Chapter 11 - Sokovian Food

AN: According to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki, Sokovia is supposed to be located between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, so I've made Sokovian food/language a combination of Czech and Slovac foods/words.

"I thought you were giving that up."

Tony started upward, the whiskey glass in his hand slipping through his fingers. "What the hell? How are you already back?"

"The others took a cargo plane out of Sokovia," Thor told him. "It was not large enough for all of us, so I returned on my own."

Tony doubted that the plane hadn't been large enough so much as Thor had taken one look at the small plane and bailed. JARVIS had already shown him the security footage from the jet on its way to Sokovia. "But how did you get here so fast?"

"I had Heimdall use the Bifrost to bring me back to Asgard, and then send me back here."

"If you could do that, why didn't you take the others with you?"

Thor shrugged. "It is just as well that I have arrived before them. I have something to speak with you about."

Tony sat up, then leaned down to pick his empty glass off the whiskey-soaked carpet. "JARVIS, get Dum-E to clean this up."

"Sir, don't you think it would be a better idea to clean it up yourself? Even if Dum-E doesn't get stuck on the elevator again—"

"Alright, never mind. In all this time, why haven't I invented a robot that's capable of doing housework without destroying the house?"

"You did invent one but were unable to execute the design. Like many of your ideas, the Ultra-Light Tidiness Remediating Optoelectronic Neurocomputer was before it's time."

Tony would have to take another look into that project when he had time; if he could create an army of flying suits of armor, cleanliness in their time shouldn't be impossible. "So, what is it you need to talk with me about, Point Break?"

Thor sat down in the chair across from him and leaned in towards him. "How serious are you about adopting my younger sibling?"

Funny Thor should ask, because he'd been thinking a lot about his relationship with Loki since earlier in the day, when he'd told the Wonder Twins the kid was his. "Adopting? Loki is my kid. They're snarky, reckless, and have great fashion sense when they aren't slouching around the tower in surplus Avengers merchandise. They're kind of a dick sometimes, if I'm honest—if I didn't know they were technically a thousand years older than me, I would get a paternity test to make sure I wasn't present at their conception."

"It is good you should say that, for it seems my mother had more than one reason for marrying Victor Von Doom. In marrying him, she has broken the geas that prevented her from telling Loki they were adopted, and from telling me that I was the child of Odin and another woman."

Tony wasn't entirely sure how to respond to Thor's casual revelation that Frigga wasn't his birth mom. "Wow, I've got so many questions about that. Like, what does this have to do with me adopting Loki? And were these Canadian geese or Asgardian geese that kept her from talking?"

Thor squinted at him. "Are you making a 'dad joke?'"

"Uh, no. Tony Stark does not make dad jokes." At least Thor had gotten better at recognizing word play. (Wait, had he just made a dad joke? Sure, Loki was his kid, but that didn't make Tony a dad.)

"You must take this seriously," Thor told him. "Mother believes that Loki may still be under the influence of Odin's magic, even if he does not know it. That is why you must make the adoption 'official' somehow. Not necessarily legal, but the universe must be informed of your intent to have Loki as yours."

"How do I do that? Is there some kind of Asgardian adoption ceremony?"

"Not that I know of. If an Asgardian takes in another's child, they tend not to speak of it. I suspect one of my friends was adopted, but I am not certain which one." Tony opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Thor didn't give him a chance. "Mother seemed to think it most important that you prove to Loki's subconscious that he is yours."

And yet she hadn't given them any clues as to how he was supposed to do that. "I already faked a birth certificate that says Loki's mine. That wasn't enough?"

"Honestly, I've no idea. I'm not even sure how we would know whether or not your efforts have been 'enough.'"

Fantastic; whoever designed magic obviously hadn't understood the importance of feedback to the user experience. "Can't we just make sure the kid doesn't go anywhere near All-Daddy Odin?"

Thor shook his head. "I fear that if Odin decided he wanted Loki back, he would have no trouble taking him from you. Then he could make Loki forget you and the rest of his 'chosen family' existed."

"Could he, or would Loki just have to act like we didn't exist? He didn't make everyone in Asgard forget that Loki was adopted and that you're his mistress's kid, did he?"

"I'm not entirely clear on that point. Frigga did not forget, but she is a powerful witch herself. I am not certain of the extent of my father's powers over the rest of his subjects, including Loki."

"But Loki's powerful too, right?"

"My younger sibling may be something of a prodigy, but Father is widely considered the most powerful magic user in the nine realms."

"But if Odin could do something like that and he would, why wouldn't he have already done it?" Thor didn't answer, but from the look he gave him, Tony could take a guess. "He hasn't done it because so far, he hasn't decided he wants Loki back bad enough to do that. But he could always change his mind. You know, I didn't think it was possible for me to hate your dad more, Point Break, but it was."

Thor stood, clapping him on the shoulder. "I shall go up to my room to rest before the others arrive. I trust you'll figure something out. You are a genius, are you not?"

中_(;￣▽￣) _(￣□￣;)ﾉ︵口

The stores on 5th Avenue had already started decorating for the holidays, but no one in their Uber was in a holiday spirit, other than their driver, who had just scored three Avenger's autographs on the back of a 7-Eleven receipt as an early Christmas present for her kids.

"I don't understand why we had to fly all the way to Stockholm and wait around in the airport there before we could fly back."

If Natasha had been sitting next to a door and not squashed between Loki and Bruce, she might have opened it, tucked, and rolled. All Loki had done for the last thirteen hours was complain. "It's called a layover. We're lucky we even managed to get a flight out of Sokovia."

"What it is called is inefficiency. We should have just gone back to Latveria and had Mother open another portal."

"No one wanted to trek back over the mountains again. I know you're getting cranky because you haven't eaten, but we're almost back to the tower."

"I am not cranky," insisted Loki, "and are you insinuating that I can't go fifteen minutes without—"

"I think we're all getting a little cranky," Bruce interrupted. He didn't open his eyes as he leaned against his window, hair and glasses askew. "We could probably all use something to eat and some sleep."

"I'm texting Tony to let him know we're close." After Natasha hit "send," she got a response almost immediately. "Tony says that Thor's already there, he's already ordered dinner, and that we have guests. He didn't say who, though. Hey Clint, you doing alright?"

Clint, who sat in the front passenger seat, didn't answer her. She wasn't sure if he had fallen asleep or if he had taken out his hearing aids. If he had, she couldn't blame him for it.

(Ծ‸Ծ ;;)(;;¬_¬)(ɵ-Θ|

Leonard had to stop himself from running up to Bruce and throwing his arms around him. Tony still didn't know about their relationship, even though everyone else had likely figured it out by now. "Sorry none of us could come to pick you guys up at the airport."

Bruce hadn't looked at him since he and the others had gotten off the elevator, and Leonard wondered if something was wrong, or if Bruce was just worried about Tony noticing that they were more than friends. Then he realized that Bruce hadn't looked at him because he was scanning the room, as if looking for a threat. "Tony told us we had guests, but he didn't say who."

Was that what Bruce was worried about? "It's alright, Bruce. It's just the kids that stole Tony's jet."

That got him to look at him. "Why would he bring home the people that stole his jet?"

"They're just kids, Bruce. I mean, Wanda says she wants to kill Tony, but I don't think she would. She's just a confused, scared young girl that doesn't know what she wants."

Bruce lowered his voice. "You didn't see what they did to Clint."

A moment later, a pair of arms were thrown around his middle; not Bruce's, but those of a tired looking Loki. "Leonard, Natasha is being mean to me, and Bruce is letting her."

Leonard looked questioningly at Bruce.

"We're all just tired," Bruce explained. "Loki, after you eat, I want you to go to bed."

Loki gripped Leonard tighter, as if Bruce might grab him and drag him off to bed right then. "I don't want to go to bed yet."

"You can eat and say hello to Tony and Pepper first, but then you need to sleep. Besides, remember I said you were going to be grounded when you got home? That starts now."

"That isn't fair." Loki snuggled into Leonard's chest. As much as he'd tried to keep a professional distance between them—Loki needed him to be his therapist more than she needed another parent—he had learned by now that when the kid was in barnacle mode, he might as well forget it. "Leonard, tell Bruce that isn't fair, when I was the only one who remembered how to use a phone booth."

Again, Leonard looked at Bruce.

"It's a long story, but the short version of it is that Natasha told Loki not to provoke Victor Von Doom on purpose and she did. One of the many reasons we're so tired is that Loki, Thor, and I spent the night before last sleeping on the floor, in a cell in Castle Doom's dungeon."

"Oh my God, Bruce—are you all okay? Also, what is that smell?" Leonard bent down and got a good whiff of Loki's hair, which smelled a little like a barnyard.

"We're fine. Just tired, like I said. I'll tell you the whole story later. And I'm pretty sure the smell is goat."

Ψ・ｴ・Ψ

"Miss Wanda, Master Pietro, Sir has asked me to inform you that dinner has arrived."

"Yes—food!" Pietro sat up, pulling at Wanda's arm. "Wanda, there is already more food."

"I don't want any more salty American food." Wanda wrinkled her nose and laid there like a sack of potatoes, refusing to allow Pietro to pull her up.

"Sir instructed me to find a Sokovian restaurant capable of delivering to the tower, in the hope that the food might agree with you better."

"Sokovian food? I was hoping there would be pizza," complained Pietro. But food was food, and he wasn't going to let Wanda's apathetic mood get in between him and food. Ever since he had come into his powers, he had been hungry all the time; he had heard the Hydra scientists say it was because of his increased metabolism.

Even though he knew she would be angry with him, he picked his sister up and slung her over his shoulder. Before she could protest, they were back in the Avengers' living room. Wanda shrieked at him and pounding his back with her fists. "Kretén, you can't just pick me up and move me without asking! I am not your doll!"

"Ooh, she said a bad word," sang the voice of an angel. "She should have to put a dollar in the swear jar." Pietro looked in the direction of the voice, and there she was: the girl from the photos Stark had shown them. She wore jeans and a white t-shirt with Iron Man's helmet on it. Her hair was a mess and there were dark circles under her eyes, but somehow those things only added to her allure.

Stark sat next to her on the couch. "Did she? Oh, right. I forgot you sprechen sie AllSpeak. You don't have the same problem with sarcasm that Thor does, so sometimes I forget."

Pietro dumped Wanda onto the floor, and a moment later he stood in front of his raven haired beauty. "Are you a humanitarian airdrop? Because you must have fallen from heaven."

"My AllSpeak must be broken." Pietro hadn't understood the words, but he couldn't take his eyes off the mouth that had spoken them. He had heard the English phrase "begging to be kissed" before but hadn't truly understood what it meant until that moment.

"Your AllSpeak isn't broken, he's just speaking gibberish," said Stark. He reached out and snapped his fingers in front of Pietro's face. "Yoo-hoo; you there, with the dumb pick-up line. Those never work. Not on anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together, anyway." He pointed in the direction of the kitchen that opened out onto the living room. "Food's in there, Casanova. But before you eat, remember how I said it would be a good idea to apologize to Clint?"

The man they had taken the plane from hovered between him and the kitchen, frozen as if he had spotted a ghost. Pietro still didn't think it necessary to apologize to him, since they had given him an opportunity to comply with their demands and he had chosen not to; but if he had to say he was sorry in order to eat dinner, he would. "My sister and I are sorry."

"Nah, it's cool. I love getting beat up and mind controlled by teenagers." His voice didn't match his words, however, nor did his scowl, which he turned on Stark. "Tony, why the hell are they here? Do you have to adopt every kid that tries to play with my brain?"

"No one said I was adopting them," said Stark. "But we can't just throw them out on the street when they don't have anywhere else to go."

"I thought you and I were past that, Clint," said his beautiful Lauren, reminding Pietro of her luminous presence.

Pietro felt torn in two. Hungry as he was, he couldn't take his eyes off her. But—food. Coming to a compromise with himself, he began walking to the kitchen while keeping his eyes trained on her, turning around to walk backwards the last several feet. Before he reached the kitchen, he walked into what felt like a brick wall. The person he had walked into grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around to face the table. "Eyes forward, soldier." Pietro barely registered the voice as belonging to Captain America, distracted by the dreamlike vision of a table laden with food.

Pietro grabbed a plate and piled it high with familiar foods like kurací paprikáš with spaetzle, kopytka, and veka bread, all from boxes marked "Chef Zemo's" in both English and Cyrillic letters. He had never seen so much food in his entire life, though he knew that he could eat half of it by himself. He took two forks, and went back to his sister, who sat on the floor where he'd left her, her knees hugged to to her chest as she stared at the carpet in front of her.

Pietro sat down next to her and held out one of the forks to her. "It smells good," he told her, speaking in Sokovian. "I don't think it is poisoned."

"I cannot imagine what American Sokovian food would be like," Wanda griped, also in Sokovian.

"According to online reviews, Miss Wanda, the food served by Chef Zemo's is reported to be authentic," said JARVIS, intruding on their conversation. "The owner is a Sokovian political refugee."

Wanda blinked up at the ceiling. "You speak Sokovian, JARVIS?"

"I took the liberty of downloading a Sokovian dictionary earlier, so that I might converse with you in your native language."

"That was considerate of you, JARVIS," said his Lauren, also in Sokovian. Pietro's heart skipped what must have been several beats.

Wanda narrowed her eyes at her. "How is it you can speak Sokovian?"

"I have always had a talent for languages." Lauren didn't speak like a native speaker of the language; she had some sort of accent that he couldn't place and the words she used seemed overly formal, but she didn't sound at all like she struggled to remember the right words or conjugate verbs in her head.

"Loki, do not lie to them," said the big man with blond hair who sat on Lauren's other side, surprising Pietro by also speaking in Sokovian. "You do not speak Sokovian, you are only conversing with them in AllSpeak."

"I did not lie, Brother. I do have a talent for languages. I never said I spoke theirs."

"Why does your brother call you Loki?" asked Pietro, switching back to English.

She glared at him, and Pietro basked in her attention. "Because it's my name."

"Oh, right," said Stark. "I told them your name was Lauren. You know, like what it says on your birth certificate? Guess it doesn't matter if they know your real name though, since they're going to be staying here."

Lauren, or Loki—a rose by any name, thought Pietro—turned her glare at the man. "You didn't tell them my supposed middle name, did you?"

"Nah. I know you hate that, Kiki."

"Kiki," Pietro repeated. Yes, he liked that. It had a good mouth feel.

"Don't call me that," Kiki snapped at Pietro. Having finished her own food, she grabbed a rogaliki from the plate in Stark's lap, stuffing it in her mouth. "I swear I'm really going to dislocate your other shoulder this time," she told him, her mouth still full of pastry.

"Loki," said a tired looking man with glasses and short, wavy brown hair that had begun to turn silver. He sat on the shorter couch across from them, next to the doctor they had met earlier. "If you're finished eating, I think you should go to bed."

"Tony," Kiki whined adorably.

"Seriously? You're going to ask me to get in the middle of whatever's going on with you and Bruce after you just threatened me again?"

"I wasn't serious, and it's your fault for calling me that awful name. Why has everyone started picking on me?"

"No one's picking on you," said the man who must have been Bruce. "It's just time for bed now. We spent this morning flying from Sokovia to Stockholm in the back of a cargo plane full of goats, then we had a nine-hour flight from Stockholm to New York in economy. I'm not sure which was worse, because even though the cargo plane smelled like goats and the goats bleated the entire time, at least I could move my legs. I know all I want to do right now is take a shower to wash off the goat smell and go to bed."

"I'm not tired, though. All the things that made you tired just spun me up. I may not be able to sleep for days."

"Sister, I too think you should get some rest, though you may want to bathe first." The stern look Kiki's brother had tried to give her softened. "If I'm honest, your smell makes me homesick. I wonder if anyone has thought to give Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder some grapes and apples for treats since I've been gone."

"I could give you something to help you sleep," offered Doctor Samson.

"So that's the way it's going to be now," Kiki pouted. "I'm to be drugged into submission every time I have feelings that are inconvenient for the rest of you."

"Loki, you know that isn't—"

Pietro heard a low, animalistic growl, and for a moment, he wondered if the Avengers had a dog. Then he realized that the others in the room had turned to stare at Bruce, who had been the source of the sound. When he realized they were staring at him, he stood, and without saying anything or looking back at anyone, he strode towards the door that led to the stairwell Captain America had let Pietro run up and down earlier when he had been feeling restless.

"The hell?" said Stark. "What's going on with Bruce?"

Doctor Samson got up. "I'll find out." When the others looked at him, he hesitated. "I mean, as staff psychiatrist, that's my job, even if Bruce doesn't normally see me professionally—or in any other capacity, obviously. You know what? I'm just going to go talk to him."

Once he was gone, Stark looked around to the others in the room. "Am I the only one that thought that was a little weird?" No one answered him, so he turned his attention towards the red-haired woman who had been sitting at the bar in between the kitchen and the living room, picking at her food with one hand because her other was in a bright pink cast. "What happened to your arm, by the way?"

"Bruce broke it," Kiki answered for her.

Stark's voice went up about an octave. "What?"

"Bruce did not break it, Hulk broke it," said Kiki's brother.

"Shit, Natasha." Instead of eating, the man Stark had made him apologize to earlier had been leaning against the bar next to her, nursing a can of beer. "When I asked, you told me you fell."

"Clint has to put a dollar in the swear jar," said Kiki.

"Hulk threw me into the air," Natasha clarified. "Then I fell. I still say that if anyone's at fault, it's gravity."

"Shit," said Tony. Kiki opened her mouth, but he cut her off. "I already put a hundred bucks in. I prepaid, so you know what? I'm going to say it a few more times. Shit, shit, shit. Somehow, I always knew something like this could happen, because let's face it, Big Green isn't the most careful guy in the world. And I figured that Bruce would freak out when it happened, and then everything would be shitty for a while after that. But Hulk didn't mean to hurt you, right?"

Natasha shrugged. "It's hard to know what's going on in Hulk's head, but I'm pretty sure it was an accident."

"Though Bruce had been annoyed with all of us," said Kiki's brother.

"Mostly with you. You were the one who felt it necessary to bring up the fact that I technically committed patricide in an argument." Pietro would have to look up a couple of the bigger English words Kiki had used later.

"Okay, I'm starting to see it," said Stark. "Bruce got protective of Loki, then Hulk got protective of Loki. You guys ought to know better than to poke baby bear when mama's around."

"I don't recall poking any bears," said Natasha, pushing the contents of her plate around with her fork.

Kiki stole another rogaliki from Stark's plate. "You made fun of me for letting Tony tuck me in."

"I wasn't making fun of you. And I thought you said he didn't tuck you in."

Stark tried to swat Kiki's hand away as she reached into his plate again, but with his own arm in a sling, he couldn't stop her from taking a cherry filled kolachy. "So, what I'm hearing is that the three of you started acting like little kids in the back of a car on a road trip, and you managed to piss off Daddy."

"Tony, whatever you do, do not put it that way to Bruce," Natasha warned him.

( •_•)👉 ʕ ㅇ ᴥ ㅇʔʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

"How come you've never told me any of this about your dad before?" asked Leonard, as he and Bruce sat on opposite ends of the couch in their suite. Bruce didn't seem to want to get too close to him, and he was trying to respect that. He had poured them each a glass of wine, although Bruce hadn't touched his. The scene made him think of the talk they'd had years before, late at night in the house he and Betty had shared.

"You're not my therapist."

"No, I'm your—boyfriend? That term always felt kind of juvenile, to be honest. The person you're dating? Except we've never been out on a date, unless you count movie night in the tower or when we go out and Tony invites himself to tag along, which I don't—"

"Significant other," suggested Bruce.

"I guess that would work." Something about the term felt ironically insignificant, but he couldn't think of anything better. "Anyway, the point is that you're supposed to tell me these things before you tell your therapist. We should go on a date, by the way."

"Not right now; I'm too tired. I just want to go to sleep. Just for tonight, maybe you should sleep in your own—"

"If I have to, I'll sleep on the couch, but I'm not letting you throw me out of our suite. Bruce, you need to try to stop ruminating on something you can't control."

"But that's the problem, I can't control it. I thought I could, but I can't, and next time I might end up hurting you."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take."

"You shouldn't be, Leonard!" Leonard was a little taken aback, but Bruce seemed even more shaken by the sharpness of his own voice, which he lowered. "I'm sorry, but that's the way my mother—"

"Breathe, okay? I'm not your mother, Bruce. If you hurt me intentionally, I wouldn't rationalize it away. But I know that if you did hurt me, it would be because you weren't the one in control. When you lose your temper, you don't just lose your temper, you completely disconnect from your core personality."

Leonard reached for him, but Bruce leapt up from the couch and started pacing the room. "I don't need you to explain my condition to me. And stop telling me to breathe all the time."

"Fine. I won't tell you to breathe." He knew that Bruce was just on edge, and that he would probably apologize later for snapping at him. "Didn't Doctor Sofen prescribe something for you to help with anxiety?"

"She did, but I never got it filled. It won't work anyway. Even when I'm not the other guy, my body metabolizes medications too quickly for them to have any effect. Horse tranquilizers don't have any effect on me."

"And you know this, because—"

Bruce stopped pacing. "Because I might have tried horse tranquilizers?"

At first, Leonard thought Bruce had made a joke, but he wasn't smiling. "Bruce, no. Please don't tell me that. Horse tranquilizers are not meant for human consumption."

"It was an experiment. And I'm not exactly—"

"Don't say you're not human. You're probably one of the most human people I know, if that makes sense. I want you to promise me right now that you won't experiment on yourself anymore. I would have thought you'd know better by now."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Now Bruce did give him a small, self-deprecating smile, but it didn't make Leonard feel better about his apparent lack of self-preservation instincts.

"I want you to take your medication. Just try it, okay? If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and then you can go back to Doctor Sofen and let her decide whether to up your dosage or try something different. You're a smart guy, Bruce, and you're a good doctor, but you're not a specialist in psychiatry. Don't you think it's possible that a specialist is going to come up with a solution that you wouldn't have thought of, because you lack the experience?"

"It's not about getting the combination of drugs right, Leonard. It's about the fact that drugs don't work on me, period. Evencocaine doesn't have an effect on me anymore."

"You tried cocaine too? Wait—anymore? Are you saying you used to do cocaine before the whole Hulk thing?" Betty used to talk about Bruce all the time, but she'd never mentioned him having a drug problem. "I guess that would explain why you thought exposing yourself to gamma radiation was a good idea."

Bruce took his glasses off and massaged the bridge of his nose. "No, Leonard, I wasn't on crack when I did that. I would love to say that was the case, but it was just a stupid decision that I made when I was completely sober because I was trying to impress my girlfriend's dad. All I meant was that even cocaine doesn't have an effect on me now."

"That's probably a good thing. You should know that one of the side effects of cocaine is an increased heart rate, so why? When? Was this recently, or—"

"It was years ago in Columbia, where it's more or less sort-of legal. I honestly can't tell you why; at the time I told myself it was an experiment, but maybe I was just on a self-destructive streak. Like I said, it didn't have any effect on me. Can you just not ask any more questions about that?"

"I won't ask any more questions about it for now." Maybe Bruce wasn't the type to abuse illicit substances, but the man obviously had few qualms about experimenting with them. "Come on, let's just go to bed. Then tomorrow morning we can sneak out of the tower for a Tony-free breakfast and get your prescription filled on the way back."

"So, our first date is going to be breakfast and waiting in line at the pharmacy?"

"It won't be the most unusual date I've ever been on."

"What was?"

"One time, I went on a blind date with this woman that couldn't stop talking about an old boyfriend who had disappeared from the face of the Earth a couple of years earlier. I guess the weirdest thing about it was that I kept seeing her after that. What about you?"

"Does participating in an LSD trial count as a date?"

...φ(ｰ￣*)

Author's Note:

I'm posting this later in the day than usual because this chapter needed a lot of rewriting. Writing a scene with eleven characters from the perspective of a character who doesn't know who everyone is or what they're talking about turned out to be a bit of a challenge.