[AO3 Crosspost] Curtain Calls

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Marvel’s MCU
SERIES: Standing on tiptoes (2/3)
RATING: Teen and Up
WORDCOUNT: 1 864
PAIRING(S): FrostIron
CHARACTER(S): Loki, Tony Stark, Darcy Lewis, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, Sygin
GENRE: Alternate Universe (Ballet)
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Loki dances.

STANDING ON TIPTOES ON LJ: [Series masterpost]


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“Oh crap,” Darcy says in that I-don’t-want-to-sound-impressed-so-I’m-going-to-complain-instead tone she uses sometimes, “look at that stage! Is it dwarf-sized or something?”

Somewhere on the left, Loki can hear Clint snigger, but he doesn’t really pay attention as he makes his way through the row of red velvet seats.

He watches the paintings on the ceiling, framed with elegant moldings of angels and characters from the opera tradition. The room is empty and it makes everything sound louder, the way the wooden floors creak every now and then, the dim lighting pierced here and there by the lights showing the path to the emergency exits.

Loki is seven again.

He’s young and awed, and Thor is obnoxious and uncaring but it doesn’t matter because for once, Loki isn’t the only one who gets it. There’s the guide too, fond and passionate and oh-so eloquent –years later, Loki will joke and say it’s like Mr. Thanos brainwashed him, but in this case, it’s a good, very good thing. Because Loki is seven, and he is backstage of one of the oldest operas in Paris, with his nose filled to the brim with scents of makeup and sweat and old wood, ears tingling with the imagined sounds of music instruments.

And it doesn’t matter if he’s been brainwashed or if he’s just fallen in love or if it’s both, because Loki is seven and he knows what he wants to do.

He’s going to come back here someday.

It’s the snap of Peter’s camera that brings Loki back to the present.

He’s a most able photographer, and sometimes Loki wonder why he’s even sticking with their company instead of being a reporter of some sort. (But then, Peter produces one of those pictures, where it looks like Loki is something refined and noble and graceful instead of the awkward mess of feelings he truly is, and Loki remembers that time when Peter was half drunk and confessed his love for artistic photography, the despair created by the knowledge that he isn’t going to stay in the history of the discipline.)

Peter, on the whole, has their best interest at heart. He does his best to produce good pictures, things they can use on DVDs covers and in signings… the kind of stuff that makes Darcy joke that they’re like Hollywood stars with ready-to-sign pictures –and Loki put in that one French song he once loved about a woman who want to die onstage at all costs.

Yet, sometimes, Loki doesn’t want to be interrupted for photos, and this is one of those times… which is why he’s only half joking when he says:

“Can’t you see I’m having a moment?”

“Precisely what I wanted to capture,” Peter shoots back. “You’re going to make it big, Laufeyson. You’re all great and the others will have good careers, too, but my instincts tell me you’re the one people will remember. I just want to have a trace of who you are before celebrity hits.”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly the reason why Loki puts up with Peter’s constant sarcasm –which, let’s face it, is a serious rival to his own wits. He feels a faint flush creep on his cheeks though, unable to stop himself from hoping Peter is right, even if he technically has his dream, now.

Loki turns to the stage, where Darcy is testing her steps, trying to get a feel for the dimensions of the stage –roughly half smaller than any stage they’ve ever used. They’ll start training for the adapted choreography tonight, get used to dancing with half their usual numbers. In a few days, the room will be packed with people. People who will be here for them.

Loki shivers.

{ooo}

“Oh my god will you stop jittering already? You’re making me nervous you idiot!”

“Like you’re not nervous,” Loki snaps.

He can’t help it, really.

He’s dreamed of dancing here all his life, has worked toward that one goal all this time, and no amount of scolding is ever going to make him less anxious about it. It’s like excitement is going to be a part of him forever now –somehow, it reminds him of sitting in the dark with stitches on his mouth and Tony’s breath on his lips, awesome and terrifying at the same time.

He kind of needs to puke.

Three knocks.

The lights dim out.

Loki breathes in. Out.

He hums the Entrance of the Swans to himself as it unfolds onstage, Clint and the others tiptoeing in, before he gets his cue.

Dance.

He dances like he’s always done, like his heart is going to stop if he doesn’t.

And you know, at this point, there’s nothing else that matter. He couldn’t even tell you the names of the moves he’s making, couldn’t remember a single thing outside of the dance, because this? This is his life.

Sometimes it feels like he’s and addict going from one fix to the other as he dances, suspends a room full of spectators to his every moves. Sometimes it’s like his body remembers the choreography on its own, like the pas de deux, the entrechats, the grand battement are more familiar to him than smiles, laughter, hugs. It’s like he could dance with his eyes closed the whole time and never miss a mark. For more than twenty years, Loki has learned to know and love those moves, to make standpoint as natural to him as walking, all because he needed and escape, because he needed that one goal, that one thing to support him… all because he wanted to be right here, right now.

He is his dream, and he is flying.

The public is all but swept off their feet when the first act finishes, and Loki is, to be completely honest, higher than a kite. They clap and clap and clap –and to hell with the tradition of silence- and Loki feels like he’s having something close to hyperventilation, except this thing feels good, kind of like breathing pure oxygen.

Loki feels the sound of applause crash against his skin and run up his legs, and he wishes he could lie down on the floor to feel it better.

Too bad his costume wouldn’t be able to stand it.

“They’re clapping for you,” Phil says as he comes up behind him with a bottle of water. “You’re amazing.”

“You usually say that I lack conviction,” Loki manages between two gasps.

“Not tonight,” Phil answers. “Dance like that every night, and your name is going to range right next to Mozart’s and Prokofiev someday.”

Loki thinks Phil is getting into one of his rare excited phases, but the comment still bring tears to his eyes, and he has to forcibly remind himself to dab them away rather than use the back of his hand –makeup, you see.

He tries to rasp some form of thanks, but finds his throat blocked, and Kitty the assistant is coming toward him anyway, disappearing behind an enormous bouquet of white lilies as she announces:

“Flowers for Mr. Laufeyson!”

The card reads ‘if you don’t get a dozen job offers after tonight, I’m suing someone’ and can someone please shoot Loki before he explodes and covers everything in gore? Because his life, right now, can not –and he’s certain about that- get more perfect.

“Post scriptum,” Darcy’s voice announces from behind his shoulder, “can’t wait to rip my own design off your ass!”

“Darcy!” Loki protests, and he hears Peter laugh when she amends:

“Sorry, your gorgeous ass!”

Loki groans and throws a curse at her because he’s supposed to look like a black swan soon, not like a moron on happy pills, thank you very much for being a horrible friend, Darcy!

(Just kidding though; she’s awesome and he loves her and she’s totally going to be (one of) his best man someday –or best woman, or whatever it is she wants to call it… hell, Loki is so happy right now, he’s even willing to let her call herself a bridesmaid if she wants to.)

“Like Natasha’s going to let you keep your clothes on for very long,” Loki shoots back, because they’re friends and Darcy can totally take it.

People behind them make catcalls, and others groan at them to shut up, you lucky assholes, and then the bell rings.

They dissolve in a flurry of powder and tutus and hairspray, rushing to fix what has to be fixed, to get to their marks, and by the time Loki comes back onstage, there’s enough pent up energy in him to fuel a whole building.

The death of the swan is, if he says so himself, his best performance ever.

He can’t see himself but he feels it in his body, feels the boldness of his moves, the strength behind them. He dances and he flies higher than he’s ever flown –and it reminds him of the night after his first recital, and dreaming of doing standpoints on the stars with the moon as an audience.

It’s like he’s back in the dream now, like he’s had a whole lot of life pushed in his veins and he has to take it out somehow. It is, in the end, the best damn shoot he’s ever had, and that without ever touching anything stronger than aspirin.

Want to know the best part, though?

Tonight, he’s not going to crash.

Because Tony is in the audience, and he’s going to be there any minute now, and Loki will kiss him as soon as he sees him –and they are so going to give Darcy and Nat a run for their money. And he knows he’ll be able to hold onto his amazing –crazy, supportive, completely unaware of his own worth- boyfriend and just drift to sleep without having to go through the post-show mini-depressions he usually gets. Tonight, Loki knows, he’s going to go through a normal, reasonable emotional state –for all of three minutes- before he goes to sleep.

“Mr. Laufeyson?”

“Yes?”

In the corner of his eyes, Loki can see Tony pausing on the threshold as he watches the lean woman with nearly white hair walk up to Loki with a smile.

“Good evening. My name is Sygin Bergsdottir, and I work for the Russian Ballet.” She pauses, and Loki feels his mouth go slack before she even says: “I’d like to know if you would be interested in a job offer.”

“He means yes,” Tony says after the silence starts getting awkward. “He’s definitely interested. Here, that’s his number, just wait until he’s recovered from the shock before you call.”

Yes, tonight Loki will go to sleep without having time to go through his usual post-show routine.

That is, if he manages to sleep at all.

(Years later, when Loki is old and his career as a Dancer –and subsequently, as a choreographer- is rewarded by the most prestigious names in the discipline, the whole Opera Garnier shakes with laughter at the anecdote.

Loki sees his white-haired husband give him a teary thumbs-up and, for the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel bad about crying in public.)