Hey hey hey, you all; once again we meet! :D

This chapter is not very long. I'm sorry! :( Also, if you don't notice, or if you do notice and are confused, I have kind of changed the location a little bit in this chapter! xD We're still assuming that it's CP, but I did some research on CSX yards and the kinds of distances that I wanted Loki's train to travel in this one, and I made them be at some real CSX yards in New York City and the surrounding area. Only we're still calling them CP. Hehe. I don't really know much about trains in New York, or train operations in the US, either, for that matter (what they call "rail traffic control" here in Canada is apparently called "dispatch" in the States, so don't get too confused ;3), so please excuse my general confusing-ness with this matter! :P

I stayed home today, so I had some time to work on this (without getting any of my (also late) homework done for school... hahaha, oops! xD). :) I hope that you enjoy it! :D


Chapter 4

Tony jumped into his car and, as he turned it on, a holographic screen appeared on the right side of the windshield with a map. It showed the yard, with one specific train track line glowing red, and then also showing, in blue, the route that Tony should take to get to the most convenient level crossing, which wasn't for another ten miles.

"Your map, sir," the refined British voice of the AI said as Tony cast a critical eye in the direction of the screen.

"Thanks, Jarv," he thanked the AI. "You're the best."

"I know." Tony laughed at Jarvis's snide tone as he said those two words.

He threw the car into gear and headed out of the parking lot. He had a decent amount of driving to do before he caught up to Loki.


"Dude!" The voice addressing Loki was high-pitched and excited. "You actually spoke to Tony Stark?!"

"Yes, I did," Loki said stiffly.

"Wow!" It was the trainee who he was working with today. 19 and fresh out of college, he was extremely hyper and inquisitive. Always wanting to know everything was something that Loki could personally relate to from his younger years, although it was slightly annoying now.

Only because he mentioned Stark, a tiny voice in his head whispered, and he almost let out a frustrated growl when he realized that it was true.

"Let's now focus on your train," he suggested gently, trying to calm down. He had a third person on board with him today, an actual conductor, and for that he had to admit that he was relieved.

"Okay!" The new conductor's name was Chris and he was fascinated by everything. It was hard not to like him.

And Loki didn't like a lot of people.

The conductor was an older guy who definitely knew what he was doing. He exited the cab and jumped down from the side of the train and onto the ground as they approached.

"Lukas," he greeted Loki, nodding at him.

"Carl." Loki grinned.

"Got the train information?" Carl asked him.

"Yes, right here." Loki pulled the folded-up sheets of paper out of his coat pocket and handed them to them. "I thought we would get the loaded oil train, number 622, but we got the stack train instead. 454," he quickly summarized as Carl skimmed over the papers.

"Here," Carl said, handing the small stack of papers to Chris, "read these over and tell me what you can deduce from that."

"Well…" Chris took a deep breath before speaking. Loki silently chuckled at that. It's not that much information, if you know how to read it. "It's a stack train, it has 134 cars, it's a short distance train from the Oak Pointe yard, which is here, where we are, in the Bronx, to the smaller Kingston, NY rail yard… No special considerations or problems, unlikely to be any alarms, and although the train is a bit long, another train will be picking it up once we get there."

"Very good!" Carl told him, and Loki just nodded. "Yeah, the only thing that I'd add is 'There is a trainee conductor on board'."

Chris laughed nervously. "Umm? Oops."

"No, it is nothing to worry about," Loki told him reassuringly, although Carl winked at him and he couldn't help but chuckle once more. "You'll do fine. Now, let's get on our train!"

He swung himself up first onto the little side walkway, and entered the cabin, sitting on the left side. The other two came in a few seconds later, and ten minutes later, after checking the train and explaining everything pertinent for the moment to Chris, they were good to go.

And then, they were off.


The drive wasn't an especially long one, and, once they reached Jarvis's level crossing of choice, Tony asked the aforementioned AI to find out how long it would be until the train reached them.

"Approximately ten minutes, sir. Although you might want to step away from the tracks. There is a high speed freight train about to appear from around that bend right now."

Tony looked to his right, and, sure enough, there was a rather loud and scary looking train barreling down in his direction. This was a crossing where they whistled, Tony soon found out, and he wondered if that had been part of the reason that Jarvis had chosen it. They didn't whistle at a lot of crossings, according to the information that flashed across his phone screen as he stepped back.

Yes, he was walking backwards while looking at his phone. He wasn't too worried.

The train loudly blared its horn a few more times before making the crossing. Not a big issue as Tony was already standing around ten to fifteen feet away from the tracks. Once the engine and a few oil cars had passed, about three of them on the train altogether, he turned around and headed back to his car.

After he had slid inside, he leaned over the dashboard and started messing with the touch screen glass on the right side of the windshield. Yes, only the right side had a screen; the other side was just a boring piece of glass, but Pepper hadn't allowed him to make both sides a touch screen, as "it might interfere with your driving if there's a sudden system malfunction". He was Tony Stark, and he didn't have system malfunctions, but he had listened to her, and, taking her advice, did what she asked. The windshield was split perfectly down the middle into "not screen" (left) and "screen" (right). It was appropriately high tech, if he did say so himself.

"Eight minutes, sir." Tony was currently checking his Tumblr.

"Five minutes, sir." Facebook.

"Thirty seconds, sir." Tetris—"Wait, I mean, we're talking about Loki's train here, right?!"

"Why, yes, sir; indeed we are."

"Well, I don't want to miss this." He quickly swiped his finger across the screen to make the game pause with his right hand while he deftly put on his sunglasses with his left, and gracefully stepped out of his car—well, as gracefully as he could in these circumstances, anyway. He quickly sprinted around to the front of the vehicle and did his best to appear casual, leaning across the front of the sedan like he owned the place (which he kind of did, since he owned the car and all. And he was a billionaire).

Of course, the only reason he actually could do that was because he was kind of short. His 5'8" wasn't really very… impressive. Or threatening, either, for that matter. But, hey, he was a billionaire, so he couldn't really be bothered about issues like that. Besides, it was quite nice to be able to lean comfortably against a short car, and—his thoughts were abruptly cut short by the whistling horn of the approaching train.


I'm watching you. :D

That was the message that appeared on his iPhone just a moment after it beeped. The number was identified as Tony Awesome Stark.
He straightened up and looked around, out the window of the train. Sure enough - there was Stark, standing just outside of his car in front of the bumper and grinning up at Loki's train as it passed. He even waved.

Of course. He sighed.

How did you get this number, Stark?

He texted that back, and not 10 seconds later there was a reply.

It's called black-hat hacking, Loki. Haven't you ever heard of it?

Why, yes, indeed I have. What do you want?

Just to see you. Okay, that sounds worse than it is. But, you know...

Besides that, the train was moving fast and they were by now quite far away from where Stark had been standing.

Loki just had one question, however.

I am curious. Why haven't you sounded the alarm for the other Avengers yet?

How do you know I haven't?

Loki flinched when he read that. Still. He picked up the phone in steadier hands to bring it closer to his face and quickly typed out, Good point. He felt that right now it was probably in his best interest if he conceded.

Naw, I haven't, but I knew you were here.

That gave Loki pause. Really? And why didn't you...? He figured he probably didn't need to finish the sentence.

He didn't.

Because you honestly didn't seem to be doing any harm. And, anyway, I was curious!

Loki couldn't resist replying, After the fact that I threw you out a window all those years ago? One might really expect a human such as you to be more careful, or are you really as self-destructive as you seem?

Nahh. :) I just am that way!

I am fairly sure that is not proper grammar.

Grammar Nazi - er - god…

Loki grinned, but just then a call came in from RTC. Carl quickly glanced over at Loki, who nodded, and then picked up the radio transmitter.

"Rail traffic control to 8698."

"Yes, this is 8698. To rail traffic control," he added quickly, as if it were an afterthought.

"Are you the engineer of this train?" came the reply.

"No, but he's sitting right here."

"I need to speak with him," stated the person on the other end of the radio.

Loki sighed, and picked up the receiver on his side of the cab, his earlier conversation with Stark pushed completely off to the back of his mind as he now focused on his work.


Hope you liked it! :D And what do you think Tony's current feelings are for Loki? How about Loki's feelings for Tony? I'd say that Tony probably definitely likes him, but he just hasn't realized it yet, and won't for another long while. ;) As for Loki, though... hahaha, I have absolutely NO idea! xD;

If you feel like it, then, please, review! :)

Review Replies:

CHAPTER 1

Ordis: Hahaha, yeah. xD; And he's Tony freaking Stark. Why would he bother to read something before he signs it?! :)

msgone: Yeah, things are going downhill pretty quickly! LOL

GothChiq80: Thanks! :)

CHAPTER 2

GothChiq80: Haha, I know... _; He's kind of an idiot, that's for sure! :P

Ordis: I know, right?! :P But, hey, those cows were destined to die, anyways! ;) (I believe that the inspiration for that happening in my story happened from something in real life. I think it was around the same time. One of my train friends went out to see a train with an amazing horn, but we only had one working car at the time, my mom and sister had literally just gone to the store when I got his text (and, believe me, those two don't like to be interrupted while they're shopping! D':), and I can't drive on my own yet anyway, so it wouldn't have made a difference even if we had had another car at the time... And then, apparently, that same train hit a cow at the crossing that I usually go to. I was like, "WHAT. It would have been SO hilarious to see that!" (I don't think he saw it either, though; he was at some crossing up north somewhere, iirc.) lol but anyway, tl;dr FML)

CHAPTER 3

GothChiq80: Hahaha, thanks! :) Glad that you liked it so much! xD;

Adapse: Hahaha, I'm almost late SO often for school because in the morning, when I wake up, I check my emails, and sitting right there is often a lovely alert that, hey, a story that I've been following has updated, and of course I wanna read it, and, just, well...! xDDD; So, I most definitely know what you mean! :P And, yeah, I know! Such a stalker, that Stark! Ahahaha! Stalker Stark! xD;