I guess I should start out by letting you know that i'm alive.

I'm alive!

Surprise, surprise. I guess this letter is kind of a dead giveaway, and yes, Pepper, I do remember how to use a pen and paper. Although, Loki tried to offer me his quill, and wasn't that an interesting half hour of fowl play. Get it?

Anyway, I digress, as usual.

I'm alive! I repeat, from my bed that I've been stuck in for weeks. Not that i'm complaining, because i'm not. It's the good kind of stuck, the kind that includes someone else and a lot of exercise. ;)

I should continue from where I left off on my phone.

Which was

Fuck that, I can't remember where that was, so I'll start with waking up and not being dead.

Yeah, here's the story...

Tony woke up to a world of pain and darkness, and hushed voice. The sounds, alone, were giving him a headache, but there was also that thriving inside of his skull that made him want to scream. He tried telling them to shut up, or maybe 'fix me', but he's pretty sure nothing actually came out of his mouth. The throbbing continued, as did the voices, and the light grew stronger. It was a relief, considering Tony was well aware that his eyes had been open for several minutes, and they had seen nothing but black, and blindness is very, very not allowed.

"Wassghh?" He managed, and wow, a sound, impressive.

"Stark, please hold still, we need to—"

"—he's not responding to our spells, my lady, perhaps we should—"

"—bandage your chest. Can you breathe?"

Tony frowned, trying to tune out one conversation for the other. Who wasn't responding to spells? Clearly he was fine, even if he couldn't see much more than blurry blobs, so who else was here? In fact, where was here?

"... Bring the Norn stones, and—"

"Sir Stark, can you hear me?"

"Unfortunately," Tony snapped, and he was so proud that his first words back were as bitter and sarcastic as usual. He could only wonder what his future children's first words would be like.

Right, children. Marrying a man means that's not happening, even if you want it to.

Marrying a man.

Loki.

"Where's Loki?" He croaked, yanking himself up from the bed. The blob to his left let out a startled grunt, shoved him back down, and continued to do something around his chest area. A spike on panic grew in his chest, probably from both where they were sticking their hands and the lack of answers about Loki.

"Where is he?!" He demanded, trying to push the blob away. More hands began to push him around, holding him against the table, and pressing vials to his lips. Tony struggled against it all, until whatever was in that vial kicked in and he felt himself go weak.

"Sir Loki is healing, Stark."

"Please lay still."

"It keeps burning," someone else whispered, and they're right, something was burning, his chest.

Tony squirmed and tried to get away from it, but it kept on burning.

"Make it... Stop!" He gasped, forcing his way into a sitting position. A burning circlet of light tumbled out of his chest, and seconds later Tony's heart went into overdrive. So, he grabbed at the thing in confusion, and as soon as his hand closed around it, he felt the heat.

"What the fuck?!"

One of the blobs grabbed at his shoulder, their voice oddly low, "Son of Stark, please—"

Tony pushed the round loop of whatever back into his chest and hissed in pain as it pulled off half the skin on the palm of his hand. A perfect circle of red, melty skin, and holy shit did that hurt. Tony squinted his eyes at it, and then decided that if it hurt this badly without seeing it up close, he was probably better off not knowing.

A slightly more pressing issue was, what the fuck was that thing in his chest right now, and why was it bouncing around in there like a loose bolt? Staring at it, only half awake—or half alive—he was struck with a strange feeling of familiarity. It looked a lot like... something.

"Stark, please lay back so we can bandage your chest."

Tony glanced up at the person to his left, frowning as they came into focus a little more.

"I don't think that's going to work," he replied with a scowl. "Pretty sure you guys have already burned off all my chest hair."

"Sir—"

"Let him be," someone spoke from across the room. Tony turned and squinted at a new group of colors that might have been people. What was that blue thing on top of the—

"Loki?!"

Jumping out of bed with his already burned hand placed over the cavity in his chest, Tony stumbled and sways his way over to the second table. His knees sagged as he reached it, and luckily for him, someone caught him before he collapsed to the floor.

"Who's that?" He wheezed at the figure, vaguely aware of the tingle of magic crawling under his skin. Strong arms eased him down into a chair by the table, and Tony automatically reached out he free hand to curl around Loki's blue fingers.

The person in question moved around to the other side of the table, now too lit up by the lights for Tony to catch even the faintest hint of recognizable features. "I am Lady Frigga, Anthony."

"Oh... sorry. I can't—"

"See very very well?" She finished for him, sounding slightly bemused. "Perhaps due to the fact that your body was quite dead only moments ago. I am a bit surprised you are able to move about at all."

"Dead dead? Like flat line dead? How am I even..." He trailed off and rubbed at his eyes uselessly. "How long, and what's wrong with Lokes?"

Frigga leaned over Loki to mumble powerful sounding words that could almost be Latin. Another weird sense of familiarity struck Tony, but he was too exhausted to examine it any further. Only after she finished, whatever that was, did she answer.

"I was not present for the entirety of your death, since I was called too late, but you had past beyond for quite some time. I believe your body had ceased functioning for much longer than that. As for your soon-to-be, I fear I am unable to determine the cause of his state, thus far."

"What is his state, exactly?" He asked, deciding to worry about permanent blindness and brain damage later. Loki was more important. Loki was always more important.

"Still as death, but breathing. He also seems to be missing... The heat of life. I feel no warmth nor cold from him. Worst still, I feel no source for his energy."

"He's always cold," Tony muttered, giving the hand under his a slow squeeze. She was right, though, he just sort of felt... room temperature. "Wait, don't you guys all have 'cores'? Loki talked about his once, You can't just lose that, it's a part of you."

"Have you never lost something that was a part of you, Stark?"

He was to going to answer that, not for a million dollars. So, to avoid her gaze, Tony squinted down at his lover and tried to figure out what was missing. Loki looked pale for someone who was usually a nice, dusty blue. Even more disturbing was his mouth and the strange color around it that Tony had to lean in closer to inspect.

"What is this?" He wondered quietly, tracing a finger along the lips. The sensation of his overly warm skin against Loki's unresponsive lips sent a shiver of dread through his body. It felt so wrong. It felt so bad he was starting to really worry about this—scratch that, he was full onterrified as hell, now. "He... how can he lose his core? What happened?"

"Your death was something he could not accept, something, I might add, we share an opinion on. But he... he refused to allow it to happen, even if it meant his life was forfeit."

Tonys heart thudded painfully against his new burnt chest piece and his poor, probably bleeding hand. "No," he breathed. "No, no, no. Hecan't do this to me, he can't save my life and then just leave me here alone!"

"I do not think it was such a simple choice for him. Anthony, please understand—"

"It is simple," he insisted, reaching up to brush away a few stay hairs from Loki's face. "It's really easy to make that choice when you... when you care about someone. It's easy, trust me."

Frigga remained silent for some time, long enough for Tony's body to grow numb, regardless of the aches and burns littering his body. His kind simply could not focus, pain was trivial at this point.

Frigga interrupted his miserable thoughts about loki with a soothing voice, "I will need to consult some scrolls about this, but I think I may be able to save him. It is very rare for one to lose their core, even more so in the manner of which he lost it."

"This thing in my chest?"

"Indeed," she confirmed, brushing her delicate fingers across Loki's brow in an affectionate manner. "I will not have ether of you die today. Please stay with him until I return."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Frigga studied him for a moment, before her eyes slid down to his chest and she exclaimed a soft, "oh!"

Tony glanced down in confusion, and nearly gagged at the sight. He wasn't wrong about being able to see it, before. With a pained whimper, Tony leaned back in his chair and tried to pull his hand away.

"Wait," Frigga instructed, hurrying around the table to place a hand on the back of his. Tony cried out in pain and automatically tried to move away, his body twitching against his will.

"Hold still and I can help."

"Can you stop touching—"

"If you would please—"

"—you're making it—" Tony broke off with an undignified squawk and held his breath as the skin of his palm began to knit together right before his eyes. She was doing something, the same kind of muttering under her breath that he watched her do over Loki.

Magic, his mind provided uselessly, and he should really be getting used to it by now.

"A scar will remain," she spoke suddenly, pulling Tony out of his 'how is this my life?' Musings just in time to see a dusting of blue light fade from his hand. She was right, there was a scar, an angry red circle that reminded Tony of his repulsers.

"That's fine—more than fine—thank you."

"It is still healing," she said, letting go of his hand with a gentle touch to his wrist. "I would tell you to avoid using it, but I believe we both know how well you listen to such advice."

Tony snorted and cupped his hand to his chest, just barely brushing over the open cavity filled with the burning whatever-that-was. She rewarded him with a small smile, eyes following his hand to his bare chest.

"Do you have some sort of metal or glass to cover that?" She asked, gesturing to the light glowing through his fingers. "I do not think flesh or cloth should come near it again."

"Not on me, so i'll have to be careful until I get to my shop."

She frowned i'm response and looked around the room, waving at a blob-person that was still out of range of Tony's fuzzy eye site. They exchanged words, Tony went back to looking at Loki, and the blob left.

Loki was looking... bad, worse, if possible. Obviously one was not meant to lose their magic core thing if one is a magic core sort of person. Tony wondered for a split second if he had a magic core, then dismissed it in an internal fit of, 'you're fucking human and a scientist to boot.'

Which, in the end, lead to a great heaping pile of depression and self hatred. If he wasn't a scientist, if he did have some powers of the magic persuasion, maybe he could help Loki. As it was, all he could do is sit here holding his hand while holding, what appeared to be the end of Loki's magic, inside his chest.

"Stark..."

"You can call me Tony," he muttered distractedly. "Or Anthony, if that's more Asgardian."

"Anthony, this was not your fault,"

He looked up, an argument already on his lips, and paused at the severity and pure honesty on Frigga's face. She wasn't messing around, she meant business and who was he to argue with the queen?

For some ungodly reason, that made him laugh out loud, and all the severity in her face softened.

"Alright," Tony agreed, squeezing Loki's hand a little harder. "Alright, I'll try not to take the blame for this, but I can't promise you anything. Especially not when Loki's... like this."

He cleared his throat and hoped the sound covered up the way his voice cracked.

"Lady Frigga," a woman said, finally coming close enough for him to distinguish her from the shadows. "I brought what you requested."

Frigga thanked her and brought what looked like chicken wire over to him. Tony looked down at the stuff in her hands, back up at her, and then grunted in confusion.

"For the device," she prompted, pressing it into his hand.

"Oh, right, okay."

Regretfully letting go of Loki's hand, he shaped presses the metal wire frame to the arc reactor's casing, and started to curl the edges around it to keep it in place. It was a lot more intricate than he first though, and as malleable as it was, once he pressed it into shape, it stayed.

"Huh. Magic chicken wire."

Frigga let out a huff of laughter, eyeing him over Loki's still form. "It is elven, costly, and quite rare."

"Expensive magic chicken wire," Tony amended, looking up with a small grin. "Thanks. Again."

Instead of acknowledging his joke, she looked down at loki and muttered ,"Do not thank me, yet."

"I will not have ether of you die today," she spoke more firmly, pulling herself away from the table and out of Tony's line of sight. "Please stay with him until I return."

Tony nodded grimly, half of him screaming to help loki, to do something, and the other telling him to shut up and let the professionals handle it.

Alone, mostly, with his thoughts, he started to get antsy. It was uncomfortable in there, for about a dozen reasons, but the thing that pushed it to unbearable was the silence. So, Tony started talking, because that's what tiny did best. Well, other than, you know, inventing awesome things.

"You know what?" He began, curling his fingers through Loki's own. "We're going to get married soon, or, at least, they want us to get married soon. Personally, I think it's too soon, like, actually getting married and not forced-engaged, anyway. I think I've probably learned a lot about you already, but I feel like we've barely a scratched the surface after, what, less than a year? It doesn't help that you're one deep pit of secrets. But, even without you telling me, I know some horrible things happened to you back home, some horrible things happened to me, too."

He paused, his mind going back over the events before his departure to Asgard. It still felt raw to him, even after all this time. The betrayal, the deaths, the guilt. It weighed on him every day, no matter how far away from Earth he was. He was still the Merchant of Death, he was still a murderer.

'Blood on your hands', someone once said, 'even if your finger isn't on the trigger.'

Loki's blood is on my hands.

"Yeah," he rasped, glancing away from Loki's face. "So, maybe I should actually open up to you, so you know it's okay to talk about shit too. I can probably manage to tell you about my life, whatever there was of it before we met. You should probably know about my father, or Obi, maybe Pepper. Er... I don't know if that's a good idea, but, then again, she was sort of the first person I felt okay around other than you. Not really myself, I mean, I'm always myself to an extent, but when I was around her I always tried to be better than myself. Tried to be good."

"'Good' meaning less offensive—don't laugh—and more caring. She inspired me to try a little harder at that thing called human interaction, and honestly, I wouldn't even be here right now if it wasn't for her." He paused, squeezing Loki's limp hand as he waited and wished for some sort of reaction. He didn't know what the point was, but he felt like this was what he was supposed to do.

"I... I guess you could say Pepper was the first person I loved. Not that we were a thing, there was a chance for it at one point, but then Thor showed up and you know the rest." He made a face, remembering Loki's attitude when they first met. No, it really wasn't 'love at first sight'.

"Its going to sound selfish—no, it is selfish—but I'm glad I'm here instead of home with all of them. I loved them, Rodney, Pepper, hell, even Happy had a special place in my heart. But all this—" he gestured to the room at large, colors and lights still swirling above Loki's table.

"All of this, Loki, has shown me how small my world really was. I could fly, so what? According to you, there's fucking space dragons out there somewhere. I created the single most powerful, self-sustaining, clean energy source on Earth that, albeit, was poisoning me, and you fixed it, you made it better. Which, remind me again, how the hell did you did that—when you're actually awake and listening."

"I am awake," croaked a weak voice. "Tis hard... to ignore... your babbling."

Tony nearly threw himself backwards off the stool, because unbroken silent for over an hour makes you twitchy. That's totally why.

Loki?, jesus, you're awake."

"Stating the... obvious," Loki muttered, his eyes still not open, but a faint hint of a smile playing across his lips. "I am... glad you are alive."

"I could say the same for you, but I'm kind of more worried that your core is missing. Apparently it's missing, not that I can tell."

"You could... even you should be able to... feel it."

Tony's heart thudded painfully against his chest, because he could. He knew loki felt different, but he had been trying to.

Instead of answering that, Tony reached out to caress Loki's cheek.

"You—" Tony cleared his throat, "you're going to be okay, right?"

Loki finally opened his eyes and looked around blearily until finally settling on Tony. His faint smile grew wider as he replied, "I know not, it's not... as though I have lost my... magic's core before."

"Don't you sass me, give me an estimate, percentages, anything. I'm going to have a fucking heart attack here and no amount of magic circle voodoo is going to bring me back this time. Give me something... please."

Loki tipped his head a little more, and stared as he seemed to focus on the hand Tony was brushing against his face. "You are... harmed? What happened?"

Tony let out a growl of irritation and snatched his hand back. "I grabbed the circle thing like an idiot. Don't avoid my fucking question!"

Loki flinched away from him, and regret pooled in Tony's stomach almost instantly. "Oh shit, hey, I'm sorry! I'm not mad at you, god no. I'm just—"

"It's alright," Loki interrupted softly, his eyes still wide but his voice steady. "I understand how you are feeling. I felt very much the same looking down at you before. Only... you we're already gone."

"'Already' gone? What does that mean, though? Are you implying that you're going to die? How do you know this? Percentages, estimate, hypothesis."

"I don't know, Anthony."

"I do."

Tony jerked is head up to see lady Frigga returning, her mood considerably lighter than when she left.

"Please share with the class, I'm mid-break down here," Tony said, tightening his grip on Loki's hand while he tucked the burnt one out of Loki's sight.

Frigga returned to her spot on the other side of Loki's bed and took a moment to run her hand through the prince's hair, startling him by her touch. She simply smiled at him and leaned back to hold up a dusty, red book. "I believe I have the solution here, if you are willing to undertake such a task."

"I'll undertake anything if it helps him."

"You will need to work with my son, Thor."

"Okay, maybe not 'anything.'"

"Anthony," she chided, giving him an exasperated look.

Tony put a hand up in defeat. "I'm joking, I'm joking. What is this task I must preform with your son, your majesty?"

"You will need to perform a bonding spell."

"With... Thor?"

Loki let out a small unhappy sound at this, and tried to sit up.

"No!" Frigga gasped, gently pushing loki back down. "Calm yourself. Oh goodness, no, not with Thor. With Loki, of course."

Tony gave his lover a reassuring smile and hand squeeze and looked back up at the queen. He didn't want to assume, but 'bond' sounded an awful lot like—

"Marriage," Loki rasped, eyes trained on Frigga.

"Yes, with the more traditional blood bonds, your core should return to your body and heal itself over time."

"Wait, so we have to get married... today?"

"If you wish to save his life," Frigga stated simply. "Yes."

Swallowing his childish argument of, 'it's too soon,' Tony looked over at Loki and saw a similar fear in his red eyes.

It was too soon, the entire thing was too soon. But it was an arrange marriage after all, so timing wasn't exactly on anyone's mine and he really did like Loki.

He loved Loki.

He grinned and was relieved to see that fear ebb away.

"Well honey, looks like you and me are getting a Vegas style wedding."

I cannot even begin to say how happy I was to wake to the sound of Anthony's voice. I was told, by some unseen force, that his heart still beat, but his chattering in my ear was the proof I needed to calm my heart. However, there was a new and pressing issue. I could feel my loss as soon as my senses returned to me.

There is nothing quite like a core, it is who you are, what you are, what you can be. My core was unique, as is any other's, and quite possibly the only unchanging aspect of my life thus far. Something I could rely on when the words and deeds of men failed me.

So to lose that, that precious, warm light, was the most tragic thing I have ever experienced.

All of my protection, every language learned, every drop of fire in my blood, gone. Spell upon spell broken, leaving dusty, old remnants littering my mind. A mother's warning, cast when I was just small child to keep me from wiggling about in my chair too much. My only remnant of her, a spell with no memory attached.

There was more, so much more than I ever realized.

A spell to calm the stomach, so old and dampened down that all that was left was a soft reminder, a smudge of gray. Then there were the newer ones, ones that covered a scar from sight, ones that kept me cool in the Asgardian heat, a tracking spell, a promise.

All gone and shattered, and messy.

But... There was a warmth there, even in the darkness that claimed me. It never faded, no matter how much disconnect I was suffering, and it stayed with me even as I awoke to worried, brown eyes, rough fingers against my cheek, and a very agitated husband-to-be.

And there he was, pale and pained, to be sure, but alive. Alive and well and worried for me.

If not for the Lady Frigga joining us, I may have blurted out things best left unsaid. A deathbed is no place for vows of love. For what better way to drive the knife of sorrow in more deeply, than to remind them of what they have so fleetingly, and shall never have again?

The lady Frigga, however, brought good tidings, marriage and a blood bond. It is not unfamiliar to me, as my people still believe in the old ways and, for all their cruelty to me, a depth of love most could never understand.

To bond was to live, eat, sleep, breathe your partner—no—they become more than that. You are their breath, you are theirs. It is a powerful connection, and indeed, the perfect way to return my core to me.

But

For just a moment, I saw Anthony hesitate. Or perhaps it was the hitch in his breath before he spoke that held a whisper of doubt. Not that I could lay any blame upon him, to be married so soon, and to me.

I had scars he had yet to see. Perhaps some still bleeding wounds we still have yet to uncover.

Ah, but there is time for that yet, because

"We're getting married," Anthony muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

Loki rolled his eyes, for what felt like the thousandth time, and leaned back in the uncomfortable chair they had propped him up in. The journey from the healing room was one Loki would like to forget while he carefully fit the prices of his shattered dignity back together.

Thor's voice helped remind him that, "Yes, you are to be wed!"

"Could we please dispense with the shouting?"

"Yeah," Tony agreed, looking as disheveled as loki felt. "Actually, my head is killing me."

Thor simply muttered an apology and went to hover in the far side of his mother while she prepared things for the ritual.

Loki scowled, because everything was too loud, too bright, and too hot. The heat was due to Anthony covering him with blankets to such an excessive amount, they ended up having a bit of a tiff about it. Frigga had snorted rather ungracefully at them and left to go find her son who, apparently, was needed for the ceremony. Which brought them to now, with Anthony standing next to his chair, foot tapping in an annoying manner while the queen started pouring things into bowls and muttering.

Several times in the past few minutes, Loki had caught the mortal attempting to cross his arms over his chest before wincing and letting them fall back to his sides again. Clearly he was still in pain, all the more reason to get the ceremony completed.

"Loki, do you know the proper words?" Frigga asked over her shoulder.

Loki hesitated, not willing to part with the truth of his shattered memories. They needn't know.

"I... I'm afraid I never learned them," he lied, knowing he did at some point, but could no longer remember when or where or why.

"Ah, well then, Thor, if you please?"

Thor nodded, flashing Anthony a pained smile that was greeted with a sharp, but tired glare.

What could possibly have angered Anthony to such an extent?

Loki frowned, remembering the scene he had found when this all started. Thor and Anthony together before he died. He hadn't spared it a thought at the time, but clearly something had happened. Anthony had told him he had days more before he was in any real danger.

Loki leveled his gaze on thor, watching for any hints of his transgressions as he accepted a book from Frigga and read over the page quickly before approaching them.

"It says to clasp your hands together, face one another..." Thor trailed off as he squinted at the text. "Then you shall say, 'til hvers sálir okkar. með orðum sem við binda. Mitt er þitt. og þitt er mitt."

From his right, Anthony muttered, "What...?"

"To each our souls

With words we bind...

Mine is yours

And yours is mine," Loki translated easily, his cheeks tinting almost purple as he spoke. It was a rather overly romantic phrasing. Appropriate for the task, but still a tad—

"Oh god," Anthony groaned, rubbing his hands down his face and revealing flushed cheeks of his own. A small seed of panic took root in Loki's stomach, and he quickly stuffed down the bitter ache that came with it.

"If you don't wish to do it, I understand completely, it is—"

"Shh, stop. Stop right there. I'm doing it, it's fine, more than fine. A little... cheesy, but it's all good."

"It may be... a bit childish for what it is, but I must remind you that this bond is more than marriage," Frigga interjected, coming over and gently pulling Anthony around to face Loki. "You will be forever connected to one another and nothing can break this bond. That is why it is not so commonly used here in Asgard anymore. Our people have become more..."

"Fickle?" Anthony suggested.

"Nomadic?" Loki offered, earning a grin from his lover.

"Sexual deviants?"

"Clean shaven?"

"Hah!" Anthony barked, "Not me."

"Enough from you two, you understand the concept." She added sharply, "I hope."

Anthony simply laughed as he reached his chair, grabbed Loki's hands, and drew him up to stand on wobbly legs.

"Well then, my handsome better half," he smirked, "ready to accept your new human battery?"

"My what?"

"Do I have to chant this thing in old-person tongue?" Anthony asked over his shoulder to Frigga, who simply gave him such a look, it had him turning away with a small grimace. As he focused on Loki once more, the groaned tipped up into a warm smile, and for a moment, Loki got lost.

Lost in the way Anthony's hair flopped over his forehead, having grown out longer—he claimed—than it had been in years. He saw the lines around those bright eyes that came from smiling and the lines around his lips that came from frowning.

This man had lived a lifetime without him, struggled through things Loki could not imagine or understand. He hadn't needed Loki then, he didn't need loki now.

Oh, but he wants me, Loki thought, staring into those now worried eyes. It had always been him, only him, who wanted Loki, and who Loki wanted most.

"Yes," he answered, perhaps too late, and squeezed Stark's hands in reassurance.

"Okay... okay," Anthony breathed. "Then I'll start... To each our souls

With words we bind..."

"Mine is yours

And yours is m-mine," Loki gasped, and a different kind of magic began to prickle in his fingertips. It burned with unfamiliarity as it crawled up his arms, seeming to struggle its way to Loki's body.

"I feel you," Loki whispered, leaning closer to rest his forehead against his lover's own.

"I feel you, too, and not in just the physical 'i'm practically stuck to you' kind of way."

"Only you could turn a spiritual moment into an innuendo." Loki huffed with laughter and closed his eyes, allowing the new warmth to wash over him.

"Hey, not my intention, n—ah!"

Loki's eyes snapped open,only to be blinded by a bright glow from between them. It wasn't painful, indeed, Stark seemed only surprised, not pained.

"This is... beautiful."

"This is your bond," came Frigga's voice from somewhere beyond the glow. "This may be the only time you will lay eyes on it. Look well, remember this moment, for you are now and forever, one."

A breath, short and awed, drew Loki's eyes up and away from the beauty of their bond, to find his lover staring at him. His lips parted in a wide smile, and Loki, not caring about the audience, cupped Anthony's face in his hands, and kissed him.

"Mine," he whispers against those smiling lips.

"Yours," was whispered back.

The glow between them dimmed, fading away as quickly as it had come. But even as the last particle of light blinked out between them, Loki continued to gaze right ahead.

Right at the light of his life.

Pepper Potts was sitting in her office with a small pile of paper work that had thankfully made its way into the 'out' box, rather than accumulating across her desk. This meant she could enjoy a small lunch break, which something she had been looking forward to for the last few hours of non-stop work. She couldn't leave the company for lunch most of the time, considering the time it took to travel there, order, eat, and travel back. Multitasking was simply how she lived, it came with the job.

So, fork in one hand, a letter opener in the other, Director Potts began her lunch hour. After sorting through several packets and a dozen letters, she noticed a strangely decorative box, taped up and sealed with the SHIELD name and logo.

"Looks like they sorted their name out at last," she muttered, smiling to herself. Coulson had been the only one kind enough to let her know when there were any updates on Tony's status. Such things as the scare a few months ago when, according to Coulson, Tony and his husband had fallen simply off the map. It was a long week later when he came back, looking hassled and a bit amused, to tell her that Tony Stark was kind of a jerk, but he was fine.

Intrigued, Pepper placed her fork down and managed to slice open the seal holding the lid firmly closed. She took a moment to marvel at the wood and metal work before popping it open at last. Directly on top were three envelopes, all sealed with red wax and tucked in nicely with a pile of leather bound books. Her brows drew together when she saw Tony's name scrawled across one in his painfully familiar penmanship.

It couldn't possibly be from him, they hadn't allowed direct contact since he left. She was lucky that anyone told her anything at all, Coulson had told her.

But there it was, Tony's scrawl on a letter stuffed inside a mysterious box of books.

With shaking hands, she lifted all three envelopes out and studied them. The first was light and smaller than the other two, with no label on it whatsoever. The other had such beautiful script, she found herself tracing the letters of the name with a finger. After a short minute of deliberation, she decided to save Tony's letter for last, and sliced open the letter marked 'from: Loki'

Dear Miss Potts,

My name is Loki and I am married to your once-close friend, Anthony Stark. I do not know how much you have been told of our situation over the few years, and so I have provided my private accounts of the events since we both arrived on Asgard. I give these to you, for one, because Anthony is a stubborn child at times and would not accept anything but my full cooperation, and also because I, too, hope for someone to know and remember these moments when we, who have lived them, are gone.

He has talked to me of you at great length, of his love for you and the friendship you shared before he left. So, it is with a light heart that I offer these to you; my personal thoughts and interpretations of my time with Anthony thus far.

Please keep them close and treasure them for what they are, precious, important memories. Remember him as he was, and as he is, and know that he is loved, so dearly, by us all.

You have my eternal thanks for bringing me this light to my life, for keeping him from killing his foolish self in some way or another, as i'm sure he would have.

May your life be filled with such light as mine, and may it never go out.

-Loki Stark

Somewhere, while she read along, her hands stopped trembling and a sad smile formed across her lips.

He really was gone, then.

Gone, but not lost, she reminded herself, blinking away the threat of tears. Once she read it over one more time, she carefully folded the letter back into the envelope and picked up Tony's.

She fidgeted with it for a while, deliberating between saving it until she returned home, or just getting it over with.

Just open it, it's like ripping a Band Aid off.

With a grimace, she opened it much more carefully than the last one. The paper was just as thick, and covered in ink blotches and smudges that the other had lacked. Clearly Tony had not mastered the quill or ink pen they seemed to be using over on Asgard. She couldn't help but snort at Tony's rare moment of failure, and leaned back in her chair to read.

To Pepper,

By now you've probably looked at the date on the first note I left you and realized it's been forever since we've actually had contact. Ten years, right? Fuck, has it really been that long? Have you gone gray?

I'm kidding, obviously not, since I'm not there to give you gray hairs anymore.

Anyway, I hope my notes from my phone are still accessible, it would kind of suck to be missing those. I checked the chip and it wasn't damaged, so that's what's in the envelope that I included with my chicken-scratch letter. If not, well, I asked Loki to send his side of the story, since he's been keeping tabs on things just as long as I have. He's a sweetie, I hope you like him—or, well, I hope you like reading about him. I switched to paper at one point, thanks Fury for not bringing me a new phone, so good luck reading that mess!

On another note, I would love to bring Loki back to meet my best buddies, but Odin is a bastard and, w ell, let's just say: if we do leave, things could get complicated for their 'peace' efforts. At least they finally let us do our jobs, as begrudgingly as possible,of course. But, yeah, we're happy and we've moved into our own little place outside of the city. It's so fucking domestic you would laugh in disbelief at my life right now. But that's okay, it's good. I'm good.

I should probably mention that there's a reason I'm sending these to you now, and not just because Odin and Fury have started to ignore my requests for contact and this might be our last chance, but because it's time. Miss Potts, it was a pleasure and an honor to know you, and I will never, ever be able to repay the debt that I owe for keeping me together and mostly sane all those times. For crying for me when I was kidnapped, for putting up with my antics, signing my paperwork, putting art on my walls, and genuinely giving a damn about me. You deserve happiness, and I don't mean cheesy, generic happy endings, I mean whatever it is that you need in your life, I hope you get it. I got it, and that's why this is my final entry in my sort-of diary.

If there's anything I've learned out here in space, it's that dragons are real. No, well, yes, but what I really learned is that there are moments that will stay with you forever, but what matters most is right in front of you right now.

And with that, Miss Potts, I leave you a small portion of my life in your hands. I hope it's a good read.

Thank you.

I really mean it.

Thank you.

-Tony Stark

Pepper placed the letter back on her desk, careful to keep it away from the drops that fell from her eyes. Her salad had long been forgotten, shoved to the side and growing soggy. Pulling herself together, she brought out the final envelop, dropping the small cell phone card into her hand. Then, it was a simple matter of sliding it into the slot of her computer and having JARVIS access the information for her.

"I recognize this writing format," the AI said suddenly.

Pepper gave another sad smile and replied, "He really hasn't changed a bit."

"Good things never do."

Onscreen, 130 notes popped up, and with the same determination and patience she always had when it came to Tony, she began to read about his life.

'I'm not sure how to say this, but I guess it doesn't matter since no one but myself is going to read it anyway.

There's something about Loki...'

The end.