Trick of the Light

Rated T

A/N: I DID IT! Fuck yeah! :) Enjoy guys and I'll see you in a week!

…

In his vast lifetime spanning countless centuries there had only ever been one or two moments over that immense expanse of life that had ever truly struck Loki Laufeyson speechless.
This was such a time.
And for all the reasons that kept him awake night after night.

He had never been truly speechless before this moment he realised with numb fascination. There had been occasions were his tongue and words had failed him, fallen on deaf ears or their meaning had simply gone awry somewhere along the way. But now he was left with nothing. He choked on air he quickly realised he wasn't breathing and inhaled sharply.
Sharply enough that his husband grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him roughly, yanking him back into the real world.
The deity recoiled and shook his head slowly, blinking

"I didn't mean that in any of the ways you're thinking."
"I don't know what I'm thinking. Why wouldn't you want children with me? Is it because I'm a man, I could change that! Or is it because of what the Norns call me, the Mother of Monsters, because it's not true I swear it! Our children would be beautiful I'm sure of it, so why? Why not me? You fucking bastard answer me!" The trickster screeched, raising his arm to strike the shocked expression from his partners face. Tony caught the hand before it connected but failed to stop the other.
He heard the slap before he felt it.

He could feel the blood rushing to his cheek and didn't let himself react to the stinging he felt in the wake of the deity's hand.
And then there was that look.
Infinitely worse than the one he had tried so hard to avoid.
He shut his eyes on the world as his husband was so wont to do and tried to explain.

"I love you Loki. More than you could ever imagine. And you were right, you always are. I do want children, always have, but until now I'd tried to never really give them much thought. I want a family and I want all that domestic-something-like-normality-crap that everyone else has. I want that with you. But we can't babe. We just can't."

Loki stared at him with unseeing eyes. His breath hitched and at first he had to physically refrain from launching himself at the man besides him, but then he heard it. It sounded like something broken, something like resignation to a fate he had never wanted but had long ago accepted. It sounded like what he must have looked like.
He opened his mouth but only a melancholy whine escaped.
He had been a fool. Such a bloody, great fool.

"Loki? Please, this isn't your fault. It's not really mine either, it just can't happen. If we did have little demigods running around the place I'd wanna to be there for them, to watch them grow and thrive. I'd want to see them at their greatest and be there for them during their worsts. I want all the pitfalls and trials and heartache that having a bat-shit mental family has to offer, I really, really do. But I can't. I can't be there for them. Just like in a handful of decades I won't be there for you either. This isn't about wanting, it's about time. It's always about time. And we just don't have enough of it." Tony reasoned, resting a hand against the side of his lover's neck, his thumb gently ghosting the wordsmiths lip.
He could have cried.
These were the words he had never wanted to say, the things he'd never dared speak aloud before and now there they were. Hanging in the air for all to see. He'd created a verbal noose and it was quickly tightening about his throat. He knew that the next words out of Loki's mouth would either pull it taut or sever it.
Which is why, much to his surprise, the trickster said nothing.

Instead, the God drew closer and allowed his lean frame to fold into Tony's, filling in the gaps between them until only one body was discernable. The engineer wrapped his arms around the frail form and held on as tightly as he could. He gritted his teeth and tried to pretend that his spouse's tears weren't happening.
Loki allowed the tears to fall. He didn't care if it showed weakness. Taking up spell-casting, pursuing magics and books, laying with another man, regardless of species, had all been acts of weakness and bearing a child had been an even greater one, but he didn't care. In this moment none of that mattered. Strength, appearances, reputation, none of it meant a single damn thing.
He let Tony hold him and he tried to let the comfort of the embrace wash over him. He tried, but it didn't work.

Because as much as he wanted to hate the man who had reduced him to this worthless, whimpering wreck, he couldn't. All he had done was voice the vital flaw in their prefect little world that they had both spent so long desperately trying to avoid.
It couldn't last.

Theirs was a love designed to span the ages but not built to endure it.

"I understand." The silver tongue managed weakly, his admission jarred and wet as his eyes continued to stream. He whined into a tensed shoulder as he felt calloused fingers stroke his head, carding through his hair in a vain attempt at consolation.
It wouldn't work but the gesture was not lost on him.
"It's not that you're the only person I don't want them with. It's just that if I can't have children with you then I don't want them at all. I'd never felt like I needed them until you came along. I can go without, if it means we can still stay together, for however long that might be. Do you think we can work through this, can this be fixed?" The genius asked as he staved off his own impending breakdown.
This was all getting a bit too much, a bit too real and a bit too much like a genuine issue.
Tony Stark was the man renowned for always finding 'another way out'. There had been that one time with the nuke but he liked to believe that was the exception that proved the rule. Now he wasn't so sure it had been an isolated incident.

"No, Tony. You can't fix it. I've looked, I've researched. Even with all my magic, it was useless. There is only one place in the universe where I know for certain holds the key to immortality and that place was long ago sealed away from me aeons ago. I tried Tony. I'll try again and again but I know it'll never change! Why? Why does this always happen? Am I truly cursed to be alone, to constantly ruin the lives of others by burdening them with mine own existence? Why do you still love me Tony, answer me that! You could have had all this; love, marriage, heirs and heiresses, you could have had it all with another mortal, any mortal! And I would not have known love, for I honestly do not know what I will do in a universe that doesn't contain you. It is a bitter pill to swallow, accepting that one day I will have to face a tomorrow without you in it. I don't think I can. And you know this, I have made you a part of it, I have bound up guilt so tightly within you that when you depart this realm it will be the last thing you know. So tell me Tony Stark, make me understand what it is that stops you from screaming every time you lay eyes on me." Loki spat, his bile aimed inwards, despair turning his insides black with every breath.

Tony rubbed wearily at his eyes.
"I know how all of this will probably end. I'll grow old and you'll keep on living, as beautiful and insane you as ever were, we won't leave anything behind that in a few millennia can be traced back to us and eventually people will forget. You'll forget. You'll find someone else, and whether or not you care for them as much as I think you do for me, they'll do. You'll settle for them because it's anything to stave off the loneliness isn't it? You'll do everything to stop yourself from being all alone in the big, dark universe, won't you? And I wouldn't blame you. I only want for you to be happy. Even if it's not with me.
"But I haven't given up hope yet. Not entirely. And neither should you Loki Stark. There's always a way, I don't know it yet and I'm not completely certain I ever will but there is one. There has to be. Everything has an answer, sometimes it just takes people to realise they aren't asking the right questions before they get it. If you give me time, and I know how big of an ask that is, but if you can just give me some more time I think I can fix this. I can fix us."

Tony buried his face in the soft, black tresses and bit back a sob.
"I can do it Loki. I know I can. I just need you to waste some more time with me until then."
"It's nothing but a pipe dream Stark." The God murmured, slowly peeling himself away from his husband. Sliding his legs gingerly across the edge bed he stood up and hobbled to the other end of the room and placed his forehead against the cool glass of the window. He sighed and watched as his breath condensed against the clear surface, dragging a palm across it he wiped the mark from the pane. He beat the flat of his hand against the clear wall and snarled at the city stretching out before him.
He had barely had a minute to appreciate the coolness of the air against his mostly bare flesh when warm hands slid down his sides, the skin left behind as their touch continued south tingled and elicited an unbidden, throaty, growl from the paler male. Tony laughed into the caress as Loki raised his other hand to the widow as if to brace himself.
"We're not that good at dealing with the life changing talks are we? I've noticed it nearly always dissolves into sex part way through. Funny that." The engineer mused aloud.
"Apparently not. Did you mean what you said about believing you can sort all of this out? Do you honestly think you have enough time?" The wordsmith asked calmly.
"I do." There was nothing else to say really, Tony thought. That was about as good a reason as he had. He had conviction, if not a solid foundation for his belief.
"That's good enough for me then. I'll wait for you. No matter how long it takes."
"You have all the time in the world."
"And you don't. Yet you insist on wasting what scarce time you do have left standing here talking nonsense to me when I'm perfectly willing to have sex with you right now up against this window."
"That is all the proof I need that there is a solution to our situation. There isn't an entity alive evil enough stop me from tapping dat for all eternity."
"Do get on with it Stark else you might find your already short lifespan grow ever shorter rather rapidly." Loki added with a smirk.

They might be incapable of holding a legitimately serious discussion with legitimately serious repercussions for any length of time, but neither man was foolish enough to misunderstand what had actually just transpired.
They had acknowledged that they were doomed.
But acknowledging something isn't the same as accepting it.

Time wasn't on their side. They had no idea where to start, next to no clue on where to go from here and no magic.
What they did have however was one of the brightest, snarkiest minds in the known universe, a God with a penchant for cataclysmically diva-esque antics and a marriage that had the potential to survive the end of the world itself.

Tony liked those odds and though Loki was too preoccupied at the time to say it, he quite liked them too.

…

It's party time mo'fo's. I promise things will pick up too after this, I think this little scene needed to happen before some other things get set into motion. Farwell bitches! I will see you in several fantastic days :D!
Also, as terrible a person as this makes me, I absolutely loved the reviews and reactions for that last chapter!
But I couldn't leave you on that note before I went so here's this chapter and I hope this makes it all a little better! Also I got 12 reviews in just over 5 hours so I am immensely grateful to everyone who commented and everyone who has commented since! :D