Ugh, you guys, I am so sorry this took so long to post! Mostly I'm late because I spent the last week out of the country being drunk and rowdy with my drunk and rowdy friends for my birthday (which is actually next week, but partying doesn't always conform to the rules of the calendar). Then things happened. I had a draft before I left, but decided I hated it and rewrote large portions while sitting in the airport on the way down. Then I decided I hated that, too, and cut a bunch of stuff and rewrote more on the plane back. Third rewrite happened when I realized that hungover airplane writing just really, really sucks and largely makes no sense. And finally, I scrapped almost everything once more because it seemed "off" and I didn't like the character interaction, and I redid this version last night after work. I think I'm satisfied with the content and direction of the chapter now, or maybe I'm just at saturation point and can't screw around with it any more. Either way, here you go, only four days late!
Next chapter will be on time, so help me, God of Mischief...
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It's not like Tony thought the Avengers Official Team Meeting was going to be a jolly ol' time, per se. Stiff. He was expecting stiff and halting, with a lot of uncertain gazes down at tightly clasped hands as they worked out the kinks of how the hell they're supposed get along. He was gearing himself up for maybe a couple sniping insults, some dirty looks, and a mentally shaken fist or two. But on the whole, he honestly thought they would be able to work past their differences to some degree and get shit done. Really, how difficult can it be to come to an agreement on what needs to happen with an incredibly dangerous alien artifact that's about to trigger a hostile invasion from outer space?
As luck would have it, such a thing turns out to sit somewhere between 'incredibly' and 'completely' on the difficulty continuum. It's three in the afternoon. They've been at it for hours. So far Tony's had four cups of coffee (which isn't nearly enough, because he can't seem to stop yawning) and his brain is 95% checked out of the conversation. To the point where he's started doodling ideas for new armor components on the back of the notes Bruce gave him instead of listening as Steve asks Thor and Loki, for at least the fifth time, to stop kicking each other under the table like a couple of first-graders.
Then again, if Tony really thinks about it and takes into account who's involved, should he be at all surprised that nobody trusts anybody else and so far all they've managed to definitively agree on is that it's Steve's job to keep record of the meeting minutes because he has the best handwriting?
He glances up just in time to see Thor jump to his feet, hammer in hand, while a ball of flame flickers to life at Loki's fingertips.
Nope. Not surprised. Not at all.
"Guys..." Steve groans in that frustrated, so-help-me-children-I-will-turn-this-car-around way of his. The first time Thor threatened to tear Loki's tongue out and Loki retaliated with an attempt to set Thor on fire (again) was nerve-wracking. This time? This time, it's just another minor annoyance.
"Can we stay on track, please?" asks Bruce. His tone is more just-you-wait-until-your-father-gets-home. "Let's get back to what we're supposed to be talking about, and Tony, are you even paying attention?"
"Yeah yeah," answers Tony, hiding his doodles under a page with a diagram of a HYDRA gun. "Tesseract. Clean energy. Weapons. Fury wants one thing, somebody else wants another. Spy vs. Spy. I got it."
"So you heard everything about the portal and the Chitauri and Selvig's theories."
"All that and more," he confirms with a nod. Including the hour-long argument where Bruce and Steve did nothing but waffle back and forth on whether or not HYDRA technology could ever be safely modified for non-combat use. "You want me to repeat it all back to you, or just the parts where we actually discussed something useful? Because I've got all six of those useful words down pat."
"Are we wasting your time, Stark?" snaps Steve.
"Let's just say you're not enhancing it."
Steve's eyes narrow into ribbon-thin slits. "Yet I don't hear you contributing anything to the conversation," he says. "Agent Coulson gave us the impression that you and Loki had made a deal to pass along everything you know in exchange for a pardon. So far, you haven't offered up a thing, and Loki hasn't said a single word that wasn't a threat of some kind. I thought we'd be getting a lot more than this."
"Really?" says Tony. "I thought I'd be getting less. I have this distinct memory of only inviting you and Banner over, but it turns out I got the 'order two Americans, we'll send you one Asgardian free' TV special offer."
"Are you deliberately trying to be antagonistic?"
"No, he's not," Bruce cuts in, shaking his head. Saint Bruce: the calm guy of the group. How's that for irony? "We're all a little on edge today, jumping down each other's throats..." He shoots a sidelong glance over his shoulder in Loki and Thor's direction when he says that. "Let's just pause for a sec to take a breath, calm down, and not let the situation get the better of us."
"Mm," says Loki. "You'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Dr. Banner?"
"Yeah," Bruce replies, neither flinching nor backing down from Loki's diamond-hard glare. "I would know about that. So why don't we all put in the same effort that I'm giving this, and try to get along?"
For once, Thor is the first to nod in agreement. "Dr. Banner is right. We are wasting too much valuable time on minor details and differences."
"How about a five minute break," says Bruce. "Get another coffee, stretch our legs, clear our heads. Okay?"
The law of probability just about guarantees that it'll take way more than five minutes to clear anybody's head, but at this point Tony'll take what he can get. Even five minutes of relaxation is better than nothing. So while Thor goes for more coffee, and while Loki buries his nose in the book he's had tucked under his arm all day, Tony leans back in his chair and shuts his eyes. I never should've suggested this meeting, says the voice in his head that only ever tells him plans are a bad idea once they're already in motion. The hindsight voice. Why did I think this would be a good idea? It's not a good idea. I should've invited Banner alone. The two of us could've banged out a plan in five minutes and spent the rest of the day playing Halo. But Rogers and Hammerstein here...
Right on cue, somebody who sounds a lot like the Rogers half of that duo mutters quietly in his ear. "Sorry," the voice says in a grudging tone. "I know everybody's acting a little childish. We got off on the wrong foot."
"Was there ever a right foot in this scenario?" Tony asks.
"Maybe not. But Dr. Banner is right. We need to at least make an effort to get along, and I'm willing to start over, clean slate, if you are."
A clean slate. Who the hell still uses slates? Or even knows what a slate is these days? Yawning, Tony drops his head to the side to look at Steve. "That's a little Laura Ingalls Wilder for my tastes, but I may be able to offer you a clean iPad. Only I keep coming back to this time about a week ago when you refused to get me bacon for breakfast."
"You were drunk, Stark."
"I don't see how that would have any impact on my ability to eat bacon."
"You really want me to..." He lets that thought fade away though, because in the fine art of negotiation, bacon trumps logic. "Fine," Steve sighs. "Bacon it is." He picks up a pen and writes out, in that brass plate, grade school teacher handwriting of his across the back of one of Bruce's note pages:
To Tony Stark
IOU: bacon.
Signed,
Steve Rogers
July 27, 2012
In response, Tony takes the pen and splashes his illegible engineer's scrawl beneath Steve's date:
You're on.
Tony Stark
"We're good?" asks Steve.
With a silent nod, Tony folds up the paper and sticks it in his pocket. They're good. Not quite friends – Tony'll wait on the bacon for that – but at least they can be friendly coworkers. The kind of coworkers who nod in the hallway and mutter something that sounds like an even less articulate version of 'sup and maybe grunt a few words about weekend plans on the elevator.
"So," says Steve, now that they've established the boundaries of their fledgling relationship. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Strictly speaking, that's why we're all here. To answer each other's questions."
"It's not that kind of question. Just... um. Why is Loki wearing-"
Ah. That question. Holding up a hand, Tony interrupts him before he can say anything more. "How about let's not go there. We had a fight about this yesterday in Neiman Marcus, and another fight about it over dinner last night. Result? If Loki wants to wear a sequined dress with his hipster pants and cardigan, I'm pretty sure no force on Earth is going to be able to stop Loki from wearing a sequined dress with his hipster pants and cardigan. Leave it at that."
"It's... an interesting look."
"Uh-huh." And to think Loki chose it over the classic style of an argyle sweater vest and some permanent press wool Sunday school pants. "But speaking of interesting," says Tony, motioning with his chin in Thor's direction, "since when do you have a Sweet Valley Twin?"
The frown on Steve's face makes him look even more like Thor, which is a pretty impressive accomplishment considering they're both decked out in cute little matching outfits of beige pants and button-down gingham shirts. Thor even has his hair neatly combed and parted down the right side, just like Steve, and slicked back into a little nub of a ponytail.
"What, did I just break the first rule of borrowing Captain America's clothes? Nobody talks about borrowing Captain America's clothes?"
"Nobody else had anything that came close to fitting him," Steve answers with a hint of a sulk.
Should've taken the God of Thunder shopping for his own sequined dress. "And let me guess," Tony adds. "Coulson may have encouraged him to tag along because, technically, he's not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, so, technically, his presence isn't in violation of the terms I laid out yesterday."
Steve nods. "Something like that. But he wanted to come, and I think it's fair that he did, since he's here for Loki and this is where Loki is. And the guy knows a lot about the Tesseract. He's been helping Selvig and Banner this past week."
"So he knows how to open the portal to Asgard?"
"Not exactly," Steve sighs.
Which brings everything right back around to square one, and just in time for Bruce to start up the meeting again. "Alright, we ready to get going? Everyone refreshed? Nobody feeling the urge to set anyone else on fire?"
"It's only ghost fire," mutters Loki, voice muffled by the barrier of his book.
"Ghost fire?" Bruce repeats.
"Ghost fire burns energy rather than matter," says Thor.
"Entirely harmless," Loki confirms. Then shrugs. "In itself, that is. It causes no physical damage. Of course one can still feel its burn, but all recorded fatalities due to ghost fire are suicides by those driven mad enough to kill themselves to escape the pain."
Thor looks about ready to say something in response to that, but, to his credit, bites back what would have no doubt been some very choice words and lets Bruce continue.
"So to recap and move along," Bruce begins, without stating outright the implied qualifier of 'because we keep getting side-tracked', "and to put us all on the same page, ever since we picked up Dr. Selvig and the Tesseract, he and I have been working to recreate a smaller scale model of the portal device he was constructing at Brookhaven. The ultimate goal behind that is to create a link to Asgard. Thor has been helping me wherever possible."
"Yeah, but who gets to make the call of whether or not to send the Cube back with Thor?" Tony asks. "I think that's the big problem we have to tackle before this meeting can go any further."
Bruce's answering expression is neither a smile nor a frown, but something uncertain in between. "That would be the million-dollar question. Naturally Fury wants to keep it here, but Thor's made some good arguments in favor of taking it back to Asgard with him, and from the sounds of things a couple of the S.H.I.E.L.D. bigwigs are on Thor's side. Everyone's divided on whether we keep the Tesseract here or get that thing as far away from our planet as possible."
Far away. Tony's vote is for as far away as possible. Make it Asgard's problem. If he never hears the word 'Tesseract' again, it'll be too soon. "How long before the portal is operational?"
This time, Bruce's expression is a definite, negative frown. "That's what we don't know," he sighs. "Dr. Selvig claims the calculations we're using are right, the construction is correct, the materials are identical, but... we can't get it to work. On paper, it should work. In practice? During our first test we were able to open a minor portal very briefly, and two of those aliens that matched the corpses Coulson brought back from Brookhaven came through. Chitauri. But ever since, we've got nada. The machine works, the Cube starts to glow brighter, but nothing happens. Something's missing."
"Probably magic," says Tony, at which Bruce cracks a small grin. He thought that was a joke.
"Anyway," Bruce continues, "that was a couple days ago. Since then, Selvig and I have been trying to figure out where we went wrong by looking back and retro-engineering some of the Tesseract tech that does work. Namely the HYDRA guns. We've dismantled them, rebuilt them, looked at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new models, even made some improvements and updated prototypes. But whatever powers those guns and whatever powers the portal? They're two completely separate functions. On the one hand, the Tesseract as an energy source is fairly easy to tap. The Tesseract as a gateway through space, though... We're a long way off from understanding how that works."
"You're back to scratch with your portal to Asgard, then," Tony says.
"Yeah. But Thor's had some good ideas, and if we keep at it-"
"Oh, keep at it all you like," Loki murmurs from behind his book; "you'll still be wrong."
A tiny muscle twitches in Bruce's jaw. That's all, nothing more, but it's enough to make Tony sit up straighter and pay attention. "Loki..." he warns.
"No, it's okay," says Bruce. "I can take somebody being a bit of a jerk to me. As long as that jerk explains what he means and can back up his accusations with solid evidence. So, Loki? Care to tell me where I'm wrong?"
"Gladly," Loki replies, and his haughty smirk says he means it. "Your problem, Dr. Banner, is an incorrect assumption of what the Tesseract is. You see it as having two functions as either an energy source or a gateway, yet neither of those observations is exactly correct. In reality, it is far more advanced. Certainly outside anything you've ever encountered before."
"So what is it?" Bruce asks. The hardness in his voice holds a healthy level of skepticism for whatever Loki's vaguely trying to say.
Loki smiles, going straight for the answer he seems to know nobody's going to be able to wrap their heads around. "A semi-sentient form, capable of producing, storing, and using its own energy. It cannot necessarily think for itself, at least not new thoughts, but it can expand upon and amplify the thoughts of living beings who know how to control it. Do you understand that?"
Quickly, Bruce shoots an uncertain glance over in Tony's direction. "I..."
"No, of course you don't," says Loki. "Nothing like this has ever existed within your reality. The Tesseract is power. And when I say 'power' I do not mean anything as crude as your electricity and the ability to light up a city. I mean anything you can imagine. Quite literally: anything you can imagine. Let us take, for example, the power I demonstrated earlier when Thor threatened me with bodily harm and I conjured that fire to defend myself."
"Don't-" Thor starts, standing up from his seat with a threat of bared teeth.
"I'm not about to!" Loki snarls in return. "It was merely an example! We are talking, Thor. Not acting. Were we acting, and I had I the power of the Tesseract at my disposal, I could easily conjure an inferno to engulf this tower completely while expending only the same amount of my own energy as it takes me to call up one little flame now. Similarly, within the limits of my own power, at my best I might be able to space-shift to the opposite side of Midgard. Yet working through the amplifying prism of the Tesseract, some weeks ago I was able to open a doorway from the far end of space. Do you see how this works now? And do you see, Dr. Banner, why your own attempts failed? It is not because of any flaw in the design of Dr. Selvig's device. It is only because you do not possess the natural ability to manipulate the Tesseract's power to conform to your wishes. No human does. You may harvest energy to create guns and the like – energy which, I might add, is nothing more than a necessary side effect of magical amplification rather than a purpose in itself – but that is as far as your race can ever go."
"But the first time..." Bruce says, clearly confused. "Dr. Selvig said..."
"When Dr. Selvig built the first device, he was under the influence of the scepter, which linked his mind to mine. To put things plainly, he was a conduit for my abilities and my knowledge. I'm assuming the reason you were able to open a minor portal on your first attempt with the rebuild was because you tried to do so very soon after Dr. Selvig joined you. Before the influence of the scepter had fully faded from his head."
This is when the look of understanding slowly seeps into Bruce's face. Not good understanding: not like that 'a-ha' moment upon making a breakthrough discovery. No, it's the slow, crumpling, pathetic realization that everything he's done was doomed to fail from the start. "So Dr. Selvig and I built a machine that neither of us can use."
"Exactly."
"And we'll never be able to use it?"
"Not on your own, no."
The silent word formed by his lips is probably a four-letter gem. "Then even if we do succeed in getting this thing linked up to Asgard, and you and Thor go home, we're left with a doorway that can only be opened from the other side. By you guys."
Loki nods. "Which is why, I think you'll now agree, it makes no sense for you to keep the Tesseract on Midgard. It's far more of a liability to you than a benefit. Anyone with the power to do so can open the door, whether you like it or not; my presence here proves that beyond a doubt. Or someone could potentially do worse."
"But the energy," says Bruce. "Fury's feel-good argument is that the energy that thing puts out – clean energy – could solve a lot of problems based on the world's current fossil fuel dependency."
"Captain Rogers already expounded in detail on what that energy can do," Loki replies with a flick of his eyes at Steve. "It may not be something you wish to introduce to your realm on a wide scale."
"No," Steve agrees, though the look on his face seems to indicate he actually suffers physical pain from this odd turn of events in being forced to side with Loki on something. "These guns are enough to deal with. If the Tesseract technology gets out, we don't know where it'll stop, and sooner or later, somebody's going to build a bomb that can wipe a whole city off the map."
Tony has to cut in here. "As the resident weapons expert, I'm pretty sure we already have bombs like that. Until two years ago, I built them."
"Not like this," says Steve. "Stark, when I say wiped off the map, I mean completely off. Wherever that beam hits, there's nothing left. No smoking rubble. No bodies. Everything's gone. Dr. Banner, you must've seen that. Didn't you test the gun you were working on?"
Reluctantly, Bruce looks up. "I tested it." He wants to stop there, but Steve's still eyeing him for a full answer. After a moment, he continues with a hard-put sigh. "Okay, yeah, the Tesseract energy disintegrates anything it touches. No longer there. Gone without a trace. I agree: that's bad news. But if we can modify it and somehow make it safe?"
"You can always modify anything to make it safe," Tony tells him. "The thing you have to worry about is somebody else modifying it in the other direction and making it worse."
"And how might you go about modifying that which you still do not understand?" Loki asks. "All of you know the danger of this energy, but do you have any idea what it truly is? What it does?"
Silence. Tony opens his mouth, but shuts it right back up. Of all the guys in this room, he's the only one who hasn't seen the Tesseract up close. He knows the least about it, which bugs, him, but not as much as a similar lack of knowledge seems to be bugging Bruce, who's been working with the damn thing for two weeks. When nobody speaks, keeping their eyes sullenly glued to the table instead, Loki moves on.
"Dr. Banner, tell me what happens to anything you shoot with those shiny little guns of yours."
"It vanishes," Bruce mutters, barely audible over all the tension and mistrust that hums through the room.
"But as a man of science, you know that's impossible. Matter cannot simply vanish. It must go somewhere."
"No. We tested every possible variable. We shot that gun at a rock in a vacuum chamber and measured every aspect of the outcome. Nothing changed. The rock wasn't vaporized, no heat was created, it didn't turn into anything else, it just... It just disappeared. And I know," he adds, holding up his hands. "According to the laws of physics, that's impossible, but we tested the same thing ten times and got ten identical results. Nothing. So unless you know something I don't..."
Oh, he does. That little smile on Loki's face shouts out loud and clear that he knows a hell of a lot of vital information that's slipped the grasp of everyone else. Of course he does. "All matter must go somewhere. You've just not considered how vast an area somewhere might be. You said yourself not minutes ago that the Tesseract functions as a doorway. Why would its excess energy be capable of anything less?"
"Wait," says Steve. "Are you saying that seventy years ago, a bunch of Nazis unwittingly invented a teleportation ray?!"
"Not exactly, but if you were to describe it as such, you would be close enough that I wouldn't bother correcting you. What they created was a means of focusing what they thought was destructive energy. However, the energy only appeared to be destructive because they lacked the ability to control it. Uncontrolled, it sends whatever it touches to a random, unspecified location. Scatters it. The rocks Dr. Banner shot would have been deconstructed down into individual particles, and each of those particles transported elsewhere. Perhaps inches away. Perhaps to the other side of the world, or the universe. But if I were to use the gun, I'm confident I could control its power and, depending on the precision of the technology, reconstruct the particles of my target in a desired location in something resembling their original order."
"Yeah that sounds... kind of like a teleportation ray," Bruce says. If he's even trying to stop his stunned disbelief from seeping into his words, it's not working.
For the record, Tony doesn't blame him. Semi-sentient energy, amplified magic, accidental teleportation rays... If ever there were a time for the phrase 'what the actual fuck', this would be it. "Why didn't you tell me any of this earlier?" he asks Loki.
Loki only shrugs, looking far too casual and unconcerned while he carefully refuses to meet Tony's eye. "The opportunity never arose."
Bullshit. What the fuck, exactly, has Tony been asking him about for the past week? The Tesseract? Thanos? His plans for world domination? And what the fuck, exactly, has Loki said about any of that? An incomplete reference to Thanos' scepter. And nothing else. Nothing coming anywhere near this level of information dump.
All Tony says out loud, though, is, "Oh." They can leave the rest of this conversation for another time. Sometime when he has a spare hour or four to spend pounding his head against the brick wall of Loki's shadowy secrecy.
"The point being," Loki continues before anyone else can make any more inconvenient little comments, "is that of everyone in this room, and I would even go so far as to say of everyone in this realm, I am the only one who can properly channel the Tesseract's energy. Your efforts will be destructive at worst and uneventful at best. If you wish to open a doorway to Asgard, which I highly suggest you think about doing now that you know just what you have on your hands... well. I am the only one who can do it."
"But will you?" Thor asks, first to jump on the question that's in everybody's mind.
Quietly, Loki leans back in his chair. He folds his hands across his ribs, weaving each finger together one by one as his eyelids close halfway in a thin gaze. "What might happen if I do?"
"We will return home," says Thor. "If you do this, Loki, if you can activate the Tesseract and create a bridge, we will return to Asgard. As brothers. As we once were. I will tell father how you aided me here, and I will speak in your favor to all who might doubt you. We will put this all behind us."
"In Asgard."
Thor leans forward into a nod, face full of enough earnest good will to fill up a lifetime of Hallmark greeting cards. "In Asgard, brother. Home. All you need do is use the power of the Tesseract through Dr. Selvig's device and we will be home, with all of our differences in the past."
"Hm." Loki's monosyllabic grunt of a reply is directed down at his lap. He's turned to look away from Thor, and away from Thor's eagerly outstretched, empty hand resting between the two of them on the table. As the whole room waits for his answer and the words that can either salvage or break down the fate of the world, he shifts his weight to slouch further in his seat like a bored teenager.
His words are, with an inconsequential little puff of breath, "I suppose I could."
ooo
And that's how the adventure ends. Not with a battle. Not with explosions. Not with an alien invasion and hundreds dead and thousands wounded. Not even with a fight. Loki arrived in spectacular chaos, but he'll leave in quiet obscurity. Just like that. After everything that's happened, he speaks four unassuming words, 'I suppose I could,' and it's all over. The Avengers win the battle for Earth without a single shot fired. The villain wasn't outnumbered or overpowered. He just lost interest and gave up. Moved along. Abandoned his unfinished masterpiece of destruction before it had a chance to take flight.
That's ideal, isn't it? No damage, no casualties? No controversial story lighting up the six o'clock news and causing mass panic in the streets?
So why does Tony feel so shitty about the whole thing?
"I guess..." he says to Loki in thick words that clog in his throat, "you'll go back to Asgard... tomorrow."
Loki, who lies in bed with his naked back pressed against Tony's chest, shrugs. "I will need to see the state of Dr. Selvig's new equipment. It may be ready, or it may need some work. But I imagine I should have everything in place within three days at the most."
"Hm."
It was only ever a temporary amusement. Tony knows that. Loki knows that. Each knows the other knows that. Nothing more than a fellowship of convenience. Thrown together by chance, on their own for days at a time, of course something like this would happen. Loki's magic. Tony's complete lack of willpower. All the circumstances falling into place so that bonds were forced and forged between them. Of course it would happen. But it was never anything more than a little bit of fun. A way to pass the time, really. He always knew it would end. Loki would leave. He'd go back to real life. That's the way it always had to be.
They were only ever... Just a... (Why can't he find the right words?)
His hand slides down the gentle curve of Loki's thigh. Lean muscles under smooth skin tighten in anticipation of his touch. From hip to knee, and back again, his fingers hover at the outline of Loki's flawless body.
(Going back to Asgard. He's going back to Asgard.)
He lets his head dip down into the hollow where Loki's neck meets his shoulder, inhaling the subtle scent of skin and soap. Coconut shampoo. Loki always gravitates to the tropical perfumes. That's one of a meager smattering of facts he knows about Loki. Loki likes coconut shampoo, raw food, juice boxes, and amaretto. He wears sequins and Howard Stark's old suits. Those are nice little snippets of trivia, but what about the real questions? Questions of needs and dreams and memories and fears, the questions of Loki as a person with a past and a future rather than Loki the abstract idea? All this time together and Tony never pushed to know what Loki thought or felt. He never really tried to know. He gave up too easily every time his questions rolled off the hull of Loki's impenetrable, soul-constricting armor, and let himself become shallow enough to be content with Loki's physical presence only. What else do you need in a finite relationship but that physical fire?
(And now it's too late for anything else, because tomorrow, or the day after, Loki is going back to Asgard.)
"Loki?" he asks.
The pause in Loki's breath drags on too long to be natural. Silence. Blank silence. He must know what Tony's thinking. "Yes, Tony Stark?"
Stay with me, he wants to say. Don't go back to that dumb planet of yours. I get the impression you don't like it much anyway. Stay here instead, at least for a while, and I promise to stop being such a dumb fuck-up and do better at actually getting to know you. You can trust me. Let's ditch the Tesseract on Thor and I'll take you back to California, where we can spend each day trolling the paparazzi by never wearing any clothes and screwing on every available patio surface. That seems like something you'd like. You can always go back to Asgard later, once the years have rolled by and I've turned into the dirtiest dirty old man the world has ever seen and you're sick of me always trying to cop a feel of your perfect, ageless ass every time you come within grabbing distance. But until then...
It's just too bad people in these temporary kinds of situations can't say stuff like that. They need to face reality and play the hand they're dealt.
"Can we have magic sex tomorrow?"
Loki laughs at that. Has he ever really laughed before? Not his usual condescending chuckle, which he does all the time, but an actual, real, happy laugh? Like a real person?
"Magic sex?" he asks.
"Yeah," says Tony. "You know, when you're all wired up on magical energy and everything you touch turns to golden porn and it feels like sex on top of sex? Don't even think about going back to Asgard before I get a chance to experience that at least once more. Or twice. Actually, can we just spend the whole day alternating between you using a bunch of magic and then us having sex?"
Another laugh. Another quick slice of happiness that's almost enough to make Tony forget, in this one moment, what the next few days will bring. "I will need to use an exceptional amount of magic in order to fully test the capabilities of the portal," Loki concedes. "So..."
"You know by now that I make a pretty good bedroom slave whenever you need to rebalance your energy."
"You do." Loki turns his head first, glancing back over his shoulder, then the rest of his body follows until he lies looking at Tony face to face. "It will be difficult to leave you," he breathes, lips catching Tony's hairline.
Maybe. That might be what he said. It's so hard to hear over the creak of the bedframe and rustle of sheets and the rush of Tony's own breath. His heartbeat slamming in his ears. Maybe Loki said that, or maybe he said something else, or maybe he said nothing at all and that teasing phrase was no more than wishful thinking on the part of somebody whose mind is too caught up on impossible scenarios. That's probably it.
So Tony doesn't answer.