A/N:
1) I'm back finally - and sorry for dissapearing for so long. I returned from taking care of my father to find all my pet canaries dead or dying(in my hands), and myself fired, though despite practicality it is the former which has taken the most out of me, and for a long time, I haven't been able to even think about writing (though that's probably a good thing since as you may know when I'm depressed I write tragedies WITH tragic endings, not just liberal angst along the way).
Anyway I hope that these first efforts do not dissapoint (I cannot tell if I'm entirely happy with how they turned out but I can't say I'm happy with much lately so I suppose I may be a biased jury).
In any case, I hope to be updating more regularly.
2) Sincere thanks for reviews and encouragement goes to: IONCTM, my feathererd scales, kitkatthevampirelover92, Escaped Ninja, HowlynMad, Kina-chan, Petaldancer, farawisa, samiam13, mrmistoffelees, Foxyperv, MilhyWayGalaxy, princessofwarriors, and sami1010220. As usual, I'll respond via PM to anyone I can.
Also, thanks for all the faves, alerts, etc, it is most encouraging.
3) On a lighter note, I have made and posted fanfic covers for all my fics, and since the resolution here is terrible and they look awful (not complaining... images take up so much cyberspace), I also posted full-res versions on my tumblr, which is: astragalactic dot tubmlr dot com (spaces removed of course)... so if any of you are digital-art afficionados like myself, enjoy!
4) Finally, for any Holmes fans out there, "Dynamics of an Asteroid" is a non-crossover fanfic that I'm writing which spans AGOS, the Great Hiatus, and beyond... so if youre interested, uhhhh...there that is.
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Loki knows that Tony has gone to his shop. He can sense the mortal now that he is attuned to him, but fights back the urge to follow, knowing that he is the last person in the nine realms that Tony needs to see.
When morning comes, he expects to be kicked out of this place, sent far away from the mortal he'd tried to kill – probably to a SHIELD operated prison which Loki has no intention of remaining in, for all that he has absolutely nothing left to fill the emptiness that aches within him.
He supposes he'll leave this realm when that happens, as he can no-longer try to rule this lesser world – not with his lost mortal love reborn as one of its protectors – and to stay here, so close to a person who will be forever out of his reach is far too painful.
Asgard is not home to him – never has been, for all that Thor wishes it to be so - and at this point no realm will welcome him, leaving Loki only the fate of wandering forevermore, never to find rest or home… never to find peace… never to find the love that he so carelessly destroyed. And really, that is ok, because in the end, he knows it is all he deserves.
Tony's footsteps which still betray a slight limp echo in the hall, and Loki shivers, feeling himself freeze and crack from the inside out as he braces for his inevitable exile from the one place he longs for the most and deserves the least.
Instead he hears the mortal archly dismissing the cadre of SHIELD guards and their medical staff, insisting that he can take care of himself, and that he trusts JARVIS more than their doctors where his health is concerned anyway.
It takes three calls to Fury for the mortal to accomplish that end, and though the mortal seems to derive some satisfaction from going against the grain with his sharp wit and chosen near-isolation, by the time he does manage to eject from his house the unwanted personnel, he is clearly exhausted.
The mortal disappears into his shop for the rest of the day, and when Thor arrives to drag Loki out of his room, because the Avengers have ordered pizza, Tony is nowhere to be seen.
Loki sighs internally, knowing that the mortal needs sustenance to heal but likely feels too sick to eat, and the guilt churning inside him leaves little room for anything else, despite the Thunderer's encouragement and his supportive proximity which provide a soothing counterbalance to the glares coming from the rest of the team at the far side of the room, for all that Loki tells himself he doesn't care.
The next morning, Loki sees the mortal in the kitchen, making something in the Midgardian contraption called a blender, which should be a consolation …. but the mortal looks tired and gaunt, and Loki finds himself retreating silently…. retreating from a sight which has become too painful to dwell on, if only because of how much it reminds him of his lost detective.
Holmes had the tendency to wear himself thin from neglect when working on a case, and the one which ultimately cost the detective his life had taken everything out of him.
Tony on the other hand, based on what Loki's heard of Pepper's complaints, is the same way when he's buried in one of his projects, but he's physically escaped the worst of self starvation, largely because of Pepper – and blenders – and his ever-present robots, so to see him looking as pale and gaunt as in the last days of his previous life – all because of what Loki had done to him ….. hurts.
It is a crippling consuming ache rooted deep within him – one that nothing can alleviate, and back in his room, Loki sits silently by the window staring sightlessly out at an ocean which is now raging just like the misery filling him, and waits for the inevitable pain of a rejection which he knows he deserves.
By the third day, Loki simply locks the door to his room, ignoring both Thor's insistent knocking and his pleas, just as the computer's announcements of meal-times go entirely unheeded. After all the only announcement that can matter will come with or without his cooperation. The doors here listen to Tony Stark without question.
And so he waits, in a vaguely numb state that is beyond hope and fear and dominated largely by desolation, for all that he cannot help himself from falling victim to his own treacherous thoughts, because this experience of being trapped in the face of an inescapable doom is new to him.
For all the centuries he's lived and for all the danger he has faced, he had never tasted true hopelessness before, he had never had to endure the certainty of destruction that he could not avoid or prevent, never before had to watch and wait for the coming devastation….. until now.
Before there had always been the certainty that his magic would overcome what strength alone couldn't, the certainty that his near-immortality would ensure his survival…. but now, in the face of this loss, neither of these facets of his nature can ease the pain in any way…. neither can protect him from the one event that will truly destroy him, and more than ever before he feels utterly vulnerable….. utterly mortal despite the magic tingling on his fingertips and the immortal blood in his veins.
For the first time he feels utterly doomed, and he cannot help but wonder…. Is this what Holmes had felt at Heilbronn when he'd been waiting for the torture to begin? Is this what he'd felt standing over the raging falls when he'd realized that he'd loose… that he'd die and so would everyone he'd ever cared for? Is this what he felt in his last moments, trapped in the icy waters that had ultimately killed him?
And what of this incarnation? Is this how he had felt just days ago when he was dying on that rooftop? Or the previous time he'd almost been killed… or the one before?
More than ever before, Loki thinks that he knows what it feels like to be mortal… to be powerless to ward off the imminent destruction that is the only fate left at this point …. because he knows that he cannot escape this. However far he runs, and however much he does, there is no salvation left for him… no victory… not even solace, and perhaps the most bitter truth of all is that he cannot even truly wish for it.
The computer's announcement that he hasn't moved for four days isn't surprising. Irritating, yes, but not surprising given that time has lost all meaning. And yet despite the fact that he can tell from the edge of hostility in the computer's otherwise polished tone that it does not want to talk to him – does not want him there at all – it is still faithful to its creator's requests:
"Mr. Stark told me to inform you that if you insist upon behaving like a potted plant, he will have you added to the watering rounds of his gardening robot."
Had circumstances been different, had Loki recognized the mortal before that fateful fight, he would have laughed at this announcement and he would have found some hope in it…. because some things truly hadn't changed between the incarnations of his lost love.
Like before, the mortal could always be relied on to find solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems – in this case the interference Loki had been giving off – like before he is entirely tactless when it comes to complaining about lack of new data and the boredom that results from such a state, and in all, despite the changes in times and technology, his acerbic humor really hasn't changed either.
Now, though, those same parallels that he cannot help but draw…. because he recognizes so much of his lost detective in the inventor… serve only to remind him of everything that he had loved in that previous life and yet had been so very eager to destroy in this one.
Just as he opens his mouth to ask the computer a question of his own - to ask when he will be sent away, because that is indeed the only question that remains – but before he gets out a single word, it is Tony's voice that comes over the intercom, calm and confident, but still laced with the burning need to know that has never left him, and a hint of a challenge:
"Why don't you ask me yourself."
The intercom cuts off immediately after, not waiting for any reply on Loki's part, but there is nothing subtle about the – louder than normal – hiss of the door unlocking, and Loki finds himself rising to answer this final call, thinking bitterly to himself "And so it begins…. so it ends", because time has at last ran out, and there is no point in denying it.
There is only one way this can end – Loki know this – and yet his own ever-active mind … one more of those things that had drawn him and the detective together so long ago …. cannot so simply give in to the fact, because in the too-little time he'd had with Holmes in that life, for all that he'd failed to realize until it was too late, he had learned the other's mannerisms, and for all that many differ in this new incarnation, he imagines that enough remains the same for him to be able to read those unspoken gestures…. and the mortal's tone when he'd spoken just moments earlier does not tell Loki what he expects to hear.
Where Holmes had been stoically reserved, Tony is more bitingly sarcastic in a far more obvious way. Where the detective had hidden his human emotions beneath the façade of non-existence, the inventor hides them behind a mask of bitter humor and false smiles…. but in the end, both of these obvious traits boil down to armor, and Loki suspects that the differences in the way this shell is shaped are entirely due to the social factors that had changed in just over a century.
The rest is almost entirely unchanged…. unsettlingly so…. and it is the calm confidence in those words that bothers Loki the most – because it doesn't match with the steely coolness with which Holmes would manage to civilly converse with his worst enemies, it isn't the armored veneer that even his closest friend could rarely ever see past. This calm is something more open, more honest…. and though Loki can tell that the mortal is far from relaxed in making this request – demand, whatever – the currents that bubble in the mortal's tone are more ones of curiosity and an uncharacteristic amount of uncertainty that what should be there.
Descending the stairs, Loki sighs once more, because despite all the similarities he sees between the two, he cannot help but thinks that it is only a masterful deception – his best so far – with which he has blinded himself to reality…. because his assessment of the mortal's state of mind based on his voice alone…. simply cannot be right.
Trying to ignore the feeling of ice seeping though his veins, Loki raises his hand to knock on the locked door, but never gets the chance because it unlocks in response to his arrival, and torn between what he knows and the reality which contradicts, he pulls the door open and steps into the controlled chaos within the shop.
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