"Mother."

Frigga smiles, a slow sunrise across her face, and she descends the stairs as if floating. She has always been this shining figure, even when he stood before the Destroyer of Worlds and accepted a golden weapon. It had been the only instance in which he faltered in his plans for revenge, the soft fingers that he so loved to feel in his hair as a child clamping around his heart, a plea. There is a kernel of shame in his gut for having ignored it.

He watches her as she draws near and cannot find his tongue. What must she think of him, coming back to the home he so willingly betrayed, the home he was forced from under pain of death. Loki does not share Thor's absolute need for honor, but he does know what it feels like to be stripped of it. And despite having been forgiven by the All-Father himself, he has not seen or spoken to either of his parents since the sentencing.

Frigga reaches the bottom stair, still smiling, and something inside him unknots.

"You took so long in coming here, I feared you may have forgotten your way," Frigga says, and he is a child again, so aware of how very different he is from the others and still so very loved by his mother regardless.

He ducks his head and smiles ruefully. "I have not forgotten."

"My little love," she murmurs, arms open, and she presses his cheek to her shoulder. She smells of flowers and starlight. He closes his eyes, the tension fading from his body like dissipating smoke, and breathes her in. "How I've missed you."

"I've missed you too." And he has. He has missed the sound of her voice, the way her fingers weave strands together as if they were fluid, how she never asked him to be anything but what he was. He remembers how she stood at the All-Father's side, mouth thin and trembling, and closed her eyes at the announcement of Loki's punishment. She had opened her mouth then to intervene, only to be silenced by her king and sovereign. She did not shed a tear. Loki never would have wanted her to.

Frigga pulls back and peers up at him, her eyes clear and soft. "But you are not here to visit."

He shakes his head and it is as if a veil has lifted, a reminder of what he has come to Asgard for. "I haven't—No. I am not here for me. I am here for—"

"For your man of iron."

"How do you—yes."

She smiles and threads her arm through his, steering him toward the staircase with deceptively strong purpose. "Indulge your mother, who must make do with only knowing from afar that her child is grounded elsewhere. Tell me about him."

He cannot feel the stairs under his feet as they ascend, his mind too busy with the need to categorize, to apply the algorithms that make up what it is that he feels for Tony. How is he supposed to describe a man so indescribable? His mother will never understand by his words alone the mettle of Tony Stark's heart, his cleverness, his humor, the endless dimensions of his intelligence, how he opened his home and mind to a feral, lost creature without expecting anything in return. How he touches Loki as if he is worthy.

"He showed me… another way to look at the cosmos." His throat is tight, dry, and it clicks when he swallows. "I look at things the way he does, and I see—"

Don't wait up. Don't forget.

Frigga's arm tightens around his, squeezes once, and she finds the words he cannot, "You see beauty."

The air he didn't realize he had been holding in punches out of him, and he drags in another breath. "His life is teetering on the edge of a knife. I can't let him fall."

"Oh, my son," Frigga sighs, and they keep walking. "Sometimes we must let go, even when feel we cannot."

His feet slow, then stop, and Frigga is forced to stop with him, her eyes gentle and arrested by his own gaze. "You don't understand, mother. Should he… It would be best… for everyone if he lived."

His mother says nothing, holds his gaze as if it were a game to see who would blink first, and something knowing and sad enters her eyes. She reaches up and curves her palm over his jaw, cupping his cheek softly, and he exhales against her wrist, leaning into the touch.

"It is not right that you suffer so," she murmurs, and he can't help but chuckle through the lump in his throat.

"I am jötun. I do not think I am meant to know happiness."

The gentle press of fingers against his cheek turn into a clawed vice, and he gasps when his mother jerks his chin to gain his attention. "Asgard, Jötunheim, Midgard, or a hole in the ground—I do not care from whence you came. It is not your birthplace that I love, but you. You, Loki, are my son, and you deserve to know every happiness."

He coils his fingers around her wrist but otherwise makes no move to extricate himself from her grasp. Instead, he simply holds on. "You know why I've come."

"I do," Frigga agrees. "However, I do not know what it is you expect to accomplish. She is not here."

Loki steps back and releases his mother's wrist. "She holds perhaps the highest position in all the realms; she can't have gone far."

"Óðr searched for years and found nothing."

"Then it is about time he knew her pain."

Freyja's abandonment was a well-known source of gossip for centuries. As a child, he would overhear the maidens giggling in the halls, gloating over the mother of light.

I suppose even one as powerful as Freyja cannot hold Óðr's attention for all the glories in the land.

He is bored of her, I hear. She is dreadfully dull.

I hear her crying at night—I do, I swear it! Her ridiculous tears are polluting our waters. They poison the fields.

She is pathetic.

I cannot believe she is still the possessor of the fallen slain. Surely the All-Father will put an end to this nonsense and give the responsibility to one with greater mettle than she.

Óðr must be so humiliated to have such a wife.

It had taken some time for him to wrap his mind around the idea that an expression of love and sorrow could be considered poison, and even then it didn't settle well. How they enjoyed Freyja's pain, even in jest; someone who was so obviously the better of any of them. He spent months slipping serpents into their beds and nightmares into their dreams, collecting their screams of terror as retribution for their insolence. He never met Freyja, neither as a child nor as a man, but he knew what it was like to be alone, to be spoken about in cruel whispers. He had hoped, wherever she was, that Freyja knew someone understood.

"I will not be deterred," Loki says, and thinks of the places he would hide were his loved ones searching for him. There is honesty in such deception. "I—"

The very floor trembles suddenly under a great force, followed by the piercing cry of Muninn. The creature swoops in on swift wings, circles the ceiling, and then departs, as pointed a gesture as there has ever been. He stares down the hall where Muninn disappeared and his heart twists.

"What sort of welcome will I receive, I wonder," he says aloud, amused and terrified and—still, always, forever—angry.

"Do not be afraid."

He turns away and returns his attention to his mother, mustering a wide smile. It feels real enough. "I'm not afraid."

"Oh, my darling," she sighs fondly, reaching up to pat his cheek. "You always were a wonderful liar."

The muscles straining at his mouth relax and it is a genuine smile now, a sheepish tell. His mother always knew, no matter how clever he believed himself to be. As if reading his mind, Frigga winks and steps back with a smile, pausing when he gently takes her wrist and holds her in place so that he may press a kiss to the swell of her cheek.

"Be well," he murmurs.

"Before you go," Frigga stops him, covering the hand wrapped about her wrist. "A mother must know…"

Her question is easily read on her face, in the starlight in her eyes. Not for the first time does he wonder just what she expected of him when Odin first placed him in her arms as an infant. Did she hold him and wish for him to fit the mold of a prince of Asgard, or did she gaze upon him and simply wish for him to be happy?

He gives the only answer he knows. "Do you know what sushi is, mother?"

Frigga blinks. "You know I do not."

"It is a foodstuff. Commonplace on one side of Midgard and exotic on the other. The day he took me from the prison in which they'd thrown me, he plied me with knowledge and sushi. Not for any particular gain, but simply because it was new and he thought I would enjoy it. And I do. Enjoy it, I mean. It is—I can't describe the taste, but it is delicious, and he brings me to a new sushi place every Friday. I'm quite partial to Shimizu's autumn maki and he makes sure they prepare it all year 'round, because the little idiot has never met a problem he could not solve by throwing money at it or creating a better version and selling more of it. He pays an exorbitant amount of money to keep me in the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed… so that I may enjoy tiny rolls of fish. Have you ever heard such nonsense in your life?

"What you would think of him, the man who beds your son. Were he to ever grace your table, you would undoubtedly ban him from ever returning. He is… crass. Disrespectful at the very least and a veritable plague at the most. Silence eludes his tongue, which serves him to throw the world into chaos before he is even fully awake in the mornings. He is dirty, base, and he tastes of common metals and labor. His pride would rival even that of Thor—a feat, you would agree, one might believe to be impossible. He trusts so very few, and he knows no boundaries; I dare say he would incite war amongst his own people with but a word. There shouldn't be a man like him in existence."

Loki breaks off with a reluctant smile, fingers coiling into a tight fist at his side, and lifts his gaze to the nearest tapestry on the wall, all reds and burnished golds. "He… he took out his heart once, let me hold it in my own hands, and told me just how easy it would be to dismantle it. He told me. He looked me in the eye, unplugged his only life source, and gave me the knowledge of how to kill him."

There is a soft brush against his knuckles, and he turns to his mother, who reaches up and cups his cheeks. "Loki…"

He closes his eyes, allows himself a selfish moment, and then steps away. "I may not understand love, but I have known it and I mean to know it again."

"I would like to meet him," Frigga says, and it is more than an invitation. She smiles, and then she turns, going back in the direction from which they'd come. "I would like to know him, this man who loves my son."

Alone, Loki exhales and steels his shoulders, tilts his chin slightly and stands tall, armored in his Midgard clothing and less at home in his skin than he can remember being in the last year. Should he go to stand before his father like this, tense and twitching under that singular gaze, it would be his greatest failure. He is the god of lies. Fake it 'til you make it, Blitzen.

He walks the same path Thor once took to reach the throne, but the halls are empty and silent for him. His steps echo, each one like the dropping of a stone into water, rippling outward and fading as the next one falls. It is a lonely journey, one that would have suited Thor ill. He'd done his brother a service by ruining his special day. Loki could have shouldered the burden of sovereignty with great ease; alone was all he ever knew.

Once he reaches the archway built into the wall of the curved tiers of seats, he stares up to where the golden line leads to a golden man.

Heart pounding, Loki steps forward, and continues walking, each step bringing him closer and closer until he can see the etchings in the stairs that lead to the throne, can read their words soaked in honor and the blood of the fallen, and he lets his gaze lift until he stares into the sky blue eye of his father.

Silently, slowly, he sinks to one knee and bows his head.

"Here we are," Odin says softly, but it reverberates throughout the room as if he'd shouted. "I did not expect to see you here so soon. Or ever again."

Loki chuffs, reluctantly amused. "I live to subvert expectations."

"We often do the unexpected in service of those we love."

Don't wait up. Don't forget.

From where it rests by his foot, Loki's hand curls into a fist and presses into the floor. His knees mutter a quiet complaint, but he ignores it, tense, vibrating with the need to be still, ready to shake apart, waiting for the announcement that will surely be meant to prevent him from seeing his plan through to its final stupidity.

But there is only the touch of a hand in his hair and a soft, "Rise, my son."

The last time he rose before Odin Spear-shaker, his hands had been bound by dwarf twine, unbreakable, and his mouth had been sewn shut with the same. He remembers the palpable stare of the collective court, all burning him with their hatred, their smug self-righteousness. There is Loki, the frost giant, the interloper, brought to his knees by his savage nature. And when he'd been forced to his feet to receive Munnin's feather, he'd done so with the promise of war on his tongue. He would see their blood and bones strewn along the jagged edges of the Bifrost.

He stands slowly now in the quiet of the room and meets the All-Father's singular gaze. "Hello, father."

Something softens in Odin's eye and his father reaches out to place a strong hand on the small of Loki's back, a guiding touch, the kind he'd grown up to expect, to treasure. Odin gestures with his staff. "Walk with me."

They walk. Loki is forced to slow his gait to match that of his father, a habit ingrained in him since infancy, a constant source of amusement for Thor and, later, Tony. Slow down, would you? Jesus, those legs. You walk like you're five minutes late for a ten minute appointment. Take it back a notch for the short people, huh?

The halls are empty as they pass through, and it isn't until they reach the parapet that Loki is able to fully relax. He would sneak up here as a boy and sit on the edge, an endless drop to the gardens below and an endless expanse of cosmos above. Caught between two worlds. It should have been what the Tony calls a red flag.

A cloud of birds the color of tropical waters fly by, curving around the dome of the great hall in unison, and Loki watches them go.

"You look well," Odin says. Loki turns his attention to him. "Midgard suits you. You seem lighter. Not so… heavily-weighted upon. I understand you stand with Thor and his mortal comrades."

Loki sniffs. "Hardly."

"You truly care for none of them?"

Loki opens his mouth to answer, then pauses—why should your arms be pulled away when the stars are whirling hey there dasher want to go out for cheeseburgers Loki watch a movie with me Natasha refuses to watch anything with vampires but she wouldn't know romance from a rocket launcher the lady Darcy, my darling Jane, and I are to engage in a bout of shopping brother come with us comet cupid donner blitzen Loki are you hungry have you ever tried langcha I learned to make it in Kolkata come to the gym and I will teach you how to lie as well as I do I can't believe you're real sometimes I can't believe you're touching me with the hand that threw me out a fucking window Loki is one of us now Loki is an ally friend lover Loki is—before relenting, "They have their moments."

Odin studies him, a curiously sad glint in his eye, his gaze so palpable that Loki shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny. His father has a way of looking at someone and instilling a sense of shame, a feeling of being a disappointment even when no offense has been made. It was a state in which he found himself quite often as a child; desperate for the approval given to Thor so readily, and made the foundation for the walls he built around his heart.

The wrinkles around Odin's eye deepen with that look now and Loki wonders how he has managed to disappoint his father this time. It hasn't been ten minutes. That must be some sort of accomplishment.

"And your… your mortal—"

"Oh, do say his name," Loki says, the words dripping with pleasantness and charm. "I know you know it. I know you've been watching. Every so often I catch a glimpse of Muninn cresting the New York skyline. Making sure my mortal respects me, father? Or perhaps it is the other way around."

Odin clears his throat and does not deny it. "Your relationship with him is rather interesting."

"He's an interesting man. Far more interesting than Asgard has to offer," Loki agrees. "And far better than I deserve, naturally."

"That is not what I meant, Loki."

"But you were thinking it," he says, lofty, trembling inside, and five months previous Tony had laughed at him from across the laboratory worktable and said, I know you're still kind of hung up on mortals and gods and whatever the fuck else runs through that bag of cats—don't ask, inside joke—but you should think about the who instead of the what, you know? It makes things a lot easier in the long run. You and me, we're the same.

Far, far better than anything Loki deserves. His hands are shaking. "Father—"

"It is a fool's errand," Odin says quietly.

The words hit him less like a punch and more of a wave, washing over him until he is soaked in them. There it is, the familiar sickly sweet taste of anger. "Such faith in me. If it were Thor, would you still withhold your uncertainty?"

A crack of thunder sounds, like the backfiring of an internal combustion engine, jesus fuck prancer don't give me that look I meant to do that, and Odin's gilded fist comes down onto the marble hard. Pieces of cracked stone rain down to the grounds below.

"This is not about competition, nor is it about your perceived slights—"

"Perceived," Loki repeats. "My perceived slights. I see. Allow me to remind you that it was Odin All-Father who took the infant child of Laufey and raised him under the shadow of a lie."

The flock of birds flies by again, turning together, then twirling upward, back down, and then into the horizon where they are swallowed up by swiftly-spinning stars and colorful light.

"Why did you wait?" Loki asks, and stares at the place where the flock had disappeared. "Why didn't you just tell me? I would have been thankful to know it wasn't me, that I wasn't at fault for being different. That there was a reason they hated me so."

"You were but a child—"

"I was not a child for long." He was an adolescent who used magic to fight, not something as imperfect as weaponry, and was branded inferior for it. He was a man no one looked at. "There was time, from the moment you declared us young men, for you to take me aside and tell me I was not what was wrong."

Odin exhales.

"You were never going to tell me, were you? Had I not touched the Casket, I never would have known. How long were you going to let me suffer your mistake?"

"You were never a mistake," Odin says, sudden and fierce, and Loki jumps. "I have made many during my tenure as king, but you were never one of them."

He shudders and closes his eyes, greedily captures every word and holds them close, crushing them until they are no longer words, but a single sentiment, and there is a child inside of him—the child who thinks he is broken, who believes the whispers and the vitriol that murmurs to him in the dark, who looks at his father and wonders why he is not good enough—that needs to feel it.

A hand gently cups the back of his head, and he wants nothing more than to take callused fingers that smell of oil and metal between his own and simply breathe. He wants to go home.

"My son," Odin murmurs, and his voice is the one that used to impart the wisdom of a ruler, the love of a parent, and never once did that voice apologize. "How can one man know such pain? This is my doing."

"Then make amends." He opens his eyes and turns. "Where is Freyja?"

Odin sighs, a heavy thing that serves to make him somehow smaller, and he steps away from the parapet. "No, Loki. I will not let you fall to this madness."

"Will not let me," Loki repeats, floored, and a trembling begins somewhere in his gut, rippling outward until he is on the verge of shaking apart completely. Will not let him? Will not let him. How can his father claim to be All-Seeing when he cannot know with his own eyes that Loki is so completely mad already that he can't remember being anything else? "I have already fallen into madness! Do you not recall my bid for Midgard? Do you not know the red I have in my ledger?"

Odin tilts his head. "And do you mourn those you have harmed?"

"No." Loki is the god of lies, but this is the fundamental truth on which he spins his life. "I do not mourn. I do not regret what I have done. Every step I have taken has led me to him. You wish for me to be well and in the same breath deny me the chance! I can only be well once he is well!"

The gold of Odin's regalia catches the light of the sky, blinding. "There is no chance! Freyja does not wish to be found and so will never be found! You will search, my son, and every overturned stone and tree will yield nothing! I have seen you torn apart by my failings, and I will not watch you tear yourself apart over a mortal who would have died regardless!"

The air from Loki's lungs is sucked from his chest.

"Your man of iron would have aged, while it would have been but a moment in time for you—and you would have still been left behind. He will die and surely go to Sessrúmnir, and you will not be able to follow him there. You will not be able to stay. I already have one son who will be left by the one he has chosen," Odin says, pleading. "I cannot have you meet the same fate."

"Jane will be queen!" Loki's magics rush from every part of him to bubble at his core, threatening to burst free. "Jane will not leave him, because she will pass all of the tests and she will sit on the throne with Thor, her immortality clinging to her like a cloak, until their heir's chosen takes her place! This is not about you protecting your sons from loss—this is about me. Do you know what I will do if he should die? You do not wish for me to fall into madness? Try and imagine for a moment every single world I will obliterate should his life slip away from me."

Because that is the heart of this, what Thor does not seem to understand and what Tony understood all too well. Loki has not been redeemed; he is not good. He is still the same as he has always been, and all it entails. His priorities have changed, perhaps, but the darkness in him still coats every bit of his insides.

"None would be safe," Loki says and, just in case it isn't obvious, adds, "not even you."

All it would take is for the arc reactor to go dark, and the universe would burn.

Sucking in a deep breath, Loki closes his eyes and holds it in his lungs until the familiar tingle of power subsides from his fingertips and the urge to destroy ebbs, pulling back until the tide drags it back to the forefront, as it surely will.

"You wish to make amends?"

Odin tilts his chin up, the light glinting off of him, and he is a king again. "You know I do."

"Then you will tell me where she is."

"This… this is the whole shebang. My body's dependent on the arc reactor now. Trouble is, my brain removed it (in a sense) from the autonomic nervous system; my heart doesn't act under my brain's nerve impulses, so when the reactor is… taken out, the brain won't read the heart and won't send a signal for it to continue beating. With the magnet of the arc reactor removed, there won't be anything to keep the cardiac muscle contracting for much longer—and the shrapnel in there will tear things to shreds until the contractions come to a complete stop. Blood flow ceases, my cells die from the lack of oxygen, immediate brain damage, and sudden cardiac arrest will hit me like a ton of bricks. Show's over, tip your waitresses, and good night. So, there you have it. You want to take me down? Take this out. Simple as pie. It'll be over in minutes and—hey, don't give me that look; I'm not saying you would. I'm just saying… only a select few know how it works. How it won't work. This is just your induction to the club. Your gift basket's gonna take 2-4 weeks."

"Shut up and tell me how to put it back in."

"Just twist and click. Simple as pie."

"You said that about taking it out."

"I'm all about balance. You want to hold it?"

"Hold it. After you just finished explaining how it would cause you great pain? The threat of brain damage wasn't an idle one, I take it. How many times have you removed it, exactly?"

"You ever think about taking your comedy show on the road? Here. Just—hold it. It's still plugged in, we're good, we're golden, but—yeah. You got it? Hold it with both hands, Comet, I don't need you dropping it on the floor, because then Dum-E'll douse it and I'll have to donate him to Chico State. …You okay?"

"It is so… intricate."

"I definitely thought you were going to say' shiny'."

"I'm afraid I don't share your predilection for shiny things. You're like a magpie."

"You've been watching Planet Earth again. I told you that Attenborough guy's voice would suck you right in. Didn't I tell you?"

"Tony."

"Got a question for you."

"Of course you do."

"… Is it enough, Loki?"

"What?"

"You never know when it's enough. Except now I think you do. If this is enough—"

"No, this is not how this happened. You made a joke about penguins. You said nothing about—"

"I told you not to wait. It's okay. I didn't expect you to. I just want you to know that whatever you end up doing, whatever you gotta do, it's okay. I get it."

"Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up—"

The reactor in his hands goes dark, shuts down, crumbles to dust, and Loki gasps, violently waking. He sits up, grips the heavy blankets and heaves, hand clutching at his chest, at a phantom. Twist and click, simple as pie.

Groaning, he scrubs his fingers over his cheeks, his jaw, and breathes for a moment. The shaking subsides after a few minutes, leaving him sitting, staring at nothing, the whole of his former chambers too hollow. His rooms drip gold and green velvet, tapestries woven by his mother's hands hanging on the walls, and the light of the cosmos pours in to cast everything in brilliant color. The fabric over his legs is made only by the elves to the north, soft and warm and light to the touch, and it feels wrong against skin that has grown fond of cotton.

He slides out of his bed, empty of grasping hands and science babble, and walks over to the loggia. Beyond the halls that house the royal family, dawn is coming, hundreds of suns from the realms are rising and reflecting back onto Asgard, and he tilts his head to greet their warmth.

Below, the people of Asgard are waking, wrapped in their fine clothes and armor, speaking about battles and feasts and absolutely nothing of importance. They are figurines in a glass globe: insignificant and made to be shaken.

In the end, Odin did not tell Loki the whereabouts of Freyja, because like everyone else Odin does not know them. Today, Loki will set off to find her, regardless.

"If I were in hiding," he murmurs aloud, and wonders where the Tesseract has been hidden. Odin would not be foolish enough to put it somewhere Loki could find, which is pleasingly far-sighted of his father. He is learning.

Would the Tesseract even tell him Freyja's location? Shut up, that is not a real thing, a magic cube from space can't talk to you, Loki, but oh, Tony, she could, she did, and while the Avengers suited up to take Loki down, Loki sat beneath the aperture on which Dr. Selvig had placed the Tesseract and listened to her whispers, her predictions, how she would imbue him with all the power and wonder the universe had to offer. The Tesseract has such a lovely voice, and she is an even better liar than Loki could ever hope to be. Even if she did tell him where to find Freyja, he would never be able to trust her. She did say he would win the Earth, after all.

He turns away from the view and surveys his chambers. There was always the intent to bring Tony here someday, to bed him in the room in which Loki slept as a child and to wake up and find him still there beside him. During a week when Tony contracted a common illness and was forced to stay in bed, Loki had stayed with him and spun him beautiful illusions in the air above the bed, Tony's head resting on his shoulder, one of Loki's hands spread out on his forehead to keep the fever at bay. And such tales he told his lover, of the creations of the dwarves, of the mischief he wrought as a boy, the battles in which he cheated to shift the outcomes, of the impossible creatures that dwell in caves, of the skies above Asgard which boast the most incredible shows. And Tony, half-delirious with fever and the overwhelming desire to create, forced Loki to promise to bring him there someday.

Someday.

Loki breathes deep and exhales it on a shudder. He will bring Tony here, and the pissants that believe themselves to be better than Loki, better than the whole of Midgard, will bow before the Iron Man.

Asgard will hail him as a god. Loki will see it so.

By the time he reaches the stables and readies his horse—the dark one with the fathomless eyes—two days on Earth have passed.

He heads to Alfheim, leaves behind the gilded kingdom of Odin behind and treads upon the memories of his childhood, riding over the hidden places in the woods he and Thor discovered as boys, the sites of friendly battles gone awry upon the arrival of Thor's friends.

There is no one path to Sessrúmnir that does not end in death. Those who are living are not permitted to see it, not until they are felled in battle and invited by the Lady, herself. Her hall lies in Fólkvangr, the great meadow, which is painted as an endless stretch of field in which silver grass grows, where the winged ponies and man-tongued birds live, and the suns of the cosmos cast it all in gold. How these stories were spun into telling is a mystery to him; who could know these things if they were not dead? Not even Odin has seen Fólkvangr or its hall.

His horse startles at the edge of the woods, and Loki looks up. From the murk of the trees and fallen leaves lurk the shadows of something he has not seen in centuries. Perhaps they will have forgotten his crimes.

"Loki Odinsson, you treacherous snake."

Perhaps not.

Dismounting, Loki stands tall and waits for Cebriev and her companions to leave the cover of the forest. When she breaches the line of trees, he throws his arm wide and sweeps it in close to his chest as he bows. She was always one for ceremony.

"My Lady Cebriev, daughter of Cennidiv, keeper of the Wood and Morn, it is an honor to be in your presence."

"Enough with the falsehoods, son of Odin," Cebriev hisses, and behind her the seven armored men and women straighten, their spears held tightly against their sides. "I demand retribution for your wrongs against me."

Cebriev is the middle child of the elven king, and is terrifying and terribly striking. Her high cheekbones are made even more severe by how high and tightly her hair has been pulled, sitting atop her head and hanging down like a whip. Her lips and eyelids have been painted a deep yellow, the color causing her red eyes to stand out like flame, and her armor shines in the light of the cosmos.

She bears the mark of the House of Cennidiv, eight hands interlocked around a leaf's stem. Loki knows that mark well. Cebriev's son and daughter both bear the mark on their right hips—he left bruises with his mouth and tongue on those marks.

"My Lady—"

"You ruined my children," Cebriev shouts, spittle flying from her lips. Her soldiers shift, awkward. "Their purity was the only stipulation for our treaty with the warriors of the east, and because of your debauchery war has waged for centuries!"

Loki holds up his hands placatingly, smiling. "In my defense—"

Cebriev's eyes go wide, and Loki glances back at his steed and gestures quickly for it to run. It stands fast. Loyal thing. "What defense have you for bedding my heirs?!"

There is no defense. Her children had been beautiful virgins and utter idiots, and it had been laughably easy to entice them to his bed. Curdic had been lovely in his stunned pleasure and cried so prettily, and Cirinn was something of a savant with her clever mouth.

He ought to tell Tony that story.

"What business have you here, snake?" Cebriev demands, her gloved hand straying to her side. Loki's gaze flickers to it and he notices the intricately carved bow there. He smiles.

"I am searching for Freyja," he says truthfully. "My quarrel does not lie with you, my Lady. Although if you know the whereabouts of the Light Mother—"

Cebriev snorts and in one fluid motion has her weapon drawn, the arrow trained on him. "Lies."

He stares at the arrow, curious despite himself. "How good are you with that?"

"I am the best," Cebriev says.

"I know someone better."

The arrow sings as it's released and Loki takes a fraction of a moment to admire its in-flight oscillation before he catches a shadow and disappears, reappearing behind Cebriev. He grabs hold of her, one hand holding a dagger to her throat and the other locking her hands at the small of her back. She hisses air between her teeth. He can feel the rage coiling in her muscles; if he were to let her go, she would rip him apart.

"Like I said," Loki murmurs in her ear, leaning away when she attempts to smash the back of her head into his nose. "I know someone better, and he has taught me much."

Cebriev's seven point their spears and arrows at him, and he grins, tightening his hold. It would be so easy to just twitch his hand and split her throat. Her blood would run hot over his fingers.

"If you do not know Freyja's location, then let me pass."

Her second-in-command, a stern-faced elf with dark skin, shakes his head. "Release her."

"This is unwise, Odinsson," Cebriev bites out, struggling against Loki's grip. "Do you think the House of Cennidiv will not strike at your father for this in any way we can?"

Loki chuckles and brings the blade closer to kiss her skin. "Have you not heard? I do not speak for Odin these days, my Lady. I speak only for myself."

Don't wait up. Don't forget.

"You lie."

"Always," Loki agrees, grinning at her soldiers from over her shoulder. "But in this, I speak the truth. I am not here on behalf of Odin, or any of Asgard. I am here for me, and I will wreak the most delicious chaos upon you should you not let me through. I will not venture anywhere near your kingdom, although I would love to see Curdic and Cirinn again—" He laughs at Cebriev's sudden thrashing. "—but I am on a quest, of sorts, the only quest that will ever matter. And because I know you do not want me to lay waste to your precious kingdom, you will let me through."

There is a moment where he thinks Cebriev's soldiers will attack, and he closes his eyes briefly against the surge of anticipation that washes over his insides.

But no. Cebriev relaxes in his hold and shakes her head at her soldiers. "Let him pass."

"My Lady—" One of the soldiers, a lithe woman dressed in browns and green to blend in with the forest, steps forward.

"I said… let him pass." To Loki, Cebriev hisses, "Do not think this will be forgotten. You will never be welcome in these woods again."

He smiles and thrusts her away from him, pocketing his blade as he watches her struggle to regain sure footing. "Good."

Nickering quietly to his steed, brave little thing, he waits until it comes to stand at his side and then rewards its loyalty with a stroke down its neck. It warms him to know that its love for him has not waned in his absence. Perhaps when all is said and done, he will bring it to Midgard. Surely land could be secured for it to run.

"Many thanks," Loki says, mounting his horse. He dips his head in some semblance of respect and pointedly ignores Cebriev's hateful glare burning a hole in his temple. "May Odin's blessings—"

"Leave."

He leaves.

The Alfheim woods prove useless. As do the valleys of the south. And the mountains of the north. And the beaches to the east.

Loki takes the Bifrost to Jötunheim, Vanaheim, and every other world hanging in the boughs of Yggdrasil beyond Niflheim, and finds nothing. He leaves no shadow untouched, no stone unturned, and it isn't until he is being chased out of Svartálfaheim that he knows.

He goes back to his birthplace, and not even the wind at the highest peak in Jötunheimen can cool his heated cheeks and eyes. Shuddering, he presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose where something terrible burns.

Nearly five days have passed on Earth.

Somewhere on the boughs of the World's Tree, there is a little planet, and on that little planet is a man who is going to die.

Loki laughs wetly, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. This was his doing. He should have been faster. He should have never spent those lazy minutes in bed while Tony went off to battle. He should never have come to Midgard. Should never have let go of Odin's staff. Should never have sent the Destroyer, should have kept Thor on that stupid rock.

There is no solution to this problem. There is no happy result.

I know you have a pretty incredible brain under all that hair, so think. What are you missing here? Remember the science motto you, me, and Brucie decided on: one of these things is not like the other. So what's the outlier?

A fool's errand, his father had said, and Loki is loath to admit Odin was right. Freyja will never be found. He's looked everywhere she ought to be and has seen no trace of—

Think.

He lifts his head and breathes, "Oh."

Little slow on the uptake, Dasher.

Loki has been to Helheim exactly once, an accidental trip, but he remembers little of it. All that his mind can dredge up is the blurred memory of his father bartering with the Lady of Darkness and Ice for safe passage back to Asgard, and the woman with night in her hair, who dragged down cowardly warriors into her shadowy hall, cupping Loki's cheek with her hand and whispering until we meet again, little prince against his forehead, her lips burning like fire.

The Bifrost spits him out at the gates, and he reaches out to touch the gunmetal door, traces his fingers over the carvings of twisted, wailing faces. Beneath his fingertips frost spindles outward, spreading quickly across the door until it is covered in a faint sheen of white.

A heat gun would eradicate this easily. Tony likes to holster them in the back pockets of his jeans and pretend he's a "cowboy," cheerfully filling his laboratory with flame.

He knocks at the gate twice, then steps back.

You have returned.

"You know why!" He shouts, clenching his hands into fists. At his words, the figures in the gates shift beneath his frost, scratching at the ice, their tiny hands curled and clawed, beckoning him. They hiss and wail like beasts, and Loki jerks back in surprise, heart pounding. In mere moments, the Lady of Darkness and Ice has turned him into a child.

He once stood before the Lover of Death and thought, I've been more frightened than this.

My sweet little prince, and the whisper twists around him like sweet smoke, clinging to his clothes and hair, thick in the back of his throat. It curls in the center of his chest, a cold thing, and he reaches up to rub it absently, fingers pressing into his sternum. There is no glow beneath his touch.

"You will let me in!" Loki drops his hand and lifts his chin. He will not falter before her. If she even catches a whiff of fear, she will reject him and everything will be lost.

Yes. The sibilant is dragged out, the hiss of a snake, and Loki stands firm. I rather think I will.

A loud groan rents the air as the gates slowly part, metal creaking and figurines screeching, and he steels his shoulders against the sight before him. Darkness stretches out impossibly from where he stands, a black carpet rolled out for his arrival; somewhere inside the halls echoes the howl of some nameless beast, and the sound grates over his spine like the serrated edge of a blade.

He breathes out, for a moment the only sound, and then something moves inside the hall, tiny nails scrabbling against stone.

Rule 1 of science: use everything you've got.

Bending his hand at his side, he curls his fingers around a pulsing, green light and lifts it in front of him, illuminating the dark path.

He takes care to make every step a sure one. His boots echo as he goes, but his attention is on the hall, with its impossibly high ceilings and enormous pillars, all stone the color of the fear that strikes in the very early morning, when it is no longer night but safety is still not guaranteed. The air is cold and thick, wet, smelling of stagnant water.

The light he holds casts shadows over the stone, flickering phantasms that are mostly stationary. Every so often, one of them will come alive and move to the places his light cannot touch.

He doesn't know how much time has passed before he finally sees the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel and is able to extinguish his own, but it's enough that his body aches with tension, anticipation of some kind of attack from the darkness coiling his muscles tight.

The end of the hall boasts an incredible receiving room, gold etchings and tableaus embossed into the black stone, culminating in a grand staircase that leads up to a wildly imaginative throne. He remembers that throne, how it rises from the platform and spindles upward, built into the stone itself. Seated upon it, chin resting upon the knuckle of one queenly hand, is a woman fashioned from both dream and nightmare.

Her left side is all pale skin, milk or cream and just as soft, with a spark of flush in her cheek. Dark hair cascades down her shoulder and pools over her left thigh, curled with gold branches and leaves, and her lips are deep rouge, plump and full. The gown she wears is fantastic, black and gold and red, with a collar that curves wickedly over the side of her head and ends in a series of gold-plated spikes, each one skewering what look like body organs. She is so beautiful and terrible, and he aches for her deeply. It is her other half that keeps him in check. The rank smell of rotting flesh fills his nostrils, but there is no flesh—there is only a great abyss, a shifting black he can't look at for too long; it beckons him to fall into it, and insanity clouds the edge of his mind every time he allows himself to glance at it. It wants to swallow him whole.

She smiles. The child he once was screams in exaltation and horror.

"I told you we would meet again," Hel says, her voice echoing throughout her hall, like stars dying, like the only truth in which to believe.

He nods, dropping to one knee, head bowed. "My Lady."

"Rise." Hel rises as he does. She tilts her head, vaguely amused, and a thousand souls shatter to nothing in the abyss. "My sweet prince, you were but a scared pup when you first came to me, your heart filled with such desperation, such darkness… You have cultivated it. And look at you now. You have grown into such a man."

With an imperial movement of her head, Hel descends the stairs, her gown trailing impossibly behind her, flowing over the stairs behind her like water. She lifts the black thing then, coalescing into something that resembles a woman-like outline, and holds out what must be a hand to him. His lips part on a scream but only a gasp escapes. He must run. He must get away. He must—

"No?" Hel smiles impishly and drops the hand to her side where it explodes into black smoke and is subsumed into the abyss. "You've nothing to fear from me."

"I've everything to fear," Loki whispers, hoarse with relief, "and all to lose."

"Not all. Not from me." A cream-colored hand lifts and she cups the edge of his jaw. "Come. We shall dine."

The ground beneath his feet shifts and the room rotates, nearly knocking him off balance, and he jerks his chin out of Hel's hand. Spin, spin, spin, and she stares at him, her lips curved wickedly in amusement, and she holds his gaze until the room comes to a gentle stop. Behind her is another hall, grandly lit with thousands upon thousands of candles, and a long table on a golden dais with an enormous spread upon it.

She gestures grandly. "Are you hungry? Or perhaps you are sated from the feast Odin All-Father held in honor of your return."

"There was no feast," he says before he can think about it, and then he pauses.

There had been no feast, nothing to announce the arrival of the second son, no gathering of revelers save those he passed on his way to the great hall. Surely his father knew of his coming—the same way he seems to know everything else. Perhaps it was an intentional slight. If Thor had been the one to return, the party would have lasted days.

No. No, it was not a slight. Feasts are a custom not borne of any particular desire to celebrate someone, but rather propriety. It is a social manner he hates. Feasts are tedious and long affairs, and every minute usually passes with him wishing death upon the lot of them. His father knows this. His father did him right by not throwing one.

But how long is this to last? There is no time.

He looks at Hel, who regards him, lips curled around a dark smile. "Thank you for your hospitality. I would be honored to sit at your table."

Hel takes the seat—a grand thing made entirely of gleaming black stone—at the far end of the table, and he moves to take the seat opposite her. Immediately after he sits, shadows move from the corners of the room, peeling themselves away from the walls and floor to take the shape of men. They come to stand at his sides and lift plates teeming with meats and fish, offering them to him. Servants. Hel has harnessed the darkness and made it her slave.

The flavor of the meat, rich with spices and smoke, bursts across his tongue like the fireworks Tony made for the Avengers during the summer, and he closes his eyes to savor it, a pleased noise escaping him. It is like nothing he has ever tasted or likely will again. He opens his eyes to comment on the food but finds himself arrested by the sight of Hel taking her own bite of something. Her left side chews it daintily while her right roils and shifts in an odd parody of… something. He's not altogether sure what the abyss is doing.

"Is the mutton to your tastes?" Hel inquires politely, and even from far away it sounds as though she is right in front of him.

Loki glances down at his plate, heaping with things put there by her shadowy servants. This is not any mutton he's ever had. His mother would despair to know that her cooks would never live up to it.

"It is wonderful." It is. He eats and feels full, feels his body take strength from it, and it bolsters him into breeching protocol. "My Lady, I am truly honored to dine with you, but I must know where Fr—"

"Have you never wondered why I allowed Odin All-Father to take you home all those centuries ago?"

Loki stops mid-sentence.

"It is not many who can find the halls of Hel and keep their wits about them. Even the Spear-Shaker avoids this realm, for he cannot tolerate the darkness and truths I hold here. I have seen hundreds of thousands of the mightiest warriors stand before me and break… Imagine my surprise when a little slip of a child that reeked of ice and power breached my gates and dared look into the face of the Howes-Warder. Do you know what you said to me? You said "hello." You bowed before me, the propriety instilled in you by your mother making itself known, and then you lifted your head and I saw the mischief in your eyes. A little jötun boy, masquerading as a son of the Æsir, who met my gaze and greeted me as if I were anyone else. I knew then that you were made for great things, and so I did not fight Odin All-Father when he swept into my halls and demanded I release you."

Loki does not remember this. Loki only remembers her benediction, the frighteningly fond farewell she bid him against the skin of his forehead.

"You knew I was jötun."

There is a smile in Hel's voice when she answers. "I did. You may find, my sweet prince, that birthrights are not important in my halls. No matter who you were up above, you will eat at the same table as everyone else. Except, perhaps, you. I would have you dine with me always. You and your mortal. I am curious, though; what is it about him that intrigues you so? You are an Asgardian prince—were—and so could have anyone you desire. Why a mortal?"

"We are the same, he and I," Loki murmurs. The meat is less delicious somehow, and he has a distinct craving for sushi.

"Is it because he is the first to see you for what you are and still want to stay, or is it because he is just as broken as you?"

The air is sucked from his lungs and the mutton on his tongue turns to ash.

Hel subsides her questioning with a coy smile. "Time runs short for your man of iron. I can feel his life slipping into my hands, and all I would need to do is grab hold of it and pull the rest of it to me." Hel says, and holds up her hand. "He is welcome in my hall; I will throw the most glorious feast in his honor."

He shakes his head and stands; his chair skitters across the floor with a screech. "No."

"There is no reason for you not to stay," Hel continues, speaking over him, spearing something bloody and raw with her fork and popping it into her mouth. "Stay and greet your warrior at the gates, and I will give you a throne higher than any in the cosmos."

"He does not belong with the cowards and deserters and the common folk." To even imagine Tony Stark in the shadowy mansions of Helheim is laughable. "He belongs above. With her. But not yet. Not when I can still prevent it."

"Oh, but I grow lonely down here," Hel sighs. She puts down her fork and looks at him. Despite the distance, he can see the mockingly disappointed expression on her face.

Loki steps back and glances around the dining room. "If he should die, your halls will soon be filled to bursting. You will not be lonely for long."

"You think I can be swayed by paltry offerings of the rabble? I want you, sweet prince, and your mortal. I will give you power. A throne. Is that not what you crave?"

"Perhaps once." Enough to have nearly destroyed an entire realm to have it. "But there is only one thing I crave, and I will not let you have him."

There is a pause, a half-breath, and then a hand from her abyss shoots out and him by the throat, slamming him into the floor so hard a crater caves beneath his shoulders. The table above shivers in anticipation.

"You deny me?" Hel hisses, suddenly there, and stars die, and stars die, and stars die. Loki gasps for air and claws at the hand at his throat, but his fingers pass through shadow and space. "You think you can enter my realm and make demands without offering anything in return? Oh, my sweet prince, perhaps you have not grown at all. Perhaps I ought to flay you and stretch your skin out for the cowards and deserters and common folk to wipe their feet upon when they come to my gates. Or perhaps I will simply consume you whole at my table, bones and blood all."

His vision swims and his hands find no purchase on her you are standing in a field looking at the stars either too cold for even him to find his grasp your arms are resting freely at your side and you see that the distant stars are not moving or too empty, and there is an odd sort of light somewhere behind her now start spinning.

The fingers of his scrambling hand skitter over the floor the stars are whirling around you and your arms are pulled away from your body in search of something, but there is nothing why should your arms be pulled away when the stars are whirling there for him to touch. He does not know what he expected, but he'd thought—why should they be dangling freely when the stars don't move—he'd hoped—

Suddenly, Hel freezes.

"What is this?"

Through watery eyes, the edges of his vision going cloudy with unconsciousness, Loki peers up at her and wonders how badly Asgard would suffer her wrath should he attempt to strike at her. He tries anyway, lashing out hard at her face, but she stops his arm easily. Hel stares down at him, her eye wide, the abyss restless and agitated, and he follows her gaze down to his chest.

Through his clothing, there is a blue glow.

Twist and click. Simple as pie.

Hel lets loose a scream that shakes the very cosmos as the glow gets brighter, blinding, and it burns the halls of Helheim away as everything disappears into blue.

The first thing he notices is the color of the grass.

The second is the familiar shape of a man standing at a familiar workbench, working with familiar holograms.

A wounded moan fills the air and Loki's heart aches for the animal that uttered it, and he hopes its death is quick. It takes him a moment to realize it came from him.

"No," he whispers, attempting to take a step forward, but his legs fail him and buckle. His knees hit the silver ground hard, and all he can do is stare, because Tony's back is to him and he is standing at his workbench in the middle of Fólkvangr, working, creating, and he shouldn't be here because there is still time. Loki had time.

His fingers are claws as they rake through his hair, grasping at it, pulling, and he clenches his teeth around the rage that threatens to bubble out in the form of an endless scream. If he starts, he will not stop, and soon the tales of Sessrúmnir will include the perpetual wail of a fallen son.

This isn't—this wasn't—he'd planned it out so carefully, so fully, and he'd been so cognizant of the time, and there had been time, he'd had time, and there are always outliers in every data set but not this one, not this one, because he—he had Tony, all he's ever needed, everything he's wanted, more than a throne, more than besting Thor, more than math, and he had him, he had him and—

He failed.

There is a burning in his eyes and nose, and he curls forward, forehead touching the grass, and he keens into it, for surely the endless meadow is large enough, is kind enough, to hold his heartbreak.

Time is a creeping thing, a slow and impossible thing, and he feels it sliding over him, a watery creature he cannot grasp. He rolls onto his back and stares up at the sky, full of stars and planets and dust, a beautiful tableau, the most beautiful sky he has ever seen, but it is dark, like night, like the place on Earth he and Tony visited once, where Tony curled into a warm jacket and Loki curled into him, pointing out every point of entry to the Bifrost, mapping the skies with a critical eye and not a hint of wonder, for he knows the stars, he knows what they are, and there is no marvel to be found in them.

He sees it now, though. He finds wonder in the galaxies that pinwheel above him, the ornaments on Yggdrasil's boughs, and his arms stretch out from his sides, fingers open against the grass, and he is falling into the sky. His cheeks are wet.

There is movement in the grass beside him, but he doesn't turn to look. He finds he doesn't care.

"They came looking for me here so many times. Óðr, my maidens, even the All-Father… but they found a field without sunlight and so believed they were not in the right place."

Loki shudders and closes his eyes. "A trick."

"No one thinks to look during the night, so I made an endless night," Freyja murmurs, her voice like bells, like water, like the suns that are nowhere to be found in Fólkvangr, and the touch of her hand against his fingers does nothing but incite a numbed sorrow. "I know what it is to lose something. No one can ever understand unless they, too, experience it."

His lips tremble, another onslaught of tears imminent, and he thinks of Tony arguing with Dum-E, flying encased in his metal armor, half-awake with pillow creases marking the skin of his cheek.

"Did you do this? Was this all your orchestration?"

"No. But I did not make it easy for you to find me. I did not make it easy."

"Why?" It tears its way out of him, slicing the inside of his chest and throat to ribbons, and he swallows the hot blood left in its wake.

Freyja sighs, a gentle wind, and takes his hand into her own. Above them, a nebula dances and two galaxies devour each other.

"Do you know what we are made of?" She asks quietly. Loki stares up at the sky. "When I place a seed into the womb of those who wish to bear children, it is not the spark of life I use, but a star. We are all made of the baubles fruited by the Worlds' Tree. We are made up of each other. That is the hidden truth of creation: we are not originals, but the works of others.

"And when the ones we love die, we feel it as if we were the ones, because we are. When one dies, we feel it. This is my burden, you see. As the Light Mother, I feel it when each and every one of you dies. I thought I would be forced to carry this weight for eternity, thought I would go mad with it, and that none would ever be able to withstand it the way I have… until you.

"I have an offer."

"I don't want it," he breathes wetly. "I don't want any of it."

The grass beside him rustles as Freyja stands. "I have outgrown this place. It is ugly and staid. If I am to leave, to find a stretch of nothing and begin building anew, I will need to leave Fólkvangr and my halls to one who can withstand loss. There is only one who can, Loki Laufeyson; there is only one I would trust with such a task."

A star explodes in a brilliant wash of light and Loki closes his eyes against it. Hel had said he would have a throne higher than any in the cosmos; here it is. Fólkvangr is hallowed ground, the most revered place perhaps in the entire universe. Not even Odin Spear-Shaker's gilded throne stands above Fólkvangr and Sessrúmnir, and the Light Mother is offering both to him.

He sits up and scrubs at his face, then presses his fingers against his mouth and breathes into them.

What he could do with that power. If Freyja doesn't care about the fate of the nine realms, then why shouldn't he take up her offer? He will sit upon his illuminated throne in Sessrúmnir and watch as everything else burns around him. Loki would see Thor kneel and grovel at his feet before he killed him. He would see Thanos beg for his life before he destroyed him and scattered his ashes in every corner of every galaxy. He would watch the Avengers look at him, horrified by his betrayal, and relish in their screams as he slowly butchered them one by one. He'd save Banner for last.

Loki's hand curls into a fist at his side. How Odin All-Father would attempt to stand against him, and how hard would he fall, too old, too soft, and Loki would hold his gaze and watch the life leech from that singular eye. His father would plead Loki, please, and Loki would whisper no and let him fall.

He tips his head back and smiles. Yes. Yes, he will finally have everything he's always—

I told you not to wait. It's okay. I didn't expect you to. I just want you to know that whatever you end up doing, whatever you gotta do, it's okay. I get it.

He gazes out to where Tony stands, his back to them, working diligently, and breathes out. "Do I have another option?"

"You do not want it?" Freyja asks slowly.

"I want to go to Midgard and bury him," Loki whispers. "And then I want to sleep until the end of all things."

"My position would afford you more power than anything else in the cosmos."

There is no point, because Tony may be gone, but the math remains, and no matter how many worlds Loki destroys, no matter how many lives he takes, no matter how much his thirst for chaos is slaked, the math will still be, and therefore Tony will as well. There is no escaping it. Him. Matter is finite. Tony is matter. Tony matters.

Loki closes his eyes and chokes on the words, oscillating, one more sinusoidal wave, and he will shatter. "There is no point."

"Oh, child."

He finally looks at her, the Light Mother, and is forced to look away after a few moments. She is too bright, too beautiful, for words, so he instead turns his attention back to where Tony stands, but Tony and his workbench are gone.

"You passed the test, Loki Laufeyson. Odinsson. There is a way."

Loki stares at the place where Tony had been, and stares, and stares, and he is going to burn everything.

With a snarl, he is on his feet and moves to lash out, moves to punch through Freyja's chest and rip her heart out, but there is a glowing orb between them, a small thing, and after a moment the light subsides and there is a—

The air in his lungs punches out of him. "This is—"

"There is a way," Freyja repeats. "A life cannot be given without anything in return; it upsets the balance. But a life in exchange for one…"

The golden apple hangs between them, a boon, a benediction, and Loki's hands tremble as he reaches out for it.

"This is not an apple of Iðunn. This is your source, your longevity, your immortality, broken down into its smallest measurement: life. It is going to halve you, and you must be sure. You will not be welcome on Asgard unless you are in attendance with Thor. You will be a guest on your home world. And mortal men are fickle; he may not always want you. He may leave you. If you choose this, you will keep your magics and your wits—for you would not be Loki without them—but you will live and die as a mortal. And so will he."

His fingers brush against the skin of it. It's warm. His mother's arms around him, her smile, her scent. Had he known, he would have given her a proper goodbye. He would have told his father—

"Be sure," Freyja whispers.

He cups it in his palm and brings it close. It pulses quietly against him and he can feel it ripple throughout his limbs. This is his life. An axiom.

He's sure.

There is a smile on Freyja's face. He cannot see it, but he can feel it.

Don't wait up. Don't forget.

Loki's grasp of human anatomy is somewhat limited; he has seen photographs and diagrams, but they tell him nothing except that the human body is stuffed to the brim. 97,000km of vasculature; electric signals that travel an upwards of 270kmh; cardiac muscle that never ceases; 70m² of respiratory tissue squeezed inside the thoracic cavity. They are universes unto themselves, worlds upon worlds shoved inside of them, made of star stuff, blood, and light.

And soon, there will be one more among their numbers.

The oxygen machine greets him with a whirr, punching air in and air out of Tony's chest. He is in the same position he was in when Loki left him, small and pale against the sheets, in this antiseptic place. Loki closes his eyes and inhales, just to see if the cool-clean air of Fólkvangr still lingers on him, but there is nothing of it anywhere. Someday, he will see it again.

He walks to the side of the bed and, placing a hand upon the rail, gazes down into the bed. Tony lies still, his breathing artificial and harsh, his eyes closed, his mouth sealed beneath a plastic mask. The arc reactor glows, dimmer than last time, and it sputters once before evening out.

His hand drifts from the rail to rest over the light of the reactor.

"Hello," Loki murmurs, trailing his fingers up over the skin of Tony's throat, bared by the thin hospital clothing he wears, up to his jaw, trembling slightly at the feel of his beard, which has grown unruly in Loki's absence. His thumb automatically stretches to brush Tony's bottom lip, but the mask blocks the touch. Hateful thing. He takes his hand away.

Pressing his palms loosely together, fingers touching opposite wrists, he brings them apart slowly and coaxes the apple out. It shivers in his hands and he brings it to his mouth, pressing his lips to the skin to sooth it.

"I have a tale for you." He whispers the words against the apple, but they are not meant for the fruit. The apple knows the story. "A tale that transcends worlds and gods, myth and legend. There is perhaps less math than you would like, but there is redemption, and nonsense, and a sky full of stars, and—above all else—me. There is me."

Conjuring a knife is easy. Deciding where and how to cut is somewhat harder. He decides on the fleshy side that bulges out slightly more than anywhere else. The blade parts the skin of the fruit and he feels it as if the skin were his own. It is. A complaint makes itself known above his breast, and as the juices of the apple spill so does blood down his chest.

He bites down on a hiss and slowly cuts into himself, a neat little circle with plenty of pulp, and his shirt is soaked through by the time he finishes, severing the last little bit of it with a flourish.

"This may be the first taste of fresh fruit you've had in months," Loki says with a shaky laugh, sending the knife away and clutching the piece of apple between his first finger and thumb. "Your disgusting protein smoothies do not count. Those are not real strawberries."

Removing the breathing mask with care from Tony's face, Loki gingerly thumbs the corner of plush lips, harder still when they do not part easily. Tony's mouth opens slowly, just enough for Loki to press the apple between his teeth.

He waits.

Nothing.

The breathing machine whirrs uselessly and the arc reactor flickers. Tony's top lip is slightly blue against the golden skin of the apple.

"Work, damn you," Loki hisses at it.

A loud beeping fills the air and he glances up sharply to the heart monitor, which shows a decreasing number, its sum spiraling downward, and Loki does not know what it is. He knows it isn't good. There is a commotion outside.

Grunting, Loki removes the piece from Tony's mouth and tosses it somewhere down by Tony's feet, bringing the rest of the apple to his mouth and biting roughly into it. The pain hits him like an energy shot, like a hit from Mjolnir, and his yelp of pain is lost as he chews, and his chest spills fresh blood onto his clothes and Tony's hospital clothes and blanket. Spatters of it land on his cheek.

"What the hell!" Someone shouts from the doorway, and then there is Pepper's voice ordering for them to let her through.

He winces through the pain and feels as though his insides will spill out if he bends over too far, and he tilts Tony's chin up again.

"Brother!"

Loki loosens his jaw and slots his lips over Tony's, sealing them together, his hand, slick with blood, finding the bulge of the reactor, and he pushes the masticated pulp of the apple into Tony's mouth with his tongue. Mother birds do this with their young; he remembers it from the animal program he'd found on the Netflix.

Please. Please, for once in your ridiculous life, do as I ask of you.

"I swear to God, if you call security, I will make sure your license is revoked and the only medicine you'll be practicing is giving flu shots at CVS," Pepper threatens, but it's far away, heard from underwater, from another room.

Beneath his hand, Tony's heart shudders to a stop.

Beneath his hand, the reactor dies.

Beneath his hand is an ending.

Then.

Then.

Then there is a pause, then he feels it, and it leaves him like water through a sieve, coming from every part of him, star stuff and power, his source, to meet on his tongue and flow onto Tony's to complete the circuit. A half-Mobius.

He knows it is done when he feels the hum of the reactor start up against his hand and the chill of the room makes itself known to his skin, and he shivers, in pain, cold, body most likely going into shock. His knees buckle and he is saved from crumbling to the floor by a strong arm around his middle, holding him up, and Thor murmurs some kind of soothing nonsense to him. Loki attempts to elbow him away, but he is tired, and his attention is on the heart monitor where the falling number stops and then begins climbing.

He chokes on a sob, reaching up to grip Thor's arm, as color comes back to Tony's cheeks, as Tony's chest rises and falls on its own.

Pepper moans, "Oh, thank God, thank God."

Tony coughs dryly, a raspy sound, and his eyelids twitch. After a moment, his eyes open and he blinks blearily at the ceiling. He takes stock of the machines, of the IVs full of nutrients and blood hooked in his arms, and then methodically begins pulling them out.

"Tony," Pepper gasps. She rushes to the opposite side of the bed, gripping the rail until her knuckles bleed to white. "Anthony Edward Stark, I am going to kill you and sell all your stock at a loss."

"Did anybody get the number of that truck?" Tony asks hoarsely, coughing again. "And you'd cut the rug out from under me just like that, Pep? Good girl. I always admired that cutthroat attitude." His eyes move from Pepper and fix on Loki. "Who does a guy have to fuck to get a cup of ice chips around he—holy shit, is that blood? Did you murder someone?"

Loki stares. "You—you are—"

"—pissed off," Tony whines, weakly reaching up to feel his hair. "Oh god, are there EEG nodes in my hair? Did you shave my hair for this? Pep, if you gave them the OK to shave anything on my person, I'm demoting you to secretary—no, janitor. Forever."

Thor grins and throws his free arm out wide. "Tony, my friend! The Mother of Light smiles upon you! I cannot express how happy I am to see you well. There is much to say."

"Hey, big guy," Tony grins, giving him what Clint calls finger guns. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes. Where's the rest of them?"

"Tony, you have no idea—oh Christ, the rest of them. I need to call the others. You'd better be alive when I get back. All of you, out. Now. No, seriously, get out." Pepper wipes her eyes and pulls her phone out of her purse as she leaves the room, already asking to speak to the Widow, the doctors and nurses trailing meekly behind her.

A laugh bubbles in Loki's throat and becomes stuck.

"Brother," Thor says softly, "it is over."

Loki is trembling, an almost minute thing, until it spreads like a disease and infects every part of him, until he is fairly certain he will shake away to ruin. His eyes burn with the threat of tears and he clenches his teeth until they ache. Tony, pushing himself up to sit, cured, healed, and so dear with the way the corners of his eyes crinkle. "Hey, hey. C'mere, c'mere, c'mere, how do I put this thing down, someone take this down, let him sit."

Thor rips the rail right off the bed with one hand and deposits Loki gently on the sheets next to Tony with the other. Loki sits and presses a shaking hand to the arc reactor, which glows and hums dependably beneath his palm. His fingers are limned in blue. We are made of stars.

"Perhaps I will go greet the others," Thor says, as subtle as a punch to the jaw, and clasps Loki's shoulder warmly. "Well done, brother."

Loki stares after him as he leaves.

"You okay?" Tony asks, grinning up at him. "You're looking kind of… I don't know. You look different. I don't want to say "less" and wind up in the doghouse for the next month, but—"

"Before anything else is said," Loki cuts him off, a bit proud at how steady his voice is. Inside, he is screaming his victory and sorrow and joy and loss to the skies. It was a terrible price to pay, and yet so very worth it. "You wanted to ask me something. You asked me to remind you. Consider this your reminder."

Don't wait up. Don't forget.

Tony blinks, obviously thrown, and then his brows furrow. "I asked you to— Huh. Really?"

It's like going mad all over again. "Tony."

"Huh?" Tony starts, then snaps his fingers. "Oh, right. Yeah. You pledged allegiance to the Jag. Right. Okay, so there's this annual function, a fundraiser for… I don't know, children with extra arms or something, but it's this huge deal. Or, it is for me. I've never brought a date to one of these. I thought it might be time to, you know, make this a thing. A public thing."

Loki stares.

"How about it, Prancer?" A grin stretches across Tony's face, and Loki knows no regrets. "Wanna go to prom with me?"

"I have no idea what that means," Loki says, swallowing hard, why should they be dangling freely when the stars don't move, and then affects a bored shrug. "I suppose I can accompany you. If I have nothing better to do with my time."

Tony throws his head back and laughs, the long line of his throat beautiful, the idealization of the first species of quantity, and Loki reaches out to touch it, draw his thumb down it. Grinning, Tony reaches up and tugs on his hair. "Something's changed."

"Everything's changed." Loki tilts his head down and kisses the smile there. A trace of sweetness lingers on Tony's lower lip, the last note to the song of the fallen son, and he pulls back slightly, kisses Tony again, quick, small sips of him. "The equation has evolved."

"Usually does," Tony murmurs in agreement. "What were the parameters? But before that—we have about ten minutes before the passengers of the Hot Mess Express show up—why the hell do you look like you rolled around Mike Meyer's basement? Whose blood is this?"

With a grunt, Loki swings one leg up onto the bed and lies back against Tony's pillow, which smells of sweat and drool, and he inhales it gladly.

"I want sushi."

"Congratulations. You know how to work a phone; order some. Shit, where's my phone?" Tony casts around.

Loki settles and closes his eyes with a sigh. "You spent the last week in a coma. There was hardly cause for you to have a phone."

"I don't care if I've been dead fifty years—a man needs a phone. Especially this man. Are you—are you falling asleep on me? Is that any way to treat the guy who just woke up from a coma? No, seriously, whose blood is all over you? Is it yours? Are you hurt? Oh, gross, it's touching me, it's on my blankets—Loki, magic that shit away."

The bluster and shock is somewhat ruined when a kiss is pressed to the swell of his cheek, right at the edges of his lashes. Loki smiles and opens his eyes.

"Hey, you've got about ten minutes before the party crashers show up. Less, actually, and then it's gonna be a madhouse."

"Let them come," Loki says, reaching out and cupping Tony's face with both hands, thumbing hair and skin, both lovingly dear and familiar, and Tony grins now start spinning against Loki's mouth. Fingers made rough by fire and metal and creation slide up the underside of his wrists, and elsewhere, all around them, the stars are whirling, and Loki cannot see them but it hardly matters, and he kisses the silver lies of a faraway land from Tony's lips.

They have time.