“Christmas is the day that holds all time together.”
-Alexander Smith
Loki had been staying with them for about three months now.
After the events of New York, Thor had been quite adamant about getting his not-brother rehabilitated and wouldn’t stop badgering Tony about it, so eventually Tony had said yes, if only to placate the angst-ridden Thor. And maybe because he knew that Loki had been under the control of the Tesseract just as much as Clint had been, and it had fucked Clint up just a little bit so it would probably have fucked Loki up too. Psychological torture, is what Clint had called it and Tony agreed…to a certain degree, though that was probably only because a) he knew what real torture was and b) he hadn’t actually been under the Tesseracts control so he couldn’t actually form an accurate description.
Bruce and Loki got along well enough (they both liked tea). They weren’t best buddies, not by a long shot, and Loki was extremely wary around him. Understandably so; the only person the Hulk really liked was Nat, maybe Tony (only a little bit though….enough to have saved his life, at least).
Steve didn’t necessarily like Loki, but then, he didn’t dislike him either, maybe even grudgingly respected him after the last mission gone awry. Cap’s shield had been too far out of reach and the explosion would wounded him pretty badly, possibly even killed him, if it hadn’t been for Loki quite literally swooping in (because apparently the bastard could shape shift) and flying Cap to safety.
Clint and Loki had been in an ongoing prank war for nearly two and a half weeks now. Clint had woken up as a Hawk yesterday, so had gotten Loki back (once he’d turned back into his normal self which really wasn’t much of an improvement) by putting dye in the god’s shampoo. Loki had walked out of the shower this morning with green hair and a burning temper.
It was Natasha and Loki who had the best relationship, though. Tony was convinced that on Saturday nights, they sat together on Nat’s bed, drinking vodka and braiding each other’s hair, fantasizing about who they wanted to assassinate first.
As for Tony and Loki….well. They bantered. They argued. They outwitted and outsmarted each other and annoyed the hell out of everyone else. But Tony wasn’t really sure what they were. Unwilling acquaintances, perhaps? Accidental maybe-friends? Nothing more, though. Sure, the god was smoking hot and Tony might have woken up with a hard on a few times because of an extremely sexy dream involving Loki, bondage and whipped cream, but that certainly didn’t mean anything. And he absolutely did not find Loki’s laugh cute, or the way he scrunched his nose up when he didn’t like something adorable. Because Tony Stark didn’t use words like ‘cute’ or ‘adorable’, especially not about ex-psychopathic murderers. Nope, not at all.
It was only four days until Christmas, and Steve had insisted they decorate. Tony had never liked the holiday, though he suspected that was partly (or fully) Howards fault, but when Steve had his mind set on something, there was no stopping him. His buddy Bucky was over, though Tony suspected they were more than buddies, and they’d decked out the tower with green and red everything. Clint had been the one to point out those were Loki’s and Tony’s favorite colors, and Tony had been the one to suggest green and purple instead. No one was much for that idea. So now there was a huge tree in the penthouse, an ungodly amount of colored lights strung up and Dummy had decided tinsel would be a good thing to cover his lab in (it was so completely wrapped around his suit that he couldn’t have gotten in it even if he’d wanted to).
The mistletoe that had been strung up around the penthouse was meant to be a joke; surely no two people would get caught under it at the same time, right? Well, no. Not right. Not right at all.
Tony was just walking out of the kitchen with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand, on his way to the lab and ranting to Jarvis about the snow and the cold and the general lack of respect people had while Black Friday shopping, when he ran directly into Loki’s chest.
The god glowered down at him in his demeaning “must you do this, mortal?” sort of way, but that’s not really what Tony was looking at. No, he was looking at the mistletoe hanging innocently above their heads.
Loki’s eyes followed Tony’s gaze and the emerald orbs widened considerably, glare melting away. Before either of them could escape, however, Clint’s wild laughter (edging on maniac) broke through the extremely awkward silence that had fallen and the devil himself came dancing out of the kitchen in his purple footie pajamas.
“Ha!” Clint exclaimed, a candy cane dangling out of one corner of his mouth. “Now you guys hafta kiss!”
“We do not,” Loki protested.
“We really don’t,” Tony agreed but Clint was having none of it.
“You do! It’s like, Christmas 101! If there’s mistletoe, you’ve gotta kiss.”
“He’s not letting this go, is he?” Tony asked.
“Unlikely,” Loki replied while Clint smiled smugly.
Shrugging, Tony gazed up at Loki before leaning up and kissing him right over the mouth. Loki made a surprised noise in the back of his throat, but his hand came up, curling around the back of Tony’s neck when he tried to pull back, deepening the kiss, running his tongue along the seam of Tony’s lips. Tony parted them obligingly for the god and proceeded to melt in his arms because holy hell, no wonder he was called the Silvertongue.
When they finally separated, Loki was gazing over at Clint with a wicked grin, so Tony turned to look as well, still dazed from the indecently hot kiss.
Clint stood there with his jaw dropped and his eyes wide, his candy cane having fallen out of his mouth to crack on the floor. He then made a purely disgusted noise and bolted from the room, likely to go find Natasha and cry about it to her.
Loki leaned forward again, his lips finding Tony’s ear as he whispered.
“I would very much like to do that again. Although, perhaps without all the clothing in the way.” And with that, he was turning on his heel and walking from the room, leaving Tony gaping after him.
“Are you coming?” the god called over his shoulder, a wicked gleam in his green eyes and oh yes, Tony certainly would be coming today.
He set his coffee down on the table and hurried after Loki.
Down the hall, Natasha smiled as Clint burst into her bedroom and, with a look of abject horror, handed her a twenty dollar bill.