Tony tensed, awaiting the queen's next words.
"Usually, mortals are not permitted access to Asgard," she explained calmly. "Before, your status as slave overrode that law because no matter what you were, first and foremost, you were property." The words were blunt, she did nothing to soften their meaning unnecessarily. "Now, without an owner, you are either an unclaimed slave or a Midgardian without permission to stay here, neither of which bodes all that well for you."
The inventor cringed and opened his mouth to reply, but Frigga cut him off before he could start: "However, you may of course stay here until you are well enough to travel, and after that –"
"I'd buy him," Fandral blurted out. He cleared his throat when the queen's gaze settled on him and quickly added: "I apologise for interrupting you. But I just wanted to – I would not want him to return the market."
Tony stared at him with wide eyes, surprised by the offer that had come quite literally out of nowhere.
There was a hint of a smile on Frigga's lips as she responded: "That is touching, Fandral, it really is, and I am sure that Anthony would appreciate the gesture, but if you would have the decency to let me finish my sentence?" The swordsman ducked his head and muttered another apology. "However," she resumed, "we have several possibilities as to where to go from here. I can say for certain that Loki would not have allowed me to return you to the slave market, and frankly, that is not what I would have chosen to do either."
He couldn't help the small exhale of relief at her words.
"Which leaves us with three options," she concluded. "Either, you become a part of the palace's staff or we transfer your ownership to Fandral." There was just the faintest hint of distaste in her voice and Tony remembered the day they had first met, when she had shown clear dismay at the realisation that her son had brought a slave home. Slavery didn't seem uncommon in Asgard, but apparently, the queen had other views on such things. "Those would be the easy methods. I would send you back home if I could, but with the Bifröst destroyed as it is, that possibility is ruled out for now."
Tony had to swallow before he could answer. When he did, it was quiet and hesitant. "I would have stayed," he murmured.
"Pardon?"
He cleared his throat. "If Loki would have asked me," he elaborated. "I would have stayed here. I mean, I'd maybe have liked to... you know, visit, to see what's going on, but... I would have stayed with him." He wasn't sure what the admission was for, but the words had found their way past his lips and hung in the room now.
Frigga squeezed his hand carefully and replied softly: "I believe you." And that was it. What else was there to say to that? Her voice stayed gentle as she continued: "There is something else I talked about to Loki. A third option."
Tony sat up slightly, trying to ignore the sting of pain in his chest. "Loki?" he repeated with a hint of surprise.
She nodded, keeping every bit of emotion from her features as she elaborated: "Yes, he came to talk about it a while ago. It was speculation and it is all still very vague, but I believe that it is what he would have wanted." The inventor nodded slowly, torn between apprehension and anticipation. "He asked me about whether it would be possible to grant you the citizenship of Asgard." Tony listened carefully, not daring to interrupt her – he wouldn't have known what to say anyway. "Since, through Idunn's apple, you are technically becoming Aesir now as well, I would have the authority to do so."
Tony swallowed drily, cleared his throat and asked: "And you... you would do that?"
Frigga smiled with a hint of bitterness. "It is the closest to a last wish that I have from my son. That's the least I can do." Tony flinched and averted his eyes as he nodded. That was as good of a motivation as any other. Since he had never been good at comforting people, he didn't even try to come up with something to say. Instead, he carefully squeezed the queen's hand, wondering in the back of his mind how many people got to see her like this.
For a while, nobody said anything. Tony clenched his free hand around the bed sheets to suppress the urge to reach up and claw at his chest or something else to alleviate some of the still burning pain around the reactor. He stared out of the window, feeling Frigga's eyes on him. Silently, he wondered what was going on in her head. Was she looking at him and wondering what her son had seen in this mortal? What had made Loki form his plans around the coronation just to break his deal with Freyja?
No, she didn't know about that, did she? God, no, she didn't. Tony suddenly felt nauseous. If it hadn't been for that night out on the balcony, all of this might never have happened.
He took a shaky breath, guilty conscience weighing on his shoulders with a sudden, unexpected heaviness. Briefly, he glanced up at Frigga, then his gaze flickered over to Fandral. He had to tell her; he owed it to her. She had lost her son, the least he could do was telling her the reason, even if that meant that she would pull her offer back.
"Fandral," he began carefully, "would you mind to... give us a moment? If that's okay. I need to..."
He didn't finish, but the Aesir seemed to understand nonetheless. He bowed curtly towards Frigga as he replied: "Yes, of course." Then, he hurried out of the room, apparently relieved to be able to flee the tense atmosphere in the room.
Frigga looked down at Tony with an unreadable expression as soon as the door had closed behind the swordsman. He met her eyes, looked away and then forced himself to return her gaze again as he searched for the right words. Unsuccessfully. The queen didn't push, apparently not minding that he needed his time. Her understanding attitude made it even harder.
Eventually, Tony made himself look up for long enough to force out: "It's my fault." He inhaled, feeling like there was no breath left in his lungs. Frigga's hand twitched around his. "What Loki – what he – what happened. I made him – the idea. I gave him the idea." Now that he had started, the words stumbled over one another in their hurry to be spoken. He propped himself up on one elbow and searched Frigga's eyes pleadingly. She returned his gaze with an expression mixed of surprise and sorrow. "I never wanted to... to turn out like this, I swear, I didn't know..." His voice broke, but still, he plunged on: "I never wanted this to happen, I thought it'd be harmless, and then he –"
"Shh," Frigga made, raising a hand. "Shh, stop. I know. Stop it."
"No, I– what?" Tony cut himself off, blinking rapidly so he wouldn't break out in tears again. He'd had enough of that yesterday.
"I know," she repeated. "And I knew as soon as it happened. Do not blame yourself, Anthony."
The inventor swallowed a few times, hoping that it would do something about the raw feeling in his throat. "I'm afraid I don't follow," he said slowly, his voice still slightly unsteady.
She smiled sorrowfully as she quietly replied: "No, you wouldn't, would you." For a few moments, she was quiet, and then, with the same pained smile, she explained slowly: "I have... a gift. Or a curse. Both, really. It used to be a gift once, but... apparently, it was too good to be true." The smile turned bitter. "I see... things. Presence, past, future – I can't always tell them from one another, and my visions are unreliable because sometimes, one little change makes all the differences and a particular thread never gets weaved into the whole."
"Tapestry," Loki said, with a vague gesture like he wasn't quite sure how to indicate that. "She weaves the most beautiful patterns. Remind me to show them to you sometimes. There are whole stories, there is history in what she makes. It is most fascinating."
"You knew what would happen?" Tony asked carefully, a hint of incredulity in his voice that he didn't quite manage to conceal. "You knew that he would – you knew what was going to happen and you didn't do anything?" He sounded more accusing than he had intended it to, but could he really be blamed for that?! She was Loki's mother, for god's sake, weren't parents there for exactly that sort of thing?
"I did not," she responded, and the cold, steely tone in her voice reminded Tony that this was not only Loki's mother, but also the queen of the most powerful kingdom in all the Nine Realms.
Still, he couldn't keep himself from demanding: "But he's your son, why the fuck would you just sit by and watch instead of doing something to –"
"I cannot," Frigga cut him off, a sudden note of despair to her voice. She brushed a blond curl away from her forehead in a gesture that Tony had seen on Loki countless times. "You must understand, Anthony – what I see in those vision, I cannot comprehend. I see snippets and pictures, and they might be happening right now, but they might also lay decades back in the past or centuries from now and there is no way for me to tell."
She took a deep breath and continued: "I see things that make no sense to me, and I cannot share them. I cannot even ask anyone for advice when it comes to them, for if I speak of them, I shall lose my mind. Did you listen to me? I told you, it is a curse. I know that this sounds like the words of a coward, but I would rather be ignorant and surprised than see pictures of my son's death that only make sense for me when it is too late to change anything."
By now, she sounded furious; at herself, at whoever had gifted her with these visions or whomever else, Tony couldn't quite tell. "If they were coherent, at least, but they are not! I see Loki falling, and then I see you in a suit of armour and I know that these images cannot belong together. So what should I assume? I see one image of you and your armour, but I know that it is a thread of a future that never came to life, so why should I not believe that Loki's death was just as surreal?"
I see you in a suit of armour. Tony blinked up at her in surprise, the words echoing in his head. Tentatively he asked: "How do... how could you tell that it was another thread?"
Frigga gave him a long, bemused look. "You lacked your scar," she eventually explained and Tony's hand impulsively came up to his cheek to trace the thin, white line that ran from his cheekbone down to his upper lip. Courtesy of his last owner.
If he didn't have the scar, that either meant he hadn't been passed on to that particular slave holder or, more logical considering that she had spoken of a suit of armour, he hadn't been sold in the first place. And he hadn't died in that cave either, he had apparently managed to get out before being sold by Obie. In some other version of his life.
After noticing that he had apparently been silent for a while, Tony murmured a quiet "I see" before he stared out of the window again, wondering if another version of Tony Stark was currently down on Midgard – Earth – and living happily ever after with Pepper.
Then, he winced as he realised how harsh his words had been; accusing Frigga of willingly letting her son walk into his own peril, after an event like that, was a whole new level of tactless. Sure, he hadn't known, but how did the saying go? Ignorance is no excuse in law? He muttered a quiet apology, fully aware that it wasn't much (probably not enough), but he couldn't actually bring himself to do more. In the haze of the ever-present pain in his chest, the incredulity and shock still clouding his mind and the sheer pressure of the knowledge that this was the mightiest woman in all of Asgard and one word could screw everything up, he was surprised that he got any sort of proper sentence out at all.
Luckily, Frigga seemed to understand. She had to know what he felt like, even if a mother may experience grief in another way than... than... what was he, actually? What had he been? He was honestly not sure about whether he could put a name to what Loki had been to him. It was disconcerting; he was used to being able to label things and put them in neat little boxes. It made his life a lot easier. But Loki, of course, Loki of all people had to be the one to turn it all upside down. And then he left, vanished, just like that.
God, with the leftover pain of the hangover throbbing behind his temples, the agony that the shards in his chest caused and the unbidden wave of emotions, Tony could feel the urge to cry welling up again.
That was probably what caused him to miss Frigga's response to his murmured apology. Feeling slightly guilty, he glanced back up at the queen, who just leaned forward and brushed some sweaty strands of hair away from his forehead. He wondered how often she had done that for Thor and Loki when they had been younger.
"I will make sure that you get something to help the pain," she promised quietly. "Then try to sleep, that will make it easier to bear, I am sure."
He nodded against her hand, closing his eyes when he suddenly felt fatigue washing over him. Maybe I'll be getting bipolar now, too, he thought wryly, but couldn't bring himself to even fake a smile at the thought. He wanted to sleep until this was all over and then a little more; he remembered the state of silent, painless indifference that he had experienced at some point between Freyr stabbing him and Loki forcing slices of the apple between his lips, brutally pulling him back into consciousness.
Not being... alive for a bit had been... peaceful. Tony missed it more than was probably healthy.
Apparently, Frigga had already said her goodbyes because the next time he blinked his eyes open, the room was empty. Tiredly, Tony turned to his side – it wasn't comfortable, no, far from that with the reactor weighing down on his ribs in the position, but like this, he could curl around one of his pillows, draw the blanket up over his shoulders and pretend that he wasn't shaking or letting the fabric absorb his tears.
In the beginning, he'd tried to stop them. Grown men didn't cry – hell, Tony Stark didn't cry. But then again, he had stopped being Tony Stark months ago. He was Anthony, Loki's Anthony, and the pretence and public face that had made up Tony Stark had crumbled somewhere back between his third and fourth owner. For a long while, he hadn't known what to be, had struggled to hold on to the Stark-persona while he cut his captors up with the jagged edges of his broken mind; but when Loki had come along, there had suddenly been something new, something happening that was so very different from what he'd had expected, and out of the broken fractals that had made up Tony for so long, the god had managed to make something new.
Whatever new was, whatever Anthony actually was, he was allowed to fucking cry a little, because there was no-one here to see it and he had every damn reason to. Wrapping his arms around the pillow, he buried his face in it and inhaled shakily, trying to recall whether the scent of Loki's bed had been the same. They had to be washed with the same detergent, but the note of... of Loki was missing. He'd never taken notice of that before, but now, it bothered him.
After god knew how long, he heard the door clicking open and froze, trying to bite back the choked sobs that nobody else needed to hear, dammit. He had his back turned towards the door and therefore could only hear the person entering, approaching his bed with light footsteps. As much as Tony hated having someone he couldn't pinpoint the identity of in his back, he couldn't convince himself to turn around and let them see him either.
"Are you awake?" a quiet, female voice asked. It sounded foreign, but friendly enough; probably one of the healers Frigga had mentioned earlier. Tony made an affirming sound and the voice seemed to take that as a cue to launch into an explanation about how to ingest the potion (she did actually call it a potion) she had brought with her. She briefly asked about whether he had understood everything and then she was gone as fast as she had come. Just another job, after all.
He was half-tempted to just bury his face in the pillow again, but the agony in his chest was a more than suitable argument against that. With a stifled groan, he turned around, gritting his teeth because the movement seemed to set his chest on fire relentlessly. Every shift of muscles under his skin seemed to incite a spark of pain from the still moving shards and he wanted to scream, considered doing it since no-one was here anyway, but ended up just grabbing the glass on his bedside table a little too tightly before he downed its contents and slumped back into the pillows. Beside it was a small bottle with more of the medicine (potion, ha), but apparently, he wasn't supposed to drink more than this today, so he would have to wait for it to kick in.
Just minutes later, he began to notice it taking the edge off the pain. It didn't fully vanish, but it did clear the haze in his mind a little. Helped him to think more clearly again.
Except that that wasn't what he had wanted, not at all, because he couldn't use thinking right now. He didn't need to think about the fact that all of this might never have happened if he hadn't given Loki that idea back then on the balcony, and he also didn't need to think about how fucking lonely this wing was without the knowledge that Loki was just next door or at least in reach, sort of, and he really didn't need that tentative kiss to return to his mind over and over again, thank you very much.
God, Tony hated how every thought seemed to wind up dealing with Loki. Not even a day had passed and he missed him, missed the cocky trickster who would probably have hauled some tome into the room by now and filled Tony's loneliness with magic and new worlds.
Apparently, the potion also made Tony a little light-headed, gave him an easier attitude, because the next thing he knew, he had his slightly blood-stained pyjama shirt back on and buttoned it up while he left his room to head for Loki's chambers.
The smell was the first thing that assaulted him when he entered, a mixture of old books and leather and something that he couldn't quite label, that was just Loki and nothing else. Without hesitating much, Tony headed towards the bed while the door clicked shut behind him. He all but collapsed on the mattress, wrinkling the pristine sheets and taking large, almost gasping lungfuls of the familiar scent, as deep as the dulled pain would allow him to.
His mind drifted to the night he had spent here, Loki curled around him protectively with a murmur of soft reassurances that everything was going to be alright. Tony had expected to find some sort of comfort here, surrounded by an environment that was so much like the god, but there was not a bit of consolation here. Instead, he felt himself spiralling down into accusations at himself again, despite Frigga's words from before. He ended up noisily sobbing into Loki's pillows and could already feel his headache, even though it was dulled from the potion, take on a duller, throbbing note.
"Anthony."
Tony froze, then sniffed and straightened up abruptly, scrubbing a hand over his cheeks as he stared towards the side of the bed disbelievingly.
There, in a dark green tunic and comfortable black leather pants, like he would wear on a lazy day without any court meetings and the like, sat Loki, a soft smile on his features and his eyes warm on him.
"Wha– how?" the inventor choked out, moving towards Loki before he had even finished that short question. "I thought you were – I saw you falling, how are you – oh god, what the hell is happening?"
"Shht," Loki made quietly, placing a finger on Tony's lips before he climbed up onto the mattress and drew Tony into his arms tightly. "It's alright, I'm here now. Be calm."
Tony was everything but calm, clenching his fingers around the material of Loki's tunic tightly as he buried his face in the crook of the prince's neck. He was shaking and struggling to get any words out; in the end, he just babbled a quiet stream of "oh thank god, you're here, you're back, you're okay, I thought you were dead, you fucking scared me" while Loki muttered reassurances and apologies and didn't comment on Tony's tears soaking his clothing.
With a soft murmur of "come here", the mage moved them down onto the bed and drew the blankets up over them. Loki's scent was almost overwhelming and Tony pressed himself as close as humanly possible, his arms wrapped around the prince and determined to never let go again.
He wasn't sure how long it took until he was able to get a hold of himself. He sniffled, revelling in the sensation of Loki's hands on his back, and forced himself to move away slightly so he could look at Loki's face.
"I missed you, you prick," he murmured, his voice still slightly choked up.
Loki's lips quirked up in amusement. "I was hardly gone for more than a day."
"Well, I thought you were dead!" Tony snapped more harshly than he had intended.
The prince didn't flinch, just drew him closer again and ran a hand through his hair. "I apologise. I didn't mean to cause you grief, but it was necessary. I needed everyone to be fooled."
"What for?" the inventor asked quietly.
Loki just stroked a hand through his hair and replied: "I will explain everything tomorrow. Sleep now, my dear."
"Stay here," Tony muttered, and he could feel Loki nodding. "And by the way, I'm still pissed because of that apple. You have no idea."
"Oh, I think I do," the prince murmured quietly. "Sleep."
And in Loki's embrace, it wasn't hard to do exactly that.
Waking up was the more unpleasant process. The pain in Tony's chest was back in full force, the throbbing headache lingered just behind his temples and the worst was the lack of another person's breathing next to him. Tony opened his eyes, blinking against the light from outside and searching for Loki before he got aware of the pillow that he had pressed against his chest, his arms wound tightly around it.
It smelled like Loki. The whole room did. Like Loki and his books and his ridiculous leather getups, just without an actual Loki in it. Because Loki had plunged himself down into the endless Void beneath Asgard the day before.
Right.
With a bitter laugh, Tony straightened up. The blanket fell from his shoulders so he could see the dark patch of blood on his clothing and he unbuttoned it with fingers that were not shaking, thank you very much, to find another of the shrapnel shards sticking out of his skin. At least the hours of sleep had brought him through the process of repelling some of them, as he spotted at least two glistening splinters on the mattress next to him.
He was sure he would have cried some more if he had the energy left. As it was, he just reached up for his chest to pull the one protruding shard out, biting his lip to stifle the yell of pain. It caused a new gush of blood, trickling down around the reactor's rim, but it wasn't like it could get any messier.
God, he needed a bath. And some more of the painkilling potion because despite the fact that the wound on his chest was already closing unnaturally fast, it all still hurt like fuck. So: more potion.
More hallucination-inducing goddamn potion. Alright. He could handle that. He would know that it wasn't real; this time, he would. And it didn't matter that the realisation that Loki wasn't back still filled him with bitter resignation. Not at all.
Despite having slept for hours, Tony felt tired. He sat on the edge of the bed and slumped over, burying his face in his hands with a sigh. He didn't know how it had happened over the course of just a few days, but when he'd had to watch Loki vanishing in the blackest darkness he'd ever seen, it had felt like the prince had taken all Tony's will to fight with him, to some place inaccessible for anyone else.
He lacked the determination to try and get it back. Go figure.
With careful, quiet steps, he left Loki's rooms with a last, wistful glance. He looked down the hallway before he let the door fall shut behind himself; it wasn't usual that people came here, he'd only ever seen Fandral, Frigga and the occasional servant. Still, he didn't need to know how people would react to seeing him leaving the prince's chambers.
The wing was eerily silent and Tony felt like a criminal while he sneaked back to his room. Which he was, sort of. Inspiring a conspiracy and all that. Ha, maybe he should turn himself in – except he'd already tried that and had gotten a long, confusing talk about gifts and visions and impossible armour from Frigga. Not a dungeon. They had those in Asgard, right? He was pretty sure they did. After all, the whole setting wouldn't be the same without dark, smelly dungeons beneath the beautiful palace.
With a huff, he opened the door to his own room and almost stumbled in because he tried to lean on it with all his weight, like he usually has to with these damn, too-heavy Asgardian doors, but now, the initial push was enough to make it swing open. It left Tony disorientated and stumbling for a moment, but he caught himself soon enough and regarded the door with an air of disconcerted surprise. Then he remembered – yeah, apple, right. He'd figured out long ago that an Aesir's strength was far superior to a human's, and apparently, his body was catching up with that slowly. Another proof that he was changing; as if he still needed one.
Almost absently, he mixed the potion that was still on his bedside table with the appropriate amount of water, then downed the liquid and grimaced at the bitter taste, then even more at the sticky sweetness it left behind. Unbelievable that he had been out of it enough yesterday not to notice that.
Tony set the glass down and wandered towards the bathroom, wanting nothing more than to get rid of the too-warm, sticky mess of blood that ruined the front of his pyjamas. He stripped them off while walking and a few minutes later, he sat on one of the steps in the tub, water rising around him. He didn't quite let his chest be submerged yet, he could imagine how painful the water on his wounds would be.
Instead, he scrubbed the blood off his hands and away under his fingernails. When he looked up, Loki sat on the other side of the tub, the warmth of the water causing a flush high on his cheeks and down his chest. The rest of his body was hidden by the water.
"Now, that's just not fair," Tony almost-whined. "Come on."
The god cocked his head, damp black curls falling into his face. "Not fair?" he repeated.
Tony rolled his eyes and made a gesture in Loki's general direction. "This. You here." He sighed, slowly sinking deeper into the hot water. "You're not real," he told him.
For a moment, it looked like Loki was going to protest, but then he broke eye contact with something that looked akin to a bad conscience. Uncomfortably, he admitted: "I am afraid so."
The inventor sighed and nodded. Carefully, he slid deeper into the bath, hissing when hot water began to cover his wounds and caused a stinging burn in them. I've had worse, he reminded himself and squeezed his eyes shut while he cleaned the area as gently as possible.
When there was no more blood crusting around the rim, or at least none that he could take care of right now, he briefly submerged in the water and rubbed his hands over his face while he was under, hoping to get rid of the unpleasant feeling that too many tears had left. When he came back up, only mildly sputtering, and wiped the water out of his eyes, he met Loki's scrutinising gaze.
"You're still here," Tony stated, only mildly surprised. "Is it normal for this stuff to cause hallucinations?" It was getting harder to remind himself that the god wasn't real, because he sat just across from him, he could reach out any moment and...
Tony shook his head while Loki answered: "I wouldn't know. After all, you don't." That made sense. If Loki was only a fragment of his desperate imagination, then he couldn't possibly know more than Tony did.
For a long while, they didn't talk, just stared at each other. Although he might have looked calm, maybe even expressionless on the outside, Tony was torn; he hated this, he hated it with a passion that made his fists clench and his nails dig into his palms. He wanted to jump over and hit Loki, see if that would make him vanish (because he wasn't real, right? Tony was beginning to be uncertain about it, although it was the only possibility that made sense) or enjoy that little bit that he still had, the only bit of Loki that he was ever going to see again, no matter how painful it was.
He settled for neither. After a while, he climbed out and got dressed with movements that were nearly mechanical. In front of his wardrobe, he hesitated briefly; on the red tunics, blood would be much less visible. They were the most obvious choice.
Still, he took the one green tunic that he still had left. Just to make a point. Because no matter if Loki was branded a traitor now, he was the one who had saved Tony's life when he had thought that it couldn't possibly get worse, and he was going to stand by that. Even though he had never been able to say it to Loki himself, he was Loki's and the time when he had hated that had long since passed.
The hallucination hovered in the background, mysteriously dried and dressed. There was not a word from it and Tony didn't address it. Maybe it would go away if he kept that up; and if it didn't, well, it was sort of weirdly comforting to have Loki around, even if he wasn't real.
Pathetic, he spat at himself, but that didn't make him change his opinion on the matter.
Now, he had the choice of either crawling back into bed and vegetate away in misery, or he could force himself to do something. Although he was so, so very tempted to decide on the former, he knew that if he let apathy claim him now, he wasn't going to be able to come back on his own. He wasn't quite dead yet and he wasn't going to let this drag him down when nothing else had managed that so far.
"I can do this without you if I have to," he told Loki with a stubborn glare. "I managed before."
Loki nodded with a smile. "I know you did," he replied, and somehow, that was much worse than if he had scoffed and told Tony that it was impossible.
Angrily, the inventor blinked away the tears that threatened to well up again. Before he could decide otherwise, he headed for the door and began to walk, putting enough confidence in his stride to make it look like he belonged here and knew exactly what he was doing. That was the most effective way to flee a place: look like you were not fleeing.
Minutes later, he pushed open the doors to their – his – workshop. I see you in a suit of armour. Plans that he had thought long forgotten came up to the forefront of his mind again and for the first time in days, he felt himself tentatively grinning. If his other self had managed this, then he would damn well be able to.
Tony Stark and Anthony might not be the same person, but neither of them was going to sit down and accept what life threw at them.