Archive of Our Own

So sorry, so selfish...

"I'm not angry, it happens."

Peter smiles earnestly at him and Tony feels sick under the oppressive atmosphere of the carefully crafted, supportive environment he's sat in. He's so safe it's almost suffocating, nothing here can hurt him. Nothing but himself. He very carefully doesn't dig his nails into his arm; why would he need to hurt himself, anyway? He is Tony Stark, son of a million- no, billionaire. He gets everything he wants.

Or something like that. It's kind of an old excuse now.

"And how did that make you feel?"

Well, it didn't.

Tony doesn't say much more after that.

+++++++++++++++++++

His name's Loki and it scared Tony how beautiful he is. How dead he is.

It's kind of like; Tony will be sitting on the sofa with Bruce, the shy kid with anger issues who never quite manages a smile, and Loki will walk in and suddenly Tony can't breathe. He's all bones and green eyes and hair that loses more of it's shine everyday. Tony wants to run his hands through it before it all falls out. Loki will smile if Tony meets his eyes, that painful little expression that makes Tony's heart, or what's left of it, squeeze in his chest, like the metal is rushing down to see him.

Loki rubs Bruce up the wrong way and the kid's gone before Tony can tear his eyes away. Loki sits down in his place, bones clinking together hauntingly, and lays his hands on his lap in an oddly precise manner. The knuckles stand out, straining against the skin and it reminds Tony, nostalgically, of how his rib cage looked when the flesh was blown off it.

"You shouldn't stare. It's rude." and his voice is like velvet and Tony wants to feel it, pressed against his mouth. Wants that precious adams apple between his teeth and vibrating luxuriously as he runs his tongue over it.

"I've never been one for manners."

Loki doesn't smile.

+++++++++++++++++++

Tony's not sure how he got here, pressing Loki against the crumbling, red wall just outside the fire escape. He tastes cigarettes and stomach acid on Loki's tongue and doesn't want to think about how Loki probably didn't keep his dinner down. Or lunch. Or breakfast. Tony would be surprised if he even ate them. It's a sickening mixture but it's all Tony can think about, all Tony ever thinks about, and if he can fit his whole hand around Loki's thigh when he grabs it to push his own legs between Loki's then, well, he doesn't say anything.

+++++++++++++++++++

It's confusing.

Loki likes to be held (daddy issues did Clint say?) but the minute Tony's hand slips an inch too close to his stomach Loki will flip and his nails are sharp (and doesn't Tony's back know it). He's all 'don't touch me there' and 'it's so fat' and it's the first time Tony's ever cried for someone who's not himself because he's seen, and he didn't even need to have to know that Loki is dying.

He can feel the outline of his organs when he holds him down to fuck him, the only time Loki will let him touch him there, and he feels an odd mix of nausea and lust. He doesn't know how much longer Loki will be around for, doesn't know how concave his stomach can get till there's nothing left to waste away to. Tony doesn't want to think about how two of his hands can circle Loki's waist with space to spare, but he knows he probably should.

He's not in love.

+++++++++++++++++++

Bruce smashes the tv in with a wooden chair and that's the last Tony ever sees of him.

He's dragged off, crying and angry and ready to throw some more things around but the guards (helpers, they're meant to call them) are stronger and he's gone in minutes. If Tony listens hard enough at night he thinks he can hear Bruce yelling, Bruce crying, Bruce punching the walls of wherever he's being held.

Tony never knows for sure, though, because he never sees Bruce again.

+++++++++++++++++++

"I'd like to know what you felt when your father said that at your bedside."

I'm not angry, it happens.

It happens.

"I don't know, I - I." Tony stares at his hands, imagining skeletons in their place, "It hurt. I guess. I wanted him to cry, or to... hit me. I wanted him to do something. I didn't want this to be one of those things that just 'happens'."

Does suicide just happen? When Tony drank that first bottle he didn't want to kill himself. He thinks so, anyway.

It didn't just happen.

"Does you father usually brush off things you do?"

Tony chokes on his own bitterness.

+++++++++++++++++++

Loki's so cold and Tony's so scared and his eyes are half lidded and his lips are turning blue.

"I don't want you to die, Loki."

And he's finally admitting it to himself and it hurts so much, the realisation he needs Loki alive. He wants to see Loki witty again, like when he first came to the ward, he wants to see Loki stride from a room, rather than stagger. He wants the proud, dominating Loki back, the Loki who'd dare say a word against Bruce and laugh when one of the windows ended up broken. Who reveled in the madness they all were.

But Loki just holds on.

"Please eat, Loki. I need you here. I need you alive."

And fuck, because Loki doesn't want to be alive. Loki doesn't want to be here, want to be held. Loki wants to be dead and it's like the magnet has failed and the metal is here, like he's dying all over again.

Except this time, it's Loki.

"We'll get you better, yeah? You said ice cream used to be your favourite food, well, we'll make it that again. Food will be good again, I promise you Loki. Calories aren't real, you don't need to think about them, okay? Loki? Loki I don't want to lose you, I... I think I..."

He's so, so cold.