Part 3 - Chp 8
“You still can’t see it?” Tony demands, though it comes out in between breaths. The thing is tearing after him, he can hear it, and a glance back proves that it’s still right there as it chooses that moment to screech at him again revealing fangs and venom and a pink maw ready to swallow him whole or die trying.
“No,” Jarvis says.
“Okay, time for second stupid thing then.”
“Sir, might I recommend—”
Tony stops dead, turns around, and fires another shot. The beast recoils, twists around, but it’s so big there’s no way Tony’s missing--but that’s not what he’s trying to do.
“You aren’t real,” he tells it, trying to believe it. “Jarvis can’t pick you up in any readings which means you. Aren’t. Real.”
The shot doesn’t connect. Tony doesn’t see where it goes, but it doesn’t matter.
(Words are power here.)
It doesn’t connect.
He nearly victory punches, but the creature maneuvers around to watch him, antlered and fanged and he might have managed to convince himself for a moment that it wasn’t real, but it’s a lot harder when it’s flattening its necks in preparation of striking with—
“Loki?” Tony says, because he knows the colour of all the many sets of eyes watching him. It goes to strike, but he doesn’t think for a second that it’s real--Loki won’t hurt him.
He knows it with the certainty of dying.
He’s standing on nothing. There’s no tower, no creature trying to play at Loki, just utter darkness all around him, just like Jarvis has been saying all this time. Nothing.
“It looked like Loki,” he says to Jarvis. He frowns; feels like that should mean something, but he isn’t sure what. He isn’t frightened of Loki, hasn’t been since he died, and it makes no sense that whatever this space is would tip its hand so badly….
Maybe they didn’t know. It. Whatever this space is. He’s not sure. Glancing around, already the darkness is beginning to change, a form starting to rise out of it. Another space, another playground.
Tony can’t say he’s impressed.
“I just wanted to hear you again Jarvis, is that so much to ask?” he complains, watching the pieces come together.
***
The motif repeats. Tight spaces and dark and endless hallways, endless stairways--Tony assumes, because he’s not running. Every time, it comes back to facing the monster down, however it chooses to appear, and every time it’s the eyes that break the spell.
It’s never anymore real than the last time; frankly, Tony’s starting to get a bit bored.
Except.
This is a puzzle. It’s not just keeping him trapped, though he’s been talking over with Jarvis various ways to try to get out--saying that he was out nearly did the trick before the space closed back down with a flare of blue so bright it may as well have been white. That--that’s what’s got him tipped off, frankly, because he knows that blue and he knows the green of those eyes and he knows the one thing Loki will never do is harm him.
It wasn’t Thanos--at least not entirely. Loki panicked to get them out from inside the Tesseract, or whatever it is this space is.
(But he knows that blue-white glow.)
In the process, he gave something up.
(There’s always a price.)
Tony stands his ground as the scene plays out again, paying attention to his peripheral and the subtle movement there. It’s a hallway again, this time in a rickety old house that belongs more to a B-movie horror flick than his subconscious. Whether it’s the Tesseract or this particular piece of Loki, all these scenes have been laughably out of touch with actual humanity--it’s made it easier and easier with every pass to not flinch first.
“Really, what are the chances that I always end up where he needs me?” he complains while he waits for this to hurry up and play out.
“Well, sir, as his soulmate, I would dare venture one hundred percent.”
“Haha, very funny.” He glances over his shoulder, trying to give off impatience in case it hurries things up at all. “Can you get on with it?”
One of the heads gives him a baleful look while the rest try to go for menacing. The venom is a nice touch really, all acidic and burning through the ground. Finally, he’s starting to get bored of these things too--a bored Loki is a dangerous Loki.
At least Tony hopes so.
“Here’s a thought,” Tony says, “Let’s leave.”
There’s a growl. Tony turns around to face him, relieved that this time the damn thing doesn’t just vanish and take off again. This whole process has just been overly tedious--the Tesseract has so little damn creativity in trying to consume him or subsume him, so pettily focused on having a part of Loki that’s been bought and conscripted fuck Tony over that it hasn’t realized the problem with that is Loki.
Maybe the rest of the Tesseract hive mind is good with the endless and monotonous, is totally striving for it, but even this quiet nightmare of a part of him remembers too much of more to be satisfied.
“Let’s make a deal.”
Almost immediately the scene starts to fall apart, a sudden hike in attention and pressure. Someone isn’t happy about that; Tony just makes sure to talk faster, closing the distance between the two of them and releasing the catches for one of his gauntlets.
Most of this isn’t real, but Tony’s real enough that the skin contact is going to matter.
He’s something to hold onto, and he holds his hand out for just that as the shade starts to fade. A clawed hand grabs for his.
“You’re real,” Tony tells him and doesn’t flinch when the claws dig into his skin, just keeps his eyes on one set of green. “I know where you belong, and it isn’t here. I’ll take you back to the whole when we get out.”
How? It’s not spoken, it’s all in the eyes--this shade hasn’t spoken once, just growled and hissed and snarled and tried over and over to frighten him without words because words weren’t something that he’s been allowed. Loki didn’t give up his words when he left this part of himself here in payment to get them all out.
“I believe in you,” Tony says simply, tugging just enough to haul the still fading shade closer, for claws the Tesseract is desperately trying to make unreal again to draw blood. “An offering.” He pulls his hand away gently and offers the freshly cut skin up.
There are dozens of eyes focused, transforming, until there’s only one set of eyes, until there’s only a great and vast beast with only one head and one set of antlers focused on him, eyes greedy and green and fire underneath it all.
“Loki,” Tony says, “take us home.”