Loki ran a steady finger over the edge of the thin page, catching the corner under one of his long nails and flipping it over. He studied the words of the book, intent on discovering more of the plot. He'd become so lost in the text that he'd forgotten where he sat, and just how long he'd been there for. He held the book open, placed lightly in his lap, the paper-back cover now as cool as his skin. Around him, the hum of machinery was irritable, but he was able to ignore its echo off the concrete, grey walls. The chair he sat in was that which belonged in an office, black, not the most comfortable but with arm-rests sufficient that holding the book wasn't tiring to his limbs.
The Midgardian literature was intense enough that Loki was startled by the voice he heard, and was close to throwing the book half way across the room at the noise—but he was able to control himself when he recognised the voice didn't mean immediate danger.
"Yo, Big Freeze, haven't seen my new electro-magnets, have you?" The familiar hum of Tony Stark's voice called from the other side of the room.
Loki didn't bother to look up from his book, "Why would I have seen them, Stark? I don't even know what they look like . . ." He replied with a frown, "Knowing you though, they're likely to be in a very obvious place—your drawer for example."
Tony shook his head, sat on the top of his work desk, "Nope, already looked there," he replied.
The silence that followed was awkward, since Loki was too engulfed in his book to really care about Tony's current issue; he just continued to read until Tony spoke again.
"Hey, you think birdbrain swiped 'em to tinker with his arrows?" Tony asked suddenly, a frown crossing his amused expression.
"Perhaps, people do tend to get rather villainous around you," Loki responded, finally looking up from his book to glare at Tony, "why, what do you want me to do about it?"
A grin lit up on Tony's face at Loki's comment about people's actions around him, "I don't know," he gave a shrug, "you could use your mojo to sniff 'em out? You know, abracadabra sort of thing?"
Loki frowned, closing the book and leaving it in his lap. "You mean you want me to use my magic, instead of getting up and using those legs of yours to search for it? You're incredibly lazy, Stark, I wouldn't be surprised if you started to grow weak from the lack of exercise," Loki gave a sigh, then held up a hand to silence Tony from retorting, "be silent, and I'll do it for you—but this is the first, and last time, I'm not your mother."
"Um, yeah? These hands have better things to do than search," Tony finally got in, but was silent soon after Loki closed his eyes. At that point, he started pulling faces at Loki.
The silence was prolonged for about twenty seconds, of which spent with a vague aura of magic around Loki, a faint, green glow radiating from the tips of his fingers, complimented by a red flush of his cheeks. He eventually opened his eyes and gave a rather frustrated sigh, standing, his legs carried him over to the desk Tony was sat on, and he pulled open the drawer and lifted out the linen bag of electro-magnets that Tony had been looking for.
"Not in your drawer, you say? I may have to protest," Loki stated.
"No! No protests allowed!" Tony leaned over to snatch the magnets from Loki's hand, "Though, in my defence, your honour, I did look . . ." a wide grin spread across his face, "maybe."
"You didn't even open your damn eyes, Stark," Loki answered with a small frown, heading back over to his chair to reopen his book—settling down into its cool comfort.
"Me thinks the lady doth protest too much!" Tony replied with a smirk, "Wait . . . I already said no protests. I don't care, I'm Tony Stark," Tony gave a wink and stood up. "I better go find Dummy to help me switch reactors."
Loki gave a sigh at Tony, finding where he'd left himself in his book, "I'm not a woman . . ." he replied quietly, "And yes, you better, I'd do you no assistance."
Tony looked to Loki for a few seconds, before putting the magnets in his pocket and skipping over to Loki. He snatched the book right from his hands, looking to the cover. "Dummy can wait. Watcha got there?" he questioned.
Loki gave a sigh, dropping his hands into his lap to replace the book, "You're like a child," he commented, "it's a book, in case you're too blind to notice that. It's called Dark Matter."
"Gee, thanks Jack Frost," Tony paused to point out random objects in the room, naming them all, "Table, chair, drawer. Where's my gold star? Why do you bother reading this stuff, Jarvis and I could easily explain it to you."
"It's fiction, I don't require a great amount of information on the universe; I know plenty about it already. Why would you need a star?"
"Hmm, didn't know fiction was your thing," Tony replied, he sat up on the desk and scanned over the blurb. Taking in the words, it was obviously a horror story about some guy in the Arctic. Probably wasn't gonna have a happy ending. "Interesting . . . a star is a sticker that you give to kids to encourage them and blah de blah. I wouldn't mind a real star though, Starkus Major, anyone?"
Loki rose an eyebrow and gave a shrug, the sarcasm flew past him, "I don't think a real star would do you any good, I could get you one if you wanted me to—wouldn't do me any good, but I am in your debt."
Tony frowned, "Listen here, deer-head, you stay away from the stars! I'll have no deaths of Norse Gods on my hands thank you very much." Tony immediately lowers his voice and mutters under his breath, so Loki wouldn't hear, "Stupid gods overstretching their stupid mojo for stupid Humans."
Loki looked to Tony, a frown on his own face, "I'm not deaf; I heard every word of that. Strange thing to say, since you did shoot me twice," he said.
Tony, amused by that, flashed the biggest shit-eating grin he could muster, "Well, we weren't pals then," he replied, jumping down from the table and placing the book on it, "now, who's for burgers?"
Loki gave a sigh, "I'm not particularly hungry," he replied, getting to his feet. He dusted off his clothes, a hand running over his thin body, stroking dust from his torso, "but I will go with you if you wish me to."
Tony was stunned for a couple of seconds, up this close, he only really began to realize just how tall he was. "U-um, yeah, okay." He then noticed Loki's clothes though, and a frown crossed his face at the Asgardian armoury and black leather, "Oh, you are so not coming with me dressed like that," he stated, folding his arms.
Loki gave Tony a well earned glare, "Is there something about my attire that is distasteful to you?" he questioned, spite on the tip of his tongue—his words acidic. "I'll have you know my dress is quite well-seen in Asgard."
Tony put up his hands defensively, "Tone down the laser beams their Rudolph! There's nothing wrong with your clothes per se, they might just catch the wrong kind of . . . uh . . . attention, downtown. I'm talking angry Humans who hate you for destroying their city and almost killing me; their dashing hero," he struck a superman pose.
Loki hardly understood either of his references, but he passes them off, "The dashing hero that let me throw him out of a window," a toothy grin crossed his face, "fine, I'll get changed."
Tony sat for a moment trying to think of a smarmy reply, but when no words came, he just called after him. "Yeah, you go get changed, I'll . . . call the car I guess." Giving a few vague hand motions, Tony strutted off in the opposite direction from Loki to go and fetch the Audi from the garage.
After unlocking and starting up the sleek grey car, Tony climbed out and sat on the bonnet while waiting for Loki to stray out from the corridor. A few minutes went by, and Loki appeared to Tony, he wore his black suit trousers, and his fine white shirt complimented by a black tie and a yellowish coloured scarf with hints of green upon it. He carried a long, black coat over his shoulder by the collar.
Tony raised an eyebrow, "Little formal for a drive-thru," he commented.
Loki frowned at Tony, "I don't have many options, I'm afraid, would you prefer it if I changed back into my original dress?" he asked, stopping a few feet away from him.
"No! No, you're fine," Tony responded, giving a slight roll of his eyes when he got to his feet. "Now come on, we have burgers to eat."
Loki climbed into the car after Tony, who had to remind him about the safety features of the car such as a seatbelt. Tony leaned over to help him get buckled in, but Loki just slapped his hand away with the pretence that he was perfectly capable of figuring it out himself—'he wasn't an idiot'. The drive was rather long, and silent, the journey out of the garage was difficult because there was a bunch of people with cameras trying to get a glimpse of their 'dashing hero' and the companion forced upon him. Loki had tried to make a change, but the rest of the Avengers weren't willing to let him upon Earth without a formal introduction to its ways—a long one at that too. Tony had been the only one that was willing to help him, Clint was there to assist Tony, but he wasn't going to look after Loki himself after what the God had done to him the first time they met.
So far, Loki had behaved admirably, he hadn't put a finger out of line and Tony was beginning to realize that maybe he'd made the right decision. Unfortunately, Loki had mentioned at one point that Thor still didn't know he was here—it had been two weeks since Loki had came to Earth, so it was strange to know that Thor hadn't found out he was missing yet.
Loki spent the drive studying the insides of the car, the slippery black leather and streamlined dashboard. Tony's hands were wrapped around the silvery steering wheel at the correct points but he seemed to be doing a good job of ignoring the speedometer—seventy miles per hour in a thirty zone.
Tony pulled up the car outside of the drive-thru and turned to Loki while he waited for the window to automatically roll down. "What do you want?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Loki pulled a face at Tony, he didn't usually eat Midgardian food and half the stuff on the menu—which he couldn't actually see anyway—was completely foreign to him. "I'll have whatever you're going to have," he replied flatly.
Tony gave a roll of his eyes, "I'm going to have to give you lessons on how to eat on Earth," he replied, turning to the server and leaning through the window to order.
After they'd eaten Tony took Loki to a few other stores, the first stop was a sweet shop—after Tony had found out that Loki liked the milkshake he'd been ordered over the actual food itself. He made Loki go in alone, a smirk playing on his lips when he handed him the money which of course Loki had no idea how to use.
Loki came back with a couple of bags of sweet things of which half the stuff, Loki assumed was inedible. The bags were placed in Loki's leg space, which caused him to get rather cramped but he would manage. Tony wiped away mock tears at that point and mentioned something about how 'they grow up so fast', which only earned him a rather terrifying death glare from Loki.
The next store was the clothes store, Tony was determined to get Loki out of those Asgardian clothes and into something more manageable, easy to put on, and didn't stand out so much. This time Tony went in with him to make sure he didn't pick anything just as glamorous as his old clothes—by threatening him with the fact that if he didn't, Tony would buy him a pair of golden spandex trousers. Tony guided him around the aisles to the 'tall' section and told him to look around for something that he'd like. He'd pay for anything that Loki chose even if it was incredibly expensive. Loki returned with an armful of clothes than consisted mainly of green and black, well that was good, at least Tony knew what his favourite colours were. He paid for, and bagged the clothes before leading Tony back out to the vehicle, putting the bags, along with the sweets into the boot of the car.
"So . . . what now . . .?" Tony thought out loud, heading back to the front of the car, "I know! Since you're staying—for a while at least, maybe you should make yourself more at home. There's a furniture store not far from here, we could get you some pieces for your room," he announced, clicking his fingers at his brilliant idea.
Loki gave a small sigh, "You're very enthusiastic about this," he commented.
"Well duh, it's fun to see you completely out of place," he replied with a chuckle.
Loki groaned and mumbled something under his breath before getting back into the car.
"I'll take that as a yes!" Tony called with a grin, climbing into the driver's seat with a wide smile on his face.
Loki gave a roll of his eyes as Tony started the car up again, heading off to the furniture store. When they arrived, Tony was almost skipping towards the store in some strange manner of glee which Loki couldn't understand. So Tony led Loki over to the furniture inside of the store, he headed over to the beds first, since Loki was still using the rather basic, single bed in the guest room. Loki happened to pick the most expensive one just by habit; he didn't know which was the most expensive. The one he picked was a king sized bed with black covers—an intricate pattern of snakes climbing up the bottom of the duvet completed it.
"Well, you certainly have no objections to spending my money," Tony said, pursing his lips before he called over a salesman to organise the delivery.
"You asked me to choose," Loki replied when Tony turned back.
"If I asked you to jump off a cliff, would you?"
"Of course not, that is entirely different," Loki retorted with a frown.
"No it isn't," Tony replied, frowning back.
"Then if I asked you to trip, and fall, right now, would you?"
"No, because I don't do everything everyone tells me to do," Tony replied with a smug grin.
"Really?" Loki gave a frustrated sigh and turned on his heel to leave, and as ever, unsuspecting Tony wasn't prepared when Loki turned—kicking his leg out and sweeping low and taking Tony's legs out from underneath him.
Tony landed on the floor with a harsh slap on the laminate, but instead of crying out in pain or anything ordinary, he ended up laughing rather loudly. "You ass!" he responded, still chuckling. Tony got to his feet slowly, watching as Loki walked off, and he seemed to think that Tony wouldn't fight back for some reason. So Tony took his chance and pounced at Loki's back, tackling him to the ground. Loki hadn't expected it so he fell without warning, what was even worse was that Tony started tickling him in the stomach.
"Get off me, you stupid mortal," Loki demanded, squirming as he tried to get Tony off him.
Tony was having none of it, thoroughly enjoying himself, "Not until you crack a smile!" he replied, moving his hands around to find Loki's most ticklish spot. He had his knee placed on Loki's chest to stop him from getting up—although he knew Loki could easily break his leg, but he wouldn't unless he wanted to go back to prison.
Loki found out he was actually ticklish, he had never really known since tickling wasn't an ordinary every day activity for him. As much as he tried not to laugh, he simply couldn't manage it. He tried to slap Tony's hands away.
"Stark! I demand you stop!" Loki growled, though it couldn't be as threatening as he wanted it to be for the sake that he could hardly breathe well enough to say anything.
"Are we growling at each other now? Okay," Tony chuckled and let out a low growl.
They had drawn some attention from passer-bys, and the people who worked in the store were also thoroughly entertained.
The tickling lasted for a few minutes until Loki started feeling dizzy with the lack of air and Tony's was satisfied with his work. Loki seemed to have lightened up a bit; he had a small smirk on his face the whole of the journey home. Obviously he was planning some way of getting his own back on Tony, and knowing Loki and his devious ways it was highly likely that he would.