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The shower was running.
Tony smiled, and dropped the tablet of important serious something or other he’d been planning to finish tonight. Pepper would be kind of pissed at him, but there was no chance Tony was getting anything done.
Loki was back.
Tony crossed the workshop and picked a table with his back to the bathroom door. “Jarvis, open something unimportant but interesting. Something I don’t actually care about but would kind of like to.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Jarvis threw up a rejected design for an arc-reactor-powered car, way too flashy and complicated for the public market but with a few redeeming elements Tony wanted to save for the next couple of designs. Perfect.
Because Loki was back.
And things changed when Loki came back from his interstellar quests. He was tight-lipped on the details, but there was something out there, something dangerous, something that he had to find and destroy before someone else found it, and used it.
Which was why he was hanging around the Avengers in the first place, actually: he’d dropped in to offer a friendly warning that, if he failed, they’d all wish they’d been murdered in their beds.
Tony still wasn’t sure how that extremely tense, awkward, and weapon-loaded conversation had turned into the two of them and mutual blowjobs in the basement afterwards.
He really didn’t know where the feelings had crept in.
The kind of feelings that made Tony not even mind that Loki had magically upsized his Black Sabbath t-shirt so it fit his godly frame instead.
The kind of feelings that had Loki wearing Tony’s clothes in the first place.
Logically, it made sense: they were both broken in such similar ways, isolated and ignored and alone, unless they were being lauded for their genius by people who, in the end, only wanted to abuse it. Desperately clinging to the one who’d always been there for them, apart from the times they’d dropped them off of Bifrosts and kicked them out of their shiny new offices.
Finding someone else who might have been an absolute bastard, arrogant and conceited, a complete stranger with a kill count in the thousands – but they’d never let them down.
But Tony wasn’t a particularly logical person when it came to other people – praying they’d still talk to him in the morning was about the sum of his social interaction skills. And Loki, being a god of chaos, didn’t exactly let logic dictate his actions, either.
But somehow, it worked. This bizarre thing that had grown between them, it worked.
Loki came back to Tony whenever he needed more than sleep and food to keep going. And Tony, waking screaming in the night, found a literal god swearing protection and vengeance for him.
The sex was really something, too, but for once, it wasn’t the point. It wasn’t about getting off, it was about… connecting.
Yes, he knew that was something out of a bad romance novel. He knew. That didn’t change the fact that when they came together, they weren’t alone.
The shower cut off, and Tony blinked and refocused on the diagrams. Loki didn’t like being fussed over if he was still capable of standing on his own feet – though if not, he demanded Tony wait on him hand and foot – so Tony didn’t turn at the sound of the door opening, didn’t turn at the quiet footsteps crossing the floor.
He just lifted his shoulder a little, so when Loki came up behind him and dropped his head there, he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck.
“Okay?”
He felt Loki’s lips move against his bare shoulder, felt his throat work as he grasped for an answer. Tony didn’t turn, just kept working completely pointlessly, shrinking things and moving others, and he’d be in trouble the day Loki figured out that he wasn’t actually working at all, but that wasn’t today.
“No.”
Shit. Tony’s hands jerked in the air and exploded a holographic compression coil to fill half the workshop. That kind of honesty meant two things, neither of them good: Asgard or Jotunheim.
It was something like the worst custody battle in history. Jotunheim wanted a sorcerer on their side, somebody powerful with a known grudge against Asgard, so they kept reminding Loki of how much crap Asgard had done to him in hopes of cracking him into taking vengeance.
Asgard, of course, wanted nothing of the sort, so they smothered him with all the affection they’d never given him before. They wanted to buy his loyalty with love, and Loki knew beyond a doubt that they didn’t mean a word they said. It didn't stop him from wishing that they did.
And telling them to jump off a cliff meant they would both be trying to hunt him down and take him out before he became a danger. But while there was still a chance that they could use him, they wouldn’t put him out of his misery.
Tony knew exactly how that felt. A cave in Afghanistan. A hand hovering over his chest, filled with something that belonged to him. Giant metal hands flinging him across a rooftop. Yeah, Tony knew.
And that was how he knew not to say anything. Nothing at all. He just tilted his head a little so it barely rested on Loki’s, and stiffened the muscles in his shoulder.
They’d actually gotten bigger, after a year or so of doing this every few weeks.
Apart from the horrible four whole months when Loki hadn’t come home – when, somehow, being near Tony had become ‘home’.
Loki didn’t want lies, didn’t want to be told that everything was fine. That wasn’t what he needed from Tony. Loki was here because he needed somebody who wouldn’t lie to him. He needed a place where he could be honest with himself that he wasn’t okay, and not find a knife in his back.
Loki’s breaths were soft and slow where they slipped over Tony’s shoulder, washing over the bare skin beyond the straps of his tank. Loki’s hands rested against Tony’s thighs, hanging loosely at the ends of his arms, completely limp. Not summoning magic or clutching daggers or anything. He was absolutely defenseless.
They’d really done a number on him this time. Loki wasn’t usually so… passive. He tended to watch Tony working, offering acidic comments against his workmanship, training, and ancestors, and grinning as Tony threw them back against him.
He still wore Tony’s clothes and still sat close, because it wasn’t like he was coming back from a health spa. He was fighting a one-man war out there, and Tony’s arms were where he came when he couldn’t take another step. But he could usually get to bed before passing out.
Because Loki’s breathing was so slow, and he was so still, that he had to be gone. It kind of made Tony shudder, that Loki had fallen asleep standing up with his head half falling off Tony’s shoulder, and this was the best option he had.
On the other hand, Tony liked having Loki around. He needed Loki too, needed somebody who wasn’t going to judge, who wholeheartedly agreed that yes, Tony was better than the senators and soldiers and everybody trying to steal his life’s work from him.
Loki’s head slipped off his shoulder, and Tony spun and caught him before his knees buckled completely. “Gotcha. Come on, bed.”
Loki didn’t look up, and Tony fought to keep them both standing. Loki weighed a lot for a guy who looked one meal away from starvation. “Loki, you gotta help me out here. It’s not far. Come on.”
“’thony…”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s Anthony. Come on.”
Loki finally lifted his head, eyes still closed, and put it back on Tony’s shoulder again, and wrapped his arms around Tony’s torso to help with the stability problem. Loki stepped backwards and Tony stepped where his foot had been a second ago, and very slowly they started crossing the workshop. Tony steered around tables and Loki was doing well enough that Tony’s bones weren’t in danger of snapping under the pressure.
“That’s it, little bit further.”
Loki’s fingers dug into Tony’s back. “Offered me… throne, this time. Helblindi’s heir. For my service.”
Jotunheim, then. On the balance of things, they were worse than Asgard. Maybe Asgard hadn’t been the nicest place to grow up, but at least they’d raised him. It was still shitty of them to call in on that debt, but it wasn’t as bad as Jotunheim. Jotunheim had left him to die when he’d been a useless runt, but now that he had magic, suddenly he was popular and could rule them one day!
Assholes.
Tony got Loki inside the elevator without either of them collapsing. “Jarvis, bedroom.”
“Certainly, sir.”
The motors whirred and pulled them upwards, and Loki swayed in Tony’s arms. Tony’s heart leapt and he clutched Loki harder. “No, stay with me, we’re almost there, don’t give up on me now, I’m not dragging you out of this elevator.”
“Tired…”
“Yeah, I know, I know.” Why had he decided to put his bedroom so damn far above the workshop? “But look, if you drop here I’m going to have to get Thor, okay? You know that, you know I can’t lift you. Don’t make me get Thor.”
Loki’s hands scrabbled at Tony’s back. “Not Thor…”
“Yeah, so stay with me. Keep it together. It’s just a little further, I promise.”
Loki nodded, and the elevator finally reached their floor. The doors opened, and Tony mostly pushed Loki out, Loki’s feet barely leaving the ground to take what could only technically be called steps.
He never slept on Jotunheim. He’d been up for however long he’d been there. Three weeks, if it had been the whole trip this time.
“I’m gonna take care of you.”
Loki’s hand climbed up Tony’s back to clutch at his shoulder. “I know.”
Tony stopped at the edge of the bed, and decided there was no way he was getting Loki undressed. He leant around him, holding up upright with one arm, and flipping back the covers with the other. “Go on.”
Loki would have collapsed completely without Tony guiding him down, angling his head onto the pillow and lifting his legs into the bed for him. Tony pulled the blankets back over him. Loki had all but disappeared into the bed, so thin he barely left an outline of his body in the thick quilts. Tony stripped and walked around the bed to climb in behind Loki.
Tony pressed close, his knees tucked against the backs of Loki’s, Tony’s chest pressed to Loki’s spine. He wrapped an arm around Loki’s torso and held him close. Loki was almost certainly sound asleep by this point, but this was more for Tony than anything else. Knowing that Tony was making things better, was the reason Loki would be able to get up in the morning… Tony actually did something worthwhile, here. It meant more than it probably should have.
Then Loki stirred, and folded his arm over Tony’s and tangled their fingers together. “Thank you.”
Tony kissed his nape. “Anytime.”