The countryside glows yellow in the midmorning as they rocket down the rural highways at irresponsible speeds. Everything feels like it's thrumming with energy compared to the stagnant air in the penthouse, from the roaring engines to the dust thrown up by the tires. It's infectious and vibrant, and when he looks at Loki it makes him seem to glow around the edges.
They're practically flying over the blur of tall grass and wire fences, he and Loki in the Porsche with the top down and the brat pack hanging out the windows of the Mercedes in the next lane. Tony's tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the gentle, dulcet tones of Black Sabbath blasting at full volume and Loki is half standing in the passenger's seat trying to hit her children with ice daggers at ninety-five miles per hour. Another great day in the asylum.
If he and Loki were chaste high school sweethearts yesterday then his smooth, searing handjob must have been graduation. Because today his mind is completely one track and it's a problem. Loki passed the fuck out as soon as he came last night and left Tony to take care of himself with his old friend Mr. Right, so he's maybe a little high strung. Every sarcastic word and sideways glance makes him want to tackle Loki in the backseat. Or vice versa. Or, hell, they could crash and fuck in the wreckage. He's not picky.
So far he's kept himself in check, but only because he's never been capable of receiving road head without collateral damage. Still, Loki needs to stop being so appealing. Soon they'll arrive at their destination and he really needs to not pitch a tent when he gives the grand tour.
The day is about as liberating and high octane as he imagined, but with the notable improvement of Loki in her female form, gift wrapped in faux leather tights with one of Tony's band shirts hung off her shoulder like a grunge groupie and a studded leather jacket he's never seen before. Her hair is glorious and untamed, tied back in a birds nest that once resembled a ponytail with three lines of braids above her ears. Yeah, she kept them. Conjured a fist full of little black bands and tied them up herself. Tony thinks he must be in a coma, dreaming.
Just when he thinks the excursion can't get more reckless, Hela appears out of nowhere in the backseat and squirts a plastic water bottle at Loki. Tony swerves a bit, surprised, but Happy's a good wingman and avoids him. Loki manages to catch the water in mid-air, freezes it in a rippled wave and throws it back, which is fucking metal. Hela deflects it before Tony has time to worry and melts it back to liquid, splattering it on the upholstery with a cackling laugh. They go back and forth, basically having a slap fight, except that they're Jotun so it involves a lot more ice and mortal peril than it should. It's fun, kind of hot on Loki's part, up until a stray dagger misses his ear by a millimeter and buries itself in the windshield, cracking it from one side to the other.
"Ok, that's it." Tony crows over the road noise, throwing off his sunglasses, "Jarvis, take the wheel."
Loki and Hela form a truce in the time it takes Tony to get out of the bucket seat, and when he stands up on the center console they've already teleported to the top of the Mercedes.
"You cannot hope to challenge us!" Loki boasts, clothes flapping around her figure while she strikes a very nice power stance. Again, with the unnecessary sexiness.
"My name is Tony Stark, you killed my car, prepare to die!" Tony calls back. Kicking down the center section of the back seat, he shoves his feet into the boot casings of the Mark 43 hidden underneath and signals for Jarvis to suit him up. Metal crawls up his body one segment at a time, but he leaves the face plate off. He wants to look Loki in the eye when he pins her.
"It had it coming!" Hela retorts, and with a glance to her father, the two of them summon blades from thin air in unison, spinning them around matching sets of deft fingers. He never should have let her watch Chicago.
Tony kicks things off with a quick repulsor blast, low power of course, but it goes wild because he has to dodge about a hundred throwing daggers. Those do not look low powered.
"Hey, watch it, you could poke someone's eye out." he jokes, darting around in circles above the two of them and narrowly avoiding a spray of ice from Loki.
"I rather thought that was the point, darling." Loki snarks, and throws a blade in Tony's flight path. It's well calculated, he has to adjust at the last minute, which means the only way is up. When he fires the boosters, Loki phases into his new trajectory, her foot already extended in a strong downward kick that lands square on his back. Tony corkscrews out of control and just manages to catch himself before he hits the ground. Loki has the nerve to wink at him before blinking back onto the car, where she bends in a graceful bow as it carries her away.
Damn, owned. He only takes a few seconds to catch up, but when he gets there Hela is happily gunning the Porsche while Loki paces on top of the Mercedes, waiting for him.
"For a second I thought you were gonna knock out my teeth." Tony calls.
"You would not be much use to me without your face." Loki shouts back, her smile free and wolfish. Minx. Tony snags her around the waist and lifts off, takes them both for a joy ride that ends with them breathless and windblown at the end of a gravel drive. Loki stumbles when her feet touch down, and they end up holding each other.
"Too much?" Tony asks, and she pushes him back an inch, gets her balance.
"No, it is good. Like a sore muscle. Magic needs to be used to grow stronger." Loki says.
Tony steps out of the suit. It's almost eerily quiet after hours of whipping wind, and he takes her hand, turns to look at the expansive plot of undeveloped land.
"Ta-da." he chants. Loki smirks, shoves her hair over her shoulder and pulls the jacket tighter around her. It's chilly this far north even in the middle of summer, and she doesn't get the Jotun warmth in her other shapes. He lays an arm over her shoulders and they stroll a bit. The drive turns from gravel to brownstone pavers after a hundred yards or so, and they pass a weathered wooden mailbox with rusted copper numbers screwed into the side.
The existing house is a ruin. A slumped rectangle of rotten, horizontal siding with broken window panes as dry and white as sun-bleached bones. The roof is caved in over the porch, which is itself a termite eaten scrap heap with flecks of red and white paint caught in the grains of the old wood.
"You spoil me, Stark." Loki drawls.
"Yup, I'm the best." Tony says, "But, I mean, the idea was to knock it down and start fresh."
Loki turns a slow circle, taking in the property. Its open, already leveled for development, but grown over as though the previous owner changed their mind. To the east, sunk into the foot of a forested hill, there is a small pond with a stone bench and a wrought iron trellis. It's charming, remote. Also massive. He bought it with half a mind to build a vacation home, but then Loki convinced him to rebuild Malibu. He barely had the time to live in two houses, let alone three. After that he thought maybe an Avengers base would be good, would give them bigger training spaces with lots of room to grow. Honestly that option is still on the docket, but he can find somewhere else. This is Loki's now and he doesn't regret his decision.
"It is magnificent." she declares. "A worthy gift."
"Uh, sale, sweetheart." Tony quips, poking her in the ribs, "You paid for it. Handsomely."
"A compensated gift, then." Loki says, burrowing under his arm and looking up through unfairly long lashes.
"Yeah, okay." Tony smirks. Kisses her. The green all around is the color of her magic and her eyes. Waves of black hair and the overgrown wilderness make her look like a forest spirit from a fairy tale, all dark promise and danger. Watch for changes in behavior. Pft. Right. Loki used to skulk around, now she's skipping over moving cars and kicking his ass. That's not a warning sign, it's progress.
Even so, today is a first of sorts. For all the nights they've spent in sin, female Loki has never been outside. He doesn't know why. It would be less conspicuous. For a while he thought it was a taboo. Then a few weeks later a crew of window washers came to squeegee the living room and she spent three hours on the couch in her lacy underwear watching them work and eating poptarts. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it does. Ultimately Bruce is right, it's not his call. There are things about Loki that he doesn't need to understand to appreciate, and information he needs to earn before he learns it. Her presence here is significant, and that's all he needs to know.
There is the impulse to treat her like a lady. Flowers, candy, the usual crap. But at the same time she's Loki, who likes to be poked and pushed around a bit. Teased, as long as she knows she isn't the punch line. But then, isn't that the point of changing, to be something different? Ugh, this is why thinking is a liability in their relationship. It's killed lesser men than Tony.
He settles for taking her apart one tender kiss at a time. Enough heat and teeth that she doesn't feel coddled, but mostly just soft and plying, welcoming her to the land of the living. Loki starts getting really into it, starts to turn and put her legs between his and-
"Ew! They're kissing!" a high pitched voice yells behind Tony. God damn it all.
"Gross!" the other high pitched voice answers. They break apart.
A feral kind of grin splits Loki's face and she slinks away. There's a lot of hip involved. She puts her hand on Jori's head and explains to the kids that this is their land, that they can shift if they want and nobody will hassle them. It's all very warm and fuzzy if he puts his deep frustration on the back burner. In a movie it would be pink and gold and soft focus with a swelling orchestra worthy of the end of a Star Wars movie. Deep down he's maybe a little fluttery too, even if he mimes gagging noises at Happy over Loki's shoulder.
She sends the herd of godlings off with a stern order to explore the entire plot and report back, and it's like an episode of Amazing Race. The little biters grow three sizes and scatter. Not just the boys, either. He about shits himself when Hela hops on top of a barbed wire fence and turns into a hook-beaked falcon the size of a Saint Bernard. Huh, at least that explains the bone wind chime hanging over her desk. Happy doesn't do nature, so he opts to stay in the air conditioning while Tony and Loki hike over to the pond.
It's chilly, and he swears there is a bug somewhere within a mile radius. That is categorically unacceptable for Tony, for any Stark really. They are titans of industry, not nature people. His ankles itch under his socks and the fact that it could be grass, or thousands of ants, or his mind playing tricks on him makes him twitchy. As soon as he starts inventing excuses to bail and join Happy in the Mercedes, Loki bends over to rip the vines off the stone bench and he decides actually nature isn't so bad.
Damn but those leggings should be illegal. They're so tight. And shiny. And now Loki's maybe milking it a bit, because there's no legitimate reason she needs to bend all the way over the fucking bench. He adjusts himself in his slacks as minutely as possible, which is not very subtle at all in the middle of a field. Loki spins and perches on the bench, smugly leaning back on her arms so her shoulders hunch and push her breasts together. She scans Tony up and down and crosses her legs at the ankle of her rockabilly boots.
"Won't you join me, darling?" she asks in a sex voice that makes Tony groan. This is fucking manslaughter. He has a heart condition, she can't do this to him.
"You should say that at home sometime, see what happens." Tony smirks, enjoying the view.
"I would very much like to find out now." Loki says, and, oh sweet jesus, squeezes her legs together and rolls her hips. Keeps her eyes on his the whole time. He scraps his earlier statement, she's the one who should be illegal.
"The kids are literally right there." Tony says, putting a hand over his eyes because he knows he's going red and that is so not kosher. Exhibitionism isn't a problem, but he's pretty sure what Loki is working up to is grounds for a call to child protective services.
Out of nowhere, Loki pounces on him, knocks them both to the ground and gets her hands in Tony's, pulls them over his head and laces their fingers.
"What if I can afford us some privacy?" she says, biting his ear and turning his conscience to lava. She draws a circle on the back of Tony's hand with a finger and Tony watches two figures materialize, clones of he and Loki sitting together and chatting amiably on the bench. Wow, he can think of some really very kinky applications for that.
Now that she has his attention, Loki sits up and gathers some energy. At least that's what it looks like. Figuring out how magic works is high on the agenda, right under defending Earth, but for reasons currently perched on his dick he hasn't gotten to it yet. Thor insisted once that it is just really advanced science, but Tony is skeptical. His suit might look pretty fucking magical these days, but it's all thanks to dubious experiments with implants. What Loki does is something else, and nothing she's ever said indicates that she underwent any kind of procedures to get it.
A sort of dome appears around them, although the shape is irregular, and out of it shoot blades of grass a couple hundred at a time. It's solid looking, and very trippy to look at from the inside. An illusion, like the clones.
Wow, Loki must really want it. She's building an illusory sex hideout because she doesn't want to wait for it, and ain't that an ego boost. Bit of a boner boost too, if the warmth pooling in his gut is anything to go by. Yeah, ok, they're doing the nasty. He's officially convinced.
"How do you want it?" he asks, rolls his hips so she can feel him. Loki arches, presses down, but sighs at his words. Frowns down at him like he ruined the moment. Closing her eyes, she rubs into the growing bulge in his pants and grips his hands harder.
"Lokes-" Tony says.
"Y-Your voice." she interrupts a little angry, a little resigned, "In the lab."
Oh, interesting.
"You, want me to, uh-" Tony says, searching for the right words. He's pretty sure "take you down" will come off wrong. Seems unlikely that Loki's encountered a dictionary of kink slang unless her internet history has become way more interesting than the last time Tony checked. He clears his throat. "You want me to make you float?"
Her yes is more of a moan than a word. It makes his breath hitch and his hips rock. She's got him fucking trained. All it takes is a certain look or a sweet little moan and he's ready. Sucks though, because he doesn't think it's such a great idea to unhinge Loki a couple hours before she jumps in the nearest portal to Asgard. Talking he can do though, he's got a mind like a landfill if dirty talk is what she wants. Mmm, and he hasn't had the privilege of her female body in ages.
"I love you like this." he starts, and Loki bucks into him, breathes hard through her mouth, " You look soft, but I know you're not. I know how you like to take it deep and have me cover your mouth so the whole tower doesn't hear you."
"Yes, Tony." Loki pants, and her pupils go so big her eyes are almost black. She runs her nails down his arms, his chest. Rakes up her shirt and slides those narrow fingers under her stretchy leggings. No imagination is required, those pants are just so tight and sleek that he can see every eager little stroke she treats herself to. It's a mind bender, because he's not sure if he wants the pants off or on. He wants to see her, but the barrier also drives his imagination wild, makes him that much more desperate.
When she had his arms pinned it felt a little restrictive, but now she's giving him a show and he kind of wants to leave his hands up. Wants to make a game of driving her wild without even touching her.
"You remember that time in the shower? You looked so fucking gorgeous from between your legs." Tony says in his lowest voice, rough from the arousal pulsing in time with his heart, his dick, and all the way to his toes. "I could have stayed there for days, just eating you out and making you come on my face. Over and over."
Loki moans, high and breathy and so, so sexy. No pornographer in the known universe could do that sound justice. His best laid plans fall apart around there because he can't hold back anymore. To err is human, and sweet hell does he want to err. He wants to err so hard. He runs his hands up her thighs and digs his fingers in her perfect ass, uses the leverage to rub up into her through both of their pants.
"I wanted you to grab my hair and make me drink you down." Tony groans, palming himself because he's about to bust an inseam.
Loki's hand is a blur. She's writhing and humping like a piston, but he knows he can do better. He wants to touch her through her own hand, wants to take that control she's offering him and play with it.
"Slide your fingers down there, get them wet for me." Tony says, and Loki does. She's so wet he can hear her slip in. "Yeah, fuck yeah, now drag them back up. Rub your clit. Nice and slow, I want you to feel it."
"Tony." Loki pants. Her body is shuddering and she's doing perfect, doing it just how he would.
"Good, so good for me." Tony says. He runs a hand under her shirt and cups one of her breasts, ghosts his thumb around the tip to see her tremble.
There's nothing wrong with what they normally do, but Tony Stark loves women. He loves soft skin and dick-sucking lips. He loves the way they look delicate but can take so much, how they are secretly indestructible. Apparently he loves them enough that the motherfucking Mind Stone told Loki all he needed to have Tony enthralled was an attractive female body. And you know what, it's true. Guilty as charged. It's the person inside that made him stay though, this hungry, insatiable beast that doesn't understand how incredible they are. Loki is fucking inconceivable in whatever shape or gender they choose to be.
She's getting unruly now, whining more and more the longer Tony holds her reins. She thinks she likes it fast, always rubs savagely at herself like she's going to burst if she doesn't come in the next ten seconds. Tony knows better. Nothing makes her cry out like a torturous ascent, a drawn out peak of quivering and shaking and eventually begging. Never once did he imagine how hot it would be to make her do it to herself.
"I need it, I need it, oh Norns, need more." Loki pleads, her body lurching and her hand tremorring with the effort of holding steady, rubbing wet and slow and not enough.
"Wait for it, don't rush." Tony scolds, kneading her breasts and nipples with barely-there touches.
"I can't, I can't, let me come, let me come." Loki cries, sounding like she's on the verge of a breakdown, and Tony takes pity on her. Gives her the push she needs.
"Then come, beautiful." he says, and gives her nipple a sadistic little twist, a spark of pain to amplify the pleasure, and Loki comes. It seems to last forever, her body doubled over and moaning into his chest. Her fingers never stop, they keep reaching and pressing and trying to make it last. Tony slides his hand in and pushes hers aside. She's done so well, she deserves more. In this form she doesn't like him being on top of her, so instead of rolling all the way he guides her to the bed of grass by his side. Loki is absolutely dripping, hot and still twitching with aftershocks, so it only takes a second to make up his mind and slick up his fingers.
He knows every inch of this body from the single dark freckle on her right hip to the small window of time just after she comes when all it takes are a few deep, sinful strokes to make her come all over again. His fingers spread her open and slide right to her spot, play it like an old friend while he strokes her clit with his thumb and she peaks again, hard and too soon.
He gets an up close view of her face as she takes the plunge this time and she's incredible, gripping bruises into his hips and mouthing quiet obscenities. Loki always loses her words after the first orgasm, seems to enter an almost transcendental place where there's just desperate whines and the hunger for more. Tony already wants to do it again, wants to watch her devour orgasms until she's spent and numb and upset that she can't keep going.
Lips crash over his and he welcomes her, lets her plunge in and rake her teeth over his tongue while he coaxes her body into another rush of arousal, rubs her and fucks her with the precision only fingers can achieve. He loses track after a bit, doesn't really care to quantify the experience. That's the beauty of Loki not having a dick sometimes. Times like this they get to enjoy a kind of intimacy that wanders and improvises rather than both of them racing toward a biological finish line.
Taking his time, he follows her up and down the sine wave of her arousal until his arm starts seizing up and Loki's moans of I can't start to mean that she can't come again not that she can't come without more sensation. He drags her forcefully through one more after that just because yes she fucking can and it turns her into a beautiful, shattered thing. Makes her come harder than he's seen in a good long while.
"Thank you thank you thank you thank you" Loki chants reverently, eyes closed and gasping, reaching for Tony's fly. Not that it is anyone's business, but Loki is very good at gratitude. Probably no one knows because no one ever bothered to earn it. But she is. Truthfully he could blow any second, there's no telling. Loki brings him to the edge just by existing, let alone after a day of being inhumanly enticing.
Her lips on his brow catch him off guard. Kisses travel along his cheeks, his nose, so simple and chaste even as Loki's hand does evil, filthy things to his cock. Pressure surrounds his shaft and grazes the rest of the way up, light and teasing until it gets to the elastic waistband and pulls it down to free him. The cold air takes the edge off, and he's grateful for it even as he shivers and hisses.
Her hand is a curious combination of dry and slick that he knows is Loki's magic lube, and the thought makes him chuckle. So sue him, it will always be hilarious that there is a spell for that. She knows what's so funny, because he laughs every damn time. Usually she does her cute derisive sneer when he laughs, but today he knows he did her right because she giggles along with him.
Slotting her lips into his, she plays along his teeth and the top of his mouth and withdraws to smile against his beard while the tingles travel down his back. He never properly appreciated making out until Loki. Kissing one night stands gives people the wrong idea, and his first few attempts in college were just slobbery and awkward and uncomfortably close. Then this magnificent person pressed their lips to his and erased everything that came before. One day at a time she's teaching him a language of lips and tongues from penetrating to hesitant to inviting. Tony could eat someone out on stage at the Oscars without so much as a blush, but kisses are sacred. Never in his life has anyone else made him feel the way Loki does with nothing but a brush of lips.
She treats him to a grateful, giving sort of kiss, pressing in and lighting up his nerves with the buzzing, fluttering tingles that he thought he'd outgrown decades ago. All the while pumping him like a machine. Oh, he won't last long. No way.
Between one moan and the following inhale he comes. It's subdued, quietly satisfying. One of those that starts in his toes and cascades upward, a release of all the tension caught in his head from the last two days. Loki kisses him through it, and he returns to reality like the last pin of a lock clicking into place.
They're here, together, miles from civilization and sharing late summer air. They're okay. Nothing is going to be easy from here on out. They have too much to lose. But they're okay.
Tony spends the afterglow sucking dark hickies in Loki's neck and feeling up everything he can reach. She takes it patiently, squirms and sighs in her lovely, rich voice and basks in the attention.
"Can you keep these when you change to Odin?" Tony asks, nuzzling her neck. He's sleepy now, but his mind feels re-energized, full of inspiration. Loki arranges her hair with a hand while she thinks. It's cute. Natural and unaffected.
"Well I suppose no one will see me without my robes." Loki says.
"You should. Keep 'em I mean. Then when you have to look at that bastard in the mirror you'll see the real you. See what I did to you." Tony babbles, gazing adoringly at her. She's incredible.
Loki sniffs, rubs at her eyes like she's got allergies.
"I would like that." she says. "I hate being him."
Tony tries to touch her, but she sits up. Gives him a quelling look and cleans them both up. With magic, this time.
"There is nothing for it." she says, and carefully tucks Tony back in his pants. Zips his fly and smooths out his shirt.
"Thank you, darling. This has been a lovely day."
This letter is false.
The drive back isn't nearly as eventful. After a few hours of rolling around in the grass and terrorizing the wildlife, the kids tumble back to the pond cranky and covered in mud. Even Hela let loose, if the leaves in her hair are anything to go by. It's a good thing. There's only so many times he can run them around an indoor track before they start to feel like hamsters.
He and Loki share some premade sandwiches and talk, which turns into sharing, which very quickly becomes planning. Tony really intended to keep the trip stress free, but they don't have much time before Loki has to go and eventually they both get weary of dancing around the subject.
Some things get decided. First, Loki needs to find the scepter. After the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. it could be literally anywhere, including the Titan's hand, and that's a serious problem. Tony needs a new suit, maybe a small fleet of them. There's no telling how many he might go through fighting a guy that can throw Loki around like a baseball. The Aether will stay in the Tower because Loki keeps the Space Stone with her on Asgard, and they think it's a bad idea to have two in the same place. It's just business, but it's terrifying business, and it wrings him out. Really takes the shine off the whole day.
He doubts he'll sleep for at least five days. There is too much to do. Suits to make, a shield to build around the world, and of course he's not actually given up on the Aether. That's the sticking point that drew a line down the middle of the car. It's an unknown quantity, one of equal power to the other two stones, and Tony needs to understand it. But Loki won't budge. Loki only sees it as a parasitic time bomb. Tony can't open the cube without Loki's magic, so for now they are at an impasse.
Scenarios spin while the tires turn on the concrete. He can't fathom going behind Loki's back, but neither is he confident that he can change Loki's mind. Something has to give because fighting this threat with a weapon left in the locker makes no sense. They might as well come at him with Super Soakers.
His eyes wander off the road for a second to check on Loki. She's staring blankly out the window, the scenery reflected in the dark parts of her eyes. It's a neutral expression that Tony has come to associate with obfuscated fear. Despite her rapidly improving vitality, Tony would rather get a root canal than let Loki go back to Asgard. Every mile they drive brings them closer to goodbye and she visibly wilts in time with the passing of the mile markers. He drives with a hand in his beard, and his fingers maybe dig in too hard but he trusts his goatee to hide the pink splotches.
He sighs, shifts his weight. Loki's eyes dart over like he might explode, and he catches her look of trepidation. There's no reason for her to be afraid of him. He's not some brute about to slap her around just because he's upset, but he sees her face and he knows that's what her subconscious expects. She sees him catalog her reaction and looks away. Sinks further into the seat. Nobody talks, because it would go badly.
Happy leads the way into the garage, and as soon as Tony shifts into park Loki is out the door like a racehorse. His stomach drops. No part of him can consciously explain why. It's instinct, raw intuition. He just knows this is a warning sign. The car chirps in between his rapid footsteps, over yellow lines and around concrete pillars while he tries to keep up without running. Loki is in a fugue, walking past the Mercedes without a glance while the group piles out and Happy gathers their scattered toys and devices.
Six years of paperless trajectory calculation inform him that Loki is walking directly into a cinderblock wall. Fuck it. He runs. No hesitation, that much hasn't changed since the beginning. With Loki you commit or you regret. His leg twinges but he gets a hand around her elbow and he doesn't budge.
"The fuck do you think you're doing?" he hears himself hiss. He feels distant, like he's outside his body watching it happen.
"We both know I must leave tonight." Loki snaps, fighting Tony's hold, "I am getting it over with."
"You can wait five minutes." Tony says, and the chatter behind them dies down. Shit, the kids are watching. Loki had to make a scene didn't she? He throws his arm around her shoulders and leans in like they're having an adult moment. Tries to exude casual inappropriateness. Let them think he's a perv, let them think whatever they want, it's better than letting them see their father walk out on them. Again.
Loki flinches at his touch, and his heart might shatter. He keeps going, angles them to the private elevator. His heart has broken a million times before, it's fine. He can build a new one.
"Happy, can you take everyone up the public elevator?" Tony says, forcing cheerfulness, looking over his shoulder and giving the man the salacious sort of look he hasn't pulled since he toured the Playboy mansion in his twenties.
"I can't, Tony." Loki shudders, hiding her face, and god it's so much worse in her female form. Her face is more open, her bones smaller and hunched under his arm.
"You will say goodbye to them." Tony says, "That's not negotiable."
"I can't bear it." Loki shivers, hugs herself. "Please, Tony."
Tony hammers the call button repeatedly and glares up at the red numbers dropping from fifty nine like they killed his parents. There's no telling what will come out of his mouth when the doors close, but he's chomping at the bit, he's ready to go. He knows Loki has her reasons but this is about more than her. Not once in his entire life has he forgotten the nights his father walked out.
"If you aren't comfortable being manhandled as a woman, you should change." Tony warns, moving his hand to the back of Loki's neck. It rises up as Loki gets taller, the soft throat becoming wiry muscle and square shoulders. The doors slide open and he shoves Loki inside. Steps in after him. The door slides shut and he stares at Loki's hunched back.
Tony must be psychologically disturbed. This is so far beyond fucked up, but he knows it will work. Sometimes you test, the rest of the time you fly the fucking prototype. With a hand on either side of Loki's neck he pushes him to sit on the ground. Kicks his feet out in front when he goes to kneel. None of that. Not in his house.
"Cross your legs." he instructs, and drops to sit in front of him. Loki is counting floor tiles so Tony cuffs him on the ear and angles his head where he wants it. There he is, Tony's frustrating, broken, beautiful creature.
"You and I both know you can leave this elevator with a blink." Tony says, unflinching. "I will be very upset if you do. If you need to leave you say Mjolnir. Understand?"
In the back of Tony's mind he's terrified Loki will say it. He's flying by his pants, he has no other plan, but there are rules for a reason. Loki has an out. Tony waits, pants like he's run a mile.
"I understand." Loki says.
"Jarvis stop the elevator. And don't record this." Tony says. Loki flinches. The elevator stutters and bounces with the sudden press of gravity. The lights dim, not entirely necessary but people only believe the cameras are really off if something visibly changes so he coded it that way. He makes Loki wait for a minute. He's been in the submissive side of this before. Silence is powerful.
"Please, Tony." Loki whispers. Tony doesn't think he's ever heard Loki say that word before tonight. Not once. Not in real life and not in between the sheets, despite all the times he's driven him to incoherent begging. Princes don't say please.
"My father left the first time when I was five. Put his wallet on the table in the middle of a fight and walked out." Tony starts, fighting to keep his eyes locked with Loki. He's about to ask Loki to cross a line. He owes him this. "He wasn't a bad man yet. And my mom wasn't a victim. They pushed each other. They made each other bad people."
Loki is transfixed. He is frozen under Tony's hard grip on the hair at his temple, barely blinking. Listening.
"The next time, I was eight. He hopped on a plane to look for Captain America. I went to his workshop and built my first bomb. He left the unfinished plans on his desk and I thought he'd be proud and want to stay around more."
"The next time it was my fault. I was twelve. Bored. Mad at him. I thought maybe he'd spend time with me if I got drunk. He and his friends did it all the time. He caught me in his study shit faced and shut the door. Never mentioned it."
Loki's lip is quivering, full of half-formed sentences he can't seem to let loose. He looks horrified, and confused. Tony gets him by the scruff and pulls hard, makes him grunt and gasp.
"That's what happens when you don't say goodbye, Loki." Tony says. "Kids blame themselves."
He expects to be upset by the story, but he just feels vacant. Nothing exists outside of Loki's glassy eyes and his gaping mouth.
"What do you want me to do?" Loki asks, and his hands come up around Tony's arms and grip him where Tony's pulling his head back. He doesn't try to stop him, he just holds on. Good, that's where Tony needs him. As soon as he sees the silent apology he knows they are okay.
"We will get to that. First, tell me why you ran." Tony lets go of Loki's hair. His partner doesn't move, he's stiff as stone, so Tony grabs his hands. He kneads them one knuckle at a time, down the line.
"I can't bear it." Loki says. Oh fuck, he's crying. Hyperventilating and crying like there's a dam breaking behind his eyes. "It will hurt too much."
"You can. You are stronger than this." Tony says.
"I'm not, Tony, I'm not." Loki shouts. It's primal. His pain is like a force of nature. Tony pulls him into his chest, but Loki doesn't take it. Strong arms thrash within his hold and Loki sobs, pounds his hands on Tony's chest and scrapes up his arms. A month ago it would have put him in the hospital, now it just burns his soul.
"You are." Tony growls, clinging. They end up on the floor, Loki struggling and Tony pinning him down. "Have I ever asked you to do more than you're capable of?"
There's only one answer. There literally is only one answer, because Tony hasn't. Never. Loki goes limp and the cramped space echoes their discordant breathing, reverberates Loki's broken sobs.
"No." he breathes. Tony shoves his face into the floor and lets him pour his fears into the ground.
"You'll do this because I know you can." Tony insists. "You don't need to think about anything, okay, for the next ten minutes your body is mine. All you have to do is follow my instructions. Understand?"
Loki nods, sucking in air through his nose, trying to keep it from dripping.
"Ok, first I'm going to clean you up, and you're going to put yourself in Asgardian clothes." Tony says, waiting for him to nod.
"Then we're gonna go to the penthouse and you will hug your children. You'll say that you don't want to go and tell them you'll be back on Friday. When you're done, we'll put you back together. Repeat that back to me so I know you understand." Tony says.
Loki does, almost word for word. Tony makes him do it again, because saying it calms Loki down. There's a certain amount of clarity to him now, a hint of post-adrenaline sleepiness that comes across as collected.
"Good, Loki." Tony says, and pulls Loki into an embrace. Loki squeezes him with all his limbs like a lonely octopus and they catch their breath. He rubs Loki's back until his eyes are dry. Tony has Loki blow his nose on his shirt because apparently he has fallen that far. He feels a kinship with the bleary eyed mothers that sit around Central Park wiping their kids faces with whatever's handy. Sleeves, old receipts, their own goddamn hand, yeah he gets it now. When you only have two fucks to rub together and someone's crying on your lap, you rearrange your priorities.
He drags them both up with a heroic amount of coaxing and Loki morphs his clothes. J gets them upstairs in seconds, and there's an audience waiting.
"That is a very slow elevator." Hela says.
"Mechanical problem." Tony lies. Loki's squeezing the blood out of his right hand. He decides to throw him a bone. "It's time for your dad to go back to Asgard."
Hela's unreadable, probably saw this coming, but the boys are distressed. Fighting for Loki's attention, and asking him why why why.
"I will miss you." Loki answers indirectly, with a tension in his jaw. Down on one knee, he tugs Jori to his chest and hugs him. Kisses his hair and says something just for him to hear.
Fen isn't good about sharing. He hovers, scowling and jealous until Loki wraps an arm around him. Once he has what he wants he seems unsure what to do, suddenly fidgety and surly like he thinks he's embarrassed himself. Tony suspects Fen resembles his mother. Normally he's boisterous and self-assured, not much like his father. But just then, shying away from the attention he craves, Tony can see it.
Hela gets a forehead touch and a kiss to the temple because she's Loki's favorite. Yeah, yeah, parents aren't supposed to have favorites, whatever. Everyone knows they do, and Hela is Loki's. She's old enough to read his pain, and she's kind when Loki holds her too long. She just gives Tony a stodgy goth look and bears it, pats his back awkwardly.
They're kids, so of course the weight of the moment is lost on them. They stand around humoring their dad while he has emotions, and probably secretly wish he would hurry up so they can get back to their video games. They have that luxury because they don't know the alternative, and their ignorance satisfies Tony. That's all he wanted.
Loki sticks to the script after that. Tells them how long he'll be gone, and gets a little weepy when he explains that he does not wish to leave them. It's well done, and Tony tells him so as he walks him to the balcony with a hand on his back. The sky is just starting to go a little pink. Tony hits a switch on the way out the door and the living room windows turn frosted.
Loki's eyes are wet, so Tony wipes them with his thumbs. Lingers. Runs one over Loki's aristocratic brow.
Tony says, "I knew you could do it. I knew you would be so good for me."
Loki looks abraded, but his strained features settle into a tranquil sort of daze. His eyes seek him out like homing missiles, and he accepts them, lets him see his approval. Tony wants skin on skin, which is hard to pull off through Asgardian clothes. He manages. There are slits in the back of Loki's coat, and from there he can get his fingers under his shirt, can run them over the hidden skin of Loki's lower back. The contact severs what is left of Loki's control and he crumbles. Sinks right down and the only reason he doesn't bust a kneecap is Tony's arms scrabbling for purchase on his stupid leather coat.
Tony really wishes he had some warning about this. He wants to give Loki some water, and maybe a blanket or something. Shit, his info is about twenty years out of date but there was definitely a blanket and water afterward. That was like, a rule or something. Oh, and kissing. The kissing he's sure about. It was the first time someone kissed him after and not just to get in his pants. You don't forget that kind of thing.
"How do you feel?" Tony asks, arranging Loki so he's sitting with his back against the glass wall at the edge of the balcony.
"Wretched." Loki says. Nice. Another successful procedure. Good of Loki to sugar coat it for him.
"Anything else?" Tony says, really hoping there's something else. He's got nothing.
Loki tries. God, he tries so hard to get it out. But he fails, and then he scowls. Tony puts his hands on Loki's face and soothes him as best he can without any remotely soothing tools to work with.
"Easy. Talk around it, describe it for me." Tony says.
"I am reminded of my love for them." Loki says through clenched teeth, "And the thought of leaving them makes me want to die. To avoid the pain-"
"Ok, ok, you can stop. That's good." Tony says before they fall down that despair pit. It's what he asked for, it's the truthful answer to how Loki feels, but it's so much. It's such a tangled web and he needs more time. He touches their foreheads and sucks Loki's bottom lip, pulls away and slots their mouths together. It's a kind of inverted moment, a mirror to their happy kisses this morning. Equal and opposite.
Tony's knees are starting to complain, so he breaks the kiss and sits on his butt, puts his bent legs on either side of Loki. He reaches out and slides a hand under his leather tunic until he finds a flat stomach, scratchy in a line down the middle. Tony doesn't need to see it to picture it. It's a favorite spot. He flattens his palm and strokes as far as he can reach under the tight layers.
"Let's talk about the relief." Tony suggests, calm exterior hiding a flurry in his brain. "Tell me what makes you feel relieved about the kids being here."
"They are under your care." Loki says. Flat, matter of fact. "There is no safer place they can be."
"Sure. But they are also safe because Earth is protected by Asgard. By you." Tony says.
Loki processes that, looks down at his hands and presses his forehead to the laced fingers. His shallow inhales make his stomach quiver under Tony's hand.
"Does it help when I do what I just did?" Tony asks, "Give you an incentive to do things, I mean."
Loki flattens his hands over his face and his ears go pink.
"Evidently yes." he groans, like he's confessing to some perverse fetish. Ha, so the man that wants to bang in a field ten feet from his children is embarrassed that he, like everyone else, enjoys a pat on the head for doing the right thing. That's adorable.
Tony considers some options. The question of how to monitor Loki for bad thoughts from another realm has been low level bothering him since yesterday. The available tech pretty much limits him to written communication and maybe sending a phone back and forth for some voice recordings. Although anything involving a phone is dodgy at best. It kind of assumes that being deconstructed down to its base molecules, sent a thousand light-years through dark matter, and then reconstructed one ion at a time won't corrupt the hard drive. Not a bet he would put money on. Tony decides to go with Plan A.
"In that case, there is something I want you to do for me this week." Tony says in his— fuck it, call it what it is —his dom voice.
Loki's face pinches, eyebrows slanting warily between splayed fingers on his face. It's almost cute.
"Every day this week, I want you to write me a letter. You can say anything you like, or nothing I guess, if you don't want to." Tony says, "At the bottom of the page, I want you to write a number from one to ten that represents how you felt that day. One is bad, ten is awesome."
Loki shifts his weight, face still red and turning into a look of dread. That's fine, he hasn't gotten to the fun part yet.
"If I have six letters when you get home, you get a reward." Tony smirks.
Loki is red up to his hairline now, and nodding more eagerly than Tony suspects he intends to. Give him a reason to keep living. Yeah, he'll give him a good damn reason. He'll make Loki a reason he can't refuse.
"What kind of reward?" Loki mumbles.
Tony scrapes his nails through the coarse hair on Loki's stomach and glides down, shoves it past the laces of his leather pants and squeezes his cock. Tony has to get back on his knees to manage it, but it's worth it for the noise Loki makes when he drags his teeth down his neck.
"How many times did you come today, beautiful?" Tony growls. Loki's breath hitches.
"Four." Loki says. "Four times."
Tony bites the first hickey he finds and Loki keens, arches into it and bucks his hips. Greedy, amazing creature. He already came four times but here he is, primed and ready to go again.
"When you get back I will untether that incredible brain of yours and I will destroy that record." Tony promises, "At least six, Loki, I swear to god. I will make it so fucking good, you have no idea."
Loki gasps, thrusts out of rhythm like he's going to come already and Tony rips his hand away. Loki whines and twists, bores into Tony's eyes with a look of pure betrayal that gets Tony hot in a super bad wrong way.
"And after I'm done with you I'm gonna lay you out on the couch and fucking spoil you rotten." Tony says, matching Loki's look with a burning one of his own, grabs his face and wraps fingers in the hair at his temples. This is the piece de resistance, because however much Loki likes the sex, it isn't the droid he's looking for. "I'll rub your back so you aren't sore later. We'll turn on those dumb cooking shows you love and just lay there making out for the rest of the day. Sound good?"
Chewing his lips raw, Loki rubs a quelling hand over the bulge in his trousers and winces. Glares at Tony with a boiling soup of adoration, frustration, and want. Good. Blue balls build character.
"You are a weapon of mass destruction." Loki swears.
"I love you too." Tony says, and dusts himself off. Pulls Loki to his feet and fixes his clothes so his erection is less obvious. Not that it matters. Being Odin ought to kill his boner pretty fast.
Tony pecks him on the temple and pretends to hold him around the neck just for the opportunity to find the particularly dark hickey hidden on the right side under his collar.
"Now go rule Asgard." Tony says, pressing into the mark to remind Loki to keep it, "And don't forget to write."
"Yes, Anthony." Loki says, his features disappearing behind a grey beard and weary eyes. Tony tries not to look unnerved.
Odin does a complicated spell with his fingers and a locket appears around his neck. Clicking it open with much more ease than Tony can, he pries the two halves apart to reveal a brilliant, glowing blue stone. Oval, smooth, and pulsing like the Tesseract. Son of a bitch.
"I will return." Odin murmurs, and dissolves into a cloud of mist. Wind whips it into the sky, and he imagines the sparkling droplets freezing and condensing until they become other molecules. Slowly tumbling across the universe, he pretends these same particles will find his lover on another world, sitting in a book lined study and writing to him.
For some reason their universe obeys a natural law in which all beings are built of the same enzymes and elements. Even at opposite ends of the galaxy, hiding behind different faces and different names, he and this person he adores are still connected by the shared history of their atomic matter. Action and reaction, the conservation of mass.
He puts his hand over his eyes just in case someone somewhere is watching, and lets tears run down his face just this once.