Made and Unmade
Tony hasn’t thought of his soulmate in years now. He hasn’t even seen his true reflection since he created false ones using cameras that showed a high definition live video instead of a reflection. After all, one can't get as perfect a shave as his while blind.
The media still occasionally asks about his soulmate and he gives them all the same story. The only thing he sees in the mirror is himself. As far as anyone is concerned there is no Mrs. Stark out there, all the world assuming she must have passed away before he could find her. Without a soulmate, Tony has been free to whore around as much as he pleased without too much controversy.
The only one who knows the truth is Rhodey, due to a single night of drunkenness that led to Tony revealing his complicated situation. Since then, Rhodey gave up trying to talk to him about it, but the look he gives Tony whenever catching him with his latest floozy has a touch of sadness to it that Tony tries not to notice. When there's no project or stranger keeping him up, sometimes Tony dreams of blue skin and red eyes that he wakes up from feeling empty and cold, but a pint of whiskey makes him forget even those.
Tony has everything he could ever want in life. He is the biggest weapons manufacturer on the planet, a renowned genius, and when anyone hears the name Stark they think of him, not his father. Of course, he couldn’t erase Howard completely but when he's mentioned in articles it's him being compared to Tony and coming up short.
Unfortunately, having everything doesn't include the person that deserved to see him make it there the most. He had to bury Jarvis years ago, but not ready to let him go quite yet Tony performed his greatest feat. He breathed life into the most advanced artificial intelligence ever created, and he named it JARVIS.
That's who he spends the most time with, who he lets see every facet of himself. Who needs healthy emotional connections with human beings when you have a sardonic, and practically living, computer to banter with at four am? That's what you can find Tony doing in his workshop currently, while triple checking the schematics for his newest weapon, the Jericho Missile. He had to showcase the missile for the U.S. Military in two days and he used that for his reason why he was still up.
"Once again, there are no mistakes to be found, sir." JARVIS relays.
"Of course, there isn't, I made it." Tony says smugly, "But, better safe than sorry, old pal. Run it again."
"Sir, may I share a deduction I've made based on the last three diagnostic scans I've run?" JARVIS goes on without waiting for Tony to answer, "At this rate, the most likely malfunction to occur during the presentation of Jericho is the presenter falling asleep midway through it."
Tony sighs, knowing the A.I. is right. He should sleep now, Lord knows he won't be able to in the uncomfortable humvee transporting him to the middle of the Afghanistan desert where the demonstration will take place. But then he remembers how big and empty his bed is.
"You underestimate me, Jay. A few cups of coffee and I'll be fit as a fiddle, ready to demonstrate those military guys right out of their camo socks." Tony says, taking a sip out of his mug to accentuate his point. JARVIS points out the faults in this plan of action and the rest of the night is spent bickering with the AI until the sun rises. Finally, as seven am rolls around, Tony gives in to the AI's pleads and passes out on the couch he has in the lab for this reason. The sleep is dreamless, his brain too exhausted to do much more than rest.
Loki is startled from his sleep and finds himself drenched in a cold sweat. This rude awakening is accompanied by a horribly intense feeling of dread. He has the unshakable need to check his reflection and after a few short moments of trying to resist the feeling, he relents, conjuring a mirror in front of him. Loki has no clue what to expect as he hasn't seen the mortal in years. In no way could he have expected this.
He can't help but gasp at the image that is presented to him. A familiar man, dirty and pale. His naked chest covered in red, a gaping wound where his heart should be. The shock stole Loki's breath away. All he could do is stare in mute horror as the man screamed and thrashed around in his unconscious state.
Suddenly, the man started to convulse and Loki watched the image in the mirror flicker until it only reflected his own pale face, dull green eyes staring back at him. He shattered the mirror. He couldn’t get a hold on his thoughts. He felt grief, he felt confused, and most of all he felt anger. Age or his own hand was supposed to be the mortal’s end. Not whatever that was.
Of course, the mortal was so weak as to not even survive until his timely death? Worthless. As his anger raged on, a thought occurred to Loki. Shouldn't he be happy? Finally, the smear on his soul was gone. Isn't this supposed to be freeing? His rage dissipated and he tried to listen to that part of his brain, but a louder, and more confusing, part of him was in despair.
Eventually, logic won over the war in his thoughts. He cannot grieve a stranger. He was sad only because he was now alone in the world, doomed from the start of his life to never have a proper soulmate. He didn’t actually care for the mortal. He can move on with his life, now.
Loki wiped away the tears he was horrified to find flooding from his eyes and he dropped a large shard of glass he was even more horrified to find clutched in a bloody fist. He cleaned the mess he made and took a few seconds to heal the wound. It wasn't his best work as a sliver of shiny skin was left in the cut's place, scarring his palm.
As he lay in the dark of his room, sleep evaded the god. He stared lazily at the scar, the only evidence of what had occurred that night, a trauma only to be shared with himself. A reminder of what he once had, yet, was never meant to have at the same time.
Tony was fighting for his life, blinking in and out of consciousness from the burning pain in his chest. He could only see his surroundings in flashes, his eyes unable to stay open, and in those flashes, he could see a mirror above where he's laying. How did he end up from the desert to a metal table?
In the mirror, he saw a man who seemed to be preparing him for surgery, but what really caught his eyes was the blue figure with large red eyes staring right into Tony's, filled with shock and fear. Tony was almost glad to not be able to see himself, it must have been quite the sight if that expression was anything to go off.
It was then that Tony heard a loud noise aside from what must have been his own screams and the pain in his chest spiked. His subconscious makes the connection that the noise is coming from his heart monitor flat-lining. He could feel himself convulse and his chest seized right around where his heart should be. Then, as easy as one moment shifting into another, Tony felt absolutely nothing at all. His mind emptied, red eyes the last thing on his mind until even that was gone.
It's been a few days since Loki saw his soulmate for the last time. While he has become freer with where his eyes wander he still outright avoids mirrors, not wanting to see his own face and feel the disappointment and emptiness that came with it. Loki is sharing a meal with his family and pretending to listen to the boring story Thor was trying to tell him when he finds himself zoning out into his ale. It takes him a moment to process that it was not his own face looking back at him from its amber surface.
Loki pales as he stares at the haggard-looking, but none-the-less, alive man. He was thin and his facial hair was growing out in odd lengths. How did he survive that wound? Loki thought to himself in shock. He watched the man die.
Loki feels eyes watching him and fixes his expression to one of passive disinterest once again. When he doesn’t slip again he can feel the eyes leave him. Inside, though, he is still reeling. It was mildly irritating that he couldn't move on like he decided to do but he also caught himself somehow feeling overwhelming relief.
Loki smiles along with his brother, still not hearing the tale he’s boasting about. Thor smiles back, misunderstanding the source of Loki's mirth to be comradery. Loki can't say he quite understands it either but he doesn’t want to think too hard on it. He does let one thought through, and that thought is that maybe his mortal isn’t as weak as he had assumed all this time.
Loki is suffering and he has been for years. He tried and tried but nothing ever worked. But now he understands why. Why he was never meant to make Odin proud and why he never felt equal to Thor. The reason behind why he felt such anger and contempt towards the people around him. He was a monster, has been a monster his whole life, and how could a monster ever stand next to Thor? Or even behind him?
Loki was never meant to be Asgard's King, he knew that, but now he also knows that he wasn't even meant to be alive. No, he was always meant to end up where he was right then. Below Thor, below Odin, teetering above his own death. His thoughts were confirmed by the Allfather himself with only two words. No, Loki. He looked at the man he had thought to be his father. Then he looked into Thor’s eyes as he told Loki to hold on. For what? There was nothing left for him, nothing worth holding onto. Loki thought briefly of his soulmate and the irony of the mortal outliving him.
With one last look at what used to be his family, his whole life, Loki let go. The void seemed to reach for him, pulling him even quicker into its fatal depths. The nothingness swallowed Thor’s screams for him and it didn't take long until it also swallowed his own.
Tony was trying to make the best out of the event he was forced to attend. It’s crazy just how many of these things he still has to attend since he handed over the company to Pepper. He was enjoying a particularly strong drink, sitting at the gala's bar, chatting up some ass-kissers when he suddenly feels like his feet have given out below him. It felt like Tony was free-falling without a parachute. He gets dizzy from the disorientation almost becoming sick on the spot and he’s not even that drunk yet.
He briefly wonders if he's been drugged as he excuses himself and stumbles to the washroom to catch his bearings in private. He's grateful that it’s empty and he locks the door behind him. He is trying to calm his heartbeat, and anxiously places a hand over the glowing new addition in his chest when he notices his reflection in the corner of his eye. He was used to ignoring the blue always in his peripheral vision whenever mirrors couldn't be avoided. That is why he's thrown off when the blue isn’t there.
Tony rushes to the mirror and he watches himself pale. He lightly touches his own face watching the mirror-image reflecting the same movement. He couldn't believe his eyes. He felt sick. The alcohol he's already consumed that night didn't help so he vomits in the sink.
It isn't lost on the genius what this means. The likelihood of mental illness just magically healing itself after a lifetime was next to impossible. It must have been real the whole time.
How long have they been gone? How long since they... Tony tried to think. He could have sworn he saw blue in his peripheral vision just a few hours ago when passing mirrored shop windows. It had to have been just now when that weird falling sensation came over him. Tony heard that sometimes you can feel weird things when your soulmate dies but it was incredibly rare.
Tony realizes that he’s just been standing there crying when there's a knock at the door. Quickly, he rinses out the sink the best he could and splashes cold water on his face. Then he runs out of the room, ignoring everyone trying to talk to him and races home where he can get proper shit-faced. Lord knows he needed it right then.
Loki felt like he’s been falling for years. It feels like he’s spinning but it's impossible to tell up from down in the unforgiving nothingness that surrounded him on all sides. When he looks into the void he sees everything and nothing at all. He is made and unmade, he is numb and in pain, he is alone and with the Yggdrasil herself. How could he have known that he wouldn’t die from falling into the void? Why won’t he just die?
He’s more than half-mad by the time the Other finds him. Then the true suffering starts. Loki realized early in that he has never truly experienced torture before. Not like this. Or has he? He can't remember. If he has it pales in comparison to what the Other does to him. He doesn’t just torture his body but his mind. Loki’s fortifications he had in order to keep other beings from his mind fell away in the void long ago. Was it long ago? He’s unsure.
Loki feels a presence in his mind even stronger than the Other’s; The Mad Titan. The Other felt like a lover’s sweet embrace whenever he gave Loki his attention. It's during one of these times, after a particularly painful session with the Other that had Loki thinking semi clearly for once when the Mad Titan says something that fills Loki's veins with pure ice. The Mad Titan always drones on whenever he's holed up in Loki's mind but this time is different than the usual talk of his grand scheme of courting death.
Who is this peeking at your soul, little god? Why would a mortal be able to see you in a place like this? He projects into Loki’s mind, contemplatively. Loki looked around for the first time in a while but he could not see his soulmate in the void with him. But somehow the mortal could see Loki and Thanos could see him. Loki screamed, or was it a whisper? He could not tell in the void. He looked to where he thought his soulmate was watching and tried to tell him, no, do not look here mortal only death can be found here. Then, because he knew he would not be listened to, Loki dragged himself deeper into the grasp of the void where his mortal couldn’t even begin to find him. In a futile attempt to keep Thanos from tracing him back to Midgard.
Loki heard the Other chuckle darkly. Too late, little god. We have plans for you now.
It's been a little over a week since Tony ran out of that event and since then he has continued to ignore Pepper and Rhodey’s attempts to get him out of his private rooms. He had Jarvis put him in full lockdown, only reassuring them that this isn’t another thing where he’s secretly dying. Otherwise, he refuses to talk to anyone about what he's been dealing with. How does he even begin to explain that he's grieving for a soulmate that he previously claimed doesn't exist? A soulmate that he convinced himself he had been hallucinating for most of his life. He’s insane. He knows he’s lost it for sure whenever he orders a mirror to be put in his bedroom.
It arrived hours ago but he can’t face it yet. Can't face it sober. He finally moved to where it is but he just sits in front of it, his eyes closed. To the outside observer, it would almost seem that he was asleep if it wasn't for the bottle of whiskey in his hands that he fiddled with. With a deep shaky breath, he opens his eyes and he sees… himself. He tried not to be disappointed, he knew it already, but he just had to see it again. He had to make sure.
Tony cries, ignoring the voice in his head saying that Stark men don't cry. He doesn't feel like a man. He feels like a boy. A boy who just saw his soulmate smile genuinely for the first time and rushed to tell his only friend, an old butler, about it. He doesn’t know how long he's been sitting there but he continues to stare at his own face no matter how blurry it gets.
But, like all things, the tears don’t last and all he’s left with is a headache. Now Tony just sat there looking at the light emanating from his chest. Until he notices the image in the mirror distort slightly. He tilts his head and it doesn't change so he rubs his eyes and sits up in order to see better. Still no change. He must be losing it for real now.
Then all of a sudden he watches his features begin to shift around. His face becomes sharper and gradually his skin color is replaced with a familiar blue one. Once the shifting stops, what's left is the unmistakable form of his soulmate. Familiar, except for the condition they're in.
Their expression is one of fear, of pain, of hopelessness. There's more than a small touch of madness to their eyes as they silently cry out in misery. An unseen force tortured them, burning and cutting their thin body eliciting Tony to scream stop to an empty room. He ignores JARVIS asking what's wrong, unable to hear the AI over his own blood pumping in his ears.
Tony's tears return and he weeps, rubbing at the ache he could now feel in his chest. Tony could practically feel sand scratching at his skin even though he knows it's not there and that he's left it behind in Afghanistan a few years now in the past. Oh, how Tony wishes he could simply jump in his suit and fly to them. What good is becoming Ironman if he can’t even save his own soul mate?
Where are you, he begs the mirror to tell him. Can't be anywhere on Earth despite how insane as that concept sounds. But like they somehow heard his pleas Tony sees his soulmate’s eyes widen and pale further. They look right into Tony’s eyes and mouths no before Tony is suddenly looking at himself in the mirror once again. He was shell shocked.
What. The. Fuck. He’s lost it. He’s certifiably crazy. There's no way any of that just happened. Nope. Can’t deal. Tony starts to laugh, a crazy, broken laugh. He decides that he should go to sleep. That he needed to go to sleep in order to avoid any more drunken hallucinations. That must have been what had happened.
Tony requested JARVIS have the mirror removed and he makes the decision to forget he ever had a soulmate in the first place. Really Tony? He thought to himself, an alien? His illness must be getting worse. Perhaps, it’s an effect from the new arc reactor in his chest? That's a probable enough reason for Tony to try and rationalize what he's experienced.
So now he lays in bed and waits. He waits, and waits, and waits until finally, sleep takes him. If he dreamed at all that night he doesn’t remember it by the following evening when he wakes. Then he emails Pepper and goes back to work. After all, as the new consultant for this Avengers Initiative thing, S.H.I.E.L.D. has roped him into he has plenty to busy himself with.