Pushing his sunglasses a little further up his nose, Tony puts his hands in his pockets and looks up at the Kuldeheim Industries building. It had originally been office blocks, but Svensson had bought the whole thing after Kuldeheim had been off the ground for two years or so, and now it has frosted glass on its outside, recreating the logo in the silver mountains.
Tony steps inside, walking toward the security desk, and he rests his elbows on the edge of the counter as he waits for the security employee to turn around from the screen on the back wall.
"Hey," he says quietly. "Mr Svensson asked me to come in."
"Mr Stark," the guard says, and she reaches under the desk, removing a small, copper coin and passing it over to him. Tony holds the coin in the palm of his hand, looking at the image emblazoned on it: not the Kuldheim logo he's so used to, now, but an engraving of a falling star. "When you go into the lift, just press that coin to the panel marked with a K."
She doesn't seem star struck to meet Tony Stark in the least: she's a tall woman, with high cheekbones and grey eyes. There's a pause, and he flips the coin in his hand. "Thanks," Tony says.
"Mr Stark," the guard says again, and gives a short nod of her head. Tony turns and makes his way toward the elevator, glancing at his phone as he goes. It isn't even a text message, although Svensson had his number, but an email – the guy is so weirdly particular.
Dear Tony,
I imagine this comes as something of a surprise, as I have neglected to answer your invitation to keep in touch before now. We met nearly one year ago, and yet I have avoided your company. You must think me quite the cad.
If you would have time today, before preparing for the gala tonight at the Hamish Institute, I should be grateful if you would visit me at Kuldeheim. Speak with Vesta at the security desk, and she will direct you.
Once more, I apologize – I know this seems so sudden, and without prompt – but I should be so glad to see you.
My warmest regards,
Loki Svensson.
In the first few nights after Thor's party, Tony had thought it had been a little weird – it's not every day he gives a guy the head's up to call him, and he barely ever gives out his personal number, but he passed it onto Kuldeheim Industries. And he'd never called. It hadn't offended him, no, it hadn't really pissed him off. It had just been a little weird, especially given that he knows Svensson talks so much with Thor.
But Tony's no Thor. He knows that.
Stepping into the lift, he glances over the elevator panel. The lift doors close, leaving him alone in the well-lit, copper-painted box: unlike most modern elevators, it doesn't have mirrors on the walls, but instead has intricate, curling designs carved into the walls. Above the thirty numbers for each of the floors, there is a white K on a blue glass front, and he takes the coin up to the panel, pressing it to the glass. A soft whir sounds inside the elevator's mechanism, and Tony feels the pull of the magnet as the coin clicks against the glass. Sliding down the foot of the K, it's pulled into a slot he hadn't noticed, and he hears a soft clank as the coin is pulled into a crevice.
The elevator begins to sink, and Tony wonders why he's here.
He doesn't owe anything to Svensson – they're not friends.
The numbers tick by. Down from the ground floor, past the basement level, and then to a final basement level. The screen declares "K".
The doors open, and Tony steps out, taking his sunglasses off and hanging them on the collar of his shirt. He'd come straight from Rhodey's house, where they'd been working on his motorbike together, and he's just wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt, some cargo pants with a lot of pockets, sneakers.
The first thing that comes to mind is that Svensson must really like copper. The swirling lines engraved on the lift walls, curling in line after line, in circle after circle, continue out into the room. It's a big, square room with high walls and constantly new lines, each shining with the same copper plates and lit by warm lights. No, not lights.
"Are they oil lamps?" There's a silence in the room. Tony scans around, and then he takes a step forward, down the wooden steps and onto the lower part of the floor. They are oil lamps, hanging from metal hangers and chandeliers, and they bring into the room a warm, homely light, shining off the metal. Svensson sits cross-legged in the centre of the floor, on a cream-coloured rug woven out of wool. Scattered around him are various components that Tony doesn't recognize. "Oil lamps? What happened to saving the environment?"
"The work I do elsewhere balances it out," Svensson says softly, looking up from a mechanism half-composed between his hands. His long hair is tied up in a loose bun, and his face is lit in a way Tony doesn't normally see at home in the States. This basement can't be Svensson's main laboratory, Tony knows – it's too empty, too nice-looking, too carefully maintained. No engineer with a brain like this guy could possibly keep his workspace this clean.
"You're not wearing shoes. That's bad form for an engineer." Svensson looks down at his bare feet, which are pale, with heavily emphasized arches. His ankles look skinny, despite the muscle on the rest of him. Tony stands with his hands in his pockets, and then asks, "What's the deal, Svensson?"
Svensson sets the device gently down. His eyes remind Tony of the sea in the Caribbean, where the light shines through the water and makes all the blue look a soft green: he looks young, like this, cross-legged, barefoot and wearing one of his tailored suits.
"My assistant took me for churros today," Svensson says. He sets his hands onto his ankles, arching his back and adding, "I've never had one before."
"What did you think?" Tony asks. Svensson makes a face, turning up his nose.
"They are most unpleasant. So much dough, and so little taste." Tony laughs, and he takes a few steps forwards, sinking slowly to the rug, one of his knees drawn up to rest his elbow on, and the other outstretched on the wool. "I never called you. Strange I never heard a complaint."
"Who would I complain to?"
"Thor," Svensson says. "Perhaps Pietro." Tony frowns, furrowing his brow. Maximoff is an occasional staple in Avengers Tower, occasionally working on some kind of gadget in the main laboratory or speaking (in rather over-paced sign language for Tony's comprehension) to Clint Barton. He's an extremely quiet man in Tony's experience, and very rarely speaks unless spoken to: Tony knows the guy has switched between Magneto's Brotherhood (the guy's his dad, for Christ's sake) and the X-Men over the years, and a few years back he even took a few trips with the Avengers. He was with a new team for a while – something with his sister and a few other mutants – but these days he's a solitary implement, occasionally being drafted in for a particular emergency, but mostly staying away from the action.
"How old is he? Maximoff?" Tony asks. It seems like a better question than some of the ones he wants to ask.
"He's in his seventies," Svensson says. "Why did you come? Even though I never called? It didn't rankle?"
"Sure it rankles," Tony mutters, shaking his head and feeling a slight grin pull at his lips. The amusement settles low in his belly, and he says, "Well, there are three reasons you invited me here, that I can think of." That is, that he could come up with in the hour between receiving the email and writing a reply, where he sat in his lab and bounced a ball against the wall and muttered to himself in the dark, until Pepper demanded what he was muttering about, and then they actually talked it through.
"Number one – you made a screw-up with the Isaz I, and you need my help to fix it." That was Tony's initial guess, until Pepper pointed out: "Except that you seem too diligent to fuck up like that, and even if you did, you wouldn't ask me for help." Svensson is watching him, his eyes focused on Tony's face, his expression completely neutral, his lips a thin line. "Number two – you really want in my pants, but until now, or recently, you've had a secret boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, and you couldn't. Now, you're taking the opportunity to jump on the Tony train." Pepper had shot that idea down too, but Svensson is chuckling softly, looking down at his lap and showing his teeth as he laughs. "Or number three. You're lonely. You needed a friend."
"Perhaps I want to jump on the Tony train too," Svensson murmurs. "And there's been a most dreadful error with the Isaz I… Do you know, I think I might have spelt the name wrong?" Tony laughs, until his chuckle trails slowly off, and the two of them are left smiling at each other in the soft lantern light. "It isn't… Loneliness, precisely. I do have friends."
"Really? Name three."
"Thor," Svensson says immediately. "Pietro—"
"Would Maximoff agree you two are friends?" Tony asks, arching an eyebrow. Svensson hesitates, then laughs.
"Alright. Well, Ms Thompson—"
"She's your assistant. She doesn't count."
"Ms Potts is your assistant."
"Shit, you got me. Okay, name one more." Svensson's smile softens, his eyes growing distant.
"Alright," Svensson whispers. "Then I can't. But I promise you, Stark, it isn't loneliness that prompted my reaching out. I dwell happily in my solitude." He sounds tired. Exhaustion weighs down his voice, and he follows the words with a low sigh, putting one of his hands up and running it through his hair. "I wish to ask of you a question. Would you allow me that? Without mockery?"
"I can let you ask a question," Tony says, tilting his head slightly to the side. "The mockery thing, can't promise that." Svensson's laugh echoes off the shiny, copper walls, and he leans back on his heels, shaking his head slightly so that his hair will fall off his shoulders and settle on his back. His expression grows more serious, and he stares down at his own hands with a severe intensity.
"Have you ever…" Svensson trails off. "Have you ever reached an achievement, and found yourself disappointed by it? Dissatisfied, when it should delight you?"
"No," Tony says. Svensson's disappointment only shows in his face for a second before it fades away. "But what you're talking about… Hey, everyone feels like they're doing the wrong thing sometimes. Or like they're going in circles, I guess. Those feelings, those I know pretty well."
"I thought this launch would bring me great joy. I confess, I only feel a mild sense of accomplishment, but nothing more." Tony reaches out, closing the gap between them and gently patting Svensson's shoulder – the guy's shoulder is a lot more muscled than Tony had expected, and he resists the urge to let out a whistle under his breath.
"Inner peace is for monks and old ladies, Loki. Not for guys like us. All we can do is keep working."
"Thank you," Svensson murmurs. The word is full of emotion, thick with it. He sighs, leaning forwards and putting his chin on his hands. "Do you have any children, Tony?"
"Children? No," Tony says, a little taken aback by the sudden change in topic. Tony's never given much thought to the idea of having kids himself, except to occasionally freak out over a pregnancy scare, but Svensson asks the question with a sort of wistfulness on his face. "Do you?" Svensson takes in a breath that hitches in his throat, and in the last glimpse Tony gets of his face, he sees that his eyes are shining.
"No," he says softly as he stands, turning away from Tony. "Perhaps one day. Thank you for coming – I shall— I shall see you this evening, at the fundraiser." Tony could stand his ground. He could stay right here, tell Svensson it was shitty of him to call him out here just for a five minute conversation… But he doesn't mind. And this shit, the tears… Maybe the guy used to have kids. What does Tony know?
"This time, we keep in touch, right?" Svensson's laugh is soft, and slightly hoarse.
"Yes. Yes, indeed. I'll see you tonight."
"See you," Tony says, and he steps back into the elevator. The copper doors click shut behind him, and as the lift rises, he thinks of Svensson in his softly-lit, empty room, alone with a half-made machine. I dwell happily in my solitude. What a thing to say – no wonder the guy gets on with Maximoff. "JARVIS," Tony murmurs, and he hears the soft whir of the phone in his pocket, a quiet noise just to let him know he's being heard. "Get me an Isaz I."
"Yes, sir," JARVIS says, and when the elevator opens, Tony steps out and begins to walk out.
✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯MY STARS FOR AN EMPIRE ✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯
Loki remains completely still, with his back to the elevator, until he hears the doors shut entirely and hears the elevator rise on its cables up and away from his laboratory. Reaching up, he brushes the pads of his fingers over his cheek, feeling the warm wetness of the tears there, the tears that drip down to wet his beard and drip down from his chin.
He hadn't intended to cry. Of course, he hadn't intended to ask as to Stark's plans for children, either, and yet…
What is wrong with him? What is wrong with him?
Loki feels a crawling, desperate monster inside him, feels the desperate urge to run, to run and run from his planet until there is nothing but open space beneath his feet, so he is walking on the sky itself: dropping to his knees, he lets out a low groan that gives way to a ragged sob, his palms spread on the blessedly cool ground.
"I can't," he bites at the air, and with naught but the second's thought, a second Loki appears before him. This Loki wears the old skin of Asgard, with black hair and blue eyes and pale skin. Looking at himself in this old form reminds him of Hel, and he feels tears brim anew as he turns his face away. It is pathetic enough that he should conjure a double of himself, but to grieve his daughter in the process! That is entirely mad.
"Talking to ourselves, are we? Have we regressed so far?" The Asgard-Loki asks, his silver tongue flicking over his lip, and Loki feels nothing but desperate rage, rage and— "Impotence! Irrelevance! Uselessness!" The Asgard-Loki declares, with glee. He laughs, tipping back his head and letting his laughter ring through the room: he speaks unencumbered by the accent Loki feigns with this form, his words coming cleanly and harshly against the copper walls. The copper, carved with a great many careful runes hidden in design after design, redirects his magic, making it as untraceable as that which he uses in his laboratory at home. But is it enough? Is it enough?
Loki launches a metal chair, which had been folded against the wall in the corner, against the far wall: it hits the copper with a loud clatter, then falls to the ground. The act of anger brings Loki's desperate fury no salvation, but instead makes him feel like a scornful child. And children! Children! Why does he keep thinking of them, again and again?
With everyone he has met today, he has thought of what their children might look like. With Darcy, he imagines monstrous young toddlers, each more dangerously intelligent than the last, with manipulative laughs and dirty chins; he had an image in his mind of Pietro Maximoff holding his daughter in his arms, crooning to her the lullabies of his homeland; he thought, no less than five times in the course of his conversation with Stark, how lovely the children between him and Pepper Potts might be, if they chose to have them. How red-headed, how brilliant!
"What more do you expect?" The Asgard-Loki says, his tone flippant and superior. His chin high, his hands behind his back, he stands before Loki in armour, and Loki feels the misery of his situation in his very bones. Staring down at the stone floor, he suppresses the urge to scream. "Did you expect to be happy here? On Earth?"
"Yes," Loki whispers. "Yes, of course I did!" His rage raises the volume in his voice, and he clenches his fists at his sides. "Churros did nothing! Speaking with Stark did nothing! I want an empire!"
"You must work for an empire," The Asgard-Loki's voice echoes in the room – echoes like Odin's once had. "There is nothing for you to inherit here: you will build it yourself, and it will take years. You must be patient."
"I don't want to be patient," Loki snaps, and when he stamps his foot on the ground, he must use his seiðr to keep the concrete from cracking beneath the force. "I have wanted for so, so long, and having worked for six years upon this planet, what have I to show for it? A computer? A fridge?"
"You knew when you began that this would take time," the Asgard-Loki reminds him, suddenly on Loki's left side. He speaks directly into the shell of Loki's year, his breath soothingly cold. "You knew."
"But I didn't!" Loki argues. "I didn't think about how little freedom it would afford me! Here I am, in this false skin, this false life, unable to use even my seiðr outside a copper-plated room, and unable to Skywalk." The Asgard-Loki's hand is on his chin, forcing Loki's head up, and Loki leans into the coolness of his fingers.
"You have Skywalked since you were a child," the Asgard-Loki whispers. "Why not leave this planet behind? Why not travel to another – to one of those many planets on which you are worshiped as god or goddess? On the planet Tamaril, you are worshiped as the emperor of the skies. Why not go there? Rule that people? Why not the Fon system? Where your name is written in the stars? Why not—"
"I've begun here," Loki interrupts. "This company… Within a hundred years, I might rule the star-system. This is modern, this is how it is done in these times: the Midgardians have dispensed entirely with monarchs, but like this, my influence could stretch the stars. The people will admire me. Not merely obey me."
"Then why complain? What is it about this wondrous world that makes you ache?" Not for the first time, Loki curses the tendency of his Asgardian form to seem so seductive. It was not a flaw he often noticed of himself with strangers, but when he is alone with himself, he notices it each time, and yet he seems to lack the strength to nip it in the bud.
"Boredom," Loki says. "Boredom. I can do nothing! Nothing!"
"I don't believe you," the Asgard-Loki says, his eyes shining with mischief, and his mouth curved in a clever line.
"It matters not whether you believe me, I cannot—"
"You misunderstand me, dear reflection," the Asgard-Loki says, and his hands cup Loki's face, thumbs brushing slowly over his cheeks. The Asgard-Loki is taller than Loki himself, in the form he now inhabits, and it oughtn't make him feel inferior – this is merely a conjuration, intended to whip him into shape, nothing more – but he hates how he must look up into his own face. "It isn't truly boredom. Deep down, you know why you have never pursued an empire before now. You know why you fled Asgard, and why you wish to flee Midgard now."
"Oh?" Loki asks, arching his eyebrows. "Then please, tell me why." The Asgard-Loki laughs cruelly, his teeth brightly white in the lantern light.
"Do you want me to?" the Asgard-Loki asks in a stage-whisper, leaning in. His cool breath ghosts over Loki's lips, and Loki feels his skin tingle at the sensation. Stark is available to him, and would certainly be a better candidate to work out Loki's frustrations upon than Darcy, so close as she is to Loki's day-to-day life, but now Stark is gone, and Loki's double remains right here…
"Yes," Loki murmurs. The very assent feels like a contract with some distant demon, although he knows this merely a seiðr-animated element of his own psyche, given voice and form and attitude.
"You don't want an empire," the Asgard-Loki murmurs back, as if speaking to a lover. Despite the sweetness in his double's voice, Loki feels the tingling sensation turn to a crawling one, and he takes a step back. "because you are alone." Smirking, the Asgard-Loki takes a step forward, closing the little gap Loki had made between them and continuing: "You are alone, and will always be alone, because your children are either dead, or they despise you. Fenrir would rip you to shreds; Hel would slit your throat at a moment's notice, and Jormungandr and Sleipnir, why, they bear not thinking of." Loki feels his breath hitch in his throat – what good does it do, he wonders, to repeat to himself that which he knows? That which he knows all too well? "And of Narfi and Valí, what could they rule? Unless they ruled from their unmarked graves, bloody and in pieces—"
"No," Loki protests, but his reflection's hand closes tight over his mouth, pressing so hard against the flesh that he feels the outlines of his teeth behind his lips. When he attempts to draw away, the Asgard-Loki's fingernails dig into the flesh, and Loki is reminded of the needle that once ran through these very lips, spelling them silent with a painful golden thread. Loki is still, and silent, but his eyes are desperate. His skin is alive with heat and an itching discomfort, and he feels the disgust, the bile, rise within him as he stares at the face he once wore. The Asgard-Loki leans in, and Loki's fingers twitch at his side: what would Thor say, to look at him now, half-disgraced by his very own double? Loki feels his eyes sting, but he is determined to cry no more. "If you build an empire, Loki, who will you pass it onto? What is the point of an empire with no line of succession?" He's right – the Asgard-Loki is right. He feels himself flinch, as if physically struck, and the humiliation of the moment sparks his instinct. The conjuration of the dagger is nothing to him, but by the time Loki strikes, his mirror-self has disappeared, fading from view. Loki's dagger strikes nothing but plain air.
Loki Liesmith's own honesty astonishes him, and he drops to his knees in the middle of the room, staring forwards, the dagger still clasped loosely in his hand. And isn't he right? Is his double not correct? Is this why the boredom has struck him so fiercely of a sudden? Ought he abandon his empire here and now, knowing it shall fall as soon as he is forced to leave it behind?
Loki thinks of those children he has left – Sleipnir, a horse with the wit of a man but no more; Hel, his daughter condemned to her rule of the underworld; Fenrir, his desperate son, savage, with gnashing teeth; and Jormungandr, that great serpent. Who of his children would take his empire from him, and rule it? Who of his children would love him?
Looking to the dagger, Loki considers its fine, silver blade, the sharpness of it, the beautiful craftsmanship of the bronzed hilt. What a fine blade it would be to die by.
The sound of the intercom shocks him, and Loki lets out a shuddering breath as he tilts his head in the intercom's direction to listen. "Mr Svensson, it's five o'clock. You told me to remind you when it was two hours to the party."
"Yes," Loki says, cursing the weakness in his own voice. "My thanks, Ms Thomson, I shall ready myself tout de suite." Loki's glance falls once more to the dagger, and he tilts it. The polished steel reflects Loki's gaze, and he stares into the depths of his own eyes. Their sea-green colour has been lightened by tears, and in the dim light, their colour seems somehow ambiguous, as if Loki's eyes might once have been darker. Banishing the dagger to the ether, Loki stands shakily upon his feet.
As he combs his hair with trembling hands, pulling the blond locks into a tight bun. The problem with running, he thinks, is that if he runs now, he cannot come back. To Skywalk from this planet would be to reveal himself, and might even prompt a chase – either from Midgardian authorities or Asgardian ones – and he should rather be peaceful on this planet than miserable on his own. Once upon a time, he might have relished the thought of fighting such guards and enforcers hand-to-hand, but he knows that now, facing such soldiers would only tire him, and he is so tired already.
Conjuring for himself a basin and mirror, he begins to wash his face, relishing the coolness of the water upon his heated skin. It offers him scant distraction, however, and he sighs, looking at his reflection. This face, with its light brown skin, its thick blond hair, its light beard, is so very different to the face he has left behind him, and yet he feels he sees the ghost of Narfi in his nose, and Fenrir's slavering teeth in his own.
Setting his hands on the sides of the basin, Loki stares down into the sink's drain. There shall yet be years before he has his empire – he ought not worry yet about who it shall be passed onto, not when he has yet to build it.
"You know," Loki glances up, and he meets the gaze of the Asgard-Loki, who now looks out from the mirror. "There is nothing stopping you from having more children." The voice is soft – it reminds Loki of his mother's voice, although he recognizes it as his own.
"Perhaps not," Loki murmurs. The mirror and basin vanish. The party, he hopes, will be distraction enough.
✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯MY STARS FOR AN EMPIRE ✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯
"You seem upset."
"I have no great desire to be psychoanalyzed at this precise moment in time," Loki says dryly. Pietro grins at him, sliding into the seat beside him, and Loki watches him as he takes a slow sip of his drink. He wishes – oh, how he wishes! – he could risk strengthening the ale, or even that he could pilfer some of that drink kept on hand for Thor, but the risk of discovery would be too great. "How has the organisation of the party fared?"
"Oh, well enough," Pietro says lightly. "Not a man here knows who founded the Magda Korporacja. Just Wanda and myself."
"And what, pray, am I?" Loki asks, with a faux-archness. "I'm either not a man, or I'm not here."
"You're more of a boy," Pietro says airily, and Loki sniggers. The sound, quite undignified, surprises even himself, and he smiles privately into the depths of his drink. Despite himself, he easily finds a great affection for Pietro, with his biting wit and general misanthropy. Some weeks after they had first met one year previous, Pietro had dropped into his office with an invitation for a kosher lunch at the deli a few blocks away. Their lunch arrangements have become rather common at this point, and from what Loki can gather, Pietro likes him entirely because upon their initial meeting, Loki made a rather rude comment about his father.
And to think, he once believed he shared naught with the Midgardians, when he first landed here.
"Go. Be with your sister. Leave me to my upset, as you call it." Saluting him rather dramatically, Pietro flashes across the room, and Loki looks back to his drink, tapping the side of the glass and watching the tiny bubbles within rise to the liquid's surface.
There is nothing to be done. The only escape he might possibly make would be through other aliens, and he hardly has a great amount of stock to choose from. Abigail Brand would have him shot. Noh-Varr would reveal him to the world. Thor's reaction… Loki feels a twist of nausea in his gut. Thor's reaction doesn't bear considering.
He feels the weight of a gaze upon his face, and glances up, looking around the room. The man examining him appears to be in his thirties, wearing a brown, pin-striped suit, and he's…
Loki feels a flicker of hope inside him, feels his lips quirk up. He must be careful with his magical field, lest he be noticed, but even with the barest wisp of magic about him, he can feel something different with this man. From this distance alone, he can taste a solar wind he recognizes from several galaxies away, can smell the scent of a distant stardust, and the energy clinging to him! What magic Loki has never known, but he feels his eyes light up all the same, feels himself jump inside.
Whoever this stranger is, he might be a window for Loki – a bare amount of hope. The man realizes Loki is looking back at him, and wordlessly, Loki attempts to convey his urgency that they should meet.
"Loki!" Thor says. Suppressing the urge to outright groan his frustration, he attempts to communicate to the stranger that they shall speak, and turns politely to Thor, offering a smile.
"Thor," Loki begins, but any further thought is cut off entirely: he feels the floor begin to shake beneath him, and he is forced to grasp at the table to steady himself. He knows in a second, in a mere second, that this wanderer must have something to do with it… Distracted from his children, from his future, even from Thor beside him, Loki's concentration takes to orbit around this new stranger…
And within him, delighted, the Skywalker – so different from Loki Svensson, Loki Laufeyson, Loki Liesmith – rejoices. This Loki, buried for so long, knows he shall soon see the stars again.