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Peter stormed into Tony’s house, trying to compose himself before facing the other Avengers. He had had possibly the worst day at school in the history of ever, starting with forgetting his lunch money and ending with some asshole throwing his BioChem book into a mud puddle on the way out of the building. To top it off, Tony had texted everyone and only said “SOS - Get here ASAP” so he was expecting the literal apocalypse on top of his already shit day. When he walked into Tony’s kitchen, he saw everyone else already assembled, with the addition of a man he didn’t recognize with long black hair who looked like he was in shackles. Tony looked like he was about to speak, but Peter put a hand up and interrupted him.
“I have had quite possibly the worst day and I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday. Whatever is going on here,” he gestured to the man in shackles, “can wait until I have raided your fridge.”
Everyone in the room’s jaws dropped simultaneously, except for the shackled man in the corner, who simply threw his head back and laughed. Peter ignored them, tossing his backpack in the corner and pulling open Tony’s fridge and taking his time to assemble himself a multi-layered sandwich with several toppings. To everyone’s surprise, the room remained silent until the sandwich was shoved into his mouth. Natasha tried to hide the fact that she was snickering, but failed. Clint nudged her with his elbow.
“Well,” Tony cleared his throat. “Now that hangry hangry half-pint has satiated himself, can we get down to business here?”
“The obvious solution here is that you simply let me go so that I can help you.” The black-haired man spoke quite smoothly and confidently for someone in chains.
“Loki,” Steve shot a warning look at him. “You aren’t stupid.”
The black haired man - Loki - simply shrugged.
“Loki as in…” Peter started to ask with his mouth still full. He had to bring a hand up to catch the bits of food that dropped out of his mouth when he spoke.
“Yes.” Thor replied, keeping his eyes locked on the man in question. “My brother who tried to kill you all.”
“To be fair,” Steve started to speak.
Bucky interrupted, “So did I.”
Bruce looked around the room. “I’m sure I’ve tried to kill most of you at least once too.”
“Lest we forget your little lovers’ quarrel,” Nat gestured between Steve and Tony.
Tony looked exasperated. “That is so not the point! Are you all forgetting what he did?”
“He did apologize.” Thor interjected.
Peter turned around, reaching back into the fridge. “So why do we need your help?” He looked over his shoulder at Loki before turning around with a four-pack of pudding cups in his hands.
Tony glared across the room. “He seems to think-”
“I do believe hangry hangry half-pint was speaking to me.” Loki’s voice was smooth and carried over the room, still just as confident.
“Peter.” He said, glaring at Tony, around a mouthful of pudding. “My name is Peter.”
“ Peter , then.” Loki continued. “I came to warn you all of a very real threat to your little planet. As much as I would love to see you all burn -except maybe you, Peter. You’re funny-, it just wouldn’t feel right to let someone else do it.” Something about the way Loki said his name sent a shiver down Peter’s spine.
Steve cleared his throat. “You aren’t exactly making a good case for yourself, Loki.”
Loki shrugged casually.
“So you’re like a bad guy, right?” Peter nodded his head toward Loki.
Loki shrugged, casually, while a chorus of “yes” came from everyone else in the room.
“Depends on my mood at the time.”
Peter swallowed the last of the first pudding cup. “So like. One to ten. One is ‘don’t help that nice old lady cross the street’ and ten is ‘kill everyone’. How bad are you feeling right now?”
Everyone in the room gave Peter a confused look, Loki included, before he answered with: “About a three.”
“Alright. Three. Three is good. I can work with three. Shit, Tony is about a four most days-”
“Hey!” Tony interjected. “Don’t compare me to him!”
“Language!” Steve yelled over Tony.
“You design weapons of mass destruction and sell them. Shut up.” Peter rebutted.
Steve shrugged. “Kid does have a point.”
“I’m feeling about a five right now.” Nat grumbled from her perch on the back of the couch.
“I’m with Loki, right about a three.” Bucky shrugged.
Peter gestured around the room pointedly before continuing his thought, addressing Loki. “I’m sure you’ve heard by now, I had a really bad day. Colossally bad. So, can you like pretty please refrain from doing bad guy things? Lemme know if that badness level starts to go up?” He gestured towards the ceiling with his thumb for emphasis.
“Sure.” Loki shrugged.
“See?” Peter spoke to the rest of the Avengers, mostly Tony. “All better. Can I keep eating now?”
Bucky put a hand over his mouth to hide his laughter.
“We still need to assess the threat he says he came here to warn us about.” Steve spoke up.
Bruce looked around the room. “You can’t actually mean you think we should just let him go.”
“Of course not.” Tony stated matter-of-factly. “The house is super-proof since somebody keeps crashing through the walls. And the ceiling. And the floor. And the windows.”
“I’m not sure what that-” Steve started to speak.
Tony interrupted him with a raised hand. “So Peter can stay here and babysit.”
“Babysit?” Peter gagged on an ice cream sandwich that he had dug out of the freezer.
“Everyone wins.” Tony smiled. “You get to eat. He gets to stay nice and cozy in those pretty bracelets. We get to go check out this invasion. You stay safe so that your aunt doesn’t kill me .”
Natasha shrugged, hopping off the back of the couch where she had been sitting. She leaned down next to Loki’s ear. “You hurt a single hair on his prepubescent little head and I will personally pluck every hair on your post-pubescent groin. One by one.”
Loki grinned at her. “Promises, promises...” He looked back at Peter. “I promise I’ll play nice with the child. We all know I have a soft spot for bullied children, after all.” He shot a look across the room at Thor, who Peter could have sworn looked somewhat embarrassed.
Peter considered arguing about why he should he allowed to come along and do recon with the rest of them, but a much larger part of him wanted to be left alone with Tony’s fully-stocked kitchen. Not that he would let Aunt May know it, but he had started skipping meals at home to keep from eating her into bankruptcy. With a shrug, he turned back to the cabinets. He ignored most of the idle conversation while the rest of the Avengers suited up. As much as he hated being considered a kid, he was really hungry. He loaded his arms up with boxes of snacks and carried them into Tony’s theater sized living room. After setting them down on the couch, he pulled the coffee cake out of his mouth and turned back to Loki.
“You just gonna sit over there and pout or you wanna come have snacks?” Peter asked, still chewing.
Loki’s eyebrows pinched together. “Snacks?”
“Delicious treats.” Peter replied.
“I… No.” Loki shook his head slightly. “I don’t think…”
“Tony pays for them.” Peter interrupted.
Loki grinned. “In that case…” He stood, wobbling slightly. Peter was at his side in a half second, steadying him by the elbow.
“Er…” Peter blushed, taking his hand off Loki’s arm and awkwardly running it through his own hair. “Sorry. Reflex.”
“My thanks.” Loki’s voice was stiff and he was still staring down at his elbow where Peter’s hand had been.
Peter plopped down on the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table. “Jarvis?”
“Yes, sir?” A voice echoed through the room.
Loki looked around curiously.
“Put on something Loki and I will both like.”
The window in front of them became a giant screen, illuminating the room. Peter watched as a familiar barn owl flew across the screen. The lights in the room dimmed, and the rest of the windows tinted themselves.
“Magic.” Loki smirked.
Peter shook his head. “Clever illusions. I hear you know a thing or two about those. Now eat your snacks and watch the movie.”
Loki held up his shackled hands, looking pointedly at the pile of snack foods. Peter paused, mid-bite of a coffee cake. “Oops,” he mumbled, dribbling crumbs out of his mouth. He held the cake in his mouth while he opened the packaging on a Twinkie and plopped it into Loki’s bound hands.
A baby started crying on the screen and Loki’s eyebrows pinched together, looking annoyed. He gave the treat in his hands an experimental sniff before taking a small bite of it. His eyes went wide when frosting squished into his mouth. Peter laughed under his breath, watching the screen as the main character wished away the screaming infant.
“You know,” Peter spoke around his very full mouth. “You remind me a bit of the villain in this movie.”
“And why, pray tell, is that?” Loki cocked an eyebrow at Peter then turned to the screen and looked the man up and down.
Peter grinned. “Fashion sense, obviously.”
Loki opened his mouth to argue, but looking at the character in his extravagant (but very stylish) attire, he couldn’t quite come up with a reason their clothing was all too dissimilar. He bit down into his snack cake again, this time prepared for the frosting. He snorted when the man on the screen started performing tricks with his crystal balls. “Child’s play.”
Peter smiled. He could see that Loki’s eyes were fixed on the screen, even if he was keeping his face still. He made a mental note to thank Jarvis later for his excellent choice of film. When Peter reached between them for a fresh snack, he saw Loki’s eyes dart down quickly before looking back at the television. He chuckled slightly before opening a miniature bag of chips and tossing it onto Loki’s lap. It took Peter a few minutes to realize that the bag wasn’t crinkling. When he looked over, he saw a very annoyed looking god staring down at his handcuffed wrists.
Peter swallowed the bite of food in his mouth. “Need some help with that?” He pointed down at the bag of chips.
With a slight shrug of his shoulders, Loki handed the bag back over to Peter. Peter smiled, pulling a chip out of the bag and leaning across the couch to pop it into Loki’s mouth for him. Loki looked slightly taken aback by the gesture, but pulled the chip into his mouth and ate it anyway. Peter felt his heart jump when Loki actually took food from his hand. He wasn’t sure exactly what had possessed him to hand feed a god. While Loki chewed, Peter turned the small bag upside down into his mouth and finished it off.
Peter stood up, sweeping the rest of the snacks off of the table and into his arms. “You were done with these, right?”
Loki gave a slight nod up at him. Peter could feel his face flushing. Something about his crotch being right at face level with Loki was not being kind to his out of control teenage hormones. He quickly hurried back to the kitchen, looking down to make sure he wasn’t rocking an obvious bulge. With a slight sigh of relief that he was not, he deposited the snacks on the counter and pulled a pint of Ben & Jerry’s out of the freezer along with two spoons out of the drawer.
Peter plopped down on the couch, considerably closer to Loki than he had been before. Loki eyed him curiously, but took the spoon in his shackled hands when it was handed to him. With a pop, the lid of the container in Peter’s hands was tossed behind the couch and across Tony’s floor. Loki chuckled under his breath at the sound that it made skittering across the floor. He hoped that it had made as much of a mess as possible.
“Well,” Peter mumbled around a full mouth, “dig in.”
“As much as I would love to ‘dig in’, half-pint, I am afraid I’m a little ‘tied up’, if you will.” He held his hands up for emphasis.
Peter’s eyebrows pinched together and he pouted slightly. Something that Loki found oddly pleasing to look at.
“It’s Peter,” he grumbled, “and if you can promise to be nice, I’ll help. I already had a bad day and I gave you the benefit of the doubt here.”
“Apologies, Peter ,” the sound of his name on Loki’s tongue sent a shiver down his spine, “I was trying to make a joke. It seems I’ve lost my touch.”
Peter sighed. “No. I’m just jumpy today.”
“Care to elaborate on this ‘worst day ever?’”
Peter ran one hand through his hair. “Not really. It’s pretty stupid now that I’ve calmed down a little.” He stuck his spoon into the pint of icecream and pulled a scoop out, holding it up to Loki’s mouth. Loki cocked an eyebrow at him before accepting it. Peter could see the shock on his face when the cold hit him. He couldn’t help but laugh.
On the giant screen, the villain started to sing a catchy tune which brought both of their attention fully back to the movie. Peter’s face relaxed into a soft smile as he remembered watching this movie for the first time with Ben when he was just a little boy. He had loved the villain from the beginning, which had always made May shake her head, but Ben said it meant that he had an eye for seeing the good in everyone. As he thought about that, he looked over at Loki sitting next to him on the couch. His lips were also turned up into a very slight smile. As he stared at Loki, Peter became very aware of the fact that his heart was racing. He realized that for the first time, he was genuinely physically attracted to someone.
In an attempt to hide his thoughts from Loki, even though he was pretty sure that Loki could not, in fact, read his mind, Peter jammed his spoon back into the pint of ice cream and took a bite that was probably way too big. While he tried to suck it down, he was hit with a very sudden bout of brain freeze, which made him whimper and scrunch his face. Loki turned to look at him, concern evident on his face. His eyes darted around the room, as if he thought someone might appear to help them. When he realized that they were definitely alone, he let out a long sigh, giving Peter one last sympathetic look.
Peter didn’t realize at all what was happening until the index and middle fingers of both of Loki’s hands were on his temples. When the pain in his face subsided and he was finally able to open his eyes, he saw that the shackles lay useless in Loki’s lap.
“I- You- Thank you,” Peter looked up at Loki, his shoulders drooping slightly. His eyes started to feel heavy, like he might have taken too much cold medicine.
Loki sucked a breath in through his teeth. “Perhaps I should not have done that. These things can have… side effects when used on humans.”
“Siiide effects?” Peter’s words were slightly slurred. “You took your bracelets off.” He pointed down at Loki’s lap.
A soft laugh erupted from Loki’s chest. “So I did.”
“How bad’re you feelin right now?” Peter blinked heavily.
Loki put both hands up, unsure of what the boy’s powers actually were and unwilling to find out while he was incapacitated. “The least bad I have ever felt. Level one. Minimal badness.”
“Good,” was all Peter managed before tumbling forward towards Loki’s lap.
Loki caught Peter before he faceplanted into him. He glanced around the room again, making sure they really were alone before using a little bit of his own powers to lift Peter’s legs onto the couch while his hands guided him to lay down on his lap. One of his hands made its way to Peter’s hair and stroked through it idly while he finished the movie (and the ice cream) and let Peter sleep off the after-effects of a little Asgardian healing.