My War Is Over (Original Unfinished Version)

Chapter Thirteen

He should have known. 

He thought he'd be the best person for Loki. He thought his own trauma and the connection they seemed to share would be good. He thought he could fix this. He thought he wouldn't fuck things up. 

He should have known. 

Isolation. A slow suicide. Something Tony himself had done. 

He should have known. 

He should have stayed with him. He should have moved Loki's room to his own floor. 

He should have fucking known. 

-oOo-

It was 1:00 am when Tony had crawled into his bed, the earliest he'd ever willingly gone to sleep in his entire life. It's 2:37 am when JARVIS wakes him up. 

"Sir," JARVIS's voice is urgent, and when Tony cracks his eyes open he realizes that his lights are on and AC/DC is blaring from the speakers in his room, vibrating his bed. The deafening music cuts out as soon as he sits up with a slurred, "whathefuckk-"

"Sir, I believe Mr. Laufreyson is in distress and requires immediate medical attention." The simple sentence has Tony wide-awake, leaping out of bed and racing down the hall to the elevators, cursing them for being so slow. When he reaches Loki's floor he runs headfirst into what should be a sliding door. 

"What the-" he mumbles, rubbing his head and glaring at the ceiling to explain. 

"Sir, Mr. Layfreyson has locked the door and disabled my access," JARVIS drawls out, a hint of annoyance to his tone that, had it been any other situation, would have had Tony raising a brow. 

"How the fuck did he-"

But now is not the time for that. Instead, Tony shakes his head almost violently and presses his fingertips to a hidden reader just below the bottom left corner of the door, releasing a panel with a soft hiss. Out flips a keypad, glowing red in the darkness of the hallway that Tony only just now realizes was practically pitch black as he types in the code. He'd created failsafes like these for all the doors in the tower, not actually expecting he'd have to use them but as a precautionary measure to calm the race of anxiety that rushed his heart ever since the incident with Stane. 

The door shudders open, revealing nothing but another larger pitch black room that Tony quickly steps into, trying his hardest to ignore how he shudders at the sound of the door shutting behind him. 

Tony doesn't have the best of hearing, he knows that. But despite the obvious fact that Loki is trying to hide, the barley restrained, shuddering gasps are a dead giveaway. 

"Lokes," Tony calls softly, stepping deeper into the apartment. There's another wheezing gasp from somewhere to his right, and when he turns he sees light spilling out from the crack under the bathroom door. 

Tony is granted no response, only stuttered, wheezy-gasps that make his heart clench in discomfort. He reaches the bathroom door and knocks.

"Honey," the pet-name flows easily from his lips, "I know you're in there. Can you open the door, please?" 

Tony bites his lip and counts down ten seconds in his head. When Loki still hasn't answered, he reaches for the hidden switch on the bathroom door. 

"I'm coming in, okay?" He calls, typing in the code with shaking hands and trying to ignore how cold the room has suddenly become. 

-

When the door slides open Tony's legs twitch and his mind screams at him to run. 

It's selfish. It's so, so selfish but for a few frozen seconds of shock, it's the only thing that makes sense to him. He wants to run. He wants to disappear. He wants all this shit to melt away like it never happened. He's not the right person to be dealing with this. But of course, the universe hates him and he's the only one who can. 

The smell of blood is overpowering. Tony's no stranger to blood, but somehow this is different. This is worse. It's heavy on his tongue and every harsh breath fills his mouth with hot, copper-tinged air. It's smeared on the floor and the toilet seat and the cabinets and the bathtub and parts of the wall in messy fingerprint shapes. It's bright, glaring red against the whites and pale blues of the bathroom, and the bright lights overhead seem to make it stand out even more. 

Most of it is on Loki. Under Loki. Surrounding Loki. Pouring out from Loki. He's curled on his side in a fetal position with his legs drawn slightly to his chest, arms outstretched limply in front of him. There's a half-demolished box of shaving razors seemingly tossed a foot or so away from him, the plastic casing of one wrecked on the floor, little bits of the mechanics scattered around it, and a once-shiny blade dripping with crimson hanging loosely between Loki's blood-stained fingers.

His wrists are mutilated. 

Tony's gaze drags from the razor to his arms and finally to his eyes, sunken, grey, and dead-looking. They're hollow and dull, staring back at him blankly. There's a weird choking noise that clashes with the sudden ringing in Tony's ears, and it takes him a few seconds to realize it had come from his own mouth. 

He slides to the ground next to Loki, not sure where to put his hands. Not sure what to do with his hands. His knees don't hit the ground as hard as they might have otherwise, as his pajama pants are wet and slippery from the blood staining the tile floor. 

He reaches for Loki's wrist, the blade falling ceremoniously to the ground as he cradles the broken appendage closer to his face; and nearly vomits at the sight.

"No, no," Loki slurs, head falling back slightly as he weakly tries to pull his arm away from Tony. 

"No, jus', ju's lemme go, lemme g-go," he mumbles. 

"It's gonna be okay. You'll be okay, it's okay." Tony finds himself repeating over Loki's whines, his limbs stiff and frozen. 

"No!" Loki's voice grows considerably louder, and suddenly he's trying to move but he's slipping on his own blood and his arms aren't quite moving right. "No! Jus', just stop, stop, I-I just want to die, please, let me die, just go away," he begs, his cries getting louder and louder by the second. There's water running down Tony's cheeks and he doesn't know what to do because he can see Loki's veins and-

"Jarvis, Bruce!" Tony suddenly screams at the ceiling, holding Loki's arms close to his elbows so that he can't hurt himself more. 

Please, please if there's a god up there or gods or whatever just please don't let him die. 

-