The Devil You Know 12

[maverikloki]

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A/N: Angst ahoy, darlings. xD

Love is a Four-Letter Word, Part II



Loki stared at the Stark phone on his counter as though it held the secrets to the meaning of life. His fingers were steepled in front of his face, his index fingers tapping idly against his lips.

Two weeks had passed, and Loki desperately wanted to call Tony, to teleport in front of him, to hear him, to see him, to screw him and then strangle him within an inch of his life.

But no. Tony had to come to him, to beg, preferably on his knees.

Patience was not one of Loki's virtues.

The desk reverberated, and Tony woke with a start. Who needed an alarm when you had Pepper dropping heavy books by your head?

"You're an idiot."

Tony snuffled and blinked owlishly up at Pepper. She stood over him, smartly dressed and hair coifed, with one hand on her cocked hip and the other tapping a staccato rhythm against his desk.

Tony rubbed the sleep from his eyes and felt creases in his cheek where it had been pressed into the keyboard.

"I wasn't aware this was news to you," he said. "How long have you been working for me?"

"Too long," she snapped, folding her arms across her chest and pursing her lips in a look that Tony knew meant trouble. He eyed her warily.

"What did I do this time?" he asked.

"You have to ask?"

Tony stared down at his hands, picking lint off the keyboard.

"You realize you're in love with Loki and, what, you decide that's it? Time to call it quits?"

"No," Tony answered, though his voice sounded weak even to him.

Pepper bent further over him to look into his face. "Tony," she said, anger softening to exasperation, "you need to stop running from this. Your commitment issues aside, you need to remember that you've had something of a stabilizing effect on Loki."

Tony eyed her doubtfully.

"Not that he'd admit it," Pepper continued wryly. "But think about it. Ever since you two became official, he stopped with the whole super-villain thing. Do you realize that? You give him something that he apparently needed, and if you keep pushing him away..." Pepper trailed off, her eyes wide as she shook her head.

"Great," Tony muttered. "So if I screw this up, it will be my fault when he tries to take over the world again?"

Pepper closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "Tony," she said, "that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that he needs you." She leaned into his face and added, "So man up."

Pepper turned and left, her heels clicking against stone.

Tony stared off into the middle distance. She was right, and he knew that, but...

Later, he decided. He would fix things later.

Cloaked in invisibility, Loki stood on the sidewalk and let out a shuddering sigh, letting the sights-sounds-chaos wash over him. His apartment was silent and still as the grave. Neither Midgardian music nor television appealed to him, but for hours he had blared both at the same time just to combat the emptiness. After a while even this had become little more than white noise to him, and he was afraid, so afraid of the stillness that would follow.

For months, Tony Stark had been his distraction, infatuating, infuriating - an endless puzzle. If Tony knew how often Loki had secretly watched his movements, his ticks and mannerisms, and wanted to take the human's mind apart and put it back together just to see how it worked, he would likely run far, far away.

And now Loki had to do without his favorite distraction, and in the wake of boredom and silence came something much darker.

For a while, the sensory overload of the crowds soothed him and stilled the trembling in Loki's hands. But then night came, and the crowd thinned and thinned until...

Stillness.

Shadows twisted away from streetlights and passing headlights, and in the blackness, Loki saw the Void, the between-worlds he had fallen through for centuries and seconds. The night was warm, but he shivered.

Look what this human has reduced you to, a part of him, angry - always angry - said, disgusted. And you let him.

"Hush," Loki murmured, passing a hand over his eyes. Even his voice shook.

Always so weak.

"Shut up."

Weak compared to Thor, now weak compared to a gods-forsaken human.

"Shut up!"

A man walking by jumped and stared out into the night for a moment, bewildered. He walked on uncertainly, and Loki's stare bore into his back.

"I'm not weak," he murmured.

Then prove it.

Loki closed his eyes against a wince. "I don't need to," he said. There was no conviction in his voice.

Look at you. He's tamed you.

And Loki thought about everything he had been avoiding for so long.

"Odin's beard," Loki murmured. He had given up playing the "super-villain", his way of life, for the approval of a mere mortal.

A mortal who has abandoned you.

No human should have that kind of power over him, and it was time to snap out of it. Tony was obviously pushing him away, and it was about time the human realized - and that Loki convinced himself - that he was not nearly as important to the god as his big head seemed to think.

You know who you are. What you are.

Loki felt magic crackle at his fingertips and set a car aflame with a snap of his fingers. He laughed, high and hysterical, at the shrieks of passers-by and watched the humans scatter like a flock of pigeons.

Tears settled into the creases of his smile as he set two more cars ablaze. The fire was bright enough to banish much of the darkness, to banish the faceless demons that haunted Loki's sleep.

Loki hated this spiteful, destructive part of himself, but it was the part that was most familiar, the part the prophecies told him he would embrace whether he wanted to or not.

He stared into the flames and felt the heat lick over his face. With a snap of his fingers, the building behind him exploded, glass and debris plinking harmlessly against his personal bubble.

"Try to ignore this, Tony."

The mansion trembled, photos and coffee mugs jangling against the walls like chattering teeth, and Tony sighed, pushing his plate away from the edge as he extricated his toast from the toaster. He paused in the middle of buttering his toast when he remembered that he was in New York, not California, and that New England didn't have earthquakes as a general rule.

"Avengers," came Fury's voice over the intercom. Tony closed his eyes and bit back a groan. "There is a high-powered super-villain creating an artificial earthquake downtown. We're gonna need all of you on this."

"Who's the target?" Tony asked between hurried bites of toast.

A long, long pause that made Tony's blood run cold. "Stark," Fury said in a voice that was slightly less snippy than usual. "It's Loki."

Steve jostled him two minutes later, telling him to put down the damn toast and suit up.

Did I do this? Tony wondered as he stared up at the green-and-black clad figure hovering far above them. Guilt and panic were hot lead in the pit of his stomach.

He hovered just above the ground, which trembled and bucked beneath him. The others struggled to keep their footing, legs wide and bent, arms out for balance. Thor hovered in the air next to him, and Tony exchanged a glance with him, grateful that the face plate hid the guilt he was certain was painted all over his face.

"We're going to need to subdue him," Steve said grimly.

At that, Tony finally found his voice. "No!" He grabbed Steve's wrist as he reached for his shield. "Just give me a chance to talk to him."

Steve exchanged glances with the others, and Tony tried not to bristle at the look of mistrust on his cowled face. "Tony," he said, "we've been here before. Not even Thor can - "

"Well, I'm not Thor!" Tony shouted. Thor looked pained, but Tony didn't have time to soothe any bruised egos. "Just two minutes. Please."

Steve was already shaking his head. "Tony, I know you think you can help, but did it ever occur to you that maybe this whole time Loki was just -?"

"Steve," Tony said in a low, biting growl. His grip tightened on the Captain's wrist, and Steve's expression grew wary. "You're my best friend and I love you, but if you finish that sentence, I will kick your ass into next Tuesday."

Steve frowned but said nothing. He exchanged glances with Thor, who nodded. "Two minutes," he said.

Tony was in the air before Steve had even finished speaking. He stopped when he was level with Loki and guided his suit to hover in front of him. He readied to bolt if need be, but Loki didn't even acknowledge his presence. Green eyes stared at the ground, hollow, glassy, and haunted.

"Loki," he murmured. His suit carried the sound, but Loki didn't respond. Tony looked down, and the earth still cracked and rumbled and trembled far below. He looked at Loki and saw him trembling too.

Tony edged closer, fighting to stay steady directly in front of Loki's face.

"Loki," he said, louder, firmer.

Green eyes blinked and shifted to stare somewhere over his shoulder, but they still held that glossy, unfocused look. Concern wound crushing fingers around his heart.

Tony steadied himself with one arm out for balance and used the other to gently cup Loki's chin and swivel the Trickster's head until he was looking directly at Tony's iron mask. He wished he had a hand free to lift his visor.

Loki blinked, once, twice, and drew in a gasping, shuddering breath as though waking from a dream. He still looked confused and uncertain, but his eyes cleared at they stared at the human.

"Tony," Loki said in a shaking voice. This close, Tony could see the fine sheen of sweat on Loki's face.

"Hey," Tony said softly, still holding Loki's chin. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

Loki looked around him dazedly as though seeing his surroundings for the first time, his brows furrowing in confusion.

"I just... needed something," he murmured, and Tony had to strain to hear.

The earth was still shaking.

"Okay," Tony said, again guiding Loki by the chin to look at him. "Why don't we shut off the magic for a bit?"

Something dark and ugly flashed behind Loki's eyes at that, and Tony tensed to bolt again. "Why?" the Trickster asked innocently.

"Because I think you need a rest," Tony said with a calm that he did not feel.

And it was true. Loki's skin was pale as death, his cheeks sunken and drawn. Tony suspected he hadn't been sleeping or eating, and Tony had learned enough about magic over the past few months to know that Loki was using an alarming amount of energy. At the rate he was going, without a magical conduit like the scepter, Loki would be a dried out husk before long.

"Loki, please," he said, not caring when his desperation bled through into his voice.

A sharp, hyena-like giggle bubbled up from Loki's chest. Loki's expression was split. His lips were twisted wide in a manic smile, but his eyes were red and wide with terror. Help me, that face said, and Tony wanted to press that face between his hands and cradle it against his chest, to hold on and never let go while the world went to hell around him. But Loki was too hard, his outline all barbed edges, and Tony was left suspended in anticipation of a comforting gesture that he would probably never give.

"But I need the chaos," Loki said in a voice that shook and shook. "Don't you see? All this world is flat and boring and so predictable." The smile trembled, the eyes widened, glossy and far away. "I can see so much that no one else does, and it's just too much, and I need - I need - it to stop, and sweet, sweet chaos is never boring and predictable! But you - "

Loki lifted Tony's mask and brushed a hand over Tony's cheek, fingers light and trembling, and that frightening expression shifted, changed into something soft and desperate and please Tony save me from myself -

"You," Loki continued softly, reverently, "are never boring."

Then Loki cupped Tony's face with both hands and held on, staring, staring, as though Tony's face were the only thing anchoring him in the universe of sanity. For all Tony knew, it probably was.

And that was sobering. Like, he-would-probably-never-be-able-to-get-drunk-again sobering, and he and Steve could go have some pointless drinking parties together and -

Tony wasn't used to having someone needing him like this. God, this is why he didn't do relationships. Relying on him was like building on a sand foundation or... or using a house of cards as a TV stand.

Then Tony looked into those desperate, tear-rimmed eyes and thought that maybe - just maybe - with the right kind of balance and weight distribution, this house of cards could hold up that godsdamn TV after all. If anyone could do it, it would be Tony Motherfucking Stark, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist.

Except the "playboy" part was out, wasn't it?

"Loki," he said, cupping the god's hands with his. Words failed him beyond that.

Loki grip turned crushing, and Tony winced as long fingers pressed bruises into his cheeks. Loki's eyes were wide and dark and wild. "You left me," he said in a brittle hiss, white teeth bared in a snarl.

"No!" Tony sputtered before those fingers could leave dents in his skull. The grip stayed bruising but pressed no deeper. "I just... I just panicked! I wouldn't leave you."

Tony stared into Loki's eyes and squeezed his hands, praying that the god would believe him.

"Then why have you been avoiding me?" Loki said in a tremulous hiss.

"I haven't -" been avoiding you, Tony started to say, but the green fire in Loki's eyes burned into his skull. He looked away but could still feel their weight. "Okay, I have. I have. I'm sorry." Loki dialed down the glare a notch but still kept the human pinned under his gaze. "It's just that I'm..."

I'm terrified.

"You're what?" Loki ground out. His voice was brittle and sharp, like a handful of broken glass.

Tony swallowed. "I'm a coward," he said. "When it comes to this stuff, anyway."

And wasn't that just ironic? Tony Stark, consummate daredevil, terrified of jumping headlong into something that couldn't actually kill him. No physically, anyway. God, but he'd take bungee jumping without a bungee cord over this any day of the week.

Loki's eyes narrowed, but his head tilted in a question. "'This stuff'?"

"Relationships," Tony clarified, trying not to squirm under Loki's gouging fingers. "You and me."

"Why is this an issue, now?" Loki snapped, shaking him. "You were fine - seemed fine - with it all these months! What, pray tell, has changed?"

And beneath the anger and the craziness, Tony saw that Loki was scared too. Scared of losing him, of all things. Knowing that somehow made it easier.

"What has changed," Tony said softly, forcing himself to say the words, "is that now I... I think I love you."

He had to push the "L" word through his lips. It sounded ridiculously sappy, but he knew no other word would do.

Loki stared at him, his grip easing a fraction. No reaction at first other than widened eyes and lips parted in a sharp intake of breath. Then his breath started to turn quick and shallow, his eyes glittering with the threat of tears. "Is this a trick?" he asked in an angry, strangled voice.

Tony could see the walls Loki was frantically putting up around himself. The god's hands went to Tony's throat instead.

"How dare you. How dare you!" Loki shrieked, pressing, pressing so that the metal twisted under his fingers and into Tony's throat. Tony gagged, eyes round and frightened, as he stared at Loki.

"What? No!" he croaked. He reached for Loki's arms, but the god jerked away as though burned. It eased the pressure on Tony's neck, but Loki's fingerprints were still pressed into the metal. "Dammit, Loki! Look at me!"

Loki's eyes darted about like a cornered animal's but eventually landed on him, still wide and wary and wet with potential tears.

"Loki," Tony said more gently. "I'm not lying. I'm not - I'm not messing with you. I love you. It scares the shit out of me, and it's all seriously fucked up, but - I love you. I do."

The words felt less foreign to him the more he said them. Something in Loki's expression wavered, and Tony pressed his advantage.

"Look, I'm sorry I've been such an ass," he said. "You didn't deserve that. It's just that - it kind of freaked me out. I mean, I cared about Pepper back in the day, but you are..." - infuriating-wonderful-beautiful-broken-cynical-clever - "Everything."

More cracks in Loki's facade, and Tony could see the broken, fragile heart through the chinks. Tony cupped his face with both hands as though he could physically hold Loki together.

"I love you," he said again, because it had never been truer than in that moment.

Cold lips against his. Bruising. Suffocating. Perfect.

Loki's grip was painfully tight, against the back of his head and around his waist. He kept pace with the god but countered his ferocity and desperation with a tenderness he usually avoided.

Then Loki pulled back sharply with a pained breath, fingers pressing dents into the metal suit's shoulders, and Tony felt him shaking more violently than before. He looked down and remembered that the earth was still quaking.

"O-okay, Lokes," he said with a shaky smile. "Can we turn off the magic now?"

"Tony," Loki said in a small, strangled voice. "I..."

Loki's eyes rolled back into his skull, and the magic around them dissipated, snapping like a taut elastic. Tony caught Loki about the waist as he started to fall, cradling the limp form to his chest as he slowly descended.

He didn't even notice that the world had stopped shaking.