Warm
Yes Loki was avoiding him.
Loki was not a patient man, and not a man prone to sentiment. Loki thought it all well and done after the dust’d settled – he was ready, for whatever the outcome but he could not have excepted this outcome, when Tony Stark had wedged himself into the matter when he found himself stuck here, as opposed to a cell as opposed to dead. And he continued to come, entice him to follow to see and learn and aim to solve the puzzle that was Tony Stark,
to realize swiftly it was no mystery, to realize their minds were one, distressingly so but eventually,
solace, in the failure of pretense, and sincerity Loki long forgot the meaning of, to converse without webs of deception, to be silent without assumption, to smile or laugh genuinely, to be surprised still,
by the way he thinks the passion glowing radiant, the kindness in his heart the purity of it deep within poorly conserved, that Loki made his goal to conserve, long before he realized that he had – when he found himself irked when Tony Stark was berated or undermined when he found himself responding on the man’s behalf biting back, when he found himself alert when Iron Man returns from battle bruised, when he’s on his feet when lab incidents leave an injury he was quick to heal and Tony would look at him, gleaming eyes warm and beckoning, and Loki was lost,
the way his rigid heart beat, seeing him and he smiles.
“Hello, kitten,” rewarded with a familiar expression lacking amusement that to Loki’s chagrin he found terribly adorable. He found terribly enticing Tony still in his clothes, the sleeves and pant-legs preciously rolled up because they were too long his shirt too big – Loki ached to just hold him.
…Loki knows himself he knows, the horrid being that he is his endless flaws and yet.
He perceives how all stiffness from the man bleeds out around him, how crumble down all walls how he trusts,
and Loki would be damned to break that.
There is nothing else for him, in this dreadfully dull world. He only wants one thing, he wants Tony to let him, do everything in his power, to preserve, revive, the brilliant, weary soul of Tony Stark.
XXX
“Think you’re funny, huh?”
“Indeed. As do you,” Loki teased refaced his book, grinned when Tony quipped:
“I think you’re an ass.”
“Do you?”
“Loki.”
“Yes dear.” Stark plucked up the book. Loki smiled up at him, wider given he was still half cat and still Loki found it hilarious. And painful.
Tony moved set himself top the desk, his tail grazing Loki’s knee and he looks at it. “Why aren’t you in the lab?” Tony asks Loki’s smile wanes slightly, as forth he leans, twirling the soft tail between his fingers, relishing how pliant it was.
Loki was not a patient man. So he answers: “Because I terribly want to pet you. And you make it very difficult not to,” and when he looks up browns are wide Tony blushed and be damned…
Lenified in a way, before, very abruptly, Stark’d deposited himself, right onto Loki’s lap. Curled in it burrowed close pressed his face to the god’s neck, who was justly stunned, quickly overwhelmed and he clung, pulled the man close breathed: “Anthony,” who was quick to respond by nuzzling and clutching and Loki was gone.
“…I’m breaking up with Pepper.” The mage froze. He has long awaited to hear that,
and much as in turmoil does it leave him, the thought of them, him and Tony and the thought of one day, hurting him, the thought of one day Tony, hating him, fazed him to no end that he’d rebuke the notion.
And long still.
So he must ask: “…Why?”
“Seriously?” He huffed a chuckle absent. Bizarre indeed was the question. He teased:
“Suddenly you find me irresistible?”
“…Not suddenly,” Tony murmured in a gravity that had Loki soften, as he burrowed even closer and Loki held him arms circled tight, chin rested top his head as he brushed the short tufts of hair at his temple, other hand kneading his bicep.
Tony hummed in content breathing in Loki’s scent, and purred, unabashed he wants Loki to know how much he likes this, the closeness the tenderness in the god’s touch for him, the warmth. For up to an hour they stay like this.