ATTENTION, ATTENTION: This is Part II. Don't read it if you haven't read Part I, "The Bargain". I will not recap, and this story won't make much sense if you haven't read Part I.

Warnings: Established relationship, IRONFROST (don't like it, don't fucking read it), violence, citrus! This takes place far, FAR from Earth and the Nine Realms

A/N: For those of you who have journeyed all this way with me, don't hesitate to make suggestions or ask me to write content. I'm amazingly good at weaving requests into my plot, and often my lovely readers are inspiration to me. So if you'd like to see me write something, just ask! This story will be more open-format than its predecessor.

First Installment: The Beginning of a Journey

When Tony stepped through the gate, he wasn't sure what to expect. Walking into a forest clearing was the very last thing. Blinking, he looked around and wondered if somehow Loki had misled him or tricked him or he was dreaming. Then he looked around and saw a tiny cabin, complete with a little porch. There were bundles of dried herbs hanging off the porch railing and a single chair. Flowers and creeping vines grew all over the place, a small pond sat off to the right, and Tony had the thought it looked like a witch's hut.

And there, sitting on the porch's chair, was Loki. He looked too pale, but the first thing Tony noticed were his eyes. They were gloriously, wickedly green again. His body moved without his permission, and he sprinted across the short distance to the porch. Loki was wearing exactly what he'd been wearing in Tony's bedroom, and it showed he was still a little too thin. But after almost five months of Loki being dead, all he cared about was getting his lover back into his arms.

A smirk crossed Loki's beautiful face as he waited for Tony to come to him. He didn't even bother rising, he just let Tony sweep him up out of the chair, and he did so with alacrity. He crushed Loki to him, burying his face in ebony hair and breathing in as deeply as he possibly could. His legs felt weak when slender arms slid around his waist. Loki made a soft sound of definite protest.

"I am not yet healed, Stark."

Tony immediately relaxed his hold a little, but he didn't let go. "What? I thought . . . but it's been five months."

"Five months," Loki mused, pushing at Tony's hands until the man let go of him. "You'd think that would be enough time, wouldn't you?" He turned and headed into his little cabin.

Tony followed him, looking around curiously. The front room was sitting room and kitchen combined, though there were no amenities that Tony could see. No sink, no indoor plumbing. Just a few rough-hewn tables and counters. The fireplace was well-functional, a fire crackling behind a grate. It all looked plenty cozy, but at the moment Tony was more focused on his lover.

"Loki, what happened to you?"

Loki stopped in front of the fire, staring down at it with an absent expression. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"You must have brought me here because you want to be with me," Tony said, trying not to sound irritated. He was still over the moon Loki was alive after all. "I think I deserve to know. I need to know."

The glare Loki gave him was mild at best. It subsided quickly. "Very well." He started unlacing his leather tunic. "When I fell through the last gateway as I destroyed it, two things happened. First, the Aether had entered my body, so she quickly found a safe place for us. Second, the open link I had with Yggdrasil was finally cut off." He slid the tunic off over his head. "But that was far from everything I needed to heal. First, my own seiðr had already been drained from my body, infected as I was with Thanos'. Then there was the matter of the wounds he'd inflicted on me to better channel Yggdrasil. Not to mention the crystal rod." He had a wry smile on his face.

Tony watched with rapt attention as Loki slid his shirt off over his head, and when it was out of the way he gasped aloud. There were no longer any open wounds, they'd all healed. The crystal rod was gone, and not a mark remained. However, thick lines of gold were still visible on Loki's torso and arms, exactly where the ragged wounds had been. Unable to control the impulse, he reached out and touched. There was no scar tissue that he could feel, but it looked like there were still rivers of Yggdrasil running beneath pale skin.

"What the hell?" he muttered. "I thought you just said the link was severed."

Loki sighed faintly. "I said the open link had been severed. What you see now is just a small part of Yggdrasil. Rather like how I had separated part of the Aether from the rest, part of Yggdrasil's vast energy is trapped inside me. It is just energy now, the intelligence and knowing if Yggdrasil is gone from my mind. But while I was able to purge Thanos' seiðr from my body, I haven't been able to regenerate much of my own. Aether has helped as much as she could, but it has been very slow going."

"Is the Aether still inside you?" Tony asked, feeling an upwelling of emotion he couldn't quite define.

"Of course not," Loki said with a strange look.

"Did you find another crystal for her?"

"No," Loki replied, lowering himself into one of the chairs by the fire. "She's around somewhere. She has taken an interest in herbs and woodworking. All the furniture you see, she made. She also gathered all the dried herbs."

Just as Tony was about to ask how a molten river of energy could do all this, the cabin door opened. The last thing Tony had expected walked through: a girl. She looked to be only seven or eight, and her hair was a silver platinum with the faintest hint of ice blue. Like a frozen, arctic frost. Her skin had a golden cast to it, she was quite thin, and her eyes . . .

Her eyes. Holy shit, was the first thing that crossed Tony's mind. They were molten black and red. "Aether?"

Thin lips immediately curved up into a smile and though they didn't move, he clearly heard, "Tony."

"As you can see," Loki said, sounding amused, "she has taken a somewhat more functional form."

The little-girl-Aether set her handful of flowers on the kitchen table and went to Loki's side, taking his hand in both hers. "Bringing him here," she said in that mind-voice, "did it tire you? You are still so far from well."

He lifted her hands and kissed both of them. "It tired me, but not overly much. Would you mind hunting for us, dearest? I'm certain Stark would like more than the vegetables you grow in that beautiful little garden."

"I am more like a carnivore than an herbivore," Tony said, flashing her a grin. And wondering why he wasn't freaked out by the Aether having a body. One that seemed perfectly able to just wander around freely. She trotted out, and he had the absurd thought she looked cute her little green smock, belted at the waist in a wide black ribbon.

Well, whatever. His life had been in turmoil since that fateful day Thor showed up, asking the Avengers to shelter a lost Norse god of chaos.

The Avengers. He felt a pang. Perching on the chair opposite Loki, he leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. "When are you planning to go back?"

Loki didn't look at him. "Back to where?"

Tony resisted the urge to sigh. "Asgard, idiot."

No reaction to being called an idiot. "I'm not planning to go back. I thought I made that plain."

"You did. I thought you were lying."

"Why would I lie?"

"You always lie."

"I wasn't lying. I don't plan to go back. Ever."

"Why not?" Tony demanded, trying to decide if the idea made him angry. He had agreed to come thinking he would never go back, but in the far corners of his mind he'd thought he could talk Loki into returning someday.

"I've no wish to resurrect a life long dead."

Tony snorted in sudden amusement. "Funny thing for you to say, given your position. You just spent almost an entire month on a dangerous-as-fuck quest to protect Earth from the worst danger its ever known, you gained the trust of every single Avenger, most of Nidavellir, the king of Alfheim, and brought the queen of Asgard back. It's like you were laying down building blocks for your new life, and then you just swept it all into the fire. Why?"

"Must I have a reason?"

"Considering you never do a damn thing without a bloody good reason," Tony grumbled, "yes. I know you do, and I want to hear it."

To this, he received no response. It struck Tony how strange Loki was acting. Where was his vibrant, feisty, dangerous lover? He had been replaced with a quiet, unreachable, cold Loki. Sighing, he stood.

"I love you," he said, because he felt it absolutely had to be said just then. When that garnered no response either, he leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of Loki's head. "I'm going to see if the Aether needs any help."

"Just Aether."

"What?" Tony asked, pausing on the threshold.

"Not the Aether. Just Aether."

"Right."

Outside, Tony quietly closed the door and wondered why his heart hurt so much. To his surprise, the little-girl-Aether was standing at the base of the small porch. Her red-black eyes watched him closely, and she beckoned he should follow as she trotted toward the forest on the other side of the pond.

"I know it's probably not what you expected," she said, "seeing him."

"He's different," Tony said, offering her his hand without thinking.

She took it, skipping at his side exactly like a little girl. "He is unwell. Very unwell. More than unwell. He was damaged by that Mad Titan."

"Damaged?" Tony said with a frown. "He isn't a tool or a toy, Aether."

"No, but he was damaged. I counted how many times he lay dying in my arms. Seventeen. All in the space of two of your Midgardian weeks. He cannot regenerate his own seiðr because of that gold energy poisoning him. Until just a week ago, he was too weak to even walk."

"What!"

"Yes. There's something wrong with him, Anthony. Something I haven't been able to fix. That's why I pleaded with him to bring you here."

"Just Tony," he corrected absently, feeling a pain in his chest. "You had to get him to bring me here?"

She looked up at him with those not-little-girl eyes. "Yes. He didn't want you to pity him. At least, I think. Sometimes I can't quite figure out what he's thinking. But I love him more than anything in all existence, and I knew you could help him."

A plethora of emotions, tangled and complicated, welled up in Tony's heart. "What can I do? I'm just a damn human. I don't know anything about magic."

"You've helped him a lot already," she argued at once, tugging at his hand to make him walk faster. "He was smiling for the first time. You mean a lot to him. He loves you, and he needs what only you can give."

Despite her words, Tony felt worse than useless. Whether Loki loved him or not, he truly did not know. And he couldn't imagine a single thing Loki could need from him.

Aether released Tony's hand to sink to her knees, carefully starting to pluck some dark purple flowers. "Don't doubt. I don't like this doubtful Tony. You're Tony Stark. Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." And she flashed him a cute little smirk.

Tony started laughing. "You know, I can't believe you were inside my head when I . . . Jesus, when I fucked Loki."

Her smirk widened into a toothy grin. "I will never forget it. I feel like I've experienced all of him. I love him, Tony. I love him to infinity. You will help him, won't you?"

The self-doubt and angst slowly swirled away in the face of those red-black eyes, so ancient and yet so oddly innocent and young. "Yeah. I sure will, princess." He winked.

Her face gave the impression of laughter, though as usual she made no sound. "That's what you call Loki."

"I'll just have to upgrade him to goddess."

The mirth stayed on her face as she continued to pick her herbs.

Well, it's the start of another journey. Remember what I said about requests!