(A/N: Okay, so I am going to try to legitimately write a one-shot, but somehow I feel that there are more chapters hiding in this idea. Once more I will say that I don't own the Avengers, I never will and I have no delusions that Marvel will ever accept the change in my jar as payment. Regardless of that fact, fanfiction is free. Pairing is Thor/Loki/Tony. ThunderFrostIron for the win. Set 15 years after the movie. Also mentions Steve/Bruce, Clint/Natasha, and Pepper/Phil. Plus some Avengers kids, which totally aren't canon, but its okay.)
Cautious Hope
The sky beyond the windows was tinged with pink and gold, but Tony was too tired to tell if that light was from dawn or dusk. He pulled the blanket over his head and rolled away from the windows. For the last several days, had it been days? Days, yes. He had been sick. The swollen throat, stuffy nose, head getting stomped on by the Hulk while Mjölnir sat on his chest sort of sick. It had left him cut off from the rest of the team as Bruce had put him in quarantine until the illness could be identified. Which would have been fine, but Tony really needed someone to hold onto him when the chills got too bad.
"JARVIS, time," Tony commanded though his voice was weak and croaking. He struggled to sit up and issued another quiet command for the shades to close and block out that infernal light. Not for the first time, he found himself hating the Arc Reactor for tanking his immune system and many of his other body systems, not that he was ever going to say which in polite company, unless he was well and truly wasted. Which wouldn't be happening for quite some time, an illness like this didn't deserve to be topped off with a hangover.
"It is 6:25 AM sir. Friday morning in case you wanted to know," JARVIS responded helpfully and Tony blinked owlishly. He stroked the Arc Reactor for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the half-light of the bedroom and he silently assessed his current state of being. There was no noticeable improvement in the state of his lungs or his head, though he felt that his fever might have broken. His limbs felt like they were full of sand, perhaps less sand than the last time he had woken up.
"Tell someone that I'm awake," Tony mumbled and shuffled out of bed and over to his desk. With the blanket still heaped around him it was difficult to take a seat in the chair, but he was a stubborn man. There was no way that he was going to languish in bed for another hour, let alone a day when he had already been down and out for six. Tony Stark did not believe in such breaks, at least, not anymore. He had an entire tower of Avengers to look out for, their armor needed fixing and upgrading, their weapons needed to be improved; there was no room for him to rest.
"You're supposed to be in bed," Loki's voice was un-amused and disinterested as he appeared in the center of the room, great, he was worried. Tony groaned under his breath and rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. JARVIS would pick the only person that Tony really didn't want to be seen by.
"And you're supposed to be with your brother," Tony groused, his eyes darkening slightly. Loki merely rolled his eyes and lifted Tony from the chair with a fairly impressive show of telekinesis, which pissed Tony off. He had barely started to flail in protest when Loki locked his limbs with another brush of magic.
"You say such strange things. I am here, and here is where I am supposed to be," Loki said placidly, retrieving a thermometer from the nightstand and tucking it into Tony's mouth. There was a bit of a heated glaring contest as Tony attempted to spit the device out and Loki silently prevented that from happening. In the end, Loki won out as a beeping sounded and announced that Tony's temperature was normal.
"Are you happy Mother Hen? I have work to do," Tony said, fighting against the hold that Loki's magic still had on him.
"You will do nothing of the sort. Do you realize the damage that you could do to yourself if you don't take the time to actually get better?" Loki demanded and Tony seethed, he hated being treated like a child. JARVIS was getting a serious reprogramming. He had implicitly said, many times, that Loki was not to be summoned. Loki was nothing but Bruce's lackey, fully capable of dealing with Tony when the good Doctor would rather go Mr. Hyde on his ass. It was almost annoying how well Bruce and Loki got along, sickening really, and Tony longed for the days when Loki would drop out of the Manhattan sky and rain hellfire on them. Stupid Thor, reforming his stupid brother.
"I'm never going to be better. What is so hard to understand about that? None of you get it. I'm damaged, I'm broken, you can't fucking fix me!" Tony said in an almost shout, his voice breaking and clicking as his throat rebelled. He had been getting slowly worse over the years and was sick almost every other week, but he rarely let that deter him. Loki was suddenly very close to him, green eyes blazing with determination and strength.
"You are not broken. You are Anthony Edward Stark, you are the Iron Man, Field Commander of Avengers Beta team, and you are Thor's lover and mine. You will be healthy because you want to be healthy, and you will be strong because you will accept nothing less from yourself. Do not think to tell me otherwise," Loki said firmly, hand lodged in Tony's hair, his entire body pressed close to the billionaire's.
"If you don't kiss me right now, I'm going to throw you out of this bed and go to work," Tony said flatly, ignoring the prickle of tears at the sincerity of Loki's words. Loki's lips descended on his own and he felt relaxed for the first time in days. The force binding him dissipated and he was able to wrap his arms around the other man's body.
"I'll not be letting you out of this bed," Loki said gently, brushing his fingers over Tony's cheeks. He knew that Thor would be with them soon and so shifted himself so that Tony lie in the center of the bed and his own back faced the windows.
"I fucking hate you, you know that? How could you guys leave me alone all this time?" Tony hissed, his hands balled up in the fabric of Loki's shirt. The God rolled his eyes and kissed Tony's forehead as Thor slipped into bed with them.
"We did not wish to leave you alone. But Doctor Banner was concerned that the virus you contracted might be Asgardian in origin," Thor said by way of an explanation, his arm wrapped around Tony and Loki pressing them together against his chest. Tony let go an angry sigh, he hated when people did things for his own good. Bruce was an absolute champion at figuring out what people needed and when they needed it so it stood to reason that if Thor and Loki were in bed with him again, that the Doctor had green lighted it; pun totally intended.
"Why would he think that it was Asgardian? Have you guys been home recently?" Tony asked, wondering what all he had missed during his last marathon session in the lab, wishing that he had spent more time with his lovers instead.
"This is our home. We visited Asgard, yes. We had something to discuss with Odin," Loki allowed, his fingers trailing through Tony's hair. Tony blinked in confusion at that statement, unable to determine the emotion behind it. He sighed softly when Thor finally kissed him and smiled indulgently when the blonde leaned over and kissed Loki as well.
"What was it? I take it things went well?" Tony muttered his body relaxing between the heat of Thor's frame and the chill of Loki's. Both Gods dropped a kiss on his lips simultaneously and he took it to mean that things had gone very well.
"We have asked him for his blessings upon our union," Thor began, his lips drawing into a smile.
"He will accept you as one of the family," Loki added, a smirk that had once meant trouble for the world at large now playing benignly on his lips.
"When you are well, we shall travel together to Asgard," Thor spoke next, placing a kiss over the Arc Reactor.
"And there our hearts will be bound together as one," Loki kissed Tony's hair and watched as realization slowly began to dawn in chocolate eyes.
"You shall share in our immortality, so that we need never part," Thor breathed as tears began to slip down Tony's cheeks. The blonde God kissed his soon-to-be husband, one of them anyway, and held on tightly. Though their relationship had never been strained because of it, both Gods knew that Tony was terrified of his own mortality, and they had been as well, they were not complete without him after all. While they gladly would have joined him in paradise, they all knew that protecting Earth was their mission, and that they couldn't abandon it.
"I love you both, so much," Tony whispered, not even caring that he was still miserably sick. He had just received the most amazing news of his life, well, perhaps it tied with the day that the Asgardian pair had approached him about his not so secretive interests in them. Back then Thor and Loki had been together, and neither had thought anything was missing until they took a chance on fledgling feelings that they'd had for Tony.
"We love you too," Loki responded gently, watching carefully as Tony relaxed even more. The billionaire was slowly falling asleep and the Gods remained with him until he was snoring softly in the dim morning light.
Once they were certain that he was solidly asleep, they rose and tucked him into bed carefully. Thor took Loki's hand in his and they shut the bedroom door behind them. The brunette pulled the blonde to a stop just a few steps away from their lover's door and wrapped him in a hug. With a smile Thor kissed Loki and pressed him against the wall, fingers tangling into dark hair as he did so.
"You want to stay close by then?" Thor questioned softly, running his lips delicately along Loki's jaw. He could see the longing in Loki's eyes, they were missing their third, but that did not mean that they were not in love with one another as much as Tony. There had been several times when it had been just Thor and Loki, and there had been times when it was just Tony and Thor or just Loki and Tony, and it had always worked.
"I want him close to us again. I wanted to tell him about the gift that Odin gave to us when he blessed our union," Loki replied as he tipped his head back at the urging of Thor's lips.
"We will tell him when he is well enough to hear it and understand it. And that will be after we have had him for ourselves once more," Thor's voice had taken on a slight commanding edge and Loki grinned at the tone. It had never worked on him, but it was cute when Thor tried. He knew that Thor was just as excited as he was to tell Tony about their gift. But it all would have to wait, because Thor was working at the buttons on his shirt and the blood was rapidly draining from his brain.
Things would have gotten much farther, and they probably would have shamelessly taken one another on the hallway carpet, but for Hawkeye and a Nerf dart. The marksman stood at the end of the hall, arms crossed, bright yellow gun tapping against his bicep.
"My daughter is playing out here," he said at last, flicking his sunglasses up and staring at them. The pair groaned and separated, there were children in the house, of course, how could they forget.
"Sorry Clint," Loki muttered and raked his hair back into place.
"No problem. I was just trying to save your lives. Tasha already thinks that Jean will be corrupted what with Peter and Bucky running rampant, we don't need you two helping that process along," Clint said with a faint smile. All of the Avengers children, Jean Grey belonging to Clint and Natasha, Peter Parker belonging to Pepper and Coulson, and Bucky Barnes III belonging to Steve and Bruce, were adopted and all of them were gunning for spots on the next generation team. Understandably, none of their parents wanted them there.
"True," Thor allowed, thinking of the children which he often compared to marauders with a fond smile.
"How is Tony doing?" Clint asked as he moved in to retrieve the dart he had fired.
"He should be better by tomorrow. Well enough to travel by Monday," Loki said with a small hopeful smile. One could never tell with Tony's immune system, but there was room for hope, so long as it was cautious and came with a contingency plan.
"Have you told him about the rest of us?" Clint asked, playing with the ring that adorned his left ring finger.
"No, he knows only what he was granted long life because he was to be our spouse. He does not know that Odin saw fit to grant extended years to the rest of the Avengers," Thor said in response. It was not quite the same as the Godly immortality that would be given to Tony, but it was very close and with a promise of Valhalla in the future, it was all many of the Heroes could have dared to dream of.
(A/N: The first question is, how did you like it. The second is, will you review. The third question is, does anyone think that I should continue?)