Pop Goes The Question

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Spring was here--there was no doubt about that. Tony, in his age, had grown susceptible to chilly weather but he had his limits. Blessedly, the weather in the alternate dimensional San Luis Obispo grew hot but not overly humid. Even excepting the fact Tony's nanoparticle clothing could buffer against most weather conditions, Peter had been in the habit of borrowing the arc reactor with some regularity to convene with the AIs within, forcing Tony into the miserable position of having to weather regular clothes.

There was a better way of letting the boy spend time with his friends. He just had to get off his ass and make one.

The thoughts of the heat turned to thoughts of the tall figure lounging beside him on the glossy stool and instead of resuming his current task (what to have for lunch), unspoken questions were written on his face as he stared sideways at Loki.

"It's a cuisine thing." Tony concluded apropos of nothing as he poured over the daily menu drawn in chalk mounted proudly a few feet away.

Comments

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“When’s the Lieutenant’s birthday?” Tony asked, grinning. Thor called Valkyrie by the title more often than not, so it stuck.

[st_ratagem]

“No idea.” The lack of knowledge was, for once, not distressing. If it was important to her for some reason, Loki had no doubt she’d let him know. It seemed reasonable that it wouldn’t be, after all; Brunnhilde (by her name in his mind if not out loud) was not only centuries older than him, probably more than old enough to render birthdays meaningless, she had even less experience translating the dates she knew to a Midgardian calendar. “Why?”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"She seems like a woman whose heart can be reached through her stomach." If his tone wasn't suggestive enough, the glint in his eye was. "Told her the story of Thor and the Mt. Olympus burger challenge. He lost. She's looking to make it a competition."

[st_ratagem]

"Oh, I've already made some effort on that front." Loki pulled one of the bottles of Asgardian liquor from over there, as a demonstration, then put it back. "It was indeed very effective. I don't believe I need to facilitate an eating contest, though."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Alright, then allow me." Tony proclaimed, raising a hand as if to say 'no thanks necessary.' "Summer's almost here, let's come alive."

[st_ratagem]

"All right, two things." Loki held up fingers as he counted off the items. "One, do what you want. Two, you do realize I have context for virtually nothing you've said in this conversation, yes?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Mirroring Loki's gesture, "One, that's the plan. Two, it'll be fun and it'll bring us closer together. That's it. I'd like to know my sister-in-law-to-be aside from the roundtable talks."

[st_ratagem]

His what? "Your what? Someone's under a misapprehension somewhere. If Thor intends to adopt her as a sister, I really will kill him."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony squinted but the confusion written on Loki's face remained genuine. "Was I jumping the gun with that one?"

[st_ratagem]

"What gun? And for the record I'm willing to kill you as well, if you happen to be the source or encouragement for that idea." He had kinks, Norns knew, but Loki was certain incest wasn't one of them. "Be warned, and pass along the warning to your idiot fiancé."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“You’d miss me.” Tony could now empathize with Thor’s desensitization to wanton death threats without doubting the nugget of sincerity. “At least wait until we’re on the same page so you can murder me in good faith. You. The Lieutenant. A matrimonial goat sacrifice.”

[st_ratagem]

“I’m not Thor. We would probably use a pig of some kind.” Not that he’d exactly considered the correct sacrifice... except apparently he had, based on how immediate that response had been. “And yes, that’s gun-jumping. I assure you there’s been no....”

Except that conversation on the beach. That she could see the appeal of marriage, and the story of how she’d run out of time before. Put like that? “...damn.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony held a shrug, knowing he need not say more. "Come on, it's just me. Is tying the knot really such a bad thing to want?"

[st_ratagem]

“For me? Absolutely yes, historically speaking.” Loki shrugged. “For a wide variety of reasons.” Though in this instance one of the reasons was not ‘she doesn’t want me’. Brunnhilde did want him, entirely provably, and not even living together had changed her mind yet.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Unswayed, Tony gestured at Loki with his glass, "I know how much you love your precedent, but consider this: historically speaking, you've never been trapped in a pocket dimension with a live-in girlfriend."

[st_ratagem]

It was a decent point. One that could only be not-exactly-countered with, “Never had a girlfriend before, full stop.” It really wasn’t a rebuttal. It was more like an example, possibly one of the wide variety of reasons to which he’d just referred.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Mazel tov." Tony grinned. "I saw it coming."

[st_ratagem]

Loki rolled his eyes. "Good for you. Welcome, for the record, to the list of primary targets when it blows up and I have another major homicidal break."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“Oh, so you can see into the future after all?” Tony took up the glass of OJ and squinted to inspect the pulp content.

[st_ratagem]

"I don't need to, for that." Loki sipped his tea. "I'm still me. I'll remind you that you had an excellent vantage point for what happened the last time I experienced anything close to a broken heart."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony squinted, recalling the memory. It all seemed so long ago. “So when it goes sideways I can expect you to infiltrate my room and poke me with a stick.”

[st_ratagem]

“No, this time I won’t have a rock ‘suggesting’ things to me.” It opened up wide vistas of how the spread pain around, that lack of control. “But never mind. I’m already tired of being mocked about this.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“Think about it. Tying the knot.” Tony gestured at Loki again with the new glass. “I’m serious. She surprised me.”

[st_ratagem]

“How exactly is it possible to ‘call it’ and still be surprised?” And what, really, would be the difference between being married and what they were already doing, in this place? (That seemed like a point in favor of the idea, somehow.)

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“The same way you can anticipate one thing and not another.” Tony wove his finger into a lock of dangling hair. “Marriage has come up a few times with her. You know. The one. Maybe she’s just a goat slaying fanatic but she pays attention.”

[st_ratagem]

“You need to make your peace with the goat thing and let it go.” She’d only really brought it up with him once that Loki could recall. But then, in fairness, prior to Valkyrie moving into his room she’d thought he preferred ‘distance’. She’d essayed an exploratory shot at the topic only after a month genuinely together had failed to blow up in their faces.

In that light, a month seemed very quick. Unwilling to risk another Ròta, perhaps - done could be undone at need, but undone was forever when time ran out. “Also, I probably don’t know the one.”

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“Your brother’s marriage.” The one they hadn’t done much beyond light planning for, and Tony chuckled to himself. “Anyway, I’m not gonna bang the drum all day. Just conveying the sense I got.”

[st_ratagem]

Loki shrugged. There wasn't much he could say that didn't violate Brunnhilde's tacit confidence - if she'd wanted the tale of Ròta spread around, she'd have done it herself. "The sense you have that she pays attention and has a brain? I hardly need to be told about either one." His tone was slightly absent, though, as he pursued his own thoughts.

Brunnhilde enjoyed physical contact, but only in part because she was a tactile person, or so it seemed on current reflection. Touching him proved he was still there, sitting or laying on him as she was often inclined to do prevented him from going anywhere. She was good at hiding an undercurrent of fear, but not perfect... and of course, she of all people would be afraid of loss. Perhaps she regarded loss of him as always imminent? (Hardly different from his own anxiety about losing her.)

Loki had, up to about now, considered that he'd been painfully and embarrassingly obvious throughout their relationship, but... clearly he had been and maybe still was a confusing mystery to her - here for now, gone on a whim. She'd said it herself, hadn't she - he took his own path, she loved it and hated it.

To him, certainly, a theoretical marriage seemed virtually no different from what they were already doing. To her, though, it might replace mystery with some degree of certainty? And he had once opined to the spider boy that 'no reason not to' was in fact a fairly good reason to do anything. "I've decided to try and be philosophical about Thor's marriage, myself. If I can keep the man from trying to insist again that I'm female and a child, I'll be fine."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

'Ode to the willfully ignorant.' Though Tony didn't have long to think up a proper retort before he was wincing. The flower girl thing was supposed to have been a joke. Welp.

"'Til death do us part." His throat clenched unpleasantly and he had to pause before finishing the tart drink. A breath in brought some calm. "I don't have illusions where I'm headed."

[st_ratagem]

Loki shrugged. "You're mortal, so ultimately I'm sure you do. Until then I doubt you'll have issues. You'll slot well enough into Asgard, and Thor will defend you for the rest. Don't learn magic, start using knives, or take up certain handcrafts and you'll be fine."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“Tried. Prefer guns. Do robotics count?” The food slid up and the diffused sesame and ginger stirred his appetite. “The first ones a secret by the way. I’m serious.”

[st_ratagem]

"No, machinery is neutral to manly in general. You're fine." Loki waved a hand, then ate one of his fries. "Never fear, I'll keep your secret absent a solid reason not to."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Fides facit fidem." Tony replied with a half-smile as the specter of death faded, taking up his fork.