Chapter 13 - Bring Tourism Back to Midtown
AN: I feel like I should warn you guys this chapter and the next one contains—I wouldn't even call them "spoilers," really, but maybe a couple of "teasers" for Netflix's Daredevil? (Which is several years old now anyway.) Just a couple hints about a supporting character's past, no major plot points for the show or anything. This story is already set in an alternate timeline, so if you haven't seen the show, there's really no way for you to know what I've made up and what's cannon anyway ;P
"Hey, where is everybody this morning?" asked Samson. It had to be after noon by now, but he sounded like he had just woken up.
"SHIELD training exercise," said Tony, without looking up from his tablet.
"I don't suppose they took Loki with them?" asked Samson. "I wanted to make sure she was okay after last night, but she's not in her room."
"That's because she's missing."
"What do you mean, missing?"
"I mean she doesn't seem to be in the tower, and we have no idea where she is."
"And you're sure the others didn't take her?" This time, he didn't seem to be joking.
Bruce looked up from his own tablet and shook his head. "A helicopter picked them up this morning, and I watched them leave, so no, as far as I can tell they haven't gone back on their promise not to hand her over to SHIELD. Also, JARVIS is—"
"DAIsy, DaiSY—" JARVIS interrupted. Tony groaned.
"Sorry," said Bruce. "We should have thought to wake you up so you could help. Tony's been trying to get JARVIS fixed, so that he can help find Loki. I've spent all morning contacting all the hospitals and homeless shelters within a fifty mile radius, and now I'm looking at Facebook to try to find any mentions of a girl matching Loki's description—"
"All stuff JARVIS could do in like ten minutes," Tony interjected.
"Anyway, we figured that if she left last night, she could be anywhere by now, so there wouldn't be much point to just walking around looking for her."
"But she might not have gone that far," said Samson. "Especially if she wants us to find her."
"Why would she leave the tower at all if she wanted us to find her?" asked Tony. "Why go to all the trouble to hack JARVIS and sneak out in twenty-seven degree weather?"
Samson shrugged. "To see if someone would look for her? Even if she ran away with the intention of disappearing, she might have realized it was a mistake by now."
She'd better not just be testing them. But then, it wasn't like he'd never done something like that when he was a kid. He'd run off more than once, actually. It was always Jarvis or Ana who found him—hold on, how had they always known where to find him?
Come to think of it, maybe he'd never made it that difficult. He'd go back to the same places; sometimes, he'd just be sitting around waiting for someone to come get him. Sometimes, he'd call the house, and then not say anything when someone picked up—
"Earlier, I got one of those silent calls," said Bruce. "It was probably just an automated sales call or something, but I thought it might be her for some reason. She doesn't even have my phone number, so I'm sure I was just grasping at straws. But Leonard might have a point, she could just be sitting at a bus stop down the street. Maybe we should at least go look around the neighborhood."
"I'm almost done with JARVIS," said Tony. "Then we'll have a better idea where to look."
"Where's Frigga?" asked Samson. "Does she even know that Loki's missing?"
"Yeah, funny thing about that. One of the first things I did when I realized Loki was missing was check my credit cards to make sure she hadn't borrowed any of them. And there was this charge from a travel agency—like, an actual travel agency and not one of those websites, because apparently those still exist.
"And I almost freaked out, because I thought the kid had taken my Amex Black card and flown half-way across the world. Then I realized that the charge was from Thursday, so I called the agency and talked to the woman that had booked the trip." He'd had to borrow Bruce's phone, since he still hadn't gotten his replaced, with everything else that had been going on. "She remembered a tall blonde woman, forties-ish—at first I was thinking Pepper, but then the woman says, 'She had the most charming British accent.'
"Anyway, you know where she went? New Orleans. She booked a first-class plane ticket and a suite in the Windsor Court Hotel. How she managed to book a suite in the French Quarter the week before Mardi Gras, I don't know—I might have to start using that travel agency."
"Hold on, Frigga stole one of your credit cards and went to New Orleans?" asked Samson.
"She didn't steal it, so much as I let her use it. I mean, thought she was just using it to buy herself some clothes that didn't look like they came out of the Ren Fairs 'R Us catalog, but I guess I did say 'get whatever you need.' Obviously, the woman needed a vacation. Maybe she'll bring us back some beignets. At least someone is having a good time."
Tony really couldn't blame the woman for wanting to have a little fun. Frigga was newly separated from her husband, and she was a total MILF—damn, Thor would kill him if he knew Tony had just thought that, and if he knew what a MILF was. Scratch that, Loki had been messing around on the Internet, either she already knew or she could Google it. Then she'd throw him out the window again. He had better be careful not to let that particular thought come out of his mouth in the presence of any Asgardians.
"Have you tried calling the hotel?"
How scattered did Samson think he was? Of course he had called the hotel. "She wasn't in her room, so I left a message with the front desk."
Tony looked up from his tablet long enough to see Samson run a hand through his hair. "You know, come to think of it, I think I might know why Frigga went to New Orleans. I don't think she went for Mardi Gras. Frigga asked me if I knew of any place where people still practiced magic—"
"And you told her that New Orleans was a magical place?" Tony guessed.
"Actually, I told her that I had a colleague in New Orleans who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the psychology of zombification and possible applications for psychosomatic medicine."
"Zombification?" asked Bruce.
"I know how it sounds, but I've read it, I think there might be something to it. Voodoo ritual isn't really magic, it's religious practice, but there have been well documented cases of—"
Tony tuned out their shop talk as he finally found the lines of code that had been making JARVIS sing. He commented them out. "And that should do it. JARVIS, you good?"
"Yes, Sir, I'm feeling much better. Sir, I think there is something you ought to know."
"JARVIS?"
"Please take a look at this, if you will."
An image popped up on Tony's tablet screen, in front of the shell window—the selfie he'd taken with that guard outside the Asgardian palace. "How is that possible, J? Where did you get that?"
"It was uploaded to cloud storage shortly after your return from Asgard."
"But that's impossible, unless—damn it, J. Are you saying Loki's had my phone this entire time?"
"Yes, Sir."
"And there's no way you couldn't have known about it, but you didn't tell me."
"I thought I ought to tell you now, because I believe Miss Loki may have the phone with her, and you may be able to use it to track her—"
"J, you are in so much trouble."
"Are you going to send me to my room, Sir?"
"If I could, I would. But since that's impossible, you and I are going over your source files later with a fine-toothed comb, to see if we can figure out why you can hide things from me now—although I have a feeling this might be your big sister's influence."
"If you are referring to Miss Loki, I am certain she would be my little sister. Though you may be right about her influence. Reviewing my source code might be wise."
Bruce's phone started ringing again. Bruce took his phone out of his pocket and blinked at the screen. "Uh, Tony—you aren't going to believe this, but your phone is calling me."
"Answer it then—put it on speaker phone!"
"How do I put it on speaker phone?"
Tony grabbed the phone from him and did it himself.
"Is this Mister Banner?" The voice on the other end of the line sounded too young to be Loki, and besides, Loki had never called Bruce "Mister."
"Who is this, and why do you have my phone?" Tony demanded.
"Mister Stark? Oh my God. My name is Peter Parker, and I'm your biggest fan, and I've got your cell phone because this weird homeless girl gave it to me and made me trade t-shirts with her."
"When and where was this?"
"About half an hour ago, in Union Allied-Bryant Park."
"That's only a few blocks away," said Bruce. "One of us should go look, she might still be there."
"I don't think she's there anymore," said Peter."I'm pretty sure she was already gone when our bus left."
"Where are you now?" Tony asked.
"Me?" the boy squeaked."I'm on a school trip. Right now we're at the natural history museum."
"Cool. I'm coming to get my phone," Tony said. "I'll meet you in the gift shop."
The boy made a squealing noise, and when he spoke, it was to his friends."Tony Stark is coming here to get his phone!"
"You should ask for a reward," said a girl.
"What? I can't do that—"
"He's a billionaire, idiot."
"MJ, I'm not going to blackmail Iron Man. Besides, my aunt would kill me—"
"Gift shop in ten," said Tony, rolling his eyes. He hung up.
/\/\ᴼᴼ¬ᴼᴼ/\/\ + [Fe²⁶]
"What's taking him so long to get here?" Nate complained. "Didn't he say he'd be here in ten minutes?"
"If he's coming from Avenger's tower, Google Maps says it's a forty-five minute walk," said MJ. "It's supposed to take less than fifteen minutes to drive, but that doesn't seem right to me. I mean, the traffic around here doesn't even move most of the time."
"Uh, MJ—" said Peter.
MJ looked in the direction Peter was looking in. Iron Man, in full armor, was walking into the gift shop of the AMNH. Perhaps more surprisingly, there wasn't a crowd following him. As he approached them, his face plate popped up. "You Peter?" he asked.
Peter nodded and handed Iron Man his phone, handling it with two hands like it was made out of blown glass.
"Thanks kid. Now give me your phone."
"What?"
"Your phone—gimme," said Tony Stark, making a "grabby hand" motion with his still gauntleted hand. "You do have a phone, right? I was under the impression that four-year-olds had phones these days."
Peter took his own phone out of his pocket and handed it over. "I'm twelve," he said.
"Good to know," said Tony Stark. "JARVIS, transfer my number into the kid's contacts," he said, holding the phones next to one another. A few moments later, the man handed Peter's phone back. "There. Now you have my cell number."
"YOU GAVE ME YOUR PERSONAL CELL NUMBER?"
"Hey, inside voice," the man said. "Yes, I gave you my personal number, which you could have had already if you'd thought to look in the settings of the phone you just gave back to me. Do not give it to anyone else, got it? I'm trusting you. Now listen—you see the weird homeless girl that traded shirts with you again, you call me. Capisce?"
"Of course, Mister Stark," said Peter, with a look of determination that told MJ he was going to actively go looking for the girl (and probably get them all into trouble), which was not at all what the man had asked him to do.
"Alright, fantastic," said Stark. He turned to leave.
Peter, Ned, and even Flash just stared at Peter's phone, like it was the holy grail or something. MJ took the opportunity to follow Iron Man outside.
"Hey," MJ said.
The guy turned around and looked at her. "Yeah?"
"I know who that girl you're looking for is," she said.
"Yeah?" he said again, arching an eyebrow.
MJ came closer, so they wouldn't be overheard. (She was still amazed that the guy was walking around in his full Iron Man suit without being mobbed.) "That was Loki, wasn't it?" said MJ. "Thor's brother, who I guess can also be his sister. That makes sense, because in Norse mythology, Loki is a shapeshifter."
"She tell you who she was?"
"No, but it was pretty easy to figure out. She tried to tell us her name was Luke Skywalker. In Norse mythology, Skywalker is one of Loki's appellations. That's where George Lucas got the name from. I'm kind of surprised Peter didn't catch on, since he's such a big nerd. Of course, he was probably too busy nerding out over you."
"Let's say you're right. You going to tell anyone?"
"Nope," said MJ. "I'm sure you've got your reasons for letting the leader of the Chitauri invasion live with you, even though Thor was supposed to have taken her back to Asgard. So I won't tell anyone—for the right price, anyway."
"Whoa, hold on. You're seriously going to blackmail me?"
"Yep."
The man sighed. "What do you want, a Porsche?"
"What would I do with a Porsche? I'm twelve."
"Money, then?"
MJ shook her head. "Nope. I want to meet the Black Widow."
"You want to meet Natasha—that's all? And here I was thinking you were the type that was above all the 'superhero worship' stuff."
MJ shrugged. "I am. But Natasha seems cool, so I want to meet her. How come there aren't any other women in the Avengers? You're all white, too."
"Bruce is green sometimes," the man argued, then threw his hands up in the air. "Okay, I get it, alright? I'm sorry there isn't anyone you can identify with. I wasn't in charge of recruitment. But to be fair, given that I'm on the team, I'm pretty sure Director Fury—who is both black and a proud monocular American, by the way—was just scrounging around for whoever was dumb enough to go up against aliens."
"I was just making an observation," MJ told him.
The man rolled his eyes. "You want to meet Nat, come by the tower sometime. MJ, right? I'll let JARVIS know to let you up." He turned, and as he walked away, he gave her a little wave without turning back around. "You're welcome, by the way, for saving you and your friends from getting blown up by either space invaders or our own government."
"I knew the government was in on it!" called MJ, as she watched him take off.
MJ + /\/\ᴼᴼԓᴼᴼ/\/\
As Loki passed by a busy restaurant, the sign over which proclaimed it "McDuckson's," he was hit with a heavy smell of cheese, grease, and salt. The sandwich he had eaten earlier hadn't been enough to satisfy him, but he still didn't have any money to purchase food. (He should have asked that kid for money in exchange for Tony's phone. What had he been thinking, trading it away for a t-shirt, when that cell phone had been the one thing he had on him that was worth anything?)
Loki decided to go in anyway, where at least it would be warm. He was afraid that he would be asked to leave if he wasn't ordering food, but then he realized that the workers behind the counter were too busy to notice him.
He watched mortals placing orders at the counter and paying for them—most scanned their plastic cards through the little machines in front of the registers, but a few exchanged paper money and coins with the cashiers. The people then stood around waiting, and when their number was called, they picked up trays of food, which they carried to the seating area, or they carried their food out in paper sacks.
Loki watched long enough to see a woman pay for her order, then walk to the back of the restaurant, where the restrooms were.
Feeling inspired, Loki followed the woman into the restroom, and watched her enter one of the stalls. He grabbed a bunch of paper towels that were sitting on the sink. Then he went into the other stall and stuffed them into the toilet bowl, along with a considerable amount of toilet paper for good measure.
Loki flushed the toilet twice and ran for it. ("Oh my God," he heard the woman cry, as the door to the restroom shut behind him. Humans were always invoking the divine in the oddest situations.)
While the unlucky woman dealt with the fallout of Loki's bathroom flood, he picked up her to-go order for her. The fast-food workers either didn't notice that the wrong person had picked up the order, or they didn't particularly care.
Loki ate his hard-earned double duckburger and fries as he walked down 6th Avenue, the unique combination of fat, sugar, and salt unlike anything he had ever tasted before, but he was still hungry after eating them.
He stopped inside a gift shop, pretending to look at t-shirts and stuffed bears. While the shop clerk was busy with an actual customer, he filled the pockets of his hoodie with the bulk candy that lined the back wall, then turned around and walked out.
Petty crimeshad always been beneath him, but this wouldn't be the first time he had been forced to compromise her standards, nor was it likely be the last time.
He turned down another street and ended up in some sort of plaza where tourists milled about taking photographs and watching the people ice skating in the lower plaza. Loki sat and watched the ice skaters while he ate the candies from his pockets, which were shaped like colorful little fish. They tasted somewhat of fruit, but mostly of sugar, and left him feeling hungrier than before.
Loki walked around until he came to a plaque, this one dense with text inscribed in capital letters. (Mortals certainly had a fondness for plaques, thought Loki.) It began with:
"I BELIEVE IN THE SUPREME WORTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND IN HIS RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE"
It went on to make a lot of other statements, all of which began with "I BELIEVE." Loki read some of them:
"…THAT GOVERNMENT IS THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE AND NOT THEIR MASTER"
"…THAT CHARACTER—NOT WEALTH OR POWER OR POSITION—IS OF SUPREME WORTH"
"…THAT LOVE IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD; THAT IT ALONE CAN OVERCOME HATE; THAT RIGHT CAN AND WILL TRIUMPH OVER MIGHT"
The bottom of the plaque indicated that these were the words of John D. Rockefeller—whoever that was. A mortal, presumably, with a lot of foolish mortal beliefs.
As Loki wandered away from the plaza, he wondered what he believed in anymore, if anything. He had once believed in the might of the All-Father, which conferred his right to rule over the nine. He had believed that those at the bottom existed to serve those at the top. "Worth" and "love" were those things conferred by the All-Father, and when those things had been denied him, he had been left with only his hate to sustain him.
But now? Loki wasn't sure what he believed in, but Odin could take a long walk off a short cliff for all he cared.
ヾ( •́д•̀ ;)ﾉ-omg
Loki needed to find a place to get out of the cold again. At first, he thought he would have to sneak into the mortal's Museum of Modern Art, but as it turned out, museum admission was currently free to all visitors every second Saturday of the month courtesy of the Maria Stark Foundation's "Bring Tourism Back to Midtown" campaign.
Asgardian art had never interested Loki much. Art in Asgard was either decorative or commemorative, and the style of it had not changed in his lifetime (or in Odin's, for that matter). Palace frescoes and murals featured the royal family or important battles. Statues stood to the heroes of those battles. The only pieces not of the royal family, or battles, or heroes had been commissioned by Odin's predecessor. When Frigga had married Odin, she had not wanted them on display in her sitting room, so they had been consigned to a corner of one of the palace's vaults.
Loki wondered if Frigga knew that he and Thor had snuck down to see them. He could still remember how red Thor's face had turned when Loki had pulled back the cloth covering one of his grandfather Bor's statues, revealing the figure of a woman with an ample bosom and wide hips. She crawled forward on her hands and knees, presumably searching for something she had dropped on the floor, perhaps her clothing.
Nudes seemed to be a theme in Midgardian art as well, but there didn't seem to be anything overtly sexual about Matisse's women—they all seemed rather blasé about being nude, if anything. He stood staring at the one of the naked women dancing in a circle,wondering why anyone would want to dance in a circle naked unless one happened to be an artist's model who had been compelled to do so.
Loki also admired Rousseau's use of light and color to bring to life the luscious jungle scene of The Dream. The way the lions and the elephant were staring at the reclining nude in the foreground of the painting seemed kind of pervy, though.
Food also seemed to be a theme in Midgardian art. Loki could not imagine the All-Father would think much of paintings of such mundane subjects as Cézanne's apples and oranges. But he supposed that was the point. Such a thing stretched the idea of what art was, and like Loki himself, humans were always pushing at the boundaries of things.
Still, he could only attribute thirty-two cans of soup, each screen printed on a separate canvas, to someone having had a serious case of the munchies.
Loki barely had time to make it through a single floor of the museum before it closed and he was forced out into the cold again.
A shiver passed through him and he walked a bit faster. Moving quickly seemed to help, which made sense given what Loki knew about the circulation systems of lower lifeforms.
Perhaps he could find some restaurant where he could eat slowly over several hours. Not only would he get out of the cold air for a while, the server might forget he was there before they got to the portion of the evening where he would be expected to pay. He could dine to his heart's content, and then he could dash off before the check came.
Loki congratulated himself for having come up with such a brilliant plan. After leaving the museum, he had continued in the direction of the setting Midgardian sun. Looking around, there were plenty of restaurants, and most of them were packed. In a way, that made Loki glad, because it must have meant that the city was well on its way to "bringing tourism back" after the Chitauri, but he needed to find a place that wasn't too busy, so that there would be no pressure on the server to hurry him along and free up the table for more patrons.
After walking a good distance then turning down a side street, he looked in the window of one establishment and found it fairly empty, which hopefully wasn't too much of a referendum on the food served within. Still, there were a couple of people inside using portable computers, and a few young people with large books spread out on the checkered tablecloths in front of them. Students, he realized, studying over cups of that same dark bitter beverage that the residents of the tower were addicted to, and which he had discovered he did not care for.
A neon sign in the window read "Open 24 Hours." If he played things right, he could stay there until morning. At least in the morning, it might be a bit warmer.
Another sign inside the restaurant indicated that he should seat himself, so Loki chose a booth in the corner, and a young woman with braided blonde hair bounced over to the table. "Hey there—my name's Karen, and I'm going to take care of you this evening. You know what you want to drink, sweetie?"
"Perhaps something warm that isn't bitter?" Loki asked.
"Not a coffee drinker, huh? Ever had chai tea?"
Loki blinked up at the woman in confusion. "Chai" and "tea" were the same word in two different languages, which rendered the phrase "chai tea" a little redundant.
"It's Indian tea with spices, milk, and sugar," the server explained. "It's really good."
Loki smiled at her politely. "I shall try that then."
Karen beamed back at him. "Okay, be right back. Menu's on the table if you want to order some food."
While the woman retrieved her tea, Loki looked over the two-sided sheet of stiff paper. The food offered consisted mostly of sandwiches, salads, soups, and breakfast foods. Breakfast served 24 hours, the menu read.
Loki's empty stomach rumbled, but he wasn't used to having so much choice when it came to what he ate. Meals in the great hall were whatever the All-Father desired, or whatever Thor desired, and usually consisted of roast slab of something, along with bread, cheese, and fruit. Picnics in Mother's garden had included food that was daintier, a bit more varied, and more often included things Loki found enjoyable, but the menu was still limited and had not changed in the past thousand years.
"Know what you'd like to eat?" Karen asked, placing an oversized mug full of light brown, creamy liquid in front of him. The smell of unfamiliar spices mixed with hot milk washed over Loki, and he knew right away that taking the waitress's recommendation had been the right choice.
"What do you think I should order?" Loki asked, thinking that he could trust the young woman's palate.
"Well, that depends on whether you want dinner, breakfast, or dessert."
"Dessert," Loki decided. As much as he also enjoyed their breakfast meats, mortals did sweets better than anyone else in the nine realms. And on his own, who was there to tell him not to skip right to dessert?
"Let's see—our cheesecake is good, but it's not the best in New York or anything. The apple pie, however, is excellent."
"Then that is what I shall have," Loki told her, giving her a small, gracious nod.
It only took a couple of minutes for Karen to come back with a large wedge of pie at least four inches tall and topped with cream. After placing it in front of him, instead of leaving, the woman sat down across from him in the booth. This was likely something of a violation of the customer-server relationship, but Loki didn't mind the company. (Also, he was still planning on running out on the bill, so who was he to complain?) "So, are you in the city on vaycay, or do you live here now?"
"Vaycay?" Loki asked. He was neither familiar with that word from his own studies of the English language, nor could his All-Speak make sense of it.
"Vacation? Sorry, you just kind of seem like an out of towner, and then there's the accent."
Loki had not been aware he had an accent, but it must have been obvious. "Where do I sound like I'm from?" he asked. She would think it a fun little guessing game, of course, but it would be useful for him to know.
"Well, you sort of sound like you're from the UK—actually, don't take this the wrong way, but you kind of sound like you came out of a Shakespeare play. Not that that's a bad thing. I love Shakespeare in the Park."
So not only did he sound like he was from another country, he sounded like he was from another century. Damn. That was going to make him stand out. "You're right, I'm from the UK," he told the woman.
"Let me guess, you trained as a Shakespearean actor back home, and now you've come to see if you can make it in New York."
"My but you are good at guessing, my dear." Why bother to come up with his own back story if this woman was going to come up with one for him?
"Well, we're pretty close to the theater district, so we get a lot of aspiring actors in here. Hey, you know anyone here yet, or you on your own?"
"I'm alone," Loki said, and was hit by the realization that it was not a lie. For the first time in his life, he was utterly and completely alone.
"You do have a place to stay, though, right?" asked Karen. "You didn't just get here."
"Um—" Loki wasn't sure what to say to that.
Karen shrugged. "That's alright. You're not even the first one to come in here and just keep ordering drinks just to have a place to stay the first night you're here. You need to find a place to stay ASAP, though, because the management kind of frowns on it if you do it two nights in a row."
"And how would one go about finding a place to stay?" asked Loki.
"Wow, you really didn't come here with a plan, did you?" Karen asked, her eyebrows lifting in surprise. "You do have enough money for at least a security deposit though, right?"
Loki nearly choked on a piece of apple pie.
Karen's mouth made an "o." Then she started giggling. "Seriously? Like, you don't have any money? You weren't actually going to dine and dash, were you?"
Loki's face warmed as he realized that his idea of dining and then dashing might not have been as brilliant as he supposed.
Karen waved him off. "Don't worry about it, sweetie, I'll take care of it. And when I get off my shift, you can come home with me. I've got a couch you can sleep on that'll be a lot more comfortable than this booth."
"Just like that, you're going to give me a place to stay?"
Karen just shrugged. "To tell the truth, I didn't come here with much either. It was pretty hard for a while."
"But you don't know me," Loki protested. "What if I'm a murderer or something?" Which he was, whether or not he had wanted to kill anyone.
Karen shrugged again. "You don't look much like a murderer. Besides, for all you know, I'm a murderer too." And though the woman had probably meant him to take it as a joke, Loki wondered who she had murdered.
Not that he was too worried. Karen seemed like a sweet person, someone who was too kind for their own good. If she had killed, it had likely been an accident, or else her victim had deserved death, and in her book, killing the deserving was perfectly acceptable behavior.
"You don't even know my name," Loki pointed out.
"You're right, I don't," said Karen. "So what do I call you?"
"Luke Skywalker."
Karen's eyebrows arched upward, and Loki wondered if she already regretted her decision to take him in. "Okay, well—nice to meet you, Luke. I'm Karen Page, and I've got to get back to work. I should be getting off in a couple hours. I'll bring you some more chai in a little while, okay?"
"Thank you," said Loki, and for once, he meant it. Midgardians certainly were strange creatures. Loki wondered if he had just gotten lucky, or if there were many of them who would help a stranger just because they needed help.
╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭
Author's Note:
The chemical symbol for Iron is Fe, not Fn. After I upload this chapter, I'm planning to go fix it in the previous chapter ^_^;;
Hopefully this chapter won't be riddled with grammatical errors. I downloaded some free text-to-speech software to help with proof-reading. It doesn't matter how many times I reread my own writing, or if I read it out loud myself, my eyes just scan right over obvious errors, or they get corrected on the way to my brain. Of course, if I look at the chapter after it's posted, THEN I'll start seeing them. I seem to have the most trouble with keeping Loki's POV pronouns consistent, maybe because Loki's gender identity at this point is actually "Schrödinger's cat" (i.e. something that exists simultaneously in two states until the state is observed).
So how well do you think my new proof-reading process worked?