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To www.ao3.icu/users/plumadesatada/profile: A year late, but better late than never…
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“The Golden Bird”
Disclaimer: The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don’t sue.
Summary: [Loki/Tony] After Tony gets hurt on a mission, Loki does everything in his power to save his lover’s life. Which Tony finds incredibly hot. Ultimately it ends with Tony not only healed, but better than ever and some food play… with an audience.
Warnings: Slash. Tony/Loki. Established relationship. Attempt at humor/light heartedness. Protective!Bruce. Voyeur!Clint. Applekink. Slash. Language. Serious injuries.
Rating: NC-17.
A/N: This is dedicated to Plumadesatada at AO3 for putting the idea into my mind. New apple!kink has been born. The Clint thing, and Bruce, though, that’s me and my weirdo ways, so I only take the blame for that.
Title: “The Golden Bird” is one of Grimm’s fairytales, about a bird that steals golden apples from a king’s garden.
XXX
Words: 3,388
Chapter 1
Everything hurt, but only when he moved. So Tony tried hard to lie still, arms down by his sides and legs pressed together and head flopped backwards into his pillow, but it was hard. He didn’t like being still, usually never was; always moving, creating, talking, just being. He wasn’t someone who could just be, he had to be doing something, anything, everything at once sometimes.
But this was doctor’s orders, and Bruce’s alter ego wasn’t the kind of doctor you wanted to stick up the proverbial finger to. So Tony lay as still as he could, lips twitching occasionally in amusement, or eyes squinting from pain, and his eyes tracked whoever was within the room at the time but his head stayed where it was, face up, half sunk in the pillow and his fingers picked aimlessly at loose threads in his bed sheets down by his hips but even that hurt if he stretched too far too fast.
Loki kept him distracted for the most part, amused instead of uncomfortable, and Bruce mostly just harangued him into behaving with the occasionally lolly pop offered over for good behavior. Tony couldn’t eat them yet, his jaw too swollen and his teeth too sore, but he kept them stashed in his bedside table where Clint couldn’t see them. His cheeks were molted purple, blue and yellow like the rest of his face, one side fractured and the other just as swollen regardless but Tony couldn’t help himself from smiling when Loki leaned over him again, the third attempt in as many days to heal him faster. The paste the God smeared across his face burned, but Tony clenched his jaw, focusing on that pain instead because the last time he had flinched around Loki the brunette looked like he had been punched in the face. Yesterday Tony had been given a potion that made him lean over the side of the bed and gag until he was spitting up nothing but bile, throat raw from heaving and blood dotting his lips. The day before, when he had first woken up from his week-long coma, Loki had been waiting at his bedside, burning incense that made Tony sneeze, fingers covered in something that smelt like drying blood and Tony had cringed away from them and Loki had flinched in turn before fleeing the room.
The God was taking it personally. He had been Tony’s partner on the last mission; it had been his job to watch out for Iron Man’s back, but when his own back had been turned Tony had taken a hit that put him out of commission for a week, and then another three days laid up in bed, and nothing Loki tried seem to be helping. The paste stained his face a little, turning the bruises lighter but no less striking, fading them out but not completely. There was still pain, but Tony could smile now without feeling like someone was pulling out his teeth with a pliers.
“Hey babe,” He whispered, voice sounding broken and hoarse. They were the first words he had said since he had woken, except for the occasional grunt when he wanted to catch someone’s attention. “Give us a kiss?”
Loki leant down slowly, lips barely brushing against Tony’s own, mindful of the swelling and the bruises and the fractured jaw and cheekbone Tony still had. “I thought this one would have worked for sure.”
“Thanks for trying,” Tony mumbled back, those few words enough to make his jaw stiffen with pain again. He tried to smile but it came out as more of a grimace. He watched, eyes narrowed, as Loki swept from the room without even a goodbye, but Bruce quickly took his place, one of them always with him, watching over him, now when they couldn’t before. Bruce was the worst type of motherhen and he hadn’t been above threatening to handcuff Tony to the headboard to keep him on the bed either. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for Tony, his arms would have hurt that much more if he kept them raised above his head, so he declined on the cuffs, just that once.
“He’s been really pissy,” Bruce offered, half conspiratorially, as if it were some great secret. He gave a one shouldered shrug, shuffling over to Tony’s bed to check the IV line and fluff his pillow around Tony’s ears. One hand gently brushed his fringe out of his eyes, a sad smile on Bruce’s face, “he’s really worried. He seems to think that his magic tricks should have you up and about two days ago, and the fact that you’re not is really getting to him.”
“Maybe I’m allergic to magic,” Tony suggested. He would have tapped at the arc reactor, the device that had sucked Loki’s brain-washing magic right out of his scepter and kept it stored until Tony had later discovered it and experimented on it, like a battery recharging itself. Since he couldn’t move, wouldn’t move not with Bruce eyeing him like that, Tony flicked his eyes down and back up again and again until Bruce followed his gaze and let out a loud sigh.
“That is what Thor suggested as well. Loki wasn’t too, uh, pleased to hear it.” Bruce kept his hands busy, fiddling with something that Tony couldn’t see, but bottles clanked and the sound of a syringe filling up filled the room and he sighed.
“Does Loki know?” Tony asked, an eyebrow rising slowly as Bruce’s skin tinged green across his cheeks as the man turned to look at him, startled at how calm Tony sounded.
“What? That you’ll probably never walk again? Or that he shouldn’t have run after Amora because she mouthed off some stupid kid insults and left you on your own against Skurge?” Tony met green eyes evenly, wanting to defend Loki but knowing that Bruce was right, and he was angry and he was bitter but he’d had two days to get over it. Tony Stark didn’t hold grudges, but he did fix things and if Loki couldn’t do it then Tony would fix himself, somehow, someway, but there was no point stewing over it until he could actually get out there and do something about it. So he just watched and waited and finally Bruce seemed to shrink into himself. “Yeah he knows. The other guy told him while simultaneously showing Loki exactly what Hulk thinks of him.”
Loki hadn’t looked worse for wear, so Tony figured that someone must have interrupted the Hulk’s rampage, or it had happened when Tony was unconscious and Loki had known longer than Tony had about the extent of his injuries.
Talk drifted off into uneasy silence. Bruce had so much more he wanted to say but Tony didn’t really want to hear it and his friend knew that. So the doctor puttered around the room, shuffling loudly in the silence, and Tony watched him from the corners of his eyes as he made his way from one side of the room to the other but kept his head straight and up like the doctor ordered.
“Keep wiggling your fingers, Tony,” Bruce whispered. There were trapped nerves and broken bones and chunks of flesh missing between Tony’s fingers and his shoulders and moving them kept the blood flowing. He’d already lost the use of his legs (as far as they could tell, unless Loki could pull something miraculous out of his ass), so the last thing Bruce wanted to do was amputate Tony’s arms.
“Hey,” Tony said suddenly as the sound of the Bifrost activating (long since fixed) came in loud and clear through the open windows in the room. “Think I can make myself new legs? Like from the suit? Half man and half machine, I could call myself Irony Man. It’d be ironic.” His expression was so serious that Bruce couldn’t help but laugh as he injected more drugs into the IV bag, shoulders shaking even though nothing was actually funny.
Tony drifted off to sleep watching his friend smile, eyes sad but mouth tilted up smoothing out the worry lines on his face.
He woke with Loki leaning over him, something cold and tangy pushing against his lips. His mouth opened instinctively but he almost choked when his jaw failed to chew whatever it was Loki was feeding him. Tony gasped, mouth hanging open as Loki’s fingers clawed out the piece of apple, flicking it down onto the bed between them.
“I brought you this,” Loki whispered. His face was pale but his eyes were red, like he had been crying and then trying to rub away the tears so that no one would see. It was an apple, it’s skin was gold and shiny and where Loki had cut out a piece of it the fruit seemed to bleed with golden light, soft like the sun just starting to rise over the horizon, or like the hall light filtering in beneath a closed door first thing in the morning. But bright nonetheless, mesmerizing. Tony watched wide eyed as Loki picked up the piece Tony had spat out and put it in his own mouth. He chewed it methodically, bite, bite, bite, and then used his tongue to push the mush out onto his own finger. Like feeding a baby, Loki pressed his finger into Tony’s mouth; running it along his tongue and pulling it back out clean. “Swallow,” the God ordered before repeating the action. Taking a bite out of the apple and chewing it himself before feeding it to Tony off of his finger.
“This is really kinda hot,” Tony mumbled after half the apple was gone. The stirring in his groin was a surprise, because as far as he had been told there shouldn’t’ have been any feeling below his waist, but Tony damn well felt it when Loki climbed on top of him and pressed down with his own hips.
The next bit of apple came from Loki’s own mouth, like a penguin feeding its young, but less disgusting because it was Loki’s tongue against his, curling around his and tasting tart and crisp and delicious. And Tony wanted more. He arched his back, chin jutting out until Loki came back down to him, more apple chewed up in his mouth and lips against his and one hand tugging at Tony’s hair. His own arms went up, without thought, to tangle in Loki’s longer locks, pulling at them until the God took the hint and kissed him properly, tongues and teeth and passion until they were both panting against the other’s face. The last piece of apple, Tony chewed himself, before offering it to Loki, who took it straight from his lover’s mouth with another kiss.
There was a second apple on the bedside table because Loki hadn’t been sure if one would be enough. But he could feel Tony’s hardness between their clothes and the sheets and one of Tony’s legs was doing its best to wiggle free and wrap around Loki’s waist when it shouldn’t have been anything more than dead meat. The bruises were gone, Tony’s skin flushed now only from arousal, his breathing uneven from their kisses and not from his three broken ribs. Loki considered giving Tony the second one just in case, but didn’t have the chance to as the engineer finally managed to shuck the blanket down between them out of the way. Loki lifted up enough to help him, before lying back down again; pressing fully to his lover whose clothes had magically just disappeared along with Loki’s own.
“I stole them from Asgard for you.” Loki pressed a soft kiss to Tony’s jaw, right over where a bruise used to be, and then another over his cheek, and up to his left eye which had been swollen half-shut. The last kiss brushed over Tony’s lips, tongue flicking out for a brief taste before Loki pulled back. “They are Idunn’s apples. We get one each century but I took two, one for you and the other for us to share.” Since Tony only need the one to heal, Loki figured he might as well keep his own strength up, but he’d take half of the apple and leave the other half for his lover so that they could be near equals. One and a half wouldn’t be enough to give Tony Æsir strength or stamina, but it would make him hardier than an average mortal, longer lived though only by an extra hundred years and that much more difficult to kill. It would be enough, and in another hundred years’ time, Loki would steal another apple when he went to collect his own and he would give the second one to Tony Stark.
“I love you,” Tony whispered. “You know it’s not your fault, right?”
“I shouldn’t have left you,” Loki argued, narrowing his eyes, annoyed with himself.
“I’m a big boy. You couldn’t have known Skurge would manage to get me out of the suit.” He shrugged, ending the discussion by running his tongue along the length of Loki’s throat, moaning at the familiar taste of him. “I’ve missed this.”
“I’ve missed you,” Loki countered though he was quick to retaliate, his own tongue tracing lines along Tony’s forehead and hairline, the only place he could reach with his throat still bared to the human. “We should eat it soon.”
They stopped long enough to glance at the apple. Loki flicked his fingers and the apple split apart into four even pieces. He grabbed one piece, pale, long fingers holding on with the tips and Loki shifted back enough to give himself room to appreciate the view fully. The apple trailed down Tony’s belly, its juices left behind for a moment before Loki’s tongue followed in its wake, licking away the mess and the sweat that was starting to bead on his skin. It trailed further then, lower until it was right above Tony’s swollen cock, but not quite touching. Loki’s nose pressed against the patch of hair there, inhaling until he felt dizzy, full up on Tony’s scent, covered in it, and then his tongue went back to work, licking up and up this time as the apple climbed higher.
Loki ate that piece after he had finished licking its juices off of Tony’s chest.
Loki reached for another. This time he traced his lover’s throat and face, running along his jaw and chin and down to his clavicle, back up over his Adam’s apple while his tongue chased in its wake, tasting and licking and teeth biting hard enough to leave a mark. This piece Tony ate and the bruises Loki had just left on his throat disappeared as he swallowed. He licked what little juice was left in the apple off of his lips before Loki had the chance to.
Loki seemed to melt down the length of the bed, like water running, smooth and seamless, until he was cradled in the v of Tony’s thighs, already spreading them wider to better accommodate himself. The third piece of the apple was running along the underside of Tony’s erection and then along his perineum. Again, Loki’s tongue followed it, chasing the taste of apple and Tony and back up again until his mouth sunk down easily on the cock that bobbed before it. The segment of apple was pressed against Tony’s hole, causing a burn that made Tony hiss, but Loki kept his legs from closing up, instinctively trying to escape the pain. Magic eased the way, lubing Tony up with little more than a flick of Loki’s wrist, but the God continued to press the fruit against Tony’s entrance, rimming him as his fingers worked one by one to push their way inside of him. Loki ate the fruit once his lover was sufficiently prepared, grinning like a shark as Tony flushed darkly, eyes wide at how filthy Loki was being.
The last piece of fruit Loki put in Tony’s hand. The mortal reached down, grabbing hold of Loki’s erection with the same hand that held the apple and rubbed, jacking him off slowly, focusing on making sure the core of the apple rubbed along Loki’s shaft. The Asgardian hissed, sensitive skin catching on the apple’s core, seeds falling free and making him jerk in Tony’s gasp. He pulled Tony’s hand away; force fed him the fruit before lining up his cock and pushing inside.
Tony almost choked again, swallowing the half-chewed apple as Loki breached him, and he coughed and sputtered but managed to breathe around the fruit that got caught halfway down his throat before he forced it down. Loki only chuckled, lips quirked in amusement even as his face tightened and his back tensed, forcing himself to hold still until Tony was ready. When the mortal thrust up, seeking friction, Loki met him, thrust for thrust, until Tony was little more than a panting wreck, with his head thrown back and his legs locked up around Loki’s waist and his skin sticky from apple juice. His mouth was bruised again, and down along his neck as Loki trailed bites and kisses with every other thrust, hips meeting Tony’s furiously, desperately, as they clung to one another, pulled at each other’s hair and tried to meet in the middle, mouths half kissing and half missing, messy and wet and needy. And they tried again, groaning into the kisses that came together seamlessly and Tony half sobbing in frustration anytime he missed and Loki dropped a kiss to his jaw instead before biting down until Tony was shrieking.
The bruises healed and the bites faded and Loki never managed to break skin, but the hand prints on Tony’s hips were stark against his skin, unmoved by the strength of the golden apples and Loki eyed them with pride, fitting his fingers easily back over them and holding on tight as he jerked his hips twice more, pleasure coiling like a spring at the base of his stomach until it exploded, twisting loose deep within him and out of him, until he was hissing in Tony’s ear as he came. Beneath him, Tony moaned, long and low, head thrown back in welcome to Loki’s mouth that was once more fixed over his Adam’s apple, sucking hungrily. He came with another low moan, loving the feeling of Loki’s hands on him, the heat and slick of Loki’s seed inside of him and the weight of the God slumped on top of him, though he didn’t feel quite as heavy as he usually did.
“A few hundred more years,” Loki murmured once he had gotten his breath back, seemingly reading Tony’s mind, “and a few more apples, you’ll barely notice my weight.” He slid sideways, curling around Tony on the bed.
He glanced up at the air vent cover which was just over the door, smirking widely as Clint swore and scrambled backwards, trying to slot the cover back into place at the same time, startled at being caught watching. Tony noticed him for the first time then, mouth dropping open before he laughed softly, slowly, but he did nothing about it. Instead, Tony leant back against Loki’s chest, curling his arms over the pale arms that already encircled his waist and he smiled.
“So, these stolen apples. Will you get into trouble?”
“Probably,” Loki admitted. Tony could feel him shrug, though he couldn’t see it. He could imagine the smirk on Loki’s face easily enough as well, self-satisfied and smug, wicked and proud of it.
“Delinquent,” Tony muttered with a roll of his eyes. “My mother warned me about boys like you, you know.”
“What did she say?” Loki asked. He easily rolled Tony over so that they were facing each other. Apple seeds lay discarded across the bed, like pins on a map marking the way to treasure, leading from one man to the other and Loki ran his fingers through them, displacing them as he waited for Tony to speak.
“That boys like you would be bad for me,” he said. Tony picked up one seed and chewed on it, grinning. “And that I’d love every second of it,” he added, offering Loki a second seed, ready and waiting on the tip of his tongue.
The End
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Thanks for reading. I hope you liked it. I took some liberties with the strength of the golden apples.
And thanks, Bats, for freaking me out about the apple juice thing… This is why magical lube comes in handy, I suppose?