#cutting?

About 7600 words, so look out for the cut.

FrostIron (37) “I won’t leave you behind”

He breathed darkness, sucked it into his lungs and felt itexpand, push his ribs into his skin, creep into his veins, rush to his heart.He brought the darkness in through his eyes and it burned against his cornea,set the whole universe on fire. There was nothing beyond this.

It was the sensation of cold air rushing into his throatthat woke him. Tony lay gasping and shaking in the dark, and fuck, not that. A thin, reedy soundechoed off metal, but as embarrassing as the whimper had been, it grounded him.He’d heart it, he had a voice, the room he was in had dimensions that weretangible. He was breathing. There was oxygen. It tasted stale and faintly ofiron, but it was there. He released the stranglehold his ribs had on his lungsand sucked in a breath, and then another.

He was dressed in the undersuit, didn’t seem to be injured.He just had absolutely no idea where he was, and his chest ached liked he’dbeen punched repeatedly in the ribs. He reached up and felt for the arcreactor. The glow was too faint to see through the undersuit in the darkness,but he felt the familiar edges, the subtle warmth, the gentle hum of it stillworking. He let out a relieved breath.

“Done whining?”

Tony went very still. The pretentious, nasally voice struckan instant chord of recognition in him. He tried to pinpoint the slipperybastard, but his voice had echoed off the walls and Tony couldn’t find him inthe pitchy darkness. He forced his breath to stay slow and regular, even as themantra wake up, wake up, wake upstarted running through his head on repeat. He sat up slowly and felt around.Nothing was familiar – he wasn’t on the workshop floor, a hospital floor, hisbedroom floor. It was metal of some kind, but it had a strange, almost silkytexture. It smelled like blood, and rust, and still water.

“Not exactly as nice as your marble floor, is it? I shouldknow, since your ogre left me embedded in it.”

“Which is where you should still be,” Tony snapped, and thenimmediately regretted responding to him. Loki chuckled, the sound echoingaround in the darkness like that one scene from every horror movie, ever.

“My… benefactor didn’t agree, apparently.”

“Benefactor,” Tony muttered derisively. He got up to hisknees and felt blindly out in front of him, but he was surrounded by empty air.He concentrated on keeping his breath even – he could feel the air in hislungs, could hear his breath as it whistled out of his throat, his knees wereon a solid surface. He was fine.

“Reach out to your left,” Loki said in a bored drawl.

Tony felt himself automatically reaching out to his left andthen snatched his arm into his side, and sat back on his heels. Followdirections form the psychopath who tried to take over his planet. Great idea, Stark.

“Fine,” Loki said. Tony thought he was trying to soundannoyed, but it came out flat, tired. “Figure it out on your own.”

Steadfastly ignoring him, Tony shifted slowly forward,feeling carefully in front of him as he moved. As long as he kept his mindfocused on the task, he didn’t have to think about where he was and why thehell he was there with Loki. Hebumped gently into a wall with the same strange texture as the floor, andstood, extending his arms cautiously out, and then as high up as he could.There was nothing but wall on either side of him, and he couldn’t reach theceiling, even when he jumped. The empty air had a quality of vastness that madehis pulse speed up. His breath came faster.

Stop. Calm down. Solvethe problem that you can with the variables you have available.

He started sliding along the wall, trying to gauge thedistance. Maybe three meters to his right, his shoulder ran into another wallat a 90 degree angle to the first. He turned to put his left shoulder againstit and moved slowly down that wall – it was smooth, there were no seams, notprotruding bolts, nothing on the floor to trip him. Another two meters and hishand hit a third wall, 90 degrees, which was just over four meters long. Stillnothing on the floor, and no irregularities. If there was anything in the room,it was on the fourth wall, or in the center of the space. He reached up andtapped gently on the arc reactor through the undersuit. He could open the suitto his waist and use it for a light source, but the idea of being brightlyilluminated in the otherwise total darkness made him quake. He turned again toexplore the last wall.

Tony’s hip impacted sharply with a metal corner and hehissed, cussing under his breath. It was some kind of bench, the metal framewas about 5 centimeters thick, held to the wall by chains, and it was topped bya strangely spongey mattress with something heavy sitting in the middle. It wascold, wrapped in cloth, some kind of bar attached to a ball joint. It wasn’tuntil he hit the object’s waist that he realized it was a corpse. He joltedback sharply, stumbling over his own feet and falling back hard to the metalfloor. He caught himself with his hands, sharp pain flashing up his wrists.

“Satisfied with your exploration?” the ‘corpse’ asked.

“What the hell is wrongwith you?” Tony sputtered instead of asking, ‘are you dead?’ because hecouldn’t handle a zombie movie just them.

“Would you like a list?” Loki sneered.

There was a shuffle of movement and Tony backed upautomatically, crab walking as fast he could get his limbs to cooperate. Hecouldn’t see Loki, but he could feelhim, a predator stalking prey and tony didn’t enjoy being prey. He hit the walland stopped, pressing up into it as Loki’s bulk hit the floor and slid into hispersonal space.

“I saved your life, Stark. For all the good it’s going to doeither of us. You might want to consider being useful and not annoying me.”

Tony’s grabbed a hundred different questions at once, butthankfully the one that landed on his tongue was, “Where is here?” He wasn’t going to give the manthe satisfaction of knowing he was frightened, that Loki’s invisible presence afew inches from his face would probably feature pretty prominently in hisnightmares for a long time.

Loki was silent for a moment, but his silence has an intensequality that made the hairs on Tony’s arm stand upright. “A Chitauri cruiser,”he said finally.

Eyes sliding shut, Tony slumped against the wall. He’dfailed – one freaking job, one shot to wipe out the invasion before it got afirm foothold and he’d failed. Not only had he failed, but he’d managed to livethrough and get captured. Phenomenal job.

“This one is connected to a different hive than the one youdestroyed with your primitive fission weapon,” Loki continued, “After your ogreleft me, I was collected and transported above. You were dumped in here sometime later. I thought you were dead. You might have been. I resuscitated you tosave myself the stench of your rotting corpse.”

“Am I supposed to be grateful?” Tony snapped. Loki was tooclose, but his body put off no heat. Tony shivered faintly.

“Yes,” Loki said with no particular inflection. His breathsmelled like dirty snow. It was disconcerting.

Tony shoved ineffectually at him. He seemed broader, moresolid than Tony remembered. “Get off of me,” he growled when Loki didn’t move.Loki made an annoyed noise and stood. He caught Tony by the arm, hauling him upin a grip like stone. Tony kicked and shoved, but he may as well have beenfighting a granite statue. Loki left him struggle for a few seconds, and thenshoved him across the room to the bunk.

“The facilities – such that they are – are to your left. Dotry not to irritate me,” Loki warned coolly and then withdrew. Tony tracked themovement to the far left hand corner of the cell, and then Loki was silent andit was like being the dark with a spider. He knew it was there, and it was allthe more frightening for being invisible.

Loki hadn’t been a frightening figure on his Earth – hismadness was frightening, because crazy people were hard to predict, but the manhimself had been pathetic. A joke. The change in him was something Tonycouldn’t quite pin down, but the darkness wasn’t helping. Turning his back towhere he thought Loki was, Tony opened the undersuit just enough to get to thereactor. The glow of it was nearly blinding in the dark and Tony reflexivelycovered it up. He’d burned up a lot of power in the fight, and even moregetting through the portal. He had no idea where he was or how he was going toget out, but even if the aliens didn’t starve, dehydrate, or otherwise engineerhis death, he wasn’t going to last long if his battery gave out.

Moving swiftly, he undocked the reactor and pulled it out.The power output was high to handle the suit, but it didn’t need to be puttingout that much just to keep Tony’s heart beating. It was just generating excesspower that it had no use for at the moment. Wasted energy. He wedged histhumbnail into a tiny slit and turned it clockwise. The glow dimmed to almostnothing, which was unfortunate, but he could probably live out the rest of hislife on the reactor at that setting. As long as he didn’t need to poweranything bigger.

That accomplished, Tony slid it back into the housing andgave it a quarter turn. It snicktinto place, the familiar weight and almost unnoticeable vibration relaxing someof his nerves. He’d gotten out of worst scrapes than this. Sure, a cave inAfghanistan was not the same as a freaking spaceship. In space. But he couldhandle it. Genius, right?

~*~

“How are you seeing?” Tony asked. With the reactor coveredup, they’d been in total darkness for three days – at least Tony was guessingit had been three days. There had been six meals at seemingly regularintervals, though it was hard to tell – so far he’d been asleep when the foodarrived, and he had only his internal clock to give him any clues about howlong his rest periods were versus the periods of walking endless loops aroundthe cell. Loki hadn’t talked much except to snarl at him when Tony’s pacing gotannoying. He’d lost most of his intimidation in that time, and mostly justseemed sullen. He would sit so still and go so long without speaking, that Tonywould sometimes forget he was there.

“Can’t be normal night vision,” Tony mused when Loki didn’tanswer. “There isn’t enough light in here to amplify.” He tore apart theleathery strip that made up the bulk of their meal. He still wasn’t sure if itwas meat, or fruit, or something combination, or something he didn’t want toknow about. It was mostly tasteless, but there was a bittersweet aftertastethat he couldn’t figure out.

“Heat,” Tony decided finally, remembering how cold Loki was.“Do you see infrared light? Heat?”

He’d given up on getting an answer when Loki gruntedsomething that sounded like, “Yes.”

“So what about this room?” Tony asked, choking down theleather with a swallow of mineral-heavy water. “What does it look like to you?”

“A box.”

“Right, very descriptive, A+ for effort.” He rolled hiseyes. “Are any parts of the box warmer than other parts of the box? Can you seethe ceiling?”

Loki seemed to consider whether or not he was going toanswer, but Tony was hopeful that he had enough sense in his head to know thatthey stood a better chance of escaping if they worked together.

“The ceiling is twice as high as the length of the longwall,” he said finally, “And the wall behind you is marginally warmer than theothers. All the walls are warmer in the center than at the edges but for thewall behind me. It is the same temperature across its length. The ceiling isthe warmest.”

“Have you seen how they deliver the ‘food’?” Tony asked,looking up toward the ceiling, as if he could see through the darkness byvirtue of knowing where it was. Surprise, surprise, he couldn’t.

“A hatch in the ceiling.”

Tony nodded. He’d suspected that the door was either higherup the wall than he could touch, or in the ceiling. “By a rope?”

“No. It is dropped. I catch it. Incidentally,” he added,voice turning snide, “I also caught you.”

“Yes,” Tony said evenly, “My hero. Remind me to swoon intoyour arms later.”

Loki made a noise that was disturbingly like a canine growl,made worse in the total darkness. Tony did his best to ignore Loki, tracingcalculations on the wall, trying to puzzle out the difference in thetemperature of the walls and what that could mean, but it could mean almostanything. The far wall could be against the out bulkhead, the warmer wall couldjust be better insulated, or the room next to them might have a heat source.They were likely at the ‘bottom’ of the vessel based on the otherwiseinconvenient placement of the door.

“Why can’t you just magic us out of here?” he asked finally,annoyed. What good was the existence of ‘magic’ if it wasn’t going to beuseful?

Loki didn’t reply, so Tony went back to his equations –simple geometry that he didn’t really need to think about, but the darkness and constant chill were driving himmad and he needed to do something with his mind. He calculated the volume andpressure of air in the room, the thickness the walls would need to be if theywere against the outside of the ship, versus six meters interior to theexterior bulkhead. He did it again in every metal he could come up with, andthen figured out how many sheets of aluminum foil he would have to presstogether to construct a vessel that could survive exit velocity. He figured outhow much water the room could hold if it were flooded, and how long of a beamhe would need to go from one corner of the room, to the opposite corner at theceiling. He figured out how large the hatch would need to be, at minimum, forhim to have been dropped through it, and then how long he could have survivedthe void of space. How long he could have been technically dead before Lokirevived him – and how had he done that? CPR didn’t work on him for obviousreasons. Had he just shoved at the reactor until something went wrong and itjumpstarted his heart? His chest had felt sore, it was possible. He wassurprised nothing had broken and promptly worked the undersuit open to examinewhat he could of the casing for cracks.

It was also possible that Loki hadn’t revived him, that Tonyhad been wrong his entire life and Hell really was a thing, and here he was –in Hell – with a psychopath who thought he was a god. Great. Real moralebooster.

“My ‘magic’ as you call it, has been suppressed,” Loki said,making Tony jump. Tony hadn’t heard him move, but Loki was suddenly right therewith his cold body and broad shoulders, his weight making the mattress dip.Tony reared away from him, but Loki reached out and snatched up his wrist. Hishand was big enough to easily encircle Tony’s arm. His skin was cold and dry,but his palm was surprisingly soft. Tony was distracted by the unexpected softnesslong enough for Loki to drag Tony’s hand up to his throat. Tony frowned, alarmforgotten, and rolled up to his knees. There was a wide collar on Loki’sthroat, five centimeters thick and so broad that the man probably couldn’t tiphis chin down more than inch.

“What have you tried to get this off?” Tony asked, feelingaround the collar. Loki’s skin was frigid cold, and he had obvious abrasionswhere the rough metal had cut into his skin. Tony’s questing fingers foundother lines, raised like scars, but too symmetrical and even to accidental.“Nothing?”

Loki jolted under his hands as if he’d been drifting off.“Yes, I’ve just been sitting here passively letting this infernal device drainmy energy,” he snarled, but though he tensed, he didn’t pull away from Tony’shands. Tony’s chose to ignore the sarcasm – there wasn’t much Loki could haverealistically tried except pulling on it, and – presumably – trying to magic itoff. Loki submitted to Tony’s examination without a word, and didn’t even makea nasty comment when Tony started to shiver. Seriously, the guy’s bodytemperature was not much higher than a Coldstone marble – ice cream, he missedice cream.

Tony finally wrapped one of the blankets around hisshoulders to stop the chattering of his teeth. The longer the examination wenton, the closer Loki seemed to get to him, and Tony finally noticed a faint redlight. He reached for it, hoping it was some kind of sensor light, but hisfingers met a cheekbone and he jerked back.

“Those are your eyes!” he accused.

“I do have eyes, yes,” Loki replied, exasperated. “Can youget this off, or not?”

“Maybe,” Tony hedged. He’d felt something that he was prettysure was a seam, and a small hole that could have been a keyhole. “What willyou be able to do if I can get it off?”

“Use ‘magic,’” Loki said very slowly as if he were speakingto a child.

“To do?”

“Escape, obviously,” he snapped, finally tugging out Tony’shands.

“And what good is that going to do me?” Tony crossed hisarms over his chest, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the faint red glow ofLoki’s eyes.

Loki seemed to consider the question carefully. “Thesecreatures manipulated and tortured me, Stark. I would not allow them thesatisfaction of keeping you. I will not leave you behind.”

Tony ignored the lurch of sympathy in his gut. Loki wasmanipulating him – he’d had Barton under mind control. Barton presumably knewabout Tony’s past experiences. He would have shared that with Loki. “Thatdoesn’t mean you won’t just drop me off at the first convenient asteroid.”

Loki growled in obvious frustration. He pushed away from thebunk and paced a dozen irritated passes across the room. “Your concerns arevalid,” he said grudgingly. “I will consider them.”

He withdrew sharply, leaving Tony in complete darkness onceagain. Tony only just manage to bite down on his lip before he did somethingmonumentally stupid like beg Loki to stay. In the meantime, he slid off the bedand started examining it again for anything that might be weak enough or fineenough to snap off and use as a lock pick. Loki stayed in his corner forseveral hours. For the first time, Tony was awake when the hatch in the ceilingopened. He heard Loki move, and the soft flop of him catching a package. Thehatch sealed again, nearly silent, but Tony could hear the hiss of an airlock,and feel the slight shift in pressure. So their cell was pressurized and sealedoff from the rest of the ship. Not comforting.

Loki sorted through the package, took what he wanted, andtossed the rest to the bunk. Tony dumped the bag out and felt along the supportchain until fingers met cloth. The mags were made of a flimsy fabric, but Tonyhad been tearing them apart and braiding them into a rope. It wasn’t like hecould use it to climb out of the window, but he needed something to do. He felt along the loops of the braid, inspectingthem and trying to judge how much weight the rope would take.

“Do you want the bed?” Tony asked on a whim. He wincedimmediately, but he couldn’t take the words back. He wasn’t really lookingforward to trying to sleep on the cold floor.

“No,” Loki said gruffly. “The cold does not concern me. Youare more fragile.”

Tony huffed out a breath. “Thanks,” he muttered.

“Merely an observation,” Loki sniffed.

They fell back into tense silence, the sound of Loki tearingat his leather strip loud and feral in the echoing space. Tony wondered if hesounded the same when he ate, and if it unsettled Loki at all. He wrapped therope around the chain and felt around the mattress for his meal. There werethree leather strips, each one the same shape and size, which did not make himfeel any better about what it was made of. He felt for the bottle of water andput his back to the wall.

“Why are you so cold?” he asked just to interrupt the gnashing,tearing sounds.

Loki fell quiet, but Tony had gotten used to him consideringcarefully whether he was going to lower himself to answering Tony’s questions.Finally, he made a derisive sound that Tony didn’t think was directed at him.“I am, by birth, a frost giant, human. Odin took me from the land of my birthas an infant and enchanted my appearance more to his image. Now that my magicis suppressed, my rightful heritage is reasserting itself.”

Tony digested that. Howard and Odin probably would have hada lot in common. “No offense, but I wouldn’t really describe you as ‘giant.’ Imean, sure, you’ve got an inch maybe on Cap’s shoulder-span, but not giant.”

“One day you may change your mind,” Loki muttered darkly.

Tony remembered when Loki had picked him up and how he’dfelt bigger than Tony remembered the from the Hulk cage. He’d been tall – atleast as tall as Steve, but he’d been slender. He was growing, apparently. Thatmust be pleasant. “How tall does a frost giant get?” he asked.

“Much taller than the height of this room,” Loki answered,reading his mind.

Tony hummed. “Interesting.”

“I’d rather not be here that long,” Loki added, voicecarrying a note like a warning.

“I just said it was interesting,” Tony defended. Dependingon whether or not Tony could get that collar off, they might need the height.Though how they were supposed to get a giant more than 7 meters tall out of thecell was another problem he didn’t have a solution for.

“You said they manipulated you?” Tony asked after a long silence.Loki was being talkative and he wanted to take advantage of it as much aspossible. He swallowed a strip of his meal. “Trying to say that you’re justmisunderstood and as much of a victim as anyone?”

Loki made a low, snarly growling sound. “I am never avictim,” he snapped. “I care less than nothing what happens to your backwaterplanet. I care considerably more that I was… tricked,” he spat out like theword tasted bad. “Into wasting my time on someone else’s agenda.”

Right. He didn’t care that a whole planet had nearly beentaken over with potentially millions of causalities (nearly. Potentially.Because Tony did destroy one ‘hive’ – Loki said so. The rest of the Avengerswould have mopped up whatever was left). He just cared that it hadn’t been hisidea. That was surprisingly comforting – that Loki hadn’t tried to go with the‘oh poor me’ victim story. Of course, Loki was a smart monster. He would haverealized that going that route would put Tony’s guard up , and maybe provided adifferent kind of lie sprinkled with just the right amount of the truth to putTony at ease, make him more willing to trust. Shared life experience.

“Come here,” Tony ordered after another minute. He had nochoice, really, but to trust Loki. The only other option was to wait until theship got to where it was going, and that sounded like a bad idea – a worse ideathan trusting Loki anyway.

“I need you to see if you can pull this off.” He said whenLoki didn’t move. He slid off the bed again and felt around the box of the bedto the left corner of the frame. It was a tight squeeze between the bed and thetoilet, but just under the frame he’d found a piece of metal that had beeneither poorly welded on like a bandaid for the hole behind it, or it had rustedto the point of almost falling off. Loki took his sweet time getting up andsauntering across the room. Tony held a hand out in the approximate directionof Loki’s arm, feeling blindly through the air when Loki didn’t immediatelysurrender his hand.

“Give me your hand,” Tony ordered, annoyed. Loki grunted andfinally moved his hand into Tony’s palm. The strange contrast of his chillyskin, so tough and dry on the top of his hand, but soft on the palm, caughtTony off guard again. He cleared his throat and tugged Loki’s hand around thebed and under the frame, sliding his fingertips over to the jagged piece ofmetal. Loki grunted.

“Get out of the way,” he ordered. He didn’t move, so Tonyhad to crawl over the toilet and feel his way to the wall. He heard Loki gruntsoftly with effort and then the grind of metal, another huff of breath, a wordTony didn’t understand but sounded like a curse, and then a sharp screech. Lokistumbled into the toilet, cussed again, and then stepped away. Tony tried tokeep track of him by the sound of his steps and reminded himself that he hadn’tjust given Loki a weapon. Loki basically wasa weapon and Tony couldn’t stop him if he wanted to get violent.

Loki’s looming presence was preceded by the chill of hisbody, and Tony sucked in his breath, holding still to prevent any accidentswith sharp metal shards. Loki found his hand without fumbling, the bastard withhis infrared vision. The metal shard was pressed into his palm, but Loki didn’tlet it go. Maybe he aware that he was giving Tony a weapon.

“You’re going to take this infernal collar off?” Loki asked.He was too close, the chill of his body making Tony shiver, definitely just thechill, not the rumble of his voice, or his unexpectedly hot breath on Tony’scheek.

“Don’t even know if I can,” Tony said. “Still haven’tdecided if I should.”

Loki didn’t answer, but he put the fingers of his free handgently on Tony’s pulse point for the space of half a dozen beast. He withdrewwithout a word, leaving a bright spot of icy cold on Tony’s throat and themetal shard in his hand. Tony stayed in place against the wall, frightened. Heremembered that Loki could still see him even though Tony was still left inblind darkness, and hated him with a burning passion. He slid down the wall,examining the metal shard with his fingertips. Ignoring the soft rush of Loki’sbreath across the cell, Tony set the shard to the floor and started the longprocess of sharpening it, the shriek of metal on metal guaranteed to stealwhatever sanity the darkness didn’t leach away first.

~*~

He woke from a dream of warmth. He couldn’t rememberanything he’d dreamt except the certain knowledge that he’d been warm. He made an embarrassing sound ofloss, hand snapping up to cover his hand back to wet. He wiped uselessly at thetears, shifting to sit up in the cramped bunk and goddamnit, he was hard.He laid back down with a frustrated hiss. In the two weeks that he’d been onthe Chitauri ship, that hadn’t happened yet. He was working himself up to justforget it and will it away, but resolve was overwhelmed by a burst of anger.He’d been working on the monotonous task of sharpening his crude instrument fordays. The noise and the darkness and the fucking cold was eating away at him.He wasn’t going to put aside a possible source of entertainment because he hada sullen cellmate. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d masturbated for anaudience.

Unzipping the front panel of the undersuit, he took himselfin hand, wincing at the chill of his own fingers against the heated flesh. A shockymoan tumbled out of his throat and he stifled it against his fist. It was overtoo fast, a flash of heat in his groin, a shiver running down his spine, histhighs twitching restlessly and he was spilling on himself. Warm streams ofseamen dribbled over his hand and made a sticky mess of his balls. He layshakily sucking in air, waiting for Loki to say something snide, but the otherman ididn’t speak. Tony waited until the mess on his hands and hips had cooledand gotten uncomfortable before rolling out of the bed to clean himself up.

“Next time consider asking for company,” Loki said afterTony done his best to clean up in the little sink and had tucked himself backin. “Not that I didn’t appreciate the show.”

Tony didn’t respond.

~*~

“That contraption in your chest,” Loki said, apropos ofnothing, “Did you construct it to protect your heart from me?”

Tony snorted out a sharp laugh. He examined the point of thepick in the reactor’s weak light. “Not to pop your ego bubble,” Tony answered,“But no. I did not construct it to protect my virtue from you.”

Loki made an annoyed noise. “Then why? Is it merelydecorative?”

Tony could go with that – explaining to Loki that thereactor kept him alive sounded like a bad idea. Tony was also not too keen onthe idea that their captors might be listening and might realize that the metalsuit they’d scooped him up in was powered by the ‘contraption’ in his chest. “I’vebeen manipulated and tortured too,” he said finally. Maybe Loki wouldn’t beimmune to a bond formed by shared life experiences. It was worth a shot.

Loki said nothing, but Tony could tell by the quality of hissilence that he was curious. Great. He was starting to know what his cellmate’smood was based on the way he didn’ttalk. Healthy, Stark, really healthy.

“Come here,” he said before Loki could come up with a newquestion. Loki stood and moved to sit across from Tony, his hands and legs justbarely visible in the reactor’s light. His clothing – which hadn’t seemedespecially well-fitting the entire time they’d been in the cell – looked evensmaller than it had the last time Tony had noticed. At least another inch ofwrist and ankle were visible beyond the cuffs.

“Turn around,” Tony ordered. Loki delayed just long enoughto make sure Tony knew he wasn’t following orders at all, but he turned so hisback was cast in the reactor’s blue glow. His shirt had split at the seambetween his shoulders, and the garment looked uncomfortably tight. Tonyunthinkingly put his hand on the broken seam, feeling Loki’s chilly skinbeneath. They were both startled by Loki’s sharp intake of breath, and Tonysnapped his hand back. He felt for the tiny hole in the back of the collar andrubbed the pad of his thumb over it. Holding his breath, he set the sharpenedtip of the metal shard against it. It would fit. Finally. Whether it would openthe collar or not was another story.

“Will it fit?” Loki asked impatiently.

“Maybe,” Tony said. “You still haven’t given me a convincingreason to help you.”

He expected a pique of temper, maybe a threat, but Loki wasthoughtful. “I have not come up with any words to convince you. If I had my magic, I could just say the words, andyou would believe me to the core of your being.”

“Not helping your case,” Tony said, sliding the pick awayand sitting back. “What are you planning to do when you get your magic back? Other than enslave me.” Tonyput a subtle emphasis on magicbecause Loki always did, and because Loki hadn’t deigned to explain what otherword he thought was more apt that magic.

“While left alone in your charming home, I left an imprint of myself. It will call me back ifI have the energy to weave a portal,” Loki said, “If I do not, I will transportus out of this room.”

“And then?” Tony prompted.

“We will commandeer a craft and escape until my strength isreturned. Assuming you are capable of piloting such a vessel.”

“Genius,” Tony said, pointing to himself. “I’ll figure itout. If you can’t transport us out of here, I want my suit before we leave.” Itwasn’t a deal breaker. If they managed to get the suit open, it would self-destructif they tried to turn it on without him. He would still prefer to have it back.He would also prefer to be gone before they got it to explode.

“That flashy toy?” Loki said distastefully.

“Yes.” Tony could out stubborn the best of them, and he wasn’tgoing to leave his baby in alien hands if he didn’t have to.

Loki made a disgusted noise. “Fine. Are you resolved toremove this device, then?”

“What I’m getting from this,” Tony said instead ofanswering, “Is that you only need me if you’re not strong enough to transportaway. And even then, only long enough for you to regain your strength. What’sstopping you from killing me or leaving me here?”

“I told you I would not leave you behind,” Loki growled overhis shoulder, the lines of his back going tight and tense. “I could just takethat stick from you and kill you now,” Loki pointed out without any particularthreat.

“But you won’t, because it might not work.”

“True,” Loki conceded. He was quiet for several seconds. “Thereis a thing I could do,” he mused. “It would tie my survival to yours quite…intimately.”

Warning bells went off in Tony’s head like an air raidsiren. “What would that be?”

“A binding spell,” Loki said, “It would tie my life force toyours. If you die, I die.”

“That seems extreme,” Tony pointed out.

Loki turned so they were face-to-face again. “I have noother reassurance to offer. If you cannot accept my word, this it all I cangive you.”

Tony hesitated. Loki could have been playing against –offering this ridiculous thing to Tony would choose the next best option of trustinghim. Tony let out a breath. He was so tired of constantly being on his guard,and he just wanted out of his room it’s stench, and cold, and darkness. MaybeLoki was counting on that too. He’d probably kill Tony the first chance he got,or do something worse. And Tony didn’t even care, as long as it got him out. Hedidn’t want to be around for the aliens when they got to wherever they weregoing.

“How are you going to cast this spell when you don’t have any magic?”

Loki shrugged. “It’s a ritual. I’ll carve it into your skin,and it will activate as soon as my magic returns.”

Carve it into his skin? Tony started to laugh, ahysterically chuckle building in his chest and making it shake. “Is that all?”It was probably still a trick. Loki could get his kicks carving the Asgardianalphabet into his skin, and then laugh at Tony for a fool as he transportedaway.

“Make up your mind, human! If you are going to refuse thisgift of trust, I will need to engineer other ways.”

The way he said ‘other ways’ made Tony’s laughter ratchet upanother level. “Alright,” he said, calling his buff. He was cracked, he knewit, but what did he have to lose anymore? “Go ahead, do your carving.”

Loki apparently had not intention of letting him change hismind. The words were barely out of his mouth before Loki surged forward,massive hands on Tony’s shoulders, cold weight bearing him to the floor. Hebarely had time to think that he should have gotten more details before Lokiwas tearing the undersuit away in great strips. He opened his mouth to protest,but Loki swallowed it up, his cold lips pressing against Tony’s, molten hottongue shoving past his teeth. It wasn’t a kiss, it was conqueror claimingterritory, but damn, he was good atit, and his mouth was so warm. Tony moaned into his mouth, rolling his hips up towrap his thighs around Loki’s waist, and yes, bad idea, but oh, such a goodidea. He started shivering almost immediately, but his dick was apparentlywilling to brave the cold. Go, dick, leading the great idea team.

Tony could taste the smile on Loki’s lips when he pulledaway. He sat back, put both hands on Tony’s hips, and pushed him to lie flat onthe floor once more.

“Stay still,” he said, his voice dropping into a satisfieddrawl. “This will hurt quite a lot.”

“Wha-?” Tony jerked and bit down on a scream as Loki’s nails– claws – dug into skin over his ribs.

~*~

The fire had faded to a strange, urgent tension by the timeLoki sat back on his heels. The process had reminded him, a little, of thedesperate frustration of being edged. It had only been minutes, and Tony hadconcentrated on the shape of it to keep himself alert. Loki’s hands were socold and his claws so sharp that it was barely painful, felt like a tattoo, buthe didn’t think this one was going to be quite so easy to remove. With Loki’shands off of his skin, he felt feverishly hot and sick.

Loki sucked on one finger. “All finished,” he purred. “Nowget this off of me while it’s fresh.”

“I need a second,” Tony said faintly. He pressed a hand tothe burning wound on his side, trying to decipher the shape of it with hisfingers. The disappointment in Loki’s silence was as loud and heavy as an oncomingstorm. “You just tore half the skin off my right side, give me a minute forfuck’s sake,” he snapped.

“You’re exaggerating,” Loki sneered. He stared at Tony sullenly,his eyes burning like embers. The pain crept back in while Tony lay on the coldmetal. Feeling shakily for the pick, Tony pushed himself up. Loki turnedwithout a word and Tony felt for the tiny hole in the collar with shakinghands. He aimed the pick for the hole, missed twice and stabbed his fingeronce. He took a steadying breath, ignored the fire in his skin, and slid thepick into the hole, praying that it would work if only because he was not goingto stay in that dank cell with a massive wound on his chest slowly goingseptic. The thin piece of metal hissed as Tony eased it in, and then got stuck.He wiggled it free, felt it catch, and twisted. The click was loud in the silence, and immediately followed by Loki’sloud groan. The air filled with the scent of ozone and the crackle ofelectricity. His side lit on fire and he shouted, half in surprise and half inpain – it was like grain alcohol poured on a fresh wound.

Loki said something that Tony couldn’t hear over the rush ofhis own pulse, flung the collar away, and then twisted. His hand ccame down onTony’s eyes, covering half of his face. The edges of his vision turned white,and then his stomach lurched in a sudden twist of vertigo.

For a moment or an hour, there was only pressure, achinggold like the void, and then Tony’s ears popped again, so painfully that hecried out. A high pitched whine filled his ears, but he heard faint voicesbeyond.

“Tony!”

“Stay where you are, villain!”

“No need for name calling, brother,” Loki drawled. He pulledhis hand away from Tony’s face, but he didn’t step away. Tony blinked, rubbedhis eyes and blinked again. The world was still black, darker maybe than thecell had been.

“Why can’t I see?” he demanded, shouting over the ringing inhis ears.

“Don’t whine,” Loki snapped, “I have merely blinded you.”

“You did what?!”Tony’s hands flew to his face and rubbed at his eyes. His breath was rushingquickly through his lungs, a scream building under ribs.

Loki shook him. “It is only temporary, to protect youreyesight, you ungrateful ant. It willclear over the next several hours. I have fulfilled my word, as I said I would.Do try not to die.”

There was a loud crack,a sudden rush of air, and then Tony was left without support. He stumbled tohis knees, gagging and disorientated. There was a clatter of voices and anotherbody – a warm body – landed next to him. Small arms wrapped around hisshoulders. He tried to pull away, but he smelled Pepper’s shampoo, and it was Pepper’s arms around him, Pepper’s voicemurmuring under the persistent ringing.

He set his head on her shoulder, let the breath out of hislungs, and stopped being awake.

~*~

Tony was in his own bed the next time he opened his eyes.The room was dimly lit and Tony held his breath as he looked around andrealized that he could see – his dresser, the open closet door, his bedsidetable, his robe draped over the bedside chair, his art on the walls, hisbedspread. The next breath he took came out as a sob. He dragged the blanketsup and buried his face in them, breathing in the familiar scent of thehypoallergenic sandalwood laundry soap his cleaning service used, and thefaintest lingering note of Pepper’s perfume.

“Welcome home, sir.”

Tony had to try three times before he managed to gasp, “Jarvis.”He sucked in a slow breath, and then another. “Hey. What time is it?”

“Half past three in the afternoon, sir. You have been asleepfor thirteen hours.”

As if his bladder had heard the announcement, it gave a deepthrob and threatened mutiny. Tony wanted to stay in the folds of his blanketfor the next year, but the ache quickly spread from his bladder to his lowback, and he finally gave up. Shoving the blankets back, he made his wayshakily to the bathroom. The lights were all out, but even in the dim naturallight filtering through the frosted glass window was almost blindingly brightafter all the time in the dark. He made use of a toilet he could actually see, and then stopped in front of thebathroom mirror and washed his hands. He’d been cleaned up at some point anddressed in his favorite soft t-shirt and slinky yoga pants.

He lifted the hem of his t-shirt and caught it between histeeth to look down at the arc reactor. Its glow was still just barely there,hardly visible in the pale light. He twisted the reactor out of its housing andquickly shoved his nail into the slit. The nail had grown in his weeks ofcaptivity, and it was easier to turn. He turned it up as high as it would gobefore risking an explosion. The light seared against his eyes and he wincedaway from it, quickly sliding it back into the casing and giving it a turn. Hehadn’t realized how much he’d missed the thrum of the reactor at full power andgave a grateful sigh to have it back in its place. He washed his hands again,and then scrubbed at them with a fingernail brush. The sting in his skin feltamazing after weeks of feeling buried under grime.

“Careful,” a soft voice said from the doorway. Tony jumped,eyes going wide and heart pounding in his chest, but it was just Rhodey. “It’snot meant to come off all at once.”

Tony nodded and looked down at his hands. They were raw andred. He nodded again and set the brush down. Rhodey grabbed the towel off therack and stepped into the bathroom. He turned the water off and wrapped the towelaround Tony’s hands, squeezing gently to dry them. Rhodey didn’t say anythingelse, and Tony let himself be lead back into the bedroom. He found Thor sittingat the bedside, looking drawn and haggard.

“Please forgive my intrusion, brother,” Thor said, lookingup at Tony. He had circles under his eyes.

“Brother?” Tony repeated.

Thor frowned. He gestured to Tony’s side. “You’ve wed mybrother. We are family now.” His frown deepened as Tony felt all the heat rushout of his face. “You did not know.”

Tony sat down on the edge of the bed. He gave Thor a blearylook, dropped back to the mattress, and turned away. “Not today,” he said. “Jarvis,wake me up in six hours.”

“Yes, sir.”