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The knock startled Tony, sending the clay figurine flying from his fingers into the street below. He lent over the balustrade in time to watch it shatter on the cobblestones, the smithereens of the dragon crunched further under the boots of a harried passerby.
There was no sense lamenting what was lost, a manta he adopted for most of his daily life, but he held the pieces in his sight for a few moments longer before tugging up his robe from where it had slipped off his shoulder.
Marvel frowned on patrons not strictly adhering to timings. Clint must’ve been guarding the front door. Everyone knew the Vanir was weak to gold as was typical of his race, but there would be trouble with management if they found out he was letting patrons in early.
‘Tony?’ a whisper called, and he slumped, shucking off his courtesan persona. Padding across the room, he slid back the wooden beam locking the door, a pretense of safety in a world of monsters.
Pepper breezed past him, the scent of honeysuckle and stolen sticky buns wafting after her, arms filled with cosmetics that tumbled from her arms to roll across the wooden flooring.
‘You’re not dressed yet?’ she asked, her lips stained purple from berries.
‘There’s no rush.’ Stepping over Pepper’s gown to get to his bed, Tony gathered his pieces of parchment together from where he’d been drawing his inventions, still unable to make any further progress from when he had been a child.
Inventing wasn’t a skill he needed. A foolish dream perhaps.
‘You have been asked to take the utmost care with your guest tonight,’ Pepper told him, bending into a crouch so she could examine her cosmetics, picking up the stub of kohl and flicking it out of the window.
That could mean two things, a patron had special needs that none of the others would facilitate, which would greatly reduce his debt owed to Marvel.
Biting his lip, Tony spread his fingers across the silk of his bedspread.
Or it was a request from Him.
Before this life of oozing sensuality and carnal colors, there was a stone hovel and the frigid wind that stole limbs with its bite. There was a father and a mother, and there was pain and suffering.
Tony only remembered the talons of starvation clenching at his stomach, of being curled beneath a rotten blanket on a hard floor. The wind would creep in between the cracks of the door, carrying whispers from his parents.
Sell the child.
As the line between this world and the next began to blur, death coaxing Tony into a dance, He had appeared.
Gold had been exchanged, and Tony had been bundled away to somewhere called Asgard, never again to see his parents, unable to even recall what they looked like now.
‘Can I help you get ready, Tony?’ Pepper scattered his thoughts, and he waved her forward, glaring as she dropped sparkling eye powder on his silk bedding. Dipping her head in apology, Pepper grasped Tony’s chin in her hand, tilting his face towards the nebulous sky outside, considering.
‘I can give you the chance to change your destiny,’ He had whispered, emerald eyes glowing as the lice had been scrubbed from Tony’s hair, a bowl of stew placed before him as his savior gazed down at him.
He had been the most beautiful creature Tony had ever seen, his hair the embodiment of night, skin the color of moonlight on milk. Not once had He flinched from Tony’s dirty fingers, He had welcomed Tony in an embrace no matter how many years passed.
It was through Him that Tony had learnt to be warm.
‘Love’s kiss. That’s what you shall be my darling.’
Tony shook the memories away.
‘Who asked for me?’ Tony asked, knowing Pepper would understand the meaning.
‘Loki asked you give his guest a kiss.’
A request from Him.
Tony’s kiss was legendary. It brought lesser creatures to the boundary of death and life, with those capturing the reapers fancy never returning to the land of the living. Those in the higher echelons would be rendered comatose in sweet dreams of perfume and the promise of more.
Pepper slicked red over Tony’s lips, painting the skin above his top lip to give him the bee sting pout his patrons favored, eliciting images of pillowing their rough flesh against his supple body.
Tony hadn’t seen it as a betrayal that he’d been given to Marvel, it was a strategic move. He was useful here, and every once in a rare spring moon, He would visit Tony, bestowing gifts and praises on him.
‘You are beautiful, beloved,’ He would praise, long fingers cradling his jaw, his lips, bestowing a hint of a bite against Tony’s cheekbone.
Pepper’s makeup brush pushed against his skin to the bones beneath, leaving staining pigment behind, accentuating his human fragility, a rare novelty in a world ruled by creatures that lived beyond the stars.
‘Once you rid this world of the vile creatures that walk it, we shall be together my love.’ Loki had placed a bottle into his palm, an indigo diamond with viscous potion clinging to the sides.
Promises. Promises that Tony clung to when the sun shone outside his window and his thoughts were his own.
There would be no droplet of poison held within his kiss tonight, not at Loki’s request, Tony’s lips would be drenched with his love, the bitterness tart on the tip of his tongue.
No matter how many he ensnared with whispered rumors, the thrill of the unknown, there was only one creature Tony would allow his naked lips to touch, one brushed touch without powder or poisons.
A kiss imbued with nothing more than affection and sweetness.
For now, Tony would bide his time.