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Chapter Text

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, it was a dark night, at least. Most nights were. It was kind of the nature of the thing. Maybe the stormy part was just in his mind. He’d had the shrapnel removed from his chest only a few weeks ago, and he was coping with New York better than ever, but it still wasn’t great.

So he was in his lab again, tinkering away, with no concept of time. Pepper was traveling for work. She’d be gone for a couple weeks, probably. Tony didn’t even know what she did on those trips, but he knew how much value she put on them. She was running his company. He’d never hold her back.

Still… it was a dark night. Company would be nice.

He could call someone. A friend. A lover. He and Pepper had an open sort of relationship, but neither of them took advantage of the openness very often. She satisfied him, mostly. He satisfied her, more or less. The thought of calling anyone to come keep him company in the middle of the night seemed ridiculous. He shook his head to clear out the annoying thoughts and redoubled his focus on the magnified image on his display. He was fixing DUM-E. Poor little guy had barely survived the bombing of his Malibu home.

Something thudded behind him, like a sack of potatoes dropped on hard floor. Tony spun around to face the noise, his arm catching the pieces of his suit as they reacted and flew to him. Just the arm, though. The rest would be overkill for a little bump in the night, right?

Nothing there.

Nope. Not falling for that shit. Tony pulled the rest of the suit. As it layered itself onto his body, he said, “Jarvis, scan the room.”

The HUD flickered as the mask settled into place, and Jarvis answered.

“An unusual energy reading there, sir.” A digital outline circled the area Jarvis had found unusual. Just a normal old corner of the room. Nothing outstanding.

“Unusual how?”

But before Jarvis could clarify, the air inside the outline shimmered with green light and a person appeared. Maybe it’d be more accurate to say a body appeared, sprawled on the cold tile floor of the lab. Tony’s heart leapt into his throat at the sight of long black hair flung wildly around a pale face. Surely it wasn’t. Surely this was some other person in dark clothes with green and gold accents. It couldn’t be Loki. He was in prison on Asgard. Thor had assured them that the prisons on his home world were inescapable.

The person-who-surely-couldn’t-be-Loki shifted and turned his head towards Tony, eyes closed—and Tony brought both hands up, blasters charged, every weapon at his disposal aimed at the prone body.

Loki’s eyes squeezed shut and then flickered open, like a person struggling to stay conscious. At the sight of Tony, he stopped moving, his entire body locked tense. An uncertain moment passed. Despite everything Loki had done, Tony couldn’t bring himself to kill a man lying on his floor. Especially when that man had blood and bruises on his face. He hadn’t even bruised like that when Hulk had smashed him into the floor.

Finally, Loki spoke. His voice was rough. “I seek asylum.”

Tony barked a laugh. “You came to the wrong place, bucko.”

A pause. “Then I must go,” Loki said. He rolled from his back to his side and strained to get up. His arm shook as he pushed against the floor, but he managed to rise to his feet. He looked like hell, now that Tony saw him standing. The clothes he wore weren’t his usual regal leather garb. They were fabric, a simple tunic and trousers, and they were torn in places. He was barefoot.

“I… don’t think I can let you,” Tony said. Loki was supposed to be in prison on Asgard. If he wasn’t in prison on Asgard, he needed to go back. Or he needed to be in prison on Earth, until Tony could get ahold of Thor. But if Asgardian prison couldn’t hold him, what hope did Earth have to do it?

Either way, Loki didn’t look like much of a threat at the moment.

“Then I surrender,” Loki said with a weak smile. He held both hands up.

Tony frowned. Last time Loki surrendered with hands in the air, it had all been part of his plan to destroy the Avengers from the inside out. This time, it had to be something else. “What’s your play?” Tony asked.

“No play,” Loki said.

Tony looked him over again. Loki didn’t do anything halfway. He and Tony were similar in that regard. The man—Asgardian, frost giant, god, whatever he was—was a showman at heart, a diva, as interested in the outcome as he was in the presentation. The only times Tony had ever been such a mess had been after months of imprisonment and after having his home blown off the face of a cliff. Rock bottom, basically. He’d never present himself in such a state if he didn’t have to. Loki was the same.

“I hate to rush your decision,” Loki said, “but I do have a rather serious injury that’s making it difficult to focus. You have my word I’m not here to do harm, Stark.”

“Jarvis, scan him,” Tony said.

A second later, Jarvis reported back. “He is severely dehydrated, has two broken ribs, a puncture wound in his abdomen, and many partially-healed lacerations on his back, sir.”

A visual of the scan’s results showed on his HUD, overlaying Loki’s actual body, and Tony cringed a bit at the sight. Loki’s back was covered in a lattice of what could only be whiplashes. The puncture wound was likely from a sword or knife. Broken ribs could have come from anything.

“Stark,” Loki prompted. He swayed on his feet and staggered to stay upright.

“All right,” Tony said. Based on Loki’s physical state, his options were either to let Loki stay, or to deal with Loki passing out on his floor—and staying either way. “Walk. This way. Try anything and I’ll blow you to bits.”

“For what it’s worth,” Loki said, “you have my word I’m not trying anything.”

“It’s worth bupkis,” Tony replied. “Go.” He jerked his head toward the door.

Loki went. He kept a hand pressed to his abdomen as he walked, but he managed a decent pace. Tony directed him to the elevator. Once inside, Loki leaned on the wall and closed his eyes, hand still pressed to his abdomen. The fabric of his shirt was dark there, the skin on his hand stained red and brown with blood. His lower lip was split, his face bruised. These were the kinds of injuries that came from a brutal fight, or an uncontested beating. Surely Asgard didn’t do this to their prisoners…?

They zipped down a few levels to the guest rooms, and Tony directed his visitor to one of the doors. Any one of them could be locked down, but this particular one wasn’t lived in much. It had a kitchen, bedroom, full bath, and a living area, with minimal décor. It lacked personality, which was perfect for a makeshift prison.

“In you go,” Tony said, gesturing.

“Am I guest, or a prisoner?” Loki asked, peering into the room.

“Guests are generally invited.”

Loki nodded. “Prisoner, then.” He walked into the room without a fuss, and Tony closed, locked, and sealed the door behind him. It probably wouldn’t actually do any good against an otherworldly sorcerer, but he could dream.

“Keep an eye on him, Jarvis.”

***

Tony returned to his lab, but he couldn’t focus on work. He had a guest/prisoner downstairs who had tried to take over the world and had personally almost killed Tony with his bare hands. Loki could be up to anything. There was no way Tony was going to truly leave him unsupervised in his home.

He pulled up the camera feeds for the guest room. Tony had no idea what he expected to see. Perhaps Loki in his full regalia with that ridiculous helmet, summoning hoards of minions. Loki with that damnable scepter, standing tall and proud, lording over his domain.

Instead, he saw nothing. Either Loki was in the bathroom, or he was invisible… or he was gone.

“Your guest is bathing,” Jarvis informed him when he asked.

“Hm.” Tony propped his chin on his hand and watched the camera feeds for several minutes, hoping something would happen… but also hoping nothing would happen. He didn’t want to get in a fight for his life right now. He’d had enough of that for a long time. If Loki did absolutely nothing suspicious and was genuinely looking for asylum, Tony would be thrilled.

Either way, Fury should probably know. SHIELD had had a lot of interest in Loki during his last visit, and only Thor’s godly status had kept Loki out of their hands. But Thor was nowhere to be found these days.

That gave Tony somewhere to focus his mind. There had to be a way to find Thor. There had to be a way to get a message to him, to let him know his prisoner had escaped. Of course the god of thunder didn’t have a cell phone, but he was a goddamn space-traveling deity. He flew between planets through a fucking wormhole and had a magic hammer. Given the option, Tony would rather get Loki off this planet, which meant contacting Thor.

After about an hour of poring over research, Tony caught movement from the screens displaying Loki’s guest rooms. The trickster was out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist as he trudged towards the bed. Despite nothing but negative feelings towards the man, Tony cringed at the sight of his battered torso. It could all be an illusion, of course, but if it was, Tony couldn’t figure out the intention behind such a lie. Did Loki know Tony was watching? There was no point in keeping up pretenses if he didn’t know, so… either he assumed he was being watched, or his injuries were real.

The trickster sat on the edge of the bed and stayed there for a while, one hand pressed against the wound on his stomach. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, at least not badly enough to be visible through a surveillance camera, but a stab wound to the gut was nothing to scoff at. It had to hurt.

Eventually, Loki scooted around, rolled onto his side, and lay still.

“Is he asleep?” Tony asked after a while.

“Although I am not well versed in alien anatomy, his heart rate and breathing have slowed,” Jarvis answered. “It would seem he has fallen asleep, sir.”

“Well,” Tony said. “I’ll be damned.”

When he’d woken up that morning, the last thing he’d expected to do by the end of the day was lock a megalomaniacal god into his guest room so the bastard could take a nap.

At least he wasn’t bored anymore.

Chapter Text

Loki slept deeper than he had in a very long time, and when he woke, he woke naturally, alone, in a quiet room—yet still, his body jerked from lying to sitting before his mind realized he was not in immediate danger. The sudden movement, on top of sleep-stiffened muscles and plentiful wounds, blinded Loki with pain for a fraction of a second… but he was alone, and no one took advantage of his momentary weakness. Chest heaving and head spinning as he got himself under control, Loki took in his surroundings, memorizing them in detail just in case.

The room was dimly lit, its large window letting Loki see the city skyline against a hazy purple sky. Was it nightfall, or dawn? How long had he slept? Surely not long, or Stark would have woken him with demands and questions, possibly with all his mighty friends flanking him. He drew deep breaths and relaxed, watching the sky.

Earth had been a convenient target, not long ago. It had been petty spiteful rage—and his manipulator’s interest in the infinity stones—that had led him to this realm the first time. Now, though…

Through the entire battle here, one of the most outstanding moments was his brief exchange with Anthony Stark, the man beneath the iron suit. Stark was mortal. Human. There was nothing special about him compared to the soldier, or the scientist who turned into that damnable Hulk. And yet Stark had come face-to-face with Loki, unarmed, unprotected. Offered him a drink. Joked with him. And with his ingenuity, had survived being flung out the highest window in this tower. It had been a ploy and a desperation move, Loki had realized afterwards, but that didn’t rob the exchange of anything. He still gave Stark immense credit for bravery and class. That, on top of his immediate kinship with the man’s sense of drama, had left an impression on Loki. An impression that had brought Stark to mind in a desperate moment, Loki’s last leap before his exertions became too much to sustain.

It was difficult to guess what Stark would do with him now, though. If he had to, Loki could flee to another world once he’d had some time to recover, but the number of places he was welcome were slim. The number of places he was welcome and where his tormentors would face any opposition if they caught up to him… virtually non-existent. At least Earth had the Avengers. Whether they did it to protect Loki or protect their own skins, they would defend their planet if anything attacked it.

Loki was preying on their sense of heroism to protect himself if the need arose.

The sky was black now. The sun was setting. It had been night when he’d arrived on Earth and it was nightfall now, which meant he’d slept for at least a day. Hard to tell what Tony had gotten up to in that time, but Loki was certain the man had not been idle. Time to get up and determine what he’d gotten himself into by coming here.

The towel had fallen away while he slept, and he didn’t bother gathering it back up when he stood. He had no shame in his body or in his wounds. The bruises and blood were not his fault. They would heal, and no one would ever put him in that position again.

Shaking his head, he returned to the bath. He found small, thin cups in a cabinet and used one to drink cold water from the faucet. The cabinet also had a variety of brushes, combs, and other grooming materials, which Loki gathered up and set at the edge of the bath before climbing in. While the tub filled around him, he examined some of the nearby bottles and eventually selected a sweet-smelling gel to add to the water as it churned around his hips. He would allow himself these indulgences while he could. Humans were humble and shameful about their bodies, if his brief time on Earth told him anything, and he would rely on that to keep Stark from dragging him out and throwing him into an actual prison. He had no doubt he was being watched, perhaps by Stark, perhaps by another.

His first bath had been to clean his wounds. It had been painful and bloody. This time, he allowed himself to relax. For the first time in a year, he could truly breathe.

It took a while to get his shoulders to lower and his muscles unlocked. His stomach reminded him of its existence, but he ignored it. He washed his hair and combed it out until his fingers no longer came away with hints of pink when he touched his scalp. It wouldn’t erase what had happened to him, but the luxury of unhurried, thorough grooming made him feel far more like himself than he had in a long time.

Eventually, hunger got the best of him, and he ended his bath, wrapped himself in a towel, and ventured out into the rest of his prison. The rooms were large. Not well-decorated or showy, but built for comfort, big enough for multiple people to coexist without getting crowded. It honestly surprised him that he’d been put in such generous lodgings. If Tony Stark didn’t have a dungeon somewhere in this immense tower, Loki would be surprised.

The bedroom led out to a large living area, which Loki had walked through last night. It featured a sofa, a low table, chairs, and bookshelves. On the other side of the room, a wide doorway took him into a kitchen with a table for six. The color scheme was dull, all silvers and whites and blacks. Even geniuses had to have a weak area, Loki supposed. Interior design was Stark’s. There wasn’t a single ornament or unnecessary flourish in sight. Very utilitarian. Very boring.

After a thorough inspection of the contents of all cabinets, drawers, and containers, Loki reached the conclusion that there was no food in the kitchen. He’d been foolish to hope that his needs would be provided for without compensation. But this was Earth, and his jailer was not a cruel man. His hunger could be easily remedied—he hoped.

“Stark,” he said loudly, “do you intend to let me starve?”

Within seconds, a light flickered on one broad, empty swath of wall, and an image appeared. A projection, to be more accurate, of Tony Stark, life size and frowning. Loki smiled to himself. He’d known the man was watching. He’d be a fool not to watch Loki’s every move, and Stark was no fool.

“Sorry, you know, you dropped by so suddenly I just didn’t have time to prepare a feast in your honor.” The man’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Of course. No need for a feast,” Loki said, playing along. “I’m satisfied by simple fare.”

“You’re not satisfied with anything simple,” Tony replied, rolling his eyes. He moved, and it appeared he was touching empty air—likely something where he was that was not included in this projected image of himself. “What the hell are you doing here, Loki? You know you’re public enemy number one on earth right now. Not to mention how I feel about you personally.”

“I know.”

“You nearly killed me.”

“Nearly.”

“You fucked up my city.”

“I did.”

“You fucked up my tower.”

“Yes.”

“You killed Coulson.”

Loki didn’t know who that was, but it was probably true. He’d killed a lot of people. He wondered how many more things Stark was going to list. “Is this a reading of my transgressions? Does the sentencing come next?”

“Hey, hot shot, you came to me. Don’t give me attitude because I’m not welcoming you with open arms. You’re lucky I didn’t throw you out a window while you were asleep.”

“I could hardly have blamed you if you did,” Loki said.

Stark kept frowning but didn’t have a retort for that.

“Must I beg forgiveness to be given food?” Loki asked after a few silent moments, hands out to his sides. “I am at your mercy, Stark.”

“Right. I’m not happy about it.” He tapped some invisible surface a few more times. “I’m sending someone in with food. Don’t touch them.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

Stark’s projection disappeared, and Loki walked to the kitchen doorway, curious to see the person that Stark would send into a room with his worst enemy. He leaned a shoulder on the wall, affecting nonchalance for the sake of his image. Internally, he was tense. His stomach ached from hunger, from the stab wound, and from a rude and persistent terror that had settled in nearly a year ago and would likely never leave. And here he was again, mere days after his escape, locked in and at the mercy of someone else. At least this time he’d gotten to choose his jailer.

The living room’s main door opened. Loki, expecting a human to enter, perhaps a human wrapped up in an iron suit, experienced a moment of confusion when the height, shape, and gait of his visitor did not match any of his expectations.

Instead of anything humanoid, what entered the room was a… device, a narrow white cylinder sitting on a platform with four shiny wheels. It rose up to approximately waist height and ended in a domed top.

The device rolled into the room and sent out a spindly arm to shut the door behind it. It whirred softly as it navigated around the furniture, wheeled right past Loki, and stopped in the kitchen. Loki stared in fascination as the little thing sprouted four arms, opened drawers and compartments on its own body, and set the table. Finally, it opened a larger door on its midsection and withdrew two plates of food and a bottle of amber liquid. It arranged them on the table, then closed all of its drawers and compartments. Once its arms retracted, it rolled back past Loki, through the living room, and out the main door, seamless and clean as it had been when it rolled in.

Bemused, Loki turned his attention to the items set out for him. Stark had taken his request for simple fare seriously, but he was generous with amounts and variety. The plates held an array of meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, and bread.

“You show great kindness, Stark,” Loki said. For most of his life, Loki had sneered at kindness. He did not trust kind people or kind gestures, he did not need their softness, and he did not have the capacity for it himself. His mother had always assured him that accepting kindness did not make him weak, any more than showing kindness did, and he’d railed against that idea, but… his pride had taken a lot of blows lately, along with his body. Perhaps, for once in his life, he could accept the offerings of a kind hand.

But he wasn’t sure he trusted it.

Would Stark try to poison him? 

Loki seated himself in front of the food and sampled it with caution, allowing his stomach a moment to react to each bite before he took another. While he ate, his mind tumbled around in search of a plan.

Earth was the last place anyone would look for him. That bought him some time to recuperate—assuming, of course, that Stark didn’t throw him out or try to kill him, and that he didn’t call his Avenger buddies to further secure Loki. This—private rooms with a bed and bath and a little wheeled creature to deliver him food—was luxurious, as prisons went. Nicer, even, than the prison he’d been relegated to on Asgard. A few days of rest and food here, and he’d be fully healed.

The food was satisfying, though he could barely put a dent in what was given to him. He ate what he dared, what his famished body could handle, and left the rest as it was. The ornate bottle of amber liquid remained where it had been placed as well, but he planned to come back and sample it later.

Fed, rested, and clean, Loki felt more in control than he had in a long time. Even though he was still, technically, a prisoner. Time to gain some control over his circumstances, as well.

“Have you called your friends yet, Stark?” he asked, looking towards the spot where Tony’s projection had appeared. He put extra sneer into his voice as he added, “Earth’s mightiest heroes?”

Stark didn’t respond, so Loki smiled.

“I know you can hear me, and I know you’re afraid of me. You’d be a fool not to fear a god, and you’re no fool.” The words were harder to get out than he expected. It had been a while since he felt particularly godly. Getting embedded in the floor of Stark’s penthouse by a half-naked green monster had been the start. The events since then had only made it worse. He felt like an imposter, like a battered rag doll clinging to shreds of silk to disguise its filth.

The thought frustrated him and drove him to his feet. Stark wasn’t reacting like he’d hoped. Loki paced to the end of the kitchen, with its floor to ceiling glass, and looked out across the city, hands clasped behind his back. It was a sea of darkness and white lights, the windows of buildings illuminated all around, and a haze along the horizon that disguised the stars.

Earth was different from the other realms. Humans had little magic and little belief in it. They put so much value in material possessions, in rising up and achieving more, that they would trample those around them into the ground for an advantage. Asgardians, for all the power and wealth in their world, lived simple lives, unambitious and content to stay where they were, to follow Odin’s lead without question. Perhaps Loki had more in common with humans than he cared to admit.

Loki paced back out into the living area, moving with a deliberate lack of urgency. The living room was the only one he had not explored thoroughly yet. He looped around the outside edge, looking at the scant décor. A dull painting here, a small statue there. The thing that caught his attention most was a single shelf of books against one wall, above a small desk. There were only about a dozen, but Loki took each one down and read the first couple pages. He stacked the books on the small desk in order of how interesting he found them, and then resumed his meandering. The books would be a brief distraction when he needed it more.

When he came to the front of the room and the door he’d entered through, he paused. Stark had said he was an unwelcome guest. Perhaps that translated to prisoner, but Loki had to test the limits of his freedom in this new situation. He grabbed the doorknob and turned. It didn’t move. It was locked. Unsurprising, and oddly satisfying. Loki knew his own personality and penchant for trouble. Stark was taking reasonable precautions. Loki would be surprised if there weren’t traps that would activate if the door was forced. Stark hadn’t expected his arrival, but he’d had an entire day to reinforce security while Loki slept.

He finished his loop around the room, pausing longest to inspect a large, flat black device mounted to the wall in front of the sofa. It failed to hold his interest for long, and he returned to the books. If he couldn’t goad Stark into conversation, he would entertain himself some other way. If he couldn’t gain control of the situation just yet, he would not let Stark see his discomfort.

With the three most interesting books in hand, he returned to bed and lay down to read.

Chapter Text

There was exactly zero percent chance that Tony would be able to sleep while Loki was awake in his home. The Asgardian god had settled into bed with a stack of books and looked harmless—and confusingly sexy—wearing nothing but a towel, reading a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Tony, on the other hand, had barely slept since Loki had arrived, and probably looked like he was tweaking out on something a lot more powerful than caffeine.

“What do you think, Jarvis?” Tony asked, propping his chin in his hand to stare at the screen. “What’s he up to?”

“He appears to be reading a book, sir.”

Tony sighed. “Yeah, but why?”

“Sir, would you like me to call SHIELD?”

“No,” Tony said quickly. There was no hesitation there. He didn’t trust SHIELD as far as he could throw them, and he wouldn’t even hand his worst enemy over to them. Nick Fury was okay, but the organization as a whole? Fishy. For all he knew, they’d take Loki and use him for some experiment, it would backfire, and they’d have a whole ‘nother battle of New York on their hands.

Tony went back to staring at the security feed, chin in hand. He’d been working on a way to communicate with Thor, or Asgard in general, but he hadn’t made it far before changing direction. Loki was in his home. A more effective use of his time would be anti-Loki measures. Weapons or shields or restraints that would work on a god, so the moment Loki decided to drop the other shoe, Tony could lock him down—because Tony had no doubt that a large degree of Loki’s compliance after they’d beat him in New York was willing, and if it had come down to it, he could have broken out of those restraints Thor put him in.

The first thing he discovered about Loki was that his resting body temperature was incredibly low. Like, subzero. Even a corpse wouldn’t be that cold. Yet he remembered from being near Loki, from having Loki’s hand on him ever-so-briefly, that Loki was not a walking popsicle. He didn’t feel inhuman.

Thor had mentioned that Loki was adopted. That was a story he’d love to hear. Maybe it would explain a few things. It would definitely explain the lack of family resemblance. Hair color, eye color, physical build, facial structure, skin tone… they looked nothing alike. Not to mention personality differences—exemplified by the fact that Loki was lying in bed reading a novel, and Thor probably couldn’t even read a child’s picture book.

That wasn’t fair. Thor was probably literate. But it was kind of funny.

Tony shook his head, smiling to himself at the thought of the golden god of thunder struggling to get through Goodnight Moon.

His attention returned to the security screen as Loki moved from his placid reading position. He got up, set the novel face-down and open on the bed to hold his place, and stood by the bed with his hands clenched into fists. Tony sat up straighter, ready to leap into armor and throw down. Even though Loki was naked.

And then a shimmer ran across Loki’s body, like the green light that had crept away to reveal him lying on the ground the previous day. Magic. This time, though, the magic shimmer left fabric in its wake. Dark green, soft-looking pants and a long-sleeve black tunic. Loki swept the towel away from his hips and threw it towards the bathroom door, pushed the covers down on the bed, and slid underneath them. He picked up the book again and continued reading.

Tony stared at the screen a while longer. Had his megalomaniacal house guest just put on his jammies and crawled into bed with a book? That was unsettlingly human. So innocent. He guessed even gods needed hobbies.

More than likely, though, this was all a game to make himself seem harmless and approachable. Tony had to remind himself of that and resist the urge to hit the intercom and talk to his guest, joke about his comfy pajamas or choice of reading material. No, the best thing he could do was stay quiet, watch, and work on his Loki lockdown procedures.

And eventually, when Loki fell asleep nestled on one side of the king bed with his stack of books on the other, Tony could drag his own tired ass up to bed.

“Wake me up if he does anything,” he told Jarvis.

“Anything other than sleep, sir?”

“You know what I mean.” Tony didn’t put on cozy pajamas and crawl into bed. He stripped down to boxers and flopped into the tangled mess of blankets on top of his mattress. His hand went to his chest and he ran a finger over the scars there. He no longer had shrapnel in his chest or a magnetized energy core keeping it in place. Instead he had scars and silicone, artificial flesh and bone to make his chest look mostly normal.

The nightmares were less frequent since the surgery, too. He’d started seeing a therapist, taking medication for the anxiety attacks. Getting his shit together. And when the nightmares happened, he was able to shake them off more easily than he used to. Pepper helped, too. She wasn’t here now, but when she was, she helped. He could have had someone else there with him while she was out of town—they’d negotiated some confusing waters around their personal needs, and Pepper was strong and generous enough to suggest that Tony have company even when she was out of town. Company that slept in bed with him to help him through the nightmares when they came.

Tony had not run with that idea. Yet. This was the first extended trip she’d taken since his surgery, and now that he had a god in his guest room, he wasn’t willing to call a single soul to keep him company, platonic or otherwise.

Exhaustion caught up to him quickly and he passed out in minutes.

Only to wake up to Jarvis’ voice what felt like seconds later.

“Sir, you asked me to wake you up if Loki did anything.”

Tony jolted upright. “Yeah. What? What’s he doing?” He stumbled out of bed, already calling the armor to him as Jarvis pulled up the security footage from the guest bedroom.

Loki was still in bed. That wasn’t what Tony had expected.

“What is that? Is that an illusion? Is the real Loki somewhere else?”

“No, sir, according to my sensors, that’s the real Loki.”

“Then what—” But before he could finish the sentence, he saw what Jarvis was showing him. Loki’s hands were clenched into tight fists. Sweat drenched his brow, his long hair stuck to his forehead. He jerked in his sleep, gasping. Rolled over, jerked again, and a little shout escaped him.

Tony stood by his own bed, his suit wrapped around him except for the helmet, and watched Loki have a nightmare. A bad one, by the looks of it. It went on for a long time, and Tony could only watch, until finally Loki broke through and sat upright with a cry of pain and anguish that was so familiar to Tony, it made his chest tight in sympathy.

It was fake, he told himself. That’s what Loki wanted. Sympathy. It was an act.

But as Loki wiped tears away with the back of a shaky hand, Tony’s conviction trembled.

Chapter Text

Nightmares. Just nightmares. He was safe in Stark’s home. Well, as safe as he could be on this planet.

He hoped he had not made too much of a fool of himself in his sleep, for he had no doubt Stark would know. The last thing he needed was for Stark to realize he was weakened, damaged, scarred. That he would stay here as long as Stark let him, because he did not have the strength of will to go elsewhere just yet.

Loki got up and went to the bathroom to undress, to let his sweat-drenched clothes dry while he rinsed his body under hot water. He’d bathed more in the past couple days than he had in months, but he couldn’t seem to shake the dirty feeling.

After the bath, he returned to bed—the other side, to let the nightmare side dry—and got back to sleep after some more reading…

Only to wake with a scream on his lips sometime later.

Dawn was breaking. He watched the sun rise from the kitchen window, the sky change from deep purple to pink and orange and finally, bright blue. It was beautiful, and he couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from it. The sky where he’d been before, what little he could see of that sky anyway, had never been so blue. It was hazy and gray, sickly yellow-green at best.

“Need anything?”

Loki spun around quickly to face Stark—or the image of Stark, anyway.

“Clothes, maybe?” Tony said.

Loki had gone back to the towel around his hips, and at the reminder of human humility, he managed a small smile. “Does bare skin offend you, Stark?”

“I’ll send in some clothes. You good on food? Want anything fresh?”

The man seemed unconcerned with Loki’s answers, like asking after Loki’s wellbeing was a tedious chore. Perhaps it was. Loki had come uninvited, after all.

“Tea,” Loki said after a moment.

“Tea,” Tony echoed. “Got it. Clothes and tea. I’ll send Abby in later.”

And bzzt, he was gone. Loki wondered who Abby was, but didn’t dwell on it. The sky helped to erase the grimy darkness from his mind, and it was all he wanted to focus on for now.

Apparently, it was all he wanted to focus on for a very long time. His stomach eventually reminded him to eat. Stark’s robot servant came in while he was picking through the food brought to him yesterday. It rolled up next to Loki, opened a compartment in its body, and used its spindly silver arms to unpack the contents onto the table. It stacked several boxes neatly on top of each other, closed the compartment, and then opened another one in its midsection. This time, it withdrew a stack of neatly folded cloth and held it out to him in both its clasp-like hands. Loki took it, bemused. The little robot withdrew its arms and rolled away.

“Do you have robots do everything for you?” Loki asked, looking towards the place where Stark’s projection had appeared both times. After a moment without response, Loki rolled his eyes and set the clothing aside in favor of opening the boxes. Each was labeled with ornate text declaring it as either black tea, herbal tea, or green tea.

Tea was comforting. It was warm. Jotun blood or not, Loki preferred warmth.

He made a cup, added sugar from a jar on the counter, and finally returned to the book he’d started last night. It was an odd book, certainly not historical or factual in any way, but it had a certain humor to it that Loki liked. Most importantly, it kept him distracted from the contents of his own mind. He curled up on the couch with a blanket and his tea and his books, and he read.

When night came and sleepiness tugged at his eyes, he fought it as long as he could without going to extremes. It was late when he finally ventured to bed. His pajamas were dry after last night’s nightmares, and he pulled them on before collapsing against the pillows and closing his eyes.

Chapter Text

Loki didn’t sleep through the night, so neither did Tony. The god woke with a scream after only an hour or so. He got out of bed and made a cup of tea. Black tea. Tony wondered if gods were affected by caffeine.

Either way, Loki didn’t go back to sleep. He stayed up and read, and Tony stayed up and worked. The little bit of magic Loki had used to arrive here and to summon clothing from wherever he summoned it from, had given Tony a bit of data to work with to understand magic. He’d love to have more, but he couldn’t very well ask his guest to put on a show for him.

Pepper called him in the morning, and he was grateful for the interaction.

“What have you been up to?” she asked. “Things seem quiet on the Avengers front.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, eyes locked on the security feed as Loki stirred way too much sugar into a mug of tea. “Very quiet.”

“I think that’s for the best,” Pepper said. “You need a break.”

Tony yawned. He was running on espresso and determination. “I really do.”

They both paused, then Pepper asked, “Have you been alone the whole time I’ve been gone?”

“Not the whole time,” Tony replied honestly. He knew how she’d interpret it, and it couldn’t be further from the truth, but she would probably worry less if she thought he’d had some company. And technically, he did have company. Company he only spoke to with several dozen locked doors between them, but at least he wasn’t dwelling in his own mind.

“Good,” Pepper said. “I’m sorry to be away for so long like this, but—”

“I know,” Tony said. “I know, Pep. Don’t worry about it. I’ve got everything under control here.”

***

Loki didn’t sleep that night, so Tony didn’t sleep either. The god didn’t even feign an attempt. He drank tea and read books on the couch. He’d ignored the clothes Tony had given him in favor of his own magically summoned pajamas.

Tony had run out of productive energy a while ago, and was nodding off at his work bench, chin in hand. Loki didn’t seem to be struggling with the lack of sleep. He was placid and calm, the picture of tranquility curled up on the couch with a book. It seemed so wrong. But then again, Hannibal Lecter liked to draw and listen to symphonies when he wasn’t eating peoples’ livers, so Tony couldn’t let his guest’s peaceful guise trick him.

He thought about the state Loki had been in when he arrived a couple days ago. The tattered clothes, the blood and filth. The whiplashes across his back. Tony didn’t know a lot about the legends of Asgard, but he did know they were pretty morbid. All those old religions were. And no matter what Loki had done, Tony didn’t approve of torture. He’d been through it himself once and he would never inflict it on anyone else. But Asgard must not have those qualms. Tony couldn’t blame his guest for breaking out and fleeing. And having nightmares.

Assuming all of it was real. Perhaps Loki was playing on Tony’s sense of sympathy, trying to paint Thor in a bad light and turn Earth against Asgard. He left Earth with a muzzle on his face and chains on his wrists, only to return months later, beaten bloody and barely conscious.

Suddenly it made sense. That had to be his ploy.

Tony wanted to hit the intercom and tell Loki that his plan wouldn’t work, that his trickery wouldn’t turn Earth against a powerful ally. Loki deserved punishment for what he did, and Asgard was his home. They knew how to handle him better than Tony did.

Right?

Tony shook his head. He was tired. He couldn’t think straight. Reluctantly, he moved from his work bench to the couch in the corner of the lab, shedding his jeans and grabbing a blanket from the pile at one end of the couch.

“Wake me up if anything happens,” Tony told Jarvis. “And if nothing happens, wake me up in two hours anyway.”

“Yes sir.”

Tony fell asleep immediately.

He had nightmares of his own. Nightmares about his time as a hostage in a desert cave, but this time instead of middle eastern men aiming guns at him, it was a battalion of Chitauri soldiers with their eerie insectoid faces and many-fingered hands. They came into the cave by the dozens, the hundreds, and no matter how many he killed, they kept coming, until they were climbing over the corpses of their fallen comrades, cornering him in the back of the cave, walling him in until he couldn’t breathe…

And he woke, gasping, into a room bathed in sunlight. He groaned.

“What time is it?”

“Eleven thirty-two, sir,” Jarvis said.

“I told you to wake me up in two hours!” Tony grabbed his jeans from the floor and got up, dancing into them as he crossed the room to his work bench.

“I tried, sir. Short of physical interference, it seemed impossible. Our guest has not done anything worth note, so I let you sleep.”

“Did he sleep?”

“No, sir.”

Tony grumbled. The security feed of his guest’s rooms was still displayed. Loki was in the kitchen with a mug of tea. The spread of food on the table—which really should have been refrigerated at some point, but maybe Asgard didn’t believe in that—was dwindling. Tony hit the button to project himself into Loki’s rooms. The dark-haired man looked up. There was a subtle change in his features, so quick Tony couldn’t parse what they had changed from, but the expression on Loki’s face now was one of his smug, amused ones.

“Need anything?” Tony asked.

“No,” Loki replied.

Tony shrugged. “All right. Yell if you change your mind.” He reached for the button to turn off the projection.

“Wait,” Loki said. It wasn’t a plea—it was a command.

Tony looked up, finger hovering over the off switch, and raised his eyebrows in question.

For a moment, Loki said nothing. Then he got up and walked around the table to stand closer to Tony’s image. Tony straightened. They’d been inches apart before, and it had been terrifying… but also familiar. Because he knew Loki’s type. It was not far off from Tony in some ways. Loki had chosen Stark Tower for the battle of New York because it was a power source, but also because it was showy. Of course it was—Tony had been directly involved in the design. If Loki could have a tower with his own name on it, he would. It would be gaudy and golden with a statue of himself at the top.

Standing toe-to-toe with Loki was not scary this time because they were actually separated by half a dozen floors, but also because Tony knew how to push his buttons. And how not to. But he wasn’t as good at that.

“I know about Earth’s defenses,” Loki said. “At least, before I came here the first time. They’re rather pathetic. But you, Stark, are far above average. What have you, personally, done to keep your planet safe, since… me?”

The question caught Tony off-guard because it was so straightforward. Not at all Loki’s usual style.

“That’s the kind of question a terrorist might ask of a prisoner during interrogation,” Tony said. “Our roles are a little backwards here for that to work. I’m not answering. Next?”

Loki scoffed. “Speaking of interrogation, why haven’t you strapped me down and asked me questions yet? Where’s your soldier friend, or the clever woman? I’m sure either would have the stomach for it, if you do not.”

“Do you want to be interrogated?” Tony asked, brows drawn together. “You keep asking about my friends. I can call them, if you want. I’ll get the whole team in here.” He grabbed his phone off the desk and picked Steve from his contacts, held the screen up so Loki could see. Loki’s eyes went to the phone, then back up to Tony’s face. Their eyes met. He was so goddamn hard to read! Did he want Tony to call? Was he afraid? Tony decided to play another card and see what happened.

“Let me make some assumptions here,” Tony said. “If I assume that you’re telling the truth, that you want asylum, then you being here makes no sense. Earth will deport you straight back to Asgard at the first opportunity. So, I assume you’re lying. You’ve got a plot or a ploy or a game or a trick, and everything you do and say is to maneuver me towards your goal. You’re here for revenge or for Earth Domination Take Two or something along those lines, and I’m here to tell you it ain’t gonna happen.” He cleared his phone screen and tossed it back on his table.

Loki’s face stayed passive for the entirety of Tony’s speech. When Tony was done, the other man nodded. “As I’ve said before, you’re no fool.” He paced around to the other side of the table and sat down again. He sipped his tea. “I need nothing further today, Stark. You may go.”

The dismissal irked Tony, but he knew better than to rise to it. He ended the projection and went down the hall to the kitchen to find breakfast. As he cracked eggs into a skillet, he thought about Loki. It had made so much sense to him last night, but as he delivered his monologue, things rose up in his head that didn’t quite fit the mold. Loki’s nightmares. His avoidance of sleep. His lack of appetite—he’d been nibbling on crackers and fruit for three days.

All of those things fit another mold much better. A mold Tony fit in himself.

It wasn’t impossible. Unlikely, but not impossible.

He threw a couple more eggs in the skillet and tossed bacon in another one. Toast, that seemed good. Butter. He loaded it all on a tray, rode the elevator several levels, and walked down a long hallway before he could second guess himself. A-B, or Abby, the automated butler, was waiting by Loki’s door. Tony handed her the tray and sent her in—and followed behind her.

As she rolled into the kitchen, Loki muttered, “I said I didn’t need anything.”

“My treat,” Tony said, walking in behind his little helper.

Loki looked up, eyes first turning to the place Tony had been projecting himself, but then jerking over to where Tony actually stood. The god went very still. Both hands were on the table, resting around his mug, and Tony was glad of that. He was also glad to see surprise on Loki’s face for the briefest moment before he got control of it and smiled that smug smile instead.

“Stark.”

“Loki.”

“What have I done to warrant a visit like this?”

Tony shrugged and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “Nothing. I’m curious.”

Loki’s smile widened. “Can I offer you a cup of tea? You’ve given me quite a variety.”

“I’ll pass.”

Abby set one plate in front of Loki, and the other at the empty spot across from him. She fetched silverware from a drawer and set it out for each of them. Loki watched, his smile dying some as he looked at the generous portions of food set in front of him.

Tony pushed off the wall, pulled out the chair, spun it around, and sat with his chest against the back. It made it a little awkward to eat, but it’d be easier to leap out of it if the need arose.

“I cooked this all myself,” Tony said. “I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve made breakfast for, so consider yourself lucky.”

“I’m honored,” Loki said. “Though I did tell you I didn’t want anything.”

“Maybe you were just being polite.” Tony picked up his fork and cut into one of the eggs. Golden yolk spilled out. Perfect. He soaked it up with toast and took a bite.

Loki watched him.

“It’s not poisoned,” Tony said as he chewed. “Want to switch plates?”

“No,” Loki said. “Poison is not your style.” He picked up his own fork and knife and slid one of the fried eggs on top of a slice of toast before cutting into them together.

Tony laughed. “People say poison is a woman’s weapon. Never could figure out why. We use poison in war. Biological weapons. Chemical weapons. I guess if you’re going to kill hundreds or thousands at a time, that makes it more manly.”

“People are fools,” Loki said. He took a dainty bite of food off his fork.

“That’s very true,” Tony replied. “I still wouldn’t poison them.”

Loki swallowed and said in his soft, pleasant accent, “I would. Though a knife is equally as effective and much more satisfying to use.”

“Well I’m glad we had that pleasant discussion.”

They ate together quietly for a few minutes. Tony shoveled his food in so fast, he barely chewed. Loki ate much more slowly and watched Tony in between each bite. The purposeless spontaneity of Tony’s breakfast visit had clearly thrown him off, which was exactly what Tony had been hoping for. When he finished eating, he gave his plate back to Abby and she stashed it in a compartment.

“This is Abby, by the way,” Tony said, gesturing to the little cylinder with arms. “If you need clothes washed or whatever, give them to her. She knows her name. Just talk to her.”

Loki looked at the little robot, then at Tony. “Is it alive?”

“In a way.”

The god stared at Abby, then looked back to Tony. “Intriguing. Your realm has no magic, but you manage well without it.”

“Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.”

Loki snorted. “Magic is magic, Stark.”

“All right,” Tony said. “A square is a square, but it’s also a rectangle. A rectangle, though, isn’t always a square.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Just because magic is magic doesn’t mean it can’t also be science.”

Loki’s expression of confusion was so profound, Tony laughed. Keeping the god off-balance was fun.

His eyes flitted down to Loki’s plate. Loki had eaten half a piece of toast with half a fried egg on it. Maybe one piece of bacon.

“You done?” Tony asked, gesturing.

Loki looked at it, then up at Tony without turning his head, and the expression was so like a bashful puppy it was almost disarming. Damn, he was good.

“Yes,” Loki said.

Tony reached across the table and scooped up the plate, gave it to Abby, and stood. “You know how to get ahold of me if you need me.”

“You are an attentive jailer, Stark. Surely you have more important things to do with your days than be at my beck and call.”

“Are you complaining about having me at your beck and call?” Tony asked, and regretted the words as soon as he said them. He wasn’t Loki’s servant. He wouldn’t drop everything to cater to the god. He added, “If it would make you feel better, I can ignore you.”

Loki scoffed. “You cannot.”

“You act like you know me so well.”

“I’m your enemy, Stark. Unless I am rendered fully helpless, you will keep me under watch and under guard. And if you aren’t going to call the soldier or the spy to help, then you will watch me and guard me yourself.”

That was all true. If Loki knew he was under 24/7 surveillance, then even the nightmares could be an act, but Tony was feeling less and less like that was the case. He was giving Loki every opportunity to attack, and the god hadn’t moved from his chair. In fact, he had moved very carefully the entire time Tony was there with him, not raising his voice or speaking a sharp word, using knife and fork like a proper gentleman and eating slowly.

“You’re right,” Tony said. He crossed his arms. “You seem pretty calm about that.”

“I have nothing to hide, Stark. You may watch me as you please.”

“Ah. Right. That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.” He made his way to the kitchen doorway in a sort of sideways backwards shuffle which probably looked extremely casual and smooth. “I’m outta here. Yell if you need something, Tricks.”

Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to get out of the room. Loki’s calm was eerie, and his eyes were so intense it felt like he could see Tony’s thoughts. Maybe he could. He was wizard after all. Or a sorcerer. Mage. Witch? Something like that. Mind reading was probably in his wheelhouse.

Once he was back in the hall, Tony leaned on the wall and took a deep breath. That had been… idiotic, and dangerous, and… thrilling. Going face-to-face with enemies wasn’t something unusual in Tony’s life. Even before he was Iron Man, he was Business Man, rubbing elbows with people he wanted nothing to do with, and he always got a twist of fun out of playing them. Especially if they thought they were playing him.

After his heart returned to a normal pace, Tony headed back to the lab to continue watching.

Chapter Text

Stark’s visit had been unexpected, but not unwelcome. Brief as the conversation had been, Loki had enjoyed it. The man was clever and paranoid enough he’d probably be able to keep up with Loki’s games, if he was playing them in earnest.

He stayed in the kitchen all day, drinking tea and staring out the window. Gray clouds hung across the sky as far as he could see, and rain spattered the glass off and on throughout the afternoon. By nightfall, Loki was barely clinging to consciousness. The thought of nightmares made him reluctant to sleep, but he’d slept some nights without them. Perhaps tonight would be one of those nights.

He dragged himself to the bedroom and slid under the blankets. It seemed like only a minute had passed before he was opening his eyes again. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have. The sky outside was dark—as dark as it got with all the city lights to brighten it, anyway.

And someone was standing in the bedroom doorway, draped in shadows, but Loki recognized the silhouette. After all, it had always been dark in his cell. He’d never seen his tormentor’s face, but that tall, amorphous silhouette would haunt him for a very long time.

He sat up quickly, heart pounding inside his chest. Don’t show fear, he reminded himself. The tormentor would know he was scared—it could smell it on him—but Loki refused to be undone by it. He reached for magic… but found only an abyss.

“You can come with me peacefully, or you can come with me in pieces,” the tormentor said. Its low voice scraped through its throat, but seemed to come from all around them, every shadow echoing with its words.

“Have you been working on that line since I escaped?” Loki asked. His own voice fell flat in the emptiness, like he was speaking against a wall. He got up from the bed. Magic or not, he had to fight, or he had to run.

Before he could decide, the thing was on him. It surged forward from the darkness with arms outstretched, and they fought, Loki relying on instinct more than any of his senses to help him keep up with it. It was futile and he knew it. Old as he was by some species’ standards, he was a mere child to this thing. It had been wrangling prisoners and torturing souls since perhaps even Odin was young.

It got the upper hand, and the fear in Loki’s chest grew to suffocate him. Loki wondered if Stark was just going to let this happen. Where was he? Why wasn’t he watching? Something was attacking his home!

“Stark!” Loki yelled, as the tormentor bore down on him, pushed him to the floor.

“Your human protector is dead,” the thing said. It wrapped a hand around his bicep and pulled, and Loki shrieked as his arm tore from his body like a leaf off a tree…

He woke up with a scream, drenched in sweat. He patted at his body frantically, ensuring all limbs were still attached. It was a nightmare. It was just a nightmare. Tears left wet trails down his cheeks and he dashed them away furiously. His own mind was betraying him. Nightmares were for children who had not learned to face the darkness yet. Children who did not know how to process their fears.

He went around every room and turned on lights to banish the shadows. It was foolish, but he was exhausted and couldn’t shake the sight of his torturer’s silhouette out of his mind. He debated on calling out to Stark, making sure he was still alive, but reasoned himself out of it. It was a nightmare. Of course Stark was still alive. If the torturer wasn’t really there, then Stark wasn’t dead because of it, and there was no point looking foolish or needy—or concerned, or attached.

Loki had read all the books in the room already, but after making a cup of tea, he curled into one of the soft chairs and started reading one of them again.

***

Stark visited him again in the morning, in person, with his little robot Abby at his heels. She wheeled past Stark and went into the kitchen, and Stark shut the door and leaned on it. Loki hadn’t moved from the chair he’d chosen last night, though his tea had long since gone cold and he’d finished the book some time ago.

“Two visits in two days. I’m flattered,” Loki said. “Careful or I may start to think you like me.”

Tony snorted. “I know you’re delusional, but you can’t actually believe that.”

Loki shrugged and smiled. It was difficult to put his face into that expression. The lack of sleep was getting to him.

Abby left the kitchen and went into the bedroom. Loki watched her curiously, then turned questioning eyes to Stark.

“She’s changing sheets and such. Don’t worry about it.”

“Why are you here, Stark?”

“I’m here to tell you—and I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but… I believe you.”

The words were unexpected. Loki’s brows drew together. He was being mostly honest for once in his life—he did want asylum, or at least a safe place to lay low for a while—but he hadn’t expected Stark to ever actually believe him. He’d been on edge since he arrived, waiting for the rest of the team to burst into the room, waiting for the sky to darken and his brother to shatter the floor-to-ceiling windows and drag him back to Asgard. Instead, Stark had been watching him, alone. Assessing him. And now… well, maybe he was being truthful, or maybe he was trying to trick the trickster.

Stark continued. “There’s no point in lying if the truth is so ridiculous that no one will believe it, right? So yeah, I believe you’re here to hide out. Whatever was done to you, whatever your punishment was for what you did to Earth, it was bad. Maybe the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. I saw the wounds on your back. And you’re hiding here, of all places, because no one would expect it.”

Loki was surprised. He’d been prepared for endless suspicion, maybe even more torment and interrogation… if nothing else, strict imprisonment. But if Stark believed him, and rightly assessed his reasoning, maybe this visit to Earth would be different than expected.

“Why are you telling me this?” Loki asked. He unfolded slowly from the chair and stretched his legs in front of him, crossed at the ankle. The picture of unconcern.

Tony shrugged. “I suppose, to tell you it doesn’t make a difference. Whether I believe you or not, coming to Earth was not a good move. Earth doesn’t like you.”

Loki got up from the chair. It was only a few steps to reach the door where Stark stood, but he stopped halfway there. “I didn’t come to Earth for help,” Loki said, making another move in their ongoing game. “I came to you.”

The words had an impact, but it was difficult to tell what it was. Tony’s face remained passive as he quipped, “Still not a good move. I don’t like you either.”

“That’s a surprisingly common sentiment.”

Tony snorted. “Not all that surprising.”

The air between them was tense. Loki was tired, and it was easy to make a misstep when his mind wasn’t operating at full power. He knew he should play everything very carefully, or not play at all, but instead, he took a step toward Stark.

“Why are you here, Anthony Stark?” he asked.

“It’s my house.”

“Here in this room,” Loki clarified. He took another step closer. “Are you trying to tempt me? To goad me into a foolish move so you can feel justified in killing a man who has come to you for help?” He paced the last two steps to put him toe-to-toe with Tony. They stood, nearly touching.

The mortal man looked up at him, defiant and challenging. “I have plenty of justification to kill you already, Loki. I could blow you up, and the whole planet would celebrate.”

“Could you?” Loki asked. “I know you better than you think, Stark, and I know you’ll only kill me if I attack you. That’s why you keep coming in here without your armor.” He placed a hand on the door by Stark’s head. The man held perfectly still, barely even breathing, his eyes locked with Loki’s.

Smirking, Loki lowered his voice and said, “I assure you, Stark. I’ve no intention of laying a hand on you.” He leaned in, so close his lips nearly touched Stark’s ear, and added, “Unless you ask nicely.” He shifted, his lips close enough to Stark’s that a deep breath would have pushed them together. “Until then, I don’t want you in here again unless I ask for you.”

That said, he backed off from Tony, turned, and walked into the kitchen.

Chapter Text

Tony barely made it out of the room. It had to be some kind of magic, right? He’d gone in there to push some buttons and see what happened, and Loki upped the ante so hard and fast Tony nearly got whiplash. And he was ridiculously aroused, and that was fucked up. Loki had nearly killed him not all that long ago. He’d nearly destroyed the city. He’d wanted to take over the world. He was a few fries short of a happy meal and was directly responsible for all of Tony’s nightmares, and yet…

And yet, Tony rubbed a hand against his arousal inside his jeans and clenched his teeth. Loki had done that to him. Without a single touch, with nothing but whispered words, Loki had gotten him turned on and completely breathless.

Damn his kinks. He shoved his jeans down. Ignoring Loki’s history, he was a very handsome man—a god—and he positively oozed dangerous, dominant vibes. Tony didn’t go for men much, but there were always exceptions.

He took care of his arousal quickly, right in the hall outside Loki’s rooms. After cleaning up, he headed for the lab, a jumble of confusion. 

Loki’s nightmares were real, and they were bad. It had been hard to watch him last night as he writhed and gasped in his sleep. When he’d called out—“Stark!”—Tony had nearly replied, tried to wake him, but it was impossible to tell what kind of mindset Loki would wake with. Nightmares could unsettle the most stable of minds, and Loki’s mind was far from stable. He could have been dreaming about killing Tony, or, since it was a nightmare, getting killed by Tony. Waking him up out of a dream like that would have been suicide.

But just now, in his room… “I didn’t come to Earth for help. I came to you.” What the hell. And his words when he had Tony pinned against the door were downright sexual. There was no way around that. What would it be like to fuck a god? Would Loki’s strength be too much, killing Tony if he got carried away? That would be hard to explain to Pepper and the team. Well, no, not really. He’d be dead, and Jarvis would have security footage, so it wouldn’t require any explanation at all.

He forced himself to focus on his anti-Loki precautions and his ultra-long-distance subspace communications device to get in touch with Thor. Curiosity killed the cat, after all, but Tony would make sure that if curiosity killed him, he’d kill it right back. Those would be interesting headlines. Double homicide in Stark tower. Tony Stark found dead in bed with Loki of Asgard.

Gods, he was doomed.

***

Loki didn’t sleep for two days. Tony checked on him daily through projection, not in person, replenished the god’s tea and food supplies, but otherwise left him alone. The lack of sleep took its toll. Loki nodded off at the kitchen table and spilled a cup of tea when he jolted back to consciousness. He nodded off on the couch and dropped a book on his face. Eventually, he started pacing and didn’t sit down at all. It was the seventh day since he’d arrived when Tony finished the anti-Loki measures. He wanted to test it, but there was no way to do that without giving away the surprise, and he was relying on the element of surprise to help, if it came down to a fight. And now it was time to give in to curiosity.

He paid the god a visit. It was a gamble to be sure he wouldn’t get himself killed, but he felt pretty confident in his odds. Even given Loki’s sleep deprivation. Just to be safe, he fitted two mini blasters into his palms. They’d be enough to at least give him time to get out of the room, if all other measures failed.

Loki was leaving the kitchen when Tony closed the door behind himself. The god froze. Tony leaned on the door and crossed his arms, but didn’t say anything. They held eye contact for several breaths.

Eventually, Loki broke the silence. “Didn’t I tell you not to come back unless I asked for you?”

“You did,” Tony said, “but this is my house and you’re not my god.”

Loki scoffed. “It does not matter where we are or whether you worship me. I could snap all the limbs off your body with my bare hands. That alone should afford me some respect.”

“Respect, sure. Fear, no.”

“So you respect me but do not fear me.”

“Bingo.”

“Perhaps you’re more of a fool than I had realized.” Loki resumed his pacing, taking a right turn and heading for the bedroom. Tony debated on following. That was about as far from the exit as he could get—unless he counted the windows as exits, which, given who he was talking to, he should.

Instead of following, he waited, and Loki emerged from the bedroom again after a moment, following the path he’d been pacing for hours now. It would loop around the living room walls and bring Loki and Tony face to face in short order.

“How long do you intend to stay here, Loki?” Tony asked.

“I’ve no timeline in mind. My wounds are still healing.”

Tony pressed his lips together. “They might heal faster if you slept. Or ate.”

“You know nothing of my physiology or needs,” Loki returned. He was coming toward Tony along the same wall, and Tony felt like a gazelle under the eyes of a lion.

“No, I suppose not,” Tony said. “But you slept and ate when you first got here, before the nightmares started, so it’s not a far leap to assume you need sleep and food.”

The god scoffed. “You know nothing,” he repeated.

“All right, you know what? Fuck you,” Tony snapped. He hadn’t had much of a plan in mind when he came into the room, but now he was annoyed, and he needed something to break this uncomfortable stalemate they were in. He needed justification to defend himself, or… something. Damn it. “You act like you’re so much better than me, but you’re not. You’re having nightmares, you’re avoiding food, you’re avoiding sleep. I’ve been there. I know exactly how you feel. Maybe you’re a god, but right now you’re just a scared, broken mess, and you need me.”

“I need you?” Loki repeated, disbelief and anger on his features. He stalked toward Tony with a controlled, deliberate gait. “You’re nothing, Stark. Your entire bloodline will be gone and forgotten before I’m even middle-aged. Humans have always been like ants, scurrying around in a panicked frenzy to find meaning in a world too complex for them to understand, and you are no different.”

He was arm’s length from Tony when he stopped, glaring. Tony refused to let the words sink in and take hold.

“Yeah, okay, I get it. You live a lot longer than me. You fly around space and have magic powers. But none of that shit matters. Right now, in this moment, you’re here. You’re here, and you’re tired and hungry, but your bastard of a brain won’t let you sleep because something awful happened to you. And when something awful happens to you, it doesn’t matter if you’re a child or an adult or a god or an alien, you still have to deal with it. And what you’re doing, Loki, is avoiding it.”

“You know nothing,” Loki snapped, his voice low.

Tony’s words were having an effect. He uncrossed his arms to be ready if Loki lunged at him, and pulled out his last stop. “You came to me for help. You called out to me in the middle of the night. You were having a nightmare, and you called my name, Loki.”

Loki’s glare was nothing short of deadly.

Tony pushed on, forcing his voice to stay calm and earnest. “It doesn’t bother me,” he said, “and it doesn’t make you weak.”

That earned another scoff from the god. Loki looked away, though, and didn’t grab Tony by the throat and fling him out the window, so… progress? Time to make another play, and hope his luck held out.

“Touch me,” Tony said.

The anger and pain on Loki’s face dissolved into surprise. “Beg pardon?”

“Last time I was in here, you said you wouldn’t lay a hand on me unless I asked, so I’m asking. Touch me. Lay a hand on me.”

Those vibrant green eyes spoke volumes of confusion and warring emotions. Finally, he said, “That sounds more like a command than a request, Stark. I don’t take commands.” The tone was firm, but his voice was quiet. It was enough, though.

Tony pressed his lips together. His heart was pounding, but all things considered, he was handling it well. It was brash. It was dangerous. It might result in sex, or maybe in horrific violence. Maybe both? Tony had a definite preference, but whatever came of it, it would give Loki an outlet.

He returned, “Would you like me to say ‘please’?”

Loki smiled. “Yes, actually, I would like that.”

Tony opened his mouth, but couldn’t make the words come out. Damn it. “I actually have a lot of trouble with making polite requests,” he admitted.

“You’ll have to work on that.” Loki put himself in front of Tony again, put a hand on the door by his shoulder—and then hesitated. He didn’t move away, but the mood shifted. “If this is a trick, Stark, know that it will not end well for you.”

“It’s not a trick,” Tony said. To avoid it blowing up later, he held up his hands, revealing the palm blasters. “Self-defense only. Can you blame me?”

Loki eyed the small discs, then shook his head. “No. You may keep them on, unless they interfere.”

“Glad I have your permission,” Tony replied, sarcasm sneaking back into his voice.

“Say ‘thank you,’” Loki said. He was close enough that Tony could smell him. Despite lack of sleep and lack of appetite, at least he’d been bathing regularly. The sweet fragrance of bubble bath lingered around him. They were close enough that hormones were starting to take over Tony’s thought process, allowing his inhibitions to fall slightly.

“Thank you,” Tony managed.

“That’s it,” Loki replied with a smile. “That’s what I want to hear.”

He felt cornered, boxed in, restrained by Loki’s mere proximity, and it was intoxicating. He’d been physically restrained during sex plenty of times in the past, but usually by women, and usually in a much more playful manner. This was different.  It was nearly overwhelming already, and Loki hadn’t even touched him. And he wouldn’t touch him, until he said please. The anticipation… Christ.

“I didn’t think you were this serious about asking nicely,” Tony said. “I pictured this going a little differently.”

“How did you picture ‘this’ going?” Loki asked, tilting his head to the side a little. His smile was mischievous. He put his other hand on the wall by Tony’s other shoulder, pinning him in place without laying a hand on him.

“Rougher,” Tony said. “More forceful, less pedantic.”

“Pedantic?” Loki echoed. “You find me pedantic, Stark?”

“What? No! That’s not what I meant. I mean, that’s what I said, but—”

Loki cut him off. “Say ‘please.’”

The word fell out immediately among Tony’s babbling. “Please.” He froze, surprised by how easily he’d said it that time.

“Say ‘touch me.’”

It wasn’t as easy to get the words out this time. “Touch me.”

“Now put the two together.”

Tony swallowed, hesitated, but managed to say, in a strained voice, “Please touch me.”

Loki leaned closer, holding himself just short of contact with Tony, like he’d done before. In a low voice, he said, “Say it like you mean it.”

His voice made Tony’s entire body shiver. He was hyperaware of everything. His clothes against his skin, the blasters in his palms, Loki’s breath on his neck, the ache in his groin. Asking Loki to touch him was ludicrous. He was dangerous. He was terrifying. Tony swallowed again and said, “Please.” His throat tightened and he had to gasp as eager anticipation dizzied him. He tried again when it passed. “Please touch me.”

“Good,” Loki whispered. He turned his head the extra fraction of an inch necessary to put his lips in contact with Tony’s skin. Tony’s mind exploded with endorphins, drowning out hesitation and doubt. He moaned as the god’s teeth pulled at his earlobe and questing hands slid under his t-shirt to caress his sides. Loki kissed his neck. “See what asking nicely gets you?”

“Yeah,” Tony whispered. He twisted slightly and turned his head, seeking Loki’s mouth. The god caught Tony’s lips with his and pushed his tongue forward, making a silent demand which Tony didn’t fight against. He wanted to lift his hands and run fingers through soft black hair, but he had blasters on his palms and even with Loki kissing him, he was hesitant to remove them.

When the kiss ended, Loki pulled the hem of Tony’s shirt up, and he lifted his arms to allow himself to be disrobed. Loki’s gaze lingered on the ARC reactor on Tony’s chest. He lifted a hand to touch it, and Tony instinctively caught his wrist. The blaster pressed against Loki’s skin, but didn’t fire. Neither of them moved for a few tense heartbeats.

“This is off-limits, then,” Loki said.

“Yes,” Tony replied, bracing for backlash. Instead, he felt Loki pulling his wrist away, and Tony let go of it to allow him. He caressed Tony’s flank and sent a shiver of goosebumps along his spine, and then leaned in for another kiss. His hands wandered lower, clutching Tony’s ass through his jeans, and Tony moaned and arched forward. He grabbed Loki’s arms, and the god broke the kiss.

“If you’re going to touch me, you’re going to do it without weapons strapped to your palms. Choose.”

“Fuck,” Tony muttered.

Loki smirked. “We’ll get there.”

Tony lost the ability to speak again for a moment, and Loki prolonged the silence with another kiss. He was getting more fervent with each one, his hands grasping more tightly on Tony’s body.

While they kissed, Tony peeled the blasters off his palms and tucked them into his jean pockets. He lifted his hands to Loki’s arms and wrapped his fingers around the god’s biceps, and Loki hummed into his mouth.

“I like that choice,” he murmured when they parted for breath. Tony chased after his lips, sliding his hands up to cup Loki’s cheeks while they continued kissing. He had definitely lost his mind at some point in the past few days, but it didn’t matter. Everything felt too good.

Chapter Text

For all his blustering, Stark was an eager partner, and his submission was intoxicating. Loki hadn’t been intimate with anyone for a long time—it simply wasn’t something he sought out or desired often. Why this mortal, of all beings in the universe, was the one to stir those desires, he couldn’t guess. He was glad Stark had given in to his curiosity so quickly and thoroughly, though.

He bent slightly and scooped Stark’s legs up, guiding them to wrap around his hips as he pushed forward and bodily pinned his partner between the door and his own chest. Stark made a small, surprised noise and grabbed Loki’s shoulders.

“This is new,” he said. At Loki’s questioning look, he said, “I’m usually the stronger partner. I do the lifting. Well, during sex, anyway. I’ve been picked up plenty of times during fights.”

Loki chuckled and stepped back, taking Stark away from the support of the wall. Injured, tired, and hungry, he could still support the man’s weight easily. Even with Tony clinging to him tightly, like his life depended on it. “And?” he said. “Do you like it?”

“I think that’s moot,” Tony replied. “You’re not going to stop being stronger than me if I say I don’t like it.”

“I can stop flaunting it,” Loki said with a smirk. “I can put you down.”

Stark hesitated, then said, “Don’t put me down.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to Loki’s. Lifted up as he was, he was slightly higher than Loki, unlike when they were standing. His hands, gripping Loki’s shoulders, relaxed as they explored each other’s lips and mouth, and he combed his fingers back through Loki’s hair. Loki hummed in pleasure, and Stark smiled against his mouth and slid his fingers into Loki’s hair again, massaging his scalp, scraping nails gently against his skin. Loki took his hands away from where he had them on Stark’s ass for support—Tony was strong enough to hold himself up with just his legs, and he did. Loki brought one hand up to his partner’s head and fisted a hand in his hair. Tony moaned.

“Do you like this?” Loki asked, pulling Stark’s hair hard enough to break the kiss.

“Yeah,” Tony gasped. “God, yes.”

Loki pulled harder, exposing Stark’s throat for his teeth and tongue. While he left bruises up and down that vulnerable column of skin, he moved them toward the bedroom. He’d paced the rooms so many times in the past day or so that he had the layout memorized and didn’t need to pay attention to navigate. Stark’s cock was hard against his hip and he was ready to move on from the foreplay, fun as it was. There were so many more ways to torment his eager partner.

In the bedroom, he put a knee up on the bed and leaned forward, lowering Tony onto the plush blanket. Stark dropped himself off Loki’s body and lay on his back, gasping for breath. His lips were swollen, his pupils dilated with arousal.

“Take these off,” Loki said, tugging at the fabric covering Stark’s legs.

As Stark obeyed, he said, “You gonna take any of your clothes off?”

“Would you like me to?”

“I mean, I’ve had sex fully clothed before and it’s okay, but—”

Loki put a finger on Stark’s lips to subdue the words pouring forth and asked, “Would you like to have me naked before you?” He lifted his finger to let Stark answer.

“Yeah,” he said breathlessly. “Yes. Fuck.”

Stark was still wearing an undergarment, but his arousal was obvious without the trousers which had restrained it before. Loki reached out and brushed his fingers along it, and his partner gasped.

“And after I’m naked?” Loki asked.

“God, Loki, I don’t know,” Stark moaned, pushing his hips up for more friction against Loki’s gentle touch. “I don’t know what I’m doing right now as it is, I can’t—I can’t believe I’m doing this—”

Ah. As always, too much freedom was a bad thing. Loki ripped the last of Stark’s clothing off while he fumbled for words, and the loud tear of fabric snapped him out of his growing uncertainty.

“Hey!”

Loki ignored the protest, bent, and took his partner’s length into his mouth. Tony let out a string of words that ended in a noise almost like a sob. He rocked up, pushing into Loki’s mouth, and Loki put a restraining hand on his hip, pinning him to the bed with ease. Stark whined. Loki didn’t linger there for long, but it was enough to snap Tony back to his dizzy state of eagerness.

“Do you have lubricant?”

Tony nodded. “In the bathroom.”

“Get it.”

While Tony rushed to the bathroom, Loki disrobed. Stark came back into the room as he was stepping out of his trousers, and the man’s mouth fell open a little. Loki smirked. His body was not in good shape, compared to how it had been a year ago, but it was still the body of a god. Stark crossed the room and offered Loki the bottle of clear liquid in his hand.

“You’re beautiful,” Tony said softly. “I mean, I already knew that, and you already knew that, but it just… wow. You…” He sighed. “I want to touch you.”

“You may.”

Tony hesitated, then sank to his knees. Loki swallowed, caught off-guard and overwhelmed for the first time since this had started.

“I don’t kneel often,” Tony said, “but I know you’re into it, so here I am.” He put his hands on Loki’s hips. His palms and fingertips were coarse and calloused from manual work, hours spent playing with his machines, but Loki enjoyed the ticklish feeling as Stark caressed down the length of his thighs and back up to his hips. Stark’s hands paused there, and then, tentatively, he leaned forward and wrapped his mouth around the tip of Loki’s cock. Loki sighed. He’d been too focused on his partner to pay attention to his own body, and realized at that moment just how much he was aching for contact, friction, heat. He combed the fingers of one hand through Tony’s hair and then tightened his grip, ever so slightly—not taking control of the man, but posing the threat of it. Tony moaned and pushed forward, swallowing a bit more of the length in his mouth.

“Good,” Loki murmured. He guided Tony’s head back with the fist in his hair until his cock slipped free of swollen lips. Tony looked up at him, met his eyes, and Loki saw no sign of discomfort or hesitation. For claiming he didn’t kneel often, he looked perfectly content in that position. They could have a lot of fun with that, if Stark was willing. Loki let go of his hair.

“Up. Hands and knees on the bed.”

For once, Stark said nothing as he did what he was told. He must have finally been sinking into a good submissive headspace. Kneeling had done the trick, and Loki made a mental note of that for next time. He enjoyed the nervous babbling—it amused him—but right now he simply wanted to take, and to give, and he did not want to listen or think. Sex was not the most intimate experience two people could have together, but when they brought power play into it, between two people who’d been trying to kill each other not long ago… It was intimate, and it was vulnerable, and it was calming Loki in a way he hadn’t expected.

He prepared Stark deftly with his fingers, being generous with lubricant. His size wasn’t easy to take, but he’d made the assumption that Stark liked a bit of pain with his pleasure, so he wasn’t worried. After slicking himself up, he closed the bottle and set it on the bedside table, then knelt on the bed behind his partner. He lined himself up, tip of his cock against the tight muscle of Stark’s entrance.

“Tell me what you want,” he said softly.

“I want to get fucked by a god,” Tony said without hesitation.

“Any god?”

“You,” Tony said. “You, Loki. Jesus. I want you to fuck me.”

Loki pushed forward, sliding the head of his cock past the first barrier. Tony moaned.

“Say please,” Loki said. He pulled back out.

“Please,” Tony said. Desperation edged into his voice. “Please, Loki.”

Loki pushed forward again, harder this time, faster, breaching Tony’s body and sliding half his length into the heat. Tony cried out and it trailed off into a moan that could have either been pain or pleasure. Before Loki could ask, Stark clarified the moan by shoving himself backwards, trying to draw more of Loki’s length into him.

“Delightful,” Loki murmured, and tightened his grip on Stark’s hips. He rocked himself out, then back in, not going any further, loosening the muscles. “Deep breath in.”

Stark inhaled.

“And out,” Loki said. As the exhale started, Loki drew Stark’s hips back and thrust forward, burying the rest of his cock in the man’s body. Stark made one strangled cry that was certainly pain before he sank down onto his elbows and dropped his forehead between his arms, breathing heavily.

“That’s it. It’s all uphill from here.”

“Good. You’re big,” Tony muttered.

“I’m a god,” Loki reminded him.

“I know. Now fuck me.”

“What did I say earlier about commands?”

“Please,” Tony said, much more easily this time. “Fuck me please.”

Loki complied with enthusiasm. Stark was a loud partner, which didn’t surprise Loki, but it pleased him. The string of “yes, please, yes, oh my god” only stopped when Stark ran out of breath and had to gasp in more. He could play all kinds of fun, kinky games with this man centered simply around his inability to stop talking. But those were for another day.

For now, his goal was to give Stark something to crave, something to think about, something to come back for. He reached around the man’s hips and found his cock, and Tony mewled so pathetically at the touch, Loki worried briefly that he’d lost control and found release at such a slight caress.

“Does it feel good?” Loki asked, squeezing gently.

“Yes,” Tony confirmed breathlessly. “So good.”

“Good,” Loki repeated, dragging out the word as he stroked and thrust. Tony moaned and gripped fistfuls of the blankets. He was shameless, moving easily to match Loki’s rhythm, taking everything he was given and striving to get more. It was intoxicating. It was exactly what Loki wanted and needed.

After nothing but gasps and moans for several delightful minutes, Stark found words. “I—Fuck, I’m—Fuck, Loki, god, fuck, please don’t stop, please, I’m so close.”

“I’m not going to stop. Let go, my dear. It’s all right.”

“Thank you,” Tony gasped. “Thank you. Thank you.”

The litany of thanks did it. Tony kept whispering as his cock pulsed in Loki’s hand, and Loki felt his own release near.

“My turn,” he said, when the seed finally stopped and Tony’s body went utterly boneless.

“Yes,” Tony said. “Thank you. Yeah. Your turn. Yours. All yours.”

It didn’t take much to reach his climax, with Tony murmuring delirious thanks and submission into the comforter. Unlike Stark, Loki was quiet when he found release, only a few gasping breaths to give him away, but Tony moaned for him, pushed back as if he wanted more, but Loki was fully inside him, hips flush to his ass.

“God, that’s hot,” Tony muttered. “That feels so good.”

Spent, Loki drew back and slid himself free. He released his grip on Tony’s hips and the man merely groaned, staying where he was with his ass in the air. It was a pleasant view, Loki had to admit. He bent and pressed his lips to the small of Tony’s back, earning a soft noise in response, and then went to the bathroom to tidy himself up. Since Stark hadn’t followed him in by the time he was done, he took a warm washcloth back out to the bedroom.

Tony had rolled onto his back and was staring at the ceiling, arms splayed, one knee bent up. Loki tossed the washcloth over the man’s groin, startling him half upright.

“Oh,” he said, and flopped back onto the bed. “Thanks.” But he made no move to use the washcloth.

“Of course,” Loki said. They were silent together for a moment before Loki seated himself on the bed next to Stark. “For being so reluctant to make a polite request, you beg beautifully.”

“That’s… not something I really strive for. I mean, being good at begging. It’s not a skill I’d put on my resume.”

Loki scoffed delicately. “Just accept the compliment.”

“’kay,” Tony said. “Thanks.” He paused, then said, “You’re really considerate in bed. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was… really good.”

“I aim to please.”

Tony chuckled. “Bullshit.” He swung his legs down toward the floor and levered his body upright in a quick, smooth movement. The sudden shift from lying to standing made him swear and cringe, and Loki put a steadying hand on the man’s abdomen to keep him from tipping forward onto his face.

“Are you in pain?”

“Nah.” Tony brushed him off. He sighed and looked down at the bed. “Comforter’s kind of a mess. I’ll send someone in with a clean one. Not like you’re using the bed anyway.”

For the entire time they’d been intimate, the thought of sleep had not crossed Loki’s mind. At Stark’s off-hand mention of it, though, the exhaustion swung back at him full-force. He wanted a proper bath, and Stark needed one too, but warm water and soothing scents might do him in.

“Loki?”

He looked up at his companion and tried to sift back through the past few minutes to determine if he’d been asked something. He had no idea.

“I’m gonna take a shower. You all right?”

“Fine.”

Tony looked skeptical, but he left Loki alone in the bedroom and went into the bathroom. A moment later, the sound of falling water reached Loki where he sat on the bed. It was soothing, and with his body still basking in the afterglow of sex, he was calmer than he’d been in… perhaps years.

Maybe this time, if he slept, he would be spared the horrors of his mind.

And if not, perhaps Stark would wake him from the hellscape before it got too bad. He would never ask the man to stay with him while he slept, but Stark had a kind heart, and Loki needed kindness just then.

He pushed aside the comforter and slid between the soft linen sheets. Fear of nightmares lost out to mental and physical exhaustion quickly, and he drifted off.

Chapter Text

Loki was asleep when Tony left the shower. That was a relief. The sooner the god recovered, the sooner he’d leave.

And if Tony had to submit himself to more amazing sex to get the guy back in good condition, well, it seemed like an acceptable sacrifice to make.

He collected his jeans from the floor and pulled them on. The strips of cotton that used to be his trunks could stay where Loki had thrown them. His attention shifted to the soft-looking outfit Loki had stripped out of, and he wondered if Loki would want his clothes washed. The god never had deigned to wear any of the clothes Tony had provided. Maybe clothes made from magic didn’t need to be washed.

That was a topic for another time. It was one thing to have sex with him. Another thing entirely to personally do his laundry. If he wanted his clothes washed, he’d have to give them to Abby.

Decision made, Tony left the bedroom. He scooped up his t-shirt from the floor in the living room, pulled it on, and let himself out.

“Sir,” Jarvis said, as soon as the guest room door was shut behind him, “Ms. Potts is home.”

Tony’s heart stopped. “What?” She wasn’t supposed to be home for another week! What the hell was he supposed to tell her? “Where is she?”

“The penthouse, sir.”

Great. At least he’d showered before leaving the guest rooms and wasn’t doing the walk of shame back upstairs. He had the length of a fifteen-story elevator ride to think about what to say to Pepper.

When the door opened to the penthouse, he hadn’t come up with anything. He hadn’t been up to the penthouse since Loki’s arrival, and looking around it now roiled up confusion. It had taken him a while to get past the near-death he’d faced here—quite literally at Loki’s hand. Everything Loki-related had given him anger and fear for months after his attack. He’d gotten past most of it—having his Malibu home blown off a cliff and nearly losing Pepper had given him some new trauma to overcome, and Loki had fallen to the back burner.

Now, after a week of observing the god, interacting with him, and giving in to a ridiculous attraction to him, the sight of the glass wall Loki had thrown him through seemed to mock him. Clinging to anger and hatred were unhealthy, according to his therapist, but probably going the complete other direction and having sex with the cause of his anger and hatred might not be healthy either. He’d be damned if he knew.

“Pep?” Tony called. She wasn’t in the common area or the bar or the kitchen, so he headed for the master bedroom.

She was there, unpacking. A huge smile lit her face when he stepped into the doorway, and Tony mirrored it despite his stress.

“You’re home early,” he said.

“We rescheduled some of the meetings. I have to travel again next week, now, but this week I’m home.” She crossed the room and hugged him. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, you did that for sure.”

She laughed a bit, stepping back to return to her unpacking. “I know. Jarvis said you were ‘occupied’ downstairs with a guest. I’m glad you found someone to keep you company. I was worried about you being alone, but I guess I should have known better.”

Her face glowed with a smile the entire time she talked, and Tony’s chest tightened. She thought his guest was some friend or stranger he’d invited over to ‘keep him company’ like they’d discussed before she left. In a way, she wasn’t wrong… She assumed he’d been downstairs having sex, and he had been. But… the guest hadn’t left…

“Anyone I know?” she asked after a second. Then quickly, “No, never mind, you don’t have to tell me.”

“No,” Tony blurted. “I do. Open and honest, right? That’s what we agreed to if we were going to do things this way, so yeah, I should tell you. And I mean, I should tell you regardless. Because… it’s complicated, and… it’s just…”

She paused in the middle of sliding a hanger into one of her blouses. “What is it, Tony? You can tell me.”

Oh god. He couldn’t tell her. He had to lie. She was going to lose her mind if he told her. But he couldn’t lie, that would undo all the progress he’d made with her, he could lose her if he lied about something this big… Shit, shit, shit.

“Remember Loki?”

Pepper’s entire body changed. Her calm, light demeanor went tense. “The psychopath who killed Coulson and nearly killed you? Who destroyed half the city?”

Tony swallowed. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

“He’s hard to forget. Tony, why are you bringing him up?”

Deep breath. Take the plunge. “Okay, you’re not going to like this. You’re going to think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. The jury’s really still out on that, but I think I’m mostly sane, which makes this all even weirder, but… He came here for asylum. He’s downstairs, locked in a guest room, asleep.”

Pepper dropped the blouse and hanger. “What?”

“It sounds crazy! I know! But he’s been here a couple days and he hasn’t done anything even remotely… Loki-ish.”

“Tony, please tell me you’re not serious.”

“I am serious, Pep. Just listen. I think they tortured him on Asgard.”

Pepper’s shock softened just a little. She knew how Tony felt about torture, even though maybe she didn’t fully agree in cases of alien would-be dictators. “Tony, that’s not your problem.”

“He asked for asylum. He’s a mess. I’ve got him locked up, Jarvis is watching him, I’m watching him, there are big guns ready to blow him up if he tries anything. I’m being as careful as I can be.”

She frowned. “If you were being as careful as you could be, you would have sent him packing, not given him a guest room, Tony.”

“I didn’t have a lot of choice, he basically showed up and passed out on the floor.”

The frown did not go away. In fact, it was joined by crossed arms and surrounded by silent disapproval.

“Listen, Pep, I don’t trust him, I don’t enjoy having him here, but at least if he’s here, he’s not somewhere else destroying other peoples’ lives, right?” After a long pause with no response, Tony said, “If you want to go stay somewhere else, I wouldn’t blame you. And maybe it’s for the best. You don’t need to be here if anything happens because of him.”

Finally, she said, “No one else knows he’s here, do they?”

Damn it. “You do.”

“Tony.”

This was treading into dangerous waters. Tony did not want to fight with Pepper over this. Loki was not worth losing her, especially when he knew she was right. It was madness to let the man who’d nearly destroyed the city, stay there, in the city, but… Tony’s gut told him otherwise. And not just because of the recent orgasm.

“I’ll call Rhodey,” Tony said. “How about that. I’ll call Rhodey and let him know.”

“You should call SHIELD.”

“I don’t trust SHIELD.”

Pepper’s shoulders lowered, just a little, and she said, “Fine. You’re calling Rhodey, and I’m not leaving. If you’re confident you have this under control, then I don’t need to leave, do I?”

Well. That was certainly better than her dumping him and fleeing the city.

“Okay. Okay. That’s good. I can live with that. Thank you for trusting me, Pep.” He finally crossed the room and wrapped her in a hug. She hugged him back, and they relaxed into each other for a few glorious seconds before Pepper pulled back again, just far enough to see Tony’s face.

“So when Jarvis said you were ‘occupied’… I assumed he meant you were having sex, but… I was wrong, right?”

Damn it.

“Uh. I had a momentary lapse of judgement.”

“Tony, no.”

Tony cringed and shrugged.

“You had sex with him?” Her voice was painfully shrill.

Still cringing, Tony nodded. Open and honest, open and honest, open and honest, god he hoped that didn’t blow up in his face.

“You can’t be serious! Tony!” She pulled away.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Tony said.

“So just now, when I got home, you were downstairs having sex with the lunatic who tried to take over the world.”

“Well when you put it like that it sounds really bad.”

Pepper threw her hands up and started for the door. “I need a minute.”

That was fair. Tony stayed where he was and let her go.

When she hadn’t come back after five or ten minutes, Tony left the bedroom. He spotted her out on the balcony and hesitated, but if there was one thing he knew about Pepper it was that she needed her space when she was pissed. Instead of going out to her, he went down to the lab to get his phone and call Rhodes. While there, he paused to glance at his guest. The god was still asleep, peaceful as a summer day.

His best friend’s reaction to Tony’s news was much the same as Pepper’s—except Tony didn’t bother mentioning the sex, so at least he didn’t have to deal with that.

“Isn’t this something you should tell your superhero friends about?” Rhodey asked.

“Well, I would, but the only one I’ve got on speed dial would probably just come in and stick a knife in his chest for hurting her friend.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“I’m trying to avoid putting him in a position where he has to defend himself. I don’t think it would go well for any of us.”

Rhodey hummed. “So you’re telling me this because…?”

“Pepper made me.”

“Smart woman. Maybe she can balance out a little bit of your dumb.”

“We can only hope,” Tony said. “Listen, Rhodey, I have it under control.”

“Oh, I’m sure. If anyone can successfully imprison an alien god in their guest room, it’s you, Tony.”

“Thanks.”

“Still think you should call your superhero friends.”

“I’m working on a way to contact Asgard. That’s where he’s from, and where Thor is—I assume, anyway. First sign of trouble, I’ll light the beacon. He doesn’t have an army this time. I’m sure between me and Thor, we can pin him down.”

“He doesn’t have an army that you know of.”

Tony wrinkled his nose. “How many armies can one guy have?”

“I don’t know, man. He’s an alien. I don’t know anything about space armies.”

True, but not a very comforting answer. They ended the call with promises to keep in touch, and Tony was grateful Rhodey hadn’t threatened to report this security risk to his superiors. Everything was weird now that superheroes were real, and even weirder since Tony was one of them.

He went back up to the penthouse to check on Pepper and found her in the bedroom. Her half-unpacked suitcase lay on the floor in the corner, and she was sitting on the foot of the bed, looking at a feed from the guest room displayed on the wall. Tony cringed, fixating on his own discarded underwear on the floor by Loki’s bed. It was just a dark bundle of fabric, not identifiable, but he knew.

Pepper didn’t say anything, and Tony hoped she hadn’t asked Jarvis to rewind by an hour or two while he was talking to Rhodes.

“Of all the people in this world that you could have slept with,” she said, “you chose someone from another world instead. It’s such an incredibly Tony Stark thing to do.” She shook her head and looked down, laughing a bit. Laughing was good, right? Tony edged closer.

“I thought he’d be gone by the time you got back,” he said. “I know that’s no excuse for any of this, but… I did think about you. It wasn’t like… with the Mandarin. If you’d been here when he showed up, Pep, I would have done everything differently.”

“I appreciate that, Tony, but… I worry about you. I don’t want you putting yourself in danger, either.”

“That kind of comes with the superhero gig.”

“Tony, I don’t think your libido is a good reason to put yourself in danger, and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with being a superhero or not.”

“What if I like it?” Tony blurted. Pepper’s eyebrows rose in question and Tony sighed. She knew about his kinks, and they’d played with them together plenty of times, but… it was hard to tell her that it didn’t quite satisfy what he wanted. And Loki had. And he wanted more of it. That was the dangerous part.

“It was amazing, Pepper,” he said. “And I know it’s fucked up or whatever, but knowing that he could actually hurt me, could actually control me physically, pin me down and not let me back up, it was… it was just… I don’t know, I felt so…” The word wouldn’t come, so he gestured vaguely. “Good.”

Pepper looked at Tony, searching his face, and then looked up at the video feed of their sleeping guest. Loki had rolled onto his other side, and his back was visible in the camera feed now. The cuts were scabbed up, the bruises sickly purple-brown, but there was no mistaking the pattern of whiplashes across his skin.

“He didn’t coerce you,” she said.

“No. I asked him for it.”

She sighed and looked down. “I pushed you to find other company while I’m out of town because I know I can’t fulfill all your needs. I never expected this, but… it gave you something you need.”

“I think so,” Tony said.

“Then I’m okay with it. Though I really wish you’d get that itch scratched by someone who hadn’t nearly killed you. Captain America, for example.”

Tony’s eyebrows went up and he laughed. “Rogers? That guy wouldn’t tie me up and fuck me if I paid him for it. He’s the most straight-laced vanilla bastard I’ve ever met.”

Pepper laughed a little bit and reached out. Tony took her hand gratefully, finding relief in her touch. She scooted closer and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Jarvis, turn that off,” Tony said, gesturing at the display on the wall. It disappeared, and Tony turned his head to kiss Pepper’s hair. She squeezed his hand.

“I got what I needed today,” Tony murmured. “Let me give you what you need.”

They toppled back in bed, and for the first time in a week, Tony let Loki slip completely from his mind.

Chapter Text

It was late in the morning before Stark checked in.

“Morning, sleepy head,” his projection greeted. “Hungry?”

“I could do with food,” Loki admitted. His sleep had been wrought with weird dreams, but nothing so alarming that it ripped him out of his rest. Some of the anxiety that had plagued him the last few days was gone, letting him know that yes, the gnawing in his belly was hunger, not nerves.

“I’ll send Abby in. Need anything else?”

Loki pressed his lips together in thought before saying, “More books.”

“Books,” Tony echoed. “That can be arranged, too. What tickles your fancy? My library is pretty dry, and mostly digital, but I can buy you a whole bookstore if you want. Sci-fi? Fantasy? You’re from space, though, that’s probably old hat. I bet you’d like mystery. Sherlock Holmes, that kind of stuff.”

“Surprise me,” Loki said, when Tony’s babbling seemed to reach an end.

“I’m not sure that’s possible, honestly,” Tony said, “but I’ll get you some books.”

Loki wouldn’t admit how frequently Tony had already surprised him in the past few days.

“Hey,” Tony said, pointing at him suddenly. “You’re wearing the clothes I gave you.”

“Yes,” Loki said.

“They look good.” Tony paused and rocked back on his heels a bit. The look in his eyes said he wanted to say more, or ask more, and was trying to resist the urge. Loki sipped his tea to give the man time to go one way or the other, though he suspected he knew what to expect.

Sure enough, Tony stuffed his hands in his pockets and said, “What’s the deal with the magic clothes thing?”

“What is ‘the deal’?” Loki echoed.

“Yeah. Why were you wearing the same magic outfit for days and now you’re not, but you didn’t make a new magic outfit to change into, you put on the clothes I gave you. Can’t you make another magic outfit? Are there limits? Where do the clothes come from?”

Loki smiled. “Humans don’t have magic, correct?”

“We have, uh, something. Yours is honest-to-god outer space magic, though. I have a million questions.”

Magic was so engrained in everyday life on Asgard, it was strange to Loki to think of existing without it. It was part of the reason most of the other worlds and realms considered Earth a weak and pointless target—if they knew it existed at all. Which was part of the reason Loki’s inability to conquer the planet was such a humiliating shame in the eyes of—

Loki shook his head to end that train of thought. He returned his attention to Tony Stark and thought of the man’s eagerness to submit. It didn’t make him weak, by any means. Just like Loki’s recent string of failures didn’t change who he was. He held onto that and said, “Unless you plan to hold out on food in exchange for information, I would appreciate something to eat before I listen to a million questions.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Tony said. “It’s not an interrogation. But I notice you say you’ll listen to the questions, but not answer them. Don’t think I overlooked that.”

Loki chuckled and picked up his mug. “I didn’t expect you to.”

Tony huffed. “All right, smartass. Books and breakfast are on their way.” He disappeared.

It took a moment for Loki to realize there was a smile lingering on his lips. Damn. He was having a good time with this human. Stark had intrigued him from the moment they met—his dramatic entrance in that plaza in Germany—and spending time in his home was only proving that Loki’s interest had been well-placed. Humans were, by and large, dull. He had no doubt that the woman Thor had become obsessed with was about as interesting as a wet sock. But Stark… Stark was an entertaining diversion whose potential would be tragically snuffed out by the comically short life span of a human.

The door opened while Loki mulled over his feelings. He heard it but didn’t move. There were no footsteps accompanying the quiet whirr of Abby’s wheels, so he merely waited to be given whatever Stark had sent him.

Abby brought plenty of fresh fruit, some meats, an entire loaf of bread, and a bowl of some type of grain, hot and gooey. She lay the dishes out on the table in front of him before zipping away to the bedroom.

He was in good spirits. Sleep had done wonders for his mood. The sex hadn’t hurt anything, either, but he didn’t give it much credit for his state of mind. He was able to eat a large portion of the food, and he felt physically stronger than he had in some time. Not back to his prime—it would take a shamefully long time for that, he was afraid—but good enough that his rooms felt too small. The difference between ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘prisoner’ had not mattered until that moment. Suddenly, he was restless.

Knowing what he would discover, he tried the exit. Locked, of course. He’d expected that. He had no doubt that using magic on it would result in some kind of countermeasure that he would regret triggering.

“Stark!”

His host, normally prompt to answer, did not speak or respond in any way. Loki tried again after a short wait and got nothing. Abby had left while he ate, so he had no hope of using her to trick his way out. For the first time since arriving on Earth, his generous lodgings felt like a prison, like a fancy version of the dungeon he’d spent the past year wasting away in, and he did not like it. Frustration and anger heated his veins, and for a moment he considered ways to escape. It was doubtless that Stark had all manner of security measures in place to prevent any type of forced exit, but brute strength was never Loki’s way. The odds of Stark being able to guard against trickery and magic were slim.

The odds of Loki finding somewhere else he could go where he would be treated as well as he had here were slim, though, too. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. As much as he hated being imprisoned, escape was not in his best interests just yet. He returned to the kitchen and stood by the glass wall, gazing out with his hands clasped behind his back. The sky was clear and bright, and it soothed him to look at it—though he would have literally killed someone to be able to open one of the windows and feel the air on his face.

“Hey. Heard you were asking for me,” Stark said from behind him. “If it’s about the books, I’m working on it.”

Loki ignored the relief he felt at hearing Stark’s voice. He schooled his features and turned to face the projection. “I’m not concerned about the books.”

“Oh. Then what’s up?”

“I’d like to leave these rooms.”

“Uhhhhh,” Tony replied. He looked aside, eyes briefly focused on something nearby, and then he said, “I don’t think that’s the best idea.”

That look to the side… Something was different. Loki walked closer to the projection, slowly, hands still behind his back. “Someone’s there with you,” he said. “Who is it?”

“Do you still want the books?” Tony asked. “Or is it going to be a ‘this or nothing’ scenario?”

“No, I’d like both.”

“Greedy.”

Loki snorted. “I’ve asked very little of you, Stark. I’m not asking for free reign on your entire world. I would simply like to take a walk.”

“Oh, a walk. Not an attempt at world domination.”

“I have no interest in dominating Earth,” Loki said, in part for the benefit of whoever was watching, but also because it was true. “That opportunity has come and gone.”

Tony frowned. “No shit.”

“Who is there with you, Stark?” Loki asked again. “Is it one of your mighty hero friends? Please, do feel free to send them in. If I’m not permitted to leave, I must find entertainment some other way.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Books. That’s your entertainment. You said you wanted them.”

Loki thought about Stark’s curiosity earlier that morning, his million questions about magic that he wanted to ask. That was a bargaining chip, but he wouldn’t play it now. Whoever was with Stark was making him stricter, less fun, and Loki knew Stark was already showing him more kindness than any other human probably would.

“Very well,” Loki said, giving a shallow bow of defeat. “Reading will suffice.”

“Great. Glad we could hash that out. Anything else?”

Wholly for the benefit of Stark’s unseen companion, Loki bowed slightly again and said, “That’s all, Stark. Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” Stark said, and disappeared.

Loki didn’t like not knowing. Whoever was with Stark was affecting his behavior, making him less pliable and more cautious, like he’d been when Loki had first arrived. It was possible Stark had had a companion present all this time and never given it away, but somehow Loki doubted it. The man wouldn’t have come into Loki’s rooms and begged for sex if someone was watching.

Someone else in the house made it more difficult for Loki to plan for contingencies. More difficult, but not impossible. He knew of Stark’s lady friend, Ms. Potts, and he had profiles for each of the “Avengers,” so it simply meant he had to have a few dozen contingency plans instead of the handful he’d worked up to account for Tony by himself.

With a fresh mug of tea in hand, he retired to an overstuffed chair in the living room to wait, and think.

Chapter Text

“So?” He turned to Pepper. She was frowning, arms crossed.

“I don’t like him being here, Tony.”

“I wouldn’t say I like it, either,” Tony said, “and I don’t trust him long-term at all. I think right now it’s benefiting him to be here and lay low, so here he is.”

“But he just asked to leave, and you said no. There’s no way that’ll work out in our favor.”

“I know. I’ll be careful.”

Pepper sighed and leaned her hips against the work bench. “How is the Asgardian phone line coming along?”

Tony cringed. “Not well.” He sat and pulled up his screens of research. Pepper wouldn’t understand the technicalities, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t help. “Thor has come to Earth twice since SHIELD started monitoring, and other than Thor we had his fighter friends and that big robot monster. All presumably came from Asgard using a stable, controlled Einstein-Rosen bridge—a wormhole—they call the Bifrost.” As he narrated, he showed Pepper bits of video and surveillance images of some of the events from the past few years.

“Wow,” she said.

“Yeah. But there’s no data on where Asgard actually is, in the grand cosmic scheme of things. You can’t really backwards triangulate a wormhole unless you’re expecting it to occur and you’re set up with all sorts of equipment.”

“I see,” Pepper said, frowning. She turned her eyes toward the security feed from Loki’s rooms. He was sitting in the living room, elbows on knees, hands clasped, head hanging, almost as if in prayer. “Would he know?”

Tony followed her gaze. “I highly doubt Loki is going to give me any information that would help me call Thor. They’re not really on good terms. And there’s that whole torture thing to consider.”

She pressed her lips into a thin line. “So what, then, Tony? He stays here indefinitely? Until Thor comes looking for him?”

“I don’t know, Pep,” Tony said, stress levels rising quickly. “I’m not going to let him go. He’s dangerous.”

“He is dangerous! And you’re no match for him, Tony! You shouldn’t be doing this alone!”

Pepper was right that Tony was no match for Loki in a fight, but he hated to have it pointed out so bluntly. “I have it under control.” Where had the understanding Pepper from last night gone?

“He’s letting you think you do,” she said.

“I know he is. Pepper, I’ve been dealing with liars, cheaters, and tricksters my whole life. I don’t trust anyone, okay? Least of all the god of lies and tricks.” He put his hands on her arms and gave her the most reassuring smile he could muster. “I’ve got some tricks up my sleeves, too.”

“You always do.” She sighed. “I think I am going to go stay in a hotel, Tony. You’ll do better if you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Pep…” He couldn’t deny that was true, though. Loki had picked up on her presence just by seeing Tony’s body language in a projection.

“How long is he going to be here, Tony?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, think about it. I don’t want a dangerous prisoner in our guest room for the rest of our lives.”

“I know. Trust me, I don’t want to be a prison guard for the rest of my life,” Tony said. He kissed her. She was tense in his arms, but didn’t hesitate to return his affection.

He helped her pack, called a car, and walked her out to it when it arrived. She kissed him again.

“Call me when you’ve got this all figured out,” she said.

“I will. I love you, Miss Potts.”

“I love you too, Mr. Stark. Please be careful… especially if you…” She trailed off, but Tony knew her concern. Going into Loki’s rooms. Being completely vulnerable to him.

“I’ll use protection,” he said. “Every kind you can imagine.”

She gave him a scathing look, but kissed him again anyway. Pepper would probably be more worried about Tony if he didn’t joke.

“And please don’t let good sex cloud your judgment,” she said.

“I won’t.”

Shortly after Pepper left, Tony’s ridiculous book order arrived from a local bookstore, and he headed to Loki’s rooms with a dolly stacked precariously high with boxes of books. Before entering, he checked with Jarvis to see what his guest was doing.

“Sitting, sir. Exactly where he’s been for over an hour.”

“Huh,” Tony said. “You sure it’s him? He hasn’t done some kind of magic illusion and actually is waiting by the door to stab me?”

“There’s nothing unusual that I can detect,” Jarvis said.

“Here goes,” Tony muttered. It would be a test, in a way. Loki had asked for something. Tony had said no, making it clear that Loki was, in fact, a prisoner. Tony was about to go into the room with his hands full, mostly unarmed.

He took a deep breath and shouldered open the door, facing the living room as best he could when he entered. Loki looked up, but he didn’t move from his seat.

“Brought you a few books,” Tony said, shoving the dolly in and kicking the door shut behind him.

“A few.”

“Sure.” He plopped the boxes behind the sofa and unwedged the dolly from under them.

“Stark,” Loki said, and Tony looked up, tense as hell but working to disguise it.

“Yeah?”

“Do you live alone in this tower?”

Tony rested an arm on the top of the boxes he’d brought in. Nonchalant. There were a thousand reasons Loki could be asking that question. Giving him any information at all seemed ill-advised.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant to anything,” Tony said. “Hey, you still up to listen to a million questions about magic?”

Loki smiled and relaxed back in his chair, pulling a leg up to cross his ankle over his knee. He gestured for Tony to sit on the couch adjacent to him. “I may even answer a few, if I’m feeling generous,” he added.

Tony sat, nothing between them but a coffee table and some distance. He mimicked Loki’s position, ankle over knee, and draped his arms along the back of the couch. “All right,” he said. “What is it? What is magic? How do you explain it? How do you manipulate it?”

Loki didn’t say anything, and Tony wrinkled his nose. He really wasn’t going to answer.

“I’m curious about yours, specifically,” Tony said. “Thor’s got a magic hammer and lightning, and that’s cool, but I understand lightning and have a dozen hypotheses about how his shit works. Yours is different, though. I’m gonna run a theory by you. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“I make no promises,” Loki said in his soft, amused way.

“Right. Let’s start with the clothes. You don’t magically fabricate clothing out of the ether. You have them, you buy them or have your royal tailor make them, whatever, and you stash them in some kind of… invisible magic bubble. And when you want to wear them, you just magic them onto your body somehow. Am I in the ballpark?”

“It’s not the worst theory I’ve ever heard,” Loki admitted.

“So your magic bubble is out of stock and you had to resort to wearing clothes I gave you? They fit you great, by the way. Apparently, I’m a good judge of size.”

Loki snorted delicately. “You digress.”

“Endlessly,” Tony agreed. “Back on track, I think I have a million minus five questions left.”

“Go ahead.”

Tony pursed his lips. He wanted to ask questions because he was curious, but he also knew he should try to get actual useful information. “How did you get here? That was magic, right? You just appeared out of nowhere. Can anyone just open up a magic portal and step through? There’s that whole ‘Bifrost’ thing, I know, but that’s not how you dropped into my lab, or there’d be some sign of it. And, I assume, Thor would have been right on your heels.”

Confusion passed over Loki’s face for the briefest moment, and Tony thought about what he’d just said. Why would he be confused about the idea of Thor following him? There was something there that Tony didn’t know or didn’t understand. Loki wouldn’t take well to him prying into his personal life, Tony felt certain of that, and there was a better chance of him answering broad questions about magic than specific questions about what had happened to him. Words spilled out of Tony’s mouth before he could stop them.

“I don’t know how things work on Asgard, but I don’t abide by torture or anyone who inflicts it. If Thor… or Odin, or whoever else makes decisions in Asgard, gave the order to have you tortured…”

This time, Loki looked uncertain. Tony jerked his mind back to reality. He was sitting in a room with a god of lies, a god of mischief and trickery. There was no way this god had such poor control over his facial expressions that he could give his feelings away twice in two minutes. Even if he had been through a lot, surely…

“You digress again,” Loki said finally. “I appreciate that you pledge not to torture me, Stark, but I knew that much about you before I came here. I told you before, I did not come to Earth for help, I came to you. I was injured, but I was still capable of reason.”

Tony pressed his lips together and nodded. Loki’s confusion and uncertainty cropped up at the mention of Thor and Asgard both times. Tony made a leap. “You didn’t come from Asgard, did you?”

“Where I came from does not matter.”

“Yes, it does!” Tony snapped. “You dragged Earth into intergalactic bullshit once already. You dragged me into it. If someone other than your brother is going to come to Earth looking for you, I need to know.”

“No one will come looking for me,” Loki said, “as long as I maintain a low profile.”

Tony frowned and got up. “And when you put your diva hat back on and start traipsing around the universe wreaking havoc? Is some army of hellish aliens going to come here and kill me for giving you shelter?”

“No,” Loki said. He got up. “I know you don’t trust me, and you’re right in that. You shouldn’t. But for now, trust—” The god cut himself off and looked away, taking a deep breath, regathering control. He continued in a softer voice. “You’ve seen me at my weakest, Tony. I barely sleep. I barely eat. I came here because it is safe here, and for now, that is all I want. I’ve no intention of drawing attention to myself.”

The fact that Loki had just used his first name didn’t slip by unnoticed. Neither did the fact that Loki had just admitted to hiding, and being afraid. “You swear you’re not putting Earth in danger just by being here?”

Loki shook his head. “I cannot guarantee anything, but if I did not believe I was safe from my enemies here, I would not be here.”

“I’m not sure I like being your hideout,” Tony said. He pressed his lips together. “How long will you be here, Loki? I want a straight answer.”

It took Loki a moment to answer. He looked away, then said, “I will go now, if you wish.”

Tony didn’t know if he wished. He had a god in the same room as him, a being who could use magic and travel across the universe. The amount of knowledge he could gain from Loki was… astronomical. But he was dangerous. Finally, Tony said, “Where would you go?”

Loki shrugged. “I could go anywhere on Earth, I suppose. I could become anyone and stay for as long as I wished.”

That answer was not comforting in any way. Loki would still be on Earth, but Tony wouldn’t know where. He could disguise himself as someone powerful, affect the entire world in a more subtle way. And if whoever was after him, found him here… They could do a lot of damage before the Avengers could get rallied and take them down.

“No,” Tony said. “I’d rather you stay here.”

“So you can watch me.”

“Yes.”

Loki nodded, looking down. They were both standing, facing each other with only the corner of a coffee table physically keeping them apart. And Tony wasn’t afraid. He had a handle on the situation. He knew where they stood.

“You still want to get some fresh air?” he asked.

Loki turned his eyes up, eyebrows raised slightly. “Yes. Are you about to offer me a bargain?”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah.”

The god chuckled, and his spirits seemed better immediately. “A man after my own heart. Please, Mr. Stark, tell me. What must I do to be allowed out of this room?”

Tony pursed his lips. “Well, you’re not going unsupervised, that’s for sure.”

“Naturally.”

“And if I’m going to walk with you, we may as well talk.”

“About…?”

“Magic. Outer space. Asgard. Aliens. The nine realms.” Tony shrugged. “All that shit you consider normal that us puny humans can’t wrap our minds around.”

Loki, still smiling, nodded. “If any human can wrap their mind around it, Tony Stark, I presume it would be you.”

“Aw, thanks. Flattery won’t get you any favors though.”

“I wouldn’t expect it to.”

Tony, questioning himself every step of the way, headed for the door, and Loki followed.

Chapter Text

Leaving the rooms for the first time in a week was glorious. The corridor outside, which he remembered vaguely from his arrival, was nondescript and clean. Stark walked with an even pace, and Loki matched it, staying at his side rather than behind him.

“This building is your palace, is it not?” he asked.

“That’s one way to look at it, I guess,” Tony said. “We don’t really do ‘palaces’ in the US of A. No more questions out of you, now. That wasn’t the deal.”

Loki chuckled. “Very well. What would you like me to tell you about first?”

“I am exceptionally curious about the Bifrost,” Tony said. “How does it work?”

“We have a guardian in Asgard, Heimdall, who is all-seeing. He controls the Bifrost.”

Tony looked up at him with a skeptical expression. “Controls how?”

Loki shrugged. “Heimdall’s sword, Hofund, serves as key to activate it. The Bifrost can go anywhere within the nine realms.”

“But it always originates in one place?” Tony asked.

“One end of the bridge is always tethered to Asgard, yes.”

“And it goes both ways. I mean, the Bifrost can take you from Earth to Asgard, and Asgard to Earth.”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.”

They got into an elevator, and Tony pressed a button. Loki watched the numbers light up as they traveled, fifteen floors up until the doors opened on a familiar sight. The dark floors and high glass walls of Tony Stark’s personal living area.

“Are you certain you wouldn’t rather stay closer to the ground with me?” Loki asked.

“Hold that thought.” Tony touched the band on his wrist and, as Loki watched, Stark’s famous armor swarmed to him and encased him in red and gold. Loki smirked to himself. He’d wondered just how far Stark would trust him once he was outside of the secured rooms.

The face piece locked in place, fully disguising and protecting the mortal man. “There we go,” he said. “Now I can fly, and you can’t. Feel free to pointlessly toss me off the balcony.”

Chuckling, Loki turned his back on the man and headed for the large glass door. Tony followed, clunking across the floor in his ridiculous suit of armor.

“Do you think you could kill me with that?” Loki asked over his shoulder as he stepped through the door. Wind caught his hair immediately and whipped it around his face. The moving air was such a refreshing change after the stagnancy of his locked rooms, he didn’t bother suppressing his smile. It felt too good.

“Probably,” Tony said, answering Loki’s question without realizing the dramatic shift in Loki’s mood. The answer didn’t matter anymore. Yes, Stark probably could kill him with the weapons he harbored in that suit, if Loki couldn’t trick him into blowing himself up somehow. Loki had no intention of testing the theory anytime soon. He would get bored here eventually, or it would become unsafe, and he would leave. If Tony Stark tried to stop him, perhaps then they would test themselves against each other. Until then, though, Loki was as curious about Stark and Earth as Tony was about magic and Asgard. How an entire realm could function without magic… Not only function, but thrive and advance to the point they were at… he could not guess.

For now, Loki walked further out onto the balcony. It was surreal to look across the city skyline again. He’d never expected to be back on Earth, let alone back in the exact place he stood as he tried to bring an army here to take over the world. His failure stung the back of his mind. It was supposed to be easy. The battle had been glorious while it lasted… He would have stood a better chance if the army he’d been given hadn’t been the damnable Chitauri, with their insect-like hive mind that died the moment their mothership was destroyed.

By Tony Stark.

Oddly enough, he wasn’t mad. He’d had enough time, and enough punishment for his failure, there was no point in clinging to it any longer. He’d paid his dues.

Loki reached the railing and leaned forward, resting his elbows on it. The wind was powerful this high up, and his hair would inevitably be a tangled mess once they went back inside, but he didn’t care. He closed his eyes and let his head hang. To his great credit, Tony Stark stood back and let him feel for a few minutes before interrupting.

“Better?”

“Much,” Loki said. “Has my allotted time passed?”

“How much time do you need?”

Loki turned and leaned his hips against the railing. The change in position changed the way the wind whipped his hair, and he had to comb it aside with his fingers before responding to Stark.

“On Asgard,” he said, “I was raised in the palace. It is a mountain of gold, shining and beautiful. The architecture is open and spacious and allows for fresh air, even indoors. Even in private rooms.”

“Sounds nice,” Tony replied. “Sorry my palace isn’t as good.”

“I’m a prisoner in your palace,” Loki said, “and it is the nicest prison I’ve been in to date, but it is still a prison.”

“It’s actually a guest suite. I just have the door locked on yours.”

“As I said. A nice prison, but still a prison.”

“Tomayto tomahto,” Stark said, and Loki had no idea what it meant, but brushed it off as more of Stark’s babbling.

The high wind and midday sun warred on the balcony, bathing Loki in the magnificent warmth and untamed passion of nature. It was the kind of day that called for a lazy afternoon, perhaps a nap, or a book, or a long conversation with an interesting companion. He pushed his weight off the railing, straightening to face Stark.

“You offered me a drink once. Is the offer still valid?”

Tony gestured towards the door. “You know where the bar is.”

With a chuckle, Loki led them back inside. Once they were safely indoors, Tony’s armor cracked open as he walked, letting him step out without a single falter. It was a change from how he’d shed the armor last time, but no less smooth.

“You have an excellent sense of showmanship,” Loki said.

“Thank you,” Tony said lightly. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Living your whole life with the public’s eye on you. Yes, I am familiar with that lifestyle.”

“I suppose you would be, yeah.” Tony walked around the bar and pulled down two glasses. “You know much about Earth liquor?”

“No, but I assume it’s much weaker than Asgardian liquor,” Loki said.

Tony half-turned and raised his eyebrows. “Wanna test that theory, buttercup?”

“Buttercup?”

“Oh. It’s a flower. A tiny, delicate little yellow flower.” Tony held his finger and thumb apart just a little bit to indicate size. “I was implying you’re a sissy who can’t hold your liquor.”

Loki laughed. “Bold, Stark.” He slid onto one of the stools across from Tony and interlaced his fingers on the shining surface of the bar. “Pour me a drink, then, Mr. Stark. Test your theory.”

Grinning, Tony turned back to the shelves of alcohol behind the bar and started collecting bottles. “Tell me about something while I mix this,” he said.

“What shall I tell you about?”

“Magic.”

“That’s a broad topic, Stark.”

Glass clinked as Tony set down one bottle and picked up another. “Your magic, then. That scepter. The illusions.”

“Ah. The scepter was not my magic. It was power that I could manipulate, but it was not mine.”

“What’s the difference?” Tony turned around and set a glass of amber liquid in front of Loki, and kept one for himself.

“You manipulate the power of your armor, but you cannot physically fly,” Loki said, and Tony nodded.

“Got it. The illusions, though?”

“Illusions have always been my strength.” Loki picked up the glass and held it under his nose, inhaling gently. It stung all the way up his nose to his eyes. He blinked rapidly and looked up at his barkeep with raised eyebrows. “What in the nine realms is this?”

“Your drink,” Tony said, grinning. He took a swallow from his own glass and made a ‘go ahead’ gesture at Loki.

Knowing he would probably regret it, but unwilling to pass up the challenge, Loki threw back the drink in one swallow. It burned down his throat, hit his stomach, and kept burning. He coughed into the back of his hand and cringed as that sent flames through his lungs, too. It wasn’t just the burn of alcohol, but some combination of spices as well, and it made his eyes hurt.

“Damn,” Tony said.

“What in the hell was that?” Loki wheezed.

“Just some weak human liquor,” Tony replied, grinning. “Like it?”

“No.”

Tony busted out laughing and grabbed a clean glass. Seconds later, he set it in front of Loki, full of ice and, hopefully, water. The hellfire still burned in his stomach, and Loki remembered just how little he’d eaten lately.

“That’s water,” Tony said. “I promise. Want me to taste-test it for you, Your Highness?”

“Please,” Loki replied. No amount of liquid fire could get him to pass up on that tease, and he pulled himself together enough to watch Stark pick up the glass and drink. Tony held eye contact with him as he swallowed and returned the glass to the bar in front of Loki.

“Crisp and cool. Go on. I’m still waiting to hear about magic.” He scooted his butt up onto the counter behind him and took another swallow of his drink.

The water helped, and Loki talked about magic. Stark asked pointed questions, and it was obvious he was genuinely curious, but he was also looking for a way to either use it himself or stop others—Loki—from using it. Those questions were difficult to answer safely, especially with the warm edge of liquor softening his mind. Loki did not want Stark to find a way to suppress his magic against his will. He was already suppressing it enough as it was.

Stark mixed them both a second drink after a while and came around the bar to sit on the stool to Loki’s left. He taste-tested the second drink before sliding it to Loki with a crooked grin and a promise of, “This one’s sweeter.” Followed by another question.

The second drink was sweeter, but still stronger than he expected from a human drink. It was nice to sit and drink and talk, but it was difficult to skirt the questions he did not want to answer. Tony was not easily distracted by Loki’s verbal footwork. “Don’t think I missed that redirect, tricks,” he said more than once, but didn’t push or demand. Loki gave him enough more general information—about other realms, the Bifrost, Asgard, space in general—that Tony seemed satisfied without the intimate secrets of Loki’s own skills.

“Another drink?” he asked as the conversation lulled. “You even feeling anything from those?”

“A bit,” Loki said. “Your liquor is admittedly stronger than I expected, though I’m not sure the first drink you gave me wasn’t just poison.”

Tony laughed as he got up from his stool. “Not poison, just very high proof. You strike me as more of a wine guy, though, if we’re being honest.” He looped around the back of the bar again and swiped two long-stemmed glasses from a hanging rack above his head. “Red or white?”

“Red.”

Tony grabbed a bottle from a rack and worked a device on it to remove the cork. He brought it, and the two glasses, around with him and returned to his stool beside Loki. “Let’s let that breathe a minute,” he said. “And let’s let you breathe a minute. You’ve been doing all the talking. Hit me with a question. One. And I’ll answer it.”

“Hm.” Until that moment, Loki had been facing the bar, turned only slightly toward Tony as he spoke. Tony had been sitting the entire time facing Loki, knees spread comfortably, relaxed on his perch. Loki turned then and faced Tony, maneuvering so that his left knee was between Tony’s legs. There was enough space that the movement wasn’t too suggestive, but with last night’s sex still fresh in both their minds, it was suggestive enough. “One question hardly seems like a fair trade.”

“It’s not a trade,” Tony said. “The fact that you’re not locked in that room right now is the trade. This is just me being nice.”

Loki tsk’ed. “You’re a hard man to distract, Tony Stark.”

“Life in the spotlight, what can I say.” He picked up the bottle of wine and poured two glasses. “C’mon. I’ll get impatient and rescind the offer.”

There were a thousand questions Loki could ask, from teasing fun to borderline scary, but he went with the one that would get him the most useful answer. “Who else knows I’m here?”

“Ah, damn it,” Tony muttered. He picked up his wine glass and swirled it, sending the deep red liquid around and around.

“You said you would answer.”

“I did say that.”

The swirling wine risked splashing out of the glass. Loki reached out to cup Tony’s hand in both of his and still its agitated movements. They looked at each other, Stark clearly irritated with himself for not thinking of this possibility. He didn’t want to answer, because as he likely saw it, answering put people at risk—from Loki.

“Stark,” Loki said, still holding the man’s hand, “I am not going to kill your friends.”

“Yet.” Tony frowned and looked away, then said, “Two people. They both trust me. They’re not going to do anything with the information.”

Loki knew how that kind of promise went. Anyone who had information was a threat, and the more who had it, the more danger he was in. But he was not going to kill Tony Stark’s friends to keep them quiet. If it spread beyond those two, Loki would have to leave, he would have to disappear, he may even need to leave the planet.

“That’s two more than I’d like,” Loki said, “but I can live with it.” He dropped Stark’s hand, and the man drank a generous portion of his wine in two swallows. Loki turned back to the bar, carefully moving his leg to avoid brushing against Tony. The man turned, too, facing the bar so they sat side-by-side and neither faced the other.

“Whatever happened to you must have been pretty bad,” Tony said.

“Yes.” Loki picked up his wine glass but didn’t drink from it. He’d thrown off their comfortable back-and-forth with a question that Stark felt put his friends in danger. Loki liked the comfortable mood they’d had, the fire of Stark’s curiosity sucking up every breath of knowledge Loki gave him. One thing Loki had determined about Stark was that the man was always in control of a situation. He liked to lead and direct people to go the way he wanted them to go, and if they didn’t, he always had another hand to play. It made sense, then, for Tony to crave sexual submission. Giving up every aspect of control, allowing his mind to go blank except for pleasure or pain or the voice of his partner, and yet knowing that with the slightest word or gesture he could put a stop to the whole thing…

“Want me to taste-test that, too?” Tony asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. Loki looked at the wine glass in his hand, its contents untouched, and then at Stark’s glass, which was mostly empty. “It’s a good vintage. I wouldn’t poison it.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Loki said. He sipped the wine and rolled it around his mouth before swallowing. It was good.

“Are you hungry?”

“Not at the moment.”

Tony pursed his lips. “You do eat, right? Three meals a day, eight cups of water? What is the recommended daily intake for an Asgardian? You told me I don’t know your needs and I called bullshit, but you’re not wrong. I need a handbook. The care and keeping of your very own god.”

Loki shook his head, smiling a bit at Tony’s words. “I do eat. I’ve been taking poor care of myself. You were right.”

“I usually am.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Loki said. “Perhaps I should let you care for me. You seem to be more aware of my physical needs than I am.”

Tony looked at him, surprise on his face, but for once he had nothing to say. They held eye contact briefly before Loki turned on his seat to put his back to the bar and look out the glass wall behind them. He let the conversation die with that suggestion. The fact that Stark didn’t immediately turn him down, say he was out of his mind or that he was no one’s caretaker, said more than any actual response would have said.

The sun was on its way down. He’d been out of his prison for hours with Tony as a constant companion, and he didn’t want to throw the man through the wall again. Yet. It wasn’t often he found one person’s company tolerable at such a length… and he wasn’t eager for it to end yet. Whether that was because ending it meant going back to a locked room, or because he honestly enjoyed Stark’s company, he wasn’t certain. But Tony didn’t seem eager to send him back downstairs, either.

“God,” Tony said, and sighed. Loki glanced at him and their eyes met. Tony chuckled and shook his head, finished the wine from his glass and reached for the bottle.

Without thinking, Loki stopped him, catching his hand gently and intertwining their fingers.

“Hey,” Tony protested, with absolutely no actual sense of protest in his voice. He looked at their hands, then at Loki, and started chuckling again.

“What am I missing?” Loki asked.

“Nothing,” Tony said, wiping moisture from the corners of his eyes with his free hand. “Just… A year ago you nearly killed me here, seriously fucked up my city, and now I’m sitting here holding your fucking hand. We’re drinking wine. I want to kiss you. It’s surreal.”

“You want to kiss me?” Loki squeezed Stark’s hand gently.

“I want a lot of things.”

“You seem like a man who gets what he wants.”

“Most of the time,” Tony said.

Loki pulled Stark’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. Tony’s hands were covered in scars, tiny marks and blemishes from fights and manual labor. Though Loki was hundreds of years older than this human, his own skin was clear and flawless, his fingers pale and smooth.

“Isn’t it surreal to you?” Tony asked.

“What? Sex with a person I tried to kill?” Loki met Stark’s eyes with the question, and Tony nodded. With a smile, Loki shook his head. “I’ve tried to kill most of the people I meet. It was inevitable I’d eventually have sex with one of them, too.”

That drew a laugh out of Tony. “I am really not sure what to think of you.” With his free hand, he reached around their intertwined hands and grabbed the wine he’d been trying to get earlier. He filled his glass and topped off Loki’s, though he’d barely drank any of it.

Tony turned on his stool, dropping his hold on Loki’s hand so that they could both gaze out the window. They sat and drank and watched the sun disappear below the city skyline. As the sky morphed into shades of pink and gold, Tony said, “Let’s go back downstairs.”

“I was wondering when that would come,” Loki said with a sigh.

“Listen, tricks, if I’m going to let you fuck me, it’s gotta be in your room. I don’t trust you enough out here.”

“Are you plying me with sex in exchange for compliance?”

Tony shrugged. “Will that work?”

Loki pretended to think about it for a moment, then said, “Yes, for now.”

“Perfect,” Tony said, and slid off his stool. He grabbed the half-empty bottle of wine from the bar and gestured toward the elevator. “Lead the way.”

Loki complied.

Chapter Text

Between the wine and the lack of sleep the previous night, Tony was exhausted by the time Loki finished with him. He didn’t expect Loki to be a cuddler, but as they drifted in post-orgasmic haze, the god wrapped him in his arms and kissed his hair.

“You did well,” Loki whispered. His hand smoothed up and down Tony’s back.

“Thanks,” Tony said sleepily. “You too.”

Loki chuckled and nuzzled his nose and lips against the top of Tony’s head. “We should bathe.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. Both of us stink.”

“I dunno what you’re talking about. I smell like flowers.”

“Then I’ll bathe and go sleep upstairs, and you can stay here and bask in your own stench.”

“Fat chance,” Tony said. He groaned and rolled himself out of Loki’s arms, to the edge of his bed where he sat up and stretched. His back and thighs ached.

Loki got out of bed and went into the bathroom, nothing about his movement giving away any soreness or exhaustion. Made sense, though. Tony was the one who’d been bent up into a pretzel and fucked until he begged. All Loki’d had to do was give orders and thrust a lot.

Chuckling at his own internal monologue, Tony dragged himself up to his feet and trudged to the bathroom. Loki’s back was turned as he sat at the edge of the tub and tested the water temperature, and it gave Tony a moment to remind himself what he was dealing with. A powerful and beautiful god, but a god who was hiding, scared of something out there much worse, much more powerful. He hadn’t come to Earth from Asgard. He’d come to Earth from somewhere else.

“What happened after you left with Thor?” Tony asked.

Loki sighed. “Stark, didn’t I answer enough of your questions earlier?”

“You answered a lot. I never run out, though.” He crossed the bathroom and sat on the floor behind Loki, one leg folded under himself to keep his bare ass off the tile. Loki twisted to look over his shoulder, and Tony ran the tips of two fingers down the god’s spine. The skin was mostly healed, but the pattern of whiplashes was still visible.

“I was put in Asgard’s prison,” Loki said after a moment. “And then I was broken out and taken… somewhere else.” He shifted around to half-face Tony. “I don’t know what happened to Asgard.”

That wasn’t what Tony had expected to hear. “What… happened? What do you mean what happened to Asgard?”

“The ones who removed me from the dungeons are some of the most dangerous beings in the universe. If anyone tried to stop them, I fear they are dead.”

Tony stared at his guest for a few seconds, flabbergasted, before blurting, “You’ve just been sitting on that? For a week?”

Loki glared. “I have been living with that for nearly a year, Stark. I was not in Asgard’s prisons for long.”

“So you mean to tell me Thor could be dead.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not okay with that!” Tony snapped, getting up. “Are you okay with that? What am I saying, of course you’re okay with that, you’ve been trying to kill him for years.” He headed for the bedroom. He needed clothes. He couldn’t think straight when he was sitting on a bathroom floor naked.

“Stark!” Loki called from the bathroom, anger in his voice. Tony yanked his jeans and boxers back up in one irritated movement. He had to make this Asgard phone line work. Sure, he had Loki here for now, but he couldn’t count on the trickster god to help if Earth was in danger. He could count on Thor. If he was alive.

And if he wasn’t… shit. He couldn’t just sit on that information. He’d have to tell… someone…

“Stark.” Loki came out of the bathroom, naked and angry. “Listen to me.”

“Now you want to talk? You just dump that information on me and expect me to be cool with the fact that Earth’s only intergalactic ally might be dead? And you don’t think I’m going to go figure out whether it’s true or not?”

“How do you expect to figure that out?”

“I don’t know!” Tony snapped. He scooped his t-shirt up off the floor. “I’ll figure out how to figure it out, and then I’ll figure it out. You’re obviously not going to help me.”

“Stark.” Loki ran his fingers back through his hair. “Tony.”

With a sigh, Tony stopped and half-turned toward Loki. “What?”

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“I know you’re scared of it, and if you are, so am I. And this is what I do when I’m scared. I figure it out. If you want to hide out in my guest room and cross your fingers that nothing bad will come after you, that’s fine. You can do that, because if something bad does come here, you can leave. But I can’t, and neither can the other billions of people here, so if some god-killing monster might come here looking for you, then I have to be ready to defend them.”

Tony left the bedroom, left the guest rooms altogether, and went straight to his lab. He paced until his legs reminded him of their recent workout, and then he sat, and he pulled up all the information he’d been given about Thor, all the new information gathered by anyone in the world, everything he could find, and he read. And he kept his back to the display screen with the guest room security feed. Loki didn’t try to call out to him, and he was glad.

***

Dawn found him still awake, scouring over star maps and story books. His brain was barely functioning, his eyes refused to focus, and he still hadn’t showered since last night. He’d managed to ignore Loki and the security feed since leaving the room, but as he reached the end of his wits and the last vestiges of consciousness, he gave in and glanced at it.

Loki was in his kitchen, head resting on an arm folded on the table, fingers relaxed around a glass. The bourbon Tony had sent in on that first day, untouched until now, was gone except for a thin amber layer in the bottom of the glass in Loki’s hand.

“When did he fall asleep?” Tony asked.

“Approximately one hour ago, sir,” Jarvis replied.

Tony sighed and got up. His body aches were twofold now, some from sex and some from sitting for too long. He stretched every which way, until his tense muscles warmed and relaxed.

“Sir,” Jarvis said, “it seems to me that you will need to consult your guest if you intend to reach Asgard.”

“Nobody asked you, Jarvis,” Tony muttered, staring at the screens with bleary eyes. If he had any sense, he’d go upstairs, shower, and sleep. But sometimes he did really idiotic things, and apparently his tired brain was going to make him do another one right now. He headed for the elevator and rode it to the guest level.

Loki was still asleep when Tony entered his room, and he took advantage of that so he could at least shower. Scrubbing himself from head to toe took only a couple minutes, and he was stepping out already when Loki showed up in the doorway. His expression went from fear to relief, and he slouched against the doorjamb.

“Hey,” Tony said. “You were sleeping.”

“Do the showers no longer work in the rest of the building?”

“No, they work, I just…” Tony shrugged. “Came here instead. I’m tired. You’re tired.”

“Have you calmed down?”

“Uh, depends on the context.”

A slight movement of Loki’s hand drew Tony’s attention, and in the light cast over him from the bathroom, Tony saw dark lines on Loki’s right hand. Dark, shiny lines, like liquid. Like blood.

“Loki,” he said, “are you bleeding?”

Loki brought his hand up and looked at it. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

“Why are you bleeding?”

The god walked to the sink and turned on cold water to rinse away the blood. “I fell asleep holding a glass. I woke rather suddenly. Glass is fragile.”

Tony frowned. He grabbed a towel and dried himself. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Loki shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I guess not.”

“What did you do when you left earlier?” Loki asked. With the blood rinsing away as quickly as it leaked out, Tony could see the gash across Loki’s palm. Not a great place for a deep cut.

“Research.”

“And what did you learn?”

“Not a damn thing.”

Loki turned off the water, but as soon as he did, the blood welled up again. Tony went to the closet and got the first aid kit.

“It’ll stop soon,” Loki said, apparently unconcerned with the blood filling the creases of his palm.

“Yeah, your one meal in the past three days is really going to help your body fix itself,” Tony muttered. He opened the kit on the countertop and rifled through until he found gauze pads and medical tape. “Lemme see.”

They were both quiet while Tony bandaged and wrapped the wound. He was exhausted beyond reason, but tending to injuries had become second nature to him after years as Iron Man. After he was done, he packed the kit away.

“I’ll go if you don’t want me here,” he said, “but when I saw you drank yourself to sleep, I figured I should stop in.”

“You have a kind soul, Tony. It’s wasted on me, but I appreciate it.” Loki reached up with his unbandaged hand and touched Tony’s cheek, then bent and kissed him gently. “Stay, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Tony said, “but if you do anything weird while I’m sleeping, you’ll get blown up.”

“I’ve no doubt of that,” Loki said.

They went to bed together, and Tony slept like a baby in the embrace of his one-time enemy.

Chapter Text

It had been a very long time since Loki shared his bed with someone. Sex was one thing, but sleeping together was… more intimate, more vulnerable, and he wanted that tonight, but it was still unsettling.

Beyond that, the nightmare that had woken him from his alcohol-induced nap clung to his mind. Each time as he was dozing off, the dull pain in his hand would invite the horror back.

He hadn’t expected Tony to get so worked up about the possibility of Thor’s death, but he did suppose it was a shock to the man. The reality had sunk in for Loki long ago, in a cold stone room with thin air and no light, as he bled and gasped and hoped, and nothing changed. Thor was dead, and if he wasn’t, well, he was dead to Loki.

But Stark’s words weren’t entirely true. If his enemies came here, Loki couldn’t just leave. The magic he’d used to escape here was dried up, and it would take a long time to nurture that kind of energy on a place like Earth. He was hiding—that part was true—and he was scared. He didn’t have a responsibility to defend the billions of people on Earth, but he needed to be able to defend himself. To hide himself.

Tony slept in his arms without trouble, and Loki envied him his rest. He shifted to press his cheek against the man’s hair, and Tony mumbled sleepily. It was fully daylight, but he didn’t expect the man to awaken for some time. And if nothing else, if Loki could not sleep or stop his racing thoughts, at least he could enjoy the companionship.

***

It took a moment for Loki to realize that he was waking up. He had no recollection of falling asleep. The warm body in his arms was moving, and he opened his eyes with a soft gasp.

“Oh,” Tony said. He was in the process of wriggling out of bed. “Sorry, tried to let you sleep.”

Outside the wall of glass, the sky had gone dark.

“I slept all day?”

“So did I,” Tony said. “Think we needed it. I’m ravenous, though. You hungry?”

Loki nodded.

“I’m gonna order pizza. You like pizza? Do you even know what pizza is?”

“No,” Loki said. Then, to clarify, “I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, if you’re gonna be in New York City, you’re gonna learn.” He patted his trouser pockets. “I left my phone back in my lab, though. C’mon, let’s go get it.”

An opportunity to leave the room and see Tony Stark’s lab? Loki rolled out of bed and followed Tony from the room.

“How’s your hand, by the way?” Tony asked over his shoulder.

“Fine,” Loki said. It didn’t hurt anymore. He picked at the edge of the bandage and unwrapped it as they walked. The wound was closed, but every crease and line in his palm was painted with dry blood. He tossed the wrapping aside before they made it out to the hallway, and flexed his fingers at his side. No pain. He was healing much faster than his last set of injuries had healed. That was a good sign.

“Let me see,” Tony said when he realized Loki had unwrapped his hand. Loki splayed his fingers, palm out toward Stark, and Tony stopped walking and caught his wrist in one hand to get a closer look. “I’ll be damned.” He ran a finger over Loki’s skin. “It bled, but it’s closed up… It’s not even a scab, it’s just… healed. Is that magic, or is that Asgardian mumbo-jumbo?”

“I believe they are essentially the same,” Loki said with a chuckle.

“You must be doing better. The stuff on your back and that one on your gut took days to heal up like that.” Tony dropped his hand and took the last few steps to the elevator. Loki hesitated. He’d known Stark was watching him, but somehow he hadn’t realized the extent of the man’s focus.

“Have I had any privacy since coming here?” Loki asked.

“Some,” Tony said. The elevator doors slid open and he went in, and Loki had no choice but to follow. “I don’t watch you taking a shit or anything. Do gods do that? Never mind, I don’t want to know.” He hit a button, and the doors slid closed.

“I appreciate you allowing me a vestige of dignity, then.”

“Don’t act all butt-hurt,” Tony said. “You know damn well it’s your own actions that make you impossible to trust. Even now, I’m sure you’d whip out a knife and stick it through my eye if you’d benefit from it.”

Loki didn’t say anything, because he couldn’t deny it with any certainty. He would be reluctant, after the kindness and the intimacy—but in the end, a human life, even one as unique and interesting as Tony Stark, was just a blip.

“See?” Tony said. The elevator opened, and he led Loki out into another corridor. “I don’t hold it against you. I mean, a complete lack of loyalty isn’t an endearing trait, but it’s something I can prepare for.”

Tony stopped and pressed his hand against a panel on the wall. A blue light slid over it. He then typed in a code which Loki registered in his memory out of habit, and last leaned forward and let a blue light slide over his eye.

“Very secure,” Loki observed.

“Can’t be having any tricky tricksters breaking into my lab, can I?”

“It would appear I don’t have to break in,” Loki said, as the door slid open.

Tony hmph’d and went through the door. Loki followed.

The lab was spacious, and everything was blue or gray or white. The main workstation was set up in a semicircle small enough that someone—Tony—could easily move between all interfaces with only a small shift of position. Blue-tinted, semi-transparent images hovered in the air above the surfaces. Loki’s eyes caught on one, and he moved closer to confirm… Yes, it was an image of the kitchen of his room. Blood and broken glass still lay on the table from his abrupt return to consciousness.

Turning his back on that visual, Loki was faced with an image of stars.

“Hey, maybe you can help with that,” Tony said from the other side of the workstation. He had his phone in his hand. After a couple more taps on its screen, he slid it into his back pocket and then used both hands to make a wide, sweeping gesture starting at the star projection and ending at the open end of the room. The stars were swept away from the workstation and into the open space, where they blew up into a huge, three-dimensional projection that took up half the room.

“Dim lights,” Tony said, and the room darkened.

“Are you sure you don’t have magic?” Loki asked, moving slowly around the workstation and into the open space. As he walked into the projection, the stars surrounded him on all sides, so that he almost felt like he was adrift in space. It brought back unsettling memories of falling, looking up at his brother… He focused on the solid floor beneath his feet and took a deep breath.

“It’s not magic, it’s science,” Tony said. “I’m trying to find Asgard, but I don’t have enough information. Until a couple years ago, you guys were just myths. Asgard wasn’t a real place, it was just a storybook setting. And now I’m sitting here trying to triangulate its location so I can make an intergalactic phone call. Is it intergalactic? Is Asgard part of the Milky Way?”

Loki shook his head, only comprehending about half of Tony’s rambles. It was curious that he could have such advanced images and interact with them as he did, but not call it magic.

“How do you control it?” Loki asked.

Tony spent a few minutes explaining and showing Loki how to interact with the projection, and Loki spent a few more minutes practicing and exploring the stars. He could rotate the projection so that he wasn’t looking at the stars from Earth’s point of view, and he tried to find something familiar in the millions of tiny lights poking holes in the dim laboratory. If he couldn’t find Asgard, perhaps he could find… somewhere else. Somewhere familiar. He’d been to all nine realms throughout his life, and more recently, he’d been to dozens of planets outside Asgard’s jurisdiction. Tony was only interested in Asgard, but Loki was interested in the entire universe.

“Pizza’s on its way,” Tony said abruptly. He was looking at his phone again. “C’mon, let’s go eat.”

Reluctantly, Loki followed Tony back to the elevator and up to the penthouse. He picked Tony’s brain about Earth’s knowledge of space, which seemed to be pretty abysmal. They hadn’t even known there was truly life on other worlds until Loki brought an army of aliens into one of their biggest cities.

“Many Asgardians have never seen another world,” Loki said, “but they do not doubt their existence, or the existence of intelligent life on them.”

“But you’ve had dealings with other worlds within your lifetime. Wars and such. Right? You have the Bifrost to travel to other worlds and it’s been like that for… millennia, right? Earth is different.”

Tony was lingering near the elevator, no doubt waiting for the ‘pizza’ which Loki assumed was being delivered by a servant of some sort.

“Midgard is meant to be under the protection of Asgard,” Loki said, leaving Stark and crossing the room to the bar. He raised his voice so it would carry back to his gracious host. “Odin and Thor regularly visit other realms to keep the peace and check in. Midgard fell by the wayside centuries ago.”

“Well, we haven’t needed Asgard’s protection until some asshole tried to take over the planet recently,” Tony said. “And when that happened, Thor was there.”

Loki scoffed and chose a bottle of wine.

“Is that why you picked Earth?” Tony asked after a pause.

Loki was saved from answering by the chime of the elevator. Across the room, the doors slid open, and someone’s voice reached Loki’s ears.

“Oh my God. It’s really you! I can’t believe I’m delivering pizza to Iron Man.”

Tony’s answer was soft, and then the other person said, “Oh my God, thank you! Have a good night!”

When Tony turned around, he had a flat square box in his hands. He jerked his head toward the sofa and its small table, and Loki grabbed two glasses and joined him with the bottle of wine. He tried to derail Tony from the question he’d asked.

“Your delivery person seemed thrilled to see you,” he said.

“It happens. I’m kind of a big deal.” Tony had set the box on the table and opened it with the lid to the side. Loki poured wine and handed one glass to the man beside him. Tony accepted it in one hand and gestured to the round dish in front of them with the other. “Pizza is one of the great joys of life. So what you do is…” He separated a large wedge from the circle. Strings of melted cheese followed it and bits of veggies and meat toppled off, but Tony didn’t seem to care. He picked it up in such a way he could fold it in half with one hand, and then took a huge bite.

Loki followed his example. The food was hot and salty, an interesting mixture of textures and flavors. He chewed thoughtfully, swallowed, and decided he liked it. It was messy, though.

They ate without conversation. When the wine glasses were empty, Tony leaned past Loki to grab the bottle and fill them. Loki’s mind was dwelling on the stars, on his brother, and on Tony’s question—is that why you picked Earth?

“Earth was a coincidence,” he said after a while.

Tony, contentedly gnawing on a third or fourth piece of pizza, paused mid-chew and looked at Loki with his brows drawn. Loki met his eyes briefly, then shook his head and filled his wine glass again. The bottle was nearly empty. He didn’t remember them drinking that much.

If he could help Tony get in contact with Asgard, it would likely be to the benefit of everyone involved—except, perhaps, Loki. If Thor was alive, if Asgard was still standing… Thor would insist he go back, either to the dungeon or to the palace, but Loki didn’t wish to return to either place. Knowing what he knew now, he couldn’t imagine going back to the palace to live as a prince of Asgard again, knowing he would never ascend to a throne, forced to be content with his position. The dungeons would almost be preferable, except that they’d found him there once and kidnapped him out from under the guards’ noses, so there was no way he would ever feel safe there. He felt safer on Earth drinking wine with Tony Stark than he would ever feel again on Asgard. But Thor and Odin wouldn’t let him stay here.

“If I help you contact Asgard,” Loki said slowly, “swear to me you will not tell them I am here.”

Tony frowned. “I can’t swear that.”

Loki huffed in frustration. “The fewer people who know where I am, the safer I am. The safer you are. Why do you wish to make everything so difficult?”

“I don’t think I’m making anything difficult. If anyone’s making anything difficult, it’s you. You’re demanding and obstinate, and you’re putting my entire planet in jeopardy just by being here. As much as I love the sex, it’s not worth nine billion lives.”

With a frustrated groan, Loki got up and paced to the glass wall. If he focused, he could see the reflection of Stark behind him. The man was watching him, motionless, then he sighed and got up. Loki shifted his gaze out toward the city skyline and waited for the man to join him. Seconds later, Tony was at his elbow.

“I’m willing to figure out something that can benefit both of us,” he said, “but I have to know if Thor is alive. He’s a valuable ally, and you are, quite frankly, not.”

That was valid. Loki couldn’t argue.

“So the options are either you help me contact Asgard, or I contact SHIELD to see if they know more than I do. SHIELD would be thrilled to know you’re on Earth. They’d probably send Cap and Romanov over immediately.”

“Stark,” Loki interrupted, “you will not scare me into compliance with suggestions of torture. There is nothing that a human can do to me which has not already been done, mercilessly, by someone much worse.”

That shut Tony up. He crossed his arms and gazed out across the city. After a while, he said, “I don’t know what to do with you, Loki.”

“I’m accustomed to that sentiment.”

Another stretch of silence passed before Tony said, “I can’t trust you if you’re opposed to what I’m doing. If it doesn’t benefit you, you’ll thwart it. So I guess you go back to the locked room, and I go to SHIELD to see if they can help.”

Loki clenched his jaw. He didn’t want Tony to go to SHIELD, either. Getting more Earth allies involved made the situation harder to control, especially from a locked room.

“I could easily kill you right now,” Loki said.

“I know,” Tony replied.

“Part of me wants to.”

Tony looked up at him, but it wasn’t scared or anxious. It was calm, challenging, confident. Loki huffed and turned away. He paced back toward the couch, the half-finished pizza and empty wine bottle a strange tableau of their camaraderie from moments ago. The situation would be easier to control if he was alone. If he was not relying on Tony Stark for anything. He could hide, he could survive, he could be anyone on Earth and live any life he chose.

But he didn’t want to ‘survive’, alone, hiding out as a stranger in a strange land. He’d had enough of being nobody.

“I won’t go back to Asgard,” he said, back turned to Tony, arms crossed.

“Okay,” Tony said. “I can’t force you.”

“Thor and Odin will try, if they know I’m here. I won’t let them.”

“Okay,” Tony said again.

Loki half-turned back to his companion. “That is all.”

“Just to make sure I’m on the same page, here—did you just agree to help me?”

“If you still want my help given that information, then yes, it seems the best course of action for now.”

“Hell yes,” Tony said. He crossed the room at a quick walk, brought both hands up to Loki’s cheeks, and kissed him. The casualness of Tony’s affection was strange to Loki, and the man’s every touch felt like it was feeding some part of Loki that was starved. The warmth of his hands and mouth and body gave Loki a rush of power and strength. Having the man’s body under his own hands, vulnerable and fragile and eager, awoke some part of Loki he hadn’t explored in a very, very long time. Tenderness. Mercy. Selflessness. It was terrifying and exhilarating and addictive.

“We can start in the morning,” Loki said. He took both of Tony’s hands and guided them behind the man’s back, crossed them at the wrists, and said, “I have better ideas for tonight.”

“Fuck,” Tony whispered. He leaned forward to rest his forehead against Loki’s shoulder.

“Yes, that was the idea,” Loki said.

Tony chuckled and sank his teeth softly into the juncture of Loki’s neck and shoulder.

“You don’t have to be gentle, Tony.”

The man released his jaw and kissed the pale skin instead. “Maybe I want to be gentle. Maybe you need some gentle.” His lips pressed to Loki’s pulse, a feather-light kiss, and then against his jaw. It was almost reverent in its tenderness, and to Loki’s surprise, it elicited the same heady power trip he got from making demands and taking physical control of his lover.

“Is that what you’d like this time?” He kissed Tony’s hair. “Slow and sweet?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, then, “Please. If you’ll let me.”

Loki let go of Tony’s hands and hooked a finger into the top of the man’s trousers. “Downstairs.”

The elevator ride was simultaneously too long and too short. Tony was quiet, which was rare, but he kept physical contact with Loki. Once they were behind the closed door of Loki’s rooms, he faced Tony and put a finger under his chin to guide his eyes up to Loki’s.

“You’re being awfully quiet, Tony.”

“Got a lot of stuff going on in my head,” the man admitted.

“Shall I let you go, then?”

“No,” Tony said quickly. He took Loki’s hand in both of his, freeing himself from Loki’s gently controlling touch, and kissed the god’s knuckles. “No. Just help me focus.”

Though Tony had never asked for that specific type of help, Loki knew how to get the man’s undivided attention. He slid his free hand into Tony’s hair and tightened his fingers into a fist, pulling. A soft noise escaped Tony’s throat.

“I thought you wanted sweet and gentle tonight?” Loki asked.

“I do,” Tony said.

“I don’t do sweet and gentle,” Loki said. He pushed down on Tony’s head, forcing him to double over. “But maybe, if you ask nicely, I’ll let you. Now get on your knees.” With a little shove for emphasis, he let go of his partner, letting him obey without the threat of physical pain. And Tony did. He’d come so far in only two days—from refusing to voice a basic request, to kneeling on command.

Loki caressed a hand over the man’s head. “Good. Now, what is it that you want, Stark?”

“I want to…” Tony hesitated.

“I don’t have all night.”

“Damn it.” He reached out and ran a hand down Loki’s calf. His voice was almost too soft to hear when he got the words out. “I want to worship you.”

Loki’s breath caught in his throat. He forced himself to speak in the sharp tone that Stark responded to best. “Speak up.”

“God damn it, Loki,” Tony said, his own voice sharper, too. His was not demanding, though, it was… desperate, pained, needy. “I want to be gentle with you. I want to worship you. You’re a beautiful mess, Loki, and I want to kiss every damn inch of you.”

It took a second for Loki to find his voice. “Ask nicely.”

“Please. I want—” The man made a frustrated noise and stopped, knowing before he’d even finished the phrase that he wasn’t doing what he’d been told. Distress showed on his face, in the lines of his brow and around his eyes.

Loki pet his hair, content to watch the man struggle so hard to do what Loki wanted.

“Please let me take care of you,” Tony blurted. “Let me touch you.”

The casual remark from the other day resurfaced in Loki’s mind—I’ve been taking poor care of myself … perhaps I should let you care for me. Having his own personal servant and caretaker would likely be both annoying and satisfying, but for one night, having someone worship him, at least physically…

“I’ll allow it.”

“Thank you,” Tony said. He stood, and suddenly Loki felt unprepared, but Tony’s first act of care and worship was simply a kiss. A long, unhurried kiss, with fingers in Loki’s hair, gently caressing his scalp. Neither was more in control of the kiss than the other. It was an exploration, a reassurance, and Loki relaxed into it. Perhaps there was something to be said for a softer touch.

Chapter Text

It was madness, and it was all Tony wanted. Both their trysts so far had been largely hands-off—Loki told him what to do and took what he wanted, and Tony rode through it in a state of mindless abandon. But last night, the arguing, Loki’s fear, the blood from the shattered glass, and the peaceful expression on his face as he slept with his arms around Tony… God, it was dangerous.

They parted for breath, and Tony smiled. “Bedroom?”

Loki moved quickly, and Tony’s feet went out from under him as the god swept him up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Tony yelped and grabbed fistfuls of Loki’s sweater as he was turned upside down. Loki chuckled, walked to the bedroom, and carefully bent to deposit Tony on the bed.

“I’ll never get used to that,” Tony said.

Loki straightened and held both arms out to his sides, grinning. “Shower me with praise.”

Tony laughed and stood. He pulled the bottom of Loki’s sweater up. “Well, you’re strong, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Loki echoed, and helped Tony remove the piece of clothing. Tony took both of Loki’s hands, intertwining their fingers.

“You’re incredibly clever.” Still holding the god’s hands, Tony wrapped his arms around Loki’s waist, pushing his hands behind his back like Loki had done to him upstairs. Their chests pressed together, and Tony kissed his partner’s neck.

“I am,” Loki said.

“And so, so humble.”

Loki snorted lightly.

“Your eyes are so intense and beautiful.” Tony let go of Loki’s hands and stepped back so he could look up into the god’s face. “Your cheekbones are the envy of men and women everywhere.” He leaned in and kissed Loki quickly, resting his hands on Loki’s hips. “Your lips are soft, and you always taste nice, even after eating pizza.”

Their next kiss was longer as Tony eased himself back into the quiet, worshipful headspace he needed. Religion had never been a part of Tony’s life. He believed in science and math, not unseen deities. It was a blessing and a curse—he never felt out of control because he only relied on himself, and yet… people with faith seemed more able to let go than Tony was.

Sex was the closest Tony ever got to letting go, and even then it was usually incomplete. Twice now, Loki had given him a complete release of control, had held him and guided him through it with an uncharacteristic amount of respect and care. Loki had taken from Tony, unequivocally, what he was so often unwilling to let go of, and he had made it worthwhile.

“You deserve so much more than you’ve ever been given,” Tony murmured when their lips parted. He touched Loki’s cheek.

“That could go in a number of directions,” Loki replied, but his voice was quiet and unchallenging. He was relaxing, accepting Tony’s attention, not pushing for control.

“I only mean it in the positive ways.” He unfastened Loki’s jeans and slid them down, kneeling as he did. His partner was only half-hard, and Tony took advantage of that to suck the full length of him into his mouth. Loki gasped and cupped a hand against the back of Tony’s head, needy and powerful, and Tony’s own cock flew to attention at that small amount of control. Christ, he was a slut for this. He sucked hard and used both hands to pull Loki’s hips forward, nearly choking himself as the god’s erection grew. With a moan, Loki let go of Tony’s head. Tony pulled back, inhaling through his nose, and let the tip of his partner’s beautiful cock slide through his lips.

“More of that later,” Tony promised.

They lost the rest of their clothes and tumbled into bed, Tony on top. He kissed and caressed Loki from forehead to chest, whispering praise and, as he sank deeper into his headspace, thanking his god for allowing him this intimacy and honor. His god.

Loki seemed satisfied with the worship and didn’t try to take over, to push or demand anything Tony wasn’t already giving him. He sighed and moaned in appreciation, occasionally giving an encouraging, “There,” or “Yes” that Tony soaked up like the loudest of praise.

He worked his way from chest to hips, hips to thighs, even down to the arches of Loki’s feet—which, he discovered, were ticklish. He didn’t mention it. That was information to use on another day.

It was easy to ignore his own body and needs when he was so focused on someone else. He was attuned to his partner, and the god’s every whisper and shiver. Loki held fistfuls of the sheets so tightly the tendons on his arms stood out, and Tony decided it was time to give him relief. He moved up the bed and straddled Loki, holding himself above him on hands and knees as he kissed him for the first time since moving down his body an eternity ago. Loki’s hands moved from the bedsheets to Tony’s hips, fortunately grasping much more gently there.

The lube was still on the bedside table from last time, and Tony broke the kiss long enough to grab it. Loki was smiling when they kissed again, eager for the next part. Tony was eager too, but he took his time preparing himself, holding himself up on his knees above Loki, making a little show of pleasure as he fingered himself. Loki didn’t rush him, but his chest heaved with labored breath. He had to be aching.

“Thank you,” Tony whispered, and smiled.

Loki scoffed. “For?”

“Being patient.” He reached back, found Loki’s cock, and smoothed lube over it. With some help from his partner, he lined himself up and penetrated himself on the thick, hard length. A moan escaped him, and Loki echoed it. They both moved with care, enjoying every nuance of the moment, every breath and shiver and slide and thrust, until Loki sought Tony’s hips and thrust a little harder, a little faster, and Tony let out a breathless noise of bliss.

“Tony,” Loki said, “I need more.”

Tony swallowed and nodded. “Then take it.”

The god swapped their positions without pulling out, putting Tony on his back with his legs spread wide. Tony moaned, but it was muffled as Loki pressed a kiss against his mouth and thrust hard. For all the worship and care, this was still the best part of it. Giving up and accepting that he was serving someone else’s purpose, that he didn’t have to think or worry, because Loki, for all his sociopathic tendencies, did not do anything Tony wasn’t okay with.

“I need this,” Loki said. He was breathless, fucking Tony with abandon. He buried his face against Tony’s neck, his soft hair falling over Tony’s cheek, and whispered, “I need you. Gods, I need—Tony, I need you.”

“You have me,” Tony assured him, his voice strained but no less earnest for it. “You have me, Loki.”

Loki found release in him, his body shuddering in head-to-toe relief as the tension broke and pleasure flooded him. Tony swallowed against a strange, confusing joy as his partner’s cock pulsed inside him. Though he hadn’t orgasmed, he felt as satisfied as if he just had. He’d given Loki everything he could. He’d worshipped his body and mind. It was a novel delight, and as Loki pulled out and lay down beside him, Tony couldn’t wipe a tired, crooked grin off his face.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Not sure what I did,” Loki muttered between heavy breaths, “but you’re welcome.”

Tony chuckled. They lay together for a few minutes, catching their breath, before Tony pulled himself to his feet and trudged to the bathroom to clean himself up. He started the water in the tub, anticipating Loki would want a bath. He seemed to be fond of those.

It was a few minutes before the god joined him. When he did, he tipped Tony’s face upwards with a gentle touch and kissed him. The quiet, comforting sex was nice, Tony decided. Once in a while.

“You didn’t reach climax,” Loki said.

“No.”

“Shall I change that?” His brushed the backs of his fingers over Tony’s softened cock.

“I wouldn’t dare to impose myself on you, Your Highness,” Tony said, in part because he knew Loki would like to hear the words, but also because he meant it. These roles they’d taken on put Tony firmly and without question in a submissive position, which meant he could ask and he could beg, but he couldn’t make a decision like whether or not his dominant partner should give him something he wanted.

As expected, Tony’s response brought a smug smile to Loki’s face.

“I want you to come,” Loki said, his fingertips wandering over Tony’s thighs. “I like your face when you completely lose control.”

“Well, in that case, who am I to argue?”

“No one,” Loki said. He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder and turned him around to face the full-length mirror on the wall by the sink. Loki pressed his chest against Tony’s back and slid both hands around his waist. No one was the farthest answer from the truth in most cases, but in this room, with just the two of them, Tony was no one. He was just a man in the arms of a god, getting hard under his lover’s touch, hoping for a good orgasm so Loki could see his face as he lost himself in pleasure.

Watching himself in the mirror was surreal. Loki kissed his neck, then bit him, much like Tony had done to him while they were still upstairs—except Loki wasn’t gentle, and at the same moment he tightened his fist on Tony’s hardening length, and a noise of surprise and pain escaped Tony’s throat. His hips, almost of their own accord, jerked forward once, and the pleasure of Loki’s grip was enough to distract from the pain of his teeth.

The god’s free hand slid up to Tony’s neck and put pressure on his throat, and everything grew more intense to Tony’s mind. The fist jerking him off. The teeth, still mercilessly sunk into his shoulder. The heat and strength of Loki’s body against his.

“Yeah,” Tony whispered. He covered Loki’s left hand with his own, encouraging the hold on his throat. Stars swam and burst behind his eyes, and he remembered that Loki liked to see him orgasm. He began thrusting into the tight fist. “Yes.”

Loki nipped and kissed along Tony’s shoulder, and Tony reached out to put his palm on the mirror in front of him, dizzy and breathless and so close. The hand on his cock moved, adding to Tony’s thrusts. Everything tightened in his body and soared in his mind. All he could do was gasp for breath and thrust, hand grasping tightly at Loki’s wrist. When he came, his whole body shuddered, his vision blackened at the edges—but he saw Loki watching him in the mirror, a smile on his face, and everything was perfect.

He wasn’t sure if he passed out or if the post-orgasmic haze simply fogged his memory, but when things made sense again, he was in Loki’s lap in a tub of hot water and bubbles. His head rested on his partner’s shoulder, and Loki was combing his fingertips through Tony’s hair with a slow rhythm.

“Damn,” Tony muttered. “God… fucking… damn.”

Loki chuckled. “There you are.”

The hot water was bliss on his muscles. He scooted off Loki and moved beside him so he could sink down to his neck in the water. A moan escaped his chest.

“I enjoyed that,” Loki said.

“Good. Me too.” Tony didn’t want to talk, for once in his life. He was on a cloud, aching in some places but so, so satisfied in others. Even the ache was a good feeling. He rested his head on Loki’s shoulder and his hand on the god’s thigh under the water. Loki patted his cheek.

“Stay awake.”

Tony made a disgruntled noise but roused himself, shifting so more of his chest was exposed to the air. He thought about Loki’s words earlier. Tony, I need you. The god was a trickster, dangerous and manipulative, but Tony couldn’t help the feeling that most of what Loki said to him, especially during sex, was true.

“Do you want me to sleep here tonight?” Tony asked.

“Do you want to sleep here?” Loki replied.

“I’m indifferent.”

Loki snorted gently. “Then stay. A bed is a bed.”

“That is true.”

They relaxed in the bath for some time, and when they finally had enough, they dried off and retired to the bed, not bothering to dress. Tony fell asleep with his back to Loki’s chest, his mind quiet and at ease.

Chapter Text

“If you’re going to be helping me,” Tony said, “I guess you need to meet Jarvis.”

Loki’s brows drew together as he followed Tony into the lab. Did Stark have an assistant? He looked around the large open space, but, like yesterday, there was no one else there.

The next time Tony spoke, his voice was pitched differently, aimed at someone farther away. “Loki’s going to be helping me out, Jarvis. Say hi.”

“Hello,” a voice said from… somewhere.

Loki looked around again, but they were still alone.

“He gets restricted access,” Tony continued, not waiting for Loki to return the greeting. “The Asgard project only, nothing else.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Sorry,” Loki said, “but who or what is Jarvis? And where is he?”

“Jarvis is the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence,” Tony said. “He runs the house. He’s everywhere, in every room.”

Loki’s brows rose. “Everywhere?”

“Everywhere,” Tony replied pointedly, meeting Loki’s eyes. “The things he’s seen, oh boy. But don’t worry, he’s discrete.”

The concept of an all-seeing entity wasn’t strange to Loki. He’d grown up with the knowledge that Heimdall could see everything, everywhere, at all times. During Loki’s last visit to Earth, his human minions had explained concept of security cameras and a worldwide net of ‘facial recognition’, so Loki had known privacy was not a big feature on Midgard.

“When you say artificial intelligence,” Loki said, “you mean this Jarvis is not… a flesh and blood creature?”

“Essentially. Anyway, you can talk to him, ask him things, tell him things. Let’s start with you telling him all the cold hard facts about Asgard. Where is it, for example?”

With a scoff, Loki said, “So direct.”

“I don’t have time for games, Loki. Come on. Some of us don’t live thousands of years.”

“A shame,” Loki said. He walked toward the open space where the stars had been projected the previous day. “Show me the star charts again.”

The projection appeared around him, and he turned in place, looking around. “How much do you have charted?” he asked.

“Barely anything, considering how big space is,” Tony said. “NASA’s funding has increased in recent years, particularly this past year after some power-hungry god brought an army of aliens to Earth—silver linings, I guess. But we’ve still barely scraped a fraction of a percent of our own galaxy.”

Loki shook his head. He knew his way around the nine realms, certainly. He knew what the stars looked like in Asgard’s night sky, and he had some grasp of Jotunheim’s stars after his few visits. He’d seen worlds beyond the nine realms, and most of all he remembered the stars he’d stared at from the cold stone floor of his prison. But if Earth didn’t have the means for him to translate that knowledge into something they could actually use, he could do nothing. And he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“You can move it and navigate around,” Tony said, sliding off his chair to join Loki in the open space. “It’s controlled with gestures.” He demonstrated by lifting his hands, arms spread, and then bringing them together toward the center of his chest. The stars around them blurred and Loki had the distinct feeling of falling before everything stilled again.

Tony showed him the movements needed to control the projection, talking the whole time, but as the stars swung around their heads, Loki kept his eyes open for anything familiar. After Tony had finished his instructions, he backed off and let Loki navigate. It was an intuitive system and surprisingly responsive—almost like magic.

“What about the other realms?” Tony asked. “There are nine, right?”

“Yes,” Loki said. He was working his way methodically through the galaxy, moving a portion, looking at it from every angle, then moving it all again. He had to look foolish, but at least Stark could see he was trying. Sort of. “Niflheim, Muspelheim, Asgard, Midgard, Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, and Helheim.”

“That’s a lot of heims,” Tony said. “But they’re all planets, right? I mean, Midgard is Earth, and Earth is a planet, so it stands to reason.”

“It stands to reason,” Loki agreed.

“Does each realm have different… uh, species?” Tony asked. “Do they all look human? I mean, Thor looks human. You look human.”

Loki shook his head, ignoring the twinge of emotion at that last remark. If Stark saw his truest form, the form he had hidden under powerful magicks… Stark would likely not be treating him half as kindly as he had been all this time. “Not all look human,” he answered simply.

“Were the Chitauri from one of the nine realms?”

“No.”

“Where’d you pick them up?”

The questions were venturing into territory he did not like. “Stark, I told you I would help you contact Asgard. I fail to see how the Chitauri are relevant to that end.”

“Everything could be relevant. Just gathering info. Do they have a home world?”

“Redirect the line of questioning,” Loki said, “or shut up entirely.”

“Struck a nerve there. Got it. Okay, redirecting.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Loki enjoyed the blissful silence while it lasted. Then Tony said, “Did you really turn into a mare and give birth to an eight-legged foal?”

Loki laughed in surprise. Of all the things for Midgard to remember over the centuries… “Yes,” he said.

“Wow. What was that like?”

“The form of a horse is enjoyable. Pregnancy and birth are not.”

“Could you turn into a horse right here and now?”

“If I were so inclined.”

“What else can you turn into?”

Loki was beginning to feel distinctly like an unwilling babysitter saddled with a toddler whose questions would never end. He turned to face Tony and held up his hand with fingers spread. “I will answer five questions for free, Stark, with the option to demand a substitute question if I am not willing to answer. After that, every question you ask will cost you.”

“Cost me?” Tony laughed and crossed his arms. “Last I checked, you’re in my house, handsome. You can’t make demands.”

“Do you not follow the laws of hospitality on Earth? Making a guest feel uncomfortable or unwelcome is the pinnacle of vulgarity.”

“Then color me vulgar,” Tony said. “I make everyone uncomfortable, guest or not.”

Again, Loki found himself laughing. He could see the truth in that statement. Stark didn’t police his words or play around with false politeness. His brashness would easily make most people uncomfortable.

“Five questions,” Loki said.

“Before I agree to anything, I have a question about the rules.”

“Go ahead.”

“What will additional questions cost me?”

“An answer to my own questions.”

“Ah,” Tony said. “Tit for tat? I ask one, you ask one?”

“Tit for tat,” Loki confirmed.

“All right.”

“Are you agreeing to the terms?”

“Sure, I’ll play. Gimme a few minutes to think of good questions.”

“Take your time.” After all, that was Loki’s real reason for proposing the game to start with. He wouldn’t rush Stark to keep speaking. While the man thought, Loki worked, but he wasn’t having luck. Space was too big for him to find anything familiar from something like this. Still, he kept going, to keep himself in Tony’s good graces.

“All right,” Tony said after a while. “First question—and I want honesty.”

“I don’t do honesty well,” Loki replied, back turned to Stark as he inspected the stars.

“I know. Try.”

Loki sighed and turned to face his spectating host. “Very well. But I still hold the right to veto your questions.”

“That’s fine, I have backups. Why’d you try to take over Earth?”

With a roll of his eyes, Loki turned his back again. Of course that was the first question he asked. There were a dozen answers Loki could give. He knew which one would satisfy Tony the most—honesty about what happened after he fell from Asgard, his time spent traveling to other worlds, meeting the Mad Titan—but he wasn’t sure he could give that answer.

“Earth seemed an easy target,” he said. “And the Tesseract was here.”

“Hm. Yeah. I wish SHIELD had told me about that thing years ago. I could have done more with it than they ever did.”

“Of that I am quite certain,” Loki said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“That was my intent.”

“Well, thank you.” Tony paused for a few seconds before saying, “That’s all the answer you’re giving for that question, huh?”

“It was an honest answer.”

“It’s incomplete.”

“I never agreed to tell you everything.”

“Shit,” Tony muttered. “All right, fine. Next question. Other than the clothes you summoned once, have you used any magic since you got here?”

“No.”

“Follow up. Is that because you can’t or because you won’t?”

“A combination,” Loki said. “That counts as your third question, by the way.”

“I know. So I want a better answer than ‘a combination,’ Lokes. Come on.”

Loki gave up on looking at the stars. He walked slowly across the room toward where Tony sat, looking down, gathering his thoughts. He leaned his elbows on the table across from Tony, lowering himself slightly to be at the same height as the seated man.

“The answer, then, is primarily that I will not. I am avoiding detection, and I am gaining your trust. In pursuit of both, being absolutely mundane seems safest.”

Tony’s lips quirked to the side in a half-smile. “You don’t know how to be mundane, Loki.”

“I’ll admit it’s challenging to be this dull. How do you do it?” He tilted his head to the side and affected a curious, focused expression.

“Jerk,” Tony said. “Get out of my face.” His tone was light, though, and Loki chuckled as he pushed away from the desk and straightened.

“Fourth question, Stark.”

Tony’s voice grew more somber. “If something happened because you’re here,” he said, and Loki already hated the question, “if whoever hurt you, found you here, and threatened Earth, what would you do?”

Loki looked down and away. He didn’t mind silence, usually, but it seemed to last forever in the wake of that question. When he first arrived in Tony’s home, such a short time ago, he would have easily answered that question with “disappear, Midgard be damned.” Still now, that was his first instinct. His tormentor had destroyed plenty of planets before, decimated their populations, left them burning and in ruins. Earth would just be the next in a long line, and Earth was no different. Except… it would be the first world under Asgard’s protection to come under attack. The first world Loki had any personal stake in, even before he’d met Tony.

“I don’t know,” he said softly, and looked up at Tony.

The man was watching him, jaw clenched tight. “Honestly?” Tony asked.

“Honestly.”

There was another long stretch of silence before Tony said, “I would fight beside you, if you fought.”

Loki swallowed and looked away. The thought of fighting was mortifying, but… slightly less so, if he would have someone at his side. “Thank you.”

Stark’s tone lightened. “If you ran away and let Earth get destroyed, though, you’re going right back on my shit list.”

“Rightfully so,” Loki said. “Though I will be honest, I am accustomed to being on most peoples’ ‘shit list’ as you put it.”

“Figured. But I wanted to make sure you knew.”

“I know.”

They didn’t speak for a few minutes, until Loki prompted, “Do you have a fifth question for me, Stark?”

Tony hummed. “Well, you won’t do magic for me. You won’t answer questions about what happened to you before you came here. You won’t answer questions about why you attacked Earth. You can’t answer hypotheticals.” He rested a fingertip against his lips and looked thoughtfully off into the distance. Loki rolled his eyes at the theatrics, but only to hide his own amusement.

“Here’s a question,” Tony said finally. He gestured to the projection of stars that Loki had been idly inspecting throughout their conversation. “Is that doing you any good?”

Loki sighed. That hadn’t lasted long. “No.”

“Are you looking for something specific? If you can draw it or describe it, I can program it in and just have Jarvis search. It’ll be much faster that way.”

Moments later, Loki was seated on a sofa against the wall of Stark’s lab with a piece of technology in his lap that allowed him to draw the night sky. As he drew it on the surface, it projected above and allowed him to adjust placements and distances. Tony was working on something else across the room at his table, and Loki felt an odd contentment come over him as he sank into the project. It was the most productive and creative he’d been in a long time.

Recreating Asgard’s night sky made him homesick. Recognizing the homesickness made him hurt in ways he couldn’t describe. Asgard wasn’t his home anymore. He was a criminal there, and he could never go back. And it wasn’t even his fault. Looking back at everything that had transpired since he found out his true parentage, Loki hardly recognized himself. When he’d fallen from Asgard, forced Thor to destroy the Bifrost… Everything from that moment on was a painful, confusing blur. Even now he wasn’t certain he had both feet on solid ground, but he felt more himself than he had in ages.

He kept working, quiet and focused. Tony never bothered him, and they didn’t speak for what had to be hours while Loki recreated every night sky he could remember. For each planet, he started with a blank slate and worked until he could remember no more. Then, with a few words to Jarvis, that project would be saved, removed, and replaced with a new slate.

Finally, he reached the end of his memory and got up to rejoin Stark at his workstation. The man looked up at his approach and offered a half-smile.

“Hey. Done?”

“Done,” Loki confirmed, handing the device back to Tony. “How long will it take to find something?”

“Hard to say. Probably long enough to grab some food. Have you ever had a bacon cheeseburger?”

Chapter Text

The entire day was surreal. Waking up beside Loki, working alongside him, having civil and honest conversation… It was more surreal than having sex with him. At least sex could be blamed on hormones and irrational thought. Going through the mundane tasks of an average day with Loki at his side all the while was just weird.

Jarvis took longer to get results on Loki’s models than Tony expected, so after lunch—Loki wasn’t as enamored with bacon cheeseburgers as he’d been with pizza, but he loved the fries—they drank and discussed magic. Loki wouldn’t perform even the tiniest of tricks, but he was willing to open up about magical theory, the role of magic in Asgard and some of the other realms, and the vast applications. He got animated and passionate as he talked, and for a while, Tony could see the shadow of another personality in him, someone younger and more open and less likely to take over a world or force a man to kneel. It was dangerously endearing, and Tony had to force himself to listen and analyze the words, to think practically about applications of magic, if it was something that could be harnessed by technology, or by humans.

His phone rang, and Loki stopped talking, eyeing the device with curiosity. Pepper’s smiling face showed on the screen, and Tony wanted to curse himself for leaving it lying out on the table. Now Loki knew what she looked like.

“I gotta take this,” Tony said, getting up. “Be good.”

He answered the call brightly, walking across the penthouse to the glass wall for a semblance of privacy. Did Loki have superhuman hearing? Damned if he knew. Thor hadn’t seemed to, at least.

“Miss Potts,” he said.

“Tony,” she replied. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“How are things going there?”

“Progress is being made,” Tony said. “No one has been thrown through a window. I’ve introduced Loki to cheeseburgers.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Tony resisted the urge to babble into the silence. They’d talked a couple days ago, and things had been fine. She was still staying in a hotel and planning her trip to DC.

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” she said.

“Who said anything about fun? I’m constantly expecting to be murdered.”

Another pause, then, “Tony, will he still be there when I get home from DC?”

Tony looked across the room at his guest, watching him swirl his wine absent-mindedly as he kept his head turned away from Tony, gazing out the window in the opposite direction. Loki had no intention of leaving. He refused to go back to Asgard, and it had become abundantly clear he had no where else to go. At least, no where else he could go and be reasonably safe or wanted.

“I’m not sure, Pep,” Tony admitted, lowering his voice. “He’s helping me contact Asgard. I can’t guess what’ll happen after that.”

“Hopefully he goes back.”

“He doesn’t want to go back.”

“Tony…” She sighed. “You can’t be considering letting him stay on Earth.”

“That’s exactly what I’m considering. Pep, if we’re being real, I don’t have much influence over the guy. If he wants to stay, he’s going to stay.”

“And what about me, Tony?”

“Come home when you’re done in DC. I miss you.”

“I don’t know if I’ll feel comfortable with him there.”

Tony looked back at Loki again. The god looked so harmless, perched on the sofa in jeans and a t-shirt, sipping wine. “You know I’ll keep you safe, Pepper.”

“I know you’ll try.”

“That’s all I can do. Just come home after you’re done in DC. If you’re not okay with him being here, we’ll figure something out. I want you home.”

She didn’t seem comforted, but she agreed. They said their good-byes and I-love-yous, and Tony ended the call.

“You have a partner,” Loki observed.

Tony turned around, frowning. “Eavesdropping is rude.”

“She wants me gone.”

“Can you blame her?” Tony asked. “My life would be a lot simpler if I wasn’t harboring an alien fugitive, too.”

“Does she know how much of a wanton whore you are for me? That you beg me to fuck you?” Loki asked. The harmless veneer was still there, legs pulled up on the couch, wine glass in hand, but he was lashing out, and Tony had been to enough therapy sessions by now to recognize that behavior. Loki was protecting himself by going on the attack before someone else could attack him first. Tony wouldn’t rise to it.

“She does, actually,” he said. He pocketed his phone and crossed the room to pick up his beer.

Loki raised his eyebrows and smiled. “She does? She’s okay with you being alone here with me, vulnerable to me, but she’s not willing to put herself at risk?”

“Loki,” Tony said. He sighed and set his beer back down and slid a knee up on the couch by Loki’s legs. The god stayed where he was, every indication of calm unconcern on his face, but Tony had learned to read the more subtle language of Loki’s body and he knew his companion was on guard. Doing his best to be reassuring, Tony ran his fingertips over Loki’s scalp and back through his hair before bending to kiss him. It was gentle, and, he hoped, comforting.

“Put away your claws,” Tony said. “Pepper isn’t a threat to you.”

“Of course she isn’t,” Loki replied. “She’s a human woman.”

“Let me rephrase. Pepper isn’t a threat to your role or position with me. The only person who’s a threat to that position is you. So keep yourself under control and be nice where she’s concerned, because I won’t tolerate you trying to tarnish her. Got it?”

Loki looked up at him, and Tony was again amazed by the god’s beautiful eyes. He could stare at them for hours.

“I like this side of you, Stark,” Loki said, a smile flickering to life on his lips. “So assertive.”

“Come on, Loki. Just say you understand, because we both know you could put your fist through my stomach and crush my spine if you wanted to right now.”

“I understand,” Loki said. He set his wine on the table beside the couch. “And Tony, I would never put my fist through your stomach and crush your spine. Far too messy.” He put both hands on Tony’s hips and leaned forward to press a kiss to Tony’s navel through his t-shirt.

“Ah yes,” Tony said. “You prefer a clean kill, like throwing someone out a window.”

Loki snorted. “Stark, you stood within arm’s reach of your enemy, with no armor on, in the middle of a battle. I’ll accept no guilt for my reaction in the moment.”

“It was a valid reaction. I was tempting fate.”

“You were tempting something, for sure.” Loki pulled Tony forward, forcing him to catch his balance on Loki’s shoulders and pull his other knee up onto the couch. Tony sat on the god’s lap and tilted his head.

“Are you saying you found me tempting even then, Loki?”

“I wouldn’t say tempting,” Loki replied thoughtfully. “Intriguing, yes. I would have had you as a servant, if not for that device on your chest.”

“A servant,” Tony repeated. “One of the brainwashed kind, with that magic scepter?”

“I hardly think you would have agreed to any other arrangement at the time.”

“‘At the time’?” Tony echoed with a laugh. “I wouldn’t agree to be your servant now either, Your Highness.” He kissed Loki and the god smiled against his lips. Tempting. Yeah, that word described Loki pretty well. Maybe not a year ago, when he was desperate and dangerous, but now… Tony moaned as he reluctantly broke away from Loki’s mouth.

“We should get back to the lab and get some work done,” Tony said.

Loki sighed. “Yes, I am eager to help you contact my erstwhile jailors.”

“Hey.” Tony ran his fingers through Loki’s hair. It was so soft, he wanted to press his face into it. “I agreed not to tell them you’re here.”

“Yes, you did,” Loki acknowledged. He sounded so downtrodden and unconvinced that, for the briefest moment, Tony wanted to rethink his plan. But that moment passed in a blink, and he got up.

“C’mon. Help me out for the rest of the day, and then I’m yours for the night.”

“You know, Stark,” Loki said, standing, “there will come a point where sex won’t work as a bribe anymore.”

“Are we at that point yet?” Tony asked.

Loki’s eyes scanned up and down his body briefly, then he shook his head. “Not quite. I still have many things I want to try with you.”

“Oh, god. Should I be scared or excited?”

“Scared?” Loki echoed. “Heavens no. You’ll love every minute of it.”

Feeling certain that was true—damn this masochistic submissive streak of his—Tony shook his head and led the way back to the lab. Even if Jarvis didn’t have results for the star search yet, Tony could get Loki’s input on a lot of other aspects of the project.

***

Tony lay awake for a while that night, sore, satisfied, mostly naked, and comfortable in the arms of a delightfully sadistic god. The things Loki had done to him, for him… Every moment Tony spent with the god convinced him that ‘megalomaniacal overlord’ was not Loki’s default personality. After their conversations in recent days, he would have put significant money on Loki being influenced by another entity when he was on Earth last time. And not a benevolent one. If he would open up about it, Tony could probably argue in a court of law—if it came to it—that Loki had been under duress and couldn’t be fully held responsible for his actions.

The question was, could Pepper or Rhodey or anyone else be convinced of that? And, God, could Tony be sure he wasn’t being influenced himself? Loki swore he hadn’t been using magic, but…

With a sigh, Tony rolled onto his side and draped an arm across Loki’s waist, situating himself as the big spoon. The god was asleep already, so Tony indulged himself in the notion of providing comfort. I need you, Tony. The words still stuck with him, foolish as it was to think they were anything more than a near-orgasm lapse of thought. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing, grounding himself and letting the small bit of tension in his muscles melt away.

Movement woke him from a deep sleep, and adrenaline shot through his veins before a single thought formed in his mind. He was awake and standing beside the bed, breathing hard and on the defensive… only to realize Loki was still asleep, and the “threat” Tony had expected was just a jerk of the god’s muscles—a half-choked cry—a gasp—an unconscious thrash. A nightmare.

“Ah, shit,” Tony muttered. He’d foolishly thought that sex was keeping the nightmares at bay. Loki hadn’t had one since the first night they’d fucked. Apparently that was just a streak of luck, and now that luck had run out.

Comforting people wasn’t Tony’s strong suit, but he couldn’t just sit there and watch Loki suffer. He knelt on the bed beside the god and put a hand on his bicep.

“Loki. Hey, wake up.”

Loki shivered and gasped—sobbed. The dim light of the room shone in tiny reflections at the corners of Loki’s eyes, and Tony swallowed and tightened the grip on his companion’s arm.

“Loki, wake up!” he demanded, shaking him.

That was a mistake. Loki woke up, but just like Tony, his body reacted with a rush of adrenaline, and Tony was launched across the room as the god woke to defend himself. Tony smashed against the far wall—not the glass one, fortunately—and dropped to the floor on his side.

The defenses that Tony had programmed into the room fired up, sensing the ‘attack’ and Tony’s pain, and a blast shot from the ceiling directly at Loki. The god flung himself out of bed, and the only thing to get roasted was the duvet.

“Jarvis, stop! Disarm!” Tony yelled. “It’s fine! Stop!”

There were no more explosions. Tony let out his breath and slumped back against the floor, relieved.

“Lokes?” he called. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Loki returned. Tony couldn’t see him, so he assumed the god was on the floor on the opposite side of the bed.

“Cool,” Tony said. Once the initial fear passed, it only took a few seconds for his mind to register the pain. His head and neck and back… and hip… and shoulder… He groaned.

Loki stood. “Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?”

“Yep. Yeah. Well, I guess technically—” He cringed as he forced himself to sit up. “—the wall hurt me.”

The god’s face held an expression of uncertainty and pain. He didn’t come closer, though. Tony couldn’t be sure if it was the nightmare or the defensive measures that had shaken him more, but he was locked in place. Either way, Loki had done more damage to Tony in his sleep than Tony had done after days of engineering.

“Nothing that won’t heal,” Tony said. He pushed himself to his feet, using the wall as support, and let out a slow breath. The pain was manageable. He was more concerned with Loki, his pallid face and wide eyes. The air between them was tense and uncertain in a way it had never been before—Loki had never lost control like that. And he’d never seen Tony’s security measures in action.

Speaking of… Tony looked at the bed, still smoking from a massive crater. “I’ll get you a new bed.”

Loki looked at it, seeming to notice it for the first time, and the shadow of a smile passed across his lips. “That would be nice.”

Tony smiled. He walked across the room, moving with care to account for his aching body, but not hesitating to approach Loki. The god stayed where he was, deliberately still. Tony put his arms around him and kissed him, refusing to allow the awkward distance to settle in. Loki’s hands came to rest on his hips, tentative and careful, but Tony didn’t want tentative or careful. He fisted his hand in Loki’s hair to prevent him from pulling away as Tony deepened the kiss, and Loki moaned. His hands tightened on Tony’s hips, one sliding down to grab his ass, and Tony smiled against his lover’s mouth.

They parted for breath, and Loki met Tony’s eyes. He caressed both hands up Tony’s back, then wrapped his arms around him and held him tightly. An involuntary grunt of pain escaped Tony’s lips, but before Loki could pull away, he hugged the god back.

“Sorry I almost blew you up,” he said against Loki’s chest.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Tony.” Loki kissed his hair.

They parted after a moment, stepping back just enough that they could see each other’s faces. Bringing one hand up to Tony’s face, Loki leaned down to press a gentle kiss against his lips. He sighed. “Stark, why am I so attracted to you?”

“Uh,” Tony said, caught off-guard. Despite the god calling him beautiful, and the number of times they’d had sex, it seemed weird to hear Loki acknowledge the attraction. Tony defaulted to self-deprecating humor. “My money, probably. That’s what most people find appealing. I definitely don’t have much going for me in the personality department. It might be the facial hair, though, too. It’s one of my best features. I work hard on this.” Tony stroked his beard. His answer got a chuckle out of Loki and earned him another kiss.

“You’ve shown me far more tolerance than any enemy of yours deserves.”

“Yeah, I have,” Tony said.

Loki kissed him again—gentle, slow, like he was convincing himself Tony was still real. He pulled back and met Tony’s eyes briefly, then sighed and looked away.

“If your plan succeeds,” he said slowly. “If you’re able to contact Asgard… I need to know if my brother still lives.”

The topic came out of left field. At least, to Tony it seemed to, but as his mind churned over Loki’s words, he realized the nightmare might have prompted it. Maybe he’d dreamt about Thor dying.

“Well,” Tony said, “that’s what I intend to find out, so… I’ll let you know.”

Loki hesitated, still looking away, before saying, “I want to talk to him.”

That was unexpected. The nightmare must have been a bad one. “Are you sure?” Tony asked. “You said…”

“I know what I said,” Loki interrupted, but his voice wasn’t angry. If anything, it was sad, pained.

“If Thor decides he’s taking you back to Asgard, I’m not going to fight him. Even if I wanted to, I’m no match for a god.”

“Let me worry about that,” Loki said.

“All right,” Tony said softly. It would certainly make things simpler if Loki just went back to his prison, but Tony didn’t like the idea. It seemed like giving up. There had to be more to it, more planning, more reason, more logic. Loki didn’t just want to talk to his brother out of sentimentality, surely.

Loki distracted him with another soft kiss, and Tony let thoughts of Thor and prison and torture leave his head. He wasn’t going to get back to sleep after all the excitement, either, and it was nearing dawn anyway.

“Have you ever had French toast?” he asked, then immediately added, “Of course you haven’t. Asgard doesn’t have French anything.”

“Is it anything like French fries?” Loki asked.

Tony chuckled. “Not really, but it’s delicious. C’mon, I’ll make breakfast.”

Chapter Text

Tony chattered away in his kitchen while Loki sat quietly at the breakfast bar with a glass of water. The sun rose while they ate, and Loki watched it, spellbound. He’d seen the sunrise several times in his time here at Stark’s home, but today, it seemed especially beautiful. Maybe the darkness and fear from his nightmare still clung to his mind more deeply than he’d realized.

“How long will it take for you to finish your work?” Loki asked.

“Not sure. I had Jarvis running numbers overnight. Hopefully I can get it all working today, send a message through, and then we just wait.”

“How do you intend to send the message?”

“In a bottle?” Tony suggested.

Loki’s brows drew together, but before he could voice his confusion or frustration, Tony held up a hand.

“Earth joke, sorry. Uh, I’ve got a few ideas.”

When Tony didn’t elaborate, Loki said, “And you’re not willing to tell me because you assume I will sabotage them.”

“I don’t assume you will, but I’m not certain you won’t. So yeah, it’s on the DL.”

Loki nodded. He finished the last of his breakfast, and Tony took away his plate. While the man busied himself with kitchen cleanup, Loki walked out to the balcony. The warm air wrapped around him, wind whipping up his shirt and through his hair. He’d taken to wearing the Earth clothes Tony provided for him, the “tee shirts” and “jeans” as Tony called them, and though he sometimes felt ridiculous in them, today he was grateful that the short sleeves and thin fabric allowed him to feel the sun and wind on his skin.

He was restless, though, more today than he’d been at any point since arriving. He paced the length of the balcony, leaned forward with his elbows on the railing and tried to settle his mind. Thor was dead. It wouldn’t matter what Tony was able to do, because Thor was dead. Loki had found peace with that fact already. But… if he wasn’t…

If he wasn’t, Loki might very well kill him on sight.

No. He took a deep breath and let it out. That was not the best course of action. Killing Thor wouldn’t benefit him in the long run, either with Asgard or Earth, and he wouldn’t ruin everything just for the momentary balm on his hurt feelings.

The door to the upper section of the balcony, where Stark had landed to have his armor removed during the battle, opened. Loki looked up and found Tony looking down at him.

“Time to get to work,” Tony said. “Come inside.”

“In a moment,” Loki replied. He hated the uncertainty of it all. Stark wouldn’t tell him what he was doing—which was wise, but didn’t make Loki like it any more. He had a dozen plans depending on a dozen or more variables, and while he didn’t doubt he could manipulate circumstances no matter what happened, he had a few specific outcomes he would prefer. Based on what he knew and what they were getting into, the best way to steer everything in his favor was to be honest with Tony Stark about… everything. What had happened. What he wanted. It would prey on Tony’s sense of heroism and sympathy, and it would be almost foolproof. And perhaps… perhaps he could do it.

Tony went back inside, and Loki made his way back toward the door on the far end of the balcony. When he reached it, Tony was there, holding it open for him. Once they were both back inside, Tony said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be in the lab with me today.”

So much for being honest. Frustration boiled up and suffocated all the quiet thoughts from a moment ago. He asked, “Are you punishing me?”

“What?”

“You haven’t insisted on locking me up alone in days. This morning, I hurt you. Now you want to keep me locked up again. You know I didn’t hurt you on purpose, Stark.”

“That’s not what this is about, and you know it,” Tony said.

He shouldn’t have expected to be able to guilt Stark into compliance, but it still annoyed him that it didn’t work. “It’s because you don’t trust me, then.”

“Right.”

Loki nodded to show Stark he understood and accepted the reasoning. He tried honesty this time, instead of manipulation. It took him a while to get the words out, and when he finally managed it, they were soft. “I can’t sit still, Tony.”

Tony’s reply was quiet and careful, too. “Because of the nightmare?”

“Because of everything. Everything that has happened in the past year, everything happening now, everything that may happen when you contact Asgard.” He shook his head and paced a few steps away, turning his back to Tony so his host wouldn’t see his face. He couldn’t control his expression. He wanted to scream. “I have been locked up for too long, and I will go mad if you force me to be still and quiet today.” His throat tightened and he swallowed past it, drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Just that little outburst helped a bit.

When Tony hadn’t responded in several seconds, Loki turned back to face him, shoulders squared. “Of course, Stark, you are my jailor, and it is an illusion that I have any say in this matter at all, is it not?”

“Tell you what,” Tony said. “Kick my ass, and you can hang out in the lab with me while I work.”

Loki had considered quite a few possible responses from his host, but that one hadn’t occurred to him. Or perhaps it was another one of Tony’s strange figures of speech disguising one of the straightforward responses Loki had expected. “I beg your pardon?”

“I have a testing area downstairs. I think it can stand up to whatever you can dish out. You get a weapon, I get my armor, and we fight. You win, you stay in the lab with me. I win, you don’t.”

“I see,” Loki said. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “You’re serious?”

“I’m serious.”

“Jarvis won’t shoot me the moment I hurt you, will he?”

“No.”

Loki pursed his lips. “I’d much rather fight you without the armor.”

“I’m sure you would,” Tony said sardonically. “Not gonna happen, handsome. Let’s get you in something a little easier to move in. Jeans aren’t meant for acrobatics.”

A short time later, Loki stood across from the infamous Iron Man himself, in a well-lit, high-ceilinged room with almost as much floor space as Asgard’s feasting hall. From the clothing options provided to him, Loki had chosen dark, tight-fitting trousers of a stretchy material, boots, and a thin green t-shirt. Tony’s armory was limited due to his fighting style, but he procured a staff in a similar style to one Loki had used before. It was well-balanced and solid, and after a bit of warming up, Loki was ready to make use of it.

“Any rules or expectations I should be aware of?” he asked.

“Let’s not kill each other,” Tony said.

Loki nodded. “I can abide by that. I’m ready when you are.”

Tony didn’t waste words—for once. He simply lifted his right hand and fired a blast. Loki dodged, twisting aside but staying on balance so he could dash forward. He didn’t know what to expect from Tony’s armor, so when he swung, he swung hard. The momentum and his strength carried through to strike Tony in the side, and the man staggered in a sort of half-spin, half-fall. The devices on his hands and feet that let him fly rescued him from the fall, and he zipped away and up into the air. Loki had plenty of practice fighting opponents who could easily take the high ground, thanks to Thor, and Stark’s change in elevation did not discourage him.

The freedom to move and fight gave him more strength and joy than he’d felt in a very long time. Stark was a crafty and powerful opponent, and not only kept Loki moving physically, but kept his mind moving, assessing, planning, and hunting for a weakness. The red and gold armor encased Stark like a shell, moving with his body without exposing any gaps or thin spots. It allowed him to fly and move extremely quickly.

Underneath it all, though, he was human, and he had human stamina. As much as the armor did for him, Stark would tire eventually. The key was to keep him moving, keep him guessing, and wait for him to make a mistake. That seemed to be Stark’s strategy, too, as he kept Loki on the defensive for quite some time, staying in the air, zipping around the room like an irritating insect.

Just when Loki was thinking he needed to try a new strategy so the fight didn’t last forever, Tony flew directly at him, aiming a punch at Loki’s face that he was only partially able to dodge. The hit might have knocked him flat on his back if he’d taken it full-on, but pivoting to dodge kept him on his feet and only left his head spinning a little bit from the pain that exploded through his face. It was the first time he’d been within striking distance since the first hit Loki landed on him, though, and Loki intended to keep him grounded. Shoving his own pain aside, he used his free hand to catch Stark’s wrist before he could fly out of reach again. Brute strength was his least favorite tool in a fight, but sometimes…

He tossed aside his staff and, fast as he could manage while restraining Tony with one arm, he grabbed the face plate of his armor. Loki knew the whole suit came apart—he’d watched Stark put it on more than once. The face plate went on last and came off first.

Tony yelled in protest, and Loki yanked. The mask tore away. Tony let loose a blast from the hand Loki had immobilized, singing the back of Loki’s thigh, but Loki ignored it so he could cast the mask aside and grin at his opponent.

“There you are,” he said.

“I will shoot you right in that beautiful ass of yours,” Tony threatened, and jerked against Loki’s grip on his wrist. With a smirk on his face, Loki let go. He expected Tony to fly back to a safe distance. Instead, the man put both hands together and blasted Loki at short range. The impact flung Loki backwards, and he toppled heels-over-head, coming to a stop flat on his face. Instinct told him to roll aside, so he did—and Stark’s grabbing hand whiffed by, failing to grasp whatever part of Loki he’d been aiming for.

Loki sprang to his feet and swung a fist. Again, Tony didn’t zip away. The damage to his suit must have pissed him off. They engaged in a short, brutal fistfight, and for a moment, Tony had the distinct upper hand. There wasn’t much point in punching armor, and he didn’t want to obliterate the man’s face, so Loki went on the defensive, blocking hits with his forearms, dodging where he could—until he’d maneuvered them closer to the staff he’d thrown down moments ago. With that in hand, he turned things around. Whatever the staff was made of, it had to be a similar material to Stark’s armor, because it left dents and scrapes everywhere it hit. Dents and scrapes weren’t going to win him any fights, though.

For a mortal man wrapped in metal, Tony was nimble, but he couldn’t compete with Loki. The longer they fought, the more Stark slowed down, until Loki was able to get a hold of one of the chest panels and rip it free, giving direct access to Tony’s heart. Still, Tony fought.

“You’re impressive,” Loki said, when the man managed to knock him on his ass.

“You giving up?”

“I hardly think I’ll be the one to give up, Stark.”

Tony shrugged and fired his blaster at Loki while he was still sprawled on the ground.

Laughing and dodging, Loki decided to end the fight. With a single lunge, he went from grounded to tackling Stark to the ground. He straddled the man and put a hand on his throat, tight enough to threaten something unfortunate if he tried to escape.

“Yield,” Loki demanded.

“No.” He lifted his hand, forcing Loki to let go of his throat to pin his hand down. Pre-emptively, he grabbed Tony’s other wrist, too, and pushed them both above his head.

“Yield,” Loki said again.

“I could keep fighting,” Tony said.

“So could I,” Loki whispered. He leaned down and kissed Tony, a playful peck on the lips. “But I think we both know I’m going to win.”

Tony tried to lift his wrists and Loki kept them pinned.

“How are you so goddamn strong?” Tony complained.

“I’m not human,” Loki said. He kissed Tony again. “Yield.”

With a dramatic groan, Tony said, “I yield.”

Loki bent and kissed him, deeper this time, and Tony accepted it, tried to follow it up when Loki straightened, but Loki kept him pinned to the floor.

“You taste like blood,” Tony said.

“You punched me in the mouth more than once.”

“Ha!” Tony said. “Yeah I did. You gonna let me up, Your Highness?”

“If I must.” Loki released Tony’s wrists and stood. He offered the man a hand, which Tony accepted. They were both quiet as they left the battleground, a companionable silence. They made a brief stop for Tony to shed his armor and both of them to shower, then headed to the laboratory without speaking.

Since there was little for Loki to contribute to this portion of the work, but he knew he was not welcome to watch closely, he paced the lab. He should have brought some of the books from his room. Sitting still didn’t seem as bad if he wasn’t locked up alone.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed after their fight when Tony finally got sick of his pacing.

“Sit,” Tony said. The man didn’t even look up from his numbers and diagrams to issue the command. It made Loki stop in place and smile to himself. The familiarity of such behavior reminded Loki why he liked this human so much. Stark was so similar to Loki in some ways—knowing his strength, expecting obedience. It wasn’t often that Stark threw around demands like that, but for some reason, Loki found it intriguing and… a bit arousing.

“Am I your pet now?” he asked. They were far apart, nearly the distance of the entire lab, but Loki’s voice carried just like Tony’s had.

“You’re my distraction,” Tony replied. He finally deigned to look at Loki. “If I’d known you were going to pace the lab like a caged tiger all afternoon, I wouldn’t have let you win that fight.”

Loki laughed. “Sweet, delusional man. You couldn’t have beat me with one arm tied behind my back.”

“We can test that theory next time. For now, if you keep pacing, I’m going to tie both your arms behind your back and put you in time out.” He pointed to the couch at the far side of the room.

“Stark,” Loki said, smiling as he walked closer with a slow, measured pace, “is that a promise?”

“Like you’d let it happen,” Tony muttered.

“I might.” Loki reached Tony’s workstation and stood across from him. “If it benefitted me.”

“It won’t. I’ll tie you up and sit you on the couch and you’ll just have to stay there and be quiet all day. I have work to do.”

“Boring.” Loki adjusted his focus to take in the projections in the air between him and Tony. Almost instantly, Tony gestured, and the diagrams and calculations vanished. Loki smiled. Tony had a bruise on his cheek surrounding a small cut, and probably a few more injuries hidden under his clothes, and those made Loki smile even wider. He’d put those marks on Tony. “Does your face hurt?” he asked, indicating the cut.

“Nah,” Tony said, bringing his fingertips up to feel the bruise. He wrinkled his nose as he pressed on it. “Not enough to care about, anyway.”

Loki nodded and walked around the workstation so he was on the same side as Tony. There was no where for him to sit properly, so he simply leaned his hips on the edge of the table near where Tony sat. He knew he was distracting the man from his work, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. With the fingers of his right hand, he caressed Tony’s cheek, just shy of the cut. “I could heal it,” he murmured.

“Thought you had to lay low and not use magic?” Tony asked.

“The amount needed would be infinitesimal,” Loki replied. He slid his fingers under Tony’s chin. Standing over Tony, being above him, having the man’s beautiful eyes turned up to meet Loki’s, stirred up a predatory, protective emotion Loki could not name. There had been others in his life who had given him such feelings, but nothing with them ever lasted. This thing with Tony, whatever it was, would not last long either—even if it lasted for the rest of Tony’s life, that was barely a moment in Loki’s lifespan. Still, he would enjoy it while he could.

“I’m never going to get any work done, am I?” Tony asked. “You look like you’re about to eat me.”

Smiling, Loki caressed his thumb along Tony’s lower lip. “You look like you’d let me.”

Tony swallowed, but instead of the eager, submissive, horny reaction he may have given in the bedroom, here in his lab, he was someone else entirely. He moved quickly, brought a hand up to Loki’s wrist, and snapped something cold and solid around it. The device pulled Loki’s wrist away from Tony’s face and thunked against the work bench, immobilizing Loki’s right arm.

Loki’s immediate reaction was fear and anger. He’d been attacked! He couldn’t fight back, he couldn’t get away—

No, he told himself, forcing thought to override panic. Tony was smirking playfully, but not making any further moves. He wasn’t under attack. This was Tony, who’d been threatening moments ago to put him in ‘time out’. Loki had just expected it to go a bit differently. He didn’t like getting caught by surprise, but, once his nerves settled, he had to admit Tony had been clever. He chuckled.

“Is it ‘time out’ for me after all?”

“Yes,” Tony said. He tapped the device holding Loki’s wrist to his work bench. “That won’t detach from the table, but it’ll swivel and let you move. Go sit down and shut up.”

“There’s no where for me to sit,” Loki said.

To his surprise, Tony gestured to the floor and raised his eyebrows.

“Tony. No.”

“Then stand, I suppose,” Tony said. “Just… over that way a bit. I need to work.” He nudged Loki’s hip to indicate he should shift to his left.

“Ooh,” Loki muttered. “You are going to regret this, Tony.”

“If you plan to make me regret it by fucking me twelve ways from Sunday, somehow I doubt I will regret it.”

Loki shook his head in disbelief, but he moved to his left and remained on his feet. At least here there was no way for Tony to work and keep the data hidden from Loki, unless he demanded he turn his back—but that would be where Loki drew the line.

Fortunately, Tony did no such thing, and seemed content to keep working while Loki stood at his side.

Chapter Text

Getting everything done before Pepper came home would have been perfect, but the world is not perfect.

Pepper coming home alone would have been nice, too. But she didn’t.

She hadn’t told Tony exactly when she’d be back, and he hadn’t checked. He wanted to get as much work done as possible, and if he was sitting there worrying about a deadline, he’d sabotage himself.

So when she came into the lab with no warning whatsoever, he was mostly just happy.

Until he saw Steve Rogers following on her heels.

“Shit,” he said. Loki, who’d been standing quietly and calmly for hours, went absolutely rigid beside him and jerked against the cuff holding him in place.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Steve said.

“Stark,” Loki whispered. He pulled against the cuff again. Tony glanced at it, then up at his face, then at Steve and Pepper standing just inside the door to the lab. It was best for Loki to stay where he was for the moment.

“Cap!” Tony said, getting up. He was overly cheerful, arms spread, a smile on his face. “Pepper didn’t tell me she was bringing a guest! You should have called. I’d have rolled out the welcome wagon.”

“Tony, what in the hell is wrong with you?” Steve asked. He wasn’t wearing his star spangled spandex, but the khakis and t-shirt he wore were probably easy to fight in if the need arose.

“Pepper, what did you tell him?” Tony asked, dropping the cheery attitude.

“I told him I’m worried about you,” she said. Everything about her body language screamed ‘tension’—arms crossed, shoulders hunched, a tiny tremble in her lips. Tony was torn between sympathy and anger.

“I have everything under control,” Tony replied tersely.

Steve crossed the lab, coming around the work bench on Tony’s left to keep Tony between him and Loki. Tony wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t for Steve to say, “I’m sorry,” and then swing his fist. Tony’s head exploded in pain before he knew what was happening. He wasn’t sure if he lost consciousness before he hit the floor, or after, but it couldn’t have been for more than a few seconds. When his faculties had rebooted and he could process things again, he sat up, head and jaw throbbing, and looked up at Steve.

“Do you feel better now?” he asked furiously.

“Do you?” Steve returned.

“What? You just punched me in the fucking face! Of course I don’t feel better!”

“He thinks I’m manipulating your mind,” Loki said from behind him. His voice was controlled, an even cadence and tone that gave away nothing. Tony looked up at him—twisting around made him dizzy, so he swayed a little bit as he did. The god was every bit as tense as Pepper, but certainly for different reasons.

“He’s not controlling my mind,” Tony said.

“I had to be sure.” Steve offered him a hand, and Tony reluctantly accepted it. Returning to his feet dizzied him again, but he pushed through the tunnel vision.

“You coulda just asked.”

“If he was controlling your mind, I don’t think you would have told the truth.”

“Fuck your logic,” Tony muttered.

They stood there for a moment, toe-to-toe. This was an unwanted and unexpected wrench in the gears. If he’d expected Pepper to bring anyone over, it would have been Rhodey. How had she even gotten in touch with Steve? They’d never met.

“Everything is under control,” Tony said finally. “You can go home now Steve.”

“I don’t think I can. Not knowing about this.” He gestured to Loki.

The god scowled. Tony turned his back on Steve to face Loki and spoke softly. “If I take this off, will you behave?”

“I will defend myself if the need arises,” Loki said, his voice low.

Tony hesitated. He wanted to trust Loki, and he’d seen the way the god had reacted to the cuff in the first place. Now that there was an actual ‘threat’, any and all fun involved in the bondage was gone.

Fuck it. He needed them to know that Loki could be civil, and they wouldn’t know it if he didn’t give the god a chance. He worked the locking mechanism on the cuff and released Loki’s wrist.

“Thank you,” Loki said.

“Tony.” Steve’s voice had that annoying ‘dad’ quality, the stern tone just bordering on disappointment, and it made Tony want to punch him in the face. It’d be fair play after Steve decked him, but he would restrain himself.

“Listen,” Tony said. “I’m contacting Asgard. It’s not like I’m sitting around doing nothing and letting him wreak havoc. I have this all under control. Or I did, ‘til you showed up.”

“This is Loki, Stark. You can’t have him under control. He’s dangerous.”

“So are you,” Tony snapped.

From behind Tony, Loki interjected, sounding cultured and refined with his posh accent. “I hate to impose, but I would be happy to return to my locked rooms if it means I don’t have to hear you argue.”

“Great idea,” Tony said. “Come on.”

Ignoring Steve and Pepper entirely, Tony led his guest out of the lab. Loki followed on his heels and then pulled up to walk beside him once they were in the corridor.

“Stark,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“It goes against my better judgment to leave this situation entirely in your hands.”

“I know,” Tony said, “but you have to. Please.”

“I don’t have to. I could easily leave right now.”

“Eh, probably not as easily as you think.” They got in the elevator and Tony hit the appropriate floor. His skull was throbbing from the mild head trauma Steve had inflicted on him, and he wanted nothing more than a double dose of painkillers and some alcohol. “You’ve forced me to put a modicum of trust in you over and over since you showed up. It’s time to return the favor.”

Neither of them spoke again until they were outside the familiar door of Loki’s suite. Tony unlocked the door and opened it, and Loki paused at the entrance.

“Tell me what to do, Stark.”

Tony looked up at him, surprised. “Wait, what?”

“Tell me what you need from me. I’ll follow your lead.”

The quiet cooperation and submission in Loki’s voice made Tony’s chest tight. He wanted to trust him. “Just stay here. Read some books. Let me work.”

“For how long?”

“Tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

Loki nodded and looked away, pensive, before turning back. “Very well.”

Tension eased in Tony’s chest. “Thank you, Loki.”

The god bent and kissed him, and Tony relaxed further. If Steve and Pepper were upstairs in the lab watching security feeds, well, Pepper already knew. There was no telling if she’d mentioned that to Steve or not, but it didn’t matter.

“I want updates,” Loki said when they parted. “I want to be informed.”

“I can handle that,” Tony said. He rose up on his toes to press another quick kiss to Loki’s lips. “Your Highness.”

Loki’s smile was so earnest and disarming, it was hard to believe how dangerous he could be. The god caressed Tony’s cheek, the one that ached from Steve’s fist, and then turned and went into his rooms. Tony pulled the door shut and reinforced all the security measures. At that moment, dealing with an alien god sounded a lot easier than dealing with his own teammate and girlfriend, but it had to be done. With a deep breath, he headed back to the lab.

Steve greeted him with, “What the hell is going on, Tony? Why didn’t you call us the minute he showed up? You’re going to get us all killed.”

“Listen, I know you think I’m being careless and self-absorbed, but I’m not.” He brushed past the man and went back to his work station. Jarvis was in the process of building a small device to launch through the tiny stable wormhole Tony was trying to build. It would take a lot of power, but that was one thing he had in droves. The device would carry a message, and if Thor or Odin or whoever was on Asgard was alive and able to act on it, they would.

And if they weren’t… if they didn’t… well, on to Plan B. Which involved getting Steve to accept that Loki wasn’t there to blow them all to high heaven. He pulled up the video feeds from Loki’s suite and pushed them over toward where Steve stood, arms crossed and scowling. Loki was opening the boxes of books Tony had rolled in days ago. He hadn’t even had a chance to open them since, because they’d been in each other’s company nonstop.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Steve said.

With a sigh, Tony recounted the events of the past couple weeks—not including the sex, since he really doubted Steve would understand polyamory or open relationships, and he certainly wouldn’t understand trusting Loki enough to sleep with him. When he got to the revelation that Thor might be dead, Steve finally interrupted.

“What?”

“I’ve got it under control, Steve,” Tony said again. “I’m working on a method to contact Asgard as we speak.”

“If Thor is dead because of Loki—”

“Listen, Steve. Loki spent the past year getting tortured, okay? I don’t know what was done to him. I’m not going to ask. But if you’re about to lay some blame shit on him because he’s a victim, I’m not interested in hearing it.”

“He’s not a victim, Tony! We’re still cleaning up the damage he did!”

“After that,” Tony said. “Yeah, he fucked up New York, he fucked up our lives, and he has paid for that. Trust me. He’s a mess.”

“He’s a mess, and you trust him in your home.”

“He’s not the only mess in this house,” Tony snapped. “Are you forgetting how much damage I’ve done to this world? I used to manufacture weapons. I’ve killed more people than Loki did, and I did it for money, Steve. People can change.”

That shut him up.

“You’re welcome to stay and hang out,” Tony said, “but I’m working, and Loki is staying.”

“I’m staying,” Steve said.

“All right. Glad that’s settled.” Tony looked past Steve to Pepper, who hadn’t said a word in the midst of all the testosterone-ridden argument. “Hey babe. I missed you. Thanks for bringing me a surprise, you know I love surprises.” He jabbed his thumb at Steve. “I’m not mad.”

“I can get Steve settled in one of the guest rooms,” she said.

“Sure. One of them’s occupied. Probably put Steve in a different one. Jarvis can help.”

He knew he was coming off as short and irritable, but he had work to do and he’d already had enough distractions today. Loki was one thing—he’d made a fair deal with Loki and let him stay in the lab. Steve was not as welcome.

Once he was alone again, Tony cast a glance at the security feed from Loki’s suite. The god had piled books on the coffee table and was stretched out on the couch with a copy of Frankenstein in hand. Good place to start.

“Scan the room, Jarvis,” he said. “Anything weird?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, sir,” Jarvis answered.

Relieved, Tony turned his attention back to his work. “Let me know if anything changes.”

“Of course, sir.”

***

It was nearly 24 hours later that Tony managed to drop his tiny device into a miniature wormhole and hope it made it to Asgard. Even with Jarvis’ calculations, Loki’s star charts, and Tony’s mind, there were a thousand things that could prevent the message from reaching its destination. If there was no response, it either meant it hadn’t reached its destination, or everyone on Asgard was dead and no one could respond. And Tony would have no idea which was true.

He’d worked nonstop through the night and into the day. Steve had come to check on him. Pepper had come to check on him. He’d sent them both away and told them each, in the nicest way possible, to let him work.

And when the work was done, he realized how hungry and tired he was. He ordered enough pizza for four people and headed to the guest floor.

Steve was in the suite as far as possible from Loki’s, which meant Tony had to walk across half the goddamn building to reach the door. Annoying, but understandable. He knocked, and only had to wait a moment for an answer.

“Hey,” Steve said. He wore jeans and a white shirt that clung to his damnably perfect torso like a second skin. Tony wished he’d wear a hoodie like a normal person.

“Hey,” Tony greeted. “I ordered pizza.”

“That’s not the news I was expecting.”

“Oh, yeah, I also sent a highly-advanced drone through a stable wormhole to another planet, but I didn’t want to brag.”

Steve nodded sagely. “How long until we know if it got there?”

“Should arrive immediately. That’s how wormholes work. We have no way of checking, though.” He jerked his head in the direction of the elevator, and the suite where his other guest was staying. “C’mon. Dinner.”

They headed down the hall together. When Tony stopped at Loki’s door, Steve’s entire body emanated disapproval. He crossed his arms and planted his feet and frowned, and Tony rolled his eyes.

“Believe it or not, gods need food too.”

“You’re not serious.”

Tony gave him a scathing look and opened the door. He didn’t expect Steve to follow, but the man came in on his heels.

Loki had spent most of the past day on the couch, except for a few breaks to stretch and make tea—not that Tony had been watching obsessively. The god was leaving the kitchen with a fresh mug of steaming hot tea when they walked into his suite, and he stopped in his tracks.

“Hey,” Tony said. “I sent the message. Now we wait, I guess.”

Loki nodded. He brought his mug of tea up to his face and blew on it gently. “Did you need the bodyguard with you to bring that message?”

“Cap wanted to be part of things. He feels left out if I talk to other handsome men without him,” Tony said. “You want to join us for dinner, Lokes?”

“Tony,” Steve said, warning in his voice, but Loki smiled.

“I would be delighted.”

“Delighted!” Tony echoed. “I can’t turn that down. C’mon. Plenty of room in the penthouse.”

“Tony, really?” Steve protested. He grabbed Tony’s arm as the man turned back toward the door. In a low voice, he said, “Why are you doing this? He killed Coulson. You can’t act like that never happened.”

“I’m not acting like it never happened,” Tony replied sharply. He jerked his arm free.

“Yes, you are.”

“What do you want from me, Cap?” Tony’s voice rose in anger. “Should I just turn him over to SHIELD? The organization that was planning to use the Tesseract to build weapons? You really want them to have access to his mind? The only reason they haven’t blown up the damn planet yet is because they don’t know how. I’m sure Loki could give them a few ideas, whether he really wanted to or not.”

“For what it’s worth,” Loki said from across the room, “I hold up exceptionally well under torture. If you must turn me over to SHIELD, they would not break me within your lifetime. Perhaps it would console you to leave me for the next generation of mortals to deal with.”

“Hey, there’s an idea,” Tony said, slapping the back of his fingers against Steve’s bicep. “Out of sight, out of mind, right? Let’s call Fury up right now and—”

Steve was glaring. “Knock it off, Stark.” He had that characteristic stern, pretty-boy frown on his face, but his eyes were directed at Loki, not Tony. “I don’t trust you, and I never will.”

“A wise move,” Loki said. “And here I assumed you were all brawn and no brains, Captain.”

“Dinner’s gonna be fun,” Tony said. “Let’s go.”

Oddly enough, Tony had more trust in Loki to keep his cool than he did in Steve. Maybe it was cruel for him to make Steve eat dinner in the same room as Loki, but Loki needed food, and okay, maybe Loki’s mischievousness was rubbing off on Tony a little bit.

When they stepped out of the elevator, Loki willingly led the trio. As soon as he was in the open space of the penthouse, though, he stopped. His attention turned to the sky outside, and the gray storm clouds rolling over the dull blue evening. Lightning flashed and thunder followed immediately.

“On second thought,” Loki said, “it may be better for me to stay downstairs.”

It took Tony a second to make the connection between the storm and Loki’s discomfort, but when he did, his heart leapt. “Is it Thor?”

“You just sent a message to Asgard. It stands to reason.”

The sky darkened further, and Tony wanted to run to the windows and press his nose against the glass like a child. As much fun as he’d been having with Loki, the fear about Thor’s well-being had been grating on him for days. Not to mention the self-doubt and uncertainty about his own abilities.

In the next flash of lightning, a silhouette dropped from the sky and landed on the balcony.

“Holy shit, that was quick,” Tony said.

Loki took a couple steps back and bumped into Tony. “Stark, what exactly did you say in your message?”

“Not much. Asked him to pay us a visit if he was okay.” Tony squeezed Loki’s shoulder, and then walked around him to go toward the balcony. The storm was already clearing, leaving Thor out there in his regal red cape and silver-and-black armor, Mjolnir in hand. Tony opened the door and stepped out into the sunset and chilled evening air.

“Thor! Good to see ya, buddy.”

“Stark. What ails you?”

“Nothing ails me,” Tony said. “I was just testing something. You got my message?”

“I am here, am I not?” Thor walked the length of the balcony. “You look unwell.”

“I haven’t slept in a while. How are things on Asgard?”

“Never better,” Thor said, but that was a lie.

Tony frowned. “No, seriously Thor. How are things on Asgard? Maybe things related to… I don’t know, prisons and prisoners?”

“You ask for news on Loki?”

“Sure. News. Yeah.”

Thor looked away and swallowed. “Shortly after we returned from Midgard, I learned who had been assisting my brother. There was an attack on Asgard, on the prison. My father, Odin, knows more of it than I do, but… Loki escaped. I fear he may be dead, or… worse.”

“Oh?” Tony said. “Fear? So it would be welcome news to find out he’s not?”

The god of thunder turned his eyes back to Tony in an instant. “What do you know, Stark?”

“Come in.”

Chapter Text

Running away would be foolish, but it was all Loki could think to do. He wanted to hide, disguise himself, turn invisible, return to the locked rooms downstairs. The sight of Thor, alive and well and the same as he’d always been, filled Loki’s chest with more feelings than he knew how to process. He was distinctly aware of Captain Rogers behind him, and he knew he could not move without the man reacting in some overdramatic fashion, so he stayed where he was.

Thor crossed the balcony to the door, which Tony opened for him, and came inside, blinking in the different lighting. When he set his eyes on Loki, he stared, slack jawed. Loki knew he must look different—a year of unkind treatment, not to mention the borrowed Earth-style clothing he wore, made him feel different, at least.

“Loki, is it really you?” Thor asked finally. He took a few steps closer.

“Yes,” Loki managed. His heart raced, but he kept his face schooled and calm. This would be the second time in recent memory that Loki had been presumed dead. The first time, when Thor had snatched him out of the ship right out from under Stark and Rogers’ noses, he had been angry, pained, surprised. This time, Loki wasn’t sure how Thor would react.

“Thank you for contacting me, Stark,” Thor said, looking over his shoulder at Tony even as he walked toward Loki. “I will take him home.”

“Woah, woah, hey, no,” Tony said, jogging to catch up with Thor. He wedged himself between Thor and Loki when they were barely an arm’s length apart. The move put Tony so close to Loki that a deep breath would push Loki’s chest against his back. To avoid making their physical familiarity too obvious, Loki took a step back—and Rogers grabbed his arm, as if he was about to bolt.

“For Heaven’s sake,” Loki muttered. The mortal’s grip was surprisingly strong and unyielding, the heat of his touch an uncomfortable annoyance, but Loki tolerated it without a word.

Thor stopped in his tracks and his brows drew together as he looked at Tony, then past him to Rogers. “What is the meaning of this?”

Tony twisted to look over his shoulder at Loki. “You wanna take point on this, Tricks?”

“I’m not going back to Asgard, Thor,” Loki said.

The confused expression grew more profound.

“Loki’s kinda… my…” Tony glanced Loki again and grimaced before turning back to Thor and engaging full power to his babbling. “You know what, it’s complicated, but he’s welcome here. I’m letting him stay.”

Thor’s eyes made another circuit of their faces—Tony, then Loki, then Steve—before he said, “Stark, I do not understand, but Loki belongs on Asgard. Odin will not allow him to stay here. Especially not here, Stark, of all places! Surely you must see the folly in this.”

“I do,” Steve piped up.

“Shut it, Capsicle,” Tony snapped.

The tension in the room was growing with each heartbeat, and Loki wanted to leave. “This was a mistake.”

“Brother,” Thor said in a low voice, “I know not what game you play or what you’ve done to the minds of my friends, but you must release them.”

“This was a mistake,” Loki repeated.

“He hasn’t done anything to my mind,” Tony said. “He helped me figure out how to contact Asgard because he thought you were dead, Thor. He was worried about you.”

Under his breath, Loki said, “Worried is a strong word.” But he was curious to see Thor’s reaction to the words and to Stark’s vehement defense of him. Loki wasn’t one to make friends or allies, especially not with friends or allies of his brother, and people who had nearly been killed tended not to defend their near-killer unless it was for good reason. Surely that would give Thor pause enough that they could get through to him.

“How long have you been here, Brother?” Thor asked.

“Not long,” Loki said.

“Where did you go when you escaped?”

“Escaped?” For a moment, Loki didn’t follow. When he’d escaped, he’d come to Earth. Indirectly, to lose anyone who might follow him, but—

“When your allies attacked the prison,” Thor clarified. “When you left Asgard. What have you been doing? Where have you been? Because I searched the nine realms, Loki, and you were not to be found.”

“My allies?” Loki repeated, anger sharpening his voice. So Thor thought Loki had escaped and spent the past year gallivanting around the universe with friends? Thor had searched the nine realms, but not to find out if Loki was okay—no, he’d searched for him to put him back in prison. And that was what he was here to do now, if Loki let it happen.

In front of him, Tony muttered, “Oh boy.” He turned to face Loki. “I’ll talk to him. You want to go back downstairs?”

“No,” Loki said. He was glaring at Thor, and Thor was glaring right back. Telling his brother the horrors of his past year would not accomplish anything if Thor was convinced he was a criminal who was manipulating Tony’s mind. If Thor was buying into Odin’s propaganda, it would be better for him to prevent his brother from going back to Asgard at all. But the amount of magic and strength he would have to wield to accomplish that may draw unwanted attention. And he would have to contend with Stark and Rogers. At least that damnable Hulk wasn’t here.

“Let’s take a step back,” Tony said. He patted his palm against Thor’s chest. “Step back, step back. Back, back, back. You’re making me claustrophobic.”

To his credit, Thor complied, taking a few step backs with a frown on his face. “Stark, why did you call me here?”

“Can’t a friend just send some intergalactic space mail to his buddy, the god of thunder?” Tony asked. “Just wanted to check in. That’s what friends do, you know. So we know we’re all still okay. It’s a scary universe out there.”

Across the penthouse, the elevator door chimed.

“Oh,” Tony said. “I ordered pizza. Cap, can you go grab that? It’s paid for.”

Steve was clearly loathe to let go of Loki’s arm, but dragging him to the elevator would be ridiculous, so Loki was finally freed of the man’s crushing grip. He wondered if he would have bruises. That would be impressive.

The arrival of food eased the tension in the room a little bit by providing distraction. Rogers took the pizza boxes to the bar and set them down, and Tony made an “after you” gesture to Thor.

“I am not here for food,” Thor said.

“Come on, Thor. Hang out. Let’s catch up. It’s been a minute. I didn’t ask you to visit Earth so you could just blast in and blast out again.”

After a reluctant pause, Thor went to join Rogers by the bar. Tony turned and put a hand on Loki’s arm. His touch fell in the exact same place that Rogers had been holding, but Tony’s hand was gentle, companionable, and much more welcome. “You okay?” he asked softly.

“Fine,” Loki replied.

“Of course you are.” With a smile, Tony stepped aside and made the same “after you” gesture to Loki that he’d made for Thor. Reluctantly, Loki took a few steps in that direction. Tony raised his voice and called for Pepper to join them, and Loki stopped to wait for Tony to walk beside him.

“Your partner wants me gone as much as the Captain does, I expect.”

“Let’s just worry about your brother right now, huh? Now, I know you have a lot of pride, but you might want to come clean about what happened to you.”

“He won’t believe me. Our father has fed him lies.”

“Then I’ll tell him.”

“He won’t believe you, either.”

“I think you underestimate the big guy, Lokes.” Tony patted his arm and nudged him to go the last few steps to the bar. Loki was in no mood to eat, but sidled around the back of the bar to grab a bottle of wine.

Pepper came into the room from a door Loki had never been through. She looked around at the group—Steve standing with his hips leaning on the bar, eating pizza from a plate while he held it. Thor, seated with an entire pizza box open in front of himself. Tony with a slice of pizza in one hand, taking a large bite as he pulled down wine glasses with the other hand. The entire scene was strange, even to Loki, but Pepper smiled as she took it in. Without fear, she strode right into the midst of the four of them to kiss Tony’s cheek. She said something quietly in his ear, and Tony nodded in response.

Loki filled the three glasses Tony put in front of him, and Tony swiped one to hand to Pepper. Loki took one for himself and stepped out of the way as Tony played host. The man pulled beers from the small box under the bar and set them by Thor and Rogers, then picked up his own wine glass.

The food was a welcome distraction, as it seemed to calm Thor considerably, but Loki didn’t like the uncertainty lingering in the air. Tony and Pepper had walked off a short distance to talk in soft tones, leaving Loki far too close to the two people who wanted him to take a short, permanent trip back to Asgard. For his own good, he kept his silence and didn’t draw attention to himself.

“Are you well, Rogers?” Thor asked, after putting away three fourths of a pizza himself.

“I’m good,” Steve said. “Mostly, anyway. You?”

“I am well.” Thor looked toward Tony and Pepper. “Is Stark?”

Steve shrugged. “Seems to be. Pepper’s worried about him, though, so she called me, and here I am.”

Loki rolled his eyes behind their backs and took a large swallow of his beverage. Maybe Tony was right. Maybe he needed to come clean about what he’d been through. That was what had convinced Tony he wasn’t lying, after all—Tony had seen his wounds, his nightmares, his fear.

With a deep breath, Loki walked around the bar. The instant he moved, he had Thor and Rogers’ attention on him. He sat on a stool next to Thor with one empty in between them.

“Brother,” he said softly, “if I tell you something, will you try your best to believe me, despite whatever Father may have said? I want to be honest with you.”

Thor looked at Rogers, and the captain held up his hands in surrender and walked away. Once he was out of earshot, Thor turned his attention back to Loki. “Tell me.”

And Loki told him. Not the details. No one would ever get the precise details. But he told his brother what had happened when he’d fallen from Asgard. How he’d ended up on Midgard, and the promise he’d made to the Chitauri and to his manipulator. And what it meant when he failed to deliver on that promise. A year of torture. A year of believing Thor was dead. And how he finally escaped, draining every speck of magic out of his body to get away. Hesitantly, he finished with, “Stark has shown me kindness I do not deserve, but he does not give me freedom, Brother. If you wish me to be imprisoned, I beg of you to let me stay here. Tell Father nothing. It is better that he think me dead.”

Silence reigned as Thor processed all he’d been told. When he finally spoke, he said, “If what you say is true, we are focusing on the wrong enemy. I must tell Father, for the safety of the realms. You must come home, Loki, and tell him what you told me.”

Frustration drove Loki to his feet with a wordless noise, and he stormed away, putting distance between himself and his brother to prevent himself from punching that handsome golden face.

“Everything okay?” Tony called from a safe distance.

“If I go back, I am resigning myself to a lifetime in a dungeon,” Loki snapped, ignoring Tony. His outburst was probably answer enough.

“I will talk to Father,” Thor said. “I will convince him—”

“Father is as stubborn as you are stupid, Brother.”

“Thor,” Tony said, leaving Pepper and Steve where they’d settled on the couch so he could join Thor and Loki. “Hey. I was thinking. On Earth we have a system where prisoners can do community service or get their sentence shortened for good behavior. You have anything like that on Asgard?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, Loki’s on Earth and he’s kinda my prisoner, and I want to keep him. Think you could convince your dad to let him stay here, and if he’s good, he can come back to Asgard eventually without going to prison?”

They hadn’t discussed that suggestion in advance, but Loki wasn’t opposed to it. Asgard was his home, and he would like to see his mother again someday and walk in the gardens and swim in the rivers.

Thor looked at Tony with narrowed eyes. “Stark, I do not understand your interest in my brother. Loki destroyed this very city. He nearly killed all of us, but especially you. You claim he is not controlling your mind, and I want to believe that, but I cannot understand why else you would take his side.”

“Because I believe people can change,” Tony said.

After another stretch of silence, Thor said, “I must consider all I have learned. Stark, you must keep him here. I will come back when I have made a decision.”

With Mjolnir in hand, Thor strode through the room, out onto the balcony, and leapt into the air with his hammer propelling him.

Loki watched him go, relieved and… scared. Tony closed the distance between them, but didn’t touch him.

“Hey. Did you tell him?”

“Yes.”

Tony nodded. “So now we just wait?”

After a deep breath in and out, Loki nodded. “My least favorite part of any situation.”

“Same. Want more wine? I’ll pour. You go sit down.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like some air. I don’t believe I want to sit with your lover and the fine captain.”

“I’ll come out with you,” Tony said. “You’re not leaving my sight until I’m sure Thor’s not going to come back and kidnap you.”

“I appreciate your concern.”

Tony jogged to the bar and grabbed the bottle of wine they’d opened with dinner, then put a hand on the small of Loki’s back to guide him toward the door. “Stepping outside,” he told the others. “We’ll be back.”

Immediately outside the door, Loki sank down to sit on the floor, his back against the solid wall.

“Oh,” Tony said, stopping. “Okay. Here.” He handed Loki the wine, and then seated himself on the floor beside him. Their legs brushed together. “I talked to Pepper and Steve.”

“And?” Loki took a swig of wine from the bottle and offered it back to his host.

Tony accepted it, but didn’t drink. “And they are cautious, but accepting.”

“What does that mean?”

“They accept that I’m not out of my mind, I’m handling this well, and there are a multitude of reasons to keep you here.”

“A multitude?” Loki pulled the wine bottle from Stark’s hand since the man hadn’t offered it back yet, and took another swallow.

“C’mon. You’re a wizard. Who wouldn’t want a wizard on their team?”

Loki gave Stark a sideways look. “I’m not a wizard, and who said anything about being on your team?”

“Eh, we can talk about it later.” Tony held out his hand for the wine, and Loki gave it back.

“Since Miss Potts is here now, is the intimate aspect of this arrangement over?”

“Pfft. You really think you’re gonna get rid of my needy ass that easily?” Tony swung the wine bottle by the neck and gently hit Loki in the chest with it. “Unless you want to be rid of it?”

“I don’t,” Loki said, chuckling with relief.

“Good. Me neither. We’ll have to set some boundaries, but Pepper is much more okay with the idea than I ever expected.”

“Does Rogers know?”

Tony snorted. “You would know the moment Steve found out. His head would literally explode.”

They were chuckling over the notion of Steve’s head exploding, when a blinding pillar of light hit the far side of the balcony. Loki knew what it was immediately and leapt to his feet. Two figures stepped out of the Bifrost, and his heart nearly stopped.

“Father,” he said.

Chapter Text

Tony was on his feet in an instant, facing the two men coming toward them out of the brightness. One was Thor. The other, an older man with an eyepatch, looked less battle-ready and more suited for being waited on by people in togas.

Based on Loki’s surprised whisper, eyepatch guy was Odin.

Tony pulled his suit to him. It blasted out of the promenade behind Thor and Odin and fit itself to his body in seconds. Steve pulled open the door and stepped out onto the balcony.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“Odin,” Tony replied. Jarvis scanned the Allfather and Tony formed a plan of attack, just in case, but he really didn’t want to get into fisticuffs with his new boyfriend’s dad on their first meeting.

“Stand down, Tony,” Thor said. “There is no need to fight.”

“Who’s fighting? I’m just defending myself. Three gods on the roof of a skyscraper makes me feel like I might need some armor.”

“Leave the mortal to his foolish devices,” Odin said.

“Beg pardon?” Tony said.

“Father, this is Tony Stark. I have spoken of him in the past. And this is Steve Rogers. He is also a friend.”

“Hey there,” Tony said, waving. “Welcome to Earth, Dad. Can I call you Dad? You’re the Allfather, so that kinda makes you my father too, right? Maybe I just have daddy issues.”

“Stark,” Loki said through clenched teeth. “That’s not helping.”

“Sorry. I get so nervous when I meet the parents. You wanna come in, sir?” He hooked a thumb at the door.

Odin looked at Thor. “This is the mortal who vouches for Loki?”

“That’s me,” Tony said. “Yeah. Loki’s pretty neato. I want to keep him.”

“Let me see your face,” Odin said.

Tony removed the face plate, but he had no idea what to do with his face. Smile? Scowl? He smiled. Odin walked toward him, and Tony held his ground, just a couple steps in front of Loki. When they were about six feet apart, the Allfather lifted a hand, palm out, and Tony glanced at Loki.

“What’s this?” He looked past Odin at Thor, eyebrows raised in question.

“I’m performing an examination,” Odin said.

“Oh. Should I turn my head and cough?”

Odin dropped his hand and walked closer. Tony braced for something, but the Allfather seemed to have lost interest. He performed the same ‘examination’ on Steve.

“I sense no magic on either of these mortals,” Odin said. He returned his attention to Tony. “You believe you can keep Loki under control here on Midgard?”

“I believe Loki can keep himself under control,” Tony said, “with maybe some guidance and, uh, encouragement from me, yeah.”

“I would like to believe this is possible.” Odin looked at Loki. “My son, you have been keeping dangerous company. You believe you will avoid them here?”

The words had an impact on Loki that Tony couldn’t grasp. Loki swallowed hard and, in a strained voice, replied with a simple, “Yes.”

Odin nodded. “Can you pledge that you will not contribute to harm or destruction in this realm?”

“I will not willfully enact harm on this realm or its people, except in self-defense,” Loki said, “for as long as I am Stark’s… prisoner.”

“You realize a mortal lifespan is woefully short, Loki. Fifty years as the prisoner of a mortal man seems unfit punishment for your crimes.”

 Tony wasn’t about to object in front of Odin, but he hadn’t considered the idea that Loki would be with him for the rest of his life. Somehow that hadn’t registered in his mind. He also would not point out to Odin that he probably wasn’t going to be around for another fifty years, and sure as hell wasn’t about to sign a contract to require his first-born to be Loki’s jailor after he’d died.

“This is the only punishment I will submit to,” Loki said. “And I will submit to it peacefully and willingly. In fifty years, when Tony Stark is gone, I will endure a retrial to consider my years of service to the world I tried to claim as my own.”

Odin looked at Loki sternly, then at Tony. “You will receive regular visits for assessment purposes.”

“Gotcha,” Tony said.

“If Loki steps out of line, you have permission and encouragement to do whatever is necessary to keep him in check.”

“Absolutely. Spare the rod, spoil the child. That’s how I was raised, anyway. I’ll keep him in line, sir, no worries there.”

The Allfather looked at them all. “This is unprecedented. A human keeping an Asgardian prisoner.” He shook his head. “You will be watched closely.”

Tony’s brows went up. “Creepy. How closely? Can I shower alone?”

“Stark,” Loki sighed.

“Loki, my son,” Odin said, “I am glad you are alive, but terribly sorry you have become entangled in what you have. I hope you are safe here.”

He turned and walked back to Thor, and the pair of them got hit with the blinding light again, and disappeared. Tony stared at the spot where they’d last stood, eyes burning from the light of the Bifrost. Had that just happened? Had he just agreed to host Loki for the rest of his life? And endure regular visits from Asgardians to inspect his home and his ‘prison’?

Tony turned to look at Loki, mouth hanging open. “Did we just get married?”

“’til death do you part,” Steve said.

They stood together in confused silence for a moment before Tony put his hands over his face.

“Pepper’s gonna be pissed.”

Pepper was, in fact, pissed, but not as much as Tony had expected. He hadn’t actually married Loki, after all, but the mischievous god was now officially part of their lives until… well, forever, or until something else happened.

“You have to tell SHIELD,” Steve said, after Tony had delivered the news to Pepper. The three of them were together on the couch while Loki stood at the far end of the room, staring out the window and giving them the guise of privacy.

Tony sighed. It would be easier to tell SHIELD now, though. Now that Odin and Thor themselves had approved the situation. Taking Loki away from the place Odin expected him to be would not bode well for anyone—so SHIELD’s hands would be tied, unless they wanted to piss off the Allfather. And from five minutes in the god’s presence, Tony had to say he did not want to piss off the Allfather.

“I don’t have to tell SHIELD anything,” Tony said finally.

Steve threw his hands up. “Tony, chances are they already know. You just had the Bifrost drop out of the sky onto your tower. Fury’s gonna be knocking at your door himself at this rate.”

“That’s fine. I’ll tell him then.”

The captain sighed and glanced across the room at Loki. More quiet followed, before Steve asked in a lowered voice, “Tony, what are you going to do with him? You can’t seriously think you can keep him as a prisoner here. You’ve only kept him here this long because he’s let you.”

“I know,” Tony said. He looked toward Loki, sure the god could hear everything they were saying. With a shrug, he relaxed back against the couch. “Maybe he’ll continue to let me.”

Loki looked toward them then, and when he met Tony’s eyes, he got a half-smile on his face that made Tony’s heart flutter. It was gone as quickly as it came, but it had definitely been there.

“What do you think, Tricks?” Tony asked. “You gonna tolerate this prison ‘til I die?”

“It seems my best course of action at the moment,” Loki replied noncommittally.

Tony looked to Steve and Pepper with raised eyebrows. “Did you hear that? Unwavering oath of good behavior.”

Neither of them seemed impressed with Loki’s answer or Tony’s joke, which made Tony chuckle. Maybe he was trusting Loki too much. Maybe Loki would get sick of the arrangement and see to it that Tony died sooner rather than later. He’d deal with that when it arose.

“Would you like to escort me back to my prison cell, Stark?” Loki asked. “I believe I’ve had enough freedom for the day.”

“Sure thing.” Tony got up and jerked his head toward the elevator. “Let’s go.”

The elevator doors closed behind them, and they made it down one floor before Loki turned and claimed a kiss. Tony moaned, his heartrate jumping, every ounce of stress and tension from the past two days manifesting in a desperate, eager need. As if picking up on it—or perhaps because of a similar need of his own—Loki grasped Tony’s biceps and pushed him backwards, so his back thudded against the wall. They kissed until Tony couldn’t breathe, the tiny gasps of air between locked lips not enough, but he didn’t want to give up the contact.

The doors behind Loki opened and he broke away to speak softly against Tony’s ear.

“Would it inconvenience you to join me for a while?”

“Inconvenience?” Tony echoed dumbly.

Loki snorted. “Rogers may come knocking on my door to make sure you’re still alive, if you’re alone with me too long.”

Tony laughed. “Oh. Nah. Well, he might, but I don’t care.”

“Good.”

They made it to Loki’s bed. Tony had had the charbroiled mattress replaced for him, and he fell gratefully onto the neatly arranged covers.

Tony hadn’t realized just how much tension he’d been hanging on to until he started to let go of it. Loki’s hands and mouth drew sighs and moans from him with every touch, and with every brush of pleasure he relaxed a little more. Pepper hadn’t left him over this. Steve hadn’t forced his hand. Thor was alive. Loki was not getting dragged away against his will. And Tony had gained this… whatever this was. Companionship. Understanding. This terrifying, deeply fulfilling intimacy with someone who could break him in half. Someone who seemed to need what Tony was eager to give up.

“Will you take care of me for the rest of your life?” Loki asked softly, some time later, as Tony lay under him, filled by his length and drowning in his warmth.

“Yeah,” Tony whispered. “As best I can, Loki. If that’s what you want.”

Loki nodded and kissed him gently. “It is. I will play the docile prisoner when needed,” he said. He pushed forward with his hips and Tony moaned. Loki was already as deep inside him as he could be, but the push drew attention to it. “But this is what I want, Tony. I want your affection. Your attention.” He kissed Tony and began rocking his hips, expertly stroking his cock against the most sensitive place inside Tony.

“You… definitely have my attention,” Tony gasped. “You always have my attention. I can’t look away from you.”

“Good,” Loki said.

“I want you to be—ah, fuck.” He bit his lip. It was the gentlest Loki had been, but somehow he was on the verge of losing control already.

“You want me to be what, Tony?”

His eyes were closed, but he could hear the smile in Loki’s voice as he pointedly thrust again.

“Comfortable,” Tony gasped. “Happy. Safe.”

Loki bent and kissed him. “Good.”

As Loki continued to drive him wild with slow, controlled thrusts, Tony’s mind raced with ridiculous ideas. Remodeling the penthouse to add a suite for Loki. Nights spent with both Loki and Pepper, them cooperating to make Tony beg. Loki ruling the home, having free reign, insisting Tony call him ‘Your Highness’ at all times. Loki fighting by his side, nursing Tony’s wounds when they got back home, scolding him for his recklessness.

Ridiculous ideas, all of them, but Tony allowed himself the fantasies. After the sex and after a bath, they lay together and relaxed in each other’s arms, and Loki whispered, “Thank you, Tony.”

And for some reason, the ideas didn’t seem quite so ridiculous after all.