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The knock came at the door just as Tony was about to go to bed.
He stood frozen in place for a long moment, unsure he had heard properly. He remained perfectly still, listening intently. For a moment, the only disturbance in the silence of night was the storm outside, its howls powerful and unrelenting, as they had been all evening.
Then, after a few seconds, he heard it again, deliberate and clear. Someone knocking, by three times, against the wood panel, and then the silence of waiting.
Tony remained as he was, heart beating hard in his chest. The wind's raging strength made the walls tremble. His eyes travelled around the house, stopping on a wood-chopping axe by the door.
He was relatively new to the Ice Land, yet he was aware that no man of common sense, even a man more inexperimented than he was, would be outside in this storm. It was the hearth of winter, and the sky had been grey and thick with clouds for days, announcing the coming of the storm as clearly as it could.
Only a mad man would be walking in this storm; or someone who counted on the generosity of a host who would be horrified by the prospect of being stuck outside, and who would open his house foolishly. Who would forget that the hunger month was driving men to madness, and hunger?
Tony did not forget these kinds of things. Unlike many of his neighbours, he had had to fight for his life, rather than for land or honor, and he knew he was not at his advantage in physical contests. He knew also he was new to this town, and he knew the hunger of winter was the worst of many years. He knew people in this remote location could sometimes resort to blaming the first man they saw for their troubles, rather than remain in the despair of inaction and waiting.
He knew also what hunger did to one's brain. He had gone hungry. He was well aware, when one's belly rumbled empty, or when they watched their loved ones' do so, the prospect of killing a man for a sad loaf of bread was not all that ridiculous. Tony's life was not worth that much more, in his own opinion -but not to the point of letting himself be killed.
A third time, the knocking came. It was quiet, no more insistent or urged than before. The visitor probably had seen the smoke from the fire. They knew someone was inside.
Tony swallowed, tense. He could perhaps wait. Hope that the stranger would go away. Hope that it wasn't one of his neighbours, who would spread the news that Tony was heartless, or die ten paces away from his house and let everyone know just that.
Tony couldn't help consider that scenario, as well. He had been raised to. His adoptive father, Edwin, had always seen only the good in people. He'd taught Tony to be generous and welcoming. The world they lived in, the old farmer used to say, was too cold and too harsh to be a cold and harsh man in it.
On the other hand, Edwin's wife, Ana, had had a different view on the matter. Shaking her head at her husband, she would speak in turn to Tony, with the strong and calm voice of a woman who had seen many winters. The world they lived in, she would say, was too cold and too harsh to be a warm and naive man in it.
Tony often wondered if he would have this many debates of moral issues with himself, had Ana and Edwin reached an agreement as to what they should teach him.
Finally making his choice, Tony cursed under his breath. He picked up his cloak from where it sat at the foot of his bed, and quickly wrapped himself in it. He walked straight to the door before he could again change his mind, grabbing his axe on the way. It wasn't big, nor did it look like much. It wouldn't intimidate a group of robbers. But it was something already, and armed with it, he threw the door open at once.
He didn't know what he had expected to see behind it. It wasn't this, though.
A single man stood there, resting his weight against the doorframe in an abnormally casual manner. The wind hit Tony like a powerful slap, pushing him back for an instant and biting at his very bones, and yet the stranger's hood was pulled down. He was staring at his bare hand's nails, as though lost in thoughts, as though he had spent the day knocking at doors in the middle of a storm, and he was entirely jaded of it. When Tony opened the door, he looked up with a delay, and then smiled. Like being welcomed with an axe was also his daily routine.
“Good evening,” he said, a clear and high voice that he had to raise to be heard above the howls of the storm. “My village is far up to the North. I doubt I will reach it in this storm. Is there per chance a place by the hearth for one weary traveler?”
It was hard to get a good look at him. Tony was standing in the way to the door, blocking what light came from the aforementioned fire. He could see a mane of long hair dancing in the wind, pushed neglectfully out of his face by the man in front of him. His voice suggested a younger man, into adulthood by only a few years, yet he stood taller than Tony by nearly a head.
“I don't have much around here,” he replied truthfully, having to nearly shout to hear his own voice over the winds. His fingers tightened on his axe, his free hand holding his cape tightly as he could manage, as he tried to speak rapidly and convincingly: “You should continue, just five minutes up toward the hill to the North. There's a fisherman's house there. He'll be happy to help you.”
It was perhaps a little unfair to toss the problem at his neighbour, but Tony was not above doing it. Stephen was a strong, brave man, and it was a known fact that his best friend, whom lived with him, was even stronger than he, capable of murdering a man with his bare hands if he felt his friend was threatened by him. Besides, it was not even a lie. The blond fisherman was kind and generous, and would probably have been happy to welcome a stranger to his house.
But the man shook his head in denial, still looking unbothered by the wind and snow.
“I do not think I can make it that far," he said. "I am a stranger to these lands, and I lost my path several times already.”
Tony stared. In the darkness, it was hard to judge of the man's facial expression, but he could see a pair of bright eyes, staring right back into his, with a look of calm patience to them. The stranger seemed to have no doubts that he was going to accept. Just for that, Tony was tempted to just shut the door.
His fingers tightened on the axe in a gesture of irritation. Then, he took a half-step back and gestured with his chin for the other to come inside.
“Come on in. That blizzard is not slowing down before the morrow.”
He should have shut the door the instant the man grinned at those words.
“At least,” he proclaimed, cheerfully, and Tony, at his tone, had the sentiment that he had invited something more dangerous than the storm, or any robber, right into his house.
There would be no going back on his own word, though; he pretended to ignore that strange comment, and as the man walked into his house, he closed the door behind him, relieved to at least shut the bite of the cold outside.
He would have invited the man to remove his cloak, but he was already undressing. He tapped his feet together, kicking off the snow that had clung to his boots and winingas with no hurry. In the light of the hearth, Tony could get his first good look at him, and he didn't know how he felt about it.
If the man was a thief, then a successful one he was. The cape he wore, lined with grey fur at the shoulders, was of such a thick fabric that it looked like the wet snow outside had barely touched it; he removed it by unclipping an intricately designed brooch that shined, despite being completely black. Underneath, he wore a tunic dyed in a shade of green richer than Tony had ever seen, tied at his hips with a large leather belt. Pendants-like necklaces, heavy with beads and bones, perhaps, hung at his neck in a strange ornamentation. He looked like what might happen if you mixed a nobleman and a witch.
Tony had not expected the sheer slenderness of the figure under the cape. For all the confidence and the garment of a nobleman he possessed, the traveler looked like he had not eaten in days, or in years, that his figure would be so abnormally thin. It looked like there were no bones nor joints to restrain his movements, and Tony had the absurd image of a being made of water or fire -inconsistent.
“I... Do not think I caught where you said you were from, traveler”, he said.
The man's face was no less unique than his shape. His long hair was a fiery red, brighter than a fox's fur and filled with small pendants braided through the curls. His face was sharp, without a hint of a beard, that of a man about as young as Tony had expected from his clear voice. His thin lips seemed ready to curl up always, and his clear eyes had a clever feeling to them as they met his, one brief instant.
“North,” the man replied. His lips curled into a smile indeed, and Tony caught what he had thought were shadows of the fire shift around them with it. “Right were that storm is from, I would suppose. Is it always so cold around here?”
That was not an answer. The man looked like a rich, strange young man, yet Tony couldn't help feeling mildly nervous around him, like he was failing to notice something that should have been obvious.
“I do suppose the place was named Ice Land for some reason,” he observed. He blinked at the clear, cheerful laughter that it enticed from the traveler, as he finished removing his shoes. “What are you doing in this place in the middle of winter?”
It was a not-so-subtle hint of how stupid an action it was, but it did not seem to get to the other man. He handed Tony his heavy cape. The smith noticed his hands -long, with slender fingers and wrists trapped in bracelets as complex as his necklaces were. If ever he had held a sword, then he probably hadn't done so for long. Tony took the cape to hang it by the fire as he put down his axe, swallowing back his irritation. The confident smile and light tone of voice of the man (boy?) was both enticing, and made him want to punch him.
“Travelling, of course. May I?” With a sign from Tony, the visitor smiled and went to sit by the hearth, rubbing his hands together over the flames. “My brother,” he said, “is absurdly fond of this place. I was curious to finally see it for myself and come tell my tales here the way he does.”
The Lady Freyja's pussies be cursed, Tony had welcomed some sort of story-teller in his house.
He was a clever man, enjoying a challenge as much as everybody. But he had never been the type to enjoy the visits of skalds who would demand food in exchange for tales everybody knew and cheap tricks. Playing mysterious and reciting the list of the Allfather's names was not the sort of feats Tony pictured as intellectual prowesses.
“I have some leftover stew,” he said. “Should I heat it up?”
“I'd be grateful if you would.”
He managed to say something polite with such a self-entitled tone, it was almost impressive.
Tony nevertheless obliged. If that would keep the man from trying to gain favors by giving them right away, before he could start talking, then he could share some of his sad meal. He grabbed the pot, over which a layer of white fat had formed in the cold. He hung it above the fire. There was a brief pause, and then he pulled a stool for himself near the hearth.
Much as he wanted to do nothing but ignore his visitor, going to bed and leaving him there didn't sound that clever. It would take a truly stupid man to try to steal his valuable items, all heavy weapons, and run out in the storm with them; but this particular man had just admitted to travelling in Ice Land for fun in the middle of the season of hunger and storm. Stupid was a word he would consider applying to him.
“So,” he said, feeling like he had to fill in the silence. “You have a name, stranger from the North?”
Said stranger smiled at his formulation, still bent toward the fire to rub his pale hands so close, Tony wondered how they were not burning yet. In the close light, the shadows around his lips deepened, like wrinkles in his otherwise smooth skin.
“My brother always preferred calling me Loki, and so it is the name I'll carry in this place, if it is well with you. May I inquire how I should name my generous host?”
Loki, then. That was no common name, Tony pondered, deciding to leave out the strange way to give it. It rang a faraway bell, feeling like something he ought to recognize, but he could not quite put his finger on it. Nevertheless, it fitted the sharp smile, somehow, and those eyes he could now tell were green like summer leaves.
“Tony,” he replied, after a brief pause. He did not give his father's name: the stranger hadn't given his. “And is the trip up to your expectations, thus far?”
“Mmh.” Tony thought that was the only answer he would receive, but when he glanced at the man -at Loki-, he saw he seemed to be thinking about it still. “It's interesting, for sure,” he finally decided. “I have yet to see what it is my brother is so fond of, though. Perhaps with some changes… But I suppose it is a problem of education.”
Tony raised an eyebrow, but elected against pushing the topic. He wasn't going to ask for more details -the sooner the man left, with as little interaction with him as possible, the better. He leaned toward the fire instead, stirring the content of the pot in silence.
“He finds the people here fascinating,” Loki said, startling him, after half a minute had passed. “Their intelligence and conversation please him. I have yet to find that.”
Tony glanced back, wondering if this was the man's idea of a joke. Where was he from, that he thought he had the right to speak of the people here like they were some sort of strange, unique specie he and his brother liked observing ?
Tony himself was relatively new in this place. But he had received a warm welcome, and it was all in all much better than his old home had been. Hearing men from the continent spitting on the Ice Land's cold, unwelcoming climate made him unreasonably defensive. He didn't like the place -it was horribly cold, and the ground in this place barely gave anything to the ones who worked it. But he had grown fond of foolish Stephen and his friend, thinking that they were discreet at hiding the nature of their true relation, and the Widow's sharp words, and the hawk-eyed hunter's clever wit, and every other strange exiled soul he had met here, with their own unique reason to have burrowed in this forgotten place.
“So you have been knocking on many doors, looking for intelligence and conversation?” He wondered, not quite bothering to make that sound polite.
“I have been at it for a few weeks now, aye, with little success. I figured coming here was perhaps my last chance at that.”
Tony was almost tempted to ask the young rich boy how he had not been murdered, travelling around insulting the people who would give him hospitality. Instead, he straightened back up, wooden spoon in hand, and raised an eyebrow at him.
“Do not mind me asking, but fond as you are of your brother, how come you are travelling alone?”
He had the satisfaction of seeing the man’s arrogant posture stiffen at those words, the shadow of a frown coming to his features. He seemed more annoyed than truly offended, but Tony felt unreasonable satisfaction nevertheless at finally seeing his smug grin down. In ten minutes time, it had been easy to understand that it did not happen near as often as it should.
It was perhaps a harsh judgement of a stranger, but it felt somewhat… evident. There was something about Loki’s whole attitude –his smile, his words, his standing- that made Tony both fascinated by him, and wanting to punch him in his smile at the same time. Perhaps it made no sense, but the only way he could relate the impression Loki gave was... It was like seeing a live wolf in the wild for the first time, after hearing the cautionary tales about them for years: you recognized its fur and teeth, the bright eyes and the curved back, recognized the dangers of them as something you had known your entire life, yet never had placed an image on. Loki’s smile held that strange kind of familiarity, reminding him of something he had never seen, but had heard a lot about.
“I have no memory of saying that I was fond of him,” Loki said after a long half minute. “Merely that he was, of you and your kind, and I had trouble fathoming why.”
That last word came with a first display of genuine anger, with something akin to bitterness in his startling eyes. He seemed to take a deep breath, after an instant, to calm himself, and his tensed features turned to a smooth, expressionless mask.
“But my brother is not here this day”, he said finally. “It is in you I am interested at the moment, Tony. Do tell me –what became of you in the last few years of your life?”
It was Tony’s turn to frown as Loki offered a smile. He spoke as though they had met before. Yet, despite the feeling of familiarity that came with Loki’s attitude, Tony was quite certain he would have remembered facing him before.
“I am not sure what you’re asking about,” he said carefully. He was still not entirely sure the boy was just arrogant, and not a madman. “Here you go,” he added as he used a piece of leather to pick the pot of stew from the fire and hand it to Loki, with the vague idea of using the food to make him shut up.
“What I am asking,” Loki said, as he reached for the food, “is how the Iron Man, the greatest smith in all of Norway, arguably the greatest in all the northern lands, found himself alone on a rock island, forging pots and belts with the craft that made the sharpest swords in his age.”
Tony went perfectly still.
So perhaps he had been right to fear danger as Loki entered his house. It had simply not been the sort of danger he expected.
“These days are far behind,” he said. “I do not know that you were even a man then. If you were sent after me by the Thing-”
“No, no, nothing of the sort,” Loki said, and the amusement was back into his smile. “I am here on my own volition, I assure you.”
Tony opened his mouth to reply –though what, he knew not still, only he had to reply and do something to send this man out of his house before he could bring him trouble- but he had no chance to, as Loki started to eat and, with that, temporarily shut him up.
In his tension, Tony had not reached to give Loki a fork, as he had planned to after handing him over the meal. The man's meal had, understandably, not been his priority. Seemingly not bothered by it, Loki had casually rolled up his sleeve as he spoke, before he plunged his hand into the boiling broth with no hesitation. Instead of crying out in pain at his own stupid gesture, like he should have , he bent closer to the pot to bring a piece of potato to his lips. He swallowed it like it was nothing, then proceeded to suck each of his fingers clean, with a pleased look on his face.
“That stew is rather excellent. Your hospitality is most appreciated,” Loki assured, smiling back at him. “Is something the problem?”
“Did that not hurt?” Tony knew before asking that he was giving Loki exactly what he wanted. He couldn't help it.
“The heat doesn't bother me much,” Loki grinned. He seemed rather pleased with his little effect. There were definitely lines in his smile, going through his lips in a regular pattern.
The heat didn't bother him. Nor did the cold, Tony thought, remembering the man with his hood pulled down, letting the cold North wind slap his seemingly delicate skin like it was but a warm summer breeze.
“Did somebody hire you to find me?” Tony asked, throat running dry.
“I told you a moment ago I was here of my own free will.” And then, after a pause: “You seem tense.” He plunged his hand in the broth again, and pulled a thick bone out of it with a look of triumph at his find. He brought it to his lips, and against all common sense, Tony watched as he bit it, without even seeming to put effort into it.
The damned thing broke like it was but bread.
Here it was again, the grin that made Tony want to punch him. It was in his gaze, he realized belatedly –a smile that shone in his emerald irises, much more than it tugged at his lips. It didn't look like the fire was reflecting in his eyes. It seemed like there was a fire of its own in them, a disturbing brightness. It made Tony's fingers itch to close around a weapon, or to hit the man in the face himself, without quite knowing why. Seeing the wolf, recognizing it for the danger it was. The fight or flight response that came with that understanding.
“Loki,” he said, finally, because it was so ridiculous, so enormous that it could only sound that way when he would say it out loud, except it didn’t. “You're -Loptr. The Jotun. The blood-brother of Odin.”
At this point, he had trouble understanding how he could have failed to understand earlier. The man -the giant- smirked, pulling the bite of bone out of his mouth. With flaming red hair, eyes an unnatural shade of green, and that smile that made his skin crawl like he was facing a predator…
“Indeed I am. Those things and more, though I cannot blame you for not remembering all my kennings.” He let the broken end of the bone fall back into the pot, and brought the other bit to his mouth.
Tony watched him suck the marrow out of it. For a few long seconds, he found himself without a single thing to say. It was not a sensation he was used to.
“I knew you to be more vocal,” Loki observed after a moment, as though he had read into his mind. The thought that he perhaps could sent an involuntarily shiver down Tony's spine.
“So that's why you're here?” His voice wavered a little. He tried to straighten up. “To punish me because I escaped justice?”
What else would it be? Why would a god travel to Earth and visit him, asking about his fate, if not to deliver some cruel retribution for his past actions, and tear him from the peaceful life he had found despite them?
Tony had never bothered with the gods. Lords of the Sky, in his opinion, had few reasons to care for old Midgard, and even less so for its inhabitants. Beings who spent their life fighting giants and holding grand contests had never interfered with his human life and troubles, and it felt unlikely they would change that way of doing.
He remembered, from his childhood, how the adults around him would pay their respect to Odin and Thor and Freyjr to see their crops grow and their women bear children. He remembered how Ana had once been very sick, and Edwin sat by her bed as a seidkonur chanted old prayers. He remembered the men from his native town, and the sacrifice he had not been allowed to see for himself as they prayed that Ran and Njörd and Aegir would make the sea their ally and keep Jörmungandr away as they sailed to the south to bring back riches and slaves.
Far in his distant memories, he even remembered his own father, his birth father, waiting Odin's day and throwing the best piece of that day's meal into the hearth as an offering to the Hanging God. Tony had once asked why. The only answer he had received was that there was no god for blacksmiths and crafters, so Odin would have to do.
What he had really meant to ask was why he and his mother should starve, while the fire mercilessly devoured meat and fish and left nothing in return. Why they should make offerings to gods who would never care for them, who had never cared for them.
His father and mother had died and he was but a child when Ana and Edwin had taken their old friend's son in. He had never bothered burning anything for the Allfather. And he had always taken some sort of pride in it, in letting the old gods live their life and in living his, neither begging nor fearing their interfering with his existence.
Until now.
And he thought, distantly, that if even he had decided to pray the gods to forgive his past crimes, he would never have had it in mind to turn his offering to Loki .
He could search his mind all he liked, he had no memories of anyone he knew ever doing so, truly. Who would ever take that risk? Loki, the burning fire, of whom nobody could ever tell if he was foe fire or kin fire, the embers that warmed the hearth or the raging fire-mountain shaking land and burning crops, the flames that allowed one to live through the winter, or those who would burn his house to the ground?
As Tony stared at Loki, as the god smiled again, his eyebrows raised as in amusement, his mind ran with all he could remember of those tales that were told sometimes. Loki, the giant whose beauty and mind were that of an Aesir, the seidr-master who walked on the sky to bring his clever words and cruel tricks to all the Realms; the mother of monsters, the father of lies, the brother of Odin; he who they said was neither man nor woman, neither man nor beast, neither foe nor friend...
Of course nobody ever prayed to Loki. Who would take the terrible risk of showing either hatred or trust to one so dangerous, so ever-changing that even tales of his life were never quite the same? Perhaps men felt safer never speaking his name, that they might not be accused of insulting nor praising him. Who would wish for that attention upon them? Gods were never kind and rarely fair. The world was too cold and too harsh to expect them to be. But Loki... That was something else entirely.
As if he knew Tony's mind, once more, the god chuckled.
“You seem so truly horrified. It would mean you know of me, and yet you make such assumptions... No, Tony, I am not here to bring you back to justice. That would be, ah... rather a mean trick on you, considering.”
He punctuated that sentence by putting his hands up at his sides, and Tony stared at them in confusion before he noticed red, raw marks in his wrists, like the skin had been chaffed completely off of them.
He searched his mind, trying to make sense of it. Horrified was perhaps not the word exactly. Shaken, yes. Confused, too. He knew the god's stories, the way one knew a faraway memory or a distant place: vague and half-forgotten. The men who spoke of Loki did it for any purpose: often to jest, sometimes to have a crude laugh away from women. Sometimes it was to find someone to blame. Usually, it was to speak of the impossible.
He dug in his own mind, trying to get past jokes and rhymes. Ana's tales to put him to sleep, skald's songs... Always they spoke of the Thunderer's battles and the Allfather's ingeniosity, and Tony only half-listened.
There was one thing that reminded him of Loki's name. Another name, its complete opposite. The stories were tied together like a day of shining sun was tied to the shadows of the night falling upon it.
“You murdered Odin's son”, he remembered abruptly.
Perhaps speaking that accusation was not the smartest course of action, but again, he talked before he could stop himself. This entire moment was too strange, too unexpected to think past his own shock.
Loki cocked his head to the side, as if in calm acknowledgement, while he swallowed a large bite of meat.
“Dear Baldr, yes. Odin has so many sons, yet Baldr is ever his favorite. Beautiful and kind Baldr. It is my nature to hate him indeed.”
There was silence, for a while. Tony's head was spinning, his thoughts struggling to emerge out of his own disbelief. There was a god in his house, he struggled to order his mind. There was Loki, kinslayer giant, traitor and murderer, in his house, and for unknown reason he seemed to know of him. What he wanted, he still had to figure out.
He tried to force himself to breath. He was not a warrior, not a man of strength like the Archer or of moral value like Steven. He needed his mind working with him, if Loki was there to harm him. Even if a part of his mind was telling him that it couldn't be it.
“So you're on the run?” He tried carefully. Like me? He didn't add. But even as he said it, he realised it made no sense. Loki bore the marks of his imprisonment. The tale was old, older than he, a story he had been told as a child, as the ground shook and he asked why.
Loki murdered Baldr, knowing he caused arm to all by doing so. Then he invited himself to a feast and mocked the gods, bragging about his crime and insulting everyone there. Then the gods caught him and secured him and the earth quakes when he writhes in pain in his bonds.
He had not thought of this tale in decades, that tale of hatred and eccentricity and madness and vengeance, with a moral he was not sure to understand. At the time, it had made such an impression on him, to hear Edwin retell everything. It had been later, as years passed, that he started to dismiss it as nothing but a pretty tale, as he realised that there were no satisfying answers to the gaps left in it.
But why did Loki murder Baldr, Papa? Why was he so angry?
He could have run, turned himself to a bird or a dragon and fly, like you said he could, Papa. Why would he go to the feast and provoke Thor and Freyjr and Odin, knowing he would be captured?
But Papa, isn't it unfair? Loki's children, they had done nothing.
Edwin had smiled, like he did when Tony's mind surprised and pleased him. Why does the fire burn, Tony? Loki is the way he is.
Yes -he remembered that story, now, how it had kept him awake so many nights, thinking in horror of the gods' cruelty. Imagining Loki, a god weak in strength and with no honour, but with quick hands and a clever mind, screaming in pain in his eternal punishment. Bound in his sons' guts in a cave lost in the depths of dark earth, eyes eaten away day after day by the liquid fire of a snake's venom...
Loki was staring at him, unnervingly. He had stopped eating, his delicate and pale hands dripping with greasy broth as he let them hang from his raised knee. His eyes shone now, from that unnatural light of amusement, as he seemed to wait.
The scars upon his lips. ( The gods were tired of his lies and tricks, so when the dwarves demanded his mouth sewn shut, the gods laughed and agreed and helped hold him down. ) The marks at his wrists. ( They turned Vali to a wolf and made him kill Narfi, and they used his guts to hold him down under the serpent's mouth. )
“So the stories are real. The old stories,” he said. The fire that burned. Why did it burn? And then: “How are you free, and the world is not yet at its end?”
Loki's smile spread from his eyes to his lips, displaying his teeth. They were sharp and white like a predator's.
“You are a clever one, Tony. You always were. I remember much of you. There are so few of my brother's things who truly think for themselves; who would carve their name in iron and stone and make themselves immortal. They're the only way to be immortal, stories,” he added with a smile. “And you had a beautiful one, before it so died down. Do you remember trying to come to my help?”
He didn't. Tony searched his mind for a meaning to his story 'dying' and found nothing. But as if Loki's carefully articulated words were the spark that started a fire, he found memories leaving dark places to come back to the light before he could open his mouth to deny it.
He had been eleven, perhaps twelve. Packing up a bag, trying to leave with a shovel and a pickaxe. They had been too heavy for his weak arms, trailing behind him and leaving deep traces in the earth that had allowed Ana to find him before he had walked an hour. She and Edwin had laughed for years about that adorable course of action. Tony had been insulted, at first, and then he had laughed as well, finding himself foolish as he grew older.
In that moment, he had wanted to find the god of trickery. He felt lonely. No child he knew could keep up with him when it came to the mind, and he had been too weak to be part of their games. He had been lonely, and while he saw the others playing they were Thor, chasing goats and hitting each other on the head with wooden swords, he had thought of the one god who resembled him. And he had thought it was foolish to pray Loki for company, for the god was imprisoned. So he had left for the north, hoping to find a fire mountain and, underneath, a screaming Jötun, who would welcome him by his side...
“I didn't remember,” he said slowly. And because he didn't feel he had anything to lose for saying it, “I thought we were alike. I didn't remember that.”
“I did.” Loki's smile had fallen again, yet his eyes were still intently watching him. “There are very few who felt more than fear and contempt toward me, in my prison of stones.”
“But I didn't free you.”
“No, of course not. You were but a mortal child. You never could have. Even today, a mortal man, you would hardly break the chains my blood-brother built for me.”
He said 'blood-brother' with a voice calmer than Tony thought one could speak of his jail-keeper, someone they had betrayed and who had betrayed them in return. Still looking at Loki from a careful distance, he couldn't help but wonder how it could feel. Being chained in eternal torment by the man who mixed his blood with yours, swearing to be friend and equal.
No. He could imagine. But it was a dead story. His stomach twisted a bit.
But something about Loki's phrasing was off. Several things, in fact, were nagging at the back of his mind. He had been a boy then, and his foster parents had spoken of Loki's imprisonment as an event from a long past time. Yet the god stood here, his face that of an arrogant boy half as old as Tony himself.
He knew gods were immortal. He knew they ate gold apples of youth. But Loki spoke as though his chains were yet unbroken.
“I do not follow. How did you escape, if no one came to help you? And if you are free, why...”
“Why is it not the end of the world, with a sky of eternal winter?” Loki completed when Tony spent too long searching for the proper words. He chuckled, though it sounded darker than his smile had looked. “Ah, but dear Tony, have I at all said that I am free?”
“But you are,” Tony protested, a bit annoyed by how the hair rose on his skin every time the god spoke his name like they were old friends. It felt disturbing to imagine this youngling had been there -had known of him- when he was but a child, and now stood in his house, at such a distance from his past life. “You have to be. You're rather obviously not in chains now.”
“It's a tad bit more complicated than perhaps you imagine”, Loki replied with a smile. “Let's say this, that I am more free from my bond when I come to the mind. The winter is long and cruel, this year. They need somebody to fear and blame. Do you have anything else to eat? I'm famished.”
“But how are you free?” Tony insisted, even as he made for the loaf of flat bread wrapped in clothe, close to the fire. It was stale and a bit dry and he had meant to drown it in broth later. He didn't think Loki would have a lot of trouble biting through it. He should probably have been more concerned about giving away everything he had to eat, but the situation did not call for food management. “It cannot be this complicated. You are free, so you cannot be jailed at the same time.” The challenge of Loki's implication, that it was too complicated for his mortal mind, was seriously bothering him.
“Mmh.” Loki chewed a large bite of bread, eyes travelling to the fire as if in deep thoughts. It seemed as though he was somewhat confused himself, wondering at the holes in his story curiously, as if he had failed to notice them earlier. “Do you truly believe it is impossible for a god to be in two places at once?” And then, returning his gaze to Tony, he shook his head with a smile. “But enough of this. I did not come to discuss my current situation with you, much as I am pleased that you care to ask. I did ask you a question, if you recall.”
“What- why I am in Iceland?”
He needed a moment to recall that, yes, that was what Loki had asked; and he wondered at it for a moment, confused that this god who seemed to know so much would bother asking. Then again, Loki had, technically, spent all of Tony's life chained in a cave, and should have known nothing...
But that he would ask this...
Loki shook his head, smiling around his mouthful of bread.
“Nay -why you are in Iceland, wasting away your gifts. The greatest sword-maker of the North, and arrowheads are the deadliest thing your fire has seen in years. You cannot deny that is puzzling if nothing else.”
“I feel like you know already,” Tony remarked, his voice tense again, and careful.
“I know what happened to you,” Loki said. “I know not why you made the choices you did.”
His eyes were somewhere in the flames, but not in an absent-minded way. It was like there was something in the fire he felt the need to watch carefully, even as he carried on with his conversation. Tony followed his gaze, but saw nothing. He rubbed his hands together, his shoulders tensed. There had probably been at least a cautionary tale when he was a child, teaching him of the dangers of refusing a god's demand. His mouth still tasted of ashes.
He had not spoken of Norway in many years.
“Obbie killed my parents,” he said after a long pause. His voice sounded steady. It didn't feel like it. “He tried to use me the way he had used my father, to feed the flames of war and kill good men honourlessly. I gave him what he deserved.”
It felt like such a concise, brief explanation. Something that made sense, which worked with logic, not a world of pain and doubt and shame. He could almost have believed himself, if he didn't know that this mere mention of it would cripple his sleep with nightmares, would have him wake with his breath erratic and broken and his heart heavy with guilt.
Loki scoffed, and the sound had Tony looking up, the tension climbing in his spine at the thought that the god was mocking this, mocking him. But Loki was still not looking, and he merely shook his head as Tony went to protest, his lips turned up to a smile that was not quite amused.
“Oh, Tony, I ask not of why you dealt your justice. I was there to see it when you did. No -I ask why, running away, you chose to come here.”
Tony stared. His heart pounded in his chest.
“Did you truly think I was here to blame you?” Loki questioned curiously, taking his eyes from the flames for a brief moment.
“What do you mean, 'you were there'?” Tony repeated.
No. He had been alone, then. Alone with his pain and his grief, alone and desperate not to be. Ana and Edwin died when he was sixteen, on the verge of manhood. He had done everything he could for them, fighting the illness that had first found his foster father during a trip in a storm, and infected his foster mother before they could stop it. Both had suffered, yet both had fought until the end, repeating that they would be fine, that they would soon be recovered and with him again.
Except they had not, and Tony had buried them all by himself, and then he had been alone.
He had had no one. No friend nor family. He was twice an orphan, with his heart twice broken and nobody by his side.
So he had started working, because he had to. He took to forging. And he was good. Amazingly good. Too good.
Obbie had seemed so kind when he had appeared from nowhere. So genuinely happy to take him from his loneliness. So proud of him. He was, Obbie said, just as amazing as his father. His real father. Oh yes. They had been friends, once upon a time.
And Tony had never taken to wondering just why Edwin and Ana had never spoken of this man. He had never asked himself why he only appeared today, as they both lied cold in the grave, unable to warn Tony off.
“You feel anger for me.”
Loki said it like it was a surprising statement. Tony's hair rose on his arms, as he remembered his initial anger toward the man, that thing that had felt like instinct, like fear; recognising the man as an enemy before he even knew who it was. He gritted his teeth.
“You claim you were there to see it all. And you did nothing?”
“That is not quite accurate,” Loki started, but Tony had no plan to hear it. This man was a liar, he thought. A silver-tongued bastard, striving on the pleasure of angering men and causing chaos. Was that not his whole story? In the end, he was a killer, just like Tony. Except he had done it for justice, and yet he still lost sleep on it. Loki didn't look like he knew what guilt was.
To think that, for an instant... For a small instant, he had thought...
But no.
“What is it that you want?” He asked, and his voice didn't quiver this time. “I killed Obbie. I had to, or sooner or later, he would have killed me like he had my parents, after using me. I don't care if you thought that was fun or if you want to torment me about it. I had nobody but myself. I did what I had to.”
“But dear Tony,” Loki said, with no sign of being intimidated. He smiled patiently. Tony felt his fist itching to be put in his face. “Are you quite sure you were alone?”
He opened his mouth to reply, and possibly to order the god to get out of his house -even if doing so might send him to rot down in Helheim sooner than later, it would feel good to at least have stood up before that. But then, he didn't.
Because Loki was looking at him now, except it wasn't quite Loki anymore. In the shift of an instant -in a smell of snow and ashes, a flash of golden light-, he changed like a snake changes its skin. His eyes were ever green, lit with a contained fire; but his hair had turned blond, and with them his face had hardened, darkening itself with a beard. His body was no longer slender and pale, but large instead, with arms larger than his legs had been but a moment earlier.
The memories came back all at once.
Obbie out on one of his mysterious trips, which Tony never dared ask about. He went once or twice per month, and he came back with coin. Always he seemed cheerful, enthusiastic even, asking Tony of how his work had been, always seeming so proud of him. He had said vaguely that it was business, long and distant trips, and Tony did not want to anger him by asking too much, so he always waited for his return, patiently.
The blond man he had met at the tavern. He was a foreigner, coming from the Jutland and drinking much. Tony had been there only to buy some mead, because Obbie liked to have some when he returned, and Tony liked to make him happy when he did. It had taken an abnormally long time for the maid to get him what he asked. In the meantime, the man had spoken.
He had spoken of the war that was raging down South, that had been lasting for years, he said, but growing bloodier recently. He had said that it had looked for a time like the Norse were winning at least, because of the new, better swords that were made in this land -oh, he was precisely here for that, he explained, and he said if later, Tony was kind enough to point him to the house of the forger who made them, he would be grateful. And Tony had been nearly beaming with pride at that, delighted to see that Obbie was right and that Tony's talent for steel forging was protecting his country, and the glory of his work was surpassing his own father's.
But then the foreigner had talked some more. He said despite the blades, the other side was showing no side of receding. He said they had not known why, until merely a few weeks back, when they had started noticing how similar the blades on the other side.
“I want to have a few words with the damn son of a wolf who's selling on both sides,” the blond said, voice bitter emerging from his mead. “You said he lives close from here, yes?”
Blanching, Tony had stammered an apology and left the tavern as fast as his legs would bear him. It was impossible, he had thought. Completely impossible. Obbie would not... He could not. It was wrong. Battles were a cruel necessity, the man that was now a third father to him had agreed. He was forging better weapons so that the Norse Lands were protected, and so the death of the enemy was swift, and the war done with sooner, with as little victims as possible.
After all, his father, his birth father, Obbie's best friend, had fallen by the blade. A deal gone sour, that had taken both his and his wife's life, leaving Tony in Edwin's care. Obbie had been devastated , he said so himself. He would never...
But he would, and he had.
The blond man's accusations had been the first hint. Then, he had noticed far too many others, until Obbie returned and he confronted him.
He had left his house, which had for many months been their house, with his hands dirty with blood. Obbie hadn't left it at all. Tony had killed him without honor. He had hated him enough to want him to go to Hel.
“Why would you tell me?” He asked, disbelieving. “Why -why would you care at all?”
“You had to understand sooner or later,” Loki remarked, and his appearance shifted again, in a soft glow of green light. He turned back to his own self -or the first Tony had seen, at least-, and glanced at the flame. His gaze was more serious. “You deserved better than you had. I inspired you to take action, yet you did the rest. It was proof enough that you should not suffer so.”
You deserved better . Tony blinked, eyes confused. He leaned back in his seat, eyeing Loki wearily.
“That's what you think I will believe?” He asked after a few seconds during which Loki eyed him back, apparently waiting for his reaction. “That you cared? Because I wanted to set you free when I was five years old?” He didn't hide the disbelief in his words.
“My word is usually not trusted,” said Loki, quietly. “I will not blame you for failing to believe it. But I knew betrayal. I knew the sour taste of trust cheated. A thousand times, I did. I thought it would let your story carry on, to help you. But butterflies die, when you help them out of their cage of silk,” he said so low Tony barely caught to it, and had no time to ponder it before he started again: “I merely wish to know why you live the way you do in this place. I wish to know if you are happy.”
“Why, because you weren't there when I left? Apparently you know everything about me. I'm not sure why you're bothering to ask. Shouldn't you be on the run instead of wasting both our time?”
His voice had been harsh and irritated, angered by that question which kept coming back, no matter how evident the answer was. He was not happy. He had not chosen to be happy, to try, even, to be. Still, he shut his mouth rapidly after he was done, wondering if this was how he would die -because he had insulted the god of mischief. A fitting end, perhaps.
But Loki merely smiled again. Again, it was a different sort of smile, a grin that seemed to be bitter and angry and never amused. Smiling seemed to be Loki's default expression, but there seemingly were endless variations to it.
“I am always on the run. It would be exhausting to do nothing else.”
“Right. Because you are in several places at once.”
“You sound like Odin.” It didn't sound like a compliment. “Is it because you stopped inventing that you became so obtuse?” Loki shook his head, his eyes turning bitter. “Once... Once, I liked him, too. I loved him, admired him. He was clever and daring, at the time. Then he changed. Now... Well, to say we disagree with one another is an understatement,” he smiled joylessly, looking at his wrists.
“Should he not be trying to lock you up?”
“He is,” Loki replied. He made a vague gesture with his hand, like chasing an annoying insect. “He did. He will. Everytime the tale is told, we begin anew. He betrays me. I betray him. One way or the other. And then our race continues. He chases me and binds me, and I curse and I writhe in the chains he builds for me. Baldr dies, and Hodr. Vali and Narfi dies, and sometimes it's Vali and Nari, and before them Hela is cursed and the World Serpent is banished and the wolf is bound. And in the end, I stay in my prison and I wait, because the world is never quite to its end; and he never realises that we danced this dance a thousand times. So often, I do not realise it myself.”
He murmured the last few sentences of his story, and Tony felt a shiver going down his back. He tasted in the air the perfume of fresh fallen snow and burning wood, the same smell that had accompanied Loki in his previous use of magic, when he had shifted his shape. There was something in those words that was not meant for Midgard and mortal men. He had a feeling they were not even meant for gods in the sky.
It had Tony's anger vanishing somewhat, mesmerized as he was by the being before him. He could but wonder, like before a clever invention, at the time when inventions he still made, his mind working like mad, trying to make sense of the paradox that was this man that looked like a boy and spoke like the world.
But that was Loki, he realised, and for the first time he fully understood, and he marvelled at how well skalds had truly described him (or perhaps it was the other way around?). He could see it in those eyes, the mother and the murderer, the friend and the traitor; the bite of anger that could set the world ablaze, and the love that kept it all contained for now.
His heart beat hard in his chest. He felt no fear nor hatred; only fascination, for this being that was made of stories, and that still, somehow, lived to tell the stories himself.
“People do not believe in you as much,” he said quietly. “On the continent, they have new tales. They say now there was another god, before the Allfather. Some say there is no Allfather, even.”
He said it quietly, but it was a question. How did he live yet? How were his words this vibrant? Loki's mere smile seemed an answer to that, and Tony felt as though it radiated, sending its strange magic of fire and ice far away from his small house. Are you a storyteller, or are you a story?
“There are always new gods,” said Loki softly. “Ymir and Bor and Buri and Thor, and Njörd and Tyr and many others. They were Allfathers and Creators before Odin was born. They yet live in stories. But none of them ever come to wonder who needs the other the most. To me, it is the sole question I need answered. The traveler needs a host, but what is a host without the stories of the traveler? The mortal needs somebody to answer their prayer; but what is a god if none remembers them?”
“Are you happy like this, Tony?” Loki had broken his peaceful silence after what could have been a minute, or perhaps a year. The howls of the wind nearly covered his voice. Tony had not heard them getting louder. “This land of Ice will grow and prosper, and more will come. Soon, it will not be the country of banished and exiled men anymore, and someday, even we will leave it. But if it is your wish, then you will live your whole life in peace, unknown and ignored, in this solitary fate you built for yourself as punishment. Is it what you want for yourself?”
“Was there anything else for me?”
Loki turned a curious eye to him. Tony wetted his lips, not out of intimidation nor fear, but of the sudden realization that those were not words spoken lightly. And yet, he spoke them with trust.
“You are Loki,” he said. “You're the god of change. The god of might-be's and what-if's. You're the one who starts the fire, just to see if it will burn. Was there anything for me, except to die this lonely death I deserved? I was betrayed, I found justice. Now, I have friends, and I have peace. But nothing else will ever come for me. Nor joy nor relief, nor glory nor pride. Was there anything else?”
“There are ever,” Loki said, and his voice was slow and pensive, “many fates to a single soul. Few live to know it, and to fight to make themselves live more than one, never realising that it is in their hand to mix them. I am blessed and I am cursed, for I know all I could be, and sometimes I know not what I should. Sometimes I know not what I am. Sometimes, I forget what I know.”
“It is easier with others,” he carried on, smiling anew. “You. It is ever changing, but ever beautiful. I see some dead ends, but so little of them. There are always some. Wrong timing. Wrong luck. Even without them, so many souls are made of resignation and surrender. Yours is a constant fire. I see pain and courage, and bravery and kindness. I see cruel death and blazing rebirth. A mind running like water, and hands to fix broken things. A heart so fragile... Fragile. Yet beautiful.”
He smiled at that, bent over near the flames, and Tony could see it. Perhaps it was his too creative mind, perhaps it were Loki's enchanted words, but in that instant, he felt like he could see them, the Loki that was, those who could be. Man and woman, child and old man, innocent and guilty, heartbroken and cruel. Red hair. Black hair. Grey hair. Skin white, skin black, skin blue. Noble and thrall, nurturer and beggar.
Loki was saying there were that many Tony, too.
It was beautiful.
“I like you,” Loki said. It echoed his previous words. It echoed in many voices, Tony felt, or perhaps it was the crackling of the fire, or the howls of the storm. They were louder still; it felt like the house was ready to fall. “I am a traveler in so many lives, a single twist of fate in their way. Would you let me share in a life of yours? This might be just what I need.”
He would, and in that instant, he felt like he had waited this since he had left his old life. He refused to imagine waking again tomorrow in a world where nothing had changed of Loki's arrival.
“Please.”
Loki blinked, and then he smiled. It was a new one. Happy. Shy. Another Loki, the scars of his lips fading. He looked younger. More naive, perhaps. More fragile. Was his hair black?
“Then rest, Anthony. Rest. And we shall meet anew.”
He would have replied; he wanted to, in fact. He wasn't sure what to say, only he felt excitation and joy, the kind of naive one that had not visited him in many decades. But words would not leave his tongue. His eyelids felt heavy.
A cold hand lied on his shoulder. The last thing he heard were the howls of the storm, dying out quietly. He felt good.
He hadn't thought he would hear of Nick Fury's Avengers Initiative ever again. When Coulson had arrived, he had felt some sort of gleeful satisfaction, underneath a thick layer of suspicion. He did not trust SHIELD. He did not trust any who wanted his mind and its destructive power for themselves. And he knew if he was called today, it was because they had no choice. They had waited the last moment; there was something to hide.
It had taken this long for him to bother about the threat itself, the one he had been called to fight against.
And what a threat it was.
He landed next to Rogers, the Black Widow's exasperated voice in his ears, and this time, his eyes were only for the man -the boy?- with the flashy costume, lying on his back with a hand where Tony's blasters had damaged his armor.
Loki, Fury had called him. Like an old pagan god. It rang a bell. Perhaps his baby-sitter had read those tales to him when he was a child. She had been an old woman with a european accent. He didn't remember. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Villains were dramatic when they picked their names. Always looking for symbolism.
“Make a move, Reindeer Games.”
The boy grimaced, and straightened up enough to raise pale, delicate hands with long fingers on them. If he had ever worked with those hands, it had not been for long. Green eyes met Tony's, calculating and careful behind a mask of blankness.
It was strange. It wasn't bad. He couldn't explain it to himself.
It didn't matter, though.
They had some time to get acquainted.
“Good move.”