PART ONE: Chapter One

The possibility of this all just being some elaborate trick faded away the second Tony's shoes slipped in Loki's desperate definition of an escape from whatever, or whoever turned his eyes from emerald green to ice blue. The scars lining up and down the god's forearms, the symphony of mutilation singing from the medical bay scans, the panic bleeding into blind screams and painful nights spent hunched over the toilet; none of that is an act. Loki's outstretched his trembling hand in one last-ditch attempt at freedom, and Tony's taken it in his own.

Thanos is coming.
Tony Stark has a heart.
Loki Friggason lives and breathes in starfire.