Work Text:
The silence in Tony's lab was never absolute, but at 4 AM, it became deafening. Tony hadn't slept since Thor brought back Loki’s cold body. Caffeine and guilt pulsed in his temples, and reality began to fracture at the edges.
In the blue glow of the holograms, Tony saw him. Loki was leaning against the workbench with that defiant elegance, as if Thanos had never crushed the life out of him.
“We’re out late, at 4 a.m,” Tony’s mind-projection whispered.
Loki reached out a spectral hand toward a screen and, with a smile that seemed plucked from a fever dream, looked directly at Tony. His voice, an echo of memories Tony wore like a tattoo, rang out in the empty room:
“How’s the weather, baby? How you’ve been?”
Tony dropped the screwdriver. He stared at Loki—the man who had been Asgard’s pillar of strength and who had died trying to be enough for a family that didn't deserve him.
“You’re dead, Loki. I saw you,” Tony said, his voice raspy.
Loki took a step toward him, his silhouette flickering like a flame in the wind.
“You’re gonna get sick, you don’t know when,” the vision replied, pointing to the deep circles under Tony’s eyes. “They never doubt it at 4 a.m.”
Tony felt his mind collapsing. 4 a.m, 4 a.m, falling down again. In the isolation of the fourth hour, no one doubted ghosts. It was the hour when painful truths surfaced. Loki was there because Tony refused to let him go. He saw the Loki who had struggled with his identity, the one who had been a lie to protect others.
“Why did you go alone? Why did you try to be their hero?” Tony shouted at the shadow.
But the vision only tilted its head, repeating the same hypnotic question: “How you’ve been?”
Tony collapsed into his chair, covering his face with his hands. 4 a.m, 4 a.m. He felt himself falling into a vortex, just as Loki had when he threw himself off the Bifrost or when he fell under Thanos' hand. It was a continuous fall, a hell for those who loved too much and too late.
“I’m out late at 4 a.m, yeah... falling down again,” Tony murmured, realizing that Loki wasn't just a vision, but a part of him that could no longer heal.
Loki, who had been tattooed onto his soul, remained there in the shadows of the lab—a guardian of Tony’s madness, waiting for the stars to align once more.