4

In his dreams, Tony makes Loki weak – he gives the god the strength of a kitten, the meekness of a new born lamb. There is a large part of him that thrills in the ability to render Loki helpless. Not many had detected this trait on him because of his day to day intensity, not even Pepper; but there is a part to Tony that is in love with his own lion-like laziness. Where the thrill was not the chase, but in the begetting. He likes to win. And then he likes to admire his winnings.

It has always served as a secret source of strength.

He often did it to technology, materials. Once in a blue moon he did it to humans; after all, he had moved the entire Avengers unit into his tower as if they were the ultimate edition collectables.

In his dreams, he did it to gods.

Tony never recognises the formal, almost archaic speech that spills out of his mouth in his dream-time; holdover perhaps from old movies, or some misplaced form of romanticism. Perhaps he thinks Loki would be more malleable to suggestions thus uttered.

Or, perhaps there is a small, sentient part of Tony that knows who he is (hero, human, not monster) and recoils from his baser desires, who creates distance from his own deeds through a different language.

Perhaps his dreams are not necessary those of Tony Stark, merely one who wears his face; demon, incubus.

Away from his pool his lush dreams has Loki encased head to toe in an oversized red cloak, the hooded kind Tony sees witches and virgins wear in classical children's illustrations. Somehow Tony knows that Loki is naked under that cloak; that his feet is bare and always stained with wet, moist soil. Tony's soil.

'Your lips are always blue,' Tony observes as he dips his fingers in the wet black soil and inserts them into Loki's mouth before he could protest. 'There. That's better.'

Somehow he could taste Loki's mouth through the earth, and it was better than kissing, better than anything that could be humanly envisioned.

He withdraws his fingers and examines Loki's silt stained mouth, the dark open waters of his eyes before wrapping scarlet robes around him. 'It will be better now, you'll see. I'll keep you warm.'

'You have taken away my skin,' the Loki in his dream laments.

'I have given you new ones,'Tony says and he gestures at the cloak. 'More luxurious, to keep you warm.'

'Nay, you have done terrible deeds. Please let me go.'

He could feel a smile carving into the flesh of his cheeks as he batted away the god's ineffectual struggling. 'Hush. You do not need a second skin, I'll secure you the most beautiful cloak. Red as your lips; as your eyes. Red as the gift I shall take from your body. I can buy us anything, Loki. Even in my dreams.'

'Please. Don't.'

'Let go, Loki. Let me own you.'

And then it was just soft cries and pale, yielding flesh beneath his rendering hands.

~o0o0o~

Behind the glass cage, Loki's copy hated him; hated. He ranted and screamed; exerted so much force that he tore the vocals chords in his own throat. He starved, preferring to grow listless and skeletal rather than take the sweet ripe offerings from Tony's hand. He had to be electrocuted, often, as punishment or just to induce some form of rest. And he inflicted terrible wounds on himself in his rabid, desperate attempts at escape.

But he was not the real Loki, and could only channel small trickles of magic, useless and ineffectual. A magnified voice to shout himself hoarse in. A few shattered pieces of furniture, easily replaced. A light with which to pace under at night.

A beautiful, helpless, wild and raging copy of the one in his dreams.

If Tony thought he had been sleepless before, it was nothing compared to the vigil of ensuring Loki did not have the opportunity to hurt himself by any permanent means, including repeating bashing his head against the glass until he left scarlet smears across the screen. Daily, his beautiful copy fought him, snarled like a caged tiger, hissing and scratching and attempting always to inflict damage. Once he even succeeded in breaking the ringer finger on Tony's left hand, very nearly severing it with his teeth. Tony was forced to administer a severe beating for this, something he did not enjoy.

His beautiful copy evades him, slippery as oil until he is caught and wrestled to the floor, bleeding mouth, purple marks everywhere which Tony learnt to read like calling cards – blue bruise from a ten am scuffle. Long, red line from three pm's shattered cup. Black eye from his forced-feed session at midnight.

Oh yes, Loki was determined. Determined and desperate and rabid, but Tony was patient. He had the patience of the earth, the ability to soak emotions up like a sponge with no reaction save the ones calculated to make the god tremble and empty more of himself until he became unwittingly exhausted, spent of the day's anger.

'How shall I tame you,' he whispers into the silence of the cage, '-how still and pliant you will lie beneath me when this is over. I have seen it Loki, I have done this to you, oh so many times in my dreams.' A promise; a taunt; knowing well that somewhere, somehow, Loki can hear everything the human said to his copy, would screech and promise great and terrible vengeance upon Tony, as excruciating as they would be creative.

He liked to watch Loki's copy roar his defiance; the air within filled with so much hatred and hostility that it was seemed like venom condensed on the glass between them. Loki's anger had no power over him. He had already broken the god and feasted on him in one dimension; he could do it again.

For now he had the real Loki to entrap by psychological means, and his fellow Avengers to evade.

~o0o0o~

'Is this for revenge?' Loki's copy abruptly asks him one day.

'It was never about revenge.'

'Then why?'

Tony laughs. 'The god of chaos, asking for explanations?'

Humiliated, his captive turns away.

'You know this is the way it has to be for us to happen.'

'There is no us,' Loki informs him, but his voice is dull. 'I will find you eventually.'

'Yes.'

'I'll kill you.'

'Yes.'

The god slams a hand violently onto the glass. 'Is this worth your life and the lives of everything you've lived to protect? Because I will root it out one by one, and I will destroy it all.'

Tony lifted his own arm, placed five fingers over Loki's palm on the other side of the glass. 'I will wait for you.'

~o0o0o~