Torn Apart and Bound Back Together

Chapter 1

!/!/!

"Right here, right now."

"Are you sure-? Because I feel like we shouldn't-"

"Shut up, Stark."

The inventor clamped his lips tight shut at the response.

He waited a beat before administering, "Really though I feel like-"

The trickster gave him a pointed stare, green eyes laced with annoyance and an emotion that the inventor couldn't quite place.

"Right, right. Right here, right now." Tony replied quickly, sliding his anxieties into a latch behind his heart-he guessed he'd have to deal with them later.

Apparently now just wasn't the time.

"Have you done this before?" He asked instead, almost fearing his boyfriend's wrath which may not have been such an over-exaggeration.

The trickster lifted his gaze to him in such a calculated move that it sent shivers down the inventor's spine. His lips were thin and in a pout.

"Your trust in me is so sporadic?" he questioned mildly but the air was charged between them, igniting the hairs on the backs of the inventor's arms with more power than he thought possible.

"Uh, yeah, a little bit." He answered honestly, internally smacking himself.

Why'd I just say that?

He sighed.

"I want to be supportive but-"

"But?" Loki asked, eyes imploring.

"-But you can be a little volatile."

"Vol-?" Loki repeated back, looking confused, slightly thrilled and blinking as though he were insulted.

"And you still kinda scare the rest of the team. Especially Bruce."

"I highly doubt I frighten the monster," he chided quietly.

"Yeeeeah, that type of language doesn't do you any favors." Tony replied grimly.

"And what do I have to fear?"

"It's just that you sometimes make him uncomfortable," Tony continued, shrugging his shoulders. "You come off a little too…strong sometimes."

Loki tilted his head to the side.

"What's so wrong with that?"

Tony sighed again, this time louder.

"You're almost…possessive."

"I like what's mine." Loki said chillingly and Tony knew it was the type of thing that would send Bruce's skin crawling and make Barton frown and shudder, Natasha be intrigued and Steve to raise his questions. Thor would just grin playfully and that didn't help but encourage his younger sibling.

"But yet, to a degree," Tony tried instead, raising his index finger in a slight pointing gesture. "We have to have you playing nice with the other Avengers."

"Why?" Loki squinted at him, wondering how much of this was their idea and how much was coming from his partner's own mind. He didn't like sharing. And it showed.

"Because I don't want to see you get slaughtered by them." Tony rolled his eyes. "Maybe not literally but figuratively; besides you know I have a work relationship with Bruce anyways. He's getting…exasperated that you keep pulling me away from projects. We've got to make some milestones together and you kinda keep…interfering with that mission." Tony bit the inner corner of his cheek. His words weren't exact but he hoped his intention was.

"You spend too much time with him," Loki answered instead, brow perking.

Tony opened his mouth then closed it. "Are you jealous?" he asked, shifting on his feet and now being more interested and less anxious than he was a second before.

Loki huffed, but didn't deny it.

Tony immediately swung into his placating and supportive mode. He walked the space between the two of them and laid a hand on his partner's shoulder.

"Hey, hey," he said, trying to meet his chocolate brown eyes with the grassy green of his significant other. "Why don't you come down to the lab sometime? You can watch us work and know that there's no funny business between us. We're just science bros."

Loki's eyes flitted to Tony's and he chewed on his bottom lip in thought. He was silent for a minute or two and as Tony hovered and froze in his spot, his heart beating a little faster, wanting to jump the trickster then and there and spatter kisses down his rugged jawline, Loki was instead answering, his voice as smooth as cake frosting while Tony could just make out the fading taste of Loki on his mouth-

"Fine," his gaze dropped to the floor for a moment.

Tony had to mentally shake himself free of his fantasies at the word, returning to the present moment and only slightly wishing he could return to his daydreams. He patted his hand on his partner's shoulder instead and said with a grin, "Great, we'll see you at two tomorrow afternoon."

He swirled back to his position across the room and put on his safety goggles. "If you're sure that you want to do this," Tony began and Loki's lip rose in challenge. The inventor sighed and then flicked a switch nearby that lit up the small square by the main table in his workshop.

Loki settled a disgruntled look to the table, his eyes focused in so tightly that Tony was sure he could have thrown a party in his peripheral vision and the trickster wouldn't have noticed in the slightest.

Loki's gaze hardened as his concentration flowed, his lips bending together tightly, sucking into his mouth like they didn't even exist on his face and green, swirling forms of magic began to emanate from him. The tendrils reached out like hands, furling over and under each other and coming to the source of light, closer and closer, before snapping back and sparking when the gem sputtered and coughed in his direction.

Tony's gaze took on a look of worry and interest as he watched the tendrils return to the blue gem, before managing to come and surround the magical force that the Avengers had found early one morning about two months prior.

They'd all been wondering what the hell it was and what it was about because it had been radiating energy for days now but every time they tried to get close to it, a force field would shove them back onto their asses.

Today had been the day that they were supposed to hand over the material to S.H.I.E.L.D but Loki had wanted one more go at it and now that it was happening and Tony could feel his breath catching in his chest, he wasn't so sure that it was such a good idea to begin with.

Because once Loki's magic was captured around the gem, a shockwave expanded outward and the raging bubble between the green and white of Loki's magic and the blue and black of the smoking gem came further and further outward, Tony could feel his back pressed up against the concrete wall, trying to get away from it, trying to find a safe space in a place where he had always considered it safe, and instead of feeling curiosity and interest he just felt an intermingling of confusing joy, uncomfortable fear and like there was no escape.

And he hated feeling like there was no escape.

But right now, right here, and he had to suppress his urge to eye roll so efficiently that it would rock the Earth's orbit out of whack, he didn't feel safe and he didn't feel like he would be able to come out of this on the other side alive and well.

"Loki-" he warned, but his breath was short and his voice so small it was like he'd been talking to a mouse.

A horrified glance towards his partner and he could see the black shadows shifting to the demigod, threatening to swallow him up as the light around the area began to dim.

For fuck's sake, he thought, and realized that if he didn't do something, he might never see his partner again.

So he did the only thing he could think of in that moment and he grabbed, his eyes quickly glancing over everything around him (which wasn't much), a steel wrench by his side and threw it, heavy and all, at Loki's face.

The wrench immediately surpassed the magical barrier and hit his trickster square at the corner of his forehead to the left and once the impact landed it crowded out his concentration so that his magic dropped and he was hovering a cool hand over his face, rubbing the spot where blood dripped down little by little as he threw Tony a look that bordered on murderous and irritated.

"What the fuck was that for?" he complained instantaneously, wiping the blood as it continued to fall down, looking briskly for a rag to help mend the damage.

Tony looked at him, confused as ever.

"You don't remember?" he was asking instead and Loki's peculiar look sent him reeling.

"Remember what?" Loki hissed, finding a somewhat clean rag and placing it to his head.

Tony stayed quiet for a moment before he was walking briskly over to his partner; glaring back at the blue stone that he felt was somehow smirking over at him, as if satisfied from its work. He immediately cursed the moment he had agreed to let Loki try his magic out on it.

"It's nothing," he said instead and he clucked his tongue in his mouth, inspecting the wound. "Let's get you up to the infirmary."

"What about the stone?" Loki asked, flicking his eyes to Tony in question.

It made Tony freeze for a second, wondering just how much Loki actually remembered and what percentage he didn't.

He figured that it didn't matter because he was already wheeling the demigod around and guiding him to the door of the elevator.

"Jarvis, call up Doctor Banner and get him to the med bay, we'll be over in two."

"Of course, sir," his polite AI replied and as they fled the scene, Loki more confused than when he'd first landed on Earth again, they didn't quite see the way the stone was glowing. They didn't quite hear the hiss of delight it made and the swirling component of green that now made it up.

They didn't see it. They didn't hear it. They didn't know it.

But soon they would.

Soon they would.

And they would wish they never had.

A/N: Welllllllp, here's a new story. I didn't know where it was going exactly or what it was about but I think I have a fairly good idea now and I had the writing vibes which haven't happened in a month and a half and I was too in the zone to reread any of my other works so apparently something entirely new was the response I required. So, here we are! A new story altogether. I was trying to figure out if I wanted this gem to be the mind stone or a completely different creative entity itself. I did watch part of AoU again so maybe that's why it's on my mind ahaha. Any who, I decided to go with a different gem so if you have ANY ideas on names, leave them in a review and I'll consider it! I think I can even do a scene in the story where the Avengers try to come up with a name for it, so there's that. :]

Part of this story was inspired by a heart to heart conversation my Mom and I had today and it made me think about my story and my journey in life and how much being mentally stable has completely altered the course of my future. I guess writing something where our favorite fictional characters struggle severely with that to one day come back together and be stronger than ever is just something I can't say no to. I'm also thinking of the last thing Vision says to Ultron: "A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts" and also, I can't emotionally have it in me to fully accept that my favorite characters are gone so I choose to write about them like they're still whole. In some ways, they always will be.

So yeah, that's about this story in a small nutshell. I can't wait to see where this transforms and heads to. As of now, I don't have much of a timeline or where and when exactly this takes place, I think before AoU though. But it's exciting. Isn't it? Something new. I will hopefully be able to write more going forwards too, particularly: CeC, D&D, S, AWC, and NT.

Thank you so much for reading and viewing and stopping by!

Written: 8/11/2020

Edited: 8/11/20

Music: "11 Blocks" by Wrabel; "this is what self-destruction feels like" by Marina Lin; "Haunted House" by Sir Babygirl; "Sanctuary" by Welshly Arms.