Happy (Belated) Birthday, Tony Stark!

7.

"Who would've thought my famous genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist would be bested by a child's crib?" Loki asks without even bothering to look up from the pregnancy book she's reading, her fingers loosely curling around the next page as she skins the last few sentences. Tony grumbles from his spot on the floor where he's been attempting to put the crib together for the past two hours. "Sure, the great Iron Man can defeat a trickster god with ease. Survive sending a nuke through a wormhole. Can even prevent the Hulk from causing vast amounts of destruction on the city." She looks up for a moment, an incredibly bored expression on her face. "But he's no match for IKEA furniture." Tony huffs, shooting her a sharp glare. She raises an eyebrow. "Next time I want to marry an engineer, I'll do a background check."

"First of all, I'm a mechanic. If you're gonna insult me, do it properly." Loki rolls her eyes. "Secondly, you made sure of there not being a next time." She huffs. "And thirdly! I don't see you getting down here and helping!" She stares at him for a long time.

"Anthony, darling, if I 'get down there and help', I won't be able to get back up," she remarks, resting her book on top of her bump. Tony eyes her carefully before sighing. "And besides, I don't know how to put a crib together. I was a princess; if I needed a crib built, I had servants who did that for me." She lifts the book back up, flipping through a few of the pages. "I thought this was your area of expertise."

"Yeah, and I thought IKEA instructions at least came in English. This is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo."

"That 'mumbo-jumbo' is a dialect short of being my native tongue." Tony scrunches his nose and sticks out his tongue. "I could read you the instructions if you'd like. I'm sure they are more amusing than this book." He raises an eyebrow. She shrugs. "I can only read so much about breastfeeding in one sitting." Tony nods slowly. "After awhile, it just makes me want to cut off my boobs."

"Well." Tony laughs slightly uncomfortably. "Don't do that." She snorts before turning back to the book. "Thanks for the offer, hot stuff, but I think I can figure out how to set up a crib. People do it all the time." She raises an eyebrow over the top of the book. Tony rolls his eyes. "Shut up."

"I didn't say a word."

"I've known you for long enough now to know you were thinking a lot more than what your face gave off." She smiles. He winks at her before turning his attention back on the crib. "Though I could always see if Thor could help. . ." he mumbles. "I'm sure he'd love to."

"He'd want to do anything we'd let him when it comes to this baby," Loki responds, flipping through a few more pages.

She stops a moment later and looks around the room. Steve (and the rest of the Star Spangled Idiots as Tony likes to call them) had come in earlier in the week to help them paint the nursery a lovely shade of lavender. As amazing as Tony is, he is but one man and couldn't possibly do that all by himself nor would he let Loki help. He didn't want to overexpose her to the paint fumes and cause her to get sick. She thought he was crazy until she read more about the effects of prolonged exposure to the fumes. After that she was more than happy to invite their beloved Captain and his boyfriends over to help paint the nursery. Steve even went above and beyond what they had asked of him. He brought a can of white paint, mixed it with their chosen purple, and hand-painted carnations above and around where her crib will be (once Tony finally figures out how to set it up). Perhaps they should've also invited Thor over to add a bit of Asgardian flare to the room. She shrugs the idea off. There's always next week for him to come in and wreck the place.

Loki glances around at the soft purples and touches of pink (because Tony refused to not have a touch of red in her nursery; pink was the only compromise Loki was willing to make) around the room. The soft white sheets she's going to lay on are folded nicely atop her changing table, waiting to be used with an enchanted trashcan sitting beside it. A blessing sent from her mother, it works like a black hole. You throw the diaper in there and poof it disappears. Loki can't believe she never thought about something like that before. Or her own variation of it at least ("I don't know what you want me to tell you, darling. I have no idea what happened to your toolbox. Perhaps it grew legs and walked away before you were spending too much time with it and not enough with me."). There are at least three baskets full of different sized baby clothes--a plethora of cute dresses and skirts but also plenty of onesies--and more hanging in her closet already. Odin (which had surprised the both of them; luckily they were both fully clothed and on opposite sides of the house) had stopped by shortly after the would-be baby shower to deliver Loki's bookshelf she had as a kid. It's a smaller replica of the Yggdrasil tree and where each realm should be is a pod to put books in. They decided to paint over the old oak and make it a brilliant white. There are a few baby books already placed among the realms of the bookshelf--ranging from typical Midgardian books filled with nursery rhymes to typical Asgardian baby books filled with blood and death (those will only be read to her by either Loki or Thor; Tony is not allowed to know of their existence). A few toys litter about the corners of the room. It's nearly all put together. All it's missing is--

"Dumb ass crib!" Tony exclaims when the whole thing falls apart on him for the umpteenth time.

Loki presses her lips together to keep herself from laughing. She really shouldn't. Tony's clearly disgruntled about the whole ordeal and laughing will only make it worse but oh is it so gods damn funny.

She heaves herself up off the rocking chair and sets the book down on the seat before making her way over to where Tony is sitting. He's on his knees at this point, hanging his head like a dog would hang his tail. She smiles softly as she runs her fingers through his hair. He looks up after a moment. She smirks.

"I like it when you kneel." Tony can't help but laugh. "Is this not simpler? Is this not your natural state?" She leans down slightly to purr in Tony's ear, "It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation." A shiver runs down Tony's spine and his eyes nearly roll back into his skull. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

"Yooou really need to stop doing that," Tony breathes out, palming his thighs.

Loki raises an eyebrow and tilts her head. "Do I?" She runs her fingertips gently along the side of his face before roughly grabbing hold of his chin, tugging it upwards to face her. "Or what?" Tony nearly about loses it right there. "What could you possibly do to me, pet?" A pathetic moan builds up in the back of Tony's throat. "Pin me against the wall? Choke me? Pull my hair?" She leans down again and nips at his ear, breath hot against his face. "Weak. Pathetic." Tony gulps. "You can't touch me. I'm a goddess. A Queen! You are nothing more than gum on the bottom of my shoe. Meaningless."

Tony lets out a slow breath between his teeth that almost comes out as a whistle. Loki straightens, peering down at him with an intrigued look dancing across her features. She's watching to see what Tony will do. They don't frequently do things to this extreme so it's quite possible that she took it too far. He just has to say when and she'll stop.

"Whoa," he whispers. It's so soft it's barely audible. If Loki didn't have impeccable hearing, she'd probably have missed it. "Who knew never hearing Daddy say he loved me would turn into such an intense degradation kink?" Loki gasps, her face a brilliant scarlet. She sways in her spot for a second before her knees buckle. Tony quickly reaches out and catches her. "Whoa! Careful there. You're carrying precious cargo," he teases. Loki laughs weakly. He tucks a few loose strands of hair behind her ear before cupping her cheek. "Is this your way of falling for me?" Loki continues laughing. "Was it something I said?"

"I wasn't necessarily waiting for that to be your response!" She buries her face in the crook of Tony's neck. He laughs as he wraps his arms around her. "Gods, Anthony, I was waiting for you to tell me I overstepped or I'd reached the line and I should carefully tread it." He continues laughing as he starts rubbing her back. "Not that your father issues gave you a degradation kink!"

"Aww, don't worry, baby," he coos. "We'll figure out what kink your daddy issues gave you eventually."

Loki lets out a strangled cry as she buries her face deeper into the crook of his neck. His shoulders shake from the laughter racking through his body. Out of spite, Loki snaps her fingers. The crib Tony has been working on building for the past two and a half hours springs up, fully built and in its right location against the wall. Tony gasps.

"You bitch!" Loki laughs softly. "Why didn't you do that an hour ago?!"

"You didn't ask!"