Archive of Our Own

1.

It didn't bother him, Loki told himself.

It didn't, not one bit.

He narrowed his eyes at the pair in the kitchen, his hands curling into white-knuckled fists.

Why in the Nine Realms would Stark's antics bother him? He'd outgrown such mundane curiosities centuries ago and was far above the trifle, petty dealings of Midgardian mortals, no less a man he'd mostly conversed with from opposing sides of the battlefield and with whom he had a tenuous ceasefire at best.

(Loki still found his appointment as consultant and sometimes-Avenger suspect, but after a month's internment at Avengers Tower without anything more antagonistic than Barton's juvenile booby traps and Romanov's dead-eyed stare he was starting to feel confident it was not an elaborate trick. Stark had said they're all frenemies now, whatever that meant.)

So it didn't bother him.

Never mind the traitorous pit in Loki's gut that said otherwise.

He'd been having such a pleasant morning. He had found both a fascinating book and a quiet room in which to enjoy it, a rare occurrence in a building that housed Thor, a Hulk, and several individuals who made sport of blowing things up. A far better start to his day than most mornings on Midgard, all until the chime of the elevator broke the peace, shining doors sweeping open and depositing a new arrival.

Stark had shuffled out like a marionette directed by a drunken puppeteer, skin oil-streaked and his hair sticking up in all directions, loose-limbed and soft around the edges like a string just starting to fray. His bloodshot eyes gleamed with a manic sheen that left Loki no doubt Stark had spent the last two days on an inventing spree — no, three days, judging by the sorry state of his clothing and his bare feet.

Curious despite himself, Loki had craned his head over the back of the sofa to track Stark's weaving figure as he drifted past, confounded when he bypassed his beloved (albeit empty) coffee pot and veered straight towards Banner who was seated at the breakfast bar with a scientific journal and a steaming mug of tea. Loki's confusion had morphed into abject disgust (jealousy, had taunted a little voice in his head) when Stark proceeded to drape himself across Banner's back like a possessive feline, wrapping his arms around Banner's waist in a loose embrace. Stark then burrowed his face into Banner's shoulder and mumbled something incoherent that might have been either a greeting or an equation.

Banner just snorted and said, "Hey, Tony," as though Stark's behavior was completely normal. Considering Banner's reaction, it was.

Loki most certainly did not picture himself in Banner's place or imagine the warm press of Stark's body against his own, enveloped by the scents of motor oil, coffee, and some sweet scent he still hadn't quite identified.

Because it didn't bother him.

Except it did.

Loki watched in seething silence as Stark mumbled something else — words, perhaps — and stretched grabby fingers towards Banner's mug. In movements too practiced to suggest it was his first time foiling this manner of beverage theft, Banner slid the mug out of Stark's reach, his eyes still fixed on his reading. Stark whined.

Why was that adorable?

Banner flipped a page. "No, Tony. You need sleep, not more caffeine. Besides, it's herbal tea which you said, and I quote, 'tastes like grass clippings.'"

Stark slumped more of his weight against Banner like a passive-aggressive toddler and grumbled something else Loki couldn't hear. Banner adjusted his posture to accommodate and took a long, slow sip of his tea. "We've had this conversation, not everyone runs on caffeine and spite like you do."

The indecipherable, muffled squawk of Stark's response still made clear his abject indignation. Banner's unshakable façade of calm finally cracked and he grinned, a fond, private sort of smile Loki had only seen on him once or twice since he'd been in residence at the Tower.

Banner ruffled Stark's disastrous mop of hair and Stark hummed his contentment at the touch, displeasure forgotten. Loki's mood soured further, resentment a bitter taste in the back of his mouth.

Banner cleared his throat and schooled his face once more, ending the petting with a patronizing pat on the head. "JARVIS, please initiate Babysitters Club: Sandman Protocol."

"Certainly, Dr. Banner."

Stark's head snapped up, bloodshot eyes wide. "No, no, no, Bruce, c'mon, not cool!"

"You know the rules."

"Nope, nuh-uh, s'not a rule, I never agreed to these rules and it's my building, so you can all just — just pack up your nosy, bossy, unsolicited, 'care and feeding of Tony Stark' bullshit and leave it outside some building that doesn't have my name on it."

"Your name isn't on this one anymore, it got blown off."

Stark gasped like he'd been struck. "Brucie Bear, I'm wounded. Why do you hurt me? Why do you collude with busybody assassins and World War II relics to ruin my life? We're Science Bros, members of a sacred brotherhood that I just made up, how can you so callously throw that away?"

Banner snorted again and leafed through his science journal to a different section.

Stark narrowed his eyes, mouth a tight moue of displeasure. "Call it off or I won't let you play with my toys anymore."

"Yes, you will,"

Stark rolled his eyes. "Of course I will, but this is still wildly insulting, and unnecessary, and who the hell even gave you assholes permission to write protocols? I think I'd remember doing that. Probably. Seventy-three percent chance."

Even amidst a full-tilt rambling rant Stark remained slumped against Banner as though it was his right to use him as furniture, his fingers toying with the buttons on the front of Banner's shirt and a petulant little pout on his face that did things to the cold remains of Loki's heart.

"Pepper." Banner smiled a little, a gleam in his eye when he cut his gaze to Stark's face awash with horror.

Stark blinked out of his nightmare revelry with a scowl. "I'm surrounded by traitors," he muttered, and then louder, "don't think you're absolved of your part in this treachery, JARVIS, you're complicit in the hostile takeover of my personal life."

"Indeed, Sir. I daresay the Babysitters Club Protocols would not be what they are today without my input."

Stark glared at the camera in the corner while Banner nodded his head, the corners of his mouth twitching. Stark had the look in his eye that often signaled a forthcoming tirade, but the cheery chime of the arriving elevator had him freezing, rather like a helpless prey animal hoping to blend into it's surroundings if it just stayed still enough.

Unbidden, a vision of Stark with rabbit ears and a tufted tail crouched on all fours behind a bush in a forest assaulted Loki's mind's eye. He twitched and shook his head to banish the image because comparing Stark to fluffy woodland creatures was not conducive to maintaining his sanity.

The elevator doors swished open to reveal Steve Rogers, fresh from the shower after his god-awful morning run, lips canted in a bemused smile. He acknowledged Loki with a sharp nod, unfazed by Loki's answering glower, and made his way to the kitchen. He stopped beside the ridiculous display at the breakfast bar and put his hands on his hips.

"All right, are we doing this the easy way or the hard way, Tony?"

Stark narrowed his eyes at Rogers and tightened his arms around Banner's middle. "Fuck off, Spangles, it's not happening. Go be a beacon of patriotic disapproval somewhere else. I'll bet Clint's up to no good."

Rogers just smiled a pleasant little smile. "Nat's second on the Sandman roster and hasn't had her morning coffee yet. Phil's third, and you know as well as I do that he drafted up punishment paperwork for this just because he could. Do you really want to play that game?"

Stark's eyes went wide at the threat of a caffeine-deprived Black Widow and a pile of pointless, tedious paperwork, but rather than folding to Rogers' authority Stark arched a mutinous brow. Loki was impressed.

Rogers' smile never wavered. "Bruce?"

Eyes still glued to his reading, Banner reached back and did something with his fingers against Stark's side that had the man yelping and squirming away.

Why was that adorable?

Rogers didn't hesitate to exploit the opening and struck, the maneuver as well-executed as any move Loki had seen him perform in battle. In an instant, Rogers had Stark hoisted up in the air and slung over his shoulder, held in place by an arm across the back of Stark's thighs.

Loki was on his feet, a dagger in hand (when did he conjure that?) and a growl rumbling in his chest that no one else heard over the cacophony of Stark's swearing.

That . . . was not a normal response.

Oh no.

At a loss, Loki stared at the traitorous dagger as Banner and Rogers exchanged their goodbyes, deaf to Stark's protests. Loki whipped his arm behind his back to hide the blasted thing as Rogers turned to leave, schooling his face as best he could, and then nearly choked on his tongue because oh, that was Stark's exceptional backside on full display when Rogers turned to face him, Norns help him.

Rogers acknowledged Loki with another nod as he strolled back to the elevator, nonchalant as can be with Stark hauled across his shoulder still spitting invectives and trying to elbow him in the kidneys.

Why in the name of Odin was that adorable?

"Sleep well, Tony," Banner called out as Rogers entered the elevator.

"You're dead to me, Bruce. Dead!" Stark shouted as the doors closed. Banner snickered into his tea and Loki dropped back onto the sofa, dazed like he'd taken a hit to the head from Mjølnir.

He turned the dagger over in his hand, tracing his thumb over the wicked edge while his thoughts scattered about in the tempest of his mind.

How did the Midgardians say it? Ah, yes: Loki was screwed.

2.

Everything was fine.

Loki kept that thought rolling through his mind on endless repeat as he went through the motions of day-to-day life. 

Everything was fine.

Loki was fine.

Dr. Banner was not the only recipient of Stark's hands-on social interaction. Stark touched others freely and often and didn't discriminate between his housemates, Loki being the sole, bitter exception. In fact, Stark was tactile with anyone who allowed it. Such a habit screamed of childhood neglect the likes of which Loki was intimately familiar, which did not help to ease his traitorous, longing heart.

His lying heart, because Loki was fine.

He'd yet to see any of the Avengers push Stark away, damn them. Instead, he was subjected to disgusting domesticity and displays of affection everywhere he turned, and for a man who worked like a demon, Stark managed far more socializing than Loki would have anticipated.

He'd never been so frustrated and without proper recourse. He'd leave Midgard if he had anywhere else to go.

(No, he wouldn't.)

But if he saw Stark cuddled up on the couch watching movies with Romanov, grappling with Barton for possession of the snack-food of choice, practically sitting in Rogers' lap walking him through how to use a new electronic device, or leading Thor around the city arm in arm one more time Loki would not be held responsible for his actions.

He was fine. Everything was fine.

Loki stabbed his fork into his pasta with more force than was necessary and glared across the table from behind the fall of his hair.

Stark was talking a mile a minute, using his utensils to gesture with more than to eat, eyes shining as he explained the intricacies of the streamlined body armor he was developing for the Avengers' suits. Every so often, Romanov would nudge his fork towards his plate and Stark would eat a bite of food with a roll of his eyes.

Loki doubted Rogers understood or cared about the tensile strength of varying textiles or the composition of flex-polymer but he listened with rapt attention, a soppy smile on his face that made Loki's blood boil.

Thor erupted into laughter at something Barton said and elbowed Loki in the ribs a few times to get him to join in the merriment. He managed a grunt of acknowledgment, refusing to turn his gaze away from Rogers and Stark.

"I'm telling you, Cap, this is going to be a game-changer," Stark said, brandishing his fork and nearly flinging pesto in Romanov's face. "Plus, this new material has me that much closer to the perfect pair of stretchy pants for Jolly Green so Bruce's ass will stop ending up on the nightly news."

Banner leveled an unimpressed look at him. "At least my ass doesn't have an Instagram account dedicated to it."

"That you know of," Stark shot back, eyes sparkling with mirth. "The internet's an awfully big place, my sweet summer child, the wellspring of human ego and depravity. Also cat videos."

Loki's fingers clenched tight around his fork, the implement protesting with the high whine of stressed metal. Watching Stark, seeing his big, beautiful eyes and lovely smiling face directed at everyone but him was the worst sort of torture.

Loki was not fine.

"I can't possibly be the only one that found that Assvengers blog," Barton said, grabbing a dinner roll from the basket at the center of the table. "Apparently the internet loves all of our asses, especially in Tony's latest game-changing tactical suits. Fess up, Stark, performance isn't the only reason they hug our curves in all the right places, is it?"

The smirk that graced Stark's features was brief but breathtaking. "What can I say, I live to serve the public. Plus, you can't spell assassin without two asses, case in point," he said nodding at Barton and Romanov, "gotta live up to the name." He dissolved into laughter and slid down in his chair amidst a chorus of groans and somehow caught the roll Barton lobbed at his head. Loki found the whole exchange far more charming than it had any right to be.

"Careful, Stark, I know where you sleep," Romanov warned, pinning him with a sideways sloe-eyed stare as she took a delicate bite of asparagus.

Stark slapped his hand over his heart and swooned in mock terror, slouching away from Romanov and right up against Rogers whose fork clattered against his plate when he fumbled it in surprise. "Steve, o Captain my Captain, save me!" 

Unless Loki was very much mistaken, Rogers blushed. He narrowed his eyes, lip twitching with the strain of holding back a sneer.

Rogers huffed but was smiling too much to be genuinely annoyed. "Nope."

Stark wrapped his hands around Rogers' arm and turned on the full force of his wide, imploring doe eyes. "But Steve, you have to. She's going to murder me and make it look like an accident. What happened to camaraderie and 'no man left behind?'"

If Rogers hadn't been blushing before he most certainly was now. "I think just about any oath of camaraderie is rendered moot when it comes to pissing off the Black Widow on purpose. If you don't want to be murdered in your bed then stop antagonizing everyone you meet, we've talked about this."

Stark scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Not everyone,"

"Everyone," everyone at the table chorused, except Loki who was barely following anymore, fury burning hotter for every second Stark clung to Rogers and Rogers had that smitten look on his face.

"Rude." Stark pushed away from Rogers in disgust and righted himself in his chair, brushing non-existent lint from his shirt before plucking his fork from his plate to twirl between his fingers. "Lies and slander here in my own home. JARVIS, make a note of this grave offense."

"So noted, Sir." The AI sounded amused.

"Turned on by all sides," Stark heaved a theatrical sigh. Romanov snorted and Coulson shook his head. "All of my so-called friends turning against me in my hour of need. Except for Reindeer Games,"

Loki froze, heart tripping in his chest.

"He, at least, recognizes the falsehoods you all uphold for what they are." Stark jabbed his fork at Loki across the table to punctuate the statement, his chin titled in defiance, smile wide and crooked in the way his flat flash of teeth for the press never was.

He was stunning.

"I guess that's part of the skill set of being the God of Lies; recognizing others as lying liars who lie, which all of you are. Kind of ironic, really. Should have you turncoats reevaluating your misguided opinions and admitting your wrongdoing in the service of the greater good," Stark's grin quirked when their eyes met.

Like a plant spreading it's leaves to drink in the sun, Loki couldn't turn away, basking in the heady rush of Stark's attention. All of that focus, that warmth, that mischievous humor Stark deigned to share with him — the notion of a private joke, just for the two of them, even — lit up the dark, hollow spaces in Loki's core.

An answering smile stretched across Loki's face and he had the presence of mind to incline his head in a bow with an accompanying flourish of his hand even as his other hand clenched tight enough around his fork that he could feel the metal give beneath his fingers. 

He could do this. He was fine. Everything was fine.

And then, Stark winked at him.

It hit like a blow to the chest, like a strike of lightning. Loki's breath rushed out of him, unheard over Barton's booing and Thor's boisterous agreement that Loki is most skilled at detecting lies. So distracted was he, cataloging the way Stark's — who was he kidding, Anthony's — eyes crinkled and his nose scrunched when he laughed, Loki didn't anticipate Thor clapping him on the shoulder and jostling him with enthusiasm. His fork slipped from between his fingers and landed on his plate of picked-over dinner with a clatter, revealing the stem curled and warped to fit the shape of Loki's grip to the entire table.

Anthony tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow, stretching across the table to snatch up the offending piece of metal.

"Holy shit, what is it with you super-powered freeloaders breaking all of my stuff?" he asked with an exasperated huff. "Do you know how many sets of flatware I've gone through? That should not be part of the monthly expense report, seriously, Pepper makes fun of me enough as it is without adding a flatware budget to the mix. Do I need to make a set out of gold titanium alloy? I will make all of you eat with Iron Man cutlery, see if I don't." Anthony turned the mangled utensil to and fro, inspecting it with avid curiosity, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his teeth.

It was adorable, noted the small corner of Loki's mind not spiraling into mortified despair. Luckily, the rest of the table's occupants were focused on their food and Anthony's antics more than considering just why Loki was destroying the flatware.

"You're already drafting the schematic in your head, aren't you?" Coulson asked. Anthony grinned, a little manic and a lot mischievous.

The chorus of chattering voices and the scrape of cutlery on ceramic faded into a wash of white noise, Loki's eyes fixed on the fork still cradled in Anthony's hand and the shape of his fingers against the cold steel, long and elegant. Beautiful. Loki wondered, and not for the first time, how Anthony's hand would feel in his, how perfectly their fingers might intertwine, and contemplated the absurdity of despising an inanimate object for stealing such a privilege.

Movement on Anthony's right dragged Loki's attention to Romanov who was staring fixedly at him with unnerving intensity, her fingers stroking along the flat of her butter knife. Her sharp green eyes flicked pointedly to Anthony and back to Loki. She arched an eyebrow and smirked.

Not so lucky after all. A thrill of dread shot down his spine, coalescing behind his ribs like a great slab of stone to compress his lungs.

Loki was not fine.

Everything was terrible.

3.

Romanov was trying to drive him mad.

It was the only explanation. Loki would not — could not — believe he'd been subjected to such perfect, calculated torture time and time again by mere happenstance. Once or twice could be called coincidence, a few times more, perhaps, bad luck. But every blasted time he and Anthony were in the same room? That stank of treachery most foul.

Anthony moaned, the sound low and wavering into a whimper. Loki shifted in his seat and swallowed around the snarl trapped in his throat, fury and desire a twisted, ponderous mass in his gut. He drew in a slow, calming breath but the exhale erupted in a hiss from between his clenched teeth.

Romanov was trying to drive him mad, and Norns help him, it was working.

After realizing Anthony was not adverse to his company as he'd first thought, Loki searched out openings, spaces in Anthony's life he could fit into, even if only lost in the shadowed background.

It was easy to do, frightfully so, and Anthony . . . Anthony was so much more than Loki ever imagined.

They shared the same acerbic humor, a desire for a better future, the pursuit of knowledge and the drive to unravel the greater mysteries of the universe (even if they did disagree on certain methods and philosophies. Anthony got all sorts of riled up about magic, a word he said like a curse. It amused Loki to no end).

They fell together naturally, like friends of old, like Loki's wildest dream, and he didn't know what to think about that, about the joy bubbling up inside of him whenever Anthony greeted him with a smile, about all of the ways it could go wrong, as everything good in his life always did.

It was already going wrong. Treacherous interlopers butting in, diverting Anthony's attention and sullying their time together.

Anthony mumbled praise around another groan and Romanov smiled, as satisfied as any great beast relishing their kill. Loki clutched at the pillow he'd dragged into his lap to preserve his dignity as though he could strangle it and with it his tormentor, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

The problem with carving out a place for himself in Anthony's life (really the problem with doing anything) whilst living in Avengers Tower, was that everything he did, he did under someone else's eye. Wherever Loki went an Avenger soon followed. If not pinned under the stare of meddlesome, infuriating spies, suspicious soldiers, or held fast to Thor's side, there was the presence of JARVIS in every room with a camera — so virtually every room in the Tower.

Part of him was disappointed. Getting around all methods of observation would have been a game most fun had he need not stay in the Avengers' good graces, and by extension Anthony's good graces, although Anthony was largely ambivalent about how Loki spent his free time.

(It was funny, how Anthony alone had no interest in tracking his every move and questioning his every motive if the uncertainty driving Loki to madness could be called "funny." He wanted Anthony to ask after him rather than Rogers with his self-righteous judgment or Coulson's unwavering, placid smile that said far more than any open distaste ever could.)

He didn't know if Anthony's indifference was a dismissal or a sign of trust. He liked to think it was trust, even believed it to be true most days, that the smiles and conversations they shared and the ease he felt in Anthony's presence were borne of genuine connection rather than a projection of his desires.

Although if it was trust it might not mean what he wished it to, because for all of his brilliance Anthony was an idiot when it came to the people he held dear. Too softhearted, too desperate for kinship, too ready to mitigate whatever conflict he believed imminent by just being Tony Stark by giving everything away, providing comfort, riches, protection, his brilliant mind and the wonders crafted lovingly by his hands, his very heart wrapped up in a box. Perilous gifts. Gifts few, if any, deserved.

Anthony whined, and Loki ground his teeth, jaw aching with the strain to not scream, to not curse every other person in the Tower into oblivion because traversing his relationship with Anthony was still not half as impossible as sitting through such devastating torment.

Romanov was trying to drive Loki mad, and she wasn't the only one. Too convenient, too perfectly timed were these little productions for someone working alone, even someone as good as she. The smug little smile replacing Barton's perpetual scowl was particularly damning.

They were conspiring against him and Loki was going to end them.

"Ohhh, fuck, yes, right there," Anthony moaned in a low rasp, arching and squirming beneath Romanov before some stubborn knot unwound and the tension drained out of his frame. He melted into the sofa, his arm slipping over the side, limp fingers brushing against the grain of the carpet in unconscious little spasms. "How the hell are you so good at this?"

Romanov swept her palms up the line of Anthony's spine, bare skin shining with sweet-smelling oil and glowing in the flickering light of the nature documentary Loki wasn't watching. Romanov kneaded the muscle where shoulder met neck in a graceful curve, working out the tension she found with sure fingers. Anthony moaned again and Loki . . . Loki was dying inside.

Phallic frozen treats stocked in the freezer en masse. Anthony's change of clothes at SHIELD and on the Quinjet disappearing, leaving him to parade about in that cursed undersuit. Items dropped near helpful, trusting Anthony with improbable frequency.

Loki had thought the impromptu yoga session last Sunday morning had been the worst Romanov could cook up; he could still see Anthony in Downward Facing Dog when he closed his eyes.

Loki had thought wrong.

Romanov shifted her weight, settling more firmly on Anthony's backside for better leverage, her folded legs tucked tight up against his hips. The soft affection on her face morphed into something wicked when her eyes found Loki's. She bared her teeth in a knowing smile. A challenge.

A taunt.

"Crazy, right?" Barton chuckled, a low rumble in his throat. He took a drink from his beer and ruffled Anthony's hair, leaving his hand to rest in the tangled mass of brown curls pillowed on his lap. "Tasha's got all kinds of mad skills, not just the deadly ones." He too slanted his eyes to Loki and his easy expression shifted like Romanov's had, smug and calculating and cementing every unkind thought Loki had ever had about him.

When he exacted revenge it would be slow, messy, and very painful.

"You say that, but I'm pretty sure any and everything is deadly if Nat puts her mind to it," Anthony sighed. The loose smile on his face was a welcome replacement of the wincing strain from before but still a thorn in Loki's side knowing he wasn't the remedy. If he'd only had five minutes more before the others had swanned in he could have offered his own assistance.

"You're not wrong," Romanov mused, working her hands back down Anthony's spine and digging the heels of her hands into the dip just above the waistband of his sweatpants. Anthony hissed but soon settled, groaning low. "You might consider that the next time you work yourself into a big ball of tension. I might not be so nice, considering the countless rule infractions that led to this."

"Not rules. And Tasha, it's important. I took breaks just like you and Captain Bossy Pants nag me to, and I ate food that wasn't coffee or whatever Dummy tried to poison me with this week. Besides, I came up for Midgardian Education Theater with Frostbite, didn't I? You found me here, relaxing and being social and everything. I didn't even bring a tablet."

Romanov's eyes flicked back to Loki, some emotion he couldn't name shuttered behind the wary calculation on her face. It was the look she often had these days when he did something that didn't align with her presumptions. She knew just as well as he did that without his cajoling and prodding and playful imitation of Thor's puppy eyes Anthony would still be in his workshop reworking every last piece of the Avengers' gear, fueled by the misplaced guilt he still carried from the fight that ended with half the team in Medical four days prior.

Barton frowned down at Anthony, tugging at his hair. "No one's saying the work you're doing isn't important, dumbass, but sparkly new equipment isn't worth engineering yourself into an early grave."

Anthony fidgeted, tension creeping back into his shoulders. Romanov pinned him down with a hand on the back of his neck and leaned over so her lips brushed the shell of his ear. "Stop it. Relax, Antoshka. Let us take care of you for once."

After a beat of stubborn resistance, Anthony shivered and went lax. Somehow, the soft, wondering contentment on Anthony's face at his teammate's reassurance and comforting hands ripped Loki's chest asunder in a way skimpy clothes, suggestive poses, and borderline-obscene moans never could.

He'll never look at me like that. I'll never give him that.

Loki was stalking towards the kitchen before his brain caught back up with itself, Romanov's eyes burning into his back like a brand.

"Lokes?" Anthony called after him in sweet, sleepy concern, twisting the knife in his heart.

The moment he was out of their eye-line Loki braced his hands on the counter and dragged in a ragged breath, resentment and despair twisting about his lungs like insidious creeping weeds. Shame followed closely on it's heels, and anger after that, searing through his veins, eating through his flesh like acid.

He was not this weak. This would not break him. Being near Anthony was enough, had to be enough, and no matter how his heart betrayed him, no matter how anyone else interfered —

"Brother!"

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Thor's arm wrapped around his shoulders and yanked him into a bone-crushing hug. "JARVIS informed me you and Friend Tony were watching the magnificent Planet Earth and suggested I join you!"

Loki turned his gaze on the nearest camera in wide-eyed despair. JARVIS was still something of an enigma, one with the potential to be his strongest ally or greatest foe — the only variable regarding Anthony Loki knew to be absolute. Sadly, it seemed the scale was tipping towards "foe."

"Have you come to seek libations?"

Loki's lip curled back, a biting invective on his tongue. "Thor — "

"He came to hide from his feelings for a certain oblivious doe-eyed someone since he's awful at using his words," Romanov said airily, strolling into the kitchen. She pulled open the refrigerator and retrieved two bottles of beer.

Loki's voice stuttered in his throat, words jumbling into an incomprehensible, horrified croak.

"Then again so is Tony, so you might call it a match made in heaven."

Thor's head whipped back and forth between Romanov and Loki, his face stretching into lines of pure, unadulterated joy. "Brother, is this true? You're seeking to court the Man of Iron? This is the most wonderful news!" He dragged him back into his arms as he laughed, deaf to Loki's stuttered denials.

At the edge of his vision, Romanov sauntered out of the room with a teasing sway of hips and laughing eyes, as though she hadn't just torn Loki's life asunder.

That bitch.

Trapped in Thor's crushing embrace, Loki made a promise to himself that the Widow would pay. He didn't know how, just yet, but she would pay.

4.

Loki was cursed.

He'd never been more sure of anything in all his life, for nothing, nothing, but the most twisted of curses could have thrown him into the pit of Hel that was Thor and his gaggle of mortals giving him courting advice.

He was going to murder Thor, and he wasn't even going to feel bad about it.

He'd sort out what to tell Mother later.

"Oh! You should totally try this one, it's geeky. Tony likes geeky, right?" The Lewis girl shoved the magazine she'd been perusing for the last twenty minutes in Loki's face. He wrinkled his nose at the glossy pages splashed with lurid pink text and batted her hand away, more than a little irritated at her impervious enthusiasm. He had tried to put her insanity to rest, but no number of threats or outright vitriol had curbed Darcy's determination.

"For the last time, I do not need — "

Jane shifted down the couch to Loki's other side and leaned over his shoulder to read the purported Top Twenty Pick-up Lines That Will Never Fail. She frowned. "Mentioning Microsoft seems more likely to put Tony in a snit than anything else."

"But it's a joke about Microsoft crashing, what's not to like?"

Thor's head appeared over Loki's other shoulder from behind, scanning the magazine page. "Loki's name is not Microsoft," he said in puzzlement, taking a bite of Pop-Tart and raining pastry crumbs on Loki's tunic.

"It's not supposed to — "

"Brother, I do not understand why you don't make the customary offering of romantic intent."

"Because I'm not a hopeless, dimwitted idiot," Loki ground out, hunching in on himself. He swept his eyes around the room, cataloging obstacles and exit points as he plotted numerous escape routes destined to end in bitter defeat. He would need to neutralize the others first and had not a clue how to do it without JARVIS raising an alarm. He didn't fancy the prospect of a timeout in the Hulk Playroom (once had been quite enough, thank you), but Norns help him the idea sounded more appealing by the second. "Anthony would never speak to me again If I presented such an offering."

"But — "

"Wait," Darcy interrupted, scrunching up her face. "Is that the thing with the deer carcass that Thor traumatized Jane with?"

Jane sighed. "Yes."

"Yeah, no, I hate to break it to you, but here on Earth, we don't ask people out with dead animals. We do, like, candy, or jewelry, or flowers . . . although I guess plants and sparkly rocks are also weird gifts when you really think about it."

Thor deflated. "How else is one to demonstrate their ability to provide for their chosen?"

"By buying them dinner? It's not ye olden times where you have to hunt down your cheeseburger and let's be real, Tony Stark is the last guy in need of a 'good provider.'"

"But what of a show of cunning and fighting prowess? The Man of Iron would surely not accept a partner who cannot display their mental and physical superiority."

Darcy snorted. "Aww, that's cute. Do you guys not have one night stands on Asgard? 'Cause let me tell you, nineties era Tony Stark was very busy and not discriminating in the least about who he fu — "

"Enough!" Loki roared, bodily shoving free from the sofa and trying not to think about the images of Anthony in his hedonistic heyday still burned into his brain from a misbegotten, maudlin Google search. "What, pray tell, must I do for you to leave me be? Shall I fuse your tongue to the roof of your mouth? Lock you in a pocket dimension? Carve it into your very flesh?"

Thor blinked at him, taking a large bite of another Pop-Tart, Jane smiled sheepishly, and Darcy rolled her eyes. Loki thought he might scream.

"Excuse you, grumpy pants, but I don't see anybody else around here trying to help you get laid, you could show a little gratitude," Darcy said with a haughty sniff. She tossed aside her magazine and started tapping away at her phone. "The whole 'tall, dark and emo,' routine hasn't gotten you anywhere but mocked on Natasha's Instagram. She made a montage of you throwing jealous little fits, it was hilarious. Oh look," she cackled, "you're in her story today too."

Darcy flipped her phone around to display a photograph from that morning's field trip to Stark Industries' R&D lab. Loki's mouth twisted at the fresh reminder of the debacle.

For someone who tossed out witticisms and flirted like he breathed Anthony had a baffling lack of awareness of the effect he had on other people. He went about his day oblivious to the eyes that tracked him everywhere he went, which was absurd because Anthony had twice as many admirers than any of his teammates.

It was maddening.

Loki was certain Anthony had no idea that his research underlings' undivided attention had as much to do with unfettered infatuation as the science he was explaining, many of them more focused on Anthony's dazzling smile and the figure he cut in his sinfully tailored suit than the pair of shorts he was pressing into Banner's reluctant hands.

Even Loki had found himself struggling to absorb Anthony's rapid-fire commentary. Witnessing him in his element, the way his eyes sparkled in the glow of the holodisplays and his magnetic enthusiasm drew in any poor, unsuspecting soul who wandered into his orbit served a powerful distraction. And the jazz hands he made when Banner accepted the shorts with a begrudging huff? Adorable.

That Loki was not the only one to notice was irritating in and of itself, but there'd have been no trouble if not for the tech who stood too close and stared at Anthony's mouth or backside (depending on which way he was facing) with a truly remarkable lack of shame and a gleam in his eye that had bloodlust singing through Loki's veins.

And then the cretin pretended to stumble right into Anthony's space just for an excuse to touch him. Anthony had helped the man right himself on his feet and waved away the insincere apologies dripping from his smug, smirking mouth, his hands still wrapped around Anthony's upper arms and that, well, that would not stand.

In Loki's defense, he'd no idea the furious spark of his seiðr would trigger a reaction with the gelatinous compound one of the research minions was poking with the scientific version of a stick.

Two decontamination showers and several hours later Loki's hair still smelled of scorched sugar and burning rubber.

He curled his fingers through the lock of hair he'd just given a discreet sniff and tugged at it, scowling at the slideshow playing on the tiny screen in Darcy's hand. How Romanov had photos of the event when she hadn't even been there he could only guess. The angles suggested security feed which implied JARVIS which did not bode well for Loki's future in the slightest.

Norns, he must be cursed. He couldn't bear accepting his unfortunate luck as anything but unnatural, not if he wished to retain what was left of his sanity.

The chaotic film reel of an unimpressed Hulk, flailing scientists, and lab equipment splattered with copious amounts of smoldering, bright purple goo ended on a still of Anthony sprawled on the floor laughing hysterically, the entirety of his left side coated in slime, his face ruddy and streaked with tears. Loki's heart throbbed in his chest at the sight, a fluttering in his stomach that soured when the story looped back to the beginning with a photo of Loki covered head to toe in purple goop, arms held out from his body like a mannequin and eyes round with shock.

A low growl reverberated in Loki's chest and he flushed with renewed humiliation. He snatched the phone from Darcy's hand and chucked it across the room where it hit the wall with a satisfying smack.

"Hey!" 

Thor sighed. "Loki."

Darcy bolted off the couch and scooped her phone off of the hardwood floor, cradling it against her chest like a wounded bird. "You're lucky this is Tony's Thor-proof special edition you asshole or you'd be meeting the business end of my taser." She shot him a dirty look over the rim of her glasses, petting the back of her sparkly blue phone case. "Don't think I won't tell lover-boy you're abusing his tech because I totally will, just try me."

"Oh no, I'm so frightened." Loki deadpanned.

And because he was cursed by the most sadistic of karmic forces, the elevator gave a cheerful chime and swept open to reveal none other than Anthony, dressed down in a faded band tee and a pair of jeans that may as well have been painted on him, his post-decontamination hair a chaotic mess.

What Loki wouldn't give to sink his fingers into those soft brown locks.

Anthony was grinning at his phone as he wandered through the living room, face growing impossibly brighter when he spotted them. "Well, if it isn't the whole Thunder Family! Ladies, always a pleasure. I didn't realize Thor had guests."

Anthony missed the evil smile that slipped across Darcy's face when he padded into the kitchen to rifle through the freezer.

"Don't you dare!" Loki hissed at her, straightening when Anthony reemerged, a fudge pop in his mouth because of course there was. It was all he could do to drag his eyes from the flicker of Anthony's tongue lapping up the length of his ice cream.

"You guys missed the excitement this morning," Anthony said, eyes twinkling when they cut over to Loki. "Mischief Managed here caused quite a stir. I can't remember the last time we had to decontaminate the entire R&D floor, which let me tell you, is quite the ordeal. I might be pissed if it wasn't hilarious, plus I'm not the one who has to clean it up so win-win. Nat's already making fun of us on social media."

"That's so funny, we just watched her story on Instagram," Darcy said sweetly, a shit-eating grin splitting across her face. Jane muffled a laugh behind her hands.

"Aye, we were just talking about you, my friend!" Thor exclaimed, raising his eyebrows and giving Loki a painfully obvious look while waving about his half-eaten Pop-Tart, flinging more crumbs on the floor. Loki wanted to wring his neck.

"Good things, I hope," Anthony said, blessedly distracted as he chased a rivulet of melting ice cream with his mouth before it could drip onto his hand. "I'm changing your contact picture to that one of you covered in goo, by the way." He licked his lips and winked at Loki with a cheeky grin.

Loki opened his mouth to say . . . he didn't actually know (words?), but nothing came out.

"You still haven't told me what set you off," Anthony said, face softening. "Did someone mess with you? Say something to you? SI has a strict 'no assholes' clause in it's employment agreement — besides me, obviously. I promise, for every lab assistant there's a hundred more waiting to take their place, I just need a name."

And that . . . what was Loki supposed to do with that? No judgment, no blame. He'd lost control of himself and Anthony knew it but was worried someone had been mean to him, of all things, rather than upset about the mess he had made. How was he supposed to handle Anthony's concern where there should only have been anger or disappointment? Loki couldn't remember the last time he'd been asked why did this happen rather than told look what you did.

He swallowed around the lump in his throat and folded his arms across his chest to stop his hands from fiddling with his tunic. "Nothing like that, I . . . there are fluctuations, surges, in the seiðr from time to time, unrelated to my emotional state," he said, and the lie left a bitter taste on his tongue. "It was a fluke, and an unlucky one at that."

Loki's nails bit bloody crescents into his forearms when Thor stifled a laugh with an unconvincing cough.

Mother would have to forgive him for killing Thor eventually, wouldn't she?

Anthony didn't look entirely convinced, a little wrinkle on his brow that only appeared when he was worried, but he didn't push the matter even though Loki could tell he wanted to. "All right. We still on for our Ancient Aliens snark fest tonight? I managed to save some of the fancy popcorn from Clint's grubby fingers."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Anthony's answering smile was blinding. Were he a lesser god Loki might have swooned.

"Eight o'clock sharp, bring your A-game," Anthony called over his shoulder as he stepped back into the elevator, swept away moments later behind the shining doors, and Loki's heart with him.

The sudden silence was oppressive. Loki was acutely aware of three pairs of eyes on him and the flush of heat high on his cheeks.

"Holy shit, dude, you've got it bad."

He groaned and dropped his face into his hands.

5.

Loki was in so much trouble.

There was no question. He was madly, hopelessly, unequivocally in love with a man he could never have.

"Have you ever considered — and stay with me here, I know this is reaching — but have you ever considered just being honest?" Romanov swirled her martini and took a sip, arching a brow at Loki who was not moping, no matter what she said. He was just . . . observing the evening's proceeds. Staying out of trouble. People-watching.

Stark-watching.

And did Anthony ever look gorgeous in his tuxedo as he drifted around the ballroom, flitting from group to group, glad-handing, as Rogers had called it. It was the first gala Loki had attended with the Avengers in which Anthony's enjoyment was genuine rather than his usual try-me plastic shark's smile. It made sense, he supposed, that the Maria Stark Foundation held a special place in Anthony's heart. It helped mitigate the bitter envy of watching vapid, duplicitous socialites throw themselves at Anthony in droves (or worse, talk their way into a turn in his arms on the dance floor), if only a little.

Loki leaned back against the bar and picked up his tumbler just to have something to do with his hands. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Romanov gave him a look which, all right, he deserved, but she had no right standing there so composed, wearing her self-assurance just as confidently as her couture gown while Loki felt like he was coming apart at the seams.

When he remained obstinately silent Romanov rolled her eyes and muttered something about idiots before knocking back her drink. She set the empty glass on the bar and plucked out the little red plastic sword speared through a trio of olives, pulling two off with her teeth with a savage sort of relish.

"You know, I'd have thought with how much time you've spent mooning over him like a broody little stalker that you would have realized Tony's as dense as a box of rocks when it comes to feelings. You can hit him over the head with it, lay it at his feet wrapped up in a shiny bow, and he'll pick it up and give it back to you — will laugh at the absurdity of someone giving it to him and meaning it — or apologize for some imagined infraction and turn himself inside-out explaining away what's right in front of him besides the simplest and most obvious answer. Subtlety doesn't work."

Loki didn't dispute that, intimately familiar with Anthony's intrinsic disbelief that anyone saw him as a worthwhile partner for more than a tumble in the sheets. But even if that wasn't the case it wouldn't matter. "Most would say I'm not built for honesty, myself among them. I'm the God of Chaos, Mischief, and Lies, who would take anything I say as honest?" He asked, staring at the whiskey in his glass, studying the amber of the liquor in the light. It had the same warm, honeyed tones as Anthony's eyes in the sunlight.

"Oh please, spare me. You're hardly the only person in this room with a past and questionable morals. Either be better and move past it or don't, if you're so determined to wallow in eternal solitude. Either way, maudlin isn't a good look."

Loki glowered at her but didn't bother arguing. She wasn't wrong, even he could admit that (not that he would). "There's more to account for than my determination one way or the other. Everything rises and falls on Anthony's desires, and I'd say it's rather clear where he stands."

He'd tried. Norns knew, Loki had tried, had hoped, had tested Anthony's receptiveness with careful flirtations and foolish attempts at affection only to be evaded at every pass, answered with humor and good-natured sarcasm, a line drawn in the sand. It was a mercy, he supposed, that Anthony spared him the humiliation of addressing his absurd advances for what they were in favor of preserving their amiable companionship. Loki should be grateful; the last thing he wanted was to jeopardize their friendship, but logic did little to soothe the yearning that threatened to consume him whole.

Romanov stared at him in unnerving blank-faced silence, the last olive sliding off the plastic sword in her upheld hand and hitting the marble floor with a wet splat. Her face spasmed, a flash of emotion flickering across it that Loki couldn't place but sent a shiver down his spine right before she flicked the little sword at him. It struck his forehead and slid down his face to snag in his hair.

"You deserve each other," she intoned solemnly, stalking off in a swirl of green satin.

What was that supposed to mean?

He contemplated chasing her down to demand an explanation but he'd promised himself that he wouldn't ruin Anthony's night and he was quite certain a brawl in the ballroom would do just that. He took a large swig of his drink, cursing his newfound softness.

Very much in trouble indeed.

He set his tumbler back on the bar and waved the bartender away with a curt hand gesture. He'd gone off his whiskey, although the bitter taste in the back of his mouth had nothing to do with alcohol.

He shouldn't have come.

He shouldn't have come, but Anthony had asked him to, bouncing on the balls of his feet and his face so hopeful, a pleading lilt in his voice, and Loki had agreed (he'd always agree), powerless to anything Anthony asked of him, slave to the incandescent smile that had split Anthony's face in two, and he was in so much trouble. Loki raked his fingers through his hair, tugging free the little sword still tangled there.

He turned the bit of plastic over in his fingers, considering the merits of fashioning actual blades in a similar scale to fling at the insipid socialites when something shifted in the atmosphere, an undercurrent of something wrong that pulled his muscles taut and set his teeth on edge.

He straightened and surveyed the room, his eyes sweeping over the glittering sea of guests in search of Anthony's artfully tousled hair as agitation set his nerves abuzz, his stomach twisting with unease upon realizing Anthony was no longer front and center among the party-goers. Loki finally spotted him at the far end of the ballroom in a secluded alcove. He wasn't alone and the look on his face had Loki's hackles up in an instant.

Loki was halfway across the room before he questioned whether interfering was a good idea, but it only took one glance at Coulson, Potts, and Romanov huddled together exchanging harried words and casting dark glances towards the man invading Anthony's space to cement his resolve. In that eerie, uncanny way of hers, Romanov looked up and locked eyes with him, her face stormy. She gave him a curt nod, implying something like approval.

Well, if anyone were to get their hands dirty at a charity event Loki certainly fit the bill. He did have a reputation, after all. Plausible deniability for the Avengers and all that, should things get messy. It might even be fun.

Loki slowed as he neared the alcove and moved into the shadows, slinking in close. The man talking to Anthony — who had, for all intents and purposes, cornered him — was tall and broad-shouldered, hair a shade of blond that only came from a bottle and dressed in a suit that screamed wealth without an ounce of class. Loki hated him on sight.

" — have to be like that, Tony, we're friends." The man's voice was wheedling, dripping with thinly-veiled condescension.

Anthony's jaw flexed, his eyes dark and fathomless. He was not smiling. "You and I are many things, Ty, but friends isn't one of them."

The sight of Anthony hunched in on himself, shifting back on his feet and never quite meeting the other man's eye had Loki both unsettled and enraged. He knew who this was, he realized, the name "Ty" sparking a faint memory from a late-night conversation with Anthony some weeks ago.

Tiberius Stone.

Oh, Loki would enjoy this. 

"That's not how I remember it," Stone said, looming closer and forcing Anthony to take a step back. "In fact, I'd say we're rather more than friends. Don't tell me you forgot. I'm hurt."

Loki scowled at that and shifted himself into Anthony's line of sight, hoping to catch his attention. Anthony's eyes darted over Stone's shoulder at the movement and locked with his, and Loki knew he wasn't imagining the flash of relief on Anthony's face or the easing of his posture as whatever temporary spell Stone's presence had cast broke. The confidence Anthony wore with the same aplomb as gold titanium alloy or tailored silk settled back over him like it had never wavered and Loki was unbearably relieved.

Anthony squared his shoulders, tipped his chin up, and glared Stone square in the face. "Cut the shit, Tiberius, I'm not playing games with you. So if you're done wasting my time kindly fuck off, and if you don't leave I'll have you removed and charged with trespassing. I guarantee you won't like what's behind door number two, so don't test me."

The slimy smile slipped right off of Stone's face, his features morphing into something cold and ugly. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a promise."

Loki thought that would be the end of it until a nasty grin slowly stretched across Stone's face.

"Easy for you to make threats with all your fancy toys and a pack of superheroes on your payroll, but I have friends in high places too. The press is always hungry for the next scandal, aren't they? Foaming at the mouth to knock an arrogant, mouthy little rich boy pretending to be something he's not down a few pegs. Paparazzi are swarming around outside just waiting for blood in the water. You wouldn't dare cause a scene."

"Wow, not even an ounce of irony," Anthony muttered under his breath before cocking his head. "You sure about that?"

Stone gave a caustic laugh. "Who do you think you're talking to?"

Anthony smiled. "Someone who is astronomically out of his league. You think I won't cause a scene? Well, you're not wrong, I'd rather not have this night go up in flames because my psycho ex wanted to prove some bullshit point to, I don't know, assert your dominance? Whatever. I'm not afraid of you or your flying monkeys, and even though I'd hate to have to suit up and drag you out screaming I will. But I won't need to, and do you know why? Not because I expect you to do the decent thing, because, I mean, it's you, but because I have friends who will be delighted to take out the trash for me."

Stone scoffed, his lip curling in a sneer. "You're pathetic. Do you honestly think any of those people care about you? You're a free ride, Tony, and an easy one at that. I should know."

Anthony didn't rise to the bait, didn't slip into anger or defensiveness or doubt. Instead, brown eyes found Loki's over Stone's shoulder once more, transfixing him where he stood. "I know they do," Anthony said. There was a flicker of emotion on Anthony's face so at odds with the situation that Loki's breath hitched, there and gone so quickly he thought he must have imagined it.

"You're a fool," Stone said with a derisive laugh. He took a step towards Anthony, everything in his posture screaming intimidation, and even though Anthony held his ground this time Loki had had quite enough.

"Actually," he drawled, hauling Stone back by the collar of his jacket, the point of his favorite dagger biting into the soft flesh of Stone's throat, "I think you'll find you're the fool. And as much as I'd enjoy making a spectacle of putting you in your place, I fear that still aligns too closely with giving you what you want. So thank you so much for coming, if you ever dare trespass or threaten Anthony again I'll cut out your tongue and feed it to you."

The look on Stone's face when he laid bulging eyes on him would give Loki a warm feeling for days. Stone was still floundering to form any semblance of comprehensible speech when Loki banished him, Anthony's hair ruffling a little in the wash of displaced air that swept into the space where Stone had stood.

Anthony cleared his throat and tugged at his bow tie, knocking it askew. "Well, that's certainly one method of unorthodox conflict resolution. Should I even ask where you sent him?"

Loki righted Anthony's tie with the casual flick of a finger, twirling his dagger between the fingers of his other hand before banishing it with a flourish. "Scranton."

"I — wait, what?" Anthony laughed incredulously. "Scranton? As in Scranton, Pennsylvania? I can't even — that's — why?"

Loki shrugged and smoothed down the front of his jacket where the fabric had wrinkled. "First place I thought of. Blame Coulson if you must, he's had that office documentary series on the past two weeks. Pennsylvania sounds dreadfully boring"

"Okay, first of all, The Office is just a TV show formatted like a documentary, but it's a scripted comedy. Agent's either screwing with you or doing you a favor since like half of the memes on the internet reference that show. Knowing him, probably both. And second, I . . . I don't even know what to say. That was . . . you didn't have to do that."

"I know."

"I had it under control."

"I know you did," Loki assured, clearing his throat when the words came out too gently. "He was irritating. My way was faster and gained him absolutely nothing."

Anthony's lips twitched, quirking into a wry smile. "No arguing with that. You're all about results aren't you?"

"I take great pride in my work," Loki said, not bothering to fight his own grin.

"I can't believe you just did that. No, that's a lie, this is exactly the kind of thing you would do. Maybe a little less screaming and mayhem than your usual, but that's probably for the best. I can't imagine he'll try to accuse either of us of foul play. I mean, he was trespassing, and what's the crime, non-consensual teleportation? Maybe kidnapping, but that's a stretch. I'd love to see Ty try to prove it, can you imagine? God, he must be furious."

Anthony shifted in place and fiddled with his cufflinks, looking askance at him. "Thank you," he said quietly, "you didn't — I'd never ask you to put yourself in the middle of my problems or in a position you don't want to be in, but . . . it's nice knowing that you have my back. Not many people do."

Loki swallowed thickly, his fingers curling into fists to stop him from reaching for Anthony, from smoothing the crease between his eyebrows, carding his fingers through his hair and pulling him into the safety of his arms to murmur reassurance and devotion against his skin.

You needn't ask at all, I'm already yours.

Loki drew in a shaky breath, struggling to compose himself before he said something foolish, something he could never take back, a dull burning ache behind his eyes. Anthony trusted him. No one trusted Loki, and Anthony just gave it to him, as though he was worthy of it, as though he wasn't the last person in the Nine Realms that anyone should entrust something so precious and fragile.

He didn't deserve Anthony, and Loki had never wanted to be worthy of someone more in his entire existence.

He was in so much trouble.

"I shall always have your back," Loki said, "and there are many others who will as well. You're not alone, Anthony. Not as long as I have anything to say about it."

Something vulnerable flashed across Anthony's face, heart-wrenching and breakable. Loki took a half step forward and it was gone, Anthony's expression wiped clean and smooth, a smile in place, bittersweet for everything it was, and everything it was not.

"You're a good friend, Lokes," Anthony said, grasping the sleeve of Loki's jacket and tugging him back towards the crowd, the Avengers and Miss Potts conspicuous at the edges watching them. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Loki managed to give Anthony a thin smile in return.

Nor I you.

+ 1.

Tony was confused.

Granted, the world was a pretty confusing place these days, but considering the people in his life and how he spent his free time that still felt like some sort of achievement because getting punched by a giant robot, shot with a freeze-ray, or cursed by someone's (Thor's, it was always Thor's) supernatural ex was just another Tuesday. Hell, that thing with the mutant rabbits last month? Hadn't even phased him.

God, what the hell was Tony's life.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, fidgeting in his seat and fighting the urge to hack into SHIELD's security feed, or worse, rewatch the YouTube videos already making the rounds (because what the fuck was that? He was so confused).

"What is taking so damn long?" Clint groused, eyes crossed as he attempted to balance a pen on his nose, his chair making an obnoxious squeak every time he shifted his weight.

"I imagine an extended visit to decontamination is required to remove that amount of glitter," Natasha said with a smirk, tapping away at her phone and no doubt making a video compilation of the most embarrassing footage she could find. "It's a shame pink isn't Loki's color, he may be wearing it for a while."

Steve's laugh morphed into a cough when Tony frowned at him, and Steve wiped his hand over his mouth to cover his smile.

"It was a hell of a show," Clint conceded. "Even if Enchantress' performance was a little lackluster. Plus, I didn't think we'd ever catch Loki in anything more ridiculous than the R&D Incident. He will never live this down and I'm fuckin' here for it."

Bruce snorted, slouched forward in his chair with his chin propped up on his hand, bright-eyed and unruffled for debrief since Hulk hadn't been needed. "I don't know if . . . whatever it is we just saw tops the R&D Incident. That's a high bar."

Clint whipped his head around to stare at Bruce aghast, the pen tumbling with a clatter onto the conference table. "Catfight, Banner, we just bore witness to a goddamn Asgardian catfight, and I can't even — it's like if the Real Housewives threw fireballs with their insults and flipped cars instead of tables. I mean, I've seen some impressive hissy fits in my time — "

"And thrown them," Natasha said.

" — but nothing even comes close to the shitshow of flaming daggers and sparkling pink explosions we just saw. It almost makes up for interrupting movie night."

"Hey, nothing makes up for violating the sanctity of movie night," Tony said half-heartedly, the image of Loki laid out flat on his back in the epicenter of Amora's second-rate special effects edging back to the forefront of his mind.

He fidgeted, tugging at the collar of his flight suit as he reminded himself, again, that Loki had gotten right back up, with the air of a cat who'd fallen off a fence doing their level best to pretend they'd fallen on purpose. Because Loki was fine. Sure, he'd wobbled on his feet, red-faced and looking a little punch-drunk, and maybe he'd snapped at Thor with far more venom than he was inclined to these days, but Loki always got snippy when he was embarrassed.

Tony still wished that he could have talked to him before SHIELD swarmed in. Thor's shouted assurances as he and Loki were carted off for decontamination weren't enough to assuage Tony's concern, not when he couldn't unsee Enchantress' stupid, smug face or the flash of pure, unadulterated horror on Loki's when she'd performed her finishing move.

"Why did Loki even get involved?"

The question spilled out of Tony's mouth without permission, the question that had been eating at him ever since Loki snarled and conjured a terrifying number of knives, because he never interfered when Amora showed up, content to sit back and laugh his ass off while she tried to beat Thor into loving submission.

God, Tony was confused.

Steve shifted in his seat, straightening his posture and folding his hands on the table in front of him, a frown flickering across his face before it smoothed into something neutral. "There were, uh, I heard — threats were made." Steve glanced at Tony out of the corner of his eye before looking down at his hands. "Loki made a . . . crude comment — "

"He asked Amora if she'd ever tire of trailing after Thor like a slavering bitch in heat," Natasha interrupted, the corners of her mouth ticking up.

"Oh, shit," Clint said around an incredulous laugh. "I mean, that's accurate but goddamn."

Tony wasn't sure if he should be impressed or exasperated, because of course Loki did.

Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his ears turning bright red. "Yes, thank you, Natasha." He dropped his hand back to the table, Disapproving Face on in full force when Nat gave him a sarcastic salute.

"She reacted as well as you'd expect and made some colorful threats, mostly against To — uh, to go after Loki's, uh . . . " Steve trailed off, his face flushing to match his ears and an odd twist to his mouth.

Bruce rolled his eyes. "No wonder Loki flew off the handle."

"Someone hasn't heard that saying about throwing stones and glass houses," Natasha said.

"Or learned subtlety," Clint grumbled.

"What?" Tony blinked owlishly at them all, some sort of shift in the room's equilibrium that had him off-kilter like he'd missed a step going down the stairs. "What the hell are you — " he rounded on Steve. "She threatened Loki's what?"

His confusion mounted when Bruce facepalmed and Steve turned impossibly redder.

Steve cleared his throat, the textbook definition of awkward as he hunched his shoulders and looked anywhere but at Tony. "Well — "

The door to the conference room burst open.

"My friends!" Thor exclaimed as he strode into the room, a huge smile splitting across his face and his arms spread wide in greeting like he hadn't been arguing over the virtues of Chinese take-out versus pizza with them an hour ago. He was outfitted in a SHIELD t-shirt and sweatpants that Tony presumed were held together by magic to not be splitting at the seams and had his damp hair in an honest-to-god man bun. "My apologies for the delay, the remains of Enchantress' prank proved most stubborn to wash off."

Thor settled into the empty seat beside Clint with the regality of a king claiming his throne. Coulson, Hill, and a handful of harried agents filed in next, Fury swooping through the door like an overgrown bat bringing up the rear, deep-seated frown already in place when he took his place at the head of the table. Hill and Coulson flanked him on either side.

"Is 'prank' really what we're going with?" Bruce asked.

Phil gave a long-suffering sigh. "So it would seem."

Fury growled under his breath and Hill was smirking for some reason, which Tony didn't know whether to find reassuring or alarming.

"Aye, I am familiar with the enchantment Amora has cast, it's quite popular at parties," Thor said, relaxed and wholly unperturbed, impervious to Phil's exasperation and Fury's caustic glare.

Tony couldn't place it, but something about the smile on Thor's face when he didn't comment further (and boy, that got Fury's eye twitching like crazy and he couldn't even enjoy it) and a millennium's worth of anecdotal evidence about Enchantress' exploits didn't convince him it was just a prank.

"Well, what did she do?" Tony asked. "I mean, is Loki okay? Why isn't he here?"

There was some awkward shifting amongst the agents in the room.

"He's in quarantine," Phil said in a clipped tone.

"Oh yeah, that'll end well," Bruce muttered under his breath.

Thor laughed. "I assure you, such measures are unnecessary," he said, leaning back in a sprawl. "The enchantment merely removes one's inhibitions and hinders their ability to deceive others, much like an overabundance of mead."

The silence that followed Thor's pronouncement was so acute that Tony could hear the buzz of the fluorescents.

"Wait, wait, that's — " Clint said, holding his hands out in front of him like a crossing guard directing traffic when half of the table tried to speak at the same time. "You're saying Loki — Trickster God, would-be conqueror of Earth, 'stab first and ask questions later' — that Loki, is magically intoxicated with no inhibitions, and you think that's fine?"

"It shall pass in a day or two," Thor said, nodding his head as if in agreement, and if Tony had thought there might be something suspicious lurking behind Thor's smile before he was certain of it now.

"Hence, quarantine," Phil said after another protracted silence.

Naturally, that was the moment Loki teleported into the room with the flair of a Las Vegas magician, all swirling cape and green smoke, holding a take-out cup of coffee with "Sitwell" scrawled across it in black marker he must have stolen from the break room. Half of his armor was missing, a glittering pink sheen still clinging to the dark fabric of his clothing, and his hair wild in effortlessly-windswept bodice-ripper cover art fashion, and good lord, Tony needed to get ahold of himself.

"Goddamn it," Fury said, rolling his eye skyward as if asking for deliverance.

Phil glanced at his watch. "You couldn't even pretend to cooperate for ten minutes?"

Steve shot him a look of pure disbelief. "Did you expect him to?"

"No."

Loki scoffed and sneered down his nose at the assembled SHIELD personnel. "Bold of you to assume your archaic, mortal containment chamber could hold Loki, Prince of Asgard, God of Mischief, Chaos and Fire." He arched a haughty eyebrow and stretched his arms out wide to display his grandeur, coffee dripping onto the carpet when the take-out cup tilted precariously in his hand.

Natasha snorted and snapped a photo on her phone.

"Someone drag his sparkling ass back to motherfucking quarantine," Fury barked, but all the agents did was shuffle their feet and avoid eye contact, eliciting another string of curses from Fury's mouth.

The spectacle of SHIELD's disintegrating chain of command was so much more entertaining than playing Who Can Make Fury's Eye Twitch, Tony mused, his attention abruptly diverted a second later when an agent tripped over the base of his chair in his haste to escape Fury's Sauron impression, sending it spinning and lurching to the side.

The agent — Hansen? Hammond? Something with an "H" — stammered apologies as Tony stood and helped him to his feet, nearly knocking heads when they both bent down to pick up the tablet that the agent had dropped. He froze when a low growl reverberated around the room like the roll of thunder.

Tony snapped upright, tablet clutched against his chest, thoughts grinding to a halt because Loki . . . Loki was staring at him.

And okay, Loki staring at him wasn't anything new. The guy had socially inappropriate staring down pat and even if Tony didn't understand Loki's fascination he'd gotten used to it, especially after they became friends. But new phenomenon or not, Loki's eyes on him had never weighed Tony down with the intensity of a butterfly being pinned to a specimen board before.

He was suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he was still in his undersuit. He liked to say he lost the ability to feel shame in his roaring twenties but something about Loki's predatory, piercing green eyes tracking him across the conference room had Tony hot under the collar and wishing his change of clothes hadn't walked off again.

Which — he wasn't a stranger to wolf-whistles and suggestive snark when he wandered around public spaces in his flight suit, and most days Tony gave as good as he got, but the weight of Loki's blatant stare, the way he could feel it like a hand stroking down the curve of his spine, had heat prickling across his skin and a tangle of embarrassment and desire twisting his stomach into knots.

And that — Tony had eyes, okay? He'd noticed that Loki's smoking (freezing?) hot, the whole damn world had acknowledged that fact even amidst Loki's misguided bid for world domination, and JARVIS could pull up the web results to prove it. So he'd noticed, of course he had, he couldn't not notice, especially after Loki became more than the sarcastic, brooding war-criminal haunting Avengers Tower and eating Tony's food and was just . . . Loki.

Witty, brilliant, complicated Loki who smiled at Tony with soft eyes and argued with him about theoretical physics and Who Wore it Better: Villain Edition after every fight, gave him bizarre trinkets from across the Nine Realms, banished his asshole ex to Pennsylvania, and badgered him into watching documentaries together "for research."

And all right, maybe Tony had it bad, and maybe it was really fucking pathetic, but they were friends, and it was amazing, and he refused to screw it up with feelings, so he'd resigned himself to never having more than that. Loki was a prince, a god, or as close as Tony thought there might be, and far above the infatuation of a Midgardian mortal almost past his prime. Loki was light-years out of his league. There was no way in hell Loki felt an iota of attraction towards him.

So, they were friends.

Weren't they?

Agent Hambone (that definitely wasn't right but Tony just didn't care anymore) eeped in terror which was all the warning Tony had before Loki was right there.

He moved fast and silent and crowded right into Tony's bubble, his eyes dark and glittering. Tony yelped and dropped the tablet, stumbling back a step into Agent Hapless (and see, that one felt warranted considering the idiot fell on his ass again).

Loki caught him before he could join Halfwit on the floor, his arms snaking around him and pulling him in, right up against his chest. Loki's hands felt huge where they settled on Tony's waist, long fingers pressing into the divot at the base of his spine.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Loki! What — "

"Careful, my Darling, can't have you getting hurt on my account. I was so taken by your beauty that I didn't think."

Tony choked on his spit, heart knocking against his ribs in an arrhythmic tattoo, because what the fuck?

The words themselves weren't that different from their usual banter (they made sport of calling each other sarcastic, soppy pet names) but the low, warm timbre of Loki's voice, the overwhelming adoration of his smile, and his thumbs rubbing circles into the jut of Tony's hips short-circuiting his brain were not normal in the slightest.

Oh god.

Tony laughed a nervous little laugh, heat crawling up his neck and across the bridge of his nose, and damn it, he was too fucking old to blush over something so innocent, what was wrong with him?

Loki's smile widened, reverence and untempered affection written into every line of his expression. Gone was the obligatory glint of humor in his eyes, the bored, deadpan delivery to take away whatever stakes such words and touches would bring in any other situation.

What the fuck is happening?

"I think my ego would have gotten a bigger bruise than my ass, but thanks," Tony managed to say, wincing when his voice cracked, mortified to feel his face flush hotter. He pushed against Loki's (fucking ridiculous) chest and Loki begrudgingly allowed an inch or so of distance, his hands sweeping up Tony's spine and across his shoulders like he couldn't bear to stop touching him.

"But no bruises marring your lovely skin at all is far preferable. Strong though you are, I cannot bear to see you come to harm." Loki smoothed back a stray curl of hair from Tony's forehead and cupped his face in his hands before leaning in so close their noses brushed.

Tony opened his mouth to respond but managed nothing more than a strangled squeak as his mind did the equivalent of a blue screen.

A piece of popcorn bounced off the side of Tony's head, and wow, he'd forgotten he was at SHIELD, the whole team and Mad-Eye Fury playing unwitting audience to his nervous breakdown, and where the fuck did Clint even get popcorn?

A dagger conjured out of nowhere struck Clint's chair, lodged scant millimeters from the side of his head. Clint rolled his eyes.

"I think we can all agree that Tony has more than enough backseat padding to prevent serious injury," he said around a mouthful of kernels. "I mean, damn, look at that thing, how many squats do you do to get an ass like that, Stark?" Another piece of popcorn bounced off Tony's right ass cheek.

Loki went from zero to rage in .03 seconds. He growled, gathered Tony back into his arms, and turned him away from the table, shielding him from stares and snack-food projectiles alike.

"What — hey! Loki!" Tony squirmed but Loki didn't budge this time, too preoccupied with trying to set Clint on fire with his mind, if the murderous gleam in his eye was anything to go by.

Wait . . . could Loki do that?

"Barton, quit antagonizing him," Phil said.

Clint pressed his hand to his chest in a who, me? gesture, tossing another kernel in his mouth. "What? Come on, we've all appreciated the view, don't act like you haven't looked. Hell, Hooper’s looking right now."

Hooper, that's the guy's name, Tony thought, looking down just in time to see Agent Hopeless tear his gaze from his ass (which, admittedly, was right in front of his face, but Tony's culpability could only go so far).

The noise Loki made when he saw the sorry-not-sorry flush of guilt all over poor Hangdog's face was positively primal, and an ominous green light started crackling around the room that simultaneously sent a thrill of dread down Tony's spine and made him weak at the knees.

Tony had never been more confused in his entire life.

"Hey, hey, no, stop that! Look at — look at me!" Tony turned Loki's head to face him, immediately distracted by the softness of Loki's hair brushing the back of his hands and how this close, he could see flecks of gold in the green of his irises. The eye contact snapped Loki from his homicidal fugue, the fury clearing from his face like storm clouds scattering to unblock the sunny smile beneath that he only seemed to have for Tony.

Tony couldn't remember what he'd intended to say if his life depended on it, error 404 not found, caught like a rabbit in the snare of those goddamn eyes and it was all he could do to look back as Loki cradled his face in his hands once more, thumbs stroking across his still embarrassingly red cheeks.

"I could look at nothing but you for the rest of my days and never tire of the view, Dearheart," Loki murmured, voice silken. "There is no more captivating a sight in all the Nine."

Loki's smile was carefree and unrestrained, the kind of smile that started slow and gained impetus, lighting up his face in increments like the opening of a flower. It was the kind of smile Tony only ever saw at the edge of his vision, in shadows and reflections, one he had never been certain he'd ever seen at all.

The breath stuttered in Tony's chest. "Oh," he croaked, unmoored and overwhelmed by Loki's naked sincerity. He was dizzy with it, skin prickling hot and oversensitive, his heart in his throat, because no one said shit like that, not in real life and not to him, and especially not with that fucking smile.

Tony swallowed, mouth gone dry, and blinked furiously, wishing desperately for the world to just make sense again, because no, no that couldn't be right, there was no way, that just didn't make sense —

"Either sit down or get a room, the sooner we finish this the sooner we can get back to movie night."

Natasha's voice cut through Tony's panicking downward spiral and brought his brain back online with a hard reset, because oh right, an entire room of his friends and coworkers were watching him self combust in real-time.

Hill elbowed Fury and coughed pointedly, holding out her hand. Fury let out an aggrieved sigh before rifling through the pockets of his trenchcoat and producing a wad of cash that he flung in her smug face, muttering under his breath about starry-eyed motherfuckers.

What, and Tony could not stress this enough, the fuck?

"Aye, I wish to know the fate of young Harry Potter and his most noble friends!" Thor agreed, and the sheer normalcy of it all — as Steve doodled on the notepad he still insisted was better than the tablet Tony gave him, Phil batted aside the popcorn Clint flicked at him with a clipboard, and Bruce and Natasha bickered over the merits of cold versus reheated pizza like a pair of high school students on the debate team — made the entire situation that much more unbelievable, that much more dreamlike in its absurdity.

Fury braced his hands against the table, a constipated grimace on his face. "Can someone please put a lid on all the goddamn stupidity and get Loki's ass back in quarantine."

"At this point letting him stay seems like the safer option," Phil said with a shrug, "unless you want to remodel this wing sooner rather than later."

Fury's eye twitched.

Ten points for Agent.

"It would also negate the need to debrief Loki separately at a later time," Hill added, shuffling the cash into a tidy stack and pocketing it.

"You always say it's best to debrief while the events are fresh in everyone's minds." Phil flashed Fury his blandest smile.

Fury glowered at them, jaw flexing as he ground his teeth. "I," he said, straightening his coat, "do not get paid enough for this shit. But you two," he pointed at Hill and Coulson, "are paid exactly enough to do it for me. I'll read the fucking report."

"Of course, Sir," Hill said, "we'll be sure to provide you with a thorough and detailed account of what transpires."

Fury growled under his breath and made a swift departure, coat flapping behind him.

"If you'll take a seat we can begin," Hill said to Tony as she and Phil sat down.

"Uh," Tony blinked at her, finding it difficult to focus with Loki's fingers tracing patterns across his jaw and drifting into the hair curling at the nape of his neck. He tried to step back and extract himself from Loki's arms but Loki moved with him, matching him step for step. "Yeah, okay, let's — " Tony winced when his voice came out too high. "Let's sit down, okay? Loki?"

Loki brightened, more enthusiastic at the suggestion of sitting through debrief than Tony felt any situation warranted, his expression eerily reminiscent of his impression of an over-excited Thor, minus the mockery. If he got through this mess he was going to give Loki so much shit, and wow, way to prioritize during a crisis, brain.

Loki herded him to the empty chair and sat down, dragging Tony with him. He seated Tony across his lap, his arms looped around him in an intimate embrace like they did this every day.

"W-wait, what are you — that's not what I meant!" Tony stammered, his words morphing into a squeak when Loki cuddled him closer.

There was a surge of electricity overloading Tony's internal processors, shorting his brain and setting off a tidal wave of conflicting impulses. Part of him wanted to melt into Loki's arms and spend the rest of debrief heckling and trading commentary like a pair of obnoxious critics. After, they could finish movie night at the Tower curled into each other on the loveseat, Tony's head on Loki's shoulder as he listened to him grumble under his breath about the absurdities and inaccuracies with Rowling's idea of sorcery the way Tony bitched about Hollywood's rampant abuse of fake science and impossible physics.

It would be so easy.

The rest of Tony was panicking, a Red Alert blaring in his head, danger, danger, Will Robinson, because this couldn't be right, this couldn't be real, he was so fucking confused, and oh god, why was Hill still smirking?

Deaf to Tony's protests Loki snapped his fingers and the take-out cup lying abandoned in a puddle of coffee at Bruce's elbow flew into his hand, splattering coffee across the table. Loki glared at the others in challenge like someone might take it from him before he returned all of his attention to Tony, demeanor softening and a warm smile lighting up his face.

"For you, Beloved," Loki declared, presenting the dented, half-empty cup to Tony with the enthusiasm of a dog gifting a dead bird to its owner. "I ventured into the very heart of SHIELD's stronghold, laid claim to their leisure room in your name, and defeated the one they call Sitwell to obtain this for you, my Anthony, your most favored beverage."

Peripherally Tony could hear muffled laughter, Phil telling someone to verify Sitwell's status, and at least two different phones snapping pictures, but it was hard to track anything when caught at the center of Loki's attention like nothing else existed in his universe.

It made Tony feel small and cared for in all the ways he had never felt.

Beholden to that smile and the way Loki glowed with pride Tony accepted the misbegotten token of affection, cradling the soggy cardboard in his hands. He was never going to get the smell of hazelnut creamer out of his flight suit but how could he possibly refuse?

"Thank you," he said softly. "You didn't — that was very . . . thoughtful."

"Anything for you, Dearheart," Loki said, his grin turning wicked. "I would procure every last ounce of coffee on Midgard if it pleased you, build you an empire, and strike down any fool who dared to stand in my way."

Okay, wow.

Tony stared at him, his mouth flapping as he searched for some sort of response, landing on an unsatisfactory, "No thank you?"

"Wow," Clint said, chewing on another handful of popcorn and nudging Natasha with his elbow. "Please tell me you're getting all of this."

She arched an eyebrow at Clint over the phone she was probably recording them on. "What do you take me for? Of course I am."

"Blackmail is wrong, Natasha," Steve chastised in an offhand tone, frowning a little as he added detail to the cartoon Loki chasing a fleeing coffee cup he was drawing on his notepad.

(It was adorable, Tony wanted it.)

"You have your hobbies and I've got mine."

Bruce leaned around the spectacle Loki was making to address Coulson and Hill, his hand raised like they were in a classroom. "I don't suppose you obtained samples of the substance Enchantress hit Loki with? Studying the properties might yield some fascinating results and we've never had anything physical to test."

"We did, but so far it looks like the residue — "

"Glitter," Clint interrupted. "Magic glitter, I don't care what the nerd squad says."

" — is a side effect, not the carrying agent of the spell."

Bruce sat back, folding his arms across his chest with a muttered curse.

"Amora must have been truly vexed to add such flair to her trickery," Thor said with a low chuckle, taking a handful of popcorn when Clint offered the bag. "She sought to humiliate, I'm sure. Were she here she'd be quite cross that Loki has not made the fool of himself that she intended, it's not often her spells backfire."

"That's subjective," Steve muttered, side-eyeing Loki who was fussing over Tony, trying to get him to drink his coffee and pouting for every second that Tony gaped at Thor, who gave Tony a bright smile and a thumbs up.

Under normal circumstances, Loki's coaxing might have worked, but Tony's brain was stuck in a feedback loop, repeating Thor's words and attempting to understand, because what did he, he just — 

Backfired?

"What?" Tony could feel the hysteria bubbling up inside of him, threatening to boil over as the team carried on with business as usual, acting for all the world like he wasn't losing his damn mind and being aggressively cuddled by the God of Mischief, and Thor was saying, saying — 

Hope, minuscule and oh-so-fragile, sparked behind Tony's ribs, snuffed out a bare second later when reality reasserted itself like a bucket of cold water, leaving behind a gnawing ache in his chest and the taste of copper in the back of his mouth. Because Thor was wrong. 

He was wrong.

He had to be wrong.

Enchantress couldn't have hit Loki with the spell Thor thought she had. In what universe would a Loki stripped of his inhibitions dote on Tony, plying him with stolen coffee, dropping sappy endearments left and right, and clinging to him like he's Loki's emotional support human?

And backfired? The only way for the spell to backfire would be if Tony returned Loki's supposed affections, which yeah, he did, of course he did, but — 

God, had he been that obvious? The gleam in Thor's eye said yes, a knowing look that made Tony's skin prickle and his insides squirm because for all that Thor loved to play up the "dumb foreigner" shtick the guy was frightfully perceptive.

Backfired. No, just — that's ridiculous. Loki doesn't want Tony, not the way Tony wants him, with his sarcasm and his wit and his goddamn cheekbones, and — 

Oh god, he's never going to recover from this, is he? His heart can't take it, this walking, talking approximation of his most pathetic, wishful fantasies that Amora twisted Loki into.

This will ruin him.

It was his own fault. Tony's done a lot of stupid things in his life — awe-inspiring, obscenely stupid self-destructive things — but this just might take the metaphorical cake. How stupid was it to fall in love with someone like — 

Wait.

Wait, oh fuck.

Time stretched for an impossible, infinite moment, the roar of white noise in Tony's ears pushing the sounds of the others chattering into the background as everything in his head stopped and turned over on itself, stalling on the careless admission he knew to be absolute the moment he allowed himself to acknowledge it.

He's in love with Loki.

He's in love with Loki.

Fuck.

Loki's hand swept up into Tony's hair and his lips brushed against his temple, the barest hint of the kiss he craved when Loki said, "You're distracted, Sweet, is something amiss?"

"I — " Tony cleared his throat and shifted on Loki's lap, trying to free himself from his embrace but Loki wasn't having it, gentle hands keeping Tony close against him and his eyes intent on his face, a frown now where there'd been a smile. Loki's fingers tracing soothing patterns across the stiff lines of Tony's back and shoulders was distracting in the very worst way, turning the screw tighter rather than providing any sort of comfort. "Yes. No. I mean — I don't know what I mean, and I — I — god, will you stop that?!"

He hadn't meant to yell, that definitely wasn't part of the plan — did he even have a plan? Who has contingencies for the friend that they're kind of, sort of, hopelessly in love with getting whammied by a butthurt sorceress, and god, how was this Tony's life?

The conference room had gone dead silent, the rumble of the air-conditioner switching on deafening in the sudden quiet. Tony could feel everyone's eyes on him but it was a distant worry, pinging somewhere at the back of his mind. He'd care later, probably before he drank himself into oblivion, but right now it was hard to focus on anything but Loki who looked gutted.

"You're upset," Loki said, a low current of tension in his voice that raised the hair on the back of Tony's neck. "I've upset you." He gave a mechanical jerk and unwound his arms from around him, leaving Tony unsteady and uncomfortably bereft.

"Whoa, hey, no, you didn't do anything wrong." Against his better judgment (a voice in his head that did not sound like Rhodey, thank you), Tony caught Loki's hands in his, guilt souring his relief when Loki twined their fingers together. He shouldn't be encouraging any of Loki's smitten behavior, but Tony was something of a masochist and a dumb one at that. "Loki, I'm not — I'm not upset. Or not — I'm not upset with you, okay? And — " 

Tony's words cut off with an undignified squeak when Loki pulled him around to face him, the flat expression sloughing off his face to reveal something far colder beneath even as he swept gentle hands up over Tony's shoulders to frame his face.

"Who has dared to harm you?" He demanded with a growl. "Who has dared to cause you such distress?" He turned blazing green eyes on their captive audience, puffing up like a snarling house cat, and whoa, where did that knife come from?

"Hey, no one here did anything, all right! Can you stop with the growling and the daggers and — " Tony drew in a ragged breath and felt it catch in his throat, everything suddenly just too fucking much, dizzy from emotional whiplash and the overwhelming certainty clawing its way to the forefront of his thoughts that the fallout of this debacle would destroy him, could destroy them.

The very idea that this might ruin their friendship had ice running through his veins.

"What, what am I supposed to do? I don't — Lokes, please, I can't . . . " Tony swallowed hard, mortified at the emotion twisting the words in his throat but without the bandwidth to stop it anymore.

He can't do this.

Loki made a distressed noise and pressed his cheek to Tony's temple, murmuring reassurances in his ear, calling him Sweetheart in that hushed, soft voice and wrapping him in a tight embrace that just made him feel worse. Tony leaned into it anyways, hating himself for taking any piece of Loki's magic-induced affection. 

This isn't real.

Under any other circumstances the chance to bury his face in Loki's neck, to breathe him in and feel small and safe in his arms, would be a dream come true rather than the worst thing to happen to Tony in recent memory.

The protective arm around his waist tightened, the hand resting at his shoulder clenching white-knuckled around the hilt of the dagger. "I promise you, Dearheart, all is well."

"It's not, it's really not," Tony said, his voice cracking on the consonants. The next breath he drew in shuddered and hitched and oh god, he can't do this, he can't deal with this, he's giving away too much, giving away everything.

The weight of all of the eyes in the room on him made it hard to breathe, made Tony want to crawl out of his skin, and he didn't want to look at them, didn't want to think, to be here, to have to deal with any of . . . whatever the fuck this was.

He needed to leave.

Right now.

He needed to leave.

Bruce shifted beside him and placed a careful hand on his arm. Loki growled, lip curling, but didn't outright protest.

"Tony, " Bruce said, cautious like he was an animal that might spook, "I think there's been a misunderstanding — "

Tony laughed.

"Guess I can't take a joke, huh?"

His voice was smooth, unwavering, and betrayed nothing as he swallowed the emotion lodged in his throat, forced back the ache behind his eyes and propped himself up, piece by piece, with a practiced paint-on smile and the iron framework that had carried him through press conferences and galas and every damn interaction with Howard since the age of eight straightening his spine. He extracted himself from Loki's arms, Loki's fingers slipping against the undersuit as he clung to whatever part of Tony he could hold without outright restraining him. "Though I hate to say it, Thunderstruck, not my idea of a good prank. We'll chalk it up to cultural differences, I guess."

Tony laughed a little more, a little darker, his smile turning self-deprecating as he turned to face the others and shrugged his shoulders, his eyes flashing over everyone without seeing any of them. He shifted back a step, away, and his foot knocked into the coffee cup that had fallen at some point during the shuffle.

No one was smiling. Mostly, they looked horrified, although Tony wasn't sure why.

Thor's face was incredulous. "My friend — "

"Look, I think we can all agree that I'm categorically awful at dealing with anyone I didn't write the code for so let's just . . . not, okay?" A waver was working its way back into Tony's voice, compromising his last-ditch effort to shove his feelings into a shoebox under the bed back where they fucking belonged.

"So this was fun and all, best debrief ever," Tony said, backing towards the door, "but I'm afraid I have a prior engagement that I really must keep unless I want to end up with Pep's stilettos in my kidneys and a metric ton of paperwork dropped on my head."

"Tony — "

"Antoshka — "

"Tones, seriously, you are not this stupid — "

Tony felt the door at his back, fumbling his hand behind him to grasp the handle.

"Anthony."

Tony locked eyes with Loki and froze, captive to the heartbreak etched across his face because fact or fiction, it was still Loki. Loki's voice twisted up in despair and Loki's face cracked open like a wound. His resolve to run wavered for only as long as it took him to remember that it wasn't really for him, that it wasn't real at all.

Tony turned the handle and slipped through the door the moment it gave. Voices followed him into the hallway but no one tried to stop him. It was the only part of the day that had gone in his favor.

-:-

"What happened?"

Tony swore and fumbled his butane torch, hopping away from it when it landed at his feet and rolled towards the fraying cuff of his jeans. Pepper stepped around him and retrieved it, turning it off and setting it on the worktable amidst the chaotic debris of his engineering binge.

"You're the last person I should have to remind I have a heart condition," Tony groused, shoving his welding goggles on top of his head. Pepper smiled, unmoved as always by the scowl he leveled on her as she unloaded the coffee and doughnuts she'd brought, her smile growing when his stomach growled. He wanted to be annoyed at the abject bribery but it was difficult when the hunger pangs he'd been ignoring for the last day or so flared with a vengeance.

"I did announce Miss Potts' arrival, Sir," JARVIS said. "Twice."

"He did," Pepper leaned back against the worktable and took a long sip of her coffee, surveying him over the rim with a critical eye.

Tony snatched a doughnut from the box, the temptation of sugary, delicious fried dough winning out over the impulse to turn his nose up at Pepper's devious offering from the breakfast food gods. "Yeah, and what part of 'blackout' do you not understand, J?" He asked around a mouthful of glazed perfection.

"My apologies, Sir," JARVIS said, sounding anything but sorry, "but the Babysitters Club: Big Sister Protocol overrides blackout at the forty-eight-hour mark."

Tony choked on his doughnut and spluttered, face flaming bright red as he coughed to clear his airway, Pepper's perfunctory pat on the back more mocking than helpful.

"Oh come on, what the fuck," Tony croaked as soon as his airway was clear, "I never approved that bullshit."

"No," Pepper agreed, nudging Tony's coffee towards him, "but I did. The building is still twelve percent mine, after all," she deadpanned.

Tony grumbled and grabbed his coffee with a pout but didn't move away when Pepper sidled closer and knocked their shoulders together, a familiar warm weight all along his left side that leeched some of the tension from his frame. She waited until he'd had a few swallows of glorious dark roast before she pushed again.

"Tony, you haven't barricaded yourself in the workshop in months. I'll admit I had reservations when you moved in a team of superpowered misfits on what amounted to a dare from Nick Fury, but to my everlasting surprise, this arrangement has been good for you. For all of you. So what happened?"

The memory of open adoration on Loki's face as he'd held him close and called him Beloved, that not even days of taking things apart to put himself back together again could purge, overwhelmed him all over again. He was horrified to feel heat blooming across his cheeks at just the thought of it.

Pepper's eyebrows shot up, the soft, concerned expression on her face superseded by outright incredulity.

"Tony?" She prompted with more force when he just stared at her, wide-eyed and more flustered than he cared to admit.

"Uh, it, it's not . . . "

Pepper's eyes narrowed and she cocked her head, pinning him with a calculating expression that never failed to send his anxiety skyrocketing when he had the misfortune of being the one scrutinized. After a few moments, Pepper's entire face realigned like the shift of gears. She cut her gaze to the workshop door even though nothing could be seen through the opaque glass, then back to Tony, a gleam of understanding in her eyes he didn't like.

"Loki has been pacing outside of the workshop and using the walls for target practice for the last two days, although I'm sure that's completely unrelated," Pepper said, raising a sardonic eyebrow. "I'm sure your schoolboy crush on him has nothing to do with it either."

"Pep — "

"You know, Natasha sent me the cutest photo," she mused, unfazed by Tony's stammering as she picked up her phone and scrolled through her camera roll, "and I thought to myself, 'finally, they got their heads out of their asses,' but, as always, I've underestimated the lengths you'll go to to self-sabotage." 

"Hey, I don't — "

Pepper covered his mouth with her hand and gave him a look. "Tony."

His shoulders slumped.

Pepper leaned in and turned her phone so Tony could see the screen and he flushed anew, a flutter in his stomach.

It was a photo from debrief of Loki and Tony curled together in a chair meant for one, Loki presenting that stupid stolen coffee and gazing at Tony like he was the center of the universe, wearing that warm, toothy smile edged in mischief that did things to Tony's heart. The Tony in the picture looked soft and shy and all the things he never dared put on display, his fingers reaching for the cup, eyes wide and over-bright. 

Looking at it made his chest ache.

He pushed the phone out of his face. "Pepper, it's just a misunderstanding — "

"Tony."

Shit, that was the Don't Fuck with Me voice. Pepper leveled a stern frown on him and he swallowed the rest of his protest.

"I don't know what led to this," she said, wiggling her phone, her tone losing its hard edge, "or why you're so determined to hide from it, but I promise that if you're doubting the way he's looking at you in this photo you haven't been paying attention."

Tony dropped his eyes, scrubbing a hand over his face and willing away the traitorous prickle of heat behind his eyes. "It's not like that."

"I think it's exactly like that," she said, not unkindly. "You deserve good things, Tony. You deserve happiness, love, and devotion. You deserve someone who looks at you the way Loki does when he thinks no one's watching."

"That's — wait, what?" He snapped his gaze back to hers, his brow creased in confusion.

Pepper smiled, fond and a little sad. "Talk to him, Tony," she said, picking up her coffee and smoothing her skirt. "You have two hours before I revoke blackout. Get yourself together and talk to him. I think you'll be surprised. Now, will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

Tony sighed, knowing it was pointless to argue with her. "That will be all, Miss Potts."

The click of her heels receded, swallowed by the swish of the door. Tony stared at the spot where she had stood, shifting the cup in his hands so he couldn't rub at the ache that had taken root behind his sternum.

"She doesn't know what she's talking about," he mumbled to himself, turning back to his work. He set the coffee down and braced his hands against the worktable, frowning at the project he only half remembered building.

"Sir, if I may," JARVIS said as Tony poked at what looked like a toaster, "I'd suggest viewing one of the photo albums on Agent Romanov's private server. She has already given her permission."

A holographic folder titled These Idiots popped up in front of him. Tony eyed the folder sidelong, fiddling with a screwdriver. "Yeah, that doesn't scream, 'trap,' at all."

"I think you'll find yourself already thoroughly ensnared, Sir," JARVIS said.

Tony turned on the nearest camera in outrage. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

An image appeared in front of him, large enough to fill his field of view. He took a step back only to stumble when more images appeared all around him in a collage spanning from floor to ceiling, surrounding him.

"JARVIS, what are you — " the words died on Tony's tongue, his eyes catching on Loki's smiling face in the photograph by his left shoulder, then the one above it, and just beside that, and . . . he swallowed hard and darted his gaze around at all of the pictures, turning in a small circle as he tried to absorb what was quite literally staring him right in the face.

It was a collection of candid shots from over the last few months. Tony noted, in the far corner of his mind, that Natasha wasn't a terrible photographer (although some of them looked like they came from security footage, should he be concerned that she and JARVIS were so buddy-buddy?), and far more of a ninja than he'd given her credit for, which was both fascinating and absolutely terrifying. 

His throat tightened, his eyes hot as they slid from image to image. Some of these moments he remembered, although not the way he was seeing them now, and more still that he didn't remember at all.

Tony absorbed in upgrades, blindly accepting blueberries from the bowl Loki was nudging towards him with bemused humor.

Loki on the workshop sofa, watching over the top of his book with a fond, secret sort of smile playing across his face as Tony rolled his eyes and scolded the bots, hand outstretched to take the tennis ball from Dummy's claw. 

Tony surrounded by science minions during a demonstration and Loki in the background, lip curled, an ominous aura of green swirling around his fingers as he glowered at the tech standing right in Tony's bubble with a hand hovering at the small of his back.

Loki with wide eyes and color high on his cheeks as Tony leaned over his shoulder to demonstrate a feature of the holodisplays, his gaze trained on their hands brushing against one another rather than what Tony was explaining.

Tony in a full-tilt rant, waving his hands over his head beside the carcass of a doombot and Loki seated on a pile of rubble, chin propped on his hand and a soft, adoring smile on his face as he watched Tony bitch.

Loki gripping a water bottle so tightly it had exploded all over the front of his armor, his stare fixed on Tony in his flight suit where he leaned over a table of schematics, the look on his face pure, wanton hunger.

Tony dead asleep, slumped against Loki on the couch in the common room, his head pillowed on his shoulder, Loki's face awash in wonderment as he gazed down at him, gentle fingers stroking back the hair spilling across Tony's forehead.

Loki watching, Loki smiling, Loki laughing, Loki — 

Holy shit, Natasha was right. They are idiots.

Tony let out a shaky laugh, wrapping his arms around his middle as his eyes fell on a photo from the gala they'd attended just a few weeks prior. That one . . . he remembered everything about that moment. Or he'd thought he did.

You're not alone, Anthony, Loki had said, not as long as I have anything to say about it.

He'd felt so vulnerable, stripped of all his armor and laid bare at those words, and Tony had wanted, with a fierceness that had almost paralyzed him, everything he couldn't have.

He hadn't realized his mask had slipped to display his inner turmoil, all of his care and restraint betrayed by a moment of weakness, his fucking heart right there on his goddamn sleeve.

He certainly didn't remember his desire so plainly mirrored on Loki's face.

Pepper's words echoed in his head. You haven't been paying attention.

Had Loki reached for him? Tony couldn't remember, preoccupied as he'd been with locking his heart up in a box and welding it shut, but he thought Loki might have reached for him, right before he'd told Loki what a great friend he was, Jesus Christ. 

I don't know what I'd do without you.

He hadn't meant to say it but it was true, and Tony was weak, clinging to whatever pieces of Loki he could get no matter how much it hurt knowing that he couldn't have everything. It was enough, it had to be, because Tony didn't know what his life looked like without Loki in it anymore. He didn't want to imagine a future Loki wasn't a part of.

His eyes flashed to the photo from debrief that Pepper had saved on her phone (literally hanging over his head, real subtle, J) and back to the dozens of others surrounding him.

Maybe he didn't have to.

If you're doubting the way he's looking at you in this photo you haven't been paying attention.

Facets of that same adoration and devotion with which Loki had gifted him a stolen coffee were all around him, each image a puzzle piece, unremarkable on their own, but together . . .

He thought he might be seeing the whole picture now.

His eyes drifted back to the gala photo, to the look on Loki's face. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and reached trembling fingers to trace the curve of Loki's cheek as if he could reassure the real Loki by proxy. His fingers slipped through the image and Tony dropped his hand back to his side, clenching it into a fist.

"JARVIS, is Loki still outside?" He could hear the tremor in his voice but couldn't bring himself to care, tugging the goggles off of his head and tossing them on the worktable. He spared a second to consider cleaning himself up before deciding he'd already wasted too much time.

"Is that a rhetorical question, Sir?"

"We really need to talk about how much time you're spending with the sarcastic assholes infesting my Tower, J."

"But I so treasure my time with you, Sir."

Tony snorted and ran his fingers through his hair, probably making it even more of a mess than it already was. "Can we get rid of the stalker scrapbook, please? And remind me to get Nat a gift basket and a restraining order."

"Very good, Sir."

The photos vanished and he turned to face the door, tipping his chin up with a confidence he didn't feel. "Lift blackout."

The glass shifted clear, and despite Pepper's comments about what Loki had been up to Tony still wasn't prepared for what he saw.

The floor was a minefield of half-empty takeout containers and weaponry. There were too many daggers to count embedded in the adjacent wall and scorch marks littering the spaces in between, green smoke stains licking upwards to the ceiling. Tony spotted You's fire extinguisher lying beside Loki where he sat slumped against the wall with his head bowed.

He was the picture of defeat and it made Tony ache.

JARVIS must have said something because Loki's head snapped up and he was on his feet, staring at Tony with wild eyes through the glass. He hastened towards the door but hesitated with his hand outstretched for the handle, uncharacteristic uncertainty all over his face.

Tony frowned. Did he think his access had been revoked?

The door swung open on its own, startling them both. "Sir is expecting you." Loki shot a wary look at the camera in the corner and stepped inside. 

He was a mess. His clothing was mismatched and rumpled, hair a tangled snarl in a haphazard ponytail and dark circles beneath his eyes. Tony had never seen him so disheveled, not even after the Hulk had smashed him into the floor.

Loki approached him slowly, with stiff, halting steps like a man walking to the gallows, so far removed from his usual easy grace it sent a frisson of nerves down Tony's spine. He stopped a few feet away, just out of reach. Loki's closed-off expression and the distance between them after months of casual touches and easy companionship were jarring, the space of a few feet too far for comfort.

Had his blind idiocy hurt Loki that much?

Tony swallowed and folded his arms across his chest so he couldn't fidget, fighting the impulse to shake his head to clear the doubts crowding his thoughts again, chipping away at the certainty that had been so absolute only minutes ago.

Don't panic, don't panic, don't fucking panic, but god, he didn't know how to do this, how did he do this? How did he fix this and get that awful look off of Loki's face? He didn't — what if he couldn't? Oh, Jesus, what if Tony couldn't fix this? 

Okay, he was panicking.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten, taking a shuddering breath as he did his best to rein himself in. He opened his eyes and took a step forward. "Loki, I — "

"I'm sorry," Loki said in a rush, like he couldn't contain the words a moment longer.

Tony froze. "What?" That . . . wasn't what he'd been expecting.

He frowned as Loki shifted on his feet and curled his hands into fists, his eyes trained on an oil stain on the floor.

Tony took another step forward, a hand reaching out to hover at Loki's shoulder, unsure if his touch would be welcomed. "Loki, you don't — "

"Anthony, please," Loki interrupted, raw despair fracturing what little control he'd been maintaining over his composure. "Please, allow me to speak and then you may say whatever you wish, and I will go, but please, I need . . . you deserve an explanation."

The bottom of Tony's stomach dropped out. Go? Why was Loki going anywhere?

Loki drew in a shaky breath, his mouth twisting. "I know there is nothing I can say to excuse my actions, but I am sorry, Anthony, more than you could ever know."

"What?" Tony rasped. "No, I — "

"I took liberties with you, I made you uncomfortable, I made you flee, and for that there can be no forgiveness, but you must know that I never meant to burden you with my feelings, to force — "

Loki cut himself off, misery distorting his features as he hunched in on himself.

Oh. Oh no.

Loki thought . . . of course that's what Loki thought. Tony should have realized, stupid, he should have — 

"I understand if you no longer want me here. This is your home, Anthony, and if you wish it, I will leave. I will do whatever is necessary to make this up to you, and if you desire never to see me again I will banish myself from your sight, from all of Midgard." Loki pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and shut his eyes. "There's no punishment more fitting for such craven behavior."

"What — no!"

Tony grabbed Loki's wrist and wrenched his hand from his face, his other hand grasping the front of his tunic, and Loki finally, finally looked at him, his eyes round in shock.

"I would never send you away, how could you think that?" Tony demanded, the effect somewhat ruined when his voice wobbled. "There's nothing you could do that — I'd never do that!"

Oh god, his eyes were wet.

"Anthony . . . " Loki placed a shaking hand over the one clinging to his tunic, his fingers ghosting over Tony's skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. His other hand moved towards Tony's face, hesitating before grazing his cheek, thumb brushing away the moisture brimming at Tony's eyelashes and threatening to spill over. He searched Tony's face and Tony didn't know what he saw but he'd never seen Loki so lost. "You . . ."

"I'm an idiot," Tony said, because it was true. "We both are. Huge, unbelievable idiots and the others will never let us live it down."

"Anthony, what — "

"The spell," Tony interrupted, before he lost his nerve. "Thor said that the spell lowered inhibitions, that it impacted your ability to deceive others. Was that true?"

Loki stiffened and shifted back but didn't untangle the grip that they had on one another, some complicated emotion Tony couldn't parse passing across his face.

"Yes," Loki said slowly, "although the great oaf explained it poorly." He paused, his eyes darting to where Tony still clung to him, where the pads of his fingers grazed Tony's skin. "It makes one honest, in the most basic sense, removing doubt and insecurity and any care for the rules of polite society."

"So you meant it?" Tony asked, voice wavering. "Everything you said, everything — you really meant it?"

Loki flushed a blotchy red. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again before forcing his features into a mask of defiance. "All my words and all my actions were just that, mine. I did nothing that I haven't wanted to do for almost all the time I've known you."

Gentle touches and heartfelt endearments, heated gazes, claiming hands, and an open, easy smile all filtered back through Tony's memory and he almost laughed, dizzy at the thought that he could have this after all. He — 

"Wait, even taking control of the world's coffee supply?"

The question came out in a rush, wholly unpermitted, and Tony wanted to smack himself.

Loki twitched, the flush of color on his cheeks darkening. "Except for that."

Tony grinned at the memory and Loki's obvious embarrassment as he closed the space between them, turning the hand against Loki's chest to interlace their fingers as the other moved to cover the hand still at his cheek, leaning into the touch. "See, you say that, but I saw how your face lit up when you waxed poetic about conquering SHIELD's break room."

Loki had frozen, still as a statue and staring like he couldn't comprehend what was happening.

"You really meant it?" Tony asked again, his smile softening to something almost shy, and Loki . . . Loki didn't say anything.

Tony's smile faltered, insecurity worming its way back in for every second that ticked by and Loki didn't respond. After half a minute his face fell entirely and he pulled away.

The movement brought Loki back to himself, his eyes sparking with something fierce, something triumphant, something that had heat curling low in Tony's belly. He caught Tony around the waist and pulled him flush against him, his other hand sliding across his jaw to curl his fingers into the hair at the base of Tony's skull as he leaned their foreheads together, pinning him in place with a penetrating gaze.

"Never, in all the Nine, have I wanted anything half as much as I want you," Loki said, low and fervent. "You shared your world with me, your thoughts, your astounding creations, gave me a place and a purpose despite having every reason not to, and never once asked for anything in return."

Loki brushed his thumb across the apple of Tony's cheek, seemingly captivated by the motion, the feeling of skin on skin. When he spoke again his voice was filled with wonder.

"You see me for what I am, accept me for what I am, you, my fierce, clever, infuriating mortal. You feel so much, care so much even as you try to convince us all otherwise, even as you bleed for a world that does not deserve you, because that is who you are, Anthony, and how could I do anything but love you? You bring light to my existence where there has only been darkness, have reawakened a heart I'd thought long destroyed. You are everything, Anthony. Everything I don't deserve, everything I could ever want."

"Oh," Tony breathed, "so, yes, then? That's — you could have just said yes, y'know, and . . . and . . . " He faltered when Loki trailed his thumb down his cheek to stroke across his bottom lip, hooded green eyes tracking the motion and darkening, and wasn't that just . . . wow. "You really love me?" God, they hadn't even kissed yet, how was he already breathless?

Loki's sharp gaze snapped back to his, emerald fire that threatened to consume him whole, a pyre Tony was prepared to throw himself upon without a single regret. "I am yours, Anthony, mind, body, and soul if you would have me."

Tony laughed, a little hysterical as he wound his arms around Loki's shoulders, freeing Loki's hair from the messy ponytail so he could better run his fingers through it. "If I would have you? If I would — we're never going to hear the end of how stupid we've been, you know that, right? Natasha already has a lifetime's worth of blackmail material and an unholy alliance with Pepper and my turncoat AI."

JARVIS apparently taking that as his cue, a flurry of the aforementioned blackmail material appeared all around them in the same fashion as before, although the photographs projected now told a somewhat different story than what he'd shoved in Tony's face earlier. 

Loki nonplussed as he tested the balance of the dagger left gift-wrapped for him on the coffee table as Tony spied from around the corner, all insecurity and wide-eyed hope.

Tony wearing a dreamy, wistful smile as he watched Loki poking at the microwave with a spoon and a dubious frown.

Loki performing magic tricks for the bots as Tony observed from his workstation, not even pretending to be productive and grinning so hard it hurt.

Tony blushing to the roots of his hair and choking on his coffee when Loki strolled into the kitchen shirtless and covered in a sheen of sweat from an afternoon sparring with Thor.

Loki immersed in explanation of the Bifrost, weaving his seiðr with Tony's holograms like it was the most natural thing in the world while Tony gazed at him as though he'd hung the moon.

Tony with a dusting of color across his cheeks and his bottom lip between his teeth as Loki verbally eviscerated a pack of paparazzi, a fireball in one hand and the other keeping Tony behind him.

Loki and Tony seated beside one another in the rear of the Quinjet, Loki's eyes trained on the dagger he was cleaning as Tony brought the collar of the cloak Loki had draped around his shoulders to his nose, eyes closed as he inhaled his scent.

Tony flustered, Tony pining, Tony goddamn googly-eyed, and he was going to have to bribe Pepper with all of the shoes to never, ever show Rhodey any of this, wasn't he?

"Anthony . . . " Loki's voice was hushed, his eyes bright as they jumped from image to image. He paused, transfixed by something behind him. Tony looked over his shoulder to see the photos from debrief and the gala right beside one another. Loki's fingers spasmed against him, tightening at the curve of his waist. "Anthony, you really . . . " 

Tony cupped Loki's face in his hands and tilted his head down, leaning in to brush their lips together in a whisper of a kiss. "Of course I love you," he said, smiling helplessly when Loki's blazing green eyes locked with his. "Loki, I . . . I'm not good at this, I never have been, but I am so stupid in love with you that sometimes I can't breathe, and I — "

Loki cut him off with a desperate kiss that Tony leaned into with his entire body, moaning when Loki nipped at his bottom lip before soothing the sting with a sweep of his tongue. Tony pushed up onto his toes to deepen it, tangling his fingers in Loki's hair, intoxicated by his taste and the way he groaned when Tony pressed up against him.

He wasn't sure who moved first but Loki's hands were sliding greedily over his ass and down his thighs to lift him off his feet as Tony grappled at Loki's shoulders to climb him like a tree. There was a clatter as tools and bits of circuitry were knocked to the floor when Loki deposited him on the worktable.

They spent long minutes lost in the fever of grasping hands and the slide of tongues, only breaking apart when Tony was gasping for breath. Loki's touch gentled, long fingers stroking reverently over all the skin he could touch and through the chaotic mess of Tony's hair. When he kissed Tony again it was with a languid brush of lips and a contented hum.

Tony threaded his fingers through silky black hair and hooked his ankles at the small of Loki's back, pulling him into the cradle of his hips until there was no space between them. "So," he murmured, looking up at Loki from beneath his eyelashes, "want to show me why they call you Silver Tongue?"

A wolfish grin split across Loki's face. "Oh, Dearheart, it would be my utmost pleasure."

Epilogue

"Are you sure we don't need to do something about . . . that?" Bruce asked, a bemused frown on his face as he jerked his head towards the far side of the lab where Loki was deep in conversation with one of the R&D techs.

Okay, conversation might not be the right word, Tony conceded, smiling to himself as Loki slung his arm around Anderson's shoulders, smile sharp and eyes flashing, the dagger in his other hand glinting in the light as he gestured. Anderson went sickly pale when Loki jabbed the dagger at him to drive home his point, nodding his head in enthusiastic agreement to whatever he was saying. Loki grinned, wicked and utterly pleased with himself.

Why was that adorable?

"Nah," Tony said, toying with the schematic he and Bruce had been studying, huffing when Bruce smacked his hands away and minimized the holodisplay back to the original size. "Look at how much fun he's having, he's been looking forward to this all week."

Bruce gave Tony a flat look over the rim of his glasses. "He's spent the last twenty minutes threatening your employees with bodily mayhem if they even look at you sideways and Anderson's about thirty seconds away from peeing his pants."

Tony rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Brucie, Anderson's a douchebag and a lawsuit just waiting to happen, my ass isn't the only one I've caught him staring at. This is way more fun than sending him to a workplace sexual harassment seminar. More likely to leave a lasting impression too."

Bruce snorted which wasn't a disagreement so Tony took it as a win.

"Only you would think Loki acting like a possessive, murderous little shit is cute."

Tony couldn't keep the beatific smile off his face as they watched Anderson rear back at an awkward angle when Loki pulled him flush to his side in an iron hold, smiling like a shark. The rest of the science minions were giving the pair a wide berth, skirting that side of the lab and shooting terrified looks at one another from behind tablets and machinery. 

Yeah, that probably shouldn't be adorable.

"What can I say, Loki takes his boyfriend duties very seriously." 

"We've noticed," Bruce deadpanned. "And the next time I find you two within three feet of each other in my workspace I'm siccing You and his fire extinguisher on you. Wearing pants in the lab is non-negotiable, Tony, that's a hill I'll die on."

Tony pressed a hand to his chest with a theatrical gasp. "Why, Dr. Banner, I would never!"

"Security footage and the imprint of your ass on the display console says otherwise."

"Okay, so maybe, theoretically, something like that might have happened. Once. Or twice. Or — Bruce, look at him," Tony gestured at Loki, who had caught Anderson's tie in his fist and yanked to force him to look him in the eye, smile unhinged as the shadows around them writhed and stretched to loom high overhead. "I'm only human, how can I say no to that face?"

"I regret having any part in facilitating the insanity that is your relationship."

"Excuse you, we're delightful," Tony said, sticking his nose in the air and giving Bruce a playful shove when he laughed.

Loki sauntered over not long after, terrified scientists skittering out of his path. He wrapped his arms around Tony's waist from behind and pressed a kiss to his temple before resting his chin on top of Tony's head. Tony leaned back into the embrace, grinning up at him. "So, good talk?"

"Quite," Loki said with a pleased hum. "We came to an accord on the proper way to conduct oneself in a professional environment that I think everyone can agree on, and detailed the consequences of my displeasure. I believe it was . . . effective."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "I'll bet."

"That's why you're the best, isn't he the best, Bruce?"

"He's certainly something."

Tony turned in Loki's arms to face him, tugging at the lapels of the suit Loki had put on for the occasion. "How about we get out of here? I think it's been a pretty productive day, don't you? We could have a bite to eat, wander through the park, see a show — or we could put on sweatpants and start that new docuseries, it looks terrible and we have plenty of primo snacks."

He'd successfully stashed the cheesy popcorn and they hadn't finished working their way through the You Deserve Each Other gift basket of vodka, chocolate, and gummy knives Natasha had dumped outside the workshop.

Loki smirked, his hands drifting scandalously low to tug Tony forward by the hips. "Oh, I could certainly go for a bite," he growled in Tony's ear, nipping at the lobe.

"Gross," Bruce said as he fiddled with the schematic, but there was a tiny smile on his face.

Tony shivered, warmth pooling low in his belly as all thoughts of doing anything that required more than the two of them alone and preferably naked fled at the dark promise in Loki's voice.

Snacks and bad TV could wait.

"Yeah, let's — we should definitely do that." Tony cleared his throat, flushing under the heat of Loki's stare. "Bruce, we'll, uh, we can . . . later?

"For the love of god, just go. Hearing the two of you talk is bad enough, I don't need the visual."

"We're adorable and you know it!" Tony said, laughing as Loki pulled him into a kiss and swept them away.