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There are always unavoidable moments in life when a person is forced to do something that they do not wish to.
Loki knew the truth of it better than most– he had spent his younger years pressed under the weight of duty, and then more recent times he had been forced to act in ways he would rather not as a necessary means of survival.
It was only in the past year or so that he had found some measure of freedom, when he had found happiness in the form of a man who loved him– and yet, even then, there were moments when he still felt trapped. Moments when it seemed like a noose was winding around his neck, that he was bound so tightly that he could scarcely hope to breathe.
The most common moments to cause Loki to feel like the walls were closing in were the times when he was forced to play the villain, and Anthony the Avenger. Moments when they had to pretend like what they had was nothing, or when their time alone in Anthony’s penthouse was interrupted by someone who would have both of their heads for daring to fall in love.
But this… this was not one of those moments.
No.
This was far worse than that—
Because as Loki deflected one of Iron Man’s repulsor blasts with a shield of seiðr, as he slashed and he hacked and he fought tooth and nail to take down the love of his life—
Oh, he knew that there couldn’t be anything more painful than this.
Fighting Anthony was truly the last thing that he ever wanted to do. They both tried to avoid it, doing their best to stay at opposite ends of a battlefield if Loki was confronted by the Avengers, Loki even going so far sometimes as to create an illusion for Anthony to fight. But this time, there were no illusions– this time, there was no holding back.
Anthony had already defeated the Avengers– they lay scattered along the side of the road, unmoving but still alive. And they only remained so because Loki had stepped in, had thrown Anthony back with a vicious wave of seiðr that likely would have shattered every bone in his body had he not been wearing his armour. Loki had tried to reason, he had tried to break through– but the Avengers had tried that before, and Loki had no more luck than they had.
Something was wrong, that much was clear– and yet, that didn’t matter, because Anthony had tried to kill the Avengers, he had tried to kill civilians– and now, he was trying to kill Loki.
And there didn’t seem to be any way of snapping him out of it. Even JARVIS said he was locked out of the suit, unable to help in any way.
So no, Loki did not want to be battling the love of his life in what was shaping up to be a fight to the death, but he didn’t feel like he had any choice.
Because if Loki didn’t stop him?
Then Anthony would never forgive himself, and that was the kind of guilt that Loki never wanted his lover to have to suffer.
So Loki had to fight– and he had to win.
He could feel a wetness on his cheeks that he knew was not just from the blood that dripped from his temple, and he could taste the salt of tears upon his lips. But despite the pain, despite the way that every slash of his dagger, every hit with his fists made it feel like he was tearing out a piece of his own soul, Loki just kept on fighting.
He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t Anthony, that the man that he loved was locked away– but there was no way of knowing that for sure. And even if there was, it was still Anthony’s suit, still Anthony’s body. Those were the same hands which had stroked Loki’s skin only that morning, the same shoulders that Loki’s nails had dragged over, the same lips that he had kissed. But now, those hands were firing repulsor blasts at Loki’s head, those shoulders were set firmly in rage. And underneath the gold faceplate Loki would be willing to bet that those lips were twisted into a horrifying snarl as he charged forward to come at Loki with a viciousness that didn’t match the Anthony he knew.
Perhaps one of the worst parts of it all was that Anthony had said nothing. There was no accusation, no reasoning for why he was doing this. But while the silence was both disquieting and terrifying, it was also what made Loki certain that it wasn’t Anthony at all.
So it had to be some kind of mind control, it had to be—
But Loki couldn’t sense any kind of spell, so there was no way for him to be able to even begin to counter it.
Anthony was going for the kill, and if Loki didn’t get the upper hand soon, then he was going to end up dead– and Anthony would tear through the city until there was nothing left of either it or himself.
That would not happen. Loki would not allow it—
And if the only way to make him stop was to stop him entirely, then… well, that was what Loki was going to have to do. No matter how much it would hurt him to do it.
So he forced everything he had left into creating an illusion and splitting it away from himself, turning his body invisible as he did so. He had to make the illusion perfect, because Anthony was usually the only one who would notice the difference, picking up on even the slightest defect– but this time, Anthony did not seem to notice at all. Loki had the illusion dodge for a moment as he positioned himself at Anthony’s back, and then when he was ready the illusion raised its daggers and snarled—
Then Anthony charged, lifting slightly in the air as he aimed his repulsors in preparation to fire—
And Loki ran forward to leap into the air, slamming his knee into the centre of Anthony’s spine as one hand closed hard around the back of Anthony’s neck.
Anthony’s suit was strong, but not strong enough to counter being taken by surprise like that, and the force of Loki’s assault sent him crashing to the ground. He slammed into the asphalt face-first with an almighty crash, the force of it shattering the front of his faceplate, cracking the metal right down the middle. Loki felt it as an ache in his bones, the pain of it more from the sight of Anthony’s blood staining the ground than it was the force of their fall.
It’s not Anthony.
This isn’t him.
Anthony was already trying to get back up– one arm bending so that his knuckles could push up from the ground, and one of his knees pulling underneath him. Somehow, despite the devastating hit to his head, Anthony was going to be back up in a matter of seconds—
That was something that Loki could not allow.
Whatever it was that had been done to Anthony, it seemed that he had been made more difficult to stop. Taking out the suit, bringing him down, doing what should have rendered him unconscious didn’t seem to be enough.
Loki… was going to have to go all the way.
His eyes were stinging, his heart was shattering, everything inside him was ripping and tearing but he knew he had to do it because this was what Anthony would have wanted.
So Loki pulled back his arm, green seiðr burning around his hand as he prepared to slam it down against Anthony’s skull, telling himself that at least it would be quick.
But still, he was hesitating. Because Anthony was his love, his life, his everything– and he just, he couldn’t—
And it was with tears burning in his eyes that Loki pressed down harder against Anthony’s neck, trying to keep him in place, trying to buy just a few more seconds as he gave one final plea.
“Anthony,” he whispered, his voice broken and cracked. “Anthony, please.”
But then, like an answer to every one of Loki’s prayers—
“Loki,” Anthony croaked.
It was only a single word– it was only two syllables, spoken with a harsh rasp that sounded not unlike the scratch of fingernails. But it seemed to cut through every fibre of Loki’s being, and his eyes widened with shock as he instinctively leaned forward to try and see Anthony’s face. Only half of it was uncovered by the broken helmet, but Loki could see enough to recognise his expression—
Anthony looked absolutely terrified.
“Loki,” he said again, speaking through bloodied teeth. “It’s not me– the suit—”
“Oh,” Loki gasped. “You’re—”
“You have to do it,” Anthony said. “Loki, I know what you were– you have to—”
“No,” Loki snarled, the power in his hand surging as a new kind of fire burned in his veins. “No, I do not have to at all.”
Because he’d come close, he’d come so close to the very edge of that precipice and– he knew that if he had made that final strike, he never would have forgiven himself, never mind that it was what Anthony wanted.
The pure rage Loki felt in that moment was unparalleled. Because during this whole fight, he had been hurting Anthony, and Anthony had been aware this entire time—
Someone had dared to take control of Anthony’s suit, had made him attack first the city, then his own team, and then even Loki. They had dared, and Anthony had almost paid the ultimate price for it.
But no more.
It’s the suit.
Stopping Anthony meant blood and pain, but stopping Iron Man?
That was not half so hard.
No longer concerned for what he was about to do now that he knew Anthony was still in there, Loki used his grip on his lover’s neck to draw him up and then spun around to Anthony’s other side before slamming his seiðr-cloaked hand straight into the centre of Anthony’s chest—
Straight into the arc reactor.
It wasn’t enough to destroy the reactor entirely – not when the rector itself was impervious to magic – but was certainly enough to shatter the casing, and then the knife of pure Jötunn ice encasing Loki’s other hand did the rest of the work.
The rector flicked for a moment, and Loki twisted his frozen blade, the ice protecting him from any injury or electrical current—
The arc reactor went dark—
And it took the suit with it.
Loki didn’t even allow himself half a second to breathe, because he was perfectly aware that while the arc reactor powered the suit, it also powered Anthony’s heart.
Moving with rapid haste, Loki tore the suit away from Anthony with his seiðr, removing piece by damaged piece and going as quickly as he could until the ground was littered with broken fragments of red and gold metal.
Anthony looked like he had one foot in Niflheim– his skin was pale and clammy only where it wasn’t bruised. His face was already beginning to swell from where Loki had slammed it into the road, and to call his breathing irregular would be to describe the situation too lightly.
“Loki—” he rasped—
“It’s okay, Anthony,” Loki swore, gathering his lover in his arms with incredible care, and only the desperation of the situation was enough to stop his emotions from bringing him to his knees. “I’ve got you.”
Loki did not have time for finesse. He simply ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe and tore them both through it, dashing from the street to Anthony’s workshop in the space between one stuttered heartbeat and the next– and it only took that long because he used another push of seiðr to drag the remaining pieces of the corrupted armour with him to throw them into the void, scattering them into nothingness so they could never hurt anyone ever again.
They landed directly beside the safe Loki knew contained Anthony’s spare reactors, and after laying Anthony down on a quickly cleared workbench Loki moved to punch in the proper code. Anthony was still awake, but it was clear that he was barely holding on to consciousness– and Loki’s fingers were shaking as he pulled out one of the reactors.
He had to take a few quick breaths then, not wanting his unsteady fingers to result in a mistake—
But his determination was enough to pull him through, he swapped Anthony’s broken reactor for the new one—
And Anthony’s first deep breath was like music to Loki’s ears.
Feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him as all of the pain finally caught up, Loki collapsed into the chair beside the workbench with a heavy groan. But despite the horror, despite the rage and the aches and the remining terror of having nearly lost his whole world, Loki kept his eyes on the man before him, on that steady rise and fall of Anthony’s chest.
Loki had come so close to almost losing him, and that was going to be something that would be hard to recover from.
It did not take long before Anthony moved to try and sit up– that was not unusual, he typically recovered quickly when he swapped out his reactors. But Loki knew that Anthony had to have a concussion from the hit to his head, if not worse, and the rest of his body wasn’t looking particularly healthy, either.
“You should go to a hospital,” Loki whispered– surprised by how hoarse his own voice sounded.
“Not yet,” Anthony replied. “I think I should stay here for now.”
Loki meant to ask whether Anthony was worried about any backlash from this– he meant to say that he would make sure Anthony was not blamed, that they would find the person responsible for hacking the suit and that they would make them pay.
But before he could utter even a single word, Anthony slid down off the bench and wound his arms around Loki’s shoulders.
“Are you all right?” Anthony asked.
The sound that tore from Loki’s throat might have started as a scoff, but it came out sounding far closer to a sob– a broken kind of thing that was enough of an answer by itself.
It felt wrong, that Anthony would be the one comforting Loki, but he could not stop himself from leaning into Anthony’s touch, from curling his arms around Anthony’s waist and pressing his forehead to Anthony’s stomach.
“I’m sorry,” Loki said—
Loki could almost hear Anthony’s frown in his voice. “For what?”
“I tried to kill you—”
“You tried to stop me, because you knew that’s what I would have wanted,” Anthony interrupted. “And that’s… that’s more than I think I could have done.”
Loki drew in a shaky breath– which turned into an angry scowl when Anthony spoke again.
“I was the one trying to kill you—”
“That wasn’t your fault—”
“Exactly,” Anthony interrupted. “This wasn’t either of our faults. And– oh, god, the Avengers—”
“Are receiving medical attention as we speak, Sir,” JARVIS said. “I must say, I am glad that you are all right.”
“Me too, buddy,” Anthony said, his hold on Loki tightening. “That was too close.”
Loki could only agree with that sentiment, and even as JARVIS began to mention that he would be able to track down the person responsible, Loki wasn’t capable of much more than curling into Anthony with a soft whimper. Just the mere memory of what could have happened – of what so very nearly did happen – was more than enough to make his breathing shorten to pained gasps.
“Shh,” Anthony whispered, stroking his hands through Loki’s hair– those hands that Loki still loved. “We’ll be all right.”
It was a hard thing to believe sometimes– the idea that everything could be all right. It was especially hard when they knew that everything could be destroyed in a single moment, by a single action that might not even be their own.
All they could do was to hold on tight to the knowledge that Loki hadn’t had to go all the way. That this time… they had been lucky, and Loki hadn’t been forced to do that thing which would have torn himself apart.