Rejoice! A new chapter is finally upon us! I've been so busy, I didn't think I'd ever be able to finish this before more than a month had passed since the last chapter, but here we are, exactly a month later XD (I'd have felt really bad if it had taken more than that.) I had some difficulties writing this chapter, I don't know why, but I hope you'll like it nonetheless ;)

PREVIOUSLY ON ASAF: The door slammed open, and Tony fell silent in his complaints about the 'traitorous' J.A.R.V.I.S.. "Nat' says to come down to breakf—" came Barton's bored tone until it cut off in a strange amalgamation of a gurgle and a yelp, and the door slammed shut again.

Silence reigned for half a minute in which Tony lay utterly still under him, until his soulmate turned his head to the side – avoiding his gaze, no doubt – and chuckled uneasily. "Well, that was awkward," he added, and continued to stare to his left until Loki reluctantly – regrettably – stood up. So much for the playful and companionable moment they had shared.

CHAPTER 23

Tony stared at his reflection in the mirror, shaver held aloft while he inspected his face without really seeing it. God, had they truly done that? Playing Tag, really? How old was he, twelve? (A disturbing amount of people would agree with that statement, he was sure of it). And then the whole having Loki sit on top of him, and he didn't even try to get away! He blamed it on being a superhero, really. He got into fights too often and forgot the other meaning of having someone on top of him. Come on, he wasn't used to having to consider guys in the same light as women, okay! Now Clint had a new image to fuel his crazy fantasies, and when Tony did realise that having his soulmate on top wasn't as innocent as all that, he'd reacted like some blushing virgin and made the whole thing awkward.

Standing silently in the room, not looking at each other, and Loki firmly clamping down on the bond… Yeah, definitely awkward. And before that, Loki's feelings had gone from joy and whatnot to some indescribable… not-joy. It wasn't like anger, or disappointment, or embarrassment – at least Tony thought he would have been able to recognise those feelings, even muted.

It was kind of difficult to read feelings that weren't his. He often had trouble reading his own feelings. Though somehow, it was easier to identify feelings that weren't his. And at the same time, it was more difficult to distinguish them from one another. Like looking at someone through a rain-washed window; you could see them in their entirety – it is different from seeing yourself, you can't see yourself entirely without a mirror – but the image is a bit blurred and the features are not as distinguishable.

So, in the awkwardness of the situation, he had fled to the bathroom with the excuse of shaving and brushing his teeth, but the problem remained. That had been a sexually loaded scene right there, and he hadn't even recognised it until Clint had walked in! Him, not recognising the connotations of their position! But then again, it didn't look like Loki had been aware of it either, so if they both hadn't thought anything of it, it probably didn't mean anything. A bit like their weird-arse conversation of last night.

Tony couldn't believe the things they'd talked about! Now, in the morning light, that conversation felt way more wrong than when he'd actually been struggling through it at God knew what hour. He blamed his tired brain for thinking strange shit and not recognising how wrong those questions and comments were before they left his mouth. Loki seemed to have a crazily good memory, so Tony hoped that conversation wouldn't come back to bite him in the arse in the form of inconvenient quotes. He hated when people quoted his own words back at him. And this time he wouldn't be able to blame it on alcohol or head injury or something. This was bound to blow up in his face.

But first, he had to deal with the current situation. The best thing to do was probably to ignore it. If he just acted like everything was normal and fine, then Loki would probably follow suit, and everything would actually be normal and fine. Yep, great plan! He wasn't a genius for nothing after all.

Tony checked his reflection one last time and walked out of the bathroom, and straight to the walk-in. The door was ajar, so he pushed it open and stopped. Oh. He blinked. That sure was one fine looking blue arse. And those markings did seem to go down all the way. A second passed, then two. The immobility was broken by Loki slowly turning his head, and Tony only caught the movement when a strand of black hair shifted significantly – to be fair, his gaze had been concentrated somewhere lower. He slammed the door shut before Loki could turn his head far enough to really look at him, but still – he felt like being caught red-handed like some creepy peeping Tom! Talk about 'acting like everything was normal'!

"Sorry!" Tony called out belatedly. Looked like today was going to be an awesome day. Again. If that wasn't proof for the 'Tony plus Loki equals trouble' theory, he didn't know what was. And the worst of it all; he had been checking out a guy's arse! The excuse of it being blue wouldn't hold up long in the 'strictly heterosexual behaviour' court – he hadn't been looking at it in a scientific light. Nor in a woah-that's-a well-built-bottom-I-wish-I-had-the-same type of reaction he might have if he ever saw the Cap's arse. Which he wished he never would have to see because it would probably crush his own self-esteem – Tony had a great butt and he knew it, but comparing it to a superhuman one wouldn't do him any good.

On the other hand, he would have preferred ruining the pride he had in his self-image by seeing Steve Roger's perfect body, than the thought that had shot through his mind by seeing Loki's backside. Thinking of touching it was bad, right? Real bad. And not just poking it, or probing the skin with some scanning device, but honest to God cupping it with both hands – yeah, that was bad. That wasn't the type of thoughts he was supposed to have. This had to be some glitch in the Matrix. He wasn't supposed to look at Loki's body like that!

All right, breathe, Tony. Just a one-time weird thought. Everything was normal and fine. Everything was normal and fine! If he just kept repeating it, surely he'd be able to fool himself into believing it was true. If he kept it up for an hour or two. Everything was normal and fine. Everything was n—

The door of the walk-in closet – the one he'd been leaning against for some much-needed physical support – suddenly disappeared when it was opened with a jerk, and Tony almost landed on his own not-blue-but-still-good-looking arse.

"Will you stop pestering me with your idiotic panic attacks?" said the owner of the hand that had stopped his sudden backward momentum, and Tony quickly turned around to stare at Loki's blue, blue face and his oh-so-red eyes.

Did he look like a deer caught in headlight? He did, didn't he? He should probably stop that. He opened his mouth; if he said something clever to diffuse the situation, everything would be fine. "Er…" Yep. Perfect. So very useful. That shaver must have cut off more than facial hair – it turned his brain to mush, obviously. They should put a warning on the package. Maybe he should sue them for ruining Tony Stark's amazing genius. And then make his own Stark shaver; why hadn't he thought of that before? A Stark shaver would be so much bett—

"Tony!"

"Yes?"

Loki was frowning now. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." Wrong answer. It was a reflex, really. He always said he was fine, whether it was true or not – usually it wasn't. Loki's eyebrow twitched menacingly. "Okay, maybe not. I don't know. I guess so much weird shit has been happening to me recently that I can't keep up, and now I feel like I just stepped through the looking-glass. I'll get over it soon enough." Tony stepped backwards so that he cleared the threshold. Loki was only wearing a pair of grey jeans, and he had what looked like a black tee clutched in his hand. "Sorry about barging in. I'm not used to having people in my closet. I'll let you finish getting dressed."

"Was that why you were so distressed? Because you saw me without clothes?" Tony remained silent; he couldn't answer even if he wanted to. If he said 'yes', the bond might see it as a partial lie; he had been distressed by the consequence of seeing Loki naked from behind – as in his brain mistakenly making the situation an inappropriate one – not by the fact of seeing Loki naked per say. "I do not mind," Loki added.

"You don't?" The moment Tony said that, he wondered why he sounded so surprised. Would he really care if Loki were to see his butt? Who cared, right? More people than he could count had seen him naked, why should he care about one more? Yet somehow, he felt that having Loki seeing him in nothing but his skin would be very uncomfortable and awkward. How did this make sense? Yeah, it didn't. His brain was fucked up, end of story.

"On Asgard, people don't care about nudity as much as Midgardians seem to do. And even though it makes no sense, I don't feel as naked wearing this skin as I would my Áss one."

"Really? I'd have thought you'd feel more naked, this being your true skin and all."

A sudden chill swept through the room – unless it was through the bond. Either way, it raised goosebumps on Tony's arms. Loki cocked his head, and it all seemed rather menacing. "Mmmh. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should mind that you saw me in such a fashion; I believe the phrase you use is 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do'. And you are after all the first to ever see so much of my true skin. You could say I have never been so naked before…"

Tony felt his face heat up – what the hell, face! There was no reason to do that! His mouth started spewing out excuses as a reflex; hopefully it distracted Loki from the heat coming from his cheekbones and ears. "Yes, I know, and as I said, I'm sorry! Very sorry! Didn't do it on purpose! I'll make sure to knock next time. I—"

He felt the amusement prickle his senses even before Loki started to laugh. The bastard! He was just making Tony feel embarrassed and guilty for his own enjoyment! Tony closed his gaping mouth, huffed and pushed past Loki to get inside the walk-in. He was going to ignore the last five minutes and get dressed. He needed to get down to breakfast – or rather, get down to COFFEE. Coffee was life! Coffee could make everything better. And an Irish coffee would be the best.

Loki grabbed the last of his stuff – everything had been neatly arranged on the shelves he'd been given – and walked out, closing the door behind him. Tony made a beeline for the 'jeans & tee' section – no he wasn't copying Loki's casual look, and he'd blast the face off of anyone who dared to even think about them matching outfits – and took the brightest items he could find, which was just a regular pair of blue jeans, and a red 'I am Iron Man' tee-shirt. If that wasn't a one hundred percent 'casual Tony Stark' look, he didn't know what was. If anything, Loki was the one copying him. In which case it was all fine, because, yes, Tony had good, sensible taste when it came to fashion. Most of the time anyway.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

Loki tried not to stare at his reflection in the mirror, brush held aloft while he inspected his hair without really seeing it. By Yggdrasil, had what he thought happened truly happened? He might have misinterpreted what he had felt – he most probably had. Otherwise, it might mean he had a chance, a tiny chance, of everything working out the way he wished it to; and that had never, ever happened before. No, he had misinterpreted Tony's feelings. He must have. Still, it was nice to imagine, just for a second, that it was real.

After the whole 'chasing each other around like young children' that had ended in the most unfortunate position they could be caught in, Loki had thought Tony would be embarrassed – which he had definitely been – and upset – which he had not been – and he had feared that Tony might have understood some of the deeper feelings he had for him. He had stayed at a respectful distance and monitored the bond carefully, and it luckily seemed like Tony was none the wiser.

From what he'd understood, Tony mostly felt embarrassed, somehow angry at himself, and somewhat panicked. A mix of all three had come from the bond in waves, up until that one moment when he opened the door. Loki had known he was coming, and he could have covered himself up – he had gathered that nudity was not something usually flaunted inside a bedroom unless it was for certain specific purposes – but he had simply turned away from the door and stopped moving.

That is where his wishful thinking must have made him imagine unrealistic things. He had been so attuned to the bond and its previous mishmash of emotion that the sudden silence – the sudden lack of emotion – had his mind reeling. It only lasted for an instant, and just before surprise, shock, embarrassment and panic hit him like a tidal wave, Loki thought he'd felt a peak of lust course through him – lust that had not come from himself. That was what made him turn his head, to try and see Tony's face at that exact moment, and that had broken the spell and made him drown in the sudden onslaught of feelings that was followed by the slamming door.

After that, it was impossible to make sense of everything that came through the bond, and Loki had done his best to muffle it; he would have liked to look for more traces of what he had thought he felt earlier, but the intensity of what Tony was broadcasting made it somewhat hard to breathe, and he had been forced to block the bond the best he could. And even those efforts had not been enough for the increasing panic that overtook all other feelings coming from Tony's mind, and he had intervened.

He had tried to be gentle – he had been slightly irritated at the silliness of the situation in the beginning, but he had tried to be understanding afterwards. It was better to calm Tony down then to tell him how stupid he was being. He would get his peace of mind easier that way. But then Tony had lied, had tried to hide things from him, and had involved his annoyingly Jötunn skin in the conversation, so Loki had faked anger and worded everything so that the bond would not react and consider it all a lie. Surprisingly enough, it had worked – it was possible, it would seem, to make his soulmate believe something that was not entirely true. Tony's reaction had been priceless – his blushing cheeks had been most fetching – but Loki might have gone a bit too far. Now Tony seemed to be angry at him, which was rather a turn for the worst, given all that had happened this morning.

A fist banged on the bathroom door. "Oi! I don't know if you can hear me with your godly hearing, but you should wrap up your princess-y makeup time. Time to get down to breakfast." Tony's voice, though faint, sounded rather annoyed, but the fact that he had waited for him instead of going down directly seemed like a good sign. Loki quickly put his brush away and opened the door.

"The door was unlocked. There was no need to scream."

"So you can hear through these soundproof walls! And these were supposed to be of great quality! I want a refund." Tony turned away and walked towards the bedroom door. "And I wouldn't have opened the door – just imagining the things I might have seen makes me shudder." And that comment sounded and felt as whole-hearted as they came.

Loki had not meant to, but he stopped in his tracks nonetheless. He felt like there was not enough air in the room. This was proof, was it not? Proof that he had misunderstood what he thought had been lust before – how could anyone want to see more of this body, be it on purpose or even by chance? Tony's appreciation for this skin's blue hue was merely born out of scientific curiosity, nothing more; it did not make him want to see parts of Loki's anatomy that were considered taboo.

A hand landed on his arm, and Tony suddenly seemed to be too close. "Woah no, no, no! Hey, no! I didn't mean it like that! I swear! I just thought, what if you were using the toilet or something. You'd have killed me for sure! Come on, I didn't mean anything like I'm sure you're imagining. I know what I said sounded awful, but I didn't mean that I hate seeing you naked or anything, 'cause I definitely don't." Tony's eyes widened, and his face started to redden. Loki finally breathed out. "Wow! That sounded so wrong. But I'm not lying, and you know it." Tony frowned. "And don't you dare laugh!"

Loki couldn't help it – he laughed. This situation was so ridiculous – he was being ridiculous – and Tony's irritated face was making the whole thing even more absurd. The Midgardian hit him on the arm with what was probably a considerable amount of his strength, and it felt like nothing to Loki, especially when he was wearing his tough Frost Giant skin. His preposterous heritage; his probable exile; his weak, mortal soulmate; his now very much shortened lifespan; his stupidly unrequited growing feelings… He was Lady Fate's plaything and his life was a cosmic joke! It was all so ridiculous, if he stopped laughing he might cry instead.

"Oookay, awesome, now he's gone bonkers. Good job, Tony! You broke him!" His soulmate – ridiculous! – was muttering to himself, and Loki could barely hear him over his own ragged breaths and his peals of laughter. Even though his gaze had gone watery, Loki could see Tony's determined look, and that was all the warning he got. He was suddenly yanked forward by an invisible force, as if someone – Tony – was trying to rip his soul right out of his body. His lungs refused to function for a good ten seconds, before he started to cough so hard he almost doubled over.

"What in Yggdrasil's name did you do that for?" he managed to get out in a half growling voice.

"I'm hungry. I want to go down to the kitchen. And I'm not taking a laughing madman with me. AKA the soul yanking. Don't look at me like that! It worked! You're all calmed down now!"

"Do I look calm to you?"

"Well, not when you're growling like a feral blue wolf, you don't. But I recon you'll stop that before we meet any other people, so that's fine." Loki took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Tony was right about one thing; he had to calm down, because in this skin it made him look more like a wild beast than a civilised being – and wasn't that the spitting image of the Jötnar he had been told about and that he wanted to avoid? "I'm guessing you want to be all pale and green-eyed before we go, so if we could get the whole 'taking my magical force' over with…"

Tony opened his arms like an invitation, giving access to the Arc reactor whose light barely showed through the fabric of his shirt, but that shone like a star in Loki's mind. He started to lift his hand – why would he not? Why would he not shapeshift back into his Áss form if given the opportunity? It was only logical. But Loki could feel Tony's reluctance; he was definitely unhappy with the situation. Was it because Tony preferred, for some strange reason – scientific curiosity, a voice whispered in his mind – to see him wearing his true skin?

"Perhaps later," Loki answered, surprising himself just as much as Tony, if the astonishment the bond communicated was anything to go by. There was also, though, a tiny spike of joy mixed in what Loki could feel, and that was good enough for him.

"All right then. Let's go get breakfast." And Tony led the way out the door.

Aaaand I managed to keep Loki all blue, hopefully for your pleasure *pats herself on the back* Don't worry Loks, that was a spike of lust indeed ;) And Tony, you keep blaming it on a glitch in the Matrix, dear; it will make you realising that Loki is different from anyone else all the more entertaining XD

I hope this chapter was to your liking, people! (I can't guarantee a new chapter before Christmas because I'll be snowed under by assignments, but I'll do my best.)

Spread the Luv!

LL