Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 68

"Well, don't you look dapper, Captain Rogers?" Loki greets him with a flirtatious smile, bouncing her eyebrows once just in case she wasn't being obvious enough.

Steve just chuckles. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"A pleasant surprise, I'd hope?" she asks.

"Yeah, of course," Steve says politely.

Loki's not entirely sure if he's lying and actually dislikes her or if he's just acting weird because he doesn't know what to do with the knowledge that she likes him. She hopes it's the latter. She won't deny that she does this in part because she enjoys making him uncomfortable, but she doesn't want to annoy him. There's a difference.

"And, sorry," Steve says, "your name, again...?"

"Oh, that's not important," Loki says dismissively.

"We already tried it," Natasha tells him. "She's not breaking."

Loki cocks an eyebrow. "Did you discuss this? Trying to learn my name?"

"Yeah, y'know, briefly," Natasha says. "It's hard to talk about someone you don't know the name of."

"I wasn't aware that I was a frequent topic of conversation," Loki remarks. She hasn't heard anyone talk about her since the day after the last party, but she's not around all the time. It makes her wonder how often she comes up in conversation when she's not listening.

"I wouldn't say frequent," Natasha says, "but you've come up once or twice. You're quite the mystery around here."

"Oh, am I?" Loki asks, a small smile on her lips. That's actually kind of exciting. She's only here to have her fun, but it's nice to hear that she made a mark on them with the one night she spent with them in this form.

"Well, yeah," Natasha says, "a goddess shows up unannounced with no name, no story; stays for a few hours, dances a few dances, and disappears without a trace? It doesn't get much more interesting than that — not on Earth, at least."

"Maybe I ought to come around more often, then," Loki says, tossing her a wink.

"Hey, you're more than welcome to," Natasha says. "God knows we could use the company."

Loki furrows her brows. "But you have each other." It's her own curiosity, not that of the facade she wears. They've always seemed fairly content spending their days together. What more company could they need?

"Yeah, but it gets boring, talking to the same six people every day," Natasha says. "But you really know how to liven up a party."

That gets a smile from her. "Well, thank you, Lady Natasha," she says, batting her eyelashes a few times for good measure because she truly has no shame. "Coming from you, that is truly high praise."

Natasha smiles back at her, though it seems to be more in amusement than anything. Clint nudges her arm, a knowing smirk on his face, and Natasha bounces her eyebrows once. Whatever secret language these two have is incredibly hard to follow. Loki's impressed.

Tony calls everyone's attention from the front of the room, and the murmured consensus among the four of them is that this cannot be good. Pepper and Rhodey stand off to the side, and given that they compose the majority of his impulse control, the fact that they're not stepping in does bode well for wherever this is going.

"Thank you," Tony says as the chatter calms down. "Quiet, please, thank you." He flashes his guests a smile. "First of all, I want to thank you all for coming. My last birthday party ended with a bit of a firefight, but I am remarkably less drunk tonight, so there's only, say, a 30 percent chance of that happening again."