Machina 1/2
Title: Machina 1/2
Author: Nakimochiku
Fandom: Avengers
Characters/Pairings: Loki/ Tony Stark, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Thor, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Science fiction, utter AU, a lack of knowledge concerning technology, and Creepy!Loki
Summary: Tony Stark has spent three years on the run from Loki Laufeyson to keep a dangerous software file from him. It appears that wasn't quite enough to keep Loki off his tail.
Note: This is a crown jewel of anything i've ever written. I hope you like it as much as i do, and if so, please leave a comment. comments are love~
"Stark dammit!" Steve hissed, one leg caught on the window sill ledge, a bag of rare parts slung over his shoulder and his grappling hook already hooked to the next building over. He looked down, some thirty storeys below at the rising haze of fog, and back into the illegal work shop where Tony was still glued to his computer. "Stark! Banner's already on the other side!"
"Go." Tony hissed, watching the download bar on the multiple screens around him, the workshop dark and the only illumination was the glow of the arc reactor in his chest and the computers around him.
"Stark, they're coming, we have to go now!" Steve commanded, his pride making him unwilling to leave his partner when the Frost Giants were so close by, searching for them.
"I said go!" Tony shouted back, typing rapidly. "I can't leave until these files are secured. In the wrong hands--”
"I know. But it's all the same if you get caught!" Steve growled. The night breeze was hot, and smelled like burnt oil and chemicals, the smog and grime smearing into pores and coating lungs. Tony shot him one single glare, and finding the downloads complete, he took out the disc, and hurried over to the window. He elbowed Steve roughly, and grasped the grappling hook line, swinging smoothly out of the window and down the cable, Steve following close behind.
Banner was waiting for them, his little moving laboratory folded into a case on his back, shuffling awkwardly. "Almost thought you left me." He whispered, his voice echoing in the empty space of the abandoned high rise. He held the straps of his case tightly, and tried to smile.
"We'd never leave you behind, big guy." Tony assured, gripping Bruce by the shoulder, and shooting Steve a poisonous look. "But if we ever do get separated, we meet at Widow's alright?" Bruce nodded, and they shuffled off together.
Tony hadn’t exactly been expecting to meet Steve or Bruce when he left the Citadel for the slums of the second subterranean level and crashed into the first bar he saw. Black Widow up in flickering black neon lights, an ominous promise of trouble in the neon spider logo. He smiled to remember it as he swung down into the maintenance tunnels with Bruce and Steve close behind.
He remembered causing a scene with another patron, bass-driven music thudding too loud in his ears as he took a punch to the jaw. He certainly hadn’t asked for the captain of boy scouts to step in, with his stupid blue and white cyber suit and utterly ridiculous red combat boots. Certainly hadn’t asked the owner to cast her disapproving glare upon him and jerk her chin towards the emergency escape ladder, directing him to an apartment above the bar. Certainly hadn’t asked for the doctor turned hacker to patch him up with kind words and gentle touches, completely swallowed by his overly large parka except for the glint of his warm brown eyes.
And more than anything, he hadn’t expected them to become a unit. His unit. His team. Helping each other survive in a metal wasteland of smog and chemicals and technology.
Even now, he didn’t know any more about Clint or Natasha and their past before Black Widow’s than he had three years ago. He didn’t know any more about Bruce than that he had been a doctor in the citadel, before some android virus had entered his system and turned him into a monster. He didn’t know anything more about Steve than that he’d only known the second level all his life.
In the end though, that was all he really needed. They all had their secrets, on the second level.
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The door came down in two swift kicks, but Loki knew for a fact there would be nothing behind it. He held his hand up, and his androids, all ice blue and snow white, stopped and waited for him to enter first. The workshop was filled to bursting with parts and sparking wires, and computer screens.
He sat down at one of these, and imagined he could still feel the warmth of Tony in the seat, like a ghost haunting just beyond his reach. He tapped the home button on the keyboard. Tony’s face appeared on the screen, elegant, composed and artificial.
"Evening, Mr. Loki Laufeyson, you have reached the live model decoy of Tony Stark. He leaves you a single message: stop chasing me. You won't find me."
Leaving that screen, Loki hacked easily into the encryption codes, and opened a word processing program. "Make no mistake," he typed, smiling secretively in the glow of the computer screen. "No matter where you deign to run, I will find you. I will always find you." He encrypted the message and dragged it into a send box, and waited for the message to beep.
"Brother." Thor said lowly, shifting uncomfortably by the door. His cyborg arm added another glow of light to the darkened room, whirring as he transformed it back from it‘s hammer mode. "Are you still trailing after that hacker?"
"If he were merely a hacker, Thor, he wouldn't be quite so intriguing to me." Loki responded blandly. He stood up, and waved his hands at his androids. They turned like marching soldiers, and followed him from the work shop, leaving Thor staring into the dark recesses of the less than legitimate work shop, wondering why, precisely, his younger brother was trying so hard to find this man.
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"'Nother work shop found?" Clint asked, scrubbing at a stainless steel table with a rag, giving it a high gloss shine. Tony grumbled, sipping his power shake, and watching Bruce set up his lab in a corner, his helmet interface slipping down over his eyes as he pulled on his interactive gloves. Steve was somewhere, he was sure, probably bribing rare parts out of his contacts somewhere in the darker recesses of the bar. "That's twice this month. He's getting faster."
"Yeah. At first I thought Rogers was leading spies right to us." Tony sighed, setting down the frothy remains of his shake. He pulled out his laptop when he heard a distinct beep. Something had broken through his encryptions. That wasn't something just anyone could do.
"Now what do you think?" Clint pressed, slinging the rag over his shoulder, letting it hang there as he leaned against the table, hand on his hip and eyebrow raised expectantly. Tony grunted, puzzling over the file that had been sent directly to his hard drive, but had encryptions over it.
"Now?" He hummed, tapping out a few codes. "Now I'm starting to think he's latched onto our signal. We're gonna have to start scrambling it." The file opened, and inside he saw Loki's message. Threatening, precise, infuriating. Terrifying. His lip raised in a snarl as he read the concise sentences over and over again.
Loki would never find him. Not now, not ever.
"Here again, you idiot criminals?" Natasha asked as she sauntered over, flipping red hair off her face and picking up the remains of Tony's power shake. She looked tired, like she'd spent too much time in the low oxygen sector of the city. Looking at her and Clint slaving away in Black Widow's bar, he sort of wished he still had the power to make lives better. Not that they would accept his help even if he did have that power. Natasha was the sort that liked to stand on her own two feet
"You know us. Trouble's never far behind when we‘re around." He grinned at her. "I'll have another power shake, Natasha baby. Put it on my tab."
Natasha's pretty mouth turn into a straight, unimpressed line. "First, if you cause any trouble I'm never letting you crash here again. Second, don't you ever," She scowled bitterly, the expression so ill-fitting on her face Tony bit his lip so he wouldn't laugh. "Ever. Call me baby again. And last. You haven't paid me for the last thirty shakes you've had. You're not getting another." She gave a sharp nod, glanced meaningfully at Clint, and stalked away, red curls bouncing.
"We have a room for you upstairs as usual." Clint said with a soft laugh.
"Here I thought you two didn't want us around anymore!" Tony lamented, all over dramatic sorrow and playfulness. He was intentionally ignoring the message Loki had sent. He was content to play that nothing was wrong, so long as the five of them could keep laughing together.
"Nat couldn't forget a friend, even if she tried." Clint assured, smiling fondly at the back of his boss's head as she slapped away errant hands with nary a sideways glance. His gaze turned back to Tony, punching him playfully in the shoulder. "Not even shit friends like you three." He grabbed his rag off his shoulder, and went back to scrubbing tables.
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Loki's fingers ran across the keyboard lightening fast, green eyes highlighted by the glow of the computer screen, strings of code scrolling across his irises. "My my, you're hard to spot, Dr. Banner." He muttered to himself, a smirk twisting the corner of his mouth. Across the room, a screen started blinking as it traced the very distinct signal of Dr. Banner, honing in on it.
It would be a matter of time before Tony Stark realized that his very signal was leading Loki to him. And when he did, he would start scrambling it. In fact. He wouldn't be surprised if Tony had already realized this. He would be harder to find, but not impossible. Nothing was impossible, once Loki set his mind to it.
"Brother." Thor boomed from the door, his hand on the doorway denting the metal. He still wasn't used to the strength of the last upgrade, and it showed in the discomfort on his face. Loki frowned and ran calculations in his head for methods to fix this.
"Thor. Come." He crooked one slim finger at his older brother and gestured to the work bench. Thor sighed loudly and stamped over, peeling his shirt off as he went to reveal the net work of circuits and twisted metal and wires all along his right side. Thick cords and plates held him together, and surrounding the metal was mangled scars, remnants of the factory accident.
"I do not understand." Thor admitted, holding his arm up as Loki slipped goggles down over his face, inspecting the cybernetic ribs with an appraising poke of a screwdriver. Loki hummed, and began tinkering with the inner workings of Thor's side, digging under plates it inspect circuits. "You've been chasing after this hacker for years, and every time, he's eluded you."
Loki jabbed Thor cruelly in the side with his electric screwdriver, making him jump. It was a silent warning not to carry on this line of conversation, but Thor was purposefully obstinate.
"If he does not want to be found, can you not just leave him in peace?"
"You do not remember the time when we met "this hacker" as you say. You were nearly comatose from morphine dependency, and I kept you so to save you from the pain." Loki blinked, his throat tight. He remembered being alone, he remembered performing the surgery to save his brother's life, and he remembered the blood gushing hot and thick over his hands, he remembered Thor's delusional screams of pain and terror. Irritated with his sentimentality, he pushed the memories away. "Had it not been for that hacker, I would never have found the means to save you."
He glanced around Thor to his desk, where two pieces of paper, rare in this day and age, were framed. One, the schematics for a cybernetic arm, and the other a list of parts required in a cybernetic leg. He had built his Frost Giant empire purely from those sheets of paper, and those sheets of paper had brought Tony Stark to him. He finished on Thor's side, and locked the covering plate in place.
The locator beeped, alerting Loki that the search was complete. He stood and inspected the location. A subterranean bar on the second level, owned by one Natasha Romanoff. "Bring her in." He ordered Thor smoothly, smiled turning sharp and wolfish, stomach fluttering with the excitement of being this close. If he could not catch Tony directly, he would capture one of his friends. Perfect bait.
"Brother, I do not think she knows--"
"Bring, her. In. Do not make me repeat myself a third time." Loki growled. He turned to Thor, trying a smoother expression. "I must find him." He tried in a softer tone, eyes wide and pleading, completely aware that Thor had never been able to deny him anything when he looked at him like that. Not even when they were children.
"To thank him?" Thor asked dubiously. “For helping us?” Loki couldn’t help his devious smirk.
"Nothing so sweet as that." He smiled, touching the screen, where he knew, at that moment, Tony was sleeping, or building his fabulous droids, black hair standing on end from his hands running through it, body glistening with sweat, black oil smeared across his cheek, just like he remembered. "No, to own him."
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"Home sweet hole in the ground." Tony sighed, carrying in the last of the computer equipment into the metal bunker in the third subterranean level of the city. No one lived on the third level, it was a completely uninhabitable industrious level where no one came except to occasionally service the construction bots. Even then, people had to wear toxin suits due to the chemicals and overwhelming heat. If Loki managed to track them here, they would have no escape. The bunker was cramped and rounded, with only a single steel ladder to climb in and out of the hole at the top with.
"Don't seal it, just yet, I haven't gotten the oxygen and filtration system operational yet." Bruce warned Steve as he came in, dumping his rare parts in a crate near by, and looping his satchel back over his shoulder.
Tony gave Steve a smile, and began assembling the computer screens, mounting them on the bunker wall, and running wires to each other, clipping them into service ports. "We got a new job at Natasha's before we started here." He began conversationally, sucking at his thumb when a wire cut it. He tossed Steve a computer chip, which he pushed into a tablet.
"We have most of these parts." Steve muttered, biting his lip briefly. "Some will take a while." He began climbing the ladder.
"See what you can do about the neck piece." Tony waved goodbye distractedly. He turned when he remembered something, calling after Steve's retreating red combat boots. "Don't forget to look for food!"
Both he and Bruce worked in amiable silence for the better part of an hour, nibbling on dehydrated fruit power bars, taking careful sips of water. Bruce looked over at him suspiciously. He finished the air filtration system, and both their hair blew in the cool breeze he managed to generate, making the oppressive heat of the third level somewhat more bearable.
"Made the beds already?" Bruce asked awkwardly, in a way that implied he had something else to ask, but really didn't want to come out with it.
Tony gave him a sideways look, and shook his head, finishing up a thick coil of cords, plugging it into his system. "Nah, let Steve do it. He's the best at making beds out of rags." He smiled, but Bruce didn't return it.
"You know, you never explained why Loki is chasing you." Bruce prodded.
Tony sighed. He'd expected the question eventually. Three years on the run from one insane man would do that. But he still hadn't come up with an answer. The truth? A lie? Bruce watched him, and he sighed again. "He's after software that I can develop, as far as he's concerned, it's the only software that will do to make his androids absolutely perfect." He shrugged, taking a large bite of a power bar, chewing slowly. It was dry and tasteless. "Together, the androids with the new software would be a pretty dangerous thing. More than that... I can't, I won't tell you." He tried a charming grin, but Bruce was giving him an appraising look.
It didn't matter how long he stared, how far he tried to dig, with just his eyes. Tony would never tell Bruce what happened, close to four and a half years ago.
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The rumours of a rising company producing custom androids that resembled his were about as interesting as a weather report of acid rain. Tony hadn't cared, until someone placed an order, and brought the android before him.
He inspected it there in his office, the coloured neon lights shining through the polymer glass windows, giving the frost white android a pink, green and flashing yellow glow.
"Lights" he called, they switched on, and he muttered notes of the quality of make, the schematics of the arms and legs, the software in it's system, it's all round design. "Huh." He hummed at last. He turned to the worker waiting nervously in the corner, jumping when his eyes landing on him. "No need to quiver like a rat, I'm not gonna bite, unless you ask me to." He winked, and the worker tried to crack a smile. He snapped his fingers at him and began walking, and the worker jumped and tripped over himself to follow. "Tell me about this guy." They made their way to the landing bay, and slid into a sleek black aero-limo.
"He works out of your old building sir. He does all his commissions himself, makes all his parts, and writes all his software himself. He's a genius." The worker seemed amazed with him, and Tony shook his hand dismissively.
"I can tell all that just by looking at his work. What about him?"
The worker seemed at a loss. "W-well." He stammered, casting around the flying limo for something suitable to say to his CEO. "He's very pretty."
"That's more like it." Tony grinned. "Go on."
"He has very piercing green eyes, and he always works in the dark. He asked me if I was buying my android for a greater purpose, when I told him no, he smiled at me." The worker shivered at the memory. "It felt like he knew I was lying, and was amused that I would even try."
Tony nodded, feeling excitement flutter in his stomach. He already decided he liked the guy. He climbed carefully out of the limo, toeing at the ruined glass of his old company building with expensive shoes. The place had far too many memories, but he pushed those aside in favour of bubbling excitement. Below the landing bay, he could see the sparks of work going on.
The place was a ruin, and the genius who now resided there obviously hadn't the time, the money, or the care to fix it up, save for one this. The neon white letters that once read "Stark Industries" were being arranged one letter at a time to read "Frost Giants". Tony walked down the spiralling stairs to the main level, approaching the work benches where flashes of a soldering tool highlighted an android still in pieces, and a pair of dark goggles over a pale face that tipped up as he entered.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your fine company, Anthony Stark?" The genius put down his tool, and lifted his goggles.
"Lights, dim." Tony called, satisfied his systems still worked even years later when the building lights hummed lowly to life, illuminating the tall pale beauty, raising a single dark eye brow at him. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."
"Laufeyson." He responded, thoroughly unimpressed as he pulled his goggles back over his face, combing his hair back with one oil slicked hand. "Loki Laufeyson." He started to get back to work, but Tony strode forward, pulling the tool out of his hand.
"Don't like being ignored." He whispered, feeling a thrill of something when Loki's bright green eyes flashed dangerously at him from behind his goggles. He pulled those off too, and dropped both items onto the workbench. Loki smiled then, all teeth and cruelty. It was a horrifying and terribly attractive smile, like looking at the devil and being dragged to hell.
"That's unfortunate, Mr. Stark. I'm a very busy man." He took a step forward, right into Tony's space, pressing him back against the work table. "Busy stealing your cybernetics designs and selling them as my own. So if you're here to arrest me, you had better make it fast." He licked his lips, amused when Tony's eyes darted down to catch the motion. "Rather than staring at me like you want nothing better than to taste me."
Tony might have made a sharp comment, something tactless, when he was distracted by a rough groan behind Loki. He peered over the other man's shoulder at a bundle of blankets serving as a bed. Loki's head turned just slightly, mouth thinning as he lowered his gaze to the floor, expression ice cold and calculating. He didn’t look over his shoulder, as though ignoring the presence of the bed would erase the sound from memory.
"Get out." He growled at last, pushing away from Tony to kneel beside the bed and fiddle with a medical kit just beside the bundle. He could hear the lump beneath the blankets groaning out Loki's name as the genius worked, flicking the bubbles out of a syringe and pressing the air out. "Shh." Loki murmured soothingly, pulling an arm out from beneath the blankets, pressing the syringe into death pale skin.
The bundle kept murmuring, before falling into a deep sleep as Loki pet a sweaty blonde head, bedraggled hair stark contrast to the thin grey blankets. "I told you to get out." Loki hissed when Tony took a step forward, peering at the gaunt face within the hollow of the blankets, and the glow of a cybernetic arm rolling limply out of the bed. The ground around the bed had been carefully swept, and washed back to it's usual high gloss shine, kept meticulously clean.
"Your lover?" He asked, unfazed by Loki's glare.
"My brother." He snapped.
"He's sick." Tony observed gently. Loki's shoulders went stiff, mouth a straight hard line, his knuckles white with strain. "And a cyborg, by the looks of it." He waited for Loki to respond, and when he didn't, continued. "That's a dangerous game, fusing man and machine. No one's perfected it without serious repercussions."
Loki's jaw twitched, but he didn‘t turn, eyes narrowed on the view beyond the clouded windows. "It was either this, or let him die of infection." Just his tone suggested that he had nothing else, and if he lost this one thing, his brother, he might have gone insane. Tony could understand that. Pepper's mind, preserved in an android that looked just like her, was proof enough of that.
"Listen. I don't want to arrest you. I want you to work for me." Tony said. If he felt low, hitting a man when he was down, he didn't show it. "I can help you. If anything, I'm the most advanced in cyborg technology." He tapped his chest, the dull clink faithfully answering. “Hell, I’m part cyborg myself, in some ways.”
"Do not think I will forget this, Tony Stark." Loki hissed dangerously, his gaze promising pain, the suffering of everything he had ever loved. "An animal is not so beautiful, when it has been backed into a corner."
They were bent over plans for Thor's next surgery mere days later. Loki was making adjustments to accommodate Thor, injuries, while robots in the surgery room beyond the observation room worked on gently removing Thor's cybernetic limbs, guided by JARVIS.
"You did a good job, with just scraps." Tony offered, watching Loki watching the process. He stood up straight, and didn’t show the strain he had to be feeling, normally luminous green eyes dark.
"I am not some child who needs comfort." He said warningly, glaring at Tony over his shoulder. "You need not sweeten this situation with meaningless words you think might help. There is nothing that will help. Either my brother will die from this operation, or he will live and get better." He turned to Tony then, drawing himself to his full, impressive height, glaring down his nose at him. "Just know that should this prove unsuccessful, I will unmake you, and everything you are."
"Well, baby, love it when you talk dirty." Tony muttered, and decided it would probably be a bad idea to push Loki against the control panels and kiss him until he forgot all about Thor, and unmade Tony in entirely different ways.
He left Loki in the observation room, working on a few designs Loki had doodled as he waited for the preparations for the surgery to be complete. He laughed a little as he looked at them, glad that he had scooped Loki up, through force or not, before anyone else had the chance. His genius rivalled Tony's own.
He was there puzzling over designs for the better part of three hours when Loki burst in, completely ignoring android Pepper's protests as the door closed in her face. Tony stood up, startled, backing up a half step. It occurred to him to call for security when Loki's slim fingers closed around his throat, nearly cutting off his air as Loki pushed him back into the window and held him there, crushing their lips together fiercely.
Tony let out a little sound, arm curving around Loki's back to hold him tight, tongues sliding together. "How's your brother?" He asked breathlessly when Loki pulled away, lips dark and moist.
"In stasis." Loki answered curtly, pressing him hard against the glass. "I owe you a debt, Tony Stark. And I will repay it." He promised. "I will take you to the top of this world, be your hand and your eyes and your sword, as I promised." His hand smoothed down Tony's side, over the curve of his ass and to his thigh, urging him to lift his leg and wrap it around him.
He took Tony right there against the window, again with him bent over his desk, again on the floor. Tony laughed softly, body sated and sweaty, playing meaninglessly with the papers Loki had scattered on the floor. "Alright." He said, still smiling. "Do what you think needs doing."
He wondered briefly if he should tell Loki that they were not exclusive, that Tony Stark did not do long term anything, that hoping for more than the occasional expensive gift and continuous rounds of mind blowing sex was like hoping to fly, hoping to breathe clean air. He decided that it didn't matter. He had never been known for doing anything good for him.
They worked together for almost a year, improving upon each others designs, taking the technology market by storm, releasing androids, tablets and software other corporations could only dream of, constantly upgrading their wares and playing off each other. It was a perfect working relationship with the added benefit of sex. And if Tony noticed the glint of possessiveness in Loki's hypnotic green eyes, he didn't comment on it. In fact, he blatantly didn’t care.
"Your top competitors at Stane Inc. are like unto a leaning tower of children's blocks, waiting for a push to send them toppling." Loki announced with a smile. He looked devious, his tailored suit fit him well, the green of his tie bringing out the paler tones of his emerald eyes. Tony licked his lips, eyes smouldering when he met Loki's gaze.
"Yeah?" He hummed, crooking his finger for Loki to come closer. Loki leaned over the desk to him, smile sharp and aware of precisely what Tony was thinking. "What do you suppose we do?" He whispered against Loki's mouth, not quite a kiss. He didn't have to wait long for Loki to close the barely perceptible space between them, groaning into Loki's thorough kiss, gripping his black hair.
"Crush them." Loki said in answer when they parted, lips damp, breathing quickened.
"Give the word then, Mr. Laufeyson." He smiled. Loki nodded sharply and turned away. "I'll see you in my office after you're done." He reminded when Loki was half way to the door.
"That you will, Mr. Stark."
It took him only days to see the weight of his decision. They were driving along the first subterranean level to the train station, Pepper droning on endlessly about the meetings they would have once they arrived at the end of their train journey. She pointedly and subtly reminded them to at least do some work rather than fuck like animals the entire ride to the next city. Loki's hand rested comfortably high on his thigh, warm and familiar as he gazed out the window, a glass of scotch in his hand.
"Pepper, what's with all these people?" He asked suddenly, pointing out the car window at the masses of people gathered in the subway stations, expressions ranging from blank to lost, belongings gathered to them. Children scampered innocently in and among the vacant eyed adults.
"Those are former employees of Stane Inc. And their families." Pepper intoned softly, her android eyes turning to Tony with a distinct expression of disappointment. He could feel Loki's fingers tighten on his thigh. "When Stane Inc went under, they had no means of work, and now travel to other cities looking for jobs at other corporations. They will not find them."
"Why not?" Tony asked sharply, unable to tear his eyes away from one tired looking woman, rocking her child back and forth, eyes puffy and red with tears she could no longer afford to spend, her child brushing her cheeks and asking if she was hurt somewhere. She tried to smile and shake her head, and Tony could see her cursing him in her mind. Could feel the barbs she sent at him, feel her hate.
"Tony, Stark Industries owns a monopoly over the market. Other corporations are down sizing their employees in order to cut their losses. No one is going to hire them."
"Find them jobs in Stark Industries." He glared at Pepper, who gaped at him, and then at Loki who looked completely passive, as though he had foreseen this all along. It was his lack of response that pissed Tony off more than anything.
"Sir, there are no jobs available in Stark Industries." She tried to reason.
"Then make them jobs." He snapped. "And turn this car around." He left Loki in the car when they arrived at Stark tower, ignoring his second in command's exasperated calls to wait.
He locked the door to the pent house with a rather complicated encryption code and changed out of his suit, pulling on a set of regular clothes. Without really thinking about why, he downloaded his latest software work onto a chip that he slipped into his pocket, completely burning any trace of it left in the system. Finished that he set about recording a message.
"Live model decoy message addressed to Mr. Loki Laufeyson." He announced, and waited for the program to register his command and begin recording. "I can't do it. I can't look at all the damage I just caused, and not feel guilt. You can. I don't think you even know what guilt means. You could probably, will probably, take over the world." He took a breath and smiled. "That's why I'm leaving it to you. My title, my resources, my company, my schematics, my employees, all of it." He was about to say end transmission and get up, when he sat back down, expression tight, the feeling in his chest foreign. "Whatever you do, don't try to follow me. You already fulfilled your promise to me, and your brother is on the mend. Thanks for putting up with me, Loki." He gave a smile, and waved goodbye. "End transmission."
He heaved a breath, pulled a satchel with only a few essential tools in his bag, swung his leg over an Aero-motorcycle, and left.
When Loki finally hacked through the encryptions that had locked him out of the main office, Tony was long gone. "You have a message, Mr Laufeyson" JARVIS announced as Loki sat down at the computer.
He watched it. Fist tight and seething with anger, he pushed his chair back, and was very tempted to smash everything he saw. "Where is he?" He asked through gritted teeth, breathing hard. "Where has he gone?"
"He has already abandoned the motorcycle he took, somewhere on the edge of the above ground citadel. Beyond that, I do not know." JARVIS replied. "It would appear he left with a software file he immediately deleted all backups of in order to keep them from you, sir."
Loki made a noise of rage. Didn't Tony know already that he had no choice in the matter? He was not ever going to let him go. Not now, not in death, not ever. He belonged to him, as surely as this entire world belonged to him. And he would find him, regardless of how long it took.
The numbers between each scene are binary code, and translate to: I want, need, love, hate, destroy, create, lose, find, adore you.
Author: Nakimochiku
Fandom: Avengers
Characters/Pairings: Loki/ Tony Stark, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Thor, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Science fiction, utter AU, a lack of knowledge concerning technology, and Creepy!Loki
Summary: Tony Stark has spent three years on the run from Loki Laufeyson to keep a dangerous software file from him. It appears that wasn't quite enough to keep Loki off his tail.
Note: This is a crown jewel of anything i've ever written. I hope you like it as much as i do, and if so, please leave a comment. comments are love~
"Stark dammit!" Steve hissed, one leg caught on the window sill ledge, a bag of rare parts slung over his shoulder and his grappling hook already hooked to the next building over. He looked down, some thirty storeys below at the rising haze of fog, and back into the illegal work shop where Tony was still glued to his computer. "Stark! Banner's already on the other side!"
"Go." Tony hissed, watching the download bar on the multiple screens around him, the workshop dark and the only illumination was the glow of the arc reactor in his chest and the computers around him.
"Stark, they're coming, we have to go now!" Steve commanded, his pride making him unwilling to leave his partner when the Frost Giants were so close by, searching for them.
"I said go!" Tony shouted back, typing rapidly. "I can't leave until these files are secured. In the wrong hands--”
"I know. But it's all the same if you get caught!" Steve growled. The night breeze was hot, and smelled like burnt oil and chemicals, the smog and grime smearing into pores and coating lungs. Tony shot him one single glare, and finding the downloads complete, he took out the disc, and hurried over to the window. He elbowed Steve roughly, and grasped the grappling hook line, swinging smoothly out of the window and down the cable, Steve following close behind.
Banner was waiting for them, his little moving laboratory folded into a case on his back, shuffling awkwardly. "Almost thought you left me." He whispered, his voice echoing in the empty space of the abandoned high rise. He held the straps of his case tightly, and tried to smile.
"We'd never leave you behind, big guy." Tony assured, gripping Bruce by the shoulder, and shooting Steve a poisonous look. "But if we ever do get separated, we meet at Widow's alright?" Bruce nodded, and they shuffled off together.
Tony hadn’t exactly been expecting to meet Steve or Bruce when he left the Citadel for the slums of the second subterranean level and crashed into the first bar he saw. Black Widow up in flickering black neon lights, an ominous promise of trouble in the neon spider logo. He smiled to remember it as he swung down into the maintenance tunnels with Bruce and Steve close behind.
He remembered causing a scene with another patron, bass-driven music thudding too loud in his ears as he took a punch to the jaw. He certainly hadn’t asked for the captain of boy scouts to step in, with his stupid blue and white cyber suit and utterly ridiculous red combat boots. Certainly hadn’t asked the owner to cast her disapproving glare upon him and jerk her chin towards the emergency escape ladder, directing him to an apartment above the bar. Certainly hadn’t asked for the doctor turned hacker to patch him up with kind words and gentle touches, completely swallowed by his overly large parka except for the glint of his warm brown eyes.
And more than anything, he hadn’t expected them to become a unit. His unit. His team. Helping each other survive in a metal wasteland of smog and chemicals and technology.
Even now, he didn’t know any more about Clint or Natasha and their past before Black Widow’s than he had three years ago. He didn’t know any more about Bruce than that he had been a doctor in the citadel, before some android virus had entered his system and turned him into a monster. He didn’t know anything more about Steve than that he’d only known the second level all his life.
In the end though, that was all he really needed. They all had their secrets, on the second level.
01101001
The door came down in two swift kicks, but Loki knew for a fact there would be nothing behind it. He held his hand up, and his androids, all ice blue and snow white, stopped and waited for him to enter first. The workshop was filled to bursting with parts and sparking wires, and computer screens.
He sat down at one of these, and imagined he could still feel the warmth of Tony in the seat, like a ghost haunting just beyond his reach. He tapped the home button on the keyboard. Tony’s face appeared on the screen, elegant, composed and artificial.
"Evening, Mr. Loki Laufeyson, you have reached the live model decoy of Tony Stark. He leaves you a single message: stop chasing me. You won't find me."
Leaving that screen, Loki hacked easily into the encryption codes, and opened a word processing program. "Make no mistake," he typed, smiling secretively in the glow of the computer screen. "No matter where you deign to run, I will find you. I will always find you." He encrypted the message and dragged it into a send box, and waited for the message to beep.
"Brother." Thor said lowly, shifting uncomfortably by the door. His cyborg arm added another glow of light to the darkened room, whirring as he transformed it back from it‘s hammer mode. "Are you still trailing after that hacker?"
"If he were merely a hacker, Thor, he wouldn't be quite so intriguing to me." Loki responded blandly. He stood up, and waved his hands at his androids. They turned like marching soldiers, and followed him from the work shop, leaving Thor staring into the dark recesses of the less than legitimate work shop, wondering why, precisely, his younger brother was trying so hard to find this man.
01110111 01100001 01101110 01110100
"'Nother work shop found?" Clint asked, scrubbing at a stainless steel table with a rag, giving it a high gloss shine. Tony grumbled, sipping his power shake, and watching Bruce set up his lab in a corner, his helmet interface slipping down over his eyes as he pulled on his interactive gloves. Steve was somewhere, he was sure, probably bribing rare parts out of his contacts somewhere in the darker recesses of the bar. "That's twice this month. He's getting faster."
"Yeah. At first I thought Rogers was leading spies right to us." Tony sighed, setting down the frothy remains of his shake. He pulled out his laptop when he heard a distinct beep. Something had broken through his encryptions. That wasn't something just anyone could do.
"Now what do you think?" Clint pressed, slinging the rag over his shoulder, letting it hang there as he leaned against the table, hand on his hip and eyebrow raised expectantly. Tony grunted, puzzling over the file that had been sent directly to his hard drive, but had encryptions over it.
"Now?" He hummed, tapping out a few codes. "Now I'm starting to think he's latched onto our signal. We're gonna have to start scrambling it." The file opened, and inside he saw Loki's message. Threatening, precise, infuriating. Terrifying. His lip raised in a snarl as he read the concise sentences over and over again.
Loki would never find him. Not now, not ever.
"Here again, you idiot criminals?" Natasha asked as she sauntered over, flipping red hair off her face and picking up the remains of Tony's power shake. She looked tired, like she'd spent too much time in the low oxygen sector of the city. Looking at her and Clint slaving away in Black Widow's bar, he sort of wished he still had the power to make lives better. Not that they would accept his help even if he did have that power. Natasha was the sort that liked to stand on her own two feet
"You know us. Trouble's never far behind when we‘re around." He grinned at her. "I'll have another power shake, Natasha baby. Put it on my tab."
Natasha's pretty mouth turn into a straight, unimpressed line. "First, if you cause any trouble I'm never letting you crash here again. Second, don't you ever," She scowled bitterly, the expression so ill-fitting on her face Tony bit his lip so he wouldn't laugh. "Ever. Call me baby again. And last. You haven't paid me for the last thirty shakes you've had. You're not getting another." She gave a sharp nod, glanced meaningfully at Clint, and stalked away, red curls bouncing.
"We have a room for you upstairs as usual." Clint said with a soft laugh.
"Here I thought you two didn't want us around anymore!" Tony lamented, all over dramatic sorrow and playfulness. He was intentionally ignoring the message Loki had sent. He was content to play that nothing was wrong, so long as the five of them could keep laughing together.
"Nat couldn't forget a friend, even if she tried." Clint assured, smiling fondly at the back of his boss's head as she slapped away errant hands with nary a sideways glance. His gaze turned back to Tony, punching him playfully in the shoulder. "Not even shit friends like you three." He grabbed his rag off his shoulder, and went back to scrubbing tables.
01101110 01100101 01100101 01100100
Loki's fingers ran across the keyboard lightening fast, green eyes highlighted by the glow of the computer screen, strings of code scrolling across his irises. "My my, you're hard to spot, Dr. Banner." He muttered to himself, a smirk twisting the corner of his mouth. Across the room, a screen started blinking as it traced the very distinct signal of Dr. Banner, honing in on it.
It would be a matter of time before Tony Stark realized that his very signal was leading Loki to him. And when he did, he would start scrambling it. In fact. He wouldn't be surprised if Tony had already realized this. He would be harder to find, but not impossible. Nothing was impossible, once Loki set his mind to it.
"Brother." Thor boomed from the door, his hand on the doorway denting the metal. He still wasn't used to the strength of the last upgrade, and it showed in the discomfort on his face. Loki frowned and ran calculations in his head for methods to fix this.
"Thor. Come." He crooked one slim finger at his older brother and gestured to the work bench. Thor sighed loudly and stamped over, peeling his shirt off as he went to reveal the net work of circuits and twisted metal and wires all along his right side. Thick cords and plates held him together, and surrounding the metal was mangled scars, remnants of the factory accident.
"I do not understand." Thor admitted, holding his arm up as Loki slipped goggles down over his face, inspecting the cybernetic ribs with an appraising poke of a screwdriver. Loki hummed, and began tinkering with the inner workings of Thor's side, digging under plates it inspect circuits. "You've been chasing after this hacker for years, and every time, he's eluded you."
Loki jabbed Thor cruelly in the side with his electric screwdriver, making him jump. It was a silent warning not to carry on this line of conversation, but Thor was purposefully obstinate.
"If he does not want to be found, can you not just leave him in peace?"
"You do not remember the time when we met "this hacker" as you say. You were nearly comatose from morphine dependency, and I kept you so to save you from the pain." Loki blinked, his throat tight. He remembered being alone, he remembered performing the surgery to save his brother's life, and he remembered the blood gushing hot and thick over his hands, he remembered Thor's delusional screams of pain and terror. Irritated with his sentimentality, he pushed the memories away. "Had it not been for that hacker, I would never have found the means to save you."
He glanced around Thor to his desk, where two pieces of paper, rare in this day and age, were framed. One, the schematics for a cybernetic arm, and the other a list of parts required in a cybernetic leg. He had built his Frost Giant empire purely from those sheets of paper, and those sheets of paper had brought Tony Stark to him. He finished on Thor's side, and locked the covering plate in place.
The locator beeped, alerting Loki that the search was complete. He stood and inspected the location. A subterranean bar on the second level, owned by one Natasha Romanoff. "Bring her in." He ordered Thor smoothly, smiled turning sharp and wolfish, stomach fluttering with the excitement of being this close. If he could not catch Tony directly, he would capture one of his friends. Perfect bait.
"Brother, I do not think she knows--"
"Bring, her. In. Do not make me repeat myself a third time." Loki growled. He turned to Thor, trying a smoother expression. "I must find him." He tried in a softer tone, eyes wide and pleading, completely aware that Thor had never been able to deny him anything when he looked at him like that. Not even when they were children.
"To thank him?" Thor asked dubiously. “For helping us?” Loki couldn’t help his devious smirk.
"Nothing so sweet as that." He smiled, touching the screen, where he knew, at that moment, Tony was sleeping, or building his fabulous droids, black hair standing on end from his hands running through it, body glistening with sweat, black oil smeared across his cheek, just like he remembered. "No, to own him."
01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101
"Home sweet hole in the ground." Tony sighed, carrying in the last of the computer equipment into the metal bunker in the third subterranean level of the city. No one lived on the third level, it was a completely uninhabitable industrious level where no one came except to occasionally service the construction bots. Even then, people had to wear toxin suits due to the chemicals and overwhelming heat. If Loki managed to track them here, they would have no escape. The bunker was cramped and rounded, with only a single steel ladder to climb in and out of the hole at the top with.
"Don't seal it, just yet, I haven't gotten the oxygen and filtration system operational yet." Bruce warned Steve as he came in, dumping his rare parts in a crate near by, and looping his satchel back over his shoulder.
Tony gave Steve a smile, and began assembling the computer screens, mounting them on the bunker wall, and running wires to each other, clipping them into service ports. "We got a new job at Natasha's before we started here." He began conversationally, sucking at his thumb when a wire cut it. He tossed Steve a computer chip, which he pushed into a tablet.
"We have most of these parts." Steve muttered, biting his lip briefly. "Some will take a while." He began climbing the ladder.
"See what you can do about the neck piece." Tony waved goodbye distractedly. He turned when he remembered something, calling after Steve's retreating red combat boots. "Don't forget to look for food!"
Both he and Bruce worked in amiable silence for the better part of an hour, nibbling on dehydrated fruit power bars, taking careful sips of water. Bruce looked over at him suspiciously. He finished the air filtration system, and both their hair blew in the cool breeze he managed to generate, making the oppressive heat of the third level somewhat more bearable.
"Made the beds already?" Bruce asked awkwardly, in a way that implied he had something else to ask, but really didn't want to come out with it.
Tony gave him a sideways look, and shook his head, finishing up a thick coil of cords, plugging it into his system. "Nah, let Steve do it. He's the best at making beds out of rags." He smiled, but Bruce didn't return it.
"You know, you never explained why Loki is chasing you." Bruce prodded.
Tony sighed. He'd expected the question eventually. Three years on the run from one insane man would do that. But he still hadn't come up with an answer. The truth? A lie? Bruce watched him, and he sighed again. "He's after software that I can develop, as far as he's concerned, it's the only software that will do to make his androids absolutely perfect." He shrugged, taking a large bite of a power bar, chewing slowly. It was dry and tasteless. "Together, the androids with the new software would be a pretty dangerous thing. More than that... I can't, I won't tell you." He tried a charming grin, but Bruce was giving him an appraising look.
It didn't matter how long he stared, how far he tried to dig, with just his eyes. Tony would never tell Bruce what happened, close to four and a half years ago.
01101000 01100001 01110100 01100101
The rumours of a rising company producing custom androids that resembled his were about as interesting as a weather report of acid rain. Tony hadn't cared, until someone placed an order, and brought the android before him.
He inspected it there in his office, the coloured neon lights shining through the polymer glass windows, giving the frost white android a pink, green and flashing yellow glow.
"Lights" he called, they switched on, and he muttered notes of the quality of make, the schematics of the arms and legs, the software in it's system, it's all round design. "Huh." He hummed at last. He turned to the worker waiting nervously in the corner, jumping when his eyes landing on him. "No need to quiver like a rat, I'm not gonna bite, unless you ask me to." He winked, and the worker tried to crack a smile. He snapped his fingers at him and began walking, and the worker jumped and tripped over himself to follow. "Tell me about this guy." They made their way to the landing bay, and slid into a sleek black aero-limo.
"He works out of your old building sir. He does all his commissions himself, makes all his parts, and writes all his software himself. He's a genius." The worker seemed amazed with him, and Tony shook his hand dismissively.
"I can tell all that just by looking at his work. What about him?"
The worker seemed at a loss. "W-well." He stammered, casting around the flying limo for something suitable to say to his CEO. "He's very pretty."
"That's more like it." Tony grinned. "Go on."
"He has very piercing green eyes, and he always works in the dark. He asked me if I was buying my android for a greater purpose, when I told him no, he smiled at me." The worker shivered at the memory. "It felt like he knew I was lying, and was amused that I would even try."
Tony nodded, feeling excitement flutter in his stomach. He already decided he liked the guy. He climbed carefully out of the limo, toeing at the ruined glass of his old company building with expensive shoes. The place had far too many memories, but he pushed those aside in favour of bubbling excitement. Below the landing bay, he could see the sparks of work going on.
The place was a ruin, and the genius who now resided there obviously hadn't the time, the money, or the care to fix it up, save for one this. The neon white letters that once read "Stark Industries" were being arranged one letter at a time to read "Frost Giants". Tony walked down the spiralling stairs to the main level, approaching the work benches where flashes of a soldering tool highlighted an android still in pieces, and a pair of dark goggles over a pale face that tipped up as he entered.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your fine company, Anthony Stark?" The genius put down his tool, and lifted his goggles.
"Lights, dim." Tony called, satisfied his systems still worked even years later when the building lights hummed lowly to life, illuminating the tall pale beauty, raising a single dark eye brow at him. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."
"Laufeyson." He responded, thoroughly unimpressed as he pulled his goggles back over his face, combing his hair back with one oil slicked hand. "Loki Laufeyson." He started to get back to work, but Tony strode forward, pulling the tool out of his hand.
"Don't like being ignored." He whispered, feeling a thrill of something when Loki's bright green eyes flashed dangerously at him from behind his goggles. He pulled those off too, and dropped both items onto the workbench. Loki smiled then, all teeth and cruelty. It was a horrifying and terribly attractive smile, like looking at the devil and being dragged to hell.
"That's unfortunate, Mr. Stark. I'm a very busy man." He took a step forward, right into Tony's space, pressing him back against the work table. "Busy stealing your cybernetics designs and selling them as my own. So if you're here to arrest me, you had better make it fast." He licked his lips, amused when Tony's eyes darted down to catch the motion. "Rather than staring at me like you want nothing better than to taste me."
Tony might have made a sharp comment, something tactless, when he was distracted by a rough groan behind Loki. He peered over the other man's shoulder at a bundle of blankets serving as a bed. Loki's head turned just slightly, mouth thinning as he lowered his gaze to the floor, expression ice cold and calculating. He didn’t look over his shoulder, as though ignoring the presence of the bed would erase the sound from memory.
"Get out." He growled at last, pushing away from Tony to kneel beside the bed and fiddle with a medical kit just beside the bundle. He could hear the lump beneath the blankets groaning out Loki's name as the genius worked, flicking the bubbles out of a syringe and pressing the air out. "Shh." Loki murmured soothingly, pulling an arm out from beneath the blankets, pressing the syringe into death pale skin.
The bundle kept murmuring, before falling into a deep sleep as Loki pet a sweaty blonde head, bedraggled hair stark contrast to the thin grey blankets. "I told you to get out." Loki hissed when Tony took a step forward, peering at the gaunt face within the hollow of the blankets, and the glow of a cybernetic arm rolling limply out of the bed. The ground around the bed had been carefully swept, and washed back to it's usual high gloss shine, kept meticulously clean.
"Your lover?" He asked, unfazed by Loki's glare.
"My brother." He snapped.
"He's sick." Tony observed gently. Loki's shoulders went stiff, mouth a straight hard line, his knuckles white with strain. "And a cyborg, by the looks of it." He waited for Loki to respond, and when he didn't, continued. "That's a dangerous game, fusing man and machine. No one's perfected it without serious repercussions."
Loki's jaw twitched, but he didn‘t turn, eyes narrowed on the view beyond the clouded windows. "It was either this, or let him die of infection." Just his tone suggested that he had nothing else, and if he lost this one thing, his brother, he might have gone insane. Tony could understand that. Pepper's mind, preserved in an android that looked just like her, was proof enough of that.
"Listen. I don't want to arrest you. I want you to work for me." Tony said. If he felt low, hitting a man when he was down, he didn't show it. "I can help you. If anything, I'm the most advanced in cyborg technology." He tapped his chest, the dull clink faithfully answering. “Hell, I’m part cyborg myself, in some ways.”
"Do not think I will forget this, Tony Stark." Loki hissed dangerously, his gaze promising pain, the suffering of everything he had ever loved. "An animal is not so beautiful, when it has been backed into a corner."
They were bent over plans for Thor's next surgery mere days later. Loki was making adjustments to accommodate Thor, injuries, while robots in the surgery room beyond the observation room worked on gently removing Thor's cybernetic limbs, guided by JARVIS.
"You did a good job, with just scraps." Tony offered, watching Loki watching the process. He stood up straight, and didn’t show the strain he had to be feeling, normally luminous green eyes dark.
"I am not some child who needs comfort." He said warningly, glaring at Tony over his shoulder. "You need not sweeten this situation with meaningless words you think might help. There is nothing that will help. Either my brother will die from this operation, or he will live and get better." He turned to Tony then, drawing himself to his full, impressive height, glaring down his nose at him. "Just know that should this prove unsuccessful, I will unmake you, and everything you are."
"Well, baby, love it when you talk dirty." Tony muttered, and decided it would probably be a bad idea to push Loki against the control panels and kiss him until he forgot all about Thor, and unmade Tony in entirely different ways.
He left Loki in the observation room, working on a few designs Loki had doodled as he waited for the preparations for the surgery to be complete. He laughed a little as he looked at them, glad that he had scooped Loki up, through force or not, before anyone else had the chance. His genius rivalled Tony's own.
He was there puzzling over designs for the better part of three hours when Loki burst in, completely ignoring android Pepper's protests as the door closed in her face. Tony stood up, startled, backing up a half step. It occurred to him to call for security when Loki's slim fingers closed around his throat, nearly cutting off his air as Loki pushed him back into the window and held him there, crushing their lips together fiercely.
Tony let out a little sound, arm curving around Loki's back to hold him tight, tongues sliding together. "How's your brother?" He asked breathlessly when Loki pulled away, lips dark and moist.
"In stasis." Loki answered curtly, pressing him hard against the glass. "I owe you a debt, Tony Stark. And I will repay it." He promised. "I will take you to the top of this world, be your hand and your eyes and your sword, as I promised." His hand smoothed down Tony's side, over the curve of his ass and to his thigh, urging him to lift his leg and wrap it around him.
He took Tony right there against the window, again with him bent over his desk, again on the floor. Tony laughed softly, body sated and sweaty, playing meaninglessly with the papers Loki had scattered on the floor. "Alright." He said, still smiling. "Do what you think needs doing."
He wondered briefly if he should tell Loki that they were not exclusive, that Tony Stark did not do long term anything, that hoping for more than the occasional expensive gift and continuous rounds of mind blowing sex was like hoping to fly, hoping to breathe clean air. He decided that it didn't matter. He had never been known for doing anything good for him.
They worked together for almost a year, improving upon each others designs, taking the technology market by storm, releasing androids, tablets and software other corporations could only dream of, constantly upgrading their wares and playing off each other. It was a perfect working relationship with the added benefit of sex. And if Tony noticed the glint of possessiveness in Loki's hypnotic green eyes, he didn't comment on it. In fact, he blatantly didn’t care.
"Your top competitors at Stane Inc. are like unto a leaning tower of children's blocks, waiting for a push to send them toppling." Loki announced with a smile. He looked devious, his tailored suit fit him well, the green of his tie bringing out the paler tones of his emerald eyes. Tony licked his lips, eyes smouldering when he met Loki's gaze.
"Yeah?" He hummed, crooking his finger for Loki to come closer. Loki leaned over the desk to him, smile sharp and aware of precisely what Tony was thinking. "What do you suppose we do?" He whispered against Loki's mouth, not quite a kiss. He didn't have to wait long for Loki to close the barely perceptible space between them, groaning into Loki's thorough kiss, gripping his black hair.
"Crush them." Loki said in answer when they parted, lips damp, breathing quickened.
"Give the word then, Mr. Laufeyson." He smiled. Loki nodded sharply and turned away. "I'll see you in my office after you're done." He reminded when Loki was half way to the door.
"That you will, Mr. Stark."
It took him only days to see the weight of his decision. They were driving along the first subterranean level to the train station, Pepper droning on endlessly about the meetings they would have once they arrived at the end of their train journey. She pointedly and subtly reminded them to at least do some work rather than fuck like animals the entire ride to the next city. Loki's hand rested comfortably high on his thigh, warm and familiar as he gazed out the window, a glass of scotch in his hand.
"Pepper, what's with all these people?" He asked suddenly, pointing out the car window at the masses of people gathered in the subway stations, expressions ranging from blank to lost, belongings gathered to them. Children scampered innocently in and among the vacant eyed adults.
"Those are former employees of Stane Inc. And their families." Pepper intoned softly, her android eyes turning to Tony with a distinct expression of disappointment. He could feel Loki's fingers tighten on his thigh. "When Stane Inc went under, they had no means of work, and now travel to other cities looking for jobs at other corporations. They will not find them."
"Why not?" Tony asked sharply, unable to tear his eyes away from one tired looking woman, rocking her child back and forth, eyes puffy and red with tears she could no longer afford to spend, her child brushing her cheeks and asking if she was hurt somewhere. She tried to smile and shake her head, and Tony could see her cursing him in her mind. Could feel the barbs she sent at him, feel her hate.
"Tony, Stark Industries owns a monopoly over the market. Other corporations are down sizing their employees in order to cut their losses. No one is going to hire them."
"Find them jobs in Stark Industries." He glared at Pepper, who gaped at him, and then at Loki who looked completely passive, as though he had foreseen this all along. It was his lack of response that pissed Tony off more than anything.
"Sir, there are no jobs available in Stark Industries." She tried to reason.
"Then make them jobs." He snapped. "And turn this car around." He left Loki in the car when they arrived at Stark tower, ignoring his second in command's exasperated calls to wait.
He locked the door to the pent house with a rather complicated encryption code and changed out of his suit, pulling on a set of regular clothes. Without really thinking about why, he downloaded his latest software work onto a chip that he slipped into his pocket, completely burning any trace of it left in the system. Finished that he set about recording a message.
"Live model decoy message addressed to Mr. Loki Laufeyson." He announced, and waited for the program to register his command and begin recording. "I can't do it. I can't look at all the damage I just caused, and not feel guilt. You can. I don't think you even know what guilt means. You could probably, will probably, take over the world." He took a breath and smiled. "That's why I'm leaving it to you. My title, my resources, my company, my schematics, my employees, all of it." He was about to say end transmission and get up, when he sat back down, expression tight, the feeling in his chest foreign. "Whatever you do, don't try to follow me. You already fulfilled your promise to me, and your brother is on the mend. Thanks for putting up with me, Loki." He gave a smile, and waved goodbye. "End transmission."
He heaved a breath, pulled a satchel with only a few essential tools in his bag, swung his leg over an Aero-motorcycle, and left.
When Loki finally hacked through the encryptions that had locked him out of the main office, Tony was long gone. "You have a message, Mr Laufeyson" JARVIS announced as Loki sat down at the computer.
He watched it. Fist tight and seething with anger, he pushed his chair back, and was very tempted to smash everything he saw. "Where is he?" He asked through gritted teeth, breathing hard. "Where has he gone?"
"He has already abandoned the motorcycle he took, somewhere on the edge of the above ground citadel. Beyond that, I do not know." JARVIS replied. "It would appear he left with a software file he immediately deleted all backups of in order to keep them from you, sir."
Loki made a noise of rage. Didn't Tony know already that he had no choice in the matter? He was not ever going to let him go. Not now, not in death, not ever. He belonged to him, as surely as this entire world belonged to him. And he would find him, regardless of how long it took.
The numbers between each scene are binary code, and translate to: I want, need, love, hate, destroy, create, lose, find, adore you.