Chapter Text
Rolling over with a lazy groan, Tony Stark smiles at the man in bed next to him. And tries to remember the name. Something unusual. Obscure. Foreign. Loki. Bingo. “That was... really great.”
Whether or not Loki smiles in return is up for debate. Maybe it’s a smile. Maybe more of a predatory smirk. Either way, he sits up, pushing his tangled black hair back from his face. “Certainly more enjoyable than spending yet another dull winter night watching TV at home,” he says.
“Oh yeah? Is that usually how people spend their time around here?”
“It’s a small town. Quality entertainments are, shall we say... limited.”
Tony could believe that. Only three days in this place and already he’s looking forward to the glittering excitement of a two-hour drive back to the airport on his way home. “Yeah,” he says. “Anyway-”
“Anyway,” Loki interrupts, climbing out of bed and reaching for his pile of discarded clothes on the floor. “It’s late. More snow is coming down by the minute. I should be going.”
He pulls on his pants and shirt with the kind of haste only ever seen in people trying to make a quick exit from a one night stand before things got weird. Which is understandable, given the circumstances, since Tony’s pretty sure they were no more than ten minutes away from reaching the weird point. The point where one of them has to man up, take control, and make up a dumb excuse why they absolutely under no circumstances can spend the night together and whoops, it’s time to go.
Only. The thing is. That’s always Tony’s job. Tony’s always the one who takes control of the situation and tells whoever it is in his bed that they need to make a discreet yet immediate exit. Tony, therefore, should be the one currently telling Loki all about how much it’s snowing and how he should be on his merry way.
“Uh... right,” Tony says, sitting upright. Because it’s hard to feel in control of anything while lounging in a pile of disarrayed sheets. He checks his phone on the bedside table. “Yeah, it’s quarter after two. Pretty late.” Only one way to salvage things and regain the upper hand. “Let me give you some money for a cab.”
Loki smirks again. Definitely predatory. “That’s very thoughtful, Tim, but my Escalade is parked just out front.”
It’s hard to say what’s more infuriating about that sentence: the intentionally wrong name (which Tony knows Loki knows is wrong, because the right name was definitely used several times within the last half hour), or the unnecessary reference to the stupid type of pretentious car Loki drives. “Huh. I almost bought an Escalade once. Those were pretty popular about ten years ago.”
“In New York City? That sounds impractical. Out here one needs the utility for the snow and rough roads, but I think if I lived in New York I’d have something more like a ... what was that I saw you with earlier? A Toyota Corolla?”
“Yeah, the rental selection at the airport was a little limited,” Tony growls. “It was that or look like somebody’s cool grandpa in a Chrysler Sebring convertible. Anyway. You were leaving?”
“I was leaving,” Loki confirms with that same annoying smirk-smile. “Thank you for a lovely evening. I’d say we should do it again, but you’re going back to New York in the morning, so...”
Tony nods. “I am going back to New York. But hey,” he says, picking up his phone to enter a number he’ll later make a point of never calling. “Maybe I can look you up next time I’m in town. What’s your number? And I feel like a real dick for admitting this, but I’ve totally forgotten your name.”
“Mmm.” Buttoning his coat as he walks, Loki crosses the room to stand at Tony’s bedside. Gracefully, he leans in. Even more gracefully, he presses one feathery kiss to Tony’s cheek. And whispers, “No you haven’t.”
ooo
It’s probably Loki’s fault that Tony has a shitty sleep.
Actually, no. It’s absolutely Loki’s fault that Tony has a shitty sleep. And, as a result, it’s absolutely Loki’s fault that Tony wakes up grumpy and residually pissed off from spending the night rolling over restlessly in bed and thinking up a whole armada of amazingly witty comebacks and cutting insults just a few minutes or hours too late.
His breakfast consists of three cups of coffee and a dumb, festive cranberry muffin from the motel’s lobby. On December 21st, everything, right down to the food, is decorated for Christmas. Wreaths on every door. Candles on every table. Garlands on every window. One giant tree in the corner, and seven other smaller trees all within Tony’s immediate sightline. Something smells like cinnamon.
Outside is more of the same: fiberglass bells and stars on every lamp post, lights on every building, greenery and tinsel stuck up wherever it’ll fit. Smiling neighbors greeting each other in front of every homey, small-town shop. With a thick, fluffy covering of snow on the ground and a bright blue sky overhead, Main Street in Asgard, Minnesota, could be a picture postcard of America’s Quaintest Town™.
Tony might even think it was nice if he weren’t so tired, annoyed, and generally disinterested in Christmas spirit.
Just as he grabs his phone out of his pocket to check the time, a familiar red truck pulls into the parking lot. Thor Odinson, mayor of Asgard, waves to Tony through the window.
“It’s a cold one today!” Thor says, loudly, as he climbs down from the oversized truck. In Tony’s experience, he says everything loudly. “You’re lucky to be heading out now. Supposed to snow overnight then drop down to minus forty for tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that temperature exists in New York,” Tony replies, to which Thor laughs. Also in Tony’s experience, Thor laughs at everything remotely clever.
“Well, I won’t keep you long. I know you have to drive all the way back to Duluth for your flight. So here’s everything signed, with all the revised permits, and everything else you should need from the town council to go ahead with the final phase. Have a quick look through and make sure it’s all there.”
He hands over a festive red folder, which Tony quickly leafs through, already regretting his choice not to put on gloves even to stand outside for only five minutes. It all looks good. Everything in order, and all the necessary signatures on the paperwork. “Yep, seems complete.”
“Anything else you need from me before you go?”
“No, this should be it. I’ll file all these with my legal team and we should be good to go until the final inspection. And from what I saw at the site yesterday, I’d say we’re still on track to open in June.”
Thor nods. “Great. Great. And you’ll be back for that?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Alright then. You have a safe drive, and you have my number in case anything comes up.”
“Thanks.”
Tony holds out his hand, and immediately regrets it, because somehow Thor’s fuzzy mittens are covered in snow.
“Oh, and, Tony?” Thor says before getting back in his truck. “On behalf of the town of Asgard, I just wanted to express my gratitude to you and the whole team at Stark Developments for choosing us as the site of your new resort. It means a lot to us to have this new opportunity and all the business that comes along with it. Especially since the paper mill shut down. Things have been tough around here for the past three years, but... construction on the Valhalla Lake Lodge has already made a big difference in creating jobs and turning things around for a lot of the people in town. And I think things’ll just keep getting better once it opens. Thank you.”
“...You’re welcome,” Tony says, allowing one quick, tight smile. Heartfelt emotion never was his thing, and he sure didn’t get into the real estate development business for any reason other than to make money. Being thanked for exploiting a small town’s picturesque setting just feels awkward.
“Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah. Uh, you too.”
Thor waves again as he climbs into the truck. And thus with all his business in Asgard wrapped up, it’s time for Tony to head out.
Predictably, his phone rings the minute he fastens his seatbelt. Call display says Pepper Potts. And of course he has to answer it the old fashioned way like a barbarian, because nothing is synched to this damn rental car. “If you’re calling to make sure I’m on my way to the airport...” he says.
“Are you?” she asks.
Well. He’s in the car with the intention to begin driving any second now. Same thing. “Of course. Contrary to popular belief, I can actually function without you from time to time.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it. Anyway. I checked you in and your boarding passes should be in your email. Both flights are on time so far, but Chicago’s been dicey all day so that could change. I have text alerts set up and can forward anything to you if your connection is delayed. I also have a car booked to pick you up at LaGuardia at quarter after nine. Do you need me to send anything with the driver?”
“Nah, I should be fine.”
“What about the permits? Do you need me to file anything before I leave today?”
“No, but let’s set up a meeting with the lawyers for Monday afternoon.”
There’s a pause on the other end. “...Tony, that’s Christmas Eve,” Pepper says.
“Yeah, and it’s a business day.”
“I’m pretty sure not even lawyers want to have a meeting on Christmas Eve.”
“Fine,” he groans. “The twenty-sixth then.”
“Twenty-seventh,” Pepper counters.
He’s not going to win this. He just knows it. “Why? Do you have secret plans I don’t know about?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m going out of town to stay with my parents, and I don’t really want to cut my two days of vacation short just for one meeting.”
“Twenty-seventh it is,” Tony sighs.
“Don’t you have any Christmas plans?”
“Of course I do. I plan to drink the expensive scotch I’ll inevitably receive as a Christmas gift from one of our business partners, order Chinese, and binge-watch my annual Star Wars marathon.”
“Wow, drinking alone,” she says. “You know, if you want, I’m sure you’d be welcome to-”
He cuts her off before that goes any further. “Nope, I don’t want. I am very set in my Scrooge-like ways. So you just set up that meeting, and I’ll see you on Monday.”
“If you say so. Enjoy your flight.”
“Pepper, I’m on a regional jet connecting through O’Hare. Nobody enjoys that.”
“Then enjoy complaining about it later. Bye, Tony.”
He ends the call, but checks his email before putting his phone back in his pocket. A message from Pepper awaits as promised with his boarding passes. Good. Everything in order. Business trip to the literal middle of nowhere, Minnesota, complete. (Actually, is it even the middle? The middle is probably closer than where this places is. This is more like the farthest possible extreme northern edge of nowhere.)
He starts the car, backs out of the hotel parking lot, and heads out on the first leg of a long journey back to New York.
ooo
By the time the state patroller finally walks up to the car window, Tony’s about 95% along the way to having a complete mental breakdown right there at the steering wheel. He’s been sitting in an unmoving lineup of vehicles at a roadblock for over forty minutes. His flight leaves in three hours. Duluth is still over an hour and a half away. He doesn’t have time for... whatever this is.
“Morning,” the officer says as Tony rolls down the window.
“Hi, yeah,” Tony replies. “Is this going to be much longer?”
“There’s a bad accident about a mile up ahead. Truck hit an icy patch, lost control, and sideswiped another truck coming up the opposite direction. So we got both lanes blocked and no way to move the trucks until the heavy duty tow crew gets here.”
“And how long with that be?”
The officer shrugs. “An hour at least? But it’ll be more like two or three before we can get the highway cleared. So we’re recommending everybody turn around, go back north through Asgard, and then take the-”
“Yeah, the thing is,” says Tony, struggling with every ounce of strength he has not to let loose a stream of expletives. “I’m on my way to the airport and don’t have time to go back and take a detour. Is it possible to just kind of... squeeze by on the shoulder or something?”
“Sorry sir, that’s not safe. You have to go back to-”
“Okay then what if I just... uh...” The stupidest, craziest plans always pop into his head when he’s in a crunch. “What if I call a taxi to meet me on the other side, and I walk through?”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“I need to get to the airport. This is an emergency.”
“I understand, but the highway is shut down. You have to-”
“Can you drive me? I know you can get past this blockade.”
Okay that suggestion was even stupider than walking. The officer gives him a look. “Sir, I need to ask you to turn your vehicle around and drive back the way you came. The road is closed. Sorry for any inconvenience.”
As the patroller moves on to speak to the next car down the line, Tony drops his head against the back of his hands on the steering wheel. What he really needs to do right now is not let all this shit get to him, but that’s proving kind of hard to do as each second ticks by and the SUV in front of him poorly executes a slow nine-point turn to head back north. The weight of reality pushes down on his shoulders like a precariously balanced mass. Shit. There’s really only one thing to do, now that driving, sneaking, walking, and hitching a ride in a patrol car are off the table.
He pulls out his phone and calls Pepper. It goes straight to voicemail.
“Pepper. Hi. It’s me. Uhhhhh.” Funny how his voice sounds a lot calmer than he feels. “There’s some kind of delay on the highway and... yeah. I’m going to miss my flight. There’s no way I’m getting to the airport in time. Can you rebook something for tomorrow morning? Give me a call when you get this. I’m heading back to Asgard.”
ooo
Naturally, Pepper calls back at the worst possible moment: right in the middle of Tony being given a wilting look of pity by the hotel clerk who’s just told him there are no rooms available.
“Hi,” he says, and this time his voice sounds every bit as calm as he feels. Which is to say, not in the least. “Can you hold on a sec? I need to deal with something.” To the clerk: “Can you look again? I just checked out two hours ago. I don’t care if they haven’t cleaned the room yet. I only need to stay here one more night.”
“I’m so sorry, sir,” says the desk clerk, still giving him that look like his dog just died. “Two other guests have already come back due to the highway closure, and we’re completely full for Christmas. Do you want me to call over to the Sage Creek Inn and see if they have any availability?”
“Yes. Please do that. Any available room is fine.” He goes back to Pepper. “Okay. What do you have for me?”
“Well, you’re lucky.”
“I’m really not feeling that right now, but go on.”
“There’s one seat available tomorrow at noon. I’m booking it for you now. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he groans. “Some accident with trucks hitting an icy patch. I didn’t see it, but it shut the highway down in both directions.”
“Okay. Well. Your flight change is complete, and your new itinerary is on its way to your inbox. Can I suggest you give yourself ample time to drive tomorrow?”
“Pepper, believe me, I will be leaving this place as soon as humanly possible, with the intention of getting to the airport at 7 am tomorrow to spend several hours sitting there bored out of my mind.”
“Good. Do you need anything else?”
Yes. Many things. There are many things Tony needs, like an available hotel room and a few (dozen) drinks. But those aren’t things Pepper can help with. “No. Flight’s fine. Thanks, Pepper.”
“Call me if anything else happens.”
“I hope not. Bye.”
The desk clerk, when he turns back to her, is still wearing that pitiful dead dog expression. Tony lets out a long sight. “Sage Creek doesn’t have anything, do they?”
“I’m so sorry,” she says through a sad-eyed frown.
“Are there any other hotels in town?”
“Just us and them. The nearest place I know of to call would be down in Rockyvale, but...”
But that’s on the other side of the highway blockade. Of course. “Right. Well. Let’s just think about this for a second. Do you have a... a waitlist? Or something like that?”
“We don’t have anything official, but I could keep your name in case something comes up and one of our reservations cancels?”
“Yes please.” That’s a start. But still leaves too much to chance. “What about a...” Looking around the lobby, hunting and scraping for any thread of an idea he pushes his hair back from his forehead. “Do you have a meeting room or banquet hall or anything I could wheel a cot into? I don’t care about the cost. Anything. Literally anything. A supply closet. A room that’s undergoing renovation. An office.”
The dead dog look again. “It’s against fire code,” she tells him. “We’re not allowed to let guests sleep anywhere other than in the designated rooms.”
Yeah, Tony knew that. But he’s running short on crazy suggestions. “...A heated garage where I could sleep in my car?”
“Do you know anyone in town? Any friends or family?”
“I know... one person...” Tony mutters.
“Why don’t you give them a call? I think that might be your best option for tonight.”
It might be his only option. Son of a bitch. He’s stuck in Asgard, and there’s only one person in the entire dumb town he can think of to call.
Much as it pains him to do it, he pulls out his phone and scrolls through his contacts for Thor Odinson.
ooo
“Ironic isn’t it?” Thor calls to Tony with that stupidly good-natured smile as Tony gets out of his car in the driveway of the Odinson residence: a snow-covered acreage a few minutes from the town center. “Your company builds hotels, and yet there’s no place in town for you to stay!”
“Yep, how about that,” Tony replies.
“I think this proves beyond a doubt how much the area needs the Valhalla Lake Lodge. Too bad it’s not open yet.”
“Mm. Too bad.”
To be fair, Tony did consider driving out to the building site. It crossed his mind more than once. And apart from the fact that the Lodge currently had unfinished plumbing, no heat, no electricity, no flooring, and no furniture, it’d be an ideal place to stay the night.
“Let me take your bag,” Thor says, and he grabs the suitcase right out of Tony’s hand before Tony can say anything. “There’s a plug you can use on the blue cord coming from the garage.”
“A what?” Tony asks, but Thor’s already disappeared inside with the suitcase.
Whatever. He kicks the snow off his shoes at the mat at the top of the steps and shuts the door behind him.
Inside the house is... well, it’s more or less exactly what he was picturing it might be. All craftsman woodworking as far as the eye can see, from the staircase railing to the door frames to the kitchen cabinets just visible down the hall ahead. Cream carpet in the family room to the left, hardwood flooring in the formal sitting room to the right. There’s even some floral wallpaper.
And, naturally, a massive (real) Christmas tree in the front window. Red candles on the mantle above the wood-burning fire, and two stockings on either side. One says ‘Thor’ in quaint, hand-cut red felt letters on a white fur cuff. And the other?
Tony’s stomach plunges down to sit somewhere near his ankles.
The other stocking says ‘Loki’.
It couldn’t possibly be. But with the way Tony’s luck has been going... Does he even want to ask?
Thor’s footsteps trample loudly down the stairs. “Come on in! Take your coat off. You can hang it on the tree right there.”
“Oh... right...” Tony shrugs off his coat, but that doesn’t do anything to alleviate the awkward, hot prickle making its way down his back. He has to ask. He has to ask now when he still has a chance to get out. “Um. These are... these are nice Christmas decorations you have here.”
Thor beams. “Thank you! A lot of them are, oh, I’d have to say... seventy, eighty years old? Belonged to my grandparents, who brought them over from Norway. My brother and I still put them up every year. It’s a family tradition.”
“Brother,” echoes Tony. Brother sounds better than some of the alternatives he’d been fearing. Brother sounds like somebody who probably looks like Thor: a wholesome, football-playing farm boy with shaggy blond hair. Not a dangerously attractive, black-haired weasel.
“Loki?” Thor yells at the back of the house. “You in the kitchen? Let me introduce you to my friend.”
Maybe Loki is a common name around these parts. There was another guy named Thor on the building crew, so it’s not impossible. Please let Loki be a common name around these parts, Tony silently prays at the sound of a chair scraping against the floor.
But then a dangerously attractive, black-haired weasel appears in the hallway, and what had until that point only been one of the worst days in Tony’s recent memory firmly launches itself into first place.
“Loki!” says Thor. “This is Tony Stark, who I’ve been telling you about from the Valhalla Lake Lodge project. He’ll be staying with us tonight. Tony, my brother Loki.”
“...Hey,” Tony manages to force out in a voice that doesn’t sound too panicked.
“Hello, Tony,” Loki says, flashing him that awful, predatory smile that Tony’s sure he’ll never be able to forget.
Thor, who’s unfortunately not an idiot and therefore not oblivious to the tension in the air, looks from Loki to Tony and back again. “You two know each other?”
Loki answers that, which might be for the best, because Tony sure can’t. “We’ve met.”
Once again, Thor looks from Loki to Tony and back again. And from the expression on his face, Tony has the most horrible feeling that he understands exactly what ‘met’ means.
“Well, isn’t that nice,” he says after an uncomfortable pause. “No introductions necessary.”
“Yeah. Uh,” says Tony. “You know what? I don’t want to do anything to inconvenience you or, uh... intrude on what I can see are some very important family traditions. I should go. The highway might be open by now. I can drive back to Duluth, get a hotel there, and catch my flight tomorrow. That’s probably a better plan than staying here, isn’t it? I think so. Yeah. Definitely.”
Thor actually grabs him by the arm to stop him from retreating back to his coat and fleeing immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s starting to snow again, and it’ll be dark before you get halfway.”
“I don’t mind driving in the dark.”
“Tony, I checked the highway report after you called me. It’s still closed.”
“I’ll wait in my car. It’s fine. Totally fine.”
“I won’t have a friend of mine out there in the cold and snow on the road by himself at Christmas. Not when there’s a hot meal waiting and a comfortable bed for the night. Loki’s making shepherd’s pie.”
“Wow, that’s tempting, but I should really-”
“You should stay here for the night,” Thor says. Firmly. Very firmly. “I insist.”
“But...”
“I’ll show you to your room.”
The unspoken implication there is, whether you like it or not. Sighing, Tony follows Thor’s gesture over to the stairs.
Realistically speaking, how much worse could his day get? He was already stuck in traffic, missed his flight, was unable to get a room at the hotel, had to suck up his pride and call Thor, and was now stuck for the night under the same roof with a one night stand he assumed he’d never have to see again. Oh, and was facing having to eat family dinner with him. Great. Could it get any worse, or was this peak shittiness?
No, it could get worse. He doesn’t know how, but has faith that somehow, it could always get worse.
Turning around at the top of the stairs, he looks to Thor in one last-ditch effort to escape. “Um. Just so we’re perfectly clear. I kind of...” He takes one bolstering breath and then pushes on. “I definitely slept with your brother. Loki. Yesterday.”
Thor nods. “Yes, I understood that.”
Goddamnit. “I didn’t know he was your brother at the time. But seeing him here now and knowing that... it’s really awkward.”
“Don’t worry. Loki may make some snide remarks, but just ignore him and enjoy your stay, and you can leave first thing in the morning. He’s harmless.”
Harmless. Yes, that’s definitely a word Tony would use to describe Loki. ‘Harmless’. Were he and Thor even talking about the same person?
“This will be your room right here,” Thor says. “Bathroom is that last door at the end of the hall. Should be clean towels in the bottom dresser drawer. Is there anything else you need for the night?”
A way out of this mess. “No,” Tony mutters. “Thanks.”
“I’ll let you settle in. Dinner should be ready by six. Until then, make yourself at home, feel free to grab a beer from the fridge, and let me know if you need anything at all.”
A beer from the fridge sounds tempting. But a trip to the kitchen, with a 100% probability of running into Loki, sounds anything but. In which case, Tony’ll just stay right where he is, plopping his ass down onto the quaint, handmade quilt on this sturdy, wood-framed bed, and stare out the window at the steadily increasing snowfall.
One night. Just one night. He can survive one night. Can’t he?