I hope there aren't any Norse mythology experts reading this, because I may have borrowed some stuff and completely 'F'ed it up to suit my little story – may the Norns forgive me XD So please don't quote me on the origin of souls, the intricacies of magic and any relationships between Realms ;) Enjoy the Loki POV!

PREVIOUSLY ON ASAF: He was just wondering if he should take his pizza with him and retire to his bedroom, when Thor looked at him with the most serious expression he had ever seen on his face. "Friend Tony," the blond said, and that clearly meant trouble. Was it too late to flee now? "We," he continued, throwing a warning gaze at Loki, "need to speak with you about a most serious matter." Well, shit.

CHAPTER 6

Stark looked just as tense as Loki felt. He really did not want to think of this matter, let alone talk about it! He'd prefer to forget about it all together. And if only he could. He knew he was doomed, though. And he would have to tell it all to the mortal, he knew that. But he was so exhausted!

"Can we not do this in the morrow?" He added a pleading look for Thor's sake. It used to work when he was younger; lately, though, it rarely did. "We are all very tired."

"Yeah, totally agree! Pizza, and then sleep until at least tomorrow afternoon, that's all I need," Stark said. The Midgardian tried to look relaxed, but Loki recognised the tension around his eyes.

Thor only appeared just as forbidding, and Loki knew his attempt at delaying the inevitable had failed. When the blonde had decided something, the stubborn oaf would not listen to anything. "We shall discuss this now."

"Okay. I need a drink then. You want one? Yeah, I think you'll want one. You both look way too serious for this tower, you know." Stark stood up and walked over to the bar. The amber alcohol he had taken earlier today was still there, and he picked it up with three glasses and brought it to the low table standing next to the L-form couch. He then walked back to the bar again, and took the two pizza boxes with him. "Here," he said to Thor. "All yours."

Loki still had not opened his own box. It felt merely warm in his normal-coloured hands. He was relieved his shapeshifting had succeeded, and had deactivated the ice magic as well. Stark looked rather fatigued, and it was his fault – he had stolen magic from his veins, and even a tiny amount from his mechanical heart, to manage the shapeshifting until the end. He had even taken a bit too much, so he had transformed it into physical energy healing. At least he had been able to walk on his own this way. Even though looking weak might be practical sometimes, he hated it, so not having to lean on Stark was a relief. He had already needed to borrow energy – well, steal more like, as he was not going to give it back – and that was pathetic enough.

Stark had almost finished his… pizza, and was still slowing munching on a piece. He looked sideways at Loki, then at the unopened cardboard box. "You should eat. You didn't get much of that shawarma, or the fries." When Loki didn't do anything, Stark leaned over and opened the box, revealing a pristine, untouched pepperoni pizza. "Don't tell me I've got to bodily feed you again." Before the man could get any crazy ideas in his head, Loki picked up a piece, the cheese resisting the separation.

It smelled edible enough. It just did not look very palatable, or healthy. However, if mortals could consume it, surely a god could as well. He cautiously took a bite. Well. It was not the best of meals, but it was good enough for now. And if he ate, he could not be expected to speak. Loki endeavoured to unhurriedly demolish this pepperoni pizza.

Thor, of course, had other plans. "Brother. You said it was soul magic that permitted Tony to touch you unharmed. Are you truly certain? You know better than me that such a thing is as rare as the meeting of stars."

"Wait," Stark said, holding up his hands, palms outward. "Are you confirming the existence of souls here? 'Cause if you do I might need to revise my faith. Most of humanity might too. This could be kind of big deal, you know. So, how does it work? If there is a soul, what happens to it when you die?"

Thor looked taken aback by the question even though he should not have; for beings as short-lived as mortals, it was logical that death and afterlife was on their minds. Instead of answering, the blond oaf just looked at Loki, and Loki sighed. Of course it would be his turn to explain such things. Oh, joy…

"After death, souls travel to Helheimr, the Realm of the dead. There they stay until they are reunited with their other half, after which it is believed they join Yggdrasil again and once more become one with It. Some say souls are later reborn similar to what they were before, during the next Release and subsequent Split."

Stark blinked at him in incomprehension. That was not surprising; Loki had not made his explanation understandable to a being as young and ignorant as a mortal. He could barely believe himself that he was bound to this weak creature, and that his life depended on it.

"So, let me get this straight. If I understand anything of what you're saying, souls are, like, generated by that Yggra-thing, and when someone dies they go to hell – where the fuck is paradise in this scenario – and hell is like a waiting room. And then they go back to Yggra-thing and are reborn again, maybe the same, maybe different. Right?" Even if Stark's understanding was very crude, Loki was surprised by what he had managed to understand in Loki's rapid little speech. "What I don't get it the 'other half' and 'splitting' thing." Ah. The mortal even succeeded in pointing out the most important element of this Norn forsaken conversation. Interesting.

"Yggdrasil, the World Tree, or Life Tree, connects all of the Nine Realms. It has no physical manifestation in our planes of existence, and grows Its power from the Well of Urd, where the Three Norns reside. The Norns are the entities who control the Well; Urd, chief of them, is also known as Lady Fate; Verdandi is master of the present and everything that is, and Skuld holds the future and everything that can be." Stark looked disbelieving, and yet listened raptly. Thor, on the other hand, did not pay any attention to these tales he already knew, and instead was stealing pieces from Loki's pizza in an anything but discreet manner.

Stark chose that moment to pour alcohol in his glass, and Loki paused. Without a word the mortal took a second glass and filled that one to the brink, before handing it to Loki. He took a cautious sip. It had a strange taste, though not a disagreeable one, and it was about as strong as Asgardian mead. He tossed the rest down his throat, and continued.

"Yggdrasil brings magic along Its branches to the Realms, and all beings living under Its shade can, theoretically, use magic. All souls come from the Well of Urd, and through the Norns' carvings in Yggdrasil's trunk, the souls are embedded in the World Tree. That is when the Split occurs. All souls are split in two, creating two halves of a whole, two sister souls. These half-souls – which are often wrongly called 'souls' even if they are not complete – travel along the branches of Yggdrasil until it is time for them to be borne by a physical body. When these bodies die, the half-souls go to Helheimr, where they reunite and become whole again. There can be a long lapse between the arrival of one half-soul and the other, because all half-souls are not born to physical beings at the same time; or, even if they were, one bearer may die young while the other grows old. Once reunited, the soul will, at some point, leave Helheimr and join Yggdrasil again. Perhaps they go back to Urd's Well, to dissolve in the rest of the cosmos and reform, changed, later on. Or, the soul remains in Yggdrasil and is Split again, though in another manner than before, and reborn in new physical bodies. That is something only the Norns know."

"Right. Uh huh. Okay. So. You have proof for that, or is this just some spiritual belief, like, based on some very old book or other? 'Cause we have a lot of those too, and they're all very differ—"

"Most of this has been proven."

Stark's mouth stayed open for a few seconds, still ready to finish his previous word. "Huh. Okay. If you say so. Let's say I believe you – which, yeah, can't say I do – but let's pretend I do, why the hell are you telling me? I mean, I'm sure the others would like to know too. You'd probably turn Cap's life upside down with a story like that – and he woke up to a whole different world after seventy years of icy sleep, so he knows all about updating world views."

Thor chose that moment to intervene – finally – and spoke with his mouth full of cheese and dough. "You are part of the proof that confirms the Conception Tales, friend Stark." And that was all the oaf said, damn him!

"I… help prove your… tales. How? No, what the fuck have you been smoking? Do you get high on pepperoni, or what?"

"What Thor means," Loki said, glaring at his false brother, "is that you and I, we verify a long-discarded myth that proves the 'one soul split in two' tale." He fell silent, unable to simply say it outright. Which was ridiculous, really. 'What is, is.' There was no need to be unnerved by the truth – even if one would prefer for it not to be true.

"How? What the fuck did I do that is so special?"

Loki laughed humourlessly. "Oh, you didn't do anything. And neither did I. This is just all for the amusement of Lady Fate. We…" Loki took a deep breath, and yet the words refused to pass his lips. It was utterly pathetic, but he would have go about it another way. "Souls – half-souls, sister souls – never meet before Helheimr. There are so many souls in the nine Realms, that even for people as long-lived as the Æsir, coming across one's other half-souls is practically unheard of. Almost unheard of. The meeting of souls, or the so-called Myth of Soul-Mates, is nowadays only known as a fanciful story that mothers tell their daughters at bedtime. It is, however, not a myth, but only impossibly rare."

"Okay. No. I don't like your story. Like, not at all. I think I'm getting the gist of it, and I don't like it at all. Forget it. You can keep your weird-arse fairy tales!" Stark stood up, shaking his head, and tried to bypass Thor and flee to other rooms, but the Asgardian was quicker. He caught the mortal's shoulder and pushed him back down – pushed him with such force that Stark had no choice but to fold himself in two. "Yeah, okay!" he said, pushing at Thor's arm until he pulled away, and massaging his sore muscles. "I'll listen to your bullshit!" He poured himself another generous amount of amber liquid and downed it. "So. Please tell me you didn't just say we were soulmates."

"I…" If only Stark knew how much Loki wished he didn't have to say it. "We are, unfortunately… soulmates."

"Right. And how the fuck did you get to that stupid conclusion?"

Stark's anger was contagious, and Loki took a deep breath to calm down, closing his eyes for good measure. It was unfortunate, outrageous even, but there was nothing to be done. Absolutely nothing. Accepting it was hard, but that was what needed to be done. By Stark and himself both. "When we touched the first time… When I tried to… strangle you… Our souls tried to connect, and Thanos' power managed to throw off that brittle contact, which resulted in me tossing you down. When I tried to strangle you the second time, our half-souls connected completely, and our contact could not be broken again – our soul became one, like it would have later, after death."

"And you looking like death warmed over, what was that?"

"That was soul magic, led by Lady Fate, battling Thanos' magic, using me as a conduit to fight each other. Soul magic is the rarest and purest form of magic, while Thanos uses the foulest of magics, death and blood magic, and both oppose each other in all things. Standing in between is very dangerous, and I really thought I was dying for a moment."

Stark lifted an eyebrow. "Right. And that makes us… soulmates, because of some opposing mojo shit?"

Loki chuckled. "No, there is more proof. Soulmates are connected. Forever bound. They share magic – the magic signature is even the same – and they share life force, and perhaps other things I'm not aware of. After you went through the portal, I collapsed, so I assume it was because you did as well."

"Yeah, my heart might have stopped at some point there."

"Mmh, I see. So your recklessness might have killed me. Typical." Loki forced his breath out through his nose. No need to dwell on the past. "If you die, I die, or if I die, you die. We are bound in life and death, and there is nothing, not even through magic, that can be done about it. Even the Norns cannot change this."

Stark looked dumbfounded for a moment, and then, most curiously, started to laugh. He laughed and laughed until he started to cough, and then laughed some more. Thor watched him, surprised, but Loki was not. He himself would have laughed himself silly if he had not known how dire the situation truly was.

"My brother is not jesting, friend Tony."

"No… cough, cough… I can see that on your faces." Stark's chuckles slowly died down, and his face regained a serious expression. "So… Apart from the one dies the other dies – which, really, what the fuck man! – what does this whole soulm—, no I can't say it, it's too strange. Combined souls thing. What does that entail?"

"It entails that we cannot be separate, and that my life-time has been tremendously shortened," Loki replied acerbically.

"Geez, sorry for being human!" Stark replied in a similar tone. He closed his eyes and gripped the bridge of his nose, staying like that for a few moments. When he looked up again he was composed. "What do you mean by 'not separate'."

"I'm… unsure. I never listened much to these myths. One thing that always comes back is the inability to stay separate."

"Right. Any idea of the maximum distance?"

"'They could not be Realms apart.' That is all I'm sure of."

"Okay. So, supposing all this is true, you're at least stuck on the same planet as me, and worst case scenario, the same tower. And our lives depend on each other. Anything else?" Stark seemed remarkably calm now, as if he had managed to detach himself from the situation at hand; perhaps he liked to pretend this was happening to someone else.

"I discovered that our magic signature is the exact same; I thought that was impossible, as every signature is unique. And as we have the same magic, we can use each other's corporal magic. You have an extra magic signature, coming from your mechanical light. Also, it would seem that my magic, at least, cannot hurt you."

"Right. Great." Silence fell then, uncomfortable and loaded. Stark emptied the rest of his alcohol in the three glasses, and picked his up. "Cheers." The mortal chucked his drink down, as did Thor. Loki sipped his this time. He wondered what was going through Stark's mind. Did he believe all this? It was a lot to take in in one day; people from other Realms and beyond, magic and soul bonds. Even if he did believe it, he probably could not realise the implications yet.

"Well, I'm beat! How about we get some sleep and never get out of bed again? Jarv', tell me which rooms we have."

"Captain Rogers and Doctor Banner took a guest room, and Agents Barton and Romanoff another. The two other guest rooms are not usable. Only Miss Potts' room, and your room, Sir, can welcome our visitors."

"I see. Well. After a day like this, everyone should at least get a bed. I don't have any comfortable couches. They're all expensive designs, but they're not really meant to be sat on." Stark stood up and stretched. "Let's go." And he walked towards the stairs that embraced the elevator shaft.

They went up the steps, a great many of them, Thor's heavy footfalls echoing in the silence. While the exertion barely made Loki light-headed, Stark was breathing heavily once they arrived on the intended floor, and Loki wondered if it had been pride or a miscalculation in his own stamina that had had Stark forgo the more than useful elevator. In the corridor that followed, there were two doors that opposed each other. At the end of the passage, a window showed the darkened city. Stark opened the door on their right, and the lights inside ignited.

"So. That's Pepper's bed. Which reminds me I haven't called her yet, and she is so going to kill me… It's too late now, anyway. So, Pepper's bed, king sized, like all the beds here. You boys are brothers, so I'm sure you've slept in the same bed before."

Thor stepped inside, probably sharing Stark's logic, but there was no way Loki would stay all night in the same room as that idiot! Even if Thor did not snore like a bilgesnipe – which he did – he moved so much that you always ended up with his foot in your face in the middle of the night. And either way, Loki did not want to be subjected to Thor's questions.

"I won't stay in the same room as Thor."

"Brother—"

"I'm not your brother." Thor's expression transformed into such a sad face that Loki had to turn away. "And I'm feeling weak again; I might revert back to my Jötunn form during the night, and only the Norns know what could happen!" he lied.

From the corridor where Stark had vacated to, a mumbled "liar" was followed by another door opening. This was the second time the mortal recognised his lies for what they were. He certainly had a keen perception.

"Oh. That is regrettable, Brother, yet inevitable. You will have to share Tony's bed, then."

Loki turned to Thor, eyes widened. From the other room, a "what?" resounded, and footsteps approached. Loki had not thought about that! "I'll sleep on a… couch. Or the ground."

"No," Stark said. "You're not gonna make me a liar. I said everyone was gonna sleep on a bed. Mine is big enough." Loki just stared.

Finally, the cat is out of the bag! Tony knows about soulmates! It only took me like 20k XD And I know you might think that with both of them knowing, things will finally start between them but… Sorry people :) I did say this was a slow build :p

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LL