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Chapter Text

April 4th, 2017

“Boss I have a found an energy reading that corresponds to Loki’s energy-”

Tony doesn’t even remember getting up or the suit appearing, “tell me where it’s coming from and tell everyone else”

“the signal is coming from New Orleans”

Gamora sighs loudly as she watches Thor and Hela enter the house behind Tony. “they can’t keep following us” she states emotionlessly “this is the third time they almost found us”

“they’ll give up soon” Ikol says like it’s nothing and gets up.

Nebula asks “how do you know?” harshly. Because Loki said they wouldn’t help him, he promised he wouldn’t break and now here they are.

“because I have a plan” Ikol retorts and Gamora’s heart drops at the tone of mischief in his voice.

Ikol waves them along and turns to walk away but is interrupted by a loud clap of thunder. Then it suddenly starts pouring rain

Tony doesn’t enter the living room. He stands just at the threshold and watches as Thor and Hela investigate the mess of blood, glass and broken wood.

“Loki wouldn’t-“

Hela interrupts by saying “stab wounds match Loki’s style” as she investigates the gaping wounds on the mans throat.

Tony frowns “slit throats are common-“

“he goes for the neck when he doesn’t want to fight”

“or he throws people out of windows” Tony shoots back.

“the wound match his daggers” Hela adds and Tony can’t argue about that.

But this makes no fucking sense, if Loki willingly left all those years ago then why is he killing people? If he wants to stay hidden then why would they do this? Loki should know that they would investigate. “he goes missing and then comes back and starts killing innocent people to what? send a message?”

“no” Thor breathes out “this guy used to work for SHIELD, but he was really working for HYDRA”

“so why the hell did Loki kill him?”

“revenge?” Thor suggests.

“to get information” Hela states and Tony calls out “hello? are you dumb?” with a tune and Hela glares “Natasha already released all of SHIELDS files”

“maybe he wants to know something about HYDRA”

“HYDRA’s files were released too” Hela states “so it’s something else”

Hopefully they could figure it out before Loki kills someone else.

Thor instantly answers his phone as soon as he sees Jane’s name. Fearing that Lukka’s teeth were bothering him again because then that means he would have to get some pulled and Thor doesn’t know anything about dentists other than the fact that they cut and stab your gums-

“Hello is Luk-”

“hello brother”  

Thor freezes. He’s hallucinating. He finally went crazy from grief and started hallucinating.

“you’re alone correct?”  

But Loki’s voice sounds so clear and strong through the phone. “brother” Thor breathes out, not knowing if he’s actually going crazy “why do you have Jane’s phone?” he can’t help but ask.

“are you alone?” Loki repeats, his tone harsher than before.

“yes I am, brother please tell me where you are so I can come and get you” 

Loki hums “if you promise to come alone”

“yes I promise” Thor complies instantly, he’s going to bring Loki home anyways. 

And surprisingly Loki gives up his location. 

“that was fast” Loki hums as he leans against a giant machine, Thor has no clue what it is but he doesn’t care. Thor takes in his brothers short wavy hair, the cut on his lip and Thor swears he’s wearing eyeshadow or something, but before he could think about it Loki speaks up. “you must really love your brother”

Thor frowns because why the fuck is Loki speaking about himself in third person? “we never stopped looking for you” Thor reveals

“well I’m asking you to stop”

“what?”

Loki stands up straight “stop trying to look for me, stop tryin to save me because I don’t need it” Thor takes a sharp breath “I don’t want your help or the help of your stupid little avengers, got it?”

That’s not your brother

Thor is quiet until he realizes Loki is letting him speak, “I’m not giving up on you”

“you have to let me go”

“no”

“fine” Loki sighs “hey, Jane you still there?”

Thor frowns “jane?”

“Thor, I can’t move” Thor looks behind Loki to see her on a platform, right above a giant bucket of acid “Thor he told me that I can’t move-“ Her voice shakes as tears fall from her eyes

“no no no it’s okay Jane” he looks back at Loki “not cool brother”

“ ah come on” Loki smirks “it’s a little bit cool right?” he doesn’t look away from Thor as he continues “Jane, you can move now”

“no” Thor steps forward but Loki pushes him back against a beam “nonono-” Loki holds him there by his throat as Jane lifts on foot off of the platform “ nononono!”

Thor closes his eyes and hears a splash. 

“I said let me go!”

Thor walks into the room and his veins instantly start burning. His muscles tingle with the need to do something . Looking at all the green and black just makes it worse, he clenches his fist as he remembers the empty look in Loki’s eyes.

He’s not your brother anymore.

Thor throws everything off of the desk in one sweep. The loud bang of everything hitting the floor spurs his anger on. He turns and sees the bed so he grabs the frame and flips it, it collides with the bookshelf and the latter crumbles. He doesn’t care that Loki loved those books because Loki is gone.

Loki is gone.

Thor yells as he pulls the dresser down and the drawers fall out. The dresser crushes the drawers and the impact causes the glass top to explode. He moves onto the desk chair and lifts it, ready to smash something else.

But then he takes in the room.

It’s not even a room anymore, it’s just a mess of broken, processed wood and glass.

There’s nothing left.

He ruined it all.

Thor drops the chair and finally lets that weight in his chest go. He lets out all the air in his lungs, not caring if any one hears, because he can’t even hear himself. His ears ring and his throat burns from his volume but he doesn’t care. 

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything but his family and he can’t do anything to help.

His scream gets caught in his throat when thunder shakes the compound and all the lights turn off. 

“what the fuck?” Tony yells from another room

Chapter Text

Gamora’s gaze narrows slightly as she watches Ikol walk in with a smile. “where were you?” she asks “and why are you so happy?”

“because plan a worked” he says and starts humming that stupid melody again as he pours himself a drink “plan b should happen on it’s own”

“what are these plans?”

“I killed jane so they should stop looking for us”

“Jane has a son” Gamora points out

Ikol ignores Nebula walking in from the hall “and after I kill Thor we can bring the kid to father”

Gamora gets up and pours herself a drink to avoid showing her emotion. Even though it’s been years she is never going to be used to this Loki.

Nebula on the other hand sounds perfectly fine as she demands “kill him tomorrow”

“what is our plan for tomorrow?” 

“Nebs will hack SHIELD’s system and put the building on lock down while we-” he points at Gamora “will crash the meeting and cut off some hands to get past the scanner and get the tesseract and mind stone”

April 5th, 2017

No one believed him. No one believed Thor. Even though he seen his brother kill Jane. He enchanted her, its has to have been that. But Loki hated enchantment, he hated making people do things without their consent and seeing into their minds. 

Not to mention the fact that Loki only kills if necessary, killing Jane was not necessary.

“you’re sure it was him?” Steve asks

Thor’s face drops “he choked me out and yelled in my face” he states because how the fuck would Thor not be able to recognize his own brother?

“he wouldn’t do this though-” 

“we know that” Thor hisses and Tony rolls his eyes before backing off

Ikol smiles proudly as he watches the agents drop, every single one screaming and groaning in pain. “someones gonna hear them!” Nebula scolds and Ikol rolls his eyes.

“i put a silencing spell on this room”

Ikol continues walking and sits at biggest computer so Gamora takes her chance. “did you tell them?” she mouths at her sister and the latter nods.

“okay Nebs” Ikol motions at the computer “work your magic and meet us at the meeting” he says with a tune and Nebula’s lip twitches up in a small smile.

It’s gone as soon as they’re out the door.

Tony flinches as the lights abruptly shut off and the emergency lights turn on. The red hue of the room and sirens starting to blare throughout the building makes his stomach clench.

Loki

Tony ignores that thought as he stands up. He lifts his hand, going for his arc reactor as he turns around-

“Tony” Natasha whispers in fear, telling him that he’s right

He makes eye contact with grey eyes and Tony freezes. 

He looks good in red.

His heartbeat hammers against his chest as Loki tilts his head and scans him. Loki’s hair is shorter, barely reaching his jaw, a new scar through his eyebrow and Tony swears he’s wearing eyeshadow or something. Before he could think longer about it Loki looks to his right, at Thor and Hela across the table.

Hela breathes out “Lo-“ but she suddenly drops, she and Thor falling unconscious. 

“Loki-“ Tony stops as the Loki in front of him fades into nothing and an arm wraps around his throat. 

“Tommy” Loki replies back like a smartass as Tony gasps to breathe. Tony reacts on instinct and lets his body drop, forcing Loki to let go. As he catches himself someone pushes Loki onto the table and Tony can hear the wood cracking.

Tony looks up to see Loki wrap his calves around Steve’s neck and smash him into the table, making the wood break and the table suddenly falls apart underneath them. 

“up” Bucky demands as he grabs Tony’s arm and the latter doesn’t protest. 

He watches in shock as Loki kicks Steve so hard that he makes an indent in the damn wall. Loki somersaults and he fucking kicks Sam into Wanda and Pietro. They’re not getting up soon.

Loki glares as Steve and Bucky walk closer, Tony’s still fucking frozen.

He can’t do anything, it’s like something is holding him still but he knows it’s just because he’s seeing Loki for the first time in years. But he can’t fucking break through.

He just watches.

Bucky swings and Loki leans back while Steve kicks his leg out. Loki shows no reaction as he is suddenly kneeling. He reaches up and grabs Bucky’s hand holding a knife and presses a spot on his wrist, Bucky lets go. 

Steve rips Bucky from Loki’s grip as the latter catches the knife. 

Ikol sees movement in the corner of his eye and grabs Thor’s limp body, using him as a human sheild as Maria and Fury fire at him. Good thing the bullets bounce right off, hitting the ones pulling the trigger.

Ikol throws the knife, perfectly cutting Steve’s achilles tendon and the latter drops. He was only using that as a distraction to fucking throw Thor at them 

The loud thud of bodies hitting the ground almost covers up the sound of the doors flying open and more banging. He looks over and sees “ The gaurdians of the galaxy” Ikol laughs until he recognizes those groans and finally sees Nebula and Gamora getting up with a stagger.

“where is Thanos?” A grey man with red lines all over him yells as he charges at his sisters. So Ikol flicks his wrist and Drax flies out the window. 

“got them?” Ikol asks the two and they nod.

So he moves onto his so-called soulmate checking on Sam and the twins. 

“hello lover” Ikol says with glee as Tony stands “miss me?”

“I don’t wanna fight you”

“too bad” Ikol grabs his arm and pulls him forward before pushing him into the wall and the drywall cracks. Tony groans quietly but it’s caught in his throat from Ikol’s hand pressing down on his neck.

“I asked if you missed me” 

Tony wraps his hand around Loki’s wrist “I’m not sure if I’m pissed or turned on” he croaks and Ikol replies by smashing his head back into the wall. 

Tony blinks as black spots take over his vision for a split second- “Ikol!” Nebula screams desperately.

Ikol suddenly drops him and walks away, Tony sees the sisters unconscious on the floor and Ikol walking towards Mantis.

Tony stops “Loki don-” Mantis presses a hand to Loki’s head before he could even attempt to touch her. “sleep” she says quietly and Loki drops to the floor.

Tony frowns as Quill suddenly starts helping up a very conscious pair of sisters. 

Gamora and Nebula both put their hands up “we want to help” Gamora states. She flinches back when Bucky is suddenly pointing a dagger at her throat.

“you’re with Thano-”

“no we’re not, we went back to help him” Nebula nods at Ikol lying on the floor “we’re sent to get the stones but we actually have a different plan” 

Tony’s eyes narrow “why would you betray Thanos again for Loki?” 

“he helped us get out” Gamora says smoothly “we’re just returning the favour” her gaze flicks back to Bucky and her dagger “It would be much easier to tell you if I didn’t have a knife at my throat”

Tony scans the unconscious bodies ”when they wake up” 

He spends the next hour helping get everyone back to the compound.

Fury agreed to have Loki, or Ikol, according to the murder sisters. Locked up at the compound, Tony used the same reasoning he did with the twins and Bucky. If Ikol was to lose control, tbe avengers would be able to handle it much better than anyone at SHIELD.

And just before going to talk to Ikol, the sisters explained that this isn’t Loki, not one bit of that person is Loki. They said not to get his hopes up.

“why does he always hum that?” Nebula asks in her usual low, intimidating tone. Tony is about to question it until he finally gets to the window and hears Ikol humming over the small speaker.

you are my sunshine, my only sunshine

his version was slowed down, dragging out the melody and somehow it sounded better. Tony swallows as a lump tries to form in his throat, his heart beating hard in his chest and he can feel his foot start tapping against the floor.

you make me happy when skies are grey

Gamora sighs “does he even know the song?” she asks. 

you’ll never know dear, how much I love you.

“I’ve asked him and he got defens-”

Tony slaps his hand on the blue button, allowing Ikol to hear them “what’s the lyrics to that song?” he demands to know. “why do you remember this of all things?”

Ikol’s gaze darts over each of them, not focusing on anything since he can’t see them. Tony doesn’t want Ikol to see him “you should be telling me what the song is” Ikol deadpans. “after all I’ve forgotten you”

Tony huffs out a breath, the lump formed. He swallosz and his eyes tear up as he almost gags, “what else do you remember?” he thanks god that his voice is strong and clear.

“I remember you telling me that you killed your cousin” Ikol blurts “you took over the company from him, he got jealous and paid the ten rings to off you, unfortunately you got out-“

“he was selling weapons to terrorists-“

“you were making fucking the weapons”  

“I stopped, and I stopped him” Tony replies back coldly, he won’t let Ikol win because that’s what Ikol wants. To hurt him. 

“your own cousin, your own flesh and blood, your family”

what do you know about family? Tony almost asks. “my cousin that tried to kill me, ripped out the thing that kept me alive”

“would he know about this?” Tony asks and Loki’s hand is  suddenly engulfed in warmth, the hand over his nearly burning hot. The metal is the only thing keeping his hand from catching on fire 

Ikol leans back against the wall, looking at the glass seperating him from Stark, only to find a reflection of himself wrapped up in a straight jacket. 

stupid humans

“I’m done talking” he glares at himself, now knowing who he’s really looking at and it pisses him off “leave”

“what?” Tony asks harshly but Ikol can already see that smug look on his face “remember something else?”

Ikol keeps his mouth shut. When he’s says he’s done talking, he means it.

April 6th, 2017

Tony got a slight summary yesterday, and being Tony, wanting to know everything and ask a shit ton of questions, he went to the debriefing. Not because he’s required but because he can’t stand being haunted by the ghost of the man he loves.

“last time we seen you two, Loki attacked you” sam says before adding “now he’s calling you guys sister”

“they got into his head” Gamora’s voice is laced with guilt, “we tried as hard as we could to be there, to help him and it worked for two years”

“until?” 

“they would cause hallucinations, we don’t know what they made him see”

“so why the fuck doesn’t he remember us?” Tony asks a little too harshly.

“thanos wanted the perfect child, so he made Ebony create one with Loki” 

“what does that mean?”

“once Loki broke he wouldn’t know what is true or false” Hela theorizes “so then they could do whatever they want with his memories right?”

Gamora nods “they made him believe that he was raised with us, that Thanos was his father and he made us build on that for the past year, made us do things that you two-“ she nods at Hela and Thor “-did with him while growing up”

“he remembers something, so his memories must be buried” Tony states and Thor starts speaking over him “that’s why Thanos made you do that, to try and replace us with you” he points between him and his own sister and the sisters. 

Nebula clenches her jaw, keeping her mouth shut as best as she could and Gamora could tell so she says “he kept the old memories of us, when Thanos took him before”

“the memories of you two torturing him?” 

Nebula glares “a couple months after Thanos first took him” she says before she closes her eyes and when she opens them, a memory projects from her fucking eye.

Loki is wrapped up in a black duvet, keeping his head turned as Nebulas blue hands tend to his wounds. “if he finds out he’ll hurt you”

“he’s hurt me many times before” Nebula says with a tune. Not caring.

“you shouldn’t be hurt in my sake”

“you protect me” Nebula replies back softly “even though you’re the one being tortured”

Loki grabs her hand, stopping her from cleaning the gash on his forehead. He looks her straight in the eyes, his own bloodshot from tears “thank you sister”

“Loki does break expectations” Hela mutters.

“Tony” Steve looks at him “you’re quiet, what are you thinking about?”

Tony doesn’t even stop himself from asking “I can still hate him if I suck his dick right?” 

“Jesus” Steve spits and turns away.

“okay” Hela gets up and heads for the door “I’d rather talk to dead people”

“I’m kidding” Tony calls out and Hela stops “I was actually thinking that-” he turns and looks at the twins “-you two are staying out of this”

“Okay” Pietro agrees happily meanwhile Wanda’s eyebrows scrunch together and she spits “I’m the only one that could take him and his magic”

Tony nods, not denying that “and that just means he could kill you” he explains “so no, you’re not staying here”

“wait wait” Pietro scowls “where would we go”

“you do remember I am rich, right?”

“why didn’t you tell them?” Hela asks as soon as the door is closed behind her and Thor sighs loudly “they need to know”

Chapter Text

“why didn’t you tell them?” Hela asks as soon as the door is closed behind her and Thor sighs loudly “they need to kn-“

“if Steve and Tony know about the switch then they could end up turning it off too” Thor explains quietly because the last thing they need is that, “we agreed on not telling them”

Hela’s gaze hardens “that was before our brother turned it off ” she says harshly “and Loki doesn’t care anymore so he could tell them anytime he wants and turn them aga-“

“then we’ll tell them the truth” Thor looks her straight in the eyes “that we did it to protect them” and they did.. kinda

“this is no different than what you did to St-“

“I lied to steve about my child, not the fact that we could turn off our emotions” Thor spits “because my kid doesn’t threaten our safety and this does”

“you’re right” Hela says dully, completely ignoring what he said because she didn’t mean it like that. “this threatens our safety, if we keep it a secret the only on we’re protecting is us” because they’d be in serious shit from all their friends after they know that the two were lying about something this serious for this long.

And Hela knows Thor, she knows that’s the reason why he’s so scared to tell them. She cant help but feel bad because she knows exactly how strong the guilt is.

Her guilt at the moment is so strong that she contemplated telling Thor for a moment.

Thor glaring so hard that Hela swears he’s trying to kill her with some unseen power doesn’t help “Tony is bipolar, and our brother, his soulmate , nearly landed us in the hospital because he is brainwashed” Thor summarizes and he doesn’t even have to ask the question because Hela already gets it.

“fine” Hela gives in and sighs “it’s better for Tony not to know that we could turn off our emotions”

he knows Hela will bother him about it until he gives in even just a tiny bit. So he offers “I’ll tell Steve if it makes you feel better” 

And her large sigh as she whines “please” tells him that he put off her harassment for a bit

Thor nods and walks out, adding “after I put Lukka to bed” and he books it. Good thing he did because a grimoire comes flying out the door behind him.

“do you have your blanky?” Thor asks as he turns on the lamp.

Lukka asks “what’s wrong with Uncle Loki?” instead of answering and Thor stops in his tracks. He really doesn’t know how to tell Luka that Loki isn’t Loki, how do you tell a three year old that?

He takes a deep breath to get himself together before he sits at the end of the bed. “I’ll tell you about it tommorrow ok?” he tries to stall but Lukka replies in seconds

“no”

“Lukka it’s bedtime”

Lukka pouts and crosses his arms dramatically. Thor smiles softly as the worry disappears and he can’t help but surrender, “ok fine” he moves and sits beside Lukka.

How the hell did Odin tell them about the switch? 

Lukka cuddles into his side and drapes Thor's arm around him. Thor smiles and presses a kiss to his messy brown hair “I’m going to tell you a story” because kids love stories

“yay!”

“There was a Prince, and he was happy with his husband, they were very happy together but one day his husband got sick and the Prince was really sad, so he took a vacation to the big tree-“

“Yggdrasil!”

“yes Yggdrasil” he smiles, proud of how smart Lukka is but that doesn’t distract him from the situation.“when he was climbing around the giant branches he fell, and someone caught him, a bad man”

“no!” Lukka whines, and his grip tightens on Thor’s arm.

“that bad man is named Thanos, and he wants Yggdrasil for himself, so he tricked the prince into eating a poisoned apple that turned him into Ikol”

“Ikol” Lukka isn’t as happy anymore

“Thanos wants Ikol to help him take the big tree, and he needs a magical stone that we have”

“daddy I don’t like this story anymore”

“don’t worry we’re going to give him a good apple and make him Uncle Loki again, and we’ll all be okay”

Lukka nods before he suddenly asks “will Thanos come here?”

“no” Thor answers instantly “I won’t let anyone touch you Jellybean”

“I love you” 

“i love you too” Thor kisses him on the head “now it’s time to go to bed” 

“daddy?”

Thor continues tucking him in “yes?”

“is Ikol my uncle too?” Thor stops and takes a breath, he lets it out in a shaky exhale and finishes tucking Lukka in, “We need to ask him” Thor states. 

And Lukka happily agrees “okay”

Thor gladly flops down onto their shared bed with a sigh. He instantly relaxes despite everything going on, that’s probably why he feels so damn exhausted. “Lukka’s sleeping?” Steve asks and doesn’t move from his spot in front of the computer. 

Thor nods even though Steve can’t see it “not until I answered all his questions about Loki” 

Steve sighs loudly and Thor could still hear him clicking away. So he lets hid curiousity get the best of him and pulls up a seat beside Steve. Thor leans his head against Steve’s shoulder and watches as he scrolls through.. Houses.

Thor was thinking of getting a house. To get Lukka away from all this and keep him safe, but Thor doesn’t to leave, not yet atleast. “where are these?” 

“around here” Steve says as he opens a tab, showcasing a bungalow “close enough to get here when we’re needed and far enough to keep Lukka safe”

“Steve-”

“I knoa you don’t want to move but Lukka is in danger here” 

“I know” Thor agrees. “I was going to tell you something else”

Ikol’s eyebrows scrunch together as the door opens and Tony enters. The door closes again as Tony sits on the floor, leaning against the door and watching him. 

“you’re taking a big risk Tim” Ikol hums lowly and Tony’s lip twitches up.

He huffs out a breath that could be a laugh “I can’t take you seriously when you get my name wrong everytime” 

“I don’t know you so sorry-“

“you’re my soulmate” Tony blurts and the only reaction he gets from Ikol is the latter taking a long, deep breath. “but you used me, like the liar you are”

Ikol shrugs “get bored easily” he states.

“Loki didn’t”

“I’m not him” Ikol snarls before relaxing again. “hell would have to freeze over for me to be that pathetic”

“ok Ikol” Tony hisses and Loki’s eyebrows scrunch together “if you’re so bored then leave, let Loki come back-“

“not happening” Loki deadpans. 

Tony sighs “fine” he adjusts his position, laying one leg flat and keeping the other bent. “your sisters told us about what he did” Ikol glares at him “but you have no wounds or scars” according to everyone but Tony. 

Because Tony can see the scars around Loki’s eyes and lips. He can see that there’s more scars on his arms and hands, more on his neck and all the way under his shirt. Tony doesn’t want to imagine what Ikol’s chest looks like.

“because I’m strong”

“no it’s because of me” Tony retorts with a smart ass tune and he continues speaking before Ikol could start yelling “I don’t scar and I heal faster, started after the bond finished”  he explains because what other reason would there be?

“ugh” Ikol groans and lets his head fall back against the wall “you humans are so emotional that it’s overwhelming” he looks back at Tony and nearly begs “just get to the torture already”

Tony shakes his head “that’s not how this works” he watches as Ikol raises a brow “we’re trying to get Loki back and torturing you is just going to make him hide, we need to make you and him feel”

“well I don’t feel anything” Ikol deadpans “so good luck”

“you’re annoyed by me” Tony shoots back “that’s a feeling”

“ go fuck yourself Theodore” 

“already did” he replies back without hesitation. Ikol raises his brows, obviously intrigued but Tony changes the subject “I spent almost four years having nightmares about what could’ve happened to you, I couldn’t stop worrying and thinking about you. It was worse than any pain I’ve ever felt”

“as if I care”

Tony’s eyes narrow and he sees nothing. No lies, no anger, nothing. “what happened to you?” He asks, not detecting anything as Ikol replies back, “nothing worth mentioning”

“you used to be kind, compassionate-“

“you mean boring?” Loki asks and sighs dramatically “stop looking, you won’t find him”

“the only reason you would tell me to stop looking is if he’s still there” Tony theorizes and judging by Ikol’s gaze darkening, he’s right. “your emotions are off so you wouldn’t care that we’re wasting our time, you don’t care about us, you care about yourself”

“I’m telling you to stop because when you stop I can leave” 

Tony shakes his head “don’t believe you”

“I hate you” Ikol breathes out but Tony doesn’t believe one word. “you’re a mistake”

Tony smirks “the best one you’ve ever made” Ikol lunges at him and the loud banging of the chains trying to be pried off the walls makes Tony step back 

Ikol glares at him as he gives up on trying to get closer “Argr” he hisses.

“awe thanks blueberry” Tony hums sarcastically making Ikol glare harder “remind me of that next time you use your seidr”

“the next time I use my seidr you won’t be alive to see it”

Steve’s eyebrows scrunch together as he stares at Thor for a long ass time without saying or doing anything. And it’s starting to scare Thor because he doesn't know if Steve is in shock or trying to stop himself from exploding.

“a switch..” Steve repeats and Thor sighs in relief. “that makes no sense”

“our emotions are three times stronger and sometimes that can be unbearable, so we have the ability to shut it off”

“why didn’t you guys tell us?”

“Tony would have turned it off, if he had known and when we broke up-”

“I wouldn’t have turned it off” 

“you’re only saying that because we’re okay now” Thor states “if we were still back in 2013 you would have, especially after Lukka was born”

Steve doesn’t deny that, instead he asks “so you want me to lie to Tony?” with a dark tune “he’s been lied to enough already”

“Loki is brainwashed and crazy, Tony is Bipolar” Thor points out “if Tony turns it off then we might as well kill them both now because I can’t imagine this world being okay after those two” 

Steve doesn’t want to think about Tony without his emotions. Tony, who has access to any system he wants, Tony who hacked the pentagon when he was 15, Tony who got seidrs to replace the arc reactor, Tony who is the world’s strongest defender can easily become the worlds strongest enemy. 

“I don’t want to lie to him Thor, I haven’t been that great to him or Loki and I don’t-”

“Tony wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did turn it off and hurt people, we both know that”

Steve gives in, but not without a heavy heart. 

Thor takes his hand and runs his fingers over Steve’s healing knuckles “I know you don’t like this, neither do I but we need to”

“can I have a hug?” 

Thor smiles and agrees “of course, my dear” and instantly pulls Steve into his lap. “I’m sorry” he mumbles as he buries his nose in Steve’s shoulder.

“I’m not the one being lied to again”

“Steve-“

“I know I’m sorry” Steve pulls back and he blames it on “the heightened emotions” 

“I’m sorry for that too”

“now that Loki is back-“ Steve grabs the small braid by his ear “-can you stop dying this one strand black?”

“I vowed to wear this until my brother is home and that’s not my brother” Thor shrugs and adds on “people said it looks good” happily

“you mean Hela and Natasha, who wear nothing but black”

“that rhymes” Thor tries to hide his pain, but he can’t not, from his soulmate.  Especially not after watching Thor deteriorate back to day one so quickly. 

“we’ll get him back” Steve reassures softly, “you know that Tony and Hela won’t give up on him”

The rooftop slowly became Tony’s favourite spot again throughout the years. Anytime he felt trapped or scared, confused or angry, sad or happy. He came up here because in the times of sorrow the distant lights, the wind and the echoing sirens from the city somehow became a stress-reliever. 

Tony sighs and sits in his beloved seat that he dragged up here months ago, years maybe? Tony doesn’t know, the days started blending together a long time ago and Tony loved it. Because what is three years ago seems like three months ago. 

The sad thing is that all the arguements and drama feel like it happened recently when it wasn’t recnt. The pain and the hurt still suffocates him and it shouldn’t because all of this happened years ago-

Tony doesn’t react when Natasha is suddenly sitting beside him. 

She made it a habit to join him, even if it was just to sit in silence or drink until the sun came up. She sat with him and provided comfort with just her presence. And Tony loved her for it even if it got to the point that she brought up her own chair and left a blanket in the stairwell to avoid freezing to death. Not because they passed out on the roof more than a dozen times.

“How’s Lo-” Natasha frowns and quickly corrects herself “how’s Ikol?”

“a dick” 

“and how are you?”

“too sober” he deadpans as he takes a giant sip of his very strong drink. He might have mixed every single drink he had but no one needed to know, his tolerance was through the roof so he needed som-

his drink is suddenly ripped out of his hands “ hey!” he cries and before he could think about warning her, Natasha takes a drink of the concoction and spits it right back out.

She gags and retches, spitting continuously and scraping at her tongue “what was that?”

Tony “anything and everything you could think of” deadpans as he takes his cup back and takes the rest of the drink like a damn shot.

“how the hell can you drink that?”

“I was an alcoholic Nat, when I was human I was snorting fucking vodka” he mentions “I went through DTs more than that one time”

She lets out a shaky exhale before admitting “i’m glad your tolerance is higher-“

“I’m not”

“-you can't go through that again unless you drink your body weight in booze” 

That’s true, not to mention Thor and Hela are being annoying assholes and will not let him touch mead, the one thing strong enough to affect him. God he doesn’t want to imagine how fucked his liver is.

“how are you doing with Ikol?” 

“my ex, who I’m still in love with, has amnesia” he takes a shot “how do you think I’m doing?”

“at least he’s back”

“but he’s not Loki, he’s just some asshole wearing his skin” Tony lies, he knows that Ikol is parts of Loki, the dangerous parts that Loki kept buried.

He doesn’t know how he knows, he just knows.

But Natasha doesn’t believe that, not one bit. Loki is too strong to let Ikol take over “you don’t know how wrong you are about that” Loki is as stubborn as Tony, Loki would die before he let Ikol take over.

“you don’t know what he said” Tony states “you didn’t see the hatred in his eyes”

“that’s not Loki, he would never hurt you”

“he used me” Tony reminds her before scoffing “he probably never loved me in the first place”

Chapter Text

Gamora growls as she throws Ikol’s headpiece onto the table “I hate these stupid horns” she snarls as she walks into the kitchen.

“then why didn’t you just leave it?”

“Ikol would kill for this”

“so are you planning to get it fixed?.” Nebula asks honsetly as she grabs said horns. One side is missing, Gamora broke it during one of their training sessions and Nebula has to fight the urge to break the headpiece completely. 

“Thanos can fix it since he loves Ikol so much”

Nebula’s face falls and she stares at Gamora, “jealous someone took your place?” she asks monotonously because she knows that deep down Gamora is jealous.

Gamora glares even harder as he harshly throws her garbage away “Ikol can be the ass kisser, he’s much better at it than me”

“if you hadn’t realized your hatred for father then you would still be kissing his ass” 

Gamore changes the subject “Ikol never said anything yet?” she asks and Nebula instantly shakes her head no. So she asks “did you send him their files?” 

Nebula nods and Gamora realizes that is probably what Ikol is doing instead of obsessing over his plan as usual.

“do you think this will work?” Nebula asks quietly and she looks so scared, tensed up and staring at the ground like she usually does. 

Gamora hates it but she can’t lie to her “I don’t know, but thats why we brought him here right? to get Loki back”

Her sister lets out a breath and closes her eyes for moment “what if they can’t get him back?” she asks and Gamora’s heart starts beating harder “what if Ikol is here for good?”

“we can’t think like that Nebula” Gamora states as she turns around and suddenly drops a little tupperware on the counter. “it’s his stuff from a couple years ago”

“father told you to burn it”

Gamora shakes her head as she dumps the box out and digs through the contents until she picks up a little black rectangle

“what’s that?”

Gamora presses a button and the screen lights up, revealing a dead battery  “his phone” 

Loki steps back as he takes in his sister, much younger, wearing her normal clothing instead of her armor “you’re not supposed to be here” 

Hela tilts her head “and why not”

“because that’s not how this happened” He hisses and he shouldn’t have. Hela’s face falls and she looks behind him at the door he just came through, she sighs and looks back at him “this really happened didn’t it?”

He shakes his head “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I didn’t want to kill anybody”

“you were just doing as father said” she finishes and his heart constricts, a sharp pain shoots through his chest. “did you ever take responsibility?”

“I didn’t want to kill anybody”

“you and Brunnhilde covered this up, swore to never tell and you didn’t” her voice is soft when she should be yelling, she should hate him “you didn’t even tell me”

“they were traitors-“

“so they deserved to be murdered?” Loki snaps his mouth shut “you were a traitor more than once, do you deserve death?”

“I-“

“being a traitor and murderer may have led you to Tony but nothing you do will ever make up for your thousand years of killing” she spits and he feels his nose sting and his heart speeding up.

“you’re not real”

“you’re just like him” she chuckles “you can deny it all you want but you are just like Odin, taking mothers from their children, taking fathers and brothers and sisters” 

“I had my humanity off”

“no matter what you are you, humanity or no humanity” she leans forward “Ikol or Loki, you are you” she hisses and it makes a sharp pain consume his heart.

“you’re not real” he says more to himself than her.

“the feeling is real” she nearly whispers “the pain is real”

April 7th, 2017

Tony honestly thought the past couple days were some fucked up dream. He woke up fully expecting to feel that emptiness or the invisible bugs eating at him, but all he felt was relief as Friday started telling him that Ikol has been yelling for hours. 

“why?” Tony croaks  as he sits up with a grunt. He presses his feet to the floor and rests his elbow in his nightstand so he can slump forward without falling over.

“Ikol says he is sore and hungry”

“time is it?”

“nearing one pm boss”

Tony sighs as he stands up and drags himself out of his room and upstairs, of course no one would check on Ikol. It seems like Tony always has to deal with the shit nobody else wants to.

Bitches.

Tony stops a foot away from Ikol and sets the food down on the table beside him before he drops the sketchbook and pencils in front of Ikol. 

Ikol frowns at the paper and pencils, he frowns even harder at the drawing on top of the sketchbook. Loki Friggaschild. is scrawled neatly in the corner. In his handwriting.

Tony and Natasha sitting on the couch watching tv. Tony holding a cup of coffee while Natasha leans back against his side. He frowns at the blue and gold flowing through their veins, “what is this?”

“you told me that everyone has a seidr” Tony explains, “I wanted to know how it looked so you showed me by drawing this” Ikol’s gaze flicks all over the drawing, remembering the drawings he used to carve into his cell walls. “Natasha stole the sketchpad from Steve for you” 

It was one of the first times someone was nice to us

Ikol swallows and ignores Loki like he usually does,“you humans forgive too easily” 

“easy for you to say since you’re just made up of all of Loki’s anger”

“fuck you”

“see?” Tony asks with a smirk, and it quickly falls. “what do you remember?”

“nothing”

Tony’s heart constricts and he decides to ask “why?”

“why did I forget everything?” Ikol asks in surprise 

“why did you forget me?” Tony corrects, “I never would have erased everything we had” he doesn’t lie, even if Loki was using him Tony never would have done that.

“no matter how much I missed you, no matter the pain I was in” he starts running out of breath but keeps going  anyways “even if I was drowning in grief, i’d rather hang onto every moment that I ever held you, or every laugh I heard, every shred of happiness we ever had” he takes a breath and calms down as he finishes “I would rather spend every moment in agony then forget the memory of you”

It’s quiet as Tony waits for a reply and Ikol just keeps staring at him, Tony can see something just for a split second before he speaks.

“and?” Ikol deadpans “I don’t know why you think I care”

“Loki cared, he cared the most out of all of us” 

“that’s what made him weak” 

Tony ignores that, “alot happened since you left” Ikol sighs and relaxes so he continues “Steve and Thor are back together, Wanda dyes her hair black now but you already knew that, I got a couple tattoos, started smoking and-“

“you don’t need that machine in your chest anymore” 

Ikol took the words right out of his mouth but Tony isn’t going to tell him that. “Actually I was going to say that you made me realize that life is worth living” Ikol frowns “you showed me that everyone and everything matters, there’s a purpose to it all” Tony has this weird urge to smile as he remembers feeding the deer. “you showed me apart of myself I didn’t know existed, I was lost until you found me” 

Ikol raised a brow, questioning what this man is talking about “please tell me about this epiphany of yours” he says sarcastically and sighs “not like I have anything better to do”

“you told me that I’m selfless, that that’s my gift but I never believed you-“

“good”

“I never believed you until I was near deaths door to save you, even when I found out that I could take away pain I didn’t believe that I was selfless”

“pain manipulation, that’s your gift” Ikol says to himself as he scans Tony “what a waste”

“I’m Bipolar” he blurts, “incase you were wondering why i was so.. weird”

“I don’t even remember how you were before, I barely remember you”

“because you lost your damn mind” Tony spits and he takes a deep breath to calm down

“being aware is the opposite of insane, if anything you and your denial are the crazy ones”

“trust me, you haven’t seen a fraction of how crazy I am”

“that’s supposed to be my line” Ikol whines with a pout.

Tony just wanted to calm down, he just wanted to stop fucking freaking out for once and he did. He took a whole barrel of down but now he’s freaking out again because he might have took too much. 

and Thank god  someone walks in because Tony is ready to fucking scream. ( or try to atleast)

“what did my brot - Stark?” Thor frowns as he sees Tony sprawled out on his bed. His stomach drops and anxiety sets in, telling him something is seriously wrong.

Tony’s heartbeat is too slow.

“Stark what is the matter with you?” Thor asks quickly as he kneels down beside the bed to be at eye-level with him. 

“took toomush” he slurs and Thor manages to understand him.

He looks around the room “took too much what..” he trails off as he sees and empty syringe beside Tony and Thor’s heart stops.

He quickly looks at Tony and pushes his hair out of his face, his lips are turning blue and his breathing is shallow.  “hey Tony? can you hear me?” he asks quickly.

Tony nods weakly.

“how much did you take?” Thor keeps spitting out questions “what did you take? can you talk?”

Tony opens his eyes and frowns at him “‘top boverin’ me”

Thor’s mind goes blank as his instincts kick in. He sits on the bed and turns Tony into the recovery position, ignoring the weak man grumbling out threats. “you have to go see a doctor!”

“no”

“Tony”

“fuck off!”

Thor ignores him, instead, he makes Tony tony his head back and Thor presses his fingers on his neck. 

His pulse is weak

He ignores Tony weakly trying to move, instead focusing on keeping Tony on his side as he yells “Hela!” as loud as he can and then demanding “Friday call Hela”

“are you just going to be quiet the whole time?”

“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do” because Hela vowed to never treat Loki like others have treated him, and even if this isn’t Loki, she isn’t breaking that promise.

“this is awkward” Ikol states as he sits up “I’d rather you interrogate me than just sit there”

“do you remember Asgard?” she asks, “the waterfall, the stars-“ she smiles as she remembers so much she doesn’t know wich memory to focus on “-the horses, the villagers”

“the stars are hard to forget” 

“you used to make illusions for Thor whenever you weren’t allowed to see the real thing”

“you and Frigga used illusions to calm them down” Ikol shoots back “whenever something bad happened”

Hela nods, her gaze falling to the floor as she let’s out a long exhale “I could never forget our childhood” she looks up at his emotionless face “how could you?”

“Did Loki really love you if he easily forgot you?” Ikol asks, “because that doesn’t seem like love to me”

“what would you know about love?”

“I know it’s a waste of time” he deadpans without hesitation and a smirk creeps up as Hela feels herself glaring 

“you know what got Loki killed?” he asks harshly “family, love, feeling” he answers with hatred dripping from his voice “don’t think that that’s what is going to get him back”

“I see you finally got what you wanted” Hela suddenly says, “being the first child, sad that you had to be brain-was–“ the words are caught in her throat as a cup breaks against the wall beside her head. She raises a brow at him as he looks at her like he did nothing wrong.

“mosquito” he says as an explanation.

She rolls her eyes - “Hela?” her stomach drops from her brothers paniced voice. 

And Ikol just looks curious as FRIDAY says “Tony is overdosing again and needs your help” out of nowhere.

Hela gets up, “wait what?” Ikol asks, his voice lower and rushed. She ignores him as she puts in the code and walks out.

“Helene, wait!” Ikol screams. She could give less of a fuck as to why he’s throwing another temper tantrum. 

She needs to help Tony

Thor sat there and kept talking to Tony while he waits for Hela. He had to make sure that Tony was still awake, that he could still talk and breathe. 

And he was doing good until now.

Thor’s veins run cold as the soft puffs of air stops exiting Tony’s mouth. “Tony?” he asks loudly and the latter doesn’t move, so he focuses.

He listens, straining to hear a faint heartbeat. 

All he hears is his own racing heart.

He turns Tony on his back again “Tony?” Thor leans over him and tilts his head back, clearing his airways. “Tony?” he tries one last time and gets the same result.

Nothing.

Chapter Text

He turns Tony on his back again “Tony?” Thor leans over him and tilts his head back, clearing his airways. “Tony?” he tries one last time and gets the same result.

Thor doesn't hesitate to pinch Tony’s nose and connect their lips. He exhales deeply and his heart lightens when Tony's chest rises. 

Thor quickly moves to start compressions but Hela comes barging in the room and pushes him away. “what’d he take?” She asks as she instantly hovers her hands over Tony’s chest, the dark green of her magic travels through his veins and Thor nearly starts crying as he hears his heart start again.

“I don’t know” 

Hela closes her eyes and sighs once her magic retracts itself. Tony’s lips aren’t blue, his heart isn’t struggling to pump blood through his body and he’s breathing strongly.

“Ikol will not stop insisting on knowing the situation”

Hela pushes her hair back “go ahead and tell him” she says breathlessly as exhaustion hits her-

Tony suddenly sits up and he doesn’t say anything, he still looks fucking high. His pupils are huge and he’s moving like he can barely hold himself up.

 “Tony-” Thor stops when Tony gets up and stumbles into his dresser. “ow” he mumbles, despite feeling no pain.

“Tony what are-“ Hela stops this time as Tony quickly moves on and stumbles into his desk next. He nearly knocks the damn thing over from the impact, everything falls off but he ignores it and tries to walk.

He ignores his body feeling like nothing because he’s focused on nothing but the bathroom a few feet away. He even knocks pictures off the wall from trying to hold himself up, he doesn’t even take three steps before he fucking trips over his damn feet. 

He doesn’t feel a thing. He doesn’t feel his arms aching from catching himself, he doesn’t feel his head throbbing from smacking it into the wall. 

And he loves it, this is exactly what he wanted. (Minus the sickness)

He feels Hela’s soft touch around his waist  “what are you trying to do?” she asks as she carefully helps him sit up.  He looks at her for a moment, trying to remember what his goal was. He almost forgets until his stomach throbs and bile rises up his throat.

“gonna puke” he mumbles as he stands up and basically falls into the bathroom. 

She could hear stuff falling. The crack of the shower glass before she hears puking.

She swallows down the lump in her throat and looks at Thor to see him looking completely numb, even with the tears streaming down his cheeks.  “we have to get Loki back” Thor says, his voice strong. Hela doesn't think Thor even knows he’s crying “no matter what it takes”

"I'm sorry" Tony says between his loud breaths "I'm sorry" he stops as sobs take over.

“Friday I swear to god if you don’t tell me-”

“Ms.Odinsdottir has used her seidr to heal the boss” she interrupts and despite being an AI, Ikol could still hear her relief as she says “he is fine now”

“you said overdosing again”

“yes, he has overdosed in the past”

“on what?” Ikol asks out of curiosity (not concern.) “when I was gone?”

Friday is silent for a minute before stating ”I’m sorry sir but I am forbidden to tell you that information” Ikol wishes this bitch was real so he could beat the answer out of her. But he can’t so he’s going to go for option two, manipulation.

“what can you tell me?”

And Friday starts speaking instantly, “you are Loki, born December 7th in 754AD, you are very smart and skilled with your seidr, you belong to the royal family of Asgard and Jotunheim-”

“boring, boring-” he lays down “boring” emphasizing his words and sighs loudly. “I know all of that already, tell me about them”

“Mr. Odinson is your brother-“

This is going to take a while

April 8th, 2017

Thor asks “where were you two yesterday?” as soon as Gamora and Nebula walk in.

“that’s none of your business” Nebula retorts at the same time her sister says “getting this-” Gamora whips out a phone, Tony instantly knows its Loki’s phone, he doesn’t know how but he knows. “-and trying to find a charger for it”

“well did you find one?”

“Yeah but..” she throws his phone down onto the coffee table and sits down “we don’t know his password, we tried everything ”

“Can you hack it?” 

“it’s not the eighties, nobody says hack anymore Hela” Tony retorts and then looks back at the sisters “did you try- i don’t know, my name ”

before either of the sisters could grab it, Natasha does. She types in Tony’s name and the phone unlocks “cute” she deadpans before going to the pictures-

Tony suddenly snatches the phone from her “I was using that” she says flatly as she watches Tony cradle the phone to his chest.

“believe me there’s shit in there that you do not want to see” he explains and that’s enough for everyone except Hela.

“so only you and my brother could look?”

“unless you wanna see our sex tape then yeah” he deadpans and Hela's face falls. 

“my brother would never-”

“he didn’t, I did” Tony smiles as she grimaces “but he didn’t complain” 

“Okay stop talking about your sex tape and go give him the damn phone” Steve demands as he pinches his nose.

“ooh, Cap’s givin’ orders” Tony sing songs and ‘Cap’ sighs loudly. Tony laughs as he gets up “get your thong out of your ass, I’m goin”

He hears a whispered “Jesus christ” in reply.

Ikol is calmly reading a book, not even acknowledging Tony until the latter says “hey sunshine” earning a disgusted look and a mumbled “ew”

Tony on the other hand is giddy as he throws the phone over and it lands on the bed, bouncing right into Ikol’s lap, “your phone” is all Tony says.

“I already have one”

Tony corrects himself “Loki’s phone then”  and Ikol looks at him so fast that Tony has to wonder why that got his attention. Too bad he can’t ask

Ikol picks up the phone and deadpans “password”

“my name”

Ikol scoffs and shakes his head before typing. He reads out “Timothy” slowly as he types it in and Tony doesn't know if he’s fucking around or not but he doesn’t care.

Tony laughs as he heads for the door again “I’ll leave you to reminisce”

Ikol’s only looking at the phone to find out more about the avengers. But he nods with a hum and nearly sighs once he hears the door slide shut.

He opens the texts and opens the last chat, titled ‘Elskan min’ and the last message nearly makes his poor little heart feel something.

Elskan min: I’ll always love you, remember that

Tony wanted to forget yesterday. He wanted to pretend it was a dream because that’s what it felt like, but he’s Tony Stark, and nothing ever goes his way.

“what’d you take yesterday?” Rhodey asks as soon as he walks into the lab. He doesn’t even bother to say hello, “you’ve relapsed before, took more heroin than I’ve ever seen and didn’t overdose-”

“Rhodey I don’t want to talk about it”

“you never want to talk about it!” Rhodey snarls and Tony’s heart drops. Rhodey has never talked to him like this before “but guess what Tony, ignoring it isn’t going to make it better” he spits coldly. God Tony wants to cry.

He swallows down the lump in his throat and takes a deep breath “I know I scare you and I’m so sorry” his voice cracks. “But you gotta understand that I’ve been doing this for years, I can’t go cold turkey” he really wishes he could, he stopped for a few years and honestly, he could probably never go that long again.

“I’m just asking if you took what I think you took” 

Tony turns around and goes back to fixing the old impala “morphine or fentanyl?”

“last one”

“yep” he hears Rhodey sigh and keeps his back turned, Rhodey is one of the only people that saw him cry but that doesn’t mean that Tony is comfortable crying in front of him.

Rhodey's voice is soft as he finally speaks “Tones, you gotta-”

“stop? I gotta get clean? gotta go to rehab?” he asks bitterly “believe me Rhodey I heard it all before” and he knows, he knows that he has to stop but he can't.

He's tried.

“If you weren’t stronger then you would’ve died” he wishes he did.

“If I wasn’t stronger I wouldn’t need to do fentanyl to actually feel high”

Rhodey is quiet, Tony knows he’s thinking, thinking about how to say whatever he wants to say without pissing Tony off. “Tony, you’re my bestfriend and I love you” Rhodey says and Tony’s tears fall, he's glad his back is turned. “If you’re going to do drugs go ahead just don’t–” Rhodey sighs “I just want you to be safe”

He hastily wipes his tears and turns around. He can’t promise he won’t relapse but he can promise this, “I won’t do that much again, promise” Tony declares with a sad smile and Rhodey just nods “thank you for putting up with me”

“yeah well, who else will?”

Chapter Text

Loki had hundreds of missed calls and texts. Each of the  Avengers asking him to come home, asking where he is and why he left.  And Ikol can’t help but feel a little bit pissed off . They truly love Loki and the fucking coward left them, he ruined it. 

(Ikol can’t help but imagine that his sisters love him just as much.)

But he quickly shakes that off and goes to the photos. 

Over half of the three hundred pictures were Tony.  And he can admit it now, Tony is kinda hot, especially without a shirt.

He clicks on the picture of Tony sleeping, Ikol can’t tell if he’s wearing pants or not because the blanket covers his lower half. 

He’s gonna take a wild stab that the answer is no, judging by the hickeys on Tony.

And right beside said picture is a thirty-six minute video. 

He lets his curiosity get the best of him and clicks on the video. Instantly he hears panting and it’s exactly what he expected it to be. 

Loki asks “what’re you doing?” lowly between his panting and Ikol recognizes the pale abs on screen as his own. He frowns but then Tony catches his attention.

Tony says “recording” happily and then the screen goes black and you cant hear anything but static. Loki was trying to snatch the phone away but he stops once Tony says “it’s your phone”

“I would like to look at you, not my phone” 

Tony places the phone on the nightstand, far away enough to see them clearly. 

Electricity pools in his stomach as he sees Tony straddling Loki, their skin tones contrasting against each other perfectly but that’s not important. 

What’s important is the way Tony leans down and kisses Loki so softly that it makes the electricity turn into butterflies.

He watches as Loki mumbles “I love you” against his lips and before Tony could reply, Loki thrusts and Tony breaks off into a moan.

He collapses against Loki and the latter smirks, he grips Tony’s hips and keeps going, keeping his pace slow so he could feel every hitch of Tony’s breath. Every moan and sigh. 

And the electricity is back. He blames the sounds coming out of Tony because he did not expect that egotistical rich bitch to be so submissive. The way he just takes it, moaning without a care – 

Ikol snaps out of it and screams in horror as he throws the phone across the room. He hugs his knees to his chest and he stares at the perfectly undamaged phone like it just called him down. 

The electricity is still there and he hesitantly looks down - yep, he’s hard.

He wants to damn throw up but instead, he goes and takes a cold shower, pretending like that never happened. 

Because it didn’t happen. 

Thor takes a shaky breath as he watches Loki. Sitting on the floor at the edge of his bed, surrounded by gold and green but the  nice surroundings just make it worse.

Loki has everything and he still feels the need to run a blade over his thighs. Thor doesn’t feel tears streaming down his face as Loki looks up at him and mumbles “go away, I don’t need a lecture”

“brother..” he trails off as he watches blood leak down his brothers leg, soaking his cape.

“I know this isn’t real” he states as he goes to press the blde back to his leg. 

In seconds Thor slaps the blade out of his hand and holds onto his hands for good measure “brother what is this?” Loki looks at him and Thor’s blood runs cold. 

There’s nothing in his eyes. No colour, no anger, no sadness. 

Nothing.

“it’s my hell” 

April 10th, 2017

Tony has been in the lab for two days now and conveniently Bruce decided to join him, and bring breakfast. 

He raises a brow, knowing what Bruce is doing but the latter just gives him an innocent smile and asks “what’re you working on now?”

“my car while I wait for Friday to wake up” He says as he lays on a creeper, scooting himself under the car he asks “Brucey can you check that reading for me?”

“you can say please you know?”

He rolls his eyes as he undoes the oil gasket and makes sure the bucket is in the right place for the oil todrip into,  Oil is a bitch to clean up. He doesn’t even notice that some of it got onto his hand- “tony” 

“hm?”

“come look at this”

“just wait i’m changing the oil filter-”

“Tony come and look at this” he says harshly and his low tone makes Tony actually listen. 

He grunts as he gets out from under the car and walks over to Bruce. He leans on the backrest of the chair and looks at the screen- “that’s-“

“CMBR” Bruce finishes even though Tony knows already 

“why is there metal in his head?”

“one’s his eye but it-” Nebula’s a cyborg, and the rectangle reminds him of a hard drive “it’s giving off radio waves”  

Bruce frowns at him “why would his eye be giving off radio waves?”

“Friday, are you up yet?” 

“yes sir”

Tony frowns, it can’t be “great try and connect to the signal” he pauses “or find a broadcast signal”

“what do you think it is?” Bruce asks, knowing that tone of voice.

“Nebs is a cyborg, she can replay her memories” 

“why are you even here?” Hela asks harshly, ignoring Thor's scolding look. “why’d you start killing people knowing that we would look into it?”

“I didn’t give a fuck whether or not you looked into it” 

Thor asks “why were you killing people that used to work for HYDRA?” and Ikol just shrugs. “why are you back? why now?” he continues, desperate for an answer “why did you come back just when we were starting to do better?”

“why are you interrogating me?”

“you’ve never been interested in the stones before”

His face falls and he scoffs “my sisters told you” he mumbles and Thor feels his heart burn, he calls them his sisters but he barely remembers his real siblings. 

Thor takes a deep breath and walks out, leaving Hela with him.

“why does Thanos want the stones-“

“fuck you” Ikol spits harshly, “that’s why”

Hela can’t help but laugh, this new Loki is a fucking asshole but he is new, and they needed a change from their repeated schedule. They need new.

“I can see Loki in you” she states, “his anger and hate” Ikol rolls his eyes and shakes his head. It was different from Loki.

Loki hid his emotions, he wasn’t expressive meanwhile Ikol freely shows it, not giving a single shit if he’s being a dick. Loki was all knives and going for the kill, Ikol liked the fight, he liked letting his opponent think they’re winning only to rip the rug out from under them. 

Talking was the opposite though, Loki liked to build it up, to get the other mad before he went for the final blow. 

Ikol just goes straight for it. 

“he really hated you” Ikol states lowly “all your worrying and your caring, it was so fucking annoying, like don’t you have anything better to do with your life?”

“like working for a maniac to try and get the stones?”

Ikol’s face falls slack, judging. “you are a very bad interrogator” he deadpans, “no wonder you stick to caring, you suck at being the bad-“ Hela suddenly throws a knife at him and he catches it just a couple inches away from his face.

He looks down at his palm, grimacing at the blood but it quickly stops as the wound heals in seconds. 

“you’re in no position to be rude” 

“actually I am” he waves around the room “you guys are keeping me locked up”

Tony doesn’t know why he’s surprised, he expected this. He stares at thousands of videos, all from the last four years that Loki’s been with Thanos. 

“So he has a bionic eye” Bruce breathes out and Tony doesn’t even notice himself hum in reply. Too focused on the thumbnail showing Nebula chained to a chair.

he suddenly blurts “we can’t watch these”, not if it shows them being tortured.

“I don’t want to anyways” Bruce sighs “but we need to know what happened”

“Day can you export the audios into files please”

“I will alert you when I am finished”

Chapter Text

Tony frowns as he takes in the newly black walls. He looks over the room and tilts his head in confusion as he realizes it’s nothing like the bare cell it used to be. 

The single bed is now a queen, with a giant black duvet. The floor is still white but now it’s fuller, a dresser beside the archway leading to the bathroom, a small table in the middle of the room littered with paper and pencils.

he calls out “hello?” and drags out the syllables. Ikol doesn’t reply verbally but he announces his presence by walking out of the bathroom, but ass naked.

  “oh” Tony exclaims as he turns away, not because he doesn’t want to see Ikol naked because he does. It’s because he doesn’t want to see all the damage that was done in the past 5 years.

“what?” Ikol asks innocently as he starts digging through his dresser “it’s nothing you haven’t seen before”

Tony doesn’t deny that at all “just wish you would’ve told me, I wouldn’t mind washing your back”

Ikol smirks, but it’s hidden because he puts his pants and Tony is still facing the other way. Ikol turns around once his pants are on “I’ll keep that in mind next time-” he stops short of his words as he catches something flyinf at him.

He frowns, feeling the soft material of the little box. He looks down at the dark green velvet and knows it’s a ring. He still opens it to reveal a black ring, embedded with red and green gems. An engagement ring.

“oh?” he looks up at Tony and raises a brow, silently asking Tony to explain what the hell this is supposed to do.

“there’s really nothing left in you?”

Ikol smiles and chucks the ring back “just my winning sense of humor and newfound appreciation of watching blood splatter” he says happily and lays down on the comfortable ass looking bed 

“so knowing that you could have stopped fighting other peoples battles and be happy doesn’t do anything?”

“I like fighting, I like killing”

Tony sighs “forget it” and heads for the door “just like you forgot everything else”

“how do you know Loki wanted a peaceful life?” Ikol asks and Tony stops dead in his tracks “did you ask if he wanted a family and a white picket fence?” 

He didn’t. But Ikol doesn't know that “yeah” Tony mumbles as he walks out “he wanted it more than anything” lies.

You’re just as bad as him.

“I don’t think making him feel is going to work because um, it’s not working” Tony states as he pours himself a drink “and he’s not going to feel shit for us unless he remembers”

“then we have to torture him”

“what?” Natasha asks loudly, obviously not liking the idea at all “I thought you said that would make Loki hide?”

“it might make him feel again” Thor states “having the people I love most torture me would surely make me turn it on”

“I’m not hurting him” Tony states, talking over Bruce asking “what does turn it on mean?” 

“then you can stand there and piss him off” Hela suggests a compromise and judging by Tony deflating, he agrees.

He still feels like a piece of shit though.

And Natasha can see that, that is why she suggests “let me talk to him” with her serious tone, “I’m a spy, I know how to make people talk”

“ok” Nat’s eyes widen, she didn’t expect them to agree. “go” Hela demands and Natasha happily does so

Ikol smirks at Natasha walking by the window “Natalia” he greets happily as the door opens with a hiss and she steps in. “you and Tom are stupidly brave”

Told you Ikol ignores Loki because Natasha sits down, just like Tony did.

Natasha would never be scared of him. Not Loki or Ikol. “is that a Loki memory?” she asks.

Ikol raises a brow and scoffs “no it’s not, I got your files” he mentions and just to fuck with her he adds “again” , knowing that Barton stole files for Loki many years ago. 

“how?”

“I don’t snitch” he replies back without missing a beat.

“I’ll do something for you in return-” 

“who’s Yelena?” Natasha’s eyes widen slightly and Ikol knows she remembering Asgard. The confrontation after Loki protected her.

Asshole Loki snarls and Ikol resists the urge to smirk.

Natasha knows he still has the lie detector and that he read her file so she doesn’t bother lying, “my little sister that I haven’t seen in twenty years”

Ikol’s smirk widens as he points out “you got out of the red room, left her behind” Natashas throat tightens up with guilt “knowing that there’s no way for her to get out”. He suddenly chuckles and Natashas guilt instantly morphs into fear “I’m fucking crazy but I wouldn’t even be able to do that” he lets out a long breath as he finishes laughing “I didn’t leave Thanos until I knew my sisters could come too”

“Thanos and the Red Room are two different things”

“kidnapping children and raising them to be assassins sounds pretty similar”

“they took out my ovaries so I wouldn’t have to worry about anything other than my mission” Natasha deadpans “he made it so that we couldn’t hurt him, even if we wanted to, biologically rearranged us to be better servants” 

“done?” Ikol asks and Natasha’s eyebrows drop as she nods a yes. Ikol reaches up and Natashas gut twists when he digs a finger into his eye socket.

“what the fuck?” Natasha spits loudly to cover up the squelching noises.

Ikol gasps softly and suddenly holds up his fucking eyeball.  Natasha freezes, her face draining of colour.

“it’s bionic” Loki explains “it’s connected to my magic and my cells so it enhances my senses as well”

“as well as what?”

Ikol grins “nice try” he comments before he opens his eyelid and Natasha looks away, not wanting to see how he puts the eye back.

She only looks badk when Ikol suddenly asks “and why are you talking to me?” with an innocent look but his voice os dripping in mischief “you don’t love Loki that much-”

“what if I do?”

“Boss you have a visitor-“

“tell them to fu-“  Tony snaps his mouth shut as the elevator stops and opens. He frowns as he looks at a man that looks like he just jumped straight out of Harry Potter

“where is Loki Odinson?”

Hela frowns “Odinson?” she repeats dumbly “No Loki Odinson here sorry”

“I have a list of potential threats to this planet and your brother is one of them” 

Hela looks at Thor and asks “Him?” in shock, but the smirk on her face tells Strange that they’re busting his balls.

“Loki Laufeyson, Friggason-whatever he goes by” 

“he’s been missing for years” Steve states “sorry we can’t help-“

“you can actually” Strange doesn’t show any emotion as he demands “you can stop lying to me”

“we’ve been looking for him”

“no luck in finding him” Sam finishes

Strange glares at every single one of them, “I am the sorcerer Supreme, I know when there is a danger to our world” he says lowly, hoping that they’ll fucking take him seriously “and I know that Loki I suggest you tell me where he is, so I can get him off Earth before more threats-”

“more threats” Bruce repeats “like who?”

Ikol shakes his head, not buying it for a second. His entire demeanor darkens along with his voice “you’re coming to talk to me to find something out, hoping you can find a crack and wiggle your way into the core so you could undo the foundation” 

“I-”

“like a disease” he finishes happily but that fake joy is quickly replaced by anger “the only thing I’m going to tell you is the shit you don’t want to hear”

“did you really forget everything?”

“did you really kill a little girl?”

Natasha can feel herself going pale “how do you know about that?”

“I know everything” Ikol states smugly and leans forward. “and I know-” his voice drops along with her heart “that you were taken”

Natasha swallows “I was abandoned-”

“not true” Ikol says happily “your birth mother, she searched for you-”

“where is she?”

Ikol pauses for a moment before continuing “she searched for you to the point that it killed her”

Natasha stands with a growl but it gets caught in her throat because Loki suddenly pushes her against the wall so hard that her head cracks the glass. She groans as Ikol’s hand wraps around her throat.

Stop Loki begs but it just gives Ikol motivation

“don’t ever think your tactics will work on me, little girl ” he hisses and Natasha would be more focused on his words if she could breathe properly “whatever the Red Room taught you” he leans forward and whispers in her ear “I could do better. I am the God of Mischief and Chaos, you can’t get what you want from me unless I want you to have it” he suddenly lets go, using the action to shove her back into the wall

“I’m sorry” Natasha chokes out and she never thought she would be so grateful to be on stable ground.

“No, I’m sorry”

Don’t do this to her

Natasha flinches back as Ikol suddenly snaps the bracelets around her wrists and when she’s about to ask what the fuck she’s doing. 

Her words are caught in her throat as she makes eye contact with herself.

“bye bye, Ikol” 

“Just tell me where he is so I can be done with this and leave”

“even if we did know we wouldn’t tell you”

Strange sighs harshly “do you not understand the words threat to this world?”

“threat as in, New York Invasion Threat or Global Destruction Threat?” 

“He-“ before Strange could say anything FRIDAY interrupts with “I am so sorry to interrupt but Ikol has gotten out”  

Chapter Text

“Thanks for the help” Ikol deadpans as he sits down with take out food

“couldn't help you without getting caught” Gamora replies before asking “did you really stop at Mcdonald’s?”

“I was hungry” Ikol opens up the bag and starts taking out the food “don’t worry I got you guys chicken nuggets” he reassures and pushes two of the cartons towards them

“gee thanks”

“your welcome – now how are we going to get the kid?”

Gamora raises a brow “why don’t you just give up your ex?”

Ikol keeps bringing out food as he speaks “because Tritan wi-“ he breaks off into a gasp “-they burnt my fucking cookie! – Tritan will resist” he continues like nothing happened “a kid can be easily manipulated so he’s the obvious answer”

“that would take too much time, father said no distractions” Nebula points out 

“father said its either the kid or the tin man”

“he’s a kid” 

“why does that matter?” he asks with a tilt of his head,  his gaze darkening “you better not be going soft on me Nebs” 

“we’d have to kill them all to get the kid” Gamora states “they wouldn’t let us take him”

“then we kill em all”

“they’re good” Gamora points out “they knocked us out remember?” to hopefully make Ikol come up with another way. 

“well I’m better-“ he stops “as long as you keep that antenna bitch away from me” 

He stole Natasha’s car and they found the car but no Ikol, and no car keys. The wizard tried to do a tracking spell and found nothing which isn’t surprising considering that Loki could hide from Heimdall. 

But still, Tony’s pissed. 

Mostly sad because he actually likes Ikol, he doesn’t like the fact that Ikol is the biggest asshole he’s ever met but it’s better than nothing right? 

And he was just about to go to the lab to get his mind off of everything when Rhodey stops him by asking “you’re not going to do fentanyl again right?”

He’s sad enough, he doesn’t want to talk about this right now so he says “why you wanna join?” jokingly.

Rhodey gives him that look that tells him this isn’t the time “you can talk to me” 

“no, actually, I can't” he blurts “because you don't understand what it’s like”

“make me understand” Rhodey demands desperately and Tony rolls his eyes “I’m your best fucking friend Tony”

“And I love you for it but this shit is just too dark” he says honestly. Rhodey would definitely cry if Tony told him and he never cries, but Tony's not going to say that so he makes up an excuse “you already treat me like glass from my diagnosis and this will just make it worse”

“I promise I won’t”

“there’s no way to make you understand” 

“well try”

“it’s quiet” is all he could manage at first “the world goes quiet and I feel safe, the bullshit in my life doesn’t matter, the world doesn’t matter because-“ he smiles, but it’s not happy at all “-everything will be okay”  he breathes out before taking a sharp breath. He gathers himself together and continues. “honestly drugs are probably the only reason I haven't killed myself”

He’s going to soon. He can’t deny that.

Because he’s starting to like the overdoses. He’s starting to like feeling all life drain away, he likes feeling his heart slow down and his lungs stop. 

He likes the five seconds of nothing.

And Rhodey will never get that. 

“my head is so fucked up, you’ll never understand what it’s like” Tony adds emotionlessly.

Rhodey sighs, obviously tired of having this same argument every time Tony relapses “if you rely on drugs to keep you going then you might as well throw the towel in now” Rhodey says quietly, finally saying what he wanted to years ago  “you forgot how to live, Tony” 

“oh and you know how?” Tony asks bitterly “James Rhodes, The Saint, actually knows how to have fun?”

“I said to live , not have fun” Rhodey corrects “but yes I do”

“so what? you wanna pull some AA shit on me?” his tone gets harsher and Rhodey knows he has to back off or else  this will turn into a fight. “or better yet, an NA speech”  

“I’ve never been to either in my life”

Tony snorts from trying to hold back his laugh “me too” his smile quickly fades as he points out “I’ve been sober since that night” 

 “good” Rhodey nods “I like sober you”.

"Can I go now?" Tony asks and Rhodey holds back his smile as he lets him go

April 11th, 2017

Ikol doesn’t even say hello to Gamora when she walks in, instead he asks “what was Terry’s baby mama's name again?”

Gamora frowns until she sees the notebook in his hands, “Jane Foster” she answers and watches as Ikol starts writing it down. “Why do you do that?”

“Write their names down?” she nods, “I took their life-” he states like she’s not aware of that “-it’s only fair that I remember them” he tries to go back to writing but he notices that look in her eyes. That distant look that either means she’s depressed or thinking “‘sup with you?”

“They’re good” she states “too good-”

“You don’t think we can do this” Ikol interrupts, he scoffs and throws his book on the coffee table “this is why dad picks me-”

“Dad picks you because your humanity is off” she states harshly “you don’t care if you’re caught or killed, you just care about his approval”

Her words don’t affect him at all, he just shrugs as he reminds her “I don’t care about anything” his voice calm as ever as he gets up and goes to his room “I would tell you to try it out but you don’t have a switch-” he busts out laughing when his book comes flying by the door

April 13th, 2017

“Okay, no more wasting time Kol” Gamora demands as she throws his headpiece at him and he just lets it fly by “get going”

“ah come on” he whines and sips his drink “I’ve been doing all the work, gimme a brea-“

“tell that to dad”

“fine” Ikol gets up and heads to the bathroom “I’m gonna shower and when I leave you’ll tell the fantastic fifty that you saw me at a bar”

“ah” Ikol hums as he takes a seat. Smiling innocently at Tony and Natasha “Norma and Trent” Natasha raises a brow and Tony rolls his eyes as Ikol continues “I gotta admit-“ he steals a fry from Tony's plate, using it to point at them as he speaks “you guys are persistent”

“so are you” Natasha shoots back and adds “you get it from Loki” with a smug smile at Ikol’s scowl.

“what do you want?” he asks lowly and quickly, wanting to get this over with and get back to karaoke.

“to know if our friend is still in there”

Ikol raises a brow and his lips quirk up into a smirk “oh he is” he says happily “it’s fun hearing him beg me not to hurt you all” Ikol chuckles “just gives me more pleasure”

“you’re a psychopa-”

“ah” Ikol interrupts before correcting “I’m a sociopath, there's a difference”

“Lok-“

“I’m Ikol” he growls “Loki is pathetic. He cares too much, feels too much damn guilt and that made him weak” 

“it made him strong”

“then it’s his hopeless love for you that makes him weak”

Tony shakes his head “you’re lying” he spits back. He’s trying not to believe anything Ikol says because if he does then it won’t be good for anyone. 

Ikol smirks “he lied to you but he can’t lie to himself” 

“How ironic-” Tony smirks as he points out “it’s funny because you're doing exactly that”

Ikol glares before throwing a punch, Tony catches his fist. Allowing Natasha to snap the bracelet on him and he falls limp, causing the plates and cups to move from the impact.

Loki takes a deep breath, keeping his head down because he can’t look. Hearing Tony scream is enough to make him ball his eyes out in front of Thanos.

He doesn’t hear Thanos laughing or taunting him, all he hears is Tony. Tony gasping for air between his sobs only for a scream to choke him and then repeat. 

He has no idea how long it’s been but it feels like hours.

“Stop!” he commands and on que Tony’s screams are replaced with panting. Loki manages to look up, Tony’s covered in blood, to the point that Loki can’t tell where it’s coming from.

He looks at Thanos because he would rather not watch Tony bleed out “let him go” he begs quietly “I’ll do whatever you want just let him go”

Thanos smiles “okay” he finishes by stabbing the knife into Tony’s neck. 

Loki’s heart stops as he watches Tony choke on his own blood before his eyes finally close and his head hangs forwards. He takes a deep breath and his exhale comes out in a sob, struggling to make his lungs work —

“Sir, please put down the spear!”

Ikol groans from the backseat. Tony ignores him as he mumbles out “what the fuck?”

Natasha groans loudly “our little psycho is up”

“first of all, don’t nickname, that’s my thing” Tony says “second, he’s not our psycho, he’s my psycho”

Ikol sits up “open the door” he demands quickly “I’d rather jump out of a moving car than listen to how much you love me”. Tony chuckles in reply and Ikol groans, he lays back down and asks “where are we going anyway?” as he rubs his aching head.

“compound and then Asgard”

Chapter Text

“compound and then Asgard” 

Ikol shoots up at that and nearly yells “Asgard? The Asgard?”

“uh yeah” Natasha mumbles, looking at him like he’s crazy as she reminds him “you’re kinda from there”

His jaw drops and Natasha is even more confused “Loki’s really a prince?” he asks in disbelief “I thought Odin stole him”

“he raised Loki as his own kid so yeah, you’re a prince”

“nonono” Ikol says quickly “I’m not Loki” he corrects “I’m Ikol, say it with me Ik-“

“shut up” Natasha spits at the same time Tony tries to say “no princely privileges for you then”

And that seems to get Ikol to change his mind because he quickly relaxes, knotting his fingers together behind his head he says “I could be boring for a day” happily with a smile to match “how hard could it be, you guys do it all the time”

“thanks babe”

That smile fades instantly and he deadpans “gross” before laying down again.

Ikol was all smiles as they paraded him through the town all the way to the castle. Even despite all the scowls and whispers directed at him, he was smirking and confident, bathing in all the attention.

Until a certain woman threw her arms around him and started squeezing like her life depended on it.

Ikol doesn’t move, he just frowns at the woman embracing him. A warmth settles in his stomach that he mistakes as nausea, so he lifts his arms and grabs her hands “ok whatever-your-name-is–“ he pries her off gently and steps back, ignoring her furrowed brows “–I’m not into PDA”

She scoffs out a laugh “you never were” she points out and Ikol doesn’t do anything. 

He knows that they knew each other, that they loved and cared for one another, he can see it on her face. The happiness. 

But he can’t remember, he doesn’t know who the fuck this woman is.

“what were we?” She takes it the wrong way and scowls. Ikol rolls his eyes and asks “were you my enemy? girlfriend?-“

“ew” Brunnhilde deadpans before she looks at someone behind him and her expression shifts for a split second, too fast for him too see. She bites her lip as she says “I’m Brunnhilde, we grew up together”

She’s your bestfriend.

Ikol blinks and scans her. Brunnhilde, sounds familiar- and then it hits him, he gasps as his mouth falls open “V-card Valkyrie?” he asks a bit too happily as he looks between Brunnhilde and Tony “this is so awkward for you two-“

“quit being rude” Hela deapans, tired of hearing Ikol’s voice. She starts walking and pushes him along, he scowls at her but doesn’t attempt to fight back. Hela knows he can even through the chains and cuffs. 

Loki could, so Ikol definitely can.

“you’re welcome to come Brunnhilde” Thor calls out and she follows instantly, taking the spot between Thor and Tony.

Tony sees her looking at him, they never talked when he was on Asgard for Thor’s celebration. Which is understandable considering Loki was just repairing his friendship with her while ruining his relationship with Tony.

Before either of them could say anything, Thor asks Ikol “you really don’t remember her?”

Ikol shakes his head “if I can’t remember my so called soulmate then why would I remember her?”

Tony can see Brunnhilde lick the inside of her cheek like she’s trying not to say something. Or she’s holding back emotions. Tony doesn’t know but it pisses him off.

“you remember the song” Tony retorts like a smartass and Ikol spins around, making Hela stumble back a bit. 

“I hate that fucking song” Ikol snarls, his cold gaze scanning Tony from head to toe “almost as much as I hate looking at you”

And surprisingly, those words don’t hurt as much anymore, so much so that he manages to shoot back “that why I keep catching you staring at me?”

Ikol glares and tries to do something , before Tony could find out Hela pulls him back and pushes him as a nice way of telling him to keep walking.

The healers failed, they couldn’t get rid of Ikol because “his seidr is too strong” and to say that Odin was pissed is an understatement.

“you do this to torment me, coming before me like this. With no shame and more gall than any creature that has ever dared to live” he hisses out, Hela and Thor cower away despite being the ones in the clear.

 It just shows how much Odin scares them

 “-this is how you torture the god who saved you loki, the one who has raised you as his own”

Ikol crosses his arms, not affected at all “I came to see the famous asgard, not impressed” he says jokes, and then the cold look is back, “I’m confused about how i’m tormenting you Odin” he deadpans, “I didn’t lock you in mausoleums and starve you for weeks”

“it torments me to see how far you've fallen”

“this is what you wanted” Ikol states “a strong, ruthless and committed child” his voice is dripping with snark as he smirks. “I’m everything you wanted from Loki and you hate the fact that Thanos did what you couldn't”

“I didn’t want this” 

“no that’s exactly what you wanted, you hoped that all the pain you put him through would trigger his full potential but you just hightened his pain tolerance” Ikol declares and Odin looks down at him “you hoped that he wpuld help you conquer the nine realms right?” Ikol hears Odin swallow and he bathes in the fact that he sees the colour draining from the old mans face.

“I could kill you”

“Ikol-” Hela tries to stop him somehow, but Ikol is alreay glaring at Odin.

And the stronger his glare gets, the weaker odins heartbeat is. Odin’s eyeslids try to close but the old man fights it “but then my revenge would be over so-” Odin’s head falls forwards but he isntantly lifts it, blinking away the exhaustion “-the Odinsleep should be enough for now”

“Loki-” Odin manages to slur but his eyes finally close before he could finish his sentence.

Ikol was serious about wanting to see Asgard, and after twenty minutes of wandering the castle, ignoring the Avengers searching for him. He finally found Loki’s room.

It was untouched, according to Loki. Everything was exactly how he left it-

Ikol turns around at a small knock on the door to find a tan man walking in. 

Valki asks “is is true?” with a soft, shaky voice. His eyes fill with tears as he resumes speaking “please tell me what happened out there was all an act, just another one of your tricks?”

Ikol just asks “and what were you to Loki other than a servant?” Valki swallows, not wanting to say anything. 

But he does “he was my first love” he admits in a whisper. 

Ikol nods “he had quite a few lovers I see” he mumbles to himself and Valki opens his mouth to say something but Ikol cuts him off. Because he gets an idea “would you be okay with him being your last love?”

“wha-” Valki can’t finish his sentence because Ikol grabs his head and with one twist, a loud snap echoes throughout the room.

And Valki lays lifeless on the ground. 

Hela suddenly tenses up as she stares at an empty spot “Valki?”. All the Asgardians frown at her but before they could ask Hela continues speaking “what’re you-” she cuts herself off by taking a deep breath, her eyes widen and her tears fall.

“no” she breathes out and shakes her head- 

Ikol suddenly busts through the doors and happily calls out “good evening morons”. He grunts as Hela suddenly pushes him up against the wall. 

“what did you do?”  she screams in his face.

“you care about that servant?” he asks in disbelief and groans when Hela pushes him into the wall again.

“he was our friend-”

“your friend” Ikol corrects coldly, “he was your friend and Loki’s fuck buddy and I’m not him so that servant doesn’t mean shit to me”

Hela lets go of him and steps back “you’re lying”

“you’re going to have to clarify what I’m lying about”

“don’t blame him” Valki blurts as he stares at Ikol in sadness “he’s not himself”

Hela swallows as her chest burns and she suddenly gets the urge to move . When suddenly, Fandral punches Ikol in the face for her and the urge fades as she watches Ikol stumble back.

“he was our friend” Fandral growls “as was Loki, you killed both of them and I assure you that I will make you suffer for it” 

Ikol smiles “awe” he hums “you love him? don’t you?” 

Fandral recoils “what?”

“that’s why you hate him, because you don’t hate him at all” Ikol observes, “you fell in love with Loki but he didn’t feel anything for you and you hate him for it, am I wrong?” 

“I don’t hate hi-”

“explains why you bullied him-“

Fandral demands “I suggest you be quiet” but he forgets that this isn’t Loki, he won’t listen. 

“- explains why you agreed to kill him” Fandral takes a deep breath, he could already feel the glares directed at him “you watched as the man you loved chose lover after lover, but never you”

“stop talking”

“hating him won’t make you unlove him” 

“well if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black” 

Ikol chuckles “you think you know me Fragglerock, but you don’t” he states “you know the selfless version of me, the guilty one, the weak one ” he hisses harsh enough to make Fandral flinch “So act like you know me again and I’ll prove to you how wrong you are”

Fandral lets out a breath as he scans Loki for anything , but he gets nothing but a dull grey watching him. “you truly turned it off” Fandral breathes out.

Ikol rolls his eyes and groans loudly as he turns around and looks at all the confused, shocked faces. “all of you are idiots” he looks at Gamora and Nebula “you two especially”

Chapter Text

Since Odin is not fully functional at the moment, Hela had to stay, she is the oldest sibling and Thor couldn’t do it, he wasn’t mentally strong enough after the past couple days. All he could focus on is keeping Lukka safe.

And once his son was asleep Thor decided to take some time to himself. 

Well he tried, because Natasha came to check on him. 

“Loki is the cause of all of this” Thor states and just when Natasha is going to tell him that it’s not Loki’s fault, Thor blows her mind. “If Loki hadn’t attacked this city I never would have met you or Tony or Steve” He explains “if he didn’t ruin my coronation then I never would have met jane” His tone drops “Lukka wouldn’t be born”

Natasha takes a deep breath and tries to swallow the lump in her throat. Because it’s fucking true. Every word is true and Natasha has no idea if it breaks her heart or fixes it a little more.

“Loki gave me all of this, a family, love, a home. And yet he can’t even be apart of it” Thor sighs and drops his head back “he can’t find his own happiness but he found mine, and I can’t repay him”

“are you really happy though?” and Thor sighs loudly “because you don’t seem too happy”

“I just want my brother” he admits in a whisper “I just need my brother”

“if i know anything about little siblings it’s that, they act like they hate you but it’s just a ruse to cover up their love” Natasha states “your happiness is apart of Loki’s happiness, trust me”

“you have a sibling?”

“little sister” Nat states “we’re both adopted, my so called father gave us to the red room”

Thor frowns like a child as he asks her “why do we all have shitty parents?”

“some people are just shitty people”

“like my brother”

“that’s not Loki”

Thor wants to fully believe that. But he can’t. Not while Ikol is here “you haven’t spent a thousand years with him” Thor states “you don’t know what he can do”

April 14th, 2017

Rhodey made it a habit to come with Tony whenever he went to see Ikol, including the few minutes of Tony bringing him food or going to see why Ikol wouldn’t leave Friday alone.

And this morning he wasn’t bothering, in fact when Tony brough the food down, Ikol was still laying in bed.

Ikol grumbles as he pushes himself up onto his elbows “fuck off” he demands with one eye closed “it’s too early-“

Rhodey tells him “it’s one in the afternoon” as Tony places his plate of breakfast onto the table. They watch as Ikol staggers over to the table and sits down harshly. He notices that it’s just food, “no coffee?” 

Tony rolls his eyes “sorry your highness” Ikol glares at him before he starts eating. “why didn’t you tell me about Valki?” 

“that’s Loki’s business to tell”

“yet you just spilled the beans”

Ikol shrugs “he didn’t want to hurt you by telling you he has a fuck-buddy in the middle of your little thing you had going on” he finishes by shoving a piece of bacon into his mouth

“so you don’t remember anything but Loki talks to you?” Tony asks if he’s correct and Ikol nods “so how can you not remember then?”

“he chooses what I remember” Ikol admits through a mouthfull of food, he swallows before adding“and sometimes the memory is strong enough to break through on it’s own”

“is that why you killed Valki? whatever he made you remember was too much”

Ikol smirks. Tony thinks he has everything figured out “I killed Valki because I made a choice” the sudden darkness surrounding Ikol makes Tony almost stop breathing “everytime you guys attempt to bring me back, I’m going to kill someone you care about”

“SHIELD would lock you up”

“speaking of them” Ikol says with a tune “that pretty little Maria looks like she’s a fighter” he smirks as Tony’s eyebrows drop “you see, killing isn’t as fun without a fight”

“if we stop trying to bring you back?”

“then no one dies, that simple” Ikol says with a tune. It drops along with his smirk and says “I still don’t have coffee”

Tony and Rhodey left without another word and Friday started ignoring him. So he never got his coffee

Turns out he did get his coffee. His mouth falls open and he exclaims happily as Tony passes him the mug, he takes a hug sip woth a loud sigh, closing his eyes as the liquid awakens the dead feeling inside of him. “I have been waiting for this all morning”

“too bad you’re an asshole” Tony shoots back “or else you could get it yourself”

He just shrugs, “it’s nice having people do stuff for me” 

“I know” Ikol frowns at that “becaus I know you better than you know yourself”

Ikol barks out a laugh “really now?” he asks with a chuckle “how so?”

“I know about the tattoo behind your ear” Ikol frowns and Tony smiles “see, you didn’t even know”

“I know shit you don’t know” Ikol points out before Tony can surprise him again. 

“like what?”

“the night that Hela and Natasha slept together-“

“you passed put on the floor and I couldn’t remember who I got hickies from”

“they were from me” Ikol smiles and Tony can’t tell if what hes feeling is shock or arousal. 

“you said you didn’t know wh-“

“Loki didnt, he didnt remember” Ikol states “me on the other hand, I know everything”

“i dont believe you” Tony sing songs

Ikol reaches out his hand “come here” and Tony,s gaze darkens “you want proof? then let me show you”

“you can show people your memories?”

“Loki never told you about a fraction of his powers”

“If I agree will you tlet me show you something?”

“sure” Ikol deadpans as he steps towards Tony and the latter takes a step back on instinct. Ikol’s face falls, silently telling Tony to stop being a little bitch and let him do it.

Tony takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

Hela and Natasha just left them on the floor, like stray ice cubes. And Loki would get up if he didn’t feel bad for leaving Tony on the floor, because he knows that he’s too drunk to help Tony up.

“The room is spinning” Tony mumbles as he leans his head on Loki’s shoulder “help” 

He grabs Tony’s hand and the latter gladly intertwines their fingers. Loki doesn’t care, he’s more focused on letting his seidr work and he knows it did when Tony sighs loudly.

“thanks” he slurs as he looks up at Loki and their noses brush. Tony can feel his face getting hot and he’s blaming it on Loki’s breath and not the sudden warmth in his stomach.

And he’s not the only one that feels it judging by Loki looking at his lips, long enough for Tony’s wasted ass to notice.

“uh” Loki swallows audibly but he doesn’t move away “we should go to slee-” Loki freezes as Tony connects their lips and he sighs happily, the sound making Loki snap out of it.

He pushes Tony back a bit, enough that they aren’t kissing but when he states “you’re insane” their lips brush.

Tony smiles “jury’s out” is all he says before he leans back in and cups his jaw, pulling him in and meeting him halfway. Loki deepens the kiss, kissing Tony harder and the latter moans into his mouth.

Loki pulls back and adjusts the angle, his hand now gripping Tony’s sides and pulling him in closer until the latter climbs into his lap. 

Tomy suddenly pulls back but Loki doesn’t stop, instead he leads kisses down Tony’s jaw and the latter exhales. “we’re drunk” he says breathlessly

Loki stops his kisses to mumble “don’t remind me” and then he licks a stripe up Tony’s neck, making the human moan breathlessly.

“God Lokes” his voice cracks as Loki starts sucking gently, Tony’s hand at the nape of his neck holding him there. Tony’s breathing picks up and Loki can feel his pulse quickening as he arches into Loki.

Loki smiles, bathing in the fact that he’s got Tony this worked up already. “should we go to-“

“no” Tony interrupts as sits back on Loki’s thighs, looking down at him woth hige pupils “we’re drunk-“

Loki raises a brow “as I said, don’t remind me” he says and tries to kiss Tony again, only for Tony to turn his head making Loki kiss his jaw instead.

“If this happens I want to remember it”   he says quietly “usuallt I’d be down for this with any other person but-“

“what makes me so different?” Loki asks harshly, taking it too personally. 

“because I actually like you”

Chapter Text

Tony opens his eyes and blurts “feel anything?”

Ikol swallows “what if I do?” Tony walks over to the table and sits down. “what’re you doing?”

“what do you feel?” he asks and Ikol makes no move to speak.  “I love you” Tony states confidently “in your weakest moments to your strongest ones, I love you when you are sad or scared and I love you even when you dont love me” Loki’s eyelids flutter as his gaz darts around Tony’s face “I’m not going to judge you, I’m here for you and I’m not going anywhere”

Ikol gulps audibly “I just killed Valki” Ikol admits in a whisper so the cameras dont hear him, even though everyone knows “how can you look at me? why are you being nice to me?”

“because I love you”

“what do you want to show me?”

“Day pull up the footage from August 23rd” Ikol’s eyebrows raise as a blue see through screen shows up in front of him. 

Tony knows Loki is a strong person, he would never act like this in front them. So Tony knows that something is wrong the second Loki relaxes at his touch, not Thor or Hela’s. Tony’s.

Loki said he was tired so Tony helped him to his room and just when he was turning to leava, Loki pulled on his shirt softly “can you..” he trails off, making Tony turn around and frown at him “nevermind”

“you don’t gotta be afraid to ask me for stuff Lokes” Tony reminds him and Loki looks down, like he’s ashamed “ahat were you going to say?”

“can you stay?” he asks in a whisper “I don’t- I don’t trust myself not to fall back into that”aka, I don’t want to be alone right now and you make me feel better.

Tony nods, “yeah I can” he mutter softly as he motions for Loki to make room and he does, rolling over and wrapping himself up in the blankets like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

And once they’re settled in and Loki gave up some blankets, Tony sighs loudly as the warmth of peace settle into his bones. Despite Loki being upset he can’t help but enjoy this. Holding him.

“thank you” Loki slurs through his exhaustion “for treating me like a person..” he trails off as his breathing turns into soft puffs of air against Tony’s skin.

Tony’s stomach twists as he looks down at Loki to find him sleeping peacefully. Loki trusts him, more than his own siblings. Loki trusts a man he only knew for a few months over his siblings who he knew for millenium. 

Thus why Tony didn’t give in and kiss him like he wanted to. He won’t break Loki’s trust again, even if it hurts 

“feel anything else?” 

Ikol shakes his head and plops down onto the bed with a badly hidden smirk.

So Tony goes for plan B. 

He walks over and kneels down in front of him. He looks up at Ikol through his lashes as he places a hand on the latters thigh “still nothing?” 

Ikol shakes his head again. But Tony can hear his heart beating faster

Tony’s hand instantly starts moving higher and Ikol’s breathing picks up. Tony stands and suddenly sits in his lap, “wha-” he’s cut off by Tony’s fingers gently resting on his neck, his thumb stroking a certain spot by Ikol’s jaw that makes heat head south.

“still nothing?”

Ikol swallows around the lump in his throat “nope” 

Tony’s fingers suddenly become rough as he forcefully turns Ikol’s head away. Ikol chuckles breathlessly “feisty” he comments and Tony’s fingers disappear “I like i- ah ” he breaks off into a breathless moan when warm lips press against his neck.

Ikol relaxes a tiny bit and unknowingly turns his head more to give Tony better access. Tony holds back his smirk as he mumbles “still nothing?” against Ikol’s neck, resulting in a sharp inhale. 

Ikol swallows again “no” he chokes out strong enough to convince Tony that he’s not winning. But Tony knows Ikol better than he knows himself. 

Tony decides to play along though.

He pulls back and hums in fake disappointment. Making Ikol smirk and ask “what will you do now Tony?”

“see you do know my name”

“I-mmph” Ikol’s cut off by Tony’s lips crashing into his. 

Loki unfreezes when Tony pulls back, his pupils huge “what’re you doing?” Loki struggles to ask from his throat closing up as Tony pushes Loki’s sweater from his shoulders, obviously trying to take this farther but Loki easily shrugs his sweater back on.

Tony smirks as he pecks Loki’s lips again, the latter too in shock to move away “getting this over with” Tony says lowly before smashing their lips together.

Ikol pulls back enough to break the kiss “still nothing?” Tony asks smugly as he scans the surprise in Ikol’s eyes. 

And his voice makes Ikol’s stomach burn from the fact that he lost . Or from arousal, he doesn’t care which one because right now all he can think about is how good this feels.

Ikol demands him to  “shut the fuck up” before he dives up and reconnects their lips. Ikol’s hands untangle themselves from where they were gripping the blankets and they fly to Tony’s hips without his knowledge. He sucks on Tony’s bottom lip and he can feel the latter holding back a smile.

“god I missed this” Tony breathes out and Ikol loses it. He flips them over so he’s leaning over Tony and the latter just smiles as Ikol start unbuttoning his shirt and his lips connect to Tony’s neck.

He’s shaking and moving too fast but he doesn’t care because he doesn’t know the last time he had sex, and Tony seems trusting so why not?

Tony turns his head slightly and lets out a content sigh, making a wave of pleasure drown Ikol as he grinds his hips down into Tony’s and the latter moans- Ikol freezes, his hands stop unbuttoning Tony’s shirt and he pulls back “what?” Tony asks through his panting. 

Ikol snaps out of it.

He steps away from Tony and simply just stares emotionlessly before his eyebrows furrow together “this was your plan” Ikol deadpans, not questioning it one bit “seduce me to try and get me to talk”

“uh“ Tony composes himself and sits up “yeah that’s what I was doing” he wasn’t just goddamn horny because he hasn’t had sex in four years

“I invented that trick” Ikol spits and Tony’s heart skips a beat, “you’re gonna have to try harder than that”

“what happened to being a living lie detector?”

Ikol frowns “what?”

“I haven’t had sex since you left, wasn’t trying to get you to talk”

live your life

Ikol swallows and focuses, feeling no lie so he decides for once that he’ll be nice. “Loki wants you to live your life” he announces “he doesn’t care if you sleep with someone else”

“well I don’t want to sleep with someone else” 

Ikol presses his lips together and suddenly changes the subject “can I see more? of the footage?” 

Tony blinks “uh” he quickly snaps out of it “yeah you can, you just gotta ask Friday” 

As soon as he says her name, the screen reappears and the lights dim. “would you like me to pull up the more explicit footage as well?” she asks and Ikol purses his lips before nodding.

“why not?”

Tony chuckles “show him whatever he wants to see Day”

“whatever he wants?”

“yep” Tony replies back instantly, he doesn’t give a fuck what Ikol sees. Even if he has a habit of using information against them. 

Tony just wants Ikol to see that they care.

Chapter Text

“So can you really like..” Tony pauses “manipulate fate”. Loki snickers as he shrugs “that’s not a no”

Loki puts his book down and turns towards him “I’ll need your hand” he says and Tony instantly gives it up. He expected Loki to do some kind of spell, maybe get in his head or something but he didn’t .

Instead Loki starts investigating his palm, running his fingers over the wrinkles and humming “what?” 

Loki sucks on his teeth as he mumbles “just what i expected..” he straightens up and looks Tony in the wyes as he states “you’re an idiot”

Tony’s face falls resulting in a laugh from Loki “I’m starting to regret ever letting you and Thor stay with me” 

Loki smirks as he blurts “you’re loyal,” and Tony almost chokes on his breath “you’re strong and dedicated, and..”

“oh c’mon Lokes you gotta tell me”

“you’ll find love” he says quietly, “with someone that doesn’t deserve you”

“I would ask if it’s Bruce but he would deserve me” Tony jokes and Loki lets out a soft chuckle and it isn’t a real laugh, it’s fake “who is it Lokes?”

He shakes his head and clears his throat “you’ll find out”

“here you go” Loki frowns as Tony holds out a tiny box 

“what is this?”

“open it and find out” He opens it to find a ring, with his symbol. “it reminded me of you, that’s your symbol right?”

“yeah” Loki frowns even harder as he takes it out and it slips on his finger easily “how did you get my size right?”

“my best friend Jarvis told me”

Loki quickly looks up from the snakes on his finger “and how does Jarvis know?”

“He knows everything about everyone” Tony says “it’s kinda his job”

“why?”

“why what?”

Loki’s face drops and he asks “why would you buy this for me?” emotionlessly.

Tony just shrugs and states “it’s what friends do”

Loki raises his brows “we’re friends?”  

“yeah, I mean-“ Tony pauses and frowns “unless we’re not”

“I’ve only had one friend before”

“now you have one more”

They actually ended up together, Ikol didn’t expect that from Loki. Maybe he isn’t as big of a coward as he assumed, or as bad of a boyfriend.

“Lokes, you’ve been bringing me food and shit the entire time I’ve been working” 

Loki nods “you don’t take care of yourself so I have to make you”

Tony rolls his eyes and bites his lip to hold back his smile “I don’t need to leave if you’re bringing me everything I need” he shoots back and he hears Loki huff in defeat.

He turns back around to see Loki crossing his arms, looking like a stubborn child “thank you” Tony says as he cups Loki’s cheek and the latter leans into it.

Loki holds his hand there and closes his eyes “just want you to be okay” 

“I’m okay as long as you’re here” Tony steps closer “don’t ever leave me” 

Loki looks up at him through his lashes, and Tony gets lost as he investigates the yellow surrounding Loki’s pupils, blending in with the pale green. Loki saying “as long as my heart beats it’s with you” takes him away from the field of sunflowers. 

That pleasant warmth settles in his chest as he can see a small smile on Loki’s lips, his eyes shining with joy and love.

Tony doesn’t stop himself from pecking his lips, for only a second, and then pulling back. Making Loki chase after his lips before he gives up with a pout and Tony just loves fucking with him like this.

Tony heads for the door, holding back the laugh in his throat. “lets go upstairs” he nods Loki along but the latter stays in his place.

“give me a proper kiss then”

“twelve, thirteen, fourteen” Loki sighs as Tony keeps poking him and counting with every touch “fifteensixteen”

“why are you counting”

“counting your beauty marks” Tony says like it’s obvious, his finger never stops poking “you have a lot and I only counted your shoulders and neck”

“so do you”

Tony hums in agreement before declaring “you have more” Tony suddenly pokes his neck again before drawing a triangle “I like these three beauty marks the most”

Loki hums and cups his cheek, running hiw finger over Tony’s beauty marks as well “why is that?”

“it’s a triangle, kinda like my arc reactor”

“maybe it’s a sign” Tony chuckles but it quickly stops and his gaze goes somewhere else, anywhere but where they are now. “what’re you thinking about?”

“I’m going to age” Tony blurts “I’ll be old and wrinkly and you’ll still look hot as fuck”

“I’ll still love you” Loki reassures him with a kiss on the nose “as long as my heart beats it’s with you”

“promise?”

Loki nods with a hum “I promise”

Loki grabs his hand and presses their palms together, smiling at the size difference “why are your hands so small?”

“why are you so small?” Tony shoots back on instinct and Loki replies with “I’m a runt” without hesitation. Making Tony snicker because he completely forgot about that, “still never answered me” Loki hums “you’re not a runt so-“

“genetics” Tony shrugs “got the short end of the stick”

Loki’s face falls at that badly timed pun “that was horrible” he states and Tony chuckles, his happiness reminding Loki of what’s to come. Hr tries to keep the facade up but somehow Tony sees through it.

His eyebrows drop and he investigates Loki, seeing that something is wrong “what is it?”

Loki takes a deep breath “if anything ever happens to me-“

“Lo, stop”

Loki sits up, taking Tony’s hands in his and squeezing a little too tight “just, just listen please” he pleads desperately so Tony nods. “If anything ever happens to me, promise that you will forget me”

All the air leaves Tonys lungs even though he tries to inhale, so he’s left breathless as Loki continues, “promise that you will live a long and full life, that you’ll be happy and you will forg-“ Tony stops listening because there’s no fucking way he could do that.

Even if Loki hurts him, or turns on him, Tony couldn’t do that even if he wanted to. 

“Promise me” Loki begs quietly, even if it isn’t true he just needs to hear it. “Promise me that you will not let my absence ruin your life”

“I won’t” he finally says “because you’re not leaving me, ever. You promised me that”

Chapter Text

April 15th, 2017

Tony is crazy, he’ll admit that. But he’s being safe.

Ikol is in cuffs and his anti-magic bracelets are on so it’s good, he hopes.

Ikol looks around with a frown. The last place he expected to go was a cabin “what are we doing here?” he asks Tony, who is walking towards the lake instead of the house.

Tony just keeps walking and calls out “come and find out” not even looking to see if Ikol is still there.

Tony trusts him.

No one ever trusts him, so he decides fuck it, what can go wrong? He follows, making sure to watch where he’s walking so he doesn’t trip and the whole walk over he’s paying extra attention.

Tony trust him doesn’t mean that he trusts Tony back

You should. She says out of nowhere and Ikol grimaces, this is why he likes the city. When there’s too much nature she’s too loud.

He shrugs her off as he catches up to Tony “what are we doing he-“ he stops, dead in his tracks as he stares down at a tombstone reading “Loki. December 7th, 754 - November 3rd, 2012”

Ikol tilts his head, listening to Tony speak “after we realized that you weren’t going to come back we had a funeral” he states with a sad smile “Every holiday, every christmas and birthday Thor and Lukka visit”

“why?”

Tony shrugs “because they love you I guess” he sighs as he takes in the dirt crusted in the engraving “Thor believed that somehow you were still connected, that in death you could feel their love”

Maybe Loki did, Ikol wouldn’t know. “so they come and say happy birthday to a grave with no body” Ikol deadpans, “sounds like insanity to me”

Tony shoots back “sounds like love to me” within seconds.

“that why you left me with Thanos?” Tony takes a deep breath “because you guys love me?” 

“we were looking for yo-“

Ikol says “I didn’t want to be found” slowly and harshly, making Tony to yell out “he’s using you!” in frustration . Ikol just scoffs, “Thanos doesn’t give a shit-“ 

“shut the fuck up”

-about you or your sisters” Tony says confidently, because even Gamora and Nebula know it, they’ve talked about it way too much. “he’s using you and we both know-“

“you don’t know my father”

“I know he doesn’t love you” 

“really?” Ikol deadpans, “how the fuck would you know?”

“look at yourself” Tony shoots back “and tell me you’re a product of good parenting”

Ikol doesn’t say anything but “you got his death wrong” as he looks back at the tombstone “December twenty-fourth”

“christmas eve” he mumbles “brutal” Tony suddenly asks “and you still think he loves you?”

“love is for children” 

Tony scoffs, “so you want his approval”

Ikol stares at him emotionlessly, “can we go?” he blurts “she’s being too loud”

Ikol’s so fucking bored that he zones out on the kettle. It’s see through so you can watch the water boil, but what caught his attention was the lights changing colour with the temperature. 

Of course Tony Stark would have such a fancy kettle, it probabaly even pours the cups itself-

A scream erupts from Loki’s throat as pain takes over, his entire upper body burning, the boiling water turning his skin bright red, softening up the healing scabs and making his previous burns worse. 

The Chitauri just laughs as his reaction, laughs at Loki attempting to get the hot water off with his sad excuse for a blanket which is nothing but cloth. 

“I told you to wake up!” 

Natasha frowns at Ikol staring at the kettle, but she decides not to say anything. Because Ikol staring at the kettle is better than him being an asshole. 

So she continues making herself a plate of food until Ikol screams so loud that she drops her plate. She doesn’t pay attention to the broken glass and food surrounding her feet because Ikol is covering his head with his arms as he groans in pain.

Her entire body freezes as he lets out another pained groan, now curling in on himself and she cant acknowledge anything but the fear in her. 

Her mind is completely blank as she watches Ikol nearly fall off the counter, but luckily Thor stops him, his touch bringing Ikol back.

Ikol flinches, grabbing onto Thor so tight that the latter hisses from the pain but Ikol doesn’t let go. He pants as he looks around, ignoring the shocked people behind them and focusing on Thor as the latter asks “what just happened?”

Ikol flinches again as a loud click erupts in the silence, the kettle turning off and he glares at it like he’s ready to break the damn thing. “that” he spits “that thing happened”

“it’s a kettle” Sam deadpans because who the fuck is so scared of a kettle?

Ikol swallows down the lump in his throat and lets out a shaky breath “ask Loco for an answer, not me” is all he says before jumping off the counter and leaving. 

Making everyone turn to his sisters for an explanation, Nebula keeps her mouth shut as always but Gamora, the sudden big mouth spills everything.

And once she does, she can see that Sam regrets saying anything. But his regret will never compare to Gamora or Nebulas. 

They’re no better than Ikol or Thanos.

Changing who you are doesn’t relieve you of all the hurt you caused, but they will try and make up for it.

Odin woke up, but he’s not fully healed. He’s still sick and that has never happened before. And despite everything that Odin has done to her, Hela still loves him, she doesn’t want him to die.

He was fine during the first few minutes she sat with him and then he suddenly looked so sad. She knew why when he says “my child” and holds out his hand towards her, the latter hesitantly takes it.

Odin only calls Loki his child.

“yes father?”

“I’m sorry” he mumbles “for fearing you”

Hela frowns “father I’m n-”

“I’m going to be a better father” Odin promises, his eyes tearing up prove that he means it. “would you like to accompany me to the gardens later on?” Odin asks with a smile “I’ll teach you how to see across the nine realms”

“very well” Hela manages to say through the lump in her throat

“I’m glad you’re here with me Loki”

“me too,  for now, get some rest”

Odin genuinely smiles “you’re strong Loki” he says quietly “I couldn’t be happier”

Tony lied, he hasn’t been sober. In fact he is very fucked up right now, he takes a shaky breath when he opens his eyes. 

Loki smiles softly at him “hi”. He still looks the same as the day he left.

Tony feels his chest clear up as he smiles despite his nose stinging “hi”he mumbles back, his eyes start to water and he hates watching the happiness fade.

Loki frowns, his smile disappearing as he scooches forwards “what’s wrong?” he asks and takes Tony’s hand. Tony squeezes his hand and tugs lightly. Loki instantly leans in and wraps his arms around Tony’s shoulders and the latter buries his nose in Loki’s shoulder. 

Tony sighs as Loki’s fingers start playing with his hair and he asks “what’s wrong?” again.

Tony doesn’t reply, he doesn’t answer. Instead he whispers “I’m sorry” 

Loki’s fingers stall for a moment.“for what?” he asks as his fingers continue twirling Tony’ s hair

Tony sighs and tries to sound strong “I wasn’t good to you” but his voice shakes, thick with tears.

“that’s not true” Loki mumbles and kisses the side of his head, holding on tighter.

Tony feels his tears fall, but he doesn’t care “I missed you” he whispers before asking “why did you go?”

Tony’s heart almost shatters as Loki pulls back. He looks Tony in the eyes “to protect you”

Tony swallows down the lump in his throat “Loki-“ he flinches as the door opens and Rhodey stops dead in his tracks. 

He looks back at Loki. 

But he’s not there. 

It’s just him and Rhodey.

 “is that-” Tony swallows and drops his hands from where they were hovering in midair. 

His heart drops seeing Rhodey trying to hide his fear behind concern, wearing a frown but Tony could see it in his eyes investigating Tony hastily.

“is that your blood?”

Chapter Text

Tony has scared him many times before. Like the time that Elijah almost beat him to death, all the times he went missing during his benders, Afghanistan and the dozens of times Tony was tripping out from the drugs.

But the fear has never been this strong before.

It was so strong that his entire body is shaking as he listens to Tony talking to nobody.

And when he opens the door to find Tony covered in blood he goes numb. He can’t feel anything as he grabs a towel from the bathroom, wetting it before he returns to his bestfriends side.

Tony sniffles and lets out a shaky exhale “I’m sorry” he slurs a bit. Rhodey ignores him, too focused on wiping off as much blood as he can,“I wish I could be a different person” Tony whispers. 

“I don’t” Rhodey declares, he doesn’t hesitate because there’s no one else like Tony. And if anything ever happened to Tony he would lose his mind “you’ll get through this” 

“how do you know?” 

“because you always do” it’s not a lie, he doesn’t know anyone as strong as Tony “we’ll get Loki back” Tony scoffs out a laugh.

It makes goosebumps rise on his skin so he  goes to Tonys closet and grabs the first shirt he could reach. Tony just watches him, his eyes half closed like he’s struggling to keep them open. 

Rhodey sits back down “arms up” he commands and Tony listens automatically.

He zones out while he takes off the bloody shirt to replace it with the new one -“it’s quiet” Tony mumbles.

Rhodey frowns “it is almost midnight” he points out, “everyone’s asleep-”

“my head” Tony corrects, “it’s quiet” 

Rhodey swears he could feel his chest constricting, he shouldn’t ask but he has to “who were you talking to before?”

“him, Loki” Tony huffs out a breath “it wasn’t real”

Rhodey fakes a deep breath and asks “do you wanna go to sleep?” knowing that Tony likes cuddling when he’s high.

“i took more molly and shrooms than I have in my whole life” Tony says slowly “‘m not sleeping if I wanted to” 

“well you’re laying down with me”

“Rhodey-“

“I’m not leaving you alone”

“I’ll be fine”

“I know, but I miss you” Rhodey climbs into bed “so get ovwr here” he demands and Tony happily listwns.

Ikol’s body burns as he watches them laying in bed together. He has no clue why but it pisses him off

he growls out “close it” and Friday listens.

“sir, you are-“

“I know” he can feel his heart beating so bad that it burns “you don’t need to tell me” he pushes himself off the bed and enters the bathroom.

“Tony and Rhodey are only friends” she states “there is no reason to be jealous-“

“I’m mad” he corrects “Tony claims to love me but he’s- you know what, I don’t even know why I’m trying to explain this to you” he throws open the shower and turns it in “you’re not even real”

“neither are you sir” she shoots back at him “but I’m sure you know that”

“shut up Florence”

“gladly, sir”

April 16th, 2017

“why did you lie to everyone about Loki?” Hela asks and Odin looks down at the floor, knowing she won’t give up.

“He’s a hybrid, half Asgardian, half Jotunn and that is dangerous”

“he’s not”

“he’s the god of lies and mischief, a connection to nature and..” Odin trails off. “I’ve mistreated him because I fear him” he admits and Hela scoffs. “the stories of that sorcerer, so powerful she could alter reality and bend anything and anyone to her whim-“

“I remember” Hela interrupts and she takes a deep breath “those were about Loki?”

Odin nods “if he knows his true power he could destroy all life if he wanted”

“he wouldn’t do that”

“you don’t know-“

“he doesn’t want power or the throne!” she screams at him “all he ever wanted was to feel loved, to be treated like a person and you couldn’t even do that!” 

Odin opens his mouth but Hela is tired of listening to his excuses “you treat him like he’s a monster and expect him not to become one, what sense does that make?” she asks harshly, finally letting out all her thoughts she bottled up for a thousand years “do you ever regret it? do you imagine what it would have been like if you had loved us? if you had treated us like we were actually your children?”

Odin keeps his mouth shut for once.

Hela glares “answer me” she demands lowly 

“I dream about it” he answers quietly “for years I have dreamt about it”

“maybe Loki can alter reality to make it happen” she deadpans before walking out, leaving Odin alone just like he has done many times.

Tony let Ikol out. He fucking let Ikol out even though everytime he’s out he somehow escapes. But Thor can’t help but be glad that Tony trusts Ikol this much.

It’s a big step from where they used to be.

And it seems it was a good idea because Ikol calmed down, less threatening, less insults, less of an asshole in general. He was being especially nice to Tony.

Only when alone though. 

Ikol suddenly says “you’re right” and Tony looks at him like he just admitted to committing mass murder “maybe you are selfless”

“thanks” Tony replies dully as he passes Ikol a cup of coffee, the latter doesn’t comment on the fact that Tony made it just the way he likes it.

“seriously, though” Ikol sips his drink for a dramatic effect “why’d you let me out?”

“because I love you” 

“why though?”

Tony leans against the countet and says “we’ll be here for days Kol” as he stirs his own coffee

“summarize it for me”

“I love everything about you” Tony admits “I tried not to but I do”

Ikol’s eyebrows pinch together in suspicion “I hurt you” he points out. 

That’s true but so did Tony. He shrugs “just proves that I really love you”

Ikol blinks, scanning Tony like he’s searching for a big sign that says Tony is lying. And Tony really wishes that he was lying when Ikol suddenly demands “kiss me”

He wasn’t expecting that “huh?”

“you love me so kiss me, like you mean it” Ikol’s tongue darts out to lick his lips “make me feel that you love me”

Tony wants to, he really fucking wants to. But he’ll kiss Ikol because he loves Ikol, not because he’s trying to prove a point “you sure?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t”

Tony did kiss him before and since he got a teaser of what he missed for so long, he doesn’t know if he could take another without break-

Tony inhales sharply when Ikol rolls his eyes and dives forward, smashing their lips together. Tony doesn’t hesitate to cup Ikol’s cheeks, pulling him closer as sparks drown his veins. 

Ikol presses himself as close as he can, ending up between Tony’s thighs but the counter stops him. Even though nowhere down there is touching, Ikol can feel heat heading south.

Tony sucks on his bottom lip and lets go, letting out a gasp before they both go in. Their teeth clash together and Ikol opens him mouth to try and fix the situation at the same time Tony does.

Tony can’t help but release the breathless chuckle in his throat and Ikol smiles before he too laughs quietly. 

Tony tilts his head and shivers when Ikol continues their kiss and adds his damn tongue. Tony doesn’t notice himself moan quietly because he was too focused on the metal ball resting on Ikol’s tongue. 

apparently he did something because Ikol snaps.

Ikol grabs his hips and pulls him closer, hopefully it’s Ikol’s phone in his pocket. Tony gasps and his mind twirls 

from Ikol leaning in farther, making Tony arch his back so far that it hurts. He tries to put a hand behind him to gain balance but his arms are trapped between their chests.

“Kol” Tony moans, trying to tell Ikol to back up a bit before his back snaps in half but his words get caught in his throat as Ikol starts kissing up his jaw. That warm metal ball just makes it worse, he means better

“um” 

Tony’s heart drops as Ikol stops and looks behind him. His pupils huge and his eyes dark with annoyance, a small scowl on his lips as he stares at their interruption. Tony looks over his shoulder to see Rhodey and Hela grimacing, they probably didn't expect this at ten in the morning.

Tony turns away and covers his sudden burning face, meanwhile Ikol just smirks and asks the two “into voyeurism?”

Tony hears Rhodey groan and footsteps heading to the couches, “no need for dramatics Richard” Ikol says “I don’t mind a threesome”

Rhodeys eyes widen but they fall quickly, “I’m going home” he states seriously “love you Tones but your boyfriend is too much for me”

Ikol rolls his eyes and deadpans “you say that like you two haven’t slept together before” earning wide eyes from the three. 

Hela looks more shocked than anything, meanwhile Rhodey and Tony stare at him like he just spilled their biggest secrets- oh.

“you told him about that?” Rhodey asks loudly, ignoring Tony already protesting “we promised to never t-”

“ you broke that when you told my damn psychiatrist about Elijah”

“Elijah?” Hela repeats dumbly.

“so you did tell him”

“No-” 

Ikol decides to save Tony from the trouble “he didn’t tell me I just-” Ikol doesn’t know how to explain it “I just know”

“oh” Tony sighs as he notices Rhodeys pitch raising, the obvious sign that he’s getting mad which takes a lot with Rhodey “so you know everything about us but you don’t even remember your damn past”

“yep”

“so who’s Elijah?”

“Tony’s abusive ex” Ikol drinks his coffee like he was just telling them the time of day.

Hela looks at Tony and asks “abusive what?” telling him to clarify that she heard that correctly, “who is he?” she asks again, already imagining breaking the fuckers arms so he could never do that shit again.

“he’s in jail” Ikol states before anyone could say anything

“no need to go back into your annoying protective sister mode” 

Hela’s expression drops as she reaches over and pinches his inner thigh. Ikol flinches and lets out a giggle before he smacks her away, “that tickles” he points out.

“that didn’t hurt?”

“nope”

“still fun to do” 

“I’m funner to do” Tony says with a smirk as he make eye contact with Ikol.

“if only we weren’t interrupted”

Chapter Text

Ikol sighs dramatically, stating  “i’m bored” as he drops onto the couch.

And that’s always a bad sign so Gamora demands “do not blow up anything”

Ikol’s face falls, giving them an impassive look before he asks “what is there to do around here?”

“there’s a pool, a screening room and a fucking arcade” Tony states “there’s so much shit to do”

Ikol perks up as he suggests “how about we play truth or dar-“

His sisters cut him off by screaming out “no!” so loud that it shocks nearly everyone into silence. 

“it’s just truth or dare” Bucky says, Steve adding “what’s so bad about it?”

Ikol looks at his sisters “can I show them?” he pleads with a pout “please?” 

Nebula shakes her head but Gamora, of course, agrees. “do not kill anyone”

Ikol smiles and instantly he looks at Sam “truth or dare?”

“um, truth?” 

“what is your clearance password?” Ikol asks and Sams eye’s start glowing a dark green.

“It’s-” Bucky slaps a hand over his mouth and glares at Ikol, the latter drops the spell and Sams eyes are back to dark brown

“what the hell was that?”

Ikol smiles before looking at Tony beside him and he could see fear flash over his face. Tony states “dare” before he could even ask.

“fuck me” the green shows up “right here right now” 

And Tony instantly sits up and connects their lips. Ikol can hear people groaning in disgust and Thor screams, literally screams in horror.

Tont tries to move into his lap but Hela pulls him off and Ikol smirks as Tony instantly tries to get free of her hold. “Kol stop it” she commands.

He can never have fun, “fine” and with that single word the green fades and Tony stops. 

He blinks quickly and frowns, looking at Hela he states “you’re a cockblock” Ikol busts out laughing but quickly stops when Bucky asks “what the hell was that?”

Ikol smirks and looks at his sisters “care to explain?” he waves a hand at the people waiting for an answer “since you tell them everything else about us?”

Gamora looks pissed as she states “he can make you do whatever he wants, make you tell your truth”

Tony perks up “so it’s your lie detector?”

Ikol raises a brow “I don't feel the lie, I make you tell the truth” so no it isn’t his lie detector. 

“how did you make him-”

“I willed it so” 

Tony hears Loki for a split-second but he shrugs it off, he can’t get his hopes up “so you just wish for it and it happens?”

“basically” Ikol tries to say more but Nebula speaks before he could. “he almost made me kill myself before-”

“you tried to rip out my eye” Ikol shoots back “my good eye too” he points out for good measure. 

“you tried to fry my synaptic drive”

“you-” Ikol shuts up when Gamora suddenly growls “shut up”. They actually listen and Ikol looks like he feels kinda bad because his gaze is focused on the gold plate on Nebula's head. The gold plate protecting her synaptic drive

Gamora mumbles “I should’ve just left you two with dad” through a large sigh. 

“you should’ve stayed with him since you love licking his ass-“

“ew!”

April 18th, 2017

Natasha freezes as she watches Ikol and Lukka. Ikol’s holding his hand out, resulting in fireworks and a bright smile from Lukka.

“what’s that?” Lukka asks, because he’s at that age where they ask too many questions and Natasha keeps watching as Ikol closes his hand and explains.

“a flesh-“ Natasha quickly interrupts him “a flashlight” she says harshly, glaring at Ikol who smiles proudly.

“noo” Lukka giggles and says “that’s a different light”

“It’s a magic light”

“grandma taught you?” the little boy asks.

Ikol nods slowly “yeah, yeah sure” his voice is quieter, like he was talking to himself.

Natasha asks “where’s Tony?” and Ikol doesn’t even flinch. Lukka smiles at her and says “uncle went to meeting”

Natasha blinks and goes to the kitchen “you hungry Lukka?”

“I already fed him” 

Natasha resists reacting to that, instead she asks “where is everyone”

“Director Fury has requested their presence at SHIELD”

“and they just left Lukka alone with him?”

Ikol pouts at her, “rude” he declares but 

“Tony was watching Lukka until something came up” Friday informs her and adds “the boss has been acting recklessly” with an annoyed concerned tune

Natasha nods “I’ve noticed” she spits back, it’s pretty damn obvious since Tony was locked in his lab for days and now he takes off. Leaving Lukka, a four year old, alone with his sociopathic, brain-washed uncle.

“I can hear you” Ikol spits as he gets up, grabbing his empty cup to refill “i have morals” he snatches the coffee pot from her “not as big of a monster as you think”

“i never thought you were a monster, I think you’re lost and that you don’t know what else to do” Natasha says seriously, making Ikol grimace at her. “didn’t think you’d like kids though” she adds to ease the tension.

“kids are more accepting, less judging” Ikol states “or it’s because I just don’t get the urge to kill them”

“just when I start to tolerate you”

“we’ve been trying to remind him of who we are to him-” 

Natasha cuts Tony off and asks “isn’t that the point?”

“-we need to remind him of who he really is, because this isn’t working” 

“who is Loki?” Fury asks “no one knows-“ he shuts up as the gods suddenly start glaring at him. 

“Loki was quiet and calm, he analyzed situations and solved them within seconds” Hela points out “he does anything for the people he loves because he’s loyal” 

“he’s too smart” Thor states “he learnt mind manipulation in a matter of hours, Asgard won most of their battles because of Loki’s plans”

“he adapts easily” Fury summarizes “thinks quick and a manipulator, so he’s a high-level threat” 

“obviously” Tony deadpans, earning one of Fury’s glares

“He felt something” Tony says quickly to try and lighten the mood “this is working”. They all watch as Tony continues ranting “I got him to feel-”

“and then you made out with him and got him to remember something” Pietro finishes for him

Tony’s nose scrunches up and his lips twist “you should watch porn like a normal teenager”

“wait who did you leave Lukka with?”

“Nat and Kol but Nat was sl-” Tony stops talking as Thor whips out his phone and instantly starts pressing shit. 

Hela asks “you left Lukka with Ikol?” loudly

“Nat’s there”

“He could kill her in a heartbeat-” Steve shuts up as he suddenly hears Natasha over the phone.

“ask that crazy bitch why he left Lukka with Kol” Nat snarls and it’s quickly followed by a whiny “fuck you!” from Ikol.

“are you guys okay? is Lukka okay?” 

“everythings fine- I’m going on the balcony do not hurt that kid Kol” 

“suck a dick -don’t even try to copy me kid”

The ‘asgardians’ all frown at each other “what’s going on?”

“he’s being nice and I’m kinda scared”

“I told you guys it’s working!” Tony cries before heading for the door “now excuse me, while I go make my sun shine again”

Sam blinks at the door “he’s being weird”

Tony was thinking of ways to make Ikol feel, and he came up with dozens of ways. All the way from manipulation to murder. But he was resigned about that so he started easy.

He sits with Hela on the couch, Ikol on the one opposite to them. Giving Tony the perfect opportunity to enact his plan.

“you don’t love me?” he questions and Ikol shakes his head “at all?” 

Ikol nods and Tony purses his lips, something sparks in his eyes and before either Ikol or Hela could ask what he’s planning. Tony turns his head and catches Hela’s lips.

Chapter Text

Ikol’s stomach burns as he watches Hela’s eyes widen before she shrugs and kisses back. His breathing picks up and his hands ball into fists without his knowledge. He keeps his glare on them as Hela pulls back.

She purses her lips in approval “I see what the fuss is about” she states “you are a good kisser”

“not so bad-“ Ikol gets up and marches out “-yourself” Tony’s eyes widen as Ikol slams the door behind him.

“you could’ve atleast told me this plan”

Tony shrugs “then it wouldn’t be as fun”

“what’s up with you?” she suddenly asks, Tony’s eyebrows shoot up as he waits for her to elaborate. “I know that you stayed up for days brainstorming ideas, you left Lukka alone with-“

“oh my god you genius” Tony mumbles out “Lukka!”

“No” she interrupts harshly and Tony pouts. she sighs in annoyance “don’t try and change the subject” she says sternly. “what is up with you?”

“nothing, I feel fine”

“Tony-“

“I feel great actually so please don’t ruin it for me Hela”

“you just kissed me” she deadpans

Tony shrugs “I’m a playboy”

“no you’re not, not anymore”

Tony rolls his eyes and sighs “you’re annoying” he says nonchalantly. 

“Ikol, I’m sorry-“

“for what?” he asks honestly “go ahead and fuck him, he probabaly needs it”

“Ikol-“

“I’m serious Helona” Ikol admits the truth. lies. “Tony’s so paranoid and shit, getting laid would help loosen him up”

“I think he prefers you”

“ugh” Ikol slumps down onto his bed “what do you want?”

“I want you to say how that made you feel”

“disgusted” Ikol answers “you guys looked like two hookers trying to impress a Hugh Hefner”

Hela laughs but tries to hold it back, resulting in a snort. “that’s the first time i’ve seen you laugh” Loki states “I like your laugh, it’s genuine unlike anyone else”

“how do you do that?”

“do what?”

“be an asshole and then turn around and make me forget about it”

Ikol shrugs “I’m manipulative, a liar, I know how to get what I want”

“is this who you want to be though?”

“who do you want me to be?”

“not a pyschopath that kills innocent people”

“so you’d be okay with me?” he asks “if I didn’t kill”

Hela thinks about it and yeah, she would be okay with it. Her brother would be gone but this would be like gaining another. “yeah I would” she means it.

“well I think the most important thing in life is liking yourself” he announces, “and I like me”

 Hela’s heart sinks for the thousandth time. “see?” she nods at him “asshole”

“aren’t you asgardians supposed to be talking all formal ?”

“we’ve been here for years” she points out as well as “and you know quite alot about earth and their cultures, their mannerisms” she smiles as Ikol’s face drops, hiding his anger behind boredom “so how long were you here?” she asks remembering how spanned out the murders were.

“a year”

“you’re a liar” she reminds them both “so how long were you actually here?”

Ikol sighs and leans his head back against the wall, not wanting to make eye contact as he admits “almost two years”

“the hell were you doing?”

he says “had to learn how to blend in” what he doesn’t mention is the fact that he was watching them. Learning their schedules and their patterns, straight down to the times they get up at night to piss. 

To beat the enemy you have to know the enemy.

Tony was watching TV when Ikol enters the lounge, heading for the fridge of course. “Hey sexy”  Tony greets with a smirk and he holds up his glass as he asks “wanna join me?”

Ikol turns around, holding a bottle of one of Natashas vitamn waters. “not really” he deadpans as he opens the bottle and starts chugging.

“mad at me for earlier?”

Once Ikol finished half the bottle he puts it down a little too harshly as he asks “who were you talking to when you were high?”

“you saw that?” Ikol doesn’t answer as he is still waiting for Tony to reply. He sighs and deadpans “god was talking to me” he’s about to make a joke about christianity when he remembers the blood. “why was I bleeding?”

Ikol shrugs and picks up his drink “from what I could tell-“ he heads for the stairs “-you bit your tongue or something”

Tony nods and sees him out of the sornwr of his syes at the top of the steps “hey wait!” ikol srops with a frown “sit with me”

“why?” Ikol asks slowly, suspicious of Tony’s intentions.

“I miss you”

“you’re drunk”

“and missing my ex”

Ikol chuckles “that’s a recipe for disaster” 

Tony shrugs “it could be” he nods to the empty spot beside him “if you sit down”

Ikol stares at the empty spot then at him, he looks down at his drink and the staircase “nah” he says dully before waling down the steps, leaving Tony with his jaw on the floor.

April 20th, 2017

They called a meeting, but not about Ikol, in fact it’s about his soulmate. Who stayed up all night in the lab and didn’t want to come to the meeting, lucky for them.

“I think Tony is manic” Hela says.

“yeah” Sam agrees instantly “he left Lukka with Ikol”

“he kissed me yesterday” the room is eerily silent as everyone gapes at her “to make Ikol jealous”

Steve asks “Tony kissed you?” in disbelief. Three years ago he would’ve believed it, but Tony doesn’t sleep around anymore, he’s so loyal to Loki that no one has seen Tony even flirt with another person since Loki’s been gone. 

“not a bad kisse-“

“Hela not now” Thor interrupts, not wanting to hear whatever comment she has “we gotta get him to the hospital, get him his medications”

“he’s doing the injections, I made sure” Rhodey says. “Mania is apart of being Bipolar, meds don’t always work”

“he left my son alone with my psychotic brother” Thor says harshly, “we have to do something”. But what can they do? Tony hasn’t missed a needle, they can’t lock him up or confront him about the mania because that would make it worse. 

So what can they do?

Steve sighs and says “if he gets crazier then we get him to the hospital” 

“he’s not crazy” Hela snarls “he’s sick”

“didn’t mean it like that”

“then don’t say it like that” 

Chapter Text

Ikol blinks quickly as he watches Tony swallow a silver berry. Like he’s trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together.

Tony holds one up “you gave me one of these at the lakehouse” he explains.

“and what happened?”

We were happy

“nothing, we just watched movies” Tony deadpans before he throws the berry and Ikol’s instincts kick in. He easily catches the berry “should eat before you take it, probably why I got sick last time, or it was because I was human-”

Ikol rolls the berry in his grip “already ate” he deadpans, wondering if he should actually do it because then that would risk breaking down his wall. 

And after everything. Ikol doesn’t know if he could handle it.

“and you said I’m the boring one” Tony snickers as he heads to the couch. Ikol grabs his arm and stops him, Tony doesn’t react. Like he was expecting it.

“whatever game you’re-“

“I’m not playing a game, I’m not you” Tony spits back and Ikol would never admit the fact that a sharp sting travels through his chest “Just not fun being high alone” 

“if you don’t want to-“ Tony goes to grab the berry from him “-I’ll give it to He-“ but Ikol moves his arm out of the mans reach. 

Take it

“you win” Ikol takes his drink and swallows the berry “only because you’rs pressuring me”

Tony nods, holding back his smile “happy 420”

Ikol thought it wouldn’t work, because he didn’t feel anything for about an hour and then suddenly it all hit.

The euphoria.

He loved being happy, not worrying about Thanos and what he would do. He loved watching trails following anything that moved too fast, he loved feeling physically heavier but lighter at the same time, he loved feeling how clear his body is. How clear his mind is.

So clear that Ikol doesn’t give a fuck that he’s laying on the rooftop with Tony and watching the stars like a couple of twinks. He doesn’t even care that Tony links their pinkys together.

Tony probably doesn’t know he even did that.

But that simple touch makes Ikol’s chest light up with butterflies.

Tony’s next words made his stomach sink into his asshole. 

“do you ever feel like there’s not a person in the world who loves you?” 

Ikol’s heartbeat picks up as he spits out “yes” and Tony finally intertwines their fingers properly, Ikol doesn’t mind, in fact he notices that his heart starts to calm down. “but he knows you guys love him and he loves you” that’s why it’s getting so damn easy for Loki to break through.

“so why do you get mad?”

Tell the truth

Ikol shrugs “because I don’t want to feel Loki’s pain” 

Tony sits up and looks at him, his eyes basically black from his huge pupils “what?” 

Ikol sits up slowly with a sigh, enjoying the happiness consuming him despite the conversation. “he’s always hurting, way too much for anyone to handle and I don’t like feeling it” he looks at Tony “it hurts like a bitch” he says to lighten the mood.

But Tony ignores that “what does it feel like?”

“like nothing you can describe” 

April 21st, 2017

Ikol hated dreaming, especially on drugs.

He takes a deep breath as he looks around. The cell, the grey cracked up walls, Loki chained to the chair and bloody. Wounds covering him. 

Ikol is glad Loki has his head down

“are you ready yet?” Loki asks quietly as he looks up and Ikol’s chest shakes as the ability to breathe leaves him. Loki’s eye is swollen and bloody. 

“I should be asking you that” 

“I was ready as soon as we made it home” Loki says, his voice now loud and confident, “it’s you that’s preventing me from truly being home”

“They love you but will they forgive you?” Ikol asks, trying to turn it around but Loki retorts “they already have” before Ikol even finishes. 

“they love us, I have no idea why but they do” 

“they love you” 

“you’re sleeping with Tony right now, after dancing, kissing and watching the stars, going on a stroll-“

“shut your whore mouth”

Loki glares “you’re an escape” Loki spits “an animal backed into a corner, doing anything to survive” Ikol’s heart stings. “you say you’re not me, but you are, you’re the me that I kept buried for centuries, you are everything that I hate about myself, but you know that, because you’re starting to hate yourself too”

Natasha and Hela have been watching Tony and Ikol sleep for over half an hour now, they couldn’t help it. They were right there and this shit was funny.

Hela had an idea why they were talking in their sleep, but she was too fucking amused to really think about it.

“that algorithm is wrong” Tony mumbles just as Ikol spits “shut your whore mouth”

Natasha attempts to hold back the laugh rising in her throat but she cant so she buries it in the crook of her arm. Hela on the other hand lets her laugh reign free throughout the room.

And they think the two heard it in their dreams because Ikol’s hand swings through the air like he’s trying to smack someone. 

“I’m just tryna fix this shit” Tony mumbles as he turns over and Ikols hand falls off of him. 

“don’t need to be fix-“ Ikol inhales sharply before he sits up abruptly. 

The girls freeze as they watch Ikol sway slightly before he lays back down while whispering something incoherently. Natasha scowls as goosebumps rise on her skin “ew” she comments before deciding she’s had enough of that-

“leave the goose alone!” Tony screams before he shoots up and scans the room. His once wide eyes relaxing along with the rest of his body as he sighs. And then he spots the girls, he blinks at them, looking at Ikol and then back at them. “where you watching us sleep?”

“the berries make you talk in your sleep” Hela states at the same time Natasha asks “who was bothering a goose?”

“they won’t forgive me”

Tony frowns as he looks at Ikol sleeping peacefully despite the heartbreak in his voice. “oh” he breathes out.

“I think he’s dreaming of a memory or something”

“he could be talking to Loki” Hela suggests.

Chapter Text

Tony felt like shit, and not in a good way. His entire body feels like it weighs a ton, he’s sweating for no fucking reason and he’s so fucking tired. But at least he isn’t throwing up.

He’s so tired that he doesn’t even feel Natasha lay down beside him.

“so you and Ikol got high last night?”

He nods and mumbles “I feel like I got hit by a bus”, not even bothering to look at him because opening his eyes makes his head throb.

“that’s what happens after you get high” she deadpans. She quickly changes the subject and asks “did you guys finally bang?”

“no” he turns away from her and tries to go back to sleep. 

“why not?”

“Was too high, now leave me alone” 

“if you want me gone just say so”

Tony can’t help but bark out a laugh, he turns around and uses the blanket to hide the smile trying to break through “what do you want?” he asks as seriously as he can, but he fails.

“nothing, I just miss you” she admits. “you’ve been spending all your time with the Odinsiblings”

“you have something in mind don’t you?”

“Thor can see people's dreams, what if he can get into their heads?”

Tony blinks. She could be right, look at all the other crazy shit that’s happened, why wouldn’t thor’s dream connection actually be some kind of mental connection?

“well get back to that” Natasha breaks him out of this thoughts “so what did you and Ikol do?”

they were talking when the song changes and Tony is suddenly goo as Ikol stand up and pulls him along

Do me a favour, 

He asks “what’re you doing?” as Ikol places his hands on Tony's waist.

Just keep me near

Ikol replies “dancing” smoothly as he pulls Tony closer so that their chests are touching.

Don’t you remember, 

Tony shrugs and buries his nose in Ikol’s shoulder, the latter leans his head against Tony’s. 

when you said what i wanted to hear

Ikol can feel his heart beating harder as they slowly start swaying. 

I’m not so clever, but i know it’s real

Ikol points out “you’ve never danced with him before” 

If i lived without you I don’t know if I’d ever heal 

Tony doesn’t reply, too caught up in this fucking song. Tony hasn’t healed from Loki’s absence yet, Ikol probably doesn’t help considering he’s kinda a living breathing reminder that Loki isn’t there.

Where are we now

Tony doesn’t know and the thought shouldn’t make him sad but it does. 

You’ve got me thinking

His eyes tear up and he holds Ikol tighter

Where are we now

Ikol hears a sniffle and starts to pull away “Tony..” but the said man pulls him back in.

We’re falling further from our love

“I’m okay I just..” he trails off with another sniffle, “thank you-”. Ikol starts drawing randomly on his back and it makes more tears form, he still does it.

Don’t you wait

“-for these moments”

Don’t you wait

“don’t thank me for anything” Ikol demands, he sounds so vulnerable but Tony ignores it, he’s the one crying right now 

From a distance-

“I don’t deserve it”

-we stopped trying, don’t you wait

“you’re dancing with me even when I know you don’t want to” Tony points out “you deserve it”

Don’t you wait

“wouldn’t dance with you unless I wanted to” Tony blinks quickly as Ikol pulls back to look at him and he can’t ask anything because Ikol smiles softly “I see why he loved you of all people”

You could do better

“why?”

I’ve tried to be clear, I can be your friend-

Ikol shakes his head “you’re just as insecure as him” 

But that’s not what you want to hear

“you make that sound like a good thing”

I’m not your answer,

Ikol smiles playfully with a shrug before he leans down and connects their lips. 

in time you’ll see 

Tony takes a deep breath, relishing in Ikol’s chapped, cold lips. 

You have a future- 

He doesn’t know what they are but he could live with this, the butterflies in his stomach.

Where you won’t need to love me

His heart beating with adrenaline and his mind going quiet. This is what he missed, the love.. 

I’m leaving now, gotta keep movin’

Ikol pulls back way too soon and Tony forces himself not to chase his lips, “thought you’re supposed to hate me?” he asks in a whisper.

I’m leaving now

“you’re under my skin” Ikol says nonchalantly as he shrugs 

We’re falling further-

he asks “the fuck can i do?” and their lips brush together so Tony connects them properly

from our love, 

Tony tries not to smile as the cold metal ball presses against his lip. 

don't you wait

April 22nd, 2017

“you complain about getting bored easily but then sit in here the whole time?” Tony asks like a smartass as he watches Ikol just sitting there.

“I was drawing”

“so you kept the sketchpad”

“i did” Ikol agrees before stating “I don’t have time to go steal one” Tony nods and hums, just watching Ikol. “don’t look like that”

“like what?” 

“Like you still love me” and the small smile Tony didn’t know he was wearing fades away. “I’m not Loki, I’m Ikol and you always forget that”

That doesn’t hurt Tony as much as it should, he doesn’t really care anymore. 

As long as he’s there. 

“what if I still do?” Tony asks “do you hate me that much?”

Ikol doesn’t answer, instead he says “I don’t believe you” as he gets up and stops a foot away from Tony. “All this time you’ve been fighting to get Loki bac-“

“you’re really going to ignore my flirting?” Tony asks as he raises a brow “and if I remember correctly you kissed me” 

“as a distraction” a lie

“distraction from what?” 

Ikol smirks “I could use a distraction-” his gaze flicks to Tony’s lips before he makes eye contact again “-from this boredom” he finishes and steps forward. Their chests touching and Tony could feel Ikol’s warm breath against his lips.

But neither wanted to close the distance, they didn’t want to give in and wave the white flag.

Tony decides he won't give Ikol what he wants “you should go see Fandral then”

Ikol’s face falls, emotionless as he says “that was just to piss you off”

He doesn’t do anything but head for the door “let’s go then”

“where?”

“to distract you”

“you look at all these people and what do you feel?” Tony asks because last time, Loki was helping every single person, never forgetting about someone resulting in Tony and Loki being there for hours.

Ikol shrugs “nothing” he states emotionlessly.

“seriously?”

“what did you want me to say”

“I look at these people and I know i would do anything to help them, even if I didn’t have so much money I would do something because it’s my instinct” Tony spits harshly, gaining the attention from some nurses and patients “I wanna know what that voice in your head tells you”

Ikol clenches his jaw before asking “you want me to break your heart again?”

“yes” Tony answers without missing a beat “it’s better than convincing me that you’re heartless”

“I see people in pain and I relate, I don’t know why but I do and I want to get away from them” Ikol says strongly but it quickly falters when he adds “it’s kind of a downer” 

“you can heal them” Tony states  “you have your magic”

“I’m not wasting-“

“helping people is not a waste” Tony almost growls “if it was I wouldn’t be fucking trying to help you”

“well look how well that's worked”

Tony brought him to the top of the tower of all places. It was renovated so it wasn’t the nice living space it once was but offices. Tony greeted people as they walked throughout the floor until they got to his office, the one connected to the balcony. “what are we doing up here?” Ikol asks in annoyance but he’s actually enjoying the breeze. 

“do you remember our conversation up here? after you avoided everyone for the first time”

“kinda” Ikol looks at him “Yinsen, told you not to waste your life and that’s why you didn’t go through with your wishes” Ikol quotes before blinking quickly and asking “what wishes?”

“to die” Tony deadpans and he steps up on the ledge, Ikol’s heart stops.

Chapter Text

Tony is kind of rethinking his plans because after Kol stopped him from jumping off the tower he got mad. He yelled at Tony for being stupid, dragging him back through the tower to the garage and the car.

Ikol never said a word the entire time, even now as Tony is driving, Kol is doing nothing but staring out the window- “you’re different” he says emotionlessly.

“weak?” Tony asks, his tone dead. Focused on the road instead of whatever mockery Ikol has to say.

“I meant you’re stronger now and not just physically” Tony raises a brow “you’re boring too, you used to be the reckless one” Ikol continues speaking “you were fun” his tone hinted with sadness, but it’s fake Tony realizes as  Ikol shrugs with a “hm, that’s too bad”

“I just tried to jump off the tower and I’m boring?”

Ikol points at himself “fun bitch”, then at Tony “safe bitch” Tony chuckles before he steps harder on the gas. “what’re you doing?” Ikol asks dully. 

Tony smiles “I’m boring?” his voice is lower, but giddy. Obviously happy about the certain turn in the mood.

Ikol sees the gage passing eighty “yep”

“I’m gonna have fun proving you wrong” Tony says happily and cranks the wheel to the left. The next thing that fills their ears is metal smashing and glass breaking

Tony didn’t feel a thing

Tony busts out laughing as he props himself up on one elbow. Taking in the metal littering the road and the smashed up car about twenty feet away. Nothing left but crushed metal and fire.

Ikol groans and sits up “yeah” he agrees breathlessly, snapping his fingers back into place “you can be the fun bitch”

Tony smiles “like I told you I am” he ignores the sound of Ikol snapping his bones back in place as he investigates himself finding only a broken leg. 

Ikol grunts as he stands up “how’re we supposed to get back now?”

“it’s only a couple minutes away” Tony points out because it's better than being a couple hours away. “race you” Tony suggests.

Ikol stares at him before asking “what do I get if I win?” slowly.

“less rules”

He hums, pretending to think but Tony already knows he’ll agree- “deal” he agrees and Tony has to hold back his smirk. Ikol rolls his eyes seeing how satisfied Tony is “Is the finish line the actual compound or the road?” he asks 

“let’s spice it up and make it the lounge” 

They ended up making the finish line a person.

Bruce screams as Ikol pops up beside him, slapping a hand on his shoulder before announcing loudly “I win!” 

Tony suddenly shows up in the stairwell and cries “you cheated!”

“you tried to pull me down the stairs”

“I almost tripped” Tony states “so no I didn’t try to push you down the stairs”

“then I sneezed and fell through a portal” Ikol replies back with just as much snark as Tony 

“just make it a tie” Hela suggests and Tony smiles, loving that idea as he makes eye contact with Ikol and raises a brow. 

“no fuck you, I win” 

“you cheated”

“I’m the God of Chaos and Mischief”

Tony ignores that “ok good we agree” he says happily. “you’re getting less rules so…” he rests his chin on his hands and smiles even harder as Ikol rolls his eyes.

Ikol pouts and huffs out a long sigh “do I have to?”

“it’s a tie so yeah, I mean, unless you want to not have less rules”

“can’t I just jump off a cliff instead?” Ikol asks seriously 

“what would I get out of that?“ 

Thor, the nosy one of course asks “what do you not want to do?”

Ikol grimaces as Tony blurts “a date”, the latter hiding the hurt at how resigned Kol is about this “we really don’t have to if you don’t want to”

“but?”

“but then you’ll have to be my date another time”

Ikol thinks it over, looking Tony over before he sticks his hand out “deal”. Tony smiles as he shakes Ikol’s cold ass hand 

“can’t wait, sunshine”

Ikol lets go, his face falling and he walks away without another word

“hey” Rhodey pulls Tony back and the latter stumbles a bit before he comes face to face with an angry Rhodey “what do you think you’re doing?” he asks. 

“what?”

“you crashed your car, you tried to jump off of the tower” Rhodey knows that once Tony finds something that works he has to make it work better. 

Like his suits. 

But if Tony continues this he'll end up dead.

“i’m tryna get my man back” Tony says like it’s nothing and tries to walk away only for Rhodey to pull him right back in.

Tony rolls his eyes as he listens to Rhodey talk “you can’t get Loki back if you end up dead” he states smoothly, “to beat the enemy you gotta be smarter”

“no-“ Tony’s voice is suddenly cold and low “-to beat the enemy you gotta be willing to do whatever it takes” 

Rhodey watches as he walks away only saying “you have glass in your face” before leaving himself.

Tony went to his room only to be stopped by very obscene noises coming from Ikol’s room. He didn’t even bother knocking before he walked in.

just to find Ikol looking in a mirror and picking at his face. “what are you doing?”

“struggling” Ikol deadpans before he pulls something out and once it hits the floor Tony realizes it’s glass. They were probably covered in wounds now. 

Tony walks over “let me do it” he offers because watching Ikol struggle to do it with bloody, slippery fingers is nearing on the edge of pathetic. 

“this is the last one–hey!” Ikol pouts when Tony snatches the mirror out of his hands and tilts his head back by his chin. Ikol can’t help but do nothing as Tony states “I’m doing it”

Tony won’t give up so Ikol does, he turns his face a bit to allow Tony better access.“you have glass in your face” he points out as he can feel Tony’s warm fingers pushing the glass deeper.

“good thing I can’t feel it” his voice is sorta raspy and low, obviously concentrating on the stubborn glass. And no Ikol does not find this hot. The way his eyes are so determined, biting his lip and his brow furrowed.

So he takes advantage of it, “would you like a check up?” he asks smoothly, adding a smirk as he makes eye contact with Tony to get his point across.

Tony holds back a smile “I would like to get this glass out before you somehow get in my pants”

Ikol raises his hands in a submissive manner “I wouldn’t do anything without your consent”

“except kiss me”

Ikol laughs “as if you didn’t kiss me without asking?” 

Tony opens his mouth but nothing comes out, because he can’t deny it. Ikol just chuckles before he stands and points to the bed “your turn”

Tony would never pass up an opportunity to be closer so he sits. And he doesn’t regret it when Ikol slots himself between Tony’s thighs, Tony has to crane his neck back to give Ikol access.

He can’t feel the glass but he can feel Ikol’s featherlight touch on his skin. His eyes trained on nothing but the piece of glass he’s carefully trying to get out despite Tony not being able to feel pain.

“does that hurt?”

“no” 

“why do you think you have the ability to manipulate pain?” Ikol can’t help but ask. 

Tony shrugs “Vision thinks it’s because I went through alot of shit so my soul chose it”

“I think it’s because of me” Tony frowns so Ikol explains “I was tortured in more ways than you can imagine, my pain tolerance is through the fucking roof and if you’re really my soulmate-” he stops as he finally gets the glass out and tosses it somewhere “-then it would make sense that your pain tolerance went up too”

“maybe” Tony decides to try something, “maybe it was from getting my heartbroken”

Ikol stops for a second before he takes out another piece of glass “if it helps, Loki says it’s the biggest regret of his life”

Tony suggests “you can kiss me better” with a smile.

Ikol rolls his eyes, but not in a bad way because he leans down and pecks Tony’s lips.

Just a peck.

And Tony frowns “what was that?”

“a kiss”

Tony’s face falls and his body slumps, “that was a ripoff” he accuses.

“i’ll make it up to you” Ikol reassures softly

“promise?”

“promise”

Tony smiles but it quickly drops, “I’m sorry for kissing Hela” and Ikol almost freezes, no one sincerely apologizes, “and for trying to jump off of the tower”

Ikol just shrugs it off “I’ve done worse”

“but I’ve thought through what I was doing and went hey that’s a great fucking idea, who cares if it hurts him because that’s what I want but I don’t” Tony admits “I don’t like hurting you to try and get your emotions back” 

“at least someone feels bad”

Tony blurts “I love you Ikol” and the latter inhalers sharply “even if you don’t give a fuck about me or believe me, I love you”

Chapter Text

April 25th, 2017

Ikol nearly falls off his damn bed when his door flies open and Thor starts yelling “brother!” excitedly. Ikol catches himself against the nightstand and glares at his so-called brother “ come upstairs and join us”

“for what?”

“your favourite game”

Ikol sighs in annoyance and asks “and what is that?”

“truth or dare” Thor says happily and Ikol sprints out of the room before Thor could even blink.

Ikol was surprised to see that everyone is playing, including the racoon. What he didn’t like though was that they were already playing which gives Thor the opportunity to ask him the anticipated question.

“dare” he says because he’s not a pussy-

“be nice to me for a week” Thor says as Ikol sits down beside him.

Ikol frowns at him before grabbing the bottle from the middle of the circle, filling his tiny glass and throwing it back like nothing. Turns out he is a pussy, he sighs as he puts the shot glass down and scans the humans sitting in a circle his gaze sets on Bruce sitting between Steve and Natasha. 

Ikol smirks as the said man recoils, like he’s hoping Ikol won’t see him, “truth or dare”

“we’re playing fair Kol” Tony suddenly says, “so no voodoo”

Ikol rolls his eyes and reluctantly agrees, resulting in Bruce deciding “dare”

“kiss Steve” Bruce doesn’t hesitate to pour himself a shot “cowards” he mumbles to himself and Bruce looks at him.

Bruce’s gaze narrows as he asks “truth or dare”

“dare”

“kiss Steve” Bruce smirks but it drops as Ikol falls forward on all fours, pulling Steve forward by his sweater and smashing their lips together.

Ikol pushes him back, he’s frozen in shock as Ikol settles back into his spot “I’m going to win at this, none of you have a chanc-” Thor suddenly smacks him in the abck of the head “ow” Ikol whines. He stares at Thor with a glare “don’t be jealous, it’s not good for your relationship”

Thor is about to yell at him but Hela smacks him in the the back of the head “it’s a game” she reminds him before looking ar Ikol and stating “you’re so competitive”

“thank you”

“it wasn’t a compliment”

Ikol’s face falls but he sounds giddy as he asks “Hela, truth or dare?”

Her fists tighten and she decides, “truth”

“who are you in love with?” He asks with a smirk knowing the woman is right there. Hela glares before pouring a shot “jesus Hela she already knows just say it”

“rather be intoxicated” she hums before taking the shot and Ikol rolls his eyes.

Hela hums in thought as he scans the circle “Tony truth or dare”

“dare”

“oh uh” she bites her lip as she thinks “I dare you to tell me if you are still in love with Pepper”

“can she do that?”

Natasha shrugs “it’s still a dare” Natsha states

“No I’m not” Tony states coldly “Steve truth or dare”

“truth”

“did you know about Bucky killing my parents?”

“no” Steve answers way too quickly and tries to move on, “Natasha truth or dare-”

Tony looks at Ikol, who is glaring at the blonde “Kol?”.

Ikol keeps his eyes on Steve, staring at him with wide eyes, begging Ikol not to say it. He announces “he’s lying”, because he never does what’s wanted of him.

And Tony deserves to know

“Tony I swear I didn’t know” Steve tries to plead his case but Tony has his head down, hiding the fact that he’s laughing because he himself doesn’t know why.

He interrupts Steve “my father never stopped looking for you” he suddenly announces with a dead tone 

“Tony I’m sorry-“

“for what?” Tony almost yells “for lying to me or for not caring?”

“I care-“

“really?”  Tony roars, stunning Steve into silence “ because you didn’t give enough of a shit to tell me!”

“I knew you would be upset”

Tony throws his arms up and exclaims “Steve Rogers, the prophet!” sarcastically. He shakes his head “I’m sorry, Mr. Rogers, that my emotions effect your life so much-“

“Tony-“

“don’t start Rhodey” Tony shuts him down just like that and turns to Bucky. “I thought you would stay at the top of the list,  but congrats!” he claps his hands together and looks at Steve “this motherfucker just threw you off like he did on the trai-“

Steve gets up “you don't know what you’re talking about” he hisses as he steps up to Tony, the latter doesn’t react at Steve’s sudden anger because what does he have to be angry about? 

Tony didn’t lie to him, Tony didn’t act like his friend. Tony never lied to him, Tony never acted.

Tony can’t help but smile as his laugh breaks through and Steve almost looks scared “for such a gentleman you are a fantastic liar, you should’ve been the god of lies not him” he waves towards Ikol. “after all your whole life is a lie”

“what are you talking about Tony?”

“you act so noble, like you’re all high and mighty, basically the perfect hero” Tony’s voice drops now “but deep down you’re still that weak, scared little boy from Brooklyn, desperately trying to prove himself a man” Steve swallows and Tony knows that hurt, he hit home. 

“i’m not the one to make a sacrifice play? what have you sacrificed?”

“I-“

“you couldn’t even be happy for Thor when Lukka was born, because everything is so hard for you right? oh noo poor Steve his bestfriend was brainwashed” he mocks “poor Steve had to crash a plane and sleep for seventy years, poor steve split up Thor and Jane, poor Steve has to help raise a child thats not his-“

“shut up!”

“like you did about my parents?”

“Tony I-” He chokes on his words because Tony kicks him in the stomach so hard that he’s left winded and panting for air on the floor.

Chapter Text

He hears someone yelling at Tony to stop, but he kicks Steve in the face instead.

His head lights up in pain and he can taste metal in his mouth, his tongue throbs and his mouth fills with blood. He spits onto the floor, vaguely hearing Tony's voice through the ringing. 

He shakes it off, seeing Tony's feet right in front of him he takes rhe opportunity and grabs his ankle, pulling as hard as he can. Tony grunts softly as he hits the floor and before Steve could attack he gets a kick to the face.

It hurt worse than Tony’s kick, to the point that he doesn’t notice Ikol smashing Tony’s head back into the floor.

“it is a wonder how you guys are still a team” Ikol says impassively, and heads to the island, pouring himself a cup of bourbon.

His plan is working out so far, cause trouble within the team, make Tony fall in love again, make sure he’s devoted and, most importantly, gain their trust. Which he is still working on.

He talked to Tony, made the sure he was okay and that he wasn’t planning on trying to commit suicide again. And to his surprise, Tony asked if Ikol could do a sleeping spell on him because he was tired.

Tired of the Avengers, of fighting, of staying up, of drowning his sorrows in substances and for once Ikol didn’t have to fake his sadness. He felt sad for Tony so he cast the spell.

Only when Tony was asleep did he go and check on the on the other two men involved in the situation. He had to, he needed to do it in order to gain their trust and make them think that they’re winning.

They were at Bucky and Sam’s. Thor was home with Lukka and since Ikol couldn't leave he compound without someone he was forced to ask Sam, the second amusing one.

And for such an amusing man, the first thing he says on the ride over is far from amusing, “did you really forget everything, there’s not one thing you remember?”

Ikol spares a look at him but Sam keeps his eyes on the road, his face impassive but Ikol is good at reading people. He can see how hard Sam is gripping  the wheel and the way his eyes are just barely narrowed, desperately trying to seem calm.

“I remember bits and pieces” he explains “it’s not like I’m choosing to forget”

“so if you could remember would you?”

Ikol shrugs “from what I know Loki’s life was painful, so no I wouldn’t”

“what about the good things?” He questions softly “if you could only remember the good things would you?”

“that would require remembering the bad things, or else the good things would be out of context”  He tells Sam “that would be like skipping through a series only to have to go back and watch everything again”

“that’s true”

And then it was silent again, for the rest of the ride until up to the time of entering the house. “babe!” Sam calls out as he takes off his jacket “Kol’s here to see you and Steve” at that announcement Ikol hears footsteps coming down the stairs.

“make yourself at home” he says as he goes to the kitchen. 

He discards his shoes and rolls over the back of the couch, sighing once he hits the cushions. Only for Steve and Bucky to rush in looking like they’re expecting to find Ikol covered in blood.

“don’t look so surprised”

Steve crosses his arms “what’re you doing here Ikol?”

“to set you up” their faces drop and Ikol can’t helpbut chuckle “what do you think I’m here for?”

Bucky answers “to get your daily dose of blood”

“I’m not a vampire Bernard” he shoots back before swallowing back his pride because he has to do this. “I apologize about earlier” he looks Steve in the eyes “I shouldn’t have taken away your choice in the situation” Steve opens his mouth say something but Ikol isn’t done “but Tony deserves a choice in it as well, and he chose to know”

“I would have told-”

“It’s not wise to lie to the god of lies”  Ikol leans back, relaxing into the couch and resting his arms across the back. “I just want to know why you wouldn’t have told him”

“he’s my friend and he’s been through too much, I didn’t want to add-”

“Liar” Ikol interrupts “the first part was true, so what’s the real reason you didn’t tell him?”

“they’re both my friends, you protect your friends not hurt them”

“so Tony thinking his parents murder was an accident was a form of protection?” Steve nods and Ikol is almost frustrated because the blonde bitch won’t stop lying. He decides to ask a different question “So, making Tony think that he caused their accident was protection?”

“that’s not what I inteded-“

“no but you knew how he felt, you knew about the argument, he’s talked to you about it and yet, you kept your mouth shut” Steve tries to speak but Ikol is tired of his lies, “you didn’t tell him because you were scared of him, of what he’d do”

“why do you care?”

“because I like him and you know just as well as I do that he could destroy this world in minutes” Ikol continues speaking, ignoring Steve “I can’t imagine what he’d do to you two”.

“he wouldn’t hurt us” Steve states “the guilt would ruin him”

“then why didn’t you tell him before?”

“I...” Steve trails off and Ikol raises his brows “I didn’t want to lose him, I lost too much”

Ikol smiles briefly, “I know loss like you never have” he states with a chuckle to match as he stands up, “lie to yourself all you want Stanley” he stops as he gets to the door “but I know the truth” 

He doesn’t even get out of the driveway before his phone rings, he instantly answers it, holding back from growling out “what?”. He actually manages to sound exhausted instead of annoyed.

It quickly fades when he hears sniffling and harsh breathing, Tony whispers “hi” in a shaky voice, “are you busy?”

“no” Tony hums and doesn’t say anything so Kol asks “what’s wrong?” because Tony is never quiet.

He takes a shaky breath and mumbles “I need you” in a broken voice.

Ikol wasn’t supposed to use his magic but he did, and thank god he did because Tony is on the verge of passing out. He sounded so much calmer on the phone but that just shows how good of an actor Tony is.

He’s curled up in a ball, ripping his own hair out and squeezing himself so hard that he’s drawing blood. His breathing is nothing but desperate gasps and his heart is running faster than Ikol has ever heard before.

“Tony-“ Tony snaps his head up, staring at him with wild eyes but they quickly shift to relieved as he lets out a breath, “Kol” he says his name like a hallelujah before he pulls Ikol down.

Ikol isn’t surprised at that, he’s shocked at how strong Tony is. Tony’s grip is bruising, almost equivalent to having his bones crushed and Ikol doesn’t even care to be honest. 

All he can think about is the fact that he caused this.

“Anth-“

“thank you” Tony sobs out and Ikol isn’t sure that Tony even heard him “thank you for- thank you for coming” he continues chanting like it will make it all better somehow “thank you, thank you”

Ikol pulls back, Tony’s grip going down to his forearms and Ikol allows it, Tony probably needs something to keep him grounded as he fights for air “take some deep breaths for me”

Tony tries but it gets caught in his throat, he coughs before it turns back into sobbing “breathe Anthony, you’re okay”

“I can’t- I can’t do it” Tony bows his head and Ikol softly lifts it so he can look Tony in the eyes as he says, “yes you can” as softly as he can.

Tony takes a breath and his shoulders drop slightly, Ikol nods with a small smile “good now copy me” he doesn’t breath loud on purpose so Tony is forced to focus on nothing but him at an attempt to copy.

By the third breath he wasn’t gripping Ikol so hard that it would bruise.

By the seventh breath his shaking calmed down.

By the fifteenth breath his lungs started to work properly again and by the next breath he is out of it. He leans forward, resting his forehead on Ikol’s shoulder and the latter cards his fingers through Tony’s sweat soaked hair.

Only now does he realize it as he feels a chill consume him, “are you-”

“you called me Anthony” he mumbles, still slightly out of breath and Ikol’s hand comes to a stop. “only you call me that” he finishes and the hand moves down to his back.

It stays silent as Ikol starts writing on his back, Tony tries to guess the words but Kol’s finger moves too fast, it doesn’t help that he’s writing in runes, the one thing Tony hasn’t learned yet.

Kol asks “do you feel better now?” quietly and Tony can only manage a hum in response, his throat now sore from gasping for air. “anything else I can do?”

“can-” his voice cracks and he quickly clears it, ignoring the ice cutting open his throat “can you stay please?”

Ikol almost says no, almost.

Despite everything telling him to say no he mumbles “okay” and once Tony falls asleep he can’t help but press a kiss to his lips.

He’s fucked.

Chapter Text

April 27th 2017

Ikol has been avoiding him. Yesterday, they only talked once and then Kol spent the rest of the day in his room, he was fine, just drawing and reading so Tony left him alone. 

Because that’s what he thought Ikol wanted.

Turns out he was wrong because Ikol is chilling in the lab with Bruce. Bruce was reading over all the transcripts from Ikol’s server and the latter was just laying on the couch, eating a bowl of cereal and he laughs at the news. “you guys have a gun and racism problem but the news is focuing on a fuckin girl scout?”

“as they always do” Bruce comments as he looks up at Tony, shaking the papers as he asks “did you read any of this?”

Tony shakes his head “no why?” 

Bruce spares a look at Ikol, who is completely invested in the news, something about an meth lab explosion in Brooklyn. All Bruce gets to say is “christmas eve-“ when Ikol is suddenly screeching through his mouth full of cheerios.

He sits up, mymbling incoherently as Bruce and Tony watch ceral and milk dribble out of his mouth. “I did not understand a word you just said” Bruce states

Ikol swallows and waves his hand at the TV “you didn’t hear that?” he asks loudly, looking between them and waiting for an answer.

“hear what?” 

Tony rolls his eyes and commands “Friday, go back a couple minutes”

and she does, on a story about Ikol or Loki, Ex-Avenger, according to the news. “you hear this shit?” Kol exclaims 

“well you kinda were an aveng-“

“No” Ikol interrupts right away “we never officially joined” he argues back, looking at Tony and asking “right?” looking for confirmation.

“no”

he points at the tv, “so how the fuck do they get the idea that I’m a fucking Averager” 

“Avenger”

“whatever, answer my question”

“we were given medals, for Avenging and since you helped, you got a medal” Bruce states as he continues writing down formulas.

“so they think I was an Avocado just because I got a medal too?”

“and they honored your fake death, Ross and Fury declared you an Aven-“

“No no no” Kol says quickly “we didn’t agree so no we are not”

Tony shrugs “you’re on the official document” 

Kol’s eyebrows scrunch togetber and he jumps off of the couch “show me”

FRIDAY pulls up the documents immediately and Tony lets reads over his shoulder.

The Avengers are a team of extraordinary individuals, with either superpowers or other special characteristics. The group's purpose is to protect global stability from inner or extraterrestrial threats. The Avengers were first assembled by S.H.I.E.L.D. as a result of the Avengers Initiative, when Loki invaded Earth with his Chitauri army. The team, consisting of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk, defeated Loki and moved into the new Avengers Tower shortly after, where Loki would eventually join the team, along with his older sister Hela.

There was a couple more names but he stopped reading there. It’s unusual to see his name grouped with such good people, because he isn’t a good person, both versions of him. 

He takes a breath and puts the wall back up. “I’m honored?” he says unsurely, because he’s really not honored at all. In fact he wants to go rip out Fury’s vocal chords right now for ever putting him and the Avengers in the same sentence.

“you never gave a shit about the Avengers label” Tony reminds him “but people mourned you, not just us, the world did”

“you really expect me to believe that?”

“you got a whole ass fandom Lo” Kol gives him a scolding look at that nickname but Tony continues before he could say anything “there’s a monument for you down in central park”

“humans forgive too easily”

“at least we believe in forgiveness”

Ikol goes back to watching the news and he regrets it when he sees her face, the bottom of the screen reading “Jane Foster declared missing”

“Jane Foster has now been declared missing, she was last seen April 4th leaving work in a light brown sweater and blue jeans-“ Ikol turns the T.V off stating “old news”

“did you really kill her?” Bruce asks.

“you ask that like it’s surprising”

“that’s not surprising to me” Bruce reveals “I’m surprised that you did it in front of Thor”

“I wanted to burn her alive but that takes too long, acid kills you in seconds”

“sounds like you got a lot of practice”

“I have” Ikol deadpans, he’s an expert at killing by now. He could kill all of them and get away with it easily, he has escaped more powerful people before. They’d be nothing. 

But he doesn’t say that.

“I did grow up doing it” he says instead, “im probably the best murderer in existence”

“why havent you done anything to us?” 

Kol shrugs “you’re more use than trouble” 

“that is the nicest thing you’ve said in the past month” Tony declares and Ikol smiles delightfully “proud of you”

“thanks, I’m proud of me too”

The next time Tony sees him is in the lounge, he was watching tv with Nat when Ikol comes up and starts making two cups of coffee. “still chilling with Bruce?”

“mhm” Ikol says as he makes his own coffee, leaving rhe other black for Bruce. “don’t get jealous”

“I’m not-”

“look” Ikol places the creamer down harshly “we are not together, I am not Loki. So i can hangout with whoever the fuck I want and you can not have a problem with that” he doesn’f walk out, he blinks away, obviously pissed.

And Tony feels bad even though he wasn’t jealous, in fact he was happy, a little lonely but happy for them. “damn” Natasha comments before looking at him “why is he acting like that?” she asks “i thought you guys were getting along”

“it’s Ikol” Tony shoots back, sounding calm despite his heart trying to shut down “he has more mood swings than I do”

April 28th, 2017

It’s ten am and somehow Tony is the first one up. Well second because finds Ikol throwing couch cushions, blankets and pillows around the lounge as he searches for something

Tony rubs his aching eyes “what’re you doing?” he asks as he watches Ikol kneel down to look under the couch 

Ikol pops up “lost something” he says as he walks on his knees to the other couch and Tony bites his cheek to resist laughing. “wh-“

The elevator opens and out steps Nebula, Hela and Natash. Tony ignores them and goes back to watching Ikol look under every piece of furniture near him “what’d you lose?”

“something” he deadpans 

“get off the floor” Nebula demands as she walks over and stands in Ikol’s way, preventing him from searching under the arm chair.

“I’m looking-“

Nebula holds up a ring “for this?”. It’s gold and chunky and Tony swears it’s the fucking ring he’s been searching for for years.

Loki tries to snatch it away from her but Nebula moves it away from his reach. Ikol glares and growls low in his throat “give it back”

Nebula shakes her head “no”, Ikol reaches for it again and Nebula steps back.

Tony ignores them because it’s not his ring. It’s not the ring that’s been gone for years. Tony goes to the kitchen and starts up a pot of coffee. Flinching as he pours the water in when Loki yells “ give it back!” and theres a bang.

Tony looks up to see that the couch tipped over, Ikol and Nebula rolling around on the ground and trying to go for the ring that rolled towards the table. Tony rests his chin in his hand as he watches Nebula smash Ikols face into the floor before she reaches for the ring.

Ikol grabs her leg and drags her back before crawling on top of her, pinning her down as he grabs the ring. 

Thor hauls Ikol to his feet before he could put the rinf on “no more fighting or I’m tying you to a tree until you get along” he hisses 

And Hela deadpans “you sound like Odin” making Ikol snicker and the threat die down

“I’ll tie you up with them just for that”

“that’s my ring you know?” Tony asks and Ikol’s gaze hardens “used to be my ring” he corrects himself lightheartedly and watches as Ikol looks at said ring. 

“you went to MIT” Ikol mumbles and chuckles as he takes the ring off. He holds it out to Tony “here” Tony frowns “it’s your ring you should have it back”

“why did you get so mad over it?”

It helps us Ikol tries to ignore Loki because it reminds us of him  “It’s fun to play with” he says instead, “became a habit” he finishes and jerks his hand towards Tony, telling the latter to take the damn thing already.

Tony looks up at him, ignoring the ring “keep it” he states “I can get another one”

“Stark” Tony’s eyebrows drop, Ikol never called him that “you have to stop this”

“stop wh-”

“I’m not Loki” Ikol says for the thousandth time, “you have to let him go because he’s not coming back”

Tony states “I don’t care if you’re Loki or Ikol” he steps forward and takes the ring from Ikol’s hands. “as long as you’re here” he easily slips the ring on Ikol’s finger “I don’t care”

Ikol swallows down the sudden lump in his throat “I can’t-” he sighs trying to think of how to say this properly. “I can’t get close to people or else they’ll be hurt”

“i’ll help” 

Ikol scoffs, “how?” he asks bitterly “I just said I can’t-”

The door opens revealing Steve fucking Rogers of all people. “um-“ he peeks around Ikol, making eye contact with the man he lied to for years “can I talk to y-“

“No”

Steve’s shoulders slump as he puts on the best puppy eyes that he can “please let me expl-“

Kol’s sharp tone overpowers Steves timid voice “he said no” he snaps and Steve steps back “if you really care about him then you will leave him alone”

Steve looks at Tony, and the latter’s gaze grows dark as he stares back at the blonde, it’s obvious he doesn’t want Steve around so, Steve finally decides to be a good person and respect Tony’s wishes, not before announcing “I really do care about you Tony, you’re my friend”

“but you aren’t mine” 

Steve nods, his adams apple rising in his throat as he gulps and walks away with nothing but a whispered “ok”

Kol scoffs, not in annoyance or disbelief but in approval, he didn’t think Tony could be a dick, he was always nice to them all, other than the teasing but still. Tony’s never talked like this before.

“don’t be so proud” Tony demands, “don’t think I’m an asshole all the time because I’m not”

Kol shakes his head “didn’t think that, thought the opposite actually”

Tony sighs and sits down, burying his face into his hands  he asks “can I ask you something?”

“sure”

“why did you go?” Ikol didn’t expect that, he freezes as Tony looks up at him “was there something I could’ve said or done to make you stay”

No

“was it what I did?”

Make him stop

“were you disgusted by me? was it-“

Make him stop Ikol

“stop” Ikol demands softly, and surprisingly Tony listens. “It wasn’t you” he confesses, “Loki left for you”

“that makes no sense” 

Ikol rolls his eyes “Thanos wanted you” he blurts and honestly, Tony isn’t surprised “he had a choice between you and his siblings so he chose himself” okay now he’s surprised and it must show because Ikol purses his lips and mumbles “I thought they told you..”

All Tony thinks about is the fact that he thought Loki didn’t love him, he doubted Loki when Loki was being tortured, allowing Tony and his siblings to live.

Tony thought that Loki was a heartless prick.

“I guess I didn’t know him was well as I thought”

Ikol says “he barely knew himself” attempting to comfort Tony, he places a hand on the latters arm “don’t feel bad, I barely know Loki and I’m apart of him”

“are you?”

Ikol shrugs, “see? barely know him” he blurts and Tony actually laughs.

Chapter Text

He’s not completely sane, Tony will admit that but the one thing he will not admit, is that he’s manic because he isn’t. 

He’s desperate.

So desperate for the relief that Loki brought, so desperate that he’s trying anything to feel that relief again. Even self-harming again, he barely remembers doing it. He was too caught up in the fact that Steve knew and now Ikol hates him and it’s just too much.  

In fact he hasn’t really been able to stop thinking about everything, he’s so distracted by how fucked up everything is that he accidentally rolls his sleeves up, revealing the marks.

Tony flinches when a hand wraps around his arm, he tries to pull away Ikol is stronger and faster. Because one second ago everyone was fine and now the room is dead silent his cuts are showcased like some prize on a TV show.

Ikol swallows and drops Tony’s arm like it burned him, “you did that to yourself?” Ikol asks and Tony keeps his gaze trained on the couch. 

He can’t look at anyone with his chest heaving and his eyws watering up. Tony’s been a big enough mess already, he doesn’t need them to know that he’s getting worse. So he stays quiet and still, hoping they think he’s in shock or something.

“Tony” Ikol demands an answer.

That’s the second time Ikol has called him that, Ikol only calls him Tony when Ikol is serious. 

And that just makes it harder to look at him so Tony doesn’t.

Bruce tries to speak “when..” but he loses his words and they fall back into silence again.

Until, Ikol grabs Tony’s chin and forces the latter to look at him. “who did this?” Ikol asks, ignoring the tears spilling from those beautiful brown eyes.

Tony answers, “the cat” emotionlessly. So emotionless that it makes Ikol scoff in disgust disbelief and try to walk away.

Tony grabs his arm and pulls him back down onto the couch “why the hell are you upset about it?”

“let me go”

“remember last time I did it?” Tony asks like he’s in an interrogation “or are you scared that I’ll finally kill myself”

“don’t bring that up when I stopped you..” Ikol voice cracks and he takes a deep breath “I stopped you, on that day, and you tried to do it in the exact same way-“

“I knew you wouldn’t let me-“

“that’s not the point”

“I have the suit”

“you tried to end your life in front of me” Ikol spits to get it through Tony's thick skull “you pushed Loki away and turned to substances, you broke his trust yet he trusted you more than you ever trusted him, you threw his worst fear back into his face” Ikol finally takes a breath “why would Loki come back when you said, and I quote, no wonder everyone gives up on you”

“so why did you come back?”

Ikol frowns “what?”

“why did you come back? why do you stay?” Tony asks wuicklt “you’re not Loki so there’s nothing holding you back from killing us all and leaving” 

“shut up Troy” 

“if you really don’t care than you should’ve let me jump!” 

“you’re nothing to me do you hear me?” Ikol screams in his face “you mean nothing to me!” 

“then kill me!” Tony smirks as he whispers “or kiss me” and their lips brush together. “we both know you want to”

Ikol growls, throwing him to the floor and before he could even take a breath theres a dagger poking his rib. “I could puncture your diaphragm” Ikol threatens “and then watch as you slowly suffocate to death”

“Ikol” Nebula begs him to stop with that one word.

“i’m not stopping you” Tony replies and Ikol doesn’t move. His chest heaving and his hands shaking, he won’t do it. “c’mon Kol” he urges him on quietly earning a growl from the god. And nothing else because Ikol doesn’t want to do it.

Because once he gets that feeling he won’t be able to stop.

Ikol suddenly puts the dagger away and Tony takes a deep breath, “it’s not your time yet” is all he says before he walks away. 

Tony is panting lightly as he makes eye contact with Thor’s wide, bloodshot eyes. He’s breathing faster than Tony is now, his fists clenched and his jaw tight as he asks “are you ok?”

Tony swallows, “yeah” he mumbles back “are you?”

Thor answers by leaving as well, but he didn’t go home like they expected.

Thor and Hela never told anyone but they have been working with Bruce and the Asgardian Healers to create a sedative strong enough for Ikol.

They have no clue if it will work but it has to, it needs to. Ikol was ready to kill Tony, meaning that he’s farther than they thought.

So they need this to work, because they don’t know what else to do. He’s getting worse, the more they bother him the worse he gets, like he promised them.

So they need to make sure he can’t hurt them while they try to get Loki back.

This is the only way.

Hela knocks on the door, waiting until she hears Ikol tell her to come in and when she does, she’s surprised at how calm he is.

Sitting at his desk and drawing in his old sketchbook. He doesn’t look up at her as he says “sorry about that”

“I’m not the one you almost stabbed”

He sighs and spins in his chair to look at her “don’t lock me up please” he begs, his eyebrows doing that thing that always breaks her “I promised I’d behave, I just slipped up”

“I believe you” she says with a soft smile making Ikol slump back and blink at her wildly “you’ve been doing good, I expected a step back”

Because she did, Ikol is addicted to murder, just like Tony is addicted to drugs. There are always setbacks, always slip ups because addiction is a curse, an illness. She understands that after spending years taking care of Tony, but this is too far of a step.

She kneels down, at eye level with him and places a hand on his shoulder “you’re still my brother” she says softly “and I’m sorry” 

Ikol frowns “for wha-” he chokes on his words as she stabs a needle into his neck and doesn’t hesitate to empty the whole thing. Hw reaches up and she lets go, stepping back as she watches him trying to get the syringe out. 

He collapses to the floor before he could, the crash loud enough that Thor and Bruce comes running in the room

They stop as they see Ikol on the floor, the empty syrinfe still in his neck. “It worked?” Bruce asks.

“yep” Hela states happily, “Thor help,we don’t know how long he’ll be out”

Thor’s grumbles “I still feel bad”

“he was ready to kill Tony”

“I know ” He cries as he kneels down and carefully takes the needle out. He carefully picks up Ikol, careful not to shake him too much

“We’re doing this for him” Hela reminds him “he can’t stay Ikol forever

“I know” Thor says again before he walks out and heads to the cells. He can’t help but feel bad, it’s his baby brother. He looks down at the latter, remembering that stupid dream that keeps haunting him. 

The thought that it’s probably what Loki went through while he was gone haunts him the most.

May 1st, 2017

They locked him up again, even though that fuckin bitch said they wouldnt. They never really ralked to him in the past couple days, they just brought him food and water, that’s it. 

So of course Ikol is confused when a Harry Potter looking man walks into the room, the man is dead serious and he can’t help but laugh. He peeks around the man at Hela and Thor “are you serious?”

“he’s the sorcerer supreme”

“and I’m Ikol the Invincible” he laughs and the sorcerer ignores him, the latter raises his hand and closes his eyes, brows furrowed as he attempts to break through. 

Kol relaxes with a chuckle as he points out “i’m barely trying you know?” Strange struggles harder in reply, his breathing licking up and blood starts slowly trickling from his nose.

“Strange stop” Hela commands but he doesn’t, he keeps trying.

Ikol smiles “in about two seconds your brain is going to be mashed potatoes” he warns with a tune.

“strange!” Thor grabs the sorcerer and pulls him back, breaking his concentration.

“why did you do that? I was almost there!”

“you were almost dead” Hela states “thank you for-“

“you have the time stone” Ikol blurts nonchalantly. Even so Hela’s heart drops as Ikol says “I need it”. Hela looks at him, his eyes wide and looking between all three of them “give me the time stone and I’ll go”

“why do you want it?” Strange asks, even though he won’t give it up. He just wants to know, but Ikol stays silent.

The next person that comes in is a fucking teenager.

Ikol groans dramatically and he looks at the camera asking “really?” with no life to his voice because what the fuck? “you really think this child can get in my head?”

Hela’s voice suddenly comes out of nowhere “she happens to be the strongest of us”  

“and that just proves how pathetic you are-“

The cold, dark cell she finds is much worse than she expected. The walls are filled with drawings- no, carvings and the floor.. The floor is filled with puke and blood. In the middle of all of that is Loki, in bloody cloths that is supposed to be clothing.

And when Loki sees her, fear settles in “how are you here?” he asks quickly “only my brother could..” 

She squats down infront of him and says “is Ikol is holding you hostage?” in the softest voice she can muster “has he always been around?”

he takes a deep breath and looks behind her at the door “you gotta go”

“we gotta go” she corrects as she stands and looks at the door as well “if I get you out  of here then maybe-“ she chokes on her words when she turns around and Loki is gone.

“I told you not to try it” Loki- Ikol says and she takes a deep breath before turning around. He’s standing in the doorway, looking happier than ever, like this is what he wanted “sorry Wendy but I’m not done yet, I got a lot of shit to do”

“why can’t Loki do it?”

“because he’s weak” he smirks as he runs a finger along her cheek “just like all of you” he finishes his sentence by smashing her face into the concrete wall

Wanda comes to with a yelp and her head throbs, stumbling back a bit before gaining her footing and Ikol chuckles. “try again later” he says happily.

Wanda glares at him wishing to do something but if he hurt her in their minds then Ikol is stronger than she thought. Warm blood trickles down her forehead and she wipes it away, her head throbbing from the contact.

Ikol’s face drops “no wonder you’re the strongest” he says abesnt mindedly “but how did I..” his confusion morphs into happiness. His smile spreading across his face 

“what are you mumbling about?”

He tilts his head “you don’t know your true identity?” Wanda is the one frowning now “Loki didn’t know he was Jotun so I guess I can’t judge-“

“what are you talking about?”

“ask your friends”

Chapter Text

Wanda didn’t ask anyone about what Ikol said, he was probably just trying to turn her against them and gain some help in the process. But Wanda is too smart to fall for tht so she never mentioned it, not that she needs to, they’re too busy trying to figure out what is going on.

“so..” Hela pauses “Ikol is holding loki hostage?” Wanda nods, she’s more than eighty percent sure.

“so is this magical?” Bruce asks “because if it’s not I could help”

Tony gasps and turns towards Rhodey “oh my god babe!” he turns to his bestfriend who is now focused on him “what’s that personality thing my shrink thought I had?”

“Dissociative identity disorder”

“yeah, Bruce” he turns towards the doctor “what is that?”

“I’m not that kind of doctor I told you that”

“yes but you have to recognize when someone has a mental illness when you’re a doctor right?”

Bruce sighs and gives in “all I know about it is that it comes from trauma, switching causes amnesia and that someone can have up to one hundred alters”

Hela leans forwards and asks lowly “so what alters does he have?” Bruce shrugs “what alters do you know about?”

“I think Ikol is a lot of alters put into one” Bruce states, “so I can’t tell, I’m not a psychologist”

“There’s still the spell that Maw put on him” Gamora butts in “if we want to help with this personality thing then we need to break that spell first”

Hela reminds them “can’t break the spell unless we kill Maw” and they can’t kill Maw since he’s with Thanos and that madman would gladly kill them all. Nebulas words.

Thor picks up his phone, still watching Lukka and Steve playing together “hello?”

“Nat has a theory” Tony says quickly and Thor gets up, walking out onto the back porch.

He asks “about what?” as he sits down on the steps. 

“your dreamwalking” Thor leans forward, his face hard and confused “she has a theory that you can see into peoples minds, not their dreams. If it was a dream you would have no control over it, no free will, but you do so it must be their subconscious or something”

“And?”

“we want to see if you can get into Kol’s mind while he’s asleep”

Thor swallows as he remembers that dream, the dream that did not feel like a dream at all. “I think I have before”

Tony’s eyebrows rise and surprisngly, he doesn’t give Thor shit for staying quiet “good, then you can do it if you try”

Tony stops dead in his tracks as he sees Steve and Bucky on the couch with Thor “I asked for you” Tony spits “not your sidekicks”

Rhodey interrupts, “your anger can wait” Tony spares a look at the best friends keeping their heads down, their gazes on the floor.

“one fucking word out of your mouth and-“

Hela interrupts by saying “we get it” harsh enough for Tony to shut up and finally sit beside her, parallel to Steve. Giving him the perfect spot in order to glare the blonde down.

And Steve could only stand five minutes before he snaps and asks “can you stop glaring please?”

“can you tell me the truth please?”

“I already have” Steve cries “I didn’t know until we got them out of Buck’s head”

“my father is the reason you are who you are. He is the reason both of you are still here and you are the reason he hated me”   Tony swallows, calming down enough to say “I just wanted to know what happened and you lied about it to my face” calmly

“he didn’t mean to kill them”

“how do you know?”

“because Buck is kind, he’s wasn’t bad until they made him like that. So if you’re going to blame anyone blame HYDRA”

“what makes you think I don’t blame them?”

“you didn’t come up here for this” Steve states, looking around the room “you came up here hoping we’d be here so you could yell at us”

“No I didn’t actually but fate works in funny ways sometimes” 

“does hurting us make you feel better?”

“did protecting him bring your old friend back?”

“I didn’t kill them!”

“No, but you risked everything. Do you know what it feels like to watch you fight harder to protect the man that killed my parents and hundreds of others, than you ever did for any of us?” 

“I was there for you-“

“ lying to me!” . the room falls silent “you’re no saint. you risked everything for Bucky, almost causing a war, you remember the Sokovia Accords right?” he asks bitterly “you remember going up against 117 countries , almost getting us all arrested, almost getting Bucky killed just so all of us could run around fixing your mess. Well I’m fucking sick of it”

“ease up Tony”

“I am sick and tired of cleaning up your mistakes and then taking the fall for it”

“okay-“

“shut up!” Tony screams, all his attention on Steve causing something to happen. Tony doesn’t even feel bad seeing Steve screaming in pain as he curls in on himself in an attempt to get away from the unseen force. “every time I’m doing fine you come in and fuck it up !”

Steve screams louder, tumbling to the floor from all the pain.

Hela mumbles “you’re not hurt.. how are-“

“Tony stop it” Sam commands and the man just glares harder, making the pain worse. To the point that Steve feels like everything in his body is going to explode “hey the power shit isn’t fucking cool Tony!”

Tony takes a deep breath, finally letting Steve go. The latter coughs and writhes on the floor before attempting to get up. Tony kneels down and whispers “we should have locked you up with him”

“Tony!” Rhodey tries to scold him but he’s cut off by Steve uppercutting Tony, his nose cracking and blood runs. 

He stumbles back a bit, smirking as he licks blood off of his lip and Steve walks out, Bucky following like a lost puppy.

“you good?” Sam asks and Tony nods

“better than ever” he sits back down, waving his hand, motioning for Thor to continue with his task.

“I don’t know if it would work being this far away”

“well try,” Tony says coldly “and if it doesn’t work then we go downstairs, it’s not that fucking hard”

It worked.

He stands back, staying hidden as he watches Ikol talking to Loki. He’s never seen anything like it before, your dark side and good side being two separate beings, that’s mostly why he stays hidden. He can’t help but be impressed as he watches them converse with each other.

They’re at the compound, in the cell that Ikol is asleep in at this moment and Thor is grateful, the last dream still haunts him. 

He focuses back on them, taking in the differences. Ikol is dressed in his normal black jeans and grey sweatshirt, and Loki wearing his usual black sweat pants and green long sleeve.

Thor would think that everything is okay, if he didn’t hear their conversation. “you’re wasting your energy Lo” Ikol reminds him, “you’re weak as fuck right now there’s no way you can get rid of me”

Loki looks him in the eyes “you’re getting weaker, or else we wouldn’t be here together” he reminds Kol right back, “this happened when I let you take over remember?”

Kol glares at him and crosses his arms like a stubborn child, because he doesn’t remember and Loki smirking innocently just makes Kol’s blood boil. The fucker knows and he’s using it against him.

“I’m glad you finally picked a name, was weird referring to you as myself-“

“shut the fuck up!” Kol roars, “I’m the one in charge not you!”

Loki doesn’t react, he just sits and waits for Kol to calm down. And the latter does, after absolutely annihilating the bookshelf. “done?” Loki asks as Kol’s panting calms down and he sits down harshly at the table. “as I said before, you are the me I hide, the backup, so you only come out when we’re scared, so as long as Thanos is still a threat-“

“Why the hell are you scared of dad?” Kol asks “sure he’s an asshole but-“

“he tortured us, you know that, that’s how we got the new eye” Kol frowns “you forget most of it, or else you would be scared of him too”

“I’m not scared of anything”

Loki turns around, making Ikol inch back and Loki smirks “you’re scared of me, scared that I’ll come back and you’ll start feeling everything again”

“no matter how scared I am of you, it’ll never compare to your own fear” 

“is that why I hear your heart beating faster?” Loki asks, his smirk growing as he continues on towards Ikol, who’s backing away in fear. 

“I’m the strong one” Ikol tries to say boldly but his voice cracks. Showing that he’s breaking.

Loki shoots back “not as strong as you think” and grabs his arm-

Thor snaps out of it, taking a giant inhale as he looks around at everyone staring at him in anticipation. “I think he’s back” 

Chapter Text

He gasps as he finds himself locked in a cell, sure the cell is furnished but still, he can feel the panic coming as he remembers those grey walls “sister!” he calls out as he marches to the door. He presses his finger to the scanner but it turns red “ Tony!” he calls out as he starts banging on the door.

Somehow his heart is beating faster than his hands against the door, his mind louder than any frequency his voice can reach.

Worst of all, he doesn’t know what he did. 

Thr door opens and he doesn’t even get a glimpse of whoever is on the otherside before they pull him into a hug. He swallows as he sees his siblings over their shoulder, staring at him in concern and fear.

“please tell me it’s you” 

It’s Tony.

His heart skips a beat as he whispers “Tony?” and the latter takes a shaky breath as he pulls back. He cups Loki’s face in his hands as he asks back “is it you?”

Loki blinks quickly before nodding and Tony doesn’t hesitate to pulls him down into a kiss. It doesn’t last long though because Loki pulls back and asks “what did I do?” in a whisper, “what did he do?”

“save that for later” Hela demands “give me a damn hug”

as she basically sprints over and pulls Loki into her arms.

Loki can’t relax though, he can’t get their faces out of his mind. The only time they’ve worn that look is when he turned it off and became him.

How did he end up here?

Is Thanos dead?

Loki freezes and looks Hela in the eyes as he blurts “Mora and Nebs”

“they’re fine” Thor states as he comes over. He doesn’t force Loki into it, he holds his arms out and allows Loki to initiate it, slowly and hesitantly but he does hug Thor.

And Thor drinks up every second that he can feel Loki’s cool temperature and strong pulse, reminding him that this is real “I missed you brother”

“I missed you too”

He has his brother back.

Loki is back, everything should go back to normal, but the environment actually feels worse than it ever has, even with crazy ass Ikol. 

The room is heavy, the air pushing them down, the suspense forcing them into silence. Too scared to move or say the wrong thing, afraid they will somehow trigger Ikol’s return. 

“Babe?-“

“did you find it?” Loki asks quietly, slowly looking at Tony beside him “did you find my message?”. Tony grabs his hand, intertwining his fingers to stall and give him time to push back the tears.

“yeah” he whispers with a broken voice.

2 Days Ago

“I hope this is working, I heard a beep” Loki takes a deep breath, looking up at a mirror, giving Tony a nice view of blood and wounds. Tony takes a deep breath, his chest quivering as he struggles to hold in his emotions at the small smile Loki manages to conjure up. “hi anthony, if you find this and i hope you do, never tell anyone about what I’m going to say, I have a reputation to keep”

Tony chuckles and he almost feels bad until he hears Loki’s own hoarse, weak laugh. “I don’t know how many days it’s been, I lost count after day 70, 71- as I said I lost count. I’m sorta okay thanks to Nebs and Mora, you’d love them, a little sadistic but, just like you, they have a heart of gold. They tried and I tried but um-“ his voice shakes and he takes a shaky exhale “-but I can’t take it anymore, it’s too much, the pain, the lonliness.

I miss you, I miss my siblings and Natasha- even Steve. I miss Fury’s glares and Maria’s nonchalance. I miss Bruce’s cooking and Bucky’s coffee. I have so many regrets, I didn’t think I would regret stupid things like not getting to know Rhodey or not getting the cat that you thought was cute, not helping Natasha train or giving Steve those Asgardian inks I promised. And don’t you dare feel bad, it’s not your fault it was never your fault, I chose this. And thanks to you I know what happy is, I never knew it until you so thank you for that. 

“I’m gonna lay down, get some rest before he comes. When I go, I will be thinking of you” his voice drops to a whisper “because it’s always been you” 

And that’s it, Tony breaks.

He holds onto the table as everything fades away. His vision, breathing, feeling. Everything but this pain overtaking every sqaure inch of his body, he doesn’t feel himself sink to the floor.

He’s more focused on his lungs burning, Loki, his entire body aching as he hugs himself so tight he probably breaks skin. It’s nothing compared to the tortures Loki went through, so horrible that he gave up, he couldn’t take it anymore and it’s your fault-

“I love you Anthony” 

Tony’s never been religious, but right now, he’s praying, harder than he’s ever prayed before. “God, if you’re real bring him back to me” he begs through his cries “Bring him back and I promise I will never doubt you again, I will believe” he pleads with every piece of his soul he has left.

“Bring him back, give me one good thing please”

Present Day

 “why didn’t you tell me?”

Bruce asks “tell you what?” but he’s spoken over by Loki.

“would you have let me go?” Loki asks and Tony immediately shakes his head “that is why”

“we could’ve figured something out”

“there was no other way” Loki tells him, “Ikol was the only way”

“I just wish you would quit this lone wolf act” Tony says honestly “you’re an Avenger, you’re family and family-

“is the people you fight for, the people that fight for you” Loki finishes with a sad smile. Tony nods, mumbling in agreement, too busy still trying to register that Loki is back.

This isn’t Ikol.

Speaking of him “what did we do?” Loki asks, his voice quiet, like he doesn’t want anyone to actually hear his question. Too afraid of the answer. 

“he did it” Thor butts in “not you”

“he is me” Loki replies back “I fucked up, stop forgiving me so easily-“

“we didn’t mean for Ikol to happen” Nebula stays, “you did not fuck up”

“If I had lasted-“

Gamora interrupts with “three more years” and Loki freezes. She knows she shouldn’t have blurt it out like that, but she can’t help it. Loki lied and said he could take it, he couldn’t.

And now the whole plan is fucked up.

“I was him for three years?” he asks with wide eyes “why-why didn’t you bring me here sooner?”

“we were here for over a year Loki” his blue sister reminds him “Kol didn’t want to be within a hundred feet from you guys until he knew you”

“you watched us for over a year?” Bruce asks harshly, “and you’re only saying something now?”

“well now that my homicidal brother is gone we can tell you everything without having to sleep with one eye open”

Loki points at her “that’s smart” he says “Ikol was starting to dislike you two”

“we expected that”

Loki sighs, suddenly feeling a wave of exhaustion take over he leans his head on Tony’s shoulder “‘m tired”. Tony instantly gets up, announcing that they’re heading to bed and Loki has never been so grateful for him.

Why did he leave?

That is the one thing Ikol can not understand. Sure everyone was annoying, his siblings mostly and sure everyone was at risk of dying.

But why would Loki pick torture over this?

Tony’s body fitting against Ikol’s perfectly, Ikol doesn’t have to move at all to watch over Tony’s shoulder at the latter playing with his fingers. 

He just can’t wrap his head around it, Tony is a good person and an even better boyfriend. He never let Ikol get up once, Tony got up for him whenever he was hungry or thirsty or too hot or bored. Ikol is pretty sure Tony would go and piss for him if he could. 

Thank god because it gives Ikol the opportunity to be alone and break character. He wipes his hands down his face and sighs loudly. Seeing his own reflection feels weird, maybe it’s because he may be bordering on the line of guilt?

Maybe it’s his hair growing past his chin, which he never lets happen, maybe it’s the little bit of yellow in his eyes, or maybe it’s because he has never second guessed his own choices before, but he is now because Tony is so happy that Loki is back.

But he’s not, Ikol is just breaking his heart all over again, that’s just a part of his job, breaking hearts and lives. He never failed before, he’s not about to start now.

So he takes a deep breath, getting back into character before he joins Tony again. 

Chapter Text

May 2nd, 2017

Tony jolts awake to the emergency alarm and music playing, the stupid old song that Steve listened to all the time. The room bright red just adding into his anxiety, he turns over “Loke-“ the bed is empty. 

Loki is gone.

Tony’s heart drops as he mumbles “fuck” they fell for it.

He can’t focus on that now though.

He jumps up and demands “Day turn off the music” as he throws on his pants and she doesn’t reply. His heart races as he summons up his gauntlet and thank god it works.

he opens the door and steps out, going down the hall and peeking into thor and Hela’s room to find them knocked out, Natasha coming out of Bruce’s room saying “they’re okay, just knocked out-”

They both flinch as a loud bang comes from right above them, in the lounge. Tony cruises to the stairs, Natasha right behind him as he comes up to find Pietro laying unconscious on the floor, Wanda quickly healing him as Sam and Bucky are on standby.

Every nerve in Tony’s body is on overdrive as the music drowns out any sound Ikol might make that will give away his position in the darkness.

The red lights going on and off every two seconds, not allowing their eyes to adjust to the change in lighting, just gives Ikol the advantage.

“kiss me once then kiss me twice”

Tony flinches as he hears glass breaking.

“then kiss me once again”

He spins around and the red light reveals one person missing, Wanda. “hey kid?” Tony calls out. 

“it’s been a long long time”

There’s a loud thud towards the stairs and grunting, he stops, not moving at all as he tries to focus on drowing out the music.

“havent felt like-“

“Tony, Sam is gone-“ Natasha breaks off into a scream but it’s cut short by a loud crack. Tony raises his hand and shoots towards the sound, the light from his seidr revealing no one but him in the room.

“this my dear”

He doesn’t know what to do “Day?” he calls out, his last hope doesn’t reply. He shoots beside him where he knows the couch is and sighs when it ignites in flames, giving him a frequent source of light in the room.

“since can’t remember when”

Tony flinches when a hand spins him around and he feels cold lips against his own for a split second before they pull back “hello lover” Ikol greets happily

“its been a long long time”

Tony can’t tell if his stomach is drowning in anger or butterflies, probably both. “I’m really starting to fucking hate you” he snarls in Ikol’s face

“you’ll never know how many dreams”

“be grateful” Ikol says gleefully “I saved you for last babe”

“I’ve dreamed about you”

Tony’s jaw clenches as his elbow connects with Ikol’s chin. The song just urging his anger because Ikol purposely chose it. 

“or just how empty they all seemed without you“

Whether because of it being Steve’s song or being so relatable, he doesn’t know. He does know that Ikol doesn’t hit him back, in fact he lets Tony land a shot.

A good enough shot that Ikol hits the counters so hard they crumble into nothing but rubble and dust. Tony drops his hand, waiting for Ikol to get up or shoot some insult at him. 

The only thing that happens is the song ends, so he’s left standing in complete silence, the only sound being his breath and a piece of rubble clinking against the floor.

“Kol?”

“tricked you” Kol says from behind him, Tony spins around. Just adding to the force of Ikol’s hit and he’s out, swallowed up by the black hole of sleep.

Tony takes a deep breath and shoots up from wherever the hell he’s laying. He looks around and realizes he’s laying in a booth at a bar. It’s not fancy but it’s not cheap, it kinda has a Boston Pizza vibe with the dark wooden interior and all the fancy lighting. He looks to his left and sees the bar, Ikol humming the song as he makes himself a drink.

If he’s quiet then he could sneak out, maybe when Ikol uses the blender just in case Tony is loud. He looks to the right, finding the door and Bucky tied to a chair at the biggest table in the middle of the room, just in front of the door.

He scoots back so he’s sitting with his back to the wall, his legs stretched out over the booth and he gets a 360 view of the room. The bar in the middle of the room, surrounded by tables, there’s three doors as far as he could see. The main one on his left parallel to the bar, a door to his right, on the wall he’s sittinf against and one directlg across the room from him, beside the staircase leading to a loft area above the bar.

Tony sighs, now he has to figure out how to get both of-

“Drink?” he looks over at Ikol to see him pouring two glasses “you must be parched-”

“Why are we here?”

Ikol glares at him “do you want a drink or not?” he asks lowly “if not I’ll give it to Bucky”

“Why are we here?”

“As bait”

Tony’s face falls and he crosses his arms “you don’t need bait” Tony states “they would look for you even if you left us”

Ikol shrugs “as motivation then”

“So if I left-”

“You can’t leave without Ben”

“I can and I would” Tony says a little too harshly, he can’t help it though. Bucky killed his parents, the least bit of revenge Tony could get is leaving him with Ikol.

Ikol smirks as he notices how pissed Tony gets when talking or even looking at Bucky “you want revenge?” he asks sincerely before he offers “I can give it to you”

“if he’s gonna die, it’s going to be on my terms ” Ikol’s face falls “besides I don’t want him dead-”

“I could always make you” Ikol sing songs. 

“Then do it” Tony demands, “just know that if you get in my head one more time I’m fucking done” he spits and he fucking means it. “I gave you enough chances”

Ikol doesn’t do it. Instead he slides into the booth with him “I’m sorry”

“you just pretended to be Loki knowing that we would let you out, knowing we would trust you”

“I did what I had to”

“you dont have to do any of this”

“yes I do” Tony scoffs and crosses his arms, leaning back and showing Ikol that he doesn’t believe any of this.

“or else I lose someone very important to me” Ikol suddenly says, earning Tony’s attention again “when you lived as long as me, your heart shrinks to protect yourself. So whatever fits in there matters to me more than ever” his voice is suddenly soft as he says “I will do anything to protect what’s left”

“and what is left?” he asks coldly. “you destroyed both of your families, so what do you have left?”

Ikol ignores his taunts and decides to tell him the truth, he deserves to know about this. He’s no different from Thor or Steve if he keeps lying, so he just blurts it out, 

“my daughter”

Chapter Text

Steve frowns and stops in his tracks when he sees Hela and Thor rushing out of the bar. Thor with blood on his shirt meanwhile Hela’s face is covered in tears and Bucky looks out of it. He shares a confused look with Nat before they turn around and follow, “what happened?” he asks 

“Get in the car” Hela demands “now”

“What the hell happened?” Natasha asks loudly

“Get in the car”

Steve and Natasha jog to catch up with them.

Something bad happened. That’s all Steve knows.

He’s just hoping Tony’s absence doesn’t have anything to do with it.

They got there in ten minutes, almost falling through the door in their rush. “ah” Ikol exclaims happily “my lovely siblings” he smirks at the unhidden disamusement on their faces, he motions to the table in front of him “anyways, please take a seat”

“not until you-“

He commands “I said sit” harshly and without their consent, they do. Joining Tony who is so tense he barely moves to look at them.

She mouths “you okay?” and he nods, despite the dead look in his eyes.

Ikol instantly starts rambling. Hela and Thor share a bored look “you’re all enchanted, no one leaves, no bullshit and don’t lie” Ikol walks around the table, circling them and enjoying every second of this. “Starting with a quiz, in the year 754 after the Jotunheim war Odin sent what to earth?” he looks at Hela for an answer

“Your humanity was never on” Hela states and Ikol rolls his eyes.

“answer”

Hela sighs “The tesseract”

“and who found it later on? Tony”

“HYDRA” Tony deadpans and Ikol smiles.

“good, now in 2012 who tried to rule the planet, Thor”

“you”

“wrong” Ikol says loudly “now we get to learn the game” he says happily as he pulls a gun out of nowhere “you’re all familiar with Russian Roulette right?”

his soulmate blurts “Bullets don’t hurt us genius” 

Ikol raises his brows before aiming the gun at him and pulling the trigger. Tony flinches as it goes off and when his arm starts burning, he hears Hela take a shaky gasp. He leans forward, pressing his head against the table and hisses through clenched teeth. 

Ikol says “these ones do” happily as he pulls out a bullet and reloads the gun. He spins the barrel, as you do with Russian Roulette and passes the gun to Thor.

“Ikol this is insane” Hela states, as her breathing picks up.

Ikol ignores her, looking at Thor just staring at the gun on the table he asks “what are you waiting for weather boy?” earning a glare from Thor.

Thor says “no” slowly, “I’m not doing it”

Ikol just smiles and picks up the gun. “Kol stop” Tony demands as he watches Ikol pull the hammer back and the gun clicks as it loads

“brother” Hela begs him to stop as her eyes tear up, watching Ikol press the gun to Thor’s head. 

Thor’s fucking scared.

she could see it in his uneven breaths and fluttering eyelids, like he’s trying not to close his eyes. He just keeps his gaze on his sister as he feels the gun move and a tiny click erupts in his ear.

Thor closes his eyes and exhales when Ikol puts the gun back on the table, looking at all of them as he says “if you won’t do it then I will” happily.

“What do you want?”

“the truth” he deadpans 

“or else what?”

Ikol smirks as he makes eye contact with her “or else I’m bringing the soldier back” he says smugly and he can see them look at Bucky for a moment “and trust me, you wouldn’t be able to break my spell”

“Loki-“

Ikol picks up the gun and points it at Tony “why didn’t you tell Loki about his mother?” he asks Hela

“you know of his mother?” Thor asks

Hela takes a shaky breath “please stop” she begs and in reply, Ikol pulls the hammer back and the cylinder rotates. she blurts “because if we did then we would be killed” shakily, “this is Odin's biggest secret”

Ikol hums, “I get it, his sister slept with their sworn enemy-“

“he thinks that Laufey took her, I’m the only one that knows the whole story” she states, “that’s why he didn’t like when you would change genders, you look like her”

Thor and Tony watch in confusion.

“so he thinks that Laufey raped Skadi” he mumbles to himself “explains a lot” he takes a deep breath, moving on as he looks at Tony. “what’d you all find when you and Baker were screwing with my eye?”

Ikol ignores Thor and Hela frowning at eachother, focusing on Tony’s face smiling before he looks straight up evil. “we found out that Thanos spent years torturing you, or Loki, trying to make him talk-“ Ikol’s eyebrows scrunch together “-he never did, until he lost his memories and became you, and that’s how I know Loki will come back, he wouldn’t let you win” 

“I already have” Ikol says before going back to the game. He leans back against a table behind him and smirks “this one is for all of you” 

“huh?”

“who did Loki hate most?”

“me” Thor answers instantly “I was never good to him” 

Ikol chuckles as he steps forward “that’s true but-“ and pushes the gun towards Thor “-it’s the wrong answer”

“what?” Tony asks “no no no, Loki hated Thor the most”

Ikol rolls his eyes, ignoring him as he nods at the gun, encouraging Thor. Ikol groans and does it himself - “Odin” Thor blurts in a panic “he hated Odin-“ he breaks off into a shaky gasp when Ikol pulls the trigger.

The tiny click making him flinch so bad that Ikol has to hold back his smile. 

“wrong”

“Ikol stop it” Hela demands as her tears finally fall “stop please ”

Thor hesitates for a moment as Ikol loads the gun “Thanos” 

Ikol pulls the trigger and Hela cries “stop it” through her sobs. “shut up” Ikol yells, loading the gun and pressing it harder into Thor’s head “who did he hate most?” 

“Stop it!”

Ikol reminds her that “the only way you could stop this is if one of you turns it off“!

Tony asks, “the fuck does that mean?” but they’re more focused on getting the answer right.

“who did Loki hate more than anyone?”

“I don’t know-“ 

 “Loki!” Tony blurts

Ikol raises his brows at him, looking pretty impressed. “he hated himself more than anyone” Tony finishes, Ikol thought none of them would get it.

He puts the gun down and Thor nearly passes out from relief, but he forces himself to stay in the moment, remembering that Ikol could kill any of them at any second. 

Ikol smiles even wider as he looks at Hela trying to stop crying “what is the switch Hilda?” he asks, watching as she takes a shaky breath and wipes her tears. 

“It’s a switch to turn off your emotions” she explains, her voice lower and thick with fear “taking away all the pain and guilt” Tony frowns at her but she keeps her gaze on Ikol “but once you turn it on everything that you felt while it was off comes back all at once”

“A switch to not fee-”

“shut up” Ikol demands and Tony’s mouth snaps shut so fast that he almost bit his tongue “what stone came along with Loki in twenty-twelve?” 

“the mind stone”

“and where is it?”

“Up my ass” Tony states “Feel free to try and get it”

Loki gives him a half-assed smile as he pushes the gun over to him - “Loki stop it” Hela demands with a shaky voice

“your turn next” Ikol hisses before reminding them “no stopping until one of you turns it off”

Thor knows that both Hela and Tony could tear this world apart in one day without their humanity. But Thor couldn’t, he wouldn’t.

Steve and Natasha won’t make it in time and Thor can’t make Ikol stop the enchantment, Thor has nothing else to offer, nothing that Loki would be interested in. 

Tony spits “you’re fucking insane” his own voice shaking nust at the thought of picking up the gun. He was counting, and that was four shots. Meaning one of the next two shots has the bullet, it’s him or Hela.

Ikol’s expression doesn’t shift as he snarls “pick up that fucking gun and pull the trigger before I make y-“

Tony swallows as all his nerves go numb “I’ll do it” he announces, still staring at the gun. He’s not letting anything happen to her, they need her.

“really?” a smile spreads across Ikol’s face, 

“Don’t” Thor commands as Tony closes his eyes. His hands curling into fists and his breathing picks up as he focuses.

“wait just wait!” Hela cries desperately

Thor screams “Tony open your eyes!”

“I’ll do it just-”  Hela stops. Tony opens his eyes.

they’re lifeless.

Chapter Text

Tony doesn’t know what the switch is, but the feeling of his fear fading in seconds was euphoric. 

The switch explains why Ikol is an asshole so there’s a good thing, the bad thing is rhat Tony is also one of those assholes now, and he likes it.

He doesn’t regret agreeing to help Ikol.

“okay”

Ikol freezes “really?” he asks in disbelief “you would have to turn off your emotions”

“I don’t know how to do that” Tony tilts his head “I can do that?”

“Aesirs have the ability” Ikol states “there’s another thing they never told you” he quickly changes the subject and asks “you’re really going to help me?” because Tony gave in way too fast, it has to be a set up.

But he nods with a happy yep.

“why?”

“because” his voice is suddenly low and smooth “I will always choose you”

Ikol’s heart is suddenly heavy in a good way, he doesn’t hate it at all. “I won’t kill them”  he states “I’m going to make you guys play russian roulette but the bullet will be an illusion”

Tony nods “deal, now teach me how to turn it off”

Hela and Thor had to tell everyone about the switch, including Fury, who is the one person they did not want to know about this.

“so you guys can turn off your emotions?” Fury asks and earns a nod from the siblings “and you never thought to tell us?” his voice raising, making Thor look away, but Hela doesn’t

She holds eye contact as she says “if Tony knew he would have turned it off”

“he didn’t know and still turned it off” Fury spits “do you know how  much trouble this is gonna cause? having Ikol and the smartest man in the world running around with their emotions off?”

“I know” Hela nearly snarls “we didn’t know Ikol was playing it safe, we thought we could use his recklessness against him but he had three different motiviations for us” she then asks “what would you have done?”

Fury doesn’t answer, instead he asks “how is Ikol being safe?”

“Tony is his emotional trigger so he got rid of the trigger by making him turn it off too” Bucky says calmly “obviously Ikol is Tony’s trigger too”

Fury smiles “there is one other person he cares about as much as Ikol” he says and turns to look at Rhodey.

Steve instantly gets what he’s thinking “no” he tries to protest but is interrupted by Rhodey’s happy “okay”

“no, we don’t know how far they’re willing to go”

“Tony would never hurt me” Rhodey reassures “I know he wouldn’t”

Fury nods, pointing at Ikol’s sisters he says “go see them, find out what their plan is”

“yes sir” 

Tony uses his drink to point at Ikol “so if you turn it back on, will Loki come back?” he asks with a tilt of his head “because it sucks being his soulmate”

“imagine being him” Ikol says and Tony shudders at the thought. “no he wouldn’t come back”

“so how does he come back?”

“don’t know, don’t care” Ikol retorts as he sips his drink “why are you asking?”

“so I could avoid the situation as much as possible, like i said being his soulmate sucks” The front door flies open and Gamora is yelling  “what is wrong with you?” before they could even acknowledge her presence. “this wasn’t apart of the plan, what were you thinking!” 

“I’m thinking that you’re mad and I need another drink” Ikol says as he heads to the bar to fill his empty cup.

They follow, standing on the other side of the bar. “we never planned for you to make him turn it off” Nebula reminds him, hoping to get something out of Ikol. 

Tony tilts his head and frowns “plan?” he repeats.

Gamora glares and whispers something in Nebulas ear and Ikol explains “he could help us” Ikol replies “he wants Loki to stay gone too”

“if they get him to come back and he tells-”

“he won’t” Ikol snarls. “I’m sticking with him to make sure nothing happens”

Gamora looks at Tony drinking without a care and still asks Ikol “can we talk to you outside?”

Ikol doesn’t agree verbally, he just walks out to the balcony without another word. “what the hell is wrong with you?” Gamora asks in a harsh whisper even though Tony can hear them no matter what, “you’re so big on sticking to the plan and now you’re the one that’s ruining it?”

“its not ruining it if im making the plan work better”

Gamora scoffs, shaking her head as she mumbles “you're just like dad”

Ikol breathes out “Sister-”, prepared to explain himself but he’s cut short by Gamora pointing out that “you got a good family, but you can’t help but treat us like shit; just like dad did”

And his veins burn with anger, “you better shut-”

“you wanted to live up to his expectations so badly that you became him” Gamora spits “I spent years, years trying to help you-”

“trying to save me?” Ikol asks quietly. “Well I don’t need to be saved Gamora because I like being me”  

“Tony is a good person-“ Ikol groans, rolling his eyes because of course Nebula has to turn in him too “-and you’re going to use that to destroy him because when push comes to shove you do whatever it takes, even at the cost of the people that love you”

“oh so you love me now?” he asks sarcastically “because two weeks ago you chose Loki and the Looney Gang”

“We are not picking sides because there-

“there are sides, mine and theirs” he points behind them at Tony already finishing his drink “so you are either with me or against me and if you’re against me, even father can’t help you”

They continue staring at eachother, Ikol would never turn on them like this, he loves them more than anyone, anyone except their niece. 

That’s when Nebula realizes,“he threatened her didn’t he?” Ikol rolls his eyes and tries to walk away but Nebula grabs him “what did he say?“

“what did I fucking say Nebs?” Ikol almost yells “I don’t want to hear about her until I can see her again” he spits in her face and rips his arm from her grip, leaving his sisters staring after him in disbelief.

May 3rd, 2017

Ikol fell asleep on the couch but when he woke up he’s in his room, missing his shirt and curled up into blankets. He walks out of the room, to find the living room empty. 

Tony’s gone-

He hears gagging and then he realizes the bathroom light is on, the door closed to muffle the retching. He knocks on the door and before he even knocks twice Tony mumbles “go back to bed” and lets out a cough “I’m okay”

Chapter Text

Tony mumbles “go back to bed” and lets out a cough “I’m okay”

Ikol rolls his eyes because Tony sounds far from okay, his voice is hoarse and he’s breathing is shaking so bad Ikol thinks he’s going to have a seizure or something. He enters the bathroom and Tony turns his face the other way, looking at the wall instead.

“we don’t get sick” Ikol states as he sits down beside Tony, leaning against the counter with his legs out stretched.

“unless you’ve been doing drugs for years” 

“years?”

“I got clean every couple months but not this time” 

“how long-” Ikol stops, interrupted by Tony gagging and retching, his body jolting as it tries to make itself throw up. Ikol’s chest does something at the sight, it’s not nausea but something else. 

Tony sighs loudly and wipes his mouth, his eyes glossy and red. He looks exhausted as he says “all my stuff is at the compound” 

Ikol almost groans because now he has to sneak in the compound and get it. But he can’t leave Tony alone like this, “we’re showering” 

Tony blinks at him “what?”

“a shower will make you feel better and to be honest I need one” he sits up and motions for Tony to lift his arms “hurry up”

Tony does as told, looking dazes as Ikol carefully takes his shirt off, before helping him sit on the toilet to get his pants off “thanks”

Ikol just nods with a hum as he takes off his own clothes now. He does so quickly and then he turns on the shower, adjusting the temperature before helping Tony in, trying his best to ignore the mans hisses of pain.

But it was too much so they just ended up sitting on the floor, letting the shower wash over them in silence until Ikol asks “I thought you can’t feel pain”

“I can feel this pain for some reason” he shrugs before adding “probably has to do with something psychological, I feel pain when I’m manic or depressed too”

“Manic?”

“Bipolar” Tony states “diagnosed after you left”

Ikol cant help but thinj if when Tony crashed the car “were you manic before?” he had to be, there’s no other way Tony would agree to help him.

“pretty sure, I don’t like admitting it, hurts the ego” 

“good thing we have no emotions then”

“yeah, I get why they didn’t tell me about this now” Tony chuckles “I think I like it more than the drugs”

“how come?”

Tony shrugs “i’m going through withdrawals but I don’t want to do drugs” 

Ikol mistakens this for himself but then he remembers they’re talking about the switch. “so you don’t want me to go and get your shit?”

“you don’t have to but I wouldn’t mind” 

“well do you want it?”

He replies “no” and Ikol nods “if i say I do later on,don’t listen to me”

Ikol frowns “are you sure?”

Tony thinks about it an yeah, if he ever turns it back on which is very unlikely, he would hate himself for not taking this chance. “i’m sure”

Nebula stops in her tracks as Ikol comes out of the bathroom carrying a half conscious Tony, “is he okay?” 

Ikol stops, looking at her in disbelief “these humans are making you dumb, Nebs” he deadpans as he continues back to his room.

She follows, standing in the doorway as Ikol lays Tony on the bed “what’s wrong with him?” she asks, taking in how gentle Kol is being with the unconcious man. His fingers slowly and cautiously pulling the blankets over him, carefult to not stir him to much.

“can hear you” Tony slurs weakly, despite their efforts to not wake him. Nebula ignores him, looking at her brother for answer.

“withdrawals” he says and walks out of the room, “apparently he’s still an addict”. They hear Tony mumble something at them before he falls asleep and Ikol doesn’t bother to close the door as he says “I gotta get him clean before he could help”

“from what I know, that’s going to take you a long time” she says, remembering Hela talking about how bad Tony has gotten, hell he died and went back to using the next day.

Tony thinks that no one knew, but Hela did, she always knew when he was using because she would see the death lingering around him, could smell it, feel it.

But she couldn’t do anything, Tony would just do the opposite of what she said, that’s how he is.

“he wants to get clean” Ikol retorts “I’m not forcing him, even offered to go get his stash- ow!” he rubs where the back of his head is stinging from her slap, “fuck you”

“why would you offer to give him drugs?” she asks angrily, “why would you choose the addict?”

Ikol’s face falls, “that addict happens to be the smartest man in the world, he can hack into any system we need, he has power here, he can do more than the three of us put together”

“okay good point” she looks at said addict, wondering how the great Tony Stark is so broken but wanted at the same time. She takes a breath, not even allowing herself to wish “well, I’m gonna go back to sleep”

“okay, night”

she walks down the hall “love you” she calls out. 

“love you too” 

May 4th, 2017

Hela instantly stands up as soon as Gamoea and Nebula enter the lounge “so?”. They stop, not saying anything and that’s enough of an answer, enough for Hela’s heart to sink and nausea to set in.

She sits back down, her hands resting over her stomach like it will make that feeling go away, a ball forms in her throat as her eyes tear up, her nose stings and the room spins around her as she tries to focus on being okay. 

But she can’t, not when it’s this bad. 

She leans forward, hiding her face behind her hands as she lets her sobs take over.

Chapter Text

Hela instantly stands up as soon as Gamoea and Nebula enter the lounge “so?”. They stop, not saying anything and that’s enough of an answer, enough for Hela’s heart to sink and nausea to set in.

She sits back down, her hands resting over her stomach like it will make that feeling go away, a ball forms in her throat as her eyes tear up, her nose stings and the room spins around her as she tries to focus on being okay. 

But she can’t, not when it’s this bad. 

She leans forward, hiding her face behind her hands as she lets her sobs take over.

It’s your fault

Her hands suddenly fist in her hair and she could vaguely hear someone talking to her through all the thoughts running through her mind.

Turn it off

She ignores it, focusing on whoever is talking to her, “-ela!” . It’s not Gamora or Nebula, it’s someone else.

If you don’t turn it off-

“Hela say something!”

-you might as well just d—

She comes to, sitting straight with Natasha in front of her, Hela completely forgets about what just happened with just this sight. 

Hela never thought she would fall in love after losing Gullveig and then she met Nat. Who is now staring at her in concern and asking “what was that?”

“what?” Hela asks.

“you just stoppd crying” Natasha says, her voice shaking a bit “you were staring straight at me and not saying a thing, you weren’t reacting at all”

“I-I don’t know”

“are you okay?”

She shakes her head, the question bringing the tears back and Natasha lets out a sigh before pulling her into a hug, breaking the dam.

Hela doesn’t even care that she’s crying in front of Gamora and Nebula. She just lost two people she loves and she’s about to lose more, so why should she care about something so little as crying?

“Tony’s going through withdrawals” Gamora states “so, they won't be around for a couple weeks”

“then we can bring the tesseract to Asgard today” Hela says to her brother, “you have the last key right” 

Thor nods “you know where he kept the other four?” he questions, because Loki is very good at hiding since most of the time what he hides is in his pocket dimension.

“I have a feeling Thor” 

“what if you can’t find the keys?” 

“Maybe we should just keep it here” Thor reccomends, “we can hide it in the ocean, Ikol’s powers don’t work in water and ours do”

“why?”

Thor shakes his head “the reason why is not important” his voice is monotonous as he speaks “all that matters is he can’t get it”

Steve turns to Fury and asks “don’t you have an old warehouse under the ocean?”

Fury corrects, “it’s not under the ocean, it’s hidden within a cavern in the ocean” so that’s where they put it, and the only one that could get in is Fury, he doesn’t trust anyone else.

He can’t trust anyone when he knows Ikol can enchant people.

“I can-can’t do this” Tony slurs through his cries “I can’t”. He starts gasping repeatedly, winded from all the pain “Kol” he manages to blurt out and the man is instantly behind him. 

He pulls Tony closer and the latter clings onto his thighs for dear life. Ikol rubs a hand down Tony’s back, pushing sweat soaked hair back as he whispers, “you’re gonna be okay, this will pass you just have to get through it”

“I can’t”

“yes you can” Ikol replies back without hesitation “because you are the strongest person I know, you can get through anything” Tony chuckles briefly, he’s cut off by a shiver. “I know you can do this Tony”

“don’t go” Tony begs, his voice shaking with his body “plea-please don-don’t leave m-me, I-I-I don’t wann-wanna die a-alone”

“you’re not going to die” Ikol reassures “I’m not going anywhere without you, I promise”

“don’t bre-break it th-this time”

“I won’t” he kisses Tony’s cheek “I won’t” he repeats.

“hold me” Tony demands “it hurts” Ikol moves behind him and pulls Tony’s body back against himself, their hands intertwined over Tony’s stomach, Ikol presses kisses to his shoulders and all the way up to his cheek.

His shaking calming down with each kiss, Ikol unknowingly taking his pain away with the touch “you’re gonna be fine, you won’t die” he says as his seidr continues collecting all of Tony’s pain.

“I feel-feel like I will” Tony groans quietly 

“stop saying that” Ikol commands softly “you’re not going to die, I won’t let you”

May 5th, 2017

Ikol sighs, he likes this, Tony against his side, his strong heartbeat against Ikol’s ribcage, playing with Ikol’s fingers as the TV plays in the background, “can you tell me what happened?” Tony asks quietly, his voice hoarse from all the puking and gagging.

“what do you mean?” Ikol gave him some strength so his shivering and everything stopped enough for Tony to function, now there’s only a slight shake to his hands as they trace the crevices of Ikol’s palm.

“what happened while Loki was gone” Tony says, “atleast what you can all remember” as he intertwines their fingers. His head resting against Ikol’s chest.

“I thought you knew from the footage?” 

Tony shakes his head and admits “I couldn’t watch, I could barely read the transcripts” Bruce just summarized it for him, Tony didn’t want to hear the details unless he needed to, it hurt too much.

But now he doesn’t hurt, so he can hear what happened.

“He wanted to know about the stones, about you guys and of course Loki never said anything until I came along”

“how does that work? you and Loki?”

“I’m only around when he turns it off or is in panic mode” he states “That’s what he told me atleast” because all he remembers is his life with his sisters and father. He doesn’t remember Asgard or the royal family apart from the dreams he’s been desperately trying to avoid. “my dad tortured Loki, I remember being woken up with boiling hot water poured on me, nails and teeth ripped out over and over”

“damn” Tony mumbles “your dad is brutal”

“you are my sunshine”

Ikol starts humming that song unknowingly, before it made Tony sad, Ikol humming it right in front of him but now, he’s just happy they still have this. 

“he can be when you don’t listen”

“my only sunshine”

Tony sighs, enjoying the vibration of his hums running through his chest and somehow calming Tony’s pounding head.

“you make me happy when skies are grey”  

His version is still slowed down and dragged out. Tony loves it, more than the original.

“you’ll never know dear, how much i love you”

He sighs, closing his eyes and relaxing for once.

“please don’t take my sunshine away”