Back to plot. Glad everyone seemed to enjoy my self-indulgent crap. lol
Thirty-Seventh Installment: The Rest of the Journey
"Do you remember what you were doing there in the dark?"
The question sets off a series of random images in his mind. Does he remember what he was doing in the dark? In that terribly dark, endlessly dark, inescapably dark place where he'd fallen? I didn't do it on purpose, you idiot. I didn't just decide to go out for a walk and get lost when I ventured off the path. For no reason at all, he finds that absurdly hilarious. He laughs, and he thinks how his companion is called Mad Titan, yet he is not the mad one.
Companion? No. That is too playful a word. Tormentor. He cannot call Mad Titan his captor, because he hasn't tried to escape.
Hasn't even really considered escaping.
Could I escape? There's no door. Surely I can't escape if there's no door. Am I in a room? No walls, but then he remembers there are chains around his wrists. Chains that cause him pain every time he thinks about them.
How odd.
"No," he finally cackles. "I don't remember the dark."
Well, that's untrue. He remembers all too well. What he means is, he doesn't want to remember. But Mad Titan doesn't need such a specific answer.
"Don't lie to me, Loki."
That is even more amusing.
He hisses in pain (or is that another laugh?) when Mad Titan activates the obelisk to which Loki is chained. The thing is perhaps a meter tall, and it is covered in snaking, tangled runes. Each one is capable of eliciting a different sort of torturous response, and Mad Titan tends to use them all at once. It is terrible. There are no words to describe it, but he has come to crave this. The pain is so numbingly intense, so powerfully agonizing, that it allows him to focus on nothing else. It grounds him, terrible though it is.
"I want to know how you're not dead."
And Loki doesn't understand the question, because he is dead. He has been ever since he fell.
o0o
Tony floundered out of sleep when he felt the body in bed next to him flail upright with a low cry. It set his heart to racing as he sat bolt-upright. Loki had his back to him, chest heaving and naked skin covered in a fine sheen of perspiration. Tony scooted toward him, gently squeezing his slim shoulders.
"What is it?" he asked, trying to calm his own heart.
Loki rubbed a hand over his face, pushing disheveled black hair out of his eyes. "It's nothing," he said, rolling his shoulders. "Don't touch me, Stark."
There was no venom in his tone, but there was neither any tolerance. It hurt, and Tony removed his hands. Are you ever gonna thaw toward me? I just spent all night fucking you. Why d'ya have to be so cold now? "I can't help it," he said. "When a person I love is in pain, I want to fix it."
. . . Shit.
The room went deathly still. Loki slowly straightened, looking directly ahead. After what felt like an eternity, green eyes met dark brown. "I don't ever want to hear something so idiotic from your mouth again, Stark."
With grace and surprising poise for someone naked, Loki rose from the bed. As soon as his feet were touching the floor, he sort of shimmered like a mirage. In an instant, all evidence of last night's activities was gone from his body. Fully clothed in his ornate leather armor, he gave Tony a frozen, emotionless look.
"The dwarves will see to a meal for you," he said, voice overly formal and stiff. "I'm going to help them in the mines. If you see the others, please inform them." With that, he swept from the room.
Tony flung himself backward, not sure if he was more angry at himself or at Loki. Okay, he definitely hadn't meant to spill that little epiphany in that way. But he definitely hadn't expected Loki to react like that. Last night had seemed like such tremendous, enormous progress. The things he'd allowed Tony to do . . . a person didn't fuck like that with another person if there were no feelings attached. It hadn't been fucking, it had straight up been making love. Romantic, sappy making love. Including after-sex cuddling and then after, after-sex cuddling.
Last night was good. I was just beginning to think he would actually let me in after all.
What was it Thor had said? Placing his affections unwisely? Way to go, idiot. Said something too heavy too fast, and now Loki's gone into fight or flight. There was only one way to rectify this, and it would involve a whole lot of the one thing he wasn't good at.
Talking about his feelings.
With the one person in creation who was even worse at it than Tony Stark.
o0o
The first thing Steve did when he was awake, washed up, and dressed was gather the rest of Avengers to him. Even Tony was awake, which was good. As soon as they'd assembled in sort of private courtyard to which they'd been given free access, he took stock.
His, Natasha's, and Tony's injuries were healed. Everyone else was fine. The dwarves had promised Iron Man's suit would be finished by tomorrow morning. They'd been given food and a safe place to rest. Things seemed to be looking good - except for one unknown.
"Has anyone seen Loki?" he asked as soon as he was done with his once-over of the humans.
Thor shook his head.
Steve looked to Tony next. The man gave no verbal reply, but the captain could see in his body language what he didn't say.
"Stark?" he prompted.
Who gave him a slight glare. "Yes."
"When?"
"Last night. This morning."
Steve might not be as sexually adventurous as Tony, but he got the inference with no extra elucidation. Judging by his tone, that had been a continuous timeline. Surprising. I didn't know they were that comfortable with each other. Or that Stark was so nuts.
"How was he?" he asked, ignoring Thor's thunderous look of disapproval.
"Physically?" Tony said, voice now surprisingly venomous, "he seemed just fine. Dandy. Using magic like a champ. Mentally? Back to his old self. Emotionally? Fucking retarded prick."
More surprises.
It was Natasha who got over her shock first. "Something happen?"
"Nothing I feel like talking about, and nothing that's any of your business," Stark snapped, his eyes taking in all of them and lingering on Thor.
Who actually looked slightly abashed.
Interesting. Steve suddenly wished he had Natasha's gift for reading people. Or Loki's, for that matter. "Do you know where he went . . . when he left?" he asked, hoping that didn't sound indelicate. Stark was right, it wasn't anyone's business what he did with Loki.
Even if doing anything with Loki was a really bad idea.
Looking put-upon, Tony sighed and folded his arms. "Said he was going to help the dwarves mine for some type of metal. Apparently only magic can extract it."
Thor shifted. "Sky iron. Dwarves also call it mage iron, because if magic isn't used in the mining, the liquid turns to dust and is completely useless."
"It's liquid?" Tony asked, seeming to regain his usual composure.
The Aesir nodded. "Yes. I don't know how the process works, but during the extraction the liquid solidifies into something much harder than steel. It is also many times lighter, and no metal is better for enchanting."
Steve had a sudden desire to see the process in action. Later. "How are you three doing?" he asked, looking to Stark, Natasha, and Clint. "No negative side effects?"
"It's Loki," Natasha said with a little smirk. "I think if anyone knows what he's doing, it's him."
"That's her way of saying, no negative side effects," Clint piped up.
"Though one particularly weird one," Tony said. He tapped his chest. "It's gone."
Bruce blinked. "The Arc reactor?"
"Yeah," Tony replied. "Loki said my body rejected it because it wasn't needed. In fact, pulled the shrapnel right out of my chest."
"My eyesight is even better than it was," Clint said.
"And my reflexes," Natasha added.
"Actually, I feel younger," Tony said after a second. "Like I did when I was twenty-five. Stronger." He flexed his knees and shoulders a little, only just noticing. "And I did notice last night my stamina seemed to have increased."
Steve instantly felt a flush. Yeah, really only one inference, there. Bruce looked uncomfortable, too, but Natasha just gave Stark a tiny, knowing grin. And of course, Stark himself seemed to think there was nothing at all wrong with what he'd just said.
"So this metal," Bruce said, looking at Thor as if desperate for a change of topic, "is there any chance the dwarves would let me in on the process?"
"Most likely, if Loki agreed," Thor said with a frown. "Dwarves and Aesir have never gotten along, so I'm not even sure how Loki has entrenched himself in their good graces."
"It's Loki," Natasha said again.
Stark snorted.
"How do the dwarves enchant things if they can't use magic?" Bruce asked.
Steve nodded thoughtfully. Good question.
Thor folded his arms and drummed his fingers against his bicep. "The way my mother described it, they are imbuing magical properties into their weapons and armor, but the magic doesn't come from them. Like the dark elves, they are harvesting it from elsewhere. Magic abounds in Nidavellir."
That didn't make much sense to Steve.
Stark waved toward Thor's warhammer. "That thing was forged by the dwarves, right?"
Thor nodded. "Long ago. As a wedding gift to the Allfather." He pushed off the wall against which he'd been leaning. "I will attempt to find someone to ask about the mines."
"Can the witch reach us here?" Steve asked.
"No," Thor answered. "Even if she could find us, the dwarves would never allow her free passage inside the city."
Immediate concern thus assuaged, Steve nodded. "Then how about some breakfast?"
o0o
A doe-eyed female dwarf led Bruce and Tony out into the city. Though Bruce was content to walk in silence and take in the sights, Tony (as usual) immediately barraged the dwarf with questions. Predominantly about Loki.
"My people don't like the Aesir," she told them with a sniff. "They make demands of us and act like they're so much better than we are, and yet I don't see them creating armors and weapons of such magnificence. Their two greatest weapons, Mjölnir and Gungnir, were both made by us.
"But Loki was different from the moment he came here," she continued. She smoothed her pale blue smock, an unconscious gesture no doubt, and it spoke volumes of her feelings. She even blushed a little. "He wasn't falsely polite, he didn't attempt to flatter us. He acknowledged our skills and offered to trade fairly for them."
He comes by his nickname Silvertongue honestly, Bruce thought with an inward smile. It's almost hard to believe he can be so charming. My first impression of him wasn't a good one.
"My brothers, Sindri and Brokkr," she went on, "adore him. He has helped them in the mines so much. When last he was here, he extracted enough sky iron to last us through many projects we had despaired of completing. And all he asked in return was a small supply to build a staff. And our help in making it, of course." She giggled.
Giggled. Like a silly schoolgirl. Bruce shook his head. The power Loki had over people seemed to be immense, and Bruce didn't quite understand the appeal. Sure, the guy wasn't ugly. But he was just so . . .
Bad news. He's bad news.
He noticed she was watching him with a frown. "You don't like him?" She made it sound like an accusation.
Bruce cleared his throat and shot Tony a quick look. The man had a tiny smirk on his face.
"Well," the physicist said after a slight pause, "he definitely knows how to make an impression on people."
She raised an eyebrow.
Shrugging, Bruce scratched the back of his neck. "I mean, he certainly made a splash when he introduced himself."
The female dwarf continued on. "Well, I don't even understand what Loki could be doing with humans in the first place. Why would he have need to go to Midgard of all places? It's so ordinary there. No magic. There's nothing special about it."
"Just seven billion humans living there," Tony said. "No big deal."
"Hmph. You humans breed even more rapaciously than rodents."
"A little bitter about your place on the magic totem pole?" Tony challenged with an irreverent grin.
Bruce found himself struggling not to smile. It wasn't nice to find humor in the misfortune of others. Real or imagined though they may be.
The dwarf glared before resuming walking. She led them, now a little stiff-backed, to the entrance of the mine. "I'm not going down there," she said. "It's filthy. Just follow the path. You'll find miners right away, just ask them and they will take you to Loki. Try not to get in the way too much." With that, she whirled and stalked away.
"Touched a nerve?" Bruce murmured, leaning a little toward Tony.
Who snorted. "Ya think? Geez. Why does everyone we meet either love the shit outta Loki or want him dead for some horrible offense?"
"Wondering why you got involved with such a madman?" Bruce inquired with a small grin.
"Hey, your bread is my butter," Tony said.
Bruce blinked. "That made no sense."
"Exactly," Tony agreed. "Finally, someone who understands."
Shaking his head, Bruce followed him down.
o0o
Soothing, comforting green seiðr flowed in a fine mist from Loki's palms down into the vein of sky iron. He'd always thought that was a ridiculous name for the silvery-gold metal, since it wasn't iron. On either side of him stood two hairy-faced dwarves, Sindri and Brokkr, who were two of the best dwarven craftsmen in the city. They'd been the ones to aid Loki in the making of his Aether staff.
And both of them had independently expressed to Loki a willingness to do anything for him should he need.
Including die.
Loki was never one to let such loyalties fade. This was a relationship he'd spent a great deal of time nurturing. So far, he'd reaped the rewards over and over. And he'd expended only a little bit of magic in the process. Mining sky iron was one of the easiest uses of magic.
While Loki poured seiðr into the vein of sky iron, the two dwarf brothers waited with special barrels to capture the liquid metal. Once the barrels were full, they covered them and put them into an enchanted device which compressed the lid, forcing the liquid to heavier and heavier density. There it would stay for up to a month before extraction. Then it would be as malleable as gold with ten times the hardness of steel.
Truly, it was a marvelous metal. And it was also the easiest metal in the Nine to enchant, another thing Loki was very good at. The easier the metal to enchant, the less energy Loki had to expend.
In just an hour, Loki had filled three barrels with the precious metal. So perfect was his control of magic that not a drop of seiðr was wasted, no energy expended unnecessarily. And when the brothers adjusted the barrels, he saw them deliberately put their hands into the seiðr flow. He knew it would feel like a warm, extremely pleasant tingle to them.
He was halfway through filling the fourth when a third dwarf trotted into the tunnel with two humans in tow. Loki gritted his teeth.
He'd managed to spend his entire morning not thinking about Stark, and here the fool was. Why couldn't I have thrown myself into a physical tangle with any other Avenger? Any of them would have accepted my repudiation and moved on. But not Stark. No, not him.
"Loki?" Brokkr said, rough voice low.
Loki relaxed his jaw, realizing the flow of seiðr had gotten noticeably darker. The color shifted to its normal pale green.
"You have been unwell," Sindri said. "Perhaps this should be our last barrel for today."
Shaking his head, Loki tried to ignore the presences at his back. "I'm fine. I promised you another five, did I not?"
"Even one is a tremendous boon to my people," Brokkr said. "You are generous as always, Loki."
The reverence in his tone made the god of mischief smile. "You have more than earned this favor from me. How many times have you aided me in the last nine moon-spans?"
"Twice, that I can recall," Sindri said at once with a gravelly chuckle. "We owe you, Loki."
"And he always collects," Stark commented.
That made both brothers turn to the human with downright poisonous glares. "Do not speak, human. The wit of a rock beetle has nothing to contribute."
"Ouch," Stark said, not sounding particularly wounded.
"Stark is one of the cleverest humans you will ever find," Loki said without thinking. "The armor you were so keen to get your hands on was envisioned and built by him." He closed his teeth around his errant tongue with an audible click.
What in Borr's name was that? I sound like a maiden defending her betrothed!
And he could feel Stark glowing at the praise. "Ya hear that, you furry-faced moles? I'm probably the smartest guy in this hole - except for him."
Loki didn't need to look to know who Stark meant. He ground his teeth. "Did you come down here for a reason?" he demanded, making sure his voice was cold. "Or are you simply here to provide comic relief? If so, the distraction is unwelcome."
"Jesus you're a cold bastard," Stark said. "I came to see if we could help."
Now irritated for a plethora of reasons, Loki cut off the flow of seiðr and rounded on the human. "I already told you sky iron requires magic to extract. Unless you've picked up that ability in the last hour, you'll only be in the way. Leave."
He could feel Stark's displeasure, knew his words were hurtful. Good. I don't want your love, you fool, and it's the last thing I need.
"D'you mind if we talk for a sec?" the man asked.
"I have work to do, Stark," Loki said, returning his full attention to the vein of sky iron. "If you insist on pointless confabulation, then waste my time this evening when I'm done."
He heard Stark let out a faint hiss. "God you're a bastard." His footsteps seemed to echo louder than when he'd entered.
One set. Which meant Banner was still there. Loki suppressed a sigh. "If you stay, Dr. Banner, you can make yourself useful by helping with the barrels." He nodded with his head toward the three full ones. "They need to be sealed."
Banner didn't speak, he just got busy.
But Loki could feel the judgment, and it irritated him. Like a burr under his skin. He ignored it. I owe neither him nor Stark a damn thing.