fossilised | it's a new plot!

Though the word that left Tony’s mouth was probably ‘James,’ he hadn’t been expecting a touch like this, even if they had been joking about it, and so he needed a moment for his brain to catch up with his mouth.

There would be a lot of kissing while Tont enjoyed the exacting precision of a hand he used to trace when he was little and try to break into when he was older. He wrapped well muscled, toned arms around Bucky’s neck and breathed against his cheek in rapid, quick bursts.

Oddly, Tony wasn’t a talker in bed. He was present, completely focused, but he didn’t feel the need to run at the mouth with dirty talk. And when he came? It was mid-kiss, whimpering and then grinning against Bucky’s lips.

Feeling Tony orgasm was-- different to any other time he had felt someone orgasm. Those times he had felt powerless and used, like a tool that had served its purpose; but here he felt wanted, cared about, and in control. He had guided this whole process, and it made such a difference to what he had suffered through before.

He found himself grinning as if he were the one in afterglow as he slid down to lay his head on Tony's chest and listen to his heart jackhammering in his chest.

"...consider that me fighting for us."

Tony lightly laid a hand on the back of Bucky’s neck and closed his eyes, stretching his fully body like a cat as he settled the other man against him. “Shots fired. Warning read loud and clear,” he murmured. “FRIDAY, we’re gonna have breakfast in bed today. And lunch in bed. And dinner-- Order from the usual places and have DUM-E bring the food up.”

Not everyone was lucky enough to spend the day in bed, however, because there was still a lot of mess to clean up from the Earth’s second alien invasion in the last decade. Thor left the ship to assist his compatriots to prepare for Thanos days before, leaving Valkyrie in charge, and was still out when Iron Man came knocking on the door, so to speak. He was here to see Loki, which he wasn’t particularly fond of himself for deciding to do, in all honesty, but what he’d felt when he met the other in his journey more or less demanded he come out here.

And that left Bucky to do whatever he wished. Tony didn’t encourage him to see Steve Rogers, but he couldn’t and wouldn’t stop him if he wanted to do so.

He was just hopeful that Bucky was still willing to fight for them both when he returned.

Loki had spent much of the past few days trying to figure out his place in things again. He was accepted again as worth something by the Asgardians, but what role did he have there? Asgard was no more, despite the people who kept saying that Asgard was a people and not a place, the shining realm completely eradicated by Sutur's fire.

What, then, was their place? They were not a kingdom, and Thor was king of hardly anything. Were they to become annexed on Midgard, no longer sovereigns of their own realm? Intolerable. But where else would he go? Who else could he be? He was not Aesir in truth, but he knew less than nothing about the Jotun side to himself, so he could hardly seek shelter in Jotunheim. There would be no shelter, anyway, not when Thanos properly arrived.

He had no real wish to speak to any of the mortals, but one of the surviving Einherjar showed the man into his chambers anyway, to a slightly unimpressed look.

"You wished to speak with me?"

Tony was unimpressed, or at least he looked that way. He was singularly annoyed by Loki’s presence anywhere on his planet after what he had done, but people had been forgiven for more if they were truly helpful and Tony himself knew that first hand. This Loki was nothing at all like the polished, refined woman he had met the night before and that annoyed him too.

He paused for a moment, fingers just under the lump on his arm, and tried to call up some of the whispers to give him a little insight. They were being stubborn, however, and Tony didn’t push it this time around. He dropped both arms to his side.

“Actually, I came here to compare you to someone else. You’re probably used to that. I don’t wish to do anything with you, but I don’t have a choice.” He stepped into the room and closed the door the old fashioned way. So weird. He expected these to have sliding doors, not hinged ones. Some space ships just didn’t compute. “I met a prettier version of you. She helped me with a thing. I helped her with a thing. Now I think we can help each other.”

"Is that so?"

Loki's gaze sharpened on Stark with a weighing sort of interest. He didn't much care for the mortals at all, even with how fond Thor was of them, but his mother's words rang in his mind. There was someone who he had a suppsoed bond to, who he should seek out and befriend, and it would be small minded and short sighted to completely rule out the mortals.

If this one had met another version of himself, then perhaps this was the person he was meant to find. Or perhaps this was just a coincidence.

"So-- in what way do you believe we could help one another?"

“Actually, I just need you to help me. You can get brownie points.” One night, a few hours worth of work, was not going to help him out here. Tony had absolutely no intention of letting his gift go, but he didn’t really have time to spend weeks and weeks locked in constant meditation. As usual, he wanted to and thought he could actually find a short cut.

Loki might not be old enough to really understand, but he felt basically the same way that the other version of him did. They didn’t have the same immediate connection, but he could feel countless connections between countless other versions of themselves and that was good enough for him.

“I need you to help me learn to guide my way through all of my lifetimes, through all of the branches of Yggdrasil that I’ve sat on. Some of those branches probably have versions of me that helped to defeat Thanos and I need to find them. That work for you?”

It was not a task that was out of the realms of possibility for him to be able to accomplish, but it was still an unusual request. Especially for one such as a human, when most humans didn't have aught but the scarcest connection to the seidr of Yggdrasil to call on.

"Tell me for what reason I should help you, rather than simply find a branch of my own that connects to a defeat of Thanos?"

He had not that capability, he was not a Seer as his mother had been, but he also sincerely truly doubted that this mortal could have the same gifts as Frigga either.

Tony rolled his eyes. He’d just told this crazy loon that he’d met another version of him who helped him work on whatever weird gift he was forcefully given a few years after he was born. If it was as simple as Loki doing this him or herself, either would have. “Yeah, so I already know you can’t,” Tony complained, helping himself to whatever strange fruit was hanging out in the bowl on one of the tables next to the apples. He just really hoped that it didn’t taste like melon. He was not a fan.

Thumb breaking through the peel, Tony watched Loki, curious to see if he would lose his charm as he had at the Tower all those years ago, when he had gone from amused to furious in the span of a second.

“We need to work together. Well. Need. We don’t, but it would be easier. Pretty sure you want to meet up again with Thanos even less than we want to. Did some bad things to you right? And don’t ask how I know. You know how I know.” He stuck some of the purple fleshed fruit in his mouth and nodded in appreciation. It tasted like chocolate. Very nice.

That first insult rolled off his skin, he wasn't quite the unbalanced and frightened creature he had been when he first invaded, but the second comments did spark his rage anew. It was, as much of his anger was, born from fear and from an unwillingness to display any of that fear as vulnerability.

"You know not of what you speak."

The words were hissed out, as if by a venomous serpent, as he grabbed Stark by the throat and pinned him to the wall. There was something utterly petrified in his eyes, barely hidden beneath the contempt he kept around himself like armour.

"Have a care to what you allow to fall from your tongue lest you lose it; I am the God of Lies, little mortal, and I do not tolerate others stealing my craft."

Tony immediately missed the woman. He was childish enough not to want to deal with any of the crap Loki was throwing his way. He read the anger with a certain glee, mostly because he doubted he could be so easily thrown from a window this time, and because the guy needed to learn from humility for kill thousands. Instead, Loki only demonstrated further contempt.

“I’m an atheist,” he said, almost good-naturedly, taking another bite of the delicious fruit. “So I don’t care what you’re god of at all. But you might be onto something. You’re lying about yourself. We’ve got this weird thing, me and you. It lets me see you more easily. I’ve been having a whole choir of voices in my head whispering about you since you showed up and… Grow up a little, will you? I’m trying to help. If you don’t want to help me, that’s on you. I can do it without you but you’d make the going a lot faster.”

He put the half eaten fruit back in the bowl as if it was a sign that he was about to leave.

He would struggle to leave with Loki's hand around his throat and his back pinned to the wall, ever more furious from the disrespect being shown to him. He wanted to pluck out those Seer's eyes and tear out the tongue that told terrible truths so casually.

"If you truly wished my help, then you would have done well to not make an enemy of me with your words."

He could not allow it to get back to any of the Aesir who survived, especially not Thor, what had happened to him at Thanos' hands. He would rather they think that Midgard and his madness had come entirely from his own pride, rather than they know that he had been tortured and broken so easily.

Well yes. Definitely a struggle not only to leave but to breathe as well. Whatever Tony thought he’d felt for the other Loki was completely and utterly gone now as he grabbed at this one’s hands and wrists. Why did people like to strangle him? This was his third Asgardian strangle hold and he honestly wasn’t pleased by it at all. Tony stood on his toes, anger in his eyes.

“I don’t want your help. I think you’re still on the crazy train and I don’t care what Thor says about you. You can’t be trusted.” Maybe he shouldn’t be in the middle of being choked to go spouting any of this but he can’t help himself.

Tony was never good at self perseveration and it showed.

"Nor can you."

Loki did not know this man and certainly didn't trust him to keep silent as to things he had seen that he really shouldn't have seen. He had little choice but to deal with him in some way. The cleanest way would just be to kill him, but what good would that do him, when numerous witnesses would be able to say that the last place he had been seen was here.

Lucky for him, he had something that could augment his powers, an infinity stone of his own. He reached for it through the Void and brought it forth, a glowing cube of blue energy, and gathered his own magic.

"You will speak nothing of the visions you have seen that concern me, you will speak no word that I would not wish kept secret. Your will to mine."

This just didn’t seem fair. The reactor has protected him from having his heart touched the last time that Loki tried magic on him, but without it, and being just a nearly fifty year old wriggling mortal from the hook of Loki’s hand around his neck, there wasn’t much for him to do but find himself enchanted.

And this would be a problem. Much of the help that could come for Thanos had literally everything to do with Loki.

Light from the tesseract rose like icy snakes from the cube and floated into Tony’s nose and down his throat. All he’d done was come to meet some guy who was supposed to be one of the most important people in his life. But, true to his own life, that guy was a dick.

It was the best solution that Loki could think of. This would prevent him from going and informing Thor such inconvenient truths, such as what had happened to Loki at the hands of Thanos and the Chitauri before he used his silver tongue to save them. It would stop him from revealing that Loki had the Tesseract, thought to be destroyed with the rest of Odin's vaults when Asgard fell to Sutur.

He allowed the glowing blue cube to sink back into the pocket of the Void he kept it in, and then released the mortal from his grasp to take a step back.

"You would do well to leave my presence now, mortal, we have little else to discuss."

It wasn’t often that Tony was left so frustrated and impotent and he planned on getting Loki back the best way he knew how at the moment. He wasn’t going to be able to tell anyone about this, but he wouldn’t have to if he dug up enough dirt and left evidence everywhere. The slight hum of voices, of new and interesting strings to follow, was actually a comfort as he left the ship and blasted back to where James waited.

“I would love to tell what what happened, but I can’t,” Tony muttered the moment he saw Bucky, mostly to stop the man from reading into his anger. “I literally can’t, not figuratively. And I can’t tell you why either.” Loki was smart….but also not all that smart.

He tended to react with too much pride, without enough thought, and what ought to have been a way to bridge a gap between his own knowledge and Loki’s skill was turning into a big old childish mess. They ought to have been working on a solution to Thanos, and now, instead, all Tony could think about was getting to Loki.

“I’m going to have to work on this for awhile,” he said, moving a hand to the small of Bucky’s back as they walked. “Can you rouse me in a day and make me eat something? And if Rogers calls, tell him I’m busy and put him on hold.”

Bucky hadn't done much with his day. Though he likely should have gone to see Steve, he didn't, he had spent his whole day talking with FRIDAY. He knew that she was an AI, but she was soothing to talk to because there was no way that she could present a threat to him, and he even sort of considered her a friend now.

His brow furrowed in concern the longer that Tony went on, and he eventually just caught him around the waist and planted his feet hard on the ground to keep him still.

"I believe that you can't tell me why, but you're really smart and so I don't believe that you can't find a way to wriggle around that."

He was scared, truthfully, that HYDRA had somehow got to him. He knew, after all, exactly what brainwashing was like.

Tony looked at Bucky with a moment of annoyance that dissolved immediately into warmth and affection. He set his hands up on Bucky’s shoulder and his bicep, knowing full well that this was more like a dance move and that he was making himself the female component in that dance, but it pleased him to be held this way and spoken to this way enough that it didn’t do more than flash through his mind before exiting.

“Where did I just go?”

The answer, which Bucky gave, was that he’d gone to see Loki.

“And Loki is a sorcerer.” That wasn’t something that he couldn’t say, it was a point of pride for the alien. “A sorcerer who has a track record of doing something in particular to people that go against what he wants.”

Such as mind control. Of a sort.

“Especially when it has to do with something he’s trying to get his hands on.”

Like the Tesseract, for instance.

Tony tilted his head to the left, sighing at the thought. “I’m probably not going to get any help so I have to do this part alone. And then…when I get some answers… I hope you’ll help. It’s not HYDRA,” he tacked on. He could see that fear.

Bucky hadn't been around during the first Loki crisis, HYDRA hadn't seen a need to unfreeze him although he likely would have been deployed if the Avengers had failed to stop the invasion as quickly as they had. But he had done a lot of research during his time on the run, and so he gathered what Tony was talking about quite quickly.

His expression darkened, anger making him look dangerous even as he kept Tony in his arms with a strangely tender touch. To think of anyone using mind control on people that he cared about was abhorrent.

"I'll make sure he understands not to do that again, but we need to find a way to get it out of you. Isn't-- I read somewhere that Barton was under his control once, how did he get out of it?"

He wouldn't particularly enjoy cognitive recalibration as a method either.

It was good to have someone on his side. Tony didn’t tell Bucky not to be ridiculous or not to put himself in danger. He liked that someone wanted to stand up for him, that someone had his back, and if they were going to work on this being a partnership, this was the way that they should be reacting towards each other. Tony felt fully confident in what Bucky said. It wasn’t a shallow promise. If anyone could protect him, or could help him, it was this man right here, the one with the delightfully possessive hug.

“I think Romanoff hit him really hard on his head,” Tony said. “Please don’t do that. Oh, that reminds me, I might have a blood clot in my brain that I need to have scanned for.”

He probably shouldn’t have said that out loud and he immediately touched Bucky’s cheek to stop the worry from starting.

“You always have brain clots so don’t get started on me. I just want to be cool like you.”

"That's different."

Tony's attempt to forestall any worry wasn't going to work, he knew that their situations were very different. Bucky had the serum to help him survive this crap, and it came in regular intervals because of the mechanics inside his brain. Normal blood clots were unpredictable and deadly to most people.

"If you think you might have something like that, then we need to get you scanned and sorted as soon as possible."

That had now become priority number one.

“The second I have a second, I promise I will,” Tony said, a little annoyed with himself for having said anything. Why did he have such a hard time keeping his mouth shut? Tony wasn’t going anywhere though, not with Bucky’s arms around him, not with those dark blue eyes staring daggers into his soul.

Tony rolled his eyes.

“FRIDAY, thorough scan focused on the occipital and stem portions of my brain. You’re looking for a shadow or a deviance that probably won’t look like much.” FRIDAY said she’s start the scan now, but there was a snarkiness to her comment, as if she didn’t do a thorough job of scanning her Boss constantly already.

And yet, there is was. That shadow. That lodged clot just waiting to be broken off.

Tony rolled his eyes.

“Don’t suppose Banner is still Hulking out...?” He did not want brain surgery.

If Bucky had harboured any further unsure scepticism about the validity of Tony's talent to see future events, it disappeared when the shadow on his brain was verified. That wasn't something that could just be guessed. He felt a coldness pass over his heart, a fear of losing one of the precious few things he had gained.

"Banner isn't a surgeon."

Bucky didn't care how much Tony trusted the man, he wasn't a qualified surgeon and he wasn't about to let anyone but the best operate.

"We need to contact a hospital and get you admitted. Forget everything else, you can't help with the invasion if you're dead."

“I’m not a surgeon either,” Tony complained but Bucky was already off thinking he could save the world by saving him. Tony had to march after the other man, not overriding any commands but certainly giving Bucky a sort of what gives face at whatever he might be doing. “Listen to me, I don’t want just anyone in my head. One little nick and whatever I am could be gone.”

There were points where he had an aneurism and died in his sleep. There were points where it never dislodged and he was fine. And in at least half of the scenarios he could see folding out in front of him when called, he lost his intelligence. He could function as a human but he had trouble speaking. Or he had a stutter. Or worse, his hands refused to cooperate.

“James— This is too big. It’s too much. Will you stop and listen?! If something goes wrong, I’m going down anyway.”

He’d kill himself. He knew it immediately even without the visions telling him that he would.

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