Tony stretched his arms over his head then shook out his wrists, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He had been watching the two figures on the surveillance screen for almost twenty minutes. He sighed heavily and a bit dramatically, based on Natasha's rolling eyes.
"There's a lot I don't get, Nat. A lot. Like why you and the king of the jungle are so cozy with this merry band of traitors. I seem to remember you were on my side at one point."
She didn't look away from the woman on the monitor, kneeling beside the still figure on a cot far too short for his tall frame. "I'm tired of sides, Tony."
"You look tired in general, if I'm being honest."
She gifted him a smirk, a quick flicker at the corner of her mouth. "You shouldn't say things like that to a woman. I'm sure Pepper's told you that a hundred times."
Tony patted her shoulder. "Evasive comments. And she's back."
A comfortable silence deepened between them as they watched Jane dip a small washcloth into a bowl of water nestled in her lap, ring the excess out carefully, then brush it across Loki's forehead.
"Is this really happening?" Natasha asked.
Tony pressed his fists to his eyes. "Great question. Great question. Jane's dealt with loads of crap for years. Apparently way more than I realized. This thing with Loki…I don't know which disgust to feel first. I'm honestly just waiting to wake up."
Natasha finally looked at him. "She almost broke Sam's arm with her bare hands. Her bound hands. And Barnes said she flew them out of the jet when Loki appeared."
Tony's stomach soured. "Barnes," he mumbled, resisting the urge to spit out the bile rising in his throat.
"Tony." He recognized the reprimand, almost a perfect mimic of Pepper every time she said his name.
"One problem at a time, I get it. But Jane's just a kid, Nat. She-"
"She's not a kid, Tony."
"Yeah yeah, I know, but she kind of is compared to me. God, Nat, I feel so old sometimes, and when I look at her, all I can see is this kid sister I never had. She's incredibly intelligent, maybe more than me, but so naïve, and she's been through the ringer with the aliens." He pointed to the screen. "And that was before mischief managed in there crash landed. But she's still so open and eager to learn. She's like thirty-year-old me without the arrogance and fortune and womanizing." Natasha arched an eyebrow. "Okay, so she's not like me at all. She's like Bruce. Yeah, Bruce! Oh, shit. Sorry."
She shrugged.
"You should talk to him."
"Tony."
He cringed. That might as well be his ringtone.
"Haven't you ever had someone like that, Nat? Someone you needed to protect and baby and smother a bit just because of, I don't know, circumstances, but had no clue how, so it made you try even harder?"
Natasha stared at him, giving nothing away.
Tony stared right back. "So, yeah, she's a kid, but a kid with some kind of beginning-of-existence lifeforce swirling inside her. It's literally changing her genetic makeup by the minute, but her mind is her own. Well, most of the time. That thing in her is curious. As curious as Jane herself. That's what she told me anyway. But she also told me what it can do when it's whole and in bad guy hands."
Natasha saw the bob of his Adam's apple, but more concerning was the hollow look in his eyes.
"That bad?"
He wiped his face with a heavy palm, shaking off Jane's descriptions of a hulking alien monster, a white-skinned elf with black eyes, and the cold swirl of a vortex of pure night. "Yeah, Nat. It's bad. Like, block out the sun bad. Destroy the universe bad. And she's only got a little piece of it in her." He looked back to the screen, the only change being Jane's hand replacing the cloth over Loki's forehead. "And here I'm less worried about that than I am her fascination with tall, dark, and homicidal in there. Has she said anything?"
Natasha shook her head. "Not since she bossed you around outside."
He held his palms up. "Hey, look. I was negotiating on the fly. She said she'd answer my questions if I kept everyone back from her. So, I did. Especially Barnes. He looked way too interested."
"Tony."
"No! No, Nat. Don't Tony me about that guy again. Why is he here? Why are you still protecting him? And why isn't he at the front of the line for a death sentence?"
He followed Natasha's glance as a door swished open behind them, then he turned back to the monitor with a clenched jaw.
"I'm going in. Lock the door behind me."
If Natasha or Steve Rogers objected, both kept it to themselves. Tony would walk into the Hell of his pseudo kid sister playing nursemaid to an insane alien god before he attempted a civil conversation with Captain America, no matter how flattering of a beard.
The door swished open, but the three occupants did not acknowledge him. Jane continued dabbing the cloth in the small bowl on her lap and brushing it across Loki's forehead. It wasn't a touch for utility's sake, Tony noticed. It was a caress.
"Hey, brainiac, you and big red doing okay?"
She gave him the smallest tilt of her chin, eyes never leaving Loki's face. The god looked serene, as peaceful as the dead. For some reason, that didn't give Tony the relief he expected.
"I heard you talking about us out there." Jane's brown eyes lifted slowly to Tony. "I thought you were my secret keeper."
He conceded a small grin, relaxing his hands into the pockets of his designer joggers. "Good ears there, Hermione, but I wasn't the one who literally stopped reality today. You gave yourself away in a big way."
Jane took and held a deep breath as she wrung out the cloth into the bowl then pressed it to her own neck. Her exhale was long and deliberate. "That wasn't me, Tony. I mean, it was, but," she sighed twice. "But I'm back now. The Aether and I have...an agreement of sorts for the moment. I'm in full control."
Tony raised an eyebrow, but let that go for now. Bigger fish. He circled the room, eyeing the dreadlocked giant lying across two cots pushed together into the far corner of the cell. No movement there. And none from Reindeer Games. Tony took four long strides to Jane, watching for signs that the Aether felt threatened. When none came, he knelt beside her and gently took the bowl from her lap and the cloth from her hand.
"Jane. Hey. Talk to me. There's kind of a lot going on, and I'm following about as well as a toddler taking advanced calc."
She gave no reaction for several seconds, her hand pressed to her throat where the cloth had been, her attention held by the calm, pale face against the pillow in front of her. Tony wanted to shake an explanation out of her, rage at her, anything to make her speak, but he could be patient.
She stuttered between heavy pauses. "I…I know...what this looks like, Tony."
Screw patience.
"You do? Really?! Because I don't have a clue, Jane. What the hell is going on?"
She winced and pushed her fingers though Loki's hair, the action calming her rising anxiety and making Tony's lip curl.
"He visited me," she admitted just above a whisper. "After New Mexico, but before New York. He never told me who he was, and he wasn't real…" She shook her head, hair sticking to the sweat on her face. Tony bit his tongue to keep silent. "I mean, he was real, but he wasn't actually there. He was…translucent. He told me his mind wanted peace, and he asked me to talk to him. About anything. So, I did. I just talked. About myself, my goals and hopes and dreams and failures. Everything. And sometimes he talked about his life. All very general. But, he fascinated me, Tony. Each time he appeared, it was…it was like the lights came on all around me to scare off all the shadows. We…we," she was swallowing great gulps of air, her eyes shining.
"Hey," he said, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. "It's just me, remember? Keep going."
Her hand had moved from Loki's soft, black hair to the edge of his cot, gripping it with white knuckles.
"Someone was torturing him. I didn't know then, but now…it was Thanos," she spit the name out like poison. "Loki," her body jolted at the sound of his name, "he always looked so afraid, so desperate for an escape. So, I talked and talked and stopped asking who he was, and god..." She gasped out loud, a fluttering hand pressing into her heart. "I don't know, Tony, but we were so desperate for each other, for the comfort we shared. For just a second of connection." Her eyes begged him to understand her ramblings. "He, he just wanted peace, and I wanted his pain to stop. And Thor never came back, and we were both so incredibly alone. We were so…so alike. Our minds and our hearts just wanted the same thing." She swatted at her tears, bitterness twisting her mouth. "And then New York happened."
Her shoulders collapsed into her frame, hands dropping to her lap, head far too heavy to hold up.
Tony anchored her and pressed his chin to her temple.
"And you found out who he really was." Not a question. He could feel her angry trembles.
"Yes."
"But I get the feeling there's more."
She squirmed, trying to duck out of his hold, her breathing unsteady.
"Tony, I need-"
"You need to tell me what's going on." She shook her head, pushing him and unconsciously reaching back toward Loki. Tony grabbed her wrist and jerked it back between them. "You fell for his bleeding-heart ghost self, he levels New York, and what? You forget everything when you see him in a dream and he falls from the sky? This isn't a romance novel, Jane! You're too smart for this. Villains. Are. Villains. They don't get redeemed by the love of a good woman. Ugh." He shook her. "Not love. Don't even think about telling me you…no, I won't even say it again. God!"
Jane stilled at the word. Her mind walked back through Tony's rant, considered the giant chunk of information he was missing. She allowed herself to feel his hand around her wrist, biting. She appreciated the worry lines in his face, eyes that never darted or glanced around when he was concerned or learning. Only when he was joking or petulant. Somehow, over the years, he had become family to her and she to him.
"Tony," she said softly, calmly, pulling her wrist enough to get him to let go. "I don't understand everything. And there's more, so much more, but none of it matters right now. What matters is why he's here today. Thanos. Thanos who controlled Loki using the scepter just like Loki controlled Eric and all those soldiers. He was a puppet."
"THAT'S A LOAD OF HORSE SHIT, JANE!"
"IT'S NOT, TONY! JUST LISTEN TO ME!" She swallowed thickly, dreaming of a glass of water. "He's not innocent. I know that. He knows that. But he's here, and he called out to me. And I think the only reason he did was because he knew I was the only person who would listen to him and try to gather the Avengers to fight against Thanos." She looked at Loki's peaceful face, then back to Tony. "I think this is the last chance we have, Tony. Any of us."
Tony deflated, resting back on his heels and letting his hands flop boneless to his thighs. His eyes were unfocused for several minutes, ignoring how Jane's hand unconsciously drifted back to Loki's wrist.
"Jane. Kid. You need to rest. And eat. Then we have to talk more, because none of this is okay, and he's," Tony scratched his beard and nodded toward the cot, "well, he's a lot of things, but very few are good."
"He's more than you know, Tony."
"That actually worries me more than anything else."
She fumbled for her bowl and cloth, but he stopped her hands.
"Rest," he pulled her chin up to meet his eyes. "Rest," with a pointed emphasis on the 'T,' "and then food and then talk. I mean it."
Her eyes filled with tears, her face crumbling as lines dashed across her forehead and her chin trembled.
"I can't leave him alone, Tony," she whispered.
"Yes, you can. He'll be fine. Nat's on watch, and I'll take over after a few hours of sleep."
"No. No, Tony, I can't." She reached toward the cot. "You don't understand. I'm, I'm, I'm fighting so hard to stay calm, to keep the Aether in check, to not break down over this man who no one on the planet except me and apparently Bruce Banner trusts, and I don't know when or if he'll wake up, and my God, Tony, I have no idea what I'm doing and Thanos is coming to destroy the world, and I can't leave him. I won't leave him. Please don't make me. I just can't."
Her arm crawled over Loki's stomach, protective and vulnerable, as she repeated those words over and over, a mumbled chant against his chest as she rested her cheek over his heart and let her tears flow free.
Tony stared, jaw clenched, no clue how to respond. He wanted to blink, to restart the day, forget all of this. His own exhaustion stemmed from the very marrow of his bones, and he knew he needed to leave before he suited up, shoved Jane out of the way, and blasted the God of Mischief into the God of Dust. Jane seemed safe in this cell as long as Loki was unconscious, and though he hated to admit it, Tony was blatantly avoiding a bunch of confrontations right outside that door that were inevitable considering the Biggest Bad was on his way to Earth.
He just desperately wanted to rest.
"Fine," he whispered, not expecting a response but still waiting five, ten, twenty seconds, hoping for Jane to see reason, for her shoulders to stop shaking, for normalcy to return to the universe. Anything really. But no. He turned for the exit, dreading who was waiting for him in the surveillance room. "Okay, Nat. Let me out."
He stepped through, and the door swished shut behind him.
"You get all that?"
Natasha nodded, lips pursed harder than he had seen in years. "Tony."
He raised a hand to silence her, then ran it over his tired eyes. "Yeah, I know. Where is he?"
"Here, Tony."
A door to Tony's left opened into what looked like a pocket-sized war room, and he cleared the threshold with Natasha on his heels. Steve Rogers stood at the head of the room, arms crossed and head tilted to the floor. Bruce Banner sat to his right, eyes moving from his hands to Natasha and back again. A wall of monitors blinked behind them. Surveillance throughout Wakanda, Tony assumed. He saw the flight line with its still smoking crater. A handful of empty rooms like this one. A green field of warriors training in the sun. A gleaming cafeteria with a single occupant, metal shoulder catching the light. Tony stamped down a scowl and quickly located Jane on the bottom right screen, now curled against Loki's side on the narrow cot. He didn't look away from that disaster until Steve Rogers started to speak.
The two figures waited for the door to close behind Natasha Romanoff before crossing by the surveillance desk. The woman watched the monitor, memorized every detail, and twitched her fingers.
"The image will not change. We should not be disturbed."
Vision nodded, offering Wanda his hand, and they dissolved through the heavy door.
Wanda Maximoff stepped immediately to the man and woman on the cot, ignoring the third across the room. His mind did not call to her like that belonging to the still man before her. She knew his face, her S.H.I.E.L.D. briefings detailing the manic god who terrorized a German symphony house and razed half of Manhattan to the ground with his alien army. They shared a face, the two men, but she could not help doubt this silent figure, the calm of sleep smoothing the hard lines from his forehead, the lack of a frightening, horned helm making him seem much smaller. She stepped to his side, caressing the particles of power around him and briefly touched his mind. A shock of familiarity thrilled through her, and she pulled back, looking to Vision with wide eyes.
"His mind has been scarred by the Mind Stone too. That's why I can feel him."
"Ah," Vision said and brought a finger to the stone in his forehead. "I felt the draw to him the moment we crossed into Wakanda. Stronger than the pull to Stephen Strange. Or to her." His eyes moved to the small woman curled up on the cot beside Loki. "But she is closed off to me now."
Wanda looked back to Loki, curiosity getting the best of her. "I'm going to search his mind."
"Wanda, is that wise?"
She smiled at Vision. "You ask me that often."
"It is for your safety, I assure you." He looked to his boots.
"I know," she said, affection leaking into her voice. "I feel magic in him. At war. I may be able to use it to wake him. Based on the circumstances, Captain Rogers will need to speak to him as soon as possible."
He touched her cheek. "You are, as ever, as practical as you are beautiful."
A flush colored her cheeks, still unaccustomed to his easy compliments, as she turned back to Loki. She closed her eyes and sank from the reality in that room in that building in that complex in that country. Loki's mind was a world of stained spiderwebs dripping black, cages of rage and hate and jealousy left with broken locks and open doors. It pulsed and ached with pain, screamed for vengeance. Vengeance on his false family, his monstrous heritage, his brother, his betrayal, his disgusting sentiment. His memories were mirrors, coated in shadows of self-loathing. Wanda reached for those memories, eyes narrowing at how the reflections contradicted each other.
A woman. No, a queen. His mother. Soft words spoken at the bedside of a sleeping man. One memory showed Loki her unconditional love. But the mirror fed him only sly pity, harsh words of his inferiority as a child, an adult, even sitting on a borrowed throne. And the shadow fell over his mother's love.
A man. Thor. Wanda knew his face well. And Loki, clenched hand grasping the handle of a golden staff. Then grasping nothing. In one memory, the dark prince fell of his own choice. But the mirror featured a betrayal too deep, a death sentence by the brother he idolized and despised all at once. And the shadow fell over his choice.
And on and on. Memory after mirrored memory. Joyful, content, solicitous, then accusing, unworthy, replaceable. This, she knew, was the Mind Stone's influence when twisted by a cruel master.
She reflected on her undiluted time with the Stone. How it chose her. How she wielded it to enhance Pietro's gift. It did not control her. It taught her, encouraged her, asked nothing of her but to learn. The Mind Stone was a comfort when she had none. An encouragement when her world burned with uncertainty and rage and hate. A warning of the selfish and destructive ones who wielded it before. In her hands, though, and now in Vision's, the Stone sought to build a future, not destroy it.
But for Loki…
She shuddered, impressed and saddened by the will and strength of this man to continue living while the warring demons of his mind even now warped his every thought. This was Thanos' doing, she knew. The careless rape and destruction of a brilliant mind, and if what Captain Rogers told them was true, that monster was headed toward her home and the ones she loved.
She pressed forward in Loki's mind, more determined to wake this man. In the midst of the violent webs snapping and cementing, growing and breaking all around her, she discovered handfuls of calm, of peace, almost hidden from him in this minefield. Soft cushions of warm moments, reprieves from the ugliness of his real and perceived existence. Whispers of wide, brown eyes and a passionate voice. Of stolen moments and the bittersweet burn of unrequited desire.
She moved deeper, following the scent of magic so familiar to her. Then she saw it, as fluid and green as the perfect aurora. His magic defied all realities, ancient and wicked and perfect, and a feeling of such strong ecstasy moved over her, it stole her breath and drew out her own gifts, tempting her with caresses that coaxed her outside body into a hard blush even as her knees ached against the cold floor.
But the green of his magic was not alone. A blue arctic ice encased the green, moving to embrace it like a lover but drawing back just before the first touch. The magics ignored her, content together but silently enraged, willing to coexist but with no idea how. They traded shouts and pleas that neither understood.
She smirked, sensing the problem, and marveled at this new information about Loki and the heritage of his sapphire magic. Secrets ran deeper with this man than any of them would ever know.
It was a simple trick for her to create a common language. Magic, like the Mind Stone, hungered to learn above all else. She whispered to the blue, drawing its attention to her, and gifted it a voice. It jerked back, shocked and curious, testing out its new talent. Sounds echoed through the cavern of Loki's mind, deafening one moment and breathless the next. And that intelligent, blue magic thrilled and wrapped itself around its green lover, jolting it with its brazen touch. The emerald bent and stretched to learn the sounds, the words, the sentences, the feelings of this new ability. In the cocoon of new discovery, the green and blue rushed together, dancing and swirling through a conversation, catching up on the events that had occurred, forgetting her completely, and molding together as a single, powerful force. With a burst of turquoise light, tendrils of strength traversed Loki's mind, tearing down the shadows of false memories and trampling the cages of Thanos' poisonous control.
Tabula rasa, she thought, and knew her work was complete. She regretted leaving his fascinating mind, but the stir of blooming consciousness told her it was time. His mind would heal more quickly without the presence of another.
Her body rocked away from Loki as her mind pulled back to reality, and she found herself sitting on the cold stone, a warm body at her back, knees angry from squatting for…
"How long, Vis?" Her voice tumbled like gravel.
Vision smoothed the hair from her forehead, pressing closed lips to her temple. "Almost four hours, darling."
"It felt like minutes."
"Your influence on the monitors faltered an hour ago. We have had many visitors, none of them happy with us."
Her mind reached outside the room. Five pairs of tired eyes watched them from a small screen just outside the door.
"Their worry exhausts them."
"And you, it seems." Vision stood easily with her in his arms. "You shall rest, and I will speak to the others."
She gifted him a wide, sleepy smile and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him once then again. "You're my hero."
"I love you."
His words startled them both. They stared, confused, into each other's eyes. He had meant to say 'of course' or 'and you, mine' or, well, he did not know. But not those three words. They were just…there, and he found he enjoyed how they lingered in the air between them, fragrant and flavorful. He wished to try them again, this time with intention.
"I love you."
She searched his face, never trespassing into his mind, and she found only truth there. Her whispered response was timid but firm.
"Vision, I love you."
They shared a final kiss, slow and lingering, then turned toward the door, refusing the onlookers a further show. But their eyes held each other, basking in the light of what a future together meant if the world could be saved.
