Indeed, "far enough away" was out to the very location where he had first seen Tony. They stood looking at each other, her hand still clasped around his wrist. The wind that whispered past them was the only sound for a moment. Then, he pushed the sleeve of her robe back a fraction and studied the wounds he had but glimpsed. They were deep and raw and climbed up her arm in a spiral, crisscrossed pattern. "Her dagger is called Firebrand. How many did you take?"
She pulled her hands from his, leaving him holding the apple and she could have gone, could have left it at that, but…concern and worry were etched into his face and, oh, that was unfair. How long had it been since he'd looked at her like that? A hundred years? More than that. But this wasn't about them. It was about closure and enough.She pulled at the tie that held the robes closed and shrugged them from her shoulders. His eyes widened as they caught on her elbows and she could not bear the dawning horror that flashed through his eyes.
Yes, her tunic was more or less drenched in blood. Yes, she had not healed herself, not yet and maybe not ever. These were wounds she had taken for him and if pain lingered for a little longer then that was alright. He reached out for her, then, and she stepped back, shrugging her robes back over her shoulders and securing the knot again. When she glanced up at him, she had to swallow against the hard look he was studying her with. "Do not pursue this, Loki. I accepted her terms and weathered her test. Let it rest."
"What bargains did you make?" he asked, softer this time and stepped towards her again. "What pain was worth this price, this blood? Have I not made you suffer enough?" He lifted her chin and rested his forehead to hers.
She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes against his touch. "I have loved you through it all, through every loss, through every trick and lie, through the jests, and the games. I have loved you through the battles and the carnage. I loved you when times were good, when we held our children whole and live, when it was just the two of us and we lived. Your magic and your lies, your scars and your fragmented sanity, I loved it all. That is why I took these wounds, why I endured when you swore to me you could love no more, when you told me you were through." Her eyes fluttered open and he saw reflected there the frustration and the pain of a hundred years.
"This will only give him a thousand years, at best," he said, the words almost breaking. "In the end, he will never live as long as we. Yes, I have chosen a Soulmate for the rest of his life, but…you would see us end when there is still a future to be held?"
She could read the fury and the hurt in his gaze and didn't need to be his Soulmate to know he was hiding the fear of the loss that the death of a Soulmate could bring, the empty gnawing ache that consumed to remaining individual until nothing was left but that emptiness. All it took was the memory of the last Soulmate pair that had fallen into her care at the end of the husband's days. The wife had not lasted the year and all she, as a healer, had been able to do was keep the physical discomfort at bay until the other Asgardian had passed, but it only stiffened her resolve.
"You ask for the impossible," she returned, matching his tone. "Left to you, you would try to find a way to keep us both and only hurt us all. I will not share and I will not ask of you this choice. Do this for us both, Loki, and let me go. You can have a life, a partnership with him, but I will not stand to be tossed aside or made to wait once more." She paused and let her breath catch even as she felt his grip tighten on her wrist and saw the flash of curling guilt. Tears glittered unshed on her lashes, but she didn't break his gaze. "Do not make me live like this, not again, because I will only grow to hate."
"And yet you would ask of me the impossible, as well," he whispered.
"No," she returned. "I would ask of you the possible. I would ask of you to see through that which you have already chosen. I would ask of you not to turn away from a Soulmate's bond." She could see when he saw the sense, saw the way that he wavered, and knew the moment he broke. "You will not lose me as a friend, you will not lose me as a comrade nor even as a companion, but we lost each other when you swore that you were done. So, please, Loki, let me go. Let me go for good this time." His fingers fell away from her wrist.
The guilt that Tony felt punch through the bond and curl into his very bones sent him staggering to the couch where he sat down heavily "So, she's why you said our bond wasn't a marriage," Tony said, trying for light and failing. "Is this normal? Soulmate bonds randomly settling on people who have been married for a long time? If so, I can't imagine the family reunions. They must get hostile."
Thor looked at him from his spot by the window and regarded his teammate. "All Soulmate bonds are different, as unique as the individuals it settles on. That Loki has been married in the past has no bearing on that. His and Sigyn's marriage is…" he considered it "…was nothing that could have been considered normal, either. Loki has ever been known for causing chaos and mischief where he goes and Sigyn has always been the constant that he returned to. He could leave for a hundred years on end and still be able to expect her to be there upon his return. Even the children that my father took from them could not break her from him." He looked out the window again, that moment he should not have seen playing through memory again. "It wounded them deeply, yes, but they remained…together…in a fashion. Loki has never given any sign of wishing to release her from her vows and she has never asked it of him. Between anyone else, such a marriage may not have worked at all."
Tony was spared having to come up with a response when Loki materialized back into the living room, golden apple in hand and a shell shocked expression decorating his features. The guilt was still there, still present, but through it echoed a word that gripped him just as hard as it did Loki: gone.