A few weeks after Fury discovered the nature of their relationship, after which Tony had sworn him to secrecy until the rest of the team found out on their own, or Tony finally got up the guts to tell them, Loki popped into Tony's lab to check in on him. As was becoming normal, they quickly got distracted, and were in the middle of grinding against each other when Natasha walked in on them, having once again overridden the locks. Everyone froze, eyes wide.

"Tony... I think it's time they were told the truth," Loki said slightly breathlessly. Tony just grinned weakly.
"Dining room. Five minutes. Be there." Natasha bit out, face emotionless, although her eyes never moved from Loki. They flickered to Tony briefly before she turned and strode out the door.
"Fuck," Tony breathed, resting his head against Loki's shoulder. The god chuckled. "Don't you dare laugh at this you sadistic bastard," Tony groused without any heart behind it.
"Don't worry, if they threaten you I will show them exactly what they can do." Loki said smoothly, eyes glinting.
"Nuh uh, no threats anywhere. If they throw one at me, we'll just tell them that Fury knows, and well, since you're still here, obviously nothing can be done about it."


The dark looks that greeted them when they got into the were daunting, but Tony gripped Loki's hand and hailed them all as if nothing were wrong. Only Steve, Bruce, Clint and Natasha were gathered, which made him considerably more confident.

"Tony, what's going on?" Steve, ever the eloquent one.

"Loki and I are in a relationship." Tony said matter of factly, with his trademark grin in place.

There was complete silence before Clint surged up from his seat with an incredulous expression.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN? Have you forgotten what that MURDEROUS BASTARD did last year?!" He shouted at Tony.

Tony winced at the volume, grateful when Natasha tugged the archer back into his seat.

"No, I haven't. But he's here to make reparations, and saved me from certain death at least twice already, so I'm inclined to give him a second chance."

"When did he save you?" Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow and gazing contemplatively at Loki, who still stood to Tony's side.

"A couple months ago, I got alcohol poisoning, would've died, but he stopped that, and as you guys know, I don't drink nearly half as much as I used to. The other time that I know of is when I fought Doc Oc and wound up injured. You guys didn't really think I just broke a couple bones, did you? No one hits the ground as hard as I did and survives." He said somberly.

The team was quiet as they remembered the two circumstances he was talking about, all of them still watching Loki warily.

"How long has this been going on?" Steve ventured finally.

"For about as long as I've been clean." Tony shrugged. It was the truth. He caught a small smirk on Loki's lips and struggled to suppress his own.

"I can't believe this," Clint hissed, taking a step forward before Natasha pulled him back and spoke quickly and quietly in Russian. Clint barked a few things back before Natasha gritted her teeth and lashed out, spitting words harshly, face closing down. Clint stilled, staring at her with a look on his face that showed his inner war with himself.

"Fine," Clint said raggedly, still staring at Natasha. Tony raised an eyebrow as he watched the pair, noting the look that entered Natasha's eyes when Clint spoke up, and the minute relaxation of the muscles in the archers shoulders.

'I knew it!' He thought gleefully to himself. He kept his expression stoic, but the mood in the room had shifted with Clint acquiescing to Natasha's demand. Whatever it was. Tony smirked at the thought.

"Tony, just... what the hell were you thinking? This isn't going to end well." Steve said sharply.

"On the contrary, Captain, it should've already ended. Ended when I died from alcohol poisoning." Tony spat out, suddenly furious. Steve winced. "It should've ended the time I fought Doc Oc, and practically smashed myself into the concrete. I was dying when he got to me, I could feel it. When I got to the Tower, you guys say I only had a couple broken bones, as well as a solid knock to the head. Care to explain how I'm alive after both of those incidents, when I should be, by all that is holy, dead?"

Tony stopped, feeling Loki pull him closer, comforting him. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before looking at the others. Natasha was looking at Bruce however, who carried a faintly bored, slightly amused look on his face. Tony was thrown a bit off kilter, having expected him and the Other guy to be completely against the relationship.

"Bruce, what's up? You haven't said a word." Natasha said.

Bruce looked up, expression unassuming. He turned his eyes to Tony, and then Loki. Tony felt a small shiver run through the god, and might've smirked a bit as he tugged him closer. "Tony, you really didn't think I'd taken objection to your robots, did you?" Bruce said mildly. He had moved his lab equipment out of Tony's lab a week or two before, saying that the robots bothered him at times. Tony had plastered a smile on his face and hidden the hurt at hearing that said about his creations.

"Mind you, I didn't realize it was Loki, although I had the fact that it was a guy and villain pinned down pretty well I think." Bruce said with a small smile.

Clint sputtered at him, and the rest of the team seemed just as shocked, staring at Bruce in amazement. Tony watched Bruce with new respect, having had no idea that they had been so obvious. Although there was that one time... a flush rose on his neck and he met Loki's gaze, who only smirked at him.

"Bruce, if you knew it was someone on the other side of the law, why didn't you report it?" Steve questioned.

"Well, I didn't know for certain. Wouldn't want to create an embarrassing situation for anyone involved would I? So I just kept silent. Tony's business is his own to deal with."

Tony flashed the man a look of gratitude. Really, sometimes he was treated as a five year old, and it irked him to no end. He had an idea as he saw the look on Steve's face and turned to Loki with a hungry expression.

"Darling, we wouldn't have embarrassed anyone, now would we?" He asked the god.

Loki's expression turned positively gleeful for a moment before he contained it and replied with a purr in his voice that made Tony twitch inside. "Absolutely not, lover." Tony gasped as the god dragged him forward into a biting kiss, pulling Tony's back to his chest and wrapping his arms around him. Tony moaned in his throat as it deepened, helpless against its sway until Loki smiled into it and pulled away with a nip.

Tony came back to himself as someone coughed in the background. He turned to the team, a grin on his face that was entirely unrepentant.
Steve's face was glowing it was so red, Natasha had lifted an eyebrow, looking rather impressed, and Clint practically had bug eyes. Bruce looked mainly unaffected, if slightly disturbed.

"Have I mentioned that Loki is now a magical consultant with S.H.I.E.L.D.? Fury knows about it already, and, well, Loki's still here isn't he?" Tony got out, voice rough.

Most of the team looked surprised by this, Tony noted with interest.

"How'd this happen?" Clint ventured.

"Well, I'm pretty sure we're all caught up that there's a new threat on the horizon. This thing that calls itself Doctor Doom." Tony's lips curled with distaste. "Anyways, we had an incident at the Helicarrier, and Loki popped in handily to save my ass. He also saved Fury."

The team looked at Loki, who was gazing at Tony with a tight expression. "I had to save you because your heart was malfunctioning." The god reminded him, low and concerned. His eyes went down, and Tony followed his gaze to realize that he was rubbing his chest again, in a habit so unconscious that he hadn't felt himself going through the motions until Loki said something.

"Tony, what's that about your heart?" Bruce asked, watching him closely. Tony winced, remembering that Banner normally displayed an uncanny ability to hear private conversations. Perhaps it was because of the Other guy, he mused.

"Nothing to be worried about," he said shortly, before stopping as Loki growled at him. "What?" He snapped at the god. There was fire in Loki's eyes.

"It is not nothing to be worried about. What if I wasn't there to help you and they don't know what to do?"

"Do about what?" Natasha cut in, tired of being ignored. The billionaire and Trickster turned to look at her as one, expressions still uptight.

"Stark here has issues with his heart because of the reactor."

Tony grimaced at Loki calling him Stark. He would have to make this one up later, right now it seemed scarily like people were looking at him in concern. He hated it.

"I'm fine, don't look at me like that. I didn't have my armor, and those little shits of robots are weird as fuck." He bit out, glaring at Loki. The god simply glared back, concern lingering in the background that Tony ignored.

Steve sighed. "Ok, let's get back on track. Tony, you'll explain later about that just in case, alright?" His tone brooked no argument.

Tony muttered a "Fine," before Steve continued.

"Loki, I don't trust you. Tony, you're an idiot. But regardless, we have to rely on the fact that Fury let you live, so that's good enough for me."

'Ah, Steve in all his naive belief of follow the leader,' Tony mused with a small sigh. Clint stood up abruptly to leave the room, and Natasha followed, slower and contemplatively looking at the pair of them.

"I should've seen this coming," She finally said, halfway to herself before she marched out of the room. Steve followed her out after a moments hesitation, not quite looking at the pair of them, but eyes flickering to them as he passed.

"So... meeting adjourned?" Tony asked no one in particular. Bruce sat up with an amused grin.

"For what it's worth... I think you deserve each other. Considering what we know about both of you, you fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. A broken and shattered puzzle, but still, it works." He said softly before picking up his tea and leaving the room.

Tony leaned back against Loki even more after the last team member had left the room, sagging with exhaustion. He was in no shape to have a verbal fight because what Loki had said was true. For some reason his reactor was acting up, and it made his heart hurt. Tony could feel Loki breathe out a deep sigh as the god angled his head down to nip lightly at Tony's neck, right below his ear. The action caused Tony to stir against Loki, wanting more. He angled his head up and caught Loki's lips with his own, but the god stopped before anything got heated, much to Tony's disappointment.

"As much as I would love to continue along with where this is going, you need your rest Tony. I am not yet sure why your heart is troubling you, and what your reactor has to do with it, but making it work overtime would probably not be for the best. You need to sleep now." Loki stepped away and swept Tony up in his arms whispering a sleeping spell as he did so, knowing Tony wouldn't willingly go to sleep without a fight. He thought he had gotten away with it too, but apparently not.

"You know, if you want me to go to sleep, you should really try asking for once. Just because I argue doesn't mean I don't know what's right most of the time. You didn't need a sleeping spell." Tony's words were slurred by the time that he finished his sentence, almost to incoherent for Loki to understand them, but he did.

"Next time then, I'll ask you." Loki whispered softly before teleporting to Tony's room.
If Tony had been awake he would have probably answered with something snarky, but as it was he was gently snoring against his gods chest as the said god pulled back the covers to his bed and set him down in it.

"What am I going to do with you, you silly, foolish mortal?" With that last comment Loki placed a kiss on his mortals forehead, setting down a spell to let him know when Tony woke up before leaving the room and heading down to where he assumed the kitchen was.


Hai everyone! It's a bit short, but I wanted to throw this out to say thank you. This chapter is dedicated to all who reviewed/favorited/followed my last chapter! I was going to update on the weekend, but oh my... I got the most reviews ever for one single chapter, and couldn't let it go without a reward XD So a big hug, cookies, the lot for that. I was over the moon XD Thanks also to my beta, for putting up with me ^^; Enjoy! Another update should come this weekend :)

P.S. Really quickly, recently had someone ask if I knew anyone who would be willing to beta their story. I don't, but was wondering if there's anyone out there who's available, or willing to take a look? Feel free to PM me :)