Code 666
PART II - PRESENT
“Okay, Iron man, we need to talk about what happened today.”
Tony groaned out loud, making a face to emphasize how trilled he was. He walked towards the kitchen counter and poured himself some cold coffee from the morning while Steve followed him like a stray kitten.
“I think we can leave it for debriefing, capsicle. I´m not really in the mood for this right now.”
His head was throbbing and his shoulder started to swell ten minutes ago, the last thing he needed was to get scolded by one Captain America for saving some folks when he was supposed to stay on the position.
“Tony, this is serious.” At least it was only two of them in the room. Natasha and Clint went to lick their own wounds, Thor avoiding Tony awkwardly in general and Bruce retreated when he saw the storming clouds above captain´s head after they left Quinjet, which was an excellent choice in Tony´s opinion.
“I know it is, cap, but I tried to explain this to you on several occasions. JARVIS and I… we do calculations very quickly and sometimes there are only seconds left when I can do something to prevent a catastrophe. I know you don´t like it this way, but if I stayed where you ordered those people would be dead and that´s the only thing that matters to me.”
Tony could see how the impact of his words fought with cap´s training behind his blue eyes and facade of no compromise. He probably still thought him reckless and taking too much risk, but he was getting what Tony was implying. He could never work in the team like that – blindly listening to orders when he knew they weren´t accurate. Tony only hoped that now when they had already few things behind them, cap didn´t think the same of him as he´d said back before New York. Those words were still stuck with him and occasionally gave him something to think about.
“I understand, Tony. I don´t think of myself as always right, but I need to trust you on the field. When I expect you to be somewhere, and you are not there, I cannot make other decisions correctly.”
Tony opened his mouth to bite back, but he was interrupted by JARVIS’ urgent voice.
“Sir, I must inform you about code 666 occurring in your workshop.”
Steve lifted his eyebrow in a question.
“Code 666?”
“Something in my lab is going to blow up, nothing unusual you see. I need to go there. You know, mad scientists and all. I get you,” Tony started quickly gathering his coffee and a plate with some morning leftovers from the fridge. Code 666 would surely like the sentiment. “I will try to improve my communication so I won´t break your plans in the future. That´s all I can really promise. I´m just a consultant after all…” he yelled from his elevator before the doors closed and Steve´s disappointed face disappeared behind it. Something was telling him this wasn´t the last time they discussed this.
“JARVIS, what is 666 doing?” he asked with a grin. “Ready for me? Did he by any chance watch the news?”
“Our guest is resting on the sofa, recovering from his recent injuries, sir. He asked about your whereabouts. I gave him the information and was giving him updates throughout your battle.”
“What injuries? Does he need help?” Tony scowled at the lit numbers, making them go faster in his mind, his grin disappearing.
“I think no, sir. It´s the usual amount of… hurt…”
“Oh,” Tony´s heart calmed down a bit. “Okay, was he worried about me?”
JARVIS´ reply came in the tone which suggested Tony should brave up and ask those questions to the right person.
“I believe he was.”
Tony smiled for himself. “Great. Lockdown on workshop, J. I don´t want anyone walking on me and him there.”
He stepped out of the elevator, soft blue light flickering to life as he walked towards the sofa near his worktable, leaving his suit disable itself and open up for him.
There was a pair of boots hanging of the side and a hand carelessly thrown over the top. Tony sidestepped around the sleeping god with a chuckle, setting the coffee and plate away on the small table.
“He was apparently so worried he had to fall asleep from all of the distress.”
Loki shifted on the improvised bed, but didn´t try to pull away the blanket covering him from waist to head. A warm feeling spread in Tony´s chest like it did each time when he saw the god become comfortable enough around him to do even something so mundane as to fall asleep.
The silent whirring at his side caught his attention. Dum-e rolled his way looking too cheerful for Tony’s liking.
“At least don´t suffocate him,” the genius scolded his creation and tugged the hem of the blanket to free Loki´s calm sleeping face. He fought the urge to touch him. He was missing some color, but seemed fine otherwise.
“He usually doesn´t sleep so deep, is everything alright with him, JARVIS? Should I do something?”
“Mr. Liesmith said he only needs to rest. I am monitoring his vitals, sir. I will let you know immediately if anything changes.”
“Okay, J. Let´s see what projects are waiting. I need to work on something. Preferably something I don´t have to discuss with you, buddy. You know I can´t keep it low after a while.” And didn´t that sound dirty…
Tony dropped himself on the chair, glancing at his shoulder with nice purple bruise forming on his skin and called for Dum-e to bring him some ice before he started to work, peering from time to time behind his back at the god. The last time he´s seen Loki it was five days ago. After three months of his regular visits even that was too long for Tony to bear only with himself. During that time he found the god even more fascinating than before. And the sex was beyond any description he could form. They very easily fell into the familiar rhythm without a need to address their actions. Tony was okay with it for now.
Three hours later since he returned, the god of mischief finally made some noise and Tony smiled before rolling with his chair to face him.
“Good morning, honey,” he sang, his grin only widening when he noticed Loki´s initial puzzled expression. He looked much better now even when his eyes were clouded. Tony could recognize it was because of the magic overuse and not some possible brain injury.
“Hi,” Loki blinked away the sleep, looking more adorable than should be allowed. They both noticed Dum-e running with the bottle of some questionable substance towards the couch and Tony grabbed it, looking scandalized.
“You traitor. I´m not even good enough for you to poison me anymore?” Dum-e´s head turned to the ground with a guilt and Loki laughed. The sincerity of the sound made Tony rise his sight.
“They seem desperate for a leader… might want to overthrow you. Maybe it has something to do with all the threats against them?” He looked too innocent still half asleep for Tony to snap at him.
“They know I love them, don´t try to win them over with all your magic tricks. It won´t work.”
Loki´s eyes went full mischief mode when Tony´s chair suddenly started to move towards him on its own.
“I think it will work if I win you over. They will follow.”
“Hmm,” Tony hummed, stopping the chair with his outstretched legs.
“Do you have something specific in mind?”
Loki subtly nodded before he pulled him into a slow kiss. A familiar coldness seeped from his touch.
“Were you in your other form?” Tony asked when they parted, catching Loki´s hand when he flinched away. “It´s okay. It doesn´t hurt. It´s just colder than usual.”
The god looked him in the eyes, but said nothing. It meant Tony was better not knowing where and what he was doing while being away.
“You hurt?” he asked instead, relieved when Loki shook his head.
“You?” He eyed his ice-pack tied to his shoulder and arm like a warning for Tony not to lie.
“I´m good.”
Loki lifted his hand, but Tony stopped him. “No. It´s nothing really. You need to save your magic and beside that… everyone saw how I embarrassingly landed on my ass. They could get suspicious.”
Loki frowned, clearly not agreeing, but he let his hand fall on top of Tony´s instead of its original destination.
“You will tell me if it bothers you too much.”
“Sure,” Tony smiled affectionally, “how long will you stay?” He let his hope show in his voice and Loki noticed. His eyes warming.
“Only today. I need to meet someone soon enough, but first I want to finish the work on your suit.”
Tony caught his eyes lingering on his newest model spread on the nearby worktable covered in engravings. The green haze was still visible above them, but Loki said it will disappear when the process will be over together with the runes, which was practical but a shame nonetheless.
“Careful there, someone might think you care about my wellbeing,” Tony teased, stealing one more kiss from the god.
“I´m just investing into my shelter provider,” Loki bit back.
“You´re full of shit. Beside that I provide you with much more than a shelter. Like food?”
He grabbed the plate from the table and pushed it under Loki´s nose. The way he was watching it said enough.
“Only If you join me,” Loki challenged him and shifted on the couch to make a space for engineer who was more than happy to obligate. They finished it quickly despite Tony not feeling hungry at all at first.
“You did some runes of your own.”
“Hmm?”
Loki pointed at the worktable and Tony nodded, ignoring the strange tone of admiration and surprise coming from him.
“I saw some in that book of yours you lend me to read… when you wanted me to shut up for a minute? You said that anyone can do engravings and magic can be added later. I hope I didn´t mess up too much.”
“No… not at all,” Loki approached the suit, his long, elegant fingers touching the surface, which immediately started to burn with green light in response.
“It responds fast. A lot of mages would envy your skills. When did you learn that?”
Tony knew what was Loki referring to. The runes he made were new ones, created from combinations of two and more. The book said it was possible but not entirely common, but Loki made few like that in the most significant places. The most complicated one, consisting of almost seven of them, was over the arc reactor. It looked beautiful.
“This is the strongest point,” he found himself saying when he let his hand slide over the area. Loki´s eyes were following him closely and one corner of his lips went up.
“You are indeed very sensitive to magic.”
“Advanced science,” Tony mocked him with a grin, “and that´s not the only thing I´m sensitive to.” Their eyes dangerously locked. Tony licked his lower lip.
“Shower?”
It took precisely 6 seconds for them to get in the bathroom while trying to lose their clothes and kissing each other senseless all at once. Tony let Loki lift him and press him with his back on the wall, panting heavily from the lack of oxygen and common sense. He groaned when the god maneuvered him under the stream of water, getting both of them wet, and then stepping back a little, letting his eyes slide over Tony´s body, his soaked black t-shirt sticking to his skin, briefs tight around his erection. There was something absolutely evil and dangerous in his look and Tony loved every part of it. He gasped for air when one of those magical hands encircled his hip and started to pull while Loki buried his face into Tony´s neck making him arch like a bow right towards him.
“Fuck,” Tony rasped, burying his hands into the black hair. Loki seemed to enjoy getting him naked, but he just let his own clothes disappear with a flick of his fingers, never stopping biting and sucking Tony´s skin.
“That´s a plan, yes,” Loki pretty much growled into his ear, grabbing one of Tony´s legs, encouraging him to hook it around his waist while he pressed their bodies together, not leaving an inch of a space between them. Tony´s remaining feet on the ground slipped a bit under the engineer, but Loki steadied him with no trouble.
As his touch and mouth became almost unbearable he finally left Tony to turn around, so he could lean heavily on the wall with one of his hands, sincerely surprised that he still had his t-shirt on. He met with Loki´s fingers squeezing his and encircling Tony´s form to rest on his underbelly, just above his pulsing cock giving a twitch. The ice pack on his shoulder was still there, reminding them both he should not move that one too much.
“You ready?” the god let out a shuddering breath sending chills down Tony´s spine. Loki entered him with his fingers slowly, taking his time to prepare him well and obviously making him crazy with lust. He could feel the air escaping the god´s lips somewhere in the middle of his shoulder blades.
Between the first and the second finger inside Tony started to crush Loki´s hand in his to indicate this was far beyond his waiting limits.
“Please,” he moaned, leaning his head back where his throat was again captured by Loki´s teeth. The fingers slipped from him and something entirely different started to push its way forward in front of his entrance.
“You see how good I am? All you need to do is beg.” And that just gave Tony a very nice and disturbing image of the god in his full armor making him kneel and giving him one of his best craziest looks just before enslaving the humanity. It shouldn´t have turned him up more, but he somehow accepted this was how his life looked now.
He gasped for air when Loki suddenly pushed inside in one thrust, pinning him to the wall in front of him.
“Yes,” he encouraged the god breathlessly, moving alongside him.
In no time bathroom was filled with almost unhuman sounds coming form both of them, as Loki kept pounding into him, fucking him into some other world and the only thing Tony was capable of was to scream for more. Their bodies were meeting again and again, producing wet slapping sounds filling Tony´s ears like a drug. Loki had to sense Tony was near, because he reached with his free hand under his t-shirt, finding a place to rest over Tony´s arc reactor, stroking the scared skin while engineer´s brain just exploded in his skull. The pleasure filling every cell of his body to the point it hurt swept him from his feet, but once more the body behind him didn´t let him to fall down.
Loki finished himself within few seconds, biting into Tony´s good shoulder when the waves didn´t stop to arrive. With his fingers still on the reactor and his cock inside Tony´s ass, very clearly satisfied to the core, he made Tony shiver as well. Reading that state wrongly, Loki pulled out and retreated from both places, turning Tony to face him slowly.
“JARVIS, let warm it here a bit,” he addressed the AI, tugging at the hem of Tony´s t-shirt to get him out of it in order to clean them both up properly.
“I´m not cold.”
“You´re shivering.”
Tony just raised his eyebrow in mocking way before he recaptured Loki´s lips into the kiss. “That´s not from the cold.”
They stayed like that for some time, just enjoying the aftershow, then they both showered as it was originally planned. Okay, it wasn´t, but it was a new plan based on the fact they were already near the water.
Loki seemed doing much better after they got out, he even thought about working on Tony´s suit, before the man in question cut him short on it.
“You can park on the couch again and wait for me to finish this, no more magic allowed for today.” When Loki listened without objections, Tony gave him a look like he expected him to start screaming while dying on his floor.
“You´re okay for sure?” he asked just in case, watching as some of those masks the god was wearing cracked a bit when Tony smiled uncertainly.
A lot of things have changed during those three months. When the god first appeared on that gala and Tony dragged him into the tower, he thought Loki came to say goodbye. One final good sex before he would go chasing his enemies or making new ones, probably some time in the future they would again stand against each other. He at least hoped Loki would not be able to kill him anymore, because he was sure he couldn´t. That was supposed to be the end of their little encounter.
But Loki returned and was returning since that moment not just for occasional sex. Sometimes he would just linger in the room doing his own stuff or watching Tony do his. They started to share meals from time to time. They talked and they fell into the old rhythm they created back in his father´s house. And after a while Tony just figured out that the god didn´t want to leave him be and he didn´t want to be left alone.
They have never spoken about it out loud, but it was a normal thing that Tony now expected him to show up and was naturally worried if the god turned in magically drained or bleeding or with an unexpected delay. Or all of those at once.
“I´m alright.” Loki sat on the couch, eyes staying with Tony´s non-motorized movements.
“Do you want me in your bed tonight?”
Tony looked at him like he was crazy.
“I think you don´t even have to ask that after what´s just happened, but yes. Of course. Do you know I tend to have less nightmares when I sleep with you?” He turned to his computers, but was glancing sideways, fishing for god´s reaction. Just as he thought there was hardly a change in his perfect posture, which only made him remember his groans in the shower and how well could Tony make him shatter.
“And you think it has something to do with me?”
“Well, I have some silly pictures of Asgard in my head and I´m pretty sure I´ve never been there. Thor shared some stories and I found the resemblance of it quite surreal.”
A few seconds passed without anyone saying anything.
“I know you do not wish anyone in your head. I won´t do it again.” Bingo.
Tony looked at Loki, shaking his head. “No, actually I like it. I can´t really sleep well. When you´re here it´s pretty much the only time.” Tony could see his response caught Loki of guard. I only wish I could do the same to you, he thought. There were few times when he woke up and saw that Loki was gone or he was still next to him, but covered in sweat. Something Tony knew on a very personal level.
“Actually, I think we should go to bed now, I feel like I could use some sleep.” And from what he could see, Loki wasn´t about to object.
They used Tony´s personal lift, joking how funny it would be meeting someone on their way to his floor, although they somehow agreed it wouldn´t be fun at all.
The bed had to be a nice change from the couch, because Loki had absolutely no problem with burying himself in the covers head first, moving only when Tony joined him.
They were close, not quite touching, but that usually came during the night when they had no power over their tossing, or mostly Tony had no power over his hands and face finding the nearest source of warm comfortable skin.
“Something´s bothering you,” he whispered to the silence around them. The god´s eyes blinked before they set on his face.
“Yes.” He lifted the cover and threw it around Tony´s body. “Someone is looking for me, someone strong.”
“Heimdall?” Tony suggested, not really aware of how things were with Loki and his family at the moment. Officially he was still guilty of treason and attempt at destroying a planet, but Thor didn´t seem actively looking for him.
“No,” Loki interrupted his inner monologue, “I have spells to hide myself from his sight.”
Goosebumps ran over Tony´s back.
“So is it that other scary guy?”
Loki pursed his lips. “Probably.”
As far as Tony Stark knew, there were only two things Loki was afraid of – Hulk and that other guy who´s name he couldn´t say out loud, because he would invite the motherfucker straight to his head.
“What do you want to do?”
“First I have to find out for a certain, but preferably without the need to meet that person.”
“Now you mean him?”
“No, he rarely does the dirty work. He would send someone.”
Tony didn´t like where it was heading.
“Can I help you?” he asked, hating the fact that Loki was alone trying to find out if the person who´d tortured him and brought him to the edge of insanity was once again after his head.
“No, not now at least. I don´t want to bring them here to you if that is what will happen.”
And wasn´t it nice that Loki just proved he cared about Tony to the point he wouldn’t accept his help despite needing it, only to keep him safe, and at the same time looked like he didn´t even realize he was doing it.
“I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself, you know. After all, I´m that guy who blew their army to the kingdom come. I think they are even more mad at me than at you.”
Loki snorted. “How could I forget?”
“Anyway,” Tony became serious once again, “is there any way you can contact me if something goes wrong? Because if not, I have something for you…” He reached for the drawer in the night stand. “I know you are much better with technology than Thor, so I´m not really afraid you´ll have any troubles to use it.”
Loki raised on his elbows accepting a new starkphone from Tony´s hand.
“Thank you,” he murmured, “that could be helpful.”
“I customized it for you. It means I´m on your screen saver and your ringtone is evil witch laugh from Disney´s Snow White. You´re welcome. And yeah, I would almost forget, if you get yourself into some deep shit, just crush it with your foot or anything and it will send a signal to JARVIS and I will come and save your ass. You´ll never hear the end of it, of course.”
Now Loki really laughed, the phone disappearing from his hand to his invisible storage room.
“I appreciate it. Now, sleep?”
“Sure. Don´t act like I talk too much…”
Tony moved closer to the god, closing his eyes and smiling when he felt Loki´s hand on his hip few minutes later. He was more than happy to welcome unconsciousness, enjoying the warmth feeling in his stomach. He always could feel bad for that tomorrow.