[AO3 Crosspost] Greasy Pinup

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Marvel’s MCU
SERIES: -
RATING: General Audiences
WORDCOUNT: 1 728
PAIRING(S): FrostIron
CHARACTER(S): Loki, Natasha Stark, Thor, James Rhodes, Cameos by several others
GENRE: Chance encounters
TRIGGER WARNING(S): None
SUMMARY: The good point about Loki is that Nat’s worst habits are probably his favorite.


------------------------------------------------------------

They meet late in August, when Loki’s Gran Torino breaks down on the outskirts of Nat’s little town around half past nine in the evening.

Her own garage is still lit because she’s working on the hot-rod she’s been building for a few months now, but she’s not technically open and the card on the door clearly states so, which is why it takes her a while to actually come out from under the car when she hears someone knocking on he glass-paneled door… Though for her to have heard anything through the Motörhead she likes to blast through the speakers, it’s probably something best described as pounding.

When Nat actually takes time to look at her visitor, she discovers a man with black hair and a smooth chin getting drenched by the summer storm raging outside.
Only then does she get in action and open the door for him, biting on a chuckle as he comes in with the most dejected face Nat has ever seen, his feet leaving puddles on the floor behind him. He took off his leather jacket at some point outside, but Nat doesn’t understand why until the stranger unrolls it to reveal a scruffy-looking puppy, too thin and too tired for Nat’s liking.

“I feel obligated to tell you I’m neither a pet shop, nor open,” she tells the man as he rubs the pup’s head, and when he smirks at her it looks like his face just lost ten years.
“No,” he agrees, smooth voice coated in English accent, “But there’s a flood outside and your garage is called the Ark.”
“It’s Stark, actually,” Nat answers him with a laugh, “The first two letters fell off and I haven’t put them back on yet.”
“With that weather I can’t blame you,” the man mutters. “Would you mind terribly if I sat in a corner while you worked on your car, by the way? I don’t really fancy going back out just yet.”
“Tell me how you got there in the first place,” Nat smirks, “If the story’s good I might agree.”
“Well I’d better brace myself then,” the man sighs dramatically, pulling on the green shirt sticking to his chest -from what Nat can tell, it looks soft and defined all at once, which is possibly her favorite combination. “I was driving from picking the little guy up from his ex owner. Thing is, Gran Torinos are an old model and the one I drove hasn’t seen a garage in a bit too long. It broke down further up on the road, and an hour later… Well. Here we are.”

Nat half manages to smother a snort and goes to lock the door again, avoiding the puddles as best as she can before saying:

“I agree your story isn’t worth much, but you drive a classic car and you haven’t looked like you were surprised to see a female mechanic once so far. I’d say it’s worth a shower and dry clothes.”
“Do I risk losing them if I say the car is actually my cousin’s? He lent it to me.”
“Not if you take your shirt off where I can see it,” Nat tells him, motioning to follow her through the garage back door.

The stranger chuckles, something half-muffled as if he were used to being told off for laughing.
It makes Nat’s lips stretch into a smile, her stomach tingle, and before she knows what she’s doing finds herself pondering the odds of a hookup happening tonight while looking in Rhodey’s wardrobe for something that would fit the man in her kitchen… The world is taller than her, but apparently this man is even taller.
When she gets back to the kitchen, she finds her impromptu guest sitting on the exact same stool he commandeered before she left, only now his shoes, socks and shirt are off and hanging on the heaters so they’ll dry faster. The pup has curled up under said heater too, and by the looks of it he doesn’t feel like moving anytime soon.

“Here,” Nat tells him, “Dry clothes. I’ve taken sheets out for the couch tonight, you’ll sleep just fine.”
“Aren’t women supposed to be wary of strangers?”
“I was a kickboxing champion at MIT,” Nat tells him with a raised eyebrow, “And contrary to you, I know where the guns are.”
“Point,” the stranger concedes with a smirk. “My name is Loki.”
“Nat,” she answers. “And I like your abs.”
“Thank you,” Loki says. “I think the grease smears thing looks good on you.”

The way Loki looks her up and down makes Nat think there are other things Loki appreciates on her, and the thought makes her smile and lean a little more on her right leg. It shows off the curve of her waist, and she knows from experience that particular bit works wonder for her sex life.

“So,” Loki asks, bringing his face a little closer than strictly necessary, “How does a MIT student end up with a garage in New Mexico? I thought they all went off to be wildly successful engineers with obscene salaries?”
“They do,” Nat agrees with a step toward him, “Until they realize they like grease smears and dirty coveralls better than make up and pressed pants.”
“Fair enough,” Loki concedes, his grin growing sharper, hungrier.
“Also, handsome strangers who drive Gran Torinos don’t usually come in soaked wet in engineering offices.”

Loki snorts, eyes crinkling with his mirth, but he brings their lips together and Nat feels playful enough to raise her feet up, pinup style, just for the fun of it.

{Three years later}

Laufey’s limp is barely noticeable today, the spring in her step erasing all trace of her old wounds as she walks up the aisle to make her speech, just a few words Loki insisted she wrote for the occasion.

Behind Loki, Nat can see his cousin Thor fidgeting and get a swat on the arm for his trouble, Sif looking fiercer than ever… It is highly probable that Pepper, Rhodey and Happy are offering the same kind of spectacle just behind her, but it would feel unnatural to think of them as calm or discreet, so Nat really doesn’t mind… There’s not much she can bring herself to mind today.

All her friends are here, including her ex-boyfriend Steve, Peter, the kid she hired to work part-time at the garage, and even Erik from MIT who brought his boyfriend along. Nat can spy Bruce, her therapist, say something in his wife’s ears and make her giggle; and farther on the left Thor’s wife is laughing with Frigga and Farbauti, Darcy pretending to mock her as a little sister would. There are so many people gathered here for them Nat feels she went far beyond the level of emotional she allowed herself to reach today.

Not that she minds, obviously! She just feels surprised at the fact, knowing that three years ago she pictured herself dying alone, devoured by cats or coyotes, and didn’t mind it one iota. It’s strange to think she changed her views so much.

(She might be over-thinking things again though, because the priest needs to repeat himself twice before she finally realize she’s supposed to say ‘I do’, and everybody laughs when she apologizes… Everyone but Loki, whose smile just turns softer.)

When everything is done and everyone is cheering, Nat does a little curtsy, pulling on the legs of the ample dress pants she picked for today, and then she pulls Loki out of the small church at a run, laughing like a loon while her hair flies in her face.

She throws the bouquet, which Rhodey catches and offers to Pepper, then climbs in the passenger seat of Thor’s blue Gran Torino, the sun-warmed leather of the seat burning the skin of her back when she leans back, causing her to mutter a curse toward her bare backed golden corset as Loki turns the key into the ignition.

The car’s engine sputters to life, brings them forward a couple of feet, and then suddenly decides it doesn’t want to work anymore, bringing a loud groan out of Loki’s throat. Thor is by his door in a heartbeat and fiddling with the dashboard, a frown etched deep between his eyes.

“We wouldn’t have had hat problem with a snowmobile,” Loki sighs, long-suffering rather than annoyed.
“They don’t work as well around here,” Thor protests. “Just because Natasha agreed to open a garage in Alaska doesn’t mean we all have to freeze our asses off in that cold country of yours!”
“Says the guy whose father spends most of his holidays in Ontario. Seriously Thor you should—No, Nat, you don’t have to do this, really… Nat!”

But Nat doesn’t wait for her husband’s permission to do anything, except maybe in the bedroom or when he follows him on one of his expedition, because he is the wilderness guide, not her, and one run-in with an angry moose was enough, thank you.

It appears very quickly that the car’s main problem is, like the first time, that the plugs aren’t properly fixed, and it only takes Nat a minute to take care of the problem, wiping her forehead with a satisfied sigh once she is done.

“Well,” Rhodey says, rolling his eyes, “I hope you’re happy about that.”
“Very,” Nat agrees, running a hand through her hair.

She feels someone catch her left wrist then, and it is only when she looks down that she realizes she was about to wipe the grease off on her pants, which in turn causes her to facepalm with a slightly hysterical chuckle… It doesn’t get any better when she realizes he slick feeling on her cheek is due to more engine grease smearing across her cheeks.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t do that,” she tells Loki, unsure whether she wants to keep laughing or start crying.
“It’s okay,” Loki tells her, wiping some of the grime away with his thumb, “I think the grease smears thing looks good on you.”

Nat snorts, loud and unashamed -though still emotional- and pulls him down for a kiss, feeling playful enough to raise her feet, pinup style.

Later, she will insist Peter photoshopped the grease stains darker than they really were, but the picture will still stand on their mantelpiece.