Loki watched Anthony’s life fade.
He remembered saying it to Thor and wished desperately he could take it back; of all the things he said…he’d never thought he’d get the chance to experience it firsthand. He never thought he’d have to endure the agony of watching someone he loved so fade right before his eyes.
“This day, the next, a hundred years…it’s nothing! It’s a heartbeat! You’ll never be ready.”
Loki was unable to do anything as his love faded.
Anthony had made it painfully clear he would not accept immortality, and Loki would respect that wish, no matter how much it pained him to do so.
Loki had watched with unadulterated joy as Anthony had thrown away the last bottle of alcohol behind the bar without so much as a blink.
He’d been clean three months now.
Loki had never been more proud.
He’d watched as Anthony had tossed and turned about, his own mind haunting him more than anything else ever could.
Loki had attempted to soothe his lover with gentle touches and soft reassurances, but it only seemed to make whatever the inventor was going through worse.
He’d watched as Anthony had broken when Pepper had died of cancer three years after he and Loki had gotten together.
Loki had held the mortal close as he sobbed.
He’d refused to let Anthony go out and get anymore alcohol.
Anthony had struck him and then held the fist to his mouth, eyes wide and tears spilling again as he sobbed out apologies and Loki soothed him; told him it was okay.
Loki never lied, though; never gave falsified pretenses that everything would be alright when both of them knew damn well it wouldn’t be.
Loki had watched as white took over Anthony’s hair, and the color of his eyes had dulled.
He’d watched as hands once so strong; hands that once held so much power; hands that created became crippled; useless.
He’d watched those very hands on so many other occasions gather up scraps of metal and fix what had been broken; Anthony always had been good at that; fixing things, putting them back together an entirely new and ultimately better way after they’d been broken.
He’d been able to do it to Loki.
He’d watched as eyes that had once held so much life faded, dulled until the brown was no longer alight with curiosity but rather defeat; no longer wonder but foreboding.
He’d watched as Anthony was rushed to the hospital when his lung collapsed and he’d watched as the doctors tried and failed to get Anthony breathing again.
He’d watched as they’d gone to remove Anthony’s arc reactor and then Loki had torn in there with tears marking hot paths down his cheeks and fingers sparking with green energy because how dare they touch his mortal?
He’d taken the reactor gently from its cradle within Anthony’s chest and held it close to his own; it was as if, for a moment, he was holding his mortal’s heart within his hands.
He refused to let anyone touch it.
He kept it hidden; anyone who dared laid eyes on it had seen too much already.
Loki watched Anthony’s life fade and he faded with the inventor- his inventor. His mortal. His everything.
He was sure his screams of agony could be heard in every realm throughout the universe.
Every night he held Anthony’s life in his hands, still burning brightly with magic that Loki fueled into it, and wished that there was some way for him to have his mortal back once more; but Anthony had known the price of immortality just as Loki had known the price of loving a mortal.
It was something neither had been prepared to pay.
The day the light stopped shining would be the day Loki stopped breathing.
It had been fading for the past three hundred years and seemed to diminish even further each year on the anniversary of Anthony’s death.
Soon, it would cease to shine and Loki would cease to exist.
He remembered something Anthony had said to him once; a promise.
“What would you have of me, Anthony?” Loki had asked.
Anthony smiled up at him; the one that was more in his eyes and seemed to light them as if they’d shine as bright as the stars.
“Everything.”