A/N: Okay so, short note today because my kitty's nudging me the way she does when she wants me to go to bed for Cuddle Time, lol.

...Dear Lord, my cat has me whipped, doesn't she? Anyway, just wanted to thank you guys for reading and for all the awesome reviews! Your comments are fuel for the muse. :)

Mayhem and Misunderstandings

Tony Stark knew he should be listening. Pepper was reading aloud the rest of today's to-do list, but her voice was little more than white noise to him, like someone had cut off the reception of words to his brain. He felt the itch of fabric against his skin, the give of the couch beneath him, the glare of light in his eyes, but only as abstract entities his mind told him must exist.

But no matter where he looked, whether or not he closed his eyes, L– he was there, on, under, and inside of everything. It wasn't fair.

All things considered, Tony knew he had no right to be angry with Loki, but he was. He did not know what he had expected or even what he had wanted, but...

Come on, Tony, he told himself, closing his eyes and trying to focus. You made it through most of the day without thinking of this crap.

"I slept with him."

The white noise cut to silence. Tony opened his eyes.

The world came back into focus, and Tony realized that he must have said these words aloud.

Next to him, Pepper set down her tablet and sucked in a breath. "Okay, um." She cleared her throat. "With whom, exactly?"

Tony looked up, and the angles and planes of her face finally coalesced into Pepper, eyes sharp, questioning, and concerned. Tony looked down as he said, "With Loki."

Pepper sucked in another breath, blew it out in a groan. "Oh God, Tony." She grimaced and rubbed her forehead.

Tony swallowed and picked at tiny bits of lint on his suit. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"What were you thinking?"

Tony's gaze met hers and skittered away. A number of wry answers came to mind that he hadn't the heart to say, so he shrugged.

"Okay," Pepper sighed. "Damage control. Where does Loki stand on all of this? Am I going to have to add him to the List of Angry Skanks to Avoid Forever, or is it different when your one-night stand is a guy?"

Tony pinned Pepper with a glare before he could stop himself. She sat back and eyed him narrowly, and Tony looked away again with a grimace.

"Hang on," she murmured. "There was something different about this, wasn't there?"

"Well," Tony wryly replied, "Loki's a guy, so, yeah, the physics were a bit different – "

"That's not what I meant, Tony." The words were soft but matter-of-fact. Her stare cut through him as easily as her words had cut through his, and for once Tony found himself wishing that she were a little less competent.

"Nope!" he answered with false cheer, manipulating his expression like the strings of a marionette. Smile for the camera, Tony. "One-night stand, like you said. One night of crazy sex," – mind-numbing, life-changing sex – "and then he and I go our separate ways. I lost my favorite suit, but – hell! – that's happened before, and Loki seemed perfectly happy to never see my face again!"

His voice had definitely not gone up an octave, nope.

Awkward, awkward silence, then, "Tony, are you okay?" He could feel Pepper's eyes on him, could read her discomfort out of the corner of his eye in the stiff way she held herself.

Tony grit his teeth in a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Never better!" He pushed himself to his feet and made for the door. "Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day, Pepper. I'm off to get drunk off my ass and remind myself why I prefer the female body."

He slammed the door behind him before Pepper could respond.

Loki was distracted as he climbed down, down the branches of Yggdrasil into the icy wasteland of Niflheim. Victor von Doom had requested his help for... something that had to do with alternative energy sources, and although Loki was rather partial to the idea of mass destruction in his current mood, he was still leery of being near the armored megalomaniac after that business with the clones. But most infuriating of all was that Loki kept finding his thoughts wandering to tonytonytony and to that one moment when the stars had aligned and everything had been so very perfect for the first time in centuries.

He is mortal, Loki had to remind himself. Mortal! Here and gone in the blink of an eye, and it would not do to get attached, not now.

Loki suspected that it was already much too late for that but refused to admit it to himself.

His breath hovered in front of him in clouds of steam, and Loki trudged on, setting aside all thoughts of Tony and Victor as best he could. His boots crunched in the snow, and the watchdog of Helheim, Garm, watched Loki as he approached the gates into Hela's domain, licking at his muzzle. His fur was scraggly and matted with blood.

"Good morrow, Grandson," Loki murmured, smiling softly as he buried a hand in the great dog's fur and scratched that sweet spot just behind his ear. Garm's tail thumped against the floor, and he leaned into Loki's touch. He flopped onto his side, and Loki passed into Helheim.

Gray, translucent spirits flit past, around, and through him, and Loki's footsteps echoed loudly in the stillness of death. The vaulted hallways were long and silent, and Loki was aware of countless eyes watching him. He smiled amicably as he entered the throne room, pointedly ignoring the empty stare of the Horseman lurking in the shadows.

"Greetings, Lady Hela," he said as he ascended the steps to his daughter's throne. He twisted his fingers behind his back and conjured a bouquet of red flowers, which he held out to her with a shallow bow. Hela's smirk was an echo of her father's as she curled her hands around the stems and brought the petals to her face.

"Spider lilies," she murmured, running a finger along a delicate petal. "My favorite." Her eyes darted to his over the bouquet. "What have you done this time, Father?" Half of her face was masked, obscured, but Loki read genuine amusement in her smile.

"That's what I was going to ask you."

She tilted her head in a question, setting down the flowers on the arm of her bone-white throne. "Explain."

Loki paused, regarding his daughter with a sidelong stare. "The Horseman?" he prompted with an arched eyebrow. "Why has he been dogging my steps?"

Hela glanced at the Horseman skulking in the shadows and frowned in what looked like genuine puzzlement. She had not his flare for nor interest in duplicity, so Loki found himself echoing her confused expression. "He has not left my side, Father," she said. "What are you playing at?"

Loki opened his mouth and closed it a few times. "You are certain?"

"Of course."

Loki pursed his lips, mind awhirr with questions and half-answers. "Forgive me, my dear," he said distractedly. "I must have been mistaken." He kissed her hand and smiled. "Good day, Hela."

"Good day, Father." Hela watched him in bemusement as he turned to leave.

Loki's heart thudded in his chest, his fists clenched at his sides as he reascended to Midgard. Unless his daughter was lying – why would she? – there was another Horseman, or something very close. He did not know how or why; all he knew was that Hela was not controlling it, which made it a very real danger.

Where was it now? What did it want, and was it still after him?

Though he tried not to think about it, he remembered Tony, corpse-pale and dying, and knew that worry would gnaw at his thoughts until he checked on the idiot human.

Tony had no idea whose party this was. All he knew was that the drinks were good and that he had found a long-limbed blonde with green eyes and a crooked smile that felt like home. The come-ons were second nature, but he was not really paying attention and knew that he probably wouldn't have the heart to take her home with him regardless of his efforts.

By his third drink, the music was a steady pulse in his ears, loud enough to deafen even his thoughts. By the fourth drink, Tony's head throbbed along with the beat, and he decided to look for the exit. Tony glanced over his shoulder to spare the blonde another wink before he took off. He stumbled through the door, cool air washed over his face, and he closed his eyes to sigh in relief.

"Well, that didn't take long."

The smooth, familiar – angry – voice was Tony's only warning before an invisible hand grabbed him by the lapels and flung him against the wall. He grunted as brick cracked against his skull. The pressure on his chest remained, keeping him pinned to the wall, and Tony opened his eyes to find Loki standing in front of him, the shadows accentuating the sharp contours of his face and making his eyes seem black.

"H-Hey, Loki," he said as cheerily as he could. He smiled, but his eyes were wary. He honestly hadn't expected to see the Trickster again for a while and then only in fight, or something. Oh crap, was this a fight? If so, Tony was screwed.

Loki did not return the smile or the greeting. His eyes were cold, dark, ancient as he stared at Tony. When finally he spoke, his voice held those same qualities. "You don't waste time, do you?"

Tony's heartbeat throbbed in his chest. "What do you mean?"

"Not even twenty-four hours out of my bed and already you're climbing into another's." Loki's words were soft but over-enunciated, over-controlled. "You have a lot of gall, human."

Tony's thoughts screeched to a halt and then backpedaled at double speed. Loki was upset because he had been coming-on to someone else? Even after Loki had...? What? "Wait... you're jealous?" Tony realized, fighting not to smirk.

Anger flashed through green-black eyes. "I'm insulted," Loki growled. Now it was Loki's hand pinning Tony to the wall, and not in the fun, we're-gonna-make-out-now kind of way, much to Tony's disappointment. It was a bit unnerving, being reminded so clearly of Loki's superior strength, magical and physical. Last night, he could have snapped Tony like a twig, and yet... "I am a god! Do you honestly think you can do better?"

Now it was Tony's turn to feel insulted. "Oh, well, excuse me, Your Highness!" he sneered. Suit or no, he wasn't going to take this shit. "I did not realize that your penis was something all mortals dreamed of! Am I supposed to be honored to be your fuck toy? Shall I kneel and worship, now?"

Loki snarled and drew back, pushing Tony away from him with a shove. The pressure was gone, both physical and magical, and Tony was able to stand on his own feet again, tensing to fight or run.

"That is not what I meant!" Loki grumbled. His eyes darted away from Tony's. "I just did not think that you would treat this as another one of your meaningless one-night stands."

One of...? Oh damn.

"I thought that's what it was." He thought that's what Loki had wanted.

And then he realized that that had been the wrong thing to say.

When Loki looked back up, there was so much more in his glare besides anger. Tony saw that his eyes were over-bright with the threat of tears, and his heart soared and then crashed and burned in one blazing moment of epiphany. Tony closed his eyes and grit his teeth. He could kick himself for his stupidity!

"Loki," he murmured.

Loki's eyes flashed wild with hurt and rage, and he clenched his fists so hard that he shook. He looked like he could tear the world apart with his bare hands and not care. Tony suspected that he was staring his death in the face.

He was less than surprised when Loki backhanded him in the face. It felt like being hit by a truck, and the impact sent him hurtling back into the wall, leaving him in an undignified sprawl on the alley floor. He groaned and blinked as he waited for the world to settle, and when he looked up, it was to see Loki stalking back down the alleyway.

Tony cursed and scrambled to his feet, lurching into the nearest wall and using it as a guide as he struggled to catch up with the god. "Wait, Loki!" he shouted. "Wait, please, just talk to me for a minute!"

He should have realized. He should have known.

Loki continued walking, a dark, stiff silhouette in the night. Tony reached for his arm, but Loki evaded.

"Do you want this to be more?"

He did not know what answer he was hoping for.

Loki stopped and spun so quickly that Tony almost barreled into him. The god's eyes were fierce when they met Tony's, and his hands were clenched in white-knuckled fists again as though he were straining not to use them. Tony tried not to cringe.

"What did you think I wanted?" Loki all but shrieked.

Tony stared at him with wide, pleading eyes. "I don't know," he murmured. He reached up to Loki's face but found his hand on fire the next minute.

"Don't touch me!"

Tony yelped and flapped his hand about in the air before patting it out against his suit. When he looked up, Loki was gone.

"Dammit," he cursed, clutching his throbbing hand. "Dammit!" His heart was a leaden weight in his stomach.

He felt like a world-class asshole. Tony to the ground again.

"Damn you sexy bipolar gods and your mixed signals," Tony muttered as he fished out his phone. His face was starting to swell up where Loki's hand had met his cheek, and he winced as he brought the phone up to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, hey, Pepper. Turns out you might want to add Loki to that list after all. Also, I need a ride. And some ice."

Loki's boots echoed on stone he thought he'd never walk on again. Doom looked up from his reading.

"Loki," he all but purred. "What brings you to Latveria?"

"Spare me, Victor," Loki snapped. The servants cringed away from him. "You know why I'm here."

It was difficult to see with the iron mask in place, but Loki had learned to read Doom's expressions from his eyes alone and knew that the Latverian was smiling.

Footnote: Bonus points to anyone who gets why I chose spider lilies for Hela's favorite flower. ;)