"I thought you were not worried about this exam and did not need to study, especially while walking," Loki grumbled as he hauled you away from walking into traffic. Again.
"I just need to look up this command," you protested. Again. Loki wasn't listening and you needed to study.
"You make my job of guarding you difficult when you keep walking into traffic," he muttered, holding your arm so you had to walk at his pace and not into traffic while you flipped through the pages of the textbook you were searching.
"At least I shouldn't be so brain dead after today's exam," you reminded him.
"That will be a relief. I disliked seeing you in that state," he said. "This one is not much better," he grumbled as he had to haul you away from running into a pole. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders instead, holding you close to his side to make sure you wouldn't die by trying to read and walk at the same time. "Can you please stop trying to read and walk at the same time?" he grumbled.
"I can't find this command!" you whined. Loki grabbed the book and yanked it from your hands. "Loki!" you exclaimed with frustrated tears in your eyes. You were so stressed about exams that your emotions were out of hands. You weren't usually like this.
"Take the phone out of your pocket and ask Karen," he told you gently, kindly. You just looked up at him, feeling stupid for not thinking of that. You pulled your phone from your pocket and did just as he suggested, having your answer in a moment. He pulled you into a hug. "Now will you please relax? You will do fine on the exam. You built Karen from scratch, remember?" he asked. You nodded.
"I'm sorry, I'll be better after this exam is over. It's the last one for the year," you reminded him.
He kissed your forehead. "I know, darling, I know." He kept your textbook and walked you the rest of the way to school with his arm around you. "Go slay that exam," he bid you before he kissed you.
"Don't forget I get out of school right after the exam," you reminded him.
"What time will that be?"
"Around 11,"
"I will see you then," he replied with a smile. He at least handed your book back before you ran up the stairs so you wouldn't be late for your exam.
*
You actually felt good about the exam as you bounced down the steps of the school after it was over. You had gotten out a little earlier than anticipated so Loki wasn't here yet. You sat on a brick wall next to the school to wait for him to get there. You pulled a tiny screwdriver out of your bag to make an adjustment to the watch on your wrist. The watch wasn't really a watch at all. Granted, it had watch capabilities, but it was a piece of tech you'd made yourself fully integrated with Karen. It had a one-shot repulsor in it as well. Your pet project right now was to increase the number of shots for the repulsor. It was difficult until you could figure out how to miniaturize an arc reactor, or some other power supply. Right now, though, it had a screw loose inside that was messing up the whole thing. You'd noticed that morning when you'd tried to ask Karen a question through it and the whole thing had rattled instead of her answering you. So you sat on the wall and took it apart so you could fix the screw.
"Darling, don't you have a lab to play with the things that explode in?" Loki asked when you shrieked and dropped the watch when it caught fire in your hands. He chuckled as he walked the last couple of steps to where you were sitting on the wall.
"I do," you said as you beat the fire out. You picked up the watch and sighed. It was going to take a lot more work to fix now that it had caught fire. Once it was extinguished completely, you shoved it in your school bag. You'd fix it later. Or make a better one.
