Archive of Our Own

Tony Stark did not ensnare Loki the time they were all battling Skrulls, Loki and the Avengers, and Loki was so intent on thinning out the horde that was converging on his (not)brother that he missed one of those that were coming at him, and it would have gotten him except that Stark was watching and sent one of his mini-missiles to turn it to dust.

It wasn't the time, late one night in Stark's lab, when they looked at each other and suddenly neither of them cared to be sensible anymore and they tore each other's clothes off and ravished each other right there on the counter surrounded by robot parts and rocks from another dimension.

It wasn't even the night when Loki had finally reluctantly let Stark see him blue and icy and Stark had looked like he was seeing a unicorn or a sunrise or cold fusion instead of a monster.

It was when Loki had spent months preparing his offer to the Avengers, only to find out that he had been building the wrong argument all along.

Loki wondered if it meant something that he approached telling the truth the same way that he approached telling lies: calculating the proper dramatic moment, the most plausible approach, what kind of convincer his audience would require.

But then, with the gigantic lie his false father had told him, small wonder he had grown into a liar.

Loki revealed himself in the midst of a battle, mere feet from where Thor fought, and joined the fight. Thor gave him one brief and startled look, saw Loki turn a few doom-bots into scrap metal with a blast from his new spear. Then Thor laughed, that old berserker laugh Loki had heard in a thousand battles, and resumed the fight.

Fighting beside Thor was like sliding into a well-broken-in pair of boots. They had fought thus more times than either could count, knew each other's moves and strengths as well as they knew their own, moved together in perfect synchronization. They tossed the robots to each other, seized one between them and threw it to smash into its fellows, tore through the deadly drones with abandon.

When the robots were defeated and the battle over, Loki turned to Thor. The mortal heroes were staring, but Loki couldn't be bothered with them just now. He needed to know if Thor still felt the same for him. All his plans depended upon it. His plans, and the pathetic sentiment he had been unable to weed out of his heart.

Thor turned and looked at him for a moment, panting, and then an enormous grin cracked his leonine face. "Brother!" he boomed, and the ground shook as he dropped Mjölnir and swept Loki up in one of those overenthusiastic bear hugs he had always been so fond of.

Loki wasn't going to complain. He allowed himself a moment of relief, crushed in those ridiculously overmuscled arms, Thor's yellow hair tickling his face irritatingly, Thor's body too warm to be comfortable.

Thankfully it wasn't long before Thor was willing to release him - or at least, to hold him at arms' length instead. He scrutinized Loki frantically, checking for injuries perhaps, or just looking to see if Loki were real. Or trying to read Loki's intentions in his face, perhaps. Regardless, it was an embarrassingly painful relief to see all that affection on his bro- on Thor's face. How the big idiot could not hate him was a mystery, but one Loki was happy to use. Thank the Norns his foster brother was a fool. Dumb enough to believe the truth.

Thor began to speak, but before he could Loki teleported himself away, far away.

Loki repeated this gambit many times over the next months. Not every time the Avengers fought. Only when the fight was nasty enough to be a challenge to them. Just when things looked bad Loki would make his entrance, help them fight Chitauri or Skrulls or Hydra minions, and then vanish. When possible Loki would appear just in time to save the life of one Avenger or another. Perhaps they would have saved themselves without his aid, perhaps not.

Except for Thor, they always looked annoyed.

Loki was careful not to let it show, but he enjoyed this greatly.

One day Loki appeared in time to deflect a blast of deadly energy an instant before it could turn Iron Man into rust. Captain America had flung his shield into the path of the blast but it would have been one full second too late. Loki caught the shield and tossed it back to the soldier. "Perhaps I should stop showing up to help," he remarked casually as he turned to thrash the enemy back to back with Stark. "You're getting used to depending upon me. It's making you sloppy."

"Terribly sorry to be such a bother," Stark said in a bad parody of Loki's accent, sending missiles from his shoulders of all places.

"You're welcome."

Stark was in the air again, grabbing opponents and flinging them to the ground. "Hey, Dasher, listen. This time?" Stark didn't stop talking, even in battle. Why was Loki not surprised? "Stick around, after. Join us for carryout - uh, for a feast. We want to talk. Parley. Flag of truce and all that."

About time.

Loki did join them, sticking close by Thor as his only real ally there, ready to flee at an instant's notice. But Stark's offer had been a true one: they were not trying to capture him, not on this day. They were willing to listen.

Thanos's attacks since the one Loki had been forced to lead had consisted of opening a small portal and sending about a hundred Chitauri or Skrulls through it until the Avengers managed to close it. "I don't think these little attacks are serious invasion attempts," Stark said. "I think he's gathering information about our capabilities."

Loki nodded. He hadn't expected the humans to be astute enough to discern that. "So you know nothing about the realm the Chitauri come from? Nothing about their master?"

"We've tried to communicate with him - sent satellites through his portals, that kind of thing - to see if there's any possibility of negotiation, but he's ignored us completely."

Loki gave a mirthless laugh. "Of course he has. He doesn't wish to rule you - that was what he pretended he was going to give me in return for the Tesseract. He might even have let me have it for a few days before killing me."

"Then what does he want?"

"To kill you."

"What," Romanoff said, "he just wants to kill us for the hell of it? Why?"

"He is in love with Death. Literally. He has sent millions to her as courting gifts."

The humans all looked at each other. "I think I don't like aliens," Barton said. "Um, no offense, Thor."

Thor did not look offended. His attention was on Loki. "You could have told us this before, brother."

Loki glared at him. "I would have told you the entire truth as soon as you closed the portal and ended the first invasion, but you were so eager to muzzle me, weren't you?"

Thor began to protest but Loki did not have the patience to listen. He stood, ignoring the way they all reached for their weapons.

"Enough." Loki kept his eyes on Thor, but his words were meant for all of them. "Try to take me prisoner and I will respond with deadly force. Do not and I will offer no threat. I will aid you when it suits me. And consider whether you would rather cooperate with me or have your entire species wiped out by Death's suitor."

"Wait, what?" That was Banner, in his harmless-looking human form.

Loki summoned what patience he could. Mortals were so slow.

"Human weapons are no match for him. To defeat him, a new weapon must be created. I am the only one in this realm with enough knowledge of his nature to do it. But even I cannot do it alone." He looked to Stark. "If you wish to defeat him, you must work with me to create the means."

Loki stopped there, because he was startled at the hunger suddenly blazing in Stark's eyes. And Banner's face had a similar expression, only more shuttered, as if he were hoping no one would see it.

"Well, that's it," Barton said sourly. "We all know what happens when Tony gets that look."

Stark swept a glance around the table. "Guys! This is a chance to learn technology from an advanced alien race! How are you not all over this?"

"My concerns are more personal," Barton grumbled, giving Loki a glare. Loki ignored him. He could not undo the past. Barton would have to settle for having his planet rescued.

Instead Loki looked at Stark and Banner and realized that he had been going about this all wrong. He had waited until Thanos had made enough incursions to make them good and afraid. He had fought beside them to demonstrate his good faith. He had made the mistake of assuming they were like Thor and Thor's friends back on Asgard, just because they were warriors. But Stark was not persuaded by such things, and the rest of the team could not oppose Stark.

Stark and Banner were sorcerers, never mind that they used different words for it. They had the same yearning for knowledge that Loki did. To both of them, the prospect of defending their realm was a pleasant bonus; Loki had won them over by dangling new vistas of knowledge before them. Stark would probably sacrifice years off his short mortal life to even learn how Loki summoned fire to his fingertips, that most elementary of tricks.

That was the moment that Tony Stark ensnared Loki, not that Loki realized it at the time.

Loki had to force himself to stop gazing at the mortal and say the words he had planned. "Choose between working with me and extinction. I shall return in a few days to learn your decision."

And Loki teleported away to the tiny, dismal apartment he had acquired miles away and curled up with a book to while away the days while they had the inevitable arguments and reached the inevitable conclusion.

He wondered just what Tony Stark was saying.

Loki gave them a week, then one day materialized in Stark's workshop. Stark was drinking, as usual, and fiddling with the small missiles that went in his suit. Not working seriously on them, just tinkering while his mind roved. Loki recognized that, he often did the same thing when he was thinking. He would conjure a snake made of water, freeze it to ice, then let it dissolve into steam, over and over again as his mind worked.

Stark took Loki's manifestation in stride. He did not speak at once, only got out a second glass and poured Loki a drink, putting it on the counter near him. Loki let a moment pass before taking it.

They spent a minute quietly sipping before Stark spoke.

"So, do I have to threaten you again, or can we take that as read? I have a whole speech but it's predictable."

"If I harm any of your friends, if I betray your realm, you will find a way to crush me, et cetera, et cetera. Anything else?"

"No, that's about it. Just remember that no one takes what's mine. At least, not for long."

Loki found himself smiling. "You are either very brave, Stark, or very foolish. Which is it?"

"Neither, I'm certifiably insane. What brought that on, anyway?"

"This isn't the first time you've offered me a drink and threatened me in the same breath."

"Ah."

Loki let Stark refill his glass. "I could hardly believe it when I saw you land and then have your machines take your armor off. The sensible thing for you to do would have been to stay as far away from me as possible until your allies arrived. If you really felt the need to come and confront me, you should have kept your armor on, battered as it was. I could have easily snapped your neck."

"I didn't think you would."

"And you were willing to risk your life on such a vague intuition."

"Like I said, insane. And by the way, why didn't you just snap my neck?"

"To see what you would do. I knew you had to have some sort of trump card, and I couldn't understand why it was taking so long for you to play it."

"The new suit wasn't quite ready."

"And it will fall to you to invent the weapon which we may hope will preserve Midgard from Thanos." Loki shook his head in overplayed dismay.

"To a crazy alcoholic inventor who plays superhero on his days off and a deranged alien space wizard. Yeah, we call on lost creatures to defend us. Deal with it."

Loki set his empty glass down. "Let us begin. You have my sceptre here, do you not?"

"How did you know?"

"I can feel its power. Calm yourself, if I were going to use it to enthrall you all I would have already done it. But we will need it to create our weapon."

Stark was still suspicious, of course - Loki would have been surprised had he not been. But when Loki began to answer Stark's questions about its nature curiosity overwhelmed caution. Loki thought wryly of a Midgardian legend about a human, a snake and an apple. Whoever had first spun that tale must have known some distant ancestor of Tony Stark.

That night Thor insisted that Loki join him in getting drunk on the roof of the Tower. Loki knew it was going to be an ordeal, evoking bittersweet memories of happier times between them, but that ordeal was one of the reasons he was here, so he gave in.

Once on the roof Thor introduced him to a Midgardian beverage he had learned of from Stark, called "brandy". With the help of a considerable quantity of it, they managed a disgusting display of sentimentality on both sides. Aided by the liquid they begged forgiveness of each other, mutually granted it, and made vague but heartfelt vows of loyalty to each other.

Vows which Loki was going to keep, though perhaps not in quite the way Thor assumed.

After that Loki spent hours out of most days in Stark's workshop, laboring over their weapon. Often Banner was there as well. Loki forced himself to pretend that Banner was just another mortal, even though his instincts screamed to him to flee every time the man came near him. If Banner showed any signs of turning green, this time Loki would not be foolish enough to try to stand his ground. (What had he been thinking, that time, being idiotically brave? Who did he think he was, Thor?) He would create a dozen doppelgangers to distract the beast while he made his escape.

Banner liked Stark because Stark lacked enough sense of self-preservation to be afraid of him. Stark liked Banner, talked to him as he did to no other. The other humans understood little of what they said, and the terminology was unfamiliar to Loki, so the two of them spoke their common language to each other and left everyone else baffled.

Thor's woman (girlfriend, the humans insisted was the correct term, and seemed offended when he used the word that suited her ripe age) joined them sometimes. Both the human sorcerers were fond of her, and she joined in their arcane conversation. She had the same thirst for knowledge that drove them. Loki wondered what she saw in his foster brother; surely to a woman with such a mind Thor could be little more than a toy. But if it pleased him to be her toy, Loki saw no reason to interfere. When she was not toying with Thor or miles away doing her own sorcery, Jane Foster was usually down in Banner's lab, doing sorcery with him. Loki had to spend his time on his weapon and had no attention to spare for whatever they were up to.

All the humans were ridiculously impressed with even the simplest bits of magic. He showed them how he could summon moisture out of the air, turn it to water or ice, make water move at his command, and they behaved as if he had teleported or turned into a falcon. He had learned to do that before his voice had changed!

And they spent hours discussing the theory of it. Loki admitted, grudgingly, to himself, that human scientists had a few things to teach him. Because humans had so little magic, they had learned all sorts of mundane details about how matter and energy interacted that Asgard's sorcerers never had to bother with. It might be useful, sometime. It was definitely interesting.

Loki avoided the other Avengers as much as possible. They all looked at him with thoroughly justified suspicion. He did sorcery with Stark and Banner and tolerated Thor's heavy-handed affection. Of course winning them over would have been simple enough for Loki Silvertongue, but it was unnecessary and he did not have the time or patience to spare.

He never apologized to Stark for what he had done. Stark never asked him to.

Stark had red in his ledger too. Not as much as Loki. Or perhaps, not so deep a shade.

Perhaps in terms of numbers, Stark's count was higher. But Stark's intentions had always been good ones. His crime had been, at most, trusting the wrong people. Or perhaps, carelessness. Overconfidence. Still he had once relished his old title: the Merchant of Death.

Loki's intentions often had been good, too. Most of them. Preserve the Realms forever from a race of monsters. (Win his father's love.) Make a flashy attempt at invading Midgard to alert the mortal heroes in time to stop him. All right, the Destroyer, that had not been benign. It was done out of panic and desperation and the accumulated envy of centuries, and while Thor (the fool) had forgiven him for it, Loki never would forgive himself. Not that he ever said so.

It was not that Loki felt no remorse. It was that he found putting it in words futile. What good did his sentiment do Thor, or Midgard? What good any words he might say?

Sooner or later Thanos would come for him. Perhaps it would not be soon. It could be generations yet to come. Still, if there were anything he could do for the humans as recompense, it was to draw Thanos's attention elsewhere. Away from Midgard.

And so day after day, he came to Stark's lab and they labored over his old sceptre.

He and Tony Stark compared stories, one night. It began when Loki arrived to find Tony running tests on Mjölnir, which his foster brother had kindly lent for the purpose.

"We all took turns playing Excalibur with it, but no Arthurs are among us," Stark said lightly, and then had to explain what Excalibur was.

"I lifted the hammer once, you know," Loki said before he thought. "For one day, that is."

Of course then he had to tell the story.

"Fa-Odin told Thor that it had made him arrogant, which was true. He changed the enchantment upon it and granted it to me and I carried it into battle."

"And what happened?"

"I wielded it as well as Thor ever had, and returned to the palace believing that I had finally proven my worth to my supposed father. Whereupon Odin re-enchanted it and it was immovable to me once more, and he announced that he had merely been trying to teach Thor a bit of humility, that he had never had any intention of keeping it from him for long."

Stark was quiet for a moment. "Fuck," he finally said, and got out a couple of glasses and a bottle.

"Indeed. Even Thor was perturbed."

Stark passed Loki his drink. "None of my stories are that dramatic, but yeah, I know how that punch in the gut feels. The old bastard's been dead for years and I still feel it. I'm 42, I should be over wanting my father's approval."

Loki laughed at that, not happily. "I am over two thousand years old. I regret to inform you that you will never be over it."

"Asshole. You could've lied."

"You wouldn't have believed me. Go on, tell me one of your stories. Never mind if it isn't dramatic."

Stark took a swallow. "Hm. Well, there was one time - I was maybe eight. I had this remote control toy car. I launched it down the stairs, which was pretty fun to watch, but it broke the car and my dad yelled at me. So I took all the pieces and got out my little tool set - that's one thing I can't complain about, I had great toys, like Erector sets - you can make little buildings and stuff with them. I got stuff like that to encourage me to build things. Anyway, I fixed the fucking toy car with my little tools. It took me a week; I had to figure it all out myself. Today it'd take me maybe five minutes to fix it, and four of those would be spent mixing the celebratory martinis. I fixed it and ran to show him. And he yelled at me that he was busy and to go play somewhere else."

Loki nodded, slowly. "Was he usually like that?"

"Impatient? Too busy for me? Yeah. Plenty of people have it worse, I know. Bruce - his father was always beating the crap out of him and his mother, until... well. Anyway. A lot of my friends had fathers way worse than mine, but that doesn't seem to make me feel better."

"I know. I was a prince, my adoptive mother was the most wonderful woman in the Nine Realms, and still...."

"Yeah. I know. These are my daddy issues. There are many like them, but these ones are mine."

Loki thought from his tone that Stark must be quoting something, but did not trouble to ask what. Instead he held out his glass for a refill, and told another story.

It led to another story, and another. And several bottles. "I was just a kid," Stark confided, "but I could see the relief on his face while Jarvis - the original human Jarvis - carried my suitcases to the car." He rubbed his face; by now they were both sitting on the floor. "Thing is, just the night before that, Dad was in his office, filming himself talking about his business and his research and stuff. I got in there and was trying to be quiet, I wasn't really in the way, but he yelled at me and threw me out anyway. And then, probably less than an hour later, he filmed a message to me, for me to find when I grew up. I found it just a few years ago."

"Yes?" Loki prompted gently.

"He told me why he had me. He knew that he wouldn't live long enough to make all the discoveries he was working towards. He didn't have time, and this kind of thing, it takes more than one mind. He was limited by the technology of his time, he said. What he was working on, it needed decades more of scientific progress. He wouldn't be around for it, but if he had a child, I would be." Stark fortified himself with another shot before continuing, "He told me, adult me, that I was his greatest creation. And for about a week I felt like the weight of the world had been taken off my shoulders. I finally knew that he had valued me. But then the novelty wore off and I remembered that a little while before he filmed that uplifting message to the grownup me in the future, he was yelling at the actual me who he had to live with at the time. And, you know? Creation. That's what I was to him. Not his child, not even a human being. I was something he invented, for a purpose."

"That is... only too familiar."

"Is it?"

Of course, Stark did not know the full story, only the part Thor had grasped. "I always knew I was the second favorite son. That was bad enough, but at least I believed that he... that I had a place. Then I discovered that I was merely a Jotun foundling whose life he magnanimously spared. All those centuries I kept demanding that he give me the regard a father owes his son. How utterly presumptuous of me. I was not his son at all, only a pawn for him to play."

"Play how?"

"What else does one do with an enemy prince? I was to be his puppet king, to rule Jotunheim for his benefit."

"So why didn't that happen?"

"I believe he was waiting for renewed hostilities. The next time Jotunheim gave him trouble, he would defeat it again, and install me upon its throne. Only he did such a thorough job of crushing it when I was a baby that it never gave him any trouble, until Thor went and provoked it. And then, while Odin was asleep, I went about making the peace in my own way - by killing the Jotun king, who had ample reason to hate Odin, and then trying to kill the rest of them. Now my fellow frost giants hate me, with excellent reason, and would never suffer me on their throne, so he has lost the puppet he spent centuries cultivating. I cannot even be useful as a spare prince of Asgard in case something happens to the real one, because now everyone knows what I am. I am no longer useful in any way."

"Damn. I mean, my dad didn't live to see it, but I know I'm filling the purpose he set for me. I wish I wasn't, sometimes. Wish I could do something else. But I love inventing. I love discovering."

Loki nodded, bitter. "Had he ever gotten around to putting me on the Jotun throne, I would have done exactly as he wished. I would have done my utmost to rule it for Asgard's benefit, rather than its own. I wonder if he would have tried to pretend to love me as reward. I suspect not. He would have kept dangling his affection just out of reach, and expecting it to keep on working. Eventually I suppose I would have realized that it was no use, and stopped obeying him, and then who knows what would have followed. Another war between the realms, perhaps."

"Nature is fucking unfair to us. It makes us want our parents to love us so we won't piss them off enough to leave us for the saber-toothed tigers, but it can't be bothered to make our parents satisfy that craving."

"Indeed. I don't hate Odin for not loving me. I hate him for making me believe that he might, someday, if I did enough. And for displaying what I wanted so badly right in front of me, every day. Thor was my only real friend, and Odin forced me into rivalry with him. I couldn't even be allowed to have that."

Stark nodded with the seriousness of the deeply drunk. "Makes me glad I'm an only child. I didn't have a perfect brother who everybody liked better than me."

Loki shook his head, emphatically. "I wouldn't give Thor up for the Nine Realms."

"Even though you tried to kill him?"

"I think I hate Odin more for that than any other single thing. Thor is worth a thousand Odins, and I was willing to try to kill him so that my supposed father would have no choice but to settle for me." Loki grimaced. "I am not excusing myself - I don't dare, now that I know of what I am capable. It was I who did it. But it was Odin's cruelty that drove me to it, that nearly cost both of us Thor."

"I'm glad the big guy survived, but I would've liked to see the look on his daddy's face if he'd woken up to find that the result of his grand scheme was that his son was dead and he was stuck with a frost giant as his only heir - no offense."

"Oh, none taken. That very thought has given me much dark amusement. Of course I was insane at the time, else I would have seen that it wouldn't have worked. Oh, he might have made me his heir, at least until Mother could give him another. But it wasn't the throne I wanted, it was his regard, and he would never have given me that."

Tony considered this as he refilled their glasses. "'M still glad I'm an only child. This's complicated."

"It is. My entire life would have been much easier if I had been able to simply hate Thor. But he is too...." Loki waved a hand vaguely.

"You're not drunk enough to say the word 'lovable'?"

"Apparently not."

The silence stretched, and Loki glanced up to find that Stark was looking at him. He waited, but Stark said nothing. Eventually Stark looked away from him and at the weapon they were building, but did not touch it, did not resume work upon it.

Then he looked at Loki again. With unmistakable meaning.

Loki set his glass down. Holding Tony's gaze, he took a step closer, let his head begin to dip.

And then he remembered. Remembered that he was a criminal and a fugitive and Stark was one of his realm's most lauded heroes. Remembered that he was a god and Stark a mere human. Remembered that without the armor, Loki could kill Stark with his bare hands, as easily as snapping his fingers.

He straightened up.

Stark's dark brown eyes showed surprise, moved over Loki with more discernment than Loki cared for. The man saw too much, understood too much. And after a few seconds Stark stepped nearer, closing the few inches that still separated them, reached up, and pulled Loki's head down very firmly.

Loki remembered that in a few weeks he would have to leave Midgard.

He let Stark kiss him.

It had been far, far too long since Loki had been touched. These last few years, he had been too busy trying to survive to think of pleasure. He hadn't realized how badly he'd missed it, needed it. The next thing he knew his fingers were tangled in Stark's tousled hair and their tongues were fiercely battling. After that it was just a delirium in which they tried to get each other's clothes off as quickly as possible. Loki could have dissolved his own by magic, except that his mind was too busy directing the shredding of Stark's sleeveless white shirt to focus enough to summon any seiðr.

Stark's hands were warm on his skin and Loki could feel the calluses on his fingertips from years of making things, of taking piles of metal and remolding them into more than the sums of their parts.

From the frantic way Stark's mouth and hands roamed over him, the way he yanked at Loki's Midgardian shirt so that the flimsily sewn buttons popped in every direction, Stark was just as impatient as Loki was. Good. Loki applied himself to making him ready with efficiency.

The mortal wasn't afraid. Loki could have broken Stark's neck without effort, ripped his heart as well as his arc reactor out of his chest, and without the weapons he'd invented Stark could have done nothing about it. And Stark didn't even seem to remember that, not even when Loki reminded him of his strength by effortlessly lifting him off the ground and perching him on the edge of the counter. He wasn't brave in the way Thor was, Thor who believed that his strength and prowess could get him out of anything. With Stark it was more that somehow he didn't really believe that danger existed.

Maybe it was what had happened to him in Afghanistan. After walking out of hell, not much else seemed too frightening. Loki knew this.

"God," Stark breathed, tangling his fingers in Loki's hair as Loki tongued his nipples, then lightly bit them. "So good. That's so good."

"Do you ever shut up, Stark?"

"No. And if you can stick your tongue down my throat you can use my fucking name."

Loki kissed him again, plunging his tongue deep, taking a long time to explore his mouth. Tony didn't resist, just let his hands roam, pulling off Loki's now buttonless shirt, squeezing his ass through his trousers.

"Tony," Loki obligingly said when he finally stopped kissing him.

"That's better." Tony moved back enough to reach for the fastenings at the front of Loki's trousers. Loki waited till Tony's fingertips were on his zipper before shoving him back and instead peeling off Tony's sweatpants with ruthless efficiency. "Hey, this isn't going to be a case of 'Demigod of Steel, Mortal of Kleenex', is it?"

Loki paused with his hands on the waistband of Tony's shorts and raised his eyebrows. He did not deign to ask, just waited.

"You have superstrength," Tony elucidated with a light squeeze to Loki's lean biceps. "Are you going to pulverize me when you come?"

Loki managed not to roll his eyes. "You are not the first mortal I've had, Stark."

"Aw, here I hoped I'd get to pop your human cherry. You're getting my alien cherry."

Loki had no idea what cherries had to do with it, but decided not to ask lest Tony tell him. "I assure you, they all survived the experience. Though none of them talked as much nonsense as you do, so you may prove to be an exception."

Tony evaded Loki's grip, went to work on Loki's trousers again. This time Loki made no move to stop him. "Yeah, you say that, but you know it's charming."

"I gather you have overcome your terror of being crushed while copulating with me," Loki said drily as his trousers and shorts slid down his hips.

"Nope, still terrified," Tony said in a voice that sounded anything but, and then put his mouth to better use.

Loki suspected the human was good at this, but he was too impatient to really confirm that suspicion. After less than a minute of feeling that confident mouth on him he could wait no longer. He pulled Tony to his feet and set him on the counter's edge again, knelt and returned the favor.

Tony still made a lot of noise, but at least now there were no nonsensical words to irritate him. Loki removed his mouth from Tony's prick long enough to murmur a familiar spell and then nudged his fingers into the cleft behind Tony's balls.

"I've got, in the bottom drawer over there, should be a fresh bottle hey did you just magic up lube?"

Loki had been about to resume using his mouth but found himself smirking up at the human instead as his fingers began to work.

"Oh my god."

Loki let his eyebrow quirk. "Yes?"

"Fuck."

"That was rather the idea," Loki agreed, bending his head.

"Then hurry up. I want you now."

Loki found that agreeable. He took only the time to prepare Tony enough not to hurt him, then stood up, gripped the mortal's hips and carefully pressed into him.

Tony's eyes fluttered closed, and he let his head fall back, and Loki gritted his teeth with the effort of waiting. And then Tony moaned and moved his hips to meet Loki's, and Loki's remaining patience evaporated and he pounded into the mortal's body. Neither of them troubled with trying to draw it out with creative variations; they rutted furiously, like animals, intent only on satisfaction.

When they reached it, Loki found himself sobbing for breath, then sliding bonelessly to sit on the floor. It wasn't very comfortable, but they were both too busy panting, exhausted, to care. As the pounding of his heart slowed, Loki found himself more relaxed, more contented than he had been in years.

This had probably been a very foolish idea, but just now he couldn't find it in himself to care.

"I appear to be unpulverized," Tony said after a while.

"You should have known it would not be a problem. It must have occurred to you that Thor has not 'pulverized' his sorceress."

Tony laughed. "Oh, man, do me a favor and call her that to her face sometime. When I'm there, I want to see her reaction."

Loki shrugged. He had wearied of the debate about whether science and magic were the same thing during the second go-round.

"And yeah, I did kinda wonder, but contrary to what some people say, I do have some tact. You know. Here on Midgard 'sorcery' is men's work, so sorceresses get touchy if they think they're not being respected. Understandably. So asking them what they do between the sheets? Not the best idea."

"Men's work," Loki murmured. Midgard was peculiar.

They were quiet for a minute, then Tony got off the floor with a groan and produced paper towels and a bit of water. They cleaned up and then Tony poured them both drinks. Loki used a little seiðr to mend his shirt. They sipped idly as they dressed.

Loki had finally discovered how to shut Tony up.

Reluctantly, Loki allowed the awareness of reality to return to him. In other circumstances this would have been a pleasant dalliance, but as it was, they had barely ceased to be enemies. Half of Stark's friends hated him. The other half merely distrusted him.

Loki was moving back to the sceptre, trying to think of something to say about their work that would allow them to commence pretending this had never happened, when Jarvis spoke. "Sir, the Avengers are assembling for breakfast." Jarvis always spoke of the team "assembling", even if they were merely gathering to watch a movie in the common room. Loki suspected it was another joke of Stark's, but had never asked. "Captain Rogers wishes to know if you two are going to join them."

"I will," Loki said at once. "I'm hungry."

Tony shrugged. "If I don't eat soon, Jarvis will tattle to Pepper."

"Were you two up all night?" Rogers asked when they joined the others. Even though he was quite familiar with Stark's habits, he sounded genuinely appalled.

Loki decided he had better answer before Stark said something ill-advised. "I fear so. Stark is a bad influence on me."

Tony looked entirely pleased at the idea that he could be a bad influence on a supervillain. Steve looked exasperated but all he did was snatch up the coffee before Tony could get any. The humans fell into idle conversation, Loki paying little attention. When he was finished eating, Loki teleported away without troubling to say any farewells.

Back in his own hideout, Loki slept for the entire day. It was the most refreshing sleep he had had in years. No doubt this was due to the sex. A pity there would not be a repeat performance.

The following night Loki showed up in the lab and started working as if nothing had happened. Stark did so as well, picking up their conversation about the Bifrost where it had left off, no awkward looks or attempts at saying the obvious, that it had been folly best forgotten.

They were working on the iridium casing (one nice thing about working with Tony Stark was that you didn't have to gouge out anyone's eyeballs to get basic materials), Stark remarked, "Even with the palladium, I don't think this is going to be enough power."

Loki kept his eyes on what he was doing. "When we add the stone from my sceptre they will feed on each other."

"And that will be enough." Stark's voice was skeptical.

Damn. That was the trouble with intelligent people: they were intelligent. "Why don't you think that it will?" Loki asked, as if idly curious.

"Dude, I chucked a nuke at this guy and he shook it off like Bugs Bunny."

Loki suppressed a sigh of annoyance. There was no point in again reminding Stark that similes were only useful when the listener knew what you were using as a comparison.

"It was a missile big enough to level Manhattan and it didn't even give him a headache, far as we can tell. And that missile had thousands of times the power in your spear."

"Because the spear was not designed to bring its power out," Loki improvised.

"Hm," Stark said, bending his head back over the iridium. After a while he asked, "So, we were trying to use the Tesseract to produce energy, and to make weapons, but you used it to open a portal for the Chitauri, and later Thor used it to take you both back to Asgard. Does traveling between realms like that really require that amount of power?"

"To open a portal large enough for an army to pass through, and keep it open for a while, yes. For just me and Thor, my sceptre would have been adequate, but he was taking the Tesseract back to Asgard anyway."

"So if you did decide to drop by Asgard to see your mom, say, you could do it with the sceptre here."

"I would have to...." Loki paused, not to give too much away, trying to look as if he were merely trying to find the right words to explain magic to a member of a backward magic-deprived species. It took him perhaps two seconds to come up with a good lie. "That sort of travel requires detailed knowledge of one's destination. I have never been to Niflheim, for example, so traveling there would require much study on my part before I could attempt it, or better yet, possession of a few artifacts from that realm."

"Huh." It was a while before Stark spoke again. "Seems a lot of alien weapons are also good for transport."

"Does it?"

"Well, the Tesseract and your spear can be used for both. The Bifrost, too, from what Thor tells me. And maybe - how did the frost giants get here, back when they did?"

"They used the Casket of Ancient Winters," Loki confirmed.

"So, are all of these energy sources, and the only difference is what you're using them for?"

"Not exactly."

And before he knew it Loki had launched on a detailed discussion of how the Bifrost had worked. Talking about it with someone who had the brains to comprehend it was enjoyable; that granting such knowledge to mere mortals was against the law of the All-Father was only a pleasant bonus. Not that the law was doing more than stalling things; over the course of the discussion Loki discovered that humans actually had theoretical framework for some of what he was talking about. Stark kept interrupting him to excitedly say things like, "Wait, wait, you're saying supersymmetry is real? You guys have confirmed it? Jarvis, get Bruce down here, he has got to hear this!"

"Sir, it is three forty-five a.m. and Dr. Banner is asleep."

"Oh. Damn. Daytime people, go figure. I'm glad you're willing to keep normal hours."

Loki remembered being told to put out his light and go to bed a hundred thousand times and laughed.

Not long after dawn Thor came down and announced that he was going back to Asgard for a few days.

"I am not going to try to take you back there, brother," Thor assured him when he saw Loki's face. "You should know that."

"And if your father commands you to?"

Thor looked unhappy. "Father has already agreed that if you cause no more mayhem, we will leave you be."

"Really." Loki quirked an eyebrow. "And how did you get him to agree to that?"

Thor's eyes dropped. "I, ah. Made sure that Mother was present when I suggested it."

That did explain it. Frigga had told Loki right after he had learned the truth of his origins that she had never approved of Odin's lie to him. As it turned out, when the lie came out it had nearly cost her both her sons. She must be furious with her husband now.

Loki suspected that the House of Odin was not a peaceful place these days.

"If you do return to Asgard," Thor was saying reluctantly, "you will be imprisoned again. And I am sure Father will make it more difficult for you to escape this time."

"No doubt."

Thor hesitated. "When I am king-"

"Don't," Loki cut him off. "I have no wish to return."

"Even so."

"Don't say that where your father might hear of it. He can still spawn another heir. Or steal another. Maybe an elf this time. Or a fire giant, why not."

Loki endured a farewell embrace from Thor. When Thor tried to leave, Stark hooked his elbow and steered him to the elevator with some babble about wanting to do just one more test on Mjölnir down in Bruce's lab.

When Stark returned a short time later, Loki had to explain to Stark what real elves were like, and also about fire giants. Stark seemed to think Loki was making it up about the elves. Really, sometimes Loki wondered why he bothered to ever tell the truth.

A couple of days later, apropos of nothing, Stark said, "I'm disappointed."

"What?"

"Two thousand years of practice, I would have thought your skills would have been heightened to unknown levels."

Loki looked at the insolent mortal, incredulous. For a second, he thought that perhaps Tony was talking about magic, but the way Tony was looking right at him, standing too close, there was no doubt.

Tony lifted his chin, challenging. "Come on, surely you're not called Silvertongue just because you're a smooth talker."

Loki rolled his eyes. "I've never heard that one before."

Tony grinned, unrepentant. "Your ego is almost as big as mine. Do you really want someone else to go down in history as the best fuck Tony Stark ever had?"

Loki seized him by the throat, just as he had once before, and teleported them both to Tony's bedroom. There he tossed an amazed Tony onto the excessively large bed and looked at him for a moment, calculating, before beginning, slowly, to undress.

Loki never had been one to back down from a challenge.

By dawn, his proper place in history was well assured.

Thor returned from Asgard in good spirits. Loki pointedly asked no questions about what had occurred there and teleported away when Thor tried to tell him. He returned the next day to work on the weapon, and he and the humans spent hours immersed in the work. When Banner retired for the night, Tony and Loki stayed in the lab, drinking and toying with the fabric of the universe as their conversation roamed.

"So how about time travel?" Tony asked late that night.

"What about it?"

"Is it possible? With magic?"

Loki chuckled bitterly. "Do you think I haven't thought about it? Do you not think that I would spare myself and everyone else all that occurred if it could be done?"

"So it can't be done."

"Theoretically, it should be possible, though enormously difficult. As well as very, very dangerous."

"Dangerous as in stepping on the wrong butterfly?"

"Dangerous as in if you make even the tiniest error, the entire universe could wink out of existence."

"Oh. That kind of dangerous."

"There is a legend, in fact, that it has already happened many times. That this is not the first universe that has existed, and the previous ones vanished when some sorcerer or scientist travelled through time." Loki hesitated. "According to some versions of the legend, I was that sorcerer. And I am destined, so it is said, to do it again."

"You?"

"Not that I knew it, all these centuries. But the things I did after learning what I was, they fit into the prophecy."

"And you knew the prophecies, and still did them?"

"You know how prophecies are. They don't make sense until it's too late. They never just say 'a sorcerer named Loki with black hair and green eyes will cause Ragnarok in the human year 2024'. It is always, 'the son of two kings will harness the power of storms to destroy the road between his fathers' kingdoms'."

"So my - the guy I'm shagging is going to cause the end of the world. The universe. Figures."

"I don't have to do it just because it's prophesied. I still have free will."

"Not really. Not that I believe in prophecies, I mean, and I'd just as soon you didn't wipe out the universe if it's not too much trouble, but we don't really have free will, we just feel like we do." Tony waved his hands as he did when there was too much caffeine and too much alcohol in him simultaneously. "It seems like we have it, so for all practical purposes we do. But all we are and do has its origins in our brains, our physical brains. Really, from the moment of the Big Bang it was inevitable that everything should unfold just as it has. The formation of the planets, the evolution of animals smart enough to delude themselves that they have free will - it was all set up in the way the molecules splattered around at that first moment in time. But our brains aren't big enough to hold all the data, which is why we have the illusion that we make our own choices."

"The notion that it's the fault of the Big Bang that I tried to kill my foster brother does have a certain appeal, but you are talking nonsense. The universe, life itself, is an eternal struggle between order and chaos, and neither can ever prevail. Human scientists will not expand into the realm of magic until they are able to acknowledge the reality of chaos, of will."

Tony frowned, trying to nail down his train of thought with a brain currently awash in caffeine and alcohol. "You're saying that quantum events happen on a non-quantum level."

"You are imagining a universe of perfect order. And you are describing that orderly universe to the god of chaos." Loki smiled. "One might say I am the god of free will."

Tony looked at him for a minute. "One might say we were predestined to have sex now."

"I freely choose to do so," Loki replied with a smirk.

The very next night he showed Tony his other form. He never would have believed he would show anyone this voluntarily. He had never even looked at his own true form in a mirror, hated the thought of it. Tony had carefully refrained from asking, despite the curiosity Loki could plainly see in his gaze when the subject infrequently arose. Tony restrained his own strongest passion to spare Loki pain. If not for that Loki might never have shown him.

But that night, Loki reminded himself that humans, as a provincial species on a backwater planet, had no idea that frost giants were loathsome monsters, and girded himself, and asked calmly, "Would you like to see my Jotun form?"

Hope and intrigue flared in Tony's eyes, and Loki took in the sight, stored it in his heart to keep forever. "You don't mind showing me?"

"You, I do not mind showing." And Loki took a breath, and let himself turn cold and strange.

Tony's eyes were full of wonder. He had spent his boyhood dreaming of aliens. To him Loki was not the monster Tony had feared under his bed but the wonder he had imagined descending from the stars. Tony spent a couple of minutes just feasting his eyes, moving around Loki and looking. "This is so.... I mean, the first aliens we got to see were you and Thor, and you guys look just like us. It was kind of a letdown."

"Seeing the Chitauri and their leviathans must have cheered you up considerably."

"No, but this does." Tony lifted a hand, paused. "May I touch you?"

"Go ahead."

"Are you going to give me frostbite?"

"That's a defensive measure. And oddly, I feel no need to defend myself from you." Loki added dryly, "If your ancestors responded to Jotnar this way, small wonder Odin had to come to Earth to defend you."

"Ha, ha." Tony's fingers were uncomfortably warm on his blue skin, but tolerably so. Tony traced along the lines on Loki's forehead. "Do these ridges feel different from the rest of your skin? Are they sensitive?"

"Not particularly."

"Do all Jotuns have them?"

"All the ones I've seen. There is much variation in the patterns."

"Like a fingerprint? Or a zebra's stripes? Are you born with them or do you get them from some kind of infant scarification rite?"

"I don't know what a Jotun scar looks like, so I can't be certain, but if the lines did come from deliberate scarring, I doubt they would have bothered to do it to me, when they were just going to leave me to die."

Tony's eyes met his, somber for a second. "Because you're small? For a giant?"

"Presumably. I know very little of Jotun culture."

"Aren't you curious?"

Loki snorted. "I would rather forget the entire misbegotten species exists."

"How tall is the average frost giant?"

"About ten feet."

"I should start calling you Shorty."

"No. You really shouldn't."

Tony's questions were unending. He asked if Loki's vision were different through his blood-red Jotun eyes (it wasn't). He turned Loki's hands over in his and showed him the small pores where the defensive frostbite probably came from. "Would you mind taking off your shirt?"

"Usually you just tear it off me."

Tony tore it off him. Loki smirked.

"You don't have nipples in this form! And no belly button. Are frost giants even mammals?"

"No. I do not know how they - we - feed their young, but I have never seen a frost giant with hair, saving myself. I believe it is my Asgardian form that grows hair."

"And hair is dead cells that cling to the body, so there's no reason for it to fall out any more than your clothes fall off when you change. You know, if you spent a couple of months in this form, your hair would probably all fall out."

"I suspect so. I have not tested the hypothesis."

"I can't believe how cold you are," Tony said, his hands on Loki's blue skin.

"My species lives on a great ball of ice, what would you expect?"

"Yeah, but - Earth has animals that live in cold climates, but they adapt by being good at keeping warm. They have fur and layers of fat on themselves - other frost giants aren't fat, are they?" He poked Loki's flat stomach in illustration.

"None that I saw."

"And they're not furry. Asgardians are different but recognizable, you know? And not just because they look like us - their bodies are different but work on the same principles. They're denser than we are - stop smirking, I mean their body mass - so they have to eat more, but they need about the same amount of food to fuel comparable body weight, and they have the same requirements to live - oxygen, heat, food. Asgardians are different, but work on the same principles. You're a completely different form of life! You actually don't need to be warm! We've never seen anything like you."

"My species invaded Midgard centuries ago," Loki reminded him. "And nearly caused another ice age. Of all the frost giants who have been here, I am in fact the nicest."

Tony only laughed, as if it were actually funny. "Will you let me see the rest?"

Loki raised an eyebrow, even though he had expected the request. "You want to see a frost giant naked? What kind of pervert are you?"

"A xenophile, evidently. Among other things, should I list them?"

"You humans actually have a word for it?"

"The word was invented to describe how certain insects behave with plants, actually."

"This becomes more flattering with every moment."

"Are you going to let me see your blue dick or not? Would you feel better if you weren't the only one naked? Here." Without waiting for an answer, Tony stripped himself briskly. Loki watched him, curious. Tony seemed to have no self-consciousness about nudity. Not that he had any reason for shyness, his body was leanly muscled and entirely pleasing to the eye. Given the history of his amorous exploits, perhaps that was to be expected. More likely, Tony was too involved with his own sprawling intellect to see covering himself as much more than a necessary concession to lesser mortals.

When Tony was naked he gave Loki an inquiring look. Loki removed the rest of his clothes and perched on a stool, watching Tony with amusement.

Tony's gaze immediately went to Loki's crotch. He stepped close again, placing an exploring hand on Loki's thigh. "Well, the equipment looks the same. Does it work the same way?"

"I don't actually know. I suppose if you found out you weren't really a human the first thing you'd do would be to engage in self-gratification in your new form."

"Probably," Tony said, unoffended. "So you've never even had an erection in this form?"

"Since infancy, I have spent less than one full hour in this form."

Tony met his eyes. "Don't you want to find out what it's like? Being a horny frost giant? And yes, that was a dig at your helmet."

Loki suppressed the urge to wince. "Is that an offer, Stark?"

"For science."

"That is the most seductive approach I have ever received." Loki's tone was quelling, sardonic.

"Actually, I think it is. You're a scientist, too, even though you call it sorcery. You're just as curious as I am about things, it's just all the bullshit you heard about frost giants growing up that holds you back from exploring this."

"What, are you saying that frost giants have the free will to be something other than violent monsters? I thought you believed in predestination."

"I hate it when my own petard hoists me. All right, do you feel like exercising your free will to have sex with me in your blue form? Or are you stalling because you don't want to?"

"I want to. But teasing you first amuses me."

"I never would have guessed." Then Tony finally shut up and kissed him. Loki let him take the initiative. Tony would find the chill of his Jotun body unpleasant once his curiosity was satisfied. So far it hadn't happened, Tony's tongue explored the inside of Loki's mouth, ran his hands over Loki's cool skin.

"Am I too hot for you? Temperature-wise, I mean?"

"It is slightly... uncomfortable. Not enough to stop."

"You're sure."

"I would not suffer it if I found it unpleasant."

"Give me your tongue. I want to see how it feels," Tony demanded, before kissing him again.

Loki obliged him. Now he found that the difference in temperature was actually intriguing, heightening the sensations, increasing the contrast between him and the other.

When the kiss ended, Tony looked a little dazed. "That is... actually pretty hot. Er, so to speak. It's like kissing a marble statue."

"How many marble statues have you kissed?"

"Lots. They dig billionaires." Tony ran his fingernails lightly over Loki's arms, his chest. The sensation was pleasant, but not particularly erotic. "Where do you frost giants hide your nerve clusters, anyway?"

"You'll have to discover that for yourself. I don't know."

Tony slowly, experimentally curled his hand around Loki's cock. "Does this feel different from usual?" His voice was a little husky now.

Loki leaned back to make himself more comfortable. "The temperature difference heightens the sensation. Other than that, it's much like it always is."

Tony applied both his hands to Loki's prick, stroking and squeezing. When it responded by growing hard, Tony shot Loki a sly little grin that had nothing to do with scientific curiosity. When Tony added his mouth to his efforts, Loki forgot all about experimentation and let himself dissolve into the sensations, into the warmth and the moisture and the rhythm.

His suspicion had been right: Stark was good at this.

"So it does work pretty much the same," Tony announced later, wiping his mouth. "Except a lot colder."

Loki gasped in a breath. "If you're done being curious, I'll change back and return the favor."

"Why change back? You could-" Tony stopped when Loki placed a cold hand on his dick. "Ahhh. Okay, maybe not. But can I X-ray you later? In blue form, I mean?"

"I should demand sexual favors in return."

"I feel so used. Okay, demand away."

Loki could put it off no longer. The weapon he and Stark had created was all but complete.

He did not wish to leave. Watching Stark in the midst of his sorcery was perhaps the most beautiful thing Loki had ever seen. He thought of Nornheim's mountains, made of glass, and thought of how those dark brown eyes would widen at the sight of them. He wanted Tony to see that. Wanted him to see Muspelheim, full of beings Midgard would think impossible. He imagined Tony just marveling for long minutes before plunging in with instruments and Jarvis and burying himself in it all until he solved the equation, his eyes alight with the joy of the data falling into place.

Loki wanted to linger. But he had no way of knowing how long it would be before Thanos came for him. He had to go away soon. Now. Somewhere far away from Thor, Frigga, Stark - from the few people he actually cared for.

"Jarvis, where is Stark right now?"

"Mr. Stark is asleep in his bedroom, sir."

"He is?"

"It might be more correct to say that he passed out on the common room floor after a number of martinis. Captain Rogers put him in his bed."

Loki snorted and headed down to the lab. "Jarvis. What is in a martini?"

"Gin or vodka, a small amount of vermouth, and a garnish are the essential ingredients, sir."

Loki stepped out of the elevator. "I wonder if I have time for one."

The voice that replied was not Jarvis's. "Shaken or stirred?"

Loki stopped in his tracks. Tony was there, in one of his black T-shirts informing the world who his favorite musicians were, standing between him and their weapon.

"Jarvis said you were in bed."

"You claim you can always tell when people are lying, but an AI doesn't have the same tells that we do."

The way Tony was standing, right in front of the weapon with his feet planted apart, the steady way he was looking at Loki, told him the game was up. Nevertheless Loki ambled towards the weapon with a casual shrug. "I just thought I'd do a little work."

Tony stepped closer, put a hand on his arm. "Listen to me first. Or actually, come with me. Let me show you something." When Loki looked at him, Tony added, "A few minutes won't make any difference."

For a long moment Loki couldn't move. "You know."

Tony sighed. "You're a lot better at lying with your words than with your face, you know that? Your eyes always give you away. At least, to me. When you came with the Chitauri, I knew you were running from something. I've seen that hunted look in the mirror. When you came to us about building a weapon, the way you looked at Thor - it's the way I looked at Bruce when SHIELD tried to lock him up, the way I looked at Pepper when she was pissed at me and I wanted to make things right with her before - while I could. That's why I accepted your offer, I could see that all you were really after was making up with your big brother before... before." He paused. "I've been under a sentence of death too, I know what it looks like."

Loki looked at him for a moment, then yanked him close, crushed their lips together. Tony responded by holding him with a grip that would have bruised a mortal.

Tony leaned back in his arms. "You still underestimate my intelligence, don't you? I know, habit. You've always been surrounded by people who couldn't begin to keep up with you. Now that you've found one you can't really believe it."

"Really. Impress me."

"You thought I wouldn't figure out that this wasn't just a weapon you were building from your sceptre. Oh, it could be used as one, but there's no way it could take out someone like Thanos, not if half the things you've said about him are true. But a lot of Asgardian weapons have another use too. They can be used to make wormholes. To travel someplace far away. Maybe someplace where he can't follow you. Or at least, someplace where when he does follow you, he'll be nowhere near your mother, and Thor."

Loki shrugged. It was true, he hadn't thought Tony would figure it out. One of these days he was going to stop underestimating humans. If he had that many days.

"Let me show you?"

Loki gave a nod. He could indulge his lover in this last thing.

Tony gave him a shrewd look. "You don't think anything I could show you could possibly impress you, do you?"

"Tony, your mind is unparalleled among your people, but Thanos is a foe the like of which you cannot even conceive."

"Fuck that. I'm Tony Stark."

He smiled thinly. "Such an ego is wasted on a mortal."

"No. You do not understand." Tony tipped his head back to meet Loki's gaze squarely. "The government tried to take my suits away. I didn't let them. My most trusted friend, who was like a father to me, tried to take my company away. I didn't let him. After the Chitauri invasion, SHIELD tried to take Bruce away from me. I didn't let them. Terrorists tried to take my life from me. I didn't let them. No one takes away what is mine."

Loki felt a tiny smile tug at the corners of his lips. "And I'm yours, am I?"

"Yes. Now come with me." Tony guided him back to the elevator, took them down another floor. "This is technically Bruce's lab, but he let me set this up in here so you wouldn't know about it until it was time."

The elevator opened and Loki stepped out, then halted. That hum, he knew it. "What is this?" he whispered.

"Another Asgardian invention that can be used as a means of transportation, or a weapon."

"You didn't."

"I did."

"How?"

"Thor brought a few pieces back for me. Well, actually he did it for Jane, she helped a lot with this. Without the work she's been doing since she met him, this would've taken me a few years."

Loki stared. "You can't activate it here, it'll do more damage to New York than I did."

"I know. We're going to do it from space. Can you take it to the moon with magic, or am I going to have to build a rocket?"

Loki took a slow step forward, extended a hand to touch it. Vibrating energy in solid form, waiting to be released. Glowing with every color in the spectrum.

A Bifrost. Asgard's crowning jewel, and this human had recreated it.

"I... I can transport it. You'll still need to build a - a ship capable of holding it, though, I can't just transport it unshielded."

"Thought so. I'm on it." Tony stepped behind him, slipped his arms around Loki's waist. "And then you'll open the portal to our old friend, and we'll unleash our Bifrost onto him. And this time your brother won't stop it before it does its job."

Loki felt almost dizzy. He had become accustomed to thinking of Thanos as invincible, of planning only to lure him as far away from the two realms which held things (people) dear to him before making the only real escape from him possible - death. Exhausted from the despair of the last few years, he had given up looking for other solutions.

That was something his human lover did not know how to do. The arrogant mortal was too conceited to know when he was out of his depth.

Thankfully, in this case his ego had been right and all sanity and realism wrong.

"I keep underestimating humans," Loki said after a while, dazed.

"Stick with me and I'll break you of that habit. No one's better qualified, babe." Tony's breath was warm on Loki's neck as he spoke. "Think it'll be enough to get him?"

Loki turned to face him without breaking out of the circle of his arms, cupped Tony's face in his hands. "Yes," he said quietly. "It will be enough."

They kissed for a long time.

When finally they finished kissing, Tony made Loki a martini.

Loki decided that he liked them.