The first time Loki opens his eyes, the pain that throbs through his skull is so intense that he's not sure whether he falls asleep or blacks out a few seconds later.

The second time he wakes he takes a few minutes to focus on the fuzzy image of what appears to be a bedroom, tries to mumble something, but falls asleep mid-sentence.

The third time he manages to lift his head. Squinting, he cranes his gaze around the room before settling on a fancy bedside clock that tells him it's well past two in the afternoon.

He groans and sits himself up. He glances at Tony sleeping next to him, recognizable only by the tuff of hair sticking out from under the covers. Loki shifts and his dress strap falls off his shoulder.

Wait.

He looks down at himself and frowns when he find black velvet. After inspecting it and discovering the garment opens into a skirt over his legs, a bolt of white hot panic shoots through him. He scrunches the material in his hands and stares, trying to sort out the whirlwind of emotions in his head and stop himself from doing something stupid like tremble.

Tony rustles and wakes beside him. Loki doesn't grant him a good morning and instead bolts out of the bed as if it were a tub of hot water. His knuckles turn white against the black.

"Hey…you okay?" Tony drawls, voice thick with sleep.

Now, Loki trembles. Confusion twists to rage and humiliation. He tears the dress over his head and throws it at Stark, leaving him standing there seething in his underwear.

"What the fuck is this?" he hisses.

Tony frowns and pulls the dress off of his head. He blinks and looks at it like it isn't the most insulting thing Loki's ever seen. "What do you mean? It's the present I got you." He sounds deviously innocent.

"Present?" Loki scoffs. "Is that a joke?"

Tony looks confused and more than a bit hurt. "What? No, why would I—"

"Because it's funny, right? Because I look and act like a girl?"

"Loki—"

"Is this some sick fantasy of yours? Did you and Thor have a good laugh?"

He can't stop his hands from shaking. His face burns with shame.

"Loki," Tony says firmly, climbing to his knees. "I swear to god that the dress was just a gift. I thought it would make you feel better after what I said at the engagement party."

Loki stops short.

"You think my behaviour after the party was because of you?" That catches Tony off guard, but Loki can't stop now, the rage is uncontrollable. "Is your tunnel vision that bad? Are you literally incompetent at thinking about anyone other than yourself?"

"Are you incompetent at calming the fuck down?" Now Tony is riling up to meet his tone. "I bought you a fucking dress to make you feel better, sorry I didn't catch the 100-page booklet on what you were feeling at the time—I'll be sure to pick it up."

"Why would a dress make me feel better?!"

"I don't know! I was trying to be observant! Audrey Hepburn, you like Audrey Hepburn!"

"Right, like you give a shit," Loki mutters.

Tony's hands turn to fists. "Well, you certainly were appreciative last night."

An anvil drops in his stomach. "So you took advantage of me?"

"Fucking hell," Tony curses, close to ripping the hair out of his head.

"What?" Loki asks bitterly, "are you used to batting eyelashes and compliments after a night like that?"

"I am not the bad guy!" Tony outright yells.

"No, you're just a selfish asshole!" Loki yells back, setting off the hangover in his head and making him even angrier.

"And you're just a whiny bitch literally making drama over nothing!"

"Fuck you, Tony," Loki growls, storming off to the bathroom.

"Fuck you!" Tony delivers right back.

Loki slams the door.

The only thing worse than being stuck in a hotel room with someone whom you want to strangle, Loki finds, is being stuck in an airplane with someone whom you want to strangle.

Before the flight Tony and Loki shuffle around each other as they pack their stuff, not making eye contact. Loki doesn't even want to think about the stupid dress, but he does notice how Tony grabs it and packs it with his suit jacket. His teeth clench and his stomach twists.

He puts on his happy face for Thor, who squeezes him in a hug so suffocating Loki thinks he's been bent in half. His 'friends' are already at another bout of partying and don't bother fairing him well. He's not unhappy. Afterwards Heimdall escorts them back to the airport and onto the plane.

And now here they are, trying to see who can out-passive-aggressive each other for the next three hours.

Tony falls asleep after the first twenty minutes and Loki doesn't know why, but that makes him hate him more. He stares out the window sourly, arms crossed and lips pursed. There's still enough anger in him to break bones.

They arrive in New York in a decidedly worse mood than when they left it. Loki walks into his apartment with a sigh of relief and some of the tension in this shoulders release. It's short lived. Tony walks in after him, chucking his jacket over the back of one of the kitchen stools. Loki doesn't know why Stark chose to come back to his home, but it's not like he's going to ask. He still hasn't spoken a word to him.

Tony immediately leaps onto Darcy's laptop and starts tapping away at the keyboard. Loki rolls his eyes. Tony sniffs loudly and he rolls them again.

Darcy slinks out of her bedroom in a scratchy looking green sweater. Her face shows the clichéd signs of a bad sleep—purple bags under the eyes, bitten lips, wild hair. Her eyes squint without the aid of her contacts.

"Dude!" she celebrates weakly, holding her arms out and walking over to him. He welcomes the hug, burying his nose into her neck.

"Hey."

"Holy crap, how was Vegas? Or can you not tell me due to the code."

"It was…..something."

Tony snorts from the couch and Loki almost breaks his neck for daring to.

"Hey Tony," Darcy greets. She gets a wave in response. "Well," she says to Loki, "you need a welcome home cocoa. It's cold as balls."

Loki sits at the kitchen counter and soaks up Darcy's company until he hears Tony curse.

"Fuck. Well, that's just great." Loki glares as Tony stands, holding up his phone. "'Tony Stark and his new fiancée look perfectly content during their extravagant engagement party as they await their big day, which Howard Stark confirms will be a December wedding.' No mention of the fight. No forums, no blog posts, no fucking trash gossip. Nothing. My mom's just sent me bouquet selections. They've practically deleted all memory of anything happening."

Loki looks at him. "What do you want me to do?"

Tony looks at him like he's insane. "Want you to do? This was your plan. This was your job. It was supposed to work and it hasn't!"

Darcy stops preparing hot cocoa.

"You want me to break us up? Fine," Loki says airily. "I'll call my mother now and tell her."

Tony glowers. "You know that isn't a part of the deal."

"Why not?" Loki asks, standing so they're eye-to-eye. "Oh! That's right. This is all about your precious image. Your weird fucked up need to play mind games with your father instead of facing him like a man."

"You don't know a single damn thing about my father," Tony seethes, eyes suddenly glassy and oh yes, Loki wants to see him hurt.

"I know you're terrified of him. I know you're terrified of becoming him but look at you. Narcissistic rich boy who drinks instead of dealing with his problems."

"Hey!" Darcy tries to intervene from the kitchen, but the argument is already too hot for her to touch.

"We had a deal," Tony says, raising his voice.

"We never had a deal!" Loki says. "You're blackmailing me and using me."

Tony broadens his shoulders and takes an obvious step forward into Loki's personal space. "Well I'm paying you, so you can do as I say."

In the next second Loki is leaping at him and there are hands around Stark's throat. They go crashing onto the floorboards in a mighty tumble and Loki wastes no time throwing the first punch. It hits Stark's cheek with a smack and bruises bloom from under his knuckles.

"Loki!" Darcy yells, racing over to drag the enraged boy off—but Tony takes care of it instead. He easily throws Loki to the side and takes a moment to catch his breath. But Loki has gone past reason and has gone straight to feral. He lashes out, nails drawn like claws, and when Tony leans back to avoid them he springboards off of the floor and back onto Tony's middle.

A throat is underneath his hands again. He feels the clawing and tugging of Darcy at his back but all he can see and hear is pulsing red. Spit begins to pool in Tony's mouth.

Before Loki can think to squeeze harder Tony's grabbed the closest piece of furniture and brought it down on Loki's head. Loki barely misses and stumbles to his feet but now Tony is charging forward.

Darcy shoves him back. "Stop it!" she screams. "Both of you, stop it!"

"You cunt," Tony says through his teeth, heaving against Darcy's hold.

"No, that's what I have, remember. You like to remind me a lot."

"Both of you, shut up!" Darcy shouts, but the bait has been set and Tony surges past her with a growl.

They fight. They throw punches and spit and Tony gets a new scar on his cheek from one of Loki's nails. Darcy is hitting Tony's back desperately. The apartment is nothing but chaos.

"Where do you get off, huh?" Tony grabs Loki by the collar and yells in his face. "Where do you fucking get off?!"

A good question. Loki knows he's the reason for all this needless violence but he can't stop it now. He's never been good at de-escalating situations.

Tony seems to solve that by throwing him to the ground, where his skull hits the corner of the coffee table, slicing it open.

Loki can't even muster a cry the pain is so sudden and intense. He bowls over onto his knees, holding his head where the blood is starting to ooze.

"Fuck," Tony says from where he stands, suddenly sobered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. I didn't mean to do that."

"Both of you take a walk!" Darcy shrieks, pointing to the door.

"No," Loki whispers. He stands up and wobbles, keeping a hand firmly on his forehead. "No, fuck all of you. I'll leave."

He walks past both of them, head stubbornly bent at the floor. "Oh, why do you have to be so god-damned dramatic Loki," he hears Darcy hiss, then the door is closed on them and he's alone.

He's goes to the nearest convenience store and buys a lighter and a pack of cigarettes and sits down in the neighbourhood basketball court. It's dark and freezing. No one is out this time of night in this part of town, and those Loki does see are bundled up tightly in layers of overwear. Loki fights the urge to rub his shoulders, still only clothed by his thin dress shirt. He relies on the adrenaline still pumping through him to keep him warm.

Ice and slush have built up on the out skirts of the court. Loki stubbornly sits on the edge, back against the wire fence. He sits and listens to the ambulances and fidgets with the lighter as he thinks.

Well done, his inner thoughts congratulate sarcastically. Bet you're very proud of yourself. Loki curls his arms around his knees, flicking the lighter mindlessly. The whole situation feels depressingly familiar and he doesn't feel any less sick because of it. Whether it be his father, his teachers, his classmates and now Stark, Loki always seems to find himself here, biting the hand that feeds him for no reason other than spite. It's like he was born with a switch permanently set to self-destruct and he's never learnt out to switch it back.

The seat of his jeans are soaked. He sticks a cigarette in his mouth and tries to light it, but the lighter struggles against the smallest of breezes. It doesn't take long for him to give up.

So he sits there feeling sick until his pants have started to frost and the numbing cold has spread to his brain and he can't think any longer. The blood running down his face has long since dried.

Whether to his relief or disdain Tony arrives. Loki, shivering, watches him enter the court and slowly trod over to him, dressed far more responsibly in a large coat and boots. When he arrives he lets out a big sigh and drops an extra jacket into Loki's lap before flopping down beside him. Loki manages a quick, tight-lipped smile before tugging it on. Relief, definitely relief.

"Thank you," he says quietly, after some silence.

Instead of replying, Tony reaches over and grabs a cigarette from the box. "Yoink." He takes the lighter and successfully lights it on the first try. Soon thick smoke joins the clouds their breath make.

"I didn't know you smoked," Loki says lamely, not really knowing how to start a conversation. He eyes the scar on Tony's cheek. It's deeper than he first thought.

"Touché," Tony muses. Then he shrugs. "Only when I'm feeling extra self-destructive. Not as sexy as a glass of brandy. Such an old-man thing to do." Finally Tony looks at Loki, first his scar then his eyes. "I'm sorry I called you a cunt."

The laugh that comes surprises both of them. Loki quickly recovers and looks away. "I deserved it."

"No," Tony says, "you didn't."

Loki suddenly feels heat building up behind his eyes and he doesn't know why. He realizes that he really doesn't enjoy fighting with Tony.

They don't talk for a while, just listening to the sound of tobacco being singed and cars getting jumpstarted.

"I think I hate myself," Loki says. He feels Tony looks at him. His stomach twists and he's glad he's too numb to feel horrified at that embarrassing announcement.

"Yeah….." is all Tony can say and Loki can't blame him.

The heat gets more intense. "I always fuck it up."

Tony scoffs. "Oh please. You are talking to the master of fucking things up."

"Really?" Loki says, suddenly spitting and filled with too many emotions to know what to do with. "I've alienated my entire family. I ran away from home without consideration for anyone to become a fucking actor."

"Yeah, you left home to do something. You know why I left home? To sleep with European girls and party," Tony retaliates, almost matching his intensity. "All while still using my dad's credit cards."

Loki stares at him for a while, softening at the blunt honestly he's been given. He deflates. "Yeah, well, one time I poured glue on a girls head at a performance in front of the whole school."

Tony's eyes bulge. "What the fuck? You monster. I can do you one better though—I once threw my father's three hundred dollar cigars over board on a cruise ship just because I didn't want to share my suite with the maid."

"But you see, I completely believe you," Loki grins.

Tony shrugs and gives a wiry smile. "Yeah. I kinda suck."

"Within a week all of my classmates hated me."

"Ah! See mine loved me, but I used it to manipulate girls and feed my ego."

Loki takes a moment. "I know my father acts the way he does out of love and because of his own upbringing and I still hate him."

"I'm honest to god not sure if my father loves me or not."

They fall silent again, taking the moment to better understand each other. It's not long before Tony squishes his cigarette into the snow and climbs to his feet.

"C'mon snowflake. I'm freezing my ass off. And we really need to check up on that gaping portal on your head."

Loki agrees, but before he gets up:

"Thank you for the dress."

Tony stops to stare. Eventually he smirks. "Was that so hard?"

Loki gets to his feet and punches his shoulder, but the laughter it evokes is the most pleasant thing he's heard all week.

They arrive in the apartment looking a little colder and scrappier than when they left and Darcy rolls her eyes and pulls out the medical kit. For the next hour Loki sits on the couch, twitching and grunting as Darcy sticks him with needles and sews him back together. Tony holds the phone with the WikiHow article up carefully for her to follow.