There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part V: Arc Angel

There is no reason for this, only
a starved dog's logic about bones.

- Margaret Atwood's "More and More"

If it had been another time, Tony might've enjoyed the way the dress suit clung to Natasha Romanov. He might've liked the way she walked, with purpose, though every step he saw was half-false and half-true, as the Black Widow had a way of swaying like she were a cat getting ready to pounce, or a spider skirting the edges of her home web.

Another time, maybe, but certainly not now.

"Mr. Stark," She greeted, coolly, as Natalie Rushman. "Ms. Potts sent me over with these." In her arms was a binder of papers, a if you can't work at the benefits, you can work from home message straight from the desk of Virginia Pepper Potts and into his arms.

Tony's pulse was a percussion band set to Circus Gallop, "Ah," Every word was halting, like a thoroughbred pounding hooves before the gate. "Miss Rushman, what a... pleasant surprise."

It was, of course, anything but.

Natasha's eyes had a certain... light to them, an impenetrability that rivaled Loki's, and Tony felt the need to iron out his emotions to be almost overbearing. He felt like any movement was a great neon sign that flashed, "Oh, by the way, there's a Norse god chilling in my house. Thought you oughta know."

The agent placed the binder on the table, treading uncomfortably close to the hall where Loki no doubt hid, and Tony's heart leapt straight into his throat. He felt much like a man gripping the edges of a cliff, watching the way his fingers slid, slowly and slower still.

From Natasha's pocket came a small, black flash drive, though she made no mention of it, and turned to Tony, away from the hall - which made Tony gave a collective inward sigh - and said, "Ms. Potts asked that these papers be signed before Friday evening, Mr. Stark."

"Sure." Tony replied, and his voice felt slightly thready with relief. "Whatever Pepper says."

Natasha's eyes narrowed, and Tony could feel the way that gaze honed in on him. Between her and Loki, Tony felt like he were some petri dish beneath the microscope, being peeled apart and analyzed, every reaction marked up on a whiteboard. The world's science fair experiment.

"Are you feeling alright, Stark?" Natasha asked, and this time, Tony could see it, the SHIELD agent in her. Something sick and wild tied a knot in his throat.

He shrugged, "Hair of the dog."

Annoyance flashed across her face, "I see. I'll be leaving. Ms. Potts is expecting me elsewhere." And she'd walked straight past him, chin held high and shoulders tense (they were always tense, like she were always expecting a fight) and Tony half-let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in.

There was a sound from the hall, a slight crack, and Natasha had stopped in her tracks. Tony clenched his jaw.

"I'm turning that robot into scrap, I swear," Tony lied, smoothly. "Hope it hasn't broken something actually useful."

Natasha gave him a final glance, said her goodbyes and left the building.

In barely a second, Loki turned into the room, and Tony hissed, "Nice. It couldn't have killed you to be, y'know, low-key for a while longer? I know you're attention starved, but really-"

Loki interrupted, in a voice that was disbelieving, "You lied for me."

Tony blinked, taken aback, and then rolled his eyes, "I just want to get on with my life without all of SHIELD breathing down my neck about the villain turned tortured soul in my house. Since, you know, we're supposed to report you on site. Ever since the thing with the subjugation, and the kneeling and the six-foot-long chasm in my office flooring."

There was a moment in which Loki's stance wavered, where his eyes flickered away from Tony's own, a small pause that made him look entirely like a different person altogether, "I assumed you had alerted your Director. It made little sense to me to hide further."

"What," Tony felt confused. "You wanted me to rat you out?"

Loki shrunk a little, his shoulders melting a few degrees, and the sigh he let out was tired, resigned, an adult dealing with a child with far too many questions, "If I wanted that, then I would have succeeded, Stark."

Tony had the distinct feeling that he was lying. Which wasn't a surprise.

He scoffed, "That's one terrible lie. You're really starting to lose it."

A muscle in Loki's jaw jumped, a movement that wrinkled one of the scars that ran along his cheeks. The hair on the back of Tony's neck stood up, involuntarily, without warning. Loki gripped his wrist in front him, an action that Tony had never seen him do, in all the video that SHIELD had had of his time alone in his cell, video that Tony had, without real reason to, watched over and over and over until all of it were a mess in his brain.

Because he'd thought that if maybe he could catch Loki doing something, anything, it meant he could kill him. Because Phil was dead, so many people were dead, and Loki still, despite it all, had someone arguing for him to Fury, because Thor could've left the god here, for them to deal with as they wanted to, and taken the Tesseract without a second thought about the not-brother that had denounced him at every opportunity.

Despite it all, though, Tony couldn't bring himself to harm Loki any further than he'd already been harmed. He couldn't put his finger on the feeling he felt while looking at the god, or treating his wounds, or telling him, in passing, just a little bit of what Tony had tasted in Afghanistan. Revealing that weakness, that pain, was a risk Tony wasn't sure he should have taken.

"I... " Loki licked his lips, over the scabs, an action which should've been painful. "I owe you a debt, Stark."

"I'll make the wild assumption that that's a bad thing."

Loki smiled, wryly, "That depends on you."

"You can take your debt and cram it up your ass." Tony replied. "I didn't do it for you."

Tony had nearly forgotten about the black flash drive that Natasha had disposed of on the binder of papers, papers which he'd had no intention to look at or even sign. Which, yes, wasn't his fault.

With all the ideas, events and dialogue that'd swam wildly throughout his head it seemed perfectly reasonable to forget about a mound of paperwork that really had little to no bearing on his life or his ex-company. Not that Pepper would see it that way, but still.

He was reminded of it when he'd passed by Loki, and the binder, and had caught the flash drive with his eye. It sat there like an accusation.

When he'd plugged it in, broke the weak, world-class hacker level encryption on it (in case, Tony supposed, that anyone besides him had gotten their hands on it) the screen and information that greeted him felt also like an accusation, a great finger pointed directly at him.

Traces of the Tesseract, Tony half-read, small amounts of gamma radiation across the country - possibly Thor and/or other Asgardians, be on alert, blah, blah, blah.

Tony's throat felt like he'd swallowed a nest full of cold moths. He had the strange feeling that that wasn't it, that there was more.

He'd made it three steps on the stairs before he buckled over and threw up. Tony wasn't a stranger to puking, or the nausea that came with the rest of his fucked up life, but he would have liked to make it to the porcelain throne. Or the sink, at least.

Tony's mind blanked out, and it took him a few seconds to realize there was a dark, scarred form kneeling beside him.

"Stark." Loki's voice was demanding to the ears. "You vomited."

"Did I? I hadn't noticed."

The hand on his shoulder tightened. Bitten cuticles dug into his neck.

Tony said, "You mind?"

And Loki replied, "Come."

Tony didn't protest. He just got up, shouldered past Loki - half bumping the god down the stairs in the process - and made it to the bathroom where he ended up throwing up again. Loki stood in the door frame like a ghost, or a specter, or maybe a nightmare from the past come to haunt him.

Wiping his face with a wet towel, Tony said, to no one in particular, "I got a report from SHIELD. Said you left traces of the Tesseract when you collapsed my skylight in."

Loki's eyes and stance were wary, like a wounded animal, "Yes."

Tony watched him in the mirror, this phantasmagoria that made no sense, and clicked his tongue, "The arc reactor."

Loki's head bowed, slightly, and he watched Tony with half-lidded eyes. No response.

Tony chuckled, "I'm right, aren't I? Actually, don't tell me. I know I'm right. I'm always right."

"Perhaps you are, Stark. I speak hypothetically," Loki's voice was as soft as sin. "But if you are right, then what? What would you do with this realization?"

Tony Stark laughed, and turned away from the mirror to face Loki, "How could you use it? I mean, I've got the what's figured out. Not the why's."

Loki stared at him.

"Don't worry, Reindeer Games," Tony muttered, jokingly. "Anything you say or do can't be used against you."

"And I am to trust you?" Loki asked, angrily, scarred lips curled into a sneer. "You, who stopped me from the world, which is rightfully mine? You-"

"You trusted me before," Tony interrupted. "I mean, like you said, I could've handed you over to Agent Romanov on a silver platter. Washed my hands clean of you. My Pontius Pilate to your Jesus of Nazareth..." Tony stopped there, looked away thoughtfully. "Now that's a terrible analogy. Almost sure that'd get me stoned in some cultures."

Loki bristled, actually bristled, like a cat hunched for battle and hissed, actually hissed, too, "It is for me to know alone!"

Tony, who felt like he'd been pushing Loki a bit too far, decided to push even more, "What, you afraid I'll tell Thor? Stop you from another escape from whatever justice-"

"Justice." Loki said, dripping with poison. "As if what has happened to me were justice of any sort!" His eyes gleamed, sharp on every edge and Tony was reminded that there was nothing, nothing at all to stop Loki from killing him, here and now.

That was, to Tony, one of the most terrifying thoughts to have ever passed his mind.

"Maybe it's not, maybe it is, you sort of blurred the line." Tony wasn't thinking now, the words just came to him, like something out of his nightmares. "Maybe it doesn't matter, but what matters is the why. You want me to help you, fine. I'll help you, hell, I'll keep you out of Thor's reach. I will, if you'll just tell me a few things."

Loki whispered, leaning forward slightly, still sneering, "And I am to take your word? A meaningless Midgardian's word for it?"

Tony shrugged, rolled his eyes, "I guess." He could feel his pulse in his ears, almost deafening.

"You cannot keep me from the Thunderer's grasp." Loki rasped, suddenly, and his voice seemed as dry as sandpaper. "No one can."

The god seemed desolate, like a toppled skyscraper, yanked down. Watching him be desolate made Tony's heart soar with glee, or plummet with something else he couldn't name. He supposed it didn't matter. Falling was just like flying, forget what anyone else said. The only difference was that one was an end and the other a beginning.

For a too-long second, the two of them stood there. Tony felt a little stab of pity in his heart. Outside, around, the sounds of a storm picked up, a great flood of rain that covered them all around.

"He is coming," Loki said, and it sounded more like a prisoner's statement before their execution. "He will take me, and your questions will go forever unanswered."

Tony Stark had nothing at all to say to that.

Which was alright, because in the next minute a God of Thunder arrived sopping wet on his doorstep.

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