Many thanks to captainstars for choosing me for MTH2018, for giving me so many wonderful prompts to work with, for being so patient with me for taking a while to write this fic (it's been almost two years!), and for reading it over! Among the prompts, I have chosen Asgardian!Tony, cute misunderstanding, and (kinda) pining. I hope you like the fill!

Special thanks to Aori for looking over the fic!

Loki gritted his teeth at the deafening roar behind him, so close it was like a physical blow. Running beside him in the direct path of the roar, Fandral stumbled. Volstagg grabbed him just before he fell, and then Hogun tackled them both from behind, dragging them down just as the wild boar's tusk pierced the space where they once were.

It still nicked Hogun's back, and Loki saw more than heard the curse that spilled from the normally-recalcitrant warrior, right before all three of them were dragged under the space beneath the wild boar's body.

Someone might have shouted, but Loki wasn't sure. His ears were ringing from the roar and the wild boar was getting uncomfortably close.

Loki concentrated on running. If there was a warm blast of air plastering closer against his back with every step he took, his imagination running alongside him to visualize the wild boar's steps outpacing him one-to-two… well, it was only his imagination. It had to be.

Loki almost didn't hear the shout of his name when it came, but it was Thor, and Loki always listened for him, heeded him, even when he wished otherwise.

Loki pushed himself off the ground with all his might and flipped himself backward in an arc, sailing over twenty feet of the hundred-feet wild boar. From above, the wild boar's ragged tusks looked even sharper, deadlier, bits of rotting meat from its last prey hanging off like a trophy.

Loki just barely passed the spot on the center of the wild boar's neck before Thor's summoned lightning crashed down from the sky. Smoke rose and a scorched-fur scent filled Loki's nostrils, but even before Loki's vision cleared, he already knew Thor missed.

The lightning was dead-centered when it was falling from heavens, but how about the split-second it took to reach the wild boar? Thor didn't account for the wild boar's running momentum, despite Loki's repeated reminder, and somehow, Loki couldn't bring himself to be surprised.

Loki looked up at the sound of mechanical whirling, and there was an instant of artificial light piercing through the smoke before it crash-landed. The air on the wild board's back instantly blew away from the force of the drop, and then the words, "Guess it's up to us, Lady Sif," reached his ears.

Loki drank in the sight of Tony Stark rising from his landing crouch with Lady Sif beside him. Loki would never get over the seamless, human movement of his full-body armour, not that he would ever let Tony know.

All of them dropped and grabbed onto the wild boar's fur as it roared and slammed its side into a tree, nearly tossing them off.

"Seems like the little piggy knows it has passengers," Tony said through his armor, and Loki rolled his eyes.

"If you didn't crash land like that -!" he started.

Sif rolled her eyes, breaking their argument before it began. "Boys, focus!" She unsheathed her sword when the boar stopped and immediately charged towards its head. Loki and Tony exchanged a look, and then simultaneously teleported and flew respectively to the front of the beast.

The boar roared in pain as a blast of energy from Tony's palm hit the beast's left eye and Loki's dagger embedded into its right.

Magic sprang to life around Loki's dagger, blossoming it into a white flower hanging from the bleeding eye of the beast.

It was lily, Loki's favorite.

Loki's head whipped around. "Stark!" Loki hissed, as Thor and the Warriors Three burst into laughter from below. It stung, but then Tony's laughter followed, loud and amused even through the helmet in the billowing wind, and Loki's breath faltered at its beauty.

"Ah, men!" Sif bellowed, and Loki looked just in time to see Sif's sword flash against the backdrop of the beast's maggy brown fur, directly over the center of its neck, and sink home.

The boar roared and reared back, and a gale force whipped around them.

"Fuck," Sif cursed as she was swept off.

"Sif!" Thor shouted, whirling Mjolnir, and Loki grabbed Tony and teleported just as the boar fell.

They landed on the ground, hard, Tony's armor knocking the breath out of Loki. Loki really should stop teleporting with Tony.

"Shit!" Tony exclaimed, helmet popping back, hair a mess and his face lined with sweat. His eyes darted to the Warriors Three, to Thor and Sif settling on the ground, to the behemoth wild boar laid slain on its side, and when they finally landed on Loki, so exhilarated they might as well have been glowing, Loki's heart traitorously skipped beat despite his best efforts.

"Hey," Tony said, voice low and deep, wiggling his eyebrows laviously, and Loki finally noticed that he had fallen right on top of Tony.

Loki jumped back, recalling his dagger-turned-flower. "I told you not to mess with my belongings, didn't I?" he hissed. Tendrils of magic swirled around his hand.

"Oh shit," Tony said, quickly snapping his helmet close to fly away, but not before Loki hit him with his spell. "Fuck, Loki, ahh, holy shit, what have you done?!" Tony's armor immediately peeled off like a second skin and he hopped out like a fool, body and arms twisting frantically as he tried scratching all of his skin at once. "Places that shouldn't be itching are! I still have to fly back to Asgard!"

The Warriors Three, Thor and Sif laughed as Loki smirked, enjoying Tony's struggle, even as he tried not to notice the way his body moved. "Good," he said and whirled away, and if the dagger-flower wasn't in the boar's eye when they brought it back to Asgard that night, no one noticed in the midst of all Tony's complaints.

Xxx

"Lokiiiiii," Tony drawled out, following right behind him as Loki stalked down Asgard's extensive library aisle. "Come on, are you still mad? I'll turn the dagger back if you'd just turn around and hand the flower nicely to me, woah - !"

Loki whirled around.

"How did you do it?" he demanded, and Tony blinked, brown eyes going round in his bemusement.

"What, the transformation?" Tony asked. "You can do that in your sleep."

"No, of course not the transformation," Loki said dismissively, even as the back of his neck warmed at Tony's acknowledgement of his magic abilities. "How did you make it so I didn't detect the spell on it, up until the very moment it transformed? I looked through many books, and none of them had a simple enough spell for hiding magic."

A smirk slid across Tony's face as he registered the question. It should have made him insufferable, but that was his charm: confident and capable, and he knew it too. "Oh, that? It took me forever, but it was so worth it, wasn't it?"

"Stark," Loki said, tapping his feet, and Tony threw his hands up in surrender.

"Alright, alright, I'll tell you," Tony said, and Loki already knew it wouldn't be easy. Tony's smirk transformed into a mischievous grin. "That is, if you'd help me with something first."

"Must I remind you that you wronged me first," Loki said dryly, and it was insufferable how Tony's grin remained so steady. "What is it?"

Xxx

"You want me to animate it," Loki deadpanned, looking at the metal bird Tony had made out of scraps sitting innocently on the table of Tony's smith. "Are you mocking me?"

"Oh c'mon," Tony said. "It may be easy for you, but I don't have enough magic to make this work. Just swish your arm for me, would you, and I'll tell you how I hid the magic."

"'Swish my arm'," Loki spluttered indignantly, but Tony impatiently gestured him towards the table. "One does not simply swish their arm and make magic happen," Loki said primly, and made a point to not move his arm when he casted the animation spell, even though that helps with the focus. A few seconds after the spell settled, the metal bird on the table quavered and then stumbled to its feet, flapping its wings. As always, Tony's design was impeccable. It was every bit as elegant and beautiful as a living bird with blood running through its veins instead of magic.

Loki's breath caught when it tossed itself off the table and dropped like a rock, but just before it would have shattered into pieces against the ground, it turned sharply and flashed up, hovering in front of Loki with its wings flapping silently and effortlessly.

Loki reached out to touch it, almost unbidden.

"Prince Loki," it said, and Loki snapped his hand back, and behind him, Tony shouted, "Fuck yeah! It worked!"

Loki whirled around and slapped his hand over Tony's mouth, so forceful Tony's back slammed against the door. "What have you done ?" Loki hissed, and even the pleasant flush of their bodies couldn't stop the sudden rush of fear from choking Loki. Tony made a move to speak, but Loki wasn't done. "Creation of life from the inanimated is highly forbidden, why don't you ever think?! Do you know what would happen to you if anyone found out?!"

Loki didn't realize he was shaking until Tony put his hand on top of his. Loki pulled back and stepped away.

"Hey, Loki, hey," Tony said, his voice nice and smooth, and Loki hated how Tony was treating him like a spooked animal when he was the one ignorant of his impending death if anyone were to find out what he had done. "Easy there." His eyes darted behind Loki, and that was when Loki became aware of something at his back. "You too, J. Down, boy."

Loki turned around to the sight of the metal bird - the being - closing its mouth, but not before Loki spotted a glowing light coming from its interior, and Loki wondered how he didn't sense all that energy before.

"He threatened you," it said, and Tony replied, "He'd never hurt me."

"He hurt you before," it said, "I sensed it," and Tony's face went blank.

Loki froze. What was it talking about?

"That was different, J," Tony said, looking away. "Go to your room to do whatever newborns do. We adults have stuff to talk about."

"Inanimate does not equate unborn, sir," it said, but obliging flew into Tony's room, even shutting the door behind it.

Tony rapidly fired his explanation once the door closed. "So you know how I was looking for rare metals a few weeks ago," Tony started, but Loki cut him off.

"What did it mean that I hurt you?" Loki demanded, and the nervous smile on Tony's face froze.

"Nothing," he finally said. "Do you recall anything of the sort? I certainly don't."

"Well, your creature" - "JARVIS", Tony interjected protectively - "certainly does, so should we question it instead?" Loki made a move towards the room and Tony immediately intercepted him. Loki raised an eyebrow and Tony's face shuttered.

"Alright, alright," Tony said. "Geez, you get rejected once and kids these days think it's a lifetime of regret, which it was and still is, but still."

"Reject… " Loki's mind whirled. "I rejected you? Impossible. How does one reject the other when he never even had the bravery to court the other?"

Loki was talking about himself as much as about Tony at this point.

Tony stared at him. "What?" he said, like he could scarcely breathe. "You clearly rejected me that night on Thor's birthday a few years ago. I came on to you and then you said yes, but then changed your mind last minute when we were in your room."

"You were drunk!" Loki exclaimed, immediately recognizing the incident that had seared itself into his memory. "We shared my bed that night and you were gone the next day without even saying goodbye! Afterward, you never spoke of it again - "

"Because I thought you forgot or didn't want to talk about it!"

"Well, I couldn't have made a fool of myself and brought it up when I thought you realized your mistake and just wanted to forget about the whole incident!"

Both of them were breathing hard by the end of their shouting match.

"Does this mean you... want to be with me?" Tony finally asked, his voice small.

Loki opened his mouth, denial already on the tip of his tongue because that was what he had been doing all these years when it came to loving Tony Stark, only to look at him, his soft brown eyes and hair, lips caught between worrying teeth and the air of confidence he was known for all but gone, replaced by a kind of vulnerability that simultaneously made Loki want to protect him and think, I don't want Tony to show this side of him to anyone else.

Maybe Loki could be a little brave, a little vulnerable too, like they should have been all those years ago.

"Yes," Loki breathed, the admission hurting a little when it came out, like pulling free a thorn that had been lodged under his skin all these years but now all the better for it. "Yes, and I'd - I'd love it if you'd have me."

Tony let out a small laugh, soft and broken, and Loki only had a second to contemplate what a horrible mistake this all was before Tony launched himself at Loki and buried his face against his neck. Tony's goatee scratched against Loki's skin, reminding Loki that this was all real, and then his arms came up to wrap around Tony, as easy as breathing.

"Fuck," Tony breathed, a breathless laugh. "We're idiots, aren't we?"

"I'd like to disagree under normal circumstances, but yes," Loki said. Tony's arms were warm around him and Loki marveled at the idea that they could have had this all along, all this time they were dithering. "I guess we were."