"We've got to do something about you if you're planning on staying on Earth," Pepper said despairingly after the breakfast things had been taken care of.

"What do you mean?" Loki asked in confusion, setting aside the television remote he had been fiddling with.

"You need…" Pepper waved a hand at his person from where she stood in the living room doorway, finally settling on saying, "…Clothes."

Glancing down at his attire, Loki asked, "Is the way I dress lacking somehow?"

"No… actually, it's exactly the opposite. It's too much."

"Is that not fitting for a prince?" Loki asked, suddenly feeling peeved.

"Yeah, maybe where you come from, but around here the closest thing I'll tolerate to a prince nowadays is going through the Burger King drive-through."

Loki's eyebrows drew together as he asked, "What?"

"Well, I guess that makes Burger King our second stop after the mall."

"Isn't that a Midgardian shopping center?"

"A mall? Yes, it is, and you and I are going to one."

"Why?"

"Because you need clothes that don't make you stand out – that don't scream 'I'm the guy who tried to take over your world.' Normal clothes, 'Frost,' and don't argue with me, or I'll kick you out."

Loki raised his eyebrows at this, amused by the woman with sparking eyes standing before him with arms crossed determinedly over her chest. "I could subjugate you personally in about twenty different ways; I could kill you within the next second with no one around to hear your screams, and yet you're worried about my clothing?"

"I'm worried about the fact that someone might figure out I've got the world's most wanted man in my apartment."

"Would this better suit your purposes?" Loki asked, shape-shifting into a middle-aged businessman.

This gave the woman – Ms. Potts – pause until she said, "Maybe, but I'm not going to ask you to change into a bunch of different people all the time; then I'd never know who to look for or who I'm living with. I'd rather you just look like yourself – like an American version of you, anyway."

"I suppose you're right," Loki admitted with a sigh, shifting back into his Asgardian form.

"You know I am," Pepper shot back. "Now figure out somebody to be with your exact shape while I get my shoes and the car keys."

"I could just teleport us there, you know."

"I don't feel like hugging a super villain; thanks," Pepper quipped, tugging her tennis shoes on as she came back into his line of sight.

"You don't trust me?" he asked, further amused by her take-charge attitude.

"Would you trust you?" she inquired sweetly.

He smirked, complementing, "You are a smart woman, Ms. Potts."

As he adopted brown hair, eyes of the same color, and a beard, he could've sworn he heard her mutter "and yet you're still here" as she walked past him towards the exit.

It was then that Loki thought he might just enjoy living with this stubborn little redheaded mortal.

As he managed to fold himself into the passenger side of her car, he inquired, "Are you famous, Ms. Potts?"

"Why would you ask that?" she inquired, looking over her shoulder as she pulled out of the parking lot.

"It's just that you said last night when that man was trying to rob you that he recognized you as someone whom he apparently thought had a lot of money."

"Yeah… he hadn't looked at the news a lot recently," she replied dryly, bitterness lacing her tone. "I did become the second-most-recognizable face of Stark International when I became CEO of Tony's company, which is a position that I no longer hold."

"Thus you did not have the money that he desired."

"Right. Not that he believed that, of course."

"Of course," Loki agreed. "Tell me, do people stop you like that often?"

"To rob me? No."

"But does being recognizable as Pepper Potts make going out into the public more difficult at all?"

"Sometimes," she admitted. "That's why these days during the week I work behind closed doors crunching numbers."

Loki didn't understand the phrase about breaking numbers, but he ignored it, concentrating instead upon the idea that he was formulating before he said, "You know… I can shape-shift others besides myself."

"Meaning what?" she asked, distractedly maneuvering through weekend city traffic.

"This."

A small smile danced about his expression as he waved his hand and she became a tall, brunette with brown eyes.

"What the heck?" she screeched, nearly swerving off the road.

Loki braced himself against the dashboard as she righted the vehicle and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself back down. That's when he saw the first flickers of light come from her arms.

"Calm down," he said soothingly, laying a hand on her arm and letting his Jotun coolness take over whilst staying in his new "American" form.

"Didn't I tell you earlier this morning not to tell me to calm down?"

"No."

"Well don't! Now what did you do to me?!"

"It's just a cosmetic shape-shifting spell; you're still you underneath the surface."

"Obviously, otherwise you wouldn't be trying to freeze me right now." She shivered then, shrugging his hand away as she said, "I'm fine now."

"Good," Loki said. "And personally, I rather like that look on you – for extremely practical reasons only, of course."

"And what are those?" she asked dryly.

"Well, look at us. This way we look like siblings – just my little sister giving me fashion advice in the mall on a Saturday. That's much less questionable than a dethroned prince and an equally dethroned CEO going clothes shopping, correct?"

"Yeah," Pepper finally admitted.

"Wonderful. Shall we require new monikers for these forms?"

"Why?" she asked.

"Why not?" Loki replied with a shrug. "I clearly cannot remain myself here on Midgard, so I must find someone else to become. In these forms we even look like siblings."

Pepper quipped, "I thought you didn't like siblings."

"My brother is a special case," Loki drawled before he said decidedly, "Veronica."

"What?" Pepper asked, then rolled her eyes as she realized, "Is that this brunette's name?"

"Of course," Loki nodded, feeling rather absurdly pleased with himself for causing her irritation while he watched her watch the road.

"Fine; then you're Luke," she said disinterestedly.

"You're only humoring me, aren't you?" Loki realized, which only increased how amusing he found her.

"You're extending the same courtesy to me, aren't you, 'Frost'?"

Loki smirked, answering, "Indeed, I am, my dearest Flare."