Chapter Two: A Mild Afternoon

The sleepover actually did Loki and Tony some good, distracting them from life. Plus, it had been at least a year or two since Loki and Darcy had fallen asleep together, and it felt nice falling back into old patterns.

Double bonus having Tony there too. Loki wanted to make a thing of it. Not a threesome thing though. That would be too much.

It was a work day for Loki the next day, so he and Darcy actually worked while Tony and Maya worked on Extremis.

No breakthroughs. Extremis seemed to react to every change by exploding or overloading in heat. Tony had recently lent Dum-E to the Extremis lab as fire control. This was a mixed bag, because Dum-E just wasn't the most sensible robot about.

Tony loved him anyway. Loved the sight of his darling fiance covered in flame retardant foam even more.

After half a year spent barely turning up at work, Loki was having to actually do his job, which kind of did itself now that the company was huge. Centred in both New York and London, with other offices of varying sizes in Delhi, Beijing and Stockholm, it had gotten to the point where it seemed to look after itself.

Seemed to. Loki did actually have stuff to do. Mostly signing things, attending meetings, and hanging around the R&D department.

He was proud of the fact that he knew the names of most of the actual scientists in the department. They seemed happy enough just that he recognised their existence.

His plan for the next day had been to devote half of it to working on bettering the Lightningrod suit. This was until Fury requested Loki's presence in front of a few representatives of SHIELD and the Council.

Keeping up with his facade of helpful stubbornness, Loki pretty much had to go. Unfortunately, the invite was for him only and Tony couldn't come.

Going sucky places without Tony just made them suck that much more.

Thusly, he got out of bed that morning, got dressed, kissed Tony goodbye and headed for the Helicarrier. Probably for more of the same nonsense, just with different players.

Fury was there. Latimer was too, but only on a screen, not in the room. The other people Loki didn't really recognise, barring the omnipresent Maria Hill.

"Fury, it's just a little cruel to call your bigger, tougher friends over to scare me," Loki said dryly, making sure his posture was confident as he flopped into a seat.

Fury blinked hard with his one good eye, clearly taking a moment to get a hold of himself.

"Laufeyson," Fury began. Then he sat down. "Loki. We just want to have a reasonable discussion about your technology."

"A reasonable discussion wherein I'm outnumbered by several people with potentially a lot of power over me," Loki said agreeably. "That sounds completely and utterly fair. No power dynamic issues there at all."

Fury really did hate dealing with a recalcitrant Loki. He was almost as bad as Stark - though not quite - and the two of them together was a neverending nightmare.

He just decided to ignore that comment. "You've made it clear to us in the last few weeks that you would prefer not to be involved in the Avengers, though you're happy to continue protecting the people from threats of that sort. A subject we wanted to discuss was replacing you on the team."

"There is no team," Loki pointed out. "Without me, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Cap, there is only Dr Banner and my darling fiance. And Banner is sick and tired of transforming into the Hulk on command, trust me. So that leaves Iron Man, and I'll let you in on a little secret: he and I generally move as one."

"We need Avengers," Fury insisted. "Even if you serve little actual function, you're a symbol. You are larger than life; you make people feel safe."

"Whoop-de-doo," Loki said sarcastically. "You want me to give you a replica of the Lightningrod suit for someone else to wear. That would be a no."

"Even if you had overall control of it-"

"There is no chance I would trust anyone else with the Lightningrod suit. Aside from the extreme technical difficulty in operating it - to be honest, one would have to be a maths genius like myself, and the people you want to send into battle wearing these would not be - this is a dangerous weapon. Hugely so. I have restraint, I hold back, but I don't doubt that the suit could kill tens to hundreds in a single blow, depending on the power source drawn from. In addition to that, torture, theft, physical damage and the suchlike all become so much more doable. Perhaps it's best that the only copy of the suit rests in the hands of someone who wants for none of those," Loki said. "All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"It's a nice speech, Laufeyson," Latimer cut in dryly. "But your history of instability and anger control issues doesn't make us happy to have you owning your 'dangerous weapon'."

"Yes, well, nobody asked you," Loki said snippily. He still didn't like her. "To be honest, I'm not entirely certain why everyone keeps telling me I have a history of being unstable. Personally, I think I'm excellently sound."

"Hm," Fury said. "You've proven yourself to be good under stress, barring the time immediately after the second invasion."

Loki couldn't deny that. "In my defence, I was very tired and I'd nearly died shortly earlier."

"That's why I used the phrase 'under stress'. I wasn't referring to your ability to make a decision sitting on your ass in your office chair," Fury replied.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Actually, I use a Swiss Ball as of recently. They're a little more fun, and good for your core strength."

Again, Fury steeled himself to continue the conversation.

"This is beside the point. You really won't allow anyone to use the technology you created," Fury paraphrased.

"You make me sound so unreasonable. No one can use it because it nearly killed me and could drive a weaker someone to do awful things. That seems reasonable," Loki said.

"And your teleportation?"

"Still too dangerous. Causes heart attacks and death through long-term usage, and I don't know how it would affect children and elders," Loki said dismissively. "I'm working on it."

"Which brings us back to Extremis. You can't distract us with saying it's too difficult to operate or it's dangerous."

"Ah, yes, I can," Loki said. "It's very dangerous. I seem to remember a string of attacks using Extremis as the volatile weapon."

"You've fixed that."

"Trust me," Loki said, making the tips of his fingers glow for theatrical purposes. "I haven't."

"And we can't have it in its unfinished form," Fury said.

"Now you're catching on," Loki said. "We've been over this so many times. If it doesn't react well to its new host, it explodes at temperatures of so many degrees. I won't have that on my admittedly limited conscience. Nor will I have chargrilled spies falling on New York."

"Can you give us an estimated time of completion?"

"I'm a physicist, not a chrononaut," Loki said shortly. "It's not a matter of constructing something to a schedule. We're trying permutations of various unstable aspects of Extremis in an attempt to stabilise. We could finish in five minutes or five hundred years. Either way, I'm almost certainly not letting you have it. What part of 'dangerous weapon' do you not understand?"

"It would help bring peace-"

"Peace doesn't happen by setting shit on fire," Loki said. It was what Tony would have said, too, probably.

"You'd be surprised, Laufeyson," Fury said.

"And now we're back to Laufeyson. I'd thought we'd moved past the formalities," Loki said. "This is a rehash of our last meeting. You walk me in here, you receive a no answer. I came today because you said that this meeting would involve the Council, and I wanted to make my refusal to aid you final and conclusive. I don't care if this alienates me from SHIELD. I don't actually need you. And I certainly don't want to give you Extremis, for the last time. Is that all?"

"It is," Latimer said. "By our own rules, this will not pit the World Security Council against you. However, you lose all benefits you had from our association."

"You're not taking my medal?" Loki enquired.

Latimer shook her head. "You earned that in combat, regrettably."

"Well, that's it, then," Loki said. He was gone at the speed of light. Literally.

That was probably it. The end of the irritating meetings and the suchlike. Loki certainly hoped so. He was getting quite sick of saying the same thing over and over.

He was getting sick of SHIELD. And the Avengers. And wearing horns and shooting electricity out of his hands and making instant decisions that could affect millions of lives.

His main concern was that he might not be able to study Malekith anymore, though he knew Malekith was more loyal to him than to SHIELD. The inquest into magic had taught them little so far, but they had ascertained that there were three types, and only Malekith's type was completely energy-based. The other two were more natural and couldn't be taught; they had to be present at birth.

After examining the pair of them, Malekith had announced Tony to have near no magical ability at all, and Loki some, but the amount of time needed to develop it fully was significantly longer than Loki's lifespan. So not a good idea.

Loki went home. He found Tony and Maya working on Extremis, the tips of Maya's hair scorched from a spontaneously combusting succulent plant.

"Let's go for a walk," Loki said to Tony after he told them about the meeting.

"Where?" Tony said suspiciously.

"Central Park," Loki said definitively. "When have we ever gone there?"

"I threw half the lake in the air and you turned up the power," Tony reminded him.

"The good old days," Loki said with a theatrical sigh. He changed into casual clothes, gave Tony a jacket to put over his singlet, and they headed out.

It wasn't far. Closer than if they were coming from Stark Tower, and it was midday, the air crisp and chill but not wet with rain.

They talked idly about things, mostly Extremis, as they headed there. After a block or two of them walking next to each other, separated by half a foot of space, Tony's hand threaded in Loki's and they continued on joined like that.

People recognised them. Some people reacted, either negatively or positively. Loki didn't want to care, and so he didn't.

They stopped talking about business after a while and suddenly got domestic: they were planning their living arrangements after the wedding. They'd pretty much ascertained that they both wanted to live in their own homes, just moving as a pair between the two. Loki needed to get some slightly different furniture. Tony needed a bigger wardrobe.

The wedding itself next. Pepper and Darcy had it covered. In fact, apart from giving their opinions on aethetic choices and personal preferences, they'd been told to keep their noses out of it.

A date had even been picked. April 17th, which gave them three months. Three months for what, they weren't sure, but when it was over, they knew they were honeymooning somewhere quiet, hopefully where no one could reach them.

By this point they had reached the park, walked around it some and then sat down on the damp grass next to the lake.

Not too many people - by New York's standards - were out in the nippy cold. Loki laid back on the grass, feeling it prickle the back of his neck, and sensed Tony do the same.

"This is nice," Tony said. "I mean, it's boring. But the good kind of boring."

Loki thought on that for a minute. "You know how you have an argument with someone, and then afterwards, you think of so many clever insults and quips you could have used on them?"

"Mm," Tony acknowledged lazily.

"I've been thinking of them the whole way here," Loki said. "I do wish I'd called Fury some of these things. They're completely tasteless and I love them."

"I always wanted to call him by some pirate terms. Something about peg legs. Maria's his parrot."

"Perhaps you could tell him where to find the booty?" Loki replied.

"I hate you."

"No, you don't," Loki said. "I'm too excellent."

"Yeah, you sort of are," Tony said. "But I'm better."

"We're both excellent. So much so that when we get Laufeyson-Stark officialised, every piece of paper it's written on will combust from its raw potency," Loki said.

"Stark-Laufeyson," Tony reminded him.

"What's wrong with Laufeyson-Stark?" Loki said.

"It sounds like 'Laufeyson's ark'," Tony said. "And I may support you in your endeavours, but I'm not getting two of every animal just so you can have your name first."

"That's a stupid reason."

"Laufeyson is a stupid name," Tony said conclusively.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Should it be Valfodr-Stark instead? Because that doesn't sound like a sneeze, oh no," Loki said dryly.

"No need to get bitchy."

"Bitchy's my thing."

"I thought I was your thing," Tony said, mock-hurt.

They could bicker lightly like that for hours, and did, lying on the bank of the lake. It was only once the clouds darkened menacingly that they headed home.


A/N: I promise this part of the series will perk up.

Next time: Loki's birthday!