A/N:
1) Takes place right after the incident in Monaco, let's assume Tony took Loki with him to Europe, but Loki (naturally) stayed in the hotel room.
2)Thanks for reviews and encouragement goes to: cara-tanaka, diane, Lexicon, Believe Bridesmaid, KiwisS, and Kafzielakai.
I'll reply via PM to those of you I can, and to those I cannot, I'll just say here, thank you all for all the encouragement and feedback!
Also, thanks for all the faves, alerts, etc, it is most encouraging.
3) Diane, thanks a million - again - for the very in-depth reviews, which always get me thinking - both about my fic, and human nature, which is something we can always learn about.
On a totally different note, while Loki's presence helps Tony, I don't think it is enough to change much when things really start going bad for Tony (starting in this chapter), because the incidents that occur just seem to have driven things to a kind of breaking point, and past that an emotional collapse of sorts seems to me inevitable.
4) Things are hectic right now, but I'll post again ASAP.
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Loki is not there to see what happened, but he is there when Tony returns to his hotel room tired and injured – again – yet what unsettles him more than the injuries attained on what was supposed to be a safe vacation is the general aura of weariness and loss that hangs over the mortal like a dark cloud. It is strange to Loki – and therefore worrisome - because Tony has long since stopped showing any real reaction to his impending death, determined to at least make the most of the life left to him. Somehow whatever happened this day has changed everything, and it is only after they are all back on Tony's private plane that Loki starts being able to understand what has happened.
The news replay the incident on the racetrack enough times that Loki has every detail memorized – yet his heart still stutters when he watches Tony – unarmed and completely vulnerable without his armor – take on an opponent whose weapons cut effortlessly through solid steel. Fear and admiration war for dominance within him, and he chooses not to reflect on the flicker of an analogy that occurs to him momentarily as he watches Tony go up against an opponent he can never defeat – and cannot help but remember his not-brother walking up to the Destroyer. The realization that he no longer feels satisfaction connected to that memory scares Loki more than he likes to admit and he pushes the though away.
The tides turn when Tony places the portable armor over his arc-reactor, and feeding from the power-source, the metal expands out to cover his body. Now this encounter is a fight – not a futile attempt to sell his life for the highest price, and the fierce determination that sets Tony's bloodied features in stone reminds Loki again of Thor – yet for some reason the analogy does not bother him as much this time.
Any satisfaction he feels as he watches Tony's victory withers and dies as he sees Tony study what has to be another arc-reactor before crushing it in his armored hand – and with that image comes a reminder of what Tony's arc-reactor is doing to him. All Loki can think of is the haunting question: How much time did this fight cost him?
The news footage covers Tony – now patched up and dressed in civilian clothes en-route to the prison – and then after he leaves it…. and though Tony's features are as inscrutable as ever, one look into his eyes tells Loki that something happened in that cell – and Loki hates the fact that he likely will never know what it was.
When Tony manages to fill the on-board kitchen with enough smoke to choke both of them, Loki decided this is not an experiment he wants to experience, and he pads back to the sitting room, hopping up on a seat across the hallway from Pepper who looks weary and desperate – and who has her attention firmly fixed on the viewscreen.
It takes Loki under a minute to decide that he might just hate this Stern more than anyone else alive – not only because Tony is dying and he does not need this – not only because Pepper seems stressed to the breaking point and does not need this either – not only because Stern reminds him of nothing more than a shark closing in to feed on a person who is already injured – but because Stern reeks of more hypocrisy than anyone else Loki has ever known – even himself, the lie-smith – and he can only feel a visceral hate gnawing at him as he glares at the figure on screen.
It is different from the reaction he had long ago when he watched Stane rip the arc-reactor from Tony's chest and leave him to die. Then his hate had been fueled by pain and a fierce protective rage and he'd wanted nothing more than to rip Stane apart with his bare hands – er, claws. This time there is no protective rage – perhaps because by now he has accepted the bitter reality that he cannot actually protect Tony. This time the hate he feels is fueled by disgust and an achy sense of desolation deep within him, so instead of a visceral reaction, Loki sits quietly, entertaining the idea of making Stern into his first ice-sculpture on Midgard when his powers return….. and he vaguely wonders why at the moment, his plans for this realm end with icing this pathetic excuse for a mortal.
Loki's thoughts are ripped away as he sees the expression written on Tony's face as he quietly enters and listens for a while to Stern's platitudes before saying what might be becoming a favorite command: "Mute."
When Tony sits down, facing Pepper, suddenly the carefree mask is back in place, but Loki knows that it is only that, a mask - or perhaps more accurately a dam, starting to crack from the strain of all the burdens built up behind it…. and he can only think of how defeated and vulnerable Tony looked just moments earlier.
Vulnerable…. yes, now Loki realizes what has changed. He has always seen Tony as fragile, because as a mortal, he is fragile, and Loki has never expected him to be anything but. He has seen Tony return from missions injured before – sometimes severely so, but the reality of this physical price was only known to a very small group of people that Tony knew he could trust.
To the world, he was always the man that no-one could touch - invulnerable beneath the armor he created, unable to be ever taken by surprise, and impervious to any emotional attack by virtue of the sheer air of indifference he exuded. To the world, Tony Stark was a god among men – up until today when for the first time they saw him be taken by surprise, saw his armor shredded by an enemy, and the irrevocable reality of his mortality without that armor…. and though Loki knows that nothing new has happened, to the world everything has changed: Tony Stark is no longer a god. That revelation has opened the floodgates, inviting every enemy he ever has had to come at him and drag his name – his legacy he has sacrificed so much to create – through the dirt…. and Tony knows this too well.
Loki knows that is not the end of it – not the only thing that happened today. Something happened in that prison that shook Tony to the core and true-to-form, Tony will never talk about it. But obsessing over it will get him nothing, so Loki turns his attention back to the present, feeling something warm within him when he sees a touched – and confused - Pepper ask in reference to the end-result of Tony's efforts in the kitchen:
"Did you just make that?"
His response is causal – too casual for such a vast deviation from his usual behavior, and this time Pepper picks up on it, asking in a voice that cracks a little:
"Tony, what are you not telling me?"
In his mind, Loki answers the question: "That he loves you – and that he is dying, and there is nothing anyone can do about it" – yet he's not surprised when Tony does not answer the question, instead opting for a deflection that is still the truth, and Loki wonders if he is the only one that hears the desperation and loss that seeps through the cracks of Tony's façade:
"I don't want to go home – at all…."
Those words only confuse Pepper more, and Loki can already see that this will not end well, yet for all that he wishes Tony would just tell her the truth and spare himself the rejection that is sure to come, he also knows that this revelation will only bring about a new kind of pain…. and for the first time he cannot decide which of the two costs is greater.
Inevitability does not stop his heart from breaking a little more when Tony goes on: "Let's go to Venice, Cipriani…. it's a great place to… to…", and Loki cannot help but mentally fill in the truth that Tony will likely never say: "great place to die." Instead the mortal finishes with "be healthy…" and it is not surprising that the suggestion is shot down again.
Tony makes a last effort to win a battle he knows is lost – perhaps always was:
"I'm just saying – to recharge our batteries, and…figure it all out.", and Loki knows that finally the dam has cracked under the strain placed on it when Tony looks down and away from Pepper, desperately trying to keep the cracks from showing and to hold back the flood.
Deep down inside, Loki feels a bittersweet hope that Pepper will glimpse the gravity of the situation, and at least grant Tony this last wish, yet the hope is crushed when Pepper answers softly: "Not everybody runs on batteries, Tony." – and in the brief broken half-smile that Tony returns, there is nothing left but loneliness and resignation.
It comes as no surprise when not long after, Tony leaves saying he has to design some upgrades for his portable armor, and in the silence that ensues, Loki finds himself staring at Pepper, baffled by the fact that despite the obvious fact that she cares for Tony, despite the fact that she is a smart, capable woman – perhaps the only other human being alive who can actually keep up with the creative chaos that Tony Stark normally generates – she has failed utterly to notice Tony crumbling a little more each day, failed to understand any of the so-obvious signs that Tony is preparing for his death….. and Loki just cannot understand how it is possible.
The fact that it is possible – even at this scale – makes Loki wonder for the first time if even at least one of the people in his life who managed to never give him what he needed, be it affection, respect, or even just acceptance – failed because like Pepper, they simply did not perceive the need – not out of choice.
Finally he decides it just does not matter – not now that Tony needs someone - and pushing aside mixed feelings and bitter memories, Loki jumps to the floor and runs in search of the onboard lab.
When Loki finds Tony, the mortal is sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, and despite the mangled armor spread out on the floor before him, despite the digital notepad by his side with new specifications for the armor, Loki knows that Tony will never repair this armor, never implement the upgrades his ever-active mind has already created…. not because of the obvious reason – that Tony will not get the chance to use this armor again in his life – but rather because the events of this day have taken away from Tony the last flicker of hope in him – not the hope of surviving which had died a long time ago – but the once-attainable hope of making the best of the time he had left.
Loki flinches as he silently pads closer, seeing up-close the sheer extent of the damage those sparking whips did to Tony's armor, and again he wonders how Tony worked up the nerve to go toe-to-toe with this man before he got it. Then he finds his mind wandering back to JARVIS, asking if Tony had ever thought of how JARVIS would be affected – if his attempt to spent the last days of his life in Venice had succeeded, that is – before remembering that with Tony gone from his house, JARVIS would remain powered down – unable to feel loneliness or loss (if he was capable of the emotions) - and even if in the future someone booted him up, the last memory he would have of Tony would be Tony alive, which was actually a small mercy.
Finally Loki decides that in this moment nothing else matters but the broken mortal before him, and he pushes away the questions filling his mind as he gently rubs his cheeks against Tony's open right palm.
When Tony opens his eyes, and silently pulls the cat onto his lap, Loki feels himself overwhelmed by the emotions he sees in them – and a little scared, because the weariness, hopelessness, and grief that filled them before have now been mixed with an overwhelming desperation, and for the first time in the months that Loki knows him, Tony actually looks trapped.
This time, ironically, Tony is not trapped in a literal sense. He could go someplace beautiful and disappear from the sharks that will circle him if they can find him – but he cannot take with him the person he needs the most, Pepper, and to get what little time with her he can, he has no choice but to return to a world that has become his own personal gauntlet.
Tony does not speak as he holds Loki close, and before long, he closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall…. and for the first time Loki knows what it feels like to be truly powerless, because he cannot help Tony with this. He can provide his company and a listening ear when Tony needs one, he can ease the mortal's loneliness, but he cannot stop what has been set in motion today.
For a few moments he wishes that he had his powers back already – with them he could wreak enough devastation on this realm that the press would have better things to be doing than tearing Tony apart –yet the idea loses all value as quickly as it had gained it, because he knows Tony – knows that these actions would only hurt Tony more, knows that he will rise up to defend this world till his last breath…. knows that destruction and death will never be what Tony wants, and for the first time that matters to Loki more than his own carefully-crafted plans... for now at least.
Still nothing can take away the agony he feels for Tony, and Loki is forced to conclude that the pain of watching someone you love slipping away while you are powerless to help them, dwarfs all others. For the first time, he thinks of the expression on Thor's face when Loki let go of Gungnir, falling to what they both assumed would be a certain death – and wonders if Thor had actually felt something real for him.
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