[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters: Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Peter Parker, Thor, Volstagg, Fandral, Hogun, Sif, Loki
Author's note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.]

"A fair, in the countryside? Tony, we can go, can't we?"

One of the things Tony has regretted on this visit to Asgard, is how little time he's been able to spend with his friends, Jim and Peter. As owner of the Stark Mercantile Company, his welcome at Hlidskjalf was assured. His friends were not so fortunate. It is not their comfort that has been stinted; he has paid a visit to the inn where they are staying, and it's accommodations for them are most satisfactory. In his view, though, they are deserving of far more dignity. He would have it that they, as well as he, should receive their due.

Tony's own responsibilities at Hlidskjalf are finally over. All-Father has granted him the second charter he sought. Now both he and Jim are authorized to sail under the flag of Asgard. New ships will have to be prepared. Where before, Tony's own craft, the Mark VII, protected the two smaller vessels, with their load of manufactured goods, bound for Midgard, now Jim too must have a ship of his own, and smaller vessels as well, to protect.

Business is not quite out of the way yet, for the trip. Goods will still need to be purchased, for their return to Midgard. Fine furniture, from the cabinetmakers in Asgard, gowns, from the nimble fingers of Vanaheim, and a million other things. So many transactions, yet to be accomplished, but for now, they can wait. Today, apparently, there is a fair.

Peter is past one-and-twenty, the accomplished veteran of many sea voyages. And yet, all it takes is the promise of fun, and he is a boy again. Tony looks into eyes alight with enthusiasm.

"Can we go, Tony?" Peter asks again. "Please? It's such a beautiful day."

In truth, the autumn weather is magnificent. Cold though it is in early morning, now, at 9:00 AM, the sun is bright, and a crisp breeze invites a man to venture outside.

"You've been indoors too much lately, Tony." Jim sides with Peter. "What exercise have you gotten, beyond that hunt for… What were they again?"

"Bilgesnapes."

Jim and Peter laugh. Tony has told them about the hunt. He described the bilgesnape itself, in all its ridiculous ugliness. He told of Thor, and his enthusiastic fellow-sportsmen. His friends were particularly taken with his description of Volstagg. "The unspeakable, in full pursuit of the inedible," he called him, passing off the quip, which he'd heard from Loki, as his own. Much of what he told him was colored, so much, by Loki's perceptions, and yet he was the one detail of the hunt that Tony left out.

In truth, he did not know how to talk about Loki. Not that his friends had not seen him with men a few times. Jim, who knew him before his marriage to Virginia, has seen him with both men and women, but Peter too, has seen enough over the years, that he would have understood if there had been a dalliance. This had been no dalliance, but instead an attraction. Their only contact was a few touches of hand to hand, and that one kiss, and yet…

How does one speak of someone who is barely an acquaintance, and yet one dreams about them at night? How can one explain about a single kiss, that somehow leaves more lasting impact than any full night of debauchery?

A picture fills Tony's head again, at the mere mention of the word "bilgesnape:" A silent, darkened room, row upon row of glass eyes, staring down from the walls. A slim young man, with shining dark hair, and a soft voice. And that kiss…

"I still maintain that we should have eaten the bilgesnape," Tony says, lightening the mood for his friends. "How bad could it have been? Remember the salt pork we ate, when we were becalmed east of Barbados?"

"I remember you telling Peter that gunpowder would drive the skippers out," Jim says, laughing.

"To be fair, I tried that as well." Tony joins in his friend's laughter.

Peter, laughing too, chimes in: "I will say, it tasted better with the gunpowder than without. And who knows," he adds, "perhaps bilgesnapes are a taste treat, as yet unknown."

His friends: Their company warms Tony's heart, and it relaxes him. What a relief it will be when he is all done with court life, and back at sea with them. No more bilgesnapes, and fools who would drag him out to hunt them, no more secretive young men, and stolen kisses, in out-of-the-way locations. No more Loki…

Tony pushes even the name out of his mind, and wills himself to return to the present. Looking again, into Peter's eager eyes, "You shall have your fair my friend," he tells him. "Business can wait."

The last time Tony visited an Asgardian fair was in early childhood, before his family emigrated to Midgard. Walking the country road into the village where this one is being held brings back so many memories. He hears the vendors: "Hot pies here, come, get your hot pies!" "A fairing for thy sweetheart?" "Lads, come, try your luck!" There is the noise from a traveling puppet show, Punch, doing his eternal war with Judy, and the eager laughter of the audience. There are the smells, food cooking, mingled with the odor of the livestock being sold. There is color everywhere, parti-colored mummers' costumes, brightly flowered calico and glittering glass jewels, in the merchants' booths.

Peter, who was born in the colonies, has never seen such a thing before. He wants to be everywhere at once, and finally, Tony and Jim let him proceed on ahead. "I'll be back at the inn tonight," he calls to them, as he goes off.

"He won't, you know," Jim comments to Tony. "Probably he'll get drunk, and lay with a farmer's daughter in a hayrick, and sleep the night there."

"You've done worse, as have I," Tony says, acknowledging the truth in his friend's words. "We were all young once."

Tony, for his part too, feels unwarranted excitement, far more than he would have expected, from so small a fair. It is bracing to be outside in the fresh air, getting exercise, after too many days indoors, at Hlidskjalf. He looks around, taking in sight, sound and smell, trying to decide where to proceed first.

"Food I think, first, Tony." Jim, beside him, makes plans aloud. "A pork pie, perhaps, or two maybe. And ale." He points ahead, indicating a tent, crowded around with men holding tankards.

Tony licks his lips. Indeed, their walk was a dusty one, and a draft or two of fresh country ale would not come amiss. With his friend, he proceeds toward the tent.

When he hears the familiar voices, Tony's first impulse is to quit the tent. Why? It matters not, surely, if friends from the two parts of his life should meet? And after he has told Jim so many stories, about Volstagg, and the bilgesnapes…

Tony's gaze finds Thor at the bar. "A pitcher of ale for my friends and me, my lovely chick," he tells the alewife, a blowsy woman, easily two-score and ten, or more. She responds with the love All-Father's heir receives wherever he goes, an agreeable reply first, followed by the giggle of a girl, when he leans in to buss her on the cheek.

From a table near him, comes the voice of one of the others. " One pitcher only?" The humorous voice belongs to blond Fandral. "Why, Volstagg will finish that in one swallow, and then what will the rest of us drink?"

Tony looks at the table. Fandral is there, yes, and burly Volstagg, silent Hogun, and the warrior-girl, Sif. And there, sitting slightly apart from the others… He swallows. There is Loki.

The wave of longing that surges through him at the sight, confuses Tony. What is he longing for? And why? He glances to his left, where Jim sits. He would not hurt his friend for the world, but suddenly he wants him gone, far, far away.

"Tony, are you well?" Jim's worried voice.

How could he possibly explain to his friend, what he does not understand himself? "I have an impulse to disport myself this afternoon," Tony says. It is not quite a lie.

Jim has to have noticed the direction of Tony's gaze, but he is too good a friend to make comment. Instead, "Some local beauty has caught your eye?" he says playfully. Indicating the alewife, "Her perhaps?" he asks. "You would take your turn after her blond friend is finished?"

"Her blond friend is Prince Thor" Tony owes Jim this much information, at least. "And his friends are with him, the ones I told you about, from the hunt."

A true friend, these many years, Jim takes in the information quickly, then sallies forth from the tent. "There is enough to do at a fair, to keep me busy, surely," he says. "There are players, and musicians. And, have I said how much I long for a taste of Asgardian rock?"

"Every time we buy sugar from the men of Nidavellir." Does his response sound distracted? Tony strives that it should not. "And then you always comment on how, since we grow sugar cane in Midgard, we should just make our own sugar, and candy, there."

"As we should. Farewell, Tony." Jim takes his leave.

Tony, for his part, moves to greet Thor and his friends, at their table. Most welcome him pleasantly enough, including him quickly in their badinage. In spite of himself, there is one welcome only, that Tony awaits. It comes, once the other voices are raised again, in loud conversation. Loki's voice, pitched so only the two of them can hear: "You're back again, Stark?"

"Like a bad penny." Tony looks into Loki's face: It is completely immobile. No emotion there, not even in the eyes. "Did you think Volstagg had driven me away?"

"The bilgesnape." Loki's voice is different too. It's cooler than the last time. "They can be dangerous, and you are but a weak Midgardian."

"A Midgardian man." Loki's voice should not be different. Tony knows he should keep his own words light, playful, but how can he, when Loki treats him as if he were a stranger? "Loki..." He wills himself to be silent, not daring to say more.

"Stark?" A change comes over Loki's face. At first, it is the same as before, cool, and expressionless. He lifts one eyebrow, ironic inquiry. Then his green eyes darken. He looks away. "Why did you come back, Stark?" His voice is quicker now, and intense, so intense. "You shouldn't have come back. We'll both be sorry."

"I shouldn't have accosted you here, I know." Where is their playful spirit from the other day? Where are the games, the pretense, of the room between worlds? "There are no bilgesnapes here," Tony attempts. "I know that means this is land, not sea."

"I joke not." Loki sounds near tears. "This is more complicated than you know."

"Then tell me."

Loki's voice hardens, as he responds, "I will not."

After this, Loki rises. He makes excuses to the assembled party. "The close air… I feel faint." Thor would go after him, but he is assured this is not necessary. Tony, however, does follow.

"You stupid, Midgardian fool." They are out in the fair now, booths on both sides. Voices do not need to be kept so low out here, the voices of fair-goers and merchants obscuring anything they say. "You come here, with your games, and your jokes." Loki walks quickly between the booths, until he comes to an oak tree, then he turns, looking at Tony. "You don't understand how things are."

Tony doesn't understand, and what's terrible, is that Loki doesn't understand anything about him either. Before, this didn't matter, though. Why does it matter so much now?

"I want to tell you something, Loki." Tony sits on the bench under the tree. After awhile, Loki joins him. "My wife at home, her name is Virginia. I am home, one, perhaps two months out of the year. The rest of the time she is alone there, and it is not civilized, as it is here."

Loki's body is still stiff, but his voice sounds more accommodating now. "Why do you tell me this?"

"I would make things easier for her," Tony continues, "but I cannot stay there with her. A merchant must go to sea, if he would make the money he needs to live. And so I leave her there…"

"And you are unfaithful sometimes, with men such as me?" The words are insulting, but there is no sting in Loki's tone. Instead, it is thoughtful. "I have made vows as well," he says, his voice slow. "I have never broken those vows, Stark, but sometimes I ask myself, why not?"

Does it break those vows, if all they do is look at each other, and talk? Does it break them if they kiss, even? Surely a vow worth its salt could not be broken so easily. Tony tells himself he is keeping his faith with Virginia, and that Loki too, breaks no vows. Even as he thinks this, though, he knows it is not true. Heart can touch heart too, as well as body touches body, and just as much can change too, as a result. Some things, though, cannot be resisted. They are there, like air, light, or water.

They bring joy too, like air, light and water. If the harm has been done already, why not celebrate the joy? "I would not have you break any vows for me," Tony tells Loki, knowing it is only half a truth. "Had I known you would be at the fair today, I'd not have come, but you are here, and I am. Can we not share the hour? After that, you will go back to your life, and I to mine, and we will both have something to remember."

"Some of us are not made for the joys of life." Loki's face his shadowed, his voice has a somber note to it.

It is more than Tony can do, not to break this mood that has fallen on him. "You speak so? How ridiculous. Come!" Taking Loki's hands, he pulls him from his seat. "Let us have fun at the fair."

Loki has never watched Punch and Judy before. He has never thrown coins to a traveling minstrel, and when he tries the cheap wooden lute at the instrument-maker's booth, he strikes music from it, lovely enough to be heard at court. He laughs at the jesters' quips, and eats Asgardian rock, until his face is sticky, and when he stops, with Tony, at the fairing-booth, his eyes light on a green glass brooch there, as if it were the finest of jewels.

"Do you want it?" The thing is the merest trifle, costing a shilling, worth maybe a tenth of that. But, if it puts a smile on Loki's face, he shall have it.

"No." His eyes say that he does.

"I'll buy you something," Tony says, "and you shall buy something for me. I warn you, I want the most expensive thing in the booth."

That does it, Loki is smiling now. "How expensive could that be?" He surveys the display of fairings. "Nothing here is worth more than a penny or two.'

Of course, the seller immediately pipes up, touting the value of this gimcrack and that one. "Take this val-yoo-able knoife…" He holds up a blade that would not cut butter. "Me good gents, look and see: Tell me this is not worth the guinea I ask for it."

"I would not give you more than a shilling." Loki looks at Tony. "Tell me, Stark, do you want this so val-you-able knoife?"

Tony gives him smile for smile. "A man can't have too many val-you-able knoives."

Is it shameful that they exchanged kisses, along with the fairings? Two small kisses, not much, in the grand, broad scheme of things. But, that they were all Tony thought about, while he fell to sleep that night… That, perhaps, is a little bit more.

Note: The line about "the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible" was originally said by Oscar Wilde. I stole it here, for Loki.