Tony is starting to get suspicious of that metaphorical place twelve step programs call "rock bottom." It's a place that his life revisits pretty frequently; first from the drinking, then the drugs, then drinking again, and after that Afghanistan. When he sits in front of a crowd of reporters with titanium in his sternum and a burger in his hand, he relaxes into it because, come on, this has got to be what the drug counselors warned him about. There can't possibly be anything worse than this.
Other shitty eras of his life came with some warning. There was the morning he woke up in a bathtub with the naked college girl thanking him for the internship, and the midnight puke that came out a little red and made him think okay alcohol, you win, let's make a bargain. Obediah gave him none of that, and neither did the nuke, or Pepper spontaneously combusting, or Loki crashing into the coffee table. It just happens, and between one second and the next Tony goes from thinking he can handle this to knowing that he can't. Every time he thinks he has hit the final valley, the bedrock cracks under him like thin ice and he plummets again.
So when he picks up Loki from the locker room bench and carries him to the elevator, he doesn't so much as think that things can't get worse. They always, always do. Even so he hopes. Getting Loki back on his feet and pushing the button for the top floor, he wishes deliriously that they will get a second to breathe before the next crisis hits. He remembers Loki laying on his chest with ice in his mouth, eyelashes brushing his cheeks and he wants more time. He wants more, period.
When the doors glide open, giggling laughter hits them both in the face and Tony gets his head in the game. Mixing bowls and greasy pans hail from the kitchen, accompanied by used dishes and a stack of leftover pancakes. The room smells savory with the lingering scents of bacon and maple syrup, and Tony peers over the high counter of the kitchen to see the sprouts clustered around Bruce in the sitting area, holding playing cards and demanding loudly that he 'go fish.'
Where the hell Bruce found a deck of paper playing cards in a Stark household, Tony would really like to know, but that's secondary to the flicker of gratitude that gets him right in the chest. No one has ever come to see the managerie without Tony paying them to do it. Today Bruce apparently broke the taboo of his own volition six hours after discovering their father naked in the team jacuzzi. And he made them breakfast.
Aware that he is staring, and that the group will notice them shortly, he holds Loki less tightly. Straightening his jacket, Tony checks Loki's posture and makes sure his legs are steady. Loki will want to appear strong in front of the others, and Tony just hopes he doesn't overdo it.
The first to notice is Hela, looking up from the fan of red Bicycle cards in front of her with a mutinous frown, and off of her expression everyone else swings. Jori yells a word in Asgardian that Tony now knows is daddy, and vaults the sofa, cards flying through the air. Normally Loki will take a knee and talk to the boys on level, but he doesn't manage it before Jori tackles him around the legs. Fen and he were in bed by the time Loki arrived. As far as they are concerned he's just been away on his usual business.
Hela is another story, and Tony exchanges a tense look with her over Bruce's shoulder. He thinks she's about to throw a tantrum, or the teenage version of one, but instead she slaps her cards on the hard floor and stomps to her room. Bruce watches her go and then gives Tony a disappointed look, like this is somehow his fault. What a bro.
Loki watches her too, and the small smile he caught from Jori dims. He looks down at the kid and pats his back with a hand that spans the boy's shoulders. They talk about something in Norse, back and forth and Loki smiles for real when Fen says something contrary and points at Loki's bruised face. Jori lifts his shirt to show off the scabs left over from he and Fen's tussle, and Loki starts dressing them both down.
Bruce looks fascinated, watching the exchange like he's trying to pick up the language. It is kind of awesome to finally share the experience with someone. Most of the time Tony feels like the lone security guard in his own personal franchise of Ripley's Believe It or Not, and seeing Bruce react to it reorients his entire life. He leaves Loki to catch up with the blueberries and eats a flapjack from the kitchen on his way to sit beside Bruce.
Someone swept up the broken glass, so the coffee table is just a topless metal frame. Tony puts his feet up on the wreckage and relaxes. Crashing from the adrenaline of the locker room confessional, all his usual aches and pains come back. The apple made him stronger, thickened his skin, and even made his wrinkles shallower, but it did fuck all to fix his mangled bones. The center of his chest is a lost cause, always will be. His right leg is on the mend from landing a forty foot fall on it during the fight with Killian, and his left arm has been fucked up since he took an anti-aircraft shell to the shoulder all the way back in 2010. The arm in particular is killing him after sleeping on his side and lugging Loki around all morning, so he gives it a squeeze for emphasis and flaps it in Bruce's general direction.
"Hey, you're a doctor. Do something about that." Tony says, because it's true and Bruce needs a distraction. He's ogling Loki like he expects Rock of Ages to fart butterflies, and that's gonna set off someone's temper if Tony doesn't intervene. Bruce looks at Tony's waving wrist and shifts his weight.
"Hey, you finally got one of my right." Bruce says, laying down his now useless hand of cards and cracking his knuckles.
"Well you've got like two dozen of 'em, it's like a monkey throwing darts." Tony snorts, then hisses when Bruce tests his range of motion. "Gonna hit one eventually."
"Take your jacket off." Bruce says, "And you should know my hourly rate scales with income."
"I'll buy you something pretty, don't get your panties in a bunch." Tony grumbles, tugging off the windbreaker and glancing back to the kitchen. Loki dismisses the boys, and they run out to play with their foam swords on the balcony. He and Loki share a look and his boyfriend runs a hand over his face, sighs with his whole body, and walks in the direction of Hela's room using the wall for balance. Godspeed.
Tony really milks the taking off the jacket process until Loki is out of earshot, then tosses it on the rug.
"Keep doing what your doing," Tony says quietly, "I'm a huge fan, but I actually need a different kind of doctor right now."
"Throw a dart, man." Bruce snarks, and Tony's arm lights up with pain as the doc checks out the massive tangle of scar tissue on his rotator cuff.
"I think Loki is suicidal." Tony admits in a low voice, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm.
"And?" Bruce says, catching Tony's expression and amending, "And... that is really surprising? And, er, bad. Really bad, I'm so sorry to hear that."
"Geez, you are a terrible therapist." Tony says.
"I mean, is it surprising though? He's a psycho, Tony. He threw you out a window."
Bruce presses on the knot and moves Tony's arm in a small circle. Hot damn, that doesn't hurt at all, in fact it feels awesome.
"And I threw him out the same one last month. We're even. Why can't any of you trust me on this?" Tony asks.
"You aren't the one we don't trust." Bruce angles, "He made me smash the helicarrier. And brainwashed Clint. Oh, and you know, that one time, remember that time he called Natasha a quim? Which means vagina, by the way, he called her a mewling vagina."
Tony pinches his nose and tries to contain all of the reasons that stuff is irrelevant. He knows Loki's actions don't undo themselves just because he cried that one time over what he did on Jotunheim, or because he loves his kids, or looks genuinely surprised when Tony tells him he's sexy. None of that is the team's business, and even if it was they would still have all the justification in the world to hate Loki.
It fucking sucks though, because Bruce is the kind of friend he hasn't had since college and Loki has become this wedge between them. It was easy to put aside in the beginning when Loki was fucking his brains out, and later when there started to be hour long make outs and shy hands wrapping around his while they walked to the car. But it's been four months and he finally has a chance to clear the air.
"He's got some repressed issues with vaginas." Tony eventually concedes.
"Yeah, I noticed that." Bruce says, maneuvering Tony so he can get at the back of his shoulder.
"So what do I do? About Loki's problem." Tony asks, eyes on the sofa, letting Bruce put pressure on his aches and move his arm this way and that.
"Well I know it's not what you wanna hear, but you can't really do anything." Bruce says, "You can't control what he thinks."
"Why is everyone calling me a control freak lately? Are you planning an intervention? Will there be cue cards? Tell me there are cue cards."
"You are literally doing it to this conversation, right now." Bruce points out, "You don't wanna listen to me so you're changing the subject. After you picked the subject and made me talk about it."
Tony pulls his arm back into his lap, glaring over his shoulder and ducking away when he sees Bruce's stubborn frown. Feeling called out, he wiggles his fingers and finds that the numbness is gone and it doesn't hurt to bend his elbow anymore. Hypothetically, just hypothetically, if Bruce is right about the control thing, then that kind of makes he and Loki's situation more comprehensible. It makes them compatible in ways Tony hasn't considered because he never thought his urge to keep everything in check was all that noteworthy. Apparently it is.
"So no pills then?" Tony asks, just to quell that final protest in the back of his mind, where he's still convinced some magic cure must exist.
"Well sure, but they aren't going to stop him from thinking." Bruce says, "It might help his mood, energy when he's low, but-"
Bruce takes off his glasses and folds them, taps them against his palm. Sitting with Bruce in his nutty professor button up and corduroy pants, soft eyed and draped in zen, it's hard to picture him putting a gun in his mouth. Tony never knew him during his dark hour, he just saw the news clips and got giddy like a kid watching Godzilla. Until now Tony never considered how long Bruce must have fought that bullet before he ate it. But he did, and suddenly Tony needs to know how.
"I can't lose him." he admits, clasping his hands in front of his mouth and staring at the spot on the carpet where Loki collapsed. Bruce puts his glasses in his shirt pocket and leans sideways into the couch.
"Then give him a reason to keep living."
The morning drags on. Bruce makes him eggs that are pure white and contain no salt whatsoever, and leaves some in the pan for Loki. That's about as close to an olive branch as any Avenger has come so far, and Tony notices. It's a nice gesture.
They muck about for a while discussing quantum fields and string theory while the sound of Loki and Hela arguing gets steadily louder down the hall. Tony doesn't really pay attention to most of it, he's just bantering and scouring the internet's most vague and cheesily illustrated guides on helping a suicidal spouse. They list such gems as monitor your loved one closely for changes in behavior and encourage them to seek professional help. Yeah, right.
Changes in behavior might as well be the name of Loki's debut rock album. Ninety percent of the time they are good for him too, seem to shake up his boredom and put the light back in his eyes. And as for professional help? Tony laughs bitterly imagining that conversation.
He's starting to think this is all a waste of time when he comes across a list of warning signs, and this article isn't on WebMD or anything like that. It's a blog. The forest green header claims it in the name of "Private_Pain," a service disabled veteran with a suicidal wife. Scrolling down displays articles, hundreds of articles over six years with titles ranging from Possible Remission to Another Attempt to Divorce: Should I Stay or Should I Go? The story of a stranger's life told one day at a time scares him. Reading down the calendar, it impresses on him that this is not a physical disease that you fight and beat and then forget. It makes a big tangle of fear crawl down into his psyche and shove the PTSD aside to make room on the bench for both of them.
The list of warning signs makes him want to puke. Loki's done nearly all of them. Setting affairs in person may reach out to estranged loved ones or attempt to establish secure financial situations for their family members. Further down, beside a picture of the guy's daughter petting their dog, Giving away prized possessions. Having decided to end their life, your loved one may gift you extravagant or beloved possessions because they believe they will no longer need them after they are gone.
Tony tries to stop, he can feel himself spiraling and he knows he needs to do something else but he can't, he just keeps going down the page. Indirect Farewells. Some individuals will feel compelled to make impulsive last minute visits to their closest contacts, although they will take care not to indicate that the goodbye is forever. Tony remembers Loki kissing his forehead, and the look of calm resolve in his eyes while he rebuffed every attempt to make him stay. He has to put the tablet down then, because he hears the case cracking under the strain of his clenched fists.
At some point while he devours the written account of the man's slowly disintegrating marriage, Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder and says he's heading to the lab. Tony remembers a time when that would have been an invitation, and he would have enthusiastically followed. They would have gotten lost in science for a sun cycle or two and laughed about cat memes over four in the morning coffee.
But he can't leave Loki. He has to watch him, and the kids, and read more, he has to read so much more. The tragedy on this blog awakens him, makes him suddenly appreciate how lucky he's been so far. At any time in their caustic courtship he could have said something careless that upset Loki. It could have been enough to push him over. Shit, it could have happened a dozen times and he wouldn't know if Loki had stopped himself and bounced back.
Bruce reads him a bit. Tony is good at concealing, but he's a little far off the edge to hide it all.
"It'll be ok." Bruce says, "Not everyone pulls the trigger. And people like us, we get more chances than most."
"Thanks, buddy." Tony says, and tries to believe him.
By the time Hela and Loki emerge he's read all the posts he can stand. It's a bittersweet ending. The veteran divorces his wife, eventually, after six years of caring for her. He's happy now, his kid isn't on probation anymore. They sleep better. The wife struggles, she makes attempts, but she hasn't succeeded yet.
There's still a death in the story, although every character survives. Their marriage dies, thoroughly choked out by years of stress and guilt, and Tony can see the corpse of it buried between the lines of the final posts, the ones where the man tries to move on. It's a mystery, the destroyed remnants of their relationship, an answer Tony desperately needs that he can't find here. Can't seem to find anywhere in the literally millions of articles on the search page. It's different for every person, they all say, no two cases are entirely alike.
He switches to the New York Times when Loki draws near, and frantically looks for an article that he would actually read. If Loki questions him at all it will be obvious that he's hiding something. Fortunately, he is just as shaken as Tony, and in no state to be suspicious or keen. The skin around his eyes is puffy and red and he looks miserable. Over his shoulder, Hela slumps into a stool at the bar looking much the same and nursing a glass of orange juice. Guess that didn't go so well.
Loki perches on the sofa beside him, stiff, chest rising and falling fast and shallow. When his own breathing matches the rhythm Tony realizes he's panicking. Trying to build something on this mess of a foundation can't be a good idea, it was probably an error in judgement from day one. Whatever conclusion his brain is hurtling towards, Loki stops it. He's sitting there coming down from a shouting match, digging fingers in his borrowed joggers and when he looks at Tony his face transforms. Clarity makes his eyes sharper and when he scans Tony up and down he feels cut open, like no one has looked at him properly ever in his life until just now.
"I have burdened you." Loki says, distraught, "You have done so much for me and all I do is weigh you down."
Your loved one may infer that you would be better off without them.
"No." Tony says forcefully, there's a long sentence that he means to follow that but it's all he can get out around trying to get enough air. Looking at Loki all he sees are signals, behaviors he has overlooked. Loki is exhausted, he's under stress, he's coming off a-
-a suicide attempt. Admit it. Fucking man up. It's not Voldemort, it's a diagnosed condition. Loki went to Asgard and attempted suicide. Because Tony made him unwelcome in their home, because he implied that Loki couldn't take care of himself.
"I made you do it, didn't I?" Tony croaks.
Loki scrambles closer and slides his hand in one of Tony's fists.
"It was me. It is my nature." Loki defers.
"But I pushed you."
"I came back." Loki says, squeezing Tony's hand. "I made it back in time."
Tony leans until he finds Loki's shoulder. Things are upside down, now. He's hurtling towards a panic attack and this time it's Loki surrounding him with his arms and pushing Tony's head onto his lap.
"I found your photographs." Loki whispers, surrounding him with curtains of dark hair. "They made me want to try."
Tony rubs his eyes, his cheeks. Everything is blurry but Loki's crisp features, which are overly defined by poor health and worry. His stomach is a torrent of guilt. He is supposed to be supporting Loki, should be making sure the kids don't maul each other, but he's on the couch hyperventilating over a blog.
"We shouldn't do this in front of them." he gasps around his hammering heart. It hurts, it's fear but it's physical too because his heart is made of synthetic fiber wrapped around ground meat and the ribs that quake on top of it are half titanium screws. He says, "They shouldn't have to deal with this."
"They already do." Loki replies, glancing furtively at Hela and back. "We have already shown them how to break. We will teach them how to fix as well."
"She told you about that?" Tony gasps. Loki's got him by the jaw. He's syncing their breathing and slowing them down. The air starts to feel like it contains oxygen.
"She wanted to know if 'artistic differences' is a sex act." Loki smirks, only half disapproving.
"Really hope you told her no."
"I told her to watch the film."
His bum leg is stinging at the awkward angle. He's slumped over in Loki's lap with his arms crossed and his legs slung off the edge of the sofa and twisted by gravity. He kicks off his sneakers and rolls so his knees are wedged in the cushions.
"I take it that was before the yelling."
Loki sighs. Doesn't answer.
Fenrir barks outside and Tony almost rolls back over on reflex to check, but then he hears Jori laugh loud and free and relaxes. Presses his nose into Loki's hip. It's nice. It's a good hip.
There was a time after the fucking like bonobos phase and before the kids appeared when it was just the two of them and Netflix. They should have done that a little longer. Tony misses it.
"What are we going to do?" Tony asks Loki's stomach.
"I don't know." Some other part of Loki answers.
"You always have a plan." Tony says.
"None of my plans accounted for me surviving this long." Loki murmurs. At least he's honest. That takes the sting out of it.
"Make some new ones then." Tony grunts, then plays it back in his head and adds, "And tell me about them this time."
The fingers on his chin brush up from his beard to his temple and trace the circle of his ear.
"I will." Loki says, and fuck it, Tony believes him. Never a good idea, but he's loopy and oxygen deprived and Loki looks genuine. After a moment he fumbles for the remote and turns on the flat screen. Breaking Bad resumes right where it was interrupted. Tony doesn't remember what was so compelling about it. With the universe at stake and Loki wasting away on another planet, he doesn't know how he could have possibly sat on his ass waiting around.
The hand in his hair holds him here now. Twenty four hours is about the maximum period of time Loki can slip away unnoticed, and they have already wasted so much of this week's allotment. He will go zero to sixty when Loki leaves again. For now this is where he belongs.
He calls in food when it gets dark. Loki wants tikka masala so they get a big spread of creamy tomato goodness, four cups of rice, and a huge stack of naan. It's a good choice. The boys are more receptive to it when he shows them there's no cooked meat in the vegetarian stuff, and they decide it's fun to dip the naan in different colors. After Bruce's pancakes there seems to be a revolution at hand. Bread is now on the approved food list, as well as sugar and, god help him, quinoa. One visit from Mean Green and now he's raising the next generation of CalTech hipsters.
Something goopy and embarrassing infects him and Loki over the course of the day. They can't stop touching each other, not for any longer than it takes to get to the bathroom or refill their drinks, and nothing PG-13 happens. Nothing so much as a pinched butt or a heated look. They are like teenagers on a first date, just mooning at each other and seeing how much they can get away with. Loki feeds him this time. Tempts him with a bite from his masala and misses his mouth on purpose. Smears orange sauce up his nose and all over his beard and laughs until he's out of air. The boys quickly imitate him and soon the table is a war zone and Tony has to call in the cleaner bot.
Loki bathes Jori for the first time in six weeks and gives the performance of a lifetime when they tuck the boys in. The dark room glows with his golden illusions. His rich voice sounds clear and silky as he narrates the tale of young Sigurd, a prince who fells an ancient dragon by repairing his father's broken sword.
Halfway through Hela creeps in, sheepish from the fight this morning but drawn in by the spectacle. She sits cross legged at the foot of Fen's bed and Tony melts a little when the swooping magic lights up her and Fen's faces as Loki sends the dragon flying just over their heads. There's a bit about a horse that's kind of odd. Something about how the boy chooses his horse well, for she is descended from Fen and Jori's brother, who is also apparently Odin's horse. Huh. Tony files that away under curious but none of his business .
The fable is a bit of an epic, as Norse stories tend to be, so by the time the boy returns home only Hela and Tony are still awake. To his surprise, Hela extends a hand and pulls Loki up off the floor before he can get to him. She says something fast and complicated sounding in Asgardian and hugs him right there with Tony watching.
"You are forgiven." Loki says quietly, and puts his hand on the back of her head. "I will remember your words."
Hela nods and pulls away, remembers Tony is there and blushes. Makes a run for it. Tony manages to get a hand on her wrist, and she looks back, wide eyed.
"Sleep well, kiddo." he says and hopes she gets what he really means. Hela nods, sniffs, and slips away.
It's a good day. Not because something big happens, but because nothing happens. It is the kind of day he remembers in between battles when he's beaten and sore and trapped in a quinjet with too many bodies and wondering why the fuck he's doing this.
He and Loki slide into bed, and Tony lays there for a long time watching Loki read over the phone he's pretending to work on. It's the first normal day they've had in such a long, long time. It makes his chest hurt in the most incredible way, in a way that doesn't really hurt at all.
"Does it please you to watch me read?" Loki purrs, not taking his eyes off the book.
"I could watch you do anything." Tony says, earnestly. Loki flips a page. He's poised, making a show of smoothing down the paper with a perfectly elegant caress. He reaches to the stack of gold bars that he fashioned into a bedside table while Tony was in the shower, and picks up his glass of water. Sips it slowly and swallows.
"Well if I have your attention anyway, might I ask your opinion?" Loki says, and sets down the glass with a metallic clink. Tony nods and turns off the phone display, since the jig is up anyway.
"Would it disappoint you if my reward is not-" Loki stutters, purses his lips until he gets his thoughts organized, "if it is not a sexual act?"
Tony blinks a bit dumbly at that. Not because he's put off or anything. Ok, maybe that was what he had in mind, but his utter fixation on shagging Loki's brains out is well documented, and not really the point. In fact, once the idea registers properly he gets kind of giddy. Loki is taking this choosing a reward thing seriously, giving it thought.
"Well I did say you could pick anything." he says, shrugging. The whole bed is probably shaking with the way his heart is jumping, but he plays it cool on the off chance that his composure holds.
"I am conflicted." Loki trails off, contemplatively, "This morning I thought only of your more indecent talents."
"So what stopped you picking one?" Tony winks, tapping his pointer finger on his chin playfully. Loki bites his lip. Oh, fuck yeah, he's thinking about it. Tony's a mad genius at implanting dirty thoughts. So close…
"This property of mine," Loki answers, "I wish to see it. Perhaps bring the children and drive in one of your fast cars."
...and yet so far. Even so, the image of Loki in the passenger seat of a convertible, laughing wildly with his hair dancing in the wind while Tony floors it. Yeah, that sounds awesome. The kids love the supercars. Oh, he can call up Happy and they can race once they get out of city traffic, give the bits a taste of real excitement.
"I think that's an excellent reward." Tony says, sitting up on the headboard and shooting a text to Happy. He lobs the phone at the bedside table and gets up on his knees, leans over to capture Loki's mouth and let him know just how good the idea is.
"Tomorrow, then." Loki breathes into the kiss, flattered and pleasantly lightheaded.
"I could be wrong," Tony says, laying a hand on Loki's hip, "But I think that leaves our schedule for tonight pretty open."
"You spoil me, Stark." Loki says, running his hands up Tony's chest and lacing them behind his neck. He lays himself on top of the satin comforter and pulls Tony down over him.
"Not yet, I haven't." Tony says, sliding his hand under Loki's waistband.
"No time like the present." Loki hums, and urges Tony to have his way.