A/N: In relation to yesterday, this was a response to auchen's 'make 'em laugh' challenge.
Never say things couldn't get any worse, especially if Tony Stark is involved.
Because when Tony Stark is involved, things can always get worse.
You could be stranded on a desert island with no food, no fresh water, and a swarm of hungry cannibals closing in on you with a swarm of man-eating sharks keeping you from swimming away, and if Tony Stark is around, it could still get worse from there.
This is why Loki was hesitant from the start when it was suggested that him and Jane join Stark and his lover on a romantic outing.
Well, that and because Loki hates the man, and he's pretty sure the man hates him right back. It's kind of hard to bounce back from one throwing the other out a window once. Not that they can't try.
Loki wishes even more that he'd been able to talk Jane out of it when they meet Stark and Ms. Potts at Stark's venue of choice: an establishment that sells nothing but doughy rings the mortal call 'bagels'. They are entirely unappetizing, and Loki hasn't the faintest idea why they had to travel all the way back to the place of his failed invasion at seven in the morning to get them.
"Because these are bagels we're talking about," Stark had explained when an exhausted and somewhat incoherent Jane had asked him. "If we're going to get bagels, we have to go to New York."
"Why don't we just not get bagels?"
Stark looked as if Jane had just suggested they eat babies instead.
So they went for bagels, Stark flying with his lady from their home across the country, and Loki simply transporting himself and Jane to the tiny bagel shop on the tiny land known as 'Long Island.' Apparently, it was fairly close to Manhattan, which might've explained the old woman who screamed at the sight of him, then keeled over clutching her heart. Or the two small children who attempted to attack Loki with bizarre multi-colored guns that shot water instead of something useful for battle.
Stark and Potts arrive when Loki is thoroughly drenched and scowling like an angry cat. Stark hands the kids a wad of cash each and sends them off.
"Alright, I am hungry for some sesame!"
Stark claps his hands and walks to the cashier with Potts at his side.
"Morning, Jane," she says, walking past them. "Morning, uh…"
She seems at a loss before Loki, which makes sense as he's been spending the last few minutes determining how he can set everything and everyone in this room baring Jane on fire and make it look like an accident. In the end, she just nods and walks on by. Smart move.
Stark winds up ordering for the four of them. Ms. Potts gets a wheat bagel with some low fat cream cheese. Jane gets an everything bagel, because now that she's not tired anymore, she's absolutely famished. Stark buys twenty five sesame bagels for himself, because according to him, nobody makes sesame bagels like Big Rico's. Loki has no idea what the fool is talking about and doesn't care. He procures a bagel that is bare of toppings and lets it sit on his plate untouched for fifteen minutes, while Jane wolfs down hers, Potts takes dainty bites, and Stark catalogs his bagels for future meals. He has only two out to eat right now.
"Hey, come on, Rockstar," Stark says a while later, when he's coming back from making a second huge purchase of the cheap rings of dough. "You need to eat. Keep your strength up!"
He slides a plate of already cut and buttered bagel pieces in front of him. Loki would much rather eat blishsnipe eggs boiled in dirt than so much as touch anything Stark gives him. He is about to say as much when Jane's small hand comes to run along his shoulder.
"Give it a try, Loki. It's good." she says.
She has this doe-eyed look that makes Loki soft, loathed as he is to admit it. This is what he gets for falling in love with a mortal woman. He shouldn't known when he first made his plans to lure Jane Foster away from his stupid brother that he'd be leaving himself vulnerable.
Preparing himself for the worst, Loki takes a big bite out of the bagel slice… and it's even worse than he expected.
He starts to cough as the salty taste registers, overtaking his senses and activating his gag reflex. Later on, he'll be ashamed by his show of weakness in front of the herd of mortals, but the fact remains that even on Asgard, he never cared for salty foods. How Stark could've known that and prepared accordingly is a mystery for the ages.
Probably just dumb luck.
"What's wrong, buddy?" Stark asks, grinning. "Don't you like it?"
If looks could kill, Tony Stark would not just be dead. He'd be in the ground cold with worms eating his body as a horde of aliens invade and zap the planet into oblivion, leaving not even dust behind to float aimlessly through the recesses of space. Loki's rage destroys worlds is what it means.
Or today, it just makes Stark choke and gag when he takes a bite of his sesame bagel, and finds the whole thing rather suddenly tastes like a block of salt.
"What's wrong, Stark?" Loki wears an evil smirk that puts Tony's to shame and then some. "Do you not like it?"
"Faga! Flala!" Stark tries to voice his threats, but his throat appears to be closing up. Perhaps Loki should've turned it into Midgardian based salt instead of Asgardian based. It might've been a little easier on the poor little man.
While Potts hovers over him with a glass of ice water (that won't help) and Jane glares at Loki over his shoulder (he doesn't care), a very large and sweaty man in a white apron storms out with a shotgun in hand.
"Alright! Who's the chucklehead who just bought my secret sesame bagel recipe from the cashier?"
Said cashier is trying very discreetly to sneak out the door by crawling on his belly like a snake. Sad for him that he's in plain view of both the gunman and the other patrons, and he gets the paper hat shot off his head for his troubles.
"Anybody?"
Loki thinks he would be best served taking Jane and going. Leave Stark to his pitiful fate. Still, Jane would likely attempt to bar him from her bed for a night should he let the man she inexplicably calls 'friend' die. That would be most inconvenient.
With a quick spell, he pulls the hard salt out of Stark's gullet, allowing him to breath again and focus up.
"Hey!" the large man cocks his gun and aims it at Stark. "You that Iron guy?"
Stark coughs to dislodge another few mouthfuls of dough as Potts helps him sit up.
"What's it to you?"
"I hate you Iron guys!" the large man shouts. "You're crazy flying and science stuff is ruining the whole goddamn country! I'm sick of it!"
Loki thinks he detects a hint of alcohol on the man's breath, which would explain a lot. Stark may not have a strong enough nose to catch it, but he's at least aware enough of what an idiot this man is from his words and actions alone.
"Oh yeah?" he says. "Is that before or after I save the country from certain doom on a regular basis?"
Those are clearly too many big words for the gunman, who answers with a few buckshots to the window right over Stark's head. Glass rains down on their heads, but Loki brings forth a shield to keep them from reaching Jane, and is nice enough to cover Ms. Potts as well. The shards bounce off a quarter of an inch above her head.
Meanwhile, Stark is not taking kindly to being shot at. Not at all. He has pulled the robotic arm piece of his suit of armor out from nowhere, and blasts a hole in the gun toting store owner's wall, right over the board labeled "Employee of the Month," which bore only a picture of that cashier before Stark disintegrated it.
"Alright, that's it! Crazy Iron guy!"
The gunman continues shooting until he rims out of bullets. Stark has only just gotten started, but by now, the rest of the patrons have fled the scene, sirens are going off as blue police cars screech to a halt in front of the store, and a few helicopters with SHIELD insignia are flying overhead, no doubt called in by that one agent who follows Loki and Jane around everywhere and reports to Fury if he is misbehaving. (That agent will be spending the rest of the week as a slug for this.)
It also appears to be raining now. Things just keep improving by second.
With the gunman unconscious and the brunt of the carnage now apparent to Stark, he drops the weaponized glove, glances back at his stupefied girlfriend and 'friends,' with a thousand authority figures either behind them or crashing down through the roof, and shrugs.
"Anyone up for pizza?"