A/N: Hi, everyone! Thank you all for the lovely feedback! You guys are all the best.

I don't really like the first two sections of this chapter, though I was relieved to get them done. It finishes up the rest of the first Iron Man movie. The last section is one of my favourites, however.

I hope you guys enjoy! :D Comments will be fawned over. :)


Loki's visits weren't as frequent as they had been before Tony's time in Afghanistan, as Thor was still dragging him around the Nine Realms. It seemed each visit was taking progressively more time, at least to Tony. Loki seemed to agree with the sentiment. Meanwhile, Tony was finishing up his suit, and, perhaps more importantly, looking into his own company.

He was testing out his flight stabilizers when Jarvis informed him Obadiah was upstairs. Normally, Pepper might have been around to do it, but he had been granting her access to his lab less and less since Afghanistan. No one but Loki and Jarvis knew about the Mark II, and even though he trusted Pepper, it was going to stay that way.

Tony sighed heavily and jogged upstairs only to find that Obie had brought pizza. Well, that was never good. "How'd it go? It went that bad, huh?"

"Just because I brought pizza back from New York does not mean it went bad."

"Sure doesn't. Oh, boy." Tony snagged a slice of pizza.

"It would have gone better if you were there."

"You told me to lay low. That's what I've been doing. I lay low, and you take care of all-"

"Hey, come on! In public. The press. This was a board of directors meeting."

"This was- this was a board of director's meeting?"

"The board is claiming you have post-traumatic stress. They're filing an injunction."

An injunction, huh? They were going to try to lock him out of his own company. Tony felt rage boil up inside him. Well, he sure as hell wasn't going to let them get away with that. But, he had his own suspicions as to who was selling his weapons under the table, so he played the fool, just like Obie expected. "A what?"

"They're gonna lock you out."

You're going to lock me out, Tony thought somewhat bitterly, but that wasn't confirmed yet. He still held out a sliver of hope that maybe Obie hadn't betrayed him. "What, because the stock dipped forty points? We knew that was gonna happen."

"Fifty six and a half."

"It doesn't matter. We own the controlling interest in the company."

"Tony, the board has rights too." Talking to him like he was a child, just like he always had. Like he was some kind of puppet to be controlled by a fatherly presence and a few choice words. He was fed up with it. "They're making the case that you and your new direction isn't in the company's best interest."

It was in everyone's best interest! "I'm being responsible! That's a new direction. For me. For the company. I mean, for me on the company's behalf, being responsible for the way that. . . . This is great." He turned to leave.

"Oh, come on. Tony! Tony!" The way that he called his name grated on his nerves; he didn't have the right to call him that anymore. They weren't friends. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so prone to giving in to Loki's demands that he go by Anthony and not Tony in his life.

"I'll be in the shop."

"Hey, hey! Hey, Tony, listen, I'm trying to turn this thing around, but you've gotta give me something. Something to pitch them. Let the engineers analyze that." He pointed to the arc reactor. "Draw up some specs."

Like hell! "No. No, absolutely not."

"It'll give me a bone to throw to the guys in New York!"

"This one stays with me. That's it, Obie, forget it."

Obie grabbed the pizza. "All right, well, this stays with me, then." There was a brief pause. "Go on, here, you can have a piece. Take two."

Tony grabbed half the pizza. "Thank you."

"Do you mind if I come down there and see what you're doing?"

"Good night, Obie."

Tony disappeared into his workshop and shoved the pizza into his mouth. Jackass. Bastard. Traitor. Gods it hurt. "Jarvis, do you have the financial reports back yet?"

"They are, Sir."

"Pull 'em up."

Tony barely had to glance at them to confirm his suspicions. Obie had been selling the weapons behind his back. He had been supplying terrorists with weapons that Tony had made.

He suddenly laughed bitterly. Maybe he should thank the Ten Rings; without them, he likely never would have realised there was a traitor in his midst. He never would have realised that Obadiah was lying to him. About everything.

"Anthony?" Loki's soft query broke through his bitter self-reflection.

"He's been betraying me," Tony blurted out immediately. "This whole fucking time, he's been betraying me. Lying to my face. The father I never had- hah! It's all been one big fucking joke."

Loki didn't say anything, but he slipped up behind him and wrapped his arms around Tony's chest, holding him.

Tony only stayed for a moment though; he was too angry to just sit there. He needed to do something. He needed to build something. "Jarvis, pull up the Mark II schematics. Let's get some of this done."

Loki was just standing, unmoving and unspeaking, his eyes on his hands as he fidgeted with them absently.

Tony paused as he started to get to work. "I'm probably not going to be very good company tonight. You don't have to stay." Please, please stay.

Loki looked up at him carefully, green eyes prying into his soul. He took two steps forward and put his hands on both sides of Tony's face, wrenching him upwards into a surprisingly soft kiss. "I'm not going anywhere, Anthony," he vowed quietly, the words carrying so much more weight and meaning than he had spoken.

Tony watched him for a moment, and then a faint smile lifted the corner of his mouth, made his brown eyes sparkle. "Hold this?" he tried, offering one of his tools, making the god useful.

Loki smiled back and took it, his eyes glowing. "With pleasure."

(0)-(0)-(0)-(0)-(0)

The party was dull. Pepper was freaking out because he'd asked for a dance. Even though he hadn't even looked at another girl or guy like that since Loki. Seriously, the god had a massive libido. No way in hell was he risking not being able to satisfy the Trickster by taking some random bimbo too bed. A reporter, one who had cornered him before he'd left for Afghanistan, she was there. And she showed him the pictures.

Tony had had a plan. He'd been going to play it cool with Obie, keep him out of his business, but not let on that he knew about the double dealing. Not yet. Not until he had a plan. But this. . . this was unacceptable.

Obie outright admitted to kicking him out of his own company.

Loki wasn't there when he got back to his mansion.

The suit was. And it was finished.

The Iron Man made his first appearances all over the news, and he told Rhodey the truth after some issues. Iron Man- he liked that. He had some trouble taking the suit off and Pepper found him. Now she knew. She said she wasn't going to watch him kill himself, but she didn't understand. None of them understood. Why couldn't they see that he was to blame?

Loki had been gone for too long; Tony hadn't seen him since he'd finished the suit. He wanted to show him, but he wasn't there.

Tony sighed, flopping down on the couch. Pepper was calling; he frowned down at the phone, but just as he moved to answer it a high pitched ringing went through his body and he froze. The phone was carefully removed from his hand and then a large hand was laying him down.

He couldn't move. He couldn't think. He could hardly breathe.

Obadiah was talking, but Tony wasn't listening. He was touching the arc reactor. No one was supposed to touch that, no one except him and Loki. Tony tried desperately to move, to stop him, to call out, to do anything, but his body wouldn't respond as the man he had once called his fucking father removed his heart from his chest.

Obie was gone, and he could literally feel the shrapnel continue to make their way closer to his heart with every panicked beat. He fell off of the couch and forced himself into the elevator. Down to the workshop, where that old arc reactor was, the one Loki had refused to destroy. He crawled across the metal floor, every movement laborious, every heartbeat taking him closer to death. The table was right there in front of him, and he reached for the reactor, but his fingers slipped and it fell to the floor on the other side of the table instead, magical glass not even cracking.

Tony slumped down to the floor, face ashen, counting his heartbeats and labored breaths, wondering how much longer it would be before death took him.

"Anthony!" an anguished cry ripped through the workshop, and then Loki was there, holding his heart in his hands, his hands slipping over Tony's prone, paralysed body. He already knew how to do this, and he connected the reactor as soon as possible. "Anthony, please," he murmured, sounding so fucking broken in that moment.

Tony reached out a hand and let it brush weakly by Loki's face. "Hey, Lokes," he coughed. "Have I ever told you that you have really spectacular timing?"

Loki breathed a shaky laugh, and though his bright green eyes still looked dangerously close to tears when he lifted them to meet Tony's, there was a deep seated rage simmering behind them. "Did he do this? That pathetic excuse of a mortal who dared to think himself able to outsmart you?"

Assuming that Loki had jumped to the correct conclusion, Tony nodded. "Yeah. J, get my suit."

"Anthony-" Loki started, but stopped after a single harsh look from the inventor.

"My responsibility, Lokes. This one's on me."

Loki fell silent as the suit closed around the mortal, only speaking once the faceplate had completely severed the pair of them. "Let me help?" It was a question, not a demand.

Tony hesitated briefly before nodding. "Yeah, just. . . don't kill him."

A flash of pain crossed Loki's eyes before he nodded slowly. "I will try."

(0)-(0)-(0)-(0)-(0)

"I am Iron Man."

Three weeks had passed since his sudden declaration, since Loki had been forced to rip Tony's hand from his old mentor in order to prevent Obadiah's last act from killing Tony. Loki probably could have saved them both, but Tony hadn't asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but, at the same time, Loki had looked damn exhausted. Maybe keeping himself hidden from all the cameras while he helped Tony fight had taken more out of him than the engineer had realised.

Loki had left almost directly after the fight, looking almost panicked as he did so. Tony hadn't been able to ask then, and he hadn't seen the god since as he'd been dealing with the fallout from his sudden revelation.

Tony sighed heavily, leaning back in the penthouse of his New York Tower. He'd been spending more and more time there since the incident at the Malibu Mansion. He'd had the couch replaced, but it was like there was still something in the air, something that reminded him of the near death incident.

There was a shimmer of green, and then Loki appeared, only not like normal. Rather than just a roll of green and gold going across the air, leaving Loki in its wake, this time it kept rolling over and over, and Loki wasn't solidifying. He looked like a crappy hologram transmission from Star Wars. And he was in pain.

Tony bolted off of his couch and rushed forward. About the same time that he reached him, Loki finally stopped shimmering and collapsed forward into his arms, his entire body trembling from head to toe.

Loki weighed a lot, and Tony stumbled under the heavy load, both of them falling backwards on the couch. "Lokes? Hey, Loki, talk to me, are you alright?"

The god groaned, the tremors going through his body in waves and making him clench his eyes in pain. What the hell was happening to him? "Magic. Returning. Can't-" Loki's incoherent explanation was cut off as he cried out suddenly, sharply in pain, slumping down on Tony's body. His next words were quiet and hoarse, but clear. "I'm sorry."

"Whoa, hey, this is not your fault," Tony was quick to assure. He didn't have any idea what "this" was, but Loki was here, with him, hurting, and since he had no idea how to fix it, he could at least try to make him feel better. "What can I do?"

Loki fucking whimpered, his hands clenching into fists as he curled in on himself as he laid basically on top of Tony. It wasn't particularly comfortable, for either of them, but like hell if he was moving before he knew what the god needed. "Just. . . don't leave," he finally whispered. "Please."

Shit. Loki didn't say please. Tony was quick to give his assent, "Yeah, you got it. Can I get you anything else? Ice cream? I have that minty green kind you like. Or pie? I don't even know if you like pie, but who doesn't like pie?" He was rambling; he knew he was rambling, but his badass, godly boyfr- best friend was currently curled up on top of him whimpering pathetically and he couldn't fix it. "Sorry. I. . . um. . . I'll shut up. Just tell me if you need something."

"Don't," Loki breathed in between the violent tremors going through him. Another one passed and he groaned before grinding out his clarification. "Don't stop talking."

Well that was something he could definitely do.

So Tony talked. He talked about the various models of the Iron Man suit on which he was already working. He bitched about Pepper making him do paperwork, although he would then stop and tell Loki how great she was. He told him about all the stupid government officials who wanted to steal his suit. He explained to Loki what he never seemed to be able to explain to anyone else, or, at least, what they never seemed to understand- he was Iron Man. There was no one without the other. They couldn't have the suit without him, and Pepper, well, she couldn't have him without the suit. Not that she could have had him anyway. He was taken. He didn't tell Loki that Pepper stuff though.

Through it all, Loki continued to whimper into his chest, shaking uncontrollably. He was frigid cold, reminding Tony of the other night he had come to him exhausted and freezing, but it hadn't been this bad then. He'd just needed to sleep. Was that what he needed now? Or had he contracted some kind of vicious alien version of the flu?

Eventually- Tony had no idea how long it had been, but the sun was beginning to turn orange and dip below the horizon- Loki stopped shaking. His breathing slowly evened out, and the pained whimpers and groans stopped. Tony had stopped talking a little while ago, just running his hand through Loki's short, sweaty hair. The god hadn't complained, but he hadn't pushed into the motion like he normally did either. Tony just hoped it was enough.

Slowly, the god shifted off of him, bloodshot eyes locked on Tony's shirt and not raising to meet his own gaze. "I'm sorry," he whispered again, sounding so damn small. "Thank you."

"Anytime, Lokes," Tony tried, but he didn't quite keep the waver out of his voice. Damn it all, he'd been scared! For his best friend! That wasn't weird! "I. . . . What was that?"

Loki flinched. "Magic," he said wearily with a sigh after a moment. He closed his tired eyes briefly before shifting off of Tony to sit beside him on the couch instead.

"Magic?" Tony prodded, though he knew he should probably just let the guy get some sleep. He needed to know what had happened. Mostly, he needed to know that Loki wasn't dying.

Loki sighed again, and Tony was about take it back when he started talking. "My magic is a force that lives inside of me. It is both an energy, and almost an entity, occasionally with its own wants and wishes, a form of intelligence unique unto itself. Through many years of meditation and internal reflection, I have bonded with my own power and gotten a trust so that it does as I command. That is what makes me a mage, or a sorcerer. The amount of magic that I hold naturally within myself, from birth, is what makes me a powerful mage. The amount of training, skill, and understanding I have with my magic is what makes me a great mage." Here, his lips tilted just slightly upwards with pride. Tony sure as hell didn't blame him. He was awesome.

The smile didn't last very long. "However, despite my quite substantial reservoirs of magic, it is not unlimited. Magic within me recovers through the absorption of natural magic from nature. Because I am of Asgard, my magic recovers best when I am on Asgard. The natural energies also assist me more when I perform basic spells; thus, it takes more of my personal power rushing through me when I do things on other planes. Normally, my magic remains inert within me, resting, if you well. When I use it, it rushes through my body. This feeling is. . . addicting.

"It can literally make one drunk on power; however, just like with alcohol or your Midgardian drunks, it also comes with a let down. We call this withdrawal. Some mages, in order to alleviate or prevent this feeling of powerlessness and the physical weakness that comes with it, try to continue using magic, having it all rush through them at once. This can cause an overload of magic and kill the mage."

Loki paused for a moment, brow furrowing in a very endearing way, despite the awe that Tony was currently feeling for him. Then Loki seemed to remember the point of this lecture. "Withdrawal varies depending on how much magic used at once. The more magic used, the more the rush of power, the worse the let down. However, there are ways. . . to prevent magic from returning. This is generally a temporary thing, for permanently cutting of a mage from their magic can cause very painful death. Regardless, when the magic returns after being gone, it all rushes through your body. It rather feels like your entire body is on fire. Following that initial wave, the restoration of the magic sends withdrawal pains through the body in waves. This way it does not kill you like overloading would, but it is. . . unpleasant."

Loki finished, and Tony was so busy making a ton of metal notes about things he wanted to investigate further that he almost missed the fact that he had just explained what had just happened. "Wait, so. . . somehow you were prevented from getting your magic back normally right away from nature, and then it all came back in a rush and put you through hell. Is that about right?"

The mage considered for a moment and then nodded. "In a manner of speaking. Calling it Hel might be a bit of an overstatement, though."

Tony eyed him skeptically. "You said it felt like your entire body was on fire. And then you spent the next," he checked his phone, "two hours laying on top of me shaking in pain."

Loki winced at the reminder and then shrugged. "I've had worse." Like that was supposed to make this better. "And I said I was sorry for that. I should not have burdened you with this. I simply needed to. . . get away."

Tony frowned heavily. "Loki, you are welcome here, always. You don't have to apologise. If you ever feel like shit or need to crash, or need literally anything, come here. I'll do whatever I can." When the god wouldn't meet his eyes, Tony grabbed his chin in an action he didn't normally dare to even think about doing, and pulled the god's head up to look at him. "You can always come here, Loki."

Loki held his gaze for a long moment before his lips twitched. "I'll remember that."

"You better," Tony responded with a smirk that quickly fled. "Why wasn't your magic coming back normally?"

Loki started avoiding his eyes again. "It was. . . punishment."

Tony just blinked. "What?"

"My magic was recognised by Heimdall during our fight. He didn't pry any further, but it was still reported that I had somehow snuck away to Midgard and was using magic there. This was punishment."

"What?" Tony repeated, aghast. "Who did that?"

"The All-Father," Loki answered, like it was the most common thing in the world to declare that your father had just put you through hell as a punishment.

Judging by Loki's expression, maybe it was normal. And that just made Tony even more mad. "What the hell? That is so not okay. Why would your fucking father do that?"

"He is not just my father, Anthony, he is the king," Loki reminded him, but there was a weariness in his eyes. "He. . . does not approve of my magic. Or me, in general. He and the rest of Asgard just wish that I were like the rest of them, and he attempts at every turn to curb the behavior which is deviant and displeasing to them." Loki suddenly smirked, "It doesn't usually have any lasting effects."

"That is still seriously fucked up. You realise how fucked up that is, right? I mean, why do you even go back there?"

A pained expression crossed his face. "I have, at times, asked myself the same question. But despite what an idiotic oaf he is, Thor is still my brother. He will rule, and I will be by his side when that day comes. Perhaps I'll even manage to stay his hand from war." Loki heaved a sigh, but then his next words were softer. "Also, I could not leave my mother."

Oh, right. Tony had almost forgotten about the Queen that Loki had mentioned that one time. Even in the few words spoken of her, his love had been clear. Well, at least somebody in god-land treated him well. "It's still fucked up," Tony announced.

Loki smiled faintly. "Many things are."

Tony eyed him almost suspiciously for a moment, the self-deprecating words of when he had crashed on his bed before Afghanistan running through his head. Loki didn't think he deserved it, right? When the god suddenly arched an eyebrow, Tony realised he'd been staring for a while and suddenly grinned. "Speaking of things that are fucked. . . ." He trailed off, waggling his eyebrows.

Loki laughed out loud, but his expression turned tired after a moment. "Perhaps tomorrow. I'm afraid my body is still recovering."

Tony nodded, "Yeah, sure, you got it. Bed?" He stood and offered his hand.

Loki smiled gratefully up at him and took it with a smile. "Bed," he agreed.


A/N: Couple things:

First, I purposefully had Tony know about Obie selling his weapons before the party and the pictures of Gulmira. I know that it's not cannon, but it was the way it worked for this. He still didn't find out that Obie had paid for him to be killed until later, and, yes, that kind of got glossed over. Sorry about that; I was really eager to be done with the first movie.

Second, again, the magic in this story is of my own creation. I sort of feel bad for having Loki give a long lecture about it, but I personally love magic systems, figuring them out, and explaining them, so it kind of got away from me. On the plus side, at least now most of it's out of the way. :)

Thanks for reading!