After the War

Who's strong and brave here to save the American way?

Loki

As I stepped into the "Avengers" common room I discovered that the room was all draped in red and blue cloths covered with white stars. "Congratulations people, you all overdid it," I whispered as I walked over to this silly thing the Midgardians called a fridge to get myself some food out of it. Okay, maybe it wasn't that silly, because it keeps your food and drinks cold, but fridge is quite a stupid word. Why not just call it a cooler, because it cools your food... Midgardians...

"Good morning brother," Thor greeted me as I turned around with an apple in my hand. "Good morning." "Do you like the decorations?" "It's a bit much, but I already told you guys that before you put it up." "You did, but it's Tony's idea, and it's almost impossible to argue with him once he's set his mind to something." "I do believe that's true." "It was even harder just eight years back," Natasha, who seemed to pop up out of nowhere, brought up. The only human that can possibly catch me unawares. "Was he?" She nodded, "He was dying, and he still kept going, didn't tell anybody about it... And he turned reckless. Joining in a formula 1 race and all." "How about we don't talk about that anymore?" Tony said as he walked in. "Why? Because you got attacked by a Russian guy with an obsession for cockatoos?" "Obsession for cockatoos?" "I hacked into Hammer's security cameras... He had something with this cockatoo." "What is a cockatoo?" Thor asked. "It's a bird brother," I told him. "A bird you say?" "Yes, a bird." Sometimes he's as dumb as he looks.

Had I already mentioned that we were all required to get up early in the morning so we could surprise "Captain America, god's righteous idiot"? No? Well, we did. We had to get up somewhere around 6 a.m. which was quite unfortunate for some. Especially the youngest amongst us didn't really like it. Shuri complained that a Queen shouldn't be commanded by others, but she did change into the silly costume they made for her two days before when they told her to. I have to admit that it was pleasing to see the women like that, but I wasn't really attracted to one of them. Out of all of them, Sif was the best looking, but that's just because she's a Goddess of course, so that doesn't really count. And she has a crush on my brother...

"Okay guys, time to get into your positions!" Tony called out right before the clock struck half past six. It was the time Steve's alarm was set to go off, Tony was certain of it. The ladies in their costumes hid in Natasha's room to do Odin knows what. I'm almost certain they had breakfast there.

Then the alarm clock went off, Steve got out of his bed and the door opened. That's when the music started. Tony, Natasha and the raccoon had put together what they call a playlist, which started with the American anthem, a song they called The Star-Spangled Banner. Steve looked as dumbstruck as a human can possibly look. Which is very dumbstruck. He looked quite stupid, so stupid that it was almost funny.

"Happy birthday," we all called out. Well... everyone but me, I just mumbled it, and only because Thor was standing next to me. Hey, you can say about me what you want, but I'm polite okay? I have manners, you can't say that of my brother.

When the second song started to play, "Captain America" looked even more dumbfounded than he already did. And he hadn't even seen the girls yet. His jaw dropped when they walked in and I really wanted to close his mouth... maybe a little more harshly than would have been necessary, but I didn't. Instead of that I tried to enjoy the show. The ladies didn't just sing along, they danced too. Might be they practiced that in Natasha's room. I'm still not sure of what they did there. I am sure that Natasha was flirting with Steve though... It was pretty obvious, then again, I've read in her files that it was one of her tactics. Not that I never used my own flirting techniques to get information out of others... but... well... just forget that.

After the show I decided it was better for me to just go sit on the room they had appointed me and to go sit on my bed and read. I didn't have any of my own books here, they all burned with Asgard, so I had to borrow some books. Natasha posed as my library... well, her bookcase did, she posed more as a librarian. I borrowed her books, or one of her books. At the moment I was borrowing, "A Game of Thrones," a book by George R. R. Martin. It was a nice read, more than seven hundred pages, and a lot of bloodshed. The point of view switches kept the book more interesting, but some points of view were straight up boring most of the time, Like Catelyn Stark. Tyrion Lannister, however, was a very interesting character. A man with quick wit and a sharp tongue, he was smart and underestimated. Not a fighter, far from it, although he did kill some people at one point in the book. He was a bit of an underdog, he stood in the shadow of his older brother, who was a knight, a fighter, but not really the smartest. They reminded me of two other brothers... But Thor never had an incestuous relationship with his sister... Good thing too, that woman was mad... Anyway, Tyrion reminded me of myself. Except of course for the fact that he was ugly and I'm not... Apart from that, Tyrion reminded me of me, and he became my favorite character quite quickly.