"Just shut up," Tony said, face in hands, "and we can forget this happened."

"It is very flattering," Loki said casually as he rummaged through Tony's dresser. He had reasoned that this world's Loki probably kept some of his own things somewhere in his boyfriend's room, and was hunting for fresh clothes.

"Shut up." Tony huddled deeper under the blankets. "Give me a break, my body's almost a teenager again."

"Oh, you needn't explain yourself."

"And it's just something that happens to guys in the morning! A lot! There's a term for it!"

"I'm sure there is."

"Maybe not to your species, but..."

"Mm." Loki held a shirt up, as if checking to see whom it might belong to. "Who has performance issues now?" He smirked.

Tony threw a pillow at him. Again. "I'm glad you're trying to get the hang of talking like an Earthling, but that means the opposite." Tony covered his face with a groan. "I'll save you the trouble and just jump out the window."

"We are on the ground floor," Loki said calmly. "After everything I've learned about your past, this seems like a strange thing for you to be embarrassed over."

"True..." Tony sat back up. "I've done worse." He swung his legs around and stood. "Not usually with an enemy. Well... not an enemy who's actually tried to kill me." Loki didn't respond, and Tony reached for his shirt, not caring if it was the one he wore yesterday. He paused, glancing down at his scarred chest. "I wonder what it'd be like if I still had the arc reactor." Loki gave him a puzzled look, and he gestured to his chest. "You know, the... well, maybe you don't. Glowing light in my chest? It stopped you from brainwashing me?" He shrugged. "Anyway, if it were still there, it'd cast its light on the room. But since only you and I would be able to see it, and it wouldn't technically be there, would it still cast light? Or would it be-"

"Is there an off switch on you?" Loki said with a look that was at least annoyed rather than murderous. Already they were improving.

Tony grinned at him. "There you go! You are picking up slang, good for you." Loki just rolled his eyes, and Tony yanked some pants on, over the shorts that had been his only article of clothing while sleeping beside Loki in a bed so small they had probably been spooning by default. "Let's go get breakfast."

He left the room with an 'I just got some' cocky swagger, dropping back into a normal stride once he realized Bruce was nowhere to be found. The sun had actually decided to show its face that morning, and warm light peeked in through the windows. "Hey, we've got the place to ourselves. We can just be ourselves. What do you want for breakfast?"

"What are my options?" Loki was already wrinkling his nose in anticipation as he sat at the small dining table.

"We're college students. I'm gonna say ramen and boxed mac n cheese." Tony started pulling open cupboards. "Not that either of those are good for brea—oh hey, cereal." He pulled down a box, shaking it to make sure it still contained anything. "And it's got marshmallows." He located bowls and spoons and poured them each some cereal.

Loki sampled a handful while Tony was fetching the milk, and made a sour face. "That's awful."

"You are so picky."

"It's like pure sugar." And Loki began to delicately extract all of the marshmallows from his cereal.

This was happening. Tony was seriously sitting down to breakfast with a God of Mischief who was picking bits out of his cereal. Just a couple days ago, he would have found such a situation a lot more odd.

"So..." Tony said once they had dug in. Without the sugary bits, Loki's had to taste like cardboard in milk, but he didn't make any more faces. At least, not because of the food.

"Can you not even eat quietly?" Loki eyed him, spoon paused halfway to his mouth.

Tony chose to ignore that. "I was wondering. How will we know if we're doing something wrong?" Loki just resumed eating, either not understanding the question or not caring. "I mean... if we steer the course of events of this world the wrong way, will there be some sort of warning first, or are we just all dead? How will we know? This Tony and Loki might be supposed to break up next week, while you and I continue acting like the loving couple. One of us might be supposed to die in a horrible accident tomorrow."

Loki hummed in contemplation as he finished his current spoonful. "Which one of us?"

"Do you have a helpful answer or not?"

"Not really." Loki peered at what remained in his bowl. "If this is an entire breakfast, no wonder you mortals are so sickly and fragile."

"Well what's going on back home? Are this Loki and Tony dealing with the same situation in our bodies?"

Loki snorted. "If that were the case, we would not still be here."

True enough. "Where are they, then?"

"I imagine their consciousness has simply been snuffed out as long as we occupy their bodies, to be restored once we are gone."

"And... they'll just... have this big gap in their memory afterward?" Loki just shrugged, and Tony sighed in frustration.

"I thought you knew what was going on! You immediately understood the situation when we first got here."

"I did," Loki said, nonplussed. "I do not fully understand all of the finer details. It is a very unusual situation."

"You think?" A thousand more questions sprang to his lips, but he swallowed them back down. Okay. That was enough of that. Tony was just going to stop thinking about it, stop questioning the whole process. It was not doing his sanity any good. If Loki even had the answers, Tony either wasn't going to like or understand them. He was going to focus on getting through this situation alive without thinking about the details, and that was that.

"So... I can fix toast or something if you want more for breakfast," Tony offered. Why not play nice? They were stuck in this together; he wasn't going to be a dick if Loki wasn't.

Loki pursed his lips in thought. "Do you have any mutton or beef?"

"Maybe an apple..."

Loki accepted the offer with an acquiescing sigh, taking the small red piece of fruit Tony found in the fridge's vegetable crisper. He took a bite, drop of juice trickling down his chin, and Tony quickly looked away. He was getting very tired of his host body's autopilot. He firmly ignored Loki as he deposited their bowls in the sink, taking his time in running water into them. Hey, at least I hadn't offered him a banana...

"Why get rid of it?" Loki said. Tony turned back to him curiously. Loki was still sitting, half-eaten apple still grasped loosely in one hand. So at least he wasn't obscenely eating, but even worse, nature was conspiring against them and the early morning light had moved to halo Loki. This whole universe hated him. Tony decided to focus on how the glow really accentuated how scruffy Loki's hair looked in the morning.

"What?" he finally responded.

Loki gestured toward Tony's chest with the apple. "It protected you."

"Oh, we're doing this now?" Tony folded his arms and leaned back against the counter. "If you can ask me personal questions, can I ask you personal questions?"

"No."

"Fair enough." Tony ran his fingers over his chest. "Protecting me from magic brainwashing was just a happy little bonus we discovered together. It was keeping me alive, stopping shrapnel from killing me. Once I was able to get rid of the shrapnel, I got rid of the arc reactor, too."

Loki blinked slowly up at him. "Why not get rid of the shrapnel in the first place?"

"I knew you'd ask that," Tony said. "Long story. I didn't have many options at my disposal at the time. I was kinda being held prisoner." As Loki resumed eating, he turned to the kitchen window that had decided to illuminate the psycho. The psycho that just yesterday threatened Tony with a hand around his throat. Tony cleared his throat. "And, y'know, built a suit of armor right under their noses, and Iron Man was born. So how about you?"

He could only imagine the look Loki was giving him. "I have no such story, I do not have another identity as you do. I am not a superhero."

There was nothing at all of interest outside to pretend to watch, but Tony pretended anyway. Asking questions about the origins of Loki villainy would likely be frowned upon at this stage of their relationship. "You're called the God of Mischief."

"I got into mischief often."

"And the God of Lies."

"I was good at lying."

Okay then. Well, he was talking about himself, anyway. That was a start. And discussing their own lives was easier than tackling the issues at hand. Venturing into the yawning chasm of what they (Loki) had to discuss and learn to survive in this world was too much. Tony didn't like not knowing where to start to tackle a problem. "Well you seem pretty okay with this."

"This being what, precisely?"

"Being my boyfriend. You know, another guy. I'd think that sort of thing was frowned upon in your manly man warrior culture."

"Why would you think that?"

"No, never mind." Tony ran a hand through his hair and finally turned around. An apple core sat on the table, and Loki was licking juice from his fingers. Oh, dammit, autopilot... "Stop that." Loki just raised an eyebrow. "And I'm pretty sure you're wearing my shirt, by the way."

Loki looked down at himself, lips pursed. "What?"

"Unless this Loki's an Iron Maiden fan..."

He frowned down at the shirt. "That's not a torture device?"

"You are seriously weird." Tony dropped back onto the chair with a sigh, grabbing the milk carton to take a swig. "So. Today we brainstorm and study. Where do we start?" He set the carton aside, waiting for an answer that never came. "Um. Any ideas? Areas of human nature you need help with?"

Loki let out a slow breath, apparently relenting. "I suppose a lesson in slang would be all right."

"Great!" Tony clapped his hands together. It was like he could hear the orchestra swell as they finally worked together. "Good place to start."

"And a brief rundown of human psychology."

Record scratch. "No problem. Brief it is..."