musicalluna:

avengersheadcanons:

During one of their battles, Loki puts a spell on Tony that makes him unable to hide what he’s feeling. It’s a thoroughly horrible experience to all the Avengers when Tony bursts into tears the very first time Steve yells at him.

–iridescent-nonreality

this was not as easy as i expected it to be, but this idea!! *gnashes teeth*

more to come tomorrow?

–

Tony finds himself face-to-face with Loki twenty-three minutes into a really weird battle with these furry—things Tony isn’t even sure how to describe. He swings his feet around to keep himself from plowing right into the demigod’s smug face.

“Oh, so this is your fault?”

Loki smirks at him and tilts his head. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

One of the little furballs goes flying between them, shrieking.

Tony narrows his eyes. “Uh huh.”

“Iron Man, where are you?” Steve demands.

He sounds out of breath, which is actually kind of alarming, but Tony doesn’t trust Loki and isn’t about to look away to figure out where he is, even if it kicks his heart into double-time.

Loki flickers and Tony starts inside the suit when he’s suddenly standing just inches away. One of Loki’s thin fingers touches the line between the red and gold on the faceplate.

“Tony!” Steve shouts and Tony’s head jerks to the side automatically. What the hell is going on down there?

“You hide behind this mask,” Loki murmurs, and Tony feels a prickle climb his spine as he gets the distinct sensation that Loki is looking through the helmet.

“I wouldn’t call it hiding,” he retorts and sweat starts to collect under his arms at the sound of Steve grunting in pain. “It’s a safety measure. Hard to see when you’re flying two hundred miles an hour. Hard to breathe, too.”

“You wear other masks, subtler, though no less deceptive when you are in the company of your so-called comrades.”

Loki is smiling. Tony is really, really, not super fond of smiling Loki. Smiling Loki means Bad Things.

Over the comm, Steve screams.

Tony whips around, his heart in his throat. “Cap?” he barks.

“Why don’t we see how well you fare without your masks, hm?” Loki says and it sounds like his voice is coming from right next to Tony’s ear, fading to a whisper. He flinches away from it and hits the thrusters, heading back toward the fight. Loki’s mind games can wait.

“Steve, answer me, goddammit!” he snarls.

For a few heart-stopping seconds, the comm is silent. Then, staticky, like it’s coming in over an old-school phone line, he hears: “I—ron—an—you copy— Iron Man, come in!”

It’s Steve.

“Steve!” he yells, scanning the street below frantically. “Where are you? How bad are you hit?”

“Hit?” Steve echoes, tone peevish. “Iron Man, I’m not hit. The—whatever they are—they’re gone. Where the hell have you been? Why didn’t you respond to my hails?”

“What do you mean you’re not hit?” Tony demands and he sounds a lot more freaked out than he’d like. “I heard you. I heard you scream!”

Natasha cuts in. “Nobody’s hit Iron Man. We never got close to those things. I’m looking at Cap right now.”

“They just up and vanished about thirty seconds ago. Right before you came back on the comms,” Clint adds.

Tony finally spots them. Clint is halfway up a building on a fire escape. Thor is standing on the roof of the same building, frowning down at the street, and Steve and Natasha are on the ground about forty yards up. “JARVIS, zoom,” Tony demands, wanting to see for himself.

The HUD pulls up a close-up of Steve and sure enough, he looks completely unscathed. Tony breathes out sharply in relief. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch,” he says and watches Steve’s mouth turn down.

“Who?”

“Loki.”

“Loki was here?” Thor exclaims.

Tony touches down on the street, just a few feet from where Steve and Natasha are and says, “Yeah, yeah, he was back thattaway.” He waves a hand vaguely to indicate the direction he’d come from. “JARVIS, faceplate,” he orders, wanting to see Steve’s approach with his own eyes. He can still hear that scream… “Jesus, Steve,” he says when there’s crisp autumn air on his cheeks, eyes raking over Steve’s body, “I thought for sure… It sounded like someone gutted you.”

“What the hell were you thinking?” Steve shouts and Tony blinks, drawing back a little.

“What? What the hell was I thinking when?”

“You spoke to Loki​?” One of Steve’s red gloves slashes through the air. “You know how dangerous he is!” Steve tears the cowl back from his face, his blue eyes dark with anger.

Tony steps back. “It’s not like I sought him out, he just appeared.”

“I told you to stay with the group. I told you to stick close until we understood what we were dealing with.”

There’s no smart retort waiting on Tony’s tongue, because that’s true, he had. And Tony had blithely ignored that. He swallows. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”

“That’s right you didn’t think!” Steve snaps and pokes him, hard, in the chest, rocking him on his heels. “This is exactly the kind of thing I keep telling you you’ve got to stop doing. He could have killed you, could have taken you, and we’d have had no idea!”

“I’m not a team player,” Tony says and he means for it to come out flip, unfeeling. Instead, he hears his voice waver and feels his lip tremble. He’s not a team player, and that’s the fucking problem, isn’t it?

If he were, Steve wouldn’t constantly be repeating himself, he wouldn’t be fixing Tony with those I’m So Disappointed looks, pointing out every instance where Tony could have gotten one of the others—or himself—killed.

“Dammit, Tony,” Steve says, and all the anger is gone. He just sounds tired. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

Tears prickle at Tony’s eyes. “I know,” he chokes, and then his breathing hitches and he realizes with rising horror that the tears aren’t just pricking, they’re actually streaking down his cheeks and he only just manages to stifle a sob.

There’s a very pregnant silence.

He sniffles, trying desperately to stop, but he keeps seeing that tired look on Steve’s face, the weight of his disappointment. The tears come thicker and faster and he sucks in a whaling breath, small, wounded noises leaking from his throat.

Oh, god.

He slams the faceplate shut and takes off without another word.