Suffer The Lies of A Silver Tongue

tony goosebumps in little points of acupuncture that feel, nope, no, thanks. wild, he kicks his mind away from knives and paralysis and other recurring nightmares loki’s walked straight out of. his spine flexes inward lumbarly to get the fuck away from—- that. his ribs hit the armor flared.

he hates magic. his throat’s too small. the sick gleam comes with a dog-whistle undercurrent he’s now hooked up to the signal of like a lab rat. the only one in the barrel.

he closes his eyes.

when he reboots, they’re cheek to cheek. tony tries blinking his fear off. his eyelashes drag, jaw working. 20, 19, 18, 17, 16... a valve zips shut somewhere in his head. 12, 11. and then there’s actual stuff he can’t believe he’s hearing.

protect him. this one’s long flown over the cuckoo’s nest. first class.

because the mark’s only three-quarters plugged in, the sweat evaporation’s a no-go. his palms are oily.

all of this is on record. the tower archives are good-luck-pentagon type of encrypted. would loki even care what his temp prison planet had to say about him killing tony stark? the court of public opinion and its weight went out of vogue back in asgard, he bets.

if tony makes it, he’s outfitting thor with a goddamn cowbell.

it’s almost like loki knows. it’s the cripple part that he’s finding a tough pill to swallow, unlike the whole dying thing. he’s had decades to psychosomatize that into a lump of whatever. alternatives, though? his brain’s an itching red panic button.

-- wait. not somewhere in his head. it’s nano armor tectonics. those allow for pressure equilibrium, which in turn allows for, you guessed it. exactly the kinda fun that’s had them cozy up.

in other words, the boombox—the other kind—is still on.

’ i beg you... ‘

loki’s hair blurs and unblurs his focus in black spikes. it smells unlike anything.

the repulsors are too slow. his wrists are pinned, but not the chitauri-blend missiles lining up the forearms like laid eggs. the case sheers open. it’s missing the one misfired at loki. tony pinpoints the desired angle as the underside of loki’s jaw, crosswise through his skull.

both their skulls.

Teeth bare as emerald eyes drift earthward, metal compartments opening their ominous maw to threaten with that which he can only assume their intent. Midgard, ever the stubborn little bastards defending their pointless meaningless little lives.

He could give them purpose...oh what purpose he could give them.

"Come now, Stark." A snakes hiss, fingers winding round the captive's mid section like belly scales. "Your meager weapons would do little but irritate. Sacrificing yourself and for what?" Dagger dissipates, skeletal fingers free to find the latch which binds his toy so helplessly. This must be it or else he'll try try again.

"You consign yourself to death at every turn, where is the fun in granting you that release?" A hard flick of a finger and something springs loose and the armor encasing the man unwinds to free him.

Loki is upon him in a matter of a second, a hand round his throat to drag him from his once-prison and bring him to bear before the reflection of glass. It is an imposing one regurgitated back at them, the height of the god bent as an old crone over the mortal's frail design. Pale limb glowing viridian around the undulating swallow of fear drifting down perfectly vulnerable neck.

The god draws him close, back to chest, that he might feel the absence of his ability to fight back. Lips lower to the shell of an ear and once again the chill touches.

from between the fingers, he stares. his pupils blow like a cat’s. his body is undecided. yes, no, yes.

he should’ve blown his head clean off when thor dragged him in by the collar. he’s a liability to, give or take, twenty million people.

among them, tony himself.

this idea of foreplay is making his arms just numb meat.

“boss—”

’ it’s okay, fry. ‘

it is not okay. tony’s lungs are paper bags. he sees them, tenting, gulping, brown, bagel grease mapped to the outermost gentle bend. he sees them, raisined he’s not gonna lose it with loki this close to where he’d had the reactor scooped out brown, every soggy bit his age.

his heart is jackrabbiting.

loki smells like the first cold. the textbook verisimilitude of pupil, iris, outer edge of the human eye he’s putting on—because tony knows what he looks like by true design from looped footage glitches—is like accessing a memory through b.a.r.f.

so real he could touch the stick of it, eat it, and still know it’s a lie.

his stomach is liquid. he reaches in himself for enough of a fuck-you while he’s a grain of sand swept against a monolith. like new york. like steve rogers, like obie, like howard, like middle eastern mumblings nobody thought he was privy to. he swore this’d never happen to him again.

the moment comes, one of many, where he’s so wired, his brain’ll auto-delete its two cents upon output.

"Is that what you believe you're entitled to?" Emerald glow emits from upturned palm, the shape of something familiar filling the empty spaces between curled fingers. The press of the blade travels along shivering skin as the god rounds his prey a shark in the midst of a bloodbath.

"Your hubris is impressive." One....two....three....the tick of his knife follows the curve of his prey's spine one vertebrae at a time. Which one was it again? Low, of course. At the base or just above? He could spin it, an accident. Stuck in the armor, a mishap. A wrong turn. Poor little Anthony Stark, bound himself to a chair.

Tsk.

If it weren't for his brother he might have. An ever present threat looming mountainous over him. Shadows cast far and wide which choke and consume. Far too much effort to keep the oaf unawares.

"And here I thought a truce to be made. An offering of your own making, yourself. To your new god. You know it as well as I, the witless ox and his fascinations take him far away for far too long. Who will protect you when he fails to return?" Algid cheek to the warmth of a mortal's, Loki sighs low and even. It leaves his lungs at a hiss.

tony shoots prematurely.

’ it’s not what it looks like. ‘

mostly.

his targeting system’s as badly off as when he was after barnes in siberia. (a year later, and rogers is still a blur in the wind. tony’s hearing is still uneven.) the rocket he discharged has hit just left of loki’s right ear, rippling a sick blue chain reaction in the forcefield around the lab. bastard didn’t even flinch.

that makes one of them, then.

you ever seen a god with an ankle monitor confined to the most affluent building on the east coast apropos of restitutions (as if) and house arrest? because his own country—kingdom—doesn’t want him? the same one, by the way, he helped invade. kingdom and coast.

now you have.

tony would rather nothing more than pinch himself. except, well. he physically can’t.

his ugly look’s been reaching diminishing returns from inside his sticky situation. he’s nailed to a cross of half-open armor jesus-style, arms puppeteered hug-wide, legs arrested mid-air.

on the far edge of his mind, maybes of rhodey rode the safety protocol coattails. what if tony couldn’t get out of a prototype mark? rhodey’d probably drop by in... before he reached dehydration. he’s not paging f.r.i.d.a.y. in for reasons that are between him and god.

so the only alternative finger around is dum-e’s prong, and tony wouldn’t let that meat grinder near his junk from the front.

loki’s presence is exactly like falling through new york shrapnel out a window. he’s the ant crawl up tony’s spine, the no-gravity hackles of something incomprehensible to the body as it mixes up and down. he’s this close to having to resort to a breathing exercise.

but. his back needs someone to jab his happy button ASAP, or they’ll have to wheel him into the next congressional hearing.

his sigh bags out his lungs. he’s not looking at loki.

"Oh I'm certain. One out of...five..was it?" If mouth could water at the sweet succulence of temptation alone he might drown in his own satisfaction. A god of opportunity, presented with revenge on a silver platter?

Breath trembles.

"How I have longed for this day. For nigh on a year now. And how droll your daily lives, wretched little things. A wonder you survive at all with your sanity in tact." A year to feel as stretched as an eon, a feat in and of itself. Heel clicks against polished floor, one foot before the other. The distance closes between them fluidly, suspended on air, a moment in time plucked from all the rest to hold delicately in his palm.

"No one here to save you, Stark. Scream as you may. And you may s c r e a m." Cruelty blesses crooked lips into violent grin, madness reaching glittering depths of shining eyes. Malice in the curl of his fingers around stubbled jaw. Like ivory daggers of skeletal make they seize and constrict. The curl of elongated nose a wolfish grin.

Cold by *LindaMarieAnson

BUCKY BARNES’ HOTTEST MOMENTS

     Far too late for tears now, lost in a moment of resentment and indignation, had he but the capacity to  f o r g i v e. Had he? Was it the time to try now? Would Thor  l e t  him? Words were never brute’s strong suit and yet.. And yet. Heart beats an unsung song in ivory chains, throat convulsing to quell the rising tide of ire. How dare he..

          Mother gave you what little she had left and I see it in you every day.

     Apologies meant so little to him now, hollow words dragged screaming from unwilling lips, but this…this…it was far too much. Far too  p e r s o n a l  to reek of a farce. It, if only for a moment, stalls digging fingers, stills breath on lips, constricts the unspoken bindings of familial loss tighter around struggling lungs.

     “What I want…” Deep voice chokes over word, a convulsion of throat once more to clear it. “is what I’ve always wanted. Do you yet know what that is? Can you tell me?” Yes, shamed to say it his attentions fall not on those  w a n d e r i n g  hands; not at least until they frame flushed cheeks, calloused fingers long since worn in their battles grinding leather and metal  c a r r e s s i n g  lines bore into him by mistrials.

     Unwittingly, lashes flutter, a subtle closing against the growing need for gentility, exhaustion an ever-present fiend  g n a w i n g  away on tired limbs. Harsh light dies beneath the calming touch, shoulders beginning to sag.

     “I can not stay true to a dead thing, Odinson. You knew as well as I did the moment your eyes lay upon me on Midgard. The man you loved was gone. I watched you mourn him before my very eyes. In every breath you took. No matter how we might rave against it, Death takes all good things from us.”

     Not yet. Not this day or the next. Death would not take everything from him. What little strength left in equally tired limbs would be spent clinging to his past so long as it suited him. Suited both of them. Grip relinquishing second by passing second, thunderer lurches forth, slides leg between leg to upheave his demented brother, send long limbs sprawling to the ground. No soft bedding for his fall to break.

     “No.” So matter-of-factly does the word spill forth, a resounding echo in the sparsely furnished room, it shocks even him. “Not all good things, Loki. You are still here. Whatever you may think, whatever you may wish to feel, you remained here with me. You chose your people above yourself.” Broad shoulders roll in a great relief of their wound tension, heavy bootfalls carrying him over the lithe trickster, glaring down bridge of nose to grit teeth in a steep trap.

     “The Loki who led the Chitauri would have fled in the face of Hela’s wrath, saved himself for another day of scheming. Left the innocents of the nine realms to perish under her reign.” Kingly raiment clatters softly, a heavy weight upon one knee knelt between the younger’s. “But I still see him in you too. Enough so, that I do not trust you until this madness passes as it did years ago.”

     A cautionary tale, heart beating steady warnings in the cage it lay contained in. No amount of assuaging would quell the subtle surety that what followed would be nothing gentle as he lay sprawled out in utter shock at having been upheaved so perfectly. He hadn’t even  s e e n  it coming. Clever boy. What was more, he did not suspect the heavy weight of his shackles to be returned. Not after his great near-sacrifice.

     Nothing short of awe in his brother’s preparedness graced thin lips, jaw agape and emeralds flaring. How dare he! No...this...this was warranted. A subtle reminder of the  f a i l u r e s  of his past. At long last blundering oaf had caught on to his beloved brother’s schemes at his own pace. His own conclusion. Smile curves wicked lips, soft chuckle bubbling between the  c r a c k s  in his shell.

     “A marvelous turn of heart. Am I to be locked away again? The shame of Asgard’s past? Am I to die with our homeland? All memory wiped clean from your slate?” What little manuverability left to him, he utilized, clawing his way back to unsteady feet, stance wide and shoulders hunched. If it were the dungeons for him, makeshift as they may be upon stolen ship, he would fight. Tooth and nail.