As Tony watches Loki play he can tell that Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost won't be lasting for much longer.
In the spaces between songs and outrageous acts he can tell that Loki is bored. He wonders if the band will even last to end of the tour.
The audience can't tell, but Tony knows Loki. He can read the impatience in the twist of his lips and the unconscious rocking of his patent-leather-clad feet.
With that realization comes a thousand others.
When the tour ends, so do they?
Before that song Tony would have said yes, if he'd let himself think about anything other than Loki's milk-white skin, and gorgeous flashing eyes, and long slender hands-
Tony mentally slaps himself before he starts vomiting saccharine little pieces of his own restrung organs on his shoes.
Even though Tony can't imagine a world without Loki in it, logical reality dictates that Loki goes back to London and Tony goes back...
Back to what?
Loki's gone home and Tony's still running, the one friend he had lost chasing some kind of romantic, erotic, neurotic ghost in lipstick and five inch heels.
And fuck. He doesn't even know how to go about finding Pepper. He met her on the interstate in Alabama. She was hitching a ride to nowhere really, just the next place. God knows where she's even from. Or if she has a home at all. She tried to play it like she was world-wise and savvy on all accounts, but when it really came down to it the girl had no idea what she was doing.
He left her in L.A and he hasn't thought of her since.
Tony feels like a class A asshole.
His hands start to itch and without any drugs doing loops through his system he realizes that he hasn't built, designed, or worked on anything more complex than odd jobs and broken instruments in nearly a year.
The thought sends a stab of physical need through him. He'd been an inventor of sorts since he could walk, taking things apart and putting them back together. The mechanical world made sense in a way that nothing else did.
That might make him like his father, but that's also what makes him Tony Stark.
Building and discovering and learning and tinkering and designing is what Tony Stark does.
Living in a doped up fantasy land with a lunatic that fronts a glam rock band is not what Tony Stark does.
Or not what he can do forever, at any rate.
Whatever his father is or is not, he can give Tony back his infinite resources and three floors of R&D.
It's not even like Tony saw him that often to start with. The Stark men avoided each other like the plague, only coming close enough for physical violence when Tony's mother pushed them together.
It has been a year nearly since he spoke to either of his parents.
Tony doesn't really miss either of them.
There is one person he does miss, however.
After all, it isn't entirely true that Tony Stark raised himself.
"Darling?"
It's almost as if Tony's snapped from sleep into wakefulness. When he comes to he's standing in the middle of the empty theatre, the only thing connecting him to earth is a single hand on his shoulder.
"Are you all right?"
No, he really isn't. But when Tony turns around and sees Loki dressed in brown corduroy bell bottoms and a shirt with an outlandish but not particularly outlandish design, looking a bit like a four year old awaiting approval, it feels like cool water being applied to a burn.
"I don't know," Says Tony, but when he threads his fingers through Loki's he can't help but smile.
Loki begins to lead him out of the theatre.
"I've never done that before." Says Loki as they walk.
"Done what?"
"Just gotten up on stage and played a song. No theatrics. No posturing. Just sound. And myself. It's liberating."
"Really? Even when you were starting out?"
"I always had a costume on. You've seen me. I basically live in costume. I always thought that, my voice wasn't enough, so maybe if I put on enough eye shadow it would distract the masses from my foul warbling."
"Your voice is beautiful." Says Tony almost before Loki's finished and Loki's smile could light up a small city.
"Transcendent?" He asks through the smile and Tony has no idea in hell how he's supposed to leave now.
"Always." Tony means it and Loki looks like he wants to cry, but never would. He holds Tony's hand even tighter.
Fuck it.
If there's no place for Loki in Howard Stark's R&D candyland then there's no place for Tony either.
Nyann: Thanks! If everyone doesn't hate me and possibly murder me by the time this is done, I might dabble in the verse a bit.
Tina: I AM THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS PINEAPPLE, DEMIGOD OF JUXTAPOSITION AND SETTING THINGS ON FIRE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND WORDS. I ACCEPT THEM INSTEAD OF SCAFFOLDING GOATS. I ALSO ACCEPT MASTERCARD.
Stormy: Loooooooooooooooooooooookkkk kkkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Russ: I usually only write fic to play around with stuff like that before I put it in books or whatever, so thanks for letting me know when you dig.
hulky: You should seriously savour these moments of calm/love/lust because writing the end is literally killing me, that's how much it hurts. For the love of fuck, I can't even write too much of it at once without feeling physical pain. You can't even imagine what I've done. I think you will all rise up in a rage and guillotine my sadistic moffat-y ass.
I AM CELEBRATING THE END OF MY FINALS BY GIVING YOU ANOTHER CHAPTER YAY. I'M FRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEE.