Loki had never intended to remain a virgin. That he had for all these centuries was happenstance, something that occurred (failed to occur) between one pursuit of influence and the next. In those few cases where he might have wanted to discard that ratty old state, he was decided otherwise by one of a few reasonings:
1. Thor had already had whoever was currently pursuing him.
2. Thor would have had whoever was currently pursuing him, had Thor been available (ie, not currently having someone else) at the time.
3. By the time Loki happened upon realms where Thor had not been first, he was of an age where his inexperience would have been noticed (or, worse, remarked upon).
4. The entire affair seemed by far too awkward, messy, and potentially humiliating to bother with to for result he could as easily obtain with his hand, in private.
If he'd been going to give up his virginity, it would have been long ago and closer to home; if he'd been going to lose it, it would have been on Sakaar. Between Ragnarok, Thanos, his own third death, and the subsequent journey to Midgard to learn what had become of his brother and the remaining Asgardians, Loki didn't have the time or the inclination to think about it. Nor did he have the time or inclination when he arrived to discover the Midgardians were, by and large, too preoccupied with their own affairs and griefs to have much of a reaction to his arrival. Nor did he in the hour and a half he spent at work in the little fishing village that was New Asgard. Nor when it occurred to him that not only was the work he was doing both disgusting and beneath him, but Thor was getting all the glory while not helping at all. Nor when he half-heartedly decided to conquer Norway, instead. Nor when what was left of the Avengers came to stop him. Nor when they decided that, rather than kill or imprison him, they'd be the ones putting him to work. Somewhere else.
No, by the time Loki had the time and inclination to think about his lack of sexual experience again, he was on a tiny ship, some systems away from Midgard. With him on the ship was an Avenger, either a new one or one who'd been indisposed the last time he'd come up against them (Loki had barely cared enough to wonder, nevermind ask, and so it would remain a mystery). His name, which Loki had hardly been able avoid learning considering how often he repeated it, was Bucky Barnes.
And it was because of Bucky Barnes that Loki had not only the time and inclination, but the immediate and pressing desire to think on that matter again. As wholly and annoyingly Midgardian as Barnes could be, his smile made things stir within Loki that hadn't in a century or more. Whenever they brushed against each other--which was often; it really was a very tiny ship--those things stirred even more. And whenever they went into battle--also often--the afterimage remained with Loki for days, every time he closed his eyes: Barnes, bloody and filthy. Lickable. Fuckable. Biteable. Loki didn't know which he wanted more. Which he should want more. Which was the desire someone who had licked/fucked/bitten another person before would be most likely to have.
The worst part was that there was nowhere on the ship for Loki to obtain any of the aforementioned results with his hand. Not only was the ship small, but the walls, though strong, were paper-thin, which caused even the smallest sounds to echo. They never slept anywhere else, or stayed planet-side for long enough for Loki to slip away; there was always another battle to speed toward, and Barnes never seemed interested in sleeping anywhere else.
In short: Barnes was a problem.
***
"You're sure you're okay, right?" Barnes inquired, once they were on their way back to the ship.
He's kept on saying it ever since Loki's fourth death, some hours ago. This was the thirteenth time he'd repeated himself. It would have long since become annoying, except that no one else had ever seemed so anxious to find that Loki still lived. Each time Barnes asked, he reached out to touch Loki (on his shoulder, his back, his arm several times each; and, once, a pat on his thigh so that Loki had to bite his lip lest he let out a moan), as if to make certain he was still there.
In the near-year they'd traveled and fought together, Loki had never seen Barnes like this. He had previously appeared at ease in every situation, to the point where it seemed to be a part of his nature, rather than something reserved for Loki alone. It had been enough to make Loki seethe on numerous occasions, but Barnes' concern, never before witnessed in quite this flavor, was enough to delight him.
Every other time Barnes had asked, Loki had assured him that he was, in fact, fine. Now, it occurred to him that he might be able to benefit from this situation in a way other than having survived a gigantic fire serpent by pretending to have succumbed to its fumes.
"I suppose I must be," Loki said, inserting an edge of doubt into his tone. He coughed hoarsely, and made certain to limp the next few steps in a way that suggested he had been badly gored and was now attempting to conceal it. "Yes. I'm certain I'll be all right. Don't fret about me."
"Well, I won't anymore," Barnes said, in a tone it took Loki a moment to place. "You could've just said to stop asking."
Wounded, that was how Barnes sounded. He didn't touch Loki when he said it, either. He didn't even look at him. Instead, as they came within view of the ship, he sped up, hopping the ramp before it had even finished lowering. Loki followed, baffled by Barnes' reaction, and even more by his own silence, which lasted until after they'd lifted off and set a course to the next planet on their list. They'd done this in tandem so often neither of them needed to speak, which meant the first thing Loki said, as Barnes got up to return to his quarters, and Loki suddenly realized that perhaps this would no longer be fixable if he allowed Barnes to go without protest, was, "I wasn't mocking you."
"Yeah? Then what were you doing?"
Loki couldn't very well say that he'd been trying to milk it (though that was precisely how Barnes himself would have described it). He scrambled for something, anything else to say that would be neither the truth nor a confirmation of Barnes' initial interpretation.
"Look, it's fine," Barnes said. "I get the message. I'm not even going to read you the riot act for pulling that little stunt. So you can let it go now."
Stung, Loki said, "That 'little stunt' has saved my life on multiple occasions."
"Yeah, and that's why you're not getting the riot act."
Still scrambling, Loki had yet to come up a strategy, and landed on: "You've never gotten this upset when I teased you before."
It was constant. At first, Loki had meant it, grumbling about this grubby, mortal counterpart he was expected to exist alongside of. Then, he'd discovered how much he liked Barnes, everything from his competence to the way he took everything about Loki in stride (or had, until now). Then, he'd kept it up for the sake of appearances, trusting Barnes to understand that if his behavior had remained the same, the feeling behind it had long since been altered. Barnes had always kept up his end of the bargain before.
"Yeah," Barnes said, flushing for no apparent reason, inexplicably awkward for the first time in memory. "Sorry. I just. It's been a difficult day."
"Difficult how?" Loki inquired, unable to resist prodding.
"I thought you were dead for almost ten minutes."
"I apologize," Loki said, not even sure he meant it, but somehow unable to say anything else. "I didn't intend to..."
'Upset you.' 'Harm you.' 'Make you make me half hard, then get twisted around so much I'm not entirely sure what conversation we're having.' Loki might have gone with one of these, or changed his mind and gone for a dagger, save for the way Barnes was looking at him. There was something there he hadn't seen before. Something bare, something yearning. It was enough to make Loki half hard again. He had never before considered that Barnes might desire him in turn, and now here it was, as undeniable upon his face as he always claimed Loki's own expressions were.
There were between four and nine hundred reasons for Loki not to pursue this. But while Barnes had certainly met Thor, Thor was pathetic enough these days for items one and two to be out; mortals never did seem to comprehend the length of even a century, never mind the nine of them it had been since Loki really ought to have fucked his first someone or something, so item three was likely to be a non-issue; and as for item four, it remained true, but had been entirely outweighed by that stealthily growing desire for months now.
"Didn't intend to what?" Barnes asked.
"Never mind," Loki said, and kissed him.
It wasn't his first kiss. It wasn't even his first kiss that had made him think he would most likely die if it wasn't followed by a great deal more.
It was, perhaps, the moment Barnes kissed him back with a force and heat no one else ever had, his first good kiss.
When they came up for air, there came the usual choice: stay, or go, or give Barnes a reason not to want to, after all. The usual instinct was there: conjure a dagger, stick it between Barnes' ribs, and thus guarantee Loki would never end up in such a position again. But in the end, it was drowned out by everything else.
Loki licked a stripe up Barnes' throat, then bit him where his shoulder met his neck. Barnes shuddered, and when Loki reached for him, he found Barnes was at least as hard as he was.
"Fuck me," Loki said into Barnes' ear, deciding that particular configuration would be less likely to make his inexperience obvious. As he said it, a dagger conjured itself into his hand, then back out of it again. "And make it quick."
He'd thought he had perhaps an hour left on his virginity--but when Barnes' response was to shove him into the wall, and resume kissing him there, the heat and force accompanied by a new franticness that resulted in both of them tugging various items of clothing out of the way, it occurred to him that, no, this was happening now. Not a decade from now. Not in a century. Not when he got around to it, one of these days. In the next few moments.
Well, Loki decided, leg wrapping around Barnes' waist barely three minutes later, it really was about time, wasn't it?
Then Barnes pushed into him, and his hand wrapped around him, and that was the last Loki was capable of thinking about it until he was most decidedly not a virgin any longer.