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Having Loki over for drinks had become something of a regular occurrence. At first it had been a kind of joke between them, the fulfillment of the offer for a drink given during a battle. It had only taken Loki a week after taking up residence with the rest of the Avengers to try and cash in on that offer, reminding Tony from the threshold of his door that he never had gotten that drink, even after he’d accepted… and nearly eight years really was pushing the boundaries of politeness when it came to such things.
Tony had been… well, a little leery of him at first, to be honest, but much less so than he’d actually been expecting to be. He’d been a little nervous about allowing the guy into the Tower along with everyone else, but he’d allowed it anyway. He’d been a little hesitant about having him on the team and relying on him in battle, when there would be lives depending on him, but he did that as well, often without giving it any thought at all.
So having the man show up at his door, leaning against the frame and smiling at him with a devil’s grin, asking to share a drink… it had struck him at the time that his defenses ought to have gone up immediately… but they didn’t. He’d paused for all of five seconds, looking the man over, reading as much of the body language as he could, before shrugging and leading him to the bar.
He ought to have been bothered by the whole thing, but he hadn’t been. They’d sort of… become friends without any trouble. Which had confused Tony as much as anyone else.
‘Having drinks’ had become the running joke, and then the running theme between them. At first something which they did because they both took a kind of perverse pleasure in the way the rest of the team reacted to their weird friendship. It was fun to watch and listen as those around them tried to figure out how they had gotten so friendly with one another so quickly. When Loki had overheard one of them suggesting a betting pool, it had only encouraged them even more, and, well…
In the process of hanging out together so much, in ‘having drinks’ after every battle, every training session, and occasionally just because they felt like it… a genuine friendship had sort of… happened.
It turned out there were only so many times you could share drinks with a guy – alcoholic or not – and not get to know him well enough to start liking him.
And it was easy to like Loki, after the initial teething troubles. Once he was able to look beyond the surface abrasiveness of his personality, to… not necessarily forget what he had helped to cause, but to remember all of the circumstances of what had happened – and his own past to act as a sort of parallel to what Loki had gone through, then it became alarmingly easy to like him.
Intelligent, witty, pointedly sarcastic, and so full of stories that Tony doubted he would live long enough to hear them all… it would have been a greater challenge to not like Loki. And by the time he really noticed that he was beginning to really enjoy the mage’s company, it was too late, anyway.
So now it was no great oddity to have Loki in his living space, in his Mansion in Malibu, even. The Tower felt more and more like home, and even the Avengers Mansion in New York had gotten to a certain level of ‘home,’ but Malibu… that really was home, to his mind. It’s where he’d come back to after Afghanistan, it was where he had worked on the Mark II, and truly reshaped himself into Iron Man… It was where he’d created the new element and saved himself from burning from the inside out, the place which had been knocked into the sea and brought back up again. Just like him.
It was different, having someone share this space with him, than any other which still might be considered ‘his.’ Other places were places to live – this was home.
And yet Tony didn’t find it at all strange or uncomfortable to have Loki here. It felt fine to have him there. Less like he was taking up space and more like he was a part of the space.
Which wasn’t to say that Loki was absolutely familiar with the place.
“What on earth…?”
Tony looked up from where he’d been scrolling through the selection of movies and series he had at the mansion, looking for something to put on for them that evening. It was that kind of a day, he’d decided, where vegging out in front of the TV was more attractive than bantering into the wee hours. As much as he loved to do it, it was exhausting at times, and the day had already been exhausting enough. He just wanted to relax, let his mind wander, maybe fall asleep on the couch, leaning up against Loki…
Loki, who was across the room, in the little raised area where the bar was, and had found the grand piano. He was staring at it, one hand running over the sleek and shining surface of the keyboard cover, as though he’d never seen one before. He must have at least seen one before… though Tony had begun to learn to not take everything for granted when it came to the knowledge base of the brothers.
“Please tell me you know what a piano is.”
Loki looked up at him, his expression one of mingled disgust and annoyance. “Yes, thank you, Anthony, I’m perfectly well aware of what a piano is. What I was wondering about is whether or not you know what one is, beyond a decorative piece of furniture.” He waved over the piano. “Can you even play the instrument you have displayed so prominently?”
Tony smirked at him, putting down the tablet on the living room table. “That sounds a bit like a challenge to my ear, Lokes. Are you questioning my ability to handle anything which is in my own house?”
He was given a rather coy smile at that, and Tony wondered what he’d said which had been taken in that way.
“Perhaps not a challenge per se,” Loki drawled, stepping slightly to a side, inviting Tony to take the bench. “But I would be most interested in hearing the sorts of sounds you can draw from this.”
Oh, Tony just bet he would. It was pretty plain that the mage didn’t think he could play a note, but he was about to be surprised.
He took the bench, raised the cover, and made something of a show of limbering up his shoulders, arms, wrists and fingers before touching the keys.
In truth, it had actually been some time since the last time he’d trying playing the piano. He didn’t think he’d actually forgotten anything – the lessons had been too long and too many throughout his youngest days to have lost anything so deeply embedded into his psyche. But he was probably rusty, and with Loki watching him… he felt the need to play well.
So rather than jump straight in, he worked the keyboard from one end to the other, as though checking to make sure that the piano was in tune. He knew that it was – it was never out of tune. It was just one of those things on the roster for the Mansion, along with the cleaners and landscapers, a tuner would come in semi-regularly and make certain that the piano was perfectly in tune. It was more as an extra way of warming up before he attempted to actually play – making sure that he was tuned.
Then, he began to play.
It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Even to his own ear, which tended towards the critical, he didn’t sound too bad. In fact, he thought he sounded rather good, considering how little practice he’d gotten in the last year.
He’d intended to only play long enough to prove that he could to the Doubting Debbie in the room, but once he started getting into the flow of it again, it was just easier to continue. It was much more relaxing than he remembered, really. While learning had been something of a nightmare, once he had the rhythms and the rules down, it was soothing to play, to be the creator of the music which wound around him, the music which he could hear in his head and in his ear at the same time.
It actually took him some time to notice that he had been playing for a while, and Loki hadn’t said a word. Blinking a little out of his stupor, his fingers slowing, he looked up and over at Loki.
The mage was staring at him. Staring at him like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“So, you think I handle this well?” he asked, doing his best to sound cocky. Unfortunately, post-playing, it was a little hard to sound anything other than subdued without a proper running start.
For a second Loki didn’t answer at all, he just stared. It took a moment for Tony to realize that he had managed to cause something he hadn’t been sure was actually possible. Loki was at a loss for words.
When he found them again, they came out a little rough around the edges. “You… weren’t even using any sheet music for that.”
Tony glanced back at the stand. Huh. “No, I guess I wasn’t.”
“Is it a piece which you’ve memorized?”
Tony frowned. “No. I just… played. You know?”
If anything, it only made the look on Loki’s face go even more disbelieving. “That. Was all from your own mind, on the spur of the moment?”
“Yes?”
Loki was silent, and then after a moment or two, he broke into a sort of incredulous grin. “Ever the one to surprise, aren’t you Anthony?”
Tony returned the smile. “I aim to be.”
“Mmm. Well.” And suddenly it was Loki’s turn to surprise him, as he took a place on the bench beside him, forcing Tony to scoot or be shoved off completely. It wasn’t a bench made for two, so the they were pressed up together rather closely. “Seeing how well you do solo, why don’t we see how well you play when you have another melody to contend with.”
He turned, his face disconcertingly close, smile widening slightly as Tony’s face heated. “What do you think, Anthony? Under these circumstances, can you play?”
Tony snorted at him. “Bring it on, Longshanks.”
Playing the piano with Loki, precariously balanced on a stool and the notes intertwining weirdly as they played melodies no one had ever heard before… it wasn’t the worst kind of evening he had ever spent.