Seventh Installment: Talk To Me
He wasn't sure he was ready, but it felt like talking absolutely could not be put off any longer. For the last two days, Stark had been very affectionate and loving, clearly not wanting to be far from Loki. Though the god of mischief didn't particularly mind, Stark's attentions were hovering between enjoyable and unwanted. So he sighed and just plunged in.
"Do you want me to send you home?" He kept his voice mild so that sounded like a request, not a threat.
Stark, who had a pile of roots in front of him, paused in stripping away the rough outer shell. "What?"
Loki gazed right into those dark brown eyes. "I know what you want," he said bluntly, "and I don't take pleasure in denying you."
His momentary confusion melted into something more like irritation as Stark set his task aside. "If you're talking about sex, I'm going to punch you in the mouth. I don't care if you're a god."
Loki gave him a flat look. "You are the most rapaciously sexual man I have ever met, human or otherwise. It's only natural you'd want to be intimate with your lover. That is not going to happen for a very, very long time."
Emotions flooded over Stark's expressive face. Loki could all but see the cogs in his brain turning, trying to come up with the reason for these hurtful words and not jump to conclusions. Finally,
"This has to do with what Thanos did to you, doesn't it?"
Really wishing Stark wasn't quite so clever, Loki sighed and gave in. "Yes. In part. And before you connect the dots to a morbid picture, the Mad Titan never actually physically touched me." He suddenly felt a sense of helplessness. "I truly do not know how to describe what he did. If you were a mage, perhaps I could . . ."
Stark stood up so quickly it startled Loki, and he relocated to plop down right in front of him and clasp his hands. "Why don't we both go home? You could talk to your mom. She'd understand, right?"
Loki gave him a bittersweet smile. "Yes. Undoubtedly. But I have no desire to go home."
Stark glared. "Why do you have to be so damned stubborn? I really rather think no one cares what happened in New York."
Amused in spite of himself, Loki snorted. "Nor do I. That has nothing to do with it."
"Then explain!" Stark snapped. He sounded more hurt than angry.
Loki opened his mouth, but the words crowded into his throat and choked off all sound. So he repeated his earlier inquiry. "Would you like me to send you home?"
Stark closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, I don't want you to send me home, you insensitive bastard. I really don't appreciate you insinuating that the only reason I'm with you is so I can fuck you. I'm only going to spell this out once, then if you ever bring it up again I'll punch you.
"I love you. Not because you're hot and sexy and fantastic in bed. Those are all fun, but they aren't why I'm with you. If you need time before we have sex again, fine. If you never want to have sex again, that's also fine. We'll figure it out. But I'm here because I want to be with you, not because I want to fuck you."
Then he smirked and leaned forward so their noses touched. "Although I'm not gonna lie and say I don't love that more than just about any other thing a man can do."
With a breath of a laugh, Loki lifted his chin to brush his lips over the bridge of Stark's nose. "I do not understand you, Stark." He thought he should be frustrated the man was so stubborn.
All he could summon was gratitude. Soul-deep gratitude. It just felt like he had no defenses with this human.
"You mean, you love me too," Stark said, supremely confident. "And just so we're clear, is it all right if I kiss you?"
"Every now and then," Loki said with a tiny smirk, brushing his lips down Stark's cheek and stopping at his neatly trimmed beard. He leaned back. "How is your wound?"
Stark rubbed a hand over his chest. "All better. You installed some ultra-fast regeneration in me."
Loki smiled. "Good. Then tomorrow morning, let's go to the city."
o0o 0o0 o0o
Carrying Loki to the city turned out to be every bit as wonderful as Tony had imagined. It just didn't last as long as he wanted. Twenty-five minutes holding his lover without Loki telling him to stop just wasn't enough to suit him. However, he dutifully lowered Loki to the ground when they reached the outskirts.
His green-eyed beauty looked a little better today, it seemed. He had that arrogant tilt to his chin, and when Skaði appeared out of nowhere, Loki held out his hand to her.
"Lead the way, Stark," he said as the little-girl-Aether curled her fingers around his.
Today, she was wearing a cute sky-blue smock. No amount of childlike clothing could detract from the strangeness of her eyes, though. She's gonna get a lot of weird looks. If anyone can handle prying, it's Loki. He couldn't help grinning at how cute she and Loki looked, a beautiful father and his little girl.
As they walked into the market district, Loki walked slower and seemed to take stock. He quickly found a bench and lowered himself onto it, looking around at everything. He somehow managed to appear as though he saw nothing of importance, but Tony didn't miss how closely Loki observed the glowing blue orbs that powered things.
Eventually, Tony couldn't stand the silence any longer. "Well?" he demanded. "Do you know what those things are?"
Loki glanced at him. "Yes." He lifted an elegant hand and pointed to a larger building isolated from its neighbors by a squat stone wall. "That factory is where they're made. I recognize the energy signature."
"How do you know it's a factory?" Tony asked, looking at the sign covered in gibberish.
"I can read."
"You've never been here before. How can you read their language?"
"I can't read it, either," Skaði mused, sounding curious.
Loki ignored them both, rising and intercepting a plump woman in a dark brown dress. "Excuse me, Miss," he said with a tiny smile, "but might I trouble you to show me an example of your local currency?"
The woman blushed and giggled, putting a hand to her cheek. She said something Tony couldn't understand.
Loki's smile deepened a little. "Yes, we're from quite far away."
Still giggling, the woman reached into a little purse at her waist and pulled out a flat object that looked vaguely similar to a credit card in shape but more like a pale blue crystal in substance. She said more things Tony didn't understand.
Loki nodded. "Yes, I see. Thank you for your help, Miss. Is there a place nearby I might find a map of the city?"
She said something else and pointed to the west.
With a last smile, Loki held out his hand to her. "Thank you." When she put her hand in his, he lifted it to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
The poor woman looked ready to swoon.
As they walked toward where the woman had pointed, Tony shot Loki a sideways glare. "You were speaking English. How come she could understand you, but when I talked to a woman the other day she couldn't understand me?"
Loki had retaken Skaði's hand. "I'm not speaking English. Not to her, and not now to you."
"Uh . . ." Tony said, raising an eyebrow. "Yes, you are."
Now the Norse god looked at him, a devious twinkle in his green eyes. "You hear English. I'm speaking what's known as Allspeak, a language created by the Allfather so the Aesir could communicate with every race in the Nine."
Tony stared in amazement. "Wow, really? So this whole time you haven't been speaking English? Can you teach me this Allspeak?"
"No," Loki said.
An answer Tony Stark had never accepted in his life. "No you can't, or no you won't?"
Something like minor annoyance passed over Loki's countenance. "The former. Not until I've recovered my own seiðr. Then . . . perhaps."
"Sweet," Tony enthused. "It'd be fantastic to communicate with everyone. But how can you understand?"
"I'll explain later," Loki said, coming to a stop in front of what looked like a junky hardware store.
"What was up with that woman's currency?" Tony asked.
"Interestingly," Loki said, "this city trades in energy rather than money. I believe you will find that helpful, and likely you could use your Arc reactor in trade."
"Energy, huh?" Tony mused as he followed Loki inside. That was both weird and fascinating. And quite fortuitous. "So that crystal card thing was a storage device for energy?"
"Yes," Loki replied.
"Could you channel that gold energy out of yourself?" Tony asked, wondering if that would somehow help.
"Not in any meaningful amount," Loki said. "I would need something much . . . bigger."
The fat, greasy guy manning the shop watched them enter, and there was no mistaking the leer when he looked at Skaði. Tony felt a surge of protective anger. However, when Skaði saw it, she gave the man a wide smile that looked more than a little insane. Her eyes went blood red.
The man paled, swallowed, and looked elsewhere.
Tony snorted. Yeah, I'm thinking about defending the virtue of the fucking Aether. Not a ten-year-old little girl. She could eat that guy for a mid-morning snack.
Skaði looked up at Tony and winked.