Sold to the Devil

by Majinie

Canon Divergence. Obadiah Stane still sells Tony out the way he does to the Ten Rings, however, the Ten Rings and Stane make another deal to get rid of him and earn a bit of money. They sell him to space slave traders so he'll be a profit that will never annoy them again. X amount of months into his slavery Loki is on the same planet as him and buys Tony. [FrostIron/ Tony x Loki]

14. Chapter 14

Sorry, sorry, sorry for being so late! Real life got in the way, my big brother is at the hospital right now and so I had to care for the little ones. It's extremely exhausting.

Also, this is not beta'ed yet because I didn't want to leave you waiting any longer! Hope you have fun, the techno-magic-babble was kind of difficult. But I won't keep you from reading any longer. Sorry, sorry, sorry for being so late! Real life got in the way, my big brother is at the hospital right now and so I had to care for the little ones. It's extremely exhausting.

Also, this is not beta'ed yet because I didn't want to leave you waiting any longer! Hope you have fun, the techno-magic-babble was kind of difficult. But I won't keep you from reading any longer.

#

Tony was calculating, planning, setting up formulas and discarding them again, thinking about how far the Asgardian materials could bend the laws of physics. Or, to use a term he was more comfortable with, expand the laws of physics. Most of it happened in his head, but he had borrowed a quill and some parchment from Loki to scribble down some notes, too. Maybe for the Hogwarts-feeling of it, too. Nobody needed to know that though. Meanwhile, he advised Loki around through the workshop that had already taken a distinctly Tony-like character with tools and materials spread all over the workbenches.

Could you bring me that stuff over there? Yeah, the glowy one. No, put that there, please. Hey, you know what that is? Think it could be useful? Explosive? I love explosive! Okay, okay, not in my chest, you're right. Set that one down over there. What does the green one do? Do you know anything about the reddish stuff? How does it react with this one? I think it might be a substitute for the palladium if we put some of that in. Jesus, I need a particle accelerator. Uh, is that here meant to sparkle? And so on.

It was sort of funny, sitting on a table, wrapped in a fuzzy, warm coat that belonged to the god, and telling the god where to put stuff. He was ordering a god around here, a god and a prince and possibly the most sly and dangerous being he had met so far, because yes, Loki was all that – but he was also a witty, sassy bastard who loved playing pranks and was easily the kindest person Tony had encountered in months. So yeah, he wasn't all that horrible. Not like Tony had first thought (and who could blame him, really? It became sort of a default setting when you were passed from owner to abusive owner. When you assumed the worst, there was at least no chance of being surprised).

Or, well, there actually was. Loki was always in for a surprise. Tony had, of course, long since realized that Loki was no angel. No, he was far from it, that was sure; he murdered in cold blood when things didn't go his way (which, he'd admit that, was a really nice phrasing for the Freyja Incident. And yes, it was definitely capitalized in Tony's head) and he was not above manipulation. The god of lies, chaos and mischief, from what the engineer had caught. No, that was not some heavenly angel sent from whatever instance was up there.

But that wasn't what Tony wanted. It wasn't what he had expected. It wasn't what he had hoped for – when he had dared to hope, that was. He hadn't wanted an angel because he would never be able to even remotely live up to the expectations that a perfect being would be holding out. No, Loki was somebody he could deal with – he wasn't perfect, not innocent or anything, but he wasn't bad either. He was, apart from the whole god-and-prince-of-the-world-thing, a normal person. A kind person. With his... uh, flaws (cold-blooded murder and sly, sneaky deceit with a fucking dress), sure, but not a villain.

"Anthony?" He blinked a few times and noticed that Loki was standing in front of him, a concerned frown on his face. Huh, he'd drifted off a little there.

"Yeah, 'course, we gotta do the... thing", he muttered and stood up from the table. "Right then. I'm afraid I'll have to do the casing myself." Pulling the cloak tighter around himself, he strolled over to the anvil and took a long look at the tools and metals lying on the table next to it. With a deep breath, he shrugged off the cloak and folded it neatly, instantly missing its warmth, and stepped closer to the forge so the fire could compensate for it. Time to get to work, then.

The metal was easily bent to his will under his hands. He gave it another shape than the prototype he was wearing in his chest, because this one would be holding energy in an entirely different way if his calculations were even close to being right. After some consideration, he gave it a triangular shape – he could still alter that, should the need arise. It took him mere minutes to get into it again – after all, this was something he had done all his life. It felt a bit like coming home. He wondered whether Loki knew how much this laboratory meant to him after just one day, and then it stirred another question: when he managed to build the reactor, would he be allowed to keep this? The time down here? Loki had been generous before, but Tony didn't want to stretch his goodwill with asking for too much. With a small shake of his head, he dismissed those thoughts and focussed on getting even the smallest bits right, not all that easy with his hands as unsteady as they were, but not impossible. Nothing he hadn't done before.

All in all, finishing the casing was a piece of cake. From here on, things were going to get complicated. Well, at least he was warm again, the fire had done a great job with that. Now, he would need to figure out which elements would be most fitting to reproduce the energy pattern of the Tesseract. Some of these materials were extremely promising, he just needed to find out which ones would work together without being poisonous or radioactive or explosive. Yeah. Easy.

It was not fucking easy, especially since he was tired and exhausted, but not impossible. It couldn't be impossible. Basically, this was just what he had always done, just with less technical equipment and more god by his side. He could do it again. (Although it was a real challenge to work without a computer when he was used to having one all the time – he caught himself several times when he was about to tell JARVIS to google something or to file this or that piece of information away for later.) All he had to do was –

"Wait!", he exclaimed, his head snapping up as he dropped a chunk of metal to the floor. "Jesus, it's so easy! I've got all the Tesseract stuff here, I'm so blind, how did I not see this? My god, I can't use the old reactor schematics, this is something completely different. Ancient magical artefact or not, it's been created somehow and we've got all the materials here, all we have to do is recreate what people have already done before us!"

Loki cleared his throat and pointed out quietly: "Anthony, as much as I loathe to admit it, I think you might be overestimating me. The Tesseract is one of the Infinity Gems. They have been created by mages far more powerful than me and I don't think..."

"Ah, stop that", Tony interrupted. "I've got faith in you. The way you explained magic to me in Vanaheim, I doubt that this is beyond your capabilities. You just need to grasp the concept we need here, it's really not that hard. Well, maybe it is, but let's give it a try, okay?" The last sentence had sounded more desperate than he had intended it to, but he didn't see another way out. Loki couldn't give up if Tony didn't, right? It would only be fair if he gave it a try. Anything but doing nothing.

The prince seemed doubtful, but nodded. "Explain your plan to me, then."

"O-kay", he began, clasping his hands together as he thought about the best way to explain a particle accelerator to an ancient alien space viking god. "I think we've got all the materials now, the problem is how to get 'em to fuse to create a new one. I know how to do it, but there are some, uh... difficulties here. Like, you know, electricity and all that, also it's kind of difficult to just set a particle accelerator up without the equipment I'd usually have. I think I could manage, somehow, but for that I would have to build one and do actual plans on how to build it and the separate parts, and well, that could take a while, even for me. Meaning, at least three days and... yeah, you know the issue. So if you're able to kind of do the same thing with your magic, that would be extremely helpful."

Loki regarded him for a moment and then asked slowly: "What does a particle accelerator do?" Which was not as good as Okay I'm totally in, but a lot better than I don't think I can do this, right?

So Tony explained. He wasn't sure how long it took, but the god had told him one thing or the other about magic before their trip to Vanaheim had gone south and he tried to elaborate it in a way that would allow Loki to understand it so he could use it. Do it. Whatever. Magic was complicated. And how did you explain the finer workings of atoms and all to a Norse deity?

But well, Loki wasn't stupid. He grasped new concepts with an ease that could have made Tony jealous if he wasn't a genius himself. The prince posed exactly the right questions and learned things other people would have needed weeks or months to understand over the course of a few hours next to a forge and surrounded by metals and tools instead of books and graphics. It was incredible.

After an indefinite amount of time (it was definitely night outside now, but Tony honestly couldn't tell the exact time what with the two moons and everything), Loki grabbed some scraps of metals, random materials, and excused himself for a moment, just teleporting away. Before the engineer had the time to get too confused though, he was back with an armchair that Tony recognized from Loki's own room. He laughed upon seeing it, but it quickly turned into a long yawn; still, he declined Loki's offer to bring him back to his room. This was far too interesting.

He huddled himself into the cloak once again and sat down on the table, watching Loki in... fascination, not awe, yup, as he randomly chose two materials from the stack he had piled onto a table next to him and took each of them into one hand. For about a minute, he just examined them like they told him something when he looked closely enough, then Tony leaned forward and silently oh'ed as the small metal chunks were enveloped in a weak, green light. It illuminated Loki's features together with the fire of the forge and the mage's look of utter concentration only deepened as he slowly brought his hands closer together until they were right next to each other.

Tony felt himself openly gape as Loki proceeded (not that the god would pay him any attention to notice that). The small metal chunks began to hover about an inch above his palms and, right in front of the engineer's eyes, began to melt rapidly until the uneven scraps from before had become two small balls of molten metal, perfectly shaped and (luckily) not dripping onto his hands or anything. Admittedly, that was nothing like a particle accelerator, but Loki was apparently still experimenting himself and – Jesus Christ, he could melt metal in his hands! That was... Tony didn't even have a word to say what that was. He just silently watched as the prince brought his palms and therefore the metal balls together, causing them to flow into each other, practically fusing.

When Loki was done scrutinizing and frowning at the result – a bigger metal ball with a colour that was probably a mixture of both of the previous ones – he moved it over to the table and the green light vanished, causing the ball to drop. For a split-second, Tony expected it to splash all over the table because hey, molten metal and all that? But it just dropped onto the surface with a solid clonk, rolled from the table to drop onto the floor with another thud and rolled a few feet into Tony's direction until he hopped down from his table and stopped it with his foot. Carefully, he extended a hand and touched the surface of the ball quickly before pulling back and then blinked. It was cold. Just like that. Molten just seconds ago and now cold.

"How did you do that?", he asked while picking the surprisingly heavy thing up. "I mean, you just – it just melted right in your hand without dripping down or something, that's fucking amazing."

"May I introduce myself?", Loki questioned, causing Tony to look up in confusion. The god had risen from the armchair and taken a step away from it; now he was spreading his arms in a dramatic gesture and intoned: "I am Loki of Asgard, god of lies, mischief and", he bowed and Tony yelped and jumped backwards as the mage just caught fire, like some sort of human torch or something, "of fire."

"Wow", the engineer commented eloquently. "That's... quite a bunch of titles. Or characters. You know."

With a smug, but mostly amused grin, the prince replied: "Those are not even half of them." The fire disappeared just as fast as it had come to life and Loki made a show of smothering one last little flame in his palms before he turned serious again and threw a glance at the metal ball in the inventor's hands. "But it will not work like that. This, you could do in the smithy, too. I need to go deeper." Staring at the pile of metals on the table next to himself, he took a deep breath. "I will figure this out."

Leave it to the god in the room to try figure out atoms and shit all by some glowing green light. Tony huddled himself into the cloak and was content to lean with his back against a wall (or maybe just too tired to move out of that position) while he watched Loki do... his thing. He really needed to find out more about that... soon... whenever he wasn't so exhausted. Yeah. Definitely going to do that... sometime.

He only noticed that he had fallen asleep when a loud clattering sound woke him up with a start. Someone (well, who could that be?) had wrapped him up in the coat and laid him down on the floor at some point and the only reason for him to wake up was that Loki had dropped something onto the floor. Blinking against the light that fell into the room from the windows (it was morning and he hadn't had a single nightmare?), Tony propped himself up onto an elbow and looked at the god who was just picking up a piece of metal. He stared at it with wide eyes and it looked like he had just realized something, judging by the way his expression brightened, so Tony decided not to interrupt him right now. Instead, he tried to clear the haziness of sleep from his mind (and damn, his head hurt like fuck and he really needed something to drink because that taste was disgusting) and greeted day six with the question Did Loki just pull a night-shift to figure out how to help me?

He watched silently as the prince reached out over the table for the vibranium and that other element (something Asgardian with a name he couldn't memorize, but then again, their vibranium had another name here, too, while being the same thing, so it didn't really matter) Tony had chosen to become the new core of his reactor.

In theory, this was easy. He could calculate new elements, this new element, perfectly well. It was a simple addition, adding one to the highest atomic number et cetera. That was not the problem. The difficulty was that he needed, or was at least pretty sure that he needed a particle accelerator to make the element actually exist. Well, a particle accelerator or a Loki, apparently. He still wasn't sure how the mage was going to do it, although the principle was actually not all that complicated if you put it plainly: You smash the nuclei of particles together, and sometimes enough of them stick together that a new element is created with a new nucleus of an element that's heavy enough to be stable. Now go do that without an LHC – but okay, he was getting really hung up on that, wasn't he? Trust Loki to do the magical things. He'd try to understand how that worked later.

Pulling the coat up around his shoulders again, he squirmed a bit to get more comfortable while the god's hands started to glow, really glow in a green so bright that Tony had to squint and look away because otherwise, he felt like it could just burn his retinas away. This was definitely looking more like what he needed than the molten metal balls from the evening before and he sort of regretted that he had slept through Loki figuring out how to do stuff like that with his magic. It made him feel an odd kind of smugness (pride?) because he could teach something to a being that was hundreds of years old.

A sudden hiss from Loki made him look up and he saw the prince sticking a finger into his mouth with a frown and an accusing glare towards the materials that he had dropped to the ground. Oh, there was that.

"Did I mention", Tony began and cleared his throat when he noticed how raspy his own voice sounded, "did I mention that if you use a particle accelerator, that releases a pretty great deal of radiation? Meaning, if you don't shield yourself somehow, you'll be hit by atoms that are flying around which... oh shit, I think that's dangerous. They usually prevent that sort of thing by using magnets so they can keep the particles in check. Just sayin'."

Loki stared at him for a moment before he turned around fully and replied: "Good morning to you, too. Thank you for telling me about that so early."

The engineer grinned with a shrug as he responded: "In my defence, I was asleep and that wasn't actually part of my plan. I thought I'd tell you when you'd gotten the hang of the general thing, but that was kinda difficult while I was all cosy and lovely in dreamland. Which you did now, as I see, congratulations by the way. Humanity needed centuries to figure that one out."

"I had a good teacher", the prince answered with a wink and picked the materials up again. "All I have to do is prevent the particles from leaving the area I want them to be in, right?"

"You got it, Sherlock", Tony confirmed and rubbed his eyes to get rid of the sleepy dust.

"Holmes was a detective, not a physicist", the mage muttered distractedly while the green light of his magic already enveloped his hands again. It took Tony a moment to catch up on what he had just said and when he did, surprise silenced him for some more seconds. Then, he gathered his wits (sort of) and asked: "Wait, you know Sherlock Holmes?" Loki nodded, still absorbed in whatever energies he was manipulating at the moment, while he replied in the distracted tone of someone whose mind was somewhere else entirely: "I travel the Nine Realms a lot and I most enjoy reading. During my last visit to Midgard, I discovered the books as well as their author. Sir Conan Doyle made for the most enjoyable company."

Tony swallowed and was glad that the prince was too absorbed in his work to notice his slave's reaction. This was... it felt like a punch to the gut. Loki had been to Earth. Midgard. Whatever. And... when had Arthur Conan Doyle died? Nineteen-something? Nineteen-thirty, perhaps? That was not even a hundred years ago. He'd said that he enjoyed travelling, so there was a real possibility that he would visit Earth again, right? If he was able to convince him to take Tony with him...

The engineer drew a shuddering breath and fisted his hands in the furry cloak. He felt the sudden urge to punch something, not out of anger, but frustration. Loki had probably not even noticed, but he had just dangled Tony's home, his old life, in front of his face like a toy for a cat. And Tony had totally taken the (albeit unintentional) bait. What kind of god have I offended to deserve this? He was so close to coming home, closer than he had ever been, what with the rainbow bridge and all, and at the same time still as far away as he could possibly be in another galaxy.

Sighing, he thumped his head against the wall behind him. He should just give it up already – but no, he couldn't do that, there was no way he was going to surrender. His own mind was all he had, after all. If he was going to go down, then it was going to be screaming, not silent like this. Loud and with an explosion, just the way his life had always been.

He would never admit to how relieved he was that he could distract himself with watching Loki work. The god held his hands about a foot apart, palms facing each other, and had created a round sphere (probably some sort of shield) around the materials that he was supposed to fuse via the magical particle accelerator thing he did. Tony still wasn't sure whether he wanted to accept the existence of magic and figure it out that way or if he wanted to try explaining it with everything he knew about science. The latter was looking more and more unlikely as he stared at the growing light between Loki's palms, green and glowing – and then, with a flash of far too bright light, the colour became a blindingly bright blue, almost white, and he heard the mage gasp while Tony held an arm up to shield himself from the light. There was no sound at all, apart from Loki's laboured breathing.

Then, as the brightness subsided, there was a breathless laugh from the god and Tony squinted to see Loki staring at a small, blue sphere that glowed brightly in his hands. The light was reflected by the thin sheen of sweat on the prince's forehead – working magic was apparently not as easy as it looked.

Loki glanced at him with a delighted smile and turned towards the table where the casing lay that Tony had made the evening before. He lowered his hands and set the small piece of... thing (it was a new element, it didn't have a name yet, okay?) into the triangular centre of the reactor carefully. Tony scrambled to his feet and fought off the dizziness that came with the sudden motion as he steadied himself on the table next to Loki and grabbed the cover he had prepared the day before, as well as one of the finer tools, and began to work on covering the new reactor with the... element in it. Badassium, he mused. Starkium certainly had a nice ring to it. But he'd have to give some credit to Loki for inspiring the idea in the first place. Lokium sounded just weird though. Maybe he'd just stick with badassium.

"You are unable to be quiet while thinking, aren't you?", Loki inquired with a distinct note of humour in his voice.

"Brain-to-mouth-filter", he answered plainly. "I should really get one of those."

"I rather like you as you are", the prince objected. Tony stilled in his movements to stare up at the god in wide-eyed surprise. What had that just been? "Oh, stop looking at me like that!", Loki snickered now, shaking his head slightly. "I am not Fandral, if that is what you are thinking. I do not just jump anybody who seems vaguely likeable, so you may take that as a compliment and finish your work now."

Tony gaped for another second before he nodded quickly and looked back down onto the reactor. Then, his head whipped back up and he protested: "Hey, that wasn't even what I was thinking!" The mage was outright laughing now, but again, it was without malice. Just genuine amusement. Granted, it was on Tony's expense, but it wasn't like the inventor didn't make an inappropriate joke now and then and every single one of those was worse than this here. "You go on and laugh", he muttered, a smile tugging at his lips despite his embarrassed blush. This one was his fault, clearly.

By the time he was finished and held the new reactor up in front of himself – badassium, definitely – Loki had calmed down and watched the engineer's every movement. In an almost reverent voice, he whispered: "It feels beautiful." He was right: after only five minutes, the small device had taken a pleasantly warm temperature, not even nearly warm enough to hurt, but lacking the usual cold of metal. He suspected that Loki meant something else though.

"Feels?", Tony repeated with a glance towards the god. Did magic actually enable the prince to feel energy radiation? "I thought you'd know how it feels, because of the book and all?"

"Not quite", Loki replied with a shake of his head. "You cannot capture this sort of thing. It is like describing the taste of a certain meal. It can give you an idea of what to expect, but it will never reach the real experience." Which... sort of made sense, actually. "What do we do now?"

"Well", the inventor said, stretching the word, "now comes the... slightly uncomfortable part. How big are your hands? Because as wonderful as magic is, I'm not sure that I want your levitating-spell-thing anywhere near the magnet in my chest. Who knows what that'd do." With a slightly questioning look, Loki held up his hands, sleek and slender. "Okay. I can work with that."

Taking a deep breath (as much as he hated it, he couldn't do this without help), Tony wiped a table clean pretty carelessly and sat on its edge as he handed the new reactor to Loki and pulled his tunic over his head, baring his chest, mindful of every scar and cut that Loki would see and shuddering at the sudden cold. Better get this over with quickly. With a suddenly shaking hand, he grasped the old reactor and twisted it so he could take it out of its housing. The resulting feeling of vulnerability was the strongest Tony could imagine – crush this little thing, reach into his chest, Loki could do anything right now.

But he wouldn't.

"Alright. I need you to connect this wire", he gently tugged at one of those that still stuck in the back of the palladium-powered model, "to the adapter on the back of the reactor you're holding in your hand right now and pray that it fucking fits because to be honest, I improvised that part. Stuff like that doesn't seem all that common up here so I needed to make my own. Whatever. That's the most important part, and then there's this shorter one and I'd really really ask you not to let that one go too early because there might be people who like that sort of thing, but I'm not into electroshocks." He breathed in and out deeply. "Let's get this over with." Before he could over-think anything, he laid down onto the table and stared at the ceiling, swallowed and closed his eyes.

Loki's warm hand brushed against his shoulder and Tony willed himself to relax as he felt that same hand take the old reactor from his grasp and carefully unplug the wires. With the quiet sound of metal on metal, it was set down beside him and he kept his eyes squeezed shut tightly as he felt and heard Loki work on the most intimate part of the engineer's body (and what are you laughing at, huh?) with care and caution.

"Done." With that one word, all air left Tony's body as he relaxed. That might just have been the longest minute of his life. "How are you feeling?"

"Not much difference yet", he admitted, but relief was evident in his tone, he knew that. "The palladium has get out of my bloodstream first, but now that there's nothing new adding up on what already is there, my body should manage. So, actually..." He opened his eyes and felt a grin spread on his face as he sat up. "...we did it, didn't we?" The belated realization caused a sudden rush of glee and giddiness. "My god, we actually did it. I'm alive. Jesus Christ, I'm alive. I'd say I'll start believing in god now, but I already pretty much believe that you exist, so no point in that." He giggled shamelessly (adult man or not, he had practically been snatched from the jaws of death just now, he could giggle a bit, okay?) and was glad to see that Loki seemed just as delighted so at least, he wasn't the only one grinning like a madman in this room. "Okay then, how about we –"

He didn't get to finish his sentence though. With a loud crash, the door to the room was slammed open and both of them whirled around so they faced the entrance. Standing there was an old man, complete Viking god getup and all with white hair, a beard and a golden eyepatch, his good eye glaring at Loki and Tony while his hand clutched a large spear. For some reason, the engineer believed that this was not their breakfast service.

"Father", Loki greeted. Oh dear. Suddenly, Tony was very conscious about the fact that he was standing very close to Loki, had no shirt on and his cheeks were flushed from all the laughing and giggling from before.

"Loki", the old man snapped. "I need to talk to you." His eye practically burned another hole into Tony's chest as he scrambled to get the tunic back on. "About this." Okay, that sounded bad. Extremely bad. Had he done something wrong?

"Could you please clarify this?", Loki asked calmly and with a nonchalance that the inventor wished he could share right now. "I am afraid that I have no idea..."

"Firstly", Loki-daddy interrupted while slamming the door shut behind him like it weighed nothing, "you missed out on the council meeting this morning –"

"Thor skips out on them all the time", Loki threw in with an almost whiny voice.

"That is not the point!"

"Yes, because Thor is never the point, is he?", the younger god snapped, his former ease replaced by anger. "Future regent of Asgard, oh please. He hasn't attended any political functions that don't involve mead and at least one bilgesnipe for at least –"

"At least he doesn't go around trying to murder members of the council of the Nine Realms!", the white-haired god shouted, effectively silencing Loki for a moment. But only a moment.

"Trying?", Loki repeated slowly. "What do you mean, trying?"

After drawing a long breath through his nose, the elder god replied: "There has been an attempt on Freyja Skadisdottir's life."

"An attempt", the mage echoed. "Do you mean to tell me that she is alive?"

Tony wished desperately that the ground would open up and swallow him whole as Loki-daddy shifted his one-eyed glare onto him while he responded heatedly: "Yes, she is alive, but only because her maiden tried out the dress out of curiosity and died some hours later. Otherwise, she would be dead now. She knows what you did, Loki, and all this ridiculous behaviour began when you decided to..."

"Oooh, no, no, no", Loki interrupted, "do not do this again, father. Whatever conclusion you came to, it will be just another attempt to excuse my ridiculous behaviour and you know just as good as I do that all those explanations are complete and utter nonsense. How amusing that this sort of nonsense is acceptable when Thor does it, but as soon as I take a step out of line, you show up and yell bloody murder! Had Freyja assaulted Thor the way she did with me, you would have made sure that there was a public execution and a reminder for all of Asgard and beyond. She threatened my honour and my possessions and still, you could not care less about hearing my side of this, the side of your son, before you storm in here and tell me what I did wrong this time!"

"You attempted to murder..."

"See? See? You are just proving me right, this is the last nine hundred years all over again! You probably didn't even hear one word I said." Loki breathed in and out deeply and then turned towards Tony. In a much softer voice, he asked: "Anthony, do you think you will find your way to the kitchen? This is a conversation I would rather hold in private." The inventor nodded silently and stared at the floor as he hurried past the elder god and into the hallway.

The conversation, albeit having lasted only about a minute so far, gave him a stomach-churning feeling of dread. If the old man – Loki's father and therefore apparently king of Asgard – blamed him for his son's misdeeds, that could go so many shades of wrong... What if he decided to sell Tony again? Or decided on some sort of alien punishment (Tony knew for a fact that there were plenty of those and he had liked none of them so far)? From what he had read about Norse mythology, these Viking gods had a terrifying creativity when it came to gruesome punishments. He had no wish at all to update his scarce knowledge with first-hand experiences.

While wandering the wide halls, he wondered if getting lost forever in the palace grounds was a common punishment, too. He didn't even need to be sentenced to it, he had already no idea where he was now. Adding to that was a returning feeling of nausea (he felt like he was going to get rid of most of the palladium by throwing up at this rate) and a slight dizziness, although placebo was doing a great job at making it less bad than the day before. He knew that there couldn't be an actual improvement yet, but didn't think too closely about that because pessimism was not helping. The source of the problem was gone, the symptoms should fade over the course of the next few days.

By the time he ran into Fandral, he had climbed up three flights of stairs and descended two, had turned around a hundred corners and passed thousands of doors as well as some greater halls. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to some loner who wandered the place. Most of the people appeared to have egos so big that they blocked their views anyway.

Fandral rounded a corner at the same moment that Tony did and they almost bumped into each other. The engineer saw the blond's gaze flicker over his form briefly and did the same; the result caused a crooked little smile. Fandral was wearing what went for casual garments on Asgard, but they looked like they were thrown on pretty hastily. His hair was dishevelled, his cheeks flushed and his lips looked swollen, maybe even bitten.

"I'd wish you a good morning", Tony began with a grin, breaking the silence, "but then again, you seem to have had that already."

"Indeed", Fandral replied with a cheeky grin of his own. "You look rather pale, if I may say so."

The inventor waved him off. "I'm better already. There's been sort of a problem, but it's okay now. I'm getting better." He looked around. "Not that I'm judging or anything, but please tell me that I didn't accidentally walk into the royal harem or anything? I don't think I've seen any eunuchs, but you never know..."

Fandral laughed and reassured him: "No, I don't have one of those." A beat of silence, then he added as an afterthought: "Yet."

Tony snickered and decided that this was his chance to not starve in this castle, so he asked: "You don't... uh, mind to tell me where the kitchen is, do you? Because I have literally no idea where I am."

"It is a common issue with guests in Asgard", the swordsman remarked, running a hand through his hair to smooth it down a bit. He did look pretty messed up. "Would you like to have breakfast together? I have not had what you would call a proper meal so far, either." His eyes glinted at the double meaning and the engineer found that this was a really great way to get rid of his bad mood, so...

"Sure", he answered and let Fandral lead the way. They... talked. It was really just that. Small-talk. Ridiculously normal. Tony learned that his companion was referred to as Fandral the Dashing, the greatest swordsman of Asgard and (obviously) extremely successful when it came to women and men. He was cheeky in telling his tales, but polite, aiming for humour without slandering anybody, even when he expressed his irritation at Volstagg's enormous appetite or Sif's (and Loki's) resolute refusal to start an affair with him. It was... extremely relaxing.

They ended up in Fandral's rooms (wing? Flat? How did they call that sort of thing?) where a servant (or a slave? Tony couldn't tell and he didn't know if that should make him uncomfortable) brought them something to eat. The inventor was hesitant at first, but then again, Fandral had invited him and seemed to be in an extremely good mood. Morning sex did that to people.

"I envy you", the blond said suddenly.

Tony straightened in the armchair he had made himself comfortable in. "Pardon?"

"For Loki", the swordsman elaborated and took a sip out of his goblet. "I know him for almost a thousand years now and you have been here for less than a week, yet you're closer to him than I will probably ever be."

"I, uh..." Now, that had turned awkward pretty quickly. "There's gotta be a middle way, right? I mean, even if he doesn't jump into bed with you – unless that's all you want, of course – you seem to be getting along, don't you?"

Fandral laughed quietly and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he responded: "What you need to understand about Loki, Tony Stark, is that there is no 'middle way'. You either got everything – or nothing. There is no in-between. You, my friend, you can have everything I never had. You only need to take it."

How the hell did I get here?, the engineer mused and then realized what Fandral had said just now. He hurried to point out: "Look, I don't want a relationship with Loki, if that's what you're getting at. Sure, he's great and everything and I see that it's not problem in your culture, but I don't go for dudes. It's... not my style, really." The blond's sceptical slash amused raised eyebrow made him feel like he needed to elaborate that. "Seriously. I'm straight. I... it's just not my kind of thing, that's all. I don't have a problem with other people having fun all the ways they want to, but I..." I've been enough of a disappointment to my father without being gay. Don't need to add that to my list. "Well. I don't swing that way."

For some reason, that seemed to amuse Fandral even more. With a smile that said There's a long story behind this, he stated: "Gender is not a problem with Loki."

Tony blinked. "Yeah, I got that much, the problem is me, not him."

"That isn't what I meant", the swordsman corrected. "You do really not know, do you? Loki is a mage, dear, and a master of illusions. When he feels like being a woman, he can be a woman. When he feels like being a horse..." He coughed. "He has some great abilities, that is all I'm saying."

"Wait, so you're telling me – Loki is – Loki can – I need to stop thinking about that right now." The engineer shook his head fiercely like that was going to help somehow. "Anyway, it's not like he wanted... uh, something with me, right? I'm just... oh come on, I'm just a slave, Fandral, to cry that out loud. There's nothing Loki could want from me that I haven't given him already." Only when he had said it he realized how true that was. Loki had said that the reason he had bought him had been the reactor. He had the reactor. Hell, he even knew how to make his own by now.

He had no more use for Tony.

"Oh Jesus, oh fuck, what did I do", he breathed into his hands before he ran one of them through his hair and pulled at the strands to ground himself. "I'm an idiot, how could I do that, I've literally – oh shit, I'm such a moron!"

"Tony?", Fandral asked quietly. "Are you –"

"No! No, I'm not alright, I just gave away everything I had to make him keep me, this is not okay, why was I idiotic enough to give him everything? What if he..." He swallowed around the lump in his throat. "I don't want to go back there, I can't..."

A tentative hand touched his arm and the inventor glanced up. "Everything or nothing", Fandral reminded gently. "Does Loki's behaviour look like nothing to you?" Hesitantly, Tony shook his head. "See? He is not going to bring you back. Let Asgard's people say what they want, once Loki has claimed somebody for his own, he is the most loyal person whom I have ever met." The term claim for his own didn't sound half as horrible as it would have if Tony had heard it a week ago – now, it was not something to humiliate him, strip him of his very own self, but something endearing, almost affectionate. Because Loki took care of what was his.

"Yeah", he breathed. "Yeah, you're right. Okay. Sorry. This is just..." He briefly considered how much he wanted to tell Fandral. "I had something that interested him and now I told him and I... probably freaked out." He smiled awkwardly at the swordsman who was kneeling in front of him. "Thanks." He received a grin as an answer and quickly added: "Which still doesn't mean that I want something from Loki!"

Fandral laughed while getting up and back to his seat as he replied: "Oh, just stay here for a while and then, we shall see about that."