[TWIG] Chapter 8/14: Scratched disk

[terresdebrume]

TITLE: The way it goes
FANDOM: Marvel’s MCU
SERIES: Standing on tiptoes (1/3)
RATING: Teen and Up
PAIRING(S): FrostIron
CHARACTER(S): Loki, Tony Stark, Thor, Odin, Frigga, Farbauti, Laufey, cameos by multiple others.
GENRE: Alternate Universe (Ballet)
TRIGGER WARNING(S): None, although there is some mildly explicit description of violence in the first few chapters.
SUMMARY: Loki is a ballet dancer juggling between two (or three, or possibly four) different lives. Tony Stark is an engineer's son who goes into theatric props to piss his father off. Then they meet, and worlds collide.

STANDING ON TIPTOES ON LJ: [Series masterpost] Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7,


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Loki

The first punch he understands.

Having your son basically call you a whore and a bastard, can’t possibly be a pleasing experience, and Loki can’t really swear that he wouldn’t have reacted the same way if he’d been in his father’s position. (It’s still better than indifference anyways.)

The second punch is harder than it should be in his opinion, but not completely unexpected, as Odin has a thing for doing things symmetrically, which makes it logical that he should do both eyes. (How Loki manages to rationalize this with the pain of a heavy forefinger ring diving in his flesh is beyond him, but at least it keeps his mind focused.)

He starts getting seriously worried at the third punch though, because at this point the room is going blurry, and his lips aren’t as solid as his cheeks, splitting under the flesh-warmed metal of the ring, clashing against his teeth in a head-rattling thud that send stars exploding in his vision.

He scrambles backward when Odin closes in on him again, trips on whatever bag or scarf is lying on the floor right now and bangs his ribs on a nearby chair, the crack of it sending a cry right to his throat, where it sticks and stops, choking any protest he could make. Odin looks furious, so furious, more dangerous than he ever looked, even when they were little and watching his earlier fights, which he won with all the strength of his youth and none of the finesse he gained in his later years on the ring.

Loki manages to get back to his feet and continues walking away, but Odin lands another punch on his mouth, sends him to the ground again, terrified and helpless, and Loki looks at Thor for help, like he used to do when the jocks became too much for him back in high school, but Thor looks at him with an apology in his eyes and does nothing.

Thor just stands there and watches, and Loki almost feels grateful when his lips split again and the room finally vanishes.

Tony

The ride to Loki’s place is a torture.

Not because of the throbbing in his right hand or the sound of Frenrir barking like crazy in the backseat, even though those two things are far from helping. No, what makes the ride, truly, deeply and unbearably horrible is the way Loki has curled into the passenger seat, face pressed into his hands, weighing down heavily on the door handle, and lets out these mangled, wounded cries that tear from his throat like it’s barbed wire pulled out of his veins, pain and anger and betrayal so deep the dancer has obviously forgotten anything that isn’t this.

He cries and cries and cries, and Tony tries to block it out, to keep his attention on the road and not send them to the pavement, but it’s taxing, physically restraining himself from reaching across the car and press Loki to his side, hide him in his arms, between his ribs, until he feels better; and all the while berating himself because have you looked at yourself Tony?

He’s barely able to take care of himself and yet here he is, trying to be reasonable and not take responsibility for someone else’s wellbeing and feeling like it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.

{ooo}

Tony knows he should have brought Loki to the hospital first, he knows it, and he knows it’s not reasonable to bring Loki back to his place instead, but then you wouldn’t have said no either.

Not if you’d been in Tony’s shoes, not if you’d seen the fire burning in Loki’s eyes, this desperate, hopeless spark of please, please, help me that thing calling for help even when you’re desperately trying to pretend you don’t need it that Tony has seen so many times in his own mirror.

True, it is something you can put aside and ignore, and do what is the most sensible thing, but sometimes sensible isn’t what people need and Tony, who drinks too much and parties too much and works too much and flirts too much knows very well that sometimes what you really need in the spur of the moment isn’t the most sensible solution but the most immediate one, and okay, it’s not healthy, it’s not good in the long run, but it works and for a while, that’s enough.

So Tony drives to Loki to his apartment.

He takes in the old, distinguished building that speaks of old money, the old fashioned lift and its elegant grid, the round doorknobs in the middle of the doors. Tony follows Loki through the corridor of the fourth and last floor, takes in the architecture and its sculpted ceilings, the vast living room that greets him when he steps inside, all in red and gold and honey, pizza boxes forgotten on the coffee table in front of the TV, and thinks of monthly allowance and parental control while Loki shuffles around the apartment and fills a sport bag with clothes and books and dog toys.

Tony stays in the hallway, watches Loki pick up bits and pieces of his life, carefully avoiding anything that could be his brother’s (it shows in the way he walks, sidesteps some items and practically caresses others) and when Loki has filled three bags and left specks of blood all through the flat (traces of himself and what happened today left here to haunt the brother who stood motionless while their father punched him into unconsciousness) he goes to the middle of the room, opens the large glass tank and gently coaxes an enormous snake into a pierced and locked plastic box.

“You don’t intend to come back,” Tony says, flatly.

Loki looks pained by more than his physical wound when he mumbles:

“I’m not sure there’s anything left for me to come back to.”

Tony takes the bags, follows him out, and doesn’t say anything when Loki doesn’t hand his keys back to the landlady.