Sand sifts under his toes.
Where is he?
Familiar blurriness makes Tony's eyes water and he blinks rapidly. Strange, wispy streaks of light move on the edges of his vision, and he has a vague sense of recollection. But for the life of him, he can't remember what it was. When he tries to chase the thought it escapes from his grasp like a leaf in the wind.
Something significant happened here, he's sure of it. Tony can remember his unmarked chest and the cold black sand under his feet, but whatever happened last time he was here is a blank void in his mind.
Last time he was here.
Tony walks, one struggling step after another, picking a direction at random. He can't see clearly enough to make an educated guess on where he should go. Squinting at the sky, he thinks it looks duller than it should. The white starlight is going grey.
A deep rumble shakes the ground and Tony drops, his hands and wrists sinking into the sand. Some of it makes its way into his mouth and he spits, gagging. The sand tastes like tar, the flavor pervading his mouth and settling heavily into his gut. Nausea spins his head and weighs down his stomach.
Tony gets up hastily and wipes the sand off on his pants, shuddering. Another tremor shakes the ground and he bends his knees slightly, trying desperately to plant his feet and keep his balance. The quaking stops suddenly and he straightens up, realizing that he can hear a voice. The voice.
Shit. Tony remembers the last time he was here.
"You have wasted enough of my time already," the voice grates. "Speak now, traitor, without deceit. What do you wish from me?"
Tony can hear the crackling voice clearly. Too clearly. As if the speaker was standing only a few feet away, which means he need to get the fuck outta here. The sandy terrain is flat and revealing, but large chunks of what looks like black ice erupt from the ground in clusters. Blurrily, he glances around, darting behind a chunk in what he thinks is hopefully the correct direction to hide him. The icy substance presses against his cheek in a stinging caress.
"I would not lie to you," another voice replies. It's the deep one, the same that was conversing with the voice before.
"You would, and without hesitation," the voice replies. Its powerful tone has now been reduced to cold amusement, like a cat playing with a mouse. "It is, shall we say, 'part of your nature.' Yet we did not meet here to discuss your many faults."
"No," the deep voice agrees, and it's so achingly familiar Tony wants to bash his head against the ice. Who? "I wish for a… safe passage. One that shall get me out of this realm before it is destroyed."
The voice doesn't reply for a moment, seemingly caught off-guard. Then it starts to laugh, a horrible, twisted sound that curls into Tony's bones.
"A safe passage," it sneers. "Of all of the things to ask for, only you would choose the most selfish option. Why, were you not getting cozy down there with your beloved?" It spits out the last word like poison.
"He is not my beloved," the deep voice snarls, and while before its tone had been careful, calculating, it is now dark with hatred.
The voice seems to sense the shift in tone as well, and its voice cracks like a whip in warning. "Tread forward cautiously, princeling. You are the one pleading for your life."
The deep voice doesn't reply.
"It is quite a large favor you ask of me, letting one who has disgraced me so walk free without punishment. What do you have to offer me?"
"They have a device that can and will stop you. Your plan for Midgard's demise will come to nothing. I offer you my… services," the deep voice says delicately. "In exchange for a free passage out of this realm."
"'Can and will stop me,'" the voice muses. "Is that so. Forgive me if I do not believe that ones as small and young as the mortals will be able to defeat the power of the Tesseract."
"I have seen the device with my own eyes, picked it up and examined it. You will not succeed if you leave them as they are."
The voice considers for a moment before speaking with the shriek of wrenching metal. "You will bring the remnants of the device to ensure your passage. Rest assured, if the device is any less than you tell it to be, you, Loki Laufeyson, will meet your end with the rest of Midgard."
"Agreed," the deep voice—Loki—says, but a buzzing static has taken over Tony's ears.
He closes his eyes, because that is why the deep voice sounded so familiar, why his manner of speaking seemed like that of a friend. Loki Laufeyson. The Trickster, the Liesmith, the Sly One, God of fire and mischief and magic. Loki always has an ace up his sleeve.
And Tony liked him, trusted him. Was attracted to him. Was a little bit in—in—
What a fucking joke.
Betrayal roils in his gut like a storm and bile rises in his throat. He claps a hand over his mouth because he can't afford to vomit or make noise so close to the voice and Loki.
Loki. Who would sacrifice the entirety of Earth in exchange for the chance to save his own skin.
The voice and Loki are still talking behind him. Loki's voice sounds so detached, so different from the man flashing a smile at him as they worked, that it makes Tony's chest ache. He can't listen to this. He wants to leave, he wills himself to leave—he has to get out of this forsaken place full of treachery.
But Tony is stuck, sinking gradually into the cold sand, his back going numb from the ice.
He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fists—there's no place like home.
Home.
He wakes up in cold sweat, his heart beating like a frightened bird against his ribcage. The arc reactor's usually reassuring blue glow looks cold and impersonal in the dark bedroom and the sickening taste of sand and betrayal pools in his stomach.
It was a dream. It was most likely just a dream, but there's a ringing clarity to it that suggests more. He can still feel the black sand under his fingernails; feel the tingling sensation in his cheek from where the ice left its mark.
If it was more than a dream, though… Tony doesn't want to think about it.
"Jarvis?" He whispers. It sounds too loud in the hushed silence.
"Sir. It is 2:06 am. You're location is the Avengers HQ, New York, USA."
"Lights."
The lights duly flick on, but at a dimmer level than normal. Sending silent thanks to Jarvis, Tony clambers out from under the covers and sits down heavily. His feet dangle by the floor and he wills away the childish fear that something will come out from under the bed and drag him into airless, stinking water.
Surely it was just a dream.
But he still has that double-checking paranoia, and the dream (or nightmare) won't let him go. It nags at him, an itch he can't scratch.
And, well…
It's not like he's going to get any more sleep tonight.
"Jarvis, give me Loki's location."
There's a long pause before Jarvis answers. Even he is quiet, as if he can sense the tension winding up in Tony like barbed wire. "I'm afraid I cannot detect him, sir. His magic is interfering with my scans."
"Of course," Tony mutters, staring at the ceiling. It's plain, some neutral color that the designers picked out—he gave them free reign because he doesn't spend enough time in his room to care. No cold black sand or greying stars.
Tony pads quietly down the hall, tiptoeing past dark doorways. Everyone in the mansion seems to be asleep and he can hear Thor snoring like a motorboat from his room. When he reaches the end of the hallway, where the doors to the stairwell and the elevator shaft reside, he makes a split second decision—stairs are quieter.
They also take longer to get down to the lab, where the box is. Tony is stalling. Postponing the inevitable.
Though it's entirely likely that nothing will be down there, right? Entirely possible that he will have gotten out of his secluded room for nothing, and that he will run into the lab only to find the usual, quiet jungle of machinery. But the nagging itch won't subside, and that's why Tony is walking down flights of stairs and shivering as the cold from the floor leaks into his feet. He forgot socks.
Tony pushes open the door that leads to the workshop, wincing at the loud clicking sound it makes. These large metal doors aren't locked, really only there for fire safety, and it shows. Dread mounts in his stomach as he sneaks warily down the pitch-black hallway. He keeps one hand on the wall as he walks, feeling his way down the hall, the arc reactor casting dim light through his shirt.
The glowing blue keypad for the electronic lock to his workshop comes into his vision, and he squints slightly at how bright it is compared to the hallway. The glass wall that runs down the entire length of this side of the workshop is honed to a highly reflective sheen, splintering the blue light from both the keypad and the reactor in all directions until it fades to black beyond reach. But the glass is so polished that he can't see inside.
Tony types in his passcode and the doors hiss open, the sound incredibly loud as it echoes throughout the room. Dummy, You, and Butterfingers are plugged into their respective charging stations, their lights dimmed as to conserve as much energy as possible. Tony strains his eyes, but there isn't enough light to check on the box.
"Jarvis, lights." His voice sounds scratchy, and he coughs to clear his throat. "Lights."
Nothing.
Tony frowns, heading quickly for a manual light switch on the wall. He flips it after some difficulty—it's stiff from disuse. Jarvis doesn't have glitches.
The room stays stubbornly dark. Tony switches it up and down a few more times, but—
Hiss.
The doors.
Tony sprints for the suit, which is still on the table from all of the recent repairs. He shoves a gauntlet onto his hand and it clamps on automatically. Narrowly dodging a streak of green flame that races past his ear, he fires back with the blue beams of his hand repulsor. He knocks over a table so it forms a barrier and ducks under it, managing to get his right boot and the upper part of his arm clamped on securely.
"Jarvis!" Tony cries, like the desperate plea of a child calling out for his mother, but nothing responds.
Chancing a glance above the table, he sees Loki in the doorway, framed in a light that illuminates the rest of the room in toxic green. His eyes are burning chips of emerald in his face and the box is held tightly in one hand. The other hand is encased in a crackling mass of energy.
"I told you to get some rest," Loki says warningly, and the sound of his voice brings back the memory of that place and drives the ache deeper into Tony's chest.
"How do you think I knew to come down here?" Tony yells back bitterly. Anger and betrayal and pure recklessness swirl like poison inside him, turning his heart dark. "How the fuck did you think I knew to come down here?"
Loki's eyes widen slightly, his mouth tightening. Realization crosses his face. "It was you. That first night. The eavesdropper."
Tony snorts humorlessly. He ducks down again behind the table, dragging pieces of the newly repaired Mark XIV with him. "Trust me, honey, I didn't want to hear any of that," he grunts, managing to put on his other gauntlet and forearm guard. The pieces slide on, securing themselves, and he flexes his fingers. The energy from the repulsors hums at the edges of his hearing.
He looks up in time to see Loki's eyes narrow before he has to duck down to dodge another blast of energy. "What was this, then, some kind of sick joke?" Tony spits, crawling sideways. The other parts of the suit are lying innocuously on another table out of his reach. He glances around, and… there. It's a large piece of welding machinery. If he just can just change the angle…
Tony vaults out from behind the table, sweeping the pieces of the suit off the worktable and into his arms, ending in a roll that lands him behind the welding station. Loki shoots more green fire at him, but Tony gets the feeling that Loki isn't aiming to kill. Looking behind him, he can see the damage that the bolts of energy have done to the rest of the room, and thinks with a sinking feeling that Loki could probably have just blasted him through the table if he wanted to.
"Was this all just a bit of fun, then? The whole 'plan' to stop Thanos? Did you just want to fuck around with us before hightailing it out of here?" Tony calls out hoarsely, trying to keep Loki talking while he struggles to put on his other boot.
It's not just a stalling act, though. He's angry, so fucking angry with Loki, but angrier with himself. He can't help but wonder—why? Why would Loki have such a change of heart? Unless, of course… this was his plan all along. The thought makes Tony sick.
"I did no such thing," Loki hisses, and Tony is brought back out of his whirlwind of thoughts. He can hear Loki taking quick, flighty steps in a pattern that repeats over and over. Pacing. "I would have wished to… spare you this pain."
"Yeah, well, then you shouldn't have fucking done it," Tony snarls. "I'll ask you again—was this your plan all along?"
There's a long pause in which Tony closes his eyes, already knowing his answer. "So we were all little puppets in your game of cat and mouse," he says quietly. "That was really fucking naïve of me, wasn't it, to think that you were better? To think that maybe you wouldn't sacrifice the whole world for a safe passage?"
"No," Loki says forcefully. "You don't understand. I have been hunted by him since the Chitauri invasion, and I know—I know—that he cannot be stopped, not even by you."
"Hunted?" Tony says incredulously. "You've been sitting pretty in Asgard since the Chitauri invasion!"
"A cage cannot stop a creature that walks through dreams," Loki says, and his voice is shadowed. Tony peeks out from behind the machine and sees Loki's face is dark with memory. Loki catches sight of him and shoots another energy bolt, Tony ducking back hurriedly. The bolt streaks past his head and singes his hair.
"Stay back," Loki warns, his voice resolutely hardened into stone. "I will not have you take away my one chance at freedom."
"You selfish bastard," Tony spits, clapping on an upper thigh piece and wincing as it clamps too tight. "You utter—I can't believe you. You're waltzing out of here to leave as all to destruction. What was the fucking point?" He's roaring at Loki, eyes blurring, and he dashes away the tears angrily. Now his own body is betraying him.
"There was no point!" Loki shrieks back, and the mass of green energy in his hand flares up brighter than a supernova. "You were trivial, unimportant, a mere stepping stone, and then I ended up car—" Loki cuts himself off suddenly, and when he speaks again his voice is smooth and controlled and spoken through gritted teeth. "I do not want to hurt you," he says quietly. "If you do not attempt to confront me, no harm will come to you."
Tony's vision goes white with rage. "No harm? No harm? Wake up, Loki, in two days we're all gonna die. And it's going to be nobody's fault but yours."
"That is false," Loki says stiffly, weakly. "Nevertheless, I stand true to—"
Tony stands up, his eyes hardened chips of flint, and blasts him square in the chest with both repulsors. Loki is blown back through the doorway and hits the wall with a sickening crack, the box clattering down to the floor in a smoking ruin behind him.
Hope and dread war in his heart as he walks cautiously to Loki's prone form. He stays well inside the workshop, though—there's no way Loki took too much damage from the repulsors if he walked away unharmed from the Tesseract-powered cannons.
But Loki doesn't move. Dust is falling through the air and Tony thinks something is smoldering in the workshop behind him, a light shooting out sparks above his head. The acrid scent of smoke fills his chest as he squints to see Loki's face.
He's only taken one more step, his hand outstretched, when Loki's eyes open. Bright green and burning with pain or rage or both.
Time slows down to a series of snapshots.
Loki is throwing something at him. Something small and round and silver.
The EMP grenade.
It lands at his feet before bouncing and rolling under a table. Tony stares at it helplessly.
Eight. Seven. Six.
Broken lights glinting off his armor. He can't—
Three. Two.
Tony looks up to meet Loki's burning gaze and sees sorrow.
One.
The grenade explodes in a shockwave of sound, filling Tony's ears with a muted roar. He catches a glimpse of Loki's hair flashing in the light before he crumples, all of the armor on his body turning as unresponsive as cement. The arc reactor flickers in his chest.
The concrete floor is cold and hard against his back. Blood trickles from his nose.
He wonders why Loki didn't just kill him.