Archive of Our Own ^beta

It seemed like a good idea, when Tony heard approaching sirens and saw all the other traffic pulling over, to pull over right along with the crowd.

It seemed like a good idea.

But he could have avoided the whole mess that followed if he’d just kept driving twenty feet more.

The sirens got closer, and Tony glance behind him to find a beat-up little white prius barreling down the highway toward him, well ahead of the flashing lights making chase.

A prius? Seriously?

Then the little car started wobbling from side to side with the effects of a deflating tire, spun out, and

WHAM

The noise was jarring.

It took Tony a few seconds of blinking to make sense of what had happened.

He wasn't hurt.

Neither was his darling convertible. Good.

He checked his rearview again. The prius had hit the section of roadside barrier just a few feet behind Tony’s back bumper. Lucky miss.

He closed his eyes and took another steadying breath. Then heard a sound suspiciously like his passenger door opening, glanced to the side, and stared.

There was a tall, lanky omega getting into his car, holding an especially shiny-looking switchblade pointed in Tony’s general direction.

Tony was fairly sure he’d had more than one wet dream in his life that started about like this, and the thought distracted him until the passenger door slammed shut and the omega snarled, “Drive!” with deadly ferocity.

Yikes. Tony turned his wheel to steer away from the barrier and stepped on the gas.

“Get the roof up.” The omega was out of breath, voice shaky for all its aggression, still dazed from the impact of his crash moments prior. But he relaxed a little as the car picked up speed and the distance from the pursuing police cars started to grow again. “Faster. Good.”

“I live to serve,” Tony muttered as he passed the point at which the cars were pulled over and started swerving hazardously between slower-moving traffic. “Headed anywhere in particular?”

“Just get us away.”

“Got it.”

Tony risked a few sideways glances after that, finding that the man next to him had sunk down low in his seat, eyes closed in a visible effort to process the stress of the last few moments.

Then Tony was distracted by the marked police cars merging onto the street ahead, and leaned harder into the gas pedal, trying to pass them before they could form a solid barricade.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward as he judged the gap he was aiming for, and heard himself laugh triumphantly as he barreled past law enforcement and the speedometer needle crossed 200 mph.

After that he had to slow again to weave through a new round of civilian traffic.

And realized he was an idiot.

Because he could have just waited for the barricade to form and gotten his assailant arrested.

Get home safe and sound. That was the goal here, right?

Right?

But hey, passing those cars had been fun.

And here was the thing: when, in the course of his remaining lifespan, would Tony ever again have the chance to try to win a police chase?

Never, that was when.

Tony grinned, checked his rearview mirror to find his pursuers had fallen back out of sight behind the rise of a slight hill. He turned the wheel and crossed three lanes of rush hour traffic in one go to catch the exit lane that would merge him onto an intersecting highway.

Then, still grinning, he glanced at his passenger… whose eyes were no longer closed.

The omega’s hand was clutched tight to grip on his car door, white knuckled with tension. His eyes were wide with horror at the stunt Tony had just pulled, and his face looked a touch green. The switchblade had slipped from his free hand and glinted up from the floor of the car near the man’s feet.

“First time in a ferrari?” Tony asked conversationally.

The omega’s wide eyes slid over to him and then back to the road. “No, but I now suspect that none of my previous times really counted.” Even under obvious strain, his voice had a dry edge and the chipped polish of a fading english accent.

“I never did catch your name.”

“Loki.”

“Tony Stark. Also, you might want to pick up that knife before you step on it.”

Loki’s eyes finally narrowed to give him a curious look, before he bent down and picked up the knife, folding it away and pocketing it as he leaned back into the seat again. He frowned at the road as Tony completed his merge. “You’ve slowed down.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t want them to know we’ve switched roads, do we? I’m keeping a low profile.”

“I’m sure the hot-rod red helps with that.”

“Touche.”

There was quiet for a while, just the purr of the engine and the blessed lack of audible sirens.

“Why are you helping me?” Loki questioned at last.

Tony shrugged. “Well, you have a knife! What am I supposed to do?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Yes, because of the two people in this car, I’m clearly the more dangerous.”

“Okay. Honestly, I’m kind of in for a pound at this point. You think this would end well for me if we got caught after the stunts I just pulled? That, and alpha’s instinct. And I’m an idiot.”

“As I understand it, those last two are synonymous.”

“Yeah. But only always.” Tony sighed. “I guess I’m kind of hoping you’re in trouble because you did something nice and fluffy, and I can feel good about saving you at the end of all this.”

“Oh, very much so. I murdered someone.”

Tony felt his neck tense in shock at the casual admission. “At least tell me it was someone who slurped really loudly at the most annoying possible moments?” he suggested hopefully, tone not nearly as calm as he had aimed for.

“Afraid not.” There was a bitter smile in Loki’s voice.

“Tell me again which one of us is more dangerous?”

“Believe me, it’s still you.”

Tony was still trying to think up a reply to that when he glanced in his mirror and caught sight of a helicopter gaining altitude in the sky behind them. He signalled and moved into a new exit ramp, this time to leave the highway behind. “Time to ditch our ride, I think.”

He drove out into the lesser streets, navigating intersections and scanning his surroundings in search of a promising spot to pull over. In one of the less welcoming neighborhoods, he parked in a small, mostly empty lot and gestured Loki to get out with him.

Tony made his way toward a large, muscle-bound beta who stood back against a fence smoking. Several tattoos littered his arm, each of them in the image of a skull, and none of professional quality.

“You look like a shady fellow.” Tony managed to make it sound like a compliment, full of cordial warmth.

“Yeah?”

Tony tossed him a key. “Car’s yours if you can make it disappear fast and then not talk about it.”

The beta caught the key easily, considered for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“Excellent. Well met, sir. Loki, let’s go.”

-

They found a motel that happily offered them a room for the night in exchange for Tony’s watch. (He wasn’t sure if the police knew his identity yet, but he wasn’t about to risk a card transaction.)

They closed the door after them with a shared sigh of relief. No more running to be done until at least the next day.

Loki leaned against the door, closed his eyes, and sighed again while the sound of Tony’s footsteps moved further into the room. Safe at last.

Then he opened his eyes and realized that he was alone on a room with an alpha. In many ways at the mercy of this alpha. Which was about how this whole mess had started.

Tony sat heavily on one of the beds, pulled out his phone and dialed a contact.

“What are you doing?”

The alpha pressed the phone to his ear. “I’m calling my legal team. The sooner they get in on this, the better my shot at weaseling my way out of jail time.”

“They’re going to advise you to turn me in.”

“They’re probably going to be right.”

Loki tensed, considering opening the door behind him and making a run for it. How many times was this going to happen to him this evening?

“Hey, whoa, I’m not gonna do that today. Calm down, would you?”

Then, apparently, someone on the phone replied to that, because Tony turned his head toward the window and started talking into the line. “Hey, no I didn’t mean you. Actually, though, you know what? You calm down too. Yeah, I know you’re calm, but you’re not gonna be calm in five minutes. So, y'know, preemptively .” A pause. “Why does everyone always ask me that? Isn’t it possible that something could go wrong and it could be not something I did? No, I didn’t say likely, I said…” Another pause. “Yes. Yes, you should probably do that.”

Loki stood listening to the conversation for a while as the subject matter grew more and more technical, until it became clear that Tony was answering questions on the basis of treating Loki as a fellow client.

After that, he wandered off to seek a shower. He reeked of distressed omega, which would probably attract the neighboring hotel occupants if he didn’t do something about it.

It all hit him at once while he was in the middle of scrubbing hotel soap into his scalp.

The high speeds, the shock of the crash still lodged throughout his limbs like splinters, panic mixed with the sound of risings sirens, wiping his knife clean of blood with shaking hands under a flow of cold water, panic mixed with the sound of heavy breath on his neck that cut short too quick when he lashed out… all leading him here, to a dead end in a strange city with no path forward and only an alpha’s mercy for protection.

Tears made his vision contort and blur to a field of white glare as he sunk to kneeling on the floor of the shower stall, not trusting his legs anymore. The misery was so big that there was room for nothing else, that his heart would have to stretch to feel it all. He couldn't feel himself breathing, though he suspected he was. There was a simplicity to this he might later envy; just pain, pain, and pain.

A long time, and then somewhere very far away there was knocking at the door. And later a warm shadow, and the water stopped falling on his skin. Which reminded him that he had skin.

Tony helped him up and led him over to sit on the closed toilet, then retrieved a towel and started drying him off. Loki was still in a haze. He came back to himself far enough to notice that there were still tears falling down his cheeks. They fell every so often, when he blinked. He didn’t want to know anything beyond that, so he drifted again.

Eventually Tony tried to help him back into his pants, and the catch of denim against his heel brought Loki back to the present. With a sharp huff of embarrassment, he waved Tony off and worked the jeans up over his own feet. He stood and pulled them up to fasten at his waist, noticing that Tony hadn’t bothered with his underwear. Probably for the best.

Once dressed, he followed Tony back into the main room. Tony sat on his bed again and Loki sat next to him, and somehow he ended up leaning into the alpha, with a warm, tanned arm draped across his shoulders.

He wasn’t sure what he was thinking getting cozy with an alpha, or what Tony was thinking getting cozy with a self-confessed murderer, but it felt necessary, somehow, the touch. The reassurance that he had skin to touch with.

For Tony it was likely instinct again. The need to protect an omega who smelled as scared as Loki felt. Of course, those instincts didn’t always mean protection, and protection didn’t always mean safety...

Loki blinked away the thoughts, glad that, this time, he was able to banish them.

He felt Tony take a breath, and heard the sigh as he exhaled. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

The omega felt himself smile, but it was far from a happy expression. “Confess my sins?”

“Well, you already confessed. At this point it’s hard to help if I don’t know more details.”

Loki leaned his head back to rest atop Tony’s arm as he gathered his thoughts. “There’s a man named Thanos. Was. There was a man named Thanos. He’s an old friend of my father.” Loki winced at making his second mistake this early in telling the tale. “ Enemy. He and my father are enemies, which, in my father’s world, is very nearly the same thing as friends.”

Loki tried to speak the next bit, but it didn’t take. No air crossed his throat to voice the words his mouth shaped. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I… We were staying to visit at Thanos’s house at the shore. In hindsight, I think he engineered the falling out among my family that took place there. It was a long time coming, though, this fight. Old truths came up, and old lies. My brother stormed out, and I think he may not speak to any of us again as long as he lives. Father blames me, and no longer considers me his son.”

“Is there a mom in this?”

“My mother is dead,” Loki said simply. “That’s an old truth.” Still too recent, but Tony didn’t need to know that.

Loki went on. “So Thor, my brother, he left the beach house first, then Father, and then I was alone in that house with…” His voice faded to nothing again. He couldn't seem to speak past that part, so he just said again, “And then I was alone.”

“With a guy who didn’t think much of your family, and had an over-friendly way of showing it?”

Loki nodded.

Tony rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “Why do I have the feeling I know where this is going?”

“Well, I think it’s fairly obvious at this point that I killed him and stole his car.”

“Yeah, no duh.” Tony’s voice turned distant. “I just wish it wasn’t obvious why.”

Loki gave him a long look, waiting until Tony turned and met his eyes again. “Does that mean I don’t have to say it?”

“Not tonight, if you don’t want to. Eventually, though. You’re gonna want to explain your story to my lawyers, and then they’ll make up what they need to to get you off on self-defense and whatever else they can drum up. If you don’t tell them the whole truth, their lies don’t hold water when the evidence comes in.”

“It sounds like you’ve decided not to turn me in.”

Loki felt Tony’s hand grip his shoulder a bit in reaction to the notion.

Strange that the feeling didn’t bother him, after today.

“Let’s just say that when someone’s backed into a certain kind of corner, I’m not big on judging them for what they have to do to get out.” Tony shifted, letting one bent leg stretch out flat to the bed. “I’ve been there, a bit.”

“So I threatened you with a knife and won both your empathy and your protection? It’s as simple as that?”

Tony shrugged again. “Sometimes, life is that simple.”

“It’s a bad habit to reinforce, however. What else might I threaten to do to you?” Loki meant the words as a light joke, but even as he spoke them they came out low and intent, like his body wanted every possible subtext to come true.

The whole mood of the room shifted. He saw Tony’s head tilt in a small, probably inadvertent motion of interest, and Loki felt his gut clench in a too-pleasant way as he met the alpha’s look.

There was a silence, an in-the-balance moment when the arm draped over Loki’s shoulders felt too much like it ought to be there, only more firm and more directly pressed to his skin, right and not right and too much.

Loki blinked and looked away.

He felt Tony’s arm withdraw, grateful when it was gone. They inched over a bit, until they sat just a couple inches apart, still quiet while they each tried to search out a safer topic to break the tension.

Let’s go to bed , crossed Loki’s mind, but he couldn’t seem to think of the right way to phrase it, and wasn’t sure if he’d really be able to sleep if they didn’t talk about something else first.

He scanned the room, looking for something, and found a little shelf of activities against the wall near the bathroom. A few board games so worn around the cardboard that half the pieces were likely missing, and a deck of Set cards bound together by a slim rubber band. “Fancy a game?”

Tony followed his look to game shelf. “Anything particular you had in mind?

Loki stood and walked over and retrieved the deck, pulling the rubber band off and letting it roll over his hand to encircle his wrist as he made his way to the foot of the bed, holding up the deck in silent question to Tony.

The alpha looked at it curiously. “Unless that’s just cards, I don’t know it.”

“It’s a pattern-finding game,” Loki informed him. He settled into a cross-legged position opposite Tony, leaving enough room between them for the game.

So Loki taught Tony to play Set. The omega won soundly the first few games, then started losing soundly the moment Tony really got the hang of the game. It was refreshing, as Loki so often found himself pretending to lose this game to keep peace with his own family. He could play to the full extent of his ability, and still only take about a third of the deck.

They played ten games or so, until Loki felt the exhaustion of the day creeping in again and ruining his play. He took only two sets the last round, and Tony didn’t look the least bit surprised when he shuffled the deck and moved to put it back on the shelf, concluding the festivities.

They went to bed soon after. With no other clothes on hand, Loki went to bed in his pants and shirt. The lights went out, and sleep immediately swallowed him up.

-

Loki woke at 3 am with hunger gnawing in his belly. It was a slow transition from sleeping to waking, exhaustion warring with discomfort, but when he turned and glanced at the bedside clock he came full awake, and was abruptly sure he wouldn’t sleep again on anything less than a full stomach.

Damn.

He hadn’t eaten much yesterday, had he? Nervous of Thanos, he’d only had the appetite for a light breakfast and a lighter lunch, and then…

And after that, there’d been no room in his mind to think on food, and no room in his stress-flooded body to summon a craving for it.

Here was his punishment.

He could hear Tony lightly snoring one bed over. It briefly entered his head to dig out the knife that was still in his pocket (he’d forgotten it was there, but now it dug uncomfortably into his hip whatever position he tried), and to wake Tony up with a blade at his throat and demands for food.

Somehow, he doubted that action would be well received.

Anyway, Tony clearly wasn’t afraid of him. He was relying not on this man’s fear but on his pity, little as he liked the idea.

He dug the knife from his pocket and set it to rest next to clock, the turned to face away from the glowing numbers and tried once more to sleep.

Less than an hour of half-conscious, troubled dreams, and Loki was ready to give up permanently on the whole notion of sleep. He moved to sit up and stared out at the word of dark grey shapes that surrounded him, lit dimly by the city lights filtering in through the closed curtain.

He certainly wasn’t about to wake the man up. He hadn’t been kidding about which of them was clearly more dangerous, and alphas could be temperamental at the best of times, let alone when woken from sleep in a strange place over inconsequential matters.

Then he caught sight of Tony’s phone and wallet lying unattended on the table between them, and realized that it was entirely better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

-

Tony was having a very confusing dream in which he was desperately trying to romance a dish of Thai food.

In the dream, the wooing process went on for days, involving huge romantic gestures and expensive gifts. Finally, the meal confessed to returning his affections. But Tony was only rewarded for his troubles by his own searing existential indecision over whether he was now supposed to eat the thing or have sex with it.

He realized that he actually had no idea whether the object of his affection was a food item or an omega, just seconds before he woke up and realized he was smelling both.

He blinked awake to find Loki sitting cross-legged on the bed next to him surrounded by takeout and hungrily eating noodles from a cardboard box with a pair of chopsticks. His long hair fell in a sleep-tangled mess around his shoulders, and his features look paler and sharper now, lit by the cool, pre-sunrise light. The smell was extraordinary, and the sight more so.

Tony stared in slight alarm, caught in the bewildering overlap of two very different kinds of hunger, and also profound embarrassment.

Loki looked over, and visibly noticed that Tony was awake an ogling his meal. “What?”

I dreamed you were Thai food, but I swear I didn’t mean it in an objectifying way.

Tony blinked several times, realized to own relief that he hadn’t replied out loud, and just said, “Um. Nothing.” Then he sat up, still coming more awake. “Enough there for me?”

Watching Tony warily, Loki handed him an unopened box full of something warm and heavy that smelled like meat and vegetables, and then a pair of chopsticks. Tony was careful not to touch Loki’s hand while he retrieved the gifts, and ignored the little buzz of discomfort that came of the fact that he was being handed something at all.

Actually kind of weird that that wasn’t bothering him more.

The thought distracted him until he burned his hand on the steam rising from his food. He started, and shook out the injured hand as, with the other hand, he worked the paper lid open.

Another thought struck him, and he turned back to Loki, who was still giving him that same guarded look. “Where did food come from?”

Loki sighed and tossed two objects over to land lightly on Tony’s bed -- a smartphone and a wallet. Tony’s, to be specific. “I ordered takeout and picked it up at the lobby.”

“Oh. Good.” Tony picked up his belongings, then turned on the bedside lamp so he could check through them for tampering. All his credit cards and ID were still there, at least. He didn’t keep track of his cash, so he didn’t know how much was missing. After putting them aside, he finally snapped his chopsticks apart and took the first bite of his food.

And Loki… was still staring at him. He looked confused, now, and Tony wasn’t sure whether the expression had changed or just the light it was cast in. “Whah ought?” Tony asked through a mouthful of veggies, not entirely sure himself what he’d intended the second word to be.

“You’re not angry at all?”

Tony had to think for a minute to realize what Loki might mean. He swallowed his bite before answering. “Oh, because you spent my money on stuff without asking? No sweat. I usually have to pay people to do that. It’s called having a personal assistant. I mean, it was pretty stupid leaving this room. I bet your face is all over the news right now, could’ve gotten us both arrested. Huh, maybe I should be mad, I didn’t even think of that.”

He took another look at Loki’s face and changed course when he realized the joke hadn’t landed. “Relax. Eat. If one of us is the reckless moron of the duo, then trust me: It’s still me.”

Loki continued to regard him with a strange look, and Tony just gave up at that point, choosing to focus on the beef dish in front of him instead of confusing omegas.

By the time they were finished eating, it was five a.m., and neither made mention of getting back to sleep. Tony went for a shower, and jerked off to the guilty and perplexing memory of the dream he’d woken from this morning, and the way Loki had looked when he’d woken up. And the way Loki looked gripping a knife with an unsteady hand, threatening and shaken both at once…

Yeah. He had very mixed feelings about the orgasm that resulted, but no question that it was good . Now he just had to walk back out of the bathroom and look Loki in the eye again. That was the tricky part.

Toweled off and dressed. No clean underwear. Man, maybe it had been overdoing to avoid using his credit card and take the whole hideout thing quite this far.

He arrived back in their shared room, and Loki was looking at him docilely, clearing having been watching the door before he appeared. Tony did his best not to look nervous or guilty, and just raised his eyebrows at Loki, wordlessly inviting him to speak his mind.

“What about today?” Loki asked. There was hesitation in his tone, like he was worried what the answer would be, or worried the answer was too obvious to ask for without reprimand, or both.

Tony just tilted his head blankly. “...Context?”

“You said you wouldn’t turn me in yesterday. You’ve had a night’s sleep to reconsider. What about today?”

And then, of course, Tony’s phone rang.

He took a breath and silenced the tone before answering. “Don’t worry. Four hours of being unconscious did not magically turn me into a sane human being.” He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

The conversation took a few minutes, after which he sat down on his bed, across from where Loki was still perched on his. “That was Happy, he works for me. He’ll be here in about half an hour to pick us up. We’re going to go to my closest house, which is about an hour away, get into some clean clothes, and then meet with my legal team there, see if we can get this straightened out.”

“Alright.”

They played a few more games of Set while they waited, still unevenly matched as the other night had indicated, Loki working hard to take half the cards Tony did. Close enough in skill for the game to be fun, though they played it more for distraction than for joy.

Happy arrived and escorted them out, sending Loki a long series of distrustful looks the whole way to the car. Tony and Loki hurried into the back together, with another shared sigh of relief once they were hidden behind tinted windows and away from the eyes of the world.

Happy sat heavily in the front seat, pulled the door closed and started driving. He still found time to shoot Loki the occasional baleful look in the rearview mirror. Apparently someone (probably Pepper) had told him the true version of the story, hijacking and all. Loki was looking more and more tired with every critical look, and Tony was just about to intervene and tell the beta to keep his eyes on the damn road…

When Loki suddenly smiled.

Tony had a bad feeling about that smile. The sort of bad feeling that sends goosebumps along your skin and settles low in your gut and might actually be a good feeling that hasn’t made up its mind yet.

Tony had a really… sort-of-maybe-bad feeling.

“So, Happy,” Loki asked pleasantly, “How did you come to work for Tony?” As he spoke he unbuckled his seatbelt and scooted over closer to Tony’s side of the car.

“Well we’ve been friends since high school.” Happy glanced in the mirror and noticed Loki’s position, and more annoyance entered his voice. “He needed a driver and he knew I’d do it right. Y’know, good, safe driving. No knives involved.”

Loki put his feet up on the seat and settled his back against Tony’s arm, so he was facing his window. “Fascinating.” He rested his head back overtop Tony’s shoulder. The omega hadn’t washed his hair yesterday when he showered, and it still smelled a little of stress and the various emotions of the previous day. But mostly Loki smelled like Loki, and like the mischief of his current mood. Sly and intoxicating.

Not blatantly smelling Loki’s hair was getting kind of difficult.

The car stopped at a red light and Happy twisted to look directly back at them. “Tony, you’re seriously doing this? All we know about this guy is that he’s a criminal, and you’re gonna, what, risk your own safety to pay his way out a jail? How do you know he won’t stab you in your sleep, huh?”

Loki shifted around in his seat and laid two arms across the span of Tony’s shoulders, one in front of his neck and one behind. “Tony, why don’t you explain to your friend that I’m no danger to you whatsoever.” His voice was all sex an underlying humor, and the pressure of his arms was warm and pleasant. Tony opted to stay silent and give Loki his best impression of a deer in headlights.

He got the joke of course. If he did as he was told, it would appear that Loki had wrapped Tony completely around his finger, purely by means of sex. They could let Happy stew angrily in his own assumptions, and Loki would be the trickster who encouraged those assumptions, instead of the helpless outcast.

And any other day Tony would have played along.

Loki leaned in further until his mouth was a hot presence close in the vicinity of Tony’s ear. “Tell him.”

The alpha could feel a flush creeping up his neck, but he just shook his head, gathered himself, and gently pushed away the arm that was draped across his chest. “Cute, but I do actually kind of need my friends to not hate you today. We might need their help. A lot.”

Loki rolled his eyes but agreed with a huff of, “Fine,” as the light turned green.

Happy turned right and then glanced in the rearview mirror as he picked up on the joke. “Oh. Great. You were messing with me. I’ve known this guy for two minutes and he’s already messing with me. Nevermind. I’m sure you two will be very happy together.”

“Well, at least until I stab him in his sleep,” Loki agreed amiably. And then he muttered a sharp, “Ouch,” as Tony elbowed his side.

-

They arrived in the garage of Tony’s Malibu house a little over an hour later. Not having moved after his earlier attempt at toying with Happy, Loki was now fast asleep against Tony’s side, one arm still settled comfortably over the back of the alpha’s shoulders.

Tony had some thought toward picking him up and carrying him upstairs. The image felt right, somehow, but stuck him mentally as a bit weird, possibly for some of the same reasons he liked the idea. Anyway, they had to change, so he’d just end up waking up Loki upstairs. And then Loki would unexpectedly find himself alone in the bedroom of an alpha on a large, isolated shorefront property…

No.

“Hey Loki. Wake up. We’re here.”

“Nnnn?” Loki questioned without opening his eyes.

“Rise and shine, you goddamn adorable homicidal maniac. Luxuries like clean underwear await us upstairs.”

The omega groaned and blinked awake. “What time is it?”

“Just about seven a.m.”

Loki groaned again and pressed his forehead despairingly back into Tony’s shoulder. “I hate everything right this moment.”

“That’s what happens when you sleep for less than an hour. C’mon. Chop chop. The day awaits us.” With a little tugging, Tony managed to get both of them out of the car and upright.

Loki stumbled in his feet a little when they started toward the stairs, and Tony sighed and took his hand, the better to catch the omega if he fell. He rolled his eyes at the look Happy was giving them.

Once upstairs, the search began for clothes that would fit Loki. He was tall, and slimmer than Tony, and eventually opted to stay in his same pair of jeans, only borrowing from Tony’s wardrobe for a pair of boxers and a nice white buttondown shirt.

“Here, write down your sizes. I can get Happy to go pick something up after the meeting. Also: we have about twenty minutes still before said meeting. Want actual breakfast?”

They’d eaten a filling meal just a few hours prior, but even with how nervous he must be, Loki still nodded eagerly. He must have been hungry as anything last night, and Tony hadn’t even thought about it. What was he doing, not feeding his omega?

What was he doing thinking of Loki as his omega?

Oh no.

Tony watched Loki comb his fingers through the tangles of his long black hair in an effort to bring a bit of order to it as they headed back toward the stairs. It was a good look on him, though it shouldn’t have been, and the over-loose cloth of Tony’s shirt seemed determined to fall over his shoulders and upper body in the most appealing possible way.

But it was more than that. Loki was intriguing, and witty, and resourceful...

There was a voice in the back of Tony’s head telling him not do this, and the voice sounded kind of a lot like Happy earlier this morning.

Tony even agreed with the voice.

That just wasn’t going to help. His chest was doing a melty warm thing reminiscent of someone breaking the inside of a glowstick to make the liquids mix and emit a flow of soft light. And there was nothing he could do about it.

They arrived in the open kitchen area and Loki looked to him for guidance, because of course it was Tony’s kitchen. Tony would be the one who knew the way around his own kitchen.

Most days.

Getting a grip on himself, the alpha cleared his throat and walked over to the refrigerator, opening it up to see what he had. “Alright, what do you want? I’ve got fresh fruit, sandwich makings, there’s corn & flax waffles in the freezer, and uh… soup up in that cupboard. Oh, also coffee. I can make coffee.”

“In that case I’ll have coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, and a waffle with fruit. And perhaps a cup of coffee to go with it all.” Loki’s voice was still a little rough with the need for sleep, and he found a seat on a bar stool along the island of granite countertop opposite the kitchen wall.

Tony closed the fridge and made a beeline for the coffee maker. “Okay, by my count you just asked for five cups. I’ll make that an even twelve so there’s a little for me.”

He heard a snort from behind him as he portioned out beans for the grinder.

They ate a simple breakfast, and, as promised, most of it was coffee. Tony learned that Loki liked his with about as much sugar as the drink could dissolve.

He also realized that there was something creepily satisfying in the sensation of watching Loki eat his food. It was that feeling of, aha, you must really like me if you’re eating the thing I killed for you. Which made no sense, and also suggested that his toaster was a much deadlier gadget than it seemed.

They were still sipping their coffee when Tony received a text informing him that his legal team had arrived, and a minute later Happy led in five alphas and one omega, all in formal business suits. At the beta’s directions, they settled onto a semi circle of couches and soft chairs around a low coffee table, well in view of the kitchen area.

Happy gave Loki one last begrudging glance before exiting the room and leaving them to it. The lawyers were settling in with elegant poise, pulling out tablets and files. Loki and Tony were, by comparison, wholly frumpy and underdressed, but when Tony abandoned his coffee and led the omega over to the group, they all stood respectfully to greet the two without so much as a judgemental glance.

Of course they did. They were Tony’s lawyers. They were well paid, and they’d seen far stranger things than a couple tired fugitives drinking fresh-ground coffee in an ocean-side mansion.

Tony shook hands all around, and found himself standing such to obstruct any physical contact between Loki and the mostly-alpha lawyers. He made introductions as they all sat again, Tony and Loki finding seats at opposite ends of a sofa that had been left free, facing the rest of the group.

The one omega on the legal team was the first to speak on the matter at hand. “You’ll be glad to know there’s no warrant out yet under either of your names. The police don’t seem certain of whom they’re looking for, and that gives us time. And a little more plausibility and good will if you do come forward before that changes.”

“That’s good,” Tony agreed. “Means I slept in a cheap motel for nothing, but otherwise that’s good.”

Loki pulled a pillow into his lap, took a breath, and then looked around at the legal team, meeting their eyes. “Tony told me you would need a detailed account of yesterday’s events.”

“That would be an excellent start,” agreed one of the alphas.

So Loki gave it. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to watch, or to hear, and it took most of the remaining hours of the morning. Loki’s memory for detail was good, and he demonstrated a painful stubbornness in stating unpleasant truths.

Staring hard at the glass coffee table, hands gripping periodically at the pillow in his lap, he explained his father’s position in the world of politics. The family secrets that had led up to the falling out. How Thanos had played perfectly to Thor’s anger and rash arrogance while they’d been there, then let just the right words slip at just the right time to prompt a shouting match and a harsh schism between all remaining members of Loki’s immediate family.

Then came the event in question, and there was something eerie in the details Loki recalled. The pattern on the wallpaper, the oak wood of the door, the particular shade of off white of Thanos’s shirt.

Loki’s voice was soft, distant and toneless as he worked his way through the remembered events, until his knife was in Thanos’s neck and he was casting about for an exit that wouldn’t involve household staff catching sight of him fleeing with a blood-dark blade.

And then, for the first time, one of the lawyers cut in, because Loki had finally skipped a detail they were vitally interested in. “Did you mean to kill him?”

Loki blinked, disrupted from the hollow, distant place he’d gone to to relate that part of his tale. He frowned in thought, then shrugged helplessly. “I think so. ...Yes. I regretted it the moment the blow landed, but I had aimed to kill.”

“It’s unlikely this will ever go to court, but if it does, will you be able to swear under oath that it was an accident?”

This time Loki was only quiet long enough to ensure he understood the question. “Absolutely.” He said it without a hint of doubt. It was the steadiest his voice had been all morning.

Tony stared at him in wordless awe and wondered again which of the two of them was really more dangerous.

Loki missed the look, still focused on the lawyers, awaiting the next question.

The omega attorney poised a hand over her tablet to take notes. “You only stabbed him once, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And did you do anything to cover your tracks? Move the body? Wipe your fingerprints from the doorknob?”

All Loki’s new confidence drained out of his posture at that question. He looked down at his hands, and Tony was willing to bet he was calling himself every kind of stupid. “I wiped the knife clean at a rest stop after I left the house. Other than that… no. I didn’t think of it. I just ran.”

“Well that’s excellent,” the omega said immediately.

Loki looked up. “It is?”

“If anyone asks, you fled the scene without realizing how seriously he was wounded. You were under the impression he might still be pursuing you.”

Loki was still for a minute, then smiled very slowly. “Of course I was. My eyes were screwed up closed when the blow landed. Why, I never even saw where I wounded him. Is he still after me, officer?”

The lawyers looked at each other and soon they were all echoing his smile, impressed and pleased.

Tony grinned a bit too. “How are you even so good at that?”

“Politician’s son,” Loki pointed out.

“How did you leave the house?” One of the alphas of the lawyer bunch prompted.

So Loki continued talking. By the time noon came around, they were past gathering facts, and into perfecting fabrications. They came up with a version of the story that was both plausible and likely to let the two outlaws avoid jail time. The legal team had Loki relate it front to back and back to front and in other awkward orders to ensure it would flow as smoothly as the truth if he was ever questioned.

Loki looked exhausted, and Tony was feeling tired just watching him. When it got to be quarter after twelve and things still weren’t winding down, he made a large T with his hands and cut off an attorney mid-sentence. “Break time! C’mon guys, I think we’ve had enough. I’m craving lunch and a very long nap.”

A few of the lawyers looked startled and checked their tablet screens for the time. One lawyer nodded and stood. “Yes, of course. We have everything we really need. Do you know when you’ll be ready to approach the police? You know by now that the sooner -- ”

“We’ll call you,” Tony assured, still making vague shooing motions with his hands. The look of relief on Loki’s face now that this particular ordeal was over made him all the more eager to get them to clear out and give the guy some space.

(And a part of him he was making every effort to stomp down was getting tired of watching other alphas dominate the attention of his omeg -- )

Uh, yeah, just concerned for Loki’s wellbeing. That was Tony’s only motive. Swear.

The rest of the lawyers stood to leave, and he ushered them out. Loki managed a quiet, sincere, “Thank you all, very much,” before they left, and it was just about the most endearing thing Tony had ever heard in his life.

Oh, he had it bad.

Once they were out the door, Tony walked back to his end of the couch and sat, letting silence fall for a few breaths.

Then he suggested, “Lunch?” and Loki nodded quietly, but he didn’t move or look away from some invisible point in the far distance.

So Tony made sandwiches and they ate them at the coffee table while Loki maintained his thoughtful, tired silence. Tony texted Happy to go out and buy the clothes he’d promised Loki earlier. He made one-sided chitchat with Loki about engineering that probably went over the omega’s head, but it filled the silence in a way that Tony at least found a little comforting.

Tony led Loki upstairs again and beckoned him to a door a little down the hall from his own bedroom. “I have a guest room, if you want to get some sleep.”

Loki graced him with a worn, unhopeful smirk. “Well, I’d certainly like to try.”

“Right. Welp.” Tony opened the guest room door for him.

Loki walked through the door. It brought him close into Tony’s space as he passed, and Tony was struck by the now-familiar smell of the omega. A bit like ice and cardamom, under sweat and weariness and stale fear.

Tony’s fingers twitched. He kept feeling an impulse to touch Loki, but it would probably be taken all wrong, and why would Loki even want to touch him anyway? What the appeal be? What chance did Tony have with --

Tony frowned, and gave himself a solid mental slap upside the head.

He needed to get past the temporary insecurities brought on by his own crush and think for two seconds about what Loki needed. And if Tony were in Loki’s shoes, he’d being needing a hug that lasted about ten hours right at this moment.

So Tony said, “Want company? Nothing funny, I promise.”

Loki’s eyes lit just a bit in pleasant surprise, and he nodded.

Tony’s chest was doing that cracky-melty thing again, and he rubbed it absently to sooth the feeling as he followed the omega into his guest room and closed the door after them.

They stripped down to boxers and tee shirts and met in the middle of the bed atop the covers.

Loki curled into him, which was a bit awkward with the omega so much taller, his lower legs splayed out far closer to the foot of the bed. But Tony pulled him in close and Loki relaxed against his chest and they were comfortable enough.

It was somehow better for not being Tony’s own bed. A bit more like neutral ground. Like Tony was allowed into Loki’s space for once, instead of the reverse.

They didn’t sleep, exactly, with the lingering effects of the coffee. But they rested, and found a little peace in the warm press of each other’s bodies and in the weight of their exhaustion holding them snug to a soft bed.

-

Tony must have dozed off very briefly, actually, because after a few hours of comfortable stillness, he had a sense of coming back to himself as an omega nuzzled close against his neck in a very distracting way.

“Whoa,” he huffed. He heard a deep chuckle, and also felt it in a low vibration and a puff of warm, damp breath against his adam's apple. It made goose bumps rise along his upper back and arms.

In a nap-slurred voice Tony added, “Hey. I thought I said no funny stuff.”

Loki froze, then (tragically) leaned up away from his task. His eyes were narrowed, cautiously analyzing Tony’s expression, but his voice held a hint of humor when he said. “You made that promise. I never did.”

“Good point. Very good point. You should keep doing funny stuff. Funny stuff is… yeah… funny.” He trailed off and sighed contentedly as Loki leaned in and pressed mouth and nose close against his neck, tracing where the muscle ran from the near point of Tony’s collarbone to just behind his ear.

The alpha rolled slightly so he could settle more completely onto the flat of his back. Then he lay still and let Loki have his way with his neck. It was surprisingly intense, the feel of soft lips brushing against him, warm and attentive, clinging occasionally where those lips were damp and met unwet skin, until there were fine shudders running down Tony’s limbs and a tight, hot pressure gathering in his groin. He was still lost in that smell of ice and cardamom, and it was headier now. Taking on a musky sweetness that would have made his knees weak, if he were relying on them at all to hold him up.

It was arousing, but also so nice exactly as it was that he had no trouble convincing himself not to push to take things further.

Which, considering Loki’s recent history, he was convinced it would be a pretty dick move to try to initiate anything.

So yes. The necking thing was definitely above his wildest expectations for what could have happened if he and Loki slept in the same bed. And didn’t really sleep.

Especially because Loki was really good at this. If Tony hadn’t been smitten ten minutes ago, he would be now, because Loki knew how to use his mouth like Tony knew how to drive a car.

Then Loki used his tongue for the first time, licking up along a sensitive hollow up near his chin, and Tony twitched in surprise, hips jerking up to meet empty air, but it was more a spasm of reaction than his body searching for a surface to rut against.

(Not that that wouldn’t have been nice.)

The driving comparison fit better than he’d thought, because Loki could use his tongue in a way that was deft and exhilarating and a little scary.

He was pretty sure he was melting, the cracking-glowstick sensation from earlier coming back with a vengeance, so there was something warm and possibly glowing making a slow progression through his veins, out from his chest and from the point where Loki’s mouth was still pressed hot against his neck.

Tony had had blowjobs that weren’t this good.

Loki eased off slowly, transitioning back from licking to kissing, then resting his chin against Tony’s shoulder and just breathing for a long span of seconds, exhaling lungfuls of warm air all over the sensitive skin he’d been exploring.

He leaned up to rest on one elbow and his face came into view, scrutinizing Tony’s expression again. The omega licked his lips reflexively, and his eyes went distant for a split second as his attention flicked to whatever he tasted there. Tony exhaled a sharp breath at the image struck hard by the idea of Loki seeking out the taste of him for its own sake.

Then those eyes were fixed on him again, pinning him to the bed with desire and wary curiosity, and that… also striking.

But there was uncertainty in that look, and Tony cleared his throat and searched for something reassuring to say that wouldn’t completely ruin any shot he might have of this happening again.

His voice was hoarse when he finally thought of something less dangerous than proclamations of love or bawdy jokes. “Well that was… good. Did anything in particular bring it on, or did you just do unspeakably nice things to my throat for the hell of it?”

Loki smiled then, and a forefinger teased at what was visible of Tony’s clavicle above the neckline of his shirt. “A little of both, I suppose. I like your neck.”

Tony’s eyes automatically strayed down to Loki’s neck, all slim, pale lines, rich with the shapes and shadows of tendon, muscle and cartilage. “That’s pretty mutual, actually.”

That smile widened by degrees and filled with mischief. Loki settled onto his back while tugging the alpha’s shirt, so that when Tony followed the motion they were mirroring their position from a moment ago, omega under him with chin tilted to expose his throat.

And that, Loki’s pose of surrender, sent a thrill through Tony. Not unlike the feeling of accelerating past police cars as he neared the maximum speed of his old Ferrari.

Letting his forearms rest on either side of the omega’s shoulders, he put his mouth down where it was invited, choosing to start with the soft skin along the underside of Loki’s jaw. He heard a sigh of satisfaction, so deep and relaxed that Loki’s voice hummed through the sound. The noise of it in Tony’s ears was low, and sweet as a narcotic.

What little concern he had that he wouldn’t measure up to Loki’s skill in doing this to him was mostly forgotten in a matter of seconds, discarded in favor of a cloud of tastes and smells and the softness of the skin against his lips. Tony heard the rough scrape of his beard wherever his mouth moved, heard Loki gasp in reaction. The tendons of that gorgeous neck shifted with the tensing and reaching of the omega’s arms. From the rhythm of how the muscles tensed, Tony could only assume he was fisting his hands in the bedding. He wasn’t about to stop to find out.

He traced his way up and down along lines and grooves, and spent a long time at the meeting place of Loki’s neck and shoulder, finding the stands of muscle and fascia that ran bowstring tight under that skin.

He wanted to bite them.

But Tony stopped himself. This was already a bad idea, without him pushing any boundaries. He forced himself to ease off in much the way Loki had, moving back to soft presses of his lips, then burrowing his face between Loki’s neck and his hair and just breathing him in. Potent and devine and tempting, it made his head foggy and would make his decision-making skills poor if he wasn’t very careful.

Not that he’d made any good decisions up to this point.

Tony pushed himself up again so he could see Loki’s face, fully intending to roll over back to his side of the bed. But the look on Loki’s face stopped him.

He was caught, Loki’s eyes dark and holding him in place. Pale cheeks were flushed pink and his lower lip shook faintly with how hard he was breathing past it.

That look was ever so slightly challenging, and Tony froze in limbo, unable to turn down that challenge, and recalling vaguely that there were reasons why it would be a bad idea to accept it.

Reason one: Loki’s life every kind of sucked right now, and he was probably in no state to make certain decisions about where he might want to stop. Especially considering how much he relied on Tony right now...

Reason two: What if this was just lust to Loki? The whole heartbreak thing sounded very not fun, and Tony had already fallen way too far in all this.

Reason three: Loki was still looking up at him so invitingly, and the tangle of his dark hair strewn across the pillow was somehow the most erotic in the inverse, and… Wait, that wasn’t a reason, was it?

Tony was losing the battle against gravity and other forces working in a similar direction, bringing his head down again but at an angle that kept him face-to-face with the omega. “I don’t think we should have sex right now,” he forced himself to say. It came out as a halfhearted whisper, and he was still inching closer, but at least he got the words out.

“Agreed,” Loki breathed back, and Tony felt a rush of disappointment, and a smaller rush of relief. “But you should still kiss me,” the omega added, and his tone was unmistakably that of an order, in spite of being so soft.

Tony made a helpless noise that turned partway through into a harsher sound of half-aggressive wanting, and did as he was told.

He pressed his mouth against Loki’s, just a hint low so that that wonderfully supple bottom lip came wedged between his own. Tony goaded it into his mouth, running his tongue over it, tasting, and once again resisting the temptation to bite. The tension itched in his jaw with something sweet and soft between his teeth. Itched in his whole body with someone trapped between his upper body and the bed, lovely and warm and slightly shifting against him.

Loki let him lead at first, but at a certain point he slid two slim hands up sides of Tony’s neck and threaded them into his hair, using the hold to change the angle of the kiss so he could engage the alpha’s tongue in a wicked game that soon rendered Tony breathless and unconsciously grinding his hips against the bed.

Right. Loki’s mouth. How had he forgotten its power so quickly?

Being distracted by Loki’s neck, that was how.

Now he could feel his own fingers fisting in the linens. He wasn’t off balance at all, but somehow his body seemed to think that it desperately needed the anchorage to keep the world from reeling in dizzying directions. His ears were full of the harsh sounds of Loki’s rapid breathing, and his own.

He’d thought earlier how much more comfortable it was to be in the guestroom, on neutral ground. But he was suddenly obsessed with the image of having Loki like this in his bedroom, in his space.

With fewer clothes. It was a riveting mental image.

Loki’s hands loosened on the nape of his neck and they both pulled back to breathe.

“You were right,” Tony panted hoarsely, mouth still only an inch from Loki’s.

“Ehn?” Loki asked fuzzily, working just as hard to recover his own breath.

“Kissing you… was definitely a thing that I should do.”

Loki’s answering smile was almost steady enough to be smug.

-

After that neither felt like making more attempt at sleep, so Tony retreated to his own room for a long shower. He suspected that Loki was doing the same. Well, he hoped. Well, he imagined in explicit detail.

It might have happened only in his own fantasies, though, because when he got downstairs, Loki was already there, settled back onto the same sofa with one of Tony’s books. Loki held the book pressed against one thigh, but his left hand was free to rub worried patterns into the skin of his forearm, and his eyes stared hard at a fixed point rather than moving across the page.

The light mood from just a few minutes ago was gone, and Loki had apparently lost the ability to make himself forget the task that lay ahead.

“Should I make the call?”

Loki didn’t quite flinch, but there was a shadow of a movement that made it clear he was startled by Tony’s presence or Tony’s words. Or both. “Call?”

“To the lawyers, to turn ourselves in tonight. It’s not gonna make it easier to wait at this point.”

“Right. Yes.” Loki put down the book on the coffee table and wearily rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Please do.”

Tony called up the legal team again and then tracked down the clothes Happy had fetched for Loki while they were napping. Loki changed, and then they perched back at the kitchen bar to share one last cup of coffee. The alpha tried to flirt a few laughs out of Loki, but all the omega did was position his chair so he could lean into Tony’s arm slightly. Tony gave up looking for more response than that and monologued about engineering until it was time to go.

Talking to the police was a nervous affair, but it went just as smoothly as planned. After a few hours of giving statements and explaining their actions with the careful, subtle guidance of expert attorneys, they were allowed to go home with nothing more than heavy fines and two revoked driver’s licenses.

In the early a.m. hours they stumbled back onto the main floor of Tony’s mansion with the kind of blinding exhaustion that follows the release of long-held stress. They briefly discussed the prospect of getting up yet another flight of stairs to the bedrooms, but somehow when neither one was paying attention they took the discussion to the couch and fell asleep there in an awkward, mostly-upright tangle.

-

Tony woke once during the night to bright lights and the sensation of his neck hurting, and blinked farther awake to find that said neck was tilted sideways at a very unfortunate angle, sandwiched between Loki’s shoulder and head.

Also, Loki was drooling into his hair.

The alpha carefully extracted himself and stood, slowly lowering Loki’s torso to fall where he had just been sitting, surprised when the omega didn’t wake at all from the motions.

He flicked the lights off, then went back over to the couch and stared down at Loki’s sleeping form like the love-struck idiot he fully knew himself to be. He couldn’t see much until his eyes adjusted to the dark, but there was plenty of moonlight coming in through the large windows along a near wall, and Loki’s features gradually came visible in pale greys and inky shadows that at first blended smoothly into the black of the rest of the room.

Tony stared until he could see clearly in the dark and the picture came into crisp focus. Loki’s face was turned upward now, face relaxed, lips slightly parted. His shoulder and arms, though, were curled awkwardly toward the cushion under him, as if still chasing the heat Tony had left lingering there when he stood. Tony watched this, thinking that he should probably head up to his own bed now. And wondering when it had started to be true that he always wanted to be touching Loki, to be holding him or pressed against him or lightly brushing arms with him as they sat side-by-side. The idea of walking into the other room instead made the imaginary shards of glow stick in his chest ache uncomfortably.

Loki probably wouldn’t mind, would he? After all, he’d been the one to initiate the necking earlier. And the one who told Tony to kiss him. He’d happy dozed next to him all day, leaning into him for comfort while they drank their coffee, and taken just as much part in the whole falling-asleep-together thing as Tony had.

So Loki probably wouldn’t mind. Tony nodded to himself before cautiously lowering himself onto the cushions in front of Loki, so the omega was pressed close against the couch’s back, and if either of them fell off and broke their neck on the flooring, it would be Tony.

With a seemingly unconscious, bleary hum, Loki shifted to rest partly on top of him. Maybe he woke a bit, but not enough to open his eyes or make any clear acknowledgement of Tony’s presence aside from latching onto him like a barnacle. The alpha had no objections to that last, and he dozed off again happily, confident that this sleeping arrangement would serve him much better than the one that had left the twinge he still felt in his neck.

When he woke up again, one of his arms was numb from Loki’s weight.

-

Loki was floating somewhere very comfortable. He was on a surface that was warm, and awfully hard and lumpy for how much he liked its presence. There was an aroma reminiscent of the alphas he’d known, but oddly safer. This was accompanied by the slow rise and fall of his sleeping breath, but somehow exaggerated, so his whole upper body seemed to rise and fall ever-so-faintly in an even rhythm, soothing as a weak tide in otherwise still water.

Then the bed started moving under him in less predictable ways. Pushing up at him actually, he was pretty sure, and suddenly it didn’t seem so comfortable at all.

Loki made a noise of complaint and resettled his weight a bit in the hopes of forcing it to still, and he heard a quiet but vocal laugh from somewhere surprisingly close to his face.

He sighed, somehow already exasperated with the whole notion of waking up, before he’d even quite done it. He forced his eyes open to take stock of his surroundings.

And it wasn’t nearly as terrible as his battered subconscious had warned him his circumstances might turn out to be.

He was looking into a smiling face with gentle brown eyes, and the smile seemed to be for him. Smiles rarely were, these days, as rule. He was lying on top of the body those eyes belonged to, which in turn was on top of a couch Loki was starting to recognize from yesterday, a piece of furniture associated with difficult conversations.

He’d talked to the lawyers.

He’s turned himself in.

No one was after him anymore.

Somehow, after everything had crumbled away from under him, he was okay.

When Tony’s smile didn’t waver, Loki found himself answering it, and leaning down for a soft, relatively quick kiss. “Good morning,” he greeted the alpha. Then he sighed again. “I don’t think we made it to the beds.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“I happen to be astutely aware of my surroundings.” Loki shifted against every surface where their bodies met, in a way that could have been accidental but happened to be totally premeditated.

He enjoyed the startled intake of breath that earned him, and then he scooted down enough that he could borrow his face into Tony’s neck. His nose and lips fell near the man’s adam’s apple and rested there, a subtle reminder of yesterday that wasn’t overtly provocative. But, again, the act was entirely nefarious. And he felt a sharp heat starting to press up into his lower tummy as Tony’s breathing turned more and more unsteady. Loki grinned again where his face was hidden, breathing in the wonder that was Tony Stark.

Like alpha, but oddly safer.

Now, what were the chances that yesterday’s consensus that sex would be unwise was now open for renegotiation?

“So, uh…” Tony cleared his throat uncomfortably. “My arm is asleep.”

Loki started a bit, lifting his head. Those were not exactly the words he’d been expecting.

But, now that he thought about it, Tony’s movements that had first woken Loki could well have been attempts at escape.

“Ah. Right,” he said a little sheepishly, searching out spots on the couch to move his weight to his hands without doing the alpha any further bodily harm in the process.

He climbed up to a standing position, and Tony did the same a moment later. The alpha hesitated, then moved in to cup Loki’s head in one hand and returned the kiss Loki had greeted him with. This one was more lingering, soft and pleasant. It did funny things to Loki’s breathing, for how chaste it was.

Then Tony stood back and walked around toward the kitchen area, vigorously rubbing the life back onto his arm. “Opinions on breakfast? We’re not fugitives anymore, so we could go out.”

Loki dropped tiredly down to perch on the sofa again now that it was free. “I’d rather stay in. Waffles again?”

“Waffles it is.”

Loki twisted in his couch seat to watch the alpha work. He was getting to be more than a little obsessed with Tony’s shoulders, and just now the man was wearing a shirt that fell loose enough to dip between his shoulder blades and show off how they rolled and shifted with every movement.

Loki’s fingers gripped lightly at the cushion under him. He’d never itched to get someone undressed quite this fervently. Except when he’d been in heat.

Speaking of which.

He sagged against the back of the sofa as he remembered something unpleasant. “Tony, what day of the month is it?”

“Uh…” Tony turned to face him and checked his phone. “...Twenty-second. Why?”

“Damn.”

“Oh.” Tony’s eyes widened as the realization hit him. “How soon?”

Loki spoke directly into the couch cushion, but loud enough to be heard. “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe as late as the 26th. And I do miss them sometimes, but I doubt I’ll get that lucky.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“I forgot.” Loki’s voice was flat with self disgust at how badly that particular lapse could have turned out.

“You’ve kind of had a lot on your mind,” Tony pointed out wryly. “So. Uhm. Do you want the place to yourself for a few days?”

Loki did look up at that, met Tony’s eyes squarely and smirked just a bit. “No .” Then his forehead creased in consternation. “You would have let me have your entire house to myself for a week?”

The alpha looked even more dumbfounded than Loki felt. “Sorry, I’m still stuck on the part where... you apparently don’t want me to.”

They stared at each other mutely for a moment.

And Loki prompted, “Well?”

Tony opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I… don’t think I would ever forgive myself. If. I. Said. No.”

Loki frowned. “But…?”

There was another long pause, before the flood gates of Tony-babble opened. “Okay, so I’m sort of in love with you and by ‘sort of’ I mean I want to have your babies although biologically I think that works the other way around and the thing is that I’m kind of sca- uh, concerned , that if we have sex I’ll somehow manage to be even more in love with you which would be bad partly in that it actually might kill me just on its own but much more bad in that you might go away afterward and… uhg. I mean. Oh god.” Tony dragged a hand through his hair and finally took a breath. “Actually, can I take all of that back and actually just offer you no-strings-attached sex? Because that would actually be fine. Actually. Oh god, it’s too early for this. I’m gonna make some coffee. Do you want coffee?”

Loki was caught in a dizzy reeling sensation. It brought to mind the memory of being inside a car which was rocketing across several lanes of busy highway to catch an exit ramp inches shy of a concrete barrier.

Tony certainly had a way of upping the ante.

Distantly, he heard the sound of the coffee grinder starting up, and then running water. He realized he was lost in a stupor, eyes fixed on a seam in the couch cushion, and he forced himself to stand and walk over to the kitchen bar to sit opposite where his current living companion was at work.

The declaration of love was… convenient, if nothing else. Loki could take advantage of this, have a place to live, and all the sex and luxury he could wish. For as long as it lasted.

He could pretend at fully loving Tony in return, in place of the intense attraction and mild infatuation that had sprung up over the past few days. It would be easy, in more than one way.

But he liked Tony too much to use him that way.

And sooner or later, Tony would come to his senses.

The alpha settled into the seat next to him and slid over a mug of coffee with fixings already added. Loki took a sip and found it to be just to his tastes. He put the mug down and spun it slowly with his fingertips. “How often do you do this?”

“Make coffee?”

Loki huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Fall in love.”

“Ah. Well, I don’t... fall for people as a rule, really. Commitment was not in my life plan before, like, yesterday. Okay, that sounded clingy. Don’t let me say anything else until the caffeine kicks in.”

Loki smiled bitterly and shook his head. “Tony, are you aware of a little thing called the Sunk Cost Fallacy?”

“What?”

“There’s a flaw in human thinking by which we deem valuable that which we have sacrificed much to attain. In helping me, you’ve given up valuable time, your licence to drive -- which you clearly enjoyed tremendously -- and some dearly prized property. In the face of such sacrifices, the mind has a way of convincing itself that something equally worthwhile was gained in return.”

Loki looked at him sadly, and when he spoke again it was a whisper. “...So desperate are we to believe that nothing is wasted.”

The alpha put his mug down with a thump . “ Okay, now wait just a minute. No, actually… Are you saying this because you don’t want me to be right about this, or because you do? Look, I know what the Sunk Cost Fallacy is and you’re way off. But there’s not much point in me arguing about it if this is your special twisted way of saying I don’t have a shot with you.”

Then Tony plunged on anyway without waiting for an answer. “Look, if you think getting me to give away my favorite car and then sleep in a crappy motel is something just anyone could do to get me to like them, then you and I clearly are not from the same planet. And you know what? I’ve wasted a heck of a lot of my life doing stupid things with crappy fallout, and I’ve never tricked myself into thinking it was somehow worth it. Meeting you? Worth it.”

“Tony…” Loki stopped to collect his thoughts, and his brows pulled up together in a pained way. “I never got a chance to thank you for everything you’ve done for me these past few days. Let me return some small part of the favor by preventing you from learning the hard way just how miserable I would make you. There’s no one in my life who’s been made -- ”

“Nope,” Tony cut in. “Sorry, that is not an option. My gifts don’t come with a return policy. So you’re screwed. I’m really hoping not just metaphorically, but that part’s still up to you. Obviously, also, if you want me to leave, I will. And you don’t have to explain anything to me. But this whole, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ deal? That’s not gonna fly.”

It was Loki’s turn to get frustrated. “So I have to either reject you out of hand, or stay and watch you come to the slow, agonizing realization of what a tremendous mistake it was to take me in?”

“Yup,” Tony said immediately, grinning now. “It’ll take me at least a week, and in the mean time you can learn to beat me at Set between rounds.”

“You’re impossible!”

“And you’re unlikely, so we almost match. Eh?”

The omega just covered his face with both hands in exasperation.

“...So.” The alpha’s tone was more sober when he spoke again. “I hate to sound like a broken record here, but… was that your special twisted way of telling me I don’t have a shot with you?”

Loki warred with himself over how to answer. To lie and say he loved Tony, or to lie and say he couldn’t? Or to tell the truth? And if he told Tony he wasn’t interested, where would he then go? Odin had disowned him. He no longer had a home.

He’d have to face that question sooner or later either way. And he already owed this man too much.

Loki doubted he was thinking about this clearly. His mind was muddled, and too many of the landmarks of his life had shifted recently. He wasn’t all that sure he knew up from down.

He pulled his hands away from his face, feeling another frown tug at his forehead. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” Tony said simply. He got up and retrieved their waffles, now toasted and cooling, and brought fruit and condiments with him back to the counter. They ate a quiet breakfast, and Loki fulfilled his words. He thought.

Why was he hesitating in this? He already wanted to fuck the man senseless, he already enjoyed his company, his conversation, his bizarre daring and his more bizarre kindness. Being loved by a man like that was hardly a curse.

The opposite, really. It was too good to be true. And it hurt the way all good things hurt when offered to someone used to disappointment.

And that thought vexed Loki. When had he become the sort of man who didn’t take exactly what he wanted? When had he started to shy away from things because they were desirable?

No. He would take Tony for all he was worth. His love, his money, his body. He’d lie and lead him on and bleed him dry. It was what Odin would tell him to do. Or tell him off for doing, depending on the day. Either way, there was a brutal satisfaction in the plan as it took shape in his head.

The satisfaction was short-lived, and left a sickly taste. Loki wasn’t in the habit of being cruel to people who had done him no harm. And more than that, he was running up against the unfamiliar feeling of liking a person enough that he didn’t want to trick him.

Or maybe it wasn’t as simple as liking him? More that Tony already knew his most incriminating secret. It was a relief to have one person in his life from whom he had no need to conceal anything.

That wouldn’t last, if he stayed. You couldn’t be fully honest with someone, once you loved them.

If he did leave, would Thor take him in? Would he be better inclined toward Loki now they’d both been disowned? Or more angry, with all the words they’d exchanged along the way?

It was all more than he could make sense of, mind working too fast with too little information and coming to a thousand conclusions, none of which made sense.

So he ate waffles, because eating waffles made sense.

-

Loki lost an uncountable number of Set games that day, while he and Tony did their best to ignore their mutual attraction in favor of taking time to think over the implications of their choices.

It didn’t work, of course, and just resulted in both being kissed senseless at unexpected moments and against various surfaces throughout the house while going about their day.

At one point -- more exactly, when Tony had Loki wedged up against the front of the refrigerator with two hands gripping at the back of his thighs to hold him up, and the alpha was doing that wonderful, infuriating thing where he grazed his teeth along the column of Loki’s throat but didn’t quite bite -- it occurred to Loki that Tony might be doing this on purpose. Playing the same game that Loki had considered playing with him, pretending to love him with the intention of using him. Driving him slowly insane via sexual frustration specifically to make him desperately obsessed and thus easier to manipulate.

But he could only hold the thought in his head long enough to observe that if so, it was working, before his mind was forcibly side-tracked by more physical considerations. By the time they regained their self-control, it was forgotten.

-

Evening found them once again sitting across from each other with twelve cards laid out on the floor between them, trying hard to keep their eyes on the cards and not each other.

It had been a long day.

These games moved quickly, cards dealt out and picked up again sometimes as fast as their hands could move. They’d given up calling, “Set,” aloud and instead that the the forward motion of reaching for a set filled the same basic role.

And so, of course, sometimes their hands crossed paths as they did now, reaching for the same card at the same moment and accidentally touching. They both froze and looked up at each other, not breathing.

A long day.

Tony’s phone rang before anyone did anything rash, and a second later the alpha was up on his feet and walking away as he examined his caller ID. “Hello?”

Loki huffed a sigh and took advantage of the moment to move a moderate number of sets from Tony’s stack of won cards over to his own.

After a moment, Tony paced back to him and held out the phone. “Your old man wants to talk to you.”

Loki clambered to his feet but stared at the phone for a few disbelieving seconds before he took it out of Tony’s hands.

“Yes?”

“Loki,” greeted the familiar voice of his father.

Confused, stomach in knots, Loki retreated up to the guestroom to find out why the man who had passionately disowned him three days prior would have bothered to hunt down the only number at which Loki could be reached.

-

He descended the stairs again a few minutes later, still staring at the now dark screen of the telephone in mild shock.

“What’d he say?”

Loki looked up to find that Tony had returned to his seat on the floor, leaning his head back against the arm of the couch. “He’s offered to take me in again.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Okay… congrats? Did he say… why?”

Loki pressed his lips together in a not-quite-smile and shook his head. “Not only have I killed one of Odin’s enemies, I’ve smeared Thanos’s reputation in the process. Apparently murder was the secret to becoming a worthy son.”

“Remind me to vote against this guy in the next election.”

Coming up on Tony’s side, Loki placed the phone back in his hand. “You’re not part of his constituency.”

“Oh good.”

“If you like, I can call a cab to drive me home overnight.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “If I like? I wouldn’t like that at all, but it’s your call. Not like I’m gonna make you stay.”

Loki regarded him for a moment. “You could, you know,” he pointed out softly. “You have the resources at your disposal. And you may be an idiot, but not half so much so as Thanos. If you wanted to keep me here, there’s little I could do to stop you.”

Tony gave him a blank look. “Is that supposed to sound tempting?”

“Does it?” Loki asked in turn.

Tony stared hard at his own fingertips while he formulated an answer. “That’s a trick question. And yes. And I’m not in a million years gonna do anything like that.”

“So I’m free to go as I choose.”

The alpha looked like he was about to give a sharp, indignant retort. But some passing thought made his face clear and his tone turn gentle. “Yup.”

“Good.” Loki knelt down in Tony’s lap and set his hands on the arm of the couch on either side of the alpha’s head. “Then I won’t.”

He had time to see the grin blossom across Tony’s face before there were strong hands cradling his head and a hungry mouth was pressing firmly to his own. Loki’s mind went blank, caught in the rush like a man tripped up while unsuspectingly wading into a deadly-fast creek.

It was all magnified by the day they’d just passed in a constant state of attempted restraint. Every sensation was blissful and confused, too close for Loki to make shapes or sense of it. There was the warm press of Tony’s thighs under his, but he couldn’t remember how their bodies must be oriented to make the touch feasible. There was a mouth press hot against his, but no sense of direction to understands concepts as complicated as against.

He was lost like that for a while. When his head started to clear, he kissed back for all he was worth, reacquainting himself with Tony’s mouth and the tricks he already know he could play on it. They’d done this enough times throughout the day, willpower breaking down and then reasserting itself in frustrating patterns, that he was getting diabolically familiar with that mouth.

In response, a fine tremor went through the hands pressed to the back of his head, before they tightened and twisted painfully into his hair, angling him closer. Loki groaned in approval, a sound that hummed low in his neck and all the way up into the press of their lips.

The weave of some rough cloth dug into his fingers and palm, and Loki realized he was still gripping the couch behind Tony’s head. Time to put his hands to better use. He leaned back, easing the weight off his arms and also making room between their bodies so he could slide his now free hands under the hem of Tony’s shirt and upward from there.

The motion had the effect of making the kiss suddenly more shallow, and Tony gasped raggedly into his mouth, from the touch or because he was already breathless -- Loki couldn’t tell.

He opened his eyes with no real awareness of having closed them, and found Tony already looking back intently, pupils blown wide with lust, drinking Loki in. The image was blurred with proximity, rising and falling ever-so-slightly in time with their heavy breathing.

Loki smelled the shift in the air before he actually felt it. The familiar sensation of a warm, thick liquid running down through his spine that sent shivers running down his nerves as it went. Hormones flooded his system and the aroma of Tony’s sweat shifted in his nose, body suddenly sensitized more acutely to the scents of skin and need and alpha.

It had come early -- of course, stress sometimes made it come early. How had he forgotten that? -- but it was extraordinarily pleasant timing. All this blind want, and it was boiling up in his veins when he was already giving in to it. He moved to deepen the kiss again. Tony met him just as eagerly, and Loki’s head swam in the most wonderful way. The tornado was here and he’d only just found a sail; he was reeling from the impact and he was soaring at some dizzying height, and Tony’s hands were trailing down his sides to dig into his hips and pull him closer, his only anchor in the storm.

Their hips ground together, and Loki shivered again and then didn’t stop shaking, overloaded with stimuli.

This time it was Tony who broke the kiss, moving one hand up from Loki’s hip to his chest to push him back. The alpha caught his breath, and at the same time he was raking his eyes over Loki, analyzing the state he was in: clearly in heat, trembling where his hands still explored Tony’s chest under his shirt, squirming for the leverage to get another burst of friction where their hips were pressed together, and fighting weakly against Tony’s restraining hand to re-engage their aborted kissing.

Loki wasn’t sure what prompted Tony to stop and look -- what on earth was the idiot doing looking when they could be kissing? -- but the alpha just said on a pleased breath, “Well how ‘bout that?” and went to remove his own shirt.

Much better.

Then for a while Loki was too interested in mapping out Tony’s upper torso to worry overmuch about his mouth. Collarbones and ribs and muscles and tan skin, and ye gods the sounds he could cause to escape Tony’s throat when he nipped at the sensitive axillary edge of his chest or one of those lovely nipples. Vocal, involuntary moans with the occasional brief whimper.

Those sounds were like going into heat all over, the way they slid down Loki’s spine as a delicious, shivering warmth.

Distracted though Tony was, his genius hands maintained enough dexterity to work Loki’s shirt open. There were pauses and flubbed attempts along the way, but soon warm fingers were sliding under the cloth of Loki’s own shirt.

The contrast of smooth, cool fabric and calloused skin was a shock, more than it should have been.

Now Loki was the one whimpering as those fingertips slid and prodded and sought out all the sensitive stretches of skin to be found above his waist. Ignoring, of course, how badly he needed Tony’s hands to wander further down. Loki was making do with the weak rutting motion that was all either of them could manage with what little leverage their position allowed them. Lost in a fog of pleasure, but he felt so empty he was almost in pain.

His mouth was still worrying at one of Tony’s nipples, enjoying the smooth, firm slide of it under his tongue and the noises he still prompted when he bit down. Loki’s hands, though, managed to work Tony’s pants open at the same time, and slid the waist of his jeans and boxers down as far as he could manage using only the little rolling motions of Tony’s hips to find a little maneuvering space between his backside and the floor.

It bared the alpha enough for his purposes, so he moved on to his own jeans. That turned out to be more of a puzzle, working around how Tony’s hands were buried in his shirt. The bulk and tug of them twisted at his shirtsleeves and limited the range of his motions. He had to lean back, and then he knelt up, intending to slide pants and underwear both down to his mid thighs.

“Wait,” Tony gasped, his breathing too irregular to make clear speech an easy feat. He screwed his eyes tight closed and went to disentangle himself out from under Loki. (Which was obviously a terrible idea.) “Condoms are important.”

Loki frowned, displeased. He sat down again and shifted his weight to hinder the alpha. Seeking out his ear, he pressed his lips against it and whispered, “Stop thinking with your head.”

“No.” Tony moved his legs apart so Loki’s ass fell off its perch atop his thighs and onto the floor.

The omega made an irritated noise that was half whine, half growl.

Tony sighed as he successfully climbed to his feet. “Come on now, imagine little baby Lokis. No, wait, I’ve done that and it’s adorable,” he muttered, tone troubled. He shook his head clear and held out a hand to help Loki up. “C’mon, seriously. My room. Get up.”

Loki looked up at him balefully for another moment, before a thought occurred to him. He leaned back only his elbows where he was already sprawled on the floor, and smiled slowly such to show all his teeth. “Make me.”

He could almost see Tony’s thoughts fall to a flatline.

But he underestimated the reflexes the man’s body could possess when lacking instruction from his higher functions, and a moment later he was in a fireman's carry, right hand and knee pressed together and gripped securely to Tony’s chest while his face fell buried in the bare triceps of the alpha’s free arm.

Tony ascended the staircase at a run, and Loki allowed the jostling without making any foul play of it. He approved of the haste. It was a different story, though once they were clear of the top landing and any dangerously long falls, and Loki took every advantage of the toned back that was now available for exploration by his own free arm. And the softer, sensitive skin already conveniently pressed to his mouth.

He nipped there, and was very, very aware of the slight jump it earned him as Tony came up just short of his bedroom doorway.

A few seconds later he was flat on his back on Tony’s bed while the alpha rummaged through the night stand. Items clacked loudly in the drawer, Tony digging through them with too much haste to efficiently find the items he was looking for.

“If you take much longer I may actually have to kill you.” Loki tried to say it in a flat voice, but found himself whimpering the last words, biology rendering him to desperate to keep any composure.

Tony finally came back and tossed the necessary accessories on the bed. “Is that so? Do I get to pick the method?” The questions was accompanied by the soft metallic noises of pants being undone. “Because I’ve heard excessive sex can cause heart failure.”

“I was going to make it quick and painless. But I like your plan a bit better.” Loki grinned and pulled off his unbuttoned shirt by gripping his opposite shirt tails and crossing his arms over his head. His upper body undulated obscenely against the bed as he worked the fabric under his shoulderblades, and he felt a buzzing rush of pleasure just from the slide of the duvet under the skin of his back.

He was getting lost deeper in the fog of heat, and the whole damned world was teasing him.

But then the bed under his legs dipped with Tony’s weight and warm hands were unbuttoning his pants and dragging away the last of his clothing with palms flat against his skin. Loki kicked off the garments as soon as they were down past his knees, completely out of patience. “Fuck me, Tony,” he said, and didn’t stop, repeating the words over and over with the occasional urgent, “Please,” tossed in as the alpha’s weight settled over him, pinning him down.

And then he got what he wanted, strong fingers digging into his hips and a hot mouth nipping bruises into his neck as he screamed in approval. Tony gripped him tight and moved with force and brutal precision that left Loki reeling. (Like turning fast and just missing that concrete barrier.)

And when he came, it was a bit like a collision, the way the force of it shook through him. But the splinters it left wedged throughout his body were pleasant ones that flared with heat when he inhaled and melted sweetly into something like warm honey every time he released a breath.

Afterwards, Tony rolled onto his back to catch his breath, and Loki just burrowed into his side, still seeking out touch even in the short lull his body allowed him between finishing one coupling and craving the next. He was breathless and happy and blissfully sore.

Tony was still in the early phases of catching his breath, but he managed to speak anyway. “In. Like. Two minutes. We should do that again. And also. Like. Every day. Forever.”

Loki nodded. It seemed like a good idea.