'Who would have me?' She smiled sadly, her face marred with trembling emotion. She was trying very hard to keep it together. After a moment she shook her head and interrupted as Tony moved to talk. 'I do not wish to speak of it further.'
Tony shrugged. He suddenly felt unseasonably sober. He wondered if she wanted to get drunk too; alcohol was a marvelous cure-all. He decided he wasn't driving home tonight and ordered two vodka tonics on the rocks. She raised an eyebrow at him and he smiled malevolently. The drinks were delivered.
'Stark, I do not drink Midgardian ale. I hardly touch even Asgardian ale.'
'Hey, you said you're gonna kick the bucket right? Meet your maker? Cash in your chips? Croak?' Loki seemed to consider what Tony meant before coming to quick comprehension, and Tony continued. 'Then you might as well consume your weight alcohol. Or get high or... fuck someone's brains out.'
Loki quickly reddened and Tony hastened to explain. 'I don't mean me... I just mean...' he waved vaguely behind him and let the sentence hang in the air. He took a long swig of his vodka and gasped at the delightful burn, Loki drank alongside him, but with seemingly far reduced consequences. 'You really are a virgin.'
'You seem very fixated on that one fact.'
'Been a while since I met one. You're part of an endangered species.'
'Does it bother you?' Loki's voice lowered just perceptibly in volume, prompting Tony to find her eyes.
'Just... I dunno. It's different. You know, it would bother some people knowing that I've had sex with this whole city.'
'I thought all men were like that. Tales of my brother and his friends' conquests certainly paint such a picture. Certainly Midgardian men make no effort to restrain their eagerness around a maiden, however unwilling.'
'I apologise on behalf of the male race. You should blame evolution.'
'Hmm.' Loki took another long sip of the vodka, warming to the taste. 'It does make your kind very malleable. Some women too. Feminity is clearly a much more valuable tool on Migard. Though, the unwillingness to look at my face as I speak is bothersome. I miss my armor, but to walk as a man is far too dangerous. Your friends would recognize me.'
'You should've tried Tokyo or something.'
'My magic is limited, I landed at the gate and have no means of leaving. It is enough effort keeping this disguise from faltering.' Loki lifted her glass for another sip, only to find her alcohol was gone. She ordered another.
'I'm impressed.' Tony sipped his own half full glass.
'I mean to drink myself to an even earlier grave than that which awaits me.'
'That's the spirit!' Tony laughed, taking a final sip of his drink.
Loki had to drink about five times as many glasses as Tony to achieve the same effect.
An hour later the god(ess) and The Avenger were both drunk and being stupid at the center of the dance floor. The music was low, fluid and filled with the romantic depth of a silent film about unrequited love. Stark and Loki were ungainly in each other's arms and laughing like children. Of all the dancers, they were clearly the happiest. Observers dared speculate they were the most deeply in love. He couldn't keep his hand off her and she couldn't stop pulling him closer. Drunk out of their minds and stuck in a world of their own construct they existed alongside nothing else; no one else. Just their eyes; in their eyes entire worlds hung for them and them alone. They swayed and stumbled and tripped together in the rubble of fallen walls blitzed by excessive alcohol. Nothing to hide or circumvent in the stark light of drunken happiness.
'I wi-sh to go home.' Loki slurred in Tony's ear and, with commendable lucidity, managed to drag him to the deserted hallway before disappearing with him.
Through the haze of intoxication Tony could just about make out that they were no longer at the bar and Loki no longer had boobs. He pressed the side of his head against warm silk, feeling a quick heartbeat beneath his jaw.
'Stark, I'm tire-'
Tony dragged Loki's face to his lips and, upon finding his target, smashed their lips together unrepentantly. He slid his tongue forward and let it roam across the ins of Loki's mouth, along his tongue and beneath the roof of his mouth. And Loki, for his part, came into the kiss drunk and uncertain. He followed Tony's lead, and slowly fell yeilding in Tony's arms, feeling deliriously, deliciously tired. Tony could carry the god's weight easily, but his concentration was shot and they soon sank to the ground entangled in each other. They tasted of the same thing and bit, skimmed and stroked along one another's lips and within each other's mouths indulgently. Loki eased himself beneath Tony's weight and wrapped fingers around his neck. He tried to pull Tony closer still, as close as he could get him. He wanted him right there, with him; in him. He had never been kissed before. It felt like magic.
Languid. Lackadaisical to the point of immobility they wrestled idly within each other under the blue dark night, on the cold floor. And they fell slowly away. They slept wrapped inextricably.
Less than an hour later Loki's eyes shot open. Soft, pleasant smelling hair grazed the side of his cheek and for a second he let the scents around him find their way across his mind. The acrid but not unpleasant scent of alcohol, cologne and after-shave. He didn't have to think to know who lay beside him. Certainly he and Stark had made their way here after their little rendezvous at the bar. Loki cringed, recounting his behavior at under the hazy lights. He hadn't been raised that way. Sure that sort of thing was fine for Thor and company, but he was better than that. Better than them. And Stark had this infuriating ability to make him feel feelings he'd learnt to keep hidden in dark corners. And something about Stark's eyes and manner of being that made him want to confess unspeakable things to him. And that pleasant feeling that came with knowing that Stark was no good for him, but wanting to be near him anyway. He imagines it's what made the man so popular among the ladies.
He disentangled himself from Tony's embrace.
He stood up too quickly and found the earth falling away from his feet for just a second before he steadied himself against the wall. The aftereffects of appearing here with Tony in tow came as an unrelenting, dull, throbbing headache. He fumbled for a light switch and the room became flooded with yellow light. He watched Tony where he slept for a moment, a small lump of blackness in a sea of white. He rolled the sleeves of his dark green shirt and approached, scooping the billionaire up in his arms. The entire apartment was the color of untainted milk, and the lack of furniture and ornaments only echoed its unseemly vastness. The floor to ceiling windows seemed gaping portals to another world, one made of brightly colored lights floating in a black sea.
Loki carried Tony to where he slept and gingerly set him down on the too-soft fabrics, where the mortal sank downwards, surrounded by clouds of pristine white. Loki smiled in spite of himself.
He shook his head, trying to shake away affection. He walked away to the washroom.
The faucet rushed cold water across his fingers and down the sink. He wiped his face with the freezing ice water and he dared catch his eye in the mirror. Under the unforgiving brightness he could see clearly the scars from his fight with the serpent. A long wide gash across his cheek was evidence of the bite slowly taking his life from him. It took more effort than he was used to to hide these little blemishes beneath a thin veil of magic.
When he was satisfied with the results he made his way back to his chambers, fully aware there was nothing to do outside of watching Stark sleep. He sat against the wall and watched the Avenger's chest rise and fall. Up till this point, none of the decisions he had made with his life had left altogether positive consequences and he was just about certain that this thing with Stark would fare no better. In this state of constant fatigue, he almost regretted running from Asgard. If he'd allowed Odin to just punish him and tolerated being bound and gagged and led around like an animal and simply bided his time he wouldn't be in this mess. If he hadn't gotten lost in Elfheinm and wandered into the lair of that infernal serpent. And sure he'd slain it good and dead, but the damn thing had made sure to take him down with it. And Migard had been the closest realm he could find as a means of escape. Now he was stuck.
If he hadn't indulged Stark's advances then maybe the familiar bite of sentiment wouldn't be tightening his chest.
He regretted all of it. He should've let Thor take the throne in the first place. So what if Asgard suffered because of it? He shouldn't have cared. He had all his life been no more than a pariah and a punch line. Yet somehow he had ended up destroying his whole life for the benefit of his detractors; those that hated him to inordinate proportions. Who would've thought that Loki's downfall would have come of caring too much?
When he had first fallen off the Bifrost, he had assumed that it was over. Regret would no longer color his every waking moment. How wrong he had been. But with the bite of that snake then maybe it would truly end for him. Maybe he could finally leave regret behind.
Plot? What plot? Hey, you should follow me at trevoristhebadsheep on tumblr because I wanna be friends with you guys.