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“Oh, well, it was a mess. I'm even surprised that the Avengers weren't called”. Tony runs into Eric at some stupid symposium, where Pepper sent him to “at least keep his brain busy with something”.
Tony has already tried to keep his hands busy, as a result he almost turned his own laboratory, and with it most of the house, into ruins.
While sometimes he considers returning to the Tower, it is not possible now to cross the threshold of the once beloved offspring – memories live there, and Stark runs from them cowardly. Probably for the first time in his life, he is hiding from himself. Well, he thinks philosophically, there is a first time for everything.
Eric doesn't look like the sort of person who's doing well. His hands tremble, sweat rolls down his temples, his pupils are dilated like those of a drug-addicted teenager. But to be honest, Tony doesn’t care about someone else’s inadequacy – he has enough of his own. Instead, he just sits opposite Selvig, propping his head on one hand and drinking his beer: he hates beer, but somehow mechanically repeats the order after Selvig.
“It was... hot here too,” Tony informs indifferently, too lazy to mention the fact that, in fact, there is no one else to convene the Avengers. The collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't make a blind bit of difference to him. He doesn't care at all. “So, not a big deal... this... convergence. Still intact”.
“You're not listening to me”. Eric moves the glass on the table. “The dark elves came here”.
He says the last phrase too loudly, and Stark automatically looks around. They sit in one of those pubs where ordinary guys go without Rolex and suits, and therefore their odd conversations can attract unnecessary attention.
“Sounds like the plot of a stupid online game,” he chuckles. It seems to him that his own curved reflection in a glass of beer looks at him disapprovingly. “Yeah, though. Who just does not fly to us. And where do you put them?”
"Sent home," Eric says proudly, raising his glass and trying to slam the rim on Tony's. “Well, Thor, of course, helped for the most part, but my device...”
Apathy flies off Tony in the blink of an eye. He straightens up so abruptly that he hits the edge of the table and almost spills beer all over himself.
So he came here again.
Selvig, as Fury said, was driven mad after Loki dug into his brains, and could invent convergence, and miraculous equipment, and a hundred more stories for every taste (even being drunk Tony remembered the news about Stonehenge and the naked professor), but he would hardly have dragged in Thor for effect.
“Did he come alone?” Stark asks cautiously, having previously drunk half a glass in one gulp and not feeling the taste.
“Yes,” Eric somehow looks at him strangely, and for a second his look even seems meaningful. “Loki won't come back”.
“Of course,” Tony tries to keep his voice as nonchalant as possible. “They punished him”.
“Tried.” Salvig waves his hand in a pathetic parody of anger. “But Asgard was attacked, and Thor called him to help”.
“Amazing,” Tony replies sincerely, raising his glass again. This news awakens in him not forgotten, but carefully lulled emotions. The feelings. In the absence of them, he became, according to Pepper, like his own suit, only made of flesh and blood.
“Well, he's not a weak guy”. Eric chuckles nervously. “Was”.
“What do you mean?” Tony takes another long sip, thinking that tomorrow is a great day to visit the Tower. Explore the possibilities.
"He's dead," Salvig says almost in awe, trying to clink glasses with Tony again. “Thor said. Hey, are you okay?”
The glass hits the table and splashes fragments and beer in different directions. Several workers turn around at the sound, and Tony automatically throws up his hands – saying it was an oversight.
Something inside him breaks too, and the sound seems much louder to him. It's so loud that everyone should go deaf, not just in the bar, but on the street. Or even in the city. Or... But the doors of the bar continue to let in new visitors, and Eric continues to stare at him with stoned eyes - and it's time to ask him what he does there in the evenings. But Tony is silent, stunned.
The waitress with nervously pursed lips removes the pieces.
Stark fumbles frantically in his pockets. There is nothing less than a hundred, and he drops the crumpled benjamin.
“Damn, I completely forgot,” he says, putting on a promotional smile. “I have another meeting today. Have a drink at my expense, buddy. And drink on this news too”.
He doesn't look at Eric anymore.
***
Perhaps giving his address to the Mandarin, he should have thought of Pepper. Or collateral damage. Or just think. But some incredible thirst for danger awakens in Tony, and it's not that he hasn't experienced it before, it's just that this time he even goes beyond his own limits.
Potts leaves literally half an hour before his house and his world explode in stone and glass crumble, and it's almost like then, in a bar, only now it's much more difficult to get up and leave.
The suit barely makes it till some deserted wasteland sprinkled with snow – and hell, Tony Stark hates snow for many reasons, but recently another one has been added to the list, and a forced landing here seems to him an outright mockery.
An even greater mockery is the backwoods, which the locals proudly call the city. However, the thread, he discovered literally half an hour before the explosion, leads exactly here.
As a refuge, he chooses a shed breathing his last, adjacent to a lousy house. At first, second and closest glance it seems uninhabited. But as soon as he settles down among the rusted junk on an old sagged couch, a boy about ten squeezes through the door.
“Do you seriously think that it is so difficult to notice a man with a huge piece of iron on a leash?” Tony, in the place of this kid, at least pretended to be frightened, or, alternatively, delighted. Instead nothing but mockery sounds in the boy's voice.
“Having a quick eye is good,” he replies, wondering if he should expect the arrival of the local sheriff. “Will serve well in life. Your shed?”
“Ours”, the kid shrugs his shoulders, as if doubting. “But Mom is not here”.
“What about Dad?” Tony clarifies, though he's usually not that tactless.
“Moreover,” the boy replies somehow sharply, and Stark instantly sketches a portrait of the family in his head. The picture is very ugly.
“Can I stay here for a while?” Tony asks bluntly. The need for a timeout almost frightens him, but the suit, unlike the mind-maddened body, has needs that can hardly be ignored. “Consider that the famous Tony Stark officially asks you for help”.
“The famous Tony Stark is officially dead,” the boy chuckles, tossing him a sloppy folded newspaper. “I think this shed will survive the ghost. On one condition”.
“Give you some gadget against local hooligans?” Stark asks, glancing at an article with a screaming headline. He thinks that the phrase "Iron Man has fallen" makes sense, in some way.
“I don't need it,” his interlocutor shrugs off. “I will help you, but you will tell me what happened to you”.
“Why?” Tony looks at the owner of the damn barn. He does not look away, and Stark recognizes this look – the children from the orphanages that he sponsors stare at him like that. The look of an early grown-up kid is heavy, piercing, wary. Such people always want the truth and smell lies from a mile away.
“I prefer to know what I'm getting into,” the boy replies, pulling a rickety chair towards him. “By the way, my name is Harley”.
***
“And you just gave your address to the terrorist?” Harley looks at him like he's crazy, which Tony, to a certain extent, is. “That's... not very smart”.
“I was out of my mind,” Stark retorts listlessly. He doesn’t want to say anything more, he struggles with each word, and his breath starts to run out again – he has almost got used to this feeling in recent weeks, but a panic attack is not what he wants to show to, albeit not numerous, but the audience.
“Is it after New York?” the boy is greedy for details. His transparent blue eyes glow with genuine curiosity, without a trace of sympathy or pity, that Tony has been bestowing lately by every busybody in town. “Tell me about the Avengers”.
“Go to hell,” Stark shrugged. “I can't talk about it. Take it as if I went off the rails a bit”.
“Why?” Harley tilts her head to the side. “It all ended well”.
“You're a kid, you don't get it”. Tony tries to get comfortable on the couch, but it turns out with difficulty – the springs now and then dig through the half-rotted upholstery into his back, bruised upon landing. “Although even I used to think that in these superhero games everything is simple: you go and defeat the bad guys”.
“But?”
“In life, a lot of things defy the simplest classification” Stark hardly plans to twist his soul in front of a child, but, perhaps, a couple of life truths won't hurt him. “And bad guys often have their own truth and motives. And if you want to be a good superhero, then it's better not to dig”.
“Apparently,” Harley grins oddly. “You're a bad superhero”.
“Yeah, I must admit, pretty shitty,” Tony sighs, looking at his palms smeared with oil, dirt and blood. “Do you have a shower here?”
***
The house looks almost uninhabited; however, the shower - if, of course, you can call it that – a hose sticking out of the wall in a tiny bathroom – still exists. The pressure is pretty weak, and Tony has time to freeze as hell while he gets himself in relative order.
It's good that Pepper left in time - perhaps the feeling of guilt in addition to everything else would be too much.
“Tony,” she said, zipping up her purse on the move. “I would like to tell you that I understand everything. But I don't understand anything. What's going on with you? I chalked up your antics to what you experienced, but after the symposium, it went too far”.
She looked at him with tender pity, and Tony then wanted to yell at her, but he restrained himself and stoically accepted the awkward farewell kiss on the cheek.
He carefully washes his face, not even thinking about the fact that he especially zealously rubs the place that her lips touched.
“Talk to someone,” Potts seemed to advised him as she got into the car.
Tony wants to laugh, standing on a rusted pallet: in the foreseeable space there is not a single interlocutor, except for a strange boy who does not need anything but stories from albeit a temporarily disgraced, but still powerful Iron Man.
The problem is that the story that does not allow Tony to breathe deeply is not at all suitable for a child, even if he has grown up early.
Stark makes his way downstairs to the kitchen. Here, Harley, who has thrown off his parka, which is obviously too big for him, is eating cookies from a cardboard box and washing it all down with cola.
“I brought you a couple of sandwiches,” he nods at the table littered with bright packages. “Or what do you eat there?”
“Well, certainly not cola cookies,” Tony snorts, sitting down on the windowsill, as the only chair is occupied.
“Where did you get all this from?”
“From the store,” the boy calmly answers. “Do you know other ways to get food?”
“You stole it, didn't you?” it turns out almost sympathetically. But in general, Tony does not care about morality now – hunger makes itself felt, and he bites off half of the sandwich at once, almost forgetting to tear the vacuum packaging.
Harley does not answer, confirming the correctness of his assumption.
“Okay, it happens,” Stark says soothingly with his mouth full. “Look, once I've done with the Mandarin, I'll come back and buy you a truckload of cookies and soda and whatever. Okay?”
“I told you, I don’t need all this,” Harley shruggs off. “I don't need to be rescued”.
“And I already told you that I'm a shitty superhero, so this is not about rescue, but just a little gratitude”. Tony tries to smile, but lately his "billion-dollar smiles" have turned out to be somehow lifeless and no longer able to win over the audience. “You won't be fed up with stories alone”.
“That's true,” Harley pulls up the next box with the image of a chocolate bear. “But you still haven’t fully told me what prompted you to commit such a cunning suicide? You could just... well, let's say, lose your billions in a casino, if that's what you wanted for the thrill”.
Tony stares at him for a moment in bewilderment, mechanically estimating in his mind the time he would have to spend in the casino, if he really thought to let his fortune go down the drain.
"Joke," Harley laughs, interpreting Stark's silence in her own way. “I've already understood that it's New York, and you're freaking out every time I mention it. Moral injury?”
“How are you so smart in your... by the way, how old are you?” Tony clumsily tries to change the topic. It's almost a day before the battery is fully charged, according to the clock he found in the bathroom – pink with Mickey Mouse. Obviously, the boy has a sister, or his mother can't afford anything more expensive than shitty plastic for a couple of bucks. Squeezing out misplaced sympathy, Tony mentally doubles the "thank you" list.
“Twelve,” Harley draws with some strange hesitation. “I look younger, I guess. So will you tell?”
***
Loki is brought to him a day after the memorable battle. Fury's helicopter lands directly on the dilapidated platform of the Tower, and the handcuffed demigod is unceremoniously dragged outside.
Tony at this moment is just looking at the dent on the floor left by Loki's body after the clash with the Hulk and is glad that the communications were almost not affected.
But even so, the Tower reconstruction will take time, and Stark is damn happy about it, because his soul has been restless from the very moment the wand touched the reactor.
Bruce, to whom he allocated a room adjacent to the laboratories, of course took his blood for analysis yesterday, but, shaking his head, suggested psychosomatics. Psychosomatics smacks of female suspiciousness, and Tony continues to cowardly hope for extraterrestrial, for example, bronchitis.
He is not immediately distracted by the noise of the helicopter, believing that Fury came to him with an interrogation clumsily disguised as a friendly conversation. But in Pepper's tense silence, he understands that something is wrong, and finally pays attention to the intruders.
“Do you think I got bored?” He turns to Nick, wiping his soiled hands right on his pants. “Hi, horny”.
Loki, of course, does not even grace him with a nod – he is busy staring at his own chained hands, apparently wondering how to break the ingenious shackles.
"Stark," Fury looks at him – Tony can't believe his eyes - like he's a bit guilty. “Thor can't take him to Asgard right now”.
Tony swallows his saliva, automatically casts a glance at the pile of glass fragments that used to be a bar yesterday and for the first time regrets that he quit smoking back in his student years.
“I don’t have a prison here,” he says defiantly, because, what the hell, he got almost the worst of it, and they still want to billet yesterday’s invader at his place. His chest tightens in a painful spasm and Tony tries to breathe deeper. “He'll run away”.
“You called Banner here,” Fury retorts. “It is unlikely that you would begin to scatter such proposals without proper resources. I can promise to provide my best agents for safety net”.
“Why don't you lock him at your place?” Pepper intervenes. “I do not believe that you have no better place than the Tower, which, in fact, is a valuable object, and has no analogs yet”.
“By agreement with Asgard,” Loki rolls his eyes at these words. “I am obliged to give the prisoner to Thor, but I'm afraid the Council will not share my aspirations. I told them that the brothers had already returned to their world, but the tessaract was too unstable to move. It takes a little time”.
“How much is a little?” Tony clarifies, already mechanically considering precautions. Lower levels, enhanced protection. Send Pepper away just in case.
“A week,” Fury replies grimly. “Maybe a little longer”.
“Just it,” Stark grins sadly, stealthily looking at Loki, as if indifferent to what is happening. “Well”.
***
“It doesn’t look like a dungeon, of course,” Tony rants, showing Loki his temporary home. “But this level is underground, so in a way…”
He trails off, listening to JARVIS speaking through a tiny earpiece.
“Yes,” he continues after a short pause. “Here is a high-tech defense, I reconfigured it just yesterday, taking into account... Hulk. Again. There is some irony in this. Round-the-clock surveillance, the best agents on the case. Generally, I recommend not rocking the boat”.
He turns to look at Loki, who is staring blankly at the wall. However, Tony in a sense understands him: this level, despite the presence of residential premises, is completely uninhabited and impersonal. There is absolutely nothing to look at.
Banner lives on a lower level, and these rooms Stark generously considers a second string in case the doctor's alter ego does not like the current ones.
“You can contact JARVIS. Well, if you suddenly want to eat or read something”. Communicating with someone who cannot answer you is below average pleasure, especially if this someone has a very sharp tongue. Loki seems to be of the same opinion, because the look he finally gives Tony shows polite bewilderment and an obvious question “when are you going to leave?”
“Well, be a good boy”. Stark wraps up hastily, feeling somehow… uncomfortable. It would seem that he, as a representative of the victorious side, has the right to dictate terms and mock the defeated enemy in every possible way, but Loki now does not look like either an evil interventionist or a rebellious God, and this undermines Tony's usual self-confidence.
This and, perhaps, also that strange feeling in the chest, which sometimes weakens, but never completely disappears.
Not letting himself blurt out anything else ridiculous, Tony flies out of the guarded block like a bullet, nodding to the gloomy guys on the way out.
***
Harley shows him a blind alley between houses turned into a kind of mass grave: fresh flowers and photographs are all around, and on the wall, as an ominous reminder, human silhouettes are marked with black soot. Four elongated and clear and one completely blurry, as if unfinished. Too small to be the silhouette of an adult.
“A child died here?” Tony tries to keep his voice even. In his memory, no child had ever died – not even in New York, during the attack of the Chitauri.
“It seems to be so”. Harley carefully peers into the silhouettes, as if seeing them for the first time. “Nobody likes to talk about it. Chad was actually good, he just went crazy”.
“And blew up five people with him,” Tony taunts.
“He chose the wrong way to commit suicide, too,” Harley retorts, kicking a withered rose head with the toe of her boot.
"One-one," Stark admits, stepping closer and trying to get his brain to work without reminiscing. Explosive device, leaves no trace. Three thousand degrees...
“Wait, why are there only five silhouettes when there were six victims along with Chad?”
“The locals say it’s because he’s the only one who went to hell,” the boy says thoughtfully. “Do you believe in hell?”
He gives Tony a strange look, like the question is little more than rhetorical.
“Actually, I’m an atheist,” Stark says casually, making an attempt to scrape some soot off the wall with his fingernail.
"You've seen demigods," Tony turns around too quickly for him to put on a more serious face. In Harley's eyes, he reads a persistent, almost unhealthy interest, and it seems to him almost an invasion of personal space.
"It's definitely a taboo subject," he replies stifledly, feeling a familiar suffocation squeezing him in its arms.
***
"Sir," Jarvis calls him a few hours later. Several hours of aimless circling around the ruined living room, with a break for an ugly quarrel with Pepper, whom he again seeks to send away, as far as possible.
Of course, for security reasons.
Yes, he believes that the captive God, deprived of his powers, is much more terrible than the Hulk. Yes, it's all for her own good.
He seems to be yelling at her for the first time, and she is probably damn offended, but Tony feels entitled to ask for a 100% discount on his behavior - he saved the world, damn it.
"Sir, I'm a little worried about our prisoner".
"Riots?" Tony brakes on the next lap and at that very moment he realizes that all this time he was looking for a reason to go down to the lower level. Kudos to Jarvis.
"No, he's lying on the bed, sir," the butler reports. "I do not know the specifics of the structure of these creatures, but I think they are worth feeding".
“I told him to contact you,” Stark shrugs, though, already on his way to the elevator.
"With all due respect, sir," Jarvis's voice is condescending. “He's wearing a muzzle. There are no writing materials in the room”.
“Oh” Tony mentally calls himself an idiot – the height of his self-criticism.
“Thor said it was dangerous to remove the muzzle. But in this Tower, guests are fed, even if they are prisoners”.
“I'm glad you found a reason to satisfy your curiosity, sir,” the butler replies, and Tony rolls his eyes, mentally promising himself once again to reflash the talkative assistant.
Loki is actually lying on the bed kindly provided for him, and his posture is as relaxed as it's possible in his position. He only looks down at Tony who flew in to him: how he does it is a mystery, but Stark sincerely admires.
“That’s the thing,” Tony says, slowing down as if he’s in a cage with a wild animal. “Do you mind if I take off your muzzle? I know it's cool – I made it up myself. But I promise I'll get it back safe and sound when Thor comes for you, okay?”
Loki looks at him as if he doubts his adequacy. Well, Tony can't blame him. He doubts it too.
His hands, with which he presses on the barely noticeable bulges on the sides of the structure, tremble slightly – not from excitement, but from impatience. But, finally, there is a barely audible click, and the muzzle is in Tony's hands.
They are silent for a minute, looking at each other as if they are seeing each other for the first time, and then Loki speaks in a voice hoarse from a long silence.
“Shall I say thank you?”
"Don't turn me into a frog this week and we're even," Tony replies nervously, continuing to spin his creation aimlessly in his hands.
“If I knew how, I would have done it as soon as I set foot in Midgard” God informs confidentially, looking at Tony with bitter amusement.
“Indeed,” he nods and suddenly, even for himself, offers. “Will you come upstairs with me?”
“Are you so bored that you decided to entertain yourself with a small talk?” Loki says with almost-royal arrogance.
"No, just wanted to take you out to dinner," Tony grins as he watches bewilderment and a ghostly, barely visible hint of gratitude flash into the demigod's eyes.
***
Stark finds Chad's mother in a nearby bar.
He recognizes her by elimination: in a room smelling of cheap beer and cigarette smoke, only two women are found. One of them seems too young to have a son who has served in the army, despite her lifeless eyes and dull gray hair pulled back in an untidy bun. In a greasy apron, she runs between the tables, collecting empty glasses, but stubbornly avoids the farthest one, where the other sits. Actually, she differs from the waitress only in her age and lack of an apron, but the lifeless look is still the same - and Tony boldly heads towards her.
“Are you Chad's mother?” He asks bluntly, sitting down on a rough-hewn chair.
“Did you also come to demand money?” The woman responds indifferently, dragging a cigarette. “Dead end”.
“Do they require money from you?” Tony asks sympathetically – he has neither the time nor the desire to win over the poor mother of a suicide, but he has enough for the slightest display of tact.
“All and sundry,” the interlocutor grins. “We have a small town, and each deceased was someone's relative, or colleague, or drinking buddy. And they think they have a right. But they won't get shit from me, I gave everything to Elsa. All my son's pension, all my savings”.
She looks at Tony with a look too piercing for her drunken state, as if she is waiting for a flash of anger from him or just censure, but he is silent.
“Elsa also lost her son,” the woman explains, nodding at a passing waitress. “Heard I suppose that a child died there. It was hers”.
“I'm sorry,” Tony says automatically, though when you think about it, he's really sorry as hell. And the suicidal guy, and his drinking mother, and Elsa, who lost her child, and even Harley, if only because he was born here.
“Visitors all say that,” the woman continues to look at him carefully, and something like interest lights up in her eyes. “But, to tell the truth, Tony Stark in our outback is something out of the ordinary”.
Tony automatically pulls his cap down a bit more, but no one seems to be paying any attention to them.
“Run to reporters to report on my resurrection?” he asks. “Or do we agree?”
“I don't think the journalists will listen to me, Mr. Stark,” Chad's mother pushes her glass towards him. “There have been so many times I went to them before, but all to no avail. And I would not turn you in, but I must admit, I would be interested to hear what you can offer me in return for my silence”.
Tony takes a sip of the other's beer and doesn't even wince, even though it tastes like sour water.
"I'll help exonerate your son," he says confidently.
***
They dine in the canteen on a level below the ruined one. No table talk, of course – Loki only throws him hostile glances, rattling his chain with every movement. He must be damn uncomfortable holding a fork and knife, but Tony is not yet ready to abolish the handcuffs, and only graciously lengthens the tie, giving at least some illusion of freedom.
“How do you like local delicacies?” Finally, Tony can't stand it. They eat trout baked in some kind of difficult-to-pronounce sauce, and Stark, adhering to the rules, asks for white wine, which, however, unbearably makes him want to spit.
“Not bad,” Loki chews the last bite thoroughly and puts down his utensils. “We don't seem to have that. Although I don't know for sure, they rarely eat fish in the palace”.
“It's just the opposite, I thought,” Tony is filled with completely inexplicable joy from the fact that the obstinate deity has been brought to the conversation. However, Thor's brother now looks so calm that suspicions involuntarily creep in on him – was the disgraced prince himself bewitched by someone stronger?
“Well, there are delicacies, rare shellfish. Do you have shellfish?”
"Yes," Loki chuckles. “But you saw Thor. Can you imagine what his favorite food is?”
“Boar's leg?” Tony chuckles. “A bull's head with horns?”
“No, the horns are cut down,” Loki answers in all seriousness, finishing his wine. “Okay, now that I'm full, maybe you can finally tell me what you want from me?”
Basically, Stark is not surprised by the turn of the conversation, so after pouring the remaining wine into glasses, he decides to get down to business.
"Your wand," he says, and Loki's feigned relaxation instantly flies off. “How did it work?”
“And they said that you are a genius,” the god responds caustically. “You saw it”.
“And that's all, there were no hidden functions?” Stark insists.
Loki looks at him carefully, as if reading information – however, Tony would not be particularly surprised if he had such abilities.
“Then, when I touched your reactor with it, it still worked,” Loki does not ask, but affirms, and for a moment an unkind triumph lights up in his eyes. “Just in a different way. And what happened?”
“So I told you everything,” Tony snorts. “Nothing that could help you avoid public flogging, or whatever you practice in Asgard. I'm quite capable of getting to the bottom of it myself, but I couldn't help but try to take the faster route”.
"Well, of course," Loki's eyes sparkle with resentment. “Show compassion to the prisoner and wait until it bears the fruits of repentance, right?”
“Well, I didn’t count on such dividends,” Tony honestly admits, who unbearably wants to smile, looking at this failed ruler of the world. No less no more – a young man with a dangerous razor in his hand. “I just thought you might want to help out of... the goodness of your heart”.
“Sorry, I suffer from altruism only every fifth century of my life, you won’t see me doing” Loki taunts tightly. “But I can offer a deal”.
“To sell my soul?” Tony is still having fun, and he is breathing easily and freely, as if everything is finally clicking into place in his mind. Maybe the wine is to blame, or maybe the fact that Loki, shrouded in a halo of mystery, upon closer inspection, is not so different from himself.
“Remove the chains,” Loki demands, ignoring the jab. “This metal itself blocks any impulses, and you know it, which means there is no need to keep my hands shackled together”.
“Your brother,” Stark finishes his wine and, with a clear conscience, reaches for a bottle of whiskey. “He said that you are very good at fighting. Plus, I remember your grip on my neck. So it won't work”.
“It's up to you,” Loki smiles almost relaxed. "But I don't stand a chance – you have sensors everywhere, my brother is looming nearby, and you have the wand and tessaract. Even if I manage to escape, where will I go in this form without the ability to use magic?”
“You speak fluently,” Tony turns the glass in his hands, looking doubtfully at the shackles he designed with his own hand. In fact, most of them are simply beautiful props designed to suppress the prisoner's morals. Magic is blocked by the filling – thin metal bracelets prudently captured by Thor from Asgard. So Stark's merit here is not so significant.
“Good,” he finally says, feeling satisfaction surge in his chest – the damn magic that has seeped bit by bit into his blood rejoices at his every concession. “Suppose I do it. But how can I be sure that you will really help me?”
“Oh”, Loki reaches across the table towards him, and for a moment his eyes lit up with that same madness that reeks of alien menace and holes in the universe. “Have faith in my sincere curiosity. I wonder what I did to your heart”.
***
“Banner says there is nothing unusual in my blood.” The rubble-cleared living room is littered with holograms, and Loki, at the center of the digital frenzy, waves his arms around excitedly, tossing junk files to the far side of the room.
"You can just close what you've already looked at," Stark adds as he rolls up the Clint Barton dossier that floats past him. “Did you even hear what I said?”
“I did,” Loki does not even turn around at his voice. He no longer wears heavy leather gear and molded armor, only leather trousers and an oddly cut loose shirt. “Not surprised at all. It's domination magic, Stark. It is not tied to blood”.
He breaks away from contemplating another translucent page and walks over to Tony. In the reflections of the holograms, his skin casts blue, and for some reason it fascinates. Blissful languor spreads in his chest, weakness rolls in, and Stark wants to close his eyes and risk giving himself up to unknown magic - in the end, knowing the enemy by sight, they will be able to fight more intensely. And if anyone but Loki had been by his side, he would have done just that.
"Hey," Loki squeezes his shoulder hard. “Again?”
“Yes.” Tony likes the current feeling a lot more than the dull pain and suffocation that came with it all at first, it reminds him a bit of college and the weed they got through the undergrads. Only now it's different.
"Weird," Loki sits down next to him on the couch, wrapping his cool fingers around his wrist, counting his pulse. “I looked at everything that your electronic servant managed to get out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. records. Including conversations with Salvig and Barton”.
“And what?” Tony tries to ignore the feeling of other people's fingers on his hand, but it's hard. He is thrown into a fever, and if he did not know for sure that his weird “fever” manifested itself in this way, then he would think that he was starting to get excited. Rubbish.
“Nothing,” the god pulls up the sleeve of his shirt, traces the veins with his fingertip, frowns. “They told them everything they told me. Barton saw only the goal in front of him, the professor received knowledge. The Wand of Destiny took away their freedom of choice, but gave them what they most needed”.
“Apparently, according to the wand, I needed a couple of chronic diseases the most,” Tony snorts. “Not fair”.
“The wand reveals hidden or obvious, but true desires,” Loki explains patiently, as he examines his neck. “It puts them at the forefront, focuses on them, discards the excess. But no one else had similar symptoms. And further...”
“Eye colour,” nods Stark, who has been thinking about it since that day. Periodically, he freezes at the mirror, trying to see even the slightest change in the iris. But it remains invariably brown as if mocking. “Plus, the rest were cured by a banal "reboot" – loss of consciousness. And I almost died, but, as you can see, I still walk with this splinter”.
“I don’t think it’s the loss of consciousness,” Loki says, finally removing his hands.
“If it were that simple, it wouldn't be such a dangerous artifact. It's just that most thinking beings have a line they can't cross. Obviously, their aspiration, revealed by the Wand, brought them too quickly to this very line”.
“Clint was sobered by the meeting with Natasha,” Tony recalls, instantly brainstorming. It helps a little to fight bouts of weakness.
“Obviously, the desire to have a specific goal in life conflicted with the fear of losing the only loved one. And Eric...”
“Was there a phobia of accidentally destroying the world?” The god chuckles as he returns to his seat in the center of the living room. “The records say that he was placed in a rehabilitation center, and that he attempted suicide”.
“It is quite possible that he, like any scientist, was afraid that his creation would turn into the greatest evil, but I'm afraid we won't know for sure”. The fever starts to drop as abruptly as it came on, and Tony winces, feeling like a goddamn unstable element.
“But that theory doesn’t explain why your eye colour didn’t change,” Loki reminds him. He looks completely absorbed in his own research now, and Tony is once again surprised at how he can be outside of his bouts of insanity. “Unless, due to your device, the wand did not work to its full potential, then…”
“Are you suggesting that you delve into my hidden desires?” Stark taunts without malice, pathetically putting his hand to the reactor.
“And at the same time find the key to your recalibration,” Loki finishes for him. “A line you can't cross”.
They fell silent for a while. Tony makes a gesture with his hand, and numerous holograms go out, crumbling into billions of luminous sparks, gradually plunging the room into twilight.
The essence of their temporary truce with Loki is that he does not climb into his personal space, into his head, and into his life. Exactly this way, and exactly in that order. But the desire to get to the bottom of the truth is always stronger than promises, and Tony can't stand it.
“Do you have such a trait?” He asks.
“Do you all hope that I am a victim too? So it's easier for you to communicate with me without remorse,” Loki grins sadly.
“Come on”.
“But still?” Tony slowly gets to his feet, feeling incredibly relieved that the weakness has finally subsided.
“Yes”. The god replies calmly, almost lifeless. “But it is very far away”.
***
“Tony,” Bruce takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes wearily. “The problem is in your head. You got into your head that this wand had an effect on you, and all your symptoms are pure psychosomatics, as I already told you. I personally double-checked the results of the examination by the SHIELD medics. Everything is in order, as far as possible in your case”.
Tony sits on the couch and drinks water in small sips, moving away from another panic attack. It's still hard for him to breathe, but his hands are no longer trembling, and his head is clearing up a bit.
“You need a therapist,” Banner says softly, looking at him sympathetically. “And a vacation”.
“Fury already arranged one for me,” Stark chuckles nervously, remembering why he shamefully fled to the laboratory. Loki woke up not in the mood, which, in general, was not surprising, and in half an hour he trampled into the dirt everything that was dear to Tony: from his mental abilities to the colours of the suits. “I'll go check on him”.
“Don’t wind yourself up,” flies into his back, and this, in his opinion, is far from the best advice.
It's suspiciously quiet on the residential level. Loki is found in Stark's own room, which he did not think to lock with a code. God sits on his bed and looks at one point, which is quite normal behaviour for him, as Tony managed to figure out. The billionaire had kicked out Fury's agents to the lower levels yesterday, and now the trickster, with his tacit consent, moved freely around the residential area.
“Lost something?” It does not sound very polite, but Stark has reason to be offended.
”Do you love the woman you share the bed with?” Human insults are insignificant for Loki. It seems to the billionaire that it is in the order of things to start the day by insulting the first person who walks by, so it is hardly worth taking the morning outburst entirely on your account.
"It's personal," Stark kicks back.
“So, no,” states the god, rising to his feet. “Well, you need to look elsewhere”.
"Oh," realizing that the question was asked for the same purpose – to help him, Tony feels inappropriately flattered – although, it would seem, whose fault is he in such a situation?
“And why did you think that Pepper might be connected somehow?” Stark is interested. Usually it’s not a problem to build logical chains for him, only if they do not concern magic.
"You said the symptoms changed the day I was brought here," Loki replies reluctantly. “She left the same day”.
“Coherent theory,” Tony sighs, sitting down on the bed beside him. “But downstairs I again had a panic attack. The symptoms don't change, they just seem to increase”.
“Some of them, for sure, are related to injuries received in battle,” Loki does not move away from him, they sit with their shoulders and hips touching, and Tony even wonders where the sense of personal space that they both cherished has gone.
“I thought so too,” Stark says, fascinated by the contrast of their skin: his swarthy, and Loki’s unnaturally pale.
”But it's different, I feel it myself. I'm not the first time in a fight, reindeer, and I can distinguish bruises and fractures... from this. And the doctors did not find anything serious”.
“I see”. The god seems to finally notice how close they are sitting to each other and moves away.
The distance is less than a meter, but the room seems to become a few degrees colder.
***
Tony Stark is still a genius, and the equation, if not immediately, lends itself to him. He is even ashamed that he thought for so long: after all, there is only one variable here.
Until the happy moment of parting, as Fury kindly reminds him in the morning, there are three days left. Tony suspects that it's not the instability of the tesseract at all. Instead, he suspects that the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is in a hurry to finally snatch some more alien secrets hidden in the power of the luminous cube.
And it immediately becomes obvious that Loki was sent to him also because Nick terribly did not want to involve Stark in these hasty studies for many reasons.
Tony could list them alphabetically over the speakerphone, but he suddenly doesn't care. If Fury wants to step on the same rake again – go ahead, he does not intend to interfere.
Tony climbs to the last level: despite the completely restored contour, the living room is still empty – except for the sofa itself, and even the portable mini-bar that Stark himself brought here the day before, there is no furniture to be seen.
But Loki, apparently, likes minimalism, because despite the gloomy guys following him and the flickering protective barriers, he is not limited in moving around the Tower, yet he still comes here and looks through the glass at the city below for a long time.
He will be put in a dungeon, he realizes, and he cringes.
It's not quite his feelings he's experiencing, or rather it's not quite real, but they are felt from this perspective, just brighter.
“I understand,” he says, stopping behind the god.
“Yeah, me too,” Loki replies with a barely perceptible grin. “Any guesses why it happened?”
"None," Tony wants to laugh. The situation is a stalemate, and in such cases you have no choice but to treat everything with humor.
“No one understands you,” Loki says without turning his head. “You have a woman whom you do not love, a team for which you are an arrogant loner, and your best companion is a disembodied servant. The wand saw your desire to have... what do you people call it... a soul mate”.
"That's exactly how he fucked me," Tony chuckles. There is no point in arguing, even though he wants to exclaim indignantly at the first moment that everything is not so. Purely out of principle. After all, no one is allowed to reveal the ins and outs of his ideal life so easily.
“Obviously, there were no other objects in the foreseeable space,” Loki shrugs. “This is some... almost a love spell”.
Tony comes close to him, so that he can smell his own shower gel and something else, extraterrestrial, proving that he still has a visitor from another world in front of him.
“And what to do?”
The desire to touch it is unbearable. The already familiar heat spreads through the body, but now it is quite understandable, although it still bears little resemblance to ordinary excitement. Loki turns to him, and they are now within "kissing distance," as Natasha calls it, when she uses her feminine charms to spar with newbies at the training center.
“Look for the limit” Loki breathes against his lips. "And the sooner the better, Stark. Because magic binds you to me, which means I... may start to feel the same way too. It wouldn't be very appropriate”.
"Yeah," Tony's hand almost against his will rests on Loki's thigh. He can feel how cold his skin is, even through the thick fabric. “When you're absent, I suffocate. When you are around, I burn alive. Damn uncomfortable”.
They kiss passionately, teeth colliding and out of rhythm – Tony has never had such a technically terrible kiss, and so perfect at the same time.
Loki hugs him tightly, and Stark thinks that perhaps he is not the only one who needs a soul mate.
***
“Let's say that I need you here”, they lie on the sofa, which is actually not intended for this, pressing into each other, as if trying to grow together with bones. “Well, let's tell the truth. Unknown magic, no one can help except you. Anything is better than a prison in your Asgard”.
This doesn't sound like a plan to get rid of magical effects at all, and Loki clearly understands this too.
“They’ll take me away anyway, and they’ll lock you up so that you don’t do stupid things,” he sighs. “So just count on the remaining three days”.
"I can't think," Tony complains. “This thing doesn't let me”.
“Yeah, blame it on magic,” Loki laughs hoarsely, and Stark can barely stop himself from kissing him again. They've done enough already.
“What will happen to me if we don't make it?” He asks, because thinking is really incredibly difficult, and Loki's shirt is already unbuttoned, and this only complicates everything even more.
“You will suffer,” God whispers directly into his lips, and Stark’s endurance finally gives way to the joy of the damn magic that flows like poison in his blood.
"And you?" He wants to ask, but does not have time.
***
A choking attack covers Tony right on the way to the barn, and he barely has time to go inside to slide down the wall, gasping for air.
Harley is instantly there, tugging senselessly at his shoulder and trying to slip a bottle of cola into his hand.
The flickering in front of his eyes only makes it worse, and Stark closes them, patiently waiting for him to let go.
A couple of minutes later, breathing becomes easier, but the pain in his chest, of which he is almost accustomed, intensifies, as if trying to tear it from the inside.
“Fuck,” Tony wheezes, because all he can do is swear. To die of love – what could be more stupid and unrealistic, but, look, it seems to happen to him.
“You look bad,” Harley shakes her head. “Did someone tell you about New York again?”
“You. Just now,” Tony says stifledly. “It does not matter, in general. But if you want advice for the future, here it is: don't let any aliens poke you... whatever”.
***
“Why did you do it?” The last night is coming too fast, and of course they are not a millimeter closer to recalibrating it.
They sit on the floor in the upper living room and smoke a hookah. It seems to Tony that the smoke that penetrates the lungs softens the effect of magic a bit – nonsense, of course, but self-belief is a mighty power.
“Because I wanted to live,” Loki grins. “Still, of course, to take revenge on my brother, to prove to my father that he will not get rid of me so easily, but, first of all, to live. I didn't get into the Chitauri of my own free will”.
“Maybe we should talk about it?” Tony asks, puffing out smoke. “Extenuating circumstance, no?”
"No," Loki takes the hookah pipe from him. “Not at all. I could die, but not accept someone else's will, I could try to escape or at least minimize the collateral damage, I could do a lot of things. But I decided that destruction is my essence, and succumbed to circumstances. And I can’t say that I didn’t get a certain pleasure from this”.
He leans toward Tony, his hair falling in inky strokes across his face, softening his overly sharp features.
"I'm what you call it, a bad guy". He stretches his lips into a half-mad smile, but Stark does not even think to back away, continuing to admire him at a sigh distance. “Don't give me excuses”.
The decision matures in a split second, and Tony does not even have time to think one step ahead, although this is usually not his style – he is not Thor, after all. But resisting magic is getting worse every day – apparently, this was also part of Loki's plan: if this bastard played captivity into his own hands, then there is nothing to say about an accidental "love spell".
But his hands are already clasping the god's wrists, and with two clicks they remove the bracelets holding back magic.
The hookah pipe falls to the floor and Tony pulls Loki into a deep, desperate kiss, biting hard on his bottom lip.
The bracelets weigh down his palms with the weight of extraterrestrial metal, and Stark tosses them aside.
"Run," he whispers, tearing himself away from the god's lips and feeling the magic exult in his chest. “You wanted it, you got it. Go”.
Loki looks at him almost in surprise, no triumph in his eyes, and Stark is almost sobering.
"You're insane," he states, and his fingers touch Tony's forehead like he's checking his temperature. “I thought trying to free me would be your recalibration. You can't just let go of a villain who killed a bunch of people”.
“As it turns out, I can,” Stark sighs, listening to the sensations. “I'm a shit superhero. So leave”.
"I don't think so," Tony thinks the god is saying this with some kind of relief. “Escape is a road to nowhere. What will I be worth alone, without an army, without the ability to travel the worlds? A measured life in human form is not for me”.
“Do you think execution is better?” Despair cuts through Stark's voice against his will. “I'll throw you out of here by the scruff, and your magic will just help”.
“I won’t be executed,” Loki says confidently. He takes Tony's hand in his and intertwines their fingers. “But you could be, if you continue to persist now. Your rulers are much more short-sighted in matters of valuable human resources”.
He pulls Tony close to him and whispers in Tony's ear, as if he's afraid someone might overhear them.
“But if you think that I am soft, and my inaction is nothing more than an attempt to save you, then you are mistaken. I have big plans for you, Metal Man”.
***
Tony meets Chad's mother at the cemetery. Not the best place, but she insists. She comes there every Wednesday and has no intention of changing her schedule even for Tony Stark himself.
The grave of the soldier who blew himself up is on the very edge, far from other gravestones, and this is now beneficial to both of them. The woman passes him a folder. Tony quickly hides it under his jacket and, for the sake of decency, stands with her for a couple of minutes at the gray granite slab.
“The rest were buried with honour,” she sighs mournfully. “Although the graves are equally empty everywhere”.
Tony follows her gaze and sees a brand new teddy bear on one of the slabs in the middle of a small cemetery.
“Is this the boy's grave?” he asks cautiously, not knowing why.
“Yes. Although Harley hated soft toys. Usually he carried some pieces of iron with him, dreaming of becoming an engineer”.
"Yeah, it's all very…" Tony cuts himself off in mid-sentence. In life, of course, there are coincidences, but this one... “What did you say the boy's name was?”
“Harley,” the woman repeats, slightly surprised, but he no longer listens to her, almost running the distance to the desired grave.
The bear flies off to the side, flopping into the mud, and Tony looks dumbfounded at the letters "Harley Vincent Keener" carved into the stone, and under them the years of his life. Well, he really was twelve, he thinks.
He waits for the next suffocation attack, but breathes, surprisingly, freely. The folder is in his hands, the suit is loaded, and, perhaps, there is no longer any reason to remain in this outback. However, he turns around and, waving goodbye to his informant, walks back. To the actually uninhabited house.
***
Harley is out somewhere till evening, and Tony eats all his stocks of chocolate bears in revenge, because ghosts don’t really need food, but he really does.
And when the boy finally enters the house, he pretends to take a nap in an old armchair in the living room, where it is actually damn cold because the fireplace does not work.
"You're not sleeping," Harley snorts, sitting down on the floor nearby. “And you ate almost all the food”.
“Is your mom still at work?” Stark asks without opening his eyes. “Second day?”
“She often does not come to spend the night,” the boy calmly answers. “Well, did you find out everything you wanted?”
Tony straightens up sharply in his chair and looks at the interlocutor intently. He is dense, he eats, except that his hands are cold – Stark remembers slapping him in the face when he thought he passed out – well, they don’t have tropics around here at all.
"Not really," he draws slowly. “Who are you?”
And without letting the boy come to his senses, he continues:
“I saw the grave. It looks like it's yours. Do you want to tell me anything?”
Harley doesn't look surprised or confused, or even embarrassed. He continues to look at Stark calmly, without fear.
"You didn't want to tell me," he replies, rising to his feet. “About New York”.
“Aren't you a little too obsessed over New York!” Tony snaps, slamming his fist on the armrest with all his might. “What did you want to hear from me?”
“The truth”, Harley looks at him with some weird look, as if waiting for him to guess something, but Stark already has a headache from all these puzzles. “You are sick and know how to recover. So why don't you do it?”
If Tony hadn't been sitting, he would have fallen, and now he just takes a convulsive breath and coughs, choking on the air. Spy? Maybe. Natasha also started early. Did Banner really report to Fury? Or was it Pepper? He told them both about the wand, without details, of course, but...
Doesn't fit. Too clumsy.
“Why don't I do it?” He repeats, staring ahead. He will say it, no matter what. Let them deal with the Mandarin themselves, let them lock him up in a mental hospital if they dare. “Because I do not want. Break off”.
He is breathing heavily, as if he had run a long distance. However, the attack is again slowing down, and this is surprising for the second time in a day. Usually, even thinking about Loki was impossible without writhing in pain. He did not have any limits, and therefore there was only one thing left – to stop fighting magic. Accept it. Stop making yourself feel guilty about what happened. For the fact that his soul mate turned out to be a belligerent, selfish bastard with glimpses of madness. And he's gone.
Tony raises his head, eyes burning treacherously. It seems he has never cried since early childhood, and now is not the right time to start.
“So, Casper, would you like to tell me your story in return?” He asks, because he needs to distract himself from awakening. All at once. And too late, perhaps.
The boy grins and takes two steps back.
“That wasn't part of our deal, Tony Stark. You recharged the suit, got the information you needed, and I got the answer to my question. We're even”.
“And you continue to insist on mere curiosity even now?" Tony chuckles nervously. "Don't you just want to confess something?”
“I don't work for your enemies,” Harley waves away tiredly, but somehow not childishly. “I am a friend, and you still need to deal with the terrorists, otherwise someone else will have to pay for your stupidity”.
Sounds reasonable. So intelligent that Stark wants to laugh – even the dead boys are more responsible than him. He goes over Harley's possible bosses again in his head, but somehow lazily, without the former fuse, and suddenly realizes that he, in general, does not care.
Don't care at all.
Because it doesn’t matter who is watching him: the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D., who is probably preparing to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, Natasha, bored keeping a low profile, or someone else whose appearance in his life he missed or drank away.
It does not matter that Harley, of course, will not be Harley, but some kind of Peter or Simon.
It doesn't matter, because it is a constant in his life.
Everyone will always need an Iron Man: on the team, within eyeshot, and most often as a mention in an obituary. It's time to get used to it.
“I see, you seem to be out of your mind.” Harley shakes his head slightly and walks to the kitchen, where he starts looking for something, deliberately slamming the doors loudly. “I've seen somewhere... ah, here”.
He brings out a small bottle – these are usually found in cheap gift sets – with something that looks like white wine sloshing around.
“You can drink it all,” the boy graciously allows, holding out the find to Tony. “Of course, not an elite drink, but, alas, there is no other”.
“Natasha definitely sent you,” Stark mutters, opening the lid and sniffing. “Thinking of poisoning me?”
“I already could a hundred times,” Harley shrugs his shoulders and suggests with a sly smile: “If you want, I can drink”.
“Too young yet” Tony snorts, looking at the liquid against the light. “Okay, but if anything, you'll go kill Mandarin yourself”.
He takes one long gulp and chuckles in surprise: the taste really resembles wine, fortified and too sweet even for a cheap liquor, but it does not cause rejection.
“Well, is it better?” Harley asks as soon as Tony finishes every last drop.
“Definitely,” he breathes out, feeling really energized and even more focused. “Almost like a magic elixir”.
“Who knows,” The boy takes the empty bottle and mockingly looks at him through the glass.
“There are no miracles,” Tony says evenly, answering this phrase not only to Harley, but also to himself.
“As you say,” the little spy looks at him with some heavy bitterness in his eyes, and then waves his hand, pointing to that very cheap watch with Mickey Mouse on Stark’s hand. “You have to go. And maybe it's time for me too”.
“Are you going back to heaven?” Tony clarifies sarcastically, picking up his jacket from the chair. He is filled with a strange enthusiasm, which has not happened to him for a long time, and it seems almost unbelievable to him that until recently he felt so weak.
He's almost out the door when Harley, on the brink of hearing, answers him:
“Well, yes. By the Rainbow Bridge”.
***
Everything ends up too quickly, and is imprinted in Tony's mind with a vivid storyboard, like in the comics that he read as a child.
By some miracle, he remains intact and almost unharmed, and the fire almost does not touch him, although everything else around him is blazing. The platform blazes, the sky blazes with flashes of exploding armor, and the reflections of the endless glow fall on Pepper's worried face in jagged highlights. This makes her seem to be the living embodiment of flame, which, in fact, she is.
Tony subconsciously wants Pepper to remain the way she is now – because Killian is right about something: without her strictness, smoothness and glossy ideality, she is almost flawless. But, alas, Virginia Potts has a line that she cannot cross, which means that her paths completely diverge from Tony at this point, and he understands this clearly.
“Will I be fine?” She asks in a voice trembling with tension, and Stark wants to say a lot of things to her and promise her, but he limits himself to a faceless:
“Certainly”.
He fiddles with the transmitter that has fallen out of his ear, realizing what he must do now: at the very least tell Rhodey he's alive and that it's time to start cleanup. But he is silent.
“You seem to be better,” Pepper says suddenly, as if completely unsurprised by his tone and behavior. As if she hadn't nearly died half an hour ago.
"I've taken it to the next level," Tony replies evasively and suddenly feels a hot hand on his shoulder. And despite the cacophony around him, it seems to him as if he is plunging into a vacuum.
***
“Dr. Banner,” Pepper – very calm at first, second and closest glance, but her index finger betrays her. Bruce notices how she involuntarily bends it several times, digging her painted fingernail into the upholstery of the chair, and then unbends it, leaving a barely noticeable strip on the soft pile.
“According to Tony, the operation was only made possible by a derivative of the extremis formula, which allows the human body to rapidly regenerate without consequences. I am far from science, but even to me this seems... to put it mildly, seems untrue. Tony didn't dare volunteer, did he?”
“The second Human Torch?” Bruce smiles kindly. “Of course not. I wouldn't let it”.
“Then..?” Miss Potts shrugs her shoulders, as if throwing off an overwhelming burden of anxiety from them.
“So far, it’s just about accelerating tissue repair,” Banner suppresses the desire to get up and hide from the tenacious gaze of Stark’s first assistant. “Tony has a unique case, and we have found a unique solution. And if you are talking about the possibility of further research for, let's say, the common good, then I hasten to assure you that we will assemble the best team, and...”
“You're lying to me, Dr. Banner.” Pepper smiles softly as she rises from her seat. “And, alas, you have no talent for this. But for now, all I cared about was Mr. Stark's well-being. At least the physical one”.
“Well,” Bruce says with a sigh, holding out his hand to the woman for a handshake. “Perhaps, this is the only thing that can be guaranteed now”.
***
“Pepper asked about you.”
Tony nods, not looking up from his calculations, and Bruce has to literally stand in the holographic projection to focus on himself.
“Poject "Ultron" again? We kind of agreed that we would first deal with your suddenly accelerated regeneration”.
“Why?” Stark quickly shifts the projection to the right. “This is already a fait accompli. And that doesn't make me invulnerable, because we're all vulnerable. Everyone. We all need protection, Bruce, you know?”
“Listen,” Banner takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes with two fingers. “You don't think about what you can do, but about what you could do”.
“And what? Damn,” The circuit breaks up, flashing red, and Tony folds up most of the holograms with a quick wave of his hand. “You know, I thought for a long time why the wand did this to me...”
“Again?” Bruce sighs. “We've discussed this many times, and...”
“No, listen.” Tony looks around and pulls a chair towards him. “I always thought that my mind, my toys, my money alone would be enough to be useful to society, but then the demigods came to us, and I realized that there is always someone stronger. And then... it turned out that the same rule applies to them. We won't have enough of ourselves, Bruce. For each of us there is a blade, poison or bullet. We are not immortal. And we need help”.
“Well, all right,” the doctor responds wearily, unwillingly glancing at the calculations. “But still... I admit that I was wrong, taking your past suspicions for paranoia, and now all this seems far from harmless: first a fever of unknown genesis, then, on the contrary, accelerated regeneration. We deserve...”
"We should move on," Tony snaps, meeting Banner's eyes for the first time. “Magic is the same science, and we are unacceptably behind in terms of knowledge of the universe. We entered a new era completely unprepared, one might say, naked…"
"I think you're crazy," Bruce chuckles nervously. “Well, just a little”.
Tony is silent for a while, looking somewhere through him, and then he answers uncertainly, as if he himself doubts that he is saying it.
“You know, just when I think about how much we don't know, I involuntarily wonder: is death really the end of everything? And then I realize what the fucking longing is saying in me, and I get back to work. I don't care how the Wand's magic went wrong if its original gift was so stupidly taken from me. And so I ask again: how can it all end so stupidly?”
“Life consists of ridiculous endings,” Bruce closes his eyes for a few moments, and then continues in a completely different voice. “Okay, let's see your calculations on Ultron”.
***
“I never would have thought,” Amora puts an antique mirror with a carved handle aside and looks at Loki intently. “You and a mortal. Do you know how these stories end?”
“Hail of tactless questions?” Loki answers in her tone, having been fairly tired of the court hypocrisy and the guise of Odin during the day. “And don't touch the mirror, it's not yours”.
“It’s already nobody's," the girl shrugs her shoulders. “I was just curious. You playing a little boy, those Midgard phrases... You even ate their food. It was very funny, although, to be honest, at some point I thought that he was about to guess”.
“Midgardians perceive death differently,” Loki sighs heavily and sinks onto the huge royal bed. Once he dreamed of royal chambers, now they seem to him faceless and cold. “As the will of fate, final and irrevocable”.
“I wouldn’t say that,” the enchantress casts glance at the cloudy glass and continues more seriously. "Try not to let his own zeal kill him."
“Worried about my personal happiness, dear?” reluctantly taunts Loki, suppressing the desire to look into the mirror himself. It is fraught with another unscheduled escape to Midgard.
“I'm worried about my own skin, dear,” Amora runs her hand through the air, creating a different disguise for herself – a quiet, uncomplaining maid. “I agreed to help in this adventure with the throne, not only because of a personal... ahem... dislike for Odin, but because of the impending war, in which I would not like to fall. And you said he was important”.
"He's important," Loki says forcefully, his fingers tightening around Gungrir's hilt. “And you have nothing to worry about. Everything goes according to plan. Very soon we will conclude military alliances with everyone who was previously not honored by Odin because of his ridiculous pride. Then it will be possible to start negotiations with people.
“Well, yes,” Amora chuckles, braiding her hair into a tight braid. “Just make sure he doesn't die by then. Human lives are so fleeting”.
“A tincture of golden apples easily solves this problem,” Loki responds, cracking his lips in a grin. “I wonder if Tony already understood what had happened to him?”
“Even so?” The sorceress seems almost surprised, but quickly pulls herself together. “You do not exchange for trifles, my king. Well, I can only wish you good luck”.
She lowers her head and picks up a tray of empty goblets from the table.
“May your dreams be light, All-Father,” The girl solemnly says, and already on the threshold she turns around.
“Still, Loki, don't stay dead for too long”.