Starting Over - Loki (COMPLETE)

49) Best Man

"That was one good party," Tony muttered, throwing himself on the couch, the only piece of furniture in the semi-constructed room.

He massaged his forehead. It was the night after the party and Tony couldn't remember much at all.

"You're telling me," Loki murmured, perching on the arm. "I spent the entire time responding to calls for more drinks and coaxing two stubborn oysters out of their shells."

"Brucie should know better than to offend me," Tony pointed out, staring up at the ceiling.

"He wasn't offending you. Merely avoiding all forms of life."

"Sounds like him," Tony admitted. "And the Capsicle?"

"I got Rhodey to discuss the army with him. He cheered up rather quickly. I hope he didn't start thinking of his lost comrades."

"How can he forget?" Tony asked bitterly.

There was a pause.

"It feels weird..." Loki said slowly, "To have got to this point without them."

Tony froze although he had already known where the conversation was heading.

"Daniel was... Closer to you than Yinsen ever was to me," Tony said and it was obvious that the admission hurt him. "I knew him for a week. One bloody week."

"One long week," Loki corrected. "But that was, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst week of your life, Tony. "He got you through it, he helped you. Who wouldn't regret what could have been?"

"I was stupid," Tony said, his face full of despair. "He said he would return to his family. How was I supposed to know_"

"Exactly. You were never supposed to know or work it out," Loki comforted his friend. "It's what Yinsen wanted, to return to them."

"How do you feel about Daniel?" Tony asked suddenly.

Loki physically recoiled, standing up and beginning to pace up and down. Eventually he spoke, Tony watching him all the while.

"I wish... I wish it was me there that week. I know I couldn't have done anything," he added, when Tony looked like he was about to interrupt. "I just... Would've liked to be there. It would've felt better to have been there than to have been far away, blissfully unaware of the whole event."

Tony winced but Loki was too caught up in his own thoughts to notice.

"Why didn't we go together?" Loki asked, almost manically. "Global warming and we took two jets in two consecutive weeks?"

"Something came up," Tony said miserably.

Loki quickly calmed down, noting Tony's dejected tone.

"There was nothing we could've done," he said out loud. "So why do we feel responsible?"

"Because you're good men."

Both men looked up suddenly. There Natasha stood, leaning against the doorway. Neither Tony nor Loki had known that she was there.

"I see where you got your bloody namesake from," Tony muttered.

Natasha moved forwards to stand in front of them.