Tony broke off in mid-sentence, and frowned down at the fox curled up beside him, chin resting on his leg and eyes closed in sleep. He'd been rubbing it gently behind the ears for a while, he realized. "How long...?" he asked, looking questioningly at Bruce.
Bruce gave him a thoroughly amused look. "Over half an hour ago. It's very sweet."
Tony flushed. "Yeah, well. Guess I'm just so used to him being around like this..."
Bruce's smile widened. "We should probably take a break anyway," was all he said, before rising to his feet, stooping down to pick up the cushion he'd been sitting on and tossing it towards one of the couches. "Or stop for the night entirely."
"I suppose," Tony agreed, and slid his hands under Loki, lifting him up to cradle him against his chest as he rose to his feet, Loki waking enough to squirm around and rest his forepaws and chin on Tony's shoulder, nosing into his hair before settling again.
As Tony carried him toward the elevator, Jarvis spoke up. "Pardon me, Sir... Ms Potts is asking if now is a good time for her to come upstairs and speak with you."
"Sure, I'll meet her in the penthouse," Tony agreed, as he stepped on board and was whisked upwards to his own apartment. They needed drinks, he decided, and walked over to the bar, carefully shifting his hold on Loki to support his hindquarters with one hand, freeing the other to take down glasses and get a bottle of a nice white wine out of the cooler. Pepper walked into the room as he was frowning at the bottle, a corkscrew held in one hand. He smiled warmly at her and held it up, then gestured with it at the bottle. "Think you can do this bit? I only have one hand free which is not enough for operating this contraption."
"So I see," Pepper said, sounding amused, and took the corkscrew from him, pulling the bottle closer to herself and setting about applying one to the other, though her attention was focused more on Loki than on her task. She had a faint smile on her lips, which Tony figured had to be a good sign. He lifted his eyebrows at her, self-conscious and amused to feel so, and absently ran his hand down Loki's back, which made the fox shift its weight a little, wet nose rooting around in his hair for a moment before he stilled again. It was, he realized, the first time Loki had ever really slept as an animal around him, without being forced into human form by the binding spell. He smirked, briefly imagining Pepper's reaction if Loki was to change into his usual long and lanky (and naked) form right now.
Pepper's smile widened, her freckled nose wrinkling adorably for a moment before she looked away and down to pay attention to what she was doing while she poured both of them a glass of wine. She handed one glass to him, then carried the bottle and her own glass over to the seating area, setting them down on the coffee table as she sat down and kicked off her heels. Tony lowered himself carefully to sit beside her.
"So," she said, and studied Loki intently for a moment before looking Tony in the eyes. "You and Loki?"
She'd always been good at reading him. "Yeah," he admitted. "Problem?"
"Not for me," she said firmly, and settled back against the cushions, sipping thoughtfully at her wine. "If it gets out, possibly for SI. How long?"
"We were dancing around it for a few weeks, I guess. Actually doing anything about it... anything more than a kiss, in the few minutes he was human anyway... a couple of days."
"Ah. After the flight," she said firmly.
He felt his eyebrows twitch upward in surprise. "Yes."
She smiled slowly, one corner of her mouth slightly higher than the other. "I do remember what sort of mood a good flight could put you in. I've seen the You-Tube videos; that flight looked particularly... exhilarating."
He knew he was flushing, and found himself grinning back at her. "Yeah, more than a little. Given everything that's going on... I don't know if it will last. If it will be allowed to last, when Thor might show up ready to drag him back to prison on Asgard at any time. But I'll take what I can get, for as long as I can get it."
Her smile changed slightly, becoming softer and somehow fonder. "You never pick the easy ones, do you?"
"Why Ms Potts... are you saying you were difficult?" he asked in mock-surprise.
"I think we both were," she said. "You're... you, and the man I was in love with was a subset of you. It took me too long to realize that I couldn't just pick and choose the bits of you I wanted and..." She broke off, and shrugged. "I wasn't strong enough to take on all of you. Maybe he is."
She sipped at her wine for a moment, eyeing him thoughtfully, then smiled mischievously. "So... is Darcy aware that she's your beard?"
Tony laughed hard enough to startle Loki awake, the fox pushing off of him and making a moderately spectacular leap to land on the coffee table, crouched down and staring wide-eyed at them, his ears laid back and tail fluffed out.
"Sorry, Loki... Pepper surprised me," Tony apologized, and held out one hand toward him. "Come back?"
Loki straightened up, and looked back and forth between them, then leaped gracefully back to the couch, sitting down with his tail wrapped neatly around his feet in the space between them, looking interestedly up at Pepper, head tilting slightly to one side.
Pepper looked back calmly, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth for a moment before she laughed as well. "You're being unbelievably adorable right now and I can only think it's on purpose, a way to disarm me and make me underestimate you," she told him sternly.
He grinned, changing from fox back to his human shape as he did so, balancing in a crouch on the balls of his feet between the two of them. Dressed at least, Tony was relieved to see; faded blue jeans and a plain black tshirt, just tight enough to show off the lean muscles underneath, though he'd left his feet bare. "Was it working?" Loki asked, head tilted to one side in much the same pose the fox had taken.
"Only briefly," Pepper told him, seeming not in the least surprised or distressed by his shape-changing.
Tony snorted, and hooked a finger through one of the belt loops of Loki's jeans, tugging him backwards into his lap. Loki made a startled sound as he overbalanced, then gave Tony a mildly exasperated look, before plucking the wine glass out of his other hand. He sniffed it before sipping from it, a look of pleasure lighting his face, then cradled the glass in both hands in a manner that made it very clear that he had no intention of returning it.
"That's my drink," Tony pointed out as Loki sipped from it.
"It's mine now. This is good. Is there more?" he asked, looking towards the bottle.
Pepper smiled and leaned forward to pick it up, topping up both their glasses. "Excellent," Loki said, then leaned sideways, against Tony's chest. "What were we talking about?"
Pepper exchanged a look with Tony that made it clear to him that she was well-aware that Loki was still putting on an act, as much as he'd been while in fox form.
"Pepper was asking a potentially rude question about Darcy," Tony told him, then looked at Pepper. "And to answer it, yes and no, and Loki can fill that role himself if needed"
"Yes and no?" Pepper asked, eyebrows raising slightly. "Do please explain how it's both; I'm all ears."
"She's already my unofficial special event arm-candy and paparazzi camera-bait, not to mention my honorary kid sister, and is delighted with all the roles. She also knows about Loki being here and is more than smart enough to figure out who Nari must be, and I wouldn't put it past her to jump to the correct conclusion about the nature of our relationship. Which reminds me, Jarvis, wasn't I supposed to call her and Jane some time this weekend and invite them over again this week?"
"You were, Sir, though Ms Lewis already called while you were in the lab this afternoon, and left a rather emphatically worded message that she and Dr Foster would be dropping by tomorrow evening. It was shortly after the first news reports related to the press conference were broadcast, so I believe it likely that their reason for visiting is not as originally planned."
Tony grinned. "Emphatically worded... was creative swearing involved?"
"It may have been."
"Save that message, I'll probably want to listen to it later, see if I can pick up any good new expletives."
"Of course, Sir."
Pepper was smiling. "It will be nice to see Darcy again. And to finally meet Dr Foster – I've heard so much about her."
"I like Darcy," Loki said sleepily.
Tony smiled at him. "Enjoyed our girl's night in, did you?"
"She talked to me. She didn't just treat me like the form I was wearing. And she made you smile a lot," he added then held his already-emptied glass out in Pepper's direction. She topped it up again, earning a murmured thanks.
"Ow, watch it with the elbow," Tony said, shifting around a little. "You know, given how many inches you have on me, having you sitting in my lap is not the most comfortable of positions."
"You're the one who put me here," Loki reminded him. "But we can be more comfortable," he said, handing the wine glass back to Tony, then changed back into the fox again, curling up in Tony's lap.
Tony laughed, and ran his free hand down Loki's back, then turned his attention back to Pepper. "So how long are you staying for?"
"A week, most likely; as well as wanting to be on-site in case of any PR emergencies – any further PR emergencies – related to Loki being here, I also have a small mountain of SI paperwork to finish wading through downstairs. Plus there's some site visits I should make while I'm on this coast; I need to keep on top of what's going on in the New Jersey and Virginia campuses."
"What is going on, anything I should be aware of?"
"Not really, the New Jersey facility is just finishing work on prototypes of hardened versions of several of our electronic offerings, for the military market – don't make that face, just because we don't make weapons any more doesn't mean they're not still a valuable customer – Rhodey put in a lot of hard work to convince the top brass that it was better to take what they could get from us rather than cut us out of military bidding entirely. There'll be a private showing of the prototypes once they've passed inspection by our own quality assurance people, and I want to make sure everything goes smoothly."
"If they'd cut off their nose to spite their face they'd have been pretty much limited to Hammer crap and that new line from OsCorp, which is only slightly better, so it can't have been that hard a sell."
"You're forgetting these are the same top brass that hired Hammer to make his own version of the suit, and have yet to retire General Ross. If we do get the electronics contract it will be worth close to a billion dollars over the next five years."
"Point. Okay, so, they're idiots but you want to make nice with them anyway because they have deep pockets. And in Virginia?"
"In Virginia I think we may have a few too many managers who've been promoted to their level of incompetence. On top of which my chief internal auditor tells me he can't find anything concrete, but he doesn't like the feel of their books, so the suspicion is that there's someone there taking advantage of conditions created by the former point. He and Happy are there right now looking into things, and I plan to swing by once they've had some time to do some digging."
"I am so glad that's not something I have to deal with myself. Making you CEO was one of the best decisions I ever made, despite the condition I was in when I made it."
Pepper smiled. "I won't argue. Unlike you, I love this job."
"And you're awesome at it."
Her smile widened. "And I'm awesome at it," she agreed.
They talked for a little longer about SI-related things. It felt good, the two of them just sitting and drinking wine together and talking, almost like old times, though without the messy personal life stuff intruding. Loki was content to just stay in Tony's lap and be petted for quite some time, then eventually jumped down and vanished into the kitchen. When he returned a little while later, he was in human form again, and eating a bowl of ice cream.
"God, look at the time... I really should be going," Pepper said. "Loki, Steve has offered to take Nari to a museum tomorrow afternoon. Do you know if you prefer modern art or old masters?"
"Old masters, I think," Loki said. "I like realism in art more than paint spatters and preserved animals encased in plastic."
"Ouch. Not a fan of Damien Hirst?"
Loki shrugged. "I tripped over photographs of some of his work online. He may be trying to say something interesting about death and our perception of it, but I mislike his choice of medium. It sells, but I believe it may well be a case of his works being a Veblen good."
Pepper focused an interested expression on Loki. Tony blinked. "A Veb-what?" he asked.
Pepper smiled and answered, though her attention was still on Loki. "A Veblen good – it's a term for an item whose price is based on perception of worth, not any actual value. It's like if we produced a StarkPhone and a slightly differently packaged StarkPhone Plus and charged several times as much for the Starkphone Plus despite the contents inside the cases being identical, and people then went out and bought the Plus version in droves just so they could say they had it. It's not actually worth more, but because it's highly priced people have the perception of it being worth more. Drop the price difference to a more reasonable range and people wouldn't bother, they'd just get the regular version since it does all the same things."
"Oh... conspicuous consumption bragging rights. Like Hammer and that fancy car he drives. Car's a piece of crap but he brags about how much it cost him all the freakin' time."
"Exactly," Pepper said, finally looking back at Tony.
"So what Loki is saying is that these artworks by Hirst are only valued because of the size of the price tag attached to them?"
"Pretty much," she said, looking faintly amused.
"Wait... didn't my collection have some pieces by Hirst?"
"Yes it did, until you gave them all away," she said sternly, then turned back to Loki. "I'll let Steve know that you're more likely to enjoy a trip to the Metropolitan Museum than to MOMA. Good-night, boys," she added as she rose to her feet, bending down to kiss Tony's cheek and nodding to Loki as she left.
"Did I offend her?" Loki asked as he dropped down to take the seat she'd just abandoned.
"Maybe. She used to be the curator for the Stark Industries collection of modern art, which she was rather attached to before I gave it all away. Though I don't think the Hirst pieces were among her favourites, so maybe not? I don't know."
Loki nodded. "I will find some way to apologize, if needed," he said, and ate another spoonful of his ice cream, licking it from the spoon in a very suggestive manner, and looking at Tony while somehow maintaining a completely bland expression on his face.
"Fuck."
Loki grinned. "I'd like to," he said, and put aside the almost-empty bowl. "Bed?"
"Unless you'd rather be fucked through the couch, sure."
Loki paused, looking thoughtful. "Living room another time, perhaps. Right now I'd prefer an actual bed. We can negotiate as to which of us is actually getting fucked into it."
"Ready, Steve?" Natasha asked.
"Yeah, I think so. How do I look? I'm not too Grandpa or hipster, am I?" he asked dryly, both being things Tony had accused him of more than once.
Natasha smiled warmly at him. "The skinny jeans and chucks are a little hipster, but you look fine."
"I'll take your word for it," he said, smiling back at her, then slid his StarkPhone out of his pocket and checked the time. "We'd better get a move on, Loki should be ready by now."
"Nari and Tony are on their way downstairs., Captain."
"Thank you, Jarvis," Steve said, then gestured in the direction of the elevators. "After you."
Tony and Nari were waiting in the private lobby at the ground floor of the tower, standing close together and both slightly flushed. Natasha assumed they had just finished a parting kiss, and hid a smile at how transparent the affection between the pair was. Even when Loki was still in animal form it had been obvious to her that there was a bond forming between the pair, demonstrated in the gentle way Tony talked to and handled Loki, and the way Loki preferred to stay at his side whenever possible. She had worried about it at first, until it became clear to her that whatever was going on was good for Tony; among other things his care for Loki had led to him both sleeping and eating on a somewhat more regular basis, and cutting back on how frequently he drank.
"You'll all be careful, right?" Tony said, sounding just slightly anxious.
Steve smiled. "Don't worry, Tony, it's just a trip to the museum, Natasha and I will take good care of Nari."
"Yeah, I know," he said, and turned to look at Nari again, reaching out to touch his fingertips to her arm, his other hand shoved deep into one pocket, his tension obvious. "You have the phone I gave you?"
"Yes, Tony," Nari said, in the put-upon tone of voice of one who has already given the same assurance multiple times.
"Okay...well... have fun kids," Tony said, and walked over to the elevator as if to go back upstairs, though he stood by it, watching them, rather than boarding.
Steve smiled at Nari and Natasha, clearly a little nervous himself. Natasha exchanged a look with Nari, then marched over to the door leading out into the public lobby, Nari walking almost in step with her and Steve following on their heels. As was to be expected after the announcements of the preceding two days, there was a small cluster of reporters and photographers lingering outside the tower, who caught sight of them as soon as they emerged into the glassed-in main lobby, and were crowding close, shouting questions and taking photos, even before they emerged from the doors of the building.
Steve moved forward to field the questions, holding up his hands for quiet. "As mentioned during yesterday's press conference, Ms Nari is planning to see more of our city while she's here. Ms Romanov and I are escorting her to see one of the city's great cultural institutions today."
"Where are you going?" a reporter at the back of the group called out.
"In the interests of not disrupting things at the location in question, I prefer not to say," Steve said firmly. "Now, if you don't mind, our car is here..." he gestured to where one of Stark's cars was pulling up to the curb. The paparazzi grumbled a little, but parted to let them get to the car and go, cameras busy taking pictures of the three of them as Steve handed her and Nari into the back before getting into the front passenger seat himself.
They could have just as easily have left from the garage under the building, but the bit of street theatre of them visibly departing was part of the whole purpose of the day. A part that Natasha disliked, having yet to become used to being a more public person than she'd been prior to joining the Avengers. Having her face so well-known was unnerving in many ways, not least because she had old enemies who might well recognize her despite superficial changes she'd made over the years to things like her hair style and colour.
Their time at the museum proved to be a nicely relaxing afternoon, the three of them strolling through the galleries together, sometimes stopping in front of a painting or sculpture for some time before moving on. Steve always liked to get right up close to the paintings when he could to look at things like the brushwork, and how some guy hundreds of years ago had taken three colours of paint and five brushstrokes to make a gem that seemed almost real from anything beyond a couple of paces away.
Nari stayed mostly silent, but stood for minutes at a time in front of some of the pieces they saw, studying them just as intently as Steve did. She even sat on a bench for a long time near one of Van Gogh's Cypress paintings, expression curiously blank. Natasha eventually moved to sit down by her. "Do you like his work?"
Nari bit her lower lip for a moment. "He seems a troubled man," she said. "But the colours and forms..." she broke off, and lifted one hand, tracing a swirling shape in mid-air with her fingertips, then shrugged, and didn't say anything further, just rising to her feet and continuing on through the gallery.
Apart from the Van Gogh's, the other thing Nari seemed to find of considerable interest was when they were passing through some of the galleries of arms and armour. She largely ignored things like the sets of plate mail and horse armour, or antique firearms, but seemed charmed by some of the edged weapons on display, and spent most of an hour lingering in the gallery of Islamic arms and armour, making appreciative noises over the finely damascened blades, ornately etched helms and so forth.
"I feel like we could spend days here without seeing it all," Nari said when Steve and Natasha eventually insisted that it was time to begin making their way toward an exit.
"You could," Steve agreed. "Their collections are bigger than can be properly displayed at any one time, so a lot of items rotate in and out of storage; some of them are also too fragile for regular public display. And they're always acquiring new pieces."
"Did you enjoy yourself?" Natasha asked.
"Actually, yes, very much," Nari said, smiling briefly at the pair of them. "Among other things, it's very nice to be allowed outside of the tower again. I have spent longer contained in far worse places, but even the most pleasant location does wear on one after a while."
Steve smiled crookedly. "Yeah, it does," he agreed. "What say we stop somewhere and eat out instead of heading straight back?"
"I could eat," Natasha agreed.
Nari looked surprised, even hesitant for a moment, then shrugged and smiled agreeably. "As could I."
They end up in a basement-level bar on a nearby side-street, a place aiming for an English pub feel that Steve said reminded him only somewhat of the real thing. The food was at least reasonably good for bar food, and Steve being Steve they ordered quite a lot of it, Nari and Natasha sampling from the various plates and baskets while Steve methodically ate his way through things.
Natasha noticed that Nari, like herself, was actually putting away a considerable amount of food even while seeming only to snack. In Natasha's case the culprit was the weakened version of the super soldier serum that the Red Room had treated her with in her childhood, which in addition to some of the benefits of speed, strength and improved healing it had given Steve had also given her a number of the drawbacks, such as an increased metabolism that required a high daily caloric intake. Not to the scale in which his did, and thankfully her metabolism wasn't as hyper-efficient as his was at dealing with drugs, so things like painkillers were still effective on her – granted requiring higher doses – but it still meant she'd long since mastered the art of only appearing to eat lightly.
She supposed it made sense that Loki – or Nari – would also have a considerable appetite, when she thought of how much Thor could pack away at a single meal, though Nari didn't seem to be eating even half of what Thor would. On the other hand Thor had considerably more body mass than Loki, and Loki was a different species... but when he was shape-changed he didn't appear to eat more than what seemed a reasonable amount for the creature he looked like. She made note of it as something interesting to mention to Phil or Bruce.
"You know, I find myself wondering," Nari said quietly, "Wasn't the point of my being allowed out so that the public would see me among them doing innocuous things? Apart from when we set out, there have been no paparazzi around; how then does today's outing contribute to that?"
"Easily; there were a number of people who recognized us at the museum and took photos or videos that they'll be posting online," Natasha explained. "As well as two people here so far who've done the same."
Steve nodded. "And I checked in with Jarvis when we stopped here; he'll be anonymously tipping off some of the paparazzi, so expect cameras and possibly even a reporter or two to be waiting around outside when we leave."
Nari smiled thinly. "A properly devious method," she said, then started slightly when music started playing nearby; an 'Iron Man' ring-tone, Natasha noted, and wasn't surprised when Nari drew a StarkPhone from her pocket, carefully thumbing it on. "Yes, Tony? No, we're fine, we merely stopped to eat. I don't know, you would have to ask that of the others," she said, then rolled her eyes. "No, Tony. We will be on our way back soon enough. No. No. Good-bye." She held her phone out towards Natasha. "Please send a picture of me to him to prove that we are eating, not in dire straits somewhere."
Natasha snorted, but took the phone and quickly snapped a picture of Nari sitting leaning back in her chair with arms folded and a displeased frown on her face, several of the baskets and plates visible on the table in front of her, then forwarded it to Tony's number before handing the phone back.
They finished eating, Steve paying for their meal with his card while Natasha called for their driver to bring the car back and pick them up. As promised, there was a handful of paparazzi lurking outside the bar. Nari answered questions briefly, saying that they'd been to the museum and she'd enjoyed the exposure to some of earth's art and cultures very much, and was looking forward to future outings. Steve very firmly refused to answer any questions about possible future destinations, by which time the car had arrived to pick them up again. This time they entered the tower via the parking garage, rather than facing cameras a third time.
As soon as they were safely in the private elevator headed for the Avenger's floors, Loki changed back to his male form, and made a face. "As interesting as much of that was, I am glad it is over for the day," he said. "Jarvis, where is Tony?"
"Mr Stark is in his lab. Would you like to be let off on that floor?"
"Yes, please," he said, then looked at Steve and Natasha as the elevator began to slow. "Thank you for this afternoon. It was far more enjoyable than I'd anticipated."
"You're welcome," Steve replied. "I always enjoy trips to the museums and art galleries; perhaps we can go again some time."
Loki nodded, and stepped off the elevator. As soon as the doors had closed behind him, Steve's shoulders dropped slightly, the almost rigid posture he'd had most of the afternoon fading away. "That went better than I'd thought it might," he admitted.
"You thought Loki might make a break for it? Or act out in some way?"
"I didn't think it was likely, given that he could have just left as soon as the spell broke, but... it was still a concern," Steve agreed, then looked at her enquiringly. "Join me for the evening?"
"I should go report to Phil first," she said. "Afterwards?"
"Sure."
See you then," she said, rising on tip-toe to kiss his cheek as they stopped at his floor.
He grinned, taking her hand and squeezing it lightly as he bent down to kiss her in return. "I'll be waiting."
"Down please, Jarvis," she said when the doors closed again.
"Of course, Ms Romanov," the AI said, directing the elevator to Coulson's floor.
