A/N: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE! Let's all be tumblr friends.

oooooooo

The moment Tony returned to his dorm room he collapsed into a depressed puddle on the ground. 'Who high fives?! ' he internally screamed at himself. Their dinner had not gone horribly, although Tony wished that he could get his partner to open up a bit more, but all things considered the evening had gone all right - and then the fucking high five.

If after this year Tony never saw Loki again he would still spend the rest of his life cringing when he thought about that high five.

The thing was, even though Tony had only just met Loki the day before, he had known about him for almost a year. At the Sigma's 'Welcome Back' party at the beginning of last year, Tony had met a bunch of people: the man who would become his roommate and best friend, the girl he would end up dating for several months, a fellow science nerd that he quickly came to adore, he met Greek people, artists, scientists, and athletes, including Thor Odinson. He met Thor about four hours into the party when most people, Thor included, were lost in their own incoherence. Thor had been sober enough to make polite conversation with Tony, asking him about his intended major and how he liked the campus so far, etc. They had engaged in drunken (which always comes off as more sincere) small talk for the better part of five minutes before Thor pointed over Tony's shoulder to a man standing behind him. A man with wavy black hair that fell just below his ears. A man with eyes so green that, even though he saw them in a drunken stupor, Tony can still close his eyes and remember perfectly. A man so tall and slim and pretty that Tony Stark, the straightest of straight edges, found his heart hammering and blood rushing into his crotch.

"That's my lil' brother…" Thor had mumbled before sinking down onto the floor in defeat, letting the alcohol claim him.

Tony didn't mind that the conversation was over. His attentions were focused elsewhere now. The man standing in front of him was fucking gorgeous! He was oblivious to Tony's creeptastic staring as he was engaged in a conversation with some red-headed girl who was glaring at everything. From what he chad gleaned, one of them would say something, glare at the room and the other would laugh. They just kept taking turns judging things and then laughing about them together. Tony felt the impulse to march over there and introduce himself, but just as he took the first step in the boy's direction, Potter (as Tony had grown used to calling him, because of his green eyes and dark hair), spotted Tony. He raised an eyebrow, gave Tony the elevator eyes and then raised both eyebrows. Were it anyone else, Tony could have turned that moment into flirting - but this was a guy so handsome that Tony actually forgot to breathe. So instead, he pretended to be heading for something behind Loki and hurried out of the boy's sight as quickly as he could.

Tony was almost certain that Loki did not remember that night. As far as he could recall, Potter hadn't been drinking, and it was unlikely that Tony made much of an impression for him to remember anyway. He had probably forgotten Tony the minute he walked away. But Tony had remembered. He remembered the way his heart threatened to leap out of his throat. He remembered the way his skin tingled and his pulse quickened. He remembered the excitement of being attracted to a man for the first time in his life. He remembered all of that very well.

Of course, Tony had not actually done anything about it. He never attempted to approach Loki again that night, or any night after for that matter. He would occasionally see Loki walking to class across campus and his heart would do its familiar flutter, or the green laser in his lab would make him think of Loki's eyes and he would sigh, and when he was in the shower, washing his wet naked body, his thoughts were Loki, Loki, Loki…

He was a bit ashamed to admit that he had pleasured himself to fantasy's of the younger boy. Tony would try to do it sparingly, partly because it seemed wrong and partly because the more he did it the more it seemed like he actually had a thing for this boy. Tony Stark refused to have feelings for people. After the way his last relationship, with the girl he had met at that same party, had ended with screaming, crying and Tony almost losing his best friend, he decided to swear off relationships. He had always had a hunch that they were trouble, but it was not until he actually tried one out that he realized how correct he was. Unfortunately, he had shared his philosophy about abstaining from all relationships and feelings with some drunk baseball player at another party, and then the rumors began: Tony Stark was a womanizer who wanted nothing more than a quick, dirty fuck and could not be trusted. At first Tony was livid, because people started treating him differently, but after he realized that it didn't really impact his romantic plans (because he had none) and it was better when people left him alone anyway, he just sort of let the rumors continue. It was astounding to him that no one ever thought to question the validity of the claims - there were no girls to be heard of! There were no actual names or faces to go along with these stories! The one girl he had publicly been involved with had been his girlfriend and they had dated for two months. Closer to seven weeks, but still.

So Tony Stark refused to have a crush on this green eyed little diva he was forced to work with. Yes, he was uncontrollably excited when he stepped into the boardroom yesterday and saw him standing there, and sure, his breath had caught in his throat when his knee accidentally touched Loki's under the table and he was absolutely debating the pros and cons of sending Loki some funny joke via text so that his last impression of Tony for the evening was not the dreaded high five - but it all meant nothing because Tony refused. Besides, Loki made it perfectly clear that he did not want anything romantic to come out of their working relationship. So that was that.

Tony groaned in frustration and writhed a bit in his puddle-like fashion, still sprawled on the floor. He was so irritated with himself for behaving like this. He shouldn't be scared to talk to some boy, he shouldn't be fighting off the dreaded feelings and he should not be melting on the floor like a snowman. Yes, a snowman. He knew that he was being dramatic and that the more he engaged these thoughts, the worse things were going to get. So Tony lifted himself off with all the grandeur he possessed and the gave himself a shake out to rid himself of this mood.

He just needed to get to work on his sketches so he could clear his head. The sooner he got his preliminary sketches out of the way, the sooner he could see Loki again. No! Dammit! That was not the goal here. No Loki. Bad Loki. No touch.

Tony grumbled incoherently under his breath as he retrieved his sketchbook and some graphite pencils from his cluttered desk. It was a wonder he had managed to make his room so messy already when he had only been back at the university for a few days and he had spent almost all of that time in the lab. The feat was especially impressive considering Tony did not have many possessions in his bedroom. Everything of real value to him remained in the home his parents had left to him: his art, his machinery, his equipment, etc. did not travel with him to college. He was able to go home as often as he pleased, or at least he had been last year before he was suddenly committed to a research partner, so it did not make a big difference not having all of his things right in his dorm. He had only packed the essentials: sketchbooks, underwear, cologne and his favorite tank top and the like.

Tony sat down in his chair and propped his feet up on what little clear area of his desk they could find. He flipped to he first blank page, dated it, gave it a title (R.P. rough sketch #1) and proceeded to draw… a snail. It was a very cute snail, and hell Tony didn't even know he could draw snails, but it was not necessarily on topic. He really didn't have a clear vision of what he was supposed to be creating, which was perfectly alright at this stage in the process, and Tony's motto when it came to creations was to just start drawing until something useful came out. This usually meant that he would try out different elaborate concept designs and would refine the rough sketches as he continued his work…but today that meant drawing animals.

Next he drew a pig, then a rabbit, then a dog, and then an eye. Tony had not being paying attention to the time or to how invested he had become in his sketches, and was not aware that it was 2:30 in the morning and that he had spent the last half hour on one particular drawing. The eye had gone from a small, rounded shape to a very detailed piece of art. He gave shading to the cornea, the pupil, he laced out individual eye lashes before making his way to the brow bone and draping it with a perfectly groomed arch. He had accidentally moved to the cheeks, lining a cheek bone that could cut glass if the picture were permitted. He had not meant to draw a jawline, or a chin - and what lovely, sharp lines they were. It was completely unintentional that he traced a mouth with thin lips and a tiny smirk, as if the picture knew that Tony should not be indulging it. But his pencil had a mind of it's own and it seemed as though Tony was looking on as his hand moved to draw a hair line over this half drawn face. The lines turned into hair, dark hair that came down in loose waves and ended in tiny unintentional curls just below the ear…

Tony didn't realize that he had stopped breathing. He was staring at a picture of Loki; a horrifyingly beautiful and accurate picture of Loki. He had not used any shade other than his graphite pencil but he swore there was green in those eyes. The engineer stared at the picture as his heart pounded. He willed that it should be an exaggeration, that he should have drawn Loki's lines too forgivingly or perhaps he had forgotten a pimple or wayward nose hair - but it was perfect. It was a perfect rendering of that irritatingly perfect face. Tony growled and slammed the book closed. This had been completely unproductive! He was supposed to be taking his mind off of Loki not sketching him out! He was torturing himself for no reason. He couldn't have Loki and so he needed to quit acting like a love-sick school girl and -

Wait a minute.

Tony was staring at the closed book with a fierce look in his eyes. He was being ridiculous. If he liked a boy then he liked a boy and that was okay. Nothing was going to happen anyway because Loki wanted to keep things professional and that was okay too. Tony took a deep breath to calm himself, and then took several more because of reasons. He liked Loki.

And that was okay.

oooooooo

Loki was spending an unnecessary amount of time in front of the mirror as he prepared himself for the first choir rehearsal of the year. No one else in the choir was taking it this seriously, but no one else was attempting to make a dazzling impression on the off-chance that their crush (who still knew nothing of their existence) happened to look in the general vicinity of where they were sitting.

In other words: Loki was being pathetic.

He had gone to his morning class wearing one outfit, spent the rest of the day fighting Natasha's hair with three more boxes of bleach - and he increased the potency each time! - but none took, and then changed his outfit four times. Now he smelled like chemicals and failure and he still had not found the perfect outfit to wear. It needed to be something simple, so that it looked like he wasn't trying, but engaging enough that if choirboy *did* happen to glance his way his gaze might actually linger.

He was driving Natasha fucking insane.

She knew next to nothing about choirboy, except what little Loki had told her of him, and his details were mostly useless like, "I think he looked at me!" and "I saw him walking and I ran into a tree!" The Russian had attempted to talk Loki out of his infatuation, simply because she did not like the idea of Loki pining after someone who didn't spare him a second glance, but since it seemed that her friend was unlikely to give up this crush any time soon she decided to take matters into her own hands. She had decided to audition for choir, without telling Loki, so that she could get a better feel for this guy. Maybe he wasn't so horrible and if that was the case then her next mission would be to get Loki to grow a pair and actually ask him out. She threw a shoe at Loki's head to get him to hurry the eff up and get dressed and ignored the way he cried out when it struck him.

"If you don't pick a shirt I am going to slit your throat," she growled as she searched for another shoe to lob at his head.

Loki scowled at her and tugged on the hem of the shirt he was wearing. "What about this?" he asked nervously as he attempted to turn and look at his own butt in the mirror. He had settled on dark skinny jeans and a long sleeved red sweater that clung to his slim frame. Natasha rolled her eyes but did so with a smile on her face. "You look great. If I didn't know you were gayer than Broadway I would jump on your dick myself. Now come on!" she replied as she scooched his butt towards the door. "Before you have time to realize that red isn't your color," she murmured. Her laughter almost drowned out the sound of his strangled "What?!" as she shut the door behind them.

oooooooo

The first day of choir rehearsal saw everyone standing and greeting the friends they had not seen since last year. There were clumps of girls gossiping about who had broken up with who (and Loki was actually mildly interested in that topic), boys gathered talking about their plans for the first football game of the season and which party they were attending, and choirboy was leaning against the lip of the stage talking to an athlete whose name Loki did not know. Since Loki had no friends, except Natasha, who was being nice and sitting with him until rehearsal started, he had no reason not to sit right down and attempt to find ways to subtly stare at his crush.

The summer had been kind to him. His naturally blonde hair appeared to have more golden highlights running through it and his skin had taken on a tan that made him look Grecian and beautiful. Loki wished there were something he could do to get those clear, big, blue eyes to gaze at him, but instead Loki just sat there with a goofy smile on his face as he stared at the man. Natasha had to slap the back of his head to get him to knock it the hell off. He was still rubbing it and complaining when the director waltzed into the room and asked for everyone to rise so they could warm up. Loki expected Natasha to give him a kiss on the cheek goodbye and dart out, but much to his surprise she rose and continued standing next to him. Loki raised an eyebrow at her as they started their scales and he watched the corner of her mouth turn up in a grin. She wouldn't turn to look at him until after the warmups were finished and since they could not speak to each other, as they were seated in the front row, they had to communicate throughout their eyebrows. He raised one at her and she flicked her head over to choirboy and then wiggled hers at Loki. He reached down to find her hand and squeezed it. He was unbelievably lucky to have a best friend this devoted to him.

But his excitement over Natasha joining him in choir was quickly forgotten when choirboy shifted his chair a bit and moved into Loki's line of sight. He completely tuned out his director as he stared at the boy hopelessly. Loki knew that he probably looked pathetic, if anyone could actually see him, as he shyly stole glances over at choirboy, taking in all the physical ways his body had changed over the summer. He also realized how creepy it was on his part that he was able to notice physical changes because he studied this man so much.

Unfortunately, choirboy noticed the staring. First his eyes moved over to Loki, then he turned his chin a bit so he was fully facing the man. Instead of making a face though, frowning or mouthing 'fuck off' - he winked. He smiled at Loki and he winked.

HE FUCKING WINKED! What the hell was Loki supposed to do with that? Act cool? Wink back? Accept his obvious marriage proposal?

Natasha elbowed him in the ribs because apparently he had stopped singing and was sitting there with his mouth hanging open in shock, and her action startled him so much out of his reverie that he accidentally let out an 'oof!'

The director glanced up at Loki with a grin on his face but did not stop the rehearsal. A few people giggled at the ridiculous sound - and choirboy smiled again. If Loki were not so busy trying to disappear into his seat he might have noticed that now choirboy was staring at him. The tenor's eyes roamed over what he could see of Loki's body and he smirked. Natasha noticed, however, and she could not tell if she was excited for Loki that his crush was checking him out, or irritated that he had such a smarmy look on his face while he did so.

The rest of the rehearsal passed without consequence (Loki had kept his nose buried in his music so as not to make an ass of himself again). When it ended he wanted to grab Natasha and dart out of there as fast as he possibly could (he had another meeting with Tony tonight and he needed to go scream a bit before hand), but before he could even stand up choirboy appeared before him.

He had never approached Loki in his life, had never spoken to him, never even looked at him before the smile today - BUT HERE HE WAS.

"Hey, Loki. Did you have a good summer?"

Ohgodwhatwashappening.

Loki was too stunned to process the question and actually formulate a response so he just sort of made a noise and tried to smile.

Choirboy just grinned at him. "Cool. So listen, you'll be at the Phi Kap party tonight, right?" he asked with that same breezy confidence.

Natasha was getting embarrassed for Loki so she elbowed his ribs again but her friend couldn't do anything more than sputter. "Yeah, we will be there. What time?" she answered for him.

Choirboy laughed. "10 pm. Make sure you say hi to me, Loki," he said with another heart-killing wink before turning away to leave.

Natasha was actually kind of worried because Loki had completely stopped breathing and his face appeared to be turning blue. After slapping him a few times he had calmed down enough that they could walk back to his dorm room This was good! Choirboy asked him to a party and he would probably try something, but if it was anything over PG Natasha and her angry hands would be there to stop it. Even though it was an agreed upon principle in their relationship that people suck and should generally be avoided, this would be good for Loki. He would never admit this, although he was perfectly fine cooing over his crush, but he was very lonely. With the way Loki handled emotions (feeling everything ten times as hard) it left him with this incredible need for romantic affection. All of his disdain for humanity with their faces and problems and horrible haircuts came with a catch where he needed someone to love him just as much as he hated everyone else. Natasha filled that role in some ways, because they were so devoted to each other and spent all of their time together, but it was not everything. Loki needed to be desired. Of course, her friend probably did not even know this was the case and would never admit to it if she brought it up. It was even possible that the same was true of her and Loki thought the same things.

(It was and he did).

So even though he hated people, Natasha was going to drag his ass to this party tonight and get him to talk to his crush. The only problem was -

Goddammit.

Loki was going to have to pick out another outfit.

oooooooo

"Well my sketches are kind of rough right now…" Tony mumbled, making sure to keep his sketch book tight in his hands even though Loki had asked to look at it. The engineer may, or may not, have added a few more drawings last night that had nothing to do with the project and were more…experiments on how alcohol impacted his ability to draw Loki's face from memory. Spoiler alert: it made so little difference that it actually made Tony feel like a weirdo.

Loki growled at that and ceased his efforts to pry the book from Tony's calloused hands. "Well when will they be ready for me to look at?" he snapped. Technically, Tony had not done anything to warrant such a nasty tone, but this meeting was getting in the way of his primping time. Natasha, being the wonderful, beautiful best friend that she was, agreed to come back to Loki's room after he and Tony were finished so that she could help him find something for the party. At this moment Loki did not even care about the project, or Tony or his stupid sketches - he had somewhere to be.

The engineer could tell that Loki was preoccupied but has chosen not to comment on it for fear of getting his head ripped off. He gave a nervous shrug. "I'll have something for you by tomorrow, I promise," he offered imploringly.

The dark-haired man simply growled again and drummed his fingers on the table in front of him impatiently. They had met in the library because Loki did not feel like Tony had earned the right to see his bedroom and Tony was too embarrassed to let Loki see how messy his was. However the location also prevented Loki from screaming unnecessarily at the other man (which was maybe a good thing and Loki really shouldn't be screaming anyway…) but it was also just one more irritating thing. His eyes snapped to Tony's so hard and fast that the brunette actually jumped a little.

Loki looked like he might literally kill him.

"Well then why are we meeting tonight?" he hissed.

Tony raised the book up a bit to act as a shield between them. "I'm sorry! I thought I would have more done by now… we can just call it a night if you want?" he suggested, attempting to make peace with his crazed partner.

The moment the words were out of his mouth Loki had seized his backpack from the chair next to him and jumped up. "See you tomorrow, then," he answered as he turned and practically flew out of the library.

Tony frowned and put down his faux-shield. Well that was lame. He had been counting on making a better impression with today's meeting and it had gone even worse than the previous night's! He collapsed onto the table and buried his head in his arms. Goddammit. Today sucked. Tony had been up all night drawing pictures of his stupid crush's stupid, perfect face so he was exhausted and he still had something else to do tonight. He sighed as he sat up and glanced at the wall clock.

It was already 7:30 and his engagement tonight would not begin until 10:00… so the only logical thing to do with the interim time was drink until he could not remember what his partner looked like. His previous evening's experiment had established that apparently no amount of alcohol would do that (in fact he was pretty sure he was still a little drunk) but it couldn't hurt to try!

Well, it could. He was pretty sure his liver was going to stop working before he turned 30. But he wasn't 30 yet so he would figure that particular problem out later.

He collected his things and set out of the gigantic building. Tony disliked the library; it was too quiet. He craved noise and distractions and he did not like being told what not to do and libraries were full of rules. He also preferred the magical world of the internet when it came to doing his research. Stark was a big believer in taking advantage of the technologies available to him and sifting through dusty old books in an eerily silent building was not 'taking advantage'. But, if Loki wanted to meet there, then they would meet there and he would arrive with a smile on his face.

Instead of going back to his room, where he risked falling into bed and then asleep, he headed for the lab so he could take out his frustrations on some high powered lasers. And damn he was frustrated in more ways than one.

The red shirt Loki had been wearing fit his body especially well.

oooooooo

Loki hated parties. He had learned this after he attended one with Thor his freshman year and had vowed never to return to the loud, drunken cesspools. He may have broken his self-made vow, but his previous sentiments remained very much intact. This particular party was happening in a large Greek house just a few blocks from campus. There were people everywhere. Loki knew that big calendar parties like holidays and beginning/ end of year events were more likely to draw a large crowd, but this was insane. Were he not in the middle of it he might have laughed at all of the chaos, but as it was he had reduced himself to hiding in a corner with Natasha to avoid being bumped into or spilled on. He was definitely not hiding because he was scared of choirboy because that would just be silly…

"Now you know at some point this evening you are going to have to actually talk to him, right?" Natasha poked at her friend who looked a very cute combination of panicked and pissed off. She didn't much care for parties either, but she did like drinking so she had been tossing back shots since they walked in the door. Loki never drank, but it might be a good idea to get something in him to loosen him up a bit. As it was there was no way he was going to be able to converse with choir boy.

Loki just snapped his head over and gave her a look. His eyes kept sweeping the room frantically but he was not sure if he would jump for joy when choirboy finally appeared or actually shrink into a small ball and roll away. He toyed nervously with the hem of his sleeve as he did so. He had spent over an hour trying to find a different shirt when it occurred to him that choirboy had already seen what he wore earlier and might notice Loki putting too much attention into his clothes. Before he was able to have a full blown panic attack, Natasha hit him with a shoe and told him to put his red shirt back on.

Now that he was actually here though he regretted the decision and wished he had worn something else. He was so anxious! He was even considering drinking a bit, just so his heart rate would calm down, but he was not fully aware of his limits and did not want to make a drunken ass of himself at the first party he had ever been invited to by someone other than his brother. Speaking of which, Thor should be around here somewhere…

Thor would have been more surprised than anyone to see Loki at this party, so the younger of the brothers had been deliberately avoiding the older. Loki did not want to explain that he was here because choirboy invited him because then Thor would make it a production and insist on formally introducing the two of them and encouraging them to talk and if that happened Loki would literally burst into flames. His brother knew of his crush (because Thor knew everything about Loki) but, unlike Natasha, he actually knew choirboy pretty well. They were not close, but they had mutual friends they spent a lot of time with and heard a lot about each other. They also saw each other almost every weekend at parties which meant that most of Thor's interactions with the man were drunkenly fueled and happy.

"I'm gonna get you a drink, hold on a second," Natasha murmured to him before disappearing into the crowd. Loki tried to ask her to wait, so he wouldn't be left standing alone like a loser, but before the words, "Hold up, bitch!" could leave his mouth her fiery red hair had vanished.

He slumped against the wall and tried to look invisible but, unfortunately for him, was immediately spotted by the only other person he might have actively avoided.

"Loki?" came Tony's voice as he made his way over to the raven-haired man. The engineer could not believe his eyes! What the hell was Loki doing at a giant frat party?

The younger man's head snapped up at the greeting. "Tony? What are you doing here?"

Tony laughed as he came to stand in front of him. "I was just about to ask you the same thing. How are you?" he asked with a grin. "Perfect! I will get my chance to make a good impression! And if he's drinking he might loosen up and actually talk to me!"

But no cigar. Loki did not seem to be in the mood for talking. "I'm here with Natasha, she's just getting me a drink," he responded quietly as he tried to press himself further into the wall.

Tony's smile fell at that. He didn't know who 'Natasha' was but it sounded like Loki had a girlfriend. "Oh, okay cool," he replied, trying to sound relaxed. "Well, listen I did some more work on those sketches," (this was not technically a lie), "and I will definitely have some stuff for you to look at tomorrow."

But Loki didn't even seem to be listening to him. His eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates as he spotted something over Tony's shoulder. The engineer turned around to try and figure out what the hell was giving his partner that 'deer in headlights' look, but whatever it was seemed to have vanished just as quickly as it came because by the time he turned around Loki had slumped down again.

Natasha appeared the next second, carrying two small glasses and a bottle of vodka. "Don't sip - just shoot it all back," she ordered as she pressed a small glass into Loki's hand.

He did as he was told and immediately shuddered as the alcohol slid down his throat. Once he had swallowed he coughed and made a face. "That is horrible," he remarked as he attempted to hand the glass back to his friend. Instead she filled it up again.

"Yeah, but you need it," she muttered before turning to Tony and raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, hi!" he greeted as he thrust his hand out for her to shake. Good impression. Good impression. Good impression. "I'm Tony, Loki's research partner," he said trying to appear enthusiastic. "Please god, tell me he told her about me."

The look of recognition on her face said that 'yes - Loki had told her about Tony' but it was not a good thing. "Nice to meet you," she replied with a smirk. "I'm Natasha, Loki's best friend."

The immediate discomfort he felt at her potentially bad reaction to his name melted away when he heard those words. Best friend NOT girlfriend. Ha!

His beaming smile reappeared as he turned back to Loki who was shuddering again after forcing down another shot. He was making faces like a pissed off cat and pouted a bit at Natasha, fearing that she would make him take another.

"Two is good for now, or you will vomit. Just give it a second and you should calm down a bit," she explained calmly to her friend as she lightly stroked his arm.

Tony's eyebrow raised at that. "Why do you need to calm down?"

But his question did not appear to have been heard because Loki's eyes returned to their dinner plate size as he heard someone call, "Loki!" from behind him.

Up walked this stupidly beautiful, Disney-prince looking man thing with a shit eating grin on his face. His eyes were so unbelievably blue and his dumb blonde bangs had such a perfect wave that Tony wanted to punch him just for existing. What he really couldn't stand though was the way Loki's cheeks flushed and his eyelashes fluttered shyly as the man approached.

"Hey - hey, Fandral," Loki replied shyly with a small smile. His hands had joined together to make a nervous ball in his front as he shifted from one foot to the other. The nice thing about hard-liquor is that it did its job FAST. Already he could feel a warm flush to his body and his heart rate was no longer threatening to send him into cardiac arrest. He was still tingling as he saw his crush approach - but he could do this. He could do this.

Fandral offered him one of his winning smiles and turned to greet the other two in the party. "I'm really glad you made it! And Natasha, you look lovely this evening," he said seductively as he reached out to kiss her hand, not noticing the face she made at him.

"Well, fuck this guy," Tony thought as he grimaced at the overly-affectionate display before him.

The blonde douche turned to Tony then and raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe we have met. I'm Fandral,"

Tony knew that it would be wrong to punch him even though he wanted to. But so far this evening he had not made an ass of himself in front of his partner and he was not going to start now. So instead of wiping that grin off the blonde asshole's face, he smiled back and said, "I'm Tony, I'm working with Loki on a research project. How do you two know each other?" He hoped that the small nervous edge in his voice went unnoticed as he asked that question, but based on the raised eyebrow Natasha gave him - it had not.

"Well, Loki and I are in choir together - have been for a year now, so we go way back," he replied with a laugh as he shot another one of those *dazzling* smiles at Loki.

It broke Tony's heart to see the way the dark-haired man positively lit up at that and blushed a bit more. Loki looked so fucking cute right now and it was all because of someone else! He gripped the glass in his hand a bit tighter and tried to keep his emotions in check. After all, this was still just a crush he had on Loki - nothing to commit murder over. "Well, we were just discussing our project. So…" he prompted, hoping that this 'Fandral' would take the cue and leave.

But he did no such thing. "Oh, don't worry! I was just coming over here to ask Loki out and then I'll be on my way," he laughed. Although Tony's heart sank even further at that, he did not miss the way Fandral's eyes flashed at him dangerously.

Thank god for the shots he had taken or Loki would have stopped breathing again. He still couldn't bring himself to make any coherent response, but Fandral pressed on anyway.

"So, Loki, do you want to go to dinner with me this week?" the tenor asked as he dared to slip an arm around Loki's tiny waist.

God he was warm. And damn did he smell good. These distractions did nothing to help Loki's problem with forming words, so he just smiled shyly again and nodded at the man holding him.

Fandral brightened at that. "Excellent! Well, then I'll text you tomorrow," he whispered right before he leaned in to kiss Loki's cheek. "Thanks for coming tonight, guys," he addressed to Tony and Natasha before leaving to rejoin the party.

As Loki's heart threatened to burst so to did Tony's. Loki had stopped breathing again and Tony looked like he was going to destroy something. Natasha was looking back and forth between them and couldn't decide whether to be amused or not. She had not anticipated on Tony actually having feelings for Loki. Based on what her best friend had told her, she thought Tony was just doing his playboy thing by asking her friend out. But this? This was not nonchalant indifference. Tony looked simultaneously murderous and brokenhearted. Whatever, now that the goal of the evening had been accomplished, she needed to get Loki home so he would start breathing correctly again. She reached forward to place a gentle hand on his arm and offered him a warm smile. "You good?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Loki could only nod numbly at her with that same goofy smile plastered to his face.

"I'm glad, now let's get you to bed before you pass out or something," she muttered as she began to steer him away. She turned to Tony before leaving and said, "I'll make sure he texts you tomorrow, okay?" and then offered him what she hoped came off as a sympathetic smile. Then she walked her best friend out of the party.

Tony stood there numbly. He barely registered the noise around him as the party raged on, completely oblivious to what had just happened.

Okay, so big deal. A guy asked out Loki and he said yes. Who cares? This is just a crush - nothing serious. "Besides," Tony thought smugly, "I still get to spend fifteen hours a week with him."

With a fake smile on his face he left the party and returned home and pretended not to notice the dampness on his pillow when he went to sleep that night.

oooooooo

A/N: Things! Please review! :D