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It starts, as so many other things, in a cave in Afghanistan.
He wakes up with the taste of blood and copper in his mouth, and fear claws its way through his chest as if it wants to tear another hole into his body. But he is not scared because he is in a dark, cold cave, and he is not scared because there is a car battery attached to the thing that sits between his lungs like an intruder, like a parasite. He is not scared because he isn't alone.
He is scared because the cave is cold and dark [and he is going to get shot in three days eleven hours thirty-two minutes six seconds because he can't keep his mouth shut or he is going to drown in forty-eight days three hours fifty-seven minutes nine seconds because they get careless when they've lost their patience or he is going to die of thirst stumbling through a desert because he walked into the wrong direction he has to go west west west].
He is scared because there is a car battery attached to the thing between his lungs and [it's not a parasite because parasites don't save their hosts] and [he's always going to have breathing problems from now on] and [it's going to taste like coconut one day].
He is scared because he isn't alone and the other man in the cave breathes in [and thinks about his son] and out [and thinks about his wife] and [is about to say] - "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
He realizes he's trying to get the thing out. He can't make himself stop. "What did you do to me?" he asks and feels the man's calm hands in his chest all over again, feels them as if they were his own.
He even knows what the man [Ho Yinsen] thought while he cracked the ribcage open to fit the magnet in.
Tony Stark stops clawing at his chest. He is scared because he knows too much.
/
His brain has always been filled with thoughts to the very brim. Sometimes they spill over, that's when he grabs a bottle with trembling hands to numb it all. But there is no whiskey in the cave of the Ten Rings, there is no workshop, no car he can hide under, no pretty lady he can take to bed and forget about before sunrise. And so his brain is running at full speed, trying to keep up with the battailion of stray thoughts demanding his attention.
Information keeps coming in and in and in and he doesn't know where it's coming from only that it's there, clear as day in his head - well, some fragments clearer than others. Past, present and future are labyrinths made of threads and Tony can look at them, parts of them, every time he sees the beginning or the middle or the end of one of those threads. It's difficult to make sense of. It changes all the time. It scares him to death.
They want him to build the Jericho missile. At first he refuses and they try to persuade him using not very polite methods, namely by pushing his head down into dirty water. Repeatedly, until they grow bored of it having no effect, and then again on the next day and the day after that and the day after that. [They're going to lose their patience soon. He'll be dead next week if he doesn't agree.] Eventually, he stands outside in the middle of his own weapons, and in between the crates and boxes and people who would kill him without giving it a second thought, he sees a face he thought he knew.
The man [Abu Bakaar, forty-three, used to play hide and seek with his little sister, already planning to kill him as soon as the missile is finished] promises to let him go, and Tony shakes his hand and smiles.
He is led back into the cold, dark cave, and the world is askew. The voice at the back of his head keeps whispering things it shouldn't know, but there are too many fragments, too many possibilities. It's pure chaos, but as he comes up with a plan, the inside of his head is strangely calm. He promises himself that the world won't be askew anymore when he's done.
The new reactor doesn't taste like coconut, and the palladium in it already leaves a bad but not actually existent taste in Tony's mouth, but for now it will do. He and Ho Yinsen play games by the small fireplace, because their bodies ache and their minds keep them from finding rest, and Tony asks about Yinsen's family, as if he doesn't know that he has one. As if he doesn't already have an awful feeling he can't put his finger on.
"Yes," Yinsen says. "And I will see them when I get out of here."
Tony looks at him and knows that Yinsen is more and more grateful every day that the headshot that killed his son was clean and quick. That his wife doesn't have to wonder if she will ever see her husband again. In this case, Tony isn't sure where the line is between suicide and sacrifice.
Either way, Tony tries to make sense of the fragments in his mind, sure that there must be a way to save his friend. He looks for the right thread and doesn't find it, and Yinsen does not survive. He doesn't even get a clean and quick headshot.
When Tony lands in the desert, his limbs sore and the hot air burning in his eyes, he goes west.
/
"That's crazy, man," Rhodey says.
He's sitting next to the bed Tony has been assigned while Tony tries to eat without using his left arm. Rhodey has barely let Tony out of his sight, insisting that he has to rest for a few days before they fly home, and Tony doesn't have it in him to act up and disagree with the best friend he'll ever have.
Tony nods. "I know, right?"
"And you're not making this up?"
"No."
"You've been alone in the desert for two days, Tones. Sunstroke?"
Tony glances at him. "She won't go out with you."
"What?"
"That girl you like," Tony says. He gestures around with his fork. "The one who brings coffee down to you guys while you're doing important things. By the way - awfully cliché, falling for the secretary, but I'm not one to judge."
Rhodey stares at him blankly. "I don't think I ever told you -"
"Well, that's the point, isn't it? So, first of all - she's too young for you, Rhodey, come on. Secondly, she thinks you won't have time for her, which means she's a clever girl, congrats, but yeah, no chance."
"But she considered it?" Rhodey asks, and Tony gives him a dry look.
"That's what you're concentrating on? Really?"
"Right," Rhodey says. "Right. Oh my god."
"Yeah."
"That's -"
"Crazy? Yes. You're repeating yourself, Platypus."
"Okay, so - how does it work, exactly?"
Tony shrugs. He can't make himself say that he saw it in the way Rhodey reached for his phone yesterday, because that doesn't make any sense. Instead, he says, "Hell if I know."
/
Seeing Obadiah Stane is like walking into a room full of big, bright neon signs that all read DANGER. TREAD CAREFULLY. Being pulled into a hug by him is even worse.
Tony wants to push him away, and preferably to hit him right after, but all he does is give him a tight smile. Yes, Tony is glad to see him too. No, Tony doesn't need rest. Oh, don't you worry, he's an excellent liar.
During the press conference, Tony feels a tingle of something familiar, but he can't quite place it. Is it possible to have a déja-vu of something that hasn't happened yet? Hell, the answer is probably a yes, given that Tony knows that Christine Everhart - without regret, but with a bit of miffed-ness - thought back to their merry little rolling around in bed when she looked at him just now.
The burger in his hand almost feels like cue cards for some reason.
Obadiah isn't happy with the recent developments, of course, but does Tony give a fuck? No, absolutely not, so he simply goes home and works, because there is nothing else he can do and also the voice is quiet when he works. And so he works, and then he flies and falls, and then he throws himself into a smoking and crashes his own party.
Pepper is a vision, naturally. She always is. Tony loves her [she will never really understand him, though] and maybe they could be good together, the two of them, but maybe they'll just fly and fall as well. Either way - there are more important things to take care of.
The lights of the cameras are blinding. Tony smiles into them, even leans into the hand on his back as if he welcomes the touch. He doesn't. He sees Obadiah die in fire and flame and doesn't know why, or if it will really happen. The things he sees and knows don't always happen, that much is clear by now - this morning the voice in his head insisted Pepper would be hit by a car, so Tony called her and kept her from leaving the office by annoying the hell out of her, until the voice shut up.
Fire and flame [explosion, actually] would be nice, though. Appropriate.
Tony hears Obadiah laugh for the journalists, that charming, artificial laugh, and thinks about Pepper who's maybe still waiting for him on the balcony [they could be happy together if only, if he only, if - if - if -] and about the photos that he saw for the first time but found so familiar looking.
Obadiah's confession isn't a surprise - after all, Tony knew about it already. It still stings, though, and he can't just keep his mouth shut, because all he wants is to wipe that grin off Obadiah's face. Well, a little more than that - what he really wants is to see Obadiah Stane burn.
Tony wraps his arm around Obadiah's shoulders in return, smiles for the cameras and says, "You don't actually think that I didn't figure it out, do you? Who do you think I am?"
Maybe that is a bit of a bold statement. Maybe it even fills him with cold dread, because god, he knows that he wouldn't have figured it out without his newest talent. He'd have had no idea, not even the slightest suspicion. And that makes him sick to the stomach.
The look on Obadiah's face is worth it, though.
Tony leaves him there and flies to Gulmira to wreak havoc where havoc is due, and he wonders if Obadiah will be waiting for him at home. He isn't, which is probably because he thinks that Tony only knows about Obie basically, kicking him out of SI, not about Obie selling Tony's weapons underhand, not about Obie selling Tony's life and skills away as well in order to get rid of him. But he won't keep that a secret for much longer, not now that Tony's finally acting out, finally realizing… well. Soon enough, Obadiah will make his move. And Tony tries to be ready, he does, but even though he knows so much it still isn't enough, so of course the entire thing doesn't go exactly as he planned.
And isn't that ironic? His head is full of information about the world and the people around him, about their ideas and plans and the possible future they are designing, about the possible future he himself is designing - but he still ends up paralysed on his sofa because the voice tells him too many things at once and Tony is too angry to function. He still ends up fighting against a person he considered one of the most important people in his life. He still ends up hanging from the remains of a roof and yelling at Pepper to push the button that will kill that person make Obadiah Stane burn and you know what, fuck it.
If he dies, he dies.
[Tony Stark doesn't die this easily.]
/
The thing is, Tony still kind of hopes that it - the voice, the knowledge, the utter nonsense of it all - will fade and go away eventually. Because sure, it's really helpful now and then, but it's also really annoying. He's come to the conclusion that he simply has no interest in knowing what other people are thinking about or doing in their freetime. He certainly has no interest in being the one to tell them that no, that new diet won't work, either, and no, you'll never get a raise because your boss is an asshole and no, for the millionth time, their childhood traumas aren't any of Tony's fucking business so if they could kindly stop screaming them at him with a megaphone, he'd be overjoyed. Truly.
The pressure is too much.
Needless to say, the thing (whatever it is, wherever it came from, it's not like Tony has the slightest clue) is still going strong when that Natalie [Natasha] person [spy] shows up, and when the russian maniac with electric whips attacks him because Tony did - something? Apparently? And it's still ironic.
Oh, well, it really isn't. When he jumped into the car to participate in the race, he knew [he shouldn't do this he really shouldn't do this] that it wasn't a good idea. He just didn't care, because why should he? The voice could be wrong. It's been wrong before - rather, it changes its opinion now and then when something new happens, something that changes the direction of some threads.
It's not wrong in this case.
Because of fucking course it isn't.
Anyway, the dude lands in prison [for a short while] and being in a room with him makes Tony's skin crawl for a couple of reasons, but he's still alive [for a short while] and that's what matters, right?
He tries to make an omelette and fails spectacularly. He sucks at making omelettes. His skin hasn't stopped itching and burning, especially around the reactor, and the exhaustion is bone-deep and difficult to ignore.
The problem is that he doesn't know how to say what he needs to say. Pepper doesn't want the omelette and she also doesn't want to go on a short - and last - vacation with him, because she doesn't know that he's dying, but how do you tell someone you love that you're dying?
He tells her something else instead. She doesn't believe him at first - Rhodey didn't, either -, she just looks at him like he’s crazy, but then he talks about her elementary school teacher she still thinks about sometimes but never mentioned before, and that does the trick. She's not as shocked as she could be, but then again, if taking things in stride was an olympic discipline, she would have won a few gold medals before the age of twenty-five.
"So, you're what?" she asks, staring at him as if she doesn't get paid enough for any of this. "Psychic? First you're Iron Man and now you're psychic?"
"Actually, I was psychic before I became Iron Man," Tony says. She doesn't seem to care a lot. "Just, strictly chronologically speaking, it - yeah, well, doesn't - who cares? Also, can we not call it psychic? Can we call it something else? Because -"
"I don't get paid enough for any of this," she says.
"Funny, I just thought the exact same thing."
Pepper sighs and leans back in her seat. "But apart from that, you're fine?"
"Yes," he lies straight through his teeth, "sure, Pep."
/
Let's just not talk about that clusterfuck of a birthday party. Tony wants to get drunk again just to forget about it, but - well. He guesses there's a pattern now.
[Virginia Potts won't quite replace Tony Stark, but she'll be very good at what she does.]
[James Rhodes won't quite replace Iron Man, but he'll be very good at what he does.]
His aliases will be embarrassing, though.
/
He tries to act surprised when Natalie turns out to be - gasp! - a spy, but he thinks it falls a little flat. Not that it's important, he knows they'll ground him no matter what he says.
Of course he still leaves the house, because Tony Stark doesn't let anyone ground him, not even Fury and his admittedly fear-inducing eye twitches. Thing is, when he sits in his - uh, Pepper's - office, he kind of wishes he'd stayed grounded.
"You know about my elementary school teacher's favorite author," Pepper says slowly, "but you don't know that I'm allergic to strawberries?"
"Uh."
She sends him away, naturally, but before he leaves the room [Howard Stark designed something more than just the expo] he stops. He thinks he's got something there, so he takes the model home, where he remembers his father and rediscovers something grand.
He's relieved when he tastes coconut. That means this is final. The Russian genius demands to be dealt with, so Tony goes and deals with him - Rhodey's helping, thank god - and then he and Pepper kiss on the roof, which is nice, and then she comes home with him, which is nicer. She yells at him for not telling her anything about the palladium and ends up crying [they could be happy together if things were different, if he was different] and they don't kiss again.
It's not only because of Tony's commitment issues, and also not because Pepper doesn't really know how to deal with a psychic superhero boyfriend. She sleeps in Tony's bed just this one night. In the morning, the sheets tell him that even if they kissed again, even if they admitted to being half in love with each other already, she would stop sleeping in his bed in a couple of years, if not months. And the look she gives him when he stands up far too early to go to the workshop tells him that they don't fit together half as well as they would like to.
Maybe, just maybe, he acquires the pseudo memory of something - someone - else when he leaves the bed, someone who will groan and complain but inevitably come downstairs with coffee and a million ideas.
But well, that's an entirely different matter.
/
There are two major problems that come with the whole psychic shtick.
Problem one: it's very easy to get overwhelmed in stressful situations. When a lot of things happen at once and there is a gigantic bunch of information to pay attention to, the part of Tony's head that is now responsible for those quiet whispers turns into a prehistoric tube TV with poor reception. And that means white noise. Static. At times a bit of tinnitus. You can probably imagine how beneficial that is during battles.
Problem two: the things those quiet whispers tell him are not always the most important and useful stuff. Read, sometimes the new information that suddenly fills up Tony's head is so irrelevant that it's not even funny anymore.
So, when he lands in Stuttgart, he does a double take, and then he almost turns around and flies off back into the safety of his tower because really, fuck this.
But that's not an actual option, obviously, not after that entrance he just made, so he stays where he is. But god, he's relieved when the helmed wannabe-cosmocrat raises his hands - although there's definitely a mocking quality in it, there is no denying that - because that lets Tony turn away and annoy good old Captain Steve Rogers as he coordinates the rest of the surprisingly short mission.
Ensure that the civilians are safe, check. Get said wannabe-cosmocrat into the jet, check. Make sense of the chaos in Tony's head, absolutely impossible. Abort, abort. Mission failed.
Fuck.
He still can't think clearly by the time the jet finally lifts off, and he considers jumping out and flying himself to get some much needed time alone, but he doesn't want to leave the newest villain of the week - Loki, right, his name is Loki, of fucking Asgard because things just have to be weird as hell nowadays - out of his sight. While Captain America's shield screams his father's name at him, Tony's limbs ache with a pain that isn't his own, and when he manages to look past the white static in his hand, for only a second, he sees -
Nothing. Just darkness. The kind that eats you whole and swallows you down, then plucks your last miserable remains out of the spaces between its teeth and spits them out, out into the void.
Ah. So that's what they call it, then.
Tony kind of wants to go and puke. There is the weight of something heavy and lethal on his shoulders [the only thing you really fight for is yourself] and he gets the sinking feeling that the next hours won’t be a lot of fun.
Then there’s thunder above and around them, so loud that the whole fucking jet shakes, and Tony says, “Oh, shit,” in the exact same second Loki first shows the hint of an emotion than isn’t stoic apathy.
“What’s the matter?” Rogers asks him, surprised more than irritated. “Are you scared of a little lightning?”
“I’m not overly fond of what follows,” Loki says [and that’s a lie, because he’s actually, secretly, still very fond of what follows, because what follows is his brother. But his brother’s shadow is big and dark and stifling and he already can’t breathe, he hasn’t taken a proper breath in so long that he’s already forgotten what it feels like].
Tony wonders for a second how the guy can be that stuck and still walk around giving dramatic speeches about freedom. But then he doesn’t have any time to wonder anymore because there’s Big Blond Guy grabbing Loki by his neck [No, darling, here, hold his head up, exactly like that - you have to be careful with him, love] and whisks him away as if that’s his fucking right and god, is this a family thing? This is absolutely a family thing, isn’t it?
Well, who even cares. Tony decides that interrupting the disastrous reunion is the best route of action, and of course he gets hit by Thor’s damned lightning. He sort of gets why Loki can’t stand lightning now, but for Tony’s suit it’s admittedly - and surprisingly - an advantage. For Tony’s mind, however, it’s like a punch straight to the guts because it tells him too much, he knows too much, and fuck it if it isn’t somewhere on top of the list of the saddest stories he’s ever heard.
There are many, many possible endings, and soon Tony will need to sort through them and pick one he likes. If they’re clear enough for him to pick one, that is.
For now, though, he watches as Thor helps SHIELD put his brother in a cage.
/
Tony doesn’t see Loki face to face the whole time they’re on the helicarrier, and he’s thankful for it. He has been around Loki for all but an hour total, but that was more than enough. He makes it hard to think straight - too many clipped threads, too many burned ends, too much chaos. Bruce Banner isn’t much better, what with all he has got going on, but at least he hasn’t been tortured in the last couple of months. Or tried to commit suicide. Oh - actually, scratch that. Tony didn’t think he’d ever know what it feels like to shoot himself in the mouth only to spit the bullet right out again, but well. Well.
Anyway.
They work, and Tony keeps watching Banner out of the corner of his eye. There’s a nervous air around the man, but his hands are steady and his mind is sharp, attentive. Filled to the brim with self-loathing, naturally, but at least not suicidal anymore, Tony thinks. Just resigned, and determined to do as little damage as possible. It's a noble goal, but Tony sees collapsing buildings and ruined streets, so he doubts that Banner's good intentions will be of any use.
While they work on finding the Tesseract - or on finding a way to find the Tesseract, rather - Tony tries to breathe, and as he breathes he tries to disentangle the threads in his head. It's like the cables of two dozen earphones were all stuffed into his mind and we all know what happens to earphone cables when they're stuffed into pockets, it's fucking annoying. It's a delay. It means that Tony is once again eternally grateful for his ability to concentrate on several things at once.
Every single thread leads back to a cold and dark place, to blood-sprinkled snow and ice. There's a baby. And that baby grows up and doesn't have the best childhood, but that's no excuse, and it justifies nothing. But it's something Tony can work with, just like the torture, the pain, and the fear. When you want to get through to someone, finding out how they tick is a good start, but Tony’s already starting to wonder if Loki even knows how he ticks himself. If mental instability had a scent, you could smell Loki ten miles against the wind.
But why is he here? That’s the question Tony is trying to find the answer to. What’s the plan? The goal? Thor spoke of an army, and Tony knows what that army looks like, knows what havoc it will wreck if they let it. He isn’t sure if there’s a way around it, to keep it from happening - all threads he sees involve a battle, it’s the outcome that changes. The aftermath.
“You’re not very curious.”
Tony looks up from the screen at Banner. “Sorry?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Banner says, quietly and calmly, gaze fixed on his own screen. “Your, uh - hacking into SHIELD’s databases, that does the job, I guess. You wound Steve up, that much is certain.”
“But?”
“But we got the results ten minutes ago and you haven’t done as much as glance at it. Makes me think you already know what you’ll see.”
“Are you accusing me of being involved? Is this an accusation? God, and I thought we were friends.”
“We’ve known each other for about five hours.”
“Five very cool hours, I think. When you ignore the drama and the aliens and the threat of war hovering over our heads. Okay, thing is - uh, will you even believe me when I say that I’ve got nothing whatsoever to do with SHIElD’s shady wheelings and dealings? Because it’s true.”
“You still haven’t looked at the results, though.”
“Have you?”
Banner looks at him for the first time. “Yes.”
“Great, okay. Let’s play a game, alright?” Tony leaves his work for a moment and sits on the table closest to Banner. “I’ll say three things, and you tell me which one is correct. Option A, dear old Nick uses SHIELD funds to buy wagon loads of toys for his cat each week.”
Banner’s eyebrow twitches. “He has a cat?”
“Oh, yep, definitely. Does he strike you as a dog person? I guess that’s not it?”
“Uh, no. Not really.”
“Okay, option B, SHIELD is actually run by the Ninja Turtles.”
“That’s just it, actually. I’m impressed.”
“Oh, no, I’m impressed. You made a joke, congratulations, I see you’re finally loosening up a little. Can I poke you again?”
“I’d rather you wouldn’t.”
“Right, of course,” Tony says, nodding. “So, option C - they’re building weapons that could be used to wipe out half of the continent.”
Banner looks at him, not very surprised. He doesn’t even address the matter itself. “Why put on that show for Rogers, then? Why act like you don’t already know about it?”
“Um, cut me some slack, please. I learned about it like two and a half minutes ago.”
That makes Banner frown.
“It’s my whole thing,” Tony tells him. He leans sidewards in Banner’s direction and lowers his voice to a secretive tone. “I just know things sometimes.”
Banner looks at him like he’s crazy. “I thought Iron Man was your whole thing.”
“That’s my thing that everyone knows about. This thing is top secret, actually, so don’t tell anyone.”
“I’m not sure what I would even say,” Banner says slowly. “And I don’t - you’re messing with me. You did look at the SHIELD files.”
“I’m not, and I didn’t.” Tony waves his hand. “I had a hunch before, but I have lots of other stuff to think about - for example about how I can keep Loki from killing everyone and you from trying to kill yourself, because both of that is starting to be really important to me, you know, so it took me a while to get to thinking about Fury and his issues. I mean that, by the way. Is there anything I can do? My offer earlier was 100% sincere, you know that, right? I can give you a completely risk-free, science-friendly environment, and all kinds of distractions. How about a spa day?”
Banner opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Okay. Alright. I’m pretty sure nobody else knows about that, so.”
“Yeah, that was - probably a bit out of line, wasn’t it? Not my business and so on. Didn’t want to - are you going to go big and green on me now? Because if you could give me like forty, maybe fifty seconds to get into my suit -”
“I’m not going to -”
“You’re not? That’s great. Cool. Are we cool?”
“Yes,” Banner says. “Yes, sure. Just - how, exactly?”
Tony pats his shoulder. “No fucking clue. For real, though. Don’t tell anyone.”
Banner puts his glasses on again. “I won’t. But why - why tell me?”
“Because we’re going to become very good friends. Duh.” Tony blinks, and then cocks his head to the side because god, there’s something going on not far away from here. Something that makes the hairs on his neck stand on end. [Thank you for your cooperation.]
“Mr. Stark?”
“Tony,” he corrects absently. “Wait a second. Incoming info.”
“Oh. Okay?”
For an instance, he sees Loki’s plan laid out right in front of him. The thread leads here, to the man next to him, the monster who he isn’t, and Loki wants to see him dance. He wants to see chaos. And then - and then -
White noise. God, Tony is getting a headache.
“You’re calm right now, right?” he asks. “Can I do anything to make you calmer? A massage? A hot tub? Wait, there probably isn’t a hot tub on this thing, is there?”
Banner blinks at him, and that’s when Fury and Romanoff march into the room, and then there’s Rogers, too, and Thor, and isn’t this a funny situation.
Everything goes to shit, of course.
/
When Tony lands on the deck of his tower, he can feel Loki's gaze on him like pins and needles. They meet in the penthouse; from up close Tony can see how messed up Loki looks. Oh, he walks like a king, he does, but his eyes are sunken in and bloodshot, there are dark circles under them, and his skin is sickly pale, blotchy. [His back aches, and some patches of burned skin haven't healed yet. A few bones are still fractured. He hides his injuries underneath leather and metal as if that makes them disappear.]
"Before you say anything," Tony says, already walking down the stairs, "let's skip the clever banter part of this conversation, right? Can we just jump straight to the point?"
Loki looks at him [and thinks about what a useful asset Iron Man will be once his eyes are blue]. "The point?" he asks, his voice velvety smooth. "And what would that be?"
"Right, let's see - oh, do you want a drink? 'Cause I'm having one."
Loki doesn't reply, but he looks vaguely intrigued. Like a cat playing with a mouse looks intrigued. Tony is vaguely offended. He makes his way to the bar, procures his best whiskey, puts on the bracelets that may or may not save his life in a few minutes, fuck if he knows.
"So," he says, pouring himself that much needed drink, "the point. The point is that there is no point. This whole war you're waging is as pointless as a war can possibly be. But you know that, right?"
Loki narrows his eyes. [He doesn't like it when someone insults his plans. His plans are everything he has.] "The war I am waging will change your pitiful world for the better. You can only hide in denial for so long. Soon you will see that all you're trying to do serves no other purpose than to prolong the inevitable."
Tony slowly takes a sip of whiskey and then puts the glass down, nodding. "Okay. Hey, I've been wondering - do you come up with all those lines on the spot? Or did someone write them down for you?" He waves his hand in reaction to Loki's glare. "Don't get me wrong, you're obviously good with words, but it's a little - it lacks conviction, you know?"
A muscle in Loki's cheek twitches; he recognizes the line. Good. It's been ringing in Tony's head nonstop since Coulson died.
"There's nothing for you on the other side of this," Tony says, holding Loki's gaze. "No throne for you to sit on. Midgard isn't like Asgard, New York isn't the pivot point of this world, no matter what us Americans like to think." He smiles at Loki, all teeth. "But you know that, you've been reading everything you could get your hands on about all the Nine Realms since you were, what, a century old?"
For the first time, Loki looks actually wary. "I see Thor has spoken to you about our childhood."
"Oh, not a word." Tony walks around the bar, the glass in his hand. "So, tell me, sweetcheeks. Let's say you win this war of yours and all of us are at your beck and call. Let's say New York is in shambles and the rest of the Earth immediately yields when confronted with your greatness. What then? Rainbows and unicorns?"
Loki scoffs, but that lacks conviction, too. "Then I will rule, of course."
"Yeah? You think he'll let you?" Tony raises first his brows and then his glass, taking another sip. "Maybe, yes. But for how long? The army isn't yours. The scepter isn't yours. Not even the speeches are yours. It's all his, Loki, and he has his own plan, and you're only a part of it as long as you play by his rules."
By now, Loki's face has gone entirely blank. He doesn't move a muscle, looking like he's made of wax. Tony sees his fear; it's making the air flicker like heat.
"I just don't want you to think you're the one pulling the strings here," Tony continues, and he drops the lighthearted tone, the pretense. Knowledge is whispering in the back of his mind, and this is where the aftermath begins - first fibre of a thread. “Because you're not. You're a pawn. A puppet.” Tony leans forward and grins; the words come to him from far away, from several weeks ago, and he says them in a voice that isn’t quite his own. “ The princeling is of no use to me like this, stitch him back together.”
Loki’s eyes widen just slightly. His fingers around the scepter start to twitch.
“And you were grateful, weren’t you?” Tony continues, slowly, he’s not in a hurry. “Grateful for a chance to prove yourself, to show everyone the true worth of Loki Laufeyson. And desperate, too, but not for war, and not for a throne, but for recognition. And he knew that. You told him everything in between your screams, and he went and used it to form you into his perfect little puppet ki -”
He doesn’t finish the sentence because Loki moves so quickly that Tony has barely even time to dodge; the energy bursting from the scepter singes the tips of his hair. Glass shatters - not only the one Tony’s been holding, but the shelves behind the bar, the bottles and glasses. Tony is already complaining about all that precious alcohol being spilled when Loki grabs him by the throat and pulls him back onto his feet, pushing him against the bar.
“What do you know of the Mad Titan?” he demands, his voice harsh, frantic at the edges. “How do you speak with his voice?”
Tony already grabbed Loki’s forearm, trying to get rid of the hand that’s wrapped tightly around his throat, but it’s of no use; Loki is too strong. “I don’t,” Tony gets out, choking on the words. “Didn’t. It’s -”
“Do not take me for a fool!” Loki shouts at him, so loud that it makes Tony’s ears ring. “You know too much. You must have been there. Oh, he sent you to kill me, is that it? You wish to take my place? ”
Oh god, this is going so, so wrong.
“Sorry to break it to you, Bambi, but your place isn’t really a desirable position,” Tony croaks out. “And I wasn’t there, promise. I just - I just know things sometimes, it’s like -” [Would you please shut up for once, Thor? I think mother is having another vision.] “Like your mum, okay? I’m like her!”
That surprises Loki so much that the grip of his hand loosens. “What did you say?”
“I - it’s - shit, I don’t know. I really don’t.”
The anger and the desperation leaves Loki’s eyes, and suddenly he looks only lost. “You’re a seer,” he breathes out.
Okay. Whatever. Who the hell even cares.
“Sure,” Tony says, and then he grabs the scepter that’s still in Loki’s other hand and slams it upward, straight at Loki’s temple.
Loki drops to the ground like his strings have been cut.
Tony lets out a breath and readjusts his grip on the scepter. He doesn’t like the feel of it very much - the thing at the top [Infinity Stone] makes his fucking head hurt. But still, whatever the thing is made of, exactly, it seems to be harder than Loki’s stubborn head, which is definitely a lucky coincidence.
[And that hit against the head was very much needed.]
God, what a day. And it’ll only get worse, Tony knows. He crouches next to Loki and waits, and waits, and waits, until Loki opens his eyes and makes a face that speaks of his pain.
“Hi,” Tony greets him. “I have to go and fly a nuke through a wormhole. Want to come with?”
Loki blinks at him very slowly, and then he says, “I don’t see why not.”
Tony nods and offers Loki a hand to help him up.
Loki takes it.
/
Two months later, Tony walks into his kitchen in the very, very early morning and finds Loki there, sitting at Tony’s kitchen table. Tony yawns and eyes the cup of tea in front of Loki.
“S’there coffee, too?”
“Not yet.”
Tony groans and drags his feet to the coffee machine. Loki watches him very closely. He’s been in the tower for a week now, and this is the first time they are actually alone. Loki slowly rests his elbows on the table and keeps staring holes into the back of Tony’s head.
“Did you know I’d be here?” Loki asks, sounding… somewhere between curious and bewildered.
Tony shrugs with one shoulder, not bothering to turn around to Loki. He isn’t scared of him, although not for lack of reasons. He knows well enough that Loki daily - if not hourly - thinks about murdering, or at least seriously maiming, everyone in the tower, but he also knows that Loki won’t actually do it. He’s not that stupid. Loki only has two goals at the moment, and they are staying alive and getting free at some point in the foreseeable future. He knows that he’ll manage both when he stays with the Avengers and sits out his punishment.
“Is that a yes or a no?” Loki asks in reaction to Tony’s shrug.
“It’s a sort of,” Tony says. He yawns again; it’s too fucking early, and he hasn’t slept properly in two months. “Sometimes I’m not sure whether it’s something that happened already, is currently happening or will happen soon. Some things don’t happen at all. That enough of an answer?”
“No.”
“Great, then shut up until I’ve had my coffee.”
“Did you always have this gift?”
Tony sighs. “If you waited the whole week for the chance to bombard me with questions, you can wait like a minute longer.”
“I have been waiting for two months.”
Tony huffs and gets onto his tiptoes to rummage through the cupboard, looking for his favorite mug. [It’s in the workshop.] “Damn,” he says. He chooses a different mug at random. “Okay. Uh, no, it only started after a bomb tore a hole into my chest. Maybe it was the near-death experience. That’s supposed to be a thing, right?”
Loki makes a noise that sounds like he disagrees. “Such gifts do not simply start. You have one or you don’t.”
“Do I look like I care?”
“You should.”
Tony rolls his eyes, waits until his Favorite Machine in the World is done filling his mug with coffee, and then leans against the counter so that he can look at Loki. “I don’t. Not right now, anyway. And don’t call it a gift.”
“But it is a gift.”
“Yesterday I learned about Steve’s darkest sexual fantasy just because I looked at him at the wrong moment.”
Loki raises a brow.
Tony vehemently shakes his head and takes a big gulp of coffee, even though it’s so hot that it burns his tongue. “You don’t want to know.”
Loki lets it go; probably Steve doesn’t interest him that much at the moment. Tony wouldn’t be surprised if Loki tried to get it out of him later, though. It seems to be the kind of thing Loki would like to know, for leverage purposes.
“Perhaps it simply lay dormant,” Loki says, pensive. “I’ve heard of similar occurrences.”
Tony doesn’t say anything. Loki watches him, still curious, still bewildered. They had a few conversations during the last week, but nothing that really mattered. Just stuff like where to get food around here, or how the shower works. Loki came to Tony with those questions on silent feet and asked them in a quiet tone of voice, as if he expected to be sent away, or to be punished for asking. And that’s fair, it is; it’s not like Loki has been welcomed here with open arms. Especially Clint has been pretty hostile towards him and that won’t stop anytime soon. [But eventually, Clint will throw popcorn at Loki during movie nights in revenge for a particularly well-aimed tease, but he’ll be smiling while he does it, and Loki will laugh and demand they watch a different movie because he will be bored out of his mind.]
Tony rubs his forehead. Fucking movie nights, huh? Who would have guessed?
“You look tired.”
“Well spotted, princess,” Tony drawls. “You don’t exactly look like a walking ray of sunshine, either.”
He looks better, though. A little. Exhausted as hell, sure, but he gained a bit of weight, and his body has obviously healed. The rest of him is another matter. Tony pauses and looks at Loki, really looks at him, and thinks about everything he knows about him. About everything he doesn’t know, god, there’s still so much he doesn’t know. He only has fragments, pieces of a puzzle.
“You dream about the void, too, right?” he asks.
Loki’s face goes blank, but after a moment he says, “Yes.”
“Cool. So, how do you deal with it? The nightmares, I mean. How do you make them go away?”
“I don’t.”
“An entirely unhelpful answer, thank you very much.”
Loki doesn’t look very apologetic. He wraps his long fingers around his cup and something about those fingers makes Tony think about something that hasn’t happened yet, he thinks, something blurry and vague, but he’s too tired to pay more attention to it.
“Do you only dream about the void?” Loki asks. “Or about other things as well?”
Tony lifts his shoulders again and slightly shakes his head before he downs the rest of his coffee. “Your pain feels like a memory to me,” he says and turns around to fix himself another cup. “Not just yours. Other people’s, too. I dream about all kinds of stuff.”
Loki hums. “My mother once called it a useful burden.”
“A terrible privilege,” Tony adds, mouth twisted into a smile. “Yeah.”
“What have you told the others?”
Tony glances at him. “About you?”
“Yes. And about -” He stops, but Tony knows what he means.
“Not much. Not nearly everything. I will, though, when we need to fight the guy.”
“We will definitely need to fight ‘the guy’.”
“Yep.” Tony joins Loki at the table, dropping heavily on a chair. “Yeah, but not this morning.”
“No, Stark,” Loki says, and his voice is almost soft. “Not this morning.”
/
Living with Loki is like living with a feral cat. He’s very entertaining. Sometimes he’s downright friendly, and for some goddamn reason Tony wants to touch him all the time. And often enough Loki will play along, will tease and banter and flirt, and then, without a warning, he’ll hiss and show his claws.
Well, for most people it’s without a warning. Thor looks like he doesn’t know what hit him every single time, although he should be the one who knows how to handle his brother. He sucks at handling Loki, though, although he does try his best.
Tony, as it turns out, is an expert at handling Loki.
It’s mostly because his “gift” generally gives him a short memo when something really unpleasant is about to happen. And Loki hissing and showing his claws is something really unpleasant. So Tony very quickly figures out when to keep pushing and when to shut the fuck up, and in return Loki very quickly notices that Tony figured that out. Which is probably why Loki still comes to him when he has a question about their living arrangements, or Earth, or anything, really. To be fair, most of the time he doesn’t have a question or a problem at all, he just comes to Tony to be with Tony, but that’s fine. It’s fine. Loki knows that, Tony knows that, they both know that they know it, and it’s fine.
Loki is glad to have found someone who understands him without him needing to say a single word.
Tony is glad to have found someone who never, not a single time, looks at him like he’s crazy. Someone who dares to feel safe around him despite everything that happened. Someone to dare to feel safe around.
Which is why what happens next is not a surprise.
Tony puts on a hoodie - it’s winter by now, snowing outside, everything will be white in a couple of hours - and leaves his bedroom on bare feet. In the beginning, Loki shared Thor’s floor, but that resulted in Tony having to buy new furniture two times a week, so now Loki has the guestroom in the penthouse. It has been going very well, and that’s not even sarcasm. Loki still flinches at loud noises, and on some days he gets that far off, vacant look, the one that means that he can’t stop thinking about certain things, the one that means that you might get stabbed if you even breathe in his direction. He still smiles a little too sharply when he witnesses chaos and pain. He’s not a good guy, not by the strict definition of the word, but guys who fit that strict definition are boring, anyway. At least in Tony’s own humble opinion.
Tony still has nightmares. [He will never stop having nightmares.] But Loki is good at soothing him, at distracting him; Loki can talk for hours about all kinds of interesting things, and Loki is surprisingly warm and firm to the touch. The first time they hugged (Tony’s fault, that, he tends to get overly tactile with people he really likes) Loki had a very tiny mental breakdown (severe touch starvation will do that to you), but since then they’ve gotten really good at hugging. Or touching each other’s arms and hands. Or letting their thighs press together when they’re sitting down. Yep, they practiced all of that so much that Tony is really, desperately hoping they’re ready for the next level, and that’s the only reason he’s up right now.
Inside Loki’s room, it’s quiet. Tony knows that he’s asleep. He carefully opens the door and pokes his head in, and then he opens it a bit further and slides into the room. He tiptoes over to the bed and crawls under the blanket, and that is when Loki opens his eyes. They are green and bright, even in the dark.
“Hey,” Tony whispers. “It’s snowing.”
“Fascinating,” Loki says, his voice sleep-soft and quiet.
“Yeah.”
“Nightmare?”
“No,” Tony says. “I mean, yes, but no. I know something.”
Loki rolls onto his side. “Am I supposed to be proud of you for that?”
Tony can’t bring himself to reply. A second ticks by, then two, and Loki shifts a little, looking at Tony properly.
“Are you going to die?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Is Thor going to die?”
“No.”
“Is -”
“Your mother will be fine, too. I think.”
Loki lets out a breath and closes his eyes. “Well, then I have run out of people I care about, and this can wait until morning.”
What nobody would expect is how honest Loki can be sometimes. It makes Tony smile. “Loki.”
“Yes, Stark.”
“You’ll kiss me.”
It’s quiet for a long moment. Tony listens to Loki’s breaths, quiet and even. Finally, Loki opens his eyes. “Will I?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“In the workshop. You’ll distract me from my work.”
“Hm,” Loki says. “How terribly rude of me.”
“A bit. It’s fine. I’ll forgive you.”
Loki smiles. Tony can’t see it, not really, but he feels it in his bones. “And that will be our first kiss, yes?”
“Yep.”
“No,” Loki says, and then he moves forward just enough that he can press his lips against Tony’s, slowly and gently, for a few long seconds. His hand is on the side of Tony’s face, his fingers cold, the touch light.
He pulls back, but Tony immediately leans back in and kisses Loki again, just as softly, and Loki chuckles. Actually chuckles. He doesn’t laugh very often, but every time he does something along the lines of the laugh, Tony’s body warms up from head to toe.
“There,” Loki says, his breath still brushing Tony’s lips. “Can I go back to sleep now?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Lovely.”
Tony wakes up far too early. Loki groans and complains, but he doesn’t push Tony away when he bends down to kiss him when he leaves the bed, and twenty minutes later, Loki comes down to the workshop with coffee.
“I have an idea,” he says, and Tony drops his screwdriver.
“Oh,” he says.
“Regarding the armour you’re making for me,” Loki says dryly. “Nothing to get into a panic about, I assure you.”
“No, it’s just - I -” Tony stops and picks up the screwdriver. “I knew this would happen. Didn’t think it would be you, though.”
“Of course it’s me,” Loki says. He puts one of the mugs on Tony’s desk, presses a kiss to Tony’s hair and then goes over to his own corner they put up in the workshop.
Tony can’t stop grinning for the rest of the day.
[They will be happy.]