Chapter Text
“Believe it or not, I’m doing just fine at Thanos & Partners.” Loki switched the conversation to his Bluetooth headphones as the elevator pinged open. Gamora and Nebula, waiting on the beige carpet bordering beige walls under beige lights, halted their gossip mid-sentence.
“That could have happened to anyone,” Gamora said with pity.
“Look at who’s crawling back home,” Nebula said with a smirk.
“When was the last time you won a case?” Odin asked as though he didn’t know.
“I’m on a call.” Loki resettled his court backpack on his shoulders and strode past them and through the open office with its pool of paralegals and secretaries. Darcy got up and made eye contact from across the room, and he held up a finger to indicate that he couldn’t speak right now.
“If you’ve been following my cases, you’re well aware they were unwinnable.” He closed the door to his office behind him, though the glass offered a mere idea of privacy.
“Then you’re wasting your talent attempting it.” Odin sounded cantankerous as ever.
“Oh, as opposed to Thor? How many trees has he felled today? Has he made you proud?” Loki walked back to his overflowing desk and threw down his STARK phone. He picked up the paper bin and—with one fluid motion—swept take-out containers, hastily scribbled court notes, and anything caught up in between into the trash.
“Thor is doing what he loves. No, Loki, if you wanted to be a lawyer, you could have made your name with Asgard.”
“Spare me the lecture.” Loki sorted the case files into their legal boxes, manila folders crumpling under the force. Since his father had retired, Loki had briefly considered applying at Asgard LLC. But he could not have a career in Odin’s shadow any more than he could have gotten up this morning and decided to be a lumberjack. “Is there a reason you called?”
Odin sighed as though Loki was the one being difficult. “Your mother wants to know when you’ll be home for Christmas.”
Right. It was December. “I cannot take time off right now.”
Odin laughed, an ugly and short sound, and Loki tensed in preparation. “How much could your boss possibly miss you after that disaster?”
And that was the reason Loki couldn’t work for Asgard, even without Odin there. Yes, Loki had been on a losing streak, but Odin had no idea what Loki was up against, did he? Loki breathed until he was sure he wouldn’t scream. Then he said, “Don’t call me at work,” and hung up.
He let himself fall into his swivel chair and pressed his fingertips against his closed lids, as though that might drive out the impending headache. He should have known better than to pull an all-nighter. He was exhausted—skin itching and eyes burning—and they had still lost. He didn’t have the nerve to deal with his family right now. (That one really had been on him for not checking who was calling before answering his phone.) The trashcan buzzed, and he opened one eye to realize his phone had been wedged in between old pizza containers. He dug through the trash and wiped off the screen.
Thor: you got it yet?
Loki stared at the text, uncomprehending.
Loki: has the idea of context ever crossed your mind?
Thor: i sent something to your office
Thor: since you can’t show up at home 🙄
Loki frowned. Right. Thor had wanted him to stop by, and Jane—visiting her mother in the same part of the country—had offered to pick up whatever it was Thor was holding hostage on her way back. Speaking of it, Loki had not seen her in almost two weeks.
A knock on the door diverted his attention. He twitched to sling his feet down from where they were resting on his desk before he realized that it was just Darcy. He waved her in.
“You realize there is an upturned container of tahini on the floor.” She wrinkled her nose at the mess. Loki craned his neck and, well, maybe he could have taken a little more time to clean up his desk.
“Please get to the point.”
“There’s stuff for you in Meeting 3.”
“The Hammer case? Already?” Loki’s eyebrows climbing to his hairline.
Darcy looked uncomfortable. “Uh. That one went to Gamora.”
“What?” It came out too loud, and heads were turning in the hallway. He did take his feet off his desk, then. “That case should have gone to me. I am the most qualified. I was promised that case.”
Darcy shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I just work here. Meeting 3.”
And with that, she was gone. Loki groaned and gave himself a minute to wallow. He was cursed. It was hopeless. Nothing was working out.
And there was nothing to do but pull through until Thanos came around and decided to make him a partner. He could work harder for another year or so, put in a few more hours on the weekend. Loki had always been good at working hard.
It might have been easier if he could procure some aspirin.
He got up with a heavy sigh to follow Darcy into Meeting 3.
**
The doll was propped up against the conference speakers, drooping where its cloth body was worn thin. Its hair was thin, porcelain face chipped, and the dress falling apart. Not even the brightness of the sun hitting the Manhattan skyline in the background could chase away the miasma of dereliction that wafted off the doll.
Darcy stopped digging through the legal file box sitting on the table to wipe strands of hair out of her face. “The box is from Jane, addressed to you. Not sure why she sent the creepy murder doll along, though.”
“Indeed,” Loki muttered and inspected the handwritten card that had come with the doll. It read ‘Circus Doll House’ on ancient, yellowed card stock, an address printed below it. He turned it over. An Asgard Manor calling card that he hadn’t seen in use in decades.
So Jane had found Asgard. Why Thor had wanted him to have one of their mother’s old dolls was beyond Loki. He lifted an eyebrow at Darcy. “Did she mention why she failed to return?”
“Yep.” Darcy moved the gum from one cheek to the other and handed him a stack of folders: ‘Urgent.’ “And Thanos wants you to take over her case.”
Loki ripped it from her hands and opened it, shaking out printed case files. He flipped them open and scanned the top sheet. Pro bono work. He scoffed.
“I don’t care about this. When is she coming back?”
Darcy let the bubble pop and peeled bright pink gum from her lips. “She quit. Her resignation letter was taped to the box.”
Loki stared at her, stared at the doll, then back at the as-of-yet incomplete case brief in his hands. He flipped to the latest notes; the timeline indicated that they’d meet opposing counsel first thing tomorrow morning.
“Well,” he said.
“I worked with her on that case. You want me to get my notes?” Darcy seemed utterly unshaken by the developments, and that was something, at least.
“What I want is for her to call and explain herself.” Loki paused. “Did you try to call her?”
Darcy paused her open-mouthed chewing to give him a wide-eyed look that translated to ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’
Loki stared at her for a while longer, then turned on his heel, holding up the case file. “I will speak to Thanos about this. I don’t do pro bono.”
“Okay.” Darcy sounded bored already.
**
It turned out that his boss very much did want him to take the goddamn pro bono and that Jane definitely wasn’t returning. Loki assumed it was punishment for his losing streak.
Fine. He’d do the best goddamn job they had ever seen.
**
Loki tried calling Jane. It didn’t even go to voicemail, the number being unavailable.
“Maybe she lost her phone or something.” Darcy was half-sprawled across Loki’s desk, swirling some kind of smoothie in a paper cup, and flipping through Jane’s near-illegible notes. Most they could reproduce through the digital files, but there was one page tacked on that seemed to have been scribbled in haste. It read like one long smudge. Loki suspected it contained information on the physical evidence they were supposed to have, but for the love of him, someone in grade school should have slapped Jane’s fingers one more time when she messed up her letters.
“You two work together all the time. How can you not read her handwriting?”
“Nah, it’s pointless; I take my own notes,” Darcy lifted a notepad to show immaculate, small lettering, perfectly dated and referenced.
Loki picked up the scribbled note once more, put his feet up on the table, and scanned it. The case was a class action suit on lead paint poisoning in preschoolers, traced back to STARK Toys. The toy itself had been on sale for less than a week before it had been pulled and replaced with safe iterations, but that didn’t mean that children hadn’t gotten hurt. From the notes, it seemed incredibly hard to get your hands on one of the original figurines.
Loki tended to be on the other side of these kinds of disputes, and he knew how hard it was going to be to make a dent in ST’s defense.
“I thought this could be ‘warehouse 6,’” Darcy pointed at a place in the chicken scratch that ended with a large swirl.
Loki frowned. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
“Cause some whistleblower sent her evidence from warehouse 6.”
Loki let the piece of paper sink. “And you didn’t think to tell me that before?”
She loudly slurped whatever godforsaken drink she had procured through her straw and looked unimpressed.
Loki ground his teeth. “What was this evidence, and where is it now?”
“One of those superhero figurines. It vanished, somehow. Maybe she lost it? She was all bummed out about it before she left for the weekend.”
Loki glared at her, then at the unhelpful case file spreading across his desk. The first meeting with opposing counsel was less than sixteen hours away, and he had nothing. “Well. I have a meeting with our main plaintiff, who, according to Jane’s notes, should still be in possession of some evidence. We might not need it.”
“Say hi to Lucas from me.”
**
Loki carefully picked Legos from the cushions before he sat down on the sagging couch.
“Oh! Those shouldn’t be there. Really. Molly might swallow them.” Ms. Carter set a cup of coffee down for him and held out a hand into which he carefully deposited the building blocks. One of them was sticky. The baby on her hip reached for his hair, and Loki leaned back as far as he possibly could.
“Thank you for meeting on such short notice.” Loki really wished he hadn’t worn a tie—he felt out of place in the small living room that smelled like spaghetti and applesauce. A small boy—Lucas, it seemed—was pretending to color in the kitchen, though whenever Loki’s eyes wandered to him, Lucas quickly looked away.
Ms. Carter sat down opposite from him and gave him a tired smile. “How is Jane doing?”
“I wish I could tell you. She is indisposed at the moment.” Loki put on his best contrite smile. “I am taking over the case for her in the meantime.”
“Really?” Ms. Carter’s smile faltered. She had been essential in gathering the information that Jane had accumulated in the months prior: her kid had been one of the first to show signs of lead poisoning. She had been the first one to go through her home, the paint used on walls and radiators, then through the toy boxes and test everything she could get her hands on. And she had been the one to create the Facebook group that gathered enough plaintiffs to create a case against ST.
There was one thing that Loki was missing, however.
“She noted in her file that you had collected all the physical evidence from the other plaintiffs,” Loki said. “I was wondering whether you could share that with me for safekeeping.”
She looked alarmed at that. “I already gave everything to your co-worker. Has it gone missing?”
“To Jane?” Loki asked. He had looked through her office as well as the filing system but hadn’t come across anything.
“No, no. A tall man, bald? From your offices. He gave me a card …” She rose and began searching through messy drawers, the child on her hip watching with glassy-eyed fascination.
Loki made eye contact with the boy, who this time didn’t look away. Loki stuck out his tongue at him, and the child quickly ducked his head.
“How is he doing?” Loki asked his mother.
“Lucas? He’s doing better. His kidneys are fine, but his joints still ache,” she said and clattered one drawer shut to open the next. “We’re more worried about long-term consequences, you know. You want the best for your children. College and such.” She threw him an unsure smile, then vanished into the kitchen to open the cabinets there.
Loki drank some coffee—it was so black that he almost spat it back into the mug—and stood to follow her into the open kitchen. He threw a glance at the kid’s work.
“I didn’t know Captain America could fly,” he commented.
Lucas slapped both hands over the picture he’d been drawing. He looked at Loki with large, suspicious eyes. “He has a rocket pack,” he said. He sounded like he had a bit of a sore throat. He was too small to be in kindergarten, but he had diligently lettered the superhero’s name above the drawing.
“We just love Captain America.” Ms. Carter drew out the vowel in ‘love’ and rubbed the boy’s back, putting a kiss on the crown of his head. Loki wondered whether he heard a bit of bitterness in her voice. He might have been imagining it. She handed him a business card, slightly bent. “Here you go. That’s the card he gave me.”
Loki accepted the business card that did look like one of Thanos & Partners’, but when Loki ran his thumb over the logo, the foil wasn’t impressed as he had expected it to be. He turned it around and scowled at the name: ‘James Joyce.’
“I need an exact description of this man,” Loki said evenly, “because I do not know him and he appears to have absconded with all of our evidence.”
Ms. Carter pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes large and shocked.
**
Loki slumped back in the Porsche in frustration, staring at the fake business card in a small Ziploc bag that Ms. Carter had been willing to give him. The sun was going down, and the lights came on in suburbia, hours before husbands and wives arrived home from work. And Loki had nothing to face STARK with tomorrow.
He thought about it. Then he turned around to check that he had his workout clothes in the back seat.
He dug his phone out of his coat pocket and dialed, started the car, and pulled out of the neighborhood.
“What?” Darcy asked.
“Meet me in the parking garage in twenty minutes. And wear something inconspicuous. We’re going to warehouse 6.”
“You’re driving?”
“I’m not taking the Porsche to the warehouses.”
“Yeah, figures. That’s the only reason you want me along, isn’t it?”
“That and your work ethic,” Loki deadpanned.
“Gee, thanks. You better bring me coffee.”
**
Darcy drove her banged-up Toyota Camry with the lights off and parked it around the corner of the STARK Toys Logistics Center next to JFK. She turned out to be surprisingly good at distracting a guard—she spilled her coffee all over him and then spent ten minutes apologizing and wiping him down with napkins, making the mess worse. Loki, dressed in dark sweatpants, a hoodie, and a baseball cap, was inside the building within seconds.
The moment he was faced with the endless rows of near-identical shelves, bowing under the weight of the toys that ST produced, Loki realized he had no idea what they were looking for. Despite the late hour, the warehouse was filled with activity, and the lights were bright and glaring. He grabbed gloves and a lanyard that he saw lying around without ownership.
“Hey, boss.” Darcy appeared next to him wearing overalls and a big coat and pushed a clipboard at him; the top sheet read ‘Quality Control.’ Loki lifted an eyebrow at her. That was more preparation than he had expected.
“I’ll take the even rows, you take the uneven ones,” he said. They had the serial number of the toy—at least Darcy said that’s what the row of swirls in Jane’s notes was—and they knew it was a Captain America action figure. They would have to go through the stacks of boxes, comparing numbers.
This might take all night.
She put in her earbuds and gave him finger guns. “See you on the other side.”
Loki began searching, occasionally sidestepping a forklift, and he soon wished he’d have thought to bring music or a podcast or anything to keep his tired mind from drifting and his lids from drooping. The work was mind-numbing, and the hours melted away as they walked for what felt like miles. Loki was just about ready to grab whatever and test that for lead when he spotted Darcy chatting with an actual worker, sitting on a large pallet by the doorway. He strode over hastily, hoping to prevent disaster.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
She blankly looked up at him. “What? I’m taking a break. I’m entitled to breaks.” She turned to the woman by her side and introduced him. “This is Loki; he’s new, too.”
“Sure.” The woman by her side looked entirely unimpressed. The hair on Loki’s arm was standing up just considering that Darcy was actively creating witnesses that might actually remember them.
“We’re supposed to be working.” He glared at her.
“Oh, yeah. Val says that this here is the stuff we’re looking for.” Darcy patted the pallet she was sitting on.
“What?”
“You wanted to know the defective shit gets shipped out on time, right? It’s all here. Packed it up this morning.” Val kicked the stack of boxes, then took a long sip from a hip flask. Loki could smell the alcohol from six feet away.
Loki stared at the palette. An alarm-red sticker on the side declared, ‘Faulty Product!’
“Great,” he said. Cleared his throat. “We need to take a sample.”
“Right,” Darcy said and turned to her new friend. “Can I borrow your box cutters?”
Val produced a switchblade with a twirl and flick of the wrist and popped it open with a button. Those were very illegal in Manhattan.
“Awesome,” Darcy said, took it, and carefully cut one of the boxes out of their shrink-wrap cocoon, leaving the rest sagging and with a neat hole in the side. “Thanks,” she said and handed the knife back.
“Sure,” the woman said, pulling out her phone. “Coffee Saturday? You want my number?”
“Oh! Yeah.” Darcy actually blushed a bit when they exchanged information.
Loki suppressed an eye roll. “We need to leave.”
There was a spring to Darcy’s step all the way back out of the warehouse.
“Are you humming?” Loki asked as they turned around the back and into an abandoned alleyway, empty save for a few dumpsters overflowing with cardboard boxes and cigarette butts littering the street.
“How is that relevant to my work, huh?” But she grinned as she handed him the neatly packaged superhero figurine, painted blue, white, and red. A small sticker placed on Captain America’s bum proclaimed it was ‘made in Taiwan.’ Loki peeled open the box and handed the action figure to Darcy.
“Would you shave off some of the paint, please?”
“But he’s so handsome,” she complained while procuring a nail file to scratch his upper arm. She slipped and sheered off a good portion of his cheekbone and nose. “Oops.”
Loki accepted the figurine back and pulled a lead testing stick from his coat pocket. He rubbed some of the white stick across the figurine, and, sure enough, it changed to a deep red.
“Jackpot!” Darcy said. “Also, admit it, you’re jealous.”
“That some drunk warehouse monkey is interested in you? Hardly.” Loki stuck the test stick back in his coat pocket and handed the figurine back to Darcy.
“Aw, your Prince Charming is going to come along,” Darcy waggled buff little Captain in his face before sticking him in another Ziploc bag, then jogged across the street.
**
All things considered, the heist had gone surprisingly well. That was before Loki tried to follow Darcy across the crossing to get back to the Camry.
A flash of light, screech of tires, then a bruising impact to his right kidney. Loki was lifted off the ground and smacked into the windshield of the bright-orange sports car. He recognized the car before he did the shocked-looking driver: Tony Stark, the man they were suing.
Stark pumped the brakes, and Loki unceremoniously rolled off the side of the hood and fell, face first, onto the wet, dirty pavement of Manhattan’s December.
He wheezed and made eye contact with a very shocked and pale-looking Darcy. He gestured for her to move. She ran to disappear behind a dumpster.
“Ah, shit,” the door of the STARK car slammed shut with the satisfying noise that had been produced through extensive testing in a lab. “You’re alright, aren’t you? I wasn’t going that fast.”
Loki propped himself up on his elbows and stared up into the handsome face of Anthony Edward Stark. He looked worried, his eyes darting as though he was looking for a way out. Loki’s heart was hammering. What was he doing here? A billionaire wasn’t supposed to check in on random warehouses storing his products, especially not at this time of night.
“I’m fine.” He began getting up, and his ribs gave a twinge of complaint. He hissed and pressed a hand to his side.
“Do you need to go to the hospital? I’ll drive you, no problem. Shit, don’t tell me you broke something.” Stark noticed the lanyard Loki had forgotten to take off. “Are you one of mine? We got you insurance, right?”
“Do you always talk this much?” Loki patted himself down. His shoulder complained, his sweatpants were torn where he had hit the asphalt, and the burn of chafed skin was setting in along his knee and thigh. The hoodie was dirty and torn, but it had been one of Thor’s anyway. He hadn’t been banged up in a good long while, not in ten years, and he had the suspicion that he was going to be extremely sore in the morning.
“Kinda, yeah, I’m told it’s one of my more charming flaws. You really don’t want to know about the other ones.” Stark stared up at him, and Loki stared back. He had never realized how short Stark was—the business mogul was on TV often enough, but it seemed they only ever filmed him at eye level. And Loki found himself thinking that Tony Stark was a little too much his type for the particular kind of working relationship they would form, starting tomorrow.
Right.
Fuck.
Tony Stark had just run him over right in front of the warehouse that he had procured illegal evidence from. That wasn’t a great look, was it?
“I really need to go.” Loki pulled the baseball cap down over his face and backed away, limping slightly when he put weight on his left foot.
“Okay, this is terrible. At least let me pay for the clothes. Maybe get something that’s not black on black in the middle of an unlit street.” Stark patted down his pockets, and Loki snorted.
“Don’t worry, I know where to send the bill.”
Stark let his hands fall away, and his face suddenly turned into a professional mask. “I guess you do.” He hesitated a moment longer, then got back into the driver's seat and slammed his door shut. He lowered the tinted window of his car and leaned out. “Just try not to sue me. People usually regret that.”
Loki couldn’t help but laugh, an edge of hysteria in his voice. “I’ll remember it.”
“Thought you seemed smart.” Stark gave him a mock salute, then backed up and peeled away.
He stood staring at the empty street that no longer contained Tony Stark. What a lunatic.
“Hey, are you okay?” Darcy came to a stop next to Loki, looking unsure what to do.
“I’m fine,” Loki griped and stalked past her towards the car, limping slightly.
He didn’t care about some scrapes and bruises. He cared that Tony Stark, without a doubt, would recognize him in tomorrow’s meeting.
**
Either Tony Stark had a terrible memory or he was a very good actor.
Tony did the thing that his lawyers had probably told him to do, which was to be present and quiet, and it surprised Loki. Tony Stark did get sued, and he got sued often. So often that, in fact, there were legends about his terrible behavior in court. Everyone wanted to represent Tony Stark exactly once, and then never again. Mostly, he didn’t give much of a fuck about his image, and if his stock took a nosedive every now and then, it recovered with each new and improved release of a STARK Phone, or speaking doll, or whatever he was working on nowadays. Tony Stark had the luxury of not having to care.
Today, he seemed attentive and focused on the procedures and didn’t have a single word to add besides pleasantries. His business partner, Stane, did not take any of it with nearly as much grace, openly mocking Loki’s claims, stopping short of calling his clients’ welfare queens and leeches.
The case was presented, the evidence laid in the open, the plaintiffs' demands stated, and it all ended with very orderly handshakes and an agreement to meet for settlement talks in a neutral location a week hence.
Loki would gladly take a settlement. He had no time to waste on this, and neither did his clients, and he knew that they didn’t stand a chance against Tony’s team of lawyers in court. Not without the kind of resources he’d learned to not expect from Thanos.
It wasn’t until Loki excused himself to seek out the very nice restrooms of STARK Tower that the whole thing started to go sideways. Loki was washing his hands when Stark opened the door, stared at him for a moment, then walked right past and leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “How’s the knee? You’re still limping a little.”
Loki felt the color drain from his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re aware that that warehouse has security cameras, right?” Stark was unbearably smug.
Loki briefly closed his eyes. He was behaving like an absolute, unthinking moron on this damn case. Maybe Odin was right, and he should move out to bumfuck nowhere and farm trees with Thor. “Of course it does.”
Stark didn’t say anything else, just watched him.
“Very well. I assume you’re here to gloat and tell me I’ve already lost. Get it over with,” Loki said acerbically. He grabbed too much paper from the dispenser, tearing it as he was drying his hands.
“Nah. Just telling you I wiped the footage. Don’t do anything else stupid, okay?”
Loki paused. “What?”
Stark shrugged. “The settlement will pay for the hospital bills of those kids, right?”
“Right.”
“Great.” Stark nodded, clapped him on the shoulder, and left. “At least pretend that you care, that’s a good boy.”
Loki stared after him.
He didn’t understand what was happening at all.
**
“He sounds nice.” Darcy handed him his black coffee as he was walking by.
“He’s not nice; he’s a billionaire.” Loki frowned at his coffee. His stomach was churning, and drinking it sounded incredibly unappealing.
Darcy rolled her eyes and muttered something that sounded like it contained the phrase ‘Oscar the Grouch.’
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” Darcy gave him large, innocent eyes, sipping something frothy from her cup.
Loki waved her into the Porsche, and he began pulling out of the STARK Tower parking garage with a little more vigor and less attention than he should have. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and slammed the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt. Too late. A crunch, an abrupt jostle. Loki cursed and fumbled to pick up the coffee spilling into his footwell, then stared at the orange STARK car that had rammed him.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Stark tore the sunglasses from his face, staring at him from the open car window.
Loki slumped over his steering wheel and closed his eyes briefly. Then he reached over Darcy to get the insurance information out of the glove box. He slammed the door and approached Stark, who was leaning on the roof of his car, looking put out. He flicked the card with the number at Stark, who caught it. “Is there a method to your madness?”
“Honey, there are easier ways to hit on people. Get it?” Stark grinned and tucked the number into his breast pocket. “You really need to watch where you’re going.”
“And you need a driver,” Loki threw back, accepting the piece of paper Stark held out in turn.
“You’re good? Nobody hurt this time?” Stark asked, glancing at Darcy, who, to Loki’s utter annoyance, chose that moment to stop taking pictures of the accident in favor of snapping a picture of the two of them. Stark’s eyebrows jumped towards his hairline. “Your assistant?”
“Barely.”
“I’m a paralegal,” Darcy called out, already on her phone again, typing.
Stark called back to her, “None of that on social media, please.”
Darcy gave him a thumbs-up and slumped into the passenger seat.
“So—” Stark said.
“We’ll be on our way,” Loki said.
“—now that I have your number, how do you feel about a coffee?”
Darcy gasped, and Loki stopped in his tracks, turning around. He looked at Stark, incredulous. “Excuse me?”
“Do you prefer a drink? I could go for a drink.” Stark’s smile was as charming as it was uncaring.
“I’d prefer to keep this professional.”
“We could go over the case. While drinking a whiskey. Or are you a cocktail kind of guy? I could see you with one of those little paper umbrellas.” Stark shrugged and leaned on his car, not entirely as smoothly as he had likely intended, slipping and righting himself, brushing his hands over his thighs. Loki realized that Stark was being serious.
“I doubt your legal team would appreciate that.”
“They’re used to it.”
Loki was sure that they were. “Good evening, Mr. Stark.” He got back into his dented car, snapped on the seat belt, backed out, and drove off.
Darcy’s gaze was blistering hot on the side of his face while he pulled out of the garage and into Manhattan traffic.
“What?” he asked when it became impossible to ignore.
“Nothing,” she said and focused on her phone.