I did it! Another chapter ready for Christmas! More fluff, more science… And some almost suspense? I hope you like it ;)

PREVIOUSLY ON ASAF: And that was how ten minutes later he held his soulmate in his arms, hugging him from behind, the duvet hanging over his back, while Tony typed away on his computer, muttering under his breath. Loki let the contentment wash over him freely, not caring if Tony could feel it. He could spend hours like this, holding his soulmate, breathing in his scent.

How could the halls of Valhalla ever compare to this?

CHAPTER 46

So. Tony might be regretting his life choices right now. As in, why did he accept to be a goddamn heating source again? Sure, having a mildly ill Frost Giant glued to his back for so long did make him a bit chilly, which wasn't a bad thing when you were trying to stay awake. But. Loki was hugging him. And resting his head on his shoulder. And sending over emotions that could only be described as the equivalent of a day at the beach, cocktail in hand, relaxing in a chaise longue with a sunny smile. It was, all in all, very distracting.

Of course, when thinking of the grand scheme of things, Tony should aim to do whatever was needed to concentrate on his task, AKA digitally mind-reading Zola. But. Loki was hugging him. And, well, he didn't want that to stop? Okay, hear him out. Yes, Tony wasn't really one for physical contact unless he was the one initiating it. Sure, people assumed he was fine with touching people all over because the tabloids were full of pictures of him draped over women, often more than one, but in those cases he had mostly been, one, mildly or awfully drunk or high or both, and two, he'd initiated said contact. And also, those had hardly been hugs.

This, this was a hug. A hug from behind no less, in which he wasn't the one hugging but the one being hugged. And sure, he'd been the one floating the idea – which he totally blamed on Lady Fate because why else would he have thought of something like this? Sure, he hadn't specified that a hug was what he'd been thinking of when he said he'd play the hot water bottle, but he hadn't exactly not thought of that being the option. And when it became the option because Loki just, well, hugged him, he hadn't protested. And logically, he shouldn't have been able to sustain this for more than five minutes. It had been twenty at least. And, he kind of liked it and didn't want it to stop. It was weird as fuck.

So that, in itself, was distracting. Loki's cat-got-the-cream, purring-on-the-inside kind of feelings were distracting – Tony had to be quite the hot water bottle to get that type of reaction. The feeling of Loki's weight pressed against him, of Loki's hair tickling his neck, of Loki's breath ghosting past his cheek and the rhythmic movement of Loki's chest against his back, of Loki's hands crossed over his stomach and fisting his shirt, of Loki's heartbeat – which he had no idea where or how he could feel but he just could – it was all very distracting.

It made his Arc reactor feel too hot in his chest, which was both novel and pretty alarming. He'd have to look into that later. J.A.R.V.I.S. hadn't said anything about it, and he monitored Tony's Arc reactors at all times, so it must not be as serious as it felt. Maybe he was imagining it. Like, because he felt a bit chilled overall, the Arc reactor felt hot in comparison or something like that.

"Sir, incoming call from… Rhodey."

Tony's eyebrows went up. Since when did J.A.R.V. call him Rhodey instead of Lieutenant-Colonel Rhodes or something else overly formal? Had Rhodey finally managed to convince his AI to call him Rhodey? It had only taken fucking years.

"Put him through." After all, a secondary distraction might distract him from his primary distraction. It wasn't going to help him with his current task, but hey. "Rhodes, to what do I owe the pleasure? After you fucked off straight after the gala of all galas and all."

"I left because of the galas of all galas, Tony, you know that. Something about War Machine not getting involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. matters and all."

"I think you mean Avengers matters. S.H.I.E.L.D. ain't done much."

It was Hydra. Though, if Hydra was pulling S.H.I.E.L.D.'s strings… It all depended on how much of S.H.I.E.L.D. was still S.H.I.E.L.D. and how much was Hydra. A scary thought. And unfortunately a realistic one. Stabbing Hydra to death – no head-cutting, bad idea that – might mean they'd have to count S.H.I.E.L.D. as collateral. But he'd let Phil take care of that clusterfuck if that happened.

"Sure, whatever. I just wanted to know how things were going. Like, how's your not-boyfriend-soulmate doing? Your last text of 'Loki's ill' is not as informative as you think. And also, did you pull your head out of your arse yet?"

"First off, Loki's on the line too."

"Ah."

"I am getting better, thank you for your concern, Rhodey,"Loki interjected. Now that was almost as weird as hearing J.A.R.V.I.S. call Rhodes Rhodey. Perhaps Loki didn't realise Rhodey was a nickname. A nickname that used to be exclusively Tony's, way back when.

"And second," Tony said, louder, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you'd say that," Rhodey said with a snort.

"If I may, Rhodey," J.A.R.V.I.S. butted in, "I believe Sir is well on his way, given the current situation."

"What current situation?"

"What is this, a conference call?" What the hell happened to privacy in his fucking tower?

The ping of a message was audible over the line. "Wait, let me check that real quick," Rhodey said, soon followed by a chuckle. "Oh wow." Rhodey laughed outright, the sound becoming louder as he must have brought his phone back up to his ear. "Yeah, that's quite the situation."

What? Wha— "J.A.R.V.I.S. what the fuck did you do?" Tony said, voice strangled. Loki tightened his grip on him, though if it was to try to calm him or to make sure Tony didn't wiggle out of the hug like he was tempted to do, he had no idea.

"I gave Rhodey a visual of your current situation, Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. answered, as Tony'd expected given Rhodey's reaction. What Tony hadn't expected was that his AI would sound so smug.

"That is so not cool on so many levels, J.A.R.V., I don't even know how to put it into words."

"He means he feels betrayed that his baby boy isn't taking his side on this," Rhodey said.

"Tony feels mostly embarrassed, with mild shock, disappointment and betrayal, and a touch of confusion, pride and relief," Loki said, because he was an arsehole.

"You, reading my emotions and telling everyone, also not cool, man!"

"Mmmh, the shock and betrayal increased exponentially," Loki continued.

Meanwhile, Rhodey was laughing his arse off. "Damn, a front-row seat into Tony's psyche! I don't know if that makes you the luckiest or unluckiest guy alive. Either way, glad it ain't me!"

"Gee, thanks! For the record, I'm also glad it ain't you Rhodes, you'd be a fucking nightmare to have in my head."

Rhodey's phone pinged again, and he was silent longer this time. "Well, got to go I'm afraid. Good talk, Tones. And J.A.R.V.I.S., keep them pics coming!"

"What? The hell he will!"

"Bye Tony. Give Loki a kiss for me!" his arsehole of a best friend said before hanging up.

Fucking hell.

"I suppose that is a Midgardian expression?"

"It is," Tony answered quickly, and he was so glad it actually was because damn. Who knew what Loki would think if it hadn't been one and he'd lied. Loki hummed in his ear, and he wondered if the bond had made it seem like Tony hadn't been completely honest after all. It was an expression. It was. But Rhodey had totally meant that literally. That idiot.

"A strange expression indeed," Loki said, and luckily didn't push the matter.

Tony managed another twenty minutes of kind of burying himself into the weird-arse code of Zola's ancient programmed brain while trying very hard to forget about Loki, and especially about strange human expressions. Then distraction numero tre decided to invade his workshop. Tony obviously felt the urge to slip out of Loki's embrace, but he could feel how his soulmate had immediately tensed up— Fine. He'd take the awkwardness.

He waited until a frowning Bruce came to stand next to the desk. "Well, well, well, if it ain't Doctor Bruce."

Bruce totally ignored him. "How are you feeling, Loki?"

"Much better, thank you." Loki didn't even lift his head from Tony's shoulder. It was like having some kind of sloth or something hanging from his back; the kind of creature that was happy to hang around exactly where it was and that didn't feel inclined to move at all.

"Before you go thinking I dragged him down here or anything, he's the one who decided to follow me," Tony said, pointing at Loki with his thumb. "And decided I'm more comfortable than a chair."

"You're much better than a chair, elskan mín."

"Such high praise."

"How about you, Tony, how are you feeling?" Ha, now Bruce changed his tune.

"I'm fine. Not nearly as tired as before. Maybe the better Loki feels, the less magic he steals from me. So don't worry, you don't need to play doctor with me." He paused. "God that came out wrong. Anyway, as you can see, I'm totally back to being my old self. If you don't count the koala situation."

"What is a koala?"

"A weird Australian animal that hangs out in trees. They're the OG tree huggers."

"You are not a tree—"

"If you're gonna say 'thus I'm not a koala', let me teach you a little something about that nifty thing called metaphors— Ow!" Loki had fucking pulled his ear, what the hell?

"Don't be so impertinent, young man," Loki said, in a very good imitation of any mother ever.

Tony couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. Loki poked him in the cheek with those sharp nails of his, perhaps trying to make him stop laughing, he had no idea – but the bond was full of amusement anyway, so more likely than not this was some kind of ploy to make Bruce lose the frown. If that was the case it had worked; Bruce was obviously trying very hard not to laugh too.

"I'm glad you're both doing good, then. Just be careful, Loki. That young man of yours isn't that young anymore. He needs his sleep."

"Hey, I'm not old! Take that back!"

"I'll keep that in mind, doctor," Loki said, because he was an arse. Both of them were, talking about him as if he wasn't there!

"Thank you. I'd rather not have to patch him up again."

Tony caught Bruce's eye, because 'patching up', it reminded him of something… He could see the exact moment Bruce remembered it too. "Your arm!"

Tony looked down at said arm. The one that, after the gala, had been burnt and broken. The one that had been in a makeshift sling while he waited for Loki to wake up from his sleep-slash-coma, and he had been hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D. to figure out how the fuck the shitshow at the gala had happened, and he'd noticed the pain less and less – because of the distraction caused by said hacking, he'd thought – and then he'd started to find some iffy shit in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s locked drawers… And at some point he'd forgotten about the pain. Or maybe he hadn't forgotten about it, maybe the pain had just disappeared.

He vaguely remembered taking a shower that same day – or was it even the same day? Those had been such long endless hours… He'd been in full automatic pilot, head still filing away S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff and Loki being unwell, and to be honest he really couldn't remember taking off the bandages but he must have… He'd totally forgotten about his own injury by then.

"What are you talking about," Loki said, clearly confused. A mild suspicion was climbing up the bond. Perhaps Loki's memory of the gala attack was a bit muddled. It wouldn't surprise him. Loki had clearly been worried about Tony's injury at the time. And sure, Tony should have told him about it later when he knew the extent of the damage but, well. He'd clearly forgotten about it because… He was fine. What the fuck.

"Okay, so. J.A.R.V.. You said my arm was broken after the gala. How is it now?"

"It is… not broken, Sir."

"And you couldn't have said so before?"

"My apologies, Sir, but I did not expect your arm to repair itself this fast, thus I did not specifically scan for it."

"Can someone please explain what is going on?" Loki growled.

"Darling, that's exactly what I'm trying to find out. My arm was broken during the gala attack. Shot with an alien gun if you remember." Tony could feel the moment the memory flashed in front of Loki's eyes; he stiffened, and shock, worry, and guilt all spilt over, hitting Tony by soul-bond waves. "Hey, I'm fine now. That's the thing. I shouldn't be fine, but I am."

Less than a second later Tony had been spun around and pushed against the desk, Loki's fingers tugging his long-sleeved tee up and up and up, and Tony lifted his arms to help him because sure, just rip off his clothes, why not? Not that Tony could blame him. And besides, he was quite curious himself. He hadn't properly looked at his arm either, because he hadn't remembered that he should.

His arm looked fine. Like, his bicep looked exactly the same as it had before the gala. And that was weird as fuck and had magical healing written all over it.

"Huh," Bruce said. Tony's thoughts exactly.

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Loki's hand trembled when it hovered above Tony's skin. How could he have forgotten? Had he really been so obnubilated by his own miserableness that he had not spared a thought to his soulmate's well-being? He had already been syphoning Tony's magic from him – he had not done that on purpose, certainly, but that was hardly an excuse. And he had even done so when Tony was injured and needed his energy most… He had been unknowingly endangering his vulnerable soulmate even more—

"Hey, stop beating yourself up, I'm fine."

Tony was all right. Or so he said. Loki finally let his hand touch the unblemished skin, and closed his eyes to concentrate. Just like healing spells themselves, detecting past healing was not his forte even in optimal circumstances, and he currently was hardly in his optimal state. And yet, he could feel the energy signature that had mended tissue and bone, reversed any damage it might have – the muscles and skin in an area as broad as his palm had not merely been healed from the Chitauri gun's shot, they had been healed from everything else that might ail them. Strain. Fatigue. Natural decay from aging. This was beyond anything Loki could have achieved with the few spells he knew. And yet Tony's arm was imbued with their magical signature – Loki's, and Tony's very similar signature which was a mix of his own and his Arc reactor's. Somehow, they had healed this limb. Or the soul bond had.

"So? Find anything interesting? Did we dream up the injury? Did I catch alien cooties after all and mutate into an immortal? Did Asgard send down an invisible medic to heal just me and leave you to rot like the bastards they are?"

"You were indeed injured, and you have indeed been healed. The only magical signature I find is ours. The soul bond might have utilised both our magical energies to heal something it found to be potentially life-threatening. That is the only explanation I can think of."

"Not that I'm complaining, but that's stupid. I mean, it was just some burns and a broken arm, hardly the end of the world. Annoying, but not life-threatening by any means. And besides, why the fuck didn't the bond heal you? Having a fever and being bed-bound, that's way more life-threatening if there's an enemy attack or whatnot."

Oh.

"This healing spell might have contributed to my weakened state."

He had used an Infinity Stone on an already dwindling core, yes, but he had mostly used the stone's own source. If the soul bond had used up more magic than he could spare, while in a state where he could not stop the siphoning of his energy— That would explain a lot. He had wondered how he had managed to become so frail; he had supposed it must have been the Mind stone alone, since he had still needed to channel its energy through his core. He could not have fathomed that he might have been robbed of more magic during his sleep. No one in their right mind would push themselves this far unless they were in imminent danger. Never had Loki been that desperate or that unwise, nor did he know anyone else who had. Ergo the unusual state of his core and the sickness that had plagued him.

"So you're saying you got ill because I got hit?"

Outrage and guilt both were coming over the bond, and Loki squeezed Tony's shoulder. "It is not your fault, kærr, nor is it mine. If the soul bond indeed attempts to heal us when we are in danger by combining our energies, I am glad. The only reason it affected me so is because I had gone beyond my limits already. Do not blame yourself. We are safe now, and that is all that matters." Even if Loki were to bear lasting scars that impacted his magical abilities, so be it. He would rather give up his magic than see Tony suffer.

"Yeah, well, it still sucks. It's just stupid. I wasn't that badly injured."

Tony truly thought that. Yet the soul bond would not have gone so far as to heal him this thoroughly if it had not considered it dangerous, this Loki wholeheartedly believed. All the other soulmate abilities they had discovered so far made logical sense; heightened communication, harmonisation, proximity and localisation. They all fit within the context of two separate bodies wanting to become one because they bore a single, merged soul. No matter how incredible it sounded, this healing was only par for the course.

"I'm gonna check your blood. Both of you," Bruce said. "And I want an X-ray of that arm at minimum. CT would be better but—."

"Hold your Hulk-sized horses! Blood, sure, I can do that, but I'm not going to a hospital to get some goddamn scans. You can get whatever J.A.R.V.I.S. can scan and that's it."

"Tony—"

"Nope. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an artificial brain to hack."

Loki walked around the desk to join Bruce. Tony needed some time to process this new information about the bond. He could feel it in the way the bond felt; thinner, less willing to share information, though not in any way shielded either. Tony wanted space. And, he had seemed inwardly apprehensive at the mention of these medical exams.

Bruce led him to a corner of the workshop which had a very different feel to it. The instruments were very different from the ones Tony used. Loki eyed them, both fascinated and somewhat repulsed; Midgardian medicine was in many ways barbaric, yet also quite impressive for such a short-lived species. Unlike in Asgard, where researchers in all possible disciplines liked to hoard their discoveries and not share their secrets until they got bored of them, or they died and their archives were divvied up, here in Midgard research was shared, worked on in groups, available to all on their Internet. They had no choice – only then could they advance their knowledge quickly enough to attempt to help their too-large population to survive.

Bruce drew Loki's blood, the purple colour of it still jarring, still feeling fundamentally wrong. Now Loki could witness what Bruce did with it. One of the four phials he put in a machine that spun it around, while another he used to put drops on different slivers of glass or paper or little holes in some sort of plastic beehive, that he then inserted in various machines. When the spinning machine stopped, Bruce took the phial – the blood now constituted different layers of translucid yellow, whitish yellow and darker purple. He then took samples of the different layers to put them on more surfaces and holes. It was fascinating, the things Midgardians did to attempt to see what any healer would be able to feel with magic.

Bruce spent some time with his eyes glued to some sort of machine, humming from time to time. As another machine beeped, he lifted his head, rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on.

"Do you want to take a look? I mean, you'll mostly only see your red, no, purple blood cells. They're kind of oval with a visible rim. I've identified the shape of a number of other things that I think can be called equivalents to things found in human blood, like platelets and an array of white blood cells that I've just named with letters because I won't be able to tell if their functions are the same as neutrophils or basophils or the like because, well, you're not from Earth. It's a bad idea to assume all beings in the galaxy work along the same principles as humans, especially when there's such a huge difference in immunity and lifespan. I— Well, I'll let you take a look."

When Bruce moved away, he took the wheeled chair with him, meaning Loki had to stoop down to align his eyes with the eyeholes. He was met with a curious sight – a legion of oval-like shapes, and stacked lines of what he assumed must be these same ovals piled against each other. He had never seen anything of the sort. How intriguing. "It's moving."

"Ah, yes, it would be. Actually your blood cells move much more at ambient temperature than human blood cells do. Probably because they are active at lower temperatures than human blood."

Loki stood up straight once more. "If I understand correctly, this machine shows me the components that my blood is made of?"

"The microscope? Yes. Well, it's showing your blood at a cellular level. There are of course much smaller components than that, molecules, atoms, quarks and so on. You could see molecules on an electron microscope but I don't have one of those, obviously, and an atomic force microscope even less. But it's cells you look at when diagnosing someone anyway."

Bruce gestured at the machine he was manipulating. "This is a hematology analyser. It counts the different types of cells inside a blood sample. Well, it tries anyway. I think I've managed to get it to differentiate your blood cells pretty well now, but it wasn't a walk in the park." Bruce then pulled up names and numbers on the computer screen that did not mean anything to Loki. "It was already visible on the microscope, but the number of white blood cells has drastically diminished, which means that your immune response to the illness or inflammation you had has calmed. That's what I'd hoped to see, since you say you're feeling better."

"How many categories of components would you say there are?"

"I'm… not sure what you're asking. I mean, there are many different levels you could look at when it comes to blood composition—"

"I was merely thinking of the broadest of categories. For instance, your spinning machine divided my blood into different colours. If I knew how many of such categories to look for, and how much of each to expect, I might be able to link your categories with those I can feel with healing spells."

"You can feel blood composition?"

"Not very well. I am hardly an expert healer. My— The Allmother would most probably be able to."

"Okay. Just, let me put this sample in the centrifuge real quick." Once removed, the phial's blood was once again divided into layers. "In the grand scheme of things, your blood is similar to human blood. So, the transparent bit, that's about sixty percent, that's plasma. It's, like, water and nutrients and hormones and all that. Then the thin layer, that's just a few percent, that's white cells, so immune cells, and platelets, that's a clotting agent. That amount will vary a little depending on inflammation and haemorrhaging, but yours is now what I think might be your normal levels. And then about forty percent are red blood cells, or purple blood cells for you. They carry the oxygen and carbon dioxide. That's, er, molecules from the air you breathe in and out."

Loki picked up the one phial of his blood Bruce had not yet used, and closed his eyes. He very slowly, very carefully cast the tiniest of diagnostic spells – he had done much of the same earlier with Tony's arm, though he had not been as careful as he was now, since he had hardly been thinking straight then. Diagnosing was, in all fairness, not as much a spell as it was detecting energy flows. What made it different was the nature of what one was attempting to detect, and that was what used a small fraction of one's own magic; to change the scale and essence to what one was looking for. In this case Loki was not entirely sure if the way he would usually look at blood – though 'usually' was hardly the word, given how rarely he did this – was the right scale for these broad categories Bruce had noted, but he attempted it nonetheless.

Bruce had seemed to separate the physiological functions of different blood components. In a sense it was physiological functions that healing magic inspected, such as the presence of foreign elements like poisons or magics, the effervescence caused by illness or injury, the lack of vitality caused by malnutrition or over-exertion or illness and the like. Magic, however, hardly looked at it in such a quantifying manner. It was more a question of feeling, of how the energy flowed, of how the blood cried out for lack or overflow of something.

Loki concentrated on the phial. He did not know if it was because his own magic was so slow to trickle down his arm, or if it was because the blood had been removed from him too long ago and so the magic in the blood cells had started to decay, but he did not receive much feedback at all. He handed the phial back, and focused on his own body instead, putting his hand on his forearm to concentrate on a single vein – he had to shut out information of surrounding flesh, nerve and bone. There the energies were much easier to read. Besides, since it was his own blood, it was easy to separate his own magical signature from whatever might be foreign.

He noted two things. The presence of wild magic from Tony's Arc reactor, in small fragments that had not yet found a home in his core or elsewhere; they most likely had entered his body in the last couple of hours of physical contact with his soulmate. This might mean that either Loki's possible unconscious stealing of Tony's magic while he was unwell was still active – though that hypothesis as the cause of Tony's fatigue and diminished magical stores was now contested by the healing of his arm, which would not have occurred to this extent overnight. Or, a constant, minimal exchange of magical energy always occurred when they touched, as this was the moment their bodies and souls were the closest – and thus so were their magical cores. The second thing of notice was of course a lingering diminished vitality; Loki was not yet recovered, neither from this bout of unknown illness, nor from his unreplenished, cracked magical core.

"I do not believe I can necessarily detect what you can see with your machines. I cannot divide the information into quantities, though I suspect the categories you describe do in some ways overlap with what healing spells detect, such as foreign elements, effervescence and vitality, which were the three branches I was taught to look for. I also cannot detect these in the blood sample you have, because it has lost most of its magic by now."

"But you can read the blood that's inside you, then?" Loki nodded, and Bruce looked pensive. "And you would be able to read a fresh blood sample?"

"Most likely, though not as easily as I would by reading it from the owner themselves."

"I wonder what you'd see in my blood. If you can read other species in the same way, of course. Not that I have normal blood by any means. In a way I'm only partially human these days."

"I can indeed analyse and heal Midgardians, though I would have more trouble doing so than I've had healing Tony. I read Tony's blood earlier, when I was checking on his arm. Though I suppose Tony's blood is not 'normal' either because of the presence of his Arc reactor. Not when it comes to magic, anyway."

Bruce's expression switched between curiosity and caution, hesitating back and forth, until his face hardened with determination. "Want to take a look at my blood? No pressure of course. If you don't feel well enough just say so. I'm just wondering what your take would be on what my… energy is like."

"It would be my pleasure." The unnatural Bruce Banner-Hulk symbiotic relationship was one that both fascinated and frightened him in equal measure. He would not pass on a chance to take a closer look at it, even if it was only in the way their shared blood flowed.

Bruce undid the buttons on the cuff of his shirt and pulled it up, exposing his inner forearm. Loki approached and left his hand to hover over Bruce's skin, meeting his eyes to make certain he had not changed his mind. Bruce nodded, and Loki put his hand on the warm skin – Bruce had a much higher temperature than he had expected. He closed his eyes and focused on the blood running through the man's veins.

The first thing he noted was the dual magical signatures. He had expected this – ordinarily he could feel the magical signatures of those around him. A number of the Avengers had more noticeable magical cores than the average Midgardian. This included Tony, Bruce and Steve, all for different reasons. In the case of Bruce, it was two distinct yet merged magical cores. It was nothing like Tony whose magic was aided by his own creation. This was like two separate entities forced together as one and ever battling for dominance.

Bruce's blood set off all possible alarms; there were foreign bodies travelling his bloodstream, in the form of that foreign magic but also radiating poisonous elements that would damage his cells. His blood was too effervescent, the alarmed body ever fighting these foreign intruders. The vitality was, however, surprisingly high despite the constant toll caused by this immune reaction.

These dichotomies were fascinating, as was the distinctiveness of these two magical signatures. Loki looked beyond the bloodstream, into the flesh and bone, and found similar ratios in all the cells; the calm and level, violet-coloured and fruit-scented signature was Bruce's, and it outweighed the angry and spiky, green and petrichor-scented signature of the Hulk five to one. Loki let his awareness travel up Bruce's arm, down to his heart, where the brightness of his magical core resided. A brightness that shone twice as bright as most Midgardians. Perhaps it was because of the strange structure of this dual magical core; not two sister cores, not a half-and-half twin core, but one core – Bruce's – entirely englobing the other, suppressing it, so that only a small fragment of its energy leaked out.

Intrigued, Loki pressed closer; pushed past Bruce's core to touch that of the other. The sharp intake of breath barely registered, and neither did the meaning of the blooming change of ratios that happened; four to one, three to one and so on, equalising, reversing, one to two, one to three— He had never felt anything like it.

It was Tony's alarm, sharply cutting across his senses, that made his eyes fly open. His hand was not splayed on Bruce's arm anymore, but on a wide and green one. The Hulk was crouching in front of him, its giant head nearly at eye-level, looking at Loki, sharing his bewildered look.

"My apologies, I did not mean to wake you."

It's back! My famous cliffhanger! Sorry, couldn't help it :P

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