Sugarcoat
Slowly Loki opened his eyes. He smiled. Teleporting into Tony's flat became easier every time, and he had already lost count how many times he had done it. It had been months since their first private meeting and by now, Loki went and came as he liked. Quickly, he checked the rooms for Tony, but his dear wasn't home at the moment.
"Jarvis?" he asked, looking nowhere specific, enjoying the way his voice sounded when the sound was not reflected by every surface, like it was at home in Asgard all the time, but how it was absorbed by the carpet, couch and curtains of Tony's living room.
"Hello, sir. Have you had a nice day?" As always, there was no emotion in the computer's voice, though Tony had recently made some changes in the settings. The "sir" was one of them, and Loki loved him even more for it.
"Quite so, thank you for asking. Would you mind telling me when Mr. Stark comes home?" Loki was always very polite with the device. He knew it didn't care about that, but he did it kind of out of reflex, he was raised to talk back politely if someone did so to him, he did not even lie to Jarvis. He really had had a nice day, jumping back and forth between Midgard and Asgard doing what he liked to do, and checking every few hours if Tony was still working or already done. It was eight in the evening now, and usually Tony would have finished by now to spent the evening with him, but sometimes S.H.I.E.L.D. called with a new order for the Avengers, which delayed these plans a bit. Tony's absence did bother Loki a little, but he was able to cope with that for now, mostly out of excitement. While strolling through Paris this morning, invisible to the humans because they always seemed to have issues with his usual black-green-gold attire, he had decided to remove this special hindrance once and for all. Of course, he owned some Midgard-style clothes, but they were very formal. He wanted clothes he could show Tony later, that would make him look like a normal person to anybody who didn't know his face, so he came back with a green pullover, dark-blue jeans and a pair of black shoes that had a white circle with a darker colored star on them.
Jarvis answered a second later, so he did not disturb Loki's thoughts at all, of course. Loki was a higher being. His thoughts were fast. "He left a message for you a few hours ago. Would you like me to show it to you?"
"That would be great." His answer was followed by a few electronic sounds, then the screen closest to him came alive, with Tony's face on it.
"Hey Love" he said, a smirk widening on his face. "I'm out right now, you know, flying around somewhere and saving people, stuff like that. Don't worry, I'm not with some other girl right now, how could I? I'm yours, you know that." Tony smiled, something changing in his eyes. "I'll be fine and back at four in the morning, six at latest. I love you, babe. See you later." Tony winked and the screen went black.
It took Loki a while to become clear about his feelings after hearing this. He decided to call his current state of emotion insincerity. Somehow this felt off. Tony didn't call him "love" or "babe", he said "Loki", or, after one of his wonderful invincible smirks, he also used "Reindeer Games" sometimes. And anyway, what was he talking about, "some other girl"? Tony was gay; everybody close to him knew that, though he hadn't made it public yet, and Loki was pretty sure he could be counted as a man. His thoughts slowed down, he, who was older that some universes, stood still and shocked inside his lover's living room, feeling something change inside of him. The god of mischief replayed the message in his head, but he had known it right in the first place: On this video, Tony lied to him, in a way that did not require the ability to feed on lies and make them happen to understand. That again meant that he didn't lie out of treachery to Loki, those lies the god knew. They were created within seconds in the minds of people, covering something in haste. These lies were well-placed and would sound perfectly normal to anybody else… that was it. To anybody else… but who would hear this message? Jarvis had just said it, Tony had left the message for Loki. The computer would never play it to anybody else, even if the person asked for it directly. So why had Stark lied? Fear, Loki answered himself, fear and probably pressure. Fear that there might be someone capable of getting the message from Jarvis. But wasn't it impossible to hack this special system Tony had created all by himself? Which made the only logical option left that someone had been in here with Stark when he had recorded the video, someone who was not a friend of his, but on the contrary, had been and most likely still was hostile towards him and made him say this message. Just a fragment of a second Loki smiled, fondly thinking that only his incredible lover would be able to pull something as smart as these lies off in just a matter of seconds, but the happiness quickly faded as he realized what kind of situation Tony must have been in. To force him into that, the person had to be powerful, or must have had a weapon aimed straight at Tony. He or she might not even have been alone, for they had been able to keep Tony Stark in control inside his own house. Why hadn't Jarvis reacted? Probably they had also forced Tony to stop the system from defending him, he must even have deleted anything about what happened, otherwise the computer would have told Loki right away.
As the trickster became aware of his surroundings again, reappearing from deep within his mind, he also became aware of his emotional state. All the insincerity from the beginning was gone, and had been replaced by something that he had not felt in a long time. It was what the Avengers had fought against, and what before them Thor had tried so hard to get out of his brother. Loki's mind remembered the uncontrollable greed for power and acknowledgement, the wrath and destruction he used to fulfill his desires. It felt like he never had a break from it, as if there never had been a break he had enjoyed and loved, as it had given him things that he now considered precious. It seemed they were precious enough to him to fall again, to become one of the most feared beings alive once more. With a thought he was in his battle attire again, complete with his horned golden helmet and green cape, a golden spear forming in his hand. The clothes he had bought this morning lay neatly folded on the gray table in front of Tony's couch, he would show him these later. Loki was not sure whether Stark had done it on purpose or if he had said it accidentally, but in the video message, he had given Loki the only way the god could find him without simply taking apart any building on this planet. As he disappeared into nothing, the words "I'm yours" echoed in Loki's head.