For an amount of time he couldn't pinpoint, everything around Tony was a blur of blackness, voices and fleeting images. He slipped in and out of consciousness, but when he opened his eyes, he was sure that Loki was there more often than not, sometimes there were other people, too. Frigga was there with a concerned frown that became a reassuring smile as she saw him opening his eyes. He was pretty sure she said something, but he couldn't remember her words for all he was worth. At some point, he fell asleep for good, and surprisingly enough, he wasn't jolted awake by nightmares.

Waking was a hesitant process. Tony knew somewhere deep down in his sleepy mind that if he woke up, he would have to deal with a concussion that brought headaches, nausea and a bunch of other unpleasant side effects. Still, he did wake up, and he felt...

...good.

Surprised, he blinked and opened his eyes. There was no stab of pain when the sunlight coming in from the window met his eyes and as he pushed himself up onto his elbows, the world did not do some crazy flips around him. He was... fine. Day four began not half as horrible as he had expected.

"Good morning, Anthony", Loki's voice came from his right. He turned around to see the god critically eyeing a beautiful, white and silver dress that floated in the air in front of him.

Tony raised his eyebrows and quipped: "Wow, that for me? Thanks, I'm sure that it's gonna go great with my eyes."

Loki turned towards him and smiled coldly as he responded: "This is for Freyja."

With a disbelieving look, the engineer swung his legs off the bed and stepped over to the floating dress, extending a hand as he said: "Wait, so I'm not judging you here, but I kinda can't see how you give her presents after the shit she's pulled. I mean, I -"

He was yanked back by his arm just as he was about to touch the silken fabric and stared at Loki with wide, startled eyes as the mage hissed: "Do not touch that thing!" His grip on Tony's arm was near bruising. "It is practically drenched in contact gift. Although it will not kill Freyja immediately – that would be far too obvious – it shall be her end. It usually only kills after touching the skin for a few hours and then there is still a delay so it shan't be too obvious but you – I have no idea how it would affect you, you are mortal and..." Loki's voice trailed off as he apparently noticed how tightly he was holding on to Tony and he released his grip. His last words were spoken very quietly and with an almost anxious look at the inventor: "You are so... fragile."

The inventor swallowed, surprised by Loki's sudden outburst and the unusually clumsily worded sentences that followed. He didn't manage to reply much more than a quiet "Oh" before the prince cleared his throat and declared, in a more controlled voice: "Mother and one of our healers have been here last night to take care of you, but since you are uncomfortable with being touched, I have not let them wash you beyond what was necessary for the treatment." Subconsciously, Tony lifted a hand to the back of his head to find that there was indeed still blood crusting strands of his hair together. "The bath is ready whenever you are." The prince finished with a gesture towards the bathroom door.

"I..." Tony found himself actually lacking something to say. "I... thank you, I guess." Before the scene could become awkward, he vanished into the bathroom. It was warm and filled with steam as if the tub had been filled for quite some while. It would probably be pleasant to get all the dried blood off, he supposed. Ew, it was going to be all over the bedsheets...

Shaking his head, he struggled out of the leather pants. The tunic had been stripped off by Loki the evening before – oh shit, he realized with a flash of panic, Loki had stripped off his shirt and he had been standing in front of him with his chest, with the arc reactor completely bare and Loki had – Loki... Loki hadn't done anything. Tony breathed in and out deeply. Nothing had happened. Nothing would happen, seeing how Loki had saved him just the day before. The god just didn't seem like the abusing type, and the worst thing he had done so far war asking questions, prodding and poking in his past, and being smart enough to figure out most of the answers himself. It was not that different from what Tony did – had been doing, he corrected himself, when he was back on Earth.

He discarded the leather trousers and made his way over to the bath. The hot water engulfed him and he almost moaned while sitting down on the steps that led into the middle of the tub. If this wasn't heaven, he didn't know what was.

Of course, the bitter-biting taste of the palladium still lingered in his throat and he was also a slave in a land that only existed in myths, but apart from that? Yeah, he was okay. Surprisingly okay. To avoid thinking about that fact too much and possibly start questioning it, he started to scrub the dried blood off his back and then out of his hair. Meanwhile, he thought about the events of the day before. Not the abduction and what followed, no; about the bridge. The Bifröst.

His way home.

Absently, he foamed up some of the herbal-smelling soap stuff. If he could get back to Earth, he had access to his workshop and could find a way to solve the palladium issue. The only thing he needed to do was convince Loki of it – and that couldn't be too hard, could it? After all, the god had resolutely forbidden him to die and he was only following that order. If he could only get to his tools – and Pepper and Rhodey and JARVIS and Happy – he was sure he would be able to find a solution. He always did, after all.

With that idea in mind, he left the bath (because as relaxing as it was, when Tony Stark has an idea, he doesn't just sit there and wait till the bath runs cold – which seemed to be impossible with these Asgardian things, anyway. There had been times where he had bolted out of a room in the middle of a meeting because he had had an idea. He could do that; normal people would possibly be considered weird for it, but he was rich, so he was eccentric. Heh). While towelling himself dry he noticed a neatly folded stack of clothes on the floor next to the entrance that he hadn't noticed before. Well, that spared him the awkward situation of either pulling the bloodied stuff back on or going naked. Thank God for... gods?

When he re-entered his room two minutes later, Loki sat on the desk at the wall, a parchment before him and a quill – an honest-to-god quill – scraping over it. Upon hearing Tony, he looked up with the same cold smile as before. It made the inventor shudder; this was not the Loki he had gotten to know during the past three days. This one here was calculating and ruthless and had, on the course of one night, gotten his hands on contact poison and a dress that he was planning to use that against the person who had dared to touch what he considered to be his. Without even showing a trace of hesitation or, God forbid, regret.

Curiously, Tony leaned over the desk to have a look at the letter that was coming into existence under Loki's pale, slender fingers. Frowning, he stared at the neat handwriting that filled the page in dark green ink and formed words in a language that the engineer didn't recognize at all, and he spoke bits and pieces of many languages. That was, human languages. The single characters seemed familiar enough, although there were some that seemed somewhat strange (did 'ð' equal 'd'?), but their order just made no sense to him. He had ended up in some kind of Norse mythology world... thing, so maybe that was actual Old Norse?

"Wait another minute", Loki said as if he had been reading his thoughts while he finished the letter and signed It with his name (Tony could make that much) before holding a hand over it that emitted a faint green glow. Right before Tony's eyes, the letters shifted and rearranged until the letter on the desk was written in neat, curvy, green, English sentences. Eyes wide with awe, he reached for it and picked it up to skim the letter over, his grin getting wider and wider with every word. Loki apologized for his impulsive reaction, hoped that Freyja would forgive him and accept his gift as a sign of his deep regret for all he had wronged her.

After finishing the letter, he handed it back to Loki who undid or reversed or whatever you did with spells that made the parchment return to its previous form. Tony watched as he folded it, carefully slid it into an envelope and sealed it with wax, imprinting the green patch that the candle had dripped onto the paper with a sign showing a snake biting its own tail.

"So", he began carefully, "think she's gonna fall for that?"

"Of course she will", the mage replied while blowing onto the cooling wax. "Freyja is vain and arrogant. She is far too narcissistic to see behind some pretty words. She is so very easy to placate." And there was that smirk again.

"You said something", Tony suddenly remembered and of course, his tongue was faster than his brain once again. "Back in the cave." Loki raised his eyebrows in question. "When Freyja brought on her stereotypical villain-speech, you said something about your kids and how she had..." The sudden tenseness in the god's body made Tony's voice trail off. Alright, he could have been a little more sensitive about that. "It's not like you have to tell me", he added hastily. "It just sounded so..."

"We don't talk about them", the prince interrupted, his tone quiet and strained. He didn't meet Tony's eyes, instead straightened out the perfectly immaculate envelope. Okay then.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to – you know. I just was curious and – forget it. Let's change topics. I've got an idea." Tony cleared his throat and tapped the arc reactor where it sat under his tunic. "About this." Loki looked up and nodded for him to continue. "Well, the problem is the palladium, the element that powers this whole thing. Mostly. It's a bit complicated. Anyway, it's poisonous – as you might have noticed – and gets into my bloodstream, but I can't take the reactor out because of... reasons. So I have to find a replacement element, but I'm afraid I don't know which one. Might know how to find out, though." He hesitated. Something told him that Loki wasn't going to like that last part.

"Well?", the mage asked when Tony didn't continue.

But, he reminded himself, that was Loki's will after all. He had ordered him to do something. Taking a deep breath, the engineer rushed out: "I would've to go back home for that."

As expected, Loki's expression immediately darkened as he demanded sharply: "Would you now. And, pray tell, why is that?"

Tony felt his heart drop and swallowed. This didn't look too good. "'Cause I got all my resources back there and it's..."

"Because in Asgard, the Golden Realm, home of the most powerful beings in all the Nine Realms, we do surely possess less resources than a mere mortal", the god interrupted sharply, almost disdainfully, and, okay. Point to Loki. "You could have thought of something better, couldn't you? I am not letting you go, Anthony." With that, he grabbed the envelope and stood up from the chair, did some weird stuff that made the dress disappear and then left the room.

Tony stood rooted to the spot for a few seconds, then he drew a deep, shuddering breath and slumped down on the closest surface available, which happened to be the chair Loki had been occupying just moments before. This was... this... was unexpected. Of course, he had known that Loki was technically his owner, but he... he had acted so little like the ones Tony had had before that...

Yeah, let's face it, he thought to himself. You totally fell for that one. The trick had been great though and maybe he had just wanted to see something good in Loki, had made him the positive thing he needed so desperately in his life right now. Naturally, that had been a huge mistake. But then again, what the hell had he expected? Loki was not some angel that had fallen into his life and the idea had been silly from day one. In the end, he was stuck here like he would be stuck with every other 'owner'.

Just with regular meals, your own room, people to talk with, clothes, a complete lack of senseless punishments..., a treacherous voice in his head whispered. Not helping. When it came down to what was important, it was the same with Loki as it was with everybody else. He was trapped and he was not going to get home (and that he had been so close to thinking of Asgard as a new home just a day ago, just how naïve was he? This particular cage might be golden, but it was a prison nonetheless).

Tony willed himself to slow down his breathing and eased the hold he had taken of the edge of the table, clutching the wood so tightly his hand hurt. Slow, steady breaths, he told himself, breathing in and out. It wasn't that bad. He'd seen worse. He would just need to find out how to get to the sparkly rainbow bridge. And sneak past the all-seeing gatekeeper. And learn how to operate that thing. Yup. Couldn't be too hard. Well, he thought bitterly, it's not like I don't have enough time at hand. Unless, of course, he died of palladium poisoning before figuring out anything because yeah, there was that, too. He'd have to loot the smoking ruins that were his life for something pleasant.

Breakfast would be nice, for one. If he remembered correctly, the last time he had had something to eat had been the breakfast with Loki in Vanaheim, which had been yesterday morning and through Freyja's little stunt they hadn't even finished that. Looking out of the window, he supposed it was almost noon.

For another minute, he sat in the room contemplating whether he should get out on his own or not, but the gnawing hunger (and possibly the opportunity to do something Loki hadn't told or allowed him to do) didn't take long to win that battle. Soon, he was heading for the kitchen, the first place coming to mind. It wasn't like that was too difficult.

...If this fucking castle just wouldn't look the goddamn same in every Christ-forsaken golden hallway. It was great. Craptastic. He was going to starve here before he figured out what the hell this dibshit of a constructor had thought when he had created this golden, sparkly, ugly monument of exaggeration and decided to damn all logical floor planning to hell, because this fuckity fuck of a –

Just when he was about to run out of English swearwords and wanted to move on to Spanish ones (some of those were really creative), there was the sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway and for once, he gladly moved towards it. About time – apparently, princely castle wings weren't frequented all that often from people who weren't guards in fancy (ridiculous and golden) armours. Rounding a corner, he catches the eyes of the men and immediately hears them quietly starting to chatter among each other. What is he doing here? – I have never seen him before. – He is probably a servant. Jeez, those guys were just as professional as kindergarten knights. Well, maybe they just sent the guards in training here since no intruder would ever get far enough to reach the princely quarters. Or they were all just really, really dumb, he thought while continuing to listen to the hushed whispers. Is that not the prince's new slave? Seemed like they were getting there.

"The one and only!", Tony exclaimed. "And because of the" stupid-as-fuck construction of this barbie castle "most complicated architecture of this magnificent palace, I seem to have lost my way." He was really picking up on the Shakespearian English here. "You wouldn't mind giving me advice to reach my goal, would you?" He even tried a British accent. It didn't sound all that bad.

After a short pause, one of the guards nodded and began a lengthy explanation of the castle's layout and how the different floors and wings were arranged instead of just fucking pointing him in the right direction, for the love of God – no, not that one. By the end of the lecture, Tony thought he had an idea where he had to go (and even if he didn't, he'd rather die of starvation than listen to that guy for even one more minute).

He did find the kitchen after all, leaning against the door with all his weight to get the stupid thing open (because seriously, why had kitchen doors to be made of solid metal?) and slammed it behind him, which went by mostly unnoticed due to the busy clatter of plates and knives and whatever the hell else in the room. Also, possibly, because it was hard to slam a door heavier than oneself.

The best mood I've been in in months, he thought sarcastically while making his way to the table where he had worked the last time, slumping onto the bench with a totally fake "Good morning, ladies!" to the women who were already busied with various states in the production of – hey, were that cookies? Did they have stuff like that in Asgard?

"Anthony!", a blonde woman (Brenda?) exclaimed with a large smile. "I heard you have been to Vanaheim with the princes? Tales have been told already, is it true that there was an ambush by Vanir rebels? That there was a battle? It was said that –"

"Well, actually", Tony interrupted, not really in the mood for mindless chatter, "it was all pretty neat and friendly right up to the point where that sulky little blonde bitch", and there went the Shakespearian English, "decided to take her fucking frustration out on –"

"Anthony!", Marianne's voice cut in as she set a bowl of the mushy berry-porridge-stuff down in front of the inventor. "I cannot believe you kissed your mother with that mouth", she scolded with a light frown, sounding more like a mother than Maria Stark had ever done. Tony left that line of thought alone pretty quickly and just grumbled some response along the lines of "of course, ma'am" before stuffing his mouth with his breakfast/lunch/brunch/whatever. It was food, that was all that counted. Marianne seemed to pick up on his mood (well, it was probably hard not to do so) and actually rubbed a hand over his cheek like he was some child as she asked: "Oh, my boy, what has happened that you must scrunch up your pretty nose like that?"

Tony choked on the spoonful of purée he had been trying to swallow, forcing out an "Excuse me?!" between two coughs. When he could breathe again, he glared up at Marianne and stated: "I am not a child!"

"Of course not", she replied with a friendly smile and damn, she was horribly good at this sort of thing.

"I just... had a bad start today, that's all", the engineer allowed (it certainly was one way to put it) and gazed down at his bowl. He was hungry, but had to force himself to eat anyway, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

"I see", the cook answered, still smiling that motherly-gentle smile (he didn't see it, but he could very clearly hear it in her voice). "Is it one of Loki's moodswings? Don't you take those to heart." Tony glanced up at her in surprise – he couldn't imagine that Loki approved of things like that being spoken out loud or even thought – and she winked. "He used to come here as a child when Thor and his friends made fun of him. Oh, and what shenanigans this little boy could think of." Her eyes glittered in fond memories while Tony still tried to catch up with what she was saying. Loki? Pulling pranks on the kitchen staff? As if she had been reading his thoughts, Marianne added: "He has become more subtle in the course of the years, but he never stopped his little pieces of devilry."

Loki trolling the royal court of Asgard. The image certainly had the potential to make Tony smile, even if he wouldn't allow that right now. Alright, at least not too much. Instead, he asked: "So he's sort of the local trickster? Are we talking about the same Loki here?"

"Of course we are", came the reply. "Just you wait, he will be smiling again sooner than you know it. And then, you can ask him for a knife so you can shave again." Flushing despite himself, Tony scrubbed a hand over the growing stubble on his cheek awkwardly. "But don't you try stabbing him with it."

"Yes", a brunette sitting next to Tony threw in cheekily, "he becomes all sulky when you do that." The inventor, who had just started a third try to get some food down his throat, was coughing again and stared at her, then swallowed and shook his head. This lot was clearly... well. Unique was one way to put it.

After he had finished breakfast, his mood perking up slightly (but really only slightly; the events of the morning and the depressing thoughts following them still occupied his mind too much to be comfortable), he took over the tasks he had fulfilled the last time while the maidens showed him other steps for the preparation of the actually cookie-like things they were baking. He was fine with everything, really, as long as it kept his mind off Loki for now. He just... wasn't ready to think about that right now. Cookie dough seemed good enough of a distraction (especially since nobody minded or mentioned how he maybe dug his fingers in a little too hard, taking on the kneading more viciously than it would have been necessary).

But of course, it couldn't last for too long. He was partly listening to the conversations around him, but more focussed on taking his frustration out on the poor, innocent dough ball in front of him. He barely noticed the hush falling over the room, only looking up when a two pale hands, thankfully attached to leather-clad arms, braced themselves on the edge of the table. The inventor swallowed and glanced up at Loki's frowning face. This didn't look too good.

"I believe we have talked about you wandering off on your own", the mage stated in a dangerously low voice.

Tony swallowed again, this time past the lump forming in his throat, and responded: "You told me not to run away, which is perfectly reasonable for a slave holder, but all I did was grab some breakfast and make myself useful, which is no crime. Or at least not where I come from." He was dying anyway, he didn't need to censor himself. "Sorry for not sitting in my room like some good little boy waiting for daddy to tell him to come out and play, I told you I was trouble before you bought me. Deal with it." There were several sharp intakes of breath from around him, but Tony ignored them in favour of returning Loki's icy glare.

"You are such an insolent –"

"I warned you!", Tony reminded him again, this time even interrupting the god in mid-sentence. A few beats of silence followed.

"Very well", the prince conceded eventually and straightened himself. Tony tried not to release his sigh of relief too obviously, wasn't sure if it worked though. "Now come, I have made some arrangements." The engineer hurriedly stood up from the bench as Loki turned around with an epic swirl of his leather coat (where had he been that he came back in full regalia?) and headed for the exit. Before he could leave the room though, Marianne stepped into his way and shoved a bundle of cloth – presumably containing some of the freshly baked cookie-things – against the prince's chest and pinched his cheek, despite being almost a foot smaller than him, as she said: "Come on now, boy, wipe that scowl off your face. A smile suits you so much better." Loki hissed a quiet "Marianne", but it sounded more exasperated than threatening and the woman just gave him her cheeky, trademark mother-smile before patting his the shoulder and shooing him out of the room, Tony following suit (but not without getting his own cookie bag pressed into his hands).

When the doors closed behind them, neither of the two moved or spoke. For a few seconds, they just stared at each other, Tony raising his eyebrows in a slightly expectant, questioning look. After a moment, he reached (very, very slowly) into the bag with his cookies without breaking Loki's gaze, grabbed one of them and pulled it out in slow-motion, slowly raising it to his face. As he opened his mouth, there was a short twitch to the god's lips, and when Tony bit into the warm dough without moving a muscle that wasn't required for chewing, Loki huffed (and he was smiling, no matter how hard he tried to hide that!) and was the first to turn away and get a move on. The inventor followed with a grin plastered to his face, although he wasn't really sure why.

They didn't speak on the way to wherever Loki wanted to go, Tony was quietly munching away on his cookies (they had had a more complicated name, but there wasn't much of a difference to actual cookies, so...) until the god, after dozens of crossed hallways and descended stairs that led into yet another identical storey, finally halted in front of a set of double doors and turned around to declare: "You talked about resources. In here you will find tools, ores, metals and anything else your mortal mind can dream of. Should you need magical assistance, I can either provide that myself or organize someone who will." Tony was speechless and the god didn't wait for a response before pushing the door open, the metaphorical gate to heaven. Tony struggled to press down the urge to bounce up and down, because, come on now.

He was going to get his hands on alien tech. That was every scientist's wet dream, that was the cherry on the cake, the – oh look, the lab/workshop/smithy/room wasn't even golden. This was perfect.

Probably grinning like a loon, he entered the large room. The walls were lined with shelves that held all sorts of... things, things he needed to try and prod and poke and possibly make explode. He recognized some of the materials, but not nearly all of them, and he loved that. This was a chance to explore, to dive into a world no (human) scientist had ever seen. Almost trance-like, he wandered towards a shelf and reached out for the materials stored there.

"I take it you do not need any help as of yet?", Loki asked from behind him and Tony shook his head, waving a hand into the vague direction of the prince's voice and muttered: "Nah, I'm getting along just fine, don't worry." He was sure that there was a reply but didn't really catch it because hey, was that iridium? Stacked there just like that? If possible, his grin grew even wider. All of this was his to play with.

As it turned out, working here wasn't all that different from home. Sure, he had to do more things by hand, and for the first time in years he took notes on paper – or, to be more accurate, a roll of parchment, with a quill that took some time getting used to. All of it made him feel a bit like some sort of Harry Potter cosplayer – but well, professor Snape had left him the potions to play with, who was he to complain?

When the door opened again some time later, Tony was currently messing with the anti-protons created by a chunk of iridium and the effects it had on vibranium. They had vibranium here. And it was given to him to experiment on, so it probably wasn't raw. This was... this was like his workshop, just better (although he did miss his bots and JARVIS a bit when he found himself saying things like "Jay, put that in the folder for – ah. Right." He had even ordered Dummy to hold the fire extinguisher and only noticed his mistake when he had already burnt his fingers. Old habits die hard, after all). So, that had went wrong, but if he could just...

"Anthony?" Ah, right. The door.

"Yeah?", he asked, turning around and wiping some sweat of his brow. Loki stood in the doorway and Tony saw how the mage's gaze flitted down his body once before quickly settling on his face again. Oh, shit.

Hastily, Tony searched for the tunic he had discarded when the heat of the smithy had been too much to take while fully dressed. He had been alone then, it was okay, no-one there to stare at the reactor and the growing net of black lines around it... or possibly at other things, which was a possibility he didn't really want to consider. He had his back turned to Loki while snatching the tunic that he had thrown onto a table before and was just about to pull it back over his head as Loki's voice rang out from across the room: "What is that?"

Tony turned around, not pulling the tunic on yet, but holding it so it covered the reactor as he asked back: "What is what?"

"That thing on your back." The god made an impatient movement for him to turn around again while he crossed the room with fast, long steps. Hesitantly, Tony complied and waited until the footsteps behind him stilled. "Well?"

"I don't know about you", the inventor remarked sarcastically, "but I don't have eyes on the back of my head so I have no idea what you mean. Care to specify?"

"This", the mage said and there was a light touch to Tony's lower back that made him jump and whirl around with a hiss: "Don't. Touch. Me!"

Loki regarded him calmly as he responded: "You asked me to specify the –"

"Loki, I am not stupid!", Tony cut in sharply. "And you're not either, nor are you blind. You know fucking well what that is, so could you cut out the unnecessary rhetorical questions? It's not helping, you know?" With jerky movements, he pulled the tunic back on before he continued: "Yes, it's a burn mark. I got marked. Not sure if you got that memo, but I'm a slave, remember? And you're not my first owner. Stuff like that happens, at least to people like me, but that doesn't mean that you got to poke and prod at it until I snap!" With the last word, he slammed his hand flat onto the table next to him just to pull it back up immediately after. "Fuck!" Right. Burnt hand. And it hurt like a bitch. Clenching his jaw, he gritted out: "So, what where you here for again?"

It took a moment until Loki answered, his gaze cold and hard once again. His response was one quick word: "Dinner." A little surprised, Tony turned towards the window to catch sight of a – no, not a moon, two moons. God, of course, different world – this was a whole new sky for astronomy to discover, too! Oh, and apart from that... For how long had he been down here now? Loki had brought him here not too long after noon, so it was... around eight pm now? That meant almost eight hours in his new workshop, and it had felt like no time.

After a moment, he noticed that Loki had left the room while he'd been staring at the moon, and the inventor hurried to catch up with him. Getting lost again was definitely not on his to-do-list for this evening, thank you very much.

This time, the silence between the god and him was tense and uncomfortable. The only word he got from Loki was a clipped "Wait here" when they reached the prince's room. For a moment, Loki vanished in there and came back with a plate of steaming hot soup that he shoved into Tony's hands before he, quite literally, slammed the door into his face. The engineer stared at it for a second, wondering why his dinner had been in Loki's room. Had the god planned to eat with him?

Tony quickly discarded that thought while he headed for his own room. After all the snapping and bickering that had gone on between them for the whole day, no. Most likely not.

He ate without really tasting the soup and then changed into the soft garments hanging over the chair in front of the desk, coloured in the same dark red as his set of tunics, that were probably the Asgardian equivalent to pyjamas. Had those been here before? He couldn't remember; maybe he had overlooked them the first time and thus had slept I leather pants so far. Great, Tony.

Since he didn't feel the least bit tired, he stepped to the window and observed the foreign stars and the two moons above him. One of them had a reddish colour and was creepily huge, while the other, white and with an almost normal size for Earth standards, looked ridiculously small next to it. Did they have astronomy books here? All of this was new, practically laid out before him to be discovered. If he only had more time.

Eventually, he crawled onto the bed, snuggled up in his blanket and curled in on himself. He wasn't really tired, but didn't have anything to busy himself so he might as well try to sleep. It didn't even take him that much tossing and turning.

He is being held down and hears himself screaming something incoherent while the smell of burnt skin in his nose causes him nausea, combined with the blazing pain in the small of his back where the branding iron touches him. He struggles against the bonds and hands holding him in place, unable to discern one from the other, and then his whole body slumps when the iron is pulled back. He is gasping for breath, even the smallest movement hurts like hell, and he isn't sure if it is just sweat or if there are tears streaming down his face.

Next thing he knows, he is running, ignoring the flaring pain in his back and the voices around him. He doesn't know for sure where he's going, but it has to be up, up, up and out of the cave. There is a light, he can see it, and it takes a frighteningly long period of time for him to get there, but he manages, stumbling and breathing heavily around the painful pulses that his raw nerves send out from around the arc reactor and his branded back. When he looks up though, he is met with blue eyes and staggers back incredulously as Pepper, clipboard and pen in her hands, asks: "Would that be all, Mr Stark?" He shakes his head slowly, nononono, she's not supposed to be here, Pepper is good, she's the best thing that's ever happened to him, even if he never got to tell her, and now he has to watch in horror as she grows, her features twisting and shifting until it is Loki blocking the entrance of the cave, locking out the light and the hope that is out there, snarling: "I am not letting you go, Anthony!" Then he continues with Obadiah's voice: "Oh, Tony, not the money. It's the company. But I guess a spoiled little brat like you wouldn't understand that."

No I don't, he wants to scream, explain it to me, but there is not a sound leaving his throat as he heaves for breath in panic, stepping backwards, stumbling and falling and –

– jolting up in the bed with a scream that felt hoarse in his throat. Tony drew some flat, wheezing breaths, futilely trying to get the oxygen he needs into his lungs, he can't breathe, there's water and he can't get up because they're holding him, they...

"Anthony", a voice came from the bedside, Loki, and Tony flung the pillow in the direction that sound came from, choking out a strangled "No" as he retreated as far as the bed allowed. He could make out Loki's features in the darkness, and now he was on the bed and moving towards him which was wrongwrongwrong, and with a panicked yelp he scooted further away and was suddenly hitting the floor, his blanket tangled around him in a messy heap. He curled up on himself, clutching his head and wailing a constant stream of no no no no no no no, but suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder that didn't belong there. He jolted back and snapped "Don't touch me!" at the person attached to the hand. No-one touched him. They couldn't touch him. If they touched him then...

"Anthony", the voice repeated, this time more urgently. "Anthony, calm down. It's me. There is nothing –"

"You're just as bad as them!", Tony shrieked, his voice unnaturally high with panic. He was surprised he could manage a word at all, his heart felt like it was going to leap out of his throat at any second, thumping away with surges of adrenaline. "Stop touching me! Don't you dare –"

Loki cut him off, his voice harsh and sharp now: "Snap out of it, Anthony!" The angry tone caused the inventor to let out a frightened scream and he tried to pull the blanket over himself somehow, but it was yanked away and then he was pulled into a sitting position and leaned against the side of the mattress. It didn't seem to matter that he struggled against every movement, kicked and lashed out and screamed bloody murder, because less than a minute later, the god had him propped up against the bed and somehow held him in place which was not doing anything to ease Tony's fear, because he knew what came next, it always came once they had him –

"Breathe", came the next strict order. "In." Okay, he'd breathe, if he didn't resist then maybe... "Out." ...it wouldn't be that bad, he was... "In. Deeply." ...going to stand through this, they couldn't break him... "And out." ...they would never manage that. Nobody would. "In. Very good." Not even...

Loki.

His eyes snapped open and for a moment, his breathing picked up again and he almost slipped back into the red, bloody haze of the panic attack, but then he remembered that it was Loki who had just pulled him out of it. There was no reason to be afraid. He was alright. He wasn't sure if that was what Loki was saying – because his lips were moving, that much was sure – or if it was his own mind told him so, but it slowly caused his heart rate to drop to a normal pace again. Alright. He was okay. Everything was going to be okay. (Not that he believed that, but that was such a reassuring sentence to hear, even if it meant nothing.)

"Are you with me again?", Loki asked eventually. The engineer nodded, not trusting his voice yet, and the hold Loki had on him was loosing. Some part of his mind noticed that the mage hadn't touched him, but it was probably just that. The mage. Magic. He didn't even care if it had any logic anymore. The lack of pressure made his body slump and he drew his knees up to his chest to hug them tightly, curling himself up as small as possible.

Loki extended a hand towards him, apparently planning to pull him close or something like that, but Tony wasn't ready, not for this, not now, and his flinch was apparently impossible to miss since the god stilled in his movement. The quiet "Please, don't" that slipped the inventor's lips wouldn't even have been necessary.

For a few more seconds, there was silence, then the prince said quietly: "I assume you will want some time for yourself."

No, please don't leave me alone, you can't leave me like this, I hate being alone, please stay, Tony's mind immediately begged, but the only thing he replied was a hoarse: "Yeah."

The prince nodded, stood up with a quiet rustle of fabric and left the room on quiet, bare feet. Tony waited until the door clicked shut behind him, then he pulled the blanket up around himself, not mustering the strength to climb back onto the bed now. Instead, he settled for leaning his head against the mattress and (knowing for a fact that he was not going to find any more sleep this night) gazing out of the window. From this angle, neither of the two moons were visible and the bright stars against the black background of the universe reminded him so much of home that it almost hurt physically.

And if he cried a little for everything he had lost and was probably going to lose – it felt impossible to find a replacement for the palladium; even though he had had fun in the new workshop, he had also looked for something to resolve this horrible situation and found nothing. But well; if he cried, then it didn't mean anything; it wasn't like someone would be there to hear him anyway.