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Fourth in the All The Way Down series. Loki and Tony, this part. Loki's turn to make a decision.
Title: Plunge Point
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Loki, Tony Stark. Tony/Loki, Tony/Pepper
Summary: Loki brings Tony a courting gift, and the dare comes full circle. Plunge point, where the wave breaks
Wordcount: 4766
Warnings/Notes: Again, rather dark. Mentions of Thanos, and hints of the things that happened to Loki after he fell. And, um ... Loki isn't particularly sane, in this. Just to warn you. And Tony's not being all that cautious himself, it must be said
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Plunge Point
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Loki, Tony Stark. Tony/Loki, Tony/Pepper
Summary: Loki brings Tony a courting gift, and the dare comes full circle. Plunge point, where the wave breaks
Wordcount: 4766
Warnings/Notes: Again, rather dark. Mentions of Thanos, and hints of the things that happened to Loki after he fell. And, um ... Loki isn't particularly sane, in this. Just to warn you. And Tony's not being all that cautious himself, it must be said
Disclaimer: Not mine
Plunge Point
Loki waited for Stark in his penthouse. His empty penthouse. The woman - and he must consider that, he had noticed that, they must speak, at some point, of that - had left. Loki had seen her to the airport. Not visibly, of course. Not personally. But he had seen for himself that she had left, at least for now.
So he waited. Snuck inside, past measure after measure of new security, at times almost genuinely challenged. He, who had fallen between stars, and talked his way out of the camp of an unbeatable foe. Stark’s genius, and his paranoia, were almost a challenge, for him.
He liked that. That almost made it worth it. This, this quivering in his gut, this detestable spate of nerves. Of fear. It almost made it worth it, that he was standing here, not to attack, not to assassinate, but …
To court. To give a gift. To offer, something that might be refused, in hopes of something that might never be granted. Something that would never be granted. He knew it, he must know it, after all these years, all those thousands of lies, how could he not know that? How could he stand here, and hope, and not know?
This was folly. Fool’s errand. Impossible, ridiculous, weak. A courtship? How stupid could he be? In truth. How … how contemptible.
But Stark had challenged. In desperation, yes. To stall, yes. To win time, yes. But there had been hunger, and defiance, and terror, and the drowning of the kiss, and, beyond any of that, more to the point than that, Stark had challenged him. Had dared him.
If nothing else, if for no other reason, Loki had to be here for that. If nothing else, he must give the lie to that, and prove his own courage. When Stark betrayed him, when Stark humiliated him, he would kill him. But so long as Stark risked it, so long as Stark stood in defiance, Loki would not, could not, back down.
Hence, the waiting. Hence him standing here, silent and cloaked in illusion, in the man’s home. Gift in hand, and the writhing of serpents in his belly. Anxious. Stupid. Hence, here he was.
By the time Stark staggered in, from his workshop, perhaps, armourless and tired, to what he thought was an empty penthouse, Loki was wrung almost to breaking. Loki was ready to kill, even, to stop this, to carve this from himself. Loki was … savage. He knew this. He did not hide this.
A challenge, think of it. If Stark could not handle this, if Stark thought a challenge of courtship would miraculously make him nice …
“A fair night,” he said, as Stark passed him tiredly. Dropping his illusion, smiling coldly and darkly. Maliciously. “Would you not say?”
Stark spun, barked out one strangled, savage yelp, his hands coming up defensively across his chest. For that moment, as he spun, as he scanned Loki desperately, gauging his enemy, there was nothing on his face save blind terror. Nothing but fear, and some flickering shadow, and desperate, savage determination.
Loki’s stomach quivered. Stupidly. Hatefully. His stomach, at the sight of that blind, unreasoning fear, shook.
Then Stark recognised him, Stark caught up with the situation, and that fear vanished. And what replaced it … anger. Fury, nearly. Riding a surge of adrenalin, Loki thought, smirking faintly, curiously relieved. Still fear, but of a different, more personal flavour, now. Fear, and anger, and that fierce, ferocious thing that almost, almost made this human worth it, worth the inevitable.
“Jesus fuck!” Stark snarled. “Warn me, some warning, any warning, do not do that again! Capisce? You do that again, we are done!”
Loki smiled, lifted a casual, contemptuous eyebrow. “Really?” he purred, and knew even as he continued that this was unwise, that this was not what he came for, that that risk was real, so very real. He continued, he thought, because of that. “I had no idea you were so fragile, Stark.”
Stark lifted his lip, a snarl, faint, almost unconscious, Loki thought. He was panting still, his arms still braced defensively over his chest and the glowing thing there. Stark shuddered, and Loki realised belatedly that his fear, Stark’s fear, had been deep, and genuine, and not wholly of him.
“Fuck you,” Stark spat at him, shortly, savagely. Nothing more, not twitching, not moving. Glaring at Loki, waiting for … something to ebb. And Loki found himself frowning.
“Do you always react to sudden appearances this way?” he asked, moving towards the man. Carefully. Non-threateningly, for all his earlier malice. In … curiosity. Nothing more.
Stark glared at him, snarled at him, but his breathing was calming, now. His breathing had steadied, and his arms, slowly, cautiously, inched downward, back to his sides. Loki … did not understand, really, why that should feel like a triumph, to him.
“Sudden appearances?” he repeated, clipped and hard. “No. Sudden appearances at night, in my private penthouse, with no-one else around, and when JARVIS didn’t know to warn me? Yes. Okay? Absolutely, I react like that. Sue me.”
Loki held his frown, still moving forward. Not too close. Not intimidating. Simply … moving into range, the better to see the man. And, after a second … “I apologise, Stark” he said, stiffly. Even, though he did not want to admit it, confusedly. “I did not come here to alarm you.”
No. He came to give a gift, didn’t he? Suddenly, blackly, Loki knew amusement. At this, at all of this.
What was he even doing?
Stark blinked. Dropped his arms fully, staring at Loki. Something brief, almost like shame, flickering over his face. Loki blinked, tilted his head at that.
“Tony,” the man said. Suddenly, nonsensically, such that Loki only blinked at him. “After last time? You can call me Tony.” He shrugged uneasily, and ran a hand through his already unkempt hair. “It’s a thing, okay? The … the people-in-the-night thing. Someone murdered me once. So it’s a thing. Alright?”
Loki … blinked. Again. Stupidly, but he didn’t care, suddenly, was too occupied to care. Too focused on the sudden, silvery feeling that flowed through him, the sudden stillness and the grip like ice upon him. He glanced down at himself in sudden panic, wondering if his other form had surfaced, wondering if something in what Stark -Tony- had said had called the jotun from him.
It had not. He wasn’t blue, did not wear that face. But the feeling, silvered and iced within him, did not fade.
“Murdered,” he repeated, carefully. Inanely. Stark smiled, a black little sliver Loki would not have been shocked to see on his own face.
“I got better,” he said, and there were things under that, humming things, savage, glorious things. “Obviously. For a frail mortal, I can be kinda stubborn about things like that.”
Loki smiled. Smirked, nodded, prowling closer again. Circling now, menacing now, but it was almost not a threat. An acknowledgement, maybe. A nod to the challenge, laid under that. Ever-present, sweet as honey. The dark, silver, savage thing in this man, that drew him, that challenged him, that brought him here, gift in hand, despite it all. That thing. This man.
And, speaking of that, of this …
“I brought you a gift,” he said, carefully expressionless, coming around to stand before the man once more. To take in Stark’s … nonplussed expression.
“Huh?” Tony asked, blankly. Trying to switch gears, and Loki drew some small amusement from that, some small humour for the struggle. It countered, a little, the resurgence of nerves. “I mean … No. Wait. What?”
“A gift,” Loki repeated, darkly amused. “Is that not traditional, in human courtships? For the suitor to present the object of his affections with gifts?”
It had better be. Loki would not stumble at the first block. Not in this.
Tony blinked at him. “Gifts. Yes. I think. Um. You’re asking me?” He shook his head. “I mean, yes. Sure. We do that. Absolutely.” He paused, frowning faintly. “Wait, though. Why are you courting me human-style?”
Loki thought that was not his actual question. Loki strongly suspect the real question was more along the lines of: why are you courting me at all? He thought Stark had not, in fact, expected him to actually follow through.
Well. That made this … somewhat more bearable. He did so like to stagger people’s expectations.
“I am not,” he said, turning casually, his back presented more as challenge than anything, and moved to a table. Moved to place his gift on it, angling himself to display it, contemptuously, daringly. Holding his lips carefully still, so that they wouldn’t show the strange surge of fear. “I’m courting you my way. But I thought I would open with something you might understand.” He smiled, darkly, tilting his head. “Though I see I may have overestimated you, there.”
Tony bristled, faintly, but he was staring at the box on the table, too bemused to give it much effort. “Yeah, yeah,” he waved a hand, absently. “I’m the rich guy. I’m supposed to buy other people the presents, not get them.” He frowned, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, gaze still fixed to the gift. “It’s not going to explode or otherwise try to kill me, is it? Because that’s fine, but I need to get the armour first. Or maybe one of the blast shields, from the lab …”
Loki stared at him. Not at the suspicion, that at least was sensible, and almost normal, for all his gut twinged in disappointment because of it, but at … “I almost believe you,” he murmured, studying the man. “Do people give you exploding gifts often?”
Tony blinked up at him. “No, weren’t you listening? I don’t usually get presents. Well. Pepper. Sometimes Rhodey. But people give me things to poke at, figure out, because I’m me, and those are … pretty cool, actually, some of them are awesome, but quite a few of them explode and/or try to kill people, so …”
Loki frowned at him, feeling his mouth twitch vaguely, as though towards a smile. Stupid. This whole thing. Him. Stupid. But.
“It will not kill you,” he offered, shortly. “That would be … counterproductive, would it not? If I am to get what I want?” He smiled thinly. “I am aware of your … pressing mortal frailties, remember?”
Tony grinned at him. Black and narrow, and something in Loki thrilled to it, to the threat of it, the memory of it. Standing here, so close to where he had held the man, threatened him, flung him from himself. So close, and the knowledge glittered in the man’s eyes, in Tony’s eyes. Knowing exactly what Loki was, in history if not in species, smiling black and fierce and daring at him anyway. Oh yes. Loki did thrill, for that.
“What is it?” Stark asked him, moving forward abruptly, coming into Loki’s orbit deliberately, reaching out to brush the top of the box in raw defiance as much as anything else. Loki had a bizarre sensation of having tamed something, being in the process of taming something, some fierce, wild, intelligent thing, that knew full well how dangerous you were to it. And, too, how dangerous it was to you.
Intoxicating. Much as he detested it, this, doing this, feeling this, there was such sweetness in it. Therein the danger, yes. But Loki had little else to live for.
“See for yourself,” he murmured, low and sweet, leaning in to brush his cheek across the man’s shoulder, to brush his nose, just faintly, at the line of Tony’s hair, along his neck. Feeling the hairs stir under him, feeling the tension flow through Tony’s frame. Nothing else. Loki allowed himself nothing else. But he rested there for a moment, and breathed the smell of fear, and of courage.
“You are one creepy dude, you know that?” Tony said, breathlessly, shoulders locked stiff beneath his ministrations. “I mean, seriously.”
Loki laughed. Low and pained, drifting closer for a second, swaying away. “Yes,” he agreed, softly. “That, before all else, you should know, Stark. A warning to take to heart, perhaps.”
Tony grinned. Sharp and glittering. Instinctive, challenge to challenge, dare to dare, and sometimes, seeing it, sometimes, knowing it, Loki almost, almost hoped.
And then, Tony opened the box, lifted the opaque lid with little to no ceremony, and Loki felt his breath stutter into stillness, felt himself freeze before he could think. Held himself still, quivering, an inch from the man’s back, peering over his shoulder, and could not have moved for the life of him.
He hated it. Hated it too much to breathe. But he could not help the knot of fear in his stomach, the desire for approval, the hope that the gift had merit. He couldn’t help it, and he hated that.
Tony hummed in startlement, levering the heavy shelf with its lump of metal upwards, hands fluttering curiously over the dull, sullen sheen of the fragment Loki had brought him. A thing, something he had stolen while in Asgard, a light-fingered acquisition to while away the dull moments of his escape. Loki wasn’t, even now, completely sure why he had chosen this, of all things, to steal. It was not an impressive thing, just a lump of useless metal, if you did not know what it was. Not something you produced to gasps of awe. Less than the most trivial of his tricks.
“What is it?” Tony breathed, hands sketching shapes in the air above it, phantom movements that seemed, strangely, to have a purpose, as though attempting to cast a spell of divining. Loki twitched, and let himself move, finally. Let himself look at the man’s face. Ready for anything. Disappointment, confusion, disdain. Any of that.
Not this. Not fascination, curiosity, an intelligent, seeking regard. Whatever it was Stark saw, it was not a lump of metal, some dull, ugly thing. Whatever he saw, it was different from that.
“Starmetal,” Loki told him, softly, not moving his eyes from the man’s face. “When Thor’s hammer was forged, Mjolnir, there was … some left over. The remains of the process. I, ah, acquired it recently.” He smiled, thinly. “Not so fine a gift, perhaps. My brother’s leavings. But I thought it might interest …”
He stopped, drew in a startled breath, because Tony turned to him. Tony, with something strange in his eyes, something Loki had not seen before. Something fierce, intense, searing. A crucible of a stare. Fit to forge a weapon of its own.
“You brought me … something used in the forging of Asgardian weapons,” Stark said, and, there, something familiar, that dark savage thing, the thing Loki knew, and dared not believe he saw, sometimes. “And this … it’s been through processing? It’s got evidence of the processing? Do you know what that is? What you’ve given me, with that? What I could make?”
I will make some, he’d said, once. Stark. Threatened and powerless and under Loki’s hands. I will make what power I need. And Loki had believed him, and Loki had known the truth of that, and Loki had loved it. Despite himself, against himself, he had loved, in that moment. The power of it. The shaking defiance. The raw will, in the creature before him, spitting with his last breath. He had loved. And this gift …
Yes. He knew what he was giving the man. Secrets, starmetal, the core of a dying star. To a man who forged weapons from emptiness, who tricked and turned and wrested with the universe, who shaped it to his will with nothing save his hands. Loki had known what he was handing, in this lump of innocuous metal, to a man such as that.
He had hungered, at the thought. Even if it meant death. Even if the weapon forged with the knowledge he offered was turned against him, even as the first had been. Even then. For the fire in those eyes, and the broken thing that forged power to founder gods, he had hungered, and offered anyway.
“I said I would fight you,” he whispered, softly. Raggedly. “All the way down. I said I would fight you. And how could I, if you could not fight back?” A smile, a razored thing. “You would make power from nothing, you said. I believed you. But with this …” He grinned. Couldn’t help it. Grinned, and said nothing. Let the implication lie.
Tony stared. Stricken, pale. His eyes dark, so very dark, in that white, shadowed face. Tony stared at Loki, and his eyes were wide and terrified.
“You put your life in my hands,” he murmured, distantly. “When you mean it. Perilous gifts. That’s how you court someone.”
And Loki thought he was talking to someone else, thought he was listening to something more than Loki, but he answered anyway. He smiled anyway.
“I have seen horrors,” he said softly, his eyes an inch from Tony’s. “I have walked worlds, and fallen into the void, and seen wonders, and seen horrors, such as you would not believe, mortal. I have fallen into the hands of enemies, things that crawled inside me, whispered under my skin, whispered to me of things that would make me wish for pain.” He smiled, all the darkness in the world. “I have seen such horrors, Stark.”
The man swallowed. Pale and trembling, still meeting Loki’s eyes. Still staring, dead on, into the heart of Loki’s darkness. That blue light shining in his chest, desperation and defiance, and endless, impossible courage. Loki smiled, felt it crack open his face, like a breaking. He smiled, and reached up to cradle that jaw, to hold, for a second, something of that impossible thing.
“I want you,” he whispered, a howling thing. “I want to hold you, to break you open. I want to fight you, all the way down. To break you, and feast from the pieces. To have you fight back. To have you tear the skies open, and fight me to the last breath.” He shook, shuddered, the truth alien, dragged from him, but for some reason he could not stop. Not now. Not here. There was hunger in the man’s eyes, and terror, and he could not stop. “I have horrors, under my skin. I want you to know them. I want you to …”
“Don’t,” Stark whispered, suddenly and desperately. “Don’t. I’m not going to … Fuck. You can’t pin that on me. You can’t expect me to be … I’m not the strong one! I’m never the strong one, you can’t …”
Loki laughed. Light and silvered, leaning close. Pressing close. “I know how weak you are,” he murmured, soft and savage. “How trembling and frail.” He cupped the cheek, brushed his finger beneath those dark, pained eyes. “Oh, I do know.” A glittering smile, and there was madness in it, he knew it, there must be. Madness, as there had been since the Bifrost, and all that had happened since. “Say no,” he whispered, biting it out, wrenching it free. Challenge, in part, and warning, in other. Real warning. This man had been murdered, and this man had been afraid, and it set a tremble in Loki’s stomach. “Say no, Stark, because this … This is what I want. This is what I am. Say no, and do not taunt me.”
He hurled it. Hard and desperate. Flung it, his fingers tightening, enough to bruise, enough to mark the man’s face. He threw his desperation out, howl and challenge, despair. Tony’s hand skittered back, bracing himself against the table, brushing Loki’s gift. Challenge. Weapon. All of them, all at once. Because he could not bear this. This fear, this hope, this feeling. Carve it out. Betray him, and forge weapons to kill him, and cut it from him. This, of all things, Loki could not bear. Not anymore.
And then … A flaring, in Stark’s eyes. A light, fierce and dark and jagged, like the thing he had forged in his chest, like the star he had made to challenge gods. Courage, desperate, savage courage, and it seared. How could it not? How could it do anything but?
“I won’t,” Tony said, edged and glittering. “I’m not saying no. Not for that.” He raised a hand, held it warningly. “Not yes, either. Not yet. You want that, then you earn it. But you’re not getting away that easily.” He grinned, and it was terrified, it was desperate, it was the image of the man as he stood, held up against a wall, challenging Loki all over again. “We’ve talked about this, remember? About courage holding?” That grin, that savage, irrepressible grin. “All the way down, baby. Gonna follow me at least that far?”
Loki laughed. Stunned, wrenched out of him, a startled spill into the darkness. Loki, leaning against him, his hands about his face, laughed.
“I will destroy you,” he warned again. Softly. Almost gently. “You must know that. I will kill you, before it’s done.”
“Try it and see,” Tony shot back, reaching up to cup Loki’s elbows, and steady him. “Come on, honey. We’ve been through this. Are you in, or are you in, already? Because, gotta say, the metal was a nice start.” A tiny smile. “You really know how to impress a girl, I’ll give you that.”
Loki shook his head, that strange, silvery feeling coating him again. Slithering through him, soft, and almost gentle. He wondered, vaguely, if that was what love felt like, to a jotun. Nothing like the warm, desperate, jagged thing he’d felt for Thor, for Odin. Something … else. Something different. Cold and fearful, and oddly joyous.
“We must speak, if that is so,” he said, pulling himself upright, pulling himself together. Tony held him, bore him up. Silently. Watching him with dark, glittering eyes.
“Yeah,” the man agreed, carefully. “You and me, we got a bundle, to talk about. But …” He looked Loki over, carefully, and Loki knew the man was weighing him, gauging his weakness, the stupid, contemptible emotionality, but Tony didn’t flinch. Didn’t disdain, at least that Loki could see. “Maybe not right now?” the man asked, softly, and Loki, much to his own disgust, had to nod.
“Not now,” he agreed, shortly. He couldn’t. Not and bear it. Not and not lash out. He was … far too vulnerable, like this.
“Okay,” Tony said, gently, and if earlier Loki had felt he was taming someone, now he felt that he was being tamed. Or coaxed, at least. “But … Huh. Yeah. Okay. This courtship deal? Do I get to give things back?”
Loki … frowned. Felt his gut stagger, yet again. “Return the gift?” he asked, hollowly, and a little stupidly. Tony blinked, and back-tracked rapidly.
“No!” he shook his head, growling faintly. “No. I mean, do I get to give other stuff? In return? Do I get to give you presents?”
Loki blinked, yet again. Frowning, bewildered. He could not change this rapidly, could not turn this quickly. This was not … he had expected none of this, planned for nothing, past the point of giving, past the point of showing … the nature of his desire. He had not planned for this.
“I … If you wish?” he asked, and hated how much of a question it seemed. Tony smiled lopsidedly at him.
“Okay. Yeah. I wish.” He paused, and struggled for a long moment, while Loki simply blinked at him. “Right. So I asked Pepper, alright? You know Pepper? No killing or otherwise harming her, by the way. We’re gonna talk about that at some point. But. I talked to Pepper. And she said … There are things I needed to do, if I meant this. If … well. You and me. And Pepper’s always right, and she’s the only person I’ve ever had a relationship that worked with, so I try to do what she says, with stuff like this, okay?”
He was babbling, and Loki didn’t quite know how to deal with it, so he settled for nodding. Ignoring the weight in his stomach at the talk of the woman, absently wondering if this … meeting, relationship, thing, was going to cause him permanent abdominal problems.
Tony stopped. Took a breath. Firmed his jaw, and looked back at Loki. “The thing I promised Pepper, one of the things, the thing I figure might mean something to you …” He growled at himself, and snapped back on course, meeting Loki’s eyes with a stare that was suddenly fierce, once more. Hard and bright and searing. “I promise not to lie to you,” he said, abruptly, near angrily, and Loki … stopped.
He stopped. Had to. Something rang in his ears, silvery and echoing, and he simply … stopped.
“I know,” Tony continued, and yes, he babbled under stress, Loki should note that, was, perhaps, but that was not the point. That was … far away, beneath the sound of the man’s voice, and the words Loki wasn’t sure he could bear. “You’ve no proof, and no reason to trust that, and hey, god of lies, I get that, but. Um. I’m promising, and you can always kill me if I break it. But I won’t. I promised Pepper, too, and it … That means something. So.”
He stopped, and he breathed, and his hands were still gentle under Loki’s arms, and Loki did not know how he came here, how it came to this, where this had come from. He didn’t know, and it terrified him past reason.
“I won’t lie to you,” Tony said, low and serious, and Loki snapped. Loki, with the monster he had never known existed howling beneath his skin, broke free, and stepped back, and all but flung himself away.
“Don’t,” he whispered. Then snarled, angry, enraged. Terrified. “Do not … Do not dare …”
Not that. Of all things, not that.
Tony smiled. Dark, and twisted, and infinitely sad. “Always,” he said, quietly. “All the way, baby. You knew that. You know that.” A rueful, gentle curve of his lips, for all the fear still in his eyes. “I’m always going to dare. Every time.” A dark self-knowing, a black humour, pointed inwards. “Kill me now, if you can’t bear it. Take what you want now, and destroy the rest, because if you don’t know that … Baby, this really isn’t going to work, if you don’t know that.”
Loki closed his eyes. An unforgivable dropping of guard, an unconscionable weakness. But he did. He had to.
He clawed fear back. Forced down the ringing in his ears, the echoes of a thousand past lies, the crawling things in the void and in his head, writhing under his skin, in his belly. He forced them down, forced them still. As he had at the foot of a dark throne, seeing the mad, utterly crazed power that resided there. As he had, holding nothing, faced with all the horrors of the void. He forced fear back, and opened his eyes. And met the dark, knowing, jagged gaze of the man before him.
“All … All the way down, yes?” he asked, and it rasped out of him, it was hollow, and rusted, and as tremulous as his small, thin smile. “All the way down?” he asked, and it was as fragile as he suddenly felt, as scoured.
But Tony smiled at him, for it. A flash, bright and fierce and silver-blue, a shining thing, and there were treasures worth tearing for, treasures worth being torn for, and this, this could not be one of them, this could never be one of them, but the hunger gnawed in Loki’s belly, and it would have to be. There was nothing else, and it would have to be.
“Make me say yes,” Tony whispered, balanced on the balls of his feet, his hands fisted lightly, that wild, knowing grin in his eyes. “I won’t, until I mean it. I won’t, until it’s true. So make it.”
And Loki smiled, grinned before he vanished, smiled as he left. Because he couldn’t help it, because there was no other choice. He smiled, as he left the man, standing grinning in the dark.
“Watch me,” he whispered, into the howling of his magic, and the gnawing of his hunger, and the shining of the light in dark eyes. “Watch me, Stark.”
There were horrors, beneath his skin, and a darkness that had no name, and all the lies in the world. He was Loki, a skein stitched of pain and falsehoods. But he hungered, and he challenged, and shining in the darkness, that challenge was accepted.
Well then. Let the race to the bottom, to the abyss, commence.
Loki waited for Stark in his penthouse. His empty penthouse. The woman - and he must consider that, he had noticed that, they must speak, at some point, of that - had left. Loki had seen her to the airport. Not visibly, of course. Not personally. But he had seen for himself that she had left, at least for now.
So he waited. Snuck inside, past measure after measure of new security, at times almost genuinely challenged. He, who had fallen between stars, and talked his way out of the camp of an unbeatable foe. Stark’s genius, and his paranoia, were almost a challenge, for him.
He liked that. That almost made it worth it. This, this quivering in his gut, this detestable spate of nerves. Of fear. It almost made it worth it, that he was standing here, not to attack, not to assassinate, but …
To court. To give a gift. To offer, something that might be refused, in hopes of something that might never be granted. Something that would never be granted. He knew it, he must know it, after all these years, all those thousands of lies, how could he not know that? How could he stand here, and hope, and not know?
This was folly. Fool’s errand. Impossible, ridiculous, weak. A courtship? How stupid could he be? In truth. How … how contemptible.
But Stark had challenged. In desperation, yes. To stall, yes. To win time, yes. But there had been hunger, and defiance, and terror, and the drowning of the kiss, and, beyond any of that, more to the point than that, Stark had challenged him. Had dared him.
If nothing else, if for no other reason, Loki had to be here for that. If nothing else, he must give the lie to that, and prove his own courage. When Stark betrayed him, when Stark humiliated him, he would kill him. But so long as Stark risked it, so long as Stark stood in defiance, Loki would not, could not, back down.
Hence, the waiting. Hence him standing here, silent and cloaked in illusion, in the man’s home. Gift in hand, and the writhing of serpents in his belly. Anxious. Stupid. Hence, here he was.
By the time Stark staggered in, from his workshop, perhaps, armourless and tired, to what he thought was an empty penthouse, Loki was wrung almost to breaking. Loki was ready to kill, even, to stop this, to carve this from himself. Loki was … savage. He knew this. He did not hide this.
A challenge, think of it. If Stark could not handle this, if Stark thought a challenge of courtship would miraculously make him nice …
“A fair night,” he said, as Stark passed him tiredly. Dropping his illusion, smiling coldly and darkly. Maliciously. “Would you not say?”
Stark spun, barked out one strangled, savage yelp, his hands coming up defensively across his chest. For that moment, as he spun, as he scanned Loki desperately, gauging his enemy, there was nothing on his face save blind terror. Nothing but fear, and some flickering shadow, and desperate, savage determination.
Loki’s stomach quivered. Stupidly. Hatefully. His stomach, at the sight of that blind, unreasoning fear, shook.
Then Stark recognised him, Stark caught up with the situation, and that fear vanished. And what replaced it … anger. Fury, nearly. Riding a surge of adrenalin, Loki thought, smirking faintly, curiously relieved. Still fear, but of a different, more personal flavour, now. Fear, and anger, and that fierce, ferocious thing that almost, almost made this human worth it, worth the inevitable.
“Jesus fuck!” Stark snarled. “Warn me, some warning, any warning, do not do that again! Capisce? You do that again, we are done!”
Loki smiled, lifted a casual, contemptuous eyebrow. “Really?” he purred, and knew even as he continued that this was unwise, that this was not what he came for, that that risk was real, so very real. He continued, he thought, because of that. “I had no idea you were so fragile, Stark.”
Stark lifted his lip, a snarl, faint, almost unconscious, Loki thought. He was panting still, his arms still braced defensively over his chest and the glowing thing there. Stark shuddered, and Loki realised belatedly that his fear, Stark’s fear, had been deep, and genuine, and not wholly of him.
“Fuck you,” Stark spat at him, shortly, savagely. Nothing more, not twitching, not moving. Glaring at Loki, waiting for … something to ebb. And Loki found himself frowning.
“Do you always react to sudden appearances this way?” he asked, moving towards the man. Carefully. Non-threateningly, for all his earlier malice. In … curiosity. Nothing more.
Stark glared at him, snarled at him, but his breathing was calming, now. His breathing had steadied, and his arms, slowly, cautiously, inched downward, back to his sides. Loki … did not understand, really, why that should feel like a triumph, to him.
“Sudden appearances?” he repeated, clipped and hard. “No. Sudden appearances at night, in my private penthouse, with no-one else around, and when JARVIS didn’t know to warn me? Yes. Okay? Absolutely, I react like that. Sue me.”
Loki held his frown, still moving forward. Not too close. Not intimidating. Simply … moving into range, the better to see the man. And, after a second … “I apologise, Stark” he said, stiffly. Even, though he did not want to admit it, confusedly. “I did not come here to alarm you.”
No. He came to give a gift, didn’t he? Suddenly, blackly, Loki knew amusement. At this, at all of this.
What was he even doing?
Stark blinked. Dropped his arms fully, staring at Loki. Something brief, almost like shame, flickering over his face. Loki blinked, tilted his head at that.
“Tony,” the man said. Suddenly, nonsensically, such that Loki only blinked at him. “After last time? You can call me Tony.” He shrugged uneasily, and ran a hand through his already unkempt hair. “It’s a thing, okay? The … the people-in-the-night thing. Someone murdered me once. So it’s a thing. Alright?”
Loki … blinked. Again. Stupidly, but he didn’t care, suddenly, was too occupied to care. Too focused on the sudden, silvery feeling that flowed through him, the sudden stillness and the grip like ice upon him. He glanced down at himself in sudden panic, wondering if his other form had surfaced, wondering if something in what Stark -Tony- had said had called the jotun from him.
It had not. He wasn’t blue, did not wear that face. But the feeling, silvered and iced within him, did not fade.
“Murdered,” he repeated, carefully. Inanely. Stark smiled, a black little sliver Loki would not have been shocked to see on his own face.
“I got better,” he said, and there were things under that, humming things, savage, glorious things. “Obviously. For a frail mortal, I can be kinda stubborn about things like that.”
Loki smiled. Smirked, nodded, prowling closer again. Circling now, menacing now, but it was almost not a threat. An acknowledgement, maybe. A nod to the challenge, laid under that. Ever-present, sweet as honey. The dark, silver, savage thing in this man, that drew him, that challenged him, that brought him here, gift in hand, despite it all. That thing. This man.
And, speaking of that, of this …
“I brought you a gift,” he said, carefully expressionless, coming around to stand before the man once more. To take in Stark’s … nonplussed expression.
“Huh?” Tony asked, blankly. Trying to switch gears, and Loki drew some small amusement from that, some small humour for the struggle. It countered, a little, the resurgence of nerves. “I mean … No. Wait. What?”
“A gift,” Loki repeated, darkly amused. “Is that not traditional, in human courtships? For the suitor to present the object of his affections with gifts?”
It had better be. Loki would not stumble at the first block. Not in this.
Tony blinked at him. “Gifts. Yes. I think. Um. You’re asking me?” He shook his head. “I mean, yes. Sure. We do that. Absolutely.” He paused, frowning faintly. “Wait, though. Why are you courting me human-style?”
Loki thought that was not his actual question. Loki strongly suspect the real question was more along the lines of: why are you courting me at all? He thought Stark had not, in fact, expected him to actually follow through.
Well. That made this … somewhat more bearable. He did so like to stagger people’s expectations.
“I am not,” he said, turning casually, his back presented more as challenge than anything, and moved to a table. Moved to place his gift on it, angling himself to display it, contemptuously, daringly. Holding his lips carefully still, so that they wouldn’t show the strange surge of fear. “I’m courting you my way. But I thought I would open with something you might understand.” He smiled, darkly, tilting his head. “Though I see I may have overestimated you, there.”
Tony bristled, faintly, but he was staring at the box on the table, too bemused to give it much effort. “Yeah, yeah,” he waved a hand, absently. “I’m the rich guy. I’m supposed to buy other people the presents, not get them.” He frowned, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, gaze still fixed to the gift. “It’s not going to explode or otherwise try to kill me, is it? Because that’s fine, but I need to get the armour first. Or maybe one of the blast shields, from the lab …”
Loki stared at him. Not at the suspicion, that at least was sensible, and almost normal, for all his gut twinged in disappointment because of it, but at … “I almost believe you,” he murmured, studying the man. “Do people give you exploding gifts often?”
Tony blinked up at him. “No, weren’t you listening? I don’t usually get presents. Well. Pepper. Sometimes Rhodey. But people give me things to poke at, figure out, because I’m me, and those are … pretty cool, actually, some of them are awesome, but quite a few of them explode and/or try to kill people, so …”
Loki frowned at him, feeling his mouth twitch vaguely, as though towards a smile. Stupid. This whole thing. Him. Stupid. But.
“It will not kill you,” he offered, shortly. “That would be … counterproductive, would it not? If I am to get what I want?” He smiled thinly. “I am aware of your … pressing mortal frailties, remember?”
Tony grinned at him. Black and narrow, and something in Loki thrilled to it, to the threat of it, the memory of it. Standing here, so close to where he had held the man, threatened him, flung him from himself. So close, and the knowledge glittered in the man’s eyes, in Tony’s eyes. Knowing exactly what Loki was, in history if not in species, smiling black and fierce and daring at him anyway. Oh yes. Loki did thrill, for that.
“What is it?” Stark asked him, moving forward abruptly, coming into Loki’s orbit deliberately, reaching out to brush the top of the box in raw defiance as much as anything else. Loki had a bizarre sensation of having tamed something, being in the process of taming something, some fierce, wild, intelligent thing, that knew full well how dangerous you were to it. And, too, how dangerous it was to you.
Intoxicating. Much as he detested it, this, doing this, feeling this, there was such sweetness in it. Therein the danger, yes. But Loki had little else to live for.
“See for yourself,” he murmured, low and sweet, leaning in to brush his cheek across the man’s shoulder, to brush his nose, just faintly, at the line of Tony’s hair, along his neck. Feeling the hairs stir under him, feeling the tension flow through Tony’s frame. Nothing else. Loki allowed himself nothing else. But he rested there for a moment, and breathed the smell of fear, and of courage.
“You are one creepy dude, you know that?” Tony said, breathlessly, shoulders locked stiff beneath his ministrations. “I mean, seriously.”
Loki laughed. Low and pained, drifting closer for a second, swaying away. “Yes,” he agreed, softly. “That, before all else, you should know, Stark. A warning to take to heart, perhaps.”
Tony grinned. Sharp and glittering. Instinctive, challenge to challenge, dare to dare, and sometimes, seeing it, sometimes, knowing it, Loki almost, almost hoped.
And then, Tony opened the box, lifted the opaque lid with little to no ceremony, and Loki felt his breath stutter into stillness, felt himself freeze before he could think. Held himself still, quivering, an inch from the man’s back, peering over his shoulder, and could not have moved for the life of him.
He hated it. Hated it too much to breathe. But he could not help the knot of fear in his stomach, the desire for approval, the hope that the gift had merit. He couldn’t help it, and he hated that.
Tony hummed in startlement, levering the heavy shelf with its lump of metal upwards, hands fluttering curiously over the dull, sullen sheen of the fragment Loki had brought him. A thing, something he had stolen while in Asgard, a light-fingered acquisition to while away the dull moments of his escape. Loki wasn’t, even now, completely sure why he had chosen this, of all things, to steal. It was not an impressive thing, just a lump of useless metal, if you did not know what it was. Not something you produced to gasps of awe. Less than the most trivial of his tricks.
“What is it?” Tony breathed, hands sketching shapes in the air above it, phantom movements that seemed, strangely, to have a purpose, as though attempting to cast a spell of divining. Loki twitched, and let himself move, finally. Let himself look at the man’s face. Ready for anything. Disappointment, confusion, disdain. Any of that.
Not this. Not fascination, curiosity, an intelligent, seeking regard. Whatever it was Stark saw, it was not a lump of metal, some dull, ugly thing. Whatever he saw, it was different from that.
“Starmetal,” Loki told him, softly, not moving his eyes from the man’s face. “When Thor’s hammer was forged, Mjolnir, there was … some left over. The remains of the process. I, ah, acquired it recently.” He smiled, thinly. “Not so fine a gift, perhaps. My brother’s leavings. But I thought it might interest …”
He stopped, drew in a startled breath, because Tony turned to him. Tony, with something strange in his eyes, something Loki had not seen before. Something fierce, intense, searing. A crucible of a stare. Fit to forge a weapon of its own.
“You brought me … something used in the forging of Asgardian weapons,” Stark said, and, there, something familiar, that dark savage thing, the thing Loki knew, and dared not believe he saw, sometimes. “And this … it’s been through processing? It’s got evidence of the processing? Do you know what that is? What you’ve given me, with that? What I could make?”
I will make some, he’d said, once. Stark. Threatened and powerless and under Loki’s hands. I will make what power I need. And Loki had believed him, and Loki had known the truth of that, and Loki had loved it. Despite himself, against himself, he had loved, in that moment. The power of it. The shaking defiance. The raw will, in the creature before him, spitting with his last breath. He had loved. And this gift …
Yes. He knew what he was giving the man. Secrets, starmetal, the core of a dying star. To a man who forged weapons from emptiness, who tricked and turned and wrested with the universe, who shaped it to his will with nothing save his hands. Loki had known what he was handing, in this lump of innocuous metal, to a man such as that.
He had hungered, at the thought. Even if it meant death. Even if the weapon forged with the knowledge he offered was turned against him, even as the first had been. Even then. For the fire in those eyes, and the broken thing that forged power to founder gods, he had hungered, and offered anyway.
“I said I would fight you,” he whispered, softly. Raggedly. “All the way down. I said I would fight you. And how could I, if you could not fight back?” A smile, a razored thing. “You would make power from nothing, you said. I believed you. But with this …” He grinned. Couldn’t help it. Grinned, and said nothing. Let the implication lie.
Tony stared. Stricken, pale. His eyes dark, so very dark, in that white, shadowed face. Tony stared at Loki, and his eyes were wide and terrified.
“You put your life in my hands,” he murmured, distantly. “When you mean it. Perilous gifts. That’s how you court someone.”
And Loki thought he was talking to someone else, thought he was listening to something more than Loki, but he answered anyway. He smiled anyway.
“I have seen horrors,” he said softly, his eyes an inch from Tony’s. “I have walked worlds, and fallen into the void, and seen wonders, and seen horrors, such as you would not believe, mortal. I have fallen into the hands of enemies, things that crawled inside me, whispered under my skin, whispered to me of things that would make me wish for pain.” He smiled, all the darkness in the world. “I have seen such horrors, Stark.”
The man swallowed. Pale and trembling, still meeting Loki’s eyes. Still staring, dead on, into the heart of Loki’s darkness. That blue light shining in his chest, desperation and defiance, and endless, impossible courage. Loki smiled, felt it crack open his face, like a breaking. He smiled, and reached up to cradle that jaw, to hold, for a second, something of that impossible thing.
“I want you,” he whispered, a howling thing. “I want to hold you, to break you open. I want to fight you, all the way down. To break you, and feast from the pieces. To have you fight back. To have you tear the skies open, and fight me to the last breath.” He shook, shuddered, the truth alien, dragged from him, but for some reason he could not stop. Not now. Not here. There was hunger in the man’s eyes, and terror, and he could not stop. “I have horrors, under my skin. I want you to know them. I want you to …”
“Don’t,” Stark whispered, suddenly and desperately. “Don’t. I’m not going to … Fuck. You can’t pin that on me. You can’t expect me to be … I’m not the strong one! I’m never the strong one, you can’t …”
Loki laughed. Light and silvered, leaning close. Pressing close. “I know how weak you are,” he murmured, soft and savage. “How trembling and frail.” He cupped the cheek, brushed his finger beneath those dark, pained eyes. “Oh, I do know.” A glittering smile, and there was madness in it, he knew it, there must be. Madness, as there had been since the Bifrost, and all that had happened since. “Say no,” he whispered, biting it out, wrenching it free. Challenge, in part, and warning, in other. Real warning. This man had been murdered, and this man had been afraid, and it set a tremble in Loki’s stomach. “Say no, Stark, because this … This is what I want. This is what I am. Say no, and do not taunt me.”
He hurled it. Hard and desperate. Flung it, his fingers tightening, enough to bruise, enough to mark the man’s face. He threw his desperation out, howl and challenge, despair. Tony’s hand skittered back, bracing himself against the table, brushing Loki’s gift. Challenge. Weapon. All of them, all at once. Because he could not bear this. This fear, this hope, this feeling. Carve it out. Betray him, and forge weapons to kill him, and cut it from him. This, of all things, Loki could not bear. Not anymore.
And then … A flaring, in Stark’s eyes. A light, fierce and dark and jagged, like the thing he had forged in his chest, like the star he had made to challenge gods. Courage, desperate, savage courage, and it seared. How could it not? How could it do anything but?
“I won’t,” Tony said, edged and glittering. “I’m not saying no. Not for that.” He raised a hand, held it warningly. “Not yes, either. Not yet. You want that, then you earn it. But you’re not getting away that easily.” He grinned, and it was terrified, it was desperate, it was the image of the man as he stood, held up against a wall, challenging Loki all over again. “We’ve talked about this, remember? About courage holding?” That grin, that savage, irrepressible grin. “All the way down, baby. Gonna follow me at least that far?”
Loki laughed. Stunned, wrenched out of him, a startled spill into the darkness. Loki, leaning against him, his hands about his face, laughed.
“I will destroy you,” he warned again. Softly. Almost gently. “You must know that. I will kill you, before it’s done.”
“Try it and see,” Tony shot back, reaching up to cup Loki’s elbows, and steady him. “Come on, honey. We’ve been through this. Are you in, or are you in, already? Because, gotta say, the metal was a nice start.” A tiny smile. “You really know how to impress a girl, I’ll give you that.”
Loki shook his head, that strange, silvery feeling coating him again. Slithering through him, soft, and almost gentle. He wondered, vaguely, if that was what love felt like, to a jotun. Nothing like the warm, desperate, jagged thing he’d felt for Thor, for Odin. Something … else. Something different. Cold and fearful, and oddly joyous.
“We must speak, if that is so,” he said, pulling himself upright, pulling himself together. Tony held him, bore him up. Silently. Watching him with dark, glittering eyes.
“Yeah,” the man agreed, carefully. “You and me, we got a bundle, to talk about. But …” He looked Loki over, carefully, and Loki knew the man was weighing him, gauging his weakness, the stupid, contemptible emotionality, but Tony didn’t flinch. Didn’t disdain, at least that Loki could see. “Maybe not right now?” the man asked, softly, and Loki, much to his own disgust, had to nod.
“Not now,” he agreed, shortly. He couldn’t. Not and bear it. Not and not lash out. He was … far too vulnerable, like this.
“Okay,” Tony said, gently, and if earlier Loki had felt he was taming someone, now he felt that he was being tamed. Or coaxed, at least. “But … Huh. Yeah. Okay. This courtship deal? Do I get to give things back?”
Loki … frowned. Felt his gut stagger, yet again. “Return the gift?” he asked, hollowly, and a little stupidly. Tony blinked, and back-tracked rapidly.
“No!” he shook his head, growling faintly. “No. I mean, do I get to give other stuff? In return? Do I get to give you presents?”
Loki blinked, yet again. Frowning, bewildered. He could not change this rapidly, could not turn this quickly. This was not … he had expected none of this, planned for nothing, past the point of giving, past the point of showing … the nature of his desire. He had not planned for this.
“I … If you wish?” he asked, and hated how much of a question it seemed. Tony smiled lopsidedly at him.
“Okay. Yeah. I wish.” He paused, and struggled for a long moment, while Loki simply blinked at him. “Right. So I asked Pepper, alright? You know Pepper? No killing or otherwise harming her, by the way. We’re gonna talk about that at some point. But. I talked to Pepper. And she said … There are things I needed to do, if I meant this. If … well. You and me. And Pepper’s always right, and she’s the only person I’ve ever had a relationship that worked with, so I try to do what she says, with stuff like this, okay?”
He was babbling, and Loki didn’t quite know how to deal with it, so he settled for nodding. Ignoring the weight in his stomach at the talk of the woman, absently wondering if this … meeting, relationship, thing, was going to cause him permanent abdominal problems.
Tony stopped. Took a breath. Firmed his jaw, and looked back at Loki. “The thing I promised Pepper, one of the things, the thing I figure might mean something to you …” He growled at himself, and snapped back on course, meeting Loki’s eyes with a stare that was suddenly fierce, once more. Hard and bright and searing. “I promise not to lie to you,” he said, abruptly, near angrily, and Loki … stopped.
He stopped. Had to. Something rang in his ears, silvery and echoing, and he simply … stopped.
“I know,” Tony continued, and yes, he babbled under stress, Loki should note that, was, perhaps, but that was not the point. That was … far away, beneath the sound of the man’s voice, and the words Loki wasn’t sure he could bear. “You’ve no proof, and no reason to trust that, and hey, god of lies, I get that, but. Um. I’m promising, and you can always kill me if I break it. But I won’t. I promised Pepper, too, and it … That means something. So.”
He stopped, and he breathed, and his hands were still gentle under Loki’s arms, and Loki did not know how he came here, how it came to this, where this had come from. He didn’t know, and it terrified him past reason.
“I won’t lie to you,” Tony said, low and serious, and Loki snapped. Loki, with the monster he had never known existed howling beneath his skin, broke free, and stepped back, and all but flung himself away.
“Don’t,” he whispered. Then snarled, angry, enraged. Terrified. “Do not … Do not dare …”
Not that. Of all things, not that.
Tony smiled. Dark, and twisted, and infinitely sad. “Always,” he said, quietly. “All the way, baby. You knew that. You know that.” A rueful, gentle curve of his lips, for all the fear still in his eyes. “I’m always going to dare. Every time.” A dark self-knowing, a black humour, pointed inwards. “Kill me now, if you can’t bear it. Take what you want now, and destroy the rest, because if you don’t know that … Baby, this really isn’t going to work, if you don’t know that.”
Loki closed his eyes. An unforgivable dropping of guard, an unconscionable weakness. But he did. He had to.
He clawed fear back. Forced down the ringing in his ears, the echoes of a thousand past lies, the crawling things in the void and in his head, writhing under his skin, in his belly. He forced them down, forced them still. As he had at the foot of a dark throne, seeing the mad, utterly crazed power that resided there. As he had, holding nothing, faced with all the horrors of the void. He forced fear back, and opened his eyes. And met the dark, knowing, jagged gaze of the man before him.
“All … All the way down, yes?” he asked, and it rasped out of him, it was hollow, and rusted, and as tremulous as his small, thin smile. “All the way down?” he asked, and it was as fragile as he suddenly felt, as scoured.
But Tony smiled at him, for it. A flash, bright and fierce and silver-blue, a shining thing, and there were treasures worth tearing for, treasures worth being torn for, and this, this could not be one of them, this could never be one of them, but the hunger gnawed in Loki’s belly, and it would have to be. There was nothing else, and it would have to be.
“Make me say yes,” Tony whispered, balanced on the balls of his feet, his hands fisted lightly, that wild, knowing grin in his eyes. “I won’t, until I mean it. I won’t, until it’s true. So make it.”
And Loki smiled, grinned before he vanished, smiled as he left. Because he couldn’t help it, because there was no other choice. He smiled, as he left the man, standing grinning in the dark.
“Watch me,” he whispered, into the howling of his magic, and the gnawing of his hunger, and the shining of the light in dark eyes. “Watch me, Stark.”
There were horrors, beneath his skin, and a darkness that had no name, and all the lies in the world. He was Loki, a skein stitched of pain and falsehoods. But he hungered, and he challenged, and shining in the darkness, that challenge was accepted.
Well then. Let the race to the bottom, to the abyss, commence.
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