So, yeah, hi, it's been a while. Here's the next chapter of my never-ending fic. And, erm, yeah, I know I left you on a cliff-hanger and all, and that was not nice, and I tried to update as soon as possible but well… Here we are. I apologise for the wait. This chapter just didn't want to be written. And it's not even what I wanted it to be – expect a lot more magic mumbo-jumbo. But hey, on the upside, more than half of the next chapter is already written, so there's that. Meanwhile, enjoy, I hope.
PREVIOUSLY ON ASAF:
It all happened so fast – Loki stood frozen in place, eyes wide and breath caught, unable to make himself move. It was ridiculous. He should have had sufficient time to step away; everything was moving so very slowly. And he himself was slowest of all.
Thanos' magic was only a dozen hairs thick and half a breath away from his chest. The Mad Titan was going to fight for his mind again, and he had none of his magical reserve to fight such an assault. This was it. This was the end.
CHAPTER 27
The instant Tony let go of Loki's hand he knew he'd made a huge mistake; the sudden explosion of light was nothing compared to the tsunami of dread that washed over him. He moved without thinking and dove back towards his motionless soulmate. His fingertips slid against the blue skin of the arm first, and the connection rushed back in place, bright and steady. His palm was next, and Loki's alarm, fear and hopelessness was almost overwhelmingly blinding. With the momentum the rest of his body followed, and his chest hit Loki's bicep hard enough to make his soulmate wobble slightly. Then everything was still.
It was as if time had stopped. Or like time had stopped around them – Tony could feel his own heartbeat tap-dance in his ribcage just fine. Loki's heartbeat was like frightened doe's. Loki's heartbeat? Yeah, he definitely knew what Loki's heartbeat was like right now. Just like he could feel-see the warm-cold-warm thing of magic all around them, in them, through them, being all magic-like and confusing. Except in that one spot where it wasn't flowing and wavy and pulsing. That one spot where the other magic was.
Tony could see-feel-know Thanos' spell now; ugly dark purple bubbling tentacles that spouted from the sceptre and that he somehow could almost smell – and you guessed it, it frigging stank! One of those tentacle things was extended, getting thinner and thinner the further it was from the source, and in that one spot where it wanted to touch Loki's chest, in that spot where the magical core was, the soothing magic of the bond spat and crackled and sizzled and threw blue-white sparks everywhere. It was deafening and silent at the same time; angry, protective, an explosive defence.
Tony only hesitated for half a second – it did look pretty not-good – but there was nothing to it; there was no way he could move Loki by force, so he'd just have to stop the source of what made his soulmate so stupidly motionless and blanked out. He wedged his hand in the very centre of the invisible magical battle, palm on Loki's chest and the back of his hand the new source of the spitting blue sparks. Loki breathed in, pushing Tony's hand further towards the twin clashing magics when his chest expanded – there was panic screaming across the bond, but it was also being smothered by the fluffy blanket of relief – and Loki took just the teeny tiniest step backwards, taking Tony with him. Magic disappeared from the world again.
It felt like Loki's heart was pounding against his palm, beating at a crazy rhythm, but Tony knew it was slowing down. He couldn't see-feel magic anymore – why the hell were his magical-seeing abilities so random? – but he knew they were safe from the sceptre right now. Not that Tony had any intention of letting go yet. He leaned back just enough to loop his right arm around Loki's, and with his palm stuck to his soulmate's chest he half crab-walked them to the nearest walkway between worktables. Only then did he remove his left hand from Loki's heart, tightened his grip on Loki's arm, and marched them back to his main computer in the middle of the workshop.
Then came that awkward moment when everything was silent. Usually that was the moment when in movies people would spring apart, perhaps clumsily apologise, and everything would be back to normal. Really, that's what Tony should do – minus the apologising part – but… He didn't want to. Or maybe it was Loki who didn't want to. He wasn't sure. Everything seemed more muddled than usual.
Still, not letting go wasn't the same as not stepping back. So he stepped back. And looked up – because let's not forget Loki was as stupidly tall as any other alien – and there was his soulmate's face. All azure, and sapphire, and navy both on the genetical tribal-like ridges and the lips; lips that were parted to accommodate Loki's quick breaths, showing the sharp-looking, slightly bluish and slightly translucid teeth; and Loki's wide, wide eyes were the blood-red seemed to go on forever, darkening around the pupil in the most fascinating iris—
God damnit, no! Nope. He was getting all, well, not flustered, but mesmerised— no, intrigued. Yes, just intrigued by Loki's face. He had to look away. Like, now. Now. No, really, now. Tony wrenched his hand away from Loki's arm, stepped back and turned.
"Wow! That's quite the nasty backstabbing mind-control-spell-thing, isn't it!" Tony said in a cheery tone that sounded false even to his own ears. "Talk about a superhero save, though! Not a millisecond too late, eh? Ugh, just thinking about going through the whole ordeal of you getting all Disney-movie-villain again and me exorcising you… It gives me chills."
Loki's face had recovered its normal, neutral, poker-face-like state. The only thing he did was blink. As if Tony was speaking Chinese – although now that he thought about it, maybe Loki understood Chinese. You never knew with aliens. Anyway, still blinking. How helpful.
"Hum, so… I totally get it if you don't ever want to get close to that thing again – I mean, even I don't want to – but there's the whole thing with trying to lift the curse so that we can get it off the planet for humanity's safety and all that… Of course, if you're still okay with working on it we can do it another day, no proble—"
"Are you calling me a coward?"
Tony still had his mouth half-open, stuck on that last syllable, and he closed it with an audible click. "Is that your way of saying you want to keep working on it now?" More silent blinking. "Okay. All right. Have it your way." As if things had gone any other way than Loki's way lately. "I'll fire up the other scanner and calibrate it like the sceptre's one and we'll see what we can find out."
Tony sat down in front of his screens again, and Loki followed close behind. He loomed over Tony's shoulder while he worked, as if he was following his progress – but Tony was certain there was nothing for Loki to understand. Unless he'd been reading books upon books about programming – and even then he wouldn't get it all. Books aren't the best way to learn.
Loki was standing close enough that Tony could feel his body-heat— well, not heat, but cool. Body-cool. Or maybe it was the proximity that made the bond react. Anyway, Tony was hyper aware of the presence behind him, and it wasn't helping his concentration. He knew why Loki was doing it; he wanted to stay close too after the almost disastrous accident that just happened. For comfort and all that. Tony could call him out on it, but… He couldn't deny that it was nice to have Loki so close and undeniably safe. Like wanting to hold your cute clingy puppy in your arms after you just saved it from being run over. It was just a natural reaction. Nothing to worry about.
"There. Scanners on and configured like the other one. Try and stick your hand in, see what we get."
It took Loki a second before he left, and while it seemed like Loki had his bond-shield-thing up and most feelings were muffled, Tony could feel an underlaying reluctance flowing towards him. Loki nevertheless went and put his hand inside the scanning area as asked, and J.A.R.V.I.S. helpfully put a live image of it on screen. Instead of the vibrating points of light that appeared last time, Loki's hand was almost entirely covered in the holographic light, like a glove that followed every ridge and groove and vein, and that pulsed outward, becoming thinner and more transparent, before snapping back onto the skin.
"Awesome! Now maybe try, I don't know, some kind of spell or something?" Tony watched the screen, ready to fine-tune the scanner's configuration, but nothing happened. He looked up and found Loki scowling at him.
"I will need to be in contact with you if you wish me to do magic for your amusement."
"It's not for my amusement, it's for science! And to try and exorcize the sceptre. But fine, sure, I'll come. J.A.R.V.', you be careful with those parameters, yeah?"
"Of course, Sir."
Tony knew J.A.R.V.I.S. could take care of the scanner perfectly well, it was just that this was his magic-scanning baby and he wanted to be the one who made it flawless and even more groundbreakingly awesome. Couldn't blame him for that, right? Then again if J.A.R.V.I.S. – his amazing A.I. – was the one who fiddled with his invention, then everything was still indirectly created one hundred percent by Tony, so… Yep, he was still super awesome!
The moment he was close enough he grabbed Loki's free hand so that the experiment could start ASAP. The magic scanned around Loki's hand sprung to life immediately, pulsing quicker and bigger and brighter, their bond magic adding its energy to Loki's. Or Tony adding his magical/Arc reactor energy to Loki's, and that was what the bond was. Unless the bond was like some extra magical thing – it felt like that sometimes, like it was some entity who was meddling with their lives, forcing them to stay close and not hide anything from each other. Like some meddling crazy old woman called Fate. Or not. Tony wasn't sure he wanted to believe that some mystical entity had so much influence over his life.
"Tony." Loki's voice spelled 'annoyed' just as much as the bond did. "What is it that you are looking for with this?"
"A way to exorcise the sceptre, duh."
"And how is this going to accomplish that?"
"By studying different types of magic and spells and stuff that you can show me, I might understand the way magic works better, and then we can look for concrete ideas to cut the nasty parasitic magic away from the awesome magical source." Loki sighed, and it obviously meant something along the lines of 'you silly mortal with your silly ideas' and 'that is not how magic works' – of course Loki would underestimate his awesome ideas. Of course. "Science is my way of understanding things. It can't hurt to try, can it?" It wasn't Tony's fault he sounded kind of sulky. Really, it wasn't.
"Fine. However I cannot show you any intricate spells, as even with the soul bond's help too much stress on my magical core might damage it."
"What about the ice thing? You've done that before without a hitch."
Loki hummed in response. "I can use Jötunn ice magic because it is not core-based but cell-based."
Then he stayed silent for almost a whole minute. Tony felt it before he could see the results on the scanner – cold seeped through Loki's skin as if he'd just spent a nice afternoon sunning naked on the North Pole (nope, not naked, Tony couldn't use that imagery right now, let's at least say he had pants on). The holographic representation of Loki's magic stopped pulsating, instead vibrating around his hand in what looked like erratic patterns; Tony could have sworn he heard it buzz. He got his free hand inside the scanner, and just when he was close enough to feel the cold, the light spiked out, suddenly looking more like an urchin than a hand.
"Okay. Good. How about other spells then?"
"Small immobile illusions are easy enough, but I doubt it would be of much use with the sceptre. There is however a small cutting spell that I could try, as well as the beginnings of a fireball—"
"A fireball?"
"— an air deflecting spell and gravity distortion. They are all elemental spells, which makes them easier to cast on Midgard than other spells that require more of Yggdrasil's influence."
"Right. Sure. I won't be the one stopping you from showing me a fireball."
"Only the beginning of the spell. A fully formed fire spell needs much more magic than my core can safely channel right now."
"So no fireball?" Tony stuck out his lip in an exaggerated pout. "Ye're a pathetic wizerd, Harry," he added in what was probably the worse Scottish accent ever heard – Loki probably wouldn't know it was a bad accent, though. Right?
Loki shook his head and exasperation made itself know in a corner of Tony head. "No, just a tired and injured one. Let's get started. The sooner we get this over with—"
"Sure. Show me your fireball."
There was a pregnant pause, and Tony could feel the tension emanating from Loki. There was hesitation and a lot of trepidation coming from the bond, so he squeezed his soulmate's hand and waited. And waited. Oh, come on! Didn't he say these were simple spells? Couldn't he at least try somethi—
Loki let go of Tony's hand and turned fully towards him. "It would be best for my magical core if we had a better contact point."
"A better what now?"
"I need to put my hand on your magical core, and you need to put your hand on mine."
"Is that how wizard flirting sounds like these days?"
Loki's eyes went wide, and Tony clamped his mouth shut with an audible smack. Yep, nope, shouldn't have said that. Bad, bad images were filling his head now, with hands going places nowhere near magical cores, and he really should invest in a new brain-to-mouth filter because this one was obviously shot to hell. And perhaps something to reroute the blood flow to his face too – his cheeks were burning and that was really not something he could use either.
"It would be easier if I could access your magical core as directly as possible. Hence a more direct contact with your Arc reactor and your own magical core, using my palm."
"Stealing energy from my Arc reactor to cast spells. Right. That's fine as long as you don't suck me dry."
Loki made a very strange face, and it didn't take long for Tony to go over his last words again and get very, very wrong images in his head – God! Control yourself, Anthony Stark! This was the time for research into magic, not inappropriate thoughts about… a guy! Half-guy. Technically neither male nor female, but… He still looked like a guy. But blue. Like an alien. Yeah, technically this was more xenophilia than homophily— Gah, who was he kidding, he was totally having gay thoughts. Was that bad? Technically, no, but then this wasn't how he was supposed to be. This was not the Tony Stark he knew. Soooooo, yep, it was time to ignore the situation again. He could have a sexual identity crisis later.
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Loki curled his hands into fists and tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore his soulmate's tumultuous emotions. He needed to keep a lid on his feelings and supress the urges to touch Tony whenever he was within range – and Tony's ambiguous words followed by panic, embarrassment and self-depreciation certainly did not help. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand. He would have to bypass his magical core and weave the elemental spells one-handed; it was not necessarily difficult, but he would have to be careful.
"All right, let's do this," Tony said, before suddenly taking off his shirt and throwing it towards his main desk. Oh, dear Norns, this mortal was going to be the death of him much sooner than he anticipated. Loki remembered to school his expression, but it might have been too late; Tony was lifting an eyebrow at him, before looking him up and down and smirking. "What's this? Is the mighty warlock and prince of a whole Realm shy all of a sudden?"
Loki bit his tongue to stop himself from replying to that. Shy? Ha! He was anything but! Though it was probably better for Tony to believe that, than to know that it took every bit of self-control he had to restrain himself from doing… something. So he looked Tony straight in the eye, grabbed the hem of his shirt – almost scratching himself in the process, stupid Jötunn nails – and pulled it up and over his head at a moderately slow pace. There was a small explosion of jumbled feelings on his soulmate's side of the bond but it disappeared before Loki could even try to make sense of it.
Tony was looking at the scanner. "So, uhm, with the better connection to my magic and the Arc reactor you can try some spells, right?" Was it him or was Tony hesitant all of a sudden? He had seemed so eager earlier, what in Yggdrasil's name had changed? It was not as if Loki was particularly keen to do this, even though he knew it might help in their quest of purifying the sceptre.
"Yes," he replied. A direct contact with Tony's magical core would help, he had not lied about that – he could not, Tony would have noticed – but was it strictly speaking necessary? No. No, it was not. It was merely better for his magical core. And it had the advantage of being a marvellous excuse to touch Tony more intimately; they were even bare-chested now, which he had not expected, but he certainly would not complain.
Loki stretched out his left arm towards his soulmate as slowly as if he was approaching a frightened beast and gently flattened his palm over the light of the Arc reactor. The bond hummed at their connection, so much more strongly than before and he let himself revel at the sensation. When Tony's hand came up to his magical core, hovering above his skin at first, before trembling, warm fingers grazed his collarbone and the hot palm pressed over his core, Loki had to supress the smile that threatened to overtake his lips. This was the closest he could be to his soulmate at the moment, their souls in sync and their bond singing. He just hoped Tony would not pick up on the frantic beat of his heart just under his hand.
Loki put his other hand in the scanner and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. The magic flowed freely to and fro between them, down Tony's arm, then down his own, and when Loki let go of the tight control his held over his magical core, the soothing rivulet became a powerful stream. Tony inhaled sharply at the change. Focusing on the magic gathered at Tony's core, he inverted the flow of power coming from himself, and Tony's magic poured into him with a dizzying rush.
Tony's other hand slammed over the one Loki held on his chest. "Oh," was all he said, and Loki forced the flow to calm into a gentle rivulet once again. Tony took a deep breath. "No, I'm fine. I just wasn't expecting it to be this strong, that's all," he said in a low, slightly raspy voice.
Adjusting the flow, Loki waited until Tony's magic accumulated in his core; it was a very unpleasant feeling, as Tony's magic, identical and indistinguishable to his own, was tainted with the raw, metallic tasting energy from the Arc reactor that had fused seamlessly to Tony's core, but that was foreign and almost unfriendly in his own. Once he had enough, he stemmed the flow and concentrated on his weak link to Yggdrasil before weaving the first strands of a fireball spell, which would merely create a tiny glowing sphere of heat, without truly being fire yet.
He did his best to ignore the blue shimmering sparks and lines of light that danced in the palm of his hand, or Tony muttering instructions to J.A.R.V.I.S., until finally the basic form of the fireball spell was complete and a steady sphere of heated light magic rested in his palm. Tony's scanner had millions of small sparks swirling in and around the sphere and whizzing outwards until they disappeared.
"That's a fireball?" Tony sounded disappointed.
"The first stage of it." Loki swallowed. This was harder than it should have been.
"Shut down the holo display for a sec, J.A.R.V.." Only the small, hot ball of light remained, floating above the centre of Loki's palm. So hot. Too hot. This was a basic elemental spell, he should have been able to cast it in his sleep; was it because he had used magic that was not his own? Tony's hand that had still been gripping Loki's over his chest slowly unclasped and entered the scanner's working area. Tony wisely stopped at a safe distance.
"Ah, yeah, okay. It may not look like fire, but that could potentially burn, so. I'll accept this as being a kid fireball."
Loki's hand trembled – this was unbearable. He'd always had some trouble with fire magic, even though it was the one he liked the most, but this was ridiculous. He had studied fire magic more than any other elemental magic because fire magic was eye-catching and impressive and the only magic that sometimes managed to shut oafish warriors like Thor's friends up, even though his elemental affinity lay with the boring and unimposing water magi— Loki took a startled breath and his control slipped. The ball of heat expanded and he jerked his hand away, slapping Tony's out of the way in the same movement before the ball exploded, sending a hot wave of air into their faces.
They stood frozen for a second, Tony's nails digging in Loki's skin both on his chest and on his other hand that his soulmate was now gripping. Tony let out a long, whistling breath. "Wow. That was… Wow."
"I apologise. I did not intend to do that." A pathetic loss of control, worse than what even the most laughable first tier novice could have done. He was glad no one but Tony had witnessed this; Tony would not know how wretched his performance had been. Letting go of his self-control like that, just because he realised how stupidly slow and dense he had been. Of course water magic was the element he had a natural affinity for; he was a Frost Giant, and ice magic was a branch of water magic. And of course fire magic would resist him; he was a Frost Giant, and fire magic was considered one of their weaknesses. His primary affinity for water, his secondary affinity for air, his talent in illusions and shapeshifting, the location of his magical core, his preference for colder climes, that something in Heimdall's gaze and his complicated relationship with the Allfather; it had all pointed towards his Jötunn origin, and he had been too foolish to see, too foolish to even suspect. Too trusting of those he had respected. A stupid little prince indeed.
"Hey." Tony pushed against his chest and Loki's gaze focused on him once again. "Hey, it's okay, no one got hurt. You're fine, I'm fine, the scanner's fine, nothing to worry about, all right?" Tony's smile looked a bit unsure and worry was pecking at their bond, so Loki nodded. Now was not the time to drown in past mistakes. "Okay. J.A.R.V., replay that spell's magic, will ya?"
The pulsating form of his hand appeared, with small whizzing waves rushing to one finger, then another, two fingers, one again, feeding the swirling lines of his weaving that danced above the form of his hand. "Full holo zoom and slow seventy-five percent." The spell weaving took up the entirety of the scanner's surface, multiplying the amount of light points shown by a thousand, showing how tiny drops of magic made their way through the air in a quick, dizzying but precise pattern – the pattern Loki pushed the magic into while he weaved the spell – until they settled in the middle, building a swirling sphere. His grasp on magic. It was fascinating and breath-taking to see.
"That. Is. Awesome. You— With your fingers you kind of juggle the magic from one place to another, right? In a specific pattern. Until the first layer is done, and then the pattern changes for the next layer, right?" Loki was impressed. More than impressed. Tony had understood the basics of spell weaving just by looking at this, and even with it being slowed down, it must be almost too fast for a mortal eye to see. Loki could not stop the smile that bloomed on his face even if he had tried.
"You're doing it so fast! And this is like, a super easy spell? That is, wow. You're just. You're amazing. Like, seriously. You're so crazy amazing, it's not fun." Tony was so sincere, the bond quivered in delight.
Loki couldn't help it, he laughed. He almost didn't recognise the feeling of pure joy that filled his chest with light, it had been so long, and there was nothing he could do to contain it. Tony was still holding onto the back of his now slightly burned hand, and Loki turned his palm upwards so that he was grasping Tony's hand instead, and he tugged it towards him. Before his brain even had time to register what he was doing, before he could tell himself how much of a bad idea this could be, he brought Tony's hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against his knuckles. Tony's eyes went wide and his jaw dropped open, and Loki didn't dare blink. His lips rested there for one second, two, three, and Tony's cheeks and ears darkened enticingly. Loki smirked and that broke the spell – Tony wrenched his hand away and let out a stuttering breath.
Well, at least this time it ends with a happier note than last time, right? And a kiss on the hand – I had to put that in somewhere ;) It's a classic prince move after all XD
Anyway, with a bit of luck the next chapter won't take as long as last time.
Spread the Luv!
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