He's lost, and unmoving, and looks almost scared.

Okay, now Tony's kinda freaked out. "The hell, man? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Tone," Luke says, quietly, lowly, voice scratchy and husky and frightened and small and so many things that sets off a bunch off alarms in Tony's head. "I had a dream."

"We all dream, Luke. Every damn night."

Luke ignores him, and lies there, and Tony feels like there's something closing in on his throat, though he doesn't know why. The sudden, blatant fear in Luke makes him scared because Luke's never scared because he has the self-preservation instinct of a two-year-old raised in a severely sheltered environment. And that makes Tony's heart beat faster and his goddamn adrenal glands are stimulated even though neither of them have moved.

"What happened?" Tony breathes, and his voice is shaky. "Luke, has something happened?"

"In my dream," says Luke, "I was fire. And I burned."

"You were on fire?"

"No…I was fire. And I was burning everything."

And then they're silent, because Luke's scared and Tony has no idea what the fuck he was supposed to say, because what the fuck are you supposed to say to that?

"And…" Tony squeezes Luke's hand, and they're both shaking, and Tony doesn't know why. "You're scared?"

"I am," Luke whispers. "But not because of that. I'm scared because I was happy. In the dream, I was fucking dancing, and the world was burning, and I was dancing in the ashes."

This is fucked up.

They lie there, and Luke's killing Tony's hand, he's clinging onto it like it's a lifeline. And maybe it is.

Tony knows Luke isn't normal, from his little smiles and zone-outs and how fucking amazing his brain is and the way he knows things he shouldn't and how he's a damn shadow, and he was pretty much mischief personified. And this is just another jarring result of his severely fucked up imagination. Tony knows imagination, and knows that Luke has it in an abundance that isn't mentally stable.

This is just another weird Luke dream, and they'll both forget it soon, when Tony's programming JARVIS and Luke's sneaking in lines of code that will probably make him a bucket of witticisms and sass.

But Tony feels something, something he can't name, as they both lie there.

For a frightening moment, he feels tiny. And that's weird, because Tony Stark is damn huge, but in that fraction of a second that they will probably forget very soon, he feels like a speck of dust.

And Luke, his Luke, Luke who is closer to him than he can dare contemplate, Luke who is tattooed onto his mind, every heartbeat, is a sandstorm.

Tony is a moth, and Luke is a flame. And he isn't a candle flame-he's a sun.

And years later, they will be closer, and they will be ripped apart. Years later, though Tony can't know it now, he will have a hole in his chest that glows and Luke will be like shattered glass; broken, sharp, and beautiful.

And years later, Luke will know that he isn't Luke, was never Luke, though he is Luke and was always meant to be Luke. Years later, Luke will be Loki, always was Loki.

Neither of them can know it, though.

Years later, Luke will burn, and take the world down with him. Years later, Luke will rise from the ashes-a phoenix.

Though, for now, Tony blinks himself out of that jarring fear that makes his heart twist.

"Jeez, dude, calm the fuck down. If you ever want to burn the world down, I'll dance in the ashes with you."

Luke smiles, "I'll hold you to that, Stark."

"Whatever," Tony says dismissively. "What do you think I should do to JARVIS's voice, though? A me-stimulation?"

"God, no. One Tony Stark is enough."

"Just my voice, Luke!"

"Your voice grates on my nerves."

"You have wet dreams about my voice."

Luke retches, and they both laugh.

(But Luke feels-feels strange, like his steps are measured, and when he closes his eyes he sees a vast tree that maps out the cosmos, and feels chaos and death at his fingertips.)