A/N: Erg. Don't hate me. Another fillerish chapter, (has some relevance though) short and late. Sorry.

Chapter 38: Who Let The Fangirls Get Out Of Control?

After a night that involved flour, fire safety sprinklers, bacon lube, indoor fireworks and one of Tony's duvets being set on fire, the war was called a truce.

Tony would never understand how Bruce and Steve managed to sleep through everything.

The businessman worked all the next day too, clearing everything so he could spend the next morning - their last day in Malibu - with the team.

This lead to a violent water fight.

But whatever.

On the plane home everyone except Bruce and Steve dozed from a lack of sleep the previous night.

To everyone's shock Loki woke up with a cry, looking around with his hands raised defensively. Something about the plane had set off another nightmare.

"Lo'." Tony said. "Everything okay?"

Loki blinked rapidly and took a few deep breaths. "Yes, I think so."

"Hey, come to my room. There's a bed; you can have a proper sleep without lying on a seat." Tony said soothingly, reaching a hand to Loki.

As Loki was standing up, Clint asked "Why don't you just teleport home?"

"I - I am trying to limit my use of teleportation." Loki said with a stifled yawn. "As of late it has been giving me more headaches and more pain in my heart, and logic dictates that it is not entirely safe."

"Really?" Tony said in surprise. "Why didn't you tell me, babe? I could've helped."

"Do not call me babe." Loki said patiently as the pair of them left.

-O.O-

The three weeks after the visit was more bedsharing between Tony and Loki, more battles between the two couples of the Avengers' Tower, Tony secretly trying to find a way for Loki's teleportation to not hurt him, another few assaults on the city by superpowered dumbasses, and another charity event for Rebuild New York, which would probably be the last one considering how good the city had been looking recently.

The latter event led to Loki flirting unashamedly with Justine Hammer, who was in town, while Tony burned with possessiveness from a distance. Once they were back at Loki's penthouse - having arrived in seperate cars for the sake of secrecy - Tony had Loki pinned against the wall, growling at him for being such a slut, making Loki laugh.

Turned out angry possessive wall sex was really good. Who knew?

Tony and Loki were working on theories as to why the hell villains of various shapes and sizes were focusing on New York when it was the best-defended city in the country. Their best idea was that they liked the challenge and the fame from being on the news against the Avengers. But no villian had won yet.

Though, they were all waiting on tenterhooks for Doom's return. And Loki was trying to identify the alter egos of the people they were fighting so they could arrest them. He was getting the furtherest with the Crimson Cowl, simply because he said he recognised her verbal tonation somehow.

Another recent development was the determined physical improvement of each other between Tony and Loki. Tony was feeding Loki up, encouraging him to get sunlight on occasion, while Loki had sat Tony down on a barstool, trimmed his goatee to a more aesthetically pleasing shape, styled his hair into sticking up a little with the same substance Loki slicked his hair back with, and encouraged him into dressing a little smarter.

On a more serious note, two more countries were in agreement about working together for the invasion, and Loki was hopefully convincing England when they left to go there in a week. The only other country to still sign on was Russia, and apparently Natasha had some kind of leverage there.

Knowing her, it was probably incriminating photos.

Unfortunately, the stress of sorting out the invasion was starting to get to Loki. He'd been spending hours a day in the lab, doing all sorts of weird things; his temper was a little shorter; sleeping and eating had become things he was forced into doing, and the other day, Tony had caught him smoking out on his balcony.

"Since when do you smoke?" Tony had asked.

"Since I decided to plan a global-scale resistance against a mad titan, and I found myself a little stressed." Loki had replied, lazily blowing a smoke ring. "Be glad I have not resorted to stronger substances."

Since August, when his plan had been hatched, Loki hadn't been working particularly hard; but now that the window of safe time was closing, and he was pushing everything through. Apparently the stress was encouraging him back into his self-modulation through chemicals.

That didn't mean it was all serious. When they reached their one-month anniversary, officially the longest either of them had been in a relationship, they decided to go all out. This resulted in flying to a private island, having lunch minus the paparazzi, and making out in the sunshine before laying down on a sun lounger and celebrating one month. The fresh air was amazing; having agreed to keep whatever was between them quiet, they couldn't even touch in public without another hundred rumours being started.

"Tell everyone now, and we lose all credibility as a leader and second-in-command for the invasion." Tony said gloomily, lying under a towel against Loki, who was soothingly petting his hair. "And Pepper would throttle us, and your company - mine, too, though I don't really work for it - would sink like a fucking stone, and we still wouldn't be able to go out in public 'cause we'd have cameras shoved up our asses."

"I'm surprised at our restraint from causing such a scandal thus far." Loki murmured thoughtfully.

"Why'd you have to be famous?" Tony whined. "You're Loki Fucking Laufeyson and I'm Tony Fucking Stark. There will never be a right time. We'll be doddery old guys and people will still be shocked when we come out."

"There will be a right time. I know. You always trust my instincts, do you not?"Loki said, still in that thoughtful tone when he added, "For whatever reason, I can't envision either you or myself as any older than we are now."

This was half true for Tony. He could see himself getting older, but Loki? No. There was something about him, even though Tony had seen pictures of him when he was younger, that always seemed to be the same age. Tony couldn't comprehend the thought of Loki's taut white skin slipping, his glossy hair fading, those bright green eyes dulling, his muscle softening to nothing. In Tony's mind he was always tall, strong, crazy and beautiful.

For some reason he found that thought unsettling. Like if Loki dared to get any older, he would just vanish. And it spooked him.

So he rolled over and started kissing the skin of Loki's neck, trying to banish those thoughts.

"Are you well?" Loki asked, voice tinged with concern as he lifted Tony's head to make eye contact.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess." Tony managed to say, eyes stinging with tears for some reason, even though he had every reason to be perfectly happy.

Loki cast his green eyes skywards. "No intrepid reporters, no helicopters...I do believe this is as unobserved as I've felt for ten years, perhaps more."

"Tell me about it." Tony sighed. "I was practically born in the spotlight."

"I know." Loki replied. "When I was... oh, eight, perhaps, you were on the front of the science journal I stole from the principle of my school."

Tony snorted with laughter. "You make me feel old all over again. And were you ever innocent? Like, at one point in your life?"

"I sincerely doubt it," Loki chuckled, grabbing some soft white sand and flicking it in Tony's hair, before tugging his black board shorts back on and sprinting the twenty metres to the ocean.

Those two days on that island had been perfection, but it had to end before people started raising eyebrows, and they were dragged back into the spotlight.

The end of the month came quickly. More rain, trees dropping leaves, Loki adding a warm scarf and overcoat to his suit ensemble, and hot slow-cooked food. Plus plenty of alcohol drank by Loki and Tony to stave off the cold.

No one believed that excuse.

As November began, Loki seemed a little calmer with the developments of things. Everything was falling into place, or so he said.

The morning before Loki and Tony were leaving for England, Tony shot over to Laufeyson Tower to see his boyfriend and check everything was packed.

To his shock and surprise, when thinking about it, Tony was suddenly actually pretty sure he loved Loki as he touched down on his balcony - which was a terrifying thought, considering who the object of his affections actually was. The only time he'd been in love - sorta - was with Pepper, and seeing as that really hadn't gone anywhere, he wasn't sure what it was supposed to feel like. There were a few girls and a guy he'd been a tad infatuated with, back in his post-MIT days, but that was just a passing fancy.

But if love was what he thought it was, then this was probably it. Tony grinned when he saw Loki, never got bored of being around him, rarely argued with him anymore, and the combination of their minds was producing some freaking amazing science; plus, the sex was fantastic. Tony was pretty sure he'd had more sex in the last month than in any other month of his life.

Tony loved being around Loki, and he didn't want it to end. And making Loki smile was half the reason Tony bothered to put any extra effort into life.

From what he knew of love, that was probably it.

But then, Tony had no idea what Loki was feeling, or even if he was feeling anything, so he was determined to keep quiet.

Walking into Loki's lab, he saw the man proudly toting a new helmet. It looked a lot like Loki's old helmet, except instead of the horns going straight up and down, they jutting forward aggresively, and the metal itself was a slightly dirtier colour. It looked...intimidating.

"Uh, nice hat, lover." Tony said with a grin. "Is that for your suit? Can you wear that during sex?"

"Why not." Loki grinned. "I thought it may be time for a little change."

"It looks good. Scary. Hey, is everything ready for this afternoon?" Tony asked.

"A large number of belongings are still in my flat. I needn't pack much. Are you bringing the Iron Man?" Loki replied.

"Yeah, duh. I never travel without it. I don't want to have another Vanko situation."

"Excellent. Well, I still have work to do here. I will meet you at the airfield in a few hours." Loki said.

-O.O-

True to word, they met at the airfield that afternoon. The Avengers and Darcy came to see them off, even though they really weren't needed.

"Don't go native!" Clint shouted cheerily to them as they walked away.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Tony called back.

"I mean, we've already got one rich English asshole on the team, we don't need you to go English too!" Clint laughed, and Darcy kissed him.

How wholesome.

There had been a large discussion over whose private jet they would take. Tony had said that his flight attendants were happy to give them a show. Loki had argued that his flight attendants shut up and left him alone, and that there was a conference room and a bedroom on board. Both being long-time members of the Mile High Club, neither argument was particularly persuasive. Eventually they settled for Loki's jet, simply because it was even quieter than Tony's and they could blob out. This ended with them watching Blackadder and laughing at the bad jokes while sipping alcohol.

Fuck, they drank a lot.

"Darcy was right." Loki frowned. "I do drink tequila like an adolescent girl."

Tony nearly spat out his drink from laughter when he heard that. "When was that?"

"When Darcy was trying to convince me I was effeminate enough to join her girls' day out." Loki replied. "Enough of that. Let us move to a more normal conversational topic. Which do you prefer, bar-crawling sluts or golddigging society bitches?"

Because Loki viewed that as a normal conversation?

On the global scale of plane trips, flying to England wasn't a particularly strenuous one, and they were there in no time.

Somehow people knew that Loki and Tony were flying together, and they were quickly mobbed by fans - how do businessmen have fans? By being good-looking superheroes too, it would seem - telling them they should get together, or worse, implying that Tony was sleeping with Steve or Loki with Thor, rumours neither of them had heard before and were shocked by.

Once they were in a car, Loki stammered "They think I would sully myself with my own brother!"

"Or with Steve." Tony sulked. "Who let the fangirls get out of control?"

"In this case, I did nothing to encourage them." Loki frowned. "I pray they don't realise we're staying together. Chaos would ensue. It would not be so bad, I suppose, unless they realised the flat only has one bedroom."

This was true. Rather than go to a hotel or whatever, they were staying in Loki's old flat that used to conjoin with his old laboratory.

Loki had been living there before he started Laufeyson Corp, and had bought both it and the adjacent, connected building. After he'd pulled his way up the socioeconomic scale a bit, he'd bought a really nice apartment in Central London - imagine the price tag on that - but kept the two buildings, and on his move to New York had sold everything but the small flat where it had all started. The lab itself had been taken apart brick by brick before the land was sold for Loki's own bizarrely paranoid reasons.

The flat remained, and that was where they stayed. Their first time - barring their little island holiday - they'd taken a stab at living together properly. Evening came without any problems, Loki having groceries delivered so he could cook them both dinner, and then both settling down on the couch to discuss Loki's negotiations tomorrow.

Loki would be back by that afternoon, and the pair of them were cordially invited to dinner with Thor and Jane. Which could only go well, of course.

An estimate of four days was what Loki gave for how long negotiations would take. SHIELD had already done a great deal of the wordwork.

Then the conference for two days, then home the next day.

In that conversation, Loki revealed why he'd destroyed his entire lab building - both the properties he owned had detachable ceiling tiles, and in a fit of (probably drug-fueled) paranoia Loki had starting keeping his research notes in the roof of his lab. When he left, he thought that there might still be some up there, never mind the fact the building had electrical burns and heavily altered wiring, so he knocked it down. It seemed a little extreme to Tony.

Also, according to Loki, the roof tiles of the bathroom was where Loki had kept most of his stash, and there was probably still some there.

Tony declined the offer.

Living together, thus far, was proving a success, and they always had less nightmares when sleeping together. As the end of the safe time drew closer, Loki was startling more often from sleep, panic in his eyes, needing reassurance. Tony was just glad to be there for him.

Big day tomorrow.