Chapter Text
“Sir, Ms. Potts is requesting a few minutes of your time,” JARVIS announced, breaking the restful quiet of Tony's lazy morning in. “She will be here in approximately fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, JARVIS,” Tony said, and put his phone to down to roll out of bed and get dressed. As he went out to the kitchen, he texted Loki a quick Good morning and microwaved a bagel as he poured himself a pot of coffee. He was scrolling through the news headlines when Pepper came bustling in, dressed smartly in a dark pinstripe suit with a briefcase in one hand.
“Good morning, Tony,” she said cheerily as the elevator doors opened. “Where’s Loki?”
Tony used his coffee mug to gesture vaguely at the sky outside the floor to ceiling windows. “Space mission,” he said absently as he tried to finish reading the news article.
“Tell him I’m sorry I missed him,” she said as she came over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She set her briefcase on the counter and opened it, pulling out a tidy stack of papers. “I’ll only be a minute, I promise. I know you’re not CEO anymore but since you still have controlling interest in the board I need your – Oh my God!” Pepper’s sudden shriek startled Tony enough that he jerked and spilled his coffee.
“Jesus Christ, Pep, what the hell?” He glanced up from cleaning the counter to see her staring at his hand. “Oh,” he said, following her surprised gaze to the ring on his finger. “Uh. Yeah, so that happened,” he said sheepishly, running his thumb over the smooth surface of the band.
“Anthony! Edward! Stark!” She punctuated each word by hitting Tony with the sheaf of papers in her hand, chasing him around the kitchen. “How could you and Loki get married without telling me?”
“Pep, Pep, listen,” Tony put down his coffee cup and his tablet so he could hold his hands out, ready to keep running if she tried to hit him again. Instead, she put her hands on her hips and glared, which was arguably worse. “We didn’t get married. They’re just like…promise rings.”
“Promise rings,” she said skeptically.
“Yeah. No vows just, you know…” Tony trailed off as he tried to argue that they weren’t married when he felt very married. Given everything they’d been through, doing the courthouse thing would be downright anticlimactic, and probably a bad idea given Loki’s highly questionable status with the legal system. “Engaged, I guess. I mean, engagement rings are like promise rings, right?”
Pepper’s narrowed gaze gauged his truthfulness, and Tony tried to look as innocent as possible. “Fine. Good. That means I can still plan the wedding for you,” she said after a moment. She set the Stark Industries papers down on the counter and smoothed them out, producing a pen from somewhere. “I’m thinking a fall wedding would suit you both best, don’t you?”
Tony cautiously sidled closer and took the pen. “C’mon, Pep. We’re not going to actually get married.”
Pepper raised an eyebrow, which should have been Tony’s first warning. But in his defense, she did catch him off guard this morning. “Why not?”
“Because.” Pepper just kept looking at him and Tony felt his shoulders hunch defensively. “As much fun as it would be to see Loki at a wedding – can you imagine? I mean, I’ve seen him in white, not his best look – it’s not like we can even legally get married. He’s not even a citizen of this planet, much less this country. You don’t get any more illegal alien than that.”
“So? You don’t have to sign all the paperwork in order to have a wedding.”
Tony sighed and rubbed his temples. “Pep-“
“Tony, listen.” Oh no, Pepper’s eyes were softening, she was bringing out the big guns. “Weddings are as much about your loved ones celebrating your relationship as it is about making your relationship official. If you and Loki have decided to exchange rings, that’s something that I, personally, would like to celebrate with you. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.”
“Pep, if we had a wedding there is no way we could keep it out of the papers. And we all know how everyone will react to me, Iron Man, marrying Loki.”
“We don’t have to make it public, Pepper pointed out. “Just invite close friends and family, the people who already know about you two.”
“Well after that fiasco of a mission a few months ago, I think Fury might be the only one left, and that’s only if Clint didn’t tell him.” Tony scratched his jaw and made a face. “Still, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“Tony, why are you so resistant to this idea? Really?” Pepper put her hands on his shoulder and squeezed. “Tell me to drop it and I will, but I just would like to know. Are you two having problems?”
“No, nothing like that. Everything is going great. It’s just…scarier, I guess, making it public. It’s more real, and comes with a lot more baggage, you know? I mean, what if we do break up one day, can you even imagine?”
“I think that makes it pretty real,” Pepper said, gesturing to the ring. “What were you going to tell people, anyway? As soon as a paparazzi got a good shot of that you'd have to move to Siberia to get away from the press.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been wearing it out in public yet, just here at the tower.” Tony sighed and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I guess I’m just not ready for it to be everyone’s business yet.” When Pepper only raised an eyebrow at him, Tony made a face. “Fine, when I say it out loud it does sound dumb.”
“I didn’t say that,” Pepper said primly. "You both deserve your privacy."
“You didn’t have to say it, your face did it for you. Ok, I’ll feel Loki out and see what he thinks,” Tony said, beating a hasty retreat from the field of battle, aware when he was defeated. “He may not even agree to a ceremony.”
“Just think about it, that's all I ask,” Pepper said and finally handed him the papers. “Sign these.”
That evening, Tony was under a car tinkering with the engine when JARVIS announced that Loki had returned. “Thanks for the heads up, J,” Tony said, sliding out from under the car and washing his hands.
“Loki!” He called out cheerfully, taking the stairs two at a time up to the living room. “How did it go? Any new leads on the soul gem?”
“No,” Loki said with a sigh. "Nothing but rumors and dead ends." Tony paused to admire the view as Loki raked his hands through his hair tiredly then began to strip off his clothes on his way to the bedroom, cleaning his surcoat with a wash of green before draping it over the back of a chair.
“Whoa there, Loki. What happened here?” Loki stopped halfway through pulling his tunic over his head as Tony came up to run his fingers lightly over a purple bruise on his back, big as Tony’s hand.
“Thanos’s minions are also looking for the soul gem,” Loki said over his shoulder. “I wasn’t always able to keep away from them.”
Tony made a face. He could only imagine what Loki had looked like right after the fight, if a bruise like this still lingered. “I wish you would take me as backup more often,” he said, leaning over to press a kiss to the bruise, then made a line of kisses over Loki’s shoulder blade and up to his neck. “You don’t have to go it alone anymore, you know.”
“I know.” Loki turned and cupped Tony’s face in his hands. “But there are some places where it's safer if I go alone.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, leaning into Loki’s touch. “I don’t like it though.”
“Nor do I.” Loki pressed a kiss to his temple and gathered Tony in close, apparently content to hold him for a few minutes. Tony closed his eyes and let himself finally relax, in a way that he was only able to do when Loki was home.
They stood there for a while, Loki’s thoughts apparently far away. “Is everything okay?” Tony asked eventually, pulling back to study him.
“I encountered an old nemesis while I was gone. It was…unpleasant,” Loki said, and Tony filled in the blanks from there, given the shadow in his eyes.
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Remind me that something good came out of that misery,” Loki said, tilting Tony’s head up for a kiss. “Help me forget.”
“I know just the thing,” Tony promised, and led him to the bedroom.
Later, after a languid round of lovemaking and a shower, Loki was lazily tracing patterns on Tony’s back while he rested his head on Loki’s chest, listening to the slow, powerful beats of his heart. “Pepper wants to know if we want to get married,” Tony said into the comfortable silence. Loki made a questioning sound so Tony propped himself up on his elbow to look him in the face. “I mean, I know we’re mostly married, but she wants to know if we want to have a wedding ceremony,” Tony explained. Loki’s look turned from one of incomprehension to a grimace of consternation. “Yeah, that was kind of my thought,” Tony said, making his voice light though he was a little stung by Loki’s reaction; he hadn’t realized how much the idea had been growing on him until he’d seen Loki’s face. Looking away, he fiddled with his ring, spinning it around on his finger. “But she said that our friends would want to celebrate with us and that that’s what weddings are really for, but it doesn’t have to a big public thing, and that we don’t have to make it official or anything because you’re an illegal alien, and-”
Loki put a hand over Tony’s mouth to stop his rambling. “Is this something that you want?” he asked.
Tony shrugged, and when Loki just raised an eyebrow he said, “I don’t know. Maybe,” his words muffled. He kissed Loki’s palm and pulled it away from his mouth, tangling their fingers together. “I think I’m tired of pretending we’re not together. Like, publicly, since the rest of the team already knows.”
“Are you sure you are ready for the repercussions of that?” Loki asked after a moment, his gaze intent. “I care little for the opinion of others, but for your sake…”
“I’ve never thought through the consequences of my actions and I refuse to start now,” Tony said. “Like I said, the important people already know. If the world finds out and has a problem with it, then we will deal with it together, right? What are they going to do, fire me?”
“I’ll think about it,” Loki promised. He let his head fall back against the pillow and made a thoughtful face. "If we married, Odin may have an apoplectic fit and die."
"See, there's really no downside," Tony said dryly. "Which part would be the worst, that you're marrying a human or that you're marrying a man?"
"I don't know," Loki said. "I wish I could have seen his reaction when Thor introduced him to Jane."
"Jane said they talked to her as if she were a pet he brought home," Tony said. "It's one of many reasons why she refused to stay on Asgard when Thor offered." Quiet reigned for a while then Tony suddenly sat up. "Oh my God! Loki, do you think Odin knows what we did on his throne?"
A few days later, Tony stared at refrigerator, bare except for condiments and the water pitcher, and said, “Hey, I’m not asking because of any particular reason, but why does Thor like to stay here instead of in Asgard?”
“Likely for the same reason I do,” Loki said. He glanced up from his phone to see the empty refrigerator over Tony’s shoulder and rolled his eyes.
“He has a devastatingly handsome human lover who keeps him in the lap of luxury?” Tony said, closing the refrigerator door.
“It’s more interesting here."
Tony scratched his jaw and looked out the window at the sunny morning as he debated their breakfast options, wishing they could just go out and get breakfast from a nearby diner or bakery. He glanced down at his ring with an internal sigh and had JARVIS place an order instead. “So have you given any more thought about the whole wedding thing?” he asked as casually as he could, pouring himself a mug of coffee then pouring the rest of the pot into reservoir in the Asgardian coffeemaker to be rebrewed into the toxic concoction that Loki and Thor preferred. He finally risked a glance up as he took a sip of coffee to see Loki studying him.
“Some,” Loki said after a moment.
“Right,” Tony said when Loki didn’t say anything else, suddenly wishing he hadn’t brought it up. “Well, I haven't either, really, I just, uh-” Tony was saved from the conversational hole he was digging by the sudden arrival of a big honking raven on the balcony. “Hang on, we’ve got company,” he said gratefully, grabbing his mug and going over to the balcony door. He cracked the door open and stuck his head out. “Stephen? Is that you?” When the raven just cawed loudly and sidled sideways on the railing, Tony closed the door again. “Loki, I think it’s for you,” he said, jumping when he turned around and realized that Loki was right behind him.
“What do you want?” He growled at the bird as he threw open the balcony door. “I told you I didn’t ever want to talk to you or Odin again.” While Tony watched, sipping his coffee, Loki proceeded to have an argument with the bird until finally, with a noise of exasperation, Loki held out an arm and the bird made a short hop to perch on it. Loki’s face immediately went still, anger draining away to something unreadable.
“I understand. I will be there shortly,” Loki said, now sounding grim. The bird flew off and Loki came inside, absently accepting the cup of coffee that Tony handed him, looking like he was too lost in his thoughts to pay attention to what he was doing. But before Tony could ask what that was all about, JARVIS announced that Thor was requesting access to their floor.
Tony glanced at Loki who nodded, looking unsurprised. “Yeah, let him up, JARVIS.”
“Loki,” Thor said, Mjolnir in one hand though he was still in a similar state of undress as Loki and Tony. “You’ve heard?”
“Yes, Huginn just left.”
“What’s going on?” Tony asked, starting to get a bad feeling. "Is something wrong?"
“Odin has requested our presence in Asgard,” Loki said. “He’s dying.”
“Oh.” Tony was stunned to silence. Loki’s jaw was tight and he was staring down at his coffee, hands gripping the cup like it was a lifeline; given his own tangled feelings towards his father, he could well imagine what Loki was going through right now. Thor seemed just as grim, and Tony remembered that it hadn’t been very long since they both lost their mother. “Do you, um, need me to do anything?” he ventured.
Loki shook his head and set his cup down without drinking it. A wash of gold and he was wearing his formal clothes and armor, leather surcoat brushing the floor and the torc of rank across his chest. Looking at him, Thor frowned and hefted Mjolnir in that way he did when he was about to summon lightning.
“No!” Tony said sharply. “No lightning inside my tower, the balcony is right there.” Tony had even installed a grounded metal plate outside for this specific reason. Thor made a face but nodded, and as Loki moved to follow him outside Tony pulled him in for a quick kiss. “I’m here if you need me,” he said in a low voice. Loki brushed his lips over Tony's cheek in a silent thank you before it he turned away. Outside, with a sharp crack and a flash of light Thor was in his armor, cape billowing behind him, and then as Loki joined him they both vanished.
“Father? We are here,” Thor said, striding through the throne room while Loki trailed warily in his wake. At the end of the hall, Odin sat in the throne, flanked by his ravens and looking uncharacteristically old and tired. He stood as they approached, leaning heavily on Gungnir.
“My sons,” Odin said, gesturing them closer. Loki pressed his lips together and let out a long slow exhale, suppressing the urge to comment on Odin’s suddenly convenient feelings of paternal affection. “Come, walk with me.” They followed Odin out of the throne room and into his private chambers; Loki faltered at the doorway as his eyes went to the doors that led to Frigga’s rooms, heart still twisting painfully. Odin went to the balcony on the far side of the room and sat down heavily on the balustrade, gazing out over Asgard. “Your mother, she calls to me,” he said after a while. “Do you hear it?” Thor caught Loki’s eye, a question in his gaze, but Loki just shook his head minutely. “No matter,” Odin said when neither answered. “I have called you here because I don’t think that I have much time left.”
“Father, what-”
Odin raised a hand and Thor fell silent. “I have failed you, as a parent and as a king,” Odin started, and Loki raised an eyebrow and bit his tongue while Thor started to protest. “I have failed to prepare either of you for what is coming. Who is coming. My life was all that held her back, but my time has come.”
Thor joined Odin on the balcony, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Father, who are you talking about?”
“Hela. Goddess of death.” Odin raised a hand to pat Thor’s hand where it rested on his shoulder. He took a deep breath and said, “My first born. Your sister.”
“What? A sister? But…how?” Thor’s face went blank with shock. Loki felt a moment of sympathy for him, demoted from first born to middle child in the blink of an eye, but he was beyond being surprised by Odin anymore.
“The usual way, I assume,” Loki said, lip curling. “Though who knows, maybe Odin picked her up as a stray as well.” He had no idea why he’d thought he could just walk away from Asgard and be done with this whole sordid mess. Now that he had finally started to make peace with his own past, there were still more of Odin’s lies to deal with, more problems to fix. A sister. He wondered if Frigga had known, if Odin made her party to all of his lies or only some of them.
“Many years ago, before I met Frigga, she and I ruled Asgard together,” Odin said, ignoring Loki. “Eventually, however, her violent appetites grew beyond my control. I couldn’t stop her, so I imprisoned her. Locked her away.” Thor had to brace himself against the balustrade while he still tried to wrap his mind around the news, but at his sides Loki’s hands curled into fists in rage. I couldn’t control her, so I imprisoned her. So there was another, like him, that Odin had tried to bury so deep that Asgard forgot about them; only that time, he had been successful. Woe to Odin, then, to have had two children with such violent appetites. Lips tight, Loki took a deep breath and tried to control his anger, because Odin was still talking. “She draws her strength from Asgard. Once she gets here, her powers will be…limitless.”
“Father,” Thor said, dipping his head so he could meet Odin’s gaze. “We can stop her together, we can face her together-”
“No,” Loki said abruptly, without thinking, and both Odin and Thor turned to look at him in surprise. Loki hadn’t meant to speak, but now that he had, the words wouldn’t stop, fueled by a rage that had been burning in Loki for years. “No,” he said again, voice low and vehement. “Enough. No more war. No more fighting. No more exiling or life imprisonment. Enough with this cycle of fear and punishment,” he said, gesturing sharply and pacing away. The hot, tight ball of anger under his sternum made it hard to stand still. “There are other ways to deal with problems besides bludgeoning them into submission or trying to hide them in the hopes they will go away. I will meet with Hela, and we will come to an understanding that does not involve trying to kill each other and ripping this realm apart!” Loki realized he had started to shout and clenched his jaw, lowering his voice with effort. “And when we return, we will both be welcomed back as members of the royal family and lauded as such.”
The look on Odin’s face was thunderous at Loki’s impertinence. “She is the Goddess of Death, and you would have her sit on the throne? It would be the end of Asgard!”
“You don’t know that!” Loki shouted back. “People can change. She deserves a chance, not an ambush.”
“Hela cannot rule here,” Odin said. “Her thirst for conquest will bring war to the Nine Realms.”
“War is coming to the Nine Realms whether we want it or not," Loki said, clenching his jaw so tight his teeth hurt. "Thanos is coming, and he brings annihilation in his wake. If Hela is truly as powerful as you say, we would do well to have her on our side, not doom us all by turning on each other.”
“I will not allow it,” Odin barked. “If this Thanos does intend to make war on us, then it is that much more imperative that she be stopped now, before she grows too strong.”
“You will not allow it?” Loki laughed bitterly. “Thousands of years you had to tell us about our sister, and you decide to do it now, while you yourself say that you are dying. You don’t have any say in the matter, Allfather, and it was all your doing.”
“Loki,” Thor said quellingly, and Loki wanted to laugh at the thought of Thor as the peacemaker. People can change, indeed. “Now’s not the time-”
“Didn’t you hear him? Now is the only time. Stay with him,” Loki said, turning on his heel to leave. “If I fail to find an accord with Hela, then you can have your war.”
Behind him, Gugnir rang as Odin struck it against the floor, the reverberations rolling through Loki’s bones and demanding his compliance. Loki’s shoulders tensed, expecting a blow, but he refused to turn, refused to cow before Odin any longer. Instead he stepped sideways to the secret paths and returned to Earth.
“Strange,” Loki said as he appeared in the Sanctum. “I have need of the time stone.”
Strange straightened in surprise, closing the book he’d been reading and setting it to the side. He gestured for Loki to take a seat in the overstuffed armchair across from his broad mahogany desk, eyebrows drawing together when Loki remained standing. “I’m going to need a little more information than that.”
“My heretofore unknown sister will soon be freed after thousands of years being trapped in prison and allegedly plans to destroy Asgard unless she can be stopped," Loki said impatiently. "I need the time gem to prevent war before it is too late.”
“Wow,” Strange said after a moment. “That’s…a lot. So what’s your plan? Do you need help?”
Loki shook his head at Strange's offer. “I would speak with her, but I need you to show me how to create a time loop with the gem.”
“Oh.” Strange grimaced. “You plan to do with her what I did with Dormamu.”
“Yes. It seems like an effective way to force someone to the bargaining table.”
Strange snorted. “Yes, it is at that. You know, however, time loop or not, you will remember everything that happens,” he warned. “By which I mean, every time she kills you. It is not pleasant.”
Loki laughed humorlessly. “If death is the only thing she intends for me, I will count myself fortunate. I’ve survived worse.”
Strange’s eyebrows went up, but all he said was, “When do you need it?”
“Right now. This must be done before my father dies, and the old man may breathe his last at any moment.” Loki paced in the confines of Strange's office, too angry to stand still. "Will you lend it to me or not?"
“Your father is dying? Christ, Loki. Do you…” Loki shook his head impatiently, not interested in Strange’s words of sympathy. “Alright then,” Strange said instead. He stood and Loki watched as he demonstrated the way he’d created the time loop and synced it to reset every time he died. Loki was able to recreate it after the second try, and with only a little visible reluctance did Strange lift the amulet holding the time gem over his head. “Does Tony know you’re doing this?” He asked as Loki reached for it.
Loki stilled, fingers inches from the Time Gem. The last time he’d died, it had sent Stark to the hospital. Bound as they were now, he had no idea if Stark would be impacted by his death, erased as it would be by the machinations of the time gem. But he did know what Stark’s reaction would be if he knew about this plan, and that knowledge made his conviction waver.
“He doesn’t,” Strange guessed, mouth flattening in a disapproving line. His eyes flickered to the ring on Loki’s finger. “That’s not fair to him, and you know it.”
Loki’s hand closed around the amulet, and he stared down at it, torn. Then he looked at his ring as well and closed his hand into a fist. “You’re right. I’ll go to him as soon as I leave here.”
The tension in Strange’s jaw eased. “And what of your…bond?” He asked, waving his hand at the aura of the spell linking Loki and Stark, siphoning Loki’s lifespan away to increase Stark’s. “What will happen to him?”
“He should be fine,” Loki said after a moment.
“Should be? Are you sure?” Strange said sharply. “Because it’s not just your life you are risking here.”
“I know that,” Loki snapped. “Of course I know that, far better than you do. But what would you have me do? Do you think I would risk his life for anything less than the fate of my homeland? If I don’t do this, Asgard will burn.”
Strange held his hands up in surrender. “I will stay with him while you are gone, if you wish.”
Loki exhaled. “Thank you.” Loki put the chain around his neck, the amulet settling against his chest, cold and hard. Never had his duty to Asgard felt so heavy, and for moment he was sorely tempted to let the damned realm burn; Asgard had little love for Odin's second son, and any affection he'd ever had towards his putative homeland had curdled to burdensome obligation. But the thought of Thanos spurred him on, and so he stepped sideways to Stark and found him at a desk, frowning over a computer.
“Loki,” he said in surprise. He stood to greet Loki with a kiss, but his smile of welcome faltered when he saw Loki’s grim look. “What’s wrong?”
“My duty to Asgard calls,” Loki said, hands coming up to cup Stark’s face. “I don’t know what I will be facing, but I needed to see you first.”
“To what, say goodbye?” Stark said with alarm. His hands came up to grip Loki’s wrists as if it keep him from leaving. “Is that what you’re trying to say here? That you might not come back?”
“I will return,” Loki promised, pressing a kiss to Stark’s brow. He gestured to the amulet that held the time stone, dormant and ready. “I’ve taken every precaution.”
“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better,” Stark said, looking at it like it was a poisonous viper. “Are you sure? Can I come with you?”
“No,” Loki said sharply, every fiber of his being rebelling at the thought of Stark following him to confront the Goddess of Death. “This is something that I must do, and I must do it quickly. If my father dies before I do this, there will be a civil war in Asgard. There might still be a war, but right now I have some small chance to avoid it.”
“Shit,” Stark said after a moment, blinking rapidly. His jaw worked, as if he was thinking of and discarding arguments as he stared at Loki. Finally he jerked his head in a nod, though it clearly pained him to do so, and reluctantly released his grip on Loki’s wrists. “Ok. Go. Before I…” He cleared his throat. “Just…don’t die, you hear me? Again. Don’t die again.”
Loki hesitated. “I will return,” he said again, hoping Stark didn’t notice what he didn’t say. He kissed him one last time, then squared his shoulders and stepped sideways into Hel.