Hello there!
I am aware and sorry that my updating schedule is terrible right now, so I want to thank you all so much for bearing with me, it really means a lot! I promise to try my best!
The doors fell shut behind him and Tony took a deep breath as he surveyed the workshop. It felt like years since he'd last been in here – his gaze was caught by the table that they had been standing before when he had kissed Loki. Partly because of the memories, the brief flash of an image in his mind, but more so because of the pale blue glow that emanated from the sphere hovering just a foot over the surface of the table.
"Son of a bitch," Tony breathed, standing frozen in place.
Hallucination-Loki tutted behind him. "Now, is that how you say thank you?"
"You're not real, shut up," the inventor responded, waving a hand dismissively. Then, a thought occurred to him and he approached the table warily. "Wait, is this thing real? And I'm not asking you, because how the hell am I supposed to know whether you're telling the truth?"
The hallucination seemed scarily realistic, even when Tony knew that Loki wasn't here. Couldn't possibly be. But it was pretty much perfect, he had to admit that. There were quiet footsteps when he – no, it – approached him and the sound ceased when it stood next to Tony. The only noise in the room were the inventor's slightly unsteady breaths.
And if the illusion of a person could be produced by his subconscious this accurately, then why wouldn't it be able to present him with the image of that small clump of badassium?
Then again, what choice did he have but believe in this? His body was changing, sure, and he was aware that Aesir were stronger and more durable than humans, but he really didn't need to try out whether they could die by palladium poisoning or not. And if he ended up waking with a useless chunk of metal in his hands, well, nobody could say he hadn't tried.
With a small sigh, he collapsed into the armchair that Loki had just sort of conjured during one of their long nights when they had worked on the new element for the reactor. He'd never removed it afterwards and it had just become a part of the furniture – there was a small scorch mark on one armrest and a discarded book sat on the floor next to it. The hallucination leaned against a table, watching him silently.
Tony tore his eyes away from it to stare at the hovering sphere again. He might have cried had he seen this a day earlier, but now he just let the memories of their afternoons and nights in the workshop wash over him, the pain of it numbed by the dull headache that the crying fits of the previous days had left him with. He linked his fingers in his lap, feeling strangely detached from it all. Like he had had his share of grief and it left him burned out and empty.
With a shuddering breath, he forced himself to get up. He wasn't going to sit here and let the poison crawl into his veins again; that was not how he was going to die. That was not what Loki had saved him for. He glanced towards the sphere one last time ("It feels beautiful," Loki's voice echoed through his head, still vivid in his memory from that day when the prince had first managed to create the energy source), then turned away to begin with the fabrication of the case that he would need.
Once during the process, he had to stop to pull another bloodied shard out of his chest, wincing in agony and biting his tongue to hold back any sort of pained noise. The potion had dulled the pain, but nothing more; it was still there and would be until the apple had disposed of the shards.
Let's just hope that it doesn't try to get rid of the reactor, too, Tony thought wryly. I doubt that even that thing can regenerate my lungs and breast bone. That'd be a pretty pathetic way to go, after all I've survived so far. I think I deserve something a little more dramatic.
The most uncomfortable part came when he hoisted himself up onto one of the lab tables, having finished the reactor and turning it over in his hands. The metal of the casing was slowly warming up with the low heat of the energy source inside and the familiar blue glow took Tony's breath away for a moment. He clenched it tightly in his hands for a moment, mindful of the new strength that he wasn't yet accustomed to, and tried not to pay attention to hallucination-Loki sitting down on the table next to him. A black strand of black hair had come away from his neat hairdo, falling over his forehead in a stark contrast to the pale skin; he was silent, much more so than it had ever been usual for him when they had been here.
"Why you?" the inventor asked, just for a moment ignoring the fact that this was his own mind sitting next to him.
"Excuse me?" the hallucination said, head cocked to the side and another curl falling over his ear. Tony had to stifle the urge to brush it away because he knew that there would be nothing for him to touch.
"You know exactly what I mean," he responded without any real bite to it. "Of all the things in my subconscious that could have been projected, it's gotta be you. Why you? Why can't I have, I don't know, a second Fandral or Frigga or, for heaven's sake, some random alien for all I know?"
"Hallucinations do not work like that," Loki chided.
With a huff, Tony retorted: "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that they don't work like this either. You shouldn't be talking to me like this, right? Maybe I've just gone insane. Cracked up months ago and this was the final straw and now I'm curled up on some slave trader spaceship and hallucinate my friends." He stumbled slightly over the last word, but didn't let it derail him.
"That's not right," the prince protested.
"Because you'd know," Tony scoffed.
The not-Loki crossed his arms nearly petulantly. "I would, actually," he replied sullenly. "I am one of them, after all."
"Which is why you can't be trusted," the inventor told him. "You could be saying anything."
"You think I would lie to you?" the hallucination asked, a palm on its chest.
Tony drily cocked an eyebrow at it. "Excuse me, you're pretending to – to be here. That's your first lie and I bet it doesn't get better from there on." Not-Loki looked like he was going to protest, but the engineer raised a hand to cut him off. "No, stop it. I may be high on your weird-ass Asgardian medicine, but I'm not far gone enough to try beating myself in an argument. That's virtually impossible. You're not helping, basta." Indignantly, the hallucination huffed and pouted, preparing to reply something, but Tony cut every attempt at speech off with a harsh laugh. "Look, you're even getting out of character. Just stop trying. Now if you'd pardon me, I have a heart to replace."
With a huff, he twisted the reactor in his chest and began to pull it out, then stopped halfway through, staring at the palladium-powered reactor in one of his hands and the new one in his other. Technically, it should be possible to exchange it on his own, there were just two cables he had to re-connect. Awfully short ones, but hey.
God, he needed to upgrade that mechanism.
Ironically, it wasn't like he actually needed the reactor anymore. The apple was forcing all the shrapnel out of his chest, but so far, it didn't look like it was going to do something about the metal casing of the reactor itself, thank god. But he wasn't going to walk around with a reactor that poisoned him, and absolutely not completely without one – a hole in his chest of that size was just all kinds of unpleasant and impractical. So even if it didn't exactly serve a purpose anymore, except from being a glorified night light, he wouldn't relinquish it.
With a deep breath, he pulled the reactor out completely, unplugged it and held the wires between the fingers of one hand while he set the palladium-powered reactor down and made a grab for the new one. It would be a lot more complicated to get it in without anyone else here to help him, but he'd manage somehow. He would have to; as grateful as he felt towards them, he wasn't going to let Fandral or Frigga anywhere near his heart.
He carefully shoved the first wire into its place, drawing a gust of air in through his teeth as it connected and he immediately felt the strange coconut taste of it in the back of his throat. It was definitely more pleasant than the bitter palladium, so he hurried to connect the second bit as well. Apparently, he was going a little too fast, because he failed it at the first attempt and dropped the wire. With a startled yelp, he scrabbled for it (in his own chest cavity, and damn that felt weird), his fingers twitching with the unexpected surge of electricity, trembling and twitching and making it very nearly impossible to grasp the thin copper wire between two fingers.
Tony exhaled a relieved breath through his teeth when he lifted it away from the metal casing of the reactor; holding on to it gingerly, he waited until the slight tremble of his hands subsided. He couldn't help but notice that it hadn't been half as bad as he had expected.
Alright, he thought while he plugged it into place, that's going on the list. Enhanced strength, no more shrapnel, higher pain threshold, and, well. Immortality. Except for that last bit, it isn't all that bad.
Carefully, he let the reactor click into place and then looked back up at where Loki – no, the hallucination, it – was standing. For the first time, he allowed his thoughts to wander, imagined Loki in the workshop, in the casual garments he usually wore when they were together, mending the elements together. Alone.
What for, though? Why had he done it at that point? Had he known that he was going to die? Planned it?
With a weary sigh, Tony sat back on the table, staring at the ceiling. He was very well aware that he was never going to get answers, and it was driving him insane. Like searching for help, he looked up at the hallucination, who met his eyes with an unfathomable look.
"Why?" he demanded, hating how weak his voice sounded but ignoring it because t wasn't like anyone here would be able to judge him. "What for, you idiot? You're a prince, they pardon you for things like that, right? I mean, you didn't intend for things to go like that, you couldn't have known, right? What could have happened here that would possibly justify jumping off a bridge? In space?"
"My reputation would have been ruined," Loki reminded him.
Tony snorted derisively. "Oh my God," he intoned, "your precious reputation. You're right, that's worth it."
Loki glared, his arms crossing with slight defensiveness, and snapped: "Because you would know, wouldn't you? This is court, Anthony, reputation is what it is all about. That does not mean I like it, but the wrong person saying the wrong things about you here can be as deadly as a sword. And with me? I am a prince, a prince unloved by his nobles. They are just waiting for a chance, and attempted fratricide? I have given them the perfect opportunity. They would tear me apart. So yes, my reputation is worth it. I just quickened a process that would have been inevitable either way."
The inventor gritted his teeth and snapped: "You know, this is disappointing. The Loki I knew – the you I knew – wouldn't have given up like that, he would've found a way. You always did when it came to saving me, remember? You fooled the whole court of Asgard into believing there's a Jotun attack when it came to protecting me, but you can't think of anything when you need to save yourself?"
"And what does that say about you?" the mage asked, very quietly, his piercing eyes fixed on Tony.
The inventor's mouth snapped shut and he was briefly thrown off-track before he pulled himself together. "Do not," he responded sharply, jabbing a finger in Loki's direction, "make this conversation about feelings. Don't you dare, you have no right!"
"Oh, but it already is!" The venom was back in the prince's voice as he angrily took a step forward. "You just don't want to see it, do you? It is alright for it to be about feelings as long as you're allowed to be furious and disappointed, but if it comes to anything else, you back away. And you are calling me a coward, Anthony?"
Tony flinched and immediately hated himself for doing so. He was just about to retort something sharp about how he hadn't taken the easy way out as he remembered something.
"You," he snapped, revelling in the wave of anger and bitterness that washed over him, thriving on the fury that allowed him to go on, "are in my head. You're not real, and I have no reason to listen to you because you are my goddamn subconscious and– and yes, you may have a point in what you're saying about feelings, but it's mine, not Loki's, and there's no way for you to tell whether this is what Loki would say, because I don't know what he was thinking, and neither do you, so there's no fucking point in listening to a word you say."
"Oh, so you are unable to listen to yourself," not-Loki sneered, "what is supposed to happen when you see him again?"
"But I won't!" Tony yelled, his voice breaking on the last word. Quieter, he repeated: "You get it, you're me, I won't see him again. He's d- he's gone, okay?" It was more painful than he had expected to utter the words while staring at Loki's crestfallen face; even while he was talking, he felt himself wanting to believe that this was real, that he could have this.
With gritted teeth, Tony turned away to scowl at the floor.
"How do you know?"
"Stop it," he hissed. "Just stop it. There's no point. Please stop it."
"But you can't know," the hallucination insisted, and the worst part was that Tony knew it was himself talking. He still wasn't convinced that Loki was dead and gone – logically, he knew, of course, but there was some part of him that still hoped for a wonder. He'd been presented with a world of aliens and magic, was a resurrection so much to ask for? "You can't even know I'm not real. Were he alive, would he not find a way to let you know? And then here you are, refusing to acknowledge me because you think it is all in your head?"
Tony sighed angrily and waved a hand. "Go on then. Prove it."
"Pardon?"
"I said prove it. Prove to me that you're real. That this is not just me, playing tricks on myself to, to, I don't even know what, because I don't believe it!" He'd gotten louder again by the end of the sentence and took a deep breath. "It's bad enough that I'm here, arguing with myself, yelling at myself because I'm actually desperate enough to hope that there's something behind all of this when I saw you die, but I swear I'm not going to hold out and hope for a miracle that's not going to happen."
He took a few steps into Loki's direction and jabbed his index finger against the prince's chest as he hissed: "I am going to find my way home, and I'm going to live my life and you can't stop me, because you're not here and you'll be gone as soon as I'm off the medication, wanna bet? I will not spend the rest of this disgustingly long life that I've got thanks to you waiting for you."
"If you were telling the truth when you said that you would be ready to stay here, you shouldn't mind," Loki replied quietly.
"If you were telling the truth when you said you'd stay with me and protect me, you shouldn't have let go!" Tony yelled back and turned around, shaking hands balled to fists by his sides. Grabbing the tunic from the workbench and pulling it back over his head while he strode towards the exit, he added in a murmur: "Not that I'd need protection anyway. I'm getting along just fine an my own."
He found Frigga in the gardens, where he and Loki had often encountered her before, and he sat perched on the stone bench next to her awkwardly for a few minutes in which neither of them spoke up.
It felt like committing treason, like breaking a promise to himself – one he'd never actually given, but the itch was still there. There he'd been, not half an hour ago, insisting that he wasn't going to hold out hope for some stupid magical miracle because that was ridiculous, and still he sat here now and tried to find a way to word his question.
Eventually, he decided that there was no right or tactful way to go about it and broke the tense silence by blurting: "Is there any way he could have survived?"
Frigga turned halfway, grey eyes fixed on him in mild surprise. She was silent for a long moment, her expression unreadable, before she answered slowly: "I fear not. The Void is what lays beyond Yggdrasil's branches – I cannot reach out there, and neither could Loki, were he still –" She swallowed, averting her gaze to stare at one of the neat bushes lining the paths. "This is the one place," she continued quietly, "that I cannot hope to return him from."
Tony nodded, hands clenched in his lap. "Alright," he murmured.
And that was it.
The hardest part of going on, as he found out, was sleeping. Of all the things it could be, the people, the still-foreign world, his frequent mood swings that left him either snappy, crying or hysterically happy, it were his nightmares that were the hardest.
He realised it when he woke screaming one night, tears on his cheeks and the after-images of a fall still flashing in his mind, and clutched the blanket to his chest with shaking hands. He didn't move, just drew his knees up to his chest and pressed his forehead against them so he wouldn't have to see the things lurking in the dark corners of the room, because this kind of hallucination was a lot less pleasant than the images of his fallen prince.
It took Tony an embarrassingly long time to realise that no-one was going to come for him. He had gotten so used to Loki rushing in during the middle of the night, no matter what the time was, and just being there as a constant that he could rely on, that always would be there. He'd gotten so used to being held and soothed that he sat here now, staring at the sheets and trying to get himself to breathe properly, terrified of being alone with his own mind.
After the disastrous dinner at the sending, he had taken to eating in the kitchen; he got along with the staff better than with Asgard's haughty warrior classes anyway. Marianne had wordlessly pulled him to her chest, squeezing him in an inhumanly tight hug, and when she had released him, he had seen that her eyes were reddened from crying. It was sort of bitterly amusing that here, among the servants and slaves, Loki was mourned more than in the ranks of the nobles he had been born into.
The only person besides Frigga he still regularly had contact with from those higher classes was Fandral. The blond warrior was the only one who had an idea of what Tony was going through – and at the same time, he had no clue of it, because the inventor was trapped on a world that was not his, among people who whispered Loki's name like a curse when they thought nobody significant was listening (because even though Frigga had made sure that Tony was not a slave anymore, he was officially no more than a servant), scared of going to sleep and even more horrified of waking up and making his way through another day that held nothing for him, because the only reason he had ever come to accept Asgard as something even close to home was gone, vanished in a black expanse of nothing.
Frigga had seen to making sure that the engineer could keep the room Loki had given him, and she left the prince's rooms themselves untouched. There was no-one who needed them, anyway.
(Except perhaps for Tony, who wouldn't admit to sneaking into the chambers when he felt unable to sleep, finding comfort in the scent and memories that were connected with them, but he forbade himself to fall asleep there. He'd just stay there for a while, curled up in an armchair or maybe out on the balcony where Loki had kissed his forehead in a bout of excitement that would eventually lead to this, and god, he'd never wanted that, never.)
The routine he made himself follow began with early hours in the kitchen, where he had to keep himself from making the ridiculously sweet porridge Loki had always liked, and after spending a while there, helping out where he could and forcing himself to smile at other people, he would head out for the training grounds with Fandral. The warrior continued the training that Loki had begun to subject Tony to, although neither of them had any illusions about him replacing the mage. Fandral wasn't a bad teacher, but he wasn't Loki. He just wasn't.
But he knew that there were different kinds of grief, that a mother and a brother would mourn their loss differently from the kitchen staff, fond of their mischievous prince. Differently from whatever Tony had been and Fandral had wanted to be. Even if it still wasn't the same, the blond warrior was the one who got the closest to understand, the closest Tony was ever going to get to someone who mourned Loki the way he himself did.
After they had finished there, the only time of the day began that Tony could call his, sincerely and truly his. He'd visit the library or lock himself in the workshop, sketching schematics on rough paper and allowing his brain to do what he had missed for so long. Sometimes, he managed to forget everything else while he devoured book after book about the materials Asgard had to offer, their properties and utility, and then put that knowledge to use down in his little laboratory.
He only snapped out of that when he found himself talking to Loki out loud, "pass me the thing – the grey thing, the light one, you know", "what is that supposed to mean, it's constantly charged, that doesn't work, explain", even after he'd stopped needing Frigga's pain potion to get by; he didn't experience the same hallucinations as before, but he became aware of just how very used he had gotten to Loki always being there in less than two months. From a small cell on a trader's slave ship, he had come to this, and the god had been there with him every step of the way. Up until that day.
Without him even really noticing, months passed. It just happened – if anyone asked, he couldn't tell them about anything in that time because there was just nothing. Everything remarkable, everything memorable had somehow been connected to Loki; now, he was a half-servant in a palace full of people he had no desire to know, working so he wouldn't have to sleep and doing the same things with each damn passing day.
There was nothing for him to mark the passing of time; others here might do that by specific celebrations that called for one of the grand feasts in the hall, but Tony really didn't care about that sort of thing. He had never even tried to integrate into the Aesir's society, he'd return home as soon as they restored the Bifröst and he wasn't going to look back. Not at them, at least. One person, maybe, but not them.
So he waited. With nothing else to do, he waited.
With a sigh, Tony leaned forward and grabbed the tool he'd just asked Loki for, suppressing a wince at the loud clang of metal on metal as he began work on the details in the form of the curved steel plate in front of him. His hearing had gone a lot more sensitive than before, possibly due to the apple repairing the damage he had done over several years by loud music and explosions.
He barely heard the door opening; only when Fandral knocked loudly, already leaning in the doorway, did he look up and give the warrior a smile that he was proud to say was more than just a reflex. He was fond of Fandral, he could smile without having to fake it with him; it weren't many people he could say that of.
"Hey," he greeted, blowing a strand of hair away from his forehead. It had been continuously growing over the past few months and he had never bothered to cut it; he still kept his goatee neat and immaculate, because the first thing anyone would judge him by was his appearance, but he wasn't going to let anyone else near his head with a sharp blade and had never gotten around to doing it himself. Instead, he'd taken to binding the strands together with a small leather tie to keep them out of his sight.
"Evening," Fandral replied and jerked his head to indicate the hallway behind him. "I was wondering whether you wanted to have dinner."
"You know I don't –"
"Not with the others," the warrior immediately cut him off, waving a hand. "Volstagg is off with his family anyway, and I think Sif is doing her damnedest to charm Thor, who still does not notice a thing, by the way, and Hogun only goes along to listen anyway, so if they do not meet up, he will not be there either." He shrugged.
Tony twirled his tool between his fingers before he set it down with a smirk. "Just you and me, then." He was aware of the suggestive tone in his voice, but it was more autopilot than anything else; it wasn't unusual for them to take their evening meals together when neither of them wanted to be in company of dozens of loud, boisterous, obnoxiously cheerful drunkards, and they knew that neither of them could replace Loki for the other, so why bother in the first place?
"It would appear so," Fandral responded, the corner of his mouth hitching up in a smile of his own. "So, do you believe you can abandon your... whatever it is you are working on, since you won't tell me, for a meal?"
"I suppose I could, if I had to," the inventor sighed dramatically, ignoring the half-complaint as he threw one last look at the piece of metal before he pushed away from the workbench and sauntered over towards the door. "Take me to dinner, then."
"It is my pleasure," Fandral responded and they walked down the hallway towards the staircases side by side while the swordsman recounted some tale just to fill the silence.
Tony listened well enough to throw in the occasional polite "uh-huh" and "oh, really?" and "no she didn't" – he was fully aware that Fandral slept his way through the court to distract himself from his grief. In another time, he would probably have done the same.
After a few minutes, as they were walking down a staircase instead of up, he realised: "We're not going to your room." He glanced up at Fandral. "Why aren't we going to your room?"
The warrior grinned and winked. "Wait and see," he replied as he continued to walk. "And let me do the talking." Before Tony could get so much as a question out, they turned into a hallway with a pair of guards at its end, in front of a massive wooden door. Fandral gave them a half-salute and declared: "The lady Astrid sends us to fetch her a wine for the evening. If you don't mind?"
"Of course," one of the guards murmured in response, seeming slightly bored, and opened the door for them. "Go on."
With a smirk, Fandral ducked into the staircase behind it and waved for Tony to follow him. As soon as they were out of earshot, the inventor hissed: "What's this about now?"
"No warrior of my class gets in here," the swordsman replied, equally quiet but still grinning. "This is where the nobles living in the palace store their more precious beverages. There are some right gems down here, just wait and see."
Tony blinked up at him incredulously. "What, they've got an entire cellar because they can't be bothered to get their stuff from home?"
"Exactly," Fandral replied with a wide grin and hurried ahead.
"Should've figured," the inventor murmured to himself. "What else d'you wanna do with a castle this size anyway."
The cellar looked vastly different from the rest of the palace; no golden walls here, no windows, just stone and wooden shelves stacked with bottles lining the walls. The air was chilled, but tasted heavy, filled with the strong, heady scent of good liquor, the rooms illuminated by the flickering light of the torch Fandral had picked up at the entrance.
"Oh, look at this beauty!" he cooed now, running his fingers over a crystal bottle. "You are in for a treat tonight, Tony Stark." He winked and turned back to where they had come from. "Come on!" Tony huffed, shaking his head with an involuntary smile as he followed the blond, ascending the stairs again that they had come down before. "Have a good night, boys," Fandral said to the guards, saluting with the bottle, and then calmly sauntered down the hallway towards the stairs that would lead them back up.
Tony hurried to catch up and glanced at the swordsman nervously. In a hushed voice, he whispered: "Isn't this the part where we run?"
"Hasn't Loki taught you anything?" Fandral tutted back quietly. "This is the part where we leave, very calmly and confidently, like this is exactly what we are supposed to be doing."
"He is no servant, is he?" they heard one of the guards murmur behind them.
"Does not look like one," the other one agreed. After a beat of hesitation: "Has the lady Astrid not left to visit her sister yesterday morn?" Then: "Oi, you there!"
"This is the part where we run," Fandral informed Tony with a grin and did exactly that, the inventor scrambling to stay close to him as they jumped up the stairs two steps at a time, much faster than the men behind them because they weren't being weighed down by the pompous golden armour.
"Are you sure," Tony asked breathlessly, "that this is a good idea?"
"Very much so," the warrior responded without slowing down. "I have been doing it for ages now. The other guards know me by now, but these two were new, how could I resist? Also," he turned his head to wink at Tony, "I am sure I can find a way to console poor lady Astrid. She is... not unpleasant company, if you know what I mean."
"Whatever you say." Tony found himself snickering under his breath while they rounded another corner, the steps of the guards already fading behind them as they got into the more lively parts of the castle.
They arrived at Fandral's rooms, out of breath and with the swordsman grinning like a madman, and hurried inside. The blond leaned against the door, holding up the bottle as he announced "there you go". After a moment, he sauntered over to the small table that stood in the middle of the room; dinner was apparently already served, and he had obviously expected Tony to come since the inventor spotted two plates on the wooden surface.
He sat down next to Fandral, still smiling faintly, and braced his chin on one of his hands, elbow on the table, as he gestured towards the crystal bottle that sparkled in the light from outside. "Well then, shall we see if it was worth it?"
"We shall," the swordsman replied, grinning, and Tony only noticed that they didn't have the usual goblets, but matching crystal glasses, when Fandral pulled them towards himself to pour out the golden liquid.
"Did you plan all this?" he asked with an incredulous laugh.
Fandral shrugged with a half-smile. "I might have. Go on, taste it."
Tony took the glass with a smile and set it to his lips, carefully tilting it to get a first taste of the liquor. The smell distantly reminded him of scotch, and to his surprise, the feeling on his tongue did, too; whoever lady Astrid was, she definitely had a good taste in drinks.
"This is fantastic," Tony stated appreciatively, watching Fandral over the rim of his glass.
The swordsman winked, "told you so", and began to arrange the food on their plates. They ate in silence for a while, taking small sips from their beverages, until Fandral leaned back with the glass held delicately between his fingers.
"You know, the first time I did that was with Loki," he mused. "We were... what, five hundred years old? And I had told him about my plan to go there because I hoped to impress him. He laughed at me, of course, told me it would never work, and then proceeded to show me how to do it better." He smiled down at his glass, swirling the golden liquid inside around it. "It was the exact same beverage, that first time. Since then, we used to share whatever I... well." He shrugged, but didn't exactly look guilty about stealing. "What I brought with me."
Tony swallowed, and when Fandral turned towards him, the inventor could see the intensity in his gaze, the weight of the memories built up over centuries. He felt a bout of jealousy then; the swordsman had had so long to memorise everything about Loki that he could lay eyes on, every quirk and every expression, because he'd had so long – one and a half month seemed ridiculous compared to that.
"Sounds like Loki was a bad influence," the inventor joked weakly, fingers clenching around the glass slightly nervously. There was something in Fandral's eyes that he recognised, and he wasn't sure if he liked it yet.
"Oh, but I am the one who started this particular trend, so the blame is on me, really." The words could have been light and cheerful, but the way that Fandral's voice had dropped, his cheeks flushed from the alcohol and his gaze fixed on Tony as he turned fully on his chair gave them a whole new meaning.
Any sort of reply got caught in the inventor's throat as he watched the warrior, and he felt his breath hitch when Fandral reached out and cupped his cheek, pulling him closer as he leaned down.
Tony was unable to move; he went along with the movement while his brain tried to catch up, and before he had managed that, he could feel Fandral's lips, tasting like liquor and the salty meat they'd eaten before, closing over his own. Reflexively, his hand came up to steady himself on the swordsman's shoulder and he clutched the fabric there between his fingers. The other's beard scratched over his own in an unfamiliar sensation, and the hand that had been laying against the side of Tony's face slowly slid down to his neck, over his shoulder –
– down, down, down, all the way down over his bloodied chest, catching against welts and the reactor with too-sharp fingernails –
– and Tony jerked back, wrong wrong wrong, breaking the kiss with a gasp as his eyes flew open. Fandral's hand dropped from his shoulder, it had never moved further than that, and he seemed to be about to say something, but the inventor beat him to it.
"I can't," he heard himself saying, his voice trembling as he shook his head a little too rapidly. "I'm sorry, I just can't, it doesn't –" God dammit, he didn't even actually like guys, he just liked Loki. Had liked. Anyway. "I haven't..."
"It's alright," Fandral replied, holding a hand out in a placating manner, and it could have been soothing if Tony hadn't been so unnecessarily unsettled by the whole thing.
"I just..." He swallowed and found that he had gotten up from his chair at some point and was clutching the headrest with white knuckles. "I can't. Not yet. I can't." Stammering like an idiot, Stark. Really impressive. The inventor took a shaky breath and swallowed. "I better get going. It's, um. It's late."
"Anthony –"
"No, it's fine, gotta go." Tony half-ran towards the door, remembering to throw a "see you tomorrow" over his shoulder before the lock clicked shut behind him.
Out in the hallway, he briefly paused to lean against the wall, catching his breath and calming down before he made his way towards his own rooms. Fandral didn't follow him.