Here's an update that I actually enjoyed writing, sorry that it took so long though. Exams does that to people but in just over a month it will all be over and I'll be free to write whenever. For now though, please enjoy!


Chapter 7

As the music was abruptly switched off, Tony raised his head but didn't turn around. Instead he chose to shout over his shoulder to who he assumed had turned it off.

"Rhodey, I swear to god, if you mess with my music one more time I will cut off one arm from every shirt and jacket you own so that when you go into work everyone will laugh and you will be known as One Arm Rhodes."

A light chuckle was the first thing he heard before someone spoke and it definitely wasn't his guardian, judging by the smooth almost English accent. It could only be one person.

"Sorry to disappoint but it was not Mr Rhodes who turned that racket off although your threats would be highly amusing if you went ahead with them."

"I might just do that, if it means you'll laugh again. And hey, my taste in music is amazing."

"Hmm quite," Loki replied, sarcasm evident in his tone, totally disregarding the first part of what Tony had said.

As the apparent genius, judging by all of the different projects littered around, got to his feet, Loki stepped further into the room, taking in everything. He strolled to the table closest to him which was overwhelmed with all manner of things, most of them he had no idea what they were for and yet they were fascinating. He picked a few up carefully, marvelling at the detail.

Spinning on his heels, he gazed at the next surface, this one also totally full with different creations of Tony's. As he moved throughout the room, he took his time in taking in everything. He'd never seen anything like it. It was as though the room was split in two, on one half were the cars that the garage was made for and on the other was just chaos. But it was ordered chaos. Everything seemed to fit together. Everything had its own place and as Loki set another object down he worried that perhaps he was messing the order up, that he was ruining the room's effect.

"Anything interesting?" Tony smiled, watching Loki move carefully around the room.

"Did you make all of these?" Loki asked in awe, still unable to tear his eyes away.

"Mm yeah, most of them are just weekend projects or stuff I do in evenings when I'm bored. A lot of this stuff I made years ago, I don't even know why I still have it," He answered, walking over next to Loki to see what exactly he was staring at.

He unceremoniously picked up what Loki had been staring at before dropping it back on the table., laughing when he heard the other's sharp intake of breath.

"Don't, you could break it."

"And? It's shit anyway."

Loki turned to him with a mixed expression of shock and anger. "Are you being serious? This is amazing, I could never make anything like this."

"That's because you don't have the smarts," Tony said, tapping Loki on the head. "Now are you coming, we have work to do?"

They left then, Loki with a huff as he followed Tony out the room and back the way he had come. Taking another door they came to a large open room with a staircase at the side. They climbed it quickly and soon reached a wide landing. There was another flight of stairs leading to the second floor to his left but Tony walked straight past them, heading for a room with a firmly closed door. He opened it without ceremony, dropping down onto the bed almost immediately upon entry. Loki remained standing, once again looking around the room.

The last time he had been there he hadn't really taken in his surroundings. He had been far more preoccupied with finding his clothes then the front door. It was a nice feeling to look upon this room without reliving some of the memories from that night. He had been very successful in forgetting everything that had happened which he supposed was good. Although sometimes he still wished that he could remember. Stark had told him now that nothing did occur, that they only kissed, stripped then fell asleep but he did want to know what it had been like from his own perspective. Had he enjoyed it?

Shaking his head to rid himself of that dangerous train of thought, he took a few steps further into Tony's room before sitting beside him on the edge of his bed. His room was surprisingly tidy, well tidy compared to the total mess in the garage. There was a large desk by the window which was so covered by paper that Loki couldn't even see the dark wooden surface below. Stacks of school books were in one corner and a select few rested on his bedside table, obviously considered more important than the others. In all the room was quite unimpressive until Tony moved to shut the door which drew Loki's attention to that side of the room. When entering, he hadn't taken in that the wall behind him was papered with small drawings and sketches, all labelled with lines and neatly scrawled words.

"You did all of these as well?" Loki asked, once again distracted by Tony's apparent brilliance.

"No I stole them," Tony replied, sending him a sarcastic smile. "Yeah I did, they are all projects I wanna make. When I finish something, I pull another plan off the wall and just get to work."

"That's so...it's all just incredible," Loki said sincerely.

"Okay you definitely need to stop with this complementing thing, it's starting to freak me out that you're being so nice."

The black haired man rolled his eyes. "I'm always nice."

Tony sent him an incredulous look but made no further comment. After staring at the wall for a little longer, Loki was reminded again why he was there and finally dragged his gaze away, instead focussing on the task before them. They chose to do the first few progress reports together as it involved thinking back to the first few weeks of the project and neither of them could remember exactly what had happened in each meeting.

They decided to split the next task, Loki said that he would write out the groups aims for the next few weeks while Tony worked on some of his own school work. For a while it was silent. Both of them invested in what they were doing to care about the other. Unfortunately Tony wasn't one who preferred silence and soon grew bored of the lack of conversation. Standing from his chair, he moved to the bed and scooted over until he was directly in front of Loki, only a few books and papers separating them. The black haired man, however, paid him no attention, far too absorbed in what he was writing.

"So..." Tony began, hoping that Loki would register his attempt at conversation and respond. He didn't. Instead, he pretended he hadn't heard Tony, leaning closer to reread what he had just written.

"Tell me about yourself."

Sighing, Loki raised his head and looked at the man opposite him. "What?"

"Tell me about yourself. What's your family like? Why'd you move school? What's it like living with Legally Blond?"

Unfortunately Loki couldn't help a small smile reaching his lips at the reference to Thor which sort of ruined his attempt at a serious tone.

"It's not the time for small talk. We have work to do and, I don't know about you, but I want this done by the end of the day."

"Oh come on, we've been working for hours," Tony whined, ignoring the sceptical expression on Loki's face. "Fine you've been working for hours and deserve a break. Now talk to me!"

"You're acting like a child."

"And you're changing the subject. Why won't you talk about your family?"

"Just do the work Stark!" Loki snapped, starting to get very frustrated.

"See and now we're back to Stark, seriously what's up with you? I can easily talk about mine so fine, I'll go first. Rhodey's been my guardian for what feels like forever and it's more like we are friends than adult teenager. I have be-"

"For Valhalla's sake, no one cares!" Loki interrupted, shouting over Tony's next words as he lost control of his temper. "No one cares so be quiet and finish the reports."

It took a moment for Loki to calm down and realise that the situation probably hadn't called for him to raise his voice so loudly. Taking a deep breath, he released it through his mouth, letting the last remnants of his anger be dispelled with it. He realised that since he had spoken, there had only been silence in the room. He had expected a witty remark or stupid comeback but there had been nothing. When he looked over at Tony he saw the other just staring at the wall, his own breathing shallower and less rhythmic than normal.

Feeling rather bad for what he had said because it was uncalled for, Loki apologised. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

Tony turned his head and replied, "Well you should mean it...because it's true."

Taken aback by what he had heard, Loki tried to reassure him that that wasn't true. He was surprised by Tony's tone, it was so flat and hollow, nothing like his usual voice. All of his charm and humour seemed to have just disappeared. Loki could find no trace of them on his blank face.

"Don't lie Loki and pretend you didn't mean what you said. It's true, no one cares about me. I know it, you know it, hell the whole world knows it. No one's cared since my parents died, and even then it was only my mum that actually gave a shit."

"That's not true," Loki said calmly, easily hiding the panic rising inside him.

"But it is! It is Loki. Rhodey looks after me because he has to, that doesn't mean he cares, my friends certainly don't care, they couldn't give two shits if I didn't turn up for school on Monday, Tuesday or the whole fucking week." As he spoke his voice rose in volume until it was Tony who was shouting this time instead of Loki.

"Right, okay," Loki began, standing up from his place on the bed and collecting his papers together. "I'm going to go because you need to calm down and I doubt we would get much more work done anyway."

"Fine then, leave," Tony replied, opening the bedroom door ready to slam after he left. "Go, just like everyone else."

This time Loki registered the difference in his tone. It was no longer full of anger and hate, it was more bitterness and resentment, sadness, loneliness. Despair.

"No one cares, it's cool. I'm always alone, no one gives a shit about the poor little rich kid," Tony muttered as Loki passed him on his way out.

In the doorway Loki hesitated. He wanted to stay, he wanted to make sure Tony would be okay but he knew that that wouldn't be the best thing to do. It would probably only serve to make matters worse. And when did he start caring about people so much? Yes, he supposed he considered Tony a friend of sorts but to actually not want to leave him alone and to want to make him feel better. Well that just wasn't Loki.

Stepping back, he faced Tony and met his gaze. "People do care about you and don't ever think they don't."

"Yeah like who? Oh whatever, I thought you were going?" Tony said, not giving Loki a chance to answer.

Loki glanced at the door, debating with himself what to do. He looked back at Tony then leant in close and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I care," He murmured before walking out the room and down the stairs. Only when he got outside did he realise exactly what he had just done.

It appeared to be a recurring theme now for Loki to leave Tony's house feeling like an idiot. It wasn't even intentional; he was just very good at it. Why though? Why did he have to kiss Tony? Why did his brain tell him that that would be the best thing to do in that moment? These were the thoughts that plagued him all the way home, only briefly leaving him as he shut the door behind him.

"You're back early," his mother commented as he walked into the kitchen.

"We got the work done quicker than expected," Loki said automatically.

Frigga smiled, busying herself with chopping some vegetables then scrapping them into a pan. Leaving her to her cooking, Loki made to walk out of the kitchen but stopped as something caught his eye on the kitchen table. He read the front cover of the newspaper before flicking a few pages in and skim reading the page long article. After he was finished he released a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding. So that was why Tony hadn't been himself and had freaked out over what Loki had said. This also explained why Rhodey had given him a warning as he got to his house. It was all because ten years ago today his parents had been in a car crash that had killed them both.


He was getting ready to go out again before he even thought about it. Frigga watched him run upstairs, glancing to the table to see what he had been reading. She read over the pages and her face fell into an expression of pity. Poor boy, to lose his parents so young. She didn't say anything to Loki when he hurried back down the stairs and when he shouted a brief goodbye, she didn't even call him back to ask where he was going. Frigga just hoped it was to make sure his friend was okay. From him getting back so early she assumed something had probably happened between them that needed resolving.

Unfortunately, if she found out where Loki was actually going, she would be sourly disappointed because he was not going to talk things over with Tony. Instead, as soon as he left, he sent a text out to Natasha asking her to meet him in town for a rather late lunch. Luckily for him, she accepted, perhaps picking up on the abruptness of the text. He wouldn't just randomly ask to meet straight away without reason and she also knew that he was supposed to be with Tony today. Something had happened, she wanted to know what.

They met in a small cafe on the high street, Loki got there first and was already sipping at his mug of coffee before Natasha came barrelling through the door, spotting him straight away by the window and heading over. Immediately, she sat down and grabbed the menu, ordering herself a large meat filled sandwich and a slice of cake to follow along with a hot chocolate topped with cream, marshmallows and sprinkles.

As she spoke Loki raised an eyebrow at her apparently massive appetite.

"What?" She said as the waitress bustled away to prepare her order. "I'm hungry, they make good food, and it's cold outside. I'm not going to turn that down, especially when my house is devoid of anything edible."

"Fair enough," Loki conceded.

They didn't speak much until Natasha's food after her insistence that she wouldn't be able to concentrate with her stomach growling so loudly. Loki allowed her that, knowing it was best to postpone what he was about to tell her. He wasn't exactly sure of her reaction.

"So, what happened to your date that lead to you having a late lunch with me?" she asked finally, after eating half of her sandwich.

"Not my date," Loki corrected. "And nothing," he lied.

"Well you're here for a reason so spill," Natasha demanded, taking a gulp of her drink and regretting it immediately. She flapped around for a few seconds, waiting for her mouth to cool down from the boiling hot liquid, while Loki watched her, laughing lightly.

He didn't begin speaking until his friend gave him a very pointed look that said start talking or I will make you. And so he began to explain his day and how great it had been. Unintentionally, he went off on a tangent about just how amazing Tony was and got slightly carried away on his explanations and reasoning's as to why that, by the end, had Natasha staring at him with a knowing look on her face, a smirk playing on her lips.

"What it is?" Loki groaned, having a vague idea of what she was about to say.

"Loki, sweetie, I don't know how to break this to you but I think you like Tony," She said delicately, putting a lot of emphasis on the word like.

He opened his mouth to argue but then shut it again, crumpling under her intense gaze and admitting defeat. "Oh hell Tasha' I think you're right and well...that would explain why I thought it was a good idea to kiss him." Natasha gaped at him in shock. "It's not how it sounds."

After explaining what had happened it turned out that it was almost exactly how it sounded.

"So what are you going to do now?" She asked.

"I don't know, go home? Now you've finished eating-"

"I mean about Tony," Natasha interrupted, unimpressed.

"Oh right...nothing."

"Why not?" His friend nearly whined.

"Because of many reasons but to name a few, he's straight, he still has that stuff going on with Pepper that's nowhere near sorted, and the biggest one is that he's still an idiot, but an attractive idiot none the less."

Natasha seemed rather upset by his reasons and tried to convince Loki that they were just excuses and that they shouldn't put him off going for it with Tony. Sadly, he remained stubborn and so she decided to try a different approach.

"So what exactly was the kiss like, was it full on tongue action or was it sweet and innocent?"

"Leaning towards the latter," Loki replied absently, drinking down the rest of his coffee.

"Okay so it was romantic?"

"Not really, more just my stupid brain telling me to do a stupid thing."

"How did Tony react?"

How many more questions? Loki asked himself before replying.

"I don't know. I left straight after, I didn't even look back."

"Okay Loki, kiss me." Loki gaped at her. "Show me how you kissed him, then I'll be able to think of what to do next. Come on, this is what friends are for!"

"I think you just want to match make."

"Stop stalling and kiss me," Natasha demanded. Loki still insisted against it so she began chanting at him. "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!" with each one, her voice rose in volume until people started to turn around, giving them odd looks.

"Fine. But if you fall in love with me, it's not my fault.

She gave him a whatever look then sat silently and expectantly, waiting for him to lean over. Taking a moment to prepare himself, Loki swallowed then sat forward, ready to demonstrate how he kissed Tony.

Unfortunately, it just so happened that at that moment the fates decided to treat Loki very poorly, which meant that Tony and Clint walked past the cafe window and glanced inside just as Loki kissed his friend. Immediately, he drew back looking slightly alarmed that the two had seen him, knowing that they would now assume Natasha and himself were together. Natasha was unsure of what to do, very well aware that this situation was entirely her fault. Although, in her defence, she hadn't expected Tony to walk past.

As the two carried on walking, not dwelling long enough to see what would happen, Loki was left feeling at a loss. He really really hadn't expected that to happen. But he knew now that if his chances before hand of getting with Tony had been small, after what had just happened, his chances were now nonexistent. Slumping back in his chair, he sighed heavily, sharing a look with Natasha who was at a loss of what to say.

It was his first time of liking someone for a long time and he had already fucked his chances up. Wow, this school year was really going well so far, he thought sarcastically.


Wow, what are the chances? *gasp* Hope you liked it, please review?!