Archive of Our Own

The box had been in the trunk Fury had locked him up with in the Malibu mansion while he was dying. At the time Tony hadn't had any attention to spare for anything not directly linked to helping him stop being dying, and the box had been of no interest then. So he'd put it to the side and forgotten about it.

Later, when the fires all over the Expo were put out and he had slept for about eighteen hours, showered for nearly two, a few days had passed and he felt almost like a sane person again (or as close as Tony Stark ever got), he found the box again. Sitting there on the worktable where he had left it.

”Huh.” He sipped his coffee and stared at the slightly crumpled cardboard container. ”Well, might as well find out what the hell this is.”

There was a very thick file full of documents and photos, with the words ”Project Snowflake” written across the front. All the documents were written in code. Tony saw to it that the contents would be scanned into Jarvis's data banks so he wouldn't have to spend hours decoding it to see what it was about. There was also another reel of film, so Tony shrugged and set it up while he waited to the scans to finish up.

Howard was the first person to show up in the old, blurry film this time as well, but he didn't look so clean and crisp and put together as he had in the last one Tony had watched him in. Here, his hair was a mess and his clothes dirty and wrinkled and he had a strange look in his eyes, one that was both far away and burning with focus at the same time. It made Tony squirm a little in the chair while he sipped his coffee, trying to pretend he didn't know that look so very well from himself. It was the ”I just had this crazy idea and I need to stay up for a day or five to make it work” look. Pepper always started muttering about going on a vacation when he got that one.

At least Howard moved out of the shot almost immediately, showing what was behind him. It was a wooden box that might have looked a lot like a casket, if not for the fact that it was propped up to stand against a wall. It was open, and in the box was... Ice? That was ice. But with something inside it. Something that had a distinctly humanoid shape.

Tony frowned and leaned forward, putting the coffee mug on the foor by his feet, straining to see. Then, as if to accomodate him, the camera was lifted and moved closer, then put down agian where he could see what had to be dark clothes, a pale face surrounded by just as dark hair, and what was unmistakeably two pale hands held out in front of the person's chest, defensively. Any details beyond that were impossible to make out.

Then the reel of film abruptly ended.

”Shit!” Tony sat back, staring at the now empty square of light on the screen. ”Okay, that was not the Capsicle.”

”Correct, sir”, Jarvis anwered the question he never asked, obviously already done decoding the documents. ”According to the notes you scanned this individual was found in the ice while searching for Captain Rogers, however. It was at first believed to be a casualty in the crash, but your father discovered that was not the case.”

Individual? It? Tony scratched fingertips through his goatee. ”This wasn't a human, was it?”

”No, sir. The body was found in ice almost a thousand years old, but when thawed out showed no signs of having been frozen at all. No cellular damage was fund. Tissue samples showed the individual to be of non-human and unknown origins.”

”And then?”

Instead of answering verbally Jarvis projected four of the photographs from the folder in front of him. They all showed the same long-limbed, pale and dark-haired male. (Yeah, he might not be human, but since he was naked in all the pictures Tony was assuming the similarities meant sporting a cock and a pair of balls made whatever-it-was a male.) There was the long, black hair he had seen a hint of through the ice, and his face turned out to have really elegant, aristochratic features.

In the first photo the man was stretched out on his back on what looked like a metal worktable. Tony even thought he knew it – it was the kind his father had had set up in the workshop in the old mansion in New York. In this photo the man's eyes were closed and he looked asleep, or dead even, with that pale complexion. In the next one, though, his eyes were open, and one of his hands seemed to be scrabbling for leverage on the table. In the third he was pushed halfway up to sitting, staring at the photographer with wide eyes, mouth open. In the fourth, which had to be taken while the person holding the camera was backing away, showed the man trying to slide off the table to stand on the floor.

”Holy fuck.” Tony kept staring at the four pictures for a long time before he swiped them away and stood, picking up his coffee as he went. ”Okay, that does it, I need to read that file anyway. Put it all on my lightpad, Jarv.”

”Done, sir.”

Four hours later Tony was in his car on the way to the airport, his jet already ordered to schedule a flight to New York as soon as possible.

Tony hated coming back to the mansion. It reminded him too much of his childhood and the past and things he'd moved on from. Or liked to pretend he had. He never visited there anymore, just made sure there were money set aside for upkeep; it felt wrong to let the old house gather dust and crumble. And equally wrong to sell it. It was still the Stark Family Mansion. Even when no Stark had set foot there in years.

Now everything he had read in that file seemed to have settled like an extra layer of shadows over the mansion, sneaking around in the corners as he stepped through the front door and headed for the stairs down to the workshop. Tony had to fight an urge to glance over his shoulder as he punched in the code to the heavy door he'd had installed when he decided he was never living here. There was too much stuff here that could have disastrous uses in the wrong hands. And that was before he'd known about this.

He stopped just inside the door to the 'shop, hesitated, and then walked over to the far left corner of the room. If there had ever been a time in his life when he wanted to be wrong, it was right now. God knows Tony hadn't had a very high opinion of his father as a person before he found that file, but what he'd read in there had managed to undo a lot of what little respect there had been left.

Details from the documents flashed in front of his eyes.

”...refusal to cooperate... ...very low resistance to heat... ...reacting negatively to isolation... ...faster than human healing... ...blood samples... ...tissues regrowing... ...will need further testing with fractures...”

Tony shuddered and didn't know if he was happy that the notes had cut off after that or not.

By the corner he came to a halt, running light fingertips along the line where two parts of the wallcovering met, feeling for what he hoped wouldn't be there.

”Please don't be a secret door”, he muttered. ”Please don't be a secret door...”

That's when his fingers found a spot that shifted under his touch, and when he pressed on it the entire section of the wall rolled in and to the side.

”Damn...”

The space behind the door was mostly dark, the air stale and chilly. What little light there was came from narrow windows along the ceiling. Windows that had to be well hidden from the outside, because Tony had never known they existed. It showed what had to be the same metal worktable Tony had seen in the pictures from the file, and he had to look away from it now. Which just made his gaze fall on more pictures stuck to one of the walls, along with more notes, and calculations and connecting arrows drawn directly on the white wall between the papers.

As he turned away once more, trying to find something to look at that didn't make his stomach rebell, Tony wondered how many times when he'd come looking for his father in the workshop and not found him, that Howard had actually been hidden in here? He decided it was a good thing that he would never know.

Part of him wondered why SHIELD hadn't had their hands all over this. They must have seen that box, known what was in it. Even if they had never cracked Howard's coded notes, they would have seen the movie reel and the pictures. Maybe they had come to the same conclusion as Tony; that the creature hidden behind the deceptively innocent name ”Project Snowflake” was long dead anyway. Or they had come looking for whatever had been left behind after Howard's ”research” after his untimely death, but failed to get past Tony's security system and find this hidden place.

Yeah, that last theory was probably more likely, if he knew SHIELD right. They'd love to get a look at this stuff. Tony swore to himself that if they ever did get to see it, though, it would be after pulling these things from his cold, dead hands.

At the far corner of the room was the holding cell. Tony had seen that in enough pictures to know it when he glimpsed it, and a morbid kind of curiosity made him step closer. He'd come this far and now he just needed to know. Know everything.

Strangely, he felt he had an obligation to the creature who had met his end here. His father had done this, all of this, and then gone and gotten himself killed in that car crash, leaving his little ”experiment” down here where no-one but him had even known it existed. How long had it taken for the creature... (No, Loki, he reminded himself. He'd had a name, and it had been Loki. After all the things Howard had put him through to find that out, the least Tony could do was remember it.) ...how long had it taken for Loki to die? Alone, locked up, thirsty and starving...

Tony shuddered. Fuck...

As he drew closer to the cell another thought hit him – why was there no smell? Yes, it would have been over 20 years since Howard last visited, and Loki couldn't have lived very long after that, but there should definitely have been a stench of decay if there had been a dead body lying around in this closed space all that time, right? Tony frowned, and then his face blanked out as he came to a halt just a few steps from the cell. Or cage.

The thick bars looked like they were made of glass, but Tony knew it had to be something a lot stronger, something more or less unbreakable. They let him see into the small space unhindered, and he could clearly make out the shape huddled in the far corner. Dressed in gray, worn garments that were more or less scraps of cloth hanging off bony limbs, black hair falling into a face hidden in shadow.

And then the shape moved, and Tony gave a hiss of a gasp as he stumbled half a step back.

A deathly pale face was raised on a neck so thin it looked about to snap under the weight of his own skull, and too-wide eyes stared at Tony across the suddenly so startlingly short distance between them. They were a cold, icy blue, made dull by a misery and suffering Tony couldn't even guess at even though he new every technical detail – but those eyes still saw him. He knew they saw him by the way they widened even more, and the thin lips parted to show a dark gash of a mouth.

How was he alive? How in the actual fuck was this even real?!

Tony made himself move closer, hands raised slightly with palms out in a sign of peace he really, really hoped was universal. He stopped right outside the clear bars and slowly squatted down to bring himself to about the same height as Loki, not looming over him and looking intimidating by his relative size and position alone. Maybe he should be saying something right about now, but his vocal cords felt like they had been cut.

Watching him with his dull eyes, his emaciated face slack, Loki raised his head more.

”You are not him.” Loki's voice was such a broken, breathy whisper that it was barely audible.

”No”, Tony managed to say, as softly has he could while still being heard. ”I'm not. He's gone, and he's never coming back.”

A shudder passed through Loki's curled up body, almost skeletal fingers clutching his knees tighter for a moment as his eyes fell closed in what was unmistakeably relief. Then they fluttered open and fixed on Tony again, suddenly more wary.

”Why?”, he wheezed, apparently not enough energy for more than one word.

But Tony still knew what he meant to ask, so he raised his open hands again and sank forward on his knees to keep his balance. ”Not here to hurt you, I swear. I...” He hesitated, swallowed. ”I never even knew you existed until yesterday. And I was honestly pretty sure you would be... dead, when I got here.”

A sigh rattled Loki's dry-sounding lungs. ”You won't have to wait much longer.”

”No, see, that's not an option anymore.”

The black-haired head tilted on that fragile-looking neck, sharp lines forming between his eyebrows, even more wary and suspicious now.

”I'm not letting you die”, Tony clarified. ”And I'm not leaving you locked up here like some animal.” He glanced around the cage, cleared his throat, and looked back at Loki. ”Will you let me get you out of there?”

Loki watched his face for a long time, which surprised Tony. He had expected Loki to jump at the offer to be released from his prison. Then he licked his cracked, dry lips. ”Tell me your name? I never knew his name.”

”Oh.” And his stomach knotted up even harder at that completely fucked up little piece of information. ”Tony. I'm Tony.”

”Tony.” A slow nod followed, looking almost too heavy to manage. ”You are his son, are you not?”

That shocked a series of rapid blinks out of Tony. He had never expected Loki to know that. ”Yes”, he admitted after a stunned moment, wondering if he was making a severe mistake by confirming that close connection between himself and Loki's tormentor. ”Yes, I am.”

Another silent stare, and then another sluggish nod. ”Then yes, I will let you take me away from this place.”

Okay, that was really not the reaction Tony had expected to follow that revelation, but he wasn't going to waste it. So he stood back up and pulled his phone from his pocket.

”Jay? I know the code to the cell was in those notes”, he murmured, knowing Jarvis would pick it up, not wanting to frighten Loki more than necessary. ”Just get it on the screen for me, will you buddy?”

A second later ten digits appeared on the screen. Tony moved to the door, which was the only part made of a solid surface of the same glass-looking material, making sure Loki wouldn't be able to reach and break the lock. He punched the numbers in as quickly as he could, and slipped the phone back into his pocket before carefully pulling the door open and stepping inside. Maybe he was taking a huge risk doing this, but there was absolutely no way he could choose not to do it.

While he came closer Loki's still wide eyes followed his every movement, but he made no movements of his own, not even when Tony crouched down again, this time right in front of him where he was huddled in his corner. He probably couldn't.

”I'm gonna have to carry you out of here”, Tony said, softly, before reaching for him. ”That means I'll have to touch you. You all right with that?”

A nod shifted the long, tangled tresses of hair.

”Good. All right.” Tony moved, raised his hands, felt his fingers twitch with uncertainty; Loki looked dry and fragile, like he would crumble if Tony just looked at him too hard. ”I swear I'll try not to hurt you.”

Without waiting for another response Tony just slipped one hand in behind Loki's knees, feeling bone and tense senew under the scraps left of his pants, and the other arm behind his back, where everything was ribs and vertebrae and shoulder blades almost sharp enough to cut his fingers. A little whimper escaped Loki at the touch, but Tony didn't stop. He had no other way to get Loki out of there, so even if it hurt him he had to do it. He just tightened his hold, supported himself on his knees, and more or less pulled Loki into his lap to get a better grip on him before he would dare attempt to back on his feet.

Tony knew that Loki was taller than him, a bit over six feet according to his father's notes, but he weighed pretty much nothing. His body had spent the last two decades eating away anything of itself that wasn't completely essential for survival – fat, muscle, bone, perhaps even internal organs. He was a hollowed out shell, and it was like holding an oversized child.

Rage and pain twisted to a tight knot in Tony's heart.

In his arms Loki shifted slightly, coming closer. One of his bony, brittle hands came to curl into the front of Tony's shirt, looking like a bird's talon. His face tilted into Tony's shoulder, almost nuzzling weakly into him. And Tony started to wonder if the whimper he'd heard had really been pain. Perhaps it had been relief?

”I've got you”, Tony assured him, wrapping his arms more securely around the fragile form, his voice almost breaking. ”It'll be all right now.” He didn't know if that was strictly true, but he knew he'd try to make it so.

When he was sure he had a good grip on Loki he at last stood up, which was easier than expected, and carefully carried him out of the cell, the hidden room, the workshop outside, up the stairs and out of the house. He was happy Jarvis could open the car door for him so he didn't have to put Loki down, and he was even more happy for the walls around the property so no-one could see what was going on while he settled Loki in the passenger seat. He strapped him in with the seat belt, in part to keep him upright in the seat, and then reached into the back of the car to pull out a blanket he kept there, tucking it around Loki and making sure it was almost up over his head.

”You feel free to hide away in this, okay?” He caught Loki's rapidly blinking eyes, flitting around nervously. ”Manhattan traffic isn't the ideal first thing to be seeing after being locked up forever, so you might feel better pretending it doesn't exist, for now.”

The nod following that was as quick as Loki could make it, his eyes going even more dull with growing panic, and Tony took that as a sign to pull the blanket higher, more or less hiding Loki's whole head and face behind it. Then he hurried around the car to get in the driver's seat, start the car – which made Loki twitch and begin to tremble visibly under the blanket – and start getting them out of there. He didn't speak to Loki while he was driving, he didn't think anything he could have said would help, but he did slip a hand in under the blanket to find Loki's fingers, dug like a weak little claw into the leather of the seat, and slipped his own into that grip. Loki's fingers immediately curled around his, as hard as they could – which frankly felt a little like a ghost was holding his hand – and after a while he at least stopped trembling.

Back at Stark Tower, which was just being finished up by now, Tony carried Loki – blanket and all – to the elevator and got him up to the penthouse suite, feeling happy he'd made sure that was finished and made liveable first of all. He settled Loki on the couch and quietly ordered Jarvis to dim the windows before he grasped the edge of the blanket and slowly eased it down from Loki's head, showing him his new surroundings.

Those dull eyes, full of fear still, quickly scanned the room in restless sweeps and flickers, before they settled on Tony again, searching for something at least a little familiar in all this.

”You just stay here, and I'll find something for you to eat.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over Loki's horribly sunken cheek; Tony could even see the ridges of his teeth through the thin skin under his cuttingly sharp cheekbone. ”There's no-one here but you and me, and no-one can get in without my permission. So you're safe here.”

No response came, not even a nod, but the fear in Loki's eyes eased away a little.

Tony knew that something like actual, solid food would be a terrible idea in Loki's state, so he started by mixing some salt and sugar in tepid water. It was disgusting, but it was a trick he'd used himself when he'd been pretty badly dehydrated. He also made a cup of chicken broth, in case the water would go down and be kept down. After making sure the broth was cool enough to serve he found a couple of straws and put them in the liquids before taking them back out to the couch where Loki didn't look to have moved so much as an inch while he was away. His eyes were still wide and watching the new surroundings, but they narrowed a little in relaxation when he caught sight of Tony again.

It took Loki a long time to drink the water and the broth down, but he managed. And after a while it was obvious that his stomach had accepted the offerings, so Tony mixed some more salt-and-sugar water for him, making him drink until he turned his mouth away from the straw in wordless protest.

”Okay, enough for now. I'll make sure you drink more later.” He put the glass aside on the table. ”How about some sleep now, yeah?”

A tired blink and a berely-there nod followed, so Tony gently picked Loki up off the couch and carried him into his own bedroom. Fuck if he was leaving Loki out of sight even when he was asleep.

He left Loki bundled up in the blanket when he placed him on the bed, and added a duvet before he stretched out on the other side of the mattress. Not taking any clothes off, except for kicking off his shoes.

”You want me to turn the lights down? Or off?”

”No”, came Loki's faint reply. ”I want the light.”

Tony remembered the mostly dark room where the cell had been and he understood. He'd slept with the lights on for a few months after Afghanistan, after all. ”Sure thing.”

They lay like that, side by side, in silence, for so long that Tony started thinking Loki had actually drifted off to sleep, when the broken whisper reached him again.

”What purpose did he have for me?” Loki's head rolled around on the pillow until he could settle his eyes on Tony. ”I never knew.”

Tony shifted onto his side and propped his head in his hand, elbow buried in his pillow, so he could see Loki's face more easily. ”It's kind of a long story, but I guess we have time.” He gave Loki a little smile and received a tiny twitch of one in return before going on. ”Yeah, so, to start with there is this thing called cryonics. Some think of it as a science, but it's more of an idea at this stage; the idea being that when you die you can be frozen and preserved for a time somewhere in the future when they can cure whatever killed you. Or when people don't have to die at all.

”The problems are... well, many. First of all no-one even knows if it's possible to be brought back to life and still be you after you've been clinically dead for years. If there will still be memories, personality, a... well, soul, I guess, to revive along with the body.

”Second, the risks of the tissues being damaged on a cellular level is always there, both from lack of oxygen and from the cold. They've invented substances meant to counter the damage from the freezing, but then no-one has any idea what those in turn do to a human body.

”And then there's you.” Tony's eyes had been thoughtfully wandering the room, but now they came to meet Loki's icy blue gaze again. ”With this super resistance to cold, and an amazing ability to heal pretty much any damage to your body or cells. So from what I've read in my old man's notes, he was hoping to find some kind of... well, anti-freeze for humans. By using you. And possibly a cure for almost any kind of disease or illness or injury, while he was at it. If this healing power of yours could be distilled into a sort of vaccine, or drug.”

Loki blinked slowly, and Tony could almost see the thoughts turning inside his head. ”But you have no wish to continue his work?”

”No.” There was no hesitation in that answer. ”I can see the value of his ideas, of course. I mean, a cure for cancer or AIDS would change the world. Hell, even one for the common cold would be awesome, you know? But no. The things he did to you, the way he went about this...? No. Just... no. Never. I'd never want to be part of that. You're a living, sentient being and if I'd ever want to have a look at what your abilities could do for humanity, I'd start by asking your permission. Okay?”

Another long, silent look. ”Are you asking for that?”

Tony shook his head, still supported by his palm. ”No. I just want to undo what I can of what he did to you. That's all. I'm not asking anything in return. Nothing. I'm the one who owes you, in his place. You don't owe me anything, and never will.”

They both stayed silent after that, perhaps both lost in their own thoughts, and after a while Loki's eyes fell shut, his dry breaths turned slower and even, and Tony knew he was asleep. He dropped his own head into the pillow and for a long time stayed awake, studying Loki's sharp, bony profile, wondering if there really was anything he could do to ever set this even close to right.

Over the following days Tony felt like he had unexpectedly become the caretaker for something tiny and helpless and newborn, like a kitten or something. Only in a much bigger package.

He helped clean Loki up, and seeing him naked was comletely horrifying and heartbreaking. It was like watching a mummy moving around, stripped of its linen wrappings, and it was a relief when Tony could dress him back up in clean, soft clothes.

Every couple of hours he made sure Loki drank more water and got whatever nourishment he could keep down. More broth at first, then creamy soups, smoothies, protein shakes, slowly moving into soft but more solid foods.

Loki took to it well, and the speed of his recovery was insane. Even though it shouldn't have been unexpected, given what Tony already knew of his resilience. In just that first day his skin turned soft and smooth, no longer dry and wrinkled, cracked and flaking. Then he started filling back out, rebuilding soft tissue and muscle so fast Tony could almost see it happen with the naked eye.

He slept a lot, and seemed to benefit from the rest even when it was often disturbed by nightmares that woke him up whimpering and sobbing.

Very soon he could start caring for himself, manage his own hygiene and eating.

One thing didn't change, though – he always wanted Tony close by. In the same room at the least. They still shared the bed, and Loki seemed most at ease when Tony was close enough that Loki could touch him, often slipping his hand into Tony's, holding it like a security blanket. It didn't bother Tony. He actually kind of liked it. It did surprise him, though. He still couldn't understand how he, the son of the man who had reduced Loki to the wreck he had been when Tony had found him, would be the person Loki trusted for help and safety. By any kind of reason and logic, he shouldn't have been.

When a week had passed, Tony had to ask.

They were on the couch in what seemed to be one of Loki's favourite positions – Tony leaning back in a seat, Loki curled up beside him and with his head in Tony's lap, Tony's fingers threading through his long, black hair. It was softer now, clean and untangled, and had turned thicker and glossier as Loki returned to health. Loki's breathing was slow and he was so relaxed he was almost melting into the cushions, but Tony knew he was awake.

”There's something I've been wanting to ask you.”

”Hmmm?” Loki didn't open his eyes, just rubbed his cheek into Tony's thigh.

”Back when I found you”, Tony started, and felt Loki tense up minutely under his hand, ”it seemed like finding out who I was made you trust me. Why's that? I mean, not that you were wrong to trust me, but I would have guessed at the opposite reaction, to be completely honest.”

Loki was all still and quiet for a while, not even breathing by the feel of it, before he turned on his back to look up at Tony. Making his hand settle against Loki's cheek and jaw instead of in his hair. That cheek was fuller now, even though the cheekbone was still impressively sharp above it. His now bright, ice-blue eyes found Tony's thoughtful face, and he slowly raised a hand to touch his cheek in turn.

”He spoke of you”, he started at last, slowly. ”Not often, and mostly when he was drunk. Not often, and never once kindly.”

Tony swallowed as he felt Loki's thumb brush over his face.

”He never talked to me when he spoke of you, of course. Mostly muttering to himself or his instruments. But I heard it all.” Loki tilted his head on Tony's leg, eyebrows pulling together in consideration. ”So I learned your name, then, and I learned how utterly useless he thought you to be.”

Tony's heart felt like someone had stabbed it. He was sure he was turning pale; his cheeks felt cold and numb. Even though he'd already known it, even when everything he had so recently found out had killed any lingering respect he'd had for his father, it still fucking hurt. But he made himself stay silent, let Loki carry on.

”How you were nothing like him. Nothing like he had wanted you to be. How you were such a disappointment to him.” And there Loki actually smiled, and caressed the pad of his thumb a bit more firmly against Tony's skin. ”And so, when I realized who you were, I knew that any man who was all those things would likely be one to help me, when he had hurt me. One who could be trusted, when he could not.”

That thumb brushed against the trimmed lines of his goatee, and then the corner of his mouth, while Loki's smile slowly widened, the skin at the outer corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. ”And I was right”, he added.

And then Tony could manage to return that smile, feeling his lips curl faintly under Loki's thumb.

He'd never felt more proud to be a disappointment.