When I Met You

Chapter 9: Birthday Problems

It was Saturday now, Loki's birthday was tomorrow and you were so excited, as you had never planned a party before, except for Lily, of course, for her previous 2 birthdays you bought her alligator meat, a cute top hat and a matching bow tie, and watched Animal Planet all evening, it was a lot of fun. You were very excited to be planning his party, you loved organizing things and you were set on making it as awesome as possible. You headed off into the city planning on picking up the ingredients you needed to bake the cake he wanted, as well as what you needed to make for dinner, as you would obviously have to make something. You asked Thor what Loki liked when he called the other night as you weren't sure what to make and neither was he, but you could always break out the pizza oven you had in storage. So you decided to go with that, making sure you added mozzarella, mushrooms, and other pizza toppings to your shopping list as you weren't sure what Loki's favourites were, also making the dough ahead of time, as you wanted to be prepared for tomorrow night. It would just be you, Loki, and Thor, but you told him the other Avengers could come if they wanted to, but knowing his brother wanted to keep you a secret for whatever reason the Thunder God told you they were busy. You thought about inviting MJ or Peter, as Loki knew of her and you knew that your best friend was quite familiar with Spiderman, having several run-ins in the past, but in the end, you decided against it, as it would probably be super awkward, to say the least. 

It was still early in the day so you'd have plenty of time to shop and make the cake this evening, knowing that there would probably be extra people out and about today. You planned to have a break a little later on, knowing a coffee shop that wouldn't be busy, deciding last minute to call MJ to see if she wanted to meet up, but you couldn't get a hold of her. You tried to convince yourself that it was no biggie, she was busy and not in any trouble, as the thought of them being in danger or dead would briefly cross your mind anytime you missed a call or someone didn't pick up when you did. It was a bad habit you were trying to grow out of, as you used to call someone until they picked up, and or you would remember it was crazy to call someone 20 times in a row as it wasn't an emergency you would leave an awkward message telling them nothing was wrong, conveying what you wanted to tell them, before apologizing and wishing them a pleasant day. 

You were contemplating calling MJ a third time, as that wasn't too crazy, but the social norm was two calls and then sending a text, and you did prefer to send messages unless you had a lot to say. So you sent her a text, "hey MJ, I'm out and about today, just picking stuff up, I was wondering if you wanted to grab some tea or coffee at the Butterfly Coffee House? I should be dropping by the B.C.H. around 2 if you'd like to join me, no pressure, of course, let me know if you'd like to or not". You stepped off to the side to figure out what exactly you were going to say, it would take you a few minutes as you hated spelling errors and you were kind of a Grammar Nazi, proofreading every text multiple times to make sure everything was spelt right, and if you did make a mistake you send another text with the correction and then sometimes an apology. People said you were nice but always seemed surprised when you said something remotely intelligent, you didn't usually show off that you were smart as you preferred to just have fun and do what you loved doing. You weren't dumb but you were self-conscious of being perceived that way, you felt the need to at least come across as smart, often filling the silence with random facts. Your self-doubts also showed in how you messaged people or wrote, using full sentences and proper grammar, making sure your point or perspective was well understood, usually going overboard when giving an explanation. 

You read the message one final time before sending it, pleased as you wrote it without any spelling or grammar mistakes so there was nothing to fix this time. You put your phone back in the pocket of your winter coat, it was open showing off the Spiderman t-shirt you had on, you made it yourself as there really wasn't any Spidey Merch you could buy. You were also wearing a fitted sweater underneath your jacket, it complimented your shirt and coat, but it also went well with your knee-length full circle skirt, fleece leggings, and ankle boots. You were wearing black spider stud earrings, your hair was in a plain messy fishtail braid, you had gloves on, and adorable fuzzy earmuffs, feeling all kinds of cute as you continued to stroll down the sidewalk.