cuttingremark | For starkingenuity

Though it may be a no to the shared shower, Tony isn’t heart broken. He doesn’t take too long, though he does make a point of washing his hair quickly before shaving and dressing again. Loki’s presence has reduced the anxiety of wetting his head a great deal but his habits are hard to break.

Breakfast is quick, a JARVIS provided continental affair shared because all of the Avengers and Loki as Cap goes over their marching orders for the day. The next week or so is much the same. Breakfast. Clean up New York. Meet with leaders. Dinner. Asgardian lessons or sometimes films, and then a separation of the majority of their members before Tony and Loki slipped off to bed. Tony can honestly say it’s the most time he’s spent with any number of people, but he doesn’t exactly hate it.

By the end of the week, New York more or less working again, the group splits. Steve heads to DC to work more closely with SHIELD, Tony or or less nopes out of that but his connection with Loki isn’t something that can be overlooked or allowed to just carry on without study.

And it’s for that reason, not long after the team’s dispersal, that Tony and a rather sharply Midgardian dressed Loki head down to HQ. Ostensibly, it’s because there has been Chitauri technology detected in Europe and they want a consultation, but as Tony flies them out of New York, he can’t help but state how he really feels.

“I had having a babysitter.”

Through the week Loki rides the find line between working until he's bone tired and true magical exhaustion. He has years of experience avoiding just such things, and finds smaller ways to conserve his energies such as refraining from using magic outside of cleanup activities. Still, at the end of the week, he feels like he needs to sleep for the next month. Luckily they do get a few days rest before being called down to SHIELD.

Loki makes a vague noise of agreement.

"It is annoying, but probably the best outcome to be hoped for. At least they aren't actively trying to put me in a cell." He adjusts his black suit jacket slightly. The god finds he rather likes the Midgardian clothes Tony had pointed him towards, even if they aren't as comfortable as Asgardian threads.

"Besides, this should be a relatively short trip. Chitahuri technology is fairly rudimentary on a galactic scale. Once they understand the basics, it isn't hard to extrapolate the rest."

“That’s not good,” Tony grumbles, pulling the quinjet out of the clouds to see the ground again. Tony had almost insisted that they fly commercial after Loki told him about being DB Sweeney, but the thought of breathing the same air as so
Many other people, not to mention having to smile at the flight attendants changed his mind.

He sets JARVIS on the flight path before he turns in the jump seat towards Loki. His sneakered foot slides forward and lightly hits against the shiny black shoes Loki seems to appreciate.

The guy does look good in his chosen threads. Tony can’t help but let his eyes linger over the rim of his red tinted lenses.

“That means there could be a lot of not so great people doing a lot of really bad things with dead metal space whales.” Tony smirks just before the proximity alarm goes off and JARVIS banks the quinjet hard to the left to avoid whatever is incoming.

Telling the human the story of his time as DB Cooper had honestly been more fun than living it. He had no idea the tale had grown so infamous! Perhaps he would have to create one of these twitters his soulmate was always talking about...

"Well, we'll simply have to find them and put an end to it." Loki's foot pushes out and bumps Tony's sneakers in return. "Speaking of, how much do you actually trust SHIELD with these weapons?" Loki doesn't trust them at all, but he will admit he is biased. He does trust Tony's judgement on the matter, even without the bond. The human is cautious, especially with matters of advanced technology.

Loki on Twitter? Yes. Tony is pushing for that one hard. He’s already gotten him a phone, shown him how to download books, but the chaos the Asgardian could cause on social media is just too good for Tony not to encourage.

Tony is just a single second from telling Loki exactly how he feels about SHIELD when the klaxon goes off in earnest.

“J—?”

“Sorry sir. There is a missile incoming. Would you care to take back the controls?”

Tony arches an eyebrow and pulls up the aft view camera and radar. “Over the US? J, give me more than just visuals!”

"What convenient timing," Loki grumbles, getting out of his seat to move to the back of the quinjet. Coincidences are a myth, in Loki's opinion, so the fact that they are suddenly attacked as they were talking about SHIELD does not escape his notice. Still, there are more important matters to attend to at the moment.

Summoning an Uru dagger, he hastily starts scratching runes into the metal of the floor. Were he not still rebuilding his energy from the week of clean up, he would be able to conjure a shield for the aircraft without them, but he's not pushing it.

"Warn me if we're about to get hit!" he calls back to Tony in the cockpit.

Tony doesn’t share Loki’s paranoia about SHIELD if only because they need them both alive to use Loki. Tony is a bargaining chip, one more effective still because his own ingenuity is useful to the cause. Whatever Tony is, he is generally pretty willing to help out when and however possible. Even if it’s just to show off a new toy.

He pulls back on the joystick and turns the quinjet to a hard right, banking vertical for two seconds. He probably should have warned Loki about that, but the god is intuitive. He’s survived hundred of battles. He’ll figure it out.

Evening them out, JARVIS identifies two more missiles locking on them. “Two more,” Tony calls back, just as one explodes too far in the distance. Mechanical issues? Tony doesn’t stop to think about it.

“JARVIS, tell Fury we might be a little late!”

The sudden bank catches Loki off guard, but he's quickly able to catch himself before toppling head-over ass.

"A warning would have been nice!" he yells as he scrambles to the runes to add the last one. Pushing his magic into them, the quinjet is surrounded by a soft green glow.

"The shield can take one hit, but I'm not so sure about the second! How are they targeting us?"

“Good question,” Tony says before he grits his teeth. “Heading up over cloud cover! Hang on!” They’re too close to population zones and Tony is not going to be responsible for anyone injured because of him. “Do we have a launch location?”

“Yes, sir, but you won’t like the answer.” Tony rolls his eyes as they jitter through the clouds and break above them. “I can’t get a sensor lock but the material itself seems very similar to the Chitauri carcasses Doctor Banner analyzed after the Battle of New York.”

The second missile speeds to intercept them, but like the first, it explodes before it does so. This time, debris is pulled into the engine and the big machine stalls. Tony kicks the panel and locks the steering into place (little good it does) to climb to the back of the plane. He doesn’t have a lot of time to get into the armor, but it’s already parting at its space in the wall to enclose him. “Gotta jump ship, Loki, unless your spells ward off crashing!”

"Not at the moment, no." As Tony dons the suit, Loki shifts into his Asgardian armor. If they fall from this altitude, it won't do much for him, but he feels better with it on.

Once the armor fully encases his bonded, Loki wraps his arms around his chest. It isn't going to be comfortable, but he's done this with Thor in a pinch, so the discomfort isn't completely unexpected.

Tony and Thor have two very different ways of flying. A few stabilizing bursts by the hatch and Iron Man stays suspended in the air as the quinjet spirals away from him. He can’t do much to hold Loki, but there are plenty of chinks in the armor to provide handholds. And he already knows the other is incredibly strong. He’d had those fingerprints around his neck for a few hours, despite the very brief touch.

Inside the armor, Tony pulls up his battle HUD and scans for more Chitauri based missiles. “They shouldn’t be able to lock on,” he grumbles, as two more appear at an intercepting trajectory towards them. Iron Man drops straight down, mindful of the cargo holding into him, in an effort to put them on a more level playing field. He could guide the missiles out to the ocean a few miles East but he’s not putting Loki at that kind of risk. He turns off one gauntlet repulsor and wraps his armored arm around Loki, spiraling more quickly now to the Earth as the missiles lock on him.

It’s like they have a mind of their own.

The missiles had to be finding them somehow. With Stark in the armor and Loki being...Loki, it's unlikely to be heat. Visuals are possible, but not likely. What is likely is that they are somehow locked onto the energy radiating from either the human's arc reactor or the god's magic.

Well, one way to find out.

"Stark! Drop me!"

Drop him? Loki has got to be kidding. With the ground rapidly approaching, Loki isn’t likely to suffer much if Tony was to drop him, but the thought is so foreign to him.

The proximity alarms inside his helmet signal just how close the missiles are and it clicks, finally, as to why it is Loki wants him to let him go.

Grunting, Tony aims Loki towards the trees and releases him only ten feet from the branches before he turns sharply upwards to climb away from him.

Between his natural durability and some quick shield work, Loki makes it through the trees with minimal bumps and bruises. He's able to grab hold of a branch about halfway down to stop his fall. Through the canopy he can see the missiles streaking after Iron Man as he peals away.

He's nervous, obviously, seeing his soulmate pursued by alien explosives. But he also knows Tony can pilot the armor better without a tag along. Still, he stays at the top of the trees, holding his breath as he watches the red and gold fly through the sky.

Adrenaline is his best friend and fuels his unobtrusively dazzling dance high above Loki. He zips up much too high, a trick he’d learned long ago. There’s just one problem.

As much as Loki says that their limit of being apart is five miles, by the time Tony hits two, he’s really suffering. In distress, he mangles a loop and one of the missiles following him explodes too close and shorts out the reactor.

He blacks out after that, heart stopping.

Loki feels the tug. He gets as high up as he can, using his magic to jump from tree to tree in an effort to follow along with the chase. He watches as Tony goes higher and higher, their new bond straining under the distance.

Then the explosion. He feels his own heart stutter as Tony's stops. Loki isn't dead, which means only one thing.

It isn't Tony's time.

The human is falling out of the sky, the other missile exploding in the distance as it's target fades. If only Loki could fly, if only he were the magpie shown on his soulmate's tattoo, if only he had-

It is yours

Frigga's voice rings in his head as clearly as if she were standing beside him. He reaches into his personal pocket dimension for something he never placed there, but knows is there anyways.

A beautiful cloak made from tawny and golden feathers drapes around his shoulder and Loki ascends. He isn't as fast as Iron Man, but he is fast enough to catch Tony just before he hits the ground.

"Shit, shit! Stark, don't you dare do this to me!" Laying him gently on the ground, Loki tears off the chest plate and presses his hands to where the arc reactor should be shining brightly. He can feel blackness begin to creep in at the edges of his vision. If he doesn't act fast, it's the end for both of them.

Magic surges from Loki's fingers into the device. He doesn't know how it works, only hoping that the infusion of energy would act as a jump start.

There’s so much nothing beyond his vision, endless expanses of literally nothing, that Tony doesn’t even feel comforted by the cacophony of thoughts, should haves and could haves, that hit a crescendo in the gloom. He can’t act on any of them and his thoughts and ideas scream louder and louder until they fade away into the din. The paradox doesn’t strike him, funny or otherwise. Not when there is nothing but an endless maw.

Madness sets in so easily when your brain is starved of oxygen. There’s no respite in death. There’s only torturous loneliness.

Tony doesn’t know how long he spent alone when bright, pulsing green light finally caused the darkness to evaporate and shot air back into his lungs and blood stream. Still in his helmet, his eyes shoot open and he panics outright trying to claw it off with arms that refuse to move as quickly as he needs them to. Thankfully, he feels Loki in the pit of his stomach again, that chaotic spirit that is more calming and tempered than his own thoughts in their calculation and manipulation. It doesn’t make his brief stint being dead any less horrifying, though.

The reactor in the center of his chest shines green rather than the blue-white it had before as Loki’s magic sustains it. The body it keeps alive trembles. He needs out of the armor.

Obviously there are latches built into the armor for situations like this, but Tony's own need to get out of the armor combined with Loki's anxiety has the god tearing armor pieces off in a frenzy.

The faceplate is first. Loki rips it off and tosses it to the side as he begins working on the gauntlets. The god babbles as he goes, swinging wildly between concern for his bonded, and anger at the ones who did this.

"They're dead. Does anything hurt? Whoever did this, I'm going to kill them. The shrapnel, is it-? I'll hunt them down like beasts-"

Though Tony might regret it later, he's ecstatic that Loki pries him out of his iron coffin as quickly as possible. He tries to focus on his breathing, but he's pretty sure he's still on a crash course with death and the thought scares him beyond measure. Shaking hands grasp and then cling to Loki's arms as wild brown eyes scour his face for any sign of illusion.

Surely not. His mind is a lot of things, but his creativity is not exactly artistic enough for this. If this truly had been his mind, Loki would be an Android and the sky would be filled with those mechanical whales.

Sitting up, and feeling the rushing surge of life and their bond, Tony presses his face to Loki's shoulder and steadies himself. The cool grasp of his bonded pulls him back from himself and the terror and the madness subside. "After me, then. Reactor signature...."

Loki clutches Tony to him as soon as his bonded sits up, gently petting the brunette hair in what he hopes is a soothing gesture. After holding him tight for a moment, he loosens his grip to allow the other to lean back just a little though his hand remains cradling the back of the other's head.

"Where did they launch from?" JARVIS said he was able to trace them, but their sudden exit from the quinjet prevented Loki from hearing their origins. "Was it SHIELD?"

There's that paranoia again. Tony can actually feel it seep into him and he has to put his foot down on it. Rogers and Romanoff are SHIELD. Fury is SHIELD. "Not saying no, but there are easier ways to kill me," Tony says. "Pretty sure that would be a dumb move on their part. Kill me, kill you. They already have all of Banner's research and Thor's confirmation on the subject."

And Fury did do his cruel little trick to test their bonded sensitivities--

Which stirs Tony even more as he lifts one hand to Loki's angular, long face. "Are you all right?" He's had the reactor out enough to clean it, to install a new one, and when family members have gotten testy with him. He knows the feeling of having his heart stop. But does Loki? Likely he does now. Tony's other hand presses firmly to the god's chest. "Still with me and everything?"

Tony's not quiet trust does put him at east a bit. There are a million easier ways to kill the human, as Loki is now painfully aware. He can put aside his distrust of the organization for now while still keeping a vigilant eye.

"Me?" Loki almost laughs. "I'm fine, you're the one who fell from the sky and had his heart stop and almost died right here in front of me-" His eyes burn with unshed tears of anxiety and relief. His had goes to Tony's chest to reassure himself he's still there. The new green of the arc reactor shines against his skin.

"I didn't know if it would work, it was all I knew to do. It might not hold forever. Is there a test or a replacement or-" Because what if his magic isn't enough? What if it fails his beloved like it's failed him before?

Beloved?

Shit.

"Yeah, yeah, okay, deep breaths," Tony says as if he's the one trying to coax Loki back to health. He curls his fingers around the other's ear and pulls him in to rest their forehead's together. "I have backups. Not on me...not yet. I'll make sure that's the first thing I do. Once I figure out how to make them undetectable first. Then you can keep one just in case. I'll show you how to change them out."

Would a Faraday cage work? Tony will need to collect samples and, just on the off chance SHIELD is somehow involved, or this is just another of Fury's very annoying tests, he's not going to share this with them.

The missile debris part, at least. Obviously, JARVIS has likely sent them a Mayday. SHIELD is bound to be enroute.

All the more reason to get going. Tony gives Loki a little push back. "I have to get some samples. Can you... Oh. Actually, I feel really great." He smirks and clicks his tongue against his upper pallet. "You task like apples." Perhaps he could have phrased that better. Loki's energy tasted of apples. Likely do to life magic potentially be tied to Idun and the gardens of Asgard.

Loki chuckles at the comment. The taste of magic is something he's so use to, it doesn't even register anymore. It's pleasing, for some reason, to be able to share that with Tony.

"Stay here and try not to die. I will fetch your samples."

He stands, drawing the cloak tight around himself. The cloak turns into a pair of beautiful tawny and gold wing. Leaving his bonded's side after such an ordeal is the last thing he wants to do, but both he and Tony are practical to a fault. They need to gather some of the debris for testing before SHIELD arrives and sweeps it all up.

Opening and closing his mouth, Tony leans back on both hands as Loki's wings make an appearance. And in shades of gold that match his Mark III armor. "I'm sorry, you grew wings?!"

He and Loki are close, but there's a great deal about the other that Tony just hasn't had the time to figure out yet. Like his flying cloak ownership. And his shapeshifting abilities.

As Loki moves out of sight, Tony sighs and bends over the ruined armor. "Time to make the Mark IV," he mutters to himself. "Still with me, J?" No answer. He'll have to wait until he's at a server to uplink again. He really does need to make smaller devices to carry J with him.

And to give to Loki. Then they'll always be connected. He really likes that thought.

Just as Loki returns, a new quinjet will just be touching down with Rogers riding the end of the opened bird. Tony tilts his head at him. "Took you long enough."

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