Tony hadn't been surprised that Thor was the first to accept Loki's presence, to even welcome it. Though judging from everything he knew about their relationship, he'd wondered why Loki suddenly tolerated Thor's attempts to behave as if nothing had happened to drive them apart. Then one morning he came out of the workshop after spending the night there and heard voices from around the corner.
"Brother, wait, I wish to talk to you." Thor's voice thundered through the hallway.
"I am NOT your brother, I never was." Loki sounded strained but calm, as if they had had this discussion too many times before. "And I do not wish to talk to you, I am on my way to see Tony." Loki's footsteps approached.
"Loki..." Thor's voice trailed off when Loki didn't stop.
Tony thought about retreating to the workshop again, he was not sure if they would mind that he'd overheard them. But it was too late, Loki had walked around the corner and spotted him. A smile spread on Loki's face, replacing the frown that had been there before.
"JARVIS informed me when I arrived that you had spent the night at the workshop, I was on my way to see if you would like to have breakfast or if you are too busy and need me to leave again."
Tony smiled back. "Not too busy and I'm still wired from all the coffee I had, breakfast sounds like a good plan. No idea when I've eaten last, but it's been a while."
"Your last meal was 18 hours ago, sir. Not counting the energy bar you had 4 hours ago."
"Thank you, JARVIS." Tony rolled his eyes at his AI.
"Then I have to make sure you are well fed before you get some sleep." Loki grinned, then turned around and led the way up to Tony's kitchen. Thor was nowhere to be seen; he must have left during their short conversation.
After this, Tony was curious and paid more attention to the interaction between Thor and Loki. He noticed that Loki was polite to Thor whenever someone else was present, but did never initiate any conversation between them. Sometimes they switched to a language Tony didn't understand, but from their tense posture it was pretty obvious that they were arguing about something. Tony didn't ask about it, but he let Loki know that he had noticed. No need to pressure him to talk about something he'd rather keep quiet; neither Tony nor Loki found it easy to talk about personal matters.
Two days later, Loki was watching a movie with Tony when an alarm came in: a few Doombots had been sighted. Natasha and Clint were on a SHIELD mission, Steve and Bruce were not at the Tower for whatever reason, Tony didn't really care, only Thor was at home.
"JARVIS, inform Thor of the situation and tell him to come up here, we have some fighting to do." He turned to Loki. "Are you up to smashing some very unimaginative robots? Otherwise I'll have to call Steve and Bruce in from wherever they are."
Loki grinned, stood up and summoned his armour on. "What are you waiting for, Stark? Or do you expect me to fight on my own?" His eyes glimmered with humour and excitement.
"Not everyone can change clothes that quickly, Harry Potter." Tony shot back, then turned to his bedroom to change into the undersuit.
Just when he was dressed, Thor appeared, and they walked out onto the landing platform together, where Tony had the suit assemble around him.
"JARVIS, coordinates?" Tony demanded while he handed comms to Thor and Loki. The required data appeared on his display and he read it out loud for the others. "Loki, you need a ride? Or can you teleport?"
"It will not be necessary to carry me around, Tony, I will get there on my own and wait for you." Loki replied tersely, with an almost imperceptible glance at Thor. Oh, right, can't show any weakness in front of his brother.
Tony closed the faceplate of his suit before rolling his eyes, then said: "See you there then." He took off, Thor flying at his side.
Barely a minute later they were at their destination, Tony could spot two Doombots from his current position, where he was circling over the buildings. They were attacking people on the street, it seemed to be a rather random action, there was no obvious purpose behind their selection of victims.
"Loki, where are you?"
"Down here, waiting for you." A short glimmer of green light drew Tony's attention to Loki's position on the roof of a nearby building.
"Got you. Thor, Loki, can you handle the two bots on the ground? I want to have a look around if there are more."
They both agreed, and Tony took off, noticing the surprising silence on the comm. He shrugged, they should know what they were doing. For now he had more important things to do but worry about squabbling siblings. With just the three of them they couldn't afford a surprise attack.
When he was certain that there were no more attackers around, he turned back to where Thor and Loki were fighting the two Doombots - or rather the one that was left, the second one lay shattered on the street. He was immediately fascinated: they fought together like they had done it all their life - which they probably had, now that he thought of it. It looked almost like a perfectly choreographed dance, not a fight. The Doombot didn't stand a chance against the combined attacks of Thor's hammer, Loki's spear and magic. Tony watched in astonishment as Loki leapt forward with his spear, embedded it in the bot, then danced out of the way of Thor's hammer - there was no other word for those graceful movements. When that didn't destroy the bot, Loki threw a wave of green magic at it which pushed it back towards Thor, who grabbed Mjolnir out of the air at just the right moment to smash it down on the bot that was now right in front of him. They grinned at each other when the bot didn't move any more, then turned searching looks upwards for Tony.
"Friend Tony, are there any more of those mechanical creatures for us to fight?" Thor seemed eager for more.
"I'm sorry to disappoint, but you've already killed all of them. Wow, that was impressive to watch, the two of you fighting together like that." The words tumbled out of Tony's mouth without any conscious thought.
Loki's expression hardened, he looked from Tony to Thor and back again. "If you do not need me any more, I will return home now." He didn't even wait for a reply, was just gone.
"Dammit!" Tony swore, then he called SHIELD and asked for a clean-up team, which arrived a few minutes later.
"Come on, Thor, let's go home." He could not stand to watch the sad look on Thor's face that had appeared after Loki's sudden departure. "We'll order pizza and watch a movie, how's that sound."
"That is a good plan for after battle, Tony." Thor forced a smile.
Tony had hoped to find Loki at the Tower, but he wasn't there, had obviously gone back to his apartment. So he spent the night with Thor. Steve and Bruce joined them later. They watched silly movies, told the others about their fight, and generally did everything but mention Loki apart from his help in battle.
Once Tony was back in his penthouse, he had JARVIS call up video footage of the day when Loki had helped them for the first time and Thor had talked to him. It had seemed all very friendly to Tony, but he had been exhausted and half asleep, so he might have missed something. And he wanted to understand what was going on between them - if only to avoid hitting any sore spots for either of them in future.
He saw Thor enter his bedroom on the screen, looking down at Loki's sleeping form with a concerned and fond expression. Loki opened his eyes, blinked a few times as if to remember where he was, then spotted Thor standing there.
"Go away, Thor, I do not need your pity." His voice was rough and he sounded as tired as he looked.
"I merely wanted to see for myself that you were unharmed, brother." Thor's voice was sad.
"I am NOT your brother, Thor, didn't you listen to your father?" Loki sat up in bed, seemingly unwilling to have this conversation while laying down.
"You've been my brother for a very long time, how could I just forget about it?" Thor send a pleading look Loki's way. "But I do not wish to fight with you."
"Then what do you want?" Loki asked exasperatedly.
"I have noticed that you found your way into the Man of Iron's heart..." Thor hesitated. "I do not wish to see him hurt, not by you or anyone else..." His voice trailed off.
Loki rolled his eyes. "I do not intend to hurt him. Do you think I would have warned him and fought on his side if I did not care about him?"
Thor sat down at the foot of the bed, looking relieved. "Good, because he is my friend and shield brother. And I do not want to see you hurt either."
Before Loki could reply, Tony walked into the bedroom.
Hmm, obviously things hadn't been as easy between them as it had seemed at first. Though Tony was glad to see Thor's concern about both of them. Without full knowledge of what had happened in their past, there was nothing he could do. He shrugged and decided to not intrude into their privacy any more than he already had and didn't watch the footage of their conversation that had happened later that day, after everyone else had left. But just in case he needed to at some point, he had JARVIS make a translation.
Loki called him a day later, caller ID hidden for the first time since Tony had shown up at his apartment.
"Hey, you're hiding again, or is it supposed to be a challenge for me?" Tony greeted him.
"I would appreciate if you did not try to remove my spell for now, Tony." Loki replied almost hesitantly. "I have some things to take care of in private and do not wish to announce my location to anyone, not even you." He quickly added: "You do not need to be concerned, I am not doing anything harmful, just have to take care of a few personal things."
Tony let out the breath he had been holding. "Okay, I trust you." Part of him didn't, thoughts whirled through his mind what on earth Loki could be doing that would require him to stay hidden from everyone, but he refused to act on this suspicion as long as he didn't have anything more substantial to worry about. "Was there a particular reason you were calling or did you just miss me and couldn't wait another moment to hear my voice?" He teased to relieve the tension.
"I merely wanted to let you know that I will be away for two or three days, I did not want you to worry." Loki replied calmly, but Tony could hear his grin.
"I'll try not to get too lonely here, with all those people around and my work to distract me." Tony smiled as well.
"Good, I will let you know when I am back." Tony could hear Loki take a deep breath. "And thank you for trusting me, Tony."
"You are very welcome." Tony felt a bit ashamed for his earlier thoughts.
They talked for a few more minutes about unimportant things, then Tony went back to his work, trying not to worry about Loki's behaviour.
Loki came back three days later and almost literally fell into Tony's bed. It was a night Tony wouldn't forget any time soon. The next morning they talked for a long time, Loki repaid Tony's trust in him by telling him what he had done while he was away.
"So basically you've built yourself a new safehouse, because you're fine with me knowing where you live, but you can't be sure that nobody else found out by following or tracking me?" Tony summed up, when Loki had finished.
"Yes, and you had your driver take you there, I don't know him at all; how could I trust him?"
"If he wasn't trustworthy, he wouldn't work for me any more." Tony made sure he was looking Loki straight in the eyes when he continued: "But I get that you need a place where you feel completely safe, so I won't ask you any more about it."
"Thank you." Loki looked relieved. "And I will not give up the place I am living at, I just needed an alternative in case of emergency."
After this things between Thor and Loki were back to the way they were before - Thor was seeking Loki's attention, Loki tried to avoid Thor and was painfully polite to him when others were present. But when they had to fight, they still worked together like a well oiled machine - only now Tony was wiser and didn't talk about it any more, so Loki didn't feel the need to run away after a fight.
