A/N: ...holy heaven, guys. 70 reviews in one day. In one day. You guys are awesome! As a reward, I sat down and cranked out this baby, the looooongest chapter yet! :D Didn't spend as much time as I usually do proofreading/editing so, uh, I apologize in advance.
Congrats to SlimReaper for getting the 300th review! *throws confetti* And thanks to everyone who has been asking after my kitty. Your support has been more than I could ever be worthy of, and I cannot thank you all enough. I LOVE YOU GUYS! HUGS ALL AROUND! :D
Don't Drink and Connive
When Tony found his feet again, they were buried in an inch of green shag carpet. To the left, the day's dying light backlit the New York skyline through a picture window, and though the world had re-solidified, it continued to spin of its own accord for a moment. Tony focused on the smudge of black in front of him, and Loki stared back, frowning.
Tony swallowed his nausea long enough to grit his teeth and land a right hook on Loki's jaw. The god didn't deflect or dodge, letting his head swing to the side with the blow. He sighed and, with a flick of his hand, sent Tony careening back into the wall. White pain jolted through the human's skull. Curled in a heap, Tony grunted and rubbed at the lump forming at the back of his head, watching Loki and waiting for the assault to continue.
It didn't.
"Are you finished?" Loki asked. His arms were folded, the gun tucked in one hand against his side.
Tony blinked at the floor until the world finally settled. He glanced at the unblemished wall and knew that Loki could have easily sent him through it. With magic, it would have been simple to clean up.
"Yeah," he muttered, pushing himself into a sit and letting his anger fade away into something else. He stared up at Loki, trying to read something, anything, in those impossibly green eyes. Loki's face was still as stone. "Are you going to shoot me?" he indicated the gun with a tilt of his head.
Loki unfolded his arms and considered the weapon in his hand as if only seeing it for the first time. "Yes," he said, matter-of-factly.
Before Tony could react, Loki had leveled the gun at his face and pulled the trigger.
A stream of water hit him between the eyes. Tony sputtered and shielded his face with his hands, glaring around them at a smirking Loki.
"A water pistol?" he snapped. "Really?"
Loki arched one elegant eyebrow. "Would you rather I use a real gun?" he asked blithely. "Do you think I need one?"
Tony blew out a sigh and pushed himself to his feet. "You're scary enough without one," he muttered. Tony studied Loki's face for a long moment. "So... you weren't planning on actually shooting anyone? Why did you do all this?"
Loki's expression turned from amused to crazed in the blink of an eye. "Because I'm evil, remember?" he snapped, putting mocking emphasis on the word "evil". "Isn't this the sort of thing that's expected of me, human?"
Loki threw the gun away from him and turned so that his back was to Tony. Tony felt like he was treading an emotional minefield.
Tony knew that he was the last person prepared to defuse the ticking time-bomb that was Loki. He took a deep, steadying breath. First things first, he decided.
"So... you've returned the hostage and the painting?" he asked, watching the tense lines of Loki's back and waiting for a reaction.
"Of course," Loki snapped, long fingers drumming on a granite countertop – wait, was this Loki's apartment? – and his back still to Tony. "It was an experiment. Neither that painting nor that sniveling little man are of use to me now."
Tony made a note to verify this with Pepper later, but somewhere in his gut he suspected that Loki wasn't lying for once. He cleared his throat, taking a step closer to the angry god with his back turned. "And what about me?" he asked.
Loki turned to look at him, face set and expressionless, with his head tilted to the side. "That," he murmured, "is a good question."
Tony blinked and tried not to show his surprise. A part of him had thought that taking him hostage had been Loki's real endgame. Maybe it was the alcohol or something else, but Loki seemed a little off his game today.
"You know," he murmured, "for a villain trying to prove his 'evilness'," – yes, Tony included finger-quotes – "you really don't seem to be trying too hard."
Tony barely saw Loki move. He watched anger flit across the god's face, and then he found himself pinned to the island counter, skull cracking against granite. There was a hand on his throat, slender but strong, and a face in his, keeping Tony's back bowed at an uncomfortable angle. He grunted, blinked back the red and white spots crowding his vision, and held stiff and still.
"My intention, Tony Stark," Loki growled in his ear – oh God, that voice! – "is not to impress you." He punctuated this statement with a squeeze to Tony's windpipe. Tony wheezed and struggled for breath, feeling the blood pool in his head. "Theft and kidnapping aren't 'evil' enough? What would you like me to do? Kill children and use their intestines to tie up their parents?"
Something about Loki's response bothered Tony, though he couldn't put his finger on why.
He needed to defuse the situation. Red wire, blue wire. Only for once the goal was to not blow shit up.
And then he remembered a certain story that involved the death of one of Loki's sons and a gruesome set of chains, and Tony could finally see the grief and pain beneath the veneer and anger and madness. "Oh, Loki," he rasped before he could think better of it.
Loki stared back for a moment, and his eyes were over-bright as he pushed away with a snarl, releasing Tony to prowl about the space of the living room/kitchen. Tony blew out a shaky breath and pushed himself back onto solid ground, watching as the god paced around him.
Did that actually happen? he wanted to ask. Did Odin really do that to you? In the end, he was too afraid of the answer. And then, as he wracked his brain for the right words, something else clicked into place. Like a line of dominoes, other revelations tumbled after until Tony stood reeling but triumphant.
"You know that some of the things you've done are considered evil?" he asked. "You are aware that they're evil, even as you're doing them?"
Loki slowed to a stop, eyeing Tony warily. "Of course," he snapped.
"That makes no sense." Loki's brow furrowed in confusion, and Tony smiled. "No one ever does what they know is the wrong thing. They justify their actions to themselves first, convince themselves that they're making the wrong decision. Yeah, sure, sometimes they'll feel guilty afterwards, but heroes, villains, whatever, they all do what seems right in the moment."
Tony watched Loki as he spoke, but the Jotun kept his expression carefully blank.
"No one ever describes themselves as evil," Tony said softly.
"I believe I just did," Loki dryly replied, one eyebrow arched.
"I know," Tony murmured, "which is why none of this makes sense to me."
The silence between them was heavy and oppressive. Tony fought the urge to squirm under Loki's intense stare. Finally the god turned away with a sigh and a bitter smile, and Tony allowed himself to breathe.
"You... are an unusual human," Loki said softly to the floor. "I've seen more lifetimes than I care to count, and yet you... well." Loki cleared his throat and turned his gaze to the side.
Tony dropped to sit on the couch, watching Loki's expression all the while.
"So why are you doing this, exactly?" Tony sounded more curious – amused? – than concerned. He stretched his arms to rest on the back of the couch on either side of him, a gesture that Loki would normally read as self-assured, confident, but there was always the chance that Tony Stark was only messing with him. Loki found the very thought maddening, and yet...
And yet.
Loki did not answer, and Tony was quick to fill the silence. "I mean really," he said with the barest laugh in his words, "it's like kidnapping someone is the only way to get them to spend time with you."
Loki should not have flinched at those words. He was the Liesmith, the Trickster, the master of fake smiles. But he did flinch, though barely. He blamed the slip on the alcohol and turned away, staring out the window without actually seeing anything in front of him. The back of his neck prickled with the weight of Tony's stare.
"Hey..."
Tony's voice trailed off. There was something like guilt underlying that one word.
Seconds passed in silence, and then the floor creaked with the weight of familiar footsteps. Tony stood next to him then, and they both stared, unseeing, out of the picture window. Loki was hyperaware of the scant space between them, the inch or so between their shoulders. He wondered what would happen if they shifted just so.
"Perhaps we are not so different, you and I."
A whisper and little else. The air tingled with the words.
"Of course we're different," Loki groused, refusing – refusing – to look at the human. "Worlds different. You are nothing like me, which is why..."
Loki bit his tongue.
Tony looked at Loki. Loki watched the human out of the corner of his eye but dared not turn his head.
"Which is why...?" Tony prompted. Loki could hear the smirk in Tony's voice, and inwardly, he bristled.
"Which is why I need a drink," the Trickster sighed. "Want a drink? I need a drink."
When he did look at Tony, he avoided eye-contact, focusing on something over the human's shoulder instead. Loki was again made aware of how close they were standing and stepped away under the pretense of fetching the aforementioned drinks.
"Um."
Tony watched Loki half-stumble around the room.
"What the heck," he sighed. "Sure."
A moment later, Loki had a pair of tall glasses in hand and offered one to Tony. The human took the clear drink hesitantly. The Jotun smiled wryly at his "guest" and downed his drink in one go.
"To your health," Loki said. If there was a bitter edge to his smile, well... he would blame that on the alcohol, too.
Loki dropped to a sit on the couch and felt Tony's shadow fall over him. He waited until the liquor calmed his nerves, until the fine tremor in his hands evened out, before he licked his lips and spoke. "You know," he said, peering into his nearly-empty glass, watching the way the last drops of liquid clung to the sides. "There was a time when I thought I knew right from wrong." He glanced up meaningfully at Tony, who turned to him, looking far too sober and attentive. "I didn't always do the right thing, but I told myself that there was a line I would never cross."
His voice sounded altogether too gravelly and his words too slurred. Loki paused to clear his throat and let his gaze skitter to Tony and away again. "With the Frost Giants, I thought... I thought I was doing the right thing. Thor had made sure that war was inevitable, and Father kept going on about the tragedy of war and all the death that it would bring to Asgard."
Tony dropped to a sit beside Loki, glass dangling from his fingertips. He was sitting closer than a friendly distance, and though Loki's skin prickled at the thought, he pretended not to notice.
"I... I didn't know what to do!" he continued. "I didn't want to be king, but Father went into Odinsleep and Thor had proven himself too arrogant and hot-headed to rule, and I..." Loki paused to swallow and wipe a hand over his face. "I thought... it was my duty to protect Asgard, and... I suspected that Laufey would exact retribution if he'd the chance, so I pretended to give him one, to see what he would do. He tried to kill Father, so I killed him, and to prevent things from escalating, I discovered a way to destroy Jotunheim with one clean blow. Do you see?"
Loki turned wide, bright eyes Tony's way, brow furrowed in pleading and guilt. Tony stared back and swallowed. "The best weapon is the one you only have to fire once," he said softly. The words held the weight of a quote.
"Who said that?" Loki asked, bringing the near-empty glass to his lips just to give his hands something to do.
Tony smirked and stared out the window. "I did."
Loki paused to give the human an appraising look. He had forgotten that Tony had specialized in making weapons.
"The war would end without anyone in Asgard getting hurt," Tony continued, the vibration of his words loud in the near-silence. "I... can't say I approve of the whole, y'know, killing-an-entire-race thing, but... yeah. Yeah, I see. Sometimes you have to kill to protect."
Loki blew out a shaky breath. Tony's words left a warm ache in his chest. Loki blinked, and his eyes glimmered wetly as he turned away, the muscles in his jaw clenched tight. Tony understood: Loki knew that what he had done was wrong, but what choice had he had?
"I thought Father would be proud," Loki continued in a husky whisper. His hands fidgeted in his lap, smoothing down the corners of his tunic. "He kept dropping hints, and I thought... I thought it was what he wanted."
Tony's lips twitched in a bitter smile. A father's disappointment – yeah, he could understand that. It was starting to freak him out, how much he understood Loki. He was not supposed to have so much in common with a super-villain, dammit!
"And after?" Tony prompted softly. Loki's eyes looked up without seeing.
Super-villain: what a flat word, now that he thought about it. It didn't match up with all the angles and contours and living dimensions of the god – the very flawed and human god – next to him.
"After?" Loki echoed, brow furrowing briefly in a question.
Loki was many things, but he was not evil. Selfish, maybe, but not evil.
"You know. When you came to earth, took the cosmic cube and decided to start blowing shit up? Did you still think you were doing the right thing, then?"
Loki's lips twitched in a smile.
Tony Stark understood the merits of selfishness better than anyone else.
"No," Loki said. "I just finally came to terms with the fact that it didn't matter."
That big-eyed look was doing things to Tony's insides. Loki had a cold, chiseled beauty offset by the expressiveness of those large green eyes that transcended gender and social mores and Tony had never wanted to just stare at someone quite so badly before and –
Focus, Tony. Adults are talking.
"What do you mean?" he asked, because he knew he should.
Then again, "should" had flown out the door long ago. What he should do was call Pepper and let her know he wasn't dead. What he should do was have SHIELD pick him up and arrest Loki. Tony decided that "should" could go screw itself.
Watching the god pour himself another glass, Tony had a feeling that, if he left now, Loki would not bother stopping him. In any other hostage situation, Tony would have tested that theory and been halfway to the door by now. But Tony suspected that he was needed here, and... Tony needed to be needed.
Loki did not answer for a while. He poured Tony another glass and scowled when the liquid sloshed over the sides. Tony took a swig and grimaced as the liquor burned a line down his throat, leaving a warm glow in his stomach. He wondered, idly, just how much Loki had drunk earlier and if he was feeling as languid and calm as Tony was. When Loki slumped against his side and rested his head against Tony's shoulder, Tony suspected that he had part of his answer.
The warmth of a body curled up beside him reminded Tony of cat-Loki, and he suspected that drunk-Loki was lapsing into old habits. Tony had almost forgotten his question when Loki finally spoke, his voice starting to adopt a drunken slur, "For all your limitations and the brevity of your lifespan, sometimes I envy you humans."
Loki's words were barely above a whisper, and Tony shook himself from his musings to look at the god. There was an ancient pain lurking under the surface of his emerald-green eyes.
"Why?" Tony scoffed. Why would a god envy a human?
Loki craned his neck to look up at him, his head rolling against Tony's shoulder. "Your life is short," he answered, gesturing vaguely with his glass, "but 'tis your own to live. You can do what you wish."
"Can't you?" Tony asked, allowing Loki to steer the conversation. It was a rare thing to be able to pick apart the mind of a god, especially one as cunning as Loki. Tony knew he should not be so fascinated by the deceptively fragile-looking man at his side, but he was.
Loki's lips twitched into a not-smile. "No," he murmured. He pulled his feet under him and curled tighter against Tony's side, burying his face in the juncture where the human's neck met his shoulder.
Tony blinked, unsure he understood, and he gestured for Loki to continue. The god looked at him with ancient eyes but obeyed.
"I don't suppose you are particularly familiar with Norse mythology." It was a statement, not a question, but Tony shook his head anyway. Thor had explained some bits and pieces, but most of that had to do with weapons and battles and the like; Tony doubted that was what Loki was referring to now. He had done some research on Loki and Thor on his own, sure, but he'd rather let Loki think that he knew less than he did.
Loki nodded to himself and intertwined his fingers. "Then have you ever read Oedipus Rex?" he asked. Tony arched an eyebrow at the non sequitur but said nothing. "Hermes introduced me to a quiet fellow named Sophocles a few lifetimes ago, and I hear that some of his works still survive." He smiled, his gaze far away for a moment. "The Athenians always knew how to party, despite some of their... less savory practices."
Tony thought it said quite a bit about his life that he did not so much as blink at any of that. "Yeah, back in high school," Tony muttered, trying to remember what English classes he didn't sleep through. "Waaay back. That's the story where the guy kills his dad and marries his mom, right?"
Crazy shit. He'd much preferred chemistry where he was given free range to blow stuff up.
Loki smirked and then took a deep breath. "In essence, yes," he said. "Oedipus heard a prophecy saying that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Not knowing that he was adopted, he fled Corinth and went to Thebes, where he accidentally killed the king and ended up marrying the queen, his real parents. In trying to avoid his destiny, he only brought it about himself."
Tony shook his head. "Guess that's what happens when you try to go against prophecies," he said, thinking for a moment that he sounded rather wise.
Loki looked at him like he had three heads. "What would you do?" he asked. "Sit around and wait until you ended up marrying your mother? Ew."
Tony tried not to look too affronted. "I thought you gods were really big into incest."
Again Loki gave him that incredulous look. "The Olympians, maybe," he snapped. "Do I look Greek to you?"
"It's all Greek to me," Tony joked. At Loki's unimpressed look, he added a mumbled, "Sorry."
Loki rolled his eyes and glared out at nothing.
"Okay," Tony sighed, pressing his cheek to the top of Loki's head. "So fate sucks. Is that what you're trying to say?"
Loki sighed heavily, pursed his lips and tilted his head from side to side as if to say, Sort of.
"Imagine you're Oedipus," Loki said in a subdued voice, "except that you're reincarnated over and over, destined to fulfill the same prophecy each time. Each life, you remember bits and pieces of the ones that came before. The path changes, but the end result is always the same. No matter where you go or what you do, each and every time you kill your father and marry your mother. Each and every time you are punished for it."
He looked at Tony, staring through him as though waiting for something. Tony read the pain in those eyes, and he thought he was beginning to understand.
"And... you're Oedipus," he said slowly. He saw his answer in Loki's face as the god looked down and away.
"In every lifetime," Loki explained, his voice unusually thick, "Thor is destined to be a hero. I am destined to bring about chaos and ruin, even when I try not to. The lives of the Aesir are cyclical."
"Every lifetime?" Tony echoed. Loki nodded distractedly. "That does not seem fair."
Then again, Loki might just be trying to absolve himself of blame. Tony supposed that he should be careful, listening to the words of the God of Trickery, but... he had heard enough from Thor to suspect that Loki was, for once, telling the truth. And for once, he felt, he was beginning to understand him and why he was so horribly screwed up: Loki had given up.
Loki's lips quirked in a not-smile. "So why should I bother trying to do the right thing?" he murmured, staring off into the middle-distance. "The end result is the same. I might as well play my part to the hilt."
Loki drained his glass and placed it on the table almost hard enough to be called a slam. Somewhere in the part of Tony's brain not saturated with alcohol, Tony realized that he was being handed a rare opportunity.
Tony licked his lips and studied Loki's profile. "Let's say you're Oedipus," Tony said before he could think better of it. "Would you rather let the prophecy happen or do everything you can to avoid it?"
Loki looked at him listlessly. "What does it matter? The result is the same."
"But the road to it is different," Tony pointed out softly. He caught Loki's eyes to make sure that he was listening. "And the road is just as important, Loki."
Loki stared back at the human, and Tony watched his eyes turn bright and glassy with tears. Then his hands went to his face, and for the first time, Tony watched a god crumble. Tony went rigid, uncomfortable and unsure what to do. Giving comfort had never been one of his skills, but there was no one else there to help him out of this. Tony thought of Thor then and wondered what he would do.
Sucking in a deep breath, Tony wrapped an arm around Loki's trembling shoulders. When his skin didn't catch fire, Tony tightened his grip and pulled Loki close, tucking him under his chin and murmuring comforting nonsense. For a god, Loki was really so very human.
"Okay," Tony mumbled, swallowing down his discomfort. He pressed soothing circles to Loki's back. "Okay. I think we're done with the alcohol now."
Tony freed one hand long enough to grab the bottle and maneuver it out of Loki's reach. It took him a long moment to register that the sobbing breaths had turned into a set of lips and tongue working their way up Tony's jugular. The human stilled as the hands clutching his shirt snaked their way under it. He jumped when cold fingers traced the lines of his chest and abdomen.
"You smell nice," Loki slurred before tonguing his ear. Tony shuddered.
"O-okay," Tony breathed, fingers tightening on Loki's shoulders. "So you're one of those drunks."
Really, he'd find the whole situation hilarious if those hands and tongue weren't being so thoroughly distracting.
"You," Loki slurred into his ear. "I hate you." He punctuated this statement with a sloppy but soul-sucking kiss to Tony's mouth.
Don't respond, Tony told himself. He's drunk; you're drunk. His brother would kill you. This is a Bad Idea. Tony grunted and closed his eyes, pressing the god's lithe body flush against his. Oh, who am I kidding... I'm a weak, weak man.
Tony's pulse hummed in his veins as he returned the kiss, snaking fingers into Loki's dark, slick hair and rumpling it to his heart's content. Loki growled and pressed Tony back against the couch until their bodies were properly aligned, his long legs framing the human's.
Best. Kidnapping. Ever.
Loki broke the kiss to bite at Tony's ear, and gradually, Tony became aware of the god muttering a two-word mantra over and over again: "Damn you."
That brought Tony to at least a few of his senses. He gripped Loki's arms and pushed him back until they were eye-to-eye. "We shouldn't be doing this," Tony said, mostly to himself.
Loki's smile was lopsided and languid. His mussed hair fell into his eyes in frizzy strands. "Come now, Tony," Loki rasped against his ear. The air was sour with alcohol, but Tony wasn't sure if that was from his breath or Loki's. "I can be whoever you want me to be."
The god's voice was husky and a little slurred, and he was damned if it wasn't sending all of Tony's blood rushing in the wrong direction. Loki pulled back, eyes hooded and almost black, his smile a lazy, drunken echo of his usual smirk. His once perfectly kept hair begged to be further tousled and debauched, but Tony gripped the edge of the couch to keep his hands to himself.
"Who do you want me to be, Tony?"
A hand down his chest, just light enough to leave a shiver in its wake, and – wait. Where had Tony's shirt gone?
Loki's skin rippled, and moments later it was Pepper astride his lap. "That Look" was disturbingly out of place in her eyes, and it was enough to jolt Tony from his haze.
"Oh, hey, no," he protested, grabbing Pepper/Loki's upper arms and pushing her/him off onto the couch next to him.
Really, Loki should have his own pronoun.
Pepper melted into Natasha, skin-tight suit and all. She crawled towards him predatorily, and Loki's smirk almost fit on her lips.
"Better?" S/he purred against Tony's ear. She moved to straddle him again, but Tony pushed her back, more firmly this time.
Natasha was hot and all, but this was... wrong. Tony had done far worse things, really, but something like guilt cloyed in his stomach.
"Loki, no. That's just... no. Please."
Loki stared at him, and his smile shrank on his borrowed face. He recovered the next moment, however, as his form rippled into one more masculine. Soon Tony had a copy of Steve Rogers in his lap. Not that Tony hadn't checked out Steve's ass in that tight, star-spangled outfit, but who hadn't?
"How about this?" Loki murmured, eyes pleased slits in front of Tony's face.
"No," Tony pressed, irritated. He got to his feet and pushed "Captain America" to the floor. "No! This is too weird, even by my standards!"
Steve's eyes were round. "I don't understand." Loki's voice sounded thick.
Tony stared down at the shapeshifter at his feet. "You don't...?" He bit off the thought and ran a hand through his hair. "Just turn back, Loki, please."
The sprawled form rippled once more, and Loki resumed his usual shape, expressive eyes clouded with more than just alcohol. He stared down at the rug and almost seemed to curl up into himself.
Tony regarded the green-eyed god and realized, "You're really fucked up, aren't you?" His voice was soft, almost affectionate.
Loki looked at him with those doll-like eyes, but he just looked lost. Tony was used to Loki the high handed, arrogant super-villain... it didn't occur to him that the Trickster would have moments of weakness like this, moments of insecurity. Then again, their few interactions had hinted that Loki was not exactly mentally stable.
Staring with glossy eyes at the sofa, Loki looked like he was on the edge of another breakdown. Again there was that cloying feeling that made it hard to breathe. Tony sank to the floor next to Loki, close enough that their shoulders brushed. Loki looked at him, and Tony found himself unnervingly close to that pale skin, those green eyes.
He spoke without even realizing it.
"I want this. I want you."
Loki's mouth attacked his with all the desperation of a drowning man. Tony was done thinking for the rest of the night.
Footnote: ...why does Loki always end up drunk in my stories? Also, sorry about all the talkiness, but drunk!Loki just would not shut up! xD