Once I got in my pajamas (which happened to be sweatpants that I'd just bought and another of Loki's thermal shirts), I went downstairs and sat on one of the couches with Bruce. I was exhausted but I knew that I needed to stay up. Thor was hungry again so he was rummaging through the kitchen. I figured he could do that without my help. I noticed the others were walking through as well. Natasha came and sat on another couch. It was like none of them ever had pajamas. Didn't they ever want to be comfortable? I knew that Thor wasn't comfortable in our clothes anyway so I couldn't imagine pajamas.
"Tony, how bout one of your famous drinks?" I asked saucily.
"You'll get knocked out if you drink what I'm used to," he responded.
"I don't care." This stuff with Loki was starting to sink in. What am I supposed to mull over? Maybe he enjoys seeing me too? Can't he just stop bothering me? This is not making things easier for me. On top of that, I don't think he actually got out what he'd wanted to say. Of course, I'd been a total asshole to him so maybe that was more my fault but I didn't want him to get caught. I also didn't really want to hear whatever it was so maybe that had been more of a defense mechanism than anything else.
I looked up and saw Thor, Tony, Clint, and Steve talking in the kitchen. The conversation looked intense and I was openly confused. Steve walked away from them and sat beside me on the couch. Thor, Clint, and Tony were still talking when I turned to Steve. "What were ya'll talking about?" I asked.
"Nothing important. Just some team exercise or something that Coulson advised us to do," he responded. I nodded.
"Really?" I said, still looking at the three of them. The conversation was heated on all sides. Then I saw the three of them nod at each other and walk into the living room. Tony handed me a glass. "I totally didn't expect you to do what I asked but it's a nice surprise." I automatically took a sip and then grimaced. It was strong but everything else was way too weird.
The four of them totally hadn't been talking about a "team exercise" but Steve probably wouldn't own up to that unless I owned up to talking to Loki in the diner. I'd have to do it eventually. It might as well be tonight. I sipped at my drink for awhile longer while Tony's tech team finished up installing Jarvis. At the first availability, Clint walked upstairs to get in bed.
I polished off the glass and felt woozy. Maybe I wasn't in the right state of mind to talk to anybody, let alone to talk to them about Loki. I curled my legs underneath me on the couch and entertained Bruce's interest in CSI for awhile, as did Steve, Natasha, and Tony. Thor was just as enthralled as Bruce was, although for different reasons. Bruce wanted to correct them where they were wrong, Thor was just interested in anything on TV.
Tony got up and raised his eyebrows at me. I shrugged and got up and followed him into the kitchen. I liked the looks of the kitchen because it was big enough for several people to be in it at once. I slid my glass to Tony across the counter of the island and leaned forward onto it, resting my head in my hands. "You sure you want another one?" he asked. I only nodded in response, my head still buried. It wasn't long and he had touched the cup to my hands. I raised my head and gripped it. Tony leaned forward beside me.
"Do you think you could manage to come downtown to my office in a couple of days?"
"Why?" I asked, knocking some of the drink back. The harshness lessened with every sip.
"I've got something I need to talk to you about." I noticed that he'd lowered his voice and I glanced back in the living room. Steve's and Thor's eyes were on me. "Do not say anything to Steve. I'm dead serious. The less people know about this, the better."
"Maybe I'm tipsy but what the hell is going on that I can't tell Steve? Weren't you just talking to him?"
"We had an impromptu meeting but he opposed me talking to you about this. Thor, Clint, and I agreed. Steve said he saw Loki talking to you."
"That's the catalyst for this?" I asked, polishing off my drink. "What do you need to tell me?"
"It's better if it doesn't happen here. It's not bad so don't get worried."
"I have to think that it is bad if Steve opposed it. Sorry but I trust him more than the rest of you."
"Touché but seriously, this is the rare time where you need to trust me. I am begging you to not tell him."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Clint and Thor are on my side with this. Don't you trust them?"
"Mildly."
"Listen, sometimes Steve is a little too naïve about things. Sometimes you have to break the rules."
"A lot of the time, he does. If it's the right thing to do, he does it so I'm sorry if I trust his track record more than yours."
"Look, Stark Industries, 12pm on Thursday. You either come or you don't but you need to know some of this. If you come, you better not have revealed anything to Steve."
"You're doing this behind his back?" I asked, my brain fuzzy from the alcohol. Tony nodded so I shook mine in response. "I'm not lying to him."
"I'm not asking you to. I'm just asking you to not tell him what's going on."
"That's the same thing as lying."
"Seriously, Charlotte, why do you have to have a crush on the most morally righteous of us? What's wrong with me or Clint? Hell, what about Thor? You and Thor would be a great match. Maybe I'll set you up."
"Are you the one that's drunk right now?"
"I'm just saying that Steve's the main problem with this plan. Actually, he's the main problem all the time."
"Are you trying to cover up the fact that you're the one with the crush on him?" Tony gave me an intense look. "Whatever, I wouldn't lie to Thor about anything either. I wouldn't lie to you. But you know the stuff Steve's done for me. I am not gonna do anything like lying to him. He's a really good guy and he's really great to me."
"Think of it as you will. I know you're drunk right now and I know you're into Steve. But I am telling you straight, for once, I am the one with your state of well-being, your best interest, at heart."
"I'm not sure about that," I said, half laughing about it.
"Fine, you caught me. I actually agree with Cap on this one. I know, you never thought you'd see the day but I have to do this because I have an office away from here."
"You don't think the cameras are catching what we're talking about right now?"
"That's the brilliant thing about Jarvis, Charlotte."
"If this can be covered up, why can't you tell me here?"
"I am telling you that this needs to be a secret, okay? You cannot tell anyone. Thor is gonna kill me if you don't agree to this."
"Why did you drag Thor into it?"
"He and Clint started it. Now let's go back in there. I'll talk to you about it Thursday." I shrugged, still totally groggy but I listened to him. We did look suspicious. I saw Tony flash a look at Thor, signifying that I'd agreed, I assumed.
It wasn't long and I decided to go up to bed. I had a lot of thinking to do like whether or not to believe the things Loki said and whether or not to go to Tony's building on Thursday. Unfortunately, I couldn't talk to anyone about either of those options. I noticed that Steve had trailed behind me and I knew that a confrontation about my conversation with Loki was about to start. I stood in my room for a minute, after really dressing down for bed, which meant basically keeping Loki's shirt on and putting on shorts. I couldn't help it; sleeping while I'm cold is still the greatest thing no matter how hard I try to stop enjoying it.
I glanced into Clint's room and saw him sprawled across his bed, dead asleep. When I looked over at Steve's doorway, I saw him standing in it. "What was Tony talking to you about?" he asked. I walked over to him and into his room so that we wouldn't wake up Clint.
"Loki. I assumed you knew that since you're the one who told him." I didn't know what had come over me but I had automatically decided to cover for Tony. It didn't mean that I had to go to his office but my curiosity was slowly getting the better of me. What could Steve not want me to know about? Steve made a solemn face at me, like he was sorry he'd said anything. "I'm not mad. I should've owned up to it. But you can't blame me for not wanting to get in even more trouble because of this."
"I don't blame you for that at all," he responded.
"That's what Tony wanted to talk about. You know, what he said to me and stuff."
"What did he say to you?" I paused, racking my brain for another cover up until I decided that I couldn't possibly pile another lie on top of the one I was already telling.
"He just wanted to see me. He said he wasn't trying to trick me. For the most part, it was me begging him to leave and telling him not to pick a fight with ya'll in the middle of a restaurant."
"Do you believe him? Do you believe that he wants to see you?"
"I believe he had something that he wanted to talk to me about that he never got to say since I was being an incomparable bitch. Listen, I'm kinda drunk right now and if you don't wanna hear some pretty blatant feelings about everything then I'm going to bed. I'm sorry I didn't own up to talking to him… I was… I was trying to protect him and I'm sorry about it except that I'm actually not." I turned to leave but Steve stopped me.
"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty about it. I'm sorry I told them. I just… I just thought they deserved to know."
"You didn't tell everyone though, you only told Clint, Tony, and Thor. Why didn't you include Natasha and Bruce in that?"
"We think that they would tell Fury."
"So I'm to understand that ya'll are on my side now?"
"The four of us have always been there." I smiled at him and then got in bed.
When I got up, I walked downstairs and saw that all of the Avengers had gotten up before me. "So what's for breakfast, Charlotte?" asked Clint.
"What the hell are you talking about?" I mumbled, walking into the kitchen for something cold to press against my head. Whatever the two drinks were that Tony had fixed for me, they were strong.
"The last one that gets up has to cook the rest breakfast," said Tony.
"I can't cook worth a damn so if you want something edible, you might as well find someone else." I grabbed a Dr. Pepper and cracked it open (thank goodness that someone had known of my love for the Dr. when they went grocery shopping).
"You can't cook?" asked Clint.
"Dear lord, what would your mama say?" said Tony in that fake Southern accent. "Don't you need to cook for your husband someday?"
"It's not the 1950s anymore, thank you, Tony." I drank a bit of my soda.
"Well, your boyfriend sort of is so…" I spit out my drink and automatically started coughing. I couldn't even bare to look in the living room at them now. I heard Clint laughing his ass off and Tony was cracking up. I knew that Steve was probably blushing up a storm.
"I hate you both!" I screeched.
For the next couple of days, I systematically went down into the shooting ranges with Steve and then I spent some time with Thor, telling him about things and phrases. We never had the time (or the privacy) to talk much about Loki and I really wanted to talk to Thor about the diner. To tell him that Loki looked guilty about showing up at the tarmac and upsetting him. But I couldn't say that. I couldn't say anything about Loki or about talking with him when I was in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.
When I woke up Thursday morning, it felt like I was going to puke. It was going to put me in a lot of pain to sneak out of here, to lie to the others. I didn't want to do it. As the hours crept by, I kept feeling sicker. Around 11:30, Clint told Steve that he and I were going to go buy some groceries. Steve didn't appear to think anything of it which only served to make me feel worse. When I got in the elevator with Clint, I turned to him. "Why are you going with me?" I asked. I fumbled with my huge purse, switching it from hand to hand since I was so nervous.
"You know they wouldn't let you out of here on your own. It's bullshit but I'll get the groceries while you talk to Tony," he responded.
"What's going on?"
"Don't be nervous about it," was all he said in response. Everyone's advice to not be nervous about it and to not tell Steve had only served to make me more anxious.
We grabbed a taxi to Stark Industries, where Tony had been going most of this week, then I got out. I told a secretary that I had an appointment with Tony and she assured that I did then told me which floor to go to. If I was really going to his office, then it wasn't where most offices usually were. It wasn't that high up on the building, although it certainly wasn't the bottom floor. When I saw the room number, I knocked and Tony opened it, revealing what seemed like a bar/lounge area with floor length windows at the back. An odd thing for an office building, even one that Tony owned. I noticed a tinted window behind the bar and another door. Maybe there was some point to it being a fake police interrogation room.
"To be honest, I'm actually shocked you showed," he said. I threw my purse up on my shoulder and commenced into just playing with my hands.
"I'm pretty shocked too. Clint told me to not be nervous but it was pretty impossible."
"Yeah, we all knew it'd be hard for you to lie to Steve. That's why I had Clint do most of the talking to him today." I nodded.
"You said you were on Steve's side with this? Why did you offer up your office if that's the case? You changed your mind. What did it?"
"I'm gonna be pretty serious with you about this stuff." I raised my eyebrows, not at all believing that. "What changed my mind about telling you is the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. treats you like you're the greatest criminal we've ever had to deal with. They cut you off from your files, they took away your privileges to live alone, and it's all so bad because you were the most prized non-Avenger employee for the longest time. I can identify with you because obviously, I'm not a total member of the team. You're the one who even got them to consider giving me more than consultant privileges."
"Tony, last I checked, you didn't wanna be a member of this 'super secret boy band.'"
"I think they can take my suit. That's what even keeps me around, to be honest. I suspect that you'd have left a long time ago if you could."
"They've threatened me with jail time, of course, I can't leave."
"They've threatened me, Banner, and probably Thor with destruction of public property. Thor won't care about it. He's stuck around because of you and Jane but those charges can really hurt me and Bruce."
"Can they can actually steal your tech because of something like that?"
"I don't know." Tony had been intensely serious the whole time and it made me even more nervous. This really was imperative.
"What exactly am I here for, Tony? I'm getting really worried now."
"We're all getting a little sick of being under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s thumb, if you get what I'm saying." I contemplated it. This information he had for me was going against S.H.I.E.L.D., which of course, I could've figured out since he was strict on not talking to me there. "We're also sick of the way they've treated you."
"Why is Steve against this?" I asked.
"He's following the orders we were all given. Thor never wanted to follow them and Clint's been angry from day one. When I got to thinking about it, I agreed with them. Steve's not gonna go against anybody there. They've treated him like a god and Clint thinks he's worried that they'll make sure he can't be around you. But all four of us are worried about you'd take this."
"I'm getting worried at this point."
"Charlotte, when I tell you this, you have to promise me that you won't do anything rash."
"What are you talking about? Why would I do something rash?"
"Just promise me." That's when I felt something in the air; something extremely cold.
"Do you feel that?" I whispered, lowering my voice even though we were alone. The cold made me think of one thing and one thing only. Loki. "He's here."
Tony ran past me and jerked open the door near the tinted window. "Get in here. He's got to be here for me. Stay in here and don't do anything to get yourself noticed." I'd been shut in before I had a chance to respond. I noticed that that one way window was in here. This room was like a closet with the window more than likely there for style in the lounge area. I looked through it as I saw Tony making himself a glass of scotch. That's when Loki flashed in. Tony jolted, almost dropping his drink. I kept my hand securely over my mouth to make sure that I didn't give myself away. But there he was, a mere ten feet from Tony, standing in full Asgardian regalia. His hair seemed longer still.
"Where is she?" I heard Loki's voice clearly.
"Where is whom?" Tony asked, clearly trying to divert the situation. "I know a lot of 'shes.' You should narrow down my list."
"You know very well who I am speaking of," responded Loki, his voice filled with rage. I wanted to shrink away from the window but it was impossible to look away. "She is not in S.H.I.E.L.D." He'd been looking for me? Why?
"I don't know. Why didn't you ask one of the others? Steve surely knows where she is." I bit my tongue. He was just going to keep on saying stuff like this, wasn't he?
Loki appeared to smile a bit at that. "I know the soldier was there." My hands were shaking. "Where is she?"
"I'm curious about why you've started to care about where she is now." Loki was trying to keep his expression controlled.
"I will kill you and all of those others."
"We call ourselves the Avengers," said Tony, helping Loki with the terminology of the "others." "Earth's Mightiest Heroes, type thing. But let's do a quick headcount. We've got two of the world's best assassins, a guy with staggering anger issues, your ex-girlfriend, a demi-god, a super soldier, and me. And somehow you've managed to piss us all off." Loki only responded with a smirk. "But may I ask what it is you want with her?"
"I wish to speak with her about getting away from you."
"Oh, don't worry. I don't plan on getting your girl pregnant or anything. I'm no danger." I was begging Tony in my head to stop antagonizing him. Without the suit on, Loki could probably do quite a bit of damage to him.
"She should be away from all of you."
"You mean she should join you in your quest to rule Earth or that we're more dangerous to her than you are?"
"When I kill all of you, I do not wish for her to be killed as well."
"Caught in the crossfire type of thing? Listen, I know it's great to talk yourself up, I do it all the time, but there is literally no way you can beat us."
"I have an army." What? How? From where?
"We have a Hulk." Tony finally moved out from behind the bar. Loki only smiled in response.
"Keep Charlotte away from you all and especially from Thor, if you care about what's good for her. I'll find her, of course, with or without your help." There was a threat implied in his tone and I certainly hoped Tony understood it. I thought about walking out in front of them to end the argument.
"If you wanna have a discussion about keeping Charlotte safe, you ought to talk to 'the soldier.' He's pretty big on that too." My breath caught in my throat as I saw Loki grab Tony by the neck and lift him up.
"I am guessing that it will be without your help?" Loki smirked and then I watched in shock as he threw Tony out of the glass window.