Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13461807.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      The_Avengers_(Marvel_Movies), The_Avengers_(Marvel)_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Loki/Tony_Stark
  Character:
      Loki, Tony_Stark
  Additional Tags:
      Frostiron_Kinkmeme, BDSM, Rough_Sex, PTSD, Kink_Negotiation, Hurt/
      Comfort, Loki_Has_Issues, Past_Torture
  Collections:
      Anonymous, this_is_the_version_where_you_come_out_on_top
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-01-23 Words: 3244
****** Dark Whispers ******
by Anonymous
Summary
     From the Frostiron Kinkmeme prompt, posted on Ao3 about a thousand
     years later:
     Back in Asgard, before everything went pear shaped, Loki had always
     enjoyed pain with his pleasure, to the point of never going vanilla.
     After having been tortured for gods know how long by Thanos & co.,
     however, it is hard to break the association. So he can’t have
     painplay during sex, but he doesn’t know how to do it without.
     Luckily, Tony has had a similar experience and can guide him through
     it.
     tl;dr: Loki is masochistic, but after being tortured he can’t have
     that kind of sex anymore; Tony helps him find alternative ways to get
     into a similar headspace without triggering nasty memories.
Notes
     This is neither entirely fluffy, nor entirely angsty.
     Posted 1 year ago on the Frostiron Kinkmeme tumblr.
See the end of the work for more notes
"Loki. Look at me."
"Leave me be, Anthony."
Even his voice quivered. He clenched his jaws as a fresh wave of frustration
washed over him. It was nearly enough to overcome the shame and all the other
unpleasant feelings that coiled in his stomach like venomous snakes. Nearly.
"I am not leaving you now."
Curse his mortal love and the stubborness in him. Though it was Tony’s mind and
his arrogant personality a match for his that made Loki love him, it was it
also what, in those moments, made him wonder why he had yet to kill the man in
their bed. The other Avengers knew nothing of their relation. Sometimes, a dark
part of his mind made him wish to one day let them find Tony dead and naked,
with the spirit in the wall to confess his master’s foolish affair with a
wanted criminal.
It was the same dark place in his mind that still made his blood coil whenever
he came in the tower and realised Thor was there also. It was the same place
that whispered of glory and revenge and of murder and violence.
He knew not all of this was his own mind. Not all of it was the making of his
anger. It scared him a little, how it was still there, months after the attack
on Earth and his escape from Asgard. Sometimes, it made him feel as though the
Titan was just behind him, smirking as he fought his own mind and screamed in
the night.
Usually, being with Tony took that fear away. He slept well in the human’s bed,
with the blue light of his heart to comfort him.
Not today.
Today, he was a failure. Today, he was what Thanos had made him into. It made
him hate himself and it made him hate Tony. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill
the man he called lover or himself. Under his skin, there was a cold that made
his fingers spasms and tremble like they were to close around a weapon, or
someone’s neck.
"I said", he hissed, "leave me."
Tony was never so slow to pick up his clues. The man usually did a good job at
understanding when it was time to stop his jokes, when it was time to be
silent. Even when it was time to threaten Loki to call Thor, because he could
see the fire burning in his eyes and threatening to spill into killing and
violence.
Loki was grateful for how perfect he was. He also hated him for it.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder. It was a careful touch, enough so to not
disturb the red lines the whip had left on his back before he had torn it from
Tony’s hand with a scream.
Enough ! His voice had been loud and cracked. I am a god ! I am not your toy, I
am notnothing!
Tony had stared, silent and shocked. Of course he would be. Loki had suggested
himself that he was not hard enough on him in their coupling, that slaps and
bites were not giving him what he wanted. One of his lovers had once carved his
name into Loki’s chest during their foreplay, and it had been one of his most
pleasant orgasm to date. Surely Tony would give him what he wanted, yes ?
He had known as he challenged his lover he was making a mistake. Slaps and
bites used to not be enough. Today, they were nearly too much.
It was weakness, and it was one more sign of how much the Titan had destroyed
him. He couldn’t tolerate it. So he had pushed and pushed and then he had
broken, shouting at his lover then turning his back to him and closing his
eyes.
"Loki", said his lover again. His voice was firm, yet there was softness there
too, like he was speaking to a weakling. Loki hated it. "Look, I-"
"I will kill you, Tony Stark. Get out."
He spat out the words -threat, warning- even as he shoved Tony’s hand off of
him. It didn’t matter that they were in Tony’s house. He felt like putting his
hands around his own head and squeezing until his thoughts would go away. If he
could get his heart to stop pounding and, and the voices to stop-
"I pushed too far", Tony insisted, and he could have killed him. "I’m sorry."
"Will you shut your mouth or need I shut it myself ?!" He asked through gritted
teeth.
"Loke, there is no shame in having your limits. This is why I wanted us to have
a safeword-"
"I have no limits !" Loki snapped, standing up at once and turning so he could
turn his heated glare to the human, so he could force him to understand,
understand that he was playing with rage and danger and he should shut up. "I
am no weakling, no- no frightened virgin, do you hear me ? You are but a
mortal, you couldn’t harm me if you tried."
"Really ? Because that’s not what it looked like when you freaked out a minute
ago."
Loki’s hand flew for the man’s arrogant face ; somehow, the mortal was fast
enough that he raised his own hand to stop him, grabbing hard at his wrist. He
had somehow found the time to call to him his armored gauntlet, and the
strenght of it was enough to stop Loki’s attack. The god blanched, but his
lover released him immediatly, his face closed.
"How dare you…" He started, voice low to hide its new tremors.
"You don’t have to fight me, Loki", Tony said again. His voice was serious, his
eyes meeting his with confidence. Loki found himself looking away. "I’m here
with you, for you. Remember ?"
He remembered, yes, but his blood was boiling in his veins and his brain
hurted. His hands were trembling with the need to fight, to hurt. He wanted to
close his eyes and go where it was silent. He wanted to be alone because his
skin was burning and his head was a storm and he needed to calm down, yet he
couldn’t. He couldn’t.
"It’s alright, Loke", Tony said again, and the god cursed, falling back on his
ass on the bed to take his head in his hands.
"It is not alright", he said, yet the bite of it was gone. A part of his mind,
hidden in shadows, said that Tony was enjoying this, seeing him give up, seeing
him weak, naked and broken. Like everybody else, he enjoyed it, like everybody
else, he wanted to see Loki brought down. Like everybody else, Loki should
destroy him, he should prove him, prove them all, this was the only way- "Shut
up !"
The room was quiet for a few moments, safe for his own breathing, slow and
wrecked. When he opened his eyes, Tony had sank to crouching in front of him.
There was sadness in his eyes. No pity, though. Never pity.
"I love you", Loki said, though it sounded like defeat.
"I love you too," Tony answered softly. "Will you tell me what happened ?"
Talking. About their feelings. Loki had laughed the first time Tony had
suggested it. The second time, he had been angry enough to teleport away from
him at once. Now, they did. Clumsily. Sometimes. Loki was never sure if he was
grateful, or if he felt ashamed of it. Nevertheless, there were less
nightmares, less voices in his head, when he spoke.
He hung his head low and brought his hands up to his face, digging the heels of
his palm into his eyes before he said it. A spiteful confession.
"It hurt."
He heard Tony moving. He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes ; it took all
of his focus to listen to what was happening. It kept his head more quiet, the
voices turned to whispers he managed not to understand.
"You told me you wanted me to harm you. Did you know it would be too much ?"
Tony asked.
He was being reasonable, but not in an annoying way. He had his way of being
serious without ever being condescending, although it was mostly just around
Loki. He was grateful for that, even if his chest ached now. Speaking was hard.
It always was.
"It didn’t use to be too much", Loki said, because that was a fact, and fact
was simple. "I enjoyed it. I loved it."
"Your previous lovers hurt you, then ? All of them ?"
There was a pleasant little hint of jealousy, behind the calm tone. Loki smiled
a little. He managed to breath in without his chest constricting, and he
breathed it out in a long sigh.
"I hate this, Tony", he confessed in a whisper.
"I’m here for you, babe."
It was a statement, simple as that. Loki removed his hands. He had pushed hard
enough that there were stars behind his eyes. He didn’t like it. He focussed
his sight on Tony, and leaned forward, closer to him. The human took his hands
in his, seemingly intent on stroking them. Loki snatched them away, and they
were silent for a while, looking at each other.
"I never had sex without pain", he said quietly. "My first lover was a warrior
twice my age. He barely prepared me, kept his armor on. I had bruises under my
clothes for a week."
"You loved it", Tony guessed.
"It was a dirty secret. It made it- it was forbidden and wrong. When sex became
something I was allowed and expected to have -it remained wrong and delicious.
I would disguise and go to soldiers and drunken brutes. In my travels, I found
lovers twisted and wrong, who enjoyed breaking my bones and burning my skin and
making me come as they did."
It was easier to describe this, because it was wrong, but it was him. Asgard
would have been horrified and they would have been shamed by the whorish tastes
of their prince, and it was good because he wanted them to hate him and to be
ashamed of him. He wanted Thor to be disgusted and to leave him alone. But it
was nice, because this was wrong and it was him. Nobody else had put that in
his mind.
Except.
"I used to love it", he repeated. Tony had not said a thing, and he was still
looking at him. "I thought I would never have enough of it. I’d bear the scars
and treasure them like reminders of my pleasure. When I felt my skin burn with
a slap, I knew what was coming, and that slap was pleasure."
"But now it isn’t."
Loki swallowed. He shook his head, trying to chase the noises that were
building up in it, louder. Part of him wanted to be silent for fear it would
make them louder to speak of what had caused them. By now, he should have known
better. But it still was paralysing him everytime.
"Now it isn’t," he confirmed quietly. And gathering courage, "now it is pain
and pain and nothing else. Now it is -it is endless darkness and threats and
feelings that are not mine forced into my head."
"The Chitauris."
He nodded, and didn’t correct Tony. This was the one secret that had never
passed his lips. Let his lover think that he did not exist. Let him live in
that blessed ignorance for long as he could. Let Loki never have to speak his
name and fear he would wake one day to see his eyes of unnatural light looking
at him. A shudder went up his spine, and his lover took his hands, no doubt
thinking that the memory of the space insects was what broke him. This time, he
let him. Tony’s rough, calloused fingers were a nice anchor.
"I had a similar problem", Tony said quietly. "After Afghanistan. When I came
back, I -sex was different. I thought I could go right back to it, and nothing
would have changed, you know ? I even thought that having a chick in my bed, it
would make sleeping easier, instead of staring at the walls and feeling like I
would close my eyes and wake up in a cave."
Loki was silent, listening intently. His lover rarely spoke of the cave, like
Loki rarely spoke of the Sanctuary. They usually never lost their time in
platitudes and comparing their lover’s pain to theirs.
"It was not that easy, I take it", he questioned softly.
"Ah", Tony chuckled joylessly, and he looked away, his own eyes darker than
before, "no, no it wasn’t. My first girl after coming back, she put her hand on
the back of my neck as we kissed. Just like that, just a normal touch, you know
? But I panicked. I just remembered the cave, the water. The electricity…" He
felt silent an instant, barely hiding a shudder. Loki watched him try to
suppress it. Then his lover started again, attempting a lighter tone : "I
physically kicked her out of the bed. She had that huge bruise on her face. I
apologised, but of course she left."
"It took months before it was -fine, again. I just had to learn around it. I
had a different chick every night, I couldn’t -couldn’t wait for them to figure
it out for me. Sometimes their breathing as I tried to sleep was driving me
mad. Sometimes I had to pull all the stops and -I think JARVIS even still has
the fake urgent phone call message he used when I gave him a signal."
"So it never got better", Loki said, not hiding the bitterness of his tone.
"It did. Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t remember all the time we had
awesome sex." Loki failed to give Tony the reaction he visibly waited for, so
the human sighed and carried on more softly : "I’m not… fixed, is what I mean.
But I didn’t want to give up on sex, so I learned to work around it."
"I have no interest on having sex without pain", Loki replied, more annoyed
than he should be.
"You never even tried it, though", Tony reminded him.
"I know enough of it to know it would be boring and unfulfilling."
"You wound me, love. Would any sort of sex with me be boring ?"
Loki scoffed, turning his head. He wanted to reply that, yes, it could be, but
as his annoyance chassed away the other, unpleasant feelings that had invaded
his mind before, he felt reluctant to be more agressive to his lover than
needed.
"I can’t see how I would enjoy it."
"Maybe not now, but we can find out", Tony suggested. As he spoke, he stood at
last, to sit next to him. Loki only now realised his lover had probably gone so
low on purpose, to help him calm. He felt a strange mix of annoyance at having
been manipulated by such a basic trick, and gratitude for the effort made
there. "What is it that’s so good about pain ?"
"It’s… intense", Loki mumbled, unconvinced. "It makes everything stronger.
Harder. And I… " When Tony encouraged him, he shrugged uncomfortably. "I love
the… name calling. I always win my fights when I argue with someone. In bed,
letting it all go to be so shamefully used, it -it is nice."
"Yes, it is", Tony agreed with a smirk, and Loki raised an eyebrow at him.
"What ? You look good on your knees. I won’t lie to you."
"You are an imbecile."
"So, we know pain is not something you can bring yourself to enjoy right now",
Tony offered, carrying on and making Loki lower his eyes again.
"Not… Not blows on my skin", Loki admitted, though it was reluctant. "Nor cuts
in my flesh."
"Is there something you think you might still enjoy ?"
Loki was quiet for a while, and his heart started racing unpleasantly. It was
not nice a train of thoughts, to try to associate types of pain to torture and
to dissociate others. He didn’t realise how he had tensed until Tony’s hand
again found his.
"I know not" he replied softly. And it was frustrating, because he so wanted to
know, to find the simple and clear answer that would let him enjoy himself
again.
"It’s okay. You and I, we’ll think of something. We’re too clever not to find
it", Tony promised, and he brought his hands up to kiss his pale fingers. Loki
watched him doing it, silent.
"It was always -I was always fighting", he said abruptly. "They enjoyed it.
They would -they let me stand unrestrained, that I could try and defend myself
and -fail. I think it’s what pleased them." That had been a trial in itself,
his pride forcing him to stand up, to use his magic until he couldn’t, until he
would fall, until he knew he was a disgrace, a shameful excuse of a warrior.
The voices would wait that long to whisper as the blows fell again and again.
Thor would be ashamed, they said,they would all be ashamed of you for not
fighting, but oh, none of them will come to rescue you. They expect you to
fight this endless fight, they will scorn you if you come back defeated, but
you will never come back any other way-
"Restrained", he said, loud enough that it cut through the thick paste of his
memories. "I want to try it restrained."
"Loke-"
"Do you think me unable to endure it ?" He snapped immediatly, pride running
through his veins like electricity. "I am a god. I am not so easily broken as a
mortal under torture-"
"Watch what you’re saying, Loke."
His lover’s voice, first calming, had turned to steel. His hands were still
around Loki’s, and only then he realised how cruel his words had been.
Hurting someone was nice, the voice whispered. Hurting is power. Isn’t it
better to be a monster than to be a victim ? People don’t laugh at the ones who
harm them.
He took a deep breath.
"I apologise, Anthony."
"Apologies accepted", the human said sharply, though his hands remained tense.
"Now what I was saying is, we’ll try it. If what you want is to try for it
restrained, or with just the name-calling, we’ll do that. But not right now.
Because you’re in that bad place in your mind, and that’s not where your mind
should be when we have sex."
"I am perfectly capable", Loki started, but his voice fell down as he met
Tony’s eyes. His pulse was racing. Anthony had felt it ahead of him.
"For now", Tony said, "we’ll do something else. We can sparr to let you blow
off some steam, or we can watch a movie and cuddle, or something, whatever.
Later, when you’re calmer, we’ll talk some more about it, figure out a safeword
-nope, it’s not optional anymore", he said before his lover could protest. "And
tomorrow, not before that, if you’re up for it, then we’ll try it."
"You’re very arrogant, to believe you can give me orders", Loki said.
"Yeah", Tony said, "I am."
He wrapped his arm, the one with the gauntlet, around Loki’s waist, to pull him
a little closer.
Loki closed his eyes and rested his head on the human’s, letting that be enough
for now.
End Notes
     I feed pretty much exclusively on comments.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!