It was quiet when he stepped in the door.
There was always some sort of noise in his house, whether it was from the bots tinkering downstairs or Jarvis running the coffee maker. But now, it was dead silent; that was the first giveaway, the second being the bottle of whiskey on the bar countertop that he was sure he hadn’t left out. He let his gaze wander, searching silently but not wanting to give himself away, his footsteps careful and quiet. The dull light of the arc reactor through his white button up lit his path in an eerie blue; it was the dark figure against his window, shadow twisting and melting with those of other items in the room that caused him to freeze, however, and start to call out for Jarvis only to realize his AI didn’t seem to be awake anymore. The room would’ve already been lit if he had been.
“Please, I have come for a peaceful drink; no more and no less.”
The smooth voice swirled through the air, caressing his skin and making him shiver, dripping honey and exhaustion. So familiar, so deliciously familiar that he wasn’t sure whether he should run for the suit or towards the voice.
His legs seemed to decide for him, and their choice was neither- he moved towards the bar instead, his eyes remaining on the figure standing in front of the window, bathed in shadow and orange light from the setting sun.
“Didn’t expect to see you again, not after New York,” Tony said as he poured two glasses of whiskey.
“New York was a mistake,” Loki snapped but there was no real bite to it. The god turned, making his tired path over to the bar and grabbing up one of the glasses, tossing the burning liquid back in one swift motion. “An error of judgment, if you will, or perhaps simply an error of existence.”
“Whose existence?” he asked, not nearly drunk enough to be having this conversation with this particular person.
Loki gave him a dry, if not tired, look.
“Can you guess, Stark?” the god asked, bitterness coloring his voice. “Mine, of course. Who could possibly be at fault, if not the one who’s mind ripped apart and put hastily together again to do another man’s will?”
Tony blinked and took another drink, letting his eyes roam over the god. Simply put, he looked tired. Dark circles smudged beneath his eyes, hollowing the shockingly dull emeralds that made up the god’s irises. His face was gaunt, his shoulders sagging in what could only be described as defeat (and he knew things were really fucked if the only god incapable of accepting defeat was the one who looked ready to accept death instead), his thin fingers twisting together, holding fast to each other as if those hands were the only things holding him together. He looked as if the world had been settled on his shoulders, collared to his throat and he’d just given in to the impossible weight.
Without being asked, he refilled the god’s now empty glass. Loki blinked down at it, as if he hadn’t even realized he’d emptied it, before his shoulders sagged and he let go of the pretense that everything was alright. That, more specifically, he was alright.
He downed the burning liquid once more without so much of a grimace, his eyes falling shut as his fingers closed around the neck of the bottle in Tony’s hand instead, pulling it towards him and tipping his head back, taking long, slow swallows from the bottle.
“Why are you here, Loki?” he asked and the god opened his mouth to answer but stopped himself when Tony raised a hand. “No lies, no games. The truth.” Loki’s mouth closed with an audible click and his jaw worked for a moment, as if he were trying to find the right words to say, perhaps a lie that wouldn’t sound like it was one. He seemed to give up after a moment, entire form sagging as he slumped against the bar across from Tony.
“My execution is to be in four hours time. I needed….” Loki shuddered, taking another pull from the bottle. The corners of his lips quirked as he moved the glass away from his mouth. “Ironic, isn’t it? Coming to the very man I tried to kill during the very crimes I am to be executed for, for solace.”
And as much as Tony had hated the god during New York, as much as Tony had obsessed over finding a way to god and magic proof everything after the invasion, after hundreds of sleepless nights and terrible panic attacks whenever the words ‘New York’ or ‘aliens’ were mentioned, after all the damn trouble Loki had caused for him and the rest of the world, Tony didn’t want him to die. Not really. He’d fucked up, sure, but it seemed Asgard wasn’t big on second chances.
Tony’s eyes tracked the single drop of whiskey clinging to Loki’s lower lip, saw the quiver to it that caused the drop to fall, the trembling of his shoulders, the white knuckled grips the god had on his own fingers; signs that he was either trying to hold back tears or maybe he was finally breaking after the weight of a thousand lives had been pressed down around his shoulders, compressed his lungs, squeezed until he couldn’t breathe or even cry.
Tony saw all this and he surged forward, pressing his lips to those of a god sentenced to death, felt the shock and the hesitation and the fear, felt when Loki finally gave up and gave in and let go. The god grabbed his hair, his shirt collar, dragged him in closer until the cool metal of the bar top dug into his stomach and his feet had left the ground and forced him to crawl on top of the counter top; finally kneeling before the god but still not low enough. Tony’s hands came up, cupped Loki’s cheeks and didn’t let go, feeling the tears a thousand years coming rolling down Loki’s cheeks, wetness gathering on Tony’s hands, making it hard to hold on but he just tightened his grip like the night would sweep him away at any moment.
They only pulled back when air became a desperation instead of a simple necessity, their foreheads pressed together and their hot breaths mingling with the bite of whiskey and long overdue tears between their overheated bodies. Tony wasn’t even sure when his own tears had fallen but that didn’t matter.
“Why?” Loki asked. Breathed. Sobbed.
“Why not?” Tony whispered and their lips clashed once more and that was that.
To say Loki kissed like a dying man would be an understatement. Loki kissed like a man who had died once before, drowning in a pool of his own sweat, blood and tears with the blade of betrayal buried in his back and twisting in his heart, only to be told he had to do it again. Loki kissed like it was the first kiss he’d ever had and the last kiss he’d ever get, all wet heat and clashing teeth; like the smoke of a cigarette rolled from desperation and loneliness, caressing Tony’s lips and stealing his breath away.
Tony shivered as he felt Loki’s hands map their way beneath his shirt, fingertips tracing gentle circles around the arc reactor and strangely, he felt no fear, only empowerment and the exhilarating thrill of life coursing through is veins, warming him from the inside out until he thought he would burst from the heat of it all and wasn’t it funny, really, that the first time he’d felt alive in years was because of a man condemned to death.
“Stay,” Tony whispered as he panted against Loki’s lips, uttered honestly to the god who had almost destroyed the world.
“I cannot,” Loki murmured and just like that, the spell was broken. Loki leaned back, his eyes shuttering and his face steeling as his mask slid firmly back into place, cracked and broken but still holding strong.
“Please,” Tony whispered, begged, and that was all it took for the mask to shatter completely. The tears returned, the sobs, and Tony just launched himself onto the bar top in front of Loki, pulled the gods wobbling head to his chest and held those icy, trembling hands in his own; held the god as he sobbed about the Queen of the Damned and a wolf chained in Asgard; as he sobbed about the fiery boat floating over the edge of a waterfall; about the Jotun Prince left abandoned and the father who never loved and the mother who always did.
By the time the god’s cries abated, the sun had set and the only light in the room was the bright blue of the arc reactor shining through his shirt, the light muffled by how close Loki’s body was pressed to his, blocking out the light almost completely, leaving them in the darkness with only the moonlight and the light spilling from between their bodies to see.
“I don’t want to die.” It was whispered so quietly, Tony was almost convinced he’d imagined it.
“Then don’t,” Tony said, rushed. “Stay with me. There has to be- there has to be some way, some loophole. You can’t die, not now. We’ll find a way, don’t you worry-” but he was cut off by a single, gentle fingertip pressing to his lips.
“It is much too late to reverse this, Anthony. All I ask now is a night to remember, some last memory that Odin has not tainted, for when I…” The god swallowed heavily. “For when I am to die.”
Tony nodded wordlessly and crawled off of the counter top, taking Loki’s hand in his own and leading the god to his bedroom.
Clothes were discarded in a careless heap on the floor; first Tony’s, and then Loki’s. Tony undressed the god slowly, shedding layer by layer of metal and leather, unveiling the god’s slim, beautiful form, movements slow and sure until the god was shaking with need. He pressed the god beneath him on the bed, let his hands trail over the expanse of marble ready for carving, already having been chipped and scarred by those who had been less careful. The coming hours were filled with wet heat and need, the desperate longing for more, for less, for everything because it could never be enough, would always be too much. Every touch sent fire and heat tingling across their skin, ever thrust sent pleasure coursing up their spines and through their stomachs, lighting their nerve endings with wave after wave of sensation, an onslaught of desperate pleasure and foreboding. Everything they’d ever hidden was laid bare for each other, given as a gift of goodbye or maybe even as a gift of hello. They discovered each other, created new paths across each other’s bodies, caressing and kissing and touching, reveling in the simplicity of love making.
They climaxed with cries of each other’s names, Tony’s fingers tightening themselves into fists in Loki’s hair, Loki’s nails raking hot red lines down Tony’s back. The bruise Tony had sucked into Loki’s neck would stay until his body turned cold and his eyes stopped seeing. The marks raked down Tony’s back would stay for days and would never be mentioned again.
When Loki left with a whispered goodbye and a gentle kiss pressed delicately to Tony’s lips, he couldn’t tell whether the salt on his tongue was from Loki’s tears or his own. Tony stared at the spot the god had been, silently contemplating whether or not he could do anything or whether he should just let things play out the way they were.
Decision made, Tony crawled out of bed and yanked on a pair of sweats, grabbing the bottle of whiskey as he disappeared down to his lab, knowing sleep would not find him tonight.
Besides, he had an execution to stop.