I can't say I am very happy with how this chapter turned out, but here it is anyway...
It was only a little while later that Loki had recovered enough to be able to summon enough magic to send Thor back to Asgard, and they were now standing there, about to send him home.
"Brother, I am proud of you, you know that," Thor said a little quieter than usual.
Loki just nodded, looking down at his feet. This was not the sort of treatment he was used to from Thor. Thor turned and looked at Stark, who was standing close to Loki, that small grin that was always present on his face a little larger than usual.
"And you, Stark," Thor began, turning on Stark who jumped slightly. "You shall take good care of my younger brother or I will find you."
Stark brightened. "Don't worry, your precious Loki is safe with me," he said, placing a hand on Loki's shoulder.
"Good. I shall come back in a month's time to give you an update, and if I don't return in that amount of time, Loki, come back to Asgard and check in, something may have happened," Thor instructed, and Loki nodded.
A month seemed like a long time, but it was a good amount of magic that was needed to send somebody back and forth to Asgard with the Bifrost broken. With all of the sending back and forth they had been doing each of them needed some time to recover for a bit before it was viable to do it again.
"Well, this is goodbye for now, brother," Thor said, and Loki found that Thor's use of the word 'brother' didn't cause him so much pain now that he was working alongside Thor. Loki closed his eyes and sent just enough magic down his arm to where Thor's hand was clasped in his own to send Thor back home. When he opened his eyes there was no blonde god standing there anymore and he was now holding onto thin air. He let his arm drop to his side.
"Alright, everyone, let's have one more little meeting and then you can be on your way, wherever it may be," Fury told them, walking back over to his favorite conference table, a table that was now becoming a source of dread for the Avengers. It was a place for long lectures and strategic planning that none of them looked forward to.
They all sat down around it, patiently waiting for whatever Fury had to say to them. "Now that we are done with the Chitauri for a while, hopefully, you all can go home. But please keep your communicators close in case I need to contact you to call you together. You guys did very well this time, and I commend you for that. I would like a repeat performance next time."
The group around the table nodded, each of them hoping that Fury was almost done.
"Loki," Fury said, and Loki looked up, cringing slightly, expecting Fury to go at him again. "You are released from your watch. We do not need to keep surveillance on you anymore, and you can leave Stark's tower if you would like," Fury told a surprised Loki. He was not expecting this in the least, and it caught him off guard. It was a good thing that they trusted him. His life would be much easier without Fury and the rest of SHIELD off his back, but did this mean that he could not go on living in Stark Tower? It had been such a great experience living there, soaking in the normal life of humans around humans that he actually knew as opposed to complete strangers. It had been nice to have real friends for once and not friends that were his brother's that he was just tagging along with.
Stark seemed to sense Loki's distress and placed a hand over Loki's on the table. "Don't worry, you won't be kicked out of my place just because you are not a criminal anymore," Stark said, chuckling. Loki relaxed, smiling at Stark gratefully.
"Well, that is all that I have to say to you guys. Good work," Fury said with an air of finality. They would all be given a helicopter ride to Stark Tower where they would pack up their things and get transportation home by SHIELD.
Fury gave them all a wave goodbye before they stepped into the large helicopter that would fly them to Stark Tower. They all boarded, glad that this helicopter was designed for this many people as opposed to being squeezed in tightly. The pilot began to land them on the large roof of Stark Tower on Stark's instruction.
The helicopter's engines slowed to a stop and they all slowly exited. Loki felt like it was the end of something as he stepped onto the roof of Stark Tower. It was the end of his first adventure working with the Avengers, and he hoped that it wasn't his last adventure with them. He had changed a good amount in the past month, going from lonely screwed-up soul to part of a team with people who knew they could count on him. He was no longer out for revenge or angry at his fate; he was happy with what he had gotten.
Everyone chatted contently as they packed up their rooms and raked the apartment for things that might have floated across the living space in the long amount of time they had been living there. It had been fun having them all together like that, and now that they were leaving everyone was a little melancholy.
A little while later they all stood on the street corner, bags in hand, waiting for taxis that would either take them to the airport or wherever else they were headed. Rogers lived in a small apartment in New York a little distance away. Stark and Loki were there to see them off and exchange last little goodbyes.
"Well, it has been an interesting month," Banner said, smiling. "Loki, it has been nice getting to know the side of you that is not a bag of cats," he said, holding out a hand for Loki to shake.
"It's nice not getting beat up by you when you are that beast," Loki said, shaking Banner's hand, not really knowing what he meant by a bag of cats, but letting it go.
Barton finished his goodbyes with the others and turned to Loki. "Um, you turned out to be less of a jerk than I thought you were. I still think we should keep watching you, but whatever," Barton said gruffly and turned and left towards a taxi that had just pulled up. Natasha gave them all one last wave and hug and flung her bag in the trunk with Barton's, climbing in with him. They waved as the taxi pulled away.
"So, Rogers, you got a job or anything to go back to?" Stark asked Rogers.
"Well, I started working as a trainer before all of this 'revenge of the Chitauri' stuff, but I don't know if I want to do that. I may work on a police force or something."
"Well, Cap, I sure do hope you find something worthy of your American powers," Stark said lightly. Rogers did seem grateful for the sentiment, though. Another taxi pulled up and Banner said his last goodbyes and boarded. He would be going back to some random foreign country to get away from it all again, just waiting for that call that would send him back here to fight with the Avengers again.
"Hey, Steve-o, you should stop by sometime," Stark said, shaking hands with Rogers who was about to step into his own taxi. Rogers nodded.
"Yeah, I'll see you around," he told them and then stepped into his taxi. It pulled away and Loki and Stark were left on the street corner by themselves.
"It will be nice having the tower to ourselves again, won't it?" Stark asked Loki as if they had been living alone together for a long time.
"I thought you had permanent residence in California," Loki responded. Stark looked uncomfortable.
"Well, I do, but I don't really want to go back there now," he said slowly, running a hand through his hair.
"It's because of that Pepper woman, isn't it?" Loki asked calmly.
Stark froze for a second, and then nodded forlornly. "She is my assistant, a great one that I have had for years, and then we got into a romantic relationship that worked for a while, and then I screwed up. I don't know what that makes us now."
Loki felt something odd within him. "Do you still have feelings for her?" Loki asked directly, wanting to get right to the source of the problem here.
Stark tilted his head to the side in thought. "Well, she has been the only one I could count on for years and years, and when we were together I really thought it would work. But now I know that we were meant to be friends and not anything more. I would like to go back to being friends, but she is still very angry at me."
They walked back to the building in silence for a little while, each man in deep in their own thoughts. Loki wondered if he needed to worry about this woman that knew Stark so well. Was she somebody that had the power to steal Stark away from him now that he had just become Loki's? Loki was unaccustomed to these feelings. Loki was very inexperienced in the dating world. When he was younger there hadn't been many women clamoring for him, especially when they could go for Thor, the blonde muscular one. Loki had been odd anyways, somebody that people tolerated because he was Odin's son. Well, that had sure changed when he had decided to become a villain of sorts.
They boarded the elevator and Stark turned to him. "You know, you have no reason to be worried about me going back to her," Stark said, completely seeing through Loki to his feelings yet again.
Loki just sighed. "I am sorry if I come across wrong, I am just not used to this, especially with a human," he said, shaking his head. The elevator doors opened on the apartment level and they walked out of the elevator.
Stark walked over to the kitchen and grabbed two glasses from a cupboard, pouring a healthy amount of some sort of human alcohol in each. "You do not need to worry," he said as he handed Loki a glass. "I already know what you are like. If I didn't like you or your Asgardian customs or how you interact with humans then I wouldn't be with you, now would I?"
Stark held up his glass. "To the Avengers, saving the day, and trying new things," he said. Loki held up his glass as well, and then they both took a swig. The liquid burned as it went down his throat. It was far stronger than most other drinks he had had before, and it made his head buzz a little bit.
"Hey, what do you say we go on a real date?" Stark said happily. "You know, nice dinner, I'll drive you there in my car, and then when the date is over I'll drive you home to your protective father and we'll kiss on the doorstep before he catches us and tells me to leave his only daughter alone."
Loki finally caught on and frowned at Stark, which only made the billionaire laugh harder. "I will agree to your little 'date' idea as long as you lay off of the jokes at my expense," Loki said to Stark, who smiled like a little kid.
"She said yes!" he yelped, twirling in a circle. "She said yes!"
Loki glared at him. "What did I just say?"
Stark stopped and smiled sheepishly. He looked at his watch. "Well, it is about five o' clock now. What do you say to dinner at six? It will give us some time to get ready and all," Stark said.
Loki nodded, and Stark finished his drink, set it down on the counter, and left for his room to get ready. Loki also drained his drink, cringed, and then walked to his room. Now, what did one wear on a date? Loki looked down at the armor he was still wearing from the battle. No, this was not what he would wear.
Loki found himself standing in the full-length mirror in his bedroom for quite some time, changing his outfit so many times that they all started to look the same in his eyes. And then he realized that his normal human outfit would do perfectly; his nice black overcoat with a patterned vest underneath, paired with a white dress shirt and black tie. It was a sharp look, and one that Loki pulled off very well, why change it?
He fiddled with his hair for a few minutes, wondering if he could do something different with the spikes in the back, but then deciding that he pulled those off great too. And when you had magic at your fingertips you could always smell nice. Loki made sure that he always had just a hint of minty-ness about him; a clean smell that Thor never had. Thor always smelled like he either just exercised or was wearing fine cologne that burned your nose.
"Hey, you ready to go, diva?" he heard Stark call from outside. He grumbled, but in reality Loki did enjoy Stark's humor. It had a very lightening effect on his mood.
He walked into the living room to find that Stark was wearing a black jacket over a wine red dress shirt paired with a black tie. His normally mussed black hair was controlled with a little gel, swept from his hairline back. He really did look dashing.
Stark looked him up and down. "I have not seen you in that getup in quite some time," he finally said. "And I forgot how good you look in it."
The corners of Loki's mouth curled up slightly and he tilted his head to one side. "That is why I wear it."
"Well, let's roll. I just put in dinner reservations at a restaurant that I go to all the time. It's not too far from here, but we do not want to be late, they will give our table away."
And with that they left Stark Tower.
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