Once a week (usually Wednesdays but occasionally on Thursdays) Loki dons his favorite female face and spends most of the day at a tiny hole-in-the-wall coffee shop half a block from Stark Tower. A now standing practice he picked up shortly after returning to Midgard as a way to observe the Midgardians without actually having to interact with them too much. Now it's a chance for Loki to get reading done away from the Tower and the still wary eyes of it's inhabitants.

Alone time, in other words. Time that Loki carefully laid out at the beginning of this... relationship with Tony as something that should rarely, if ever, be interrupted. A small stipulation among many, but one that Tony honored nonetheless.

Which is why when Loki's phone buzzes with a text from Tony asking for her to drop what she's doing and come to the lab she is surprised more than annoyed.

The sight that greets her when she enters lab is far from what she expected though.

"Hey, let me see your hands."

Tony is currently laid back on a medical bed, shirtless, with the arc reactor held in one hand, and DUM-E and U hovering over him. There is a hole in his chest where the arc reactor is supposed to be.

Her hands hang at her sides as she processes the scene. The wires, equipment, medical bed, arc reactor. Something too close to panic flutters through her before sinking into her stomach like a cold stone.

Tony clears his throat and tries to shift a bit on the bed, "um, surprise?"

"Surprise is one word for this Tony, though not the one I would use. What is this?"

"It's, uh, just some routine maintenance. Improvements on performance and connections, that stuff, souds more complicated that it is."

"So," Loki says, moving forward to come to a stop at Tony's side, "what do you need me for?"

Tony motions vaguely at the hole in his chest, "remove the old connecting wire, it's just been floating there doing nothing." He holds up a small disk, one side solid metal with a lone connector protruding out while the other side has thick braided wires inset into the face.

"Replace it with this."

Loki hums, arms crossed and hip cocked out.

"It's a newer, better, receiving node for the reactor. Should have done this a while ago but… huh. Y'know, stuff."

The machine's beeping seems to be burrowing into Loki's spine and turning to stone; so she rolls her shoulders, and sweeps her long hair into a messy pile at the back of her head. She calms the trembling in her hand and, with very little preamble, reaches into Tony's chest.

"Is that pus?"

Tony rolls his eyes, "No, it's not. It's a plasmic discharge from the device, not from my body."

"So it's inorganic pus."

"It— you—" Tony grimaces, "Just, you're looking for a thick wire. Technically three or four kind of wound together into one. It'll still be connected so you'll have to disconnect it before pulling it out."

Loki turns her hand, fingers splayed out, eyes staring off into a middle distance. Tony's gaze is burning into the side of her head.

"So is this the weirdest thing you've ever done?"

Laughter burst unbidden from Loki's throat.

"What's so funny?"

"Tony," she says, finding the wire and tracing along the path it makes, "my oldest child is a horse."

"Wait, what? Those myths are true?"

"How do I disconnect this, Anthony?"

Tony pouts at the use of his full name, "Turn it clockwise until it clicks. So are all of the myths true? Or is it just the one?"

"I am not getting into this discussion right now." Turn, click, the wire comes free. Loki pulls her hand out and hands the wire off to DUM-E, before taking the replacement and putting her hand back into Tony's chest.

"But we are going to have it at some point right? And it'll connect once it's plugged so don't worry about it."

Loki maneuvers the node into place, letting it go once it locks itself into place. The moment her hand is out of his chest Tony pops the arc reactor back into place and sits up.

"That wasn't that bad, was it? And about that discussion—"

"That will happen at a later date," Loki idly wipes her hands on the shirt Tony ad left discarded on a table. "I promise."

"You promise? I feel like I should make you pinky swear."

"I promise. Notify me the next time you need to do something like this," she says, waving her hand at the arc reactor.

Tony hums lightly, and catches her hand in his own, "I think I can do that."