Wholehearted Acceptance.

[teofse]

Title: Wholehearted Acceptance.
Author: Teofse
Fandom: MCU
Pairing: Loki/Tony
Characters: Loki, Tony Stark
Rating: G.
Word count: 818
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Marvel (both comics and movies). No money is being made out of this work.
A/N: Unbetaed. Post Avengers AU, disregards Iron Man 3 and Thor: TDW. This is the next installment of my adventdrabbles 2014 series No Time For Sentiment. Prompt 10: Snowflakes.
Summary: This was care and understanding on a level that humbled him. This was someone's attempt to create a... home... just for him and the very thought of it rendered him speechless.

Wholehearted Acceptance.

 

Loki knew opulence better than most. He may have been born a prince to the wrong realm, but Odin had brought him up according to his station. His rooms back in Asgard bore the hallmarks of a youth raised in luxury, but he'd had them all his life and had shaped them himself according to his own taste.

He'd been housed in thousands of lovely dwellings in his travels as an ambassador of his non-father's kingdom. He'd also been imprisoned in dismal hellholes after his fall from grace; kept in hovels like the one S.H.I.E.L.D had provided for him and left to his own devices, neither wanted nor trusted in any significant way.

This was new, though. This was different from anything he'd ever experienced or had dared to believe could be willingly bestowed upon him. This was care and understanding on a level that humbled him. This was someone's attempt to create a... home... just for him and the very thought of it rendered him speechless.

Loki walked dazedly around his new 'floor', trailing idle fingertips along the hand-waxed surface of the elegant wooden furniture he'd have picked out himself, if he'd been given the chance. There was none of Stark's own predilection for the minimalist style here. No chrome and glass anywhere. No wild, colorful splashes of unrecognizable 'somethings' on the canvases that hung up on the walls.

“Thor assured me you'd prefer the posh Victorian library design to my usual thing about space, space, space. I hope he didn't lead me down the wrong path here, because you haven't said a word since you crossed the threshold and I'm starting to get twitchy, Reindeer.”

“I—This is beautiful, Stark. I never realized Thor knew me so well.”

“Why wouldn't he? He's your brother, Loki."

Loki's already constricted throat closed off even more upon hearing those words and he looked at his host with devastated green eyes.
“He isn't. I'm not of Thor's blood. I'm a black-feathered cuckoo raised in a nest of white swans."

Stark's sharp inhalation was the only reaction he showed for a painfully long moment. Then his sensual mouth flattened into a fierce-looking line and he sighed a rather explosive “Oh, fuck this!” before strolling over and grabbing his hand unexpectedly. “I'm going to show you something, Reindeer. This is something we all made for you with our own little hands. You should be proud. I doubt Barton would have gone through the trauma of making a craft for anyone else.”

Those cryptic words filled the tense silence until Stark reached the closed door that stood at the end of the corridor.
“This is your new bedroom, hot-shot. Go on. Open the door.”

Loki didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it definitely wasn't the soothing chamber he encountered: elegant wooden furniture was set against a backdrop of the softest blue in existence and an entire row of wall-to-wall windows afforded him a gorgeous view of New York.

“It's right there, Loki. Directly over the bed." Stark whispered, guiding his searching gaze towards the strange ornament that hung just above his pillows. 

Six long metal strings dropped down from a circular platform that was attached to the ceiling, each anchoring an object that dangled in mid-air. There was something made out of knives and something made of arrow-tips. Something else made of what looked like pencils, something made out of screwdrivers, something made out of intertwined bottle caps, painted to look like the captain's shield, and something made out of the distinctive branches of the golden willow tree that grew in his moth—in Frigga's garden.

“Snowflakes. You hung handmade snowflakes over my bed...” He whispered, startled, and wouldn't have been able to untangle the wild mess of emotions that was making his heart pound and his green eyes prickle with the shameful heat of tears had his life depended on it.”

“It was Banner's idea. He said facing your fears was the only thing that would help you in the end. That, and knowing we accept you as you are. Weird icicle-alien thing and all.”

Loki stared dumbly at his host, unable to decide whether he felt thoroughly offended by that strange description or illogically touched.
“I'm not an icicle, Stark. I'm a Frost Giant. The kind of monster grown men have nightmares about."

“Sorry. Not impressed. I live with the Hulk, man. A blue alien with icy skin doesn't sound that interesting when compared to him.”

Loki gaped, shocked beyond description.
“But I am...”

“You. You are you, Loki. You are wise and stupid and brilliant and needy and twisted, all at once. You're messed up in the head, just like the rest of us, and you are home here. You're among pals. You're surrounded by people who think snowflakes are bloody awesome, so... chill, budd. Chill and let all that monster shit go. It's time to embrace who you are." 

TBC

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