Chapter Text
Ding-ding!
Loki winced, his fingers clenching around the plastic cup. The insistent sound of the bell was like a hot poker to his brain. He was still recovering when an equally inisitent voice hollered at him from the direction of the counter.
“Hey Stretch, what’s a guy have to do to get a hot drink here?”
Loki looked up and was briefly disoriented. His own face scowled back at him, reflected in a pair of large, expensive sunglasses. The owner of these abominable glasses was perched on a counter stool, his hand resting next to the offending bell.
Loki hated the bells.
Months ago, Barton had hung a string of bells on the front door of the coffee shop. At Barton’s Beans it was ‘his shop, his rules’, so Loki had had to bite his tongue and endure the change. They were hateful things; bright and jingling and offensively merry. On busy days, they jingled almost constantly, cutting above the low chatter and the steady gurgle of the espresso machine. Thor didn’t seem to mind them. Darcy said they added character. Loki loathed them with a force he was unaware he could muster towards inanimate objects.
Today had been a particularly wretched morning. There was a steady migraine throbbing in Loki’s temples, a large coffee stain drying on his apron; the espresso machine had fucked up twice, nearly drenching him in scalding liquid. The customers had been an endless hoard of pretentious teenagers and surly business people. Loki had long since given up acting cordial. The dual sensations of coffee grounds under his nails and his shirt sticking to his abdomen had killed his customer service skills for the day.
Ding-ding!
This ringing came from the bell they kept on the dining counter; the one with the hand-written sign that cheerily encouraged people to ‘please ring for service!’ The bell-ringer with the gaudy sunglasses seemed entirely unaffected by Loki’s mood. Oblivious or just unconcerned, Loki couldn’t actually tell.
“The line is over there,” the barista jerked his head toward the register, where a shabby looking teenager waited impatiently for his iced coffee. “I’d be happy to help you register, sir.” He forced a perfunctory smile and turned away as he popped a lid on the cup in his hands. The man made a sound behind him, probably indignant. Loki ignored him. He handed the teen his gently crushed beverage and sent him away sulking. By the time he closed the register and looked back up, he was face to face with those obtrusively large glasses again. He heaved and inward sigh.
“How can I help –”
“What was this place before?” The sunglasses demanded, cutting Loki off. “A bakery, right? Or no, not that. It was something though, I swear I’ve been here before…” He swiveled his head around dubiously, taking in the chalkboard menu and the corkboard covered with flyers. “Was it a bar?” He wondered aloud, his brow was furrowed. He didn’t seem to be expecting an answer from Loki as he squinted at the burnt-orange walls with suspicion. His expression was hard to read beneath the obnoxious glasses.
“A dry cleaners.” Loki corrected. The man was shorter now that he wasn’t perched on one of the counter stools. Much shorter. Loki might have had a full five inches on the guy. Granted, Loki was used to being the tallest in the room. But it was still satisfying to have the jerk in the aviators looking up to talk to him.
Not that he was looking at Loki at the moment. “Dry-cleaners, right, that’s what it was! I knew I recognized it last time…” The guy nodded, clicking his tongue and looking at the antique espresso machine with interest. “They really fixed the place up. How long have you guys been here?”
“Four years.” Loki answered, drumming his fingers on the counter irritably. The guy whistled in surprise, and Loki clenched his teeth at the fresh wave of pain through his skull.
“Shit, I need to get out more.” The man said vaguely. But he seemed to be speaking to himself more than anyone else. He still wasn’t looking at Loki, his attention focused instead on the menu over his shoulder. He stood there, tapping his credit card irritatingly against the counter and not paying Loki the slightest bit of attention. Loki waited, wrestling down his impatience. The lunch rush had died, leaving no one to save Loki from this man’s company. Fantastic.
“Hey, what happened to Blondie?” Sunglasses asked suddenly. “Last time I was here there was this blonde guy,” the man gestured to his own styled brown hair, “You know, huge? Handsome? Body like a line-backer, personality like a golden retriever?” He leaned to peek around Loki, as if he suspected Thor might be hiding underneath his apron.
Loki bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.
“He's is busy,” He snapped. “You’ll have to take your coffee without a side of eye candy today, I’m afraid." He fixed the most sour excuse for a smile he could muster on to his face. "Apologies for the inconvenience.”
There was a moment’s pause. The man behind the glasses had stopped craning to look around Loki and settled back on his heels. For the first time, Loki had apparently earned his full attention. He could see the blurry motion of blinking eyes behind the dark lenses. He stood his ground, aware that he had been out of line but not really in the mood to care at this point. Finally, the man’s mouth kicked up on one side.
“Well, I don’t know about that." The man said, his voice blessedly quieter now. "Blondie’s sweet and all, but he’s not really my type. ” There was tone to the guy’s comment Loki couldn’t quite place. “He certainly never sassed me.” He was still looking straight at Loki as he reached up to pull his glasses off.
They had obscured an absurd amount of this guy’s face. Once they were out of the way Loki’s reflection was replaced by a frankly startling pair of eyes. His neat goatee and freshly ironed suit all gave Loki the impression he was talking to some middle-aged businessman. But the cocky grin and bright eyes were set in a disarmingly youthful face, creased only by premature laugh lines. His eyes were honey-brown and framed with lashes so ludicrously long they’d make Darcy jealous.
“Well, as you were so clever to notice, I am not ‘Blondie’,” Loki answered silkily.
The brown-eyed man snickered, and Loki felt some of his tension ease despite himself. He watched him tuck the horrendous sunglasses into his jacket pocket with an odd sense of satisfaction.
“You’ve got an accent.” The guy said, looking back up. He sounded genuinely surprised by the realization. “What is that, British?”
“English.” Loki corrected, narrowing his eyes. “And I’ve been speaking to you for the last five minutes.”
The man gave him a careless shrug. “Yeah, sorry, I have a thing,” he gestured meaninglessly, waving his credit card about in the air. “An attention span thing, you know – and anyway, in my defense, you were boring before.”
Loki blinked several times, incredulous. The nerve of this man!
“So I am interesting enough now then?”
“Pretty much.” Was the unremorseful answer he received. “What’s your name…?” The guy leaned forward on the counter, squinting at his name tag. Loki resisted the urge to cover it with his hand and stick his tongue out.
“Lo-ki,” the man pronounced deliberately, cocking his head to the side. It was his turn to look incredulous.
“Loki? Really? Is that a British name? That’s not British at all. That’s Scandinavian or something. Loki.” The guy tried out Loki’s name several times, seeming to consider it very seriously, before finally shaking his head. “Nope.”
Loki raised his eyebrows.
“I beg your pardon?” He asked, despite his better instincts. “‘Nope’ what?”
“Nope. Not into it. You need a nickname. I like nicknames, let’s give you a nickname.” The guy crossed his arms and rubbed his chin, humming thoughtfully.
“I do not need a nickname.”
He wasn’t sure the man was listening to him anymore. He certainly didn’t respond, instead continuing to look him up in down searchingly, as if he’d spy a good nickname sewn into cuffs of his shirt.
Loki pursed his lips pointedly to avoid smiling. This man was annoying, and certainly didn’t need any encouragement. He cleared his throat loudly. When no other response seemed forthcoming and the staring continued, Loki decided this whole thing had gone on for long enough.
“Sir," he bit the honorific with extreme reluctance. "Can I actually help you with anything, or…?”
“A latte would be a start,” the man suggested lazily, leaning his elbows on Loki’s spotless counter. The angle forced the man to look up at Loki through his absurdly long lashes. A smug grin still crooked up one side of the man’s mouth. “Make it a double shot, caffeine helps me think. And oh, be a doll and toss in a few of those cannolis, wouldja?” The man offered Loki his card and then had the audacity to a wink at him. “Thanks.”
Loki’s mouth fell open. He snapped it shut a half second later then he realized what he was doing, but the damage was done. Despite his outrage, Loki found could do nothing to hide his smirk this time.
“Oh you think you’re very charming, don’t you?” he said dryly.
“Well, I’m not the only one who thinks so,” the man retorted. “Why, Oscar? You don’t find me charming?” He smiled beguilingly at Loki, quirking his eyebrows and handing over his credit card.
Loki snatched the gold card from the man’s waiting fingers. “That’s not the first word I’d use.” He punched in the man’s order and swiped his card, sliding it back across the counter. “Name for the order?”
“Stark.” The guy answered slipping his card back into his wallet.
“Stark,” Loki repeated, scrawling the name onto a medium sized coffee cup. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Right. And why am I ‘Oscar’?”
“The Grouch,” The man said, as if these words offered any clarification. When Loki looked nonplussed, he elaborated. “You know, Sesame Street? The angry green puppet? Lives in a garbage can?”
“I resemble a homeless puppet children’s television?”
“God no,” Stark assured hastily. “You’re not nearly furry enough. You just act like him.”
“Ah." Loki deadpanned, unimpressed. "How...charming."
“Alright, be fair, that was my first shot at a nickname.” Stark said defensively. “We’re in the trial and error period right now. There are bound to be some hits and misses.”
Loki wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He busied himself with plucking three cannolis up with pastry tongs and shoving them into a paper bag. “How would you like your latte?” he asked.
“Surprise me,” was the instant reply.
For the first time, Stark had made a request Loki could get behind. He kept his approval off his face as he moved to steam the milk. He felt Stark’s eyes follow him from the counter.
“So what words would you use to describe me then?” Stark asked. “If not ‘charming’, I mean.”
Clearly this guy didn't understand the concept of quitting while he was ahead.
“The word ‘tedious’ comes to mind,” Loki answered, turning his back on Stark to pump a mixture of syrups into the bottom of his cup. He could tell that piqued Stark’s interest. When he turned back around he caught the man settling back on his flat feet nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t been craning to see what Loki was doing.
Stark’s eyes were crinkling up at the corners, his smirk spreading into a proper smile. “Ouch.” He finally said. “Tedious, really? Am I boring you?”
“Don’t take it personally,” Loki drawled as he poured added two hearty shots of espresso to the cup. “I have a thing. An ‘I don’t like people’ thing. You know.” He maintained a straight face as he frothed the milk. "Nothing personal."
“Now you’re just openly mocking me.”
“Am I?” Loki said innocently, snapping the cap on top.
“You are a very rude barista, do you know that?”
“And you are an exceedingly annoying customer, has anyone ever told you?”
“Nope,” Stark said, still looking at Loki as if he was his personal entertainment for the day. “Not to my face, at least.”
“Well I assure you Mr. Stark,” He put the finished latte down on the counter and shoved it over. “They’ve thought it.”
Stark reached out to wrap his fingers around the hot cardboard cup. “Well, thank you, Professor X, for that insight on the human mind.”
“Hm, your nicknaming hasn’t improved.”
“What, now you don’t like being compared to a mutant paraplegic? I’d say that’s a huge step up from a muppet.”
“Do all the customer service people in your life have nicknames?”
“Only the ones I like.”
Loki decided not to address that. “Aren’t they missing you at the office by now?”
“Why do you assume I’m going to an office?”
Loki gave him a pitying look. He tapped a long finger on the plastic cover of Stark’s latte.
“You just ordered hot coffee in the middle of July.” He said. “People only do that when they’re on their way to an air conditioned office.” He arched an eyebrow, looking the man up and down once. “And the suit is, admittedly, a giveaway.”
Stark chuckled again. “You think you’re very clever, don’t you?” He mocked.
“I am not the only one who thinks so.” Loki found himself mocking right back. He tipped his chin up, a little pleased with himself.
Stark looked right back up at him, his eyes flicking, bright and amused, over the features of Loki’s face.
“Well, I’ll say this much, Legs,” he began again, and his voice had slipped into something warm and honeyed around the newest nickname. “You’re certainly not boring.”
Stark winked at him.
Loki opened his mouth to make some retort. None came, and he quickly snapped it shut again.
The asshole was toying with him!
He opened his mouth again – to tell him off or to question this bizarre new nickname, he wasn’t sure – when Clint Barton’s voice punched through his concentration.
“Quitting time,” Barton grunted at him as he pushed his way through the back door with an elbow; his hands were occupied with a platter of fresh muffins. “Go punch out, I’m taking over until Darcy gets her ass here.” He set the platter down on the counter, and jerked his thumb in the direction of the door. “Get outta here, kid.”
Loki craned his head around to eye the clock on the wall. Was it that late already? The last time Loki checked he had an hour left.
“That’s my cue,” Stark chimed, looking at his watch. “There’s a fine line between a fashionably long lunches, and ‘outrageous wastes of a work day’ when it comes to Ms. Potts.”
He gave Loki a sardonic little salute. “Thanks for the life advice, Legs.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out those hateful sunglasses. “I’ll treasure it.” With a parting smirk the man flipped the sunglasses open, nabbed his bag of cannolis and was out the door with a fresh jingle of bells.
Loki watched him go, his brain a jumble of frustration and vague embarrassment. He pushed his way through the double doors to the break room, scowling. He didn’t like being stumped. He didn’t like strangers making a fool of him. And he decided he hated winking. He ground his teeth together as he untied his apron, hanging it on a peg in the back room with his visor. He tried to shake the mood off, focusing instead on idea of a hot bath and the opportunity to scrape the grit out from under his fingernails.
It wasn’t until he had marched outside, making his way home with his shirt still smelling of espresso, that he realized his migraine was gone.
---
Loki supposed there were worse jobs in the world.
On his better days, he counted himself lucky that he even had a job in this market. On his good days, he knew that paying rent on his grubby little flat was well worth no longer living under Odin’s roof. On his very good days, Loki might even appreciate Barton’s Beans and all its tacky, locally-owned glory.
But the days when his alarm shrieked at 4:30 in the morning were not his good days. In the pre-dawn light while he forced himself into that atrocious green apron and absurd matching visor, he was hard-pressed to think of any job that could possibly be more tortuous. Loki hated the opening shifts. He hated watching the sun finish rising through the cafe windows, knowing he wouldn’t be free until well passed noon. He hated working with Thor, his clingy lump of a brother, who made shit coffee and was still the customer’s favorite. He hated every cranky businessman, chatty housewife and pretentious teenager that ambled up to his counter, demanding frappes and soy lattes and ignoring the tip jar entirely.
But money was money, and at very least, all Loki’s coffee was free. Small victories.
There was a reason Loki endured his job. Well, there were several reasons, actually. It paid a living wage and included a health benefits package, two things Loki would be lucky to get anywhere else without a degree. Another reason was that Barton’s place was within walking distance of his ratty little apartment, so he didn’t have to rely on Thor or – god forbid – public transportation. Those reasons alone made his job acceptable, if not always endurable.
Loki could also grudgingly admit that working with coffee wasn’t torturous. Dealing with customers was abysmal, but Loki found a simple satisfaction in preparing coffee. There was something soothing about the process; selecting the perfect roasts, steaming the milk, pumping the various syrups and flavorings into the mix. And Loki was actually good at it. It was an art, and never let it be said that Loki was not an artist when he fancied himself one. What Loki lacked in patience, he made up in spades as a barista. No one else, not even Clint, could make coffee quite like Loki could.
He had quickly made himself indispensable to Barton. He mixed up custom blends for mochas, lattes, cappuccinos, and made sure Barton was around when the shop filled with appreciative ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’. Thor and Darcy both had tried to replicate Loki’s mixes, with only passable results at best. Thor had only bare-minimum coffee-making skills, and while Darcy’s creations were acceptable enough, it wasn’t her stuff that brought in the regulars. Eventually Barton gave up trying to pry Loki’s process out of him. He kept him on, despite his 'piss poor attitude'. He supplied him with as many hours as he could take and all the free espresso as he could drink. Loki counted it as a personal victory; the first one he’d had since he’d moved out of his father’s house.
He could count so few victories in his life, this in itself was almost reason enough to stay. Almost.
---
When Tony was six, he built his first circuit-board. Years of watching his father make things, had given Tony an itch for a creation of his own. It hadn’t taken much to convince Howard to let him take a crack at it. Tony did it all in his father’s personal workshop, under his careful supervision.
This was before Howard started drinking heavily, before he started spending more time at work than at home.
Tony could remember every tiny detail: how his dad had helped him grip the tiny soldering iron, how he’d carefully directed him when Tony’d gotten stuck, and how he’d smiled and ruffled his hair when the thing actually, finally worked.
“Good job, Kid,” he had said. “You got your mom’s looks, but’s it’s definitely my brain in there.” When he smiled at Tony, his eyes crinkled and his dark moustache bristled around his lip. “Go on, go tell her so.” And Tony had been overwhelmed with his accomplishment, he’d ran to tell his mother without a second’s hesitation.
It had given Tony unrealistic expectations about working with his father. As it turned out, Howard Stark had much more time for his six-year-old prodigy than his twenty-eight-year-old heir.
“Look Obie, all I am asking is that he consider it. I’ve sent him the proposal, I’ve brought it up over dinner, and I’ve put the file on his on his desk like everyone else! All you need to do is talk me up. Make him take me into consideration, that’s all.”
“Tony, your father has a lot of proposals to go through, from some very senior engineers at the company,” Obie’s voice was slow and cloying over the phone. “I know your arc reactor idea is interesting, but…”
“Interesting?” Tony repeated, bristling at once. “Interesting? Obie the project could revolutionize clean energy as we know it. If I succeed in miniaturizing it -”
“If, Tony.” Obie repeated gently. “You haven’t actually done it yet. The idea has potential, certainly, but you've got to reasonable.”
Tony clenched his teeth but said nothing.
The man continued in that same infuriating tone. “He can’t be seen showing un-due favoritism, you know that.”
Tony snorted, his fingers clenching on the wheel.
“What was that?” Obie said.
“I’m just saying, he pretty much nipped the whole ‘favoritism’ claim in the bud when he refused to hire me as more than a glorified intern for the first five years.”
“You were seventeen, Tony – ”
“I was an MIT graduate, Obie.”
“You were a teenager,” Obie spoke in the well-worn tones of a man who’d said it all before.
“A teenager who’d just graduated summa cum laude!” Tony argued. “I was more qualified than half of the douchebags he interviewed -”
“You made your stance on the candidates very clear to both of us,” Obie interrupted him; he sounded so much like a placating uncle, Tony had to resist the urge to chuck his phone out of the car window. “You made yourself clear to the candidates too, if I remember correctly.”
“I did you guys a big favor,” Tony insisted, “Those people were a mess. Two of them stormed out and I’m pretty sure I made the jumpy one cry.” He had made the jumpy one cry. The one man Howard ended up hiring that day - the bald one - still had the habit of fleeing rooms whenever Tony entered. He actually felt a little bad about it. “There was no way you guys would wanna hire a bunch of – ”
“Alright, alright, I get it. You win.” The indulgent tone in Obie’s voice made Tony feel instantly childish.
“So you’ll do it then?” He pressed on, not letting the condescension get the better of him.
Obie sighed heavily over the line. Tony could practically see him rubbing the bridge of his nose in that weary way he did when he’d decided Tony was too much trouble to argue with.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Tony punched the air victoriously as Obie continued in that same placating voice.
“ – make no promises, understand? We’ve got a lot of worthy candidates. All we can hope to do is get your project on the roster for review.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said distractedly. “No problem. Whatever.”
Obie made some bemused comment, but Tony had decidedly stopped listening. He took a turn at the light while Obie blustered.
“Yeah, sure. You’re my favorite Obie,” Tony cheerfully announced, his fingers thumping a rhythm on his steering wheel. “Don’t listen to what people say about you; you’re an alright guy.”
Obie chuckled indulgently. “Yeah, yeah, okay, flatterer.” He chided. “I’ll let you know what happens.”
“I have full confidence in you,” Tony assured. “Keep in touch.”
The call ended with a click, and Tony took a long breath. He had known Obadiah Stane since he was a kid. When he began seeing less and less of his father, he started seeing more and more of Obie. For all of his professional life, Obie had been a go-between whenever Tony needed to convince his father of something. He was an expert at schmoozing Howard into anything. He had even successfully smoothed over some of the rougher parts of Tony and Howard’s relationship, at least in the workplace.
Still, Tony felt inexplicably off-put whenever the older man did him favors. The feeling irked him, anxious and insistent, like an itch he couldn’t reach. And even though it was 10:15 on a Thursday morning, Tony already felt tired and drawn out.
He could use a coffee.
The little coffee house he’d taken a liking too was nothing particularly impressive. It had the benefits of an off-street parking lot and a location far enough away from Stark Industries that there was minimal chance of running into anyone. Locally owned and operated, Tony was impressed the place hadn’t been choked out by a Starbucks yet. It sat on a particularly prime piece of coffee shop real-estate, snuggled between a university and blocks of residential apartments. The spot had been wasted on a dry cleaners. During the school year, Barton’s Beans would thrive off profits from college kids and professors alone. Even in the summer the place had more than its fair share of regulars. Some business men Tony knew could take lessons from Barton – whatever he was doing, it worked.
Passers-by stared at Tony’s car covetously as he pulled into the back parking lot and cut the ignition. He gave them a little salute, slipping the keys into his pocket as he made his way around to the front. The day was hot and sunny, the light reflecting brightly off the huge windows that lined the front of the coffee shop. Tony was exceedingly grateful he’d left his suit jacket in the car – being bundled up in his air-conditioned office all day gave him no real concept of weather. He was rolling up his shirt sleeves as he approached the door – slightly inset, the walls around it plastered with flyers and advertisements. The door it’s self was adorned with nothing but an plain ‘Open’ sign and a string of jingle bells, which bounced around nosily as Tony pushed it open.
The inside was dim and cool, filled with the smell of coffee beans and the sounds of chatter. Music played soft and slightly tinny over the speakers. Tony was in luck; there was no line to stop him from waltzing up to the counter.
“Good morning, how can I help you?”
The speaker was a short brunette with black-framed glasses and full lips. The first couple times Tony had come in the register had been manned by a tall blond, with a friendly face and a body like a football player. He had been fun to chat up, but his lattes had been more hot-milk than anything else. This girl looked a little younger – probably a student at the college. She had a pleasantly curvy figure and a pretty oval face. Tony smiled at her.
“Couple of those cookies would be a start,” he said as he pulled out his wallet. “I forgot to eat this morning.”
“Two cookies for the man in the suit.” She announced, “Will you be wanting coffee, or are you just having cookies for breakfast today?”
Tony was opening his mouth to respond - or to flirt, he hadn’t decided yet – when he caught sight of the tall, slim shape behind her. The other barista had his back to them; a bored slump to his shoulders as he fiddled with the iPod connected to the store speakers. Something about the posture was familiar.
“Legs?”
The slim figure didn’t take notice of him, but brunette serving him frowned. She glanced down at her own legs from behind the counter.
“Uh, those aren’t on the menu, dude.” She seemed aware that his attention was focused elsewhere, though, as she turned around a moment later to see where he was looking.
“Hey, Princess,” she called at her lanky co-worker. “Look alive. I think you’ve got a gentleman caller.”
The tall barista turned around at her shout, his brow furrowed in irritation. He was exactly the person Tony remembered; the sassy barista with the killer cheek bones and wickedly green eyes. When he caught sight of Tony, he only frowned harder. His eyes flickered briefly to the brunette as if in doubt. He doesn’t recognize me, Tony realized. He’d have to fix that.
“Princess, huh?” He pressed onward, regardless of the look he was receiving. “I like ‘Legs’ better, personally, but hey, whatever floats your boat.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking contemplative. “Good to know you don’t reject all nicknames, I suppose. Should I just stick with royal titles, then?”
Loki blinked, and Tony watched recognition sweep over his face. His stiff posture relaxed somewhat, and he gave Tony a dry look.
“I don’t respond to ‘Princess’ any more than I respond to being called body parts.” He turned his attention back to the iPod, indifferent. “I just find it hard to ignore people when they shout in my direction.” He shot another look at the barista with glasses. She raised her hands up in automatic defense.
“Hey, to be fair, I also call him Lollipop and Prickles,” she told Tony. “Princess is the only one he doesn’t threaten homicide over.” She gave her co-worker a side-long glance. “Anymore.”
Loki scowled, while Tony face split into a look of absolute glee.
“Oh, I knew I liked you.” He announced to the girl. “What’s your name? I’d read your name tag, but given the placement I’m afraid I might get distracted.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Loki made a noise of distaste.
The girl cackled. “It’s Darcy,” she said, smirking as she flicked her fingers up to point at her face. “Eyes up here, stranger.”
“Nice to meet you Darcy,” He said with his most charming grin.
Darcy giggled. Loki’s eyes narrowed.
“Does flirting ever get you anything?” the tall barista drawled. “Or is your ego just that big?”
Tony shrugged. “Little bit of both, I guess.” He admitted. “Depends who I’m flirting with.”
Loki hummed dismissively. “You should be aware, Barton has a very strict sexual harassment policy.”
Loki had to bob out of the way as Darcy made to elbow him in the ribs.
“Now that’s no fair,” Tony said. “Last time I came in here and flirted with you, you made me the best latte I’d ever had.” Tony leaned up against the counter. “Don’t go being inconsistent now, Legs.”
Darcy stopped trying to jab Loki in favor of gawking at him. Loki refused to look at her, scoffing at Tony instead.
“You called that flirting do you?” his voice was dry. “I was under the impression you were bored.”
“Only in the beginning,” Tony reminded him. “You’ll be pleased to know you became fun even before your coffee blew my mind.”
That made Loki’s lip twitch, the barest hint of a grin he was struggling to hide. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Stark.”
“You’re the second person to accuse me of flattery today,” Tony said, still smirking up at the tall barista. “I’d say it gets me some places.”
“Oh, yes,” he drawled, eying Tony up for a moment with an unimpressed look. “I’m sure it’s gotten you many places.”
“Is that a compliment?” Tony said, positively delighted to have Loki playing back.
“No.” Loki answered immediately. “Now are you going to order coffee, or should I talk to Barton about the sexual harassment.”
“Will you be making the coffee?” Tony pressed. “No offense, Cookie,” Tony said, looking over at Darcy. The girl had leaned against the pastry display to watch them like a particularly exciting tennis match.
“Huh? Oh, whatever,” Darcy shrugged in nonchalance. “He’s better at it any – wait, what did you call me?”
“Cookie.” He repeated. “Impulse nickname. Not my most creative, admittedly.”
Darcy shrugged, “I’ll take it.”
“Good woman.” Tony looked back at Loki. “That latte. What was in that?”
Loki narrowed his eyes at him. “Why?”
“Why?” Tony repeated, incredulous. “Have you not been listening? It was spectacular.” He drew out the word with relish, remembering that glorious first sip he’d taken a week ago. How he had coped with the office coffee since then was a mystery to him. “I want another one.”
Loki seemed to consider this for a long moment. Tony took that long moment to appreciate the attractive cut of Loki's jawline. Darcy seemed to spend the long moment looking back and forth between them like they were a sideshow act.
Finally, Loki relented. “Fine.” He glanced at Darcy. “Charge him for a medium double shot.”
“Oh, make it a large,” Tony corrected.
“Large latte and two cookies,” Darcy repeated, moving to punch the order in to the register. “Coming right up.”
Loki nabbed a large cup and went straight to work. Tony was craning his neck to try and watch him when Darcy interrupted.
“That’ll be $6.50,” The cash register opened with a loud ‘ding!’, and Darcy handed him his receipt. “Name for the order?”
“Stark.”
Tony caught Loki pause, frowning at his cup with a sharpie in hand. He mouthed something Tony couldn’t catch under his breath.
“So,” Darcy pulled Tony’s attention back. “How do you know him anyway?” she jerked her head in Loki’s direction as she shut the register with her hip.
“He doesn't know me.” Loki said immediately, before Tony could even open his mouth. But was frowning now as he steamed the milk. Tony could practically hear the cogs in the barista’s brain turning and he glared shrewdly at his crisp dress shirt.
Darcy looked at him incredulously. “Bullshit. Did you work at the college or something?” Darcy pressed. “Did you go there when he was – ”
“I don’t know him, Lewis,” Loki interrupted crisply. “He’s just a customer.”
Tony frowned petulantly. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings.” He said. “I thought I’d made more of an impression than ‘just a customer’.”
Loki gave a little snort. “You would think so.” He’d started up the espresso now. And damn, Tony had been too distracted to see what syrup he’d pumped into the cup.
“Stark,” Loki looked up at him mid-pour. His eyes flicked from Tony’s expensive tie to his face. “As in Stark Industries Stark?”
“That would be the same Stark’s, yeah.” Tony said, scratching idly at his chin.
Darcy made a strangled gasping noise, wheeling on him wide-eyed.
“Shut up!” She demanded. “You are not the Tony Stark!”
Tony arched an eyebrow at the excited girl. “Well I’m certainly not Howard Stark, I’ll tell you that much.”
Darcy made another slightly concerning noise, flailing in a way that forced Loki to dodge her elbow. She seemed to be franticly wrestling something out of her apron pocket.
“Oh my god, oh my god, Jane is gonna be so jealous!” She announced gleefully. “Can I get a picture? Please? She’ll never believe this otherwise.” She held up her phone and gave him a pleading look. Tony was pretty sure he saw Loki roll his eyes.
“Only if you promise to rub it all your friend’s faces.” Tony demanded. “Real hard-core showing off, none of that modest bullshit. I’m talking full-force bragging.”
“Done!”
There followed a moment of confusion, during which Darcy took several clumsy selfies of the two of them form various angles. Loki had given her such a look when she asked him to take it, she hadn’t asked him again. Tony could practically feel the judgment wafting off his perfectly arched eyebrows.
“What’s a matter, Legs?” Tony gave the sour man a roguish sort of grin as Darcy hopped down from her seat on the counter. “You want one too?”
“What are you doing here?” Loki acted as if Tony hadn’t spoken. His eyes were green slits of suspicion. “The Stark building is all the way uptown.”
“Astute observation, Dr. Watson.”
“There must be a dozen coffee shops over there,” Loki pressed on. “Why is a billionaire slumming it in a college coffee house?”
Loki once again dodged Darcy's at him with a deftness that only came with practice.
Tony hummed thoughtfully. “There should probably be a ‘genius’ in that description somewhere.” He said. “‘Billionaire genius’ has a much cooler ring to it.”
“Dude, don’t question this! What is your problem?” Darcy squawked at Loki.
“Yeah, Cookie has a point,” Tony gestured to Darcy. “Who are you to question my motives here?” He was sure his face was terribly smug at this point. But hey, it wasn’t every day he got an ego-boost free with his coffee.
Loki seemed unimpressed. He scoffed as he turned back to Tony’s latte.
Darcy wrapped Tony's cookies up in a paper bag. “Don’t mind Prickles,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially. “He gets off on being rude to people.”
Tony lifted an eyebrow with an interested noise. “Well, good to know I’m having some effect.” He whispered back. Darcy snorted loudly.
Loki set the cup down between them, and Darcy jumped.
“Your latte.” He deadpanned.
Tony snatched it up immediately. The warmth radiated through his palm. Without hesitation he brought it to his mouth and took a sip. The effect was immediate. Near-scalding liquid filled his mouth and ran down his throat. The strong bitter taste of the espresso was weighed out by frothy milk. He could feel the rush of caffeine and some sweet, lingering flavor at the back of his palette. Was it fruity? Tony could have sworn it had been last time, but this time it was different. Spicier and creamier than the last one. It was wonderful. Tony eyes slid shut in delight, and the noise of pleasure he let out wasn’t even for show this time.
He put the cup down with a happy sigh.
“That,” he began, “is not the latte you made me before.”
“No, it isn’t.” Loki said, and his expression was smug. “Are you complaining?”
“I probably should.”
“Well, if you don’t like it,” Loki reached out to take it back. Tony pulled the cup protectively toward his chest.
“No, no,” He said hurriedly. “I’ll cope. Hands off.”
Loki seemed satisfied with himself. “Good.”
Darcy was watching them again, a small smile playing at her lips. Tony took another gulp of his latte. The flavor was definitely different this time. Like vanilla and something else. When he pulled away, he spotted the name scrawled on the side of the cup in neat, spiky cursive writing. It was much too long to be his own name, and Tony squinted at it a moment.
“‘Angelica Pickles’?” Tony’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline. “You wrote the name of a Rugrat on my latte?” he asked with incredulous delight.
“Shut up, no he didn’t!” Darcy seemed as surprised as he was. Tony tipped the cup around to show her.
Loki’s expression was unreadable. “You are having cookies for breakfast,” he pointed out. “And in my experience, you’ve acted very much like a spoiled three-year-old.” He gave Tony an innocent look, but his eyes shone with a humor Tony definitely liked the look of. “What’s a matter, Stark? Don’t like the nickname?”
Tony laughed, while Darcy stared at Loki as if she’d never seen him before. Loki seemed to be pointedly ignoring her.
Tony’s phone suddenly started ringing in his pocket.
He pulled it out and checked. Pepper. Right, shit. She’s said he had a meeting or something. In about five minutes. Tony grimaced. As an act of self-preservation, he let the call go to voice mail.
“Well, ‘babies’,” he said solemnly to both the baristas. Darcy snorted indulgently while Loki looked decidedly unimpressed. “I’m afraid duty calls for us big kids. Nice to meet you Cookie. Stay distracting.” He winked at Darcy as he nabbed his bag of cookies and began backing up toward the door.
“Until we meet again, Cynthia,” he called at Loki.
“Calling me doll names will go no better than puppet names, I promise you.”
“Be careful with that expression, it could stick.” Tony grinned at the sour-faced barista as he pushed, backwards out the door into back into the August heat. As the door jingled shut behind him, he heard Darcy whirling on Loki.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
---
It became apparent to Loki by the next day that Darcy was not going to let this go.
“Why on earth do you care, Lewis?” He had finally snapped the dozenth time she’d brought it up. Darcy looked at him like he had grown three heads.
“Are you serious? The guy is like a scientist super star! He was on the Forbes list of the ‘Top Fifty Most Promising Minds of this Decade’!”
“And since when do you actually care about science?” Loki sneered as he picked up another dirty mug to clean. The coffee shop was practically empty, the last stragglers draining the now-cold cold dregs of their drinks and flipping idly through their smart phones. Loki was working his way through a sparse mish-mash of dirty mugs and dishes while Darcy dried them.
“Since Jane talks about it 24/7, shut up.” The long-haired girl shot back. “Science or not, dude, why didn’t you tell me you knew a celebrity?”
“I do not ‘know a celebrity’.” He insisted, wondering how she qualified her concept of ‘celebrity’ anyway. “I told you, he was just a customer.”
“Yeah, right, okay.” Darcy snorted, “Just a customer who calls you Legs.”
“He calls you Cookie,” Loki gave her a dry look. “That doesn’t mean you know him.”
“It means I know him now,” She contested. Loki sighed in exasperation.
“Well you know him about as much as I do then.” He scratched at a particularly sticky food stain with his nail, grimacing.
“Does Jane know?”
“Does Jane know what?”
Darcy made an impatient noise. “Does she know that you’re flirting with the ‘the hunkiest scientific mind of the century’?”
Loki stopped scrubbing to give Darcy a long, skeptical look. “Which magazine did that come from?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
Loki huffed. “I’m not sure why you’re under the impression Jane and I chit-chat.” Loki returned to his mugs, with a scowl. “She is far too nosy for her own good.”
“You’re not still mad about her slapping you, are you?” Darcy set a dry mug up in the cabinet. “You were being a dick to Thor. What did you expect her to do?”
“Thor can defend himself without Jane coming to his rescue.” Loki set a mug down for her with unnecessary force.
“It was one time…”
“Your stance on excessive violence aside,” Loki cut her off. “I’m still not sure why you believe we would chat. Particularly about my flirtations.”
“Ah-ha!” Darcy exclaimed, thrusting her hand towel at him victoriously. “So it is a flirtation then! I fucking knew it!”
“Those were your words, not mine,” He snapped. He was pointedly not looking at his coworker, but from the corner of his eye he could tell her grin was gleeful.
“I’m telling Jane,” she announced.
“Why would Jane care?” Loki rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t she have an ill-contrived thesis paper to construct? She barely has time for Thor, let alone your gossip.”
“She’ll make time for this,” Darcy promised cheerfully. She had already abandoned her towel in favor of her phone, punching out a rapid fire text. Loki rolled his eyes. He could feel a headache coming on.
“Do what you want,” he said, setting a clean mug pointedly just by her elbow.
“Twenty bucks says he asks you out by the end of the month.”
The statement came so out of nowhere that Loki barked out a surprised laugh, tossing his head back to do so.
“Please, Lewis,” he said, “You are reading in to this far too deeply.”
But Darcy seemed to take his dismissal as a challenge. She turned to face him squarely, sticking her hand out to shake on it. “Thirty bucks,” she repeated, “says you guys bang before next semester’s over.”
Loki looked at her, a smirk tugging at the very corner of his thin lips. She seemed entirely serious. For a split second, Loki was sorely tempted to take her up on it. It would be a fun game to play, and easy money to win. He turned away to rinse his hands under the faucet, laughing softly again.
“Take your wager to someone else, Lewis.”
He knew the instant the words left his mouth that they were the wrong thing to say.
“Maybe I will, Princess” Darcy said. There was a steely glint in her eye that unsettled Loki deeply. “Maybe I will.”
---
The next time Tony came in, he requested that first latte again. Loki made him a cappuccino that smelled like hazelnut instead, and Tony decided to let it slide. The time after that he tried again, and was rewarded with a mocha so rich and bitter he couldn’t be bothered to complain. After a week, Tony decided to try a different tactic entirely.
Ding!
“Good morning barkeep,” he said, while Loki shot a glare at the bell on the counter. “I’ll have my usual and a chocolate croissant.”
Loki gave him a look from the corner of his eye, as he counted back change for his current customer. “$5.50 is your change, have a nice day,” he drawled, shutting the register with a loud clang. The woman left with her coffee and Loki turned the full force of his morning scowl on Tony instead.
“I’ve told you before, we take to-go orders at the register.”
Tony rolled his eyes and slid over to the register.
“Someone’s picky this morning. I thought we were past all those tedious details.”
“You were incorrect.” Loki shot back. “Coming in to harass me three times a week does not qualify you for special treatment.”
“Hey, I’ve only come in twice this week.” Tony argued.
“So far.”
“You’re lucky I’m not as picky as you, ‘else I might complain about you constantly getting my order wrong.” Tony warned with an arch of his brow.
Loki made a dismissive noise, but there was a tug at the corner of his mouth that gave away his smirk.
“You can’t prove the order’s wrong. You don’t even know what you’re ordering.” That fact seemed to make him particularly smug, Tony noticed. “I believe that is what we call an empty threat.”
“You are a deeply unsettling person to trust with my food.”
“That doesn’t seem to stop you.”
There was something stress-relieving about Loki’s attitude. At work, Tony was surround by shameless flatterers, jealous old buzzards and occasionally his father – which was no real treat. Only Pepper offered any decent company, and usually she was too busy pressing him with paper work and deadlines to be much of a relief. Flirting with the tall, crabby barista was cathartic in a way Tony hadn’t expected it to be. It was like a game – like working out a puzzle – seeing what would make Loki scowl and what would make him smirk.
Tony loved games of trial and error.
“Tell you what,” Tony started idly poking through the individually wrapped biscotti sitting in the jar on the counter. “You keep supplying me with caffeine, and I’ll think about keeping my silence. How about that usual?”
Loki reached out and hooked a neatly manicured finger over the rim of the biscotti jar, dragging it just out of Tony easy reach.
“You don’t have a usual.”
Tony dropped his idle hands to the counter and shrugged. “Don’t I, though?” Tony raised an eyebrow at him. His hand was creeping casually closer toward the stolen jar. “I ask for the same thing every time, after all.”
Loki arched an eyebrow at him. Just before Tony’s finger tips grazed the jar, Loki twitched it out of the way. “These are for eating, not for fiddling around with.”
“Fine, I’ll take three.” Tony shot him a challenging look. “With my usual, and the croissant.”
After a long moment of deliberation, Loki begrudgingly slid the jar back where it was before. He turned on heel before Tony got the chance to glory in his victory.
“It’s a miracle you’re not diabetic,” he told him, nabbing a cardboard cup from the top of a stack. “The way you approach breakfast is appalling.”
“There’s a veiled compliment hidden in there somewhere.” Tony dragged the jar closer to himself with a smug grin. He went right back to digging through it. “It’s sweet that you’re concerned about my health, Legs.”
“Legs,” Loki repeated in a scathing mutter as he pumped syrup into the bottom of Tony’s cup. Tony surreptitiously went up on tip-toes craning his neck to see. Loki just as casually rolled his hip to the side to block Tony’s view. Tony clinked his teeth in disappointment, turning his attention back to the biscotti jar.
“Legs,” Loki said again, sounding frustrated this time. “I think that’s your favorite nickname of them all. Why on earth do you call me Legs?” He gave the espresso machine a sharp rap with his knuckles to get it going.
Tony looked up from his selections of individually wrapped treats. “Are you seriously asking me that right now?” he said, all his incredulity soaking into his voice and pinching his brow. “Seriously? Have you seen you?”
Loki stopped frothing Tony’s milk and glared at him. Tony winced internally. He hadn’t meant for it to come out like that.
“What is that supposed to - ?”
“You have freakishly long super-model legs,” Tony blurted, bowling over Loki’s offense. That was probably not the best way to breach the subject. Loki’s venomous expression was quickly replaced by a look of incredulity. Taking this as an improvement, Tony barreled on.
“Seriously, they go on for miles. You’re like seven feet tall, and four feet of that is just leg.” He gestured up and down to the long legs in question, incased in close-fitting black slacks. “I noticed. So sue me.”
The expression on Loki’s face slipped into frowning contemplation. He didn’t say a word. Tony wasn’t sure whether or not that was a good sign. He realized, belatedly, that he might have crossed a line here. Loki’s veiled threat about Barton’s sexual harassment policy came to mind as the silence dragged on.
“Seven feet tall,” Loki was giving Tony a blank look. “‘Four feet of leg’. Are those really the closest approximations you have?” His expression was flat, but something in his voice walked right on the edge of pleased. “I thought you were an engineer.”
There was a twinkle in Loki’s eye when he said it, and Tony stomach flipped.
“There is a margin for error here.” Tony insisted.
Loki scoffed. “A margin of error for my ‘freakishly long’ legs?”
“Freakishly long super model legs,” Tony corrected. “They are very distracting. It makes it hard to calculate exact measurements.”
A twitch at the corner of Loki’s lip as he prepared the espresso shots spurred Tony onward.
“What do you care if I exaggerate your assets, anyway?” He pinned Loki with a significant look when the man glanced his way. “Just means I think big of you, right?” He waggled his eyebrows.
Oddly – wonderfully – Tony’s cheesy flirtation seemed to do the trick.
Loki laughed. Not his usual sardonic snicker, either. This was a genuine giggle. It was a soft noise that made is nose scrunch up, his eyes crinkle and a single dimple press into one side of his face. And wow, Loki had dimples. How had Tony not noticed that before?
He was caught up in appreciating this sight – and wondering how he could make it happen again – when the door behind the counter swung open. Thor came striding in, a tray balanced in his hands. His apron was tight around the bulk of his shoulders, his hands jammed into bright purple oven mitts. His face was screwed up in concentration as he struggled to balance the platter of pastries.
Tony whistled at him as he entered. “Watch out. Hot stuff, comin’ through.” He cat-called. He slid casually back into an upright position. He hadn’t realized how far he’d been leaning across the counter until Thor arrived.
Thor looked up and beamed when he saw Tony.
“Good morning, Mr. Stark!” He boomed, jovial as he always was. The flour smudged on his face and powdering his hair made him look like some absurd pin-up in a house keeping magazine. “How are you today?”
“All the better now you’re here, big guy.” Tony gushed. “And haven’t I told you to knock it off with the ‘Mr. Stark’ shit? My dad is not nearly as charming as I am. I don’t appreciate the comparison.”
Thor chuckled as he set his burden down on a nearby counter. Loki had composed himself again, and his dimple sadly vanished as he snatched up a lid and popped it on Tony’s drink. When he spoke again, his words were perfunctory and snappish once more.
“He ordered a chocolate croissant,” He idly spun Tony’s drink with his wrist, mixing the contents. “Get it for me while you have the display open. Please.” He added the last word as a reluctant after thought.
Thor seemed to think nothing of Loki’s stiffness. He knelt down to open the display case, yanking one of his hands out of its oven mitt to do so. Loki set the fresh latte down in front of him on the counter.
“Your usual, Mr. Stark.” His voice had a mocking edge to it. When Tony looked, ‘Mr. Stark’ was also scrawled on the top of his coffee cup in Loki’s spidery writing. As usual, there was nothing written besides the name; no boxes checked or abbreviations marked down to give Tony a hint at the cup’s contents. Tony scowled at him.
“You are lucky your coffee’s so good,” Tony warned, reaching out to cup his fingers around the warm cardboard. “Otherwise I might not put up with all your sass.”
Loki’s lip curled. “I thought you liked my sass.”
“That was before I realized ‘sass’ was your default state of being,” Tony lifted his latte close to his face and took a long sniff. He thought he caught the soft smell of orange in the mix and his mouth watered. It smelled heavenly.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Loki said airily.
From his place by the display case, Thor snorted.
“I think it’s a good way to put it,” he said, sliding his pastries onto the shelf. He craned his neck around to look around at his lanky co-worker, grinning.
Loki frowned at him a little petulantly. “No one asked your opinion.”
Once again, Thor paid no mind to Loki’s cattiness. “You've always been that way. I remember that time you got suspended for back talking the principal at an assembly?” He chuckled at the memory. “For a whole two weeks too. Father was so –”
Thor stopped speaking suddenly, his smile vanishing from his face, replaced by a strange look of guilt. He glanced at Loki to see his co-worker had gone stock still, a stormy look on his face.
“I mean. Uh…”
“Odin was unhappy with me.” Loki’s voice was stiff, edged with a tension Tony had never heard before. “It was nothing particularly noteworthy. He was often that way.”
“Loki, that’s not – ”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up here a sec,” Tony interrupted, holding up a hand to stem the conversation. “I’m lost. You guys knew each other as kids?”
Tony didn’t know Loki’s shoulders could get any stiffer. The barista’s his mouth went tight and he said nothing.
Thor answered instead. “Of course.” He said, sounding faintly bemused. “We’re brothers.”
Tony stared at him. “Brothers.” He glanced blankly between the two baristas, waiting for the punch line. When none came, Tony’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “You guys are actually brothers?”
“Yes.”
“Not actually.”
The answers came simultaneously. Thor flinched as if Loki had struck him. Loki looked at no one, busying himself with wiping down the counter.
“Loki, that’s…” the blonde began in a wounded sort of voice.
“Accurate.” Loki’s tone was crisp it brooked no argument. Thor shut his mouth instantly.
Tony’s mind was a whirl as he took them both in. He didn’t think he’d ever seen two people who looked less like siblings. Thor was all solid muscle where Loki was lithe limbs, all blonde beard and square-jawed charm where Loki was sarcasm and sharp, clean angles. Jesus, Tony thought weakly. What did their parents feed them? Miracle Grow?
There was a distinctly awkward pause. Tony didn’t pretend to know what was going on, but he was sure he got the gist. He was equally sure this wasn’t a conversation either of the brothers meant to have in public. The tension between them was palpable, and Tony could tell at a glance that neither one was going to break it anytime soon.
Tony had never dealt well with awkward silences.
“Orange cream.”
Both baristas looked up at him then. Loki blinked, his expression flinty. “I’m sorry, what?” he snapped.
“Today’s usual. It’s an orange cream latte.” Tony pressed, undeterred. He tipped his coffee cup up in Loki’s direction.
Loki was clearly taken aback. “How can you … you haven’t even taken a sip yet.”
“Of course not, that would ruin the fun.” He scoffed, as if this were all very obvious. “Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”
Loki stared at him for a moment more. Then his lip twitched, just once.
“You’re not wrong.” He admitted.
“Ah-ha! Yes!” Tony slapped an open palm on the counter. “Score one for - !”
“But you’re not right either.” Loki continued in a casual drawl.
“What? That’s not even fair!” Tony complained. “I smelled it! How can I be right and wrong?”
“Taste it if you doubt me.” Loki draped the towel in his hand over his shoulder, the hint of smugness in his voice. The tension had mostly leaked out of shoulders when he turned away.
“I’m going on break.” He told Thor. He didn’t look at him when he said it, but his voice had lost its dangerous edge. “Handle the counter. Mr. Stark still needs his croissant.” He pressed through the door to the back room, tossing Tony barely a glance as he disappeared.
Thor let out a long sigh as the door swung shut behind his brother. He had a forlorn look on his face Tony had only seen on particularly pathetic puppies.
“I’m – uh – sorry about…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tony said automatically, brushing Thor’s apology hurriedly away. “It’s cool. We’ve all got family stuff. Sometimes our family stuff happens in the workplace.” Tony shrugged, drumming his fingers on his cup. “Been there done that, believe me.”
Thor made a brave attempt at a smile as be reached into the pastry case with a pair of tongs. He pulled out a croissant stuffed with chocolate and shoved it in a paper bag. “He’ll be mad at me for bringing it up in front of a regular.” He admitted, guilty all over again. “Please, the next time you come in…”
“My lips are sealed,” Tony promised. “Scouts honor.”
"But I gotta ask,” Tony said, voice low just in case Loki could hear them in the back room. “What’s with the whole ‘yes but no’ thing?”
An uncomfortable look passed over Thor’s face. He hesitated, shooting a nervous glance at the door. “He is adopted.” He said shortly, looking away to close the case rather than meeting Tony’s eyes.
Ah ha. Well that made a whole lot more sense, at least from a genetics point of view. But it also raised about a dozen more questions. He tried to shake away the itch of curiosity. Who was he to pry into someone’s family baggage? God knows what he’d do if someone did that to him.
Holding his tongue, Tony raised his cup and finally took a long sip of his coffee. The bitter, heavy flavor was rounded out by a tang of sweetness, and Tony heard himself make a soft, involuntary noise at the back of his throat.
“Chocolate,” he practically sighed. “Fuck, it’s not a latte it’s a mocha.” He took another long swig and felt the caffeine rush from his belly to his fingers tips. “Jesus Christ, that’s good.”
He pointed at Thor, his expression deadly serious.
“When your brother is done being pissy, be sure to tell him he’s a technical bastard.”
Thor, bless him, nodded with a similarly grave expression.
“I’ll be sure to pass on your sentiments, Mr. Stark.” His blue eyes twinkled with just a hint of humor.
Tony decided that maybe sass was a family trait.