Loki stared out at the bustling city, his forehead pressed against the cool glass. There were construction cranes on several of the nearby buildings that had been heavily damaged in his glorious but not lengthy battle. And it had been glorious. He still had to smile imagining the shock experienced by the Other and his master when the Midgardian heroes had prevailed. Thor's friends had lived up to his every expectation…and then had exceeded them. His smile faded; Thor's friends. It was always Thor's friends, never his. His fist clenched at his side.

The door rattled, but did not open. He'd wanted privacy and was willing to hold it using his all but fully restored power. Not that he needed much to do this paltry thing. "Prince Loki," the voice of Jarvis said, breaking the silence. "Dr. Gunnarrsen requests admittance." He sighed and gestured at the door, reshaping the tendril of magic to tug it open. "Thank you, Jarvis," he said quietly.

He didn't turn away from the window, not just yet. His head was still throbbing and he fought to suppress the pain as he had fought to suppress the urge to silence that oaf, Hogun. Shifting locations from the dining room to his suite had bled off some of the suppressed power, but not enough. It was still trapped in a feedback loop into his nervous system; the damage done by the containment field would likely take days to fully heal now that the daily exposure to it had ended, even at his rate of recovery. Kara closed the door and crossed the room behind him. "I'm sorry," she finally said. "You were right. I was giving them far too much credit."

Loki smiled. Her voice conveyed her annoyance and disgust clearly. At least she admitted her error. Not that he blamed her for believing the best of anyone. She'd trusted him when no one else would. And others had trusted him on her word…Dr. Nassar, Pepper Potts. Even the other Avengers seemed to be giving him the benefit of the doubt and remaining civil. "Never mind, my lady. You do not, as you've pointed out, know our culture."

"It has nothing to do with your culture, and everything to do with abusing hospitality and ignoring orders. You should have seen it; Tony totally went off on them. I had a few things to, uh, say, myself."

He stiffened. No, the last thing he wanted…he spun and slammed his fist down on the wrought iron table. It shuddered and the center buckled. "I do not need championing, doctor. I can fight my own battles and do so better and with far more finality than any mortal!"

… …

Kara blinked. The pain, sorrow and tiny sliver of hope she had felt from him had melted away in an instant to be replaced by a violent streak of anger and frustration. Wonderful. He didn't understand that it wasn't all about him. She tried not to sigh at his egocentric assumption. "Actually, no one was championing you," she managed to say mildly, though not entirely honestly. "Hogun specifically disregarded orders and also violated common courtesy and rules of hospitality. He needed to understand that his abuse of hospitality wouldn't be tolerated." She decided that mentioning she'd made the two feel Loki's pain in retaliation for their insult to him would be a spectacularly bad idea.

Loki's mouth dropped open slightly, the anger melted away. He looked down at the dent he'd made in the table and sighed. "I-I see." He sat down in the wrought iron chair and stared up at her, his expression troubled, his emotions more so. "Forgive me?" he asked.

"Of course." Kara sat down beside him and poked at the deep depression in the ornate metal design of the table's top. "Can you fix it?" she asked.

His left eyebrow lifted slightly. "If you wish." She gave him her best annoyed frown and he chuckled. "Ah, very well, Kara." She watched as he stretched to lay one hand above and the other under the dented metal. His eyes narrowed; she could feel an energy disturbance and then heard the distinctive sound of slowly warping metal. After a few moments he pulled his hand away. "That's the best I can do without compromising the integrity of the material," he finally told her.

Kara leaned over to look at the underside of the table. There was only a tiny protrusion still visible. From the top, you would never know it had ever been dented. "Good, now I don't have to be mad at you for wreaking my table," she told him with a smile.

Loki laughed and took her hand. "I never want to have your anger," he told her as he kissed her palm. "I value your good opinion."

"You have it, you know. Seriously. Considering how badly they pissed me off, you must have been furious. Yet you handled it much better than I did. We were all very impressed." His mouth twisted and she could feel a thread of disdain run through him and sighed. "Yeah, I know, impressing the mortals, BFD, fine, whatever."

His eyebrows rose. "BFD?"

"Big, uh, freaking deal. It means I know you don't give a rat's…"

"I know what it means," he interrupted dryly. "I simply was startled to hear you say it; it's…unprofessional."

"Now, that's funny. You are obviously confusing me with Raj. I've never been particularly professional, well, not the way I speak, anyway. It doesn't go over very well with combat vets. Traditional doctor types get on their nerves."

Loki pushed back from the table and looked her up and down, his gaze heated. She fought down a smile as she felt a tendril of desire run through him. "No, I am definitely not confusing you with Dr. Nassar. He does not have the same effect on me at all." He reached out to take her hand again then stood, drawing her up to her feet as well. "Do you understand what you do to me?" he asked huskily as he used one lean finger to tilt her chin up to kiss her softly, lingeringly.

"Loki," she whispered as he abandoned her lips to trace a path to her ear and then nipped the lobe. "I-I can't stay."

"Kara…"

"Tomorrow morning I'll meet with Nick and tell him I'm moving back over here. But I have to go back tonight, if I don't he'll send someone to retrieve me."

"Let them try."

"No, Loki. You've been working so hard to stay out of trouble; besides which, I promised him I'd be back tonight. I don't break my word if I have any choice."

He sighed, and stroked her cheek gently. "Very well, then. I won't ask you to break your word, I would not break mine." She could feel a quick spear of mischief emerge as he smiled. "Assuming I'd bothered to give it."

Kara had to laugh. This Loki was the one she'd fallen for. He pulled her close and kissed her again; she wound her arms around his neck and enjoyed.

… …

"We're going to knock," Pepper told Tony after countermanding his order to have Jarvis open the door to Loki's suite. "I'd be upset if you barged into my rooms."

"Wait, that doesn't make sense. Your rooms are my rooms. You moved in…didn't you?" he asked, giving her his trademark adorably confused look.

She rolled her eyes. The expression was adorable, and he knew it, which was why he used it…it still got to her, though. "Fine, I'd be upset if Kara barged into our rooms."

"Okay, okay…go ahead, knock." He smirked. "But don't be surprised if they don't answer."

Pepper frowned at him. "All the more reason to not just walk in." She turned back to the door and knocked firmly, then stepped back to await a response. "Did you remember the wine?" she asked.

"Of course, I put a bottle of Kara's favorite in the ice bucket on the bottom shelf, I even remembered the glasses."

"Good." Cupping his cheek, Pepper rewarded his thoughtfulness with a kiss. "Did you drop off some in our bedroom?"

"Yeesss, a bottle of your favorite, and again, the appropriate glasses." He frowned. "And strawberries. I know how you love strawberries with your bubbly."

"Hmm. Remind me to share them with you," she said with a wicked smile, laughing as his eyes widened and he began to grin. "Now, behave."

"Don't I always? Ah, don't answer that."

"You really are a genius, aren't you?" She was saved from dealing with a response by the snick of the opening door. Expecting to see Kara or Loki on the other side, her eyes widened when she realized they were both on the far end of the room by the window.

"Come in, Pepper," Loki called. She entered the room, pushing the cart ahead of her and tried not to smile too deeply when she noticed Kara's mussed hair…not to mention Loki's rumpled collar.

"Hi, sorry to bother you, but Kara didn't finish her dinner either and she tends towards hypoglycemia when she doesn't eat regularly. I didn't think you'd mind my bringing fresh plates for the two of you so that she doesn't run into problems with her metabolism issues."

"Metabolism issues?" Loki frowned and looked down at Kara who nodded. "Ah, no, not at all. Thank you, that's quite…thoughtful."

… …

Tony smirked as he listened to the love of his life manage the god of mischief. No wonder the business side of Stark Industries was experiencing a renaissance. He should have put her in charge of it years ago. Damn, she was good. He leaned back against the corridor wall, waiting for the all-clear. The last time he'd entered Loki's suite without a direct invitation, their guest had gotten, uh, testy.

"Stark, stop hovering in the hall and come in," Loki called out, sounding irritated. Oh well, irritated was an improvement on testy. Testy had given him the feeling he should be wearing the suit.

He pushed off of the wall and strode in, exuding as much confidence as he could manage. "Well, everything is set for the evening," he told them, trying to ignore that Kara's lower lip was a bit swollen and her hair messier than usual. He ran a litany of 'it's not my business' through his head non-stop in an attempt to hold back the oh-so-tempting comments.

"How so?" Now how did one man - or one Norse god in this case, manage to fit so much condescending attitude into two small words?

"Well, after Kara left us with that blinding migraine," he began. "Banner felt it would be dangerous for her to travel back to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Who knows what the g-force on the Quinjet, or even with me flying her would do. Can't be risked." Loki stared at him, both eyebrows raised. "Sooo, I called Fury, let him know that she needed bed rest and that we really thought observation would be required tonight. I'm sure I saw blood on her napkin."

Loki looked sharply at Kara who had her lips pressed together firmly, trying not to laugh at the load of B.S. he was dishing out. "I…see," he finally said. "All night observation, hmm? I can't imagine that Banner has that kind of time on his hands or that you have that kind of patience."

"Yeah, not so much. So, I thought maybe you could do us all a favor on that."

"I think that could be arranged," he said solemnly, without so much as a twitch let alone the full out smirk Tony couldn't suppress. No wonder they called him the god of lies.

"Cool beans. You've got dinner in that top compartment, keeping hot. Dessert in the middle, keeping cold, and jusssst in case that migraine suddenly vanishes, a bottle of Kara's favorite wine in an ice bucket in the bottom. But before you enjoy, do you mind if I ask a question or two?"

"So long as I may refuse to answer."

"Fair enough. When you were wandering around my system – oh, and nice job on that, by the way. I'm impressed, couldn't have done it better myself. Of course, you were already inside my external firewall, so that saved you a lot of work."

"Actually, I jumped to your system from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, so I did need to breach your external firewall."

"Really? Damn. Hmm, gonna have to take a look at that." Tony frowned thoughtfully. "Anyway, when you were entertaining yourself in my files, did you do anything other than leave notes all over the place? I mean, I did look, but I didn't find anything, and I'd sleep a hell of a lot better if you could promise me you didn't alter anything."

Frosty smirked silently until Kara touched his arm. "Come on, Loki, he did something nice, you can be nice in return."

"Fine. Stark, I promise I've done nothing other than break into your system and leave the notes you found."

Tony rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Interesting way to word it…that didn't mean he wouldn't do anything in the future, but…he'd take it. "Okay, thanks for that. Second question, when you left the note on the scale armor construction specifications, who did you think the armor was for? I mean, my notes said to get the measurements from Pepper and to run the final design specs by her, and nowhere did it mention Kara by name or code name. Did you think it was for Pepper?"

Loki looked…hmm, abashed, and sighed before answering. Interesting. "Yes, it was a reasonable assumption. You've made yourself a very tempting target, putting your name in the sky in lights and such," he said with a smirk. "You should find a way to protect her."

Pepper murmured quietly, "I don't need protecting, thank you." They both ignored her.

"So I did. Well, then I owe you my thanks for looking out for her. That was, um, pretty cool of you." Loki frowned at him. "Uh, no pun intended, honest, that was sincere gratitude, really." Tony mentally smacked himself in the head and hoped for the best.

"You're welcome. I do not wish any harm to come to Pepper. She is innocent in all of this."

… …

Kara frowned. Notes? Harm? What the heck? "Um, what notes?"

Tony almost physically squirmed. "Well, your uh…companion there left a note on the rendering of your armor. He drew an arrow to a part of it from a message that said 'revisit the composition of this area lest the wearer suffer dire injury'. I really should have guessed it was him from that, I mean, who talks like that besides the guys from Asgard, you know?"

"Oh. Thank you," she said to Loki. He shrugged.

"Hey, Lokes, did you see anything else in there that needed fixing?" Tony asked.

She tried not to snicker at Tony's antics, not to mention Loki's put upon expression at the corruption of his name; she really did, but failed and earned an irritated glance from Loki. "Must you encourage him?" he asked. She shrugged and bit her lip. He turned back to Tony. "I really cannot say."

"Uh, okay. Why not?" In typical Tony fashion the last two words were drawn out.

Loki sighed. "There are treaties between those realms with a higher degree of technology that disallow interference in another realm's development of technology; or failure to develop a particular technology. I've already skirted the spirit of the agreement if not the actual letter of it with my warning. I will not cross the line, not on this. It would not be tolerated."

"Wait, didn't you already cross that line with Selvig?"

"No. His work with the cube gave him the knowledge, not anything I did. He may have come by that knowledge more quickly as he spent more time with it after I took him, but he did not gain any knowledge he would not have eventually gained on his own."

"Oh. Okay. Sooooo, since you're so bored and all, maybe you'd find it amusing to, I don't know, wander around in the workshop when I'm working on stuff. You might see things that don't interest you at all, and other things might give you a good chuckle."

Loki actually snorted. "I'll see if I can fit that into my busy schedule," he offered dryly.

"Yeah, you do that. Oh, crap. One more thing and then I'll leave you to your dinner. Banner and the docs over at headquarters are concerned that Kara isn't healing well from the exposure to the containment field. He's going to go along and oversee a full scan. We'd really appreciate it if you'd go too, and get scanned, so we can do a comparison, see how your healing is going and maybe see if there's anything we can do to help hers."

Kara held her breath. Tony might have actually hit on the one thing that would motivate Loki to agree to the scan, if he cared about her at all. He turned to frown at her. "Are you still having problems?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. They weren't exactly fudging on the migraine. It's not blinding, but I did have some fairly deep stabbing pain."

He frowned. "I'm not happy about that. Endangering me is one thing, I am technically the enemy. You are their teammate. That is…"

"It was an accident, Loki. Tony had no idea it would cause a problem. My nervous system is pretty unique among humans; it was altered by experimental drugs I was given after my pyrokinetic abilities surfaced. It doesn't do anything to normal humans. They couldn't have known or even suspected it would hurt me."

"And what's to prevent Fury from deciding he likes using me as a lab rat and making an attempt to keep me there?" he asked.

She smiled, letting her nasty emerge. "Me. I give you my word I won't let them keep you there, and if S.H.I.E.L.D. tries to make me break my word, there will be hell to pay."

… …

Pepper and Stark had finally left them alone and they'd enjoyed their delayed dinner, dessert and he was opening the smallish bottle of wine before he convinced his lady to join him in bed so that he could keep his agreement to provide 'observation'. His lips twitched as he imagined the conversation Stark and Banner must have had with Fury. "Here you are, my lady," he said, handing a glass to Kara.

"What did kind did Tony bring?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Does it matter? He said it was your favorite."

"I have several favorites." She leaned forward to reach past him and picked up the bottle. "Oh, that snarky putz," she muttered.

"What?" he asked and then looked at the label on the bottle. The wine was made by Quady Winery and was called 'Deviation'. "Hmm, and here I was nearly ready to revise my opinion of Stark."

Kara snickered. "Hey, he's entitled to express his opinion of my taste in men. At least he was being snarky at me with this one. My other favorite is Norwegian Ice Wine."

"That…well, that would be directed at both of us, I suppose."

"Exactly. So give him credit for choosing the lesser of two evils. He really is a good man underneath all of the wise-assery and snark."

Frowning, Loki urged Kara to turn and began unfastening the silk dress she'd changed into before dinner. "I suppose I can give him credit for arranging this. I honestly had no expectation that he would, hmm, aid and abet…us."

She set her glass down so that he could pull her dress and then her bra from her arms. Her expression was slightly troubled. Once freed, her arms snaked around his waist and she pressed her face into his bared chest. "Is there an 'us', Loki?" she asked softly. Closing his eyes he tried not to sigh. He had no idea how to answer her.

… …

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has stuck with the story and are now "Team Kara". Seriously, she had to have room to grow, which was why she was so judgmental about his adoption issues earlier. People are dynamic, always changing if only in subtle ways, so I try to create characters with that kind of three-dimensional realism. Thank you for loving how she's changing.

Next chapter will have more of the smexy, and will be up by the weekend. Sorry for the delay this week, I had other writing projects that needed serious attention.

We've had over 1,500 unique visitors to this story in November so far, which is totally amazing. I appreciate all of you for reading, and love your comments. Keep them coming! I do take the time to answer PM's and will PM you if you hit on something critical. I think interaction with readers of fan fiction is an integral part of the experience.

Author's Note 2: I originally had this on a much later chapter, but since everyone seems to be hopping on to review immediately after reading this one and informing me about it before they read on, I'm adding it here. I have not seen the Iron Man movies (a sacrilege, I know), so I was not aware Pepper is supposed to be allergic to strawberries. Fortunately, she never ate any "on camera" so we'll just assume she enjoys dipping them in the bubbly and feeding them to Tony as a reward for 'certain activities' and that her comment in this chapter about sharing them was a playful promise of rewarding him for those activities that he alluded to promising by telling her he'd gotten the strawberries.