I own nothing, much as I wish I did, and I'd just like to say that I don't hold back, so again, this story is M for reasons. Read at your own risk.


It had been a long day. The team was scattered across the city, unable to respond to a call ot, so when it came in, there was only one option.

Tony cursed as one of the many arms from the villain below him deflected his shot, then threw a lamp post at him, dodging another one of Tony's shots quickly. "Why the fuck would you throw a lamp post at anyone? I'm sure there's someone out there you just pissed off because they worked hard to install that so people could see where they were going. It's always the insignificant ones that you never see coming until they're at your throat."

He continued his rant as he fired shot after shot at the rampaging villain who was currently holding Tony at bay despite not being particularly well armed. Tony snickered at his own joke, still firing rapidly in the hopes of overwhelming the multiple arms swinging around from the back of the contraption strapped to Doc Oc's back.

"Motherfucking shit, how the hell does that guy control those things?" He fumed as three of them came at him all at once. He dropped, leaving them to tangle each other up and flail around in confusion while the good Doctor shrieked with rage. Stopping himself a few feet from the ground, and ignoring cautionary messages from JARVIS about the power in his suit being down to a dangerous level, Tony glared at the man who was becoming a very big annoyance.

"Shut it Jarvis, I've got to finish this guy. We can hold out for that long." He ignored the voice in the back of his head telling him to stop being stupid. It sounded suspiciously like Loki, where in the past it had always been Pepper. Strange. He dodged another attack of the arms, chortling at himself, when suddenly he thought he saw a flash of green on a building a block down.

"JARVIS, increase zoom to 150% on that building over there. Yup, that one. Who is that?" He queried, even if he already knew.

"Facial recognition identifies it to be one Loki Laufeyson, sir. Also, your suit is down to 5% power. At this point you have 10 minutes, if that, before your power fails, and you drop, Mr. Stark." The AI's voice was, as ever, polite with a distinguished air. Tony snorted in disgust, wondering why the hell he had thought a british accent would be neat when he installed it, before he zig zagged down the block towards Loki, intending to ask him why he was there just watching him.

He had nearly reached the building where the god was camping out on when Doc Oc's voice boomed out. Paying it almost no attention because of the way the man had ranted and raged on meaningless subjects in the last five minutes. Tony focused on Loki's face in his viewfinder, and so watched as the god's face twisted with horror, mouth opening in a silent warning before something knocked Tony out of the sky, making the suit going dark on the inside.
"JARVIS!" He screamed, trying desperately to boot his suit back up before he hit the pavement. Everything felt like it slowed down around him, even as he watched the windows of the building next to him flash by. He braced himself for impact, and hit the ground hard, breaking what felt like every bone in his body and rattling his brain around in his head. He saw something move through the eye slits on his suit with a fuzzy kind of clarity before everything went black.


Minutes earlier...

Loki had been invisible inside Tony's room, waiting for him to arrive so he could surprise him when he heard one of the others come back. Wondering if they knew anything about Tony's whereabouts, he silently opened the door and went to the living room, watching as Dr. Banner and Rogers stepped out of the elevator, conversing casually. Loki turned to go before hearing Tony's name mentioned.

"...What's Fury got Tony doing now?" The Captain asked.

"Oh, you know, just sent him out to kick Doctor Oc's ego down a few notches," Dr. Banner said drily.

"Alone?!"

Dr. Banner patted the other man on the shoulder. "Relax, that kid with the red suit... Spider-man I think his name was, takes care of this guy every other week, I have no doubt Tony could handle him with an arm tied behind his back. He's probably kicked the guys ass and gone off for some shawarma."

The Captain shook his head and sighed, but his expression lightened and he smiled. "That would be just like him."

The two chuckled and moved away, but Loki was curious to see exactly who Tony was fighting, and why it should be taking this long. Closing his eyes, he appeared on a rooftop downtown, spotting the fighting still a ways off, and teleporting again to a building not very far from the action at all.

Tony was playing with his food again, he mused as he watched the fight. Suddenly the man of iron stilled in mid-air, and Loki smirked. He had been discovered.

He shook his head as his lover flew towards him in a zigzag pattern to avoid the multiple arms trying to snatch him out of midair. Loki opened his mouth, about to call out a comment on Tony(And since when had the mortal become Tony, instead of Stark?) playing with his food again, when out of nowhere he spied a pair of the arms rushing towards the inventors vulnerable back.

He choked when he tried to call out a warning and watched in horror as the arms struck Tony, the suit going dark and rushing to meet the ground at an alarming speed. Loki was helpless to act before the ground met Tony's suit with a particularly horrifying crunch.

Loki teleported to his side immediately, paying no mind to the villain attached to the arms as he stalked closer.

"Tony!" He called frantically, fingers searching the armor for any way, any way at all to take it off. He found release buttons on the side of his helmet, finding the man inside barely breathing, with blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He snarled in fury at his helplessness, then was distracted by a cold, slightly nasally voice questioning his right to be there.

He whirled, a dagger of ice forming in his fist, about to scream at them that he had every right. Ignoring the voice in his head that had been questioning the concern he felt for the mortal, and questioned even louder what right he had to be at his side when his teammates should be there, Loki glanced back down and let the ice dagger melt back into nothing. Stark wouldn't survive that long, and Loki wasn't about to let him die, whether or not he had the right. He would work out his concern for the mortal later, not noticing that he was struggling to breathe through the crack in his chest from fear.

The man with the nasally voice and arms attached to his back prodded him with one and Loki stilled. The animal inside of him snarled in fury and leapt to retaliate for his lovers injury and personal prejudice against the man for daring to question him. His magic sung in the air for a brief moment, making the man look at him uneasily, right before he blasted him back a block where he landed and remained motionless. Satisfied that the man had been taken care of, Loki turned around to face the broken mortal laying motionless behind him. Mouth twisting with worry, the anger drained away just as quickly as it had come.

Using his magic, he found the subtle markings of the release buttons and had the suit off in a matter of minutes. The suit was in terrible shape, metal breaking, bending and digging new gouges into Tony so that he was soaked in blood, turning terribly pale and gasping small, wheezing breaths, blood rattling in his lungs. The reactor light itself was looking rather weak from Loki's point of view. Knowing that it was crucial to Tony's survival, Loki held out a hand, getting a feel for the power of the thing before 'allying' himself with it and flooding the piece of technology with a bit of magic.

Once satisfied that it would last awhile, he went to work to stop Tony from dying. Closing his eyes, Loki reached for the rivers of power that had always lurked at the edges of his consciousness. Receiving a flood of it in return, he put one hand directly over Tony's chest, and the other over his abdomen, channeling that power to heal the mortal.. at least enough so that he wouldn't die.

"You will not die on me. Don't you dare, Tony." He whispered over and over until he had healed the injuries that would've killed the man. Loki winced as he saw the bone sticking out of Tony's leg, applying a gentle hand to push it where it belonged, along with a brush of magic to keep it there, slightly more whole, but still broken.

Loki brushed the man's bloody cheek with a slightly trembling hand. The healing had taken a lot out of him, but the rush of emotions upon seeing his sometimes lover injured were more at fault, he thought. Cleaning Tony up, and getting him out of the downward spiral he had been in had been fine. He had even come to respect the man for dealing with what he had been through throughout his life and still able to move around in society without going mad.

Sleeping with him had been unexpected, but the passion the man both inspired in and returned to him shocked the god. He hadn't experienced anything like it in centuries. Nonetheless, he had thought to amuse himself for awhile with it, enjoying it while it lasted. However, after they'd started up their affair, Tony didn't fall asleep immediately, or cast him away in disgust like all his other conquests, leaving him free to slip away. Tony had pushed and pulled, slipping under his guard, making him laugh and suddenly turning fierce when Loki had quietly declared he was a monster because of his heritage.

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"You are not a monster, Loki Lyesmith. No more than I am. Appearances are nothing to me, especially when it comes to you. This world has been through several issues on that particular subject, but no matter what is on the outside, who you are inside determines whether you're a monster or not." He paused in his tirade, stiffening and turning away before speaking softly. Loki watched him curiously, itching to trace the line of his spine down his back.

"I used to believe I was a god on Earth, able to provide weapons for those who fought for peace. Instead I was harming innocents, killing villages full of children. The people who wanted me to build a weapon in Afghanistan had been paid by someone I trusted and respected to kill me, though, at that time I didn't know it." Tony gritted this out, seeming not to be aware of the fact that he was shaking - the finest tremor moving through his body.

Loki watched as Tony's muscles twitched, barely quivering. "What happened?" He asked softly.

"I created my first reactor and suit. The suit was huge, ugly, and not worth a damn, but it got the job done. I blew that place to the heavens, lost a dear friend, and had enough power to blast myself out of there. Then that power failed, and I fell back down to the desert, where I was eventually rescued. But in those few moments of flight, I discovered something else I could do good with."

Tony turned back around abruptly, laughing harshly. "After I got back home, I remodeled and fine tuned the suit, was betrayed by my mentor, and ended up killing him. I also ended up pissed off a few important political people, creating a new element because my reactor was poisoning me, killed a crazy Russian with reactor powered whips and I'm still alive. All because I created that suit. If that isn't crazy, I don't know what is."

Loki gazed at Tony, seeing him in a completely different light. For a mortal, he was shockingly sane for being so broken. He absentmindedly reached over and tugged the man closer, leaning forward so their foreheads touched.

"You're asking the god of mischief if that's crazy." He pointed out dryly. Tony laughed.

"I guess perhaps in your world that's not so crazy, now is it."

Loki smiled. "I've had centuries of crazy, Stark. This is different from all the rest, but still nothing unusual."

He watched as the man closed his eyes, feeling him relax through the closeness of their bodies. He heard him mumble something along the lines of "No wonder you're so fragile." before his breathing evened out and his body relaxed into sleep. Loki shook his head and found himself content to stay in bed next to the mortal until he, too, relaxed into slumber.

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Loki shook himself out of his reverie as shouts sounded, people milling around the destruction, piling out of buildings and staring curiously at him hunched over the body of Iron Man. Before they had a chance to recognize him, he picked Tony up without bothering to grab his discarded suit and teleported them to his living room.

At first glance he thought it was empty, until the Captain walked from around the corner, curious at the noise he had heard while leaving. Bruce had gone downstairs to his lab, and everyone else was gone. It was only the Captain - and Loki. They stared at each other for a few minutes. Before the Captain could ask anything, Loki beat him to it.

"Do not think this means anything. The man with the mechanical arms was an annoyance. You should have sent out back up. It was foolishly done of you to let the Man of Iron fight alone like that." Spitting that out, Loki vanished just as the Cap opened his mouth to ask him why. With a stricken glance at the bloody man lying in a heap on the couch, Steve yelled down the hallway that they needed Bruce immediately.


Hey all! I know, I promised this update sooner, my apologies for that ^^; Throwing a special shoutout to xXTwistedPrincessXx on being our 100th follower! Thank you so much! Sometimes I still have trouble believing what a great response this story has gotten, and I have only you readers to thank for that, so a huge thank you too every single one of you who has reviewed, favorited and followed this story! :D Or even anyone who just reads it ^^

I have midterms Monday, but hopefully sometime after Wednesday I'll be able to update. Have a great weekend all!