Saying Your Names

“Oh god oh god what the hell—”

“You’re alive, I am going to—”

“My reactor—”

He needs it--he’s had it for years, it’s practically a fucking pacemaker--he needs it back, he’s going to die, that’s what he’s trying not to do, what the hell was he thinking, why did he—

There’s an inhuman shriek, a blaze of green fire and a roil of void from between Thor and Thanos. Thor and Thanos fall apart, Thor’s light rapidly dimming and form coalescing to only Thor the human-looking.

“What did you do?” Loki whispers, staring at where the void is already beginning to coalesce, the same infinitely massive coils and twisting many-headed shadow beast that Tony met inside the Tesseract. The heads are assessing, looking around, some focusing on Thor, the rest on Thanos, and they seem torn on which way to go, a threatened snarl in the air even as the other heads begin to rear up to lunge at Thanos.

“Get Thor out of there,” Tony says weakly, leaning more and more on Loki for support. “I need my reactor, fuck—”

Loki looks at him, tenses, then starts swearing in a language Tony doesn’t know, letting Tony drop to the ground to dive forward.

Tony slumps to the ground, a little grateful if he’s honest. He doesn’t feel well, but then Loki and Thor are both there, Thor looking pissed as hell--but the distance from the Tesseract shard of Loki seems to have helped it make up its mind. Tony can’t see what’s happening, just can hear Thanos cursing and growling, see a sudden flash of colour between coils every now and then as he almost manages--and doesn’t that bode ill.

There’s a satisfying snick as Loki manages to get everything reconnected again and Tony heaves a sigh of relief right in his worried face.

“What is that?” Loki demands.

“You,” Tony says. “Don’t you recognize yourself?”

“That is not me,” Loki says. “I am yet whole.”

“Well fuck,” Tony says, looking past Loki to where the heads have merged into a larger one, mouth stretched wide as it swallows Thanos whole.

***

“I thought it was you!” Tony says. “How the hell do you think I got back? I asked you!”

“Do you just go up to every void horror and assume it’s me?”

“It is you, the eyes are right—”

“Friends,” Thor says, tight and strained.

“What?” they say in unison, looking at Thor.

Thor nods.

They turn. The void thing is settling its coils and already Tony can see that it’s changing in new ways; there are stars and galaxies starting to shimmer across its form like scales, a chill aura that’s frosting the ground beneath it. It’s familiar, so familiar, like Tony knows this form, has seen it before in a dozens different lives.

“It’s you,” Tony says again, certain, all the heat of argument gone.

Thor and Loki exchange glances.

“In the Tesseract, it kept chasing after me. I figured you’d just paid part of yourself to get us out, or left some of yourself behind. That maybe the Tesseract had started to catalogue what you had left.”

It starts to slink closer, familiar green eyes fixated on Tony. Next to him, Loki growls, steps closer so that his shoulder bumps against Tony’s, standing just barely ahead of him.

“Loki,” Tony says quietly, “sit tight for a second. I’ve got this. It won’t hurt me”

Loki gives him an incredulous look, protest and more behind it, but Tony just steps past him and waves at the looming monstrosity as he steps out of his armour.

The returning hum could only be called pleased.

“See?” Tony says, more for Loki’s benefit. “I guess I just create you no matter what universe I’m in, if there’s any possibility of it. I needed you to get me out, you know? So you showed up.”

One of the heads nudges Tony, nearly knocking him over. He can feel Loki tense behind him, but he’s also not outright springing to attack--just coiled for it.

“Even?” Tony asks the void Loki.

Another hum.

“Great. Now go home--not me this time. Actually where you belong.”

It eyes Loki, as if it doesn’t quite trust Tony that it does, in fact, belong with the much smaller godling.

“If it was created in another universe,” Thor says, “then it no more belongs to this Loki than it does to this universe.”

“Yeah, well I’m not sending it back to the Tesseract,” Tony snaps. “Loki’s Loki.” He glances back at his own. “Right?”

The two Lokis size each other up. It’s not hard to sense which is the stronger of the two, not now--the void Loki is still digesting Thanos but rapidly growing to be a Presence in a way that even a fully pissed off and worshiped here Loki is. Tony probably should have thought about that.

“In theory,” Loki finally says, eyes still narrowed suspiciously.

“Loki takes care of Loki,” Thor says quietly with a sidelong glance at his brother. “Tony, what you propose would make him far more than he is now. There are—”

“--consequences, yeah, I know. And prices.” He looks at Loki. “Remember what we talked about?”

“If you change your mind, I will devour you,” Loki says, entirely serious, but he’s stepping forward next to Tony. “How do you propose to do this, then?”

He’s talking to the void Loki. Tony hesitates a second, then backs up as a coil shoves him out of the way, returning to stand by Thor.

“This is not wise,” Thor rumbles, arms crossed over his chest.

“Is that a trait we’re supposed to have?”

Thor shakes his head. There’s still anger, but beneath there’s so much disappointment that Tony's glad he’s not the one bearing the weight.

For a long moment, it doesn’t look like anything is happening, and then there’s a slight change in pressure and the void creature is gone except for a pale white-green nimbus around Loki that quickly vanishes. Loki stands still, sways on his feet with his head bowed. Thor and Tony exchange glances, both starting to head towards him just before Loki throws his head back and laughs. His skin is rippling, changing, blue sweeping over it as ice crackles over the ground beneath his feet, the shadows in his form shifting like light over water with glimpses of elseways in them, and beneath him his shadow is twisting, changing, flashing so quickly between forms that Tony can’t follow them all, only feel the raw power hit him like a breaking wave as Loki laughs and laughs and laughs.

He turns.

There are horns, wicked multilayered things that rise a few inches from his head, strange white-blue lines that trace patterns over his face. His eyes are molten red with green gleaming in the depths, a heated core that promises more than the destruction and cold death in the void that the rest of him so embodies. His eyes latch onto Tony and Tony stops breathing--not from fear, but rightness.

This--this is Loki as he should be, Loki as he is meant to be. For a shining moment, there’s no hunger in Tony, only certainty--there is nothing they cannot shape between the two of them, not when Loki is like this. Tony greedily takes him in, all of him, stepping towards him with hands that itch to touch, to trace the lines that promise an architecture and plan that the rest of the universe will always be too slow to realize, to taste him, this this this—

“Tony,” Loki says, but it’s too small, too narrow to possibly at all contain what he does--Loki says his name like a hymn, a promise, a benediction, says it as if he is passing commandments from on high. Says it and makes it fundamental law—”Beloved.”

Tony kisses him before Loki says anything else and reduces him to utter incoherence. It’s touching a live wire, Loki too hot and too cold at once, a jolt that tears through Tony from head to toe, pure exaltation, and he’s babbling Loki’s name, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and trying to map his mouth and too sharp teeth, like maybe if he presses hard enough they’ll be one soul like they were, once, before.

“Tony,” Loki sighs, eyes half closing.