A/N: It has been an incredibly long time since the last installment of this has gone up. I have every kind of reason and excuse for that, but I still feel bad for making everyone wait so long. Worst part is I can't even promise that the next installment will be any faster than this one. Sorry, guys. There ain't no way in hell I'm abandoning the series, but I can't say when I'm going to be able to find good chunks of time to work on it, either. :(

Historian's Note: This series takes place after Phase One. Anything post The Avengers is not taken into account.

Series: Loki's Brood, Part XIII

Soundtrack: 'Loki's Brood' on 8tracks

Betas: SkyTurtle

Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers,Thor,Iron Man, nor the characters from them. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Oh, Yeah

Raven Ehtar

"Okay, JARVIS, how much time have we got?"

"Subject will arrive in approximately 73 seconds."

"Good, good. And you're clear on the procedure?"

"Indeed, sir."

"Alright, then. Godspeed to us, I guess."

Tony chuckled at his own pun, then wiped the smile off his face. That wouldn't do, no, mustn't smile. That would warn his victim that something was up and lessen the impact, might completely undermine what he was hoping to accomplish. He must remain straight-faced for as long as possible. No knowing or impish grins. He waited, leaning against one of the counters with his ankles crossed – to give a greater impression of nonchalance.

73 seconds seemed like a long time, especially when he lost count somewhere around 35, distracted by keeping his features in a neutral expression. He tried to estimate where he should be, decided he had probably been counting too fast in the first place, and gave up. By then it ought to have been a full minute.

… Right?

He was about to ask JARVIS for another time estimate, fully expecting the answer to be '5 seconds,' when he heard a door open down the hall. With a final adjustment to his pose and face, Tony waited.

At first there was only the sound of familiar footfalls, unhurried, measured, and gradually growing louder. Tony wondered, not for the first time, if he only ever heard those footfalls because he was allowed to. It seemed that the owner of that stride could just as or more easily walk with no sound at all. One day Tony would ask him about it.

Also growing louder was the music. It started very quietly, and it took a moment for the one approaching to take any notice of it. When he did Tony could tell, even without seeing him. The footfalls slowed for a moment, paused, and then picked up again, more carefully measured than before.

When Loki came around the corner, Tony had managed to wipe any trace of a smile off of his face, though he could feel it trying to come back around the corners of his mouth. He leaned back further into the corner of the counter to watch his handiwork unfold.

Loki was dressed in what Tony had come to think of as "hybrid casual," a mix of Earth and Asgardian styles that the exiled Prince preferred to wear around the Mansion or on those rare occasions when Tony could convince him to walk around with him in public. He was wearing shoes because he had actually gone out of his own accord today. His hair, which he had been allowing to grow ever longer, was held back in a loose ponytail. In one hand was a canvas bag, its sides bulging with groceries. The Asgardian's eyes, green glittering things even at this distance, were fixed on Tony, one brow raised questioningly.

Tony raised both his brows in return, as though he didn't understand. It was easier now he was actually facing Loki to hold back the grin.

Loki succumbed to the need for words first. "And what, exactly, is this?" he asked, motioning his free hand towards the ceiling where came the music, its volume now at truly obnoxious levels.

"What?" Tony endeavored to look mildly shocked. "You've never heard anything by Yello before?"

"If I have, it has not been this."

Tony shrugged. "If you've heard anything by Yello, you've heard this. Remind me to get you to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off one of these days."

Loki pulled a face at that. His introduction to Midgardian culture through the cinematic medium had been haphazard at best. He walked into the kitchen and put the canvas bag on a counter. Tony wondered what he had gone out to buy. Loki didn't often bother to do any actual shopping.

"And the purpose of playing this particular… 'tune'?"

Finally, Tony allowed a little of the grin to show. "Have you ever seen the way you swagger sometimes? 'Cause I have seen it, and this? This fits you to a T. Besides," he grinned a little wider. "I think it makes great entrance music."

There was an answering smile on Loki's face, he looked up at the ceiling as though seriously considering using it the next time he had to make a dramatic entrance. When he looked back down at Tony, there was a touch of mischief playing at his smile.

Uh-oh.

"This may work for entrances and exits," he said dismissively, walking towards Tony. "But will you be content with just this?"

Tony watched him, a little wary and his pulse quickening with anticipation. "How do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, voice dropping an octave or two. "Will you be satisfied with music just for when I enter or leave a room, or will we be assigning tunes to every mundane task?" Loki had crossed the kitchen, was now slowly encroaching on Tony. "Will there be themes for driving a vehicle, for cooking a meal, for taking a bath?"

Tony had already positioned himself in a corner – two counters to lean on were better than one, right? – and now Loki was right into his personal space, pressing him further into it. He looked up into dark green eyes, pulse singing.

"Will we have music for this?" The Asgardian leaned down and caught Tony's lips.

Oh. Oh. This was an unexpected outcome to his little joke. Still, he would take it. To turn away such a lovely outcome would be simply boorish, after all.

Loki did not attack Tony's mouth. He was gentle, slow, using his skillful mouth to persuade, to coax rather than to demand. It was what Loki was so well known for, and as always it worked more than any kind of frontal assault. It slipped past Tony's defenses, such as they were, and had him inviting the invader in.

When Loki pulled away, Tony felt distinctly warmer than he had before. He cleared his throat. The kitchen seemed to be spinning a little more than it had been a moment ago, and the music seemed to have stopped without his noticing.

"Would we have music for this?" Tony felt the rumble of the question in Loki's chest. It was so easy to think of Loki as… well, not weak, but when compared to his brother Thor, who was a mountain with a hammer he appeared almost delicate. Of course, next to Thor anyone save the Hulk seemed delicate. Even on his own, though, Loki gave the impression of being more slender than muscled. But that was an illusion brought on by his height. Loki had plenty of strength, as Tony was often reminded.

"Oh—" He cleared his throat again. "I think we have music for this already. We make it ourselves." Tony pulled Loki a little closer – when had his arms gotten there? – and straightened to make himself taller. "Can't you hear it?"

The second kiss was deeper, longer, deliciously languid. This was something that, despite having lasted for years, never ceased to be new to Tony. That one could have fire and heat and need, and to take it all slow. There was no need to grab what he could while he could and run before someone thought to snatch it away from him. This was not one of those trysts he had been so well known for; this was his partner, the man he lived with, with whom he was raising three children. Loki wasn't going anywhere, and neither was he. They could take time to savor.

Using the strength that was sometimes easy to forget he had, Loki lifted him off of his feet and set him down so he was seated on the counter. It brought them closer to the same height, and made for a more interesting position. Loki stepped between Tony's knees, staying as close as he was able – which was intimately close – and buried his face into the crook of Tony's neck.

"If this is what happens every time you go shopping," Tony bit back a gasp as teeth nipped a little harder. "You may get that chore for life," he finished, voice growing tight.

Loki removed his mouth from Tony's flesh, but it was almost as bad when he spoke. His voice had roughened, and it went straight to the pit of Tony's stomach. "A chore gladly undertaken, when such rewards await the dutiful." Long fingers snaked their way under the hem of Tony's shirt, trailing along hips and belly. He lost track of the rejoinder he had been about to make and concentrated instead on being happy in his role as a "reward."

His perch on the counter, despite being rather nice for the closeness, began to grow more uncomfortable than it was worth. His shirt was now halfway up his torso, he had taken the band out of Loki's hair, letting it loose for him to play with. Despite the languid way they had begun, there was a definite edge building to Tony's desire. He was about to suggest – or rather demand that they take their play upstairs, where there were much more comfortable places to perch, and where Tony could start taking off Loki's pants without worrying about fellow Avengers walking in on them. He really wanted to start taking off Loki's pants.

He was about to voice his demand, when the need for privacy was aggressively displayed.

Three shrieking blurs careened into the kitchen. For an instant Loki and Tony were frozen in their tangled position. Tony tried to leap backwards while sitting on a counter, while Loki worked to disentangle them more slowly. There was only so quickly they could separate when they had been so thoroughly wrapped around one another.

The children took no notice of their flushed fathers, and tore around the room without pause. From what Tony could see, there was no reason for the high spirits other than the simple joy of running, and more importantly of running indoors, and making an ungodly racket. Tony wondered if all children were agents of chaos and anarchy or if he was right, and that these three had a particular talent for it.

When the whirlwinds blew out again, Tony looked at Loki. "Good thing they're so unobservant when they're in that mood."

Loki smirked at him. "Oh, they saw. They simply don't care."

Tony winced. "I don't think I will ever get used to that idea, let alone the reality of it," he said. It had come as something of a shock to Tony when, a few years before, one of the triplets had walked in on them while they had been 'busy.' It had been a longstanding paranoia of his, finally come to full realization when Fenrir poked his head through their bedroom door at a most inconvenient time.

Tony had been even more shocked when all that came from the incident was a mumbled 'Sorry,' and a patient Fenrir waiting for them in another room.

He had gotten yet another lesson in the way of Asgardian life and families. It seemed that sex, in general, wasn't as taboo a subject as it was on the majority of Midgard, not even to kids. From an early age they understood what it was about. And while it was also understood that participants generally preferred privacy for the act itself, there was no embarrassment when speaking about it. Apparently it wasn't unheard of for partners to, ah, 'perform' in public, and it was simply understood that they must not care about their privacy all that much. Of course, all of this was on the word of Loki, and who knew just how reliable that really was?

"They are unlike Earth children." Loki shrugged.

"No doubt about that." He looked sideways at Loki, a slow smile spreading over his face. "Now the terrible three have moved on, how's about we get ourselves somewhere more comfortable – and private?"

Loki smiled back, waved his hand, and when they reappeared in their bedroom, Tony was much less worried about interlopers.

Steve was having trouble tracking down members of his team. There were some briefings to go through, and rather than dragging everyone into one of their by-now infamous meetings, he had decided to bring it to each of them in turn. It had seemed like a nice idea, but now he was seeing the merits of traditional meetings, even those that got out of hand - as they usually did in their little family. So far he'd managed to find and brief everyone save Tony and Loki.

When the triplets ran past him, he reached out and caught Fenrir and asked him where his parents were. If anyone would know then it would be the pup. He had a habit of knowing exactly where everyone was, whether it was any of his business to know or not. And if he didn't know, then the boy's nose could find them.

Steve asked if he knew where his fathers were. Without hesitation, preamble or euphemism, Fenrir told him exactly where they were and what they were doing.

Fenrir ran off as soon as Steve's fingers slackened their grip. After a couple of moments, Steve turned his feet towards the practice gyms - the opposite direction of any of the bedrooms, his ears uncomfortably warm.

The briefings really could wait for another time.

A/N2: I love picking on Steve. So much fun.

Asgardian Taboos: I don't have any idea if sex is a non-taboo subject in Marvel Asgardian culture, but from what I've been able to find it was much less of a taboo in Old Norse culture. Whether or not Loki was telling Tony the truth in this case I'm leaving up to interpretation.

And in case you couldn't tell, the song Tony was playing was Oh, Yeah by - yes - Yello. Cruising around on tumblr one day in the distant past I came across a gif set of Loki slow-mo walking to this tune and I couldn't help myself. ;3

Thank you for reading, everyone! I hope to be back before too long.