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Tony made the biggest mistake of his life on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
Most people seem to look for big days to make monumental changes – anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases – but perhaps the day’s simple ordinariness was the reason why Loki picked it. Every other day of their lives had been so crazy, so insane with never a single moment in between, that a simple afternoon of tinkering and hanging out in the workshop was more special than any holiday could ever be.
It had been months now since Loki had crashed into his life, beaten, bruised, tired, and randomly hanging out in a Manhattan bar near the Tower. It had been around the same time that Thor had been somewhat literally beating the hell out of London, and although Tony hadn’t heard hide nor hair from Thor since, he’d hardly spent a single moment away from Loki. They’d just… clicked. Well, they had during the invasion in a way, but without the threat of something bigger hanging over their heads, they’d been able to explore every broken piece until they were intimately familiar with each other in a way that no one else had ever been.
Of course, there were other, bigger things that hovered over their heads, but they had grown fairly apt at ignoring those. They weren’t very good at talking about it, but the thing between them had reached the point where they knew they cared about each other and, even deeper than that– they trusted each other with the kind of blind certainty that Tony had scoffed at in the past. Tony was even comfortable working on Iron Man while Loki read a book on a chair nearby, not feeling like he needed the usual blaring noise when the quiet flutter of turning pages was enough to keep him grounded.
That very afternoon was no different– Tony working on Iron Man, and Loki on a classy armchair he’d conjured obnoxiously in the middle of the room some weeks before, doing… something. Tony wasn’t sure what, as he’d been engrossed in the fine details of his armour for several hours, by that point. He’d decided to work on a new brain-wave interface, a new, top of the line technology that should, theoretically, allow him to control the suit with nothing but his mind, thus removing the need for the buggy chips that had failed so spectacularly with the Mark XLII. It was brand new and exciting and so incredibly fiddly, and he was thus rather distracted when Loki asked a question that really, should have demanded his full attention.
“If I asked you to spend the rest of eternity with me, what would you say?”
Perhaps, if Tony hadn’t been immersed in the logistics of creating the new tech, he would have answered differently. As it were, all he did was snort half-heartedly and mutter the very first thought that popped into his head.
“I don’t think I’m going to last another ten years, Lokes, let alone an eternity,” he said. “You know our lifespans– oh, shit.” He’d caught his fingernail on the edge of one of the wires– nothing too worrying, he’d had far more painful injuries, but it did mean that the wire was out of place and it was going to be a son of a bitch to get it back into exactly the right spot.
“But what if you could?” Loki’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and Tony could only just hear it. “Would you spend the rest of your life with me?”
“Sounds depressing,” Tony muttered. The wire was only a few millimetres out. If he nudged it too far, he’d have to move it back again, and too much movement risked hitting the other wires and moving them out of the way as well. There was a possibility that it would be fine as it was, but if he was going to hook this up to his brain then he needed it to be perfect.
“You truly think that?” Loki whispered, and– fuck.
God, when Tony looked back on that moment in the weeks to come, he would throb with the knowledge that if he had just picked up on the pained crack in Loki’s voice he could have dissuaded him of the misconception and avoided a truckload of heartache. But there were wires in front of him and he had been in full-blown shop mode for hours, so instead, he spoke his answer dismissively and without explanation.
“Yeah, sure.”
And when he looked up some twenty minutes later, Loki was gone.
Counted all my mistakes and there's only one
standing out from the list of the things I've done
When Loki didn’t come back that first night, Tony wasn’t too worried. He knew his lover, and he knew that Loki could never stay still. But he never stayed away for long either, and he always, always came back.
The next morning, though, Tony woke to find that the other side of the bed remained as empty and cold as it had been when he fell asleep, and he turned to JARVIS to see if maybe Loki had left a message about being gone longer than usual.
“Mr Liesmith asked me not to disclose any information regarding his whereabouts,” JARVIS replied, his voice strangely frosty.
“Okay,” Tony said, frowning. That was... weird, but not too worrying. “Did he at least say how long he would be?”
“He’s not coming back.” The words were matter of fact, leaving no room for doubt.
And Tony froze, a shard of ice cutting through his chest.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Come on JARVIS, where is he? This is a great prank and all, but it’s gone on long enough. Where—“
“Sir,” JARVIS interrupted. “He has gone.”
“Why?” Tony asked desperately. “Why would he—“
“I think there's something you should see.” Not waiting for a response, JARVIS pulled up a holographic screen and started to play a video. Tony recognised it immediately as the footage from the day before, and was momentarily confused until he saw Loki ask his question.
“If I asked you to spend the rest of eternity with me, what would you say?”
Loki hadn’t been looking at Tony as he spoke– his eyes had been on his book, though it was clear that he wasn’t seeing the page. His knuckles were white as they held the pages far too tightly, and there was a slight tremor to the set of his lips as he waited for Tony to answer.
Tony hardly heard his own dismissive words, because his attention was solely held by the way that Loki’s expression just broke. He finally looked at Tony as he asked his final, broken try, a pained “you truly think that?” which was clearly a desperate attempt to hold on to any inch of hope– which really should have raised every single red flag Tony had. And when the Tony on screen muttered that fateful, horrible, misleading “sure,” he could see the very moment when Loki shattered into a million pieces.
It had been doomed to end in disaster from the start. Loki– typical, self-sabotaging Loki, had tried to soothe his own anxiety by asking when he wouldn’t have to look Tony in the eye. They’d held conversations that way before– serious conversations even, but never with this result. When distracted, Tony’s answers tended to be straightforward and blunt, and usually that limited the confusion or misunderstanding that was always a risk between two geniuses that had never learned how to talk in a straight line.
On the topic of their future, though, things were a little more complicated than Tony would have liked.
Tony knew that their lives were unmatched, and he knew Loki knew it too. He’d heard Loki laugh derisively about Thor’s relationship with Jane Foster, about how Thor was deluding himself by believing that they could ever have a happily ever after when every moment they spent together was merely another step in the inevitable march toward a painful end. Admittedly, those sorts of comments had ceased since their relationship had shifted into something resembling, well, a relationship, but Tony remembered them being said. They still haunted his nightmares, drifting in and out of his thoughts as a constant reminder of why even the brightest thing Tony had ever managed to find would end in pain.
Surely that didn’t mean that they could enjoy what they had for a least a little while, though? Surely Loki hadn’t finally decided that Tony wasn’t worth the effort?
Surely, Tony thought. Surely Loki was just taking the time to think, would realise that Tony hadn’t explained what he’d meant, and would come back home.
It wasn’t that Tony didn’t care. He cared so much that he found it difficult to express, and now his inability to admit his emotions had caused him to lose what he held most dear.
The days turned into weeks, and Tony felt more and more alone. He hadn’t heard from the rest of the Avengers since the whole thing in New York, and he missed Loki more than he could bear. Hell, the person Tony talked to most these days was a ten-year-old kid in Tennessee via WhatsApp (ugh), and although Harley’s heart was in the right place, he was still just a kid– and he wasn’t enough.
Tony would turn to say something that he knew Loki would enjoy, only to find the space beside him empty. He’d automatically start the kettle at the same time as the coffee machine, forgetting that there was no one to make tea for, anymore. He missed the sound of Loki’s laugh, and the quick witted replies that would always be ready on the tip of a sharp tongue. He missed the way Loki’s brow would crease if he encountered a problem, the way he would smile when he learned a new skill.
Tony felt empty. It was stupid, it was weak– he knew he was better than this. Hell, he’d survived losing Pepper, he’d survived a fucking wormhole. This wasn’t going to break him, because—
Because he knew that he was surviving. He was doing just as well as he had been before, it was more like his eyes had been opened. He knew now, that there was something out there that was better, something that made his life brighter, and now that he was aware of it his very being was crying out for that feeling of completeness.
But maybe… Maybe the fact that they had split so very easily just meant that they were fated to be apart?
No, Tony refused to believe that. He’d never met someone who fit him so well, who could know every dark thing about him and simply shrug and say, so? He knew he would never find anything like it ever again, because Loki really was his perfect match– and Tony wasn’t just going to sit back and give up on what they had.
All the rest of my crimes don't come close
to the look on your face when I let you go.
He’d tried to look, at first. He’d checked every news story in every country, searching for anything that could be a Trickster god letting off a little steam. JARVIS helped after Tony had made it clear that it was a misunderstanding, that he wanted to find Loki to make it right. But even with the AI on his side he had no luck locating any trace of Loki. In a last ditch effort, Tony reworked the algorithm he and Bruce had used to find the Tesseract, focusing it on the signature of Loki’s seiðr and casting a net as wide as he could– which, if he was allowed to brag, was pretty fucking wide.
And still, nada.
Loki was clearly no longer on Earth, and Tony didn’t know what to do next.
Pepper found him in the end, curled up in Loki’s chair in the workshop, cradling a still-full bottle that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to touch. She had pried the bottle from his hands and knelt beside him, seeming not to care that she was dirtying her clothes, or that the hard floor couldn’t possibly be comfortable on her knees. She merely took his hand in hers, and asked him what had happened.
“I fucked up, Pep,” Tony croaked. “I had something good, and I ruined it, just like I always do.”
“Oh, Tony, no,” she said, her fingers tightening a little more around his. “You don’t know—“
“I do,” he said dully. “I said something I shouldn’t have, I didn’t give him the answer he deserved. And now… Pep, I don’t know how to fix it.”
She shifted a little, tugging a toolbox closer so she could sit on it and be more comfortable, though she kept one hand on Tony’s the whole time. When she was settled, she caught Tony’s eye and squeezed his fingers gently.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
So Tony told her. He kept nothing to himself, giving her all the details of how he had managed to fall in love with his most powerful enemy, and how he had managed to lose the first person he had ever managed to truly connect with. At the end of it, she merely leaned forward as best she could and held him tightly, her eyes wet. Tony could tell that she was shocked, that she hadn’t been sure of what to think about Tony being with the guy who’d destroyed half of Manhattan, but he was more than grateful for her attempts at keeping that hidden. She was there as Tony’s friend, and she was being supportive.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, and Tony held her tight, grateful. But it didn’t last as long as he wanted, and she pulled back to catch his eye, taking his hands in hers once again.
“Tony,” Pepper said, her tone sad despite the determination in her gaze. “You already know what you have to do.”
Tony shook his head. “I can’t leave.”
“You can.” Pepper shoved at his shoulder hard enough that he was forced to look up, meeting her steely blue gaze head on.
“I’m needed,” Tony muttered.
“By who?” It wasn’t a condescending question– it wasn’t meant to put him down. She was probing gently, preparing her counter arguments and pulling together everything she needed to shove his ass into gear. Pepper had always been a master of manipulating him, and Tony almost smiled at the familiarity of the process.
“The Avengers Initiative,” Tony reminded her. “Fury said that if something else happens he’s planning on calling us back together, and you know he’s expecting me to foot the bill—“
“They haven’t contacted you since New York.” Her tone was certainly chilly, now. He knew it was a sore subject for her, that after everything he’d given to them– everything he’d nearly lost for them, and everything that he’d suffered– they’d essentially tossed him to the sidewalk with a pat on the head and a ‘Don’t worry, we’ll call you.’ He’d not seen it that way, but he’d heard the rant often enough to know her opinion, and he almost predicted her next words perfectly. “If a crisis rises, they’ll have to deal with it without you. They should learn how it feels to be second choice.”
“But if they need me, it’ll be more than just them who—“
“Rhodey will step in, and you know it,” Pepper said sternly. “Tony, you’re in no condition to fight anyway—“
“I could.“
“You’re right,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. But you know I’m right on this. If they needed you that badly, they would have spoken to you in the past eighteen months.”
“What about SI?” Tony asked.
She arched a wry eyebrow. “You’re the one who made me CEO,” she said. “Do you really doubt my ability to keep SI afloat for a while without you?”
He averted his gaze, knowing that there was nothing he could say to that. He knew she would do a marvellous job, that she would make sure the company not only stayed afloat but flourished, whether he was there or not. They might suffer a bit in the stocks and lose some business with their best R&D guy missing, but the company would be fine.
“Tony,” said Pepper. “You’re coming up with every excuse. Maybe you need to ask yourself whether you really want to find him.”
“Of course I do,” Tony said immediately. “I can’t… Pep, I miss him.”
Her expression softened. “Then what are you waiting for?”
“I don’t even know where he is,” Tony whispered. “What if I can’t find him?”
“You never will if you don’t try.”
Tony looked away, unable to keep his eyes on her when she was being so impossibly logical. “What if…” He swallowed, hard. But his voice still came out in a broken croak. “What if he doesn’t want me to find him?”
“He wanted to spend the rest of his life with you, Tony,” she said, letting go of his hand to cup his face. Her smile a little watery but still true. “He’s not going to forget that so easily. You need to go and apologise, explain yourself, maybe even grovel a little. Maybe… maybe he’s too hurt, but if you truly mean it, I doubt he’ll be able to let you go.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
“Precisely,” Pepper said. “If you know him best, you’ll know exactly where to look.”
Tony was about to tell Pepper that he’d already searched everywhere, that JARVIS was even running a scan in that very moment to detect if Loki returned, but the words died on his tongue. Because he may have searched everywhere on Earth, but their small blue planet was only a tiny speck amongst the rest of the universe.
Now I'm searching every lonely place,
Every corner calling out your name,
Anyone else might have told him it was impossible, but Pepper merely supported him when he told her where he planned to look next. After all, he was Tony fucking Stark. If NASA could build a spaceship, then goddamnit, so could he. It took a few weeks, enough money that the dent in his fortune was actually noticeable, and a lot of dangerous explosions, but Tony managed to pull together a space-ready quinjet and a suit designed to withstand anything he might find on another planet.
The last time something had turned Loki’s life upside down, he’d ended up in a bar in Manhattan, sitting opposite Tony with clothes that smelled like smoke and a broken twist to his lips. So Tony went to all the bars he could find– a ridiculous number, really, and asked everyone he could if they had seen a melancholy Asgardian prince. He was surprised to find that most people understood what he was saying– some kind of universal translator, apparently, which enough people had implanted that he didn't need to worry about getting one himself. But despite the lack of a language barrier, he didn’t seem to have much luck at being understood.
“Who? Lo-key? You mean that guy from Xandar, right?”
“Oh yeah, man, Lukey was in here last week, ya just missed ‘er—“
“The Asgardian?”
“You’ll not find him here, mate.”
“Last I heard, he was dead.”
Three months of searching, and every single person who had heard of Loki believed him to be dead. At first, Tony thought they were talking about Loki’s fall from the Bifröst, but it quickly became clear that actually, they’d all heard that Loki had died fighting Dark Elves with his brother– and no one would believe anything different. Tony wasn’t aware that the fight on Svartaflheim was common knowledge, but the reason for the tale’s increasing popularity soon became clear.
“Oi, Loki, over here!”
The shout, echoing through the middle of a street somewhere on the planet Harokin, near stopped Tony’s heart. He turned on the spot to see the edge of a green cloak slip through the door to a bar, one of those classy joints that had banned gambling on F’saki and Orloni and only served drinks in giant outer-space martini glasses. Tony hurried inside immediately, scanning the room with the first real piece of hope since the fourth person had told Tony that Loki was dead.
Loki was nowhere to be seen.
But there was a man with long blonde hair and a red cape, his back to Tony as he pulled open a door on the other side of the bar.
“Thor!” Tony called as he charged forward, unable to keep a hold on his excitement.
The man turned at the shout, and well… it wasn’t Thor. Upon closer inspection, his hair was a lighter blonde, and his beard was far more sculpted than Thor’s had ever been– the contours were curled up across his cheeks like something from the Hunger Games. But he didn’t appear to be surprised by Tony calling the wrong name– if anything, he seemed pleased.
“Ha, thanks, man,” the guy yelled back, raising his glass. Then he stepped through the door, and was gone.
Dismayed, Tony turned back to the rest of the room, hoping that he’d missed something. The barkeep was humanoid and yellow, and seemed friendly enough, so Tony approached with the best smile he could muster in the circumstances.
“Hi,” Tony greeted. “I don’t suppose you saw Loki of Asgard come in here, did you?”
“Oh, you think you’re funny, do ya?” The barkeep rolled his eyes. “Loki of Asgard? We’ve only got about four o’ ‘em out the back." He cast his eyes over Tony's red and gold armour, considering. "I suppose you’ll be here to collect ‘em?”
Tony blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“That’a way.” The man gestured to the door that the Thor look-alike had gone through just before. Tony nodded his thanks and headed straight for it, his heart in his mouth. As he grew closer to the door, he could hear voices on the other side.
“Brother, how could you attack my favourite planet—“
“Oh come on, I’m supposed to be dying, you can’t just go off at me like that, dude—“
“Well, you shouldn’t break character!“
Tony shoved the door open and nearly fell into the hallway on the other side, staring in shock.
Well, the barkeep was right. There were four Loki of Asagrds– four Loki cosplayers, that is, all with long dark hair and green capes, and some with pointed helmets or golden spears. There were also a few Thors, including the guy Tony had spoken with earlier, and a couple others that Tony didn’t recognise.
“And who are you meant to be?” asked one of the Thors, his bright pink skin flushing angrily. “You don’t look at all like an Aesir. Too short.”
“Maybe he’s trying out for one of the Vanir,” said one of the ladies. She was pretty, with long black hair and bright purple eyes, wearing something similar to cardboard painted silver to look like plate armour.
“I’m sorry,” Tony said, not bothering to hide his confusion as it was doing a remarkable job distracting him from the crushing disappointment. “I seem to have the wrong place. Why are you all here?”
“We’re going to audition for the play,” said one of the Lokis, rolling his eyes in an obviously sort of way.
“You’re doing a play on Asgardians?” Tony asked, his eyes darting between the Lokis and the Thors.
“No,” said the Thor with the abstract beard. “Odin Allfather sent out a call for actors a few weeks ago, since everyone knows Asgardians can’t act. Didn’t you hear?”
Well, no, Tony certainly hadn’t– but neither, really, did he care, because all of this boiled down to one, crushingly disappointing fact.
“So none of you have seen the real Loki?” he asked.
“Oh, please.” The pink Thor rolled his eyes. “He’s dead. That’s why the King of Asgard wanted this play in the first place, it’s to commemorate his son’s death.”
“And what a great death it is,” said one of the Lokis. “I’ve seen the script.” He put a hand to his heart and cleared his throat. “I am so sorry about that thing with the Tesseract, I am a trickster—“
“You are a disaster,” said another Loki, shaking his head.
Unable to take any more of it, Tony turned to push his way back out of the bar. He seriously doubted that Loki would be caught anywhere near this, after all.
Tony needed a new plan. He was starting to run low on options.
Trying to find you but I just don't know—
Where do broken hearts go?
He told himself it was just a pit stop. He was heading back home just for a moment before he branched out to the other half of the galaxy, just stopping by for a rest and to assure Rhodey and Pepper that he was still alive.
But he’d been in space for three months, and there was a lot back on Earth that needed his attention.
In the time he’d been gone it seemed like the whole world had gone to shit– SHIELD had been infiltrated by a long-dead organisation called HYDRA, or SHIELD always had been HYDRA, or HYDRA had always been SHIELD, or something like that, Tony wasn't really sure. Either way, Cap and Romanoff had got mixed up in it all and had destroyed everything, leaving a void which for some reason, everyone expected the Avengers to fill.
It was annoying and frustrating, but it gave Tony an opportunity he hadn’t considered before– because if SHIELD had fallen, then the question of where all of the alien tech they had collected had wound up was of great importance. They couldn’t leave such technology in the hands of HYDRA, and maybe—
Maybe Loki would want his sceptre back.
Tony brought the issue up with the others the moment they were all in the same room, not bothered that it made Barton and Romanoff exchange eye-rolls about his impatience. Steve agreed that it should be a priority, and Thor… Well, Thor was the real MVP.
“I spoke with my father and gained permission to track the sceptre,” Thor told them. “He agrees that it should not remain in mortal hands.”
“That means he wants it back in Asgard,” Barton said immediately, turning to Rogers. “You can’t be happy with that.”
“I think that the safest hands are our own,” Rogers replied. “But we’ve proven that we can’t be trusted with items of such power. You saw what SHIELD was doing with the Tesseract—“
“Were not HYDRA,” Tony cut in. “But I agree with Cap.” He turned to Thor. “What did your dad say, exactly?”
Thor frowned. “He seemed… scared.”
“And that’s not ominous at all,” muttered Romanoff.
But it was enough to convince them all, and Tony suggested to Bruce that they use the same Algorithm as they did with the Tesseract, not bothering to mention that he’d already done it once before. As soon as that decision had been made, though, they were all left wondering at what to do. Reunions were always messy, and while the Avengers had parted on good terms, they were all aware that there were deeper issues between them that they’d never quite managed to hash out.
In the end, they (infuriatingly) settled on small talk, catching up with what they’d been doing since SHIELD had fallen. Romanoff and Barton both refused to say where they’d been, but Bruce was happy to chat about his trip back to Kolkata. Rogers had been in Brooklyn, going around to all the old sites, apparently for the reminder of his old life.
“Doesn’t that make you sad?” asked Barton.
“A little,” Rogers shrugged. “But I’m always going to be sad about it. It’s not the place I recognise any more, but it’s still home.”
That made a certain amount of sense, Tony supposed. If you were going to be sad about something, you might as well do it in a place that already makes you sad. It’s not like it could get any worse– it might even be a little distracting from at least one of the hurts.
And at that thought the sceptre was immediately removed from Tony’s mind, because of course Loki would be in the one place where Tony had never even considered looking.
Mind is running in circles of you and me,
anyone in between is the enemy.
Tony decided to speak to Thor in the workshop, away from prying ears. He was a bit worried about what Thor would think, since the guy had been protective of his little brother even when Loki was actively killing people, and here Tony was admitting to hurting him. But Thor hadn’t become aggressive– his expression had closed off while Tony explained everything, and when he’d finished, Thor merely shook his head.
“Stark,” Thor said, his voice sorrowful. “Loki is dead.”
“No,” Tony insisted. “I’ve heard that before, and I know that he isn’t. Everyone thinks he died fighting the Dark Elves or something—“
“That is the truth,” said Thor. “I saw it.”
“But I’ve seen him since then,” Tony insisted. “Look, if you don’t believe me– JARVIS, help me out here, buddy.”
Thor certainly still looked like he didn’t believe him at all, but he turned to look where Tony directed him anyway. JARVIS pulled up a holographic screen lit up with footage from the penthouse, and it showed Tony working in an armchair with a StarkPad in his lap. But Thor’s gaze was clearly drawn to the figure lounging on the couch engrossed in a crossword puzzle, a soft smile on his face as he jotted down answers on the newspaper JARVIS always specifically ordered just for him. As they watched, the on-screen Tony’s lips moved, and when Loki didn’t respond, he picked up a discarded pillow and threw it at Loki’s head. Loki didn’t even move, of course, but the pillow suddenly changed trajectory midair and shot back at Tony, hitting him in the face. Tony didn’t mind, though– his lips curled in a smirk as he shoved both the pillow and the StarkPad to the side, and launched himself across to the couch. Loki’s newspaper went flying as he caught Tony around the waist, laughing as Tony buried his face in Loki’s neck, kissing and licking and tickling and being just generally annoyingly affectionate.
JARVIS paused it there, with the Trickster’s grin visible just over Tony’s shoulder.
Tony remembered that day. They’d spent the whole evening in the penthouse after that, not doing any work, just enjoying each other’s company. It hadn’t been long before Loki had left.
Shaking the thought from his head, Tony gestured for JARVIS to get rid of the image, and then turned to look at Thor.
“You see?” Tony said, managing to keep his voice level.
“He’s alive,” said Thor, his eyes wide and wet. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“To be honest, I thought you knew,” Tony admitted. “He told me he’d been injured, but I didn’t know you thought he was dead, I thought he was just hiding.”
“We’ve been in mourning. Even my father—“ Thor paused, his lips twisting in understanding. “Ah.”
“What?” Tony asked, stretching the syllables in his desperation.
“My father,” Thor said. “I’ve heard that he’s… been acting oddly, of late. There have been a few questionable decisions regarding relations with Niðavellir, and while he mourned Loki before, he was merely quick to anger. But recently… apparently, he has been directing plays.”
Tony’s eyes widened, his mind immediately flashing to the scene he had witnessed in the bar on Harokin. Odin had probably mourned his son, and while making a play might have helped Shakespeare, Tony believed Thor if he said it was weird. And besides, the play the actors had been discussing did not seem like the creation of a grieving and by all accounts irritable old man.
But there were different types of grief, and Loki’s heart had been shattered in an entirely different way. Perhaps he had seen an opportunity to forget. Or maybe some of their post-nightmare talks had managed to have an affect, and the plays were a distraction of another sort, something to focus on, to help him move on from what had happened on Earth.
It was a crazy thought, but it was crazy enough that, with Loki in the mix, it just might be the truth.
Of course, all of this boiled down to one fact.
“I know where he is,” Tony whispered.
“Then it is settled,” said Thor, determination drowning out the surprise in his tone. “I will grant your request and take you to Asgard, Stark. If my brother is alive, he will need stern words. But…” his eyes flickered to where the screen had been minutes before. “I think I shall allow you to speak with him first. If what you say is true, his mood will be rather volatile.”
And despite the fact that Thor had just openly admitted to throwing Tony under the bus, he was just hit with a wave of pure relief.
“Thank you,” Tony said. “Really—“
“Help me bring my brother back, Stark,” said Thor. “I will be talking with you about keeping his presence a secret later.”
“Sorry,” Tony winced.
“However.” Thor’s expression softened. “He seemed happy in that video. If you have been able to help him, if you have been able to lift some of the darkness that has befallen him these past years, then I am willing to do all in my power to help you. You need only ask it of me.”
“Actually, there is something else I need to ask,” Tony said, starting to smile. “If I want to fix this, then I need to do it properly. And I think… maybe you can help me.”
Tell me where you go when you feel afraid
Tell me will you ever love me again?
Asgard’s throne room was clearly designed to intimidate, with golden walls bright enough to blind, ceilings so high you had to crane your neck to make out the mural, and a long walk from the door to the throne that was both ginormous and elevated. The King himself was dressed in gold as well, and holding a long spear. But Tony’s gaze was immediately drawn to the King’s expression– eye wide despite the stoic set to his lips, like he was well practiced at hiding his thoughts, but had difficulty shrouding emotion.
Tony had never met Odin before, but that expression was just so, so familiar.
As they paused at the foot of the throne, Thor jerkily inclined his head.
“Father, this is Anthony Stark,” Thor said stiffly. “I take my leave, now.” Then, without another word, Thor turned and stalked out of the room.
Wow, okay. It would seem that the outer-space theatre nerds were right– Asgardians (or at least Thor) couldn’t act to save their life.
The old man on the throne barely took any notice as Thor left– his single eye was trained directly on Tony, narrowed in a mixture of anger and longing. It was that, more than anything else, which steeled Tony’s nerves.
“Hey, Loki.”
The King closed his eye for a moment, and he didn’t even try to pretend. The face that should have belonged to Odin slackened, tension bleeding away to be replaced by pained acceptance. As he descended the steps to stand on Tony’s level he changed entirely, a shimmer of green transforming the old man’s features until the person standing before Tony was so familiar that he ached to reach out and embrace him, to wrap him tightly in promises of never letting go again.
“Why are you here, Anthony?” Loki asked. He looked so very tired.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Tony said. “We need to set things straight.”
“Well, you need not have bothered,” Loki replied shortly. “I understood you perfectly, there is nothing to be straightened.”
Loki turned as if to head back up the steps, and Tony knew he needed to be quick.
“I’m sorry,” he started, knowing that it really was the only place to start. But Loki spoke before he could say anything else.
“For imposing?” Loki asked sharply.
“Well—“
“Yes,” Loki agreed. “You should leave.”
“No,” Tony snapped. “I’m not just going to—“
“Then why,” Loki repeated, his voice becoming strained, “are you here?”
“I—“
“Did you come here to torture me?” Loki asked, his eyes widening, almost looking crazed. “Is that it? I don’t suppose I should be surprised—“
“Do you think I’m that cruel?” Tony asked, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know,” Loki replied. He was turned back toward Tony, now, but staring at the ground. “I thought I knew you, I thought—“ He shook his head. “It does not matter. Clearly, I was wrong.”
“Hey, no,” Tony said, distressed. “I didn’t come here to hurt you, Loki. Please, I just want to try and fix things. I need– I need to fix this, okay? Just let me try.”
Loki laughed, a broken, horrible thing that sounded like cracked glass. “You can’t fix me.”
Finally, finally, Loki looked up to meet Tony’s gaze. His eyes were wide and shining with such emotion that Tony found it difficult to breathe, and any words he could have thought to say caught in his throat.
“Anthony, I love you,” Loki said, the words stated like a perfect fact despite the tremble in his voice. “If this is my last chance to say it, then let it be so. But I do not want it to remain unspoken.”
“Oh, fuck,” Tony choked, his heart beating so fast that it actually began to hurt. He’d known, in the back of his mind he’d always known, but hearing it said compounded just exactly how much his apparent dismissal of their relationship must have hurt.
“I know,” Loki said again, his gaze hardening, the broken pieces sticking back together at a speed Tony knew to be impossible. Loki was still shattered, was still shattering to bits on the inside. “You have made your own feelings on the matter quite clear. I understand that humans are more fleeting than those who live as long as I, that while you feel deeply you also possess the ability to move on.”
“Loki, no,” Tony insisted, realising that he’d managed to hurt Loki with his words again. “That’s not what I meant.” He could see that tactic wasn’t going to work, though so he asked, “You asked me, before, but– why do you think I’m here?”
Loki glanced away for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t think you’re here to hurt me, not really. You’re too selfless for that, I know. But if you’re here to apologise, or– or to say goodbye, then please, don’t.”
“Do you really think I could just forget you?”
“No,” Loki admitted. “But I… Anthony, I love you, and I rather think that I always will. There’s no going back for me, and I—“ Loki cut himself off with a choked sob, proving what Tony already knew. His mask wasn’t perfect, and this time, Loki didn’t try to fit the pieces back into place. “I won’t make you be with me when you do not wish to,” Loki said brokenly. “But please, do not ask me to stay by your side knowing that you will never feel—“
Tony couldn’t stand to hear another word, so he cut him off by surging forward and pressing his lips hard against Loki’s. Loki gasped against Tony’s mouth, and the movement felt close enough to the beginnings of being kissed back that for half a second Tony felt a spark of hope—
But then Loki shoved hard against Tony’s chest, sending him stumbling backwards several feet.
“Don’t,” Loki said. His words were harsh, but his expression gave him away– he wasn’t angry. He was just sad. “Please, don’t.”
“Okay,” Tony said immediately. “If you don’t want me to, then I won’t.” Then he tilted his head, and took a short step forward. “But if that was because you thought I didn’t mean it, or because you thought I was saying goodbye, or whatever– then I want you to know that you’re wrong.”
“I don’t need your pity,” Loki replied. “If you’re not going to… please. Just—”
“Please, Loki, understand that if you tell me to leave again, I will.” Tony took a deep breath and one more step, so that he was standing close enough to Loki now that he’d only have to reach up to brush his fingers along Loki’s cheek. He wanted nothing more than to be able to do that again. "I’m not going to make you do anything. I’ll give you the same offer you gave me– If you want me to go, I’ll go. You just need to say it. But first you need to know that leaving will hurt me more than anything else ever has, except perhaps when you left, when I realised that you left because I hurt you first.”
“I left because—“
“I know, and I really am sorry,” Tony continued. “Loki, I made a mistake—“
“Yes, you should not have been involved with me in the first place,” Loki hissed. “You should have—“
“Loki, just listen for a minute,” Tony snapped, painfully aware of the hypocrisy but unable to watch Loki suffer the misunderstanding for another second. “I’m trying to tell you that I love you, too.”
Loki reared back as if he had been slapped, his eyes going wide with shock as his lips pulled apart in a gasp. “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “You said that you were depressed by the very thought of me.”
“No,” Tony denied softly. “That’s not what I meant. I should have explained myself, and I’m sorry. I didn’t– I thought you meant, would I want to stay with you for the rest of my life, and Loki, I’m sorry, but my life compared to yours is just so short. We’d have, what, ten years max, because of my heart. You’d have to watch me die, Loki, you’d have to watch me age and—
“I don’t want that,” Loki said, shaking his head. “I wanted to make it so you would live as long as me.”
“But I didn’t know that was even possible,” Tony replied. He finally gave in to the urge and reached up with one hand, moving slowly to brush his fingers softly along Loki’s cheek. Loki didn’t lean in to his touch, but he didn’t flinch away, either. “And I didn’t want that for you, because I knew you cared about me and I can’t stand the thought of watching you suffer like that.”
Loki let out a long, shuddering breath, his eyes falling closed. “You didn’t want me to go,” he whispered reverently, turning his face slightly so that his lips brushed Tony’s fingers, and his own hands touched lightly at Tony’s waist.
“No,” Tony agreed. “I really didn’t.”
This time, when Tony stood up on his tiptoes and leaned forward, Loki didn’t move away. Their lips touched in the softest of kisses, barely connecting at all but brushing together with a tentative softness that spoke to both of their insecurities.
“If I said yes, if I agreed to it all,” Tony asked, only leaning back to the extent that his feet were flat against the ground, still close enough that he could feel Loki’s cool breath across his skin. “Do you think you could… have I hurt you too much, or is there still a chance for me?”
“I don’t think I could survive feeling like that again,” Loki whispered, glancing down to where his hands had become twisted in Tony’s shirt.
“I know,” Tony said, the corners of his lips pulling up in a sad smile. He pressed his free hand to Loki’s other cheek, so that he was gently cradling Loki’s face. “And if you said no, I would understand. I promise, though, I really do love you. I’m with you, Lokes, until you don’t want me any more. For as long as it’s possible, I’ll be right here.”
“What are you asking?” Loki asked, his eyes wide and his voice breathless, like he was hardly daring to hope.
Slowly, Tony lifted one of his hands from Loki’s face and reached inside his jacket pocket, grasping the precious treasure Thor had helped him obtain when they’d first arrived in Asgard.
He wasn’t entirely sure what to expect as a reaction– he was scared, terrified, more afraid than he had been in his life. Tony knew that this was it– that if this went south, there would be no coming back from it. This would be the moment that he would truly find out if he had ruined everything with a dismissive word.
But there was a small part of him that still hoped, the tiniest part that had been cultivated over nights of light touches and whispered conversations, days of laughter and months of happiness. The part that saw Loki and just wanted to trust that what they had was powerful enough to endure– that it was worth fighting for.
Taking a deep breath, Tony approached the edge of the precipice.
“Loki,” Tony said, stretching out his hand, his fingers trembling slightly against the flesh of the fruit and his lips painted with a nervous smile. “Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”
And when Loki saw the apple in Tony’s hand, he broke into a breath-taking smile, beaming with such genuine happiness that Tony couldn’t help but grin back.
It wasn’t a perfect fix by any means, and Tony knew they’d never be able to go back to how they were before. But Loki’s smile assured him that if they worked at it, if they held on to each other and fought with everything they had– they might just be able to forge something even better.
Yeah, it took me some time but I figured out
how to fix up a heart that I let down.