It’s subtle, as is everything about Loki, the way he bristles at touch, when Thor’s hand claps his shoulder or when someone bumps into him and he cringes and glares, until the contact is gone. Yet he’s always so close, to him, always hovering. The thing about those that do, when they do usually they want something of him or want to address him. Loki does not. He remains, sometimes watches him work sometimes looms in his vicinity, occasionally comments here or there either with surprisingly valid or useful input, or japes and quips that tug a smile on Tony’s lips because Loki’s rather amusing, when he wants to be.
What he struggles to explain, to the rest and so doesn’t, is that in spite of Loki’s too frequent presence within his personal space, was the way their boundaries remained. The way they’re able to stay in each other’s vicinity, each occupied with their own affair, and the lingering nearness of another without intrusion, was, reassuring somehow.
Reassuring because when his thoughts veer away to territory he doesn’t favor, when it’s too quiet, he can turn to Loki, and Loki responds and jests and they engage with one another too easily because they’ve too much in common their minds too similar, that it’s easy, to understand so Tony understands, why Loki continues to return why he remains close. For he registers the silence thick that lingers, when Loki is away.
So he hadn’t ever felt the need to question it. Hadn’t felt the need to question why, when he reaches, when he grazes Loki when he touches his arm or his shoulder, the god hardly reacts and doesn’t pull away, despite the slight stiffness that Tony can feel more than see. As if Loki is trying to accept it and this, means more to Tony than he cares to acknowledge at the moment.
It becomes hard to ignore, as they retire for another movie and on accident he sits closer to Loki than usual close enough their arms touch and there is that brief stiffness to Loki, and Tony means to pull away, but doesn’t, for Loki hasn’t shifted, looked at him or commented, expression unchanged. Seconds ticked and the tension fades and Loki remains, and Tony lenifies smiles imperceivably, and stays.
He doesn’t care to explain, to himself, why it seems to matter, that Loki tolerates him this way and no other. But sooner his mind explains in brief, abrupt little phrases that claim how funny he finds Loki, how smart or cool, or warm when they’re so close.
Sooner as but weeks pass and they spend with one another almost every waking hour, he comes to adore him. So much that when Loki returns to Asgard for some royal affair and comes back, two long weeks after, he doesn’t bother and restrain the impulse as he trudged forth and pulled the mage into a tight hug.
Loki’d long since stopped stiffening at his touch, but he stiffened then, for just a second from shock, before he was quick to respond and arms curled around Tony’s frame, tight even as the god laughed softly and teased: “Missed me, did you?”
“Shut up,” Tony grumbled into his shoulder and yes, he had, far more than he could’ve assumed.
He did it more, utilizing humor to lighten the weight of the intimacy of every embrace that followed, as they continued to sit or stand too close, and touch. And as days followed touch was less amiable, shoulder-bumps or back-pats, more affectionate and that was the only word for it. A grasp on the forearm when one was disconcerted, a tug of the wrist so the other will follow, a light squeeze to the knee for reassurance, an embrace too frequent and too long-lasting.
Gradually Tony learns something he had not expected and feels he should have, starting when once Loki’d come to stand just by him, so close that as Tony’s arm shifts as he tinkers it brushes against Loki’s. His mind hardly registers it at first, so used to Loki’s frame the warmth emanating off him, and the faint scent of petrichor and cider.
It slowly picks up on how many times he’s brushed against the mage still standing too close, and for too long now it’s nearly been a minute. Tony glances thinking Loki’d simply fallen emersed in the craftwork or had become lost in thought, as often he was prone to. But finds the god looking at him directly, features plain and he was quiet.
But something in his eyes, subtle and calm as they seemed, clicked for Tony quickly. He discarded all work, tip-toed and draped his arms along Loki’s shoulders, pulled. Was althemore surprised with how readily Loki leaned down, responding. As if he had been waiting for exactly this. And it hits Tony, that he was.
At first he assumes so asks gently: “You okay?”
“Yes,” Loki’d murmured quietly against his shoulder, but in earnest. Tony absently smiled and tightened his hold and Loki pulled him closer. Tony remained, for as long as Loki needed him refusing to retreat, until Loki did, with a smile small yet so genuine, the look in his eyes, for just a moment and Tony’s heart seemed to swell, before green eyes averted and Loki settled into the chair beside him, book emerging, pages open.
Tony remained for a beat rooted, heart racing, red on his cheeks and a smile unwaning. He did it more,
and Loki’s novel reaction, how easily he answers how willingly he leans in, how he asks, without words, that he wants to be close wants to touch, makes Tony ache acutely.
His mind, logical and analytic as it was prone to being, wonders quietly, when last anyone had shown Loki such affection, when last someone had bothered being gentle. When last Loki had let anyone this close.
The fact that he does not want Loki to let anyone else this close, the little prick of satisfaction every time he catches Loki glare at Thor whenever the latter reaches, contrasted with the way Loki’s head starts to lay in his lap, when they’re alone on the sofa. How he lets Tony play with his hair, how his eyes flutter when Tony rubs his head softly.
How Tony muses almost absently, how Loki’s skin would feel under his touch, how close he often is to stroking down his cheek, tracing his thin, pink lips, his collarbones that show beneath the collar of his dress-shirt.
How nice it would be if clothes were discarded and they were under the sheets – and he has mused this scene in context passionate and heated too often, because Loki was gorgeous and brilliant and of course he was attracted to him. But it’s been different in the recent, as he muses them under the sheets where it’s warm and Loki’s close and his eyes close everytime Tony touches him, strokes his arms and back, his smiling face, meeting the god’s discreet need for contact, just that. Touch and nothing more. He’s quick to acknowledge what this means, how far these feelings for Loki have come, this want for simplicity and closeness and contact, with him.
It scared him, because he has never wanted these things, never wanted anyone this way this, intimately. And they are long past the line where they can claim that their every interaction is not innately intimate. And everyone’s noticed and everyone’s spoken and he and Loki deny, deny to themselves even maybe. But for how much longer can he?
Not long, when Loki approached him once and he was sat back against the sofa’s armrest with his tablet. A beat then Loki’s perched at the end of Tony’s outstretched legs, pushed them lightly apart, raising Tony’s brows high his heart leaping. Before the god’d shuffled forward and turned, resting his back to Tony’s thundering chest, head on his shoulder. The shock lasts for but two seconds before he thoughtless set the tablet wherever nearest – the floor, and his arms promptly wrapped around him, squeezed and even his legs pressed against Loki’s, held him kept him pulled him close, and Loki remained, relaxed against him.
As Tony’s head tilts, nose burrowed in Loki’s soft hair and he breathed, he could no longer deny, what he’s perhaps known for a while. In that moment the word clicks like a missing puzzle-piece and for the first time, Tony can tell with utmost certainty, that he’s in love, deeply.
…A part of him, worries, more often than he’d admit. That one day Loki’ll tire of him. The way Pepper was always tired of him that he figured and confided in Loki, one day she’d walk away.
He surprised himself that day, months ago when he had approached her, ended what had become less a relationship and more a struggle, for understanding for compromise for effort. He couldn’t help but think, before and after, as he’d pondered like certain that he’s been the problem, how effortless it is with Loki, everything.
He’d denied to himself, that that had been the reason, the reason he hadn’t waited for the inevitability of her walking away.
Often he dreads that it is as inevitable, with Loki with everyone.
So he struggles to say it, no matter how he aches to tell Loki because Loki deserves to know – deserves to know what he means to him, that he means so much to someone. That if Loki were to walk away, he knows it would break him. Still he can’t keep away would never push Loki away.
Something must’ve shown on his face, as they stood side-by-side in the balcony one night and Loki caught him staring, and Tony couldn’t look away. For then the god, with a smile warm and soft, reached, thumb stroked along his jaw, palm to his cheek then Loki took his face in both hands and came impossibly close that Tony’s breath hitched. And when Loki’s lips pressed against his in a chaste but firm kiss, parted and Tony whispered his voice hoarse to his own ears: “Loki,” and Loki tenderly hushed, thumb drew along his lower, quivering lip. The god whispered, certain:
“I do love you. And I can never leave you, Tony. Not willingly.” He had never been as overwhelmed that tears spilled down his face fast and his heart thud and he ached, in relief, that was almost unbearable. He clutched at Loki’s shirt as the latter wiped his tears with a smile painfully fond, love in his eyes so open and there, that Tony registers he has seen it, numerous times prior but was never certain, always doubted. Loki kissed him again, slowly, surely. He melted into it into him, doubts ebbed away. And he needed him to know it:
“I love you too. Needed you to hear it.” Loki smiled, brightly despite the knowing in his eyes and he brushed a kiss to Tony’s forehead. Tony burrowed into him and Loki held him close and they stayed, locked in embrace, as time passed them.