Full Summary - At twenty-one, he watches on the news as New York is half-destroyed. Aliens. Who knew.
They-the Avengers, people say-fight like a proper pack. It's interesting. Loki's never belonged anywhere, and he won't belong in a fight.
(He only holds his breath when he sees Stark fly through the portal. There's time, but there won't be if Stark dies before Loki bothers to meet him.)
Stark doesn't die.
Loki eats a spoonful of half-melted ice cream, closing his eyes.
Notes - (crossposting over from ao3)
So I will admit I have a fondness for ABO fic. Unfortunately, most don't really do what I would like them to-the trope sets itself up to be so deeply, horribly problematic from the get go. So I did my own spin a few months ago as a Yule present for someone.
For all intents and purposes, the events of both Iron Man 1 & 2 have occurred, with minor alterations in regards to Pepper and Tony's relationship. There's a reason Loki gets in a hurry.
everyone has their own ideas for a/b/o fics, so let's get mine clear:
+Sex is defined as alpha, beta, or omega. Everyone externally looks the same in regards to genitalia, but only betas and omegas can actually give birth.
+Gender is how a person identifies, and a hold over. People present as whatever they want; everyone else asks what pronouns they prefer when they're asking what names are and exchanging greetings. It's very chillax.
+actually this is a very happy place with lots of noncreeptastic societal norms because i wanted to write something happy just this once
Aaaand that should be all you really need to know.
Updates are one per day, just like the original posting schedule was at Yule.
And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you.
-the chaos of stars, kiersten white
I.
He overhears at a party (snuck into) that Stark is looking for a new personal assistant. Rather, Potts is looking for Stark's new personal assistant as she's certainly too busy these days.
Loki, nearly finished with university, considers.
(He's always loved a nice change, and two years seems a lifetime when there's so much left to do.)
"Loki," his mother says gently, the same as she has every time he mentions switching careers, "consider your heart."
The next day, he ensures that Pepper Potts has his resume directly.
That time, he doesn't get called beyond the first interview.
He doesn't mind. He's twenty, then, there's plenty to explore in the world outside the sphere of super heroes like Iron Man.
He has a pharmacy degree, like his mother; Frigga wants him to have a nice, safe career. Low stress.
Pharmacies are dull, routine.
Loki is twenty. He tells his mother he's thinking of changing tracks.
"Already?" she asks, disappointed. Odin snorts, in the background; no doubt his father knows what they're talking about.
"Perhaps a model," Loki says, paging through a magazine.
"Consider your heart," Frigga says, as she always has.
Loki does not tell her he is, because they mean different things-she means careful and he hears fly.
(There are reasons he's never belonged to them, even if they raised him.)
Modeling is interesting. It isn't what he wants (not heroes and their lives), but it fills the hollowness for a while.
He makes good money-not as much as the omegas do, he's only a beta and has little interest in sex, but he makes enough to be content. Clothes, food, a roof-what else is there to want?
In the time between shoots, he writes chemical equations the way coworkers scrawl poetry (on napkins, on corners of torn off paper). One day, he might bother to go to a lab and see if they smell like he imagines, just like they'll publish.
One day.
At twenty-one, he watches on the news as New York is half-destroyed. Aliens. Who knew.
They-the Avengers, people say-fight like a proper pack. It's interesting. Loki's never belonged anywhere, and he won't belong in a fight.
(He only holds his breath when he sees Stark fly through the portal. There's time, but there won't be if Stark dies before Loki bothers to meet him.)
Stark doesn't die.
Loki eats a spoonful of half-melted ice cream, closing his eyes.
He should be shocked. Heart-broken. The rest of the world is. Loki watches, listens to the other models, to make up artists, to fashion designers. Everyone is shocked.
(Loki takes three pills each morning.
One.
Two.
Three.
Sometimes feeling nothing is as easy as counting.)
Loki could never explain to anyone why he wants to meet Stark, not even himself.
"Why would you like to work with him?" Pepper asks, not looking up from his resume.
Loki is twenty-two. He has all the time in the world, except if Stark gets himself killed. Meeting Stark, knowing him-that is an experience with a deadline.
"I like a challenge," Loki says instead. Confident.
Pepper snorts.
"He's certainly that." She looks up at him. "You've never been a single SI show or any of his talks. No autographs, no record of ever working with SI or for one of our contractors, no stalking. Not a single party, though with your family you could have."
He isn't phased by her knowledge; he expected her to be thorough.
"I'm not a fan," Loki says with a smile and a shrug. "Only looking to change careers."
That much, he knows, is true.
"He's going to hit on you relentlessly."
"I'm a model," Loki says, amused. "When am I not cat-called?"
Three interviews.
One.
Two.
Three.
(Sometimes satisfaction is as easy as counting to three.)
"Who the fuck is this?" Stark asks. He's surrounded by machines, covered in grease, and yet Loki can still smell him-alpha, iron, electric. Loki can hardly keep his eyes off him, but he at least can keep his lids heavy so it isn't as obvious he's staring.
"This is your new personal assistant," Pepper announces. Loki offers a slim smile and his hand.
"He's a fucking kid," Starks says, entirely ignoring Loki.
Loki doesn't take it personally. Growing up with Thor, one gets used to being ignored, talked over and around. He puts his hand in his pocket, watches Pepper and Stark argue, until eventually Pepper triumphs and Loki is left standing in the middle of lab, one hand in his pocket, other on his bag.
"What the fuck are you wearing?" Stark asks, eyes narrowing. His hair, Loki notes, has a touch of gray at the temples-the press never catches that. Stark is only thirty-five, but then, he's also Iron Man.
"Dior," Loki says.
"Not your clothes," Stark says.
Loki blinks, widens his eyes innocently.
(Stark wants to know the cologne-none on the market can entirely hide a scent. Loki's isn't on the market, nor is it a cologne.)
"Whatever do you mean, Mr. Stark?"
Working for Stark is…
sentimental. The kind of foolishness that he accuses Thor of. He wants to say his heart has beat for the first time-but that sounds like he stole it from one of his former colleagues napkins.
Worse, though, is it's true, and he can't place why. Stark's hardly the first alpha Loki has ever interacted with; he's loud, obnoxious, stubborn, entirely a Leo (though Loki puts little stock in astrology, particularly since Stark is actually a Gemini). There is always somewhere new to be, a new flavour of insanity, a new sight to see, new inventions.
(Worst, the physical attraction. Loki can count how many people he's wanted to touch on one hand. Utterly foreign.)
Loki takes his pills, wonders when they stopped being able to restrain his emotions, and soars.
"He's an alpha," Natasha says, certain. It's poker night for the team, a bonding exercise Bruce has been excused from since before Loki began working with them.
Steve frowns, brows dipping together. Loki is tipsy enough to want to smooth them out again, a model enough to be concerned about wrinkles, and both enough to be willing to say so.
"No," Steve says, but he isn't certain.
"Well he's not an omega," Clint says, throwing a chip into the center of the table. He is certain.
"I'd kill for the cologne you wear," Natasha tells Loki as Clint and Steve continue talking circles around what, exactly, they think Loki is. Loki takes another sip of his drink; he holds his alcohol poorly, but then a lifetime sober does that.
(He shouldn't be drinking-consider your heart-but this feels too much like belonging to pass up.)
"He's a beta," Stark announces suddenly, tossing his cards on the table and standing. He's been quiet since the topic came up; Loki glances up, meeting his eyes across the table. "It's in his medical records."
"You're no fun," Clint complains.
"It's stupid anyway," Stark says. "We aren't animals. What does it matter?"
"Did you know," Loki asks, licking his lips on purpose, noting with delight that Stark's eyes flick down to follow the motion. "Did you know that omegas easily make ten to twenty thousand more than other models?"
"Modeling's an outlier," Stark says. "And you knew it going in."
"I did," Loki agrees. He leans onto the elbow, propping his chin in his hand. He swirls his drink around, smiling, and takes another sip. He feels wonderful.
How odd.
Stark snorts, breaking their gaze. Pity-he wanted more time to look.
"I'm out. No one call if something blows up." He pauses, points at Loki. "Especially you."
Clint waits until Stark is gone before he leans over.
"I think he likes you."