Tony stayed wrapped around Loki, trying to be a comforting presence. He wasn't entirely sure how he was doing. Sad Loki was almost as worrying as a mad Loki. Kisses are placed on any skin Tony can reach.
"I'm not letting you stay pouting in bed all day, b- Loki."
This no nickname thing was really starting to bug Tony. Most of the names coming out of his mouth were nicknames.
"I'm not pouting, I'm resting," he corrected, only glancing back at the man at the kisses. "I'm just not hungry, it doesn't mean you shouldn't eat either," Loki continued, turning to lay down on his own stomach.
He crossed his arms beneath the pillow and buried his face as well. He didn't like to talk of his marriage, and talking of his marriage always led to talking of his kids, and that was far too much to handle for him.
"Alright fine," Tony relents rolling away. "Don't join me. I'll just leave you here and I'll go eat. By myself. All alone. With no one to annoy me. Or complain about my presence." He smiles as he climbs out of bed and stretches. "Hakuna matata, then," he says as he leaves the room, glancing back at Loki before he turns the corner.
Loki smiled into the pillow as Stark spoke, victimizing himself so foolishly. How could he be so idiotic so often? Didn't he ever grow tired of it?
He turned to look at the man with a confused expression, though, at the Hakuna Matata. Was it a language Loki didn't know?
...Oh. Maybe another reference the God would never get. Rolling his eyes, he buried his face in the pillow again for some moments before he stood and followed after the man. He could use some tea now.
Tony had taken to humming the iconic song from The Lion King as he fixed himself another bowl of cereal in two days.
He switched the kettle on after making sure it had enough water in it, thinking he'd bring Loki a cuppa when it was ready. Then Loki walked into the kitchen. Tony smiles at the God.
"You're definitely Scar in this scenario. Which leaves me to be like Timon. But if we made you Simba. Then I'm Nala. Damn... That makes me the chick." He was just thinking aloud, not bothering to register he was doing so. Loki wouldn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about. Which was kind of disappointing because every one needed to see that movie at least once in their life time.
The moment Stark started talking again, Loki rolled his eyes. He should have remained in bed. Or moved to his own bedroom. And locked the door.
"Am I supposed to know what is it that you are talking about?" he asked as he walked to the stove. Oblivious to what was the kettle was for - probably coffee, knowing Stark - he started preparing his own tea.
Tony glanced around still oblivious a moment before it dawns on him that his whole thought process was said out loud.
"Probably not, but I'm going to have to show you The Lion King. I'm pretty sure it's a law that everyone has to see it at least once." He stands and walks over to Loki. Placing his empty bowl in the sink on the way. "Seriously, we could spend the day in bed and do nothing but watch movies and you'd finally understand some of my references."
He was feeling domestic for once and maybe it had to do with making Loki sad first thing this morning. It was an apology, or a close to one as he could get with out saying the words "I'm sorry". Again. Even if he knows the god won't agree.
"I thank the Gods I do not respond to Midgardian laws, then," he explains, pouring the hot water into a mug and placing a teabag inside. He just looked at the water taking the shade of the tea slowly. He sighed and shook his head.
"I don't really want to get your references. Really, Stark. I joined you on bed only for sex, what makes you think I would like to do it for something different?" He was being cold again. Probably because he had opened up with him far too much for him to accept it. He had to remedy it.
Tony's heart drops to his stomach. Honestly, he needs to get over this... Infatuation or whatever it is with Loki. He keeps his smile up, though he's sure it's not as genuine as he wishes it to be.
"Yeah, no. I totally get it. I'm not going to go all chick flick because we slept together." That was the last thing on his list. Besides, he was fairly sure Loki would strangle him if he even attempted. "You shouldn't, indeed. You should know how it works, you have done it with everybody you have slept with," he threw the shot as he took the teabag out of the mug and threw it into the trash. He sat down at the table.
"I just wanted to apologize for this morning. I over stepped my boundaries."
Actually, if he was being truthful, he was never in his boundaries to begin with. He resigns with a sigh knowing that Loki wasn't going to fully warm up to him, ever most likely.
"You did, yes. You have done it far too often in the past few days, as you did again when asking me to join you for movies. Apologies imply the word 'sorry', not watching useless Midgardian forms of entertainment together." He continued and drank some of his tea, keeping his eyes away from the man as he spoke.
"Yeah, well, I didn't live with everyone I slept with," he snaps. His voice is like ice for once. Here they go again with the insults and hatred. It was a nice run while it lasted.
"You say it as if I ever asked for coming here," he responded with a roll of his eyes, preferring to give all his attention to the mug in his hands.
"I don't do apologies," he growls. "Not like everyone else. It didn't work that way in my house. If you weren't willing to spend time with someone or shower them with gifts, then you weren't truly sorry. So sorry I can't apologize properly. Sorry I keep fucking up. Sorry that I'm actually trying be nice."
Sorry that keep running away from my fucking issues, he thinks as he storms out of the kitchen. It was a lovely day to spend locked down in his workshop.
Loki looked at the man storming off with a raised eyebrow. He guessed it meant no sex for that night. With a sigh, he finished his tea and moved to the living room for finding again the book he had previously started and moved to the roof. That place would be quiet enough for him to read.
Tony blames himself. Really, he has every right to. He should have treated Loki like the prisoner he is - was, his mind autocorrects - and had him locked in a cell. And he sure as hell shouldn't have purposely grabbed that shorter straw.
Damn Natasha for accidentally flashing him the lengths. None of this would have happened if she didn't.
Well, that's not true. Loki eventually would've escaped the cell, blind or not, and Tony would've made some sort of deal to get Loki to stay within the walls of the tower. And eventually they would have fallen into bed together.
That's just how Tony Stark worked. Damn him for wanting some sort of normalcy in a relationship for once. But why the hell did it have to be with the enemy? The question bothers him relentlessly as he continues his work on the newest suit. He doesn't bother to come up until the next morning.
Loki was a quick reader, and before midnight, he had finished the book and he was returning downstairs for putting it away and go to his room.
He did wait for Stark.
Sex didn't necessarily imply liking to talk to the other or spend tie with them, and considering that Stark's sex addiction was worse than he thought at the beginning, he was sure he would come. He was rather disappointed when time passed by and he didn't show up.
He turned off the lights and slipped under the covers.
In the morning, he wasn't in the mood neither for his usual tea. He just left his room to pick another book and retire again, but he found the man there as well.
"You could have warned me you wouldn't come. I don't like waiting." he pointed out, observing the books.
Tony stifles an eye roll. "I thought my storming out of the room and lack of appearances throughout the day would have been hint enough," he says unattached.
Don't get him wrong, Tony loved sex and angry sex was definitely in his top ten, but he was not in the right mind the night before.
"Maybe you should learn to wait. Us mortals spend the majority of our lives waiting on other people." This he says with snark.
He's still in a piss poor mood, probably resulting in a lack of sleep in combination with the fact that none of his testing the night prior went properly. Loki was just going to have to suffer with him.
"I am not a Midgardian, and I will not wait for any of you. I already did once for you and it was enough. You are not as special as you think you are, you are not worth of wasting my time." He almost hissed as he picked his new book - whatever it was, he hadn't even read the title.
He glared hatefully at the man then, and made his way for the elevator for reaching the roof. Very well. One night of satisfaction, and who knew for how long he wouldn't have one again. And if that was not enough, Stark even thought he had any right to tell him to wait. Stupid, useless, man.
Tony has a smug smirk as he watches Loki leave.
Serves him right. Tony was as special as he wanted to be. No one ever argued against him, except for Pepper (who had every right) and Fury and his band of misfits (which didn't happen so often anymore). Probably because he could buy out pretty much their entire lives and make it a living hell.
After eating and all that fun jazz that came with being human he returned down to his lab once more. It was going to be another sleepless night. He could already feel it.
Loki didn't read once he reached the roof. He did nothing at all. He just sat on the edge with his legs hanging down from there as he looked at the city.
The book remained closed next to him.
It would be easy to end such a painful life and just jump, only to look up from hell and see if Stark would call himself guilty for that. Though, if he knew him as well as he thought he did, he would only think he was indeed special if a God commited suicide because of him.
So, he decided he would just remain there for as long as someone didn't drag him back inside. It was rather cold.
Loki had closed his eyes. The wind hitting his face was rather comfortable, he was losing sensibility to the muscles of his face and he even liked it, in some way.
The cold was not so bad. He didn't need warmth, less then ever Stark's.
Okay.
So he was weak.
He'd given up.
He wanted to wait and see if Loki would come back and beg for him and then he realized Loki was a god and likely to hold a grudge for all eternity. And Tony wasn't too fond of that. He also wasn't fond of giving up. But you win some, you lose some.
It took about thirty seconds for him to ask about the trickster's whereabouts, after hours of bickering with himself.
He takes the stairs to the roof. Partly because it would take him longer to reach it, but mainly because it was the only access.
"Fuck you," Tony grumbles as he walks outside. "Fuck you and your not-so-pathetic little, hot ass. If I apologize properly are really going to forgive me?" Sue him he still felt bad for all the shit he's disturbed. He was actually sorry.
"Why is my forgiveness so important? I am a prisoner, I am the enemy. You have no reason for wanting me to like you if not your ego."
Tony sighs, completely giving up. He walks the short distance and sit next to the god, dangling his own legs over the edge of the roof. It would be too easy for Loki to finish what he tried the first time they met at the tower. Tony shivers at the thought.
"Becuase," he says. And he doesn't know why but he doesn't pause before he says the next part. "I like you." Well, fuck. "I like your snark. And you're not a prisoner, not here. Not with me. You should be. But you're not." He doesn't look to Loki, still afraid that Loki would push him over the edge.
"Lies." Loki's reply came quick and natural. "You are being a liar and maybe you don't even realize it." he specified then, because he was willing to take into consideration that maybe Stark's intent was not to keep him there as a prisoner or behave with him as if he was. "Even if you let me go around the top three floors as I want, I am still forced to stay, I am still forced to behave, and I continuously am under someone else's observation. It's just a bigger cell and nothing more." He corrected him with a shrug, still looking at the skyline. "I might believe you like me, though. But if I liked you as well, I doubt your interest would hold. It's simply that I didn't fall at your feet as most of the people. If I did, you would forget who I am in a matter of moments, as you did with all the others."
The fact that Loki never even attempted to try to get to another floor was sort of shocking. Kind of spoke volumes about what kind of prisoner Loki was.
"Firstly, most of the tower is R&D, no one's allowed there without clearance with a very heavy background check. The rest of it, excluding these top four floors (the fourth floor being my lab), is just offices, and why would you want to go there?" Tony tilts his head.
"No one said you had to be have, I expected you not to to be honest. But you do have to stay the whole no leaving thing wasn't my rule. That was SHEILD and Pepper. And it's kind of hard to forget the guy that threw me out a window," he says as he stands. This didn't go the way he planned. And the sooner he got away from the edge of a tall building the sooner he'd breathe better.
"Stop it, Anthony. Restrictions are not gone. It's not you deciding if I am a prisoner or not, or what I can or can't do," he responded, for the first time turning to look at the man.
And he saw the fear. Not for being high, it would be ridiculous considering the man could fly in his suit. So, fear of what?
...Of him. Stark was afraid of him. Namely, the flight out of the window was the most important clue.
"Is that memory the reason why you are afraid of me? Do you think I will do it again?"
Tony's eyes widen like the answer was obvious.
"When you get angry like this, of course I do. I'm so scared that the moment I say something or do something, you're going to kill me." He shudders.
His fingers circle his own wrist, wishing he at least he his bracelets on. And this time when his chest tightens he knows its the start of a panic attack.
"You're just going to pluck me right off the ground and throw me out the window. And I can't-" he tries to slow his breathing and it works. For the moment. "If you're going to kill me I wish you would get it over with. So I don't have to worry about dying in my own home."
Loki looked back away. He didn't know why, but it hurt. Knowing that Stark still thought he was going to die if he stayed too close to him. He didn't expect full trust, but he had thought they were over it. Without even shifting a little, he pulled his legs to his chest and lay his chin on them.
"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it anytime you were close enough. Anytime you touched me and I didn't really want it. I could have killed you in your sleep, yesterday. You gave me so many chances that if I wanted it, you would be dead already," he explains, closing his eyes once more. "Leave me alone."
Tony's more than perfectly fine with that. He doesn't say anything as he returns to the stairs with every intent on shouting to JARVIS the moment he knew the AI could hear him to get the jet ready, he was going to Malibu.
But as soon as the door shuts behind him, he falls against it and slides down into a position that mimicked Loki's. He's still trying to control his breathing although he was on the verge of hyperventilating. It should be calming enough to know the god didn't have any plans to kill him. But then again maybe that wasn't the cause of the panic attack to begin with.
Eventually he does calm his breathing down, but he doesn't move. He just stares at the grey wall in front of him, keeping his mind blank. He might have dozed off.