Author's Note: This story is written primarily as drabble, but includes the pairing of Lady!Loki and Tony Stark.

Disclaimer: Song used is "Undone" by FFH. Characters are property of Marvel (Loki belongs to both Marvel, and to good ol' Norse Myth.)

Undone

"Come undone; surrender is stronger,

And I don't need to be the hero tonight..."

When did this conversation get serious? From taunting to teasing, and from teasing to solemnity. A drastic change in a matter of minutes it seemed. Neither of them seemed to know how the change took place, and yet neither of them were willing to change direction either.

"Do you hate me so much that you would condemn me to an existence of starvation? Of bitter tears resulting from... Mistreatment?"

"Never said I hated you, did I?"

"You threatened to return me."

Silence, a thoughtful pause. A sip from a glass. Dim light cast shadows over the male's face, and the female could not yet tell if they were menacing, or just made him look exhausted.

"You pissed me off."

"It was not personal," she offered, fiddling with the stem of the wine glass in her hands. The liquid inside was dark, burgundy, almost the same shade as her lips.

"You still did it."

This ruffled her proverbial feathers. Straightening her spine, taking a deep breath, she leaned a little less against the leather sofa. Now was not a good time to enjoy luxuries.

"That was three years ago. If you were unaware, everything here is still quite intact this time around. Before you got wise, I was merely trying to keep myself hidden."

"You're not even supposed to be in this realm!"

She hissed softly through her teeth as she replied, "Anything was better than where I was."

A snort of disbelief. "What, were you confined to your room for misbehaving?"

Silence. It seemed as though she wasn't even about to dignify that with a response. Eyes the color of a jade statue fell again to the glass in her hands. The scent of the red wine tickled her nose, and she breathed it in before taking a sip and setting the glass aside entirely. Though, she never did stop looking at it. Refused to allow herself to gaze at the man sitting with her.

"Come on. You can't honestly tell me you suffered. Hell, I don't think you can honestly tell me anything."

Still there, was silence. Anger brimmed just under the surface, boiling her blood, freezing it, and then boiling at again under her skin until her flesh crawled as though a hundred spiders were walking along her spine like a marching band. That pretty, fair skin, almost luminescent in the soft lighting the two of them sat in. Those eyes of hers, though, they darkened and became distant. As if remembering something unpleasant.

"Refusing to speak at all now?"

"Shut up. You could never understand suffering. Not in the truest sense of the word."

Now it was his turn to be silent. Though she wasn't looking at him, she could feel his dark gaze upon her, feel the indignation as it rose up and filled his vicinity with a heady kind of frustration. Of anger. From the corner of her eye, she saw him set his own glass down, empty of scotch by this point. Her own was still half full of wine that suddenly didn't interest her anymore. A deep breath signified that the man was about to speak again, and she knew his words would be defensive. Some spiel about all the suffering she herself had caused; that she had no right to speak of suffering for that reason. Some story about how much work he put into his own empire, and how it wasn't all fun and games. Sure, she could hear it before he spoke.

But she stopped him. One slender hand came up, palm up, halting him mid-breath.

"Please. You do not know suffering as I know it."

She turned, then. Her body swayed against the couch, leather making this easy, until her back was entirely to him. Golden fastenings unclipped, and the fur cloak fell from her shoulders, leaving an expanse of emerald. That emerald cloth she gripped by the straps at her shoulders, tugging it gingerly over her fair skin, down the tops of her arms until the majority of the silken material sat at her waist. Arms folded over the chest he couldn't hope to see anyway, she waited for a moment with a slow breath.

"This is suffering. When hours melt into days, and days flow into untold months. When all you can feel is the sting of the whip at your back. When you are denied your very ability to scream because your lips have been sewn shut by your own kin..."

She stopped talking, then. Fingers were on her back, calloused but gentle. They trailed over the fading scars that crisscrossed her back - a mark of the damage done to her for her misdeeds. The fingers were carefully curious, gingerly tracing each one they could see, though there were so very many that had disappeared entirely already. A subtle sigh, deep, disapproving.

"How? I was unaware Divinities could be harmed so permanently."

"The last time you saw me, I was harmed, was I not? By one of your Mortals, no less."

"But you were healing. By the time you left, all that was left of the damage was dry blood. Well, and your face imprinted in my floor."

She hissed again.

"Sorry, sorry. Thought I'd try," he added swiftly, fingers no longer on her back, but at her waist. Lightly, he tugged the material of her dress up until the straps were at her shoulders again. There his hands rested, gently trying to turn her to face him again. She almost didn't, but eventually allowed herself to turn again under his gentle insistence.

"We can always find ways of harming one another," she breathed. "Thorned lashes laced with venom from one of my own children. Some of those scars will never disappear and will serve as a reminder of what I have to go back to. They will sew my lips shut again, and they will lash more than just my back. Chained forever in the cold, naked and starving. Forever made silent and in constant pained delirium..."

She took a deep breath, once more casting her gaze at him, finding his eyes and holding them in the depths of her jade ones. One of his hands remained at her shoulder, while the other moved; shifted so slowly, as if he were afraid she'd disappear or strike out if he moved to fast. Something akin to concern twitched at the corner of his mouth as his thumb can down to touch her lips. Painted so deliciously deep red. Above and below her bowed mouth were the tiniest of white dots, some of them elongated from where the thread had torn her skin in the midst of an attempted scream. As the man touched them, she gasped, and he stopped. Waited. Then trailed his thumb over them again.

"Why would they do that to you?"

"Exile did not work, remember? When left to myself, I ..."

She trailed off, frowning. In turn, he put a finger over her lips, indicating she didn't need to speak further.

"Until you start breaking things again, as far as I'm concerned, I don't have the slightest idea where you are."

She blinked here. Her eyes, slightly glassy, became even more so for just a moment.

"...What makes you think I have not spent the last hour lying through my teeth?"

He chuckled. The first truly mirthful sound she'd heard in a long time, it seemed. The hand near her face cupped her chin, forced her to continue looking at him.

"I'm not so full of myself that I can't see vulnerability when it's in front of me. Drink?"

Her glass was again lifted to her, and she took it, brought it to her lips, and allowed the wine to pass, tickle her tongue, and warm the iciness that had been threatening to freeze her solid from the inside out.

"Thank you."

"Don't. Just don't make me replace my floors again. Not cheap."

Now it was her turn to chuckle. A quiet, breathy sound that she didn't seem to make often. Again, she felt a touch, and was surprised to find his fingers twisting a long tendril of curl that kissed the side of her face.

"What is it," she asked.

Those fingers continued to twist, occasionally thumbing over one of the gold pieces shining against the sable strands.

"How the hell did this happen? I remember you with much shorter hair..."

"We all want love. We all want honor.

Nobody wants to pay the asking price..."