Nine Lives 20
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A/N: Quick update! I missed this. :)
To the Rescue!
On the third floor, Tony eyed each shadow that slanted across the floor, hardly daring to blink. Every darkened corner seemed to hold a pair of sinister eyes and bone-pale hands, and he often had to remind himself to breathe. Next to him, Thor's stance and footsteps echoed his own.
Tony's blood hummed in his veins with a thrill somewhere between fierce joy and terror that reminded him of flying, of car races, and that he had grown to love and crave. He felt most alive in these moments, ironically when his life was most in danger, and from the gleam in his eye, so did Thor. Tony wondered if that was what really separated the so-called superheroes and villains from the general populace, the all-consuming need to chase moments of indelible stupidity and the lack of forethought that most people mistook for bravery.
The Avengers could certainly never be accused of over-thinking things.
Tony imagined Loki scoffing and calling him an idiot, and his small smile turned bitter. He didn't know how long Loki had or if he was even safe down in the laboratory alone, and Tony realized that this chase wasn't all that fun after all.
Thor saw it first.
“There!”
The barely discernible slide of black on black, the wisp of familiar smoke that curled around a corner up ahead.
Then Tony heard it, the stuttering hiss like escaping steam. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears.
“Follow it,” Tony said, giving the schematics another once-over. “I'll circle around so we can flank it.”
Thor nodded and ran down the hallway, cloak and hair billowing out behind him as Tony cut down the nearest left.
Tony hefted the canister in one hand, and the sweat lining his palms made his gauntlets slide and stick uncomfortably against his skin. When he heard the stuttering hiss up ahead, he ducked into an alcove and waited, one hand poised on the canister's trigger.
He blinked the sweat from his eyes. He thought of Loki and drew in a shaky breath.
“You better appreciate this, you bastard,” he muttered.
The hissing grew closer, and wisps of smoke trailed towards him. He had to time this perfectly...
Tony spun out of his alcove and took aim at the smoky, flat-eyed creature, only to start in surprise as a great roar announced Thor's presence. Tony caught a glimpse of blonde hair over the Horseman's indistinct form, and then a swinging hammer parted the smoke. The Horseman shrieked and Tony cursed, pulling his finger off the trigger.
Then the Horseman, unscathed even by the mighty Mjolnir, turned on Thor.
“Get back!” Tony shouted. Thor stumbled back in time to avoid the Horseman's claw-like hands but was forced to continue to backpedal when each swipe of Mjolnir swung harmlessly through smoke. Tony caught sight of Thor's wild-eyed stare and cursed under his breath.
“It's not working!” Thor shouted, and Tony again applauded his grasp of the obvious. Tony pursed his lips and followed the Horseman following Thor, pointer finger again resting on the canister's trigger.
“Thor, listen to me,” Tony called out over the Horseman's ear-splitting shrieks and hisses. “I need you to drop to the floor. Now!”
“Tony, I -!”
“Now, Thor!”
All six feet of thunder-god fell to the floor, limbs splayed and face pressed to stone. Tony pulled the trigger.
Liquid nitrogen sprayed out of the canister, freezing on contact with the semi-corporeal creature. Black smoke mingled with white steam, and the Horseman's angry shrieks turned shocked and pained. Once Tony released the trigger, Thor pushed himself up onto one knee and swung Mjolnir through the creature with both hands. What was left of the Horseman shattered in a spray of frozen dust.
The canister fell to the floor with a hollow clunk, and Thor looked up at Tony with admiration.
“Just a precaution, you say?” he panted, lips quirked in a wry grin.
“Yeah,” Tony said with a shaky laugh. “Guess sometimes it pays to be a science nerd.”
Thor smiled though Tony doubted he knew what he meant.
“It won't be long now, my dear,” Doom murmured, smiling grimly at the still-silent Loki. He pressed a long-remembered combination of buttons on the machine to Loki's left; a cabinet opened, and a tray of vials slid into view.
“I have no desire to deal with your brother's famous wrath.”
Doom plucked up the tray and turned to eye Loki one last time. He had a private jet waiting to take him far from Latveria and a pair of vengeful Norse gods. Just for a few days.
“Until next time.”
Tony's eyes were gritty from staring, and again he found himself grateful for autopilot. In accordance with the laws of time, the trip back seemed to go by faster, somehow, but knowing that Loki was in the back, unconscious and barely breathing, didn't make the return trip any easier on his nerves.
The memory of unhooking Loki from those machines was still fresh in his mind, and he remembered the soul-stopping relief he had felt upon feeling the weak flutter of Loki's pulse under his fingers.
Tony glanced over his shoulder towards the back, where Thor sat vigil over Loki.
“How is he?” he asked.
Thor frowned down at his brother, one long, pale hand held in his. “The same.”
Tony nodded, wanting to say more but not knowing what.
“Tony?”
“Yeah?”
A loaded pause, and then, “How did you know that Loki needed our help in the first place?”
Tony cringed. He knew it was only a matter of time before Thor got suspicious, but he wished that Doom hadn't started asking all the right damn questions.
“I told you,” he said evenly, neutrally. “Jarvis told me - ”
“But why was Jarvis even looking for Loki in the first place?”
Tony felt Thor's stare boring into the back of his head. He fought the urge to squirm.
“Tony,” Thor said, his tone harder than it had been but still - thankfully - friendly. “I've delved through enough lies and half-truths from my brother. You do yourself no favors in withholding truths from me.”
Tony swallowed thickly. “Look, Thor,” he said. “I'm not 'withholding truths' from you. I'm just... Things have been complicated between Loki and me since the whole, you know, cat thing. I'm... really not sure how to answer.” He picked at a few grains of dirt along the dashboard.
The sound of footsteps, and then Thor was standing in the periphery of Tony's vision. Thor clapped a hand on the back of Tony's seat and leaned forward to eye his fidgeting friend. “Try,” he said. He smiled, but there was a hint of steel in his expression.
“You, uh... you really should stay seated, Thor - ”
“Tony.”
“...okay.” Tony considered crashing the jet just to end this conversation. He cleared his throat and glanced in Thor's general direction but avoided eye-contact. “You... know about the whole hostage thing the other day, right?”
“Indeed,” Thor answered slowly.
Here goes nothing. “Well... Loki and I may have, uh...” Tony made a vague, aborted motion with his hand. He cleared his throat. “We may have slept together. Please don't hurt me.”
Tony tensed, waiting for the roar of fury and the impact of a hammer or a fist against his skull. All he got was tense silence, which, in some ways, was worse. Finally, Tony worked up the courage to look Thor in the eye. The god's face was tight but pensive.
“Why would I hurt you?” he asked.
Tony blinked. “Why - ? Well, you're his big brother, aren't you?”
A crooked grin split Thor's face. “He's hardly a blushing maiden, Tony,” he chuffed. “Believe you me, he could do - and has done - much worse.” Thor grimaced and stared out at the sky.
Tony paused to process this. “Um, thanks?”
Thor folded his arms and eyed Tony again. “So what is he to you, then?”
Tony swallowed and shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
Thor regarded him for a moment longer. After a while, his lips quirked at some private thought. “I think you do,” he said. “Or you wouldn't have risked - how did Doom put it? - 'World War III' for his sake.”
Thor patted Tony's shoulder and turned to head back to Loki. “Oh, and, Tony?” His hand lingered too long and the fingers dug in too much to be entirely friendly. “If you hurt him...” He trailed off meaningfully, menacingly.
“Yeah,” Tony answered sheepishly. “Yeah, I know.”
Though chances are he'd have more to fear from Loki in that instance. Thor chuckled and released Tony's shoulder.
Tony thanked whatever gods were listening that he managed to survive that conversation.
Loki was certain he was screaming. His ears rang with the sound, and his throat felt scraped raw. But he couldn't feel his lips or his tongue or anything for that matter, so “certain” was probably not the best word. He was adrift in a sea of white, of black, of all and no color... floating, swimming, and drowning.
Now that he thought of it, he wasn't even certain he was breathing.
Panic swelled up from where he knew his chest to be, though his insides felt scooped out, hollow, and he wasn't even sure he had a chest to feel.
Something - everything - was wrong. Someone had crossed the wires in his brain, somehow. He could taste the give of a mattress beneath him, could hear the swirls of color around him, and could see the vibration of sound behind his eyelids.
Loki was certain he was screaming... or at least that he would if he could.
After lifetimes of the tangled nothingness, Loki registered a new sensation, the rasp of something like skin on skin. Fingertips, he realized with an effort. Icy cold against his cheek. He was drowning and burning all at once and he didn't he couldn't he wanted -
A new vibration of sound, this time in his ears, thank the Norns, and Loki felt parts of his addled brain realigning, finally, finally.
Help me, he wanted to say. I can't breathe! The fire burns, and the smoke is choking, choking, choking...
Another sound. Familiar, two syllables. A name.
His name.
Another piece clicked into place, and he recognized the sounds of “lo” and “ki” and remembered how they fit together to make him.
Another brush of fingertips, this time against his forehead. Water trickled from his hairline. Sweat, he realized. His skin itched so bad it burned. He felt like he had been turned inside out.
“Loki.”
His name, then more sounds. His ears took years to translate: can and you and hear and me. A question.
Feeling returned to the rest of him, and he realized that his lips were moving and his eyes were open. But he couldn't see, and he couldn't draw in enough air to speak.
More skin to skin, this time palm to cheek, the drag of a thumb back and forth across a cheekbone, refreshingly cool. Suddenly, he remembered what it was like to breathe, and he drew in great, gasping, rattly breaths, because he had been drowning.
He didn't realize he had sat up until there were hands pressing him down. Loki marveled how he could have forgotten what “down” meant. More water - sweat - trickled down his neck and back, and Loki felt his body shivering, his teeth chattering.
Then he blinked, and his eyes remembered that they were responsible for sight. The colors rocked and swam, and Loki screwed his eyes shut until his stomach stopped churning.
“Loki?”
He opened his eyes, and his brain supplied Tony before the colors even resolved into their proper shapes. He stared and strained to focus, watching lines of worry smooth over into a crooked smile on Tony's face. Loki's lips finally stilled, and he remembered what it was like to hold the reins on his body.
He was feverish, he realized, shivering and covered in sweat.
“Hey,” Tony murmured. “Good of you to join us.”
Tony, he tried to say, but all that came out were nonsense syllables.
“Don't try to talk, just... just hang in there, okay?”
Tony started to slip away, and the lines and colors started to double and blur. Don't go, Loki wanted to say, but his voice still wouldn't cooperate.
He slid back into nothingness.
Footnote: Btw, I have a few more Tony/Loki stories planned for this 'verse once I'm done with NL. Thoughts? ^__^
A/N: Quick update! I missed this. :)
To the Rescue!
On the third floor, Tony eyed each shadow that slanted across the floor, hardly daring to blink. Every darkened corner seemed to hold a pair of sinister eyes and bone-pale hands, and he often had to remind himself to breathe. Next to him, Thor's stance and footsteps echoed his own.
Tony's blood hummed in his veins with a thrill somewhere between fierce joy and terror that reminded him of flying, of car races, and that he had grown to love and crave. He felt most alive in these moments, ironically when his life was most in danger, and from the gleam in his eye, so did Thor. Tony wondered if that was what really separated the so-called superheroes and villains from the general populace, the all-consuming need to chase moments of indelible stupidity and the lack of forethought that most people mistook for bravery.
The Avengers could certainly never be accused of over-thinking things.
Tony imagined Loki scoffing and calling him an idiot, and his small smile turned bitter. He didn't know how long Loki had or if he was even safe down in the laboratory alone, and Tony realized that this chase wasn't all that fun after all.
Thor saw it first.
“There!”
The barely discernible slide of black on black, the wisp of familiar smoke that curled around a corner up ahead.
Then Tony heard it, the stuttering hiss like escaping steam. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears.
“Follow it,” Tony said, giving the schematics another once-over. “I'll circle around so we can flank it.”
Thor nodded and ran down the hallway, cloak and hair billowing out behind him as Tony cut down the nearest left.
Tony hefted the canister in one hand, and the sweat lining his palms made his gauntlets slide and stick uncomfortably against his skin. When he heard the stuttering hiss up ahead, he ducked into an alcove and waited, one hand poised on the canister's trigger.
He blinked the sweat from his eyes. He thought of Loki and drew in a shaky breath.
“You better appreciate this, you bastard,” he muttered.
The hissing grew closer, and wisps of smoke trailed towards him. He had to time this perfectly...
Tony spun out of his alcove and took aim at the smoky, flat-eyed creature, only to start in surprise as a great roar announced Thor's presence. Tony caught a glimpse of blonde hair over the Horseman's indistinct form, and then a swinging hammer parted the smoke. The Horseman shrieked and Tony cursed, pulling his finger off the trigger.
Then the Horseman, unscathed even by the mighty Mjolnir, turned on Thor.
“Get back!” Tony shouted. Thor stumbled back in time to avoid the Horseman's claw-like hands but was forced to continue to backpedal when each swipe of Mjolnir swung harmlessly through smoke. Tony caught sight of Thor's wild-eyed stare and cursed under his breath.
“It's not working!” Thor shouted, and Tony again applauded his grasp of the obvious. Tony pursed his lips and followed the Horseman following Thor, pointer finger again resting on the canister's trigger.
“Thor, listen to me,” Tony called out over the Horseman's ear-splitting shrieks and hisses. “I need you to drop to the floor. Now!”
“Tony, I -!”
“Now, Thor!”
All six feet of thunder-god fell to the floor, limbs splayed and face pressed to stone. Tony pulled the trigger.
Liquid nitrogen sprayed out of the canister, freezing on contact with the semi-corporeal creature. Black smoke mingled with white steam, and the Horseman's angry shrieks turned shocked and pained. Once Tony released the trigger, Thor pushed himself up onto one knee and swung Mjolnir through the creature with both hands. What was left of the Horseman shattered in a spray of frozen dust.
The canister fell to the floor with a hollow clunk, and Thor looked up at Tony with admiration.
“Just a precaution, you say?” he panted, lips quirked in a wry grin.
“Yeah,” Tony said with a shaky laugh. “Guess sometimes it pays to be a science nerd.”
Thor smiled though Tony doubted he knew what he meant.
“It won't be long now, my dear,” Doom murmured, smiling grimly at the still-silent Loki. He pressed a long-remembered combination of buttons on the machine to Loki's left; a cabinet opened, and a tray of vials slid into view.
“I have no desire to deal with your brother's famous wrath.”
Doom plucked up the tray and turned to eye Loki one last time. He had a private jet waiting to take him far from Latveria and a pair of vengeful Norse gods. Just for a few days.
“Until next time.”
Tony's eyes were gritty from staring, and again he found himself grateful for autopilot. In accordance with the laws of time, the trip back seemed to go by faster, somehow, but knowing that Loki was in the back, unconscious and barely breathing, didn't make the return trip any easier on his nerves.
The memory of unhooking Loki from those machines was still fresh in his mind, and he remembered the soul-stopping relief he had felt upon feeling the weak flutter of Loki's pulse under his fingers.
Tony glanced over his shoulder towards the back, where Thor sat vigil over Loki.
“How is he?” he asked.
Thor frowned down at his brother, one long, pale hand held in his. “The same.”
Tony nodded, wanting to say more but not knowing what.
“Tony?”
“Yeah?”
A loaded pause, and then, “How did you know that Loki needed our help in the first place?”
Tony cringed. He knew it was only a matter of time before Thor got suspicious, but he wished that Doom hadn't started asking all the right damn questions.
“I told you,” he said evenly, neutrally. “Jarvis told me - ”
“But why was Jarvis even looking for Loki in the first place?”
Tony felt Thor's stare boring into the back of his head. He fought the urge to squirm.
“Tony,” Thor said, his tone harder than it had been but still - thankfully - friendly. “I've delved through enough lies and half-truths from my brother. You do yourself no favors in withholding truths from me.”
Tony swallowed thickly. “Look, Thor,” he said. “I'm not 'withholding truths' from you. I'm just... Things have been complicated between Loki and me since the whole, you know, cat thing. I'm... really not sure how to answer.” He picked at a few grains of dirt along the dashboard.
The sound of footsteps, and then Thor was standing in the periphery of Tony's vision. Thor clapped a hand on the back of Tony's seat and leaned forward to eye his fidgeting friend. “Try,” he said. He smiled, but there was a hint of steel in his expression.
“You, uh... you really should stay seated, Thor - ”
“Tony.”
“...okay.” Tony considered crashing the jet just to end this conversation. He cleared his throat and glanced in Thor's general direction but avoided eye-contact. “You... know about the whole hostage thing the other day, right?”
“Indeed,” Thor answered slowly.
Here goes nothing. “Well... Loki and I may have, uh...” Tony made a vague, aborted motion with his hand. He cleared his throat. “We may have slept together. Please don't hurt me.”
Tony tensed, waiting for the roar of fury and the impact of a hammer or a fist against his skull. All he got was tense silence, which, in some ways, was worse. Finally, Tony worked up the courage to look Thor in the eye. The god's face was tight but pensive.
“Why would I hurt you?” he asked.
Tony blinked. “Why - ? Well, you're his big brother, aren't you?”
A crooked grin split Thor's face. “He's hardly a blushing maiden, Tony,” he chuffed. “Believe you me, he could do - and has done - much worse.” Thor grimaced and stared out at the sky.
Tony paused to process this. “Um, thanks?”
Thor folded his arms and eyed Tony again. “So what is he to you, then?”
Tony swallowed and shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
Thor regarded him for a moment longer. After a while, his lips quirked at some private thought. “I think you do,” he said. “Or you wouldn't have risked - how did Doom put it? - 'World War III' for his sake.”
Thor patted Tony's shoulder and turned to head back to Loki. “Oh, and, Tony?” His hand lingered too long and the fingers dug in too much to be entirely friendly. “If you hurt him...” He trailed off meaningfully, menacingly.
“Yeah,” Tony answered sheepishly. “Yeah, I know.”
Though chances are he'd have more to fear from Loki in that instance. Thor chuckled and released Tony's shoulder.
Tony thanked whatever gods were listening that he managed to survive that conversation.
Loki was certain he was screaming. His ears rang with the sound, and his throat felt scraped raw. But he couldn't feel his lips or his tongue or anything for that matter, so “certain” was probably not the best word. He was adrift in a sea of white, of black, of all and no color... floating, swimming, and drowning.
Now that he thought of it, he wasn't even certain he was breathing.
Panic swelled up from where he knew his chest to be, though his insides felt scooped out, hollow, and he wasn't even sure he had a chest to feel.
Something - everything - was wrong. Someone had crossed the wires in his brain, somehow. He could taste the give of a mattress beneath him, could hear the swirls of color around him, and could see the vibration of sound behind his eyelids.
Loki was certain he was screaming... or at least that he would if he could.
After lifetimes of the tangled nothingness, Loki registered a new sensation, the rasp of something like skin on skin. Fingertips, he realized with an effort. Icy cold against his cheek. He was drowning and burning all at once and he didn't he couldn't he wanted -
A new vibration of sound, this time in his ears, thank the Norns, and Loki felt parts of his addled brain realigning, finally, finally.
Help me, he wanted to say. I can't breathe! The fire burns, and the smoke is choking, choking, choking...
Another sound. Familiar, two syllables. A name.
His name.
Another piece clicked into place, and he recognized the sounds of “lo” and “ki” and remembered how they fit together to make him.
Another brush of fingertips, this time against his forehead. Water trickled from his hairline. Sweat, he realized. His skin itched so bad it burned. He felt like he had been turned inside out.
“Loki.”
His name, then more sounds. His ears took years to translate: can and you and hear and me. A question.
Feeling returned to the rest of him, and he realized that his lips were moving and his eyes were open. But he couldn't see, and he couldn't draw in enough air to speak.
More skin to skin, this time palm to cheek, the drag of a thumb back and forth across a cheekbone, refreshingly cool. Suddenly, he remembered what it was like to breathe, and he drew in great, gasping, rattly breaths, because he had been drowning.
He didn't realize he had sat up until there were hands pressing him down. Loki marveled how he could have forgotten what “down” meant. More water - sweat - trickled down his neck and back, and Loki felt his body shivering, his teeth chattering.
Then he blinked, and his eyes remembered that they were responsible for sight. The colors rocked and swam, and Loki screwed his eyes shut until his stomach stopped churning.
“Loki?”
He opened his eyes, and his brain supplied Tony before the colors even resolved into their proper shapes. He stared and strained to focus, watching lines of worry smooth over into a crooked smile on Tony's face. Loki's lips finally stilled, and he remembered what it was like to hold the reins on his body.
He was feverish, he realized, shivering and covered in sweat.
“Hey,” Tony murmured. “Good of you to join us.”
Tony, he tried to say, but all that came out were nonsense syllables.
“Don't try to talk, just... just hang in there, okay?”
Tony started to slip away, and the lines and colors started to double and blur. Don't go, Loki wanted to say, but his voice still wouldn't cooperate.
He slid back into nothingness.
Footnote: Btw, I have a few more Tony/Loki stories planned for this 'verse once I'm done with NL. Thoughts? ^__^