Author's Note: So, alherath requested "Loki/Tony where they snark and ooze daddy issues at each other" and ended up with 8000 words of something that involves Loki/Tony, snark, and a little bit of daddy issues, along with a hell of a lot of other things. This fic blew up in my face. My fic with Loki in it seems to do that.

Tony did not, he decided, like surprises. Or. Well, he liked some surprises, like the naked girl in the bed kind of surprises or the trip to Bermuda all expenses paid surprises, but not this one.

"Jesus fuck!" Tony yelped, freezing in the doorway. Loki smirked narrowly at him from where he was sitting casually on one of the armchairs in Tony's living room.

"And a good evening to you as well, Stark."

"What are you – no, don't answer that." Where was the suit, he needed the suit. In his bedroom. Really? "JARVIS, um. How did this happen? I have alarms, right? For this kind of thing?"

"Yes, sir," said JARVIS reluctantly. "You do." Loki's smirk widened.

"And?"

"I have detected no physical intrusion."

"No-" Tony spluttered. Loki's mouth stretched further, a shark-like baring of teeth. That was…not a happy expression. Really really not.

"And the plot thickens," he murmured. "You look a great deal better with that expression. Or perhaps that is the silence."

"You're not really here," Tony said, and a moment later felt absurdly stupid for saying it. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Loki's obliging slow clap did not help. But that was a good thing, right? Hopefully. Hopefully a good thing.

"In the mundane physical sense? No. On a more complex level, arguably…"

"Stop right there," Tony said quickly. "I don't even want to – why are you here?"

Loki grinned. "The pleasure of your company?" he offered airily. "The irresistible allure of your charisma?" If smiles were knives, that one would be…a sharp one. Okay, so Tony wasn't great with knives.

"Flattered as I'd like to be," Tony said, "I'm really not interested. Maybe later? Get back to me when you're not so…" Tony paused delicately. "…completely psychotic?"

Loki's eyebrows quirked. "What a disappointment," Loki drawled. "I daresay I shall never recover." He stretched his legs and threw his head back. "Are you going to stand there all night?"

"Are you going to kill, maim, and/or mutilate me if I sit down?"

Loki considered that, apparently seriously. Tony started to twitch, beginning to think that maybe getting out of here or sounding an alarm or something would- "No," he said finally,and then grinned that shark-grin. "Probably not."

"Oh," said Tony. "That's comforting."

To his surprise, Loki laughed, a sound of startlingly genuine delight. "You are so very droll, Stark. Very well. I will swear most solemnly that I will cause you no physical harm. Indeed, in this form-" Loki's body shimmered like water – "it would be a challenge."

Smart thing, Tony knew, would be to turn tail, run, yell for help and above all not listening to a word from Mr. Bag-of-Cats, My-Middle-Name-Is-Liar sitting on one of his chairs. Smart thing.

As Bruce was fond of saying, "Tony, for a genius, you're really dumb."

"JARVIS? If anything looks fishy, wake up Bruce, all right?" Bad idea bad idea bad idea. Oh well. Maybe this was his lucky night. "So. Want anything? I'm not doing this sober." He edged into the room, eyes on the cabinet.

Loki's eyebrows crept up very slightly. "No, thank you. Isn't it a bit late?"

Tony gave Loki an incredulous look. "Seriously? You're giving me the 'that's bad for you, Tony' talk?" He reached for the bourbon, stopped, and snagged the scotch. "Cause I've gotta tell you, that's just a little bit-"

"My last concern is for your health, Stark. I am merely not overfond of drunkards." Tony poured himself a splash and tossed it back, then turned. Loki had stretched out, sprawled in the comfy armchair and managing to make it look like a throne. That was a skill.

"Duly noted. Okay, so! Sharing time, huh? What've you been up to? Currently employed by any alien armies? Or is that the other way around?" Loki's eyes, he noticed, gleamed like a cat's. That was a little disconcerting. Tony had never been very good at cats.

"Tedious," Loki said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Let's not talk business, it'll only sour both our moods. I will not seek to divine your plans; do me the courtesy of not seeking mine."

Tony threw Loki a glib, insincere smile. "Worth a try, right?"

"I suppose so." Loki looked faintly amused and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Shall I try? How did you come to have that metal heart of yours? Barton knew regrettably little."

Tony swallowed hard. His smile felt like a grimace. "Hey now, isn't that a little personal?"

"Is it?" There was that shark smile again. "I hadn't noticed."

"Bad weekend," Tony said shortly, after a brief pause. "Totally wasted. Woke up hung over and hey, there it was. Weird, huh?"

Loki's frown was more disapproving than displeased. "Come now. That is not very sporting of you." Tony fought the urge to twitch.

"How about you tell me something personal, Rudolph?" he said. "How about that, that sounds like a fair trade, you've already done your me-stalking. I'm at a disadvantage here."

"And you think I'm inclined to remove that disparity?"

Tony crossed his arms and tried to look confident and stubborn. "Fair is fair. Just think of me as your therapist. Lord knows you could use one."

Loki's eyes on him were almost reptilian. "I would think Thor would have told you everything."

"Nope. Tends to clam up and look miserable whenever you come up." A flash of something crossed Loki's face at that, but Tony couldn't pick up on it. "And that's not even bringing Clint into this."

Loki made a chuffing sound it took him a moment to recognize as a laugh. "Ah, yes. My disgruntled hawkling." He half smiled in a manner almost reminiscent. Tony thought of the stony, frozen look on Clint's face whenever someone so much as mentioned Loki's name and felt sick.

"How about we talk about your massive inferiority complex," Tony said, the words spilling out before he could think them through. "Cause come on, really, who makes an entire square of people grovel without some serious inadequacy issues? Here on Earthgard we call that 'overcompensation' and let me tell you you are just oozing overcompensation-"

Tony remembered like getting hit by a truck the feeling of very strong fingers wrapped around his throat and the sheer pants-shitting terror of free fall. He was suddenly very sure that he knew how one of those butterflies tacked to a board might feel. His voice trailed off.

"Oh," Loki purred, and the tone of voice did nothing to disguise the vibration of fury underneath. Oh. Oops. "Do go on."

He was reckless and a little stupid, not suicidal and not in the mood to find out how quickly Loki could kill him. "Uh…no thanks." He swallowed hard.

"Are you sure? You seemed so…eager." Damn. That was…a voice. A voice that sent shivers down Tony's spine and yeah there was a whole hell of a lot wrong with him but damn. If Loki asked for kneeling in that voice-

No, no, he was stopping there. Though he was pretty sure he'd had worse fantasies.

Maybe not by much.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm sure. Though, um. You really shouldn't throw words like 'eager' around in that voice, gives people ideas, you know, and I don't really think-"

"Why, Stark, you liar. That is lust." There was a trace of laughter under the mockery, and Tony felt suddenly giddy with relief.

"Heh," he said, "yeah, well, don't get excited, I'm not about to bang a supervillain, not quite that far gone yet-"

And then Loki was too, too close, and could illusions smell like anything because Tony could swear he smelled leather and ozone radiating off Loki-clone's skin and he had apparently severely misjudged this situation. "You think you are a conoisseur of perversity," he said, and okay, that voice probably shouldn't go right to his cock the way it definitely did. "You have no idea. Do not challenge me, Stark, or I shall prove to you that you cannot fathom the depths of my depraved creativity." And he was gone.

Well, Tony thought. Fuck.

~.~

Loki didn't come back for a week and a half. Tony still jumped habitually every time he walked into a room and saw someone else in it. He began to consider sleeping in his workshop, whatever Pepper would have said about it.

Which was of course when Loki turned up in his workshop. Because God hates you, Tony, and don't you forget it.

"You again," Tony said, focusing studiously on his current project. "Can't you knock?"

"I suppose I could." Tony shifted so he could see him in the reflection of the metal he was working with.

"Let me just tell you, you have a serious creeper problem. Like, Edward Cullen levels. Might want to watch that."

"We did not finish our conversation."

"That's what you're here for? Cause if I remember you were the one who cut it short."

Loki's lips turned down slightly at the corners. "Unfinished business…troubles me."

Tony blinked, and glanced over his shoulder just briefly before dragging his eyes back to the work bench. "That's a little…pathological? No, that's not quite…"

"Are you capable of speaking without degenerating into babble?"

"Jury's still out." Tony stared fixedly at a fractional piece of metal. "Probably not? Seems to do me fine, though."

"Hm." It wasn't quite disagreement. He rose in a rustle of leather and moved out of Tony's reflection-vision. Tony swiveled around hurriedly and watched Loki pace through his lab. Illusion-Loki. Yes. Which was better.

Somehow.

He thanked small mercies this was his other other lab and there was nothing really sensitive lying around.

"So this is where you work your…craftsmagic," Loki said, finally.

"Science. Not magic."

Loki waved a dismissive hand. "Near enough to the same thing."

Tony drew himself up, almost indignant. "They're not even-"

Loki turned, pausing in his slow circuit of the room. "No? The manipulation of matter and energy given a set of rules. Magic or science?"

"Sufficiently advanced technology," Tony muttered, and added, louder, "but see, you keep breaking the rules, all the time-"

"Your rules, not mine." Loki smirked. "Regardless. This is your den, then, your haven. It's telling, with what a man chooses to surround himself."

"Thank you, Freud," Tony said under his breath.

"Are you lonely here, Stark, surrounded by metal? Or is it the loneliness to begin with that drives you here?" Loki's tone was pleasant, conversational, as though he really were just curious.

"I am trying really hard not to laugh at you psychoanalyzing me," Tony said. Loki moved back into motion, continuing that slow, sauntering walk. Eyes, Tony suspected, catching every little detail and cataloguing it. "Is there a point to this?"

"A point?" Loki glanced over at him, eyebrows raised. "You are somewhat of a puzzle to me, Stark. I enjoy solving puzzles."

There was something about that voice he really didn't like. That had him picturing someone pulling the wings off a fly to see how long it'd live without them. "Glad to hear it."

"Mm." Loki's eyes moved away from him. "Or is it the knowledge of your own lack of worth that brings you here alone? Self-centered, Barton told me. Arrogant. But that's not true at all, is it?" There was something almost gentle about his voice. "Your mask is brittle."

"Oh," said Tony, feeling prickles down his spine, "and yours isn't?"

Loki's eyes cut sharply to Tony's face. "Oh, but you are reckless. That much was true. Not out of self-sacrifice, oh no. You are no martyr. Despite your remarkable act…no. You live for those moments, don't you? When you tremble on the edge, dancing brazenly in Fate's sight. Does fear arouse you?"

"No," Tony said immediately, which was…maybe a little not true, considering that he was not finding himself nearly as bothered by this as he probably should be. Or not in the right way. Loki laughed.

"Liar. Fear not. I shall not…take advantage." That voice again. Dammit. "I merely find it interesting."

"Well, that's nice." His fingers itched for something alcoholic and strong. "Look, are you planning on keeping me up all night? Cause I'm going to want some coffee."

"By all means, help yourself." Loki turned away, examined one of the screens. Psychoanalyzation over. Phew.

"So that's a yes?"

"I am in no rush."

Tony sidled over to the coffee machine he'd conveniently set up down here, checked for water, and turned it on without taking his eyes off Loki. Who was…shit, doing something with one of his screens, expression curiously thoughtful. "What are you doing, hey, hang on, can you not-"

"Rest assured I shall not break anything unintentionally," said Loki smoothly, which was, okay, kind of the opposite of comforting. "I am…curious with what you occupy your time."

"You could ask."

Loki flipped a hand dismissively. "Dull." Tony really, really hoped there was nothing important here that Loki could get to. "Besides," and Loki lifted his head and gave Tony a smile that was as charming as it was painfully condescending, "your squawking is its own reward."

"I do not squawk," Tony objected. Maybe some whiskey with that coffee. Just a little. "I – object. In a dignified manner."

"Mmm." Loki finally stepped back from the screen he'd been looking at and turned to face Tony fully. "What is it you want, Stark?"

Tony blinked. "What? Why? Moonlighting as a fairy godmother or something?"

"I am curious." Loki's head tipped slightly to the side. "All of this…it has a kind of desperation in it. As though you can fend off something by surrounding yourself with all your toys. What is it you're trying to avoid?"

Scratch that. Psychoanalyzing not over. "Do all your conversations go like this? Maybe if you spent as much time soul searching yourself as you're spending on me you'd actually get somewhere instead of…whatever you're doing right now." Definitely some whiskey with that coffee. Loki's eyes narrowed a hair.

"You think I lack in self-knowledge, Stark?"

"I think you lack in a lot of things," Tony said, without really thinking about it, which was probably a really bad idea. This whole conversation was a bad idea. "But hey, what do I know."

Loki's illusion leaned back against the counter, managing to look convincingly physical. It was an illusion. He hoped. "What do you know?" he asked, and actually sounded genuinely curious. It occurred to Tony that that might not actually be a good sign.

"Kind of a lot," he said, avoiding the implied question in favor of the obvious one. "I mean, I'm a genius, if you didn't know that already-"

"Don't be obtuse, Stark. It is anything but charming." Loki sounded more bored than annoyed, though. What do you do when a psychotic God of crazy asks you for a character assessment? Trick question: you don't.

Except then he gets mad because you're not saying anything and that doesn't go well either. Great.

"Like I said – that stuff you were saying about me? Sounds an awful lot like projecting to me. You know what that is, projecting? Do they even have psychology on Asgard? I kind of think probably not, it doesn't really seem like the…"

"I know what you mean." Loki's expression was still that patient, vaguely interested look. Tony eyed that face skeptically."Go on."

"Yeah," Tony said, and he had it, something like an idea, and grabbed for it gracelessly. "I…well. You know what's funny? Getting Thor drunk. It's hard, but man, it is entertaining-"

"I did not come here to discuss him." Loki's voice had gone flat and cold as the surface of an icy lake in midwinter and if that wasn't a labored metaphor Tony didn't know what was. Poet, didn't know it, etcetera.

"I'm getting there," Tony said, picking up a little bit of speed. "—cause, Thor, when he's drunk, he's really happy about everything, and then you mention your family and bam, all that goes out the window and all of a sudden he just spills his guts about your whole sorry saga-"

"Consider this your fair warning that if you press this course-"

"And what I'm trying to say," Tony said loudly, "Is that your dad is a major dick."

The coffee dinged! its readiness loudly in the sudden and complete silence. Tony checked, just to make sure Loki was still there. He was, albeit with a strange look on his face.

"Odin is not my father," he said, after a long moment. "As I believe you know."

"Adoptive, whatever," Tony said, far more casually than he felt. "Point still stands."

Another long moment of silence. Tony edged toward the coffee machine. Loki's eyes seemed to be focused somewhere distant. He nearly jumped when he heard a quiet sound, and then it rose into what Tony could best describe as faintly hysterical snickers. Loki was staring at him, almost helplessly wide eyed, and clearly failing to muffle a giggle fit.

Tony turned his back, even though doing it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and poured himself a mug of coffee. "So yeah. Want some caffeine?" He turned back around and found that Loki seemed to have collected himself, but was looking at Tony with something like incredulity.

"You have no notion of what it is you say."

Tony shrugged. "Maybe I've never met old cyclops in the sky, but I know a thing or two about shitty parenting. Coffee?"

Loki simply looked at him for a long moment, then inclined his head a fraction. "Please."

Tony produced a second mug and filled that up, too, and pushed it across the work table. After a moment, Loki straightened from where he was leaning against a counter and padded over, picked up the mug. Tony remembered, belatedly, that this was supposed to be an illusion. Whoops.

There went that comforting thought.

"In the flesh, huh?" he said, managing to be casual. Loki smirked narrowly at him over the top of his mug.

"Indeed. Your security measures were inconvenient but not impossible."

Huh. Tony made a note to see if he could tune JARVIS to magical energy signature or something. Cause this was…not great. Still not his favorite kind of surprise. "So, um, daddy issues aside-"

"No," Loki said, to his surprise, and took a delicate sip of his coffee. "I'm curious. Your father. He was lord of your…empire before you?"

"Head of business," Tony said, "is what we go with down here, actually. On Earthgard."

"Midgard," Loki corrected. Tony waved a hand.

"Whatever. And yeah. He was." He forced a shrug. "Any more invasive personal questions?"

Loki eyed him for a moment, and then leaned back, arms outstretched with the mug between his palms. He turned his head to look to the side and Tony noted completely abstractly that it was a nice profile. "The All-Father," Loki said after a long moment, his voice slow and even, almost cautious, "is not a gentle man. By need, of course; Asgard is powerful and she has her enemies. And yet it always seemed to me that nothing I could do…" He trailed off. Would ever be enough, Tony finished, mentally. Boy oh boy. Tony the therapist.

If this isn't surreal I don't know what is.

"Yeah," Tony said, after a moment. "I'm thinking that probably killing a bunch of people isn't the best way to manage your goals, though."

Loki's eyes cut back to him, and they were sharp. "Why not? If I cannot be a good son why not live up to his worst expectations?"

"Because-" He was not good at this. And did not want this job. And… "That's not going to get you anywhere. Good. Besides, isn't it more satisfying to prove someone wrong than right?"

Loki's eyes gave away nothing about what he thought of that. He sat back, after a long moment, crossed his legs. "What did you do?"

"What did I-" Wait. He'd never said… "I never said I was trying to impress anyone."

"You didn't need to." Loki's eyes on him were sharp, knowing. He didn't look insane, though. Just intent. "I can see it easily enough. You wear your scars on your skin, Stark, and speak from experience." Tony forced a laugh, feeling a little nervous and annoyed that he felt it.

"Are you psychic or something?"

"Hardly. Just observant."

And he was profoundly uncomfortable with that. "Are you asking me for advice? Just about anyone will tell you that's a bad idea."

Loki looked suddenly, strangely satisfied. He covered it quickly, but Tony caught it, and felt a vague sense of general wariness. Tony shifted a little.

"What do you want from me, anyway?"

"I think a better question," Loki said, and then his voice dropped into that lower register that did such funny and interesting things to certain regions of his anatomy that he didn't want to think about, "is what you want from me."

"Come again?"

"I am here – 'in the flesh,' as you observed. I have circumvented your security and probed into painful areas of your personal life. And yet you have not even attempted to contact your comrades, or to force me to leave. I find that…intriguing."

"Maybe I'm as curious as you are," Tony said quickly. "That's why you're here, isn't it? You're curious about me?"

"Are you?"

Tony blinked, caught off guard. "Am I what?"

"Are you curious about me?" Loki sounded faintly amused again.

Yes, Tony thought. Goddammit, yes. If you weren't you I'd want to pick your brain and see what's in there because- "Is that an offer?" he asked. Loki's eyebrows quirked.

"If it were. One question, my word to answer truthfully. What would you ask?"

Oh, Jesus. One question. One question, one answer. Tony cleared his throat. "How long would I survive hearing the answer?"

Loki's smile was almost pleased, playful. Tony thought of cats playing with mice, batting them around until their hearts burst from the sheer adrenaline rush. Probably he should be worried about the fact that he kept comparing Loki to animals and finding it so damn sexy. "Very good, Stark. That would depend on the question."

Tony's hands fiddled with each other. "If you called a moratorium on the threats and everything," he said, after a long moment, "This might not be such a bad conversation."

Loki's look of wide-eyed surprise was almost disgustingly innocent. "I have not found it unpleasant."

"Of course you haven't," Tony said, "You're the one making the threats."

For some reason, that made Loki laugh. He set down the mug he was drinking from and straightened, then. "You are not so intolerable yourself, Stark."

Tony hunted down a smile. "Does that mean you like me?"

"No," Loki said easily. "It means I won't kill you today. Or, I think, tomorrow. For later…we shall see." He smiled down at Tony, and his skin prickled. "Thank you for the coffee."

And he vanished. Tony let out a long breath, his nerves humming with a combination of adrenaline and caffeine.

"That went well," he said to himself, though he was far from sure it had gone any such thing.

~.~

He descended, the glaring lights giving him a vague headache. The guards let him through with only a dubious sideways glance. Steel doors, he noticed. Reinforced. They hissed open and he stepped through. Loki looked small in his clear-walled cell, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor with his head lowered. They'd managed to bring him in maybe two days ago. Tony had kept his distance that long. He knew bad choices when he'd made them, retrospectively, the next morning. Sometimes.

He was pretty sure chatting up Loki had been a bad decision. Let alone letting things get even remotely personal.

"It's like looking into a fishbowl," Tony drawled. He thought he caught perhaps the hint of a smile.

"Then your Director is attempting to keep a shark in one." Loki's head lifted, his eyes that too bright green. Tony rocked backward and forward on his heels.

"You haven't broken out yet."

"No," Loki said, and Tony saw one hand folded in his lap flex. "Not yet."

And if that didn't make him nervous. "Huh. Well. Let me know."

"You will be the first I inform." Loki's eyes were cool, his face nearly expressionless. Tony shifted. "And what did you come here to seek?"

"Um," said Tony. "Actually. I'm here to work out a countermeasure to your-" god, thinking it made him grimace. "-thingy. Magic."

Oh. That face didn't bode well. 'Royally displeased' didn't quite cover it. "Is that so."

"Yep. Fury wants me to find your off switch."

The sharp bark of Loki's laughter almost made him jump. "My off switch. Well. I wish you luck in that."

Tony rocked back on his heels. "That's not how it works, is it."

"I am hardly inclined to assist you." Loki unfolded from the floor and stood up. Tony shifted uncomfortably. "Now. Why did you really come here?"

"I said-"

"Do not try to lie to me, Stark. I will only find it amusing."

Tony grimaced. "Why does there need to be some other reason? I'm just doing my job, taking care of business…"

Loki looked like he wanted to smirk and was just managing not to. "Did you come to visit me, Stark?" Tony glanced over at the cameras, and wondered a little what they were making of this.

"No," he said, too quickly. Maybe a little. And there was that shark-grin again.

"I fascinate you, is that it?" Loki took a step closer, nearly looming right against the walls of his fishbowl. "You just can't stay away. And that's why…"

"Anyone ever told you you've got a gift for serious creep factor? Cause honestly," Tony said quickly, before Loki could spill anything about late night visits he hadn't reported that would definitely get him in trouble. He managed not to take a step back by thinking really hard about it.

"Why is that, Stark? Why do I have such…a pull on you? Do you think you're like me? Is it like looking into a mirror, a dark reflection of yourself…"

"Whoa," said Tony. "Hold on." When had this become about him?

"You could destroy worlds." He had no business using that voice. Not right now. Even distorted through the barrier, it…did things. "Perhaps you are envious, is that it? You cannot tell me that you have never looked at the fools around you and thought that you could do better."

Tony sucked in a breath. "That's not even a little-"

Loki leaned forward, his breath fogging up a patch of clear wall. "Perhaps you look at them all," he said, voice lowering as though he were sharing some deep secret, "and you long for them to see all that you are, all you can offer, as your father never did. And here I stand, doing all the fearful evil you can't quite bring yourself to manage…"

Anything Tony had been about to say strangled in his throat. What did you expect? One conversation. One conversation that didn't end in violence, and a feeling that he'd gotten a look behind the mask and seen the Real Loki, the one Thor always insisted was there. Fake. And of course you walked right into it, Tony, you idiot. Gave him all the weapons he needed.

Loki let out a soft huff of a laugh. "Am I wrong?"

He took a breath through his nose and let it out. He was done. And this time he had a way to fight back.

"JARVIS," he said. "Enact Protocol 6.0. As discussed."

"This is not your-" Loki started to say, smirking, but JARVIS' clear voice broke in. "Very good, sir," he said, sounding almost smug, and Tony grinned as Loki's head shot up. Grinned wider as his eyes widened and his mouth opened in blank, appalled, surprise.

Then he staggered and half fell to one knee. "God," Tony said loudly. "So worth it."

"What did you do," Loki said, his voice thick and strange. "What have you-" Tony's heart was pounding with exhiliration.

"It worked," he said, half incredulous, and then couldn't keep back a laugh. "It actually fucking – I am a genius." He grinned so wide it almost hurt and turned around, ostentatiously checking his phone. "There you are, you son of a bitch. You're not going anywhere now. Did you think I just came down here to talk? I'm not stupid. And I'm not helpless."

There was an awful noise from the fishbowl, suddenly, and Tony blinked and turned and froze. Loki was bent double, spine an arch and shoulders heaving, and there was a pool of blood on the floor beneath him. "Oh, come on," Tony said. "You can't seriously think I'll fall for that."

Loki snarled and raised his head, eyes blazing. There was blood on his lips. "I will rip your head from your shoulders. I will tear out your tongue and force it down your throat. You dare-" His whole body rippled and heaved, and he threw up with a horrible retching noise. Not bile, but blood, dark and thick and-

Faking, Tony told himself. He's just- "You're overselling," he said, but he couldn't look away, morbidly fascinated. "Seriously, give up, I'm not going to feel sorry for you."

A thin sound, barely audible, like a whine or a whimper. The arm holding Loki off the floor, Tony noticed, was shaking, his head dropped down again. Another full body shudder, and Tony took a slow step forward. "Hey. Cut it out. I was going to ask…"

That shaking arm gave out and Loki dropped into his own blood with a quiet thud.

A chill went down Tony's spine. "Hey," he said. "Hey."

No reaction. An act. It was an act. He had not just killed…

"Turn it off," he said sharply. He could feel the cameras watching him. "Lock it. No access but me. Okay?"

A moment's silence, and then the low hum in the room died down, with JARVIS' quiet, "Yes, sir."

Tony held his breath, ready for Loki to rise laughing, mocking smile on his lips. He didn't. Still limp, prone, and silent, which was maybe most telling. He swallowed, and glanced up at the cameras. He felt twitchy and uneasy.

He waited a few more moments with no change, and then left, determinedly not looking back. Not thinking of how much someone could do with a magic-less god. Nope. Not thinking. Coulson. Coulson Coulson Coulson.

He would have felt better about it if it'd been a little harder.

Tony drank himself to sleep and woke up with Fury yelling at him that Loki was gone and what the hell did he think he was doing, what team are you playing for, and Tony stared up at the ceiling and hoped he looked surprised.

~.~

Loki didn't turn up for weeks. At all. No freaky magical attacks. No weird transformations. Silence on the sorcerer front, and Tony's off-switch sat unused in a corner where Tony didn't have to look at it too often or think too hard about it. "Maybe he's gone," Clint said almost hopefully. Tony doubted it. He was more inclined to think he was plotting intricate, painful revenge. If it were him-

He tried not to go that direction, either.

Tony started to relax three weeks out, (maybe Loki was gone, taken off for some easier planet or to bother Asgard or something) and then he stumbled into his bedroom at three in the morning and found himself staring at a Loki in full armor. "Oh, hey," he said, after a moment's silence. "I was wondering when you'd turn up, want something to dr-"

A decidedly solid hand came up and locked around his throat, slammed him into the equally solid wall. "I could rip out your throat. Snap your neck and leave you broken. I have not discarded either option. I advise you to speak carefully."

JARVIS, Tony thought woefully. You're supposed to warn me about these things. That's twice now. Accompanied by the slightly less sleep deprived, he's in my house. I am so dead. Pepper's going to be really mad.

He made a strangled gargling noise and tried to look harmless. Loki's eyes bored into his, and his hand loosened a fraction. "Make a sound," he said, quiet and deadly, "Call for help, and I will see to it you die in slow agony. Understood?"

Tony made himself nod, a little frantically. He really did not want to die by angry alien-god-thing. Not today. Hopefully not at all.

Trying not to be pessimistic about those prospects.

Loki's fingers flexed once (moment of panic shit he is literally going to tear out my throat with his bare hand) and then dropped him. Tony crumpled to the floor, coughing.

"Wow," he wheezed. "That was. We really need to work out a safeword or something if we're going to keep-"

"Do not bandy words with me," Loki snapped. "It does not suit my mood."

Don't piss off the crazy person, Tony told himself. Seriously. "Okay, okay. No bandying. Got it. Nice seeing you again, been a while."

Loki's teeth flashed white. Last thing a fish sees, Tony thought, a little hysterical. "Did you miss me?"

"Can't honestly say that I did," Tony said. His throat hurt. There was going to be some pretty spectacular bruises tomorrow. If he lived that long.

"Insolent tongue," Loki said, voice dropping to that low purr that sent chills down his spine. "I have half a mind to teach it better use." Tony swallowed hard.

"Okay. Point taken." Tony braced his hands against the wall and started to stand. "So. Uh. I'm guessing this is about-"

"Undoubtedly," Loki said, and paced away. He looked like a tiger caught in a flimsy, too small cage. "Clever, clever mortal. Have you been congratulating yourself on your ingenuity? Stroking your fragile ego with the fact that you bound a god?"

Maybe a little, Tony was tempted to say. For once, he managed not to.

"You could not hold me," Loki said, tone breaking into an ugly snarl. "You are a child fishing for sharks with string."

"Looked like a pretty effective string to me," Tony said. Loki whirled on him and he took an involuntary step backwards. "-I'm just saying. I didn't know it would do…that."

The step Loki took in his direction was full of menace. His teeth were bared, bright green eyes vividly insane. "Did it amuse you?" he said, voice deadly soft. "Did it fill you with triumphant pleasure to see your enemy bleed?" Tony thought he caught, maybe, a slight tremble that wasn't of rage. He tried to take another step back and hit the wall.

"Yeah, um, not really." Talk fast. You have maybe ten seconds to being a smear-o-Tony on your own wall. "I'm not really the pain for kicks kind of guy, overally, and I'm really not a vomiting-blood kind of guy, and can you please remember that I turned it off?" Jesus Christ, Loki was close. Right in his face. Looming. Probably all of 125 pounds and Loki was looming. A lot.

"And that's," Loki murmured in that low and fuck, sexy, voice (bad thought Tony, bad thought), "Why you aren't dead yet."

"'Preciate it," Tony managed. Loki's hands slammed the wall, bracketing him and leaning in close enough that Tony could smell the faintly minty tang of his breath. So Loki brushed. Who knew?

"I want to know why."

Tony blinked. He'd expected destroy it or else, expected tell me how it works. "That's it?" burst out of him before he could hold it back. Sharp green eyes narrowed a hair.

"You would rather something else?" Loki said too mildly.

Tony shook his head fast. "Uh, no. I just. Thought it'd be obvious."

"Obvious." Oops. Probably shouldn't have said that. "Enlighten me."

I'm a total dumbass, Tony was tempted to say, but he was pretty sure he wanted his lungs to stay where they were, namely inside his chest. "Few reasons. Actually. Firstly, I don't trust SHIELD."

Loki's gaze didn't change in the slightest. "I'm afraid I don't follow."

"It's a shady government organization beholden to an even shadier council not shy about ordering nuclear attacks on civilian populations and with a history of affection for weaponizing what they don't get – see: Tesseract. So I turn over your limp, depowered body to their hands, I bet they're going to see a goldmine of opportunities. And I really don't like that idea very much, on kind of a lot of levels."

Something flashed across Loki's expression too quickly to catch, disquietingly like fear. Tony pressed forward.

"Secondly, you're smart. Maybe as smart as me. And I don't think you'd stay down forever, and then magic or no magic I'm betting you'd work a way out, and then we are all fucked and me especially 'cause I just have a feeling you're real big on revenge."

That got a flicker of a very grim smile. "Smarter than you, Stark. Without a doubt." Shivers, Tony thought. Bad shivers, dammit. Exclusively bad shivers. Definitely.

You, sir, are a very, very sick man.

"Thirdly," he pushed forward, "I may be mostly lacking in morals but I'm not – I meant what I said. Not really down with facilitating torture. Not really my thing."

Loki's eyes flashed cold. "That did not seem to be the case at the time."

Tony tried not to shift uncomfortably. "I called it off, didn't I?"

"You said 'thirdly.' Was there another?" Loki sounded bored. And unconvinced. Maybe he should call…someone. Somehow. He needed to work out how Loki was circumventing JARVIS. If he was alive tomorrow.

"Yeah," Tony said, "one more." I'm a dumbass. "I felt bad for you."

Shit. Loki's eyes went flat. "You felt bad for me."

Tony nodded. Talk fast. "Yeah, I did, a little. Cause you know, the thing is, you're not wrong. About me. And you. And maybe it's more funhouse mirror than, uh, through a glass darkly, but I could be you. Or – you could be me. Maybe. If I didn't have – anyway. You weren't wrong. And that doesn't make me like you any more – less, probably, honestly. But it does make it kind of hard to want to make tinsel from your intestines or whatever. And that's all I've got and if you're going to kill me can you let Pepper know so she doesn't yell at me for missing the board meeting I have in six hours?"

Silence. Tony tried not to panic. He forced his eyes open and found that lizard gaze regarding him, almost completely opaque. But hey, he wasn't dead. Yet.

Every second was a good sign. He hoped.

"And that is all." He couldn't get a read on that tone, and fought the primitive instinct to hold very still and wait for the predator to leave.

"Yeah," he said, trying for casual. "Pretty much."

Three more breaths and finally, finally, Loki backed off. Tony just managed not to sag in utter relief. He took a step back from Tony, expression still unreadable, and Tony managed to keep his mouth closed. Bruce would have been so proud.

"Do I frighten you, Stark?"

"Right now, or usually?" Okay, maybe not that proud.

"Either." He started doing that pacing thing again. Tony wondered if that was a good or a bad thing, and also if there was a right answer to that question, but trying to figure out what Loki wanted was just going to give him a headache.

"I don't know." Honesty, best policy? Probably not, but… "Sometimes. Not probably as much as you should."

That quick flash of teeth that could mean anything. "At least you have sense enough to realize that." He frowned, looking oddly thoughtful. "I cannot decide if you are exceptionally mad or merely stupid."

"Is it better for me to be the former or the latter? Cause I could go either way."

"I begin to think a bit of both likely." Loki sounded, Tony thought, faintly amused. Then he stopped and turned, eyes fixed on Tony, who shifted slightly.

"So…does this mean killing me's off the menu?"

"Oh…temporarily." Loki glided smoothly into motion, long strides carrying him too quickly back to unnervingly close proximity. "Though I always recommend…due caution."

"I'm not very good at," Tony started to say, and went nearly cross-eyed at the single cool finger laid against his lips.

"Hush," said Loki, and there was something strange, intense, vicious in his eyes that was just a little…

Bad thought, Tony.

"Be still, a moment," Loki said, nearly purred, and oh, okay, he honestly could not tell if that expression meant he was about to be pulled apart a little at a time or…not. The finger slid from his lips and Tony opened his mouth, only to thoroughly forget what he'd meant to say when Loki's mouth fastened over his like he was trying to steal Tony's soul.

Jesus, can he do that? Maybe you should-

Loki's tongue thrust between his lips and ran languidly along his, then he drew back just enough to bite down on Tony's lower lip. Tony's gaze jerked up to meet Loki's open eyes and oh, fuck it. If you're screwed, might as well embrace it.

(Phrasing!)

Loki backed off a moment later, though, eyes half closed. "I said it before, did I not? Danger arouses you. I can almost hear your blood drain downwards." His lips curved, and shit, if blood hadn't been leaving his head for other places in a hurry that little glance down definitely-

Tony cleared his throat. "So, um, is this going to be a th-"

"Shut up, Stark." Loki crowded in closer. "You are far more pleasing silent. Let me tell you how this is to be."

His mouth went a little dry. "…shoot."

"You have a notion, perhaps," Loki said, one of those slender hands coming up and smoothing over his chest. "An idea. Perhaps you see me splayed out beneath you, your glorious conquest, quivering with need for your touch and mewling with desperate desire." Well. Now he was. And…fuck. That was a good picture. All that haughty self-possession shattered, those long, lean legs wrapped around his waist, Tony Stark, godfucker, not bad…

He was jerked out of his reverie by the sound of ripping cloth. He looked down to see the ripped front of his t-shirt hanging open. "Hey-"

Loki's fingers drew a cool line down his breastbone with just a hint of nail. "That's not how it would be."

Tony's mouth snapped closed. This is weird, some still sensible part of his brain said. This is really weird and really not okay and really really not safe.

Safe. Pff. "Okay," he managed, after a moment, working some spit back into his mouth. "You've got plans. That's fine, that's okay, I like plans. As long as they don't involve me needing a hospital. Share with the class?"

Loki leaned in impossibly closer. He didn't, Tony noticed vaguely, radiate heat. Coolness, really, and a kind of almost electric energy that made Tony's skin prickle. "I would reduce you to putty, Stark. Writhing, whimpering nothing, undone by little more than my hands and my…mouth." Those long fingers trailed back down his chest and paused just above the waistband of his pants. "I am not one of your common whores. I would not lie down to be fucked by such as you."

"Someone else, th," Tony started to say, and broke off into a "hnnng" kind of noise when Loki's head dropped and he sucked, hard, at Tony's neck. That was. Definitely leaving a mark. On top of the strangulation ones. And oh, fuck, there was a thought.

(Really, really bad thought, Tony.)

"No, I would take you. All your arrogance and your bravado, I would have you lay it down. I would have you set aside all pretense and face me as you are." Tony tried to move his hands to grab Loki's hips only to have them swatted away almost absently. "And you would worship me."

Oh god. Cause that…really should not sound good. But it kind of did. Kind of sounded awesome, actually. His hips kind of jerked forward without his really meaning them to, and Loki twitched away, giving him nothing to grind against.

"You would let me have you any way I wanted. Raw, bare, on your knees. You would let me fuck you until you screamed and then you would plead for more. You would let me use you, humiliate you, and come crawling back to lick my feet. I would leave you indelibly marked and unable to find satisfaction in anyone else."

Tony made a sound embarrassingly like a whimper. This was bad, this was real bad, and he was in serious need of-

(a really good fuck from Loki I-destroyed-New-York Not-Actually-Odinson?)

Yes, please.

"How does that sound?" Loki asked, almost jarringly politely. Tony cleared his throat.

"-not terrible."

Loki's laugh was a puff of cool air against his neck, and then his head lifted and his head tipped back, long pale throat bared. "You are no match for me, Stark. I would have you until you could barely move, and then I would take you further. I could break you. Ride you until you foundered like an ill-used horse."

"Oh," said Tony, perhaps a little vaguely. "Okay." His hips twitched hopefully again, and this time he was rewarded by Loki's thigh pressed between his legs. He rutted shamelessly against that line of hard offered muscle.

"And when I was done with you," Loki said, voice still that low, sensual sound that Tony would probably fuck all on its own, thank you, "when you were a panting, sated, wreck of a mortal, I would tear out your lungs and leave you to die for daring to think you could touch me."

Tony blinked, and before he finished the motion Loki had pulled back sharply, expression once more stone cold, no trace of laughter or humor or- his body was protesting vehemently, cock still hard even as he was registering what Loki'd just said like a splash of cold water to the face.

"Um," he said. "What?"

"You disgust me," Loki said. Still with the voice goddammit that was really really confusing and Tony wanted to tell him to stop but that was probably a bad idea right now. "Thinking you can lay hands on me. Thinking I would ever stoop to fornicate with the likes of you. Thinking we are somehow the same-" Loki sneered, brutally. "You offer me compassion, kindness, as though that is what I want. As though I am like you, a child to be placated. I am not, Stark. We are not the same, you and I."

Tony closed his eyes hard, and opened them, trying to focus, to clear his head and work out when things had suddenly gone from really fucking sexy to oh am I going to die now and not quite able to find it. Or the words he wanted to say, turned-on and tired and severely confused.

"I will leave you alive," Loki said, almost snarled, "On account of your misguided mercy. Your toy I have destroyed. Make another and I will kill everyone you treasure, beginning with that secretary of yours. I am not you, Stark. Pray you do not forget it, and be thankful I still have some forgiveness in me yet."

And then he was gone. Tony half expected green fire or something, but nope. Just…gone.

Holy fuck, Tony thought, and gave in, just a little, to the hysterical urge to giggle.

The worst part of the whole thing was that he was still really fucking turned on.

~.~

He slept late, if a little uneasily, and woke up half sure the whole thing had been one weird as hell sleep-deprived induced nightmare. He wandered blearily into the bathroom and happened to glance in the mirror, and stopped.

There were livid, finger shaped bruises around his neck, and a darker mouth shaped one just below his jawline.

"Oh, shit," he said, which came out in a decidedly thin voice like he'd had laryngitis for a month, even that making his throat ache. "Oh…shit."

Well. That was just great.

Tony tried to pretend the little whisper of and you didn't even get laid for it didn't happen. Nope. Definitely didn't happen.

Bad thought, Tony.