Fic: Of Apples and Eternal Love (FrostIron) Part 1 of 4

[bookishwench]

Central Park was an oasis of green at the heart of New York, and Loki loved it more than any other place on Midgard. To share it with his beloved Tony was even more wonderful, and as they wandered beneath the welcome shade of the trees in the summer’s heat, their hands clasped and their faces disguised through magic so that they were blissfully anonymous, he knew he had never felt happier. They had spent the day doing ridiculously normal things together that had nothing whatsoever to do with saving this world or any other: feeding pigeons, riding the carousel, strolling along with no particular destination in mind. Now they were eating chocolate ice cream cones while watching ducks on the pond.

“I still like mint chocolate chip better,” Tony said, shrugging. “Too bad they were out.”

A tiny burst of magic, and the ice cream had turned to a soft shade of green.

“That wasn’t actually a request, not that I’m complaining,” Tony said, taking a huge bite, then gagging.

“And that wasn’t actually mint chocolate chip,” Loki replied, laughing.

“What the hell is that?”

“Wasabi,” Loki said innocently.

“With chocolate chips?! Are you crazy?” Tony said, but he was now cracking up as well.

“It’s been said before,” Loki said, licking his cone and making a show of enjoying the flavor.

Tony reached out, grabbed the chocolate cone, and swapped it with the wasabi chocolate chip. Loki pouted spectacularly for a moment, then the cone switched to his favorite chocolate once again. He took another bite and tipped his head to the side, considering.

“It still has a bit of a kick, but that only adds to it,” Loki said, licking it again. “I may have created this summer’s trendiest new flavor.”

“Remind me again why I love you,” Tony said, rolling his eyes.

“That wouldn’t be prudent in a public venue,” Loki said, grinning wickedly in a way that suggested that wasn’t necessarily a deal breaker.

Tony flicked his thumb against Loki’s forehead and shook his head, then sat on a nearby bench. Loki joined him, and the pair began to people watch. A veritable parade of humanity passed by. Children flew kites or played tag, toddlers dozed in strollers while their parents happily embraced a moment of quiet, joggers with earbuds blocked out the rest of the world and appeared either triumphant or in deep pain. Then, of course, there were couples. Couples walking together and laughing, couples looking awkward as they knew their relationship was ending but not wanting to let the sword fall, couples holding hands in comfortable silence from years or decades of practice, all of them had their own story. But the pair Loki noticed most was an elderly couple who came shuffling past, talking to one another a shade too loudly, still obviously in love.

“Cute, aren’t they?” Tony said, gesturing to them with his cone.

“I suppose,” Loki said, but he looked troubled.

“What’s wrong, Green Boy?” Tony said, shifting on the bench so he could see his face.

Loki paused, then asked, “How old do you think they are?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said, glancing at them again. “Eighty? Right around there?”

“Eighty of your mortal years,” Loki said, his tone oddly flat. “You are approaching fifty, are you not?”

“Hey, now, slow down,” Tony said. “Don’t speed up the clock on me. I’m not there yet.”

“Your clock is already going too quickly,” Loki said, and there was no mistaking the sadness in his eyes now. “On Asgard, that couple would have had millennia together. They would have been alive when your ancient Rome had not yet been built or when your pyramids had not yet been thought of.”

“Okay,” Tony said, ditching the rest of his cone in a nearby overflowing garbage can. “I have to admit, that’s kind of incomprehensible to me. Could two people really be together that long and still be in love?”

“I have seen it,” Loki said, not looking up at him.

Tony shook his head, trying to understand.

“This must all seem so temporary to you,” he said, looking around the park. “You could come back here two hundred years from now, even two thousand, and you would barely have changed, right?”

“But the world will be immeasurably different,” Loki said, his eyes following two children playing tag on the grass, then lowering his head. “I would not want to see it then. What is in it that brings me my greatest joy would be gone.”

“Gosh, for a happy date having ice cream in the park on a sunny summer day, this is turning really bleak,” Tony said. “I wasn’t expecting mortality to smack me in the face.”

“Nor was I,” Loki said, looking back at Tony. “I have never seriously considered the ramifications of falling in love with a mortal because I never expected to do so.”

Tony smiled and took his hand.

“I love you too, Lokes,” he said, “for however long we get. Come on, cheer up and think positive. The Chitauri might invade again and we’ll both die! Hooray!”

Loki snorted in laughter, but as they walked home, he was more quiet than usual, and that night, he held Tony a little more tightly in their bed.

When morning came, Tony woke alone. That wasn’t a first. Loki was prone to getting up in the early hours of the morning, fueled by a frightening amount of caffeine and ready to wreak mischief on whatever target had crossed his mind. However, finding a note on his pillow was new.

Darling, I will be gone a few days. I promise to return as soon as I can. L.

Tony’s heart sank with disappointment. The anniversary of their first date was two days away, and he had been hoping to spend it with Loki, but whatever had taken him away seemed to make that impossible. Grumpy, he got out of bed, threw on his work clothes, and went down to the lab to take out his disappointment on a suit with malfunctioning stabilizers.

Two days passed without word from Loki, and then suddenly the Bifrost opened on the roof of the tower. The ear-splitting explosion and eye-searing light absolutely delighted Tony, as did his lover’s arrival.

“Babe,” he said, running toward him. “You’re home!”

“Yes and no,” Loki said, and his face was troubled. “Tony, would you be able to accompany me to Asgard for a week or so?”

“I thought humans were forbidden,” Tony said.

“Normally, yes, but I secured an exception from my father,” Loki said. “Will you come?”

“Sure, just let me get—”

“Excellent,” he said, throwing an arm around him and nodding, which was apparently the signal for the entire universe to turn inside out.

As abruptly as it began, it stopped. Tony found himself standing under a golden dome, and a very tall man with an equally enormous sword was staring at him with disturbingly perceptive eyes.

“Maybe gimme a little more warning next time?” Tony said, nearly toppling over.

“Welcome to Asgard, Anthony Stark,” the other man said.

“Thanks, glad to be here, but can this place stop jumping up and down like a drunk kangaroo so I can get my balance back?” Tony said, glancing at Loki. “Not that I’m not thrilled to take a vacation somewhere new and exotic, but I have the feeling this is about a whole lot more than a little R&R.”

“Correct,” Loki said, then sighed. “Let us walk.”

“Nice meeting you,” Tony shot over his shoulder at the other man.

“Likewise,” he responded, but he did not smile. In fact, Tony was pretty sure he’d never smiled since the dawn of time.

“Who was that guy?” Tony whispered.

“Heimdall.”

“Oh, the gate-keeper,” Tony said. “Right. The one who can see everything everywhere.”

“Precisely.”

Tony turned around to look at him.

“I feel really, really naked right now,” he muttered. “Just sayin’.”

“He’s used to that reaction,” Loki said with a half-smile.

The bridge fascinated Tony as the interplay of colors changed and shifted with each of their steps. By the time they reached the city itself, he had already peppered Loki with dozens of questions about its composition, its purpose, its designers, its upkeep, and its history. As usual, the pair of them were speaking in scientific jargon that would have left the average mortal or Asgardian utterly confused, but they were entirely on equal terms.

“So, now that we’ve exhausted all the topics related to the Asgardian version of the Department of Roads and Transportation, how about you telling me why you literally swept me off my feet to bring me here,” Tony said.

“Do you mind?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Curiosity is your natural state.”

“Hey, what’s that thing?”

“That is the armory.”

“No, no, that thing there.”

“Anthony, that is a horse.”

“Oh,” Tony said, the horse’s tail hitting him in the head as he walked past. “Right. Little overwhelmed. Brain not entirely functional at the moment.”

“We just spent five minutes discussing interdimensional portals as related to the prismatic separation of light through space,” Loki said, “and yet you are baffled by the existence of a horse.”

Tony shrugged and said, “Well, yeah. You don’t have cars up here?”

“We have vehicles of various kinds,” Loki said. “We simply prefer horses.”

“Don’t they poop everywhere?” Tony said, scanning the pristine roads. “Why isn’t there poop everywhere?”

“You are the strangest mortal I have ever met,” Loki said, his lips almost curving into a smile, but it was still obvious something was wrong. “I would enjoy explaining more of our culture later if you like, but for now we need to get to the palace quickly.”

“Why don’t you just teleport us there?”

“Because right now it isn’t the most desirable way of avoiding my father’s ire,” Loki said as they continued to walk briskly. “Chambers have already been set aside for you.”

“I’m not staying with you?” Tony said, his face falling.

“Protocol expressly forbids a guest from another realm cohabitating with a member of the royal family inside the palace,” Loki said, then, with a grin, he added, “however, protocol is significantly less specific when it comes to guests staying in rooms with a door that adjoins the prince’s rooms.”

Tony snorted but looked relieved. He disliked sleeping alone in a strange place at the best of times, regardless of whatever etiquette demanded, and Asgard was plenty strange.

The streets of the market passed by in a blur of gold. The air smelled different, cleaner even than the countryside on Earth, and the sounds were clearer and crisper. It was a beautiful spot, though a little too reminiscent of a Ren faire for his own taste. Finally, the palace came into view more clearly.

“You live in a giant pipe organ?” Tony asked.

“I am going to pretend I did not hear that,” Loki said, rolling his eyes.

“What? It looks like a pipe organ.”

“It’s a palace that has stood for thousands of years and has housed generations of royalty.”

“And it also looks like a pipe organ,” Tony repeated.

“I suppose it does,” Loki said, rubbing his forehead distractedly. “It is not, however, musical. Though now I can’t get that idea out of my mind and it’s really rather intriguing, but we are here for more serious issues.”

“Okay, fine,” Tony said. “Again, what are we doing here?”

Loki stopped in his tracks and appeared to be searching for the right words. He glanced around the street as if looking for something, then grabbed Tony’s hand and led him to sit beside him on a wooden bench a little off from the road. Loki continued to hold his hand, and he looked oddly nervous.

“Simply put,” Loki said quietly, “do you wish to continue your relationship with me?”

“You didn’t take me all the way to Asgard to dump me, right?” Tony said, sounding a little horrified.

“What? No!” Loki said, looking him in the eye. “No, I… I would choose you over anyone else for the rest of my life. I merely wish to be sure you feel the same.”

“Duh,” Tony said, but when Loki didn’t laugh, he became more serious. “Of course. I’m in love with you.”

“And would you consider making this relationship more,” Loki drew in a nervous breath before saying, “permanent?”

“Define permanent,” Tony said suspiciously.

“Would you consent to marry me?” Loki said, looking far more unsure of himself than he had in a long time.

“Yes, of course I would,” Tony said immediately, and Loki gave him a brilliant smile for a heartbeat until he continued, “but I thought you wouldn’t want that.”

“Why not?”

“The whole mortal thing,” Tony admitted. “Even if we stay together the rest of my life, it’s going to be like nothing for you.”

“And what if our lives could be equally long?” Loki asked him.

“That’s possible?” Tony asked.

“It is.”

“How?” he asked, curiosity dancing in his eyes again.

“My father has golden apples that have a spell upon them capable of extending a mortal’s life, but they are rarely granted,” Loki said. “In my lifetime, not even one has been bestowed. But I have asked him to grant that opportunity to you. He has not yet given me an answer, but if he agrees, would you be willing to marry me?”

“Yes,” Tony said, then smiled. “I’d marry you regardless, whether it’s for fifty years or five thousand, and I admit this whole thing is making me a little dizzy, though some of that could still be the Bifrost, but yes.”

Tony found himself pulled into a kiss that left him blissfully happy, but something still seemed off.

“This is not the way I had planned to do this,” Loki admitted, smiling wistfully at him. “I had a plan. I intended to propose on our anniversary, but there was to be a ring, food, music, even fireworks. Well, if you had said yes, of course. I doubt I would have felt much like watching fireworks if you had refused. However, my plans very rarely go the way I imagine them.”

“I don’t care about the big show thing. This is way more than enough, but it begs the question of what changed and why we’re here,” Tony said.

“My father has sent word he will give his answer this evening,” Loki said. “If the answer is yes, and I hope it will be, it would be wise if we were wed immediately.”

“Rhodey is going to kill me for missing this, but yeah, if we need to. We can always do the whole party thing on Earth later,” Tony said.

Loki let out a breath that he’d obviously been holding.

“I will make it more than worth your while, darling,” he promised.

“I’m counting on that,” Tony said, grinning. “Okay, I don’t want to make a bad impression on my future father-in-law by being late, so let’s get moving before I start getting way more creative with this bench than I should in a semi-public venue.”

Loki laughed, then, still holding his hand, led him swiftly towards the palace.