Time flows differently without sight. Not evenly, and not in a way that can be quantified. The beginning feels like an eternity, like drowning in a torrent of sound. Discordant, clashing noises overlap with the overwhelming murmur of too many people. The voices alone become an unnerving wall of noise, so many unknown persons with unknowable motivations under just enough stress to do something unreasonable to a man who can't see. They speak in an unfamiliar language and all clamor to get out as soon as the shuttle doors open inside the hanger.
Left alone after the crowd dissipates and the barked instructions of the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel grow distant, he feels trance-like and vulnerable. In the absence of visuals, his ears strain for every minuscule change in the environment. Intermittent clanks of metal tools on metal floors and the roar of large machinery catch him off guard and make him jump.
Minute vibrations tingle his fingertips where they rest on the arms of the co-pilot's seat, and he becomes absorbed in them for what feels like no time at all, but might be forever. It stops unexpectedly as the shuttle powers down. Without the distraction his attention snaps to the icky, clammy sensation of sweat-soaked clothes clinging to his limbs, wrinkling at his joints and cutting off circulation in places. He shifts in the chair and the nails-on-a-chalkboard screech of his boots against the floor reminds him that he's wearing his suit. Goosebumps raise on his arms, and the brush of sensitized skin against soiled clothing sends an odd creeping sensation over his shoulders. He's alone, and that's not right. He's a Stark, it's his birthright to have his privacy invaded every second of his life. Surely someone noticed his absence.
Do they think he's dead? Probably. The city exploded while he was off comms, AWOL. No reason to look for a body or confirm the loss, there was no city to search. Maybe his Loki doesn't know he's alive. Or, also possible, maybe Loki knows perfectly well he is alive and doesn't want to see him ever again. He would be justified.
Tony considers removing the blindfold. It's soggy, and the skin under it feels puffy and clammy. The linen is scratchy on his cheeks, and his ears ache from being held flush against his skull. They are warm with trapped blood and he can feel his heartbeat pulsing in them. It's really not cool. But catastrophic is a strong word. Not-Loki wasn't very specific about the parameters of his instructions. There's an outside chance that Not-Tony died after the fight not during, died from some poor choice that Loki's presence will negate. Infinite possibilities make it dangerous to assume. Tony forces himself to relax, to surrender to whatever comes next. A version of Loki suffered a lot to deliver him here, he can wait.
There is something sinister about the darkness. It awakens a meandering contemplation of his life, which is a risky endeavor on a good day. Freud would be tickled pink by the turns his mind takes. He starts in the cave, where all his memory roads terminate, but quickly banishes the image and allows it to reform as something older. The wood paneled living room in Stark Mansion.
His parents' extravagant house always looked menacing at night. The narrow Victorian windows used to cast long, pill-box shadows that warped the carved wood and tufted fabric into mysterious voids. Tony hated walking through it as a kid, always felt like something was waiting in the darkness. By birth he was a terrible sleeper, and he spent most nights trapped alone in his room. Reading, drawing, wanting to wake his mother and beg her to play with him. He knew better. She was an important lady who needed rest, and he was big enough to get his own toys from the living room. But he hated the living room at night so he never did.
Mornings were even worse than nights, mostly because he was always so tired and it made his parents angry. One day he was so drowsy that he hid in the janitor's closet at school and slept until Mr. Jarvis found him hours later. He always found him one way or another. Always dusted him off and asked him so patiently what he was doing, and why, and explained why that wasn't a good thing to do. Mr. Jarvis' chamomile tea and soft spoken words were the sole comfort in the palatial house, and even Tony's incredible A.I. never replaced him. Not adequately, anyway. Hiring Miss Potts seemed like a solution, but it turns out you can't pay someone to care. If you're an ass, no amount of money will keep them around. She was too much like his mother. In charge, firm, but gentle in her disregard for your wishes. For some reason he thought she could be different. She accepted Tony like no one ever had before, but accepting a person isn't the same as loving their flaws.
The parasite stirs as he reminisces. It observes the wandering path, a silent presence in the back of his mind who nudges him into murkier waters, brings up details he thought he forgot. It is curious, it wants to possess even more of him than it already does.
The formal dining room is at the back of the house. A high ceiling hall with gilded walls and a massive oak table for hosting galas. His hands are small on the persian rug, his index finger tracing patterns and naming the shapes. Square, circle, diamond, parabola. Tony looks up every couple seconds to see if his Mother is done talking on the phone. The stretched out spiral of the telephone cord sways across the doorway as she walks back and forth, back and forth. Still talking. Tony sighs, and traces more.
His favorite game is hide and seek, but he doesn't follow the rules. Hide and scare is more fun anyway. It makes him laugh when the grown ups jump and shout. Sometimes they ask him why he's hiding, and that's even better because then he can tell them he's waiting for the Soviets to come so he can jump out and shoot them. Other adults sometimes act weird after he tells them, but Dad loves it and so Tony likes it too.
Today he doesn't want to kill Soviets though, he just wants to scare Mother and make her laugh. She isn't very happy today. A plastic click echoes off the kitchen floors when she hangs up, and Tony peeks through the gaps in the carved oak chairs. He's excited, she'll walk by him now and he can jump out. Sitting up on his knees, he crawls between the clawed feet of the chairs on all fours, ready to pounce. Then the door to his dad's garage squeaks open and he walks in angry, covered in engine oil with his shirt open. Tony pouts, sitting back on his feet. More waiting. He hates waiting.
Dad and Mother talk. They get loud, and he shrinks further under the table, into the dark. His parents circle each other, yelling, scratching, shoving each other into walls. He wants to leave, he only wanted to play with Mother, but if he moves they will see him and he'll get in trouble. They stalk after each other like big cats and Tony presses his hands over his ears and pretends he isn't there. He's not a boy. He's a rug, or a mouse, or a chair. He's something that won't make a sound and get in trouble.
Dad pushes her into the dining room, and Tony covers his mouth with his hands. Squeezes his eyes shut tight. Something heavy lands on the table top, and his mother make scary noises. Dad stands over Mother just a few feet away and they start doing weird stuff, stuff that makes Tony's belly feel funny. He wants to cover his ears and block out the weird noises coming from his mother's mouth, but he only has two hands and he can't make a sound. Something outside the memory growls, and Tony flinches. Wonders why the fuck he's thinking about this.
Power flows up and down his body with a sickening warmth, and Tony gasps, grips the arms of the co-pilots seat and reins it in. It's harder than before, even with the blindfold. The beast uses his fear, as if his reverie served as some kind of calibration and now the parasite can play. Buttons get pushed and his heart rushes, pure crystalline fear hitting his bloodstream and driving him to his feet. Fight or flight, he observes, this thing is riding his adrenal system like a jockey on a horse. He wrestles with it, throws his arms around until he finds a wall and grips it, forces his aching lungs to breath slower. The unmistakable sound of a gun cocking near his head puts an end to the power struggle, slams the parasite's focus outward.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Tony grits between clenched teeth.
"Good, I'd rather not." Romanov says, "I think you need some fresh air."
"I need Loki." Tony says, squirming in his skin, his fingers spasming on the wall where he's sure the suit is crushing steel. There's a pause, in which Tony knows someone is talking in her earpiece. He knows how these people operate. Romanov shifts her weight, and her leather gloves creak against the handle of the gun.
"He's not available right now." she says balancing on the razor's edge between calm and threatening. "I can take a message."
"No." Tony growls, "Get me Loki."
"Let's take a walk." she suggests with an edge that the parasite doesn't like, and the next thing he knows the gun is a shower of steel pellets raining down from Natasha's hand. He can't even see it, but he feels the change in state and hears her involuntary intake of breath.
"I'm not going anywhere until I speak with him." he says. "So you better make him available before I lose my shit."
"Okay." Romanov says, heeled boots stepping back. "Relax, this doesn't have to escalate."
"Fair warning, it probably will." Tony admits, because very few situations de-escalate with the addition of Loki. "You should clear the hanger."
"Fury is clearing the quadrant." Natasha says after another comm unit pause. It's a surprise to Tony that he can tell the difference between the agent and the friend just from her tone, "I'm walking away now."
Tony laughs, a bit grimly, "You treat all your marks this nice?"
"Only when they cooperate."
"This is cooperating?" Tony asks. Natasha steps onto the shuttle ramp and her footsteps turn tinny and reverberated.
"Could have turned me into marbles instead of the gun." she says, walking away.
Tony stumbles to the cockpit door, and puts his hands on the threshold. Time turns liquid again, deprived of his senses and without another person to mark the passage. He stays present, lesson learned.
No noise or sensation precludes his next visitor even though he isn't distracted. There just isn't any sound to hear. A slight jet of energy wells up in front of him, a sixth sense hum that he is starting to recognize as magic.
"Remove your suit." Loki's voice says, monotone. Tony tenses at the sound, tilts his head in it's direction and assumes he's looking at a wall or far to the right of Loki's ear. He feels ridiculous, isolated.
"You came." he says, swallowing around a lump in his throat. His stomach is full of butterflies, nasty wrong butterflies of doubt and guilt.
"You insisted." Loki says. Pauses like Natasha, listening to unheard people.
"I wasn't sure…" Tony says. "You looked so angry-"
"Your suit." Loki repeats flatly. Something about Loki's presence bothers the parasite, sends it skulking into it's den. Tony obeys, without thought.
"Follow me." he says. Strange.
"You…" Tony mumbles, "You aren't mad?"
There's a pause, and even with his blindness-enhanced hearing he can't detect the sort of noises that should accompany a moving person. No rustle of clothing or creak of leather boots.
"Of course not, darling." Loki says coldly. "Hurry up."
"I can't see." Tony says, raising one foot cautiously.
It's alarming. Deeply disconcerting. Walking without sight in an unfamiliar place strips him unexpectedly of any control, makes him feel desperately cut off from his surroundings. With sheer force of will he steps forward, and steadies himself on that leg. Lifts his back foot against all his better instincts and takes a second step. Rams his knee hard into something unmovable, and trips. He reaches automatically for Loki, but no one comes to catch him. He lands hard on both knees and grunts at the pain, feels gritty dirt dig into his fingertips and the sharp geometric grooves of the aluminum flooring sting cold lines on the heels of his palms.
"I'm sorry." Tony says, and it's not what he meant to say. He meant to ask why Loki let him fall. Or maybe to accuse him of being mad. Maybe even call him out for lying about being mad. But everything hurts, inside and out. He feels invaded, invalidated, isolated, and his mouth just runs. "I didn't want to, I didn't-"
"You are not sorry." Loki shouts. "You did what you wanted with no thought at all, and now look at you!"
It's visceral, savagely intense and echoing in the cavernous hanger bay like there's a crowd of Lokis all yelling down at him. Hell, there could be. Tony would never know in this state.
"I'm sorry!" Tony shouts back, ramming his hand on what he thinks is an arm rest and dancing his fingers around until he finds the top. Pushes himself up with it, clumsy as a newborn, and strains for any hint of sound to indicate where Loki is. There's nothing, he is adrift. "Loki?"
"I'm done." Loki says, "No, no leave me alone, I am not doing anymore-"
He sounds like he is talking to someone else until halfway through. And then he cuts out completely. It's like a chasm opening under him, Tony can't move. He's lost him. For real this time, he's gone too far.
Natasha's voice reverberates off the walls, tinny and rough through the intercom system. It's the voice she uses to talk to the blueberries. Shameful as it is, it helps.
"Stay where you are, Stark. We are sending in an escort. You are being taken to a secure holding cell, and there are no hostiles on board. You are safe. Do not make any sudden movements."
Tony puts his hands behind his head. He's gassed, no fight left. Even if the parasite wanted to revolt, he doesn't think he can physically do it. And that's a relief.
The escort arrives and Tony doesn't say a word, lets the person direct him silently with a hand on his back. They make a series of turns he doesn't bother to memorize and he almost loses his lunch when the floor lurches under him. He's surprised by how he can't tell if the elevator is going up or down. The doors slide open, and they walk down a hallway that sounds like the inside of a garbage dumpster but smells like acetone. There's the shick of a security door opening, and then closing, and then another one opening.
The edges of the blindfold are pure white on the other side of the door, and he realizes the escort is gone. He's alone between two doors.
"Five steps forward." Fury says from the ceiling. Tony doesn't see any reason to be difficult. He's probably headed to the Raft, or some similar holding cell for dangerous enhanced people. Good behavior tends to shorten sentences. He takes very cautious steps, bent halfway forward with his hands outstretched. On the fifth one he touches clean glass, about waist high. There's a bundle of something soft wrapped in plastic sitting on it.
"Got you some clean clothes. Figured you wouldn't want to sit around in your bloody rags." Fury says.
"I'm bleeding?" Tony asks, genuinely surprised. He checks himself over, feeling up his arms and down his legs. He feels fine, apart from everything hurting and the general weight of complete exhaustion.
"Higher up, smarty pants." Fury says. Fucker must really be enjoying this. A goddamn sadist is what he is. Tony pats his chest and when he finds nothing moves up to his face. Oh. There are chunks of congealed blood caked in his beard and sticky lines going up to the blindfold, to his nose. Brain hemorrhaging. Fuck, that's not good.
"Five steps right there's a shower." Fury says. "Do me a favor and don't destroy anything for a few minutes. I got another situation to deal with."
Fury cuts out. He stands there getting a feel for the space. It sounds small. Everything is quiet except for the residual humming of the helicarrier turbines and the buzzing fluorescent tube lighting. The white all around the blindfold makes him feel twice as disgusting. And alone.
Carefully measuring a ninety degree turn with the placement of his feet, Tony takes five steps. Finds a wall, and with some hesitant finger walking he finds two taps. He feels around for a curtain or a cubicle or any kind of privacy, but of course there isn't. Sighing, he throws off his sweaty, disgusting clothes and turns a faucet at random.
The water hits him like a punch. Cold enough it almost burns, absolutely frigid. As cold as the time Rhodey drunkenly dared him to skinny dip in the MIT fountain during a blizzard. It's fine, it's what he deserves. He messes with the other tap when his fingers start to go numb, but only because he doesn't want Fury to send in a medic. He slides the blindfold off of his face and pries the dried blood off the tender, inflamed skin under his eyes. Scrubbing it out of his beard takes some patience, but the water helps. There's no towel that he can find, so he just sits on the floor in a puddle and waits. Can't even make himself care that some random security personnel are getting an up close view is his flabby, not-a-thirty-year-old-boxer-anymore gut. The blindfold is disgusting, soaked with sweat and tears and smelling vaguely of copper on the bottom edge. He decides he'll just squint.
Eventually he gets cold and walks carefully back to the table. Rips open the stretchy plastic and feels thin cotton. Scrubs. Wonderful, just what his wardrobe is lacking. If they turn out to be orange Tony might actually kill someone. As he's feeling around his new digs he finds a cot on one wall with a mattress about as thick as a pancake and a scratchy sheet that smells like lye. There's a small box on the mattress and with some awkward fumbling he finds the opening. Tears the cardboard tab off without meaning to. Sunglasses slide out.
Curious, he slides his eyes open, just enough to see a sliver and be instantly blinded by the glowing white. Their not his taste at all. Cheap plastic in a wrap around style favored by Midwestern tourists and hillbillies that unironically ride dirt bikes on the highway. The frames look opaque, though.
"Can't say Fury never gave me anything." he mutters, and slides them on. It takes a long time for his eyes to adjust. It's about as uninteresting as a view can get. Flat black planes over 90% of his visual range, including side panels that block his peripheral vision. But it allows for airflow, and he at least gets the sensation of his eyes functioning normally. He's never noticed that he can feel his pupils contract before, or how pleasant it is just to move his eyeballs without fabric pressing them down.
Various physical sensations filter in over the next few minutes as he finally relaxes. Muscle spasms in his left arm, heavy tiredness behind his eyes, slight headache around his temples, sore feet. Comfortable is not how he would describe it, but it's rest. Goosebumps crawl up his arms when the air conditioner kicks on, and he shuffles back on the bed until his back meets the wall and he crosses his legs. Breathes. He's not sure if he's ever been this still or quiet since he was a kid lying awake at midnight and counting the carved leaves in the crown molding.
There's nothing more to do, so he sits. Waits. Listens to the rhythms of the machine that's carrying him somewhere, and wonders what Not-Loki meant when he said he wished they had talked more.
The thumping of armored walking down the nearby corridor interrupts the silence not long after Tony settles in. It sounds like a SWAT team, all rubber soled boots and Kevlar vests on rattling catwalk grates. He's laying on his back by now, and the commotion makes him sit up and turn his head. At first he thinks it's a patrol or maybe Fury coming to talk to him with a security detail just in case, but then he hears a long sequence of thudding slaps and wounded cries. Jumping to his feet, Tony reaches out and retraces his steps to the table in the center of the room, tip-toeing so as not to cover the noises he's straining to hear. Grunts and sharp exhales barely permeate the walls of his cell, but the crackling discharge of a Widow's bite is as loud as a siren. More struggling, more impacts, and then the kind of solid, metallic thwack that can only be an improvised weapon. A body hits the floor, and Tony winces. Whoever decided to fight Natasha in an enclosed space has his sympathy. Then there's a long, pained moan and Tony's heart stops. It's Loki.
A nearby security door slides open, and Tony can only assume that what follows is Natasha dragging Loki into a cell.
"Loki?" he calls, worried. "Romanov, what's going on?"
"Stay out of this, Stark." she calls, muffled by several walls.
"Is this fucking Guantanamo? I have rights." He shouts, paces to where he thinks the door is and hits it with the meat of his hand. Hurts like a bitch, but it makes a satisfying noise even as it sends stinging vibrations up his bones. Natasha struts down the corridor, and the next time she speaks her voice is much clearer, just outside his cell.
"Mental recalibration." she says, slightly winded, "He was being a bad boy. We had to put him in Time Out."
"He's not a kid." Tony growls defensively.
"Could have fooled me." Natasha drawls, and taps the door of his cell on her way past.
That's not even remotely acceptable. Tony doesn't wait for her to clear the hallway, he turns in the direction of Loki's cell and pokes the parasite awake. The surge starts at the bottoms of his feet and shoots upward, raising the hair on his legs and sending sparks of heat up his back.
Suddenly he desperately needs to see. It's not even a complete thought, just the beginnings of a brain wave to signal his hand to take off his glasses, but the stone responds. It's wordless but there is a kind of communication between his mind and the parasite, the unnamed notion of an interface, and then the back of the glasses becomes a kind of holo screen. It's still solid when he touches it, and he can't see his own fingers in front of his face, but the things he wants to see appear like a spam filter on his vision. Just the relevant stuff, none of the noise. It's kind of revolutionary.
He does a quick turn, and the four walls of his cell appear. It's small, like he thought. Probably about twelve steps deep by seven wide. The table isn't in the middle like he thought, it's actually fairly close to one wall, and Tony realizes he almost ran face first into it a couple times. Successfully oriented, he turns back in the direction he heard Loki groan.
The wall is plate steel, and stubborn. It's much thicker than the bots, much less eager to be molded than the vibranium. He finds all he can do in one function is change it to glass. The next room is empty. Tony picks up the glass top table and throws it, enjoys the somewhat taboo sound of glass breaking and ringing as it lands. The next wall is somewhat easier after he remembers to summon up his targeting interface. Rather than brute force the mutation, he adds a shortcut algorithm to his right hand wheel and turns his wrist. Like opening a door knob the wall turns to glass, and there's Loki on the other side, unconscious.
The table makes a second trip through a glass wall and Tony spans the distance quickly. He doesn't think about the glass on his bare feet until he's stepping on it and the Aether shoves it away in small circles like ripples in a pond. Sliding onto the floor, he kneels over Loki's form and inspects him. The glasses aren't the same as looking, it's just a sort of outline with vague shadows and highlights. His concern layers some life signs over the display, and that helps a lot. He doesn't seem too bad. A nasty burn on his neck from the electric shock, and a shallow welt on his right temple. It's a perfect rectangle, deeper in the center, like someone nailed him with a pipe or a baton. Yikes.
Nervously shaking out his hands, Tony focuses on the interface radials. They are blue, roughly aligned with the spread of his fingertips, and dotted with the few shortcuts he's programmed in so far. They are all very destructive, and he carefully tucks away the flashes of memory he gets as he reads the icons. Picturing a warm yellow hue, he turns the menus gold and imbues them with an irrevocable limit of non-lethal force. They flicker ominously for a few seconds and he doubles down, slides into his most stubborn dad mentality and thinks oh no you don't you little shit . A war of forces and pressure happens in that strange sixth sense place that's growing in the back of his mind, and he holds firm. The arrays blink back bright yellow, maybe even smoother than before, and he loosens his hold. The stone rolls and draws in on itself, sends him the bare minimum amount of power that he's demanding and sort of sulks. It's as sentient as advertised, but he gets the feeling that it's less of a person and more of a creature. Purely emotional, instinctual. It thinks but it doesn't reason, and it folds when Tony calls its bluff. Good to know.
Healing is new. Nerve wracking. Pietro wasn't exactly alive to leave a Yelp review. Considering the various ways he could go about this, it feels most natural to touch him. He lays his thumb over Loki's hairline and runs down the mark, pictures his tiny blood vessels knitting back together and his body absorbing the discolored tissue. When his thumb reaches Loki's cheek the mark is gone. Tony's stomach unknots itself, and he runs his other hand down Loki's corded neck, repeats the process. Looking around, he remembers that he's meant to be a prisoner and feels vaguely idiotic for demonstrating how symbolic his capture is. Fury's probably having an aneurysm right now.
Looping his forearms under Loki's shoulders he hoists him up, grabs him around the waist and drags him over to the nearest cot. There are shards of glass all over it, and Tony has to transfer Loki's weight to one arm so he can sheepishly untuck the sheet and shake off the fragments. It still glitters when he sets it down, so he turns the tiny embedded pieces into actual glitter and figures that's good enough. By the time he's done, he's honestly surprised Fury hasn't threatened him back to his cell yet.
Laying Loki on his back in the glorified lawn chair, he argues with himself over removing his bulkier clothing. He supposes Loki can put them back on with little more than a thought, and he'll sleep better without it. Fortunately he wore his tactical suit and not his Asgardian digs, so it only takes a minute to unclip the armor plates and free his feet from his boots.
Yikes, those are some stinky feet. Tony wrinkles his nose and smirks despite himself. Even the unsexy things make his chest tight when it comes to Loki. Slipping off Loki's smelly socks, he frowns at the blisters littered over his heels and toes. Sitting on the edge of the cot, Tony starts with the big sores on the heels. It's more complicated than a burn or a bruise. There's more wrong than just damaged capillaries. It's hard to tell what's going on under the skin, but he thinks he's doing it right. One foot comes out clean and whole, so Tony switches to the other. This one has small blisters on a few toes. Those are really difficult to heal. There isn't much tissue between skin and bone, and that means a very narrow margin for error. He is in the process of draining one when Loki starts to stir.
Small movements give way to rapid blinking and a deep intake of breath, and then Loki jerks up. Tony freezes, oddly caught out by Loki's wide eyes and stiff posture. He scans Tony's hands, the golden arrays, his one unmarred foot and the other dotted with blisters. He kicks Tony in the solar plexus and scrambles backward until he's standing on the cot with his back in the corner.
"You dare touch me after what you've done?" Loki says.
The blow throws Tony off the bed and he lands on his back, little shards of glass poking through his thin shirt and grounding him from the sinking void that's opening in his chest. Something feral overcomes him, an insane need to be closer, to crowd Loki into the wall and fix this. Make him thrash, or cry, or whatever it is that will give him relief from how Tony's made him feel. He climbs back on the cot, an uncoordinated crawl on hands and knees until he's at Loki's feet and reaching to hug him around his hips. He can't explain what comes over him, but he can't hold it back, it's a dire, irresistible need to restore closeness. He opens his mouth to say something, hell to beg his forgiveness or something equally unprecedented, and a knife materializes in Loki's hand.
"Get away from me." Loki warns, pointing the needle-thin tip of the dagger under Tony's chin, soft enough not to pierce but precariously close. Tony's throat quivers under the silver threat, and all he can do is stare at the terrifying coldness in Loki's eyes. His hand is steady on the blade, not a hint of a tremor or doubt. His body is poised for the strike, and Tony can't see any trace of the playful, tender-hearted person he swore to protect. Trembling, he tips his chin up, tempts Loki to end his anguish. Half hopes that he does.
"I didn't do it to hurt you." Tony says. Speaking pricks his skin. A small stream of blood drips from the cut Tony can't even feel, and he doesn't flinch when Loki pushes the blade up. He tilts Tony's chin as high as it can go and holds him on the razor's edge. The parasite flares at the threat, and Tony shoves it back with all of his will.
"Go away." Loki says.
"I wronged you. Let me make it right, I want to make this right." Tony begs. Something crumbles in Loki's resolve and he covers his face with his free hand, panting around an emotional wound that Tony can feel gaping between them.
"There is no right!" Loki chokes around his seizing throat, "I entrusted everything to you. I asked no price but this. I don't understand-"
"We have to. One of us has to." Tony says, daring to wrap his hands around Loki's and pull the knife away. "If we lose, there's no more us. We have to win-"
"Not like this, we do not!" Loki says. Shaking off Tony's hands, he lashes out, aims a closed fist at Tony's cheek and the stone retaliates. It blasts Loki into the wall in a violent burst of red. He lands crumpled on the metal bed frame.
"Shit." Tony says, backing away. Loki meets his eyes, and his legs almost fail him. "It's the stone, it's-"
"It defends the host, yes." Loki whispers, curling into a fetal position and turning his face to the wall with his cheek on his knee. "Just go. Please. I want to be alone."
Tony feels like he's turning to stone. His legs are as stiff and heavy as lead. He obeys. Rubbing at his eyes, he summons up one hand menu and reconstructs the wall. Turns it back to steel. There is two walls worth of material so it's almost twice as thick. In a moment of weakness he leaves a porthole in the middle with a small grate underneath so he can hear Loki moving in the other room. He banishes the interface. It goes quietly, almost whining like it's the one that's out of gas. Maybe the connection is less one-way than he thought. His head hurts.
Tony dumps his face under the sink faucet and groans at the icy relief. He half wants to drown himself in the basin but he doesn't have the balls. Once his brain starts screaming for air he shoots up and slams his head on the tap. His hair drips in his eyes and he brushes it back like a Sean Connery wannabe.
"Do these lights go off?" He moans at the ceiling, stumbling towards his cot. "Fury? Anybody?"
Nothing.
Flopping on his back he rips off his glasses and drops them on the floor by the bed. Puts his elbow over his nose and recalls a jingle from an eighties TV commercial. Raising his hands in the air, he claps twice and turns the lights off himself.
When he wakes the lights are back on, and there's a shower running next door. Laying in a half dream, he forgets where he is. Anticipates rounding up the kids and throwing together some of his world famous disgusting omelets. The water cuts off and he backtracks, imagines Loki coming out of the bathroom loose-limbed and warm from the shower. Then he opens his eyes and his world is blinding lights and steel walls and his lover hating him in the cell next door. His gut writhes like a pit of snakes, and he starts to understand all the suicide blogs from a radical new perspective, starts to want to choke on the nearest firearm.
He sits up and literally everything hurts. Picking his glasses off the floor feels like a stretch. Standing up he walks stiffly to the toilet and relieves himself before he can think too much about it and lose his nerve. He sets his glasses on the sink and splashes water on his face. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he realizes there is a mirror over the sink, and catches a glimpse of blue in the reflection. Tony turns and walks to the porthole, peers through.
Loki is dripping wet and looking around the cell. Yeah, no towels at the Motel Fury. Thems the breaks. Shrugging, Loki inhales deeply, touches his thumbs to his ring fingers and steam rises off his body in a cloud. Cheater. Tony supposes he could have done that too, he just didn't think about it. Loki itches at a wound in his side, a long deep looking gash that Tony didn't notice under his clothes, and their eyes meet. They both freeze, caught up in a moment that could go a lot of ways.
Loki's clawed hand absently picks at the wound, and it draws Tony's attention. It's a long cut, deep purple in the center and oozing where Loki peels up the scabs and digs in with his nails. His face is vacant, like his spark has gone out and this is just a wisp of smoke left behind.
Loki's eyes flick to the seeping mess on his fingers and back to Tony's. His lips pull into a taut wire smile. There's a merciless, haunting depth sliding into his eyes that Tony has never seen before. Loki digs deeper, flinching involuntarily as he holds Tony's gaze. Sick laughter bubbles up at whatever Loki sees in him.
"Do you disapprove?" he taunts, "Does this displease you?"
"What are you doing?" Tony asks, jaw tight.
"Whatever I want. Or is that something only you are permitted to do?" Loki says, sinking his claw-like nails into his chest and dragging them down his torso with cruel purpose. Angry welts rend his lines and tear at his flesh, leaving behind parallel lines of seeping blood.
"What the fuck are you doing, stop!" Tony yells, scrambling to the glass window with an outstretched hand.
"Stop? Why? Because it hurts you?" Loki snarls, ripping his other hand down the crown of his head and over his eyes, slicing down into his cheek. He gasps even as he does it. His chest heaves. Fresh blood wells up from the wounds and he smears it across his cheek and down his jaw, scowling like a feral animal. Tony reaches desperately for the stone, but it alludes him, taunts him. It desires destruction. Of course it doesn't want to stop Loki.
"That is the point!" Loki screams.
A red light in the ceiling turns on, spinning like a police car and a siren blares. The light glints off Loki's blue skin and makes him look fiendish, like a Biblical demon. The sound of armored bodies echoes down the cell block corridor, but Loki doesn't relent. Crazed eyes dig hooks into Tony and he slams his fists into the wall as Loki rakes another vicious stripe up his stomach.
"Don't!" Tony shouts, slamming against the divider and feeling a pressure all down his front like his soul is trying to escape.
"My pain did not concern you when there was power to grab!" Loki screams, "Why should it matter to you now?"
Tony feels like his own guts are spilling, like Loki's shredding him too. Loki begins exploding the bathroom fixtures with bursts of magic that shake the floor and fill the air with white ceramic dust. Screaming, he pulls at his hair and Tony feels helpless, eviscerated. Somehow it feels exactly like being waterboarded, like being forced into a bucket repeatedly with only spare seconds of relief in which Loki pants and stumbles and grips his face. He digs deeper, harder into that ethereal place where the stone resides, and he comes up empty handed.
The security door in Loki's cell opens, and Tony wants to murder someone. It's Thor and Rogers, looking self-righteous and patriotic. Agitated as he is, Loki doesn't hesitate. He fires a bolt of green energy before they even pass the threshold and Rogers reflects it. The bolt lodges in Loki's side and knocks him on his back. Thor tackles him in a pool of his own blood and Loki goes ballistic.
"Loki, stop this madness. You are hurting yourself." Thor shouts, as if Loki is somehow unaware of his actions. He pins Loki with his weight and pulls his arms behind his back. Loki thrashes so hard that Tony worries he might dislocate his shoulder. Screaming, Loki's skin starts shimmering, quaking erratically like he's lost control of his shape, like he wants to be everything and nothing all at once, and a plume of fire comes out his mouth. Thor leaps away, and Tony can only watch in horror as flames engulf Loki's body and he rolls on the floor, shooting fire from his lips like water from a fountain. He's shrieking, crying, banging his fists, and Tony beats the wall in time, yells with him until his fucking powers finally work and he rips a hole through four inches of steel.
"Get away from him!" Tony says, throwing himself over Loki and blocking a column of fire with a translucent red shield that appears just in time, completely instinctive. "He's mine, don't touch him."
"Tony-" Steves says in his not-a-good-idea voice.
"What don't you understand about 'Get Lost,' Rogers?" Tony wraps the shield around him like a coat and lays down on top of Loki, puts his hand over his mouth and makes shushing noises in his ear.
"It's okay." Tony says, "We're gonna get through this, okay, we're gonna figure this out."
Loki's yelling turns into broken wailing and the flames whip out all around him. It takes everything Tony has to hold him there, but this much is familiar. He knows what Loki needs in these breakdowns, and he gives it. Holds him down and waits for the flames to snuff out. The floor is singed black, and the air thick with smoke, but he seems unharmed by his spontaneous combustion. He kicks and wriggles, but Tony manages to stay in control, manages to catch the hand that attempts to slap him and forces it to the ground near Loki's head. The other hand beats on Tony's back repeatedly, weakly, and Loki whines, grunting out frustrated noises into his hand. Tony looks around and finds that they are alone, then reaches out to locate the hidden cameras and microphones in the ceiling. Disconnects them. This is no one's business but theirs.
Loki's hips buck into Tony's weight, and at first he thinks it's just more struggling. He thinks Loki is just fighting his demons, and then he feels a familiar length nudging his leg and he looks down in surprise. Loki's hard. Red eyes meet his and all he sees is anger and a frustration that's more sexual at second glance. Loki's still hitting him in the back, wrestling against his hold and earnestly trying to escape, but he's also humping Tony's leg and it's too much, too confusing, too fucked up. He rolls off of him, stung, freaked out, but Loki follows. He straddles Tony's hips and rakes his claws through his hair, plunges his tongue into his mouth.
Tony shoves him away, but Loki's strong, he's heavy, he's not going anywhere.
"Yours. You said it, you can't take it back." Loki gasps.
"What the hell-" Tony says. "A few hours ago you didn't want me to touch you. You aren't thinking rationally-"
"I shall think a great deal more rationally after an orgasm or three." Loki growls, rolling to his back and pulling Tony with him, wrapping his legs tight around Tony's hips and dragging him down.
"Mjolnir." Tony says breathless, "Fuck, let me go, I'm not doing this."
"Do you not wish to make it up to me? Was that another empty promise?" Loki demands, "This is not some game you can quit when it does not appeal to you."
"That's the problem!" Tony yells, "That's the whole fucking problem. It's supposed to be a game. There are supposed to be rules and limits, and goddamn condoms. You think I have a fucking condom right now?"
"Will you not grant me one thing which you do not want yourself?" Loki snaps, "I indulge all of your strange desires, all your soft words and coddling. Now fuck me, Stark."
"Dammit, no." Tony's chest heaves, he feels dizzy. He keeps getting flashes of persian rugs and shoes scuffing the floor while his mother yelps. "I can't, I fucking can't. You can't ask me to do this fucked up shit to you."
Tony lays his head on Loki's chest and tries to force his breathing slower. His eyes burn. There is a tide rising up, a seemingly bottomless chasm of despair in his heart trying to leak out of his eyes. He spends every day dancing around it, trying not to fall in, and Loki just walked him waist deep and dunked him.
His throat burns with the effort of containing the wounded animal noises that he makes when he cries. Never in his life has Tony cried quietly. The drugs and the alcohol were just really great scapegoats, he was weak like this before all that. His vocal chords crack, and a whine escapes, a brittle, pathetic sound that injects him with self hatred. It only grows louder as the shame kicks in and the tears start to flow.
Loki cries at the drop of a hat and Tony doesn't think less of him for it. He thinks it's incredible how Loki can let go with nothing but a firm touch and a spoken invitation. But he can't find the same compassion for himself. He feels defective, like he's not tough enough to keep this shit locked down. Weak. He's certain Loki will be disgusted. Loki hates weakness of any kind. Tony never intended to lose control around him, ever.
A hand touches his neck, and Tony clutches Loki's shoulders. He hides his stupid weeping in the hollow of Loki's arm, and his whole body tenses. He feels like he's about to burst from the pressure of holding himself back, it's physically painful.
"I-It is… It is alright." Loki stutters, his voice soft and gravelly from misuse. His hand runs over Tony's scalp, and his walls turn to shredded paper. There's static in his head, a remnant of constant doubt and constant fear, of all the stress he's lived with. It yanks something out of him that he didn't know he had left to give. It goes on and on, and he can't stop.
"I'm sorry. I'll do it, okay, just don't leave me-" Tony begs, "Don't leave me, don't leave me, please don't leave-"
"No." Loki says, his long arms wrapping around Tony's neck. He hesitates. Tony knows his face, he knows exactly the look of stiff discomfort he's wearing without even looking, and he feels like he's forcing himself on Loki in a different way. A more intimate, damaging way that Loki isn't prepared to handle. He digs his fingers into Loki's arms, and belatedly realizes he's been on Loki's lines the whole time. Oh god, he's been pouring this toxic sludge right into his mind. He wrenches his hands away, into his chest, but Loki grabs them and unfurls Tony's fingers. Loki flattens his palms on his scabbed, ruined chest lines and the body under him heaves. Loki cries with him.
"I'm so sorry-" Tony chokes, and Loki runs his fingers gently through his scalp. His head tingles under the careful drag of claws, and the warmth spreads down Tony's chest and curls up around his patchwork heart.
"No, I am sorry. I-" Loki whispers, "You feel this every time you doubt my… my willingness."
"Yes." Tony gasps, overwhelmed with relief that burns like a white hot brand. Finally, finally Loki understands. "God, yes."
"I... I do not think I am capable of all that you expect from me." Loki says.
That wrings out the last of Tony's tears, the assurance that he has not lost everything. He lays there helpless, buried in Loki's side like a child and tries to get a grip. His nose is dripping, and Loki's chest feels like dry earth under his fingers. Tony sucks up air and shifts so he can press his face into the hollow of Loki's neck. He squeezes his soggy eyes closed and smells Loki's skin. A weak aftershock rolls through him, and he drips a few more pathetic tears into the hair behind Loki's ear.
"I just want us to stop scaring the shit out of each other." Tony mumbles. Sniffles. God he's disgusting, he hates this. He angles his head down, and the sight of Loki's wounds makes him flinch. The welts are half cauterized from the flames, black and purple and still seeping in places. He prays that the parasite cooperates, and summons up his hand array. It's gold, fuzzy but there. Charred blood and torn flesh repair under his fingers, and he takes it slowly. Loki gasps, holding onto the muscle between Tony's shoulder and neck, and together they feel the passage of magic from sternum to hip and back.
Loki's eyes are wet and sunken. The fluorescent lights bleach his skin an unhealthy grey blue. Tony sits up higher, leaning on one arm as he runs his hand up Loki's blood smeared face and into his hair. Dried blood clumps around the roots, and Tony has to weave the magic carefully around each tiny strand.
"It doesn't hurt?" Tony asks.
"No." Loki says, simply.
When he's done, he feels hollow. Both he and Loki are cracked and the only thing that feels solid is his body against Tony's. Loki fidgets, avoiding his gaze, and Tony knows he's reached the end of Loki's touch tolerance. Sitting up feels like ripping a layer of skin off with the bandaid, but he does it.
"I think you need another shower." Tony says regretfully, knees twinging as he struggles to his feet. Steel floors, ugh, he'll have bruises tomorrow. Chalky white dust covers his scrub pants and he dusts it off roughly. Loki sits cross legged and surveys the aftermath of his rampage.
"Mine appears to be out of commission." he rasps. Tony has to agree with that. Water gushes from the severed pipes of the shower and the sink is in eight pieces in the middle of the rising puddle. Tony twists the pipes with a flick of his index finger and fuses the ends until there are no leaks. His head twinges, and a trickle of blood slips from his nose. He wipes it with the edge of his shirt and extends his hand to Loki.
"Guess you can clean up at my place." he says with a tired quirk of his lips.
"So generous." Loki replies, and rises up on his own. Wobbles a bit before finding his balance.
"Yeah, whatever. Come on." Tony murmurs, leading him through the shredded hole in the wall and closing it behind him. "We need to talk."
Loki wrinkles his nose, and turns on the cold water tap.
For once sharing Loki's dread of the impending relationship talk, Tony lays on his cot and kicks his brain into order. This insane up and down is killing them, and it's time to put a stop to it. To lay down boundaries and stick to them. Rather than frantically searching for a plan like normal, he finds himself just gathering energy. They are in a cell, most likely on their way to be poked and dissected by the World Security Council. They have nothing but time.
A/N: AHHHH what a heavy chapter. Thank you all for going on this journey with me and the boys. I promise it will get better! Everything will be okay! D:
Reviews help a lot to keep my motivation high, and constructive criticism is welcome. I want to improve, and I value your feedback, so please take a minute if you have any thoughts, I genuinely love hearing them. Cheers!