i. beginnings

Tony stands in the darkness and watches Loki pull the wire out of his lips.

It doesn't occur to him to wonder about the things he would normally wonder about – how he got there, why he's there, where 'there' is, anyway. Those thoughts won't come to him until much later, after he wakes in a cold sweat and realizes that this is a dream. For now, he is lost in the insubstantial haze of his subconscious, watching as the trickster god un-sews his mouth and lets loose his poison tongue.

If Loki were a mortal man, there would be scars. He is not; there are none. He drops the wire (where it goes doesn't matter, it simply vanishes), stretches his jaw, and once again the skin around that mouth is as pale and smooth as it ever was before. Perfect.

The same cannot be said for the rest of him.

Tony has seen photographs of the prisoners of concentration camps from World War II, and it's with no small amount of reluctant discomfort that he realizes that these are what Loki reminds him of. He's pale as usual, yes, but his skin lacks its normal luster. Rather than porcelain white, it seems to be a dull, dirty gray. There are heavy bags beneath his dark, sunken eyes and his hair is a knotted mess of grease. The regal leather and gold that he favors is entirely gone, replaced by nothing more than a baggy pair of stiff, cotton pants that hang from his bony hips. They do a disturbingly good job of highlighting his emaciation. His ribs have become his armor.

Tony swallows. His head is bursting with questions, all screaming for answers as the god's eyes glide up to meet his own.

What happened to you? he wants to ask. Is this Asgard's punishment? Did they sew your lips shut again? What are you doing here? What do you want from me? Are you even still alive?

But this is a dream. Sense will not have its way. His lips form their own question without his permission.

"Why is it so dark?"

Hearing it in his own voice, he is suddenly aware of the darkness in a way he wasn't before. They aren't merely standing in a lightless room; they are standing in a void, a vast stretch of nothingness without boundaries. He and Loki are bright and clear, as though illuminated from within, but beyond them there is only silence and emptiness.

Loki considers him for a moment and then turns his head slightly to examine their surroundings. A cruel caricature of a smile twists his face as he realizes these same things.

"Are you familiar with the creation of the world, Stark?" he asks.

"Depends which creation you're talking about – the real one that actually happened or one of the fake ones that religious people get all worked up about every time somebody mentions dinosaurs."

"I refer to ours, of course – the history of the gods," Loki provides dryly. "In the beginning, they say, there was only fire, ice, and the void in between. South, in the land of fire, Black Surt sat with his flaming sword, waiting to bring the end of all things. Isn't that something? Before Asgard and Midgard have been made, their destruction is already fated."

"So you're saying that's where we are? In the void thing-y?"

Loki frowns and is silent. He continues to stare out into the darkness, as though searching for a flicker of light, a sign of Black Surt and assurance of his death.

"No," he says after a long time. "We are not there. But close enough, anyway."

His eyes return to Tony's and they are sharper than before. They shine out of his face like dagger tips or stars, so radiant that Tony can almost overlook the poor state of his body. Here, at least, he is a familiar Loki.

"The fire and ice bled into the void and gave birth to a giant and a cow," Loki continues. "The giant was manifestly evil and his blood runs in the veins of all gods and giants – he was the grandfather of Odin and his brothers. My…father and his two brothers slew their grandfather, their mother's father, and from his rotting corpse they shaped Midgard, transforming his flesh and bones into terrain and pooling his blood into rivers and seas. His skull became the sky."

Loki pauses and examines Tony for a moment before adding, "All things come from darkness and evil and hate. It is in the fabric of existence."

"Why are you telling me this? I mean, it's a cute bed time story and all, but I'm relatively sure the first humans descended from a common ancestor of the apes', not the roots of trees or however that bit goes. Not hugely into fantasy, to be one hundred percent with you."

"You are a man of science," Loki allows. "I can sympathize. But I want you to understand exactly what I mean when I say that the gods and humans are made of different things." A pause. "Let me try to explain in a way you will understand:

"In your brain's most basic form, you have only instincts – fear, hate, disgust; emotions that allow you to identify threats and avoid death. Your brain came first and learned slowly to survive. Hate is, for you, an evolutionary necessity.

"For me, for the gods, it is different. Our hate came first. It is what we are. The blood and bones and skin of our bodies came as afterthoughts, curling around our darkness like moths to flames. Our shells contain us, but they do not define us the way they do for you, you simple, simple creatures."

Tony scowls.

"Yeah, you've kind of driven the whole 'humans are inferior' thing home already. I've got the message, thanks."

Loki's face takes on a countenance that Tony almost doesn't recognize, it is so misplaced on the God of Mischief. It's a combination of things, none of them good, but above all else it is desperation. Desperation and despair.

"No," Loki says quietly. "That's not what I mean at all."

Suddenly, he reaches up a bony, trembling hand and touches the pads of his fingers to his lips. When he draws them away, they shimmer with thick, red liquid. He stares at the substance without emotion.

"Is that blood?" Tony asks nervously. "Whose blood is that?"

Loki looks up, confused.

"It's mine, of course," he says.

As he speaks, his mouth visibly fills with a shifting dark that stains his teeth and lips. It slowly seeps out at the corners, drawing meandering lines down his cheeks to his chin. After a moment, his nose begins to bleed, too, from both nostrils, until the entire bottom half of his face is slick with garish red.

"I'm in pain," Loki says. "I'm in pain and I can't escape – it's who I am; what I am. For the rest of eternity, until Ragnarok at last crushes me in its rage, I will be nothing more than pain that can speak." He lets out an agonized groan. "Tony Stark, I do not think you inferior. I envy you."

This is the moment when Tony finally wakes, panting and shivering with some dreadful feeling that is neither cold nor fear. But before consciousness fully grips him and his eyes fly open with an almost audible snap, an image burns itself into his mind:

Loki's chest opens up, like paper ripping in two, and his beating heart falls out.

It sinks away, down, down, into the dark.