Metallic Soldiers {Metallic Charms Book #4}

Chapter 5: Expendable

Chapter 5: Expendable

...Noel’s Point of View...

The moment Fury sends me from his office and I am free to go –with the Puppy Dog at my heels – I whip out my phone. The second Loki had turned up I’d given him my old phone and taught him how to use it. For someone who’d never used a phone in their life, he’d picked up the skills remarkably quickly.

YOU BETTER BE HUMAN BY THE TIME I GET HOME.I send.

Seconds later he replies; Y? NEW R-MATE?

He liked text-language. I despised text language. YES. NEW SUPER HERO ROOMMATE. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, YOU’RE GOING LIVE IN LESS THAN AN HOUR.

The conversation ends and I just hope to whatever other gods there are that Loki was cleaning up the apartment and hiding anything that remotely looks like he would be the god who basically blew up over half of New York City.

Logan was terribly quiet, not snippy or witty. The silence makes me want to scream, but then I remembered that this particular super hero is a mutant with adamantium claws. I wonder if they would hurt me as much as anybody else – most of my body has been affected directly by vibranium, which has some of the same properties of adamantium, but honestly, I’m not sure what the difference is between the two.

When I lead Logan Howlett up the stairs to mine and Loki’s apartment on level six, I find myself mouthing ‘please, Loki, please don’t fuck this up for me’ over and over like some kind of demonic chant. Logan doesn’t notice – I hope.

I open the door with shaky hands and see that the apartment is spotless, save for the empty cereal box I left on the kitchen bench this morning. Loki was nowhere to be seen. My stomach twisted into a knot.

“Luke?” I called out. There’s no response –except for Logan’s.
“Is Luke your boyfriend?”
“No. Roommate.” I replied coldly.
Logan thought he’d hit a sore spot, and he had, sort of. I didn’t have a boyfriend, I had one in mind, but he was in hospital. With a loving, redheaded girlfriend by his side. “Don’t male and female roommates usually end up-”
I turned around and replied with the first thing that comes into my head; “He’s gay, Logan.”
“Oh.”

“Luke, for God’s sake, where are you?” I stormed down the hallway and opened Loki’s bedroom door.
“Heard of privacy?” He retorted, smirking. “And I’m not gay! I’m just curious.”
I rolled my eyes. “We have a new roommate, Luke.” I yanked Loki out of his room. He was only wearing black jeans. That’s it. No shoes, no shirt. I found myself laughing at his ‘I’m just curious’ comment.

“Logan this is Luke, Luke, Logan. Don’t kill each other and we’ll be all good. Got it?” I said to both of them. Both nodded slowly, shaking each other’s hands. I showed Logan to his room, the one next to Loki’s and across the hall from mine.

The moment Logan stepped into the threshold of his room, he slammed the door in my face and I returned to Loki in the living room. He shot me a disapproving look, but before I can reply, the phone rings.

I answered it in a monotone voice. “Hello, this is Noel speaking, but Luke and also Logan live here too.”
“Wow,” A voice answered that sent shivers all the way down to my toes and made me reach out to grab the nearest chair to steady myself. It’s him. He’s calling. “I’m asleep for a week and you’re already living with two new guys.” He joked.
“T-Tony.” I barely get the name out. Loki snapped his head up with a smirk already plastered there, like he was expecting it. The next sentence probably doesn’t make sense. “What- You’re awake. Why are you calling?”

“Yeah. Awake.” He said, his voice is strained, like he’s trying to sit up but can’t. “I’m calling to tell you that-”

I didn’t hear the end of the reason because I slammed the landline back into the holster, hanging up. I can’t talk to him. I can’t. He’s Pepper’s now.

------

Two days later and I had barely seen Logan come out of his room except for mealtimes and whenever he needed to go to the bathroom.
I barely left the apartment, I didn’t know what else to do. Fury hadn’t called me for any missions or any other tasks to do. I found it hard to believe that S.H.I.E.L.D was having a slow few days – I knew Fury was purposely keeping me out of this one. It was completely absurd, because every few hours I was getting texts from Sky who wanted to know information about my past, what had happened to me, if I remembered anything else –so it was obvious that Sky was being used on this case instead of me, and she was close to cracking under the pressure. Her texts were sloppy and near-unreadable, like she’d written them under duress or was on her third day without sleep.

Fury was using her like an expendable soldier, like a machine that didn’t need charging, it was ridiculous.

And on top of that, the phone hadn’t stopped ringing since the second I’d hung up on Tony two days prior. It was his number every single time. On the landline, on my mobile. Skype calls whenever I turned on my laptop. Face Time calls whenever I went near my iPad.

A few times he actually came to my apartment –I wanted to kill whoever had given him my new address- and stood at the door until Loki, in Luke form, stepped out and told him that I wasn’t going to be home for a while, so he should bugger off and stop calling.

Of course, while Luke was scaring him away, I was hiding just behind the door.

The last time he came over, Luke was out. Logan was the only one home.

Tony was knocking on the door.

“Come on, I can hear your footsteps!” He called out. “Please, just let me in. I want to talk.”

It had been going on like that for ten minutes. The neighbours had told him to shut up, but he still stayed. I had no other choice. I sprinted to Logan’s room and opened his door –we didn’t have locks.

“What?” He snapped. “Can’t you just open the freaking door yourself?”
“No.” I whispered. “Please, if you just tell him to go away, I’ll never ask for anything ever again. Please.”
“No.” Logan replied without hesitation.
“Logan, please. I’m begging you. Please. Just tell him ‘you didn’t let her explain herself, why should she let you?’ That’s all I’m asking.”
I hoped throwing something about the breakup into his face; it might make him leave me alone.

I must have begun to look pretty damn desperate because Logan finally conceded, got up from lying on his bed and headed past me and toward the door. I didn’t bother hiding. I was in plain view of the door.

Logan opened it roughly so it banged against the door as it flung open.
“Who the hell are you?” Tony looked surprised.
“The Boyfriend.” Logan snapped. I smiled. Tony looked past Logan and spots me in the hallway, arms over my chest. “Noel doesn’t want to see or hear from you, alright? You didn’t let her explain herself, so why should she let you explain yourself? Hypocrite.”

Logan slammed the door in Tony’s face.
I felt kind of bad, guilty even. But if this was what it took to get him to leave me alone, then, so be it. He was better off with Pepper anyway.

Logan turned around and trudged back to his room, I thanked him. He grunted in response.

I decided I liked Logan Howlett.