Still Holding On

Chapter 63

The second day goes no better than the first.

Maybe that's an exaggeration.

It goes a little better – on the work side of it, at least; not so much on the personal side. Tony and Bruce run some more tests, as to be expected, and though they don't really learn much, the tests do leave them with a bit of new information. How to use that information, neither of them has the slightest idea, but that will be a problem for tomorrow. Right now, the goal is just to find out as much as they can about the scepter.

Bruce suggests that tomorrow, they run some tests with Loki, and Tony agrees. Of course he agrees. He doesn't have a choice. They can hardly help Loki without actually having Loki present. But he doesn't want to. The god still won't look at him. He still won't talk to him. Their attempt at having lunch as a group goes so horribly that Tony decides to have a working dinner (and Bruce, fortunately, comes with him, so he doesn't spend the whole time moping).

And then it's time for bed.

Tony goes along with it much the way everyone else does. He walks with Pepper to their wing, where he bids her goodnight before they go their separate ways. He closes the door, then spends a few minutes tidying up his room – making his bed and leaving Edward in the middle, carefully tucked in under the blankets – and tidying up himself – taking a shower and shaving because he certainly won't do it in the morning.

Then, when he's sure enough time has passed that Pepper won't notice, he sneaks out of his room and back to the lab.

He's got seven or eight hours before people start waking up, and he's going to make the most of them.

"JARVIS, pull up the test results."

"Which ones, sir?" JARVIS asks.

"All of them."

"Perhaps you would do better to look at a few at a time–"

"I'm not asking, JARVIS," Tony deadpans.

So JARVIS pulls up all of the results. They're illegible at the moment, just glowing blue squares filled with words, numbers, and lines. He'd expected that. He'd wanted that. And he's going to do what JARVIS suggested, at least in a way: look at them one at a time, sort them into categories he has yet to decide upon, and look for any kinds of clues or trends that could mean something.

He doesn't expect to accomplish much tonight. He wouldn't be surprised if he accomplishes nothing. But he has to try. If there's a chance he could make some sort of progress, he's going to take it.

He just needs to figure this out. This is all he's going to think about until it's over. He needs to find a way to get Loki his memories back. If the last 36 hours have taught him anything, it's that this may be the only chance he has to win Loki's trust back. These are the secrets he tried to keep. If he can prove that he's changed his mind and that he does respect Loki and his right to know about what he did, maybe Loki will change his own mind. Maybe he'll give him another chance.

Maybe this is manipulative. He doesn't know. He doesn't even care. He just wants his Loki back – as a lover, as a friend, it doesn't matter as long as he can just talk to him again.

Tony looks through every single test they've run over the last two days. He compares some side-to-side; he searches for patterns; he does everything he can think of with them. He finds nothing. Hours of work, and he has nothing to show for it.

He falls back into his chair, letting his head hang off the back and staring at the ceiling helplessly. He is so fucking tired. Being forced into healthy sleeping habits for a week – after choosing semi-healthy sleeping habits for Loki's sake for another month and a half – really fucked with his ability to stay away for ridiculously long periods of time. A part of him wants coffee. A part of him knows that if he hasn't accomplished anything yet, he won't fare any better the rest of the night, and he should salvage those few hours of sleep while he can.