Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tony wakes up on the floor.

To be exact, he’s flat out on his stomach, one hand sandwiched between his face and the hardwood and the other stretched out in front of him, reaching with clenched fingers.  The dream still floats fresh in his mind.  And it was a dream: no point in pretending otherwise, no matter how real it felt.  Real enough to half-wake him in the middle of the night.  Real enough to coax him out of bed, sleepwalking across the length of the room.  Real enough that he can still see the dim silhouette of a tall figure in the doorway, and real enough that he can still hear a low, growling voice echo in his ear.

(Tony Stark...)

He pulls himself up onto his hands and knees, rubbing the tail ends of fog from his eyes and giving his head a shake to clear his brain.  “Jarvis, lights,” he mutters through a yawn.  They come up too bright, glaring suddenly and cutting through the darkness; Tony shields his face with an arm.  “Thirty percent!”

“Apologies, sir.”

The lights dim to a tolerable level.  Tony blinks to adjust his eyes, pushes his hair back, and drops his arm.  “Better.  What time is it?”

“Three twenty-six in the morning.”

“What time did I fall asleep?”

“Nine forty-two.”

Five and a half hours of sleep.  Well, that’s a lot better than what he’d been averaging over the last couple months, so he’ll count it as a success.  Sort of.  Waking up fifteen feet from his bed kind of puts a damper on things, but at least he slept.  He actually slept.

The pills Bruce gave him worked.

“Bruce still down in the lab?” he asks, already knowing what the answer will be before Jarvis answers in the affirmative.  He can sense the crackling vibrancy of Bruce’s energy, active somewhere in the house.  Not possible to pinpoint, but present all the same.  A trickle of hazy knowledge through the back of his mind.

He yanks on the first pair of pants he grabs from the closet, followed by a shirt selected with equal care, and heads out to find Bruce.  It’s not hard.  All he needs to do is follow the noise: the irritatingly cheerful treble beat of 80s bubble-gum pop grows louder with each step he takes towards the lab.  By the time he’s down the stairs, he can hear Bruce’s voice half humming, half mumbling-singing along.

What are words for...  When no one listens any more...

Leaning against the wall at the bottom of the staircase, Tony can’t help but smirk.  “I think you might be the last person left on Earth still rocking out to Missing Persons.”

Bruce freezes mid-head-bob, whipping around with a HYDRA gun energy storage cell in his hands and something between open-mouthed shock and a sheepish grin plastered across his face.   “Um,” is all he can seem to say for a few seconds while Tony tries not to laugh.  Then, “I... thought you were in bed.”

“I was in bed.  For almost six hours.  That’s long enough, don’t you think?  Especially with the party going on down here.”

“Six...” Bruce starts, but doesn’t even bother finishing that thought, cutting himself off to look at his watch.  “Oh.  Oh boy.  It’s three-thirty, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”  Tony, sauntering into the lab, claps him on the back.  “Don’t worry about it.  I lose track of time, too.  It’s practically a requirement for working in here.  You start something just after dinner, and then, bam!  Suddenly, three in the morning.”

“But did you get any sleep?” asks Bruce in a clever little shift of the conversation.

And that’s a good question.  Did Tony get any sleep?  Technically speaking, the answer would be ‘yes’.  He did sleep, for a while, thought the bizarrely hyper-realistic dreams and the confusion of waking up on the floor may have counteracted any restful benefits.  But still he nods while staring down at the array of gun parts spread out over the worktop and says a quiet, “Yeah,” because that’s the answer Bruce is looking for.  And it’s a lot easier than trying to explain the truth.

Bruce nods along with him.  “That sounds like a ‘yeah, but’.”

“Yeah, but,” Tony agrees.  “Just some crazy dreams.”

“Sleepwalking?”

Tony’s jaw reflexively clenches.  How did he know?

“Common side effect,” Bruce explains.  “The pills knock you out, but a lot of people experience incredibly vivid, strange dreams, and some end up sleepwalking.  A few have a bad reaction and vomit all over themselves, soooo...  Good thing you dodged that one?”

“Eh, the night’s still young,” mutters Tony.   “You never know what magic might happen.”  Glancing down at the worktop again, he sets a white plastic cylinder spinning on its side.  “Make any progress?”

“If you count ruling out eight more simulated designs as progress, then yeah.  Progress was made.  Explosive progress.”

Bruce goes through them one by one, having Jarvis bring up the 3D recording of all eight sims for Tony to watch.  All eight fizzling failures.   Six lasts the longest, with all beams fired up and focused before the casing cracks and a spark ignites, turning the whole display into a ball of flame.  Seven causes the smallest explosion.  Just a little fire, a puff of smoke, and a broken collapse.  Eight doesn’t explode at all.  But then, it doesn’t seem to do anything at all, either.  No explosion, no fire, no smoke.  No portal.

“What’s the deal here?” Tony asks.

“Relay,” Bruce answers, and expands the holographic model to show Tony its inner workings.  “The big problem is that the energy trapped in these guns is way less stable than the Tesseract itself.  Harder to focus and stabilize. This is a lot trickier to manipulate than what Selvig and I had on our hands, so everything he and I did there isn’t helping me much here.  The storage cells have a lot of output power, but the minute you fire them all together in one beam, the initial energy flare is too much to contain.  The casing just can’t hold it.  It breaks through, and you’ve got a little bonfire on your hands for the next twenty seconds until the cells deplete and it all sputters out.  But if you trigger them in sequence, staggering one through eleven so each one flares as soon as the last has stabilized, it can be contained.  That’s what you’re seeing in number eight.  The design doesn’t work, but there is one interesting little thing I want to show you.”

He fires up the sim again, this time in slow motion, isolating one central beam.  “As soon as I saw this, I remembered something Loki said to us all at that meeting back in New York.  When he was describing the Tesseract, he said something about it being a ‘semi-sentient’ power source.  I thought it was total crap at the time, but...”  At a fraction of its full speed, a single beam from a single HYDRA cell begins to glow and expand.  “Check it out.  This beam is going to take almost fifteen seconds to stabilize, running the sim at one tenth speed.  Watch what happens when the next few kick in.  Eyes on the timer.”

Just as Bruce promised, Jarvis clocks the first beam’s stabilization at 14.7 seconds.  Immediately, the next one kicks in, joining the first, though the timer tags its stabilization at 8.1 seconds.  The third takes 6.8, the fourth 7.3, the fifth 7.8, the sixth 6.9: on they go, pulsing to life in sequence, all hovering around the seven-second mark.  When the last evens out at 7.6, Tony can’t help but shake his head in wonder.

“It’s like they latch on to each other.  The first beam braves the way, and the rest of them just follow in its wake down the path of least resistance, stabilizing in half the time.”

Bruce nods.  “Yeah, exactly.  But weirder still, the energy is drawn to its own kind.  I purposefully set these out of alignment on some tests I ran, just to see what would happen, and the beams actually curved their trajectories to join together.  Up to almost twenty degrees, which is... extreme, to say the least.”

“So why doesn’t it work?” asks Tony, maybe stooping to stupid questions, but sometimes things just work out better if he thinks them through out loud.  “Everything’s aligned.  It’s all going according to plan.  But no portal.  The beams even out, and if we start them up in a controlled sequence they don’t generate enough of a flare to blow through the casing.  Staggering at point-nine seconds actual speed should give each one more than enough time to...”

Oh.  Time.  Right.  That inconvenient little piece of reality knocks his train of thought off track before he can even finish the sentence.  “It times out,” he says instead, looking for confirmation of what he already knows to be true as he frowns at Bruce.  Bruce nods while staring down at the computerized display.  Shit.  “We can’t afford to waste that much time starting up the beam when the cells have only twenty seconds of continuous power in them in the first place.  If we need a set window to grow the portal, and another for safe shutdown, we need to cut-”

“Minimum three seconds off the start-up,” Bruce answers for him.  “Though I’d feel safer with three and a half.  So like I said... this is a neat observation, but it’s still not where we need to be.”

Maybe not, but they’re close, and the feeling in Tony’s gut says this new development will take them the rest of the way there.  He’s just missing something.  One little tweak.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he rubs his hands over his face and presses his fingertips into his eyes.  His skin feels sweaty and slick, and his head is still all wound up and off kilter.  He needs coffee.  And a shower.  And more coffee.  In that order.

“How about this,” he says, looking up in time to catch Bruce trying to fend off a yawn.  “I’ll take over the night shift for a while.  This gives me a lot to work with.  See if I can come up with any way to cut down on the time.  Play around with a few things.   You catch a couple hours sleep, and we’ll reconvene later.”

“I’m not-” Bruce begins, but another yawn that he can’t quite stifle in time slips out.  And his shoulders sag in an admission of defeat.  “Okay, now that I know what time it is, I’m exhausted.  This is your fault.  You shouldn’t have told me.  I’m going to bed, but I’ll set my alarm for nine.  Don’t solve all the problems before I get back.”

“I’ll try not to,” Tony answers with a wry smile, or at least part of one.  Solve all the problems?  Not likely.  Not yet.  Not with the way his head feels.  And absolutely not with the sense of disappointment hanging heavily inside that he’s still coming up just short of one crucial breakthrough.

ooo

Coffee.  Then shower.  But first coffee.  Tony lasts a whole twenty minutes after Bruce’s departure, which is twenty minutes of staring at screens and tech prints and 3D renderings.  All of it makes his brain ache.  Coffee.  Yeah.  Necessary.  So he trudges up the stairs and into the kitchen and plants himself, elbows down, on the counter in front of the ridiculously complicated machine Pepper bought earlier in the year.  One of those home barista piece of shit things that can make coffee every possible way under the sun except the way he likes it: plain swill, in a large pot, for ease of drinking five cups in quick succession.

One perfectly crafted cup at a time will have to do.  He shoves his mug under the spout and watches as the thin trickle of dark brown liquid slowly pisses its way out, joined, once the mug is partially full, by an equally unappetizing dribble of milk half an inch to the side.  It swirls and blooms in a cloud of creamy beige, expanding from middle to rim to fill the entire mug.

Like the elusive space portal, Tony thinks.  Growing from the beam of milk.  How easy would life be if I could make a milk portal in a coffee mug?  Though it probably wouldn’t work because the pissing coffee and milk beams don’t even line up.  But... if they had the same properties as the Tesseract energy and one curved to meet the other...

After that thought, seconds pass before he remembers to breathe again.

“Holy fuck.”

He almost skids out as he takes a corner too fast,  grabbing the edge of the wall to catch his balance as he charges down the hallway to Bruce’s room.  A more courteous person might knock before throwing the door open.  But in Tony’s experience, courtesy and major scientific breakthroughs generally don’t go hand in hand.

“Bruce!” is all he can say once he’s standing in the doorway of the darkened room.  “Get up!”

Bruce fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand as he sits up.  Then looks at the clock.  “Tony... I haven’t even been in bed for ten minutes.  What did you do?!”

“The beams!  Pepper’s stupid coffee machine showed me!”

That explanation does nothing to alleviate Bruce’s confusion.  “...What?”

“They don’t have to be in one casing!  If you’re right and the energy is attracted to itself, the beams will synchronize even if triggered from different points!  As long as they’re aimed at the same place!”

“You mean...”

“We’ve been stuck on trying to reconfigure Selvig’s single-beam design, but what if we had eleven beams?  I wrote this idea off at the get-go because I couldn’t think of a way to bend the outputs into one merged line, but now that you’ve figured out they do that on their own...  Eleven different casing!  All beams converging into one before the portal initiation point!  With eleven casings there’s no need for a relay, and no containment danger with the initial energy flare!”

The expression of uncertainty doesn’t even have time to fall from Bruce’s face before he throws the covers back and jumps out of bed.  “Oh my god.”

“Jarvis!” Tony shouts, and he’s already sprinting again back down the hallway with Bruce as close as a shadow on his heels.  “Start a new project file!  I want each energy cell in its own casing.  Same device, same design, but replicate and decrease size for a single cell.  Honeycomb layout.  Focus all of them on a singular point, distance forty meters.  How soon can we get a sim?”

“Rendering simulation now, sir,” Jarvis calmly replies.

He takes the first four stairs to the workshop two at a time, which turns out to be a terrible idea when he almost loses his footing and risks crashing the rest of the way in a painful heap of dislocated limbs.  He forces himself to slow down.  One step at a time.  Just one at a time.  He’s waited three months for this moment.  He can wait another three seconds.

“Render complete,” Jarvis announces as Tony jumps from the second-last step.  “Running new simulation.”

It looks like some kind of sci-fi cannon rising up in the holographic display: three rows of gun-barrel beamline casing units, one on top of the next, all aimed at a single pinprick of light a foot away at the far end of the display.  As soon as Tony and Bruce reach the table, the new design sim begins to glow with energy.

And promptly explodes.

“Son of a...” Tony swears, cutting off the last word with a hard bite to his lip while Bruce responds with a dejected, though more polite, “Aww.”

“I really thought that would work.”

“So did I,” says Bruce.

And so it will work.  It has to work.  If two smart guys say it’s going to work?  It’s going to work.  They just need to figure out how.  An adjustment here.  A realignment there.  Tony prods the smouldering holographic debris with the end of a pen, watching digital smoke rise from the worktop. 

“Okay,” he says after a seconds-long pause.  “This is the same problem we had before, right?  It explodes.  Too big of an energy flare at start-up.   Maybe... the tight honeycomb pattern won’t work.  Maybe the initial flare is strong enough to break through the casing when in close proximity to others.  The energy’s trying to converge too soon and expands outward rather than in the intended beam.  Jarvis?  Revamp the layout.  This time leave a minimum four hundred millimeters of space between each casing.”

“Rendering new simulation now.”                                                        

“You think that’ll help?” Bruce asks, sounding sadly unconvinced after the last spectacular failure.

“Of course,” Tony answers.  “Yes.  It will definitely, absolutely, beyond a doubt work this time.”

He nods once to himself, that kind of purposeful, determined nod, when the new spiderweb of a design floats into being in front of him.

“Jarvis, trigger the centermost beam first.  Once it’s stabilized, send in the rest.”

At Tony’s side, Bruce quietly murmurs, “Fingers crossed.”

Fingers, yes.  Toes?  Those too.  Hell, if it would help this crazy mission succeed, Tony would willingly cross every available part of his body.  But he settles for clenching his hands into fists as the central beam on the newest sim fires up like a lightsaber and shoots across the display.  The other ten follow two seconds later.

At the end of the worktop, a miniature cloud of energy begins to grow.  And solidify.

And the tiny holograph of a portal flickers to life.

ooo

“So you really want to go through with it.”

Tony swirls his orange juice glass before speaking, watching pulpy liquid fingers slosh up the sides.  “Yep.”

Bruce’s eloquent reaction to that is nothing more than a grunted, “Huh.”

This is how they celebrate success: by sitting at the dining room table with a tray of OJ and Cheetos.  The biggest scientific breakthrough since electricity waits right downstairs, and they’re marking the momentous occasion with light snacks.  There was elation, at one point.  And there still is, on Tony’s part.  Bruce, though....  Bruce stares down at his hands like he’s in a trance, occasionally swallowing a yawn.  For him, the rush of excitement has passed.  Now he’s back to where he was on the phone on Halloween.  The same uncertain hesitancy creeps through his voice when he speaks.

“I only think...” he tries again.

“You think now that we’ve actually solved the problem of wormhole space travel we should stop here in the design phase?” Tony asks.  “You don’t want to move forward and watch this puppy in action?”

Careful.  Bruce is too careful in his answer, handpicking words and forming them slowly, like they’re nitroglycerine in his mouth.  “No.  I mean...  Yes, I do want to see it in action.  Of course I do.  Eventually.  I just...  I think maybe, before you do anything big like trying to teleport yourself across the galaxy, you should...  Tony, you should step back and think, really think, about why you’re doing it.”

“Because I want to go to Asgard.  Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

“But why do you want to go to Asgard?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Tony...” Bruce groans.

“Bruce...” Tony returns.

“If this is just about Loki...”

With a frustrated grunt, Tony slams his glass down on the table.  “Okay.  It’s about Loki.   Is that what you want to hear?  I admit it: I’m risking my life and rewriting the laws of physics for some guy I screwed, like, twenty times.”

“You said you were only with him for nine days.”

“Okay, so thirty times then.  Whatever.  The point is, I want to go to Asgard.  And if Loki makes up ninety percent of the reason I have for going – the other ten percent being legitimate scientific curiosity, but let’s not lie, it’s mostly Loki – well... that’s my problem.  If I die in the process, it’s my problem.  If I miscalculate the portal and end up being sucked into a black hole, also my problem.  But if give up now that I have this chance right in front of me, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.  And that’ll be an even bigger problem.  He’s really good at sex, Bruce.”

Bruce groans.  Full-out, drop-the-head-in-the-hands groans. 

“I mean amazingly good.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“My memory’s a bit foggy but there’s a high probability I accidentally told him I love him.”

“Tony...”

“More than once.”

“Tony.”

“FYI, never sleep with a space wizard.  It’ll ruin your life.”

“Okay, stop,” Bruce snaps.  “You’re joking and being a smartass when-”

“You’re surprised at this because?”

“-when I’m trying to bring up a real concern.  I asked you why you wanted to go to Asgard because to me... you’re acting kind of...”  He doesn’t say what.  Just sighs.  “You’re sleeping badly, overtired, and, by your own admission, suffering from a mental...”  He doesn’t say ‘breakdown’, either.  “You’re not yourself.  And I’m honestly worried you’re doing this because that scepter Loki left behind is having some kind of negative effect on you.”

“No.”

That answer, that one word, comes out a lot louder than Tony means it to, and he winces at its blunt force as Bruce flinches away from him.  “Sorry.  But no.  It’s not.”  It’s really not.  Really.  Not.  “This has nothing to do with the scepter, and you know how I know that?  Because I’d do the same thing if it were Pepper instead of Loki.  If Pepper somehow ended up across the universe and I had a chance to find her?  You damn well bet I’d try.  If it were Rhodey?  Or, for that matter, you?  Or Steve?  Or, hell, even Coulson or Natasha, because I’d probably feel bad and guilty even over them and want to set things right?  I’d do it.  You think I wouldn’t do it?”

“No...” Bruce mutters, though that careful tone has shrouded his voice again.

“I know you don’t like Loki,” says Tony.  “And I don’t really expect you to because he’s an evil fucking asshole, but if you knew him you’d know... um... that’s just one of many equally horrible facets of his personality.  But luckily, this isn’t about you or what you think.  It’s about me and somebody I care about for reasons that...  who knows.  He’s not always evil.  Just occasionally.  We spent a lot of time in Phoenix with him not being evil.  It’s different when it’s just the two of us and maybe for a second we can both drop all the crazy bullshit we always carry around on our shoulders and...”

It’s so hard, trying to explain these simple things.  Thoughts that make so much sense in his head are impossible to articulate with Bruce’s raised eyebrow staring him in the face like that, judging every poorly formed syllable that comes out of his mouth.  Every weak argument. 

“I’m going to Asgard, Bruce.  If you don’t like the idea of me doing this for Loki, then tell yourself it’s for some nameless friend, or for pure science, and maybe that’ll make it acceptable.  But I’m going.  It’s the right thing to do, and I know that, because the only time my conscience is at peace is when I’m working towards that goal.  I have to go.  Maybe you can at least understand that I need to go.  It’s a compulsion pushing me from inside and it won’t let me stop.  I can’t stop, and can’t give up, because the second I do I start to panic, thinking, what if I’m the only person who can do this?  What if I’m the only one, and I give up, and then I’ve failed?”

“Okay,” says Bruce, quiet and slow.  He stands up as he speaks.  Sets his glass back on the tray and sweeps aside a scattered mess of cheese crumbs from the table.  Moments of stalling like he’s working up courage before he opens his mouth again.  “You know this is your own choice and I won’t stand in the way.  I promised to help, and I will, until the end.  But just...”  He lifts his hands, fingers picking nervously at one thumbnail.  “Just promise me, in return, you’ll think it through for at least two days before we go any further.  Because the way you’re talking?  You need to go?  A compulsion pushing you forward?  You can’t give up?  I want to make sure it’s really you making this decision, and not something or somebody else making it for you.”

Maybe the anger that ignites in Tony is irrational, but really, when you think about it, how often is anger really rational?  Justified, sure, but rational?  The feeling starts in the back of his neck, hot and tingling and a little like shame, before it seeps down through his bloodstream to invade his whole body.  Makes his fists tighten.  Makes his teeth clench.  “And that’s what you really think?” he asks.  “That I’m... possessed or something?!”

“I didn’t say that.  But...”

But the implication is pretty damn clear, and it only stokes Tony’s anger.  “But obviously, no matter what I say and how I try to explain myself, none of my reasons will ever be good enough to convince you I’m not crazy and this is really, one hundred percent, what I want to do?!”

Bruce’s voice is so calm despite the fidgeting of his hands.  “I’m only trying to make sure.  Before you go ahead with this, I only want to be sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons, and you’ve thought about all the risks, and you’re confident beyond even the tiniest doubt that it’s the right choice.  I just don’t want to see any emotions or misplaced eagerness affecting your judgement, which is why I think we should wait on this a couple days at the very least.  Things don’t always end well when you’re too quick to make yourself the test subject of unknown technology.  Ask me how I know sometime.”

He turns around before Tony has even half a second to respond, shoving his nervous hands deep down into the pockets of his pajama pants as he stalks away.  Was that supposed to be some kind of guilt trip?  Or just one more dire warning in a long string of bullshit dire warnings people have been throwing Tony’s way lately?

Whatever the hell it was, it’s not going to work.  “It’s been three months!” Tony shouts, though a door down the hall slams before the first word’s out of his mouth.  “I’ve been thinking about this for three months!  If I haven’t changed my mind in three months, I’m not going to do it now just because you’re scared of your own shadow!”

Unsurprisingly, Bruce doesn’t answer.

Tony picks up his juice glass just to slam it down on the table again, wishing it would break in his hand.  It doesn’t.  Juice slops over the side.

What an act of rebellion.  He’s a true badass.

But it’s been three months.  Three months by himself, alone every night.  Three months of Loki existing only as a memory: a persistent splinter stuck in his imagination, impossible to remove even if Tony wanted to.  (He doesn’t.)  Three months of loose ends and unfinished business.  Uncertainty.  Worry.  Fear.  Obsession.  Three long, uninterrupted months of struggling to sleep every night and crawling restless out of bed every morning.  Day after day of a singular thought pounding through his head.

I need to get to Asgard.

Is it even a choice any more?

“Jarvis?” he asks.

“Yes, sir?”

It’s time.  “Start the build.  The design is finalized.  Get the beamline components shaped first, let me know when they’re ready for assembly, then start on the bracing structure.  I want this thing ready to go ASAP.”

Chapter Text

Desert.  In all directions.  Nothing but desert.  Dirt and sand and scrubby little plants as far as the eye can see.  Somewhere off to the left is the ghost town of Puente Antiguo, but it’s hidden out of sight behind  a rise in the landscape as Tony pulls the Jeep to a stop on a flat, gritty plain and jumps out to do a quick visual survey of the location.

Yep, middle of nowhere.  Perfect place to shoot off an experimental interplanetary teleportation beam without any nosy neighbors getting in the way.

“So...” says Bruce, following Tony’s lead and climbing out of his seat.  “I think we should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”

Over the hood of the Jeep, Tony shoots Bruce a look, accompanied by the kind of groan people usually make when hit by bad jokes.  “Exactly how long have you been waiting to say that?”

Bruce’s answer comes with a sheepish smile.  “Um...  Since we crossed the New Mexico border...”

“Uh-huh,” says Tony.  But he grins just the same, because that’s the first light-hearted thing Bruce has said in five days.  It’s not much, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the polite, professional, and awkwardly distant way they’ve been treating each other lately.

The friendly spark is short lived, though.  They unload the equipment largely in silence, Tony offering a few directions of ‘that one first’ or ‘over here’ when Bruce asks which case goes where, but little more.  Five aluminum trunks house the dismantled pieces of the portal device.  Two more hold everything Tony plans on taking with him to Asgard: all the necessities of his life crammed into a little less than six cubic feet.  There’s his Mark VII armor, neatly folded away and ready to go.   And then one last case.  Smaller than the rest, about three feet long by seven inches wide by four inches tall, Tony waits until Bruce is well out of sight range and busy unpacking before he undoes its clasps.

Loki’s scepter sits inside, nestled safely on a bed of custom-shaped foam.  The S.H.I.E.L.D. logo hovers above it, stamped into a round plate on the inside of the lid.

He hasn’t looked at it in weeks.  Once, when he first started on his designs for the portal beam, he opened the case and looked at the scepter.  But only once.

He hasn’t touched it since that day on the roof in New York.

He glances up, tilting his head to peer through the Jeep’s windshield over at Bruce, who’s now kneeling in the dirt and arranging pieces in a line.  Well, might as well get this over with as soon as possible.  Tear off the Band-Aid, face the demons, cross the bridge and all that jazz.  So, slowly, trying not to let his hand shake too much, he reaches down.  His fingertips slide around the smooth, golden handle.

That’s all that’s needed for its bright energy to fly up his arm and flood his brain.  One little touch, and suddenly he can feel again.  He knows again.  His eyes are wide open to all the secrets of the world, and he can breathe in deeply, savoring the taste of power and certainty in the air that fills his lungs.  It’s not as strong as he remembers – has the scepter faded in Loki’s absence, or have Tony’s own abilities grown to the point where he no longer notices such a striking difference? – but it’s there nonetheless.  He can sense Bruce’s focus on the task of assembling their device, prickling out from a point just ahead.  He can feel the incomplete, broken remnants of lives still caught in the wreckage of the empty town a mile and a half to the north-west.  And he can almost see the shimmering outline of the Bifrost’s footprint in a wide circle to his right.

It’s there.  Right there.  That’s where he needs to initialize the portal.  He paces out to the middle of the circle, letting the scepter guide him, until he stands at its exact center.  At his back, he knows Bruce is looking up from the pile of bolts and braces to stare at him in apprehension.

“Here,” he calls, before Bruce has a chance to say anything.  “I want the portal to open here.  Do you have the range finder?  Measure out forty meters from where I’m standing and we’ll set up the beam casing at that point.”  Stepping back, he pulls a pen out of his pocket and sticks it down into the dirt, marking the place.

“That, um...” Bruce starts.  “That... scepter... help you find the right spot?”

Tony nods.  He could feel it before, and he knew they were close, but now he has the exact location.  This is where the Bifrost last touched Earth.  Residual energy still haunts this place.  He saw its effect on Loki when they were here nearly four months ago, but now he can feel it for himself.  Pushing and pulling, distorting the atmosphere...  the air feels thinner here, like there’s something missing.  Something has been taken away.  It’s full of holes.

He can’t reopen the Bifrost, but maybe, just maybe, he can hitch a ride on the tail of its dwindling comet.  Maybe this little suggestion of lingering magic will be enough.

“This should work, shouldn’t it?” Tony asks as he starts back over towards Bruce.  “We’ve already seen how the Tesseract energy latches on to its own kind.  No reason to think it won’t connect with the Bifrost energy too, right?”

Bruce pushes his glasses up from where they’d slipped down the bridge of his nose.  “Uh...”

“I mean, my understanding of how these portals work is that the energy is directed by the will of whoever is controlling it.  That’s why the first portal device worked for Loki, but not Selvig.  Loki could ‘talk’ to the Tesseract, while Selvig couldn’t.  So assuming that I can get a portal to open at all – which I think I can, because we’re dealing with extracted Tesseract teleportation energy rather than the Cube itself – I need something a little better than my own mental power to make sure it goes to Asgard.  Instead of, I don’t know, Monte Carlo or somewhere.  So my guess is if we initialize the portal exactly where the Bifrost last touched, where the barrier between Asgard and Earth is at its thinnest, the portal will pick up on that.  It’ll naturally recreate a bridge where one has previously existed.  Makes sense?”

If Bruce has anything to say in reply to that, he keeps it to himself and instead just repeats, “Uh.”

“Yeah,” Tony says with a nod.  “Makes sense.”  The scepter, pulsing warm in his hand, seems to agree.

“Don’t look at me for reassurance.  This is now so far out of my realm of experience that I’m just the hired help.  Here to assemble the hardware and drive your Jeep back to Malibu once you...”  A forced little cough.  Bruce looks down.  “Once you go.”

His demeanor has changed.  Tony didn’t see it at first but he can now.  It’s plainly on display, shining out from Bruce’s skin: he may not completely agree with Tony’s decision, but at least he accepts it.  “So you’re done trying to talk me out of this,” says Tony.  Not a question.  An observation.

Bruce nods without looking up.  “I’m not going to be able to change your mind.  And you know what...  I’m starting to think it’s not fair of me to try.  I’ve been thinking about that for the past few days and it suddenly seemed a bit hypocritical for me to be telling you what to do when I’ve spent the last seven years running away from everyone who was trying to do that to me.  You should do what you want.  Go to Asgard.  Maybe I can’t understand your reasons for going, but... I guess I can understand that you need to go.”

Wordlessly, Tony holds out his hand, which Bruce takes, using it to pull himself to his feet.  He holds on a heartbeat longer than necessary.  And only lets go after a conspiratorial squeeze.

“Thank you,” Tony quietly tells him.

“This doesn’t mean I agree with what you’re doing.”

“Still.  You’re helping me out here.  Way more than helping, actually, since it was your discovery that led to the final design coming together.  And I know you don’t agree, which makes me appreciate your help even more.  So.  Thank you.”

Bruce mumbles something under his breath that sounds like it might be a ‘you’re welcome’ muddled up with the uncertain, embarrassed grunt of somebody who isn’t entirely comfortable with either compliments or gratitude.  “Let’s just get going before I come to my senses and realize continuing to help you is a really, really bad idea.”

ooo

This may be an ideal location, but in early November the exposed wind-magnet of a landscape sure doesn’t make for an ideal climate once the sun starts to dip down below the horizon.  Six hours.  That’s how long it takes to assemble all the equipment.  Six hours of numb fingers that keep fumbling with tools, interspersed with scant minutes huddled over a coffee thermos for a quick break.  By the end they’re forced to work in the piercing glare and hard shadows cast by the Jeep’s headlights, bolting this and leveling that and, finally, wiring in the battery that will start everything up and get this show on the road.

With his armor on and the two cases he plans to take to Asgard at his sides, Tony stands in front of the finished product with an underwhelming sense of... what, exactly?  Not disappointment.  But not excitement, either.  Maybe mild satisfaction, but that’s still not quite right.  There should be more, shouldn’t there?  After all those months, his project is complete, and he’s about to tear a shortcut through space to the other side of the universe.  He should feel more than just this vague sense of contentment.  There should be more than simple, accomplished pride flowing from his mind, down his arm, and into the scepter (which answers back with a half-voiced vote of confidence: Yes, it seems to say, you should be proud of this moment.  You’re finally here, as I always knew you would be.)

“Does this feel weird to you?” Tony asks.

Bruce, leaning against the side of the Jeep, answers immediately.  “Uh-huh.”

“No I mean,” Tony clarifies, “I should probably be jumping out of my skin with excitement right now.  Shouldn’t I?  I’m about to go to a different planet.  But this kind of feels like... I don’t know...  normal, everyday trip to Aspen for the weekend kind of thing.  Does it feel like that to you?”

“No.  I’m a lot closer to jumping out of my skin from weirdness.”  Bruce takes a couple steps back.  “Actually, I should stay over here while you fire that thing up.  In case of... occurrences.”

Right.  Occurrences.  But at least he’s got a good place for it, out here in the middle of the desert with a whole smashed-up town nearby to smash up further.

“Probably wise,” says Tony.  “Anyway: game plan.  I’m about to get things going.  Power starts up, beam comes on, portal initializes.  As soon as it’s stable, I grab these two cases here and fly.  Once I’m through I’ll wave or set off flares or something so you know I’ve made it safely and didn’t die on the very short journey to the other side of space.  Then?  All you have to do is wait for the cells to burn out and the portal closes on its own.  And you head home.  Easy as pie.  You can pack up if you want, but you know what would be easier?  Leave all this junk here, but tell Coulson where it is and what it does.  He’ll come confiscate it for you.”

“That’s not funny,” Bruce mutters.

“Yes it is.”

“It’s not funny, because as soon as S.H.I.E.L.D. finds out what you did – and Tony, they’re going to find out –they’ll be all over me to explain.  What am I supposed to tell them?”

Loki’s scepter all but pulls Tony’s eyes down to his hand.  “You can always tell them I Bartoned you.”

“Okay, that’s not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Well, Bruce has an underdeveloped sense of horribly offensive humor.  Tony lets it drop.  “You at a safe watching distance?  I think it’s time to start this thing up.”

On this machine, there’s none of that safety code crap Selvig built into the original portal device.  This one’s nice and simple: one button to activate start-up, and a switch to fire up the beamline relay.  Tony flicks the first, watching as the panel lights begin to glow and listening to the beam casings buzz with power.  And then...

We’re coming, the scepter whispers as his right hand rises to the beamline switch.

Tony silently nods to himself.   Yes.  We’re coming.  It’s time.

Asgard, says the scepter.  You must to think of Asgard.  Beyond the stars.  Across space and time.  A golden city.  Where we belong.  Clear your head.  Can you see it?

He lowers his helmet’s visor and closes his eyes.  The image is small, but it’s distinct and sharp, framed in his memory.  Tony saw it before, through the portal Loki opened on the deck of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s helicarrier.  In the center of a misty, hollow cloud, a wave of golden spires rises above the glittering hill of a city.  Flashes of stars crown its peak.  Asgard...

No sight needed for his hand to find the beamline switch, smooth and sure.  No need to hesitate or overthink as he turns it ninety degrees clockwise.

Asgard.  Golden Asgard.  Gleaming towers cloaked in radiance.  Asgard.  Floating fortress in a sea of stars.  Asgard.  Eternal light and glory.

The first narrow beam rips through the air like the crack of a whip.  The other ten follow after a moment’s pause and with an engine’s roar.  At twenty meters, all the strands of electric blue energy merge into one.  At forty, at the center of the Bifrost’s circle that Tony marked, a small, dark cloud begins to waver and solidify and grow.

It’s smaller than either of Loki’s portals, stabilizing at just over three feet across, but there’s no denying the sight on the other side.  A shining city.  A glassy bridge.  And if Tony has any doubts in that moment...  He doesn’t give himself a chance to listen to any of them.  As soon as the portal opens he’s in the air, shooting out along the side of the beamline to the cases he has ready to go: clamped together, handle up.  His fingers close around metal in one flawlessly choreographed movement.  The cases lift off the ground, he’s flying on, and the portal lies just ahead...

He instinctively braces himself against the rush of nausea and bodily disorientation he’s come to associate with teleportation.  It doesn’t come.  He doesn’t even think to prepare himself for any other possible side effect.  Like the sudden, searing flash of heat that explodes through his body the instant he touches the portal.

White-hot and sizzling with the smell of ozone, it hits him square in the chest and then engulfs him whole, armor and all, down to the very last innermost molecule.  The suit fails first, before his brain even has a chance to process what’s happening.  Power shuts down in the right arm, and the right leg.  Critical failure flashes in a red warning across the display in front of his eyes, but only for a second and then that, too, crackles and dies in a puff of smoke that stinks of burnt plastic and wire.  Blinded, he crashes shoulder first with a painful crunch into ground as hard as steel.  Rolls twice.  Smashes his head against the cases still clenched in his immobile right fist.  Skids to a stop.  Can’t sit up.

Fuck.

Something’s still burning.  The suit’s still burning.  Something, somewhere, sparks and smokes and fills his helmet with fumes that sting his eyes and lungs.  Shit, fuck, and he can’t sit and the power’s gone and everything down the entire right side has seized up in what smells and feels like an anarchic mess of ruined circuitry...  But the left arm works.  Not easily, functioning now like nothing more than a clumsy metal sleeve with no robotic support, but at least Tony can jerkily pull his left hand up to his face to swat away his visor.  It clatters to the ground as he gulps in, and coughs on, breath after breath of cool, clean air.

“Tony!”

He can hear his name.  So faint, like it’s being shouted through a barrier of water.

“Tony!”

His voice comes out as a hoarse croak.  “Bruce...”  He lifts his left arm as high as he can in an awkward wave, hoping like hell that’ll at least be enough to be seen through the portal and signal to Bruce he’s alive.  Singed and trapped in his own armor, but alive, which is a damn sight better than where he could be.  He listens for any reply, but the only answer is the hiss of wind and the rush of what sounds like a waterfall somewhere nearby.  The portal must have closed.

He hopes Bruce saw him before it did.

The suit’s automatic release controls are fucked, but Tony’s left hand fumbles its way over to the manual release levers at his chest and waist on either side.  The breastplate pops loose with the sound of something snapping (that can’t be good) and another whiff of acrid, black smoke (probably even worse).  Shit.  Shit shit shit.  Except this is no time to lie around feeling sorry for himself and his ruined armor, so he shoves all those worries aside to deal with later and focuses instead on freeing his arms and legs.  The left side is easy enough.  The right takes a little more effort, twisting and forcing his way out of the broken metal shell.  But at least then he can sit up, pull off his helmet, and do a quick assessment of bodily damage. 

Miraculously, there’s not much.  The hair on his right arm has been scorched off near the elbow where the wiring caught fire.  His shirt has burned away in a wide hole surrounding the arc reactor, though his skin in both places is only slightly reddened, no worse than a sunburn.  The arc reactor itself seems unaffected.  It’s hot to the touch and streaked with melted shirt, but other than that bit of cosmetic damage, there’s nothing to indicate it’s not functioning normally.

So.  Suit destroyed, but body okay.  Tony can live with that.  As in, he’ll have to live with that, because he doesn’t have much of a choice, but it’s not the worst possible outcome for this scenario.  He made it to Asgard in one relatively unscathed piece.

The sense of excitement/panic/terror/overwhelming uncertainty/crushing disbelief that failed to hit him before he left?  It sure doesn’t hold back now, wrenching his gut with the sudden reality of the situation.  Absurd reality.  Impossible reality.  He made it to Asgard.  The portal worked.  Everything worked.  He made it to Asgard. 

“Holy shit,” he murmurs to himself.  And he needs to pause for a second, and take the time to say that name aloud.  To feel its weight and shape on his tongue.

“Asgard.”

ooo

Maybe, in the interest of preparedness, Tony should’ve thought a little more (and a little more realistically) about what exactly he’d do once he reached Asgard.  With most of his plan focusing on the problem of just getting here in the first place, everything else kind of fell by the wayside, relegated to a few indulgent and embarrassing fantasies in which Tony Stark, legendary Earth hero, is received by the people of Asgard with ringing cheers and a shower of rose petals.  They give him priceless golden treasures for some reason.  He advises a council of venerable battle wizards on the topic of intergalactic politics.  He climbs to the highest room in the tallest tower (or the lowest cell in the deepest dungeon, he’s not picky) and comes across the tragic figure of Loki, whom he rescues in a daring ploy.  Thor’s family applauds him for his courage and loyalty even though this makes no sense at all given that they were the ones to put Loki in the tower/dungeon in the first place.  But it plays well onscreen.

There are probably a lot of different things Tony should have considered, but didn’t.  Simple things.  Things like, ‘Can humans breathe the air in Asgard?’  (Answer: essentially yes, though it seems to have a different oxygen content and atmospheric composition than Earth air, because it’s making him a little light-headed.)  Things like, ‘What time zone is Asgard in, and do they even have twenty-four hour days?’  (Answer: that’s still a mystery, though from the black sky overhead, Tony’s starting to suspect he arrived at the Asgardian equivalent to three in the morning.)  Things like, ‘What the hell do I even say to Thor?’  (Answer: probably not, ‘Surprise, I’m here to undermine your authority by asking you to reverse any decisions made in regards to Loki’s fate and punishment.’)

Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.  For now though, it’s not like he can do much of anything other than go with the flow.  And the flow is telling him to smarten up and make himself as presentable as possible, because he’s about to have company.

Company on horseback.  A few hundred feet away, at the end of the gleaming crystal road Tony landed on, a vast metal gate is yawning its way open to allow a small group of riders through.  Ten, maybe.  In the dark at that distance Tony can’t count for sure, but however many there are, they’re approaching fast.  He grabs a fresh and not-burnt-to-shit shirt out of the meager collection of clothes he brought along, and just manages to pull it on and snap the lid of the case shut as the Asgardian Nazgûl come pounding to a stop within literal spitting distance.  Nine in total.  How fitting. 

At the forefront of them all is Thor.  And for reasons he can’t quite explain, the sight of Thor jumping down from that horse makes Tony’s shoulders sag with relief while his stomach simultaneously knots in apprehension.

“Tony Stark.”

Tony stands a little straighter as Thor strides forward, barging right into his personal space until the two of them stand less than a handspan apart.  Thor glares down from his unfair height advantage.  Tony stares right back up.  “Hey.”

“Heimdall informed me of your attempts to open a portal.  We did not believe you would succeed.”

Heimdall... Tony’s heard that name before, but can’t place when or how.  “Always full of surprises, aren’t I?”

“How did you arrive here?” Thor demands.

“You don’t sound too happy to see me,” Tony replies, but it’s one of those bullshit things you flippantly throw out at people when you’re at a loss for anything better to say.  Because the knot in his stomach has started to twist, and he has bad feeling about whatever’s about to happen next.

Scowling as he turns his head to look at his horsemen, Thor is very obviously biting back whatever words sit at the ready in his throat.  He pulls off his helmet and tucks it under his arm.  But it’s not a gesture of confidence or familiarity.  More like a gesture of wanting to show exactly how pissed off he is that he needs his whole damn frown-marred face on full display.  “You should not have come,” is what he eventually settles on saying.

“Yeah, people keep telling me that.”

“You cannot stay.”

Tony nods.  “I didn’t really plan to.”  Which is technically the truth, because he honestly hasn’t planned anything other than the part where he finds Loki.

“Then why are you here?”

“Can’t you guess?” asks Tony.

Thor can guess.  He doesn’t say so out loud, but the way his eyes narrow, and the way his lips tighten...  He can guess.  Probably doesn’t even need to guess.  He just knows. 

“Okay, look,” Tony tries.  “Let me start by apologizing for just showing up out of the blue like this.  But to be fair, you didn’t really leave me with a way to contact you to warn that I’m coming.  No phone, no email, no... do you guys have carrier pigeons?  Communication between our realms is kind of sketchy, isn’t it?  But I don’t remember you giving Earth any kind of warning before you beamed down last time.  You Twilight Zoned your way onto S.H.I.E.L.D.’s jet, and then – I don’t know if you remember this, but I sure do – immediately attacked me with that hammer of yours.  So in comparison?  I think I’m being pretty considerate here, arriving quietly on this... uh...”  He glances down from one end of the crystal road to the other, from the city’s gate at the far end to the jagged shards and abrupt drop off the edge of the world, close to where he first landed.  “Space dock.  Yeah.  This is me being polite.  And I think you could extend the same courtesy.  When you were on Earth, I let you into my home, bought you tacos, and let you wear my old pants.  I was more than civil to you.  How about you do the same for me?”

“Those were different circumstances,” growls Thor, who doesn’t seem to be in any kind of mood for negotiation.  Or having his honor questioned.  “I only came to your world to find Loki and-”

“Not a different circumstance.  In fact, that’s the exact same circumstance.  ‘Find Loki and.’  Which part of my vaguely implied reason for showing up on your front step didn’t you get just now?”

Thor growls again, this time without words: just a rumbled warning from somewhere deep inside.

“Maybe you could at least give me the opportunity to explain myself and make my case,” Tony suggests.  “It’s not like I’m asking for permanent residency or wanting to build a summer house.  I only want you to hear me out.”

From his stance, it’s clear that Thor is weighting the options in his mind.  Option one would be to actually humor Tony and listen to whatever it is he’s come to say (not that Tony knows what that’s going to be yet, but hey, he’ll think of something).  Option two would be tossing Tony off the end of the space dock and being done with it.  Thor shifts his weight from one foot to the other, huffing to himself, because apparently this is a really tough decision.

“Please?” Tony asks.

Thor goes for option three.  “I will consider your request,” he says.

And that’s good enough for Tony, since consideration implies spending time, which means nobody’s getting packed off back to where they came from in the immediate future.  He tries not to smile too widely at this small triumph.

“Tomorrow,” Thor continues.  “I will consult with my father, and we will decide your fate.  Until then, you are right, Tony Stark.  I do owe you the same hospitality you one afforded me.  Come.”

And that’s how Tony arrives in the golden realm.  Maybe not according to plan, as he’s quietly spirited through the streets by an armed escort, but it’ll have to do.  There are no crowds.  No roses.  No public announcement, no official greeting.  None of that storybook crap.  But in the grand scheme of things, can he really complain?  He’s in Asgard.  He made it this far.  Thor might not be too happy about it, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Tony’s here.  And he’s not about to give up until he gets what he came for.

Asgard’s stuck with him now.

Chapter Text

He can’t sleep in Asgard, either.

It must have been naïve hope that maybe his insomnia would be solved simply by setting foot on Asgardian soil.  Just like magic, just like that.  He climbed into bed without a second thought, sliding between slippery-satin sheets to press his face into the oversized pillow, and closed his eyes.  And waited.  And waited.  And rolled onto his back.  And stared up at the knotwork pattern of criss-crossing beams in the ceiling.  And rubbed his temples, and pressed his fingers into his gritty eyes until he saw stars, and strained his ears listening to distant sounds that might have been birds of prey or wolves or a strange new creature right out of folklore and imagination... but all those things did sweet fuck all.  Tony can’t sleep.  Can’t even lie still.  He keeps tossing and rolling and shifting position, back to side to front to side to diagonally across the bed with his arms wrapped over his head and the blankets in a snarl around his knees.

If anything, this feels worse than trying to sleep on any of those restless nights back home.  There’s too much energy in this room.  In this whole place.  The entire city, the entire realm, from the moment Tony arrived, felt different than Earth, and now that he’s alone in bed with too much time on his hands and too many thoughts assailing his mind, he knows why.  The energy is stronger.  It’s clearer and more vibrant, as if the air here conducts it more readily than the air on Earth.  All those tiny connections that Loki once told him about are so much more substantial.  Even without the scepter in his hand, he can feel the presence of the guards outside his door.  There are four of them.  He can sense somebody walking past in the hallway.  Bodies in the rooms above his, beside his, below his...  People all across the city, waking up with the slowly rising sun, flickering into action like sparks becoming flames.

“Fucking assholes,” Tony mutters to himself.  Their stupid, cloying energy is giving him the queen bitch of all headaches.

How does somebody like Loki even deal with this?  It’s like trying to live with a bright light constantly glaring in his eyes and something loud and repetitive buzzing in his ears, and no chance of relief.  Is he supposed to work up a tolerance after a while?  Or just stop noticing it?  Learn to tune it out? 

Whatever the case, sleep isn’t going to happen any time soon.  So he climbs out of bed with a grunt, pulls on his pants from the floor, and pads barefoot over to the table where a pitcher of water waits.  Fills a glass... or rather, some kind of decorative metal tankard.  Asgard apparently does nothing by half measures.  It’s full-out Viking or nothing around here.  And water from a metal cup tastes weird.  At least he assumes it’s water?  Probably one of those things he should have checked up on before he arrived: does Asgard have water, and is it the same as Earth water?

At least the room they stuck him in is nice.  Sparse but elegant, like some modernist spa.  Large, easily sixty feet across and nearly as many deep, with floor and walls made of a highly polished material in a rich, coppery brown.  He can’t tell whether it’s metal or stone or a curious man-made hybrid of both.  The high, vaulted ceiling arches into the center of the room where heavy chains hang a sweeping metallic sculpture that’s probably a lighting fixture.  It was glowing dull orange when the guards first brought Tony into the room, but it’s dark now and nobody bothered to show him how to turn it on.  There’s a separate bathroom off to the side, which probably has running water, because it has some kind of spout over some kind of bath tub.  But no visible faucet taps.  And no discernible toilet.  Maybe one of those fountain-looking things is a toilet, but Tony decided to play it safe upon arrival and just took a leak in the tub.

He should probably feel embarrassed about that.  But seriously, if nobody’s going to take the time to show him how to use his space bathroom, they can’t really blame him for misuse of the facilities.

Over in the corner, somebody’s stacked up his armor in a pile of broken pieces.  The aluminum cases sit beside it, along the wall.  He might have enough spare parts in case two to fix things up.  Not perfectly, and not fully, but he might have enough to at least get the suit back in working order; he anticipated having to make a few small repairs when he packed.  And okay, so this qualifies as a lot more than ‘small repairs’, but maybe once he takes the time to examine the extent of the damage he’ll be able to figure out a way to get it back together.

The scepter’s stuffed inside case one with his clothes and some tools.  It’s as loud as any of the people in this damn place, boldly announcing its presence.  It gives him a headache more than any other single thing he can pinpoint.  Like a dog barking.  Pointless noise.

He flips the case open and, careful not to touch it himself, picks up the scepter with a pair of pliers and a looped t-shirt.  Then carries it into the bathroom and dumps it behind one of the fountains.  Better.  Sort of.  It’s hard to tell if putting any more distance between himself and the scepter does any actual good, but at least the solid wall separating them acts as a good mental barrier.  He can pretend its obnoxious energy is less noticeable when he shuts the bathroom door behind him.

And then what?  If he makes an educated guess based on the dim, pinkish light filtering through the flimsy curtains that separate his bedroom from a wide balcony, it’s still early morning.  Thor gave no indication of what time they might meet for their friendly little chat.  After breakfast?  After lunch?  Do they have breakfast and lunch here?  Tony’s pretty sure he remembers Thor using the word ‘breakfast’ in Atlantic City, but that doesn’t prove anything.  ‘Breakfast’ could be a concept he picked up during his first little jaunt down to Earth.

So Tony hauls a few key pieces of the armor out to the balcony, because if he’s going to waste time waiting around until Thor comes to fetch him, he might as well waste it while getting something done.  And he might as well get something done in a spot with a nice view.  No: make that ‘spectacular’ view.  ‘Unbelievable view, like something off the cover of a sci-fi paperback’, even. 

Loki’s description of Asgard slips back into the forefront of his mind as he stands at the stone balustrade, absently rubbing at his helmet’s charred faceplate.  ‘Organic’, Loki had called it.  Flowing lines and seamless transitions, shapes inspired by forests and mountains and seas...  It wasn’t the easiest thing to picture while staring out over the square Lego-land of New York City, but now that he’s here, now that he can see it, Tony would have trouble describing Asgard in any other way.  Off to the right, asymmetrical towers rise with the curvature of a vast, alien spine.  Lopsided pyramids ripple in waves against the hazy dawn horizon to the left.  Walls turn into buildings that turn into needle-thin spires, following the unpredictable path of a river to the craggy edge of this flat world and its cloak of stars.  All of it shines with a supernatural glow...  Is that real, or is it a trick of the light reflecting off bright surfaces as smooth as glass?

He glances down at his mask.  The gold alloy remains stubbornly dull, even where his thumb’s rubbed away a clean circle above the eye on the right side.  No glow.  No magic.  It looks, almost for a second, depressingly primitive. 

Somewhere out in this alien city, Loki is waiting.  Too far or too hidden to locate precisely, even with the scepter... which Tony certainly tried.  But he’s here.  So close now.  Loki’s here.

ooo

Thor appears at noon, or whatever the Asgardian equivalent to noon is.  Tony was expecting a summons, and maybe even the spectacle of being escorted through the palace to a grand throne room so he could stand on display for all the land to see and cower before the king.  But this works too.  Thor arrives with two servants bearing food and drink, and immediately proceeds to make himself comfortable at the little table near the balcony door.

“Tony Stark,” he says with a single dip of his head.

Tony replies with a casual, “Hey,” as if they’re friends once again, back home on Earth, sitting down to a nice, relaxing lunch because whatever problem Thor had with him last night no longer exists.  He joins Thor at the table.  The servants pour them wine, then silently depart.  There’s bread and meat and cheese and fruit and little cakes and some kind of steaming, tea-looking drink in a ceramic pitcher.  It’s all very cozy.

For this friendly little meeting, Thor’s not wearing his signature armor.  Just a normal, everyday, around-the-house flowing knee-length red vest covered in what has to be at least ten pounds of decorative metal.  With some kind of silky gunmetal gray sarong underneath, tied around his waist.  No pants.  Tony’s not surprised.  And it makes him feel a bit better about his decision to wear sweats and an impromptu scarf made of half-untangled spare wire.  Though, on second thought, maybe it would be polite to take off the wires.  Yeah. 

He sets the tangle-scarf aside before reaching for a bread roll.  “So.”

“Mm,” Thor replies through a mouthful of meat.  Then, once he’s swallowed, “Is the room to your liking?  Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, room’s great,” says Tony, because answering one of those two questions is good enough for smalltalk.  No need to whine about the other.  “Very... uh...”  He turns around in his chair to take it all in, bed to balcony.  “Very Naboo chic.”

Thor nods as if that makes any sense at all.  “Mm.”

“It’s spacious.  Nice open concept.  Great view from the balcony.”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea how to use the bathroom or turn on the lights.”

“No?” Thor asks, looking up as he takes another bite.  Apparently talking with your mouth full passes for good table manners in these parts.  “Shall I show you?”

“...Maybe we eat first.  Then bathroom exploration.”

“Of course.”

“Your dad joining us today?”

And with that, Thor’s energy changes.  Something spikes inside him, no longer flat but jagged and irregular.  His posture changes with it.  He sits up straighter.  Stiff.  Formal.  This time, he swallows before even starting to speak.  And is that an awkward, uncertain pause?

“No,” he says carefully, drawing the word out a beat longer than he should.  “I spoke with my father this morning.  As your presence here is a result of my actions on Midgard, he has charged me with finding a solution to the problem.”

Problem?  Tony catches himself before he repeats the word back at Thor, but he bristles at it just the same.

“There are many things we must discuss.  But...”  Thor gestures to the table.  “Please, eat first.”

Right, because eating is exactly what Tony wants to do after having been labeled a problem by the guy who supplied the food.  They’re off to a great start already.  But he stuffs a wedge of cheese into his mouth anyway because at least that gives him an excuse not to have to say anything.  He follows it up with a few bites of meat, which is annoyingly tender and perfectly seasoned, and half an egg.  Then a swig of wine, which flows far too smoothly down his throat in a long stream before the full strength of it hits him smack in the face.

“Oh,” he hisses, trying not to cough.  “That’s not wine.  Or if it is, it’s like... ninety proof wine...”

“Tony Stark, are you-”

He waves Thor off.  “Yeah yeah.  Yeah.  I’ll be fine.  I’ve drunk way worse in my day.  I just wasn’t expecting that.  At all.  Usually I don’t, you know, throw back a giant mouthful of hard liquor.  Okay, I mean, I do, but when I do, it’s intentional.”

“It’s cherry wine,” says Thor, taking a healthy swig of his own.

Sure, that explains everything...  Tony lifts the cup (metal tankard, of course) to his nose, inhaling the earthy scent of the wine.  Smells a little cherry-like.  Also smells way more innocent than it actually is, but a second, less enthusiastic sip confirms what he first discovered.  “This isn’t cherry wine, it’s cherry brandy.  It’s a mom drink.”

“Yes,” Thor agrees.  “It’s one of my mother’s favorites.”

“That wasn’t supposed to be a-” compliment, Tony finishes in his head.  “Never mind.  Let’s just get this over with.  What, exactly, did you and your father discuss?  Gimme the good news.  I’m assuming I’ve been granted honorary citizenship here in your realm of myth and magic by virtue of my unparalleled intelligence, brash new world charm, and stunning good looks?”

Tony’s starting to suspect that Thor doesn’t really understand anything he says.  Or, if he does understand, he doesn’t pay attention.  “My father,” Thor starts, but stops right after the words leave his tongue.  He looks down it his plate, takes a breath, and tries again.  Nothing comes.

“Maybe you can start with telling me why you were so... displeased is a nice, neutral word.   Why you were so displeased to see me last night.”

Another little breath, and Thor shifts in his seat.  “Your arrival took us all by surprise.  Heimdall had informed us of your attempts to recreate Loki’s space hole, but-”

“Quick warning,” Tony interrupts, “but if you continue to say things like ‘Loki’s space hole’, I don’t know how seriously I’ll be able to take this conversation.”

Thor frowns, clearly confused.

“It’s distracting,” says Tony.

“But why-”

“Please don’t think about it.  And say portal.  Loki’s portal.  Even though that’s now starting to sound a little...  Just tell me the rest of the story.  Scientific language.  No space holes.”

“Heimdall informed us of your progress, but we did not believe you would find any success.  So when your device worked...  We in Asgard have long prided ourselves in the security and safety of our realm.  Few have ever breached our borders, and those who have done so did not live long enough to brag of their exploits.”

“So you have a kill-all-intruders kind of policy going on?” Tony asks, trying to keep things light despite a distinct sense of foreboding as to where this might be headed.  “Yet I note you’re graciously allowing me to live.”  I hope.  “What gives?”

“I have managed to convince my father you are not an enemy and pose no risk.”

“Right.  So I guess it’s a good thing I was too overwhelmed by stuff going wrong last night to remember the classic ‘take me to your leader’ line you’re supposed to use when you land on an alien planet.  Sounds like he would’ve executed me on the spot.”

Thor neither confirms nor denies that, instead carrying on with what he thinks they should talk about.  “No-one believed humans possessed either the technology or the ability to open a portal.”  He accentuates that last word.  Good. 

“But humans don’t have that technology,” Tony counters.   “I have it.  It was a one-hit wonder, made by myself and my lovely assistant, Dr. Bruce Banner.  I’m the only one who has it, I’m the only one who knows how to use it, and I’m the only one who can use it.  So if you’re worried about a bunch of tourists suddenly showing up, let me put your mind at ease.  This technology is not available to the general public.  Richard Branson isn’t about to start offering daily jaunts to Asgard on Virgin Intergalactic any time soon.”

“You would swear to this?” Thor asks.  “No other person on Midgard possesses this knowledge?”

“Bruce has the designs, and, in theory, the ability to build a second portal device or revitalize the one I used.  But he doesn’t know how to use it.”  And he doesn’t have the scepter.  But Tony keeps that thought to himself, reluctant as he suddenly is to let Thor in on his little secret.  If this Heimdall guy made no mention of the scepter, he’s damn well not going to bring it up now.  “Nor would he want to use it.  I can guarantee that.”

“Would you stake your life on it?”

“Is that really necessary?”

The grim expression on Thor’s face says yeah, it is.  Asgardians take their closed border seriously.

“Sure, why not,” Tony sighs.  “Though I’d feel a lot better staking a couple fingernails.  Maybe a big toe.  You guys that worried about an invasion from Earth?  Is that a campfire legend or something here?  People on earth used to worry about an invasion from Mars, though I’m pretty sure that fear was based on a fascination with H.G. Wells more than, you know, actual reasonable thought.”

“If you give your word that no one from Midgard will attempt to follow you or recreate what you have done,” says Thor, “my father is willing to accept your presence.”

“Apart from Bruce, nobody on Midgard knows I’m even here.”

Thor nods, making a sound in his throat that sounds like it must be a grunting, wordless ‘good’.

“Why are you so concerned anyway?  Did I accidentally step into the middle of Star Wars?  Is Thanos’ evil empire threatening you?”

“We must always be vigilant,” is all that Thor says, irritatingly vague.

Oh, whatever.  If Thor doesn’t want to spill state secrets over lunch, Tony won’t make him.  In fact, Tony’s starting to come to the realization that he doesn’t give a shit.  He grabs another bread roll and a thick slice of meat, making himself a little sandwich to eat while waiting for Thor to decide on a topic to bring up next.

He has a feeling he knows what it’ll be.  And he’s not wrong.

“Why did you come here?” Thor asks him, quietly.

“I thought we went over this last night,” Tony answers.

“Loki.  You came for Loki.  But I would know why.”

“He’s my friend.”

“You knew my brother for mere days.  He attacked your people and you made an attempt on his life.  Yet now you would risk your life to see him again.   Why?”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Tony mutters.  Thor can’t be that dense.  There’s no way.  “Are you seriously going to make me spell it out for you?”

“That he shared your bed?”

Sighing, Tony presses the heel of his hand against his forehead.  “...Yeah.  Okay so you’re not as dumb as you look.  But it’s not just that.  It’s actually a lot more than that.  Loki is...”

But how does he explain everything to Thor?  He has a tough enough time trying to rationalize it to himself, that electric whirlwind of lust and desire and camaraderie and contentment he feels when he’s with Loki, and the impossible, burning need to be back with Loki again when they’re apart.  How does he even begin to make Loki’s brother understand that connection when it makes little enough sense in his own head?  What Thor said is true.  He was with Loki for days.  Not even months or years: just days.  It felt like so much more substantial a timeframe, but it’s not something he can easily put into words.  Or put into words with difficulty, for that matter.  It’s something he just knows.

So he’ll start with what he can explain.  “I don’t like leaving things unfinished.  I’m pretty sure you’re not the kind of guy who can just walk away from the middle of a fight...”  Pausing, he glances up to look Thor in the eye, glad to see a little twinge of agreement there.  “...or anything.  Neither am I.  But after the portal opened in New York, you took Loki away and left me with a lot of unanswered questions and loose ends.  I had to spend the next three months cobbling together an explanation for why he did what he did, but without talking to Loki directly... I had no way of knowing if my guesses were right.  Shit, I had no way of knowing what you’d even done to him!”

“Loki is in prison,” Thor starts.

That’s as far as he gets.  “Yeah, I guessed that was probably the case,” Tony says, cutting him off.  “But still, do you know what it’s like to be stuck so far away, not knowing, having everything outside your control, and being unable to do a single goddamn thing about it?”

Thor looks down.  “Yes...” he answers in a soft voice.

“So maybe you get where I’m coming from.  Three months, Thor.  That’s three months of no answers, no ending, no closure, always wondering...  It’s like I have this constant barrage of questions pounding through my head and no way for them to escape.  Could I have done anything different?  Could I have stopped him?  Was that his whole plan, or is there another layer that I haven’t peeled back yet?  And another layer under that?  Some things he said and... some things he did.  It just doesn’t all add up.  And I can’t stop thinking about it.  All these thoughts keep swarming in my head, devouring everything else like a Biblical plague of locusts...”

“A plague of Lokis?” Thor asks with a bewildered half-frown and a wrinkled brow.

“...Not what I said, but now that you mention it, yeah.  That’s about right.  A plague of Lokis.  In my brain, all the time, every minute, every day, no relief.  And the only way to get it out is to see him again.”

“How do you know?”

Magic.  Which sounds too stupid to say out loud, but that’s the actual answer, isn’t it?  It’s that strange, intuitive little part of his brain that tells him he needs to see Loki again.  Demanding he see Loki again.

“I just do,” he tells Thor, and that sounds only marginally less stupid.  What is he, six years old?  “I...  have a feeling.  I need to see Loki.  If I don’t, this’ll never end.  I’ll go on obsessing and letting it rule my life.”  He drops his head back to look up at the ceiling, feeling the weight of his skull dragging down on his neck.  It’s so heavy.  His eyes are heavy.  Heavy and slow as lead, and tired – exhausted – but unable to rest.  Not until he finds Loki and feels the flood of Loki’s touch through his blood again.

He’s so close.  Loki’s here.  Somewhere.  Somewhere in Asgard, somewhere in this city, maybe even somewhere in this damn palace.  Hiding just out of sight behind the massive obstacle that is Thor.

“Look.  I’m not trying to be a jerk.  I’m not trying to be disrespectful.  Seriously, I’m not.  I’m trying to do what I need to do, and what I need to do is see Loki.  That’s it.  I’m not here to cause any trouble and I’m sorry if your father has his shirt in a twist because I showed up out of the blue.  I only want to see Loki.  You let me see Loki and I’ll leave without a fuss.”

Maybe.

He lifts his head back up, meeting Thor face to face again.  Though he doesn’t like the way Thor’s staring at him with those measuring, invasive eyes.

“You do not wish to free Loki from his prison?”

Well... it’s not in his immediate plan.  Yet.  “I only want to see Loki.”  Wanting to see will probably evolve into wanting to do other things with Loki, but he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.  “Please.  Let me talk to him.”

And just like that, Thor nods.  “Very well.”  Stuffing one last handful of cheese and bread into his mouth, Thor pushes his chair back, stands, and swallows the dregs of his ‘wine’.  “You may see Loki.”

Tony’s stomach lurches and twists.  “I can...”

“In his cell, for one hour.  I will call guards to escort you.  You may speak to him today, and tomorrow we will discuss your return to Midgard.”

“Sure,” says Tony, probably quicker than he should.  But this doesn’t feel like a time for bargaining; it feels like a time for celebrating small victories.  One step at a time.  He has an hour with Loki.  And then a discussion about returning to Midgard.  There’s no rule saying a discussion can’t end in a second hour with Loki, and then maybe a third, and a postponed return.

“After you visit Loki, you will return here to dress for tonight.  There is to be a banquet in your honor.”

Tony almost says ‘sure’ again.  Force of habit.  The word’s balanced on his tongue before he processes exactly what Thor said.  “Wait, what did you just...  What banquet?!”

The way Thor stares down at the ground, shifting from one foot to the other, reveals a lot about how much he might want to be kicking himself.  “I told a friend of mine, Fandral, of your arrival,” he mutters.  “That was a lapse in judgement.  Now everyone in Asgard knows of your presence.  Father is... not pleased with me.  The banquet was his idea.  We are to present you as an honored guest, a dear friend of mine and a great warrior of Midgard.”

“Are you serious?” Tony has to ask.  First the angry confrontation on the bridge, then the secrecy of hiding him away in this room.  Now things take a turn into the realm of ridiculous fantasy, oddly in line with what he thought about last night.  “Banquet?  Great warrior of Midgard?”

“You are, are you not?”

“Well yeah, obviously.  Actually I’m more like the great warrior of Midgard.  An argument could be made in favor of Rogers, though I think I carry things off with a little more panache.  And better fashion sense.  I just wasn’t aware my fame had spread beyond the borders of Earth.”

Once again, he gets the sense Thor really isn’t listening to anything he says.  “Tonight, then,” Thor tells him.  “Servants will come to help you dress.  You will be escorted to the banquet by a good friend of mine, Lady Sif.  She will tell you everything you need to know.”

Thor leaves on that note, with no further explanation.  Just walks on out the door, taking his ridiculous red vest and gray sarong with him.  “Oh,” Tony says to the empty room and the trail of energy scattered in the wake of Thor’s departing back.  “Okay.  Sounds great.  Really looking forward to it.  Thanks for all the detailed instructions on what time, and what to wear, and how I should act and what I should do.  This’ll go over well.”

He grabs a handful of grapes.  Probably grapes.  They’re a lot bigger than what he’s used to.  Almost the size of small plums.  “Yep, really well.  I can foresee nothing going wrong with this venture.”

Well, he’ll worry about it later.  Only one thing matters now.

ooo

It’s the dungeon.  Of course it’d be the dungeon.  Highest room in the tallest tower is a little too innocent princess.  The far-from-innocent prince will be in the dungeon.  Down narrow corridors and steeply falling stairs, through metal doors that creak heavily as the guards release the lock and show him the way in.  At the end of a row of white-walled cells containing their prisoners by energy field rather than anything as simple as bars.

Loki’s in the last one.  Tony can feel it with every step he takes, from the tightening knot in his stomach to the prickling dryness in his throat.  Loki’s there.  Right there.   At the end of this row, beyond that pillar.

The sight in that cell is still enough to knock the breath out of him, no matter how prepared he thinks he is.

There’s a bed in the back corner.  An ornate-looking bed with delicately curved golden legs, elegant and out of place in this prison by Ikea.  The gentle line of Loki’s shoulder rises out of a nest of blankets with a hint of pale, glowing skin.  Black hair spreads in waves across his pillow: those same floppy guinea pig curls Tony remembers.  They were on his pillow, once.  When that milky skin lay pressed against his.  Warm and smooth.

Three months ago.  Though it might as well be three years for how wide that gap suddenly feels, all filled up with days plus distance multiplied by regrettable actions.

He takes a step forward, and the barrier of energy surrounding the cell dissolves.  Another step brings him up into the cell.  Loki, who’s facing towards the wall and must really be asleep instead of just pretending, doesn’t move at the sound of footsteps.  Tony stops halfway to the bed.

At one point he had a whole list of things planned out that he wanted to say.  Stupid things and sappy romantic things that he probably would never have ended up saying, but he planned them out anyway while lying sleepless through the early morning hours.  In case he ever worked up the balls to be honest about anything.  It always started off in his head with Loki asking him why he’d come, to which he’d answer, ‘Because I miss you.  Because I think of you every day.  Constantly.  Because I can't sleep and I lie awake all night, worrying until I'm physically ill, wondering what happened to you.  Because I want to be with you.  I need to be with you.’

The part he didn’t think about was what he’d say first, before all that, to get Loki to ask the all-important question.  How does this conversation start?  Does he just walk in with a nod and a hello?  Not that it matters anyway, because he can’t say any of that shit.  At least not yet.  Not until he gets a few other things out of the way, like, ‘Sorry I shot you,’ and, ‘Please assure me you didn’t really mean to enslave my home planet.’

“...Loki?”

The shallow movement of Loki’s back, the rise and fall of each gentle breath, stops in the shift from sleeping to waking.  His shoulders tighten and curve inward like a protective shell.  “I’m not hungry today.  Leave.”

“That’s good,” says Tony, “’cause I didn’t bring you any food.”

Loki doesn’t jump up immediately at the sound of his voice.  Add that to the long list of Asgardian expectations that turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking, but damn if this one doesn’t actually hurt, hitting him from the inside where he’s unable to deflect the blow.  No, Loki slowly rises in bed, keeping his blanket wrapped as a cape over his bare shoulders, and turns around to look at him only after a long, silent moment dragged down by hesitation and uncertainty.  Eyes first.  Mouth hidden behind the folds of his blanket-cape.

“Tony Stark.”

“Yeah,” Tony replies, taking another step forward.  “It’s me.”  There should be something better to say, but he can’t think of it.  The sight of Loki fills his brain as his heart hammers in his throat, and hell, he’s lucky he can manage to croak out anything at all.  “I, um...”

I didn’t come all this way to stand here like an asshole, some helpful part of his conscience offers.  Standing here wringing my hands and wondering what to do while you stare at me with that look that’s so...

Three more steps to the bed and he sinks down on his knees onto the mattress.  How his hands find their way around Loki’s back isn’t even worth thinking about; that’s just what happens.  First he’s kneeling on the bed, then Loki’s in his arms and they’ve lost their balance, falling back onto the pillows.  “Tony Stark...” Loki repeats, this time making the name sound a little like an admonishment, but fuck if Tony cares.  He’s back where he needs to be, at Loki’s side, and Loki’s at his side, safe in his embrace.  Loki.  His Loki.  His perfect, flawed, beautiful, terrifying Loki.  Loki with magic in his sleep-warm skin.  Loki whose breath is hot and real on Tony’s neck, and who wears the crisp smell of soap in his hair.  Not a thought or a fantasy or a dream.  Just Loki.  Real Loki.  His Loki.

“I suppose you’ve come to rescue me,” Loki murmurs close to Tony’s ear, probably trying to keep some semblance of order and restraint over this frantic, clawing, gong-show of a reunion.

“Mm,” Tony agrees.  “Rescue mission.”  That’s why he’s here.  Rescue mission.  And... 

“Rescue mission,” Loki repeats back at him as his hand slides up to find the back of Tony’s neck.  “Well.  It certainly took you long enough.”

Chapter Text

They dress him for dinner in Asgardian finery of red and black, like a little doll to be put on parade.  And then, yes, they put him on parade.

Prying eyes and whispering mouths line the corridors on the long way from Tony’s room to the banquet hall, and that whole walk of shame isn’t made any more bearable by the fifty or so pounds of leather, metal, and other inexplicable accessories draped over his shoulders.  Or the lady Sif at his side.  Her arm links through his in a way that manages to be both elegant and menacing, while her diaphanous pale pink gown floats and flutters and caresses the delicate sword hanging from her belt.  It’s a warning.  A very clear warning.  A warning that might as well be written out on an ostentatious scroll and hanging around Sif’s neck.

Dear Tony Stark,

We pretend to honor you in order to stage a spectacle for the masses, but don’t let yourself get too comfortable, you unwelcome Midgardian peasant.  Remember who’s in charge.  And if you even THINK about pulling any shit...

Love,
Thor’s dad

There’s a crudely drawn skull and crossbones at the bottom of the note.  He can see it echoed in the shining curls of Sif’s complicated hairstyle.

She leads him through at least four vast, golden, pillared halls before the rising noise level says they have to be close.  “Just ahead,” Sif tells him.  It’s one of a whopping six things she’s said since she showed up at his door, the other five being, ‘Good evening’, ‘I thought you’d be dressed already’, ‘This is taking too long’, ‘You look fine like that’, and ‘Follow me; we’re late.’  None of it particularly threatening, but not friendly either.  She’s not here to be his buddy.  She’s here, almost certainly at Thor’s insistence, to keep him in line.  And if she’s pissed off about having to play babysitter, she’s keeping it carefully hidden behind a stoically neutral face.

If she’s pleased with the situation at all, well...  She’s keeping that pretty damn well hidden, too.

Tony sneaks a glance from the corner of his eye while she stares resolutely ahead.  Really, she’s a beautiful woman.  Tall and athletic, with all that thick, dark hair and those wide, hazel eyes.  Exactly the type he’d usually go for.  If only this were three years ago, and the circumstances were different.  As it is, under the established circumstance of ‘find Loki and’, he’s happy enough with her cool silence.

Around one more corner and through yet another heavy, imposing door is a scene that, for better or worse, exactly matches what Tony was expecting.  Table: long.  Almost the entire length of the room, which has to be easily over a hundred feet, is filled with one enormous banquet table.  Food: plentiful.  How the table is still standing under the weight of all those platters of bread and fruit and what looks like at least a dozen whole roast pigs is an engineering marvel.  Mood: rowdy.  No, ‘rowdy’ isn’t descriptive enough.  Chaotic.  Almost every seat is occupied by a large, Asgardian body hoisting a tankard of ale and hollering at someone else down at the other end of the table.  It’s really not surprising that food flies through the air as easily as words and at least three brawls have broken out.  Maybe over a joke gone sour.  Maybe over a woman.  Probably for no reason at all, because everybody smells like they’re enjoying the free-flowing rivers of drink a little too enthusiastically.

“Tony Stark!” Thor shouts from the far end of the room.

Tony forces a smile and does his best to wave despite the massive weight of his clothes bearing down on his shoulders.  He follows Thor’s beckoning arm.

“Sit here with me!  I’ve saved you a place of honor near the head of the table.”

This is a time for manners over personal feelings.  “Thanks,” Tony says as he and Sif approach.

Seated across from Thor is a woman who can only be his mother, all proud bearing and distinguished good looks.  At the head of the table sits eyepatch Donald Sutherland.  Thor’s father.  Has to be.   Odin.

“Let me introduce my parents,” Thor says to the surprise of nobody.  “Odin Allfather, King of Asgard.  And our queen, Frigga.”

Frigga reacts to the introduction first, smiling pleasantly and holding out her hand, which Tony makes a point of awkwardly leaning over the table to kiss. 

“It’s a great honor to meet you, madam.”

Her smile widens at that.  Odin’s slight frown stays etched in place.  He doesn’t offer his hand.

“Tony Stark of Midgard,” he murmurs, almost too soft to be heard above the din of the hall.  “I have heard many tales of your exploits.”

“Only the ridiculous, I hope,” Tony replies with a joyless grin.  It earns no response.

When Odin stands, the entire hall stands with him.  The speech he gives in Tony’s ‘honor’ is the kind of thing Tony’s used to tuning out.  Welcome, distinguished guest, blah blah blah, so pleased to blah blah blah, mutual respect, something about a new era of cooperation and other total bullshit.  Odin doesn’t once look Tony’s way throughout the whole thing.  He speaks, raises his glass, and sits back down.  Nothing less than is expected of him, and certainly nothing more.

So Tony doesn’t bother to speak any words of his own.  Gives a half-hearted salute as his name is mentioned, and slides back on down into obscurity in Thor’s shadow.  Keeps a low profile and eats his food in silence.

And there’s a lot of food.  A lot of food.  Somebody fills his plate, and before he’s finished half of it, the plate’s full again.  Slabs of pork.  Whole cooked carrots.  Slices of dark, heavy bread.  A vegetable identical to a potato, though with a sweet taste.  Onions, beets, gravy, candied beans, roasted squash.  Some kind of bizarre gelatin square that looks real fancy with its three color layers but has no flavor at all.  Biscuits.  Spinach.  A savory-sweet sauce made of berries.  More pork.  Mushrooms stuffed with cheese.  Mushrooms stuffed with bread.  Mushrooms stuffed with meat.  A giant tongue sliced paper-thin and served with pickles.  Sausages and pastries and sausages wrapped in pastry.  Even more pork.

“You’re not hungry?” Sif asks when Tony passes on a fourth helping.  She says it in a conversational tone, but also a tone that may be subtly insulting his manhood based on the pitiful amount of food he’s managed to consume.

He lets the jibe slide by.  “No.  Thanks.  I’m done.”  More than done.  About-read-to-throw-up done.  His stomach hurts from plate after plate after plate of food, and the tightly wrapped, laced, and buckled Asgardian getup sure isn’t helping.

“Do you not enjoy our fare?” Frigga follows up with a note of concern.

“No no,” Tony replies, quick to placate her.  If he has a chance to make any ally in this realm, it might just be Thor’s mom.  Loki’s mom.  “The food is wonderful.  Your hospitality tonight has been... far beyond my expectations.”  No word of a lie there.  “It’s just that, um, humans have a limited stomach capacity.  We can’t really...”  He glances down a few seats to where a waifish girl is heartily devouring a rack of ribs the length of her arm.  “Yeah, we got nothing on that.”

Thor’s nodding head confirms what Tony says.  “The humans of Midgard do eat very little.  But they eat frequently.  Several times each day.”

“How interesting,” says Frigga, while Odin grunts.

“Surely you’ve not come all this way, Tony Stark of Midgard, to merely ramble on about food?”

“Absolutely not,” Tony answers smoothly.  And thinks to himself, I’m sure you know exactly why I’m here.  But why ruin this fun little cat and mouse game you keep forcing me into, making me guess what the fuck you’re up to at every turn?  “I can also expound at length on science, technology, philosophy, politics, religion, and, the eternal question: Coke or Pepsi?  What shall we discuss?”

“Tell the tale of the battle you fought on Midgard!” somebody shouts from down the table.

“Yes!” Thor answers, thrusting his fist into the air like some kind of belated victory whoop.  It comes down in a solid thump on Tony’s shoulder, almost hard enough to knock him out of his chair.  “We will regale our fellow warriors with the great tale of the battle for New York City and how we defeated the vile Chitauri!”

Tony lifts a hand to his face to mask a groan as the whole table erupts in cries of approval.  The Battle for New York City.  How is that a great tale, or even a good tale by any stretch of the imagination?  Loki snaked his way into opening a portal, a few dozen Chitauri came through, and Thor killed them all.  Tony shot Loki.  Natasha closed the portal.  Crisis averted.  That wasn’t a battle.  It was betrayal on top of betrayal with some dead aliens thrown into the mix.  But Thor seems to think otherwise.

“My friends!” he says.  “The great Battle for New York saw our brave allies in Midgard fighting against one of the most evil and deadly foes I have ever encountered.  From a realm unknown in the deepest, foulest reaches of the universe came the Chitauri, seeking nothing but chaos and destruction!”

Pause for obligatory cheer.  Thor cranks his winning smile up to eleven.

“Led by the villainous Loki!” a voice in the crowd offers.

“...Yes,” Thor allows, but only after a curious pause.   “Led by Loki.  Though in truth he did not attack-”

“Because the coward always sends someone else to do his dirty work!”

Whoever said that earns himself a rousing chorus of laughter.

“But the Chitauri,” Thor stresses, “were our chief foes that day.  They swarmed out of the sky by the hundreds, so thick and fast they masked the sun like a vast, dark cloud!  Attacking all in their path with weapons the likes of which I had never seen!”

Eighty, Tony silently corrects.  Maybe ninety, tops.  Ninety reptilian jerks on hoverboards, carrying oversized taser sticks.  But everybody listening seems to like Thor’s version of things.  And hey, what’s a little embellishment between friends?  So Thor goes on to describe in detail how many Chitauri he killed, in numerous inventive ways, and how much damage was done to the city.  And apparently Steve makes it into the story despite having been on a fighter jet at the time, and he ripped an invader’s leg off with his bare hands and used the severed limb to knock the heads clean from the shoulders of eight more.  Very Captain America.

“But what of Loki?” someone persists.  “Was it not Tony Stark who defeated Loki in the end?”

Another asshole feels compelled to chime in here, this time addressing Tony directly.  “Is it true you nearly killed the traitor Loki with a weapon the humans devised using energy from the Tesseract?”

And there’s a cheer.  A spectacular cheer for Loki’s brush with death.  The noise dies down quick enough though as faces turn to stare at Tony, searching for an answer to their morbid question.

“Um,” is all he can say.

The Asgardian clothes are stifling.  Heavy and growing heavier, pushing down on his shoulders and back and compressing molten, twisting heat into his gut.  Yeah.  He defeated Loki.  He nearly killed Loki.  He was the one who shot Loki, and who had Loki’s blood on his hands (and his arms and his chest and his neck and his face), feeling its warmth and weight.  He was the one who tried to stop the bleeding with a wadded-up shirt as a futile bandage, and cradled Loki’s shattered body in his arms, and tried to help him breathe despite the liquid gurgling in his throat.

“I...”

I feel sick, says the voice in his mind, and there’s bile rising up from his stomach, and he has to clench his teeth and hold his breath, bracing his fists against the edge of the table. 

Someone (Frigga... it’s Frigga) pushes a goblet of water towards him, which Thor grabs and forces into his hand.  He takes a long drink, if only as a convenient excuse to ignore the voices calling for him to tell them about Loki.  The water, warm and metallic from sitting too long, only adds to the nausea churning inside.

At the head of the table, the king of all Asgard leans forward with a creak of hard leather to speak his bidding.  “Yes, what a tale that must be, Tony Stark.  The defeat of Loki, rogue son of Asgard.  How did you manage such a feat?  It would please me to hear.”

It’s weird, really, how the sound of Odin’s impassive voice grates so violently on Tony’s nerves, peeling away all the feelings that might have surfaced with the image of Loki in his mind.  Soft-spoken claws puncture his skin and dig underneath.  What they reveal is nothing more than a core full of rage.

“Father...” he hears Thor whisper, but it’s too late.  He takes one last sip of water, sets his glass down, and sits straighter in his chair.  Clears his throat.

“You want to know how I defeated Loki?  Okay.  Here we go.”  His eyes scan over the length of the table, everything he can see from his vantage point.  Starting with Odin.  Ending with Sif’s fine-boned profile.  She’s staring at some mystery point on the opposite wall, careful not to look at him.  “I’m sure all of you were shocked to hear that I was the one who took Loki down.  Not Thor.  Not the guy you sent after him.  Me.  Just some jerk you’d never heard of until Thor told you this rousing epic.”

“But you are a renowned warrior of Midgard-” starts Dread Pirate Blondie on Sif’s other side.

“-whom nobody at this table had heard of until this morning,” Tony finishes.  “You’re just taking Thor’s word on it.  But that’s okay.  I’m here to clear a few things up.  Truth is?  I’m not a great warrior.  I’ve never fought in a real war.  There are people out there who have – people I know, friends of mine – and I won’t insult them by pretending to be something I’m not.  Up until a few years ago I used to... let’s say, participate in war, but not in the way you might think.  I never fired a gun or held a sword or whatever you think the honorable battle should be.  Never led troops, never followed anyone else.  No, I sat safely behind the scenes, because I wasn’t a warrior.  I made weapons.  I never used them, but I made them.”

“Were you a...” one woman asks, but her brow knots when she can’t find the right word.

“Engineer,” says Tony.  “I was – am – an engineer.  I designed and built weapons for the guys doing the fighting.  Good weapons.  No, you know what?  Scratch that.  Not gonna lie.  The best weapons.  Bigger, faster, smarter, deadlier, you name it, I built it.”

“And your armor,” Thor cuts in.

“Yeah.  The armor.  That came after...”  No, he doesn’t need to get into all that.  Not with these people.  “After I gave up making weapons, I moved on to something more specialized.  I made the armor I’m sure Thor’s told you all about.  But that’s not what you asked,” he says, looking back at Odin.  “You asked how I managed to defeat Loki.  And someone here already answered that question: with a gun powered by the Tesseract’s energy.  I fired one shot, which hit Loki, but that was only after fifteen minutes of trying to talk him down.  I didn’t want to shoot him.  Not for any reason.  If there were any other way out I would’ve taken it without a second thought, but when you’re down to the wire and...”

He has to stop.  Take a breath.  Close his eyes.  “It was a last-second, desperate action when nothing else would work, and I still regret doing it.  Every minute of every day.   I know Loki survived.  It wasn’t a fatal shot and I didn’t intend it to be.  I was aiming for his arm.  But that doesn’t make me regret it any less.”

Maybe it even makes him regret it more.  Because he has to live with what he did, and he has to live with Loki living through what he did...

“His armor allows him to fly!” Thor offers, desperate to get this train wreck of a confessional back on track, but it doesn’t work.  An awkward blanket of silence has fallen over the table, smothering all attempts at conversation down into a low rumble.

 “I would have killed him,” someone says.  The first voice to speak loud enough to be heard.  Tony doesn’t bother to look and see who it is.  “Better a clean death in battle than rotting in prison like a worthless coward!”

“Who says he isn't a worthless coward?” a second voice shouts, and then the laughter comes pouring back in, fluid as the booze greasing its way.

That’s all the consideration Tony’s words are worth.  Nobody wants that kind of melancholy contemplation and dour regret at what’s supposed to be a banquet of celebration.  Halfway down the table, a new conversation is already rising from the dull gray ashes of the old, this one recalling a famous battle from years earlier against someone in some place Tony’s never heard of.  A battle more interesting and more conducive to victory toasts.

As he lowers his head to rub his eyes, Tony feels Thor’s heavy hand on his shoulder.  It’s almost reassuring.

ooo

“And then I didn’t even tell you the worst part!” Tony says as he paces the width of the cell, from translucent forcefield wall to the spindly legs of Loki’s bed.  “After the whole gong show of the actual banquet, Sif and two of her servants... handmaidens?  Whatever you call them.  They escorted me back to my room, and one of the girls stayed behind to help me undress.  Which I thought must be normal, because how was I ever supposed to get out of all those layers on my own?  Right?  And then she offered to give me a back massage, and again, I thought that must be normal because, let’s face it, after wearing that getup all night my shoulders hurt like a bitch.  It wasn’t until I was in bed in my underwear and she sat on top of me and pulled her dress off that...”

Lying in his own bed, Loki’s laughing at Tony’s story in a way that might legitimately be described as a cackle of evil glee.  “Yeah, yeah, hilarious,” Tony mutters.  “She was really strong and it took a lot of creative evasion and fast talk to get her to leave.”

“Oh, that’s classic Thor.” Loki says with his demonic grin.

“...Thor?”

“Mm.  Thor.  Exactly the sort of thing he’d try.  What better way to help you forget about me than by throwing a pretty young woman into your bed?”

Tony shakes his head.  “I don’t think Thor would do that.”

“Oh, I know Thor would do that,” Loki insists.  “It’s his way.  Do you know how many women choose to become warriors?”

Tony stops pacing long enough to fold his arms over his chest.  “Uh... some irrelevant number that has nothing to do with what we were just talking about?”

“Few,” Loki continues.  Just like he doesn’t give a crap about anything Tony says.  Surprise, surprise.  “Very few.  Our dear Sif, whom you met tonight, is the only one I know.  So what do you suppose happens when all those men run off to fight some war or another, and they’re gone for days or weeks or months?  And perhaps there’s one lone woman amongst them, though there’s no guarantee she’ll care for that manner of celebration after a long day of blood and sweat and rage?”

“...Okay,” says Tony.  He starts back up with the pacing.  “I get where you’re going with this.  They become a bit more flexible with their sexuality when it suits their needs.”

“Why do you think they so willingly allow little witch-boys like me to tag along on their great adventures when they can hardly bear to look at us the rest of the time?”

Tony stops again.  “...You...”  There’s an odd little worm of something in his stomach he can’t quite place as he turns to face Loki.

“I said like me,” Loki replies, rolling his eyes in that all-too-familiar way he has.  “Not me specifically.  So you can rein in your adorable yet unnecessary jealousy, Tony Stark.”

Jealousy.  Yeah.  That’s it.  That’s the feeling down in his gut.  Not an emotion he’s overly familiar with, but he knows it when it’s named.  “I’m not... jealous...” he mutters, shoe-scuffing his way over to the bed to sit by Loki’s feet, climbing up so he can lean against the wall.

Loki’s smile could mean a lot of different things.  “But to finish my story, sometimes a warrior, after being away from home too long, forms... an unacceptable bond.  The common remedy is to guide him into a more agreeable relationship.  Thor often takes it as his personal responsibility.  He’s very morally upstanding.  So it’s only natural for him to assume that he can easily lure you away from me.  Of course you’d rather be with any woman than with the man you only fell into bed with by chance when you had no other choice, on the run from the law.”

“Maybe I would be,” says Tony, sending a smirk of his own back to combat Loki’s snide smile.

“Yes, one might assume so by virtue of the fact that you’re down here in the dungeon with me rather than up in your bedroom with Thor’s beautiful and willing remedy to your aberrant behavior.”

“Thor doesn’t know the first thing about me if he thinks he can cure all my aberrations in one night.”

“Anyhow,” Loki goes on, “I’m sorry to deflate your ego.  I’m sure she would have been perfectly eager to sleep with you regardless.”

“Of course she would.  I’m very desirable.”

Tony crawls his way up the bed to sit – well, lean – next to Loki, propping himself up on one elbow while wrapping the other around Loki’s waist.  His head fits nicely on Loki’s shoulder, close to the pale skin of Loki’s neck with the smell of fresh soap and the taste of-

Loki pulls back.  “Not now.”

Since when is ‘not now’ a thing that happens with Loki?  “Why not?”

“The guards may be watching.”

“And?”

“Were you not listening to anything I said a moment ago about aberrant behavior and how Thor might try to cure it?”

“Yes.”  But then it seemed that they were in agreement about some things being incurable.  Hence the current snuggling.

Loki extracts himself from Tony’s embrace with a sigh that can’t be anything but reluctant, kneeling up on the bed.  “Try to think about it, Tony Stark.  I won’t explain things in detail, but perhaps you can imagine what might happen if you continue to flaunt said aberrant behavior.”

“What, your Dark Ages muscle-headed warriors will have me drawn and quartered?”

It was supposed to be a joke.  Loki, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be laughing.   Or even smiling.  “Just try to be careful,” is his only answer.

“So what happens?” Tony asks as he shifts into a sitting position, staring Loki down and hoping for some kind of sign that this is just a temporary glitch in their reunion.  He’ll ignore the part where prognosis doesn’t look good.  “I come all the way from Earth, past a whole lot of barriers that every bit of known logic says are impossible to overcome, and I’m not even allowed to kiss you?”

“Why do you think I stopped you earlier this afternoon?” Loki asks.

He rakes his hair back.  “I don’t know... I thought you were just being distant because you were still mad at me for shooting you, and then I showed up without warning, and things were weird because neither of us really knew where we stood.  But just a minute ago it felt a lot better, didn’t it?”

It did.  Loki’s little gaze away, how he averts his eyes in that way he has of avoiding anything he doesn’t want to admit, says so.  It felt comfortable.  Natural.  As if they belonged together once again, as if that three month wedge of time were nothing, and everything that had happened on the roof of Stark Tower were just a bad dream.  They might be back in Phoenix.  In bed.  Watching a stupid show on TV and forgetting about the outside world.

“If you prefer,” Loki says slowly as he stares at the forcefield-wall, “you could pretend I’m still angry at you for shooting me.”

That’s also obviously supposed to be a joke.  But it’s the kind of joke that’s so funny Tony forgets to laugh.

“So what do we do?” he asks.  “I...”  I what?  Is there anything else to say?  No, ‘what do we do’ more or less covers it all.  He’s come all this way to find out he followed Loki into a land where they can never be together?

Loki looks back at him, meeting his eye.  “I will think of something.”

“Magic?”

“Possibly.  It may take some time.  Everything is... complicated here.  You saw how many stairs you had to go down to reach this wretched place.  This far underground we’re too close to the heart of the world, where vital energy is thick and strong.  In addition, the palace is guarded by so many different magical workings that it all comes together as...  It feels like a heavy net, holding my power in.  Not preventing it, but muffling and distorting.”

“So you can’t teleport.”  Obviously.  What a genius observation.  Otherwise Loki wouldn’t still be stuck in this cell.

“No.  The energy down here interferes with magic in general, and the shield around the cell prevents any attempt at shifting.”

“So you can’t-”

“How did you even get in here?” Loki asks in a clean, if somewhat abrupt, change of subject.  “I never thought Thor would allow you a second visit.”

“You must’ve missed the memo down here in the cheap seats,” says Tony.  “I’m a renowned and highly respected warrior of Midgard.  So when I say I need to visit the prisoner who tried to destroy my realm, people listen.”

Loki stares at him with one incredulously raised eyebrow.  “And the guards allowed this?”

“Hey, if you act with authority, a lot of time nobody questions you.   Okay, and most people upstairs are drunk from the banquet.  And also I snuck through a lot of doors when nobody was looking.  And I’m pretty sure I had a healthy dose of dumb luck on my side.”

“You’re going to find yourself arrested one of these days,” Loki murmurs.

Probably sooner than later, says some nagging part of Tony’s brain, which is probably right.  At least if he can judge by the way Odin was treating him at the banquet.  “Eh, I’ll get by.”  He will.  He always does.  Somehow.  This time, the only difference is he has to find a way to pull Loki along for the ride.

“Thor won’t be happy when he finds out what you’ve done.”

“Screw Thor.  Who cares about how I got in?  The important question is: how are we going to get you out?

There’s a long pause, drawn out over inhalations and exhalations, as if Loki’s thinking up a watertight plan, perfect from all angles, right there in his head.  He bites his lip, closes his eyes, and tilts his head back so when he opens them again he’s contemplating the ceiling.  But whatever he’s plotting, all he says is, “I told you.  I’ll think of something.”

Okay then.  Loki will think of something.  Only this time, Tony hopes he’ll decide to share his great plan before taking it live.  But maybe that should be a worry for another day.

Chapter Text

He can still dream of Loki: neither magical prison walls nor Asgardian social barriers can prevent that.  He can dream of Loki stretched out in bed, luminously pale against deep wine-red sheets.  He can dream of long, lithe arms and legs naked to the air, and one hand reaching out invite him closer.  He can dream of Loki’s half-lidded eyes and gently parted lips, waiting with a breath of desire.  He can dream the sight of his fingertips tracing the shape of Loki’s body.  He can dream his mouth onto the soft skin of Loki’s throat, and dream Loki’s sighing reaction.

“You’ve been away for so long,” whispers Loki.

I know, Tony answers.  And I’m sorry.  I’m so, so sorry.

There’s a taste of sweetness on Loki’s lips.  Salt on his tongue.  He returns Tony’s kiss with a dangerous hint of a bite and a scratch of teeth. 

“I waited for you all that time.  You knew I was here.  Why did you not come sooner?”

Oh Loki I tried... Tony wants to say, but can’t, he just can’t, so instead he slides his arms around Loki’s back and pulls him close.  Chest to chest and skin on warm skin.  Pressed so tight together, Loki’s heart beats its speeding rhythm into Tony’s veins.  His hands slide down to Loki’s waist, then hips.  And lower.  Skimming along Loki’s thighs, which part for him so easily.  And...

He’s missed this.  This feeling.  This perfection.  This moment, simply having Loki’s body beneath his.  The way they move so instinctively together in an effortless, animal rhythm.  The way Loki’s eyes squeeze shut when his mouth opens in a sharp gasp.  His head drops to the side, and Tony’s lips find his cheek.  His ear.  His neck, caressed by wisps of loose black hair.

“Tony Stark...” Loki whispers.  A name breathed out as pleasure floods in, and Tony bites down hard on Loki’s shoulder

He’s missed this so much more than he can even describe.

One hand slides up to Loki’s face, guiding him back into a frenzy of a kiss.  Only this time Loki’s eyes are open.  And suddenly wide with heartbroken concern.

 “I have no credibility,” Loki says.

ooo

Tony snaps awake.  Pretty much literally snaps: his back spasms as if he’s been shocked, and his head jerks up, eyes suddenly wide open.  Mind wide awake.

It’s light in his room.  Not just morning-light, but really light.  Light like it has to be almost noon.  He picks up his watch out of habit, which is able to tell him it’s currently 4:09 am in California.  Useful.   But by his estimate, Sif took him down to the banquet at sundown, approximately seven o’clock, and he was there for about three hours.  Then spent two hours or so in the dungeon before Loki insisted he leave on fear of arousing suspicion.  Add in another hour’s leeway for travel time and eviction of an amorous Viking woman, and he probably went to bed around one.  So if it’s almost noon, maybe eleven now...

“Holy shit,” he says out loud. 

Ten hours.  He slept for at least ten solid hours, and for the first time in months, he can say he feels well rested.  Refreshed and revitalized.  No lingering grogginess, no heavy clouds weighing down on his brain.  Even the energy in the air seems like less of a burden, dwindling down to a minor background hum.  For the first time in months, he feels actually... really good.  Like himself again.  Exactly like his familiar old self.  Right down to the sappily embarrassing sex dreams and all the morning inconvenience that comes along with them.

With a yawn and a stretch he climbs out of bed, stepping out of his shorts and kicking them aside before heading into the bathroom to wash up.  The first fountain along the back wall, the short one, is the toilet, and it’s a trick to remember how to flush it according to the instructions the dressing crew gave him the previous night.  There’s a place down the side of the pedestal he needs to tap twice with his foot.  Unmarked.  The Asgardian esthetic doesn’t allow for any ugly knobs, buttons, or levers screwing up the lines of their minimalist interior design.  The tall fountain in the middle is the sink, and Tony still can’t get the hang of stroking the left side of its ovular bowl in just the right way to trigger a change in water temperature.  Supposedly clockwise is cold and counterclockwise is hot, but he’ll make do with lukewarm for now.  Stroking the right side of the bowl drains the whole contraption and fills it with fresh water.  For whatever reason, that action works just fine.

The third fountain, only slightly taller than the toilet and of a hazardously similar shape, is decorative and nothing more.  Because having only two fountains in the room clearly isn’t enough.

But the bathtub, Tony has to admit, makes sense, and maybe if he’d taken a minute to poke around he’d have been able to figure it out on his own.  The control panel is located on the outside of the tub below the wide, crescent-shaped spout, and although it seamlessly blends into the silvery-blue surface, it lights up with a single touch.  Pressing the blue spiral symbol starts the water flowing.  Tracing up a vertical line to the right sets the depth.  By default the water comes out pleasantly warm, but stroking the edge of the tub in the same manner as the fountain-sink adjusts the temperature.  When he’s done bathing, the water drains automatically without being asked.  Now this is something he could get used to.  Sleek and elegant, no messing around with taps or those stupid drain levers that always jam.  He should try to rig up something like this in his own place if he ever gets back to Malibu.

When, he immediately corrects himself, jarred by that misplaced thought.  When he gets back to Malibu.  And adds, like a resolution, With Loki.

He hasn’t even finished dressing (jeans under his new black and red Asgardian tunic, because why not) when somebody knocks at the door.  A second later, without bothering to wait for a response, Thor comes barging through.  Exactly what Tony was expecting.

Thor being accompanied by another visitor, however, is not exactly what Tony was expecting.  Frigga.  The queen of Asgard herself, gliding into his bedroom with a whisper of silk and a warm smile. 

“Good morning, Tony Stark,” she says to him.

“Good morning,” he returns, scrambling to guess at the appropriate greeting.  In hindsight, this is another one of those things somebody really should have gone over with him.  Bathrooms and acceptable forms of royal address.  “...Ma’am?”

She smiles and nods.  Must’ve been a good guess.

But standing next to her, Thor’s all tight-lipped frowns and grouchy countenance.  He’s pissed off about something. Who knows what that might be, since he was nothing but friendly and even sympathetic when Tony left the banquet.  Something’s managed to change in the past twelve hours.  And knowing Thor, it won’t stay a secret for long.

“Tony Stark,” he says, unfolding his arms from across his chest so he can stand in a squared, confrontational pose.

“Morning to you too, Ravishing Ronald,” says Tony.  “You don’t look so thrilled to be here today.  What’s wrong?  Too much mead?”

Maybe one of these days Tony will remember that Asgardians never actually listen to him.  “Last night you returned to see Loki,” Thor continues.  “Why?  I did not give you permission for a second visit.”

Aw, shit.  So it was a little optimistic to hope his late-night trip down to the dungeon would go unnoticed.  He glances quickly over at Frigga, searching for any sign as to her stance on this issue, but her eyes are fixed on Thor and give nothing away.  Her smile has shrunk down to a little shadow of its former brightness.

“Sorry,” Tony answers carefully.  “Considering the casual nature of my first visit, I didn’t think another would be problematic.  I apologize for my error, and will make sure I speak with you before visiting Loki in the future.”

Thor grunts.  He might believe that.  Even if he only halfway believes, it’s better than nothing.  At least he doesn’t make any snappish retorts about anyone being explicitly forbidden from visiting Loki in the future.  One good sign.  But he’s still not ready to let things go completely.  “I allowed you access to Loki’s cell on account of your condition.  But if you seek to visit him without my knowledge-”

“Thor...” Frigga gently interrupts.

Tony’s too hung up on what Thor said to let his attention be turned, though.   “Wait, what do you mean by my ‘condition’?”

“Is it not obvious?” Thor growls.  “You have become addicted to Loki’s magic.”

“Addicted?” Tony echoes back, as if somehow, maybe, saying that word for himself will help it make any sense.  (It doesn’t.)  What the hell does Thor mean, ‘addicted’?

“Thor,” Frigga repeats, more forcefully this time.

Thor ignores her.  “I’ve seen this many times.  The effects of magic are known to be addictive, especially to those who cannot wield it.  Humans are highly susceptible.  You allowed yourself to be too close with Loki, and now his magic has infiltrated your being.  This is why you felt so compelled to come after him, Tony Stark.  You said it yourself yesterday: these thoughts remain lodged in your mind and you cannot be rid of them, and you are driven by a compulsion to see Loki that you do not understand and cannot explain.  All of this clearly points to-”

“Thor.”

Frigga’s admonishment isn’t a shout, exactly.  In truth she barely raises her voice, but the tone and the authority in that one syllable are enough to knock Thor silent.  Thus chastised, he shuts his big mouth and stares down at the floor.

The downside to Thor being talk-blocked by his mother, though, is that now none of the dozens of questions suddenly pounding through Tony’s head are being answered.  Addicted to magic?  Is that even possible, or is it just some insane excuse Asgardians use to steer clear of their magic-wielding brethren?  Yes, it’s true he felt that driving need to find Loki, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.  (Does it?)  The insomnia doesn’t mean anything.  A lot of different stuff could have caused that.  Any number of personal problems, stress, depression...  None of it means a damn thing.

The horrible, churning feeling in his gut likewise means nothing at all.

“Perhaps it might be better if I handled this,” Frigga tells Thor, who responds with a displeased grunt.

“You do not know Tony Stark like I do, mother.”

“No,” she agrees.  “But perhaps I can remedy that.”  Without waiting for another word out of her sullen son she turns to Tony, yet another welcoming smile lighting her face.  “Tony Stark, would you care to accompany me on a walk through the palace grounds?  There are many things I would discuss with you.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tony agrees before Thor can object with so much as a huff of breath.  If he’s about to be told he’s absolutely, positively, 100% addicted to magic, he wants those words to come from Frigga, not Thor.  For whatever reason, he has a hunch her calm voice might soften the blow.  And he has another hunch that what she wants to tell him isn’t necessarily in line with Thor’s blunt assertions.  He grabs his new black cape off the back of a chair, since judging by both Thor’s and Frigga’s attire, capes are in this year.  A few quick strides and he’s at Frigga’s back, following her out the door.

“Perhaps I should-” says Thor, but Frigga waves him off.

“No, Thor, I believe it would be better if I spoke with Tony Stark alone this time.  You should go see your father.  I know he has a task he wishes you to do this afternoon.”

And so mom lays down the law.  Tony tries not to smirk too much as Thor, muttering something like ‘yes mother’, bows his head and skulks away.  Probably to complain to dad.  He’ll be back, Tony has no doubt about that, but maybe by that time he’ll have had another mood switcheroo and he’ll be a happy little elf once again.

“Now you come with me,” Frigga says to Tony.  He catches up to walk at her side, and offers his arm, which she takes.   “Let me show you the garden.”

ooo

By ‘garden’ Frigga naturally means ‘giant multi-level labyrinthine oasis full of astounding plants, animals, walkways, pavilions, and gravity-defying water features’.  Blue-barked trees with leaves the size of cars.  Hanging vines that glitter where the sunlight hits them.  Tiny, bright red lizards chased by bizarre rodents that look like curly-coated possums, and birds with feathers as subtle as lace.  Tony follows Frigga across a slender bridge that spans a flower-filled river, and through a grove of willowy trees cloaked in a sharp herbal scent, like fresh sage.  Past a tunnel of braided branches, they come to a stone balcony at the edge of a cliff.  Far to the left, he can see a stairway cut into the cliff face, a path leading down to the continuation of the garden below.  Behind them, the palace looms like a golden mountain.  Ahead and below, sunlight reflects off mirror-still ponds and irregular marble domes.

“This is one of my favorite places to come,” says Frigga.  “I do not believe any place in Asgard has a better view.”

She places her hands on the balcony’s scrolling stonework, and Tony does the same, feeling the sun-warm stone under his hands, and the tickle of moss growing through its knotwork patterns of carved lines.  “It’s beautiful,” he replies.

“Do you find Asgard very strange, compared to your home?”

Compared to his home?  Yes.  But compared to the rest of Earth, which is what he assumes she means?  “A little?” he answers.  “It’s hard to say.  I mean, yes, Asgard’s pretty different from the specific place where I live.  But I’ve been all around the world, from the biggest cities to largely untouched corners of the globe and everything in between, so it’s not like this feels any stranger than going to India or Sicily or Brazil.  It’s foreign, but in a familiar way, if that makes any sense.”  He pauses.  “I thought it would be a lot stranger.  Thor and Loki told me hardly anything about this place, and most of what I did hear was just offhand references.  I thought it would be more...  I don’t even know how to explain it.  More fantasy, less sci-fi?”

It’s pretty clear from the polite smile that Frigga has no clue what he means. 

“Magic,” he says.  “Loki talked a lot about ‘magic’, which I always interpreted as, well, magic.  Wave your hand, conjure a frog kind of deal.  Though now that I think back, that’s exactly what Loki told me it wasn’t.  He tried to explain how magic was nothing more than a highly evolved form of science, but I don’t think I really got that until I arrived here to see for myself.  Especially today.  In the bathroom of all places.  Very Archimedean.  But it’s something as simple as controls for a bathtub, that I can see and touch and use for myself, and suddenly it’s so clear, right in front of my face, that this is just the next leap forward in scientific discovery.”

“Controls for a bathtub are hardly the pinnacle of achievement,” Frigga replies, wearing the kind of pinched expression that says she’s a little embarrassed by his enthusiasm for magical plumbing.

“I know, to you, but to me what this says is that you’ve managed to create the equivalent to a computerized system without a computer.  It’s all manipulation of energy, isn’t it?  I bet someone like Loki who’s adept at so-called ‘magic’ would be able to operate a system like that without even touching it.  The control pad is all for the benefit of people like me who don’t have that ability.”

Frigga nods.  “That’s true.  Did Loki tell you much about his powers?”

“A general overview.”

“Mm.”

The word (if a sound like ‘mm’ can even be called a word) hangs in the air as an invitation while Frigga looks out over the sprawling garden, but Tony doesn’t take it.  She has something to say.  She brought him out here, to this place, because she has something to say.  And he’d rather hear her say it than go on about himself and computerized bathtubs and what he knows about magic.

But she puts off the hard part of the conversation for a little longer.  “Loki told me many things about you.  Your name came up far more often than any other when he spoke of the time he spent on Midgard.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony asks.  He’s not surprised, or at least he shouldn’t be surprised.  After all, Loki spent more time with him than with anyone else, so it’s natural that his name should come up.  Probably more than once.  At least half of any stories Loki could tell about his Earthly adventures would include the phrase ‘Tony Stark and I’.  And yet Tony still feels his stomach leap in a stupid little teenage thrill because the guy he likes mentioned him to mom.

“You must have been a very good friend to him.”

“Um,” says Tony, trying like hell not to blush or grin or do anything else to make himself look like a total idiot.  “I guess that’s mostly true.  To be fair though, when we first met I did think he was a complete dick.  Pardon my language.”

He can see a smirk tugging at the corners of Frigga’s mouth.  “He may have spoken of you in... similar terms.”

“He wouldn’t be the first.  But I usually deserve it.  I’m sure you heard before last night that-”  Shit, he regrets saying these words even before they’re out of his mouth, bringing the conversation down like so much dead weight: “-I was the one who shot him.”

“Yes,” Frigga murmurs.  “Loki said nothing of it.  But Thor told me.”

Yeah, the conversation doesn’t just drag down.  It full out stops, dwindling into an uncomfortable silence where Frigga stares down at her fingers, clenched white over a little stone carving in the shape of a shell, and Tony racks his brain in search of anything at all he can say to turn things around.  “Loki... uh...”

Frigga glances up.  Eyes hopeful.  The look of somebody in search of even one snippet of good news.

“Everything I said at the banquet was true.  About me trying to talk Loki down and regretting...”  Everything.  “I didn’t want it to end that way.”

“I know,” Frigga says softly.

Tony knows his next question is in danger of knocking their nice little chat reeling once more, but now that it’s in his head he has to ask all the same.  “What about the things everyone else said last night?  How Loki’s a coward and he’d be better off dead?  Was that all true?”

Frigga doesn’t even need to speak.  The way her shoulders tense and her face freezes into a hardened mask, so much like Loki, is answer enough.

“Is it common in Asgard to speak so disrespectfully about somebody who was their prince?”

“It is because he was their prince that they speak so disrespectfully,” Frigga answers slowly, and Tony can’t help but note the change in the tone of her voice.  Away from its previous warmth and into a cool, neutral formality. 

“And the king condones this?”

Her pause lasts just a little too long for her to believe what she says next with absolute conviction.  “For the good of the realm, it is my husband’s wish that Loki be treated so.  Loki is a prince, as you say, Tony Stark.  But you forget that he disappeared from Asgard without a trace, and until Thor brought him back from your realm, we here had no idea where he had gone or what had happened to him.  For a long time, we thought him dead and grieved for our loss.  To see one who had been their prince – one who had even briefly been their king – returned not with a grand welcome but with a chain around his neck would cause too much confusion among the people.  Odin had no choice but to tell them what Loki had done.  The only way to ensure peace after Loki’s return, and to ensure none attempted any rebellious plots to free him, was to recast Loki as a traitor and a coward in the eyes of the populace.”

“I guess royally sanctioned rumors catch on fast,” says Tony.  The taste of those words sits bitter on his tongue.

Sharp as a knife, she answers right back.  “Do you think we enjoy doing this to our own son?  Do you think we are happy to see him condemned to prison?  Mocked and reviled?”

“I don’t think you’re happy with it.”

“My husband is a wise man who does what he knows is right for our family and our people,” Frigga says, hard and final.  “He is our king.  I trust his judgment.”

A king who rules with an iron fist so heavy it crushes dissent before it even occurs.  Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it?  Odin doesn’t have two fucks to rub together about what Loki did to Jotunheim, or what he tried to do on Earth.  Tony’s pretty sure.  What Odin cares about is that Loki’s ass briefly touched the royal throne, and that he tried to keep it from Thor.  Now Loki’s back with a newfound taste for power.  And if Odin’s so worked up about it, that means Loki has to hold a little more than a snowball’s chance in hell of some of the Asgardian people supporting his potential bid for the top job.  Not acceptable.  The throne is reserved for the son Odin can rely on to carry on his legacy.  So meet the new boss, same as the old boss: Thor’s taking over the king’s tedious tasks of dealing with unwanted Midgardian visitors, while Loki rots in jail because he has the bad luck of being the adopted second son with too much sudden ambition.

But all that boils down into the murky sludge of treasonous thought, so what Tony says is, “I apologize.  That was out of line.  It’s not my place to criticize the king, and I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Frigga says with a simple nod.  “Though it is not your fault.  You’ve been affected by Loki’s magic.”

Ah-ha.  So they’re back around to this topic.  Good.  “So you think I am addicted to magic, or whatever Thor said?  Because honestly...”  He shakes his head.  Sounds like a load of bull.

Frigga starts with the facts.  “Part of what Thor said is true.  Magic can have addictive properties, and humans, with little magical ability of their own, are susceptible to addiction.  But Thor was mistaken in that the symptoms you display, of compulsion and infatuation and insomnia, do not coincide with the usual effects of magic addiction.  Addiction causes depression.  Lethargic hopelessness. Feeling as if one has lost one’s purpose and direction.  I see none of that in you.”

“Nope,” Tony agrees.  If he has anything in life, it’s an abundance of direction and purpose.  Maybe not in the best of ways, but he has both of those in spades.

“But it may be something else.  Do you mind?”  She raises her hands so that they hover close to either side of Tony’s face, waiting for approval.

He nods.  “Go ahead.  Should I close my eyes?”

“It’s not necessary.  But you may do so if you feel more comfortable.”

He feels more comfortable.  Intense, close-range eye contact has never really been his thing.  So he closes his eyes, takes one bracing breath in, and feels the warmth radiating from Frigga’s hands as the tips of her fingers land at his hairline.

The spark of magic that leaps from her skin to his is all too familiar.  A low level, just a caress in place of a punch to the gut, but by no means less powerful or less potent than anything he ever felt from...

Tony jerks back with a gasp, eyes flying open in time to see his own shock and surprise mirrored on Frigga’s face.  “I see,” she whispers.

See?  See what?  “What do you mean?” he manages to choke out.

“Loki would not admit it to me, but I guessed that you two had been lovers.”

Lovers.  Now there’s a word that Tony’s always hated, and although he can’t precisely say why, he suspects it might have something to do with the love part.  That word also never fails to set him on edge.  Makes him grind his teeth.  “Uh...”

“You need not worry.  I am familiar with the ways of seiðrmen and Loki’s preferences.”

“Scythe-what?” Tony has to ask.

“I will not judge you.”

It’s almost as if she’s Thor’s mom or something, the way she artfully doesn’t listen to his question.  And he knows she means well with that no-judging comment, though the implication behind it doesn’t sit so well.  “...Right.  Anyway, you said you don’t think I’m addicted to magic, but it might be something else.  What?  Did Loki cast some kind of weird spell on me?”

It’s such a dumb question he’s expecting her to laugh and say ‘no’.  That she doesn’t immediately laugh is a bad, bad sign.

“There are three primary ways of working magic.  The first is simple energy manipulation, which you have already mentioned.  Most of what Loki has likely shown you, illusions, projections, space-shifting and shape-shifting fall, into this category.”

“Okay,” says Tony, though the unspoken reaction in his head is more along the lines of, That stuff is considered simple?

“Energy manipulation cannot create continuous, self-replicating effects.  The spell is worked, and then it is done.  It would not linger and propagate within you for this long.  In order to create a lasting magical hold on you, he would have had to turn to something more powerful.  Either sex magic or blood magic.”

And now Tony can see clear as day where Frigga’s going with this.  “I’m going to stop you right there,” he says, holding up his hands.  “Much as I have never been the kind of person to shy away from the ol’ kiss and tell, you’re Loki’s mom, so that makes this discussion very weird.  Can we just move on to the part where you tell me what’s going on while demurely skipping past the part where we determine how it happened?”

“It would not have been sex magic, Tony Stark,” she says with a coy little smirk.

Maybe she’s a little unclear about exactly what he and Loki spent most of their time doing.  “...Are you sure?”

“Beyond a doubt.  Sex magic can only be performed under very specific circumstances, and more than that, would not have been effective for this purpose.  As for blood magic...  It would be the likely culprit here.   But it is not something he would have been able to do without you noticing.”

The bad feeling Tony had earlier when Thor first brought up this subject is back.  And not just back, but back and stronger than ever.   Shit.  “What... what exactly would I have noticed?”

“Blood magic,” she says, “also requires very specific circumstances.  It can only be done in close proximity, and the blood used to channel the magic must make contact with its intended target.  It needs only be a small amount, even a smudge or a drop.”

“Or Loki spitting blood all over me,” Tony mutters.  Shit.  More shit.  Shit shit shit...  “When I shot him...”

“But that itself would not be enough for him to keep such a strong hold on you.  Once you washed the blood away, with such a great distance between you and Loki, the connection would be broken and the magic would have disintegrated.  What did you do with the clothes you were wearing?”

Pressing his hand to his cheek, Tony tries to think.  The clothes he was wearing...  What was he even wearing?  What did he do?  “I don’t...”  That whole afternoon is such a mess of broken pieces in his mind.  Irreparable shards, all out of order and incomplete.  He was on the roof, and he was inside, and then Pepper...  Did Pepper take his clothes?  He sat in a chair in the dark, staring out the window for hours until Pepper found him.  He had tea in bed.  She told him what to do.  He had a shower, but there’s no memory of what happened to his clothes.

“I probably left them on the bathroom floor.  I can’t remember.  But I probably left them on the floor, and Pepper would have either sent them to get cleaned or just thrown them out.  But if she got them cleaned they’d still be in New York, because I didn’t take much with me when I went back to Malibu.”

Only a few things.  A new watch.  Shoes.  A tie.  His wallet.  Not his phone.  After S.H.I.E.L.D.’s interference, he got a new one.  He took a notebook with a couple pages of chicken-scratch ideas and bad doodles he’d done while waiting around with Bruce on the helicarrier, and left everything else, because the last thing he’d ever want to be in his life is weighed down by a chain of sentimental objects.

Except, oh.

The shirt.  The shirt he was wearing that day on the rooftop.  The shirt he tore off and used to stanch the flow of Loki’s blood.  The shirt he stuffed in a plastic bag and tucked into a drawer and then, nine days later, took back out to put in his briefcase.

“Wait,” he tells Frigga.  “I kept the shirt.  It was soaked in blood.  But I put it in a bag and took it with me.”

“Did you wash the shirt?”

He shakes his head, and it’s just like seeing some hyperbolic novel come to life, the way the warm color drains from Frigga’s face.

“Where did you keep it?” she whispers.

In the only place a reasonable person would keep a plastic bag full of his lover’s blood.  “In my bedroom.  In a drawer.  Um.  In my... underwear drawer.”

There’s no need, really, for Frigga to say anything more at this point.  The look on her face, a haunted mingling of horror and sudden clarity, says it all.  And Tony knows, deep inside, that every worry rippling through her eyes is nothing short of completely justified.

So it was blood magic.  Everything Tony felt, everything he thought, everything he did since the end of July... was any of that real?  Did any of that originate inside his own mind, or was it all artificially placed there by Loki’s spell?  Every desire and every burning need...  For fuck’s sake, everything he still feels...

There’s a difference between suspecting something and being told, with no margin for error, that the suspicion is true.  Suspicion raises alarm bells and that churning and prickling precursor to fear that crawls up from the stomach into the throat.  Logically, the next step – confirmed knowledge – should bring terror.  But it doesn’t.  Instead, by emotional alchemy, knowledge transforms fear into rage.  And it’s the kind of rage that rises hot and fast under the pressure of betrayal, and floods Tony’s mind with scalding red.

He suspected magical interference when Thor first mentioned the possibility, and now he knows.  But he also suspected long ago that Loki didn’t trust him.  All the wishful thinking in the world couldn’t get him to let go of the lingering suspicion that Loki cared about him only a fraction as much as he cared about Loki.  There was always that little speck of fear, tiny but persistent, that everything Loki did was a lie.  Hollow actions to embroider the infinite Mobius web of deception that makes up Loki’s soul.  He suspected all that.

Now that he knows, the rage comes pouring in.   Loki used him.

 “So what does it mean?”  he asks, fighting to keep his voice level.  He wins halfway.  The rage takes the other half.  “My entire reason for coming here, was that all Loki?  Is that how it works?  His blood magic has some kind of hold on me that forces me to try to get back to him?”

“I do not know,” Frigga replies, stepping closer as if to comfort him, though how’s that supposed to work when the last thing he wants is to be close to anybody right now?  Tony steps back.  She stays where she is, not pushing the newly erected boundary, though she keeps speaking.  “I cannot see the spell, and as such have no way to know what he has done.  But I am sure his only intent was to keep you close to him.”

No, that doesn’t quell the anger at all.  “Or he needed a get out of jail free card,” Tony spits.  “He wanted to make sure I’d come get him.”  Because Loki doesn’t trust anyone and never leaves anything to chance.  This is just another vein in his intricately interwoven plan.

“Perhaps,” Frigga allows.

Tony doesn’t wait for the ‘but’ he knows is coming.  Fuck, it’s all too much, all these thoughts flaring and crashing in spectacular chaos.  Loki used him.   Deceived and manipulated him.  Chained him with blood magic and dragged him across the depths of space, and now he’s so mired in this damn maze of plots and lies and secrets that he can’t even see the end of it, let alone find his way out...  “I need to go,” he cuts in before Frigga has a chance to continue.

“I do not think that is wise right now, Tony Stark,” she says, and steps back so she’s blocking the path.

‘Wise’ can go to hell.  “I need to see Loki.”

“And I think you should wait a while before you do that.”

“Why?!” he snaps.  “Do you think I need to calm down?  You think Loki deserves for me to be calm after what he did?!”

“No,” she answers.  Her head shakes in a slow, gentle movement.  “I think you deserve to let yourself think this over before you do anything you regret.”

“I don’t think regret is really my biggest concern right now.”

“You’re angry.”

“Should I not be angry?”

She sighs.  “That is not what I said.”

“And should I just accept this and be fine with Loki screwing with my mind and making decisions for me?  Because that’s what pisses me off here!  Not his lying, because I’m used to that.  And not his schemes, because God knows I’m used to those, too.  It’s the fact that he doesn’t trust me!  It’s the fact that he doesn’t think enough of me to bother telling me about his plans, or better yet, asking me if I want to go along with them!  He could have asked me!  Just asked!  He could have asked me to come find him in Asgard instead of throwing away any hint of trust and making that choice for me!”

Instead of pulling him along like a dog on a leash, unable to find his own direction.  And it makes him too angry to even...

“I need to go.  Sorry.”

This time, Frigga doesn’t stand in the way.  She lets him pass, and watches without comment as he shoves his hair back from his burning forehead with one hand while clenching the other in a fist that bites his palm with crescent fingernails.  It’s not until he’s already heading down the willow-lined path that she calls out to his retreating back.

“I am not asking you to forgive him, Tony stark.”

Forgive him.  Tony grunts.  As things stand?  Not damn likely.  He stops and turns to look at Frigga, framed like a silhouette against the bright sunlight.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t.”

“I love my son, but love and blind forgiveness are two very different things.  One needs not always go hand in hand with the other.  So I do not ask you to forgive him for what he’s done.  Not yet.  I only ask that you give him the chance to earn your forgiveness.”

Chapter Text

It’s a long walk back to his bedroom, through all the snaking garden paths and cavernous palace halls, past a phalanx of statues with unnerving jeweled eyes and up staircase after exhausting staircase.  By the time Tony throws his cape across the end of his bed, most of his anger has burned its way out, leaving frustration and a hollow sense of disappointment behind.  There’s some anger still, yes, since it’ll take a lot more than walking before he sees the end of that, but the roaring inferno has dwindled down into a few tenacious embers.

Frigga was right.  He does deserve to let himself think this whole disaster through before flying off to scream at Loki over things he doesn’t even fully understand yet.  Things that don’t all line up in a neat, sensible order in his mind.  No, he needs to think this through and figure out where he stands.  What he feels.  And are those feelings even real?  Or nothing more than Loki’s sly artifice?  He needs a game plan before walking into this minefield, because it’s a sure bet Loki has one.  He needs is a list of facts to help him weed out the fiction.

Okay, so.  It’s logic time.  Logic is serene and gray and uncolored by the explosive shades of emotion, and hell if Tony doesn’t need that soothing monochrome now amid the chaos in his head.  He sinks onto the bed, rolling onto his back to stare up at the ceiling, and draws in a steadying breath.  Facts.  Facts?  What are the facts, camouflaged between all the lies?

Fact one: he was willing to risk a hell of a lot to save Loki long before any blood magic came into play.  There’s still an echo of a feeling ringing through his body: a memory of when Natasha had him in the tower in New York.  He would have done anything then to get to Loki.  He would do anything now to get to Loki.  Has that really changed?  Or only the stakes involved?  Rebelling against the laws of S.H.I.E.L.D. versus rebelling against the laws of physics.  Either way, it was for the same end cause.  He needed to get to Loki.

But would he have been so desperate to make his way to Asgard without Loki’s interference?  That’s the real question.  Instead of driving himself to the edge of insanity obsessing over Asgard for three months, would he have burned out and given up?  Worked on the problem to the best of his ability for a few weeks, then resignedly decided to wait around for Thor to show up on Earth again?  Would he have forced himself to lock away all thoughts of Loki in the extensive archive of failed relationships and moved on to something and someone new?

Fact two: he’ll never know.  Maybe it all would’ve played out the same without Loki’s magic.  Maybe Tony’s natural stubbornness would have kept him going until he found a way back to Loki.  Or maybe his natural lack of long-term attention span would’ve coaxed him to abandon a project where he was making no progress.  Maybe curiosity and nagging hatred of leaving unfinished business would have had him revisit it in a year or two.  Maybe all roads would’ve led to Asgard eventually, whether in three months or three years.

It’s just that he doesn’t know.  And will never know.  Loki took all those possibilities away.  Loki took his choice away.  Loki made that decision for him, altering the course of his life forever, and did it without his consent, without his knowledge, and without any speck of trust.

On second thought, more than just embers of anger remain.

But then, fact three: it’s been done.  Loki did what he did, Tony came to Asgard, and there’s no way to turn back and reverse either of those actions.  Nothing anyone can do can change what went down.  Which leaves fact four: all Tony can do now is decide where he wants to go from here.

Fact five: he wants to go back to California.

Fact six: despite all the rage, despite all the shit, and despite everything else, he still wants to take Loki with him.

That hasn’t changed.  The need to get to Loki hasn’t changed.  The need to be with Loki hasn’t changed.  It’s still there, just like before.  Just like when he was in the tower, or in Phoenix, or back in the tower, or in the helicarrier, with his arm wrapped over Loki’s lithe and enticing body as all the possibilities for the future spiraled around them.  Stupid, sappy possibilities that are almost too embarrassingly saccharine for Tony to even think about in the secrecy of his own mind.  Like showing Loki the beautiful places of the world, from the high-tech neon metropolis of Tokyo to the cool seclusion of a lakeside cabin surrounded by trees.  Like following up a weekend of Las Vegas glitz and mayhem with quiet days of nothing but lying around and watching all those classic movies Loki’s never seen.  Loki’s never seen Star Wars.  He’s never seen The Princess Bride or 2001 or Planet of the Apes.  That needs to be remedied immediately.  They need to travel the world and make terrible decisions together and take tasteless photos in Rome and try mystery food in Rio and lose a small fortune in Macao.

It’s so easy to imagine doing all those things.  Then coming home to Malibu, unpacking, making a disaster of a dinner, failing, pitching it, ordering in, and screwing around inventing new mixed drinks before falling exhausted into bed.  Loki stays by his side through all of it.  And maybe the need to be with Loki is a little louder and more insistent now, helped along and amplified by any magic that may have been done, but the core of it hasn’t changed.  He wants to be with Loki.  Simple as that.  He also wants to punch Loki in the face and scream at him for being such an infuriating fuck, but that’s something that will probably always overlap with about 90% of the wanting-to-be-with-Loki circle on the Venn diagram of Tony’s life.

So he gets up from the bed, pulls off his jeans, and dresses in as much of the Asgardian clothing as he can manage by himself.  Pants.  Boots.  Weird armor vest thing that wraps around front to back to front again and buckles in six inconvenient places.  The dungeon is a long walk down too many stairs to count, and there’s that annoying little thing where he promised Thor not to visit Loki again without permission.  But a conversation needs to happen.  A conversation needs to happen right now.

ooo

The same two guards Tony’s seen on both previous visits stand at the dungeon door.  On the right is the one he likes to think of as Big Lando, due to the man’s uncanny resemblance to a six-foot-seven version of Billy Dee Williams.  The other one, Jesus of Rohan, looks like he stepped down off a crucifix and into a helmet.  Neither of them bothers to pay much attention to Tony or ask what he thinks he’s doing as he strides on past them.  They obviously didn’t get the memo from Thor about visitation rights being suspended.  And Tony’s not stupid enough to ruin things by opening his mouth.

The wall of Loki’s cell flickers in the middle, and a gap opens wide enough for Tony to pass through.  Loki’s in bed again this time.  Pretending to be asleep.  He faces the wall just like before and a blanket is pulled up over his shoulder, which rises and falls evenly with slow and measured breaths.  But the hum of his energy says he’s awake.

It also says he knows something’s changed.  The hint of guarded anxiety Tony can feel in him means he’s damn well already felt the anger and frustration coursing through Tony’s blood.

“So,” Tony starts without bothering with any kind of greeting.  “How’s the plan coming?”

Loki plays his game out to the end, going through all the motions of waking up and stretching and yawning and smoothing his hair back as he sits.  “Plan?” he finally asks.

“Yeah.  Your plan.  The one you’ve had going all along  You know, the plan that started with the blood magic you used to make sure I’d come here to get you.”

Not even a flinch.  Not even the barest twitch of emotion.  Loki stares back at him with a blank mask and flat eyes, almost like he knew (of course he knew) exactly what Tony came here to say. 

Tony continues.  “I’m assuming you have a whole plan all coiled up and ready to strike in your snaky little brain.  You wouldn’t have tried to bring me here if you didn’t.  I remember all the relevant things you say, and you once told me you like to plan things out carefully.  Start to finish.  Isn’t that right?  So if we’ve already started, what’s the next step?  And what’s the grand finale?  I think I need to know.”

“It’s...” says Loki, but whatever ‘it’ might be is interrupted by a long sigh as he looks away.  “...complicated.”

“Bullshit,” Tony snaps.  “You know exactly what’s going on.  You know exactly what you’re doing.  And if this conversation right now with me calling you out isn’t going exactly according to schedule, then at the very least it’s factored into some fifth-string contingency plan you’ve plotted just in case.  So cut the crap and let’s talk to each other like grown-ups.  If it’s complicated, explain it.  I’m a fast learner.  Get talking.”

“What did she say?”

Maybe Tony should have specified that when he said ‘get talking’ he meant for Loki to answer questions, not ask them.  “By ‘she’ you mean your mother?”

“I certainly don’t mean Thor.  Though now that I think of it,” Loki adds, “I’d be interested to hear his idiotic interpretation as well.  But we can start with what my mother said to you.  I’m sure she gave you many, many explanations for imaginary fears.  What was her theory?”

Wait, how did this suddenly turn around into Loki’s interrogation of Tony?  “You did some kind of blood magic to keep my thoughts bound to you when you spat in my face on the roof of the tower.  Is she right?”

“And?  What else?”

“Is she right?” Tony repeats.  “I’m not going through this dance with you, Loki.  I’m tired of your stupid games, I’m tired of your lies, and I’m sure as fuck tired of you screwing me around.  For once – just for once – I’m asking you to tell the truth.  Outright.  Really simple here.  Yes or no: did you use your magic on me?”

Loki doesn’t answer.  At least, not with words.  He tilts his head down in catlike indifference, staring at his hands and picking at a loose thread on his blanket and generally doing everything he can to not look anywhere near Tony’s eyes.

That means ‘yes’, then.

“You’re such a petulant child,” says Tony.  “And you know things are bad when that’s coming from me, because usually I’m the one on the receiving end of accusations of childish behavior.  When an irresponsible, immature asshole like me tells you you’re being a baby, it’s probably a sign you’re the biggest damn baby in the known universe.  Is it really so hard for you to grow up for a second and answer a simple question like an adult?”

“Why should I?” Loki asks, speaking to his pillow.  “It’s quite clear you’re angry with me and have already made up your mind on my guilt.”

Spoken like a true champion of playground wit.  But he has a point.

“You’re right,” Tony concedes with a nod.  “I’m angry.  I’m pissed at you for what you did, and I’m pissed at myself for trusting you and expecting you to change when you’ve given me no indication of doing so.  That’s my fault there.”

“You were an idiot to trust me.”

“No.”

Tony throws the word back so fast it might as well be a bullet, striking Loki head-on and grabbing his attention.  Loki glances up with a razor-thin frown under slitted eyes.  Contact once again.

“I wasn’t an idiot.  I was a normal, hopeful person who wanted to see the good in you.  I gave you a chance.  And you could have taken it, you know.  You could’ve dropped all this shady baggage from your past and started over fresh, but I guess by now you’re so used to biting the hand that feeds you that you don’t know any better.  Trusting doesn’t make somebody an idiot, though.  Abuse of trust?  That does.”

“Then leave!” Loki snaps, not so much a reply as a roadblock.  “Go!  I have no interest in hearing your speech.  If I’m such a horrific disappointment to you, you need not bother wasting your time complaining to me.  I know my own crimes.  Leave now and spare us both the drama.”

A challenge sits in his gaze, hard and inflexible as glass, and he leans forward.  A snake about to strike.

(A tired, wounded, desperate snake using his last ounce of strength to keep his head held high and still put on a show of bravery when all he has left is a trickle of venom in his mouth...)

“Is that what you think?” Tony asks.  Just quiet words now.

“Think what?” Loki venom-hisses in return.

“That I came down here to give you one last self-righteous lecture before I take off?”

Give him the chance to earn your forgiveness, Frigga had said.  Give him the chance...

If only Loki had any clue what that chance might look like.  But his blank mask acts as too much of a blinder.  Tony steps forward slowly, closing the distance between them to climb up on the end of the bed and sit once again with his back to the wall and his forearms resting on his knees.  Loki watches him with what might be curiosity, or confusion, or anything else hidden behind an expressionless face.

“I’m not going,” says Tony, staring right back.  “Either now or, preferably, after I ream you out for a while.  Because that’s what I came here to do.  But I’m not leaving.  And you know why?”

No.  Loki doesn’t answer, but that’s okay, because Tony didn’t expect him to.  Tony expected the blank look, frayed and unraveling in just the tiniest way around the edges to show a hint of uncertainty.  And that’s exactly what he gets.

“Here’s the thing, Loki.  I’m not leaving, because for some insane, misguided reason, I still have at least... I don’t know... four or five good, solid flying fucks to give about you.  Now you can call me an idiot for that, and I’ll probably end up regretting it, but somehow...  Yeah.  You lied to me, you abused my trust, and I’m pretty damn mad about it.  But I’m willing to give you another chance.  That’s why I’m down here trying to talk to you instead of just telling you to go fuck yourself while I head back home.  Got it?”

Again, no answer.  Just that silent stare.

“I won’t go away,” Tony says.  “Even if that’s what you’re expecting.  You expect me to ditch you, but that’ll only justify your actions as far as you’re concerned.  You didn’t trust me, and you think it’s a good thing, too, because your twisted little mind thinks I’m going to take off once I get this slap in the face about what a shady, underhanded, manipulative weasel of a dickhat you are, right?  Well no, wrong.  I’m staying.  Sorry, but you’re going to have to learn to live with the consequences of having me stick around when I’m pissed off at you.  It won’t be fun.  You have a long way to go before you can even scratch your ass without me suspecting you’re up to something.  I risked my life through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered and fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city to find you, so it’ll take a lot more than you being you for me to give up and go home now.”

He waits for an answer this time, or any kind of reaction, sitting still and staring back at Loki with as blank of an expression as he can muster for himself.  Counting seconds as they tick by in his head.  Ten.  Twenty.  Twenty-eight.  Loki breaks eye contact first, looking back down at his hands.

One of those hands rises to make a tentative movement in Tony’s direction.  But seems to have second thoughts mid-air, and falls back down into the safety of Loki’s lap.  It doesn’t move again.

Fifty-five seconds.  “Okay,” says Tony, speaking to Loki’s hands (since apparently they’ve just become the most interesting focal point in the room).  “How about this.  When you’re ready to get over yourself and actually talk about shit, look me up.  I want to know what you did, why you did it, and how woefully, lamentably, indescribably sorry you are for sneaking around and voodoo-cursing me.  I want to know what your plan is.  The whole plan.  I know you have one, and I want you to tell me every last detail down to what color socks you’ll be wearing when it goes live.  I’ll come back when you’re ready to be honest with me.  Until then?”

No use wasting time hanging around in the dungeon watching gloomy gus sulk.  He’ll be up in his room, channeling all this residual frustration into something useful, like putting his suit back in working order.  He gets up off the bed and smooths down his shirt.

“Don’t fuck with me again, Loki.”

ooo

A note comes two days later.

I wish to speak with you.
-Loki

Short.  Sweet.  To the point.  For some reason, this single, terse sentence makes Tony feel more optimistic than if it had been a page of florid script and empty promises.  At least it’s probably sincere, in Loki’s stunted way.

He hands the note back to a hovering servant, who takes it away on a tray just like they do in fancy movies.  Then he turns his attention back to his lunch companions.  He hasn’t dined with Thor since that mess of a banquet, but today Frigga cleverly invited herself to eat in his room.  She brought a handful of what Tony takes to be her royal entourage.  Four woman and two men, all of whom have names that would sound right at home in an Ikea catalogue.  Tony gets the impression they’re trying to show polite interest in him, asking questions about his life and his home and his family and whether or not he has any children (oddly enough, they don’t bother asking if he has a wife).  Though every time he pauses too long before answering as he tries to think of how to explain his work in terms that magical space Vikings would understand, the conversation inevitably turns back to malicious gossip about who was recently seen leaving whose bedroom, and who the real father of Foo-somebody’s new baby might be (apparently not her husband).

It honestly makes Tony miss Thor’s awkward attempts and holding a conversation through a mouthful of food.

He swallows a yawn and leans back in his chair with a cup of that cherry brandy Thor brought him on his first day in Asgard.  It’s not so bad now that he knows what to expect.  Strong and sticky-sweet, like cough syrup, but it’ll do.  Over in the corner, all the pieces of his armor are cleaned up to the best of his ability and arranged in careful sequence on the floor.  Inspection confirmed his fears that the wiring’s shot to shit all down the right arm, but the left sustained mostly cosmetic damage.  A few more tweaks to the circuitry and it should be back in working order.  He should be able to repair the right arm if he steals parts and extra wiring from both legs, which will leave him with bare bones on the lower half but functional weaponry up top.  Not ideal, but better than nothing.  It’s the helmet that’ll be the real problem.  With the central computer fried it’s nothing more than an ostentatious metal hat, and he won’t know if he can get any of the systems up and running again until-

“Tony Stark?” says Frigga, jerking his attention back to the group.

The front legs of his chair slam down on the hard floor a little too loudly as he leans back into the table.  “Yes.  Sorry.  Ma’am.”

 “I recall Thor mentioning to me something of a magical amulet you possess.  Would you care to tell us about it?”

Magical...  What?  “Uh...”  With everybody staring at him, it’s hard enough to form a coherent thought, let alone guess at what Frigga means by ‘magical amulet’.  “I’m not sure I...”

“Here,” she says, lightly touching the center of her chest.

Right.  Right right right.  That magical amulet.  “Sure,” he begins.  “Magical amulet.  Right.  Um.  It’s a...  It’s actually a magnet.  Thing is, for reasons I don’t want to get into in too much detail, I have a lot of shrapnel in my body.  To manage that, I created a high-powered electromagnet run off experimental energy reactor technology, and what it does is... uh...”

Oh, this is going well.  It’s going real well, if those raised eyebrows and confused little frowns are any indication.  But how do you explain an arc reactor to aliens who’ve advance so far past the need for something as primitive as electricity?  Especially when a lot of Earth people have trouble understanding the scientific concept?

So he starts again.  “I was stabbed with a Morgul blade.  That’s a cursed knife possessed only by the foulest of dark sorcerers.  When I was stabbed, the tip shattered and left tiny pieces embedded in my chest.  Those pieces are constantly trying to reach my heart, and if even one of them does, I’ll die and become a wraith.  The amulet emits a protective energy to keep that from happening.”

“How dreadful!” gasps one of the women: the one who looks like an Amazonian Reese Witherspoon in a yellow fairy gown.

“Can it be healed?” somebody else asks.

Tony shrugs.  “Maybe in the future?  We don’t currently have the ability.  I’ve heard it can be healed by the power of the elves, but Midgard is a little short on elves anytime outside of the Christmas season.”

One of the men shakes his head.  “No, I would not trust the elves.  Their magic is fickle and unreliable.”

“I’ll... keep that in mind,” says Tony.  Of course they have elves.   Why wouldn’t they have elves?

“Where did you get the amulet?”

“I built it.  Went through a couple different iterations before finalizing the one I have now.  The first two versions were powered by a palladium core, which, as it turns out, is highly toxic when inserted into your body.  So to fix things I actually had to synthesize an unknown element that... uh...”  They’re all staring again.  “...that you don’t care about.  Right.  Well, I made it.  With science.  Let’s just leave things there.”

“That’s very interesting,” says Amazonian Tila Tequila, sitting next to Amazonian Reece Witherspoon.  “But I just remembered,” she goes on, “the other night after the banquet I saw-”

Some girl making out with some guy (or maybe another girl; the names sure don’t tell Tony anything).  Well, that little diversion into a topic he cared about was nice while it lasted.  Now they’re straight back at the who’s who of Asgardian gossip.  He tips his chair up on two legs again and looks over to the armor, but this time he isn’t even able to start ignoring the conversation properly before Frigga interrupts.

“If you’ll all excuse me?”

When the queen of Asgard stands, the whole table stands with her, respectfully shutting their mouths and setting down their drinks.  Frigga shakes out her skirts and strikes a queenly pose.  The smile she wears looks like she stole it right out from under the nose of an elementary school teacher with saint-like patience.

Maybe she hates this idiotic chit-chat as much as Tony does.

“Thank you for a lovely meal,” she tells them.  “And thank you, Tony Stark, for allowing us to dine with you in your chamber today.  That was very kind.”

“My pleasure,” he says.  It only sounds sixty percent sarcastic.

“Now unfortunately I must be off, as I have many duties to attend, but please do continue without me.  Although you may also have other engagements, Tony Stark?”

He catches the flicker of her eyes over to the servant standing by the door, still holding his golden tray.  Why, yes.  He does, in fact, have other engagements, now that she mentions it.  “I’m afraid I do.  Things to do, people to see...”  Dubiously repentant gods to visit.  “May I escort you out?”

“Yes,” she answers, offering her arm.  “Thank you so much.”

Nobody else follows them.  Not that Tony really minds; if he has to leave people unsupervised in his bedroom with all his stuff, he’s glad it’s these oblivious, self-centered airheads rather than anyone who might snoop and break things.  They seem harmless enough.  Harmless and painfully uninteresting.

Frigga speaks as soon as the two of them are out of earshot.  “Are you still angry with Loki?”

Simple as it would be to just tell her ‘no’ and be done with it, something stops him.  He’s still angry with Loki.  Not nearly as much as he was, and not nearly as much as he should be, but the fundamental pilot light of anger is still there.  Deep inside.  And he doesn’t feel like lying to Frigga.  “Yeah,” he replies after a cautious pause.  “A little.”

“Have you seen him?  Did he say anything to you of the magic?”

“I saw him.  He didn’t say boo about the magic.”

She sighs.  So Tony’s not the only person Loki’s been disappointing lately.  “I see.  Well.  I take it you are about to see him again.”

“I may have given him an ultimatum last time: either he spills everything on what he did and why, or I’m not coming back.  I’m willing to give him a chance to earn my forgiveness, just like you asked.  But only if he shows me he wants that chance.”

“Loki has had a difficult life, Tony Stark.”

“Yeah I bet he has,” Tony mutters.  And seriously, he means to say that to himself, but the bitterness takes hold and it ends up louder than intended.

“You may not believe-”

Tony stops mid-stride, letting Frigga’s arm slip from his.  “I may not believe because... why?  Because he’s a magical prince who grew up in a castle with servants and everything he could possibly wish for?  And his life should be perfect?  No, actually that’s the part I understand.  You know how?  Because I had a pretty difficult life, too.  My parents were never around, I was bullied in school, and I spent all my time building and programming computers to distract from how miserable and lonely I was.  I grew up with a bad attitude and a drinking problem and almost killed myself drunk driving when I was sixteen because I didn’t know how to fit into the world.  But after all that, I think I still managed to turn out okay in the end.”

“It’s not quite the same...” Frigga tries.

“But it is,” says Tony.  “Having a difficult life or a shitty childhood or being treated like hell by everyone around you because you’re different isn’t an excuse for turning into a raging asshole.  You always have a choice of letting that stuff get to you and drag you down.  I made a conscious decision after one particularly horrible point in my life to put away who I’d been and what I’d been through, and focus on who I wanted to become and what I wanted to accomplish.  Loki could’ve done the same.  But he chose to hold on to his grudges and keep them locked inside, like they were somehow protecting him when really all they were doing was making things worse.  So no, I really don’t want to hear any ‘poor little rich boy’ BS excusing Loki’s behavior.  I’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and written the book.  And that means I’m out of sympathy for people who shit all over others and then try to worm their way out of responsibility by claiming they’re the victim.  Being shit on in the past doesn’t give you free rein to spread that shit around in the future.”

Quietly, Frigga steps forward to take Tony’s hands in hers.  First one.  Then the next.  Cupping them between her palms like she’s holding something precious, she focuses her gaze with a low sigh.  And lets a long beat drag out before speaking.

“But perhaps,” she eventually says, “it might earn him a little understanding?”

From somebody who’s freed himself and might be able to show Loki the way out, is the unspoken implication, which Tony can feel loud and clear in the way she gently squeezes his hands.

“Like I said,” Tony tells her.  “I’m willing to give him a chance at forgiveness.  And understanding, and sympathy, and whatever the hell else he needs.  But only if I think he wants it.”

With a tiny nod, she looks up to meet his eyes.  “I can assure you, Tony Stark, with absolute certainty, that he wants all of those things.”

I’m sure he does, Tony thinks as he watches Frigga’s shimmering, brocade-clad form swirl past the curve of a monolithic pillar and disappear around a corner.  Somewhere deep down where his last shred of innocence and goodness still knows right from wrong.

That part of Loki wants forgiveness.  Question is, is his hardened remainder willing to admit he wants it?

Chapter Text

He’s so beautiful.  The way his skin glows flawless as a diamond.  The way his filmy green shirt falls open to his waist, showing the liquid ripples of an equally filmy sarong pooled in his lap and tied at the hip.  The way he leans back in bed with one hand tucked behind his neck and the other resting delicately on the bare thigh peeking out past the sarong’s edge.  The way his eyes glitter with an impure secret beneath half-closed lids.  The way his lips part and echo the same.  The way the warm, pink flush in his cheeks and the damp sheen in his uncombed bedroom hair say he was just in the bath and has barely had time to dress before arranging himself so artfully amid scattered pillows and tangled sheets.

He’s so beautiful.  And he knows it.  And he’s doing it on purpose.  The manipulative little shit.

“So,” Tony says, taking a firm stance in the middle of the cell and clamping his arms over his chest before he can do anything stupid, like accidentally fall into Loki’s bed and pledge eternal devotion.  “You have something to tell me.”

“Mm,” Loki replies, smiling and savoring the sound and rolling it on his tongue before releasing it into the air.  “Come here, Tony Stark.”

Tony shakes his head.  “Sorry, no.  First you talk.  Then I’ll come anywhere you want.”

Pouting, Loki slides down onto the mattress, his sarong hitching up indecently high on his naked legs.  “I can only talk to you over here.”

“Why?  Can you only whisper your apology?  Afraid somebody else might overhear in this bustling hub of social interaction?”

“Yes,” says Loki as his back arches up off the bed.  “Come here.”

“You’re trying to sex your way out of trouble.”

He bites his lip over a wordless hum of agreement.

Really, some part of Tony’s brain wonders why he’s not giving up and going along with this.  He could always go along with this for now and then get Loki to talk afterwa-  No let’s just stop things right there, says the not completely fucking nuts part of his brain.  Don’t even consider it.  That’s just what Loki the snake wants.

“How about this,” he tries instead.  “I’ll come over there if you sit like a normal person instead of flopping around like a hentai mermaid.  Sit up.  I’ll sit next to you.  You can talk.  Okay?”

Maybe it’ll be okay.  Loki does sit up.  He sits up very nicely, rearranging his sarong, and he strikes a pinup pose with his knees together and his ankles crossed.  Sultry look.

Devious fucker.  But Tony fulfils his end of the bargain and plops his ass down on the bed at Loki’s side, leaving a foot and a half of space between them.  Eighteen inches of air will be a sufficient barrier, won’t it?  “So spill the beans,” he says.  “You wished to speak with me?  Speak on.  I’m listening.”

It’s like all the playful good will in the air is leeched away, ounce by ounce, the second Loki drops his goofy femme fatale act.  It’s replaced by a long sigh and a stubborn silence.  Loki’s shoulders sag.  He pulls in a breath, and holds it, and lets it out again, and Tony lets him.  Not going to push it.  Loki’ll only talk when he’s good and ready, or he won’t talk at all.

After what has to be at least five minutes of fragile consideration, he finally – finally – speaks.

“I never meant for you to come to Asgard.”

“Oh?” says Tony.  That’s all.  Just a single sound.  Let Loki lead this conversation and see where it goes.

“I didn’t...”

He stops again.  Another minute of silence where he pushes his damp hair back and momentarily hides his face behind his hand.

“I didn’t mean for you to come here.  The magic wasn’t supposed to last this long.  A few days...  I thought you would come to the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility where Thor took me.  That’s all.  Not to Asgard.  I don’t even understand how the magic could have endured so long after you washed the blood from your clothes.”

Well, Tony does.  But he’s not going to divulge anything about that just yet.  “Why?  Why use magic at all?  Why not just, you know, ask me?  Like a friend, instead of assuming you need to force me into something?”

“It was a foolish, panicked plan,” Loki says, which doesn’t exactly answer the question, but at least he’s still talking.  “I did what I thought I could.  But it failed, because I wrongly guessed S.H.I.E.L.D. would insist on keeping me in prison a little longer.  I didn’t expect they’d listen to Thor’s demands that we immediately take the Tesseract back to Asgard.  I only... only wanted you to come to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, at which point I’d make up some excuse about having been mind-controlled by Thanos, until the blast of energy from your gun shattered that hold.”

“And you think they’d believe that?” Tony asks when Loki pauses yet again.

“Thor would.”

“Fury isn’t Thor.”

“I was also prepared to bargain my knowledge and aid against Thanos in exchange for freedom.   Everything I know.  And I know quite a lot, as it turns out.”

“You already made that bargain once,” says Tony.  “You offered everything you knew about the Tesseract in exchange for S.H.I.E.L.D. not going Call of Duty all over you.”

Loki sighs, as if Tony’s missing something incredibly obvious in this hypothetical scenario.  “That was the Tesseract.  Thanos is very different.”

“No, my point is, you bargained with them once, shared some of your information, and then stabbed everyone in the back when we thought you were on our side.  Something tells me they might not have fallen for that again.  Humans aren’t as stupid as you seem to think, Loki.  I mean,” he amends, “you do have your Honey Boo Boos and your Kardashians messing with the planet’s median IQ, but the people at S.H.I.E.L.D. are pretty smart as far as your average everyday humans go.  The best they’d give you at this point for all your intel is probably a private cell so you don’t have to take a dump under the watchful eye of some burly, tattooed white supremacist.”

“And that is why I needed you,” Loki continues, still in that tone of stating the obvious.  “You were the only one on the rooftop that day, Tony Stark, until Agent Romanoff unwisely attempted to intervene.  I needed you to come, but I needed you to come on your own.  I could not ask you because...”

Ah.  So that’s where this is going.  “You needed me to tell them your sob story,” Tony mutters.  Everything Loki said on the roof...  Loki couldn’t tell S.H.I.E.L.D. that himself.  It needed to come from the closest thing he could get to an impartial third party.  “You needed me to show up unexpectedly to tell them how well behaved and un-sociopathic you are when you’re not backed into a corner.  That you only did what you did because you thought you had no choice.  Is that it?”

Loki doesn’t answer.  He just looks away.  His classic silent ‘yes’.

Would that have worked on S.H.I.E.L.D.?  Hard to say.  Tony’s testimony in conjunction with Loki’s brainwash defense and info on the Thanos threat might’ve gotten him out of the deepest of the deep shit.  Maybe enough to forego prison in exchange for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s equivalent to community service.  Especially if Thor jumped in there too, backing up anything Tony said with his own rose-colored claims of how Loki used to be such a nice boy.

“Then what?” Tony asks.  “You get out of trouble with S.H.I.E.L.D., but I bet Thor still wants to take you back to Asgard.”

“Thor wanted to take the Tesseract back to Asgard,” Loki corrects.  “If S.H.I.E.L.D. allowed him to take it, Thor may have let me remain on Midgard.”

It takes Tony a second to realize what Loki just said.  Let him remain on Midgard.  Let him...

“It would have been an ideal solution,” Loki adds, pushing on ahead.  “Thor takes the Tesseract back to Asgard to stand vigilant against the possibility of war with Thanos.  Heimdall keeps watch over Midgard for the same.  Thanos would eventually come for it.  And come for me, but at least we would have time to prepare and strategize.”

“And that was your plan all along?” Tony asks, staring hard at Loki’s flatly emotionless profile.  (He’s still so beautiful.)  “Stay on Earth when all this was over?”

This time, Loki doesn’t look away.  He doesn’t move at all.  Not even a blink, not even a breath.  “I thought I told you,” he eventually says, “that I never planned to leave.”

Tony nods.  “Yeah.  I remember.  It’s just that you’ll have to forgive me for doubting you, because now I can’t tell if that meant you planned to stay and rule the planet as a conquering overlord, or if you meant you planned to stay with me, or... if you’re just saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear.”

“I never lied to you!” Loki snaps, suddenly turning on him.  “Is that all you see in me?  Some wretched liar who-”

“Maybe you didn’t tell an outright lie,” Tony snaps right back, “but you sure let me believe a lot of things that aren’t true, and you-”

“Like what?!”

“-keep enough secrets to make you the grand master of lying by omission-”

“Like what?!” Loki repeats, shouting out his frustration.  “What did I let you believe?!”

“Well, for starters, there was that minor incident where you started an alien invasion of New York City after convincing everyone you’d given up on being an evil dickwad.”

“I had no choice!  I told you my entire reasoning!  For the good of all involved, I had no choice but to do what I did!”

Tony almost laughs, but catches himself in time.  This isn’t funny.  Not funny at all.  “For the good of all involved?  You actually think you were doing the right thing by almost starting a war?”

“Yes!” Loki hisses as he jumps to his feet.  “I told you about Thanos!  I warned what he would try to do if I failed to claim the Tesseract for him!  He would annihilate your pathetic realm and every human life in it!  Did I not tell you a few deaths – even a few million deaths – would be preferable to the unfathomable destruction Thanos would wreak?  Why can you not trust me?!”

The word slides sharp as a knife between Tony’s ribs, hitting something vulnerable and unprepared inside.  Trust.  Loki can’t really think...  “No.”  And he stands too, stepping up close to Loki, pulled in by anger solidifying like a magnet.  “No way!  You are not turning this around on me, you slick bastard!  I’m the one who doesn’t trust you?!  Since when do you have the right to accuse me of-”

“You are the one always suspicious of me!” snarls Loki.  “You are the one who finds it so impossible to look at me without judgment and doubt!  You are the one who questions every decision I make, who second-guesses everything I say, and who needs proof of my motives whenever I do anything you don’t understand!  So why should you demand my trust when it is painfully clear you would not extend me the courtesy of yours?!”

“Bullshit!  You’re twisting cause and effect to make your point!  I wouldn’t doubt you or question your actions if you hadn’t already shown me that everything about you is a fucking hurricane of deceit and manipulation!  You need to earn trust, Loki, not just show up and expect it to be handed to you on a silver platter!”

“Yes, guilty until proven innocent, isn’t that how it is with you?!  Why bother to listen to anything I have to say when you’ve already cast your judgments?  You think yourself so morally superior, but the sad truth is, Tony Stark, you are no different from me!  You lie and cheat and use people to your own advantage as much as I do.  You are greedy and selfish and arrogant beyond anything I have seen in any person in my life, yet think yourself better than them all. The only difference between us is that I accept those traits in you, and admit to them in myself, yet you are so horrifically offended by the very idea that you persecute me and blindly refuse to acknowledge your own fault!”

It happens so fast, before Tony can even think about what he’s doing.  The coppery metallic anger is so thick in his throat, rising up and filling his mouth with its stinging bitterness.  Crowding his ears with a high, whining pitch.  Seeping cloudiness into his eyes and tightening around his brain.  It happens so fast, and in one second his hand is down at his side, clenching into a fist so tense it shakes.  In another second that fist hits Loki’s cheek.  But how it gets there...   Well, that all happens too fast.

(The impact jars a memory into the front of his mind.  Something he’d rather forget: he’s maybe four years old and Nanny’s telling him to go upstairs, go to his room, because he can hear his parents fighting.  Screaming awful things at each other.  He shouldn’t watch that.  But he peeks out around the corner and down the stairs anyway as his mom storms into the front hall and tells the driver she’s leaving because dad’s drunk again and she knows he wasn’t working late, he was fucking his secretary.  That dumb slut Charlene.  When dad tries to grab her arm to stop her, she shoves him away, and he hits her hard enough to split her lip.  Then she leaves as dad breaks down and slumps to the floor and babbles incoherent, whisky-fueled apologies and swears to God he loves her so much, he’ll never do it again, never cheat on her again, never hit her again.  But mom still leaves.  Though she eventually comes back.  She always comes back.  And it always happens again despite the empty promises.  Year after year, until Tony’s old enough to understand what words like ‘drunk’ and ‘fuck’ and ‘slut’ mean.  Old enough to worry that maybe one summer he’ll come home from school to find out mom left for good.  She never does, though.)

(And then a recent memory.  Earlier this year.  This time he’s the drunk one and he’s started a fight with Pepper over something pointless.  And the anger’s rising inside, that blinding rage, and he can feel himself losing control, and it’s only fortunate timing that she calls him a pathetic jerk and slams the bathroom door in his face and locks herself inside before...)

When he snaps back to the present, Loki’s still standing there.  Shocked expression on his face.  A little streak of blood across his cheek, shimmering red against milky pale like a glaring accusation.

Now look what you’ve done, it says.

Yes, Tony’s mind answers hollowly back.  Now look what I’ve done.   And all that predatory rage deflates so quickly, leaving just a sloshing, unsteady sickness behind in the pit of his stomach.   Now look what I’ve gone and done...

“Loki,” he says, because that’s all that’ll come out.

Slowly, Loki raises his own hand to his cheek, wiping the red smudge clean away.  It’s only then that Tony looks down at his hand, feeling the sudden throb and sting in his knuckle where the skin split.  Blood’s dripping down his fingers.

“Did that make you feel any better?” Loki asks.  He scowls when he speaks, but his voice sounds only halfway as sharp as it should. 

Tony takes a step back as he shakes his head, and sinks back down onto the bed.  No, that didn’t make him feel better.  Not in any way.  It just dredged up a lot of memories and fears he’s been trying like hell to leave in the past.

After a moment, Loki sits beside him.  But doesn’t speak.  Just sits, silently, without even looking over Tony’s way.  While Tony tries to think of anything better to say than ‘I’m sorry’.  Which he can’t, so that’ll have to do.

“Srry.”  The word comes out in a closed-lipped mumble as he looks down at his broken, blood-stained skin.

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not,” he says, slowly and stupidly.  “It’s really not.”

“You hurt yourself,” Loki murmurs, reaching down to touch the back of his hand.

“I hit you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

But it does.  And maybe Loki doesn’t get that, but it sure fucking matters to Tony.  Because now there’s a memory stuck in his head, and a scene he keeps replaying over and over, and the past is blurring into the present as the two collide.  “What are we even doing?” he asks.

Loki’s hand hasn’t moved from his.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean...”  Oh hell, why is it so hard to say even the simplest little thing?  “Loki, this is a disaster.  We’re...”  A disaster.  “We can’t even talk to each other.  You tell me nothing at all, and let’s be honest: I can’t do anything better than snarky banter with you.  We try to actually work out our problems, and what happens?  You go on the offensive shooting everything I say back at me, and I end up getting so mad I can’t even stop myself from punching you.  That’s not normal.  It’s not fine.  I don’t care what you say.  I don’t want it to be normal or fine.  I don’t want to be that kind of person.  I don’t want to be stuck in that loop of always fucking up and apologizing only to fuck up again.”

Like his parents.  Like he came so close to falling into with Pepper.  Like he tried so hard to avoid all his life, keeping his distance from anyone out of fear of how it might end up.

“Why not?” asks Loki.

“Are you serious?” Tony answers, looking up to meet Loki’s eyes.  “’Why not?’  You have to ask why I don’t want to let myself turn into some violent prick?”

Loki shrugs.  “If that’s who you are.”

“It’s not who I am.  It’s who I try very hard not to be.”

“All the same, is there any true purpose in denying this aspect of yourself?  Fighting so hard against what sits, ever-present, below the surface?”

Loki says that as if Tony’s trying to hide something quirky and innocent, like being a secret fan of country music or Meg Ryan movies.  Not something dangerous and explosive that might consume him inside-out.  And anyway, how did things turn around to become about him again?  This is supposed to be about Loki.  It’s Loki’s confessional hour.  Not yet another episode of every damn thing wrong with Tony Stark.

“Okay, I got it,” he says.  “I’m a terrible person.  I’m an asshole for not trusting you even though you give me no reason to, and I’m an asshole for pretending I’m a decent human being instead of letting loose and hitting you whenever I feel like it.”

“Better me than anyone else,” is Loki’s reply.  “You cannot hurt me.  No matter your rage, it will have little effect.  So perhaps, if you let yourself go, once you’ve broken your knuckles enough times, one day you’ll realize that violence gets you nowhere and the desire will wear thin and evaporate.”

“And maybe,” Tony counters, “one day you’ll realize that lying to me and trying to manipulate your way into getting what you want works a lot less well than just being honest in the first place.”

Slowly, Loki nods.  “Maybe.”  But it’s pretty clear he means ‘no’.  They both mean ‘no’, because everyone knows these kinds of tragic flaws never change.  They can only be controlled.  If you’re lucky.  You just have to suck it up and try to cope with the hand you’re dealt.

And speaking of... Tony’s hand still stings like a bitch.  He tucks it under his opposite arm, squeezing it under his bicep to put pressure on the cut, but that doesn’t help much.  Well, whatever.  He damn well deserves this pain anyway.  “I really am a terrible person,” he mutters.

“No, you’re not,” says Loki.

“Yeah I am.  And for the record, so are you.  We’re both terrible people.  Why do you even put up with me?”

He hears Loki’s answer in his head a fraction of a second before Loki actually speaks.  It’s just that predictable from the God of Eternal Truth Evasion.  “Why do you put up with me?”

“Dunno,” says Tony.  “Maybe because you’re a smokin’ hot sex maniac?  I’ve always been partial to those.  But you’re also a total basket case, so I don’t have to worry about dragging you down to my level.  You’re already so fucked up I can’t possibly be a bad influence on you.  It’s kind of liberating, to tell the truth.”

“Always such an eloquent romantic,” Loki replies through a wry smile.

Yeah, that’s Tony all over.  Eloquence and romance.  “Think of it this way, then: I can be myself with you.  My terrible, judgmental self.  And I guess that means I should probably let you be your sneaky, manipulative self with me.”

The snort Loki replies with is almost a laugh.  “What was it you called me?  A ‘hurricane of deceit’?”

“Yeah, that,” Tony says with a nod.  “But see, I know what you are, and you know what I am, and I’m still here and you’re still here, and I guess...  I guess I can come to terms with the fact that you’ll always lie to me.  And I’ll always get mad and overreact and probably punch you and break my hand and mope about it.  But maybe you’re right.  Maybe it’s better if we stop trying to suppress all our worst aspects and just go with whatever the hell happens.  Go nuts.  No more boundaries.  Nothing but unfiltered fuckery.”

“No.”  Loki shifts on the bed, just a little closer.  “That’s a terrible idea.”

“Which goes nicely with the recently established fact that we’re terrible people.”

You’re an idiot, Loki’s wordless shake of the head seems to say.  So Tony slides an arm around Loki’s waist, waiting for the inevitable exasperated shove away.  Except this time it’s only half-hearted, barely more than a lazy swipe.  Almost affectionate.  (Affectionate by Loki standards, anyway.)

“Or,” Tony quietly offers when Loki’s hand falls down to rest momentarily on his knee, “We can try something really crazy and forgive each other for everything that’s happened up to right now and start again.  Try to not be total bastards this time around.  I forgive you for trying to enslave the earth and the whole blood magic cock-up, you forgive me for trying to kill you with a HYDRA gun.  That kind of thing.”

“Hm,” says Loki.

“Is that a good or bad ‘hm’?”

“Contemplative ‘hm’.  I suppose it’s not the worst of ideas.  Certainly no worse than being our terrible selves.”

Tony could probably answer that with some zinger of a comment.  He could laugh or smirk or something stupid like that, like he usually does.  But instead his right hand’s skimming its way up Loki’s back, under that filmy green shirt.  Fingertips brushing satin skin and contours of muscle and bone.  Finding Loki’s shoulder and neck with a gentle, coaxing squeeze.  He leans in, pressing his lips soft against Loki’s, though it’s not a kiss.  That’s not allowed, here in the dungeon, with all the weight of the laws of Asgard bearing down on them from above.  It’s just a touch.  Nose to nose and chin to chin.  Not moving.  Just an innocent touch.  Sharing their breath.

“You never did answer the question about why you put up with me,” says Tony.

“Well...” Loki replies, rolling his tongue over his teeth, which Tony can feel it through his skin.  Like he’s looking for hidden words too reluctantly stubborn to leave the safety of his mouth.  “You claim to be a terrible person, but as it stands...  You’re my person.  The only one I have.  So.”

“So you put up with me because you have no better option.”

But that’s not really it.  That’s not what Loki means in his reluctant words, through that wavering tone of voice.  It’s not an insult or a condemnation.  It’s unconditional acceptance.  Nothing more and nothing less.

And Tony can live with that. 

“I really need to get you out of here, don’t I?” he mumbles against Loki’s cheek.

Loki’s breath, an affirmative mm, answers softly in his ear.  “How?”

“You really don’t have a plan?”

“No.”

Shit.  “It’s just that you always seem to have a plan for everything.”

“My plan was having you find a way to free me.”

More shit.  Tony pulls back far enough to look Loki in the eye.  “I should warn you: most of my plans involve blowing stuff up.  I do have a partially assembled, partially working Iron Man suit upstairs.  But I’m thinking in this case it’d be better to talk to Thor and see if I can grovel your way out.”

“I might prefer explosions,” Loki says.  He’s probably scowling, but all Tony can see are narrowed eyes and a knotted brow.

“And I might prefer not being on the run from the law with you again,” says Tony.  “As much fun as it was last time, let’s not push our luck.  Running from S.H.I.E.L.D. was hard enough.  Running from all of Asgard sounds like a death wish.  Just let me talk to Thor.  I have a couple tricks up my sleeve.”

By which he means he has a couple good lines he thought of while lying in the bath, saved up for this very occasion.  But they might work.  If he learned anything about Thor during their time spent together, it’s that the big lug has a soft spot the size of a golden retriever when it comes to his little brother.  Any hardened veneer will crack with enough prodding.  All he needs to do is convince Thor of a couple key facts, and Loki could walk free.  Or at least free-ish.

And if that fails?

He turns his head enough to survey the walls of Loki’s cell.  They look pretty solid.  But then again, so did that cave in Afghanistan.

If negotiations fail, there’ll always be the classic jail-break scenario to back him up.

ooo

“Why do you continue to defy my commands, Tony Stark?!”

Tony waits a second, biting down on the sides of his tongue before answering, because really, that could be considered a rhetorical question.  “Uh,” he eventually settles on saying, “I had your mom’s permission.”

“Loki is in prison!” Thor shouts.

“I know.  I was there.  That’s why you’re getting mad at me, remember?”

“He must be punished for his crimes!”

“Again, I know.  And I’m not going to argue with you on that.  Loki screwed up and he needs to learn a lesson about how to play nice.  But I’ve been thinking and I have a couple ideas in that area, which is why I’m here to talk to you.”

Tony gestures to one of the seats in Thor’s office, which Thor takes, if only because in that moment he looks too stunned to think of doing anything else.  “But...” he says.  “No, you’re here talking to me because I demanded your presence!”

“Coincidence,” Tony says, taking the other chair.  “I was actually on my way to talk to you when your hired goon came up and demanded my presence.  See, here’s what I think.”  He leans forward with his elbows on the table that separates him from Thor, weaving his fingers together in that confident, authoritative gesture his dad always used to use.  “I think putting Loki in prison is about the worst thing you can do.”

The reaction he’s expecting to that statement is either an explosive bout of rage or shocked silence with the implication of ‘are you crazy’.  He gets number two.  Thor’s face screws up in a look that combines the anger of a snarling frown with the confusion of a deeply furrowed brow, but he can’t seem to find anything to say, which gives Tony the opportunity to keep going.

“The thing is, keeping Loki locked up in that cell isn’t doing you any favors.  In fact, it’s hurting you.  The longer Loki stays, he more time he has to nurse his grudge and reflect on how much he despises everyone for putting him in there.  And if anybody can hold onto a grudge for the next thousand or so years until you finally let him go, it’s Loki.  I will bet you any money he’ll pretend to be reformed after a while, only to screw you over in the most magnificent way possible once you think it’s safe to give him a second chance.  Am I right?”

“I won’t-” Thor tries, but Tony’s too quick.

“You will.  You know it.  I know it.  Eventually your big brotherly feelings will get the better of you and you’ll start to think that maybe you were too hard on him and you should give him the benefit of the doubt.  Don’t deny it.”

Letting his arms flop down into his lap, Thor sighs.  Yeah, he knows it.

“So,” says Tony, “what you need to do is figure out a way to punish Loki without keeping him locked away in the dungeon where all he’s going to do is spend every waking moment plotting out elaborate ways to kill you the second he’s free.”

“He might not-”

Again, Tony just has to cut Thor off right there.  “Yes.  He will.  You know it, I know it, he knows it, cows know it.  If you keep him in prison, all he’s going to do is build up a big black hole of resentment, and you’ll end up being the one who’s crushed by it.  The only thing you can do is be proactive and work out better punishment where Loki actually learns a lesson.”

“Am I to guess that you have a punishment in mind?” Thor asks.

“I might be able to help you brainstorm.”

“Is your idea for his punishment that I banish him to Midgard with you?”

Well, crap.  So much for slowly and subtly bringing Thor around to that facet of the plan.  “Banish him to Midgard?” Tony asks, forcing as much doubt as he can muster into his voice.  “Hmm.  Interesting.  Tricky to pull off, but you know... it might just work.  That’s actually a really good idea, Thor.  Banishing him to Midgard could be the ideal solution here.”

“I know that is what you want me to do, Tony Stark,” Thor says in a tone that makes him sound way too much like Loki.  His single raised eyebrow makes him look way too much like Loki.

“Okay, fine,” Tony admits, dropping the whole stupid act.  “Yeah, you got me.  I want you to banish Loki to Midgard.  But hear me out.  This isn’t just about me and my selfish reasons for wanting Loki back on Earth, which, yes, do exist.  I honestly think prison is the worst possible place for him.  Keeping him in there, all you’re doing is fuelling whatever it is that sent him over the edge in the first place.  He really doesn’t need to be locked up alone with his thoughts.  He needs a chance to earn back some self-respect.  You send him to Earth, I can get him to work with me on new projects based on Tesseract energy stored in those guns S.H.I.E.L.D. has.  He can help me, he can help S.H.I.E.L.D., and he can do some useful, rewarding work for once.  Sentence him to hard scientific labor instead of solitary confinement.”

He stops there to give Thor a chance to think things over.  From what he can see in the hard expression and tightened jaw, Thor is thinking.  Thor’s giving this some serious thought, which is a good sign, though the way his eyes keep getting narrower and narrower as the seconds crawl by starts to eat away at Tony’s confidence.

Thor’s stuck on one little detail.  Tony’s pretty sure he can guess what it is.

“He would be with you,” Thor says, and not in a reassuring way.  It’s that judgmental way that makes a sour, acid taste rise in the back of Tony’s throat, because he knows exactly what Thor means.

“Yeah,” Tony quietly replies through his teeth.  “He’d be with me.”

“Then my answer is no.”  Standing, Thor pushes his chair back from the table and paces away, like that’s his final answer.  “Loki will remain here in Asgard.”

“Why?” Tony snaps, fighting the urge to jump up himself.  No, he needs to stay calm.  Calm and rational.  Fight Thor with logic instead of fists.  He learned his lesson hitting one Asgardian already today.  “You don’t agree with it, so you’d deny him the one thing that might stand a chance of making him happy?”

“Loki was raised as a prince of Asgard,” Thor dismissively replies.  “He needs to learn to behave as one.  He needs to learn-”

“He needs to learn how to not be an evil sack of shit,” says Tony.  “That’s all.  And I think I can help him with that.”

“He needs none of your help, Tony Stark.”

Maybe he could fight Thor just a little bit.  And then he’d probably die of critical smack-down, though wouldn’t it be worthwhile to land a hit on somebody who deserved it?  But he stays in his seat.  “On the contrary,” he says instead, sticking to the verbal jibes.  “I could help a lot.  If porn’s taught me anything over the years, it’s that there’s no problem that can’t be solved by a good, hard dicking.”

If only he could see that mental image through Thor’s mind’s eye.  It must be a good one: Thor’s whole face twists in disgust and he makes a threatening step in Tony’s direction.  “You dare to speak of my brother with such disrespect?!”

“Why not?” Tony asks with a shrug.  “Everyone else does.  You’re treating him with a pretty astounding level of disrespect right now, keeping him in prison not for what he’s done but because he’s the loose cannon of the family who needs to be controlled.”

“Loki is a criminal.”

“Guilty of what?  Killing people?  Starting a war?  Now hang on a minute,” Tony says, staring Thor square in the eye, “but didn’t you do exactly the same thing on Jotunheim?  You killed some Jotuns and rekindled an ancient feud, and you got a three-day time out on Earth.  Loki killed some humans and kicked off an alien invasion, and he gets indefinite imprisonment.  How is this fair?  Oh wait!” he adds, before Thor has a chance to answer.  “It isn’t!  So that’s all I want, Thor: fairness.  Give him the exact punishment you got.  Send him down to Earth for three days or three decades or however the hell long it takes him to learn his lesson.

“No,” Thor says.  Straight-up, flat-out no.

“You don’t have to answer yet,” says Tony.

“But I did answer.  And my answer is no.”

“But you didn’t think it over thoroughly.”  He stands up with a yawn and a stretch, hoping that action will be enough to distract Thor from shooting him down yet again.  It almost is.

“I don’t need-” Thor starts.

“Just do me this favor.  Please.  Think it over.  Think it over carefully.  Are you keeping Loki in jail because that’s what he really deserves, or do you love your brother enough that you’ll give him a chance at something better?  Do you want him sitting down there hating you, wasting every day building up his walls to shut you out?  Or can you get over whatever ideas you have about what he should be and instead try to help the person he is?”

“He...” Thor tries again, but with far less conviction than before, and the word dies down into a low exhalation of breath.

“Think about what’s best for Loki,” Tony tells him.  “Okay?  Really think.”

Thor grunts.  His head’s down and he’s looking at the floor, scuffing the toe of his boot on the polished stone.  He doesn’t say anything else, and doesn’t look like he’s about to say anything else.  No more arguments.  But no promises, either.  The conversation must be over.

“I know you’re a good brother to him, Thor.  And I know you want him to be happy.”

Thor just grunts again.  It’s over.

So Tony makes his exit not exactly on a high note, but at least on a moderately pitched note with the ambition to arpeggio upwards.  Cautiously optimistic.  And if this plan doesn’t work out, well, there’s always the explosive jailbreak plan B to fall back on.

But when he goes to see Loki the next morning, the doors the dungeon are barred, though nobody will give him a reason why.

Just vague excuses leading to a wrench of a feeling in Tony’s stomach that something has gone very, very wrong.

Chapter Text

One solid day and the following morning is what it takes for Tony to get the suit up and running.  As expected, he has to strip the legs down to a bare minimum to transplant spare parts into the right arm, but after all’s said and done and bolts are tightened and wires are tweaked, he can toss a plum off the balcony and shoot it right out of the air.  Weapons systems in the arms are a go.  He’ll have to make do with one missing plate segment on the forearm, too badly warped and cracked to be reinstalled, but as long as he’s careful not to let anything touch the exposed circuitry underneath it should be okay.  Meaning that it’ll have to be okay, because it’s not like he has any other options at the moment.

The pared-down legs let him walk, but not fly.  He might be able to manage a short, straightforward flight with just the upper body repulsors, but that’s not something he’s about to try by jumping off the balcony just yet.  It can wait until he has access to a large open field at ground level.

And then there’s the helmet.  The big problem.  It’ll take a lot more than cannibalized wire to fix his helmet, with its fried processor and shattered optical display.  In short, there’s no hope in hell of getting it back to anywhere near its original condition.  Best he can hope for is to throw together some kind of rudimentary audio-based system to keep tabs on operating status and power levels.  It’s better than nothing (better than what he had in Afghanistan for sure), though a disappointment all the same.  But he’ll just have to learn how to cope.

He flexes his fingers as he reaches for the faceplate.  His knuckles still hurt.  They still hurt a lot, even after – or maybe because of? – Thor’s insistence that they visit some bullshit metaphysical homeopathic new age buzzword etcetera healer, who did nothing but poke and prod and feel around and ask Tony, in front of a large group of rubberneckers, a lot of invasive questions about exactly how he hurt his hand.  Which Thor answered loudly on his behalf.  Asgardian reiki with a side of shame.  Big surprise that it didn’t work, and Tony’s knuckles are still mottled with ugly bruises in a ring around a scabby cut.

Looking at it makes him feel like shit.  Which is probably a good thing.  Clenching his fingers in certain ways sends a bolt of pain up his entire arm.  Also probably a good thing.  He picks up the faceplate, flipping it over to the sight of splinters of sooty glass on the backside, and grabs a screwdriver.  Nothing to do today but get to work.

ooo

It’s not that he’s forced to stay in his room, exactly.  Nobody said that.  Nobody told him he had to stay in and wait for Thor to come and see him, the way things were when he first arrived.  The door isn’t locked.  So he’s not a prisoner, exactly.  Not like Loki.

But there’s a feeling.  It sits in his gut like an internal ball and chain, keeping him where he is out of fear that maybe, just maybe, it would be in his best interest to keep his behavior in line and not to rock any boats.  There are guards outside his door again.  Four of them.  With weapons.  And while nobody said outright that he had to stay put, their presence is a pretty clear indication of what Tony should do.  If he’s smart.   If he knows what’s best.

He should sit tight and stop trying to see Loki, because that door’s barred anyway, even if his conscience is screaming with a need to act.  He should stay in his room.  He should keep himself out of trouble.  He should work on fixing his armor.  (Just in case.)

Because there’s also a feeling, deeper and darker and heavier than that chain binding him to the room, that something’s about to happen.  And if he steps out of line, he’ll only get caught up in its storm.

ooo

It starts with a nauseating twist in his stomach just as he’s finishing his dinner.  Then it works its way up his spine, walking like prickling little insect legs, turning his skin hot and leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.  People are coming.  He can sense them.  There are seven in total, moving quickly up the stairs towards his bedroom.  Too quickly to be on a pointless social call, and their energy shines with purpose.  So that would make seven people coming for him.

And no time to manually put on all his armor.

Instead, he forces himself to be calm.  He wipes his mouth with the napkin and sets it down neatly on the table.  Sets his knife on top of it.  Slides his chair out.  Stands up.  Pulls down his shirt to smooth the front.  Runs his hand through his hair and takes slow, deliberate steps to the middle of the room, facing the door with a wide stance.  Folds his arms across his chest.  Breathes in.  Holds it.

The door bursts open without a knock, but that’s to be expected, and Tony doesn’t flinch.  It’s Thor.  Thor and two guards.  Thor and two guards and...

“Bow before Odin Allfather, king of Asgard and protector of the Nine Realms!” says one of the two before stepping aside.

Thor and two guards and Odin.  Right.  Thor and two guards is what Tony thought he might see, but Odin?  Here?  Something about that doesn’t sit right, knocking all of Tony’s theories out of alignment.  Odin wouldn’t come to arrest him.  Odin wouldn’t come to boot him back to Earth.  Odin sends Thor to do his dirty work.  Odin would only show up if-

“Tell me, Tony Stark,” Odin begins, cutting off Tony’s train of thought before it even has a chance to form half a hypothesis about this bizarre visit.  He saunters in to the room like a lion, golden and fierce and utterly secure in his power, and pauses at the foot of Tony’s bed.  “Are the rumors true?”

“Rumors?” Tony asks after stooping in a clumsily executed bow.  What the hell does Odin mean?  “Might be true, might not be.  There are always a lot of rumors about me.  What’s today’s story?”

“My son tells me he has finally uncovered the true reason behind your presence here in Asgard.  A reason which, I must tell you, I have been eager to learn.”

Stunned, Tony glances over to Thor, whose neutral face looks a little too... tensely neutral.  Trying too hard neutral.  Did he really not tell Odin about Tony’s whole sideways fairy tale of the quest to save the magical prince until now?  Except no, that makes no sense.  Thor had nothing to gain by hiding Tony’s intentions from Odin, and why reveal anything this late in the game?  Why not three days ago when Tony petitioned for Loki’s release?  Why not when Tony first arrived?

No, something else is going on, and Tony’s not dumb enough to screw it up by opening his big mouth and confirming his ignorance.  So all he says is, “Oh, yeah?”

Odin frowns.  He must have been fishing for something better.  But still he continues.  “It is no secret in this realm that Thor will be king one day.  And that day will come very soon.  As such, I entrust many of my decisions and responsibilities to his judgment.  When you first arrived, it was Thor who allowed you to stay.  It was Thor who deemed it necessary for you to see Loki in prison.   But now we have come to a decision that I believe to be above the authority of a prince of this realm.  As it was I who pronounced Loki’s sentence, I will be the one to uphold it... or break it.  If you can convince me that your demands hold merit.”

Tony can feel his eyebrows slowly rising, though he keeps his mouth shut.  Demands?  Since when did he demand anything?  He asked Thor.  Asked him pretty nicely, too (by his standards, anyway).  No demands.  Requests.  Entreaties, even.  That’s all.  Whatever Thor told Odin, it definitely wasn’t an accurate play-by-play of their conversation.  Or did Odin misinterpret something and jump to conclusions?

Forcing himself to resist the urge to look back at Thor for clues, Tony nods.  “Yeah, well,” he says, playing along with whatever this is for now, “I think my demands are very reasonable.  Given the circumstances.”

“And what, exactly, are your demands?”

Oh, fuck.  Is it really too much to hope Odin will just spell everything out for him so he can agree and pretend he knows what the hell is going on?  This time he does steal another peek over at Thor, but that tight-jawed expression still isn’t telling him a single thing.  The best he can do is guess.

What would Thor have said?  If he went to Odin to report on Tony’s activities in Asgard, but he wasn’t telling the truth, what would he have said?  Is it possible that for once he was on Tony’s side?  That he was actually helping instead of trying to drive a solid steel wedge between him and Loki?  If Thor went to Odin with Tony’s imaginary demands...

“Everything Thor told you,” Tony says.  Loudly.  With conviction.  Blaring out over the unease still churning inside.  “I hope he reported it all to you accurately, because I have some pretty specific demands, but they all boil down to one key point: I’m here to take Loki back to Midgard.”

Slowly, Odin nods, and Tony lets himself exhale a long, silent sigh.  Looks like he guessed right.  “And?” Odin asks.  “Why should I listen to you?”

“Because in the view of Midgard, Loki is a criminal,” Tony replies, sliding right on into guess number two.  “He attacked our land and murdered our people.  He needs to answer for what he’s done.  We had him in our custody after the failed Chitauri invasion, but Thor insisted on returning him to Asgard before he could stand trial and face punishment.  With all due respect, Thor had no right to do that.  The citizens of Midgard are angry at the perception that Loki evaded justice.”  Probably.

“I asked why I should listen to you,” Odin repeats.  “You, Tony Stark.  Why are you here, when by your own admission you regret your role in Loki’s downfall?  Why did your realm not send one of its many kings or chosen leaders to seek custody of Loki?”

This answer might just take him deep into prime bullshit territory, but what other choice does he really have?  “Legality.  I was the one to defeat Loki.  I might regret shooting him, but I don’t regret stopping him.  It had to be done, and I did it.  Therefore, the responsibility of overseeing his punishment falls on my head.  But more than that, he also defaulted on a debt of honor.  Shortly after his arrival he was captured and tortured by a group of rogue soldiers who like to roam around making important people like me miserable.  Thor and I worked together to free him on the understanding that he’d help us track down the Tesseract.”

Odin’s chin dips into the smallest of nods.  He’s heard this part of the story already.

“Anyway, I’m sure Thor’s told you all about that.  I saved Loki’s life.  He was honor-bound to me.  But in the end he betrayed me.”

“You think this broken honor-debt is sufficient to validate your claim?”

“No.  There’s more.  A few days ago, I learned from the queen that Loki attempted to influence my mind and manipulate my free will by use of blood magic.  He tried to turn me into a pawn clinging to the tail end of his crazy scheme.”

“Frigga told me of this.”

Good.  Because if Frigga told Odin about the blood magic, she probably also mentioned how incandescently pissed off Tony was to learn about it, which can only help what he’s going to say next.  “And that’s Loki’s third strike.  First he attacked my home.  My home, my personal home: that’s where he set off his portal for the invasion.  That was my tower he messed with, not just my city and my country and my planet.  My building.  Then he betrayed my trust and his own acknowledged debt of honor.  And finally, he tried to cast his web of blood magic over me.  Me.  So that’s why I’m here.  That’s why I came.  For every way that Loki wronged Midgard, he wronged me three times over.  He owes me.  And I want my goddamn payment.”

Odin’s final nod is sharply defined: purposeful and approving.  He was expecting that.  All of that.  He walks back to the door with the gait of a man who’s just concluded a tricky bit of business in a favorable way, which is a walk Tony’s seen often enough before.  Hell, Tony’s sure he’s done it himself.  The smug, self-satisfied, leaving-the-boardroom-on-a-high-note walk.  Only instead of leaving, Odin holds out a hand, and Thor passes over a rolled-up piece of paper he’d been concealing inside his cloak.

“These are the conditions I am prepared to allow,” Odin says as he unrolls the paper and his single, pale eye scans its contents.  “Loki is a prisoner of Asgard, and this he will remain.  His debt to you does not free him from his crimes against my throne.  But he will serve out his sentence with you for the remainder of your life, however long that may be.  Forty years?”

“Sure,” Tony mutters, trying not to read too much into the wisp of a smirk on Odin’s face.  Go ahead and rub it in, you immortal fuckhole. 

“Loki’s chains will belong to you until your death.  At that time, he will be brought before the court of Asgard for judgment.  If we judge him to have redeemed himself under your authority, he will be freed.”

Fat chance, Tony thinks, but bites his tongue.

“If not, he will return to prison.”

That sounds more like it.

“But beware, Tony Stark,” Odin warns.  “Loki will be your responsibility.  You will answer for his every action, and should he escape your watch, or should he cause harm to any person on any realm under my protection, he will be executed without hope of mercy, and you will be tried for his crimes.”

“Fine by me,” says Tony, at which Odin frowns.  Of course he was expecting Tony to balk at that.  At least a flinch or a moment of hesitation, weighing options.  But the thing is, Tony’s in this for the long haul, and preventing Loki from returning to a genocidal intergalactic war criminal role was already on his to-do list.  “Where do I sign?”

He meant that figuratively, but then Odin holds out the paper roll with a deepening frown, and of course, yes, that would be a contract or some kind of legally binding document.  It’s written in shimmery script that looks almost like an illusion floating on the surface of the page, making Tony’s eyes hurt and forcing him to squint.  When he scratches it, though, the paper shreds and tiny ink-stained fibers stick under his fingernail.  Not an illusion.

“The magic allows you to read our script,” Thor explains, speaking his first words of the evening and drawing Tony’s attention away from the contract.  Next to Odin’s iron glare, he looks almost apologetic. “It may appear strange to your eyes, but there is no trickery in that document.  I swear on my honor.”

“...Thanks,” Tony replies.  But at least it sounds like he’s not the first person to be mistrustful of magic writing.  He has to focus and concentrate on each word one at a time to read clearly, while the others vibrate in his peripheral vision like an optical illusion.  At least it’s short: just a concise listing of all the points Odin relayed to him.  Loki will live under the control of... until such a time as... following the death of... Tony Stark will be responsible for...  It’s all there with no hidden surprises or even sneaky, vague clauses.  There are a few extra points, like a concession for Tony to surrender Loki back to Asgard if he proves to be too much of a handful and a reiteration that Loki will by no means be considered a free man even though he’s no longer imprisoned, but those make sense in Tony’s mind.

The only thing that doesn’t make sense is...  “And then what?” he asks, looking up again.

Thor answers, because Odin’s still too busy looking foreboding and grim.  “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, what exactly is going to happen?  I sign this agreement and... what?  What are the next steps?”

“You sign that agreement, and Loki belongs to you,” Odin answers in a voice every bit as irritable as his face.  “What else would happen?”

Golly, who knows?  Maybe something that completely fucks Tony over?  Because this can’t be it.  This is too easy.  This is too quick.  This is too convenient.  All he does is ask, and Loki’s handed over to him, just like that?  No, that can’t be right.  There has to be something else.  Has to be.  Some catch or trick or weird little thing he’s overlooking.  A clue he’s missing.

He shifts his gaze from Odin to Thor.  Thor’s head slowly ducks down, and then, just as slowly, rises back up again.  Was that a nod?  Some kind of sign?  Is Tony supposed to take that as the all-clear, despite the fact that his trust in Thor right now is about as strong as generic paper towel in a Bounty ad?

On the other hand, though: what choice does he have?

“Okay.  Give me a pen.”

Odin reaches down to his belt and hands over a knife.  “Your thumbprint.”

Right, signing a contract in blood.  That’s neither ominous nor cliché in the least.  But he’s come this far and again: what choice does he have?  So Tony pricks the pad of his thumb with Odin’s blade, smears the blood, and presses a sloppy print onto the bottom of the page on the line below his shimmering, magical name.  “All yours,” he says as he gives the paper and the knife back.

All Odin says is, “Bring the prisoner.”

There were three more, Tony remembers.  He felt the presence of seven bodies approaching, and now he knows why as the other three make their appearance.  It’s not three guards, like he assumed.

It’s two guards and Loki.

They haul him in, one guard holding each arm, and it’s all Tony can do not to lunge forward to catch him as they shove him down to his knees on the floor.  He lands hard and struggles to keep his balance at the impact.  Almost falls forward.  His wrists are chained, locked up in something that looks an awful lot like the shackles Thor had back in Atlantic City, and he’s wearing the same filmy green shirt and sarong Tony last saw him, though the shirt’s been ripped so far down the left side the sleeve’s barely still attached.  Somebody put up a fight.

The thing that really makes Tony’s stomach drop, though, is the fact that Loki isn’t putting up a fight any more.  He kneels in front of the guards, swaying a little and blinking at nothing.  Doesn’t say a word.  Doesn’t make a sound.  Not even a snarl of disgust for his mistreatment, when he should be screaming and raging.

“Come,” Odin says, beckoning to his guards, who immediately turn and exit Tony’s room as smoothly as they came.  Odin himself leaves with them, throwing a handful of words back over his shoulder.  “You may remove his bonds once we’ve gone, Tony Stark.” 

Only Thor lingers, staring down at Loki, then glancing to Tony before turning back to Loki again.  He doesn’t make a sound, either.  He just shakes his head and gives Tony one piercing, pointed look before hurrying out the door after the others.  Leaving Tony speechlessly confused as to what just happened, standing in the presence of...  Is he sure that’s even Loki?  Is this Odin’s scheme?  Illusion somebody (or something) else to look like Loki?  Send in an impostor?  Except what purpose would an impostor serve?  Unless Odin wanted to assassinate Tony and blame Loki, which is... honestly preposterous and Jesus Christ, Tony needs to stop overthinking and just assess the situation.  None of this makes sense.  But spinning through increasingly unlikely scenarios in his head won’t clarify a damn thing.

“Hey,” he says, taking a few careful steps over to Loki.  It gets him no response, and he knows that’s a bad sign, but he keeps on walking until he’s right in front of Loki and can crouch down.  Face to face.  “Hey,” he repeats.

Blank.  Loki’s eyes are glazed and blank, but not in his usual way.  This time it’s not the mask of hidden emotion.  His wide, crystal-blue stare is as open as Tony’s ever seen, only there’s nothing behind it.  An absolute blank, clear as glass and eerily calm.  No fear, no worry, no pain... no recognition. 

“...Okay,” Tony says, heart sinking even further at the sight.  What the hell is going on?  What did Odin do?  (Is this even Loki?  It can’t be Loki...)  “Are you.... Are you under some kind of magic spell?  Did they drug you?  Do you think it means I’ve been in Asgard too long if ‘magic spell’ came to mind before ‘drugs’ to explain your whacked-out condition?”  He tries to smile when he says that, but it feels forced, and Loki isn’t smiling in return anyway.  “Can you even talk?”

“Yes,” Loki answers.

One step in the right direction.  At least that’s Loki’s voice.  “Can you stand up?”

He can.  But he’s shaky, and he sways as he rises to his feet, staggering from one side to the other.  Tony holds out a hand to steady him, grasping his upper arm.

But then there’s the magic.  Which Tony had almost forgotten about, and hadn’t even thought to expect: the lightning-strike of Loki’s inert magic charging up his arm and curling through his skin.  Immediately, he jerks his hand back.  The magic stays with him a few seconds longer, pulsing through his blood before finally diluting itself into nothing more than a feeling of warmth.  He stares at Loki with his mouth hanging stupidly open.  Loki, stumbling backwards, stares at him in return.

“What the hell was that?” Tony asks.  Even though that’s a dumb question, because he knows exactly what it was.  What he meant to say was, why the hell was that?  What in the world did Loki do that he could have used so much magic, enough to cause that kind of electric shock, in such a short timeframe?  The way his shirt is ripped it’s obvious he fought against whoever came to take him out of prison, and fought hard with all the magic he could throw at them.  But other than the ruined sleeve, there’s no sign of any damage on him.  No cuts, no scrapes, no bruises.  Any fight that may have gone down wasn’t done hand to hand.  So again, that begs the question:

“What did Odin do?”

Quietly, Loki looks down at his ruined shirt, as if that’s what Tony’s asking about.  Doesn’t say a word about anything else.

The disheartening silence isn’t giving Tony a good feeling about the answer.  “Okay, let’s... let’s take this one step at a time,” he says “Why don’t you sit down.  Here.  On the end of the bed.” 

Loki follows his gesture, awkwardly sitting, bending his arms out away from his body as far as the shackles on his wrist allow.  Maybe it helps him balance.  He sits, and leans oddly to the side, but manages to find his way upright again.

Don’t think about it, Tony tells himself.  Just don’t.  Because the last few minutes have been too much of a surreal blur and his mind’s still working to catch up and make sense of what he’s seeing.  (Loki.)  It’s Loki.  It’s really Loki.  That one touch of magic threw his impostor theory right out the window.  He knows the feel of Loki’s magic by now, and no way that was anything else but the real deal.  So that’s a positive to focus on.  Loki’s here.  He’s out of prison and he’s here.  Completely messed up, but Tony’s seen him worse, right?  When they teleported out to the desert and Loki was magic drunk, he was in rough shape, but it was only a short-term problem.

“Why don’t we just have a chat for a sec,” Tony says, pulling up a chair so he can sit facing Loki.  “Maybe... maybe work on your memory.”  And pray to anybody who’ll listen that this is only a temporary glitch.  A side effect of whatever they did that Loki fought so hard against.  They couldn’t permanently destroy his memory.  It’s not possible.  Is it?  Fuck, Tony won’t even think about that.

“Do you know where you are?” he asks.  But asking such a simple question, like somebody might ask a stroke victim, makes him feel worse.

That Loki doesn’t roll his eyes and sigh in his usual long-suffering way at being treated so delicately makes him feel even worse still.  Expressionlessly blank, Loki looks over to the darkening cityscape visible through the open balcony doors.  “Asgard,” he says after a moment.

Tony bites the inside of his cheek before forcing himself to ask the next question.  “Do you know who I am?”

Loki looks back at him, head tilted to the side as if he’s thinking.  “I don’t remember,” he says.  Casually.  Inconsequentially.  Like his words don’t hit Tony in a cheap blow to the gut.

“Don’t remember or don’t know?” Tony pushes.

“I don’t remember.  Perhaps I know you.  You are... Tony Stark.   Of Midgard.”

“So you do know me,” Tony sighs in relief.

“Yes.  I think so.  Perhaps.  I don’t remember your name.”

“You just said my name.”

Loki frowns.  “No.  Why would I know that?  I’ve not seen you since...”  His voice trails off and his frown deepens, like he’s thinking.  “You live in a city called Phoenix.”

“Yeah, I have a house in Phoenix.  You remember that?”

Loki has to remember.  The memories might be slipping in and out, surfacing and then hiding again in some blocked corner of his mind, but they haven’t disappeared altogether, and that helps Tony relax a little.  Thinking of Phoenix is good.  It means something, to both of them, and somewhere inside Loki knows that.  His memory isn’t gone.  It’s just hindered.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Shrugging, Loki looks back over at the balcony doors.  “I promised Thor not to say.”

“Thor?” Tony asks, leaning forward.  “You promised Thor?”

“Odin would be so angry if he found out,” says Loki.  Then a demonic grin widens across his face, he lets his head fall back, and he just laughs.

Odin would...  Tony slumps in his chair, hitting the back hard.  So this was Thor’s doing.  A crazy, convoluted, absolutely reckless plan to get Loki out of prison by convincing Odin that Tony had come to Asgard to collect a wanted prisoner.  “Thor?” he has to say again, just to be sure.  “Thor, god of not having fun and stating the obvious, Thor, decided to pull one over on everybody?”

Loki’s laughing too hard to answer, choking on his breath and falling backwards onto the bed.

Well, on some level, Thor being the brains behind a devious plot actually makes sense.  Because who in their right mind would expect Thor to do something like that?  No, if Thor wanted his brother out of jail, people would expect him to make an impassioned plea, or just start busting down walls.  He’s not the type to lie and sneak his way through life.  So when Thor tells Odin the best way to deal with their Loki problem is to hand him over to Tony... Odin listens.  Nothing amiss there.  Just sincere, trustworthy Thor.

“Holy shit,” Tony mutters into his hands.  It’s the best explanation so far, better by miles than anything else he can come up with.  But still not watertight.  There’s something else going on, he can feel it, like a quiet and distant warning in the back of his mind telling him to stay vigilant.  There’s more to this, but for now, the knowledge that Thor’s the driving force behind Loki’s release from prison is enough to set him at least halfway at ease.  He can pry further and try to figure out the rest of the puzzle tomorrow.

For now?  “Maybe it’s time to go to bed,” he tells Loki.  “Have a good night’s sleep, and maybe...”  Maybe, in the morning, some of whatever’s affecting Loki’s mind will have worn off.  It has to be temporary.  If Thor was involved...  Thor wouldn’t allow anything worse.

“Yeah,” he says, reassuring himself more than anything.  “It’ll all be fine in the morning.”

ooo

Tony doesn’t sleep, but this time it’s not insomnia.  It’s cold fear and nerves pulled tight as a wire, lying in the dark with a head full of bramble-patch thoughts all twisted and intertwined so badly he has trouble figuring out where one ends and another begins.  The dark chips away at the relief he felt at Loki’s revelation that Thor was the one to mastermind the escape plan.  Because now that he thinks about it, did Loki really say that?  Or anything at all?  No, all Loki said was that he promised Thor he wouldn’t say why he was here.  Immediately after a round of confusion over who Tony was and whether or not Loki knew him.  Now that he thinks about it (now that he has too much time to think about it), who’s to say that wasn’t some grand delusion?  Loki only imagining Thor freed him, when really...

With a grunt, Tony turns over in bed to look at Loki, who’s now sleeping peacefully after a rough start.  Huddled in a cocoon of every single blanket available, at least he’s peaceful.  He’s stopped talking in his sleep.  It was just names at first, ‘Thor’ and ‘Tony’ and ‘mother’ and more Tony didn’t recognize.  Then scraps of phrases and a few full sentences, both rational and nonsensical.  Irritably telling Thor to put something down before he broke it, and complaining to Tony that he was cold.  Hence the blanket cocoon.

Then nightmares.  Pleading and begging with dream-phantoms Tony could only guess were the Chitauri who’d held him captive, until Loki woke up screaming.  But he’s quiet now.  He’s been quiet for almost two hours.  Tony gently rests a hand on his shoulder, feeling the barest tingle of magic through all those blanket layers.  He doesn’t move.  It’s a deep and restful sleep.  Good.

It’s hard to say what’s more infuriating: being separated from Loki by prison walls, or having Loki so close beside him and yet being unable to do so much as put a comforting arm around him for fear that Odin and will crash through the bedroom door at any second and learn the truth about Tony’s intentions.  And he’s not about to risk a damn thing until he has a better understanding of what might be going on.  A few more days, he thinks, and repeats those words over and over in his head: a few more days, a few more days, a few more days, a few more days.  A few more days will give him a better understanding of where things sit.  Whether or not he’s being watched.  How much he can get away with.

A few days will tell him if this is even real, or just a cruel trick on the part of some Asgardian bastards.

He rolls back over, facing the door to resume his watch.  Turns his back on Loki for now.  It’s easier that way.

A few more days.

Chapter Text

He didn’t intend to fall asleep.  He also didn’t intend to stay asleep so long, waking up to an eyeful of late morning light.  But due to the fact that things haven’t been going according to any form of a plan lately, Tony really shouldn’t be surprised.

He blinks, yawns, rubs his face, and stretches out the stiffness in his back and shoulders.  His skin is cold to the touch and his muscles are sluggish because somebody stole all the blankets and he had to sleep in the open air, but when he rolls over to check on Loki...  It’s just not possible to lay any blame, even on a convicted intergalactic war criminal, when all he can see is a nose and one eye peeking out through a tiny opening in the blanket cocoon.  What an adorable little bastard.

“Hey,” he says through what he’s sure must be a stupid, soppy smile.  He rests his hand on the shoulder area of Loki’s cocoon, feeling the little tingle of magic rise up to meet his touch and having to fight down the urge to crawl in there for a snuggle.  “How’re you feeling?”

 “I’m cold,” is Loki’s only answer.

“How can you be cold in your blanket sauna?”

“I’m so cold, Tony Stark...”

It’s hard to say which is stronger: the worry sinking in Tony’s stomach as Loki shivers, or the elation that rises up at the sound of Loki speaking his name without being prompted.  “So you remember who I am, now,” he says, opting to focus on the positive.

“Tony Stark of Phoenix in Midgard.”

Close enough.  “Good.  That’s good.  And do you know where you are?”

“In Asgard, of course,” Loki replies, sounding like his usual, exasperated self.

Tony grins.  “That was dumb of me to ask, huh?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Does that mean you know why you’re here?”

Groaning, Loki hunches his back and dips his head down, pressing his face into the mattress.  “Odin thinks he suppressed my magic, but it will take far too many witches to do that.  He underestimates everything.  I have more dimensions than what he can see.”

Maybe not exactly like his usual self.  A few glitches remain.  “...Right,” says Tony.  “Any by that you mean...?”

“Of course their attempts failed.  Not enough witches.  He thinks he has the power with only one on each hand, but what can he do with an inverted pyramid?  Nothing.  Perhaps if we were outside the influence of the world in a gathered circle he might succeed, but not now.  Not now.  Not now.  And everyone thinks so highly of him!  Arrogance, that’s all.  Only arrogance.”

“What attempts failed?  What did he try to do?”

“Seal my power!” Loki groans.  “Were you not paying attention at any of the rituals?  To succeed in that magic they need much more than blood.  Blood is so fleeting.  I can wash it away.  Is there blood on me?”

“They used blood magic on you?” Tony guesses as the sinking feeling returns.  The more Loki says, the worse it sounds.  “To seal your powers?  As in, they took away your magic?”

“They tried to stop the currents but needed blood for their dark purposes, and that is the wrong way.  Odin is a fool.  It will not work.  But there is blood on me, Tony Stark; I can feel it on my skin.  It needs to wash away.  I’m too cold.”

“I can run you a bath,” Tony says, already sitting up as he speaks.

Loki nods over a violent bout of shivering, shrinking further into the mattress as Tony climbs off the side of the bed.  “Yes.  Hot water will cure it.”

Alright then.  Tony can run a bath.  And he’s glad to do it, since this feels like he’s doing something instead of sitting like a lump while Loki rambles on in cryptic spirals of sentences.  And maybe it’ll even work.  If he understands anything about blood magic from his conversation with Frigga (and chances are he actually doesn’t, but he’ll have to take what he can get at the moment), the spell doesn’t last if the blood is destroyed.  If there’s any creepy marking on Loki’s skin and he washes it away, that might get Loki back to normal.

He sets the bathwater level near the top of the tub and cranks the temperature up as high as he can stand to touch, then goes back to help Loki out of bed, which is a slow affair with all Loki’s shivering.  They shuffle into the bathroom like classic horror film mummies.  Loki whines when he has to leave his larval form and become a merman.

“Oh come on,” says Tony, pulling off blanket layers and tossing them back into the bedroom.  “Just drop everything.  Get it over with.”

“I’m cold,” Loki whispers though chattering teeth.

“Yeah, I know, but you’re not getting any warmer standing here.  The only way to warm up is to shed the blankets and get in the bath.  Don’t make me force you.”  And he adds silently in his head, Because I’m sure as hell not strong enough to wrestle you into the water.

Loki drops the blankets and immediately curls his shoulders inward, like he’s standing in the middle of an Arctic blizzard instead of a temperate bathroom.  Tony helps him out of his sarong and shirt, the latter having to be ripped off due to the chains around his wrists.  Well, it was shredded to hell already.  No big loss.  Then Loki climbs into the tub, and when he leans forward to brace his arms against the sides...

There’s a dark reddish-brown smear on his back, between his shoulder blades, in the odd, primitive shape of an eye with a line through it.  Part of the marking is cracked and must have rubbed away during the night, but most of it is still intact.  The sight of it makes Tony’s entire body tighten.  Like a warning that maybe this is something he shouldn’t fuck with.  Something he needs to stay far, far away from.  But he swallows that warning feeling and steps up to Loki’s side with a piece of the shredded shirt in his hand to use as a wash cloth.  “Don’t move for a sec, okay?”

“More hot water,” Loki mutters.

“It’s already hot enough to turn your skin pink.”

“I’m so cold.”

“Yeah well,” Tony says, “just keep leaning forward and I’ll see if this helps.”

He dips the shirt cloth in the water before bringing it down on the blood rune, scrubbing at it while trying to ignore the flashes of magic shooting up his arm.  And it’s stubborn: blood itself shouldn’t take so long to wash away.  Somebody must have put extra effort into making sure it would stick.  This rune is more like paint, scratching away a little at a time, bit by bit, until finally nothing is left.  Then Tony washes the area again with soap.  And again, to be on the safe side.

To be honest, he’s half expecting some kind of explosive curse to hit him the second he finishes.  Maybe for the water to turn black and tentacles to erupt from its inky depths, or for Loki to start screaming and glow with the fiery aura of a thousand dragons.  None of that happens.  Tony holds his breath, waiting, for five seconds.  Ten.  Still nothing.  With a sigh, he wrings out the cloth and chucks it into the corner with a mental note to burn it once it dries, in the interest of not taking any chances.

And also in that same interest?  “Okay,” he says.  “I think we should drain this water and fill it up again.  You don’t want to be sitting around in diluted curse blood, do you?”

“I’m too-” Loki starts, but Tony’s already moved around to the front of the tub to press the drain button.

“Loki, I swear to Morgan Freeman I’m not doing this to be an asshole.  I know you’re cold.  But I’m pretty sure the only way to warm you up is to get rid of all traces of the blood magic Odin used on you.  Maybe destroying the rune is enough, but I’m draining the water just to be sure.”

From his awkward fetal position curled up in the bottom of the rapidly draining tub, Loki lifts his head just enough to look up at Tony with one raised eyebrow and an expression of total disbelief on his face.

“Yeah, I know,” Tony says.  “I can’t believe I just said any of that magic shit either.  You’re a bad influence on me.  Your mom is a bad influence on me, and I’m pretty sure all of Asgard is a bad influence on me.  I should be blabbing on about computers and making forced Star Wars references, but instead I’m holding an actual serious conversation about black magic while watching you bathe.  Weird.  And weirder, I’m so busy being worried about your well-being that I haven’t even had time to think about climbing into the bath with you.  You’re a terrible influence on me.”

Stepping back, he pauses just long enough to wipe his wet hands on his shirt.  “Son of a bitch.  Do you realize this probably means we’re in an actual relationship?”

Loki’s answer consists of a grunt and some pathetically mumbled words that are probably ‘I’m cold’ again before he lifts his arm to grope around on the edge of the tub for the temperature slide and the water starts running.  At least he has enough control over his magic to remotely turn on the water, which is a good sign.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Tony says.  “I probably shouldn’t say anything either.  I just talk too much when I get nervous and...”  Seeing Loki in this state, affected by forces he doesn’t understand and that are completely outside of his control, makes him nervous as hell.  “Does the water help at all?”

“Mm,” Loki replies, which sounds like a vague agreement.  As the water level rises he rearranges himself so his head stays just above the surface but his shoulders remain submerged, until the tub is full and he’s sitting with his wet hair draped over the edge.  “It helps.”

“Not so cold any more?”

“Still cold.  Getting better, though.”

“Was it just that blood rune that screwed you up?” Tony asks as he crouches down at the side of the tub to bring himself close to Loki’s level.  “Or what happened?  Did Odin’s spell to mess with your magic make you cold?”

Laughing, Loki leans his head back and closes his eyes.  “You know the answer to that, Tony Stark.  You are clever.  Very clever.  You’ve seen what happens to me in the absence of magic.”

It takes a second for Tony to realize what Loki means, until a memory triggers deep inside his mind.  A little piece of craziness he’d almost forgotten, buried as it was beneath vast heaps of other craziness in the mental folder he likes to label ‘Asgardian shit I have to deal with’.  This memory is of the last time he was faced with supervising screwed-up Loki in a bathtub.

“You’re... trying not to change, aren’t you,” he says carefully.

Loki just smiles in that strange, unhinged way he has going as he lifts his shackled hands out of the water.  “I cannot.  The chains are heavy and dampen all energy.  They keep me where I am even when my body tries to freeze itself from the inside out.  There is no way to work around them.”

Another memory triggers in Tony’s mind, though this time it’s of something he initially wrote off as inconsequential.  He didn’t give it any thought then, but it sure paints an ominous picture now.  “Odin wanted me to take those chains off once he and Thor left.  That’s what he said to me last night.  I didn’t think it made much sense then – why would he even bother mentioning it? – but now-”

“There is a purpose to everything Odin does,” Loki says in a singsong murmur, like he’s quoting somebody, and he snickers inwardly.  “He knows what will happen if these chains come off.  He wants me to lose control and become a monster.  He wants me to kill you.”

“Kill...” Tony repeats, fumbling the word on his tongue.  “Isn’t that a little extreme?  Why would he want to kill me?  Why not just boot me back to Earth?”

“It’s not about you.  Not about you at all.  Tony Stark, you are as meaningless to him as an insect, and he cares nothing for your life or death.  But if I kill you...  If I am the monster who kills you, he has a reason to execute me, don’t you see?  It is not your death he desires.  You are a pawn.  You are an excuse.  You are the bait.”

And up pops another memory, speaking Odin’s words in Odin’s ringing voice:

Should he cause harm to any person on any realm under my protection, he will be executed without hope of mercy...

This would be the catch.  This would be the shoe he’d been expecting to drop all night.  This would be the nasty little fine print hidden behind the too-good-to-be-true contract he signed.  And this would be what he’s now up against.  The vengeance of the king of Asgard lurks like an assassin ready to strike, and all Tony and Loki have to defend themselves is a few guessing games spinning out in Loki’s magic-addled mind.

“Shit,” Tony mumbles into his fingertips, pressing them hard up against his lips. 

Meanwhile, Loki smiles to himself and slides under the surface of the water to blow bubbles.                   

ooo

Thor comes at lunchtime, bringing a tray of food and wearing an anxious expression.  Just Thor this time.  No guards.  No Odin.  Tony watches the door as it opens and for a good few seconds after it shuts just to be sure, but Thor’s alone.

“Tony Stark...” he begins after an uncertain pause.

“What?” Tony asks, not even trying to smooth over any sharpness that might sneak into his voice.  “Surprised to see me alive?”

A look of shock passes briefly over Thor’s face at those words, followed by confusion.  “Why should you not be alive?” he asks.

Tony stares him down and Thor stares right back, not blinking, not flinching, and not looking the least bit guilty.  Well, okay then.  Maybe he’s being honest and doesn’t know anything about Odin’s slippery plots.  Maybe he still thinks everything’s gone according to plan.  Tony sets aside the pieces of helmet he’d been working on and beckons Thor in with a sigh, directing him to set the food tray on the foot of the bed since the table is covered in dismantled armor parts.  “Never mind.  It’s not important.”

“Where is Loki?” asks Thor.

“Bath,” Tony answers, jerking his chin in the direction of the bathroom door.  “He’s been in there for almost two hours, but I think it’s helping.”

“Helping how?”

“Well, you saw what he was like last night.  Totally out of it, vague, spacey...”

The way Thor looks down at his hands and the tray, avoiding Tony’s eyes, isn’t exactly the most innocent of gestures.

“You know what they did to him,” Tony says.  And he tries not to sound too accusing, but it comes out less conversational than intended.

Thor shakes his head.  “I did not see what happened.  Father told me that he was driven to subdue Loki by magic.  He said it was only to make Loki calm, to ensure he did not attempt to escape or harm anyone and to make it easier for the guards to bring him up here, but...”

But even Thor can see through that flimsy lie.  “You know they did more than that.”

Sadly, Thor’s chin drops.  He sits down on the end of the bed in silence for a moment before muttering, “Yes.”

“What?” Tony presses, and within a few steps he’s standing directly in front of Thor, arms crossed, staring imperiously down as if he has any shred of authority here.  “Maybe you didn’t see anything, but you suspect something.  What do you think they did?”

“I do not know.  I had no time with Loki last night to try to speak with him and assess his condition.”

As luck would have it, that’s a blank Tony can fill in.  “Memory trouble,” Tony begins.  “Immediately after you left last night I asked him a couple simple questions.  He knew where he was, but kept getting confused about other things and forgetting or mixing up facts like my name and how he knew me.  When he woke up this morning his memory had improved and he knew who I was, but everything he said came out sounding like he was high and didn’t make a lot of sense.  All I could get out of him is that Odin might have tried to suppress his powers with blood magic.  And he was cold.  Like, freezing, shivering cold.  And I guess that was because his magic was screwed and his body was trying to shift back to Jotun, and Jesus Christ, for the second time today I can’t believe I’m not only having but starting a serious conversation about this stuff...”

He drops down onto the bed at Thor’s side, cradling his head in his hands, and Thor, probably not knowing what else to do, pats him awkwardly on the shoulder.  “I’m sorry, Tony Stark.”

“No, it’s nothing you did.  It’s me.  It’s all me.  I’m just stressed out and my head aches like a bitch, and really, I should’ve expected that coming to Asgard would mean things like magic and people accidentally turning into Frost Giants would become normal.  But that’s beside the point, so back on track...”  Bracing his arms across his knees, he looks over at Thor.  “Any idea what might’ve happened to Loki?”

“No.  I’m sorry.  It could be any number of things.  I am not familiar enough with magical workings to say for certain.”

He was afraid Thor would say that.

“But if Loki’s condition improved overnight, as you say, perhaps he will continue to improve and all will be well.”

Unlikely, Tony thinks but doesn’t bother to say aloud, since there’s nothing much Thor can do on this count.  “Or maybe we should ask somebody who would know for certain,” he suggests, “before Loki gets worse.  Somebody like your mom.”

Thor’s answer is immediate, and harsher than anything Tony was expecting.   “No.  We must not involve my mother.”

“Why not?  If she’s the only magic expert other than Loki who’s on our side...”

“At this moment, my mother is not on our side,” Thor replies.  And Tony almost questions that, wondering what the hell could have changed so fast to alienate Frigga, but decides to hear Thor out first and voice dumb opinions later.  “I came here to see Loki, but also to speak to you, Tony Stark, as we had no chance last night.  I assume from the chain of events that you understand my plan?”

“That I’m supposed to act like I want revenge on Loki?”

Thor nods.  “All of Asgard believes you have come to mete out punishment to Loki on behalf of Midgard.  He is now your prisoner, and you must be seen to treat him as such.  No one must find out otherwise, or I do not know what my father might do.”

“So if I understand what you’re getting at,” Tony says, “I need to up my jerk game and pretend I’m some mustache-twirling villain who horribly mistreats Loki for the benefit of a public spectacle.”

“Yes.”

Right then.  He should probably be appalled at the Asgardian justice system if handing people over to mysterious foreigners for purposes of humiliation and degradation is considered a reasonable punishment, but since it’s currently working out in his favor, he can convince himself to overlook the creep factor just this once.  “I’ll need to grow a bigger mustache.”

“But you see why we cannot involve my mother,” Thor continues.  “As of now, only three people know the truth.  If she were to find out, it would make hiding your true role from my father far more difficult.”

Which means, Tony realizes with a sudden, sour feeling, that Frigga is now one of those people who believes he’s the mustache-twirling villain.  And he’s going to have to play the part and help her along in that belief.  Funny enough, of every unsavory part of this plan, that’s the piece that sits most uneasily on his conscience.  “Well, I guess it can’t be helped,” he says, more to himself than Thor.  Every good scheme has a few casualties.  And this one looks like it’s going to claim any warm relationship he had with Loki’s mom.  “How pissed is she now that she thinks I’ve gone over to the dark side?”

The worst part about Thor’s answer is that he doesn’t answer.  He looks down at the food tray and says nothing.

So that’s that.  Odin thinks he came for revenge on Loki, which is good, except for the part where Odin might be trying to kill him, which is too much for Tony to think about right now so he’s just going to wait and see how things unfold.  Frigga now thinks he’s a vindictive bastard, which is bad, but if he has to choose between being on Frigga’s good side and being with Loki, he knows which one he’s going to pick.  There’s always a chance he can set the record straight with Frigga sometime in the future.  And Thor...

Thor did all this.  Thor singlehandedly maneuvered Loki out of prison and saw him more or less safely into Tony’s care, despite what he made out to be a pretty clear opposition to the idea only days ago.  Thor kicked all his personal judgments aside for Loki’s sake.  And Tony hasn’t even had the good manners to thank him yet.

“So hey,” he says, pulling Thor’s attention away from the tray.  “Thanks for, um...”

“You’re welcome,” Thor gruffly replies.

“Really.  I know where you stand and what you think, and it means a lot to me that-”

“I have already accepted your thanks,” Thor interrupts, clearly not wanting to listen to any of Tony’s sentimental crap.  “You need say nothing further.”

“Okay.”  And Tony doesn’t push it.  He’s already stretched the limits of Thor’s acceptance far beyond their normal boundaries, and he has a feeling Thor doesn’t want to be reminded of that.  At this moment, he’s grateful enough to gladly go along with whatever don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy of silence Thor wants to drop down around the whole situation.  Thor’s efforts brought Loki to him.  He can be grateful from the sidelines.

“I did what I did not for you,” Thor adds, “but for the sake of my brother.  If what you said is true and the greatest chance for me to see him happy again is to let him carry on with... this... then I will do what I can to help him.  But if you are wrong, Tony Stark, and I ever come to regret any part of what I have done?”  He looks up from under the shadow of his brow with a perfect, menacing stare.  “You will regret it far more.”

ooo

After that friendly little warning, Tony and Thor eat their lunch without even attempting conversation, picking at the tray with their fingers and setting aside bits of this and that to save for Loki.  Whatever they think he might like.  Mushrooms, mostly.  Thor’s tray has a whole bowl of mushrooms, and other simple things like plain sliced vegetables and undercooked meat alongside the more froo-froo delicacies of candied everything and stews that are more sauce than substance.  They’re almost finished when the bathroom door creaks open, then both turn in perfect synchronicity to watch Loki’s slinking appearance.

He looks, in some ways, both worse and better.  Worse in that his skin is sickly pale and dark circles hover under his eyes.  Wet hair clings to his face and neck like a drowned rat, and he shuffles out from the bathroom with his sarong carelessly tied around his waist and a blanket scrunched around his shoulders.  But he’s scowling and looking like a miserable little cuss, which, as far as Loki goes, is actually a good sign.  He’s getting back to normal.

“Have a nice bath?” Tony asks.

“No,” Loki growls.

Yep, definitely a good sign.  “You still cold?”

Loki crawls onto the bed and curls up in his blanket with his back to both Tony and Thor, answering only in a surly grunt.  But he has just one blanket, and bare his lower legs stick out, so he must be doing better.  He’s no longer shivering.

“Are you hungry, brother?” asks Thor.

That question, Loki doesn’t even bother to acknowledge.

At least Loki’s dour arrival is a good excuse to pay attention to something other than Thor and food.  Tony gets up off the bed and grabs a pair of black sweatpants from the top of his disorganized clothes pile.  They’ll be too short on Loki, but at least they’ll be (objectively) better than a flimsy prison sarong.

“Here,” he says, sitting back down on the other side of the bed near Loki’s knees.  “I can’t do anything about getting you a shirt until those chains come off, but you can at least put these on.”

Loki takes the pants with one shackled hand, but puts them aside for later.  “I believe the chains can come off now.”

“Yeah?  Out of the danger zone?”

“Only one way to find out,” says Loki, shrugging as he sits up.  “I think everything is stable now.  I feel terrible, though no longer as if my body is trying to shift.  We can try.  But if I tell you to do so, or you see any hint of change, you will refasten the shackles immediately.  Do you understand?”

Tony nods.  “Yeah, I get it.”  Play things safe for now and hope like hell Loki’s right about the worst having passed.

But then Loki holds out his hands in a confident gesture, an expectant gesture, and things hit their first snag.

“So...” Tony asks, “how do I open these bad boys?”

“Pull them apart,” says Loki.

“Just pull?  No levers or switches or anything?”

Loki shakes his head no, so Tony puts both hands on one of Loki’s wrists, taking hold of the puzzle-piece edges of the shackles, and pulls.

In an entirely unsurprising turn of events, nothing happens.  “Um...” he says.  “Just pull?  That’s really all?  I’m not missing a crucial step here?”

“Just pull,” Loki repeats.  “Try twist a little, but it should come apart easily.”

“Easy as in easy for somebody with Asgardian strength?” Tony asks, pulling again and twisting at the multilayered metal. 

“No, easy as in it should fall apart in your hands.  What are you doing?  Simply hold it and pull.”

Nope.  “I really think I’m missing something here.  Or you forgot a step?  Because I’m holding and pulling and it feels like I’m trying to dismember a stubborn Rubik’s cube.  This isn’t working.”

Then Thor has to join in with his two cents, because that always makes everything better.  “Are you pulling it directly apart?”

“Yes, Thor, I know how to pull something apart.  I’m actually pretty good with building and dismantling stuff, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“It should fall apart in your hands,” says Thor.

“Loki already told me that!”

“I already told him that.”

“How about you just do it?” Tony says, moving aside for Thor and gesturing to Loki’s chains.

Both Thor and Loki stare at him like he just said something monumentally stupid, but it’s Thor who answers.  “I cannot.”

“If this is some pointless honor thing...” Tony begins.

“No, I cannot because it will not allow me,” Thor explains.  “The bonds can only be removed by one who holds the authority to do so.  These can only be undone by my father, who placed them on Loki’s wrists, or you, Tony Stark.”

Tony looks from Thor to Loki and back to Thor again with the distinct feeling that he’s missing something.  And he knows this is going to earn him another stupid look, but he has to ask anyway.  “Me?  Why me?  Why would I have authority to remove chains Odin put on Loki if you don’t?”

“You accepted the contract of ownership, did you not?”

Well, yes.  Yes, Tony did accept a contract.  Except when Thor refers to it that way, all he can say is, “...What?”  He looks over at Loki expecting some kind of explosive reaction, only to find Loki staring at him in calm expectation, as if the words ‘contract of ownership’ are nothing out of the ordinary.

“Did you accept it?” Loki asks.

Thor answers on Tony’s behalf.  “Yes; I saw him.”

“And?”

“Um,” says Tony.  And again he has to look from one Asgardian to the other, both of whom are staring right back with questioning eyebrows raised, waiting for his answer.  “Well, yeah, I stuck my thumbprint on it.  But...”

“But?” Loki prods.

“But I thought, you know...  I thought it was total bullshit.  Just some crap I had to agree to so they’d let you go.  I wasn’t taking it seriously.”

Loki falls back onto the bed with a protracted groan of exasperation, as if Tony’s stupidity causes him actual physical pain.  Meanwhile, Thor kicks his way around in an angry little circle, powered by pure frustration and huffing breaths.  “What part of a legal contract is not serious to you?!” Loki snarls.

“The part where I thought this was all just a zany scheme to get you out of jail!  Not a ‘contract of ownership’ or...  Jesus Christ, why would I take that seriously?!”  Who in their right mind would?  Apart from Loki and Thor, of course, who now look like they’re on the verge of pitching a temper tantrum because he ruined Christmas.

“I told you!” Loki says to Thor, who turns around to glare at him over Tony’s head.  “I told you this wouldn’t work unless you included him in the plan, and I told you-”

“And I told you-” Thor tries.

Until Tony cuts over him with, “Wait, you two planned this together?!”

Neither of them pays him the slightest bit of attention.  “I told you,” Loki shouts, “as soon as you came to me with your plan, you need to tell him the details or-”

“I had no time!” Thor shouts right back.  “It would have looked suspicious!”

“Then you should have gone to him first!”

“You played the critical role, Loki!  I needed to know that you-”

“I’m no idiot, Thor!  This plan was so obvious I could have figured it out the moment they came to get me!  It’s Tony Stark who-”

“Hey, I’m no idiot either!” Tony yells over Loki, just to get a word in.  “I caught onto this pretty damn quick the minute you all showed up!”

“Yet entirely missed the importance of the contract!” snaps Loki.

“Because it’s ridiculous!” Tony snaps right back.

You’re ridiculous, Loki’s dramatic, teen girl eyeroll seems to say.

“Arguing aside,” Thor interjects in what Tony can only assume is his responsible adult voice, like he’s talking to a pair of quarrelsome second-graders, “we now have a problem.”

“Oh, thank you so much for pointing that out to us...” Loki mutters.

Whether or not Thor heard that, he ignores it.  “The only way out of this problem is for Tony Stark to recognize the validity of the contract and assume his role.”

“As what?” Tony asks, keeping his eyes on Loki.  “Your owner?  Like you’re some kind of slave now?”

“Yes,” Loki replies.  Totally apathetic about the part where Tony just called him a slave.

“And if I understand what you’re getting at, only a person with authority can take those chains off, and I have that authority, but only if I accept the fact that I now contractually own you.”

Loki nods.  “You must believe it.  The shackles respond to your perception and energy.  If you rightfully believe yourself to have the authority to open them, you will be able to do so.”

How perfectly reasonable.  Believe, and it can be done.  Believe, and you can remove the chains from the wrists of your alien slave-boy.  This is turning into a really horrible bondage space porn adaptation of the little engine that could.  “Just so you know,” Tony says, glancing back and forth between the two Asgardians, “and bear in mind that I’ve done a lot of really, really dumb shit in my day, but this is the absolute stupidest fucking plan I’ve ever heard of.”

Wingus and Dingus exchange a telling look.  “It’s not the stupidest,” says Thor.

“No, certainly not the stupidest,” Loki confirms.

Tony groans into his hands.  “I don’t even want to know.”

“But I will leave this problem to you,” Thor says, taking this convenient opportunity to back away quickly and make his escape.  “You will find a solution.”  Then he gives one resolute nod in Tony and Loki’s approximate direction, and disappears out the door.

“Thanks, Thor,” Tony calls after him as the door swings shut.  “Always knew I could count on you to help out when the going gets tough.”

“He can’t help.”

Loki’s playing with the uneven edges of the cuffs, running his fingers over the metal as if, maybe, if he’s lucky, they’ll just fall apart.  No such luck.  “Yeah,” Tony agrees, “but he could at least sit here and get bored and frustrated like a real member of the team.  Moral support for the rest of us.”

 “You mean for you,” comes Loki’s correction.  “I believe this is strictly your problem.  You are the only one who can fix it.”

“By seeing the light and embracing my true destiny as a slave owner.”

“Why are you so opposed?  Your arbitrary Midgardian sensibilities baffle me, Tony Stark.”

“Why am I so-” Tony begins, but stops himself there.  Is this really a conversation he wants to have with Loki?  Loki, whose idea of a reasonable political maneuver includes an alien invasion?  “It’s not arbitrary,” he starts again.  “Do I really need to call Rogers in to give you a pep talk about eagles and flags and freedom and ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal’?  I just...”  He has to pause to find the right words.  Or hell, not even the right words.  Any words will do to describe what a grand fuck-up this is.  “This is a bad idea.  And trying to be serious for a sec, really not something I want to be part of.”

“But you are,” says Loki.

“Not by choice.  Some dumbass brother of yours who shall remain nameless decided to drag me into his shit typhoon without asking for my input.”

“He does that, yes.”

So Thor plows on through with this half-baked scheme, leaving a trail of destruction that includes Tony now legally owning his boyfriend and Loki stuck in chains until Tony can wrap his head around the concept of now legally owning his boyfriend.  Not to mention a coincidental side-order of potential Death by Odin.  Why does Tony get the idea this brand of Thor-shenanigans isn’t in any way a novel occurrence?  “We’re fucked, aren’t we, Slavey-poo?” he says to Loki.

“Is that you coming to terms with this turn of events?” Loki asks with an amused snort.

“No.  It’s me coming to terms with the fact that we’re fucked.  But maybe if I keep giving you stupid pet names like that one day I’ll accidentally fool myself into believing them enough to get your damn chains off.”

“Or you could try to take this more seriously and recognize your new responsibility.”

“Or you could suck my dick,” Tony mutters, accidentally out loud.

But then Loki stretches out across the bed, slinking over until he’s sprawled at Tony’s side, and there’s a dangerous kind of spark in his eye.  “Oh?” he murmurs.  His fingertips wander up to Tony’s knee, bringing the rush of magic in their touch.  “Now would that be a command from my new master?”

There are probably a lot of things Tony could say to that.  A lot of things.  A lot of relevant things.  The thing he ends up saying, though, is, “Um.”

Loki, the devious bastard, only smirks and traces his lips with the point of his tongue.

Okay so maybe there’s a bit of wiggle room when it comes to this whole anti-slavery stance.

Chapter Text

Once Loki takes the time to explain things in more detail, they actually start to make a bit of sense.  Granted it’s ‘sense’ in the same way Tony now considers magical curses and spontaneous Jotun transformation to ‘make sense’, but that’s better than total chaos, isn’t it?  In any case, Loki goes through the whole thing for Tony’s benefit.  He’s naked and stretched out diagonally across the bed, and as long as Tony keeps petting him – stroking his back, rubbing his shoulders, playing with his hair – he keeps talking.

Three months in solitary confinement might have a way of making somebody a little needy.

It turns out that in Asgard, the words ‘prisoner’ and ‘slave’ are used more or less interchangeably.  Due to a legal system that favors corporal punishment over jail time for your average, everyday crimes, most ‘prisoners’ are offworlders captured in battle.  They enjoy only a short stay in the dungeon before being sold off as laborers or as status symbols to wealthy Asgardians who have exotic tastes in servants.  Nobody stays a ‘prisoner’ for long.  The dungeon is scarcely more than a holding pen for goods on their way to market.

Which makes sense (real sense this time), Tony realizes as he traces the line of Loki’s shoulder blade, given the small size and limited capacity of the dungeon he saw.  He’d assumed at the time that it was one of many.  But no, it turns out dungeon space is prime real estate in Asgard.  Loki, occupying his cell for over three months, was an unusually long-term resident.

“So what makes you such a special snowflake that they kept you in there so long?” Tony asks.

Loki shrugs, and it might be a gesture of punctuation, or it might be a subtle hint that he wants Tony’s hand to keep moving.  “I imagine it’s because selling me would be a terrible idea, and mother wouldn’t let Odin kill me.  But a permanent cell served his interests well.  I was kept out of sight and out of mind and out of the way.  Eventually, I would disappear from the collective thoughts of Asgard, which is, in the end, perhaps even more effective as execution.  One earns no sympathy for being forgotten.”

“But he gave you to me.”

“Because you provided an opportunity.”

An opportunity that will by no means let things end in Tony’s favor.  Yeah.  He remembers this conversation from earlier.  “So you really do think he wants to kill me.”

“Speculation only,” Loki answers, shrugging again.  This one’s a less subtle hint that Tony’s hand is not allowed to stop its exploration of the soft landscape of his skin.  “But I promise you, Tony Stark, Odin did not agree to your request out of generosity of spirit.  No, this is a way to be rid of both of us at once.  You wormed your way into Asgard and were permitted to live only because Thor petitioned for your life.  If you were to die under mysterious circumstances, Odin would hardly be sorry to see you go.  And if I were to be blamed...  Well.  The law is absolute.  A slave who murders his master is put to death without question.  Odin could weep false tears and act as sorry as he wanted over having to execute his own ‘son’, but he would do it in the end.  Now isn’t that a tidy solution?”

Yes.  It is.  Maybe a little too tidy.  Which ushers in a new question: what do they do about it?

“I guess the best thing for us to do, then, is go back to Earth,” Tony says, thinking aloud.  “Distance ourselves from Odin’s plots and try to get on with our lives.”

“Will he let you?”

“I don’t see why not.”  But as soon as the words are out of Tony’s mouth, he begins to doubt them.  There was nothing in the contract he signed about him not being allowed to take Loki out of Asgard.  There was also nothing saying he could.  When he first talked to Thor he made it pretty clear he wanted to split town, but who knows if Thor passed that on to Odin?

More to the point: even if he wanted to leave, how the heck would he be able to do so without Thor and Odin’s help?  Without any HYDRA guns or other energy sources, he’d need the Tesseract itself to open a portal back home.  Good luck getting anywhere near that thing without the blessing of Asgard’s elite.  “I’ll talk to Thor,” he says.  “I’m pretty sure at one point he was keen on kicking me out, so maybe that’s still in the cards.”  His hand comes to rest on Loki’s hip, cupping the curve of bone and giving his warm, pliant skin a gentle squeeze.

Loki reaches behind to swat Tony’s arm.  “Don’t stop.”

“I’ve been rubbing your back for over half an hour.  Who exactly is supposed to be whose slave here?”

The sassy bastard holds up his wrists and shakes his chains.  “Nobody, it would appear at the moment.”

Hm.  He does have a point.  So Tony stretches and sits up and slides over until he’s straddling Loki’s thighs, and gets to work on an actual proper massage.  Loki’s shoulders feel tense, full of knots in the lean lines of muscle.  “You better not tease me too much.  I’ll lose my temper and accidentally decide I own you, and take those chains off.  Then I might just make you spend every waking hour fanning me with palm fronds and feeding me grapes while wearing a decorative golden loincloth.”

“I’ll look forward to that eventuality,” Loki says, settling down into the mattress with his hands folded beneath his cheek.

“Damn right you will.  I’ll make you get me drinks and bring me dinner and hold stuff that I’m working on.  You better prepare yourself for the rigors of being my slave, because it’s not going to be all cuddles and smooching.”

“Yes it will.”

“Okay you’re right, it probably will,” Tony agrees.  “I have robots to do all that other shit.”  His hands move lower, fingertips walking down the path of Loki’s spine.  “But you’re taking this whole slave thing very well.”

“Should I not be?”

“Shouldn’t you be bitching that you’re a god and serving a puny human like me is beneath your fancy-ass status?  Because seriously,” he says, “if I were in prison and the only way I could get out was to be the slave of, I don’t know, Steve Rogers or something, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be this cool about it.”

“And what if you belonged to me?” Loki asks, turning his head and shoulders just enough that he can look at Tony.

‘What if’ has never really been Tony’s favorite game.  For hypothetical fantasy, it always makes him think too much about the truth.  “I don’t know.  It might be okay, but to be honest, I’d probably still freak out and hold a grudge the size of the Grand Canyon and decide I hated you on principle.  I don’t know if I could just, you know, accept it.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

Tony takes a breath, holding it carefully in his mouth.  “It’s not... fear...”

“Do you think I would harm you?  Do you think I would treat you poorly or make you unhappy?  Do you think anything at all would change?”

“...No...”

“And do you think I might hold any of those fears in regards to you?”

“Well, no,” says Tony.  “You know I think this whole idea is batshit insane and I’m only going along with it because Thor didn’t give me a choice.  You’re right.  Nothing’s going to change.”  I hope, he silently adds.

Satisfied with that resolution, Loki lies back down and does his shrugging gesture again, indicating that his back rub is far from over.  “You worry too much.  By all logic I should be the one worrying.  Yet I trust you enough not to go mad with power and sell me to the salt mines.”

“Of course I’m not going to-” Tony begins.  But he doesn’t get a chance to finish that comeback, because the realization of what Loki just said hits him square between the eyes.   Loki trusts him.  Loki trusts him.  Yes, that may have been an offhand, joking comment, but the meaning behind it... the meaning behind this whole damn gong-show of a plan... 

(And what did Tony say when Loki asked what would he do if their roles were reversed, probably fishing around for answers to questions far deeper than anything Tony suspected?)

Groaning, Tony lets himself slump forward until his forehead’s resting on Loki’s shoulder.  Loki was looking for reassurance that Tony felt the same way.  He’s sure of it.  Why else would Loki have even said that, instead of the kind of snarky quip about gods and puny humans Tony was expecting?

Oh, hell.  Now he just feels bad, filled with the certainty that he failed a tiny little test in a massive and spectacular way.  He wraps his arms awkwardly around Loki’s head.  It doesn’t help. 

“Tony Stark, what are you doing?” Loki asks in a tone that can only be classified as ‘judgmental’.

“I’m hugging you.”  Sort of.  He shifts position until he’s lying half draped over Loki, half alongside him, and clings as best he can.  That’s better.

“I don’t want a hug.  You were giving me a massage.  I want a massage.”

“Shut up.  I don’t care.  I’m hugging you.”

Because Loki trusts him.  Maybe not completely.  Maybe not always.  But right now, for this one moment, in this one segregated corner of their lives, Loki really does trust him to look out for the both of them.  To keep them safe.

To somehow get them out of this mess.

ooo

It must be prisoner visitation day, because Odin is next to appear, late in the afternoon, showing himself through Tony’s bedroom door without even knocking.  He’s trailed by two generic palace guards.  And as the king of Asgard paces a slow circuit around the room, his mouth turned slightly down into the beginnings of an expression of distaste, Tony thanks whatever lucky stars are on his side that he was inspired to climb out of bed just ten minutes earlier and get back to work on his helmet.

And also that he insisted Loki put on some pants.

He stands up and does a dumb little nod/bow thing.  At least trying to toss out the illusion of being halfway respectful in case that earns him any brownie points.  (It probably won’t.)  Doesn’t say anything.  What is there to say?  ‘Hello’?  No, that doesn’t seem appropriate, and he damn well doesn’t feel like going for the full-out ‘Welcome, your majesty’.  So he just nods.  Tries not to look at Loki, who’s pretending to be asleep.

Odin likewise doesn’t bother with a greeting.   But he does look at Loki.  “Why is your prisoner in your bed?” he asks, getting straight to the point.  And Tony’s pretty sure if facial expressions could be translated into words, he’d be cursing in disappointment at the sight of the shackles still sitting prominently on Loki’s wrists.

“Keeps him out of the way,” Tony answers.  “I can’t have him on the floor interfering with my work.  I told him to stay there and go to sleep and not bother me.”  Which is one way to interpret the situation.  The other being, of course, that Loki is a lazy bum who refused to get up and help sort through varying lengths of wire.

Odin seems unconvinced, but lets it slide.  Discussing Loki’s (lack of) usefulness obviously isn’t what he came here to do.  No, he came here to waste time and pester Tony.  “Is this your armor that Thor told us about at the banquet?”

“Yeah,” says Tony, though he wishes he didn’t have to, because the rows of damaged parts and pieces sure don’t look all that impressive, lying dormant as they are across the floor.  It’s a sad reflection of his usual high-tech glory, made even sadder by the flawless backdrop of Asgardian supremacy.  “It got a bit damaged on the journey over.”  Except that just sounds like he’s making crappy excuses.

“But it functions?” Odin asks.  “I would like to see.”

“Uh...”

He used to be such a good bullshitter.  He used to always have some slick remark balanced on the back of his tongue, ready and waiting when he needed it.  That was kind of his thing.  Quick wit and cutting words.  But now?  Now these damn Asgardians have a way of catching him unaware and asking just the wrong thing at the wrong time, leaving him feeling unprepared and off-kilter.

He gives himself a mental slap and tries to force a quick reply.  Is there any harm in showing Odin how his suit functions?  Gut says, Yes, yes, and hell yes, and he can’t shake the feeling that something shady might be going on just below the surface.  Unfortunately, common sense says, What choice do you really have when you’re trying to stay on this dicksmack’s good side and not give him any solid reason to kill you?

So he puts on the left arm and as much of the chest piece as he needs to power up, grabs a piece of fruit from the bowl (he’s started calling it ‘soapfruit’ due to an unfortunate aftertaste) and throws it off the balcony in a high, wide arch.  Seconds later, it explodes in a shower of mauve juice as the repulsor blast hits it dead center.

“And that’s that,” he says, turning back to face Odin and trying not to sound too relieved that he didn’t miss one of the most critical fruit-shots in the history of time.  Second only to William Tell, probably.

“Mm,” Odin grunts.  Tony’s pretty sure that’s the brusque sound of a man who’s trying not to be impressed.  “Is this a common weapon on Midgard?”

“Nope.  State-of-the-art technology, copyright me.”

“And how might it fare compared to the warriors of Asgard?”

Ah.  Here comes the real line of questioning.  “I held my own against Thor without too much trouble.”

“So you should be well prepared to join us on a hunt.”

Oh.  No, that’s not the real line of questioning Tony expected.  Now he has to rethink his whole conversation plan.  And thus ends up saying, yet again, “Uh.”

“Good,” says Odin, punctuating his jab of a word with a quick nod.  “Thor has organized a small hunt, to take place in four days.  Nothing too dangerous.  A giant boar has been seen and will make for good sport.”  He smiles in the least friendly way Tony’s seen in a long, long time.  “I will expect to see you there.”

“No no,” Tony tries to say, lunging forward when Odin moves to leave.  “That’s, uh, not a great idea.  Not right now.  See, everything was damaged pretty badly when I came through the portal, and I’m nowhere near done with repairs.  So I don’t-”

“I’m sure that won’t matter,” is Odin’s airy reply.  “Everyone in the realm will want to see the great hero of Midgard set out alongside our own warriors.  If you are indeed as great as you claim, the minor damage to your armor should make no difference.  We are chasing a boar, Tony Stark, not riding to war.”

“There’s also the thing where I’ve never been hunting.  My suit isn’t made for hunting.  You probably want to eat this boar, right?  Not vaporize a large, gaping hole clean through it?  Also I haven’t ridden a horse since 1982.  And that’s an active choice.”

Odin counters with the classic Asgardian tactic of not listening to a single thing Tony says.  “I will inform Thor of your participation.  Be ready by sunrise four days from now.  I will send my guards to escort you to the stables.”

Whatever Tony babbles after him – some inefficient hodgepodge of ‘no’ and ‘I can’t’ – has no effect.  Odin leaves.  The heavy bedroom door slides shut with a metallic scrape.  “Aw, fuck,” Tony says out loud. 

“Well done,” Loki’s all-too-amused voice calls from the bed.

“Jesus balls.  Did you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“All of that?”

Loki’s head rises up to give Tony a questionable eyebrow.  “I wasn’t actually asleep, you know.”

“Yeah, you were just pretending like a schmuck while One-eyed Willy painted me into a corner.”

The eyebrow doesn’t go away.

“Don’t give me that look; I know what I said.”  And it made perfect sense in his head, too.  “Whatever,” Tony continues, dropping down onto the end of the bed.  “Just tell me what to do.  You’re the one with cryptic dad-deciphering skills.  Does this mean I have four days to live before I’m accidentally murdered when somebody accidentally shoots an arrow into my soft, vulnerable underbelly, in a completely accidental hunting accident?”

“Stop being so dramatic.”

“Worrying about being murdered isn’t dramatic, it’s practical.”

“Nobody is going to murder you, Tony Stark,” Loki says, stretching his mouth around a yawn.  “You’re not that important.”

“I’m,” Tony starts, but manages to catch himself before he spits out the rest of that sentence, which would have been ‘important enough to be murdered on earth’.  Spoken in an argumentative tone, of course.  “Right.  How about we move on past the numerous stupid things I’m in danger of saying right now and get to the point.  Why invite me hunting?  If not murder, something only slightly less shitty is in the works.”  Crippling dismemberment, maybe.

“Not murder,” Loki confirms.  “If would serve Odin no use to kill you.  If you die and the blame is placed on anyone but me, he stands to gain nothing.”

“But?” Tony asks.  There has to be a ‘but’.

Loki hums his way through a thoughtful pause, rubbing both hands over his eyes.  “But...  It could be an attempt to humiliate you.  Chip away at your legend one embarrassing blow at a time.  You fail miserably in this hunt, which you likely will if you don’t even know how to ride a horse, and Midgard’s great warrior becomes nothing.  If the people lose interest in you now, they will care less when you die.”

“When I die?  What about if I die?”

“Fine,” Loki amends with an exaggerated eyeroll.  “If you die.”

“Damn right if I die,” says Tony.  He crawls up the bed to lie down next to Loki and snug his arm around Loki’s waist.  All this talk of murder might be putting him in need of a cuddle.  And, more important, a quick, unauthorized grope.  Loki pretends to be annoyed by the gesture, but makes absolutely no effort to free himself.  “So I guess this means I should spend the next four days getting my shit together.”  Finishing up the helmet.  Reworking the leg situation if he’s going to be riding.  Making sure he can manage at least a short flight on just upper-body power, because if a giant boar starts charging in his direction, there’s no way in hell he’s going to trust a horse to get him out of the way.

“Or,” he says, thinking out loud now, “we try to get back to Earth ASAP before anybody here has a chance to murder, assault, humiliate, or otherwise inconvenience me.”

“How?”

“Lemme work on that.  I’m usually pretty good at problem-solving.”

“You know any viable solution you come up with will require my magic.  And that means these shackles need to come off.”

“Yeah.”  Tony knows.  Every tiny clink made by every tiny movement of the chain reminds him of that fact.  “I’m still working on that, too.”

ooo

They can juggle three plans at once.  Even though it’s more like Tony juggling three plans at once, trying to fix his armor, think up a way back to Earth, and talk himself into the mentality required to remove Loki’s chains.  Meanwhile, Loki tags along like a backseat driver making unhelpful, antagonistic comments, because he’s grumpy at having been hauled out of bed to actually do something instead of moping around like a dying sloth.  “That will never work,” Loki insists, looking down his nose at the half-soldered mess at the base of Tony’s helmet.  “What are you even doing?”

“I am trying to make the best of a bad situation,” Tony says through his teeth.  Honestly, this would be a truckload easier without any forced participation (slave labor), but he’s determined to keep Loki around on principle.  The more Loki complains, the longer Tony’s going to make him ‘help’.  “Give me another blue wire.  Try to cut one longer than five inches this time.”

Loki gives the scrap wire wad a poke with his finger.  “I don’t see any.”

“It’s right there.  Right next to your hand!  Just untangle about nine or ten inches for me and straighten it out.  The blue one.  Right there.”

“I don’t see it.”

Maybe because he’s staring off at the wall instead of looking at what he’s supposed to be doing.  And he’s lucky Tony still feels bad about that punching incident the other day, otherwise he’d probably get a soldering iron thrown at his face right about now.  “You’re the shittiest slave in the galaxy, I hope you know,” Tony says as he grabs the wire to untangle it himself.  “You’re not helping with any aspect of any plan.”

“That you know of,” Loki answers vaguely.  Because yes, that’s exactly what Tony wants to hear.

“You could try being visibly helpful and work on this wire.”

Loki sighs like the horribly tormented political prisoner that he is.  “Or, you could stop wasting so much time, insisting on being entirely self-reliant, and buy new, untangled wire.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to get coated copper wire on Asgard?”

Another sigh.  “Tony Stark, Asgard was not built on clouds and unicorns.  We have supplies.  How do you think the bathtub works?”  (You idiot.)

Okay then.  Asgard has wire.  Good to know.  That little tidbit of information might just make up for most of Loki’s asinine behavior, but only if they can get over one more hurdle.  “...I don’t have any money.”

Words never before uttered by Tony Stark.  That felt weird to say.

Without any explanation, Loki gets up off the floor, grabs the blanket he’s been wearing as a makeshift shawl/cape, and heads for the door.  “Follow me.”

“Why?” Tony asks, though he still gets up and follows.  “Is a robbery about to go down, courtesy of us?  Considering our whole situation at the moment, that might not be the best idea.”

“No.”  That’s all Loki says.  Just one grouchy syllable as he pulls the door open, explaining absolutely nothing.

Tony keeps following even if he’s not 100% sure why or where they’re going.  Maybe because he’s still a little pissed off at Loki and doesn’t really care if they get in trouble for this.  Also maybe just because he’s sick of being stuck in that one room, trying to pull a miracle out of his ass with insufficient materials.  So Loki leads the way through the corridors, up two flights of stairs, and Tony silently trails him.  They slip behind a pillar to avoid the eyes of a pair of arguing guards, then Loki finally stops in front of a tall, bronze door.

It’s locked.  That doesn’t appear to bother him.  He runs his hands down the center, pausing over an indented curve.  And with a soft click, the door slides open as if it weighs nothing at all.

“What room is this?” Tony asks when they step inside.  Along the walls, golden sconces light up in sequence to illuminate the space.

Loki closes the door behind them.  “Mine.”

It’s a big room, almost twice as large as Tony’s, with a sloped ceiling so high it’s still dark with shadows even when the golden lights reach full brightness.  A seating area with chairs and tables and something like a spindly dollhouse sofa divides the front of the room, decorated with bookshelves and display cases housing a few bizarre artifacts, from the bed in the back.  Everything’s in pristine condition.  Not a wrinkle in the area rugs, not a cryptic do-dad out of place.  Only it’s all covered in a substantial layer of dust.

Nothing in this room has been touched in a long time.  Still full of Loki’s things.  Probably exactly as they were on the day he left, and the static emptiness of it all...  It leaves an uneasy feeling in the back of Tony’s mind.  Like he’s intruding on the past.  Like an old version of Loki – a Loki who no longer exists, a Loki who once lived here but has long since faded under the burdensome weight of the universe – silently watches him from somewhere just out of sight.  Watches and judges.  A shiver drops down his spine.

If Current Loki feels the same in any way, he doesn’t let it show as he heads straight for an area of blank wall across from the bed and begins running his hands over it just like he did to the door.  Nothing happens.  Looks like whatever’s hidden there will take a bit more work.

So while Loki’s fiddling with that, Tony pushes aside any feelings of weirdness and distracts himself with a good snoop through everything in the front half of the room.  Those metal animal figurines might be toys.  There’s a vase of flowers that look like they’re made of gray crystal.  To the left, a mesh sphere that might have a purpose or might be decorative.  To the right, an alien-looking skull and a sharp shard of milky red rock.  Then the books.  Fewer than Tony expected, and the ones he picks up to flip open aren’t anything special.  Diagrams of plants.  What looks like an Asgardian math textbook.  Boring.

He’s not sure why, and it’s not anything he can say he ever really thought about, but now that he’s standing here he knows this isn’t what he pictured Loki’s Asgardian life to be like.  Something’s off.  This is all... impersonal.  It’s a display.  It’s stuff that could belong to anyone (or at least anyone with an interest in bizarre collectables).  It’s too neat and too organized and too sparse, and there’s no way this is all Loki has to offer up for creeper-spying.

“So where’s the rest of it?”

Loki shoots a glare back over his shoulder.  It’s half irritation at the question, half frustration that he still hasn’t remembered the secret handshake to get into his hidey-hole.  “Rest of what?”

“Your things,” says Tony.  “This can’t be it.  I had you mentally pegged as a hoarder.  You’re not the kind of guy to let anything go emotionally, so I’m assuming that same ‘elephants never forget’ motto goes for physical things too.  Where’s all the stuff?  In there?”

If Loki had a response to that, it would probably be, ‘I’m not going to dignify that with a response’.  At least that’s what his continued glare implies.  He goes back to his wall touching, and with the superstrength of minor annoyance coursing through his body, manages to unlock the hidden panel.  Opens it just enough to slip his arm inside and fish out a small leather sack.  Clicks it shut again immediately.

“It’s in there, isn’t it,” Tony says.  “Your secret dragon hoard.  I knew it.  What do even you have in there?”

“Nothing of that concerns you,” Loki answers, dropping the bag into Tony’s hands.  “This is all we came for.”

It’s heavier than Tony expected, and full of oddly angled pieces with corners that jut through the thin leather.   “Money?”  It doesn’t feel like money, but then again, who knows what space money is supposed to feel like?

“Yes.  More than enough to buy whatever supplies you may need to repair your armor.”

“Can we draw a dollar sign on this?  I’ve always wanted a bag of money with a dollar sign on it.  You’d think that’s something I’d already have, but no.”

The growl in Loki’s throat sounds like a hybrid of dangerous space warrior and teenager whose parents are trying to ruin his life.

“Oh come on, that would be funny.  Where’s your sense of humor?  Are you still mad at me for making you get out of bed to help?  Because lemme tell you, sleeping twenty hours a day isn’t going magically show us the way back to Earth.”

“Neither is your armor,” Loki snipes back at him.

Yep, still mad.  “Maybe not, but the way my life usually goes, you should probably believe me when I say I need it ready for action.  I’m pretty sure we’re not getting out of here in the next four days.  That’s realistic thinking.  We need to plan for the long-haul, Loki.”

Loki raises his wrists, brandishing the chains like an accusation in Tony’s face.  “And this?  You think fixing your armor is more important than fixing this?!”

“No, but I think fixing my armor is easier, something tangible and productive to start with, and...”  Sighing, Tony takes a step back.  This is going downhill real quick.  “Okay, why are you so agitated?  You were sullen when we were working, giving me the silent treatment on the way over here, and now it’s time to bitch me out for doing the best I can?  Is your magical screw-up causing violent mood swings?”

“You are wasting time!” Loki shouts, completely ignoring the question.  “All you care about is that armor, not even bothering to consider that if Odin comes back tomorrow and sees these chains still intact, he will know you lied about accepting the contract!”

“Oh yeah?” Tony shouts back.  He shouldn’t, but he does.  The sound rises up from his lungs without thought, dragging him into this argument before he can even think about where it might be headed.  “Whose dumb idea was it to make that contract in the first place?  Not mine, that’s for sure!  So I don’t know why you’re so pissed off all the sudden because it turns out I’m a total failure at doing something I don’t want to do, placing all this blame on me!  Maybe you and Thor should’ve thought your plan through a little better and gone with something that doesn’t hinge on me having to change my whole world perception in the space of a few hours!”

“You’re not even trying!”

“Of course not!  I’m a wealthy, white, American male in my forties!  I hate having my perception changed!  You picked the worst possible demographic of person to drag into this!  Next time grab a college student: they’re so eager to look progressive they’ll go for literally anything as long as you tell them it’s a mind-expanding cultural experience!”

“You think this is a joke?” hisses Loki.

“No, I think it’s a catastrophe.  A joke has a punchline.”

“You think Odin will show either of us any mercy if he finds out what we’ve done?!”

Loki steps in close.  Too close.  Menacingly close.  Close enough that Tony can feel the heat of his body.  He stares down through slitted eyes, and Tony forces a conscious effort into keeping his feet planted firmly where they are.  Not backing up.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Tony says.

Except he might be.  His heart beats quicker, and blood rushes through his veins.  Twice the speed.  He’s sure.  Loki can probably see it pounding in his neck.

“No?” Loki murmurs.

“Okay well technically yes, you’re freaking me out.  But.”  But the room’s golden light gleams so nicely off the disarrayed curls of Loki’s hair, off the corners of his darkened eyes, off the triangle of pale skin left exposed where his blanket-cape gapes over his shoulder and chest...  It’s possible the speeding heart and pounding blood aren’t entirely caused by fear. 

“But?”

“But, oddly enough, it turns out you being terrifying doesn’t diminish my capacity for wanting to have sex with you.”  A pause.  He nods.  “Actually might increase it.”

Slowly, Loki nods back.  “Good,” he says in his cold and, yes, terrifying voice.  And he leans in, pressing his lips against Tony’s ear to whisper, “Then fuck me like you own me, Tony Stark.”

There are things in the world that Tony doesn’t need to be asked to do twice.  This is one of those things he doesn’t even need to be asked to do once.  He’s moving before those words are complete, grabbing Loki by the shoulders and slamming him back against the wall.  Kissing him.  Hard.  Mouths crashing together, frantic and demanding, and maybe his lip is bleeding from the graceless violence.  But he doesn’t care.  His hand slides up around the back of Loki’s neck and pulls him closer.  He’s not letting go.

He can feel Loki’s groan against his teeth.  Hear its sound through his skin.  Loki’s tongue pushes against his...  He pushes right back.  Twists his fingers in the tangled hair at the base of Loki’s skull.  When Loki gasps, Tony bites down on his lower lip.

His knees pry Loki’s apart.  Shoving his way closer.  (It’s not close enough.)  Pressing his body flush against Loki’s, thighs and hips and chest and shoulders.  Close enough to feel the flexing of muscles and the angle of bones.  (Not enough, not enough.)  Loki’s hands are on his waist, dragging him in.  Loki’s chain is between them.

“Lift your arms,” he whispers.  Mouth on Loki’s mouth.  Words spoken into Loki’s ragged breath.

But Loki has a better idea, lowering his hands instead, letting one of them slip between their bodies to the button on Tony’s jeans.  His fingers flick it open with practiced ease.  Trace the zipper.  Thumbs catch the waistband, shoving it down.  And it’s Tony’s turn to gasp (clenching his teeth, squeezing his fist in Loki’s hair, leaning helplessly forward until his cheek rests against Loki’s shoulder) when Loki’s hand closes around his cock.

Then Loki moves in a blur and suddenly Tony’s the one with his back to the wall, grasping for anything at all to brace himself, palm slick with sweat against the smooth surface.  Loki’s sinking down.  Kneeling.  Hands pushing up Tony’s shirt.  A wet-lipped kiss lingering on the hot skin below his navel.  The narrow point of a tongue drawing a pathway lower.  Intimately warm breath between Tony’s legs.  Tony’s head drops back and his eyes close as he strains towards what he knows is coming (what he wants, what he craves, what he so viciously, desperately needs).  And Loki complies.  No hesitation.   (This isn’t a game, no time for teasing, no time for a coy, drawn out dance when the inferno’s raging.)

It’s still not enough.

There’s too much wasted space, with one hand locked on the back of Loki’s neck but the other clawed with fingernails scratching down the glassy wall.  Too little contact.  Too much distance.  It’s not just this he wants.  Not just pleasure.  Not just a quick blow job up against a wall.  It’s Loki.  All of Loki.  Every part: arms and legs and the curve and hollow where his shoulder meets his collar bone and the slight ridges of muscle across the plane of his stomach and all the sensitive, secretive places...  He wants naked skin against skin.  Heated and flushed and slick with desire.  Writhing and panting beneath him.  Something he can feel against the whole of his body.  Something he can claim.  Something he can control.

“Ah...” he gasps.  “Exactly... how many people... have you screwed... in that bed over there?”

Loki leans back far enough to look up at him.  Sly smile.  “Probably one too few.”

“Thought so.”

He stumbles as Loki pulls him across the room, kicking off his jeans before falling onto the mattress.  His shirt comes off easily, with help, and Loki’s pants.  And his arm’s around Loki’s waist, and Loki’s legs spread apart so easily, wrapping around his hips...  Skin against skin.  His teeth against Loki’s throat.  Blood pounding beneath his lips.  The heat and presence and solid reality of Loki’s body beneath his own.

“Here,” Loki whispers, bumping something into his hand.

It’s a shallow jar of some kind of oily paste, too thick for Tony to guess what it might be, but he can sure guess its purpose.  No questions needed as he coats his fingers and reaches down to stroke the cleft of Loki’s ass.  Loki pushes into the touch, parting his legs obscenely wide.  Growling like a feral beast when the first finger slides inside.

“Is that what you want?” Tony asks.  Lips on skin.  Voice barely more than a sigh.

“I told you what I want,” Loki rasps back.

(Fuck me like you own me, Tony Stark...)

Two fingers.  Less than gentle.  Loki’s thighs tense and tighten around Tony’s hips.  His back arches off the bed to the sound of a hiss through his teeth.

 (Like you own me...)

The ghost of Loki’s breath and the cadence of those words still tingle in Tony’s ear.

This is what he wants: Loki, on the bed.  Loki, undressed.  Loki, with his arms raised above his head, the chain of his shackles twisted around his hands.  Loki, staring up in mute desire.  Loki, with the heat of lust burning through pale skin.  Loki, who brings out his worst and his best and makes Tony want to do a thousand awful and sublime things to that perfect body.

Maybe he’ll do them all, one by one.  Just start by pressing the head of his cock up against Loki’s waiting entrance.  Pushing past that barrier of resistance in one smooth motion.  Loki’s body takes in everything he has (oh God the sound Loki makes, that razor-edged inhalation of half a word, urging him on) and he sets a harsh pace.  One of Loki’s knees slides up.  Hooks around his waist.  Pulls him in.  He lets one hand find its way down between them to Loki’s hard shaft.  Fingers squeeze and palm roughly strokes.  (This is fast and incendiary and out of control and neither of them is going to last...)

Tony’s favorite moment is that split-second in time where Loki’s veneer begins to crack.  When the calm mask shatters and the protective armor in his eyes evaporates, disappearing piece by piece.  And he lets his guard down.  And he’s just Loki.  He’s not a prince of Asgard and he’s not an enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D. and he’s not a warlord or a prisoner or a trickster; he’s just Loki.  Disheveled halo of dark hair on the pillow.  Perspiration beading on his chest.  Gasping for air.  Chasing pleasure and bucking his hips and driven by the same need that’s burning deep inside Tony.  Just Loki.

He comes with a violent arch off the bed, jerking upwards with his head thrown back and mouth stretched open in a silent cry.  Spills over Tony’s hand as Tony strokes him all the way to shuddering completion.  Tony follows a moment later, the tightness and heat of Loki’s body pushing him over the edge.  (Fire flows through their veins.)  One final thrust.  Buried deep.  The shockwave of orgasm rips through his body and steals his breath, his strength, until his arm shakes with the strain of supporting his weight.  He lets it go, falling onto Loki’s chest.  His face finds Loki’s neck.  Damp with sweat.  He bites down to stifle his moan against Loki’s skin.

Searching for a kiss, Loki turns towards him.  First catches his ear, then his cheek, then his mouth.  A lazy kiss.  Soft.  Exhausted.  Slowly, Tony moves over to lie at Loki’s side.  But he keeps one arm over Loki’s chest.  Might be a possessive kind of arm.  And a possessive kind of knee between Loki’s thighs.

Loki holds up his shackles.  “Try now.”

Tony’s head is still clouded and spinning, but lifts his hands to Loki’s wrist all the same.  Fingers fumble over the complex shape.

Nothing happens.

“Nope,” he groans, letting himself drop back down onto the bed, eyes falling shut.  “Not yet.”

Disappointed frustration colors Loki’s huff of breath.  “I thought that would work.”

And Tony’s eyes snap open again.  “Thought what would work?”

“That.”  The meaning is obvious.  “You.”

“What, you mean one round of rough sex after a minor argu-”

Oh.  The question falls apart on his tongue.  No need to finish: Loki’s motives are blindingly clear.  So that’s what this was all about.

“You did that on purpose,” Tony says, shifting so he can prop himself up on one arm.  “You tried to start a fight on purpose because you thought I’d...”  Lose my temper and accidentally decide I own you.  Isn’t that what he told Loki earlier?

Loki stares back at him with an unsurprisingly blank expression.

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” he groans.  “Loki...”

Didn’t they just talk about this?  Didn’t they just have a screaming fight about this?  Only days ago?  Yes.  They did.  That whole ill-fated talk about Loki’s secretive little plans, trying to manipulate people into doing what he wants.  But Tony’s too tired to light that powder keg again.  He’s too tired, and this really isn’t the right time

He slumps back down.  “We’re going to have another talk about this as soon as I can think with my head-brain.”

“I thought it would work,” Loki just repeats.

“No,” says Tony.  “Not gonna work.  Your plans for trying to make me do something don’t work.  Just stop.  Under normal circumstances, if we were wearing clothes and you weren’t being cuddly, I’d be really mad at you right now.  I thought we went over this.  I thought you agreed to stop fucking me around.”

“Oh, Tony Stark,” Loki whispers, kissing the curve of his cheekbone.  “I will never stop fucking you.”

“That is not what I said.”

“I know.  But it’s what I said.”

Well... can’t argue with that.  But.  “Just so you know, I am going to make you regret this.”

For some reason, Loki doesn't look like he takes that threat very seriously.

Chapter Text

“It’s a camera, Loki.”

The patented ‘you idiot’ glare is strong today, shining out full force as Loki leans back against a stone archway. “I know what it is. I asked you what you were doing.”

“I’m playing Tetris on it,” Tony snaps back. “What the hell do you think I’m doing? It’s a camera. I’m taking a picture. Quit messing around and just smile for me, will you?”

Loki smiles. A nasty, mocking smile. His top lip curls back in a horrible little goblin grin, but Tony’s so done wasting time on this project he snaps the picture anyway. The best thing he can say about the resulting image is... well, it looks a lot like Loki. Asshole face and all.

“Why do you even want pictures?”

“Because,” Tony answers. “It’s what tourists do. They take dumb pictures of buildings and fountains and dogs and stuff to force their friends to look at when they get home. And I have a lot of friends back at S.H.I.E.L.D. that I would dearly love to subject to three thousand photos of Asgard. The more you’re in, the better. Work with me here. Move over about ten feet to the left so I can get one of you with the palace in the background.”

“We’re supposed to be buying supplies,” says Loki, but he still drags his feet over to the spot Tony pointed at and makes a half-assed effort at posing in a way that hides his chains under the weird poncho cape he insisted on wearing.

“We are. We’re on our way. It’s not my fault the road to supplies led through this nice park and it happens to be picture day. Now smile nicely this time.”

“I have no interest in smiling to appeal to your ridiculous human conventions.”

“Yeah well lah-di-dah,” says Tony. “You’re not doing this for my ridiculous human conventions. You’re doing this to make Nick Fury very uncomfortable. Think of it that way. Say cheese.”

“What?” Loki asks, and Tony manages to take a photo mid-word. Mouth open, stern eyebrows.

He’d erase it if it weren’t one of only five he’s taken so far. “Okay so we’ll work on your modeling skills. Go stand by that fish statue under the trees. If you can’t smile, at least try to look... not murderous.”

This photo comes out decent. Actually, it’s pretty nice. Maybe Loki looks a little bored, but the light filtering through the trees catches half his face with highlights of gold along his forehead and cheek, leaving the rest in soft shadow. It’ll do. Tony shuts the camera off and slips it into his pocket. “Alright, we can try again later.” Maybe once Loki has a better understanding of the crazy Earth custom that is candid snapshots. And maybe once Loki has those chains off, Tony has his suit fixed, and everybody’s more in the mood for frivolous time wasting. “So, supplies?” he asks.

“Follow me,” Loki answers with a nod.

The path through the park leads to an elaborate wrought iron (or wrought something) gate twisted into Celtic-looking knotwork, then onwards down a wide street lined with trees. A glimmer of an illusion settles down over Loki’s face, changing his features just enough that he’s not immediately recognizable. But he still pulls his hood up and keeps his head ducked down the moment they’re in public view. Easier not to be noticed at all. Tony’d do the same, except there’s so much stuff to see and a hood gets in the way. There’s an impossibly tall and thin spire up ahead, obviously used for something more than decoration because its white-gold walls are interrupted every now and then by small windows. Overhead, a glassy, translucent bridge spans between two fortress-like turrets on either side of the road, letting pedestrians pass from one to the other. A plaza off to the right is capped with a deep blue dome that simulates twilight in the bright morning sun; it’s full of robed men and women holding quiet but intense conversations.

The spacious avenue narrows down to a cramped corridor as they progress, and the concentration of people more than doubles. Lots of people. Laughing, shouting, and drinking. Especially drinking. (Is every business in this area some kind of ye olde Asgardian pub?) Thick crowds roll by on all sides, and Tony steps up closer behind Loki’s back just to makes sure he doesn’t lose him. Then Loki makes a sudden sharp turn and follows a winding alley that looks and feels like they’re in the bottom of a sandstone gorge, the way the buildings loom up so close on either side with barely any room for two people to pass. It’s hot in this part of the city, away from the sprawling, airy palace. There’s a smell. Not necessarily a terrible smell, but not a pleasant one either. Like mud and old cooking with a hint of dog. A constant undertone of stale beer.

“I’m feeling a little claustrophobic,” Tony mutters as somebody shoves past him, knocking his shoulder.

“In here?” Loki asks. “Already?”

What does he mean, ‘already’? Tony looks up, but the sky’s turned into nothing more than a distant ribbon overhead, choked out by continuous walls that have to be close to twenty stories tall. “Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of being trapped in tight corridors or... anything that resembles a cave.”

“I’m sorry,” says Loki, sounding not the least bit sorry at all. “But you’ll have to live with it. This way.”

Turns out ‘this way’ involves turning down an even narrower alley. Then... “Is that a staircase?”

“You might want to put your hood up,” Loki replies in a stunning feat of avoiding the question.

Yeah, it’s a staircase. Dusty stone and well worn, it descends into a dimly lit market that Tony would have to say is underground in both senses of the word. He counts over two hundred and forty steps before they finally reach the bottom. And this part resembles a cave. It really, really resembles a cave. Probably because it is a cave. An impossibly vast, sprawling cave lit by dim orange lamps, and it must stretch for miles beneath the city. Some pillars and sections of wall are finished, smooth and painted or even covered in tile like an overgrown subway station. Others are rough, untouched rock that lend to the whole cave experience. Well, isn’t this the bee’s knees.

Just a market, Tony tells himself as he follows along and sticks to Loki’s ass like a shadow. Just your average, everyday, sketchy market full of...

A butcher hacking away at the enormous carcass of a mystery animal. Dozens of knives and swords hanging from chains, watched by a man with a face like a Saint Bernard. A wild-eyed woman screaming obscenities at a man who’s desperately searching his pockets for money to pay for the pancake sticking out of his mouth. A pen of barking dogs happily chiming in with their addition to the cacophony. Displays of spices and produce and weird glowing crystals. Tables of all kinds of crap, clothing and dishes and books and jewelry and weird metal things Tony can’t even begin to identify. A lot of it looks used. A lot of it looks like it was probably stolen by the shifty-looking characters selling it.

“Is this place legal?” he ask Loki, voice low.

“Of course it’s legal. Something this size, do you think it would be able to hide from the law?”

Oh. Right.

“This is the unregulated market,” Loki adds, and he pauses to frown at an old crone squatting down to urinate behind a stall that looks like it might just be selling hair. “Yes, it may be a little... ah... rougher than the clean and friendly open-air shopping streets, but you’ll find more variety down here. Also some, shall we say, difficult to find items. Things the more reputable vendors might hesitate to stock.”

“What the hell’s so disreputable about wire and rivets?”

Loki shrugs. “Nothing. But I have a few other purchases I need to make.”

“That doesn’t sound at all shady and villainous,” Tony mutters. And in some small way, he’s glad the screaming pancake woman drowns out his words so Loki doesn’t overhear.

They buy the wire first, in an overcrowded little sub-cave full of tools, scrap metal, and broken gadgets. It’s hot from the blaze of a nearby forge, and dimly lit, and everything’s dirty, but even bad conditions can’t stop Tony from poking around while Loki tells the stall owner what they’re looking for. The pile of wheels against the cave wall is nothing new, but the table covered in neatly arranged little items grabs his eye and pulls him in. He picks up a grimy, blackened tube, presses his thumb into a depression, and nearly drops the damn thing in surprise when a white-hot flame shoots out the end.

“Tony Stark...” Loki warns, not even bothering to turn around to see what happened.

“I think I need this,” Tony answers back.

“You don’t even know what it is. Stop touching things.”

“As if you can stop me from touching things,” Tony says under his breath, and this time, he’s kind of hoping Loki overhears. He’ll touch whatever he feels like. That’s what he does. He touches things. He explores things. He screws around with things and, yes, occasionally almost sets himself on fire when he misjudges exactly where that screwing around might lead him. But it’s all part of his completely valid scientific process.

He puts the mega-lighter tube aside and goes for a little apricot-sized sphere instead. This one doesn’t have any buttons or thumb-grooves to push; the surface is smooth all over. Half of it’s some kind of deep red glass, and the other’s metal. The metal half has a little hole covered in clear glass, like an eyepiece. He peers inside, but it’s too dark to see anything more than a few hazy shapes. Whatever this is, it’s meant to be used in better lighting conditions. He sets it next to the lighter and picks up a wedge-shaped thing covered in rows of tiny slide-buttons. The narrow end is dangerously sharp. It seems like a good idea to probably not move any of those buttons just yet.

“What are you doing?” Loki asks. Suddenly he’s standing there at Tony’s shoulder, and he’s carrying a spool of wire. That was quick.

“I need all these things.”

“You don’t even know what they are.”

“Sorry, that’s not a valid argument against my needing them.”

“That is used to light a fireplace,” says Loki, pointing to the tube. “That,” he continues, pointing at the sphere, “is a novelty time-telling device for children. And the one you’re holding is an adjustable knife for cutting leather. All of this is old and worthless. Hundreds of years out of date.”

Tony nods. “Still not hearing any good reason why I don’t need them.”

“You have no use for any of these!”

“Yeah, I know. But I still need them.”

So Loki buys all the stupid little things. The lighter tube. Actually, two lighter tubes. One to keep and one to take apart to see how it works. The sphere and the wedge. A few other neat-looking thingamadoos from the table. He grumps about it the whole time and pulls his customary act of this being a huge and embarrassing inconvenience, but in all fairness, Tony had to put up with him wearing a linen suit from the 60s when they were on earth. He can sure as hell put up with Tony buying mechanical novelty kitsch on Asgard.

Buying the rivets comes next, from an armorer, but this guy doesn’t have anything out of the ordinary that really catches Tony’s attention. Interlocking metal breastplates don’t seem all that impressive when you’re used to whole suits that can fly. Then it’s on to even seedier corners of the cave as Loki searches out whatever mysterious things he needs. From what Tony can tell, eavesdropping on hushed interactions while playing with the new tube-lighter (turns out it has different settings), Loki’s mainly interested in some tiny gems and bits of rare minerals. Not an eye of newt or vial of dragon blood to be seen, or whatever else evil sorcerers might visit the dark corners of an underground market for. What a disappointment.

“So what are you doing with all this stuff?” Tony asks when Loki emerges from yet another stall with a little bag of something hidden in his hand.

“I’ll show you once we’re back in your bedroom. It’s too complicated to explain here.”

Tony’s pretty sure that translates as ‘I’m brushing you off in the hope that by the time we get home you’ll forget you asked’. He makes a mental note to ask again the second they’re back. If Loki’s up to his patented form of No Good, Tony needs to know about it. Risk of death now that he’s responsible for Loki’s actions and all that. “You need anything else?”

“No. This will be all for now. Let’s go. It’s becoming difficult for me to hold up even this simple illusion; the chains interfere too much. We should leave before we’re recognized.”

“Before we’ve even seen half the market?”

Loki turns to look at him, peering out from the shadows of his hood with illusion-cloaked eyes that are darker and narrower than what Tony’s used to seeing. “I thought you said you hated tight corridors and anything resembling a cave.” Even his illusion eyes seem to say, ‘And this is clearly a cave’. (You idiot.)

“Yes,” Tony counters, “but I am also a huge nerd. I am surrounded by all kinds of alien technology. Alien technology that is for sale. And I’m not in a dream for once. Now normally I hate shopping, and I’m no big fan of caves, but under these special circumstances you can see why we need to keep looking around. I didn’t know the market sold all this cool stuff.”

“What did you think it sold?” (You idiot.)

Shrugging, Tony glances around at the selection of stalls. “I don’t know. Medieval stuff. Boots and flagons of mead and helmets with horns. I was expecting Ren Faire and instead everything in this section is Jawa Central.”

“I’m returning home.”

“Well good, you can be a useful slave and take all that stuff back with you. I’m staying here until I find a lightsaber.”

It’s obvious Loki wants to say something. The way he opens his mouth, inhaling a preparatory breath. The way he leans forward. The way the words practically project themselves onto his illusion-face (which looks uncannily like In-The-Name-Of-The-Father-era Daniel Day Lewis, so Tony keeps trying not to look at it, because that’s just weird). There’s a warning in Loki’s illusion-expression. Something he might want to say but at the same time doesn’t want to bother, because they both know how this conversation balanced on the brink of an argument is going to end. It’s all going to fall away, replaced by one contemptuous syllable.

“Fine.”

“Exactly,” Tony agrees.

“You actually have dreams about alien markets?”

“Well, it’s usually more like an alien Best Buy, but yes. More than you might think.”

Loki makes the smart move of not saying anything in reply to that. All he does is drop the money bag into Tony’s hands. Then turns to leave with one last little smirk.

“I will find a lightsaber,” Tony calls after him. “Or something equally awesome. I have a really good feeling about this.”

He has a decidedly not-as-good feeling about his ability to navigate his way back to the palace without Loki’s help, but that’s a problem for Future Tony to deal with. For now, there’s stuff to buy.

ooo

He ends up raising his hood. It just fits with the atmosphere and the idea of skulking in the shadows from one stall to the next, furtively searching for hidden treasures under the guise of browsing for tools. Hiding his true intent from the seedy (and bored-looking) vendors.

This is what an intergalactic rescue mission is really supposed to be like. Intrigue and concealed identities in the Mos Eisley fleamarket. Now what would make things even better is if Bruce were here. Or Rhodey. Or hell, even Agent Coulson, who probably knows how to unleash his inner fanboy when he’s not on duty. Playing Star Wars by yourself feels a bit silly.

(Not that this is going to stop Tony at all.)

He makes his way methodically up and down each row and around the curves, doubling back where necessary to make sure he catches everything. Buys a few things here and there, like a dagger with a softly glowing blade that’s sharp enough to shave hair from the back of his wrist despite looking and feeling like plastic. There’s a lot to look at. A lot of it’s crap, the same kind of stuff you find for sale probably anywhere in the universe (decorative spoons, cheap jewelry, and bad artwork), but there’s the occasional gem amid the junk. One rule of thrift shopping is that you can’t not buy a bronze ale mug shaped like a naked lawn gnome with a giant dong. Somebody’s getting that for Christmas.

The stalls farthest towards the back of the cave sell less innocent wares. More weapons. Bigger weapons. Sadistic-looking weapons sold by the kind of guys who tend to be missing body parts and sporting gruesome scars. Things in weird bottles. Things with weird smells. Mysterious things entirely concealed inside boxes or behind curtains and shown by request only.

Some of the stalls are manned by bizarre humanoid creatures that Tony tries not to stare at. Tries. Fails. Settles for sneakily peering at from the secrecy of his hood.  That one has ridges of horns all around his (her?) head like a crown. The one over there has skinny arms with too many elbows, ending in spidery, three-fingered hands. Tony quietly pulls the camera out of his pocket and takes a dark, blurry picture without the flash. It kind of shows skinny elbow arms, in a photo at least twenty percent better than that classic image of the Lock Ness Monster. Well done.

It’s just that the longer he looks, the more something seems off. Only by a fraction, but off just the same. Everyone else ignores the aliens. Nobody looks at them and nobody talks to them. It’s like they fade into the background, at least as much as aliens are able to fade. Horn Crown and his buddy White Lizard Skin look like they’re the security detail on the weird smell booth, while a Morlock hefts up a couple sacks of something and carries them off, following a pair of tall Asgardians who don’t even acknowledge his presence.

But there are more. Not just aliens, who are easy enough to underthink and write off as something slightly more than animal but certainly less than person. The aliens are notable for their looks and not much else. But the others – the ones Tony originally failed to notice with his eyes occupied by extra joints and scaled faces – become a little less invisible when he takes the time to look. Men and women with normal skin tones, usual hair colors, and unremarkable bodies, who’d look at home anywhere on Earth or Asgard, also stand guard and carry wares and sweep up and do the dirty work.

Slaves. They’re all slaves. They have to be. Maybe they’re owned by the vendors or they’re owned by the marketplace but the bottom line is they’re owned by somebody. And it seems pretty likely that the row standing along the wall, heads trained down to apathetically stare at the floor, are for sale themselves.

“You have an interest?” an Asgardian voice asks from his right.

It jars him out of his thoughts. Me. The guy selling slaves is talking to me.

Trying to sell to him.

“These ones are well behaved. I can guarantee that. Suitable to work in the home.”

And this guy isn’t the only one. All along the wall, there are armed men watching over pockets of people on display. People in chains and people held in pens. All for sale. As easy to buy as a sword or a shield or a second-hand helmet. This is what Asgard has to offer in the darkest depths of its disreputable market: not righteousness and glory or whatever else Thor seems to think shines out the figurative asshole of his beloved golden realm. It’s this. Callousness and cruelty. Pain and exploitation. Thousands of years of prestige, and this is at its core.

(And yes, Tony tries to tell himself, Loki did explain. Loki did explain that slavery was alive and well. Loki did that. But it’s one thing to listen to distant theories and another to see it – to see it, blatantly and unapologetically – for oneself. Vague words are one thing. But the truth... the truth...)

The truth is, words can paint a gloss of normalcy over a thought. Make it seem acceptable for a minute or two, in the distance. Then you see it face to face and-

“I can give you a good price,” says the Asgardian.

“No,” Tony answers, shaking his head. “No, I, um...” Why the hell is he even trying to make an excuse? “No,” he repeats. Firmly. Maybe rudely, but if anybody deserves a bit of rudeness in their day, it’s slavers. “Not interested.”

Never interested. Not in that. And, as he’s starting to realize with a growing sense of unease... not in any way.

ooo

Tony can’t say exactly how he left the market cave or which way he went or where he turned or even if he passed through the same park on the way back to the palace. Those bland details all fall by the wayside when he has more important things to consider.

He left that morning with the uninspiring intention of buying supplies for his suit and maybe just getting out from under Odin’s oppressive thumb for a couple hours, and now he returns with too many ideas layered in his head. Though tangled might be a better description to use. They snag on each other, vicious heads biting off indistinct tail ends before he can reason anything fully through, and the result is one big clusterfuck of half-formed thoughts. All of them orbiting two central themes. Loki. Slaves. Loki. Slaves. Loki and slaves. Loki-slave. Maybe that’s one condensed theme. Still, too many variations to sort through. No idea where to start. Isn’t this how it always goes?

Loki, to his relief, is lying quietly in bed. Eyes closed, but a deep inhalation of breath when the door swings shut lets Tony know he’s not asleep. Resting only. And he looks pale. A touch of gray in his face; shadows in the sunken skin below his eyes.

“You look... magicky,” Tony says for lack of any better word.

“I told you,” Loki groans, still keeping his eyes closed. “The chains make even the simplest illusions difficult. I held that one far longer than I should have.”

“Somebody needs a cuddle?”

“Oh, probably, but not until after you wash. Why do you smell of vomit?”            

Setting the bundle of marketplace crap down on the end of the bed, Tony lifts his shirt to his nose. Nothing. Loki’s sense of smell is truly a wonder. “Well, I may have found a market stall selling exotic booze. And someone near me may have had a few too many while I was paying for my drink. And he may have stumbled into me before security dragged him away.”

“It sounds like you had a lovely time.”

“Sure did.” For a while, at least. “Want to see what I bought?”

“No.”

Well, too bad. One round of show ‘n’ tell coming right up. “Here,” Tony says, tossing over the gnome mug first, since that’s the kind of thing that needs no explanation. Only after it rolls and hits Loki in the butt does he bother to raise his head, glaring first at the mug and then at Tony.

“I don’t want to know why you purchased such a thing.”

“Because it’s hilarious,” Tony answers. “Obviously. But ignore that, I just wanted to get your attention for... wait for it...” He dips his hand into the pile and pulls out the crown jewel of the collection: a slender metal cylinder that looks like a bigger version of the tube-lighter. One end solid, one end capped in mesh. And if he gives the solid end a little tap... “Look who fulfilled his solemn vow to bring home a lightsaber, your worshipfulness.”

It’s a lightsaber. No, really. Hit the solid end and out from the mesh end comes a rod of pure, glowing energy. Okay so it’s a pale peachy color instead of blue or green or red, and it’s only about ten inches long, but. But. A real, functioning lightsaber.

As usual, Loki looks less than awestruck. And might even be wearing an about-to-rain-on-your-parade expression. “That’s a tool women use to curl their hair.”

Yes. That does partially dampen parade festivities. But Tony still shakes his head. Also shakes the lightsaber. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s a lightsaber. It looks exactly like a lightsaber. Well maybe not a lightsaber. It’s a little short. Lightdagger?”

“No. It’s a hair-curling wand.”

“It is the elegant and deadly weapon of a very small Jedi knight. Like Yoda.”

Loki sits up and extends his hand. Reluctantly, Tony hands over the lightsaber, because he’s pretty sure whatever Loki’s about to do will ruin his fun completely. And he’s right. Once the wand is held close enough beside Loki’s head, a thin lock of hair snakes out to wrap itself around the glowing blade. A perfectly formed ringlet stays in place when Loki pulls the wand away.

“It curls hair.”

Parade unpleasantly soggy now. “Well it still looks like a lightsaber,” Tony grumps. And if Loki thinks knowing it’s a hair wand will stop Tony from brandishing it at every opportunity back on Earth... “You have to ruin everything, don’t you? Suck all the fun out. You’re a fun-sucker.” He shuts off the lightsaber and chucks it back into the pile of stuff. “And that sounded really unintentionally dirty.”

“Yes I am,” Loki agrees. “And yes it did.”

“I also bought you a present, but since you’re being a fun-sucker, and not in a good way, I don’t know if I should give it to you.”

Immediately, Loki’s snide smirk melts into a coquettish pout beneath wide blue eyes. “Ah, my Tony Stark, you know I would gladly suck anything in any way. You need only ask.”

Right, so it turns out he’s getting his present after all.

It takes only a moment to crawl up the bed and into Loki’s chained half-embrace, all complaints of vomit smell apparently now forgotten or at least unimportant. Then the rush of inert magic fills his blood (so much stronger than it should be given the meager output of Loki’s illusion, but he’ll worry about that some other time) as Loki coaxes him down onto the mattress with a kiss and a playful bite at his lip. “You’re so weird,” Tony murmurs into Loki’s mouth. “One of your most endearing-” He gasps as Loki’s hips grind against his, sparking a surge of magic. “-qualities.”

“I want my present,” Loki replies.

Tony unclenches his hand and offers up a shallow little box, lid hinged with silver filigree. “It’s nothing amazing,” he says by way of disclaimer as Loki takes it. “I just thought of, you know...” Something stupid and sentimental. “Back on Earth you had this crazy – adorable – obsession with tropical scented stuff. But so far here I’ve noticed all the soap and shampoo have plain old soap scent, and you no longer smell like a piña colada. And that’s not right. I really like tropical Loki. Anyway, I couldn’t find coconut because I don’t think you guys have coconuts on Asgard, and it’s not soap, but that’s the best I could do. Raspberry or whatever. The guy said it was-”

“Solid perfume oil,” Loki says, opening the box lid and dipping one finger inside. He traces up one side of his throat and down the other, leaving a glistening line in the wake of his touch. “Very nice.”

Exactly the words Tony would use. He reaches up to comb his fingers through Loki’s hair, behind his ear, to the nape of his neck. (He’s so goddamn beautiful.) “Very nice.”

It smells like raspberry and lemon and something else Tony can’t quite place: an edge of enticing and unfamiliar spice as Loki leans in close. Lips finding the curve of Tony’s ear, voice a thin whisper: “Thank you, Tony Stark.”

Magic never fails to make Loki all snuggly and affectionate, and after everything Tony saw at the market, he’s sure not above cashing in on a bit of that right now. He wraps his arms around Loki’s back. Just to hold him close. Just to keep him near. Rolls over so that Loki can use his shoulder as a pillow and he can feel Loki’s warm breath seeping through the fabric of his shirt. Magic flows so nicely between them in an infinite loop.

The only thing that could make the whole situation better is if Loki weren’t in chains. If his shackled hands didn’t have to rest awkwardly at Tony’s waist. “You know,” he says after a minute, “I was thinking about your chain problem on the walk back.”

“And?”

“And...” He hesitates before diving into the next part. “Um. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to seriously accept the idea of you being my slave.”

Loki reacts in exactly the way Tony imagined he would. Sits bolt upright, breaking the embrace, stares at Tony like he’s suddenly grown a second head, and spits out a demand of, “What?” as if his mouth can’t be rid of the word fast enough.

“Yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking,” Tony cuts over him before he can say (shout) anything else. “Just calm down for a sec and let me finish. I didn’t say that because I’m giving up. I only mean... Lie down again, will you?” he tries with a sigh. “I thought about this. I have an idea. Listen.”

It’s with doubt-filled slowness and a look of dire mistrust that Loki lies back down, but at least he does it, positioning himself a few inches away so he can keep his disapproving glare aimed at Tony’s face. Once he’s settled, Tony continues.

“I can’t own a slave. I can’t. End of story. Not going to happen. We can fool around and make jokes about it and play these kinky little bedroom games all we want, but me actually believing I own you isn’t a serious option. But,” he adds when Loki’s glare sharpens into something even deadlier, “I don’t think that’s the only solution to this problem.”

“You signed a contract of ownership. I fail to see any other possible solution.”

“I signed a contract of responsibility,” Tony corrects. “Loki, the word ‘own’ didn’t appear in that contract in any form. Maybe that’s due to whatever magic was on it that translated the writing into an alphabet I could read. And that could mean the translation was inexact, or that I read what I wanted to read. Maybe it even chose words for me based on what I would understand and accept. There was no mention of ownership or slavery or anything like that. It was all about care and control. What I read in it wasn’t that I owned you, but that I was responsible for you. And that’s why I think this isn’t working. We have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is I agreed to do.”

“But you still need to believe you have the authority to remove the chains,” says Loki. “Which, clearly, you do not.”

Tony nods in agreement. “Right. What I said before is still true. I thought the contract was a lame formality and only signed it because I thought I had to. Here’s the thing, though. Maybe I can’t convince myself I’m your owner, but I think I probably have a pretty good shot at convincing myself it’s my job to take care of you.”

Both of Loki’s eyebrows rise at that comment, and his mouth opens, though Tony’s able to cut him off before he says anything. “Just hear me out, okay? Believe me, it’s hard enough to say any of this potentially very embarrassing sappy bullshit. You giving me that bitchy look isn’t going to help. Yes, I know the idea of me looking after you is pretty laughable when you can probably kill me with one finger and right now without my suit I don’t have a chance in hell of protecting you against anything Asgard might decide to throw at us. But this isn’t just about physical stuff. It’s not about fighting or...”

Fuck, why is it so hard to put stuff like this into actual, confident words? So he starts again. From the beginning. “I saw the slaves for sale at the market after you left,” he says softly.

Loki offers no response. But he’s also no longer glaring.

“I just saw them for a minute and I didn’t stick around to see what would happen because... I don’t know. It scared me. You know why? Because it made me think about you. I saw all those people and this is selfish and small-minded, I know, because I should’ve maybe taken half a second to feel sorry for them, but all I could think about was what if it was you? What if something goes horribly wrong with this crazy plot, and Odin decides to just kill me and ship you off who knows where? Seeing what I saw there automatically sent my mind to the worst possible places, and that’s what I thought. What if it was you. What if something happened. And it made me feel...” He stops. Closes his eyes for a moment. Takes a breath before continuing.

“I felt sick. I had to get out of there, but I realized halfway back that I wasn’t running away from something I didn’t want to see, I was running towards you. It wasn’t I need to distance myself from this crazy shit but I need to get back to Loki. I had to make sure you were okay. It was dumb and irrational and halfway into panic territory, but I just needed to know you were safe. That you weren’t – I don’t know – being dragged back down to the dungeons where I’d never see you again. Somehow, for some insane reason that defies all sense and logic, you’ve become one of the most important people in my life. So much that the thought of losing you is... pretty damn terrifying. I guess I’ve known that for a while but today really drove it home. And I guess today also made me realize that I’ve probably been holding back a bit. Or a lot. You’re so closed off and distant that I never know where you stand. Not that I’m any better. But I was hiding behind this lame justification that I shouldn’t let you know how much I care about you because... I mean, not that I shouldn’t care about you but that I shouldn’t let you know, which is absurdly idiotic, but that’s beside the point.”

“Tony Stark,” Loki murmurs.

“I’m almost done. I promise. Just bear with me and my horrible interpersonal skills and let me say this last bit and then you can get back to your regularly scheduled being a dick to me. Because this is what I realized. If I step back and think about it and put everything in perspective, it shouldn’t matter who says what first. This isn’t a contest. I don’t win anything by not being open with you. Actually I probably lose, since it’s perpetuating that massive trust problem we have. Anyway, today I realized I need to – I want to – tell you the things I’ve been holding back. And they tie into the whole chain/contract business in a way I’m doing a really bad job of explaining, but bottom line is this. I really care about you, Loki. And contract or no contract, that means... I want to take care of you and protect you. Maybe you don’t need it, but I still want to, and I’m still going to try. I want to make you happy. That might be the most important thing. I want you to be happy. With me. Even if you’re being an insufferable goddamn fucking bastard. That doesn’t matter. I still want to be with you. I still care about you. A lot. Way more than I should, considering... everything.”

“Tony Stark,” Loki repeats. He stares down at his hand, fingers twisting in a handful of Tony’s shirt. No more eye contact.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Tony says, sliding his hands up Loki’s spine and pulling him back in. Close again. So Loki’s head is back on his shoulder, where it should be, and he can brush his lips over the edge of Loki’s hairline as he speaks. “I didn’t dump all that to guilt you into a quick ‘me too’. I said it because I wanted you to know what I think and where I stand. Hopefully we’re in the same place.”

“I think so,” is Loki’s quiet reply, in a voice that sounds strikingly low on confidence for the God of Assholes.

“Yeah?”

“Mm.”

And that’s all Loki seems ready to give. At least for now. A hesitant, partial agreement. But then Loki’s hand moves up, dragging its chain behind it, over Tony’s chest and to his shoulder. To his neck. A small, one-handed embrace.

“Maybe...” Tony begins. “Maybe I can... try again with the chains.”

“You think it will work now?”

“I think so.” He has a good feeling about this. Like one of those stupid warm fuzzy feelings deep inside that overemotional people always talk about, except it’s happening to him this time. His own stupid warm fuzzy feeling. “I know the contract’s not only about ownership.”

It’s more than that. Fingertips skim along Loki’s back and shoulder, following the path of his arm until it comes to his wrist.

“I don’t want ownership. I don’t want you to be my slave. I just want you to be my Loki.”

Awkwardly, with his one hand, Tony grips the shackle on Loki’s wrist to gives it a sharp tug. (My Loki. Mine. Those words seem right. Warm and fuzzy. Not Odin’s prisoner any more. Just my Loki.)

And a hidden mechanism inside the band slides free with a quiet click.

Chapter Text

Somehow snuggling (etcetera) might have distracted Tony from remembering a question he meant to ask, which is a completely unrealistic and insane situation that’s never happened before. But two hours later, when he’s lounging on the bed playing with Loki’s discarded cuffs, closing and reopening the magical mechanism, it comes back into his mind. All the little packets. All those shady booths in the marketplace.

He sits up. “So, uh,” he says to Loki, who’s crouched on the floor doing something questionable with a piece of wire, “you never did tell me what you bought and what it’s for.”

“Necessary materials,” Loki casually replies. “To fix your armor.”

“Oh. Right.”

He tries to lie back down. Really tries. Because Loki’s here and his armor is over there, and honestly, nothing’s happening and nothing’s being accidentally broken. Loki’s only messing around with wires. For the helmet. And the helmet’s already screwed and nothing Loki can do will make it functionally worse. He should lie back down.

Except... “Um, how exactly are you fixing my armor?”

“Your computer system is destroyed, is it not?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m making you something better.”

“Out of wire that you’re shaping like balloon animals.”

Loki lifts his head just long enough to raise one eyebrow before turning back to his work. Clearly not going to bother dignifying that with a response. So Tony rolls over and crawls to the end of the bed for a better look, peering down at the tidy little row of... whatever it is... spread out in front of Loki. Wire, unspooled and cut into uniform lengths, some bent into precise right-angle shapes. Little piles of what looks like gunpowder in varying metallic shades. If Tony had to guess, he’d say Loki was using a piece of wire to cut lines of the powder like cocaine. Measuring it.

“What’s all this?”

“I told you. Necessary materials. To conduct and store energy. Unfortunately I’m not terribly experienced in the building and maintenance of this sort of thing, so it will be very rudimentary, but it should work for your purposes. All you need is something that can interpret and relay voice commands to your automated system.”

“Yeah, that’s right, but... the systems are... systems are also... uh...” No, Loki talking about this stuff is too weird. Loki doesn’t understand systems and voice commands and technology. That’s crazy. “How do you know that?”

“I’m not an idiot, Tony Stark. It’s rather obvious. You speak to your armor, and it obeys your commands. I’ve seen you fight.”

“No, I speak to my AI – artificial intelligence, it’s like a computer program – and he translates the commands into electronic impulses that tell the suit what to do. Or at least that’s what used to happen, until my processor got fried. Now I’m down to manual mode. What I need to do to work around it is-”

“Bypass the computer completely,” says Loki, just like he knows what he’s talking about and has a PhD in xeno-engineering or something. “If it’s so easily damaged, it’s a liability and a hindrance to you. I’ll see if I can adjust your design to convey your commands directly to your armor’s components through the wiring system that’s already in place, though that’s rather...” At that, Loki pauses. Eyes flick upwards from his collection of alchemic wonders, briefly meeting Tony’s before dropping back down.

“Rather what?” Tony asks.

“I should be able to work with it.”

“Rather primitive?” Tony prods, because it sure sounded like that’s what Loki was going to say. “Rather basic?”

Loki sighs. “Now you’re being silly.”

“What were you going to say, Loki?”

With half a smile on his lips, Loki reaches up to pat Tony’s hand, a gesture that Tony bats aside because nobody pats Tony Stark like a puppy. “I’ve hurt your feelings, haven’t I? Damaged that fragile Midgardian ego of yours?”

“If my tech’s so primitive,” Tony snarls, “then how come I don’t see any of you high and mighty Asgardians with flying armor, huh? Last I looked, your palace guards were still dealing in swords and shields.”

“True,” Loki answers with a nod. He doesn’t look nearly as offended as Tony’d like him to, which is a whole new annoyance in itself. “There was a time, before I was born, when Asgard moved into more energy-based weaponry. You’ll still see some of these from time to time, but... Let me show you something.” He glances over at the stack of equipment cases in the far corner, and the soldering iron sitting on top. “That tool there you were using yesterday to melt the wires.”

“Solder,” Tony corrects. “It doesn’t melt the wires, it melts... Never mind.” He’ll just keep some primitive secrets to himself. “What about it?”

“What source of power does it use?”

“Electricity,” is Tony’s first answer, though he’s forced to expand when Loki gives him the ‘you know that’s not what I meant’ look. “Okay, before I came here I made myself a quick little portable arc reactor power source based on my old palladium-core type, because I figured you guys wouldn’t have 110-volt standard American wall sockets. It plugs into that.”

“Hm.” That’s all Loki says as he continues to stare at the soldering iron.

Tony stares too, waiting for anything to happen as the seconds tick by. Loki’s either attempting something difficult or he’s still suffering from the after-effects of the chains, just based on the way he frowns and appears to up his concentration. But eventually, after half a minute or so, the status light on top of the soldering iron flickers twice and begins to glow solid red.

“You can turn the power on.”

As soon as Loki speaks, dropping his concentration, the light fades. “I can manipulate the ambient energy in its vicinity and create a localized ‘attack’ of sorts to alter its performance. In this case, I created a surge to initiate its function. You’ve seen me do this before.”

It takes a moment for Tony to realize what Loki means. Right. Selvig’s Tesseract portal device. But nobody’s going to mention that out loud.

“In any case,” Loki continues before either of them has to dwell on the ugly past for too long, “that’s merely an example. Imagine the tool is an energy-based gun. Now imagine that instead of turning it on, I cause it to overcharge itself and explode in your hands. Imagine what would happen if Asgard were to send an entire army of gun-wielding warriors down to Alfheim, and imagine the elves defend themselves by having their numerous witches obliterate all Asgardian technology with a single wave of magical interference. Suddenly swords are looking much more appealing, aren’t they? Certainly more reliable. Magic can’t easily defend against brute strength, and we all know how warriors hate being outdone by witches. The function of a sword cannot be corrupted by magic. Better to stick to the old ways. And why deprive the mindless oafs who defend our glorious realm of their favored pastime of smashing everything that opposes them?”

“I take it you’re not a big fan of smashing,” says Tony.

Loki shrugs. “I know how to use a sword. I’ve been thankful to have one at my side in certain situations. But I also think Asgard is too mired in tradition and a stubborn refusal to entertain social change. Reliance on energy-based weapons would shift the balance of power away from warriors who have little or no magical ability and into the hands of people like me. That will never happen. At least not until incorruptible, dedicated power sources such as the one you wear for your armor become a more feasible option.”

“What do you mean, ‘incorruptible’?”

“It’s conditioned to you, isn’t it?” Loki asks, like it’s the most obvious piece of knowledge in the world that Tony’s failing to grasp. A little frown sits on his mouth, matching the downward slope to his eyebrows. “You must have chosen that particular malleable energy component and trained it to respond to your own actions only. Otherwise, anyone with an average level of magical ability could seize control of your armor just as I controlled your...” He shoots another quick glance over at the soldering iron. “...thing. Correct?”

With all the millions of pointless words in the English language, there’s probably a specific descriptor for the exact type of weirded out Tony’s feeling right now: uncomfortably light in the head while the weight in his stomach stretches down for miles. There’s probably a word, but he can’t think of it, being too busy trying to wrap his brain around what Loki just said. Even though he knows he’s not going to like where this is going.   Unfortunately, the only word he can think of is, “...What?”

Loki stares back at him and repeats that exact question, though his is in a more disbelieving/disappointed tone. “What?”

“Are you trying to tell me I accidentally did magic?” Tony asks.

“Are you trying to tell me the most impressive piece of Midgardian technology I’ve ever seen was an accident?!” Loki throws back.

Oh, fuck him. “No, creating that technology wasn’t an accident!” Tony says, swinging his legs off the side of the bed so he can stand up and pace. This really feels like a good time to pace, and maybe also add in some violent arm gestures. “That was deliberate and carefully planned!”

“You don’t even know what it is!”

“Know what what is?” He taps the arc reactor in the center of his chest. “This? This element? Nobody knows what it is! I made it! I made – not chose, made – a highly efficient, non-toxic, brand-spanking-new element. Not an accident. Granted, it doesn’t have a name yet, because I was going to call it ‘tilkalium’ but Pepper said that sounded dumb.”

“It does sound dumb.”

“Well you’re both just painfully ignorant of the extended legendarium of J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Loki rolls his eyes in a rather dramatic fashion. “That does not excuse the fact that you have no understanding of the properties of your energy source.”

“And you do? Better than the guy who made it?”

“I can see that it’s structurally identical to the Tesseract, and functionally similar.”

Tony was expecting another snide retort. Not an honest-to-God scientific smack in the face. Loki’s words crash and into him and reverberate through the full length of his body, and when they do... His feet stop. His arms solidify. Everything suspended in a moment of shock. When he finally manages to speak, the argument that comes out sounds like nothing more than a weak protest. “That’s... impossible.”

“I made no comment on its likelihood,” says Loki. “I merely state facts. That is what I see.”

“No, but the Tesseract is an artifact from Asgard. Thor was pretty clear on that. This... my arc reactor core... I made this. Less than two years ago. So I don’t get how what you’re saying could be possible. It would be a pretty damn big coincidence for your magic cube and an element I created to be identical.”

“There is no such thing as a coincidence. You didn’t create it, Tony Stark. You copied it. Built it. According to an allowable universal formula.”

“Bullshit. I did create this, based on nothing more than my dad’s old theories. And a small-scale particle accelerator. Which I also created. In my basement. Because I’m that awesome.”

He can’t say why this conversation bugs him so much. Maybe because it feels like it’s spinning out of control, one syllable at a time, into dangerously unfamiliar territory. Or just for the selfishly conceited reason that Tony Stark doesn’t like being out of the loop on anything to do with his own work. So he turns his back on Loki (childish, but whatever) and stalks his way back over to the bed, flopping down face first into the disarray of pillows with a grunt. Loki can argue the point until he’s blue in the face, but the fact remains that Tony did create the core element. Based on his dad’s incomplete project and-

The second scientific smack in the face also hits him in the gut. The ol’ one-two suckerpunch.

His dad’s theories. His dad’s project. His dad’s work. What did Howard Stark do? He worked with the precursor to S.H.I.E.L.D. . He worked with Steve Rogers. He salvaged that goddamn cube from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. It was in his possession. The Tesseract was in his possession. And he naturally would have spent years studying it.

And here Tony was, naively thinking that the unknown atomic structure he left behind must have been an idea that fell out of thin air and into the mind of a genius.

“Fuck,” he says out loud, rolling on to his back. “I think I did accidentally create a mini-Tesseract.”

Predictably, Loki’s answer comes with an amused snort. “Nearly. You created something with the same basic structure, but a different energy signature.”

“How about you just explain that to me without any more clever backsass because I’m really not in the mood to verbally spar with you right now.”

“In plain words?” Loki asks, and the mattress dips as he climbs up onto the bed. “It’s like a smaller, less complicated, less experienced version of the Tesseract. The Tesseract is a relic from well before my time, and has had ample opportunity to absorb any number of properties and numerous kinds of energy over its long life. Think of them both as beings, of sorts. They absorb what they experience, but also adapt to their environments and requirements. The Tesseract is a venerable old man with vast stores knowledge. Your little light is a child just beginning its journey. It knows only you. It is training itself to be what you need: at this time, a power source and nothing more. Thought it has the potential to grow.”

And thus does the conversation progress into the territory of ‘things Tony is going to have a tough time taking seriously’, even though he knows, somehow, that everything Loki says is nothing short of the complete, crazy truth. “You make it sound like it’s alive.”

Loki crawls over to sit beside him. “Not alive. Merely adaptable. It absorbs some of the energy of the person who controls it, and the fact that yours has been in contact with and controlled by no-one but you makes it ideal for your use. The greater your influence, the less likely anyone else will be able to remotely attack it. Hence why I refer to it as dedicated and incorruptible.”

That probably makes sense. But again, it’s going on the list of things to think about later, when Tony has time to spare on logically mapping it through and maybe drawing a couple diagrams. Diagrams help him think. Lines on paper have a nice, orderly look, unlike this science-fiction space voodoo. “Let’s talk about something else. I don’t really like feeling stupid, and you have this amazing ability to make me feel like a complete idiot with no effort at all.”

“Aww, does somebody need a hug?” Loki teases, jabbing Tony with a finger to the ribs that makes him jerk away. If there’s anything Tony hates more than feeling stupid, it’s being tickled.

“No. Get lost. I don’t like you any more.”

“Are you upset because I’m smarter than you?”

“Fuck you, you’re not as smart as me.”

“I am easily smarter than you.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I thought that’s what you liked about me.”

“Nope.” But Tony still wraps his arm around Loki’s waist. And Loki still lies down, until Tony can rest his forehead against Loki’s shoulder, closing his eyes. “I’m completely over you and your pseudo-science magic and quantum fuckery.”

He can feel Loki’s steady heartbeat through thin barriers of skin and clothes. Loki’s breath against his hair, warm and soft. Loki’s lips dipping to graze his temple, then his ear. He tilts his face up to complete the kiss, finding Loki’s mouth with his own, and has a grand total of about three seconds of brain-melting, thought-wiping bliss and relaxation courtesy of Loki’s oral skills before Loki suddenly pulls back.

Not the good kind of I’m-about-to-rip-off-your-pants-with-my-teeth pulls back. The shitty kind of what’s-wrong-now pulls back.

“Odin,” Loki growls, narrowing his eyes at the door, and just like that he’s sitting up and scrambling off the bed.

Tony feels it a moment later. People approaching from the hallway, three of them, and if Loki can recognize a hint of Odin in that group, well, better safe than sorry. “Shit. What does he want this time?”

Loki doesn’t even need to reply to that, because the answer is obvious. Odin’s on his way to be a pain in the ass and cause problems. What else does he ever do? So Loki plunks back down on the floor with his powders and wires and pretends to be busily at work, and Tony hastily pulls on a pair of jeans over his shorts and replaces his shirt (which smells dangerously like Loki’s new perfume) with a grease-stained hoodie. Loki’s wearing sweats that are too short and a Stark Industries t-shirt. That’ll have to do. If Odin asks, it’s his new work uniform.

The door swings open just as Tony makes a dive for his nearest equipment case and begins rifling through the contents in search of... uh... this spare laptop battery. Good enough. He stands up with a triumphant ‘ah-ha!’ to wave the battery at Loki, and only makes a point of noticing Odin once their stupid scenario is established.

“Oh!” he says, way too brightly, and has to put special effort into not grimacing at how fake he sounds. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”

“Tony Stark,” Odin says by way of greeting. He sounds unimpressed. More unimpressed than usual.

“Things are a bit of a mess right now,” Tony continues, glad for once that bits of his suit are strewn across half the room. It lends nicely to the lie. “I’ve been getting Loki to help out with repairs to my armor. His technical knowledge something to be desired, but he’s good at cutting wire.”

At that, Tony chucks the laptop battery over at Loki, who completely fails to notice it and gets beaned in the side of the head. Shit.

“Uh, yeah, really good at cutting wire. Other skills need a little work.”

Odin replies with a grunted ‘hm’. Slowly, he walks from the door over to the bed. (Is the bed too rumpled? Oh fuck, it looks too rumpled. Like it’s recently been well used. Blankets all kicked to one side, pillows everywhere...) But Odin’s looking down at the unlocked shackles, concentrating on them and nothing else. A second passes. Then he moves on, returning to Tony and Loki and the armor explosion. Tony allows himself one tiny sigh of relief.

“Loki helps you?” Odin asks. “He learns the secrets of your weaponry? Is this how prisoners are treated on Midgard?”

“Not traditionally, no,” Tony admits. “We have a thing for jails. But right now I need this armor patched up and a second set of hands really helps out. Actually I think it’s fitting. Loki destroyed a bunch of my stuff on Earth, now he has to fix something. And I’m sure not letting him in on any secrets. He’s working on the simple mechanical functions. Anything more high end? I do alone.”

“And will you be ready for our upcoming hunt?”

Maybe if he lies with enough enthusiasm Odin will be satisfied and leave him alone. “Oh, for sure. Everything should be ready to go. No problem. Just a few more little tweaks here and there and I’ll be all ship-shape for the hunt. Really looking forward to it!” Goddamnit that sounds ridiculously fake. What the fuck is wrong with him?

“Hm.”

Odin keeps that one cold, pale eye on Tony, and Tony stares right back, freezing a pleasantly bland smile across his face. Five seconds. Then ten. Then Odin looks away with a quiet puff of breath, glancing momentarily down at Loki (who’s busy being helpful and wrapping wire around the laptop battery).

“We shall have to find more suitable accommodations for your prisoner, Tony Stark. It seems... unfair to you to have to keep him in here with you.”

“We’re doing okay for now. He sleeps in the bathroom. But now that you bring it up, a larger suite of rooms would be great. You know, two bedrooms on a sitting area/workspace kind of thing?”

“I was thinking a more ideal arrangement would be to keep him in a secure cell overnight and have the guards deliver him to you each morning for work.”

In whose world is that ‘ideal’? The bland smile stays right where it is on Tony’s face, like it’s carved in marble. Down on the floor, Loki’s fallen absolutely still. Not even moving a finger as he listens intently to whatever words are coming next. And those words will be...? Tony draws in a long breath. “Mmm.” Does Odin know? Fuck it sounds like Odin knows. But then again, he can’t know. If he knew, he’d act. This means... this just means he might suspect. Which is almost as bad, but still comes with a bit of wiggle room.

The exact breadth of that wiggle room depends entirely on what Tony says next. “Could do,” he forces himself to agree, nodding his head. Slow, calm voice. “But I do work odd hours. I follow my inspiration and when I get on a roll I can end up working sixteen, eighteen hours straight. Early morning, late at night, there’s no real schedule. So this shift thing wouldn’t really cut it for me. I mean, I could always have some guards on call to take Loki back and forth according to when I needed him, but would that really be the most efficient? I guess we can try. Though to be honest it’d probably be more convenient for everyone if I had an adjoining room to keep him in. An adjoining room that’s not the bathroom. Last night I almost tripped over him getting up to take a whizz.”

“Do you not worry your prisoner will attempt to escape?” Odin asks.

He has a name, Tony thinks, but holds back from saying out loud. Loki. “No. He knows what’ll happen to him if he does, and that he’s better off sticking with me.”

“I will consider the options,” says Odin, and he turns to leave just as abruptly as he arrived. Apparently this was just a short-term visit for annoyance purposes. “But he may be better off back in a cell.”

And that’s that. No way to argue with Odin’s retreating cape. Tony waits just until the door closes behind the king of Asgard before kicking a clump of fried wire across the room. “Fuck’s sake!”

“Did you expect anything better?” Loki growls.

“No, but I thought that since he outright gave you to me, he might let me keep you!”

“He wanted me punished and you dead. Since neither of those things is happening, his wishes remain unfulfilled. So he’ll try changing tactics.”

“Asshole,” Tony mutters, dropping down to sit on the end of the bed near Loki’s wire-wrapped battery. “And I’m sorry for hitting you in the head. I meant for you to catch that.”

“I know.”

“Did you miss it on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Aw, that’s sweet, going the extra mile and taking a flying projectile to the skull for the sole purpose of making me look like an abusive jerk in front of your dad. That’s real dedication to this relationship.”

Loki’s hands clench tight enough that they look capable of tearing that wire spool clean in half. “He’s not my father.”

‘Adoptive father?’ Tony almost says, but doesn’t, because it’s clearly written in the tense lines of Loki’s fists that Odin doesn’t even qualify as that any more. So he changes the subject instead. “Well, anyway, I just decided I’m done with Asgard. One hundred percent done. Not even the lure of lightsabers can make me want to stick around now that you-know-who’s back in the business of making me miserable.”

“That is what he does,” Loki says. A little too quietly for Tony to feel comfortable making a joke out of it.

“Yeah well we need to go back to Earth. Now. If I’m going to have to put up with some giant douche trying to control my life, I’d rather it be Nick Fury, because at least he doesn’t have the authority to barge into my bedroom and tell me he’s rearranging my personal life. Being stuck in this place and dealing with Eyepatch 2: Electric Boogaloo makes S.H.I.E.L.D. look like a walk in the park.”

“So we’ve come back to the problem of how we return to Midgard.”

Yeah. They’re back to that problem. And it’s looking a lot like a problem that can only be solved with Thor’s help. Thor’s help and, unfortunately, Odin’s permission. “You got any ideas?” Tony asks.

Loki’s shoulder-gesture is vague, and could be interpreted as a shrug of agreement or a brush-off of no chance in hell. “Let me think about that.”

ooo

The fact is, there are a lot of ways back to Earth. Or at least a lot more than Tony would have originally guessed, since ‘five’ probably doesn’t equal ‘a lot’ in most people’s minds. So there are five ways back to Earth. Not all of them are feasible.

Way number one is the Bifrost. It’s still broken for the time being, but, according to Loki, under reconstruction. Should be ready to go in a few more months. And that would be ideal, if only they wanted to wait those few months. And also wanted to travel completely legally with Odin’s blessing and kittens and sparkles and a great big circle-jerk of mutual love and respect.

Way number one is out.

Way number two is the Tesseract, which is slightly more available than the Bifrost but still in the same approximate realm of possibility as pigs flying. It’s guarded somewhere deep and dark in the innermost heart of the palace. Successfully stealing it plus building a suitable portal device all while avoiding detection is a feat that would have C-3P0 calculating the odds at seven million, four hundred and thirty-eight thousand to one.

Way number two is out.

Way number three involves some kind of secret, shadowy path that Tony still doesn’t fully understand, but it sounds like it’s probably a constantly operational natural portal. According to Loki, these exist all over the Nine realms, connecting each to all the others. Asgard with Midgard. Midgard with Jotunheim. Jotunheim with Somethingheim.   Quick and easy, but everything comes with a catch. The path to Midgard is known to a select few (Loki didn’t specify whether he was supposed to know or if he just knows, though Tony guesses it’s the latter) but under heavy guard nonetheless. Getting there is the easy part. Living to tell the tale? Not so much.

“Unless,” says Loki, thinking out loud, “we take an indirect road through another realm. I know the paths to Jotunheim and Svartalfheim stand unguarded. The trouble then will be finding the paths from those realms to Midgard.”

“You don’t know where they are?” Tony asks.

“I’ve never had reason to look.”

Fair enough. “How long would they take to find?”

“I don’t know. It took me hundreds of years to discover the path to Jotunheim. But at that time I was hunting nothing more than a rumor on ancient, cryptic clues. Once I learned its energy signature it took me far less time to find the rest of the secret roads Asgard has to offer. We could be lucky and find the Svartalfheim-Midgard pathway within three days.”

“And if we’re unlucky?”

“We die,” Loki says like it’s no big deal. “Svartalfheim is a ruined land with no water and toxic air. We would not survive more than three days.”

“So Jotunheim, then.”

He almost misses the subtle flinch in Loki’s shoulders. “Jotunheim is no better. The last time I spent more than a few hours there my body tried to transform. Not that I knew what was happening at the time, but... I do now. After one day on Jotunheim I would be entirely useless, and you would be dead from the cold. We would have one day to find the path to Midgard. If it still exists. It may have been destroyed.”

Here dies most hope for option three. Tony’ll just set it aside for now. Come back to it later if he has to, once all other options are exhausted.

“A safer bet may be to have you recreate your power source,” Loki offers up as option four. “This one, you give to me. I will infuse it with my magic and train it towards the realm-shifting gateway we need it to be. What would you require to do that?”

“In layman’s terms, a bunch of metal tubes and a shit-ton of magnets,” Tony answers, shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. Not any time soon. And even if I could do it, how long would you need for the magic side?”

“A year. Two years. Ten years. I don’t know; I’ve never tried anything of this sort before.”

Then that’s an emphatic ‘no’, and Tony shakes his head again. “Nuh-uh. I want to be out of here yesterday, but since that’s not temporally possible, I’ll settle for any time in the next forty-eight hours. Before Odin’s damn hunt. So where does that put us?”

“Back in Svartalfheim.”

Dang. But there’s still way number five. The one Tony thought of all on his own, though it’s a little iffy, and he’s not even sure it can be done. But since they’ve ruled out everything else... “What if,” he starts, “you could open another portal originating on Earth and ending up here? Like you did with the Tesseract when you first got all up in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s business?”

Now it’s Loki’s turn to shake his head in the negative. “But the Tesseract is no longer there.”

“No,” Tony agrees. “But the HYDRA guns are.”

“Mm.” That’s not exactly an outright vote of confidence, but it does mean Loki’s considering things. There’s something at work inside his head. The exploration of possibilities. “Using the same device you built to come here?”

“No, I think that one’s done. It only had a one-time charge. But Bruce still has the blueprints and could easily build another one if S.H.I.E.L.D. gave him access to more of the guns. He just can’t operate it. But you can. You can, right?”

“Possibly.”

Now here comes the big ‘if’. “And I’m guessing if you can remotely operate it, you can also remotely give Bruce the heads up that he needs to build it? Yeah?”

Sighing, Loki closes his eyes and leans back against the wall. “Possibly,” he repeats.

“Possibly meaning... you’ll give it a try?”

“Astral projection is not the most difficult of abilities, but it does require an immense amount of energy and concentration.”

Astral projection. Tony’s heard that before; Loki mentioned it back in Phoenix. “Good thing I know a very effective way of rebalancing your energy.”

“I didn’t say I would do it,” Loki replies, but a sly smirk has crept its way onto his face.

“Yes you will.”

“It might not work.”

“But you can at least try, right?” And when Loki doesn’t answer, Tony adds, “Come on, do we have any better ideas?”

No, they don’t, and Loki knows it. Right now the lineup of available actions is as follows: die waiting for Odin to let them use the Bifrost, die trying to steal the Tesseract, die on Jotunheim or Svartalfheim, die in an attempt to build an Asgardian particle accelerator, or have a go at astral projection. The choice seems like a pretty obvious one.

“We will need to prepare and time this carefully,” Loki finally allows, at which Tony might just give himself a mental high-five. “The technique itself is simple, but it can easily be thrown off track or otherwise go wrong.”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Tony tells him.

“Those sound like rather ominous last words.”

“No, if I’d said nothing can possibly go wrong, those would be ominous last words. Nothing’s going to go wrong is a statement of fact.”

“We shall see.”

“Right now? Please say we can see right now.”

Loki holds out his hand. “Yes. Now bring me that scepter you’ve been ineffectively hiding from me in the bathroom.”

Chapter Text

It’s 11:19 am, and Bruce Banner stares at the clock on the microwave. The microwave itself is stainless steel. Cuisinart. Sleek design. It has a potato setting and a popcorn setting and a couple even more inexplicable settings for stuff like roast chicken and cake. He’s been staring at it long enough to memorize the buttons. He’s been staring at it since precisely 11:15.

And if he keeps staring at it, watching the clock’s blue numbers shift from 11:19 to 11:20, he can ignore everyone else in the room. Even though he’s pretty sure they’re all staring at him.

“Dr. Banner...” Nick Fury says from the far side of the kitchen island.

“Just... give it a few more minutes,” Bruce answers. Doesn’t take his eyes off the clock.

“The note says 11:17. You told us 11:17. Now to me, that sounds like a very exact plan. It’s now 11:20.”

“It could be open to interpretation...”

“Be here tomorrow 11:17,” Natasha interjects, voice flat and uninflected as she reads the message scrawled across the fridge in smudgy black letters. “I am with Tony Stark. Loki. I don’t see how that could be interpreted in any other way than Loki wanting to meet us here at 11:17.”

“I just mean maybe it’s not supposed to be as exact as you think,” says Bruce. “Maybe...”

Bruce doesn’t look, but Fury sounds like he’s glaring. “Go over, again, exactly what the hell is supposed to be happening three minutes ago.”

“I don’t know,” Bruce groans, and he smacks his hands down on the marble countertop hard enough to make Natasha and Agent Hill flinch. “Oh for the love of... I’m not going to...” He sighs, raking his hair back. “We’ve been over this at least ten times.”

“Then go over it again,” says Fury.

And so Bruce launches into the full story once more. By now, he has it down to a precise recitation. “Yesterday around ten or so I went out to run a couple errands. When I came back just after noon I walked into the kitchen to put away groceries and I saw the message written on the fridge. That is all I know. I assume it means Loki was here yesterday , looked it the clock, saw it was 11:17, and wrote that for me to find so he could come back in twenty-four hours. But your guess is as good as mine. As soon as I saw it I called you. That’s the whole story.”

“Except for the part you originally left out where Tony Stark is on fucking Asgard and you’ve been living in his house for the past three weeks!”

Bruce sucks in a long, slow breath. Yes, there is that part. “Okay,” he admits. “It was... probably not a great idea to keep that from you. But at the time I didn’t think it was necessary to say anything because Tony isn’t a S.H.I.E.L.D. employee and he’s doing this on his own time and money.”

“With dangerous Tesseract-based weapons technology he acquired from us under false pretenses, and an alien scepter he outright stole!” Fury all but shouts.

Right. There’s also that part. “I’m sorry,” says Bruce. “Is that what you want to hear? I screwed up. I should have told you sooner but-”

“Damn right you should have told me sooner!”

“-I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. I thought it might be better for Tony to tell you himself when he gets back.”

“When he gets back?” Fury asks. “Exactly when is that supposed to be?”

“I don’t know. Neither did Tony. He didn’t give me a timeline. I guess however long it takes him to-”

“To do whatever crazy-ass thing he needs to do with Loki?”

A quick glance over at Natasha confirms everything as she nods, slowly and deliberately. So Fury probably knows the whole story. “I guess so,” Bruce allows.

“Jesus fucking...” Fury’s muttered words degrade into a low groan as he rubs a hand over his chin. “Banner, do you even know the shit I’ve had piled on me lately? In the last month alone I’ve had to deal with-”

Hill interrupts before he even gets to spout off the first item on that list, leaning forward with eyes fixed on the angled wall where the kitchen meets the hallway. “Sir.”

Everyone’s attention shifts with that one little syllable. It may be four minutes late, but the glimmer of gold and green up against the wall can only mean one thing. “Loki,” Bruce says, and the name’s accompanied by what’s probably going to be the only relieved sigh he’ll ever experience at Loki’s appearance. Because it means he wasn’t crazy. And the message was correct. But that little slice of relief is short-lived as the magical cloud condenses into the shape of a solid figure. A single solid figure. Bruce’s stomach sinks. It’s Loki alright, no denying that. Unfortunately, Tony’s not with him.

The scepter in Loki’s hand blocks some of the view, but as Bruce stares and blinks in surprise he’s pretty sure Loki’s wearing a Stark Industries t-shirt and a pair of Tony’s jeans. No shoes. Loki takes two silent, barefoot steps into the kitchen before all three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents draw their guns.

“Stop right there!” Hill shouts at him

Loki, flashing that same smug, mocking grin that’s been on his face way too often in Bruce’s experience, stops. “Is that really necessary?”

“How about you tell us how you got here and what happened to Tony Stark, and we’ll let you know what’s necessary,” Fury answers.

“Nothing has happened to Tony Stark.”

“Bullshit.”

“I assure you, Director Fury, that Tony Stark is safe and well.”

Fury lowers his gun by a slight angle, pointing it down at something tucked under Loki’s arm that Bruce can’t quite see. “What do you have there?”

“This?” Loki asks. The hand holding the scepter drops down while the other rises, holding out something red and gold that can only be Tony’s helmet. A little charred around the edges, dented, paint dull and scraped up, but it’s impossible to mistake what Loki has.

“What happened?!” Natasha demands.

Loki sighs, taking his time with an answer even in the face of three guns pointed his way. “If you must know, Tony Stark’s armor was damaged on his journey to Asgard. Neither I nor anyone else has harmed him in any way. I carry his helmet only because I need an anchor to this place. Its energy acts as a compass, guiding me here to its home and allowing me to appear before you. That is all.”

Fury doesn’t look the least bit convinced by that (and Bruce doesn’t blame him because what does Loki even mean, ‘anchor’ and ‘energy’ and ‘compass’?), but Natasha glances over Bruce’s way with a questioning look in her eye as if... she thinks he knows anything about this inter-dimensional mess? When he doesn’t answer her silent prompt, she asks out loud: “Bruce?”

Oh come on. “Uh...” he starts. “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this. But if I had to guess, I’d say Loki’s telling the truth.” Unbelievable as that is. “I think Tony’s suit might have been damaged on the way through the portal. It looked like... I don’t know how to describe it. The portal was almost like a ring of lightning, and when Tony passed through, it struck him from all sides. I couldn’t see too well, but it looked like all his systems completely shut down and he crash landed on the other side. I shouted at him to see if he was okay, he waved back at me, then the portal closed. So yeah. I believe what Loki says, at least about Tony’s suit.”

“Can you prove any of that?” Fury barks at Loki. “That Stark is with you?”

The unsettling smile returns to Loki’s face as he turns to address Bruce. “Tony Stark wishes to know how you are enjoying your Zac Efron car, Dr. Banner.”

Any doubts Bruce had surrounding Loki’s story fly straight out the window: there’s no way Tony isn’t with him. “It’s... fine,” Bruce answers. “Some teenagers at the 7-11 thought it was ‘cool’.”

And that’s good enough for Natasha. She relaxes her stance and lowers her gun, but doesn’t go as far as putting it back in the holster on her belt. Fury and Hill follow suit. “If Tony is with you,” she asks, “why did you come here alone?”

“Because I am not really here,” Loki replies, spreading out his arms like a span of wings. For a moment, his magic shimmers around him, turning his shape semi-transparent before settling back into place. “What you see and hear is nothing more than a projection of my energy. My body remains on Asgard. And now while we’re on this subject, I would like to say that this is a very taxing form of magic, so let us put all pleasantries aside and I will forego being warmly welcomed in favor of jumping right to the point and telling you exactly why I have come.”

Fury nods. “Good. Start talking.”

“We’re stranded on Asgard,” says Loki. He takes another step forward, and the guns come up again; he blithely ignores them all. “To state things plainly, we need help to return.”

“’We’?” asks Fury. “What makes you think you’re part of any ‘we’ S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to help?”

“You may discuss that with Tony Stark once we-” there’s a healthy amount of emphasis on that defiant we “-are back on Midgard. Where he goes, I will go. That is non-negotiable. So,” he adds before Fury can interject, “as you’ve already asked me to start talking, please listen to what I have to say.”

He pauses briefly, head cocked to the side like he expects more back-talk. Nothing comes. Fury looks ready to boil over with rage, but keeps quiet and lets Loki go on.

“As I said,” Loki starts again, “Tony Stark and I are stranded on Asgard. Our best hope for return to your realm is to have Dr. Banner build a second portal device powered by HYDRA gun cells, identical to the one Tony Stark originally used.”

“But I can’t-” Bruce starts.

Loki cuts him off with an understanding nod. “You cannot operate it. I know. But I can. We only need you to build it. Once it is complete, I will be able to remotely activate the portal.”

“Then you two come back here,” says Fury. “Just like that. Is that the plan?”

The only answer from Loki is an enigmatic smirk.

“And you think S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to stand back and allow it?”

“I don’t see why not,” Loki answers with a way-too-casual shrug. “If you wish to have your Iron Man back – and I assume you do, sentimental and over-attached as you humans are – you will build the device as required. How long do you need before it will be ready?”

“Maybe five days?” says Bruce. He keeps his attention fixed on Loki, ignoring the daggers Fury’s glaring at him. “Conservative estimate. The last one took about thirty hours fabrication. If I start now a rebuild can be done by tomorrow night to start assembly on Tuesday morning. I’m adding a couple days for delivery of materials from S.H.I.E.L.D. and a general buffer in case anything goes wrong. I could rush everything in three days, but to be safe let’s say five. You open the portal on Friday.”

“You’re assuming S.H.I.E.L.D. is willing to give up more HYDRA guns,” Fury snaps. “Guns which, I want to remind everybody, are a limited commodity running on extraterrestrial technology nobody fully understands!”

“I understand,” Loki counters, calm and cool and quiet next to Fury’s spitting fire. “I understand the technology very well. In fact, Director Fury, as an act of good faith and to prove I bear no malicious intent, following my return I will do my best to help you with it. Make it more stable. Efficient. Usable. The guns you have now are an admirable effort, but with my help you can take them so much farther.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you when you say that?”

“You will if you want the knowledge I offer. The knowledge I believe you rather desperately need.”

Fury breathes in. Breathes out. Nostrils flare and mouth twists in tension, but it’s clear that if he had any plan for saying ‘no’ he’d have said it outright already. This is just the internal dilemma before inevitable capitulation. Which comes soon enough, with a muttered curse and one of the most hateful looks he can muster. “Five days,” he says. “Banner will build your machine, but if at any time in the next five days I come to my senses, I’m pulling the plug on this whole catastrophe. If at any time I so much as daydream about you fucking us over again-”

“I have no motive to ‘fuck you over’,” Loki interrupts. “If I stay in Asgard, I will very likely die. If I come to Midgard and do anything to violate the terms of my release into Tony Stark’s care, I will be dragged back to Asgard, where I will absolutely die. So you see, it is in my best interest to remain on Midgard as an agreeable prisoner. I would rather not die. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“Wait, what do you mean-” Natasha begins, but Loki interrupts again, too quick for her to finish.

“I will trust you to complete your project by the five-day deadline, Dr. Banner. Ensure the device remains on the premises so I may easily locate it. I will activate it at this time five days hence. Thank you for your help.”

He vanishes in a shimmer of gold as easily as he appeared, leaving everyone in the kitchen staring at nothing but air. Then Fury’s the one who eventually breaks the wall of silence with a slam of his fist down on the countertop. “What the hell just happened here?!”

Both Agent Hill and Natasha start talking at once, Hill saying, “Sir, do you honestly think this is something we want to do?” while Natasha asks Bruce, “What did he mean when he said he said he was a prisoner in Tony’s care?”

Fury ignores Hill as he pulls out his phone and starts tapping away, but Bruce doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring Natasha. Not with the way she’s looking at him. “I don’t know.” Why do people keep asking him these things? “Tony hasn’t exactly been sending me regular email updates from Asgard. I guess you can ask him when he gets here.”

“Which is going to be way too soon,” Fury mutters, opting not to ignore that. “Banner, build the damn machine. I’ll have the energy cells flown in tomorrow. But don’t install them until the morning of the twenty-third: I’m not giving Loki any chance to open that portal before we’re ready for him. Which means, Hill, I need you to organize a security squad. Arm as many agents as you can with whatever Phase Two weapons we have left after I send Banner what he needs. No chances. I want them out here ready and waiting when Banner finalizes the portal device. They take both Loki and Stark into custody immediately.”

“Now wait a second,” says Bruce. “That’s not-”

“Romanoff,” Fury continues, talking over him. “You stay here. Assist Dr. Banner, coordinate security with Hill, and keep an eye out for any return visits from our favorite Asgardian. If anything-”

“I don’t need a babysitter!” Bruce cuts in, talking right back over Fury. “I’m sorry, Director, I’m not trying to be disrespectful but this is ridiculous! I don’t need anyone keeping tabs on me. You don’t need a whole battalion of armed agents waiting when that portal opens. This is Tony. He went to Asgard, now he’s coming back, simple as that.”

“With Loki,” Fury spits.

“Yes, I know, with Loki. But I think you need to give him a little credit. If Tony thinks it’s safe to bring Loki back with him, you could try trusting his judgment. Obviously he knows something about Loki that we don’t. And Loki no longer has the Tesseract. If either of them had it they’d be able to make their own way here, but instead they’re asking us for help. I think that says something.”

“What it says to me, Dr. Banner, is that you’ve lost your mind if you’re advocating for us to trust Loki.”

“No. Actually I know what losing my mind feels like, and this isn’t it. Right now I don’t care about Loki. But I do trust Tony.”

“Then you also better trust me,” Fury replies, and his tone says the matter’s settled. No more questions. “You can put all your faith in Tony Stark, but I can’t afford to be such an optimist. We’re looking at the safety of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the whole world here. Maybe Loki’s telling the truth. Or maybe he’s brainwashed Stark and this is only the beginning of another alien invasion. Until their intentions are explicitly proven, I have no choice but to treat the both of them as potential threats. So just stick to your part and build that machine. Let me worry about everything else.”

ooo

Loki snaps out of his trance with a gasp and a sudden jolt. Tony’s helmet falls out of his grasp and rolls to the side, but the scepter... he flings that away. Hurls it across the length of the room so hard it hits the far wall and clatters to the floor with the ring of metal on stone. Then he slumps forward in his sitting position until he’s bent almost double, face hidden in his hands and his shoulders tucked between his knees.

“Loki!”

Tony’s down kneeling on the floor the second the name leaves his lips, wrapping his arm around the curve Loki’s back. “Hey! What happened? You okay?”

“I’m... fine...” Loki gasps, though the way he looks is nowhere near fine. His skin is cast with the usual deathly pallor that accompanies magic use, and the expected tsunami of electricity is pushing its way relentlessly up Tony’s arm. But there’s more on top of that. Something wrong, that Tony can just feel, that he just knows, betrayed by Loki’s gulping, erratic breath and shaking shoulders.

“You’re not fine.” His hand coasts down the length of Loki’s spine and back up. “What happened? Something go wrong?”

Loki’s mumbled answer takes a second for Tony’s brain to process. Sounds a little like ‘chitauri’. And Tony doesn’t mean to sound so snappish when he says, “What?!” but it still comes out that way. A blurt of panic. “Are they-”

“No,” Loki says, anticipating the question. “It was the scepter. It pulled me off course as I was returning. Only for a moment, but I saw...” He doesn’t say what he saw. Just slowly shakes his head as his hands slide around the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have used the scepter. That was stupid. So stupid. It’s an anchor to that place, and...”

“But you did make it to Malibu and talk to Bruce?” Tony asks, feeling the regret even as he says it because fuck, what a selfish and insensitive thing to bring up before Loki’s even had a chance to halfway recover.

“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate. And Tony doesn’t even have time to weigh the option of prodding for more info before Loki sighs, the sound of his breath seeming to drag him down further. “There’s something wrong with my magic, Tony Stark,” he whispers. “And I do not know if it’s something Odin has done, or simply a side-effect of being in that suppressive prison for so long, but I... I cannot control it. Not as I could before. I have all my knowledge, all my abilities, yet now lack the precision. I can do everything I need to do, but it all goes slightly wrong.”

“I...” Tony starts, but can he even say? What the hell does he know about magic? He runs his hand down Loki’s back again, and up, and down. It’s a soothing gesture for them both. “Do you... do you want to talk about it? I mean, it’ll barely be one step up from talking to a wall, but even if you want to think out loud about anything... magic... chitauri...”

Loki’s answer is immediate. “No.” He sits up, rubbing his hands over his face and letting his fingertips linger over his eyes for a moment before combing them back into his hair. “I have no interest in talking about those things.”

“You sure?” Tony asks, even though that’s just one of those things you say at a time like this. You go through the motions and pretend you believe that talking about the past will heal things over instead of reopening old wounds. But Loki stays silent, as expected. So Tony moves on to the only actually helpful suggestion he can think of. “Do you want to get drunk instead?”

That gets him a firm nod of agreement and the shadow of a faint smile. “Yes. Let’s be very drunk and stupid. I want to forget things for a while.”

ooo

For a couple days Tony’s been meaning to ask the servants not to bother bringing him their signature spicy, sweet, and deadly strong Asgardian liquor with every meal (including breakfast), but now that he has over a dozen beer-sized bottles stashed behind his travel cases, he’s starting to see the value of maintaining a stockpile. “I’m keeping four for myself,” he says as he carries an armload over to Loki. “Based on a purely scientific test I conducted a couple days ago before you got out of jail, one of these bitches is equivalent to six or seven Earth drinks. So these four are mine, and you can go to town on the rest.”

Loki takes everything he’s offered. He chugs one straight down, and polishes off a second while Tony wraps the scepter in a few old shirts and hides it back in the bathroom. By the time Tony’s uncorking his first bottle, Loki’s already on the third. He’s also kicked off his pants and is lying on the bed wearing nothing but that Stark Industries shirt.

There is literally no part of this scenario that Tony doesn’t like.

“So,” he says as he sits on the bed, leaning back against a headboard of pillows, “why don’t you tell me what happened with Bruce?”

And Loki does. He goes over the whole story: his arrival in the kitchen, the presence of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Bruce’s agreement to rebuild the portal device. “I am sorry, Tony Stark,” Loki says when he reaches the end (carefully leaving off any details about what happened with the scepter).   “I did not anticipate that Dr. Banner would call in Director Fury and the others. I should have warned him to tell no one in my initial note.”

“No, that’s okay,” Tony insists. Sometime during the telling of the tale Loki managed to squirm his way over to rest his head across Tony’s stomach, letting Tony play with his hair. (Again, literally no unlikeable part of this scenario.) “Actually this is good, now that I think about it. S.H.I.E.L.D. knows the deal, and from what you said, it sounds like they’re on board. This way we know they’ve already agreed to provide Bruce with the energy cells instead of him having to go to them after the fact and potentially being turned down. This is like a best possible outcome.”

“Except for the five days.”

“Well, yeah. Guess I’ll be going hunting after all. But you know, that prospect doesn’t seem so bad any more. I think this magic space booze is giving me a serious over-falsity of confidence.” Holding the bottle up to the light, he can see it’s almost empty. He throws back the last mouthful before reaching for a second. This stuff is going down too easily, and there’s a 100% chance he’ll regret it in the morning, but with a drink in his hand and dizzying warmth in his head and Loki at his side, it’s not possible to bring himself to care. “Remind me to have some of this with breakfast before I go out. I’m pretty sure I could kill a boar right now. Actually I’m pretty sure I’m invincible right now.”

“I’m sure if I tried I could bite off my finger right now,” says Loki. He has the knuckle of his index finger in his mouth, too, as if he might really do it.

“No, that’s a bad idea. I wouldn’t know what to do except start rapping that Lords of the Rhymes song about Nine-Fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom.” Gently, he reaches down, pushing Loki’s hand away out of biting range and replacing it with his own. The pad of his thumb brushes Loki’s lips.

“Shall I bite you instead?” Loki says, mouth closing over Tony’s thumb as he speaks.

“As long as it’s cute, happy biting and you don’t pull a Gollum on me.”

Grinning in a way that’s not quite evil but by no means safe, Loki bites. Teeth dig in on either side of Tony’s nail, sending a sharp twinge of pain through his arm. Then Loki moves up, biting the heel of his hand, his wrist, and nipping at the prominent veins branching down the inside of his forearm. Pauses at the inner hollow of his elbow and bites hard enough to draw out a groan as the pain shoots straight between Tony’s legs. That one will leave a mark later.

Loki’s bites move sideways next, finding sensitive skin just below Tony’s ribcage, protected by only one thin layer of shirt. Up across his ribs like a kiss edged with teeth. To his collar bone, and another hard bite. Neck and jaw – those will leave more marks – as Tony’s pulse races under the progression of Loki’s mouth.

“Come here,” he whispers, hand combing through Loki’s hair and curling around the back of his neck to guide him up for a kiss. Loki bites. Sucks hard on Tony’s lower lip. Tony bites right back, tasting the spice of the alcohol in Loki’s mouth.

“Don’t move,” says Loki, which, Tony’ sure, can’t possibly be a bad thing. And he’s not disappointed. Loki uncorks another bottle (How are there five empties on the bed already?) and takes a drink before leaning back down, quickly, and crushing his mouth against Tony’s for a messy, liquid kiss. Booze trickles out between their lips, spilling over Tony’s cheek and down his neck.

It’s so stupid he has to laugh, even though he tries not to, as Loki’s tongue makes a valiant attempt at catching everything that escaped. There’s alcohol on his skin and in his mouth and in his blood and in his head, warm and satisfying. Elegantly dulling his senses to everything except what’s immediately here. What he can see and touch. And that’s Loki. He lifts his hand to Loki’s hair again, just to feel it slide through his fingers. Touching everything feels so perfect right now. Touching Loki even more so. Tingling magic layered on top of the cozy golden glow of Asgardian alcohol. “Do that again,” he murmurs.

“Kiss you with a mouth full of drink?”

“Yeah. That was really sexy. Especially the part where you dribbled all over my face.”

Then it’s Lokis turn to laugh at the sheer stupidity of it all as he once again takes a good pull on the bottle and leans down. His lips part against Tony’s and the free flow of booze is even less exact this time. If Tony swallows half of it, at least an equal amount has to be dripping down his neck, pooling on his shoulder and staining his shirt. He doesn’t care. His tongue find’s Loki’s, soaked in sweetness, and tries to salvage every drop he can get.

“You’re all sticky,” Loki says, pulling away. His mouth slips down to Tony’s jaw to lick at droplets beaded in stubble.

“You are definitely not the first person to say that to me,” Tony replies, and for some dumb reason that makes Loki laugh so hard he almost can’t breathe, tears glittering under his eyelashes as he chokes and coughs on his alcohol-laced breath. And Tony laughs too, because, well, it’s funny, and he’s kind of drunk, and Loki looks so goddamn adorable with his big blue eyes and floppy black curls falling in his face. He has to kiss him. Again. Almost missing, because Loki’s still laughing; he just catches the right side of Loki’s mouth. Then Loki’s cheek, smooth skin flushed pink. And the curved edge of Loki’s ear.

“Are you drunk?” Tony asks that ear. “I think you’re drunk.”

Loki nods, his hair brushing across Tony’s face with the movement of his head. “Yes. Very. Are you?”

“Sort of, yeah.” Tony tries to turn his head to look at the bottle in his hand, this second one almost as empty as the first. (However that happened.) At the end of his arm, so far away, it’s shadowy and blurred and impossible to pin down. He closes one eye. Better. “I can only see out of one eye at a time right now.” Which makes Loki laugh again, holding and clinging to Tony’s shoulders, like he can’t hold his balance. (Probably true.)

“I should take off my shirt,” Tony says. It’s sticky. Just like Loki said. But Loki pushes him back down onto the pillows when he tries to sit up straighter, pinning his arms on either side of his head. And spilling the dregs of both their bottles into the mattress.

“No. Keep it on.”

Both of Tony’s eyebrows rise. “Why? Is this a new kink of yours? Stark Industries t-shirt fetish?”

“You’re too prickly.”

Maybe those words make sense when sober. They don’t during a good ol’ drunk.   Tony has to replay them twice in his head before he realizes what Loki said, and he still doesn’t get it. “...What?”

“Prickly,” Loki repeats. Which Tony understands in meaning, just not in context. But then Loki’s hand slips under the hem of his shirt and floats up with a ghostly touch to lie, fingers spread, on his chest next to the arc reactor.

Oh. “...Right,” says Tony. “Um. Okay so you may not know this, but guys with dark hair and eyes, such as myself, tend to have... a lot of body hair. I mean, I don’t know if this is a thing on Asgard because all I’ve seen is you and Thor and you’re both magical perfect marble statues, but on Earth it’s a thing. So to avoid looking like a sasquatch I made the responsible decision many years ago to wax off all that extra hair. This is for the good of everyone, trust me. But then there was that whole fuckup with you, and I spent three months being a hermit and did not take proper care of myself as I should have done.   Big mistake. Because as soon as I came here I started to get all self-conscious again and made the really bad decision to shave it all off with the thing I use to shape my beard.”

Loki’s reaction can be summed up in one word: unimpressed. “Don’t do that again.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t. Soon as we get back to Malibu I’m calling this amazing Thai woman who has a portable setup to make house calls. She’ll take care of everything.”

“No. Don’t do any of that again.”

He can’t be serious. “What, you mean let it grow out?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You have weird ideas about this kind of thing and also wanted me to let my beard go.”

“You should do that as well.”

Tony just stares at Loki’s half-grinning face for a long, wordless minute before speaking again. Is Loki serious? The cloud of alcohol is too thick and heavy in Tony’s head for him to tell. “You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?”

“No.”

Loki’s other hand joins the first in sliding up under Tony’s shirt. Nails scratch over prickles, and the touch of magic pools inside his skin. A low moan forms deep inside Tony’s lungs and flows up to his throat. Slowly, with the languid grace of a snake, Loki lays his body out flush on top of Tony’s. Head to the side, resting on the pillow. Mouth against Tony’s cheek.

“You should do what I say,” he whispers. “I know what’s best.”

“About shaving?” Tony whispers back, trying not to laugh again.

“About everything.”

“If I stop shaving, will you let your hair grow really long?”

“Is that what you’d like?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yes.”

“Okay,” says Tony, turning his head so he can speak directly into Loki’s breath. “But this is now a legally binding drunken agreement. We have to honor it until the end of time.”

“Shall we drink on it?” Loki asks.

“Obviously.”

So Loki grabs bottle number eight, which they do a decent job of sharing, only spilling a little. Tony leans his forehead against Loki’s as he waits for the dizzying heat of the alcohol to hit. It’s getting hard to keep anything upright. Even his head. Even his eyelids. So he leans into Loki, wrapping his arms around Loki’s waist (under the shirt, against bare skin, because that’s nicer) and one of his knees finds its way between Loki’s naked legs, and the booze and the magic fill his body so perfectly. All the way through. He could stay like this forever.

“I like being drunk with you,” he mumbles, words coming out slurred and lazy.

“Our brains are melted together,” Loki agrees. His voice is very close to Tony’s ear.

“This is the best idea. Let’s do it every day.”

“I feel a bit sick.”

“Maybe not every day. But I think we’re having a good moment. You should tell me things. You should tell me a secret.”

“About what?”

“A secret about how wonderful you think I am because I’m so amazing.”

“Secret,” Loki murmurs. He’s quiet for a minute, but must be thinking, because then he says, “You have good energy. You feel right.”

“Right for you?”

His arm tightens its grip around Tony’s back when he nods. “Yes.”

That makes sense. The thought settles comfortably into Tony’s head. Right. Feels right. And maybe those simple words are the one’s he’s been searching for all along. How many people have asked him why he’s with Loki? Why he cares about Loki? Why he risked his life and bent the laws of physics and traveled across the abstract distance of space for Loki? How many times has he asked himself? And that’s the reason right there. A plain little unassuming, uncomplicated reason. Loki feels right. The way Loki’s energy seeps into his bloodstream, saturating every part of him, feels right.

“Keep going,” he says. “Say how much you adore me.”

“I do.”

Loki’s lips are soft against his neck, and Tony smiles. “And?”

This time, Loki raises his head. Shakily. Thought that that might just be the way he looks through Tony’s unsteady eyes. “I said your energy is right. The first time I touched you I thought... I had to convince myself that feeling of... It was unimportant. And you were nothing. Perhaps you might be a meaningless fuck. Like all the others. If that. Better I stay away from you because no matter what I tried to think, I knew that... I knew... Tony Stark, I wanted you. And I tried so hard to tell myself it was only physical, and it would be only once, but then that wasn’t true. And I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did in Atlantic City and that idiotic contract and...” He closes his eyes. “I thought if that’s how things were between us it would be safer,” he says, so quietly. “If I destroyed everything before it could happen it would be easier. Then I would stop making myself sick thinking of how much I wanted you and how much I needed to touch you, because of all the people, you were the one who felt right.”

“That’s, um,” Tony tries to say. “That’s...” But maybe there’s something in his throat stopping the words behind a solid barrier. Nothing stopping his hand, though, reaching up to Loki’s face and clumsily brushing fingertips across his cheek and jawline. Loki turns towards the touch and kisses his palm.

“In Phoenix you asked me why I came back for you, to the tower. And why I stayed with you afterward. I... I thought if I could... try to be with you... Maybe just try. What I wanted, for once. But this is a secret. I should never tell anyone. Especially not you.”

Tony’s hand squeezes Loki’s neck. “I won’t tell.”

“You shouldn’t ever know.”

“That you actually care?” Tony asks, and Loki nods. “That you actually... uh...”

Loki nods again, but drops his head down to avoid eye contact, hiding his face against Tony’s hair.

“Yeah,” Tony whispers to him. “Me too.”

“No, you’re drunk,” Loki murmurs.

“You’re more drunk.”

“We still have several bottles left.”

“Will you tell me another secret if we keep drinking?”

One little warning breath comes before the feeling of teeth on Tony’s ear as Loki bites down.

“Perhaps.”

Chapter Text

Some people claim they spend dreamless nights, but that’s not true. A healthy brain always dreams. The thing is that sometimes people don’t remember their dreams. And that’s the case with Tony when he wakes up to the sound of somebody’s unwanted fist pounding on his bedroom door.

“Fuck,” he mutters into the mattress. As far as his memory goes, a second ago he was sucking Loki’s dick, and now he’s face down in a pile of bedding and struggling for breath. No sleep. No dreams. Nothing but a jarring fast-forward through time. He turns his head enough to crack open one bleary, grit-scratched eye: there’s light streaming through the balcony doors, but it’s not the kind of get up asshole it’s almost noon light he’s used to after a night of hard drinking. More like surprise it’s 6 am and you need to do something light. So early the sun’s barely bothered to peek over the horizon light. Should still be asleep light. Disembowel the dumb motherfucker who’s pounding at the door light.

His head hurts. His whole body hurts. His arm hurts from being bent under his head at a weird angle. His back hurts because Loki, who’s curled up beside him and not wearing a thread of clothing, is using it as a pillow. But mostly his head hurts. His brain. His eyes.

“Loki,” he croaks, trying to roll over so he can sit up. Son of a bitch, even his voice hurts. “Loki can you-”

Get the door, Tony was going to say, but the snarling noise Loki makes as he pulls a blanket over his face and cocoons himself kicks all hopes of that happening into the dirt. So Tony flops out of bed and wobbles to his feet. He still feels a little drunk. Mostly hungover and hosting a headache like a steel band slowly squeezing his skull, but with the added bonus of not being able to walk steadily. Or see clearly. Why the hell is everything fuzzy and haloed in gray? And where did his pants go?

Well, it’s too early to deal with complicated questions like those. He’ll just grab Loki’s crumpled shirt and hold it in front of anything that shouldn’t be seen. Then he shuffles across the room and leans his forehead against the door for a couple seconds, trying (unsuccessfully) to get his balance and some sense of composure before pulling it open.

“Tony Stark,” says Thor, smiling so brightly a person might be fooled into thinking it was a reasonable hour.

Tony tries to say ‘hey’ but it comes out more like, “Hnnng.”

“Did I wake you?”

Stupid questions should probably be met with snappy answers, but Tony’s in no state to come up with any. Cleverness is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol... Oh fuck it, he can’t even think of the right way to finish that thought. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s okay. You wanna come in?”

Thor takes a minute to look at the shirt Tony’s wearing, stained and smelling like a distillery, then at the second shirt he’s holding slightly lower. “...No.”

Fair enough. “Then can I go back to bed?”

“I’ve come to invite you to breakfast. Father insisted. We’re eating in his private suite.”

“Do I have to?”

The way Thor laughs at that must mean he thinks Tony is joking. “Dress and make yourself ready. I will wait here for you.”

“No but-”

“Hurry, Tony Stark. Mother and Father are already waiting.”

Waiting. Great. That makes everything so much better. “Okay. Just... just gimme a sec to...” Put his brain back in order. “Be right back.”

He shuts the door, leaving Thor safely out in the hall, and stumbles over to the bathroom. Sticks his head directly in the sink. Cold water on his face feels nice. If only he could stay like this for a couple hours. Maybe later. For now, he rubs his eyes and dampens his hair, and pulls off his shirt to splash water over his neck and under his arms. Down his chest. (Prickles. Well then. Loki was right.)

He should probably wear his fancy Asgardian clothes, but those seem way too complicated for this hour of morning plus this level of hungover. He’ll wear the fancy pants and a golf shirt that isn’t too horribly wrinkled. And a jacket. And a tie. Ties are good. Asgardians don’t know that ties aren’t supposed to go with golf shirts. But even that half-assed level of personal preparation takes a long time, and Thor starts pounding on the door again while Tony’s trying to clumsily force his arms into the jacket sleeves.

“Hang on!” he shouts. “Try a little patience! I’m almost there!”

“Don’t shout,” Loki growls from the bed.

Easy for him to say. He gets to stay passed out like a useless lump. The perks of being temporarily politically irrelevant. “I wish I was a prisoner,” Tony grumbles to himself. “Get to stay in bed all day, nobody forcing you to have breakfast with the stupid king...” He buttons his coat as Thor starts pounding again.

“Are you ready?” Thor asks when Tony opens the door. The way he says it, though, seems to mean, ‘You took fifteen minutes getting ready and still look like that?’

“Yeah, yeah,” says Tony. “Let’s get this over with. Where do we go?”

It takes a long, reluctant pause for Thor to accept the sad fact that Tony’s appearance isn’t going to get any better. “Follow me,” he says. Exhales a defeated sigh as he turns around and starts walking. Well, it’s his own damn fault for expecting anyone to be presentable after last night’s astounding display of one good decision after another. So he leads the way down the hallway and up a staircase, and around a corner and up more stairs. And another staircase. Another hallway. More stairs. More stairs. More stairs. More stairs. Even more stairs.

Tony likes to think he’s in good shape (Cripes, he’d been working out six hours a day for three months, he damn well better be in good shape), but stairs plus hangover plus still kind of drunk plus general exhaustion has him breathing heavily and stumbling with one foot barely in front of the other. “How far...” he gasps, “are we going?”

“Do you want me to carry you?” Thor asks.

And that was a completely serious, sarcasm-free question. Tony stops to lean against the wall for a second. “What? No.”

“I ask because you are very slow, Tony Stark, and we are late.”

Then maybe you should have come to get me earlier, asshole, Tony thinks but doesn’t say. Or better yet, not at all. But he doubles his efforts. Pushes his legs, step after step, to hurry up the endless stairs. Which is of course a total gong show and by the time they reach the top he’s pretty sure he’s going to die. Or at least vomit. Maybe pass out. And still vomit. Then die.

Thirty-seven flights of stairs. What kind of fucking moron decided to have breakfast up here? The answer to that question is, of course, waiting on the other side of an unnecessarily large and ornate door. It’s none other than the king of Asgard himself.

The room Thor leads Tony into has one entire wall of open space leading out to a wide, golden balcony. Just past some filmy curtains there’s a table set with platters of food and pitchers of drink gleaming in the early sunlight. Odin at one end of the table, Frigga at the other. Odin’s dark glower is nothing new, so Tony can ignore that pretty easily, but the cool look on Frigga’s face sets off an unpleasant twinge in his gut that has nothing to do with last night’s shenanigans. She stares at him as he makes the long walk of shame from the door to the table. She stares, and he tries to stare back, but can’t quite bring himself to maintain eye contact. Keeps glancing down at the floor.

It’s not because Thor took too long collecting him and they’re late for breakfast. It’s not because he scuffs his feet as he walks, shuffling along like Frankenstein’s monster. It’s not even because he looks so bad he’s actually startled by the red-eyed and haggard state of his reflection in a polished silver plate. He knows Frigga doesn’t care about any of that shit, and if she did, she’d be too polite to let her distaste show. This is about something a lot bigger. And Tony’s pretty sure he knows exactly what that is. Realistically, can he expect her to show any warmth and kindness towards the man who now owns her son?

Odin’s inarticulate grunt once Thor and Tony take their seats signals the start of breakfast, and he picks up his knife and spears a thick slab of ham. He doesn’t say anything about tardiness or inappropriate appearances. But he doesn’t have to. The disgruntled disappointment comes across loud and clear in the way he also says no words of welcome. And in Thor’s downcast frown of shame. Tony waits until Frigga and Thor have food on their plates before reaching for anything, somewhat out of politeness but more because he’s not hungry at all and the last thing he feels like doing is stuffing himself with meat. He takes a piece of bread and a wedge of something that looks like a peach, and fills his cup with a cloudy juice he sure hopes isn’t alcoholic. (No. Plain apple-ish. Good.)

And then come the waiting for a hint – any hint – of why he was required to show up for this breakfast instead of continuing to be unconscious in bed like the drunken jerk he is. Unfortunately, the wait might be a long one, since Odin seems determined to not so much as look at him, let alone talk to him. The Asgardians chat amongst themselves. Tony chews his bread in silence as Thor tells Odin about whatever mundane thing he did last night and the equally mundane plans he has for today. Takes a sip of juice in silence as Frigga asks about the preparations for tomorrow’s hunt. In fact, he eats his entire breakfast in silence. Feeling more and more, with each passing second, like the unwanted and ignored family member whose presence may be mandatory but sure isn’t appreciated.

(Kind of like he’s the new Loki in this quaint little breakfast scene. Except he has the feeling Loki would be trying to pick a fight with somebody instead of sitting here passively forcing dry bread down his throat.)

“So, Tony Stark,” Odin finally says to him once the servants finish bringing out the final course: overly sweet tea with too much thick, goopy, pastel pink cream. “You look like you did not sleep very well last night.”

And fuck you very much, too. Tony clenches his teeth, inhaling and exhaling two long breaths before he trusts himself to say anything. Yeah, he knows he looks like shit. His tired, gray reflection in all the shiny tableware won’t let him forget it. But there’s a big difference between personally knowing you look like shit and having everyone else confirm and comment on the fact that yes, you do indeed look like shit. “I was working,” he manages to grunt out, sounding not completely pissed off. “Ended up staying awake almost all night with the armor.”

“And was Loki helping you?”

Of course Odin’s going somewhere with this, but there’s a current problem where Tony’s too tired and sick to bother trying to work out where. “Yeah,” he says, because sticking close to the truth is a good answer. It doesn’t require too much thought. And technically Loki was helping him with something or other last night.

“All night?”

“Yep.” From what he can remember, at least.

“Hm.” Odin sips his tea, either for dramatic pause or because he finds this conversation just as scintillating as Tony does. “I have been considering your current living quarters since our discussion the other day.”

Ah. So that’s where this is going. Tony nods, and in a spectacular case of ‘first time for everything’ actually starts to appreciate being woken up too early and looking like something the cat dragged in. At least he looks the sleep-deprived part of that neat little lie he told. “Yeah, I probably kept Loki up working way too long, but you know how it is when you’re in the zone and want to keep going. We probably didn’t get to bed until two hours before Thor came pounding on the door.”

“’We’?” Odin repeats.

Fuck. Oh, fuck fuck fuck. “Uh, yeah,” Tony says, though it’s pretty hard to backpedal when your feet are so busy kicking yourself in the ass for being that damn careless. “I mean obviously I went to the actual bed and Loki just went to sleep, but it’s an idiomatic expression. Like on Earth you say ‘going to bed’ to mean ‘going to sleep’ even if you’re sleeping on the couch. So we went to sleep. At the same time. Obviously I couldn’t let him go until I was done. The hunt’s tomorrow, I need my armor, and what’s the point in having a prisoner if I can’t take advantage of him? I mean by getting him to help me. All night. With repairs. And, um...” Oh shut up, Tony, before your sleep-deprived brain says something you really regret. “...Yeah.”

Once again, all Odin replies with is, “Hm.” Sips his tea again, holding the delicate cup with two fingers like a prissy princess instead of the fearsome space Viking overlord he is. Then, “I have located a more suitable arrangement for you.”

Tony’s heart jumps in his chest. “Which is...?”

“One of the guest suites. Two bedrooms with a presence room and private bathing facilities. I’ve had the second bedroom fitted with an external lock so that you may keep your prisoner...” He pauses, reaching for more cream. “...safe.”

And Tony’s heart settles back down to its normal position and speed. Almost. That can’t be all to whatever Odin’s trying to do; there has to be more. “That sounds... perfect,” he says carefully, remembering to dip his head in a little bow. “Thank you. Is there – ah – anything I need to do?”

“No,” says Odin. “Thor will show you to your new quarters, and he will call for servants to assist you in moving your belongings.”

“And that’s all?” Tony has to ask.

Odin only raises one eyebrow above that one functional eye of his. He doesn’t need to speak a word: his expression is more than enough to get the point across. What else would there be?

“That sounds lovely,” Frigga says in an I’m-just-saying-that-for-something-to-say manner, and she stands up as she does. “Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, it’s such a pleasant morning that I think I’ll take a turn around the gardens. I’m sure I will see you all later.”

“I will join you shortly,” Odin tells her.   “There are only a few things I must discuss with Thor.”

Then Frigga departs with a queenly swish of skirts, leaving Tony sitting like an idiot with Thor and Odin, wondering what the hell he’s even doing here. Was this seriously nothing more than a social breakfast? Sit and be chummy with the royals? Odin did announce the impending room move, but was that something that needed to be done in person? So early in the morning? Couldn’t somebody have just sent him an owl? No, there has to be something more coming.

“Perhaps it might be best, Tony stark,” says Odin, “if you returned to your bed and found another few hours of sleep?”

From the corner of his eye, Tony sees that Frigga stopped at the door and is holding it open. Waiting for somebody. Ah. So her early exit was supposed to be a subtle hint that Tony’s supposed to follow her and leave Odin and Thor to go about their daily business. (Way too subtle, as it turns out, for Tony’s current state of mind.) “...Right,” he says. “I’ll, uh...” The chair scrapes loudly over floor as he stands. “Thank you. For breakfast.   I appreciate the invitation.” In theory, anyway.

“We shall have to invite you again. But perhaps once you’ve decided to conform to more conventional waking hours.”

“Sure thing,” says Tony. They can pencil something in for never.  But for now he’ll extract himself from this situation as quickly as possible, pretending it’s not humiliating as shit. Also pretending he has the slightest clue about what’s going on.

But maybe this is it, he thinks as he tries to leave the room without stumbling over his heavy, uncoordinated feet. Maybe it was Frigga, not Odin, who wanted to talk to him. He catches up to her on the first of thirty-seven staircases. “My lady?” he says, which sounds stupid, but at least it grabs her attention. Frigga stops at the bottom of the stairs and turns to face him.

The confidence Tony had four seconds ago in his theory that she was the one who summoned him evaporates right then and there. No, her face is as cold as ever, and the tight line of her mouth advertises loud and clear that she has nothing to say. “I, uh...” he starts, but that’s all he has. He waits a second, hoping she’ll give him something – anything, about Loki or Thor or why she looks so annoyed with him or even the goddamn weather – but that wish isn’t about to be fulfilled any time soon.

“Do you require something of me, Tony Stark?” she asks, an imperious frost blanketing her voice.

Tony sighs. “Yeah. Actually, I do. I think we might have a little misunderstanding here.”

“About?”

“You don’t seem to be that happy with me today.”

“How very observant of you,” she says, and starts walking again. Tony follows.

“I’d just like to take a minute to assure you that if I’ve upset you in any way-”

“Upset?” Frigga echoes in a singsong tone that Tony’s heard more than once from Loki. Like mother, like son. “No, Tony Stark, I am not upset with you.”

“Then what?” he presses.

Frigga stops again at the bottom of the next flight of stairs. She turns to look Tony directly in the eye. They’re the same height, perfectly level, but the regal tilt to her head makes her seem so much taller. “I would call it disappointment,” she says. “I am disappointed in you.” And she starts walking again, this time at a brisk pace.

Disappointed hits Tony right in the middle of the chest. Was he seriously just mom-guilted by the queen of Asgard? After a moment of standing still in shock he manages to stumble after her, pushing his uncooperative, wobbly legs almost into a run. “Wait. Disappointed? Why? What did I do?”

“Nothing,” says Frigga, which isn’t a reassurance but an accusation: Tony did nothing, with the implication being that there’s something he should have done.

“What do you mean?”

“You came to this realm with such promise,” she answers, and this time doesn’t bother to stop or even slow her pace. Maybe she enjoys watching Tony struggle to keep up. “I thought, when you first appeared, that you might be the one person who could truly help my son. The way he spoke of you made me think that he believed this, too. And now what are you doing?”

“Uh, excuse me?” says Tony. “I kind of wrangled together a pretty big technological advance to get here, to help your son. Nothing major, just an entire overhaul of space travel as Earth knows it. You call that nothing?”

“Which is why I say you came to his realm with such promise. You spent all that effort on coming here, but have since faded into the shadows, lost in a mire of unsavory rumors that blaze through the city like wildfire now that, as I understand it, Loki is your slave.”

Tony almost trips himself to a halt. “What? What unsavory rumors?!” He pushes on because Frigga’s sure not stopping as they come to yet more stairs. “First you say I haven’t done anything, and now-”

“Your doing nothing is exactly what fuels these rumors,” says Frigga. “Loki now belongs to you. I find that abhorrent enough in itself, and it is something I can only guess was a poorly planned idea on Thor’s part if either he or you thinks treating Loki in this manner will do any good. But that is only my opinion. What I find more disturbing is how this makes you appear to others. Loki comes under your control, and you’re not seen for days! Not a step outside those walls, not a word to anyone, not a single finger lifted to put up even a false screen of respectability over your behavior! No, the two of you stay sequestered in your bedroom, and what do you suppose the gossips lingering about court choose to make of such scandal?”

At that, Tony does stop, and to his immense relief Frigga does too. “I...”

Frigga stares him down without a shred of sympathy. “You what?”

Cripes she’s intimidating. Tony can’t hold eye contact; there’s something about her that forces him to avert his eyes and stare at the safety of the wall like a kid being called up before the principal. “Honestly I thought I was doing the right thing by staying out of everyone’s way and keeping a low profile. But now that you put it like that... yes, okay, I screwed up. I guess I was only looking at things from my perspective. I thought I needed to stay with Loki. I didn’t think...” About a lot of things, apparently.

“You didn’t think that sharing a single bedroom with your new slave might reflect poorly on your character?” she asks in a quietly calm voice that’s so much more effective than an outright shouting accusation at making him feel even worse. “It didn’t occur to you to request more appropriate living quarters? You were too caught up in your own cares to see any fault, to the point where the king of Asgard himself had to step in to tell you what to do, as if you were a wayward child?”

Fuck. So breakfast was probably nothing more than a minor plot to lure him out of his hobbit hole for an hour or two, away from Loki and the shadowy depths of his new reputation around town. “I was being pretty selfish,” he says. It’s a grudging rather than a real heartfelt confession, but it’s all he has in him at the moment. “That’s me, though. That’s how I operate. I act like a selfish ass, get called out on it, and maybe make an effort to set things right.”

Still staring at him with those cold eyes, Frigga has nothing to say to that.

“I can fix things.”

“How? How might you fix the fact that my son, who was once prince of this realm, is now known far and wide as your slave?”

“I don’t know,” Tony admits. “But I can’t help but wonder why you’re so worked up over him being seen as a slave now when a couple days ago you were fine with him being mocked as a traitor.”

Oh, that was the wrong thing to say. Frigga’s narrow eyes flash with fire, and if Tony could snatch back and swallow those idiotic, ill-conceived words from his overtired mind, he’d do it in an instant. “Sorry,” he says, though apologies can only smooth over rough speech, never erase it. “I... I didn’t mean to say that. That was stupid. I know how much you care about Loki, and how much you worry about him, and I get that this must be... I don’t know, I can’t even imagine. Your son’s lost everything and now legally belongs to me. But-”

“But?” she snaps, hard as an iron rod. “But I should forgive you for this deplorable injustice because in practice it is nothing more than a lie? I know this plot was all Thor’s doing, Tony Stark. And I know it was nothing more than a means to remove Loki from the confines of prison and place him into your care. But that does not change the fact that, in the eyes of the impressionable citizens of Asgard, Loki is a slave. He is your slave. And you have done nothing at all to help them think anything but the absolute worst!”

“I’m sorry.” Tony repeats that useless platitude even though he knows he sounds too hesitant and low and holds nowhere near the level of competence he needs for this conversation. “I didn’t even think and... you’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry. And I’ll fix it.”

“How?” she repeats.

“I don’t know yet. But I’ll figure it out.”

Frigga starts walking again.

“Look, I can handle things,” Tony insists. “I’ve been on the receiving end of horrible rumors and PR nightmares before. I’ve figured a way out of those, and I’ll figure a way out of this. If I need to make myself respectable, I can do it. I’m going on that hunt tomorrow and I can start correcting some assumptions. I can make appearances here and there and keep in the spotlight. I’m good at that when I have to be. That’s kind of my life back home. But for now, maybe you can help.”

“Why should I want to help you?” Frigga asks without turning around.

“Not me. Loki. You can help Loki. Come visit. If you’re seen coming to check up on us, people will know nothing crazy is going on. And you can see that he’s happy and he’s doing well.”

For one last time in their little red light/green light exercise, Frigga stops, and actually looks at Tony with something halfway resembling a considerate expression. It’s still a far cry from the warmth she extended him before this whole clusterfuck of a plan went into motion, but it’s a start. “Perhaps.”

“Stop by this afternoon. Once we’re moved into the new suite.”

Frigga’s silence threatens to stretch into refusal, but finally she nods. “Yes. I will.”

He doesn’t hurry after her when she starts walking again this time.  

ooo

It takes probably half an hour for Tony to sloth his way back down to his floor. Truth is, he ends up taking a wrong turn and going a floor too far and having to hike back up, though he’s not going to tell anybody about that part. When he finally does push open the bedroom door the thing he wants to do most is fall into bed and sleep, but since he has no idea when Thor’s going to show up for the move, that’s just not going to happen. Shitty as he feels, it’ll be even shittier to rest now and waste whatever pitiful momentum he has going. There’s a really good chance that if he tries to lie down, he won’t get up for hours.

Surprisingly enough, Loki isn’t in bed. He’s sitting cat-like out on the balcony in a sunbeam, golden light casting a soft glow all around him. Like a miserable little angel, with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth a tight-pursed line. He lifts his head to squint at the sound of Tony’s approaching footsteps.

“Hey,” Tony murmurs.

“Nn,” Loki replies.

He looks like Tony feels: pallid skin and sunken red eyes that he can’t help rubbing with the back of his hand. He clenches his jaw with every few shaky breaths. But he also looks... Well, it’s an expression Tony’s familiar with. Not one that’s been seen so much recently, but it’s still all too recognizable. It’s that blankness. That wariness. That invisible wall built up between what Loki feels and what he projects.

Maybe Tony should be wondering why. But if he thinks carefully enough (as much as he can think with things the way they are) the answer’s there in the back of his mind. Hazy, fluid memories push their way forward, of hesitantly spoken secrets and quiet touches and all those little gestures with fingertips and the brush of lips across skin. What Loki said. Somehow, through all the drunken fog, Tony still remembers every word.

It’s plain as day that Loki does, too.

“You know,” he says. But he stops right there because, really, he doesn’t know. Or maybe he knows just enough to remember how this conversation went last time Loki looked like that, and he has no intention of walking back into the emotional bramble patch. It doesn’t feel like conversation time right now. His head hurts and he can’t think and he doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to talk. He wants to...

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, maybe an action’s worth a million. He kneels down, wraps one hand around the back of Loki’s neck, and kisses him hard.

It’s a good choice. Loki’s hands quickly find his waist, slipping up and around to his shoulders and pulling him close. He leans in, and kind of falls in, but it’s okay because Loki catches him so they can awkwardly slide down against the balustrade together. And for a moment, maybe Loki smiles before he drops his head back and resumes looking sick.

“So um,” Tony says, “you taste a bit like you probably threw up recently.”

“Yes,” Loki groans.

Of course he did. “That’s... yeah. Good for you. Better out than in.”

“Three times.”

“Wow. Okay then.” Tony shifts over to sit beside Loki instead of mostly on top of him. “I’ll kiss your hair from now on.”

“I think I have vomit in my hair as well.”

“I just noticed that. Thank you.” Maybe he should stand back up. “I’m going to go wash my mouth out with that weird cinnamon paste that keeps showing up in the bathroom.”

Loki nods. “Bring me some. And water.”

“Sure thing, your highness. Why are you sitting out here anyway instead of hugging the toilet?”

“The wind feels nice,” Loki replies, in a voice so wispy and frail it almost makes Tony want to kiss him again, vomit or not.

But Tony grabs the weird jar of what apparently passes for Asgardian toothpaste, and a cup of water, and brings them out to Loki, who sort of squishes everything around in his mouth in an adorably pathetic way before spitting over the balcony.

“Do you want me to run you a bath?” Tony asks. “A nice, tepid bath might be nice. Get you cleaned up.”

“I don’t want to move,” Loki whispers.

“How much did you drink last night anyway?”

Loki answers with a weak little shrug, but the actual number’s lying all over the bedroom floor if Tony takes a second to count. He can see five empty bottles on his side of the bed, and another three kicked over into the far corner. Six scattered around the room. Christ, that’s fourteen already, and he’d probably find even more if he bothered to look under the bed or in the mess of blankets. “It’s kind of amazing you didn’t get alcohol poisoning. Did you at least meet your goal and forget your troubles?”

“I forget what I was trying to forget.”

Mission accomplished, then. Tony kicks one of the bottles aside as he crouches down in front of the travel cases. “So here’s the thing,” he says. “Following up on his promise from the other day, your dad has decided we’re moving into a new room.”

Loki’s answering silence can be interpreted as either careful consideration of what Tony just said, or complete apathy. Tony’ll pretend he can’t tell which one.

“New room. Better room. Actually it’s two bedrooms and a bath, and a lock on one of the doors in case you get too rowdy and I need to give you a time out.”

“Nn.”

“You don’t sound too excited.”

“I find myself beyond caring about anything Asgard has to offer at the moment.”

“Yeah, I figured as much,” says Tony, trying to keep his tone light and conversational. “Given that, you know, you had to have had some idea that us sharing this room together would’ve looked kind of suspicious to... let’s see... the entire who’s who listing of this planet.”

Slowly, Loki turns his head to look in Tony’s direction. Apparently being sick as a dog has no impact on his ability to pull a major intimidation face. “And what, exactly do you mean by that?”

Just that you probably could have warned me that this hermit behavior would raise eyebrows among the rumormongers, is the immediate answer that comes to Tony’s mind. Just that you grew up in this damn viper pit and know all its secret rules and expectations, but didn’t see fit to mention that everything we’re doing is a major social faux pas. Nothing big. Just you screwing me over as usual.

But he keeps quiet and says none of that. Because if there’s any time for a fight over who neglected to mention something vastly important to whom, and exactly who might be at fault for X, Y, and Z, it’s not now. He can bring it up later. (Later when he’s in a more energetic mood and a fight has a better chance of ending in angry sex rather than hungover sulking. Later when he’s in a more energetic mood and can even think about angry sex.) For now he’ll smile pleasantly. “Nothing. You keep on moping out there, champ, and definitely keep up that symphony of pitiful noises. I’ll take care of all the tough, manly housework in here.”

It’s almost sad that Loki’s too ill to manage a scathing comeback and has to settle for a mean glare. And it’s legitimately sad that he gets to blob on the balcony while Tony’s forced to stagger around the room, carelessly stuffing clothes into the wrong case to get everything off the floor and ready to move.

“Also,” Tony adds, “your mom’s coming to visit. So you might want to get dressed. And did you know she knows all about your and Thor’s crazy slave plot?” He’ll just casually toss that out there. “Yeah. She saw right through it like a cheap coat of paint.”

“I assumed she would,” answers Loki. He sounds nothing short of totally unconcerned.

“You’re not worried she’ll tell the big boss?”

Loki sighs. “It’s always a possibility. Perhaps she already has. But right now, Tony Stark, I don’t care. We return to Midgard in four days. If we can only survive the next four days, we never need worry about him again.”

Something about ‘survive the next four days’ sounds a little more ominous and creepy than it should. But something about ‘we return to Midgard’... that makes Tony smile kind of stupidly to himself. (We.)  He grabs a handful of wire and used socks and crams them into the nearest container. Four more days and he’ll be back home. With Loki.

That thought is simultaneously both terrifying and exhilarating.

ooo

Thor, as proof that he’s a master good timing as well as bad, appears mere seconds after Tony forces the last poorly packed case shut. He’s followed by a handful of servants who get to work picking things up and moving them out with minimal direction, which is ideal because all that crouching and bending sure didn’t make Tony feel any better. Not that he expected it to.

Thor ends up moving Loki.

“Carry me,” Loki demands from the balcony, voice still wispy-frail as he holds out both arms like a spoiled toddler.

And Thor does, scooping him up without a second thought. Like it’s nothing. Also like it’s normal. Which, in hindsight, would really explain his offer to Tony earlier on their way up to breakfast.

The new room, three floors up, looks a lot like the old one, except instead of a bed against the wall opposite the balcony there’s a sitting area with a fireplace and cushioned chairs gathered around a bearskin rug. The bear is approximately the size of your average stegosaurus. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The floor and walls are the same shiny synthetic stone, and the ceiling the same knotwork of beams. But the balcony on this room is both wider and longer, connecting to a large bedroom off to the right. A second bedroom, smaller and windowless, sits to the right of the first, with a heavy gold key waiting in its door. Loki’s room. Able to be locked from the outside. Well, it’ll be a good storage space for stuff Tony doesn’t want anybody poking through.

Thor doesn’t stick around to help unpack, despite Tony’s numerous hints that gee these cases are pretty heavy and somebody like Thor could probably haul everything into the second bedroom under one arm, all at once. No, he takes off with an excuse of something to do with tomorrow’s hunt, leaving Tony to unpack on his own while Loki sits out on the new balcony and resumes looking like a miserable angel in a sunbeam. Tony’s completed action item Where the Hell Are My Jeans and is just getting into the Quest for the Missing Pajamas when Frigga, whose sense of timing is either as good as or as bad as Thor’s, appears at the door. There’s a small entourage with her. Tony’s sure that’s part of the plan, and sure enough they disperse with a few hushed whispers and darting glances once Frigga steps into the room.

“Thanks for coming,” Tony says. And then, because there’s no point in empty chitchat when all he wants to do is try to regain even a little piece of Frigga’s trust, he gets right to the point. “Loki’s on the balcony. He’s not feeling that great due to... uh...” Really, there’s no sense in lying. “...a lot of drinking last night.”

“I suspected as much when I saw you at breakfast,” Frigga replies as she glides elegantly past him to join her son. Who by this time has made himself semi-presentable by deciding to sit on a chair like a person instead of on the floor like a collapsed heap of borrowed sweatpants. “Loki?”

“Mrr,” Loki groans in reply, which might be slurred shorthand for ‘mother’. He manages to keep himself upright in his chair until Frigga’s right at his side, then he drops his head into her hands so she can cradle him against her body and stroke his hair. (Never did wash that vomit out.)

“Oh, Loki,” she says, followed by something halfway between a disapproving tut and a soothing hum.

From where he’s standing, Tony can’t make out any of what Loki says next, apart from the fact that he says/groans it in a high, whiny pitch.

“Are you hungry?” Frigga asks. “Should I have some food brought up?”

“No,” Loki says/groans/whines. Tony hears this one loud and clear. “The thought of food is...”

“Water?”

“Tony Stark brought me water.”

“How nice of him,” says Frigga, sounding a bit like she expected that level of expert caregiving to be beyond Tony’s meager skills. “Did he also offer to draw you a bath? That might make you feel and...” Her nose wrinkles. “...look... much better.”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Tony cuts in with a grin of pure smug superiority. “I told him a tepid bath might be just what he needs, but-”

“I don’t want to move,” says Loki.

“He likes sitting in the wind,” Tony explains.

Loki nods as much as he can with his head trapped in a tight mother-hug. “I do.”

“I see.” And thus, with no other obvious complaints at hand, Frigga goes back to petting Loki’s hair. “How do you like the new room?” she asks after a moment of silence.

“Adequate,” says Loki. “Yet unnecessary. We were fine as we were.”

“It’s not proper,” Frigga replies. “This is hardly much better, but-”

“I do not care about proper.”

“I understand, Loki.” Her voice stays so calm even when his rises sharply. “But if you wish for people to-”

“I do not wish for people to do anything!” Loki snaps, jerking away from her embrace. “I wish for people to leave me in peace! Ignore me! Which they seem to be perfectly capable of doing except when it comes to the bedroom!”

“You know they-”

“I know they what?! I know they already look down on me, so why should I try to do anything to please them? Why should I lie for their sake if they’ll only find some other fault in me?” He lurches to his feet and takes two steps back before leaning heavily against the balustrade on both elbows. “I don’t care what anyone thinks any more. I don’t care if they hate me or mock me. I don’t care if all nine realms know that I’ve spent the last four nights and also most mornings, afternoons, and evenings in bed with Tony Stark. I – don’t – care.”

“I know,” says Frigga, still perfectly calm even when Tony finds himself tense as a tripwire at Loki’s sudden outburst and unscripted confession. “I know. But Loki, there are still certain expectations resting on your shoulders. You are a prince of Asgard.”

“No, I am a slave,” Loki retorts. “And I know how much that must grieve you, mother, but please comfort yourself to know that I am relieved by it. I am happier this way. I’m happier without the burden of this realm on my back. And I’ll be happier still when Asgard forgets me completely.”

Slowly, Frigga’s hands come together to clasp over her waist, and she lowers her gaze with a sigh that sounds so close to defeat. “You... That is what you truly believe.”

Loki just barely nods. “Yes.”

As Frigga moves forward, Tony moves back. When she raises her hand to cup Loki’s cheek, Tony pushes open the smaller bedroom’s door. This seems like the place to make his exit. The way Loki leans into Frigga’s touch, the way he closes his eyes... They need to talk this through in private without Tony hanging around in the background. Loki needs to find some point of understanding with his mother. Make his peace before they head back to Earth and it’s too late.

So Tony closes the door behind him. The light in this little room is dim, emanating from an overhead crystal fixture in a way that doesn’t seem possible, but it’ll do. Carefully, he heaves the pile of his armor wrapped up in a sheet (hey, it worked for moving purposes) off the bed and begins organizing all the pieces along the wall. Helmet. Face plate. Neck guard. Shoulder, shoulder, back and chest. Outside, Loki’s voice rises and muffled shouts filter through the wall, followed by firm and almost equally loud words from Frigga. A minute later, a frustrated shout. Tony stands his boots upright at the end of the armor train. Everything’s in place, ready for the morning. Then he moves on to the explosive mess of the cases. Maybe if he takes the time to patiently sort out tools form clothes he’ll be able to find what he needs for tomorrow without turning the room into something that looks like the aftermath of a tornado.

Slowly, the arguments in the other room soften, then die down altogether. Quiet minutes stretch out into an hour. Tony has almost everything organized (tools and supplies in that case, clothes folded over here, scepter wrapped in a towel and stuffed under a bunch of dirty laundry) when there’s a soft tap at the door.

Frigga.  “Thank you, Tony Stark,” she says, “for asking me to come here today. I think it was... necessary.” She’s not smiling. But nor does she look upset.

Tony nods. “You had a good talk with Loki?”

“I had an informative talk with Loki.” She glances back over her shoulder, not in the direction of the balcony but over to the bear-chair sitting area, where Loki now seems to have made himself comfortable. He has his knees tucked up with his arms hugging his shins, and his face turned down so it’s hidden by his hair. For one horrible second Tony has the bad feeling in his gut that ‘informative talk with Loki’ means she’s now looking for an explanatory talk with him, but to his great relief she sighs and shakes her head. “Loki is a difficult man.”

Yes, and in other news, water is wet. “To be fair, I’ve been accused of the same thing,” Tony says. “Maybe it’s why we get along. I know he doesn’t really mean to be a jerk. He’s just acting that way because it’s the easy way out and, well, I know I’d do the same.”

“Perhaps I will come back tomorrow while you’re out with Thor and the others. The remainder of our conversation should be had when he’s in a better mood. For now I will take my leave. Again, thank you.”

She inclines her head and holds out her hands in a minimalist curtsey, and Tony, sincerely trying to not fuck things up with her this time, bows as low as he can manage. She has something in her left hand, and it takes a second for Tony to recognize what it is: the camera he had at the market. Which he sort of remembers unpacking and setting on one of the side tables in the seating area. Frigga holds it out. “What is this device?”

“It’s a camera. You point it at something and press that button on the top, and it-”

“Captures and displays tiny images? How clever. We have similar artifacts here, but far larger. Nothing small enough to carry in a pocket like this.”

“Yep, that’s what Earth excels at,” says Tony. “Making progressively smaller electronics every year.”

“There is one image on here,” she says. “Loki tells me you created it. In this one, he’s standing under a tree in the garden...”

Tony knows which one she means right away. The good photo. The one photo where Loki looks peaceful, and maybe even content, for a fraction of a second frozen in time. “I... yeah. I took that one. I was trying to get more, too but like you said: he’s difficult. And that difficulty extends into his modeling career.”

“It’s lovely,” she says, words so soft they almost disappear under her breath. She holds up the camera for Tony to take, and when he does, she clasps his hands and leans in to kiss him on the cheek. “Take care of him, Tony Stark,” she whispers. “I know I can trust you to do that. Whatever happens, whatever he does... please take care of my son. Make him happy.”

“I will,” he promises. The weight of the camera in his hands, and Frigga’s touch on his cheek, feel like witnesses to a solemn vow. He will take care of Loki. No matter what happens, no matter what Loki does, he will.

Chapter Text

Tony’s ass hurts, and not in a good way. And his shoulders hurt, also not in a good way, but since he can’t think of a scenario where shoulder pain could possibly be good, there’s no real reason to qualify that statement.

The thing is, he’s in his armor, sitting on a horse, riding around in a forest on the hunt for some giant boar that’s so far eluded the pack. His armor definitely wasn’t designed for horseback riding, so there’s a lot of general awkwardness going on. His knees ache like a bitch and something’s digging in and pinching his hips from sitting like this. And his back... Screw it. It’s not even worth thinking about his back. But the big problem isn’t body pain. Pain while wearing armor is something that comes with the territory of being Iron Man and constantly crashing into things.

The big problem is that on top of all-over pain it’s been raining off and on all morning, and water keeps trickling down the back of his neck since he took off his helmet and seeping in where damaged plates don’t line up smoothly. He’s expected to hunt with a bow and arrow like everyone else, the bowstring gets caught in his finger joints every time he so much as tries to nock an arrow, and some chatty Cathy named Fandral is jabbering nonstop in his ear. And it’s not even noon yet.

Try, Tony tells himself as Fandral launches into the astounding tale of some legendary beauty he banged once upon a time. Make an effort. Act like you care. So he laughs in all the appropriate places at Fandral’s story and shares a knowing nod with one of the other men in the immediate vicinity. Didn’t he used to do this all the time? Yeah, he did. He used to pat people on the back and laugh at their jokes and lean in with a conspiratorial wink, pretending to be interested for the sake of appearances, wallowing in bullshit with a big fucking smile on his face the whole time. Strange how a few months away from that false-fronted lie of a world can make a guy fall out of practice so easily.

“And here’s the camp!” Fandral announces as his story comes to a crude (and allegedly hilarious) end. Up ahead, the colors and shapes of tents begin to materialize through the trees, and the smell of smoke glides on the breeze. “I hope the food is ready. I’m starved!”

“Yes,” Tony agrees, joining the chorus. “Meat and ale!” Those words earn him a round of cheers with fists raised in fraternal solidarity. That’s the first rule of fitting in: no stereotype is too extreme.

When Thor first promised there’d be a mid-day food break, Tony was expecting an easy, portable meal along the lines of Asgardian sandwiches. This is something else entirely. A dozen canopy tents have been set up in a wide clearing, full of trestle tables covered in an honest to goodness banquet. Meat, cheese, bread, vegetables... the whole nine yards, carefully laid out by cooks and servants and supervised by a host of wives and girlfriends. Tony easily spies Frigga as Odin, riding at the head of the column, dismounts and hands his reins off to a groom to join her. Behind Frigga is none other than Sif, looking stormy and murderous in her gossamer peach dress.

“I thought Sif would’ve chosen to ride with us today,” Tony comments to Fandral as they hand off their own horses.

“Oh, she would have,” Fandral replies, “had Odin not announced this hunt to be open to men only. So keep a watch out. I guarantee she’ll start a good fight with Thor later over this insult.”

Maybe sooner than later. Across the clearing, Thor approaches Sif much like Odin did Frigga. But instead of being greeted with a warm smile and a kiss to the cheek, he gets a mug of beer thrown in his face and a roar of laughter from everyone watching.

“And perhaps next time he will insist on exceptions to the rule,” says Fandral, grinning at the sight of Sif stomping off and Thor running after her. “Now shall we find seats?”

Might as well. Fandral may come across as a little shallow for Tony’s liking, but at least he has a sense of humor and an easygoing way. Actually, chatting with him is a nice distraction. Tony’s pretty sure the eyes of half the people in the clearing are on him, scrutinizing and judging and making their assumptions about the strange Midgardian in their midst. At least Fandral’s up for talking about topics they both find interesting. As long as Tony keeps blabbing on about Earth weaponry (and he’s pretty sure he could blab on about weapons and warfare for days at a time), he can ignore the weight of all those curious gazes accumulating on his back as he eats. He’s explaining the science behind nuclear warheads when Thor plunks down on the bench on Fandral’s other side and immediately chugs down an entire mug of beer.

“And how is our dear Sif today?” Fandral asks him.

“If you know what’s best for you, you’ll shut your mouth,” growls Thor.

It’s clear from Fandral’s knowing smirk that this isn’t a first-time occurrence. “Let me guess: your father cleverly assumed that by forcing Sif to stay behind with the other women, she’d suddenly come to her senses and realize what she truly wants is a life of domestic bliss as your doting wife and the mother to a future generation of little princes?”

“I thought I told you to shut your mouth.”

Fandral just laughs, grabbing another heel of bread off the platter as Thor does the same, and turns his attention back to Tony. “So how long will you be staying in Asgard? If you’re here until the Festival of the Years, I’d like to have you on my team for the tactics and strategies mock battles. Just once I’d like to knock that superior air out of Hogun’s lungs, and you seem like the exact right man to help me do it.”

Well, unless this festival thing is in the next three days... “Yeah sure,” Tony starts, but doesn’t get any further before Thor interrupts.

“If he’s still here? Where else would he be?”

“Um,” says Tony. And he pauses, hesitant to say his next words and hear the reaction they’ll bring, but he pushes through anyway. “I assumed I’d eventually return Earth? Probably... fairly soon?”

“Return to Earth?” Thor asks. “Why would you wish to return?”

“Just a thought. My understanding when I first arrived was you didn’t want me to stay.”

“Yes, but now you are Loki’s guardian. It is better if you remain here on Asgard.” He says that so smoothly, as if the concept of Tony having a life back on Earth doesn’t even cross his mind. It probably doesn’t.

Exactly what Tony was afraid of. “Right.” And maybe it’s weird to feel so let down, even when he knows Bruce is back home building portal device: the sequel right now, and especially when he suspected this would be Thor’s stance all along. But still he can’t help but think that his one safety net is falling away. If the new portal fails, there’s no way to return to Earth without Thor’s – and Odin’s – permission. If it fails or if for whatever reason Loki can’t operate it, he’s stuck on Asgard. “It’s just that I think it would be better if I went back to Earth. With Loki. So, you know, he could serve out his sentence doing penance for the people he tried to enslave, and-”

“No, I do not believe it a good idea to let Loki leave Asgard. He needs to stay here. Under supervision.”

“I can supervise him just fine. He’s my prisoner and legally belongs to me.”

“You do not have the necessary power to control him. Loki may be your prisoner, but he is still a danger to himself and others. He needs to stay here where I can watch over him.” And that sounds like Thor’s final answer. But then he smiles, trying to force a bit of cheer into the conversation in that ham-fisted way he has going. “You will enjoy life here, Tony Stark. There is much for you to see and learn and experience. Asgard is the fairest and most glorious of all realms, and I know you will be happy here now that you are allowed to stay.”

More like required to stay. Sentenced to stay. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s a hoot,” Tony mutters. He stuffs one last mystery vegetable in his mouth and downs the rest of his beer. “It’s a great place you got here. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Now if you’ll excuse me?”

“Where are you going?” Fandral asks.

“I gotta go see a man about a horse.”

Oddly enough, that statement is literally true. Tony walks slowly over to where the horses are grazing under the care of a few teenage-looking boys. If he could do anything he wanted right now, he’d fire up the suit’s repulsors and fly back to the palace and spend the rest of the day avoiding society with Loki. But he can’t. He can’t take off in the middle of the stupid hunt, and he made a promise to Frigga to be less of a creepy hermit, so he can’t avoid society either. Which means the best he can do right now is hide behind the crutch of small hand-held electronics. He grabs his camera out of the saddle bag. Viking forest party seems like the kind of thing he should take pictures of, right?

“What is that?”

Tony almost jumps at the sound of a voice too close behind him; Fandral must have tagged along. “It’s called a camera,” he says, turning around. “You point it at something, press the big button, and it captures the image of...   Actually here.” He hands it over. “Just try it out and you’ll see. Press the smaller button to turn it on.”

“Well how about that,” says Fandral as he powers up the camera and pans it slowly around in a circle. “And you just...” He points it square at Tony before taking a picture. “Amazing! Is this a common item on Midgard?”

“Yeah. Earthlings are very interested in documenting and sharing every mundane aspect of their lives.” Fandral takes another photo. Tony’s pretty sure he blinked in that one. “Sure, keep taking picture of me. That’s great. Can never have too many of those. Especially me standing next to an actual horse’s ass.”

“The image on the screen disappears after a moment. Is there a way to keep it?”

“Press the green button. You can scroll back through them using the wheel below.”

Fandral nods. “Yes, I see. There you are standing next to the horse. And there again. And th-” He stops mid-word, eyebrows rising cartoonishly high.

“Oh right,” says Tony. “I have some photos of Loki on there. They’re kind of silly. I was trying to get him to pose for me because...” Well, the garden was pretty, and Loki looked nice, as Loki tends to do. “Just ignore those.”

“Hm.” Fandral bites his lip. His thumb moves over the back of the camera, scrolling through pictures in one direction and then the other. “I take it you and Loki are...”

Ah. So that’s how it’s going to be. A significant chunk of the good will Tony felt towards Fandral just moments ago deflates and freezes over, replaced by the same cool contempt that’s become his default for dealing with most other Asgardians. Asgardians who can’t mind their own business and keep sticking their noses in other people’s relationships.   “Loki and I are what?” he asks, grabbing the camera back and shutting it off. “As far as I’ve been told, Loki’s my slave. That’s all. End of story. What else would we be?”

“You needn’t worry,” Fandral says in that nanny voice people always put on when they’re backpedalling in a hasty attempt to smooth things over. “Granted, the visual was somewhat unexpected, but it’s nothing I didn’t already guess.”

“You already guessed. So my personal life really is the hot rumor around town, isn’t it?” Just like Frigga warned him it would be. Not that this is anything new, but still... The idea makes him angry for reasons he can’t quite pin down.

Fandral shakes his head. “Not exactly. I mean, of course there’s speculation, but everyone always assumes the worst about everyone else no matter-”

“Worst?” Tony cuts in. “Is that what people think? That the idea of me being with Loki is the worst possible thing I could be doing here?”

Fandral’s awkward, sycophantic little smile solidifies into a grimace. He knows he caused offence that time. Good. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he says, switching to a new angle. “And I apologize. But you must know how things are. What people agree with and what they don’t.”

It might be technically classified as ‘grudging acceptance’, but Tony nods at that. Yes, he has a pretty good idea of what the general citizenry of Asgard ‘agrees with’.

“Most folks are opposed to that sort of behavior. But to speak for myself, I’ve never seen the problem in it. Who’s to say what’s wrong or right, when it comes to matters of the heart?”

Says the guy who spent a good portion of the morning boasting of his conquests. Well, nice to know he’s not a hypocrite, at least. “Yeah, good for you,” says Tony. “But I’m not really in the mood for bitching about what your planet ‘agrees with’. Can we drop it for now?”

No, Fandral keeps on going, oblivious to Tony’s words. “As for Loki... I know many people have trouble with him, and he’s not the friendliest fellow, but he and I usually got along well enough. Not always, but...” Tony looks up just in time to see Fandral shrug. “I always thought he was treated too harshly.   People look for faults in Loki, and when they look hard enough, they always find something.”

Actually, wait. This might be relevant. Not much trumps the sense of strangling frustration that comes wandering in any time Tony has to stand face to face with the reality of Asgardian intolerance (instead of his usual preference for merrily skipping along above the rules), but the chance to unpick a few more locks on the secretive treasure chest of Loki-mystery might just help him put that out of his mind for a minute or two. Irritation slides a little out of the spotlight, replaced by curiosity. “You... you were friends with Loki.”

“He never called me his friend,” Fandral clarifies. “But yes, I considered myself to be, in some indirect way.   Why?”

Before Tony can answer, the blast of a horn rings through the clearing, followed by a widespread cheer and the sound of dozens of men grabbing weapons and helmets. The hunt’s back on.

“Nothing,” he says quickly. Yet. But if Fandral knows anything about Loki’s past... “You know, we should get together some time soon. Real soon. Hang out, get to know each other better, have some drinks, and you can tell me about that festival you were talking about.”

Fandral nods in agreement tinged with relief at having slipped out of their little disagreement so easily. “Yes, of course. I shall look forward to it!”

“Awesome. I’ll have my people contact your people or... whatever you guys do here.”

As Fandral gracefully hops into his saddle, Tony grabs the reins and awkwardly tries to clamber back up onto his own horse. The suit really wasn’t made for riding. Really. Actually sitting at all is kind of a weak point. He’ll need to work on that and make some design updates. “So, uh,” he calls out, “how much longer d’you think this hunt’s going to last?”

“Oh, hours!” Fandral cheerfully replies. “The fun’s barely started!”

ooo

A thin band of sunset burns red and gold under a canopy of rainclouds along the rough outline of Asgard’s horizon, probably beautiful from the ground but downright spectacular from two thousand feet up. Heck, the view’s almost good enough for a guy to ignore the constant stream of rainwater splattering into his eyes through the broken, glassless slits in his mask. Tony shifts the angle of his arms and takes a dive down towards the rooftops below, leveling out only once he’s so close he can see surprised expressions on the few Asgardian faces out braving the weather. This is what he’s missed. How long has it been since he’s had a chance to fly? Months. Too many months. Since before the whole trainwreck of that Avengers thing started. And damn but he’s missed it. The exhilaration, the speed, the absolute freedom... He needs to do this more often. Put on the suit and let go, ignore responsibility for a while, and forget about the constant heap of shit waiting for him back on the ground.

He rises again, up into a bank of low clouds, then shoots back down like a falcon. Flying without Jarvis is... weird to say the least. No sensors. No warnings. No navigation equipment at all. Only his own eyes to tell him where to go. Probably dangerous as all hell and he doesn’t even want to know the likelihood of crashing into a tower or not pulling up out of the dive fast enough, but hey, what’s the point in being on an alien planet out from under the watchful eyes of Pepper and Nick Fury if he can’t act like a reckless thrill-seeker for a couple minutes?

Up ahead, the massive triangular silhouette of the palace looms unnaturally gold against the darkening sky. Tony allows himself one more indulgent climb and dive before straightening out and heading home. (Home-ish.) He can feel Loki’s energy once he gets close: it’s a beacon pulling him in to one particular balcony amid dozens of identical others. He touches down a little harder than he’s used to (okay, in the absence of an optical display it’s hard to see his feet, so he’ll need to work on these unassisted landings a little), but the second he says, “Repulsors power off,” they obey his voice command. Whatever quantum voodoo Loki rigged up is working.

“Helmet release.”

Something hisses just below each ear, and the helmet locks disengage so he can pull it off. Rain hits his face as he pushes open the balcony door. Nice as it was to have those few minutes of flight, he’s pretty sure it’ll be nicer still to take off the armor, damp from the helmetless hunt and cold from a lack of functional heating system, and climb into a warm, cuddly bed with a warm, cuddly god of mischief.

“Honey, I’m home,” he calls out. Over from the direction of the fireplace, from one of the chairs on the bearskin rug, there’s a grumpy, answering sound as Loki stretches and stands. “Did you miss me? Did you languish in dreary desolation without me?”

“Did I manage to enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted reading without you making constant, lewd demands on my person?” Loki asks, tossing his book down onto the chair. “Mother came to visit again. She brought me some of my old things.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony asks as Loki takes a detour into the bathroom and comes out a second later holding a large towel, which he wraps around Tony, armor and all. “What are you doing?”

A minor sneer crosses Loki’s face. He lifts a corner of the towel and rubs at a trickle of water making its way down across Tony’s forehead. “Mother told me you’ll be tired from today’s pointless beast-killing excursion and I should be kind and attentive and look after you.”

Oh goody. It sounds like Frigga, instead of being opposed to her son’s arrangement like the rest of Asgard, finds it charming and wants to nurture it along. Like a delicate Hallmark greeting card flower. That’s not awkward at all. “Well, can you channel being kind and attentive into helping me out of the armor? I’m cold and wet in places that should be neither cold nor wet.”

“How dreadful. My poor Tony Stark.” Loki’s hands move automatically to Tony’s waist, and he doesn’t even need to speak to the new control system for the armor to unlatch and separate, piece by piece. He pulls away the shoulders, the arms, the back and chest, hips... and gives the butt-plate a teasing pat before setting it on the floor beside everything else.

“Would this be considered a safety concern?” Tony asks. “You actually being able to undress me with your mind?”

Loki taps his leg, prompting him to step out of the boots. “The modifications I made still carry a significant amount of my energy. That will fade over time, replaced by your own, and eventually everything will once again be dedicated to you. But yes, for now I can control it. Does that worry you?”

“It probably should. I mean, if I tried to fly away when you were pissed at me and you decided to disengage the carapace or shut down my repulsors, I’d crash and die. But to be honest I’m still stuck on the idea of you undressing me with your mind. And I might kind of... enjoy that.”

Loki’s fighting the smirk on his lips, but can’t quash it completely. “You’re still wearing your underclothes.”

“I don’t have to be. Actually I shouldn’t be wearing them. At all. Turn your kind attentiveness to that now, will you? I’m still cold and wet.”

“Cold and wet,” Loki repeats. He hooks his fingers under the hem of Tony’s shirt as he stands and easily pulls it up and off.

“And tired,” Tony adds, leaning against Loki’s beautifully warm and welcoming body.

“And tired.” He chucks the shirt aside to wrap his arms around Tony’s back.

“And achy. You need to take care of me.”

Somehow, they shuffle into the bathroom, Tony with his head on Loki’s shoulder while Loki navigates. Tony slips out of his pants Loki fills the tub, then all he has to do is sink into the bath, feeling the hot water flow over his chilled and aching muscles. He groans at the pleasure of it. “Ohhhh yeah. This is the life.”

Loki could probably be more careful dumping a cup of bathwater over his head, but in this state, Tony really doesn’t mind. Hot water trickles down his face and around his ears to his neck and shoulders and he leans back, letting Loki get to work with a soapy washcloth. Over his arms, over his stomach... He closes his eyes. Down below his navel to his thighs, and a shiver rolls up his back. “Yeah,” he whispers as Loki’s other hand slides up the back of his head and rakes through his hair. Fingertips scratching lightly over his scalp.

“Lean forward,” says Loki, gently pushing, and Tony obeys. Another cascade of hot water hits his back to flow like a cape. Loki’s cloth follows. “You’re very, very dirty, Tony Stark,” Loki tells him. “And you smell of horse. I’ll need to be extremely thorough in washing you.”

Tony can think of no objections to that as Loki’s washcloth slides down low again. “Uh-huh.”

“Tell me about the hunt. Did precious Thor succeed in killing the beast?”

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t even know. But I don’t think so. I was way at the back not paying attention when all the excitement happened, and by the time I got a chance to see anything the boar was already dead and these three guys were pulling arrows out of its neck. And for ‘giant boar’, let me tell you, that thing was barely the size of a cow. I spent my whole day thinking I’d at least get to see some real Princess Mononoke man-versus-beast legendary clash of wills go down, but no. Just a bunch of dudes whooping and hugging each other. If I wanted to see that, I’d watch football.”

“And you weren’t murdered.”

“And I wasn’t murdered,” Tony agrees. “Not publically humiliated, either. Just bored out of my skull. And I was sociable, like your mom wanted me to be, and I talked to at least one person.”

“But?”

“What do you mean, ‘but’?”

“But something else happened,” says Loki, his cloth skirting the outline of Tony’s back with a trail of soapy lather. “You’re tense, and clearly upset about something, even though you’re doing a lovely job of pretending otherwise. Words cannot mask your energy.”

Right. Lying to the god of lies never really works. too damn perceptive. “It’s just...” Where to start? “Nothing. Okay not nothing, but nothing new. Same old Asgard BS. A nice little reminder that I’m still supposed to be pretending you’re my slave so people don’t get the wrong idea.”

And there’s that word again. Wrong. The one that makes him irrationally angry just to hear it spoken out loud and have it aimed right square at the bullseye of immorality splashed across his body. Have it aimed at Loki. “I’m just so fucking tired of it!” he says, smacking his fists down into the surface of the water and feeling the satisfactory splash over his shins. “Lying about everything all the time! Going along with other people’s stupid expectations!   You’d think I’d be used to that by now. For Christ’s sake, my whole life is usually one big fat lie about something or other.” Lies about what he did (or didn’t do), when and with whom. Printed statements and press conferences packed with nothing but grade-A manure fresh from the PR farm. He never gave two craps about any of that and never thought twice about gliding smoothly along with altered truths until ol’ whatsherface from Vanity Fair got under his skin about Iron Man. “I guess the difference is actually caring,” he says. Thinking aloud. “I don’t like lying about stuff that’s important. Stuff that means something. Denying I screwed some jerk at a party, who cares? But lying about you is a lot bigger and it feels like shit, Loki. It feels like I’m back in school, hiding who I am just so I’ll fit in. And the real kick in the balls is, the lies don’t fix a thing and I still don’t fit in! So why do I even bother?”

“So I don’t go back to prison,” Loki quietly replies, pouring another waterfall down Tony’s back.

That’s probably a valid reason, but it sure doesn’t take away any of the frustration. Instead it makes things worse, because yes, that’s the truth. He’s stuck with Loki in a place full of such mind-boggling intolerance that the truth of their relationship could send Loki back behind bars. All because Tony wants to be with him rather than own him. “How did you even deal with it for all those years?” he asks.

“Deal with what?”

“This. Secrecy. Constantly living in lies.” All along, Loki’s only ever given him is a collection of incomplete story-fragments and enigmatic hints about the past. And at the time he interpreted that as Loki being unwilling to share, but now it seems more likely that Loki’s silence has more to do with a conditioned need to keep all these facets of himself hidden in the shadows. “It can’t have felt very good.”

More water. Loki’s using it as a distraction. A shield. “I’m accustomed to living in lies,” he answers, vague as ever. “I suppose, like you, it never much bothered me because I didn’t care. As long as I did what I did out of sight and in the dark, society primarily ignored me. They only attack blatant immorality. And since there was never anyone worth fighting to not have to lie about...”

Tony tries to turn his head as much as he can to look back over his shoulder and gets only complaints from his aching neck. “Not anyone?”

Of course Loki doesn’t take the bait. He grabs his wash cloth again and ends up sloshing water over the side of the tub as he decides now is the best moment to scrub Tony’s arms and change the subject. “You need only lie for three more days. I suppose things will be better on Midgard.”

“...Sure they will,” says Tony. That’s a forced note of positivity in his voice, trying not to waver. “A lot better.” They’ll just have to deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. and paparazzi and nothing less than fundamentally dismantling Tony’s whole public image if he comes out to the world. No biggie. Somehow he hasn’t yet been able to bring himself to think about any of that, since every mental run-through of the future always ends with ‘get Loki back to Earth and then...’ Fade to gray. Worry about boring logistics (like whether or not he’ll have the balls to admit to the public who shares his bed) when that time comes. He can be honest with friends, sure, but with the world... the whole world...

He reaches around to grab Loki’s hand as it climbs up his spine. “I think I’m clean enough, yeah? My fingers are starting to go pruney. Let’s take this party back to the bedroom and you can be a good slave and give me an all-over body massage.”

No arguments from Loki there. Not a single one. Not even any words. He nods silently to Tony while his lips stretch from a little smile of agreement to a grin playing around on the fringes of wicked. He towels Tony off and leads the way to the bedroom, directing him to lie face down on the bed. And Tony even manages to keep up the silence for a whopping nine seconds, until Loki sits on top of him, straddling his hips, and starts to rub his shoulders.

At that point, he can’t hold in the jagged-edged groan that scratches its way up from his lungs. The ache in his muscles ripples through his entire body as Loki’s hands flow up and down his back. Kneading and pressing and working. “Oh sweet fuck...”

“Does that hurt?” Loki asks.

“Yes,” he says. But immediately corrects, “I mean, no!” when Loki stops. “I mean, yes, it does, but in a good way.” Because it turns out there is a good kind of shoulder pain after all, and this is it. “Keep going.”

“Which areas are worst?”

He groans again as Loki’s thumbs dig into the base of his neck. “There. There there there. Yeah. And shoulders. And upper back. And lower back. Everything’s worst. It all hurts. And the butt. I probably need a butt massaaaaaaaah...” It’s so hard to speak actual words when Loki pushes on a knot alongside his shoulder blade.

“There?” Loki asks. He doesn’t bother to wait for an answer before moving down, both hands on Tony’s lower back. Zeroing in on every single tender spot with expert accuracy. “Here?” Knuckles dig in at the base of Tony’s spine. “Even here?”

And when Loki moves even lower... Shit, Tony groans so loud it’s embarrassing. “Uh-huh. Yeah. There. Fuck, I was kind of joking before about needing a butt massage, but I’m not now. I really do need a butt massage.”

The amused snort he gets from Loki agrees that, yes, a butt massage is in order. Loki’s hands cup his ass, starting off gentle with little squeezes and pressure from flattened palms, and this seems like the kind of thing that should be so stupid he laughs at it, but no. It feels too good. He groans again as Loki’s hands work his sore muscles. Lets his eyes drop closed, upper body relaxing into the pillows. Yeah. Butt massage.

A shiver rolls up his back when Loki eases his legs apart to kneel between them. “Are you thinking about taking advantage of me in this position?” he asks. “Because you better be.”

Loki answers with an ambiguous ‘Hm’. He’s moving on the bed. Tony can’t see where or how, but the mattress dips with the telltale signature of arms bracing themselves on either side of Tony’s waist. A ghostly tickle of hair brushes his back. Then, oh man, he’s sure doing a lot of groaning lately, but there’s really no other appropriate reaction when Loki’s tongue traces a straight path up from lower spine to mid back. “...Loki...”

“Shh.” The whisper of Loki’s breath is cold against the stripe on Tony’s spine, coaxing all the tiny hairs on his skin to stand on end.

“I can’t shh.” He can’t. Because now Loki’s licking a trail back down. He outright whimpers when Loki’s tongue meets his tailbone. And yeah, ‘shh’ isn’t going to be an option if things keep going in this direction.

Which they do. Loki’s tongue slides lower. Deeper. Probing into the cleft of Tony’s ass until the hot, slick point meets his entrance and Tony has to bite down hard on the inside of his lip to keep from making the world’s most undignified sound. He strains to part his legs wider, encouraged by Loki’s hands on his inner thighs. Tilts his hips toward Loki’s touch. This is just a tease, just a taste, when the universe knows he needs a whole lot more.

Maybe Loki can read his mind, or at least read his desire. That seems like a thing Loki might be able to do. Either way, Loki doesn’t need to be asked, anticipating exactly what Tony wants and pushing ahead. His tongue moves with an insistent grace. Seeking and circling and probing inward, sliding just the slightest bit into his body before retreating with a taunting flick. Tony’s blood races downward to concentrate under the heat of Loki’s mouth. He’s hard already. Zero to sixty in no time flat. And son of a bitch, he never realized how much he wanted this, but now... he wants this. So bad. Wants it more with each passing second. Wants even more still with each pounding heartbeat, keeping time with Loki’s exploratory caresses.

He raises his head just enough to catch the bedside table in his peripheral vision and clumsily paw at the drawer. It takes a few tries (the sinful things Loki’s doing sure don’t help his concentration), but eventually he locates Loki’s jar of Asgardian lube. He passes it back, waiting for Loki to take it.

“What?” Loki asks.

“What do you think, Einstein?”

An odd kind of hesitation slows Loki’s hand. Tony can’t see, but he can feel it in the way Loki pauses before taking the jar. “Always in such a hurry,” Loki sighs.

“Yeah.” There’s a finger tap against his hip, signaling for him to roll over onto his back, and he does so happily. “One of my many great qualities. I’m efficient and practical.”

“I’d say ‘impatient and stubborn’.” Loki plays with the lid of the jar, but doesn’t open it. Chooses instead to wrap his hand around Tony’s hard shaft before closing his lips over the head.

“Stubborn,” Tony repeats. He has to put a lot of thought into the formation of that word with the way the sizzling electricity of Loki’s touch short-circuits his brain. And more thought to continue as Loki’s mouth swallows his cock inch by inch. “Yeah, I’m... yeah. Stubborn. That’s me. Always... ah... standing up for... what I want...”

“Mm,” Loki hums, sending the sound slithering up through every nerve in Tony’s body.

“Jesus Christ, Loki!” he growls. “Stop trying to drive me nuts and just do it already?”

Loki looks up, barely pulling his mouth back from Tony’s way-too-sensitive flesh. “Do what?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? I handed you a thing of lube while you literally had your tongue up my ass. I’m pretty sure that constitutes a binding legal contract for you to fuck me so hard I have trouble walking. Okay?”

No. Not okay. Somehow that idea is anything but okay, as the absolutely stunned expression on Loki’s face shouts out loud and clear. Loki carefully pulls back, balancing on his knees and the balls of his feet and staring down at Tony with the kind of expression that can knock the wind right out of any sails. Not okay. Not by a long shot.

“Uh...” Tony starts. The air in the bedroom is suddenly so cold on his naked body. Raising goosebumps on his legs and chest. “Is something...?”

“Why would you want me to do that?” Loki quietly asks.

Tony hesitates before answering. “Because...” It’s not like he’s being judged. That’s not it at all. It’s not judgment or blame or anything the least bit negative in Loki’s eyes. If Tony had to guess (and it looks like he does), he’d say it’s worry. Maybe even shock. Maybe even fear. “I thought we were having a good time and it seemed like, you know... the right way to go. But if that’s not something you want to do... Alright. We don’t have to. You just need to tell me.”

Loki’s head drops down into a slow nod, eyes focusing on the jar in his hand. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t degrade you like that.”

“Degrade?” The knee-jerk response goes firing back on pure reflex alone, and it takes another full second for Tony to process exactly what Loki said. He leans forward, propping himself up on his elbows. “What do you mean, degrade? Is this a stupid Asgard thing that’s going to make me want to punch the wall?”

“I...” But even that short little word is cut off in Loki’s throat. Stunted before the sound fully forms.

It’s a stupid Asgard thing. Of course it is. But its sudden appearance makes Tony remember a previous stupid Asgard thing that now interlocks with this new stupid Asgard thing into a big latticework barrier of stupid Asgard things. The pieces together are starting to form a distinct stupid Asgard picture. (Everything Loki says is always relevant.) “It’s not being gay that Asgardian society thinks is wrong, it’s being on the bottom,” he says, speaking slowly enough to feel out the theory and give Loki every chance to correct him. Which Loki doesn’t. “What you said that night in the dungeon after the banquet, about warriors and witch-boys... That’s all okay. At least for the warriors. They can screw whoever they want and nobody bats an eye, as long as they’re always on top. Am I right? But those judgmental dicks consider you a second-class person because you take the what-what in the butt.”

“You always phrase things so charmingly,” Loki mutters.

But he’s right. Tony knows he’s right. He sits all the way up and lets his hand wander over to Loki’s knee: a gesture that Loki acknowledges with a sidelong look but doesn’t comment on. “I guess the question now is why this is even an issue when I’m pretty sure you don’t care about any of Asgard’s dumb rules and I know I sure don’t.”

“Because it’s still-”

“Degrading?” Tony cuts in. “And you won’t ‘degrade’ me, but it’s okay for me to do it to you? Even though I’m, you know, a puny worthless mortal that you constantly call an idiot?”

Loki’s not meeting his eye. “I’m long accustomed to that sort of thing.”                         

“Gee, how’d I know you were going to say something vaguely creepy like that?”

“It’s not as simple as you see to think, Tony Stark!” Loki snaps. “You don’t understand!”

“No I do understand,” says Tony. “You think all of this is fine. You think it’s totally normal for all these narrow-minded bastards to dump on you, and you don’t think you’re good enough to deserve anything better. You expect the worst, you expect people to treat you the worst, and you expect to be the worst. And I get that: I get it’s what you’ve had to deal with all your life and it’s ingrained in your world perception or what the fuck ever, but there’s no rule saying I have to agree with you.”

“Oh shut up,” Loki grumbles, though somehow, if such a thing is even possible, he does it in an affectionate way. Leaning forward, he pushes Tony back onto the bed and lies beside him. Pins him down with an arm across the chest. “Stop arguing. I don’t want to talk about this. Can I please go back to massaging your bottom and fulfilling my mother’s request to be kind and attentive?”

“You don’t want to talk about this?” Tony asks.

“No.”

“At all?”

“I said no.”

“You don’t want to talk about the fact that between this and the whole slave thing I’m legitimately worried the two of us are standing on very uneven ground and I feel like I’m fighting for equality between us that you don’t even want?”

There’s a little twitch in Loki’s arm. Not much, but enough for Tony to notice. A tiny contraction of muscle, like a shock. “What do you mean?” Loki asks, vigilantly sounding anything but concerned.

“I mean...” Sighing, Tony rolls onto his side to face Loki. “Sometimes I get the impression you’re into a weird power balance kind of thing where it’s okay for me to be an asshole and hit you and treat you like shit and own you. I don’t know if that’s a kink you have or something you think is normal or... or something you think I want? But I don’t. I don’t want to feel like I’m... I don’t even know how to describe it. Like I have any authority over you. Like I’m taking advantage of you. I don’t want that. I don’t want different rules to apply to us. I don’t want rules at all. I don’t want you to think we can’t do whatever the hell we want with our own bodies in our own bed. That’s bullshit. Now if you tell me, 100% because of your own choice, because it’s what you prefer, that you only like being on the bottom? Sure, great, that’s up to you. I usually prefer being on top myself. But I don’t want you to think it alwayshas to be that way.”

Right on cue, Loki’s head pops all the way up off the pillow. Eyes wide open. “...Usually?”

“Loki, I don’t know what you think I got up to before we met, but lemme just take a sec to reassure you that I’m not a virgin in any – any – possible sense of the word. Any. Got it?”

“Oh.” And without anything more, Loki drops his head back down.

“Are you shocked?” Tony asks, grinning.

“No.”

“Yes you are. Admit it. I’ve just ruined your whole spotlessly pure mental image of me.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, what’s ridiculous – or maybe actually adorable – is you trying to protect me from the harsh judgment of your fellow aliens. Aliens who don’t like buttsex. Which is sad. I feel sorry for them. Taking it up the ass is a beautiful thing. A beautiful, special, gift from-”

“Tony Stark, do you ever shut up?” growls Loki.

“No. You vetoed sex, so I’m vetoing shutting up.”

“Will you shut up if I take my veto back?”

Tony has to consider that. In detail. For at least three quarters of a second. “Probably.”

The thing about kissing is that it forces him to be quiet. Loki’s mouth is an effective muzzle over his own. Lips covering his, holding them in place, stopping any coherent sound... Maybe this is better than talking. Just a little. Or a lot, as Loki’s tongue slides over his teeth and Tony feels his heart rate pick up. “Are you-” Tony begins, but Loki steals those words with a bite and answers right back into Tony’s mouth:

“Quiet.”

The kiss doesn’t linger. It’s messy and fast and the kind of thing that can’t be contained, veering to Tony’s cheek and his chin and his neck before marking a hasty trail down his body. Straight in a line and taking Tony’s pounding pulse with it: a surge of heat shooting between his legs. He gasps when Loki spreads him open and again when Loki’s lips meet his skin. And that’s it. That’s all it takes to bring him right back to where he was before that whole sidetracked conversation started. Which was an important conversation, yes, but now... Very few things are as important as having Loki’s tongue work its way down from his cock to his balls with a fluttering touch. Very few things. Very few... things...

Except maybe Loki sucking on one finger and trailing it over the curve of his ass, spiraling towards its goal. That’s pretty damn important. The jar lid scrapes softly against glass as Loki opens it, and a second later Loki’s finger is back, slippery with lube as it pushes steadily into Tony’s body. Tony drops his head back and closes his eyes to take in the feeling of it. The light burn as Loki stretches him, slowly working in deeper, until a fingertip curls at just the right angle and his stomach clenches in a sudden jolt of pleasure. He moans to feel its flush of warmth through every vein in his body.

Loki answers with a lick and a kiss. The first finger is joined by a second, uncomfortable but not unbearable. At three fingers, Tony exhales a shaking breath and wills himself to relax. Take it all in. Loki’s lips move to his inner thigh, bringing with them the gentle pressure of teeth.

Loki plants a kiss on his leg. “You truly want to do this?”

“Uh-huh,” Tony answers in what’s probably the understatement of the millennium.

“You’re certain?”

“Do I need a big ‘come on in’ sign tattooed across my ass? Yes!”

Loki still looks skeptical, but at least he nods in understanding before sitting up on the bed and pulling off his shirt. Followed by pants. Tony may be familiar with the sight by now but it still gets him every time: Loki’s lean, sculpted body made of sleek lines and perfect proportions. From broad shoulders to narrow waist. Elegant hands and long legs. Messy black hair and icy pale eyes... It all makes Tony’s mouth go dry and his skin feel hot, like his blood runs too close to the surface. He’ll never get tired of this view. Or the new show of Loki stretching to grab the bath towel from the floor and a pillow to position under his hips before opening the jar again and dipping into the contents and... Maybe he should help with that.

He leans up just enough to reach the jar, smearing his fingers before wrapping his hand around Loki’s shaft. Loki’s hand joins his, stroking and coating, and oh, that little shiver snaking through Loki’s body... It echoes itself in Tony’s, starting in the back of his neck and working its way down. He grabs Loki by the waist. Doesn’t want to wait any more. One little tug and Loki moves in, settling between his parted legs. Tony would probably like to take more time to savor the feeling of Loki’s solid weight on top of him, of the contour of Loki’s body against his, of the heat of Loki’s skin and the tickle of breath following a kiss to his ear. Or the spark of friction when Loki’s naked stomach brushes his cock with each subtle movement. But then there’s also the feeling of Loki pushing up against his ass, and that kind of trumps everything else.

“Last chance,” Loki whispers. “Are you-”

“Sure,” Tony finishes for him. He pulls Loki closer. As close as he can. “Very, very sure. Just, um.”

“Yes?”

“Maybe start off kind of slow? I haven’t done this in...” How long has it been? Since before Afghanistan. Almost three years. “...a while.”

“Of course.”

And Loki is slow. So slow. So controlled. It’s nothing more than pressure at first as Loki positions himself and angles his hips, and then... Well, it hurts more than Tony remembers, and more than he’d like to admit. He squeezes his hands around Loki’s hips.

Goddamn Loki picks up on every little clue. “Should I stop?”

“No,” Tony quickly answers. “Definitely not. This is good. Just need to...” He just needs to wait for his body to adjust to Loki’s gentle, rocking rhythm as it moves a little deeper each time. It’s already getting better. “I’m okay. Though I swear it feels like you have the biggest dick in the world.”

Loki moves positions slightly, raising his head and shifting all his upper body weight onto one arm. His free hand cups Tony’s jaw. “Look at me,” he says.

Briefly, Tony’s gaze darts up to Loki’s eyes. So brilliant blue in the arc reactor’s light. Flaring with a kind of intensity that’s too bright to hold. Even when he looks away he can still feel them like an x-ray drilling into his skin, trying to see what he hides underneath.

“Tony Stark, I said look at me, not momentarily glance at me.”

Shit. He has to force himself to look back, which is stupid because if he can handle somebody fucking him, he should be able to handle that person making eye contact with him. Funny how the eye contact seems that much more intimate, and how he feels so much more vulnerable and so much more naked under Loki’s gaze. It can see everything. Inside and out. “Just Tony,” he murmurs.

His words jar Loki’s intensity off track. “...What?”

“Just Tony. Not Tony Stark. Tony. I will look at you as long as you want, but only if you agree to call me Tony. Wouldn’t you agree we’re at that point?” As Loki inches into him. If they’re not at the first-name-basis point now, well...

The pause makes him think Loki might actually brush off his request, like the last time Tony brought this up. But after a moment, uncertain as Loki looks, he still manages to nod. A tiny nod, but a nod all the same. “...Tony,” he says.

“Yeah,” Tony whispers. “Just like that.”

“Tony,” Loki repeats. He leans down to kiss Tony’s neck below the ear. He pushes in just a little more, just a little farther, just enough to brush against that sweet spot deep inside and make Tony gasp.

Everything suddenly seems a little too slow. One of Tony’s arms slips around Loki’s waist and the other slides up his back, pulling him in. Closer. His legs hook around Loki’s thighs. It needs to be faster, and it needs to be more. His hands drag against Loki’s skin trying to urge him to pick up the pace. Whatever pain he faced is long gone and now there’s just that elusive ribbon of need and he’s chasing the tail end... Barely grasping at its spinning strand...

Loki’s teeth bite into his neck. Loki’s tongue teases his skin and tastes a bead of sweat. Loki’s hand wanders down his chest, down his belly, to squeeze his aching cock and stroke it in time with those quickening thrusts. Tony matches each snap and roll of the hips. Building on the pressure in his core. It’s like some part of his brain switches off and all he can think about is striving towards that feeling, curling his spine and digging his fingers into Loki’s back and straining into every movement Loki makes. Not giving – he’s too chained to his own mind and his own needs for that – just hungrily receiving and drawing it all in. Maybe selfish, but he’s too far gone to care. The peak is so close.

It comes in a sudden blaze, chased by a guttural cry working its way up from the bottom of his lungs. One second climbing and the next soaring on the waves of convulsion that wrack his body, spilling his seed over Loki’s hand. And fuck fuck fuck it keeps coming. Surge after surge of exhilaration until every muscle feels weak as rubber and all Tony can do is let his head fall back as he pants for air.

Loki bites down harder on his neck and that’s going to leave a bruise later. “...Tony...”

It takes Loki only a minute longer. A few last thrusts then Tony can feel the tension coil and uncoil in his body as release takes over. He bites so hard Tony’s sure he’s about to draw blood, and wraps his arm like a boa constrictor under Tony’s shoulder blades. Crushing them together in the intensity of the moment before he collapses down with a gasp to match Tony’s insatiable need for air. Just breathing. Heart rates slowly dipping back down to normal. Naked skin losing its sweat-slick shine.

It feels like a long time later that Tony’s finally ready to say anything. “So, um, that was good.”

“Mm-hmm,” Loki agrees without lifting his head from its cradled position against Tony’s shoulder.

“I think this is a really good development in our sexual routine. I mean, we could up our efficiency by an absolute minimum of 100%. I do you a couple times, then your godly stamina kicks in and we switch it up so you can do me while I just lie here... We could literally stay in bed all day. All day. Think about that.”

“Mm-hmm,” Loki repeats.

He looks so dangerously attractive from this angle. At least the half-hidden side of his face that Tony can see. Feathery eyelashes resting on his flushed pink cheek. “Anyway... you wanna do it like... five more times?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah, why not?”

Lifting his head, Loki shifts his upper body to lean across Tony’s chest. “You may be sorry you suggested that,” he says with a smirk. “Tony.”

Chapter Text

If Tony’s sneaky enough in waking up – not speaking, not moving, barely even breathing – maybe Loki won’t notice. If Loki doesn’t notice, maybe he’ll keep on doing what he’s doing and let Tony savor the moment. And if Tony’s able to savor the moment, maybe he’ll be able to say, with absolute scientific certainty, that yes, he really likes these little hidden glimpses into what Loki does when Loki thinks he’s asleep.

Kisses, mostly. Small kisses. Quiet kisses. Kisses in a checkerboard pattern on the back of Tony’s neck. Loki’s fingertips draw lines over Tony’s arm, stroking across his bicep down to the rumpled edge of the blankets before sliding back up to graze his hairline and the curve of his ear. Then another kiss. Then Loki rests for a moment with his face so close Tony can feel warm breath breezing across his scalp. A hand cups Tony’s shoulder, and Loki’s thumb strokes a shallow arch that leaves a warm tingle in its wake.

It sure is a wrench having to shatter this serenity. “Sorry to ruin the moment,” Tony murmurs, “but I gotta take a leak.”

Loki immediately jerks back, just like somebody who’s been caught in the act of doing something embarrassingly cute. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Dunno.” Grinning, Tony rolls over to face Loki and snug an arm around his waist. Predictably, Loki glares at him with the prickliest of prickling disapproval. “At least fifteen minutes. I enjoyed that little one-sided cuddle you were having. But don’t be embarrassed. It’s okay. You’re allowed to admit you adore me and worship every amazing cell in my body. That’s a normal part of being in a relationship with me.”

Loki, the humorless bastard, actually tries to kick him out of bed. And that’s a literal kick, with a sharply placed foot to Tony’s shin. “Ow! Sorry, fine! You don’t adore me and you wish me bodily harm. Better?”

“You’re so...” Stupid, probably. Or maybe infuriating or something similar. Whatever it is, Tony gets the gist.

“And yet here you are, in bed with me. What does that say about you?”

“Does it look like I have any better options at the moment, Tony?” Loki asks, sounding a little too smugly pleased with himself for remembering not to default back to ‘Tony Stark’.

“I am the best possible option at all times,” Tony replies. Somehow he even manages to keep a completely straight face, too. For at least three seconds. It’s just that Loki looks so goddamn attractive with his stupid floppy hair falling into his dumb sexy eyes as he casually smirks over the edge of his pillow. And when Loki looks like that, a goofy smile starts pulling at Tony’s mouth. And... “Cripes, you’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, even though that was supposed to be one of those silent thoughts he keeps in his head. Whoops. But he wraps one hand around the back of Loki’s neck. And the other. This is going to be a two-hand operation: pulling Loki forward and urging him in for one very slight kiss. Followed by another, a little firmer, and another. A kiss where Tony opens his mouth just enough to taste Loki’s upper lip and feel its soft skin against the tip of his tongue.

The tiny sound Loki makes, too quiet for a moan and too vocal for a whimper, reverberates against his lips. One arm slips beneath Tony’s pillow while the other encircles his waist.

“So you do adore me?” Tony guesses.

“Oh, shut up,” Loki growls in that typical plate-armored way he has of saying things that actually mean ‘yes’.

ooo

There are things to do after breakfast. (Read: after kissing and groping and fooling around in the bath.) Much to Tony’s disappointment, Loki actually has a whole agenda of things. Ominous-sounding things like ‘packing’, which, no matter how Tony frames it in his mind, sits like a dead weight on his shoulders and feels a little too real and a little too immediate. Packing. Loki packing. Loki packing Loki’s things. Loki packing Loki’s things to permanently move in with him. Loki’s things coming into his house. Loki’s things staying in his house. Loki staying in his house. And yeah, obviously, he knew all along this was on the horizon, but until packing entered the picture it was just an abstract idea. Part of that fuzzy gray area at the end of his fumbling, inexact plan that started with coming to Asgard and was supposed to end in ‘find Loki and...’.

Packing.

You’re a dumb-ass fucking moron, Tony Stark, he tells himself as he stands in Loki’s bedroom – the old Loki’s bedroom, the Prince of Asgard bedroom, with its sparse displays of knick-knacks and the dragon hoard hidden in the wall – and tries to talk his way down from the ledge of panic. What’s the big deal? Did you think it would stay one big sex holiday forever? Jumping around from place to place, clinging like glue to that honeymoon phase, never having to settle back down into the reality of life and wrap your head around the discomforting fact that you’re now in a real relationship with a real person? Not just a fantasy, but a real person with real-life needs that will now be your very real responsibility?

Yep, that’s it. That’s the big deal. Reality. The way it drags him down with its uncomfortable, lopsided burden. Tony Stark has never been very good with reality.

“So...” he tries to say.

Over in the corner, Loki’s digging through his wardrobe like he’s looking for something and getting pissed off about not being able to find it. His answer comes out in a snappish tone. “What?”

“Just so... um...” Tony clears his throat. “Just so you know, the portal stays open for less than twenty seconds. We won’t have a lot of time to haul stuff through. How much are you planning to pack?”

“Not much.” Loki snatches up an armload of clothes, dumps them on the floor, and resumes his search. “I only want a few things.”

“Few enough things to fit in a single case?”

“Likely not.”

“It’s just we won’t have time for-” Tony starts, but Loki cuts right in.

“I can shift all of our belongings through the portal. No need to worry about time.”

“Okay.” And that’s what he’d call the exact opposite of reassuring. More packing. More stuff. More weight. More reality. “What are you getting out of there, anyway?”

“Things,” snarls Loki. Maybe he’s feeling a little suffocated by this turn of events, too.

“Things I’m not allowed to know about even though you’re moving them into my house?”

With a boot in one hand and some kind of belt in the other, Loki whips around. “Things,” he repeats. “Items! Clothing! Do I need to list each one specifically before bringing them into your house?”

“Jesus Christ, it was just a question,” Tony mutters, shrugging off the challenge of Loki’s fire-eyed glare like this isn’t a problem and everything’s still as happy and fuzzy and perfect as it was a few short hours ago when they were lying oblivious in bed. “But sure, fine, pack whatever you want. I don’t care.”

Only he does care, and this whole constrictive packing charade is chafing and itching over every last nerve in his body. Loki’s things in his house, Loki’s clothes in his closet, Loki’s books on his shelf. Loki’s undeniable presence in every room, blaring out loud and clear. (How many fights did he have with Pepper over this exact thing? They all ended with her accusing him of keeping too tight a stranglehold on everything, which was ridiculous because it was his house, and anyway he let her redecorate one of the guest bedrooms...)

“What if we stayed in Asgard?” he blurts without thinking.

It’s rare that Loki ever looks legitimately surprised by something, but this is one of those moments. “...Stay here? Why?”

“Because...”

No, it’s stupid, and Tony can’t even put the feeling into words. He doesn’t want to stay in Asgard. He wants to go home, but at the same time he doesn’t want to go home, because going home means things will inevitably change.

“Okay, I don’t really want to stay,” he tries. “Only... I like how things are right now. Not the being in Asgard thing, but the part where we’re actually sort of getting along and this seems like it works and... I don’t want anything to change. I don’t want to risk messing it up. I don’t want to stay, but I don’t want to disrupt anything, so...” I don’t even know what I want.

“You think returning to Midgard will have a detrimental effect,” Loki says quietly.

More or less. But he doesn’t say that. All he says is, “I don’t know.”

“Why?”

Well the short answer there is ‘because that’s how it always happens’. Loki’s looking for something a little more substantial though, so Tony takes a breath and... Fuck it, might as well dive right into the deep end. “Because I’m terrible at relationships,” he admits. “Really terrible. I’m selfish and uncompromising and I have ridiculously high standards and I like to spend hours or even days alone working on my stuff. If somebody bugs me, I get mad. If somebody tries to push me into doing something I don’t want to do, I get mad. If somebody does something totally innocent but I happen to be in a bad mood, I get mad. I don’t like sharing. I don’t like having to explain myself. I don’t like feeling as if I don’t have total, one hundred percent control over every aspect my life and my house. And yeah, it’s my house, and that means I want to make the rules. And the worst part is...”

He pauses, running his hand up the back of his neck, feeling the hot skin and damp fringe of sweat beginning to bead at his hairline. “The worst part is I know I’m being a dick and I know I’m wrong and I should try to be more flexible, but at the same time I don’t care.  Shitty but true. So I guess what I’m saying is that I know from experience what’ll happen once we try to do this, and I’m not looking forward to letting my selfishness ruin everything. Because it will. And I’m already dreading that because I really like what we have right now.”

“So I gather from the timing of this little outburst that you are opposed to me bringing my life into your house,” says Loki, hitting the bull's eye as usual in his uncanny ability to see through Tony’s rambling and hone in on the actual issue.

Much as he wants to, Tony can’t exactly deny that. “Well...”

Loki drops the boot, which lands toe-first with a crack against the floor, and lets the belt clatter after it. “So be it. I’ll leave everything.”

“No, that’s... No,” Tony groans. “See, now you’re just enabling my shittiness.”

“But you said-”

“I also said I was an asshole and I was wrong. In a real relationship, you should be able to bring all the stuff you want. You’re right, I don’t want you to bring your stuff, but I want to want you to bring your stuff.” Oh, this is turning into one big clusterfuck of irrational complication. “I want to have a normal relationship, but I know I can’t handle that and I’ll fuck it up, so you see what the problem is.”

“But I should pack my things?” Loki asks.

“Yes. But just so you know, I will resent you for it, and we will fight about this in the future.”

“Then perhaps I should find my own dwelling so as not to encroach on yours.”

“No!” That’s even worse. The thought of Loki being somewhere without him is enough to drag in a whole different kind of panic. “I need you. You have to be with me.”

“So if I’m to understand, you require that I live in your house, and I should bring my belongings, but you don’t want me to, because you prefer to live alone with complete control over your surroundings, even though you recognize this behavior as ridiculous and you believe you should change yet have no desire to do so.”

“...Pretty much,” Tony agrees with a nod.

Loki picks up his boot, and he picks up his belt. He turns to the wardrobe, throws them both on a shelf, and goes back to his hunt without another word.

There has to be something more coming. Conversations on these kinds of topics never just stop. “Don’t you... want to talk about this more?” Tony asks, hesitantly picking at the words.

“No,” Loki answers without looking at him. “Why would I?”

Because discussions that are going as well as this one are fundamentally required to drag on until both parties end up yelling and dredging up every single stupid thing from the past they’ve ever done to piss each other off? Stopping cold turkey isn’t part of the natural evolution of a relationship talk. “Well...”

“It’s clear you have no interest in compromise, let alone common sense, and I have neither the time nor patience right now to put up with your absurd behavior.”

Okay that part sounds like the natural evolution of a relationship talk. “So then what? We just go about our business pretending everything’s okay and this isn’t a problem?”

“Perhaps you should simply leave.”

Tony’s stomach drops like a meteor. “Leave? As in... by myself? Back to...?”

There’s a strange expression on Loki’s face, one Tony can’t easily place, as he turns back around. “Leave as in go somewhere for a few hours to think this through and determine what you want.”

“Right,” Tony replies, sighing. That makes more sense. A lot more sense. But that steep rush of terror he felt when he thought Loki meant... “That’s probably a good idea.   Yeah. I’ll give this some thought and try to wrap my head around the whole thing, and maybe if-”

“No,” Loki interrupts. “Not ‘maybe’. I need a definite answer from you. Don’t come back until you have one for me.”

“...Okay. Sure.” Tony nods, even though the gesture makes him feel lightheaded somehow. “I guess I’ll...”

This is the point at which he should be leaving. He should be walking out that door and embarking on a miniature soul-searching journey, seeking the elusive answer to the deeply existential question of whether or not he can handle Loki moving in. The only thing stopping him is the way Loki’s eyes stay anchored to his. Closed-off and blank, but keeping him rooted in place just the same.   Also the way Loki’s mouth hesitantly opens, like there’s something about to come out. Whatever that something is, it’s having a hard time seeing the light of day.

“You need to understand, Tony,” Loki manages after a struggling moment. No smugness this time. A little hint of uncertainty and awkwardness, maybe, still working to accept the shape of that truncated name on his tongue. “I have nothing else.”

“Nothing other than...?” asks Tony, nowhere near clear enough on Loki’s meaning.

“Other than you. Other than going with you to Midgard. I have no other option. I...” He stops for a second to look down at his hands, running a thumb over the skin of his knuckles. His focus stays there. “I am entirely at your mercy, you see. I go with you to Midgard or... Well, there’s no other choice at the moment. I can’t stay here. So perhaps you can understand why I might like some form of assurance that we’re doing this because it’s something we both still wish to do, and not because it’s merely part of a predetermined plan. When you may have changed your mind. Whether you want me or not.”

“Of course want you!” Shit, that comes out too fast and too reactionary, sounding more like an accusation than reassurance.

“Then why are you so worried?” Loki hisses.

“I told you. It’s just me being me. My stupid hang-ups about-”

“That’s not a good enough reason.”

“I know!” says Tony. “Loki, I know! That’s what I’ve been trying to say! I know it’s not good enough, and it’s the worst excuse in the book, and it makes me feel like the world’s biggest tool. Normal people have normal relationships and move in with each other all the time, but I’m too fucked up to deal with that.   Maybe this is some psychological glitch because I spent like 90% of my childhood by myself, or maybe I’m reading too much into things and really it’s just because I’m a jerk with control issues, but whatever, I know it’s a problem. My problem. I need to fix it.”

“Then you should go think things through,” is all Loki says in reply.

Yeah, he should go. Actually what he should do is go over across the room and cling to Loki like there’s no tomorrow, babbling stupid and empty reassurances that everything will be fine and it’s all good and everyone’s going to be happy. That kind of head-in-the-sand mentality works sometimes, doesn’t it? The only problem is from this angle, in this light, it looks like Loki’s shell is a little too thin to survive such an assault. Cracked in a few places and struggling to hold everything together under that load-bearing blank veneer. So Tony clasps his hands behind his back instead, and he looks at the floor, and lets them both keep up their illusion of strength. Like they’re stable, grown-up people having a rational conversation instead of breaking down under the stress of the last two weeks and the strain of their own goddamn drama.

All he says is, “I’ll see you later, then.” And walks on out the door. A stable, grown-up person.

(The only person Loki has, as it happens to be. Why didn’t the full force of that sentiment ever really hit him before? It’s charging in like a cannonball now.)

So he thinks. Walks. Tries to think. Walks some more, past doors he doesn’t bother to pay attention to and through corridors he couldn’t remember if he tried. Unfortunately the weight on his mind is just too heavy: it’s like churning his way through tar, and each pass through each thought makes the whole mess even heavier and stickier and harder to support. The deceptively simple bottom line is that, yes, he wants Loki to come back to Malibu (that part’s not in question and never really has been), but then there are all these parentheses and asides and superscripts and footnotes followed by a whole other page of small print full of contradictory clauses and caveats.

It’s too much for him to comb through on his own. Christ, he wishes he had somebody to talk to about this. Not that he’s ever been big on oversharing on the topic of his personal life, but this is the kind of thing he’s shamefully unqualified to assess on his own. If only he could talk to Rhodey or Bruce or even Jarvis. Or Pepper. Maybe Pepper most of all, even though she’d be less than thrilled at being hauled back in as a guest star for the newest season of Tony Stark’s Ridiculous Love Life, and also asking one’s ex-girlfriend for advice on how to move forward with one’s new boyfriend is probably against some kind of unspoken rule somewhere. His whole scene of being a stubborn prick stopped him from listening to her when they were together but he’s pretty sure he could listen to her now. If only she weren’t, you know, a billion and a half light years away across the universe.

He should probably lower his standards and settle for somebody closer. And as his directionless wandering brings him to a wide, open-air plaza trimmed with banners flying in the wind, he spies an opportunity. There’s a familiar blond head loitering near a statue of some solemn-looking Asgardian warrior from ages past.

Fandral grins when he notices Tony, and lifts a hand to wave him over.

“Hey,” Tony says, sidling up with a nod. “You still up for a drink?”

ooo

And that’s the story of how Tony ends up in an Asgardian bar with a glowing crystal floor and pulsating light orbs hovering overhead. He’s pretty sure the orbs are magical rather than physical, but since he doesn’t want to risk looking like a noob by staring at them too long, he can’t say for sure. So he concentrates on his drink. Whatever it is (very strong, very sweet, very bubbly mead?), it comes in a pearly, triangular glass. Fandral’s has pieces of gelatinous something floating in it. This is definitely a high end establishment, light years ahead of the quaint wooden ale houses he saw on his walk with Loki through the city’s seedier areas. And judging by the clientele, as long curls and chiffon-clad bottoms sashay by in search of better seats by the windows, it’s a premiere spot for picking up some of Asgard’s most desirable ladies.

Tony’s pretty certain Fandral comes here often. Often enough, at least, not to be distracted by the view. Not even the sight of a sinfully attractive strawberry blonde (wearing a wispy scrap of fabric that looks more like a scarf than a dress) drags him away from his detailed monologue on whatever that thing was he mentioned yesterday. War festival, or... blah blah blah. Tony wasn’t exactly paying attention then and it’s kind of hard to do so now. Strawberry blonde keeps toying with her skirt in a way that makes it clear she isn’t wearing anything underneath.

Yeah he really should keep his eyes and mind on his drink before he accidentally thinks about something that can’t be unthought. Listen to whatever Fandral’s saying. Which sounds a lot like:

“In any case, that shouldn’t be a problem if we can come up with a superior strategy.”

Fandral’s looking at him. Expecting a response. “Right. Um. That sounds good.”

“So you agree about the small-unit tactics?”

Crap. He probably should’ve tried to at least halfway listen to the whole of the conversation. “Uh, yeah,” he says. When in doubt, vaguely agree. “If what you said is true, that sounds like the best option.”

Relieved, Fandral throws back the rest of his drink in celebration. “Good! Good. You know, I think we may have a fair chance this year.” He shakes his glass. “You need another?”

“Nah,” Tony answers. “I’m still working on... this.” His saccharine mixture of noxious chemicals. He tries to chip away at it as Fandral disappears into the crowd for a refill, but it just keeps getting worse with each sip. And Tony’s no stranger to the world (or, in this case, universe) of unfortunate booze. It’s like drinking carbonated corn syrup cut with bottom shelf rum. Whether it’s better or worse than Coulson’s Thai moonshine dragon is up for debate, though it’s certainly going down slower.

Strawberry blonde slowly wiggles her way out of Tony’s field of vision, but as she makes her exit, something else catches his eye. A group takes a seat across from him at a table against the wall, five women and two men, and there’s something about them that piques his interest even though he can’t exactly put his finger on it. They’re different. Somehow, something sets them apart, and he’s trying to figure it out when Fandral sits back down with a fresh glass and a plate of meat and cheese.

“Hungry?” Fandral asks. “I got this for now, but there’s another place I’d like to take you after that has simply the best minced duck with fresh herbs. Costly, but you seem like the sort of man who appreciates fine food.”

“You could say that,” Tony agrees, going in for a ham slice as Fandral takes a sausage link. “I once had a caviar eating contest with a friend of mine just because we were bored.” He gestures with his chin to the mystery table. “Who are they?”

“Witches,” answers Fandral. Nothing out of the ordinary about that word on Asgard; he says it like an Earthling might say ‘teachers’ or ‘dentists’ or ‘DMV clerks’. “The woman in white is a friend of the queen’s, but I’m afraid I don’t know the others.”

“They look different.”

“They do have a rather particular mode of dress.”

That might be part of it: the clothing. While the rest of the women in the bar are wearing dresses that could pass for fancy night gowns back on Earth, the female witches, in subtle ways, look more formal. Not necessarily more covered, but more dignified in the cut and drape of their gowns. But the men’s clothing is almost like a hybrid of typical Asgardian male and female. Lacking all the leather and metal ornamentation Tony’s used to seeing on guys like Thor and Fandral, the witch-men wear relatively simple kimono-style robes. No beards.

“They’re... not very popular, are they?” asks Tony.

Fandral’s eyebrows arch in surprise at the suggestion. “The witches? No, I wouldn’t say that. They’re held in high regard, and often asked for advice. Everyone knows the value of a witch’s wisdom.”

For the women, that might be true. And the longer Tony stares at them, he knows it’s not just the small differences in attire that drew his attention. It’s the way they act. Completely contrary to the textbook gender roles on display everywhere else in the bar – women coyly flirting by tilting their heads and playing with their hair, men trying to outdo each other with loud, boastful tales – the witch-women are steeped in an air of confidence. Authority. They’ve taken charge of their little table and flag down the servers with bold gestures. Meanwhile, the two witch-men sit quietly. Tony would even go so far as to say subserviently.

“I mean the men. They don’t seem like the kind of guys who get a lot of attention next to... uh...” Dude in the bright gold armor who has two busty ladies pouring beer into his mouth at once. “Next to that.”

“Oh. Ah.” Fandral’s voice drops down several tones into the ‘about to explain an unpleasant societal anomaly’ register. “They’re more... Well.”

“Well what?”

“Well. I mean... Magic is obviously a woman’s field of work.”

Nothing Tony didn’t already suspect. “Uh-huh. So I guess it’s fine, or even respectable, for women to get into the whole witchcraft thing. But when guys do it...”

Fandral wants to say something. Odds are high it’s at the expense of those two witch-men over there. A derogatory comment about their effeminate mannerisms and the way they delicately hold their drinks and touch their faces with carefully practised, graceful gestures. It’s what he’d do if he were with anyone else; it’s what he’d be expected to do and what he’s been culturally conditioned to do. He wants to say something, but wisely thinks twice. So he clears his throat instead, grabs a piece of cheese, and looks somewhere off to the side at an imaginary distraction. “You have to understand,” he tries.

“No, I think I understand,” says Tony. Between last night’s talk with Loki and what he’s seeing now, he actually understands pretty well. “I was a little confused at first, thinking it was some garden variety of institutionalized homophobia you guys had going on here, but now I’m starting to reconsider and the more likely culprit is just good old fashioned misogyny. Women acting like men is kind of weird but ultimately okay, since that’s like an upgrade. But shit, men acting like women is the worst thing that can happen. Why would anyone who had the privilege of being born a man want to act like something inferior? Am I right?”

Fandral’s frozen, open-mouth stare says pretty plainly he can’t tell whether or not Tony’s being sarcastic, so he chooses the safest path and keeps quiet. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Yes, that was sarcasm,” Tony tells him.

“Of course, yes,” Fandral quickly replies. “And you’re completely right about-

Tony cuts right in. “No I’m not. I’m just some outsider who’s pissed off because your culture doesn’t conform to my specific sense of entitlement.”

The nod Fandral gives him is a sign of expectation rather than affirmation; he nods like he’s waiting for Tony go to on and continue that thought. When nothing else is forthcoming, the nod peters out and ends in a confused expression punctuated with a couple blinks. “I... I don’t think I understand where this conversation is going.”

“I’m just complaining,” says Tony. “I tend to only give a shit about stuff when it impacts me personally, which makes me kind of a selfish dick, I guess. And normally I don’t have to deal with these kinds of social equality problems. Now that I do, I don’t like it. I expect the world to change to suit me even though up to – let’s see, a couple weeks ago? – I was a prime beneficiary of this whole type of system. I was the one being called out for my... uh... less than progressive contributions to said system. So like I said. Entitlement.”

“Right,” says Fandral, nodding once again. “I still have no idea where this conversation is going.”

“Nowhere. It’s going nowhere. Don’t worry about it. I’m rambling. Why do I even care about Asgardian social norms?”

“Because you care about Loki?”

Because he cares about Loki. That would be exactly why.   “...Yeah. And it bugs me to know that the world is set against him for no good reason. I mean, instead of one of the numerous legitimate reasons for being against him, like how he tried to destroy one planet and enslave another.”

“Oh no, we’re fine with that here,” Fandral says with a wry smirk.

“I figured. But switching topics for a sec, can I ask you something?”

“You want to know more about Loki’s past.”

That catches Tony off guard. He was going to bring up the whole moving in together dilemma, but now that this offer’s on the table... “Okay, yes. Loki’s past. If you’re willing to talk, I’m willing to listen.”

Fandral snorts. “How long do you have?”

“Judging by how long it’s taken me to drink this so far,” Tony says, eyeballing his glass, “at least two hours?”

“Would you like something else?”

“Maybe, yeah.”

Fandral buys him a beer. A nice, strong, drinkable beer. And then, as Tony tries to wash away the taste of whatever the hell he was drinking before, the story begins.

Fandral’s known both Thor and Loki since they were kids. Since they were old enough to pick up their first wooden practice swords: he was one of their teachers. According to a revelation that shocks nobody, Thor was a natural at all kinds of fighting: swordsmanship, archery, wrestling, throwing rocks and hitting shit with sticks for no reason... If it stemmed from violence, Thor excelled. Loki not so much.

“Not that he was bad,” Fandral clarifies. “He was actually better than most other children because he was fast and clever and could spot weaknesses to outwit larger, stronger opponents. But he wasn’t Thor. Next to Thor, everything Loki did seemed somewhat lacking. And after years of constantly being second-best in a field of two, well, he stopped trying. Became purposefully careless and uncooperative. Talked back to his instructors. Stirred up quarrels between other students. He was always terribly proficient at causing trouble, and I have no doubt that being expelled from the training arena and told not return was exactly what he wanted. So he went to study with the witches instead. I know he had dabbled before and the things he could do even without formal education made me think magic was something he should pursue. If only it were an acceptable pursuit for a prince of Asgard.”

“So I take it his parents were against this decision,” says Tony.

Fandral nods. “Very much so. Even Frigga, who had taught him all his clever little tricks, begged him not to do it. But of course you’re aware of Loki’s talents when it comes to slinking and manipulating his way into getting what he wants. ‘No’ quickly turned into a conditional ‘yes’. He could study magic as long as he wished, but had to stop short of taking the oath of loyalty to the witches’ order and becoming a full member in their ranks. Again, I’m sure this was the exact outcome he wanted, as it enabled him to learn everything without being bound to their hierarchy. He can still carry a weapon and go off following Thor on mad adventures.”

“Witches can’t carry weapons?”

“No. At least not from what I understand. Of course, I know hardly anything about their ways and most of what I do know came from Loki, who could be lying. He said swords interfere with energy – the larger the sword, the worse the interference – which is why I’ve only ever seen him fight with small daggers, I suppose. Actually, now that I think about it, one scene that always sticks in my memory is a little skirmish down on Alfheim, and of course we brought Loki along to ward us against elvish magic. He had gloves with knives fixed to the fingertips like claws. And when the fighting started... I’m not ashamed to admit he was the best of us that day. So fast and exact I could swear the magic let him anticipate his opponent’s every move. I’m halfway convinced we’d have had our heads handed to us if Loki hadn’t been there. But that’s hardly relevant to what I was saying,” he adds, just as Tony was getting into the tale of Loki and the Moogle claws. (It’s yet another one of those sexy-in-a-kind-of-disturbing-way mental images.)

“Back to the training arena,” says Fandral, starting over. “After Loki left, I hardly saw him at all for years. Occasionally he came by to watch Thor fight, but he’d always flit in and out so I never had a chance to speak with him. But even with those brief sightings I could tell how much he changed. I noticed it, and Thor noticed it, and I saw in Thor’s demeanor how much he worried about Loki. You see, Loki was always the outgoing one. Thor was so serious in his need to prove himself, but Loki was the sort of boy who saw everything as a joke. It made him an absolute terror to teach, but at the same time it was impossible to ever really dislike him because he was so impishly charming. The Loki I saw lurking in shadows to watch Thor’s matches was a different person. Quiet. Withdrawn. The child who never shut up was turning into a man who barely said a word. It was... troubling.”

Troubling. Yeah. Tony takes a sip of his drink as Fandral pauses to do the same. Everything Fandral’s said so far fits perfectly hand in hand with what Thor told him back during their guys’ night out in Texas: bright, carefree Loki metamorphosing into dark, secretive Loki. Loki the snake. “Any idea what caused it?”

“At the time, no.   And now, not exactly. Of course everyone has their pet theory, but try getting Loki to admit to anything and you might as well talk to a rock. We could only guess. There was a bit of nasty business around that time where several men were killed and a few folks believed Loki had a hand in it.”

“Do you?”

Fandral’s hesitance to answer says ‘yes’ even as his body language scrambles for a way to sidestep the question. “I didn’t,” he says a little too carefully.

“Didn’t or don’t?” Tony presses.

He finds a way to sidestep. The story goes on. “I tried to speak to Thor. Ask him what he knew, but Thor took any questions regarding his brother’s odd behavior as a personal insult. Innocent inquiries were attacks on Loki in his mind. He insisted nothing was wrong, and that Loki merely invested too much of himself in magic and was tired and overworked. Then one day Loki showed up at Thor’s side, ready to accompany us on whatever silly little quest we were plotting, and I thought to myself, well, perhaps Thor was right. Perhaps Loki was simply going through a difficult time with his studies but now that’s over with and the old Loki will return. And certainly yes, he was back to speaking freely at that point, but he wasn’t the same. He’d become short-tempered and quick to fight with anyone who even looked at him the wrong way, like a cornered cat. But he was an asset to our group, so we humored Thor and let Loki follow us, on that adventure and others after. Even on larger campaigns and full-scale wars. After that, Loki usually came along.”

No, Tony’s not going to let Fandral off the hook that easily. “You know,” he says, “I’ve noticed it’s a big thing on Asgard to either ignore direct questions or just not answer them. Now I’m only asking this because I’m interested, not to judge or anything, but: do you now, in this moment, believe Loki was in any way responsible for the deaths of those men?”

“Did Loki tell you about them?”

“Yeah, he did, and you’re still not answering my question.”

“A few years later we had a campaign on Vanaheim,” Fandral says, focusing his gaze on nothing in particular as he picks up the storyline once again. “A real campaign, with nearly five hundred soldiers sent to crush a rebellion against the king of the Vanir. And there were the usual witches that come with an army that size, and Loki stayed back among them to assist with protective wards or healing magic or whatever they needed to do, so I didn’t see him fight. I saw him later that night after the day’s fighting died down, though. I returned to my tent after supper, and there was Loki. Lying on my bed, half undressed already, and I could swear he seemed drunk as a dwarf at midwinter even though nothing else suggested he’d been drinking.”

“Drunk on magic,” says Tony.

Both eyebrows rise as Fandral looks momentarily surprised. “You’ve seen this?”

“Yeah.” Lying on the bed, half undressed, drunk out of his (her?) mind... Tony’s seen exactly that. And knowing what happened afterwards, he’s not so sure he likes where this story is going.

“And I suppose you also know about the... er... sensation of a magical touch.”

Now Tony really doesn’t like where this story is going. “Did you and Loki-”

“No!” Fandral cuts in, hurling his answer out with the kind of emphatic certainty usually found in people who believe saying something faster and louder makes it truer. “No, I absolutely... no.”

“Of course,” snorts Tony, trying real hard not to actually roll his eyes. “You’re not that kind of guy.”

“I’m not the sort to take advantage of somebody not in their right mind, Tony Stark.”

Oh. Well doesn’t that just make Tony feel like a big bag of dicks. “Sorry. I thought you meant no as in you didn’t... you know... with other men.”

“Well I don’t do that either,” answers Fandral. Then shrugs and adds an inconsequential, “Usually,” over a sip of his drink. “People have accused me of doing all manner of scandalous things, and certainly most of them aren’t far from the truth. I like to have my fun and I won’t pretend otherwise. But it’s always with a willing partner. Loki in the tent that night... He was as good as drunk and in no state to say either yes or no. If you want to know exactly what happened, I asked him to leave. He told me he couldn’t. Absolutely refused. I barely understood what he was saying, his speech was so nonsensical and garbled, but it was clear he wouldn’t go. He said he couldn’t. Couldn’t leave. I remember that very specifically. Not that he didn’t want to leave, but that he couldn’t, with the implication something terrible would happen if he did. There was this fear in his eyes and... and he had his fingers clinging to my shirt, snarled up in the fabric like talons. He wouldn’t go. After that, I didn’t make him. I let him have my bed and went to sleep on the ground.”

“And that’s all that happened?” Tony asks when Fandral falls silent.

Once again, the hesitance answers before any words can. This time, though, it’s saying ‘no’. “He, ah... He kept trying to lie beside me. Wrap his arm around my waist, slide his hand under my shirt. But it went no farther than that, I swear.” Fandral says that like he expects Tony to be the jealous boyfriend and bean him in the eye or something as he holds up his hands in apologetic surrender. “He kept talking. Babbling, really. Most of what he said made no sense. But there were a few things... He kept saying that he knew he had to find me. That he’d be safe. All night he kept repeating that, over and over. Safe. But I had no idea what he meant by that until almost a year later when...”

Both hands rise up to cover Fandral’s face, pressing into his eyes before combing back through his hair. “I think he was in a bad place. Back then he hadn’t yet learned to control his magic and I saw him like that – drunk – too often. I think certain people were looking to take advantage of the situation. I saw that too often as well. So yes,” Fandral says, meeting Tony’s gaze, “to answer your question, I do now believe Loki killed those men. But I also think, if he did so, he did it for good reason, and they probably deserved what they got. For my part, I let Loki stay in my tent whenever he needed to when we were away from home, which, I am disheartened to say, turned out to be more than I would have liked.”

And this story segment ties in far too neatly with what Loki said in the dungeon. Why did the warriors allow witch-boys to tag along. Why did they allow Loki... “They knew,” Tony says aloud.

“Knew what?” Poor Fandral only looks confused.

“About the magic.” About the energy transfer and the rebalancing and everything. Of course they knew, and they were there to exploit it. Thor knew. Thor knew back in Texas when he tried to keep Tony away from Loki. So he must have known at this point. Thor had to have known all along and... “Why didn’t Thor do anything? You just said a minute ago how protective he was, so why didn’t he do anything? Why didn’t Loki go to him for help?”

“The same reason Loki never asks anyone for help, I’d imagine,” Fandral replies. “The same reason he never actually spoke to me about what happened, and went out of his way to avoid me for days following any of those magic-drunken nights.”

“Oh.” That reason. The Loki-is-a-secretive-little-mollusk reason.   “He didn’t want Thor to know.”

“He didn’t want anyone to know. The only reason I do is because he decided he had no choice but to involve me.”

“And you didn’t say anything to Thor.”

“I figured it was Loki’s business whether or not he wanted Thor to know.”

“But you told me.”

“Yes.” With one last raising of the glass, Fandral drains his drink. “I suppose you already knew most of that, though.”

“Most of it,” Tony agrees, which isn’t a total lie. He’d heard the skeletal opening of that story from Thor. Loki added a little more during their rum-fuelled truth or dare session in Phoenix and then filled in one more blank while chatting in the cell. Now it’s just fleshing out the details, and really, are they anything more than Tony already guessed? No. None of this came as a true, honest-to-goodness surprise. It’s all pretty much exactly what he’d been afraid of hearing. He snatches up his beer and gulps down the three or so inches that remain. This was supposed to be a solution, chatting with Fandral, but all it’s doing is adding more problems to the pile. More things to think about. More things to worry about. More Loki to occupy his already overcrowded brain.

“But it’s a good thing you’re with him now,” says Fandral. “I think you’re the sort of person Loki needs. Someone dependable, who can help him past all the things that have gone wrong in his life.”

“You obviously don’t know me very well if you use the word ‘dependable’ to describe me in a relationship,” Tony replies. “But thanks. I’m going for this new thing where I make an actual effort to be the kind of guy who might one day qualify as ‘dependable’.” Trying. Not quite there yet. Which brings him around full circle to where he was an hour ago when he first found Fandral. And on that note...

“So you wanna head over to that other place and get some food? I kind of also want to talk about something else that’s on my mind.”

And it might take a while.

Chapter Text

Tony gets back to the room later than intended. Way later. Late enough that he finds himself gingerly tip-toeing up to the door and inching it open with an uncomfortable, guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach because it’s after midnight and he has no excuse other than having been drinking with Fandral. Inside, the room is dark. No lights, no sound, no sign of Loki. And that only makes him feel worse, because he now has to repeat the whole routine over again opening the bedroom door. The sneaking. The anxiety. The peering into the darkness simultaneously looking for and dreading any sign of movement.

Loki’s in bed. In the dark. Not moving. But not sleeping. (Tony can tell.) Just lying there like he’s been waiting for hours, which he probably has been, and yes, that makes Tony feel even shittier on top of the level one of bad and level two of worse he already feels. He snakes his way out of his clothes and into some pajamas, since being unpresumptuously dressed seems like a safer bet right now. Then he climbs into bed without saying a word, sliding up close behind Loki. Who is also – no surprise – dressed. “Sorry,” he whispers into Loki’s hair. “I was thinking and then I got distracted but then I did manage to sort my crap out. It just took a while and I should be honest up front and say drinks were involved.”

“Yes, I can smell it on you,” Loki whispers in return.

“Sorry.” And he is sorry. This time it’s not only a word. He’s sorry for taking so long, and especially sorry for being the cause of this air of awkwardness that now hangs over their heads. He presses his lips to the thin layer of cotton t-shirt covering Loki’s shoulder, but something says it’ll take a lot more than a kiss to make this boo-boo better. “But, um, I do have an answer for you.”

“And?”

“Can you turn on the light? Being in the dark makes me feel like I need to whisper.” And everyone knows whispered words are the frivolous, fleeting cousins of those spoken out loud.

The overhead light glows on with nothing more than a sigh from Loki, bathing everything in the room in a dim, warm shade of amber. That’s better. Tony shifts to prop himself up on one elbow, and Loki does the same, rolling over so they’re face to face.

“So,” Tony says.

Loki echoes it right back. “So.” He looks so much younger in this half-light. Skin smooth and gold, eyes too darkly shadowed for color. His facial expression isn’t quite blank, but it’s not fully anything else either. A little hopeful, a little sad.

Even if Tony runs his tongue over his teeth and swallows, the dryness in his mouth doesn’t go away. “Yeah. Uh. I’m not really good at opening statements or preamble or anything, so I should probably get this over with and say whatever comes up as it comes up. First, then: a general observation. I was pretty worried today. Actually really worried. Not just about this whole moving thing, but also about my abysmal relationship history, and you being pissed off at me, and then because I can’t worry enough I started to worry about how worried I was. Meta-worry. But then I realized... Maybe this worry is a good sign. Maybe I’m so worked up about this because I really, really, want it to succeed. Normally I don’t care so much but right now I do. Enough to make me freak the fuck out over the possibility of doing something wrong and having everything fall apart on me. And if I’m committed enough to worry like this, maybe that means I’m committed enough to, you know, put an equal amount of effort into making sure things work.”

So he says, and so he thinks and, well, so he’d like Loki to believe. But it’s nothing more than wishful over-optimism that one half-assed micro-speech might fix this whole mess and have Loki swooning into his arms with kisses of forgiveness. Nice visual, that, but sadly a little too fantasy-oriented. In reality, Loki nods, makes a kind of ‘hmm’ sound, and give Tony that raised eyebrow look that says to keep going.

“Okay,” he continues. “Once I had that worked out, I started thinking about the reasons why I wanted you to come back to Earth with me. There were a lot of really good reasons. I can’t remember them all because I was sort of drunk when I thought of most of them, but trust me, they were good reasons. One of them being... Well...” Tony has to shift his weight. He has to sit upright. This is one of those things you talk about while sitting up like a man, not slouched over in bed like a lazy ball python.

“For a good chunk of, I don’t know, twenty years? I didn’t exactly make good choices when it came to people I dated. And by ‘dated’ for the most part I mean ‘slept with once then never called again’. You know, like aspiring models who thought being photographed getting into my car would help their careers. Then that whole Afghanistan thing happened and it really made me shift perspective. Life wasn’t just about having an irresponsibly good time any more. And I’m not going to get into a lot of detail about this part because it’s not relevant, but a year ago I honestly thought I’d end up spending the rest of my life with Pepper. It felt like that’s where things were headed and it scared me a little to realize... I was good with that. Maybe I was even kind of looking forward to it. Even though things obviously didn’t work out with her, but that’s not the point. The point is, now that I’ve thought about it, I’ve been looking at my relationship history the wrong way. Yeah, I have literally dozens of failures under my belt, but if I think about things really critically, not a single one of those was anything I cared about. I didn’t try. I didn’t want to try. Up until Pepper, I wasn’t taking anything seriously. Now that’s changed and I think I actually am taking things a lot more seriously. Seriously enough to travel to the other side of the universe, even. I just need to take a minute every once in a while to remind myself of that. So...”

His voice trails off into an awkward little cough, which he sure as hell hopes won’t undermine everything he said. He can bullshit like nobody’s business up on a stage in front of thousands of people, but try to translate feelings into words for the person he’s trying to build into his life... The audience of thousands is usually receptive. Loki still shows a worrying lack of emotion as he lays his hand down over top of Tony’s, interlocking their fingers.

“Who, exactly, are you trying to convince right now?” Loki asks. “Me or you?”

“Uh, you?” Obviously? Isn’t this what Loki wanted: a declaration of reassurance?

“Are you certain? I asked you to come back when you’d made up your mind, yet it still sounds as if you’re not quite finished talking yourself into this.”

“No I’m finished,” Tony quickly says. “100% talked into this. I was just reiterating some of my thought process for you so you can-”

Loki’s hand tightens around his. “Tony, I do not need your tortuous reasoning.”

“Then what? I mean, you asked me to think things over, and I did, and when I come back to report on-”

“Sometimes I think you’re overly smitten with the sound of your own voice,” Loki tells him. While sounding one exasperation unit short of a full-on eyeroll.

“Well yeah, I have a sexy voice.”

“And yet you use it to prattle on instead of concisely summarizing your conclusions.”

“Sure, fine,” says Tony. “Summary? Here we go.” He can summarize. “I want you to come back and live with me because, after in-depth consideration, I think I’ve finally found a compatible partner and we have a really good shot at making this work.”

“And that’s it?” Loki asks after a pause.

Oh for fuck’s sake, what else can he say? What else is there between that short synopsis of events and a full-on meandering explanation of how he arrived at said synopsis? “...Yes? Unless you have any burning questions for me?”

Loki exhales his way back down onto the bed, taking the room’s meager light with him. “No, I don’t believe I do.”

“Then am I missing something?” Tony has to ask. “Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“That sounds like a motherly ‘no, I’m disappointed in you’.”

“Go to sleep. We have more packing to finish tomorrow. Lots of things to do before we leave.”

He rolls over onto his side, facing away, until all that’s left is the sheen of his hair in the cool blue glow of the arc reactor filtering through Tony’s shirt. Loki being Loki, Tony’s forced to accept. Loki being his usual demonstrative self. Loki being a typical wellspring of free-flowing emotional discourse. But he did say ‘we’ in terms of leaving, and hey, Tony can be lulled into believing that’s a good enough outcome for a stalemate discussion in the middle of the night. So Tony slides back under the covers, rearranges his pillow, and wraps one arm loosely around Loki’s waist. At least Loki doesn’t slither away or elbow him in the gut or anything. Everything’s good. Pretty good. At least... 35% good.

“Um,” Tony whispers after a minute. “Can I just add-”

“I thought we were going to sleep.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m whispering. But I want to tell you... I really do mean everything I say. I just sound like a confused moron because I don’t always think these things through before I start talking and then my brain and my mouth are moving at different speeds and I end up repeating myself or backtracking or saying complete shit as a stalling tactic while I try to figure out where I’m going, kind of like right now. When I’m actually coherent is when you have to worry because that means it’s all prefab waffle and totally disingenuous.   But when I have the linguistic integrity of an orc, you know I’m telling the truth. Even if it’s not phrased the best, I mean it all.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“No, you’re supposed to...” Tony groans.

“Supposed to what?”

Supposed to be a lot more forgiving and understanding and cuddly, probably. Like roll over and snuggle in with his face pressed into Tony’s neck so Tony can stroke his hair and they can be okay again. Kiss and make up. That kind of thing. The easy way out that doesn’t involve Tony lying here wondering exactly how he fucked up and what he has to do to fix things, because the more time he spends thinking about this, the more it scratches away at him. It’s a problem. Problems need to be solved. “Supposed to...” he tries. “I don’t know... be... nicer.”

“And that means I should accept your incomplete claims of commitment?” Loki asks.

“No! It means if you think I missed some big part of what you expected me to go over, you should tell me. What do you want me to say?”

“Tony, if you say something only because I tell you to do so, it ceases to have any meaning.”

“Not always,” Tony replies. And he tightens his grip around Loki’s waist as he says it, like that’ll ground the both of them somehow and make his words more convincing. “I could have thought about something in the back of my mind and just forgotten it, and then you remind me.”

“I don’t think so.”

Tony almost asks why not. He’s holding that question in the breath that rolls across his tongue, ready to release it. The only thing that stops him is this niggling, serrated edge of a concern that Loki probably means something in particular, not only the overarching ideas Tony thought about in the last couple hours. A specific thing. A specific word, even.

And fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, Tony had it wrong all along. Loki isn’t looking for any sprawling explanation or reassurances in the form of outlooks and probabilities and promises. He doesn’t give a damn about Tony’s thought process. Or excuses. Or revelations. Or expositions. Pretty much all those piles and piles of words are useless when the only one that matters is missing.

A single, stupid, problematic word. It’s sitting there like one of those pieces of shrapnel buried deep inside, refusing to work its way out.

(Fuck.)

“Okay,” says Tony, back to whispering again. Damnit, his heart’s pounding so hard he can barely hear his own ghost of a voice above that racket. “Can... Uh. Can I try again? This whole thing? I think I still have some more really important stuff to talk about.”

Loki may not say it immediately, but at least he does, after a pause, say, “Yes.”

“Yeah. Good. Um.” He lets his forehead rest against Loki’s shoulder. The contact might help magnetize some of his thoughts into coherent lumps. “Where was I? Oh right. Meaning what I say. That’s still true. Like... the most true. I want you to know that everything I said about... well... all that stuff the other day after we went to the market about how I wanted to make sure you were happy and look after you and... whatever? That’s what I really think. When I get rid of all the other worries and distractions and shit clogging up my head, that’s still there. Its’ the base, ground-level, concrete foundation... thing. So yes, I really want you to come back to Malibu with me because...” (Nope, not yet, can’t say it quite yet.) “Because I want to take care of you and help you get over all that... everything, I guess, that happened in your past, and-”

“What do you mean?” Loki interrupts.

“About taking care of you?”

“About my past. What, exactly, do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know,” says Tony. “Just, I know you’ve gone through a lot of really bad things, so...”

“So you wish to ‘help’ me.”

“Well, yeah.”

The lights come back up, building from black to brilliant amber so fast Tony has to lift a hand to shield his eyes from the unexpected brightness. And the minute he breaks his hold on Loki’s waist, Loki’s slipping away. Sitting up on the edge of the bed, striped with angular shadows in the glare of the light.

“Why?” Loki demands. One hard syllable that hits Tony in some vulnerable spot made a little too soft by confessions of minutes past.

“Why?” Tony repeats, and it’s like a struggle for balance trying to right himself and find his way back onto the track after the dizzying U-turn this conversation’s taken. “Why do I want to help you?”

“What about me is so terribly wrong that I require your help?”

And that’s a trick question if Tony’s ever heard one: the kind for which there’s no safe answer. “Oh come on,” he says instead in an attempt to deflect. “Nothing’s wrong. That’s not what I mean.”

“But it is,” says Loki. “You may not have noticed, though I certainly did, that absolutely everything you said tonight up to the point where you came around to wanting to ‘protect’ me and ‘help’ me was about you. Your thoughts, your realizations, your plans, your terribly important concerns for your own terribly important self. Every single thing was you. Not once did you stop to ask what I thought, until you began to worry I was angry with you. And the only time I ever shared the focus of attention was when I became some manner of object in your continuing saga. Not so much a person but a thing. So it terrifies me to think that I might only be another one of your projects as long as you think there is something about me that can be changed and improved. Helped. Saved.”

“No,” says Tony, “that’s not true.” At least the part about Loki being a project. The rest of it... well, it may resonate a little too clearly and a little too close to home, but that’s not the important thing right now, because Loki’s talking again.

“Why is it even necessary for you to worry over my past when our future is still so undecided?”

Stress on the ‘our’, Tony notes. Subtle. “Because I’m pretty sure the shit that went down in your past is having a big effect on how you deal with stuff in the present.”

“Which you’ve arbitrarily decided tonight, knowing nowhere near enough about my past to make such an informed observation?”

“Thor told me a lot about you back when he was still part of the A-Team on our cross-country adventure.”

“And you believe all of Thor’s opinions?!”

“Fandral also confirmed a few things and filled in some holes left over from what you told me in Phoenix.”

Loki’s reply should be loud. It should be a shout, working its way up along the volume curve that his voice has been following over the past minute. It should be angry and confrontational like Tony’s expecting. It shouldn’t be... nothing at all. Not silence. Not a tiny hiss of breath underlining a wide-eyed stare.

It definitely shouldn’t drag an awful, clenching feeling down into Tony’s gut as Loki wordlessly stands up and walks to the door. “Wait!” says Tony, throwing off the covers and scrambling after him. “Loki, wait! Where are you going?”

“Why don’t you ask Fandral?” Loki snaps, neither pausing nor turning around to address things face to face. “I have no interest in speaking to you, but luckily he’s around to bypass my objections and weasel out your answers all the same!”

“That’s not fair! Just let me explain-”

“No, would you like to know what’s not fair?” snarls Loki. He does turn around at that, jerking open the bedroom door to stand framed against the dark room beyond. “What’s not fair, Tony Stark, is that you went behind my back to seek out knowledge of my life!”

“I didn’t ‘seek out’ anything! Fandral brought it up, and-”

“And you saw no reason to stop him from telling you things he had no right to say?!”

“You don’t even know what he said!”

“Yes, I think I do,” Loki replies, voice dropping down in both pitch and volume in a way that makes the hair on the back of Tony’s neck stand up and a shiver run down his spine.

“Okay, yes, fine,” he admits, because shit fuck balls, this whole situation is sliding downhill so fast it’s about to break the sound barrier and it’s time to tell the truth, suck up his punishment, and eventually apologize. Go back to lying awkwardly in bed and hope for morning makeup sex. “The stuff Fandral told me is probably exactly what you think. And yes, I should’ve stopped him. That was a dumbass move, but Loki, to be honest, I was curious. And you never tell me a goddamn thing.”

Loki takes a step back. “Has it never occurred to you that I do not want to tell you these things?!”

Yeah. That did occur to him. At some point, hours ago, when he was on his way to getting tipsy and Fandral’s tale started along that forbidden pathway, he did feel a momentary twinge of guilt at using Fandral as a work-around for Loki’s uncooperative silence. Unfortunately, guilt was too quickly choked out by curiosity. “...Maybe,” he says. “Yes. But I just wanted to help. I thought... if I knew more about what you’d been through I’d be able to help you get over it.”

“I am over it,” Loki says in that low, hair-raising tone again.

“Well no,” Tony counters, “I’m pretty sure there’s still a lot of stuff going on that-”

“No.” That single sound cuts through all of Tony’s best intentions like the fall of a guillotine’s blade. “I promise you, Tony, I am over my past. That’s exactly why I didn’t want you prying into it. What I am not over is how every person in my life keeps reminding me of what happened! They are the ones who refuse to let it die! Not me! I leave it behind and they drag it back up into the light! And every time – every time – I start to think that maybe now this horrible legacy is finally buried, someone like you comes along to remind me again!”

“I-”

That’s all Tony has a chance to say. One sound before Loki moves on, getting louder again, working himself up and shouting out what he has to say, but it’s not as steady as before. Every sentence shakes the stability and threatens to send everything toppling down. “And the excuses!” Loki shouts. “I’ve changed, they say! I’m different now, not the same person I was before, and of course I’m not! Of course I’m...” Whatever that next word is supposed to be, he chokes on it. Retreats even farther back into the empty darkness, out of reach, holding his hand out as a barricade so Tony can’t follow. “But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t... what happened... I did it. I changed myself. A deliberate act. The person I was before was small and weak and gullible and that is... That is not who I am any more! I won’t go back there! I don’t want to go back! I only want... I only want people to stop trying to fix me!”

“You know we mean well,” Tony mutters, feeling stupid even as he hears himself speak. There has to be something better to say, but... “I just wanted to... help...” No, that’s not better. Not at all.

“No, you wanted to meddle,” says Loki. “You wanted to find out my secrets that I wouldn’t tell you, because you do not trust me and you do not listen to me, and you do not respect me, despite all your lovely sentiments of equality! You don’t want to help. You want to fix and change. Like I’m... I’m broken or wrong. But I’m not. I’m fine. I’m fine.” He’s backed up all the way to the door to the second bedroom, still keeping his distance from Tony with one outstretched hand. “Why is it so impossible for you to simply accept me as I am?!”

That’s not the kind of question for which there’s an expected answer. It’s the kind of question that’s spit out like a challenge, like a staccato accompaniment to Loki opening the second bedroom’s door and, just as quickly, shutting it behind himself. “I do!” Tony says. But by that point it’s too late. Door’s closed, Loki’s hidden away. “Shit...”

He leans against the door, eyes closed, arms folded and framing his face. “Loki?” And of course there’s no answer. He wasn’t really expecting anything. “Loki, I’m sorry,” he says as loud as he dares in the echoing cavern of that damn Asgardian room. “I fucked up. I really, really fucked up, and I didn’t realize you felt that way, even though I should have because now that I think about it, it’s really fucking obvious, but... I’m an idiot. So. Um. Please come out. Or at least open the door so I can crawl in there and grovel at your feet. I will do... pretty much anything to prove how sorry I am. I don’t want to go to bed with you upset and me feeling like shit because it’s my fault and... Let’s work this out. Open the door. Please.”

Just silence. Whether or not Loki’s listening – if he can even hear through this solid, dividing wall of alien plastic-stone? – remains a mystery. “Loki...” Tony can’t pick up a damn sound coming from the other side, but that tells him nothing. Loki could be standing still. Sitting on the edge of the bed. Not speaking, not moving. “Please open the door. I... I don’t want to change you. I swear. You’re probably the most interesting and fascinating person I’ve ever met, and so goddamn smart, and everything about you is so much better than any boring bullshit I could change you into. I don’t want you to change. I want to be with you because of who you are. Right now. I do – I do – accept you just like this, and when I said I wanted to help you I only meant I wanted to make sure you were happy because sometimes you seem a little, I don’t know... distant, or like you’re holding back. I thought it might be a good step forward if we could go over some of this stuff like we did a bit in Phoenix, and maybe it was just me but I though those conversations we had really helped us get to know each other better? I guess? A bit? But okay, yeah, I did this totally the wrong way, and I’m sorry. I meant well, but that’s not an excuse, and I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”

It’s still nothing but silence on the other side of the door. “Are you even listening?” Tony asks. “Loki?”

He tries the door handle. Pushes it down slowly, letting it scrape and click as the latch slides back. Didn’t he convince himself once before that if Loki really wanted a door to stay closed, it’d be magically sealed? Yeah. This one swings open easily.

Inside, the light’s on. The bed’s untouched. Cases of equipment are stacked up along the walls, with pieces of armor laid out in front of them across the floor.

Loki is nowhere to be seen.

ooo

It’s a bad night. One of the worst, in fact. Probably the worst since that night after the portal incident on top of the tower. Loki’s gone. Not hiding, not out of sight, not invisible: gone. The only explanation Tony can come up with is that he teleported away, which means he could be anywhere in Asgard by now. No indication of when he might return. (And Tony sticks to ‘when’ because the alternative, ‘if’, isn’t even worth consideration.)

It’s a long, bad night full of sitting up, lying down, rolling over, and staring at the ceiling. Of having to talk himself out of getting up and running all over the city like a chicken with its head cut off in a futile search. Of having to tell himself to act like a reasonable, rational adult and wait, just wait, just fucking lie here and wait as the minutes tick by into hours. Wait for Loki to come back.

It’s a bad night, and it’s going to be a shitty morning, as the sun starts to creep up and pink light gleams through the window. There are a couple things that Tony makes an effort of not thinking about as he slumps out of bed and methodically pulls on his clothes. One: that maybe there’s a chance he screwed up beyond repair and Loki is never coming back. Or if Loki does come back, things won’t be the same. Maybe this mess of a relationship is too cracked and fragmented to force back together. The thoughts pass through his head, and he kicks them all to the side. Not going to dwell on that. He has to trust that Loki will come back. But then two, if Loki doesn’t come back, he has no way of opening the portal with Bruce’s new device. And maybe Thor’ll eventually send him packing once the Bifrost is repaired, but until then... Christ, he doesn’t want to dwell on that either. Loki will come back. Loki will come back in time to open the portal tomorrow, and they’ll go home as planned. He trusts Loki to do that. Finally, three, this is probably a really good development in his character, isn’t it, if he worried about his relationship with Loki before his ability to get back to Earth? Doesn’t that tell him what’s really important? Yes, and this is something he should probably tell Loki if – when – Loki comes back.

Loki will come back. He needs to trust Loki to come back. Maybe that’s what this is all about. Maybe this is a test. Okay, it’s probably not a test, it’s probably nothing more than Loki needing time alone to think things through and be angry for a while. Before he comes back. Tony needs to keep telling himself that. Loki will come back. That’s the one thing he keeps repeating. Loki will come back. Loki has to come back.

Loki will come back. He trusts Loki to come back. He trusts Loki to come back. He trusts Loki to come back. He trusts Loki...

His hands are clenched around the ends of his belt so tightly the buckle is gouging into his thumb and it’s going to leave a mark.

“Tony...”

That voice is almost quiet enough to miss over the repetitive noise in his head. He looks up with a snap of the chin and a slow, “Hey,” which is the first word that comes out of his mouth without thought and is as good a placeholder as any.

“You look surprised,” Loki murmurs.

“Yeah, um, I think I accidentally summoned you by thinking your name too many times in a row. You look...”

Has Loki always looked this damn majestic? Maybe? Maybe it’s a sight-for-sore-eyes mind trick kind of deal, but the way he stands against the wall, hair neatly combed back, hands carefully folded at his waist... He’s wearing Asgardian clothes. Witch clothes to be precise, if Tony learned anything at the bar with Fandral yesterday. A long copper coat made of something soft and shimmery, fastened down the left side; olive sleeves and a high collar, all of which are assembled in a way that weaves and crisscrosses and overlaps in the usual, complicated way Loki’s outfits tend to have going. He’s lit from behind by the reflection of morning light off the smooth surface of the wall, tracing the shape of his body with gold. And if his eyes seem like they’re colored with a little gloss of red, well, that’s not enough to detract from the overall image. Might make it a little more real, actually.

“You look nice,” Tony finishes. “I mean, not that you don’t also look nice when you insist on wearing my old clothes, or when you’re wearing nothing at all for that matter, but right now you look... really nice.”

“Thank you,” Loki replies, and he takes a step forward. “But if I might say what I came here to say, I would like to...” He pauses for the slightest second as his voice stiffens. “I would like to apologize for my behavior last night. That was a terrible overreaction and I should not have treated you that way.”

It would be a way more convincing statement if Loki were looking Tony in the eye rather than concentrating on the floor. Also if it made any sense at all. “Why are you apologizing?” Tony asks. “It was my fault. I’m the one who acted like an asshole, and I’m the one who should be awkwardly begging your forgiveness right now.”

Loki shrugs. Still looking at the floor. A dishearteningly blank expression sits across the portion of his face Tony can see. “Perhaps, yes, but it still stands true that I should not have run away like that. Thus I hope you will forgive me for... for my impulsiveness.”

“Yeah.” Tony’s nodding even before Loki’s finished with that sentence. “Yeah, of course. You seriously have nothing to apologize for, so yeah, you’re already forgiven. On the one condition you promise to let me make it up to you for being such a total jerk last night and... you know...all that.”

This time, Loki finally looks up. Maybe only half-blank. “I put a lot of thought over the last few hours into whether or not I should do so,” he says. “And to paraphrase what someone recently said to me: it just so happens that I have a few more fucks left to give about you, and if you think I’m about to leave because you’ve done something stupid... Well, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong, and now you have to suffer through me being angry at you until I decide you’ve redeemed yourself.”

Tony tries so hard not to grin like an idiot, but it’s pretty much a lost cause as all the past night’s weight begins to lift off his shoulders. “How long d’you think that’ll take?”

“Oh, years,” Loki sighs. “I’ll expect you to treat me with absolute adoration the whole time.”

“I can do that.”

“Keep telling me how nice I look.”

“You look so far beyond ‘nice’ that something as plain as ‘nice’ is actually an insult. You look perfect. Like one of Michelangelo’s angels. But with a way bigger dick.”

“And buy me gifts.”

“Clothes. Diamonds. Cars. Five hundred lizards. Consider it done.”

“Come here.”

Loki speaks, and Tony goes. He loops his arms around Loki’s waist and closes his eyes as Loki’s hands cup his face. There’s still something hesitant in that touch. A feeling of incompletion. Playful banter is a good quick gloss-over fix, but it doesn’t fill all the cracks. Those’ll still take time. “But in all seriousness,” Tony whispers, “I am sorry.”

“I know.”

“Everything you said last night was-”

Loki’s hands slide down and around, holding the back of his neck. “I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

“Are you sure? There’s still a lot of stuff we haven’t-”

“Tony, when has any conversation we’ve ever had along these lines ended well?”

Okay, so Loki may have a point. “Uh...” If Tony analyzes the stats, their trying-to-work-out-their-differences conversations have odds sitting at 50% that somebody will storm off in a huff, 33% that somebody’ll either get thrown across the room or punched in the face, and 17% that a portal to an alien dimension will open in the sky above New York City. He doesn’t really want to deal with any of those potential outcomes right now. “So what? We exchange a hearty handshake, pretend everything’s fine, and...?”

“And move on, and next time, perhaps, think a little more carefully about our actions.”

“I guess so,” Tony agrees. That does sound a lot easier than getting punched in the face.

“In the meanwhile,” says Loki, taking a step back, “we have a large amount of things to pack in preparation for leaving tomorrow. Your armor and tools are all over the floor in the other room.”

Packing. Wasn’t that what started this whole mess in the first place? “Orrrrrrr,” Tony counters, “we can leave all that junk for now because it’ll take me like an hour to cram it all into cases, and spend our last two days in Asgard actually doing something awesome.”

The look Loki gives him is a perfect non-verbal rendering of ‘what the hell could there possibly be to do in this dump that qualifies as awesome?’

“Oh, come on! Loki, I’m on a different planet. A different planet. I know that might not be a big deal to you because you’re an immortal sorcerer from a race of advanced beings who’ve mastered space travel, but I come from a culture that invented spray cheese and the Snuggie. To me? Asgard is a big deal. Let’s go out. Let’s look at stuff. Let’s visit landmarks and historical sites and tourist traps, and you can tell me all about how five hundred years ago some famous guy I’ve never heard of singlehandedly won an epic battle on this very spot, and you know what? I won’t even know if you’re telling the truth or not, but it’ll be amazing just the same.”

“You want to do those things?” Loki’s eyebrow arch alone says he’s nowhere near on board.

“Hell yeah. And when we get back to Earth I promise not to complain when you want to go to Mount Rushmore and all that crap, even though I’ve been there about a hundred times because my company’s marketing department seems to think that kind of wholesome patriotism balances out me constantly showing up in the tabloids with a ‘look who’s drunk’ caption.”

“Hmm.” Still not convinced. “I’ll have to shift us out of the palace to avoid being seen and asked too many questions,” says Loki. “It will require a significant amount of magical energy.”

He says that like it’s a bad thing. “Don’t worry. I can definitely help you out there. So come on. Let’s go.”

Loki makes a sound low in his throat: a hmm sound, as if this is such a burden, having to consider going outside and doing things... “Oh, fine,” he grumbles after that moment of wavering. “I’ll show you Asgard. But,” he specifies, as Tony takes a premature step over to the door, “you need to change clothes.”

“What’s wrong with this?” From Tony’s vantage point, his outfit looks fine. It’s even clean and relatively wrinkle-free, unlike some of the other selections haunting around the bedroom. Jeans and a wicking shirt. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“You want to see Asgard, you can see it wearing proper Asgard clothes. Dress yourself. I’ll pack up our breakfast to take with us. This will be a long day.”

Chapter Text

“You know what? I think this might be our first official date.”

Loki looks up from his slightly squished fruit plate. “Our what?”

“Date,” says Tony. “You know.” Or wait, does he? “Two people go out, get to know each other better, usually involves eating , seeing stuff, maybe a movie? Of course, traditionally this is an activity that should happen before we decide to move in together, but I’m okay with switching things up. Makes life more exciting, right?” He grabs a jam-filled pie-thing. “You guys have anything like that?”

“I suppose it would fall under the category of ‘courtship’ here.”

“Yeah. Same thing. Fancier word. But we haven’t really done any of this, have we? Guess we were too busy being fugitives on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. and springing you out of jail.”

“We did eat all that fish in New York. And you bought me clothes.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. I guess that was our first date. You stole my credit card and I got a speeding ticket.” Which would make this – sitting on a blanket at the edge of a pond eating cold breakfast – date number two.

Loki picked a nice spot for it. They’re outside the city at the foot of a mountain, with Odin’s palace abandoned as no more than a hazy blip of a pyramid on the horizon. Birds sing in the surrounding trees and ducks – well, Tony’s going to call them ducks, even though they have four wings and hooked, purplish bills – paddle lazily on the pond’s surface. He could get used to this for a while. Relax in the sun... at least as much as his Asgardian clothes will allow. And sadly, that isn’t a whole lot. The stiffly formed leather digs in under his arms when he tries to slouch. No wonder Loki has such naturally perfect posture all the time if he grew up wearing all this crap.

“So this is a place you used to visit a lot?” he asks. Tries to sit and lean to one side. Nope, not going to work. Leans back and props himself up with one arm. That’ll do for now.

“When I was a child,” Loki answers. “Mother would bring Thor and me to play, and she would read while we ran around like animals, screaming and hitting each other. I always wondered why we’d come all the way out here, but now I assume it’s because there was nothing for us to break and our terrible behavior wouldn’t disturb anyone important.”

“Sounds like one hell of a time.”

“Mm. This pond used to be much smaller, and it had a bed of reeds over along the far side. One day we discovered that if we pulled up a reed stalk by the roots, a large clump of foul-smelling black mud came with it. So of course we fought with the muddy reeds as our weapons, like whips, until our clothes were completely ruined and mother had to shift us back home rather than taking the carriage because we were so filthy.”

Tony snorts. “And here I always thought I was so unlucky being an only child.”

“I would have preferred that. It wasn’t always just Thor and me. Other children came along. Sif, frequently. She and Thor were a team: they would decide the game. Sif always wanted to play out scenarios. She would determine whether we were soldiers or aliens or legendary heroes, and we would make up names and characters for ourselves. Thor always had to be the best and the strongest and the greatest hero in the universe. Sif allowed that, as long as Thor agreed they were married and she was the smartest and second-strongest hero in the universe.”

“And you?”

It must be something embarrassing, because Loki takes an awfully long time peeling whatever kind of fruit that is before answering. “I was the character they decided they needed to round out the storyline. The younger brother of the greatest hero in the universe, usually. Sometimes an evil dwarf lord. Sometimes a princess in need of rescuing.”

“What did you want to be?”

Loki looks up and says, in all seriousness, “A dog.”

And that makes about as much logical sense as anything kids do. “I can’t say I was ever interested in being a dog,” says Tony, grinning. “But when I was a kid there were a couple boys in the neighborhood around my age and one summer we started a secret club. Our interests included eating candy and swearing. So we’d ride our bikes to the store and literally fill a backpack full of crap, then take it back to Paul’s house because he had this shed out back. His older brother and cousins had actually pulled up the shed’s floor and dug a really creepy little dirt basement under it, then put the floor back with a trap door. It was tiny – four kids, I think we were nine or ten, could barely squeeze in – and filthy and full of bugs, but we sure thought we were cool as hell sitting down there with our Lik-M-Aids and a flashlight. But the most important part was making up crude codenames. Tim was Big Fucker. I was Ass Bastard, which, thinking back, was probably the lamest name of all. I may be retroactively upset about that now. Adam was Bloodfart, and Paul, because it was his shed, got to be King Shit. And yes, we did call each other by these stupid names, especially in front of girls.”

“Why am I not surprised?” asks Loki.

“I dunno. You must be psychic, as we used to say back then. But that’s my contribution to this chat. I always loved summer because there’d be these few weeks, after school ended but before my parents decided to ship me off to camp or go on an educational family trip to France, where I could hang out at the park and find kids my own age and have friends for once. I may not have mentioned this in too much detail before but when I was a kid I was pretty much... uh...” This is the part of the story he usually tries to gloss over. Or conceal. Or ignore altogether. But oddly enough, it doesn’t feel so bad when he’s telling it to Loki. “I was a nerd. A dork. A huge fucking loser. But every July for two or three weeks I got to pretend I was cool and hang out with these boys who grew up playing with Bionic Man action figures instead of circuit boards, who had drum sets and did BMX racing... Then a couple years later we discovered it was way more fun to be friends with girls than terrorize them by throwing worms in their hair, and we started going to parties in Christine Bauer’s pool house with stolen booze and cigarettes and no parental supervision. That’s where I first got drunk. Thirteen years old. I was trying to impress this girl I had a crush on, Kim Anderson, who was a year older and a good three inches taller and wore a bra that showed under her tank top.”

He takes a pause there, grabbing the last of the egg dumplings and popping it into his mouth. “I guess it’s no surprise,” he says after a minute, “that I fell hardcore into the party scene as soon as I graduated college and moved into my own place. I’d learned to equate school and work with anxiety and isolation, and getting wasted and snorting coke off a stripper’s fake tits with freedom and popularity. And I’m pretty sure if my parents hadn’t died and the whole weight of the company hadn’t fallen on me and knocked some sense of responsibility into my dumb, fucked-up head, I would’ve been dead myself from an overdose before I saw 23.”

“How did your parents die?” Loki asks.

“Car accident. It was a week before Christmas and of course I was out screwing around and hadn’t spoken to either of them in... I don’t even know. More than a month. I don’t remember what I’d been doing that night but I remember, very clearly, getting home at 4:28 in the morning, because I was staring at the clock when I checked my answering machine. I don’t even know why I checked. Normally I just fell into bed and passed out until noon, but I saw the flashing red light and for some weird reason I thought, shit, I better listen to that. And I remember the message, word for word. ‘Hi, Tony. It’s Obadiah Stane here. I need you to give me a call as soon as you get this message. I’ll be up all night.’ That’s it. No mention of anything, but... You know how sometimes you just know something’s wrong? I heard that message and I knew. It was 4:28 am on December 17^th, 1991. And I knew something awful had happened to my parents. Turns out mom had been declared dead at the scene, killed instantly, but dad died at the hospital about two hours before I got there. So...”

Pausing again, he clears his throat, and gives his shoulders a shake to dislodge that awkward, heavy feeling he always gets when he spends too much time on this topic. It’s a little too close to guilt for his liking. “So that’s my shitty life story,” he finishes.

“I’m sorry to hear,” Loki says quietly.

“Thanks,” says Tony, which sounds stupid, but what else do you say? “This is one of those things I generally don’t talk about a lot.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, but I should. I mean, we’re on our very important second date here and the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced you should know some of this stuff about me. I get frustrated at you for never telling me anything, but I’m not all that much better. You should know I did a lot of really, really stupid shit when I was young and... uh... arguably more irresponsible than I am now. I was an idiot.”

Loki smirks. “You’re still an idiot.”

“Yeah,well...” Tony lets his voice trail of, hoping Loki will pick up the conversation thread and start spinning it in a new direction. What a shocking turn of events: he doesn’t.

What Loki says instead is, “Are you finished eating?”

There’s not much left apart from a few crumpled pastries, tired-looking wedges of cheese, and soggy fruit slices. “Yeah, I’m done.”

“Good,” says Loki. “Let me show you something else.”

ooo

It’s the kind of view that makes Tony wonder why he bothered taking fifty-odd pictures of the “duck” pond. Loki’s brought him to the end of the world. Literally. The end of the world. It just... stops. The end. A cliff overlooks nothing but stars above and stars below and stars all around. Away to their left, a waterfall crashes through a gap in the rock and on into nothing, becoming a glittering mist before disappearing completely. A mottled rainbow nebula ahead, a terra-cotta planet to the right: so close Tony can count the individual white and gray bands of its ring. He pulls the camera out of a pouch on his belt. This calls for a photo. A lot of photos. No: a video. Starting from the waterfall, he pans up and around the rough outline of Asgard’s border, sifting through stars and a distant cluster of moons before coming to focus on Loki’s profile.

With a roll of the eyes, Loki turns to chastise him. “Will you ever turn that stupid thing off?”

“No,” says Tony. But he does switch it to panoramic photo mode instead so he won’t have any of Loki’s grouchy disposition messing up his mementos. He’s framing the blunt edge of the world, a shimmering slice of rainbow light bisecting the golden land from the darkness of space beyond, when Loki speaks again.

“This used to be my favorite place. Once I was old enough to venture out on my own. I’d come here to read or study or practice my magic or simply sit and think in peace.”

“I can see why,” Tony replies, and he manages to snap a picture of Loki looking off at some indeterminate point. Lips slightly parted, backlit by the glow of Asgard. That’ll be one to keep. “This is pretty damn spectacular. But kind of messed up, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, obviously the laws of physics have just said ‘fuck it’ and no longer apply, and you guys replaced them with some kind of magic to keep everything together. I’m not even going to try to wrap my head around the logistics, so let’s just say a wizard did it and made gravity function correctly and normalized the atmosphere. Cool.   But...”

Tony feels justifiably nervous standing this close to the edge. Either the infinite height or the fact that Asgard’s atmosphere seems to be only partially present here at the world’s end is making him dizzy. “But what happens if somebody falls off?”

Loki rolls his eyes. Surprise, surprise. “It’s not possible to fall.”

“Loki, can I direct your attention to that little river over there? The water is falling right now. Just like a waterfall.”

“No, it has sufficient momentum for it to propel itself off the edge before it dissipates and the particles are pulled back in. It only appears to fall down because the gravity of the planet’s underside curves it inward after it shoots straight out along its course. If the water were trickling slowly, it would pool along the edge before eventually running over the side. Nothing can fall.”

Well, forgive a guy for asking. A guy who comes from a normal-shaped spherical planet with no edges for stuff to fall off (or not). “Then what happens if somebody jumps?” Tony asks.

“You’d have to run for it to work up enough speed, and step over the side to correctly angle your jump downward so you wouldn’t simply land on your bottom back on the edge. But if you were successful, you would jump out, then fall in to land on the surface of the underside. And would have to crawl back up. Don’t linger. The atmosphere down there is minimal, and you would eventually lose consciousness.”

“Is this a thing people actually do?”

“All the time,” answers Loki, speaking from what sounds a lot like extensive experience in the realm of stupid morons choosing to do dumb things. “It’s practically a rite of passage among older boys “

“You’ve done it?”

“Of course.”

“Okay then show me. I want to see this.”

“Hm.” Loki looks out at the stars again, and down at the rocky edge, then at his fingernails. “I think not. I’ve recently developed something of an aversion to... that particular view. However,” he adds, like a compromise, “I will assist you if you wish to try.”

“I don’t know...” Jumping off a planet sounds swell and all, but Tony also has this thing where he enjoys being alive.

Loki’s lips quirk into a sly smile. “Don’t you trust me?”

What a manipulative little weasel. After all the accusations that went flying around last night, how can Tony dare to answer with anything other than a resounding yes? Bastard. “Fine,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and staring Loki square in the eye. “Just for that, I’ll try it. But so you know, if I die, it’s your fault.”

“You won’t die. It’s completely safe. Children do it. And I’ll be watching you.”

“I’ll hold you to that. So what do I do?”

Start from far enough back, according to Loki’s instructions. At the top of this little hill, about forty feet away. Tony stands there for a good few seconds, shaking out his arms and legs as he tries to work up the nerve to do the incredibly stupid thing he’s about to do. Jump off the edge of a planet. Is he insane? Probably. This has to factor into at least the top three dumbest things he’s ever done. Maybe it’s even the top single thing. He leans forward, staggering one foot in front of the other in his starting pose, and plays through the series of actions in his head. Run. Throw himself forward and step off the edge, planting one foot on the underside to direct his body out and down. Should probably make a point of exhaling before doing that, and also not try to breathe before he’s back up at the surface. You know, to avoid exploding in potential near-vacuum conditions and all.

Oh, and he should probably record this.

“I am so fucking stupid sometimes,” he mutters under his breath as he switches the camera back to video mode and starts recording. “So stupid.” Though on the other hand, when’s he ever going to have a chance to leap into space again? Never. It’s back to the plain ol’ normal round planet tomorrow, hopefully for good, so might as well take advantage of alien magic-physics while he’s here, right? And up ahead, Loki’s standing at the edge with a bored-looking ‘get it over with already’ expression on his face. Well then. Now or never.

The first few steps aren’t too quick, or too confident for that matter, but Tony picks up speed until he’s running full-out. Oh Christ this is a mistake. He should be wearing his suit. But he’s almost at the edge and there’s no sense in stopping now...

He exhales on his final step, grunting to squeeze the air out of his lungs. His left foot reaches out into nothing, but instead of letting him fall into the depths of space, the orientation of the world does a sudden, dizzying shift. His foot hits something solid. And just like Loki instructed, he pushes off with all his strength.

It’s a moment of weightlessness. Three seconds at most, but it’s long enough for a flash of panic alongside a surge of awe. He lifts the camera up to his face, slowly panning from the stars down beyond his knees to those above his head . Or is the other way around now? There’s not really such thing as ‘above’ and ‘below’ and ‘up’ and ‘down’ any more; they’ve all changed directions. Maybe disappeared completely. Just stars remain, and the black shadow of Asgard floating somewhere beneath his feet in the silence of space. A strange sensation prickles across his skin, like thousands of fiery insect legs, before gravity catches hold of him again and he starts to fall back in.

Turns out, down is now forwards, and he lands hard on his stomach on a smoothly flat expanse of Asgard’s rock-crystal underside. Hard enough to knock the last few specks of breath out of him. And when he gasps and reflexively tries to inhale... His mouthful of pared-down space air feels like a tiny thread of breath, meandering into his lungs when he needs it to be rushing. He inhales again, gulping on next to nothing. That little tap of panic he felt in his weightless moment? It charges into him now. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, as he stares ahead, which is to say down, at the distant mountain range of crystals that form Asgard’s base. If that’s in front, then behind, at his feet, must be the edge of the world and the way back up. But he can’t breathe. And it’s all he can do to keep his body from seizing up in the chokehold of panic, at least enough to flail out with one arm so he can roll over onto his back.

The camera lens in his clumsy hand smashes against solid rock. Funny how he still finds time to be upset about that, even right now, when he can’t breathe and he can barely move and his vision’s starting to tunnel in through a weird ring of muted gray.

The edge can’t be more than fifteen feet away, below or behind or up or whatever direction it is. He can see it if he lifts his head. He could probably throw the broken camera down/up there, but moving... to actually move that far, to walk or even crawl...

“Loki,” he tries to croak, but it’s just a tiny sound, so weak it barely registers in his own ears. Because there’s Loki, peering over the edge of the cliff, looking up (which is really down) at him. Loki should be doing something. Right? Right. Loki should be saving him right now. Loki should be doing anything other than just standing there with that worried look, leaning farther over, mouthing some question that’s too far away to pick out.

Loki should be...

Tony lets his head fall back. It lands hard on the stone. Out or ahead or below, the dimming stars are too hard to keep in focus. Insignificant winks of pale light against a black slate sky.

His second-last conscious thought is, ‘Well fuck all this.’ His last though is something about what a shame it is that nobody will ever know to put those four profound words on his headstone.

ooo

Of course he doesn’t die. Because that would have been a stupid way to go (way too stupid), not to mention incredibly difficult to explain to the insurance company when Pepper and Rhodey inevitably tried to cash in on his accidental death policy. What actually happens is he wakes up back in his room. In bed. He’s wearing clean clothes. There are bandages around his forehead and on his elbows and hands. Frigga’s standing at the bedside talking to Loki (who’s also, for some reason, wearing different clothes) in that hushed, can’t-speak-at-a-normal-volume-in-front-of-the-invalid tone.

Really, he’s not sure which part of this waking up scenario he should ask about first. He’s not entirely convinced he wants an explanation for any of it.

“Uhhh...” he tries, and his voice comes out hoarse and crackly like a 90-year-old chain-smoker.

Frigga turns to him with the most motherly of smiles. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah.” He’s awake. And as soon as he becomes fully aware of that wakefulness, he’s sorry he is. “My...” he says. Whines, more like it. “My...” He closes his eyes until he’s squinting enough to block out most of the light, only able to see blurry shapes. “My whole self hurts,” he whispers.

“Mmm,” Frigga replies, leaning in to smooth down his hair. Which also hurts. “Drink some water.   Don’t try to get out of bed. I’ll leave you and Loki alone now, but I’ll be back later to check on you.”

“What happened?” he asks.

He opens his eyes just enough to pick up on the way Frigga thins her lips. “I’ll leave that to my son to explain. But there’s no need to worry. Rest, Tony Stark.”

Sure, let Loki explain. Historically that’s always gone well. Tony waits just long enough to allow Frigga to be on her merry way before looking up at Loki. “Okay, what the hell happened? What time is it? How long was I out? I’m starving.”

“I’ll find you something to eat,” Loki says, quickly turning his attention away from everything else Tony just asked and towards what can only be a dedicated effort skip out on having to explain himself.

“No, that can wait. Get me up to speed first. I feel like shit. Last thing I remember was...” What? His memory’s a little fuzzy. “Oh right, I was convinced I was going to die. Did I almost die?”

The answer Tony’s looking for is an exasperated ‘no’ followed by a condescending explanation of what did happen, and how all the different kinds of fucked up he feels right now are totally normal. Loki’s actual answer is an awkward ‘hnn’ sound, and he sinks down onto the bed. By which Tony knows something went really wrong. “Wait, so what the hell, you mean I did almost die?!”

“I didn’t know!” Loki insists, managing to be both defensive and affectionately clingy at the same time, cuddling up like some kind of parental bear figure.

“Didn’t know what?”

Loki’s mouth opens and closes, silently rehearsing his words before he says them. “Mother says...” He looks, for lack of a better word, worried. “Humans cannot survive outside of a carefully regulated environment.”

“Well yeah,” Tony grumbles. “I could’ve told you that.”

“Then why did you jump?!”

“You said it was safe!”

“I thought it was!”

“Maybe for immortal space gods!”

“You should have known better!”

“You should have told me!” Tony shouts. “Why are we yelling?! We’re five inches apart!”

Loki immediately falls silent, letting his head drop down onto Tony’s shoulder. Tony can’t see his expression, but the way his arm tightens, the way his fist clenches and twists itself in a handful of shirt, and the way he breathes, inhaling and exhaling loudly... “You,” he starts, but his voice wavers too much and that’s as far as he gets before turning inward and burying his face against Tony’s arm.

Son of a bitch, the evil bastard actually feels bad. And that makes Tony feel worse.

“Look, just...” Tony says. Stupidly, he tries to reach up with his free arm to touch Loki’s shoulder, but his joints feel stiff and creaky. “I should’ve maybe had the common sense to realize I was doing something really stupid. Actually I did realize I was doing something really stupid, and I did it anyway. That was my fault. You didn’t know, so...”

“Sometimes I forget,” Loki murmurs against Tony’s sleeve.

“Forget what?”

“That you’re human. And small and fragile.”

Oh, as if. “I am NOT small and fragile.”

“Like a baby bunny.”

“I’m not a baby bunny!”

“So little and delicate. And furry.” His fingers skim up to tap against Tony’s chest.

Tony tries to elbow him in the ribs. Fails. Loki’s too heavy and effectively pins his elbow down. He has to settle for a classic verbal attack. “Fuck you.”

“Certainly not. You’re in no condition for any such exertion.”

“Goddamnit Loki...” He lets out one long, whistling breath, and stares up at the ceiling. There should be something better to say right now. Shouldn’t there? “I feel dumb,” he says. “I probably lost at least ten IQ points from oxygen deprivation. And probably gained about six hundred different kinds of cancer from all the space radiation.

“Don’t worry,” Loki assures him. And at least he turns outward a little so his voice isn’t muffled by clothing any more. “Mother gave you a thorough examination and everything is fine.”

Um. “...How thorough?”

“She looked inside all of your vital structures to ensure nothing was damaged, and made minor repairs where required.”

“That sounds invasive.”

“Would you rather have six hundred different kinds of cancer?”

“...No...”

“She was also able to locate the small fragments of metal lodged beneath your skin. There are thirteen.”

Something tightens in Tony’s stomach at that. Something he can’t exactly place. It’s not like this should be big news to him, but hearing that number after two and a half years of wondering whether it was four or forty... It hits harder than expected. “Unlucky thirteen,” he murmurs. “How about that.”

Very specifically, he does not ask about any hypothetical Asgardian surgeon’s ability to remove said small fragments of metal, and Loki’s perceptive enough not to mention anything along those lines. It’s a little late to worry about that kind of thing anyway. Better just change the subject.

“So your magic feels kind of tingly,” he says. “You okay to do the whole portal thing like this, or should I concentrate on recovering my strength for some rebalancing? Because I’d do that, you know. Just for you, because I care very deeply about your magical wellbeing.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Loki replies, “but I don’t think we have time.”

“Sure we do. It’s, what, late afternoon now? You don’t have to activate the portal until tomorrow evening. We have more than 24 hours.”

Loki sits up. The peculiar expression on his face is enough to advertise loud and clear that whatever he’s about to say, he doesn’t really want to say it. “...No. Tony, you were...” He pauses just long enough to bite his lower lip. “You were unconscious for more than a day. We have a little under two hours before-”

That’s all Tony needs to hear. “What?!” He jerks himself up into a sitting position, but immediately falls down again when a jolt of pain shoots up through his whole torso. “Ow, fuck, fuck!”

“Try not to move too much,” Loki tells him, resting a hand flat on his chest to stop him from sitting up again. “The repairs mother made to your body require time to fully heal.”

“I don’t care about that! What do you mean, I was unconscious for more than a day?!”

“I would consider the statement to be fairly self-explanatory,” says Loki, and he raises one eyebrow like the sassy fucker he is.

“How?! How was I unconscious for more than a day, and why didn’t you use your stupid wizard powers to wake me up?!”

“Because mother was using her stupid wizard powers to keep you asleep.” There’s a definite hint of frustration creeping into Loki’s voice when he says that. “She needed you to stay calm and unmoving long enough for your body to begin its repairs.”

“And how the hell are we supposed to leave in two hours if I’m not done packing?!” And also if he can’t walk, which it feels like he probably can’t, but he doesn’t really want to say that.

“I’ve packed everything,” Loki says, though he says it in a tone that strongly hints of a ‘but’ to come. And, sure enough, it does. “But, given your fragile condition-”

“I am not fragile!”

“-I highly recommend we remain here for at least a few days, until you are well enough to travel without me having to drag you through the portal. Something tells me that would not look the best to Director Fury and the other meddlesome peons of S.H.I.E.L.D..”

“No.” Tony gives his head a vehement shake even though everything from his brain down to his shoulder blades hurts to do it. “Not staying here. Abso-fucking-lutely not. That machine’s ready to go and we’re using it. In two hours. If you have to carry me piggy-back style, I don’t care: we’re going through the portal. If I die in the next two hours, we are still going through that portal. If a bunch of your dad’s goons burst through the door and pound me into a fine, mushy paste, you are going to scrape my remains off the floor and take them through the portal so I can be buried in American soil. You got that?”

“Can you please write out those instructions in a letter that I might present to your Avengers friends, specifying that I am not to blame for your unexpected paste form?”

“Yeah, sure. Or better yet, I’ll record a video will. Pass me my camera.”

Except, oh right, there was that thing where he smashed the lens against the underside-ground, and the camera Loki hands him looks very sad indeed. “Shit.”

“Is it broken past repair?” asks Loki.

“Probably not, but at this point it’s easier to just get a new one. I wonder if...” He switches it on, and yeah, the display still works. It’s just the lens that’s fucked. “Looks like the memory card’s fine. I hope I at least got a cool video out of risking my life like a dumbass.”

And he did. It is a pretty cool video. It starts off with the bouncy roughness of a hand-held running shot, but all that smooths out the second he leaves the edge. The image takes a disorienting twist in mid-air: where there was ground there’s now stars, and the ground is somewhere behind where it shouldn’t logically be, and the ringed equator of that terra cotta planet sneaks into view. Nice. So Tony doesn’t suck at cinematography when he’s seconds away from dying. The clip ends abruptly in a snap of static and black when he plummets down to the plane of rock below, but that’s okay. “If I do die and you have to carry my body home,” he says, “can you tell everyone it happened at this moment? All in all, this looks awesome, and it’s a way cooler death than succumbing to internal injuries in bed.”

“Why are you so preoccupied with death?” Loki sighs.

“Dunno. Must be a human thing.” He scrolls back through the photos. Planets and moons and stars, Loki eerily lit by the contrast-heavy light at the end of the world... At least one of these is going in some kind of frame once he gets home.

“You’re not going to die.” Loki stands up, muttering his way over to the table near the balcony to grab a shallow bowl of something. Turns out, when he shoves it in Tony’s direction, to be sausage cut into slices. “Here. If you’re hungry, you should eat this. Mother cut it up for you.”

“Aw, nice,” Tony says, resting the bowl on the arc reactor so he can eat with minimal arm movement. “Hot puppies.”

The face Loki makes says ‘what’ without having to vocalize anything.

“What my mom called a hot dog cut up into little rounds. The big whole one is a hot dog, so little ones are hot puppies, right?” Mom logic. “Must be a maternal instinct thing if your mom does it too. My mom always made me hot puppies and egg mush when I was sick.”

“Then you should have no trouble finishing your... er... ‘hot puppies’ and staying in bed while I gather everything to have it in position and ready to go,” Loki says on his way out. “There’s water on the bedside table if you require it. Don’t move. Try to sleep if you can.”

‘If he can’ seems open to a lot of interpretation. Tony’s going to interpret it as ‘if you get bored of looking through photos of space and mutant ducks’. Of which he probably has too many, but hey, gigabytes are cheap. He scrolls back all the way to the photos Fandral took of him at the hunt, then all the way forward again, pausing here and there to zoom in and look at details. A lot of these are actually pretty good. Maybe he should replace some of that art Pepper was always buying with his own burgeoning talent in the realm of duck photography.

Every few minutes, Loki pokes his head in through the door to check on Tony and make sure he’s still there/resting/not moving/eating/breathing/alive/whatever it is Loki’s checking on. The sixth time he does it, peeking in before immediately ducking back out, Tony calls out to him.

“Hey, Loki?”

Loki fully steps into the room this time. “Yes?”

“How’s packing?”

“Fine,” Loki says, shooting a glance out the door and into the open living room beyond. “I’ve pushed the furniture aside to make space. I’ll move all the items we need to take with us into position and then...”

“Any last-minute stuff to wrap up?”

With his tongue running visibly over his teeth, Loki shakes his head. “No. I’m ready to leave this wretched place behind.”

“You sure?” Tony asks.

“Why would I not be?”

“I dunno, you just...” Tony shrugs. As much as he can, at least, with his aching shoulders. “You look a bit on-edge is all. Which is understandable. You’re leaving home for a whole different planet. You’re nervous. At a time like this, you should be nervous.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” says Loki. “My mind is set. I’m going with you. If I start to think about this too much now, if I start to reconsider...” His tongue moves again, darting out over his top lip before hiding again to worry his front teeth. “I can’t stay here, Tony. And I can’t entertain the thought of staying here. Because if I do, all the dark and terrible things will begin to fade and everything good that’s ever happened will rush forward into prominence and... It’s much easier to forgive something you think you’ll never see again, isn’t it?”

“You’re allowed to miss it,” says Tony. Quiet words, but true words. “Just because you’re leaving doesn’t mean you have to forget everything about this place that’s ever made you happy. Whether it’s memories or places or people. You’ll miss the good times. You’ll miss this stupid, amazing palace, because even though by Earth standards my house is pretty fucking awesome, it’ll be a major downgrade. I feel like I’ve betrayed my own honor by saying that, but it’s true. And... you’ll miss your mom.”

In response to that, Loki just gives a small nod.

“Did you tell her we’re leaving?”

“No. I couldn’t. If she knew and didn’t try to stop us, it would only cause trouble once Odin finds out we’ve gone. It’s safer if she doesn’t know. But today was a good day. She was here, you know, the entire time you were unconscious, from yesterday afternoon. We had lots of time to talk, and I’m satisfied to leave things as they are. A positive ending and happy memories of the last time we were together. I hope she’ll understand and feel the same.”

“What about Thor? You haven’t seen him in days, and have hardly talked to him since getting out of prison.”

The mere mention of that name seems to shake Loki out of his melancholy. “I have no doubt Thor will come crashing down to Midgard as soon as he and Odin figure out where we’ve gone. I can speak to him then.”

“You know,” Tony tells him, “last time I had a chance to talk to Thor about anything meaningful, he was actually pretty understanding. More than he’s shown in the past. I think he’s started to accept that we’re together, and hey, he indirectly threatened to murder me if I do anything to hurt you, so that’s good, right?”

“You have a very odd definition of ‘good’.”

“Yep, sure do,” says Tony. “Now how about you help me out of bed and I show you how to lock all my equipment cases together? We have a date with an interstellar wormhole.”

ooo

This isn’t exactly the way he pictured himself coming home. But then, crash-landing in the middle of the night and all but destroying his armor wasn’t exactly the way he pictured himself arriving in Asgard. So at least he’s consistent.

Preliminary plans for this moment involved something more along the lines of him stepping heroically out of a portal, wearing his armor, with Loki swooning at his side kind of Princess Leia style. Everyone waiting back on Earth is suitably dazzled by his return, then he and Loki go have lots of sex in every room of his house and ultimately finish the day off champagne and pizza for dinner. And more sex, probably.

Reality check: he’s about to stagger through a portal, wearing Asgardian lounge clothes, hanging onto Loki’s arm like that creepy relative who stumbles downstairs in a bathrobe at noon after spending the night because he had a few too many over Christmas dinner. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents waiting back on Earth will launch right into dozens of different kinds of interrogation, Nick Fury’ll yell for a while, and he’ll be lucky if he gets any sex at all. Or any champagne. Pizza, though, seems doable. The only place where fantasy and real life could possibly intersect.

His watch says it’s 11:09 am in California. Coming up on show time. “You ready to go?” he asks Loki.

Loki’s hand slides around to clasp his, somewhere in the intertwined mess of their dumb Asgardian sleeves. “Yes. Are you?”

“I’ve been ready for the past two weeks. And while right now in this exact moment I may be technically less ready than I would ideally like to be, that should not be taken as a decline in my overall interest in getting the fuck out of here right fucking now.”

That must be good enough for Loki. He stands up straighter, like people do when they’re about to Attempt Something. “As soon as I open the portal, I’ll shift all our belongings through. You’ll need to let go of my arm, but it won’t be for more than a moment. Then I’ll come back for you. Given everything your body has been through in the past day and the incomplete healing process, I don’t want to risk shifting with you. We walk.”

“Got it,” says Tony. Not ideal, but there should still be time to do it this way, and he can deal with the slight change in plans. “Did you tell everyone on the other side to look to your coming on the first light of the fifth day? Because you should have done that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Lord of the Rings. Just so you’re aware, I’m making you watch all three movies when we get back.”

“If you must.”

“I must.” He squeezes Loki’s hand. “So. Ready?”

“You already asked me that.”

“Sorry. I’m getting anxious. Do the magic portal thing already.”

“But it’s not yet-”

“Loki, do you know that feeling when you’re in a cold, wet bathing suit and you need to get out of it immediately or you’ll lose your mind? Asgard is the coldest, wettest bathing suit that’s ever had the misfortune of hanging off my ass, and it’s getting colder by the second. Do the damn magic portal thing. Now.”

And Loki does the damn magic portal thing. He crouches down to pick up the scepter from the floor, and a small but visible shockwave flinches through his fingers at the contact. Just like he did that night when he contacted Bruce, he drops his eyes closed and slows his breath. Concentrating. This is the part Tony doesn’t like: the part where it looks like nothing’s happening, for seconds that drag on into one minute and then two. Loki building up magical energy or... whatever it is he’s doing. It always takes long enough for Tony to be convinced that everything’s failing and Loki’s about to sadly tell him it’s not going to work, but then...

White-blue light flashes in the center of the room, exploding into a swirling vortex with a dark, blurry center. A dark, blurry center that quickly settles down into an image of Tony’s very own driveway. And there’s his house, and there’s the portal device, and there’s Bruce, and there’s Nick Fury and his minions. Right there. Almost too good to be true.

Time to go home. Tony lets go of his grip on Loki’s hand, and before he can even blink Loki’s gone. So’s the pile of cases. Both of them reappear immediately on the other side of the portal, just beside Bruce. Then Loki disappears again, popping back into existence in front of Tony, wrapping an arm around Tony’s waist and taking off for one last trip.

Now, in the split-second it happens, it’s more or less impossible to tell exactly what goes wrong. Or how. Or why. Loki grabs Tony, and in one moment they’re moving, and the next, they’re not. Like they hit a wall, if the wall were made of pure, burning electricity that slams Tony like a battering ram trying to barge in through his ribcage. He’d forgotten this feeling. How that’s possible is a huge goddamn mystery because it hurts like hell and feels like his upper body about to burst into flame, but isn’t this exactly what happened to him on the way over? Yes. It is. Searing pain rips through him down to the tips of his fingers and toes. Whatever it was that happened then is happening again now, except this time, instead of crash landing on the other side of the portal, everything seems to tilt. And twist.

He could see his house, a second ago, and now it’s been replaced by an explosive, almost blinding flash from the scepter’s blue jewel. He gets one lightning-quick glance at Loki’s stunned, confused expression (oh, that’s not good, that’s really not good) before they hit another wall. This one’s all bright colors and humming energy, pulling them in like a vacuum tube. He can feel Loki fighting against it, struggling to pull them into that sentient particle form that happens when they teleport. It’s a losing battle. Whatever it is they’re up against is too strong, and it’s dragging them along with its own current whether they like it or not.

The portal spits them out with a sound like a whip’s crack and a burst of multi-color light, wrenching Tony forward out of Loki’s grip and sending him sprawling onto the hard, cold ground. It’s smooth as marble: he skids out, shoulder first, before sliding to a stop in a patch of grit. Fuck. Fuck. Everything hurts. Well, everything already hurt, but now it hurts more. He landed on his left knee and hip, which are throbbing like a bitch and probably already have clusters of bruises. His bare, scraped hands sting against whatever the hell kind of ground – floor? – this is. And it’s killing him to even breath. His lungs burn. His chest burns.   His Asgardian shirt is literally burned, crumbling into ash and bits of charred cloth in his fingers when he reaches up to grope at the arc reactor and make sure it’s still in one piece.

“Loki,” he tries to say, coughing on his own voice.

Loki’s reply is only a tiny reassurance, but at least it’s something. “I’m here.”

A moment later he’s being rolled over into Loki’s embrace, cradled like a child. Under normal circumstances this is something he’d fight against, but since they’re so hilariously far out of the realm of ‘normal’... He leans against Loki’s chest and accidentally makes a pathetic little whining ‘ehnnn’ sound. “What the fuck happened?” he whispers.

All he can see, in the reactor’s ghostly light, is Loki’s face. Still stunned. Still confused. Still a really bad sign. Shit. Everything beyond that is too dark to make out apart from a few looming shadows.

“Are you hurt?” Loki asks.

“You mean in general, or more than I was before we landed here? I think the answer to both might be ‘yes’. But I’ll live.”

Aided by Loki, he sits up, trying to get a better look at where ‘here’ might be. There’s not a lot to see from this angle either. The smooth floor (yep, it looks like floor, not ground) in front of him fades away into darkness beyond the edge of the reactor’s faint beam. There are a couple more dim light sources somewhere in the distance, maybe windows, but they don’t give a lot of detail. Wherever they are, it’s indoors, it’s massively large, and it’s cold enough for Tony to see his breath as a curl of silvery mist in front of his face.

“Where the hell are we?” he asks, looking at nothing to the left and nothing to the right. “Not Kansas, that’s for damn sure. And if this is Oz, I feel very lied to by popular culture.”

The answer Loki gives is significantly worse than anything Tony was expecting. “No. We’re on Jotunheim.”

Chapter Text

“But how?” is all Tony can keep saying as Loki tries to reason through all the variables that could have possibly led to them ending up on the wrong damn planet. Because as far as space travel fuck-ups go, this is a pretty huge one. Second only to some manner of fiery death, really. Or maybe not even secondary, since this planetary problem will most likely end in icy death. So yeah, it’s a huge fuck-up.

“The portal must have been too weak,” Loki answers, shaking his head. “That’s the only explanation I can think of. The portal was too weak to fully stabilize, and it tried to draw power from your reactor. I told you how you’d created something structurally similar to the Tesseract. It must have been more similar than I’d originally guessed if the energy stored in those guns tried to make that connection.”

Well, great. Isn’t that exactly what he and Bruce discovered? The Tesseract energy was drawn to its own kind, going out of its way to intertwine? So the portal tried to connect with his arc reactor, drawing out power in an attempt to strengthen its instability... He looks down at the charred shreds of his shirt. “Shit,” he mutters. “But then why did it work the first time? I came through from Earth to Asgard. Why’d we end up on Jotunheim now? Was the portal not strong enough for two people?”

“No. What passes through makes no difference – it’s the distance spanned, the size of the portal, and the length of time it remains open that would determine its energy requirements.”

“Then did you use all its portal-ness passing through the first time with our stuff?”

“Again, no. A portal is like a heavy door. You can hold it open for a finite time only, but while it is open, anything that passes through, back and forth any number of times, has no impact on your strength. With a strong enough portal, we should be able to step through and back and through again until the energy source is depleted or shut down. This error had to be in the portal itself. Did Doctor Banner change the design?”

“I don’t see how he could have,” says Tony. “Or why he would have wanted to, since the first one worked fine and all he had to do was replicate it.”

“Then were the Tesseract guns the same? The same number? The same quality?”

“Probably?” is the best Tony can do on that question. “The same number, yes, it would’ve had to be with the machine’s design, but the first one we built had old Hydra guns as well as some of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. models. I don’t know if any of the ones we used had been used before and partially depleted. Or if the ones Bruce used this time had been. I think he’d try to copy our first build as exactly as possible, though.”

Loki’d been crouching before, balanced tensely on his toes as he mentally worked through the problem, but now he stands up and begins pacing. Problem solving level two, coming right up. “Something must have changed,” he insists. “You came through to Asgard and nothing happened. If the portal device were built in exactly the same manner, and opened in exactly the same way, we should have achieved exactly the same result. What changed?”

“Well the same thing happened with my reactor on the way from Earth to Asgard,” Tony says.

Loki does one of those dramatic mid-pace freeze frames, then whips around to face Tony. “What?!”

“The same thing happened with my reactor. That’s why my suit was shorted out and destroyed: the portal somehow-”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?!” Loki shouts, cutting him off.

“I did!” Tony shouts right back. Because he’s pretty sure he did. Didn’t he? Wait, did he? “How else would it get all fucked up like that?!”

“I thought some overzealous warden of Asgard’s borders attacked you upon arrival! The damage to your armor looked an awful lot like damage from Thor’s lightning!”

“Oh,” says Tony. Considering things from Loki’s perspective, that probably makes a lot more sense than an unexpected space portal mishap. “Okay so, yes, Thor did kind of get all up in my business when I first landed, but to be absolutely clear, the damage to my armor was from the portal itself. Not Thor.”

“And why didn’t you tell me that?” Loki demands again. “If I’d known the portal was weak and unstable, I could have tried to compensate for it in the first place!”

“Well I’m sorry,” Tony shoots back, “but I didn’t realize-”

Loki cuts right over him once more, this time with a shout of frustration as he kicks a nearby rock off into the inky black depths of whatever this place is. “Tell me everything. Everything you did to create your device, how you built it, how you used it, what happened when you did. Now.”

Because it’ll make such a difference to our current predicament? Tony thinks to himself but doesn’t dare say, because Loki looks like he’s in ultimate bitch mood. Instead, he just starts talking. From the beginning. Might as well go into all the details, so he tells Loki about the failed attempts, his realization of how to configure the final design, the arguments with Bruce over whether or not he should even try this, the long-ass drive out to New Mexico to set everything up...

That’s where Loki jumps in. “You went to the Bifrost site?”

“Yeah. I had this theory that since I had no experience in controlling the beam and its destination, the best thing to do would be go back to that place where we kept getting interference from the lingering Bifrost energy when we were trying to teleport out of Puente Antiguo. If that energy was still there, I though, hey, maybe there’s still the remnant of some pathway back to Asgard that we can latch onto?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?!” Loki shouts.

And Tony shouts back just as loud. “I’m telling you now!”

“Tony, this completely changes things! It proves your portal was too weak to sustain anything more than the most tenuous connection!”

“But it worked before!”

“Because it siphoned energy from your reactor!” says Loki. “Because it followed the trail of the Bifrost back to Asgard! Those were the only two reasons it worked for you originally!”

“It worked for you taking our stuff through!”

Loki looks about ready to slap Tony for being stupid and not getting this. “Yes, because my focus was keeping it stable! The second you tried to pass through, the power from your reactor joined the portal source and completely reconfigured its balance!”

“So?” Tony asks. “That still doesn’t explain how we ended up in the fucking Hoth system!”

“I didn’t know what happened! Why the portal suddenly seemed to attack you! I panicked, lost my focus, and I tried to shift the rest of the way through!”

“So this is your fault for panicking!”

“No!” Loki shouts. “With the portal destabilized because of the power surge, it must have been thrown off course and it tried to find a new path. The Bifrost path!”

“Then why aren’t we in New Mexico?!”

“The last Bifrost connection from Midgard may have been to Asgard, but the last Bifrost connection from Asgard wasn’t to Midgard. It was to Jotunheim. That’s why we’re here! Your power surge combined with my disruption to the magical focus rerouted us onto the Bifrost’s last path. A path that was open for far longer than it should have been, which must have been long enough to create a permanent rift through space. Strong enough to pull us in, like a dimensional black hole.”

Great. Just great. That’s exactly what everybody needs: an accidental trip through a dimensional black hole. Fantastic. “So now what?” Tony snaps.

Loki looks away in a deliberate show of not wanting to answer that question. “So now...” he eventually says, “we’re stuck here.”

ooo

Fun fact: finding out why they’re on Jotunheim really doesn’t do anything to improve the situation of being on Jotunheim.

Now that the initial rush of adrenaline has worn off, the cold is starting to seep in through Tony’s skin and infiltrate his blood. His thin Asgardian shirt isn’t offering much in the way of insulation, nor are the pants doing anything to protect his ass from the frosty stone floor. All that dense, heavy blackness all around just looks cold. And that wind shrieking in the distance sounds cold. Hell, the air even smells and tastes cold, like ice water with a crisp, iron tang. Tony’s shivering. He tries not to, as he rubs at his arms, because he’s still mad and Loki. And from a logical standpoint, shivering is a show of weakness. But he can’t help it. Everything is cold. In all possible ways, Tony is cold.

Something soft and carrying a hint of warmth drops down around his shoulders, accompanied by Loki’s voice. “Here. You must be cold.”

“I’m fine,” Tony grumbles, but his surliness doesn’t quite extend to refusing help where help’s given. He pulls Loki’s leather vest down around his body, keeping his arms tucked inside. It’s a tiny improvement.

“You’re not fine,” says Loki.

“Yeah, I’m-” is all Tony manages to get out before Loki sits down, gathering him up into an all-encompassing embrace. “I’m fine,” he finishes, very quietly, leaning against Loki’s chest. It’s annoyingly warm, despite Loki’s minimal clothing without the vest. Just one thin, crinkly kind of shirt. “Aren’t you freezing your ass off?”

“No. The cold has little effect on me.”

Oh, the perks of having been born a frost giant. Though just seeing Loki’s bare wrists and the shape of his arms under that insubstantial fabric is enough to give Tony a second hand chill. Somewhere up above, the wind grates and howls against whatever ceiling is covering them. “Fuck,” Tony mutters, maybe not quite intending to say that out loud. “How are we going to get out of this place?”

For a moment, Loki just breathes. “I’ve been thinking,” he eventually says. “I believe our only choice is to go back to Asgard.”

“Through that pathway you were telling me about the other day?”

“Yes. I should be able to find it easily enough once I go outside and orient myself. I just can’t sense it from here. It may be far. But...” A quiet sigh fills his pause. “There is nothing else we can do.”

“Try to find the pathway to Earth?” Tony suggests. “I’d like to avoid Asgard if possible. I don’t think your dad’ll be too thrilled to see us back now that we’ve ditched.”

“He may not even know we’ve gone yet. If we’re quick-”

“Loki, the room’s empty, all our stuff’s in Malibu, and your mom said she was coming to check on us tonight. If she hasn’t done it already, she’ll be there soon, and it’ll be pretty obvious we’ve left the honeymoon suite. Face it: everyone’ll know we took off. I say concentrate effort on finding the way to Earth. Maybe we’ll be lucky.”

“I’ve had no such luck before,” mutters Loki, always the beaming ray of sunshine and positivity.

“Well now you have the scepter. Maybe that’ll help.”

Loki’s head turns, and Tony knows exactly what his gaze is resting on. The scepter lies a few feet away on the floor, unceremoniously discarded in a puddle of its own dim blue gem-light. The one advantage they still possess. “Hm,” is all he says.

The wind shrieks again, sending an icy shiver all the way down Tony’s spine. “Well whatever you do, do it fast. These clothes are a lot more appropriate to California than Jotunheim.”

“Sorry,” says Loki. He gives himself a little shake, revving up for action, and stands. “You’re right. Sitting here accomplishes nothing. I should...”

What? Something? Anything? Does either of them have the first clue where to start?

“I’ll have a look around,” Loki decides. “See where we are. See if I can sense anything at all.”

Tony almost calls him back as the scepter’s gem bobs away into the darkness and the sound of his footsteps is drowned out by the whistling wind. Tony’s never been the kind of guy to be afraid of being alone, or scared of the dark, but this place... This place is a whole other story.   It’s not just the dark. It’s not just the aching, draining cold (which makes him tuck his knees up under his chin and clench his arms against his body to try to conserve every ounce of warmth). There’s something else in this place too, something menacing in the very feel of it that makes him nervous. Not threatened, exactly, but... wary. Like he could be threatened at any moment. The feeling of vast emptiness around him feels too empty. Maybe he’d feel safer if he could see or hear a bird or a mouse or even an ant, but there’s nothing. At all. Anywhere. Just stone and frost and wind.

It’s encouraging the strangest, irrational fear in the pit of his stomach that Loki won’t come back. He’ll be stuck here, alone. He’ll die here, alone. Frozen on a distant, unknown planet without even insects to witness his passing. His body stays intact and preserved for a thousand years. Lost. Forgotten.

“Loki?” he whispers into the darkness.

Wind answers.

Well, super. Tony’ll just sit here and... not panic. Nope. Not going to panic. Not going to work himself up into a state of anxiety. Not going to think about all the million things that could possibly be going wrong right at this moment, just outside his very limited sphere of visibility. Like Loki falling into an ice chasm. Or Loki getting lost in what sounds like a raging blizzard outside. Or Loki being attacked by a rogue band of Jotuns. Every worst-case scenario pops into his head one after another, each one stupider and less likely than the last, but the stupid and unlikely part of his brain doesn’t seem to care.

It takes almost fifteen long, frigid minutes for Loki to return, an orb of blue light floating on a black plane and coming gradually closer. He’s dusted with snow and there are ice crystals in his eyelashes, but he doesn’t look like he fell in a chasm or got lost in a blizzard or was attacked by Jotuns. “Hey,” Tony greets him, trying not to sound too relieved. “You find anything worthwhile?”

Loki’s annoyed grunt and the way he tosses down the scepter answers the question pretty succinctly. No words even needed. “We’re in a temple of sorts.”

“Huh,” says Tony. That’s something. Not exactly something useful, but something. “And?”

“It’s full of residual energy. Whatever manner of magic Jotnar use, they’ve done a lot of it here, over a long period of time, and the echoes of that magic are interfering with my ability to sense anything.

“Oh. So... no lead on the path back to Earth.”

“No. I’ll have to go out farther. Though I thought I’d come back to tell you before disappearing for several hours.”

Tony’s stomach drops. “Okay. That’s... That’s appreciated, thanks.” Though how’s he supposed to just sit here for a couple hours when he could barely handle fifteen minutes is the next big question.

“Will you be alright while I’m gone?” Loki asks.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony hears himself saying before he even has a second to think about it. “Fine. Totally fine.”

Luckily Loki can see through those bullshit lines like a brick through glass. “You look cold,” he says softly. “However... I think I have an idea that may help.”

The idea better have more to it than gathering up a bunch of rocks and sticking them in a pile, because even though Tony trusts Loki not to be wasting their time, this doesn’t exactly look like the most useful of tasks. It’s not until Loki picks up a sharp shard of rock and scratches it along the back of his arm, hard enough to draw blood, that Tony clues in. “You’re doing a creepy blood magic thing, aren’t you?”

“What else would I be doing?”

“I don’t know, a big pile of rocks thing?”

Shaking his head, Loki crouches down to smear a blood-rune on the floor near the rock pile. He mutters something, flicks his hand upward from the rune in the direction of the rocks, and a spark of fire bursts into life. A second later, the entire mound of rocks is engulfed.

“Loki, you know how I feel about blood magic and weird fire...” Tony warns.

“Would you rather risk falling asleep in the cold and freezing to death?”

Well, objectively speaking... No. No, Tony would not. But Loki’s not done yet. He takes another smear of blood and draws a second rune next to the first. This one with a different motion, like he’s spreading it in a circle with his hand.

“Do I even want to know what that one does?” Tony asks.

“Protection,” says Loki. “I’ll be too far to cast any effective enchantment over both of us, so this is a ward to prevent anyone from sensing your presence. Be that Heimdall and his invasive gaze or any Jotnar who may wander near. You’ll remain invisible to outsiders as long as the rune remains intact and you stay near to it.”

Tony does want to know about that, yes. “Oh.” Maybe he should revisit his negative opinion of blood magic.

“Stay close to the runes,” Loki tells him. “And stay close to the flames. Ghost fire gives off little heat, but it will be better than nothing for now. This should last an hour or so. When it begins to diminish, add more rocks. The broken pieces of that altar back there will work best. The fire burns energy, and the altar holds a fair deal of residual magic. It will burn better than anything else in here. Do not allow the fire to die. You won’t be able to rekindle it. Most importantly, do not touch it. If it catches on your skin, the only way to extinguish it will be to destroy the rune. And that will destroy the fire entirely.”

That seems like too much important information for Tony to handle right now, but he nods anyway. “Okay. How long you think you’ll be gone?”

“A few hours. I need to distance myself as much as I can from this place, and with the strong magical pull, I don’t think I’ll be able to shift.”

“Can you do one thing before you go?”

“I can try. What?”

He feels dumb even asking this. And dumber if he dwells too much on the reason. He looks up into the shadows that make up the temple’s ceiling, eyes tracing the way massive stone columns, barely visible in the ghost fire’s uneven light, stretch up and disappear before he can see the top of them. “I don’t like this big, open space,” he says. “Any way we can build a little shelter in here? Some kind of hut or tent or whatever?”

Loki doesn’t answer immediately. Looks like he’s thinking. Then, with an odd kind of determination, he picks up the scepter in one hand. And a piece of the broken altar rock in the other. When he closes his eyes to concentrate, ice begins to form around his fingers.

ooo

Once upon a time, a farmer in Japan had a young son who was small and weak and could not help his family by working in the fields. The boy was clever, but all he wanted to do was paint pictures of cats. He had no future as a farmer. So his parents sent him to a nearby monastery to study to become a monk. However, the boy was no better at life as a monk than then was at life as a farmer. He neglected his studies and wasted paper painting pictures of cats. Eventually, his teacher was forced to send him away. But before the boy left, the teacher gave him a word of advice:

Avoid large places at night! Keep to small!

And with that, the boy went on his way. He knew he could not go home, so he resolved to find a new monastery. He would make a better effort at his studies. All day he walked, until he came to the next town, where a monastery stood on a hill. The sun was setting as he climbed up the stairs to the front door. But when he went inside, nobody was there. The place looked deserted. Nevertheless, the boy needed somewhere to stay for the night, and this monastery had such beautiful walls of blank, white paper...

He painted cats. For hours, the boy painted cat after cat, until he was exhausted and lay down on the floor to sleep. It was then that he remembered his teacher’s warning.

Avoid large places at night! Keep to small!

He was suddenly afraid. He had not understood what his teacher meant before, but now those words struck a cold fear in his heart. The monastery was large, with wide open rooms. He could not sleep so exposed like this, so he found a cozy cupboard in a cabinet along the wall and crawled inside. Soon, he was fast asleep. But it seemed he had only been dreaming for a few short minutes when he was woken by a terrible sound. Howling, screeching, scuffling... as if wild beasts were fighting right there in the monastery. Too afraid to move, the boy stayed in the cupboard all night, even long after the noises stopped. Only when he could see daylight did he dare come out of his hiding place.

There, in the middle of the floor, was a giant goblin rat, lying dead. It bled out from many wounds, but the boy had no idea who could have killed it. That is, until he looked closely at the cats he had painted on the walls. Every one of them had small stains of blood around its mouth.

That story was in a book of folktales Tony had as a child. ‘The Boy Who Painted Cats’. He can’t say how or why it popped into his head at this time, in this place, but it’s there. (Avoid large places at night! Keep to small!) Those words echo silently between his ears as he looks up at the little ice-igloo Loki built around him. It’s a small place. And as the ghost fire burns away inside, it’s almost a cozy place. Maybe as cozy as anything could be on Jotunheim.

With a yawn, Tony peeks down at his watch. It’s 3:00 pm back in California. He’s been on Jotunheim for four hours. Loki’s been gone just over three. The fire’s still burning nicely. He’s only had to add rocks once so far. His stomach growls, but all he can do is shift positions and hug his knees closer to his chest. Food has to wait until Loki gets back. And then it’ll probably have to wait some more, but... Tony’ll just focus on waiting for Loki for now.

At some point, he closes his eyes. And at some point, he must fall asleep. Because when he opens his eyes again, Loki’s clothes are draped over him like a blanket, and Loki’s sitting against the igloo wall on the other side of the fire. Naked save for his flimsy, tie-at-the-waist Asgardian underwear.

His skin is blue.

“Hey,” Tony says, lifting his head. “You’re back.”

Loki looks up from the fire. Eyes bright red.

“So, uh...” Tony starts when Loki stays silent. “You’re...”

Half transformed? Is that what’s going on? This isn’t the Jotun body Tony saw before, during the fight with Thor or in that little bathtub scene. This is Loki. Definitely Loki, with the same face and the same black hair. Same size. He’s just... Jotun-colored.

“Apparently,” Loki says, in his same voice, “this is what happens when I concentrate on retaining my magic when my body transforms.”

Sounds like his same mind, too. Good. “Did you find out anything?”

“I was able to locate the path to Asgard,” Loki replies, and that lifts Tony’s spirits for the first time since their unceremonious arrival. “It’s not terribly far, but too far for you to walk. We’ll have to shift.”

“Okay,” says Tony. “You wanna do that now?”

“I don’t think I have the power. And I don’t want to risk trying. Not here. Not until I’ve had a chance to rebalance.”

Oh. Well. Hm. “...You wanna do that now?”

“No,” Loki growls. “You’re still injured, and I look like this.” He gestures down at his blue legs with what Tony can’t help but notice has to be a certain level of disdain.

“I’m actually okay with you looking like that. I’m more concerned with, you know, having to move. But if we can get this done with me just lying here and you doing all the work, that’d probably be not awful.”

“It would be ineffective. No. We’ll wait until you’ve recovered.”

“And how d’you think we’ll survive until then?”

“I can keep the fire going.”

“What about food?”

For however intelligent he is, Loki obviously hadn’t thought about that one. Maybe he can go for days or even weeks without eating, but Tony can’t. “I can... try to find...” But his voice trails off. Find what?

“Look,” says Tony.   “Let’s just get this over with and do whatever we need to do to get out of here. Find that pathway back to Asgard.” Not that he thought he’d ever be an advocate for going back to Asgard, but now that he knows first-hand that there are certainly worse places to be...   At least on Asgard they won’t die of freezing or starvation. “Work out where we go from there.”

“I should go back out,” Loki counters. “Go farther. You rest a while longer, and I’ll see if I can find any hint of the pathway to Midgard. And bring back something to eat.”

Memories of Loki’s Jotun food – raw meat and mushrooms – resurface in Tony’s mind. “...Sure. But maybe, I’m thinking, given the circumstances, just heading back to Asgard and trying again might be the best bet?”

“I’m not going back to Asgard unless we’re absolutely certain there’s no other-”

The words falter to a dead stop in Loki’s throat, and he snaps his head to the side. Tony feels it too. There’s somebody approaching. Something? Somethings? Yeah, that’s a plural. Three... four of them. Their energy feels very different from the Asgardians Tony’s used to. More... raw. Animalistic. Potentially very dangerous. Jotuns.

“The, um...” Tony asks. “The... ward to prevent them from finding us is still in place, right?”

“I warded a circle around the fire,” Loki answers in low sounds through his teeth. “I laid enchantments to ensure they could not see, smell, or hear anything its light touched while I was gone. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t prevent them from tracking the trail of my scent back here...”

In other words, the Jotuns out there can tell Loki’s in the igloo, and there’s about a 100% chance they’ve stopped, just on the other side of the wall, to find a way to get him out. “Shit,” Tony mutters. “What do we do?”

No need for Loki to answer. He’s already moving: crawling towards the little tunnel entrance. “In case they ask,” he says, “I’ve been imprisoned in Odin’s dungeon for a thousand years, and you helped me escape. And my name is certainly not Loki.”

“Why?” asks Tony. “Why would they ask? Aren’t you going to tell them?”

Loki pauses only briefly to look back. “Well... I might forget.”

He transforms as he crawls out of the igloo. Getting bigger, hair replaced by ridges of reptilian bone across his skull, raised patterns of lines across his dark blue skin growing more prominent. “Shit!” Tony repeats. “Shit shit fuck shit motherfucker...” Awesome. Isn’t this awesome? Super fucking awesome. He’s cold, he’s hungry, he’s stuck on a planet populated by carnivorous giant ice aliens, and his only chance at escape just turned into one of them. Pulling on Loki’s discarded shirt and pants over his own, he slides over to sit by the doorway and listen. The only sounds he can hear are muffled by the ice, low and rumbling.

Then eventually: “Tony... come out.”

That has to be Loki. It doesn’t sound like Loki, and Tony can’t remember if that’s what Loki’s Jotun voice sounded like back in the bathroom in Phoenix, but only one frost giant out there knows his name. And he’s probably going to regret the hell out of this, but seriously, what choice does he have other than to crawl out of the igloo?

Outside is cold. Not that it was any tropical paradise inside by the straggling ghost fire, but at least it was warm enough in there that he didn’t see his breath. Just through the tunnel, the cold hits him like a particularly unpleasant slap and frosty air clouds in front of his face. When it clears, he finds himself staring at five pairs of leathery blue legs. He looks up.

The small one standing nearest to the igloo door has to be Loki. And that’s ‘small’ in relative terms: he’s still eight feet tall and more or less terrifying to look at. It’s just that the other four are even bigger. Big enough that their faces are darkly shadowed in the meager light of Tony’s arc reactor.

“Who are you?” one of them asks him. Voice like cracking ice. It sends a shiver through Tony’s bones.

“Tony Stark,” he answers without bothering to stand up, because he has this feeling that staying down where he is, low to the ground, is safest. Anybody who wants to grab him will have to make a lunge for it, hopefully allowing him time to scramble out of the way. “Of, er, Midgard.”

“And you were in Asgard’s dungeons with this one?” asks the same Jotun, jerking his chin at Loki.

Tony nods. “Yeah. Yes. I was. In the dungeon. Odin’s dungeon.”

“How did you escape? How did you come here?”

He and Loki really should’ve taken a couple seconds to come up with a more complete cover story. “I... uh... built a machine. To... travel through space. And we came here.”

“You travel through space?” a different one asks. “Like the Asgardians’ Bifrost?”

“No,” says Tony. “It was a...” Goddamnit. “It was a special Midgard machine. From Midgard. You guys wouldn’t have heard of it.”

“He stinks of Asgard,” growls a third. “How do we know he is not Odin’s spy?”

“I’m not-” Tony starts, but he’s quickly cut off when the first Jotun leans down close and starts... sniffing him. His face. His shoulder. His hair. That flat, Jotun nose so close Tony can hear its raspy breath and feel waves of biting cold radiate from its skin. He tries not to flinch away, at least not too much.

“He smells of Asgard,” the first Jotun agrees, “but under that... there is something else.”

Then the third one, who seems to be the asshole of the group, speaks up again. “They waste our time. Kill them both. Take their heads to the king and we eat the Midgardian’s body.”

Luckily that earns number three a smack in the face from the hitherto silent fourth. “No,” says four. “We take them to the king alive. He will want to see this.”

“Yes he will,” Tony jumps in. “Your king will definitely, absolutely, want to see us.” And I definitely, absolutely, do not want to be eaten right now, he adds silently to himself.

The other three look at each other, then at the fourth, as they weigh the idea in their minds. They seem to be in agreement. Or maybe they just like being absolved of responsibility, able to offload the decision of what to do with the unexpected visitors onto a higher authority. Oh please, Tony thinks, please, for the love of God, any god, just be lazy and take us to your king and make him deal with us. And give him and Loki a little while longer to work on a plan of action. He glances up at Loki, who’s staring at the other Jotuns with an expression that unfortunately looks too much like contented apathy.

Great. Well, at least a journey to see this king will give Tony some time to work on a plan of action. Loki said Jotuns were stupid. And Tony might challenge that based on his brief (very brief) interactions so far, but Loki also said they were trusting. And loyal. And those are traits he can probably work with. Meaning, seeing as he has no option but to work with the incredibly shitty hand he’s just been dealt, he’s going to have to try. Come up with some sob story about being in the dungeons. Spin this like they meant to come to Jotunheim after escaping. Play off the Jotuns’ obvious hatred of Odin and all things Asgard. Shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Odin-hate is a feeling he can definitely sympathize with.

“Come,” says number four, prodding Tony’s shoulder with the butt-end of his spear. “You will see the king.”

“Great, thanks,” Tony answers, nodding like he wants nothing more. “Just hold on a sec, will you?”

The scepter’s still in the igloo. Chances are he and Loki will need that down the road, and even if they don’t, Tony’s not leaving it lying around out here. He grabs it and crawls back out to the Jotuns.

“What is that?” the asshole, number three, snarls.

“Er, it’s a special Asgardian artifact,” says Tony. “I’ll tell your king all about it.” Carefully, he stands up. It takes a little more effort than usual on legs that are cramped and cold from being in the igloo for so long, but he doesn’t feel as weak and shaky as he did back on Asgard. Things are getting better.

Physically speaking, that is. As for situationally? Standing there, eye-to-abs with Jotun number one, he feels his hopes start to sink. What are the odds that this will actually turn out well? That he won’t be killed and eaten? What reason do these frost giants have for listening to his puny mortal voice, when he also remembers (rather vividly now) how Loki said he looks like food to them?

He stays close to Loki as the Jotuns, with spears held ready, herd them out of the colossal temple and towards the raging wind. Even before they reach the entryway, the lashes of cold air that swirl in down this desolate, blue-black corridor are enough to sting Tony’s skin and make breathing next to impossible. The freezing air burns his mouth and lungs. Fuck, it has to be at least sixty degrees below out there.

“Um hey,” he says, shuffling to a stop. “I... I can’t go out there. I’m pretty sure I’ll die.”

“Outside?” one of the Jotuns asks. He’s lost track of which one is who.

“Yeah. It’s too cold. I’ll freeze and die.”

All four look at him like he just said something unbelievably stupid, which as far as frost giants are concerned is probably true. “Asgardians pass through Jotunheim unhindered,” says one. Judging by the glare, it’s number three. “Why can you not?”

“I’m not Asgardian,” says Tony. “I don’t have their... er... tolerance for extreme environments.” As has been very recently established.

“Then how do you expect to be taken to the king?!”

Yeah so that one’s definitely number three. But before Tony can answer, Loki interjects.

“Build him a shelter.”

“Out of what?!”

“Ice,” says Loki, in a stating-the-obvious tone that makes him sound almost like his usual, non-Jotun self.

Number three snarls at that, but the others seem to think it’s a fine idea. Two of them disappear outside with a quick nod, returning a minute later to beckon Tony. When he follows them back out, holding his arms in front of his face as a barrier against the whipping wind, the first thing he sees through the snow is a rudimentary hand-drawn sled. Across its icy slats rests the carcass of an enormous animal that looks like a mad scientist’s disastrous attempt at a triceratops-moose hybrid. But in front of the dead beast sits a rough cube of ice, which Tony quickly realizes is supposed to be some kind of sedan chair. It has three solid walls and a roof, and once he climbs inside, Loki steps up to seal him in.

“Hey,” he mutters, taking advantage of the opportunity and the cover of the wind to get in a quick word. “Who’s the new king now that what’s-his-nut is dead?” He wants to say Lao Che, but no, that’s the Shanghai mobster from Indiana Jones.

The name Loki gives is the kind that Tony’s tongue has no hope of replicating. All he can say for sure is that it starts with ‘Hell’. That might be a bad omen.

“Is he related to you?” Tony asks.

“He is my brother.”

“Does he know he’s your brother?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

That gesture rolling off Loki’s shoulders is too vague to translate. It might be a ‘maybe’, it might be an ‘I don’t know’, it might be ‘I’d rather not’. “He will figure it out,” is the eventual, cryptic answer.

It’s with slightly more reassurance that Tony sits back in his literal icebox seat and lets Loki seal the door. That sounded like Loki has a plan. Didn’t it? Part of a plan, at least? A half-formed, hasty, plot-hole-ridden turd of a plan? Probably?

That little hair of reassurance quickly trickles away the second Tony’s sedan chair jolts and lifts and the Jotuns begin to drag the sled, replaced by a big fat flood of doubt. They’re going to see the king. They’re heading straight for what’s probably a capitol city full of Jotuns, about to announce themselves to this whole damn society, instead of trying to stay quietly out of trouble. Loki probably could’ve incapacitated these four pretty easily, and they could’ve fled, making their way to the Asgard path. Instead, they’re doing the exact opposite. Fuck. Fuck. And there’s no way to change that course now, since Tony’s trapped inside a solid box of ice with just one tiny window for air circulation and no means of talking to Loki until he’s released. And it’s starting to feel more like a cage with every bump and sway of the sled. It’s dark. His arc reactor doesn’t provide much in the way of illumination in here. It’s cold. Not as cold as it would be outside in the wind, but Asgardian clothes and his own steadily depleting body heat are just one step up from useless without some source of heat.

Shivering, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering too loudly, Tony shifts his weight, tucks up his legs, and concentrates on balancing on the balls of his feet. Maybe if he only touches the ice with the soles of his shoes it’ll keep him from getting too cold too quickly. And hey, while he’s at it, maybe if he thinks happy thoughts this shit show will all turn out just peachy after all’s said and done. There’s always a snowball’s chance in hell, right?

If only the pesky sense of impending doom beating down on his head would leave him alone.

Chapter Text

By the time the Jotuns break open the ice cage, Tony is fully convinced he’s minutes away from dying. That’s not hyperbole. It’s hypothermia. And ha ha ha, say hello to the lamest joke in the universe, but his brain is so sluggish and fucked up it makes him laugh out loud anyway. Actually he can’t stop laughing. He’s laughing when the ice shatters and he falls out of the sedan chair, and he’s laughing as he lies in the snow, too numb to move.

“Tony...” somebody’s voice says from high above, and strong hands grab the back of his shirt, hauling him up. He can’t stand on his useless, ice-stiff legs. But he’s lifted high enough that it’s like he’s standing, feet just barely touching the ground as he’s dragged kitten-style by the scruff of his shirt-neck through the snow. Snippets of low, growling voices drift in and out of his ears.

“Tell the king...”

“No, he is too ill...”

“...will see if you are spies...”

It’s too difficult to follow the conversation. Everyone speaks too fast and too muffled and the shapes of words are too hard to pick out from the howling wind.

“...can wait until...”

“Take them to...”

Something about a third room. Something about a fire, as they keep dragging Tony along to wherever they’re going. Luckily it’s not far. Only a minute or two before he’s deposited on a pile of cold, black furs in a cold, almost-black room.

“Loki...” he mumbles. Lips are frozen and feel like rubber.

“I’m here,” says Loki’s Jotun voice. But a moment later the words repeat again, “I’m here,” in an Asgardian voice. And to Tony’s immense relief, it’s the Asgardian hands that find their way to his neck and around his back, pulling him up. Loki’s touch is cold, but growing warmer. Tony eagerly leans into it. “Can you sit?”

“Uh...” Yes, but only because Loki’s holding him. “Where are we?”

“In a room in the king’s home. There are rooms here built for visitors from Asgard and other realms. Now if you can sit on your own for just a moment, I have wood to build a fire. Can you sit?”

Tony nods. Probably. If he has the strength to move his head, maybe he also has the strength to not move his body, shaky and shivery as he is. He braces his hands on the floor, keeping himself as upright as he can when Loki slides over to the fireplace and begins stacking sticks and logs. It takes only seconds before flames start to crackle their way up the wood pile. It’s a beautiful sight, and a beautiful sound: the best thing Tony’s seen or heard in hours.

“Here,” says Loki, wrapping his arms around Tony’s shoulders and pulling one of the massive fur pelts (complete with massive wild animal smell) around both of them. “You’re freezing cold.”

“And you’re pleasantly warm,” Tony murmurs against Loki’s neck. Heat flows out from Loki’s skin. From his arms, from his hands, sinking deep into Tony’s body from head to toe. Magical warming inside and out. Oh, that’s nice. For at least five minutes, Tony sits there soaking it in. And for the time being, he’s absolutely convinced he never wants to do anything else. Just stay like this, warm and comfortable with Loki, forever. “You’re like a super-effective heating pad.”

“Starting to feel better?”

“Yeah. But I think we should stay like this for a while longer to be sure. At least several more hours. Maybe a couple days. Eternity. Whatever.”

“We have until tomorrow morning,” says Loki. “I’ve convinced the guards to allow you time to recover before we see the king. You can rest, stay warm, and finish healing.”

“As long as I don’t have to move or think for a while.”

“Little baby bunny,” Loki whispers.

Tony doesn’t even bother arguing. He’s feeling kind of bunny-like right now. Interested primarily in bunny-snuggles and maybe making a warm bunny-nest. That actually sounds really good. “Until tomorrow morning, huh?” he yawns. “How long is that?”

Loki shrugs: a gesture Tony suavely takes advantage of to settle more securely into their bunny-snuggle. “I believe it’s midnight or so now.”

All night to rest up, then. Unless, of course, they want to do the responsible thing and actually use this time to solidify a plan of action. Tough choice. There’s a definite allure to the idea of simply being a bunny with Loki for the next eight-ish hours. Though on the other hand, a plan might be useful in the field of not dying. “So what’s the deal?” he asks, hoping Loki’s answer will be something long and carefully thought out, eliminating the need for any further action or discussion.

“Someone will come for us, I imagine. We’ll plead our case and hope to not be executed on the spot.”

“No, I mean the plan,” says Tony. “What’s our angle? You sticking with your dungeon story?”

“Can you think of anything better?”

“Hm.” As a matter of fact, no, he can’t. “So you’ll pretend you’ve been in the dungeons of Asgard for, what’d you say, a thousand years? An innocent hostage who has just recently escaped?”

“Yes,” Loki confirms. “I was taken as a baby, found by Odin at the end of the Casket War, and I’ve lived all my life in his prison. I never knew why he wanted me there, only that I was not allowed to leave. From that, if he has any sense and knows his own history, Helblindi should be able to infer that I am the son Laufey left to die.”

“Say his name again.”

“Helblindi?”

“Yeah, I’m never going to be able to get that. Do all Jotuns have such weird names?”

“Our third brother is Býleistr.”

Fuck. “Okay that’s worse. Say it again.”

Somehow, the impossible syllables are light and fleeting and elegant as silk when they spin from Loki’s tongue. “Býleistr.”

“Boo...” Tony tries. It’s not going to happen. “I’ll just call him Boo-boo, and the other one can be Helly.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”

“Tell them it’s a long-standing American tradition to lazily anglicize foreign names. And wait, if you’re pretending you’re not Loki, what should I call you?”

Loki would probably pull away from that question if he could. But since Tony is too constrictively draped over him... He has to settle for one small squirm of discomfort. “The Jotun name I was given at birth was Loptr,” he says after a moment’s pause. “But I’m not supposed to know that. We’ll see if Helblindi gives it back to me.”

“Lohft,” Tony quietly repeats. At least that one’s easier.

“Close enough,” says Loki.

“’Close enough’ my ass, I nailed that one.”

“Loptr,” Loki says again, slower this time.

“Lohft.”

“Not quite. Loptr.”

“Lohfta?”

Loki just pats him on the head, stroking his hair. “Your accent is very cute.”

“Oh, like you can talk, name-master. Up until a couple days ago, you kept calling me ‘Tony Stark’.”

“At least I said it correctly.”

If only Tony weren’t so sadly incapacitated by exhaustion and at least fifteen different kinds of muscle pain, he might do something to wipe that mocking smile off Loki’s stupidly attractive face. Also maybe if they weren’t on a remote, hostile alien planet facing a high probability of death from starvation, exposure, or execution (or a fun combination of all three). And certainly if he could actually bring himself to care about any of this. But as it stands...

“Oh whatever,” he groans, leaning heavily against Loki and pulling in as much warmth as he can siphon, accompanied by more strands of tingling magic. He should really try to scrounge up a few more fucks to give about his safety, life, future, and Loki making fun of his linguistic abilities, but it looks like right now he’s hit the wall of being unable to care about anything but lazily slouching and sliding down on the floor and going to sleep. He’ll sink into the pile of pungent furs and use Loki’s lap as a pillow. Stare through heavily lidded eyes at the fire and let its crackling heat lull him to sleep. “It’s way past my bedtime.”

“Baby bunny,” Loki says again, petting Tony’s hair and running soft fingers down the back of his neck.

Tony very lovingly punches him in the ribs.

ooo

They’re in a cave. Of course they’re in a motherfucking cave. Tony hadn’t noticed it inside the bedroom, probably due to a lack any light except the flickering fire and the fact that he was preoccupied with more important things (like avoiding death, overcoming hypothermia, and how nice Loki’s eyelashes looked in the aforementioned flickering firelight), but now that they’re out in the hallway on their way to see the king... Cave. Definite cave. Why does it always have to be caves? Is this a standard captor thing, or do all these bad guys get together beforehand and discuss where, exactly, they should imprison Tony Stark?

Well, no time to dwell on that or make a fuss now.   He hitches the fur pelt up higher around his shoulders to cover his ears, tucking it snugly under his chin and overlapping his arms across his chest to block out the chill. Wind comes whistling down the cave-corridor and through irregular holes that look like they’ve been drilled up through the ceiling, blowing snow in his face. Nuts to looking stupid: he hikes up the fur until it forms a hood, leaving only a minimal gap in the front to peek through with one eye.   Away from the fire and his bunny-nest, the air is cold enough to sting his skin, and if he has to dress like a barbarian hunter to stay warm... so be it. He shuffles along under the awkward cloak at almost double speed to keep up with the long, Jotun strides of Loki and the guards.

He’s not quite sure what he was expecting in terms of a Jotun palace as they pass through. Something along the lines of Asgard in a snowy blue motif? High, vaulted ceilings with pillars like that temple they were in? Ice sculptures and a frozen throne? The reality is a little more underwhelming. Out of the bedroom, which, as far as he could tell, was plain and vaguely cubic in shape, the hallway is equally plain and vaguely tubular in shape. Solid stone. This cave, or series of caves, isn’t natural. It was excavated. But as far as caves go, at least it’s nice and short. Only a few shallow curves past branching doorways and they’re out in the open air. Almost.

Beyond the mouth of the cave is a throne room, but at the same time not a throne room, because it’s not really a room. It’s more like a... throne stadium. Enclosed on almost all sides except for narrow passageways, the room – stadium – is ringed with pillars reaching up to nothing: skeletal fingers scratching at the dark gray sky. All of them are broken at the top. Maybe they once supported a roof, or partial roof, or soaring arches, but now they’re crumbling into decay and blanketed with a thick layer of dingy snow like dust in a forgotten library. One has a pile of rubble at its chipped,geometric base: a recent collapse. This place was probably impressive, once upon a time. Intimidating. Beautiful even, in its own eerie way, hundreds of years ago. Now it’s a ruin, where secretive Jotun observers lurk in shadows and take shelter from the wind in cracked arcades and eroded niches. Up ahead, the throne itself sits under an incomplete rock canopy that looks like it’s been hastily repaired with ice.

What kind of people live here? Tony thinks as he and Loki approach. In this miserable, desolate place... With a low ceiling of snow clouds hovering overhead, he can’t pick out any sign of sunlight, let alone a breath of warmth. The so-called morning looks more like perpetual twilight, dim and blue. Jotunheim is a hostile and cruel environment. Can he really blame its inhabitants for being anything else? He steps up to stand at Loki’s side under the narrow, red glare of the king, and can’t help but feel a stab of pity.

Helblindi addresses them immediately, in a growling voice remarkably similar to Loki’s Jotun tone. “So. You are the traitors from Asgard.”

That doesn’t seem to be a question. And since Loki doesn’t answer, Tony stays equally silent.

Helblindi looks like Loki. He has the same sharp, straight features and deep-set eyes. As he stands up from his weather-worn throne, it’s obvious that he’s taller, but still not as large as the mountainous guards waiting at attention. And when he steps down from the dais to stand in front of Loki (close enough to sniff him, in the same unnerving way that other Jotun sniffed Tony the previous night), the similarities are striking.

Though maybe it just appears that way to Tony, unfamiliar as he is with Jotun faces. Maybe they only look alike in the same way two alligators look alike to his untrained human eye. Helblindi seems to find nothing noteworthy in Loki’s appearance. He’s more concerned with Loki’s scent.

“You carry the stench of Asgard.”

“I have lived there all my life,” Loki calmly replies.

“Why?”

“I do not know. I was taken as an infant and raised as Odin’s captive. He never gave me a reason for my imprisonment.”

Loki once said Laufey was smarter than your average bear. Maybe that applies to all his sons: Helblindi doesn’t let the little scrap of information slip by unnoticed. He jerks back in surprise, and it’s obvious he’s already thinking what he’s supposed to be thinking.

Oh please, Tony prays to whatever sympathetic space god might be listening, let this go well, let this go well, let this go well... Let this be a joyful family reunion with no suspicion of ulterior motives.

“When?” Helblindi demands. “How long were you there?”

The way Loki casually breathes in, breathes out, and prolongs his consideration can be nothing less than countless decades of practice at manipulating the truth. He really is the prince of lies, innocent and earnest as he looks. “I do not know,” he says, drawing out the words. “The passage of time is difficult to gauge, and I was never told when one year turned into the next. All I know for certain is I was taken by Odin at the end of the war, though when that was...” He lets his voice trail off and even turns his face down to the ground in shame: an unspoken apology for his apparent lack of detail.

Helblindi, meanwhile, looks like he just absorbed a suckerpunch to the gut. He takes two quick steps back, all the while keeping his gaze fixed on Loki through narrow eyes above bared gray fangs. Another identical-looking Jotun approaches from the side of the throne – the third brother, Boo-boo? – and whispers something in Helblindi’s flat, reptilian ear. Tony doesn’t even need to guess what it is. Helblindi replies with an irritated growl that can only mean ‘I know, you idiot’ as he shoves his brother away. There’s something distinctly familiar and Loki-like in the movement.

Loki watches with subdued interest, neither leaning away nor showing the least bit of fear when Helblindi approaches again. This time, Helblindi situates himself nice and close, almost nose to nose as he sniffs again. He lays one hand on Loki’s shoulder.

It’s not a friendly touch.

“I know you are a liar, Asgardian.”

“I am not As-”

That’s as far as Loki gets before the bladed points of Helblindi’s claws sink into his skin, drawing beads of dark purple blood. Instinctively he tries to pull away, a hiss of pain on his lips, but Helblindi’s other hand snaps around his neck to lock him in place.

“I know who you are! I know the smell of your blood and I can feel its current of warmth as easily as I can feel the magic in your skin! Your disguise is clever, but the transformation is not as complete as you might think, Loki, son of Odin.”

And just like that, every bad feeling that had been squirming in Tony’s stomach like a hive of drowsy winter bees explodes to life, and his heart’s suddenly pounding in his throat with a relentless Morse code warning. Run. Run. Run! He lurches forward. (Wasn’t this part of the hodge-podge plan hastily thrown together this morning before the guards came? Stay close to Loki. He was supposed to stay close to Loki in case they needed to make a quick exit...) But however quick he thinks he is, the guards are quicker, three of them penning him in with their spears as Loki’s dragged forward by Helblindi.

“Show me your true form, Asgardian!”

“This is-” Loki starts.

Helblindi gives him a violent shake, snapping Loki’s head back with such force it makes Tony wince. “Show me your true form!”

“I swear to you-”

They’re going to die. On this horrible planet, in some horrible way, they’re going to die. Tony’s heart is pounding too hard, and even in this leeching cold the sickening heat of panic and terror begins to creep up into his chest.

“Show me your true form!”

“For fuck’s sake Loki, just do it!” Tony shouts. Because that’s what you do at a time like this, isn’t it? You grasp at straws and try to scramble for any little way out and any tiny reprieve that’ll let you keep going for even a few seconds longer. Cling to the remote possibility of life. “Do what he says!” (Because didn’t he promise Loki he’d take care of him? Didn’t removing Loki’s chains catch him in a binding legal agreement to do just that?)

But now with the way Helblindi’s looking over at Tony with that appraising glare, maybe opening his mouth wasn’t such a good idea. “Show me your true form,” Helblindi says, “or I will flay the skin from your companion and eat it while you watch.”

Sickeningly enough, he sounds nothing but sincere in that threat. The heat and bile rise higher in Tony’s throat.

It gets through to Loki, though. “I cannot if you are touching me,” he quietly says. “Release me, and I can transform.”

While Tony holds his breath and clenches his teeth and his fists and every muscle in his body, Helblindi considers that. He looks from Tony to Loki and back again, like he’s disappointed he may not have to go through with the flaying and eating after all. Then, with a sigh, he lets go of Loki’s neck.

Loki falls to the ground. But to Tony’s relief, he wastes no time in changing back to his Asgardian self. He looks frighteningly small crouched there in the snow with nothing more than the scrap of torn fabric he wore as a Jotun hanging off his hips. A murmur of recognition rumbles through the crowd, and more than a few of the giants who’d been gathered around the fringes of the conversation shuffle forward for a better look. They know who this is.

“I thought as much,” says Helblindi. The way he looks down at Loki is full of smug satisfaction and wrapped up in a sharp-toothed grin. “And now you will tell me why you are here, when you must know I would love nothing more than to see your deceitful head separated from your body?”

“Entirely by accident, I assure you,” Loki answers, rearranging himself into a taller sitting position and holding his chin high to salvage whatever dignity he can still scramble together. “We attempted to reach Midgard, and failed. Please believe me when I say we had no desire to come here. Or stay here. So if you would be so kind as to let us go, we will gladly be on our way with a promise never to return.”

Helblindi neatly ignores the request, and instead wrenches his elbow in Tony’s direction. “Who is that?”

“Tony Stark. A prince of Midgard. Hence our attempt to return to his home realm.”

“Together?”

“Yes.”

“He is accorded of you?”

Loki hesitates for one quick inhalation of breath before answering again, “Yes.”

“Hm.” Helblindi glances back over at Tony. Another appraising look. “Kill him.”

Facing his execution, Tony should probably think of something better to say than, “What?!” The guards raise their spears and he’s still trapped. Nowhere to go but six feet under.

“I just told you he is a prince of Midgard, you witless beast!” Loki shouts.

“Midgard is a weak realm,” Helblindi spits back. “I have nothing to fear of them.”

“Perhaps that is true, but Midgard is under the protection of Thor! If you harm Tony Stark, it will be seen as a violation of the peace of Asgard!”

“The peace of Asgard!” Helblindi roars, turning his rage back on Loki. “What peace do we have with Asgard?! The peace your brother broke when he came to kill my people?! The peace you thoroughly shattered when you lured my father to his death in a foolish gamble and brought the wrath of Odin’s Bifrost down on our land?!”

“To be fair, Odin did punish both Thor and me for-”

“And now you have the gall to come here with your poison and your lies and twist the history of my family, my own lost brother, for this game you play! Why are you here?! What chaos do you seek to bring down on us now, trickster?!”

“If you will only listen to-”

Loki’s insufficient explanation is cut short when Helblindi, snarling with bared fangs, lashes out and kicks him in the chest to send him skidding across the ice.

“Fuck!” Tony lunges forward again, though three spears thrust across his path don’t let him get far. “Loki!”

Loki’s coughing and winded but doesn’t seem injured as he pulls himself up. “I’m fine,” he tells Tony. He reaches up to touch his chest, where a starburst of inky blue in the shape of Helblindi’s footprint is already starting to fade.

For a species that’s supposed to be stupid, Helblindi sure picks up on a lot. “What is that?”

And for somebody who’s supposed to be cowering under threat of annihilation at the hands of a vengeful alien king, Loki sure acts like a haughty bastard. “What I told you is the truth,” he says. Chin lifted again for unapologetic eye contact. “I am not the son of Odin. He raised me to believe so, but it was nothing more than a hollow lie. He took me. As a baby. From Jotunheim. He knew I was Laufey’s son, and he took me. So whether you like it or not – and trust me when I say I certainly do not – I am your brother.”

That other Jotun – it has to be Boo-boo – hurries forward to whisper to Helblindi a second time, secret words punctuated by staccato glances over in Loki’s direction. Helblindi nods. “Prove it,” he says to Loki.

However the hell Loki’s going to manage that, Tony has no idea, but Loki seems undeterred. He holds out his hand. A simple invitation. Helblindi’s too suspicious to accept, but with a little nudge to the back, Boo-boo hesitantly shuffles forward to do the king’s dirty work. He gives Loki’s knuckle the barest of touches, like he expects an electric shock in return. A tiny blue mark rises and crumbles away through Loki’s skin.

“I’m hardly in a position to do anything to harm you,” Loki says in that tone he uses when he wants to sound like he’s rolling his eyes.

So Boo-boo tries again, this time firmly grasping Loki’s hand in his own. The longer they maintain contact, the farther the deep blue seeps into Loki’s body: past his wrist, past his elbow, to his shoulder, to his chest and neck... eyes turn red. Within half a minute, he’s entirely saturated with Jotun color.

“You see?” says Loki. “This touch would kill any warrior of Asgard. Freeze him solid.”

“It proves nothing,” Helblindi retorts. “You are a shapeshifter.”

“Yes, I am. But shapeshifting does not happen gradually, starting in one place and working its way through the body. It happens all at once, as you saw before when I changed into this form.”

“It does not prove you are the son of Laufey.”

“Well, no, you’ll just have to take my word on that.”

Helblindi snorts with what might be Jotun laughter. “Your word!”

Using Boo-boo’s hand as a balance, Loki pulls himself up to his feet. The blue begins to fade as soon as he lets go. “Think of it this way. What could I possibly have to gain by claiming to be your lost brother? Hostility? Suspicion?”

“Kingship of Jotunheim?” Helblindi snarls. “If you are Laufey’s eldest...”

“Oh my dear brother, I would love nothing less than to be king of this place. That is your role. All I want is to return to Midgard with Tony Stark. You can personally escort us to the pathway if you like. You can banish me permanently from this realm if that makes you feel more secure. I will not return. You can pretend I never came at all! I will remain the absent, missing prince, fading back into legend and obscurity. I think that role suits me better, does it not? But please, let me go, and I will bother you no more.”

As Loki speaks, Boo-boo rushes back to whisper to his brother again. Whatever he says this time seems to get the nod of approval, and Helblindi sends him off after a quick whisper in return. That can’t be good. Not that any of this is anywhere close to qualifying as ‘good’, but a hushed exchanges of the king’s secret bidding just sounds like it will end up with things even worse off with usual, and it conjures up a whole new bad feeling in Tony’s gut. Which is, at this point, one big cesspool of every imaginable bad feeling.

Loki must be getting the same vibe. “We will leave immediately,” he continues, less confident than before. “We will-”

“You will be quiet,” says Helblindi.

So Loki tries a new angle. “I was in prison. That part was true as well. Odin has disowned me. You may have guessed that I am not the king of Asgard any more, and-”

“You will be quiet!”

Not even Loki is confident enough to argue with that. He takes a step back, crosses his arms over his chest, and finally lowers his head in defeat. He won’t meet Tony’s eye. No matter how hard Tony stares at him, silently begging him to just look up and give some kind of indication that there’s still a way out... that there’s still a shred of a plan...

When Boo-boo returns, he’s followed by an ancient, limping Jotun with sagging skin and an artificial leg made from a jagged pillar of ice. “There,” Helblindi says to the old one, pointing at Loki. “He is a shapeshifter who claims to be Jotun by birth.”

The old one dips his head and teeters forward on his prosthetic leg, dragging a crude ice tail behind him to counterbalance the weight of his stooped upper body. He’s even more lizard-like than the others. Movements jerky and eyes wildly darting between Helblindi, Loki, and Tony. The sight of his bizarre body, the unnatural way he moves... That same constricting, irrational fear Tony felt in the temple comes slithering back in. And the fear is mirrored on Loki’s face too, triggering all kinds of alarms, as the ancient lizard-Jotun lifts a handful of black powder in his gnarled claws.

“Wait!” says Loki, but the plea comes a half-second too late. The lizard-Jotun reaches up as high as his crooked spine allows, scraping his ice tail against the floor for support. When his fist comes down, the powder explodes from his hand to surround Loki in a sooty black cloud. Loki’s first reaction is what Tony guesses anyone would do. Cough, step back, wave arms to try to clear the air...

The sound Loki makes after that, though, is something Tony can’t describe. And something he never wants to hear again. A low groan gradually building in pitch and volume into a scream, but it’s not just pain, it’s... it’s fear and grief and loss and panic and a dozen different awful things at once as Loki’s body doubles over and collapses.

“Loki!” Tony shouts, and again the guards hold him back with their spears, but hell if he’s going to let them this time. He elbows one in the thigh, striking through his fur and still feeling the scratching cold of its skin on contact, and kicks out at another. Uses that leverage to push one of the spears up and duck under it. “Loki!”

“He is unharmed,” Helblindi says, but who the fuck trusts him? Tony slides to his knees as the lizard-Jotun shuffles back, landing hard at Loki’s side. The screams have faded down into defeated whimpers and moans, though that sounds no less horrifying in Tony’s ears.

“Loki,” he whispers, squeezing Loki’s shoulder and praying for any kind of positive response. Nothing.

Everywhere the black powder touched has started to glow. Bright. Gold. It’s... drawing energy from Loki’s skin? Is that what it’s doing? Turning itself on like a million microscopic lightbulbs flickering to life. It can’t be a good thing, but it sticks like soot and Tony’s best efforts to brush it away end up only smearing the damn stuff across Loki’s body. And it sticks to his hand. Glowing gold, though not as bright, and quickly fading into brittle, white-gray ash. It leaves a weird feeling behind. Cool, but not cold. Sluggish, but not slow. Hollow, but not empty. His hand feels like half of somebody else’s hand: something he can only partially control. He can’t make a solid fist.

But he shakes the feeling off as the miserable little sounds die down, leaving Loki lying still. “Loki,” he whispers again. Loki’s unconscious... but breathing.

Tony whips around to face Helblindi. “What the fuck did you do to him?!”

“We are sorting the lies from the truth,” Helblindi answers. He approaches with careful steps, circling to Loki’s other side and squatting down. The gold on Loki’s back is starting to evaporate, leaving pale gray ash behind. Underneath that... blue skin. As the gold disappears, it takes Loki’s Asgardian form with it. Half a minute later, only the Jotun body is left behind.

One of Helblindi’s sharp talons traces across a line of raised markings on Loki’s back. “All enchantment is now gone from his body. So this truly is his natural form...”

“You took away his magic?!”

“Only temporarily. It will return in a few hours.” He leans in close enough to sniff the back of Loki’s head, breathing deeply.

It makes Tony want to leap up and attack him right then and there. Gouge his eyes. Scratch his face. Anything, just to keep him away from Loki...

“I can smell nothing of my family in him. But nor can I smell anything to indicate he is not. He has been gone from Jotunheim too long.”

“Well he is your brother,” Tony growls. “I don’t know a lot about this whole fuckup, but I know he’s the son of Laufey. He told me that months ago. Before we came here, before we had any idea we’d ever end up here, before he had a single reason to lie about it. He’s your brother, his Jotun name is Lohft or Lohfta or something I can’t pronounce, he was abandoned as a baby, and Odin found him and took him back to Asgard.”

“Not abandoned,” Helblindi quietly corrects. “Stolen.”

“He told me he was abandoned because he was too small.”

“Then he has been feeding you Asgardian lies. Jotnar do not abandon children. For any reason.” And with that, Helblindi stands. “But whatever he believes happened all those years ago, he is home now. And I will consider what I will do with him.”

“Not kill him?”

“No. He is one of us. He will live.”

Loki will live. He will live. Those words alone are enough for Tony to let his shoulders sag in relief. “And me?”

“You truly are accorded of him?”

“Uh,” says Tony. “I... don’t exactly know what that means.”

“You are wed, I believe is term used on Asgard.”

The heat that climbs up to Tony’s neck and face this time has nothing to do with fear. Or maybe it does? Just of a completely different variety. “Oh,” he manages to force out. “Um. Okay. Well, uh...”

Helblindi frowns down at him.

“Yes,” he quickly says. If Loki said they were, there must have been some good reason for doing so. Probably. “Yes, we are.”

“I will not kill Loki,” Helblindi tells him, “because he is my brother. And for the time being, I will not kill you, because you are his mate.”

Not being killed is a good reason to pretend to be married.   A very good reason. “Thank you,” says Tony.

“Return to your room for now. I will come speak to my brother later.”

“Return to our room as in stay there?” Tony asks. “Just to clarify, are we prisoners? Or are we allowed to leave?”

“Of course you are allowed to leave,” Helblindi replies, though his nasty smile isn’t the least bit reassuring. “But where do you think you would go? Dressed as you are, Midgardian... you would be dead before nightfall if you left the shelter of my home. I suggest you stay.”

ooo

Loki wakes up with the kind of protracted groan one might expect from a vampire arising from the crypt. By that time, Tony’s already disassembled every piece of furniture in the room to build a blanket fort by the fire. He peeks over the top at the first sounds of life, just in time to see Loki flail one arm, halfway roll over, spit on the floor, and groan again.

“Hey,” he says, crawling around to Loki’s side. “How you feeling?”

“I think I’m going to die,” Loki whispers.

“You’re not going to die. Do you feel sick? Need some water?”

“No. I’m dying. I’m halfway dead already. How long was I asleep?”

“Two-ish hours. You changed back into your Asgardian form about an hour ago and I thought you were going to wake up then, but no. Down for the count. I had time to build a whole blanket fort.” He glances over at the fort. “Well... fur and blanket fort. Did you know there’s an actual bed over in the far corner, hidden in the shadows? No idea what the mattress is stuffed with, but it weighs about three hundred pounds and it took a lot of effort to drag the dumb thing over here. But I made us a pretty sweet setup. Wanna see?”

Loki has nothing to say to that. Nothing out loud, at least. His silent, judgmental stare is sure throwing some choice non-words in Tony’s direction. “...Did they drug you?” he asks after a long beat of silence.

“Nope,” says Tony. “But I am dehydrated, and so hungry I’m starting to see glowy halos around everything, and seriously I think the oxygen content in this planet’s atmosphere is a lot higher than Earth or Asgard, and all of that together makes me feel really...” He has to pause in a hunt for the right word. “...sparkly,” he finishes. “Anyway, now that the fire’s warmed things up and your brother’s promised to let us live and I no longer have to worry about my skin being eaten, things are going pretty good. Don’t you think?”

“No,” Loki growls. “I am dying.”

“You’re not dying. Helly said you’d be fine. Well... he implied you’d be fine. But get inside the blanket fort. You need me to help you in?”

“I absolutely am dying,” Loki grumbles, but at least he does it while crawling into the fort. Inside, he flops down face first onto the mattress, folds his arms around his head, and continues on with all his whining and moaning in case Tony didn’t already get the picture.

“You’re not dying,” Tony insists, lying down beside him and covering both their bodies with furs.   “You know how I know?”

“Ignorance and denial?”

“Because this adventure story of ours is going to have a happy ending. And you know how I know that?”

“You’re going to tell me no matter what I say, aren’t you?”

“I sure am. I’ve thought about this, and any day now I know we’re going to get our happy ending, because we are now officially living in a Hallmark made-for-TV special.”

Loki goes quiet again, peering out at Tony from under his arm with a single, glaring eye. The silent stare full of non-words that shouldn’t be repeated.

“Sorry, Loki, I know this doesn’t really fit with your space bastard aesthetic, but here are the cold, hard facts. One: Thanksgiving was two days ago. This is officially a holiday weekend. Two: due to circumstances beyond our control, we’ve ended up crashing with your estranged family. Three: you lied to your brother about us being married. This is one big classic holiday movie trope.”

“Tony...” Loki groans, and he rolls onto his back seemingly just for the purpose of facepalming.

“I should warn you now, though. I know how these plots go. There’s at least a 90% chance we’ll end up actually married before we leave this place.”

“I never said...” Stopping right there, Loki lets the thought disintegrate without completion. He lifts both hands up to cover his face this time, rubbing at his eyes and his hairline. “It’s not marriage,” he eventually manages to spit out. “That’s not what I said.”

“You said we were whatever that Jotun word is.”

“Accorded.   And yes, I did say that, but it’s not marriage. The Jotun custom is... It’s not the same.”

“Your brother seemed to think it was. I asked him what the word meant, and he said the Asgardian term would be ‘wed’.”

“Well he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Loki mutters. “Be quiet. I’m dying.”

Grinning, Tony tightens his hold on Loki’s waist. “Really? You sure you didn’t just want the glory of being fake-married to... what did you call me? A prince of Midgard?”

“If I die of annoyance, Tony Stark, it will be entirely your fault.”

“Ehh, I’ll be good,” Tony says, kissing Loki’s shoulder. He’s starting to get the feeling that if he pushes this topic any farther, he’ll end up walking right into the next logical plot point in this tripped-out holiday movie (as directed by Guillermo del Toro): the inevitable dramatic tension where he and Loki have a huge fight over something insignificant, leaving all the idiots watching at home to wondering if they can ever overcome their differences and get back together. (Of course they will. After twenty agonizing minutes of lonely, self-reflective screen time.) And he really doesn’t want to move on to the plot point after that: the one where a suspicious cousin overhears them talking and tells Loki’s family that the marriage is a lie. So he’ll do what he can to postpone any formulaic progression. “I need you alive,” he says to change the subject. “Can you wait to die at least until we get back to Malibu? See there’s this thing where your brother – who, by the way, is terrifying and reminds me a lot of you–”

“He is nothing like me.”

“He’s exactly like you. Anyway, he promised not to kill you because you’re related, and he promised not to kill me because you and I are fake married. So the problem is: if you die, I lose my marriage armor, and he’ll probably pull out all my veins and weave them into a sack and stuff the sack full of my internal organs before putting everything back into my hollow body cavity to make Earthling Surprise for dinner. And that sounds like it’d be a real bummer. So please don’t die?”

A sound of consideration: “Hm.”

“Please?” Tony asks again, trying to do some kind of puppy eye thing despite it being too dark in the blanket fort for Loki to really see him anyway.

“I suppose,” Loki eventually whispers. “I can postpone dying for a few days.”

Tony presses another kiss to Loki’s shoulder, allowing his lips to linger on the smooth, cool skin. “That’s all I need.”

Well. That and food and water and adequate clothing and a continued wood supply for the fire and an eventual way back to Earth. But for now he’ll take what he can get and be satisfied with both of them having survived the Jotun king and come out the other side still breathing

Chapter Text

The Jotuns bring food, and a lot of it. They must be trying to make up for the earlier lack of edible hospitality, because not too long after Tony herds Loki into the blanket fort, the bedroom door opens and six of them parade in. All carrying platters and cartons. They set the food down on the floor as Tony crawls out of the fort, then stand back and wait. They look an awful lot like spectators at the zoo, clumped together and muttering to each other, and Tony feels an awful lot like a monkey on display. Awesome.

He grabs something – is that a piece of dried fruit? – from one of the cartons and lifts it to his mouth. The Jotuns lean forward, following every movement with bright red eyes. Two even open their mouths to mimic him. Jesus, that’s creepy. And if Tony weren’t hungry as all hell he’d probably crawl back into the fort to hide, but since he is hungry as all hell... He crams the weird fruit thing into his pie hole. As he chews, the Jotuns nod in approval.

They’re obviously enjoying the dried fruit more than he is, which is fully understandable since they’re not the ones who have to eat it. The damn thing is stale and gritty and tastes like it’s been sitting in a wooden box for a hundred or so years. It’s mostly crystallized sugar. But since it still technically qualifies as food, Tony quickly grabs another.

“Uh,” he says through a sticky mouthful of fruit-sugar, nodding at the Jotuns. “Thanks?” Is that what they’re all standing around waiting for? Or does he need to do something else to get them to leave and stop chilling his fire-warm air with their frozen bodies?

“Is this adequate?” one of them asks.

“Well...”

There’s a lot of food. At least enough candied fruit, dried meat, and other unidentified edible (at least theoretically) objects for a good size dinner party. And a big chunk of ice in a bucket, which is supposed to stand in lieu of water? Maybe? Tony grabs something that looks like a biscuit. It is a biscuit. A very old, stale, tasteless biscuit. (Wait, no, it has a taste. The taste is ‘freezer burn with a lingering hint of damp shelf dust’.)

“I guess, um,” says Tony, coughing to clear his throat of crumbs, “I could really use some clothes or blankets or at least another pile of furs?”

“We have clothing for you,” says one of the Jotuns.

“Clothes that will fit me?” Tony asks, eying up the asymmetrical leather loincloths and hammered metal belts that seem to be all the fashion rage in this corner of the universe.

“Asgardian clothing.”

Okay that sounds like it could work. And the Jotuns must have anticipated this request, because as soon as Tony mentions it, one goes to open the door and three more troop in. All carrying armloads of wadded-up fabric. Which they then take turns holding out for Tony, one piece at a time. A pair of heavy wool pants, caked with mud at the worn-out knees. A shirt with a whole lot of awkward buckles and straps. A second pair of pants. A fur-lined left boot, and another, larger, left boot. Tony puts it all on as it’s given to him, mud, mismatched boots, and all. “Where’d you guys get this stuff anyway?” he asks as he laces up a quilted vest.

“From Asgardians.”

The Jotun who said that holds up a pale gray sheepskin-ish coat. A suspicious rust-brown stain surrounds a large hole in the center of the back, crudely repaired with sinewy whip-stitching.

“...I’m just going to assume it was all forgotten here by tourists,” says Tony.

“Yes,” the Jotun replies.

How utterly reassuring. But in the absence of any other options, Tony puts on the coat. And then another coat. And wraps a scarf around his head before topping it all off with a hooded cloak. “I guess you can leave the rest of it on the floor for Loki,” he says to the third clothing-bearer, who looks visibly upset at not having been able to help dress the human and decides to plop another cloak down over Tony’s shoulders anyway. “...Yeah great, thanks.”

“Do you require anything more?” asks one of the food-Jotuns.

Well, a hot shower and some clean underwear would be nice, but... “No? I’m good? Thanks?”

Somebody shoves a tray of congealed, stuck-together yellow something under his nose. “More food?”

“...Sure, why not...” Whatever it is sticks unpleasantly to his fingers and is frozen solid in the middle. It tastes like sweetened rice flavor gelatin and takes an awful lot of crunching to break up the icy core to the point where he can swallow anything. Gelatinous starch sticks to his teeth.   Terrific. “I will remember those for later,” he says. “Oh hey, is there a toilet around here?”

The Jotuns all stare at him, and stare at each other, but clearly nobody wants to be the first one to admit they have no idea what he’s talking about.

“You know, any place I could take a piss, or...?”

No. They don’t know.

“Okay,” says Tony, nodding. “I will... find a bucket somewhere. You guys don’t pee at all? Urinate? No?”

Blank looks all around. The concept seems as foreign to them as warm weather and sandy beaches. So much for Thor’s ‘Jotun piss’. But then again, it must be pretty difficult to take a leak when liquid turns to ice upon contact with your body. Unless it contains some kind of natural antifreeze or-

Tony stops himself right there. That’s officially more than enough time spent contemplating Jotun whiz. “Super,” he says, picking up the tray of biscuits. They may be bland, but they’re the most tolerable of everything he’s tried so far. He grabs the bowl next to it too for good measure; the weird wrinkly brownish contents look like they’re probably dried meat strips. “So I’m going to go back in my fort for a while. And thanks for all this, but you guys don’t have to stick around. I mean you’re probably busy doing...” Whatever ice lizard alien men do in their spare time. Fight each other? Dig holes?

“We may stay with you.”

Not exactly the answer Tony was looking for. Not by a long shot. “You really don’t have to,” he tries, but with every passing second it becomes more and more abundantly clear that these frost assholes have no intention of leaving. (Wait, if they don’t pee, does that mean they also don’t have assh- Nope, not going there.) “Sure, stick around, why not,” he mutters, carefully kneeling down to crawl back into the fort. It’s a lot harder getting inside without taking out an important load-bearing pillow now that his hands are full and the bulky clothes have expanded his body size to linebacker proportions. But somehow he manages with minimal damage.

Immediately, Loki greets him with a wrinkled nose and an overdramatic turn away. “What are you wearing and why does it smell so terrible?”

“Asgardian hand-me-downs, and because this planet doesn’t have laundry facilities would be my best guesses,” says Tony. “You want some...” He looks down at the meat bowl. “...beast jerky?”

“No, I want you to take those awful clothes off. I don’t like the smell.”

“Yeah well news flash: I don’t like the cold. Suck it up.”

“Fine,” Loki sighs. “But if I accidentally murder you in my sleep because you smell unfamiliar, it’s your own fault.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Both with accidental sleep murder and awkward meat snacks. “What exactly is this anyway?” he asks, waggling a piece in front of Loki’s nose.

“Dried, salted meat,” Loki replies without looking. “The Jotnar do not cook, so this is one of their only methods of food preparation that outsiders find acceptable. And I should add that this amuses them greatly. To them, dried meat is only eaten during lean times when nothing fresh can be found. It’s taken as a backup plan on long journeys and fed to criminals who deserve no better.”

Upon tasting the stuff, Tony immediately knows why. It’s... not good. Actually, ‘not good’ is an excessively kind assessment. It’s flat-out bad. At first it tastes like an overpowering mouthful of salt, but underneath that it’s stringy, gamey meat shot through with strands of fat as tough as rubber. It takes a lot of chewing to finish even one mouthful. “Wow,” Tony says, clearing his throat with a cough once he swallows. “That’s.... yeah, that’s a backup plan if I ever tasted one.” He takes another bite, and he’s hungry enough to power on through it, even if it’s an unpleasant ride from start to finish. Damn. All that salt screams for water to wash it down, but when he lifts a wall-flap to reach for the ice bucket...

Two sets of large, red eyes meet his, inches from his face. “Jesus Christ!” Scrambling back, he nearly knocks over another load-bearing pillow. The blanket-wall he opened falls back into place, but Jotun eyes still peer in through gaps on either side.

“Do you need more food?”

“No!” Tony answers, probably too loudly, while Loki snickers.

“They like you,” Loki whispers.

“I don’t like them liking me!” Tony hisses back.

“Would you rather they disliked you?”

“Well no, but this is weird!” Nonetheless, Tony opens the flap again. All nine Jotuns are now crouched on the floor, leaning over each other and craning their necks in search of a better viewing angle into the fort.

Of all the possible series of events Tony imagined falling into place during his adventure on Jotunheim, this was definitely not one. “...Can one of you please pass me the ice bucket?”

The Jotuns quickly oblige, four of them fighting over who gets to actually slide the bucket over to Tony. “Do you need-” one of them starts.

“Nope,” Tony quickly cuts in. “Everything is now perfect. Except... D’you think you guys can move back a little? See, you’re all really cold, and you’re making the air cold, and that makes me cold. So if you could just, you know, mosey on over to the back of the bus...”

After consulting with each other through a series of questioning glances, the Jotuns all scooch back about ten inches.

“...Okay,” says Tony. “I’ll just, um...” Deal with it. He’ll just deal with it. “Thanks.”

He closes up the blanket fort, taking care to tuck in the edges and seal the gaps. Not that these thin walls will do much to discourage Jotun spies (he can already hear them shuffling around out there, searching for new peep-holes), but it makes him feel a little better. And a very slight bit less like a zoo monkey.

ooo

When Helly and Boo-boo finally show up, they want to speak to Loki alone. Which means Helly wants to speak to Loki. Boo-boo still seems stuck in the shyly-whisper-everything-in-his-brother’s-ear phase, so he’ll probably just stare at Loki. Whatever the case, it’s made clear that Tony’s not welcome to join the family hangout. Helblindi gives him a green jewel pendant to wear around his neck, a symbol of being under the king’s protection so the other Jotuns don’t eat him (how thoughtful), and sends him on his way. It’s like the grown-up equivalent to being given a hula hoop and told to go play outside for a while.

And that would be why Tony presently finds himself trudging through the frozen, rocky corridors of whatever the hell this place is. It’s not open landscape. But nor is it an urban center, really. It’s more of a... Well... He stops in the middle of a narrow, snowy path to take a good look around. The best way to describe his surroundings would be like the slave housing on Tatooine in Phantom Menace, except with little house-caves tunneled into cold gray slate instead of sunny sandstone. They’re residences, he’s pretty sure. There’s a Jotun hiding out in that doorway up ahead, carefully observing him. One of the goblin-Jotuns.

The more frost giants he sees, and the more he looks at them, the better Tony’s getting at picking out the differences in their appearances. There are two distinct kinds of Jotuns that he can see. Races, maybe. The goblins and the trolls. The goblins are the ones that look more like Loki, with lean, wiry bodies and skin in a deeper, richer tone of blue. More angular faces and pronounced ridges of bone on their skulls. They are, if Tony can allow himself to make such a judgment call (and yes, he feels weird doing so even in the privacy of his own thoughts), the more attractive ones. Which may just be his Loki-centric bias speaking, but considering the competition...

The trolls are bigger. Bulkier. Barrel-chested and bulldog-faced. Paler, grayer skin, and a bare minimum of cranial ridges if there’s anything up there at all on their bald heads. They also seem, in Tony’s minimal experience, to be the grumpier ones. It was a troll-Jotun who threatened Tony with a snarl and a violent gesture when he accidentally wandered into what was probably a private courtyard. It was a goblin who calmly told him to get the fuck out. Not in those exact words, but the implication was clear.

And then there’s the pack of creepy little white ones that have been following Tony for the past half hour, scuttling through the shadows and hiding behind corners. Based on their size – most of them are close to Tony’s height, and the biggest one looks only a little taller than he is – he’s assuming they’re Jotun children. Incredibly terrifying, nightmarish children with oversized red eyes bulging out of ash white faces, and sharp, skeletal angles jutting under skin that looks like it’s two sizes too small. Whenever he glances back, their gray fangs are bared by lips stretched too tight around gaping mouths. They move with a jerky gait at an awkwardly uneven pace. And as far as Tony is concerned, they are legitimate snow demons.

Compared to these horrible juveniles, the adult Jotuns look positively pleasant. At least the adults have skin that fits and they don’t closely resemble the unfortunate offspring of Voldemort and a Moria orc.

He picks up the pace a bit, making a left turn and heading for a wider open square where he can see a handful of adult Jotuns mingling, talking, and going about their daily business of hauling around dead animal carcasses. The juveniles scurry up to the corner, but don’t follow him any further. Their bug eyes and overstretched mouths look upset; maybe they’re not allowed to leave that little area. What a shame. Tony makes a beeline for the opposite end of the square and takes another quick left to leave the little creep-demons behind.

And suddenly he’s at the edge of town (City? Settlement?), staring out across a plain of jagged ice and whirlwinds of snow. Everything ends abruptly. Homes fade into cliffs, streets become crags, and if Tony stands even ten feet out on the plain and looks back, it’s almost impossible to tell that anything at all lies behind the wall of rock. If he gets lost out here... Good luck ever finding the way home. All the extra cloaks and left boots in Asgard won’t help him for long against the cutting wind. So he walks only as far as he dares, which is about half a mile along the wall. It flows in a shallow curve, which probably means it stands in a ring around the Jotun town. (Settlement. Whatever.) A solid defense.

That does, however, beg the question: what kind of predators exist on this planet that the Jotuns might want to keep out, and exactly how terrifying might those predators be to a puny human?

Right so maybe Tony should turn back now. He can do some more exploring inside the wall or, better yet, just return to Loki and the fire and the blanket fort. He’s probably been out here for almost two hours already. How long do family catch-up talks take? Helly and Loki should be done by now. And even if they aren’t, they’ll just have to deal with a party crasher because Tony’s toes and fingers are starting to feel numb, and not even all these layers of clothes can keep the cold completely out. Yeah. Time to head back.

It’s beautiful out here, he won’t deny, in its own weird, lifeless way. Might be a bit nicer if it weren’t minus a fuckton degrees and he could stand to look with more than one eye through a tiny slit in his hood, but it’s not exactly the white, arctic landscape he was expecting. There’s hardly any snow on the ground. It gathers in drifts here and there, but for the most part the ground is hard, bare, blue ice. Or crystal and rock? Difficult to tell. But here and there crags rise up in shards or wind-eroded, twisted spirals to take the place of trees. Some waist-high, some as tall as a five-story building, casting muddled shadows in the light of the dim, red-orange sun overhead.

That thought makes Tony stop and open his hood enough to squint out into the frozen air with both eyes. There is a sun overhead. And yes, logically, there would have to be for Jotunheim to get its minute amount of heat and any light at all, but it’s bigger than he was expecting. Appearing larger in the sky than Earth’s sun by a factor of at least three. Yet at the same time it has to be giving off only a fraction of the heat and light for Jotunheim to stay so cold and dark. Even at what has to be mid-day, the sky’s as dark as Earth at twilight. But that would only make sense if...

On a hunch, Tony scans the horizon, looking for any gap in the blanket of thick, gray clouds. And it’s not much, but rising up through a break in the gloom at the edge of the wall is a long, thin, yellow crescent that on a clear day would dominate the skyline. The crown of a planet.

ooo

“It’s a moon,” he says, bursting through the door as if that’s a common announcement to make while bursting through a door. “Jotunheim isn’t a planet, but a large moon orbiting a larger planet that’s in turn orbiting a red dwarf star!”

The bedroom may not exactly be warm by Earth standards, but that doesn’t stop Tony from shedding the excess weight of most of his Asgardian outer layers before joining Loki by the fire. “I could barely see the planet, but it’s there. And a planet close enough to a red dwarf to be in the habitable zone would be tidally locked, meaning no cycle of day and night, resulting in a tiny window for life between the overheated front side and the unheated back. But a moon orbiting that tidally locked planet, being itself tidally locked to the planet, could have a simulated night as it passed around the planet’s far side to regulate the atmosphere. And I’m pretty sure that’s the case with Jotunheim. Moon. It’s a moon. It has to be.”

“Oh,” says Loki.

“Oh?” Tony repeats? “That’s it? Oh? Another major scientific discovery by yours truly and all you can say is ‘oh’?”

“Tony... I don’t...”

He doesn’t even need to look up for Tony to see what’s wrong. In the gleam of firelight, Loki’s eyes are red. Not in the Jotun way. “Oh,” says Tony. And just like that, the feeling of exhilaration drains away, siphoned down into the floor. Right. Loki was back here talking to the brothers he’s never known, trying to force a patch over a thousand years of distant hatred. “Sorry, I... I guess I got kind of overexcited and caught up in the...” Irrelevant details that can wait until later. “You okay?”

“Not as such, no.”

Now what does he say to that? “Oh,” again. Not exactly good enough, but it’s situations like this that always make him feel like he has a brick wall built across the width of his brain: a barrier between those impossible-to-define, liquid feelings of concern and the words that might make them whole. Emotions always seem to have a life of their own on the other side of that wall, feral and elusive, dodging every effort to confine or articulate them. “Do you... want to talk about anything?”

Loki’s gaze turns to the fire and stays there. “No.”

“Okay.” Shit. There has to be something physically wrong with him that he can’t even think of a single thing better or more reassuring, or at the very least... compassionate. And there are probably more things wrong, too, that it feels so awkward sliding up to Loki’s side and draping a hesitant arm over his shoulder. Going in for the quick physical fix while everything he wants to say, everything he should say, is soaring weightlessly overhead.

“You don’t have to do that,” Loki mutters.

“Do... Sit beside you?” Tony asks.

“Feel obliged to stay in here when I’m so depressingly miserable and you’d be much better off going back outside to be excited about space.”

“I don’t feel obliged. It’s cold outside and space’ll be there tomorrow. I just think it might be a good idea to... talk about this.” Somehow.

“I’d rather not.”

“You sure? Because you seem pretty upset, and...” People talk when they’re upset. It’s what you’re supposed to do. Iron out life’s glitches with a steamroller of words.

Loki sighs. “Tony, I know you mean well, but I think I would rather be alone right now.”

“And with all due respect, I think you probably shouldn’t be alone right now. I know you’re the kind of person who internalizes and holds onto absolutely everything way more than you should, and ten years down the road you’ll still be upset about it. So maybe you should tell me what happened and maybe I can help you sort through some shit. Or if you really don’t want to talk about your brothers, at least let me distract you with stupid moon rambling. And maybe things will seem better in an hour and we can talk then.”

“You don’t have to...” Loki starts again, though with a lot less conviction.

“No, I know. I don’t have to do anything. That’s one of the main perks of being me and being rich and fabulous. But I told you when this whole shitstorm started that I care about you and I want to take care of you, and I guess that means making you grudgingly talk about your family and pretending I’m any good at this kind of touchy-feely heartfelt whatever-it-is. Instead of being outside making up wild hypotheses about space, which I actually am good at. Awesome, even.”

A threadbare hint of a smile is better than nothing as Loki slowly shakes his head. “You are ridiculous, Tony Stark.”

“I am unable to refute that observation,” Tony agrees. “But my being ridiculous has no bearing on the fact that I do care about you, and I want to be here if you need me, and I love you, and...”

...Well. That slipped on by the wall. Weaseled its way through and, by the looks of things, struck Loki smack across the face. His mouth has fallen open in a silent exclamation.

“...stuff,” Tony finishes. Stupidly. But the whole conversation did start stupidly, so a full circle of stupid is a fitting eventuality. And as the hundreds of millions of frantic thoughts speeding like a cyclone behind Loki’s wide eyes settle into one shocked reaction...

“Oh,” Loki murmurs once he can move his mouth again.

“Yeah,” whispers Tony. “So... That’s a thing I said. Uh. Would you mind... Could you, like, tackle me in a crazy hug or something so this doesn’t feel so embarrassingly one-sided and weird? Maybe?”

“Yes, I, um... Yes,” says Loki, leaning forward. One arm reaches over Tony’s shoulder; the other circles around his waist. It’s fumbling and awkward, but... at least it feels like Loki. Which is exactly what it should feel like. Tony pulls him closer, and Loki responds in kind, clasping his arms behind Tony’s back and squishing him in a way that gets noticeably less restrained with each passing heartbeat. “Might you be able to... say that again?” he asks.

“What, all the rambling crap or the ‘I love you’ fiasco?”

“Yes, that, thank you.”

Tony squishes him right back. And takes care not to say anything else, because chances are it would come out really stupidly schmoopy.

But on a completely different note... “You, um, wanna talk about your family now?”

“No. I’d rather you take my mind off of them. Tell me about this moon.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Tony clears his throat, shifting his weight as much as he can into a more comfortable position while still accommodating the Loki-cuddle. Changing subjects doesn’t mean he has to give that up just yet. “I can’t really tell much because of the thick cloud cover in the atmosphere, but it looks like Jotunheim isn’t a planet at all. It’s a large moon orbiting what’s probably a gas giant within the tiny habitable zone of a red dwarf star. I wish I could get a better view of the planet. It looked big, but... Does the cloud cover ever dissipate?”

Loki shrugs. “Nn-nn.” (That clearly translates into ‘I don’t know’.)

“Anyway it’s not just clouds blocking out light that make this place so dark. A red dwarf doesn’t emit much light to begin with, and most of its output is in the infrared spectrum. But I’m willing to bet Jotuns can see that. You said back in Phoenix they can see heat, so it would make sense that they can pick up the infrared radiation given off by objects that produce heat.”

“Well I could have told you that,” says Loki.

“Well you didn’t, so I had to figure it out for myself,” Tony replies, into Loki’s hair. “Lucky for me I’m a world-renowned genius and now, by default, Earth’s leading expert in the field of Jotunology.”

“No, I think I might be.”

“You’re not from Earth. You don’t count. But anyway, that reminds me of something. The weird skinny white Jotuns. Are those children?”

“Yes. Did you accidentally wander into a residential area?”

“I think so. I got yelled at by some guys and then the herd of children started stalking me. They freak me out. Are they supposed to be white and skinny, or are they sick or something?”

“They’re supposed to be white,” Loki tells him. “Jotun infants are born dark blue and with a thick layer of body fat, but lose their fat and pigmentation around age four when they begin learning how to hunt on their own. They turn blue again once they reach maturity.”

“Okay yeah, you’re the grand master of Jotunology,” says Tony. “Is this the kind of thing you pick up over the years as a prince of Asgard?”

“No. Asgard tends to deliberately ignore Jotunheim. Apart from vilifying the Jotnar, of course.”

“Then what? You study?”

Loki breathes in, and out, and in again before answering. “My... mother brought me books while I was in prison.”

“Ah.” And Tony doesn’t push any further, because that sounded a lot like the ‘don’t want to talk about my family’ tone of voice. Specifically, the ‘don’t want to talk about why I was brushing up on Jotun knowledge’ subset. He moves on to the next point. “Anyway, new question. Are there different races of Jotuns?   Like, different sizes and skin colors?”

“No.”

“But there are obviously two different kinds that I saw today,” Tony insists. “The darker, pointier ones like you and your brothers, and the bigger, grayer, bulkier ones like most of our guards.”

Loki pulls back just enough to look Tony in the face with a dumbfounded expression. “The larger ones are females.” (You idiot.)

“...Ohhhhh.” Right, okay, that’s probably something he should have guessed upon encountering two distinct body types among the local population. Male and female. That would make sense, and also handily answer the question of why he didn’t see any ‘female’ Jotuns earlier.

“You were expecting breasts, weren’t you?” Loki asks with a sideways smirk.

“Um, to be honest... Maybe,” Tony admits. “Yes. But in all fairness, I was not necessarily expecting two. I would have also have been totally fine with an unusual number of alien boobs.”

“How disappointing for you,” Loki says, settling back down against Tony’s chest.

“Yeah, but fortunate for you. If all the ladies look like that, you have zero competition for being the most attractive Jotun.”

“You’ve decided what constitutes an attractive Jotun?”

“I don’t need boobs to tell me what’s hot.”

And Loki actually laughs at that, which has to be a good sign. Maybe Tony can risk asking one crucial question.

“Did your brother say anything about whether or not we can go back to Earth any time soon?”

“He said he’d consider our options,” says Loki.

“Okay.” Tony nods. That sounds good. If Helly’s considering, that means it’s something he and Loki talked about, and a valid potential outcome. And wait, if he’s considering... “So he knows where the path to Earth is?”

“Yes,” Loki answers. That one word alone is enough to make Tony’s heart leap. “Laufey knew. Jotunheim once invaded Midgard. That was the cause of the war with Asgard, and how I came to be in Odin’s possession, in fact. Helblindi knows where the path is, but he says it was sealed by Odin at the end of the war. If he lets us go, I believe we will need to clear away Odin’s blockade, though I do not know what sort of blockade it may be: physical or magical. Helblindi did not say.”

“Pretty sure we can make short work of either,” says Tony, making a conscious decision to ignore that part about the Jotun invasion. If they unseal the path and the Jotuns decide to have another go... Well, that’s something for Future Tony to deal with. Present Tony just cares about getting back home. “You’re the self-proclaimed greatest sorcerer on Asgard, and we’ve got the scepter to help. I have two master’s degrees in making stuff explode. Piece of cake.”

“I appreciate your optimism,” Loki says before lapsing into silence. The kind of comfortable, peaceful silence that should probably only be broken by a really important question.

A question like: “What are you thinking about?”

“Things,” is Loki’s typically vague answer. “You?”

“How nice it’ll be to get back to Earth. Take a long bath. Towels fresh out of the dryer. Pizza. Sitting around in front of the TV. Making you watch all my favorite robot movies from the 80s. Having sex all day. The two of us being able to do nothing and not have to worry about Jotun kings or Asgard or S.H.I.E.L.D..”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. will likely still be a problem.”

Hm. That’s probably true. “Eh, nothing a couple weeks hiding out in Maui won’t solve.”

Loki’s soft ‘hm’ sounds like he doesn’t quite believe that, but once again, S.H.I.E.L.D. interference is a problem for Future Tony to deal with. “Anything you eager to do once we get back?”

“Bath sounds appealing. As does sex all day.”

“What are your thoughts on sex in the bath?”

“Entirely positive.”

“Good. I’ll pencil that in for every morning.”

“Tony?” Loki says, very quietly.

“Yeah?”

The first words trickle out of his mouth at a glacial pace; the last fall rapidly like a tumble of stones. “I, ah... I do... I... love you too, you know.”

“I know,” Tony whispers. “I can tell by the way you’re squeezing me so hard I can barely breathe.”

“Sorry.”

“Not sorry enough to stop?”

“No.”

Tony kisses the edge of his hairline and squeezes him right back. “It’s okay. I’ll live.”

Chapter Text

Newton’s third law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now normally this applies to physics in the sense that if you throw a tennis ball at a brick wall, it’s going to bounce back and probably hit you in the crotch because physics has a dumb slapstick sense of humor. But it also applies to life in general, if in a slightly less mechanically predictable way. The life version can be summed up as ‘every time something good happens, something shitty also happens to balance out the universe and keep you from feeling too powerful’. This is frequently connected to Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

As it stands, the course of actions/reactions thus far is as follows:

1. Find way to Asgard/and subsequently learn Loki is in prison.
2. Free Loki from prison/by making him a slave.
3. Escape from Asgard/only to wind up on Jotunheim.
4. Discover ancient space path back to Earth/???

Tony’s pretty sure the reaction half of that equation is ‘and it’s inaccessible’, but he’s trying to stay optimistic for now despite the weird feeling in his gut that something is off. Something isn’t right. Something is biding its time before biting him in the ass. Whatever something might be is too hard to pin down right now, and all he can say for certain is that he has a Han Solo-esque bad feeling about this, but it probably relates to the return plan. Because what kind of plan would it be if it didn’t go tits up immediately upon implementation?

“What time is it?” he asks Loki, biting back a yawn. It feels late. His head’s starting to go fuzzy from being awake for so long.

Loki replies without looking up from the secretive weird magic thing he’s doing in the corner (which he specifically told Tony not to interrupt). “I don’t know. You’re the one with a watch.”

Midnight. It’s midnight, at least back home. However, that’s completely meaningless on Jotunheim, as Tony’s now harboring a strong suspicion that this stupid place runs on days that are nowhere near 24 hours. “I meant what time is it... Ehh never mind,” he says, letting the thought straggle off into a muddled grunt. “The last guards that were in here said Helly would be stopping by to see us this afternoon. Afternoon ended hours ago by Earth standards. When’s he coming? I’m tired and cranky and need my beauty sleep.”

In response to that, Loki mutters something that sounds like, “You? Cranky?” Though too quiet for Tony to be able to tell for sure. Not too quiet for him to be annoyed by it.

“I heard that!” he snaps.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I heard something that sounded like it!”

“You should try to get some sleep, Tony,” Loki says as he stands. And there’s something dangling from his hand as he crosses the room: Helblindi’s green jewel pendant. He places it back around Tony’s neck, carefully nestling the uncut gem against Tony’s quilted Asgardian shirt. “There. That should work.”

To Tony’s eyes, the jewel looks no different. “What’d you do?”

“I can ward myself easily enough, but it’s difficult to keep that ward over you when we’re apart. This will be more effective. As long as you wear the pendant, you will remain unseen by Heimdall’s intrusive gaze. No matter where I am or what may happen. Don’t take it off.”

It doesn’t feel any different to his curious fingertips, either. No tingle of magic, no spark of power. Just a little bit of warmth from Loki’s touch. “Thanks,” he says. “Though I hope this doesn’t mean you plan on ditching me any time soon.”

“Merely a precaution,” Loki answers. “In case we’re separated, or I spend too long as a Jotun and the enchantment I’ve cast over us fades.”

His hands rise up to Tony’s hair, raking through with a gentle scratch, and damn that feels good. Tony lets his eyes fall closed and his head drop forward, resting against Loki’s chest. His arms find their way around Loki’s waist without even having to give the action any thought. “You think we’ll be here long enough for you to lose control and go native?”

“I hope not.”

“Same,” Tony mutters. “I need to get out of here. As soon as fucking possible.”

Loki’s hands work down to Tony’s neck, crawling along his spine with a half massage, half caress. “What happened to all your moon-related excitement?”

“You know when everything’s going great?” Tony asks, looking up. “Or at least okay? And you’re really into unraveling some alien space mysteries, until suddenly... You hit a wall. And it knocks the air out of you and takes away all your momentum. So in case you didn’t guess by my totally vague example that could apply to anybody with a keen interest in alien space mysteries, I have hit a wall. Maybe I’m just tired because my sleep schedule’s shot to shit. But I’m also tired of... everything. Being in all these crazy places. One thing after another. Never knowing what might happen next. I just...” He tightens his hold around Loki’s waist and drops his head back down again. “I just want to go home. I’m done. Done with Asgard and Jotunheim. I haven’t showered in days and I smell like a monkey with four asses and my hair is disgusting but please don’t stop combing your fingers through it because that feels really nice. And I have to pee again but I don’t have the energy to go outside like an animal, but I also don’t want to give up and go on the floor like... um... a different kind of animal. I hate this.”

“Poor Tony,” Loki whispers, and leans down to kiss the top of his head. “You do smell rather interesting.”

“Shut up. So do you. Kind of. Not really. Actually that’s probably my smell rubbing off on you.”

“Shall I take you outside for a pee?”

“No, I’m not a dog. Also when I went earlier some Jotuns stared at me and it was weird.”

“Well, they don’t have liquid urine, so they wouldn’t understand what you were doing.”

“I figured as much. Do they poop? Wait, do you poop? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you. You took a piss once in front of me but that’s it.”

“I’m not answering that question.”

“Why not?” Tony asks. “Everybody poops. I poop in front of you all the time.”

“I know,” says Loki, “and I always tell you how I wish you wouldn’t.”

Tony looks up again. “Sorry, no. That’s part of the gay relationship bonus. No need to hide this stuff like you do with women.”

“You should try to hide it. Just because I’m in the bath does not mean you have an open invitation to come in and sit on the toilet and talk to me while you-”

“Loki, I can’t help when I gotta go. You may have been in the bath, but the toilet was free.”

“There were three toilets in your house in Phoenix!”

“Yeah, and I wanted to talk to you in that one, so...”

“I’m taking you outside,” Loki says, grunting with what’s probably annoyance rather than effort while grabbing Tony under the arms and pulling him to his feet.

“I’m not a dog!” Tony insists, but to be honest, all this talk of bathrooms hasn’t done much to alleviate his need to pee. So he goes along with it. Lets Loki lead him out the door and through the corridors, past the empty throne stadium and over to a secluded alley-crevice where he can piss in private. At least there are no Jotuns watching this time. “You need to go too?”

“No. My body is far more efficient than yours when it comes to the processing of waste materials.”

“So does that mean you don’t poop at all?”

“I told you,” Loki growls, “I am not answering that question. It’s none of your concern.”

“Yes it is. It’s my concern. I have a vested interest in your ass. So... Hey, where are you going?!”

“To find Helblindi,” Loki says over his shoulder as he heads back in the direction of the stadium.

“Did I annoy you into taking action?”

Amazingly, Loki doesn’t answer.

“I know you do poop,” Tony calls after him. “If you didn’t, you’d deny it outright and call me an idiot for thinking you stooped to such lowliness, and logic dictates you wouldn’t even have an ass if you didn’t use it for its intended purpose.”

“As opposed to unintended purposes?” Loki asks as Tony runs to catch up.

“Well yeah,” says Tony. “And the unintended purpose for something is always way more fun than its official, sanctioned use. Do you know anybody who uses Zig-Zags for tobacco? That’s just weird.”

“Weirder than your insistence on discussing your exhibitionist defecation habits?”

Tony shrugs. “Everybody poops,” he says again.

“I know. You mentioned. You seem oddly preoccupied with informing me thusly. But for the time being, can we please move on to more pressing topics and put our efforts into finding Helblindi so he can show us the path to Midgard?”

There’ll be no complaints from Tony about this plan of action. The flaw, however, lies in the fact that neither of them has any clue where Helblindi actually is, though it takes a good twenty minutes of Loki walking in confident-looking circles for Tony to catch onto this. And even after he does, they still keep purposefully walking in circles. As if the one they seek will be right behind this next corner, or just up ahead, or at the end of this long stretch of icy road. There are other Jotuns out on the town going about their Jotun business, but none of them is the one they’re looking for. Even asking around doesn’t do much good. As luck would have it, nobody’s seen Helblindi since that morning.

“What if we just go back and wait?” Tony suggests. “Maybe he’s there already, trying to find us. He said he’d come by this afternoon. The light out here looks like it’s still afternoon, even if my watch...” Almost one in the morning, says the watch. “I’m all screwed up. Time doesn’t make sense here.”

“No, he’s close,” says Loki. “I can sense his-”

Abruptly, Loki stops just after rounding another corner, forcing Tony to screech to a halt to avoid a collision. “What? Is he there?”

Looking over Loki’s shoulder, though, Tony can see that... no, nothing at all is there. And by ‘nothing’ he really means that literally. Nothing. No Jotuns, no houses, no streets, no ice, no snow, no ground: nothing. An empty, gaping crater of a hole so wide Tony can’t see the other side, and so deep the bottom is buried down in that murky lake of shadows. “What the...”

Loki takes one shaky step back, and one stumble to the side, until he bumps into a wall that’s been damaged and pitted by flying debris.

“What is this?” Tony asks. “It looks like a meteor impact, but...” But huge. And new. This crater isn’t some ancient feature the Jotuns built around: it’s recent enough that halves of houses still crumble at its rim. The edges, fresh and sharp, show no signs of long-term erosion. Stepping too close sends a miniature trickle of an avalanche clattering down into the abyss. “Weird.” Tony turns back to look at Loki. “Did you know about this?”

Loki’s answer is quiet, careful, and vaguely distant as ever. “Yes.”

“What happened?”

That question is answered by the tensing of a muscle in Loki’s jaw rather than actual words. Leaning against the broken wall, he slowly slides down into a seated crouch on the rubble at his feet, hands clasping with a white-knuckle grip at the remains of the house at his back. Worried? As if, maybe, whatever made that crater isn’t quite done its work yet? As if it might come back without warning to finish the job, carving out a greater radius of destruction across the whole-

“Oh shit.”

And oh shit again, Tony didn’t mean to say that out loud. Loki tried to destroy Jotunheim, Thor had said. Tony knew that. Tony knew that, even if the specific piece of knowledge had been moved around and rearranged inside his head: shoved aside, filed away. Destroy Jotunheim. He knew that, though now he has a hard time saying what exact picture may have been in his head, attached to the idea. Destroy... Minor explosions? An invading army? Some fuzzy, nebulous concept of war? Did he even have a mental picture?

Loki tried to destroy Jotunheim, and this is the aftermath. An empty, gaping hole where civilization used to stand. Whatever used to be here is gone, and how many lives along with it?

“We should go,” Tony says, because he needs to say something in the unnatural silence of the crater. And he needs to do something, so he grabs Loki by the arm, trying to haul him up and coax him away. “Come on. Let’s go. You don’t need to look at this.”

“Yes I do,” Loki whispers, shrugging off Tony’s grip. Wide-eyed, he stares out across the ragged mile of nothing. Hypnotized. Or paralyzed.

“No, you don’t. Not right now. Come on, stand up.”

“I...” He won’t move.

“Loki, please, just come with me. Let’s go back inside. Maybe Helblindi’s there and-”

“I tried to kill all of them.”

“I know,” says Tony. Maybe if he kneels on the shattered ground next to Loki, arm slipping under Loki’s arm, around his back...

“No, Tony, I tried to kill all of them.”

“Thor told me. Come on. Stand up. Let’s-”

“No,” Loki says, solid as steel, and he wrenches his gaze away from the crater and looks Tony in the eye. “I tried to kill. All. Of. Them. All of them. The entire realm. All of Jotunheim. All of them.”

“Loki, you were-”

“I was what?” he snarls. “Delusional? Mad? Beyond reason?”

“Upset,” Tony offers. “Angry.”

Loki almost laughs at that: a sharp, bark of laughter that’s in no way amused. “Angry! Angry people say horrible things or throw dishes against the wall or start fistfights! They don’t... They don’t...” He drops his head down, mashing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Fingers twist in the windblown hair tangling across his forehead. “They don’t...”

“Loki, you can’t dwell on this right now. You-”

“Yes I can.”

“-You need to come with me and not think too much about any of-”

“I need to think about it.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“NEITHER IS YOUR USELESS INSISTENCE THAT I SHOULD PRETEND EVERYTHING IS FINE!” Loki shouts, voice tearing through the air and knocking Tony back like a physical blow. “It’s not! It’s not fine! It’s not... fine... I did this. I chose to do this. And I was not... I was not mad or... delusional. I thought I was... I was convinced I was doing the right thing. I knew I was. I was doing a great and noble thing to ensure the glory of Asgard and prove my worth as king. I was doing what Odin should have done a thousand years ago. I would have crushed Jotunheim to dust and killed everyone upon it. Vermin. They were... That’s all they were. Vermin to be exterminated.   And I... I tried to...”

His words break down, disintegrating into nothing more than an extended breath: the weight of guilt smothers any more before they can find the strength to support themselves.

“Okay,” Tony whispers. Just a word. Just ‘okay’. He knows that sound and that sigh: the voice of crumbling defeat. A too-familiar sound. Hits a bit too close to home and dredges up memories from the dark place in his head where he stores that kind of thing. Catches on the raw edges that’ll sometimes scab over but never completely heal. “I, uh,” he begins, but stops. Shifts his weight. Sits down. Sits there on the frozen, ruined ground and wraps his arm around Loki’s shoulders. Feels each rough and shaking breath. “Can I...” he tries. “Can I tell you something?”

Loki’s answer takes a long time to come, barely audible over the sound of the wind. “Yes.”

“You know... My company used to make weapons. Hi-tech, dangerous, really fucked up weapons, now that I think about it. And I’d ship them off to be used against some poor assholes on the other side of the world, because those people didn’t count, right? They were terrorists or insurgents or militants or whatever you want to call them, but the bottom line was their lives didn’t matter because they were against whatever I was for, or for whatever I was against... And they weren’t even real people. They were just some abstract idea with a label that said they were bad and it was A-OK to wipe ‘em all out. I thought I was doing the right thing. Just like you said. Being the hero.   But then I got to Afghanistan and saw... I saw missiles with my name on them used against not only my own allies but also all these innocent civilians everyone likes to forget about when waging war. My name. Right on the shell. My endorsement. See, weapons are a shady business. There’s no real way to stop products from making their way into the wrong hands. I started with all these noble intentions and at the end of it all, you know what? A rocket doesn’t care if it’s aimed at a bunker full of terrorists or a mosque full of families; it’ll obliterate whatever it hits just the same. Anyway.” He clears his throat. “Stark Industries no longer manufactures that garbage. I remember the awful, sick feeling of looking around and knowing I was ultimately responsible for every single horrific thing I saw... And I know it’s not exactly the same thing as what you’re going through here, but I think I can still understand some of what you feel. So.... yeah.”

“Yeah,” Loki echoes back. It’s not the most readable of words.

Tony pulls his double cloaks around the both of them: as cozy a cocoon as he can manage out here in the icy air. Whether or not Loki leans into him is up for debate, but that might’ve been some uncertain little movement that he felt. “Yeah,” he repeats. “And can I say another thing?”

“Mm.”

“After that whole, uh... incident, I locked myself away for three months and didn’t interact with the world and just basically moped and felt sorry for myself. I built the suit, but as a distraction and a way to separate myself from everything. Keep busy, keep safe. I only started to feel a little better and ultimately move on with my life after I actively started trying to help people. So I what I’m saying when I tell you this isn’t a good thing for you, sitting here, is that I’ve been there and I know what it feels like when you have that... panicky need, I guess, to hide inside your own head with all the bad thoughts. Like if you obsess over them all and cut yourself up from the inside then enough scar tissue will form and it’ll start to hurt less. Just so you know, it doesn’t. But I’m not saying you should pretend nothing’s wrong. What I’m saying is you shouldn’t let your mistakes own you. And you don’t have to face it all at once. You don’t have to drown in it. I really don’t want to see you do the same thing I did for so long and convince yourself there’s no way out of this. I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking right now because you better believe I thought it about myself too, but you’re not a terrible person, Loki.”

“Yes, I actually am.”

“No, a terrible person wouldn’t show this kind of remorse. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re a scary fucker when you’re angry, and you’ve made some amazingly bad choices, which will never go away because you can’t undo the past. But you also can’t dwell on it. You have to move on. Find a way to make things right.”

“How in the Nine Realms could I possibly make this disaster right?” Loki mutters.

“Dunno,” Tony admits. “I was never able to make the whole situation with the Ten Rings right. It’s still a huge fucking shit show over there, but it’s not exactly the kind of thing I can fix by myself. Best I could do was cut off the supply of new weapons and get myself out of that whole business. Realign the focus of my company over to civilian tech and energy solutions. The core guilt will probably never go away, but at least I feel a little better knowing that now my name is attached to stuff that’s helping the world instead of blowing it up.”

“Such a course of action is not so much applicable here.”

“No but maybe it is,” says Tony, shifting around so he can look Loki in the face. Or at least he’d be able to do so if Loki ever raised his damn chin. “Obviously you can’t fix this damage. But maybe you can fix something else. Look around. This whole places is...” A ruin. A collapsing desolation that began its slow death long before Loki ever tried to speed things up. “It’s falling apart. Everything. The streets, the buildings, the houses, that temple we were in? It all looks like it’s a thousand years old and shot to hell. You could help with this.”

And now Loki finally, finally, looks up. “How? Jotunheim is treated as a non-entity by the other realms. Since the war with Asgard, trade and even contact is severely limited. The Jotnar lost everything. Any technology they once possessed, and any motivation to keep their land strong. Asgard made certain of that.”

“Lemme take a sec to point out that in addition to being a dick and making bad choices, you also have a shitty attitude. Luckily, I don’t, so I think I can help you. Loki, if you’re good at anything, it’s manipulating people into doing what you want. I bet you could convince Thor to lift or at least lessen whatever sanctions Asgard’s been imposing on Jotunheim.

Loki rolls his eyes; he has a really shitty attitude. “Oh yes, of course, let me go speak to him right now, since I’m in such an ideal position to do so...”

“Cut the pity party,” says Tony. “We’ll think of some way to make it work. Helly, for however terrifying he is, actually seems like he might be a reasonable guy. I bet you could coach him on how to talk to Thor and Odin, and get Asgard and Jotunheim back on good terms.”

“No.” Flat out answer there from Loki, ever the optimist. “It won’t work. There’s too much history of enmity.”

“You don’t know until you try.”

But Loki just drops his head back down, once again hiding his face in his hands. “No.”

“Fine, fine,” Tony says. If that’s the way Loki wants to be... Maybe this needs to happen for now, at least for a while, much as his conscience is screaming at him to do anything to spare Loki the pain. For the time being, he’ll stay seated where he is, keeping his cloaks and one sheltering arm thrown around Loki’s unsteady shoulders. Protect him from the outside.

Along the side of the rim some hundred feet away, four naked, white children have started up a game of running and leaping off the edge into the crumbling rock of the crater’s bowl. They slide down into the shadows on ice-coated hands and feet before scrambling back up to leap again. Four times, six times, ten times... Their feral shouts of excitement ring out under the low cloud cover. Is that a classic sign of hope in this dreary place? Tony’s going to have to believe it is.

After what has to be nearly half an hour, Loki inhales a bracing breath. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“Huh?” Tony turns his attention back to Loki. “For what?”

“Not leaving.”

“Hey, I didn’t leave you when you tried to destroy my own home planet. What makes you think destroying your own would be any deterrent?”

At least that makes Loki laugh. It’s the kind of choking, catching, sobbing laugh you get at the end of a good cry, but that’s progress, isn’t it? Loki looks up and wipes away the wet mess of tears on his cheek with the back of his hand. “You’re such an idiot...”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees.

“They, um...” Loki begins. “They... wanted me, you know.”

“What?”

His voice is so quiet. “My family. My Jotun family. They wanted me. Odin said I had been abandoned because I was small but... There was a story when I was younger. The sort of secret story children whisper to each other in the dark: the tale of Laufey’s firstborn son, the missing prince of Jotunheim, abandoned to die or killed by his own father as a testament to Jotun savagery. My story. No-one knew what happened to him. He disappeared as an infant at the end of the war, and rumors grew in Asgard... But they were all lies. I suppose no-one bothered to ask the truth of Laufey. Just repeated the lies. Lies are more entertaining. But I wasn’t abandoned. I was stolen. The version of the story told on Jotunheim had the lost prince cruelly murdered by Odin. And the Jotnar mourned my death. They wanted me. They loved me.”

Loki pauses, but what is there for Tony to say to fill the silence? There are no words. So his hand moves up to Loki’s neck, squeezing gently, hoping that says enough.

“I think I might have been happy here. I think... The more I learn of Jotunheim, the more I see those traits in myself and find so many compound reasons why I always felt so alone in Asgard. I think I would have been better here. Better being Jotun. Better being wanted. Certainly the universe would have been better off with me here and out of the way instead of orchestrating chaos as Odin’s unnecessary burden.”

“I wouldn’t have been better off,” says Tony.

“You don’t know that.”

“Well no, but neither do you. Maybe you would’ve been happier growing up as a Jotun, maybe not. Maybe you’d settle down with some huge Jotun lady and have yourself a couple of those creepy skeleton kids. Maybe you’d still be a total shit disturber and stir up a new war with Asgard and things would be just as bad. Maybe if you’d never come to Earth I never would’ve gotten involved with the whole Avengers thing and Pepper and I never would’ve split up and we’d get married and get one of those weird trendy dogs and end up being featured in an interior design magazine for our delightful new dining room décor. Or we might get married and divorced the next year and she’d take half my money, leaving me to squander the rest on booze and gambling as I tumble into obscurity until finally ten years from now my death is announced as an afterthought at the end of the news and everyone’s like, ‘Wow, that guy was still alive? I thought he died in 2014.’”

“You seem to have thought this through.”

Tony nods. “Yeah, every time Pepper and I fought I’d get these bleak visions of a future in which I die alone, miserable, and forgotten in a Las Vegas penthouse. Anyway. Thinking about that kind of stuff, the could-have-beens and the if-onlys, is a surefire way to drive yourself nuts. This is the life we’re stuck in. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad things turned out the way they did. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Then you’re a complacent fool,” Loki says, but that doesn’t stop him from dropping his head down to rest on Tony’s shoulder.

“Probably the first time I’ve ever been called that in my life, but sure,” says Tony, leaning right back against Loki’s sagging form. “A complacent fool I am.”

ooo

Somehow, Helly finds them there, still sitting by the crater. He walks up with surprisingly light steps to stand beside Tony for a minute before crouching down. “So,” he says. “You have found our great disaster.”

“Yeah,” Tony answers after an uncomfortable moment of silence and no word from Loki.

“A final gift of war from Asgard.”

Loki may not be up to it, but Tony can’t quite help pushing a little to test the waters. “Guess you must want revenge for that, huh?”

Under the cloaks, Loki punches him in the thigh.

Helblindi, though, considers the question. “No,” he finally says. “We tried revenge. For far too long. My father was driven by revenge and in the end it earned him only death. I would have understanding.”

Under the cloaks, Tony punches Loki right back. “Sounds like a better idea to me.”

“Hm,” Helblindi grunts. “Perhaps, but it is an unlikely dream. Now, I would ask both of you to come with me. I have something to show you.”

Something to do with returning to Earth? Tony thinks to himself as he stands, making sure Loki follows suit. He can hope for the best. Helblindi leads the way back inside, turning down a side corridor and into a little room like an office with shelves carved into the rock walls and a hewn stone table. A stone table that happens to be tall enough that Tony can just barely peek over the top. Whatever Helblindi has on there that he wants to share better come down a couple feet for the benefit of the normal size people.

Luckily, Helblindi takes that into account. He grabs a rough leather scroll from the table and puts it down on the floor, rolling out the cracked and curled edges. “This is an old map,” he says before Tony can ask the obvious question, “showing the location of the path to Midgard. Over here.” His finger traces a wavering line from a circular marking at the bottom of the scroll – that has to be the city – up to a point that’s marked off with words in a scratchy script Tony can’t read.

“What does this path look like?” Tony asks.

“A cave.”

Of course. “What’s in the cave?”

“Nothing. It is only a cave.”

Tony lifts his head to meet Helblindi’s eyes. “A... cave? Just a cave?”

“Yes.”

“Then how does it work?”

“You walk through the cave and on the other end is Midgard,” says Helblindi, giving Tony a questioning look as if Tony’s the weird one for doubting this whole cave-travel scenario.

Tony turns to Loki, who is, naturally, giving a slightly more humanly expressive version of the same look. (You idiot.) “And that’s it?” he asks both of them. “We just walk to a cave?”

No, that’s too simple, and the requisite bad news comes swooping in on the tail end of Helblindi’s frown. “Passing through the cave is not the difficult part of this task. First you must reach the cave.”

“And what’s in the way?”

“A wall of formed rock,” says Helblindi, “which must be breached. But that can be done easily enough, and is of little concern. Of greater danger is the guardian, left by Odin at the end of the war. A sleepless warrior with skin of blackened metal. Endless fire burns him from the inside and spews from his eyes. None can pass.”

A shiver of dread at that description rolls down Tony’s spine as he turns to Loki again. “Skin of blackened metal,” he repeats. “A robot?”

“A destroyer,” Loki murmurs. And the expression on his face when he says those words isn’t reassuring in the slightest.

“Bring me the guardian’s head,” Helblindi says, speaking to Loki. “Bring his head and I will consider your debt paid and your honor restored. You and your mate will claim titles as princes of Jotunheim and may pass freely through this realm as you wish. But kill the guardian. And return to me. And prove your loyalty.”

Chapter Text

They stop at the crest of the next jutting rise in the land, Tony pushing back his hood and pulling down his scarf. Out here on the barren ice plain the wind bites too fast and too deep to keep his skin exposed for more than a minute, but that’s enough to at least gulp in a few breaths of fresh air before bundling up again. He rearranges the weight of his cloak, rolls his shoulders to stretch, and turns to Loki. “Okay. Your go.”

Loki, with his Jotun advantage of not feeling the cold, looks absurdly underdressed in a single suede coat and light cape. “Would you rather,” he begins, before pausing to brush the accumulated snow and frost from his hair. “Would you rather witness a horrible event and be powerless to stop it, or be the only person able to prevent said horrible event from happening, only you find out about it too late?”

“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Tony says with a nod. “I’m gonna say... I’d rather be powerless to stop it. I think if I had the ability to stop something but missed the chance, I’d have a real hard time forgiving myself and getting over it.”

“Agreed,” says Loki.

“So where’s our next checkpoint?”

“You don’t want to rest here a moment?”

“Nah, it’s warmer to keep walking. Let’s go a little longer then maybe break out some food. I’m definitely looking forward to some delicious stale Jotun biscuits.”

“I told you, Jotnar don’t cook,” Loki says as he scans the horizon. “Those are delicious stale elf biscuits. What about that one over there?”

He’s pointing off at a blip of a hill a mile or so away, shimmering with a crown of icy light against the darker slate sky. “Looks good,” Tony agrees. “Wanna race?”

“Don’t be foolish. You know I’d win.”

Yeah, probably. Loki has the obvious advantage when it comes to trudging across the bleak Jotunheim landscape, unencumbered by too many layers of clothing. In his soft Asgardian shoes, he can walk twice as easily and lightly as Tony. Who continues to plod along in mismatched boots. By the time they reach the top of the hill, which turns out to be a lot bigger than it looked from a distance, there’s sweat trickling down Tony’s back and he has to pull off his hood again to get some cool air on his neck.

“Rest here?” Loki asks.

“No. Next one.”

“You look uncomfortable.”

Oh, does he? Does he look uncomfortable now, on this long death-march across the ice world, wearing inefficient lost-and-found clothing that leaves his hands and feet frozen while his core overheats? “I’ll get over it,” Tony growls, trying to remind himself for the hundredth time that none of this is technically Loki’s fault. Technically. “Anyway. Would you rather die a virgin, or have as much sex as you want but it’s always meaningless one-night stands and you always regret it the next day?”

“Die a virgin,” Loki answers without hesitating.

“Really?” Tony asks as he searches for eye contact that Loki is carefully refusing to give him. “You’d choose virgin? Okay. I was... not expecting that.”

“You’d choose regrettable, meaningless sex?”

“Well obviously, yeah?”

“How is that an obvious choice?”

“How is it not an obvious choice?” But then Tony holds up his hand. “No, wait, don’t answer that.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Because it’s a rhetorical question and also if you did answer it’d be something either deeply profound or creepily personal and it would make me feel bad for asking.”

“Likely, yes.”

“Right, so let’s just pick our next checkpoint and keep moving things along.”

“That precipice?” Loki asks, pointing ahead. “It looks as if there may be some sort of cave or shelter in its shadow. We can sit there and eat.”

“Yeah good,” says Tony. He pulls his hood back up and wraps his scarf once again over his face, trying to arrange things so he has a fresh patch over his mouth instead of a hard crust of ice and frozen breath. “But just so you don’t worry,” he adds, sidling up to Loki and giving him a quick pat on the butt, “you won’t have to die a virgin.”

“And I’m ever so grateful to you for that,” Loki replies.

They walk in silence to the next hill, and by the time they reach a half-sheltered snowy depression at its base, Tony’s more than ready to take a break. The sheer weight of all the clothing he’s carrying around is enough to make his shoulders ache, and the left boot on his right foot is doing is damnedest to give him a blister. What an ideal situation to be in with miles of walking still to come.

Loki takes a seat on a cracked boulder, as easily as if he were sitting at an elegant dining room table. “Would you rather be more intelligent yet less attractive than you are now, or more attractive yet less intelligent?”

“Neither,” Tony answers as he sits and pulls off his right-left boot to try to rearrange his three layers of socks. “I’m already devastatingly handsome and amazingly intelligent. Why would I want to change?”

“’Neither’ is not an acceptable answer. You must choose one of the two options. That’s the rule.”

“That’s BS.”

“Choose.”

Tony’s freezing toes feel numb and rubbery as he tries to rub some life back into them with equally freezing fingers. “How much less attractive or less intelligent are we talking here?”

“Below average.”

“Yeah that’s total BS.”

“Choose.”

“Fine, fine” says Tony, pulling his boot back on. It doesn’t feel much better. “More intelligent, less attractive. I’m still rich enough to score a hot trophy wife without my good looks.”

“You don’t think it would be so much easier to live life in beautiful stupidity?” Loki asks with a smirk.

“No, I’d go crazy. Wouldn’t you?”

“Not if I didn’t know any better and my primary concern for the day was what to wear.”

Tony pulls his boot halfway off again. Slightly more comfortable for the time being. “Yeah? And what would this stunningly beautiful new Loki look like?”

The teasing smile on Loki’s lips falls slightly. Just a little falter. “If you could change any physical aspect of yourself, what would it be?” he asks.

“You tell me,” Tony shoots back. “I just asked you that.”

“No you didn’t.”

“The question was implied when I asked what the dumber yet hotter you would look like.”

“You first.”

“Nuh-uh.” Not going to cave on this one. Tony leans back against the rocky face of their sheltering cliff. “You.”

Loki pouts and sneers and puts on a whole production of making sure Tony knows exactly what he thinks about having to answer that question, but a minute later, answer it he does. “I would have golden hair,” he mutters. “Like Thor.”

And that’s another answer Tony wasn’t expecting. “You don’t like your hair?”

“Of course not,” he says, like that’s something Tony should have known.

“Well I like your hair. And I think you’d look weird as a blond.”

The air around Loki’s head shimmers into a halo with the glitter of illusion: a second later, his wind-tangled dark locks are replaced by pristine waves of gold. “You think so?”

“Yeah,” says Tony, underlining the word with an emphatic nod. “Weird. You look like Tom Cruise as Lestat or some stupid shit. Cut that out.”

Loki’s illusion sifts away and falls into nothing. “I always hated black hair. A dull and ugly color.”

“Nah. Black hair is sexy and-”

“What would you change?” Loki interrupts, abruptly shutting down Tony’s comment. Apparently that’s enough Loki- exploration for now. Time to move onto safer subjects. Namely, anyone else.

“Why would I want to change anything?” Tony asks. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cloth bundle full of crumbly biscuits. “I’m perfect, aren’t I? But since you asked...” He offers a biscuit to Loki, who refuses with a minute shake of the head. So he stuffs two at once into his own mouth and considers the question.

What would he change about himself? There’s probably a long list of possibilities somewhere: things he’s thought over the years. Be taller. Have more defined musculature. Maybe piercing steel gray eyes like a proper, sophisticated pulp fiction hero. A really big dick. (But that just goes without saying.) None of that seems too pressing now, though. Nothing so important he’d bother mentioning in a conversation where he’ll more than likely have to defend his choice. Instead, he taps the center of his chest.

“I’d get rid of this.”

Loki’s eyebrows rise. “Your reactor? Why?”

“Because... a lot of reasons,” Tony tells him. “Bottom line, the only reason I have it is because I’d die without it, and as much as I try to convince myself it’s awesome and makes me an actual cyborg, which is cool, I still... I don’t know.” Shaking his head, he grabs another biscuit. “Sometimes I forget it’s there. Even after all these years. I’ll be in the shower, soaping up, and my fingers brush against metal... I get a quick little reminder that this is a thing I have to deal with for the rest of my life. Something anybody I’m with also has to deal with. It was, uh...” He snaps the biscuit in half, examining the broken edge. “It was kind of a... not a point of contention, exactly, but a weird, touchy issue between me and Pepper? Not that she complained about it, ever, but I always had this feeling that she had a lot harder time accepting it than I did. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with things, but having her think that and having her be the one to hint about it and having her continuously giving me the names of these specialist, groundbreaking surgeons she’d read about. I mean, you can’t help but get defensive in a situation like that, right? It was my tech, it was keeping me alive, and I was trying to come to terms with having it constantly there, and to her it was a problem that could be fixed if we tried hard enough. I know she only wanted what was best, health-wise, for me but...”

No matter how many times he breaks that biscuit into smaller and smaller pieces, it’s not getting any more appetizing. “I don’t know. Sometimes I’m fine with it. Sometimes it doesn’t bother me at all, and other times I remember waking up in that cave in Afghanistan wired to a car battery like I was part of some sick horror movie and I realize how insane this whole thing is. How freakish it must be to other people who don’t have to live with it and aren’t trying to convince themselves that it’s just another accessory. Like an earring or tattoo. It’s not. I have a fucking electromagnet embedded in my chest. It’s weird. It’s really messed up, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Loki murmurs.

“Well yeah, it is. Isn’t it weird to you? That I have this glowing, electronic life support system permanently stuck in my body? Does it bug you?”

“No.”

One single word. And funny enough, it doesn’t even sound like Loki’s lying. “No?”

“No,” Loki repeats. “You’ve had it since I first met you. I’ve never known you without it.” He shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s as much a normal part of you as anything else. Its presence is of no more consequence than the color of your eyes or the calluses on your hands.”

“Oh.” The biscuit’s been reduced to crumbs. Tony throws back the whole handful, trying to swallow without putting too much thought into the dusty taste and texture. “Huh. That’s...” Is that what he was expecting Loki to say? What was he expecting Loki to say? One of those empty reassurances that people default to, spouting garbage about how everything’s fine and no, of course having a big glowing hunk of metal stuck in the middle of your chest isn’t weird, nobody ever even notices it... “Are you sure?” he has to ask. Double-check.

“Am I sure you had it when I met you?” Loki retorts in that typical Loki way.

“No, you know what I mean.”

“Then you must also know what I mean. But it does not bother me, if that’s what you explicitly need to hear. In fact it’s comforting, in a way. When we were first on Midgard, running from S.H.I.E.L.D., I’d sleep so fitfully that I’d be startled awake by the faintest noise or... unpleasant dreams... I’d wake up disoriented and expecting the worst, but then there was your light cutting through the dark bedroom and...”

Tony’s sudden desire to jump up and crush Loki in a bear hug is subdued only by his equally strong desire not to look like an idiot. “You’re actually serious.”

Surprise surprise, Loki doesn’t answer. Instead, the wall comes down, sharing time is over, and he stands up to survey their path. “We should go. Are you rested?”

“What? No. We’ve been sitting for like five minutes. I’ve only eaten three of these flavorless elf biscuits.”

“Well hurry and finish the rest. We have seven more hours of walking ahead of us.”

ooo

They really do. They have at least seven more hours of walking ahead of them.   Seven cold, windy, dull, repetitive, endless hours of watching the landscape slowly change from shallow, rolling hills to deep crags cutting like dry riverbeds through the ice. Hours that, with three passed and four left to go, Tony tries to fill with pointless chatter even though Loki’s interest in holding a two-way conversation has noticeably waned. Because he has this notion that if he shuts up, he might just notice exactly how damn cold his extremities are.

“But the third movie,” he says, even though he’s 90% sure Loki isn’t even listening, “is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Indy teams up with his dad to find the Holy Grail. That one was actually my favorite for a long time, but now, I don’t know. It’s great and all, but Temple of Doom does have lava. Never underestimate lava. Also Last Crusade does have a few obvious gaffes, like the negative getting flipped when Elsa’s driving the boat and the steering wheel’s on the wrong side. Or Indy pouring out the Grail water onto his dad’s gunshot wound, then suddenly the cup’s full again. Also the German fighter pilots are flying the wrong planes, which my dad found particularly annoying. We actually went to see that movie together in the theater. I liked Indiana Jones, and he liked watching Nazis get their asses kicked, so it was one of our few common interests for some father-son bonding time. Anyway we have to watch those sometime. I have ‘em all on VHS, which is really the best way to-”

“Tony.”

Tony, rearranging his mittens instead of watching where he’s going, almost crashes straight into Loki’s shoulder. “Whoa, why’d you stop?”

“Can we please talk about anything – anything – other than movies I’ve not seen? Because even though I’m sure this Indiana Jones, and Star Wars, and... I don’t even remember the others...”

“Lord of the Rings. And Game of Thrones and Dexter, but those are a TV shows, not movies. And-”

“Yes,” Loki interrupts. “Those all sound fascinating, but if you’re going to talk the entire way, can it please be about something useful?”

“I am personally offended by your insinuation that Star Wars is not useful,” says Tony, trying to cram as much mock outrage into his voice as possible. Loki isn’t buying it. Or doesn’t care. Or, most likely, both. “Sure, fine,” he says. “Let’s talk about something useful. I can talk about whatever you want. I’m awesome at talking.”

“Evidently,” Loki says with a sigh. But then he takes a kind of shuffling step and looks off at nothing, like he’s second-guessing what he wants to say, like maybe this change of topic isn’t the stellar idea he thought it’d be. “I only thought...” he starts. And trails off. Then starts again. In a noticeably more formal tone of voice. “I was thinking... What, exactly, will our life entail once we reach Midgard?” He says that without looking at Tony. Maybe it’s too hard to outright acknowledge he might actually have fragile little concerns filled with uncertainty over the future.

“Okay,” Tony answers. It’s impossible to pin down exactly what Loki means by that and what facet of life he’s questioning. So best start off broad and circle in to the actual heart of the issue. He begins walking again and nudges Loki to do the same. Walking feels easier. Casual. “I guess we’ll see what happens for the first few days back. Settle in. I guarantee S.H.I.E.L.D.’s going to try to be the mother of all pains in our asses, but we’ll deal with them. Agree to some shit and refuse other shit until we reach an agreement where they leave us mostly alone. Other than that... We’ll have to make up some things as we go. There’ll be adjustments. In reality, when I’m not vacationing in picturesque Jotunheim, I own a multi-billion dollar company that I should probably, you know, pay attention to. I travel a lot for sales or to trade shows or just to put in appearances at the right events in the right places. You can always come with me but honestly the novelty of flying around the world every week gets old real fast. You’d probably be happier staying at home and doing... I don’t know.” Some kind of hobby? What will Loki end up doing all day while he’s away or working or just needs a couple hours alone? The idea of Loki getting a job is too weird to even contemplate. “We’ll figure that out.”

Loki’s next words are carefully formed and carefully considered. “And what might I do, were I to accompany you on these travels? Stand at your side? Or remain out of sight, back at the hotel?”

Oh. So that’s what he meant by... Tony coughs, trying to dislodge the sudden scratch in his throat. “Uh... Well, um... I guess that’s... That’s something we can...”

“Hotel, then.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but if your immediate reaction isn’t to tell me I’ll stand by your side, it means you are trying to think of a tactful way to say I must be invisible.”

“No,” Tony insists. Too quickly? Maybe too quickly. “I just need to think about-”

Loki stops again, stepping up so he blocks the way and forces Tony to a halt as well. “I don’t mind,” he says. “Nor, to tell you the truth, did I expect anything else. I’m not trying to guilt you. I merely wished for confirmation and some sort of... guidance as to how we must act.”

“Yeah, but maybe-”

“I don’t,” Loki says, raising a hand to gently touch the scarf covering Tony’s cheek. “Mind. I will keep you at a chaste arm’s length if that’s what’s required.”

“But-”

“Tony, I was raised as a prince of Asgard. I am not some idealistic idiot with no understanding of the difference between public versus private life. You are a public figure. The world expects you to behave in a certain way. If you don’t wish to challenge that, I won’t ask you to.”

Tony’s running out of arguments. Holding Loki’s gaze like this, trying (and failing) to dig up any hint of sarcasm or judgement or anything, anything, contrary on Loki’s part... “No, it’s...” That last-ditch effort doesn’t go anywhere. Loki’s right. Loki’s completely, unfortunately right. “It’s not that I want to lie,” he says. “Or hide anything.”

“But you feel you must.”

“Everyone who counts will know,” he says, mostly so he doesn’t have to confirm or deny that statement. And starts walking again, because standing still seems too much like a Serious Discussion. “Pepper knows: we’ve talked to her. Rhodey and Happy know, and you’ll meet them. Bruce, of course. And I guess the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D., but whether or not they ‘count’ is debatable. Everything else, media and whatever, it’s more like... My personal life is none of their business. I don’t need them in there fucking things up.”

Wordlessly, Loki nods. Tony gets the distinct feeling that Loki should be saying something. Either a complaint or a note of support for this course of action. Not just silence. Not just acceptance via inaction. He’s the one who broached the topic, and despite his arguments of ‘not minding’ and ‘expecting’ this, well... Expectation and hope are two different things, aren’t they?

“We’ll see how it goes,” he says. “I mean, you never know. Things change. So maybe after a while...?”

There’s a pause and a gust of snowy wind before Loki answers. “Maybe,” he agrees in a soft voice.

ooo

What little sun they’d started out with is low and dim on the horizon by the time Loki holds out his hand and whispers to Tony to stop. Up ahead, framed by sharp-edged shadows of black on palette of deep blue, a solitary ice-covered cliff stands in silhouette against the sky. So that’s it, then?

“That’s our end goal?”

Loki nods in confirmation. “The Destroyer should be around the other side of that cliff.”

That word, ‘Destroyer’, easily conjures up a whole variety pack of images in Tony’s mind’s eye. Puente Antiguo. Charred exoskeletons of former buildings and streets that look like a rowdy group of backhoes decided to throw a demolition derby. Tony didn’t see the thing in action, but the aftermath is more than enough to convince anyone that the Destroyer was aptly named. It pretty much just destroyed the hell out of the whole town. “Right,” he says. “So what’s our plan of action?” Now that he thinks about it, they really should’ve had a plan of action before walking into this. “Do we just... Okay, I don’t even know where to start here.”

“We start with you approaching to see if it’s still operational.”

“Me?!” Tony hisses, his reply sounding exactly like the knee-jerk reaction it is to such a dumb concept. “Why me?! You’re the-”

“Because,” Loki interrupts. “The way Odin’s Destroyer was built, it slept in stasis until approached by a threat or awakened by a command from its master. As this one was left here to protect the pathway back to Midgard, it should, considering the weak amount of sunlight available on Jotunheim to recharge its energy stores, be asleep. And it should stay asleep until it senses the presence of the threat it was sent to hold back. A Jotun presence. As you are not Jotun, you should be able to approach and disarm it without it ever waking.” He looks off to the cliff as if expecting to see something. Or, maybe just as an excuse to avoid looking at Tony. “Theoretically, anyhow,” he adds. “I could be completely wrong, but...”

“No way,” says Tony. “Nuh-uh. You want that thing disarmed? You do it. Your planet, your family, your fight, your job. I’m not sauntering over there like a sacrificial idiot.”

“I can’t go. If that thing is specifically trained to recognize Jotun energy, it may recognize such in me. Or it could read me as Asgardian and awaken all the same. Either way, I am a risk, and you are the safer bet.”

“Bullshit.”

“Tony, I’m not trying to put you in danger,” Loki sighs. “If it weren’t our best chance for an easy victory, I wouldn’t suggest you do this. But if I’m right, and I think I am, you can simply walk up to that thing, cut off its head, and we’re done. Without a fight.”

Tony fixes Loki with his shadiest glare. “You mean without you having to do any of the dirty work. Or any work, just like when you insisted we had to walk instead of teleporting-”

“We’ve gone over this ten times!” Loki snaps, which is total hyperbole because as per Tony’s last count, they’ve only gone over it six times since leaving Helblindi’s palace. “I could not risk expending the energy required to shift both of us this far! It takes a tremendous amount of-”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Tony interrupts. “Tremendous amount of magic, couldn’t risk-”

Loki keeps talking right back over him, even louder. “Yes, a tremendous amount of magic, and had you seen the last one, you would agree with me! Thor managed to defeat it with only his hammer and his strength. This one, however, may or may not be the same. Being left behind to guard against Jotnar, I’m suspicious it will be less susceptible to pure physical attacks and will require more magical interference. I wish to be prepared for that eventuality should it become necessary. But I would rather not fight. I would much rather you disable the stupid thing so we can take its stupid head back to my stupid brother. And I can shift us neatly all the way there so we won’t need to walk. Doesn’t that sound better?”

Yeah. Everything sounds swell, except for the part about Tony having to cut off the Destroyer’s head. That part sounds whatever the opposite of swell is. Fucked up. That’s the word. It sounds Fucked up. “Just so you know,” Tony grumbles, “if I die-”

“You won’t die. I will be watching everything. If the Destroyer shows any sign of life, I will shift in and grab you so we can prepare to fight. You need to trust me, Tony. This is the best plan we have.”

Possibly true, but this plan is starting to feel like peer pressure wrapped in a guilt trip topped with a bow of something to do with important cornerstones in a healthy relationship or whatever. Trust. What a load of crap. “Aw, fuck it,” mutters Tony. “Since I don’t remember ever winning an argument with you, let’s just cut to the chase and assume I’m nagged into doing this.”

Loki pats him ineffectively on the arm. “Everything will be fine.”

That reassurance makes everything seem less fine than ever.

It’s a weird feeling, simultaneously hoping Loki’s wrong just to gloat while praying like mad Loki’s not wrong so he doesn’t get vaporized by a giant death robot. It’s also a weird feeling simply walking towards a giant death robot. Its indistinct outline looms dark and heavy up ahead: an out of place lump against the sheer blue face of the cliff. It’s seated. Slumped. The closer Tony gets (each step forced as he makes his painfully slow and yet far too speedy way forward, each breath shallow in his throat like his lungs are too full of unease to let any air in) the better he can see it in Jotunheim’s dim twilight. It sits with its legs splayed in a V and half buried in the snow, one arm resting on a metal thigh while the other falls limply to the ground. Its head lolls forward and to its left. Cold. Coated in so much frost some of the contours of its body are obscured. There’s no fire left here: just icicles dangling down from the edges of its shadowy, helmeted face.

Are Tony’s footsteps too loud as he makes the final approach in his awkward, Asgardian boots? They sound loud, crunching on the gritty ice. His heartbeat sounds loud, pounding high in his chest. Oh fuck he has a bad feeling about this. The worst feeling. A feeling that’s been building all day and has now chosen this moment to triple in intensity. A feeling that something terrible is going to happen, or that something terrible is already happening, and he’s quite literally walking right into it. “Loki you fucking idiot bastard...” The Destroyer shows no signs of life at the sound of his voice.

“Just get it over with,” he says. Louder. More confident? Falsely confident, maybe. “This’ll be fine. Loki says it’ll be fine? It’ll be fine. Totally fine. Fine. Fine. Trust Loki. Isn’t Loki trustworthy? Absolutely. Nothing shady going on here. All fine. Piece of cake. I can do this. No problem. Fine.”

It’s twenty feet in front of him, looking broken on the ground like a toy dropped by some even bigger horror. This close, he can count the differences between it and the New Mexico version he saw in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s photos. This one has the scaled armor of a crocodile rather than worm-like segments. Jagged spikes run in twin rows down its arms, dulled by centuries of frost; a weather-pitted face shows flat yet sharply angled features, looking almost like an ancient Greek statue. Complete with blackened metal eyelids. Closed.

A shiver runs through Tony’s whole body as he closes the gap. How many people have ever wanted to experience a real-life version of passing through the gate of the Sphynxes in The Neverending Story? None. Those eyes might open. And a beam of searing, fiery light might...

Directly in its line of sight, Tony stops. He’s close enough to crouch down and touch its foot. Close enough to touch those lacy crystals of frost. Close enough to reach out with his hand and feel a jolt of imaginary electricity up his arm as it makes brief, brushing contact. Then he touches it again, resting his fingers against the frozen scales of armor where toes should be while trying to swallow the pounding heartbeat that keeps trying to climb up into his throat. No movement. He knocks his fist against the side of the foot.

“Yeah you better be dead, you freaky motherfucker...” he mutters. There’s a thick Asgardian shortsword tied to his back (courtesy of all those forgetful tourists of years past), which should do nicely for the idea he has in mind. He pulls the sword free, tossing the sheath, and takes a second to position the point before heaving on it with all his strength. The blade forces its way down between armored scales to sever what would be the robot’s Achilles tendon. It cuts cleaner and easier than expected; that sword is sharp as hell. The other ankle goes even easier in one precise moment, then both wrists. And even though by this time Tony’s pretty sure the Destroyer isn’t waking up, it’s still nice to know before he climbs up to the head that even if it does, it won’t be able to move all that well.

The icy metal is slick and hard to get a foothold in his bad boots, but at least the jutting arm spikes give his hands something to grab onto. He mostly pulls himself up, clambering gracelessly onto the Destroyer’s shoulder. Good thing its head’s drooped down so its chin rests on its chest to give Tony’s sword a good angle. Like it’s waiting for execution. He nudges the point in between two scales. Nestles it right in there. And with a deep breath, shoves hard on the hilt. Something inside that blackened neck gives. There’s the sharp metallic twang of a spring snapping. The head lurches to one side. Tony stabs again, this time slicing sideways, and something else in there groans and stretches and breaks. With the crackle of ice and the grinding creak of weak metal, the Destroyer’s head tips precariously forward, held only by a few thin wires and the lip of its collar joint. A well placed kick send it tumbling all the way down.

Inside, the body is packed solid with snow from who knows how many years of this wasteland’s driving wind working its way through seams in the armor. Not even the tiniest spark of fire remains. Dead. It must have run out of energy long ago, and has been sitting here like the forgotten antique it is ever since.

Loki appears only a second later, flashing into place between the Destroyer’s frozen knees. “Now that wasn’t so terrible, was it?” he calls to Tony.

“Go fuck yourself,” Tony yells back. “It was stressful as hell and you’re lucky I didn’t have a heart attack. You’re going to have to give me so many butt massages before I forgive you.”

“I shall dutifully massage all parts of you once you’ve had a chance to bathe. Now come down from there so we can take this damn head back to Helblindi.”

Now that’s something Loki doesn’t have to ask twice, though down turns out to be a little trickier than up. Tony slips twice before giving up and jumping the rest of the way, landing on snow that’s a lot harder than it looks. Loki’s already dealing with the head: its mass of thick, charred metal is heavy even for an Asgardian, and Loki strains to lift it. His arms barely span the circumference. “Hold onto my arm. I’ll shift us back.”

Staring down at that head, the bad feeling that’s been churning in Tony’s gut lately comes roaring back to center stage. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!” Loki snarls. “Would you rather stay out here?”

“No, I mean...” Tony has to take a step back. That stupid head creeps him out too much, and the bad feeling is only getting stronger. “What if it’s a trap? What if it comes to life the second Helly touches it, and lasers shoot out of its eyes and we have a whole general catastrophe on our hands?”

“Well, that won’t be happening. Partially because this head is frozen solid and full of snow, but more so because it’s no longer attached to the body. Disembodied heads are rather harmless.”

“You’ve obviously never seen Clash of the Titans.”

“Tony,” Loki says in his usual warning tone.

“I have a really bad feeling about this, okay? Something’s going to happen.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You don’t feel it? You don’t feel weird about this whole thing?”

“No, I don’t. You’re merely out of sorts because we’ve been on Jotunheim so long. The cold, the darkness, the strange passage of time: it has a poor effect on everyone. But if we take this head back to Helblindi, he can send his soldiers to break down the barrier in the cave and we can leave. Tomorrow at this time we can be on Midgard, and any bad feelings will disappear. Take my arm.”

“It’s not that kind of feeling,” Tony tries to explain, though he knows he’s going to do a crappy job because how can he even find words for this other than ‘ominous portent of doom’, which Loki isn’t taking seriously? “Loki, something really bad is about to happen. I don’t know what, but-”

“All the more reason to leave immediately.”

“You’re not listening to me!”

“And you’re not listening to me!” Loki throws back at him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this gigantic metal head is incredibly fucking heavy, and if you do not hold onto my arm in the next few seconds I will take it back to Helblindi alone and leave you here to walk! Tony Stark, grab my arm now!”

Yet another argument Tony has no chance of winning. He grabs hold of Loki’s arm, glaring as he does because that’s the way he rolls, and immediately feels the uncomfortable, disorienting pull of teleportation. When reality spits him back out a second later, the two of them are standing in front of Helblindi’s palace. Loki drops the giant head. Tony teeters forward and falls to his knees. Oh, this is always the unpleasant part. The feeling like his consciousness was put back into his body just slightly wrong, off its axis by a few degrees, and his blood is flowing in the wrong direction while his nerve endings still haven’t fully solidified. And the whole shit show isn’t helped at all by the bad feeling that refuses to go away. Or by the gathering crowd of Jotuns who are all popping out of the woodwork to see what just materialized.

“Fuck,” he mutters as he pulls himself back up to his feet. “Loki, give your brother my regards. I’m going inside to lie down for a minute. If that head explodes and kills everyone, come get me so I can say I told you so.”

Loki scowls, but at least neither says nor does anything to stop Tony from dizzily stumbling through the palace doors and onward down the hall to their bedroom. Once inside, he peels off most of his layers and flops down beside the fort. The fire’s out. He has no means of rekindling it. Oh well. It’s too dark to see anything, but he doesn’t need to see to lie down and try to get his heart and brain to stop racing. And his skin to stop squirming. That’d be nice.

That bad feeling in his gut still burns on, steadily working its way up his body to clench and cramp at the back of his neck. “Fuck!” The taste of bile is growing in his throat, and when he lifts his hands to his face to rub at his eyes, his skin feels clammy with cold sweat. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

“Tony?”

Light follows Loki into the room, and the fire crackles to life. “Helblindi wants to see us. Both of us, together. If you can set aside the dramatic complaints for-” He stops when he reaches the fort. Mouth stays open for one sharp gasp of breath. “What’s wrong?”

“I told you,” Tony groans. “Something amazingly shitty is about to happen. Oh, and you just teleported me across Jotunheim, so my whole body hurts and my lungs are still figuring out how breathing works and I think my ribcage reassembled itself one size too small. I forgot how much teleportation sucks.”

“It shouldn’t have that bad an effect.”

“Well, it does. Apparently I am a weak, pathetic mortal.”

“You look terrible.”

“Thanks, that makes me feel way better.”

“Stay here a moment.”

Why? Did it look like he was going anywhere? But Tony stays put as Loki leaves and then returns a few minutes later with a bucket. He motions for Tony to sit up.

“Is that for me to puke in?”

“No.” And Loki dunks his hand, holding a cloth, into the bucket, and comes out with...

“Whoa, is that warm water? Where’d you get warm water?”

“You may have noticed this planet’s abundance of ice,” he replies, sounding less snarky than usual for what could easily be classified as a sarcastic retort. “I applied the necessary amount of heat. You look like you’re suffering from some of the ill effects of being outside for so long, but this should help. Take off your shirt.”

It’s doubtful warm water can do much with how awful Tony feels, but it also can’t hurt. He pulls off one Asgardian shirt. And another, hissing at the pain that shoots down his arms as he lifts them. “Ow. Fuck. Ow.”

“There really is something wrong, isn’t there?” Loki softly asks.

“You thought I was lying?”

“No, but I thought you were being overdramatic as a means of having revenge on me for making you cut off the Destroyer’s head.”

“If I wanted to do that I would’ve pretended to break my leg jumping down or something.” Which, in hindsight, he really should’ve done. “But no, I just feel terrible, and also still feel like something terrible is going to happen.” Though that particular feeling is no longer tied up with the Destroyer. Or the head. Or anything else other than just... himself? Is this a self-oriented terrible feeling? It’s been going on for more than a day, starting out as a vague sense of unease, but now it’s so much sharper and well defined. “How about we concentrate on getting back to Earth as soon as possible? If something shitty’s going to happen to me, I’d rather it happen within a thousand miles of a hospital for humans.”

“I’ll tell Helblindi to send out his soldiers right away. They can cross the ice quickly; it will take them half as long as it took us to reach the cave. If we give them another hour to break down the barrier, I can shift us back there six hours from now. How does that sound?”

Like five hours and fifty-nine minutes too long, but Tony nods nonetheless. “Sure. I can probably not die in the next six hours.”

“Then finish undressing,” says Loki. “We’ll see if this water helps at all.”

The third Asgardian shirt comes off, bringing another wave of stabbing pain as Tony slips his arms from the sleeves. Finally his own thin undershirt, sticky with sweat and smelling like something he doesn’t want to mention after days of continuous wear. “Ugh, any chance you can conjure up enough warm water to actually sit in?” he asks. “And wash my clothes in? I hate living in the middle ages.”

But instead of the standard-issue exasperated or sarcastic reply, Loki just stares at him with widening eyes. “Tony...”

“What? That was a stupid joke. I know you didn’t actually send us back in time.” Wait. “Did you?”

“No, Tony, your...”

Loki’s eyes drop down to Tony’s chest and Tony follows, expecting to see a smudge of dirt or some other physical manifestation of filth. Instead, what he sees is a flicker in the arc reactor. A flicker. A wobble. A slow fade, a brief flare, and then no light at all.

Chapter Text

The sun is bright when Tony wakes up. Its light burns through his eyelids, hot and orange. He’s outside. There’s wind on his skin. And cool stone against his naked back. His chest hurts so much it feels like it’s on fire, but when he lifts his hand to investigate, someone pushes his arm down.

“Don’t. You should stay still.”

“Loki?” he rasps. Was that Loki’s voice? It was Loki’s voice. He forces his eyes open so he can see and make sure, but his eyelids are so heavy and his vision is blurred. Closes his eyes again.

“Yes,” Loki answers. “I’m here.”

“Why am I...   Why are we outside?”

“Magic.”

Oh. “Where are we?”

“Still on Jotunheim.

Oh. “Why is...” He tries to reach up to his chest again, and this time he’s able to break through Loki’s light grip on his wrist. His fingernails catch on the scabbed edge of a scar, shooting a jolt of pain deep into his skin. “What is...”

“Don’t do that.”

Loki tries to pull his hand away again, but Tony’s stronger. And more determined. He feels his way around the circular scar on his chest, across stinging new skin and the bruised bone beneath. The arc reactor is gone. Its casing is gone. All filled in by... How is this even possible? How is he even alive? “What happened?” he whispers.

“The reactor failed,” Loki tells him. “I had to... I had to take it out.”

“And the shrapnel?”

“No. That’s still inside you. But it will come out.”

“With magic?”

“No.” Loki sounds like he’s apologizing. “Tony, I’m not very good at healing magic. It was never my strength, and ever since Odin’s chains and the blood rune my abilities have been...” Pause. “Affected.”

“Then what happened?” He forces his eyes open again. If he can see... If he can just see what this scarred mess looks like... Squinting, he lifts both hands to shield his eyes against the sun. The movement of muscles in his chest feels like something’s tearing apart. But there’s Loki, crouched down on the ground beside him. Blue skin glitters with a sheen of frost in the sunlight, making star shapes in his unfocused vision. And Helly’s there too, and Boo-boo. And that wizened old lizard-Jotun with the fake leg and the ice tail. And more unfamiliar faces. What are they all doing here? “Did they help?”

“Yes.”

Oh. “How? What happened?”

“Tony,” Loki says, speaking slowly and carefully. “Do you remember what I once told you? That Jotun bodies heal quickly?”

ooo

Well. This is different.

His eyes are still recovering from their fuzziness, but at least now he can see well enough to trace one pointed fingernail over the raised lines on his arm. Three running parallel up from wrist to shoulder, and a single band just above his elbow. A flattened oval at his shoulder. Identical on both sides. Isn’t that interesting. He didn’t have those before. His skin used to be smooth and flat. And beige. And covered in small hairs.

This is different.

The scar is new. A rough, snarled circle of gray-blue skin in the center of his chest. It’s already firmer and less painful than when he felt it outside: almost healed. He can pick at a flake of scab at the edge and scratch it away with just a tiny sting. No more piercing pain. A dull ache, but that’s on its way out. Jotun bodies do heal fast.

This is good.

“...Tony?”

Loki’s sitting in the corner of the room, looking worried and guilty.

“Yes?”

“Are you...   Do you remember what happened?”

“Not much,” he says. His head is as fuzzy as his eyes. They were outside, and they found that Destroyer, but it all feels distant and separate, like something that happened years ago. Maybe even in his imagination. Small and unimportant.

“Your reactor failed,” says Loki. “To save your life I had to take it out and shift your body into this form. Only a Jotun could survive that kind of injury without help from a true healer. Are... Are you angry?”

“No.” Why would he be angry? That all sounds perfectly logical. If he was dying, and Loki found the best way to save him, why should he be anything but grateful? His human body must have been very weak, if it couldn’t live without that reactor. Small and weak.

This is better. He flexes his hands, feeling the movement of muscle in each finger.

“What do I look like?” he asks.

“Do you want me to show you?”

Loki approaches carefully. He’s still worried Tony might be mad. But he holds out his hands, and ice begins to flow, swirling itself into a flat, polished disc. The surface is imperfect with flecks and ripples, but Tony can still see his murky reflection. Blue skin. Deep-set red eyes. Raised lines marking his forehead in a broken M shape. Sharp cheekbones, nose and chin. Bone ridges rising from above his flattened ears and curving around the back of his head. It all looks rather nice. He lifts his fingers to the bone ridges. Cool and rough to the touch.

This is fine.

As he examines his new face, Loki leans in against his shoulder. Interesting. Loki seems small now. The top of his head is level with Tony’s collar bone. He used to be bigger, didn’t he? But this is nice. Now Tony can wrap both his arms around Loki’s body and lean over so his chin rests on Loki’s head. Breathing in the cool, metallic scent of Loki’s skin. The ice-mirror crumbles as Loki in turn slides his arms around Tony’s waist.

“I was worried you would die,” Loki whispers.

“Do you know what made the reactor fail?”

“No. I don’t know how it works.”

“Where is it?”

Loki turns his head to look over to a table by the door, where something metal and cylindrical sits. With one arm still around Loki’s back to guide him along (because Loki is very small now and needs to stay close), Tony fetches it. The whole thing fits easily in one hand. It once kept him alive, and now he could crush it with just one squeeze. Why did he rely on this worthless thing for so long when it would have made so much more sense to simply transform into a better, stronger, Jotun body in the first place? He was so stupid as a human. Arrogant and short-sighted.

He pulls the top open to inspect the core. It’s not glowing any more: no light, no heat, nothing when he touches it. Completely dead. But inside the reactor, there’s no sign of damage, either. No disconnected or shorted wires. Nothing mechanically wrong. It looks as if the power source simply ran its course, which should not be possible, since he remembers building this to last far beyond a limited human lifespan. Nothing inside gives any clue, and outside there’s only one small scorch mark on the casing.

“The portal,” Tony mutters.

“When we came here?”

“And when I first went to Asgard. You told me the portal was unstable and drew power from my arc reactor. It must have drained too much.”

Well. There’s nothing that can be done for it. The dead reactor is nothing more than a useless piece of obsolete technology. When Tony clenches his fist, the metal casing buckles. Nothing but junk now. It clatters to the floor and rolls away in an uneven wobble.

“I’m hungry,” he tells Loki. “Are you hungry? We should go outside.”

“Oh, yes,” says Loki. “Let’s find Helblindi and see what food he has today.”

ooo

Helblindi has food. Good food, in fact. At least five different kinds of fresh, tender meat, all stripped from the carcasses of animals right there In front of them and offered to Tony and Loki piece by piece. Tony eats too much too fast, and Loki growls at him for being uncivilized even by Jotun standards, but he doesn’t care enough to improve his manners. It’s been far too long since he’s eaten anything but those dusty biscuits his human self inexplicably preferred. Now that he has an abundance of real food right under his nose, why should he stop himself from cramming it into his mouth by the handful?

“Tony,” Loki mutters. “You’re eating like an animal.”

The only thought that comes to Tony’s mind in response to that, is ‘So?’ What, exactly, is wrong with eating like an animal? He grabs something soft and slippery from the platter between him and Loki. It might be a kidney. Whatever it is, it’s a lot better than stale biscuits.

“Tony...”

“No, eat,” says Helblindi, coming to sit on the floor beside them. “Eat more! You are now princes of Jotunheim, and we will feast to celebrate the death of Asgard’s great warrior!”

Yes, Helblindi has the right idea. Eat. Nodding in agreement, Tony takes another of the soft, slippery things. The last one was good.

“And once we have feasted,” Helblindi continues, “the people will gather to show their respect to their new princes.”

Tony likes the sound of that, too. One can never have enough feasting, or enough of being respected by everyone else. So they eat until Tony’s stomach hurts and Loki glares at his gluttony, and then Helblindi leads the way out to that throne stadium. Lots of Jotuns are gathered, as Helblindi promised. Disappointingly, Tony does not get to sit on the throne, but somebody does make little ice benches for both him and Loki in front of the throne, so he still gets to sit in a raised position on the dais. And that’s good enough.

He would have thought the other Jotuns might be more surprised by his sudden transformation, but no, everyone seems to be fully accepting of this little quirk and they treat him as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Helblindi makes the official announcement that Tony is to be treated as a prince of their people, thanks to his heroic defeat of the Destroyer. So he is now Prince Tony. His new subjects step up in singles or pairs or as families with children, all to bow to him and pet his arms. Some even bring gifts, which are well received, because he was starting to feel plain with only pieces of furry hide tied around his waist. By the end, he has a set of metal and a set of leather bands for his arms, three stone rings and one of bone, some good glittery rocks on leather cords to hang around his neck, a belt made of metal squares laced together with sinew, a metal-studded pouch to hang on the belt, and a set of ankle cuffs adorned with fangs. Oh, and Helblindi’s green jewel, which Loki found in his discarded pile of human-sized clothing. If he wears it all at once, he has more than most of the others, and that lends itself to a pleasantly superior feeling. He is a prince, after all.

The other Jotuns also properly introduce themselves. Some have easy names like Fastulf or Skóg or Rigmar, but others are called awkward things like Hlathgerdh and Vigmadhr and Hvithovdhi that he’ll never remember. A very large Jotun named Gýridh bows low before Tony and congratulates him on his martial superiority in beheading the Destroyer, which is nice. Someone named Dyri keeps looking at Loki, which is not. Looking at him. In a way that makes Tony want to claw Dyri’s stupid eyes out.

In fact he might have to follow through with this desire to claw Dyri’s eyes out, but later when nobody’s looking, because Helblindi’s starting to give an important-sounding speech about how this victory over the Destroyer is a good omen for Jotunheim and a symbol of no longer being under the oppressive influence of Asgard. Violence would only ruin things and make him look foolish. Probably. Personally, he sees nothing wrong with a good fight, but after all that food scolding, Loki would likely complain.

Instead, he turns to whisper-growl to Loki. “If that idiot keeps looking at you I’m going to tear his eyes out of their sockets and cram them down his throat.”

“Who?” Loki asks, though Tony can tell he knows exactly who, because he glances right over at Dyri with a little smirk on his lips.

“Him. And if he does anything more than look, I’ll tear his useless head off his shoulders.”

“That sounds excessive.”

“It’s not. I don’t like him looking at you.”

“Tony, people look at me. I am a prince. People look at you, too.”

“Not like that. I don’t like it. He shouldn’t look at you. You’re mine.”

“Oh, am I?” says Loki.

Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?! For several uncomfortable seconds, all Tony can do is stare at Loki with his mouth gaping open, while Loki pointedly refuses to look back at him. Of course Loki is his. Of course. Why would that have changed at all? They were going to live together in Midgard. And granted that plan seems pointless now since Midgard is for humans and their transformation into Jotun princes clearly means they should stay on Jotunheim, but why would that change anything? They can live together here.

“Yes, you are,” Tony snarls.

“Not officially.”

And what is that supposed to mean?! But before Tony can ask, there’s Helblindi, standing in front of him, saying something about this gathering and...

“...entertainment in honor of you and Loki, to welcome you among our people.”

“Oh,” says Tony. “Thank you.” He says that because he has to, because it’s polite, even though he has no idea what kind of ‘entertainment’ Helblindi means, and his desire to be up here next to the throne on display just flew off on a gust of wind. Suddenly, all this welcoming and respecting and honoring sounds like nothing more than another excuse for Loki to sit in front of everyone and for people like Dyri to look at him. And there will be no opportunity for eye-gouging.

“Yes, thank you, brother,” says Loki. “We are honored.”

“You are princes of Jotunheim,” Helblindi tells them. “You deserve every honor our people can give.”

No, what they deserve is to be alone, where Tony can confirm that, yes, Loki is still his, and everything is still as it should be. He doesn’t like this uncertainty. He doesn’t like having to wonder. He doesn’t like the tight, squirmy feeling rising up from his stomach when he looks over at Loki and Loki is paying attention to somebody else. He doesn’t like Dyri. He doesn’t like sitting on this bench over here while Loki’s on that bench over there. And since that’s the only dislike he can easily fix at the moment... He stands up, moves over to Loki’s bench, and sits down hard. Slips his arm around Loki’s waist.

Loki growls at him, but at the same time doesn’t seem to mind enough to do anything more than growl. “I thought you said we had to be secretive. Hide everything.”

Secretive? “I never said anything like that.”

“You did. On our way to the Destroyer. We agreed we would hide our relationship from the public.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” He has no memory of saying such a stupid thing. Why would he say that? Why would he want to hide his relationship with Loki from anyone? Loki is intelligent, and a good fighter, and brilliant with magic, and one of his favorite people, and also very attractive and a prince on top of everything else. If anything, he should be proudly boasting to the world that Loki is his. He’d be insane to want to hide it.

“I’m only telling you what you told me.”

“You must have misunderstood. I don’t want to hide. I’d never say something like that.”

“There was no misunderstanding. You were very clear.”

“Well it’s not true,” Tony insists. Loki had to have misheard, or he’s remembering a conversation with somebody else. That’s the only explanation. “I don’t want to hide. You’re mine. I want everyone to know.”

Loki’s expression, that twist of his lower lip and the tightening of his jaw, could mean anything. “We can talk later.”

“But I want to make sure-”

“Not now,” Loki interrupts, nodding down into the crowd where an open semicircle has formed. “The entertainment is starting.”

Entertainment. Tony can do without entertainment, whatever this is. A fight? A wrestling match? It’s difficult to tell, but the cheering and shouting indicate that the crowd likes the show. Even if it has too much grappling and not enough punching for Tony’s current mood. It must be a kind of organized tournament-style fight, because the two competitors start on opposite sides of the semicircle before running head first and each trying to ram the other. If one of them falls down, that might signify a point, because they go back to the edges to run and headbutt again. If both stay standing, they wrestle until one falls. Simple enough.

Tony tightens his hold on Loki with one hand while the other reaches up to scratch at his chest. His skin prickles the more it heals, tight and uncomfortable. The circle left by the absent arc reactor is the worst, but he finds other tiny scars surrounding it too. Raised and itchy. He picks at one with his fingernail as a second pair of fighters prepares to run at each other. It only itches more. Even when he draws a bead of blood: it feels like something is under his skin, inside, trapped just beneath the surface but trying to worm its way out.

His nail catches on something. Something small and sharp and glittering with the spark of metal when he looks down to see what it is and pull it to the surface. Just a sliver, really. A tiny, twisted shard of steel smeared with purplish blood on the tip of his finger.

ooo

“Can we talk now?” are the first words out of Tony’s mouth once they’re back in their room.

He keeps his arm snug around Loki’s shoulder (because Loki is small and needs to be protected) and can feel the minor shifts in Loki’s stance and balance and the heavy sigh that comes with it. “You did say that,” Loki tells him. “When you were human. That’s what you thought and that’s what you wanted: to keep everything secret.”

Tony still has no memory of such an absurd thing, but he’s bored of arguing about it. “I don’t want secrecy now.”

“No, you don’t,” Loki agrees. “You’re very different now.”

Of course he is. He’s better. He’s Jotun. “So are you.”

Nodding, Loki shrugs off Tony’s arm and steps away. He shrinks as he walks, belt slipping on his hips and cuffs loosening around his ankles. When he turns around to face Tony from five paces away, all the pale skin on that delicately tiny body glows with Asgardian heat.

“Why did you change?” Tony asks.

“Because I need to think. I need to find solutions to problems, and I can’t think properly in that form.”

Why not? Tony can think just fine. In fact, he can think better and more effectively than ever. He has no clear memory of what it was like trying to muddle through life with a human brain, but he does remember being easily side-tracked by too many variables and multiple possibilities, always taking way too long to make up his mind. It’s easier now. Yes or no. Right or wrong. Black or white. Everything he has to consider has an immediate, definite answer. Is Loki his? Yes. Does he want to keep that a secret? No. Does he wish Loki would stop fooling around and trying to make everything so humanly complicated? Yes. “I like you better as a Jotun.”

“And I like you better as a human,” Loki sighs, “but right now we’re stuck with what we have.”

“But I’m not better as a human.”

“Yes, you... No, never mind. Let’s not discuss that. You’re fine, Tony. You make an excellent Jotun.”

Yes, he does.

“But the problem is, if I spend too much time as a Jotun, my priorities will begin to slip. I’ll become too comfortable. We’ll become too comfortable. And there’s a significant danger we’ll forget ourselves and end up staying on Jotunheim forever.”

“Why wouldn’t we want to stay here?”

“Because we’re on our way back to Midgard. We need to return to Midgard.”

“Why?” They’re princes here. They have everything they want here. Why would they want to go back to Midgard, where everything’s so frustrating?

“Your human self wants to return to Midgard.”

“My human self doesn’t exist any more.”

“Yes, he does,” says Loki. “He’s only... on hold for now. He’ll come back. And when he does, he’ll be very grateful I took him back to Midgard instead of agreeing to live the rest of our lives as frost giants.”

“I don’t want him to come back.”

Loki nods. “Yes, you do. Now the important thing is-”

“Can you change back into a Jotun now?” Tony asks. “I don’t like the way you glow.”

The glow flares up for a moment as Loki concentrates, but quickly fades down low as Loki’s skin turns back to a normal blue color. “Is this better?”

He’s still the same size. A Jotun-colored Asgardian. But he’s not as bright, and it’s easier for Tony to look at him. “A little.”

“Now listen to me, Tony,” Loki says. “I can change you back into your human form. But I can’t do that until all of the shrapnel is removed. That should only take a few days. Your body will reject its presence and push it out, forcing it up through your skin like a sliver.

Like a tiny metal shard that catches on his fingernail. Tony’s hand hovers down to the leather pouch on his belt where he put the shard he picked out in the throne stadium. Should he tell Loki?

“I found two while removing your reactor. There are eleven left. Count them as they make their way to the surface, and once all thirteen are accounted for, I can shift you back to human and we can have Helblindi open the path to Midgard.”

No, he should not tell Loki. If he tells Loki about that shard, or any of the other itches in his skin that feel like they’re about to poke free, Loki will turn him back into a stupid human and they’ll have to leave. “Okay...” he mumbles.

Loki looks at him with the kind of expression that says ‘disappointment’ combined with ‘frustration’, but trying not to show either. “Trust me: returning to Midgard is the best course of action. I think you’re forgetting how much you like being human.”

“I don’t care about being human any more.”

“I think you do care. You’re just forgetting. You care about your cars, and all your computer things, and your Iron Man suits. Remember those? And a movie called Star Wars you want me to watch?”

Star Wars. Hm. He remembers that. It might be nice to watch again, though he knows now the animals on Hoth would be far better off with smooth, scaly hides instead of heavy fur that just gets matted with snow and ice. That’s common sense. He does miss movies and television; those were good human inventions. Not worth going back to Midgard for, though. And as for the other things... They’re little more than overblown crutches to improve a weak human body. He can manage perfectly well on his own now.

“Fine, then what about sex?” Loki tries after getting no answer. “Jotnar never have sex recreationally, and never with their accorded partner. Only with an ideal genetic match for the explicit purpose of creating a child. I think you might care about that.”

“No,” says Tony.

“Human Tony absolutely would care,” Loki growls.

Maybe, but why does Loki keep using that argument? He’s not human now, so what human Tony did or thought is irrelevant. Yes, he used to have sex with Loki all the time, but now he’s just as happy with the idea of sitting beside Loki or cuddling Loki or affectionately biting Loki’s face. Why would they need to do anything more than that? “Jotun Loki wouldn’t,” he counters.

“No, I know Jotun Loki wouldn’t. That is why I dislike being Jotun Loki. Jotun Loki is an idiot who agrees with everything you’re saying.”

“Are you calling me an idiot?!” Tony snarls, stepping up and trying to make himself look as big and intimidating as possible. Which is probably not necessary. Because Loki stands barely taller than his waist.

Loki groans and rubs his hands over his face. “No, Tony, that’s not... You’re very Jotun. That’s all. I was hoping you’d retain any hint of your human way of thinking, but apparently not.”

“Change back now.”

“I told you: I can’t. If I change, I could lose sight of our goals. I need to keep my head.”

“Write down what you need to remember and change back.”

“It’s not just remembering,” sighs Loki. “It’s the desire to keep those plans intact.”

“I’ll show you something very important if you change back.”

“You don’t have anything important to show me.”

“I do.”

With suspicious, narrow eyes, Loki gives Tony a good staring down. And Tony does his best to look innocent. Loki can stare all he wants but he won’t be able to see the plot forming in Tony’s head; not even his Asgardian magic is strong enough to see thoughts. “Show me first,” he eventually says. “If it’s worthwhile, I’ll change back for an hour.”

Not good enough. His serpentine Asgardian mind can remember too much for an hour. “For all night.”

“You know I have to spend all day with Helblindi in my Jotun form.”

Tony does, in fact, know this. “All night,” he repeats. “And then all day tomorrow.”

“You’re too sneaky for a true Jotun,” Loki mutters. “I think you are still fractionally human in there.” He’s not looking for a reply to that, though, because he goes right over to the fire place to pick up a lump of charcoal, which he uses to write on the wall:

TO READ THE SECRET MESSAGE, SHIFT BACK TO YOUR ASGARDIAN FORM.

Underneath that, he scratches two lines of mysterious squiggles and symbols. A secret message. Tony stares at it, but can make no sense of the bizarre writing.

“There,” says Loki. “I don’t think my Jotun self will be able to resist such a temptation. Now show me this thing you have.”

“And then you’ll change,” Tony makes sure to confirm. “For all night and all day tomorrow.”

“And then I’ll change until tomorrow night.”

Tony reaches for the pouch on his belt, untying it so he can hand the whole thing over to Loki. It’s a gamble, but one he’s sure will pay off in the end. He has a plan. Loki thinks he’s slow and trusting, but Loki underestimates him. “Look inside,” he says. “Careful. It’s very small.”

Judging by that sudden gasp of interest and a quick lunge for the pouch, Loki knows exactly what’s going to be inside. And he’s not wrong. “That’s one,” Loki says, fishing out the metal shard and holding it up like a miniscule prize between his fingers. “When did this come out?”

“During the fight.”

“Any more?”

Tony shakes his head and clenches his fists, suddenly far too aware of the prickling in his skin and a stabbing itch right next to where the reactor used to be. He can’t scratch out any more. Not now while Loki’s watching.

“But this is good, Tony. They’re working their way out already. The rest should come soon, likely in a matter of days only.”

Or longer, if Tony’s able to hide them and spread them out until Loki’s forgotten all this pointless talk of going back to Midgard. “Now you should change back into a Jotun.”

“Yes, fine,” Loki agrees, tying the pouch onto his own belt. “But any more of those that come out, give them to me. I’ll keep count.”

He lays a hand, unpleasantly hot, on Tony’s arm, but it cools within seconds as he absorbs the cold right out of Tony’s veins. The more cold he takes, the more he grows, until he’s a proper Jotun height once more. Standing at Tony’s shoulder. And that black Asgardian hair has been replaced by nice, smooth ridges of bone like a crown on his skull.

“See?” says Tony. “This is better.” He wraps his arms around Loki’s back. His Loki. His Loki. His Jotun Loki. The way it should be.

“I don’t know,” Loki mutters. “I feel like...”

“You think too much. Why do you worry about so many things? We’re princes now, and I didn’t die, and we’re together. What else is important?”

Loki’s frown looks too much like concentration and deep thought for Tony’s liking. But after a minute it drops, and Loki shakes his head before leaning in against Tony’s chest. “No, you’re right. Everything else is unimportant. You are alive, and we are together. I’ll worry about the rest tomorrow.”

Or not, Tony says inwardly, while his outside says, “Yes, tomorrow,” on the hope that Loki will have given up this silly obsession with Midgard by then.

Loki’s ice grows around them, flowing out from his hands in a cradling wave, as they sink to the floor. By the time they’re down, there’s an entire snug and cozy ice nest for Tony to lie back in so Loki can curl up against him. Exactly the way everything should be. His teeth scratch over the skin above Loki’s ear before his mouth wanders downward to bite gently at the back of Loki’s neck. “My Loki,” he whispers.

“No hiding from everyone?” Loki whispers back.

“No.”

“Hm.” Loki shifts around until they’re mostly face to face. “We should probably have an official accordance, then.”

Probably, if that’ll help keep idiots like Dyri from looking at Loki. “What do we need to do for that?”

“Well... we would need to exchange tokens. I wear something from you, and you wear something from me. That way everyone knows we are a pair.”

That sounds simple enough. Tony has lots of tokens and he can easily give one to Loki. He can give lots to Loki. But when he reaches up to unloop one of the glittery rock pendants from his neck, Loki pushes his arm back down with a shake of the head.

“No, it has to be something special. Typically it would be something you make, or at least something you buy and engrave or alter for me.”

“Something I make...” Tony repeats.

“Something special.”

That sounds less simple, but not impossible. He used to make things all the time, didn’t he? Back when he was human? He still has that memory. Shaping metal, creating delicate little items with wire and circuits... He can make a token for Loki. Something rare and perfect and beautiful and better by far than any rock on a cord. “I’ll do that tomorrow,” he says, and Loki slowly nods.

And then Loki will be his, and everyone will know.

It doesn’t take long for Loki to fall asleep. However much magic he used to transform Tony into this Jotun body, it must have been draining, because he’s out within minutes. Eyes closed and lips quietly parted, his head rests against Tony’s shoulder and one arm drapes across Tony’s ribcage. He looks so delicate and small in his sleep...

Really, there’s only one way for Tony to keep him safe, keep him protected, and ensure they never have to leave the sanctuary of Jotunheim.

Tony climbs out of the ice nest slowly, every effort concentrated on not waking Loki with any sharp movements or unexpected bumps. He eases his arm out from beneath Loki’s neck, freezing in place when Loki tenses and grunts, and only slips his legs one at a time over the edge once he’s certain he can do so without causing further disturbance. Then he pads silently across the floor. To the wall.

Jotuns must be able to call ice to their hands somehow. It isn’t something Tony’s had a chance to ask Loki yet, but it can’t be a special skill or anything very complicated. He’s seen too many of them do it. They just hold out their hands and... Concentrate? Think? Is this something that requires magical training, even in a small amount? Is it something that should come naturally if Tony just tries? Loki creates ice as effortlessly as breathing. Maybe if...

He should visualize it. Imagine the cold concentrated in the palm of his hand, swirling in the air. The ice doesn’t come from his body and out through his skin like he thought before. (When he was human and didn’t know any better.) It’s more like... he should be able to summon water vapor from the air and solidify it at will. If he imagines a frozen stream of energy flowing down from his mind into his hands, gathering all his power there, forming a magnetically charged field to pull tiny flecks of snow out of the air and fuse them all in one place...

A little patch of frost begins to form in his cupped palm. One inch of frost, and then a little ice shard like a pine needle. And one more. His hand shakes with the strain of holding them and helping them grow. Three needles. And then a cramp beginning at the base of his thumb shoots all the way up through his wrist to his elbow, cracking his concentration. He has to stop and stretch his arm, looking down at one small circle of frost and three frail needles.

Well... It’s a start?

It’s something he can work on. Maybe something Loki can teach him. For now, though, he just breaks off a crag of the ice nest instead. He steps up to the words Loki charcoal-smeared onto the wall (“to read the secret message, shift back to your Asgardian form”) and scratches at the hasty lettering with his finger. It comes off easily, leaving just a dull gray smudge behind. The piece of ice in his hand, though, works even better, and a minute later Loki’s message is erased.

There. Whatever the secret was, it can stay secret until the end of time. Loki is Jotun now. Tony is Jotun now. They’re better like this. And no Asgardian interference will ever change that.

Chapter Text

It isn’t working.  Nothing is working.  No matter how many times Tony tries, the stupid thing just won’t cooperate.  He’s about ten seconds away from either smashing it into oblivion or throwing it so hard it launches into space.  Why the hell won’t it work?

He needs to make a token for Loki, and what better material to use than the broken old arc reactor?  He made the reactor back on Earth.  It’s something of his, something with meaning, something personal, and in all ways an ideal starting point for his project.  All he needs to do is take it apart and separate out the useful pieces before rearranging them into a little jewelry thing that Loki can wear.  Simple, right?  If only the stupid motherfucking piece of shit would come apart like he needs it to do.

Is it his fingers?  It might be his fingers.  They’re big and clumsy and can’t even fit into all the little places he needs to be able to reach to unfasten wires and loosen screws so tiny he can barely feel their presence.  He managed to get the four screws near the top free with a flat point of shale, but everything other than that...  How badly would it wreck things if he just tore the damn casing open and scooped out the insides, salvaging what he could?

No, he wants the core intact.  The setting for that is too delicate and he can’t risk breaking the one part of this useless hunk of garbage he actually needs.

“Tony?”

That’s Loki’s voice coming up behind him.  Quickly, he stuffs the broken reactor back into the rough hide satchel he’s been carrying it around in.  “Yeah?”

“Helblindi wants to see you now.”

ooo

He’s been a Jotun for six days.  Six days only, and already Tony’s convinced everything is going as it should.  Well.  With the notable exception of the damn arc reactor project.  That’s still a whole mess of bullshit.  But everything else?

All good. He and Loki enter the throne stadium together, his hand gently resting on the middle of Loki’s back.  Some idiots still look at Loki and his obvious lack of an accordance token, but as long as Tony’s there they don’t try anything.  And Loki, for his part, seems to have forgotten about that counterproductive plan to turn back into an Asgardian.  He hasn’t said a peep about it since that first night.  Good.  The last thing Tony needs right now when he’s starting to get along so well with the other Jotuns is for Loki to go wreck it all with his shapeshifting.

And almost all the shrapnel is out.  Only one stubborn little piece remaining, and it’ll soon make its appearance.  It’s already hovering close to the surface of Tony’s skin; he carefully picks at the spot with the point of his fingernail and has to resist the urge to claw and scratch even though it itches like crazy.  He scratched too hard on the last one and it almost got lost in a stream of blood.  Can’t take the same risk again now that he’s so close to knowing they’re all gone.

Up ahead at the far end of the stadium, Helblindi turns to look at them as they approach.  “So,” he says.  “You think you know how to fix it?”

Not think.  Tony knows he knows how to fix it.  He never studied architecture, but it’s all just math and physics anyway, and looking up to survey the ruins of columns overhead he can tell this’ll be an easy job.  Labor-intensive, but theoretically easy.  Nothing a couple dozen strong Jotuns can’t handle.

“The hardest part will be getting the stones up there,” he says.  “But Loki thinks we can use ice.  Make a long, switchback ramp and scaffold out of ice to push the stones up and get them into place.  To start, though, I need to climb up to have a look and take some measurements.  Then we’ll need a team to start tearing down the broken parts and making a stable surface to start the repairs.  All those broken pillars have to come down to the level of the break.  If any of the standing arches are stable we could use them, but I think it would be better and safer to tear down all the arch work and replace with new.  We could possibly reuse some of the stones but I won’t know until I see them.”

“And how long will this take?”

For that, Tony has no idea.  It could be a year or it could be a decade.  “Sorry.  I don’t know how fast your people can work.  I won’t be able to tell you until we begin.”

Helblindi accepts the ambiguous answer with a nod.  “Then begin with your measurements now.  I’ll assign you twenty laborers to assist in pulling down the broken parts, starting tomorrow.  If you need more, tell me.”

Twenty sounds good. He can start with twenty, and see how that goes. So while Helblindi leaves to go back inside with Loki to discuss whatever family things they’ve spent so much time recently discussing, Tony slings a little bag of primitive homemade tools over his shoulder and begins the climb up the nearest pillar. It isn’t easy. He can dig his long claws into cracks and grooves and imperfections in the stone, but it’s still a time-consuming and careful process trying to balance and pull himself up to the top. Once there, he rests for a minute on the crumbling stone before getting to work.

The good news is, all the damage looks like it came from an external source, not from faulty workmanship. There’s a lot of weather-based erosion going on, but that would have come after the original destructive trauma. He can see a pattern, standing up there on the pillar. Over at his end, the pillars are shorter, broken off about seventy feet above the ground. But looking towards the opposite side, they stand steadily taller, until some of the farthest have portions of archways still attached. Whatever hit this place – and Tony’s convinced something did physically hit it – was big enough to take the entire roof off at about a ten degree angle. Some kind of Asgardian war plane? Coming in for a crash landing and striking the Jotun palace?

That makes things easier to fix, knowing he’s building on a solid foundation. This place would probably still be standing if not for outside interference.

The top of the pillar is a squared-off octagon shape that’s 8.18 ‘meters’ around (according to the tape he made, with measurements approximated as best as he could guess). Same as the bottom, which means it should be straight. And a plumb bob made of a small cylinder of rock on a thin chain confirms that it is. Good. No tapering ratios to worry about. He scratches all the measurements and notes into the surface of a piece of hard leather before climbing back down.

The whole stadium is six pillars wide by ten long, thought the back is built and carved into the mountain housing Helblindi’s palace. That’ll take some careful measurements and calculations to get right. And if each pillar is 6.22 meters apart... Tony needs to draw this out. He unrolls another, larger sheet of stiff leather and begins scratching out plans at 1/100^th scale. The rebuilt pillars will be four times the width of the gaps: 24.88 meters to the tops of the capitals. Pointed arches reach half the height of the pillars. This’ll take a lot of stone, and a lot of exact measurements and precisely angled blocks. But the Jotuns did it before. This stadium had a vaulted ceiling once. A thousand years or more ago, before the war with Asgard. They did it once, and with new plans, they can recreate what Asgard destroyed.

As a final touch, he adds in rough plans for a tower at the mountain end, built up onto the slope. Who says things can’t be remade better than they were before?

Good. That looks good. Now he just needs his work team to start taking down the old arches and broken tops and they can get going on the rebuilding. Helblindi and Loki should be inside; they can check things over and see if anything else is needed. He rolls up the leather plans and heads in to find them. Over to Helblindi’s office-like room, where indeed he does find Helblindi and Loki, and Býleistr, and two others he doesn’t recognize. And Dyri.

Dyri is standing next to Loki. Too close next to Loki. So close, in fact, that the sight of him makes every muscle in Tony’s body clench. What the hell does that ass think he’s doing? Standing next to Loki like that, and smiling as Tony pauses in the doorway? Smiling like a hunter with his sharp teeth bared?

“Ah, Tony,” says Helblindi, beckoning him over with both hands. And it’s a good thing he does that, because Tony’s already pushing his way in between Dyri and Loki. Dyri reacts with a low, threatening growl from the back of the throat. Not that Tony cares. He’s bigger than Dyri. Not by much, but by enough that it would give him something of an advantage in a fight. An advantage he plans to test at the earliest possible opportunity.

Now, though, is neither the time nor place for that. (Unfortunately.) Tony gives the leather roll to Helblindi, then rests his hand where it belongs on Loki’s back. A protective barrier against unwanted attention. “Plans to repair the roof,” he says.

Helblindi may or may not understand the scratches and numbers on the leather, but he looks at it and nods and says, “Yes, this looks good.”

“We’ll start the demolition process tomorrow. But I also need you to show me to the quarry so we can plan out the cutting of new blocks. We can reuse some of the old stone, but most of what’s fallen has broken into pieces too small to be any good to us. We’ll need a lot of new.”

“Whatever you think is best,” Helblindi agrees. “I want this place rebuilt. It’s been a ruin for far too long. Our people deserve better than centuries of crumbling decay.”

Yes, they do. And Tony plans to help give them just that. A new palace. Greater than what stood before. To spite the damn Asgardians. But they need more than just a rebuilt palace to fix a failing kingdom held together by what Tony’s sure is just a straggling survival instinct on top of a great deal of sheer stubbornness. They need better organization and a cohesive plan for the whole city. They need better infrastructure. And above all else, they need better access to food.

Which is where Loki’s ideas come into play.

“They just don’t understand the concept of farming,” Loki says once he and Tony return to their room. “They’ve always been a hunting society, and never evolved past that. Nobody ever thought that it might be easier to hunt animals that were contained within a fence. And when I tried to explain this to Helblindi, he simply said they prefer to hunt out in the wilderness because that’s how it’s always been done.”

“Did you tell them farming is how it’s been done for thousands of years on Earth?” Tony asks.

Loki shakes his head. “No. I should have. I told him he was being stupid and clinging to the past. Eventually he did listen and agreed to try building a fence to keep some livestock contained near the city walls. They can still hunt if they want, but if the hunters have no luck, they will have this kept herd to fall back on instead of people going hungry.”

“That sounds like a good compromise.”

“We’ll see,” Loki sighs. “He and I will go out tomorrow to start planning the fence.”

“With Dyri?” Tony asks. He can’t help it. The question is out of his mouth before he even really thinks about saying the words.

Loki answers with an annoyed and cutting glance. “Why do you care so much about Dyri?”

“He was standing next to you.”

“Yes, and Ragnfridh was on my other side, but that didn’t seem to bother you.”

“He was looking at you, and then he smiled at me.”

“Tony...”

“What?” Tony snaps. It’s not like he’s being unreasonable. Loki is his, and Dyri knows that, and still keeps acting like an ass. “I think he’s trying to steal you from me.”

“No, he’s not.”

“How would you know? You don’t see what I see. You just see him being nice to you. Which he does because he’s trying to steal you from me!”

“And you think I would let him?” Loki snarls.

“That’s not...” Tony starts, but has to stop there because... what’s he even trying to say? No, he doesn’t think Loki would ever go with Dyri, or anyone else. If he forces himself to think about things calmly, that much is obvious. But it still bothers him. Dyri still bothers him, and that’s the part he wants Loki to understand.

But Loki keeps going. “Are you honestly worried about this? That even if you are correct, and Dyri is interested in me, and he went as far as to tell me this, that I would leave you for him? Is that a worry you have?”

“Well, no,” Tony admits. “I don’t think you would do that.”

Moving forward, Loki closes the gap between them until his hands can sit at Tony’s waist. “Then why does he upset you so much? Why do you let him bother you?”

“I don’t know. He just does. I don’t like him even thinking he might have a chance. Or thinking about you at all.”

“You worry over nothing. He’s no more than a friend of my brother’s. But if it bothers you that much, I will make sure I remind him of his place.”

It helps a little to hear that, explicitly stated and spoken out loud. Tony pulls Loki close, and that also helps, feeling Loki’s body against his. Safely tucked away in his arms, shielded from the world. It’s just that Loki’s so small. And wonderful. Of course other people would want to steal him. He’s the most beautiful of all the Jotuns Tony’s seen, with his sharply delicate features in perfect symmetry, lithe body, and deep blue skin that glows so enticingly with just the tiniest hint of Asgardian warmth. Anyone would want Loki.

“But you’re mine,” he mutters under his breath, mostly to himself.

“Yes,” Loki whispers back. “And you are mine.”

He really needs that damn accordance token. Immediately.

ooo

Jotuns don’t like destroying things.

Tony would have thought they’d be all in favor of tearing down the broken pillars, and be good at it, too. But all the workers Helblindi rounded up are all so stubborn and mistrustful of any kind of change, and keep looking at him like he’s crazy as he explains what needs to be done. it makes him want to crack their heads together. Which he probably would do, if most of them weren’t bigger than he is.

“But why?” they keep asking.

“Because we have to build the roof,” Tony says for at least the fifth time. This time, he pulls out the plans. “Here. Look. Right now, the whole place is open to the air. We’ll build a new roof to cover it in, but before we can do that, we need to take down the broken parts.”

At least half of them look up. “Why does it need a roof?” somebody says.

“Because it’s better that way. We’re making everything bigger and better and more impressive.”

“But why?”

He’s going to punch something. Or someone. But before he has to decide who, movement off to the side catches the corner of his eye. There’s Loki, waving him over. “Wait here,” he growls at the workers. (Not like they’ll do anything else.)

“You haven’t started yet?” Loki asks as Tony jogs over.

“They’re too stubborn,” Tony growls. “Everybody refuses to do what I say!”

“Hm.” Looking up at the broken arches, Loki seems to be thinking. “Tell them there used to be a roof. They’re not building something new, they’re repairing something old. They may like that idea better.”

Maybe, though they should still be doing what Tony says without any argument. He’s in charge. It’s his idea and his plan and his project and they should listen to what he says without talking back or questioning his authority. Idiots. “I’ll try. Are you going to look at pastures with Helblindi?”

“Yes. We’re on our way. Though I thought I’d say goodbye to you before we left.”

“Is Dyri going?”

Loki looks a little annoyed by the question, but still answers civilly. “I told him to stay behind.”

Good. That’s the first thing that’s gone right for Tony all day. “Come see me when you’re back,” he says. “I should be here with these morons all day.”

He gives Loki’s hand a quick squeeze in a gesture of farewell before heading back to said morons. But at least he has a new plan of action. “Okay. Listen to me. There used to be a roof up there. Is anybody old enough to remember it?”

The workers exchange blank stares, but a few glance over to a pair at the back of the group. Those two look at each other, mutter a few words back and forth, and eventually nod.

“You remember?” Tony asks.

“Yes,” one says slowly. “There used to be a... a high ceiling. Curved. It covered this whole area.”

“So you understand what I’m trying to do.”

More muttered words, then an uncertain frown. “...Yes?”

“To rebuild the roof, we have to tear down the broken parts of the pillars. Not the whole thing: just everything above the level of the break. Take it down, and then we put it back. Fixed. We’re fixing it. Not changing. Fixing.”

They seem a little more receptive to that. Still not entirely convinced, but at least now there are a few reluctantly murmured agreements. Enough to get started. They’ll go for the shortest pillars first: level off the tops to start building up again. Tony sends two workers up each pillar to pull apart the stones. That should take them... well... With any luck it’ll take several days of manual labor. Several days in which they work while Tony supervises. Several days in which he supervises by sitting down along the wall and working at his arc reactor token for Loki.

Another movement catches his eye as he watches the workers climbing. Somebody just slipped behind one of the pillars far off to the right. Not one of his: he can count ten pairs all climbing their way up. Somebody else. Somebody sneaking around, by the looks of things. Nothing Tony can see directly, but as soon as he looks away, there it is again in his peripheral vision. Definitely somebody not wanting to be detected. And if keeps flickering his gaze over that way... Eventually, he catches a solid view of the mystery intruder.

Dyri.

Now why is that idiot skulking around here? It’s a small feeling of triumph to see that he has indeed been left behind by Loki and Helblindi, but the sight of him hovering in the shadows is still enough to chafe at Tony’s nerves. He has no reason to be anywhere near this construction site. Or near Tony. And no reason at all to look so suspicious.

Slowly, slipping from one pillar to the next when he thinks Tony can’t see, he makes his way around the perimeter of the stadium. No clear purpose to his actions. Spying, maybe, but on what? Nothing going on here is a secret. Anyone who wants to watch the very tedious and boring show of broken pillars being chipped apart and levelled of – and a few scant onlookers do filter in and out for a minute or two of curiosity – is welcome to do so, provided they stay out of the way and don’t impede the workers. Dyri slinking like a snake makes no sense.

Irritating as it may be, Tony forces himself to ignore Dyri’s actions. He has better and more important things to think about. Like demolition, which finally seems to be going along according to plan. Or Loki’s token, which he could take some time to work on now that things are underway and nobody really needs his direction. He also now has a set of mason’s tools, which might come in handy for getting the damn core out. He heads back over to the palace end of the stadium where he left his satchel containing the remnants of the reactor. He left it by this pillar. Or... was it the next one?

No, he definitely left the reactor right here: there’s a scuffed mark in the dusting of new snow where the bag had been.   And next to that scuffed mark, two sets of footprints. Tony’s from when he left it there, coming from indoors and leading off toward the demolition end. And one other set, coming from the side and going back the same way. The way Dyri just went.

Dyri wasn’t spying; he was stealing. A wave of fury rises up fast as a geyser from Tony’s gut all the way to his head, scratching and writhing and howling. He’s running even before he has half a second to think about what he’s doing. Dyri went this way, toward one of the back doors, and Tony’s footsteps pound along the trail with rage urging him on.

Find the thief. Catch him. Make him pay!

And Tony plans to do just that. He ducks through the narrow passageway leading out from the stadium and pushes his way past a pair of hunters skinning their latest catch. Outside the square is full of people doing everything they can to get in Tony’s way, but up ahead... That’s Dyri. Those are his red leather arm bands, standing out a mile away against the bright blue-white ice. Dyri turns behind a building, and Tony takes off after him. He makes a quick left and then a right, but Tony’s on him like a shadow. Until, in a deserted and winding alley between two rows of houses, Tony finally catches up.

He grabs Dyri by the back of the neck, slamming him into the wall with a snarl of rage. “Where is it?!”

Dyri’s hands are empty, meaning he can use both of them to lash out at Tony’s grip and try to push himself back from the wall, but that’s not going to do him any good. And empty hands don’t prove a damn thing; he could’ve easily stashed the bag with the arc reactor elsewhere before coming this way. He probably did just that, knowing Tony was following him.

“Where’s what?!” Dyri growls. His hands reach around to claw at Tony’s arm, though it’s a bad angle for him and he can’t do any more than ineffectively scratch.

“My reactor!” Tony shouts, and he pulls Dyri back just to slam him against the wall again. “Where is it?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“It was in a leather bag, against a pillar! I left it there, and you took it! Where did you hide it?!”

“I didn’t take anything of yours!” Dyri insists. That just earns him another up-close and personal meeting with the frozen wall.

Tony spins him around to look the dirty liar right in the eye, pressing his forearm against Dyri’s neck. “You have five seconds until I strangle you. Use them well. Tell me where you put the bag.”

“I didn’t...” Dyri gasps as Tony pushes harder against his airway.

“Four.”

This won’t be resolved without a full-on fight. Dyri plants his foot against the wall and kicks himself off, crashing shoulder-first into Tony and knocking them both to the ground. And it won’t be an easy fight, either. Tony may be bigger, but Dyri’s quick and knows how and where to strike. His fists connect soundly with Tony’s ribs. Tony kicks back, trying to shove him away; that only succeeds halfway in catching Dyri’s knee.

“I don’t have whatever it is you want!” Dyri shouts as he dodges a wild, swinging punch before striking back and hitting Tony in the face.

“Then why were you following me?!” The bitter taste of blood is in Tony’s mouth. It only makes him angrier. He swings again, and misses again. Dyri clips his other side, lower jaw.

“I wasn’t following you; I was following Loki!”

The third punch connects with the side of Dyri’s head, just next to his eye. Maybe the explosive rage firing up in Tony’s chest helps. “Why were you following Loki?! Stay away from him!”

“I can do what I-”

The fourth punch, more of a whole forearm strike, really, gets Dyri right in his lying mouth and cuts off whatever stupid thing he was about to say. His pointed teeth scrape against Tony’s elbow hard enough to break the skin, raw and stinging. Dyri rolls backward with the force of it. But instead of lunging forward again with another attack, he springs to his feet and takes off running. Like the coward he is. And hell if Tony’s going to allow that.

Tony jumps up too, though somehow there’s blood in his eyes, blurring his vision as he runs full tilt after Dyri. Down the alley, around a curve, sharp left turn... Dyri’s fast but Tony stays at his heels. Hatred is a good fuel. It pushes like an engine and urges him forward.

Just around the next turn, Tony’s fingers catch on Dyri’s shoulder. And the swing of his fist hits its mark.

ooo

It’s a long time before Loki finally returns, though that suits Tony just fine. He’s sitting on the floor playing with the finishing details on his token when Loki opens the door to their room. Quickly, he conceals the token in his fist and stands up. It’s good enough. Nothing else he can do to improve it, except continuously etch over the lines with the corner of a chisel to carve them a little deeper. He’d rather see it on Loki now than waste any more time perfecting something that, while crude, will still serve its purpose.

“How was today’s construction?” Loki asks, tossing a large bag of something onto the floor. Food? Tony hopes it’s food. It smells like food. And he’s starving.

“Fine. Everything is going well.” But that’s not what he wants to talk about, so he quickly changes the topic. “I have something for you.”

Immediately, that sly, coy smile slinks across Loki’s face and he moves up closer until they’re almost touching. “Oh? You do?”

“I do. If you still want it.”

“I very much want it,” Loki murmurs.

“I hope you like it...”

It occurs to Tony, as he holds out his hand, that Loki might not like it. It might be a little morbid. It might be a little savage. It might just be completely inappropriate. But even though his heart is hammering and all that doubt keeps swirling through his thoughts, he still, very slowly, opens his clenched fist to show Loki what he’s made.

Loki’s eyes widen in surprise, which could be either a good or a bad sign. “Is that... a bone?”

“Yes,” Tony answers.

“...Where did you get it?”

There are a lot of ways to answer that question, depending on the amount of detail one wants to divulge. Tony goes for the most simplistic and straightforward route. “Uh. Well. Dyri and had a... an incident. And I possibly bit his finger off.”

Loki snaps his head up to lock eyes with Tony. “This is Dyri’s finger?”

Maybe this wasn’t as good an idea as Tony originally thought. “It used to be. But,” he continues, trying to explain his reasoning, “he deserved everything he got! He won’t leave you alone, so I had to protect you from him. And this finger is proof – and a warning – that anyone who tries to do anything to you will have to come through me. That’s my job. I look after you and make sure nobody can hurt you. And nobody will.”

With claws just slipping under the cord, Loki lifts the token to dangle it in front of his face for a better look. The gray bone has a silver sheen to its surface, hiding a deeper gray core revealed only through a few carefully scratched lines. “You carved my name into it?”

“Both our names. ‘Loki’ on that side, ‘Tony’ on the other. So...” With Loki’s face giving no hint of a reaction, he has to ask. “Do you... like it?”

“I do,” Loki answers with a small nod. “It’s unusual, but... I do like it. You really did bite Dyri’s finger off?”

“Yeah.”

“For me?”

“Yeah.”

“So he’s the one who gave you that new scar on your cheek?”

Tony raises his hand to the three parallel scratches, deep but now mostly healed in uneven ridges down the right side of his face. “His finger scratched its way into my mouth. But the important thing is, I got him to agree not to look at you any more. Or he’ll lose something bigger next time.”

“Will you make that into a token for me, too?” Loki asks.

“Yes. I’ll make you lots of things. Anything. I’ll do anything. You’re my Loki, and I’ll do anything to make sure you’re happy.”

“What would make me happy,” Loki says slowly, “is you hanging this around my neck.”

That’s a thing Tony can absolutely do. He takes the dangling bone back from Loki’s outstretched hand. Maybe he should do this more solemnly. Maybe he should do this with some ceremony or say some profound words or get down on one knee or whatever the hell else you’re supposed to do in a situation like this. But given that he wouldn’t be able to reach Loki’s neck if he knelt down and also that waiting even two more seconds is completely out of the question, he slips the loop over Loki’s head as quickly as he can.

“Shorten the cord,” Loki tells him. “An accordance token needs to hang a the collarbone.”

He pulls the token up and knots the cord at the right length; Loki fishes a knife out of a belt pouch so he can cut off the long ends. And that’s that. The bone rests gently against the hollow at the base of Loki’s neck, prominently displayed above all the other long-hanging pendants. A little rush of pride fills Tony’s stomach. “My Loki,” he murmurs.

“You’re stuck with me forever, now,” says Loki.

“Good.” That’s the way it should be. Loki is his and nobody else’s, and now the whole world will know.

“Would you like me to give you yours?”

“My...” he says, before remembering that Loki needs to give him a token, too. “Yes. Did you make it?”

Loki nods as he unties one of the numerous pouches on his belt. “I did. While I was out with Helblindi.”

Whatever he has in his hand, it’s glowing, and Tony sees why once he holds it up between them. The token Loki’s made is a smooth crystal. It’s rounded and flat like a stone from a riverbed, and encased in the middle sits a little glowing triangle. The filament from the reactor core.

“Wait,” says Tony. “So... you stole the reactor?”

“Yes. I’ve been trying to find an opportunity to do this for days, but you kept carrying the damn thing around with you everywhere. This morning was the first time you left it alone for more than a minute. I apologize if it going suddenly missing caused any grief, but I was becoming desperate.”

Tony’s eyes flick over to the bone formerly belonging to Dyri, now hanging around Loki’s neck. Would that qualify as ‘grief’? No. Dyri still deserved what he got. “If you want to know, I was carrying it around because I wanted to use it to make something for you. But...” In a very roundabout way, the arc reactor did help in the making of his token? “This is a lot better than what I was thinking of. How did you get its glow back?”

“An infusion of a little energy. It’s no longer able to give power to anything else: it can only glow. But I thought...”

And now it’s Loki’s turn to look uncertain, like he’s second-guessing his choice of token exactly as Tony did a minute earlier. But why? He created something amazing out of that broken metal tube. He did exactly what Tony would have done, if Tony knew how to magically reignite the spark of life in a dead element and then seal the whole thing in a seamless crystal casing. It’s perfect, and Loki made it, and Tony will accept it gladly. Hell, with the way Tony feels about getting things finalized right now, Loki could’ve tied a frozen turd to a shoelace and it would be accepted gratefully and worn with pride. This glowing reactor gem is just a lot nicer.

“I thought this would be appropriate for you,” Loki continues, as if he even needs to rationalize anything. “I have this... image in my mind. Even now I think of you with your blue light. I almost expect to see it every time I look at you.” Slowly, he raises his hand, and the cool pads of two fingers trace along the diameter of the circular scar in the middle of Tony’s chest. “It feels like something’s not quite right to see you without it. So I thought... I’ll give you back your light.”

There are two things Tony can do in response to that. Two things he wants to do: either crush Loki in full body embrace (and potentially never let go), or lean over so Loki can immediately tie the token around his neck. The problem is, he can’t decide fast enough which it should be, and ends up cracking his eye on one of the bone ridges crowning Loki’s forehead in an attempt to do both at once.

“Ow, sorry.”

“Tony, what are you-”

Hugging is easier than explaining. He wraps his arms around Loki’s shoulders and rests his cheek against the top of Loki’s head. Pretending he meant to do that.

“So...” Loki says after a moment of silently leaning against each other. “You like your token?”

“Mm-hmm,” Tony inarticulately grunts.

Loki doesn’t need to ask anything else. Somehow he squirms his arms up and around Tony’s neck to tie the cord, fingers working unseen to craft a sturdy knot. The crystal hangs heavier than expected against Tony’s skin. Good: he likes the feel of it. A steady reminder and a constant presence. A little touch that will always be with him even when Loki can’t be. “And now you’re stuck with me forever,” he murmurs into Loki’s ear.

“Yes, I am,” Loki agrees.

“I might have to make you a new token later. Something better. Something really good. You deserve the best.”

“I like this one just fine.”

“But I made it in a couple hours this afternoon. In a fit of rage.”

“I made mine in a few hours,” Loki counters. “This afternoon. In a fit of utter boredom while Helblindi kept telling me about hunting.”

“Loki, you reignited the arc reactor core and put it inside a gem for me.”

“Yes, and you bit somebody’s finger off for me.”

Fair enough. Maybe brute violence is as impressive to Loki as magic crystals are to Tony. A finger bone prize does prove that Tony’s skilled at fighting and potentially also killing things, which is a good quality to have in a mate, so...

The blue glow from the reactor core pendant makes the thin sheen of frost on Loki’s skin glitter. Tony lifts a thumb to trace the edge of his jaw before reaching around to clasp the back of his neck. “I’m happy,” he says after a minute. “You?”

Loki nods. “Yes.”

“No I mean... really happy. Like...” Hard-to-explain happy. Like suddenly every worry that’s ever touched him and left its mark has faded away, dissolved by the cleansing light of the token Loki made. He worried about so many things back on Earth, and now they all seem so trivial. All his frustrations over the workers not following his demolition orders don’t matter any more. Even Dyri isn’t enough to get to him. Everything is good. Fine. Ideal. “Everything feels right. Exactly as it is now. And I want it to stay like this.”

“On Jotunheim,” Loki adds. Not a question.

“Yeah. It’s better here than Earth or Asgard, isn’t it? Nobody in our way. Life is easier. I like it better. Don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m done with Asgard. I never want to go back. Jotunheim is better for us.”

Exactly what Tony wants to hear. He gives Loki a quick, affectionate bite on one of the bony skull ridges. “Let’s go outside,” he says. “Take some food. I want to show you what we did at the pillars today.”

“And show everyone the new accordance tokens?”

That might be a big part of what Tony has in mind. Loki knows him too well. “If you think I’m going to tie that thing around your neck and not show every single person...”

Loki smirks up at him. “Let’s go outside.”

Chapter Text

It’s nice when the path finally descends into a narrow gorge, sheltering everyone from the hard gusts of wind that have been blasting into them since they left the enclosure of the city walls.  Good.  The skin down the left side of Tony’s body, especially on his face and shoulder, was starting to sting.  He rubs away the accumulated assault of tiny ice crystals.  “Nice day for a walk,” he grumbles to Loki.  “How much farther?”

“At least two full days,” Loki answers.

An answer of the exact variety Tony was dreading and doesn’t want to hear. And the noise he makes in his throat is really just a substitute for a whole string of bad words that he can’t say because Helblindi’s walking only a couple steps ahead of them.  And that would be rude.  But this is probably his own fault.  He should’ve asked before they left how long this walk would take.  He should’ve remembered that Earth logic doesn’t apply on Jotunheim.  Because back on Earth, when somebody says, ‘Hey, do you want to go on a walk to visit this lady Helblindi’s into?’ it typically means the walk will be short and direct.  An hour, tops.

Not two and a half days in each direction.

He slows his pace, prompting Loki to do the same, so they fall a little behind while Helblindi keeps moving on ahead.  Once safely out of earshot, he growls to Loki.  “Why are we doing this, again?”

“Because Helblindi asked us to come, and we said yes.”

“I know, but...”  That’s not the part Tony has trouble justifying.  That part, he will admit, is fully his own fault. “Why does he need an entourage? And why us? Boo-boo got to stay home.”

“Býleistr is overseeing the city while Helblindi’s gone.”

A likely excuse. “Fine, but my question about the entourage still stands. Can’t he just ask this woman to marry him without all the fuss?”

Loki looks at him. This is probably one of those cases of Loki having explained something already when Tony wasn’t listening, but in his defense, it wasn’t interesting or relevant back then. Now it directly impacts his personal comfort so he’s more inclined to pay attention. “He’s not asking her to marry him. He’s asking her to be the mother of his heirs. It’s completely different.”

“So they’re not accorded?” Tony asks. This is getting confusing. And uninteresting.

“No. You’re still confusing marriage and accordance. They’re not the same. There is no such thing as ‘marriage’ on Jotunheim. There is accordance, and there is progenic agreement. Together those things would equal what most people would consider ‘marriage’ on Asgard or Midgard, but on Jotunheim they are separate. Accordance is the relationship side. Jotnar will accord themselves of those they wish to companionably spend the rest of their lives with. A best friend and respected equal. But these accordances are almost always same-sex, so they can’t produce any offspring. That’s where progenic agreements come in. When somebody wants a child, they will seek out a desirable match. It’s purely a business arrangement. No emotion or attraction involved. They agree ahead of time who will keep and raise the child, and compensation is given to the parent who is only... providing a service, shall we say?”

“Got it.” Tony glances back over his shoulder at the dozens of other Jotuns trailing along, and the sleds piled high with meat, leather hides, and decorative trade goods. “So Helblindi is paying this woman to have his baby.”

Loki seems annoyed by that oversimplification, but can’t refute the fact that Tony’s assessment is, on the most basic level, correct. “He is showing her the respect her station deserves. Igulfrídh is the prince of Halgeir. I’m sure he could find hundreds of women who would be mother to his child just for the honor of it, but this is a political match. There’s always been friction between the tribes and it’s only been growing worse since Laufey’s death. If Helblindi can flatter Igulfrídh and get her on his side – if her child is his heir – it will make his rule that much easier.”

“Ah,” Tony says with a nod. Politics. No wonder he didn’t pay attention when Loki explained all this before. “Wait, how can a woman be the ‘prince’?”

“Because Jotnar have no concept of gender identity and nobody cares enough to invent a separate word for something as pointless as specifying whether the prince is male or female.”

Picking up the pace again, Loki moves back up the ranks to regain his place behind Helblindi. Tony goes along because, well, he doesn’t have anything better to do. At least not for the next two days as they trudge over endless the landscape. Rocks. Ice. Snowdrifts. Ice. Rocks. Like a repeating cartoon background, until they finally reach a walled settlement in what Tony would describe as the literal middle of nowhere. The gates open, they all troop inside, and there she is. Helblindi’s future baby-mama. And whatever Tony was imagining she’d look like? It isn’t this.

Igulfrídh is, with absolutely no competition, the biggest, ugliest, most intimidating Jotun Tony has ever seen. Not that he’s an expert on Jotun size, or ugliness for that matter, but it doesn’t take a lot of experience to tell that Igulfrídh, prince of this place Tony’s already forgotten the name of, is exceptional in her largeness. Standing before her, Helblindi looks comically small in comparison. He isn’t even as tall as her armpit, and the entire width of his body scarcely matches even one of her massive, stump-like legs.

“Is she the prince because she killed and ate all the opposition?” Tony whispers to Loki.

Loki whispers back with a smirk, “Probably.”

Tony meant that in all seriousness. Igulfrídh does look as if she quite literally consumed anyone who ever stood in her way. At Helblindi’s invitation, she lumbers forward to inspect the sleds full of gifts he’s brought her. The dense covering of ice on the ground crackles beneath her weight. She sticks her hand into the meat sled to pull out a sample, which she stuffs whole into her mouth, then moves on to the hide sled to pick up one particularly nice green scaly specimen. She only has one hand, Tony notes. The right is missing, along with half of her forearm, ending in a hammered metal cap. Part of her squashed-in bulldog nose also looks like it disappeared at some point during her (probably rather colorful) life.

She takes another minute or two to look over the gift selection. Then, hanging a new necklace of white crystals around her neck, turns back toward Helblindi with a grunt and a nod.

“Good,” says Loki. “She’s accepted the offer.”

“What, already?” Tony asks.

“You were expecting it to take longer?”

Considering everything else that’s happened to get them to this point, yes. He was expecting a long and drawn-out negotiation, followed by some kind of ceremony, followed by speeches, followed by any number of other time-consuming activities. But instead, Igulfrídh leads the way into the large cave-building that must be her home, Helblindi follows, and that’s that.

“Yeah. Huh.” Tony looks at Loki. “Really? Nothing more?”

“Nothing more. Helblindi has been sending messengers back and forth for some time now to negotiate this. All that remained today was for Igulfrídh to accept his gifts, and that finalizes everything.”

“So they do the do and then we go home.”

“Yes,” Loki tells him. “After they spend at least sixteen days together to ensure Igulfrídh is pregnant before Helblindi leaves.”

That’s it. There it is. There’s the bad news Tony was waiting for: the confirmation of exactly how much time they’re going to waste in this place. At least sixteen days. It’s worse than he feared. Huffing out a breath, he kicks at the ground and makes a divot in the ice with his toenail. “Sixteen?” he growls.

“What are you so grumpy about?” Loki asks. “It’s not as if we’re missing anything important back home.”

“I’m missing the roof construction.”

“Tony, they’re still cutting stones and levelling out the niche for the new tower.”

“Yes, and they need my supervision!” Tony insists. “They might do something wrong!”

“How could they cut out hundreds upon hundreds of identical stone blocks wrong when they’re working from your template?”

“I don’t know,” Tony says. “But they might. If I’m not there to make sure everything is done my way, they could cut a block smaller by accident and then lose the original template and accidentally pattern all future blocks off the small one. Or they could stop working. They might just stop working if I’m not there to watch. They need my leadership, Loki.”

“No they don’t.”

“They do. I don’t trust them. People ruin things all the time when I’m not there to tell them what to do.”

“As opposed to how well everything always turns out when you are personally involved?”

Tony narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” says Loki, and pats him on the arm. “Why don’t we go look around? We’re here for sixteen days; we might as well see what this place has to offer. Are you hungry?”

Silly question. Tony’s always hungry. And the thought of food makes him feel a little better. He can always worry about construction later, after he’s eaten.

They follow the flow of foot traffic away from the meeting site, Loki leading the way and Tony following, until they end up in an open town square. The architecture looks much the same as what they left behind: tall, narrow buildings hollowed out of dark gray slate, which lends itself well to the favored geometric style of angled archways and decorative carvings. Up ahead near an octagonal obelisk, a hunter sits skinning the daily catch. Loki approaches, a few small hammered metal coins change hands, and there’s dinner. Some nice organ meats, fresh and soft. Kidneys have become Tony’s favorite over the past few weeks. Why did he never eat these when he was a human? Obviously he didn’t know anything about good food back then.

“Tony,” Loki mutters to him as he takes a bite, “do you think we’re being followed?”

Immediately, Tony glances back over his shoulder, while Loki hisses, “No, don’t look!” That really seems like a warning that should have been given earlier.

But he does look, and yes, it appears as if they are indeed being followed. By a substantial group. And as soon as that group is spotted they take that as acknowledgement, moving quickly forward. Not in a menacing way, though. It seems to Tony that they’re just... curious.

One of the braver followers steps right up to Loki. “You are Helblindi’s brother?”

Loki, unsure of where this is going, answers with a less than confident, “...Yes?”

“You were imprisoned on Asgard?”

Loki takes a long time in answering that one. “No,” he finally says, to Tony’s surprise: Tony was sure he would’ve stretched the truth on that one and taken this perfect opportunity to paint Asgard in a less than flattering light. “I was... I was adopted by the royal family. And raised as a prince of their people.”

That incites a ripple of hushed conversation among the group. They’d been expecting a more sinister answer. “Did they treat you well?” somebody else asks.

“Well enough,” Loki replies. “By Asgardian standards.”

“But-” Tony tries to interject, though Loki holds up a hand to wave him off.

“What does that mean?” asks the first speaker.

“It means I was treated as they would treat any other Asgardian in my position. They have different customs than what might seem right here, and many things they do you would judge as unfair. Which is why I say: by Asgardian standards, I was treated well. I was not a prisoner.”

“But were you happy there?”

Another uncomfortably long pause. Tony can feel Loki subtly shifting closer to him, until their elbows touch. He rests a protective hand on Loki’s shoulder, ready to step in and chase these inquisitors away at the first sign Loki doesn’t want to continue along this path. But before he has to do anything, Loki answers the question.

One word. “Sometimes.”

“Will you tell us about Asgard?” someone yells from the back.

“I suppose I can,” says Loki. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” somebody else calls out.

“But not here,” says the first Jotun. “Come with us.”

Tony keeps his arm around Loki as they walk, following the crowd. Friendly or not, they’re still among strangers. And prominently displayed accordance tokens or not, there’s always the chance somebody might try to steal his Loki.

As if telepathically picking up on Tony’s internal thought process, the Jotun leading the way glances down at Loki’s bone pendant. “That’s an unusual accordance token. Is it...” Leaning in, she takes a closer look. “Is it a... finger bone?”

“Yes,” Loki answers.

“There must be a good story behind that.”

Loki turns his face to look at Tony and pass over responsibility for telling the tale. Tony grins, but not in a nice way. More in a way that shows off his teeth to their best advantage. “Somebody kept getting in the way and disrespecting our relationship. I had to teach him a lesson. He doesn’t bother us any more.”

“I see.” Quietly, the Jotun drifts off to the side and out of the way.

Their destination isn’t far: only a few minutes on foot. Situated in what’s probably the center of town, it’s another throne stadium, but unlike the one back home this one isn’t decaying and falling apart. Outside of a shallow rut worn into the ground near the entrance gate from centuries of feet passing through, it appears to be more or less in perfect condition. There’s no roof, and looks like there never was, but all the walls are tall and straight, finished with a series of inverted step-like geometric ledges all around the top. Tony can spot a few broken spots as they pass by, but all have been carefully repaired, leaving only faint hints of old damage and weathering.

It’s smaller than the one at home. Almost by half. And as they skirt close to the wall so the leaders can parade Loki up to the dais at the far end, Tony can’t help but notice the images carved into the stone. Primitive depictions of scenes. Except, no, they’re not exactly primitive: more like minimalist and stylized, since all the figures look precisely identical. Maybe some kind of historic record, chiseled into the surface of the wall? Here and there, the carvings are accented with shaped, colored rocks.

“What is this?” Tony asks. “Some kind of story of the past?”

“Probably,” says Loki. Scanning his eyes over the nearby carvings, he then changes his answer. “Yes.”

“Do you know what it means?”

Loki shakes his head. “No. Not much of it, at least. All the history of Jotunheim I ever read was filtered through Asgardian biases. And Asgardians only recorded what they found relevant to Asgard, so I don’t recognize most of these scenes. But that there,” he says, pausing even though the crowd tries to urge him forward, “looks like it must be something to do with the Casket of Ancient Winters. Likely its creation. Or acquisition.”

The scene Loki’s looking at shows an unusually large figure – whether it’s meant to depict a towering god or is just artistic license to draw attention to somebody important, Tony can’t tell – holding a rectangle of blue stone. From that stone, angular rays expand outward like a sunburst. Representations of light or magic? “What does it do?” Tony asks. The vaguely ominous blue stone radiation leaves something to be desired. “On a scale of flashlight to Ark of the Covenant, what do those lines mean?”

With squinted eyes and head tilted to the side, an appraising look precedes any words in Loki’s reply. “You’re becoming more human again.”

“No I’m not,” is Tony’s immediate, reflexive response.

“You are. I’ve noticed it: a little at a time over these last few weeks. The transformative magic is receding and some of your human traits are coming back to you.”

“Then you have to stop it,” says Tony. “Redo the magic. I don’t want to turn back into a human. We’re staying here, remember? We’re happy here.”

Loki nods. “I know. And there’s no need to worry: you won’t change back. It’s only that these kinds of magical transformations can never be fully, absolutely complete.   Some part of the person’s true nature will always remain. It’s why I always felt just a little out of place on Asgard: part of me was and always will be Jotun. And, ironically, why I’m sure I’ll always feel like something of a stranger here on Jotunheim. I spent so long trying to be Asgardian, and that life left an indelible mark on me. But you are human by nature, Tony. And no matter which physical form you may have, some part of your mind will always remain that way.”

“Well I don’t like it,” Tony growls. “Find a way to fix things.”

“And that’s a very contrary, human thing to say. A true Jotun would either ignore the truth, tell me to shut up, or grudgingly accept what I told him.”

Now, what Tony really wants to do is pick Loki up, throw him over his shoulder, and carry him away somewhere for mandatory cuddling until Loki agrees to replenish the magic that’s helping them stay Jotun. But since he’s not sure whether that’s a human or a Jotun response (and he has a very unpleasant feeling that it’s probably human), he forces himself to stay calm. And he hangs back while the crowd jostles Loki forward, staring at the scene again.

It does have a distinctly Ark of the Covenant vibe to it. Most of the small figures kneel or fall before that casket’s blue rays.

“You’re human?” somebody asks from behind his back.

A small group of seven or so Jotuns is standing there watching him when he turns around. More interested in his answer than the story Loki’s getting ready to tell to the larger crowd at the far end of the stadium. “I used to be,” he admits.

“From Midgard?”

“Yes.”

One of them steps forward. “What’s it like?”

“Crowded and full of morons,” says Tony.

“But you’re Jotun now. By magic?”

“Yeah.”

A human would have trouble believing that and call bullshit, Tony thinks to himself. But the Jotuns, just as Loki mentioned a moment ago, accept his answer. They don’t seem to be a species that’s big on skepticism and demanding proof.

“Will you tell us of Midgard?”

Tony glances over in Loki’s direction.   “Maybe later. You don’t want to hear about Asgard first?”

That suggestion doesn’t exactly stir up a rousing chorus of agreement, but it doesn’t stir up any grumbles of refusal either. So, with Tony’s encouragement, the group trucks on over to join the bigger crowd and listen in on Loki’s Asgardian Adventures.

“But that is only the visible surface of Odin’s palace,” Loki’s in the middle of saying. “Beneath the ground, everything sits on a vast foundation almost as many layers deep as the palace itself is tall. The deepest and most secretive rooms are carved out of Asgard’s crystal core. Very few have ever seen them.”

“Have you?” someone asks.

“Yes. But the air in those places is thick with energy and distorts the senses. It’s difficult to stay for too long without becoming overwhelmed and disoriented. Those chambers are used only for the rarest of magics for very specific needs.”

No word on what those very specific needs are as Loki continues his story, describing his way up through the cryptically stacked layers of Asgard’s hidden basements, through secret tunnels and winding stairs. Some of which have been sealed off, probably for thousands of years, with a purposes that have disappeared from all memory. The Jotuns listen, attention held like a taut bowstring, as Loki describes it: crystal flowing into rock, rock twining with gold, building the dominating edifice of Asgard’s palace word by word.

There’s something just a little off about this scenario, and it takes Tony a minute to figure out what. Nothing Loki says is negative. No snide little jibes about Odin or Thor or any of that. Nothing about how he was kept locked away in that dungeon he briefly mentions. Not a word about his treatment. Mostly objective facts. This is here. That is there. They do these things. But every once in a while, something slips in that sounds, if not purely nostalgic, then almost... shaded with reverence?

It’s easy to forget that Asgard was Loki’s home for a lot longer than it was his prison. Maybe hating the place doesn’t always come naturally.

ooo

“I thought you would’ve played that differently,” he says to Loki once they’re alone later.

For once – for probably the first time since Tony arrived on Jotunheim – it’s a clear night, with no driving wind or snow or ice and therefore no need to seek shelter indoors. They lie out in the open at the edge of Helblindi’s encampment on a rise of rock under the tent of bright stars. Along the far horizon to their right is the crest of the planet Jotunheim orbits, its mass turning to a vast, black shadow as it eclipses the weak red dwarf sun. But the starlight alone is bright enough to see by as Tony turns to look at Loki’s profile.

“Played how?” Loki asks.

“You know. Played to the obvious Jotun hatred of Asgard. You could’ve told them a lot of really enlightening stories, but instead you just stuck to Asgardian facts.”

“And what good would that have done?”

“I assumed that’s what they wanted.”

“Maybe,” says Loki. Staring up at the sky, he doesn’t add anything onto that right away. Just gazes off into the alien constellations. “But again, what good would it have done? Fueling those old fires, dredging up that old hate, refusing to move on... I’m done with it, Tony.”

“Done with...?”

“Asgard. Wasting so much time and energy on hating Asgard and hating Odin and never getting anywhere. What does all that hatred accomplish in the end? Absolutely nothing. It certainly won’t change Odin’s mind. You can see that here, very plainly. Jotunheim has been hating Asgard for a thousand years, and what do they have to show for it? Nothing. Ruin. Misery. A crumbling, dying world destroyed for absolutely no reason other than Laufey’s stubbornness. Helblindi’s right. Keeping that up only makes the situation worse. It certainly doesn’t hurt Asgard at all. So... Why bother hating them? Why bother perpetuating a grudge that deals only one-sided damage?”

“I guess, yeah,” Tony agrees.

“It’s like you told me. You were right: we can’t dwell on these things. We need to move on and focus on something positive instead. Let go of all the negative, destructive thoughts and try to do something to help the situation rather than pointlessly reliving it.”

“I told you that?” It doesn’t sound like something he’d say.

“You did. Well... your human self did. That day at the crater when...” His eyes dart briefly over to meet Tony’s, then back away, dragged up to the stars on the thin tendrils of a sigh. “Anyway. I thought a lot about what you said to me. About what happened to you and... I’ve been talking to Helblindi. The more I talk to him, the more I think he’s right.”

“About Jotunheim or about you?”

“Either. Both. It’s the same, isn’t it? Jotunheim decayed while Asgard moved merrily along, all because Laufey nursed his rage for a thousand years. I’ve worn mine like armor for nearly as long, and what has it done but bind me in misery while those I wish ill don’t even spare me a second thought?”

“So you think you can forgive Odin and Asgard?” Tony asks.

Loki rolls halfway over, onto his side, facing Tony. Leans forward until his head rests against Tony’s shoulder. “Can I? I don’t know.” He draws in a slow breath and lets his arm squirm around to Tony’s back. “I should forgive Odin and Asgard. I want to forgive Odin and Asgard. I can try to do so. I can have all these nice plans in my head and convince myself I’ve become morally superior, and when we meet again I’ll be calm and unaffected and gracious. But it’s probably more likely I’ll just lie to myself that I’m getting better. And then when he and I finally do stand face to face all the suppressed rage will explode and I’ll want to rip his throat out. Who knows? I can still try, though.”

Not a lot of Tony’s specific memories from his time as a human are all that clear, but this one coming into his head right now is. He’s ten years old, home from school on Christmas break, telling his mom he doesn’t want to go back because of how two particularly vicious assholes in his class make his life hell. (Kent Hayes and Dean Blacklock. Isn’t it funny how he can still remember their exact names even now?) “My mom used to tell me...” he begins. “I don’t know if this is relevant or if it’ll help you at all, but it helps me. She told me that in order for somebody to hurt you, you have to respect their opinion. If somebody says something hurtful and you let their words affect you, you’re validating what they said. You’re giving them power they don’t deserve in letting their useless opinions into your head. So by reminding yourself you don’t respect them and don’t respect the shit they try to pile on you... It can make life a little more bearable. Only the people you respect can ever have any control over you.”

“Hm. Maybe,” Loki allows. “Although,” he adds in a softer voice after a moment’s pause, “if that’s the case, I’m afraid it seems like I still respect Odin’s opinion far too much.”

Yeah. That’s the problem. The mindset never worked for Tony on his dad, either.

ooo

It’s a long walk back home once Helblindi’s finally done his business with Igulfrídh, though at least it’s a slightly faster walk now that they’re no longer dragging all those gifts. Helblindi’s in a good mood as the caravan sets out across the craggy plain. He has a smugly self-satisfied aura about him despite looking physically exhausted and thin. Just about everyone else seems happy to be heading back as well, as grinning warriors proudly show off new scars from recent fights. It’s to be expected, Loki explains. Different tribes get together and there’s bound to be fighting. But according to what Loki heard, only one person was actually killed, which is admirable. And there was also one unexpected accordance, so maybe that evens things out? Somebody at the back of the line is bringing home a new partner.

New accordance, heading home, only one death: lots of reasons to celebrate. So why does Loki look like the only unhappy face in the whole lot?

“It’s nothing,” he says when Tony asks. “Nothing important. Just... I don’t know.” He keeps scanning his gaze all around, though, ahead and behind and to all sides, lingering on anomalies along the horizon and snapping his head to hone in on the sudden whirl of snow kicked up by a wind gust.

“Looking for somebody?”

“No. Not really.”

“Something?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well that’s not weird or vague at all.”

And that earns Tony an annoyed glare from under the sharp ridge of Loki’s brow. He’s so adorable when he’s angry. Like a small, hate-filled lizard. “I just feel as if something is wrong,” he snarls.

“With somebody here?” Tony asks.

“No. With this place. This open area. I feel as if something bad is about to happen.”

“Hm.” Tony can’t say that he feels the same. On the contrary: everything seems pretty good right now. But Loki’s the magic one. “There’s a disturbance in the Force?”

“No,” Loki growls, “but yes. Something is going to happen, but I don’t know what. And since I don’t want to needlessly alarm Helblindi with warnings I can’t substantiate, all I can do right now is keep watch for anything unusual.”

“Alright,” says Tony. “You want me to help?”

“If you must.”

It’s not exactly that Tony must, but walking while keeping lookout for weird goings-on sure beats walking while thinking to himself how bored he is and how much he’s looking forward to getting home. So he slips an arm around Loki’s waist, which Loki thankfully isn’t too grumpy to mind, and makes it his duty to keep careful watch to the right while Loki concentrates on the left.

He’s not all that surprised when nothing happens all day.

He’s a little surprised when, towards the end of the second day, a faint light begins to flicker in the stormy ceiling of clouds up ahead. He stops when Loki does. “Is that... lightning?”

Loki has just enough time to answer, “No,” before that little flicker explodes in a blast of white-hot colors so intense they sear into Tony’s eyes: burning yellow and fiery orange and incendiary blue. His arm flies up to shade his face, but the light only lasts a second or two. Then it sinks down just like it appeared, collapsing rapidly in on itself until only a brief, dying glow remains. Tony blinks. Sunspot ghosts dance across his vision.

Somewhere a little ahead, Helblindi yells, “Weapons up!” A moment later, he comes running over to Loki. “Asgard!” is all he says. All he needs to say, really.

Loki, still looking stunned by the light, nods.

“How many?” Helblindi demands, looking in the direction of the light flare. The Bifrost. Tony’s never seen it in action, but it’s easy enough to guess that’s what it is. Whatever person or people landed in its beam, they remain hidden behind a snowy ridge. “Can you tell?”

“Just one.”

“Thor?”

Again, Loki nods.

With that guttural Jotun growl deep in his throat, Helblindi turns to face the crowd suddenly gathered at his back with their spears drawn and jagged ice blades formed over their hands. “Stay here!” he orders with a wave of his arm. “Stay where you are! Defensive positions only! Nobody approach!” Turning back to Loki: “How did they find you?”

“I don’t know,” Loki mutters, almost too quiet for Tony to hear over the growing rumble of dangerous-sounding Jotun voices. “I warded both of us. Myself and Tony. There should be no way to find us, unless...”

“Unless?!”

“I can only protect against seeking spells equal to or less than what I could myself cast. That would hold off most magic, but if Frigga and a few others worked together they could outmatch me. If they had their minds set on tracking us...”

Another growl scratches up from Helblindi’s throat as a prickly sphere of ice forms in his hand. He hurls it at his feet, watching it smash on the frozen rock. “I’ll go speak with him.”

“No,” Loki says. “He’s not here for you.”

“Which is why I should go.”

“He’s only here for me, and-” Loki starts, but doesn’t get any further before Thor’s booming voice cuts straight through his words.

“Helblindi, king of Jotunheim!” Thor is shouting as he appears at the top of the ridge, too far away for Tony to hit accurately with a spear, but not far enough for his presence to be harmless. “I have come for my brother!”

“Thor Odinson,” Helblindi shouts in return. “Which brother do you seek? I see no-one here who shares your blood.”

“Loki has always been part of my family, and always will be. I would speak with him.”

Snarling, Helblindi takes a step forward. “You will speak to me.”

“My business today is not with the Jotnar,” says Thor, moving forward himself to match Helblindi pace for pace. He hold up his hands, both empty, though that’s not much of a reassurance since Tony can see his hammer hanging plainly from his belt. “I’ve come alone, and I come in peace. I am here for Loki. Not for you. Not for your people.”

“Loki is one of my people,” Helblindi counters.

“He may be, but he is also a man of Asgard. And I have not come to trade clever words with you. Let me speak with Loki.”

Helblindi considers that request for all of a second and a half. “No.”

“If you will not act reasonably...”

“You’ll what?” Helblindi asks, with a twisted smirk emphasizing his challenging answer to Thor’s empty threat. “You’ll return with the famed warriors of Asgard? To cut us all down and steal Laufey’s son for a second time?”

That may have been exactly what Thor was about to say, though he can’t now without looking stupid. He lets his hands fall. One of them twitches too close to the hammer.

“Let me make you an offer,” Helblindi tells him before he can stumble into an action he may later regret. “You may speak to Loki, but only under one condition.”

“Which is?”

Helblindi holds out his arms and spins in a partial circle, gesturing to everyone gathered around him. “You may speak to Loki... if you can find him.”

The stunned look on Thor’s face draws out a ripple of low laughter from the Jotuns as his eyes scan across unrecognizable, blue alien features in the crowd. “I am not here to play games!” he shouts.

“Oh, neither am I,” says Helblindi. “This is no game. More of a test. If Loki is your true brother, you should have no trouble recognizing him.”

More laughter. Thor grabs the hammer from his belt, holding it out and ready at his side, but nobody seems to care. He’s small and alone, and the Jotuns number in the dozens. “Loki!” he calls out after a moment of awkward silence. “Show yourself!”

Loki, safely tucked under the protection of Tony’s arm, tenses.

“Loki!”

“Don’t,” Helblindi whispers as Loki squirms, and Tony wraps both arms around Loki’s shoulders to keep him still.

It’s probably the movement that draws Thor’s attention. And their proximity to Helblindi. And then Helblindi and Loki do look an awful lot alike, even to an outsider, so Thor probably would’ve figured it out eventually even without any hints. He stares at Loki, uncertain but willing to make a guess all the same, and lowers his hammer. “Loki?”

Shrugging off Tony’s hold, Loki steps forward.

“Loki,” Thor repeats. He doesn’t look as relieved as he should. No, he still looks uncertain, and maybe even a bit afraid.

“Not expecting to see me like this?” Loki asks. And he doesn’t sound as sharp as he should. Just a little bite to his voice, the rest falling flat and resigned.

“I... No. I mean, yes.” Thor stumbles over whatever it is he’s trying to say. “I knew what you would be.”

“What I would be?” Loki snaps back. Still not nearly sharp enough. “Am I a thing now?”

Thor shakes his head. “No. I only mean... It’s strange for me to see you like this. Here.”

“Maybe this is how I should be. And where I should be.”

“You belong back on Asgard. You belong at home, Loki.”

“This is my home,” Loki insists. “It’s where I was born. It’s where I should have stayed. Should have lived. Asgard never wanted or needed me. I’m better here.”

“And what of Tony Stark?” Thor asks. “He came here with you. Where is he now?”

Now it’s Tony’s turn to step forward, half smiling, half snarling at Thor just so he can show off his sharp teeth. It earns him the exact reaction he was hoping for: Thor, startled, takes a quick, stumbling step backwards while a look of shock spreads across his face.

“You...” is all Thor can manage to say. Maybe to Loki, maybe to Tony, but he can’t even manage a whole coherent thought.

“Go home, Thor,” says Loki, sparing him the effort of having to speak any more. “Go back to Asgard and leave us here. We’re fine. We’re happy. And we’re no threat to you. We’ll stay on Jotunheim, safely out of Odin’s way, never to bother him again. All I want from either of you is to be left alone, so I can live my life with Tony and my family here and... That’s all. That’s all I want. So please. Go back to your home, and let me have mine.”

Somehow, with what looks like a good deal of effort, Thor manages to tear himself away from staring at Tony. “I won’t go home without speaking to you.”

“You’re speaking to me now.”

“Alone, Loki. Face to face, as brothers. I came here in good faith, giving you the chance to have this conversation without the army of Asgard at my back, and I would appreciate if you would do me the honor of speaking to me without Jotunheim at yours.” He pauses to wait for an answer, and when Loki remains silent, adds, “Or I could return. Within the hour. Accompanied by five hundred of the Einherjar’s best.”

Helblindi growls at the threat, and the rest of the Jotuns mutter to themselves and impatiently shift their weapons from hand to hand and crackle their ice. Thor, though, only cares about one thing. Loki. Who doesn’t say a word and who, for a good minute, doesn’t move.

“Loki?” Thor prompts.

“Don’t go,” Tony murmurs to him. “It has to be a trap.”

“I don’t see how I have much of a choice,” Loki replies. “If he returns with a contingent of warriors...”

“We’ll fight them.”

“We’re horribly outmatched and outnumbered. They’d kill us all. I have to go talk to him.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“Alone, Tony.”

“He’s going to try to take you back to Asgard!”

“I know,” says Loki. “But I won’t let him. Stay here; I’ll be back soon.”

It’s the worst feeling in the world, watching Loki walk away and disappear with Thor behind that rise in the ground. And it’s made even more unbearable knowing that he can’t follow, because Loki told him to stay put. And because Helblindi and somebody else are holding his arms to stop him. (Though maybe that’s a good thing, because if Helblindi weren’t holding him back, he’d probably charge over there to rip Thor’s head clean off and reclaim his Loki.)

“It’s fine, Tony,” Helblindi says to him in a calm, even voice. “Loki will be fine.”

But how does he know that? How does he know that everything will be fine, when with each passing minute Tony’s anxiety builds, and Loki still doesn’t return? Tony’s eyes jump from the horizon to the clouds, trying to watch for Loki while keeping a lookout for any Bifrost lights. Because, fuck, if Thor takes Loki back to Asgard...

Tony pulls against the hands gripping his arms. “I have to go. It’s been too long.”

“No. Loki knows what he’s doing. You need to trust him.”

It’s not Loki that Tony doesn’t trust, though. Doesn’t Helblindi understand that? “I need to-”

“You need to let Loki do this. Be patient, Tony. If there is any sign of trouble I swear I will run with you to Loki’s side, but until then we need to wait here and let him finish this.”

So Tony waits. Clenches his jaw so hard it aches. Tenses every muscle in his body, ready to spring forward the instant Helblindi lets him go. He counts backward from ten, then one hundred, then five hundred, then one thousand, trying to tell himself that when he reaches ‘one’ Loki will appear back over the ridge and everything will be fine and Thor will leave and they can go home. Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine.

Everything will be fine.

It feels like at least an hour has passed when, finally, there’s movement over the snow-swept rocks. There’s Thor, red cape whipping like an enemy flag in the wind. And there’s Loki, small and pale and glowing with warmth, black hair tangling in front of his Asgardian face. Growling, Tony jerks his arm hard enough to break Helblindi’s grip. What in the world did Thor do?

It’s only Loki who approaches, though, holding his fur skirt awkwardly around his diminished body. All his decorative bands and bangles hang much too large around his arms and ankles as he stumbles across the ice. Tony runs to meet him halfway. Helblindi follows one shadow-step step behind.

“Listen, Tony,” Loki says before Tony has a chance to say anything. “I’ve come to an agreement with Thor, and I think it’s fair. Very fair. Now you need to do what I say.”

“Change back,” Tony growls. He puts one hand on Loki’s shoulder, watching the skin turn blue under his touch before Loki jerks away.

“I can’t. Not right now. You need to listen first. I’ve convinced Thor to give the Casket back to Jotunheim. He’ll deliver it today.”

With a quick hiss, Helblindi moves up close, staring hard at Loki as if he expects to be able to see any hint trickery. “In exchange for what?” he asks. Because everybody knows Asgard never just gives anything away for free out of the goodness of their hearts.

“The scepter,” says Loki. “The one I brought with me. Odin wants it.”

“Odin can take it. I only want the casket.”

Loki nods. “Wait here. It may take some hours, but I’ll go back to Asgard and ensure they-”

He slips that casually in there, as if nobody would notice. “Go back to Asgard?” Tony snaps.

“That’s the second part of the agreement,” Loki says. Very calmly, very blankly, and very deliberately not looking at Tony. “I will return to Asgard with Thor-”

“No you won’t.”

“I will, Tony. I’ve agreed to this. I will go back to Asgard, and you, after being restored to your human form, will return to Midgard.”

Who the fuck says he’ll do any such thing? “No,” Tony repeats. “We’re staying here. We live here now. If you go back to Asgard they’ll lock you away for the rest of your life! Or kill you!”

Very softly, Loki answers, “I know.” And somehow that makes Tony even angrier. He should be yelling, shouting, fighting: more than just simply giving in to whatever ridiculous demands Thor put forward. “But it’s the best way to end this,” he adds before Tony has a chance to interrupt. “If I go now, it all ends peacefully. Helblindi gets the Casket. You return to Midgard with no consequences, free to resume your life.”

“And you might die!” It doesn’t even sound real, that word. Die. An abstract concept. A brief series of meaningless sounds. It still has enough weight to it to make Loki wince, though. “You know Odin’s looking for an excuse to execute you! And now you’ve been living willingly on Jotunheim and he’ll probably accuse you of handing over all of Asgard’s secrets to your long-lost brother! You can’t go back!”

“And what do you think will happen if I don’t?” Loki asks. “If I refuse to go, and he summons the Einherjar, what happens? What happens if I shift us away right now? To the cave the Destroyer guarded? And we take the path to Midgard? What happens to everyone on Jotunheim left to face the wrath of Odin? What happens when Asgard eventually tracks us again? What happens to your friends? To your home and everyone you care about?”

“I care about you,” says Tony. “That’s all.”

The sound Loki makes, hovering between a grunt of frustration and a sob... Tony reaches for him without even thinking. Again, Loki pulls away. “Why do you make this so... difficult...”

“It’s not difficult,” Tony insists. “We have to keep fighting! You can’t just give up and let them-”

“I’m not giving up!” Loki shakes himself, like a shudder running through the length of his body, settling his blank veneer back into place as protection against anything Tony might have to say. He’s so good at pretending he doesn’t feel anything. All those years of practice. “I’m not giving up. I’m making a choice. We can’t keep running away indefinitely. Tony, you know this. You know it. This is the compromise. Would you rather we both end up dead?”

“Yes.” If that’s the way it has to be. If he has to die in his attempt to protect Loki from whatever Thor’s been sent to accomplish? So be it.

Loki shakes his head. “Well I wouldn’t. And I don’t think anyone else here would either.”

Helblindi, who’s stood stoically silent for the past minute, shifts his weight. “You may be too quick to give yourself up, Loki. If we were to fight...”

“But you won’t,” Loki tells him. “You know how pointless that would be. Take the Casket. Go home. Be a good king instead of rekindling all this idiocy Laufey started. I can end it. Right now. Let me. I can’t undo the damage I did, but I can at least give you this. Please just accept it.”

If Helblindi had any sense of loyalty, he would argue with that. But he doesn’t. He only stares at Loki for a good, long while, and then looks at the ground with a tiny nod.

“Thank you,” Loki says, so very calmly as his eyes flick in Tony’s direction but fall short of making actual contact. He coughs to clear his throat of anything that might cause his voice to waver. “Now if you don’t mind... For once in my pathetic, wasted life, I would like to make the right decision. Maybe I can at least die with some sense of honor. To spare those I love.”

No, Tony minds. Tony minds a whole hell of a lot, and he’s pretty sure he should get a say in the fate of the one he loves. This redemption-through-self-sacrifice bullshit might go over okay in melodramatic movies, but it doesn’t fit so well with real life. Who does that? And who just stands by on the sidelines and lets it happen?

Not Tony, who’s never been good in the role of the helpless bystander. He reaches for Loki again and this time isn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer, pulling him in close before Loki has a chance to slip away. Arms wrap around Loki’s body, strong and firm, holding tight as the blue floods back into his skin. Isn’t this how it happened before? On the roof of the tower, last time they lost each other? Thor took Loki away, right out of Tony’s arms, and Tony couldn’t do a damn about it.

He’s not going to let that happen this time. He’ll fight Thor with everything he has. “I’m not letting you go,” he promises, out loud, to the tangled waves of Loki’s black, Asgardian hair.

For a second, Loki stops fighting against Tony’s embrace. And a second later he gives up entirely, leaning in to press his face against Tony’s chest. His shoulders rise and fall with erratic breaths, making him hard to hold, but there’s no way in the world Tony’s going to let go.

“Change back,” Tony says. “Please, Loki. Please change back. Just change back and we can stay here and fight them if we have to, but please, please, change back. I need you here. You need to stay with me.”

“I want to,” Loki whispers back. “Oh, you don’t know how much I want to... I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just stay. Change back. I won’t let Thor take you away again.”

“He’s not taking me, I’m...” He looks up as much as he can from that low angle, with those strange red eyes halfway between Asgard and Jotunheim, and takes a breath and bites his lip before speaking again. “Thank you, Tony,” he says.

The way he says it, though, makes Tony’s stomach tighten with fear. “For what?”

“For everything you’ve done. Since I met you. You’ve been... a much better person than I ever deserved.”

“Have been and will continue to be the kind of person you do deserve,” Tony growls, because that sounded like the lead-up to a goodbye. He tightens his hold. “I’m not letting you go.”

Slowly, working his arms free, Loki reaches up to cup Tony’s face with his hands. Whatever he thought about saying, it looks like he’s having second thoughts, opening and closing his mouth with nothing more than the sound of a sigh. He drops his head down to rest on Tony’s chest again. Looks at the snow.

“I’m not letting you go,” Tony repeats. “I love you, Loki, and I’m not letting you go.”

Loki’s reply has barely enough strength to rise above the pulling tide of the wind. “I love you too.” His fingers climb up, from Tony’s jaw to cheekbone to temple, resting on either side. Light and warm. And by the time Tony begins to feel the narrow threads of magic seep into his skull and weave through his brain... it’s already too late.

“I’m sorry, Tony.” Loki’s voice echoes distant and distorted as Tony’s vision blurs, narrowing into a hazy, white tunnel. “I’m so sorry...”

Chapter Text

There are three things Tony first notices upon waking up. One: the light’s midday-bright, warm and yellow. Two: he feels groggy as all hell. How his head can manage to be both heavy as a rock and floating dizzily off into space is a great mystery of the scientific world, but that’s how things go sometimes. Three: his mouth is sticky, gritty, and dehydrated. His lips have fused together. His tongue is glued to his teeth with a thick paste of saliva that inexplicably tastes like hot dogs. He can barely swallow, and when he finally manages to get his throat to work, it’s like trying to force down a big lump of dry bread.

He blinks, raises a hand to clumsily swipe at his bleary eyes, and turns over to halfway bury his face in his pillow. The next three things he notices are as follows. One: he’s in a bed. A real, actual bed with a mattress and sheets and blankets and everything. Two: he’s warm. Not just comfortable, but warm. Cozy. Three: his hand is human- colored.

That more than anything jolts his brain wide awake. He jerks himself up into a sitting position, throwing back the blankets to get a good look at his body and make sure this isn’t some weird trick of his hazy mind. No, he’s definitely human again. Normal beige skin, regular finger- and toenails instead of long talons, leathery blue scales replaced with the usual smattering of hair over his arms and legs and chest. Except for a bare circle of smooth skin right in the center of his sternum.

When the hell did that happen?

Actually, more to the point: when the hell did everything happen? And what the hell is everything that happened?

His memory’s still too fuzzy to offer up much more than half-formed hints here and there. He was on Jotunheim. And, yeah, the arc reactor came out, but left behind a patch of rough scar tissue. That doesn’t explain the perfectly smooth circle. He’s missing something. So he was on Jotunheim, and now, judging by the décor, he’s back on Asgard. And he’s back on Asgard because... Because of something to do with Loki and Thor? Because Loki-

Loki.

His stomach drops hard and fast as he looks down at the other side of the bed. It’s empty, but not in a recently vacated kind of way. It’s empty as if Tony’s been the only one sleeping in this room.

Right, because he’s back on Asgard, which can only mean that Loki is...

He lurches out of bed even though his legs feel rubbery and weak, and stumbles over to grab the door handle. It’s not locked. The door swings open easily, leading into some kind of sitting room? The walls are made of that familiar synthetic stone, meaning he’s in the palace, but it’s not a room that Tony recognizes. He could be in any one of hundreds of suites across dozens of floors. But that’s okay. That’s fine. He’s vaguely familiar with the layout of the palace: all the main people traffic flows through the ground floor in that big colonnade area. He just needs to find somebody he knows who can take him to Thor or Odin. If he can find Fandral...

With how much trouble he’s having keeping his balance and walking in a straight line, maybe it’s a good thing that somebody stands up out of one of those nest-like chairs in the corner before he even gets two steps into his journey.

“Tony Stark,” says Thor. “You’re awake.”

Tony skips over any rude comments on stating the obvious in favor of a much more pressing question. “Where’s Loki?” he croaks. Hardly any sound comes out of his raspy vocal cords, and what does come out is barely intelligible.

Crossing the room in a few big strides, Thor holds out a cup of mystery liquid in each hand. “Here,” he says, offering Tony the right. “Drink this.”

There are a lot of memories starting to bubble to the surface in Tony’s brain – memories of Jotunheim and Thor and what happened there – and they’re giving him some really good suggestions for exactly where Thor can shove those two cups. “Go fu-,” he begins, but that’s as far as he gets before he starts coughing uncontrollably. He can’t talk, can’t inhale, and can’t even keep his damn self upright as he stumbles forward.

Thor catches him. Not in a way that gives Tony a good angle for punching him in the stomach. Inconsiderate. “Drink this,” he repeats, maneuvering the cup towards Tony’s mouth.

“I...” Tony manages to gasp.

“It will make you feel better.”

Better enough to land a solid swing at Thor’s dumb face? That’s a good incentive, at least. He takes the cup in one shaky hand. Whatever it is that Thor’s given him is warm, bitter, astringent, and unpleasant, but it slides easily down his throat and coats his insides with a layer of soothing medicine. It may be awful on his tongue, but it’s good on everything else. Its warmth starts to seep down into his limbs and fortify the weakness in his muscles. “What is that?” he asks. Speech already vastly improved.

“A healing tonic. Here, now this.” Thor holds out the other cup.

“What’s this one?”

“Sweet herb water, to get rid of the taste of the tonic.”

All in all, not an unwelcome idea. Tony downs half of it, swishes some in his mouth, and then finishes off the rest. “Thanks,” he grudgingly allows. And then gets right back to the point. “Where’s Loki?”

“How do you feel?”

“Shitty. Better than I did a minute ago, but still shitty. Where’s Loki?”

“I have some clothing for you. Just let me...”

“Where’s Loki, Thor?”

It’s obvious Thor heard the question, but he’s still fidgeting as he picks up a few pieces of clothes from a nearby table. “You should get dressed.”

Tony glances downward. Deserving of an epic beatdown or not, Thor may have a point. Whatever this is that he’s wearing doesn’t equate to much more of a flimsy kilt. “Didn’t I once promise I’d show up at your house and hang around in a glorified loincloth?” he asks. “But okay, sure. I’ll get dressed if you tell me where Loki is. I kind of really need to know where Loki is.” Needs to know where Loki is and that Loki’s safe and that he can see Loki...

“I had to... guess your size...” Thor mutters as Tony pulls on the pants, which are too big but at least tie at the waist, and the tunic, which fits passably okay.

“Yeah, you did great, but Thor, lemme explain to you: I’ve recently spent a lot of time as a Jotun. And maybe this is residual Jotun-brain talking, but I really feel like if you don’t start giving me some answers in the next few seconds I will actually start gouging your eyes out with my bare hands. I’m not even joking. That is a serious thing that will happen. So unless you want a nice fancy eyepatch to match your dad, I suggest you stop dicking me around. Where the fuck is Loki?!”

It’s impossible to tell whether it’s the threat or the repetitive pestering that does the job, but Thor finally snaps. “I don’t know!”

“’Don’t know’ isn’t going to save you from an eye-gouging. I need to find Loki, right now, and I need you to help me. You’re the one who went down to Jotunheim to get him, you’re the one who dragged us back here, and that makes you responsible. What happened?”

“Tony Stark, I do not know where he is!” growls Thor. “When the Bifrost brought us back, my father and his guards were waiting. He sent you off to the healers and witches to remedy your... state... and took Loki away himself. I was not permitted to follow – I was ordered to stay with you – and he will not tell me where Loki is being held! I think he suspects I...”

“You what?”

Rubbing both hands over his face, Thor sighs. “You were right. Loki should... He should go with you to Midgard. He’s happy with you. More so than I’ve ever seen him. I’ve been thinking this over for the last three days and I realize now how selfish it would be to deny him that happiness simply because I want to keep my brother here with me. After speaking to him on Jotunheim...” Thor’s voice trails off, and he clears his throat. “Father did honor the agreement I made with Loki. He sent the Casket to Helblindi. We now have Loki’s scepter, Loki is in prison somewhere, and you will be returned to Midgard.”

“I don’t want to be returned,” Tony cuts in. “Not yet. Not without Loki. What’s going to happen to him?”

Thor doesn’t answer right away, which makes Tony’s stomach tighten. “I don’t know,” he says again. “And the fact that I do not know frightens me. Father has said next to nothing to me since Jotunheim, despite my insistence that Loki should go with you. I don’t know if he’s angry with me for so easily giving the Casket away or... I honestly do not know. When he sent me to collect Loki there was no mention of what would happen after. I assumed... It was foolish of me. I assumed Loki would be put on trial and I would have a chance to speak on his behalf. To argue that he has changed and is not a threat and should be released or at least serve a very short sentence. But now I’ve not seen Loki since the Bifrost, and that father keeps his whereabouts hidden from me makes me fear the worst.”

Yeah, that makes Tony fear the worst, too. Makes every muscle in his body tense painfully and his heart pounds faster. “Worst as in what? Keep him locked up forever? Or execute him?”

This time, Thor doesn’t answer at all.

“Not going to happen,” Tony says. Because it can’t happen; because it’s a possibility not worth considering. “Definitely hasn’t already happened,” he adds, mainly to reassure himself.

“No,” Thor agrees. “Father cannot execute Loki in secret. It would have to be public, for a proven crime.”

“Like treasonously palling around with the Jotuns?”

Some of the color drains from Thor’s face.

“Right,” says Tony, making a move for the door. “I’m done talking about this. I need to find him. Right the fuck now. Come on.”

“Tony Stark, I told you, I do not know where he is!”

“That’s why I said ‘find’.”

“Loki is not in the dungeon, and is nowhere else in the palace I can access! Wherever he is, father refuses to tell me, because he knows my intent. He knows that if Loki’s life is in danger, I’ll do something stupid.”

“Great,” Tony says. “’Something stupid’ is my favorite plan. So let’s get going. I don’t give up that easily, and I think I have a few questions I want to ask your dad.”

ooo

They don’t go to a throne room, or presence room, or official royal hall, or anything like that. Thor leads the way at a pace that’s a little too brisk for Tony’s current state, though he’s not going to complain. Slowing down would be unbearable in other ways. He can force his body to push itself for a few minutes. Up some stairs, down others, around corners, through archways... how the hell does Thor even know where to go in this gold-tinted maze? But he does know, somehow. And eventually they find themselves standing in front of an unassuming door in an area of the palace Tony’s pretty sure he’s never been. It might be near that bedroom Loki took him to, once upon a time. The dragon-hoard room. But there’s no way to tell for sure.

Thor knocks at the door, but doesn’t wait for an answer before showing himself in. Tony follows immediately behind. Inside, just as expected, is Odin. What’s not as expected is the fact that he’s sitting with Frigga, at a small table, playing a card game or something with a tray of drinks and pastries nearby. That’s just odd.

Only a fraction of a second of surprise sneaks through Odin’s beard before he greets them with a joyless smile. “Ah. Thor. And Tony Stark.” Tony gets a nod. “How nice to see you awake. I trust you’ve fully recovered from your ordeal on Jotunheim?”

“More or less,” Tony answers in forced semi-politeness.

Thor, on the other hand, gets right down to business. “We’ve come to discuss Loki’s fate.”

“Yes, I assumed that’s why you would be here,” says Odin. “Would you care to have a seat, Tony Stark?”

“No,” Tony says before he can stop himself. “I’d care to know where Loki is.” He couldn’t even keep the sting out of his voice if he wanted to. And it turns out, he doesn’t really want to.

Odin and Frigga exchange a look, and then Odin nods at Thor. “Leave us for now. I need to speak with Tony Stark alone.”

It’s not an ideal turn of events, but maybe Tony can succeed where Thor has failed, and if Odin’s going to underestimate Tony and let something slip... That’ll be more likely to happen if Thor’s not around. So Thor bows out without a fuss, leaving Tony to fend for himself. He squares his shoulders and strengthens his stance, folding his arms over his chest. Across the room, Odin stares evenly back at him. As does Frigga. Her presence, though, is almost an encouraging sight. No matter where Odin stands, Tony can’t picture Frigga being on board with doing anything to seriously harm Loki. Prison: yes. Execution: no. Just seeing her sitting there bolsters his confidence.

“So,” Odin says.

“So,” Tony parrots back.

“Before we venture into any further discussions, Tony Stark, I should like to know one thing.”

“Which is?”

“The truth. All of it. From the beginning. Why you came here. Why you sought Loki. Why the two of you ran off to Jotunheim and stayed there for so long. None of your story fits together. I want the truth.”

Tony rubs at his eyes, trying to pick out any kind of options from what admittedly is looking like a very, very short list. Option one would be to tell the truth. Option one and a half would be to cobble together a weak, hole-filled lie that Odin would be able to shred apart within one minute before figuring out the truth. Also by now there’s zero chance Frigga hasn’t filled in the gaps with what she knows, so... Might as well go the direct route and save some time. “Well. Uh. Let’s see.” Where to begin?

“The truth goes something like this. Way back when, Thor and I sprung Loki from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s prison because we didn’t like how they were treating him. It turns out that, uh... he and I got along pretty well. Not at first – at first I wanted to kick his ass – but after spending a few days together... I don’t know. Maybe it’s not so much that we got along but that I understood him. At least in some ways. For whatever reason, I felt like we were kind of on the same page. So then a few days later when he and Thor got into a big fight and I didn’t like the way Thor was treating him... Loki and I took off on our own. And we somehow became friends.”

He takes a breath. And almost pauses. But stopping here will just be a stumbling block to derail everything. The words have to be forced out: “More than friends.”

Odin’s impassive face shows no reaction to that statement. He already knows. Of course he does.

“We, um... We stayed together for a couple days at this house I own, then went back to New York where I was dumped by my girlfriend and locked up by S.H.I.E.L.D. and subjected to a bunch of other stuff you don’t care about. But Loki came to get me. Out of everybody I knew, turns out it was Loki who came to my rescue. I don’t know why. Actually... I do know why, now that I think about some stuff he said. He’s not a bad person. In fact he’s a really good person in some weird ways. He’s smart. He’s oddly considerate even though he pretends not to be. I know it usually looks like he’s acting in his own self-interest, but trust me, he’s thinking about what’s best overall and making the hard calls that terrify everybody else. And he’s loyal as hell. I think that’s a Jotun thing. I mean if you cross or betray a Jotun you’re pretty much fucked, but on their good side? They’ll stand by you no matter what, and do anything they can to defend you.” He pauses for just a second to nod at Odin. “I think you know that. And I think you know how much Loki’s like that. He’s the most dedicated ally you can have... until you give him a good enough reason not to be. Then he’ll hold a grudge twice as strong. You know that’s why he’s lashing out at you now, don’t you? Because you’re the one who hurt him first? Cause and effect.”

“I am familiar with the Jotun sense of loyalty,” Odin quietly replies. “More so than you, I’m sure, Tony Stark.”

Doubt it, Tony thinks (and manages to keep to himself). “Okay. Anyway, back to the story. After that, Loki must’ve considered me his good buddy, because he looked after me and made sure I didn’t die of dehydration. Then things... happened. Not gonna lie, it was probably because I decided to have some drinks in bed while watching porn and he came to check on me. I probably shouldn’t have told you that.” He glances at Frigga. “Sorry. But you asked for the truth and there it is. We stayed together for a week or so and then-”

“As lovers?” Odin interrupts.

That word sounds nothing short of terrible coming from Odin. Like a particularly vile accusation.

“Yeaaahhhhh,” says Tony. He has to look anywhere but at the royal couple when he says it. At the wall. At a seam between two stone panels. Somewhere safe. “So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Then we went back to see S.H.I.E.L.D. and Loki promised to send the Tesseract to Asgard. We built a machine to open the portal and I think you know where the rest of this goes. Alien invasion, blah blah blah, but it turns out Loki was trying to pull a fast one on this asshole named Thanos who...” He sighs. “You know what? I don’t even know. I don’t know the deal with this Thanos guy or the Tesseract or whatever big, crazy space plot is going on. All I know is, at one point, Loki and I were happily lying in bed talking about sappy shit like him coming back to California with me, and then suddenly I was shooting him with a Tesseract gun to stop him from destroying my planet. And let me tell you, that was a real bummer. And let me also tell you that as a citizen of the planet that was directly affected by this alien invasion, I don’t believe Loki was making a serious effort. His ‘attack’ didn’t make any sense. There were nowhere near enough Chitauri to successfully conquer Earth, and he was defeated way too easily. He was just putting on a show so it would look like his whole evil plot was foiled. He couldn’t ditch Thanos any other way.”

“And what do you believe should happen to Loki?” Odin asks. “Considering everything he has done?”

“Uh... I believe he should be sent back to Earth with me,” says Tony. “Remember that nice contract I signed? With blood? That seemed serious. And it said Loki belongs to me. So I believe I should be allowed to claim what’s mind and take him home. Simple.”

Simple to say, at least. Not exactly so simple to enact. Definitely not with the way Odin keeps sitting there with such an unreadable face. And not with the way the rising pressure of anxiety keeps building up in Tony’s chest. How much longer can he keep up this poorly designed, breakaway coating of bullshit? Any second now it’ll all come crashing down. He needs to see Loki. He needs to see Loki. Not talk to Odin. See. Loki.

“Then if I understand,” Odin says (calmly, as if Tony’s hands aren’t twitching with that ongoing desire to scratch out his one remaining, emotionless eye), “you believe Loki should be returned to Midgard with you. Because you have the ability to redeem him. Your love will erase his faults. Under your caring watch, he will cease to be a threat.”

“Okay, cut the shit,” Tony snaps. (There it is. That’s it. All semblance of false decency is shredding away, leaving just the roiling core of anger and the frustration behind.) “That’s not what I’m doing here. At all. This isn’t an asinine romance novel plot where I vow to rescue Loki from his dark fate with the healing power contained within my pants or something equally fucking stupid. I’m not here to ‘save’ him. I’m not here to ‘fix’ him or ‘redeem’ him or whatever you think I’m doing. I’m not trying to change him. Yes he’s kind of an asshole and I’ll probably always want to strangle him for pissing me off, but you know what? I’m okay with that. I just want to be with him. Just like he is. Right now. Fuckups and all. I know who he is. I know what he is. I know the terrible things he’s done, and wow! Look at that! Here I am, asking you outright to let him come home with me! Because, for the love of God, what good does it do keeping him locked up? It doesn’t make any difference to you, so why not do one final, decent thing for your son and get rid of him in a way that gives him a chance to be happy? You don’t want to keep him around here. Okay. But I do. I want him. Please just... let him go.”

Tony can’t exactly say what reaction he expected from that little outburst. Silence, probably? A dismissive eyeroll? That’s almost what he gets. Odin, still showing no particular signs of life, leans over to Frigga and the two exchange inaudible words.

“And I want to see him,” Tony quickly tacks on. “I want to see Loki now.”

More quiet words between Odin and Frigga. It’s like talking to a brick wall. Actually it’s worse, since brick walls aren’t in the habit of actively ignoring people. This, being left standing there in the middle of the room as silence rains down and washes away every word he just said (every word he naively thought might be able to make a difference, as if that’s even possible), makes Tony feel like a child. A dumb, useless, overlooked child whose opinions are as about as appreciated as used gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. It’s not a feeling that meshes with his personality very well at all. No, it sets his blood to a simmer, heating his skin from the inside out and forcing a volcanic rush of impulsive bad choices up to his brain.

He takes five purposeful steps forward and leans over that nice, cozy little table where Odin and Frigga sit. “Are you waiting for me to say more?” he asks, clearly enunciating each loaded syllable.

Slowly, Odin turns to look up at him with the kind of disdain that’s probably supposed to be cutting but just deflects off Tony’s diamond-hard resolve without so much as a scratch. “You have not yet told us why you ran away to Jotunheim. And then chose to stay.”

“Son of a bitch, isn’t it obvious?!” Tony shouts. He holds his arms out at his sides, gesturing around to the width of the room. “We wanted to get out of this hellhole! And can I just say, when people are desperately fleeing a place in favor settling down on Jotunheim?! There’s something seriously, seriously fucking wrong! Because Jotunheim sucks. It hardcore sucks a phenomenal amount of horse dick. The food is awful, the weather is so bad I can’t even find words to describe it, everybody wears homemade underwear as outerwear, and a rock tied to a stick is still top-of-the-line weapons technology. And yet, given a choice between going back there and staying here? I’d pick there any day of the week! No contest. Not even a hint of a contest. You know why?”

He leans over further, smacking both hands down on the table. “Because it’s not the Jotuns who’ve treated Loki like an outsider all his life. It’s not the Jotuns who tried to keep me away from him. It’s not the Jotuns who considered our relationship to be some huge, terrible scandal. It’s not the Jotuns who are ignorant motherfucking homophobic nutsacks. They’re actually really cool people once they get past their initial instinctual desire to rip your skin off and eat you alive. We could live how we wanted there. We could’ve done our own thing, not bothering anybody else, but then you had to send Thor down to fuck it all up and drag us both back to exactly where we don’t want to be. Back here. Back to this skidmark in the tighty-whities of the universe. So to recap: why did we run away to Jotunheim? To get away from here. Why did we stay? Because we were happy not to be here. There you go. Is that enough information? Or do you need me to explicitly spell out anything else?”

Odin looks neither offended nor even upset as he holds perfectly level eye contact with Tony. “No. You’ve made yourself clear.”

“Good. Now can I see Loki?”

“Why do you think I should let you see Loki?”

“Gee, I don’t know, maybe because I’ve been graciously putting up with so much of your shit while you jerk me around? And you owe it to me? And because I’m asking nicely if I can please see Loki?”

That gets him a tight, closed-lip smile. The kind of smile that usually follows somebody winning a point in an imaginary pissing contest, which, as far as he’s able to tell, Odin hasn’t done? But whatever. He smiles back in exactly the same way.

“Bring Loki,” Odin says to the lone, silent guard standing next to the door.

Just like that. Which makes Tony wonder: was this too easy? Is he missing something? Did that stupid little smile have a secret, sinister meaning? Is Loki about to appear like he did that night when Tony first signed the contract? Dazed and disoriented, bound with chains and suppressive magic? Or worse?

It doesn’t take long for the guard to return with Loki (Five minutes? Ten?), but it feels like way longer as long as Tony paces back to the middle of the room and waits. Once again, he can’t bring himself to look at Odin. That enigmatic, almost triumphant smile gets too far under his skin. Instead, he stares at the door, and when it finally opens...

Loki, by some miracle, looks better than Tony had been fearing. So much better. No drab prison clothes this time: he’s dressed well, in a draping, pale gold robe, a bronze and black leather vest that hangs to his knees, and all the necessary decorations with overlapping pieces and crisscrossing bits and metal ornamentation that fashionable Asgardian outfits can’t exist without. His hair has been washed and combed to a sleek shine. All in all he looks... not like a prisoner. The oddly delicate golden shackles chaining his wrists are the only thing marring the image of Loki the Prince and dragging him back down to the level of Loki the Traitor.

Good thing Tony doesn’t care about which variety of Loki he gets. Any of them will do in his books. Also a good thing he doesn’t have two shits to rub together about what Odin thinks of him: as soon as Loki’s through the door, Tony’s moving forward, pulling Loki into an embrace he’s pretty sure nobody in the world could force him to break right now. Loki only hesitates for a second, spine stiffening at the sudden contact, but then it’s like he too has run out of fucks to give about propriety. He leans into Tony’s arms and drops his head down. Holds on as best he can with his chained hands at Tony’s waist.

“Jesus Christ, I almost thought...” Tony whispers. “I was worried you might be dead.”

When Loki shakes his head, his hair brushes Tony’s cheek. “No. I’m fine.”

“Really fine, or just saying that so I don’t worry?”

“I’ve been confined to a room since we returned from Jotunheim. Nothing worse.”

“In chains?”

“To prevent me from shifting away to escape, but they’re not as magic-repressive as those I wore before. I’m fine. I promise.”

So this fancy getup isn’t just a ruse to convince Tony that Loki hasn’t been mistreated. Good. But Tony still holds onto him a little tighter.

“So. Loki.”   The rough texture of Odin’s voice grates over Tony’s eardrums, interrupting the moment and kicking things back into the ugly realm of reality. “Tony Stark has shared what he wishes to say. I believe we should now hear from you. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Reluctantly, Tony turns back to face the royals, careful not to lose the remainder of the hold he still has around Loki’s back. He still needs that. And with a bracing breath, Loki also turns and looks up.

All Loki says is, “I would humbly request that you listen to everything Tony has said.”

Odin frowns at that. “Oh?”

“I assume he’s asked you to release us to return to Midgard.” Loki’s gaze flits over to Tony’s face, looking for confirmation; Tony nods. “All I have to say is... I wish you would listen to him.”

“That’s all?” Odin asks. “No venomous words to threaten me?”

The primordial sparks of a dozen sharp emotions flicker in Loki’s eyes. And then, just as quickly, fade into darkness as cool and deep as the far-off Jotunheim sky.  “No.”

“How unlike you,” says Odin.

“But if you wish me to speak on,” Loki continues without rising to Odin’s bait, “I will ask you to stop toying with us. I know you’ve already made up your mind. Nothing either of us can do will change your decision. So please just tell us what our fate will be and stop nurturing false hope.”

He leans into Tony as he speaks. Tony leans right back, one hand rubbing a path of encouragement up and down the length of his spine while the other gently squeezes his bicep.

Across the room, Odin leans forward in his chair with a dissonant creak of leather. “Midgard,” he mutters, like he’s contemplating the meaning of a difficult word. “You wish me to send you to Midgard.”

“Yes,” Loki quietly replies.

“And you think this is what you deserve?”

Even quieter than before, Loki answers, “It’s what I want. And I do... I do think I deserve for you to listen to what I want. For once.”

“I am not asking you what you want. I am asking, Loki, if, after everything you have done, you believe that being released to Midgard is what you deserve.”

“Yeah, it is,” Tony whispers as a prompt when Loki doesn’t answer.

“I did not ask you, Tony Stark,” Odin cuts in. “You’ve had ample time to speak your mind already. Now I wish to hear from Loki.”

Loki, to his credit, looks like he’s thinking. Considering. Trying to sift through all the innumerable possibilities that touch his mind and draw out a real answer instead of the biting sarcasm Tony knows he’d prefer. (Which, any reasonable person would agree, would serve Odin perfectly well.) But no, Loki closes his eyes, and presses his lips together, and maybe that helps him think because after only another short pause he lifts his head to look Odin directly in the eye, and he speaks.

“I don’t want to die.”

Odin, not expecting that, takes a moment to gather a response. “Oh? And how does that answer the question of whether or not you deserve to be released to Midgard?”

“I don’t want to die,” Loki repeats. Softer. And he gives his head a little shake. “Not now. But a year ago? Two years ago? I don’t think I would have cared. If I were standing here a year ago, asked to defend myself, I don’t think I would have done anything but laugh in your face and tell you to do your worst. A year ago, what did I have to live for? And now I...” His voice trails off into a breath. “I didn’t care before. About anything. About... what I did or what the consequences might have been. What would prison matter when I knew I had no reason to be free? What would death matter if I had nothing to leave behind? Threat of punishment is effective only to one who has something to lose. People to cares about. People who...” His eyes dart briefly in Tony’s direction. “People who care in return.”

Again, Tony squeezes Loki’s arm. One little thing he can do in this room. That, and shift a tiny bit closer, as close as he can be, with his shoulder pressing against Loki’s. I care, the position of his body tries to silently say. Oh, Loki, I care more than I ever though I could...

“You know we care about you,” Frigga says, finally, finally breaking the silence she’s held so far... just to offer up some weak platitude.

Loki’s jaw tightens into a sharp-cornered angle as his breathing gains speed. Eyes shine a little too bright. How many different responses could he give to that? A lot. More than Tony could easily count, even if they are all sitting right there on display, clear in the line of his brow or the hardness of his lips. A whole grand array of weaponized words, built up over so many years, that he could use to slash through trite claims of ‘you know we care about you’.

He doesn’t use any of them.

“No, I don’t deserve to be released to Midgard,” Loki says instead. “Both of you are very aware of that.” And if he sounds a little less controlled than he did before, who can blame him, really? “So there is your question answered. The one thing I want in this entire worthless universe and it’s painfully clear I don’t deserve it. After everything I’ve done? Centuries of designing chaos and inciting discord? I don’t even deserve to be standing here. I don’t know why you didn’t kill me long ago. Put me out of my very obvious misery. Instead, I suppose you thought it would be kinder to lock me away. Do you know how many days I’ve spent locked up? In my room? In the witches’ temple? In a cell? Even chained to a stake in the ground in a tent? Do you?”

He looks straight at Frigga when he asks that, but she’s returned to her favored silence.

“I do,” he says. “I know. I counted. Four thousand, three hundred thirty-eight. Give or take a few to account for partial days here and there, but... I’ve spent four thousand, three hundred thirty-eight days of my life locked away. In little increments, here and there, when you decided it was more convenient to hide me out of sight where I didn’t have to burden anyone’s thoughts with my unwanted presence. And that’s what I deserve now, I suppose. To be locked away again. For another four thousand, three hundred thirty-eight days. The ever-increasing price for the cumulative sum of my crimes, even when others have done worse and paid less.”

“Have others gone behind my back to treat with Jotunheim?” Odin asks. “To hand over dangerous and powerful artifacts?”

“I will not apologize for that,” Loki snaps immediately back. “The Casket belongs to the Jotnar, and this pointless antagonism between Asgard and Jotunheim needs to end. I did what was right: what you should have done centuries ago.”

“What was right,” Odin echoes, and he glances over at Frigga to share another one of those looks. “Do you know how angry I was with Thor when he returned to inform me of the terms of your surrender? Terms to which I was unwillingly bound?”

Loki almost smirks. “If I am to judge by how many days Thor has been held in chains since then, my answer would have to be ‘not angry at all’.”

Odin shakes his head. “Oh, Loki, if only you had half as much honor as you have wit. But I think Thor can tell you how displeased I was. I sent him to Jotunheim as an emissary of Asgard, to carry out my will. I had one instruction for him: to bring you back. Not to bargain, but to collect you and return to Asgard. He disobeyed my direct orders. Because of you. You somehow convinced him to agree to a ransom. It was not what I asked, and not how I would have acted, were I there in his place. However. What’s done is done. And for all that I disagree with the choices the two of you made, I see now the wisdom in your actions. Now that I have had time to consider this turn of events and consult with your mother, I agree with the result.”

After a beat of silence (either stunned or confused, it’s hard to tell which), Tony’s the first one to speak. The only one to speak, because all Loki seems able to do is stand there with his mouth hanging open.

“What?!”

Such an elegant, concise statement. Really gets the point across and succinctly sums up exactly what Tony is thinking. And when Loki stays silent, he keeps going.

“No, really, what the hell?! What the what?! The wisdom in... What?!”

“I am saying,” Odin replies, with that stupid, amused little smirk once again decorating his mouth, “that despite Loki’s actions being contrary to what I would have done myself, I believe he acted well in taking a step towards better relations between Asgard and Jotunheim.  I am saying that my queen and I spent the last three days in deliberation, debating all the factors and recent events and working towards a fair decision on what path we believe Loki’s fate should follow.”

In a gesture that’s nothing but pure, self-indulgent enjoyment of the moment, Odin pauses to take a sip of his wine while Tony and Loki stand there in mute confusion.

“I am saying,” he eventually continues, slowly savoring each haughty word, “that despite your very persuasive arguments to the contrary, Loki, your mother and I believe that you do indeed deserve to be released to Midgard.”

ooo

At this point in his life, Tony Stark is fairly certain he’ll never gain a knack for accurately guessing how his ill-advised adventures will end. Exhibit A: Afghanistan. All he wanted was to escape from captivity, and he accidentally invented a superhero alter-ego. Exhibit B: New York. All signs pointed to him and Loki living happily ever after (or at least happily for three or so months until one of them did something really shitty), but that devolved into an alien invasion and one party shooting the other with a ray gun. Exhibit C: Asgard. What he’d assumed would end with some kind of epic fight for his and Loki’s life à la Flash Gordon has dwindled down into... quietly going home without a fuss.

“Soooo,” he says to Thor, because standing there silently next to each other in the Bifrost dome is getting kind of awkward. Around the perimeter, Loki and Frigga have been quietly walking together for at least five minutes to say their protracted goodbye. Odin stands off to the left. Tony shifts his stance a little to better take advantage of Thor’s large shape in blocking Odin from sight. “Guess, uh... guess this is it.”

“Yes,” Thor replies with all the jovial good grace of somebody who hasn’t been paying attention to anything that’s happened over the last several hours.

“Yep,” says Tony. “Time to head home. Time to get out while the going’s good, as we say back on Earth.”

“We say that on Asgard, too.”

“Huh. Really?” The things you learn.

“Well, not in those exact words,” Thor explains, “but the same general meaning. The Asgardian idiom has a more specific reference to a famous battle on Muspelheim. You wouldn’t fully understand.”

“Of course not,” Tony mutters. “And hey, speaking of things I wouldn’t fully understand, does any of this seem weird to you?”

Thor stares at him blankly. “Any of what?”

“Oh, you know, this whole situation. Like how earlier today we thought your dad was going to execute Loki for treason? But now it turns out everything’s peachy? And nobody’s a traitor, and we’re allowed to leave, and you’re mom’s...” He pauses to squint at Frigga. “Is she giving Loki a cake?”

“It is tradition on Asgard for mothers to give their children a loaf of sweet bread when they depart out into the world to found their own households.”

“That’s fascinating. But this isn’t weird to you? Not the bread,” he immediately clarifies, because he just knows what Thor was about to say. “That’s probably the least weird thing going on right now. I’m specifically referencing the part where, a couple hours ago, you and I were both legitimately convinced that your dad was going to murder your brother. But now that’s no longer a concern, and nobody thinks we need to talk about it?”

“What is there to talk about?” asks Thor. “My father has made his decision. He is a wise man, Tony Stark. He sees many things lesser men overlook, and is master of knowledge others cannot even begin to comprehend. He has seen the truth and honor in Loki’s actions, and all has been set right.”

“Okay but,” Tony has to say. “I’m saying that he could have just as easily seen the lies and treason in Loki’s actions, and then we’d be in a very different place right now. Would you still think so highly of your father’s wisdom then?”

“But that would not happen. The king of Asgard always finds the path of truth, and here we are.”

“Yeah, sure, but...” That’s as far as Tony gets before the look of marginally offended determination on Thor’s face tells him he’s better off stopping where he is. This conversation is going nowhere. And has no potential to nudge itself over into a more productive course. “Gotcha,” he says instead. “Everything is fine and there’s nothing to worry about.” Definitely no need to worry that Odin won’t change his mind again at some murky point in the future and demand Loki be given back. No, that could never happen, and he’s being ridiculous for thinking it. “If you don’t mind me asking, is this a common occurrence? Like you majorly fuck something up and assume your ass is toast, but then your dad steps in and inexplicably forgives you at the last minute? Deus ex crappy machina? And then everybody just has a laugh and accepts it and moves on? Until the next time you fuck up and think you’re going to die but then don’t? Is that a thing?”

“Yes.”

The emphatic ring to Thor’s voice, more than the answer itself, is all Tony needs to hear. “Amazing. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Thor replies, with that trademark charming and utterly unironic grin.

Great. Well, Tony will just continue to worry on his own. At least until the space beam is ready to send them home. And actually for a considerable amount of time after that, too, because of the annoying Asgardian habit of showing up unannounced and uninvited to ruin everything. The first thing he should probably do when he gets back to Malibu is try to invent some kind of anti-Asgardian barrier forcefield around his house to prevent surprise visitors.

Frigga gestures for Thor to come over: it’s big brother’s turn to say goodbye. Which is really super, because Tony sure did miss those good old days of watching Thor and Loki hold hands and hug each other. And he was definitely looking forward to the bulky barrier of Thor leaving him with nothing but a very insubstantial few cubic feet of air between him and Odin. Is it really so much to ask he and Loki be able to leave quickly and quietly without all these drawn-out farewells and what’s probably going to be an unnecessary and condescending dad-talk, based on the way Odin is casually strolling over in Tony’s direction?

“How long does it take?” Tony asks to grab control of the conversation before Odin can say anything. “Fire this puppy up, send us on our way... How long? I’m getting kind of antsy and really want to be home in time for whatever garbage is on TV tonight.”

“Moments only,” Odin replies in a pleasantly conversational tone. “Once you and Loki are fully prepared to leave, it will take no time at all to send you.”

“Good. Good. That’s good. So maybe you should, you know, get it started now? Get things going? Loki and Thor look like they’re almost done with... uh...” Putting Loki in an affectionate headlock? Whatever. “That. We should be on our way. Immediately.”

“In such a hurry to leave?”

“In case you weren’t paying attention to all that stuff I said earlier about Asgard being a shithole and Loki and I wanting to leave here as quickly as possible and never return: yes.”

Odin nods. “And yet when you first arrived, you spent so long lying to me and hiding your true intent. You never once thought to simply ask to go home.”

“Bull. The first thing I did as soon as Loki was out of prison was-” Except wait, did he ever ask Odin to send him and Loki back to Earth? Yeah, sort of, indirectly, the night he signed that contract. He mentioned something about wanting to take Loki home. But after that... He asked Thor.   He discussed it with Loki. Loki wrote off the possibility as being somewhere in the realm of pigs flying. Did they really never go back and ask Odin and Frigga outright? “Okay, wait,” he says, as realization sets in like a wallop to one of those areas of the body that’s particularly susceptible to soft tissue damage. “I specifically mentioned to Thor-”

“Yes, you mentioned to Thor,” says Odin. “You told Thor you wished to return to Midgard, but that was not Thor’s choice to make. You did not speak to me. Instead, you sought to sneak your way out while lying to my face. I do not reward lies and underhandedness, Tony Stark.”

“So, what? Is this an after-school special where you tell me you would have just let us leave if we’d only asked nicely?”

Scanning his gaze around the room and through the gaps in the dome to the rim of stars beyond, Odin reacts with what’s probably a shrug under all that weight of leather and armor. “Perhaps. As soon as you arrived it became Frigga’s belief that Loki should go with you. I did not fully agree at first, especially with the way the two of you tried to scheme your way into what you wanted at every turn. It was not until you spoke to us today that I finally saw in you what she did. You stood up honestly and without reserve for what you believed in. Now had you done that from the outset... How differently do you think your journey would have gone?”

That really pounds into those soft, vulnerable body parts, and Tony has to take step back as if distancing himself from Odin and looking at things from a physically different angle will help make any sense of it. (Nope.) Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? Or worse: a lesson to learn? Of all the crowded, confused emotions flailing through his head, Tony has to pick one to go with and rule his actions. He goes for the easiest. The lowest of the low-hanging fruit: anger.

“Gone differently?” he asks, trying to sound pissed off but mostly coming across as needing to take a minute and a few deep breaths to compose himself. “Different as in you wouldn’t have kept Loki locked in prison? Different as in you wouldn’t have agreed to make him my slave? Different as in you wouldn’t have kept trying to wedge yourself between us at every opportunity? Really? Would you really have done any of those things differently?”

“If I recall,” Odin says in an overly patient voice like he’s talking to a small child, which really grates on Tony’s nerves, “I delivered Loki to you at your request, in a perfectly legal manner that would satisfy anyone who questioned my judgement. I released him from prison and gave you the authority to remove his chains at your whim. He had free, unfettered access to all of Asgard: an unprecedented luxury for anyone in his position under our laws. He stayed with you in your quarters, and I even went so far as to provide you with a more appropriate living space when you were too busy sneaking around trying to hide your actions from me to think of asking for such. I did everything I could to help you while still playing along with your ridiculous charade, all the while hoping you would come to your senses and tell the truth, which I think is more than you deserved. Were it not for the fact that you were at least halfway honest with Frigga, I would have sent you back to Midgard alone long ago. As I said,” he adds with a furrowing of his brow and a gruff sound from the depths of his throat. “I do not reward lies. But nor do I punish lapses in judgement with undue severity. You made poor choices, Tony Stark. But I hope these events will help you learn better for the future.”

“...Oh,” says Tony. Mostly because there’s not a lot of other dialogue options when his mind’s still so busy screaming in a whirl of confusion over what Odin just told him. That was... help? All those times Odin randomly dropped in to check on him and Loki? Those weren’t just attempts at catching them in a lie? Or maybe they still were, but like... well-intended attempts at catching them in a lie, instead of the malicious intrusions Loki insisted they were? Tony never asked what Odin wanted by stopping by. Never even thought about it: just accepted Loki’s interpretation. And yes, at the time it made perfect sense, but in hindsight maybe blindly running along with pessimistic conspiracy theories backed up with zero empirical evidence wasn’t the soundest of choices. Maybe he should have made a small effort to find his own answers instead of putting all his trust in Loki.

“I am obviously way too good of a boyfriend,” he whispers to himself.

“Have you now learned your lesson?” Odin asks him.

“I... uh... guess?” he says, looking up. He definitely learned something (probably), though what exactly that might be is way too hard to tell right now. Be honest? As for what he wants in life? Don’t always listen to Loki, because Loki is fallible and not omniscient and can still make mistakes? No, none of those things sounds like a snippet of wisdom Tony will ever follow. Leave Asgard immediately because Asgard is a silly place full of people he doesn’t want to talk to? That’s more like it. “Are you trying to give me fatherly advice?”

Odin nods. “Yes. You are still young and can use much guidance.”

“I’m forty-two.”

“Very young,” Odin agrees with a pat to Tony’s arm.

“Okay yeah I need to go back to my own planet now,” Tony says. From across the room he locks eyes with Loki, who is in the midst of being crushed in yet another one of Thor’s massive bear hugs. Everything about both of their situations screams ‘done’. “Immediately.”

ooo

In a small way, Tony had been dreading the whole travel-by-Bifrost ordeal. Which is to say, he dreaded it way less than the possibility of being stuck on Asgard forever, a lot like the way people dread vaccinations that will ultimately prevent some terrible disease but suck in the short term. You’d rather get a shot and a sore arm than have tetanus, but the shot still hurts. He’d rather go back to Earth than stay on Asgard, but he had this preconceived notion stuck in his head that the Bifrost was going to be like a bigger, badder version of Loki’s teleportation. Complete with all the unpleasant innard-shifting and that weird feeling like his skin doesn’t quite fit right.

But after all the hugs and manly arm clasps and a kiss on the forehead from Frigga and a coerced promise that they’d try to visit one year for some unpronounceable Asgardian word that was probably a holiday, Odin started up the portal and Loki took Tony’s hand before the two of them stepped into the beam. A few seconds of light-speed flashing colors later and they touched down on Earth with barely more than a stumbling step.

It wasn’t actually that bad. Tony’s innards feel fine. His skin feels the right size. His blood is okay (i.e., it’s there and doing its job in a way he doesn’t particularly notice) and everything feels normal. He lifts up his hands, at first just to look and make sure they’re working, and then to cling like a maniac around Loki’s shoulders and pull him into the kind of embrace usually reserved for reunions after a long time apart. Closing his eyes, his presses his forehead against Loki’s collarbone. They’re home. They’re home. They’re home. “Holy shit,” he murmurs.

“We made it,” says Loki, holding onto him in return with an equal intensity. At least as much as he can without squishing Frigga’s bread. “Finally. Midgard.”

“You sure? They didn’t send us to Punishmentheim or Jailgard or somewhere horrible? It’s really Earth?”

“Yes. Earth.” Those sound like two of the greatest words Tony has ever heard in his life. Unfortunately, they’re followed by some of the worst. “We’re back in New Mexico.”

Tony’s head snaps up. “What?!” He steps back from Loki just far enough to spin in a full circle, scanning all 360 degrees of the horizon, though his stomach sinks before he even hits degree forty-five. He looks at the far-off hills, looks at the dirt, looks at a wizened old clump of scrubby weeds, looks at Loki... “Motherfucker!!!”

“This isn’t where we’re meant to be?” Loki asks, eyebrows raised.

“Of course not!” Tony snarls. “We were supposed to go home! As in my home! My house-home!”

“Did you give anyone that instruction?”

Tony opens his mouth and then shuts it again without saying a thing. Lifts up his fist to make some angry gesture, but drops it right back down. So there may have been a small oversight that could be construed as being partially, in some minor way, indirectly his fault. “Well,” he begins. “I was...” Distracted? Discombobulated? In a terrible hurry? Making incorrect assumptions that Asgardians would understand basic geography and didn’t need to be told to send him to his house instead of to a dirt-patch a thousand miles away in a different state?

Loki’s lips get ever so slightly thinner. “Do you want me to call Heimdall and-”

“Unless the next words out of your mouth are going to be ‘tell Odin to go fuck himself’, no. It turns out I’d actually rather walk across the desert than go back to Asgard any time soon. You?”

That should be classified as a rhetorical question. Loki takes only the briefest look around before answering with a sharp nod. “Desert.”

At least they’re on the same page. And at least they’re also in this together. Walking across a desert with Loki (not magic-drunk this time) is better than walking across a desert alone. Right? Of course right. They did Jotunheim. They can handle this. “How far do you think we have to go before we’re out of range of magical interference and you can teleport us to California?” Tony asks.

“I don’t know. With the Bifrost imprint so fresh, it will be a considerable distance. Several hours’ walk at least.”

Still a better option than going back to Asgard. “Then I guess we better get going.” He holds out his hand. “Care to walk off into the sunset with me?”

“The sun isn’t setting yet.”

“If this walk takes as long as you think it will, there will definitely be a sunset to walk into by the time we’re done.”

“But why do we need the sunset?”

“No, we don’t need the...” Rubbing his hands over the dirt and grit already beginning to stick to his face, Tony sighs. “Never mind. It’s just a dumb thing. Classic romantic ending where the couple rides off into the sunset to live happily ever after. I have so much to teach you about pop culture clichés.”

He slips his arm around Loki’s waist as they walk. All those layers of fabric and leather and metal and who knows what else make for a tough hold to keep, but he does his best. And despite the situation, despite all the shit, despite New Mexico and Asgard and everything that’s happened... he can’t help but feel a little bubble of happiness start to expand in his chest. It’s lightness. It’s freedom. They’re home. Well, kind of. They’re more home than they were five minutes ago. Being on the right planet is good enough for Tony to let in all those feelings of optimism for the future that had been held back for so long. He’s here, and Loki’s here with him. It all worked out okay. More or less.

He tightens his hold as much as he can through his dumb Asgardian sleeve and Loki’s dumb Asgardian vest, and leans in until the side of his head gently rests against Loki’s shoulder. Loki must have had the same idea at the same time, because his lips are right there to press a kiss with gentle breath into Tony’s hair right above his ear.

“Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

All of one second later, Loki’s fist collides with the soft spot on Tony’s back under his rib cage in a very affectionate kidney punch. “Ow!” Tony yells. “Fine, okay, I love you too, you evil asshole!”

“Good,” Loki says through a deceptively sweet smile. “Because you’re stuck with me now.”

“That I am,” Tony agrees. He wraps his arm around Loki’s waist again, this time managing to find a slightly better position and work in a loving kidney punch of his own. “I am stuck with you now.”