It was 6am when Pepper went back into her room to grab some clothes.

"Pepper?" She turned around. Loki was awake.

"Oh, sorry if I woke you up! I'm just grabbing some clothes. Good sleep?"

"Didn't get any." She noticed that the dark rings around his eyes were more prominent than usual.

"I didn't think it would be the most comfortable position." She said light-heartedly.

"No, I don't usually sleep much." Loki admitted, yawning. His white teeth flashed, before he covered his mouth with his hand.

"Oh. Are you an insomniac or something?" Pepper asked.

"Something like that." Loki said vaguely. There was a long pause.

"Well, I'd best be off." She gave a curt nod.

"Thanks for, you know, letting us stay." Loki said.

"No problem. Just remember to go easy on him today, okay?" Pepper reminded.

"Yeah I will." She smiled and then walked off. As the door blew shut, Tony stirred.

"Hey, you awake?" Loki asked quietly.

Tony groaned. "My head. Ugh, help me!"

Loki snorted. "Serves you right. But luckily I'm in a good mood this morning, so I'll go to the effort of making you an anti-hangover smoothie."

"Stop speaking so loudly!" Tony complained. Eventually Loki managed to half-carry, half-drag Tony out of bed, much to his reluctance, and make him a smoothie.

"Why can't I just have coffee?" Tony grumbled.

"Do you really want me to go into the logical reasoning behind it?" Loki said with a roll of his eyes.

"It's too early." Tony said. Loki ignored him and went back to rooting around the cupboard for ingredients.

"You're not lactose-intolerant are you?" Loki asked.

"No."

"That makes my life easier." He muttered. It was quite difficult trying to find things with Tony refusing to move next to him. At last he found the blender, and he tipped the ingredients in and blended it. He poured it into a cup and passed it to Tony.

"Here, drink this."

Tony made a face. "It's green."

"It's spirulina. It will help with your headache." He pulled out two Nurofen tablets and gave them to Tony as well. "As will these."

"Thanks." He was too distracted by his headache to bother asking why Loki carried around spare Nurofen.

He took a sip of his smoothie and nodded. "Not bad, Shakespeare."

Loki was confused. "Shakespeare?"

"Yeah, because of the way you speak."

"I do not speak like Shakespeare."

"Yeseth you doeth." Loki raised an eyebrow.

"That is so not Shakespearean." He smirked.

"I don't give a fuck, you arrogant son of a bitch." Tony snapped suddenly. Loki saw what Pepper was talking about. Loki raised his hands in surrender "Okay, okay. You wanna head back to campus? I have psychology in 45, but I figured you'd want a shower."

Tony glared into his glass. "Whatever you say, Princess. You are the better one of the two of us, right? That's why everyone invites you out, not me."

Loki was going to be doing a lot of ignoring today. "Let's go." He wrote a note to Pepper thanking her again, and they left in a cab, seeing as neither could drive with one hand.

The drive was silent. With Tony scowling at everything Loki tried to say, Loki just gave up on conversation. The rest of the day passed in silence, until dinner. They joined the others in the campus cafeteria, but Loki didn't think it was a good idea. He knew Tony would snap at anything anyone said, making impossible to have a conversation, but they joined the others anyway.

"Look it's the jailbirds!" Jailbirds was Clint's nickname for Tony and Loki, despite them telling him numerous times to stop it.

"Shut it, Clint." Tony growled. Clint raised an eyebrow, but went back to his food in silence. The others exchanged worried looks.

"So, Thor, how's class so far?" Loki asked, feigning interest just to ease the tension.

Thor beamed. "It's great! We've been doing tasks more specific to our skills in defence, so it's not as easy as last year." They all laughed, remembering how almost every sparring partner that Thor had last year ended up significantly worse off. The only person who was a match for Thor was Loki, surprisingly. He had better speed and agility than Thor, but not strength. They wouldn't be sparring again this year, due to being put in separate defence classes. They talked and joked some more about professors and classes, until Natasha decided to include Tony.

"So Tony, how's Weapons Development?" They all turned to Tony.

"What's it to you? Finally remembered I'm here?" He glared at all of them.

"Just asking, Tony. No need to snap. Calm down." Natasha said in her usual cool and even tone. However, it had the opposite effect on Tony. It made him much, much angrier.

"Calm down? You want me to calm down? I'll fucking show you calm!" He stood up. He wasn't anywhere near enough strong enough to fight any of them. But they were all taken by surprise at Tony's out-of-character outburst, that they had no idea what to do. Loki did, though.

"You're just making things worse, Stark." Everyone was surprised at Loki pitching in.

Tony glared down on him. "What would you know? You know nothing about my life!"

"Actually, I do." Loki said, ignoring the weird looks from the rest of the group.

"Like what?" Tony snarled.

"I know what day today is." Loki stated, as Tony paled.

"How?" Tony demanded.

"Calm down and I'll tell you." Loki reasoned. Tony didn't budge. Loki sighed. "Let's go back to your room." Tony took a deep breath and nodded. Loki smiled. "See you guys later, then." They all nodded, still too shocked to say anything.

Loki turned to leave, when Clint yelled out. "Loki! I have something for you." Loki turned around. Clint was fumbling in his pocket. Finally, he pulled out a key. "You guys deserve it." He threw it at Loki, who caught it easily. They walked off silently.

"Well that was interesting." Clint muttered to Natasha.

Loki hid the key in his pocket until they got back. He wouldn't unlock the handcuffs until Tony talked to him. He shut the door behind him and turned to Tony "What the hell is going on?" Loki demanded.

Tony turned on him. "Like I said last night, none of your fucking business. And tell Pepper I don't appreciate her telling you about my private life."

"It's not exactly private. It was all over the newspaper as well." Loki said, annoyed at the accusation.

"Something tells me you didn't find out from the newspaper." Tony said, his anger rising.

"Looks like you caught me red handed. Happy?" Loki said sarcastically.

"I'm never happy." Tony said.

Loki snorted. "Join the club."

"What do you have to be unhappy about? Thor getting better grades than you? Mummy not kissing you goodnight?" Loki willed himself to be patient, and not give Tony the satisfaction of him retaliating. Tony kept going, backing Loki up against the wall.

" Does wittle wee Loki miss home? Does wittle Loki feel lonely?" That was it. In a heartbeat, Loki twisted out of Tony's reach and shoved him against the wall, with his hands tightly gripping Tony's collar.

"Listen to me," He snarled, his voice low and quiet, "I understand what you've gone through, and trust me, I get it. But don't fucking act like you know me. Like my life is fucking perfect. Because it's not, believe me. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you. Once this is over, you can feel free to hate me as much as you want. But don't you dare think of me as a rich snob who lives a perfect life. So. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Understand?" Tony nodded and Loki let him go.

Tony looked slightly worried, and curious. Before he could ask Loki what the fuck was going on with him, his phone rang. It was Pepper, just wondering how Tony was, and if he wanted to stay at hers that night. Tony politely declined, saying he was still handcuffed to Loki. He hung up and threw the phone on his bed, sitting down next to Loki, who was sitting on the floor.

"So how much longer are you stuck with me for?" Tony said after a few minutes, attempting to make small talk.

"Well actually Stark, I have a present for you." Loki said, as he moved closer. Tony's mind went wild with all sorts of dirty thoughts as to what presents Loki could give him. These thoughts, and his oncoming erection were stopped when Loki grabbed his cuffed wrist.

Loki took the key out of his pocket and pulled Tony's arm closer to his eye, so he get unlock the handcuffs more easily. The room was silent, until the click of the lock on Tony's cuff broke the silence.

Tony shook his own hand around and flexed his fingers. "Thank god!" He exclaimed, trying to distract himself from dirty thoughts. He walked over to grab his phone. However, the other cuff refused to let go of Loki's wrist.

"Stark? Can you give me a hand?" Loki said as he stood up. He hated asking for help.

Tony turned around and smirked. "Are you asking for my help?"

"Maybe." Loki said.

"I'll help you if you ask nicely." Tony replied.

Loki sighed. "Anthony Stark, (He still refused to call him Tony) could you please help me?"

"Tell me how amazing I am."

"Isn't that what the whole female population at this school is for?" He laughed, Loki smiled, glad that Tony was calming down. He walked over and pulled at the cuff. The cuff went flying off into some corner, leaving Loki's left wrist in Tony's hand. Loki suddenly paled, remembering what wrist it was. He tried to yank his wrist away, but Tony had already felt the scars. Tony's warm, worried brown eyes stared into Loki's emerald ones.

"Loki? Did you do this?" Loki looked away. "You did, didn't you?"

Loki glared at him, he was good with emotions, as long as they weren't his own. "Why do you care?" It took Tony a lot of self-control to yell out what he wanted to say. "You hate me, remember?" Loki added.

"Loki, do you honestly believe that I could spend a week with you and still hate you?"

"Everybody else seems to." Loki said this so quietly, that Tony could only just make out what he said.

"Who told you that? Who told you such things, that it drove yourself to do this?" Tony said, gesturing at Loki's wrist.

"Because whoever it was, they're wrong. You aren't worthless, in fact you're the furthest thing from it."

Loki raised his head. "My father told me this. My own father. It can't help but hurt a little."But why? What have you done to him?" Tony asked, perplexed.

Loki gave an empty laugh. "What I did to him was out of my control. The only thing I was ever guilty of, was not being his own flesh and blood."

Tony was confused. "You're adopted?"

"You really are quiet forward Stark. Maybe that's why I like you."

"So you do like me!" Tony said, triumphantly.

"Stark, do you honestly believe that I could spend a week with you and still hate you?" Loki threw his words back at him.

"Nice words. Don't change the subject. But Thor, he loves you though, right?" Tony asked.

Loki sighed. "Thor is foolish, he has yet to notice the difference in treatment between us."

"I understand. When my mother, Maria, died, she was the only one that loved me. For a long time, I thought she was the only one that ever would. I didn't want to be alive, and I had no one to talk to. But I'm still here. Because I have hope that one day I will find somebody else that loves me. Because I need to prove myself. I have the entire world watching my every move. But I keep going, and you should do the same."

Loki couldn't look at him, scared he was going to break down. But he wouldn't, especially not in front of Tony. "I should go. I have early morning classes. Thanks for the pep talk." Loki turned to leave. "Bye, Stark."

"Later, Shakespeare." Loki laughed and shut the door.

Tony sighed and flopped down on his bed. He'd just shared all his secrets, everything he'd ever hidden, with the most unlikely person. But he wasn't surprised. Weirdly enough, he trusted Loki. And Tony didn't trust many people, apart from Pepper and now, apparently, Loki. He got changed and crawled into bed. But his mind was still on Loki. How could it not be? What, with his gorgeous emerald green eyes, and his amazingly toned body. Not to mention his raven dark hair, that was a perfect contrast with his perfect, pale skin. And his voice. God, Loki's voice would be the death of him. His British accent was a massive turn-on. Imagine that voice, moaning underneath Tony for him to go harder, and faster. His short moans. Tony would erase all trace of that cool and calm tone. He would make Loki feel good. And Loki would return the favor. It was no surprise that by now Tony's hands were in his pants, gently stroking his extremely hard cock. But then all common sense come flooding back in. Loki didn't like him. In fact, Loki didn't really like anyone, except Natasha. Tony reluctantly yanked his had away and made himself think very unsexy thoughts. It sort of worked.

Tony knew he would now have to do everything in he could to not mess with Loki's emotions. Not just because Loki was most likely straight and very much not into Tony, but because even if a fraction of what Tony felt for Loki was reciprocated, it could ruin both of them. Loki's life was fucked up, and Tony didn't want to hurt him. But the good thing was, was that Tony's life was fucked up to. Maybe two fucked up lives could make a good one. So Tony tried to forget about Loki.

But he couldn't help but notice that he couldn't sleep with Loki no longer next to him.