It's the afternoon of Thanksgiving Eve, and Clint had asked the other day if Loki would mind having the rest of the Barton family over. He played dumb – the others know about your family? – but, of course, he didn't object. He's not sure he would have been allowed to object. It very well could have been a rhetorical question, though he did seem to ask it earnestly. It hardly matters to him. He doesn't plan to get in their way.
Instead, he spends the day in the common room, binge-watching his favorite movies for the umpteenth time, as though he doesn't know them by heart already. Right now, Tangled is playing, and he's just as caught up in the action (and the romance) as he was the first time he watched it. It still breaks his heart when Mother Gothel tricks Rapunzel into thinking Flynn left her. It's so clear how much they both care about each other.
He's so entranced in his movie that he doesn't even hear the approaching footsteps until the doorway is already full of people – and he truly does mean full. It seems Clint and Natasha have brought the entire Barton family to the common room, and it is not a small family.
Loki's seen the movie so many times that he doesn't bother pausing it, but he does turn his attention to the Bartons (and Natasha). He's not entirely sure what the proper course of action is right now, so he just says an awkward, "Hello," and hopes they'll do the rest.
"Do you ever watch new movies?" Natasha asks, glancing at the screen with an amused smile.
"No."
Natasha huffs a laugh. "Hey, whatever floats your boat."
Clint steps in with, "I just wanted to let you know that my family's here, just so, you know, if you run into them in the compound..."
"I appreciate that," Loki says, though he'd already been told this morning that they were coming so he's fairly certain he could have figured it out. He's sure he could place this unknown woman as Clint's wife, the two kids are obviously his children, and if he somehow finds himself alone with this baby that's probably smaller than his forearm, there must be something wrong.
His wife offers him a friendly smile. "I'm Laura," she tells him. "We met very briefly on Christmas Eve a few years ago."
It takes him a moment to remember what she's talking about. He'd been so busy trying to help Tony and save Pepper that he'd hardly even registered that she was there at the time. They certainly didn't exchange any words. But, in technical terms, that probably does count as meeting.
"It's lovely to re-meet you," he says.
Clint's daughter takes a step into the room, eyes glued to the TV. "Is that Rapunzel?"
"It looks like it," Clint says. "Come here; let's–"
"Can I watch?"
Clint sucks in a breath through his teeth. "You know, sweetie, maybe we should..." He glances at Laura helplessly. "We should go look for Mr. Bruce."
"Aww!" she whines.
Loki's not sure if this is going to help or hurt Clint's efforts, but he says, "If she wants to watch, I don't mind keeping an eye on her – unless you'd rather she stay with you." It gives him an easy out. If he doesn't trust Loki with his daughter – and of course he shouldn't trust Loki with his daughter; he certainly hasn't earned that trust – Loki's already provided him the excuse and the opportunity to take it.
But Clint surprises him. "Are you sure you wouldn't mind?"
"I'll be here for a while either way."
Clint pats his daughter on the head. "Alright. Be good. Tell FRIDAY if you need me."
"Okay!" She runs up and jumps on the couch, situating herself comfortably on the other side of it. She clasps her hands in her lap, looking at the screen eagerly. "Can we start at the beginning?"
Clint sighs. "Lila, you can't just ask him to start the whole movie over."
"I don't mind," Loki assures him. "I've seen it so many times already; what will one more hurt?"
He grabs the remote and skips back to the first scene, and Lila beams. He puts the remote down on the cushion between them, ready to watch this movie once again. If there's one nice thing about restarting the movie, it's that he gets to listen to all of the songs again.
"Have you seen this before?" Loki asks her.
Lila nods.
"Do you remember what happens?"
Lila hesitates. "I remember some of it."
"Oh, then you'll be in for such a treat," he tells her. "This is my favorite Disney movie." Is Night at the Museum Disney? It might be Disney. It doesn't count, though; it's not animated. Animated movies are in their own category. (And movies with Owen Wilson in them are in their own category, too, for that matter.)
"My favorite is Ariel," she tells him.
Loki racks his brain for where he's heard that name before. "The Little Mermaid?" It's been a while since he's seen that one. He's not even sure they have that movie on DVD in the compound. For all he knows, it's still back at the tower.
Lila nods. "I went as Ariel for Halloween last year."
Loki cracks a smile. "Did you, now?" He makes a show of looking her up and down. "But you have two feet. Ariel doesn't have two feet, does she?"
"I had a tail!" she tells him. "And I could walk in it, but it looked like a mermaid tail."
Loki covers his mouth with his hand. "Wow," he breathes. "That must have been quite a costume."
"It was." She looks back at her parents. "Mommy, do you have a picture of my costume?"
All three adults in the doorway look amused – by Lila and her excitement or by Loki and his exaggerated intrigue in Lila's love of mermaids, he can't tell. Laura assures her that she does have a picture, and she pulls out her phone. Loki doesn't really care what this costume looks like, but he can tell Lila is very excited to show him, and he'll play along if it makes her happy.
Laura finally finds the picture, and she passes her phone to Loki, who takes it carefully. He's not sure how easy these things are to break, and he would not like to find out. (Actually, he wouldn't be opposed to finding out with, say, Tony's phone, but Laura seems like a nice person who deserves a fully functioning cell phone).
He holds the phone up to look at the picture, and he can't help but smile. Lila's standing inside in a cute little mermaid costume with a wig that has far too much hair to look even remotely real, and underneath her costume is a white long-sleeve t-shirt. It's not as though her costume looks particularly revealing – it's not even two pieces; it's more of a dress than anything – but he doesn't question it.
Next to her is – he assumes – her older brother, his face hidden behind what appears to be a Stormtrooper helmet, though it's been a long time since he's seen any Star Wars movies, so he can't say for sure.
He hands the phone back to Laura with a quiet, "Thank you," then turns his attention back to Lila. "Why did you not introduce yourself as a princess?" he asks. "I wish I'd known I was in the presence of royalty such as yourself."
Lila just giggles, her face turning a faint shade of red.
"What do you think you're going to dress as for Halloween next year?" he asks her. "Have you decided yet?"
Lila shakes her head. "I don't know," she admits. "What are you going to dress as for Halloween?"
Loki blinks in surprise. What is he going to dress as for Halloween? "I don't... do... Halloween."
She cocks her head to the side, confused almost to a comical level. "You don't?"
"We don't celebrate Halloween where I come from," he explains. There was that one Halloween party "Sylvie" snuck into, but it was a one-time deal, he's sure.
Lila frowns. "Oh." She ponders that for a few moments. "You should dress up and give out candy."
"I don't know that that's a good idea," Loki says awkwardly. He's vaguely aware of the Halloween tradition that is trick-or-treating, but he has no idea if anybody even comes to the compound – and they certainly wouldn't take kindly to seeing Loki here.
"Then you should have a Halloween party!" she declares. "My friend had a Halloween party and it was so much fun. We all dressed up and we ate cake and we painted pumpkins and we played 'pin the tail on the zombie donkey.'"
Loki stares at her. "You played what?" How did they find a zombie donkey? Can donkeys even become whatever creatures humans have deemed 'zombies'? Who would put in all that effort to reanimate a donkey's corpse? And for a party game, of all things!
"Pin the tail on the zombie donkey!" she repeats with a grin. "I almost won. I got second place."
"That's... very impressive," he says awkwardly. He cannot believe they let children play with zombie donkeys. He'd expect that sort of behavior from Asgardians, but on Midgard?
"If you had a Halloween party, who would you dress up as?" she asks him.
Loki shakes his head helplessly. "I don't know," he admits. He was practically wearing lingerie at the last Halloween party, and that is doubtlessly the wrong answer to give. Explaining the whole concept of "Sylvie," the alias that allowed him into parties, would be much too complicated. So he goes with something simple. "I think I would dress up as Jeremiah from Night at the Museum."
Lila's eyes go wide. "I love that movie!"
Loki scoffs, smile growing wider. "You do?"
She nods emphatically. "Daddy showed it to us! It's so funny!"
Loki bites his lip to keep from laughing.
"We should watch Night at the Museum after we watch Rapunzel!" Lila declares.
"You want to watch two movies?" Loki asks, amused.
"Can we?"
Loki's instinct is, of course, to agree, because he would never turn down the opportunity to watch Night at the Museum, but he probably shouldn't be so quick to decide. Instead, he says, "I suppose that would be your parents' decision."
Lila bounces onto her knees and clasps her hands in front of her, looking up at her parents with pleading eyes. "Please?"
Clint chuckles. "I think after Rapunzel, it'll be time for dinner," he tells her. "But if you want to watch another movie before you go to bed, you can talk to Mr. Loki then, how about that?"
Loki fights the urge to burst out laughing. "Mr. Loki?"
Clint shrugs sheepishly. "They're kids."
Loki shakes his head and says firmly to Lila, "Loki. No Mr." He doesn't even care if this is overstepping Clint and Laura's bounds as parents. He is not going by Mr. Loki – and a glance at the other three adults says they don't mind. If anything, they seem more amused than upset.
Lila plops back down on her butt and looks at the screen. "Okay. Movie time."
Loki restarts the movie. "I agree wholeheartedly."