Chapter 26
"He´s fine, in case you were wondering." Bruce leaned against the threshold, and observed as Tony bolted two pieces together.
Tony nodded stiffly, to show he´d heard, but otherwise gave no answer. Bruce waited patiently in his place, though.
Two seconds went by before the bearded man finally spoke.
"What, did they call you to check on how many times he could be beaten around before something broke?"
"More like they wouldn´t let Thor or Steve check on him, and Natasha and Clint wanted no part of it."
"His face when he saw you must´ve been gold." He muttered lowly, and said no more.
Bruce walked into the lab and took a seat on one of the soft blue rolling chairs, set to watch his friend. Tony´s brow was furrowed, and his hands lacked their usual precision, the screwdriver sliding off its mark half of the times.
"... You´re not going to see him." The screwdriver´s point slipped across the smooth metal surface and clattered on the work table.
"Fury won´t let me if I tried."
"But you haven´t." He rolled closer to the table. "It´s been three weeks already."
Tony blinked slowly, counting back days until he realized that Bruce was spot-on with his dates. Three weeks... Three weeks in which he´d done absolutely nothing but hole down in his lab and sleeping. He didn´t feel guilty, he knew Steve would´ve come to get him if there had been something important happening outside.
"I´ve been busy."
"Right." Bruce climbed to his feet and patted his shoulder once on his way back to the door. "I heard Fury said there was another sighting yesterday. You should probably tell Steve or something."
"Bruce?"
The scientist stopped and turned again, but Tony still faced his whatever-he-was-working-at.
"Yes?" He asked after a moment of silence.
"Did he ask for me?"
Bruce shrugged. "Not to me. But then again we´re not the best of friends."
Tony looked at him over his shoulder, the hint of a smile pulling at his lips. "Did you even talk about anything or did you just sat glaring at each other for thirty minutes?"
The older man mirrored a small smile. "I did ask him how good of a host Fury was. As I told him, we could very well be cell neighbors one day. He seemed to like it enough to stop glaring for two seconds."
The inventor turned to his table again. "That´s how he shows love, ask Thor."
"I feel honored, then." He turned to leave once more. "Ask Jarvis to check on that sighting, really. I get the feeling S.H.I.E.L.D. held it from us on purpose." He closed the door behind him, and Tony found himself alone once again.
--
"I don´t suppose you are allowed to be here?" Loki spoke, and Thor froze on the threshold.
He looked around the white room. He thanked they gave his brother the privacy they didn´t give him when they put him in his crystal cell back when he´d been banished, even though he knew he was surely being watched with hidden cameras. At first glance there was nothing on the room, but there were of course white chairs and a table all bolted to the floor and even a white sliding door at the back of the room that he supposed lead to a (probably white) privy. At last, he found Loki on a narrow, sheet-less and very white bed, where he laid still as a statue with his hands twined lazily over his belly, his eyes closed and his face blank. He had probably been sleeping before he entered. Just sleeping.
Still, it was too much. The whiteness, the emptiness, the stillness and the pose. His stomach churned on itself.
"Get off that bed." He ordered, perhaps a bit rougher than what he´d intended. He watched the corner of Loki´s mouth twitch, and suddenly he wished he´d been rougher. Or that he could strangle him a little.
"I´m in no position to deserve a white mourning room, dear Thor."
"I would build you one."
"That´s because you never learn from your mistakes Do you really think me innocent, Thor? After all this?" Loki pushed himself of the bed and walked up to the table
"No. But I love you all the same." Thor took a seat across him and the tired pout on Loki{s face made him want to smile.
"Then you better start building."
Thor said nothing, the truth behind Loki´s words weighed like a sword over their heads.
"Father assures no harm shall befall you. I think he plans to intercede if things get out of hand."
"And we´re back to matters of faith." Loki examined his nails, bored. "Has he given you any clues as to what he wants to see in order to lift my curse? I can play the repent, reformed son."
"We all know you can, that´s the point. But no, he hasn´t. And I haven´t got an idea, either. He holds no special love for midgardians, like I do, and we´ve paid our debts in wealth. At first I thought he had foreseen something similar to what happened when I was banished but..."
"But I´m not you. I have come to understand earthlings, but not to love them. And I don´t intend to."
"No one intends to love, Loki. It just happens."
"You live in fairytales, Thor."
"Those are much better than your dusty old books."
"Why are we discussing trivial matters?"
"At this point, everything´s trivial." Thor smiled. "It is a cruel jest, that the midgardians should hold your fate in their hands as we once held theirs."
"The irony of it is not lost to me."
Thor sobered. "How are you faring, brother? Have they...?"
"They have." Loki pulled a sleeve up his forearm, to show a trail of reddened, recently healed skin. "It´s just needleplay for now. It should not worry you so. I ought to do quite good unless my little... problem comes out."
"You mean..." And by the way the other´s eyes pointed to the corners of the room, Thor knew he didn´t want to take the risk, even if the listening devices might have been affected by his presence. "Then you are quite safe."
"I would, however, warn them about Asgard´s extremely noble weather, and how high and low temperatures both are quite deadly to Asgardians... I´d try doing so myself if I thought they´d believe me." Loki arched an eyebrow.
Thor nodded. Extreme cold could cause Loki to revert back to his true appearance, and extreme heat could very well kill him.
"I might offer such information to the Son of Coul later... Now if you would excuse me, I think I have overstayed the time Steven offered to buy me."
"That man is too good for his own good." Loki stretched and headed back for the bed.
"Brother."
"Hm?"
"Do you wish to... Send another message?"
Loki looked back. Thor stood at the door, his hands in his worn jean´s pockets, and a curious expression in his face.
"Why Thor, I don´t even know anymore." And he cut whatever retort there might have been by (not) fleeing through the bathroom door and closing it behind him.
--
The Chitauri slipped back into the shadows. It was clear by the way he kept to them that it had no means to disguise itself.
It eyed the Tower from time to time, as if it could have gone away from where it stood five minutes ago. Natasha tapped on her communicator, bringing it to life with a blur of static.
"There´s just one here. How many on your side?"
Clint watched Thor and Steve drive away, and returned his attention to the shadowy alleys he´d been checking on.
"Seven. I see another one making its way from two streets down."
She made a face.
"And how do they know he´s there? The last time he used magic there was weeks ago..."
"Maybe they smell him."
"Clint."
"You´re no fun Nat."
--
When he was sure Thor was gone, Loki walked back into the white room and to the bed. He laid down again, assuming the statue-like position the other god had found him in.
He closed his eyes and felt himself fall into a trance-like state. He couldn´t allow himself the benefit of real sleep within S.H.I.E.L.D.´s quarters, so he resorted to this.
He was tired. The experiments themselves weren´t exhausting per se, but the waiting was. The uncertainty. Ever since his admission in the white room he´d had no news from the outside, and he had nearly lost the track of time once.
Every day he checked for a sign that his curse had been lifted that he was himself gain, but it was no good, and this particular one had been no exception. He wondered if Odin might have just given up on him…
What would he tell his golden son, who held such a blind faith on him?
What would he tell his queen, who had gifted him (her little one, her lost son returned home) with a teary, relieved and simply loving look when he had dared looking up at her during his audience?
What would he tell himself, when he let the child he´d raised die a second time?
He wouldn´t.
He wouldn´t just let him… Fall.
--
"Is yours moving too?" Clint asked as he gathered his bow and set on a pace across the warehouse´s rooftop he´d chosen for his vigilance.
"It is. It´s going downtown."
"Looks like we´ve got a date." The archer grinned and cut the communication before any reply could come through.
On her side, Natasha huffed through a tight-lipped smile and set off too.
--
The Chitauri moved slowly. Not only because the streets were as crowded as they could be n a New York evening, but it seemed as if every step required great effort. It stopped to catch its breath a couple of times, before it reached a park in a shady neighborhood.
Natasha stood on edge, watching for any children that might cross the alien´s path and prepared to intervene, but the place was eerily empty. The creature crawled across unkempt grass and rusty swing sets and… Dissappeared.
She tapped on her mic.
"Clint. Where are you?" She whispered.
"Right across the street. Did you see that? Mine went in there too."
She looked around, uncertain, and found him climbing down an emergency ladder on the side of an apartment building. When he reached the ground, he gave her a thumbs up and pointed at himself and the park. She shook her head. There was no way he was going alone.
However, when she moved from her position, his voice cracked through the earpiece.
"We can´t both go in. I´ll tell you if I need help so you can come down or get reinforcements." He muttered, before dashing across the street and into the park. Natasha crouched back into a waiting position while a bad feeling crept through her gut.
--
The sound of metal clattering together usually had a calming effect on him, but today it made his ears ring and his head throb. He picked up the loose piece and placed it back on the worktable.
He needed a shower. And some valium.
The elevator ride felt eternal, ad he covered his eyes with an oil-stained hand to shield them from the intense white light.
The darkened room was a relief, as was the hot shower, and the pills on his nightstand.
It was only after he´d swallowed them that he realized he hadn´t opened the drawer that held them, and only then he heard the soft beat of heels against the rug.
"Rough day?"
He groaned, letting himself fall on the mattress with an arm over his eyes. "Rough three weeks."
"Now you´re just being dramatic."
He shifted his forearm a little, to peek at Pepper from under it. The redhead smiled fondly and took a seat on the bed next to him.
"Maybe I am… Sue me."
"Oh, trust me, I´m hoarding motives for a lawsuit big enough to take the rest of the company."
Tony covered his eye again, smiling. "You´re evil. I always go for the evil ones." He let his voice die and the silence stretch or a second. "How did this happen, Peps?"
He felt her shift and lie down at his side.
"I have a theory about Stockholm syndrome, but I wouldn´t bet my head on it. The other theory says you just like messing with the rules too much and that I would bet on."
"It was just a fling. A one-night stand. I shouldn´t want…"
"But you do."
He sighed. "What I want is a nice, cold scotch. That has never caused me any trouble."
"Save from that one time at the party…"
"That we agreed no one would her of again, that one?"
"Precisely." He could hear Pepper´s smile. "Just go see him. I don´t really like the man, but…"
But you don´t know when your last chance will be.
The words hung between them, unsaid.
"It´s supposed to be the other way around, you know?" Tony took his arm off his face and stared at the ceiling, glad for the increased darkness of the room now that the sun had set completely. "He´s immortal He shouldn´t be the one dying."
Pepper found his hand and squeezed it. Tony said nothing.
"And what if he doesn´t get killed?" She whispered, as if to not disturb the easy silence that had set on the room. Next to her, Tony remained silent, but her hand was gradually squeezed back. She smiled. "That´s more like it."
"Coulson will kill me if I get in again."
"Then I hope you mention me often in your testament."
--
Steve got up to his feet the moment he heard the knock at his door. The sound was hurried and desperate, and he was on the edge even before he pulled it open and found Natasha on the threshold.
He inhaled sharply, surprised. Her hair was a mess, decorated here and here with broken twigs and dry blades of grass, her skin paler than ever and her eyes narrow and wild. Her right hand pressed on her hip.
"What happened?" He lost no time.
"We found the Chitauri." She reported from between paper-white lips, looking up at him.
He blinked once, confused. "Well that´s amazing. Are you hurt?"
Why didn´t you inform Fury first?
She stared right into his eyes as if she could read the question in them. Then she spoke.
"Clint." And her right hand slipped, the blood that was invisible in her black suit bright on her skin, Steve caught her as she lost consciousness.