"I'll keep you safe, as safe as I can,
When all of the elements around us have other plans.
I pray we don't break, in unsteady hands.

I swear if you call I will come, so quick I am at your command.
As long as I live, as long as I'm breathing, you will be safe.
As long as we're dreaming.

Just close your eyes; everything's gonna be just fine.
You can peek on the other side."

-Close Your Eyes by Digital Daggers

-o-o-o-

Silence devoured words as the Avengers sat around the table with eyes locked on the past. They saw devastation that no walls could hide, not when proof of what had happened followed them: Romanov's pants were stiff with blood, her sleeves torn and replaced with pink smears from a sodden cloth, and Director Fury sat in Clint's rightful place.

When the Director spoke, his words lacked their usual harshness, but he did not coddle their sorrows. "This is war. People die. There's nothing we can do for him besides keep going."

Though Romanov nodded, it was clear that Fury's words meant nothing to her. How could they, when she had felt Clint's warm blood on her hands? When she so keenly knew what it was like to have someone she loved bleed out in front of her while she could do absolutely nothing? New York or Nebraska, Doom or Thanos, it did not matter; the helplessness was the same.

Fury seemed to deflate as he sighed, no longer an indomitable figure standing at the head of the table. "Romanov, I know this is hard for you, but it's necessary that you team up with someone else. Agent Derkhaunt has a skill set similar to what you're used to working with."

At last Romanov reacted, her eyes refocusing on the room around her and the concerned stares sent her way. She ignored them and her eyes narrowed. "I don't need another partner."

Her answer was not unexpected, but Fury tired again. "Natasha-"

"I'll work alone," she stated with fire burning in her eyes.

Loki recognized that fire. It was the same one that has smoldered in his chest ever since the Other took him and forced him to remember what it meant to be powerless. It was the one that could only be put out by death—either that of the enemy or his own. And, perhaps hypocritically, Loki did not want Natasha to be consumed by the flames.

He was about to speak when Tony made the foolish offer for him. "Natasha, maybe you can work with Loki and I. We could use eyes on the ground."

Natasha was quick to shake her head, and Rogers was just as quick to say, "Then you can join me." The captain leaned forwards, smearing the ash on his sleeves across the table; he had returned from the front lines only to hear the news of his comrade's fall. "Clint wouldn't want you to fight them alone."

Those words were the water on hot coals; the fight went out of Romanov. She slumped in her chair and raised her hand towards her matted hair, but then she froze, her eyes darting to the faint remnants of blood on her skin.

"Sir, requesting permission to leave," she said tersely.

"Not until you agree to accompany someone else on missions or remain off the field," Fury asserted.

"I will join Rogers on his assignments." Natasha rose from her seat. "Now may I leave, Director? I would like to clean myself up."

Fury was not the only one who winced at the dried gore on the assassin, and he conceded, "Go take care of yourself. I'll see you in my office in an hour."

Romanov disappeared into the hallway, but she hadn't gotten far when Rogers hastily stood. The man hurried out the door, giving Fury a quick nod to excuse the disrespect, and called out, "Natasha!" Loki heard her come to a stop, and Rogers words were muffled by the walls. "I'm sorry about what happened to Clint. I know how hard it is to lose a friend out there. And I know nothing I say is going to make it easier for you, but... I'm not trying to replace him, and you don't need to pretend that you're okay for our sake."

Loki turned his head away from where they stood, as if that would keep him from hearing the quiet reply; it was not his place to intrude. Instead, he focused on the choppy tempo of Tony's fingers against the table top until Romanov's footsteps faded and Rogers reappeared in the doorway. His mouth was pressed in a thin line as he rejoined them at the table. When Tony sent him a searching look, unable to hear what had been said in the hall, Rogers only shook his head.

Fury looked as if the weight of Clint's death was crushing him, but that didn't stop him from being pragmatic; to Loki and Tony, he said, "We need to change our strategy if we are going to win this war. Have you made any progress on the Tesseract?"

The question invoked shame that sludged through Loki's veins; he hated that he had nothing significant to say. All he could offer to lessen the embarrassment was, "We can only use it under specific circumstances—it is not reliable enough to fight with."

"I broke a dozen rules to give you the Tesseract," Fury said. "You promised that you could make use of it. If we had used it today, then maybe we wouldn't have lost so many people. Maybe there wouldn't be an Avenger lying in the morgue."

His words were a low blow, and Tony flinched as if he had been slapped. "Do not blame us for what happened," the man said, but his words lacked conviction. Loki could see the doubt under the surface, the guilty questions that filled his minds. He knew because he thought them too: Wasn't it their fault that the Tesseract was not ready? That Loki wasted so much time trying to figure out what should have been obvious and that Tony couldn't grasp basic magic? Weren't they to blame for Clint's death?

Their self-blame must have been apparent, because Fury sighed again. "What happened today was no one's fault but the enemy's. That is why I want them taken down now, before I lose any more agents."

Loki, unsure if he was trying to offer reassurance or merely improve his standing, responded, "You have my word that we are trying everything we can think of. We just need a bit more time."

"Right now, all everyone needs is 'a bit more time'. But time is something we don't have," Fury stated. "The two of you are dismissed. Hopefully you can figure something out. Rogers, you and I need to have a quick chat."

As Loki and Tony rose slowly to their feet, the soldier said, "Yes, sir." But before the two disappeared, Rogers motioned to get their attention. "Good luck." He nodded to offer some semblance of unity in this new world of chaos. They returned the gesture and were enshrouded in magic.

The second they touched down in the empty facility, Tony lost the strength to maintain his mask. He roared in rage and pulled out of Loki's grasp. His attention was on the Tesseract, sitting obediently on the table. They were lucky it hadn't wiped the whole building off the map or brought the Chitauri down upon it. But that small mercy wasn't good enough, and when Tony reached the table, he lashed out with his foot. The table toppled over and the Tesseract slid across the floor.

As Tony raged, Loki did nothing. Even when Tony grabbed one of his books and threw it, causing pages to rip upon the ground, he did not intervene. Instead, he let Tony swear for him, let the man's shout of, "I want this damnable war to be over!" to be his own. It was fitting, he thought, that such an expression of grief be taken out of his hands, for was he not powerless in every other aspect of his life?

Then taking his frustration out on inanimate objects was no longer enough for Tony, and he spun to face Loki. "How can you be so calm about this?" the man shouted, his face warped by sorrow. When Loki still did not react, he continued, "How can you just stand there? Clint is dead. I know you didn't care that much about him, but..."

Just as quickly as it had come, the fight went out of Tony. He covered his face with his hand, his tendons standing out sharply, and let out a shuddering breath.

That's when Loki moved, but instead of going to Tony, he stepped to where the book laid torn on the ground and picked it up. Smoothing down the bent pages and tracing the tears with his fingers, he said, "You're wrong."

"What?" Tony snapped as he raised his head. He met Loki's eyes, but the god did not give fuel to his ire.

"About me not caring. You're wrong," Loki said. "It's true I was not as close to Clint as some of you were, but he was still my teammate, my shield brother, my friend. And you are wrong to imply that I do not care about his death." Tony looked away, clenching his fists—though Loki knew the anger was no longer directed at him. "The only reason I am not out there right now, making those monsters pay for what they have done, is because I know we need the Tesseract to succeed."

They turned towards the gem on the floor, and Loki did not miss how it brightened under Tony's gaze in an effort to call the man to it. In that regard, the Tesseract was no different than the scepter, and Tony viewed it with the same wariness.

After a moment of silence, the man asked, "Do you really think I can do it? That I—just a man in a can—can stop Thanos with the Tesseract? That I can save people?"

With every ounce of honesty he possessed, Loki replied, "There is no other I think more capable." Then he made his way towards Tony, setting the book down on the table and veering to lift the Tesseract from the floor. With the cube in hand, he returned to Tony's side and offered it to him. "The Tesseract does not have to listen to you. It chooses to, and there must be a reason why."

"I didn't think you'd be into the whole destiny thing," Tony said, but he took the cube nonetheless. True to Loki's words, the Tesseract came to life in his hands and his hands alone. The man pointed the cube at the wall; a thin beam of magic breached the distance, singeing the concrete.

With a frown, Tony said, "I can't fight Thanos like this. If I went into battle holding the Tesseract in my bare hand, it'd get taken in an instant. So how am I supposed to use it?"

"I'm not sure," Loki admitted, his brow furrowing. Tony had a point that they couldn't carry the Tesseract into battle—such a tactic would amount to nothing more than delivering the Infinity Gem to their enemy on a bloody platter—but the man struggled too much with magic to relocate it. The only place better at conducting magic than hands was the core itself, and there was no way for them to stick the Tesseract in Tony's chest. Unless...

Loki's eyes drifted to the faint glow of the arc reactor visible through Tony's shirt. "Can your arc reactor be powered with anything other than Starkium?"

"Uhh, yeah," Tony answered, thrown by the change in topic. "I mean, I had Palladium in there initially, but it wasn't suitable for long term use."

Loki looked between the Tesseract and the arc reactor with a hum. "Then it's a good thing you won't need to use it long term."

"What are you…?" It clicked, and Tony stared at him, aghast. "Hell no. We are not sticking that infernal thing in my arc reactor. We don't even know if that would work!"

"Why wouldn't it?" Loki countered; the more he thought about his plan, the more convinced he became. "Within your chest is as close of a place to your core as you can get. Hands conduct magic, but near your heart… You could access the Tesseract without limitation."

"Loki, I think you're missing a huge point here." Tony raised his hand to shield the reactor from view. "This isn't just some fashion statement. Mess up my arc reactor and I die."

"You forget that Idunn's apple protects you. It will not let you die so easily."

Tony was quick to call out Loki's lie. "You said so yourself the Tesseract has more concentrated power than a nuclear weapon. I don't think your little spell is going to help if my heart gets incinerated. And what about the shrapnel? Does your apple protect against that?"

"It won't kill you," Loki insisted.

"You've said a lot of things about the Tesseract that have turned out to be false. Are you really so willing to risk my life on this?"

The fact that Tony's accusation wasn't completely unfounded hurt Loki more than the words themselves. When the god answered with, "You know the answer to that question already," it was to bury any doubt about his motivations beneath Tony's faith.

"Then why would you even suggest it?" the man demanded, doing nothing to assure Loki that the decisions he were making were the right ones. But the god had come too far to let the paradise he had made for himself vanish with no trace that it had once existed. He did not crawl out of a living hell to lose everything in life he had come to enjoy. And if he had to risk that which he loves the most in order to save it... Loki would take that risk.

He knew how Tony thought, and as such, he knew exactly what to say to manipulate the man into risking his life. There was no room for guilt as the god asserted, "The one thing I do know is that the war we are fighting, the war that took Clint's life and can very well take ours, is merely foreplay for Thanos. He does not need an army. Unless we act now, when Thanos bores of this game, we will die. Not just us, but Pepper, Natasha, Steve, Bruce, and everyone else you care about. If we do not do something, he will destroy Midgard and Asgard and every realm in between."

Just as Loki intended, his speech stopped Tony's opposition in its tracks. It played on the man's guilt-complex and foolish heroism, leaving him with no choice but to listen. When Tony pointed out, "The Tesseract won't fit inside my arc reactor," his resistance was half-hearted at best.

Having already considered that problem, Loki was quick to say, "The Tesseract's current form is not its only one. In the legends, Thanos had the Infinity Gems as jewels on a gauntlet."

"In the legends. Right. That sounds convincing. And do you happen to know how Thanos changed its shape?"

That the god didn't know, and once again he despised his own lack of knowledge. More than that, he worried that maybe he used to know and it was the void that had stripped the knowledge away. The void that, once Thanos came, he would throw Loki back into.

"We'll figure it out," Loki said with a shrug, hoping that Tony, in his mourning, would not notice how fake his nonchalance was.

-o-o-o-

Runes and equations swam before Loki's eyes, and no amount of blinking made the information clearer. He ran his fingers against his throbbing forehead, obscuring the bright screen, and sighed. Unless a miracle happened, he wouldn't be making any more progress today. What he really needed was some sleep, or at the very least a hot meal, but…

Something behind Loki rustled, and he couldn't keep himself from flinching. Even when he turned towards the sound and saw that it was (like every time before) just Tony twitching in his sleep, the adrenaline refused to fade. He scrutinized the other side of the lab where the lights had burst, half-expecting a figure to emerge from the darkness. When he saw nothing, his focus drifted to the man passed out a few feet away.

For once, Tony had made it to the bed without Loki having to haul him there, half-conscious, from the desk. However, the man didn't even make it under the sheets before exhaustion dragged him down, and now those sheets were on the floor; Tony's fingers clenched and his legs lashed out as nightmares plagued his mind. Beneath greasy, untrimmed hair, the man's face contorted into a grimace.

The thought crossed Loki's mind to wake Tony, but he dismissed it. While Tony could operate longer than most humans without sleep, his mind was not impervious. After thirty hours, he was useless, just as Loki, after thirty days, was becoming useless. But the god could not sleep. There were times he had tried, when migraines wracked his mind or his magic was depleted, but the moment he let down his guard, he could feel Thanos's presence in his mind. It didn't matter that the feeling was a byproduct of his paranoia; he would jerk awake each time with his heart thudding in his chest, and sleep became unattainable.

Loki didn't even bother trying to rest now. Instead, he searched through the reports on his cellphone for anyone requesting backup. There were at least a dozen cities in need of assistance. He ended up choosing London, and the necessary footage loaded onto the screen while armor materialized around him.

But before he left, Tony groaned, and the god glanced over to see the man roll over, still sleeping but in obvious distress. Unbidden, Loki's feet brought him to Tony's side, and he frowned as the man's lips silently repeated the word 'no' over and over.

Sleeping spells were not Loki's forte, but he nonetheless reached forwards to trace a rune lightly on Tony's brow. His magic sunk beneath the skin, and after a moment, Tony's noiseless protest ceased while his tense muscles went slack. For the first time in a long time, Tony Stark was completely at ease.

"You just need to hold on a bit longer. One way or another, this will all be over," Loki told the unconscious man as he bent down to grab the bunched sheets; as the god put the thin cloth back over Tony, he swore that the man would not be the one dying. "No matter what happens, I won't let Thanos hurt you. Trust me."

After everything that Loki had done to Tony, after everything he has made the man do and will make him do in the future, he wasn't sure if Tony did trust him. That's why he couldn't bring himself to say such things when Tony was awake. But though the situation was tense and they often fought, Loki never stopped caring. He just hoped that when this was all over—when Thanos was dead and his army obliterated—that Tony would remember that and things could go back to how they used to be.

With one last look at Tony, Loki teleported thousands of miles away. By the time he arrived in London, the city was already under heavy siege; leviathans, battleships, and cruisers wreaked havoc upon the ground while the carriers remained in the upper atmosphere. It was the first time Loki had left the lab to fight since the Chitauri had killed Barton, and time had done nothing to dull his rage.

Snarling, Loki retrieved the Casket and aimed it at a cruiser passing over head. The frozen Chitauri shattered against the pavement. When nothing else came into range, Loki marched through the destruction—which somehow managed to look even worse than it had on his phone—in search of a more worthwhile target. He found what he wanted on the other side of a military barricade a block away. A group of dwarves were hacking away at dozens of Chitauri ground forces, their axes covered in tar-like blood, while leviathan continued to add troops to the mayhem.

It was as Loki was scoping out a roost from which to fight from that he discovered dwarves weren't the only ones present. Thor had returned from Asgard two weeks prior, and had Loki known that the king would be here, throwing his hammer through the wing of a battleship, he would have gone somewhere else. But now that he had seen the destruction firsthand, it was too late for him to back out. Loki just hoped that the other god wouldn't notice him as he teleported to the top of a nearby apartment building.

Not even ten minutes passed before Thor noticed his presence. Loki was in the midst of fighting a leviathan, grappling with it in while trying to snatch the Chitauri on its sides, when lightning shot past his head to blacken the chitin shell. The unexpected attack caused Loki to lose his grip on the beast's flesh, and he rolled off of it. Thor was quick to join him, held aloft by that damnable hammer.

"Brother! You have grown most skilled at shapeshifting—I almost didn't recognize you!"

A growl reverberated through Loki's reptilian body, and he propelled himself upwards, attempting to regain the position he had lost. He had just managed to tear off one of the metal plates guarding the leviathan's vulnerable flesh when more lightning came down around him. The bolts focused on the weak spot Loki had created, and the beast thrashed wildly. Loki released the dying leviathan to land on the streets.

A scowl was on his face as he transformed back. "Must you bother me? There's plenty for you to fight elsewhere," the god snapped.

However, his temper wasn't fully directed towards Thor; Loki's eyes were drawn to the carrier that had started to descend towards the city. He had no doubt that within its hull were dozens of explosives waiting to be released.

His gaze was followed, and when Thor saw the carrier, his stupid smile fell. But then when he looked back to Loki, it returned just as brightly. "Fight it with me, brother! It will be just like when we were younger."

"Yes, it'd be exactly like when we were younger—with your arrogance nearly getting the both of us killed," Loki said caustically. "Do you really think you are any match for an entire warship?"

Thor, of course, was entirely unaware of his own limits. "How hard can it be?"

He began to spin his hammer above his head. Loki cursed the god as he shot into the sky, heading straight for the thickest part of the battle. Then Loki cursed himself and, against his better judgment, rushed to attack the leviathan veering for the God of Thunder.

When Loki barreled into the creature, Thor beamed at him. He glared in return. Then he slammed into the leviathan again, keeping it and everything else out of Thor's way as they ascended towards the gargantuan warship. The higher they got, the thinner the enemy's ranks became, and far too quickly did they enter the carrier's attack radius.

Foolishly, Loki had believed that Thor had a plan in mind, but as missiles came down upon them, he realized that this was the plan. An enraged roar emerged from Loki's throat—why did his brother have to be such a idiot?—and the trickster god lunged forwards to save Thor's life. Talons pierced the red cape as Loki pinpointed the thick door leading to the maintenance stairwell. With a powerful beat of his wings, he hurled them through the rockets and into the metal.

To his relief, the door gave way, and they sprawled into the narrow stairwell. Their abrupt landing disorientated Thor, but with bullets still coming at their back, there was no time to let the god recover. Loki shapeshifted back, yanked his brother to his feet by the collar, and shoved him forwards.

"Move, you fool, or you'll get us both killed."

Once Thor's skin had knitted back together and he regained his footing, he ran after Loki without protest. "Where are we going?"

"The engine room." If Loki's approximations were right, the stairwell should take them directly to the right turbine, but they had to move quickly. The Chitauri undoubtedly knew they had boarded the ship, and such trespassing would not be taken lightly.

Thankfully, the stairwell was not designed to prevent intruders, and within minutes, they reached another door. Mjolnir tore the metal from the wall, revealing a cavernous room covered in wires and whirring machines. In the center of the technological mess was a cylindrical pillar that produced the engine's red glow.

Eying the machine, Thor asked, "How do we shut it down?"

"We do what you always do—smash it."

Loki unleashed a maelstrom of ice and concentrated magic into the room, tearing wires from the ground and fragmenting the light. Thor joined in, and his hammer bore through layers of metal and glass.

As they attacked the engine, Loki could hear Chitauri stir within the ship. Their footsteps grew louder each second, and it wasn't long before the far door flung open; over a dozen aliens flooded into the engine room with their guns pointed at Thor and Loki.

Thor immediately shifted his focus to the threat, flinging Mjolnir into the thick, while Loki stepped backwards towards the exit. However, he didn't stop his onslaught, and the engine shuddered and hissed in protest. A squad of Chitauri ran towards him just as a machine exploded, engulfing the aliens in fire and creating a barrier between the gods and their enemies.

The intensity of the flames singed Loki's blue skin, and he at last let his hands fall. "We need to get out of here," he said, continuing to back away towards the exit as the main engine started smoking. "This whole place is about to go up in flames."

Thor didn't need any further prompting; he called Mjolnir back to his hands and ran towards the stairwell. Loki moved to follow his brother and escape the unbearable heat when a familiar figure amidst the Chitauri caught his attention. The god's eyes went wide, and he stumbled into a control panel.

"Brother!" Thor shouted in warning, but Loki was too busy fighting down memories to react fast enough. The engine exploded, blinding Loki and flinging him backwards. He could feel the fire on his skin, and then the next thing he knew, he was falling through the sky.

Loki struggled to pry his eyes open, and when he did, it was to see tons of metal coming down towards him; he was surrounded by the carrier's ruin. But before he was crushed between the wing and the sidewalk, a flash of red cut across his vision and an arm wrapped around his chest.

The wind was knocked from Loki's lungs as he was pulled to safety, and with a tremendous roar, the severed wing collided with the ground. Shrapnel flew everywhere, and flames billowed towards the sky.

High above the destruction, Loki dangled in his brother's hold, but his attention was on the rest of the warship and, more importantly, the smaller ships fleeing from it as it fell. There was no way he had been mistaken; the Other had been on that ship, and Loki was not so optimistic as to assume that he had died in the explosion. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw a squad of cruisers fly out from the burning carrier; there was a cloaked figure on board the middle ship.

The formation began to rise towards a second warship, and Loki felt nothing but rage. "Let me go," he snarled as the arm around him remained tense.

"Loki, what-"

"Let me go!" The end of Loki's shout was distorted by his shifting form, and the hands tugging at Thor's arm became claws that shredded through his vambrace. With a pained grunt, Thor released Loki, whose lips twisted and receded to reveal rows of jagged fangs. The god chased after the cruisers with single-minded intensity.

The Other's entourage shot at Loki as he approached, but their weapons were not enough to deter him; his forehead collided with the underside of the middle cruiser, knocking it out of position. As the ship righted itself, the outrage in the Other's expression was mere annoyance compared to the fury that consumed Loki. The god screeched as he dived for the cruiser again, this time gripping onto the metal with his teeth it dented.

One of the Chitauri aimed a gun at Loki's face. The god closed his eyes and threw his weight to the side. A thin gash appeared under his cheek as both he and the ship were dragged towards the ground.

Right before they collided with the pavement, the Other grabbed the second Chitauri and used its body to absorb the impact. Loki, on the other hand, hit the ground directly, and he dazedly regained his feet as the Other rolled off the smashed corpse. Before Loki could attack or make himself a smaller target, the alien scooped an energy gun off the ground and fired it. The god's fanged maw stretched wide with a bellow.

It happened in an instant; one second Loki was shapeshifting, and the next he found himself with a hand wrapped around his throat. His cry was cut off as he was shoved to the ground, landing harshly on his forearms. The Other crouched over him, his eyes glinting coldly from the shadows of his hood.

"Do not underestimate me, godling," the creature hissed as he tightened his grip.

"Get off," Loki gasped, one hand rising to clutch at the wrist on his throat. The other he pointed at the Other's face, preparing to blast his smug expression away. But when Loki summoned his magic, nothing happened. It was the Tower all over again; he was powerless.

Panic blotted out the god's mind, threatening to throw him back into memory; there was no air. He was on Titan, and there was no air. They were digging into his mind, devouring his essence and replacing it with pain and darkness. There was no air. He was in the void-

Suddenly, the Other was thrown away from Loki, and Mjolnir filled the empty space, its surface still crackling with lightning. Images that had previously been corroding Loki's mind faded into the background as Thor landed in front of him.

"You dare to harm my brother?" the god shouted, and the alien had to dodge another enraged swing.

As Loki scrambled to his feet, he stared at the Other's blackened skin in confusion. Then his eyes lowered to where the alien's right arm was hanging limply, its wrist crushed. Loki had done that. But… he remembered how it had been impossible to harm the Other over a month ago. Nothing he had done—magic or otherwise—left a mark. So why was now any different?

When Loki slowed down long enough to think about it, the answer was obvious: Thanos's magic had protected the Other. And, if the Other's avoidance of Thor's attacks indicated anything, the spell had not been infinite.

Thor glanced towards Loki when the god drew even with him, but Loki continued past him. He would not stand behind his brother. This was his fight, and he would not lose again.

"You are weak," he told the Other with conviction. "Without Thanos, you are nothing. I'll make you suffer for what you did to me."

Magic suffused from Loki's skin and snapped viciously in the air. From the corner of his eye, he could see Thor shift anxiously, erroneously thinking that his little brother needed protection. But when Chitauri cruisers came down towards them, the God of Thunder backed off to meet the threat.

Loki faced his demons alone, and his steadfastness made the Other angry. "You think you can harm me?"

"I know I can."

The air was saturated with electricity because of Thor, and Loki easily turned his magic into lightning. Vivid streaks breached the distance between the god and the Other, but the alien possessed uncanny speed. Each bolt diffused into the ground, and, despite Thor's efforts, Chitauri came after Loki. His next blast of lightning was wasted on a cruiser, and the one after that on a missile.

Though Loki wanted nothing more than to go after the Other, the attacks upon him were getting to the point that he couldn't ignore them. Cruisers buzzed in the air like flies on carrion, and battleships had disengaged the Stargates to protect Thanos's second in command. Most of Loki's focus went into dodging bullets and throwing lightning back at the drones. Monitoring the Other's position was almost impossible, especially when explosives choked the air with rubble and dust.

Shielding his eyes, Loki retreated from the fire, but when he lowered his arm, it was to see that the Other was mere inches from him. Loki reacted on instinct. There wasn't a destination in mind as he teleported—only the strong thought of 'I have to get away'—and when Loki's body rematerialized, it was with his arm half inside a stone wall. Foreign atoms intermingled with those that made up 'Loki', and agony raced through the disjointed limb. He teleported again before the first spell had even finished.

Loki clung to the wing of a battleship with his good hand and and winced as he moved the other. He was lucky it wasn't worse and that all of his fingers were still present and in working order. But it hurt.

However, there was nothing he could do for it here, so he grit his teeth and pushed the issue from his mind. He grabbed hold of the wing with both hands and hauled himself up.

Thor landed beside him and was quick to ask, "Brother, are you alright?"

"I had been until you showed up."

"Let me fight with you," Thor beseeched as he raised Mjolnir.

"You want to be of use?" Around the wing of the battleship, Loki could see the Other boarding another cruiser. Loki snarled; his quarry could not escape. "Do your job and keep these ships out of my way."

Without waiting for a reply, he leapt from the ship and collected electricity around himself. Thor did the same, knocking back a leviathan that had its sights set on Loki. The instant the god's feet were on the ground, he flung lightning at the vessel trying to take the Other to safety. The creature was forced backwards as the cruiser sizzled and electrocuted the Chitauri piloting it.

"You are mine," Loki snarled, hurling bolt after bolt at the wretched creature. Though the Other was fast, he wasn't fast enough to avoid each strike; slate was tarnished to black, and confidence became uncertainty. It pleased Loki to see the fear he had felt reflected in the eyes of his would-be oppressor, and even when the distance between them closed, he stood his ground.

Lightning struck the Other's chest when he was only a few yards away, causing the alien to stagger on the pavement. Another blast was about to follow when the Other abruptly lunged forwards. Loki's blast went wide, and he raised his arms to protect himself as the alien collided with him. It's momentum sent them tumbling, and Loki's back hit the ground.

But this time, the god did not let it stun him. His hand searched out the creature's throat, and once it was in his grasp, he squeezed. It did not matter that the spell to neutralize his magic remained. He did not need magic to squash an ant.

Wheezing, the Other attempted to force Loki off, but the god did not budge. The alien procured a blade from his cloak and slashed down at Loki. The god knocked the blade away, and then, without mercy, he snapped bone; the scream that bubbled up in the scaly throat never made it to the surface.

When the Other spoke, its voice was faint: "Thanos... will..."

A hand through the chest silenced those words once and for all.

Black liquid flowed down Loki's arm and dripped from his elbow as he rose to his feet. He shoved the corpse away. It hit the ground with a thud, and Loki stood, observing the lifeless eyes and growing pool of blood. It looked the same as when Clint had died, but this time, the death was deserved.

When dozens of Chitauri swarmed the god for a chance at vengeance, Loki stepped on the body as he went to meet them; he wore the Other's blood as war paint.

-o-o-o-

With fingers ghosting across the holographic screen, Tony paused. "So… Remind me again what the possibility is that we kill ourselves and everyone around us."

Loki didn't glance up from where he was putting the final touches on his spell, a convoluted thing that ran up the side of emission generators and covered the ceiling. His expression was hardened, with his eyes locked on the goal and his jaw set firm. When he answered, it was without passion.

"Considering we're a few miles from the nearest town, outside casualties should be nonexistent. Now hurry up. We can start when you're finished."

The god magicked his hands clean and stepped down from the table, leaving a sweeping mural behind. Reluctantly, Tony returned to calibrating the systems, unsure if he was helping to stop Thanos or merely hastening his own death. But it was too late to turn back now, and once the generators pinged online, Tony followed Loki towards the cerulean sheen. They stood on either side of the Tesseract, and when Loki looked at Tony, the man swallowed down his fears and lifted his hand towards the cube.

Just before his fingers touched the glassy surface, Tony hesitated again. His eyes slid over to the other member of their group, protected from the ambient radiation—that, no matter what Loki said, Tony didn't believe was safe—by a large glass pane.

"Hey Bruce, you doing okay over there?" he asked while ignoring Loki's impatient jittering. "You can still leave if you want to. You've already done your physics homework for the day, and if this goes badly… Well, let's just say we won't need your medical expertise anymore."

"I think it's better that I stay," Bruce said, fidgeting with the sleeve of his suit. "Between the glass and the other guy, I should be safe. And if you two get hurt, you need someone who can tell the paramedics what happened."

"Tony," Loki interrupted. "We need to begin. I can't hold the spell forever. Banner has made his decision—now make yours."

While Tony wanted nothing more than to delay further in hopes that a better solution would spontaneously appear, he couldn't ignore the thin layer of sweat appearing on Loki's brow or the dark circles under the god's eyes. Magic swirled in the air, growing thicker every second, and the effort of containing it was taking its toll on Loki's sleep-deprived body. The sight reminded Tony that he wasn't the only one risking his life, and if Loki was willing to die for a planet that wasn't even his own, then the least Tony could do was try.

"Sorry… I do the same thing I did before, right?"

At Loki's nod, Tony finally let his hand fall upon the Tesseract; it flared, bringing with it a soft crooning that flitted through his mind. Despite his every instinct, he latched onto the foreign presence and dragged it to the forefront as the machines around them flicked to life. Amidst the whirring and rhythmic beeps, Tony pictured the diagram of the arc reactor they had made.

"Just do it, Loki," Tony ordered.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back with echoing roars in his head. The ceiling lights flickered, but the darkness was abated by the Tesseract's seething.

"Tony, Loki? Are you two okay?" Banner called.

With a groan, Tony pried himself from the tile. "I'm alright!" He massaged the tender spot on the back of his head and gave the Tesseract a wary look. "Kind of…" Then he glanced at Loki in concern; the god was folded in on himself, held up only by the hand clutching at the edge of the table.

But before Tony could move towards him, Loki forced his muscles to uncurl and raised his head. When his eyes landed upon the Tesseract, he scowled. "That should have worked."

"Maybe you did the spell wrong?" Tony asked. He stepped back to the table and frowned down at the fading sigils.

"My magic was not wrong," Loki denied angrily.

Holding his hands up in surrender, Tony placated, "If you say so, princess. But it doesn't change the fact that it didn't work."

Loki ground his teeth together. "We'll try it again." He placed his hands on the runes, and Tony did not miss the god's wince as his right hand touched the cool metal. Though Tony had noticed Loki favor that arm, he never had the time to ask what was wrong.

This time was no different; the moment the spell had rekindled, the god snapped, "Hurry up."

Once again, Tony placed his hand upon the Tesseract, and the noise in his head grew louder, threatening to drown him out. Loki had said Tony needed to listen to the cube, but it was like white noise in his mind. And when he tried to speak back to it—'Obey me. You are mine, and you will shift your form to what I desire.'—he received no evidence that his voice was heard.

Then, before he was ready, Loki warned, "Brace yourself," and magic pummeled them from all sides. But this time, as Tony was shoved down by Loki' spell and the Tesseract seared in response, he felt something click. He shouted at the Tesseract, and for the first time ever, it called back; as he was blasted away, he felt the gem's surface contort.

The pounding in Tony's head was inconsequential. He scrambled to his feet in record time and lurched towards the stand with a grin spreading across his lips. On the table, the cube had disappeared, and in its place was a small blue chip. Tony grabbed it without hesitation and turned it over in his hands, peering into the unnatural depths.

"We actually did it..." he breathed. "Loki, come look at this! We did it!"

There was a pained moan from the floor as Loki rolled onto his knees, and Tony's relief diminished at the sound. He lowered the Tesseract to watch as the god used the edge of the table to haul himself up, his eyes squinted against the light. "Loki, are you...?"

"Give it to me," the god ordered, uncurling his right arm from around his chest and reaching out for the Tesseract. Tony handed it over, and as Loki inspected it, his expression morphed into one of relief. "It actually worked," he murmured, trailing his fingers along the smooth edges. "The shape is flawless."

Tony hadn't noticed that Bruce had joined them until the physicist was by his side, peering curiously at what they had accomplished. "I have to admit, I didn't think it'd actually work."

"You and me both. We should start a club," Tony joked. "'I can't believe that actually worked' can be our motto."

But then his smile dimmed as he remembered what their success meant for him. As he moved to touch the glass hiding beneath his shirt, he wondered if he would have preferred that they failed.

Following the gesture, Bruce asked, "Are you sure you still want to do this? No one will think less of you if you don't."

That made Loki look up from staring at the Tesseract, but Tony didn't need the god guilt-tripping him to know what the right decision was. "No, I need to do this." He forced his hand down from his chest. "I just wish I grabbed some scotch from Malibu when I picked up the robots. This isn't something I want to do sober."

However, controlling the Tesseract wasn't something he wanted to try drunk either, and there was nothing he could do besides fetch the arc reactor he had made. Loki relinquished the Tesseract, and Tony made quick work of taking off the glass and metal plate to reveal the empty slot within. The Tesseract fit perfectly.

Then came the hard part. Though Tony inspected the arc reactor for flaws, trying to find any excuse to not put it inside his chest, there was nothing wrong with it—other than, of course, the chance that it may kill him. But that wasn't enough to keep him from giving the device to Bruce with a cheeky, "Ready to get your hands dirty, Doc?"

Without waiting for a reply, Tony turned and marched to the dusty chair he had dragged down from an upper floor. He shed his shirt, tossed it onto the table, and set stiffly on the pleather.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked when neither Bruce nor Loki moved.

"You should get an actual doctor to do this. If you go into cardiac arrest, I don't know what you expect me to do," the physicist said.

"Then hopefully I don't go into cardiac arrest." Tony's nails dug into the chair. When Banner continued to hesitate, he ordered, "Do it."

"I hope you know what you're doing…" the man muttered as he and Loki made their way over. They took up positions on either side of Tony, Bruce to get a better view of the arc reactor and Loki to offer some semblance of moral support.

Tony wanted to think that he had the situation under control, but the second Bruce was finished inspecting his chest and moved to twist the reactor free, he gasped and pressed his back against the upholstery. Vivid flashes of sand and blood filled his mind, and for a second, he thought he could hear harsh voices demanding his compliance.

"Relax," Loki murmured, leaning over the back of the chair and watching Bruce's progress; Tony fixated his gaze on the ceiling lights.

"That's easy for you to say," he said, trying to keep his mind off of what was happening. He wasn't in Afghanistan. He wasn't in Afghanistan. He wasn't in Afghanistan. But his mantra couldn't erase the keen sensation of the reactor sliding free, exposing the wire that connected the core to the magnet. "Oh fuck."

Painful bursts went through Tony's chest as Bruce tugged on the wire, and his hand instinctively lifted to make it stop. Loki caught him before he could disrupt Bruce's concentration.

"Relax," the god repeated, holding Tony still. There was a squelching sound when Bruce slid his hand into Tony's chest and began to poke around. "You'll be fine."

"I'm almost finished," Bruce said. "Just have to thread this through the frame, and... There."

Every muscle in Tony's body jerked as the Tesseract screeched within him. It was an inferno, a tempest, a maelstrom, a hurricane—it was destruction itself—it was drowning him—it was burning—it was-

"Tony? Tony, are you okay?" Bruce gripped Tony's head in his hand, angling the man's eyes towards him; Tony stared back blankly. Loki's grip on his hand tightened. "Do you need me to remove it?"

Apparently Tony didn't reply fast enough, because Bruce started to disconnect the Tesseract and Loki didn't stop him.

"No," Tony choked out, grabbing Bruce's wrist with the hand that was not getting crushed. "No, it's okay. It's…" He didn't know what it was; it was fire and ice and lightning, but at the same time none of those. It was euphoria soaked through every vein. What had once been a whisper was now an opera.

"Is this what magic normally feels like?" Tony asked incredulously, leaning his head back to regard Loki. "It's... It's amazing." He could feel the vibration of atoms and the bonds of matter. He could feel the disharmony in Loki's hand and the way the cells were torn and interrupted by foreign molecules. He could feel everything.

The god's death grip loosened. "I am not quite sure the degree of what you are feeling, but more complex spells do invoke a euphoric sensation in the wielder. Considering how much energy the Tesseract has, such a response is understandable."

"Sorry to interrupt," Bruce said, "but Tony, if you're keeping that in your chest, then you need to let go of my wrist. You're starting to leak fluids everywhere."

Tony slowly uncurled his fingers, and Bruce immediately set to work wiping away the liquid that had gathered. Then, when the path was clear, he started to screw the new arc reactor into Tony's chest. The aching around Tony's heart began to fade, and he finally allowed himself to look down. For some reason, he had expected the arc reactor to appear monstrous, but it was nearly identical to the rector now sitting on a nearby desk. The Tesseract shone brighter than the Starkium, and the metal filling was rectangular instead of triangular, but otherwise... It seemed no different.

"Try it," Loki said, releasing Tony's hand and stepping back. He motioned for Bruce to do the same.

With numb legs, Tony rose from the chair. His palm raised to face the far wall, and he began to focus on the sensation of firing a repulsor. Before images had fully formed in his mind, energy blasted from his palm. The recoil made Tony stumble backwards, and he caught himself on the arm of the chair as he stared in shock at the gaping hole in the concrete.

"I... didn't mean to do that." He glanced towards Loki in confusion. "I didn't tell it to fire."

Then the Tesseract reacted again, this time completely against Tony's will; magic slammed into a desk, cleaving it and half and sending both parts flying. Bruce stepped back in alarm, and Loki placed himself between the two.

"Tony, you need to calm down and give the Tesseract clear instructions. Magic is a creature of emotion. If you do not reign your thoughts in, you will lose control."

Tony had already lost control. Magic coated his hands, firing off randomly into whatever was near him. Loki had to duck as a blast headed for his head. Whatever connection Tony had made with the Tesseract was now gone, and of the two of them, the gem's voice was louder. It grew brighter inside him, and feelings that were once wondrous had now become terrifying and invasive.

'Stop it,' Tony thought desperately; the magic felt like lightning running through his veins. 'You're supposed to listen to me. Stop. Stop it.'

"Stop!"

Like a switch had been flicked, the magic disappeared from Tony's skin. He held his hands away from him, fearing the lull wouldn't last, but after thirty seconds had passed and nothing happened, he and the others let out the breaths they had been holding. Tony sunk down to the ground, his heart galloping under the new arc reactor.

"I take back what I said. I don't like this idea anymore."

-o-o-o-

Two months had passed since the first Chitauri warship entered the atmosphere, and Earth was barely scraping by. The economy was in ruin. Getting food and water was a struggle for even the most affluent; no amount of money could buy what didn't exist. Sprawling cities were reduced to rubble. Countless homes were destroyed, and each time people fled, they left more and more of themselves behind.

But somehow, despite the crippling losses and overwhelming adversity, they persevered. Somehow, Earth's forces began to whittle away Thanos's army, taking down ship after ship until only a fraction of the invasion force remained. It was hard—almost impossible—but what humanity's resistance lacked in numbers, they made up for in ingenuity and desperation. Risks were taken, aerial maneuvers were perfected, and superhumans came out from hiding to protect their homes. Tony hadn't realized just how many of them existed, but he was right when he had said that the world was never going to be the same. Shadows were brought to light, and it was those shadows—cast out from society and viewed with skepticism or contempt—that pushed back the invasion.

Then there was the Tesseract: it could raze down ranks of Chitauri soldiers, leaving nothing but smears of black behind, and blast battleships from the sky. It was their boon, their victory. With it, they could neutralize a threat in mere hours, saving countless lives.

But there was no forgetting that the Tesseract was a double-edged sword with the power to destroy them just as easily as it saved them. Far too many times had Tony's allies been hurt by their proximity to him, especially Loki, who refused to leave Tony behind no matter how many times he was taken down. And damn it, Tony didn't want to hurt him—to hurt anyone besides the bastards invading his planet—but the Tesseract would not listen to him. It wasn't just a tool; it was a living weapon that reacted to Tony's every nuance of emotion. And if Tony wasn't paying attention, if he did not control it with every fiber of his mind, the Tesseract would respond in the way it was most accustomed: with violence.

When Tony accidentally dropped something after a long day fighting, the Tesseract gouged away the floor. When Tony got stressed talking to other people, the Tesseract shoved them away. When Tony had a nightmare, the Tesseract mangled the bed and he'd wake up on the floor. And the more times these things happened—getting him banned from war meetings and making fitful sleep even harder to come by—the worse the responses became. Tony didn't know if it was because the connection between him and the gem was stronger, or because he was more anxious than ever. All he knew was that he never should have put the Tesseract in his chest, especially when he could feel it poisoning him.

It hard started out subtle: the random twinge in his chest as he attacked or a shortness of breath that he had ascribed to fighting. But as the symptoms persisted, he knew things couldn't be that simple. Once, when he had used the Tesseract to bring down a carrier on his own, the Tesseract felt like it was burning in his chest, and his heartbeat pounded irregularly in his ears. When they got back to the lab, he had accidentally bumped into the desk; a massive bruise formed on his thigh, and it had yet to fade.

But Tony did not tell Loki his fears. The god was convinced that their plan would work. He focused on victory with blind hope and did not want to see the price they were paying to take down the Chitauri. And honestly, Tony did not fault the god for it. Loki was afraid. Loki was terrified. And if remaining ignorant to the fact that their last hope was killing Tony let Loki rest a bit easier, then... Tony would not say a word. Not until the last Chitauri warship sat in rubble.

So he kept going, trying everything he could to get the Tesseract under control while Loki did his damnedest to help. Eventually, they weren't just leveling the playing field; they were tipping the scales against the Chitauri. For the first time, they discussed plans for reconstruction. Hope for the future shown through the bleakness of warfare.

That was when Thanos made his move.

For months, the Mad Titan sat passively while his soldiers killed and were killed in turn. Not even the simultaneous destruction of two carriers was enough to draw his ire. He remained on his throne, red eyes staring into empty space, while the war unfolded like a poorly written play. Only when the bloodshed began to slow did his rigid seat move, bringing with it the remnants of his army. The final battle was upon them, and Tony… Tony was nowhere near ready.

His eyes were fixated upon his tablet screen and the gruesome throne hanging in the sky. Thanos was a speck in the swarms of battleships and cruisers that demolished anything standing in their way, and yet there was no doubt that he dominated the scene; the Chitauri kept a spherical opening around his thrown, and when one of the Stargates entered the dead zone—either to shoot at the Mad Titan or to fight the leviathan nearby—both the ship and pilot soon ceased to exist.

"Tony, we need to leave now," Loki said while he too remained focused on Thanos's imposing figure. The god was already in his armor, sans the excessive helmet, and his fists were clenched so tight they trembled. "One way or another, this has to end."

As Tony shook his head in denial—as if that would make Thanos disappear—the Tesseract fed upon his anxiety; a wave of blue magic crackled out from his skin to rattle the desk and buffet Loki.

"He has to go back. I can't fight him yet. Not when I can barely control the Tesseract."

"But you can use it. That will have to be good enough."

"And if it isn't?" Tony turned desperate eyes to the god. "Do we just go out there and die? Because that is what's going to happen. Thanos will kill-"

Loki spun towards Tony, grabbing his arm tightly and resisting the Tesseract's efforts to shove him back. "You won't die," the god ground out. "You hear me? I'm not going to let him kill you too. And even if I fail…" Loki yanked Tony closer to splay his other hand against the center of Tony's chest, blocking the vivid glow. "Even if I do not have the power to protect you, the Tesseract will not let you die. Thanos's magic cannot touch you."

Tony stared down at where thin fingers clutched starkly against black fabric. He frowned as he asked, "Then what about you? You keep saying I won't die, but what about you?" When Loki didn't answer, Tony urged, "If Thanos is as strong as you say, then let's make something to defend you. There has to be a way."

Loki was shaking his head before Tony had even finished speaking. "There isn't time."

On the pixelated screen, Chitauri battleships laid waste to buildings, causing stone to shatter on the sidewalks below. A tank was crushed along with a squad of soldiers.

"Then promise me you'll stay away from Thanos."

Countless nightmares of Loki's death played in Tony's head, each one bringing with it images more horrific. He couldn't stand for those dreams to become reality.

"You can't reach him alone. I need to go with you." Tony made to protest, and the god grinned, pulling his hand away to hide the way it quivered. "Don't worry about me; I'll be fine."

But Loki's eyes were wide, and when he stared upon the Mad Titan, erroneously haloed by the sun, he clenched his fists to the point that his palms bled. The god lied.