The Devil You Know 13
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The Exception to the Rule
“Mr. Stark,” Fury said as he pressed his hands flat to the desk and leaned forward, casting a long, one-eyed shadow over the seated Avenger, “your boyfriend just tried to decimate the city, and your response is 'oops'?”
Tony shrugged helplessly and smiled. Probably not the best response, all things considered, but Tony Stark had never exactly been known for his tact.
“The deal,” Fury said, still slowly, over-enunciating, “was that we would expunge Loki's record only if he didn't pull this kind of shit again.”
“Temporary insanity?” Tony suggested with another shrug. Fury's single eye narrowed.
“'Temporary'?” Fury echoed dryly. Tony conceded the point. “Look, Stark. He broke our deal. I'm just giving you the courtesy of telling you that he's going to be locked up and tried for his crimes.”
Tony picked at a scratch along the corner of the desk. “And I,” he said blithely, innocently, “am just giving you the courtesy of telling you that no, he isn't.” He bared his teeth in a sharp smile.
Fury pulled back. “Excuse me?” he growled.
“Did you not hear me?” Tony asked sweetly. “Your hearing must be going in your old age. I'd suggest a hearing aid so that you -”
“Stark.”
Tony smiled softly, bitterly, and stared up at Fury across the desk for two long seconds, his pounding heartbeat filling the silence.
“You will give Loki another chance,” he said, “or I will quit the Avengers, not just as Iron Man, but as Tony Stark. I will withdraw my funding, my home, my weapons.”
Fury pursed his lips and his one eye glittered with anger.
“You do that,” he replied, “and I will have you convicted of treason.”
“Ah, now see, fun fact,” Tony said, maintaining the mocking air of buoyancy that he knew irritated Fury. “One of the great things about America? The Founding Fathers made it very difficult to convict someone of treason. You know why? Because technically, they had been guilty of treason, and they thought that the people should be allowed to defy the government if and when the government was ever being stupid.”
He gave Fury a pointed look at this last word.
Fury grit his teeth. “Do you know what's also illegal?” he asked. “Being a vigilante.”
“Ah,” Tony said, sitting back in his chair, “but, see, what jury is going to convict a national hero?”
Tony and Fury stared at each other for a long moment.
“Look,” Tony said softly. “I'm just asking you to give him one more chance, alright? I know he did some major damage, but... you can't contain him, anyway. You know that!” He paused to take a deep breath. “And... I dunno, maybe I'm crazy thinking this, but I think - I think - that I'm getting through to him.”
“Tony,” Fury started to say.
“No, come on, just - just let me have one more shot. I won't mess this up, I promise. Not this time.”
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wondered if he were telling this to Fury or to Loki.
Fury gave him a measuring look, and Tony knew he had won when the director blew out a heavy sigh.
“I'm going to regret this,” he muttered. “Just keep him on a tighter leash this time.” Then he turned to leave.
“Kinky,” Tony said to Fury's retreating back. “I like it.”
In hindsight, Tony supposed it was only a matter of time. Even so, if there were ever a time he wished he could murder the paparazzi, it would be now.
It'd been a while since he'd been bombarded like this, swarmed from all sides, just as he was walking to the car. When the first question about his relationship with Loki came, he found it hard not to cringe.
Fucking vultures.
“I really don't think that's any of your business,” he snapped at the sea of faces, hiding his reaction behind a pair of sunglasses and wearing them like armor. Happy helped him push his way to the car.
Of course they knew. He'd kissed Loki in the middle of the air, at the epicenter of a god-made catastrophe. He hadn't thought about the people below, about the cameras pointed up; he'd only thought about Loki, Loki, and boy, did that scare him. He was supposed to be a hero, and he hadn't even thought about the lives he was supposed to be saving.
He wondered how far he would go for Loki, how much he would do, and prayed that the god didn't take advantage.
The first thing Tony did when he got home was to pour himself a glass of scotch. The second was to drink it. The third was to ask the room at large, “How is he?”
“Still fatigued and dehydrated, sir,” Jarvis answered, “but he is awake.”
Tony nodded to himself, staring into the now-empty tumbler in his hand and the way the light refracted off the cut glass. He set it down with a heavy thunk. “Tell him I'm coming up,” he said and headed for the stairs.
Loki was sitting up in bed, reading, when Tony walked in, and he had to wonder if the god had been like that for a while or if he had hastened to look alert when Jarvis had announced his presence. The thought of Loki scrambling to fix his bedhead was a thought that made Tony bow his head to hide a smile.
“Hey,” he said, pausing to lean against the doorway.
Loki flipped the page. “Good morning.”
Tony regarded him over the book's binding, the pallor of hollow cheeks, the dark circles of his eyes. A saline drip was miraculously still in place for once, and Tony was grateful that he wouldn't have to have that argument again. Loki's eyes met his over the book then, and his brows furrowed in a combination of irritation and confusion.
“Can I help you?” he asked dryly. Tony smiled.
“Just got back from SHIELD,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He approached the bed, watched Loki tilt his head back to continue meeting his gaze.
Loki eyed him for a long moment and hummed in consideration. “And things went well, I see.”
Tony tilted his head in a question.
“You're not a blubbering mess,” Loki clarified with a smirk. He turned back to his book, but Tony knew he wasn't actually reading.
Tony chuffed and shook his head but did not argue. “Yeah, yeah, it went well,” he said, and Loki's smirk twitched higher. “Took some fancy negotiating on my part, but... same deal as before, only no second chances. Or... third chances, I guess.”
Loki laughed derisively, eyes still glued to his book. “It's getting more difficult to even pretend to take SHIELD's threats seriously.”
“Loki,” Tony said in a warning tone.
Loki looked askance at him. “And if I don't want the 'same deal'?”
Tony did not like the sound of that, but then he realized from the glint in his eye that Loki was just being contrary. “Then I'll stop getting the Poptarts you like.”
Loki put a hand over his heart in mock horror. “Now that is most - how do you put it - cruel and unusual!”
“Well, I suppose there are other ways I could punish you.” Tony knelt on the bed beside Loki and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Loki laughed but did not rise to the bait. “I don't know whether to be impressed or worried,” Loki said, “that you were able to talk SHIELD out of trying to arrest me.”
“You're not the only one who's good with words,” Tony answered, preening. “I talked my way into your pants, if I recall.”
“You drank your way into my pants,” Loki corrected dryly, arching one eyebrow.
“Well yeah, but that just makes you sound even easier.”
Loki swatted Tony's arm with the book.
Tony laughed and leaned forward, crawling over Loki on all fours, palms flat to the pillows on either side of the god's head. He bent to press a kiss at the corner of Loki's jaw.
“So you love me, hmm?” Loki asked in a low purr, sliding one hand up and around Tony's neck, fingers sieving through the short hairs at the nape.
Tony winced, cleared his throat and pulled back to look at Loki. “Yeah,” he said, because the cat was out of the bag (so to speak), and he might as well just own up to it. “Yeah, I do.”
Loki's smile curled higher, and he hummed appreciatively. Tony pulled back further, arching one eyebrow in a question. And no, he was not holding his breath, not at all. Loki's smile wilted at that look, and his eyes widened as he apparently realized what Tony was silently asking.
“The... feeling,” he said haltingly, running one hand up Tony's bicep and staring at the contrast of skin on skin to avoid staring into questioning brown eyes, “is... mutual.”
Tony rolled his eyes and sat back on his haunches. “'The feeling is mutual',” he mimicked snootily. “Oh, come on.”
Loki scowled as he pushed himself upright. “What?” he sneered.
“I'm not having anymore of this dancing around the issue,” Tony insisted, shaking his head. “Look what happened when I tried to avoid saying things. Look, just... if you don't, yet or ever, that's fine--” not fine, not fine at all, but Loki wasn't the only liar here “--but if you do, then say it.”
He watched the bob of Loki's Adam's apple as he swallowed, his eyes just this side of too wide, like a cornered animal that's trying not to let on that it's frightened. Tony wondered if he really should be pushing this, but something deep in his gut told him that Loki needed this, that Loki was just as afraid of the word as he was for different but similar reasons.
Loki started to shake his head, to let his gaze skitter far and wide, and Tony grabbed his hand to ground him. “Hey,” he said softly. “I'll love you no matter what. And if you're not there yet, just tell me, but don't say that just to get out of saying the 'L' word. Now. Do you love me?”
“Tony - ”
“Do. You love me?” He tried to keep his expression soft and open, nonjudgmental.
“Stop it!” Loki growled, wrenching his hand away. “You do not dictate what I can and cannot say, human!”
Tony frowned at the epithet, but he knew Loki well enough by now to read genuine panic in his words. “Loki,” he murmured, keeping his voice soft to encourage Loki to lower his, “what are you afraid of?”
Loki stared at him with eyes wild and dark, emotions melting, shifting, changing, through chameleon green. “You don't know,” he answered in a ragged hiss. “The things I love,” he continued, “the people I love... they either leave me, end up dead or I corrupt them beyond redemption! That's the pattern, you see. I'm meant to destroy the world, remember? That's what the Norns told me, Tony. The pattern. My fate. I'm the sick, twisted creature that hates the nine worlds enough to destroy them, and it happens again and again."
Tony swallowed down the guilt and panic bubbling up his throat, wondering if he'd opened a dam, if Loki would shake apart in front of him.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Hey, hey.” Then he was cradling Loki's face and wondering how the hell two such fucked-up people could have ended up together. “The pattern also says that I just chase after the first ass I see, that I am incapable of falling in love, but you, you, are the exception to that rule. Let me be the exception to yours.” Loki's eyes were over-bright and so so green as Tony stared into them, his own eyes promising solidity, strength, home. “Now,” he tried again, softly, softly, “do you love me?”
Tony felt Loki's jaw muscles flutter under his palms. In a small voice, "Tony."
"Yes or no, Loki."
“Yes,” Loki answered grittily. “You bloody fool.” He closed his eyes, and Tony pressed his grinning lips to Loki's eyelids.
“Then you can say it,” he murmured as he pulled back.
A breath, and then, “I love you. Satisfied?”
Tony breathed out a shuddering sigh of relief, and then he kissed Loki deeply, desperately. Loki kissed back with equal hunger, fingers digging bruises into Tony's shoulder-blades.
“Now don't expect me to ever say it again,” Loki growled when they paused for air.
“Oh, you will,” Tony answered against Loki's lips. “Get over it.”
Loki huffed indignantly but did not argue.
In the end, Tony called a press conference where he announced three things: yes, he was still with the Avengers; yes, he was dating Loki; and, no, he would not be taking any questions.
The room, once quiet save for the click of cameras, now erupted into a sea of noise. Tony smiled and slipped on his shades, turning his back to the crowd.