A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! This is for jeanette9a who asked for hungover Tony catching a glimpse of Loki at the library.

His head was pounding.

The light in the room was too bright - though he could still barely see the words of the book in front of him - and it gave him a killer headache. Technically, the effects of last night's drinking contest with Thor were what gave him a headache, but he still glared at the light. At least he could draw consolation from the fact that Fury was likely suffering from an even worse headache. Last night's drinking contest with Thor did take place in a SHIELD facility, after all, and he'd upgraded his suit since Malibu. Thor couldn't even pick up Mjolnir while intoxicated (and Tony was not ever going to forget that he was only behind three tankards of Asgardian liquor to the guy who lowered the ocean's level) and he still managed to beat Tony at their desk-throwing competition.

The man who greeted him was older and friendly. He immediately earned Tony's distrust as he smiled at Tony as if he was pleased to have the tabloid favorite there for children's story hour. Horatio Browne was the type Pepper would be friends with, just to get on Tony's nerves - or so Tony purported. Browne didn't even remark on the alcohol Tony knew he reeked of, but offered him a piece of mint gum with a wink. Then, he pointed towards the children's section with the directions to find Amy, and walked down the hall. The clicking sounds made Tony look down, and sure enough, Browne was wearing cowboy boots. This was not the type of person Tony was used to.

Amy was at least someone who he could fit into a certain category of people. She happened to belong to the same category as Cap, actually. Granted, she looked like she was born around the same time, too. She frowned at him and scrunched up her nose at his smell, turning her already wrinkled face into a raisin, and muttered under her breath. Cap did that sometimes, when he was lost in thought. A book was shoved in Tony's hands and as the old lady lamented the absence of someone named "Lukas" she led him to a small clearing among the shelves and shelves of books.

There was a group of small children, all around Kindergarten age. Tony counted at least twenty. He wondered how many of them were regulars, and pinned the group actually talking to each other and not fidgeting in their seats as the only ones actually comfortable in the room, except for Amy and one or two of the parents present. There were about seven, two twins, and there were more girls than boys. Of the other thirteen or so, there was a distinct pink presence. Tony realized he could very well be holding a ballerina or princess book in his hands and quickly held up the book to check.

The Giving Tree.

Tony knew that book. Faint memories of Maria Stark and the daily bedtime stories (some days it was the only time he heard her voice) she insisted on reading to him filled his mind. Now Tony would be reading a book he'd heard from his mother long ago to a bunch of brats; funny how no matter how hard he tried to forget things like this kept dragging up the past, even without Fury's assistance.

"Children," said Amy with a smile that belied her tone. "Children, settle down. We're going to hear now from Mr. Stark - Iron Man - who is going to read The Giving Tree. Remember to keep your questions for after the book, and raise your hands. There will be stickers for good behaviour."

Tony nearly snorted with laughter at that remark. Such a bribe would have never worked on him as a child, as no one would deny the son of Howard Stark a sticker when all the other children were getting one. The world was still like that. His name carried more weight than Tony could manage. That was why he had Pepper, even if she teamed up with Cap and Fury and made him go to things like a volunteer story hour.

He heard whispers of Iron Man from the children and grinned. There was a seat in the circle quite a bit bigger than the rest, obviously meant for him, and yet some brat was sitting on it. Tony walked over and stared down at the kid, knowing full well that his reflective sunglasses hid his eyes.

"Outta my seat, Scamp," he said.

The kid looked like he was about to faint as he scuttled off towards an empty chair. Tony sat down and surveyed the group. Those he had pegged as regulars were clustered together and directly across from him, obviously choosing the seat with a view over close proximity to the famous Tony Stark. Tony approved; those were the best seats to see pictures when he flipped around the book, as he'd done once or twice before when Pepper made him do the same thing - although that was before the Iron Man suit, and Afghanistan. (Maybe life was settling down into something normal.)

The crowd of regulars stood out from the other children in other ways, now that he could see them all clearly. Most of the fidgeting children were dressed in clothes Tony knew no child would wear on a daily basis - their parents obviously dressed them up for Story Hour with Stark. There was one among the seven who was also dressed up, in a blindingly hot pink dress that was giving Tony great ideas for painting the War Machine armor when Rhodey brought it in for an upgrade. His favorite of the children was immediately the girl he spied wearing a Hulk shirt. She was one of the twins he spotted before, and was sitting next to her brother, who was grinning like a kid on Christmas.

The girl seemed to sense his gaze and looked at him. He raised his eyebrows at her heterochromia, but said nothing. Her hand popped up and waved eagerly, something he did at many a debriefing or meeting with SHIELD solely to get on Fury's nerves.

"Helena, I said no questions! Put your hand down. Mr. Stark, please feel free to begin reading," snapped Amy.

Tony held up his hand in a silencing gesture. "Just a sec, Amy." He addressed the little girl: "What's your question, Helena?"

"Why couldn't the Hulk come read to us instead?" she asked, scowling at him.

"Hela! Shut up!" hissed her brother. The girl on the other side of Helena sighed and put her face in her palm. "It's Iron Man, for crying out loud!"

"Nah, it's all good," said Tony. He couldn't hide his smirk from Amy, who glared. "Hulk's a little big for a library, don't you think? He's not very patient, either. Next time I'll see him, though, I'll talk to him about considering it, I promise."

Amy looked like she wanted to strangle him, but Helena gave him a dismissive nod and settled back into her little folding chair as if it were a throne and she a queen. Her brother gave her an exasperated look, mingled with envy. Tony chuckled and looked around to see similar looks on nearly all the young faces.

"Now, I know I don't like to wait, and since I already answered one question, how about we do this? You all get to ask me one question about anything before I read. We'll go in a circle, starting with you, Missy," he said, pointing at the girl next to Helena, who seemed completely disinterested and blinked in surprise when he selected her.

"Ah... what's your favorite color?" she asked. "And why?"

"That's technically two questions, but what the hell. My favorite color's red - like fire truck or hot rod red, because it's obviously the best color ever," Tony said.

There was a collective gasp from the adult crowd at his profanity and a few giggles from the brats.

"Iron Man said 'hell', Mommy," said one little boy.

"I know, honey, I heard," she replied, scowling at Tony.

He just sighed and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it was before. There was no escape no matter how hard he wished, and the next kid blurted out his question faster than Natasha could take down a thug.

Somehow he made it through the round of questions and cracked open the book. First he read the page to himself, then he flipped the book so the kids could see the picture and recited what he read on the page. By the time he was near the end, he remembered how the book ended and frowned. As he closed the book, he was stunned by the amount of hands waving around in the air. He spotted Helena's twin (one of the few not jumping out of his seat) with a longsuffering expression on his face and pointed to him, nodding when the boy pointed towards himself. Though Tony could see the spark of curiosity in his eyes, the kid had only asked him when he built his first robot, rather than the typical Iron Man-related stuff Tony got from the other brats. The boy had twice the respect of his twin, and actually reminded Tony of the family butler who was long dead, his legacy living on in Tony's favorite AI. Jarvis as a kid, before dealing with the Stark family drove him to snark. So Tony picked the kid with the eyes too insightful, too clever, too old.

"What do you think the story means?"

Tony scoffed. "The guy was selfish, and the tree wasn't smart enough to say no," he said, his reply spilling out without thought.

It wasn't the disapproving parents, the practically seething Amy, or the gasps of the kids that made Tony regret his answer. It was the disappointment on a skinny kid's face whose name he didn't even know, who reminded him of Jarvis, who quietly looked away and said nothing.

"Sorry," Tony apologized. He meant it, and maybe the shock of that was what kept the room silent. "Sorry... I've had a long week. The story's not really about that - of course not. It's a kid's book." He took a deep breath and thought. He didn't like the book. The characters, the tree and the kid that grew into an old man, were too easy to relate to for his comfort. Of course he felt like the kid that grew into the old man, taking too much from the people around him and one day he would leave them nothing but stumps, but he didn't know if they would stick around for that. Anyone could guess that. But Tony was just as often the tree. Everyone always wanted more from him, from his parents to the public to his team.

"Maybe it's about selfishness or selflessness or even friendship, but in the end, the old man and the tree are together, and that's what's important," he said.

He didn't even notice how anyone else reacted to his words. The boy smiled, shy and grateful, and that was enough.

Tony answered a few more questions, and left with Amy practically herding him out of the room. He shook each child's hand before he left and now he had some sort of sticky residue on his hands. He tried to wipe it on the leg of his pants, but it wasn't coming off. He had no idea where the restroom was, but he was passing the staff room and through the open door he could see a sink. He walked in, saw no one was inside, and headed for the sink. The stickiness melted off right away but there was an almost neon stain on his hand that refused to fade. He scrubbed at it roughly, and didn't hear the sound of someone coming in until the sudden scent of coffee alerted him to another's presence.

"Do you want me to pour you a cup while I'm here?" asked the other person. The accent was strange, vaguely British.

Tony turned around and saw Loki, who raised his eyebrows in surprise, and turned back around when the water suddenly grew freezing. Then he realized - Loki! He spun around, only to see a man who resembled the supervillain but was clearly not Loki staring at him. The hair was the same, but a little shorter, and this guy had a different nose and chin and was just all wrong. No, it wasn't Loki, just some poor man who bore a passing resemblance that was enough to trick Tony's hungover and emotionally-wrung-out mind. He wished he could say he regretted last night's drinking if it was going to lead to visions of Loki, but he didn't, even if hallucination was a huge sign of one glass - or tankard, in this case - too many.

"Uh... Stark?" the man asked.

"Right. Sorry, I'm Tony Stark. And you knew that, but I'd love coffee, if it's okay to give it to non-staff mem-... who am I kidding? I'm Tony Stark, and I volunteered for Story Hour, and I want coffee," babbled Tony, holding his hand out for the cup the man held.

"I'm Lukas," said the man, slipping his hand into Tony's and shaking it. Tony frowned at the hand he was holding rather than the hot cup of joe that he wanted. "I normally read for Story Hour... they said they had someone else doing it this week, but they didn't say it was Tony Stark." He sounded disapproving. Tony shrugged, and grabbed the cup of coffee out of the man's grasp. He was cold as a corpse and Tony wanted to hold the coffee immediately to chase away the chill left behind by the handshake.

"Yeah, the old woman, Amy, mentioned you. Well, I won't be coming back, so it's all yours!' said Tony, laughing as he left the room. He heard the awkward, belated laughter of Lukas behind him and rolled his eyes. He couldn't wait to leave, even if it meant meeting back up with the rest of the team to discuss the punishment disguised as a good publicity opportunity. Even for little, stupid things like this, Cap insisted on a full-team debriefing.

He thought briefly about mentioning his Loki hallucinations, but rejected the idea. There was no way he would escape unscathed. He would either be hauled off for psych evaluation, or the team would somehow decide that Loki was for some reason lurking around libraries and start harassing Lukas who would probably file a lawsuit and Tony would still face a psych evaluation when everyone was done. It just wasn't worth it.

That night he dreamed about his parents and old Jarvis and a tree that never stopped giving.

A/N: HEY! Got you attention? I just want to say how much I love all of you readers. No, seriously, this update is my Valentine to you all. What better way to say I appreciate you than leave you with some Tony Stark angst? (I'm really sorry by the way that there isn't a lot of Loki I tried I honestly did but Tony wouldn't relinquish the spotlight...)

Want to leave a request? Here are my guidelines. Keep the pairings canon (Pepperony, implied Clintasha, Jane/Thor, obviously past Loki/Angerboda, etc...) and please try and keep things gen/bordering on gen. I don't really want to write romantic fluff, and I'm definitely not writing anything smutty. Be patient with me as I can't always find time to write. Keep in mind I'm posting chronologically and any Avengers/Loki's kids interaction will have to wait a while before I upload it. Avengers interludes are welcome and encouraged.

In the absence of any kind of index (they aren't really indexes but I will call them what I want) I want to thank all the reviewers, especially those who message me after I reply to reviews. Every review and every PM inspires me a little more. I normally get writers block very hard but all your thoughts and ideas, generously shared with me, motivate me to get back to writing and to update. Thank you so much!

Next chapter: to continue with the Avengers-Unknowingly-Meet-Loki's-Kids theme I have, next chapter will be Clint's POV...