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Chapter Text

It was a truth universally acknowledged that any single omega of a certain age and status must be in want of an alpha mate. And just as widely known was that the exception to that rule was Anthony of House Stark, Master of Science at the Academy. 

Tony had been part of the Academy of Sciences of Asgard for most of his life. As an Omega, it was only natural for him to work in sciences, to further his craft through books and spells. 

But Tony had never truly liked conforming to expectations, and never really let the societal pressure constrain him. People side-eyed him, but usually let him do as he wished. So he put his hands in oil and machine parts, he took to the sword and spear, wielded hammer and tongs as much as words and equations. 

He had millenia after all to explore the world and further his studies. One could hardly learn about something without experiencing it, without experimenting with it. 

And he would not be one of those dainty and frail omegas that mingled with women as though they were the same gender. Spite fueled him when he found his body reaching his limits, making him try again and again, pushing himself further until his muscles toned and his shape filled out. 

Tony had made his way, had established himself as an independent man. That meant, mostly, that he never truly expected any alpha to truly ever look at him with desire. And certainly not consider him as a potential mating partner. 

Oh, he was popular with ladies, enough for a few tumbles in bed, some wild experimentations that felt safer for both parties. After all, with him, they could be assured that there would be no unwanted progeny, nor unasked for mating bites. And Tony prided himself in having learned his way around their bodies and having made an art out of pleasing them, and helping them know what to expect from a good lover. 

And if Alphas despised him for single handedly forcing them to raise their standards and making their women demand more attentiveness and care in their lovemaking, then he considered it a job well done. 

From his experience, Alphas were entitled, narrow-minded brutes who had been fed more lies and stereotypes about omegas than mead throughout their lives, and had their egos stroked so much they could hardly even go through the palace gates with their heads so thick and swollen. 

Both heads. 

Regardless, none of them much liked Anthony, neither his independence, his muscular body, or his general wit and the contempt and snark he used to deal with them. 

He was called the Untouchable, by the less mean spirited. Some others called him a frigid bitch, a few said he was as unfeeling as the metal he smelted, raw and ungraceful, unsophisticated as iron. Iron man. 

Such a joke. 

No, Anthony did not much like alphas, did not expect much from them but jeers and judgements, half veiled insults and bawdy leers. 

Which was why, when Tony saw the flower, his first reaction was more incredulous than anything. Suspicion set in later, along with bafflement and the need to check that this was indeed addressed to him, and not a mistake. 

Though, really, any alpha who bungled the delivery of a Declaration of Intent would hardly be worthy of whoever the flower was destined to.  

However, there was something that didn’t quite make sense. This was no red rose or simple wildflower. In fact it didn’t even appear to be organic at all. 

And indeed, a second look proved it to be a sculpture, made of metal, though the shine of it did bring enamel to mind. Its iridescence was discreet, the color almost an afterthought of greens and golds that came from the imbued magic instead any true polish added to it. As he came closer, the tips of the petal gradually became as translucent as crystal, while the flower itself seemed to be shining with a soft golden glow. 

It was beautiful, indeed, and deeply unconventional, but Tony could not deny that this was a courtship flower. A Declaration of Intent. 

Each realm had their own mating traditions, and perhaps Asgard was one of the most complex and regulated one. But then, it was also the most difficult to misconstrue. And that braided ribbon tied to the stem of this flower was impossible to misconstrue. 

And, as much as the rules were clear of which type of gift must be offered at which point of the courtship, Tony supposed that no one had ever said that the Declaration of Intent needed to be a flower made of flower. Obviously. 

He supposed it counted as a loophole, or just a clever way to twist the wording. But, as far as Tony was concerned, while it was unconventional, a sculpture of a flower was also a flower. The braid woven around the stem contained the appropriate two golden ribbons to show for two immortal souls linking together and one green for prosperity and growth of a new relationship. The symbolism was right. 

This was the one gift that opened a traditional Asgardian courtship. 

Now, what on the frozen plains of Niflheim was it doing on his desk?

Tony sighed, slumping in his chair. The flower was certainly pretty enough, surely there would be a card indicating who would be the lucky lady or omega for whom it was destined. 

There was indeed a note, thick and soft paper penned with looping green calligraphy, but it was currently laying under the gift. 

Damn, that would mean he’d have to pick up the flower himself before being able to know who this was for. It felt rude to do so, but he didn’t really have a choice, since a knothead had laid it out on the wrong desk. 

He paused. He knew every metal in the geological formations of the Nine, from the Nythrell in Alfheim to the Kraegn ores of Niddarvellir. He knew many a metal that shimmered and glowed like liquid, a few that bore iridescent colors and even a couple that were translucent enough to craft stained glass with. 

Only one single metal was able to hold magic in such a way as this was. 

This flower was made of uru.

This was ridiculous. There was a chunk of uru on his desk large enough to buy a palace with. 

It couldn’t stay there. Tony carefully removed the flower from the card. Actually, he didn’t think anything inside his lab could so much as make a dent in it unless he actually put it in the forge, but his mind still buzzed with the fact that this was uru!

He breathed out, calming his nerves. The thing seemed almost alien on his plain worktable, like a delicate gem shining amongst coal. 

Well, only one thing to do, then. 

Tony picked up the note, eyeing the flowery clean script. Tony’s own scrawl was a perfunctory mess, barely readable by anyone not versed in the decryption of ancient codes and cuneiform script. 

The paper was thick, satiny to the touch, something that obviously came out of the best stock money could buy. Though, compared to the raw uru that had somehow been crafted, pretty paper was the least cost of the gift. 

And it only said ‘Greetings’. 

Tony sighed in exasperation. He knew that spell, everyone in the Nine knew that spell. 

The words would only reveal themselves for the true recipient of the card. Well, that was at least one way to see who was supposed to hold that flower, though now Tony had to go through everyone and let them hold that paper long enough to see if the spell activated itself for them. 

What a hassle. But still, less bothersome than actually hunting down a mage capable enough to read the signature on the spell and have the recipient revealed. Which he would end up having to do if no one around here triggered the spell. 

And then the paper shivered under his fingers, sparks lighting up within the fibers, following the path of a phantom quill as words appeared on the clear page. 

Fuck. 

This… 

This was not a fluke, then. Someone had actually sought him out to court. 

And there was no coat of arm nor signature on the card, nor on the letter. 

Tony sighed. This didn’t make sense. 

While a suitor wishing to remain anonymous was not unheard of, usually an alpha with status would prefer to show off instead, to display the prestige of their house and their pedigree if nothing else. It often enough went beyond simple pride and was used instead as an argument—and sometimes an incentive— to make the omega accept the courtship offer. 

And no one would ever be able to come across this much ore without the coffers and clout that came with nobility. 

It made Tony suspicious. 

It boggled the mind. But this was uru.

And while the note held all the official and customary address that was necessary to officially propose a courtship, which included Tony’s name and titles, it also explicitly told him that he was ‘free to make use of this first gift in whatever way he thought best’ while hoping that ‘it would be of use to him in his future inventing endeavors’. If that wasn’t a blanket permission to smelt down the thing and use it for parts Tony didn’t know what it was. 

So long as the gift was accepted of course. 

The gifter would only consider the gift as refused if Tony brought it back outside the door on the next day. 

What a joke. Who would ever refuse that big of a chunk of uru?

It was an obvious trick, deviousness and bribery. No engineer in their right mind would ever give up the opportunity to have that much uru, and certainly not for the sake of entering a courtship that could be terminated at any moment. Tony would suck up to much worse than a mystery admirer for much less than the weight of a single petal of that flower. 

The ploy was obvious. 

It did not make it any less effective. Tony would certainly not be giving that flower back. 

Uru was precious, and he could already imagine all that he could possibly do with that much ore, such a pure strain of it already extracted and processed. 

But. 

Tony hesitated, for just a moment. 

The flower was awfully pretty. The craftsmanship was elegant and graceful, the delicateness of the petals entrancing. It was wondrous, how it managed to look so frail and soft while being forged out of the strongest metal in the Nine. 

And Tony did not have any current projects needing uru in them. After all, it was so hard to obtain even a single nugget of it, no one in the Academy would be foolish enough to base their designs or experiments on something like it. Even if they’d found some miracle property to it, what use would it be if it was completely unusable to the general public?

And here Tony was, holding a hefty chunk of it in his lab. 

He put the flower back on his drawing bench, out of sight from the door but right next to his working station. 

He would not smelt it just yet. He could always do it the next day, after all. 

*

Tony’s mystery admirer had become something of an open secret through the academy. Just about every omega, lady and witch of the guild had their own opinion on the extravagant gift, and what Tony should do with it. 

Though no outsider would hear a single word about it, Tony himself saw a steady stream of visitors come to his desk to admire the shimmering metal, the craftsmanship of the sculpture, the meaning of the depicted flower, and even analyse the thin veins of magic coursing through the thing. 

There was an almost unanimous consensus that Tony’s admirer was very very rich. Some could not believe that Tony had even managed to catch an alpha’s attention, others claimed that obviously his roguish charm had snagged a powerful omega, perhaps from vanhanheim. A small faction agreed on that only due to the fact that the uru seemed to be mageforged, and that such a gift should only be made by the one making the offer. To purchase a first courtship gift was poorly seen, no matter how beautiful the result. 

A declaration of intent should be personal after all. 

A group of particularly rational ladies insisted that, considering the worth of the gift offered, it did not require more personal handling. After all, was it not a well thought out and useful offer? Did it not take into account Tony’s own preferences and his general dislike for the way alphas looked down upon his gender and considered him almost a female version of a man? Did it not imply, in a roundabout way, that Tony himself was no ‘delicate flower’?

For supposedly down to earth scientists, they were surprisingly nosey. And a gossipy bunch of closet romantics. 

Tony rather enjoyed seeing them so happy and animated, but he would have much rather it not be at his expense. And he could definitely do without the consistent stream of ‘advice’ and encouragement. 

He could not say that he was not curious. It would be a lie, and every Scientist of the Academy vowed to live in pursuit to the Truth. 

But while the prospect of who his “secret admirer” was was intriguing, it was not for any overly romantic reasons. 

Tony had little faith in romance, and hardly believed that any alpha would be attracted to an omega such as he. He was too wild, too independent and self reliant, he refused to bow down to any rule but his own (and, sometimes, the Academy’s), refused to let any of his ambitions and aspirations be curbed by anyone. Much less an alpha. 

And alphas liked to feel needed, liked to have their omega’s entire lives revolve around them, around maintaining their home and popping out their brats, raising them, and waiting quietly at home for them to return in order to perform their ‘marital duty.’

Tony’s viewpoint was anathema 

It was possible that this was indeed another omega. Perhaps a pretty mage from Alfheim or Vanhanheim. Still, it seemed rather strange, since Vanir traditions were much different from Aesir ones, and elves tended to simply bluntly ask for whatever it was they wanted. 

So, of course Tony was curious. This was a mystery, something new, intriguing. 

It did not mean that he was having any expectations or hopes, however. Romance was not for the likes of him, he’d made his peace with that a long time ago. It was his choice. 

Still. What an interesting gift. Something completely unexpected, unique. If Tony was truly honest with himself, he would even admit to being partial to it, to actually liking the flower. 

It was beautiful. 

There were many stereotypes about omegas and the love for beauty, and there were many preconceived notions about Tony due to all the codes he was already breaking. 

But the truth was, Tony did like beauty. Perhaps this was not his priority, or maybe he did not appreciate it in a common way, but, the perfect ticking of a well oiled mechanism, the elegant lines of a stairway, the seamless way a construct just worked, all of these were forms of beauty that Tony just could not resist. 

Gaudy additions of golden monstrosities, so called ornaments, ribbons and frills and unwieldy, useless and even senseless decorations, all of these seemed utterly ugly to him. They broke the perfection of the form, the beauty found in the simplest and most effective lines, the hidden strength of them, their quiet elegance. 

Most people thought Tony did not appreciate beauty. 

But the truth was, as he admired the quiet elegance of that single flower, the gracefulness of its petals, the seamless transition between parts, the understated grace and faint accents of bright color, Tony could only feel wonder, awe at the craftsmanship, at the mind behind this design, the skill and talent that was there for all to see, unspoken, perhaps unseen by most people. Just as the nature of the ore would be left unnoticed by most. 

Uru, after all, did look like raw iron when left untreated. 

All in all, this was a truly wondrous gift, and Tony could not honestly say that he did not wish to meet the artist for himself. 

But he knew better. 

No one would ever offer such gifts to someone like him, not without expecting something in return. And it was unlikely that the gifter and the artist were the very same person. Craftsmen were hardly ever so rich as to obtain so much uru without it being needed for a previous commission, and even then, they would hardly part with it so easily. 

Not for something as intangible as a declaration of intent. 

All in all, it made strictly no sense, was absolutely priceless, and beautiful in a way Tony could not help but be fascinated with. 

And somehow, without his consent, a small flicker of hope, of anticipation woke inside his chest. Not much, barely enough for his heart to skip a beat. 

But each time his gaze slid from his drafts and settled on the thin and delicate petals, glided over their gentle curve, their simple elegance soothing to his mind. He could feel himself drifting through a world of simple mathematics, analysing the regularity of the gap between each petal, the angle between each set of three, the inherent stability of a perfect hexagram applied to the wonders of nature and their inherent sense of balance. 

And each time the embers of hope found themselves burning a little brighter. 

Tony shut down the simulations with a bang. He would get nothing more done that day. 

He chanced a glance at the flower, torn. 

He could take it with him, sleep on it. He’d most likely smelt it in the morning. 

(He would not smelt it in the morning.)

Chapter Text

The second gift didn’t come off as nearly that much of a surprise. After all, no one would ever invest so much in starting a courtship without actually following up on it. 

And, admittedly, Tony was also curious. There was not much hope, after all traditionally, while the declaration of intent was always a flower, and the rarity of it showed the commitment and value of the courter, a second courtship gift was supposed to show what the alpha appreciated about the object of their desire. 

And usually, that was beauty. 

So, while it was not technically a specifically codified part, the second gift usually ended up being some manner of jewelry, or even some fine fabrics. Though obviously, they were not always well received. 

Tale had been told that Sif had dyed her hair black when some suitor had presented gold to her for the color of her hair. Tony still thought if the idiot had presented a sword to her he might not have lost a hand. 

Courtship that happened inside the Academy walls usually had more … oriented gifts. Just the decade previous, there had been a bit of gossip about the Head Astronomer getting a sextant from the Lead Researcher in Behavioral Analysis, praising the precision and consistency of her readings. But then, Fury was an omega. He knew better than to play into stereotypes when already breaking taboos by instigating a courtship, and to a woman at that. It was unheard of. 

Tony still cackled sometimes at the uproar it had caused, the naysayers and the scandals, the curses spat at the Academy doors when it refused to intervene in their affairs, the promise that such a couple could never work. 

More fools they, Carol and Nick were still happily mated to this day, and did not look anywhere close to brewing trouble in their paradise.  

But Tony’s courter was decidedly not a part of the Academy. 

For one, he knew everyone in there, had slept with most, had been the shoulder to cry on for many, and was aware of the love interests for just about all of them. 

For another? No one in there would ever be able to afford that chunk of ore. 

No, Tony did not have much expectations about the second gift. 

Except that he very much did. 

After all, the flower that had been gifted to him was certainly not ‘the prettiest flower’ by common standards, nor was its rarity something in any shape conventional. One usually went to search for rare breeds growing in the remotest places, or perhaps some with commonly romantic meaning. 

Tony’s first gift was unique.

And it had strangely enough made some kindling seeds of hope glow in his chest. The bar had been set pretty high, after all. 

Which was why, when he found the box in his lab, he did not quite dare open it just yet. 

Obviously, it was a beautiful chest, finely crafted, one most certainly showing both the wealth and care of the sender. Presentation was indeed everything. 

But, until Tony opened it, he could let that strange hope grow. He did not quite dare dash it just yet. He did not wish to feel the bitter disappointment of having a suitor see him as nothing but a pretty face and a nice ass. 

Not again. 

So he put himself to work, mind distracted and fingers quick to fumble around the tiny parts of the automaton he was building. His eyes kept glancing to the side, to the flower glimmering gently, its delicate petals unmoved by the steadily growing mess round it. 

It was judging him. He knew it was. 

The chest was on the other side, teasing his curiosity, prickling at his mind even when he was not currently looking at it. 

Of course it would not leave him alone. 

He could not concentrate. 

This was a hell of his own making, he knew. There were probably a handful of pretty baubles, overpriced and gaudy golden monstrosities, maybe a few gemstones. 

To hope for anything different was more than foolish. 

Tony’s hand slipped, tiny laser welder drawing a harsh line over the delicate cogs of his automated bird. He cursed. The rest of the pieces tinckled onto his work table as he slumped against it, head thumping heavily against the smooth wood. 

Admittedly, his laser cutter was a tiny bit obsolete and he lacked any fine carving tools, but he was usually able to concentrate well enough to compensate for the lack. It just required lighter pressure and a dulling filter. 

He couldn’t complain. Academy budgets were still rather tight, especially considering they were partly government funded and they were currently mostly at odds with the Crown, and while many of the scientists there could count at least in part on the help of their families, most of them could decidedly not, either because they came from poorer houses, or that they’d come against their Sire’s wishes. Like Tony, who had cut all ties with his former House. 

He was still very generously equipped, his tools well crafted and reliable, but for the fine work that he was attempting, they would require more delicateness than he was currently able to muster. 

With his current mindset, any kind of manual work was off the table, and he could already tell that any attempt at drafting would only be worse. 

He would not be able to do anything productive so long as that chest was shut. 

Schrödinger gift. It was both thoughtful and insulting until he’d opened it. But, sometimes not knowing was worse than the opposite. Most times, even. Tony was a scientist, after all, he’d dedicated his life to the pursuit of the Truth in all its forms, to looking at the world without biases and only taking in the information offered to him, regardless of personnel wishes and expectations. 

Of course, often enough, he stumbled on one or two of those vows, especially when it came to his personal life. 

He might be a tad bit prejudiced against Alphas. He knew many of them were not nearly half as stupid as they presented themselves, some of them even probably clever enough to pass the entrance exam to get into the Academy, if the members of that designation did not despise the very idea of cleverness. 

This was the main issue Tony had with Alphas. 

They did not seem to value their mate at their worth. Tony knew the women that worked there, knew the omegas, their hopes and dreams, and struggles and triumphs. He’d seen them grow and hope for an alpha mate to share their future with, that nasty ‘true mating’ propaganda that was blared through their brains since the cradle. Some of them even seemed aware of it, a few even snubbing it, like the Man of Fury and his clever Stargazer, others just wanted nothing to do with it. 

Half the people in the Academy had come there seeking protection and escape from the Alpha dominant society, looking for a way to be free from the expectations of an omega life. Granted science was also a commonly expected path for omegas, but there laid much greater freedom than there could possibly be, shackled to a mate’s home and reduced to nothing more than a pretty face. 

Though. Perhaps Tony was exaggerating, or rather only looking at the bleakest parts of the picture. After all, forced betrothals were an outdated and frowned upon custom everywhere in Asgard. 

Howard had simply not gotten the memo. 

Obviously, he knew some of his former Academician friends had mated happily, a few had even come back with news and the healthy glow of young love. Some had come with the maturity that came from responsibility, a gentle sort of calm that revealed to all the happiness and wisdom that they carried. 

Only a single one had come with bruises and terror, quiet and subdued, though their eyes had been pleading for help. 

Obviously, actions had been taken, and the cad had been driven from the Realm, never to come again. Terrible business, finding oneself in possession of a forged royal seal. Idiot should have known better than to commit treason. 

Bruce had joined them once more, settling back into his former labs, quieter but steadily gaining back his confidence and cheer. 

No, Tony knew this world wasn’t cruel against their kings. Women and omegas had quite a lot of power, if understated, and overly codified. They were not openly considered lesser and there was no law keeping them from any kind of enterprise they wished to undertake. 

Apart of course from the general opinion held by the dominant group. 

However, they of the “fairest disposition” had learned long ago how and when to let themselves be heard and the Crown knew not to cross any of the Academy and those under its protection. 

Their treatment of Bruce’s former mate was proof enough. They had a system, underhanded and severe, but one that had yet to fail. 

Minds were slow to change for people who lived more than millennia, and some battles were better left unwaged. The king could not be seen to bend to the demands of “frail and changeable people”. The Academy could not stand by and leave its own unprotected. 

Middle ground was reached. 

This was probably the sort of resolution that came from the mind of the trickster prince, but Tony found himself not caring overmuch. Especially since, in each event the trick found itself necessary, it was carried out swiftly and seamlessly, in such a way that no shade could ever be thrown at the victims and the ensuing rumors linked more and more obviously the harmful treatment of omegas as a defect character trait. 

Such dishonorable methods might seem unpalatable to most, but there was little that Tony would balk at if it meant that people like Bruce could rest easy. 

Nick was much the same. Tony had been there when he went to the palace, sweeping through the doors as though he was the king and they the irresponsible idiots who’d let the dog pee on the rug. 

He’d been wrath personified, righteous outrage at the state of poor Nat so powerful that he’d earned his infamous moniker in that war room. 

He’d stared down the King, made demands, threatened him, and won.

Carol had been right there with Nick, taking names and kicking ass. In a non-violent way, because attempts at harming the Royal Family was still treason. 

That was probably what had first brought Nick’s attention to her in the first place, now that he thought of it. And that sextant might or might not be engraved with something about moral standings and righteousness. 

Tony had been in awe of them. Still was, and had done his best to follow in his footsteps. He was not the only one either, if the way Nat and Clint held themselves was any indication. Or Maria. 

In fact, most in the Academy had taken a decidedly more martial turn after that, relations between the fair genders and alphas taking a sharp turn for the frigid until the king granted a second audience with ‘his’ solution. 

They had always had power, after all they were the only ones who knew how the machinery worked, who were responsible for the daily running of the realm, the creature comforts that alpha so enjoyed. 

Everyone knew that they were powerful, but that was the first time that they did a true show of force. 

Still, it did little to change alpha minds, sooo ingrained was their prejudice. But the Academy has changed. It might not be obvious on the surface, but they had become more open, more watchful. 

There would be no more victims of the like of Natasha. The Academy was no longer an ivory tower where only its occupants would be protected. Now they roamed, they watched, they kept track. 

And took names. 

And gave them to whoever in the palace dealt with making them disappear. 

Strangely, Tony had thought he would spend the rest of his life alone. He had always been detached from the mating scene, wary of alphas, and had found some satisfaction in the various flings he made in the Academy. 

He was the one who looked at the various relationships from the outside in, sometimes cheering, matchmaking or indeed carefully monitoring. 

He was not the one being courted. Indeed he was hardly even liked by most alphas. Iron Man would certainly not give any of them the time of the day. 

And yet, there was that flower, and now this chest. 

And yet, Tony found himself curious and weirdly charmed so far. 

Perhaps it was time to dash all of those hopes one and for all. Tony could not afford to let himself be distracted like that, could not lose his head over some muscle-bound knot. 

But would any run of the mill alpha truly be one to send an omega a finely crafted uru flower?  

Perhaps Tony was reading too much into it. Perhaps it was just a show of wealth, and what was more remote and unobtainable than the heart of a dying star?

And with the way his heart pinched at the thought, Tony had already been gullible enough to start to hope. 

With a couple decisive strides, he stood before the closed chest steeling his heart for what needed to be done. 

Best to expect the worse, in order to keep from the bitter pain of disappointment. He’d learned that lesson the harsh way, at his father’s knee, hoping, wishing, begging for acceptance, for love, or even simply to be seen. 

It’s a fool’s game to hope, to even desire something that you know is inaccessible. 

And yet. 

Tony breathed out, irritated with himself. Whether or not he hesitated, and no matter how much he delayed the inevitable, it would not change what was inside the chest. He was making a fool of himself. 

The clasp opened with a simple brush of the finger, multiple locking mechanisms smoothly sliding back into their grooves with barely a sound. 

Tony placed a hand on the lid, taking a deep breath. He opened the chest. 

And stared. 

It was not a worthless pretty bauble, though it was decidedly a show of wealth. 

And Tony really, really liked it. 

With reverent fingers, he lifted each finely crafted case from the chest, admiring each set of tools delicately laid in their satin groove. There was everything he’d ever dreamed off while cursing at his multi-wrench and fiddling with his laser blade settings. So many arrays of tools were displayed there, ranging from a set of fine crafting knives to powerful welding equipment, everything that a craftsman like him could ever want or need in his work. 

Perhaps he could do with having a suitor. 

*

Tony’s new gift had the entirety of the Academy staff crowding at his door again, gossiping away and pestering him to show off his new toys, but Tony did not mind overmuch. He was actually quite excited about it and only too happy to demonstrate each new tool and their various uses and functions. And with each sweep of seamless melding, sutting, carving, each effortless action performed, he found himself that much more in love with this gift, that much more appreciative of the mystery suitor who had learned enough about him and his craft to know exactly what tools would be most useful to him. 

It was dangerous thinking, he knew, to find himself already so positively inclined toward someone he had not even met already. This was a new bribery, he knew. 

But then, wasn’t that the entire principle of a courtship? Gifts to show appreciation, to make their potential mate happier and more positively disposed toward them? 

Tony himself was admittedly a bit bitter and suspicious of the whole thing, but for most aesir it was a timeless and revered tradition. 

But, holding the precision pen in his hand, he found he could understand why so many people kept on blathering about it. 

He’d never even received a flower before, never truly mingled with alphas, at least not since he’d ran away from his sire. And those alphas he’d met before were the self important type who’d gone to his father and attempted to buy him like cattle instead of actually making an attempt at proper courting. 

This... was new. 

Tony could feel the care in each gift so far, the way each had been picked to suit his tastes, to be useful and yet at the same time elegant and beautiful. It made him feel seen and important to someone. 

It was… nice.

Chapter Text

Things settled back into normalcy… eventually. 

Aesir courtships were rather regulated, not only in the matter of which gifts were given, but also in when they could be handed. As the second gift must appear in the week following the declaration of intent, the third gift should not be offered before a moon had passed. 

Tony found himself… eager. 

His curiosity had not abated one whit, especially since he’d so enjoyed his second gift. No, instead he was truly interested in that mystery suitor, and invested in figuring out who had put so much thought and care—and gold!—in his gifts. 

If whoever it was expected him to sit quietly and wait for them to dramatically reveal themselves, they had another thing coming. He was a scientist, deliberately staying in the dark was not in his nature. 

As it happened, there were not many clues to get from what he’d already received, but it was already enough for him to start whittling down the possibilities. 

Already he could confirm that his mystery suitor was a magic user. No other way would permit them to enter the Academy unseen, walk through its walls and leave their gifts in Tony’s rooms without anyone ever seeing a hint of them. 

Especially not for the second gift, once every gossipy intern was aware of a potential courtship about to happen under their nose. 

Not to speak of the sheer volume of the chest that had needed to be carried down to Tony’s lab. It was not small, and the tools within might be lightweight and easy to use, but as many as they were they would have given even the hardiest Aesir some measure of trouble. 

So. A magic user. 

However, the use of a chest, with the specific designs that were etched on the lid and the mannu lock that was designed to answer only to the courted’s thumb, all of these spoke of Aesir knowledge or at least ancestry. 

The mannu lock was only crafted in Asgard, by five different forges. It responded to the ancient magic inherent to the courtship ritual. Because it was a ritual, one whose power only grew with each gift offered then accepted, and the skills to tap into that magic and build locks that only responded to the courting pair’s hand was jealously kept in those few families. 

Either this was a very well informed foreigner, someone of mixed heritage or someone who had been raised on Asgard. 

Along with the fact that whoever they were was obscenely wealthy, and peculiar enough to be interested in Tony’s own oddness… 

Well. There were not nearly that many options left. 

Still. Those hints were not nearly enough to ascertain anything, and Tony would probably have to wait to decide one way or the other. 

He was not the most patient person. 

The lily kept glowing, simple beauty and gentle elegance with its slowly shimmering petals. It was strange how the longer he watched it, the more his perception of it kept changing, as though the metal had tuned to quicksilver and crystal, shimmering currents of green magic glowing back as he fiddled with it, catching the light before disappearing as the sculpture turned back to dull black ore. 

He sighed. 

The tools were a blessing to work with, his colleagues enthused and curious, the weather warm and sunny, but Tony could not concentrate. 

He could not bring himself to melt the flower, not even to extract the ore. 

How ridiculous of him, to place so much emotional value to such a bauble?

The days ticked by, too slowly, excruciatingly boring. Even Carol had come down to see him with a commiserating smile and a plate of consolatory biscuits. There were quite a few omegas who knew what the wait was like, but few of them could possibly understand the crawling angstiness that came with not even knowing, being utterly unable to even name the one who had been bringing him those gifts. 

Aesir were long lived people. One moon was nothing. 

Tony was climbing the walls before the end of the first quarter. 

It was a matter of great humor to the rest of the Academy. Tony was usually the collected one, most unaffected by any of those romantic drivels, with his heart all but untouchable. 

He did not involve himself in love stories unless the recipient was somehow being mistreated. He did not play matchmaker, did not seek anyone, did not lose his head over some unattainable crush. Not like Jane, who was somehow pining after the golden prince and his bulky muscles, or Darcy who kept track of everyone’s love affairs. 

No, he was their quiet protector, the Man of Iron who held the fort and kept his calm while the Man of Fury went to kick down the palace doors. 

He smiled silently, a baring of teeth that showed barely a hint of threat, and stood firm against anyone who attempted to intimidate him, to go through the impenetrable barrier he enforced around those who came to seek his protection. 

To see him so affected had the ladies swarm him with teasing smiles and barely hidden laughter, and the omegas outrightly guffawing at him. Admittedly, he was ridiculous. 

Still. 

He’d never believed he would ever be courted, and hadn’t even entertained the thought of even liking it. 

But he could not argue against the truth now. 

Still, the mystery was eating at him, and he would solve it if it was the last thing he did. 

The first stop would be the smithies.

Tony had a reputation amongst smiths. He was good at it, at any kind of metalworking, really, and it was a great bitterness of theirs that Tony needed to remain under the wing of the Academy in order to keep living free. They were all quite fond of him, or at least four out of the five best forges were. He’d come there barely older than a toddler, following in the footsteps of a cold and uncaring father on his various business trips. 

Those were the happiest memories of Tony’s childhood, hoisting up a hammer too big for him and listening avidly to the apprentices careful instructions while his father locked himself in with the masters and accountants. 

He’d learned and played and smithed his first pieces during those times. Each forge had welcomed him into their ranks, into their secrets, and done their best to protect him from Howard’s frigid glares. 

It was a fairly useless endeavor, but Tony had always appreciated it, had always remembered who it was that had shown him true kindness, and who had given him the means to actually run away when it became necessary. 

They were family as much as the people in the Academy were. 

They would certainly help him. Or at least they would try. They weren’t exactly supposed to tell personnel information about their consumers. Still, there was a lot of leeway in that. 

The trip was short. Smithing and sciences were as close as alphas and fairer genders could get, and thus the smitheries were left on the outskirts of the city. The academy was of course much more remote, but the fly across did not even take a candle-notch.  

The streets were busy as ever, trimming with clients and merchants alike, people looking to fix their tools or to commission new ones, passer-bys browsing the wares, experienced warriors trying out the various weapons displayed… 

Tony sidled in to one of the stands with a smirk, mock-whispering to the poor sod stationed there: “Still making sub-par blades, huh? One would think by now you’d have learned a proper folding technique.”

Tony watched, greatly entertained as the smith turned red, eyes narrowing as he twisted to look at him with a snarl… before his expression morphed into a gruff but genuinely pleased smile catching Tony swiftly by the scruff of the neck and dragging him deeper inside the forge.

“Tony, my favorite brat of a customer. If my blades are so subpar, then surely that means you’re interested in finally sharing your alloys, yes?”

Tony chuckled at the age old argument, shaking himself out of the eldest’s grasp. 

“Not in your dreams, Logan. If you can’t figure it out from the claws I made you, then I’m afraid anything I can tell you will be useless.”

Logan guffawed, swiping playfully at him. 

“Brat. To think I gave you your first hammer. Kids are so ungrateful these days.”

“Hey now! Just because you’re ancient doesn’t mean I’m a kid! You need to get your eyes checked grandpa. Maybe it’s not that mysterious that you haven’t figured it out. How many fingers am I holding?”

Tony laughed, playfully keeping out of the way from Logan’s swipes. 

It was comfortable, teasing the elder like that. Logan had always had a grumpy exterior and a heart of gold. He knew he was safe in his hands. Even when he got caught and grappled, squirming as he tried to break from the alpha’s hold, Tony only laughed. 

They rolled around for a while, playfighting while Logan gave him hints at a better technique for hand to hand, always trying to teach him something, to make him safer. Tony laughed, tried the holds and failed at them lamentably, Logan throwing him off each time in a different way. 

It was rough, dirty, sometimes even painful, buit Tony loved every second of it. It was exhilarating, freeing in a way no one else at the Academy seemed to understand. 

They were all so very proper, so absolutely detached from the physicality of a good fight. They never really seemed to understand what he talked about when he spoke of the satisfaction of aching muscles and the cooling sweat on his skin, the breathless feeling you get while sparring. 

A few of them did spar. They improved on their bodies, on their techniques, became good, lethal in a way that would be completely unexpected. But it had nothing on the raw physicality of this, the roughhousing that was more of a play than any true bout, the thrill of a good fight, the satisfaction of giving your all… Tony loved it, relished in it. 

At the Academy, learning to fight had become something of a necessity, precision fueled by spite instead of pleasure. It just wasn’t the same. 

So that made it pretty rare for Tony truly to get to let loose. 

That was one of his many reasons to still come there, visit his old friends and leave the secluded safety of the Academy. 

Still, it was not what had brought him there this time. 

Laying in a heap on the straw covered ground, Tony turned to his old mentor, still half laughing from the adrenaline rush. 

Logan was looking back with a knowing smile. 

“So, what did you need this time, bub?”

Tony winced. He did not come nearly often enough for this to be Logan’s first question. 

“Now don’t make this face, brat.”

The alpha caught him and pulled him close, scruffing his hair a bit and jostling his shoulder. 

“There’s a distinct scent of anxiety that follows you along when you feel like you’re asking for something too big. So, spit it out and stop looking so damn guilty.”

Tony sighed, slumping against Logan’s chest, eyes shifting to the side. 

“You wouldn’t happen to be able to tell me who came asking for a Courting Chest recently, would you?”

Because, while there were five forges who were able to make them, Tony himself knew and could recognize the mark of each smith in Asgard. That one had undoubtedly been Erik’s work. And where Erik went, so did Charles and Logan. 

“You know the rules, kid.”

Of course he knew. No one serving any client was allowed to divulge any information about who had been there, nor what they had bought. 

Especially when it related to courtships. 

Of course, that did not mean that they could not say who had not been there. 

“Did you have any foreigners stop by?”

Those were rare enough that it would be a terribly strange coincidence if one were to ask for a commission on the same timeframe as Tony’s mystery suitor. 

Especially since there were not nearly that many customers in so specialised a place. Not many could afford Erik’s work. 

Logan side eyed him, before realisation lit his face. Something gleeful and teasing widened his smile in a look that boded nothing good. 

Tony threw him a narrow glare filled with suspicion. 

“Well, kid. I never thought I’d see the day!”

Tony grimaced, a self-conscious blush heating his cheeks. 

Neither had he, in truth, but still. 

“You don’t even know why I’m asking!”

Logan laughed, helpless sniggers shaking through him as his dark eyes glittered back at him. 

“So, Mister Iron Heart got himself a suitor that he likes enough for a third gift, huh? And apparently, he doesn’t even know who it is!”

Tony squirmed. Well, Logan wasn’t wrong. 

But he wasn’t about to admit it so easily!

Thankfully, Logan did not keep teasing him for too long. He slumped back down with one last bark of laughter, making himself comfortable while Tony squirmed, ears reddening with embarrassment. 

He needed that answer, damnit, and sadly Logan was the most likely to actually give it to him. 

Erik was a hardass who had a strict moral code and did things by-the-book, and Charles would only tell him some kind of spiel about respecting people’s privacy. While Tony loved the two, they were certainly not the ones to go to when breaking, or even just bending the rules. 

No. That was Logan, the one who liked making fun of him and shoving him into straw bales. 

Not that Tony was complaining, he loved the gruff alpha and wouldn’t change him for the world, but that was getting hard to remember while he was getting a nervous breakdown waiting on his answer. 

Because that reaction meant Logan knew. He knew who had commissioned the chest, who had sent him that lily, who had decided that he of all people would be worthy of those decidedly extravagant gifts. 

Certainly, Hammer would not even have found him worth even a single of the tools he’d been offered. But then, he’d never actually went to make an offer to Tony himself. 

Logan snorted, looking back at him from half lidded eyes and breaking him from his steadily darkening thoughts. 

“Don’t worry your pretty head too much about it. It’s no one you knew from before, and it’s no foreigner either. They’ve got a pretty good reason for not telling, but they’re still being an idiot. You’ll be fine. Now stop dallying, don’t you have better stuff to do than sit here like a red lump? Go greet Chuck and that grump over there.” 

Tony scoffed, throwing a mock punch at Logan’s shoulder. 

“Who are you calling a grump? You’re the grouchiest As in the realm!” 

Logan frowned, a half snarl twisting his lips. Tony was not worried. He’d already seen Logan angry, and that wasn’t it by far. 

“Now, listen there you brat!”

Tony smirked, dancing lightly back on quick feet as the alpha stood heavily with a playful glare. 

“Then again, you’re the one giving me love advice right now, so perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you’re not a grouch at all. In fact, I always knew you were a big softie!”

Logan lunged, grappling for Tony while the other did his best to dodge the (mostly) playful swipes.

“You ungrateful brat!”

But as much as Tony had gone back to joking and teasing again, his mind still remained on Logan’s words, what hidden meaning was in there. 

The first part was easy enough. His father’s…. His sire’s men had not found him again, the alpha’s who’d made a bid for his hand when he’d been too young to understand what it truly meant had not tried their luck again. 

This was someone new, an alpha from Asgard, who had reason to believe they would get rejected on hand, and yet that Logan thought Tony would not reject. 

That he thought Tony would like. 

It already narrowed the breadth of his search for quite a bit. 

Truth be told, he already suspected who it could be. There were not so many alphas that would fit Logan’s description and be both wealthy enough to obtain that lump of uru and perceptive enough to find out the exact tools that Tony would enjoy most. 

But Tony knew better than to work on assumptions without any actual proof. Even if his process of elimination did not leave much room for failure, there was still the possibility that he’d missed something. 

Regardless, how would he feel about it if he was right?

Somehow, that was the question that plagued his mind for the rest of the visit, through the fussing from Charles and the gentle ribbing from Erik, and even as he pulled up his sleeves and took up the hammer, his thoughts refused to be quieted. 

Usually nothing cleared his mind better than the steady beat of the hammer as it molded metal to his will. 

And yet possibilities kept spinning, what ifs and potential suitors as Tony went through his list again and again, discarded possibilities and reinstated them again and again. 

Charles kept watching him knowingly from his place besides Erik, a fond glint in his eye that usually meant Tony was being ridiculous and emotional. 

It was strange. 

Somehow, Logan had let most of Tony’s worries to rest. The alpha might be gruff and curmudgeonly, but he knew Tony well, more than most, and he was more sensitive than people gave him credit for. If he had given his approval for this alpha’s suit, then surely Tony  would not find himself displeased with it. 

If it even was an alpha. 

Did Tony want them to be an alpha? He’d had fond trysts with women, and omegas alike, there was no question of compatibility on that end, so this did not seem quite right. And yet. 

He hadn’t thought he would ever get mated, and had never considered overmuch what it would imply, who it would imply. But, now that he had his suspicions, that one alpha that seemed such a statistically likelier candidate considering all the criteria he’d laid out, the most likely answer to the riddle of his mystery suitor, he found that… 

He would be disappointed if it wasn’t him. 

Tony stopped mid-beat, hammer frozen in place as he turned the thought in his mind. 

It was a strange thought. 

It wasn’t like he knew that alpha very well. He’d hardly even spoken to him... except that one time when he’d followed Fury to the palace and watched him tear a new one to Odin himself. Tony had stood to the side and the other had come to him, a cocky smirk on his lips and a tease in his words, seemingly unconcerned by the spectacle happening behind them. They’d been charming and teasing and… respectful. 

Nothing like the stories, but then, Tony had expected that. Tall tales always sounded different from person to person anyways. At that point Tony already knew there would be no truth to be found from them, naught but rumors fueled by spite and jealousy. 

And the alpha so seldom appeared out in the realm, there was nothing to offset those lies. 

Tony had… liked him, though not in a way that could point to a crush of any kind. 

He had not even considered the possibility. 

There might not be anything alike to hierarchy when it came to omegas and women, especially due to their scarcity, but it did not mean that they could have anyone. There was still such a thing as reaching above one’s station, and Tony had no intention of being rebuffed for being a smith’s son. 

Not that he’d even thought that far. 

He hadn’t believed himself to be anything more than an entertaining distraction, perhaps someone interesting enough to flyte and converse with. He’d been pleasantly surprised at how charming the other was, but he’d not repay that kindness by being creepy. He knew how some O’s could turn out when shown the smallest smidgen of decency by some high standing characters. Tony would never make any unwanted advances on someone who had probably already had their fill of them. 

Still. Now it was different. 

Tony turned back to his craft, thinking. He could not afford to make assumptions, but it did not hurt to explore possibilities, and figure out how he felt about each of them. 

And the result was not something he’d ever expected. What was he going to do with such a realization? 

And here was the thing about assumptions, even those backed by maths and data. What would Tony do if whoever had sent him the gifts was not the one he’d expected? Would he be disappointed? 

He would. 

But he could not afford to be. What should such a fleeting meeting influence his appreciation of what was before him now? 

It didn’t make sense. 

The sound of his hammer turned rough, discordant. It was not smart of him to work while so troubled. He put it down with a heavy sigh before he actually managed to break the sword. 

His mind was a mess. He knew he wasn’t made for all that ‘romance’ stuff. 

Charles snorted at him from the doorway. 

“You’re thinking too much.”

Tony glared. 

“Easy for you to say.”

Charles smirked. 

“Yes, ‘easy.’”

Coming closer, Charles set down his bundle of ore, setting the workstation carefully and proceeded to studiously ignore Tony while he fumed silently. 

Waiting for his cue. Of course. Could Tony not be friends with anyone who held conversations in a normal way? 

But then, he supposed that, as a telepath, he must be used to make sure not to be the only one making the conversation and not just answering previously present thoughts. 

Except with Erik, of course. Tony could respect that. 

He deflated. His were not the only troubles one could face. He had to remind himself sometimes. 

He caught a sidelong glance thrown his way, some approving glint in their depths. 

Apparently Charles appreciated his self reflection. 

“Alright, what did you mean?”

And finally, the telepath turned his chair around, facing him with a knowing smirk. 

“You know already what you want. You know what you don’t want. What more do you need?”

Tony remained speechless for a couple seconds, wondering if Charles really was serious.  

“What do I need? I need to know the situation! I need to know what is possible and what is not! I need to know what will happen so that I can prepare accordingly!”

But while Tony worked himself into a state of panic, Charles only smiled, his strange serenity of his still unaffected in the face of Tony’s clearly frazzled state. 

“Why?”

Tony’s mind skidded to a halt. 

He knew of course that his panic was unwarranted. He was safe, under the protection of the Academy. He knew that at any moment he could refuse the next gift, rebuke the courter and they would be forced to cease and desist lest the entire might of the Academy struck them down. 

He was no longer a lone omega facing threats from all sides, and this situation did not warrant the sort of knives out suspicion that he’d developed when the topic of mating had been raised while he still lived with his sire. This was something he already had control over. 

His quickening breaths and racing heart didn’t seem to have gotten the memo. 

Tony sighed, slumping. Somehow this was worse than a lecture about privacy and the right to invade it. 

Charles laughed, coming closer to pat him on the shoulder. 

“Can’t be too predictable, now, can I?”

Tony snorted, throwing a side glance at the telepath. There was nothing predictable about the small man and his baffling kindness.

The project kept cooling on the anvil, the metal already becoming a dull red instead of the incandescent white of malleable metal. 

The whole thing would probably need to be completely melted back into shape. Such a waste. 

There was much that Tony knew he should or should not do. Waiting was hard. Being passive and just waiting for things to happen on their own was even harder. 

“I know.” 

Tony smiled bitterly as Charles answered his thoughts instead of his voice. Of course he knew. 

He’d been the one to point it out himself. 

And, after all, Charles was right. It was not only impatience talking. 

There was fear in everything he did, trauma clouding his decisions, hindering his steps. His growth. 

Frustration felt bitter on his tongue, anger against himself for not being able to let old demons lay to rest once and for all. 

The threat was gone. He knew that. 

In fact, he hadn’t had a problem at all ever since Howard died, all those centuries ago. He’d felt the weight of the world lifting from his shoulders, finally able to breathe like a free man for the first time. 

All this talk of mates and courtship was messing with his head. 

“You should go see your mother. She misses you.”

Tony grimaced. He knew that, but that didn’t make facing her any easier. His relationship with his mother had always been… complicated at best, and Howard had never made matters easier. Even in death, he’s managed to be a pain. 

But Charles’ gaze was knowing and patient. There was no reprimand, no accusation, no guilt-tripping. 

This was what made Charles dangerous. He was always able to make you listen to things you did not want to hear. 

Yes. Tony should see his mother. He loved her, missed her. There had been many harsh words spoken between them, many hurtful things and grievances and accusations before he left. And somehow, he’d never really taken the time to mend those. 

He didn’t know what he would expect going there. It was… complicated. 

But he understood why Charles was nudging him in her direction. A lot of thoughts he’d had on mating came from her, came from what he witnessed from his parent’s relationship, from Maria’s drawn and depressed form as she ghosted through the house and turned a blind eye to his sire’s—her mate’s—behavior. 

And perhaps that was something he needed to clear up. 

The truth was, all those times he’d said he did not wish for commitment, all those times he'd scoffed at the thought of a long term relationship, he knew he’d been lying to himself. He wasn’t like Logan who felt perfectly happy on his own, with just his friends for the company and intimacy he needed. He truly wished and yearned for the type of romance one read in the books, the soft sort of love and adoration that softened Fury’s face whenever Carol came by, the tender trust and understanding found between Charles and Erik. He wanted something like that for himself.

But he never wanted to live through the same thing Maria did, never wanted a mating like hers, never wanted to become like her. 

Because, yes, he loved her. But he could not bring himself to respect her. Not when she stood by and did nothing, not when she’d just… 

Tony breathed out, cutting the train of thought short and clenching his eyes shut. It did no good to dwell, though perhaps understanding would let him finally put it to rest. Then again, it might not. 

At his side, Charles was a reassuring presence, a pillar of strength that radiated acceptance and love. For a moment, Tony allowed himself to pretend that this was his true father, that he’d grown up in this forge instead of under Howards less than tender mercies, that those wide paths he’d roamed as a toddler had truly been his home and that he’d learned safety and respect at the knee of people who truly cared for him and were family. 

But one did not get to choose their families nor the scars they would inflict upon them. 

What did he hope to find by going to face Maria? 

Tears prickled at his eyes. 

What a mess. He was supposed to be over all of that. 

He was not supposed to cry again over things that had been… that should have been long forgotten. 

What could Maria tell him that he did not know already? What more could he unearth from those sad years of his childhood? How could it be of any use to him? 

“If you knew what you were looking for, then you would not need to go at all.” 

Tony slumped against Charles’ chair. Of course there would be some philosophical reason for not knowing something. 

Just like there was probably some bullshit thing about trying to heal his problem at its source, right? 

But Charles simply ignored that last thought, asking instead: “Do you want me to come with you?”

Tony sighed again. At this rate, people would think him a depressed lovelorn fool, with how much he was sighing this day.

As much as he was thankful for the offer…. 

“I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

And he really did not want to admit it but “This is probably something that I need to do alone.” That and Maria hated Charles with a passion only equaled with the way she hated Logan. 

Charles chortled, shaking his head. 

Yeah, it was pretty humorous, so long as one did not contemplate how terribly sad it was. 

It made Tony angry, to think she blamed Charles of all people as the reason Tony ran away. But he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to truly talk to her about it, wasn’t sure she would ever be able to face how terrible his childhood had truly been, how much she’d let Howard mistreat him without ever doing anything to stop him. 

How much of his suffering she’d turned a blind eye to. 

But this was his own ghost to lay to rest, his unfinished business.  

“And anyway, I’m pretty sure the Stark mansion is anything but chair accessible.”

Charles smiled mischievously. 

“There are ways around that.”

Tony snickered. He knew those ways. Ever since he and Erik had rigged up that damn floating chair, Charles tended to simply float over every obstacle in his path, regardless of the damage it did to the things he trampled. At least for the people he disliked. 

That was both incredibly petty and absolutely genius, because he could simply blame that on the chairs default programming to always float a certain height over each flat surface. 

Regardless, it would not exactly help make communication any easier. Not if he wanted to go without brewing more conflict. 

But perhaps… 

“I could simply accompany you and wait outside in case you need a quick excuse to escape.”

Tony blinked. There was a reason he liked Charles so much. 

“Why thank you, dear. I do try.”

Tony scoffed, putting the tools away and tidying up the area. If Charles came with, then that meant no procrastination, no avoiding or dithering for a couple more weeks. 

But it also meant not being alone with his thoughts for the whole way. He could already hear him complain to him ‘you think too much Tony.’

“I do not sound like that!”

Tony smirked back. 

“Are you still eavesdropping? And me who thought you needed to prepare my exit strategy. Tsk.”

Charles swept past him, mischievous. 

“Some people can multitask, darling.”

Tony choked on a laugh, snapping his rag at Charles back. 

“Are you sure it’s really ‘multitasking’ and not just ‘doing things halfway’?”

Bantering like that, it was easier. It took the imminent confrontation further from his mind, made it lighter, less dramatic. 

It had been many years since Maria had any place in his life, after all. But that did not make her harsh words hurt less, did not make the bitterness festering in his heart any easier to bear. It certainly did not make him want her love and approval any less.  

Even though he knew he would never obtain it, no more than he had ever had Howard’s. Or rather because he never had Howard’s. 

Oftentimes, he told himself he was over it, that he’s stopped hoping, stopped wishing. Especially with Howard’s death, there was nothing more to strive for. 

Anyways, his running away and swiftly destroying every plan they had for him would have certainly dashed any last small chance he had of being something they could approve of. 

But. He’d never been a ‘something.’ And he would have never survived being simply sold off like any old sword. 

Tony smiled bitterly. There was a tool missing from the rack. His eyes kept trailing back to that missing spot, strangely bothered. It was probably not lost. Erik always knew exactly where each tool and scrap was in the ‘shop, but Tony could not stop looking for that tool, trying to find it, to fix the missing places. To find the missing pieces. 

“Breathe Tony.”

He gulped in a breath, desperate and choked. 

Obviously he felt more anxious over that visit than he’d thought. 

Charles looked at him worriedly. 

“We can wait. Or not go at all. It’s your choice. It’s always your choice. No one will ever blame you. You realize that don’t you?”

Tony let out a choked laugh, or perhaps it was a sob. 

Of course he knew. This was Charles, after all. 

Charles was always so very careful to never step on people’s personal agency. It had felt almost jarring when Tony had first met him, expecting demands and orders and control, and to receive instead gentle guidance and trust. Tony took a while to understand, to relish in that freedom. He’d come to need it like a man parched, to look forward to those visits as though they were the only thing holding him sane. 

Perhaps Maria was not wrong to blame him, in the end. But Tony could never regret it, could never imagine himself surviving the empty life they’d planned for him. 

Regardless, there was little to be changed now. Their lives were different, the path Tony had taken pulling him far from Maria’s home, far from Howard’s control. 

Which was why he could actually square his shoulders, and smile semi-confidently at Charles. He was no longer under their thumb, and Maria had not even been the one wiedling the yoke, nor even had she acted much to enforce it. Even if the contempt in her gaze, the exasperated dismissals of everything he tried to tell her, the excuses and explanations and demands that he just shut up and do as his sire said, all those compounded the knowledge that she truly was not that different from Howard at all. 

She had certainly never taken his side in any point in his life previously at least. 

He was free of them. He was a grown man, established in his craft, well respected by his peers, and with enough a reputation to be known through the realm. 

He had nothing to fear from her anymore. 

Or at least, that was what he tried to tell himself. 

He could still remember the thundering screams and broken plates as he yelled himself hoarse after Howard’s funeral, her outrage at his absence, her contempt at his neglect of ‘propriety’ and his sheer rage at her insistence that arbitrary social convention would still be more important than his own feelings and conveniently forgetting that he’d actually disavowed the entirety of House Stark until the death of his sire as he left the forge? 

There would have been few ways to break ties more absolutely without actually invoking a Blood Severing. Howard was not Tony’s father long before his death. To refuse to acknowledge that amounted to willfully denying all that Tony had worked toward, all that he’d sacrificed in order to obtain his independence. 

But then, he didn’t know why he’d been surprised. It had always been Maria’s way. Deny what’s happening, deny what other people—or rather, her son— are feeling, deny everything that would not fit her narrow worldview and do her best to bend those around her to fit those expectations. 

How unfortunate of him to desire her approval so much and yet be so unsuited to the role she’d designed for him. 

He could feel the reassuring warmth of Charles' mind against his own, silent but supportive, understanding.

How strange children’s minds were, to imprint themselves on the first face they saw instead of the ones best suited to care for them. Tony would always have Logan, Charles’ and Erik’s approval, even their love and their pride. And he needed and relished in that. 

And yet, it never negated the incomprehensible need Tony had for his mother’s love. Though, perhaps he did have it, but it was shaped in a way that made him forever unable to accept it. 

How ridiculous. 

He’d spent long enough wallowing and dithering. 

The sun felt blinding compared to the dimness of the forge. Low lighting being best to measure the radiance of white hot metal, and while Tony preferred well lighted labs for the minutiae of small engineering, there was nothing like the soothing duskiness of a forge, with the warm light of forgefire guiding your moves. 

Here, the glare of the sun felt harsh and unforgiving, the din of the marketplace deafening, a constant blur of superimposed voices ringing in his ears and clouding his mind. 

Tony felt on edge. 

Though, to be fair, he’d been frazzled before he’d even walked through the door. He knew altered mental states threw his sensory perceptions in a tizzy. He tried breathing out more slowly, realizing he was still blocking the doorway. Charles had laid a hand on his shoulder at some point, gentle reassuring words whispered in his ear. 

Tony was absurdly thankful not to hear them in his mind instead. There was already too much turmoil, too much confusion with just his own voice without needing to parse through thought provenance on top of it.    

“Do you need a moment?”

Tony shook his head. 

“Let’s get this over with.”

Maria’s house was isolated, still attending the old forge that had now fallen into disrepair. The Stark House was all but disbanded after Tony renounced it and Howard died. Obadiah had made an attempt at taking over, but he was not always as skilled as his predecessor, and as good a businessman he was, lack of skill always showed. 

And reputation was everything in those professions. No warrior wanted their blade to break in the middle of battle, no matter how much they might wish for Valhalla. There was no honor in faulty supplies, after all. 

Thankfully, Maria had never become destitute, even with Obadiah’s poor management. Widows had always been protected by the Crown. 

She still owned Tony’s childhood home, and still made a comfortable living that way. He wasn’t too sure about what exactly she did these days, but he was confident enough he would be informed should she become destitute somehow. It was unlikely, but he always kept an ear out nonetheless. Stupidly enough. It wasn’t as though she’d ever appreciated what he did for her. Or that she hadn’t thrown everything back into his face and claimed him to be no son of her, refusing to even hear his name again. 

The door loomed before him, the same it had ever been, the flowerpots unchanged, the same draped linen hanging from the windows that he remembered from his youth. 

He had respected her wish, of course, and kept out of her affairs. He had not come nor called, barely even thought of her. 

He knocked now, heard those same quick and light steps haste to the door. 

The door flew open, revealing the graying face of Maria Stark, laugh lines lining a wizened face even though her eyes still seemed shaded with grief. Hair long and braided as demurely as ever, dresses still the same bright patterns that Tony had grown with.

He did not expect his reception to be any better than frigid, lukewarm at best. He expected the door closing to his face with Maria’s angry screams chasing him out, or perhaps simply her cold disapproval chasing him out. 

Why had he even come?

And then, she smiled, radiant and somehow off. It took a moment for Tony to understand it was the lack of the grief and pinched sadness that had plagued her for most of his life. 

“Tonio, darling! How have you been!? Oh you’ve gotten so tall! Come in come in!”

She hadn’t called him Tonio since he’d been a toddler. Not since Howard had thrown a fit and broken her favorite vase on her back. 

Tony hesitated, though he felt strangely helpless against the tiny whirlwind that pulled him inside and shoved him in a chair before starting to set out a plateful of biscuits and a pot of tea. 

“Oh, you must tell me everything dear heart! It has been much too long! How have your studies been going?”

Studies?

Was his mother acknowledging the Academy’s work?

Everything felt unreal. What was going on?

“Of course you must stay for dinner! Ooooh but I have a box with some of your things! Won’t you have a look? There might be something that you still have a need for? Of course your room is still there, nothing was moved, if you want to stay? It’s better to stay the night than to take the road too late, you know?”

Of course Tony knew. His father died due to a ‘too late’ road trip. Darkness was treacherous when navigating a skit, and finding out whether or not foul play was involved had been impossible considering the sheer danger of the area he’d been found. 

Regardless Tony had no intention of staying long enough for it to get dark, lte alone actually spend the night in that house. 

“I will be quite safe.” 

Not that Tony truly believed she cared. 

What was she playing at?

“Of course, of course.”

She bustled around, her movements on the edge between quick and practiced and just a little frazzled and anxious. 

It made Tony nervous. Something was not quite right but he didn’t quite know what. 

There was no one else inside the house. His wristcuff only detected the three lifesigns for Charles, Maria and him, and it had a wide enough radius that Tony would not worry about avoiding ambushes from anyone beyond its range. 

Maria settled in front of him, seated primly on the other side of the small kitchen table, the tablecloth of the exact same pattern than the one that had been used when Tony was small. 

“So love, how are you? It has been too long! Your father’s not there at the moment. I’m sure he’ll be back soon, he will be thrilled to see you visited.”

…. What? 

“Father… is out?”

Surely Tony heard wrong. One did not come back from the dead as easily as that, though sometimes the shadow prince made it seem differently. And certainly, someone would have told him?  

“Yes, of course! You know how he is, always out on those business trips of his. Starting a forge is no easy feat, you know?”

... What?  

“Mother… Howard is dead.”

Her smile froze, eyes becoming shadowed and haunted, hands trembling and sending tremors through her cup, a steady clinking echoing into the silence between them. 

The stillness stretched between them. Tony’s breaths seemed uncomfortably loud in the face of his mother’s imminent collapse. 

He’d never before noticed how fragile she looked. In retrospect, it had always been there, in the way she clung to Howard’s words, the way she hardly ever spoke unless spoken to. The way she stood, straight but hushed, the same quietness she’d attempted to instill in him. 

Of course Tony had always been too exuberant, too tempestuous to be muted. Too loud. 

But Maria had not. 

This was what he’d been worried about. She’d become something of a pretty doll, had been entirely dependent on Howard, and now that he was gone…

Her eyes cleared, the sunny smile coming back to her lips. 

“Tonio, darling! When did you come in? Oh it’s so lovely of you to have come visit! You must stay for dinner, of course! How are your studies?”

Tony reeled, something heavy and terrible lodging in his throat, distress gripping his heart. 

A knock sounded at the door. Maria stood to let Charles in, welcoming him with all the warmth of an old friend. 

Tony could hear their conversation from the next room, something jovial and deceptively normal. 

Maria hated Charles and yet she received him gladly. But then, Howard had been dead for more than a century and she was waiting for him to arrive ‘soon’. 

Was this why Charles had insisted to come with?

Not nearly. Even if she had not been in this state, you would have had our support. 

Because everyone in the District must know of Maria’s state. 

She is quite safe. Her state is carefully monitored and people make sure to keep an eye out for her. 

Of course they did. Howard had been well respected in his life. Surely his widow deserved the same care. Perhaps there had even been a fund left out to insure such care, perhaps the Crown even pitched in. 

You are mistaken. While it is true that some had a care for your late father, the most of our efforts are not for him. No, we go out of our way for you, son. 

Tony twisted around, eyes spitting fire and teeth bared. 

“For me?!”

Charles simply floated inside, eyes kind and sorrowful. Maria was following behind, twisting her hands, worriedly glancing from one to the other. 

Would you not have felt beholden to help, had you known? To leave behind your hard earned place and come back to her side, like the dutiful son you pretend not to be? 

Tony grimaced, unable to deny the truth behind the words. It hurt. It felt like a festering pit of tar in his throat. 

There was nothing you could have done, and it took us a long while before we understood what had happened. The formalities have been handled, as is her safety. If you have wish for other measures to be taken, we will handle them. 

Tony turned back, eyes falling upon the small and demure shape of his mother. 

She felt like a stranger and yet he could still recognize her, the way she stood, hid her hands behind her apron to conceal the fidgeting of her fingers, her clear eyes and the way she tracked everything in the room. 

And yet she was smiling. Still nervous but less fearful and sour than she had been before. Less intransigent. 

She had asked after his studies. 

Somehow he wondered what sort of illusionary life she had built in her broken mind to sustain that smile. 

Perhaps a Howard who truly cared for her?

Somehow the thought felt too bitter to bear. 

No. No, whatever they’d done was fine. If there was no reason to worry about her safety, then best to let her live in her pretty illusory life. What did it matter to him if she sank deeper into her delusions?

Why did Charles not tell him?

Do you not remember? 

Well, of course he did. He had very clearly asked to not ever hear anything about Maria Stark’s affairs ever again. He’d wanted to start anew, and been wounded and spiteful. At that time, it had mattered little to him if she were to fall down a flight of stairs or prance about the townhall claiming how terrible her son was. 

She’d forsaken him. So he’d forsaken her in turn, at least in words. 

And perhaps in deed as well, since he’d managed to steer clear of her for so long that he’d never known how low she’d fallen, how far she’d slipped. 

Do not blame yourself. 

But, shouldn’t he?

“How are you, dear Maria?”

Tony flinched. Charles' voice had echoed in his ears this time instead of simply nudging the edges of his mind. He’d gotten lost in thought again, a strange sort of anguish gripping him. 

“Oh but I am quite well, Master Xavier, quite well indeed! Surely you will remain for tea? My son is visiting, and I know you’re rather fond of him.”

The strangest thing was how bizarrely unsurprised he was. Of course it was a shock, it came completely unexpected, and yet it wasn’t too difficult to reconcile this strange new Maria with the one he’d grown with. 

She’d always found it easy to only see what she wanted to see after all. 

And yet, seeing her so exuberantly joyful, so artlessly nice, it hurt. 

He couldn’t help the bitterness at the thought that she had never been quite so welcoming toward him while her mind was all there. 

What a useless thought. 

Charles accepted the invitation, as graciously as everything he ever did, and Maria brought out another plate of biscuits and tea set, fussing around them both as though she were trying to be the perfect hostess. 

Tony’s mind was buzzing, everything felt hazy and strangely detached. The shock settling in, probably. He let himself be lulled by the false normalcy, nibbling on the sweet treats like he would when visiting any acquaintance of his, listening to the small talk. 

You had questions. 

He did, though they seemed strangely irrelevant in face of Maria’s current state. He could not bring himself to muster the usual spiteful rage he did when thinking about her, nor the helpless resentment at the way she’d treated him. 

What was the point of that anymore? It was not as though she could respond to it, nor even understand it. What could he speak of their row upon Howard’s funeral when she didn’t—could not— even remember that the man was dead? 

How could he speak of her neglect of him when she welcomed him like the prodigal son, and spoke of his studies as though they were something to take pride in instead of the very thing she railed against all his life?

Would she reset as well if he dared broach the subject? 

Did it matter?

Maria poured Charles his tea, yet Tony found with surprise that his cup was filled with the black tar that he usually enjoyed. Vanir khôffee beans. His eyes prickled, throat tight once more. 

She’d always cursed his tastes as unrefined and made a point to force him to drink her terrible leaf brew instead. Was this even the same Maria anymore?

His shoulders slumped as he watched her hopeful and hesitant smile. He took the cup, finding himself weirdly surprised that it was actually to his tastes. 

She was waiting for his verdict as though it wasn’t just offering her son a measly cup of coffee but a jury that would decide the rest of her life. 

Tony deflated. He could not forgive the past but he found himself unable to sustain the grudge any longer. He smiled at her, forcing himself to relax in her chair. 

The way her face lighted up, one would think he’d handed her the mood. 

It felt surreal. As though she was the one seeking his approval. 

Tony. 

The cup felt pleasantly hat in his palm. 

He had questions, yes. About her and Howard, about her reasons for the things she’d done, said, not done. 

But would this strange, new version of Maria even know the answers?

There was only one way to know. 

“Mom…”

The word rested strangely in his mouth, clunky like it did not quite fit there. But. He could hardly afford to use something else at the moment. He rather feared that calling her Maria would bring her to tears. If simply refusing a cup of coffee could be so terrible to her, how would she react to the usual distance he’d imparted before?

Do not force yourself, Tony. 

But, it was fine. It seemed like a different person, almost. Not one who would use his affection and vulnerability as a way to twist him to her will, or to scorn his ‘sentimentality’. 

And if she were to try to use him, or to manipulate him, well, he knew better now. 

He would remain on guard. But then, wasn’t he always? 

And wasn’t that the issue he was looking to address?

“Can you tell me…”

Maria leaned forward, as though any word that could come from him was important. As though anything that he asked her was precious. 

Tony swallowed, unspeakably nervous. This was jarring. 

He powered through. 

“What made you mate with Howard? What made you stay with him?”

Maria’s eyes became shadowed. For the first time since he came, Tony could see the ghost of old-Maria in her eyes, that old permeating grief. 

Tony found that he hated it. 

“Tonio, darling….”

He waited, half expecting that she would reset. Forget the question and welcome them in the house again as though the previous hour had just disappeared from her mind. 

But she did not. 

“...When I was young, even younger than you are right now…”

Her words came slow, weighted, as though each of them was a struggle. Tony waited. He knew better than to interrupt someone who had trouble speaking. 

“...The Academy was barely more than a handful of clever women, privileged and cleverer than most. It was as remote as a fortress and about as generous as a prison.There was no help to be seeked for a young and desperate girl cast out from her family for being too mouthy and disobedient.” 

But Tony knew that. He’d been out on his own before it had become what it was today. He’d been one of those who’d implemented the changes, who’d railed and argued with the directors, who’d brought Nat and Clint to Nick and his too big heart. (He’d also been the one to sass the shadow prince until he was charmed enough to help, or at least to open the few doorways necessary to make things easier for them.) 

He knew that. Though perhaps, he did not really. 

“I had been thrown to the streets for behaving much like you did. I had dreams and ambitions and no true way of making them happen. I was alone and scared, and starving. And then Howard found me.”

Maria’s voice was trembling, words catching in her throat as she spoke. She twisted her hands together, wringing her fingers as she ended her speech in a whisper. 

Silence ruled for a beat, then two. 

Tony tried to wrap his mind around life on the streets. He had run away, of course, but he’d known Logan and Charles and Erik would take him in, regardless of any rule of propriety, or even any loss of business should Howard turn against them. 

In the same way, he’d been on friendly enough terms with everyone in the District that he knew he would have found a place to rest his head and a warm meal anywhere he knocked. 

He didn’t know what he would have done without them, though he had passed the entrance exams for the Academy already by then. It would have been sorted out, eventually. 

The prospect was indeed quite terrifying. 

But Maria wasn’t done. 

“I…”

She gulped. 

“I needed him. He… I know he wasn’t always a good man, Tonio. I’m sorry. He needed a mate who was pliable and quiet, who could give him what he wanted and not ask for much. I could be that. I was that.”

She laughed, a watery thing that did not carry much mirth. “I should not speak like that. Howard will be angry. I should be grateful. Ungrateful, stubborn, stupid.”

Tony felt a chill. He recognized those words she’d muttered last, they’d been screamed at him enough in his youth. He’d just never guessed that Maria had had the same thing hammered through her brain enough for it to follow her through her delusions. 

He hadn’t thought they’d been thrown at her as well, though perhaps he should have. As much as Tony resented her, as much as he couldn’t bring himself to think of her as his mother, he hadn’t waited this day to know her life had been harsh, with struggles too many and kind words too few. Still. It was hardly reason enough for the hurt she’d dealt him. 

“I couldn’t leave. Shouldn’t leave. He loves me, I know he does. Of course he does. I’m so grateful. An ungrateful bitch. He’s the only one who can help me, he took such great care of us. You realize that, right, Tonio?”

Tony tuned it out, gritting his teeth. It sounded even worse now that Maria seemed stuck in a loop, unable to get away from the repeating pattern of victim blaming, of that mad scramble for justifications. 

But, the worst thing remained that he recognized those words, recognized those patterns of speech from when she’d still been sane. Though perhaps she had never truly been? Who but the deluded could truly think themselves such? 

He could not stand it anymore. 

“Why me, then?”

He shook his head, trying to clear it, to make sense. 

“Why did you take it out on me? Why did you …”

Maria stopped talking, her eyes watering, lips trembling in distress. 

“But Tonio. I did my best for you. To raise you right, to make you a good omega who would please an alpha well. Of course you were always a bit rebellious, but…”

Tony could not hear it anymore. 

He left the room, heedless of her cries of his name, that old nickname that Howard had banned, that strange almost-glimpse into what it could have been like to have a supportive mother. 

She was mad, of course she was mad, but the only thing worse than her madness was the small hints of the past that she kept slipping in, the delusions that she’d lived by while considered ‘sane’ and not those she’d built for herself through years of isolation and grief. 

Perhaps it was his fault for disturbing the hornet’s nest. Or perhaps he’d taken himself to hope, as absurd as that would be. 

Perhaps he could come back some other time and enjoy that disturbing illusion of normalcy and affection, it was somehow tempting, to see his mother’s face look to him for approval. How stupid of him, to still wish, yearn. 

But, at the same time, how could he not?

He choked on a laugh. 

At least he was reassured about one thing. He would never turn into his mother. It was obviously, absurdly impossible. 

Not because of the way her mind was slipping, or the way she clung to her former mate. 

But the way she had so clearly internalized the abuse that she’d lived with. The way she thought of it as normal, thought of her doing the same to Tony, reproducing the same harmful patterns as doing him a favor. 

He’d known, somehow. Or at least he didn’t find himself as surprised as he thought he would be. 

He had wondered if she’d resented him for being an omega instead of the alpha son that would have been Howard’s heir. He’d wondered if she had ever loved him at all, ir if she hadn’t wished him to be stillborn instead. 

He didn’t know if it was better or worse. This Maria, at least, clearly loved him, clearly thought of his affections as something of importance.

Was that the truth of what had been hidden in her mind throughout his childhood? Had she started out loving ‘Tonio’ and distanced herself due to Howard’s disdain and indifference? If that was the case, was it a deliberate thing, or did it happen simply due to something as insidious as mimetism?

He would never know. Perhaps he could ask Charles, but the thought felt wrong somehow. 

Perhaps it was better not to know. His mind was a confused mess, emotions tangling together like a snare, choking him, blinding him. 

He sobbed, wiping at his eyes with a soot stained sleeve. 

How ridiculous. To think he’d thought himself over it. Over that childish desire for something as abstract as a mother’s love. And now, confronted with the possibility that that love had been there, might have been there, in a shape as toxic and constricting as the abuse he’d lived through during his childhood, now he found himself falling to pieces. 

He shook his head, breathing deeply, shakily, feeling the ground under his feet and the solidness of the wall he was slumping against. His hand slipped into his pocket, fiddling with his runestones. Their comforting weight rested nicely in his palm, slipping smoothly through his fingers and tumbling back amongst their fellows with melodic clinks. 

It still took a while before his emotions calmed and his breathing evened out. 

Charles had come out, probably after calming Maria’s emotional outburst, and after he’d judged it safe to approach him without infringing on his privacy. Tony had always preferred to fall apart in solitude. 

He didn’t know if he should be grateful for what Charles had done. Perhaps he would be, in time. He knew, had Tony become aware of Maria’s state before all the technicalities had been resolved, he’d have eaten himself trying to make things work, to figure out what would need to be done and how. He would have never asked anyone’s help, never thought nor dared to. 

This… What they’d done, in the district? Tony was grateful. To know that she was not alone, that everyone around took the time to come by and check on her, that her safety was insured by the spells that he could feel permeating the place, wards and alarms and proofings and safety charms, and more of the like that he could not even recognize. There was nothing he needed to do. Nothing but what he was willing to add. And that could wait. 

“Are you alright?”

Charles' words startled him. The silence had stood before them for so long now, breaking it almost felt wrong. 

Words could be so much more cruel than any sword. 

He didn’t know if he was. He wasn’t sure what alright really meant at the moment. This was not something that one could easily come to expect, nor was it easily accepted. His mind still rebelled against the very idea of what he’d seen. Heard. 

Of course. That’s okay, Tony. It’s normal. 

“Did you find what you needed?”

Because he had come for a reason, for all that it had fallen to the wayside with the revelation of Maria’s state. 

And the following conversation. 

Had he gotten what he needed? 

Yes. Yes he had. 

And, following Charles back to the more populated parts of the District, he found that he did not regret the visit. 

*

Somehow, it did not make waiting easier. 

He had however mostly stopped fretting about whether accepting a courtship would turn him into his mother. And other just as irrational concerns. 

Sometimes the crippling insecurities his mind cooked up were embarrassing.. 

Of course they did not exactly disappear overnight, but. He could bypass them now, could switch his thoughts to a different track. 

Could admit to himself that he wanted those gifts to come from someone. Could lay down what he truly wanted and what he did not want. 

And could still remind himself that whether or not it was the man he’d had an eye on, that did not make him know that alpha. Did not make him trustworthy.  

Regardless of reputation, Tony knew that a man behind closed doors rarely looked the same as the one that presented himself to the public eye. Howard had taught him quite well in that regard. 

Still. 

He could be honest enough with himself to admit to attraction. 

So he found himself going through the motions, watching the days pass by. Thoroughly enjoying his new tools and crafting wonders that he hadn’t dared attempt before. 

It was brilliant, and enthralling and just so very easy. 

It took a while before Tony noticed how much time had passed. How long he’d spent bent over his worktable, shifting from project to project, crafting, creating, experimenting, analysing. The possibilities were endless, and his work had always been the simplest way to rake his mind from the scrambled mess it often turned into. 

Though, usually it was more a matter of equations and components, the mechanics of too many projects crowding his brain, too many trains of thought at once, scrambling against and over each other until he couldn’t think past the white noise of them. 

It had been long since it was emotional upheaval that plagued his mind. 

Thinking of his parents always got a rise out of him though, so, really, this was not unexpected. 

Really, he went from one fixation to another, though trying to process his visit to his former home made him more productive than fretting about the courtship he’d embroiled himself into. 

He could never manage anything when he was waiting for something. 

But now… It wasn’t that he no longer worried about it. He still did of course, and dithered as much as possible when he thought about making a choice. Though admittedly, his decision relative to this courtship could easily wait much longer than that. There had been tales of up to ten gifts being offered before a return gift was given, and the tradition called meaning for up to one hundred gifts. Short courtships usually meant that couples knew each other beforehand. This wasn’t quite the case there, at least not with the familiarity necessary to actually commit each other for life. 

Tony had never been in as vulnerable and dependent a state as Maria had been, and he had a reputation as a willful and unbending man. For someone who’d never let anyone dictate his life. The Iron Man. 

And Tony was proud of that! 

But that did not mean that he could trust his courter’s intentions out of hand. There had been many an alpha over the centuries who’d thought to ‘tame’ him, or worse, ‘break him in’. ‘Show him his place. Make him feel what a real alpha knot was like.’

Logan had taught him early on how to deal with that kind of knotheads, and he’d already rebuffed a fair number of those, with more or less violent means. 

Usually more. 

Still, the gifts he’d received so far did not hint to anything of the sort, quite the contrary. They felt empowering instead of dismissive, an acknowledgement of his talent and work rather than a… what? Some self important buck’s attempt at showing off? A trick? 

The more time went, the more conflicted Tony felt. 

But his courter had Logan’s approval, if nothing else, and Charles would have known had anything untoward been planned. And Erik had never been above throwing out any customer he did not approve of. This chest of theirs meant almost as much as any gift could have when it came down to it. It meant that his courter had obtained his family’s blessing. 

Still. Time was the breeding ground of doubt. It festered in his heart, clawing at his mind and brought him to question things he’d already ascertained. 

Hence the work, the way his busy hands helped him clear his mind, removing himself from a dilemma he could not solve without more facts, more data to either confirm or infirm his hypothesis. 

He needed to know who it was. To prove if this was truly the one he’d been thinking of. 

He needed… so many things. 

And so he breathed, and worked, because waiting was impossible. 

When he finally emerged from his projects, finally looked at the time and connected back to the outside world, the deadline had passed. 

There was a package on his desk, something small and innocuous, carefully wrapped in soft cloth. By its side rested a small card penned in the same looping and neat cursive as the first. 

And Tony… Tony was so very curious. With all his emotional upheaval, he’d almost forgotten about that all-consuming need to know, the thrill of the mystery and anticipation of the next gift. That childish excitement that bubbled up his throat at the sight. 

‘Something that displayed what the courter could offer’ was the custom for the third gift, and usually the alphas took the chance for grant and ambitious displays of wealth and power. 

And while even the first gift had shown this already with priceless uru offered up like a bauble, it was still intriguing to have something so very small on his desk. 

And of course his mystery suitor would have to attempt to best his previous gift. 

Nervous energy sparked his fingertips. It was heady. 

Tony would have never believed he would like this so much, but it was incredibly pleasant, being in this position, the center of someone’s attention, receiving gifts…. He could always see how one could enjoy it, but he’d always thought himself too independent for such a thing, figured he’d be bristling at the passivity of just waiting for the next bribe, having to sit quietly while some moron made an attempt at a ‘serenade’. 

But then, he’d mostly refused courtships out of hand before then. 

He supposed that it was indeed wise of his suitor to use such an eye-catching and absurdly valuable first gift, in that case. He couldn’t say if anything less could have truly made him reconsider his previous stance. At least not without previous knowledge of the courter. 

Tony had never really been a ‘flower’ guy. 

But then, few women around him actually were. Or admitted to it. Omega men were… always in a peculiar place when it came to gender norms. Women were women, and alpha men were men. But, omega men? They had always seemed to people as something of an uncomfortable in-between. 

Tony had always felt like a man, however, and that had been uncomfortable as well for many alphas. 

As it happened, not everything golden and gilded was actually good. Tony had long known that, and had always been thankful for the X forge and how they’d welcomed him and helped him accept himself as he was. The way Charles had always encouraged him to be himself, the way Erik had simply acted as though anything he wore or did was normal until the day he came in in some frock that his mother forced him into and he’d pointed him to the bathroom with a change of clothes. The way Logan had simply started to teach him anything he asked, no matter how ridiculous or inappropriate. 

His courtship flower felt a lot like that, like the acceptance of a part of him that was nothing like the conventional image of what an omega should be. Like the silent acknowledgement that Tony was no frail being wooed by a single rose bloom. 

That had been intriguing, and perhaps even more interesting than the uru itself. After all, he had not melted it, leaving the precious sculpture in plain sight of his workstation. It was ridiculous, an incomprehensible waste, uru used as decoration of all things, and yet, he could never bring himself to smelt it. 

Still. What could possibly top that chunk of uru and yet be so small?

The note was short and perfunctory, clear and concise instructions. “Place upon a clear wall and set to green.” 

Tony perked up, intrigued. This was something that used magic then. He glanced back at the innocuous package. 

What could it be? 

Curiosity was gnawing at him, but he no longer felt the manic impatience that had plagued him all month, that constricting brand of restlessness that had driven him to distraction. 

No. There was an unexpected relief in having this new gift there, a peculiar loosening in his chest. He hadn’t thought his suitor would simply give up, not after having spent so much on the first two gifts, but still. Some insecure part of him couldn’t help but feel surprised, disbelieving that anyone would ever invest so much for his regard. 

He hadn’t even known that it was something he worried about. Couldn't believe that he’d loved the feeling of being courted so much that he’d feared it being discontinued. How strange. 

There was a childlike excitement to clearing up the wall before opening his gift, one he distantly remembered from Yuletides past. Anticipation and curiosity, and manic glee. 

It did not take long, Tony piling old projects haphazardly together, stacking boxes of components and moving tables to the side until a good chunk of his wall was entirely cleared up. 

Tony suspected magic to be involved in whatever his suitor had cooked up, and he judged it wise to have too much space than too little. Those things could be finicky. 

He turned back to his tiny package. Finally. 

His hand hesitated over it for half a beat before he swept it up, cradling the bundle in his palm. 

It was light and yet strangely weighted, a rather peculiar sensation that did enforce Tony’s conjecture. This might very well be a powerful magical artefact. 

Magic could be found everywhere through the Nine, though some realms welcomed it more than others. And while Asgard did not openly value its magic users, it had learned, eventually, after the Great Academy Strike and various sorts of petitioning to the Crown, that magic users were best left alone and feared for their undeniable ability to make everyone’s life more difficult. 

Respect was slow going, and as always discrimination was well entrenched through their minds, but they had an ally in the court, and for all that the Rogue Prince was not well liked, he was always quite effective with his scheming. 

And he also had a personal stake in the reputation of magic users through the realms. 

Regardless, magical artifacts could be found in use in almost every home in the nine, though rumor had it that Midgard had forgotten about magic and its uses and Asgard willfully denied its existence. 

And yet, those magic devices were usually small enchanted items, with perhaps a couple of handy functions like heating a meal or boiling water. This, whatever it was, was much more rare and infinitely more powerful. 

Tony shivered, a manic smile spreading on his lips. He was far from the most magically inclined omega around the Academy, but he still greatly enjoyed witnessing the beauty of his peer’s workings. 

Nimble fingers swept over the fine cloth of the package, making that last moment before the reveal last, admiring the shine of the deep green color, the embossed patterns and the clean weave, the care of the embroidery, it’s tiny gold threads depicting a flamboyant dragon intertwining with a fiery phoenix. 

Tony smirked, not even surprised by the attention to detail. Tony’s own personal sigil as a craftsman was the Phoenix. Erik had smiled when he’d helped him design it, but he’d helped without a word, no matter how ridiculous or arrogant it might have seemed. Erik always told him that arrogance was only a flaw if you could not back it up with acts and skills, after all. 

Phoenixes were rare creatures, imbued with pure magic though they could not wield any themselves. They were patrons of the great craftspeople for their skill at controlling the fires of creation. Kenaz, forgefire. 

And they always raised from their ashes, unfettered by whatever the world threw their way. No matter the hardship, no matter how grievously wounded, they always rose back up, always found their wings and took flight. There was no height they could not reach, no wax to melt if they rose too close to the sun, because they became the sun. 

And that… had been important to Tony. He had not always had the safety and reputation he enjoyed these days. There had been a time where scorned knotbrains had...

It had been important for him to be able to remake himself. To know he would not be defined by what had happened to him in the past. To know he could always reinvent himself. 

And the Phoenix had always been the mythical lover of the Dragon. 

Tony smiled. It was subtle and yet decidedly daring, for a suitor to hint at the sort of permanent and mystical union as the one between those two legendary creatures. A love that transcended the ages, as vibrant and beautiful as forces of nature colliding and merging, an union of opposite that complemented each other so perfectly. 

How bold. 

Tony loved it. 

He’d given himself away. 

Such an innocuous thing, and yet Tony now knew without a shadow of a doubt who it was that had sent him those gifts. His mystery suitor. 

Dragons were as rare and mystical as phoenixes, and one needed just as much arrogance to label themselves as one. But where Phoenixes were patrons of crafts, Dragons were the protectors of Seirdweavers. Beings made of pure magic, they could bend reality to their whims and create wonders with a single breath of life. A Dragon symbolized might, sheer power and command, while still embodying cleverness and creativity. 

There was only one aesir who used them in their coat of arms, only one whose cloak could use this particular shade of green. The one that some snidely called a Serpent in the Nest. 

Tony smirked while letting the precious cloth pool over his hand. It was as much a declaration of intent as that lily had been, perhaps even more so. 

But it was a clever one. A riddle, maybe a bit of a trick. Something that valued his cleverness and his capacity for subtlety. Neither of those were Asgard’s usual manner, after all. 

Arrogant, but not ostentatious. A rare feat. 

Tony liked his style. 

And then his eyes turned from the wrapping to the actual gift. 

He stared. 

He… had not expected that. His fingers hovered over the device, hesitant, reverent. 

It had been thought that the skill to create stable portals had been lost through the ages, amongst the ruins of Svartalfheim. The schematics lost, burned to ash by Bor’s wrath and ridiculous vendetta. A few blackened leaves had been salvaged by Alf historians, illegible scribbles and scorched instructions. Amongst those, Tony had seen, only once, the design for the very device he held in his hands. 

A diamond-shaped flat base carved with a cluster of complex arrays, rising in delicate filigree, metal lace swirling and converging, infinite symmetry, perfection of shape as gold thread separated then fused then split again, mindbending patterns spinning again and again. And, on its center, a single pure gem sizzling with power, the condensed energy of seidr poured with intent in its heart, stored, shaped, a spell on a mage’s lips as magic weaved the impossible. 

It hummed under his fingers, curious, inviting, magic alive with intent, faintly purring at him. 

Tony shivered. Whatever it was that he’d been expecting... It had not been that. 

This was… It was a wonder being Vanaheim’s perpetual movement machine, beyond the field of Everstars, or the groove of Time.

This was forgotten knowledge brought back to life, wonders beyond thought that was believed lost forever. 

His hand shook. 

The note had said to place it on the wall. 

He held in his hand a portable gate, a device capable of opening sustainable wormholes at will. This was more advanced than the bifrost, more complex and elaborate than…

Tony had no words anymore. 

He was so terribly aroused. 

He discards that first impulse, because there are more interesting things to do at that moment. 

His second impulse would be to pick that device apart to figure out how it works. It is undeniably tempting. 

He forces himself to resist it anyway. He might be the best damn engineer in Asgard, but he’d never found a single intact file on Svartalf smithing and he highly doubted his knowledge of Nidalf techniques would help him there. He would hate to accidentally destroy such a marvel. 

There was also the gnawing curiosity that he’d almost forgotten, because that gift had come with instructructions, the crystal already pre-charged with a spell, coordinates preset and powered, all of which indicated that what was offered was not only the device itself but also the gate that it would open. A Gate, to somewhere. 

And Tony found himself wanting to know where it would lead, wanted to follow through on this invitation. 

Of course he always knew better than to follow strange alpha to foreign places, any omega knew that, and he more than most. He was mistrustful by nature, and had been burned enough time to know quite well the taste of ashes on his tongue, betrayal like the bitterest poison on his lips. 

And yet he couldn’t help but believe that his trust would not be abused in this case. 

Had this just been gifts, even as precious as those, he would have called himself a fool. But this suitor of his had Logan’s approval. He had Charles, and moreover, he had Erik’s. And now, seeing that cloth wrapping, that intent so boldly displayed, that unmistakable shade of green, he had Tony’s as well. 

Slowly, reverently, he laid the divide against the wall, watching as it hovered over it, floating gently even after Tony let go. 

A green shimmer rippled over the cleared space, a stone breaking the stillness of a clear lake, tiny waves of magic searching the space, learning it, grasping it and twisting, pulling at the fabric of reality. 

Tony watched, captivated, awed. This was the dream of any researcher, to come across such an unparalleled wonder and see it in action, to obtain the chance to witness the lost secrets of history brought to life again. 

Patterns appeared over the flat expanse of his wall, a pulsing glow painted green with magic that echoed the complex arrays of the device, reproducing the design in endless fractals, infinity and rhythm; magic and reality. 

Waves of magic, crashing smoothly through the wall, sinking into it, saturating it until the entire expanse of it glowed green instead of white, shimmering until Tony could see himself reflected onto it. It was incredible. 

Tony had always been fascinated by magic, and the incredible potential that seidr had. There was nothing nearly as brilliant, as versatile. 

But this was beyond description, beyond everything he’d dared to imagine before. 

This was bending space to a mage’s will, bypassing every single law of the universe without breaking them, without opening a singularity and turning the entirety of Asgard to a paste, sucking them all into a back hole. 

And then, the other side appeared, like a mirage, a rippling image reflected upon still waters. 

Tony’s breath caught. 

His hand reached forward almost on its own, covetous. 

There was little one could offer to a scientist like him that would make him want half as much as what was being shown before him right then. 

His hand went through the portal as though it was not even there, a simple door like any other, as though it did not connect him to a place that was most certainly not behind his wall. And yet here it was. 

A library. 

But not just any library. Those books were forbidden, rare, coveted. Some had been lost through the centuries, others had been thought destroyed. There were a few penned in Atlantean runes, Nifl graphenes, and something that seemed too alien even for Tony’s eyes to recognize. Yet. 

There were so many. Forbidden, forgotten, rare, obscure, for any single one of those books, Tony would have sold his soul to even get a glimpse. 

And here was a door right into an entire library of them. A free pass, entirely at his disposal, so that he could consult any and all of those tomes at his discretion. 

This was beyond imagination. 

Tony walked in, mesmerized, his searcher’s soul greedy for more, bewitched by the potential of all this new knowledge right at his fingertips. 

This was…

There would be no guards eyeing him, no librarian watching him suspiciously from their corner, no limit to the time he could spend there. No restraints. 

The Academy had a library, but they lacked funding, they had specific shelves for everything that was studied in their walls, but anything beyond could only be found in the palace library. And even then, Tony highly suspected that it would pale before this. 

Because this was clearly a private collection, a lifetime spent scrounging, exploring, bargaining, saving vellums and treatises from battlefields and purges. 

“Are you not going to show yourself, my prince?”

Because this was Loki’s library. 

There wasn’t a single shadow of a doubt left in Tony’s mind. 

It was Loki who had petitioned the dwarfs to obtain some uru. It was him who had forged him with the heat of his magic, molded it to his will, shaping it like one of the delicate sun-lilies that grew in his mother’s gardens. 

Even though Alphas did not do such things. They did not care for creating beauty, they instead took pride in conquering it. 

It was the smirking trickster prince—the one everyone said to be self absorbed and egotistical—that had remembered the afternoon he’d spent at his side, the time he’d spent explaining his work, his throwaway comment about his passing frustration at the bluntness of his tools. 

The shadow weaver, the liesmith, the one shrouded in mysteries, who held secrets close to his chest, more precious than any gold in the realm, that tight-lipped prince had been the one to offer him an open invitation to his private library. A door that answered to his will. 

From a shadowed corner between the radiating shelves, his silhouette shifted, a lean dark shape shuffling almost awkwardly. 

Tony smiled at how bashful his usually cocky prince now seemed. It was strangely charming, the way he could see him caught so off guard, scrambling after having been caught out. 

As though Tony wouldn’t have found him out. Really. 

His smile widened, mischief sparking in his mind as he leaned back against the side of a shelf. 

Prince Loki stepped from the shadows as though he’d been one of them and only now decided to grace the physical plane with his presence. Tony wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually the case, but his magic hummed around them like a lazy cat, purring with pleasure and weaving around Tony as though it could actually seep through his skin if it tried hard enough. 

Loki looked surprisingly bashful at that. 

Tony had always enjoyed how alive his prince’s magic appeared, the way his power was so great that his seidr was more sentient, more concentrated, raw than any Tony had ever met before. It was a wild beast, predatory, mischievous and willful, who only ever truly obeyed Loki’s will because it suited it to do so. 

Somehow, Tony rather thought that the shadow prince wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Neither would Tony, in truth. 

His fingers felt warm, tingling with the brush of Loki’s magic and his own power rising to the surface in answer, sparks of contained heat, the eldritch power that he’d known was buried inside him yet had never truly managed to make true use of before. 

Greeting Loki was always something of an experience. 

Tony wagered that his fearsome reputation might very well be related to the fact that his magic was very selective in who it did or did not like. And it had never been afraid to show it. There were more than a few servants, guards and nobles alike who’d ended up shivering in fear and horror whenever Loki gazed upon them, without knowing how or even why. 

One needed seidr of their own in order to recognize that distinctive sensation, after all. 

Tony’s eyes fluttered back open, his smile soft, tender as he looked back to a man he’d thought a good friend and a benefactor, the one who’d crafted all those gifts for him and shrouded himself in mystery before opening their courtship. 

Loki’s eyes were so very green. Gemstones lit from inside by the glow of his magic as it swelled in the air between them.

Silence stretched between them for a beat, then two. 

“You found out, then.”

Tony shook his head with a smirk. 

“Did you think I would not? I don’t think many people are all too eager to impersonate a prince by stealing his signature color. Certainly no one clever enough to craft a Gate.”

The prince averted his eyes, a faint flush on his cheeks. Tony leaned closer, intrigued. 

The unflappable prince, blushing?

His smirk widened, something almost predatory in his stance as he moved slowly closer to the alpha. 

How interesting. 

Though his breath deepened, and his blush did not abate either, his prince did not back down, didn’t avert his eyes or shy away from his approach; green fires steadily holding Tony’s own omega-gold eyes, until Tony was right before him, looking up to Loki’s slightly panicked face. 

His smile softened. 

“Well, my prince. Will you not do me the honor of asking me properly?”

Because Tony had always liked Loki, even when he’d been very careful not to entertain any thought of potential romance with the prince. He’d liked his wit, his cleverness, his stubborn resolve to never follow through with the general alpha consensus, to act against the benefit of every other male of his gender and promote ‘fair’ rights, even in underhanded ways. Especially in underhanded ways. 

Aesir—especially alpha aesir—were confrontational by nature. Present them with a direct challenge, with a battle, and they would never give up until proven victorious or dead.  

But Loki was not only passionate and open-minded, he was smart about it. 

And, yes, Tony had respected him since their first conversation, had appreciated the way he argued his point so cunningly, even if Tony had not liked or agreed with everything he’d said. But he also liked that they didn’t immediately have the same thoughts, that they could have different opinions and approaches to problems. 

Arguing with Loki had been fun, it had felt exhilarating, like a skiff ride down a clif, knowing that you could die at any moment but trusting your skills enough to keep you from crashing to your death. 

But would it be enough for a relationship? 

Tony couldn’t know. But he couldn’t deny that Loki was easy on the eye. If Tony’s only criteria was how attractive a potential partner was, there would be no question as to whether he’d accept Loki’s proposal. 

There was just something to his long, lean form, the hidden strength coiled in that lose stance, the sharpness of his features and the intensity in all his movements, the sheer danger and predatory interest he showed to the world around him, even while shrouded in careful disinterest, all of that had made Tony’s belly tighten in arousal more than a couple times. 

Let it not be said that Tony’s tastes were wise. But it wasn’t entirely strange for an aesir to be attracted to danger. 

That Tony was one of very few to find Loki’s particular brand of it more interesting—more arousing— than Thor’s went without saying. People simply lacked taste. 

Except that now, the situation was reversed. Tony was the one on the offense, teasing and moving into Loki’s space, prowling forward as though Loki was his prey. It was refreshing and intriguing and completely disarming. 

One more layer of mystery to the mage-prince, this stubborn vulnerability, this openness in his expressions. 

The hope painted over his face, along with desire and a strange sort of hesitance. 

Tony belatedly remembered that Loki was not well liked around Asgard. Not that he had ever truly forgotten, it was quite hard to miss, though he’d never truly considered the ramifications before. 

Because as much as Tony had gotten himself a reputation as an annoyance, as an arrogant fool who thought too highly of himself, as a man with no heart and no sensibility, the worse omega one could imagine, he’d never quite reached Loki’s level of infamy. 

How many people had already rejected the mage’s friendship out of hand? How many had simply borne it stoically due his status, all the while letting him know that he was not someone they would choose to keep company with? How many had taken it out on him, or pretended at friendliness only to rebuff him cruelly when he made an actual overture? 

Logan’s words made a sad sort of sense. Of course he would try to stack the deck in his favor, to try to charm and attract him with what he could offer him, as though he could buy his way into Tony’s affections. 

Not that this was what had happened, not truly. 

Because what had actually influenced Tony’s opinion had not been the monetary value of the gifts so much as the obvious care put in to decide what would truly please him, the attention to detail, the way he felt listened to, seen. 

None of the gifts offered had been the standard, generic gifts of courtship. They did follow the tradition, the letter of the law, so to speak, but none of them were something any regular alpha would consider offering to a potential mate. 

And yet, it was that more than anything that made Tony respect Loki so much, that made him want to trust, to see where this thing between them could grow. 

Obviously he was far from being sold to the idea just yet. He’d spent centuries convinced he would never mate with anyone, and even longer listing all the reasons why being in a relationship would be terrible. 

That he was already considering otherwise, that he had been thinking about it was already momentous. 

But would Loki take the step now as well? Would he take that leap of faith and ask him, declare his intent properly as Tony had just demanded? 

It was a high risk, he knew, and Tony would not blame Loki for demurring, throwing a quip and sidestepping the issue. He hadn’t been thinking when he’d asked. It was so like him to set himself up for disappointment before even knowing there was something he would be disappointed not to get. 

He leaned back, wavering just as Loki’s brow set, something sharp and steady in his gaze. 

Loki stepped forward, the reversal of the previous dance. Tony stepped back, hesitant,  shoulders bumping against the shelf behind him cutting off his retreat. 

He stared back at Loki, defiant and excited. His breath caught as he finally allowed himself to name the strange intensity that always brewed between them when they were close together. 

He was certainly no virgin, nor was he ever shy about admitting to his lusts and desires, and yet there was something in the way his belly clenched, in the way he felt so aware of the warmth of Loki’s breath against his cheek, the thrill that ran up his spine at the daring edge of Loki’s smirk, the mischief glowing in those green eyes. Something that was more primal than not. 

It arose from the way Loki always approached him, from his very aura, the self assurance and lithe grace of his movement, the casual dominance, so strikingly different from other alpha’s posturing, all of that had never failed to make him go weak at the knees. 

Not that Loki had ever actually used Commands against him, not the way some knotheads sometimes attempted to do when an omega dared to voice an opinion that did not simply grovel under their ‘wisdom’, but somehow it made it all the more obvious to Tony. 

Loki was everything he’d ever desire in a man; beauty, lethality, cleverness and arrogance all rolled up in a beautiful leather clad package. No one had ever quite managed to stir up his instincts the way Loki did. Perhaps it was because Loki respected him, and Tony respected him in turn, while he barely tolerated any other alphas besides those he chose as his found family. 

Perhaps that was why he’d always been so careful to refrain from thinking about what-could-have-beens, to avoid looking too closely at what he’d dubbed a simple crush based on attraction. 

Because he knew that if he’d gotten any closer, he would have seen the raging inferno it had the potential to become, the unbridled flames of desire that could consume his mind and wreak havoc on his rationality. 

Even now, he wanted nothing more than to press closer to Loki, his prince, and press his lips against the pale skin of his throat, to bite and fight and run so that the alpha would give chase, so that he’d prove himself worthy of his submission. 

How ridiculous. And yet, staring back at Loki felt very much like looking a great warg in the eye as it decided whether or not to make a meal of you; felt like staring down a dragon and feeling the magnitude of his power contained in this too small shell, the might of eons, the patience of millenia and the readiness of the hunter waiting for the right moment to strike. 

His belly clenched with want. 

 “Anthony of House Stark, Master Scientist of The Academy, will you do me the honor of considering my suit?”

The words were quietly but clearly spoken, a bare whisper against his cheek while he stood frozen. Caged between his arms, but not threatened, not coerced. 

Just forced to look him in the eye whether he rejected or accepted the courtship. The man had guts.

Tony’s breath caught. That was a proposal, yes. It was bold, daring, and straight to the point. 

And at the same time it was respectful and tender. 

Gold eyes caught green, Tony shocked to the core ast the raw sincerity in Loki’s voice, at the simple beauty of those ritual words. This was not the way a prince was supposed to propose to a commoner. This was not the way Tony had ever expected to be proposed to. 

His breath trembled out as he scrambled for his words, for an answer, for something to break the expectant stillness between them. 

“Prince Loki of Asgard, on this day we meet again. I have received your gifts, they have pleased me. I have traded wits with you and held you in my confidence. I accept your suit, and do so gladly.”

Those were not quite the exact formula used to receive a formal proposal, but the all the important parts were there in his words. 

Magic rose between them, thick, jubilant, washing over them like a torrent and ruffling Tony’s hair until he had to turn away from the rush. 

Loki was laughing, gleeful and mischievous and relieved. He stepped back, casually dropping all traces of his previous lethality, something remarkably carefree appearing instead. His smile felt almost boyish, as he looked back at Tony, a dimple on his cheek before he bowed low, winked, and disappeared in a wreath of green sparks. 

“I shall see you in one moon’s time, then, my courted!”

Tony stayed frozen in shock, before falling to a heap of giggles. 

He didn’t know why he had expected anything different. One could not expect the trickster prince to simply act as conventions dictated. He’d already waited until the third gift before actually verbally declaring his intent, after all. 

But, in the end, Tony rather thought he wouldn’t have him in any other way. 

He slumped back against the shelf, catching his breath. Without conscious thought, his lips drew into a smile. 

There was something incredibly disarming to that last facet of Loki’s, something he’d never seen before, and yet he found himself just as intrigued by that softer version of his friend as any of his other aspects. He hoped to see more of him, to draw more of those carefree smiles from his usually brooding prince. 

It was a long while before he remembered his previous fascination with the wonders hidden inside the prince’s private library. And somehow, even then, the glint of laughing  green eyes and white teeth didn’t really leave his mind. 

Somehow, Tony found that he didn’t really mind. 

Chapter Text

After that, waiting had become strangely easier. 

There was a quiet steadiness in Tony’s heart, an unexplainable faith that Loki would not vanish on him. That the following gifts would be as bizarrely thoughtful as the first three, that Loki had not started this courtship with the same poisonous mindset of the previous alphas that had tried to lay hands on him before. 

There was still a certain current of nervousness, the expected dilemma of whether he’d actually agree to a mating, the burning curiosity at which new gif would be presented to him on the next moon, the strange hesitance he had at talking about all this with the rest of the Academy’s gossip mongers… 

No, there was still quite the undercurrent of frazzled energy coiled within his muscles, but his chest was free. He could breathe easily, could laugh and rest, and wait without feeling like the word would collapse if he was not the one to hold it on his shoulders. 

Perhaps it was the thought of having solved the puzzle of Loki’s identity, perhaps it was truly the bribe inherent to the gifts that was having an effect, perhaps that strangely innocent smile on the trickster’s face. Regardless, Tony had been forced to admit to one thing: he trusted Loki. 

It was nothing new, after all. He’d been dealing with the mage-prince since Fury’s notorious’ outburst, had sent him many a correspondence detailing the failings and trespasses of his fellow alphas, and never had Loki failed to take care of the matter in a timely and subtle manner, never had he made a single attempt at victim blaming or at negotiating on the behalf of citizens of higher status or more wealth to their name. 

It was incredibly refreshing after the usual hoops and bureaucratic bilgesnipe-shite that he’d been through prior whenever he tried to make his voice heard against anyone with a bit of clout. 

No, Loki preferred facts over status, he preferred truths over politically correct platitudes, and he did not suffer fools lightly. 

Tony should have figured it out long before then that he had a thing for the shadow prince. 

Instead he found himself completely blindsided by his newly acknowledged infatuation, chasing away daydreams of that devilish smirk and those glinting eyes. He found himself shivering when he went to Loki’s library, feeling the ghost touch of his magic lingering on some spines, the faint smell of him caressing his senses. 

It was ridiculous and distracting and… Tony couldn’t even bring himself to feel bad about it. 

Loki was fascinating, and clever and beautiful. And somehow, someway, had earned Tony’s trust. It was already a rare feat in itself, even for people he’d considered friends. 

The books were wonderful, of course. Every single academician was drooling with jealousy, which did give Tony a strange, proud thrill. As one of many who’d come to live there with nothing, who’d lived on Academic allowance and had to earn every scrap of comfort he could get while watching those privileged with loving, wealthy and accepting families coast along with their higher quality equipment, sometimes even precious heirlooms and magical artifacts, there was something heady to finally having obtained something of his own that no one else could have. Something truly precious and unique and his. 

Even though the library was obviously Loki’s, the door was his own. No one else could cross through it, if they even dared to try. 

But Tony was a scientist, while Loki was a mage. Past the first greedy spell of awe at the wonders he’d been gifted, he found himself weirdly uncomfortable with hoarding the knowledge for himself. It was different for mages, he knew. Sharing spells or knowledge or ‘tricks of the trade’ could very well mean your end down the line. They were solitary creatures, suspicious and very specialized in their own fields. 

Tony knew that, he respected that, he was aware of how wondrous and rare a favor it was for him to have been granted access to it. How much trust it took. 

Still. Tony was a scientist. 

And scientists shared knowledge. They built upon each other’s findings, disproved or furthered each other’s theories, and left their findings and sources to be open to the world. 

And now, Tony found himself with resources that could benefit every academician. 

Still, as much as he might want to, as freely he had access to them, these books were not truly his, and he would not break Loki’s trust over something like that. 

He had the feeling that once broken, it would not be recoverable. The thought sent freezing chills down his spine, throat closing in distress. He could remember the carefree joy of their last meeting, the crinkled eyes and dimple, the buoyancy of something that felt too innocent for the usually gloomy and standoffish prince. 

He never wanted to be the one to destroy that hint of innocence. No. 

But he could always ask. That much could not hurt, and it would finally give him a good reason to initiate contact. Loki could hardly ignore him anymore, then, could he?

Getting into contact with the mage was tricky. Not that there was no way for him to do so, but which way was appropriate?

After all, Tony hardly could use the carrier pigeon that was used for official communications with the palace, nor the letter-tube that Tony specifically used to report alpha’s crimes. 

Not only would it give the wrong idea, but Tony had no idea how private these methods truly were. Was Loki working alone in their protection scheme? What if the pigeon gave the letter at an inopportune time? 

And Tony could ill afford to drop by at the palace uninvited, and with the wish to speak with the prince. He was still a commoner, no matter their courting status. 

Of course, there was another place that they had in common, somewhere special, where only the two of them could ever go. 

Even if they hadn’t actually crossed paths there since the first time. 

There were more than just shelves in that library. Of course, the many rows of of books took the most place in there, there was still a small nook to the side, cozy but comfortable lighting with a sturdy desk piled with books and writing implements. The pile changed regularly,  and there was an obviously cleared space to the side, with another chair. A place for him. 

Tony had not used it yet. He was a bit of a savage like that, preferring to sit crossed-legged on the floor right under the spot where he’d found the book. He’d glance through a bit of everything, hardly ever pouring deeply into any one tome. At the moment he mostly wanted to figure out what he could find in there, what he would be interested in. Figuring out what he would go through first. 

And then sometimes he found himself unable to put a treatise down until he’d gone through the entire book, the whole day passed by, the lights seen through the stained-glass geode overhead tuned dark, and sconces floating around him, conveniently lighting the page just enough to not need to strain his eyes. 

That light was always very green.

Loki was a terrible enabler. And about as shy as a wild cat. 

Tony hadn’t seen a single glimpse of him since the first time he’d called out to him, but nothing was stopping him from leaving Loki a letter on his side of the desk. 

Something short about his desire to both respect Loki’s need to privacy and the urge to protect the books, but also his very scientific preference for sharing knowledge. 

The following day, there was a digitalyzer on the desk, and the shelves were color coded, with a marking sheet explaining to which degree could each book be copied and shared. 

Some, Loki did not want to leave the library in any form, but most were greenlit. A few had a warning to them, that the content could be sensitive, and thus should rather not be shared with students not aware of how to have care of their actions. 

All of this, clearly defined, simple enough for Tony’s handling, and…

And without seeing Loki even once. 

Of course Tony was grateful. This was a perfect solution to his dilemma, with more thought put to it than Tony even had. It protected the priceless books from the rookie’s handlings, the sanctity of this precious place, and gave Tony the ability to offer something entirely priceless to the Academy as a whole. 

But Tony found himself strangely disappointed anyways. He had wanted to speak with Loki, to see him, perhaps tease him about his reclusive behavior. 

Still, he would not be discouraged. 

Copying the books was a simple enough endeavor, and it did help him in his quest to map out the library’s contents in his mind. He had not even once attempted to copy the black-marked books, but seeing how those coded ‘restricted’ were automatically filed under a separate and secured file, Tony rather expected that they would not even be recognized by the digitalyzer. 

But he had another self appointed mission, now. 

He would not let Loki keep ignoring him. 

At least, now he knew that Loki would read whatever Tony put down on his desk, so Tony started writing. It was a mess, almost a diary of sorts that pretended at a letter format. On it he put down all his thoughts regarding what book he was reading, in what order, conjectures about the author’s theses, and really, anything that crossed his mind. 

He thought for a moment to clean it up in any kind of presentable manner, but, really, at least he might get a reaction from Loki about the mess, if nothing else. 

For a Chaos Entity, Loki was always incredibly organized and clean. There was hardly a stray book around, no teetering pile or random knick knacks scattered about. Only a very reasonable three of four tomes next to his journal? Pot of ink clear of any stain, quill laid flat without a bristle out of place. No, Everything was almost deliberately proper. 

Tony did wonder how much of this was truth and how much was an illusion. Either a fabricated cleanliness kept up for appearances, to impress the one he was courting or one crafted by magic. Either way, the thought was entertaining. 

Still. Tony wanted to know Loki, but not to break the boundaries he’d set. 

It didn’t take long for Tony to obtain an answer. The day after leaving his journal on Loki’s spot, he found a series of green annotations in his margins, the same careful script he’d grown so familiar with snarking at some of his more ridiculous ideas, or actually pointing out ways to make them more realistic. A diagram explaining away some of the questions he’d had about foreign terminology in runebound Alf rituals, sometimes even references and pages of a few books detailing the concept. Said books had even been helpfully laid on his side of the table. 

Tony smiled, charmed. Unsurprisingly, those books were incredibly helpful, and Tony did not think he would have found them himself nearly so easily. And since, apparently, Loki did not mind Tony’s ramblings, he took it as an invitation to flood the pages with ink and comment on every single thing he could think of. Let Loki deal with the mess. If he wanted a linear conversation, he’d have to see him face to face and use his voice to do so. 

As it was, Tony greatly enjoyed the short conversations they shared over text. He found Loki’s thought processes fascinating, the way he simply saw a problem Tony put down and found answers, possible solutions layering each other, before asking ‘what resources available?”

Loki thought like a mage instead of a scientist, his mind bending the rules of the universe to his will before the opposite, and it was incredibly refreshing. Especially once Tony started grasping what rules Loki did follow, and how. After that time, Tony could talk back to Loki in the same language, finding what using seidr’s concepts was similar enough to some obscure brands of science that he could even incorporate some of their findings into his own works. 

Magic could be so much more than the simple runework that he’d painstakingly learned before. Understanding the underlying principles made everything so much more fascinating. On the other hand, Loki did seem to be able to use physics and seidr-plane terminology interchangeably. 

Obviously, since Tony had only just started to see the pattern, the way magic still relied on the true laws of the Universe, never quite actually breaking them, only simply using, and bending them to his convenience. 

Tony highly suspected that this was something Loki could do only due to his own particular brand of incredibly powerful magic. There were a few mages in the academy, after all, and Tony himself had followed a few classes before actually rage-quitting. 

It hadn’t made any sense, and had gone so far against everything he’d believed in, he’d never been able to light so much as a spark. The teacher had only shaken her head at him, dismissing him from the class as he’d asked. He’d been supposed to have ‘natural talent and aptitude’ but all the talent in the world wasn’t enough to make him do something he didn’t believe in. 

This, however? This was different. It made sense, plugged all the holes he’d seen in his teacher’s previous lectures, in the way what he did could or could not impact the world. 

At some point, Tony started asking Loki those very questions his teacher had dismissed and obtaining careful, well-thought out and easy to understand answers.  

He might have fallen a little bit more in love at that point. 

When he’d asked ‘how can I start to learn using magic’, Loki had appeared again the next day, though he wasn’t wearing anything Tony had ever seen him in before. These were Vanir mage robes, prestigious things embroidered with a rune for every path of magic he’d mastered, every school of spell he’d made his own, every new working he’d actually crafted. The robe was covered in those runes, a shimmering web of golden thread glinting in the darkness, a tapestry of power, hard work and cleverness. 

Tony had never been more impressed. There was something incredibly majestic to this Loki, something stately and just right in a way his usual ceremonial armor did not quite get. As though Loki fit in the armor, but these robes fit him. Were made to fit him. It didn’t make sense to Tony, not really. He’d never seen anything wrong with Loki’s courtly apparel before. He’d always looked impressive and lethal. 

And yet, here he found himself speechless. Awed. 

Loki smirked, as though he could understand what went through his mind. Tony wouldn’t be surprised if it was written all over his face. He wanted to kneel at Loki’s feet, or perhaps bow in reverence. He wanted to lick him, to see if he tasted like the crackling ozone of magic. Wanted to run very far away because this man, this mage had the power to smite armies with barely the lift of a finger. 

Never wanted to leave, because he knew somehow that Loki would never hurt him, never let anything hurt him. 

Loki raised an eyebrow, and offered him a hand. Tony came forward, strangely mesmerized as he took it.The sleeves were pooling down over Loki’s wrists, contrasting with the pale skin and making the delicate bones feel strangely vulnerable. There was a fluid grace to his movements there that felt more like the flow of a river, wild and unstoppable, than that of the sleek panther Tony had associated him with before. 

Distantly Tony noticed that the robes cuffs on the left arm were the only part of the robe left bare of any markings. The marks of the apprentices. 

“From the right cuff were writ’ down those who taught, who offered the mage their knowledge and took him as disciple, and from the left, you’ll see who in turn you’ve offered your counsel and mastery.” 

Loki smiled, mischievous and inscrutable as he explained. Tony’s eyes snapped away from the dark cloth, back to the dancing lights glinting through Loki’s eyes. 

Of course there had been no one apprenticed to Loki. No one who could either suffer his character or approach him enough to ask. Certainly no one on Asgard who would even wish to; alphas refusing to ever entertain the thought of debasing themselves with magic, and omegas and women not trusting any strange alpha as a teacher. 

And then there was Tony. 

Who had just asked Loki how he could actually learn. Who had told his mage how useless and frustrating the Academy’s teachings had been, and how much already Loki had managed to make sense of what had before been a heap of confusion and self-contradicting babler. Mumbo-jumbo and hocus-pocus. As though one simply could do anything without ever caring to understand. 

And Loki, who had been avoiding him for weeks, who had kept his identity secret for a month, Loki had come to him, dressed in a regalia that was outlawed in Asgard, that he’d been forbidden and shamed to wear in court. He’d come to him as a mage offering to take on an apprentice. 

Tony’s smile grew, and grew, beaming as he responded to the ritual words acknowledging the bond, euphoric as he answered back to his consent of the terms, the contract between master and student, giddy as he saw the glinting gold thread etch his sigil on Loki’s sleeve, one single mark now adorning his mage’s cuff. 

*

Learning magic from Loki was a trip. 

It was never boring, even though they did start with simple things. But Loki actually explained what they meant and what use they were. And Tony could feel his own tiny well of magic answering, swelling and roiling at the urging of Loki’s own power, coursing through his veins like liquid gold. 

It was wondrous. 

And finally seeing sparks falling from his fingers, igniting the small puff of tinder of the desk felt even more incredible. 

But what made things even better was that Loki was there. 

No longer was he actually hiding through the shelves like a lurking shadow. No more was the only form of communication they had through the still and silent pages of Tony’s journals. 

No, instead, they could talk, Tony asking rapidfire questions and sparking controversy, questioning and needling and sassing, and Loki’s eyes only sparked brighter with the challenge, answering and parrying and teasing back, giving as good as he got. 

They had fun, they learned and explored and poured their minds together to bring each other higher still. 

This was what Tony had glimpsed at when he’d met Loki in the past. That easy banter, that brilliant mind so filled with knowledge and ingenuity and so much wit. 

And, yes, Tony could find himself slowly loosing his mind, senses ensnared by the brightness that was Loki, the sheer joy in speaking with him, learning from him, and even teaching him in turn. 

Because Loki was as greedy for knowledge as Tony himself, and never seemed to think for a moment that because Tony was an omega, that his insight and understanding might be worth less. 

It was easy to lose track of time, to immerse himself in new books, new skills, new projects, meeting with Loki almost every day for more of his lessons, more discussions, more dates if Tony dared call them such. 

The moon-day took him by surprise. As much as the few days after receiving the library Gate had been spent in jittery excitement over the fourth present, he’d actually mostly forgotten about it in the excitement of actually getting to speak with Loki and the many projects that they’d started accomplishing together. He’d half wondered at some point if Loki's teachings had been the gift, and dismissed the thought almost immediately afterwards. So far, Loki had followed custom in his courtship, each gift offered in the appropriate moon-day, each an answer to the corresponding ritual question, each wrapped in the corresponding way. 

The flower that declared the intent to court, with a tied ribbon of the appropriate color on a black-moon day, a gift expressing what the suitor appreciated most in the one they pursued, offered in a chest locked to all but the one they desired, a gift to express what the suitor could offer in turn, adorned with their crest. 

All of this, Loki had followed, so Tony did not actually expect his gift to have come before the agreed upon time, without the leather wrapping, and certainly not without having even informed Tony about it. 

No. Rituals were always a powerful sort of working, and they were exceedingly demanding in matters of precision. One must follow the timeline, at the very least, if they did not want the spell to backfire. 

And yes, Loki’s apprenticeship was a gift, but Tony did not think for a moment that it was actually tied to their courtship. 

And indeed, as he saw the leather package on their desk, he knew that this was the long awaited fourth gift. That he had completely forgotten about. 

Leaning against the far shelf, Loki chuckled at Tony’s flabbergasted expression, easily guessing what had just happened. 

“You’d forgotten, hadn’t you?”

Tony sputtered. That wasn’t…

“I’m bad with dates!”

Loki laughed, a hushed sound that somehow sounded just the slightest bit threatening. Compounded with his black leather armor and the predatory glint in his gaze, Tony felt a thrill heating his belly as his heart skipped a beat. 

“Well, lucky you. I’m actually good with those.”

The mage started prowling forward, circling the room and herding Tony ever closer to the mysterious package on the desk, half hooded eyes trained unwaveringly on him. 

Tony gulped. Why had he ever wished to have his suitor actually be the one presenting him with the gift? 

Right. Loki’s bashfulness the previous time had been adorable. 

Still, apparently their sessions together had been enough to erase most of Loki’s apprehension and nervousness. Or perhaps he’d prepared himself to hide it? 

The gift sat, innocuous on the for once otherwise empty desk. 

Clearly there would be no distractions. 

So, what was it that Loki expected him to be during their lives together? 

Tony knew Loki enough by now not to expect the usual tapestries, or fertility wreaths. They might not have spoken of their courtship, but Tony had seen the way Loki always lit up with pleasure whenever Tony snapped a witty remark or raised a point that Loki had not considered yet. 

Loki was in love with Tony’s mind, with what he could create, with his fearlessness. He could trust that, could trust Loki. 

Still. 

There was always some lingering fear in his heart, brought on by years of being pushed to the side, of having his mother hammer those thoughts through his brains, rules of conduct, expectations, insecurities. 

He would not let these ghosts scare him any longer. 

Worse come to worst, he would end the courtship. That might make the magic apprenticeship awkward, it might make coming to the library again difficult, but either they would make it work or they would simply start avoiding each other. 

Still, there were few things that they would not be able to talk through. Tony rather thought that even if Loki had gifted him a bloody spindle he would still take the time to hear him out and find a way to figure it out. 

It was possible, after all, to reject the meaning of a single gift without rejecting the courtship itself. There could be up to three chances for an alpha to redeem himself for a poor gift, if the omega offered such a thing. 

Tony had never actually considered doing that before. He’d never thought he’d have the patience to hold onto an alpha who’d insulted him or what he believed in. Never thought that he’d meet one who would actually listen to his objections. 

But, again. Tony rather doubted that Loki would aim so wrong after he’d so utterly dazzled him with the previous three. 

His hand hovered over the leather cord tying the wrapping close, fingers brushing over the smooth texture, soft yet undeniably resistant, dyed the deep green that Tony had grown used to in the past month. Loki really did use the color almost as much as the palace used gold. 

This was once again a high quality material, but at this point, Tony wasn’t surprised about it anymore. Rather, Loki had set the bar to expect these things rather than the opposite. Still, Tony took the time to observe, to see the care that had been put into its tooling, to pay attention to the small details because he was sure of one thing: no matter what laid within these wraps, Loki had certainly taken the time to plan this gift to the latest details, which did include the wrapping. 

It was beautiful. Tony could see on it the same crest that had been embroidered on the previous cloth, the dragon and phoenix wrapping themselves around each other. Equals and intertwined for eternity in a love that was as much a blissful current as a fiery embrace, a battle and a kiss. 

Tony liked that crest, liked what it represented and what it said about Loki’s intentions. His fingers caressed the sigil softly, lingering on the golden glow of the phoenix’s eye, the glinting emerald of the dragon’s. 

He wondered how much of this had been commissioned and how much Loki had made himself. 

He could hear shuffling behind him, Loki shifting on his feet, waiting, impatient. 

Oops. He’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t alone this time, and that waiting like this must be quite nervewracking. 

He found once more the end of the tie, pulling on the edge of the knot and watching it unravel smoothly. 

The leather was rolled on itself, and it was a manner of seconds to pull it open and spread it flat over the desk. 

And stare. 

Whatever it was that Tony could have expected it hadn’t been that. 

He recognized the make, of course, the guard in a fine lattice, its basket-shape designed to protect the hands of the swordsman. The pommel held what Tony recognized as a focus stone and a few caches. This was a weapon for a mage, the focus helping one to channel magic, while the cache crystals enabled the user to store power and magical energy. 

The scabbard was tooled just as finely, complex runework expertly carved onto the fine leather, ornaments that looked purely aesthetic and yet Tony could now recognize as carrying a complex weave of spells. 

It was a sword. 

Loki, when asked what he’d expect from him as a partner, had offered him a sword. A beautiful, incredibly fine sword, crafted by the most renowned smith of Vanhanheim, something he’d never even imagined being able to get his hands on, if only just to figure out how on Niflheim’s frigid plains one could make metal ben to one’s will in such a skillful way. 

Pulling the blade from its sheath, Tony could finally admire the metal-work. 

It was of course incredibly fine, the blade glinting into the light as though they were made of quicksilver, delicate and yet stronger than anything Tony had ever managed to forge himself. He could see the small weaves through the metal indicating the use of a folding technique, the shimmering blue color could perhaps indicate an alliage that he was not familiar with. Already, Tony could feel the many spells layered into the metal, almost as though there had been a different enchantment spoken with each fold. 

It was fascinating. 

Loki moved forward, steps silent but eyes intense. Tony tore his eyes from the beauty in his hand and stared back. Silence reigned for a few moments between them, expectant and nervous both. 

“I wanted to explain this one.”

Yes, Tony was not surprised. It would be easy to misconstrue the presence of a weapon when it was supposed to be an omen for the future. But he hadn’t really thought Loki would mean that they would fight or kill each other with that gift. It didn’t feel like that. 

Still. He was curious. 

He hummed, tilting his head in invitation. Far be it for him to sidetrack the conversation. 

Loki came forward, hands caressing the leather. His moves were casual, almost sensual as he pulled on a seam and unfolded a hidden pocket, revealing another roll-up bag displaying a number of throwing knives and daggers of the same beautiful make. 

“I do not mean to imply that I cannot protect you, nor that I would refuse to do so. Nor do I actually see conflict in our future.”

He slid a knife from its compartment, admiring the sharpness and balance of the blade, the elegance of its lines. Tony himself was not nearly as much of a knife user as Loki, he’d mostly learned the art of the sword and spurned the traditional omega weapon, if only because it was the one people thought omega only worthy of. That was not to say that he did not like them. They were indeed quite useful, and quite a bit more practical and subtle than a sword. 

Still, the thought that this should be the only weapon he could use because of his status chafed. 

And yet, he knew that this was Loki’s weapon of choice. That, out of all the arsenal at his disposal, and faced with Thor’s mighty hammer, Loki had chosen the most subtle and understated of them all. 

Tony could see himself using those knives, if only because they came from Loki, and that they were placed along with that sword. 

He also found the way they’d been carefully camouflaged in the package fascinating. 

Tony let his hands wander the seam, searching, exploring. 

“No, instead I know that you have learned the art of the sword, that you have worked to better yourself and become an independent man, powerful in your own right. That you fight your own battles and would consider it insulting for anyone to do so in your stead.”

Loki slipped the knife back into its holder, eyes cutting back to Tony. 

“This is a set. Your weapon and mine. This is me telling you that I will support your independence in any way you see fit to defend it, and that no matter what you do you may call on my assistance, as it is freely offered. As it is one of many weapons at your disposal.”

Tony was speechless. 

He watched the intense glint in Loki’s green eyes, the light glinting off the dagger’s blades, the edge of the sword so sharp it could cut through even uru, the basket-guard to protect his hands, the magic charge in the pommel almost buzzing against his palm. 

This was… 

This was more than anything he could have ever imagined, hoped for, desired. 

It was perfect. 

“Additionally, should you wish to make use of the training fields, the guards will let you through. Should you wish to go, at least, the option is there. I am not saying you will not face discrimination there, Thor is notoriously knuckleheaded about such things and I myself am hardly well-liked enough for your own reputation not to be tarnished by association, however, I felt that it should still remain your choice whether to actually brave their gaze. You could learn much, there.”

Loki’s voice was hesitant as he offered something almost unprecedented. Sif was the only one of fair gender who’d obtained the right to go there. 

“The royal training fields?” he checked. Loki nodded solemnly.

This was all strangely overwhelming. Too many things that he could have never expected, never even guessed at. 

Of course he’d heard of them. They trained the best warriors of the Nine, and while Tony never had any wish to become a soldier himself, it didn’t mean that the actual instruction from master swordsmiths wasn’t tempting, nor to actually test his mettle against actual opponents, men who actually knew their ways around a sword. 

Of course smiths knew the basics of swordplay. You must know how it works if you want to forge it after all, know how to check the balance, how to swing a broadsword and a rapier. But it was hardly the same. 

Tony himself had learned from an old retired swordsman. The man was a hunter, blind as a bat and yet more aware of his environment than any sighted person Tony had ever met, save perhaps Charles, Loki himself and, possibly, Fury. 

It had been grueling, and Hodr was an exacting teacher and a powerful opponent. And yet, Tony had enjoyed it. 

Of course he’d kept his practice when he’d joined the Academy, but he found himself easily bored with the somewhat too precise and regulated drills. 

Regardless, he was still quite impressed by what they’d managed to accomplish from mere books. 

Still. He couldn’t help but find himself curious of how he would fare against people who prided themselves on their martial ability.

“Do you go there?” 

Because, really, if there was anyone in particular that Tony wanted to see in action, it would be Loki. 

The mage blinked, surprised, though Tony couldn’t see why. After all, it was no secret that Tony had been looking for ways to spend time with him since he’d unmasked him as his mystery suitor. 

And he hoped Loki knew how mesmerizing Tony found him whenever he started showing even a hint of his martial training, the way his form loosened and his movements became swift and deadly, the way his walk gained in assurance and in grace. Tony rather imagined watching him fight would be quite the treat. 

“I do. Usually I visit the training fields at dawn, stay for one candlemark before starting the rest of my day.”

“I shall join you then.” 

Tony did not know how he would ever manage to fit dawntime awakeness in his schedule, but he would not miss the sight of Loki sparring for the world. 

“You might actually teach me how to use those knives, then. It would be a shame to let them keep dust simply because I haven’t yet learned how to make use of them.”

And it would give him a good chance to see Loki outside of their small bubble where it was only the two of them. 

Yes, Tony thought as he admired his new blade. He rather liked this fourth gift. But mostly, he liked what Loki meant by it, and what it implied for their future together. 

But would that be enough?

Chapter Text

Tony’s life became very busy, very fast. 

Between his new magic apprenticeships and his now daily sparring sessions, Tony found himself spending a lot of time in Loki’s company. To that he added some time perusing the library, some to work on all his projects, and he found himself called out more often than not by both supervisors and old friends about his newly reclusive, elusive and lovesick behavior. Of all things. 

He could hardly tell them he wasn’t being reclusive because he was spending time with his suitor, after all. He would never hear the end of it. 

Not that he was actually hiding it either. Most of the Academy had dropped by at one point or another to tease him about having found his ‘prince charming’. Thankfully, he’d accumulated enough ammunition about their own courtships to chase off the most persistent of gossip mongers. 

It was a weird sort of fame that he’d fallen into. 

Most people at the Academy actually liked Loki. Though their opinion was neither widely shared nor known, it remained true that they all remembered which members of the Royal Family had helped them in their endeavors and which had instead hindered them. 

Which meant that Tony’s match was usually looked very favorably by most of his peers, though the pestering was endless. 

Which did not help Tony’s reclusive behavior. More often than not, he kept the ‘hazardous science’ sign on his doorknob. Everyone always respected the hazardous science sign, even when they knew it was complete bullshit. There had been enough ‘I thought you were just moping!’ incidents for it to have entered official academy regulations. 

Still, people knew that he was avoiding them. And they even knew why, though it didn’t stop them from asking too many invasive questions and suggestive winks. 

Contrary to popular belief, Tony had not slept with Loki yet. He might be promiscuous, and enjoy sex in any form he could find it—so long as it was both consensual and mutually pleasant—but he would not disrespect the codicil of a courtship ritual. Especially not when his suitor took such great pains to both respect the letter of its laws and make it something that could speak to Tony and who he was. 

No, Loki was looking for something real, for a relationship that would last and not something only holding together due to mutual attraction. 

Not that there wasn’t some serious sexual tension between the two. 

Tony had been right to look forward to seeing Loki’s workouts with both trepidation and excitement. Loki fought like a man possessed, each movement deliberate, precise and undoubtedly lethal. He fought like a wild beast, all power and smooth fluid moves, almost liquid grace as he thrusted and parried, twirled and leaped like a performer in the most predatory of dances. 

In short, Loki fought like he was fucking, a sensual display that made Tony’s mouth run run dry and his pants feel tight. 

He wanted to see those powerful legs wrapped around him, feel that strength holding him down, see Loki’s flexibility in action, up close and personal. He wanted to feel the play of those lithe muscles under his hands, the touch of sweaty skin against his own, Loki’s breaths warm against his lips. 

Needless to say, it was quite distracting. 

Thankfully, it was less of a problem when he was Loki’s opponent instead, adrenaline pulsing through his veins as the thrill of the fight sharpened his senses.Tony had no intention of meeting the business end of Loki’s knives, even if learning a new weapon was always gruelling. 

His prince still went easy on him, his control so fine he could stop a strike before it even pierced his skin, could restrain his spins with his foot mere inches from his face. 

But Tony gave as good as he got. While Tony still struggled with knives, He could still hold his own quite well with a sword. Whenever he went against Loki while using his preferred weapon, the win was usually his, which made something proud and euphoric bubbling through his chest. His alpha never seemed bothered either to have lost against the omega he was courting, to the contrary. His eyes sparked with the challenge and his smile always grew hungry. 

No, Tony never really doubted that Loki found him just as attractive as he did. 

Still, the training fields were hardly a restful retreat. He’d had to fend off his fair share of leering and sneering in his time there. People attacking Loki, attacking him for being with Loki, for being an omega in a field of alphas. His Iron Man moniker came out again when he came across one of his previously spurned ‘suitors’, if one could call making bawdy jokes and expecting ladies and o’s to swoon and put out on demand, ‘making a suit’. 

Tony did not. 

Loki had not intervened, though. He’d stood at Tony’s back, waiting to see what he would do, if he would need help or even want it. Willing to step in if Tony wanted but otherwise quite comfortable letting Tony handle the oafs on his own. 

He trusted Tony. 

There was something heady to the thought, empowering. 

Loki had offered him a blade and said that he knewTony was both willing and able to fight his own battles, and he had meant it. 

Tony wanted to make that trust justified, to prove to the world that he was powerful enough to stand on his own, but also that he was worthy of Loki’s regard. 

The latter one surprised him. He’d never really felt the need to show off, and ‘prove his worth’ so to speak. Not since Howard. 

Well, that wasn’t quite true. There were still a few people for whom he tried again and again to give back, to make them feel deep in their hearts that, ‘helping that Stark boy had been a good idea.’

Usually Logan and Charles gave him something of an earful whenever they caught him doing so. Erik, on the other hand, tended to sigh and become very quiet, talking to him with hushed praises and gentle encouragements. 

Somehow, it made Tony feel worse, like he’d seen right through him in a way even Charles hadn’t quite managed, with all his telepathy. 

But what he felt about Loki wasn’t rooted in childish insecurity, nor in the heart of a timid boy who’d just lost everything and felt the dreadful and terrible need to cling to the only support he had, in fear that if he became a burden they would leave him behind to fend for himself. 

This instead was rooted in pride and self confidence. In knowing that, out of all people, Loki had chosen him, and now trusted him and his capabilities.

It was a good feeling. And it was a high that had carried him to victory, trouncing one swordsman after the other. Loki intervened before the fifth bout, calling out to the ringleader with narrowed eyes, asking if this was what he thought the rules of a spar should be, and if they intended on using the same system the next time he was to take an evaluation to climb the ranks and needed to prove his worth. Certainly the Head Einherjar would be much impressed at his dedication. 

The word honor and fairness might have been thrown about with the relish of someone finally able to turn the tables on a few hypocrites. 

All in all, Tony felt pretty satisfied with the experience. Loki had let him prove his worth, and yet had stepped in before it could turn into bullying. The blond muscle-dude looked properly chastised, nervous shame clinging to him as he disbanded the crowd and went back to his training. Alpha warriors grumbling about but generally ignoring them as they went back to their various training forms. 

A few jeered at Tony’s downed opponents. 

Respect would not be built in one day, if ever, but Tony hardly cared anymore. 

Time spent with Loki was precious, fun, exhilarating. There was nothing that could possibly beat them when they were working together, nothing that could bring Tony from his high. 

The days went back quickly, especially now that almost half of time was spent alongside his prince, sparring or learning magic, or just unwinding together. 

The latest came after some pestering still, the prince never too sure of how his own ill-repute would affect his courted, but Tony did not care about that. He was ‘Iron Man’, after all. And, after some convincing, Loki had been willing enough to accompany Tony on some walks, to show him which places he prefered, where his favorite craftsmen could be found, the best paths to avoid the crowd, that tiny out of the way food stall that made delicious fruit desserts. 

Loki knew the town surprisingly well, for all that no one ever saw him there. Perhaps he used disguises and wandered amongst the populace while clad in illusions and spells of stealth. Perhaps he simply knew how to blend in, and avoid notice. 

Some people did recognize him, usually greeting him with beaming smiles and leering winks when they saw Tony at his side. 

It was strange and yet soothing, learning to see Asgard through Loki’s eyes, learning his favored haunts and routes, meeting yet another facet of his suitor. 

Loki liked some surprisingly understated things. Quiet places where one could see the beauty of nature untouched by Ass hands, or carefully groomed gardens trimming with life, the small shops of obscure yet talented craftsman and women, a vanir tailor that was shunned for his heritage and yet crafted exquisite leather pieces, an alf weaver whose hands hummed with magic as they carefully stitched and embroidered almost lifelike patterns and scenes through their cloth. 

Remote and yet beautiful. Quality of a sort that wasn’t truly appreciated by the usual aesir fashion, and yet Tony found himself mesmerised by all those wonders. 

Sometimes, it was Tony who guided Loki, where he made him weave through market stalls in the forge district and meet all the people he’d grown up with. He showed him the best food stalls, the quickest routes; which smith was best at small everyday things like tools and horseshoes, and which made the best blades. Which peddler gave the best price for ores and which was a bit of a crook but still had good wares for tricks, and specific chemical reactions. 

Somehow, he might have felt that his own finds were underwhelming, but Loki never seemed to find it such. He listened just as attentively, remembered all that Tony talked about, and somehow fit into the crowds as though he’d lived there all his life. 

He was good at making Tony feel valued. 

It felt… soft. 

Tony had never imagined that he would ever do something as ‘couple-like’ and cliché as going on walks together with his suitor and having dates. 

It was surprisingly enjoyable, but Tony put it down to the fact that Loki was his partner. 

His prince managed to make even the blandest things funny, telling extravagant tales of mythos and adventures, some so ludicrous they might be true, others Tony was quite convinced were actually fiction. It didn’t really matter, though, and watching Loki’s eyes glint with mirth as Tony tried to parse out the truth from the tales was almost as satisfying as the few times he actually got them right. 

In the end, Tony got himself caught in the game and started telling his own tales, though they were often much more tame than the ones coming from a mage-prince who’d been travelling the realms since he was old enough to talk, but he’d still travelled a bit, still met and learned from enough old masters and strange creatures and wandering souls to have his own fair share of stories. 

Still, Loki was an excellent storyteller, illustrating feats and mimicking voices, using his illusions as tools to illustrate and enhance the story, faint musics and ominous silences, he could spook and entrance and thrill from one verse to the next. 

Somehow Tony doubted that he’d learned such skills in taverns. 

It didn’t take long for Loki to show him where he’d practiced this craft, and who his preferred audience was. To the outskirts of the city, there was another tall building, clad in soothing greens and earthly tones. A young woman greeted them at the doors, hair golden and braided back in a simple yet elegant twist. She was tall and frail-looking, and yet there was so much confidence and poise in her bearing that Tony felt himself quieten in turn, awed by her gentle strength. 

“Loki.”

The mage smirked, bowing low to the lady. 

“Sigyn. May I present you my courted? Anthony of House Stark, Master Scientist of The Academy.”

Tony moved forward, intrigued. It was not the first time Loki introduced him, but he usually did not bow down to anyone. And yet, with the smiles freely exchanged between the two, Tony could read a long standing friendship and respect between them, the comfort of people who’d gone through much together and came out of it closer than family. 

Tony relaxed and put on his most charming smile. He had a feeling this lady was to Loki as Charles was to him, someone he could rely on and whose judgement he could always trust. He somehow wanted to make a good impression, to have her like him. 

But then Sigyn smiled at him, soft, charming, and incredibly mischievous. Tony blinked, caught off guard. 

“That will not work on me, Anthony.”

He reeled, turning to Loki and seeing the very same smiled mirrored there, green eyes dancing with mirth. 

“Don’t worry, Anthony, the fault lies not with you. Sigyn just has a unique experience in handling little scamps who attempt to use their charm to get away with their mischief.”

She laughed, the sound high and clear as bells. 

“And I do count you amongst these scamps, Loki. And I suppose I should now include your betrothed amongst that number as well, hmm?”

Loki eyed Tony, pinkened cheeks as he seemed to look for his words. There was an almost awkward lean to his posture as he looked back at Sigyn. 

“Asynja, please.”

She shook her head, moving back inside as she gestured for them to follow. 

“Come, now, Loki. Do not think that I do not know you well enough that I wouldn’t know. You call him your ‘courted’ but would not bring anyone to this place unless you intended to wed them. And your personality is abrasive enough that anyone not serious enough about you would be chased off long before you started entertaining the idea.”

Now it was Tony’s turn to turn red, changing a glance at Loki’s averted eyes as he followed the deceptively soothing lady. He should not underestimate anyone that Loki respected enough to bow to. It was obvious enough that this woman was actually quite dangerous all on her own, even as sweet as she looked.

“Kids! Lokkä is here!”

Kids?

A thundering rumble of footsteps answered Sigyn’s call, a stampede of tiny feet crowding down the upper levels and careening down the stairs. 

Childish screams of joy and enthusiasm grew in volume as a herd of children of various ages came pouring through the landing, all of them looking quite well-fed and happy. 

She’d meant actual kids then. Okay. 

Tony blinked, taken aback as the small ones started swarming them. Loki suddenly looked incredibly gentle, leaning down to greet each kid by name and giving them approving nods and careful headpats. One of them started babbling about a prank made to his older brother, another loudly proclaiming his success in academia, a third one demanding a hug, and yet, Loki did not seem overwhelmed or annoyed. On the contrary, he seemed to become even softer, voice patient as he answered each child, smiling with approval and offering tips and affection as if it was the easiest thing in the world. 

It was… 

Tony didn’t quite know how to react but the sight made something twist inside his chest, his heart skipping a beat at the warmth and affection he could see there. 

“He’s good with them.”

Tony turned to Sigyn, eyes wide, but she only smiled, something wistful in her gaze.

“He’s always been good with them. Those kids come from nowhere, they have no families, no roots, would have had no future if it weren’t for him.”

Before them, Loki had started throwing sparks of magic as the kids attempted to catch them. There looked to be some complex rules to the game, something that seemed to involve teamwork and tricks and yet Tony couldn’t seem to make sense of them. 

They looked happy, the kids giggling and squeeing, running along and jumping out to catch the tiny glowing orbs of green magic. 

And Loki was there, in the middle of it all, the eye of the storm orchestrating all the chaos, fanning the flames and upping the game while still subtly protecting the kids when they looked to be too close to the banisters or roughhousing a bit too much. 

“How long…”

She gave him a knowing look. 

“It’s been centuries. The first one he found was Sleipnir. Up there, the tall gangly redhead. He’d been abandoned in a barn, probably an illegitimate child that the mother could not take care of. These things happen, and sometimes they end up taken in by the grooms. But Sleipnir wasn’t born quite right, and there was magic surrounding him. It was enough for the more superstitious folks to leave him there.”

Tony tried picking out the boy in question amongst all the kids there. Now that he looked more carefully, he could see that many of them had … unconventional appearances. There was a tiny girl with her half her face covered in both burn scars and a strange colors that indicated a foreign heritage. He felt sick for a moment as he could easily imagine how she must have gotten the scars, but she looked fine now, healthy, happy. She laughed with all the other kids and played with them just as enthusiastically. 

Another boy had a fearsome scar crossing his mouth that let his teeth show, a bit too pointed and sharp, and yet as he smiled and laughed, Tony couldn’t help but find him perfect. 

The tall redhead was actually behind them, and carrying a smaller kid in his arms while also trying to catch the light at the same time. Tony did a double take. He used two arms to carry the flailing and giggling toddler, but he had two other arms that he was entertaining the tiny child. One was tiny, a bit atrophied, just about as big as the baby’s own, but the other was normal and fully formed. The sight was somehow more jarring than the strange skins and the scars sported on the other kids, but they didn’t seem to hurt the boy and seemed fully functional. Actually, now that he thought of it, he was jealous. Having four arms sounded really practical, even if one of them was only a nub.

All those kids were there because they had no other place to be, and yet Loki had made sure that they would be happy, loved and cared for despite everything. He gave them a home and affection. 

“Where do you come in, then?”

Sigyn’s smile turned soft, wistful as her gaze left the children and went to lay on Loki instead. The way he’d started running amongst them as though he wasn’t grown yet, as though he was one of them. And, funnily enough, he did look quite a bit younger in that moment, so caught in this game that the world’s worries had fallen from his shoulders, left there to the side to be picked up again once he was done with the game. 

Tony… loved him. 

And Sigyn did too. 

She smiled at him, something almost tragic in her eyes, before averting her eyes. 

“Nothing could have ever happened between us. I was one of those kids, you know? He found me when I was lost and alone, when I had nothing. He gave me a home, and then a purpose and a chance to break out of the path life had taken for me. He would have paid for any entrance fee I would have needed, smuggled me to any realm I’d have wanted, but I chose to stay. I chose to be part of this place, to shoulder a bit of his burden and ease his mind for when he is not able to come, for when his other duties keep him away.”

Tony’s heart ached. He could see his mother’s despair and the remembered terror of being alone in the streets and vulnerable, surrounded by people who barely saw you as above breeding stock. But then, something in their stories didn’t quite match. 

“Why… Why did you not get together, then?”

She shook her head ruefully. 

“He would not allow it, of course not. He’s a man of honor, I was his charge, I was young and naive, someone vulnerable who owed him everything. How could he ever trust that I would act according to my own wishes and not the gratefulness that seeped into my every word? How could I myself trust that my desires did not stem from that very vulnerability, from the need that I felt not to be thrown back to the dergs?”

Tony pressed his lips together. His throat felt tight. 

Obviously that was the right thing to do, something that Tony himself pushed for and argued about whenever he came across such a case. Though it had become much rarer since the Academy had opened its doors, and Tony was quite aware that there must be poor kids falling through the cracks, this was what was right.

And yet, he couldn’t help but remember her mother’s broken voice as she retold her own sad tale, as she lost herself into the destructive mantra that Howard had hammered into her mind. 

Sigyn was happy. The flame she held for Loki still burned, but it was not a pain that she would buckle under. It was not one that she would warp herself for. 

Not like Maria had been warped. 

Watching her, Tony could see a different path that time could have followed, a Maria who would have loved him like a mother should, who could have been happy without her mind falling to madness and delusions. A woman who would have stood strong on her own two feet. Who could have held her head up high and taught Tony that he never needed to cower, or to believe himself lesser for the way he was born. 

Because, clearly, that was what Sigyn had done. He could see it in the carefree happiness and joy that poured from those kids, unafraid and uninhibited even when in plain sight of her. 

They didn’t fear her. Didn’t mistrust her or expect to be reprimanded for their childishness, or other imaginary slight adults liked to dump on kids. 

Tony didn’t know how to feel. The turmoil was eating at him, rage against Howard mixing with wistfulness and grief, because here was the proof that people could be decent, that his life could have gone so very differently, if only that man had been anything better. 

But Loki was still there, and there were kids around, children who wouldn’t be able to know that his own anger and disgust couldn’t be directed at them. Who had already been too hurt by the people who were supposed to protect them. 

He breathed out. Let the echoing sounds of laughter and playfulness wash over him. 

“Thank you for telling me. I am glad that…” How to express the maelstrom inside his heart? All the pain that he’d seen etched on his mother’s face and the strange jealousy gripping him that he hadn’t had the chance to see her free of that until her mind had broken? “...that you are well.” 

A hand laid on his arm, startling him away from his darkening thoughts. Sigyn was watching him again with those too wise eyes, something knowing in them that made him turn away in shame. Those were ugly feelings. 

“I understand, Anthony. And I’m sure Loki will too. You are no longer alone.”

Tony deflated. Suddenly he felt like crying, but this would be the worst place to let something like that happen. It sucked. He wanted to be there for Loki, to share that moment with him, not to spoil it by behaving like… like a brat. Loki would worry and leave the game, and the children would be disappointed and they would resent him, and Tony didn’t want that. He wanted them to like him, to accept him as Loki’s partner, to… 

He didn’t know. 

“Why are you sad?”

There was a tiny voice piping up before him. He looked down at the kid, a small thing barely reaching up to his waist, with a strange but beautiful scaling pattern around a single slitted yellow eye. The child blinked, yellow and blue closing in unison as he looked up to him, worried and so very sweet. 

Tony’s heart melted, a watery smile growing on his face as he thought on how to answer.

“I have just realized that...” He paused, searching for words. Something to make sense of this mess, something clear and concise to articulate the turmoil inside of him and the reasons for that. Why. “... Some bad things that have happened didn’t have to actually happen. So I was fine when I thought it was normal and inevitable, but now that I know there was another way, I am upset, because I didn’t get the option to choose.”

The child seemed to think for a moment, furrowing his brow and pursing his lips in an expression hilariously serious and concentrated, before nodding slowly. 

“Whenever I feel like that, Angy usually tells me to draw my feelings. Do you wanna try drawing?”

The child looked hopeful for a moment, eyes bright with excitement. 

“I have new crayons to try out. I can show you!”

And Tony… melted. He smiled back, stance loosening. 

“Of course. I’d love to.”

His breaths came easier as he followed the tiny bundle of energy up the stairs. Somehow, his troubles seemed trivial in the face of this all, a tiny being looking to him for validation, wanting to share what made him happy and soothe his hurts.

“What’s your name? I’m Tony.”

The child looked back at him, guilelessly blinking. 

“I know who you are! Loki told us. He was worried that you were sad, so I said I would cheer you up.”

Tony blinked, blushing. He felt strangely exposed, but then, children were known for their terrible lack of tact. Best to roll with it. 

“Well, yes, but I still don’t know your name. And it’s not polite to ask for yours without giving mine too, you know?”

The kid seemed to consider that very seriously, before nodding gravely. 

“You’re right. It’s not nice to be rude. So, since you gave me your name, I have to give you mine.” 

Tony stopped, frowning. No, that wasn’t quite right. He kneeled down, trying to look the kid in the eyes. 

“Hey, no. That’s not what I meant at all. It would be rude for me to ask your name without giving mine, but you never have to do something just because of something I did. Not unless you’re comfortable with it. It’s important to know that you’re always allowed to say ‘no’, do you understand? Especially if someone is asking you for personal information or anything like that. Now, do you want to give me your name?”

The kid frowned. 

“But, don’t you need my name? Is it not unfair for me to know yours without you knowing mine?”

Tony wasn’t quite sure why he was so insistent upon that, but he did remember the young girls and trembling omegas who’d come to him in the cover of darkness, terrified by how much they’d given away, by how much their feeling of obligation to social norms had made them compromise their own safety. He didn’t want that to ever happen to a child as sweet as this one. 

And if Loki didn’t agree with what he was teaching his kids, well he could take it up with him. 

“The only unfair thing would be if you ended up feeling uncomfortable just because of silly rules that adults feel like they have to follow just to be polite. If someone ever tells you that you have to do something that you’re not comfortable doing, you tell them the Iron Man told you not to, okay? I don’t need your name to talk to you if you don't want to give it. I can always give you a nickname, if you’re okay with that. You can even help me choose what kind of nickname you’d prefer.”

Tony saw a shadow move from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t dare take his gaze away from his small charge. This was important and he needed to know that the kid would realize that. 

But apparently he’d said something that the child considered more interesting already. 

“What kind of nicknames? Nicknames are something friends give each other, right?”

And that was a bit of a tricky question. How much could Tony say before he confused the child too much? 

“That depends of course, of who is giving them and in which manner. But I would like a nickname I give you to be a friend-nickname. That is why it’s something I won’t decide on without your approval.”

The tiny face scrunched up in thought. 

“You’re weird.”

Tony supposed that was true. He had no idea on how to talk with children. He wouldn’t be surprised if the kid hadn’t understood anything that he’d said so far. 

“Well, Fen told me not to say my name, but I guess a nickname is fine?”

Fen? Perhaps the shadow he’d seen earlier had a name, after all. To think he’d been set up. By kids. 

He smiled, more amused than anything. It was reassuring to know that they would protect each other like that, and perhaps he didn’t need to worry too much about them being taken advantage of by strangers. 

“That’s right. A nickname is just for you and me; and everyone you want to share it with.”

The kid seemed to consider that seriously for a moment, before looking up with a puzzled frown. 

“What kind of nickname?”

Tony smiled, soft. 

“Well. I like the pretty golden color you have there, it makes me think of the sun. What do you think of ‘sunflower’? You’re allowed to not like it of course.”

The kid thought for a moment before asking: “Can I be ‘Fierce-Sunflower?’”

That was much too adorable. 

“Of course. ‘Fierce Sunflower’ it is.”

The newly dubbed Fierce Sunflower sprung back with a clap, dancing back down the hallway as he called back to Tony. 

“Come on! You said you would draw with me!”

And Tony could only laugh and join him.

*

Playing with kids was fairly exhausting but surprisingly satisfying. At some point while Tony was bent over the table with his sunflower-bud, other kids started trickling in, wanting in on the new entertainment that was a foreign adult that the mysterious Fen had already judged worthy enough of company. Tony had then found himself entertaining all the gaggle of tiny beings, finding ways to entertain and keep the peace both. 

Fierce Sunflower had been all too eager to share his new nickname with everyone and now Tony had found himself offering new names to everyone who wanted them. Most of the kids had very specific ideas to what qualifier they wanted to have, but some instead left him free reign. In a way, Tony felt like this was another test, a way to see what he truly thought of the kids. How he fit with them. 

So far he’d named a Perspicacious Dragonfly, a Flamboyant Eventide, a Kind Falcon and a Quick-footed Dandelion.

And as older ones slowly trickled in the room to join them, Tony finally got to meet the one his Fierce Sunflower had called Andy. 

It was a young half-jotun girl named Angrboda, beautiful and fierce. Her skin was a soft green color, painted with swirls and long flowing lines. They looked more like a natural part of her than an actual tattoo, and Tony supposed she might very well have been born with them. She looked at him fairly suspiciously, but then, Tony didn’t really expect anything less. Asgard had never been kind to those who differed from the norm. 

He nodded to her respectfully before looking around, seeking his.. Loki. 

“I am here, Esklän.” Loki laid a hand to his shoulder before leaning down and pressing a kiss right under his ear. He gulped, holding very still, all too aware of the many children observing the both of them with interest. 

“You’ve forgotten the date again, haven’t you?”

Tony could hear the smirk in his voice, mischievous and amused. Well, two could play this game. 

“In my defense, you are very distracting, Lokkä.” He turned in his seat, catching green from the corner of his eyes. “Now, tell me, have you been testing me too?”

It only made sense, after all. If this was Loki’s family, his chosen kin instead of those that he had to put up with, then they must be pretty important. And it was only fair for him to make sure all would be well before bringing anyone new into the fold. 

He smirked as he turned around to face the mage. 

Loki was staring back steadily, entirely unapologetic, but in truth, Tony wasn’t mad. In fact, he was reassured. 

His prince, his suitor, was nothing like Howard. And the more Loki acted to protect his brood, the more Tony felt himself trusting the trickster more and more. Falling in love. 

Wanting to see what their life together would bring.

The kiss felt natural, like the softest brush of a butterfly wing. It lasted but a second, but Loki looked thunderstruck, eyes wide and awed. Tony smiled back, almost shy at how forward he was being. 

It was ridiculous, he’d done much more than kisses throughout his life, but he supposed none of his previous partners had been Loki, none of them had courted him so gently and carefully and made him feel desired and cherished. None of those previous kisses had been witnessed by his partner’s family. 

A cheerful ‘whoop’ echoed through the room, kids laughing and shouting over each other in a way that was both chaotic and warm, gleeful happiness and teasing jibes filling Tony’s ears. There was a kissing song too. 

But he could only see Loki, his green eyes alight with warmth, cheeks pinked with a blush and a smile that was only directed at him. It felt soft, intimate, safe. 

Loki smiled, breaking their gaze and yet the moment didn’t quite feel broken. It was just as if the static of anticipation was turning into something else, a different sort of energy.

He straightened out, imperious but silent, gazing over his tiny cew of small beings as they slowly settled. Every eye turned to him, an expectant buzzing of excitement washing through them. 

“As you all know, whenever I come here, I do my best to not come empty handed.”

A small voice piped out “But you don’t have anything in your hands, Lokkä!”

Loki half chuckled at the interruption, before faking seriousness again. 

“Well, that might be true, but if I take things out from my pockets, that won’t be quite the case anymore, will it?”

Another voice rang out “That’s true!”

Loki nodded seriously. “And, certainly, it’s better not to keep everything I’m supposed to hold in my hands, isn’t it? They are quite small, after all, if I want to have something for everyone. Unless you would prefer me to only come with what I can have in hand?”

Fake gasps of outrage echoed across the table as everyone—including Tony who found the game to be quite fun—called in unison, “Nooooo!”

Loki nodded, as though satisfied. “Well, then since I came with empty hands but full pockets, and one new friend, will you be satisfied?”

Cheers erupted all around. “YEEEESSS”

Fierce Sunflower asked “Is the New Friend a gift too?”

A few giggles broke out, while many of Tony’s tiniest new friends leaned toward Loki, with big eyes. 

“Well, I suppose that would depend on him, then. What do you say, Tony?”

Tony blinked, suddenly feeling quite alarmed at seeing every pair of eyes in the room turn to him. 

“Well, Tony?”

This was quite unfair, putting him on the spot like that. He didn’t even know what the question was. 

“Well, then, I can’t say yes to anything if I don’t know what it is I’m agreeing to, can I? It’s never a good idea to promise something if you don’t know if you can’t keep your promise, right?” 

Serious nods were shared all around him, and Tony wasn’t surprised. For all that Loki was called a liar around Asgard, Tony had yet to see him break his word even once. 

“So, what are you asking, here? What are the conditions?”

A chorus of voices scrambled together as each kid started speaking over each over. Tony shook his head. Of course, they were kids. 

“Alright, one at a time! Starting from my left, counterclockwise.”

There was a grumble, before his tiny sunflower spoke up. 

“You have to come back soon.”

Tony looked them in the eyes, feeling the solemnity of a promise echo between them as he said “I will.”

Another voice called out : “You have to play with us!” Tony recognized his tiny Dragonfly and nodded with a smile. “You can’t be mean”; “You have to keep our secrets!” ; “No eating Narfi’s cookies!” ; “You should bring ice-cream!” “And tell us good stories!”

The stipulations kept coming, one after the other, some cute, some a bit absurd, many of them just the barest bones of decency. The older kids usually put down stipulations that felt more like veiled threats than anything else, but Tony understood the need. They were protecting their family, their clan. This, what they had here was too precious for words. And so, to them all, Tony listened and kept note, remembering who asked what, who kept quiet, who looked hopeful or suspicious. 

And after they were all done, to the last one, Tony sat very straight, with a very serious expression. Part of it was a play, of course, but somehow, Tony truly felt that this was important. The faith of so many bright souls was involved there. It felt so fragile, this trust, this joy. It was no less than an invitation to become part of their family. 

“I do believe, after having reviewed all the conditions, that I can and will promise to uphold all of those wishes.”

There was applause, and hugs, kids swarming him and Loki, shouting out with triumph and excitement. 

Tony laughed, joyful in a way that he couldn’t remember ever being. The kids’ happiness was infectious, their enthusiasm all-consuming. 

It didn’t really last too long however, as Loki stepped back forward when the rush had started dying down a little. 

“I see that New Friend has outshone me and my gifts, then. Well, then, if I am so quickly replaced...”

Whispers of mock horror echoed through the room as they rushed around Loki, saying that ‘ of course they hadn’t forgotten about him,’ and ‘ obviously they still wanted his gifts!’

Tony laughed, watching the play, the way they slowly climbed all over Loki to stop him from leaving, a moving puppy pile that turned into yet another game. Loki was laughing too, playfully losing the battle as each tiny opponent, before calling for a yield. He then sat amongst the giggling horde and waited until they’d settled down. And then he offered each of them a single package of various sizes and shapes and colors, which they took one by one  before scurrying off to open them on their own and let the next one take their place. By the excited squeals that Tony could hear, Loki’s talent for gift giving wasn’t limited to him alone. 

And then they were left alone in the room together, for the first time since they’d arrived there. 

Tony sighed, strangely exhausted, but still happy, leaning back against the table as he watched Loki prowl toward him. 

He would never get used to how sexy this man was, even after seeing him turned into a climbing tree. 

Loki straddled his lap, leaning forward, close enough for his breath to fan against his lips, close enough for Tony to feel rather than see the smirk pulling at his lips. 

“You didn’t think I had forgotten you, did you.” 

Tony blinked, somehow aware that Loki meant more than just him not being left behind for the kids, and yet he couldn’t quite figure out what the mage meant. 

Loki chuckled, eyes tender as he shook his head at him. 

“You really   forgot, didn’t you? Again.”

Tony blinked, and blinked again, trying desperately to kickstart his brain back into gear. He should know what Loki was talking about, shouldn’t he? 

“Wait, is it already the Moon-Day?”

Had it really been a month already? Tony could hardly believe it, and yet. It had felt both so very long and so very quick, time passing by so fast he could hardly grasp it, and yet his days so filled, so different, never quite the same feeling, the same experiences. 

It must be. 

Loki leaned their foreheads together, soft laughter shaking through him. 

“I shall remember to never expect you to remember dates, Esklän. Yes, It is already the first Full-Moon Day after last. And yes, I mean to offer you your gift now, after you’ve been so patient and let me give each child their own.”

Tony felt himself melt into Loki’s embrace, feeling their breaths mingle, their magics ebb and flow together in meditation. 

“Isn’t coming here a gift?” 

The fifth gift was meant to show what they could expect of their lives together, what to expect in the years to come. 

As much as Tony would have been upset at receiving something related to fertility in the fourth gift, the expected future of the omega’s place in the household, he found that if this was their lives together, if this was this place, already full of life and laughter and children who needed him, then he would not mind it so much. 

Not if it brought such joy in Loki to be here, to play, to be both master of chaos and nurturing figure. There was a freedom to this, though it was also great work. 

“It is.” And it was also a test. “But it is not the only gift I wanted to offer today. Here.”

Tony felt the smooth texture of the silk Loki had used in his previous package. It was a small thing, just big enough to fit in a hand, but Tony knew better than to draw any conclusions from that anymore. 

After all, the smallest package that he’d gotten so far had contained an entire library. 

And then Loki kissed him. 

Chapter Text

In the end, Tony had accepted the gift without even knowing what it had been. Perhaps that meant that he’d actually accepted a surprise as a ‘fifth gift’. He knew he wouldn’t be disappointed, he trusted Loki and his intentions. 

This perhaps had more meaning even than the reaction he’d had when he’d finally gotten around to opening the small, green package. 

He trusted Loki enough to take anything he offered. He’d never done that before. He’d always been suspicious by nature, hard to trust and trust hard to earn. 

And yet, here was Loki, getting under his skin, over his walls, turning his every doubts into iron clad certainties. 

That alone probably meant that he had already accepted Loki’s suit. 

The fifth gift was a puzzle box. 

Tony spent days trying to unravel it, even longer since he kept needing to leave for his other obligations, to see Loki, to see the kids, to work on his other projects, but always, always, he came back to that puzzle box.

Each layer was always a completely different style than the previous one, some requiring magic to unlock, others riddles, a few were solved through patterns, one even had a mechanism. Yes, Loki knew him way too well. This was all too tempting an allure for a fifth gift. 

He would relish spending the rest of his life going from surprise to surprise and having to unlock the puzzle-box that was Loki’s heart. And he wouldn’t mind at all being mated to someone who had so many layers all different, ever changing, someone who would make sure there would never be boredom in their lives. 

The last layer hid a pulsing gem of magic. Of Loki’s magic. 

Tony had never seen one before, only read about it in obscure books about magelore. Of course there did happen to be a tome describing them and their use conveniently available in Loki’s library. 

Because apparently, Loki could be predictable, sometimes. 

He never seemed to make his declarations of intent in person.  

Mage Gems were rare and incredibly difficult to make. They held a piece of a mage’s heart inside them, a pulsing beat of magic that would protect a mage’s loved one from all harm, and would let them know when their bonded was in danger. 

It was as close to a pledge of eternity as a mage could get, and somehow, Loki had offered it to him without seeing it through. 

What an idiot. 

Tony loved him. 

And, as he watched the evershifting smoke moving inside the gem, shifting into a roaring dragon, then a majestic phoenix, watching them embrace and enlace then part like smoke again, he knew he could not leave this gift without an answer. 

But that was fine, he’d already made his decision long ago. 

Of course, for all that Tony had started to learn magic, he was far from being a mage yet. The day where he would be able to reciprocate was quite far off, but there were still many things that he was able to do. 

Because, as much as Tony loved to learn new things and reinvent himself, at his heart he was a crafter. 

Amulets were never as strong as when they were offered by someone who held the recipient close to their heart, and Tony held Loki close indeed. But he was far from the only one. 

It was easy for him to bring in the kids into his ploy. He’d been coming to see them as often as he was able, and he’d finally learned each of their actual names, though to him many of them remained a dandelion, a sunflower and a dragonfly, an eventide and a falcon. They’d come to trust him, to see him as part of the family. 

When they’d learned what he was preparing, they were all too eager to give him a single hair each, to braid through the silver structure, all the while wishing very hard for Loki’s safety, happiness and good health as they gave it to him. 

Finding the stones had been harder. He was looking for very specific gems, after all, and he couldn’t really afford to pick one that did not want to be there. 

He’d ended up going to one of the many stalls Loki had pointed out to him, one where an old scraggly vane held many different mineral types, from small pebbles of clear crystal to huge rock slabs. 

A strange blue stone pulsed with warmth, its magic shivering just under the surface, almost eager as Tony had let his hand pass over the display. Tony picked it up. It shimmered in the soft light of dusk and threaded with white veins. 

This was easier than he’d thought. 

In the same manner, he’d picked up a clear, green stone, and a small dark gem that turned iridescent as he shifted it around. Then small beads of clear crystal, of green and blues and whites. 

Silver wiring and the smallest of potion jars, just enough to receive a few powdered spices for versatility and magic, thin dust of will-o-wisps to always find his way back, a potion for luck, and one gold nugget for good fortune. 

And, at last, one single leaf of uru, just a small part from the flower he’d received at the very beginning of this courtship. 

And afterward, once all the ingredients had been set out before him, Tony got to crafting. 

He didn’t have much time, after all. A Gift of Resolution must come on a new-moon day, and he’d already spent much too long to unravel the puzzle. Which had, incidentally reformed itself, relocking and shifting just enough for Tony to know that it would be an entirely different beast to unlock again. 

But, as much as he’d felt eager to try his mettle against that new challenge, he did not want to wait any longer. He didn’t want another gift, or more uncertainty. He needed to finish this, soon. 

He needed it to be perfect. 

And he would not forget the date this time.

From his door, the rest of the Academy’s gossip-mongers and romantics watched him work in silence, respecting the importance of the moment, his need for concentration and quiet. They cheered for him silently, sending him their best wishes of happiness. 

Only his closest colleague remained, offering to keep track of time for him, which he accepted gratefully. Time had never really been his ally. 

Still, things moved smoothly, his fingers steady and confident as they wove together the silver wire into a net, placing the stones then the phial, pulling the beads though then weavint the netting close. The braided hairs wove around the frame, as Tony poured his own intent along that of the children. 

Crystals that store power, enough for a trip back in an emergency, a leaf from Yggdrasil to help with navigating, a single bead of garnet, a focus to channel magic even when the mind is unclear. To connect to one’s roots and find their way again. 

And then, Tony melted his small piece of uru, and poured it along the back of the pendant, shaping it with his magic instead of tools. That way, it sealed the talisman, providing a secure support and a smooth surface where Tony could engrave his own spells. 

Loki’s sigil melded with Tony’s own, runes of protection and love, of confidence and tenacity. Runes that fit Loki and his ever changing nature, runes that powered all the well wishes that they’d poured into it. 

When the last mark was carved down, when the last spell was uttered and the amulet had ceased to become many separate parts and became instead a single whole, a brilliant, pulsing token of love and trust, of hope and faith, wishes of protection and happiness as strong as Tony could weave them, he placed his work down in the small chest Pepper had gotten for him, next to Loki’s Mage Gem. 

The box was obviously a gift from Erik, especially with the artful way his signature phoenix was engraved in the front and the way it contained the magic so well, and Tony sent a few mental words of thanks in the direction of the forge. Charles would hear them. 

After all, it wouldn’t do to spoil the surprise before he even reached their rendez-vous point. 

It was time.

*

The gardens were quiet at this time of the day. Most people had already retreated to the warmth of their home and family, and those who hadn’t had started to make way for the taverns instead. Most couples who looked for the ethereal beauty of the city’s gardens would wait until the cover of the night instead. 

It was dusk, and Tony and Loki were alone. 

The sun was setting over the lake, all the flowers around them painted in reds and oranges by its last rays. 

They had become much more affectionate with each other, since the first kiss they’d shared in the company of Loki’s mischievous brood, and their evenings together were usually spent laying in each other’s arms, watching the world around them and sharing quiet confidences. 

It had become so very easy, so very natural to share such innocent intimacy, just basking in each other’s warmth as they cuddled together in the soft blankets that Loki brought. 

In that perfect moment, there was no barrier, no uncertainty, no judgement. Just the gentle acceptance of each other, the tender love that had grown between them, from trust, from care, from understanding each other. Genuine affection carefully cultivated from both sides. 

Taking the case out was as easy as breathing. 

Tony watched Loki open the box, watched his eyes close in bliss at the rush of magic, watched them snap open at the realization, glowing with his own power as he lifted the lid and watched the fruits of both their efforts laid together, both their promises to each other. 

Later, Loki would put the Mage Gem on him while Tony would place his talisman around his alpha’s neck. Later they would kiss and laugh and perhaps even tumble into bed. But that was later. 

He smiled, resting back down against Loki’s chest. 

Let Loki be the one silently freaking out about a gift that felt too right, too personal, this time. Let him be the one who needed to collect himself while he took in the breadth of meanings held in a simple object. 

Tony smiled. 

If Loki hadn’t wanted to put up with surprises of his own, he wouldn’t have chosen the most unpredictable and untamable omega of Asgard, after all.