Fic: The Most Important Meal of the Day (Loki/Tony)

[bookishwench]

Tony wasn’t sure when Loki had begun lurking around his lab like a tall, green, sarcastic shadow. He hadn’t questioned it at first, deciding that the best way to get rid of him was to deny him the attention he was obviously craving. It didn’t work. Day after day, regardless of security systems and JARVIS, Tony would walk into the lab and find the second prince of Asgard sprawling lazily on a chair. Usually he was staring out the window and barely registering Tony’s presence. But weirdly, after the first few times, Tony always found a bagel with shmear and a smoothie with exactly his preferred ingredients sitting on the worktable, waiting for him. Loki never said a word about it. And it wasn’t even poisoned. He’d checked.

“Do you even eat?” Tony finally asked one morning.

Loki didn’t turn from his view of the Pacific but said, “If I am hungry, yes.”

“And are you?”

“Why?”

“Not an answer, Greenie.”

“Not required to give one, Shortie.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. It was the friendliest exchange they had ever had, which wasn’t saying much, but it was something.

The following morning, Tony had come down the stairs to find his usual breakfast awaiting him and Loki sitting in his usual spot.

“Got something for you,” Tony said, slapping a plate on the table.

Loki deigned to twist his head in Tony’s direction and frowned at what he saw.

“What in the name of Heimdall’s bootlaces is that disgusting concoction?” he said, looking more curious than repulsed.

“Waffles,” Tony said.

“Why do they have pox marks?”

Tony rubbed his forehead in frustration before saying, “To hold in the maple syrup and butter. I take it you’ve never had them.”

Loki’s lips curled back in a grimace that gave a clear answer.

“I was up early, so I made them. You’ve been magically producing some top-quality bagels for a few weeks. I figured I owed you,” Tony said, hopping onto a stool and ripping a bite of the usual bagel with his teeth.

“These… things… are for me?” Loki said, looking at him uncertainly.

“G’on,” Tony said through a full mouth. “You’ll like it.”

Loki looked doubtful but picked up the fork that was balancing on the edge of the plate and experimentally poked the stack of waffles.

“They’re not going to explode, cross my heart,” Tony said, pointing at this arc reactor, “although now I’m wondering how effective exploding waffles might be under the right circumstances. Might have to research that. Anyway, hurry up eat or they’ll get cold.”

“A tragedy, I’m sure,” Loki scoffed, but he did take the smallest bit of one corner and pop it in his mouth as though he were proving a point.

“And?” Tony said.

Loki half-shut his eyes and chewed thoughtfully.

“It’s not abhorrent,” he said, taking a larger piece this time. “Certainly it would never be considered a fit dish on Asgard, even at a pauper’s table, let alone in the king’s hall.”

Tony rolled his eyes and slurped his smoothie much louder than necessary.

“Still,” Loki admitted, “it’s rather pleasant.”

Over the next five minutes, both of them finished every crumb of their respective breakfasts. Loki’s enthusiasm for waffles seemed to grow with every bite.

“See?” Tony said. “Good, right?”

“Fair.”

“Loki, I saw you literally licking your fork.”

“This liquid. What is it?” he said.

“Good old maple syrup,” Tony said.

“Maple?” Loki said, sniffing the plate curiously. “Like the tree?”

“Yeah, the people who make it stick a pipe or something in the tree and it drains out,” Tony said, frowning. “I don’t really know how it works exactly. Damn. Now I’m going to have to look this up.”

“So it’s tree blood?” Loki said.

“I guess you could call it that if you’re psychotic,” Tony said, “which of course you are, so it makes sense.”

Loki glared at him without too much malice for a moment, then got up and began to retreat to the other side of the lab, most likely to take up his usual spot on the couch for the next several hours, but Tony stopped him.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

Loki halted abruptly, then turned to face him again.

“What specifically are you referring to?”

“Bunch of things, really. Why do you come down to the lab? Why do bother bringing me breakfast? Why do you always go off by yourself and just sit there for ages, not saying anything?”

“Does it bother you?”

“Frankly, yeah. I can’t get a bead on what you’re trying to accomplish,” Tony said, walking around the table and going closer to him. “What’s the deal?”

Loki paused for a moment, his expression surprisingly vulnerable for a moment before his usual disdainful mask snapped back into position as he said, “If you are such a genius, mortal, figure it out for yourself. A god does not reveal his intentions.”

The effect of Loki turning and majestically strutting towards the couch was rather marred by Tony’s loud snort.

“Fine, you want me to play guessing games, you’ve got it,” Tony said. “You’re bored, for one thing.”

“How astute of you,” Loki said, his tone suggesting a snail could have realized as much.

“Yeah, but you don’t do anything down here that could be considered exciting,” Tony said. “You just sit there. Why not go wreak havoc on Fury or annoy your brother and invade Guam or something?”

“Because I don’t feel like it,” Loki said, examining his nails.

A thought occurred to Tony, but it was so ridiculous that he didn’t think it was possible. The more he turned it over in his mind, though, the less ridiculous it seemed.

“Are you lonely?” Tony asked, his voice laced with shock.

Loki’s head whipped towards him, his eyes hard.

“Of course not,” he said.

“No, you are,” Tony said, walking closer. “You can’t stand any of us, though, so why not just zoom off to wherever and be with one of your own friends.”

A bitter laugh escaped Loki for a second.

“You don’t have any, do you.”

“I have minions, sycophants, servants, and the entire royal army of Asgard at my beck and call,” Loki said coldly.

“Yeah, and that answered my question. You don’t.”

Loki grimaced, then sat down again in what was unmistakably a sulk.

“Okay,” Tony said, a little thrown by the sheer normalcy of Loki having some kind of recognizable emotion, “I admit it, most of us don’t really like you, but you get that you’re doing that to yourself, right?”

“Of course,” Loki spat out. “I’m not an imbecile.”

“No, you’re not. Which means you’re doing it on purpose. Why?”

Loki gave him a look that was filled with loathing, but Tony realized something for the first time. Loki would often give the same look to Thor, and while the pair of them squabbled all the time, Tony had no doubt Loki cared for his brother. So it didn’t necessarily mean he truly hated the person on the other end of that glare.

“Really. Why?” Tony pressed. “If you were even moderately friendly, we wouldn’t reject you. We’ve had weirder people than you in our fun little club.”

“I have absolutely no interest in being accepted by a group of mortals with delusions of grandeur,” Loki said, smirking. “I am here only as a requirement of my punishment from the Allfather. I assure you, had I my own preference, I would be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Well, practically. There are a few parts of the universe even more desolate than this cesspool, but not many.”

“Thanks,” Tony said. “I think there was almost a compliment in there somewhere.”

Loki rolled his eyes and huffed out an amused breath as he took up his usual spot on the couch, propping his feet up on the back and allowing his long limbs to fall into a relaxed jumble. That was what got Tony’s mind clicking. He went back over every word Loki had said, weighing his word choice and inflections, what he wasn’t saying, his expressions and body language, and his own instincts. He squinted through half-closed eyes until he had a conclusion.

“Huh,” Tony said, sounding slightly surprised. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“What’s what?” Loki asked, not bothering to look at Tony and instead continuing to stare at the ceiling.

“It’s the mortal thing,” Tony said. “You’re not interested in making nice with any of us because we’re mortals.”

Loki raised his head to look at him and gave him a slow clap.

“Yes, you’re beneath my notice. How clever of you to finally recognize what I’ve been very clearly saying for months.”

“Not what I meant,” Tony said. “You don’t like that we’re going to die.”

“Your lives are indeed ludicrously brief, and therefore pointless,” Loki said.

“Except you keep risking your life to save our puny ones,” Tony said.

“That is my punishment.”

“Which you don’t need to be doing quite so vigilantly, Green Machine. And you are. You saved Natasha’s neck last week and took some serious damage doing it. You’re still limping a little, and with your accelerated healing rate, that means it had to be a doozy.”

Loki ignored him.

“You don’t want to get emotionally involved with people who are going to turn their toes up to the daisies in what’ll feel like a couple weeks to you, do you,” Tony said.

“Imagine whatever fantasies you wish, but don’t expect me to confirm them.”

“You’re also not denying them,” Tony said. “No, I get that, but what’s really baffling me is why you’re hanging around down here with me, even stealing me bagels.”

“I am not stealing your bagels,” Loki said with a sigh.

“Are you paying for them?”

Loki gave him a look that suggested Tony had completely lost his mind.

“Okay, so unless you’ve added Morally Ambiguous Bagel Baker to your resume, I give up.”

Loki raised a well-groomed eyebrow at the job description, then shook his head, saying, “A delicatessen three streets over was having problems with a gang insisting upon taking a portion of their earnings. I had a discussion with one of the members that ended with him being pursued by what he thought was a ten-foot spider. The owner insisted on giving me a dozen bagels every day along with a container of their homemade cream cheese.”

“So you’ve tried them?”

Loki nodded absently, staring at the ceiling with a bored expression. Tony’s face slowly split into a grin.

“And you like them.”

Loki snorted then said, “It’s pathetic mortal stuff, of course, but admittedly, they are edible.”

“You’re eating the other eleven every morning, aren’t you,” Tony said, starting to outright giggle. “That’s why I’ve never seen you actually eat anything in the morning before. You’re crammed to bursting with good old New York bagels.”

A loud huff of disbelief from the couch as Loki rolled over and prepared to fall asleep. Tony almost let him drift off, but something was bothering him.

“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” he said. “Why are you showering me with your divine leftovers? You could put them on the table in the boardroom and score points with everyone, but you’re only offering anything to me. Why?”

Loki’s form was entirely too still, and seconds ticked past.

“You amuse me,” he finally said. “I— enjoy your company. At times. Occasionally. It seemed a small thing to do.”

“So my being a mortal doesn’t bother you so much? Knowing I’m going to kick off in less time than it takes you to sneeze?” Tony asked.

To his surprise, Loki spun back towards him as though he were countering an attack. The look on his face was almost frightening.

“Do not speak of such a thing,” he ordered, his voice dark. “Do not draw the Norns’ attention to your paltry thread. It brings bad luck.”

“And you’d care about that why?” Tony said.

“Because I do not wish to lose you!” he spat out angrily as though it were somehow Tony’s fault.

Tony stared at him for a full minute in stunned silence, and Loki didn’t look away.

“You like me,” he finally said as though he were trying out the words. “Huh.”

“Yes, ‘huh,’” Loki said, leveling a scathing glare at him. “How eloquent.”

“So are the bagels one of those, what did Thor call them, courting gifts Asgardians give?” Tony asked.

“That is a possible interpretation, but they do not need to be,” Loki said carefully. “They do not need to be anything at all. This conversation can be completely forgotten if you wish.”

“Yeah, sorry, not leaving my mind any time soon,” Tony said.

He saw the flinch that spasmed across Loki’s face at lightning speed.

“Do whatever you want,” Loki said.

“Don’t know what that is yet,” Tony said, tipping his head to one side. “This is kind of out of the blue. Really didn’t see this one coming.”

“Your powers of observation leave rather a lot to be desired,” Loki said disdainfully.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not intrigued now that I know.”

“Obviously, you have no interest, so… wait, what?” Loki said, stopping midway through getting up and stalking across the room towards the door.

“You’ve got the ears of a god, right? You heard me.”

“You would consider--?” Loki said, his voice drifting off as a softer look came into his eyes.

“Maybe. I’ve dated much weirder people than you,” Tony said, shrugging.

“Like who?” Loki said curiously.

“Meh, the one guy who was obsessed with bats was pretty high up there on the list. Slept hanging upside down. Strange dude. Anyway, what do you say we meet up for breakfast again tomorrow and see how it goes?”

Loki came several steps closer, looking decidedly thunderstruck, but the corners of his mouth were beginning to curve upwards. Very slowly, allowing Tony to back away if he chose, Loki reached out and took one of his hands in his own, then bent to place a single kiss on the back of it. At the same moment, a tiny spark of what Tony assumed had to be magic tingled across his skin where Loki’s mouth had been.

“Just a small demonstration of one of my talents,” Loki said, giving him a grin and a bow before going back up the stairs. “I assure you, I have others. I look forward to our meeting tomorrow morning.”

“Yup,” Tony said, watching him as he went back up the stairs and taking a moment to admire the view. “Platypus was right. When it comes to relationships, I might lack any self-preservation instinct, but damn, can I pick ‘em.”


Actually wrote this last month and forgot to post here.