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You know, Tony usually felt pretty relaxed in the living room of Avengers Tower. It had taken a fair while for him to get to that level of comfort– he wasn’t used to living with other people, and going from being alone (apart from JARVIS and the bots, of course) to having six other people – and since Loki had joined them, seven – took rather a lot of getting used to. But he had, and now the tower was the place where he could let his guard down, where he could just let himself go and not have to worry about watching his back.
Apparently though, he should have been more wary, because it seemed that he was vulnerable to attacks– just not the kind that he usually would have anticipated.
The very last thing he had been expecting was to get picked up by the back of his t-shirt so that his feet were dangling in the air, and then shoved toward another person, his mouth colliding with theirs.
Tony made a complaining noise immediately, because– yeah, okay, so he might have been dreaming of kissing Loki’s lips for months, but this was certainly not the way that he’d pictured it happening.
Hulk just hummed, and pulled them apart for a moment – just long enough for Tony to get a good look at Loki’s wide, shocked eyes – before he promptly smushed their faces back together again, as if he were a child marrying two of his action figures.
Tony couldn’t work out why Hulk was doing it, because Loki didn’t even—
Well, Loki liked talking to Tony, that much was clear, and yeah so maybe they spent a lot of time together, and maybe Tony stared at Loki a little more than was normal, but—
Loki didn’t—
Hulk was clearly just confused. Yeah, that must have been it– and Tony really needed to do something about it.
“Hulk!” he yelped– and the words caused his lips to move against Loki’s in a manner that really shouldn’t have sent a spark of electricity over his skin the way that it did. After all, it wasn’t a kiss, of course it wasn’t– it was far too awkward for that, and much too forced. But it was the closest Tony had ever come to kissing Loki, and it made his heart thrum with the kind of rhythm usually only reserved for moments of complete and utter exhilaration. Like when he was freefalling through the air, or when JARVIS ordered the fucking good coffee from that place in Florence, or when Loki’s lips turned up in that smile which lit up his whole expression and shone brightly in the green of his eyes—
No, Tony.
Focus.
“Put us down!”
Tony and Loki were both dropped with the same kind of finesse that one might use to plonk their shopping bags on the ground, and Tony’s knees very nearly gave out. Loki was able to keep his balance a little better – which Tony was totally sure had more to do with the fact that Loki’s toes had still been touching the ground even though Tony’s had been about a foot in the air, rather than any difference in clumsiness – and he caught Tony by the forearms to keep him steady.
Tony didn’t even look up to meet his gaze before pulling himself away, an apology already on the tip of his tongue because holy shit, Loki had to be about ready to kill him—
Except—
Rather than the rage or the irritation that Tony had been expecting, Loki was instead staring at him with the kind of sadness that spoke of a deep hurt.
But… Tony hadn’t even done anything. Loki had to know that Hulk had pulled this stunt all by himself, that Tony hadn’t asked him to do it or anything like that. In fact, Tony had been the one to make Hulk let them go. So… the only thing that Loki could have been hurt by was if he hadn’t actually wanted Tony to make Hulk put them down, but that was utterly ridiculous, since no one could possibly like being caught in that kind of situation. Even Tony had wanted it to stop, even if it was the closest he had ever or probably would ever come to kissing the person he—
Wait a second.
“Loki?” Tony asked. “Did you… was that…”
Loki’s eyes widened slightly, and he drew in a shaky breath. “Anthony?” he asked. “What are you asking me?” He looked almost adorable, with his hair a mess from the struggle of seconds before– and in that moment, Tony couldn’t have withheld the truth even if he wanted to.
“Loki,” Tony said. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for ages. Properly, though, not whatever that was—”
“Oh,” Loki whispered, any remaining sadness melting away to be replaced with a spark of hope. “But you told Hulk to drop—”
“I thought that you didn’t—”
“Oh, I’ve always—”
“So have I.”
There was half a moment, half a breath where their gazes remained locked, staring at each other while caught in that half-way space between disbelief and delight—
And then their lips were pressing together once more, hands threading through hair as their mouths slid together the way that they should. And now that their faces were not being smushed with the force of gamma-powered muscles, now that they were pulling each other closer rather than being pushed involuntarily– oh, it was so much better, because this—
This was a kiss.
Tony almost whimpered as Loki’s tongue brushed over his lips, deepening the kiss as one of his hands slid down from Tony’s hair to rest on the small of Tony’s back. Tony pulled Loki closer, wanting more, aching to feel Loki pressed against him in every way that he could. It was everything that he had wanted for so very long, everything that he had pictured and yet somehow so much more—
Tony nearly jumped out of his skin when a sudden roar of triumph echoed through the air, and their kiss broke as they both turned to stare at the source of the thunderous noise.
Hulk looked incredibly pleased with himself, though to be honest– Tony thought he rather deserved to be.
“I owe you one, buddy,” Tony said easily—
But Tony only saw the flash of Hulk’s white teeth as he grinned before Tony was grabbing Loki’s hand and dragging him toward the elevator, not wanting to wait another single second when it already felt like they had wasted so much time they could have spent together.
It was strange to think that all this time, Loki had wanted him back– and that Hulk had noticed before Tony had.
Oh well. That just meant that they had a lot of making up to do—
And if the way that Loki kissed him against the elevator wall the moment that the doors slid shut was any indication, then Loki wouldn’t be even the slightest bit opposed to what Tony had in mind.
