Thanks a lot for all the reviews and the favs, you're too kind! And special thanks as always go to my beta cara-tanaka, thank you so much, darling! I hope this chapter won't disappoint you, enjoy the reading.


Chapter 27: Burning

He was still holding his empty glass.

The scotch's taste which lingered in his mouth was exquisite, after he hadn't been able to drink any alcohol for weeks. His throat was still burning a little, a feeling he had come to associate with some sort of consolation, and he felt invigorated and also grateful for that drink.

The only thing he could complain about was the fact that Loki hadn't granted him a second glass of scotch. But still, he was surprised that the god had shown him a little kindness.

He breathed deeply, then he startled when his aching throat sent a stab of pain to his mouth and lungs. After Loki had tried to choke him, he was so sore he couldn't even swallow without being in pain. For a moment, he had really thought Loki was going to kill him – not that he would care about it, since he had been so lost in his own anger that his life hadn't seemed like something important to protect.

He counted to ten, trying to focus on some other thoughts. He still wasn't ready to know if his life now meant something to him.

After leaving his glass on a bedside table, he stood up and went to the bathroom. At first, he cleaned his mouth and chin from the bloodstains, then, when he grabbed a towel to dry his face and his still wet hair, he met his own eyes in the mirror and froze.

There was a stranger looking at him through the mirror.

The unkempt beard was nothing like his trimmed goatee and there were deep wrinkles around his eyes. His cheeks were hollow, the eyes sunken and with black bags underneath. But most of all, it was his exhausted, defeated gaze that had made him look like a stranger.

If he was like this now, he couldn't think how he had looked when Loki had found him inside of one of Schmidt's cells.

He finished drying his hair with a shiver which was half rage and half anguish while he remembered the way Loki had woken him, when his conscience had been ripped from a comforting nothing by the sensation of drowning in icy water – there was water everywhere, only water, always water, and he was choking while his lungs were burning .

When he returned to the living room, there was no trace of Loki at all. The kitchen was deserted as well, so the god was probably inside his studio, the only door Tony hadn't had the chance to open yet.

He was alone, without anything to distract himself with, so he collapsed onto the couch, pressing his palms against his closed eyes to try to stop thinking. But his worst memories were still inside his head and began torturing him anew now that Loki had awoken them with his mind spell.

He took a deep breath, wishing the glass to be filled again.

In the end, it appeared the scotch hadn't been poisoned. He couldn't understand why Loki would have granted him that kindness without hurting him in return, or maybe Tony just hadn't discovered how a drink could turn into real torture yet.

Because Loki wanted to torture him, Tony was certain of it. If the god hadn't tortured him yet, it was only to let Tony torment himself in doubts and uncertainty, trapping him in an exasperating wait.

The pain would come anyway, but the hours, the days spent without anything to do and without any certainty about his own future were the real torture.

Thor's psychopathic non-brother wasn't the kind of villain who would care about his enemies' well-being.

"You would not have been able to save those children".

He opened his eyes again, but instead of looking at the books on the shelf in front of him he was still seeing the children's bodies, dead and bloodied.

"After all that you endured, you broke just because of some deaths you could not have avoided anyway?"

Loki had granted him something which sounded like absolution. The most similar thing to absolution Tony could hope for, and probably Loki hadn't even realized it.

The idea that those children would have died regardless didn't clean his hands from their blood but somehow made him feel better. He could breathe easily now, like his Arc Reactor didn't compress his lungs anymore.

It was a lie and he knew it, but it was a lie so beautiful he wanted to believe it if only for a little longer. And he was good at telling lies even to himself – Tony Stark is a hero, is someone to look up to, a man who's worthy and it doesn't matter if his own father didn't even look at him while they were in the same room.

The sudden urge to move made him stand up. He went up to the little library, looking at the ancient books on the upper shelf. Walking had been more fatiguing than what it should have been but he wasn't surprised, considering the rough treatment he had endured from Loki.

He focused his attention on the almost civilized conversation he had had with the god.

Loki had spoken about the Tesseract like it had had a correlation with Schmidt. It was absurd, but now that he was thinking of it, he could remember a blue flash in the exact moment when he had attacked Schmidt.

He ran a hand on his forehead, feeling some sweat even if he was shivering.

"Even if not whole, the Tesseract is not a power a mortal can hope to overcome".

Loki thought Schmidt had had the Tesseract, or at least a part of it. Tony couldn't believe it, because Thor had assured Fury and them all that the Tesseract was now being kept in his palace vault, which was the safest place of the universe, or something like that.

But, now that he thought about it, Schmidt should have been dead, since Capsicle had seen the Nazi being consumed by the Tesseract's power.

He shook his head, before another shiver persuaded him to return to the couch.

There were too many details that sounded strange. Loki could have mocked him, torturing him with the knowledge that the children had died because of him. Instead, it seemed the god, consciously or unconsciously, had almost tried to alleviate his guilt.

He closed his eyes, feeling like his brain was splitting in two pieces. His head was pounding and spinning, and he was really cold, now. He shivered, wondering when the temperature in the room had dropped so suddenly. He rubbed his eyes, then he touched his forehead. He was burning, even if he was feeling so cold he couldn't stop shivering.

He didn't understand, he had been fine just the day before, or even some hours before...

He tensed and suddenly couldn't breathe anymore.

Loki.

He tried to breathe again, while he lifted his t-shirts, checking his Arc Reactor. The reassuring blue was still there. It seemed it was still working, but Tony felt like he was burning and freezing at the same time.

He lowered his t-shirt and stumbled towards the hallway.

Loki's spell had done something else apart from violating his mind and now was killing him. He already found it difficult to think, while he was becoming so feverish that his eyes burned.

The heat and the cold were unbearable.

He could feel the fear in his chest became a living snake, with coils and sharp fangs which was chocking him.

The few meters he had to cover seemed like hundreds of miles while he was struggling to remain conscious. It was almost like when Obadiah had rip his Reactor from his chest. He was feeling the same panic oppressing his lungs, the same terror of dying some more at every breath. But then he had been certain he was dying, while now he didn't know what was happening to him, which was both a distress and a relief.

A sudden tremor made him lean against the wall but he kept walking with the same tenacity he had shown when he had crawled into his lab, looking for his first Arc Reactor.

When he had been Schmidt's prisoner he had wished for death but not now. Not when he was finding again his will to fight.

Trembling so much that he had to keep his mouth close to avoid his teeth to chatter, he managed to reach the closed door.

Loki was his only hope.

He didn't really believe Loki wanted to kill him this way. A psychopath of Loki's caliber would have remained to see him die, laughing and mocking him with genuine amusement.

"Loki!", Tony yelled, pounding the door with his fist. "Open the door, you bastard!".

He didn't even want to contemplate the possibility that the god had gone away or chose not to answer, leaving him to die in such an inglorious way.

He was just about to punch the door again when it opened, revealing the angry face of Loki.

The god was more imposing than he remembered and his expression was so full of anger that, in another moment, Tony would have feared for his life.

"Do you have a death wish, Stark?", the god hissed, but as soon as he took notice of Tony's condition, his anger was replaced by a deep surprise.

Tony moved away from the wall, trying his best to convey through his unfocused gaze the rage he felt towards the god.

"Your damn mind-fucking spell must have had some collateral effects".

Then, his legs gave out and he saw the floor coming closer to his face with a dangerous speed.