Disclaimer: Me no own, you no sue.

Chapter 21: In Which Bea Boozes

It was a dumb idea, but it was the only one she had, so before the flames could rise and the bombs could fall, Bea grabbed two tubes of paint and fired.

Loki was hit in the face with a lovely emerald green. Tony's shirt was stained with a cool lavender. If they hugged, they could make Barney.

There was silence, all the threats buried beneath an oily layer of shock. It was too good to last. Bea knew she only had moments to live. In another second, those looks of surprise would morph into disgust, then rage. If the second prince of Asgard didn't shred her, Tony would probably make her wish he would have. They'd talked about the whole paint-the-boss thing.

But at least her office would be spared. It was the small things that mattered, right? She'd been meaning to redecorate. Nothing wrong with some blood-red walls.

It was that lovely dream of redecorating that helped her grow her spine back. "My office," she said. Pointing to the door, she added, "If you'd like to continue this little ego feud, please go to one of the Hulk proofed rooms. I work here. Go away."

Her words broke the beautiful spell of silence, and (surprise!) Tony was the first one to start making noise again.

"Hey, I own the building," he said, "I can fight wherever I want to." He looked back at Loki. "Bring it, Kermit."

Bea squeezed more paint at him. This time it nailed him right between the eyes.

"Out. Now."

"I can fire you, you know."

"Oh, I know. Believe me. I also know that I'm the one holding the paint, so get out!"

Even if Tony was ready to make her work overtime for the rest of her life, it seemed that she had successfully defused at least half of the situation. But Loki was standing stiffer than a statue. Bea wasn't convinced he wouldn't explode if touched, so she decided to declare an emergency evacuation, and focused on chasing her boss back towards the door, paint in hand. On the way she dropped one tube and grabbed her coat.

Running away was dishonorable. It was cowardly. It was also smart. Always the clever girl, Bea darted through the door after her boss. She was afraid Tony might rig JARVIS against her, so she forsook the elevator and took the stairs, ordering the AI en route to summon Thor to her office to collect his brother. Then she zipped out of the building like the devil was on her heels, only stopping when she was tucked safely behind her dead bolted door.

Mr. Stark did not pay her enough.

.O.O.O.

For the next month, Bea came in early to work and left at the close of business hours. Then she went straight home. She did not pass Go. She did not collect two hundred dollars. She did not fraternize with the crazies upstairs. Mostly because she was too chicken to face the wrath of one be-smeared trickster prince. And her boss. Her boss was scary.

She should've expected some form of retaliation (she did, in fact; that was why she'd gone all antisocial). She tried to defend herself by aversion. But she forgot one very important fact: two of the crazies upstairs were master assassins. The deadbolt on her apartment door was a laughable defense. It could even be called pathetic. All Bea knew was that she gained a whole new level of sympathy for heart attack victims when she came into her living room and found Natasha Romanoff waiting by the window with her arms crossed.

"SON OF A PINEAPPLE!"

"Hello, Bea." Agent Romanoff's voice was still as dry as dry ice, and twice as likely to burn.

"H-hi," Bea said, trying to press her heart back in her chest. "Um. I wasn't expecting company?"

"I know." The assassin took a seat on Bea's couch. As the woman crossed her long legs and leaned on the armrest, Bea thought she could hear the fluffy upholstery begging for its life. "But Clint was."

Oh. Yes. Hawkeye. Always caught in the middle of other people's messes.

"And Tony."

Always caught in the middle of his own messes.

"And Steve, and Bruce, and Thor."

Puppy. Salamander. Golden retriever. She'd just graduated to animal abuse.

"And me, actually."

She was going to die.

"Never thought I'd say this, but I kind of miss our little sparring matches."

Bea couldn't restrain her snort. It just sort of exploded. Then she had to explain herself to Natasha's quizzical eyebrow. That eyebrow. It demanded answers. "You mean you miss having an excuse to kick my butt on a regular basis."

Natasha dignified the accusation with a miniscule nod and a more than miniscule smirk. "It's a possibility."

Bea leveled a special kind of look at the redhead. She knew it.

"I'm here to invite you to a party."

Well, of course that would – "Wha..?"

This time the sneaky little smirk blossomed into a brief smile. Dang that woman, she was enjoying this. "A party, Bea. On New Year's Eve."

Somehow Bea didn't think she'd enjoy seeing what a bunch of drunk S.H.I.E.L.D. agents did at midnight. "Er, I think I'm already booked for the company party…"

"So is Tony. But there's going to be a second private party upstairs."

Upstairs. With her boss. And the green-eyed monster. And a whole lot of booze because – who was she kidding? – this was a private soiree thrown by the man himself. The fumes from all the open bottles alone would probably make her tipsy. This seemed like a bad plan…

"Since you haven't been around for a while, someone had to come invite you personally. Tony doesn't want to leave a paper trail. Too many paparazzi dig through his mail."

"Well…" Her hands slipped into her pockets, almost without her notice, and her feet began gliding around in an awkward shuffle. "You know I would, but…"

"Bea." The legs came uncrossed. Things just got real. "I know what this is about."

Unlikely. "Oh? Really? What's that?"

It wasn't understanding in Natasha's eyes. It wasn't allowed to be. She picked her answer carefully, loading a single word with all the fears and frustrations boiling in the back of Bea's mind. "Loki."

And… bingo. Loki. Evil Loki. Snarky Loki. Pretty Loki. She was more afraid of him than ever, especially since their little discussions in her office. He was breaking the rules, cracking the tidy box she'd stuffed him in titled "Two Dimensional Villain". She couldn't tell if it was him shaking her up, or if she was just losing her grip. Every now and then, between the aliens and the abduction and the freaky super powers, she wondered if she was slipping off her rocker. What sucked the most was that she'd just been getting into the swing of things. If he'd just stayed in his box, she would've been able to take him.

"Bea." The authority in the agent's voice forced Bea out of her own head, and she surfaced back into reality to find Natasha grilling her with a look that could make grown men cry.

Oh, fudge bunnies. She knew. Now came the inevitable discussion of betrayal, because even wandering thoughts could be used by a master manipulator like the god of lies, so she had as good as sold them out already, and now Natasha would have to off her…

"There are six of us."

Each with their own special brand of torture.

"We won't let him touch you."

Free at last! Free at last! Thank gooseberry tart, she was free at last! The master assassin hadn't figured out her issues. She may live beyond the end of the week.

Natasha was still waiting for an answer. "Don't let him beat you."

Honestly? Not her biggest concern. But whatever.

"I demand a full protection detail."

Picking up on the obvious sarcasm, the assassin smiled again, almost gently. Almost. "Request granted."

.O.O.O.

Bea didn't often feel like an adult, and the sense of control that came with high heels and hair spray was surprisingly liberating. The heels let her look men of middling height straight in the eye. The styling let her pretend she had class. It was even easier to pretend after one or two glasses of campaign.

For a Stark party, things were pretty dull. By that, she meant people were talking rather than screaming, walking rather than dancing like chimps on crack, and still adhering to the basic forms of social manners. Bea knew it was because Tony was saving himself for the real madness upstairs, but it was still unsettling. It was like the world had gone and changed the rules since she started maintaining a normal sleep cycle.

She knew it wasn't true, but she still felt left out. People talked to her. She talked to people. The cycle repeated. All her friends were upstairs. They were all very weird. People downstairs were all very normal.

She definitely belonged a few floors up.

For appearance's sake, she kept to the official Stark function until eleven o'clock, and by that time the booze was starting to kick in, and all of her acquaintances had gravitated towards their friends, significant others, and Persons Of Interest, trying to sniff out the most likely donor of a good kiss when the ball dropped. Bea slipped off to the elevator, and no one even noticed. Flashy shoes and curly hair could only hold the public's attention for so long, it seemed, and Bea's need to be an adult had been sated for the foreseeable future.

That was good, because things were much less mannered upstairs.

No one was actually drunk, per say, but Thor had definitely been doing his part to sustain the alcohol industry, the good Captain had un usually twinkle in his eye, and Clint might have been buzzed. Or Agent Romanoff gave him his New Year's kiss early. It was hard to tell the difference. All Bea knew was that he was smiling. Alcohol or smooching must be involved.

Bruce wasn't holding a drink, not even water, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to guess why. He was stuck in a room with some of the greatest pranksters known to mankind, and nothing could kill a party like the Hulk on a bender. And speaking of tricksters…

Loki was standing by the windows, angled to enjoy the view and keep an eye on the elevator at the same time. His gaze turned her way the second the doors slid open.

She should've pre-gamed more at the first party. There wasn't half as much alcohol in her system as there should be. As if reading her thoughts, Clint appeared at her elbow, holding out a glass filled with an unknown liquor. Common sense demanded that Bea use her head and politely decline the drink, waiting until she could mix something for herself, but Loki was still standing there looking at her, and dang if Clint's concoctions couldn't knock an elephant on its butt.

She downed it in one go.

It burned.

"Thought you might need that," Clint said, sounding unusually pleased with himself. Maybe Bea had been wrong. Maybe he'd gotten a kiss and a couple drinks.

"No joking."

Clint let free one of his twitchy little half-smirks, but he'd put it away again before anyone else noticed. "There's more where that came from. Just say the word."

Eyes. Green eyes. Very green eyes… He looked pretty.

"Word."

.O.O.O.

In retrospect, a second drink wasn't the best idea. The third drink was an even worse one. Nothing need be said about the fourth. Before she knew it, Bea was laughing and cracking jokes like nobody's business. She even complimented Agent Romanoff on her hair, lived to tell Bruce about her adventure, and then went back to call the agent Natasha to her face. She lived after that, too. If anything, the assassin looked warmly amused. If she didn't know better, Bea would assume she'd been drinking, too, but she did know better. If Clint was buzzed, the only other S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in attendance would never let her guard down. Alcohol was out of the question. Bea wondered if they'd drawn straws over who got to booze it up at the party.

And Clint was definitely drinking. He was sneaky, but she saw him down at least one of his mysterious cocktails, and she was sure there were others. She was working on the assumption that he drank like he shot: for every one you saw, there were five more you never witnessed. He was just that good.

When Tony finally surfaced from the depths of normalcy, he was well on his way to smashed, and the party really got into gear. The music, already loud, was cranked up enough to shake the drinks on the bar, and Bea saw Pepper discretely command JARVIS to lockdown all Iron Man tech for the rest of the evening.

She should've locked Bea away for the rest of the evening, too.

Instead of making her forget about the evil genius in the corner, the booze just stripped away her concerns about him. There were simply no problems in the world. Everything was fine. Because he wasn't a threat, she didn't always notice him, but when she did, every mental filter was down. There was nothing wrong with admiring him from a distance. Nothing really wrong about admiring him close up, either.

As the countdown for the ball drop entered the final five minutes, Bea wandered over to the windows to enjoy the view. Loki, despite Thor's prodding, pleading and puppy-dog eyes had refused to move, so when Bea came sauntering over, he just happened to be about three feet away. Accidents happened, right?

"I was under the impression that you did not enjoy my company," Loki said. His voice said a lot that he didn't actually use words to communicate. He knew she was drunk, very drunk. And it was play time.

Sober Bea would've scuttled off with her tail between her legs to hide behind Tony (who was trying to convince Pepper that – "If we start kissing now, we can just keep it up while the ball drops! Create, you know, a sense of unity and…continuity…over the years. And then I can tell everyone that I kissed you in one year and didn't stop until the next. Romantic, right?"). Drunk Bea had no sense of self preservation.

"I was under the impression that you didn't give a crap."

And… cue Surprised Loki. Score. Smug Loki just wasn't as cute as Surprised Loki. It had something to do with his eyes and the way his eyebrows lifted just a smidgeon.

Behind her, she heard the rest of the room's occupants begin chanting with the countdown.

"Ten! Nine! Eight!"

Loki's thoughts were already starting to coalesce again. She could see them swirling together behind his eyes. It was a shame. The guy needed more surprises in his life.

"Seven! Six!"

Maybe that was why he'd turned super villain in the first place – just too freakin' bored with the status quo.

"Five!"

Heck, if she didn't have the constant distraction of her job at Stark Industries and her crazy Time Lord powers, she'd probably audition for the Evil League of Evil, too.

"Four!"

So, he was just like Shrek. He was an onion – a very pretty green onion.

"Three!"

He'd been standing here alone all night.

"Two!"

He must be lonely.

"One!"

He needed better luck in his life.

"Happy New Year!"

Acting on pure, alcoholic instinct, she bounced up and pressed her lips to his. Her hands came to rest on the sides of his face, holding him steady as he jerked back in surprise. Surprise… success! After the initial rush of glee, she realized that his mouth actually felt really nice, especially when he started kissing her back. So she kept kissing him, and he kept kissing her. Eventually, though, she had to breathe, and she broke it off.

He leaned forward, chasing after her lips, but she giggled and turned her head to the side, too busy recouping her oxygen losses to head back for seconds.

And then she realized that everyone in the room was staring at her. She realized, just after that, that Loki's arms had come around to encircle her while she was busy with his face, and she was now pressed up against the prince of mischief in an extremely compromising position.

Way, way down deep beneath the haze of booze, alarm bells began to clang. But they were awfully far away, and Bea's head was too light to pay them any mind.

She giggled, smiling at them all, and declared, "I feel really dizzy."

Then she passed out. Her last conscious thought was that the hangover would so be worth it.

A/N: You know those times when Life pops in and says, "Yo! Got plans? Yeah? Eh, forget it, I've got more pressing things for you to do." It was one of those. Quit my job, grandma went to the hospital (better now, though, no worries), back on the job hunt and trying to find a reliable car...Yeah. So that's my list of excuses for the day. Hopefully you can all forgive me, because I loves you all just bunches and bunches, and I really had no idea what I was doing with this chapter until Natasha turned up and said, "Hey, you're going to a New Year's party." Then my muse remembered what it was doing and life got better. So, I might have had a leave of absence, but I feel that the bomb I just dropped on your heads makes up for it.

If you have time, please review. I like conversations. They let me pretend I have a social life.

Replies to Anons:

Guest: Thanks for the review! I chucked a bit of a red herring at everyone, but I just blew up the team's brain, so I hope you can forgive me. Thanks again for the review!