Thursday morning of the week directly afterwards came in like a whisper, several different heroes having recovered fully from their surprise mission the night afterwards and having merely relaxed and wound down thereafter, nothing extremely pressing needing to have happen in the days to come.
Loki hadn't come to visit her yet, as Tony had offered, which saddened her a bit. She had missed the cool warmth of his skin on her back as he cuddled up to her to wake her up in the mornings, the smell of his deliciously musky cologne as he held her to his chest, the taste of chocolate and peppermint on his lips when he kissed her, always ever so gently. Overall, the young heroine missed him, the tower feeling slightly empty without the mischief maker to wreak some fun havoc upon the residents. Even Clint admitted that he hadn't turned out to be as bad of a housemate as they had all had prepositions to believe, though neither man liked the other very much, still.
The whisper began with Jarvis' calm wake up. "Good morning, Ms. Wade. It is 11:00 am, the weather in Manhattan is partly cloudy, estimated highs in the fifties with lows in the thirties. For today, February 14th, there is nothing on your calendar except-"
"Thanks, J, I think I got it." She groggily interrupted, shifting to slide herself out of the warm, plush nest of blankets she had created the night before. She was actually clothed beneath the sheets as well, wearing fluffy cookie monster pajama bottoms and a gigantic black t shirt that may or may not have been stolen from Steve.
Jessica lazily moseyed over to her closet, grabbing the first shirt and jeans that came into contact with her hand, she stumbled into the bathroom to relieve her bladder, brush her teeth and hair, and change. She emerged wearing a faded football jersey and bell bottom jeans, grabbing two random ankle socks to put on as she shlomped out the door.
A tired smile plastered onto her face, she rode the elevator to the penthouse, the floors above her almost unnervingly quiet, but she focused on the one goal she wanted to work for.
Food
"What are you doing here?" Came an incredulous voice from the far corner of the kitchen when she walked in.
Clinton Barton wore nothing but baggy purple gym shorts and a black A-shirt, a half-eaten sandwich that seemed to consist of peanut butter and either chocolate or Nutella rested in his hand, then mouth as he turned to pour himself a glass of milk, into the large glass usually reserved for either Steve or Thor. As she walked up to him, she could see his bare feet with a large bandage across his right big toe.
"I live here. Well, not in the kitchen, though that would be fun, but you get me..." The young agent trailed off and, not so smoothly, jumped onto the next set of train tracks. "What's with the bandage?"
"Couches seem to grow legs to jump out at me in the dark, and I know you live here. Do you know what day it is?"
"Thursday." She was met with a glower worthy of a movie star that she couldn't quite put a name to his face. "February 14th."
"Which is...?"
"Valentine's day?" Jessica held the 'V' in the beginning to make sure he wouldn't think she was an idiot for asking, but he nodded in earnest.
"Exactly." He whispered cryptically, before frowning at the fact she hadn't had her expected epiphany. "Shouldn't you be off with your boyfriend? I mean, I may not like the guy, but I do want to see you happy!" He fussed, stuffing the sandwich into his mouth as he grabbed the spoon and Nutella with one hand, his milk in the other, and moseyed over to the couch.
"Loki? I don't see him for another week, Hawk."
He looked at her with a horror that, one would think, if he were a normal guy, that her brain was dripping from her ears. He turned around to face her slowly, just before he sat down. "It's VALENTINE'S DAY! Wake up and smell the roses that Stark drowned Pepper in this morning before they flew off to Paris or some crap! He should be pampering you, that's what guys usually do on Valentine's Day, right? Plus, If you two don't do anything people will shun you. Like- hard." He made a face as if to add "And I will not be ashamed of being one."
Jessica narrowed her eyes before sighing. "Clint, I have a tradition for Valentine's day. I sit with my two dates and watch movies. Their names are Ben and Jerry, they're like, pretty freaking famous, you should know who they are."
The blonde stared blankly at her for a moment, pondering the lameness of the joke she had bled to death between them as she offered a smile, hoping he would do the same. "Jessi, go to your room, dress up a bit, and go do something. If you aren't out with him, don't dwell... Jesus, when did I start rooting for this guy? I don't even like him..." He began to mumble as he walked into the staircase and the door closed behind him, forgetting his original plan to sit on the couch.
Clint's right, I guess, I should go and talk to him at least... Valentine's Day has just never really been my holiday... I've never had a Valentine that wasn't one of my girlfriends before.
The apprentice chuckled at how pathetic she sounded to herself, leaning on the button to the elevator and humming as it came to her, using the sloth-like ride to think instead of just teleporting as she might have on another day.
Loki's the first guy who's ever really stuck around for this much of it, if at all. I mean- I've never been this serious with someone before... If you can call the half ass titles of high school serious.
The door opened silently and she strode out, making a beeline for her closet and not paying attention to anything but her own thoughts. Hunting through her closet for a moment, she found a nice royal blue top with a draped neckline and a lace patch on the back going to just above her bra strap. The bell bottom jeans were replaced with black straight legs, still jeans, but more of a dressy look, failing the entire "proper" charade entirely when she slipped on her customary Nike's.
Opening the door to her room again and walking into the living area, the brunette took her hair down and prepared to teleport when a new color grabbed her eye. She stopped short, turning to see a spherical cluster of deep purple heliotropes on her kitchen island, and puzzled, she approached.
The flowers covered the white parchment of a calligraphic note with the flair of a certain mischief god in deep green ink. The inscription read:
Heliotrope: Eternal Love
My darling, the symbol of this flower rings true,
When speaking of my love for you.
Recall the day when I first admit,
It is there that you will find it.
Jessica Wade turned bright pink, embarrassed and flattered and completely in love all at once. He had apparently gone through some trouble after all when she had previously believed he wouldn't, and it touched her deeply.
When I first admit... When I first admit... Oh! The warehouse!
Holding the flowers and note close to her chest, she allowed the world to slip away from around her to travel to the room she hadn't been able to go into in so many weeks, and frankly, hadn't wanted to. Of course she reappeared on the top of the refurbished spiral staircase, now a more polished black metal than before. Descending into the room revealed that not many things had changed, the desk was the same, the spell book having been protected with a charm laying atop it as it always had. There was a new futon, this one seeming bigger somehow, with silken, deep green sheets. It was still arranged as a bed, neatly made with a black fur comforter that seemed as though it could have been real, all with gilded threading.
His girlfriend laughed quietly about his princely childhood having spoiled him as she glanced to the hidden door where his kitchen was to see a small metal bucket with another flower and note.
This one was made up of three perfect daisies, all adjoined at the same point on the middle of a common, thicker stem. She dropped the Heliotropes in with the daisies and read the next clue to her apparent surprise.
Daisy: Innocence
Love, you have always been a child in the ways of the world
These petals reminded me of you as they whirled
The night you revealed that innocents to me
There is where the next flower beams free
"Revealed that innocents to me? How vague can you be there, Prince of the Puzzling?" She murmured to herself, sitting on the floor and slipping the newest note in with the flowers in the shining silver bucket. "I have no idea... I think it was in here, wasn't it? My first flashback or something?"
The space near and under the desk was barren, also in the chair, under the futon, and she even got herself into the kitchen for good measure, but to no avail. She "borrowed" a banana from the small hanging bunch and leaned on the counter, gnawing at it in thought.
Does he mean the first time I trusted him with something? Could he mean that little cafè? No, he wouldn't have left it there, it wasn't really an admission. The only other thing was-
"NEW YEAR'S EVE!"
Shoving the banana in her mouth and spending two minutes looking for the evasive garbage can (which ended up in a cabinet right next to her on her left when she searched clockwise around the room) she bound up the stairs and to the second set of them, so excited that she had forgotten about her faster mode of transportation as she carried the bucket and nearly choked on banana bits.
The seats she had set out on the roof that night were back in the chest where they had been beforehand, but the image was still there. It had pained her so much at the time to be so close to him and having convinced herself he was far from interested, she had merely spoken to him, dying to feel his lips on hers and dreaming of the sensation.
The level of desperation she had felt seemed hilarious now that she had woken up to the man more than a few times over the past few weeks. The taste of his lips was sweeter than she had dreamed, his touch gentler, his words even more moving than she could have ever hoped for. And this gesture, as she watched a stalk of lavender flow in the breeze, she knew was one of his sweetest yet.
The parchment, now cut into a neat heart, just about as big as her hand, now read.
Lavender: Devotion & Virtue
To quote the movie we all watched last week, "I'm hopelessly devoted to you"
And our pairing, much like theirs has been seen in the past as taboo
Seeking advice, you asked Bruce in this place
Hurry or your prize may or may not be misplaced
"Loki, you stalker! Bruce wouldn't blab about stuff like that, how would you know!?" Jessica pouted as the lavender was taken from the clear vase it was placed in and placed it, and the note in the bucket. "So, be obviously means somewhere in the tower? The roof? I asked him that same night!"
Obviously having swallowed the rest of her banana, Wade watched as the images before her washed away like the sands of time, leaves in the wind, and were reborn as a new location, almost seeming younger than its warehouse counterpart by the view alone.
But, the roof was barren of clues. The flowers that were sprinkled on the quinjet pad and had obviously been from, what Clint described as Tony "Drowning Pepper" earlier that morning before she awoke. "Okay, so not the roof... But the last line doesn't make sense!" She complained, taking the note out again and walking down the ramp like balcony that led up to the roof, passing Hawk's nest, and walking back into the doors to the empty penthouse. "Ugh, what would Robert Langdon do?"
Hurry or your prize may or may not be misplaced? Somewhere people can take it? In a common area? Or someplace a lot of people go? Like the gym or the locker room? Does he mean it literally, like-
"Lab. It has to be." She cried joyfully, allowing the process to take her again, impressing herself with her tolerance, and the fact that she had yet to get dizzy or nauseous from her travels just yet. She materialized right behind the glass wall of the lab, the black and neon design of the wall beyond that a stunning wallpaper for her little adventure.
Bruce's desk, right ahead of her, was cluttered even for a scientist of his prestige, surprised Loki could find a flat surface for the next flower and note, but still not finding anything. Though there was the faint smell of jasmine, filling the lab with another sweet smell atop the scent of loose leaf tea, motor oil, chemicals, and the musk of manly sweat.
A familiar whirring noise sounded from behind her and she turned with a smile. "Hiya, Dum-e!"
In his one clumsy claw, Tony's robotic son held the note along with a black coffee mug with a cluster of pale jasmine hanging from the rim. She took both items with a smile and kissed his "fingertip"
"Thank you, Dum-e! I was looking for that! Happy Valentine's day, boo-boo." She cooed, the bot almost purring and backing away in what Tony had explained as an embarrassed "aww, shucks" movement.
The next note was a bit smudged from being carried wrong, but it still clearly read.
Jasmine: sweet love
Roses are red and Violets are blue
Jasmine is the scent of our sweet love, it's true
I know it seems far, but don't be afraid
The man with a heart of cast iron shall aide
"There is only one person I know with a heart of 'Cast Iron', J, help me out here. Where is the Starkmeister?"
"Mister Stark is currently in Paris, France, Agent Wade, but he knows that you are to arrive soon." Jarvis responded, not missing a beat. Her chest began to tighten as the fear set in.
France? He wants me to go across the ocean? I mean, I know I've gone cross state before, but to someplace I've never been? What do I focus on? Tony?
She could feel her heart pounding in her ears, the fear of unknown territory sinking into her chest. What if Tony wasn't anywhere where she could find him? What would happen if she materialized in the middle of a crowd? What happens if she popped up in the middle of a wall or statue? What if she didn't make it at all? Would her atoms be lost in a void? Would she materialize in a random place? Would she end up staying in that place?
Loki doesn't want anything bad to happen to me. He knows I can do it, he believes in me. If he believes it, then I can.
"J-Jarvis? Where EXACTLY is Tony?"
"Master Stark has bought out Le Jules Verne Restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel tower."
"Can you display a picture?"
"Would you like it to be holographic, Agent Wade?"
"That would be a huge help, J, thanks. Do you need me to get to a clearer space in the room?"
"It may help you perceive more of the actual layout of the room, yes." Replied Jarvis, polite as always, as she shuffled over to the far center of the large room, mostly cleared for larger experiments, suit adjustments, and the secret dancing Tony (and sometimes Bruce) do during a particularly good song. Secret meaning they thought no one knew.
Checking the bouncing time on the computer screen saver told her that several hours had passed, making it around two in the afternoon at this point, shocking her at how much time had truly flown in her adventure.
The room was huge when projected, nearly the size of the lab itself, with nearly cramped together, large, circular tables spanning most of it. The projection showed and off color projection of an empty room, but Jessica wondered what the elegant room would look like when it was as it should be, bustling with waiters and people, the smell of food wafting through the air, the soft clancking of silver and glassware as the quiet hum of conversation kept the room lively, a soothing classical orchestral piece playing in the background.
The words she had thought to herself became a mantra as she allowed the world to fall away from around her. "If he believes it, then I can." Was whispered softly over and over, the sound of Dum-e's worried screeches fading away as she shut her eyes, trying to relax as much as possible as she was suddenly sucked from the Earth.
Jessica felt as though she was floating in a void, silent and cold besides her whispered words and the furnace-like warmth of her own body. There was no breeze, no humidity, no natural sound at all. Almost terrified to open her eyes now, she wrapped her arms around her stomach, crouching as much as one could when they could barely feel their own flesh. There was no up or down, no left or right, only direction in general if that at all as she tumbled through what felt like a gap in space and time, the void between dimensions.
And it went on for an agonizingly long period of time, nearly driving her mad. It felt like minutes before there was a pressure against her right arm and going down that side.
Soon, sensation began to flood back into her, as if she was being reborn into the world after visiting the horrifying place of her mother's womb, but even as she longed to be set free, she wanted to go back.
Sensations, feeling, hearing, smelling, they were all overwhelming her as if she was extremely hung over, attacking her as if she had done them wrong. Every small sound thundered through her ears as if the whispers around her were full blown shouts, every scent scratched her nostrils as if they were too dry, and willed the skin to bleed. Her skin was numb, pins and needles slowly fading from her arms and legs, but they still pricked at her in horrible, stinging attacks.
The scorching of her eyes came after she opened them, when finally distinguishing a voice from the dark. "Jessica, baby, it's time to wake up." Pepper murmured, as a mother to her child as she gently slid the younger woman's head onto her lap.
It took several minutes for her body to return to normal, and a few more than that before sitting up was less than a burden and the strong, calloused hand of an engineer picked her up from the floor and placed her in a chair.
Tony Stark sat across from her, a strictly white button down, a black bowtie adorning his throat and letting the blue of the ARK reactor shine freely between the lapels of his perfectly pressed white blazer. His pants and shoes matched the black and white theme, but those were covered by the chair and table.
Pepper, across from him, wore a blue satin dress, similar to the one he had "bought her for her birthday" the year he had become Iron man. Though, the fabric was a deeper shade, and the neckline a little less modest than the dress she had seen hanging in the back of Pepper's closet when searching for something to borrow for their ladies night.
The two of them accented each other perfectly, more than just appearances, but their personalities and their attitudes as well. The two could be described as soul mates during the good and the bad, the perfect balance to each other to make them both better. The two of them could be one.
"Wow, Jess, you look like you just went through hell. Here, he told me to make sure you drink fluids and relax for a few moments before we send you on your merry little way again." Tony paddled off, handing her a glass of water which she took eagerly, draining it quicker than would truly be polite, Pepper placed a gentle hand on her arm as she chuckled.
"Jessica, you haven't survived this long to choke on a glass of water. Slow down, sweetheart." The elder woman soothed as she nearly breathed the water down the wrong pipe, setting the cup down gently and coughing a bit as they both watched her to nod that she was okay.
Gasping she murmured, "You've been in on the whole thing, haven't you?"
The man with a "cast iron heart" laughed as he checked a Rolex that adorned his wrist. "My dear, Scooby-Doo, I was the one who helped him perfect and plan it. What time was it when you left?"
"What? It was just past 2:00, why?"
He chuckled and looked at Pepper's matching puzzled face. "No wonder you're exhausted. You've been traveling for an hour!" He held his hands up when the women looked as though their shock and fury would explode at him. "Loki warned me about it. It was around 8:00 here when she left, its 9:26 now. The process apparently gets faster and less painful as she practices. He told me it was perfectly safe and that she will be fine once she rests a minute."
Pepper glared at Tony who slowly began to explain to her the logic he had in trusting the God, reiterating to her the fact that he saved her life a few days prior and how it would make no sense for him to want to hurt her now.
It was then that Jessica noticed the vase on the white cotton tablecloth. Instead of roses it was decorated with tulips. She pointed curiously at them, still finding her voice, and the CEO calmed a bit, barking out a gentle laugh. "I think I'll go crazy if I see another rose from his hands!"
Tony froze in the process of taking something off of the seat next to him. "In my defense," he began, the way his girlfriend's eyes narrowed made it obvious that it was something he said often, and it was usually followed by something condemning. "I'm only the middle man. This is actually from Loki to our Darling Jessica. Isn't it?" He said to her, pointedly, as he handed her a red rose with a longer note attached with green ribbon.
Her response of "Where's my bucket?!" Puzzled them both. The shock of being separated from it threw her voice back into place as she frantically searched under the table and around herself for it. "He left me this cute little silver bucket to-"
"Hold the flowers in, I know, I helped him plan." Stark responded calmly as he stood, wandering over to the spot she popped up on the floor and knelt down to grab something from under the table. "When you said you didn't have it, it suddenly became the only thing I saw past your shoulder." He stood and walked over, handing her the bucket, all flowers intact, though the bucket had a small dent from re-entry.
Pepper awed as the young agent took it and held it close to herself, placing it on her lap before beginning to read the message. "What does it say?" She asked, and so the apprentice began to read aloud.
Red rose- Passion & Love
Passion is my lips upon your skin
Passion is the heat I feel within
This clue is bound to take you far
Simply follow that yonder star.
There is a place where my name is still revered
Though the old ways have nearly all disappeared
Grundarfjördur is this township's name,
I'll prove how nothing can extinguish our love or its flame
"Okay, I didn't think he'd be completely freaking cheesy-" He was interrupted by his girlfriend's pointed stare as she saw Jessica smile widely and bite her lip in happiness.
"Jessi, I'm so happy that he brings you so much joy." She murmured, forgetting any preconceptions for the moment to congratulate her with honest sincerity.
The younger woman nodded, a honey-glow blush on her cheeks as she tried to find the words to say. "Thanks, Tony, for helping him plan this. So far, this is the best Valentine 's Day I've ever had. And, I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say that."
Tony took a breath to say something before he paused and gave a soft smile, like a father smiling at his daughter, or an older brother to his younger sister. "You're welcome, Jess. You deserve happiness just as much as the rest of us." He said softly, his brown eyes twinkling kindly in the light of the restaurant. "Alright, now go, you have another hour of travel to get through." He murmured eyeing the soft happiness his girlfriend was sending his way out of the corner of his eye.
