Explicit sexual content, ahoy!
Enjoy this chapter, and thanks for the support.
Tony's in pain. His body is throbbing, especially his ribcage, and the hand-shaped area of frostbitten abdominal skin is screaming with a stinging pain that intensifies every second he stays pressed up against Loki's leather-clad chest. He thinks he should pull away, should go find a first-aid kit and hope frostbite is treated the same as any other wound. Maybe he can ask Jarvis to look it up on Wikipedia so he knows if he needs to go to the hospital. He probably needs to go to the hospital. It really hurts, and he can't imagine it's going to look any better tomorrow. He briefly recalls watching segments on The Discovery Channel where men and women lose appendages from frostbite.
But then Loki's fingers skim up his throat, trailing a sensation not unlike falling snow across his skin. He grabs a fistful of Tony's hair and tugs, tilting his head back so the god has better access to his mouth.
Yeah, he's not pulling away.
He's surprised, actually. He's cold, cold enough that he's shivering slightly, but it doesn't hurt, not like when Loki decided to freezer burn his stomach. No, this is manageable. Sexy, even. His lips are tingling— fucking tingling—and Loki's tongue is as hot as his lips are icy. The god presses into him like he's seeking warmth, and Tony presses back, heedless of the pain, because he wants to give it.
He shouldn't push it, he knows that, but his hands have a mind of their own, and they want to unlatch leather straps and unfasten buckles and they go for in. Loki's breath hitches and for a moment, he allows Tony to fumble with the intricate outfit. Tony thinks the god laughs softly against his mouth as he struggles to get his clothes off, can feel the vibration in Loki's chest, but then Loki's hand slides away from Tony's hair and he grabs both of his wrists, stalling his movements.
There is a fine line between pain and pleasure with this touch. The god's skin is cold enough against the tender flesh of his wrists that it burns ever so slightly. Tony grunts when Loki breaks away and presses his forehead to Tony's, dark hair spilling forward. His eyes are heavy lidded so Tony can barely see a sliver of red, and his breath causes ice to crystalize on Tony's beard.
"Turn it off, Stark," he whispers, ragged and husky. "The pulse does not dampen the frost. It is a part of me, and I cannot control it in such a state."
Tony smirks. "I don't want you to control yourself. Obviously."
He thinks he sees Loki's lips quirk the tiniest bit. "You will when I turn you into a similar frozen specimen as you found your Captain Rogers."
Tony doesn't say anything for a moment. When he does, he keeps his voice as neutral as he can. "You'll just disappear if I turn it off."
Loki sucks in a breath through his teeth. It might be a laugh, but Tony isn't sure. "You cannot wish me to stay."
"Maybe I do," Tony replies with a noncommittal shrug. "Maybe I don't. If I think about it, actually, it's this annoying mixture of both, like how I want to kiss you and pummel your face at the same time. You just kind of bring that reaction out in me."
Loki pulls back slightly, leveling Tony with an icy stare. He licks his lips. "Stark—"
"You disappeared for almost a year," Tony snaps, finally blurting it out.
Loki blinks, face blank. "Pardon?"
"You didn't come back." Tony's anger wavers as the embarrassment of what he's saying sets in, but he's already dug himself the hole, so he figures might as well lie in it. There's a pretty big chance the god is going to bolt again, anyway, and he's been holding this in for the better part of a year, and Tony doesn't hold things back. It's been exhausting. "You were gone for months. You were willing to save me after I turned myself into a kabob, but you weren't willing to stick around and see me. And your visit with Pep doesn't count, by the way. Neither does the bullshit with the window. I saw your reflection in it. I'm not an idiot."
"You have had me fooled, then," Loki monotones, but there's something uncertain in downward curve of his mouth, like he's trying not to frown.
"I wanted you to come back," Tony says lowly. "That's the big elephant in the room here, if you understand that turn of phrase. Even when I was furious, I wanted you to come back. And then I stop wanting it, and you fucking show up. So, I don't give two shits if you're a blue icicle. I'm not turning off the pulse if it means you're just going to bail."
Tony watches the mask start to fall away from Loki's face. He stares down at Tony like he's just asked him to do something almost impossible—brows drawn, eyes widening, and mouth slightly open in surprise. However, the expression quickly folds in on itself and the god draws himself up to his full height. His grip on Tony's wrists tightens. "You used your infernal device on me," Loki sneers. "I did not set the precedent for our parting. You did."
Tony cocks his head. "Then what do you call the Amora bullshit? I think it was a pretty good precedent."
Loki bristles, eyes narrowed and dangerous. The temperature of his skin drops enough to make Tony jolt. "You very well know that the spell prohibited me from speaking of it to anyone, Stark. I did, then, what I could to foil her plans since I was having difficulty finding a way to counteract the spell myself."
"Yeah, I get that, but I didn't know you were actively trying to not throw us under the Amora-shaped bus at the time. I thought it was another game to you, so I kind of reacted accordingly. You can't fault me for thinking that way. It's kind of your M.O."
"I cannot fault you for it, no," Loki murmurs. He leans forward again, shortening the distance between them, and questions darkly, "But then what was your excuse this night? Or do you merely enjoy ripping my weaknesses to the surface?"
"That is not what this is," Tony says, but even as the words leave his mouth, he knows it's a lie. And he knows the God of Lies can tell. He sighs, grinds his teeth together, and says, "Okay, so maybe it is. Sue me. I wanted to hurt you. It is working?"
"Yes," Loki whispers so quietly the words are almost inaudible.
Tony sounds more sheepish than he'd like. "Can we call it even, then?"
The tendons in Loki's neck bulge and he lets go of Tony's wrists, flinging his hands away almost violently as he steps back, far enough so he can offer another of his condescending bows. His eyes glow in the artificial light. "Call it even, you ask? But have you had your fill, I wonder? Or are you too disgusted to feast your mortal eyes on a monster masqueraded for centuries as a god?"
Tony realizes, as he stares upon Loki's self loathing, that the months without the god have turned him into a complete and utter asshole. He never thought of himself as bitter, but maybe he is. He thinks about his father, uninterested in his only son, and he thinks about Obie, about the worst stab of betrayal he's ever felt, and yeah, maybe Tony Stark has been bred to be bitter. He remembers how he rendered Loki the first time he used the EMP on the god, and now he's done it twice more in a single night, and he's not sure how he's still alive. He doesn't know why Loki hasn't killed him.
Except maybe he does. Something more. That was what Loki said. He was glad he left before they evolved into something more.
Tony takes a step forward and before Loki can stop him, he touches the god's face, drawing his callused thumb across the blue ridges curling around his cheek. Loki's skin drops in temperature but Tony doesn't pull away.
"I know the tabloids say I'll fuck anything that moves, but it isn't true."
Loki's nostrils flare.
Tony raises a brow and allows himself to offer a small, careful smile. "I want you, though. I would risk it. We can have a different kind of feast than the one you're thinking about."
Loki stares at him blankly for a moment, and then he laughs, full out laughs, teeth and dimples and wrinkles around his mouth, and Tony feels his heart summersault in his chest.
"You amaze me," Loki says, words still rumbling with laugher, and he shakes his head. "You must be mad."
"The tabloids think that, too." Tony swallows the lump in his throat. "Jarv, turn off the pulse."
Loki quiets immediately, then looks at his hands, turning them palm-up and then back again as his skin lightens. When he's all pale alabaster again, he makes eye contact with Tony, and his grin is devilishly wide.
And then he disappears.
Tony's hand hovers in midair for a moment, fingers twitching, and then he drops it to his side with a huff. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Yes," Loki whispers silkily from behind him.
Tony whirls around to face the god, and Loki grabs a hold of his neck with one hand, still grinning. They fall into blackness for a moment, the density of the void pulling and pushing uncomfortably at Tony's injured skin, and when he feels the world again, he's falling backwards. He's hardly able to breathe out a curse before he lands on the bed, his own silk sheets rippling around him.
Loki lands on top of him, legs straddling his hips and hand still wrapped around his throat, and though he's lithe and lean, Tony doesn't think he's ever hurt so much in his entire life.
"My fucking ribs," he wheezes. The pain radiating from his abdomen, between the healing bones and shredded skin, is so consuming he can barely catch his breath. Not to mention Loki's deft fingers pressing around his windpipe. Tony thinks his heart might actually beat its way out of his chest this time.
"Look at me," Loki snarls. His fingers release Tony's neck only to skim upwards and grip his jaw, exerting enough force to bruise. He tilts Tony's head back, pressing him even harder into the mattress.
Through the pain, which is all but bleaching his vision, Tony's vaguely reminded of the day Loki grabbed his face in a similar fashion before defenestrating him. He'd laugh if he had the breathing capacity to do so and not pass out.
He manages to find Loki's eyes through the neon flashes of light swirling like pinwheels. The god stares down at him, lips curled back. His eyes burn like copper on fire and Tony isn't sure he's hallucinating the glow of green mist emanating from Loki's silhouette.
Loki doesn't say anything. He just leans down and hungrily devours Tony's mouth.
Tony's had some pretty odd sexual experiences. He's fucked in public places for the thrill of being caught. He's fucked while drunk and stoned out of his mind. He's involved himself in role play, toys, even some silk handkerchiefs and blindfolds. He would do a lot of them again, and there aren't many things he won't try at least once, because he likes testing boundaries in the bedroom the same way he likes testing them in the workshop. He likes to see what warring sensations he can combine with desire before something breaks.
He's never done this before, though, combined sex with pain so intense he can hardly form a coherent thought, but he's getting hard all the same. He reaches up and runs both of his shaking hands through the god's hair, not caring as his fingers tear through tangles, then grabs two fistfuls and arches his hips up, using Loki as leverage.
Loki's breath does that thing again where it trembles against Tony's mouth, and Tony wonders if maybe the god was expecting him to react differently.
Loki lets go of his chin and seizes his shirt, ripping the thick cotton fabric like it's a sheet of paper. He nips at Tony's bottom lip, hard enough to elicit a groan, before he sits back on Tony's hips and splays a hand across the arc reactor. The god sighs, eyelids fluttering, and the familiar chill of Loki's magic curls through Tony's chest, humming to the same tune as his reactor.
Tony thinks his heart may have stopped. Loki looks exotic and perfect, looming above him with the light overhead haloing his form and highlighting the utter disarray of his dark hair. He arches up again and gasps when Loki replies by grinding down.
"I want you," Tony breathes. "Fuck, I want you."
"You are injured." Loki trails his other hand across the blistered, puckering skin of Tony's stomach. He smirks when Tony hisses out in pain. "I do not wish to hurt you," he croons mockingly.
Tony may be out of his mind with lust and pain, but he doesn't miss his own words being tossed back at him. "You're a sick bastard."
Loki hums his consent as he shimmies down Tony's body, layers of leather disappearing in the blink of an eye as he does so. He dips his head to drag his tongue along Tony's jaw, then continues downward, mouthing a hot trail around the arc reactor before stopping to scrape his teeth over one nipple, then the other. Tony's body is vibrating with want, and he keeps trying to find some friction to satisfy his raging and unattended erection, but Loki has his hand pressed against Tony's hip like a fucking paperweight.
He's pretty sure even Loki, with his superhuman strength, struggles to keep Tony on the bed when he plants a gentle kiss to the seared, frostbitten flesh of his stomach.
"Fuck!" Tony snarls, bucking against the god who laughs, breath cool against his skin.
Loki makes quick magical work of vanishing the rest of his underclothes and Tony's pants. Tony barely has any time to admire Loki's naked form before the god closes his mouth over the head of Tony's cock. Tony arches into the wet heat, head thrown back, and moans when Loki sucks and draws his mouth upwards until he's just tonguing the slit. He continues to tease, even chuckles when Tony fists his hands in the god's hair and tries to fuck his mouth.
His entire body tenses, inviting a new wave of pain to wash over him, when Loki finally takes Tony's entire length into his mouth, then uses the slightest amount of teeth on the head before he pulls off.
"Fucking shit," Tony croaks, chest heaving, as he watches Loki climb over him.
"Tell me what you want, Tony," Loki commands huskily.
"You. I want you."
A dark smile spreads across Loki's face, and without any preparation, he slides down onto Tony's cock.
Tony grabs the god's thighs, nails digging into the pale skin, as he breaches the tight ring of muscle. His entire body hurts, aches in a horrible way, but all he can focus on with any clarity is how tight and hot Loki feels around him, how his leg muscles quiver under Tony's hands, and how his mouth is open and his chest heaves as he stares down at Tony.
He braces one hand on Tony's chest, over the arc reactor, and rolls his hips up slowly. Tony doesn't move, just watches the god's other hand, glowing green, hoover over the ruined skin of his stomach.
"Are you going to kill me?" Tony asks shakily.
Loki doesn't answer, just presses his hand down until Tony is screaming from the pain. He waits until Tony opens his eyes and focuses on his face before he starts moving his hips again, riding Tony into the mattress with a ferocity Tony's never seen. He grips the god's hips, fingers digging into lean muscle so he can meet the god's thrusts, and tries not to fall apart from the overwhelming, opposing sensations coursing through him. He's vaguely aware of what Loki is doing to his fancy new frostbite— he's experienced the bone-shattering cold that slithers through his skin all the way down to his bones before— but he was much less lucid then, dying even, and the impaling going on was a lot less fun.
He can feel his skin stitch back together. He can feel the throb of broken, bruised ribs dissipate. He can feel Loki clench around him. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again, he focuses on Loki's face. The god's eyes are fever bright, his teeth bared, and his pale skin flushed. Tony doesn't think he's ever seen anything so beautiful, and that thought makes him come with an intensity that steals his breath away and flashes stars across his vision.
Loki bends down to take his lips in a bruising kiss and Tony has enough sense left to wrap his hand around Loki's cock and pump erratically as he thrusts his quaking hips up. At the tail end of Tony's orgasm, Loki clenches around him and moans, low and keening against his mouth, both hands sliding up to cup either side of Tony's face as he grinds himself down onto Tony's cock and loses himself.
The god collapses on top of him, his body unusually warm, and they remain that way for a while, not holding each other, per say, but gently touching, skimming fingertips across damp skin until their breathing mellows. Tony's feeling sated and happily tired for the firs time in a long time, and he grunts unhappily when Loki finally rolls off of him. He waits for the god's weight to leave the bed, because he doesn't expect him to stay, but it doesn't. Loki lays on his side, his body just barely brushing against Tony's, and splays a hand over the reactor.
Tony tries to fight back a smile and fails. "Why do you like that so much?" he asks sleepily. His eyelids feel like lead, so he lets them close.
He hears a thoughtful hum, and then Loki says, quietly, "I find the energy it emits appealing and soothing."
"Are you saying you like me or something?"
"Or something," Loki responds, then adds after a pause, "though you infuriate me with your endless babble."
Tony chuckles. "I like you, too, or something," he yawns. "Jarvis, lights, please."
The glow brightening the inside of his eyelids dies and Tony sighs. He falls asleep with Loki's hand pressed firmly to his chest, and even though he wakes up alone early the next morning, his sleep is dreamless for the first time in weeks.