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{1. How it starts}
“But I have no idea how to woo midgardians!” Loki protests, and Tony stops in the corridor, because what?
“I’m sure we can find a way to help you brother,” Thor says from the room, and Loki groans. “Surely, one of our friends will find a way to help you in your endeavor.”
Tony does realize he’s not supposed to hear this conversation –they’re in Loki’s room, after all, and everybody in the house knows that when Loki chooses to actually use it, it becomes a ‘no entry’ zone. The door, however, is wide open, and the thought of Loki, with a vocabulary to put a dictionary to shame and a brilliant mind, not knowing how to woo… seriously, it’s too good of an occasion to pass.
“Maybe I can help,” he says as he comes into the room.
Loki, who was apparently sitting right at the edge of his bed, yelps and falls down, Tony catching a flash of bare ass in the process. Ah, so the trickster likes to sleep in the nude. Good to know, he guesses.
“And what help could you possibly provide in this situation?” Loki asks from the ground, his head and shoulders the only thing visible from behind the high bed, a healthy flush spread on his face.
“I’ll have you know, I wooed countless midgardians into my bed,” Tony says with his usual arrogance, and Thor chuckles from the end of his brother’s bed.
“For one night,” Loki mutters. “I had something more permanent in mind.”
“Same principles,” Tony assures, and Thor laughs just as Loki tries to protest:
“You should accept his offer little brother,” he says, “you may gain from it.”
“I’ll find a way myself,” Loki insists, and Tony rolls his eyes.
“Look, I promise I won’t tell anybody about it,” he says. “Nobody will have to know the great Silvertongue can’t woo a tiny human without help.”
Loki’s blush deepens as he splutters a token protest, and Thor laughs heartily. Tony congratulates himself on such a success, because this kind of scene doesn’t happen every day. Thor says something to Loki in a language Tony doesn’t understand, and Loki hisses an answer in the same tongue, gesturing toward Tony. Thor says something with a tone that speaks of finality, and Loki glares at him for a few second before relenting.
“Very well,” he says, “I shall take your counsel. I hope for your sake this enterprise proves to be a success.”
“Good!” Tony claps his hand together, heartily ignoring the last part of Loki’s sentence. “Let’s get to work then!”
Loki doesn’t move, and after a few second, both Tony and Thor receive expectant looks. Then, when they don’t react, Loki rolls his eyes, and asks pointedly:
“A moment, if I may?”
Oh, yeah, that’s true, he’s still starkers. Thor glances at his brother, pink from ears to neck, and he laughs heartily, loud as ever, before he gets up and strides toward the door, calling out a wish of good luck on his way out.
“Oh do shut up Thor!” Loki replies, and Tony chuckles before he leaves the room as well.
Loki joins him in his workshop half an hour later, still damp from the shower and dressed in casual elegance –now that he thinks of it, Tony has never seen Loki look anything but elegant. Even if he doesn’t get the appeal of the armor, he must admit it’s a good look on the Asgardian, and it does count as ‘elegant’.
Even now, in his casual dress, Loki wears a short-sleeved green v-neck and impeccable black jeans that show off a very nice backside. Yeah, Tony can definitely work with that. He decides not to go to work immediately though, because there’s a question that has been nagging at his mind since he left Loki’s bedroom. So he asks:
“Just for curiosity’s sake, do you often have deep heart to heart conversations with your brother while in Adam’s costume?”
“I’m assuming said costume would be naked?” Loki asks, an eyebrow raising.
“Yeah. Originally from the Bible but everybody uses it now.”
“I care not for those fairytales of yours,” Loki shrugs, and he pushes a screwdriver to sit on the bench next to Tony. “Can you picture one of those enormous dogs that look like bears but are really just overgrown, slobbering and insistently demanding puppies?”
“Uh… yeah,” Tony says, not absolutely certain where Loki’s going with that one.
“Well, Thor doesn’t slobber,” Loki says, and Tony laughs.
“Good,” he says after, “You are actually capable of being funny… it’s going to help. Funny is very important when you try to woo someone.”
“Right,” Loki says, gaze fixed ahead of him.
He’s bracing on his arms, the blue glow of monitors framing his profile with light, and Tony thinks, yeah, there’s definitely something to work with there, and this shouldn’t be too hard to do. All he’s gotta do is find out a bit more about that person Loki want to woo, give him a few pointers, and poof, in the bag.
“So,” Tony says, “Tell me about that beloved of yours.”
{2. How it fails once}
“Aw man, I’m sorry,” Tony says as he sits down next to Loki. “Being stood up sucks.” He frowns. “It’s a pity too, that’s the last day. When you told me he liked cars I though the International Car Show would be the perfect choice.”
Especially since it’s held in the US this year, instead of France.
Tony spent days briefing Loki on cars and their specificities, speaking with his hand like he always does when technology enters the picture, and Loki looked genuinely interested, which is always a plus in any conversation.
He doesn’t resent to lost time –he really enjoyed it anyway, sharing his obsession for mechanic with someone who’s a) able to keep up and b) doesn’t care that Tony starts flailing like a fangirl everytime he speaks about his most prized possessions.
He just thinks it’ unfair for Loki to prepare himself so well only to be blown off.
“Yes well… he had to help a friend woo someone, apparently,” Loki says. “And who am I to stand against that?”
“Damn,” Tony says, because indeed, Loki can’t really protest against that in his situation. “Tell you what though, now we’re here, it’d be a shame not to enjoy the show. Come on, I’ll show you my favorites.”
And so it is that Loki and Tony spend most of their day strolling around the various showcases, commenting on this or that particular feature, eating French fries and trolling salesmen just because.
Tony feels genuinely surprised when closing time comes around and he hasn’t glanced at his watch even once.
{3. How it fails twice}
“Stark,” Loki asks when they reach the theme park, “what are we doing here?”
“Theme parks are a great place for dates,” Tony explains. “Because it’s exotic and different, it’s a treat. So unless your guy lives in a theme park, it’s the perfect place to do some good old fashioned midgardian wooing. You take him to the different booth, impress him with your skills –be sure to let him win one or two games, guys like that, it boosts their ego- and you trade stories about your life, whatever comes to mind. I don’t know, things you used to do with Thor when you were kids and all.”
“And you took me here because?”
“Because a demonstration is worth a thousand words,” Tony smirks. “Come on, we’ll start with the roller coasters.”
It turns out, Loki doesn’t like roller coasters.
If he’d told that before they climbed in, Tony would have assumed he feared getting sick, and left it at that, which would have been totally okay –the roller coasters are here for Tony’s personal amusement than for the wooing purpose anyway, because they can easily upset digestion and you don’t want to vomit on your date.
However, Tony finds out that Loki doesn’t like that kind of attraction because, and Tony quotes, ‘I have more fun riding on Thor’s back’. The noise he makes in his coke is far from being attractive, and Tony’s glad he’s not really on a date, or that would have been awkward.
“Oh god,” he says while trying to take as much of his drink out of his hulk t-shirt as possible, “don’t say that to your date, you’ll traumatize him!”
“You don’t look particularly traumatized to me,” Loki answers, and Tony chuckles:
“Well, no, but everybody knows I’m a special case.”
From the corner of his eyes, Tony notices Loki tilting his head, as if to say ‘you have no idea’, and he smirks with satisfaction.
Obviously, the next step after adrenaline high-inducing attractions, is to go get something to eat, and Tony laughs at the face Loki pulls when he hears their sandwiches are hot dogs.
“I will not eat dog, Stark, it’s disgusting!”
“It’s not really dog meat,” Tony says. “I think this particular recipe is made with horse sausage.”
Loki shoves the thing in the nearest trash bin so hard he folds the lid, and spends the next five minutes rubbing at his hands with a cleaning spell. He explains later that his first son is a horse. And okay, not gonna lie, Tony finds that image to be more than a little weird, but it’s not like he’s here to judge, and at least it makes sense, not like the way Clint refuses to eat spaghetti because they’re supposedly too slimy.
So instead, when Loki admits to having a sweet tooth, Tony gets them two huge bags of candies filled with all his favorites and then some, and then he throws some waffles on top, and they have to figure out a way to balance all that in only one hand when their get candied apples. Loki eats about two-thirds of the candy by himself, and Tony doesn’t even find it in him to remark ho weird this is when there’s sugar staining Loki’s cheeks, glistening under the light.
“I have a very fast metabolism,” Loki says with a voice that aims for haughty but ends up sounding petulant.
Tony chuckles, and announces that it’s time for them to go try the haunted train –to which Loki replies that he doesn’t see what scary about going through a tunnel in the dark, he does that all the time, thanks. Tony tells him he’s just weird, and anyway most of the fun of a phantom train is to make fun of the costumes and poor special effect, so shut up and come on I’m sure your commentary will be awesome.
That plan, however, flies out the window when they pass a ring-throwing booth with a life-sized Iron Man plush, and Tony must have it.
Yes, he is aware of how childish he sounds but come on, how often do you have an occasion to get a plush toy of yourself that is your size?
He literally drags Loki to the counter.
Twenty minutes later, and Tony has learned several things. First, he’s not good at aiming. He’ll have to practice that someday, possibly. Second, Loki is extremely distracting, and probably half the reason Tony can’t throw properly, because at first he was giving him instructions on how to position his arms, hold his shoulders, and where to look, and when Tony told him to stop he took to just standing here and watching and it’s worse, because nobody should have eyes that green, anyway.
“Seriously,” Tony says after the fourth missed ring in a row, “Do you always do that when people are trying to shoot or throw or something? ‘Cause it’s really annoying, and you’re making me miss half my shots.”
“Your poor aim is making you miss half your shots,” Loki answers, and Tony grunts. “Couldn’t you just buy it?” Loki asks, and he’s got a point, Tony could, but for once he wants to do things the proper way.
“I don’t want to buy it, I want to win it,” he says, and Loki sighs, before he steps up to the tenant:
“How many rings do I have to throw to win this toy?”
The man, a grandpa type with a bald head and a toothy smile, looks at Loki over the counter, then at the plush, and he says:
“One hundred and fifty, if you aim for the white bottles at the back.”
“I require one hundred and fifty three rings, please.”
“Three extra rings?” Tony chuckles as the old man starts taking boxes of wooden rings out, “Getting a little anxious about our performances, are we?”
“I know nothing of those rings, not what they weight or how they fly… the extras are for practice.”
Tony watches Loki take the wooden rings from the booth tenant, and weigh one of them in his hand. When he throws it, it bounces off one of the white bottles in the middle. The second one gets closer to the mark, but it’s only the third one that finally gets hooked.
Starting then, it’s a flurry of wood, rings shooting one after the other, and Tony gapes. At some point, he stops looking at where the rings go, because they all find a bottle, so quick that the old man doesn’t even have time to move through the next customers –who stopped trying to throw, and are now watching Loki anyway.
For himself, Tony watches the thrower rather than his projectiles.
Loki is wearing the usual pair of black jeans, coupled with a dark-grey v-neck and an emerald on a leather string that dangles low on his chest, like a woman’s necklace. He doesn’t hesitate at all between two throw, and Tony is surprised by the look of concentration on his face, as if it were any difficulty for him to hit the target each and every time.
When he throws the last ring, Tony watches is fall around the neck of the farthest bottle without even touching it before landing, and the people around them applaud Loki, several kids tugging at their parents’ sleeves to go try the stand.
“I would have my stuffed Toy now, if you please,” Loki says, and the old man puts the plush in his arms.
“With the customers you’ve brought me,” he says, “you get another prize for free.”
Loki looks around the display of stuffed toys, water guns and plastic mjölnirs, and chooses the one thing Tony wouldn’t have thought he’d take: a small plastic flower that sings and dances when you tap its petals.
“Well,” Tony comments, “That’s not what I expected. Are going to put it in your room or something?”
“It’s for my daughter,” Loki says softly. “She likes plants, but there are only one or two things that grow in her kingdom. So I bring her fake ones sometimes, so she can decorate her palace a little bit.”
“Makes sense,” Tony approves. Then, because this is supposed to be a lesson in wooing, he says: “you know, what you did earlier, that’s a good move too. I mean, it depends on the guy because some may not like the idea of having something won for them, but it shows that you care and all, so in general, it could work. He could like it.”
“I see,” Loki says, eyes fixed on Tony’s face. “And did you appreciate it?”
“Wha—well, yeah,” Tony says, surprised by Loki’s question. “Of course. It’s cool. Thanks, by the way.”
“…you are welcome.”
Tony isn’t entirely sure, but he thinks he sees Loki roll his eyes when he turns toward the haunted tunnel. He shrugs.
In the end, they spend the entirety of their ride trying to readjust the position of Tony’s giant plush, to the point where they both end up half sitting on it after they tried to fold it and it hit Loki in the eye when it sprang back to its previous form.
“I have to hand it to you midgardians,” Loki says, “You have a knack for producing annoying things.”
“Of course,” Tony approves. “We have vending machines, self checkouts, subway… and, of course, me. I’m a champion of annoying people.”
“I wouldn’t define you as annoying,” Loki says, and Tony looks at him, surprised.
“What would you define me as, then?”
“Interesting,” Loki says, and since Tony isn’t certain if he’s imagining the blush or not, he stays silent.
They end up in a nearby park, eating waffles and kicking at pigeons like five years old kids and lying in the grass as they watch the sky turn a dirty orange when the nightlight of the city start reflecting on the clouds overhead.
“That was a very nice day,” Loki says, not too far from Tony’s shoulder, and Tony nods.
“It’ll be even better with your date,” he says after a beat, and he feels the weight of Loki’s gaze settle on his cheeks.
“Yes,” Loki says slowly. “It would feel even better if it were a gallant outing.”
“Don’t worry,” Tony says, with perhaps a little less enthusiasm than he should, “I’m sure when you take him here, he won’t be able to resist.”
Loki hums, a noise of acquiescence that turns into a melody. It feels old somehow, older than Tony and older than anyone can remember.
He wakes up in his bed, literally cuddling the stuffed Iron Man, and with a sticky-note on his shoulder.
“If you really want a hug, all you have to do is ask,” Loki wrote in green ink, and Tony smiles, chalks his stomach’s weird behavior up on too much candy, and goes back to sleep.
{4. How the third time isn’t the charm}
“—hopeless,” Loki says when Tony walks by his door, and Thor chuckles. “Do not laugh, brother! This is serious. I feel like there is no hope of success. This is infinitely frustrating.”
“Surely, he must know by now,” Thor says, sounding a little concerned this time.
“Would I be behaving in such a pathetic fashion if he did?” Loki sighs, and there’s the muffled sound of a head colliding with something soft.
“Do you know, brother,” Thor says after a short silence, “for all the distress the situation causes you, I am still thankful.”
“Why would you be?” Loki asks, sullen.
“Because you are trusting me again,” Thor says. “And I do not recall this kind of thing happening since before the Lady Sigyn.”
Tony hears the sound of someone shifting, then a sigh, and Loki speaks, almost too low for Tony to hear:
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too, brother.”
“Thor—Thor!”
“What?”
“Breathing—Important.”
“Oh! Apologies, brother.”
Tony can’t help to chuckle when he gets to the open door, and he sees Loki rubbing his ribs as if to prevent bruises. Both Asgardians start when he comes in, and it takes Loki a few seconds to school his features into a more composed expression.
“How long have you been here?” He asks, and Tony gives him a sympathetic smile:
“Long enough to know things aren’t looking so bright,” he says. “I take it the theme park thing didn’t work very well then.”
“Oh, yes, it did,” Loki says. “It was a very nice day.”
The surge of annoyance at that takes Tony by surprise, and he chides himself. First of all, it’s not like he has any reason to mind that Loki just described his date with the exact same words he used to qualify their outing of last week. And even if he had a reason to, well, he would just have to sit on it because, after all, he could have realized it sooner.
“I just don’t think he’s interested in me.”
Okay, Tony, calm. Now isn’t the right time to start smiling like a loon, and besides, you promised to help Loki woo the man. And you’re going to do it because that’s what you do: you keep your promises. End of story.
“Okay,” Tony says after a beat, “Let’s try something else then.”
“Tony, I am not certain that….”
“Nonsense,” Tony insist. “Look, here’s what we’re going to do: you’re going to phone him –not text, phone, it’ important- and invite him for dinner, on Friday.”
“But I—”
“Butts are for sitting,” Tony says, stealing the saying from Pepper. “Thor and I are going to take you for a bit of clothes-shopping tomorrow, because those suit of yours are classy but way too intimidating, and then I’ll brief you on the dos and don’ts of a midgardian dinner date, and your man is going to literally fall into your arms.” He turns to Thor with a grin: “What do you say big guy.”
Thor looks at Tony for a long moment, as if searching for something more than the words Tony just said, and it takes effort not to squirm in front of such a speculative look. In the end though, Thor seems to find what he was looking for and, on his insistence, Loki agrees to trying the dinner thing.
{ooo}
Tony doesn’t understand.
In the past three weeks, he’s been spending a lot of time with Loki. At first, it was because he needed to know more about his love interest in order to help properly, but then he just figured… Loki’s a nice guy. Or, well. He’s not all sunshine and rainbow, and he spends a lot of time criticizing people and customs and clothes and words in the dictionary. Also, he rolls his eyes a lot, and they freaking change color when he does it.
And then there’s this thing he does when he’s bored, where there are sparks of magic in his hands and he doesn’t do anything with them, just keeps them here and makes figures –a horse, a snake, a woman, a wolf. Plus, he’s genuinely interested in mechanics and everything even remotely scientific, and he’s smart.
Actually, he’s the only person Tony knows who can hold conversation with him, Jane Foster and Bruce Banner, and not only understand everything but also contribute to the conversation.
The guy really is a catch, and Tony really doesn’t understand how a man like him can get stood up.
And yet, when he checks his watch, it’s a quarter past eight, forty-five minutes later than the hour Loki arranged for, and Tony grunts as he leaves his table. It’s a shame, really, that the guy didn’t even bother to come, because the restaurant is nice, and Loki looks extremely good in pressed pants and a white shirt, complete with a dark green vest that compliments his silhouette.
“I’m really sorry about that,” he says when he comes up to Loki’s table. “I mean, you would think the guy really isn’t interested.”
“Ah, well,” Loki sighs, “I’ll survive. I the meantime, I noticed you didn’t order anything, why don’t you join me?”
“You sure you don’t want to go home instead?” Tony asks, because that’s usually what people do after they’ve been stood up, at least from what he gathers.
“And miss an occasion to taste ‘the best food in town’? Certainly not. I shall have to count on you to make tonight an agreeable night.”
“Challenge accepted,” Tony says.
And so they spend the evening together, chatting about things that range from Tony’s life as a playboy, Loki’s weirdest plans for world domination –the ones he discarded even before he changed side- and tidbits about Tony’s adventures in teenager-ness –which, really, can be summed up by ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time’.
All in all, Tony has fun. In fact, he has so much fun that by the time the restaurant tells them it’s time to leave, it’s well past midnight and neither he nor Loki realized the time. Woops.
When they reach Loki’s bedroom, Tony’s tipsy with sleep and laughter and maybe one too many drinks, who knows. He says:
“Well, that was a very nice evening,” And Loki’s eyes do this weird thing where they widen even as he frowns.
Tony kisses his cheek and goes to his own room, not noticing the look of frustration on Loki’s face.
{5. How the pupil surpasses the master}
“Gnnnh—lights,” Tony growls, and he plunges his face back into his pillow, hoping to smother his hangover –or himself, if the former doesn’t work.
Unfortunately, if Thor is the Mastiff slobbering all over your face and chocking you with its weight until you can’t do anything but acknowledge it, Loki is the cat who crawls under the covers and bites at your feet until you either cuddle it or –not so- accidentally kick it off, at which point you get scars on your calves.
Tony curls up into a ball when the covers vanish from his bed, and he lets out a plaintive whine because, really, the clock reads eight am and there’s a reason why Tony enjoys being a billionaire with no appointment damnit! But of course, Loki either doesn’t care, or hasn’t been raised that way, or a combination of both –they found out that, surprisingly, Thor is the grumpy one before breakfast.
In the end, genius billionaire philanthropist or not, Tony has to leave the bed when Loki threatens to throw him out the window, because even if he’s 99% sure the trickster would catch him, Tony isn’t really keen on repeating the experience, thank you.
“What the hell, Loki?” Tony asks with a yawn, and Loki throws fabric at him.
“Get dressed,” he says, “I’m taking you to Asgard. We leave in half an hour.”
Tony doesn’t have time to protest before Loki leaves. He put on the thick and sleeveless red cotton shirt, struggles a bit to enter the leather pants, and when he spots the knee-high boots with thick laces, he almost groans. He does manage to get dressed alone though, and he joins Loki in the kitchen just on time.
They vanish in a puff of green smoke, landing in the middle of the desert, with intricate Celtic knots half erased by the wind still marked in the sand. Then Loki calls out for someone to open the Bifrost, and before Tony can ask for explanations, he’s sucked into a rainbow-colored black hole, and he would land face-first on a very hard metal floor, if not for Loki’s hand grabbing him by the shoulder.
There’s a black man in golden armor, with bull horns on his helmet and very disturbing golden eyes that give Tony the impression of being stripped down to his soul.
It’s not a feeling he likes.
“You bring a guest, Destroyer of Worlds,” the man says, and Tony is surprised to see that Loki doesn’t flinch under his gaze.
“Almost destroyer of only one world, Heimdall,” he corrects. “Which doesn’t matter seeing as I have been reinstated as prince of Asgard, and you are required to show respect to the rank, if nothing else.”
“My apologies, prince Loki,” the man says, and if words were actions, Loki would have spit between his eyes by now.
They leave the golden room, and Tony follows Loki on a pathway made of glass shining with the colors of rainbows. He goes about five paces before he stops, because all around them there is only space: black and shiny above, under and in all other directions, save that one golden shape that tony guesses must be Asgard. Loki is dressed in the simple green tunic Thor calls his travelling garb, and he looks younger like that, as though the clothes were made for a boy rather than a man. His long hair looks out of place in it.
Tony wants to ask if this happens every time Loki comes back to Asgard, but when he turns, he notices the former villain has stopped, and is crouching on the very edge of the bridge, his fingers caressing something that looks like an ugly crack.
“Loki?” Tony tries, and Loki sighs, but his eyes don’t leave the void in front of him.
“This is where I fell,” he says. “After I tried to destroy Jötunheim. I imagine Thor told you the story.”
“Not really,” Tony answers, still unsure of what to do. “He didn’t like to talk about you, when you were the enemy. And since you’re back, well… guess he thinks it’s best forgotten.”
“He destroyed the Bifrost,” Loki says, probably more to himself than to Tony. “I was convinced he would rather let the Jötuns die than do this.” He huffs a humorless chuckle. “I was convinced of a lot of things, and none of them were true.”
Tony watches as Loki remembers where he is, and that time has passed, and he shakes himself from the memories that painted a mask of regrets on his face. When he stands, he looks every bit the man Tony is used to see, except he looks more complex now. It feels weird, and kind of hypnotic at the same time.
Then he seizes Tony’s shoulder again, and when they reappear, they’re in the middle of a… a market, from what Tony can tell.
“What is this?” he asks, “Where are we?”
“This is the Midsummer Festival,” Loki says. “Come. We will get breakfast first, and then I’ll give you the tour.”
Tony nods.
{ooo}
They get kleina for breakfast, a small deep-fried pastry, and a bag of apples small enough that they can fit three of them in their palms at the same time.
Tony lets his eyes wander on the stalls, covered with more types of fishes than he’s ever seen, seaweeds and cereals sharing the few spaces left. They pass stalls covered in roasting meat and sausages, and Tony stops for several minutes to watch a woman cook seagull eggs in a hot spring.
They pass endless rows of small games, people walking through the streets with puffins draped over their shoulders like giant cloaks in black and white, stands selling sausages that smell wonderful, but Loki steadfastly refuses to even approach them, and when Tony asks why, he answers: “It’s horse.”
It appears, very quickly, that everybody knows Loki.
Not in the way that you know a friend, of course, but not in the same way Tony is recognized in the street of earth either. Where Tony is approached for signatures and photographs, and generally just the pride of having met someone famous, every person who comes up to Loki has something to say; a puffin hunter wants to know if it’s alright to lower the prices, a fisherman complains that there isn’t much this year, and asks for help from the palace. Further down the street, an old woman tells them about a flood that destroyed her village, and Loki listens to her for almost ten minute, patiently nodding and cataloguing her requests before he sends her on her way, with the promise that something should be done.
They come to him for help, Tony realize, even if half of them mutter once he has his back turned, and Tony can’t make out their words, but he’s pretty sure it’s not anything nice.
“They don’t know,” Tony realizes. “What you’ve done.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” Loki contradicts. “They know what I’ve tried to do, and they think I was right to try as much as they hate me for trying to destroy a world. Just as I hate Frost Giants and, hate myself for being one. Of course, Odin made sure nobody learned the truth of my origins. Now that would have been damaging to internal politics.”
“And your external politics?” Tony asks. “What about them?”
“Oh, there will be a war,” Loki says. “But not now. Not until Jötunheim rises again from it ashes. As for my being in Asgard, well. There would have been a war anyway. The difference is, with me here, we our chances of winning are that much higher, for I am the only one who can travel without the Bifrost. I am a valuable asset, and it is the only reason they keep me here.”
“You’re not,” Tony says. “And asset, I mean. To me. You’re just… you. And that’s what makes you valuable.”
Loki doesn’t speak for a long moment after that, and Tony sees him blink several times, before he clears his throat and says:
“Come with me. I’ll show you what we use in lieu of cars.”
“You know, I’m not really that fond of horses,” Tony says, but Loki’s already moving, so he just follows.
{ooo}
Andin fact, once they come to what Loki jokingly refers to as the Asgardian cars showcase, Tony doesn’t see any horse, or at least not at first glance.
He sees crows the size of a bike, and cats with whiskers as long as his forearms. He sees dogs whose tails could knock a kid out, and a polar bear he’s pretty sure could swallow him whole and what. The fuck?
But it doesn’t stop there.
Because after the crazy animals –and that includes a small black cat with puffin wings that decides following Loki around is a good idea- there’s the carts. And damn, not just the classical carts either: big and small, simple like haywagons or just about as complex as one of Tony’s customized cars.
He turns to Loki with eyes widened by surprise, silently asking if it’s alright for him to geek out, and Loki smiles.
“My favorite model is this one,” he says, pointing at a one-seat black char with green flames painted on the sides. “It’s the sturdiest you can find, and there are a lot of interesting spells woven into the framework. For example—”
Tony decides this is going to be the best day ever.
{ooo}
After they’ve spent the morning walking around chars –and tony would never have imagined he’d like geeking about chars that much, they stop at a stall where they buy roasted puffins and some dried lamb meat, plus a flagon of whey wine for drinks, and they eat on a bridge of carved stones, legs dangling over the water while dragonfly buzz around them like their lives depend on it –which they might, it’s not like Loki’s really familiar with the biology of dragonflies anyway.
“So,” he says once he’s finished his meat –apparently, Aesir don’t like vegetables- “What do we do next?”
“We go to the funfair,” Loki answers. “And this time we see if you can win something on your own.”
The way he smiles, Tony can feel the punch line coming.
He does, however, follow Loki through the food market, intrigued at some booths, wary at others, and frankly repulsed at a few of them –not that he tries but apple-green squids that are still moving well… not really his thing, sorry.
They come to the funfair part of the festival, and Tony is surprised to recognize most of the attractions: knives-throwing booths, the classic ‘hit the base to ring the bell’, a few fishing games… there are also the kids attractions, except where there would be ponies on earth, here children of two are put on enormous farm horses Tony can barely see over. The winged cat in still trailing after them, and it shows when a game of catch the canary is interrupted by their passage. The tenant stops protesting as soon as Loki throws a coin in his direction, and Tony smirks: the power of money never changes.
“Here,” Loki says after a few minutes. “Let’s try this one.”
It looks simple enough. Things that look like overgrown dragonflies fly around in a thing and golden energy shield, and kids are trying to catch some of them with their hands.
“The red ones are worth more than any other,” Loki explains, “But they’re harder to catch. The blue ones are the easiest: one red is worth fifteen of those. The yellow and green ones are in-between. You have to catch a certain amount of them in order to pay for your prize.”
“Okay,” Tony says. “What do you want?”
The prizes here are things Tony has never seen: keys with intricate designs of moving lights, pendants of silver and gold that seem to vibrate when you move close to them, birds the size of his thumb buzzing around in the tiniest cages, and even a red and black lizard spitting smoke and fire when it feels like it. There are, of course, a good amount of wooden weapons as well, but somehow Tony doesn’t think Loki will want one of those.
Tony watches Loki’s eyes move from one item to the other for a moment, noting the way they change color according to the angle at which the light hits them, the straight line of his neck, which shows more throat than usual today, and the way his hands move to point at….
“Sorry, I didn’t see which one you showed me?”
“This one,” Loki repeats, pointing at a small golden key with a small ruby mounted in the center. It’s old fashioned and in comes with a thin chain that could be a necklace, if it were a bit shorter.
“It’s twenty reds, my lord,” the tenant says, and Tony nods.
“No problem. I can do this.”
At first, Tony has a hard time catching the little fuckers. They’re fast, and they get away as soon as you try catching them: most people concentrate on the blue or green ones and Loki chuckles quietly next to him. At some point, Tony end up getting up, because the table is placed low, and his back hurts.
“They tend to veer left,” Loki says, and the feel of his hand on his back and his breath against his ear –entirely unnecessary- makes Tony shiver, and maybe hope a little bit as well.
Tony nods and gets back into position, but Loki’s hand doesn’t leave his back, and it takes him a second too long to get his mind back on the game. Now that Loki has pointed it out to him, tony finds it laughable that he didn’t notice the dragonflies’ habit of flying to the left when chased. He knows he would have caught up eventually, but the time it took him is truly ridiculous. He blames everything on Loki.
Unsurprisingly, once he is made aware of this little detail, catching the dragonflies goes much more easily, and in about twenty minutes, he has the fifteen reds he needs to complete his payment, and he asks for the key. The tenant doesn’t look really happy to part with it, but a glare from Loki quells any protest he could have made, and Tony drags the trickster away from the booth, because he just spotted a giant snake with seat strapped to its back, and he wants to see how that particular attraction works.
“D’you know someone on the ride?” He asks when Loki waves, but all he gets is a shake of head and an enigmatic:
“Not on the ride, no.”
“Okay,” Tony shrugs. Then he asks: “So. What’s it with the key, anyway? What does it do.”
“It’s an everkey,” Loki explains. “It opens every door in the nine realms, but it always lead to the same room.”
“What, like, you open a door in here and it goes to my bedroom?” Tony asks, and Loki nods.
“And when you go out of the room, you can open the door normally to go in the corridor by your room, or open it with the key to go back to where you were the night before –in your example, that would be here.”
“Okay, this is very interesting,” Tony admits, “but I don’t see why you need it. You can teleport, after all.”
Loki, who was muttering something while tracing pattern over the key, watches it glow and settle before he answers:
“Actually, this isn’t for me. It’s for you. I thought it could be useful, and the colors suit you.”
“Oh… well. Hum. Thanks,” Tony says, and then proceeds to mentally beat himself up for his lack of slickness because ugh Tony, you can do so much better than that!
Loki, however, merely smiles, and they watch as the giant snake finishes his fourth ride around the circuit –it’s not a straight one, of course, or the animal wouldn’t be able to go forward- before Loki says:
“Come now. There is another thing I want to show you.”
“Okay,” Tony says.
{ooo}
“Is this the love child of Moby Dick and a flying llama?” Tony asks when they reach the last attraction, and he feels kind of proud of himself when Loki laughs.
“No. It’s a… I don’t know. I don’t think they named the breed yet, actually. Although Moby Dick was a whale, not a manta ray.”
“I’m impressed you know this,” Tony says.
“Shut up and get on it, Stark,” Loki says, and he places a hand on the small of Tony back to push him up.
The beast is large enough for them both to fit in the giant saddle without feeling too big for it, but when they sit, Tony uses the (borderline lame) excuse of vertigo to sit closer than absolutely necessary. If Loki minds, he doesn’t comment about it.
Tony almost doesn’t feel it when they take off, about two minutes after the previous animal, and they seem to follow the same path as it did.
“How is it they don’t get lost?” he asks.
“They are guided by magic,” Loki explains, and their shoulders bump when he turns. “The tenants set the path before the festival starts, and it disappears when they go. This will allow us to have a good view of Asgard from the sky.”
Tony chuckles and looks around him, but he doesn’t lose the contact between their shoulders. The city of Asgard is flooded with light, glittering from the sun and so obviously buzzing with life even at the end of the day that Tony has to smile at that.
“You know,” he says when they’re about midway through their ride, “this kind of feel like the equivalent to our big wheel.”
“It is,” Loki says, and he shifts a bit closer to Tony. “I have been reliably informed that this is the traditional final stop to this kind of day. Although I will admit to voluntarily forgetting the ‘haunted tunnel’ for we do not have this kind of things here.”
“Hold on a sec,” Tony says once he catches up with what Loki just said, and he turns to look at him: “That’s what I told you.”
“Yes,” Loki says with the air of someone who knows what’s coming afterwards, and Tony frowns:
“Loki, this is how a date is supposed to end,” he points out.
“You know, for a self proclaimed genius, you can be remarkably oblivious, Stark.”
Normally, Tony would protest at those words. But then he finally proceeds everything he has seen during the ‘lessons’ he gave Loki, the way their day went from ‘cars’ to lunch to the funfair and what it entails, well… he has to admit he was rather oblivious.
“Oh,” he says, feeling stupid.
“Yeah.”
Loki gives him a shit eating grin, and Tony sighs.
Well then. He’ll just have to make sure not to be as blind next time, won’t he?