It All Started In A McDonald's...

top level security shit

"Yo, chill out Peter, we're nowhere near ready yet," I said, trying to calm him down while Loki was attempting half-heartedly to hide his smirk. "I'm still in the lab. Everything's going fine. Stark's loving the challenge and he seemed happy to talk to me which is... mildly confusing." I cleared my throat. "How's it going for you? Boss-Man on the move yet?"

"Nope," Peter said, and I think I heard Ned's voice in the background. "Ned says he thinks they might have left the tracker. But it's a start anyway. Now why are you calling me? I just hung up on Happy because I thought it was urgent."

I took a moment to let that sink in. "You hung up on Happy Hogan. Why the hell were you on the phone to Happy Hogan?"

"Because my tracker showed I left New York and he thought I was up to something," he said, and Loki and I exchanged a glance. I totally forgot Peter had a tracker too – Happy, Stark's chauffeur (was he a chauffeur?) was in charge of his I think. Good thing he didn't look after mine too. I didn't have the excuse of the Academic Decathlon to fall back on. "I managed to get him off my case though, so as long as your side of the thing works, they'll never know what we did."

"Assuming the press doesn't get to us, you mean," I said, frowning to myself. "OK. So I'm calling you because I don't know where we're meeting. Loki said he doesn't want me to be teleported to the wrong place because he cares about me more than he admits."

"I didn't say that," Loki said, sighing, and I smirked at him because I like annoying people. I'm very good at it too. "I only bought it up because it would be really awkward to explain to your dad that I, a stranger he's never met, accidently lost his daughter through a faulty teleportation gun somewhere in Washington D.C. where she was going to meet Spider-Man."

Oh yeah. Explaining that stuff to the parents must be really awkward.

"Alright then," Peter hummed, hesitating. "Uh, Ned says he can send you the coordinates of the hotel when we get there?"

"Don't wanna meet at the hotel if we can help it," I said, thinking about MJ. I hummed and thought for a moment, tapping my hand on the lab table. We needed somewhere generic to meet, not too specific, or that would make people suspicious. Some landmark of some kind...

Then I flashbacked to a conversation MJ and I had a hundred years ago, about when she'd been doing some research on the famous landmarks we'd visit on our trip to Europe at the start of our senior year, and also a certain monument in Washington D.C.... Then it hit me – who'd look twice at me there? "Let's meet at the Washington monument at about ten tonight," I said, knowing Peter wouldn't be able to escape the teachers' watch during the day. I could always hang around and explore during that time.

"Sounds good to me, but the time could be any time depending on how easy it is to get out, so don't expect me dead on ten," Peter said.

Halle-fucking-lujah, we actually made a plan.

"Alright, awesome," I nodded to myself. "Just text me when you're on your way. Oh, and, uh, I wanna know why you were late this morning, so don't think you're getting out of that."

"Aye, aye, captain," Peter said, and I could envision him saluting. "Talk to you later."

I hung up the phone and sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Looks like I get to visit a national landmark tonight," I shrugged, honestly unfazed by it. Maybe I'd be more interested if not going under the conditions that I had to track down a guy with wings because he was getting under Peter's skin. And mine, honestly. Why'd his lair have to be in Maryland anyway?

Loki put his thumb up in the most unenthusiastic way ever. "You ever seen the Washington Monument?" he asked, presumably because of pure politeness. That's one thing – he was a lot more polite than one might realise after only briefly knowing him, to be honest. I wasn't.

"No," I said shaking my head. "I've never left New York state." And it's true, the furthest I've been is a thrilling trip all the way over to Staten Island. Since Dad didn't have a car, we were kinda limited on transport. Paying for flights? Nah. "Why, have you ever seen it?"

I was actually surprised when he nodded. "Yeah, the All-Bastard used to like to send me and Thor down to report on stuff like that. Or rather he used to make Thor do stuff and I used to sneak out with him until Heimdall snitched. Think it was 1887 when I saw it." My eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into my hair, I think. I mean I knew he was like... old, but still, the nineties seemed a long time ago to me, even though that's technically when I was born. Loki talked about the 1880s like it was only last year. It was mind-blowing.

"So they hadn't even finished construction?" I asked.

"No," he shrugged. "And I have to say, I'm glad you mortals don't build things that way anymore. It's just wrong. Something like the All-Bastard might do."

"Wow, MJ would love talking to you about this stuff," I realised, and honestly, that was all I could think of. MJ was too obsessed with history – you wouldn't expect it.

***

I'm going to try to do my best to get the next update out next week - what with college applications and mocks and whatnot I haven't got a backlog of prewritten chapters to fall back on like I'd hoped I might. Thanks for the support as always :)