Starting Over - Loki (COMPLETE)

23) Helping each other

The first few days were like walking on eggshells. Loki and Tony could hardly stand to be in the same room as each other, let alone talk to each other. After acknowledging each other's existence they had moved on, separately, with their own lives. Loki still did his part for the company, mainly postponing events for months to come and filling out copious amounts of paperwork, and Tony did what he always had done: inventing. But, even if Loki could hold a grudge for ever, especially given his quite considerable lifespan, Tony could not. Not when it was his best friend and business partner.

"Alden?"

"Hmm?"

"I made cookies."

A statement like that was enough to make anyone, especially Loki, look up. While Loki wasn't necessarily a fan of sweets, Tony baking signalled a mammoth effort to apologise. Although, of course, Loki was meant to be the one apologising.

"Please don't burn the house down with any crazy cooking ideas," Loki pleaded. "Inventing in the kitchen is a lot more dangerous than inventing in the workshop for all involved."

"I'll try not to," Tony replied with a weak smile.

There was a pause and then Loki stood.

"I've been a terrible friend," he muttered and then hugged Tony.

"The feeling is mutual," Tony laughed but it was a harsh, post-kidnapping laugh.

They broke apart. Loki tried, somehow, to channel his emotions through his words. Oh - how he regretted his actions!

"No, I've been the terrible friend. I was weak. I couldn't face it. I couldn't face you, even though you had done nothing wrong. I don't even understand why I did it."

Loki covered his face with his hands, breathing heavily, although he didn't cry. With surprising wisdom, Tony replied.

"You associated me with pain," Tony whispered.

Loki winced and tried to block out Tony's words but it was no use.

"Every time you wanted to forget, seeing me brought it all back."

"I could never forget," Loki murmured, screwing his eyes shut.

He breathed in and out more heavily, more frantically. How could someone forget how to breathe?

"Come on, Alden," he heard Tony say. "Come on, you've got this."

Eventually his hyperventilating subsided.

"I'm a mess," Loki confessed.

Tony smiled ruefully.

"And I'm part-machine. But what else is new?"

Loki laughed through tears, tears brought on by his failure to breathe.

"Come on, Alden, we've got this," Tony said, holding him by the arms. "Together, we've got this."

"I'm the one meant to be doing the reassuring, remember," Loki pointed out, hanging his head.

"That isn't working too well, is it?" Tony asked, and his tone conveyed warmth.

Warmth Loki had missed for far too long.