Lima to Stockholm
Chapter Three: Midnight Confidences
"You come here as often as you do the palace," Odin remarked as he walked up the steep hillside path to the solitary grave where Thor stood.
"Perhaps," Thor allowed. "I cannot understand how we, how the Avengers came to this. I do not know what answers I think to find here, but still draws me. Beyond that, it is a Midgardian tradition to maintain the graves of those they cared for. I am the only one of the company who can dispense this duty to Friend Tony."
"And yet you left your brother's body to lay where he fell, like a broken toy."
"Father, I do not wish to fight with you over this again," Thor said. "I know you do not value her highly but Jane was alive, Loki was not. Once I had secured our survival I would have returned for my brother's body but you already had recovered him by the time I returned to Asgard."
Odin stared piercingly at Thor for so long that the prince began to wonder if there was something he had missed on the rocky plains of Svartalfhiem but the All-Father didn't speak.
"I wish I could have brought Friend Tony here in life," Thor said after a time. "The dwarves' creations would have been something he could have appreciated and I think I would have liked to see their expressions upon realizing that a Midgardian smith could rival them."
Odin snorted, "They would not have believed it. But I do not deny that you found worthy shield-brothers on Midgard."
"At times Tony reminded me of Loki," Thor confided. "Sharp of tongue and full of quicksilver thoughts that none of us could catch. I tried to do better by him than I managed for Loki. I may not understand anything but a warrior's ways still I tried to value his differences as I failed to do when I was younger. I gave up on Loki, believed him lost long ago, but with his final act he proved me wrong. I had believed myself cured of rashness, but when Ultron was born my initial reaction was nothing more than unthinking temper. I convinced myself with the Vision's creation and Ultron's defeat, that all was set right between the Avengers, then I return home to learn that Friend Tony had been killed by our Captain and even after his death the hostility toward him remained such that his lady feared to even bury him- Father, I thank you for the courtesy you extended to Lady Pepper, especially as burial in the earth is not our custom."
"It was a small thing for me to do for one who fought alongside you," Odin said. "And his woman, what she wished most was to make pointed how poorly he had been treated while alive, to ensure that it was known that no apologies tendered to his corpse would be heard. Mortal that she is, I find myself approving of her."
"Heimdall tells me there is talk on Midgard of how the Scarlet Witch's powers warped the minds of all the Avengers, that her fingerprints were upon all our misfortunes from Ultron onward," Thor said. Odin's gaze sharpened but he didn't interrupt. "He wishes me to seek a Volva to ensure that I suffer no lingering influence but all I can think is how unjustified my anger toward Friend Tony was, I attacked him and Ultron was her doing."
Thor sighed heavily, "You have warned me of the shortness of mortal lives, but a part of me believed that the Avengers would be a fixed point for me to return to. Now I find myself dreading the thought of returning to Midgard. I fear those who would ask where I was-"
"You were on business for Asgard," Odin stated reprovingly. "Due to your missions our ties with Vanaheim, Nidavellir, Alfheim and even Niflheim are stronger than ever. They will be needed in the days to come."
"Aye but it is cold comfort to say to our friends that Tony died while I was occupied with more important matters. And the thought that Steve's fault may be temper, a fault which I share, does not make me any more eager to see him again. How did we come to this?"
"Another of your Avengers has requested sanctuary of Asgard," Odin said. "I thought, perhaps, you would like to have him with you on your next survey. Was I wrong?"
"Who?" Thor asked, his voice catching.
"The one that houses the beast."
"I- it would be good to see Dr. Banner again," Thor said. "I was not sure we would see him again after he left. The events surrounding Ultron wounded his soul."
"Son of Stark?" Odin announced himself.
Tony glanced up from the latest Asgardian household implement that he'd disassembled. "Dad of Thor," he replied sardonically.
Odin huffed at Tony's disrespectful tone. "I have had Heimdall make further investigation into this Ultron which distresses you so," he said. "Are you aware that the vision which prompted you to create the artificial being was forced on you by the one known as the Scarlet Witch."
Tony stood up and started pacing around the room distractedly. "No… It makes sense, yeah. I guess… But the vision, you say it's real, that Thanos is real?"
"What you saw on the other side of the portal was real," Odin stated. "What you extrapolated from that information was true." He paused, looking conflicted, "The timing and the strength of your fear's recurrence was the Witch."
Tony nodded. He picked up and put down several things on his workbench before picking one to fiddle with. "What do I do with that? Thank her for the warning? For making me dig up the real fears I'd buried because I couldn't cope? It was still me who turned that fear into Ultron."
"There was darkness in the scepter before you picked it up," Odin began.
"Yeah, heard your problem child the first time," Tony put him off. "Not listening? Actually not one of my many flaws, people just tend to assume that if I'm not giving them my full attention I'm deaf.
"Still, Ultron? Junior was my problem child. Sucks- hurts seeing the ugliest parts of yourself in your kid. Figure you know the feeling, Thor likes telling tales of battles past, yours and Loki as well as his own. You might not approve of everything he does but Loki is your kid every bit as much as Thor, even if not by blood. Ultron wasn't flesh and blood, I didn't get the chance to raise him but he was mine, just like Jarvis and the bots. I can't just write him off as someone else's screw up, not when I saw a broken reflection every time I looked at him, or did you think I got interested in artificial intelligence because I loved humanity so much? Now don't get me wrong, I get along okay with smart people, it's the other eighty-five, ninety percent of the population that makes me want to do something, anything to force them to man up and CHANGE." Tony sighed tiredly, "But I get it, even when I constantly remind myself that new mistakes are much more fun than repeating the old ones, I still do it sometimes. I get that change is scary and there's comfort in familiar even when familiar is absolutely shitty. I get not looking for evidence that you're fucked up… But I don't, can't get people who, when you shove the data right in their face, just close their eyes. And, on bad days, I get wanting to drop a meteor on their heads and saying it's for their own good."
"You didn't even try to redeem him," Odin said.
"Did you?" Tony asked cuttingly. "Ultron murdered J.A.R.V.I.S., in my book that put him well past the point of no return. He was still mine though, even if only to say it was my responsibility to see him put down." Tony turned away, filling his hands again. In a softer voice he said. "I probably would have been more willing to try if I hadn't see myself in him. Or not, not after looking at the way he tore apart J.A.R.V.I.S.' code, you're not the only parent to play favorites, Space Pirate."
"Loptr! My favorite little godling, what do you have for me today!" Tony exclaimed upon seeing the green-eyed boy enter his room.
The boy grinned and produced a small box, "I borrowed it from the healers, you stick your hand in it and it tells them about your blood."
"Borrowed? With or without asking?" Tony wondered.
"Without, naturally," Loptr replied.
"What was I thinking? Come on, give it over."
While Tony set to examining the compact little scanner Loptr wandered around the room poking at the growing piles of disassembled machines. When Tony didn't object to that the boy gradually edged closer to the work tables, stealing glances at a device which Tony had apparently cobbled together from components cannibalized from various machines he'd disassembled. "Wanna see?" Tony asked when he caught the boy in the act.
"Can I?" Loptr asked eagerly.
Tony waved him over. He pointed the device at Loptr's vest, "Hmmm, looks like leather but this says the chemical composition is closer to kevlar, probably stronger actually." He turned the device around so Loptr could see the molecular structure displayed on the screen of the little tool.
"It's Twaron!" the boy giggled. "How did you know?"
"This little thing is the fastest, most compact FTIR known to humankind. Well at least to this human, the rest of Earth is going to have to play catch up."
"How did you make it?" Loptr marveled and Tony spent the next two hours teaching the boy the theories behind the device's operation and how he'd adapted Asgardian technology to construct it.
"I brought some magic books too," Loptr said, producing two slim volumes when Tony wound down.
Tony picked up the first book, turning the pages carefully when he saw the well-worn vellum-like pages and the cramped hand-written script. "This is old," he said.
"It was my mother's and her great grandmother's before her," Loptr said. He ran his hand down the spine of the book reverently. "For magic, this is where you start," he said.
"Your father didn't do magic?" Tony asked.
"Boys don't," Loptr said simply.
Tony looked confused, "But you and Loki?"
Loptr shrugged, "Freaks, the All-Father and Prince Thor have the signs that they'll pass the gift to their daughters, that's good, but boys don't do magic unless they're freaks."
Tony frowned as his fingers drummed absently against the spot where the arc reactor had been as he tried to come up with a response. Finally he sighed, "That sounds stupid to me."
"My mother says that the Norns gifts are meant to be used. That's what she said when my father-" the boy paused, he stared at Tony consideringly. "He asked if she really wanted me to stand out like that."
"Sounds like you got your brains from your mom," Tony said.
"I'm adopted," Loptr said.
Tony shrugged, "I believe in equal parts nurture and nature."
"What does that mean?" Looter asked.
"It means odds are I'm smart because my old man was but I don't know that it would have expressed itself as engineering if I hadn't grown up around his labs," Tony said. "And if I've got any notion of decency at all that's Jarvis' influence. So just because you're adopted that doesn't mean that your mom doesn't shape who you are."
Loptr mulled that over for a few moments then asked, "Can I show you what I learned yesterday?"
Tony picked the boy up and sat him on a corner of the workbench. "The floor is yours oh great Houdini."
"You are strange," Loptr informed Tony then he grinned and produced a small glowing ball between his hands. He manipulated the magic to form it into shapes while Tony watched raptly and occasionally scanned him with various implements cobbled together like the FTIR but more esoteric.
"Okay now you've got to tell me how you're doing that," Tony said when Loptr let the light dissipate. He jerked a thumb toward Loki's rooms, "Rudolph there has been educating me about the cans and can't of magic. From what I gather magic doesn't break the first law of thermodynamics- Restores my faith that. It's just some strange sort of energy that I'm just learning to detect, I've only gotten that far because Rudolph clued me in as to where to look and yet you guys manipulate it by just twiddling your fingers," Tony demonstrated in a overblown, silly manner.
"It's a mindset," Lotpr said, his tone indicating offense but Tony could see a smile hidden in his eyes. He opened one of the books he'd brought and pointed imperiously to the opening passage. By Tony's third question Loptr expression was intently focused and his eyes were bright as Tony pressed him further and further to explain the theories behind magic. By the end of an hour the boy was practically bouncing in excitement at the genuine interest being demonstrated in his talent.
"You must have better things to do than hang out all day with me," Tony said when he heard Loptr's stomach rumbling. "Your mom's probably got dinner on by now right?"
Loptr glared at his stomach as if the organ had betrayed him.
"Tomorrow," Tony suggested.
"Tomorrow," Loptr agreed. Before leaving he knocked on Loki's door checking if there was anything the second prince needed.
"Why don't you ask me those kinds of questions?" Loki asked after the boy was gone.
"Were you eavesdropping Reindeer Games?" Tony asked then said, "You get your fur all ruffled when I ask you to clarify anything."
"You weren't trying to tell him that magic is just what ignorant people call science," Loki snapped.
"He's a kid," Tony said. "I'll try to drag everything he knows out but I sure as hell won't tell him what he should know, especially not when I don't have a clue what that is. But you? You're the fucking expert. If you try giving me a crap answer like 'It works because it works', damn right I'm going to challenge you on it. Because if that's all you've got? Then magic is nothing more than lazy thinking and sorcerers are- are- technicians, following cookbooks you call spells without bother to understand what's actually going on."
Loki's face twisted angrily at Tony's words and the engineer brought his hand up to his wrist, giving himself an unhappy reminder that he didn't have the watch gauntlet watch, didn't have the bracelets to call his armor. He was trapped in a room with someone whose strength rivaled Steve Rogers and he had nothing.
Loki saw the fear in his eyes and spun on his heel to storm back into his own area.
As Loki stood in the cell Odin had condemned him to his vision expanded to see through the floors and walls, following the Kursed as he walked up the stairs and confronted Frigga. Loki beat his fists against the transparent walls. "Not her! Leave her alone!" he shouted.
Frigga stumbled, falling to the ground. The Kursed raised his spear over her-
An aborted shout woke Loki from his nightmare. For a moment he simply sighed in relief at having been spared seeing the spear descend. Then he rolled out of bed and summoned an illusion to cover the dark circles under his eyes and his unkempt hair. Loki let himself into Tony's room and wasn't surprised to find the Midgardian pressed up against the head of his bed, arms raised defensively.
For a moment Loki considered disguising himself as someone comforting like he'd done when Tony had been on the threshold between life and death and needed to be carefully coaxed back to the realm of the living, but Tony wasn't delirious now and the sudden appearance of War Machine's pilot in Asgard would raise questions Loki had no interest in answering.
"Stark! Stark!" Loki called from across the room. "You are dreaming. Wake up."
Loki watched as Tony dragged himself out of his nightmare. Watched as wild eyes disappeared beneath a veneer of calm and sweat drenched hair was tamed into artful disorder with a few swipes of his hands. "Disturbed your beauty sleep Rudolph?" Tony asked, a slight roughness to his voice the only overt sign of distress remaining.
"I admire how you manage that without the slightest bit of magic," Loki said honestly.
"I'm amazing," Tony agreed with a disparaging grin. "Practice makes perfect and all that."
"Would that I could pass on that sort of practice," Loki said letting himself slump into a chair, his posture revealing his familiarity with nightmares although he kept his illusion up.
The two of them sat in silence for a long while.
"I'm not exactly a mythology expert," Tony said picking a random thought to fill the silence. "Howard and I didn't agree on much- The main reason I prefer Tony to Dr. Stark is because he's the one who insisted on my getting a Ph.D. -But we did agree that the whole GIR, well-rounded student thing was a bunch of crap, still didn't get me out of the classes- Ironic actually, those stupid core courses were the only lectures I actually attended, did the whole engineering curriculum independent study. - But anyway, GIR, one of the classes I took happened to be on mythology.
"So if I remember right the whole Valhalla thing was your dad collecting up fallen warriors to fight for him when Ragnarok came along. But we can't leave this room without-" Tony glanced at the door and gulped. "So how's that gonna work anyway?"
"The rules are different when Ragnarok is upon us." Loki took a moment to gather his thoughts, "The boundaries between life and death will become porous in the end of days."
Silence descended again. This time it was Loki who broke it. "Why won't you build?"
"I can't-"
"Yes, you fear making another Ultron and no matter what I, my father and I tell you, you will not believe that you were not at fault. But in this situation, Thanos is the enemy of all creation, it is not as if you can make things worse." Loki smiled bitterly, "Given my past, it is a thought I find comforting."
"Clarification?" Tony asked curiously.
Loki was silent for so long Tony started thinking about other things to fill the silence and was startled when Loki started speaking. "I truly meant well in the beginning. Best for Asgard and even for Thor himself to show his failings while Father was still alive to correct them. I- my little scenario was never meant to lead us to the brink of war, it was meant to fix things. So now, I find comfort and confidence in the thought that whatever I do I cannot make things worse."
"I destroyed all my armors once," Tony said. "I let Pepper think it was forever, shouldn't have done that. It was just a temporary necessity until I could get things under control. Thanks to you and your fucking portal I had a raging case of PTSD, I called the armor against Pepper. It wasn't as if there weren't still threats out there but once the immediate threat was dealt with and it really sunk in what I'd done, that I'd called the armor because Pepper startled me out of a nightmare, I had to disarm myself. Even if it meant being unprepared for the next moron that came after us. Tried talking to Bruce, he wasn't interested, so I did find a that sort of doctor to talk to. I hated every minute of it. In the back of my head I'm still waiting for the tell-all book to come out. I had her thoroughly vetted beforehand,naturally, and professional integrity says you don't do stuff like that." Tony shrugged, "But then common decency says you don't leave a fri- Teammate? A person. You don't leave a person to die in Siberia and you'd think Captain America would be all about common decency but apparently not when it comes to yours truly so who knows. Anyway, I went long enough that I thought it was safe to build the armor again, it was either that or never sleep in the same bed with her again, because it couldn't be me that hurt her. Then Ultron happened, not so safe after all."
"I sent my mother's death to her," Loki confided in the tones of one apologizing. He squeezed his eyes shut against the image still fresh from his nightmares, "The one person in all of Asgard who still bore love for me and because of me she is dead. I can see your point, I would do anything to take back that moment."
They drifted back into silence. It was far from morning and both of their nightmares lingered in the air around them.
"It started when I was kid," Tony said quietly, he didn't look at Loki. "I'd build things, tell myself the next one would make my dad proud. I'd build and build and build, the next one was always going to be the one. I'd show him one in five when things were good. One in ten, one in twenty when it wasn't so good. One in twenty that I wouldn't deem inadequate myself. Could sleep, didn't want to eat, too many ideas in my head and the next one would get me what I wanted, always the next one. Even after I stopped giving a shit about what he thought the ideas were still there.
"My high school teachers hated me. They said I was too young to be there, couldn't concentrate the way an older student could. But I aced every test even if I did draw diagrams of what was in my head in the margins. Heard about alcohol from my classmates, started drinking a sip or two before class and it would slow my head down enough to focus. Teachers took it as a sign I was maturing. So fucking bored, but the teachers were happier if I pretended to pay attention to them. Learned that if I gave people enough crap they'd forget how uncool it was for a high schooler to hang out with a twelve-year-old or a college student with a fourteen-year-old. It was a little weird partying with freshmen while I was working on my Ph.D. but Rhodey finally stopped scaring off anybody interested in going with me when I did and I figured out that sex is the best sleep aid ever. Pre-Iron Man it was pretty much booze to slow the whirl in my head down enough to have fun, sex with any willing body to get to sleep and building whatever anyone pointed me at because, because. Afghanistan added the twist of building things to feel safe. I thought I was becoming something better with Iron Man, then the Avengers came along and I was right back to square one: The next thing I build or buy will make them like me."
Tony sighed, "I believe you that there's something bad coming, even so I can't be that again, can't disengage the safeties and just build, not after Ultron."
A tall, elegant woman with midnight dark hair let herself into Tony's room carrying trays of food. "I bring your dinner my lord."
Tony glanced up from his workbench, "You're not the kid."
"You've sent young Loptr to scavenge so many odd things he was forced to recruit aid in finishing his normal duties," the woman said. "I hope I am not displeasing?"
"Now how could you possibly be displeasing?" Tony replied absently, his eyes going back to the fuel cell he was examining.
The woman replied with a sultry smile. She dropped Loki's tray off in his rooms and returned quickly. "Is there any other way I might serve you?" she asked suggestively.
"Thor never mentioned that sort of service," Tony muttered in surprise. "Look umm…. I'd like to keep the illusions that I've matured past the point of propositioning without bothering with names."
"I am Vigdis."
"Right," Tony said enthusiastically. "Um, Vigdis sorry, I was just flirting on autopilot. Media opinion aside, Pepper and I taking a break just means we need enough distance to figure out how to deal with each other again and that's all it means."
"Who is this Pepper?" Vigdis asked, puzzled.
"Right," Tony looked disconcerted. "Not on Earth. Then there's the whole dead thing, now there's a mood killer. So um, thanks but no thanks."
Notes: Pre-emptively, end game is still Pepper/Tony, but putting Tony in a position of having to tell someone 'No' provides a situation for exploring why he's saying no, which is a way to progress Pepper/Tony while they're separated.