Starting Over - Loki (COMPLETE)

39) The Tesseract #2

That night, Loki found he couldn't get to sleep. However hard he tried, sleep evaded him. He had a lot of his mind - Thor, for a start - but that didn't explain why he couldn't travel into the realms of sleep. Then, suddenly, a vision took hold of him.

"We are ready, master," came a horrible, hissing voice.

With a shudder, Loki recognised it as the voice of The Other.

"Very good," replied another. "You have served me well."

Now paralysed with fear, Loki, eyes staring, tried helplessly to unsee the horror that was the Titan Thanos.

"We shall invade Midgard with ease," continued Thanos.

The Titan stood and gazed out into space.

"It is being defended by the traitor Loki. He shall know no mercy and neither shall the race he is cowering behind. Death to all the mortals."

"Death to all the mortals," The Other intoned, voice rumbling as he repeated his master's words.

Just seeing Thanos stabbed fear into Loki's icy heart. The cold, ruthless face and those murderous, merciless eyes_ Loki opened his mouth to scream.

"Alden!"

A voice came from nowhere and, even as he struggled, Loki could tell it wasn't part of his vision.

"Loki," came the voice again, softer now.

With temporary strength, Loki forced his eyes to open. Tony, complete in Iron Man pyjamas, kneeled next to him, hands on his arms.

"I thought you were seizing," Tony explained, removing his hands. "You were writhing and you didn't seem very asleep."

"I wasn't," Loki gasped, still breathing heavily.

"Hey, hey, hey," Tony shushed, climbing onto the bed and shuffling forwards. "Calm down, you're in the tower and everything's fine."

"No," Loki choked, eyes streaming. "Nothing's fine."

Tony frowned but said nothing, choosing instead to replace his hands on Loki's shoulders.

"Whatever happened, it can't hurt you now."

Unbidden, a tear fell from Loki's eyes. Tony stared at it, horrified and confused that a nightmare had caused this much harm. Tony didn't know half of Loki's life story but nightmares in adults didn't usually cause tears, only fear.

"I need to tell you what I saw," Loki said breathlessly, one hand scrabbling at Tony.

Tony grabbed the flailing hand and held it still.

"Go on," he said seriously. "I'm listening."

Loki struggled to breathe.

"I_ I had a vision."

"A nightmare?" Asked Tony.

After all, aliens in films had different terms for things and Tony suspected it was no different for actual real-life Asgardians.