Loki and Nym

Part 10- The party

Y/N POV

It had been a week since the mission call out; Loki and I had settled into a bit of a routine. I always trained for combat with Nat first thing and magic 'training' with Wanda in the later morning. I say training with Wanda in the loosest sense of the word. We set each other silly challenges of things to create or do, occasionally showing off to each other. There was no doubt her powers were stronger than mine, but she was the Scarlet Witch so I didn't really mind.

My training schedule left my afternoons free and in the later afternoon Loki and I would meet in the library to read together. We didn't speak much, occasionally we read each other snippets from our books, or on occasion he would read to me. Sometimes I would read to him, but I always got the giggles putting on accents for peoples voices, and while he pretended to find it annoying I know he enjoyed it.

Today was a little different though. Today was the day of one of Tony Starks famous parties. Usually he didn't hold them on base but for some reason he had decided to transform the training floor into a massive dance room. Though I'm sure most of the credit for that should go to Pepper. I had asked Loki the day before if he planned on attending, to which he had rolled his eyes and asked what I thought, I took that as a no and hadn't brought it up again. I have never believed in forcing people to do things they didn't want to. But a small part of me wondered if he had been wanting me to pester him about coming.

We all had a slow morning, training was called off for everyone on account of the amount of alcohol we were all going to consume tonight. Instead we all gathered together for a late breakfast. Wanda and I had a made a mountain of pancakes for everyone, Thor was busy making jugs of coffee as if we were all planning on drinking a gallon each. Tony had ordered in some fancy pastries from New York, Nat & Bruce were preparing some fruit. Sam and Bucky had decided to go off training anyway, I was pretty sure that was just to avoid having to cook. Bruce seemed to spend more and more time now in a state between Banner and Hulk, so watching his huge hands trying to delicately cut strawberries was definitely the mornings entertainment.

As we all sat down I looked around and noticed that Loki was missing, to my surprise it was Bucky who asked where he was, and even more surprising he asked where 'Loki' was, not 'Reindeer games' or 'Rock of Ages'. This had brought a smile to both mine and Thor's face. Tony instructed Jarvis to tell Loki to get down to breakfast or else no one would eat and everyone would 'want to kill you again', which seemed a bit much, but it was a far cry from the hostility he faced entering this very room two months ago.

Moments later Loki appeared in a green haze, he looked a little irritated to have been 'summoned by an ethereal robot' which was his complaint last time Jarvis had called on him, when we had been in the library. But I could feel the slight happiness in him knowing he'd been invited. Bucky gestured for Loki to sit in the gap between the two of us. I looked to Bucky in surprise, I decided to ask him about that later.

While we ate Tony ran through the guest list and 'ground rules' for the party, "God Tony, you're starting to sound like Cap" Clint mumbled when Tony got to the 'no showing off your kit when you're drunk' rule, ironic because Pepper had told me about an incident several years ago in which Tony did exactly that. Clint's comment got everyone giggling, even Loki's shoulders raised and fell slightly.

By the time everything was cleaned up it was 2pm, I made my way to the sofa to chill with Bucky, Thor and maybe Loki, but before I could sit down Wanda, Nat and Pepper, grabbed me by the arm and lead me towards the lift. "No time to relax y/n, there's a party to get ready for, we only have 5 hours!" Wanda chuckled as I mock struggled to get back to the boys.

Parties on Alsoi were very different from the parties in Midgard. At home we put on a traditional wrap, sort of like the dresses on Asgard, we gather outside where we have grown hundreds of flowers. All the clans come together and we dance to string music, much like the violin here.