Disclaimer: I don't own Avengers.
This is the most recent story that is part of The Holiday Series.
It's been a while since I've done one of these but here one is.
Thanks so much to my beta wir-sind-die-LOKI
Loki kept glancing down at his watch and it was starting to annoy him. Reigning in his anger Thor took another bite of his steak in an attempt to try to contain his temper. Loki looked back up and in his general direction, but his normally bright eyes were glazed over as his mind wandered elsewhere. Thor hated when this happened. They had been going to lunch now for over a month and about a quarter of the time Loki's attention still appeared to be back in the office. The blonde knew that Loki was a busy businessman, but it was still quite irritating.
At least he tended to get good food out of it, even if the portions were measly. He usually ended up ordering three or four plates of whatever he desired to compensate. In fact he was already on his third plate of steak and the staff had orders to give him another as soon as he was finished with his current one. The restaurant they were eating at was very grand, though a little too ostentatious for Thor's taste. The restaurant used champagne glasses even for water which seemed entirely too fancy and he many times over preferred the plastic cups that were used in less elite restaurants. However, Loki was the one paying and if his brother would only dine in such high-end restaurants then Thor wasn't about to complain. Loki was barely willing to go in the first place so he bottled his complaints and instead tried to enjoy their time together.
The blonde knew something that would grab Loki's attention, whether or not it would do it in a good way was the question.
"So are we going to be doing anything for Memorial Day?" Thor asked hopefully.
It was a question he had been wanting to ask for a while, but had kept putting it off because the Midgardian holiday of Memorial Day could potentially be very trying for Loki.
"No," Loki answered without considering it for even a moment.
"But L-"
"No!" Loki glared at him with such intensity that Thor realized he had almost said his brother's real name and while the corner they were in was secluded, it was still possible that other people could overhear.
"I'm sorry," Thor said bashfully. He couldn't help but keep forgetting. At first when they had started having lunch together Thor had been only able to think of Rob as Rob. After a few lunches, he had gotten over that and could only think of Rob as Loki, just in a different skin. Loki glare only lessened slightly and Thor gave him a sheepish smile.
"Robert," he added as a peace offering instead of his usual nickname Rob, which he knew annoyed his brother. Loki in the guise of Robert looked slightly less annoyed and ate some of his chicken that was in front of him.
"We don't have to talk about her." Thor offered and Loki's glare deepened again.
He wasn't able to call her 'mother' while Loki was in this form because Rob's mother had apparently died a long time ago. Thor was only able to refer to their mother as 'her' in public, but they both knew who he was talking about. Thor hurried along before Loki left the table in a huff like he had a few times before. "We can just do other things, like have a picnic or go to a baseball game," Thor suggested hopefully.
"No," Loki said still glaring harshly at him like he did whenever Thor brought up their mother.
"Or we can go camping, or to a water park, or anything."
"I have to work," Loki said through gritted teeth.
"I called your company, they told me that you gave everyone the day off." Thor countered.
Loki sighed though still looked angry.
"Of course I gave them the day off, but they also only work eight hour shifts. You know how much I work. Just because those in my company have the day off, doesn't mean that I do."
"You need to take a day off; you haven't had one since Easter," Thor said concerned about his brother.
Even with his relaxed attitude towards work he knew it wasn't good to constantly work as much as Loki did. The only time he wasn't working was when he was sleeping or at these lunches and even then his mind at times was still whirring away at some work related problem. There was also his time spent with Stark, but even when they did eat they were still talking about technical things most of the time. Loki looked more annoyed than angry now and said with a roll of his eyes.
"I'm fine, I love my work."
"Your whole life cannot be about work, even Stark knows that." Thor insisted.
"Stark was born with the money and name and a genius IQ-" Loki paused then said "Don't tell him I said that."
Thor nodded.
"I had to build my company from the ground up."
"You're nearly as rich as Stark now aren't you?" Thor inquired, genuinely curious.
He didn't know how much money Tony had, only that his friend claimed he had billions. Thor didn't know how much Loki had either, only that he could afford places like that without even looking at the prices.
"That's not the point," Loki said with a dismissive shake of his head "I have to stay relevant and I have to run my company and that requires a lot of time."
"Why don't you hire someone else to run your company like Tony does?" Thor asked.
Loki rolled his eyes again but didn't answer, though after a moment the blonde had a pretty good idea why. Trust was not something that came easily to Loki and perhaps even less in this form because he feared someone finding out about the fact that he wasn't actually Rob Mcmillan. Thor decided to drop it and get back to his original point.
"Why won't you join me for Memorial Day?" Thor asked again hoping to wear Loki down, not expecting Loki to explode venomously.
"Because even if we don't talk about her, if you're there, the only thing I will be able to think about is her." Thor's eyes widened as did Loki's, he was pretty sure that Loki hadn't meant to say that aloud. Loki stood up from the table muttering under his breath Loki said as he averting his gaze "I have to get back to work," without looking back Loki stormed from the restaurant, leaving Thor behind.
It's more than a bit late but for a long time I thought that Loki was too prickly to want to do anything for Memorial day, obviously I still think that, but I decided to do a small fic.
