"You look tense." Tony observed.
Bruce looked at him suspiciously. "I'm not a fan of red tape, and I'm definitely not a fan of the things that usually follow you saying those words."
"Aw come on. You've been working on that stuff all afternoon. You should blow off some steam."
"A cup of tea, a chance to put my feet up, the episode of Dancing With The Stars that I had JARVIS record for me, and the knowledge that I'm finished with these forms will be plenty of relaxation." Bruce bent back over the stack of paperwork sent by his new employer, giving Tony a pointed glare over his glasses. "Now kindly step away from me, and take that prank shock pen with you that you thought I wouldn't notice you sneak onto my desk."
Watching on a display provided by JARVIS, Loki snorted indelicately. "I told him he wouldn't sneak that one by him."
"Mr. Stark is stubborn, as you well know." JARVIS noted evenly. "However, I agree with him that he is the better person to persuade Dr. Banner to go along with this idea."
"And then he goes and jeopardizes it by getting caught trying to prank him." Loki hoisted the final two shrink-wrapped bales of dried catnip, "While he leaves the cripple to do the physical work."
On the display, Tony was giving Bruce his best innocent scientist face. "Come on Bruce. You can take a short break, you're making really good progress. Besides, I need you. I'm trying to make ultralight vibranium chain mail, and I need your help to see how strong it is. Real quick. I want to have this ready before Clint's next mission, and he's gonna be cleared to go out again any day now." Bruce winced almost imperceptibly at the reminder of their friend's latest mission-related injuries. Tony grabbed on to that and pushed harder. "We both know you're thinking about it. If this stuff is as strong as I'm hoping, that won't happen again. Come on. Just a few minutes. For our teammate. Remember how scared we were when we heard?"
"Fine." Bruce stood up, setting down his pen and glasses with a touch more force than necessary. "Got the stuff in the test chamber already?"
"Getting it right now. I'll meet you there." Tony all but did a happy little jig as soon as he was out of his friend's sight. Sure, he wanted to test the strength of the hair-thin vibranium chain mail, but what would happen after he'd assured himself of its strength was the main objective. He smirked. "JARVIS, is Loki ready on his end?"
"Waiting in the vent, sir."
"How's it holding up?" Tony joined his boyfriend on the opposite side of the grate leading to the Hulk-proof test chamber.
"Hasn't managed any damage yet."
"Brilliant. As usual I'm right."
Loki rolled his eyes. "Satisfied with its strength yet?"
Tony shook his head. "Not 'til he is. Get ready to dump the stuff as soon as he starts looking bored." He pulled the grate back stealthily. "Ah! There we go. He's looking up from the chain mail."
The two rapidly cut the plastic and dumped the bales of packed catnip through the vent directly onto the Hulk's head, hastily replacing the grate before he could look up.
Predictably, the Hulk's immediate reaction to something hitting his head was to pummel it, breaking the bales and spreading catnip everywhere. He sneezed as he inhaled some, shaking his head in confusion. Then sniffed. Then got down on all fours to sniff more. Then throw it around like confetti and bounce off the walls like a sugar-crazed toddler for a couple of minutes. Then start rolling around on the floor like a dog, laughing like crazy, before slowly shrinking back down into Bruce, still laughing.
Loki and Tony exchanged looks.
"That was great." Tony chortled. "Absolutely priceless."
"Indeed. And now he is going to kill us both. Unless..." Loki focussed hard on the man below, muttering to the words to a simple sleeping spell that he had been doing nonverbally since the age of about four.
Nothing happened. Loki scowled.
"Don't take it so hard." Tony told him, "You're not quite healed yet." He paused. "But on the other hand, what do we do now?"
Loki began crawling his way back towards the grate where he'd entered. "We let him out and persuade him to go straight to bed in the hopes that he writes this off as a strange dream. And while he's sleeping it off, we figure out what to do with all that catnip."
When Bruce woke from his nap, he didn't immediately get up. Okay. Being tired after a transformation was normal. It was worth it though. He'd done his best to break the impossibly fine cloth-like chain mail that Tony had made, and it had held up. That was great. There was no question that he wanted to do his part to keep his more vulnerable teammates safe, especially the ones who went on solo missions.
After that, things had gotten weird. He wasn't sure exactly when reality had crossed over to dreams, which was out of the ordinary. Something had fallen on him, and the Other Guy had attacked it quite enthusiastically, after which point things stopped making sense. Before Loki had joined the household, (and he had the feeling that the god was not just a temporary addition as Tony had initially claimed) he would have said that one of the ceiling panels of the test chamber had given out and fallen on him and Tony had gassed him with something for safety, a decision with which he whole-heartedly agreed. Lately, though... He just wasn't sure. There had been a great number of pranks and otherwise suspicious events since the Trickster's arrival. He couldn't rule out the possibility that he had been the unaware subject of some experiment or prank.
He probably ought to check YouTube. That was exactly the sort of thing that his host would (and often did) do, posting embarrassing and amusing footage of his friends online. Of course, that wasn't as good of a check anymore with Loki around. Bruce wasn't sure whether he liked or disliked Loki's influence on Tony. He was both a mischievous and a calming influence. There were a lot more pranks, but they were more...controlled, he supposed. Tony's usual chaos constantly teetered on the edge of disaster, caution flung to the winds, with no forethought given to his actions. The engineer was the very definition of spontaneous. (His picture had somehow become very intricately hard-coded into the UrbanDictionary definition the day after teaching Loki to hack. Bruce was pleased to see that they targeted one another as well as him.) Loki forced forethought on him. Anything that was intentional was planned out. Loki didn't do anything that he didn't believe himself or his partner in crime capable of bringing back under control should it go further than intended.
Ugh. Whatever. Lying in bed puzzling over it wasn't getting him anywhere, and it definitely wasn't getting the rest of his paperwork done. He stretched and got up.
Drat. There was an inkstain on the cuff of the shirt he'd been wearing earlier. He'd better toss that in the wash. He opened his closet to get a fresh one. It was empty. Of course, now he remembered. He'd done a load of washing that morning and had forgotten to take it out of the dryer. Shrugging on the dirty shirt and deciding he didn't need shoes, he padded down the hall to the laundry room in sockfeet. Might as well kill two birds with one stone and throw this shirt in the machine while fetching his clean laundry.
On crossing the threshold to the laundry room, he went flying and landed flat on his back. Scowling, he rubbed a finger across the floor and examined it.
Butter. One of those little punks had buttered the floor. That confirmed it. Bruce was living with a pair of children.
I thought this would be the last chapter before the one that I wrote ages ago and have been looking forward to posting, but I think I need one more before Loki gets his magic back. The timeline needs to not jump too far between chapters. However, I'm low on ideas of trouble that they can get into (and out of) without magic on their side. Suggestions are appreciated.
Is Bruce doing paperwork because I am too? Maaaaybe. I think insurance companies might make moving hard on purpose so that you'll screw up the paperwork and they can charge you fees for doing it wrong. Or maybe it's just so weird that I'm being proactive about it that they have no idea how to handle someone not doing it at the last second/late because it's never happened before.