Archive of Our Own ^beta

There's a lingering effect whenever Loki appears or disappers. He can't help it, and he can't stop it. The energy just will manifest as a gush of cold air against the skin. That's how it always is.

For Loki, anyway. For her, the energy has always manifested as a smell. Something sharper than flowers, but more muted than hot metal. Somewhere in between, soothing and threatening. A heady smell. That used to have more of a stimulating effect on him than it does now. 

"Angrboda," Loki doesn't bother to get up from his sprawl on the couch. He's had a long journey, and is too tired for whatever nonsense she wants with him. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Such a choice of words, Loki," she says, hands on her hips where she's appeared in front of his fireplace. "I can almost believe that you mean them."

Loki doesn't bother to lie to himself about what he thinks about her: she is beautiful. Achingly so, the soft blue of her skin and the red of her eyes especially vivd against the waves of jet-black curls that fall around her shoulders. The decision to wear her hair short is a practical one, as is her habitual black tunic and tight breeches. Both are sensible. She wears both perfectly. 

He does not deny the he finds her lovely. He is less certain though how much of what has gone between them is due to that, and how much to the incredible feeling when he had found her — to be no longer alone, no longer a freak— which was more overwhelming, more intoxicating, than any beauty Loki's known. 

But Loki has learned that being overwhelmed and being intoxicated is not all that matters. Tony Stark taught him that. 

"I was just being polite," Loki says. "What do you want?"

"I've heard what you want," Angroboda settles herself on the couch just above Loki's head, crossing her legs and leaning over him a little to look into his face. "The children say hello, by the way."

"I very much doubt that. What have you heard about what I want?"

She smiles. Her teeth are a deep, blueberry blue. The tongue that flicks out quickly over her lips is black. "I've heard you recently made quite a long trip," she says. "A very long trip, one that even one of your power and tenacity would think twice about before attempting."

Loki tips his head up to look at her more directly. But says nothing. 

"I've heard," she says slowly, savoring each syllable, "that you fancied a bit of apple picking. Baking a pie, dear?"

"Baking a pie?" Loki says dryly. "Really?"

She shrugs. "Wordplay was always your strenght, not mine. And given my shock, it was the best I could do."

"Shock?" Loki presses himself up into a sitting position. "What could shock you?"

Her smile fades, her red eyes narrow. "This was an act worthy of legend, Loki. And all for... well, for nothing."

"'Nothing'?" Loki knows she is trying to bait him, he knows that. But she is oh, oh so very good at it. "What could you possibly know about it?"

"More than you think," she runs her hands over her short, ram-like horns, before setting her chin in one hand. "That you didn't tell your little pet where you were going, for starters. That it has been now almost three weeks since you saw him."

"Clever you," Loki says witheringly. "What staggering intellectual power, dear."

She goes on as though he hasn't spoken. "That he works late, when you are gone. That he sleeps in his workshop, so dedicated is he to his craft. But that when you do appear, as though by magic, he knocks every trinket and toy of his off his work table so that you might throw him on top of it."

Loki goes still. 

"That he does not mind, when you tear his clothes from his body. That he would tear yours off as well, had he the strength," she smiles, lazily. "That his hands never stop moving, as though he wishes to take all of you in at once. But that he doesn't mind, when you seize his wrists and pin them tothe table above his head."

She rocks forward so she's leaning into Loki's face, eyes hungrily tracking every twitch, every slight motion he makes. "That he whines, high in his throat," she whispers, "when you lick along the blue contraption set into his flesh. And that when you take him, fucking into him like an animal, he begs, he pleads for more."

Angrboda cocks her head to the side, smiling. "When he comes, he says 'Oh, Loki.' Never 'Oh, God,' as many mortals do. A conscious choice, do you think? Based on some theological principal? Or more because he worships you as his own g—"

His hand is around her throat in an instant, and the rest of her little speech trails off in a gurgle. Blue instantly starts to snake up his hand and over his wrist. More slowly than it would, were she a full-blood frost giant. 

"What have you done to him?" He hisses. 

"Nothing he did not ask for," she wheezes, still smiling. "Nothing that did not leave him shaking with want. And I left him, sleeping soundly in the bed you share. Quite exhausted, the poor thing. But no doubt your precious gift will help with his... energy."

"Why?" The inside of his arm is turning blue now, the shift coursing up around his elbow. He is shaking, shaking with fury, and though he knows there's little chance he would be able to kill her, he is tempted to try. "Why would you do this?"

"Why would you, Loki?" She spits, from smiling to furious in a mad instant. "Why would you offer this gift, this treasure to such a creature? So that you might be together, as all eternities pass around you? That you might never lose him? Well," she laughs, high and harsh, her laugh chillingly at odds with all that's beautiful about her. "You have lost him after all."

Her hand snakes around the back of his neck, a smooth caress. When she speaks again her tone is tender, intimate, gently. "I know you, love. I know that now, knowing he has been ruined by another, even in your guise, you will never be able to touch him again."

Loki pushes her away, rushes to his feet. He's gone in an instant, leaving nothing but her laugher and a gust of cool air behind him. 

~

Tony has been working all morning, working constantly. Because that's what he does when he gets like this. Though he's going to have to redo it all anyway: he is fairly sure that if he actually tries to use this particular repulsor redesign he's working on, he'll blow his arm off. But the point isn't really to make something that works. It's to just do something with his hands, until he can exorcise the creeping uneasiness that's dogged him all day. 

He feels the soft touch of cold air the instant before Loki appears, sitting calmly on the other side of the table. It's not warning enough, and the repulsor falls to the ground with a crash when he jerks back. 

"Shit," he says. "Never gets old for you, does it?"

Loki doesn't smile. His face is calm, composed, an even, utterly blank mask. His eyes are intent on Tony though, blazing with a look Tony hasn't seen in... years, maybe. 

"Tony," Loki says evenly. "How are you?"

"Well, You know," Tony shrugs. 

"No," Loki gets to his feet, slowly. "I don't. Tell me."

With Loki, the split-seconds are all that count. Anything more than that, he either grows bored or can predict what's coming next and then gets bored. Split-seconds are the key to surprising a smile out of him, or even better, a laugh. It's how to deflate him, when he's tiptoeing close to some insane precipice of violence that only Tony and Thor can really detect. And split-seconds are the only way to lie to him.

It's in split-seconds where Tony can decide to lie to him, when Tony sees that— as freaked out as he is about whatever was going on last night— Loki is for some reason much, much more freaked out than Tony is. 

Comfort first, Tony thinks, in that split second. Sort out your own case of the whim-whams later. 

"I'm great," Tony says, mouth widening into a smile that looks more genuine than it feels. "I mean, come on. How could I not be?"

Loki turns away from him abruptly. Tony can't see his face, but he sees how Loki raises one hand, something gold flashing in it for a moment before Loki turns fully and blocks it from view. 

"And last night?" Loki says. "How was last night for you?"

Tony keeps smiling, because he knows Loki will be able to hear it in his voice otherwise. Even though the creeping unease has swelled into nausea in his gut. "Amazing," he says. "Really amazing, Loki, wow. If you're going to be like this after every unexplained disappearance maybe—"

Loki drops his arm, and something hits the floor with a thud. Tony leans forward to see what it is, but whatever it was must have vanished almost as soon as it hit the ground. 

"What was—"

"I have to go," Loki says. No longer calm, his voice is thick now with—yes, when he turns Tony can see it— with pain, with rage, with something so terrible that it looks like Loki can barely hold it in. "Goodbye, Tony."

"Loki, hold on, what are you—" he reaches for Loki, and Loki lurches back, like Tony's touch would burn him. He waves an arm, eyes still on Tony's face. And steps back into nothingness. 

All that's left is a slight chill against Tony's face. Nothing else.