A/N Have some more PietroxLoki - I hope it's good. Also, if you want to know why Pietro likes the song Papillon by Editors, watch the music video (also, the poster above is by me). Happy Easter.
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"Have I told you I love you lately?"
"You could always tell me again..." Loki grinned into Pietro's shoulder. He could feel the heat through the french window of the rising sun on his back and buried his head into Pietro's neck further. The light reflected off the light grey walls, brightening the room far too quickly for either Pietro or Loki's liking. This was the act of neglecting to shut the curtains the previous night coming back to bite them... though in their defence, they had been somewhat preoccupied.
"I love you," Pietro murmured as he pressed a kiss into Loki's shoulder. "Love you so much." More slow, sleepy kisses came between each confession, grazing Loki's collar bone, neck, jaw... Loki pushed himself into Pietro, chasing the extra warmth and comfort. The bed covers were lying in a heap at one end of the bed; both of them were restless sleepers.
"It's also your turn to make breakfast today." Fingers sank into Pietro's bed-mussed hair and guided his face up for a short kiss.
"You're mean, you know," Pietro whined. He was still only half awake and the prospect of breakfast seemed very far off. Too far off to bother about for now.
"Yes, but I feel confident in the fact that you love me." Loki swung his legs out of bed and pulled Pietro out alongside him, fingers twined together. Pietro groaned and thumped his head into Loki's shoulder, earning a chuckle. He felt deceptively strong arms wrap around him and shield him from the ever-advancing sunlight that was invading the room. "Come on. I can do some pancake mix if you want."
A sound that sounded vaguely like 'yes please' came from Pietro. Loki kissed him once more, before leading Pietro towards the door, dodging the clothes scattered across the floor.
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The corridors of the tower were empty and gleaming pastel orange as the sun rose. It was a weekend, meaning Natasha would have been in the gym a few floors lower for almost an hour now. Clint would have rolled out of bed a half-hour ago and gone to join her with spiky hair and a half-drunk coffee. He'd have his ass kicked soundly for the next three matches before finally getting it together, and then the fight would even out. Tony was probably passed out with bruce down in the lab: they were both workaholics and were eagerly drawing up designs for Bucky's new arm. Steve and Bucky always slept in late; if it was a weekend the chances were you wouldn't see them before 11.30 am. Wanda always saved Saturday mornings for self-care. This involved draining New York's hot water supply in a long shower, a manicure and an hour or so of online shopping while her hair and nails dried off. This left breakfast to Pietro and Loki.
Saturday breakfast was usually something mediocre - like granola or toasted sandwiches - and the actual effort was put in on Sunday. This was because neither Pietro nor Loki particularly enjoyed cooking: it always took so long, so they couldn't be bothered. No one liked Saturday breakfasts, but no one was willing to complain because no one else wanted to do it. Then, Sunday hit and it was almost Monday. Sunday breakfasts were their equivalent of stress eating, so it usually involved ridiculous amounts of baked and fried things, along with chocolate and various syrups. Sunday breakfasts were a bitter-sweet affair. The food was delicious, but the sentiment behind it rather depressed everyone.
Today was a Sunday, hence the pancakes.
Pietro and Loki stumbled into the kitchen together, hands still firmly clasped, and clumsy kisses being exchanged. The large room was empty, only the rising sun to keep them company. It brought the monochrome kitchen to life, painting the shiny white cupboards in all sorts of shades of orange. Even the black counters danced with the early morning light, warming the room.
Loki wandered around the cupboards pulling out pancake ingredients while Pietro headed straight for the coffee machine. The silence was broken by the jarring sound of the coffee machine grinding the beans, before settling into a sedate whirring as the coffee poured out. The silence returned, but it was too still now.
"Jarvis, play Papillon by Editors."
Loki hung his head and sighed, "there must be another song. You've listened to this a hundred times."
"But it's a great song!" Pietro defended, hunching his shoulders up and taking a tentative sip of the coffee. It burnt his tongue, but he swallowed it as quietly as possible, knowing any small sounds of discomfort would elicit more teasing from Loki.
"You only like it because of the music video."
"While the music video is definitely a bonus, the song is great on its own."
Loki rolled his eyes and went back to measuring out the flour. Pietro hopped up onto the kitchen island and took a large gulp of coffee. It was still too hot but made no difference considering he couldn't feel his mouth anymore.
Pietro watched as Loki made the pancakes. The way the fading orange light illuminated his hair, tied back so as to not droop in his face. The next track was Formaldehyde, also by Editors. Pietro could see Loki's foot, tapping idly as he made the batter, and he was humming just quiet enough that Pietro could barely hear it. Pietro couldn't help but think through the lyrics of the song: how he would preserve this love between them, how he could store it up and keep it in formaldehyde, draw on it when he needed strength. How he never would and never could let this go. How it was as much a part of him as his own blood was, and how every heartbeat burned white-hot with adoration.
The tissue and bone, my soul has on loan, aches to be near you...
The butter began to sizzle in the pan and the song changed over once more. Loki turned, wondering what had happened to the usual chatter from Pietro, to find Pietro gazing off into space at him. The coffee mug in his hand was tipping dangerously and there was a far off look in his eyes.
"Earth to Pietro..." Loki waved a hand in front of his face.
Pietro rose gradually, blinking and righting the mug.
"Are you ok?" Loki sounded somewhat concerned.
"You love me, right..." Pietro asked, eyebrows furrowed.
"Of course, darling, of course I love you. Why would you question that?"
"Stupid, sentimental music," Pietro muttered to himself. He looked almost ashamed as he turned to look out the window and the sun peeking through peachy clouds.
Loki, of course, heard and gave a small laugh. He turned Pietro's head back to look at him, racking the white waves of hair out of Pietro's eyes. He lifted his head to kiss the end of Pietro's nose, to which Pietro replied by leaning his head to the side and giving Loki a brief kiss on the mouth, and then another, and another. Loki wound his arms around Pietro's neck, pulling himself in for a deeper kiss. He could feel Pietro's hands gripping his waist and he dug his hands further into Pietro's hair. His eyes were closed but he knew exactly how Pietro looked: forehead finally relaxed and creases smoothed out, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards slightly. His hands were grazing the bare skin of Loki's waist, warm and strong. He pushed himself further into Pietro's chest, burying himself in the warmth and love radiating out.
"Love you so much," he whispered into Pietro's mouth.
Pietro pulled back to look at Loki, "you've been eating the pancake batter."
"I am here trying to be sentimental and this is where you choose to take the moment -" Loki raised an eyebrow.
"I have the attention span of a three-year-old," Pietro returned, "and also I can smell burning." They both turned to look at the two black lumps sitting in the pan, that used to be a pale cream colour.
"Stephen's got the time stone," Loki shrugged it off, resting his head on Pietro's shoulder.
"Take those out before you start a house fire."
"Warm," was all Loki replied.
"If I keep hugging you will you please take those out?"
"Fine, fine."
Pietro slid off the table and wrapped his arms around Loki from behind. The two waddled over to the hob and Loki disposed of the blackened mess, using a spell to get the last of the encrusted-on batter out of the pan. He added butter once more with Pietro still plastered to him, "pancakes take two."
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Tony and Bruce were first into the kitchen, called up by Jarvis. They'd clearly sleep in the lab because there was a partial imprint of a wrench on Tony's cheek, where he'd passed out in the middle of work. Bruce wasn't much better: he had a darkening bruise on his forehead where it had hit the tabletop when he'd fallen asleep. Both slumped at the table and stared blindly at the table until Pietro put two mugs of coffee in front of them and Loki served the pancakes. They ate comically slowly.
Steve and Bucky were next. They arrived looking weirdly perky and awake for the time of morning and proceeded to scarf down pancakes as fast as humanly possible. Loki sighed defeatedly. This always happened and no food was leftover for anyone else. It was time to cheat. Loki waved a hand and conjured more pancakes out of thin air to sate the two bottomless pits.
Clint and Natasha arrived soon after, talking animatedly.
"I thought you were gonna name her Natasha," Natasha said accusingly.
"I said we might if it was a girl. We got the ultrasound scan back, and it's not," replied Clint, giving a theatrical sigh as he reached for the pancakes.
"What are you gonna call the little traitor then?" Natasha asked, pulling up a chair.
"Hold up," Tony interjected, "you have kids?"
"Been married 5 years, two kids, third one arrives in July," Clint said, desperately cramming pancakes in his mouth in an attempt to end the tiresome conversation.
"How did we not know this?" Tony said, turning to Bruce, who merely gave a shrug and returned to his large mug of coffee.
"Because you never asked," Clint grumbled.
"Yes, but what's this one called then?" Natasha continued, prodding Clint in the side and blatantly ignoring his attempt at peace and quiet.
"Nathaniel," Clint said through a mouthful of pancake and butter.
Natasha thumped her head against the table. "I was looking forward to teaching her how to maim a man, with only chopsticks."
"All the more reason I'm glad it's a boy," Clint muttered.
Everyone finally fell into silence pondering this new information. The sun had fully risen in the now clear sky, the sharp blue colour betraying just how cold it was outside. It was making the kitchen sparkle a brilliant white and Bruce and Tony were both squinting into their mugs. Their lab was underground in case any experiments backfired, and this meant it had only been lit dimly by LEDs as they worked through the night, the bright sun now was painful.
Loki was also, clearly, still half asleep as he went to make the last few pancakes because as he reached across the hob for the batter he entirely misjudged the distance and ended up slamming his hand into the pan. This kind of burn wouldn't matter too much to a human. Sure, it would hurt, but it was nothing some cold water and a bandage couldn't help heal.
But Loki wasn't human, and burns are often incredibly painful to Frost Giants, as well as taking longer to heal. Loki's hand hit the pan with an alarming hiss and his right arm reverted back to its natural blue colour. The glamour over his eyes fell too, revealing them to be swirling red, as he felt his hold on his magic slip. The skin over his knuckles had turned a deep purple, rough and raw, with spots of blue blood running down it.
The Avengers sitting at the table all turned when they heard Loki yelp, but all that was left was a trail of blue from Pietro.
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After officially becoming an Avenger, Loki had become unlikely friends with Tony. He had felt bad for throwing him out of a window, especially with everything Tony had been through and what he had to put up with on a daily basis. Originally he'd offered to teach Tony about Asgardian technology however, he found out that there wasn't much Tony didn't already know, considering he had been consulting (meaning he was very good friends with) Darcy Lewis.
So Loki had taken to just accompanying Tony in his lab instead. Tony had found having a ghostly pale, silent figure watching him work unnerving the first few times, but he recognised that this was Loki's attempt at an apology, so he let him sit there. Eventually, Loki tried to strike up a conversation. And it worked. He and Tony had spent the next few hours discussing the mechanics of the Bifrost. Neither particularly understood it, but by piecing their own knowledge together, and with a lengthy call to Darcy, it was starting to look less daunting.
It was because of this that Tony was the first one to go chase after Loki to check that he was ok.
He tripped over the chair leg as he stood up (need more coffee) and followed Pietro's blue trail down the hall back to his room. The door to it was wide open and the room was dark, the only light coming from the slightly ajar bathroom door. Tony tripped again over a pair of jeans lying on the floor and vowed to make Pietro clean up his room after this.
Inside the ensuite Loki was shakily sitting on the edge of the bathtub while Pietro wrapped his hand in a damp bandage, attempting to reduce the pain. Loki's eyes were a violet hue as he slowly regained control of his magic and his arm was back to its normal tone, only his right hand was blue now. As Pietro finished and stood up he softly kissed Loki's temple before turning to the cabinet above the sink to dig out some paracetamol. This is when Tony made his presence known.
"You two are dating?" he said, opening the door.
Loki jumped so violently he almost fell off the edge of the bath. "That's your top priority right now?" Pietro asked. There was no malice in his voice, but he sounded distinctly unimpressed.
"Sorry, sorry, not the point I was here to make. I know 'are you ok' is a stupid question, so are you going to be ok? How bad is the burn?" apologised Tony.
"Not as bad as what I've had before, you twat," Loki glared at Tony.
Tony cracked a smile - this was the Loki he knew how to work with. "Well that's fantastic. Need me to get painkillers or something?"
"I've got Paracetamol here" - Pietro waved the packet.
"So how long have you two been together?" Tony leant against the doorframe and folded his arms, looking nonchalant, but well aware of the minefield he was standing on.
"About a year," they both answered.
"A year?! Why'd you keep it a secret?"
"We didn't - to quote Clint - 'you never asked'," Pietro replied.