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Tony was a man capable of putting up with many things.
When his husband, Loki, was offered a new job, he was nothing but supportive. When it meant temporarily relocating, Tony accepted it with grace. And when Loki admitted to the destination being not only his home country of Norway, but also to the faraway Svalbard, he’d tolerated it. Grumbled a bit about how dark and cold he knew it could be, but tolerated it nonetheless. It was, after all, just for a year, and it was where Loki’s dreams were taking them.
Yes, Tony was capable of dealing with a lot. But strange noises outside of their home? When it was cold as ice and dark as sin outside? On their very first night in Svalbard? That, Tony felt, was perfectly reasonable of him to not accept.
With a start, Tony sat upright in their bed. The pitch black of their bedroom didn’t do much to comfort him, and he quickly rectified the problem by turning on the lamp on his nightstand.
”Did you hear that?”
Next to him, Loki grunted. He hadn’t even opened his eyes, unaffacted as could be. Bastard. ”Wha’?”
”Outside. There was a weird noise. How the hell did you not hear it?”
Loki just grunted again. ”I’m sleeping.”
Before Tony could gear up to argue that that was a terrible excuse and that nobody could have missed that hellish sound, a repeat of said hellish sound cut him off. ”There! There it is again! There’s no way you didn’t hear that.”
Finally, Loki cracked open an eye. ”I heard.”
”What the hell was that?”
”I’m sure it’s nothing.”
”The hell that was nothing, that was definitely something.”
”If you can’t ignore it, why don’t you go look?”
That response earned Loki a dirty look. ”Aren’t you supposed to go take a look? Be brave, protect me, something?”
The way Loki rolled his eyes before closing them and shifting onto his other side said it all.
Fine. Tony would go take a look, thank you very much. And if he threw aside his duvet and put on his robe with a somewhat ’fuck you’ flair and stomped extra loudly on his way downstairs, then that was absolutely on purpose.
”If whatever is out there kills me, you better be real sorry,” he muttered at Loki, even if he was muttering to himself, all the while detouring to the kitchen to grab a frying pan, before he went to get himself into a pair of boots and a coat.
And be aware of this: Tony? Actually no scaredy cat. He’d never been scared to confront people, and had even gone up against a burglar on his own one time. Tony was a badass, thank you very much.
It’s just that Loki had perhaps done a sliiightly too good job of reminding him that they were moving to a place with a lot of wild animals. To a place of practically eternal darkness in the winter months. Did Tony mention it was fall by now? Because it was fall, and it was dark as hell itself outside, and the place was full of wild animals, and something had made a fucking noise in their backyard, placed in what felt like the middle of nowhere.
Tony’s reaction was perfectly and completely reasonable.
”You better be a stray housecat,” he grumbled, nudging the door open. ”Just a cute, tiny little kitten, you stepped on a branch, nothing to see. Tiny, tiny kitten… Oh, who am I kidding, this is fucking Svalbard, I bet even the housecats are capable of killing me.”
In the light of a strong yet far too weak lamp placed above their backdoor, Tony started edging his way along, careful where he stepped. It wouldn’t do to scare the perpetrator away, even if he really, really hoped the perpetrator would be scared away.
And then… out of nowhere, Tony found himself bursting out laughing.
Because in front of him was a rather small reindeer, trotting peacefully around their cold, dark garden. How the little guy had gotten as lost as to make his way here, Tony couldn’t say. But there was no denying that he was the source of the noise, given the way he was tottering around, antlers occasionally scraping the wall or window, steps causing leaves and branches to crunch and crackle.
”Hey, buddy,” Tony told it, visibly relaxing. ”Man, am I glad to see you. You’re not looking particularly like you’re planning to murder me in my sleep.”
The reindeer just looked at him. Tony was taking that as agreement.
”You can’t stay here, though…” The scratching and scraping around wasn’t going to help his sleep.
But how to handle this? The creature looked gentle enough, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t win in a fight if it didn’t like his behaviour.
Still, he had to trying something. And so he tried shooing. Shooing with a frying pan, sure, but shooing nonetheless.
”Get,” he snapped, feeling mildly bad for having to take on such a harsh tone with such a sweet-looking animal. Not that he would ever in a million years admit this to Loki. ”Go! Shoo! Leave! Look! I’m waving at you with a frying pan!”
And lo and behold: it worked.
”Ha!” he exclaimed, relieved to hell and back. ”Look at me. I did it!” He didn’t care that, to some people, it was going to seem anti-climactic and like this accomplishment wasn’t a big deal, but Tony felt greatly triumphant and victorius. And so he returned to their house, leaving coat and boots in a heap by the door, pan discarded on top of one of their remaining, unpacked boxes on his way towards the stairs. It could be dealt with in the morning.
”So, babe,” Tony declared loudly, announcing his return to the bedroom with a flourish as he swung the door open. Between the rush of what just happened and a bit of petty spite (and the knowledge that as much as Loki liked to act indifferent, he was unlikely to be able to fall asleep when Tony had left to go outside and investigate a weird noise), he wasn’t particularly worried about waking Loki up. ”I deserve the title of Beastmaster. A fierce reindeer was wreaking havoc upon our mess of a garden.” Even as he was slipping back under the covers, he was incapable of shaking his good mood and putting aside the urge to put on a character to make Loki smile. Hopefully even snicker a bit. He loved it when Loki laughed. ”But I bravely fought it off until it fled in terror, trembling at the sight of my overwhelmingly courageous and terrifying self.”
Loki did smile, even if his eyes remained closed. ”Oh, good. I did wonder if it might have been a polar bear.”
Tony’s grin and fierce warrior act slid right off. ”What!?”
When this exclamation was what finally triggered Loki’s laugh, Tony regretted ever fishing for it in the first place.