Tony and Loki could do nothing but stare at each other in shock as the minutes ticked by.

"Well? What are we gonna do?"

"I have no idea."

"Neither do I. It's not like I expected my soulmate to be a crazy Norse god."

Tony was getting fed up with being frozen in place by magic, his mind itched, begging for his body to move.

"Well for the better part of a thousand years I thought I would never have one. You hadn't been born yet so for over a thousand years I feared I would remain alone forever. It was just another thing that made me unlike everyone else, another reason to tease me."

"At least I'm not crazy and murderous like you," Tony threw back in his face.

"But you are and were. You own the company that has killed thousands of people with its weapons. And you are just as sane as me, even if I am slightly unhitched. You would be too if you fell through nothing, a never ending night of darkness that didn't have an end."

Loki's eyes grew dark, haunted, it was a look that Tony recognized from his mirror. It was that look he had no his face in the cave after Obadiah betrayed him, it was one of a broken man.

"I spent months in a cave, tortured, worked for hours and hours to build a weapon against my will. I have been stuck in my own darkness enough to know that you can never be the same after."

Loki looked up at his soul mate and could see it, his own darkness that matched the one had filled Loki's eyes since his fall. He could see it at the edges, waiting in the shadows for a moment of weakness, for the chance to take over again. Loki wondered how he kept it at bay when it seemed to be suffocating Loki in its grasp. As if the god didn't have other things to worry about, Thanos was getting impatient. If it wasn't for him Loki might have been able to keep the darkness at bay, maybe even destroy it entirely, but Thanos's grip on him was was strong. He had pulled Loki out of his fall and had had a hold on him ever since. He hadn't wanted to come back to earth, when he said goodbye to Thor and lied to him he never imagined returning to earth, at least not for a few hundred years, but because of Thanos, he was here. Because of Thanos and his obsession with the power he had met his soulmate. And his soulmate was one of the goody two shoes heroes that were there to stop him. Not that he could blame him, it was what he was there to do, just like Loki, but now that had changed. Now he had found his soulmate, he stepped closer to the iron-clad hero he could feel the tight grip on him loosen. It was still there but now it didn't seem intent on crushing him under its hold. Loki wanted to cry out for help, voice the despair and regret he felt, beg for forgiveness. But his pride would let him, not even to his mate, his other half, that only now could he see was a perfect match to him. Tony had his own demons, his own darkness, he knew what it felt like to be alone, wanted for one reason that had nothing to do with family. Odin had wanted Loki for the same reason that Howard wanted Tony, control, a way to get what he didn't deserve though a child that had no idea they were part of something bigger than themselves. Each of them after having learned why they were where they were, why they were who they were, neither truly being loved like that should have been.

Tony could practically see the way Loki's thought were shooting around his mind, he got that way too, everything was a puzzle that needed to be solved. Some needed to be solved right in that moment, others waited years for their turn, and some took forever before the last piece fell into place, this was that last piece.

Tony never fit in on earth, he was always too smart, or not smart enough. He went against the norm, broke boundaries, and fought tooth and nail. Loki was always out of place in Asgard. He fought with magic, other with weapons. He was never as strong, was a liar, joked with things that caused trouble. They were like two sides of the same coin, matching each other and yet still different. Earth, Asgard. Old, young. Human, frost giant. Magical, mechanical. Smart, talented, troublemakers, rules breakers, lost, hurt, desperate for their mate, who they were sure they would never find.

As Loki's spell disappeared and Tony could move again nothing stopped him from reaching out for Loki. He let his suit fall from his body, leaving him in just the rubber suit he worn underneath the suit. Tony reached out his hand and let it cup Loki's bare cheek, hand tingling from the coldness of Loki's skin, their bond forming as they touched skin on skin for the first time.

Tony's hand to Loki felt like fire, his skin was so hot, it felt like it could burn Loki, he was so warm compared to Loki's ice. Loki hadn't felt warm in a long time, Tony's warmth was like a good memory, back to a time when he was happy. Before his life became was it was now, a mess.

It was hard to think that they could be something other than enemies, could be lovers, in the future, assuming they lived that long.

The End