The letters are like the literary version of thumbscrews. They start strong. Hope and sexual frustration fuel pages upon pages of witty flirtation and court intrigue in a pretty clear attempt to overachieve. Then things take a turn on Monday and the rest of the week nose dives into a deluge of abject loneliness and despair that would be right at home on Bella Swan's LiveJournal.
It's not that Tony doesn't get it. He's planned his death before, but this is different. The letters allude to bridges in a way that's very voluntary on Loki's part, and Tony never did that. Not even during the palladium scare. Even when he was dying all he wanted to do was experience everything one last time. He's a survivor, that's who the cave made him. So reading the letters pretty much drags a yellow highlighter over all the parts of their relationship that make Tony feel like Loki's issues are their own person, and he's fighting this two against one.
Nothing in the deal stipulates that Tony has to write back, but he finds himself sipping ginger ale out of a tumbler with a notepad on his leg. Writing still isn't his forte, and he's sure there are sections that are totally incomprehensible because his grasp of grammar is about as nuanced as Lucy the sign language gorilla. But he does it because even the nice sounding letters have numbers lower than five scrawled on the bottom right.
Mostly he parrots whatever Loki writes. Tony's own thoughts are too vague to wrestle into sentences, and the internet claims it's vital for him to listen and confirm Loki's feelings. Validating gets harder later on, when all Loki mentions are the woe and misery of living in his not-father's skin. Halfway through a tirade about positive thinking Tony realizes he's basically disregarding everything Loki tried to tell him and crumbles up the page. The next attempt gets derailed at the second sentence when he starts making comparisons to his own father and before he knows it he's scribbled three pages of paternal angst that have nothing to do with Loki's situation. That one goes in the shredder just to give it an extra layer of fuck you.
On the third try he almost, almost dumps the ginger ale for the real stuff. Talking is so much easier. When it's spoken words he can start with a half formed thought and trust his subconscious to fill in the rest. Paper isn't so forgiving. A couple fingers of scotch would loosen him up and make it a lot more like talking, but he made himself a promise while he watched the sun set last Friday and it would be really pathetic for him to cave this soon.
He stares at Loki's elongated lettering, the way the marks seem extra tall and narrow like his partner's own willowy body, and wonders if somewhere in the arrangement of pen strokes is an impression of Loki's hand. Something like a remnant of his physical size and the way his bones make his fingers move that imbues the lines with a fragment of Loki. Maybe he doesn't have to say anything profound or miraculous. Maybe he just needs to dent the paper in his personal hand shapes so Loki can have a piece of him too.
Tony takes a sip of not-the-liquor-he-wants and starts a list of everything good about Loki. He means it to be a brainstorm, but the further he gets the more he thinks the list itself is persuasive. Something about clustering all the evidence together with no context, a tour de force of unjustified affection, gives it a kind of power. The yellow office pad feels like an insult after that, so he pulls out the resumé paper that Pepper only uses for corporate takeovers and one of the signing pens so fancy he keeps them in a box like a Cartier watch.
He rewrites the list, a little regretful that he only ever learned to scribble blocky architect capitals. It turns into a long list. Fifty three lines. On a whim he tears the paper into three strips and writes cheeky messages on the backsides about how Loki will have to be a good boy and write to him if he wants to know the rest. It's efficient if nothing else. Three days covered in one go. Now if only he could stop thinking about it. Maybe finish a project instead of sitting around the lab with a security feed open checking the egg every five seconds.
For all the ups and downs, Loki passes the test. He rules Asgard and he writes by night and both of them count the hours. By Thursday his number is two, and Tony almost orders him to come home. The letter is scant, just two lines reminiscing about the view from the penthouse and a postscript complaining that the pastries on Asgard are bland. Tony decides his list of I Love Yous needs an addendum and sends it rolled up down the center of a tower of donuts.
Somehow they both survive the week, and when Loki strides in from the balcony it is with a manic look in her eyes and a pair of minuscule cut off jeans on her ass. Tony has six letters in a cigar box in the closet. Done deal.
Point of fact, she spends a lot more than just Friday evening on the couch. The new record after her reward is seven and no amount of massages and grapes are gonna excuse her from the aftermath of that marathon. She gets tired of him hovering after a couple hours and turns into a cranky prince while Tony's refilling the hot water bottle. His dear summer child bitches and moans through most of Saturday, but he also steals Tony's Whopper and blows raspberries on his stomach whenever he thinks Tony's attention is wandering, so he's probably fine.
Sometimes when Loki lies his eyes go wide a second later. It's subtle. Immediately covered by a crooked smirk and a condescending tone, but it happens. If Tony pauses the tape and zooms in, the expression he sees is surprise. Like Loki didn't mean to say that. Like now he has to come up with a string of other lies to support the claim and build a whole structure of made up details that he doesn't have waiting in the wings because he wasn't planning on lying.
Invariably, it's about something dumb. Does he want to go out tonight? Yes, yes, of course he does, why wouldn't he want to spend time together? What a silly question. Okay, where does he want to go? Nowhere. Not The Modern, or the Italian place in Queens, or the bistro in San Francisco, or the dive bar in Baton Rouge with the pool tables he charmed to reject odd-year quarters. He doesn't want soup, or korma, or bulgogi, or nachos. He doesn't want so many things that Tony eventually nukes a Hot Pocket and watches him relax into his chair and stuff his face with probably-made-from-donkey-nipple slop. Watches, and wants to dent an impression of his face into the stainless steel cabinets and call it modern art. It's irritating but this is how they operate, no need to be a pussy about it.
Tony gulps down an açai-something super-whatever shake to balance the food karma, and moves them down to the workshop. He's feeling inspired, making rapid progress on the Mark 45. One of Loki's lame prog rock albums croons through the speakers while his highness lounges in a nest on the loveseat that's barely big enough to contain him. He's carrying on a meandering lecture about weaving seidr into thaumaturgic grids, but Tony's only half listening because he got the gist of it twenty minutes ago. For the first time all week he can focus on his work and it's almost better than sex.
"-following that, one only needs to transverse the energy through an axiomatic void and-," Loki pinches his thumb and forefinger and a small flame rises between, "-it will complete combustion organically."
There's a pause, which Tony probably should have acknowledged, but it's kind of a bitch to re-solder eighteen circuits left handed while the part you're working on is wrapped around your other hand. Loki rolls over and drags himself so his arms are crossed over the arm of the loveseat.
"Are you even listening, Stark?"
"Uh, voids, yeah." Tony says, snapping the fingers of the glove to test the mobility. Pretty average, but acceptable. He slaps the gold shell over the mess of pneumatic levers. "Poke it through reality, double knot around time and space. Like cross-stitch but with more… sparkles."
Loki angles his brows.
"Grossly oversimplified." he says, "Are you finished? I wish to sleep."
"How's the scepter scan going?" Tony deflects, connecting the arm to a testing harness around his chest with an arc reactor housed in the center. The glove kicks on and a new interface flickers into view around the wrist, a red spinning ring.
Loki blinks, reflexively tucking his feet back under the faux fur blanket Tony bought for him. It's a weird blanket, but it struck him as very Asgardian and Loki seems to like it. He pets the fur absently and studies Tony while he walks to the loveseat.
"It is well under control." Loki says, carefully off-hand, "What are you doing?"
"Applied guesswork. Want me to call Fury, get a second opinion?" Tony asks, touching his middle finger to the holo bracelet and pulling it over his fingers. The red bracelet extrudes into a bubble to make a shield over his glove.
"I can handle it." Loki says.
"Nothing wrong with needing help." Tony mutters, twisting his hand to test the stability of the projection. Buttery smooth, like everything he makes. "Can you do the flame again?"
"I don't need help." Loki snaps, and Tony realizes they aren't having the same conversation.
"Never said you did." he says, raising his eyebrows and holding out his armored hand. "Come on, light me up. I wanna show you something."
This time his whole hand burns. Tony smirks, a little thrill of excitement shooting up his spine as he sticks his hand in the flame. Once a thrill seeker always one. The heat alone isn't an issue, it wouldn't hurt him even in an old suit. What does make him give a little woop in his head is how the flames don't go past the red translucent field. He looks at Loki, proud of himself, excited to see Loki being impressed with this new gadget but-
Loki sneers, and abruptly his hand snuffs out and a bolt of green energy shoots straight through the anti-magic field and into Tony's hand.
"Shit, ow, what the hell?" Tony shouts, ripping the glove off. An angry burn pulses through the center of his hand, hurts like hell. What the fuck.
"I trust you with secrets in confidence and you immediately use them-"
"Uh, to get ready for the Titan? To keep you safe?"
"To keep me." Loki hisses. "Without fear of my magic stopping you." Loki sweeps the blanket around himself and stalks toward the door.
"Woah, time out." Tony says, chasing after Loki. "I'm not a threat to you, genius, I'm on your side."
"So you claim, and yet you seem to prefer me chained and docile." Loki snarls.
"Uh, have you seen a mirror lately?" Tony replies, frustration getting the better of him, "I think we're both pretty guilty of that."
He has no idea where this is coming from, but Tony isn't crazy about the implications. Loki reaches the threshold, the blanket flowing like a parody of a cape, and he knows they won't finish this conversation if Loki makes it to the elevator. Dashing ahead, Tony puts a hand to his chest and squares his shoulders.
"Is this about the disco stick?" Tony asks, reading Loki's face, "It is. You're picking a fight so I don't press you for details."
Loki clicks open the locket and it bathes his hands in blue. Tony freezes.
"Don't-" Tony says to the empty room. "Damn it!"
The anti-magic glove is on the floor to his right. He punts it as hard as he can into the glass wall and it flies through three rooms beyond.
"Jesus fucking mother bitch!" he shouts, sweeping his arm over the nearest workbench just because it feels good to destroy things. He forgets how much stronger he is these days until the objects go flying through the entire floor and break nearly every glass divider on the east side. He puts his elbows on the now empty bench and puts his head between them. Pulls his hair out. Maybe Loki is right. Maybe he should build an anti-teleportation field and put it around the whole goddamn building. Make Loki storm out on foot like everybody else.
Heeled footsteps sound briskly down the hall, echoing and reverberating in the large atrium of the team floors. For a second he thinks Loki changed his mind, and then he smells Chanel No. 5.
Romanov.
"Wow, he's alive." she says without a hint of surprise, "That's one hell of a Christmas miracle."
"I guess there's no point claiming that was a holographic recording." Tony groans into the table.
"You could." Natasha shrugs, kicks a hydraulic piston out of her way and hops up on the table. "But you look pretty real to me."
"Well, go on, tell me what I missed." Tony says, crossing his arms and putting his head on them when the table starts giving him a headache.
"Aside from everything?"
"I'll take 'The Moment I First Fucked Up' for 500, Bob." Tony huffs, rubbing his eyes.
"Me first." Natasha says, picking up a shard of glass from the table and rotating it between her fingers. "Does Thor know?"
"No."
Natasha hums, and even without looking Tony knows he's been found unworthy.
"He told you himself." she says. "Couple times. You just weren't listening."
"Fantastic." Tony says, and heads for the elevator.
Whatever Loki thought about Tony's applied guesswork, he at least made it clear that he couldn't find the scepter on his own. Anyone that defensive obviously has no options left, so Tony steps in. All it takes is a secure landline to Fury and superheroes start crawling out of the woodwork. A courier arrives the next day with a hard drive full of Hydra files and they're in business. Tony hires a work crew to come and fix the mess he made, and lays on the couch daydreaming of scotch while the television parents the kids for him. QVC counts as educational if the brats don't know what a wristwatch does, right?
Barton comes back two days after Romanov. No one tells Tony of course, because he just researches everything, pays for everything, and makes everyone bad ass shit on his own time. No reason to give him notice.
The rest of the Avengers filter in over the next ten days. No sign of Loki. No letters, no gifts. They have a briefing, and it's about as dull as Tony expects it to be. Opinions are mixed. Not about the scepter, they get why it keeps Tony up at night. Nah, it's Tony himself everyone seems to want to weigh in on, not that he asked for a fucking peer review. Bruce keeps his mouth shut, so each reunion starts with a stilted and obviously insincere expression of grief. Just hearing his so-called friends lie through their teeth about his dearly departed sets him on edge and makes him act like a bastard, which in turn makes it pretty hard to not slip up and use the wrong tense of verb when he talks about him. At least his misery sells the whole grieving spouse thing.
The sticking point is Thor. Fury's good, but Point Break doesn't have a phone so there's not really any way to summon him. At least, not that Fury knows about. That's what Tony assumes anyway, until dear old St. Nick corners him in the communal bathroom and locks the door.
"Sorry, McFurious, but you're not my type." Tony says, washing his hands.
"I thought you liked dodgy and morally grey." Fury replies, and leans on the door with his arms crossed like some kind of nineties boy band poster.
"Now that you mention it-" Tony stops, pretends to consider, "Do I get a prize if I hit the eye patch?"
"You get a prize if you call your BFF and get me the God of Thunder by Thursday." Fury says.
"Sure, I'll have a cell tower put up in hell right away, Chief." Tony says, pulling too many towels out of the holder and drying off his hands. Fury puts his hands in his pockets and looms. It's actually a little intimidating. Tony ought to use that next time the brats demand Cold Stone five minutes before bed.
"I thought you kept your friends a little closer." Fury says, fishes out his phone and flicks a screen cap to the display in the bathroom mirror. It's him and Loki, flying above a field a few hours from Buffalo. Fucking Twitter.
"It was Romanov, wasn't it?" Tony grumbles, tosses the paper towels a little too forcefully in the trash.
"Barton." Fury answers, and quirks a lip like he can't help himself, "Dude's addicted to Facebook. I gotta take his phone during missions."
Tony stands in front of Fury, and they stare each other down for a few seconds. Tony crosses his arms too, because if he's gonna be trapped here then they might as well look like the Men in Black.
"Look, I can't help you. He's gone. No phone." Tony admits. "You're shit outta luck."
"He'll be back." Fury says, and Tony isn't sure if he should feel offended by how close it is to a reassurance. "Search me why, but he's grown on you Stark. Call me when he turns up."
The thumb lock slides open and Fury billows out with as much melodrama as one human being can possibly generate.
"You know you look like an extra from The Matrix in that getup!" Tony calls through the closing door.
Tony sighs. Fury is right. Loki will slink back eventually. Trouble is, Tony isn't sure what he's going to say to him when he does.
Outside of Pepper's sporadic visits the vast majority of Tony's time is spent as the lone adult in a maypole dance of gifted youngsters. The kids are alright. Hela discovers some new social media site and abruptly decides she wants to be a they, and then a ze, and then a demisexual, whatever that is. Tony stops using pronouns all together and buys one of every flag just to be safe.
He's a little alarmed when he cuts open the box and forty flags bearing every color in the known universe fall out. And here he thought he was edgy for letting an alien butt fuck him. Dinner time transforms into a nightly meeting of the Board of Social Justice in which Tony learns that sex now involves a lot more vocabulary and soul searching than it did in the eighties. He also learns about fifteen different words that supposedly describe him and Loki, none of which Tony particularly likes or finds necessary.
The need to qualify and categorize every minute variation of preference eludes him, but he supposes if people want to label themselves then that's their prerogative. He sneaks Hela out for the parade anyway, just for a few minutes, and resists the knee jerk urge to cover (ze? hir?) eyes when the leather daddies walk by in their thongs and chest harnesses. Hela has a tablet and a bedroom with a door, so he assumes Pornhub has already thoroughly scarred the kid. Better to know than to find out on a date, he supposes.
Standing in the street, disguised in a panama hat and sunglasses, he wonders what Loki would make of it all. Music, streamers, the riot of color, and public displays of free love. Probably disgust, or, okay, discomfort. Loki hates noise, crowds, and chief among them transparency. But what if Tony sat them out on the Tower balcony and the two of them just watched? Stared down at the masses and took in the clouds of rainbow powder filling the air with jubilance and integrity and fuck-the-status-quo.
That part he thinks Loki might appreciate, even if the label inside Loki's heart still says ergi. Maybe armed with fancy new words he can finally strike that from the record. Or maybe he would just dump another pile of identities on Loki that still don't fit, that press him into slightly bigger wrong-shaped boxes. He feels very alone that afternoon, surrounded by shining happy couples and thumping base. When the kids go to their rooms and he's stuck with the quiet, he has to give Bruce the liquor key.
Stilted silence only lasts so long in this house. Tony clatters around the kitchen, griping about the kids leaving food out of the fridge and half-listening to a stock report Jarvis puts on the holos. The lined yellow pad is on the bar where he left it, covered in balled up failures and doodles of molecules riding motorcycles. He picks it up.
Seems like it was art class this morning, because there's acrylic splattered all over the Henredon dining table, and some seriously unsightly attempts at self expression laying around. Like honestly, why does this dog shaped blob only have three legs? Couple hundred years old and the bits can't get the legs right. Disgraceful. He puts the least bad ones on the fridge, but only because he needs the table space. And because he wants to horrify Loki with his failure to pass the kids decent genetics.
The blankness of the paper is contagious. It infects his mind and wipes away all coherent thoughts. He sits there tapping dots on the margins and scribbling the weird S shape that was all the rage in middle school in 1983. There's something filtering through the moth balls, and he follows it until it solidifies into an opening remark. He chicken scratches between two lines.
Every time I think we're cool and I can relax, we blow up five minutes later. What's up with that?
The lights flicker overhead, and then go out before he can contemplate what he wants to say next. There's a fraction of a moment where his adrenal system goes nuts, and then the glass wall behind him shatters. Explosive force throws him over the table and he crashes into the kitchen island head first, his dense pseudo-immortal body blowing straight through it where he previously would have crumpled to the floor.
Everything is black while his eyes adjust too slowly to the lack of light. He can make out a pair of blurry figures, both tall and distinctly not human. Despite the ringing in his ears he forces himself to get up, to grab a knife from the block and duck behind the knocked over dining table. The kids or the bad guys, he can't decide what the priority is. Shit, he doesn't know if the brat nuggets are even in their rooms, he didn't say goodnight.
"Laufeyson!" An intruder calls. Oh damn, that's not a good sign. Only the real criminals know Loki's other-other last name.
"You have crossed us for the last time, welp." A higher pitched, slightly more menacing voice says. Double damn. Tony peaks over the table. Yeah, definitely aliens, glowing spears and all. He counts three fingers on a silhouetted hand. Not very helpful, since he could be concussed or the aliens could only have three fingers.
"If you're looking for the Star Trek costume contest, it's a couple blocks down." Tony grunts, "You'll have to hitch a ride."
Pushing himself to his feet, Tony throws the knife. Off target. Great. The alien with the horns throws the glowing spear at him, and he sidesteps, barely fast enough. Then the blade reverses and returns to her hand, which is such cheating. Damn, how has he never made Cap a shield like that?
"Jarvis?" he calls, on the off chance it works. Nothing.
Bare feet slap down the hall to the bedrooms, and Tony runs to intercept whoever it is. Hela launches herself toward him, freaked out in a tank top and basketball shorts. She's blue for once, and hazy.
"Get down!" he shouts.
"What?" ze asks, and then points over his shoulder, hir mouth gaping. Tony throws himself to the floor as two spears slice where his head was. Kicking his good leg in an arc, he manages to drop one of them. The other angles her glowing spear in a downward slash, and Tony just barely gets his hands on the shaft in time to deflect it into the concrete by his head. It's pretty even as far as strength goes, but Tony's got the ground at his back. A solid kick to the gut sends her flying into the side of the couch.
"Get the breaker. In there." Tony tells Hela, pointing at the closet. Ze nods, darting through the door, and then he's tackled by the first alien, the one he knocked down. He never did get the hang of wrestling. The probably male alien gets him around the neck and Tony flails.
"It's a grey box in the wall with stuff in it. Flip all the switches." he chokes, hands gripping the alien's arms and rolling them over. Using his weight to hold the guy down, Tony elbows him in the forehead. The thing's too-long X-Files arms go limp and Tony climbs up to his feet, panting. Wow, he is so out of shape. Of course he'd be a smear on the island if he were mortal right now, but the point stands.
"My brothers?" Hela calls from the closet, just as a howl echoes down the hall.
"On it." Tony replies, hauling ass to the boys room and breaking down the door with a single shoulder collision. Being enhanced has its advantages, he can admit that now. He can also admit that it's kind of fun to watch a giant wolf play catch with an alien. Then the lights come back on and Tony has to be a grown up. They can't afford for the security footage to show the kids' combat abilities. He's required to turn it over to the World Security Council every three months or they get deported, and this is definitely not going to make them happy.
"Drop it, Fen." Tony says sternly, counting two one-thousands in his head and then whacking the pup on the nose. "Right now or I'm taking your Playstation."
Fen slams the mangled alien down and grumbles. Tony kicks a bookshelf sideways and pulls the lever in the wall behind it. The wall opens to the safe room he built for just such an occasion, because he's psychic or something. Fen's too big to fit through the door.
"Put your blues on, I don't have all day." Tony says, and hears a groan from the floor. The lady alien is waking up, her fingers clenching into fists. He kicks her in the base of her horns and she hits the TV stand on the back wall. Oops.
Fen shrinks down, pouting up a storm and pulling on his pajamas.
"Where's Jori?" Tony asks, dropping to his knees to look under the bed. The kid goes all kinds of fun places when he's serpentine and scared. Nothing under the bed, and no traces of movement by the radiator where he likes to curl up.
"Jori safe." Fen says. He digs in Jori's bed, throwing the sheets around and holds up a little garter snake about a foot long. That's new. He's never going to get used to talking to random woodland animals like some sweaty, cross-dressing Cinderella.
"Kid, you alright?" he asks the, well, tiny biter. The snake stares at him. He guesses it kind of looks like Jori. Maybe. Fen seems convinced, so yeah that's him. Tony would know him in any form, cause he's the best step-dad ever. Okay, fine, he has no idea, but it's likely enough for him.
"Alright, get in. Don't leave until Jarvis says it safe." Tony says pointing to the safe room, and the snake crawls up Fen's sleeve.
"I'm tired." Fen whines, and Tony might burst a blood vessel. Fucking kids.
"Then kip on the sofa. That's what it's for. Hurry up." He says, hustling the boy in and locking the door. One less thing to worry about. Sweet relief. He turns to restrain the horned alien that broke the TV stand only to find the pile of rubble unoccupied. Just his luck.
"Jarvis, status report." Tony shouts, skidding into the now lit hallway and rushing toward the sounds of a struggle in the living room.
"Two hostiles in the living area, sir. Mr. Liesmith is engaging them. The rest of the building is secure. Lockdown initiated."
"Good man, J. Get me a suit ASAP." Tony says, dashing through the arched end of the hallway and taking in a breathtaking two versus one brawl. Credit to the aliens, they could take a punch. The intruders have Loki flanked, alternating blows with their spears and pushing him into a corner. He's putting up a good fight, summoning blades from nowhere and sending them flying with unpredictable punches and kicks in a style very different from his usual. Something's off here, and Tony thinks he knows what it is.
Tony vaults the sofa and beans the horned one on the back of the head, Thor style. The lady alien rolls with the impact and swings around to tag him back with her spear. Now he has the advantage, forcing the enemies back to back while he and Loki attack them from both sides.
"Nice shorts." Tony says, trading blows with his opponent and skirting around feral kicks. For some reason "Loki" is wearing an Avalon High tank top that stretches tight over his pecs and the same basketball shorts Hela ran in wearing. Clever kid. Now the security footage won't show her engaging in violence.
"Shall I select something more alluring next time?" ze retorts in a pretty compelling impression of hir father while delivering a vicious kick to the male alien's groin. Ew, no flirting, even if it's just to sell the illusion. That's creepy old man territory.
"Less talking, more stabbing." Tony says, and has to jump back to avoid the fucking spear. Accounting for the return flight, Tony feints left and hits her underhand in the solar plexus. She takes the hit better than she should and nails him in the temple with a sucker punch from hell.
Sloppy, he thinks as his head screams, should have had a guard ready for that. He's already ruined a kitchen cabinet with his face tonight, so the direct hit blacks him out for a second. His vision comes back swimming, and he stumbles backwards, can't keep his feet. The spear returns to the owner's hand and Tony knows he's done for. It's too fast, and he's too wrong-footed to dodge. The spear catches him in the shoulder and the horned woman follows his momentum to the ground, plunging the tip into the floor so he's trapped and breathing around metal. The familiarity of the sensation doesn't make it any more bearable.
Not-Loki shouts from across the room and a blow lands with a wet sound and a gurgling cry. Tony can't move to look, but then a severed head rolls into view and he doesn't need to. He closes his eyes and tries to keep breathing around the pain. It's his left shoulder, because of course it had to be.
"Corvus!" the horned alien shouts, and runs to the body. Ug, he's going to have alien blood all over the carpet. The penthouse is going to be a complete do over. Suddenly the spear rips back out of him and he screams, can't help it. His chest feels warm and wet, and he clumsily balls up his pansexual pride t-shirt around it. So much for the souvenir.
"You should not have come, Proxima." Loki growls, "Thanos will pay for this."
Wait, what? Tony perks up at that, tries to raise his head but it hurts. Hela doesn't know about Thanos.
"It is you who will pay." Midnight swears, and a flare of light whites everything out for a second. When Tony opens his eyes, she's gone and the head is still on the floor, staring at him with dead eyes. Loki laughs, sheaths his blade.
"Coward." he spits, and comes to squat by Tony.
"Nice going, kid, you can drop the act." Tony says. Things are getting fuzzy. His hands are sticky and he tastes copper on his teeth.
"Fool, where is your suit?" Loki whispers, his expression worried. He lays a hand on Tony's shoulder and pulls the wadded shirt away, inspects the wound.
"Seriously it's getting weird." Tony says, but then Hela fills the other half of his vision. He smiles in spite of everything. "Oh. Hey, Slugger."
"Hush." Loki says, his hand glowing gold and weaving seidr through the axiomatic voids. He listened, he wants to say. For some reason it seems epically important that he prove to Loki he was listening that night. He lays his hand on Tony's chest and things get clearer. The wound isn't any better but the bleeding stops and his head reduces it's pulsing.
"Jarvis, call Doctor Cho." Tony croaks, and relaxes once he knows she's in route. Hela leaves to get the boys out of cold storage, and Loki lays him out so he can bleed on the couch. Yup, he sees a floor to ceiling remodel in his future.
"What did you do, Lokes?" Tony asks. He thinks it's a fair question, last week these guys were just ghosts, now they're busting in his house like it's Mission: Impossible. Loki must have done something.
"Nothing we did not discuss." Loki says, looking guilty.
"Just once I wish you'd say nothing, and actually mean nothing." Tony grumbles, "The scepter?"
"If not for that idiot Skurge all would have been well." Loki says darkly, "He had one job to do. One."
"God damn it, we could have just called Fury." Tony says. "But no, you had to fly off the handle."
"I am only doing what needs to be done." Loki hisses, "Is that not what you said about your suit?"
Ah, there's the headache again. God, everything hurts.
"Don't. Let's not fight." Tony says, "I, ugh, I actually don't think I have the energy."
"We are not fi-" Loki begins.
Tony passes out.
The skin regrowing tech is pretty fantastic, he has to admit. And he doesn't admit that about other people's tech very often. Within the space of an hour he's back in the black. Actually a lot better, since the spear cut through a good half of the scar tissue in his arm and now it's tender new baby flesh. His head is another matter unfortunately, and thanks to the moderate concussion he's in for a very long, unpleasant night of coma watch. Cho leaves him under Jarvis' supervision, which is great because Tony has override codes. Jarvis generally finds a loophole in about twelve minutes, but it's enough to get out of the hospital suite.
He's still far from top notch, but the full scope of his gaff with Loki earlier is dawning on him. Yeah, that tone was definitely not great. He's a sensitive dude, whatever he wants people to think. Tone matters. He's probably sulking now, since he didn't stay in the hospital suite. Best not to let it fester.
"Jarvis, where's Loki?"
"In the locker room, sir." Jarvis says, "I find it prudent to warn you that he is armed."
Ha, that's hilarious. Loki doesn't need weapons to hurt anyone, not by a long shot.
"Cool your jets, J, I'm just looking for a hook up." Tony jokes. Luckily the bathrooms are right by the elevator. He doesn't have to go far.
When he walks in, Loki's sitting with one foot on either side of the locker room bench, sharpening a throwing dagger. The room is pitch black except for a line of harsh white spotlights over the bench, little circles of intense brightness that catch the edges of his wavy hair and the crisp diamond pattern of his armor. His blade slides over a black ceramic whetstone with quiet schick noises that make the room feel small. Tony sits, matches him knee to knee.
"You want to tell me who that was?" he asks, clasping his hands and leaning on his knees.
"Call him an old friend." Loki says, holding the little dagger under the spotlight and inspecting the edge.
"Charming. Got any more 'old friends' that might wanna murder you?" Tony asks.
"Only half the known universe." Loki says. "Give or take."
"Great. Awesome. Anyone more specific?" Tony presses.
"I told you his name, I don't know how much more specific I could be." Loki says cheerfully, like this is all a big joke.
"Stop messing around. You did something to piss these guys off and now they're knocking on my door."
"If my guilt is predetermined, perhaps we can skip to the punishment. That at least has the potential to be fun." Loki snarls, slapping down his sharpening tools and sheathing the knife in his belt.
"Always fun and games with you." Tony sighs.
"Well you must admit, it is amusing." Loki says, tilting his head and smiling sharply, "All that bluster, only to be slain by an adolescent."
"Alien invasions are not amusing." Tony says.
"You seem to like my invasions well enough." Loki says, eyes sparkling.
"I like that you're pretty and good with knives, not that you create trouble wherever you go." Tony bites back.
"So you would have me chained and domesticated?" Loki accuses.
"Stop trying to distract me." Tony sighs, and rubs his aching head. He really doesn't have the energy for this right now. Loki huffs, scratching at his stubble. Damn, he must have been busy, it takes him a week to get a five o'clock shadow.
"I shall sleep better knowing Corvus is dead, it matters not how it was achieved." he says and stands as if to leave.
"Exactly, so who else is part of the boy band?" Tony asks, hand on Loki's arm. "I say we take the next fight to them."
Loki stares down at him, hair and shoulders haloed by the harsh light, thoughtful.
"Sit down. We'll do this together." Tony says. "I didn't mean to make you feel like the bad guy. I'm sorry."
Loki pulls in a measured breath and sits, puts his hands on his knees.
"At last we arrive on the same page." he says.
"Yeah, my bad." Tony says, tapping his gauze wrapped head, "Not all there right now."
"I suppose you will want to know what happened." Loki edges.
"And I suppose you don't want to tell me."
"As a matter of fact, I am quite eager." Loki quirks a lopsided grin. Oh, really?
"Go on." Tony says, sitting up straight and tilting his head. Loki wanting to talk is intriguing in a standing-on-the-side-of-a-cliff way.
"Well, following our disagreement I was not willing to sit idly any longer. I decided to disguise myself as a Chitauri guard and infiltrate the Titan's stronghold using the Space Stone. With my powers and those of the stone, it seemed quite a safe endeavor." Loki explains. Still smiling, even though Tony already knows this didn't end well.
"And you got caught?" Tony asks. Loki itches his stubble again and pinches his brows.
"I had forgotten that one of his children is mildly telepathic." he says. "One small oversight in an otherwise quite successful endeavor."
"Sure." Tony says, opting not to derail Loki's refreshingly full disclosure just to bitch him out about what a big oversight that actually was.
"As it happens," Loki says, and now he's properly smug, arching his brows playfully and gesturing with open hands, "The Titan does not possess any stones at all."
"Sounds like kind of a let down." Tony says, raising his brows and playing along. It's hard not to get sucked in when Loki's being charming and flippant in the face of annihilation.
"Oh, but he is far from retired." Loki says, getting more animated as he draws near the punchline, "In fact he has been quite industrious in a campaign against the Nova Corps. A large federation of planets in another galaxy, with a substantial military force."
So Tony's instincts had been right, that day they'd first discussed this guy. Thanos? Yes, that's what Loki called him earlier. Even now the only thing keeping Earth out of his mind was a more appealing target, a bigger threat he had to beat back first. Seems like every time Tony thinks he's ended the arms race, it just gets bigger in scale, includes more distant enemies. He's getting tired of it.
"Why bother?' Tony asks, "What's so special about them?"
"That is the interesting part." Loki agrees. "The Titan believes the Nova Corps possesses a stone of their own. The Power Stone. According to the Titan's children, he has slain half the population in his efforts to seize it."
Tony pinches his nose. This whole mystical scavenger hunt is getting out of hand.
"How many stones are there?" Tony asks. Maybe if there are a couple dozen they don't actually have to worry about someone getting all of them. It would be too improbable.
"When last we spoke, I knew of only three. Following my bit of espionage, I can tell you with confidence that there are six."
Fuck. Six is not enough to just ignore and roll the dice.
"Mind, Space, Reality, Power…" Tony lists, counting fingers as he goes.
"Soul, and Time." Loki finishes.
"Time?"
"By far the most dangerous in my estimation." Loki says. Hm, Tony has to agree with that. He's seen Terminator.
"It was an insane, unforgivable, reckless, stupid thing to do." Tony says, taking Loki's hands in his.
"It was also the right call." Loki insists. And damn, but it feels good to hear him defend his decision.
"Yeah." Tony admits, "It was the right call. You going back to Asgard?"
Loki plays it cool, but a muscle works in his jaw. He squeezes Tony's hands.
"Just so. My investigation consumed my usual period of respite."
They kiss. A short, sad thing stolen in a dark room. Tony doesn't want to go back to past battles, but he's running out of time and he can't wait another week.
"You know I would never use my armor against you, right?" Tony asks.
Loki nods, chews on the inside of his cheek.
"I was-" he sighs, "You thought me unable to handle my responsibilities, and I struck where i knew you were insecure."
"Don't do that again. Please." Tony says.
"The effect was not enjoyable." Loki agrees, looking down, "At the time it was suffocating. But once I was alone, it became clear that I did not wish to be."
"Well, work on that. And I'll stop implying you can't handle yourself." Tony says, stands up and massages his newly healed arm. It itches like crazy. On the inside. Loki stands as well, and gives Tony a hand to stabilize with as he steps over the bench.
"Well met." Loki says, kissing him once more, a bit longer. Yearning. "I will return."
"See you soon." Tony says, and catches a few drops of mist in his hand. Waits for it to dry. Settles into the now familiar emptiness of Loki dissolving in front of him. Funnels that emotion into something deadly and useful. Doctor Cho isn't going to let him sleep for twelve hours anyway, so he might as well spend the time in the shop putting Loki's intel to use.
"Jarvis, open a new project folder. Top secret, Level 1 clearance only, offline private server." Tony says, walking to the elevator with more confidence than he feels.
"What shall I name the program, sir?" Jarvis asks.
"Put it in the A.I. directory. Codename: Ultron."
"Yes, sir."