There But For The Grace Of God Go I
Part III: Foreigner
Waking up is easy but you're breaking my whole thesis
Purity Ring - "Grandloves"
It is 6:00 AM and Tony Stark is brushing shards of glass into the dustpan while California rain patters against the blue tarp above him. The sound is a lot like fingers against a desk, a continuing leitmotif that was enough to make him want to crawl back into bed and into his nightmares once again.
Somehow, Tony decided that maybe going back to sleep with a genocidal Norse god in his home is perhaps not the best of ideas. Maybe it was just him.
Loki watched him, from the shadows, which was unnerving as it sounded. Tony tried his best to ignore him - and usually, when Tony tried his best at anything he could do it exceedingly well - but regardless, he could feel Loki's stare on the back of his head like a sticker stuck to the bottom of his foot.
Annoying, frustrating, and it was enough to make Tony start in again with, "You know, I'm actually pretty glad you can't talk." Which seemed petty in his mouth, and totally callous, but when has Tony Stark ever settled for something below callous? "Anything you had to say would only make me want to kick you out even more."
Tony had paused in his cleaning for a few minutes, had listened to the drone of the rain, and when he turned around Loki had slipped away. It was mildly creepy how he could do that, that thing with the feet and the noiselessness, and Tony tried not think about it as he shuffled glass into the trash.
"Sir, Loki Odinson has returned to your room."
"Perfect." Tony griped, and he makes a small note to himself to throw all those sheets and maybe the mattress too out the window once Thor picks him up. Which is, admittedly, juvenile in its own way, but Tony was never one for maturity. "Keep me posted, JARVIS."
JARVIS doesn't answer back, which makes Tony feel like the AI's being slightly judgmental; about either Loki staying here or not contacting SHIELD, Tony isn't entirely sure, but the air that's filled his house is all of a sudden stifling, and grievous, and Tony decided to pop open his wet bar and scrounge for something he hadn't drank yet.
Pepper tells him he's been living in the bottom of a bottle ever since New York. Tony isn't entirely sure it's true - Pepper's always had trouble with his drinking habits - but when he pulls out the last bottle of vodka from the back of the wet bar, it's a little more telling than he'd like.
The stuff is strong, and it stings all the way down his throat, and Tony curled out slovenly on one of his loveseats, and faced the nice California rain.
Pepper would be here in the morning, wouldn't she? And there'd have to be a nice explanation for why a Norse god was in his room when she got there. Tony doesn't think he'd be able to hide Loki, not from her, and especially because you can't hide something or someone as powerful and defiantly vicious as Loki from someone's sight. That's just not a thing that's done.
Loki joined him, in the darkness, and Tony didn't notice until he'd felt something in the air. Something which felt wrong, like a sharp, keen wind pressed against the nape of his neck, a cold chill that crawled up and down his spine.
"I still owe you that drink, don't I?" Tony asked, and he could almost feel Loki stiffen, like he hadn't expected to be noticed at all. "Guess you don't want it now, huh?"
Silence.
"What's wrong? Spindle got your tongue?" Tony laughed, despite himself. And soon enough, the seat beside him sank a little.
Loki stared at him. Tony felt it in the way you felt a spitball hitting the back of your head.
"Listen, princess - and yeah, I guess that's all you can do, right now but- hey!"
Loki reached over, and touched the arc reactor again. He was all but glaring at Tony now, and there was something precisely and terrifyingly angry in that stare, like they opened up into some screaming darkness that pulled at the edges of Tony's mind. Loki touched, but didn't move, which made Tony in turn afraid to move as well.
In the mild-mannered morning darkness, Loki's scars and eyes shone like they had lights of their own, insidiously, unnaturally.
Tony had an idea, that he wished had come to him sooner.
"You can write." He whispered, thinly.
Loki's stare turned from one eye, to the next. Tony felt a lot like a mouse caught in a cat's crosshair, or one of Hawkeye's targets.
"Listen," And he reached forward and tried, as gently as he could, to pull Loki's hand away. Which wasn't enough. "You write whatever the hell's happened down there - up there-, and maybe, just maybe, I can understand you. Because let's face it, this Helen Keller thing isn't getting us anywhere. Unless you're planning to talk with your hips. I could get behind that."
The withering look Loki had given him would've made anyone less brash than Tony Stark shrink.
Tony wrenched himself from Loki's grasp and gaze, and pulled himself up to look for paper. At least a pad, or something. This was amazingly - and irritatingly - hard, as Tony barely used paper in lieu of his own technology, and eventually he ended up settling for a pencil and the inside of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, which was Pepper's but... not his problem.
Loki had stared at the cover of the novel for an interminable amount of time, before flipping it open to the cover. Loki adjusted to the pencil in his fingers, moved it in-between before settling for a strange, awkward grip that made Tony wonder if they had such a thing as pencils in Asgard.
Loki's writing was large, cut, and in a completely different language.
When Loki passed the book back to Tony, Tony had tutted and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Damn it." One word, and it had to be written in runes. "No, wait." And he rolled his eyes. "JARVIS, scan this, would you?"
There was a flicker of light, a grid that ran over the pages, and JARVIS said, "Scan of Nordic Runes complete, sir."
"Get it translated."
Loki's stare was still heavy on him, like a premonition. Tony avoided his gaze by instead staring at the stitches along his lips, seams that were crooked and pulled and deeply infected, and he wondered how Loki could stand it - not talking, if it was like having your own voice die in your throat.
"I'll make sure Thor gets those out." He said, though the truth behind it sputtered out like a candle. "I promise."
Loki didn't look like he trusted him at all and yeah, what reason would he have had to trust him? The last time they'd crossed paths, Loki had thrown him out of his own window, had tried to subjugate all the people around him, had killed Phil Coulson.
Something akin to hatred twisted in Tony's stomach, like snakes, but he tried to smother the feeling. Loki's body relaxed a bit, his shoulders melted a few degrees and it was only then that Tony had realized how tense Loki had been, like an animal backed into a corner.
Fleetingly, all the memories of Afghanistan opened up like a floodgate, and Tony swallowed, tried to keep his composure but it was too late; Loki had seen a weakness, a crack, and something dark and menacing flickered in his eyes.
"The translation of the Nordic runes is complete, sir."
Tony stood and stalked across the room, feeling Loki's gaze on his back the whole way there. Inside, Tony felt himself quake and crack, felt the way his nightmare-selves felt, but he choked down the feeling, packed all those traitor emotions away in his stomach until they were little more than a pile of hot coals in the pit of his stomach.
On one of JARVIS' LED screens, was a single, simple word.
"No."
"You don't want anyone's help."
Loki's eyes slid up to him, and the tenseness in his body returned. This time, Tony tried to see it all as a lie - a barrier set up to make him seem vulnerable. Tony had this strange feeling that the second he started feeling sorry for the ragged god beneath him would be the very moment that Loki won, and Tony would have a knife straight in the center of his brain stem.
Loki made no move to say yes or no. The clock chimed 7:00 AM. Tony Stark found himself engaged in a serious staring contest with a Norse god.
Tony dived in, closed in on Loki's space and attempted to drag him up by his bloodstained clothes. Before he could do that, Loki had shoved him away, and made a strange, choked sound out through his nose. Tony held on, however, and Loki seemed almost half-afraid of him, all wall-eyed and breathy.
But the in the next second between him holding onto Loki and Loki shoving him away, the god's face had flattened out, leaving something ferociously wrathful in its place.
Loki seemed to be waiting. For Tony to do something.
Tony lost all control of his thoughts, everything blanking out as though someone had just shut off his brain. His fingers felt sticky, and Loki's skin felt like ice through the fabric.
Without thinking, he just let go of Loki's clothes, and the god's eyes never left him. Something like a knot seemed to tie itself in Tony's throat, and he couldn't even think of a single thing to say.
"I..." Tony looked at his fingers. They were black with blood in the darkness. "Get out of this room, Reindeer Games."
Loki, in silence, complied with the request.
At 7:30, Pepper called to make sure he was still attending the benefit meeting.
"Oh, right. That. Wasn't that supposed to be on a Thursday?"
"Today is Thursday, Tony." Pepper had said, agitated voice tinny through the phone. "I promised them you'd be there."
Tony shrugged, and poured himself another glass of vodka, "Well, you can't always get what you want."
"No, you can't," Pepper's agitation only seemed to grow. "But as the rest of that phrase goes, if you try sometimes, you get what you need."
"You don't really need me there."
Pepper huffed, and it sounded like static through the phone, "Well, you wouldn't really know that, would you?"
Tony took a long drink, as if to steel himself for the incoming lecture, "Not my circus, not my monkeys."
There was another huff of irritation, or a long, resigned sigh - he couldn't really tell the difference anymore - and Pepper said, "You need to get back into the swing of things, Tony."
And that was a little close to the heart, a little dagger straight into the crux of everything and Tony retorted, his voice slightly sharp on all its edges, "Into the swing of what? I'm fine."
"You almost died."
"Almost being the key word there." His words felt stiff on the hilt of his tongue, so he drank more to lessen the feeling. "C'mon Pep. I'm okay. Dapper. Whatever you want to call it."
There was a hesitant pause, and then, "Whatever you say, Tony."
"Yeah." Tony licked his lips. "You can handle the benefit on your own, can't you? I've got... things."
"Things." Pepper sounded unconvinced.
Tony nodded to himself, "Things. It's really the most apt description of what I'm doing."
There was another long pause, and Pepper said, "Fine. But when you get done with your party," She stressed the word like a command. "Be sure to call me."
"Can do."
He wouldn't.
Pepper hung up, and Tony ended up staring half-blankly at his phone until the words, call from Pepper: ended, blurred into a great, lit smear.
Tony stood up, bottle in hand, and searched for Loki. He wasn't in Tony's room, which was strange, and he wasn't in either the party room or the living room and Tony began to panic slightly, in the way only he could panic, with as little hysteria as there was possible.
"JARVIS?" Tony asked.
There was no answer.
"JARVIS?" Tony tried again, and his feet picked up the pace, searching the rooms with a feverish madness.
No answer.
The only room Tony hadn't checked was the bathrooms. He found himself running, speeding away, thinking a thousand-and-one thoughts like: he ran off, the bastard, he's gone, he's going to do something, he was planning something and I just- and he slammed the door open with a bang.
Loki was in the bathroom, surprisingly.
He was ripping the throng out of his mouth.
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