It starts in his youth, this pale flow of red rivers against the ivory landscape of his skin. He’s not sure why, at first, just that it works. It helps. His temper flares at Thor, at Odin, and the gnashing of his teeth against the inside of his cheek doesn’t remove his mind from their words, but the pain of it leeches into his veins and wraps itself around his heart. It feels like a block of ice inside his chest.
His mouth fills with blood as he watches Odin toast to Thor’s conquests in battle, hears the cheers of the Warriors Three, sees Frigga smile demurely at her golden son with Sif at her side. A feast sits before him but he does not hunger for it. He can do nothing but sit in failure; as a warrior, a brother, a prince. He had fallen, slipped, and Thor had laughed joyously as he swung his mighty hammer. And Loki had lain there, cast in his brother’s shadow, helpless but for his tricks. Useless.
And they laugh.
His mouth is torn but it is not enough. His spine straightens and he feels the scabs break open from the fall, feels the way the bruises stretch across his skin. He could have died out there today. He almost wishes he had.
And they laugh.
-
He knows now why his heart is cold; he is a monster. His skin is blue.
He knows now why they laugh at his failure. Surely he must have been the only one who hadn’t known the truth. He was their joke, something to pity, never something to fear, because he did not know who he was. What he was.
He screams again at the walls of his room, beats his fists into them until they are bloody and broken. He can feel the magic beneath his skin itching to pull his flesh back together but he pushes it down, away, until the only thing there is his illusion of normality.
His reflection is not welcoming; eyes wide, chest heaving, teeth set in a hateful snarl, he is pale and thin and he hates it. He sheds his armor and pulls his clothes away, lets his magic slide through his swollen fingers.
And he finally sees. Blue on blue on blue with red eyes. Monster, Thor whispers to him, his voice so like the child’s that he used to be. Kill all the monsters.
Loki squares his shoulders. It is what he must do. He will sit on the throne, a monster, and he will kill every last one of them. He will destroy their world like they have destroyed his.
The sharp edges of the mirror crash into him, break him apart and tear into him until there is as much red as there is blue. He slips into the illusion, and then his clothes, and then his armor, and sneers into the broken pieces that he’s become.
Peace indeed.
-
He seems so very good at falling.
He lets go and falls, leaves Thor and Odin hanging there to watch him, wonders before the darkness closes over him if they will laugh tonight at their feast, or if they will cry at his loss.
He’s never belonged there anyway.
-
They pull him out of the darkness just before he loses his mind. They hiss his name like a curse and set their beasts on him. They tear him apart until he is grasping the edge of sanity with broken fingernails, screaming for a brother that he has no longer.
He knows their plan, their power, and now he will give them their glory.
He keeps his mind, but his actions are theirs now.
-
He has seen the history of these people, humanity, mortals. Followers born to be led, to be ruled. And he was raised to be a king.
He never wanted to be king.
-
This is the best pain he’s felt yet.
-
The magic pulls his broken pieces back together and weaves through them until he is left mostly whole. His armor has bitten into his skin, twisted and torn and it leaves bruises, bright and blood-dark. Meaningless, in comparison to the rest of him, but he wants to press his fingers into them, press in until he can touch the ice around his black heart.
His legs hurts, still broken and fractured, but he forces himself to his hands and pulls himself out of the hole his body created, pulls himself away because he knows they will come back, come for him.
Blood pools in his mouth, frothy at the back of his tongue as his lungs constrict. It aches, but it is a good ache. In a terrible, terrible way. He grins through the pain and swallows down bile and blood and air. This is not the face they are expecting, this sad child that shows through his eyes, the one he thought long gone, buried in the ice and darkness.
Warmth slides down the back of his neck, warm and wet and red, he’s sure, and he winces when he tilts his head, can feel the slid of bone against bone in his skull, can hear it. His stomach lurches and his vision narrows, and then he’s falling.
-
He wakes strapped to a bed, heart pounding in his chest; his armor is nowhere to be found and the only thing to cover him is a thin sheet. It doesn’t hide his wounds, his bruises, his scars. He is as bare as this room and its glass walls.
“It’s nice to see that Sleeping Beauty doesn’t need a kiss to break the big bad magic spell.”
The voice echoes at him, familiar in its sarcasm and Loki blinks at it. He was expecting Odin, or perhaps Thor, not this mortal who didn’t seem to know fear.
“He seems to be functioning at eighty-three percent, sir,” says another voice, this one different, more mechanical.
Tony Stark walks into the room with a grin, glass door closing behind him. “Thanks, JARVIS. That’s JARVIS; he keeps an eye on things for me. He’s great, kind of like a diary that talks back.”
“More like a glorified babysitter, sir.”
“Yeah, that too.” Stark stops beside him, reaches into the air and pulls up blue images, one of Loki with two lines through him. “Okay, so this,” he says, pointing to the line across his chest, “is where you’re at now, like, physical and health-wise. Don’t ask me to get technical, I’m not a doctor. This,” he says, this time pointing to the line through his feet, “is where you’re at magically or whatever.”
He flicks his hand and it disappears, sits on the edge of the bed; Loki snarls at him, pulls at the bonds around his wrists and hisses when Stark pokes his side. It’s still tender, his bones mending, lungs without fluid, but he can’t tell the difference between bruises and blue skin. He should have noticed that sooner. Something must show on his face because Stark pats his thigh like they are long time companions.
“Yeah, no, this isn’t really that shocking. Two floors down we have a guy who turns into a big green rage monster. You remember him, right? And Capsicle was a block of ice for seventy years. The fact that you look like the Smurf God isn’t exactly front page news. Well, maybe to some people, but around here we’re pretty easy going. If you don’t include the guns and the whole military regime thing going on. Other than that we’re practically a hippy commune.”
“You don’t fear me? Even without my magic there are ways in which I could still kill you easily. The others keep their distance, why don’t you?” Ice cracks around his bonds, spreads out across his sheet, starts etching along the walls.
“I drew the short straw,” Stark shrugs, scratching at the ice with his fingernails. “That’s a great party trick. You do it for birthdays?”
-
Tony Stark knows, even before the Ten Rings and Obidiah and Yinsen, that there is something lurking, something dark and capable beneath the surface. He knows when he engineers Dummy and creates Jarvis and gives life to his workshop, that this is only the beginning. The programs and codes he adds later, two years after Pepper starts working for him, on the anniversary of the death of the late, great Howard Stark, tells him he knows this.
He’s drunk when he does it, and it takes him three hours of searching the next day when he realizes that something has changed in the way Jarvis regards him, in the way Dummy hovers. Tony is a moment away from deleting it, the entire destructive sequence highlighted, when You lets out a few whirs and beeps that Tony knows he stole from The Empire Strikes Back. He stops, takes a deep breath, and closes out the window.
“Thank you, sir,” Jarvis says.
Tony blinks, tilts his head. “Jarvis. Hey, buddy… when did you become English?”
There is sarcasm in the reply, Tony can sense it, because he made Jarvis like this, sarcastic and witty; a companion and a friend, someone to trust in a time when he can’t afford to trust anyone who isn’t Obidiah. “Apparently, sir, I sound sexier with this accent.”
“Huh.” Yeah, that was true.
-
Tony hates hospitals, hates the sterile smell of disinfectant, the sound of nurses shoes squeaking on the floor, the infuriating beep of the heart monitor, the incessant drip of the intravenous, the horribly uncomfortable beds he can never get just right. He hates doctors, too, but that’s only because every time he hurts himself in his lab they always tell him the same thing: stop. Sure, it’s in the name of health and healing and all that bullshit, but he has work to do. His brain doesn’t stop just because he sticks his hand in an engine and burns the skin off his palm, or he breaks his arm when he slips in the oil used for lubricating Dummy’s joints, or any of the other stupid things he’s bound to do, has done.
Somehow, he hates caves more. Dark and damp, with none of the usual sounds or smells of a hospital room, or the annoying check-ups by cute nurses he can goad into giving him a sponge bath, but there’s a doctor all the same. Tony tries not to hyperventilate when he starts awake, not because of embarrassment or shock or the false air of courage, but because the entire spread of his ribcage fucking hurts, and his sternum feels like it’s been split in two.
And then he feels it, tears the bandages to see it, presses his fingers to the metal that is most certainly not supposed to be there. He wonders, vague and passing, if this is what Dummy and You and Jarvis feel like, something out of nothing, little pieces brought together and forced into life. His heart beats; obstruction in his veins.
The darkness swells and rises within him, overflows into hatred, ugly and vile, when he sees his own weapons, his own creations, somewhere they were never meant to be; living proof of a betrayal, double-dealing in his own company. He bites his tongue, clenches his jaw, and hates.
He wishes for Jarvis, hours of humor and snark spent working, for You and Dummy and their clumsy attempts at helping. Instead he has Yinsen, the doctor who kept him alive when he should have been dead by taking things from weapons used to kill his family and friends, Yinsen and his steady hands and his unending worry for infection and fever.
But Tony Stark doesn’t get sick. He heals too quickly, works too fast, and takes physical punishment like no other man Yinsen’s ever met. A normal man would not have survived; Tony Stark is no normal man.
It’s not the same, Tony knows, a man in a metal suit, but he thinks Jarvis would be proud.
The dam cracks and shatters at the sight of Yinsen, bleeding and dying when he should be living and breathing and insulting Tony’s lack of self-care; the putrid decay of emotion floods Tony until he’s blind with it, pitch black and white hot with screaming rage.
-
It’s only when he gets home, sits in his workshop and lets Dummy carry away his sling, lets You whir at him in worry, and hears Jarvis’ welcoming voice, that he lets his shoulders ease up from their tenseness.
He can breathe.
-
And then Obidiah turns out to be a greedy son of a bitch and needs to be dealt with. Jarvis is in complete agreement and offers up an alteration to the newest security programs.
This time Tony’s not drunk.
-
He can hear the sadness that Jarvis isn’t supposed to have, isn’t supposed to be able to feel, when he tells Tony the palladium that’s keeping him alive is slowly killing him. Jarvis would have gone through three worlds periodic tables if he could have, combined and mixed every available element known to man and Mars and anywhere else.
Instead, it’s Natalie-Natasha and that one-eyed bastard who thinks he’s Shaft who bring Tony the cure, and it’s funny, really, the begrudging respect Jarvis has to show them, even though Tony thinks that Jarvis is right when he says something about Siberian tigers and clothes soaked in ground beef.
But just because they save his life doesn’t mean he’s going to automatically trust them, either. Natalie-Natasha had that, and she wouldn’t get it again. Not for a long time.
-
Tony doesn’t have time to think about it, doesn’t want to think about it, especially not when Jarvis fades away and the lights go out.
Then it’s just him and miles of space; darkness and stars and monsters he should find terrifying. Too bad he’s seen worse. Memories of the cave come back to him, a flash of Yinsen dying in his arms, cruel captors holding his head underwater, wondering how the water is going to affect the car battery hooked up to his chest, that black rage and pure hatred that swallowed him whole and spit out the mere bones of him like something left to die. It swallows him down again and he goes into it, drifts for a moment before he closes his eyes.
Tony falls, and he feels like so many broken pieces falling away.
-
Jarvis doesn’t like anybody Tony doesn’t like. The blatant sarcastic remarks he makes to anything Steve says goes to show that, and Tony has to hide a grin behind his glass when Steve frowns and says, “I don’t think your… place likes me.”
And it’s funny that Steve doesn’t even know what to call Jarvis. Not that Tony’s all that sure either, because he’s been beyond artificial intelligence for a long time now, but Skynet just sounds tacky, and anything less than Jarvis just doesn’t fit right.
Tony shakes his head, swallows a mouthful of amber liquid he wonders if he can pass off as apple juice, and grins again. “Nah, that’s just Jarvis. He’s English,” he says, as if that’s an excuse. It kind of is, in a way, considering how he came about the accent, but Tony doesn’t tell anyone about that, not even Pepper.
Jarvis is still choosy about his reactions to Natasha, flirts with Bruce with science talk, insults and zaps Thor at any given chance, and blandly informs Clint that the air ducts are too small for him, the penthouse is taken, and somehow manages to tangle his line when he tries to drop down the elevator shaft.
His reaction to Loki is surprisingly civil, if only because Tony is taking everything in stride, isn’t mad the guy tossed him out his own window and left a crater in his living room and tried to destroy his home planet. In fact, Loki looks a bit like Dummy after being threatened with donation to random experimental colleges, and the comparison is quite striking. Enough that he’s back at the tower, strapped to a bed, naked.
Tony realizes the irony of that and wonders how many jokes he can make before Thor tries to punch him.
When Loki comes back to reality, blinks his eyes open and curses the straps of the bed, Thor is the first one to offer his services to calm his estranged brother. Tony talks him out of it, barely, and because nobody else wants to do the deed and actually leave Loki breathing, Tony gets volunteered.
It’s probably not the smartest idea as group decisions go.
-
Tony continues scratching at the ice for a good five minutes before he realizes that Loki is actually snarling at him, dark blue lips curled in a sneer and teeth bared; Tony waves a hand. “Look, I get it: you’re crazy; you looked into the abyss and the abyss stared back. Whatever. You were mind-fucked by your little pimp-cane-disco-stick. Not your fault, all that bullshit, am I close?”
Loki doesn’t cease his snarl. He leans up, opens his mouth, and tries to bite Tony. The straps tighten themselves, hold Loki down while he thrashes and screams like a mental patient going through an episode. When he calms down enough that he’s only shaking and breathing hard, the straps loosen and then disappear.
“Thanks, Jarvis.”
Loki blinks at that and raises trembling hands to his face, covers it until he catches his breath. “Why?” he asks, his voice rougher than he’s used to; he’s not even sure what he’s asking.
Tony shrugs, puts one hand between Loki’s knees as he leans back, looking far too relaxed in such a great enemy’s presence, weakened though it may be. “I don’t know. I think he likes you.” He shrugs again, scratches at a scrape on his arm. “You should like him too. He’s the biggest reason Thor hasn’t figured out the toaster yet.”
Loki raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask. Tony smiles and answers regardless. “Apparently Asgardian’s have…electric personalities. Who knew?”
There’s a few moments of silence while Tony waits for Loki to speak, and just as he’s about to make a joke about liking it rough, Loki says, “You mentioned the abyss…” And then trails off; Tony nods, licks his lips at the memory. “You have seen it?”
“Yeah, briefly. I’ve seen worse.”
Loki’s eyes narrow, beady red and glowing as they focus on him. “Then you did not stay long enough, and you did not go far enough. The things in there, they drive gods to madness. A mortal man would not survive it.”
Tony sits up, straightens his spine and bends just a hair closer into the coldness that surrounds Loki. “I never said I survived it. But I like to think I’m a better man because of it.”
“Then you are a fool.”
“Yeah, maybe I am. But then, so are you.” Tony stands, turns to leave, stops. “Jarvis, you can turn the speakers back on after this.” He looks over his shoulder at Loki, lets his eyes harden, linger on his arms before turning back to his face. “There’s other darkness than your little space odyssey, as I’m sure you know, but if you do anything stupid, Jarvis has orders to use more force than necessary.”
And then Tony was gone.