Our Coffee Shop
Of course he knew where Tony Stark lived; not only for the fact that they lived right next door to each other, but because honestly, who didn’t know where Tony Stark lived?
After having gone home from the beach, pondering Tony’s words and that look he got and ignoring the fact that Tony was so damn hard to understand, he’d done a bit of research on his own and really, Tony Stark was everywhere. They had fan-clubs and websites and honestly, it was a wonder Loki had never heard of him. Everyone had heard of him, it seemed. Supposedly, Tony Stark was a genius billionaire who created weapons for his company, up until last year for some unknown reason after he’d emerged from captivity after three long months of nothing, where the world thought he was dead. And then his big comeback had set off an entirely new chain of fan-clubs and websites, after his admission to being Ironman. Clicking on a video taken by an amateur cameraman (he must’ve been new- he couldn’t steady the damn camera!), he sat quietly and curiously, watching Tony Stark’s stumbling words.
The man was fiddling with a small stack of note cards, gazing at the crowd of people he was safely separated from by the podium in front of him.
“I’m just not the hero type. Clearly, with this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made; it’s largely public. Yeah, okay, yeah….The truth is…is…..” The Tony onscreen trailed off, his eyes darting off to the side and Loki barely heard the whispered “stick to the cards” from someone he couldn’t see. Tony straightened up, broadened his shoulders and stared straight at the camera before him, saying calmly;
“I am Ironman.”
The camera shook and was knocked in every direction at the admission, voices shouting over each other, bodies pressing forward, cameras flashing and Loki clicked on the screen, pausing the video. Ironman? Loki had heard of him, of course. Everyone had. He was the rouge superhero, borne from captivity and molded by torture. But this? The Tony Stark who came to the same coffee shop every day and bought the same coffee each time as an excuse to see Loki? That was not the Tony he knew. Given, he hadn’t known him for long, but the Tony he knew wasn’t a superhero. He was just…Tony. Intelligent, witty, sarcastic Tony, but Tony nonetheless. He wasn’t…a weapons monger, or a superhero. He was just…a person. Yes, of course he knew that weapons mongers and superheroes were people but they were different somehow. They were…above the rest, not with them, not mingling and flirting and going to galas with them. Or, well, hosting galas with them. It was preposterous, the thought of Tony being Ironman. Of course, no matter how much he didn’t believe it, there was the one screaming thing he didn’t dare ignore; the glowing circle in Tony’s chest certainly looked a lot like the one in the chest of the Ironman suit.
And so it was, Tony Stark was a superhero. A genius, billionaire, philanthropist superhero, but a hero nonetheless. It was…well, Loki wasn’t entirely sure what it was. Unbelievable? Amazing? Shocking? Incredible? There were many, many words Loki could use to describe his shock, but not a single negative word had the pleasure of being written on his mental list. Perhaps….yes. He would go to Stark’s gala with him.
Decision having been made, he went off to get himself ready for bed, deciding he would wait until Tony came the next morning to the coffee shop and tell him then.
*
Except, Tony didn’t come the next morning to the coffee shop.
It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except it was because Tony had been coming to the coffee shop without fail for the past days since he’d moved in and there was the possibility that something bad had happened; maybe he’d been in a car accident on his way here or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to see Loki after his rather rude confrontation on the beach, and no Loki was not worried, he was simply trying to figure out what reason Tony could possibly have for not coming this morning. That was all.
Natasha, of course, sensed something was desperately wrong when she “didn’t see you ogling Stark this morning- where is he?” He’d simply laughed and denied that he had never ogled Tony; it was more of a…polite stare.
And then Tony did come in. In the middle of the afternoon, around one o’clock when no one came for coffee anyways. And he had his arm slung around redheaded woman’s slim waist, laughing happily at something she had said. His hair was rumpled, his suit jacket was unbuttoned, and he had a dark bruise forming just over his pulse point (as if someone had suckled at the skin there, his mind so happily supplied).
Loki felt his heart sink but he didn’t say anything; no, he smiled a strained smile, got Tony his usual and turned to the woman.
“Hello, Miss. What can I get for you?”
“Got any booze?” she asked and then giggled and by god, she was drunk. Stark had actually brought a drunk woman into the coffee shop. His coffee shop. Their coffee shop.
“No,” he responded icily, surprising Tony and perhaps even himself.
“Christ, Lokes. What the hell?” Tony asked, eyes wide and surprised.
“Is that really all you’ve got to say for yourself right now? You bring this drunk woman into our coffee shop, after having asked me last night to go to your ridiculous gala? After you’ve been flirting with me for days? After you showed me all the signs that you liked me? You have the audacity to bring this woman here after all you have done to show me you would like more than simple coffee with me?” Loki is well aware he is acting like a child, but he couldn’t care less. That Stark dared do this-
“Our coffee shop?” Stark asked quietly, surprise written in his every feature, but something else, too, something almost like guilt.
“Yes, Stark,” Loki snapped. “Ours. Clearly, I misjudged that, however. And that can be entirely blamed on you, you insolent, ignorant, asshole of a-”
He didn’t get any farther before Tony surged across the counter top, took Loki’s face in his hands, and kissed him like his life depended on it.