So...I became a FrostIron fan after seeing the loveliness that was Tom Hiddleston's eyes and epic pouty face combined with RDJ's awesome snarkiness cuz srsly. Avengers win. Plus, do you know Loki's history? I can't even express the feels I explode with...
Anyway, this was based off a dream I had, so, very much crack!drabbling here.
Warnings and Disclaimer: a wee bit of language, characters belong to the epicness of Marvel (which is basically Stan Lee and a few other dudes like the Kirbster), implied slashiness going on as well as crack and devious sabotaging of Stark's life as he knows it (without his knowing it). R&R!
Dreaming or awake, we perceive only events that have meaning to us. ~Jane Roberts
Dreaming men are haunted men. ~Stephen Vincent Benet
Loki transported into the Avengers mansion, setting off every alarm at the loudest volume they were capable of just to be extra annoying or attention-grabbing it seemed, and promptly fell on top of Tony Stark like a clingy wet towel-heavy and everywhere at once-while he had been lounging on the couch enjoying his few moments of peace and quiet.
To his credit, the billionaire only raised an eyebrow, clicked off the now-to-be-ignored television, and debated whether or not to poke the god in the forehead and demand some answers.
"Tony," he gasped prettily, solving Tony's debate for him as he lifted his head up from off his chest and showed his eyes bright with tears he was trying to fend off. "It's absolutely horrible! Completely barbaric what they would have me do-the gods have not a soul to feel with nor eyes to see!"
"Loki, sweetheart," the human drawled without any real concern as he inspected his nails. "You're speaking gibberish to me. Start at the beginning, what's going on?"
"For my punishment..." he paused, sucking in a breath. "They would have me wed. To a wife!" At Stark's unblinking silent care, he invited softly, "You may weep with me, Anthony Stark."
And like that, Tony became a ball of crying mess, holding onto Loki as if he was comforting him and not the other way around. Loki smiled to himself in contentment as he clung to the touch, burrowing into the warmth. "Oh, Loki," Tony sobbed, pulling him even closer. "It's just awful. Marriage is the absolute worst thing in the world! And to make you marry a wife-how cruel can they be to us?"
"Us?" Loki's control snapped along with his now wide-open eyes, and he scrambled into an upright and semi-decent position on Iron Man's lap.
Tony coughed, suddenly fresh out of tears as he wilted in embarrassment. "Er, hi guys," he waved at his assembled teammates all suited up-except for Bruce, but it looked like he could have the Hulk come out any moment now. "Found Loki," he added lamely.
"What's going on here, Stark?" Steve asked, using his I'm-the-Captain-so-you-better-start-explaining voice.
"Funny story that, really. You see-"
"Loki!" Thor bounded in after the crack of his transportation blew out the eardrums of mortals close by-aka, Tony. "Why have you so soon left the festivities? It is not every eon your brother is to be married," he cheered joyfully before he took in his surroundings. At least the alarms had stopped now. "What has happened, my friends?"
"Tony's fraternizing with the enemy," Steve ratted out.
"What!" Tony squawked with a lap full of evidence contrary, like always. "I am not! I was just comforting him after the inhumane torture you're putting him through," It was his turn to point out someone and at Thor. Loki started to shrink in on himself.
"I can't believe you. You're supposed to be gods but your punishment for him-which is partly your guys' fault anyways for neglecting and abusing him or threatening him to make sure he does what you want-your punishment is to have him married off to someone who'll hate him because she's tied down to him until Ragnarok comes and he'll hate that because he won't be free to have the one thing he needs since he won't ever be able to have a relationship with her which means he's condemned to a loveless life for all of eternity!"
Loki choked on his words, making a strangled sort of noise in the back of his throat. But Tony was too busy glaring at Thor to notice and Thor was pondering Tony's long-winded statement with a confused expression in his furrowed brows and hand to his chin-clearly, he was devoted to processing one task at a time.
Suddenly, Thor smiled and filled the room with his booming laughter. "Ah, Starkson, my friend, I believe my brother is putting you on. The only Asgardian who is getting married, for punishment or otherwise, is myself. Loki's punishment has already been had,"
Loki curled up even further on himself with a faint whimper. This was not going the way he planned. Stupid Thor. He squeezed his eyes close and awaited however Tony was going to punish him for making a fool out of him.
"Loki?" He winced at the deceptively light question, feeling the heat of the hand that was no doubt going to strike back move towards his face. He heard a low chuckle. "Relax. I'm not going to hit you,"
The warm palm of that hand was placed on his cheek gently and Loki gasped. He leaned into the touch before he realized he was doing that, but sighed and relented to his desires. He hesitantly opened his eyes again, but Tony didn't appear to be angry. He had a smirk and a soft light in his eye. "I think I know why, but I'm gonna ask. Why?"
Loki snorted with false bravado, trying not to appear like he was wholly uncertain about anything and everything. "What a positively inarticulate question. But, I suppose, I shouldn't have expected any better from you-"
"Loki," Tony reprimanded gently. "You're going to have to try harder than that if you expect to me to believe you,"
The Trickster blinked and looked down, swallowing hard once. "I-Everyone was celebrating Thor's engagement to Lady Jane and I was also welcome. But it was worse than it used to be. Welcome, like always, but viewed as an outsider-even more so for my deeds have filled the halls of Asgard and my heritage is known to all. No one, not even-they would not look at me. Much less touch me..." he trembled.
"I could not bear the loneliness. Even Loki the youngest Odinson, the weakest was touched. They used to come to me in droves begging for healing, pleading for help, asking for blessing even though I was the Mischief-Maker. To be alone in the happiness of others was suffocating. So I came to you, casting my charms and fabricating a lie so that you would accept me and attempt to resolve my pain. That is all,"
"No, it's not," Tony's smirk grew as Loki's eyes widened. "You picked me for a reason."
"I-I do not know of what you speak," he stammered quickly, trying to mentally prevent Stark from continuing on.
"Well, I do. How 'bout I explain it to everyone, hmm?" he continued before Loki could open his mouth to disagree. "I thought it was interesting that you turned a lot of guys to your side but when you tried to turn me, it didn't work,"
"That's because of that infernal device in your chest!" he sprouted almost nervously.
"That's what I thought, too,"he acknowledged with a toothy grin. "But then I realized something. You were very selective about your minions. Every one that you picked wouldn't follow you if they had a choice about it because you didn't want anybody that close to you. One, because that ruins the fun of having minions-trust me, I would know- and two, because it would make you vulnerable to caring. And you knew there was a chance of that with us because we are so much alike. So you let me go purposefully and pretended that was it,"
"That's not it at all! My staff did not work on you," he exclaimed with a fearful look at Thor. Not that he had to be too worried; the big oaf didn't appear to catch on to the subtleties of their conversation topic.
"Oh, I'm sure it'll work just fine on me," he leered quietly in his ear. Loki refused to blush.
"Tony," he said between clenched teeth, exhaling furiously with a hand to his forehead. No use hiding the subtle things now; Tony wouldn't let him if he tried. "A Prince of Asgard simply cannot be gay!"
"But you are," he pointed out easily. Loki just deflated.
"Brother, is this true?" Thor asked delicately, taking a step forward. "Mortals may have misconstrued an act to be-"
"No, Thor," he sighed. "I'll not deny it. It is true,"
"You are certain of this?"
He laughed humourlessly. "As certain as I am Sleipnir's parent,"
Thor frowned out of concern. "Then you know what this means, brother,"
"Yes," he sighed once again, still not facing the person to whom he addressed but watching Tony's rather blank yet still pleased expression. "I know. I must speak to Odin regarding my inappropriate behaviour once more,"
Tony's face wasn't blank enough to mask the second of a smirk that bled through and Loki grinned back at the man he was still sitting on with only a touch of evil. "I will come back for you, Stark, and when I do-" he pulled him close by his collar and kissed him breathless. "We shall see about your...staff theory,"
"God, yes," Tony whispered. "We'll need a lot of experiments, though, to prove my theory, of course. Scientific method is very demanding,"
"I have no doubt of that," Loki smirked, moving to his brother's side. Turning to him, he simply said, "Let us go, Thor, so that I may come sooner," he flashed a grin at Stark before they disappeared.
Tony flopped back on the couch with an extremely satisfied sigh. If Loki had only accepted his drink they would have arrived at this agreement sooner, probably.
"I'm still going to count that as fraternizing with the enemy," Steve muttered tiredly, shaking his head as he walked away.
Tony watched him leave, they all did, before he addressed the rest of his crew with a smirk and waggle of the eyebrows to complete his insinuations. "It might be awhile, but you're all invited to watch-if you want. Natasha, you have the special pleasure of choosing to join in if you wish,"
"Unbelievable," she scoffed, stalking off to probably shoot things. Clint followed after her with a secretly amused upturn to his mouth.
And then there were two.
Bruce crossed his arms and gave him a good look. He had a little grin on his face, so Stark assumed that there would be no 'Hulk smash' anytime soon. "You always have...interesting experiments, Stark,"
"Same could be said of you, Gamma-Ray boy," he said with a little salute.
"What about Pepper?" Speaking of cutting to the chase.
Tony stared at the remote in his hand and wished it were a nice swirling glass of something alcoholic instead. He wasn't that picky. Anything would do. Battery acid wasn't really that good for his liver. "What about her?" he asked back, eyes flickering to view his reaction.
Banner pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against with his shoulder and took a few slow steps closer. "Aren't you kinda in a relationship with her?"
"We have an arrangement," he said plainly after taking in a breath. If he tilted the device on its right side at an angle, the light refracted from the windows bounced off it with a similar kind of glare that a tumbler would. "Absolutely no women for anything less than sex, but any other kind of affair is allowed provided that I don't ever put her in the position of having to kick them out and clean up after me. And I attempt to not have that many out of respect for her. But she understands with me being a hero and all of my history, and with how busy she is, it's impossible to believe there wouldn't be one...eventually."
He looked up from his substitute tumbler. "So she wrote up a clause for both of our sakes. It's easier for her if she has proof it's not personal," he shrugged.
"And it's not. Personal. Right?"
"Of course not," Tony said after a moment of silence with a little bit of huskiness to his voice.
"Uh-huh," Banner said in his you-don't-fool-me-for-an-instant voice. "So, why do you know so much about Loki?" He looked awfully predatory and accusing as he stepped around the table to get closer.
"It's like I said-we have a lot in common," he said slowly, watching his movements carefully-he wasn't an idiot, Banner was dangerous as long as he was alive-, licking his lips. "It's not that hard to guess..."
"Hmm, are you certain that's the only reason, Tony?" Bruce purred, flicking into Loki's body as his hands walked up Tony's chest. "You know you can tell me anything,"
"Thank god. That was about to get disturbing," Tony breathed a sigh of relief. "How long have you been parading around as the Hulk?"
Loki sneered. "I'd sooner return to Asgard for good than suffer that green behemoth in my vicinity. He was never here,"
"So, the...you that came and did return to Asgard didn't come here because you were lonely and needed some TLC?" he asked with a hint of worry. Loki stared at him for awhile. Like, a really long while. He was prepared to start sweat-dropping.
"No," he eventually admitted, which didn't help the tight feeling in his chest until he elaborated. "I was lonely and desirous of someone's company. But I was also very bored. Heimdall's eyes were always turned towards me at the slightest of ill and a Trickster with no tricks is nothing.
"So, with Asgard closed to me, I had to look for my entertainment elsewhere. I distinctly remember you as infuriating and intriguing. There was fun to be had with you if I could sway your thoughts and actions to suit my purpose-which was easier than anticipated," Loki gave him a calculating look, his voice cold and eyes guarded. "What reason do you have for such interest in me?"
"I'll answer that if you'll answer mine,"
"Deal," he hissed almost instantly.
Here goes nothing. "I like you. I think you're interesting. If I believed we are a product of our history, Fate spelled out from the moment we are born and whatnot, I probably would have wanted or at least helped your conquest. And it doesn't hurt that you are extremely gorgeous and charming," he paused as Loki absorbed this information in stunned silence-his eyes gave him away. "Does that satisfy you?"
He sucked in a breath. "It...does. Though, I do not appreciate your hint that I should renounce my ways and become part of your group,"
"Had to try," he said with a quirk of his lips. "Now, my turn. How much of this was real?"
Loki's face went uncharacteristically soft. "Do not question this, Tony, any of it, or you will surely go mad,"
"What?" he pressed. "Question why me, how long have you really been here in disguise, is this the real you, is any of this real?"
"Yes, exact-" he froze for a second, eyes widening and things suddenly got blurry. He thought he saw a curved smirk break Loki's face in a manner less than harsh. "Oh, Tony. You ask too many questions. But that's why I enjoy you so-" floated in his ears as he blinked awake.
Awake.
He sat up and looked around his room as he tried to calm his heart. "A dream," he murmured to himself. "It was all a dream," He laughed.
"Of course it was a dream, that's something too fucked up to be reality," He glanced at the sleeping Pepper in his bed and tucked a strand behind her ears to fall even more elegantly over her naked shoulders with a faint smile. This is what really is his. "Of course I should know better than to think I would cheat on you with Loki, arrangement or not withstanding," he said, trying not to think about how his words felt funny like it wasn't completely true. Instead, he shook his head clear, leaned down to kiss her forehead and turned into her to fall back asleep.
He missed Pepper open one startling green eye and give the faintest of smirks.