no mathpr0n.

Regarding the next story in the series (Cycles): Give me a month. I've got recharge after this. I've been doing the initial plotting and ground-laying for it for a while now, but I am totally exhausted and stressed lately. So I'm aiming to start updating Cycles around late January/early February. Then we'll be done! I even know how it ends! It's gonna be lovely. Just gotta get there. So, again. One month-ish and then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled FrostIron drama of drama.

(on that note, if anyone tries to lynch me for this final chapter, I can't write Cycles. Just wanna remind you of that)

Chapter 17: T =

X sub n-plus-one equals x sub n squared plus c

Every single bone feels as if it doesn't equal whole anymore but he crawls to his feet, staggers to the shattered window. Natasha (Bringer) is there with his staff, she's going to break the portal—all according to plan, according to this elaborate function but—

I will remember you and I will find you and I love you infinitely and more completely and complexly than I can ever express

—everything is all wrong now. Red-gold flash vanishes into the portal and his heart aches-stop-shatters because what if they touch him because what if they take him because what if the portal closes before he comes back no no no no he only just remembered this is what he lost—

Time stands still. Old and cold and dead stands at his back. He turns.

She is smiling.

Loki watches Her. He does not (yet and things churn and swirl in his head, pulling) know how to divide by zero, but if he did he would destroy her so that she could not touch him. Distantly, he realizes he is shaking, blood slipping between his fingers, fists clenched tight to near bone-snapping and his head is buzzing buzzing buzzi—

"I have a deal for you, little prince."

He stays silent (raaagnaaaaaarooook churning gears are grinding in his head; his blood is singing).

"I won't touch him." She is close now and one too thin bone fingertip trails along his chest. "In exchange for something. I've been looking for you for such a long time, little prince."

He grabs her wrist and yanks her hand away, a sneer curling his lips.

"And what makes you think I want him." Lie lie lie.

"Perhaps you don't. Perhaps I am mistaken." She is still smiling, but she has no other expression. Her bones crack under his grip.

"What do you want." There is no desperation in his voice, all the inflection of a y = 1 line.

(please don't take him please give him back please please please I can't go back to loss please)

(anything)

"Bring me worlds, little prince. Bring me End."

(raaaaaaaagnaaaaaaaaaaroooook )

(cycles shift and grind in his head, pressure pressure pressure buzz (give him back) the limit of L as T approaches 0 is—

"End." The world fills his mouth, familiar (break destroy burn) weight. He stares at her and he thinks

Just a rather very intelligent system, fractals, sunflowers and Fibonacci sequences, ink brand that warms his heart, whole complete, I will find you, I will remember this, I will remember you, you whom I understand, who understands me, whom I love infinitely and more completely and complexly than I will ever be able to express.

He thinks

anything

She vanishes and time lurches forward. He turns and sees red-gold gleam fall from the sky and the portal snap shut. He looks down to the tesseract and Natasha, still holding the staff.

It is easy, taking them.

(his blood is singing, bones humming and he thinks anything)

He waits for T's first breath before he vanishes. Just for a little while, just to start this, just to search, to find (there is a book, rare and hard to find, that you will need soon to keep what you lost safe) what he will need. He has to come back to see, to touch, to make sure (to be whole) but not now, not now, right now he needs:

Safe.

Make it safe, all of it safe. She will not touch him because he will bring Her End and his bones hum and his blood sings because he will make it all safe.

T = Tony