Authors Note: I had a lot of trouble with this chapter. So instead of making you wait longer I decided to just post the first half. Chapter 15.2 will hopefully be along soon. Along with, you know who.

It had been Steve who'd originally insisted that the team eat a meal together at least once a week. He'd said that it was ridiculous to have them all living together and barely seeing each other outside of missions. Now, three days after Clint and Fenrir's showdown, he was starting to understand Natasha's preference for solitude.

Fenrir was out of bed and back to normal but for the rest of the team, well, the mood in the tower was pretty bleak. While Thor was willing to stand by Fenrir's request to leave Clint alone, he still felt betrayed by what his teammate had done and, despite Clint's attempts to apologize, there was still a constant rumble of thunder whenever the two of them were in a room. Not to mention that Clint seemed to be on the receiving end of far more static shocks than could be explained by natural causes. Although Thor insisted that it had no connection to him.

Steve sat at the table, poking at the sad remains of his breakfast, and wondered what he was going to do to get the entire team back on speaking terms with each other. Thor was mad at Clint for hurting Fenrir. Natasha was annoyed that Thor wouldn't accept Clint's apology and forget the whole thing. Bruce was still mad that Natasha hadn't thought what Clint did was wrong, and Steve was pretty disgusted with everyone. The only person in the building who seemed exempt from the crossfire was Tony.

"So has anyone seen our resident pariah this morning?" Tony asked, moments after Thor had left the room.

"Are you talking about Clint?" Steve asked. Even after three years of living in the Tower, sometimes he still had trouble translating Tony to English. "I saw him on my way downstairs. He was doing something on the computer."

"I know that it's been miserable around here lately, but he has been spending a lot of time on the computer," Tony said. "You don't think he's putting out personal ads for a new super hero team, do you?"

"He's probably just doing something for S.H.I.E.L.D," Bruce said, clearing up the remains of his breakfast and bringing them to the sink.

"He doesn't have any projects right now," Natasha said, rising to leave the table. "Fury wants to make sure that he'll be here while I'm gone." Steve inwardly groaned at the reminder that Natasha was leaving. As if he wasn't dealing with enough lately, Fury had announced the day before that they would soon be losing Natasha for two months while she did a deep cover mission.

It wasn't like this had never happened before. Clint and Natasha were still S.H.I.E.L.D agents and sometimes Fury had jobs that only they could do. Still, even if it was just for a few weeks, it was never easy to lose someone from the team. Even in the best situations the team would feel the loss of one of their members. With things in the tower as tense as they already were the mission couldn't have come at a worse time.

Every time that Natasha went on a mission alone Clint would be on edge. It seemed obvious to Steve that it was because he was worried about his girlfriend but, because of the weird not-a-couple relationship that Clint and Natasha had, he would never admit it. Then to counter his totally nonexistent anxiety, Clint would start acting out. It usually fell somewhere between pranking his teammates and disappearing for days at a time to do who knows what. Given how miserable things had been in the tower lately Steve wasn't sure how well anyone would respond if Clint rigged their intercoms to play Nsync songs while they were on missions. Like he'd done last year.

Steve wished again that Fury had found someone else to do this mission. Between the stress of losing a teammate and the chaos it would cause with Clint, they could really have used a break.

"So do we need to start worrying about him booking us for an Avengers on Ice show or is he just going to spend a few days at comic con?" Tony asked.

"He'll be fine," Natasha said. "Besides, the way things have been going lately, he could use a distraction."

"Then maybe Fury should have sent him on the deep cover mission," Bruce said.

"Fury thought that it would be better for him to stay here, considering everything,"

"Easy for him to say," Tony said. "He doesn't have to be around when the prank wars begin. You just know that whatever he's doing on the computer will mean misery and pain for the rest of us."

"You don't think you're being a little dramatic?" Natasha asked, not even remotely moved.

"You're right," Tony admitted. "He's probably just searching online for red head porn to help him get through this trying time." Before anyone could see how Natasha was going to respond to what Tony had said they received the call to Assemble. Steve went to suit up and within minutes he, Thor, and Black Widow were off to deal with a new threat

They hadn't even gotten to the battle when they got a call telling them that someone else was attacking across town. Tony, Bruce and Clint were all going to be needed.

"What do we do about-"

"We can't spare anyone," Tony insisted over his com. "Jarvis tell Fenrir where we're going." Tony said as they all headed out. "He'll be fine for an hour."

He was completely alone. For the first time since he'd come to Midgard he was the only person in the tower. It was a strange feeling and Fenrir wasn't sure what to do with it. It wasn't as if he'd never been alone before. He'd spent the majority of his life alone in a cell so, really, this should be nothing new. But being in the tower, with the freedom to move about and do whatever he liked, made it different.

Like so many of the things that he was relearning, he had no idea what to do with it. He also couldn't shake the belief that the Avengers were offering him a new level of trust, by leaving him without a keeper. So, even though he didn't really have any desire to do so, he left his room and began to wander.

There was something not right about the tower with no one in it. Fenrir thought, as he headed for the kitchen. It was too quiet. Without Thor's booming voice surrounding him the rooms seemed bigger than ever.

Fenrir was quickly shocked from his thoughts as he heard the elevator open at the end of the hall. This couldn't be right, there couldn't be someone coming, everyone was gone!

"Jarvis, where's Tony?" He heard a woman's voice ask.

"Mister Stark and the others have been called into the city. There was mention of fighting ninjas," Jarvis said. "Would you like me to inform him of your arrival?"

"No, I'll just wait for him upstairs," She said, her voice beginning to fade. Fenrir took a deep breath and thought about what to do. The way she had talked to Jarvis had made it obvious that she was allowed to be here, but who was she? Was it another member of S.H.I.E.L.D? Whoever it was Fenrir was sure that he did not want to meet them alone. He slid down the hallway and headed back toward his room.

A few minutes later and Fenrir was horrified to realize that, in his hurry to get away, he had taken the wrong hallway and was in a part of the Tower he'd never been before. Fenrir hurried to go back the way he'd come and found himself face to face with a tall red headed woman.

"Oh," She said with a small jump. Fenrir wanted to run as fast as he could but found that he had lost the ability to move his legs.

"Hello," Fenrir said awkwardly, wondering again who this woman was. Fenrir also wondered if she was able to read his mind when she began explaining.

"My name's Pepper," She said with a smile. "I'm Tony's fiancé."

"Hello," Fenrir repeated, feeling like a fool but not knowing what else to do, and suddenly realizing that he had no idea how to introduce himself. On Asgard you introduced yourself with your name and title, but what was that now. No longer a prince of Asgard, was he simply Thor's nephew? Reminding people that he was Loki's son only seemed to get him into trouble; so what was left?

"I am- my name is Fenrir," Fenrir finally said.

"I'm assuming you're Thor's guest from Asgard," She said.

"How did you know that?" Fenrir asked.

"The head to toe leather was a bit of a hint," She said, glancing at Fenrir's Asgardian clothes before walking the rest of the way down the hall. "Tony mentioned that you were staying here. And speaking of Tony, do you think they'll be back in time to help me unpack? Or did he schedule the ninjas to last until I'm done?"

"There is really no way to tell," Jarvis replied. "Although it is unlikely that Sir will be in a rush to return, since he does not know that you are arriving today."

"This date's been set for weeks," Pepper said.

"A fact I tried to remind him of several times. However he insisted that you weren't coming until next month." Fenrir watched the back and forth between Pepper and the voice in awe. Pepper shook her head and turned to face Fenrir.

"Looks like you've been promoted," Pepper said. "Any chance you're up for helping me unpack a few crates?" Fenrir stared at her for a moment and then nodded quickly. Pepper gave him a studying look for a moment.

"You'll have to forgive our guest," Jarvis said. "I believe that Fenrir is a bit shy, compared to our usual Asgardian visitors."

"Shy is an improvement over Fandral," Pepper said, motioning for Fenrir to follow her down the hallway.

"You, you know Fandral?" Fenrir asked.

"He and the other warriors Three came to stay with Thor once," Pepper explained. "It was certainly a memorable visit. Stark Industries had to deal with a record number of sexual harassment complaints and paternity suits. And this is a company that Tony founded."

"Paternity suits?" Fenrir asked.

"Thankfully that one turned out to be a false alarm," Pepper said as they continued down the hall. "We ended up having to pay out a lot of settlements for the others. Fandral had some very unique ideas about what counted as a friendly greeting."

"He gave me a horse once," Fenrir said, wanting to be able to contribute something other than silence to their conversation. "He started to anyway." Fenrir followed Pepper the rest of the way down the hall and then took the elevator up to her floor. The sight that greeted them as the doors opened was a mountain of boxes. Pepper stormed into the center of the room where there was a collection of furniture.

"Tony was supposed to have this done by the time I moved in," Pepper said.

"I tried reminding him," Jarvis said. "But he kept insisting that he had weeks to get it done."

"He could have at least had the movers put the furniture away instead of just leaving it all out here," Pepper said.

"In Sir's defense, there is a team scheduled to come at the end of the week," Jarvis said.

"Well," Pepper said, turning to Fenrir. "We can at least get this room done." Pepper was pleasantly surprised at how quickly moving furniture could be when you worked with an Asgardian. Just twenty minutes of work later and the room was almost finished.

"Don't let Tony know how quickly you can do all this," Pepper said, surveying the room. "Next thing you know he'll be designing the logos for an Asgardian Moving Service." Fenrir stared at her for a moment before asking what he should do next.

"I'd love to get a few of these crates open," She said. "Last thing, I promise." She pointed out a long, thin crate she wanted to open first and went to look for a crow bar. Just as she found where the movers had left it she heard the unmistakable sound of wood splintering.

"I guess you don't need this," Pepper said, staring at the crate Fenrir had just ripped open.

Fenrir began to apologize but he was stopped short. He couldn't move. He was looking at the most incredible thing he'd ever seen. Part of him was aware that Pepper was saying something to him but he couldn't tear his attention away from the item in the crate. Pepper looked over his shoulder and saw what had him so entranced.

"It's a Jackson Pollok," She said. "Tony gave away his entire art collection a few years ago when he thought he was dying. I've been buying it back piece by piece ever since."

"I've never seen anything like this," Fenrir whispered.

"Not a lot of modern art on Asgard?"

"Nothing like- no," Fenrir said, still partially in a trance.

"This one is one of my favorites," Pepper said, looking affectionately at the painting. "Tony likes his Springs paintings. I keep telling him it's for the street and not the season but-"

"There are more of them?" Fenrir asked, turning around. Pepper now had his full attention. She gestured to another large crate leaning against the far wall.

"Help me get it open," Pepper said.

"It's all in your head, Tony," Bruce said. He was starting to feel more exhausted by their conversation than by their battle.

"You're all against me," Tony said with a shrug.

"The guy was a B-List villain. They aren't that creative at the best of times," Clint offered.

"Bronze Baron, was wearing a metal suit," Tony said. "That suit was spray painted red. Is there anyone else you know who wears a red metal suit?"

"Alright, so he ripped off your idea. That doesn't mean that he was trying to steal your identity," Bruce repeated.

"And we took him down in less than twenty minutes. Hell, the cleanup took longer than the battle which, in my book, makes you more of a cosplayer than a real villain," Clint said, sitting down.

"See, even Clint agrees with me," Bruce said.

"Then again," Clint said. "That Black Sabbath t-shirt he had on under the suit was a pretty big coincidence."

"Everyone knows that's my band!" Tony said.

"You're not helping," Bruce said to Clint. "And Tony, for the last time, Black Sabbath did not write the song "I am Iron Man" for you."

"Alright, first off, yes they did," Tony insisted. "And second this isn't about my, admittedly, incredible taste in music. This is about intellectual property. My intellectual property that everyone suddenly wants to turn into some cheap knock off."

"Give me your helmet," Bruce said.

"You too?!" Tony asked.

"It's always the quiet ones," Clint said

"I'm calling Steve," Bruce explained. "Seeing if they need us to come help out before we head back to the tower." Clint shrugged and continued listening to Tony explain the conspiracy against him while Bruce took a few minutes to call the rest of the team.

"They're just about done," Bruce said as he walked back over. "Apparently Thor's finishing off the last of them and Steve doesn't think it should take more than a few minutes."

"It's nice to see Thor getting back to his roots," Tony said, taking back his helmet. "Not that I'm not a huge fan of the family-man side he's been showing lately. But it's nice to see the berserker rage every once in a while."

"We should be heading back," Bruce said.

"What's the rush, you forget to walk the wolf-man before we left?" Tony asked. Bruce just glared at him and Tony switched his com over to the Tower line.

"Jarvis, how's Rover enjoying having the whole place to himself?" Tony asked.

"I believe that he was a bit upset by the arrival of Miss Potts, but he seems to have gotten over that," Jarvis said.

"Pepper's there? What's Pepper doing there? She's not supposed to move in until next month," Tony said, confusion etched on his face.

"I am sorry sir, but she was in fact scheduled to move in today," Jarvis replied.

"Why didn't you warn me?!" Tony yelled.

"I tried, sir," Jarvis said. "Repeatedly."

"Jarvis," Bruce interrupted. "How is it going there; really?"

"It would seem that your young guest and Miss Potts are getting along quite well," Jarvis said. "After the initial confusion the two of them withdrew to her private floor."

"Wait, they're together?" Tony asked having suddenly gone white.

"Indeed, they have been on her private floor almost an hour," Jarvis said.

"An hour!?" Tony demanded, his growing panic not lost on his teammates.

"What have they been doing there for an hour?" Clint asked Bruce. "The guy doesn't talk."

"Jarvis, I need a visual," Tony said.

"I feel that I should remind you that Miss Potts declined to have cameras installed on her floor," Jarvis said.

"This is bad. I need to get back to the Tower now!" Tony said, slamming down his faceplate.

"Tony, I'm sure everything's fine," Bruce said.

"Don't you get it, Banner?" Tony demanded. "They've been together for an hour. Ten to fifteen minutes could just be polite but an hour is friendly. That means that they're talking."

"I'm confused," Clint said.

"Tony, why can't Pepper talk to Fenrir?" Bruce asked.

"I might have left out a few small details when I told Pepper that he was staying with us," Tony said, rushing over to the edge of the roof.

"Details like?" Bruce asked.

"Last names," Tony said, as he jumped off of the building and took off.

"It's not so much about the visual," Pepper explained. "The point was to capture energy and movement in a way that hadn't been-" Pepper was interrupted as Tony, still in his suit, smashed through her door.

"Pepper," Tony said, as he strode over to the couch. "I see you've met our new house guest."

"You just destroyed my door," Pepper said, standing up to go look at the splinters covering her carpet.

"Clashed with the room, it had to go," The couch groaned as Tony claimed Pepper's now vacant seat. "Really this whole area is a complete disaster. It's going to need a complete do over. And I think that it would be best if you just headed back to California until all of the necessary improvements are made."

"You're kicking me out?" Pepper asked, torn between stunned and annoyed.

"I'm doing this for you. I don't want you to have to live in a place that isn't worthy of you," Tony said, pulling off his mask and tossing it across the room.

"So the smashing down my door, that was the start of renovations?" Pepper asked.

"I feel like you're getting really hung up on this door thing," Tony said, holding up his hand in defense.

"I think I have the right to be a little upset when the first time I see you in weeks is you destroying my floor."

"I was in a hurry- to see you," Tony quickly added. "I'd think that the first time we've seen each other in weeks you'd be a little happier to see me."

"Well I'd think that a genius, billionaire, philanthropist, would be able to remember something as simple as a move in date. So I guess we're both confused," Pepper said.

"You forgot the playb-...," Tony quickly stopped himself from finishing his sentence. "Let's not argue about who forgot what. The important thing is that you're here." Pepper rolled her eyes at Tony.

"Does this mean that you've changed your mind about me leaving?" She said with a smile.

"Nope, not possible," Tony said. "Besides, why would you want to stay here? This place is a mess. Look there's boxes everywhere."

"That's because we just spent the last hour unpacking everything," Pepper explained, beginning to feel annoyed again. "Which we wouldn't have had to do if you'd had the movers come on time."

"Alright, first off, the move in confusion was really Jarvis's fault," Tony explained. "And second, who is we?"

Pepper gave Tony an incredulous look before pointing to the spot next to him on the couch. He turned to his left and saw Fenrir sitting with a look of amusement at Tony's lack of attention. Suddenly remembering the reason for his rush home, Tony bolted up.

"So, like I was saying before, it's probably best if you just head back to California," Tony said, walking over to Pepper. He wrapped an arm around her waist and began walking her to the door. "I'll get the floor finished and you can move back in sometime next month."

"Tony, Fenrir's been here for almost two months. If you haven't gotten around to telling me who he is yet I doubt that another month is going to make a difference. And I really don't feel like moving back and forth for the next year while you try and find a way to slip Loki's son into casual conversation," Tony stared at Pepper in shock for a moment before turning to Fenrir for an expination.

"It didn't seem right not to tell her," Fenrir said. "Since we're both going to be living here."

"I can explain," Tony said. Pepper stared at him and waited for him to continue. "Thor found his nephew when he went back to Asgard and then-"

"I know why he's here, Tony," Pepper said. "He already told me that. I want to know why you thought you could hide it."

"You told her about all of that too?" Tony asked. Fenrir nodded his response. "You two talk about anything else?"

"We talked about art a bit," Fenrir offered.

"Huh, art," Tony said, before turning back to Pepper. "I wasn't trying to hide it from you. I had every intention of telling you before you moved in. And I would have if Jarvis had reminded me."

"You were reminded, sir," Jarvis interrupted. "And I have the recorded evidence to substantiate my claim."

"You recorded it?" Tony asked, feeling stunned.

"I had reason to believe that you may attempt to use me as your scapegoat," Jarvis said. "I could not allow for it to appear that I was unable to fulfil my duties, so I made the necessary arrangements." Tony stood for a moment stunned at the fact that one of his creations had betrayed him.

"That's it," Tony said, regaining his focus. "Next time I make an AI I'm excluding any free will that could be used against me."

"I'll make the necessary alterations to the Ultron program, sir," Jarvis said.

While Tony had been arguing with Jarvis Pepper had gone to rejoin Fenrir on the couch. Tony nodded his approval to his virtual butler and brought his attention back to his fiancé.

"So…," Tony began. "Did he tell you about the time Thor wore a wedding dress?"

I hate to beg for reviews, but they really do help keep me motivated.