Chapter Two
Tony jumped awake, whole body seizing and staring at the ceiling. Seconds ticked by as his heart hammered in his ears, and he sat up, forcing himself to breathe slowly and evenly as a chill racked his body. He was soaked in sweat, and the dream still hung at the edge of his memory. "Jarvis. Time?"
"Three sixteen in the morning, sir. Loki appears to be asleep on your sofa."
That had been one of the awkward things about the distance limit: He couldn't just dump Loki in a guest suite. Luckily it was less than ten meters between his couch and his bed. Loki didn't seem to care.
He staggered to his feet beside the bed, pulling on sweats and a tank top then rummaging in his bedside drawer ("Just over nine meters, sir") and finding the kitbag he was looking for before going to his bedroom door and opening it.
His apartment was silent, except for the low crackle of the fireplace ("Loki asked if I could turn it on, sir, I did not see the harm"). Stepping out into the living room, he found Loki apparently asleep as described, curled up facing the fire. He padded by and went to his balcony, stepping out and leaving the door cracked before sitting down cross legged on the tile at the edge of the distance allowed, digging into the kit bag for his rolling papers.
Loki blinked awake and listened to Stark walk by. Quiet step for a Midgardian, especially considering who it was. He heard a door slide open and closed and sat up slowly, looking over the top of the sofa and seeing Stark sitting outside in the dead of night. He was wondering what was going on, as Stark's back was to him, then he saw a flick of fire, a lighter.
He got up and walked slowly across the room, not surprised when Stark looked over his shoulder and saw him coming, but didn't really react. So he opened the door and stood there, suddenly in the roar of wind and a large city. "Do you sleep, Stark?"
"No." Tony replied, shifting to one side and waving. "It's a big balcony come on out."
Loki stepped out slowly and decided against the chairs, instead sitting on the side, leaning back against the wall and facing Tony, only a few feet away. "You don't sleep?"
"Do you?" Tony took a drag on the spliff slowly, held it, felt the slow curl of relaxation work down his back bit by bit, answering the slow downshifting of his brain. He exhaled the smoke, seeing Loki wrinkle his nose a bit at the smell.
"I suppose I sleep enough."
"Lucky." He rubbed his eyes, and felt the heavy poison green gaze Loki had on him. "I have PTSD."
"You have what?" Loki blinked.
"Oh, wow. Uh. It's a Midgardian mental problem. We go through something and the brain can't adapt and it's… not pleasant."
"And you still fight?"
"Life goes on." He took another drag. "I'm not alone."
There was another long silence, Loki looking out over the city. "I thought you were all mewling, passive sheep."
"For every person willing to flow with the crowd there's another that will poison the well just to make a statement." He blew a smoke ring, head tilted to one side.
It hadn't been Tony's idea to go on medicinal cannabis. After all, the last thing the media needed to get ahold of was that Ironman smoked pot. But he'd started drinking. A lot. He'd known he was starting to have a problem and then Pepper was there with a prescription, and that strong understanding stare. And he'd been embarrassed, but hell, he liked weed. And it helped. He had been able to cut back the alcohol, which had been the goal, and he found that smoking helped him.
"What is that racket?" Loki suddenly asked, leaning to look out at the busy streets.
Tony heard it a few minutes later, cheerful whoops and cheers that quickly became an understandable "WOO HOO FUCK YEAH!" Then something blurred by the balcony, swinging by up his tower.
"What. Was that." Loki's voice was flat.
"Spiderman." Tony blew out smoke.
And, as if cued, he appeared again, lowering from above hanging upside down in that odd way he did, hands hanging onto the web with his feet also clinging. "That is a filthy terrible habit you have there, Stark."
"Hey brat." Tony grinned. "Take a seat."
Spiderman looked at Loki, then at Tony. "Who's tall skinny and gothic?"
"Loki, this is Spiderman. Spiderman, this is Loki, he's cool."
Loki looked at Tony, baffled.
"Loki. Oh what have you gotten into now?" Spiderman twisted and crouched on his toes on the railing then hopped down, sitting on Tony's other side and rolling his mask partly up, accepting the spliff from Tony and taking a drag.
"Is this another of New York's heroes?" Loki was disbelieving.
"Yes, yes he is." Tony patted Spiderman's near shoulder. "He missed the fun with you."
"Couldn't get out of class." Spiderman sulked and passed it back.
"How the hell old are you?"
"What's the line from V is for Vendetta? Something about asking a masked man who he is?" Spidey seemed to peer at him.
"How does that outfit protect you? It looks thin as silk." Loki was staring at Spiderman.
"Oh, uh, it doesn't' really protect me. Just my identity. I mostly dodge."
"He is one agile mother fucker." Tony informed Loki. "He can bend in places most people don't have places."
"Do you always treat your friends this way?" Loki wanted to know.
"Well… yeah." He snorted smoke and passed back to Spiderman. "Hey, I'm keeping Loki company this weekend. Can you pick up the small crap?"
"As I can, though this is not helping my motivation." Spiderman giggled, then sirens howled in the distance and he passed it back, standing and pulling his mask back down. "Nice to meet you Loki." And he was gone, diving off the balcony and swinging away through the city.
"This, this place." Loki said, voice flat, unable to even get out the full statement.
"I know, right. New York." He wove a hand out over the city. "Amazing place, I'm kind of glad I moved here." He slouched and ended up sitting next to Loki against the wall, but in a much sloppier pose, utterly relaxed.
"You don't hate me at all." His voice was still flat. "Do you?"
"No, why should I?" Tony looked up at him.
"And he didn't either?"
"I think he's actually dealt with bigger assholes than you, no offense. You're not the only swinging dick to try to put holes in this city." Tony patted Loki's near knee.
There was a long silence, during which Tony slouched on Loki a bit, killing the last of the spliff, luxuriating in a mind that had downshifted to an idle. That never happened. Even when he was asleep, math and equations were burning in his brain. Even when he was having sex. Always, his brain chased ideas. And when his brain latched onto something bad, it put him in a bad place very quickly.
So, he smoked a few times a month. And it worked. His mind slowed for a bit and the bad place faded back to his past.
"You need to go back to bed, Stark." Loki finally said, uncomfortable in a distant way but also oddly cheerful, and hungry.
"No, we should eat something first, you're hungry right?" Tony saw the look. "Oh, yeah, you're second hand high. Come on." He stood and offered a hand down, pleased when Loki took it and stood, then let go.
"What does that even mean?"
"Ohhhh boy. Stick around for a while. I will debauch you."
"You think you can debauch an Asgard?" Loki started to laugh then saw Tony's expression, which looked like a man accepting a challenge head on. "…Stark…"
"Don't worry. I'll probably forget this in the morning anyway." And he went back inside, trailing Loki, who was trying his hardest not to be intrigued.
Loki woke up to someone clearing his throat and had to assimilate some information very quickly. One, he had fallen asleep sitting up on Stark's sofa. Fair enough, but Stark was asleep across his lap, chest down and face propped on one his thighs, one arm wrapped around Loki partway, somehow. Every time Stark took a breath, the edge of the reactor in his chest dug into one of Loki's legs, just enough to make it very obvious what it was.
Next was the fact that Steve was standing in front of the fireplace, arms crossed and just looking at them. It was a purposefully neutral stare, the one of someone waiting for an explanation on something.
"If I say it was not my idea… will that improve the situation?" Loki said slowly.
Steve smirked. "Nah it isn't your fault. Tony sleeps like a cat, if he dozes off and someone's nearby they automatically become a Tony pillow."
"I rather wanted to hate this man. He is after all my jailer." He looked down at Tony, sleeping peacefully.
"Having a hard time doing so? Yeah, I get you. I had him all wrong for a long time. He proved me wrong." Steve stepped over and leaned down, ruffling a hand through Tony's hair. "Hey. Tony. Time to get up."
Tony stirred and opened about half an eye, mumbling incoherently as he looked at Steve.
"Do you even know who you're sleeping on?"
So he rolled over partway and stared up at Loki, barely awake and rumpled. There was a long silence, and then he pointed a hand at Loki, sort of. "You have fucking amazing eyes. I mean you know that right?"
"Tony." Steve was trying very, very hard not to laugh.
"I'm going, I'm going." He rolled off and hit the floor, hitched under the armpits and lifted effortlessly to his feet by Steve. "Thanks."
"Oh, ugh. You've been smoking, haven't you." Steve put him to arm's length. "That stuff will kill you."
"Reeeeeeefer maaaaaadness." Tony wiggled his fingers in a rather odd way, then stumbled away to his bedroom, taking off his tanktop as he walked.
Loki staggered to his feet and staggered away, straightening his trousers, his clothes blurring and resetting to knock the dirt and smell of cannabis out, rubbing his face. He was aware of Steve watching him as he sorted himself out, shaking his hair and the tangles falling out, his hair returning to the wave it was usually in.
"Mr. Laufeyson, STOP. Right this moment." Jarvis said sharply.
He turned and faced the ceiling, and in that second it hit. He buckled and howled, and howled, the pain shaking him, yanking his spine. Then he was swept off his feet and moved and as fast as it had started, the pain ended, and he came back to reality, sagging in the arms of a very worried Captain America, who was looking down at him with gentle eyes.
"Ten meters?" Steve asked quietly. "Loki?"
Loki shoved away from him, swearing vibrantly and sagging over the back of the couch, coughing and gagging. "I swear brother… I swear…" He jerked when one of Steve's hands rubbed over his back between his shoulders, hissing. "Don't touch me Midgardian."
Steve held his hands up but stayed close, watching Loki's labored breathing start to smooth out.
"What did I miss?" Tony's voice asked, appearing in the doorway to his bedroom, half dressed and still drying his hair.
"Ten meters, Stark." Loki did that unbalanced giggle.
His eyes widened. "Oh fuck, Loki, that was not on purpose."
"Oh and that makes up for it?" Loki wheeled on him and stomped over it, livid with rage. "Do you have any idea what this thing does to me?"
"Only, you know, in theory." He didn't step back and dropped the towel aside, in jeans and boots. "So, I need a breakfast burrito. Guess you're coming with me."
The taller man's jaw dropped, total incomprehension flickering across his face.
"Look, until someone lets me invent a time machine I can't go back and fix it, and I've been banned from creating holes in time-space for the moment, so you'll just have to accept an apology. I really, seriously, did not mean for that to happen." Tony shoved his hands in his pockets, looking up at him, still not entirely awake. In the background he could see Steve rubbing his palms into his eyes and shaking his head.
"You are the most impossible man I have ever met." Loki fumed, then looked down at the reactor in Tony's chest. Brilliant crisp light and a low hum, he'd seen the light showing through Stark's clothes. A network of old scars cradled the socket of the thing. It was, all in all, a bizarre combination of beautiful and grotesque. "So. This thing, then." He flicked with a finger and saw an answering flicker on Tony's face. "You felt that, didn't you."
"Yes." He stepped away and went to his dresser, finding one of his thick scruffy band shirts, coming back as he put it on.
"Why?"
"Why did I feel it or why do I have it?" Tony cocked his head.
"Stark." Loki folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.
"I feel it because it goes deep into my body and it resonates. Why do I have it? Nothing. Just, you know. Shrapnel that will kill me." Tony patted his shoulder and walked by, and took the opportunity to yank on Loki's hair, then neatly dodged the swat that followed it. "Boy do you blow hot and cold. Steve? Breakfast burritos?"
"No, I have to go. You're going to take him out, seriously?" Steve asked. That brought Loki up short for a moment, looking between them.
"Yeah, he needs to get outside. Don't worry I can handle it."
"Stark, do not toy with me." Loki said, voice low.
He was digging a bottle of water out of his fridge, and looked at Loki. "Huh? Toy with you? I'm hungry and I can't cook for shit. Therefore, I need to leave the tower to get food, therefore you're coming with me. How is that toying with you?"
Loki stormed over, hands tossed up. "All I've done, all I've tried to do, and you want to take me into public?"
"Well, you'll need to change clothes. That's not going to work. But, uh, yeah. I mean you wanted to rule these people you may as well meet them."
Loki was lost. He was trying to play a game and Stark's response was to knock the pieces over. Frustrated, he reached out and fisted a hand into Tony's hair and yanked, leaning the other arm over Tony to trap him against the fridge door. "And how do you like it, Stark?"
And, to Loki's shock, he got no pain reaction or indication of discomfort, rather he got a lazy knowing smile and Tony's pupils expanding out. "Is that a trick question?" Tony's voice was low, almost a purr, and Loki caught another smell suddenly amongst the clean smell of soap and the sharp smell of metal that always seemed to follow Stark around. Lust.
He let go and stepped back, eyes wide. Tony shook a knowing finger at him then tossed him the water bottle, getting another. Loki caught on instinct, still blinking. He could have kept pulling. He probably could have shredded Tony Stark's clothes off and gotten no protest. What he'd meant as an attack, Tony had taken as an entirely different kind of advance. So, what he'd taken as an attack…
"Okay, look. Here's my thing." Tony had opened his water bottle and drank half. "We can spend the next several days going through this. Your anger and paranoia and attempts at setting up whatever games you think you can get away with while on a leash. Or, or… and this is the much more fun option… You can realize you're going to spend several days in the personal care of a narcissistic, hedonist, billionaire. Who'd really like to see you have a bit of fun before we consign you to eternal hippie forests."
He blinked. "I…"
"Your choice. Now, could you do something about your clothes? Hungry, really."
He held his head in his hands, snarling. "Brother, I swear to you…"
"He misses you. That's all." He saw Loki's head snap up. "Just something to think about. Clothes."
He looked down at himself, then at Tony. "And what is so wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"Well, you've got style don't get me wrong." He walked over and wrapped an arm around Loki's shoulders, feeling the taller man jerk a bit as he pulled him in and spoke quietly. "But you'll stick out, and if you want to have some fun and cause some legitimate chaos today, you'll want to blend a little bit better. You understand?"
Loki stared at him for a long moment, and saw a carrot being dangled on a stick that was right within reach. "Yes. Yes I think I do."
"Good man." He released Loki and stepped away, watching with an eyebrow lifted as Loki's clothes blurred and settled into jeans and a short-sleeved t-shirt over a long sleeved shirt. A reasonable imitation of what he'd been wearing the day he got thrown out the window, Tony realized. Loki's boots had stayed, mostly hidden under the jeans, and the collar still showed. "Huh. Neat party trick."
"The collar does stick out a bit, I'm afraid." He allowed a strained half smile.
"Oh, that's a matter of color scheme. Black for the shirt and grey for the long sleeves." He rubbed his chin, watching this happen. "Perfect. You now fit in at any Hot Topic in the world."
"You sure you've got this?" Steve asked, hovering.
"Yeah, I've got it. I owe you a few." He watched Steve go, then turned back to Loki. "Shall we?"
"What is making this device move? I've never understood it."
"Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted it to move?" And Tony spun the wheel, cutting onto the nearest highway ramp and flooring it. One thing he missed about California was the roads. With traffic in New York, he could never get much speed up, even on the highway.
Loki pushed himself back into his seat, eyes wide and one hand clutching his seatbelt. He remembered riding in large, squareish vehicles, but they'd looked and sounded far different than this one, and if he was any judge they were going quite a bit faster than those other ones ever had. "That was a serious question Stark and…" And he trailed out because they were rushing up on a semi-truck.
"Just a moment…" Tony's voice was sing song, dodging nimbly through traffic then exiting the highway again, rejoining city traffic. "There's a machine under the hood that runs on a liquid fuel."
He blinked, looking at Stark and relaxing in his seat a bit. "That seems alarmingly straightforward."
Tony shrugged, eyes on the road, wearing a set of yellow lensed sunglasses he'd become fond of. "I rebuilt my first engine when I was a child."
"You've been doing this your whole life?"
"Well, the math has gotten more complex." He turned a corner, going off memory to find his preferred breakfast burrito joint, which was actually trickier than he figured because usually when he went there he was still in one of his suits. The city was a hell of a lot easier to navigate while flying. So, he got a little lost.
But Loki didn't seem to notice, sinking into the passenger seat of the roadster and staring out at the city around them. At this time of morning on a Friday the city was a roar of life around them. People crowded the sidewalks, traffic was a nightmare. Sirens, somewhere in the distance, though no answering whoop from Spiderman this time around. Tony actually kind of hoped the kid was getting some sleep. He was trying to figure out how to give money to a masked man without compromising said man's identity… Probably SHIELD had some channels he could use, Pepper wouldn't approve of him trying to launder some of his own cash even if it was to help out Spidey… when Loki spoke back up.
"The city looks different from the ground."
"Tell me about it, I almost lost my favorite breakfast joint." He finally got on the right street and managed to find a parking spot, killing the engine and hopping out. "Come on."
"I don't trust this. At all." Loki said, slowly getting out of the roadster and looking around, a bit wild eyed. "I am surrounded by the enemy, Stark."
"Hey. Stop. None of these people are your enemy. I mean if anyone is I am and in case you haven't noticed I haven't given a single fuck today." He was walking and talking, Loki hurrying to catch up and walk beside him. "These are civilians and a lot of them are very nice people, especially once you get to know them."
"Then why am I being stared at?"
He paused with his hand on the door of the restaurant, looking up at Loki, then shook his head and went in. "One, you're with me and I'm a regular here, so there's a bit of 'Who's the guy that gets to run around with Ironman' going on. Two, have you looked at you lately?"
"I have no idea what you're trying to say." Loki finally said. "Are you saying these people appreciate how I look?"
"Why not, I do." Then Tony was chattering rapidfire with the person behind the counter, fist bumping a manager and carrying on for several minutes while he ordered food for both of them. Loki shifted back, watching others in the restaurant come up and greet Stark, some grabbing pictures others just exchanging complicated handshakes or saying thank you.
And he realized he was completely, totally out of his depth. Which was ridiculous. He was a prince of Asgard and a demigod! A trickster, a player of pranks! Even Thor had told him he had a dangerously sharp mind. But this was not Asgard, and these were not his people, and he was caught in the current of the whirlpool of insanity that surrounded Tony Stark. Overwhelmed, dodged, and cowed by a Midgardian he'd once thrown out a window, a fact that Stark didn't even seem all that concerned about.
He wanted to be pissed off. He kind of was, but the situation was beyond his control and it wasn't even malicious. In fact, Stark seemed set in simply taking him out on the town before he was returned to a silent, peaceful place he hated. And he found he was at odds with himself, one side raging about the sheer lack of respect and care Stark showed, the other side willing to try to relax and reach out and take the hand that Stark was offering.
Not that he was going to forgive him for the pain a little bit ago.
He was startled out of his reverie when Tony pushed a tray laden with food into his hands and drug him over to a table by the window, sitting down heavily. "Thor likes to eat these and walk around but you don't seem that type."
"No, I don't particularly like wearing my food." He sat down gingerly, staring at what was on his tray before going for the foam cup first, watching how Tony opened it before opening it himself, watching steam escape. "So… I must say, I didn't see you as being the sort to be interested in your fellow man."
"Really." Tony drained some of the fresh coffee, barely feeling his mouth getting burned he was so used to it then unwrapping the end of the breakfast burrito, digging in and watching Loki follow suit. Fucking hell, had the Asgardian even ate the last time he was on this planet? "What are you basing that on?"
Loki didn't answer for several moments, chewing slowly. He wasn't even sure what he was eating but it was spicy and salty, with some kind of meat laced through… eggs, he thought, and he kept eating because his insides ached, because food was a rare luxury in his prison, and because it was strangely delicious. "Do I have to quantify it?"
"I dunno?" Tony sat back, chewed a bit, swallowed, then continued. "You're not the first one to say something like that. I scared the hell out of Steve. It took him a long time to get used to how I am with Bruce."
"I noticed. You're… tactile. You want your hands on everything. Everyone." Loki gave him a narrow look, not adding the 'even me' that was obviously there.
"Touch is one of the ways I figure things out." He shrugged. "But, hell, no offense but I'm not going to let my sexuality get judged by someone who gave birth to a horse."
Loki almost choked on his burrito. "Tactful, Stark."
"Hey, I think I have a point." He grinned.
Anything Loki would have said was interrupted by someone banging on the window by them, and he found himself looking at three rather attractive Midgardian women, waving frantically at Tony. Tony grinned and lifted his hand to wave back, and one snapped a picture with her phone, another pulling her shirt up and showing a belly button piercing that had the Avengers "A" dangling from it. Tony laughed and applauded, and the women left, blowing kisses.
"Why does everyone know you?" Loki finally asked.
"Oh, I was in the media before this." He used the hand not holding the half-finished burrito to drum on his reactor. "Those were the playboy CEO days. Now I'm just in more mainstream news rather than gossip rags. Your little party got us a lot of publicity. That said, this thing does rather make me noticeable." He looked down at the reactor, the glow obvious through the shirt material. "We actually put out a shirt that had a similar design just to try to make people dismiss it a bit, but nope."
"You like the attention." The demigod replied around his burrito. "You nearly roll around like a cat."
"Guilty." There was a long, but not uncomfortable silence, both looking at the window at the city. Loki took the pause to cautiously sip the coffee then drain several long gulps, staring at it in confusion. "First coffee huh."
"This is strangely invigorating."
"Yeah, it's called caffeine. People here used it in several forms to keep awake. Thor's addicted."
"So this is what he was talking about. He may not be entirely stupid."
Tony didn't bother disguising his laughter at that. "I want to take him to a specialty seafood place for dinner sometime soon but he's always here and gone." He saw the blank stare. "Okay, so there's a type of food called crab that has a hard outer shell and one of the ways you get to it is by bashing it with a wooden mallet."
Loki froze, then got that grin that was both terrifying and absolutely delightful. "Can we write Mjolnir on it, somehow?"
"Oh oh OH I do like how you think. We must do this. Yes. Necessary. Maybe when he comes to get you we'll drag his ass to dinner." He could not get the grin off his face.
"Good. I want to see this happen." Loki held the grin.
They were quiet until they both finished eating, Loki following Stark's lead on clearing the table and wandering outside, turning his face up to the sunlight and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, just standing there a while.
"Well, my schedule's free for now. I had a concert tomorrow, but…" Tony rubbed his chin, standing by him and letting him take a moment, considering.
"A concert?" Loki wanted to know.
"Yeah, a music show. Not orchestra or anything, this was for one of the bands I listen to." Tony stopped and looked at him, eyes narrowed.
"What?" Loki looked down at him, returning the expression.
"I had a plus-one for the show. Ticket and backstage pass. And no one to go with." He started walking, letting the other man catch up. "I figured I'd have to miss it with you here, but now I'm wondering."
"Stark?" Loki asked. "Are you asking me on a date?"
He shrugged. "Tell you what. I'm going to spend the rest of the day submitting you to the rabble. All the crowds we can find. I'm going to take you to the mall, on the subway, the park, maybe out to Lady Liberty. If you go the day without freaking out, I'll decide I trust you enough to take you to a concert."
"And who is playing at this concert?"
"Sevenfold and some opening bands. You like them." He beeped his roadster open. "Sound like a plan?"
"Stark, you spoil me."
"Please, I bought Bruce a car, a whole lab and his wardrobe."