I'm so sorry for the wait. I was ill and then swamped with deadlines and then I was decorating my room (it looks really pretty now!) and now I've got revision for exams!

On another note, I met Tom Hiddleston! Three weeks ago I met him at the stage door after seeing betrayal and aaaaaahhhhhhh, one of the happiest days of my life!
This site doesn't allow links so find stardustloki on tumblr and then see post 184397515140 if you'd like to read about it.

And, I saw Endgame at midnight. I cried for like half-an-hour because it ripped my heart out! Anyways, my best friend and I have written a short oneshot to fix a character's death. No idea whether it is coherent or not because we finished it at 5am, but it's on ao3 at /works/18592033

It's been a while, so what has happened so far?
- Everyone's living in Malibu together
- Sleipnir (and the other kids) have started school. Sleipnir freaks out because of the abuse he suffered from Odin
- Tony, Loki etc. are building an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Secretary Pierce, the World Security Council and Fury want its plans. Tony is uncooperative
- Loki and Sleipnir talk about school and Odin, and Loki convinces Sleipnir to keep trying to go to school for a bit
- Tony and Loki find Captain America
- Laufey, Frigga and the rest of Loki's family come over for dinner.
- Steve wakes up in the 21st century, he comes downstairs to find a) a room full of people (some of which are blue) b) that most of his friends are dead. Fun times! :|
- Steve and Thor start to become friends
- Steve and Tony have an argument because Steve wants to visit his friends' graves and Tony is worried about SHIELD finding him
- Sleipnir kind of makes a friend? Well, one of the 'bad influence' type kids agrees to show him the ropes.

Anyway, I think that's about it. So, as per usual, thank you all soooo much for the reviews, follows and favourites, you are all wonderful people!

16/04/19

Chapter Six - Making Friends (And Influencing People)

"Okay," Jamie said as they walked down the bustling corridor. "Rule number three: school food is gross. I swear that shit gives you food poisoning. Do you have a packed lunch? 'Cause you're gonna need one."

Sleipnir nodded and mumbled a yes, trying desperately to listen to Jamie and ignore the fact that there were far too many people, pushing and shoving, and he couldn't see them all. He felt closed in. Trapped.

Jamie sighed. "Rule number four: actually speak clear because if you're gonna have friends, they actually need to hear your voice once in a while."

"Sorry," Sleipnir said, doing his best to make his voice louder.

"Thanks, but you don't need to apologise for shit like that."

"Shit like what?"

"What? I dunno, just shit that don't matter." Jamie rolled his eyes and Sleipnir did his best not to shrink away. Disapproval had never been a good thing. Jamie wouldn't hurt him though, he reminded himself, he was helping him, he was being kind. Sleipnir determinedly ignored the fact that Jamie had almost punched him earlier. "People are gonna take advantage of you if you act so sorry for everything all the time.

"Come on," he said as he pushed the door to the heaving cafeteria open. "We're sitting over here. Hey Sam, budge up dude, we've gotta fit two of us on the end here." Jamie slid easily down onto the end of the bench and dropped his bag on the floor below. One impatient head-jerk from him later and Sleipnir sat hurriedly down next to him.

"You're the new kid, right?" the one called Sam asked.

Sleipnir nodded, before remembering what Jamie had said and adding, "yes."

"Where're you from?"

"He's from upstate," Jamie said easily and Sleipnir nodded quickly to confirm the lie. He now remembered that he was meant to have been from an isolated village in Norway (to prove it, his father had said, all he needed to do was to focus on blocking the Allspeak and say something in Asgardian), but it was nice that Jamie was covering for him as he'd said earlier that he didn't know where he was from. The only problem was that he now needed to remember that he was from 'upstate'.

"How come you moved?" Sam questioned, giving Jamie an odd look for half a second.

Sleipnir paused for a moment, then remembered he definitely did have an answer for this. "I moved in with my dad and his boyfriend. I used to live with my grandfather before he died."

"Your dad's gay?" one of the boys across the table demanded incredulously. "Ugh, oh God that's so gross. Shit. I'm sorry for you, dude."

Sleipnir paled. Jarvis had warned him that not everyone would be accepting, but they thought his dad and Tony were disgusting? What was he meant to do? What if they hated him? Did he want to be liked by people who hated his dad and Tony? But not being liked by people was dangerous, and...

"Hey, don't be a dick, man," Sam said. "Being gay is totally normal, my cousin's gay."

"Sorry," the boy rolled his eyes. "But it's not exactly natural is it? 'Sides, you can't talk, everything you don't like is a faggot, so don't go coming at me like that."

Sleipnir shivered. His eight-legged horse form was the very definition of unnatural. What would they do to him if they knew...

"Are you spending too much time getting off to Miss Dell in biology or what?" Jamie said coolly. "Do you even know what 'natural' means? Being gay is fucking natural, they don't just implant some tech in their brains that makes them not want to touch a boob, do they?"

"And I called everything a faggot before I found out my cousin was gay." Sam scowled.

"Look, whatever man, I'm sorry, okay," the boy said, raising his hands in mock surrender and rolling his eyes. "Jeez, you guys need to chill."

Sleipnir let out a sigh of relief, he didn't trust the boy at all, but the other two seemed okay. They had stood up for him. That was new. It felt good. This must be what having friends felt like.

"Whatever Noah," Jamie shrugged. "Just don't be a dickhead again."

"Did any of you guys get what Mr Shah was going on about for the English homework?" one of the boys from down the table asked.

"No," Jamie scoffed. "Just put that Claudio was jealous and horny and he'll eat that up."

"Thanks," the kid said sarcastically, then frowned. "Hey, did I show you guys the new phone I got for Christmas?"

"No," Noah said,"what is it? Let's see?"

"A blackberry," the kid replied, before looking around hurriedly, obviously checking for teachers, Sleipnir thought, and pulling a phone out of his bag. Sleipnir frowned, it was a small, squarish phone, with lots of little tiny keys, it didn't look that impressive, at least compared to his StarkPhone it didn't. The others, however, clearly thought otherwise.

"That's so cool!" Sam said.

"Epic," Jamie agreed.

"Nice, my parents only got me a rip-off one," Noah rolled his eyes. "Hey, what phone do you got Sleipnir?"

Sleipnir glanced around, making sure the coast was still clear, before pulling out his StarkPhone.

"Holy shit," Noah gasped.

"That must be like the newest model," the kid from down the table exclaimed. "Huh, and to think I was happy about getting a Blackberry."

"How loaded is your dad?" Jamie asked incredulously.

"Uh, I'm not sure really, his boyfriend is the one with loads of money," Sleipnir admitted. "He made - uh bought - this one for me. He's really into tech." He finished with the greatest understatement of the century.

"Pffff, how are you not at some posh private school?" Sam asked.

"Tony wanted me to have a kinda normal childhood," Sleipnir shrugged, his hands twisting uncomfortably in his lap as he tried to stay calm throughout all the cross examination. "He went to private school and he said it was awful. I mean, he said it was shit." He saw Jamie give an approving nod at this correction.

"Who's Tony?"

"My dad's boyfriend."

"No wonder he got you a StarkPhone," Noah said. "If I was rich I'd get my kid a phone made by the guy with the same name as me too."

"If he's really into tech do you get to play lots of video games? How many consoles does he have?" Sam asked.

"A lot," Sleipnir replied. "He says they're not good enough and keeps pulling them apart to upgrade them, something about 3D holographic screens..." he trailed off as he noticed the weird looks the others were giving him. He bit his tongue. "Uh, I'm not very good at video games though, my one-h, uh my five-year-old sister beats me at Mario Cart, she has much more coordination than I do. I prefer reading."

"Dude," Jamie sighed. "You can't tell people that, reading is not cool."

"Oh," Sleipnir said. "Sorry?"

Jamie rolled his eyes.

"I'm not sorry?" Sleipnir squeaked, his breath starting to speed up. Jamie groaned and flopped his head down onto the table.

"Uh, do you want some of my crisps?" Sam asked, holding the packet towards him. Sleipnir wasn't sure whether he looked more concerned or weirded-out.

Sleipnir took a couple, thanking him, and trying to use the crunch of the crisps in his mouth to ground him. Next to him Jamie lamented about the task he had set himself, complete with lots of swearing and banging his head into the table.

-Q-

"Hey, Steve," Tony greeted, sliding down next to him on the bench that overlooked the water. He did not want to be here, but he supposed he didn't really have another choice, he needed to make up with the Cap for all of their sakes, especially Loki's. "I guess we need to talk, huh?"

"We do," Steve agreed, then sighed. "Is Loki okay?"

Tony nodded tersely, resisting the urge to say 'no thanks to you'. They had both been to blame and he knew that, rationally anyway. But that coupled with decades of resentment didn't really make him want to lash out at Steve any less. "He's fine, he's crashing a bit now, so he's on the sofa wrapped in blankets, drinking hot cocoa and watching Harry Potter, he'll be okay."

"Harry Potter?"

"It's uh, a movie, and a book. I'll show it to you at some point. It's kinda iconic."

Steve laughed bitterly. "There's so many things I've missed out on. I'm starting to think I should make a list."

"That's not a bad idea."

The next few moments passed in an awkward silence.

"Look, Tony," Steve began. "I don't want to get mad at you, and I'm really grateful you and Loki pulled me out of the ice. But, I miss my friends, you've gotta let me mourn their losses, to say goodbye. If I can't do that then I don't know if I can move on, and in that case it would probably have been better if you'd left me in the ice."

Tony sighed. "I get that. I do, I'm just scared about you falling into the wrong hands, I don't want you becoming someone's personal super-soldier, or worse, their personal lab rat."

"That's the thing, Tony, I don't think I would. If I'm meant to be dead, people won't be looking for me, they won't think anything of a tall guy that looks kind of like Steve Rogers going to visit a few graves." He grimaced. "And my point from earlier still stands, if you don't trust this Shield thing, why are you working for it?"

"Because they have ressources that I need. And they are the 'good guys', I suppose, they're better than most super-secret organisations. They care about the world, but they also don't care much about the means as long as it gets them the end they want. So, I trust them, a bit, but not completely. And Cap, it's not just them you need to worry about, there'll be other people too. People are obsessed with recreating the super-soldier serum. Just ask Bruce, he's my science bro, he was there at dinner the other night, he tried to recreate it, it didn't work, and sometimes he turns into a giant green rage monster." Steve was staring at him. "Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, I know."

"I don't know if I want to know what you're on about."

"Probably not, too much, too soon."

"Tony, I don't care who's out there, they can't be worse than Hydra, and no one's gonna think anything of me."

"I dunno, someone who looks suspiciously like Steve Rogers going round and visiting all the Howling Commandos graves and gawping at all the new tech and stuff seems a bit suspicious. But you're probably right. Just, at least let us get you familiarised with modern tech first so you don't draw attention to yourself, and let Loki glamour you so you look a bit different."

"Okay," Steve said, nodding slowly, and Tony breathed an internal sigh of relief. "I guess that's okay. And Tony, I'm sorry for getting mad earlier. I guess, everything's so new, and it's like I have nothing left of the past, and when you didn't want me to leave I felt trapped here."

"Apology accepted," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "And for the record, I'm sorry too, I could probably have handled that better."

"Apology accepted," Steve smiled, and Tony chuckled.

This wasn't at all what he had expected meeting Captain America to be like. As a young child, he had idolised the Captain, he had had dreams of going on adventures with him and fighting Hydra. Jarvis had had a folder of all the drawings Tony had made of their imagined escapades before Tony had burned it in a fit of rage at ten years old. Idolising Captain America had only made Tony vulnerable, and Howard had known this. Some of his earliest memories had been of Howard shouting at him about how worthless Steve would think he was, how disappointed Steve would have been with him, how Steve was a super-soldier who had given his life for his country, he had seen war, and would care nothing for the snivellings of a boy who had only just learned to solder. What was Tony crying for? If Steve were here he would have given the child something to really cry about.

One thing had been for certain, any failure had meant letting Captain America down. So, eventually it had become easier to react against his childhood hero, to reject the Captain as Howard had said the Captain would reject him.

But Steve had actually apologised to him. Something Howard had made clear Steve would never, ever do, because Steve was always in the right, and Tony could never be. And they had had a rational conversation. And okay they had argued earlier but Steve had never self-righteously declared how stupid and worthless Tony was, so that was a start. So, perhaps Howard had been wrong about his long-lost friend, perhaps Tony and Steve could get along. Maybe they could even be friends in a way five-year-old Tony could have only dreamed of.

Yes, they would be.

Fuck you Howard.

Operation befriend Steve was a go.

I hope you all enjoyed that! Please let me know if you did and you're still reading. I can't tell if people have reached the end or if they've only read three paragraphs when looking at the views in traffic stats, so it would mean a lot if you guys could even just write one word to tell me you're still interested.

Next up: Frigga and Darcy despair at Asgardian nobles and politics
Our first glimpse of the Winter Soldier (it's angsty and I'm mean)
The team try to introduce Cap to technology

I've got it written so it should be up in a week.