A/N: Oh my gosh guys, your lovely reviews and comments after my mini freak out over the last chapter made me feel SO much better, you are all wonderful. And I think I've finally managed to tame things now, I've drafted Chapter 14 and things are FLOWING! So hope I won't be letting you all down now haha….

So yeah, this is the start of The Big Conversation. It's actually going to be detailed over this and the next chapter, as Tony decided he wanted to get drunk. And I couldn't stop him. And altogether everything ended up being 8000 words and that's just crazy, so I found a 'middle' of sorts to cut it off at! But seen as I've got the bones of the next one in place it should be going up tomorrow, so they can both be read as a pair.

Hope you enjoyyyyy (^.^)

Disclaimer: Still, nothing is mine. Do I even own the alcohol here? Title inspired by the Deadmau5 song Everything Before.

Chapter 13. Everything Before & After.

Storming down the corridor to Loki's room again, Tony was fuelled with a sense of purpose, adrenaline and déjà-vu. Hesitating outside the door, he wondered how best to begin this spontaneous plan of action, but it seemed Loki was one step ahead and had either heard or sensed him coming, and before he could raise a hand to knock or call out, the go's disembodied voice spoke clearly and firmly.

''Go away''.

Tony paid no heed, that was barely even effort on Loki's part, he was not moving until he'd had a conversation. Or something. He lowered himself gently onto the floor, and sat sideways against Loki's door, resting his feet on the right hand side frame, knees bent and back uncomfortably pressed against the left frame.

''I said leave me.''

Loki sounded more agitated, clearly he had hearing as acute as a bat. Or could he see through doors? Despite his prickling agitation, Tony felt a wry smile play across his lips; he wouldn't put it past him. Whatever had happened, was happening and was going to happen, Tony no longer bothered to try and deny that Loki's mind and manner had piqued his interest more than he'd previously let himself believe.

''Sorry bro, it's visiting hour. Orders from the boss himself. And you're gonna have to cooperate, or kiss goodbye to the home comforts. Fury and his cronies are on the warpath and unless you want to go back to square one, I'd loosen that silvertongue of yours a little''.

Shit. He hadn't meant to say silvertongue, that had been something Thor told him about, referring to Loki's nickname back in Asgard, the last thing Tony wanted to do was remind Loki of Thor or his past trauma within three seconds of speaking to him.

From the low snarl that he detected from inside the room, he had indeed made a bad choice.

''You dare mock me with insults of my own land? You mean to threaten me?''

Tony supposed Loki intended his voice to be full of malice, but in truth he just came across as bitter and hurt. Loki was clearly extremely highly strung and had mood swings to rival Tony's own; veering between the relatively calm and weak introversion of the past few days and these attempted outbursts of vehemence whenever he was confronted with questions or prompts from his past. It was like Loki was teetering on a very thin, very unstable wire, and Tony had to be careful not to make any sudden movements in his vicinity.

With a shiver, his analogy made him turn his thoughts to what Thor had said about what had happened on the Bifrost. Loki had been hanging on then, or hanging off, to be strictly accurate, and then…and then he had let go completely. But to Loki it hadn't been that simple. Those last few seconds, clinging onto his world and his life, Loki had looked for someone to grab him and pull. And no one did. In a way, he didn't really let go. Odin had let go of him, and Loki had been swallowed into a hole of betrayal and oblivion. But it hadn't been oblivion, had it; it'd been more pain, more pain that he'd even known thus far, and the product of that was here right now, a shell of a being; broken, confused, angry, hating, craving, defeated.

''You didn't have to let go''.

Tony hadn't realised he'd said those words out loud until he heard his own voice; he had been thinking so intently that he hadn't even heard if Loki had responded to his previous statement. He heard a movement inside the room followed by a sharp intake of breath, he had clearly surprised Loki with his sudden outburst.

''What? What nonsense are you spouting now?''

''On the…on the Bifrost. You know. With Thor, and your father…'' Tony could feel he was wading into deep water here, deep, dangerous water filled with sharks that were likely to bit his head off. Yet he plunged on; he never had known the art of subtlety or minding his own business. And he didn't care much for either. ''You gave yourself up. You surrendered. You shouldn't have done that''.

''How dare – what is this – what – he is not my father! I thought I told you to GO AWAY!''

Loki's voice was a low hiss, he sounded livid, shocked and livid, and Tony knew he'd crossed a line. The only thing was to backtrack NOW or carry on, as fast as he could, and hopefully he'd make it out alive.

Fuck it. He liked risks. Risks were fun.

''Ok, ok, sorry. Odin. With Thor and Odin. They…they didn't want you to do that. They were angry, sure, and upset. But they'd caught you. They were holding on. But you only saw that they were letting you go… and I…I was just thinking, thinking how…that was nearly me. I nearly died too. Probably should have done. But at the last second, I remembered… remembered why I needed to hold on. Remembered the people who were holding on to me. I realised I could save myself with my own hands, for myself and them. All it took was my own brain and a few bits of material that luckily were more useful to me than these…these fucking evil bastards ever expected. I put my strengths to good use, the strengths that had not so long ago seemed like dead weights around my neck. I took everything that everyone had ever thrown at me and I created a way to live, to carry on. You might not have done the same on the bridge, but…you should have done. And you can now. It's not too late''.

Tony surprised himself again with his words, he hadn't intended to tell Loki about the cave, he certainly hadn't intended to pour his own heart out. Wasn't he meant to be making Loki talk? But it seemed honesty wasn't his perogative when he was talking to the Loki, everything just blurted itself out of it's own accord. To Loki, the god of lies. Huh, the irony. But Tony found himself not minding; found himself actually wanting Loki to hear him, wanting Loki to listen.

''Such sentiment...''

Loki's voice was a whisper now, and much closer this time, it appeared he was standing right behind the door.

''This empathy…you say you identify yourself with me, yet we remain opposites. Enemies. You talk of my family, how they supposedly cared for me, yet you hate your own in the same way. You sit there, now…you pretend it is all OK, that everything has changed, that you are different. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors, but they are part of you, and they will never. go. away''.

Tony felt a pressure on the door, and heard Loki's voice through clenched teeth, he could imagine Loki leaning there, screwing his hands into fists, tears falling from his eyes. He sounded desperate again; desperate and confused and defeated, yet still angry, and Tony wasn't sure how to respond. For the past 20 years he's taught himself to find the silver lining of every cloud, but it's clear to him now that Loki has only ever noticed the rotten core of every apple.

''You're wrong'' Tony manages, and finds to his own surprise and alarm that it is his voice which is now shaking, his voice that's on the wrong side of wobbly.

Loki's laugh was no more than a particularly harsh sob, and lasted only a few seconds.

''Oh? Care to elaborate?''

Tony took a deep breath. He'd be fucked if he was going to start bawling like a baby. Hell, if he wasn't a man he'd be blaming PMS and leaving Loki to go in search of chocolate and where he left his normal emotions; where he suspected they'd been hiding for days.

''The horrors. You're wrong that they never go away. They do. Want to know how? You actually just said it yourself, you were right for this bit: they are part of you. And that means you get to control them. You get to decide if they stick around or not. Yes, they try and cling on, they stick, they leak into other stuff, they try and drown you…but you keep on squashing them and fighting them. And in time, they get smaller. They don't go far, and you have to remind yourself every single day what it really means to be you, what you're worth, because if you don't, they'll come back – but just like with getting rid of them, only you are responsible for letting them back''.

Loki was listening; Tony could hear his breathing, shallow and uneven. He continued.

''Look…I once thought I wasn't good enough too. Wasn't smart enough, wasn't worthy enough, wasn't anything enough. My father was hard to please, and that's putting it extremely lightly. It's not that he never liked me; it's that he was indifferent to me. And I guess that's even worse. Outright dislike, you can harden yourself against. Apathy, detachment…that just fucks you up. He was so cold. He had better things to do than waste time on me, someone who would always fall short and never live up to his expectations. He didn't see I was worth the effort. No matter what I did. And goddammit, it took me a long time to convince myself I was worth the effort, and that it was his loss, and his mistake. I'm clever. Genius actually. I graduated MIT at 17, I was best in every year. At everything. I was building cars when I was 6 and rockets when I was 7. But he didn't care, because he'd already done it all. He didn't need me to be proud of; all he cared about was himself and his own achievements. All the shit I took part in was all just a massive attempt to please him. It took me a long time to realise I didn't need to impress him anymore, because he was never going to care. He acted like I was nothing, even when I would have given him everything''.

Tony felt as if he'd just run a marathon, his heart was beating maniacally against his ribcage and his head was pounding; classic symptoms of reliving memories that involved Howard Stark. He swallowed nervously, hating the lump in his throat, hating that his past could make him feel like this after all this time. Hating the fact that it appeared talking to Loki somehow deactivated both the plug and the filter he normally used on memories like this.

''The story of the lost boy…how touching''. Loki had clearly tried hard to sound disparaging and mocking, but the weakness of his voice betrayed him. ''Pray excuse me if I fail to weep for you. You talk of being nothing…but until you have truly seen what nothing is…until you have been lost inside of nothing…I cannot afford you my sympathies''.

Closing his eyes and pressing his fingers tightly against his eyelids, Tony forced himself to finish what he'd started, forced himself to say what was also horrendously painful to admit, but in an entirely different way. He wasn't looking for Loki's sympathies, but he'd damn well got himself into this conversation now, Loki wasn't having the last word that easily. This mess was ending, here, today, now.

''This isn't about nothing anymore. I wasn't nothing. And neither are you. That's the point. You might have been there, but you're back now, you're here, and you're somebody. Somebody with a chance. I had my chance, and I had people that believed in me. People that saw me, self destructive and abusive, and taught me how to cut the crap. They taught me I didn't need to change who I was, just needed change my attitude towards myself. And you know what, it worked. I believed them. My weaknesses turned into my strengths. My strengths got stronger. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I am saying, at last, I'm happy. You've got to let people in, you've got to listen to them – the right people. You've shut everyone out for so long you've forgotten that some of them really do care. Thor cares. Your mother cares. Your father, for all his faults, cares about you too - in a way mine never did. Odin's made mistakes, fucking planetary sized ones, I get it - but he still loves you. My father couldn't even muster up the energy to love. Yes, you've been a little shit, but people are still willing to believe in you. And as long as you have that, you're never nothing and you're never truly lost.''.

He felt shaky, he wasn't used to heart to hearts and he wasn't used to being the shoulder to cry on. And he was shocked at the part of him that had almost said 'me included' after 'people' in his second to last sentence. Almost said. He did believe in Loki, of course he did, or he wouldn't be crouched uncomfortably on the floor spilling out his whole life story in an effort to make Loki get a grip on his own; but still. Admitting that to Loki came dangerously close to admitting he cared for Loki. And he'd like to get that grey area coloured in in his own mind first, thank you very much.

There was no answer from Loki, although if he was brutally honest Tony hadn't really expected one. What was Loki going to do, suddenly rush out and hug him because he admitted to having daddy issues too? Go and start chatting to Thor like nothing had happened and demand he take them both back to Asgard so he could tell Odin he loved him? He'd come to talk to Loki, and he'd talked until he had nothing more to say. He'd given Loki everything now. It was his call. If Loki couldn't see what Tony was trying to tell him, then…then maybe he couldn't be reformed. Maybe it would be best to hand him over to be punished. The thought made Tony's stomach squeeze painfully, and he couldn't quite bring himself to move away from the door, so he remained sitting there uncomfortably cramped against the frame until the shadows on the floor started getting longer and the light started getting dimmer. He'd done what Fury had wanted, he'd done more. He'd shown Loki the most vulnerable parts of him, that was not something he did lightly – in fact he couldn't remember talking to anyone outside of the Avengers, Rhodey and Pepper in this way before. It scared him, but it didn't feel wrong. And that just scared him even more.

There'd still been no sound from inside the bedroom, and Tony wondered briefly if he was still in there, before the dismissing the thought, it was stupid – Loki might not enjoy being Tony Starks houseguest right now, but where else did he have to go?

Finally pulling himself to his feet, Tony wandered stiffly downstairs to his workshop, stopping off on the way to grab a bottle of whiskey and a fresh glass. He knew when to bother enticing sleep, and unsurprisingly, this wasn't one of those times. What kind of time it actually was, he'd be damned if he had a fucking clue.

XXXXX

The first chinks of daylight that crept through the window slits and into the workshop reflected off hundreds of bits of metal, fibreglass, tools and work surfaces before continuing to make their way slowly across the room, revealing a half empty bottle of amber liquid stood next to a glass tumbler, a tumbler which was holding a small drop of the same amber liquid and being clutched by a worn and oil smudged hand. This hand belonged to an arm, an arm with the sleeve of some stained and burnt overalls rolled up to the elbow, an arm that was attached to a slumped shoulder; the shoulder of a man hunched over his desk, eyes half closed and mouth dry and hair sticking up at every angle possible.

Tony Stark hadn't been to bed that night, and he couldn't even say he'd slept. More, passed out in a semi-drunken, semi-exhausted stupor at 5am, fingers still curled around the substance that happened to be his escape, his pleasure, his worst and most addictive habit. He had recovered from being an actual alcoholic years ago, although he was definitely still 'a man who liked his drink' (however much he told himself these were different people); but he hadn't been on an all night bender in a long time. A long, long time. And he'd done this one alone. Which made that 'long time' even longer.

Mumbling something incoherent and shifting slightly in his chair, he attempted to open his eyes, peeling away at the scratchy layer of tiredness that begged him to leave them closed, before clearing his throat, wondering who had replaced his tongue with the entirety of the Sahara desert without him noticing. As he blinked, becoming accustomed to the silvery pale light of day, he noticed the bottle in front of him and smelt his own exhale of breath, the jarring, sickly scent of alcohol that burned and twisted through his nostrils and made him abruptly aware of the stabbing pain currently attacking the centre of his forehead. Fumbling about in his desk draw for the bottle of water he knew he kept there, he squeezed his eyes together again, attempting to rid himself of the all too familiar blurred vision, and dragged a hand roughly through his hair.

Locating the bottle of water and throwing it down his throat, Tony wiped his lips and staggered to his feet, gripping the back of the chair in his unsteadiness and waiting until everything stopped swaying before attempting a strange walk/shuffle hybrid over to the door. Memories of the previous night were slowly coming back to him, foggy at the edges but just about clear enough to discern, each making his headache spasm painfully as he tried to focus.

~the previous evening~

He'd had a few shots of whiskey to take away the bad taste his earlier words about his father and his childhood had left in his mouth, and searched for something to distract him, anything to take his mind off his emotions. He didn't 'do' thinking about emotions for this long, unless the ones in question were related to humour, sarcasm and excessive wit, in which case he felt entirely comfortable. Seen as he didn't feel very witty or funny, and there was no one around to be sarcastic to, he'd opted for his second crux, his true calling –making stuff. Cutting things and moulding things and burning things and designing things, things that he could give his all to, things that required nothing back. He'd started tinkering with his suit, getting the last of the scratches and dents out from the battle in New York, but he couldn't get Loki entirely out of his mind. Because Loki appeared to be one of those things that he did need something back from, as much as it confused and annoyed him to admit it. Silence wasn't good enough, he couldn't figure out silence.

He'd thought of Pepper and Yinsen and Rhodey, the three people who he had relied on, who brought him back from the brink, who believed in him and trusted him in a way no one else ever had, in the way he always wanted his father to. They had become his new family; had given their life to him, in different ways. Yinsen had literally sacrificed himself to give Tony a chance, to give him a new start, and to this day it still blew Tony away to think of just how much love and faith his friend must have had in him to do that. Yinsen hadn't given up when he died; he had given Tony a gift. And Pepper and Rhodey were the ones who stayed with him and taught him how to cherish this gift, day after day, month after month, year after year. He owed his everything to all of them, and he loved them equally as he had no other. And they, in turn, loved him, and this was perhaps the most important factor.

He'd told Loki that things got better because people had cared for him. That Pepper and the others had helped him because they loved him, admired him, believed in him, wanted to help him. He had let himself be helped because he saw that they'd meant it.

He'd also told Loki the god still had people that cared for him too, that he had to look through his barriers and see who they were. Had he included himself in those people? Why was he even thinking like this? Why did it matter to him, really, if Loki accepted peoples love or not?

He'd realised with ongoing, burning clarity that he couldn't go on pretending that he was helping Loki just because they'd had similar shit happen to him, because he felt sorry for him. That had been the original incentive, sure, but now he realised it was something more. It had to be something more and Tony didn't know when the something had started, but it was definitely here now, and he could see it as clearly as he could see the wires he was examining in front of him.

He cared for Loki.

And that was that. He'd said it. Said it inside his head, to himself, but he'd still said it. He fucking cared about this, he wanted Loki to come out from under his mountain range of crap, he wanted Loki to reform. He'd always thought Loki could do it without giving much though to why he should. Beyond the obvious, it's-safer-for-the-entire-9-realms-and-no-one-likes-to-feel-bullied thing.

This proved to be exactly the incitement his body needed to start a full blown panic attack, his brain bypassing logic and catapulting itself into a freak out of epic proportions, his hand dropping the bit of suit-arm he was polishing, and his legs sitting him down in his chair so he could process this from a more stable perspective. A more stable, alcohol soaked perspective.

Hearing the semi-hysterical noises bubbling out of his mouth that in some parallel universe could probably pass for laughter, he'd found himself shaking his head furiously, a million thoughts bouncing off the inside of his head one after another. The laughter had stopped when he'd realised he didn't actually find any of them funny.

Because he'd realised that however bizarre, and fucked up, and completely mental, and utterly unexpected this turn of events was, it didn't make him want to give up. It didn't make him want to run in the other direction, screaming, it didn't make him want to forget Loki ever existed and to never see his face again, even though that's what he usually felt about people who confused him and who demanded too much from him. This time, he wanted to actually give Loki what he asking for and he wanted Loki to know he wanted to give it.

And because he couldn't just barge upstairs again and be all hey Loki, and another thing, I actually care too, yes me, really, ok bye he'd reached again for the bottle of whiskey and proceeded to focus on nothing more than the noise the liquid made as it splashed into the glass and the tickling burn it gave as it trickled down his throat. One, two, three, five, seven shots. He needed numbness. Every fibre of him seemed to be screaming with questions and Pepper wasn't there to explain it all to him in her calm balanced voice and soothe him and make him go to bed and convince him he hadn't gone completely insane.

But then again, he didn't need her to convince him of anything, he knew he hadn't gone insane. Well, not in the strictest sense. This whole situation was fucking insane.

Sometimes, he really, really hated his perfect abilities of intelligence and insight. They were only fun when he was analysing other people, not himself. Fuck being such a goddam genius, he thought, and fuck Loki for being so, so Loki. And he'd proceeded to pour and demolish shot number 9.

~return to morning~

Ah. Right. Yes. And Number 9 had turned into Number 10 and Number 11 and he'd succumbed to that warm fuzzy feeling of intoxication, concentrating only on the lightness of his head and the heaviness of his limbs. It was a blessed relief, blessed but temporary, because now he was awake again and he had the most screaming hangover and all the feelings of the previous evening had returned and they were stabbing at his already agonising headache and he felt like utter shit and he hadn't decided if he wanted to throw up yet or not and goddammit he needed a coffee.

Grunting incomprehensibly, he staggered out of the workshop and made his way to the elevator. Coffee was first on the agenda. He could deal with coffee. Everything else would just have to wait.

Just a clarification point in case my page breaks aren't sufficient to explain the time changes: Firstly it's evening, then Tony wakes up in his lab hungover, then he recounts the night for us, then finally he's back in the to his morning hangover, staggering up the stairs for coffee. I really hate how the page breaks are so weird on this site!