“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.”
-John Greenleaf Whittier
He’d left Anthony nearly three months ago; catching him with that blond woman while she practically shoved her sex under his nose, it had been the breaking point for Loki.
There had been quite a bit of arguing between them before he’d left; over petty things, really- Anthony’s mortality, Loki’s persistence, their stubbornness.
The last argument had gone a little something like this;
“Anthony?” Loki had asked, making his way into the lab where Anthony had spent the last three days.
“Hm?” the inventor said absently, not even glancing up from his work.
“Can we talk?” He stepped a bit closer.
“Talk.”
Loki frowned a bit at the answer, but nodded.
“I….have a gift for you.” When there was no answer, Loki reached out and gently squeezed Anthony’s shoulder.
The inventor startled and turned to him, looking rather sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck with an open palm.
“Sorry, babe,” the mortal said, giving Loki his full attention.
He was calm up until the point Loki presented the golden apple.
The next ten minutes were a rush of yelling and thrown objects (the apple had been one), ending when Loki had finally yelled;
“If you don’t want me, perhaps I should just leave!”
And Tony had yelled right back.
“Maybe you should!”
Loki could swear he’d felt his heart break.
He didn’t stay long enough to see the horrified look on Anthony’s face as his words caught up with him.
So it had gone a little something like that, and now Loki had been miserable for three months because of some argument and Anthony’s never-dying habit of being a “playboy”, as he had put it…or used to, he supposed. He hadn’t heard the inventor call himself that since they’d gotten together two years ago.
It had taken a week and a half after the three month mark to decide to go back to his (ex?) lover.
Upon arriving back in their Malibu home, it seemed Anthony hadn’t fared any better.
The lab was littered with empty, paper coffee cups and half full, glass whiskey bottles.
Metal, plaster and concrete littered the floor; the lab had been utterly destroyed after Loki had left, though he could tell there had been an effort to fix what had been broken.
And amidst it all sat Anthony, calm as can be, sitting atop one of his cars, the gauntlets of his suit on either hand, a whiskey bottle held delicately in one iron grasp.
“I’m borderline ready to make some snappy comment about how I’m too irresistible, but I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t be appreciated and would lead to tears on both ends and possibly some yelling and maybe a bit of sex.” Anthony thought for a moment. “Not that that last wouldn’t be preferable.”
Loki shook his head. “Anthony, please….”
“Also, that blond chick crawled into my lap without my permission and attempted to suck my dick, but upon finding out I was in a steady relationship with a man I love more than anything I ever have, she stuck her nose up and left shortly after you did. And, I ate that apple and now I can’t get drunk and it sort of sucks. Dummy misses you. Jarvis misses you. Butterfingers keeps making two smoothies instead of one. And I realized that I need you and that I hope you need me too, but I doubt it otherwise you wouldn’t have left in the first place but I didn’t realize how much I needed you until I didn’t have you and then I just sort of drowned because I didn’t have anyone holding me up and-” Loki silenced the rambling mortal with a soft touch of his lips to Anthony’s.
“I’m sorry, Anthony, I’m so sorry. I should’ve stayed long enough to ask what had happened. I was an idiot and I am truly sorry for it.” Realizing how stupid he’d been, he really wished he could do things over and also- wait, wait, he ate the apple?
“Anthony…bear with me….you ate the apple? You know what-”
“I do and I did, under the hopeful pretenses that you would come home.”
Oh, it broke his heart; home. Because Anthony was home and he was Anthony’s home and this was their home.
“Please, I…” Loki took a deep breath and looked into Anthony’s sorrowful brown eyes. “Can we start anew?”
Anthony smiled then; the one Loki knew meant it was either that or cry. “I think you know the answer, Loki, but if you don’t, I believe everyone deserves a first chance at a second beginning.”
And then the mortal was pressing his lips against Loki’s, and Loki felt like he couldn’t breathe and it was either that or drown in Anthony and he wasn’t sure which he wanted to do, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t dare breathe again if it meant he was able to keep Anthony and be kept in return.
Loki leaned back just enough; pressed his forehead against his lover’s and whispered;
“I love you, Anthony Stark.”
A soft smile and an even softer breath against his lips.
“I love you too, Loki Laufeyson; forevermore.”