It had been two months since Tony was rescued and fell into, and then out of, his coma, and it had been hard for everyone, but most especially Tony and Loki. Tony's injuries were well on their way to being healed, superficially at least. The broken bones and trauma still lingered, despite Loki's best efforts to aid his healing. It was painful for both of them, as well as extremely draining. Tempers grew short, and Tony snapped at Loki, with Loki snapping back that he had only been trying to help and storming away.
Later that night, Loki woke up to screams, by now accustomed to them. He ran to Tony's room, almost able to do it in his sleep. Tony was thrashing, his cast banging against the rails they had set in place just so he didn't fall over the edge of the bed. His motor skills still weren't up to par, and it infuriated Tony to no end.
"Tony! Tony! Wake up!" Loki barely avoided a flying fist before he pinned his arms down as gently as possible. Tony was screaming until he suddenly stopped, gasped and sat up, eyes wide and chest heaving. He sat there for a minute before he look around and caught Loki's gaze.
"Loki." He said breathlessly. Loki nodded slowly. Tony reached out and touched his cheek with a shaking hand.
"I dreamed Doom had gotten you. You were gone. I couldn't-" Tony's voice broke.
"Shhhhh, I'm right here, don't worry about it, I'm not going anywhere." Loki said soothingly.
"I couldn't save you. I couldn't stop him. You were gone, and-" Tony babbled on, eyes wide, caught up in the memory of the nightmare. Loki sighed and climbed into the bed with him.
"You haven't had a nightmare in a week or two. What brought this on?" He asked softly. Tony shuddered in his arms and fell quiet.
"Tony?" Loki prodded.
"You... you weren't there beside me." Tony whispered lowly.
Loki furrowed his brow and looked at him before blinking. "Oh." Ever since Tony had woken up, Loki had been a constant presence by Tony's side. However, pissed off by their argument, he had decided to sleep in the other bedroom for once.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize what it meant. I won't do it again." Loki whispered reassurances into Tony's ear until he felt the other man relax and breathe deeper as he fell asleep. Loki sighed and settled in beside him, resolving to talk about it in the morning.
The next day, Tony woke up to find Loki gone. He sat up with a small grunt, some ribs were still healing, and looked around. He needed to go to the bathroom, and they'd recently told him he could do it on his own two feet if he had assistance. There was no one to help him however, so he tossed the bed covers back and slowly but surely swung his legs over the side of the bed. He took a breather, and then started to slide off.
His legs crumbled beneath him and he fell with an almost, but not quite muffled exclamation of anger and pain. There were moments when he would tell his hand, his fingers, to function in one way, and they wouldn't obey. Therapists, doctors, hell, even Bruce assured him it was normal and that nothing had been damaged to the point of where he wouldn't gain it back. It was still entirely too frustrating of a process, and dammit, it was taking far too long.
"Tony?" Bruce called when he entered the room and didn't see Loki or Tony.
"Over here." The man in question grunted.
"Tony, I should've known this would happen." Bruce only sighed when he saw Tony's predicament. He helped him up, and then guided him to the bathroom when Tony indicated that's what he needed. They were just walking back to bed when Loki walked in. He looked at the sheets and then Tony and the pieces clicked.
"Did you try to get out of bed on your own?" He asked calmly.
"Uh, no?" Tony said weakly, with a chuckle.
"He only made it as far as the floor." Bruce interjected calmly. Loki glared at Tony, and Tony stuck his tongue out at him. Bruce let him lean against the bed before stepping back. Having the support of the bed let him move around and get the blood flowing without the danger of falling flat on his face.
"Tony, all you had to do was wait or call for one of us." Loki scolded lightly.
"Do you know how frustrating it is to not even have complete control over one's own limbs?" Tony asked darkly. Loki's face softened.
"I'm sorry. Do you want me to try..." He trailed off, unsure. Tony shook his head with a sigh, before their attention was caught by Bruce coughing quietly.
"Um, guys, I had something I needed to talk to you about. There's currently another issue we need to address, before it becomes a problem."
They both looked at him with confused expressions on their faces. "What problem?" Loki asked suspiciously.
"Well, the one where Tony's reactor was pushed around." Bruce said quietly. He noted Loki's hand find and grasp Tony's until the knuckles went white.
"You said a few weeks back he was out of danger?" Loki questioned sharply. Bruce had discovered a temporary fix to the fact that the reactors pull was weaker in its current position.
"I did, yes. The shards aren't going anywhere, but it's only a temporary, if I didn't make that clear to you before. I want to get him in surgery as soon as possible, since he's stabilized from everything else.
Tony squeezed Loki's hand. "It'll be fine, I trust Bruce to do what he needs to." Loki looked him before sighing and nodding.
"Alright, let's go ahead with it. When did you want to do it?" He asked quietly.
"I was thinking within the next couple days would be ideal. You guys discuss it and let me know." Bruce said amiably. He nodded and left the room to leave them alone.
"Has it been hurting you?" Loki questioned slightly anxiously.
"No, not so much that I notice at least." Tony said thoughtfully. That didn't exactly reassure Loki, but he shrugged it off.
"When you were asleep, I thought I heard you say Hel. How do you know that name?" Loki asked Tony. The man blinked at him in confusion. I thought it was something I made up. After I..." he grimaced and shook his head.
"What?" Loki pressed.
"I had a dream. I met someone called Hel, and she told me it wasn't my time, that I had to go back. I don't remember much else."
Loki was staring at him, wide eyed. Tony looked back at him in concern.
"Lokes? What is it?" He asked his lover in concern.
"Tony... Hel is the goddess of the realms of the dead. She is also my daughter." Loki whispered quietly. Tony blinked as he processed this information and was simultaneously engulfed in a tight embrace. Loki held him close, and drew in a shuddering sigh. "I shall have to thank her, for not letting you leave me." he muttered into Tony's neck.
"Wait, so... are you saying the only reason I didn't die is your daughter refused to let me?" Tony's mind was running a million miles a minute, trying to wrap around the idea, and it made his head hurt. He grunted into Loki's shoulder, and the god drew back.
"What's wrong?" He said upon seeing Tony's expression. Tony indicated he'd like to get back into the bed and Loki gave him a hand getting settled before climbing in beside him. He tapped a hand on his chest once he was comfortable, reminding Tony that he was waiting.
Tony gave a weak smile. "Just reminded of my own mortality. Not something us humans like thinking about. Much less the fact that the goddess of the underworld wouldn't let me in." He gave a small chuckle at that.
"Do you remember your surroundings?" Loki asked thoughtfully. Tony frowned.
"I think I remember a... bright light. It's hazy." Tony said slowly. Loki looked at him with a frown.
"Well, she might have refused to let you die, but that wasn't the realms of the dead."
"Well, I sure as hell wasn't going to Valhalla." Tony joked. Loki gave him a look and he went quiet. They lay there in companionable silence for a while, before Loki finally sighed and looked at Tony. The man had fallen asleep, exhausted by his excursion to the bathroom. Loki hated seeing the fact that his lover was still so weak, but remained grateful that he had him back. He lay back and curled himself around Tony before closing his eyes as well.
Later that night, Loki detangled himself from Tony, who was still sleeping quite heavily after going through a few exercises Bruce had told him he could try, and eating dinner, and headed upstairs to refresh himself and get some food. He found Natasha and Clint in the kitchen, eating something. They exchanged nods before Natasha indicated a dish on the counter and told him Steve had made lasagna and he was welcome to take some.
Clint watched with some amusement as Loki got a plate and made his way over to the dish before staring at it in confusion. Natasha stifled a snicker before she got up and made her way over to help him.
"Here, like this." She said, deftly cutting him a large portion and putting it on his plate. He murmured a quiet thanks, and then sat at the table, across from where Natasha and Clint had settled their plates. Natasha sat back down, picked up her fork, and started to finish her meal. She watched Loki out of the corner of her eye as he hacked at the lasagna, and finally managed to get a piece to his mouth, trailing cheese. A glance at Clint revealed he was holding in a chuckle. They finished their portions in silence before both assassins got up and put their plates in the sink. Clint walked out the door, but Natasha stopped before Loki and waited until he looked up at her, a bit of sauce on his lip.
"How's Tony?" She asked quietly. He gave her a look, but nodded his head and answered with an equally quiet "He's doing fine. Bruce wants to correct the problem with the reactor soon."
Natasha raised an eyebrow at this. "So soon after what he's been through?" she questioned sharply.
Loki shrugged helplessly. "He says what he was able to do is only a temporary fix, and that it should be done as soon as possible. Tony is healing, and is out of danger. I would rather he wait longer, heal more. I can't do anything."
Natasha looked at the god closely. His fists were clenched, but not because he was angry at Bruce or Tony. No, he was furious with himself, and how he wasn't able to help Tony more. He drained whatever magical reserves he had as soon as he had anything, in an effort to heal Tony. At Bruce's recommendation, Loki had focused on internal issues before he tried to heal the various other scrapes Tony had gotten.
Natasha looked at him. It seemed odd that he would run out of magic so easily, when all he was doing was healing Tony. "What else are you doing?" She questioned sharply, as a thought came to her.
Loki looked up at her, and then slowly smiled. It was tired, but there was a sharpness behind it, with an acknowledgement to her skill.
"I'm also trying to track down Doom." He said in a smooth voice. The one he had used before he let down his guard around them all. It bespoke of his years of cunning and trickery, and had a deadly promise behind it when he said Doom's name.
"I realize you want to tear the son of a bitch apart by yourself, but do us a small favor and let us have a piece, hm?" Natasha said with a lilt to her voice. Loki's face darkened, but he saw the expression her face and finally nodded. The thing that was Doom had taken and harmed one of their own, and he saw he had underestimated exactly how far they would go for each other, in this band of misfits who didn't trust easily.
"Very well," he agreed easily. He didn't want to kill Doom. Oh no. He would take him apart piece by piece. He would break Doom, and then bring him back to do it again.
Natasha made a note to herself about keeping track of Loki when she saw the look on his face. It was one she had seen on others faces, as well as on herself. An intense focus, filled with a purpose as they took someone apart for information. She didn't think Loki would be doing it for information however. She found the fact that he could be so detached more alarming than she would've if it had been a killing rage. She left the kitchen quietly, and found Clint waiting for her. He was chuckling to himself.
"What are you laughing at?" She asked him sourly.
"He... the cheese.. and the way he looked at it.." Clint descended into laughter, using the wall to hold him up. Natasha blinked at him, taken aback. She hadn't seen him like this in a while. She waited while the archer recovered, wiping away tears of laughter before she shook her head at him and started to walk down the hallway.
"What did you say to him?" Clint asked as he trotted to catch up and fell in step beside her.
She shrugged. "Just asked how Tony was doing." She narrowed her eyes a fraction as she thought about what they should do if Doom was ever discovered and Loki got to him before they did.
"Nat?" Clint asked her curiously, seeing the look on her face.
"It's nothing. For the moment." She said quietly. He left it alone, but she could see he was still curious about what had her so tense. She was in no way distracted when she took Clint down a notch in the training room later however.
After Loki had grabbed a shower and made his way back to Tony's side, he found the man awake.
"I passed Bruce in the hallway, he said you'd have something to tell me." The god told him as he climbed in beside Tony.
"Yeah..." Tony said slowly. Loki turned and gave him a look. "Bruce said that he has a surgeon who's available tomorrow. He says it'd be best to just go through with it and get it over with tomorrow while everything is in order."
Loki tensed. "Tomorrow?" He asked shortly. Tony nodded somberly, lines around his eyes tightening as he thought about what could happen.
"And you agreed?" Loki said quietly. Tony nodded, staying quiet for once. Loki looked at him and finally sighed as he lifted the covers and slipped into the bed.
"I am not able to do anything with the reactor, but... I would like to be there." Loki told him. Tony turned his head and rolled his eyes at the god.
"As if you would have it any other way." Tony said dryly. Loki just smirked at him. Tony kissed him impulsively and then drew back.
"You taste like spaghetti sauce." he said. Loki looked at him.
"I had something Steve cooked. Natasha called it 'lasagna'." Loki said. Tony started laughing at the look on the gods face as he pronounced lasagna before he stopped with a grunt, but the smile remained on his face as he lay back and pulled Loki to his side. They fell asleep like that.
I couldn't express my horror at myself or how sorry I am that it's been so long, but here's something new. Dedicated to all you loyal fans who are still reading, wouldn't be here without you. Thanks, and enjoy!
