cuttingremark | For starkingenuity

The gentle massage on his leg relaxes Loki even further, causing him to sink down to the point of being almost horizontal on the couch. He stretches out almost like a cat.

"That sounds lovely, but perhaps after the city is a bit more stable." He's partially here to help rebuild, it feels wrong to take some sort of leisure before that is done.

“You really haven’t been here in a few decades,” Tony laughs, causing Rogers behind them to jerk awake again. He actually makes a startled cry, which causes the older human to to hook an arm over the back of the couch and blink at him. The blond looks disoriented and then a little embarrassed. “Pick one of the rooms, Rogers. Actually sleep.”

It might be the kindest thing Tony’s said to the guy. Ever.

He settles his chin on his hand and looks back to Loki. “Reform takes a lot more work than one day of being a decent guy. I should know. We should go to bed too.”

He gives Loki’s legs a tap to indicate that he wants to get up as Rogers thanks him and shambles out of the room. Tony doesn’t watch him go, gaze focused solely on Loki.

“Or do you want a separate room too?”

"I am well aware," Loki says, watching Rogers tumble off the the chair with a smirk. "I have no plans of stopping my work after a single building. I vowed to help the city restore itself, and I will hold to that vow."

Loki slowly peels his legs away from Tony so they can both stand. He is very tired, probably would have fallen asleep like Rogers had he not been engaged in conversation, but the food has given him enough energy to at least get to a bed.

"I am far too tired to pretend I want to sleep in a separate room. Unless you think sleeping together will cause complications for you with the others."

“I should probably care,” Tony says with half a shrug. “But let’s be honest here. I don’t care what anyone thinks about me.” Except, perhaps, what Loki thinks of him. But that’s debatable given their connection now.

It’s a familiar road traveled. Just yesterday, Tony had ‘sprung’ Loki from the lab’s containment to lead him to his bed, after all. Tony doesn’t feel the need to speak, though if Loki wants to comment on the austerity of Stark’s aesthetic, he certainly can. There are no rich room dressings, no tapestries, nothing really of note. The bed is plain but comfortable. The walls are blank. The windows show a view of a half demolished city that Tony commands JARVIS to shut out with the blinds closing.

Tony undresses to his boxers and tugs down the black and red quilt to reveal plain white sheets beneath. There are no furs. So if Loki gets cold, he’ll have only Tony to help with that.

Loki had already donned the soft tunic and trousers he sleeps in before the movie began, so no change of clothes happens for him. He pulls back the covers on the other side of the bed and slides under them. They are soft, as is the bed, something Loki is very grateful for.

The lack of furs don't worry him, he never got cold that easily, but the lack of their insulations may pose a surprising problem for Tony if Loki decides to snuggle up. His skin is much cooler to the touch, especially his hands and feet.

"If it's all the same to you, I think we will forgo our Asgardian lesson for the night. I do not believe I can keep my eyes open for much longer." The weariness he feels is almost like helping someone move as opposed to a day of working out: a long day spent doing moderately strenuous work where the tiredness creeps up on you.

As Loki settles in and breaks the disappointing (of understandable) news about their new, ritual nightly lessons, Tony slips an arm around his chest, under his arms, and presses himself against the other.

He probably ought to have given more warning than that, but the time to fight the bond with Loki has already ended. He sleeps better like this, though he’d been more of a solo sleeper even when he shared the bed with Pepper. If last night time him anything, it was that touch with his bonded was tantamount to a good night sleep.

He’s gone so long with such terrible dreams that he’ll happily spoon Loki for a chance at rest.

Once again, Loki sleeps soundly. It would be nice to believe it was due to the hard day's work, but he knows that's only part of it. As he wakes up on the third day of having found his soulmate, he finds it's getting harder and harder to even think of the excuses anymore. He feel comfortable with Tony, more comfortable than he's ever felt next to anyone. Why should he even try to pretend he doesn't?

The early morning light shines around the edges of the lowered blinds, just enough to not make the arc reactor in Tony's chest unbearably bright by comparison. Loki studies the human more closely as he sleeps: the subtle variations in color in his hair, the way his eyes flicker behind closed lids, the subtle lines just starting to form around his eyes.

He could get up, perhaps start breakfast, begin discussing the day's plan with the Captain (he can tell the man is likely an early riser), but that would mean leaving the warm bed and his soulmate. The world could wait for just a few more minutes.

He does, however, sit up, gently maneuvering Tony's head from his chest to his lap. Holding out a hand, a book appears: "The Hobbit" by one JRR Tolkin. Banner had said it was a classic of modern Midgardian literature, so it seemed a good idea to read.

There is not one moment where Tony believes he’s with anyone else when he drifts from sleep nearly a full hour later. There’s not many times in his life where he’s woken up this way, no dream to plague him and hold him down, no spike of ‘inspiration’ so painful he couldn’t risk laying still for a moment more. He slips a hand up Loki’s leg, thumb massaging his knee cap before his palm falls still again.

“The Hobbit?” There’s just an instinctive knowledge of the book Loki is reading, and that he is reading at all, before Tony even begins to wake. It’s a blessing to wake with such a beautiful picture in his mind, too.

There is a lot to do, but Tony chooses to spend a few more minutes with his bonded before slipping out of bed towards the shower. An invitation for the other to join us very nearly on his lips, but gets left unsaid.

"Dr. Banner suggested it to me," Loki says, flipping another page. He's well over halfway done judging by his placement in the book. "Well, he actually suggested the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, but said I could start here as it was technically composed first."

The hand that turned the page comes down to rest in Tony's hair. "We should not be too long. No doubt the others will want to get as early a start as possible." That said, it's not like he's exactly hopping out of bed himself.

Though it may be a no to the shared shower, Tony isn’t heart broken. He doesn’t take too long, though he does make a point of washing his hair quickly before shaving and dressing again. Loki’s presence has reduced the anxiety of wetting his head a great deal but his habits are hard to break.

Breakfast is quick, a JARVIS provided continental affair shared because all of the Avengers and Loki as Cap goes over their marching orders for the day. The next week or so is much the same. Breakfast. Clean up New York. Meet with leaders. Dinner. Asgardian lessons or sometimes films, and then a separation of the majority of their members before Tony and Loki slipped off to bed. Tony can honestly say it’s the most time he’s spent with any number of people, but he doesn’t exactly hate it.

By the end of the week, New York more or less working again, the group splits. Steve heads to DC to work more closely with SHIELD, Tony or or less nopes out of that but his connection with Loki isn’t something that can be overlooked or allowed to just carry on without study.

And it’s for that reason, not long after the team’s dispersal, that Tony and a rather sharply Midgardian dressed Loki head down to HQ. Ostensibly, it’s because there has been Chitauri technology detected in Europe and they want a consultation, but as Tony flies them out of New York, he can’t help but state how he really feels.

“I had having a babysitter.”

Through the week Loki rides the find line between working until he's bone tired and true magical exhaustion. He has years of experience avoiding just such things, and finds smaller ways to conserve his energies such as refraining from using magic outside of cleanup activities. Still, at the end of the week, he feels like he needs to sleep for the next month. Luckily they do get a few days rest before being called down to SHIELD.

Loki makes a vague noise of agreement.

"It is annoying, but probably the best outcome to be hoped for. At least they aren't actively trying to put me in a cell." He adjusts his black suit jacket slightly. The god finds he rather likes the Midgardian clothes Tony had pointed him towards, even if they aren't as comfortable as Asgardian threads.

"Besides, this should be a relatively short trip. Chitahuri technology is fairly rudimentary on a galactic scale. Once they understand the basics, it isn't hard to extrapolate the rest."

“That’s not good,” Tony grumbles, pulling the quinjet out of the clouds to see the ground again. Tony had almost insisted that they fly commercial after Loki told him about being DB Sweeney, but the thought of breathing the same air as so
Many other people, not to mention having to smile at the flight attendants changed his mind.

He sets JARVIS on the flight path before he turns in the jump seat towards Loki. His sneakered foot slides forward and lightly hits against the shiny black shoes Loki seems to appreciate.

The guy does look good in his chosen threads. Tony can’t help but let his eyes linger over the rim of his red tinted lenses.

“That means there could be a lot of not so great people doing a lot of really bad things with dead metal space whales.” Tony smirks just before the proximity alarm goes off and JARVIS banks the quinjet hard to the left to avoid whatever is incoming.

Telling the human the story of his time as DB Cooper had honestly been more fun than living it. He had no idea the tale had grown so infamous! Perhaps he would have to create one of these twitters his soulmate was always talking about...

"Well, we'll simply have to find them and put an end to it." Loki's foot pushes out and bumps Tony's sneakers in return. "Speaking of, how much do you actually trust SHIELD with these weapons?" Loki doesn't trust them at all, but he will admit he is biased. He does trust Tony's judgement on the matter, even without the bond. The human is cautious, especially with matters of advanced technology.

Loki on Twitter? Yes. Tony is pushing for that one hard. He’s already gotten him a phone, shown him how to download books, but the chaos the Asgardian could cause on social media is just too good for Tony not to encourage.

Tony is just a single second from telling Loki exactly how he feels about SHIELD when the klaxon goes off in earnest.

“J—?”

“Sorry sir. There is a missile incoming. Would you care to take back the controls?”

Tony arches an eyebrow and pulls up the aft view camera and radar. “Over the US? J, give me more than just visuals!”

"What convenient timing," Loki grumbles, getting out of his seat to move to the back of the quinjet. Coincidences are a myth, in Loki's opinion, so the fact that they are suddenly attacked as they were talking about SHIELD does not escape his notice. Still, there are more important matters to attend to at the moment.

Summoning an Uru dagger, he hastily starts scratching runes into the metal of the floor. Were he not still rebuilding his energy from the week of clean up, he would be able to conjure a shield for the aircraft without them, but he's not pushing it.

"Warn me if we're about to get hit!" he calls back to Tony in the cockpit.

Tony doesn’t share Loki’s paranoia about SHIELD if only because they need them both alive to use Loki. Tony is a bargaining chip, one more effective still because his own ingenuity is useful to the cause. Whatever Tony is, he is generally pretty willing to help out when and however possible. Even if it’s just to show off a new toy.

He pulls back on the joystick and turns the quinjet to a hard right, banking vertical for two seconds. He probably should have warned Loki about that, but the god is intuitive. He’s survived hundred of battles. He’ll figure it out.

Evening them out, JARVIS identifies two more missiles locking on them. “Two more,” Tony calls back, just as one explodes too far in the distance. Mechanical issues? Tony doesn’t stop to think about it.

“JARVIS, tell Fury we might be a little late!”

The sudden bank catches Loki off guard, but he's quickly able to catch himself before toppling head-over ass.

"A warning would have been nice!" he yells as he scrambles to the runes to add the last one. Pushing his magic into them, the quinjet is surrounded by a soft green glow.

"The shield can take one hit, but I'm not so sure about the second! How are they targeting us?"

“Good question,” Tony says before he grits his teeth. “Heading up over cloud cover! Hang on!” They’re too close to population zones and Tony is not going to be responsible for anyone injured because of him. “Do we have a launch location?”

“Yes, sir, but you won’t like the answer.” Tony rolls his eyes as they jitter through the clouds and break above them. “I can’t get a sensor lock but the material itself seems very similar to the Chitauri carcasses Doctor Banner analyzed after the Battle of New York.”

The second missile speeds to intercept them, but like the first, it explodes before it does so. This time, debris is pulled into the engine and the big machine stalls. Tony kicks the panel and locks the steering into place (little good it does) to climb to the back of the plane. He doesn’t have a lot of time to get into the armor, but it’s already parting at its space in the wall to enclose him. “Gotta jump ship, Loki, unless your spells ward off crashing!”

"Not at the moment, no." As Tony dons the suit, Loki shifts into his Asgardian armor. If they fall from this altitude, it won't do much for him, but he feels better with it on.

Once the armor fully encases his bonded, Loki wraps his arms around his chest. It isn't going to be comfortable, but he's done this with Thor in a pinch, so the discomfort isn't completely unexpected.

Tony and Thor have two very different ways of flying. A few stabilizing bursts by the hatch and Iron Man stays suspended in the air as the quinjet spirals away from him. He can’t do much to hold Loki, but there are plenty of chinks in the armor to provide handholds. And he already knows the other is incredibly strong. He’d had those fingerprints around his neck for a few hours, despite the very brief touch.

Inside the armor, Tony pulls up his battle HUD and scans for more Chitauri based missiles. “They shouldn’t be able to lock on,” he grumbles, as two more appear at an intercepting trajectory towards them. Iron Man drops straight down, mindful of the cargo holding into him, in an effort to put them on a more level playing field. He could guide the missiles out to the ocean a few miles East but he’s not putting Loki at that kind of risk. He turns off one gauntlet repulsor and wraps his armored arm around Loki, spiraling more quickly now to the Earth as the missiles lock on him.

It’s like they have a mind of their own.

The missiles had to be finding them somehow. With Stark in the armor and Loki being...Loki, it's unlikely to be heat. Visuals are possible, but not likely. What is likely is that they are somehow locked onto the energy radiating from either the human's arc reactor or the god's magic.

Well, one way to find out.

"Stark! Drop me!"

Drop him? Loki has got to be kidding. With the ground rapidly approaching, Loki isn’t likely to suffer much if Tony was to drop him, but the thought is so foreign to him.

The proximity alarms inside his helmet signal just how close the missiles are and it clicks, finally, as to why it is Loki wants him to let him go.

Grunting, Tony aims Loki towards the trees and releases him only ten feet from the branches before he turns sharply upwards to climb away from him.

Between his natural durability and some quick shield work, Loki makes it through the trees with minimal bumps and bruises. He's able to grab hold of a branch about halfway down to stop his fall. Through the canopy he can see the missiles streaking after Iron Man as he peals away.

He's nervous, obviously, seeing his soulmate pursued by alien explosives. But he also knows Tony can pilot the armor better without a tag along. Still, he stays at the top of the trees, holding his breath as he watches the red and gold fly through the sky.

Adrenaline is his best friend and fuels his unobtrusively dazzling dance high above Loki. He zips up much too high, a trick he’d learned long ago. There’s just one problem.

As much as Loki says that their limit of being apart is five miles, by the time Tony hits two, he’s really suffering. In distress, he mangles a loop and one of the missiles following him explodes too close and shorts out the reactor.

He blacks out after that, heart stopping.

Loki feels the tug. He gets as high up as he can, using his magic to jump from tree to tree in an effort to follow along with the chase. He watches as Tony goes higher and higher, their new bond straining under the distance.

Then the explosion. He feels his own heart stutter as Tony's stops. Loki isn't dead, which means only one thing.

It isn't Tony's time.

The human is falling out of the sky, the other missile exploding in the distance as it's target fades. If only Loki could fly, if only he were the magpie shown on his soulmate's tattoo, if only he had-

It is yours

Frigga's voice rings in his head as clearly as if she were standing beside him. He reaches into his personal pocket dimension for something he never placed there, but knows is there anyways.

A beautiful cloak made from tawny and golden feathers drapes around his shoulder and Loki ascends. He isn't as fast as Iron Man, but he is fast enough to catch Tony just before he hits the ground.

"Shit, shit! Stark, don't you dare do this to me!" Laying him gently on the ground, Loki tears off the chest plate and presses his hands to where the arc reactor should be shining brightly. He can feel blackness begin to creep in at the edges of his vision. If he doesn't act fast, it's the end for both of them.

Magic surges from Loki's fingers into the device. He doesn't know how it works, only hoping that the infusion of energy would act as a jump start.

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