AN: This vignette is complete and will not be continued.

The Dark Whispers Back

Shadows fell over him and gripped at his throat that he almost choked. It was pitch black all around him, and his eyes frantically swept over the unending darkness that not even the light of the arc reactor was there to comfort him with its unending glow.

Then, Tony remembered something - like a lucid dream or memory that he meant to forget, but had haunted him anyway.

Coils of black and green mist had infected the reactor in his chest, sliding into him as a thick, amorphous miasma and making its way through his heart and into his veins.

Shuddering, the mass cocooned around him and formed into an echoing laugh. No. But they had beaten him. Thor had taken him back to whatever cracked-out fairytale land he had come from.

But he was here, scratching against his brain like the boogeyman clamoring under the bed.

Loki.

Tony squinted, seeing the glow of light suddenly form into the demigod himself, and Tony's eyes fixated on the feral grin that was meant only for him.

He meant to speak, call him a name, insult his virility, something...but no words came. The monster lounged against him lazily, confidently. The monster lounged in Tony's bed.

"You think you're rid of me? Oh, no, no, no, this is only the beginning," he said, tracing a finger down Tony's chest where the dead, black encrusted metal of his arc reactor lay dormant. He felt his heart surge, and panic enveloped him. Fear swept through his frame as Tony remembered the shrapnel.

Loki's touch was so intimate, so sensual that he didn't even realize the monster was slowly killing him, sliding his darkness within him and allowing nature to finally run its course.

"What, no clever words, Man of Iron?" Loki laughed. His hands dipped from his chest and below, and Tony tensed, wishing he didn't like the pleasure, hoping that he wouldn't die like this.

A shimmer of color assaulted his senses. It was always green. Bright, sinister green. The color of Loki's eyes. He was inches from him now, and he felt the man's icy breath against his furrowed his brow with intrigue. What was Loki going to do with him? What was the meaning of this game?

Loki laughed. "I should show you that I have no problem with performance, for this play is all for you." Slippery, sinister words that weren't meant to arouse, but did. Dammit Tony! What were you thinking?

He wasn't. He wasn't even in control anymore. Someone else pulled the strings. Or so he'd like to believe.

"If you're having difficulty succombing to your own dreams, I assure you that I can be helpful..." Another long finger slid down his wet skin, moist from the panic, sweating from a conflict of fear and urge.

A cold wintery whisper blew into his ear. "I can be anything...anyone you like."

"What!" was all Tony could manage after this ransack on his mental defenses. His mind already felt mushy, and Tony didn't like that - couldn't stand for that, and the bastard was seducing him with a very different firepower. Something from which Tony's suit couldn't protect him.

Eyes wide, he pursed his lips at Loki, his expression full of wonder and rage. He watched, helpless, as Loki lowered himself and let his coal black hair billow out over Tony's lap. His thighs quivered under the weight of Loki's head. He sighed relaxed and looked into Tony's eyes, light dancing in them as if he'd already won and he was moments from claiming the prize.

Darkness swirled around him again, and Tony swore he could only see Loki's eyes and sinister smile in the thicket of black.

"Don't resist, Tony Stark. They all bow to me in the end," he said, his voice echoing like a looped prayer. "Just give me your everything."

Loki's melody dug into his brain like a fresh tattoo, and Tony shivered, hearing it seep into his bones, knowing that struggling to suppress it would be futile.

Coldly, Tony know he would hear Loki voice for the rest of the night and up into the harsh, unforgiving dawn.