The only reason Tony agrees to take a shower is because Pepper threatens to dump a water bottle on him in bed fully clothed if he doesn't. Why she's so insistent he take a shower when he literally took one the day before, he does not know, but he personally feels like not showering does not become a problem until it's been at least three days.
And that is exactly why he won't admit to Pepper that he does feel a little better after his shower. He will not admit that she was right. He has already lost too much in the last 24 hours. He will not lose his pride, too.
Pepper is still lying in bed when he comes out of the shower, her back propped up against the headboard with a pillow. He doesn't think all too much of it until he sees what's in her lap.
"You can't look at that," Tony says quickly.
Pepper cocks an eyebrow. "Not even the first page?"
"None of it," Tony says. He walks up and snatches it from her hands. "That's Loki's notebook. I promised him nobody would read it."
Pepper cocks her head to the side. "But he wrote it to you."
Tony blinks at that.
What?
"You really haven't looked at it?" she asks in disbelief. "Not even for a second?"
"No, I haven't," Tony says. "I told you, I promised him I wouldn't." He's lied about too much already. He doesn't want to add yet another lie to the list.
"Tony, it's addressed to you," she says. "He wanted you to read it — or, part of it. He says that's why you got him the notebook in the first place."
"What are you talking about?" Tony sits down on the edge of the bed and opens the notebook — breaking yet another promise to Loki, as if his lies haven't hurt him enough.
Sure enough, at the very top of the first page, in looping blue letters, it says, "Tony,"
His heart stops. Has Loki expected him to read it this whole time? Why wouldn't he say something? Why wouldn't he ask him to? Why did he ask him not to? None of this makes sense.
So he keeps reading.
I'm not as naïve as you may think I am, nor are you as subtle as you so obviously think yourself to be. I know that you want to hear about my dreams, and though I don't understand your fascination with the scenarios my mind conjures in my sleep, you've made no secret that this is why you've given me this notebook.
I suppose it doesn't make much sense to use this notebook knowing your plan, but it sounds rather therapeutic, so I thought perhaps we could reach a compromise. Anything I write in my blue pen, I do not mind if you read. Anything in my black pen, though, is something I would prefer to keep to myself. I have no way to stop you from reading it, nor do I have any way to know that you don't, but I trust you, and I trust that you'll listen. I know there are things you've not yet told me, things you've made a point to hide from me, but you've more than earned my trust, so I offer it to you regardless, and I hope that you repay me the same way.
I suppose that makes this notebook a way to speak to each other without speaking. I don't mind if you want to talk about anything I share with you here, whether it be aloud or in writing. A large part of my reason in writing is to reread this myself and relive the memories we make, but I would be amiss not to share that opportunity with you as well.
Loki :)
Tony smiles to himself, but there's a hint of sadness in it. Loki really trusted him. They'd only known each other a matter of weeks by the time Loki got this notebook, and he already had so much trust in him. And now that's gone.
He flips the page, and it's covered in the same beautiful flowing cursive, but in black ink. He flips right by it. The next page is covered in black cursive writing, too, but the page after that is written in blue. He reads that one.
Today was a lot of fun. I got to try some different Midgardian foods — "candy," they call it, though it's not what I would usually think of when I hear the word. It's sweeter than anything I can think of from Asgard, and much of it has a wonderful fruity flavor.
Tony brought me to the grocery store, and I've never seen so much food in one place. It would very nearly put an Asgardian feast to shame, except that a feast is made of fully prepared food, which is more than can be said for the grocery store. We only went to get the ingredients to bake muffins, but I left with more fruit than anything else. I can hardly believe that Midgard has strawberries and apples and grapes. I haven't eaten them yet so I can't say whether they taste as I'd expect, but I look forward to trying them.
Otherwise, it was a rather mundane day. This type of stillness would have driven me to the brink of insanity on Asgard, but it was wonderful here. Everything is so much nicer on Midgard. I don't know if it's the novelty of it all, but I feel it has to be more than that. I can't see it changing any time soon.
I really ought to go back to bed. Tony is already asleep, and I'd hate for him to wake up and realize that I've left. I've just been eager to write something happy in this book. I hope there are more happy stories to follow.
Tony flips to the next page, and it is nothing but scribbles, blacking out every word he may have written. He remembers this one. It's from when he found Loki sobbing on the bathroom floor in the dead of night. And though the page is illegible, he knows exactly what dream was on it: a memory of the one dark, empty room Tony left him in while his body and his mind fell apart.
He flips past it. He doesn't need a reminder of how poorly this started — or how poorly it ended.
Tony and I just came back from a late-night walk.
I suppose that means I should try to go to sleep, but I don't want to risk falling back into another life-like nightmare, and Tony's already asleep so I imagine spending another few minutes in the bathroom won't bother him all too much.
This world is different at night. It feels more like home. I told this to Tony, but Midgard is so much louder and busier than Asgard is. Some of that seems to go away when the sun sets. It's still much more chaotic than Asgard, but it's closer to what I've grown accustomed to from h̶o̶m̶e̶ Asgard.
I wonder if I'll ever get used to Midgard. It's strange: I feel more comfortable here than in Asgard. Tony's tower feels so much more homely than the palace ever did, yet it feels wrong to truly call it home. This whole world feels so alien to me. I enjoy it, but I don't understand it. One day, I hope to. One day, I hope to be welcomed in this world with open arms and to call it my own the way I once did Asgard.
I finally told Tony what happened in Asgard. I don't know that I'd been avoiding broaching the topic so much as I've tried not to think about it, but the conversation seemed to lead to it and I thought it was about time he knew the truth of where I came from and why.
It was a weight off my shoulders that I didn't know I'd been carrying; a breath of fresh air I hadn't known I needed. Everything is out in the open now. He knows who I am and what I've done and he accepts me anyway, and that's perhaps the most wonderful feeling I've ever experienced.
Tony, I don't mean this to be a way to forcefully reopen the conversation, or, worse still, to close it if you have more to say. I know that was a lot to absorb, and if you decide after you've had time to think about it that there's more you'd like to discuss, I have no issue with that. My entire life fell apart in the blink of an eye, and you've been there to pick up the pieces for quite literally as long as I can remember. The least I can do is tell you the truth, as much as you'd like to hear it.
I almost feel like a child in this realm. Everything is so new to me, and there is so much I don't yet understand – and a lot I fear I never will understand. I don't know how I found myself here or why, but I do know that it brings about a childlike wonder I hadn't known myself capable of. I wish I could put into words just how grateful I am that you've taken the time to help me adjust to this new world. Though you say otherwise, I imagine there are times when it's frustrating or times when you would rather I be anywhere but here, but you handle it with such grace that had I not known I was disrupting your time and your work, I wouldn't have even noticed. I don't know quite where I'm going with this; only that I want you to know that your help means more than you could possibly know.
Thank you, Tony.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me and to show me around your world and to make me feel like anything but a burden. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I appreciate it.
You truly are the most important person in my life.
Tony bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry. And maybe this is a stupid thing to cry about – it's a journal entry full of the same thanks he's heard from Loki's own mouth time and time again – but at the same time, this is what he lost. This is what he and Loki used to have with each other. He was genuinely the most important person in Loki's life, and now that's over, and he's not naive enough to think they could ever have that back. He'll never be able to rebuild that trust again.
He takes a deep breath, opens his eyes, and flips to the next page.
He's ready to get his heart broken again.
We didn't do much today. Tony says that Thor might come, but if he hasn't already, I assume that's not going to happen. Perhaps I'll see him tomorrow. Perhaps it will be another day of mundane Midgardian activities like watching television. Only time will tell.
I'm not all too worried about seeing my brother again tomorrow. I'll admit that I was when Tony first mentioned it, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I have nothing to be worried about. Either it will go well or it will not. Either I will remember why I thought him a friend for a thousand years or I will remember why that changed. And though the anticipation is enough to drive me mad, I've come to realize that dwelling on it will help nothing. Whatever happens will happen, and life will go on.
My only true worry is that I will get stuck in a conversation that I don't know how to have. I don't expect it to be a problem. I know that Thor is aware that there is a lot that I don't remember, and he hasn't mentioned it since Tony told him. But that's not to say he won't. He doesn't know how much I can't remember. I don't know the answer myself. He very well may broach a topic I don't remember knowing.
I've thought about mentioning it myself. It may be easier that way; taking matters into my own hands. It may be easier not to discuss it at all. I haven't decided yet. It would be nice to know what happened to me. I imagine there's a lot I could learn simply by asking. I know I've asked some things before – how I got here, for one; how Tony and Director Fury know of Thanos's scepter, for another – and I've only gotten vague answers in response, but I think Tony would tell me the whole truth if I sat down and asked him.
But that's a problem for another day. I've grown used to the knowledge that there's a lot I don't know, and though some of it I know is information he's kept from me, there is so much more that I've just yet to learn, and I hope to focus more on that while I wait for the truth to come to light. This world is too new and too exciting to allow myself to be bogged down by curiosity I can't bring myself to ask about aloud.
I should go to bed now. I was hoping that by writing out what I've been thinking of, it will allow my mind to rest, and thus, my body, too. I suppose I'll find out in a few minutes whether this is the case, but if writing down my nightmares has helped rid my mind of them, I have hope that the same will work for my worries.
Tony sighs. So his lies never worked. Loki saw through them the whole time. He may not have known the whole truth, but he knew there were things being kept from him, and he didn't even care. He was still happy here. He trusted Tony even when he knew he wasn't to be trusted.
What would have happened if he'd told him the truth? The day Thor came to visit would have been the perfect time to do it. Loki had already been wondering about it. Thor had already broached the topic, accidentally or not.
Pepper bumps his shoulder with her own. "Are you okay?"
He forces a nod. "I'm fine," he says. "I'm..." He swallows hard and clears his throat. "I'm fine. Can, um..." He turns the notebook toward her and taps the page. "Can you look that up?"
Pepper cocks her head to the side, eyes scanning the page. "What, Thanos?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Yeah, I can google it." She crawls across the bed and grabs her phone off the bedside table, then crawls back to him. "Any idea what it is?"
"Well, from context clues, I'm gonna say a person," Tony replies, maybe a little sarcastically.
"Well, I couldn't really see the context because your finger was on it," she says — which, admittedly, is a fair point.
Tony lies back on the bed and closes his eyes, notebook still held in his lap. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. This is too much. There's been too much going on in the last 24 hours, and he needs a break. Even just for a minute, he needs a break.
It's quiet for a short while, until finally, Pepper says, "I can't find anything. Whoever Thanos is, nobody on the planet seems to know about them."
"No myths, or...?"
"Nothing," she says. "Google doesn't even think it exists. It thinks I spelled 'thanks' wrong."
Tony sighs. "It was worth a shot." He doesn't know what he'd do with the information anyway. It might be nice to know a thing or two about the scepter that started this whole thing, but it's not like it's going to change anything. It's not going to bring Loki back to him.
He lifts the notebook back up and holds it over his head to keep reading. He's on to the next blue entry.
It's been a wonderful day. I saw Thor again, and somehow, against all odds, I found that I enjoyed it. He drives me mad at times, but in brief visits, I think it may be nice to have him in my life still. We have a different dynamic now that I live on Midgard, and though I feel that some of that may be due to us drifting apart, it seems to be doing wonders for our relationship.
I finally asked him and Tony about the memories I've lost, and though they didn't have a conclusive answer for my questions, I've learned a fair amount. I've learned that it most likely relates to the scepter Thanos gave me, though I'd assumed as much. I've learned that SHIELD is looking into it, and though I haven't had many pleasant experiences with the organization, I'm grateful for their help. And I've also learned that Tony didn't know that I'm aware that my memory has faded in some places, which is perhaps what interests me the most.
I don't think he's read anything I've written, then, because I've certainly mentioned it before. He's more trustworthy than I'd thought – though it does raise more questions than it answers, because I was so certain he only wanted me to write in this notebook so that he could read it. I'd come to accept that as fact, and if I'm wrong, then my entire understanding of my reality right now – or what little of it I could say I do understand – could be wrong, too. Maybe my experiences in Asgard have gotten the worst of me. Maybe he's not conspiring against me to read my private thoughts. Maybe whatever secrets he's keeping from me are small and meaningless. Maybe he really is every bit as amazing as he seems to be. And maybe I've just been hurt too many times to accept that I have everything I could ever have asked for right in front of me.
I don't think I'll know peace until I know what happened to me. I have too many questions – about the scepter; about the Tesseract; about how I got here; about what role SHIELD has played in all of this – to put my curiosity to rest entirely. But I also don't think I've truly realized how fortunate I am to be here. After everything I've done, I've been given a second chance, and I don't want to spend it worrying all too much about the past. Everything is starting to fall into place. M̶y̶ p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ Odin and Frigga are out of my life, and they've taken their lies with them. My relationship with Thor may have fallen apart, but it seems to be building itself back up, and building itself better. I don't feel so much anymore that he looks down on me. He's put more effort into our relationship in the time I've been on Midgard than he did in the entire last century we spent together in Asgard.
And there's Tony.
I don't even know what to say about Tony.
I suppose I can say whatever I want about Tony, because I'm near-positive he's not reading this notebook the way I'd assumed he would. Still, I don't know that I can put into words how much it means to me to have him in my life. I lost everything when I fell from Asgard. The fact that I lived was a travesty in itself, and every day in the cosmos was a struggle I was so quickly losing the will to endure. I never thought that one day I would find a new home. I never thought I'd be welcomed anywhere the way I was here.
But I really am happy here, and that is so unbelievable to me. I resigned myself to a life of misery decades ago, convinced I would have to muddle through until I died. Now I wake up every morning excited to see what the day will bring. I have as much fun exploring this new world as I do sitting on the couch with my head on Tony's shoulder while we watch a movie I only partially understand. Even now, as he's sitting next to me in bed, I feel a warmth in my soul that I can't ignore; one I'd never felt before I found myself here.
I think I'm in love with him.
I just hope that fate doesn't tear this apart. I've already lost so much. I don't know what I would do if I lost him, too.
Tony just stares at it.
And he stares at it.
And he stares at it some more.
Then he throws it across the room and shoves a pillow over his face. Maybe he'll get lucky and smother himself to death before he can dwell on his own goddamn stupidity for too long.
"Tony!" Pepper yelps.
Tony just groans into his pillow.
Peppers rests a hand on his arm. "Hey," she says softly. "What's going on?"
"Read the last page," Tony mumbles.
The bed shifts as she gets up, then again as she sits back down. The notebook pages ruffle as she flips through them, and Tony's silent while he waits for her to come to the same conclusion he has: that he threw away what could have been the best thing that ever happened to him.
Pepper sighs and closes the notebook. "I'm sorry," she says quietly.
Tony lowers his pillow, clutching it against his chest. "I'm an idiot," he mumbles. "I ruined everything."
Again, Pepper sighs, but she doesn't say anything. She doesn't try to refute it. Even she knows it's true.
Tony feels around the head of the bed until he finds Edward, and he hugs the bear tightly. "I hope he's okay," he says quietly. "He's out there all alone. I can't imagine..."
"He'll be okay," Pepper assures him. "He's a smart guy. He'll figure out what to do."
"I hope so," Tony says. And if he doesn't... well, he can always come back here. He hopes Loki knows that. Stark Tower will always be here for him.
Tony will always be here for him.