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“I’m limited. Just look at me. I’m limited.” A pause. A cough. Loki wouldn’t acknowledge the change in his lover’s voice during the intervening years. “And just look at you, you can do all I couldn’t do.” Loki balled his hand into a fist. Stupid, stupid man. “So now it’s up to you, for both of us,” Tony’s voice broke at the last word. When he finally could speak again it was barely above a whisper. “Now it’s up to you…” He trailed off, body shaking as it wracked with another round of coughing.
Loki stood, back ramrod straight as he stared out the window. He wouldn’t turn around and stare at the shell of a man in that bed. In all the intervening years, the god had refused to see the tell-tale signs of aging. Had ignored the silver as it crept into Tony’s goatee or the greying at the temples. The way laugh lines grew more and more pronounced.
No longer mere ‘laugh lines’ but wrinkles deep enough to be crevasses.
His own voice was quiet when he spoke, his breath fogging up the window.
Tony still loved to be at the top. That was one thing that had never changed over the past forty years.
“I’ve heard it said, that, people come into our lives for a reason. Bringing something we must learn and we—“
“Loki, don’t talk like that.”
“Fool man. Do not interrupt me. Have you not learned anything?”
Though he couldn’t see it, Loki could almost hear the smirk in his lover’s voice. “I’m not ill enough you can’t punish me, baby.”
Loki shook his head, then rested his forehead against the cool glass. Winter was fast approaching. Soon. Soon it would be here. He knew deep in his heart—yes he had one—that Tony wouldn’t live to see the first snowfall. He drew in a breath, then continued.
“And we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them—and we help them in return. Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true. But I know I’m who I am today because I knew you. Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun. Like a stream the meets a boulder halfway through the wood. Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better. But.” He paused, hearing the tell-tale sound of mattress springs groaning as Tony shifted. “But. Because I knew you. I have been changed for good.”
Loki sucked in a breath as he felt heated flesh press against his back. Tony was all but burning up with fever, his skin burning the man who craved ice and cold.
“What are you doing out of bed?” Loki asked, finally turning around to pull Tony into his arms.
“Telling you how I feel about you. Wanting to be held by you.”
’If it’s the last time. went unstated. Loki looked down at the engineer, unable to keep from cataloguing all the negatives. The translucent skin. The protruding veins. The age spots. The glassy coating to his eyes, the sure sign that his sight was soon to leave him. Though they both knew Tony would be six feet under before he lost his precious sight.
Liver disease from so many years of abuse. The body parts that were synthetic that could no longer be replaced. The brain may have been willing but the body was not.
Science and engineering could only do so much.
Tony coughed, lifting a shaking hand to touch Loki’s cheek. The god almost pulled away from the heat, afraid when Tony removed his hand there would be a hand-shaped burn mark in its wake.
“It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime. So, let me say before we part: so much of me is made of what I learned from you.” Tony reached for Loki’s hand, placing it over the dimming arc reactor. Once upon a time, the light glowed bright around Loki’s long fingers. Today, he could easily extinguish the much-beloved nightlight. “You’ll be with me, like a handprint on my heart. And now whatever way our stories end, I know you’ll have rewritten mine, by being my friend.”
Loki pressed cool lips to burning skin. “So much more than just a friend, my beloved.” He drew in a breath feeling his shoulders slump from his usual regal bearing. He wrapped his free arm around Tony, resting his cheek to Tony’s temple. “And just to clear the air. I ask forgiveness—“
“You’ve been forgiven a thousand times over, Lo. For everything. You know that.”
“Perhaps,” Loki allowed. “But I should have done whatever I could have to make you immortal when I had the chance.”
“I never asked,” Tony replied. “Guess I should have. I suppose I thought I’d always be able to upgrade myself. But, then again, I guess we know there’s blame to share. And none of it seems to matter any more.”
The coughing grew worse and this time Loki retreated to the overly-large bed with Tony. He eased himself onto the mattress and pulled Tony into his arms. He could see the other man’s breathing growing shallow and more labored. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Because… because I knew you,” Tony whispered, his eyes meeting Loki’s then slowly closing for the last time.
A few more breaths… and then silence.
One set of lungs working now, not two.
“Because I knew you,” Loki murmured, kissing his lover’s lips for the last time.
“I have been changed… for good.”