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“Lady Potts! Have you seen my brother of late? I have not seen him since our battle, and wished to check in with him.”
Pepper turned, her arms full of paper and tablets, looking somewhat harried, but not put out by being called out to and stopped. She tilted her head. “Loki? You haven’t—“
She stopped, jerking forward in attempt to catch the pile in her arms as the top began to tilt and fall. Thor ran forward and caught the sliding stack before it could tumble to the ground.
“Thank you, Thor,” Pepper sighed, adjusting her grip.
Thor eyed her and her burden uncertainly, still not taking his hand away from the top. “Would you like some assistance, Ms. Potts? This seems awkward to attempt on one’s own…” It was far too much loose paper to carry all at once, in his opinion, but Pepper was just as notoriously stubborn as Stark was…
And true to that thought, she shook her head, firming her hold. “No, I’m fine. I don’t have to carry them very much further anyway, so.” She sighed, eyeing the papers. “We were meant to be completely digital by now, but no. But you were looking for Loki?” she asked, looking back up at him.
Thor nodded, taking his hand away from the stack gingerly. “Yes. I’ve sought him out in his rooms and the training area, but to no avail. Have you seen him?”
Pepper smiled a very warm kind of smile, her eyes going soft. “I have, actually. He’s… camped out in the living room right now with Tony. If you go to see him, I recommend that you do so quietly.”
He frowned a little at the odd instruction, but nodded. As Pepper went on her way, he paused long enough to watch her until she was out of sight, still not certain about the stability of her burden. She managed as far as the corner at least, where she turned and was lost to sight. He knew for a fact that she wouldn’t appreciate his hovering over her, so he turned and headed to the living room.
It was a little puzzling why Loki would choose to spend his time in one of the communal areas of the Tower, when they had just participated in a battle where he had expended a great amount of magic. Loki was a great mage, and capable of casting impressive magic – things far beyond illusions, or even teleportation. But the greater the magic, the more it exhausted him, tapping reserves which he guarded jealously. Whenever he was forced to use a large amount of magic, he was always left exhausted, and needed time to recover.
Given his personality, Loki was unlikely to want to spend that kind of time in company with others, or even in a public space where others might see him in such a state.
The living room, when Thor got there, was mostly in shadow. The day was winding down outside, the sun not quite down, but the windows had all been darkened to shut out even the dying sunshine, and all of the electric lights switched off. The only real source of light came from the television, which was on and showing some sort of entertainment which Thor was unfamiliar with. A cartoon, it looked like.
It didn’t seem like the kind of thing which Loki would watch… or Stark, for that matter.
He looked around in the semi-darkness. Where were they…?
Thor went in – quietly, following Pepper’s advice. It felt a little like he was intruding, sneaking through the dark and peering into corners…
It wasn’t too terribly hard to find them. The television being on was a good clue as to where they were – it had just been impossible to see them from the back because they were no longer sitting upright.
From the looks of things, his brother and Tony had settled in on the sofa to watch television, with Tony propped up in one of the corners and Loki sitting beside him. Thor could only assume that from there, Loki’s exhaustion had taken over, and he had decided that leaning onto Tony was the most comfortable option. From there, it looked as though the both of them had succumbed to gravity, tiredness, and the general comfort of being nested on something soft and with someone warm to hold on to.
Thor smiled as the sight of his brother, normally so stoic and aloof – or trying to be, at least – sprawled over Tony, his head pillowed against the smaller man’s shoulder, his arm curled around him like he was a giant plush toy. Even his expression was softer in sleep that was normal, clear of both frowns and sarcastic grins. It was just… Loki.
Not that Tony seemed to object in the slightest. He was laid out flat beneath Loki, his head propped up on the arm of the couch, his own arms draped around the mage comfortably.
It was a position which managed, somehow, to look both comfortable and incredibly awkward at the same time. They seemed happy enough in how they were holding one another, but Thor had the distinct impression that they would both be waking with cricks in their necks… and the mess of tangled legs just looked like it would be a nightmare to straighten out when they woke.
Thor took in the scene for a moment, studying them to be certain that they were, in fact, both asleep. Then he left for a moment, on a mission.
When he got back a few minutes later, little had changed beyond the programming on the television, which had switched to a station which featured quiet music and little else. Thor stared at it for moment, and then decided that it had probably been JARVIS who switched the channels.
Proceeding very carefully, so as not to wake either of the sleepers, Thor draped a light blanket over the top of both of them.
Standing back and eyeing his work, he wondered if there was anything else he ought to be doing before leaving the two of them to their sleep… then decided no, they were doing just fine on their own.
He was actually quite pleased that Loki had found such a good friend in Stark. Not only because it was notoriously difficult for Loki to find anyone he could feel even marginally close to, but specifically for things like this. Using magic drained Loki, sometimes severely, and while he preferred to recover in privacy, even Thor knew that the best way to recover his strength was to spend some time in close company. For whatever reason, being with someone else speeded the process of recovery along – and without draining whoever it was that he was with. It just… worked better that way.
Snuggling seemed to be the best cure for Loki’s exhausted resources. And until recently, Loki hadn’t really had anyone he could – or would – have those sorts of opportunities with.
It seemed that Tony Stark was filling that role rather admirably.
Still smiling, Thor left the room quietly, wondering when it would be that the two of them would announce to the team at large that they were interested in one another romantically – or if they ever planned to at all.
He wondered if they’d even noticed it themselves, yet.