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Could be see as a companion/sequel to Hunger, but also stands alone.
Title: The Sound of Ice Breaking
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony/Loki
Summary: Loki targets Tony, and something snaps and shatters between them
Wordcount: 2334
Warnings/Notes: They are not ... safe
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: The Sound of Ice Breaking
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony/Loki
Summary: Loki targets Tony, and something snaps and shatters between them
Wordcount: 2334
Warnings/Notes: They are not ... safe
Disclaimer: Not mine
The Sound of Ice Breaking
In theory, Tony should've been terrified right around now. Mostly armourless, bloody, having been spirited away from his team by a god of chaos and rage. He should have been fucking scared shitless. And he was. Don't get him wrong. The terror was there, clawing up his throat, sliding icily under his spine. Oh, yes, he was terrified, alright.
He was also fucking furious, burning so damn hot he nearly couldn't see straight. The quiver in his spine, that was fear. The shake in his hands? That was fury. Because this god? Wouldn't fucking leave him alone. Him. Not Thor, not the others. Him. And Tony was getting really, really fucking sick of it.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled, hitting a wall and bouncing back forward off it. "Did I piss in your cereal or what?"
Because for the last while, if there was to be an Avenger lured out alone, it was Tony. If there was an Avenger whose particular talents weren't needed in this instance, leaving him without backup as the rest dealt with various threats, it was Tony. And if ever it came to physical confrontation, if ever they happened on Loki himself ... it was Tony who walked out with the armour sparking and gouged, having taken far more of the brunt than any team with Thor on it should allow. If there was one of them who was going to get a mass of girders dropped on his head, or a mutated monstrosity chasing him for four hours, or a spellcast that flung him across half a fucking state ... It was Tony. And he had had it up to fucking here.
Loki watched him curiously, remote and unmoved. Loki stood there, pale and aloof and disinterested, watching Tony like he was a mildly fascinating bug, and the heat climbed through Tony. The heat strangled him, his hands clenching shaking into fists.
"You still defy me," Loki said, at last. Cool and curious. "You fear me. I can sense that you fear me. But you still defy me. No matter what I do. Why?"
Tony ... blinked at him. Stared, aghast. He didn't ... He couldn't ...
"Let me get this straight," he said, very, very slowly. "You are coming after me. Me specifically. For the last however long. Because I'm not acting scared enough for you!?" He couldn't stop the raw ... the raw vitriol, the raw contempt, from dripping from his tone. He didn't really try. "You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you." He stalked forward, shaking. "They didn't get that. Nobody gets that. You, you are not getting that. Capisce?"
Loki just looked at him. Tilted his head, watched Tony stand shaking, furious and defiant in front of him. Loki ... watched him. And then ...
"Not ... exactly," the god murmured, still tilted sideways, still looking at Tony oddly. "I wanted to see how long you would fight. How long you could ... keep defying me. How long your courage would last."
"All the way," Tony bit out. Something white and scared in the back of his skull gibbering at him, reminding him of ... of things, things he didn't want, things Loki could do to him. Things he remembered. Things he never wanted to happen again. But no. No way. What Loki wanted? Nobody was getting. Not from him. Not again. "All the way down. And I don't give a flying fuck how angry it makes you. You got me?"
And then ... then, something happened. Loki changed. Not rage. Not anger. Something ... maybe worse. Something maybe scarier. Loki smiled, a crooked, lopsided little thing, and there was something else in his eyes, something that had Tony's hind-brain quivering.
"Angry?" the god asked. Moving forward, reaching up with one pale hand. Almost, not quite, touching Tony's face, ignoring as Tony flinched back. "No. Not angry. Not that." The smile slipped, went strange, sideways, and then Loki was moving into him, moving into Tony's space, and Tony was moving back, skittering back, but there was the wall again, and Loki was right there, just leaning close. Just waiting, maybe an inch away, almost touching, not quite. Loki ... stood there. And watched him. Smiling, faintly, strangely.
"What the ..." Tony started. Bit off, stopped, as Loki raised his hand again. As Loki touched his cheek, his jaw. Oddly gentle. Strangely intense.
"You can't guess?" Loki asked him, smiling crookedly. "With your reputation, Mr Stark?"
Tony blinked at him, desperately. More fearfully than his pride wanted, but too much, too confusing. "Is that ..." he tried, hoarsely. "Is that a threat?" Because, fuck, not even Afghanistan. Not even Obie. He'd been ... Never before. Never this.
Something flickered in Loki's eyes. Pain, maybe. Hunger, possibly. Fucked if Tony knew. Except ... you know, not. For preference.
"And if it were?" Loki asked, a low purr, menace slithering forward. Except his hand didn't tighten. Didn't stop being gentle. Tony ... stared. And swallowed. But ...
"Then I'll kill you," he said, quietly. Flinching, a little, from the flare of ... something, in Loki's eyes, but meeting them dead on anyway. Meeting the threat head on. "However long it takes me. You take that, and I'll kill you." Like he killed the men who tore his chest open. The men who'd killed his friend. Like he'd killed the man, the friend, who'd ripped his heart literally out of his chest, and left him to die. He'd do that. Watch him. He'd do that.
Loki tilted his head again, his eyes burning, radiating ... something, next to Tony. Cold, heat, magic, something. "You can't," he said, soft and low, tracing Tony's jaw. "You haven't the power, Man of Iron. You haven't the power to kill me."
And that was true, and Tony knew it, he had always fucking known it, but it also didn't matter. It never had.
"Then I'll make some," he rasped. A promise, low and shaking. Because he'd forged himself a heart, in the middle of nowhere, forged himself a thing to staunch the gaping in his chest in that distant cave, and he would make what power he needed. He would make it, every time. He was Tony fucking Stark, and the gods themselves would die for him, if he needed them to. He would make himself a power, and tear the gods themselves out of the sky, if he had to.
And Loki ... flared, at that. Loki shot through, fire and burning, hunger like Tony had never seen, at that promise, at those words, and something in the back of Tony's brain clicked home, something snapped into place.
"Yes," Loki murmured, in a voice like ice creaking over some vast, dark thing, some yawning void. "Yes. I think you would." His smile was back, strange and distant and hungry, and his eyes ... All the hunger in the world. All the darkness in the void between them.
"You don't have to," Tony rasped, suddenly. A little desperately, yes, but also ... No-one hungered for a broken thing. Loved him despite it, maybe, no, definitely, a few of those, but no-one hungered for it. Not like this. "You don't have to take it. You could ..."
His voice gave, for a second, at the vastness of the thought, and Loki smiled. Dark and fierce and distant. Contemptuous. Challenging.
"Could what?" he purred, sweet as honey, deadly as breaking ice. "Let you go? Hmm? Pretend it never happened?" Rich and raw with contempt, like Tony was capitulating, like Tony was begging. And, no. Fuck no.
"You could seduce me," Tony shot back, a hard snap of anger, a brittle crack of challenge. "You could work for it. Try your fucking luck!" A hard, bitter smile. "Or don't gods do that? Don't you win your prizes, rather than steal them?"
Loki tilted his head, his eyes sharpening, measuring. A vague curl appearing at the corner of his lip. Bemused. Amused.
"And I would have a chance, would I?" the god asked, light as though they were discussing the weather, something of no consequence. "With the great Tony Stark. My brother's shield-brother. My enemy. I would have a chance of winning, you think?"
Tony swallowed, throat tight and heavy, fear and anger and something more tangling in his stomach, in his chest. He swallowed, and forced himself straight, stiffening his spine and not flinching even when the motion brushed him into Loki, even when the movement brushed them close. Not flinching, even when the heat flared, briefly, in Loki's eyes, even when the ice, for just a moment, cracked.
"You might," he admitted. Low and crumbling. Holding Loki's gaze with every scrap of courage and defiance and ... and hunger he possessed. "You might," he said, and watched as the thing in Loki's eyes grew ... slow, and appraising, and just a tiny bit surprised. He watched that. He held through that.
And then ... Loki leaned in. All the way, his head sliding sideways a little, his eyes dark and hungry and amused, soft, maybe hesitant. He leaned in, and brushed his lips, just barely, against Tony's. Just touching, breath chill and calm, tentative. Almost ... an offer.
And Tony ... Tony closed his eyes, felt something convulse, softly, in his chest, and leaned in. Pressed his lips to Loki's in turn. Not brushing. Not tentative. But ... slow, and soft, pressure and heat, Loki's chill and the electricity in his own chest. He ... kissed him, kissed Loki, slow and soft and deep. Just to answer. Just to see. He ... kissed him.
Loki made a noise. A strangled sound, somewhere deep in his throat, a harsh noise of ... maybe pain, maybe longing. Maybe, even, a little, surrender. Loki made a noise, and suddenly he was there. Flush against Tony, the line of him, fierce and vibrating and there, armour poking into odd places, clacking against the arc reactor in Tony's chest, and his hands came up to frame Tony's face, his jaw, into his hair, holding him, seizing him, holding him there while his mouth ... Plundered. Seared. Ravaged. Not in rage, but in some furious kind of desperation, and Tony ... shuddered, in his turn, moaned in his turn, seized hold in his turn. Gripped with white knuckles to a god's armoured waist, and held, and kissed.
He wasn't sure how long. Had no way to tell. Long. Deep. Dark. A void, and he sank into it, held tight to it. For moments. For hours. Something. He didn't know.
Then Loki moaned. Not appreciative. Pained. Desperate. Loki moaned, harsh and savage, and wrenched himself back. Wrenched himself away, almost flung himself back, away from Tony. Out of the kiss. Loki snarled, fury and pain and black, black desperation, and stood panting back from Tony. Lean and heaving, glaring in furious hunger at him.
Tony, for his part, clutched behind him at the wall, and curved forward, panting.
"This ..." Loki started. Snarled, his voice cracking. "You ... This isn't real. You wouldn't ..."
And oh, fuck. Fuck that. Fuck him. "Tr- Try me," Tony shot back, snapped, rage of his own, furious himself. "Fucking try me, Loki." A sneer, a challenge. "Or can't your courage last? Can't you go the fucking distance?" He was a man, a stupid fucking mortal man in a tin suit, and he went toe to toe with gods, he fought them all the way down, and if this whining son of a bitch couldn't match that ...
And then, suddenly, for no reason Tony could see, Loki started laughing. High and wheezing, vaguely hysterical, but he laughed. Staring at Tony, staring at the battered, fierce human man glaring at him while clinging to a wall. Loki stared at him, stared at Tony, and laughed.
"Oh," the god rasped, hunched, wheezing. "Oh."
"What?" Tony snarled. Snapped it off like an icicle, near shaking with rage. "What?"
Loki mastered himself. Loki pulled himself together. And then Loki stood straight, and moved that step forward again, and reached out to touch one fingertip, lightly, to the black scowl on Tony's face. Tony jerked his head away, enraged, but Loki just smiled. Soft and deep and calm. Like something inside him had been satisfied. Like something inside him had been laid at peace.
"Seduce you, you said?" he murmured, softly. Smiling while Tony blinked, while Tony pulled himself down off the shaking precipice of anger. "Court you, perhaps? That's what you said, yes?"
Tony shook his head. Not negation. Anger. Confusion. Frustration. "I did," he rasped. "If you were listening."
Loki laughed at him. A little. Just a little. "Mmm," he said, touching Tony's face again, tracing his jaw softly. This time, Tony let him. Barely. But he let him. "Seduce you," Loki repeated, mouth curving, soft and amused. "Yes. I think ... perhaps I shall try, that." A flash upwards, eyes meeting Tony's, the darkness in them warming, now. "With your permission, of course."
Tony stared at him, brows drawing down, confused and angry, and ... Something. He wasn't sure. Something.
"My permission," he repeated, blankly. And then, more exasperated. "My permission. Sure. Have at it. Go nuts. Show me what you've got."
Fuck. He was insane. He was flat-out insane. Laying challenges before gods. For seduction. Of him. But Loki ... was smiling, dark and calm and thoughtful, sneaky, like that, and Tony ... Fuck him. He didn't care. Seduce him. Fuck. Sure thing. Let's get this show on the road.
"I will fight you," Loki said. Whispered, stepping into Tony, resting his cheek, just for a second, against Tony's own. "All the way down, Mr Stark." A smile, the curve of it brushing Tony's cheek, and a kiss, small, soft, and fleeting. "Do be ready, won't you?"
"Fuck you," Tony whispered back. Gently. "All the way down."
And Loki laughed, and vanished, a rush of cold air and a voice like ice crumbling, and the brush, the promise, of soft lips. And for all Tony's left stranded, for all he was left standing alone ... for some reason, for no reason at all, he was smiling.
He reached up, and touched shaking fingers to his cold cheek, and smiled.
In theory, Tony should've been terrified right around now. Mostly armourless, bloody, having been spirited away from his team by a god of chaos and rage. He should have been fucking scared shitless. And he was. Don't get him wrong. The terror was there, clawing up his throat, sliding icily under his spine. Oh, yes, he was terrified, alright.
He was also fucking furious, burning so damn hot he nearly couldn't see straight. The quiver in his spine, that was fear. The shake in his hands? That was fury. Because this god? Wouldn't fucking leave him alone. Him. Not Thor, not the others. Him. And Tony was getting really, really fucking sick of it.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled, hitting a wall and bouncing back forward off it. "Did I piss in your cereal or what?"
Because for the last while, if there was to be an Avenger lured out alone, it was Tony. If there was an Avenger whose particular talents weren't needed in this instance, leaving him without backup as the rest dealt with various threats, it was Tony. And if ever it came to physical confrontation, if ever they happened on Loki himself ... it was Tony who walked out with the armour sparking and gouged, having taken far more of the brunt than any team with Thor on it should allow. If there was one of them who was going to get a mass of girders dropped on his head, or a mutated monstrosity chasing him for four hours, or a spellcast that flung him across half a fucking state ... It was Tony. And he had had it up to fucking here.
Loki watched him curiously, remote and unmoved. Loki stood there, pale and aloof and disinterested, watching Tony like he was a mildly fascinating bug, and the heat climbed through Tony. The heat strangled him, his hands clenching shaking into fists.
"You still defy me," Loki said, at last. Cool and curious. "You fear me. I can sense that you fear me. But you still defy me. No matter what I do. Why?"
Tony ... blinked at him. Stared, aghast. He didn't ... He couldn't ...
"Let me get this straight," he said, very, very slowly. "You are coming after me. Me specifically. For the last however long. Because I'm not acting scared enough for you!?" He couldn't stop the raw ... the raw vitriol, the raw contempt, from dripping from his tone. He didn't really try. "You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you." He stalked forward, shaking. "They didn't get that. Nobody gets that. You, you are not getting that. Capisce?"
Loki just looked at him. Tilted his head, watched Tony stand shaking, furious and defiant in front of him. Loki ... watched him. And then ...
"Not ... exactly," the god murmured, still tilted sideways, still looking at Tony oddly. "I wanted to see how long you would fight. How long you could ... keep defying me. How long your courage would last."
"All the way," Tony bit out. Something white and scared in the back of his skull gibbering at him, reminding him of ... of things, things he didn't want, things Loki could do to him. Things he remembered. Things he never wanted to happen again. But no. No way. What Loki wanted? Nobody was getting. Not from him. Not again. "All the way down. And I don't give a flying fuck how angry it makes you. You got me?"
And then ... then, something happened. Loki changed. Not rage. Not anger. Something ... maybe worse. Something maybe scarier. Loki smiled, a crooked, lopsided little thing, and there was something else in his eyes, something that had Tony's hind-brain quivering.
"Angry?" the god asked. Moving forward, reaching up with one pale hand. Almost, not quite, touching Tony's face, ignoring as Tony flinched back. "No. Not angry. Not that." The smile slipped, went strange, sideways, and then Loki was moving into him, moving into Tony's space, and Tony was moving back, skittering back, but there was the wall again, and Loki was right there, just leaning close. Just waiting, maybe an inch away, almost touching, not quite. Loki ... stood there. And watched him. Smiling, faintly, strangely.
"What the ..." Tony started. Bit off, stopped, as Loki raised his hand again. As Loki touched his cheek, his jaw. Oddly gentle. Strangely intense.
"You can't guess?" Loki asked him, smiling crookedly. "With your reputation, Mr Stark?"
Tony blinked at him, desperately. More fearfully than his pride wanted, but too much, too confusing. "Is that ..." he tried, hoarsely. "Is that a threat?" Because, fuck, not even Afghanistan. Not even Obie. He'd been ... Never before. Never this.
Something flickered in Loki's eyes. Pain, maybe. Hunger, possibly. Fucked if Tony knew. Except ... you know, not. For preference.
"And if it were?" Loki asked, a low purr, menace slithering forward. Except his hand didn't tighten. Didn't stop being gentle. Tony ... stared. And swallowed. But ...
"Then I'll kill you," he said, quietly. Flinching, a little, from the flare of ... something, in Loki's eyes, but meeting them dead on anyway. Meeting the threat head on. "However long it takes me. You take that, and I'll kill you." Like he killed the men who tore his chest open. The men who'd killed his friend. Like he'd killed the man, the friend, who'd ripped his heart literally out of his chest, and left him to die. He'd do that. Watch him. He'd do that.
Loki tilted his head again, his eyes burning, radiating ... something, next to Tony. Cold, heat, magic, something. "You can't," he said, soft and low, tracing Tony's jaw. "You haven't the power, Man of Iron. You haven't the power to kill me."
And that was true, and Tony knew it, he had always fucking known it, but it also didn't matter. It never had.
"Then I'll make some," he rasped. A promise, low and shaking. Because he'd forged himself a heart, in the middle of nowhere, forged himself a thing to staunch the gaping in his chest in that distant cave, and he would make what power he needed. He would make it, every time. He was Tony fucking Stark, and the gods themselves would die for him, if he needed them to. He would make himself a power, and tear the gods themselves out of the sky, if he had to.
And Loki ... flared, at that. Loki shot through, fire and burning, hunger like Tony had never seen, at that promise, at those words, and something in the back of Tony's brain clicked home, something snapped into place.
"Yes," Loki murmured, in a voice like ice creaking over some vast, dark thing, some yawning void. "Yes. I think you would." His smile was back, strange and distant and hungry, and his eyes ... All the hunger in the world. All the darkness in the void between them.
"You don't have to," Tony rasped, suddenly. A little desperately, yes, but also ... No-one hungered for a broken thing. Loved him despite it, maybe, no, definitely, a few of those, but no-one hungered for it. Not like this. "You don't have to take it. You could ..."
His voice gave, for a second, at the vastness of the thought, and Loki smiled. Dark and fierce and distant. Contemptuous. Challenging.
"Could what?" he purred, sweet as honey, deadly as breaking ice. "Let you go? Hmm? Pretend it never happened?" Rich and raw with contempt, like Tony was capitulating, like Tony was begging. And, no. Fuck no.
"You could seduce me," Tony shot back, a hard snap of anger, a brittle crack of challenge. "You could work for it. Try your fucking luck!" A hard, bitter smile. "Or don't gods do that? Don't you win your prizes, rather than steal them?"
Loki tilted his head, his eyes sharpening, measuring. A vague curl appearing at the corner of his lip. Bemused. Amused.
"And I would have a chance, would I?" the god asked, light as though they were discussing the weather, something of no consequence. "With the great Tony Stark. My brother's shield-brother. My enemy. I would have a chance of winning, you think?"
Tony swallowed, throat tight and heavy, fear and anger and something more tangling in his stomach, in his chest. He swallowed, and forced himself straight, stiffening his spine and not flinching even when the motion brushed him into Loki, even when the movement brushed them close. Not flinching, even when the heat flared, briefly, in Loki's eyes, even when the ice, for just a moment, cracked.
"You might," he admitted. Low and crumbling. Holding Loki's gaze with every scrap of courage and defiance and ... and hunger he possessed. "You might," he said, and watched as the thing in Loki's eyes grew ... slow, and appraising, and just a tiny bit surprised. He watched that. He held through that.
And then ... Loki leaned in. All the way, his head sliding sideways a little, his eyes dark and hungry and amused, soft, maybe hesitant. He leaned in, and brushed his lips, just barely, against Tony's. Just touching, breath chill and calm, tentative. Almost ... an offer.
And Tony ... Tony closed his eyes, felt something convulse, softly, in his chest, and leaned in. Pressed his lips to Loki's in turn. Not brushing. Not tentative. But ... slow, and soft, pressure and heat, Loki's chill and the electricity in his own chest. He ... kissed him, kissed Loki, slow and soft and deep. Just to answer. Just to see. He ... kissed him.
Loki made a noise. A strangled sound, somewhere deep in his throat, a harsh noise of ... maybe pain, maybe longing. Maybe, even, a little, surrender. Loki made a noise, and suddenly he was there. Flush against Tony, the line of him, fierce and vibrating and there, armour poking into odd places, clacking against the arc reactor in Tony's chest, and his hands came up to frame Tony's face, his jaw, into his hair, holding him, seizing him, holding him there while his mouth ... Plundered. Seared. Ravaged. Not in rage, but in some furious kind of desperation, and Tony ... shuddered, in his turn, moaned in his turn, seized hold in his turn. Gripped with white knuckles to a god's armoured waist, and held, and kissed.
He wasn't sure how long. Had no way to tell. Long. Deep. Dark. A void, and he sank into it, held tight to it. For moments. For hours. Something. He didn't know.
Then Loki moaned. Not appreciative. Pained. Desperate. Loki moaned, harsh and savage, and wrenched himself back. Wrenched himself away, almost flung himself back, away from Tony. Out of the kiss. Loki snarled, fury and pain and black, black desperation, and stood panting back from Tony. Lean and heaving, glaring in furious hunger at him.
Tony, for his part, clutched behind him at the wall, and curved forward, panting.
"This ..." Loki started. Snarled, his voice cracking. "You ... This isn't real. You wouldn't ..."
And oh, fuck. Fuck that. Fuck him. "Tr- Try me," Tony shot back, snapped, rage of his own, furious himself. "Fucking try me, Loki." A sneer, a challenge. "Or can't your courage last? Can't you go the fucking distance?" He was a man, a stupid fucking mortal man in a tin suit, and he went toe to toe with gods, he fought them all the way down, and if this whining son of a bitch couldn't match that ...
And then, suddenly, for no reason Tony could see, Loki started laughing. High and wheezing, vaguely hysterical, but he laughed. Staring at Tony, staring at the battered, fierce human man glaring at him while clinging to a wall. Loki stared at him, stared at Tony, and laughed.
"Oh," the god rasped, hunched, wheezing. "Oh."
"What?" Tony snarled. Snapped it off like an icicle, near shaking with rage. "What?"
Loki mastered himself. Loki pulled himself together. And then Loki stood straight, and moved that step forward again, and reached out to touch one fingertip, lightly, to the black scowl on Tony's face. Tony jerked his head away, enraged, but Loki just smiled. Soft and deep and calm. Like something inside him had been satisfied. Like something inside him had been laid at peace.
"Seduce you, you said?" he murmured, softly. Smiling while Tony blinked, while Tony pulled himself down off the shaking precipice of anger. "Court you, perhaps? That's what you said, yes?"
Tony shook his head. Not negation. Anger. Confusion. Frustration. "I did," he rasped. "If you were listening."
Loki laughed at him. A little. Just a little. "Mmm," he said, touching Tony's face again, tracing his jaw softly. This time, Tony let him. Barely. But he let him. "Seduce you," Loki repeated, mouth curving, soft and amused. "Yes. I think ... perhaps I shall try, that." A flash upwards, eyes meeting Tony's, the darkness in them warming, now. "With your permission, of course."
Tony stared at him, brows drawing down, confused and angry, and ... Something. He wasn't sure. Something.
"My permission," he repeated, blankly. And then, more exasperated. "My permission. Sure. Have at it. Go nuts. Show me what you've got."
Fuck. He was insane. He was flat-out insane. Laying challenges before gods. For seduction. Of him. But Loki ... was smiling, dark and calm and thoughtful, sneaky, like that, and Tony ... Fuck him. He didn't care. Seduce him. Fuck. Sure thing. Let's get this show on the road.
"I will fight you," Loki said. Whispered, stepping into Tony, resting his cheek, just for a second, against Tony's own. "All the way down, Mr Stark." A smile, the curve of it brushing Tony's cheek, and a kiss, small, soft, and fleeting. "Do be ready, won't you?"
"Fuck you," Tony whispered back. Gently. "All the way down."
And Loki laughed, and vanished, a rush of cold air and a voice like ice crumbling, and the brush, the promise, of soft lips. And for all Tony's left stranded, for all he was left standing alone ... for some reason, for no reason at all, he was smiling.
He reached up, and touched shaking fingers to his cold cheek, and smiled.
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