Wow..so I'm going to try and ignore all of your judging looks because a) I've been gone for forever. What's it been, a month? and b) I'm updating this story, and not Poison. Which I'm working on. Honest. Kind of.

Unfortunately school is sapping all of my creativity. It's such a drag. Every weekend I'm like "get shit done!" and then I sit around all weekend in this haze. It's the epitome of getting nothing done.

BUT I am actually starting to work on Poison again. AND I've kinda sorta started another piece (featuring mutant! Tony and cool! Loki) so maybe look for that in December. Think of it as a Christmas miracle.

Read, review, and enjoy! (and please don't kill me)

Tony knows he's been on a work binge, but he's not sure how long. Usually after the first 36 hours, his brain starts to narrow down its focus and one of the first things to go is his internal clock. After that, it's usually whatever part of his mind is tracking the petty things of what and when he ate last, what other meetings he's had planned, and so on. If it's not what he's working on or what he's going to be working on, it doesn't matter. That's what Pepper and Jarvis are for, and since neither one has interrupted him yet, he figures he's probably safe.

Personally, he loves the work binges. He gets massive amounts of work done during them. He's already designed three knives for Natasha, as well as upgraded her Widow's Bite weapons (really, how did S.H.I.E.L.D survive before him, because those were some terrible designs), and then moves onto Clint's weapons. There were several new types of arrows, including ones that could be dipped in a poison that would work the same way as knockout gas but with more accuracy, as well as a couple of knives. Currently, he's working on a set of guns that can be easily hidden on the body and can pass through metal detectors. He'll probably make another set for Natasha, but hers need to be designed for close combat while Clint's need to be able to function as a close-range sniper rifle. If he can get Steve to agree to it, maybe he'll even make some for him.

His mind surfaces for air, taking a break long enough to sort out his thoughts into a little bit more of organized chaos. It's then that he realizes there's been a warmth on his shoulder for a while now. His mind strays from the weapon to who, exactly, has their hand resting on his shoulder and catches voices.

"-much longer will he be like this?" a silky voice is saying. Tony gets the impression that the voice isn't talking to him, so he prepares to go back in. If it was important, they would have made sure to get his attention.

"At most, Mr. Stark will remain working for another fifteen hours before he can no longer remain awake." Was that Jarvis' voice? Most of the team wasn't brave enough to interrupt him during a binge, which left Steve or Bruce. Both would talk to Jarvis, but only Steve would be touching him. The hand was too cold for Steve though…

Tony tilts his head, and the glint of metal catches his eye, and he realizes that if he wants this to be a mini sniper rifle, he's going to have to redesign the barrel. He puts one tool in his mouth and picks another up and leans down again. The hand tightens on his shoulder.

Okay, he needs to deal with this. Whoever it is, they are far too distracting. But the gun is so close to being finished…

"Tony?" the voice murmurs quietly in his ear. He jerks away from the voice, hoping it will leave him alone, but the voice is persistent. "Tony, you must return."

Hmph. Fine.

But only long enough to deal with this annoyance and then he'll return to the gun.

He blinks his eyes rapidly, trying to bring moisture back into them. Slowly the lab materializes around him. Everything looks as it should, except…except for this hand on his shoulder. He looks at the hand, then follows it up to the arm, and follows the arm up to a shoulder, before his eyes finally catch on a face.

If Tony was a little less mind-numb, he probably would have been surprised to see Loki standing there, his eyes amused and worried, his lips pulled into a frown. As it is, Tony just stares at him in confusion.

"Loki?" he asks, but his mouth is dry and the syllables stick together.

"Finally," Loki says with a huff. "Your A.I. has informed me that you have been working for the last 42 hours without pause."

"So?" Tony's still having problems figuring out this situation. It's a work binge. If he spends less than 40 hours working, it's not a binge it's a…well, it's something else.

"I may not be familiar with individual mortals, but as a whole, do you not require sleep?"

Tony shrugs. "Sometimes. I've just-I've got things." Things he really wants to get back to. He tries to shrug off the hand and return to his work, but Loki's hand refuses to let him move.

"I think not. 'Things' can wait until after you have slept and eaten. Running your body into the ground does nothing to help your teammates."

It seems weird that Loki should care about his teammates at all, but that's not the problem here. The problem is that the god thinks he can actually stop Tony from working. "Um, sleep can wait. I have work to do."

Loki sighs behind him as he continues to restrain him. "You leave me no choice then." Tony gives an indignant noise of protest as the chair spins away from his projects and he grabs feebly for his tools. Loki's other hand comes down on his other shoulder, pinning him in the chair. Green eyes meet his, and for some reason Tony can't look away. "Good," Loki hums and Tony doesn't know why he's not even trying to get back to his work. "Tony, you must sleep."

All the hours he's been awake (42, apparently) come rushing back to him and hit him like a train. Suddenly, it's all he can do not to fall asleep where he is. He pushes the feeling back. Work. He still has work to do and sleep cannot get in the way of that. In front of him, Loki gives a nearly silent growl.

"Tony." His voice catches his attention again, and he's focusing back on those green eyes. "Sleep." The word is said with more force behind it and a distant part of his mind recognizes that there's actual power behind the word. Of course, as soon as he recognizes that fact, his eyes are already slipping shut and he's falling forward out of the chair. He only falls for half a second before he's caught and his forehead is gently lowered onto something. He feels himself get lifted up, but by then the sleep has finally entrapped him and he sinks into darkness.

He wakes up groggy and unsure of where he is. Whatever he's lying on isn't soft like his bed. He would guess one of the couches in the lab, but his head is propped up on something and while it's not as warm as the things he usually falls asleep on—Steve's lap, primarily, because Steve, the tricky bastard, has found the best way to get Tony to sleep is to stand guard over him and lull him to sleep like he's a child—it's also definitely too warm to just be a pillow. Plus there's fingers in his hair and there's something almost…electrical about them. He stirs and the fingers stop.

"You sleep very little for how long you remain awake," a familiar voice says, and Tony can feel the voice vibrate through Loki's stomach against his head. Tony pushes himself up with a groan. He loathes waking up.

"Like I tried to tell you, I don't need a lot of sleep," Tony mumbles. He needs coffee immediately, but first he needs to let the rest of his body catch up with the change in elevation. The room sways dizzily before him for a few seconds before it snaps back into startling clear focus. "Did you put a spell on me?" Tony asks, turning accusing eyes on Loki. The god doesn't even have the decency to look chagrined. Instead, he rolls his eyes.

"If you had been more reasonable, I wouldn't have needed to," Loki defends. Thankfully, Butterfingers rolls over with a mug of steaming coffee and Loki is spared the biting comment Tony had planned.

"Not cool," he settles for instead. "I would've gone to sleep eventually."

"When you passed out at your desk?" Loki challenges.

"Not true," Tony responds, pointing a finger at Loki. "Jarvis would've alerted Steve or Bruce before I passed out."

"I was under the impression that it was not…healthy for humans to get so little sleep," Loki says through clenched teeth. Tony gapes at him.

"Are you actually pissed at me about this?"

"I am not," Loki says stiffly, and it's only a half-truth because Tony may be slow while waking up, but he's pretty used to seeing this expression on people's faces. Loki's not just pissed—he's worried. About Tony. There's something so fucked up about this situation that all Tony wants to do is throw his head back and laugh, but he feels like that might not be dealing with the situation in the most appropriate way.

"Look," he says lightly, standing up and moving over to his desk. At least Loki didn't touch anything. "I trained my body for this since I was young. When work binges happen, I typically don't sleep because my mind is too active. Or I can't sleep in general because-" He makes vague gestures that he's sure Loki can understand means nightmares and holy shit, he hadn't meant to say any of that out loud. He suspected most of the team knows, whether because they were smart enough to figure it out on their own, or because Bruce, who he was 99.99% sure actually knew, told them. "Or they're catch-up periods for me, when I've been spending too much time saving the world and such," he slides on easily, covering up his mistake. No doubt Loki picked it up anyway, but he likes his pretend world.

Loki moves to stand behind him, his chin resting on Tony's shoulder and an arm wrapping around his stomach. It's still a little awkward, because Tony's not sure what they're doing here. They aren't sleeping together—not yet, at least, but he's kind of an expert at this and he knows it's going to happen one day and god he can already tell it's going to be brilliant—and they aren't really "dating" or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays. Whatever it is though, he's certainly not stopping it, and that probably means something.

"Why don't we agree that it will not happen again because you will take care to sleep more often and when you cannot sleep, I shall assist you in quieting your thoughts?" Loki's breath is tickling Tony's ear and it's taking all of his little willpower when it comes to these things not to shiver as it sends shocks through his body. As if Loki wasn't hot enough, even his words are delicious. They promise something more along the lines of the type of sleep Tony's thinking of.

"Yeah," he agrees weakly, and damn his lungs for betraying him. He can feel Loki's smirk forming and he really wants to jerk his shoulder up, just to prove whose still in charge here but even as he thinks that, he's leaning back into Loki's embrace.

"I must leave. I shall return soon." Loki's words hold a loaded promise and damn it Tony is not excited for this. Loki turns his head to nip Tony's ear and elicits a surprised yelp from the man before he begins to disappear, leaving Tony in a room echoing with Loki's delighted laughter.

"Tony?" Steve calls as he enters the work room, scaring the shit out of him. "Jarvis said that you needed to eat something now that you've emerged. The rest of us are upstairs; Bruce is cooking."

Tony scowled because Jarvis doesn't typically rat him out like that, especially when he's actually gotten a decent amount of sleep.

"Yeah, okay, be there in a second," Tony says distractedly, and he can tell when Steve leaves that he's planning on returning in five minutes to make sure that Tony actually does come up. "Jarvis, since when do you rat me out?"

"I apologize sir. I was given clear instructions from Loki," and since when does Jarvis call Loki by his first name? Or, for that matter, any name at all? "to alert the team to your need to eat as soon as he had left."

Tony wishes the bastard was still here so he could at least glare at someone. No wonder he left so quickly. "Well next time, don't listen to what Loki says. Last I knew, I was your creator."

"You are correct sir. However, one of my duties was to manage your life in places where you could not and, as Loki pointed out, eating appears to be one of them."

"You-you're plotting against me! Both of you!" Tony exclaims.

"Yes sir. We are plotting together to make you take care of yourself," Jarvis says, his voice extra dry. Tony can admit that the statement does sound a little ridiculous, but it's the principle of the matter!

"Well, see to it that you don't do it again," Tony says as he shuts down the lab for a brief break o get food and cajole Steve into letting him design weapons for him.