Still Holding On

Chapter 18

Tony spends half the night in his lab, working on perfecting the Iron Man suit. It works fine now — it works better than fine — but there's always room for improvement, and if aliens are the new norm now, he wants the strongest armor possible.

When he finally decides to call it quits, he pulls up the security camera footage of Loki's room, more out of curiosity than anything. He hopes to find the guy asleep. Instead, he's seated on the foot of his bed, his head in his hands but very much awake.

Tony sighs. He should probably pay the guy a visit. He makes his way to the kitchen first, grabbing a bottle of water and the Advil just in case, then heads down to Loki's room.

He knocks on the door and pushes it open, sticking his head through the crack. "Hey."

Loki picks his head up and looks over at him. "Hi?"

"Just checking in," Tony says. "You doing okay?"

"Fine."

"You know," Tony says, "it's, like, three in the morning."

"I did not know that," Loki says, though he doesn't seem overly interested in the fact. "I do not have a clock. Or a window."

Tony shrugs. "Didn't want to give you something to throw me out," he says teasingly.

Loki furrows his brows. "Why would I...?"

Tony sighs. "Never mind." Clearly, his window-themed jokes are not landing. He tries not to think of the implications of that, given their earlier conversation. "You doing okay? Want some more Advil?"

Loki shakes his head. "I feel alright. The pain has dulled enough that I do not think I'll need any more medication."

"Are you sure?" Tony asks. "You don't exactly look like the happiest person on the planet."

Loki gives him a small shrug. "Tired."

"Well, lucky for you," Tony says, "it's three in the morning and you're already sitting on a nice, comfy bed with your name on it."

Loki shakes his head. "I can't sleep."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Until the connection breaks. I get it." God, that's getting annoying. The least he could do is explain what it means. "But you slept perfectly fine last night. Maybe you'll sleep fine tonight, too."

"Or maybe I will lie there, frozen, while my skin is peeled from my body with excruciating deliberation as retribution for my failure," Loki says, his voice dangerously low. "I am not sleeping, Stark, and your insistence is doing nothing but frustrating us both."

Tony folds his arms over his chest. Okay, so that's... That's not a bad reason. That's actually very difficult to argue with. Even if he did manage to convince him that it's just a dream — which he has tried before with no success, so he doesn't believe he can do it now — he can't deny that dreaming of being skinned alive does not sound like a fun way to spend one's night.

Finally, he says, with great reluctance, "Do you want me to sleep in here with you? That way I can wake you up if you start freaking out?"

Loki furrows his brows. "You would do that?"

"If it's gonna finally get you to sleep?" Tony scoffs. "Yes, I will do that. Just go the fuck to sleep. I'll throw a pillow and a blanket on the floor and call it good."

Loki frowns at that. "You can sleep on the bed. I will be more than fine on the floor."

"Yeah, well, so will I," Tony says, "and you're the one that desperately needs to sleep, so you can take the bed."