Fifth Installment: Usefulness

Loki woke slowly, entire body feeling sluggish and unresponsive. It cried out for him to simply go back to sleep, but he resisted. There were things that needed doing, and most pressingly a conversation that needed to be had. And the nightmares that plagued his sleep were disorienting, to say the least.

In fact, he thought with a rueful smile, he'd only awakened from one without it taking him a long time to realize he wasn't still Thanos' prisoner. Whether my mind agrees or not, Stark, my body is certainly comfortable around you.

Climbing off the bed, he shrugged out of his green linen shirt. He actually had to steel himself to look down at his arms and torso, so jarring was it to see the evidence of what had been done to him. The wounds had healed and there were no physical scars, but the lines of gold energy where the wounds had been . . .

If he looked too long, he almost felt panic.

And then it was replaced by rage.

And then it was all swept away by an exhaustion so profound he felt nothing at all.

His entire body cried out at the wrongness of it. All of it. He honestly had no idea if he hoped Thanos was dead or still alive somewhere so he could kill the Mad Titan properly.

Slowly, carefully, he tapped into the golden energy trapped inside him like he would his own seiðr. Its pale light misted around his hands, making his skin tingle with heat. It felt wrong. So wrong. And as soon as he touched it, everything instantly changed.

The solidity of the world vanishes into a tapestry of colors. Things are no longer separate from each other, just blending together in a nauseating swirl. The colors taste like heat, cold, earth, and loam. Sounds pour across his skin like needles. Knives. Fingers of ice and lava.

Alive. He hopes that one is still alive. Because then he can kill him. Kill him and taste the red, hear the screams that cut like daggers and feel the breath of him dying.

And then maybe he will know peace. Maybe his helpless rage will finally have an outlet, he can purge the horrible, terrible memories from his mind and have a closure he doesn't remember needing.

But he does.

He needs gold to vanish in a cascade of green.

Like blue vanished in a cascade of black.

But he needs green.

Green. Loki. Green. Loki.

No. Stop.

With a sound that tore from the back of his throat in a ragged groan, Loki tossed his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. The gold mist dissipated, but the sound of his heart felt like poison. The smell of the air tasted like death.

This is not what I fought for. I didn't survive the worst torture of my entire life to become this.

This pathetic, weak, damaged shell. Fragmented in places that weren't supposed to break. His breathing accelerated and his heart hurt him.

No. It was better not to feel. As suddenly as it had come, it all flowed out. To be replaced by nothing. Refusing to look at his body again, he pulled on a tunic the Aether had made. It was tawny deer hide, tanned perfectly and very soft to the touch. It fell to mid-thigh, belted at the waist in leather. It was sleeveless, but the feel of anything else would be unbearable.

He padded barefoot out of the little bedroom. Only a few things had not been perverted by Thanos' inventive torture, and one of them was his ability to sense any and all life around him. He could tell Stark was outside with the Aether. Crossing the wood floors, he opened the front door and moved across the porch, leaning against the railing.

Neither his lover nor his beloved failed to take notice of him, and the Aether broke into a bright smile. Truly, her new form was a miracle of the most incredible proportions. An essence of destruction, born out of nothingness, becoming sentient? With its own desires and goals? Taking a form?

Strictly speaking, he thought with an inward smile, Jane Foster was comparable to her father and Loki her mother. Jane had provided the spark, and the spark had grown inside Loki.

Her form was pleasing. Something about her face almost reminded him of the lovely Miss Foster. The shape and the color of her skin, just a little bit.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Stark said with his usual grin of lustful appreciation. "I've had a busy morning. Went to the city."

Loki raised an eyebrow. "The city? You have had a busy morning. You should have saved your suit's power."

Stark frowned a little. "What makes you say that?"

Feeling his disturbing mood lightening, Loki gave him a patient look. "You couldn't read the signs or understand the language. Am I correct?"

"Well, no . . ."

"I could have told you that. So you should have saved your suit's power."

"Well, I didn't want to wake you to ask," Stark grumbled. "And besides, I got a good view of the city's layout. And I had JARVIS scan all the writings in a ten-block radius. Any chance you could magically translate the language for me?"

"Of course."

Stark blinked. "You didn't even look at it."

"I don't need to, Stark," Loki said, enjoying the feeling of surprising his lover. It never got old. "I can understand any language, written or spoken."

The human stared at him for several long moments. Then he shook his head and started chuckling. "Of course you can. Smug bastard. Skaði, don't be like your dad when you grow up."

The Aether gave him a peculiar look. "If you want to assign parentage, Loki is technically my mother. But I love him far too much to see him that way. He is so much more." Her red-black eyes oriented on Loki, the heat of her emotions blazing in them. "So much more."

The smile that eased across Loki's lips was small but genuine. "I feel the same, dearest." A slight pause. "And Skaði suits you. Do you know what it means?"

She shook her head. "I only liked the sound of it."

"It is the old Norse word for 'damage'," Loki explained. "Not a noun, but as in the action 'to damage'." His smile deepened. "It is apropos."

"Wait, how exactly is Loki technically your mother?" Stark demanded.

Mellow amusement filled Loki's aching heart, and his senses seemed to settle a bit.

The Aether also looked amused. "It's quite simple, Tony. Jane Foster caused a spark when she touched me for the first time. Loki thinks it's because humans live short lives, so they live all the more fiercely for it. But Loki found the spark and took it into himself, nurturing it. I grew inside him until I formed my own consciousness."

Stark's lips quirked, suspiciously close to a grin. "So Jane provided the sperm."

"If you must be so crude," Loki said, his own smile still faintly present.

"Well, don't tell Thor you had a baby with his lady. It would break his heart."

The words startled a huff of laughter from Loki.

"And by the way," the man said, poking the Aether in the shoulder, "that isn't simple. It's stupidly complicated. But that's something I've come to accept about Loki. Sometimes, I just have to smile and nod."

"You do so quite often," Loki mused.

"Hey, pipe down in the peanut gallery. And come over here already. How am I supposed to kiss you from there?"

"I made tea," the Aether said, hopping up. "I'll bring you some, Loki."

Loki smiled his thanks.

"How come she gets cute pet names?" Stark demanded.

Loki made his way to Stark's side and sat down. "Perhaps because she is cute?"

"Hey, I'm cute too. Damn cute, in fact. You've seen me naked. How can you not think I'm cute?"

Loki idly wondered why Stark wasn't commenting on the visible gold lines in his skin. Without thought, he leaned toward his lover and rested his head on a broad shoulder.

"Cute is not the word I would use."

He could feel Stark's burst of pleasure. "Sexy, then." Decisive.

A soft snort. "If you like."

"I do like. I like very much. And I like it when you're all sweet and amenable." So saying, he cupped Loki's chin and tilted his head back to kiss him.

The moment their lips touched, Loki's eyes widened in surprise. A split second later they fluttered shut. The disorienting confusion of the senses vanished. The relief was so powerful he wanted to weep. Instead he indulged Stark's insatiable appetite and melted into the kiss, opening his mouth for Stark to plunder.

The man immediately plunged his tongue inside, curling around Loki's and stroking up. His teeth nibbled and nipped, his arms going and around Loki and leaning him back until he was all but laying in Stark's arms. He didn't move and didn't try to take control, the man's heat seeping into him. He barely even responded to the kiss, simply enjoying the ministrations.

Stark chuckled through his nose, pulling back to nibble on Loki's lower lip. "You're being awfully docile right now. Makes me wanna bite you all over."

Loki smirked and tipped his chin back so Stark was now nibbling at his jaw and throat. "Please don't. I have enough marks on my skin."

"Yeah, but I didn't leave them," Stark argued, ever-so-gently biting at Loki's pulse.

Loki tilted his head back farther to give him better access. "True . . ."

"Fuck you're being so sweet right now," Stark groaned, tangling his fingers in Loki's hair and pushing his head back up to fuse their mouths together again. "I love you," he whispered into the kiss. "You're stuck with me, so get used to the idea."

Of all the immortals who had kissed Loki, he mused dimly, none of them had kissed like this. This eating, consuming, devouring kiss that involved lips, tongue, and teeth. Quite a lot of teeth, really. A nipping sting of slight pain, a nibbling pleasure that made him shudder.

Nor had he ever had a lover who skillfully took control and seemed to enjoy giving pleasure far more than receiving it. Well, he amended with an internal smile, at least as much as receiving it.

Stark finally pulled back, and a smile immediately crossed his face. "You look like a goddess just receiving your due."

Minorly irritated, Loki reached up and brushed dark hair out of Stark's eyes. It was longer than four months ago. It gave him a rakish look. "Must you emasculate me?"

Stark's chocolate brown eyes roved all over his face. "It's not that. You don't look like a woman. You're just so much more beautiful than some dumb man."

Loki smiled, stroking his fingers down Stark's jaw. With a small measure of regret, he sat upright. Stark didn't try to stop him. "Do you have enough knowledge of engineering to build an entire ship?"

Stark blinked. "Ship? As in, a spaceship?"

"Yes."

A long pause. "Maybe. Probably. If I had the right tools and materials. And a decent lab where I could download JARVIS into a computer core again."

Loki studied his face. "The technology in the city. Did you see any visible power sources?"

"One, actually," Stark said, nodding. "These blue orbs. So big." He held his hands the appropriate distance. "Glowing. They were pulling these carriage-like vehicles. And everyone had these little devices on their ear, like a Bluetooth. They had one of those orbs, tiny of course."

Frowning to himself, Loki looked away and stared across the clearing. That sounded like . . . To know for sure, he'd need to see one. There were, however, two problems with that. Loki was too weak to travel such a distance. And Stark had no way of communicating with the residents to procure one.

"What would we need a spaceship for?" Stark demanded abruptly.

Loki faced him again, raising an eyebrow. "I have no desire to convalesce in this forest for the rest of my life. We're in an entirely new part of the universe, Stark. Have you no interest in exploring it?"

The human looked surprised. "That . . . yeah. Hell yeah, I want to explore it. I guess I just never thought about how we would explore it."

Smiling, Loki glanced up to see the Aether returning with two clay mugs of tea. "While you were there, did you happen to notice them exchanging any form of currency?"

"No," Stark said. "I could make a second trip, pay a little more attention?"

Loki shook his head. "No, I'll come with you this time."

Predictably, Stark immediately grinned. "That mean I get to carry you?"

Sighing, exasperated and strangely comforted, Loki shook his head. "Yes, Anthony." Perhaps visiting more of this world would help with his healing.

The Aether handed him one mug of tea and the other to Stark. "I'd like to see the city, too. I've been curious about it."

Loki smiled at her. "You've been very patient, dearest."

"I love you," she said, "and nothing is more important to me than you being well."

"I love you for that," Stark piped up, sipping his tea and grimacing. "Damn, this isn't coffee."

The Aether laughed. "I told you, I don't have any coffee."

Stark gave her a morose look. "This tastes like dirt."

"It's nettle tea, so it should taste like leaves," she said in helpful tones.

Loki smiled into his mug. The taste wasn't wonderful, but it soothed the constant pain in his veins. Pain caused by the golden light. Poisoning him, the Aether called it.

Well, that wasn't so far off.