Entry #23: Manhattan [or, "Of iPods and T-shirts"]

After Clint had emptied, dried, and put away every glass and dish that Loki had filled with ice earlier that morning, and irritably slammed the broken dishwasher shut, he poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the kitchen table.

He was soon joined by Stark, who opened the refrigerator and promptly seized the last of the leftover shawarma. After sitting down at the table with Clint and taking several huge bites, he said in a muffled voice, "So, what's on the agenda for today?"

Clint pushed the rest of his cereal away from him and said grimly, "Balloons."

Tony stopped chewing and stared at him. "Balloons?"

"Balloons. And a driving lesson. I promised Loki yesterday that I'd let him drive my sports car," mumbled Clint.

Tony finished the last bite of shawarma and got up from the table, heading over to the coffee maker. "I'm sorry, did I just hear that correctly? You're going to let the guy who tried to destroy New York drive your car? With you in it? Whoa. Big mistake."

"You got a suggestion? I promised him a trip to the grocery store!" Clint complained with a hefty sigh.

Tony shrugged, and then grinned at the SHIELD agent. "Can I come?"

Clint slowly turned to stare at Tony. "What?"

"If you let me come and witness this… fiasco, I will return your alarm clock, your TV, and your laptop back to their original mediocre settings."

"Yeah. Right. That's all I need," Clint mumbled. "You in the car giving Loki hot-rodding tips.

Stark shrugged. "Up to you."

"I really think I ought to handle this by myself," Clint explained.

"Well, try not to let him kill you." With that piece of encouragement, Stark grabbed the pot of coffee and disappeared into the back hallway.

"Hey! Bling Boy and Green Guy! You up yet?" he yelled, knocking on the door to Clint's office.

Steve answered him with, "Of course! Come in, Mr. Stark."

Stark opened the door to find Bruce Banner sitting at Clint's computer desk clicking and clacking away at the keyboard, and Steve sitting cross-legged on his sleeping bag, holding something that looked vaguely like an iPod-touch. The first had a look of intense concentration on his face. The latter, an expression of complete and utter bewilderment.

Tony rolled his eyes, trying to find his inner big brother mentality—and a generous helping of patience. "Steve."

The Captain looked up at Tony with some concern. "What?"

"What are you doing?"

Steve glanced back down at the iPod and sighed. "I honestly don't know."

Stark grumbled something under his breath and took a seat next to Steve. He very gently extracted the iPod from Steve's grasp and scooted closer, holding it up so that they could both see the touch-screen. "Alright. For starters, you don't just use your thumbs. You use your pointer finger. And second of all, I would not recommend learning by way of playing countless games of 'Fruit Ninja,' because that could be frustrating and detrimental to the entire experience. Now, in order to grasp the concept of the touch-screen…" And Tony launched into one of his unnecessarily technical explanations, much to Steve's dismay.

Clint grabbed the car keys off the counter and also grabbed his cell phone. He may need backup. Fortunately, he had Natasha's cell number on speed dial.

"Loki?" he called, stalking into the living room. Loki was slumped on his couch, still in his rumpled plaid pajamas and looking rather tired, and Thor was sitting in a chair in one corner, still clothed in his Asgardian garb and eating amazingly large spoonfuls of peanut-butter right out of the jar.

"Loki, come on, get up, we're going to the grocery store. C'mon, get moving!"

Loki looked up at Clint with undisguised scorn, tossed aside one of the couch cushions, grabbed a wrinkled black T-shirt and a pair of dark, distressed blue-jeans, and then began to trudge toward the bathroom in a most slothful manner.

Clint glared at him on his way by and meaningfully tapped the face of his watch.

Loki ignored him.

When the demigod reappeared, he was fully clothed and wearing a pair of black tennis shoes. On further inspection, Clint noticed that the shoes were heelys, and he wondered what on earth had attracted Loki to that particular pair. The black T-shirt—now unfolded—could be much more clearly seen: there was a cartoon drawing of a sad little prickly cactus on the front, and beneath it was written, "Hugz?"

Clint decided that might be closer to the truth than he had originally thought, and vowed to at least tolerate Loki today.

Thanks for reading... review if you're looking forward to seeing Clint Barton give Loki a driving lesson! XD

~Alassiel