Jesus, I am SO sorry that I haven't updated! D': I've just been kind of lazy... Yeah... _; Although this was actually written and finished up about a month ago, hahaha! :P But I have like absolutely NO muse, ugh. _; le bleh xD;
Well, anyways. :'3 Enjoy Chapter 3! :'DDD
Disclaimer: I don't need one! xD;
Tony: Because you're just so great? No, I'm the badass one around here.
Loki: [sighs]
xD; /i'mridiculousiknow:P
Chapter 3
Monday came quickly for Tony. He passed the time by working basically nonstop from Wednesday night to Sunday morning. At 7:30 AM Sunday morning ("7:31 and-five-seconds AM specifically, sir," JARVIS took care to inform him), Pepper came to the door of his lab and demanded he stop working now. He obliged rather grudgingly. Admittedly he had been done by Saturday afternoon, and had been working on other things, but, hey, it was the principle of the thing...
Tony sighed and checked the mirror one last time before heading downstairs.
Twenty five hours and forty minutes earlier…
Loki had already been up for 20 long minutes when a call to his cell phone at exactly 6:50 AM startled him.
He reached over with a groan to retrieve the iDevice where it lay obnoxiously ringing on the bedside table, making a mental note to himself not to set the ringtone so loud. It was quite annoying to be blasted with the rude notes of Beyonce's Single Ladies at this ungodly hour of the morning.
He reflected on all this as he hit the onscreen button that would allow him to accept the call and brought the sleek black iPhone up to his ear. The number was his boss from work, a guy named Thomas but who asked everybody to call him Tom as he wasn't particularly fond of the name Thomas. It sounded too formal, he insisted. Still, Loki called him by his formally given name for two reasons: One, that was just kind of his style, and two, to be contrary. It was in his nature. He wasn't called the God of Mischief for nothing!
"Yes?" he snapped crossly into his phone, although he winced when his voice came across as slightly more disagreeable than he might have liked.
"Markson," Thomas greeted him briskly. "There's a presentation tomorrow morning at 10 AM at your normal yard. I expect you to be there."
"What about?" Loki asked.
"It's a new technology that will make train operations in the yard so much easier. I want you to know how it works," Thomas explained.
"Yeah, gotcha. I'll be there," Loki assured him.
"Good," Thomas said. And then he hung up.
Loki threw his phone back on the table and let out an exasperated sigh as he flopped back into bed for ten more minutes. I'll get up at seven…
Present time…
On Monday morning, Loki got up at six thirty and was on the road by eight o'clock. He usually didn't have to come to work at the same time every day and it took him around an hour, sometimes around an hour and a half, depending on the route he took, to get there and he didn't want to be late today.
Highway traffic got him, an accident having caused massive delays, but he exited the highway at the first possible opportunity (although it took him ten minutes to even get down the exit ramp, since traffic was so congested, and all in all it took him twenty minutes to get out of the crazy traffic jams caused by the highway accident) and was there by nine thirty. He found a decent spot in the parking lot, at least somewhat close to the building, and parked the mid-sized Ford F-150 in between two Nissan sedans of different models.
He exited the pick-up truck, stepping carefully down to the ground. He shoved his iPhone so it was at the very bottom of his pocket and made sure that he had his wallet on him, and then, confident that he had everything he needed, he walked quickly into the building.
He didn't even notice the red and gold sports car with the license plate "STARK 6" parked approximately one hundred meters away from him in the other corner of the lot, next to a set of little used train tracks.
Tony finished setting up the presentation at 9:45 and watched as gruff and stony faced people came trickling into the room, slowly taking places beneath the stage. He wondered idly if people met here for events like this often, because you wouldn't necessarily expect to find a big empty spacious room with a stage in a building in a train yard. Maybe a school, yes. But a big place like this, where people came and went all day…? No, not really. Then again, maybe more went on behind the scenes than he knew of. He didn't really want to know.
Finally, 10 o'clock rolled around, and the presentation began.
10:00 AM. More of a time to be getting ready to step onto a train, if anything! But, no, instead Loki was forced to attend a presentation he was sure only trainmasters would find interest in. Maybe conductors and rail traffic controllers, foremen and yardsmen, but he couldn't find a reason why he would possibly be interested in this kind of presentation. But, all the same, he dutifully filed into the room with a couple of his work buddies (he wasn't totally antisocial), noticing with some satisfaction Mark Whineson sulking in the corner. When he saw Loki, his glare immediately got a hundred times more intense and Loki smirked.
Oh, if looks could kill...
Loki turned away and followed the men he had come in with, taking a decent spot near the middle of the auditorium where he could see clearly.
There was a dark-haired man in a suit bustling around the stage behind the podium, connecting some wires together or somesuch. A moment later the screen lit up, a blank white that Loki guessed would soon have a PowerPoint presentation on it.
However… as he got a closer look at the man, he frowned. The man looked achingly familiar, even from the back. But… Loki had never met anyone like this.
And then the man turned around and stood up, smiling at the audience and raising his arms up slightly as he opened his mouth to speak, and even though the man was wearing sunglasses that goatee was disturbingly familiar and Loki's stomach involuntarily dropped and he had to fight back the shock threatening to make him sway on his feet and bring up all the contents of his stomach.
And, suddenly, he knew where he'd seen that man before.
It was Anthony Edward Stark, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist of Stark Industries and the Avengers.
All things considered, Tony would have to say that that presentation went fairly well.
Only… he didn't see Loki anywhere.
But that was only until, of course, he did.
He spotted Loki sometime about halfway through the presentation, maybe somewhere around 10:30 AM, but by then he was so enraptured in his explanation that he hadn't felt anything more than an irritating prick of shock in his stomach that hurt but quickly came and went.
He didn't really concern himself too much more with the demigod's presence, shockingly enough, although he did silently alert JARVIS when there was a lull in the speed of the talk in the presentation to the fact that, yes, Loki was in fact here and, yes, indeed, JARVIS was to keep a very careful eye on him.
But he didn't really do very much during the presentation, other than just stand there, although JARVIS reported that the demigod had an elevated heart rate and he had looked a little shocked, although the AI had conceded that he normally had a very white and pale complexion and that it might really not mean anything at all.
The elevated heart rate, however… hmmm. That was definitely something to consider- was Loki maybe afraid of him?- and Tony pored over the data all neatly displayed on the holographic screen of his phone as he walked out of the building.
Just then, however, as he was barely out the door he happened to look up and there Loki was, walking quickly, steadily and confidently across the parking lot.
It was like nothing had even happened earlier, and, huh, well, he kind of looked a little sick back then in the auditorium. But… Tony paused for just a moment, and then suddenly took a giant leap forward to try and intercept Loki.
"Hey, Loki!" he called out, and the thin form of the god abruptly stopped, stiffened, and then five seconds later, just as Tony reached him, he turned around with a closed expression.
"Stark," he greeted tightly.
"How're ya doin'?" Tony asked, grinning broadly. To be quite honest, he was freaked out as hell about the fact that Loki was on Earth but he really didn't seem to be doing any harm...
"I am doing just fine, thank you," he responded coldly. "I have to head out to my car—" At this, Loki gestured with the pointy end of the key already in his right hand towards a pickup truck not too far off, parked neatly in the lot. "—to grab a few things before my shift starts."
Suddenly, an old fashioned telephone ringing sounded from inside his pocket, and Loki sighed. "Excuse me. I have to get this." He pulled an iPhone—an iPhone! Tony's eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the sight; he hadn't known that the demigod was even aware of this type of high-end technology, let alone knew how to use it—out of his pocket with his right hand, quickly transferring the keys to his left, and held it up to his ear, wandering slightly away from Tony, closer to the pickup truck. "Yes?"
Tony knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help eavesdropping on the conversation.
"Hi, yeah. … What?" Loki's voice sounded just a shade angrier and from the angle Tony was watching at, he could see a darkish shadow set itself slightly over the demigod's face. "No, please tell me that did not just happen. … Anyway— … I do not have time for this right now, Pedro; I have to be on a train in 15 minutes. … No, I'm at work! Well, just clean up what you can, then, and I'll be back later. Yes, I'll pay you back for whatever expenses you might incur. No, I will not take your teenage daughter on a date. … For Christ's sake, Pedro, she's 15 years younger than I am! Have you no decency at all? … Good-bye, Pedro. I'll call you later. … No, it's just a short two hour run… if everything goes well. … Yes, all right. That's good. Fine. Yes. Now I really have to go, so I'll call you back later!" Loki quickly ended the call, grumbling, and he was just in the process of shoving the superphone back into his pocket when he remembered his observer and he froze. His eyes widened as he turned back to Tony.
Tony just laughed casually and Loki's shoulders relaxed a little bit, his eyes going back to their normal size. "What was that all about?" he asked.
"Oh, my friend Pedro owns a pet shop and the other day I found a dog on the streets. It just got out of its cage and into the storeroom and ravaged the whole place. It rampaged for quite a while before Pedro managed to stop it." He grinned widely. "Admittedly, not too funny. For him, that is. Buuut..." He groaned as his eyes darkened. "I swear to God, that man needs a class on 'how to manage your crazy teenage daughter'. She says I am really 'hot' and tries to get me to, how do you mortals say it? Go out with her."
Tony laughed. "Well, you kind of are really good-looking." And then a painful pang shock suddenly flashed through his stomach as he realized what he'd just said. And so casually, too.
A little voice in his head squeaked, And to Loki, too!
Loki, for his part, had just widened his eyes slightly and was staring at Tony in a kind of shock. "What did you just say?"
Tony flashed a grin he hoped would he disarming, but in reality it just came across as being extremely awkward. "I… uhh… I said nothing?" he tried, but his voice sounded approximately three octaves higher than he would have liked.
"I said nothing," he repeated again, aware of just how pitiful it sounded to his own ears.
Something in Loki's expression closed down and he turned away from Tony, opening the truck's door and reaching across the vehicle to get something underneath the passenger seat. He took out a small bag, a backpack, really, and then he closed the driver's door once again with a slam.
"Look, I…" Tony began, reaching out to try to grab Loki's shoulder, but Loki flinched away, before shaking his head with a resigned sigh. He relaxed slightly and looked at Tony.
"No, it is okay. Being told that I look good is nothing to get angry at, after all." He flashed a charming smile, and Tony laughed.
"See, there you go! I knew that you weren't all crazy," he joked, and Loki's smile looked unsure for just a moment before it faded completely. His eyes widened slightly as he checked his phone's screen.
"I must be at work very soon. Goodbye, Mr. Stark," he said abruptly, turning away and walking quickly towards the building's entrance.
"Bye!" Tony called, staring after him as he left.
As soon as the demigod was out of sight, Tony pulled out his phone as he walked over to his own car.
"JARVIS? Find out where Loki's going today. We're going to follow him."