Since she'd last seen Loki featured in the news - something about a nuisance infestation of flying snakes and a bank heist? - he has simplified his helmet into a crownlike band with locks of dark hair falling artfully around his face. The horns remain, long and arcing up to almost graze the lamps hanging down from the office ceiling.

Swirling green cloak, check. Gold inlays in a lot of leather armor, yes. Shoulder cauldrons to emphasize his slender figure, check.

Loki clearly pulled out all the stops for this.

She does not want to know what strange backroom deal led to this moment, but apparently Tony is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel for this - or bottom of the list, as the case may be.

Pepper clears her throat. "I see."

"Ms. Potts," Friday's voice comes from the speaker on the desk. "I have alerted the Avengers. They will be on their way shortly."

Oh god.

Pepper speaks just as Loki lifts his hands with a toothy grin. "Friday, tell them to stand down."

The last thing she wants is for the Avengers to show up and make this whole thing even more awkward. Framed dramatically against the wood and polish of Pepper's office, Loki pauses, green sparkles still flickering over his still-raised hands.

"Could you please confirm that, Miss Potts?" Friday asks. By the sudden disconcerted frown on Loki's face, he seems to be wondering the same thing.

"It's a false alarm." Because no, Pepper isn't going to be explaining Tony's latest mess to Captain America – or heaven forbid, her finance team when they start looking through their books. Assembling is damn expensive.

"A false alarm, Lady Virginia?" Loki drawls, shaking off his surprise with a toss of his head and a smirk. He stalks forward with a sideways swing of his horns to avoid the hanging decorative lamps. If Thor's villainous little brother had a mustache, Pepper is sure he would be twirling it. "Are you quite certain about that?"

Pepper thinks the chances that this is a real kidnapping are hovering at maybe about twenty percent. And though Tony insists that Pepper needs protecting whenever he's in one of his paranoid phases, Pepper is far from helpless. In fact, best they can tell, her version of Extremis makes her pretty much indestructible - and incredibly destructive when pissed off. So, there's no actual danger if she goes on a date with Loki. Except maybe to Pepper's reputation.

Which means she has a bit of a dilemma on her hands. On the one hand, Loki is undeniably hot. On the other, he's a showboating jewel thief with a questionable obsession with reptiles and enough family drama to launch his own reality TV show.

Loki's smirk isn't exactly doing anything for her, but the horns, well, okay, so sue her. Yes, the horns are stupid and dramatic but paired with Loki's whole getup, from the leather armor that hugs his body, to the way the golden circlet carries the horns and frames his face…that all definitely does do something for her.

Pepper always had a taste for the flamboyant. She has to, she dated Tony, after all. (And honestly, she's old, but she's not dead.)

"It's too late for lunch, and too early for dinner," Pepper points out. "I have a meeting in ten minutes."

"Which will no doubt suffer for your absence," Loki pronounces with another expansive (and, this time, dismissive) sweep of his arms.

"You really should have just had Tony give you my calendar."

"What?" Loki stops his approach and stares at her with a suspicious squint. His eyes flicker around the room, then back to her. In fact, he seems rather put out by her reaction.

Well, crap. Does he expect her to play into some kind of scene? Because if Loki was counting on Tony to prep Pepper on this whole…surprise-date-as-kidnapping thing or whatever this is, Loki is about to be very disappointed. (And Tony is about to get another very unhappy voicemail added to his collection.)

Pepper glances over at her calendar, then back to Loki. Then back to her calendar. One the one hand, she could spend the next hour listening to the vice president of product development and the senior director of marketing trying to one-up each other.

On the other hand, a kidnapping getaway could be romantic, depending on who's asking. Pepper hears enough about Loki as a self-styled villain to know that the Asgardian prince is heavy on the fireworks and grandiose monologues, but mostly goes around tussling with superheroes and stealing artifacts from under SHIELD's nose. The collateral damage is less than a lot of the vigilantes on the Avengers' prospects list - a fact that Thor brings up every time the conversation veers into What Do We Do About Loki territory.

Plus, Loki's face does have those chiseled cheekbones.

Her date with Robbie had gone up in flames and left a literal crater the width of a large beach ball in the middle of the sidewalk, but it also made her realize that…she wants this. Whatever this is. And the pool of potential boyfriend candidates just isn't very big. (She hasn't quite gotten the nerve up to just plain ask Friday for the List of Fireproof Boyfriends™ either. Not yet, anyway.)

Pepper clears her throat. "Fri, can you tell Anna to clear the rest of my meetings for tonight?"

"Miss Potts, are you quite certain you don't want me to contact the Avengers?"

"Yes, thank you, Friday - "

"If you think this charade will somehow protect you or my brother's do-gooder companions from their inevitable demise as they - "

"- I expect a meal, and for it to be somewhere where we won't crash my company's stocks," Pepper rolls on. If there was anything that Pepper learned over her years of working with Tony, it's the value of being crystal clear about these things before committing. "We won't be jumping into bed on the first, second, or third dates either."

"- how truly outclassed they are- " Loki's burgeoning monologue stutters to a stop. "What?"

"I don't know what Tony told you, either," Pepper continues, grabbing her phone and shoving it into her bag, along with her keys and a small notepad. "But I don't actually eat strawberries. Everyone knows I'm allergic to them, so no strawberries."

Loki's face is disconcertedly blank as he stares at Pepper.

"Oh, you were planning something with strawberries, weren't you? I'm sorry, Tony means well, but once he gets stuck on an idea - Anyway, there's a nice dumpling place a few blocks down if you can - " Pepper gestures at the whole getup, boots to horns as she walks around the table. "- hide that for a bit. If not, I can just order delivery and we can duck into one of the conference rooms. I'd suggest the roof for the view, but it's a pretty popular lunch spot for the staff, even this late in the day."

That, and Pepper doesn't like the idea of trying for another rooftop date so soon after the last one crashed and burned so spectacularly. When there is no reply, Pepper stops walking and turns at the elevator. Loki is still hovering at the open doors of her office, like a displeased cat trying to decide whether it wants to go in, or out.

"I don't know what game is being played here, Lady Virginia," Loki finally hisses and stalks over. "But you will find I am not so easily dissuaded from my plans."

Pepper stiffens at the tone, because there's only so much that she can discount for the whole Thor's-villainous-baby-brother thing. But before she can tell him what he can do with his plans (politely and in such a way that she cannot be sued for it afterward), a snowstorm's worth of swirly green sparkles rises up and around the two of them and the brightly lit downtown office hallway goes dark.

Completely dark.

Pepper blinks and raises her hand to her face. No, it's not completely dark. She can still see her fingers, and then, the odd shapes around her as her eyes adjust to the ill-lit space.

Okay, teleportation.

Pepper's heart is beating fast, a startle reflex, but not fast enough for her to get worried about becoming a fire hazard.

The likelihood this is a real kidnapping is creeping up the probability matrix. But she's not ruling out that this is all an elaborate set-up by Tony to throw her one of his surprise parties on whichever randomly selected day he's decided is her birthday either. Involving Loki is a stretch, but Tony is big into doing the unexpected.

"Hello - ?" The air is damp and cool. The sound of her voice echoes strangely in the new space as she digs in her purse for her phone by feel.

"You may call for help," Loki's voice sounds out of the darkness, echoing and hollow as it bounces off walls. Are they in a cave? "But it will be to no avail as you- Norns, what are you- turn that off - "

Pepper is pointing her phone flashlight in his direction, the bright light illuminating the space and a squinting Loki. The cone of light the phone throws out is bright and wide, courtesy of extra fiddling Tony can't stop doing anytime Pepper leaves the phone unattended in his vicinity. And it turns out that Pepper and Loki are, indeed, in a large cavern, stone walls arching up into a ceiling that swallows up light when she looks up.

"So, is this where you live?" Pepper asks, because she is not above being a little bit petty, and moves the light around the stalactites hanging around the cave ceiling like trailing curtains of spikes. "Very rustic."

"No, I do not live here, you foolish mortal - " Loki breaks off when Pepper shines the light back in his face. "Damnable creature, put that away."

Loki claps once, the sound sharp. Sparks jump on the impact of his palms and bright green flames flare up around the periphery of the cavern, nestled between rising stalagmites. After a moment the green disappears from the fires as they change into something more reddish and natural. The firelight casts a warm golden glow on the surrounding stones.

The lighting situation vastly improved, Pepper turns off the flashlight. She wagers that they are now at about forty three percent probability that this entire encounter really is a kidnapping in progress. While the cavern is appropriately dramatic as a date location, there is a distinct lack of white tablecloths in the bare stone room, and no candlelight seating.

Pepper's phone also still has bars, which thank goodness if she needs to melt her way out of the cave and call for a cab.

Or a quinjet.

She hopes they are still on the continental United States; she doesn't want to lose extra hours getting back to the office if the date is a bust.

Loki and Pepper stare at each other across the stone floor of the cavern. Pepper counts the seconds inside her head. By the time she gets to fifteen (the magic number when Tony usually breaks and starts talking), Loki is still glaring, except now his arms are folded across his chest, one eyebrow raised dramatically. Apparently, Loki does not fold to pressure as quickly as Tony.

Pepper also realizes that she is hungry. If Loki isn't going to magic up a romantic getaway, Pepper will have to fend for herself. She pulls out her phone.

"That will avail you not," Loki pronounces, finally looking satisfied as he watches Pepper tap at her phone. "You may call for help, but the Avengers will not find you without my say so. You may tell them that their only hope will be to give me what I want in seeking your safe return to - "

"I'm ordering dumplings," Pepper says.

There is a moment of silence. Loki seems to go through several replies in his head before speaking. "Lady Virginia, why are you ordering dumplings?"

"I'm hungry," Pepper explains. "You can drop me off at the little place right across the street from my office. They have the bright red and white sign and the red chairs out front. Or you can go yourself. The food will be ready in ten minutes, you can tell them it's an order for Pepper."

"Surely you do not expect me to fetch this food." Loki sounds incredulous.

"Well, I don't think they deliver to dark, sinister caves," Pepper says. "But I can enter the zip code to check."

Loki scoffs. "I am not so foolish as to return to where the Avengers lie in wait."

"Tony prefers grilled cheese and I've never seen Natasha eat," Pepper says, voice dry. "Pretty sure you'll be fine."

Another long moment passes in silence as Loki glares at her. Pepper wants to sigh, because Loki's outfit really does amazing things to his trim waist and long body. Too bad it's all attached to a head and face that is currently looking like it swallowed a lemon. Pepper's hopes of… something happening here are quickly approaching zero. The fact that they are not in the negative digits can be blamed squarely on way too many years of dealing with outrageous (and occasionally loveable) self-absorbed billionaires.

Pepper's phone chimes in her hand. She looks down in surprise.

"Oh, must be a slow day," Pepper said, giving the phone a little wave at Loki. "Order is ready for pickup."

" Fine ," Loki snaps with a huff, his arms snapping out in a giant flap. As they drop, there's another shower of sparkles, and Loki is gone.

Pepper is left alone in the cavern. A part of her expects the fires illuminating the space to disappear when Loki leaves, but they still hang amid the stone crevices and stalactites like large candle flames. Pepper walks over to one and brushes her finger through the fire.

Nothing. And nothing again when she places her fingers in the fire. It doesn't feel hot either, but she's not the best judge of temperature anymore. She misses feeling the hot summer days on her skin, though it's nice not to worry about the cold, biting New York winters either.

She pulls her small notebook out of her purse and tears out a strip of paper. When she sticks that into the fire, it doesn't burn either. Not real fire, then.

Trying not to be disappointed by that, she wonders if frost giants really are immune to fire. She hopes they don't melt. (Surely Tony checked.)

Pepper explores the rest of the cavern. The air is fresh enough, so there must be air movement, but she doesn't see an exit. She's pretty sure she can burn hot enough to melt limestone, but decides to keep that as a backup plan for later.

Her phone still has signal, and she awards a mental point to Tony, who'd always insisted that his phones can get a signal anywhere, including from inside an active volcano. (Pepper let the legal and marketing team handle the follow up questions on that claim. She really does not want to know.)

Pepper swipes her phone screen over to her inbox to see if anything's come in since she left the office, and Carl's name catches her eye. She'd been meaning to get back to him about the new trust they talked about setting up. Before she knows it, one email turns into five, and then into a call with media relations about a snafu with their most recent sub-brand product launch…

Loki returns with another shower of sparks, a frown on his face, and a white plastic bag with a big red 'thank you' stamped on its side.

"Well done, Anna. I want us ready to move when the Prime Minister folds and signs the contract," Pepper says from her perch on one of the cavern's stone shelves. "I'm going to jump off now. Keep me posted on what Jonas says."

"What are you doing?" Loki asks, voice full of suspicion as she ends the call.

"Making friends and influencing international politics," Pepper replies dryly. Without work to distract her, the clock on her phone (and her stomach) tells her it's been almost an hour. So she says, "It's been almost an hour. Did something happen?"

"It seems it was not a trap," Loki sounds out slowly, sounding disgruntled. He lifts the bag from the restaurant slightly, but doesn't seem to know what to do with it. "They were just…dumplings."

The armored princeling seems to be teetering again on the knife's edge between anger and confusion, but so far, confusion seems to be winning out.

Pepper's lips twitch as she imagines Loki creeping around the dumpling place, ducking around the large plastic tables as he scans the place for lurking Avengers. It's a funny scene, and sad too. Whatever Tony told Loki to get the Asgardian princeling to show up at Pepper's office, Loki clearly believed none of it.

Which, in retrospect, explains a lot.

"No, not a trap," she says, gently. "Just food."

"Why did you come with me so easily," Loki snaps, expression wary. "If not to entice me into a trap of my brother's making?"

"Because I thought you were asking me out." Pepper says with a small shrug. "It's alright if you weren't."

"I- I was," Loki says, and then clears his throat and looks back to Pepper. "I was."