"So, Loki?"
"Mh?"
"Are we going to tell the others?"
They were sitting on a couch (or, to be precise, Loki sat and Tony was sprawled out on the cushions with his head in the god's lap) in the workshop that Tony had brought down there when Loki's visits down here had become a regular thing. Currently, the prince was absently threading a hand through his boyfriend's hair and flipped to the pages of a book with the other one.
"We are together for three days and you want to tell them? You are impatient, aren't you?", he asked, smiling.
"Have you known me to be anything else?", Tony retorted and reached upwards to twirl one of Loki's dark locks between his fingers. "Those have gotten long."
"Try to stick to one topic while talking", the god advised. "Do you think I should cut them?"
"Great to see how serious you take your own orders", Tony muttered. He was tired, and at the moment, the couch with Loki was the most beautiful place in the world he could imagine. "But no, I like them. I think you should leave them like that. Oh, and we don't have to tell them if you don't want to, but since you're part of the team, too, I don't think we've got to hide."
"If you want to tell them, then we can do it", Loki said. "I'm fine either way."
"Really?" Tony grinned. "Because I really wanna see Cap's face."
They ended up waiting another two days until Tony brought it up during team dinner: "Guys, I've got a thing." The reaction was a collective 'uh-huh'. "I... actually expected a more... thrilling reaction than that."
"Tony, you're having things all the time", Natasha said. "Do you honestly expect us to be surprised?"
"No, I mean, like, a real thing!", the engineer defended himself. "Not just one night."
"Sure", the assassin replied and reached for the salt.
"Maybe you ought to tell them who you are talking about", Loki suggested.
"Yes, right. Nice idea. I'm together with Loki." Now, he got an appropriate reaction.
"Ah, fuck!", Clint blurted out. Tony blinked in confusion as the archer reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled dollar note and handed it to Natasha. "Couldn't you have waited another week?"
"Well, we – wait, Bruce?!" The physicist smiled, apparently at least a little bit embarrassed, and shrugged as he bent over the table to hand Natasha a bill, followed suit by Bucky. "He's on the team for three weeks and you got him to participate? Guys, come on, you're corrupting innocent hearts here", Tony muttered.
"Innocent hearts?", the soldier snorted. "Stark, what are you thinking of me? Not everybody from the 40's is such a sweetheart as our Stevie."
"Point taken", the inventor admitted. "But you've seriously had bets about me and Loki getting together?"
"Not if you would get together", Natasha amended, "but when. The way you two were tip-toeing around each other... Only a matter of time." With a smug little smile, she pocketed the money and then returned her attention to the bowl in front of her.
"Tip-toeing?", Tony echoed. "We weren't – Loki, were we tip-toeing?"
"Well", the god mused, dipping a slice of bread in his chicken soup thoughtfully, "I might have been more conscious about my actions when I was around you as to not set you off."
"Okay, I was careful too with not totally making you hate me, but we weren't tip-toeing. That's the overstatement of the century."
"Whatever, why don't you just eat up and accept the congratulations?", Steve chimed in. "This tastes really bad when it's cold and I want you to eat everything up."
"Aye, aye, Captain", Tony said with a mock-salute.
It was only after dinner that he noticed that Thor had not said one single word during the whole conversation.
When he returned from a meeting the next afternoon, taking the elevator straight to Loki's floor, he could hear the shouting already before he even stepped out into the hallway. It was only an indistinct noise at first, but he could clearly make out Thor's voice by its booming sound. As soon as the metal doors opened, he could understand the words, too. It seemed like he had caught the middle of a heated argument.
"– simply do not think he is the right choice for you!" Oh, this already sounded like something he absolutely didn't want to hear.
Loki not either, as it seemed, because he yelled right back: "This is none of your concern, Thor, so I don't get why you should have any say in that matter!" The voices came from the living room and hesitantly, Tony made his way down the hallway while listening to the elder god's response (it was hard not to, really).
"Of course it is my concern, Loki, because no matter what you say, I am your brother and I care about you!"
"Lies!", Loki screamed, literally screamed on top of his lungs. It was frightening to hear something like that from the prince who was usually so calm and controlled, practically impossible to be angered enough to raise his voice in an argument. Tony hurried his steps. "Those are lies and you know it! Not I am the god of lies, but you are, with your false pity and this pretended love you still claim to hold for me!"
"Loki, this is not true and you know it!", Thor shouted back. "Why would you think I did not care about you?!"
If possible, Loki was even louder now. It had to hurt to scream like this, but what stung far more were his words themselves.
"Because if you would care, you would have come for me when I needed you to!"
Tony stopped dead in his tracks with his hand on the door handle as the god's voice cracked halfway through the sentence. After that, there was silence, complete, utter silence, and after a few seconds the engineer swallowed and opened the door just in time to see Loki vanish in a whirl of black and green.
"What the fuck is going on here?", Tony snapped at Thor who turned towards him with a scowl on his face like the inventor was at fault for all his misery at the moment. Instead of an answer, the god shoved him aside and stormed out of the room. "Whoa, what the hell, Thor?!", he called after the prince, but got no response. "Now that went well", he muttered to himself and let the suitcase he had been holding drop to the floor. After a moment of hesitation, he pulled out his phone and dialled Loki's number.
Only seconds later, the tinny sound of AC/DC's Shoot to Thrill being played by too small speakers. Turning in confusion, he spotted Loki's phone on a drawer beside the bed. Right, he had programmed all the ringtones.
"Fucking great", he muttered to himself, sliding his own Stark Phone back into his pocket. Then, he kicked off his shoes and pulled off the dress jacket he had been wearing before slumping down on the large couch. Nothing to do but wait now.
Loki returned about five hours later. Tony looked up and smiled softly as he commented: "Good you're back, I was starting to run out of energy here." He waved his phone through the air before tossing it to the side carelessly, then extended his arms towards the god who had just appeared in the middle of the room. "Come here." After a moment of hesitation Loki complied and slumped down on the couch beside him, leaning against the engineer's shoulder with a heavy sigh. Tony shuffled a bit so he could wrap his arms around the other. He didn't ask about where he had been or what he had done for that long, but allowed Loki to take his time and make the decision for himself.
After a while, the god begun quietly: "I had an argument with Thor."
"I know", Tony replied. At the prince's surprised glance upwards he explained: "I was just coming from that board meeting and caught the last few sentences." He had been very tempted to watch the record, but had ultimately decided against it because he knew how much Loki valued his privacy.
"He believes that you are not going to do me any good." Loki sounded very uncertain, speaking more into the fabric of the inventor's shirt than to the man himself. Almost as if he would ask him to deny that, ask him to prove that was not the case, ask him to prove Thor wrong.
Gently, Tony lifted Loki's chin and tried not to flinch at the lost expression in the god's green eyes. He asked quietly: "Do you believe that?"
There was a hesitation, a pause that felt like someone taking Tony's heart in his hand and squeezing tightly. Just the fact that Loki needed so long to decide if he thought Tony was going to hurt him felt like a slap to the face. But eventually, the god shook his head and Tony felt a relieved smile spreading on his face. You've been together for three days, how can you expect absolute trust after that short time span?, he reminded himself. You'll have to prove him that you can keep him safe.
And although that thought felt strange at first, Tony realized that he really wanted that. He wanted Loki to be able to feel safe with him and he wanted to prove that he could be what the god needed. He wanted, for once, just to do everything right. He wanted to do this good, because he felt like it was right what they were doing. He just needed a chance to show that to the others.
"Then let's prove to Thor that we can be good for each other", he whispered and saw Loki's face light up slightly.
"Yes", the prince whispered. "Let's do that."