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Loki is watching his brother sit at the holo-projector where he and Bruce have been trying to figure out the rules to an elaborate game neither of them know or understand.
“No, look. This time that let me win,” Bruce sighs.
Thor shakes his head while raising his eyebrows in confusion. He reaches to restart the game when Valkyrie walks in.
“Hey, Thor,” she says, dropping a pile of small, square chips on the table. “You might want to check these out.”
He looks up from the projector. “What are they?”
“Holos. No clue what’s on them, but they’re labeled in a way you might find interesting.”
Thor squints at the one that has slid closest to him. “Proxima Midnight?” he asks.
Loki’s heart stutters, and he can feel his chest tighten.
“Hey hey hey...” Bruce says warily. “This one says, ‘Thanos.’”
Thor reaches for it, and Loki slides to his feet, eager to beat a hasty exit, but he can’t be granted even this small mercy.
“Thanos is the—” his brother starts, but Loki cuts him off smoothly.
“Yes, I know. I’m familiar with exactly who he is.”
Bruce pushes the other holo tapes around. “And so... who are these other names then?”
“Members of the Black Order,” continues Valkyrie. “ His minions.”
“Right.” Thor wiggles the Thanos tape between his fingers. “I suppose we better watch these.” He presses the tape into a slot on the table’s dashboard. For a second, the projector flickers, and then a bust of Thanos appears.
“Thanos,” drones a robotic voice on the tape. “Homeworld: Titan. Abilities: Enhanced strength, speed, energy manipulation, telekinesis, telepathy—”
“Wow,” Thor huffs, staring at the rotating bust still.
Loki crosses his arms, trying to angle himself away, but unable to tear his eyes from the likeness. It twists something deep inside him, awakening a fear he’d been successfully suppressing for years now.
You think you know pain?
Valkyrie scoots closer to the projection which now displays the Infinity Gauntlet and is listing its powers. “I think it’s some sort of strategy tape,” she says. “You can’t fight someone you don’t know.”
As if on cue, the electronic voice announces, “Weaknesses,” and they all lean close in anticipation.
It doesn’t continue.
Instead, the holo blurs and skips until it showed a very familiar face instead. The Grandmaster’s upper body illuminates the table and a funky techno beat plays softly, as if in the background. He makes odd chewing noises and licks at his hands as though he was lapping water from his fingers.
“What the—” Thor mutters, too horrified to look away.
On screen, the Grandmaster suddenly shifts and a cheap, foam-like blue tentacle rears up from below. The weird, stilted moaning continues, but now both tentacle and Sakaarian ruler alike rub against one another. A manicured hand grabs the foam and repeatedly smacks the tentacle on the Grandmaster’s own face.
Valkyrie slams her hand on the power button, and the projection vanishes. No one else moves, frozen in shock. Then the other three all have the audacity to look up at Loki. He raises his hands in surrender. “I know nothing about this,” he says firmly. It takes them far too long to seem satisfied with his response.
Hesitantly, Thor starts it back up, this time twisting a dial to fast-forward through the holo. The camera pulls back at some point and reveals the Grandmaster’s fully clothed body being rubbed by now five foam tentacles.
Bruce covers his face with his hands. “This is like... This is some kinda... soft-core... porn kinda thing. Man, I don’t wanna watch this. It’s personal.”
Memories set in and Loki is suddenly aware of a cold sweat dripping down his back that has nothing to do with Thanos. He glances at the table where the other tapes still sit and feels panic setting in.
“This is ridiculous,” Valkyrie says. “He, what, took strategy tapes for one of the multiverse’s biggest threats and recorded his own creepy home videos over it?”
The tentacle retract from the picture so it’s just the Grandmaster sitting and breathing heavily, eyes closed. The camera does a close-up on a bead of sweat sliding down his temple, and then the light flickers again and shows a projection of a planet instead.
Thor presses play, and they come in on the middle of a monologue about the planet Titan and its moons. He pauses it again and groans. “We can cut that footage, right?”
Valkyrie’s face is set in a reluctant frown. “It would mean we’d have to watch through all these tapes to find it all. But yes. We could cut it and leave whatever scraps of the strategy information that remain.”
Thor sighs and runs a hand through his short hair. “We have to. There could be things on these that might prove crucial if we are to find those Infinity Stones and stop a war.”
Loki takes the leap.
“I’ll do it,” he says, hoping it doesn’t come across as too suspicious. “I’m not doing much, and it might be best to have me out of the way for a bit.” They all squint at him, and he realizes this will be harder than he thought. “I mean, if I’m occupied, how much mischief can I get into?”
Valkyrie ejects the Thanos tape and grabs for Proxima Midnight. Given time and an outside perspective, Loki would be embarrassed by how quickly he crosses the room and lunges for her hand. He grabs her wrist but she skillfully drops the holo into her other and slams it into the slot. Thor, traitorous excuse for a sibling, presses fast-forward again to speed through the tape.
It doesn’t take long for Proxima’s face to blur and turn into Loki’s profile. Thor slaps pause just as a blue-nailed hand starts to draw back the hair from holo-Loki’s nape.
“Ah,” Loki sighs. “There’s also that. I’d wondered what he was filming those on.”
Thor doesn’t say anything. His expression looks startlingly similar to the one he always turned on Loki shortly before slamming him into a wall to lecture him.
“I knew it,” hisses Valkyrie.
“‘ Those ?’” Bruce chokes. “Like, plural?”
Loki may be a liar, but he also knows when the jig is up. “How about this. You let me cut the tapes not out of misguided trust or a wish to keep me out of trouble, but because you don’t want to see the things I know these tapes contain.”
“Deal,” Valkyrie says instantly.
But Bruce and Thor are shaking their heads.
“I know you, brother,” Thor grumbles. “I can’t have you deleting important facts from these tapes while unsupervised.”
“And here I thought you trusted me. Understood I was turning over a new leaf.”
Thor looks at him. Really looks at him. He glances back at the holo. “Fine. Fine, you can do it.”
All three of them stand up and head for the doors.
“Don’t delete anything other than... that stuff,” Thor warns. “And for Odin’s sake, keep the volume down.”
Loki smiles his flattest, most innocent smile. “Thank you, brother.”
Then they walk out, the doors close, and Loki is left alone with the embarrassing and harrowing concept of watching self-made, soft-core porn tapes for the good of Asgard. It’s not exactly where he imagined himself being a month and a half ago.
He sits down and gets as comfortable as he’ll ever be. With one finger he reaches out and taps play.
“Uh huh, well. If at any time during this proceeding you start to feel... uncomfortable. Don’t hesitate to, to speak up,” the Grandmaster says. Loki nods. “Verbal replies please. I’m not a mind reader. I mean, I am of course, but that ruins the fun. And the expression!”
“Yes, Grandmaster.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good. Good. Let’s get started.”
He crawls along the bed to sit behind where Loki is kneeling and gently glides one hand to tuck Loki’s hair behind his ear. Then he goes further and gathers it up, pulling the heavy strands away from the nape of his neck.
The Grandmaster’s fingers are long and slender, but his palms and overall hand-span seem huge next to Loki’s face. He brushes a knuckle down Loki’s cheekbone. The touch is so feather-light it touches the soft fuzz on his face more than the skin. It leaves a tickling wake that almost itches.
“Don’t move a muscle,” the Grandmaster breathes near his ear. Loki’s heart-rate kicks up faster at that. This — whatever it is that he’s engaging in — has only a few rules. Loki always considered rules as helpful hints regarding the parameters of any game, but these rules just make it harder to figure out. The first one, of course, is that he must follow the Grandmaster’s every instruction. But strangely, the second is that if he ever feels too uncomfortable to continue, he must immediately tell him so everything, including the holo-recorder Loki is hyperaware of, can stop. The third, and perhaps most confusing, is that he is to remain clothed the entire time.
Loki had sort of thought that was the last thing the Grandmaster would ever want from him.
He’d expected the sex, especially as the parties had grown friendlier and friendlier and the Grandmaster’s attentions constantly swayed toward Loki. What he hadn’t expected was how much he enjoyed it.
It wasn’t just that it had been a long time, or that Loki basically lived in a constant state of touch-starvation, though those were probably factors. It was also the attention. To him , not an illusion or disguise. (It was very hard to enjoy flirtation when you were aware everyone thought you were your adoptive father.)
For Loki, the real rush was that tingling sensation that crept out of his skull and down his neck. It buzzed through his spine as he felt the Grandmaster’s eyes on him, his hands in his hair and on his face. Loki loved being on stage, but the Grandmaster made him feel like he was the whole damn show.
Another hum by Loki’s other ear. “You’re like a work of art.”
Also a fitting metaphor, he thinks.
The Grandmaster continues lightly brushing the backs of his fingers down Loki’s temples, cheeks, and jaw, leaving a layered blanket of sensation that makes his eye twitch.
“I said to hold still,” the Grandmaster purrs, and it feels like it’s inside the base of Loki’s skull.
He could tell the man it was an involuntary tremor, but that would mean moving more, and Loki isn’t that foolish.
The pad of a thumb grazes the corner of Loki’s lips, and he takes in a sharp breath. Then there is a hand under his chin, gliding up along his jawline to skim his ears.
“I like these,” the Grandmaster muses, running his index fingers along each of them. “Large ears are, in my opinion — which is of course the only one that matters — very, uh, attractive.”
They’re ears, Loki thinks but doesn’t say.
The fingers stray lower and play at Loki’s neck. One hand catches his hair again and uses the grip to tug his head back, exposing more skin.
“You know, one of the main rules is, as you know, that you have to — have to stay clothed.” The shiver that runs down Loki’s spine is radiating from his scalp, where the Grandmaster’s grip is perfectly tight in his hair. “Normally though, that gives me more — a little more room to work.” Loki can hear his grin, all sharp teeth and shattering glass. “Luckily I’m pretty adaptable.”
Soft touches turn to raking nails, and Loki accidentally lets a hiss out as the Grandmaster leaves tracks up his neck to his jaw.
“Mmhm. That’s good, Lo. Let it out.” He repeats the process on the other side, but Loki stubbornly bites his tongue to stay quiet.
The Grandmaster pushes now on the stiff sides of Loki’s collar, freeing up enough space to inch his fingers all the way to his clavicle. A blue-lacquered nail taps repeatedly on his collarbone, and Loki can’t decide if he can actually feel the vibration radiate into his ribcage or if it’s all in his head. He doesn’t trust his brain right now anyway. It’s sending off random signals, tingles and tickles down his back, as if the Grandmaster doesn’t need him to undress in order to reach his skin.
The hand in his hair tightens again, and Loki tries to measure his breathing through his nose.
“Wow. Wow! You’ve really, really got a lid on it, huh? Well, guess I’m gonna have to cheat here a little. Remember! You can’t move unless I make you, okay?” Loki hums in reply. “Great. Okay. Open wide, gorgeous.” The Grandmaster has slid off to Loki’s side, and a hand cups around his jaw, thumb resting on his lips. It’s the first real, tangible touch he’s felt all evening, and it distracts him enough for the Grandmaster to press down and open his jaw. “It’s okay. You’re doing great. Just gotta make one more little adjustment here.” Loki’s eyes are shut, though he’s not really sure when he let them do that, so it’s a bit of a surprise when he feels something touch his nose.
Fingers gently squeeze his nostrils shut, and he instinctively switches to breathing through his mouth. It turns out its a lot harder to keep his breathing steady and quiet that way, but the Grandmaster hasn’t let go yet and he doesn’t think asphyxiation is the name of the game.
And so Loki tries to release his pride and lets himself pant a little unevenly through his mouth. “Oh, now. There you go. Beautiful. Just beautiful.”
Loki hopes his flush isn’t as obvious as it feels. What about him just screamed praise kink that this strange man caught onto so easily? He’s not sure he wants to know the answer.
“Now of course I’m going to ask you to keep from breathing through your nose, please. I mean, if you can’t breathe, feel free to do anything that will help you start again, but if you can help it, well...”
When the neck scratches start up again, it’s almost impossible to hold back Loki’s small, choked noises. He thinks that’s kind of the point, but he hates it anyway. A hand reaches into his hair and massages at his scalp before fisting the hair at his roots and slowly pulling, stretching the sensation into a deep burn.
Loki lets a moan leak through at that, and the Grandmaster actually lets out a bark of laughter in his joy. “Was that so hard? That right there — that’s what I’ve been waiting for. Let it all out! You’ve got all this, this tension curled up in there. Let it go! Set it free!” The bed bounces a bit, and Loki cracks an eyelid to see the Grandmaster flapping one hand like an escaping bird. It’s hard to smile with his jaw dropped open still, but Loki halfway manages. “Aw, is that a smile? That’s it. There you go. We’re all having fun here. This is fun, right?”
Loki increases his awkward smile by way of reply.
“Oh, we’ll get some fun in you yet.”
The grip in his hair relaxes, and somehow the release feels just as intoxicating as the pull. Loki lets out another soft, “ hah .”
The next time the Grandmaster speaks, it’s directly by his left ear. It’s quiet, but down in a low, gravelly range that Loki feels in his gut. “So, how are the conditions,” the voice moves to his right side, “downstairs?” It’s an embarrassing question, and Loki remembers the camera at what’s probably the worst time.
No one else will ever see this, he thinks.
The truth is, despite this being the strangest, most roundabout foreplay Loki has ever engaged in, his body is definitely responding. There’s something about the suspense, the hypersensitivity, that just gets him more than a quick fast fuck ever has.
He probably doesn’t need to answer that, Loki decides. The loud hitch to his breath when a tongue traces his ear is probably answer enough. “I mean, I knew you were sensitive, but this is — this is really doing it for you. Like I said, I’ve normally got a bit more space to play with. Usually a shoulder. Or at least a wrist.” Loki swears he can feel a gentle caress in both places, even though they’re covered right now. Magic? Or his own mind... He can’t tell. “Next time we do this, you put on a little something of mine first. Something a little less — all of this.”
Loki’s so deep in the game he’s already mentally agreeing.
There’s a kiss on his cheek, almost sweet. And then another on his jaw. Then some slipping lower, and lower...
“Keep breathing through that mouth, Lo,” the Grandmaster says against Loki’s neck.
His head is tipped down, closing his mouth slightly, and the decreased space makes his breathing louder, hissing past his bared teeth. The Grandmaster sweeps his hair off to the side and it exposes the nape of his neck. With a gentle tug at his collar, Loki feels lips trace down further and further. Light kisses turn to wet ones, and the Grandmaster makes liberal use of a hand in Loki’s hair to steer his head as necessary to reach all parts of his neck.
The Grandmaster lets out a little puff of air that hits the wet marks the kisses left and makes Loki suddenly aware of all of them cooling at once.
He hears himself releasing little whines on the end of each exhale, and his pride can’t decide if it’s worse to let those continue or lose at the Grandmaster’s game and bite his lip.
His head is tilted back again, and the Grandmaster moves in front of him instead. Loki takes another peek and is shocked to see the unadulterated happiness and reverence on the other’s face. “And this... this is why we make holos of this kind of thing. Oh, you need to see yourself looking like this. Stunning, just stunning.” Loki blinks to clear his vision and finds his eyes slightly damp. “Oh, oh no. Are those good tears? Blink twice if you’re still enjoying this.” Loki does, even though it makes the wetness drop and start to slide down his cheeks. “Oh, good. Cathartic tears then? Those are okay. We allow cathartic tears and tears of joy, but we don’t like all those other kinds.”
Loki lets himself give a small, huffed laugh at that. He feels ridiculous, turned on but fully clothed, kneeling on a bed with his mouth open as he tries not to cry over a compliment .
Two thumbs wipe at his eyes and cheeks, cradling his face and letting him close his jaw. “You just look so perfect like this. You, you’ve got this flush going down your face, your neck... I really can’t see where it stops. You’re breathing so fast...” The hands hold his face a little tighter. “You still can’t move yet, but, uh, I’m giving you permission to kiss back.”
Loki does. He bites at the Grandmaster’s lip, hopes he’s smearing that stripe of paint so the holo recorder can see it. He kisses rough like it’s a fight, and he has to prove his worth. Loki doesn’t even try to stop the groan that slips free from his chest. He just passes it easily from his mouth to the Grandmaster’s, then swallows the one he gets in response.
“Alright, alright. Calm down there. Looks like — looks like you definitely are getting something out of this. How about we get you a little more.”
How much more , can there be, Loki wonders, but then his head is being pulled back again and lips lock around his pulse point. The suction increases slowly, starting as a noticeable tension and working up to an ache. The wet pop of release is almost drowned out by whatever horribly warbled sound Loki finds himself making. The Grandmaster continues, leaving a trail of marks as low as his collarbone and as high as his jawline.
“Here, let me...” The Grandmaster wriggles a little on the bed, trying to position himself properly. “Let me give you a little something there, Lo. Go to town.” He slides one knee between Loki’s, and the second they make contact, Loki accidentally thrusts forward. There’s not nearly enough friction, especially through leather, but just the action alone is enough to satisfy him, and the fact that he’s finally allowed to move is a lot to process.
The Grandmaster hikes him up on his knees and presses a hand against Loki’s lower back to pull them flush together. Loki can feel that all this is definitely having an effect on the Grandmaster, but he doesn’t have much time to dwell on it when the hand starts encouraging him to move. It pulls Loki’s hips forward, over and over, until he’s thrusting and grinding against the Grandmaster’s leg, pride be damned.
“That’s it. Lovely, lovely job,” the Grandmaster says, a little unevenly himself. Loki just clenches his teeth into his whine and lets him attack his throat again, fingers back in his hair.
Just when it’s starting to get frustrating, when Loki’s thighs are burning and he can feel sweat pooling under his leather, the Grandmaster moves behind him and pulls Loki backward into his lap. “You’re doing great. Just — just hang in there.”
Yes, Loki is fully aware that nothing but a word salad of “please” and “more” and “I need something ” is falling out of his mouth. He’s just allowing it, thank you very much.
His hips jerk of their own accord as the Grandmaster finds the dividing seam between his shirt and pants and slides a hand down in slowly. “Let me know if you need me to stop, okay?” Instead Loki growls, tossing his head back on the Grandmaster’s shoulder as he arches, finally loosing one hand from its death grip on the bed to push the one down his pants further, harder against his body. “Hey, hey, hey. Hands on the bed. I’ve got you.” He obeys, but only just barely.
Long, aristocratic fingers slide through the slick Loki’s been sitting in for what feels like an hour. They circle his clit hard enough to make his muscles spasm, and he has to hiss, “That’s, ah , too — too much,” before they’ll let up. Instead they slide further, in perfect tandem to the Grandmaster’s teeth against his jawline, slipping up inside him until he sighs in relief. Loki really has no clue how the Grandmaster has room to move his hand down there, or maybe his fingers are just that long.
He groans as a thumb gently taps his clit, grinding his hips down hard, and then that deep, amused voice whispers in his ear. “Loki... Loki, gorgeous. Don’t forget to smile for the camera.” It’s punctuated by the Grandmaster’s fingers hooking, and Loki’s thighs snap shut and his hands fly back to grab at hair, clothes, anything to anchor himself on as he comes.
Loki’s vaguely aware that he’s panting, and his thighs are definitely shaking, but mostly he just hears the Grandmaster softly shushing him and massaging his scalp with one hand. When he pull the other from Loki’s pants, it smears slick across his stomach.
“Don’t touch my hair with that hand,” Loki croaks, throat sore.
The Grandmaster snaps his fingers and the shine vanishes. “Look! All clean. Time for head massages after I stop this recording here.”
“What — what about you?” Loki asks as the Grandmaster gently lays him down and climbs off the bed.
“Oh, Lo. Already finished. Whew! With all your squirming around and looking like this... It’s a good look on you.”
Loki doesn’t know if he’s genuinely flattered or so exhausted and postcoital he’ll take anything as a compliment.
“Alright, alright. Let me stop the holo and we can finally get you out of all that leather.”
Loki lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Holo-Loki is draped, long-legged and spreadeagled on the bed, a lazy grin on his face.
He looks like he’s slightly in love, a little sex drunk, and very happy.
Loki’s finger hovers over the delete button, and he hesitates for far too long before he hits it. Proxima Midnight’s face is the next thing that comes up, and he remembers the tape’s original purpose.
“Well. That’s one down,” he mutters to no one in particular. “Seven more to go.”
He doesn’t feel too badly deleting the next few.
Asgard is heading to Midgard, and the Avengers will challenge and defeat Thanos, and someday, Loki hopes, he’ll head back to Sakaar, and they can make some more.