Tony was scared. He wasn't sure why he didn't try to reach out to Loki, to try to make things okay, but he was utterly afraid of what was going to happen. If he lost Loki…

He shook his head, trying to keep his shaking body still, but his knee kept jumping with the nervous anticipation. Tony was absolutely sure that Loki would notice soon enough and would call at any time. For the love of god, they were reporting about his so-called affair on every tabloid site, show, and magazine! It was only a matter of time.

"Jarvis, did he notice yet?" He actually had his A.I. spying on Loki for him and while he felt bad about that, his heart needed a warning for the inevitable.

"No, sir. He is still viewing the movie with Thor."

"Let me know the instant that changes," Tony said, standing from his perch on the couch and heading over to his bar. He went to grab a drink but stopped himself, thinking better of it. He needed to be sober when Loki called.

Instead, Tony filled his time with tinkering. He really should have been working on the paperwork he hadn't finished the night before, but his mind was elsewhere. There was no way he would be able to concentrate like this. After a good thirty minutes of mindless fiddling, Tony jolted when his phone rang.

Grabbing at it, he answered with a desperate, "Loki!"

"No, it's Pepper," she greeted. "I'm at your place and I'm coming up."

"Pepper—"

She hung up, leaving Tony to groan and press the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Jarvis, make sure you still—"

"I will warn you of Master Loki's call."

"Good," Tony sighed. He crossed the living room just as the elevator dinged, announcing its occupant. Pepper stepped out and he greeted, "Welcome to my penthouse!"

She whacked him with her purse. "Why are you so cheerful? Did you not see the news?"

Tony's small smile disappeared. "Yes, it's all I've been thinking about this morning."

"How did Loki take it?"

"Er… he didn't?"

"Tony!" she cried, smacking him a second time in the chest with her heavy bag.

Tony didn't defend himself. "Please hit me more because I already know I deserve it!"

She shook her head, looking at him threateningly. "No, I'll leave that up to Loki."

"Ugh, did you come over just to do this to me?"

She straightened, stringing her bag back over her shoulder and then gestured to the three files stacked in her arm. "I came to talk about these reports on Howard's crash."

Tony took the top one off of the stack, his eyes on her with suspicion. "You went through these that fast?"

"Well, while you were partying last night and bumming around this morning, I actually did some investigating."

"And did you find anything?"

She looked uncertain. "That top file is your observations," she explained as he opened to look inside. "This next one is Obadiah's ordered investigation with the police."

She passed that one to him and Tony opened it, looking at the information inside. It looked almost identical to the information in Tony's file. "Are there any variants?"

Pepper nodded, putting the last file on top of the open one. "This is my file that compares the two. There are some subtle differences that seem… suspicious. You will definitely have to keep your eye on Obadiah." She opened her file and pointed at the first paragraph. "This is a comparison with the layout of the crash. The police reported that Howard was killed due to a car crash that smashed on the right side of the limo, hitting Howard directly. But like you said, if Howard was sitting on his usual side, he might have survived. However, it doesn't end there." She slid her finger down to the next bit of information. "I detailed the differences on how the crashed were described. Your investigators included a picture that wasn't added to Obadiah's report. The photo shows the angle of how the car was hit…"

Tony flipped open the other file to look back at the picture. In it, the car was smashed up on the right side, just as defined in the police report. "What about it?" Tony asked slowly, clearly missing something.

Pepper smiled triumphantly, knowing that she had come to a conclusion before Tony for once. "The angle of how it was hit! It couldn't have hit Howard head on. He sat here, near the back of the limo," she said, sweeping an invisible circle around that section of the limo behind the mangled dent in the car. "The other car hit angling towards the front of the car, towards the driver, which is of course why the driver also died. But that would mean just serious injuries for Howard. I just don't see how Howard would have died when the car being hit was so indirect. The car didn't roll."

"We're grasping at straws," Tony said. "But it's looking more and more as if this accident wasn't really an accident."

"Right," Pepper said. "So we need to get our hands on some autopsy reports and I think you should do a little snooping on Obadiah. There does seem to be something weird about all of this."

Tony breathed in, wary of it all. "What if we turn out to be all wrong? We're going to waste a lot of hours on this."

Pepper nodded. "Yeah, but like you said, it could be right. Honestly, Tony, it's up to you on what you want to do with this."

Tony bit his lip, setting the files down on the coffee table. "I don't know, I guess I will go through the rest of the files to triple check before we take this a step forward. I'll see if there are any other pieces of the puzzle hidden in these somewhere."

"I'm willing to go through these again," Pepper said, stepping around him and heading towards the couch nearest to her. She slumped down, kicking off her heels and patted the seat beside her.

Tony took out and glanced briefly at his phone, checking to make sure that there still weren't any missed calls from Loki. Nope, there was nothing. "Jarvis?"

"The movie has not yet ended, sir," Jarvis replied.

Tony replaced the phone in his pocket and went to sit by Pepper. He had to move the electronics that he had been messing with out of the way before sitting next to her. Then he grabbed Obadiah's file while Pepper went through Tony's.

She flipped another page but paused. "So what was that about?"

"What was what?" he asked, glancing up from the page he had not yet tried to read.

"What Jarvis told you?"

Tony casted her a sheepish look. "Well, I'm kinda making Jarvis warn me the second it looks like Loki will call me. That way I can be mentally prepared."

She sneered at him with disgust. "I don't understand why you don't call him. It would hurt less coming from you than a news report or something."

Tony tensed. "I don't want to bring on the consequences any earlier than I have to."

"You're a coward," she said, shaking her head, continuing to page through the report.

"Believe me, I know," Tony replied. Then he got to work.

Not long had passed and Tony was already tired because of the boring reports but he was mostly exhausted because of the emotional drainage. Every second was spent thinking of Loki and how things were going to play out. Honestly, he wasn't helping Pepper at all with this mindset.

"Sir," Jarvis interrupted him suddenly. Tony's heart burst into a pounding pace. "Master Loki has just found the news on his phone. I suspect he will be calling you soon."

"Shit!" Tony cried, knocking his files onto the ground, sending the pages everywhere. He went to pick them up, but Pepper held a hand out to stop him and instead started to gather them herself. Meanwhile, Tony struggled the phone his pocket. For the love of god, this was not the time for his phone to get stuck in his pants!

When he had finally gotten it out, he stood and held the phone out in front of him, looking at it as if it would explode. He braced his other hand on his hip and walked in that awkward pose over to the full wall length window and looked out at New York City as he waited.

Minutes ticked by.

Then Loki's ring tone finally floated quietly from his phone, which almost sounded eerie in the silence of his apartment. Behind him, Pepper shuffled some papers and he could feel her heavy gaze turn away as she tried to give him a little privacy.

Shaking, Tony answered the call. "Loki?"

"Tony," the flat reply came. A short pause and then, "Really?"

"Loki, I…" he trailed off, not knowing where to even to begin his apology.

There was soft and defeated sigh on Loki's end. Tony's heart jolted at the sound; this wasn't at all how he wanted Loki to feel. "I don't even know what to say," Loki said finally. Again, his tone sounded level and flat, but Tony knew that Loki was holding out on him. There was rage and pain behind those calm words.

"I didn't know what I was doing. I was drunk," Tony said quickly but then cringed at his own words. It sounded so cliché and fake. "I really didn't mean for that to happen, Loki."

There was another pause. "I don't… get an apology?" The words weren't so level anymore. Loki's voice broke on the last word and Tony suddenly was aware of how deeply he had cut Loki's trust.

Tony blinked away tears and moved his free hand to clutch at his throbbing chest. "I'm sorry, Loks. I'm so, so, so sorry but I know that that won't help. I know that saying sorry won't fix this, but I will do everything to show you that I do love you. Because I do, Loks. You are the only one for me. I love you."

Loki sniffed. Ah, there it is. There was the emotion Tony had expected. But just because Tony had expected this reaction, didn't mean that it didn't hurt any less. He despised himself for making Loki go through this. Loki sniffed again, "You're an ass."

"I know I am."

"But I am too."

Tony frowned, incredulous. "Don't be ridiculous, Loks. I know what I did wrong, just hit with all you've got. Please yell at me, okay? Please?"

"No," Loki hissed, sounding winded. "I'm at fault here too. I didn't support you. I should've stayed in New York with you."

"Don't you dare put that on yourself!" Tony growled, suddenly angry. He was angry on Loki's behalf. "You did absolutely nothing to deserve the shit I gave you. Don't you dare take the blame!"

"How?" Loki sobbed. The sob sent a spear through Tony but he basked in it, trying to cover the guilt that was eating away at him. Loki's sobs continued, "How am I not supposed to blame myself when my boyfriend doesn't want me?"

"Fuck, Loks," Tony replied. He felt ripped to shreds. "I love you! You hear me? You are perfect in every fucking way and I love you. You got that?"

Loki mumbled something inaudible.

"What was that?"

Loki spoke a little louder, "Even with my—"

"I love every part of you, Loks," Tony declared, determined to make him understand. "No matter what your body is doing, I love you, the soul inside the body."

It went quiet on Loki's end. "I love you too, Tony," was Loki's soft reply.

Tony's disbelief was tenfold. Loki was actually letting him off easy and it was clear that he did not yet understand that Tony did not blame him.

Tony pressed his forehead to the window pane and said lowly, "Loki, you have to yell at me. You have to do something to make me feel like the piece of shit that I am."

Loki sighed, "I don't want to do that."

"Yes, you do. Don't hold back on me."

"I don't want to," Loki spat back, his agitation growing.

Tony took that as a good sign. "Harry Potter sucks."

"What?" Loki gasped, sounding utterly offended. "I know what you are trying to do and don't you dare bring this—"

"And star-gazing is for losers!"

"Tony, stop!" Loki's voice was increasing in volume.

Tony closed his eyes, preparing himself before saying, "And you have a scrawny ass."

Loki's reaction was instantaneous. "Tony, you fucking asshole! Are you kidding right now? First you cheat on me with some random floozy and—"

"She wasn't a floozy—"

"—Shut up! I'm not done! First you do that and now you bring up the one thing I told you to never every bring up again! We talked about this!"

"So me talking about your scrawny ass is what really makes you mad?" Tony pushed.

"Yes, you asshole! Do you even have a brain! I will kill you, Stark. You better not sleep tonight, because you can be assured that I will slaughter you brutally before you even get into REM sleep!"

"Stark? Ah, you're bringing out the pet names."

Loki groaned loudly and childishly. "You are the worst. The absolute worst! I wish I could just STRANGLE you right now!"

Tony didn't even have to prompt Loki to continue.

"The next time I see you, Stark, I will make you regret that you ever came to love me. You will piss yourself with fear."

"I would never regret you, Loks," Tony said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

Finally there was silence on Loki's end, followed by another defeated exhale. "What are we going to do?"

Tony could feel his thudding heart slowing. "I'm getting on my private jet and I'm coming to you, okay? I need to make this okay. I need you to let me show you how much I love you."

"All you have to do is promise that this will never happen again," Loki said quietly. "That's all I need."

"I'm going to promise to you when I see you," Tony assured him. "I don't want to leave this over the phone. I want to you to look me in the eye when I tell you that I love you and I will not do something like this again."

Tony could hear Loki breathing through the phone and he waited, letting Loki decide what their fate would be. Whatever Loki said after this point, he would try to respect it and understand, but he promised himself long ago that he would never let Loki slip away again. Even if Loki said that he never wanted to see Tony again, Tony wouldn't be able to accept it. Not really.

"Okay," Loki said finally. "You better come quickly."

"I'm leaving now."

"Be safe," Loki said.

"I will. I love you."

Loki hung up.

Tony took the phone from his ear and spun around to face Pepper. She was already standing with the files stacked on the coffee table. "I'm assuming that we will continue this when I come back next weekend?"

"You are one smart cookie," Tony smiled. He brushed past her and grabbed his keys. "Now you have to leave so I can get out of here. I have a plane to catch."

There has been an influx of chapters, which you've probably noticed. This is due to my participation in National Writer's Month! Cheer me on, guys. I need to write every day this month.