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"Can you imagine something for me?"
"I can try."
"Okay, imagine this," Tony said, looking up at the cold, gray sky, "you are born in this world, or wherever, with a purpose. Now, this purpose isn’t so much a singular thing, but a conglomerate of purposes that lead to a final product."
"You lost me at ‘conglomerate’."
"A group, a collective? A herd? A pod?"
"I understand the word, not your context. Perhaps if you reached your point?"
"I would if you didn’t interrupt me."
If looks could kill, Loki would be an Olympic medalist.
“Thank you. As I was saying, here you are, a baby. All small and useless except for eating, pooping, and learning. But what’s this? You have this thing called a ‘destiny’. But how is this destiny defined?” Tony paused as if waiting for an answer before continuing on without one, “well, most people have parents, right? Let’s say you start with a blank slate. Then there’s your parents right in your first days defining your ‘destiny’. They’ve already planned your future profession, hobbies, favorite colors, books, what gender you will like, everything. They pick your name, they pick pink or blue for your baby clothes, they start giving you frog themed things. Which you’re expected to like for the rest of your life, because babies don’t have opinions and parents like to assume that you like what they give you.”
"Frogs?" Loki interrupted.
"Okay, maybe fire engines, or ponies. You catch my drift," Tony answered.
"I see. So you were given frogs as a child?"
"I was given a screwdriver. That’s not the point."
"I was not given such things," Loki said quietly, "My true father never had a chance to give me anything, and Odin did not categorize me with such ‘themes’. He never gave gifts lightly to begin with."
"So you weren’t pushed into becoming a beef cake like Thor, to spit like a man, to be as swift as the coursing river? How about being expected to like women? No little stuffed Bilgsnipes for baby Loki? Nothing to shape you into something specific?"
"Oh, they did try to make a man out of me,” Loki admitted with a smirk, “but I was not so easily swayed. It did help that I simply had no knack for the barbaric ‘manliness’ that is expected of Asgardian warriors.”
"So your destiny was to be different, in the end."
"My ‘destiny’, or my fate, was to die. As the Allfather kindly reminded me last we met."
Tony stared up at the sky, allowing a heavy silence to fall over them. He was easily distracted by the scattering of shadows that fell over him. He squinted as a few birds flew over head and silently threatened them with a slow death of one of them pooped on him.
"I suppose my destiny has changed, though," Loki said at last.
"Well, you aren’t dead. So there’s that."
"That is reason to celebrate, I suppose, since fate has blessed me with so few favors. It was Odin who shaped me, not with love, but with expectations. I suppose my destiny was crafted by him. Long ago, I was destined to fall, and fall I did.”
Tony rolled over to look at him. When Loki didn’t meet his eyes, he tugged on his sleeve. “But look at the chain of events as a whole. I mean, if you’re even gonna believe in fate, you have to believe in the positive aspects as well.”
Loki scoffed and tilted his head to look at him with one eye. “I suppose you mean to tell me that ‘all good things shall come to pass’?”
"No, I’m telling you that some good things have come to pass. So O-dick was a manipulative bastard who built you up to knock you down. You know Howard was the same breed of asshole to me. Always setting higher and higher expectations. But, lo and behold, he was forever disgruntled by what I did. So I get blown up, locked in a cave, and ended up being responsible for a great man’s death.” He paused a moment and added, “While we’re at it, you had your fall through space, bad alien rendezvous, ended up being responsible for another great man’s death.”
"You did say something about positives in all this, did you not?"
"I’m getting to them, in a second. Firstly, we fucked up. Outsiders may have caused our physical downfall, but we are the ones who shattered our lives in the first place. Because we let those two figures dominate our decisions long after we were adult enough to make our own. Yet, after all that shit and the long hard struggle, look at where we are."
"The roof?"
"Yeah, the roof, you smart ass,” Tony replied dryly, “we’re on the roof you nearly destroyed with your alien buddies. We live with a bunch of heroes that both of us fought against in different ways. We’re here instead of you being locked up in some prison and me in an AAA group. The key word here being, ‘we’.”
Loki turned over and stared at him with sad, curious eyes. “Are you implying that our suffering brought us together?”
"Would we have ever met if you didn’t try to make your daddy proud and rule Asgard? No. Would we have met if I didn’t try to make my daddy proud by continuing his work in the weapons industry? Probably not." Tony scooted closer and sighed. "Fate’s a fickle bitch, but somehow, against all odds, we’re alive and laying here on the roof together on a peaceful, fucking freezing cold day.”
Loki stared at him for a long moment before a ghost of a smile formed on his lips. “You are saying that my single purpose in life was to meet you? That’s a tad too egotistical, even for you, love.”
"It’s only one of the purposes, you jerk. One of the thousands in your stampeding herd."
"You can be rather romantic when you get cold and bored," Loki commented with a wider smile.
"What can I say, you bring out the worst in me." Tony shrugged
"Do not blame me for your sudden philosophical babble."
"I’ll blame fate then."
"So all of this was to give yourself another excuse to get out of your responsibilities?" Loki chuckled and sat up, the wind snatching at his hair. He smiled fondly as Tony tried to sit up and flopped back down.
"Didn’t you just say your found it romantic?" He asked with a desperate sigh.
"Perhaps, a little," Loki admitted, offering a hand to help Tony up. "I would like to believe we are fated to be." They booth stood. Loki made a face and added, "not that I agree with the concept of some other force controlling my life. I do believe in choices."
"Can we just pretend we’re soul mates and go inside? I think I’ve lost brain cells to the cold."
"That would explain a lot."
"Shut up."
"My my, so cruel" Loki purred, slipping his arm around Tony’s waist and guiding him to the door, "is this how you treat your soul mate?"
Tony chuckled dryly. “I did say we were meant to be. So what does that say about you?”
Loki stopped him with a touch and kissed his forehead. “That I was born to find you.”
Tony blinked at him slowly for a moment, at a lost for words.
“Well,” he muttered at last, “thanks for finding me.”