My Neighbor, Mr. Rogers

Chapter Fourteen - Out of this World

At least twice a month Stark invites me to the tower. He says it's to encourage Steve to spend more time with the team during his downtime. I guess I don't mind being invited only so someone else will come. I mean, I'm not a superhero so there isn't any real reason they'd want me personally to be there and it is kind of fun to watch them all interact like (mostly) normal people.

They'd go out for drinks, or have a movie night, or try out some modifications Tony made to the training facilities. Although, after the first time Tony invited me over, I didn't think he'd invite me back.

**flashback**

"What's with the jewelry?" I ask, noticing for the first time that he was wearing solid metal bracelets.

"They're like a homing beacon for my Mark VII to identify the user when I call for my suit." He answers easily.

"So, it's like Life Alert? 'Help me Life Alert, I'm falling from a building and I'm going to go splat'? I didn't think you were quite that old."

**end flashback**

He didn't laugh much at that. But he did invite me back again. It almost makes me wonder if he finds my teasing entertaining. Then I remember that he's inviting me for Steve's sake. It's pretty ridiculous actually. If Tony wants Steve to spend more time with them, he just has to ask nicely and not be so annoying when they're together...on second thought, I understand why Tony uses me as a buffer.

He probably figures that if I'm there- a powerless, normal, defenseless bystander –then they'll have to get along well enough to not endanger my life. I guess he is smarter than he looks.

Anyway, I've been coming to the occasional superhero shindig for about six months now, and I guess I'm pretty used to most of them. Bruce is still my favorite, but Clint has actually surprised me with his sly sense of humor. He isn't nearly as 'blood-kill-murder-death' as I had thought.

He and Natasha have shown me a few things to help me refine the defense moves I currently know and also a couple of new things that are just so cool. Our little sessions are never anything formal or serious, just a few minutes here and there when they push to see where I'm at and if I've been practicing.

Anyway, tonight is another Avenger gathering and I'm both looking forward to and freaking out over this one more than the others. 'Why?' you ask. Well, thank you for asking, invisible-figment-of-my-imagination audience. It's because tonight I'm going to meet Thor.

He's been stuck in Asgard because the Bifrost (yes, the rainbow bridge is a legit thing) was damaged. But after the Battle of New York they were able to start repairs with the returned tesseract. I guess they've finished fixing it because he's been in New Mexico for a few days, visiting his girlfriend I think, and he'll be at Stark Tower tonight.

Now, this would be exciting enough for a normal person who knows about what happened in New York and how Thor helped save the world. But I'm not "normal" precisely. My mom was a professor of historical literature and she fed me stories like they were bread and butter. I've grown up hearing mythology; which includes tales of Thor, who actually happens to be an alien from another realm.

Trust me, when I heard about him, my first reaction was excited internal fist-pumping that 'Stargate' got it so right!

Although Bruce did inform me that not all of the myths are accurate. Apparently the storytellers of the time didn't care for Loki- can't imagine why –so they really twisted a lot of what he did and in response Loki spun lies about the activities of his fellow Asgardians.

Regardless, Thor is expected to arrive sometime after sundown. He'll be staying in the Tower before heading to speak to some muckety-muck with SHIELD tomorrow. So Tony will most likely try to get him drunk tonight.