"Are you actually Loki?" He asked for the third time, and for the third time the cat narrowed his eyes at him and glared daggers. "Okay, yes, sorry. Only, I've sort of been hallucinating off and on... you know what, that's fine, real or not, hi."
The cat—Loki, shifted a little closer and tilted his head to the side in a way that was far too cute for the person hiding inside that little fuzzy body.
Don't say it, don't say it, don't say, 'cute'.
"So, uh..." Tony murmured, trying to rub the tired out of his eyes. It wasn't working. "You gonna stay a cat, then?"
Loki nodded and flicked his tail.
"Why? Wait, yes or no questions, right. Are you a cat because of the contract? Like, you couldn't come back as—no? Okay, so are you going to change back?"
The cat meowed, shook his head, and hunkered down in a way that said, 'I'm here to stay', which was both worrying because, cat, and a little heart-warming because, Loki. Staying was good, staying was something Tony had subconsciously wanted for a while now, and only recently become hyper aware of thanks to the lack of said god. Staying as a cat? That was complicated and maybe toeing the line of kinks Tony wasn't actually into.
"Alright, so you're a cat for a reason," he posed to him, which earned him a other nod. "Are you... is this how your hiding from them?"
Nod, tail twitch, narrowed eyes.
"Is it working?"
The cat went still and stared at him for a long moment.
"Okaaay, so you have no idea if this is working or not and how is being a cat practical? I mean, you're adorable and there's the chance that it's actually hiding your magic whatever from whoever but it's leaving you vulnerable in more ways than one. For one thing, you can't even communicate with me, how's that helping?"
The Loki cat was looking more irritated now, so Tony quickly added, "not that I'm not happy to see you, I am, of course, but it's kind of weird and a little ironic. We were just about to track you down, give or take a few days."
That seemed to pique his interest enough to risk his life, apparently, and before Tony could even blink, the god was sitting before him in all his bloody glory.
"Jesus!" Tony yelped, hands automatically reaching out to help him. Loki hissed and drew back instantly, his eyes red-rimmed, his lips raw and cracked. He looked tired, almost as tired as Tony felt, and maybe a little underfed. "Loki, what happened?"
"What did you mean you were about to track me? Who is this 'we'?"
"Can we talk about the bleeding and—"
Loki interrupted sharply, "How did you mean to track me?"
So he wasn't actually sure he should answer that, plus, bleeding, but Loki's eyes were scarier than usual, so he gave in grudgingly.
"We figured out a thing—or, actually, Bruce did and I modified our network we set up back when you were running around Germany stealing eyes. The one tracking the Tesseract?"
Loki's eyes got even scarier. "Right, you remember that, so anyway, now it tracks magic, or parts of it and it's really too complicated to explain when I'm this tired. We were going to do a live trial tomorrow, until you showed up as a cat, so now I guess we can call it off. Or, you know, do it anyway. The more you know."
He shrugged and gave a weak laugh, not liking the tension in the air. What happened to the cute cat again? Oh, right, he told Loki to change back. Good move.
"How could you even procure such a thing? What information did you have to feed it?"
Tony blinked at him, and even in his sleep deprived mind he knew he needed to tread carefully here. "Uh... we ran tests on magic."
Now Loki was tapping a finger against his arm, his entire body radiating impatience. "I was not aware any of your mortals possessed the ability to control the magics."
"Well... we kind of, sort of, don't. There's some people out there, call themselves mutants, they kind of have the closest thing to what you call magic, I guess. Not that it's really the same, actually," Tony stalled, hating the way Loki had grown cold and suspicious. "Okay, so we might have borrowed your scepter thing from SHIELD to test the tracker."
The silence that greeted him after he spoke was like a slap to the face. Especially the way Loki was staring at him as though he wasn't even real.
"You. Did. What?"
"Look, I know it's your spear—"
"That is no object of mine!" Loki shrieked suddenly, looking ready to rip Tony's head off and run through the tower showing in his blood, and yes, Tony feeling dramatic, he was tired, dammit. But this was the most intense thing that had happened to him in weeks, the combination of Loki returning and also maybe, kind of screaming at him.
Tony tensed up, waiting for the blow he was sure was about to come, when god went very still. With eyes seeming to focus on Tony for the first time since he arrived, Tony could see the way he was categorizing everything he saw, the dried blood in both his nose and—still not sure—but maybe his ears, if he believed Bruce. Maybe Loki was noticing the way he was hunched over, probably the dark shadows under his eyes, too. He was pretty self aware when he got this bad, mostly because everything hurt and there was a mirror in the hallway that had made him jump about a foot in the air on passing. He looked so bad actually managed to scare himself.
"... you have been using it?"
"Er, yes. Bruce wouldn't touch it."
Long, pale fingers gripped his arm painfully, startling Tony back into full-awake mode and there was the yelling again.
"You fool! How many times? What did you do?"
Tony tried not to wince, really not liking the whole yelling and grabbing thing. Also the 'fool' part, that brought back bad memories from a certain someone he looked up, and he was way too exhausted to fight this off right now. All he could manage was a wide eyed state at Loki while he tried to formulate a proper sentence.
"We—I used it... I think 13 times?"
"You utter moron!"
Am I? Was I wrong?
Yep, there went his heart doing that clenchy thing that he once thought was a heart attack, but had since then realized it was almost something worse. Great timing, because he really wanted to lose control over himself in front of Loki while the god was telling him how stupid and weak he was. Because panicking was cool and 'with-it'.
It didn't matter that Loki had done the same in front of him many times already, or that he often helped Tony out of nightmares that often left him in tears. This was different, this was showing some extreme vulnerability due to Loki himself, this time.
No, He was going to fight this thing with all his heart. Well, with whatever he could muster between the ragged breathing and those delightful palpitations that were starting up.
"I—was—didn't... I was desperate!" He wheezed, trying to pull out of Loki's grip. But the god would not relent, and if anything, his grip grew stronger. "P-please let... go."
"You have no idea what you have done," Loki hissed, clearly not listening to a word Tony had said. His eyes darted around the room as if whatever Tony had done would manifest in some physical form right there next to his closet or something. "Each and every time you used that thing, you drew his attention to you. To you..." he trailed off and looked at Tony once again. His breath caught when he finally noticed the way Tony was panting, or maybe it was the shaking, or the way his eyelids fluttered closed as he started to hyperventilate. "Anthony? Anthony!"
"God, d-don't yell, don't," he choked out, and finally yanked himself free of Loki's hands. It was probably useless, but he pressed his own against the reactor, trying to find some way to stop that roar in his chest. For a moment, all he could hear were his gasps and the heavy silence that pressed down on him like the darkness of the void.
Through the portal.
Oh god, the pressure from the portal, the way his suit faltered,
he died, he's dead.
He's dead,
there's nothing there, no one answered.
There's nothing...
"Þegar ég var ungur, bara strákur Ég ferðaðist víða," came a voice at last, Loki's fingers just brushing the back of his hands. His hands that had, apparently, found their way back to clutching to Loki during his sort black out. Thankfully there was no more pulling at him or shaking his body, or reminding him how stupid and useless he was. Just gentle brushes against his worn knuckles, and the song.
"Away fór ég, og svo glaður
Ég myndi fylgja fjöru.
Til langt burt höf, að þar út jörðum
Ég miða að finna leið mína.
Til að byggja upp heimili með eigin höndum mínum
Ég mun skila daginn.
Nú er ég orðinn gamall, slitinn og grár
Ég ferðast gamall vegur hægur.
Til heima ég vildi að ég myndi halda
Slóðin raveled til og fro.
Til þess staðar sem ég kom frá, langt frá mér
Ég óska eftir að finna leið mína.
Til lands á sem fjarlægum sjó
Ég mun skila daginn."
Then, it was over and Tony blinked. He was fine, more than fine, he was breathing and not dying and Loki was sitting there looking absolutely—
"Beautiful," he breathed, not caring how he sounded anymore or the fact that Loki was the reason he panicked in the first place. Songs, apparently, were accepted as apologies.
Loki smiled one of his rare and shy smiles and ducked his head before replying, "it's a song I wrote to keep myself sane in the Room."
"You wrote that?"
"Well, there was little actual writing done, but yes, it is mine."
"What does it mean? The words, what—"
A finger pressed against Tony's lips, startling him into silence. "No more questions," Loki whispered, "it has been too long since I have slept and I am sure it is the same for you."
Tony nodded, but dared a small kiss on the finger because, well, it was there. Loki chuckled fondly, something Tony had just been getting used to before he disappeared and something he had no idea how much he missed until just now. That could be said about pretty much everything to do with Loki, actually. So Tony did what the bloody god suggested, laying down with opened arms for Loki to crawl into.
Looking thankful, Loki stretched out next to him and pulled Tony into a tight embrace. It felt like he was being held together, or doing the holding together. Probably both, if Tony understood their relationship accurately.
You love him.
Tony shuddered a little, shutting down the Bruce-sounding part of his brain for a while. He needed sleep, he could figure all that shit later when things weren't so weird and bloody and confusing.
"You're not going to let me help you, are you?" He whispered, pressing his face into the god's chest.
He was answered with a low, rumble of laughter and a kiss to his forehead. It was enough, if Loki was laughing, to reassure him that he wasn't going to wake up to a dead possibly-boyfriend in the morning, and Tony fell asleep with a few less worries and a lot more questions.
Silence.
It was startling even after only a few weeks spent in the noise of the city. Being high above the streets, the arguing at all times of night, and even the random screams was both a blessing and a curse. Because, as peaceful as it should be, it was the first time in a while that Loki was scared that it had been the silence of the Room, again, and he nearly cried out just to shatter the spell. Instead, he forced himself to focus on all the things that proved it was not the Room, like the warmth wrapped around him or the small sounds that finally reached his ears through the haze of sleep. Breathing, each breath drawn in with a slight hitch to it, as though there was never enough air, as though it hurt. And somewhere close by, Loki could just pick up the gentle thud of a heartbeat, no hiccups, there. Just the strong, steady beat of life.
It was enough, he was happily convinced that this wasn't one of his dreams, and opened his eyes.
"There you are," Anthony marveled in a rough voice, and the heat drew closer and closer until lips met his. Apparently the mortal had already been awake, and watching Loki sleep. The nerve of him.
Loki hummed into the kiss, and took pleasure in the sounds he received when he bite down on those lips.
Just barely pulling away, he replied, "Yes, I'm still here."
"You have no idea how good that feels to know that," the man admitted between a few more short, playful kisses. Now his lips were being assaulted with nips and bites.
"I think I just might."
Ah, that look. What was that look?
It was strange, unfamiliar to him but almost… something akin to a warmth he saw in his mother's eyes all those years ago. He could not stop his mood from darkening at the memories crawling back into his mind. The fact that he had been forgotten, as though he truly was never was her son, and left with no knowledge of her passing. How was it that even the servants, the guards, even the mighty Aesir—how was it that they all seemed to know without knowing, that Loki was not one of them?
No one had told them, even when Thor returned Loki to his cell to wallow in his hatred. No, they still called him 'prince' with the same distaste as they ever had. He could only imagine how worse it would be if they truly knew who he was.
What he was.
But there he was, still named prince, and treated as common as all the other prisoners. Finding out that his own mother had died, in a mere passing statement. Because they had forgotten about him, because he did not even register to them anymore. Because he was nothing to those rotten, pig-headed, rusl. He would never forgive them, in a thousand, a million years. He may no longer make a mark on their lives, but he would hold that grudge till he died.
"Uh, did I say something wrong?" Anthony questioned, having already pushed himself away to give Loki room. He looked completely panicked, all his walls knocked down for Loki to see just how much worry and care the inventor possessed. All directed at him as if he deserved such care.
"No," Loki insisted, "No, you did not. Just memories, nothing more."
"Bad ones?"
"Nothing uncommon."
Anthony smiled ruefully at that and snuggled back into his arms, taking in a slow, deep breath. He promptly choked on said breath and moved away again.
"God damn, you smell!" he whined, hand flying up to cover his nose. "What the hell were you doing, living in a trash can?"
"Ah, well…"
His eyes widened almost comically. "No, oh no, you didn't," he breathed. "Loki, why didn't you just come home?"
"And bring my troubles with me again? No, I wished to keep you from ever being…"
Stolen.
"…Harmed again."
"Harmed?" the mortal scoffed, pulling away to stretch himself to the ceiling. Loki eyed the rumbled clothes, the almost black stains of blood across his chest and shoulders. His mortal was not looking well, even after a nights sleep. And he knew precisely why.
"Honey, I'm Iron Man, I'm going to get 'harmed' on a daily basis. I mean, hopefully not, but i'm not holding my breath. It's not like I want to get hurt."
"Yet you play with fire," Loki replied, sitting up to study the man who gave him a warning look that he would ignore. Anthony was no threat. "Why did you persist to play with things you know nothing about? It is clear to me you knew the dangers of the tool you held in your hand, yet you pushed and pushed, and pushed."
"Excuse me," Anthony growled, turning to face him again. "I pushed my limits because someone wouldn't fucking come home. Becausesomeone disappeared and for all I knew, was dead somewhere in an alley way, which, by the way, smells about right."
"You know better than that, and don't you dare attempt to play this all on me. I left to protect you, and you go and do yourself irreparable harm!"
Eyes no longer filled with warmth, Anthony swung his legs over the side and stood up. He wobbled dangerously, but sheer determination kept him stranding, Loki was sure.
"What are you even talking about?" he asked, without turning back to Loki. "I'm fine, for fucks sake. You're the one who smells like a hobo and is covered in blood."
"As are you," Loki reminded, voice softening. He had heard it, the worry in the man's voice. Perhaps not for himself, as Loki wished, but for him.
"I do not smell like a hobo, I smell like—"
"Death."
Anthony's shoulders twitched, and at long last, he turned to face Loki once again. A night's sleep had done nothing for those shadows under his eyes, nor the darkened veins crawling up the man's neck. All the rest in the Nine Realms could not fix that poison, Loki knew this all too well.
"Anthony…" he tried, but choked off. How could he forever be the bearer of bad news? Must it always be on him to take the blame, to wrought this grief?
His voice strangled, Anthony asked, "What? Fuck, you're scaring me, just tell me already."
'13 times you told me," Loki began, unable to meet his eyes any longer. "You let that magic rip through your body 13 times, you let it rape your system… you let it call him."
"Wha… who?"
Loki shook his head, refusing to say his name. The last thing they needed was one more reason for that monster to look their way, if he wasn't already fully focused. If he didn't already know where Loki was.
"Anthony, you have been poisoning yourself each and every time you used the staff. You should not have even been able to use it," he said, furrowing his brow. "But you did, and now… now I must hurry to heal myself so I may heal you."
"But… it's not that bad, Lokes," Anthony denied, kneeling on the bed with arms reaching for him. He allowed the touch, as cold and shaky as it was. "Come on, it's just a nose bleed, i've had worse."
"Anthony, for Urd's sake!" he snapped, meeting his eyes with a desperate fury. "You are dying!"
"No i'm not."
It was too quick of a reply, said in too small of a voice to be true denial, and Loki shook his head as he watched the stubborn spark in Anthony's eyes fade more by the second.
"I'm not…" he insisted.
"Anthony, please…"
"I'm not," he whispered, and finally broke.
Loki's song:
When I was young, just a lad
I traveled far and wide.
Away I went, and so glad
I would follow the tide.
To far off seas, to yonder lands
I aim to find my way.
To build a home with my own hands
I will return some day.
Now I am old, worn and gray
I travel an old road slow.
To a home I wished i'd stay
The path raveled to and fro.
To the place I came from, far from me
I wish to find my way.
To the land across that distant sea
I will return some day.
He really can't keep his sarcasm on hold, even in his songs.
Old and gray. Pffah.