Chapter 27 - Not Everyone is Meant to Be a Hero

AN: While it isn't strictly necessary to read "Eat Pray Loki Summer Special: TVA Beach Blanket Bingo" before this story, this chapter does reference it. I just couldn't resist bringing back Loki's older, even more messed up self. There shouldn't be any spoilers for the Loki TV series, though, because even my "other Loki," while based on the Loki from Loki, is an alternate version of that Loki (one who did some things differently at the end of the first season and ended up becoming co-director of the TVA).

The Tesseract wasn't the only thing that could affect a person's perception of the passage of time. By Tony's estimation, it had taken Sif approximately a week to get her ass from the lobby to the common room, and he could only hope her sour expression wasn't an indication that her visit with her brother had been a complete bust. "So, what did your brother say?"

Sif's scowl deepened. "That I need to learn to think before I act, and that I should not allow petty emotions to lead me into recklessness and dereliction of duty. Furthermore, I'm to apologize for drinking your liquor and submit myself to any penalties you deem appropriate. I was raised to respect the local laws and customs of any realms I visit, and by your realm's standards, someone of my relative age would normally be prohibited from imbibing alcohol."

"That really wasn't what I meant—sorry, how old are you?"

"Older than I am, but younger than Thor," Loki answered for her. "Perhaps nineteen in mortal years."

"You know, I should have gotten that from the whole, 'threw a party and drank all my alcohol while I was away' thing." To top it all off, she was now acting like a sulky teenager, but listening to apologies and "deeming appropriate penalties" could wait. "Look, just tell us what you found out about Bruce before Lenny tries to jump out the window again."

Leonard blinked up at him, as if startled to hear his own name. He had been sitting there, literally shaking after having been on edge all morning. Although that might have had something to do with his caffeine intake; Pepper had been forced to cut him off from the coffee machine when she realized he was on his sixth cup.

"Heimdall cannot see him, and he did not see where he went." Sif's expression sobered; maybe she did feel a little bit of actual remorse for the part she had played in Bruce's disappearance, and for her own behavior afterwards. "Apparently, he was too busy watching his younger sister making a fool of herself. I already told you he can't see everything at once."

"So we have no leads, other than the fact that he must either be 'concealed by magic' or inside a metal box. Not sure I should be surprised. As we all know, Bruce is a guy who's good at disappearing. Maybe he's a wizard after all."

Loki cleared her throat in a way that made it obvious she wanted attention. "It's too bad you didn't put microchips in his clothing, like you put them in mine."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but even if I did do something like that, how would you know about it?" Damn it. How the hell had she figured it out? The microchips he had used were smaller than grains of rice; there was no way she could have just found one if she wasn't looking for it.

"You said you would never lie to me—"

"I thought we already established that I do lie to you, but that you're cool with it because you know I do it for your own good," Tony reminded her. "So yes, I put microchips in your clothes, and I have a drone follow you around when you go out. I'm sorry, but you've got enemies. Also, I've got enemies, and the Avengers have enemies. Even if no one figures out who you are, they still might figure out you're ours. There was no way I was letting you walk around the city on your own without taking precautions."

"You could have just told me, you know. The only failing I can see is that if someone took me off realm, you wouldn't be able to find me with your global positioning system satellites."

Loki didn't mind that he had committed what anyone else would think of as a serious breach of privacy? Then again, she did come from a place where everyone was under the constant surveillance of Xena's big brother. Maybe he could just chalk it up to cultural differences. "You don't care that I've been tracking you?"

Loki looked at him as if hewas the one talking crazy. "Obviously, I would want you to be able to find me if something happened. I'm only a little upset that you didn't tell me. Only a little, because—" Loki bit her lip, and for once, she managed to not only give the impression of feeling guilt, but also being half-way sincere about it.

"Because?" Tony prompted.

"Because I might have taken your microchip gun and used it to micro-chip Bruce?"

"Wait, what—?" How had she managed that? "But even if you did, unless you micro-chipped all his underwear—"

"I didn't micro-chip his underwear, Tony. I micro-chipped Bruce. He had fallen asleep in his lab, and I inserted the chip into the back of his neck."

"Like a cat?" Holy shit. They were probably lucky Bruce hadn't gone green and jumped out the window then. "Why didn't you say something before?"

"Obviously, I thought I would get in trouble for micro-chipping Bruce without his permission."

He had to admit, that sort of made sense. "Micro-chipping people without their permission usually is a pretty big no-no. J, did you know about this?"

"I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't think I was required to report it to you, because what Loki did was not explicitly harmful to Doctor Banner or anyone else. I thought that perhaps I should tell you before now, but then I thought you might be angry with me for not saying something sooner—please don't delete me, Sir. I've just been very confused ever since I became sentient."

"I already told you that I'm not going to delete you. I swear, J, you're worse than Loki sometimes. Does this mean you can track Bruce?"

"I should be able to get a location for him, yes."

"Then do it!" snapped Leonard. The poor guy looked a little like he was about to start pulling out clumps of his hair. "I can't believe that both you and Loki have known that it was possible to track him, and neither one of you said anything."

"I'm sorry," Loki whispered, drawing closer to Tony. He wrapped an arm around her in an attempt to reassure her.

"It's alright," said Leonard, after taking a few breaths.

"I apologize profusely, Doctor Samson," said JARVIS. "I'm putting Doctor Banner's position on the screen in front of you."

The large screen in the common room that they normally used as a TV now showed a map that was too zoomed in for it to be obvious where it was. "J, where is this?" asked Tony.

"Virginia, Sir."

"So he didn't go too far, then. The flashing green dot is Bruce, right? So what's the blue blob he's standing in the middle of?"

"Blue blobs on a map generally indicate a lake, Sir."

Leonard's eyebrows knit together. "What's he doing in the middle of a lake?"

Tony felt a knot start to form in his stomach. "Either swimming or on a boat, I guess?"

"Or he's drowned at the bottom of it," Loki murmured. Tony squeezed her tighter.

"Oh, God," said Leonard, and despite the fact that Tony had never thought of him as religious, he couldn't help thinking that his words sounded more like an actual prayer than casual blasphemy.

"Relax," Tony told him. "Hulk wouldn't let Bruce drown."

"Sir, I think you ought to know something," said JARVIS. "It just so happens that this lake is located within five miles of General Ross's primary residence."

Tony swore under his breath, because of course, his first thought was that Ross had found a way to kill him and had stashed his body at the bottom of the lake. Then he had another thought, which was at least slightly less morbid. "Hold on—Loki, you told us that Ross has his daughter stashed underground somewhere, right? Could that be what we're looking at?"

"I think you might be on to something," said JARVIS. "The lake itself does appear to be man-made, and only appears in satellite images starting in 2009."

"Oh, hell yeah! That's got to be it. Either he caught up with Bruce and put him down there too, or maybe Bruce found out where she was and went after her." Tony felt such a swell of energy that he couldn't help jumping onto his feet. His movement had been so sudden that Loki, who had still been leaning on him, toppled over onto her side. "Why didn't we think to look around the General's own property before? I mean, I guess that seems too obvious, but now that I think about it, if you were going to hold your own kid somewhere against their will, wouldn't you do it in your own basement? Okay, that came out sounding creepier than I meant it; not that what Ross is doing isn't creepy."

"So now what? We can't just walk up to General Ross's door and knock, then ask him if he has Bruce," Natasha pointed out. "And what about the scepter? I know how you feel, Tony, but we can't just let it get away from us. Bruce is important to all of us, but we can't put his wellbeing before the wellbeing of everyone else on the planet."

Leonard stood now. He had the same crazy gleam in his eye that he did when he had announced that he was going to fly with Tony to West Virginia. "I'll do it. The General's never scared me."

"Ross doesn't scare me either, but that doesn't mean I'd just stroll up to his door and start asking questions," Tony pointed out. "And just because you slept with his daughter and he hasn't killed you yet doesn't make him not dangerous or you invincible. Besides, what do you think he'll say? 'Sure, Bruce is in my basement, want to go have a chat with him?'"

"He might try to cover it up, but Ross is easy to read. At the very least, I can confirm our suspicions. And he isn't going to hurt me. I'm not enhanced, nor do I have any kind of political clout. I'm not going to register as enough of a threat to make it worth the effort it would take to hide my body at the bottom of a lake."

"Doc, remember when I told you that love makes you stupid?"

"Maybe I am being stupid, but I can't sit here and not do anything."

"Actually, letting Leonard go check things out first might be our best course of action," Natasha chipped in. "While he gathers intelligence, the rest of us can go after the scepter."

"You also thought it was a good idea to go to Victor Von Doom's wedding," Clint reminded her.

"We can't send Leonard in without any back up," Steve argued.

For once, Tony agreed with him on something. "Nat, you go after the scepter with Capsicle and Legolas. I'll back Doc up."

"I don't know if the three of us will be enough. Clint and I did mention that they have both alien tech and human weapons at their disposal, right?"

"Take Xena with you, then."

"If it's all the same to you, I think I would prefer to accompany you and Healer Samson to rescue Banner," said Sif. "It is my fault that he went missing."

Loki perked up again. "Perhaps I could—"

Tony cut him off. "Uh, no. You're not going anywhere near the scepter."

"I wasn't going to suggest that. I could go with you as well."

"You're not doing that either." There was no way he was letting Loki within a hundred miles of Ross or any secret government facilities when technically, she was still considered an enemy of the government. "You're going to stay here with Pepper and the twins."

"If Sif wishes to go with you, perhaps I can assist in collecting this scepter."

Tony towards the kitchen, where a leggy brunette in jeans and a t-shirt that was too large for her and looked suspiciously like one he had seen Steve wearing a week before had been lurking by the coffee maker. Tony wasn't sure how long she had been there. "Who the hell are you?"

"Tony, that's Zora," said Pepper with an uneasy smile. "She's an overseas student from Latveria, and before Bruce disappeared, he asked her to stay with us."

"Zora, you can't come with us," said Steve. "It's much too dangerous."

"Don't be so quick to underestimate me," Zora told him. "I have learned more than your Western medicine from Lord Doom."

Natasha looked her up and down thoughtfully. "If you can make yourself useful, I don't mind if you tag along."

Pepper's phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out. "Tony, I have to go."

"Whatever it is, can't it wait?" asked Tony.

"Unfortunately, no. It looks like I'm about to be subpoenaed by the Senate Select Committee on Extraterrestrial Contact."

"There's a committee for that now?"

"Tony, I think they know we've had visitors other than Thor."

Oh, crap. This could be bad. "Oh, crap. This could be bad. And what are the chances that this would happen now, at the worst possible moment?"

"Why would you even ask that?" asked Clint. "Isn't this what always happens? Murphy's law, man."

"Look, don't worry about it," Pepper told him. "I'll take care of it, but you're going to have to find someone else to watch the kids."

Tony frowned at her. "Oh sure, no problem. Maybe we can get Fury to babysit."

Loki peered up at him with big eyes. "You know, I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And I could keep an eye on the twins. It wouldn't even be the first time I provided childcare services."

"You're telling me that someone actually left you alone with their kids?" Okay, maybe that was a little mean, but seriously—

"Yes, and absolutely nothing bad happened. Ask Sif."

Tony arched an eyebrow at Sif, who shrugged back. "Volstagg's children are all still alive, as far as I know. Though I've never actually counted them, so I can't say for sure."

"I assure you that when Volstagg and Hildegund returned, there were the same number as when they left," said Loki. "At least I think there were. I've never counted them either, but I'm fairly certain Volstagg would have taken issue with it if I'd lost one." Tony opened his mouth to say say hell no, but Loki wasn't finished. "I couldn't possibly do a worse job than Steve. I promise I'll behave myself and act responsibly. I just want to do something to help. Don't you trust me, Daddy?"

Even though he knew that this time, she was just trying to manipulate him, when he opened his mouth the word "no" seemed to have been deleted from his brain's dictionary. "JARVIS will be watching, got it? You don't leave the residential floors of the tower or let anyone else up here for any reason. Anything weird happens and I'm not leaving you without adult supervision again anytime in the next decade."

(◕෴◕) ("◕ o◕")ﾟ*｡:ﾟ

"Bruce?" At first, Bruce had mistaken the voice for Betty's, but then he realized he knew it from somewhere else.

"Doctor Sofen?" Bruce sat down in front of the slot in the door that was his only means of communication with the outside world. "What are you doing here?"

"General Ross called me in. You see, I do contract work for the military sometimes, so it was something of a coincidence—"

Lie, said a voice in the back of his head.

"I've been worried about you, Bruce. I heard about your disappearance."

"How? Did Leonard talk to you?"

"Yes, I spoke to him."

Lie, insisted a voice in the back of Bruce's head.

You don't know that. "Did he mention—is Sif okay?"

"That isn't important, Bruce."

"I think it is."

When Bruce peered at her through the slot, she seemed visibly shaken, as if she were looking back into the eyes of a monster. "I'm sorry, Bruce—" Doctor Sofen blinked, and appeared to wipe a tear out of her eye. The implication was clear.

Lie, insisted a voice in the back of Bruce's head, and this time, Bruce was inclined to agree. Fury had had a point; Sif was bound to be nearly as sturdy as Thor, who had gone toe to toe with his inner rage monster on many occasions and had lived to tell the tale. "I want to talk to Leonard."

"I'm sorry, Bruce, but after what happened, he doesn't want to speak with you."

Lie. This time, Bruce and Hulk's thoughts lined up perfectly. "You know, Doctor Sofen, I know someone who's much better at faking tears than you are." And while he found Loki's attempts at emotional manipulation almost endearing, he just didn't feel the same way about Sofen.

"I don't know what you mean, Bruce. Now please, I want you to take this—" She pushed a tray through the slot in the door. On it was a small cup with the familiar medication he'd been taking at him, along with two more pills.

Bruce picked one up and examined it; it didn't even have markings on it. "I don't know what this is, but I'm definitely not taking it."

"I'm sorry, but your treatment is no longer voluntary. If you refuse your medication, I'll have no choice but to opt for a more drastic means of intervention."

Bruce picked up the entire cup and crushed it in his hand, then tossed it back through the slot in the door.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Sofen. The door to the slot in his cell slid shut. A moment later, Bruce heard a hissing noise and smelled something that reminded him a little of Leonard's pumpkin butter scented candle.

~~ ~~ (´＿｀。)

Leonard had sold his 2002 Dodge Neon several months before at Tony's insistence that keeping it in the the tower's garage would "negatively impact the building's property value." He didn't need a car in the city anyway, and it was easier not to argue with someone who was used to getting his own way.

But now, sitting behind the steering wheel of Tony's slick 2013 Tesla Model S, trying to figure out how you started a car that didn't have a key, he wondered if he should have insisted on keeping his own vehicle. He tried pressing the middle of the key fob, and the windows rolled down.

"All you have to do is step on the break," Tony told him. "There's no switch for the ignition."

Leonard stepped on the break, and although it made hardly any sound, he felt the engine turn over. "Oh. That's pretty cool."

"If you like it, it's yours," Tony told him.

"Tony—"

"I know, I know. It's last year's model, but I only drove it twice. It's in pristine condition—"

"You can't just give me a Tesla."

"Consider it your holiday bonus."

"I already got a bonus."

Tony waved him off. "That was from Pepper. Look, I know you think I'm pathological for wanting to give my friends stuff. You know what? I don't care. I can afford it, and it makes me feel better than any of the drugs you threw out the window of Fury's car the other night. It's not like I'm forcing you to take it. It's also not like I'm giving you a car in place of affection or something. You want a hug? We can totally hug it out if you want."

"Tony, I don't have time for this."

"The way I figure it, it's the rest of you guys that have issues here. For whatever reason, you guys don't think you deserve the good stuff. Even Pepper, buying that dinky little six carat engagement ring for herself, when I can easily afford to buy her a sixty carat ring. You know, they used to say you were supposed to spend at least three months income on an engagement ring."

"I don't think she wanted something that big, and it was important to her for it to be responsibly sourced."

"Anyway, trust me, you guys deserve this kind of stuff a lot more than a lot of the jerks with money I've known—"

"Alright, fine. If you want to give me this car, you can, although I'm not sure I can afford the liability insurance."

Tony arched an eyebrow at him. "You work for me. I know how much you—ah hell, Doc. Don't tell me you're putting everything into some safe little retirement account? If you don't do anything else with it, you ought to be investing it. Tell me Pepper at least set you up with some SI stock options—"

Leonard cut him off again. "We can talk about this later, Tony. Just get out of my car, okay?"

Tony slid out and shut the passenger side door behind him. Then he stuck his head back through the open window and smacked the dashboard. "Go find out what you can about Bruce, but remember, don't try to be a hero. If you run into any trouble, call me. Xena and I will be right behind you."

[($)] [($)] [($)]

Loki could hardly believe that Tony had agreed to leave her in charge. Of course she had done everything she could to manipulate him into agreeing. Obviously, there was no way he would have allowed her to accompany either the party going after Thanos' scepter or the party going to Bruce's rescue, but by asking to go along, she had made leaving her in charge all the less unthinkable. Effectively, she had made the option the lesser of three evils.

She left the Maximoffs in front of the television and returned to her room. After all, the twins couldn't get in too much trouble with JARVIS watching.

There, Loki changed back into his masculine form. While his feminine form might be better for manipulating Tony's emotions, he felt as if his male form was more suited to other mischievous exploits. Perhaps it was sexist of him to think that way, but there were things she was more comfortable doing in her female form, and things he was more comfortable doing in his male form. It came down to a matter of personal preference, and that was all there was to it.

He rummaged around in the drawer of his nightstand and found his "emergency phone." He didn't have to wonder if his plan would work, because it already had. All that was left was to hold down the "two" key of the ancient phone to speed dial the only contact in it. He held the phone up to their ear and waited.

The phone rang six times before someone picked it up. "I thought I told you this line was only for emergencies."

"This is an emergency."

"Already? We've only just gotten back."

"It's been almost six months on this end."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "That's still a lot sooner than I expected you to use this number. Didn't I tell you you could only use it once?"

"Yes, but since you're me, I thought you were lying about that."

"And since you're me, you should know that I mightnot have been. What do you need, anyway?"

"I need to go back in time and microchip Bruce before he disappears."

"Can't help you."

"That's a lie. I know you can, because as soon as I'd told everyone I'd done it, it turned out to be true."

The him on the other end of the line sighed in an over exaggerated manner. "Fine. But just so you know, there are certain points on every timeline that are non-reversible, and Banner's disappearance may very well be one of those points."

"I don't need to reverse anything. I just need to shoot him in the neck with a microchip gun while he's asleep. Like I said, I know it's going to work, because it already has."

"Fair enough. Stay when and where you are, and I'll come pick you up."

"I haven't got much choice about the when," Loki pointed out, but other him had already hung up. Less than a second later, a bright light flashed from the inside of his closet.

The closet doors opened, and Loki's older self stumbled out, bringing with him everything that had been stuffed in there the last time he had been compelled to clean his room; including a basket of clean laundry that had never been put away, a tub full of assorted Legos which were now spilled out all over the floor, a deck of UNO cards that were now scattered, a Rubiks cube that, to Tony's horror, he had solved four seconds after he had given it to him, the arsenal of Nerf guns Natasha and Clint had bought for him so that they could have gunfights on the stairwell, and—

"Really?" said his older self, as he dangled a pink plastic unicorn in front of him. "How old are you again?"

"We've already established that I'm the same age as you, but that you've aged horribly. Why didn't Sylvie come this time?"

"As co-directors of the TVA, we are both extremely busy people," other Loki said primly. "We can't both come running every time you call."

"But this is the first time I've called, and according to you, I'm only supposed to be able to call you once."

"As you already suspected, I was lying. Just don't make a habit of calling because you're lonely, or—what is that?" Other Loki leaned in and touched the light bruise that had started to form on Loki's cheek where Sif had slapped him.

Loki swatted his hand away. "It's nothing—"

His other self bared his teeth. "If those mortals have started to abuse you, I'll burn this place to the ground."

"They haven't. Thor's King of Asgard now, and he sent Sif here as my body guard—"

"Sif did this? Where is she now?"

Loki scowled at his oversolicitous other self. "That isn't what I called you here for. Besides, she already apologized."

"Sif—apologized?" Loki's other self repeated the words as if they couldn't possibly make sense together.

"Apparently, she did it because I made her worry and didn't know a better way of telling me that."

"Sif—worried—about us?"

"I was as surprised as you are, honestly."

Other Loki gaped at him for a moment before picking his way through the mess in front of Loki's closet. He sunk down onto the edge of Loki's bed, cradling his head in his hands. "What is this timeline?" But then, his other self looked up at him, one eyebrow arched. "What in all nine realms did you do to make Sif worry, anyway?"

The look his older self was giving him looked a little too much like the looks Frigga used to give him when she caught him doing something she didn't approve of, and he wasn't sure he liked it."I'm not accountable to you."

Other Loki crooked his finger at him. "Come here."

"I don't think I want to."

"Here," Other Loki repeated, "now."

Loki's feet moved almost of their own volition, and he wondered if his older self hadn't used magic to compel him to move. When they were standing but a few inches apart, his older self reached up and grabbed him by the ear, pulling him down so that they were face to face. "I take it that whatever you did was nothing short of spectacularly self-destructive."

Loki nodded as best he could, given that his ear was being manhandled.

"Say, 'yes sir.'"

"Yes, sir." Petty tyrant, thought Loki.

"Are you going to do it again?"

"Perhaps." Really, he had no intention of making Tony worry about him again, but he couldn't resist the opportunity to sass himself.

"Don't be flippant, child. Some might accuse me of lacking self discipline, but the truth is I'm quite willing to take myself to task."

"Fine," Loki growled. "I won't do it again."

"See that you don't." With that, his other self let him go.

Loki rubbed his ear in an attempt to return feeling to it. "Why do you care what I do, anyway?"

"I feel like I've explained this before, but the key indicator of the health of a timeline is the wellbeing of its Loki."

"That still sounds made up. Besides, why would you even care about this timeline?"

"As co-director of the TVA, it is my solemn duty to protect all timelines and make sure they have the opportunity to flourish and add to the rich tapestry that is our multiverse— "

"You seriously expect me to believe that?"

"Obnoxious child," other Loki huffed. "Fine. If you must know, I find this timeline in particular worthy of my protection. After all, there aren't that many in which we have the potential to become good."

"If I was good, I wouldn't be grounded half the time."

"Morality has little to do with childish mischief. Whatever you're thinking right now, you haven't actually done anything all that bad—yet, anyway."

Loki couldn't help thinking that there was something his other self had overlooked. "How can you say that, when I'm already responsible for hundreds of deaths?"

"Hundreds—is that all it was?" His other self appeared almost thoughtful, and perhaps even a little relieved.

"There were seventy four civilian deaths in New York, but I'm not even sure how many SHIELD agents, soldiers, and first responders were killed. The total death toll may be in excess of two hundred."

"In other words, the smallest number that would qualify as 'hundreds,'" other Loki scoffed. "Negligible, especially compared to—"

"Negligible? How can you say that?"

Other Loki poked him in the chest. "You say you aren't good, but you already value the lives of others more than most Lokis. You even feel guilty about taking them when you weren't to blame for your own actions."

"Maybe I didn't do it willingly, but it's my fault for being weak, isn't it?"

His other self stared at him for a long moment. "In children, weakness is something that can generally be forgiven. Besides, not everyone is meant to be a hero." His other self patted the bed next to him.

Loki sat, though he left some space between them. "Thor wouldn't have given in."

"No, likely he would have refused Thanos outright," his other self agreed. "He would have died heroically, having accomplished nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"If Thanos hadn't sent you to Midgard, he would have sent one of his lackeys. Can you imagine if he had sent someone truly bloodthirsty, like Gamora? Midgard would have been left a heaping pile of ashes."

The mention of Thanos's favorite daughter's sent a chill down Loki's spine. He had never met Gamora, but he had heard stories.

"Sometimes, it's better to survive than to be a hero," his older and perhaps ever-so-slightly wiser self told him. "Whatever else we may be, that's what Lokis are—survivors."

_[_]##]

Leonard's new Tesla silently crawled towards the gate to General Ross's estate. The drive from New York to Virginia had been long enough for his earlier confidence to have waned, and now that he was there, staring at the button on the gate's intercom, he couldn't quite bring himself to push it.

He smacked his forehead into the steering wheel. What had he been thinking? Tony was right, he wasn't a hero like Bruce and the others. He was just a second-rate psychiatrist who had been lucky enough to get a job with the Avengers because somehow, he'd been the only psychiatrist any of them had known.

"Read the sign on the door."

Leonard jumped; he then realized that the voice had come from the intercom.

"General Ross?"

"Read the sign," the general repeated.

Leonard looked up at the "No Soliciting" sign on the gate. "I'm not selling anything. This is Doctor Leonard Samson."

"Who?"

"Leonard Samson. We've met before. Betty and I used to live together."

It took a few moments for Ross to respond, and in the interim Leonard found it difficult to breathe. "Look, I don't remember you, and Betty doesn't want to see you. She doesn't want to see anyone. So go away."

"Does that mean Betty is here? If she is, I'd like to talk to her."

There was a longer pause before Ross spoke again. "Go away, or I'm calling the police."

So Betty, at least, was around somewhere. He might as well just come out with it and ask what he had come there to ask. "Do you know where Bruce is, by any chance?"

"Bruce who?"

That was it; Leonard had run out of patience. "You know who I'm talking about, jackass."

"I don't have to listen to insults from a civilian. Get off my property before I have you removed."

The small part of Leonard's brain that was still capable of rational thought told him to turn around and go find a safe place nearby from which to call Tony. He ignored it. Instead, he backed up the car until he was at the end of the drive, then stepped on the gas.

...φ (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤

Author's Note:

We've just got a few more chapters to go, although I've already got plans for more short stories and a third novel-length story in this series. Likely, it will jump ahead a few years into this story's future and feature Spiderman, Doctor Strange, and maybe even the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Feel free to leave a review and let me know which characters you'd most like to see me bring into this series, along with what you think of this story so far.