A life together

The Mandarin

When Tony opened his eyes the first thing he saw was Loki, sitting in a chair with his hands and feet tied up. There was an expression of extreme annoyance on his face.

"You look comfy, honey," he commented, making the god roll his eyes at him.

He shook his head in exasperation but his eyes were warm with affection, "I swear to Thor that if they kidnap you one more time we will be moving to another realm by the end of the week."

"Hey, this time they kidnapped you too. Don't you think it's romantic? Both dirty, bloody and waiting for the villain to show up to threaten us and blah blah blah?"

"You and I have a very different concept of romance."

"I'm a really romantic person, I am!" he said at the unimpressed look he received. "I've done a lot of romantic things, do you remember that time I cooked dinner for the two of us and spruced up the living room with candles and rose petals?"

Loki narrowed his eyes, "Are you talking about the time we had to order pizzas because what you did was not edible and then you set the napkins on fire so DUM-E bathed us in fire extinguisher foam?"

He smiled remembering that night, "You have to admit, it was a damn good pizza."

"It really was," his husband chuckled.

An exaggerated cough interrupted them making them notice that Maya Hensen was staring at them, "Stark, I thought you were in a stable relationship. But I gotta say that the resemblance between him and your girlfriend is uncanny. You clearly have a type." They both tried really hard not to laugh.

"I gotta say, the service in this place leaves a lot to be desired. The zip ties on my wrists are too tight, I would've preferred handcuffs," he said with a smirk.

"It wasn't my idea."

"Okay. So you took Killian's card."

"I took his money."

"And here you are 13 years later."

"In a dungeon," Loki added, making him snort.

"No, you're in a dungeon. I'm free to go," she let out a sigh and said, "A lot has happened, Tony. But I'm close. Extremis is practically stabilized."

"I'm telling you it isn't," shouted the genius and then took a breath and spoke lower, "I'm on the street. People are going bang. They're painting the walls. Maya, you're kidding yourself. "

"Then help me fix it," she showed him a note he had written in 1999.

Tony looked at her confused, "Did I do that?" he asked causing Loki to giggle.

She looked at him irritably, "Yes."

"I remember the night, not the morning. Is this what you've been chasing around?"

Maya was completely disappointed, "You don't remember?"

"Darling, he barely remembers what he had for dinner, I highly doubt he remembers a drunken night from a decade ago," the god said, holding back the urge to laugh in the woman's face.

"I can't help you. You used to have a moral psychology. You used to have ideals. You wanted to help people. Now look at you. I get to wake up every morning with someone who still has their soul," Tony had to bite down his smile when he saw Loki blush. "Get me out of here. Come on."

Suddenly, Aldrich Killian appeared from who knows where and joined the conversation. "You know what my old man used to say to me? One of his favorite of many sayings, 'The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese'."