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Tony doesn’t remember falling asleep.
One moment, he’s sitting on the couch in his workshop, an untouched glass of whiskey on the table, holographic schematics flickering in the dim light. The next — there’s something lying on top of him. Long, lean, and cold.
Loki.
The realization comes before he even opens his eyes, before his mind fully claws its way out of exhaustion. Because who else moves like that? Who else has that kind of presence — something humming beneath the surface, electric and aware, even when its owner doesn’t want it to be?
His brain, trained for self-preservation, runs through the usual checklist:
— No stab wounds? Check.
— No weird mind-control tricks? Check.
— Still breathing? Also check.
A good start.
He blinks his eyes open and looks down. The dim glow of the schematics casts fractured light across Loki’s face. The god is curled against him like he never meant to be, body tense, wound tight like a spring. One hand is half-clenched in the fabric of Tony’s shirt, like he reached out in his sleep but changed his mind at the last second.
Tony knows what that’s like.
He just watches for a while. Because this Loki — this is the one almost no one ever sees. Not the sharp-tongued, self-satisfied god. Not the conqueror, crowned in fire and ruin. Just a person, caught somewhere between exhaustion and instinct, wrapped in silence and something that looks suspiciously like uncertainty.
Tony tips his head back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. His thoughts are slow, heavy.
Loki looks like a ghost.
Not in the obvious way — not like some dead thing walking through walls — but in the way that matters. Always on the edge of something, slipping between roles, between selves, between versions of himself. A man with no solid shape, no past he acknowledges, no future he trusts. Always running, even when he stands still.
Tony gets it.
Because that’s the thing about ghosts — they’re made of what’s left behind.
Loki stirs.
A small shift, a slow inhale, that in-between moment — almost awake, but not quite. His fingers tighten slightly, pulling just a little at the fabric of Tony’s shirt.
Tony waits.
Somehow, he knows: if he moves too quickly, Loki will be gone. Slipping away, out of reach, out of sight, like smoke on the wind. He always does. Here one second, gone the next. Never letting himself be held.
So Tony stays still.
And then — so quiet he almost misses it — Loki murmurs something against his shoulder.
At first, it’s just breath, a sigh hovering at the edge of sleep and waking. But then, just as Tony decides he imagined it, he hears it again.
His name.
Not Stark. Not Iron Man.
Just Tony.
Soft. Uncertain. Like Loki never meant to say it out loud.
Tony exhales slowly, evenly, like he’s trying not to startle a wild animal.
Funny, he thinks. For all of Loki’s sharp edges, for all his arrogance, he says Tony’s name like it’s fragile. Like he’s testing whether it can hold the weight of his voice.
Tony doesn’t say anything back. Just moves his hand, slow and careful, until his fingers brush against Loki’s wrist. A light touch — but real, solid.
And Loki?
Loki doesn’t pull away.
Not yet.
Loki doesn’t dream.
Not the way mortals do. Not in soft, scattered images or meaningless stories spun from memory. When Loki sleeps, it’s something else.
A return.
He sees Jotunheim.
Not the frozen wasteland Thor spoke of — war, blood, jagged ice, an enemy kingdom, distant and faceless like the monsters of Midgard’s myths. No, Loki sees Jotunheim as it must have been before — before he was taken, before he was remade.
And in his dreams, he is a child.
Not Asgardian. Not hidden. Just himself.
Blue skin, red eyes, small hands pressed against the ice, waiting for it to yield beneath his touch.
But it never does.
And that is always where the dream ends.
Not in fire, not in freezing cold, but in the unbearable silence of something that should have been his but never will be.
Loki wakes with the unmistakable sense of someone else’s presence.
The slow, steady rhythm of a heartbeat beneath his cheek. Calm breathing, the warmth of another body pressed against his own.
For a fraction of a second, panic claws at him. A thousand years of survival screaming — Move, disappear, disappear — before the moment becomes truly real. Because if it’s real, it can be taken away.
But then he feels the weight on his wrist.
Not a grip, not a trap. Just presence.
A point of contact. A promise.
And Tony — Tony — hasn’t moved.
Hasn’t pushed him away, hasn’t made a sharp remark to break the silence, hasn’t shattered the moment Loki was already bracing to lose. He’s just there beneath him — calm, steady, as if Loki pressing against him in sleep is something completely ordinary.
Loki hates him for it.
For the ease. For the patience.
For the way Tony Stark, of all people, has somehow slipped into his orbit in a way that feels almost constant.
For the fact that Tony, Tony, has never once flinched from him.
Tony’s hand is still resting on his wrist.
Loki watches it, unmoving, unsure why it matters at all.
His life has been full of touch in a thousand variations. Thor — rough, unchecked affection, an arm thrown carelessly over his shoulder, as if that could keep him in place. Frigga — quiet, reassuring, a palm against his cheek, an unspoken I see you. Odin — careful, measured, the touch of a king, a father — a liar.
But this — this — is different somehow.
Because Tony touches him like he’s not expecting anything in return.
Like he’s not trying to claim something.
He just exists beside him — warm, real, unwavering — as if Loki is allowed to be here. No questions. No consequences.
Loki exhales slowly, shifting his fingers just slightly, barely brushing against Tony’s wrist in return. A silent acknowledgment. A quiet acceptance.
And Tony?
Tony just lets him.
Says nothing. Doesn’t move.
Just allows.
For a long time, neither of them speaks.
The room is filled with the soft hum of holograms still flickering overhead, the quiet buzz of machines in sleep mode. Tony’s heartbeat is steady beneath Loki’s cheek, an unfamiliar rhythm he catches himself measuring, memorizing.
He could stay like this.
Just a little longer.
But Tony—because of course it’s Tony—is the first to break the silence.
“You talk in your sleep, you know.”
Loki tenses, his fingers twitching slightly against Tony’s wrist. A cold spark flickers at the edge of his mind, but he smothers it immediately, forces himself to stay still.
“I do not.” The words come out too sharp, too fast. A defense mechanism. Instinct.
Tony exhales softly — not quite a laugh, but close.
“Sure. And I have a perfectly healthy relationship with whiskey.”
Loki frowns into the fabric of his shirt, swallowing the urge to simply disappear. The first mistake was staying long enough to be noticed. The second — thinking Tony Stark would ever let something go.
“What exactly did I say?” he asks carefully, voice steady, controlled.
Tony shifts slightly but doesn’t pull away, his fingers still resting lightly against Loki’s wrist.
“Nothing interesting, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he says. “No secret world domination plans, no dramatic love confessions.”
Loki glares at him.
Tony smirks.
“But you did say my name.”
Loki goes still.
Tony’s tone is light, careless, that same easy, almost reckless way he hides behind. But Loki knows him too well now — too well — to miss what’s underneath.
Something careful. Something unexpectedly fragile.
He hates it.
“That’s hardly surprising,” he says flatly. “You are insufferably persistent. Perhaps even my subconscious is tired of your voice.”
“Hate to break it to you, Bambi, but that wasn’t the tone of a guy who’s complaining.”
Loki exhales slowly, forcing the tension back into his chest, making himself stay composed, detached, untouchable.
“You’re unbearable.”
“And you’re avoiding.”
Loki wants to argue. Wants to remind Tony who he’s talking to, how dangerous it is to provoke him. Wants to laugh, turn this conversation into meaningless wordplay, something that won’t matter.
But he’s still here.
Still pressed against him.
Still allowing Tony to touch him, to hold him, in a way no one ever has — not out of duty, not out of expectation, but simply because he wants to.
And Loki has no defense against that.
Tony must sense the shift, because when he speaks again, his voice is quieter.
“You know, for someone who keeps trying to be untouchable, you’re terrible at leaving.”
Loki stops breathing for a fraction of a second. Just enough that if it were anyone else, they wouldn’t notice.
“You assume too much.”
“Maybe.”
Tony’s fingers tighten just slightly around his wrist. Not demanding. Not asking. Just there.
“But you’re still here, aren’t you?”
And Loki—
Loki has no answer.
The problem is, Loki has spent his whole life learning how to leave.
And he’s good at it — too good. A master of disappearances, slipping between roles, between identities, between worlds that never truly belonged to him. He’s walked away from thrones, from battles, from family, from every place that dared to call him its own.
And yet.
"You’re still here, aren’t you?"
Tony’s voice lingers in the silence, heavier than it should be. Not an accusation. Not a plea. Just a simple fact, resting between them, waiting to be acknowledged.
Loki should leave.
It would be easier. Simpler. He could pull himself from Tony’s warmth, slip into the shadows, vanish into the silence that has always been his. He could make this a fleeting weakness, a mistake, nothing — before it becomes something he can’t take back.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he allows himself to simply breathe.
Allows himself to stay — just a little, just enough to feel the weight of this moment. The warmth of Tony beneath him, the steady heartbeat under his cheek, the quiet, unwavering presence of a man who should have pushed him away a long time ago.
"Maybe," Loki murmurs, carefully, as if tasting the words. "For now."
Tony shifts but doesn’t pull away.
"Well, I’m not picky. I’ll take what I can get."
Light, easy, effortless. A half-joking answer that leaves the door open rather than closing it. A choice, not a demand.
Loki exhales slowly, feeling something loosen inside him, just enough to let the words slip free.
"I don’t dream."
Tony stills. Barely. Just for a fraction of a second.
"Okay."
Loki swallows. Steps forward. Stays.
"Not like mortals do."
A pause.
"Yeah?"
Loki shifts, turning his head just enough to see Tony’s face in the dim light. His eyes glint in the darkness, watchful but not judging.
"They’re not... stories," Loki continues, searching for the right words. "They’re echoes. Memories. Things that have happened... or things that never did. I don’t control them."
Tony watches him for a long moment.
And then he just nods. Just. Surely.
"Yeah. I get that."
And the worst part — the worst part — is that Loki believes him.
Because of course Tony Stark understands what it means to be haunted by the past. To live with what can’t be undone. To exist among the ruins of what was lost, what was broken, and what was never built in the first place.
For a while, neither of them speaks again.
And then —Tony stretches, slow and lazy, exhaling just a little easier than he probably should.
"Sooo," he drawls, "completely unrelated question — hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to convince a certain god of mischief that he’s not a ghost, what would be my best plan?"
Loki raises a brow.
"Hypothetically?"
"Absolutely."
Loki hums, considering.
"You could just surrender. Save yourself the inevitable failure."
"See, the problem is, surrendering? Not really my style."
"What a shame."
"For you," Tony corrects, grinning.
Loki rolls his eyes — but doesn’t pull away.
And Tony?
Tony just keeps looking at him like he already knows the answer. Like it was never really a question at all.
"So what’s it gonna be, Bambi? You staying or what?"
And this time, Loki answers.
Not with words.
But by not disappearing.
By staying — for the first time.