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i.
So being a bartender hadn’t really been in the cards for Tony.
Quite the opposite, really. Born and raised the heir to the Stark fortune, he’d been groomed from a young age to take over the family business. Get a couple degrees in engineering and physics and whatever else sounded fun and useful, build some technology, and ride that wave of fame and fortune into the sunset.
But while acquiring a whole stack of degrees had been fun, his path had quickly veered away from the one his father had laid out for him.
It had started innocently enough. He’d been out on the town with his buddy Rhodey, getting a couple drinks, having a good time, when one of the two bartenders on duty had started to feel off and had needed to leave.
”Tony’ll pick up the slack,” Rhodey had offered the remaining bartender with a shit-eating grin, just to be the brotherly pest Tony knew and loved.
But when the poor guy had looked as grateful as he’d had, well. Tony’d decided to follow through. That, and it had been a chance to shove it in Rhodey’s face.
Only thing was, Tony’d been good at it. He’d mixed plenty a drink at home for far longer than he should have, and he was good with people. He was funny, smart, chaming, and knew just what to say to anyone, at any time.
So when he’d gotten a job offer at that very bar just a few days later, he hadn’t hesitated to say yes.
It had, of course, pissed his father off like nothing else ever had. (Tony generally had a knack for being the only one who could rile his dear ol’ daddy up that badly). But as far as Tony was concerned, that was kind of a bonus.
Granted, his father’d decided to lower his allowance drastically, which was a lot less awesome, and he’d had to move into a normal-person apartment and learn to cook and clean and do his own laundry. But he was free, he made his own money to add to the allowance, he was happy, and he met fun, interesting people every night without ever having to commit to anything longterm or serious. It was wonderful.
He hadn’t ever thought this arrangement could go sideways until he met Loki.
ii.
”A glass of whiskey, please.”
Tony startled a bit, whirling around. He hadn’t heard anybody approach the counter, let alone enter the bar. And he should have, considering it was only three o’clock in the afternoon, and the place had yet to really start filling up. For him to miss the bell and the footsteps? Highly unlike and unusual.
He was quick to forget about this little oddity, however, once his gaze fell on the newly arrived offender.
Tall, dark, and handsome was simultaneously the perfect description and the most watered down platitude that could possibly apply to this man. Long legs, hair as black as night, eyes as green as the absinthe on the shelf above. And cheekbones so sharp they could’ve been used to commit a murder.
Tony just had to hit on him.
”Well, hello, you handsome devil.” He put on his best, most charming and flirtatious grin to match. Like hell was this man going to mistake his come on for friendliness – Tony was going to be really fucking obvious.
The way the stranger’s lips spread into a sharp grin made Tony feel like he was missing something, though. Like Loki was reacting to a joke only he’d heard. But as that feeling was accompanied by a delightful little swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach, he elected to ignore that. ”My, compliments. Is that part of the service?”
”Normally I charge extra, but for you, it’ll be complimentary. Pun unintentional, but also completely unregrettable.”
The way the stranger’s head tipped back as he laughed did funny things to Tony’s brain.
iii.
The handsome devil’s name was Loki and Tony was immediately enamored with him.
Loki was effortlessly cool; Tony’d always thought of himself as a cool sort of person, but he had nothing on this guy. Loki readily admitted to not currently working and just spending his time dicking about, and he was so cool, so goddamn fucking cool, that he didn’t even look like a loser or a douchebag or an over-privileged dickhead.
It had to be a superpower.
”So now I’m just travelling around, until I find what I’d like next.”
Tony hummed in acknowledgment, nonchalant, and before he could stop his mouth from running off without his permission, he said ”well, if you’re ever in town again, stop by, crash on my couch.” He belatedly shrugged, just to come off appropriately casual and cavalier. ”My door’s always open. Mi casa es su casa and all that.”
In hindsight, Loki’s answering grin had perhaps been a little too smug to be entirely comforting. But in the moment, Tony was blinded by his own treacherous, lust-addled brain, and it seemed nothing but sexy to him.
”I might just have to take you up on that.”
iv.
A few days passed, and while Loki occasionally popped up in Tony’s mind here and there, Tony’d pretty much just returned to living life as usual.
That evening was no exception – or so Tony’d thought.
Nothing about his day had indicated that anything was about to go awry. He’d gotten up, he’d gone out for coffee and a croissant with Rhodey, he’d spent a few hours tinkering, he’d gone to work, and then he’d returned home and was in the midst of taking a shower. Eeeverything was perfectly normal.
”Honey, I’m home.”
Tony’s eyes flew open. Because much as he liked surrounding himself with good company? As fun as he thought it was to hang out with people at all sorts of weird hours of the day? And, not unimportantly, as much as his personal finances would likely improve with a roommate? He lived alone.
So where the hell had those words come from?
He rushed out of the shower so fast that he almost ripped the shower curtain down, and though he hurried to wrap his towel around his waist, he forgot to actually try and dry himself. He was too busy stumbling out into the living room, almost crashing headfirst through the door.
And there, lying on Tony’s couch like it was the most natural thing in the world, was Loki.
Tony’s reaction came in waves. First, a strangled noise that someone was in his home. Then, a hand over his eyes with relief that it was only Loki. Finally, rapidly dropping said hand when he realized that, sure, he could put a name to that face, but he still had no idea what the fuck was going on.
”Loki!” he exclaimed. Delayed, but better late than never, he supposed. ”What the hell are you doing here?”
Loki shrugged, nonchalant, and it was annoying how he managed to look that sexy and elegant while being that infuriatingly calm and unexpectedly present. ”You invited me.”
”Invited you!?”
Loki nodded. ”Yes. You said I was always welcome, you door was always open. That your home is my home. That’s an invitation.”
Well. Loki had him there.
”Alright, fine, sure. I invited you, I’ll admit it. But fuck, give a guy some warning.”
”I didn’t know I was coming. And I did announce myself.”
”Normally, people call or text each other before barging into each other’s homes, you know.”
”I don’t have a phone.”
”You don’t have a---- no, you know what, I’m not gonna start in on that right now. I’m just gonna tell you to brush up on basic etiquette, and then, I don’t know.” He sighed and rubbed his face again. He was hungry and tired and dripping all over the floor. And he supposed he had given Loki the go ahead to show up, even if he hadn’t expected him to make use of it. ”Welcome to my humble abode, I guess.”
It wasn’t until later that he remembered to question Loki’s interpretation of his words. Or how he’d known his address. Or how he’d come in at all.
v.
So it would have been one thing if Loki showed up once. And it wouldn’t have been such a big deal if Loki had just apologized, and then proceeded to announce his intentions to visit properly any time he desired to do so afterwards.
But what actually happened was that Loki continued to come and go as he pleased. Tony’d just be minding his business, and bam, there Loki’d be, lounging like he owned the damn place.
At first, Tony’d been vaguely exasperated but allowing it. Then, he’d forgotten to be exasperated and instead just come to expect that Loki’d show up whenever, timing be damned. And then, finally, he had started to remember that this was actually pretty weird, and maybe he should be asking more questions.
So, next time Loki showed up, he did.
”I’m home,” Loki drawled somewhere behind Tony’s spot at the kitchen counter, prompting Tony to turn around to face him. ”Miss me?”
”Uhuh,” Tony merely responded, a bit dry, less than completely enthusiastic, rubbing his jaw as stubble scratched his palm. ”Great, that’s great.”
Loki’s brow went up. ”Something’s wrong.”
Tony did start to shake his head, but then changed tactics midway and started to nod instead. Then he shook his head again. ”Well, there’s at least something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
Loki gestured for him to go on, the tilt of his lips and the quirk of his brow the very picture of amused patience.
Deep breath. Showtime. ”Alright, listen. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your company. Really, I do, you’re a swell guy. But it’s frankly a little odd that you keep showing up like this without warning and explanation, and… honestly, do you maybe want to explain what’s going on?”
Loki just blinked at him. ”What’s going on?”
”Yeah. You keep, you know. Showing up. Out of nowhere. What’s that about?”
Loki just blinked again. ”I live here now.”
Now it was Tony’s turn to blink. ”I’m sorry, what?”
”I live here now.”
”Uh, no, I am pretty sure I didn’t invite you to stay here permanently.”
”You did, you said I could come by anytime. You said your home is my home.”
”Okay, yes, alright, sure. I said you could come by. And I did mean that, I’m more than fine with you visiting me. But the whole ’mi casa es su casa’? Just an expression of hospitality, buddy not a literal suggestion that you move in. A regularly functioning human person would get that!”
At this, Loki broke out into a grin that sent shivers down Tony’s spine.
”Whoever told you I was human?”
vi.
So Tony had a devil roommate now.
Not ’ugh, my roommate is a literal devil’, but Tony’s roommate was, in fact, a literal devil.
He would take kindly to it if nobody asked him what this meant for his world view. He had no fucking clue, alright? Part of him was freaking out, part of him was curious as hell (was that a pun? Tony had no clue!), and every part of him was just acting like nothing was amiss and this was fine and there was nothing at all to even consider in the first place.
And if Tony didn’t think too hard about it, it wasn’t actually that bad.
And okay, it wasn’t perfect. One time, Loki had decided to cook, which wouldn’t have been so bad if Loki hadn’t to cook roadkill with literal fire. And Loki was surprisingly neat, almost to a fault – actually, okay, it was a fault, because in Loki’s efforts to keep his stuff to himself, he had sometimes wound up nicking some of Tony’s stuff. Oh, and how about the fact that Loki never brought any guests home? Well. Human ones, at any rate. Tony still shuddered when he thought about the deer incident.
But really. It wasn’t that bad. They had the same taste in movies, Loki was always ready to conjure up a drink for Tony after a long day, and he showed an interest in Tony’s life and wellbeing.
So, yeah. Tony had a devil roommate now. And he’d decided that he was okay with that.
vii.
And hey, as time went on, Loki continued to prove both a useful and delightful addition to his life. In a creepy sort of way still, but, you know, it was really quite sweet if you didn’t think about it too much.
As previously stated, Tony’d elected not to think about it too much.
When Tony’d complained about the upstairs neighbors having loud sex, Loki’d gone upstairs and informed one party that the other was cheating on them. It had resulted in a lot of screaming for a while, but after that, the loud sex had stopped.
When Tony’d come home from work one day, Loki’d given him a heart attack when he’d caught him gathering every single knife in a neat pile in the kitchen. But when Tony’d given him a wide eyed stare, Loki’d just smiled and held up a butcher knife. ”I’m sharpening your knives. You said they were getting dull.” And, well, yes. Tony had said that.
And of course, one could not forget the time Tony had left his bedroom only to come face to face with a homemade dinner. Not a roadkill-on-a-fire dinner, but a real, proper dinner. (And, okay, it had tasted awful, sort of bloody despite Loki insisting no blood had been used. But then again, there was no accounting for a devil’s tastebuds, and surely it was the thought that counted.)
Having a devil friend as a roommate surely wasn’t so bad after all.
viii.
Except Tony soon had to come to terms with the fact that he’d definitely gotten something wrong along the way. And he did so in a most unfortunate way.
It started when Tony brought home a lady from the bar. She was beautiful, leggy, long and shiny brown hair. And the best part was that she was as interested in coming home with Tony as Tony was in taking her there.
So when they stumbled through the door together, fused together by the lips, the last thing on Tony’s mind had been Loki. (Shocking, truly.) And he most definitely was’t expecting the unholy – perhaps quite literally – screeching he heard next.
”WHAT IS GOING ON!?”
Tony and his chosen would-be bedpartner for the night jumped and immediately, instinctively put a good few feet between them. It took a second for him to spot Loki. Another to notice how truly angry he looked. A third to finally identify that the noise had come from him.
He blinked, taking the extra moment to search for something to say. What he came up with wasn’t particularly clever.
”Wha’?”
Loki’s eyes were pure fire. Not literally, thankfully, though Tony wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been within his abilities to do that. ”What is she doing here?”
This did not illuminate things further, and Tony knit his brows together in confusion. ”I’m… what?”
Quite understandably, Loki proceeded to lose his patience with Tony’s less than coherent and informative responses. And so, he picked up a book and hurled it at Tony and his ’guest’. ”GET OUT!” he howled at her. ”GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!” Fuck, were the lights flickering now?
Possessing an ounce of self preservation, the woman didn’t even look at Tony before fleeing out the door. He couldn’t even really blame her. He’d have done the same if he’d thought it was a viable option.
Instead, the door slammed with him still on the dangerous side of it, and he was forced to look at Loki. He was confused and a bit scared, but also defintely vaguely angry. ”What the hell was that about?”
Loki wasn’t appeased by Tony’s obvious lack of understanding. If Tony’d been hoping being hapless and dumb would help his case – whatever it was he may have been on trial for – he was clearly sorely mistaken. ”What the hell was that about?” he echoed, mocking and high pitched. ”You dragged a woman home to sleep with! Right in front of me!”
Nope. Tony still didn’t get it. He shrugged, fishing not for brownie points (that has already been proven a lost cause) but for maybe an explanation or at least a slight cooling of Loki’s anger. ”I don’t know why that matters,” he confessed. ”What do you care?”
”What do I care!?” And oh, Loki was yelling even more, Tony was in big trouble. ”I’ve been courting you for months, and you think to yourself, oh, wouldn’t it be a mighty fine idea to fuck someone else while he’s in the apartment!? And you wonder why I care!?”
Tony’s brain came to a screeching halt.
”Wait…. What?” he asked. ”You… oooooooh. You were..? Oh!”
Loki’s expression is murderous. Yes, oh.
Tony mulled that over for a moment. Which, yes, that was probably a risky thing to be doing right at that moment, with a fuming (metaphorical) devil (literal) in front of him. But he needed a second to gather all his thoughts and feelings and figure out a conclusion for himself.
And, well, said conclusion? Loki was hot. Loki was sort of nice, kind of, in his own way (especially to Tony). He was funny, he was good company. Tony’d been into him from the start. And sure, yeah, he was a literal devil. But that hadn’t ever really been a true problem before. So why should it stand in the way of this?
”Alright,” he allowed. ”Yeah, okay. I didn’t know, but I’m game to do it properly now. We can date. And we should probably kiss to seal the deal.”
Now it was Loki’s turn to blink, and Tony felt quite smug. seeing all the anger snuffed out, just like that, crushed under the weight of just a few words from Tony. ”Huh?”
Tony shrugged again. ”Let’s date. Come kiss me.”
And fortunately, Loki didn’t need telling thrice.