"Ladies," Loki greeted the three of you with a small elegant bow. You were staring at him, unable to take your eyes off of him. Men in suits were extremely attractive and an attractive man in a well-fitting suit...
You noticed that he seemed equally unable to take his eyes off of you.
"Right on time, Loki," Nat replied with a mischievous smile. "Take care of our girl tonight and make sure she has a good time,"
"You two have fun!" Pepper chimed in. You felt your face heat, knowing that they both saw how neither you or Loki seemed able to take your eyes off the other.
"Do you require a ride home?" Loki pried his eyes off of me to address Nat and Pepper.
"No. Happy's driving us back," Pepper replied. They said their goodbyes and started walking to the car that Happy would be driving.
"Lady Y/N," Loki greeted you formally, returning his full attention to you now that the others were leaving. He bowed over your hand and kissed your knuckles. You felt your cheeks heat even more at his romantic gesture. Though you knew from experience that Thor did the same thing to all of the girls just as a simple courtesy. "You look ravishing this evening, witchling," he added, confirming your suspicion that this wasn't just simple courtesy like it would have been with Thor. This was...more.
"You look great tonight too," you added shyly. You were out of your depth here, and needed to get back to the lighthearted familiarity you usually had with him. "Did they tell you any more about what's going on than they bothered to tell me?" you asked, trying to get back to the lighthearted friendliness that you were used to.
"It is as Lady Pepper said. Your room is still being worked on. Stark wishes for you to remain out of the tower until it is completed. So he made arrangements for your entertainment for the evening and asked if I would accompany you,"
"That was very kind of you to agree," you commented, knowing full well that he would've been excited just to leave the tower. He'd been on house arrest for over a month. "How'd you get stuck with this awful assignment?" you teased.
"I made the mistake of becoming your closest friend," he quipped right back and instantly you felt back on familiar terms with him. "Shall we?" he asked, offering you an arm. You placed your hand on his arm, almost timidly and let him walk you to the passenger side of the car.
"When did you learn how to drive? Or get a license?" you asked curiously when he opened your car door for you.
"A few weeks ago, Captain Rogers though it would be a good idea for me to know how," he answered when he got in the driver's seat. "Lady Natasha made my ID and an entire identity to go along with it. She said that she is a professional in such things." You just laughed. He pulled out of the spot and followed Jarvis' directions to your next destination. At least he was a careful driver.
"Natasha is a professional. If she made your ID it'll hold up under any scrutiny," you reassured him. "So what 'arrangements' did Tony come up with?" you asked curiously.
"You will find out," he replied with a grin. You sighed. Everyone was ordering you around and not telling you anything today. It was quite annoying. You'd have to figure out how to get back at them all later.
"Have you seen how my room is coming along?"
He nodded. "There are many sweaty workmen making quite a lot of noise and upsetting everyone while they build things," he answered.
"That's not reassuring," you replied glumly, hoping that the workmen really would finish today. You didn't want to have to find somewhere else to sleep. "How'd you get off of house arrest?" you asked instead of commenting more on the workmen.
"I believe Stark let me out of the tower today only as a favor to you." Loki's voice was hesitant, he hadn't really wanted to answer that question.
"Best enjoy your freedom then," you smiled at him. "Anything you want to do while you're out on the town?"
"This is your evening, witchling," he reminded you with exasperation in his tone.
"That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it too...though I still have no idea what Tony picked for us to do..." you added too innocently.
"Well, we have arrived at our first destination for the evening, so you will find out," he replied with a grin, pulling into a parking spot at a restaurant you'd never been to. It looked really fancy, though. Before you could think about opening your own car door, Loki was out of the car and halfway to your side of the car. He opened the door and offered you a hand to help you out. You didn't need the help, but you took his cold hand anyway. He led you with your hand on his arm into the restaurant.
It was as super fancy as you had thought. It was owned by a super famous celebrity chef too. Tony didn't skimp on your 'entertainment' it seemed. You shouldn't have expected that he would. You did feel way too uncivilized to be here. This place was fancy and you were just a high school student who wore baggy ill fitting clothes 99% of the time.
"Stand tall, love. There's no need to feel intimidated at this place. This is supposed to be fun remember?" Loki said kindly. Part of your brain did ask where the word 'love' had come from, but it was quickly squashed by the part that was focusing on looking like you belonged here. "Besides, you are here with a prince," Loki added with a chuckle. That got a laugh out of you and you could finally relax. As he spoke to the hostess about the reservations, you wondered briefly who had prepped him on how Midgardian restaurants worked. It was impressive that he managed so flawlessly.
The two of you were led a table that was actually in the kitchen. Your eyes lit up in excitement at being able to watch these professional chefs cook. Loki pulled out your chair for you and you wondered briefly if this was courtesy on Asgard too, or if he knew the gesture was a romantic on on Midgard. You didn't question it right that moment, though. It would be difficult to find out the answer anyway.
You found out that Tony had placed your orders as well as making the reservations, so you could just enjoy talking with Loki and watching the chefs cook. These were some of the best chefs in the city to have gotten positions here and it showed in their work. The food was beyond delicious and the very best thing you could ever remember eating.
You and Loki spent the entire dinner discussing books you'd both read including the Asgardian fairy tales he'd lent you and the basics of Asgardian magic. You both behaved and didn't actually do any magic in public, but it was still interesting to discuss the fundamentals.
You favorite part of dinner was watching Loki's expression when the chef brought dessert to the table. You had learned that desserts of almost any variety were one of Loki's weaknesses and the chocolate monstrosity in front of you definitely counted. He looked at it with child-like glee and you couldn't help admiring how adorable he looked.
"So where's our next stop?" you asked him when the dessert was nearly gone. He had said that this was only the first stop of the evening. He smiled.
"It is a surprise, witchling," he answered. Again. You sighed, but let him get away with his fun. It was his night out too.
Before you left the restaurant, you finally decided that you had to say something. It wasn't fair to Loki if you didn't. "I'll help you kick Tony's ass later for this if you'd like," you started. You weren't sure that was the right way to go about this conversation, but keeping it light and fun seemed like a good idea.
"Why would I wish to do that?" Loki asked, with just a hint of mischief in his eyes. He knew something that he wasn't telling you. "He has provided us with a pleasant evening,"
"I'm not sure how much you know about Midgardian courting rituals, but he's seemed to set this up like a date, like a courtship. Probably to make fun of you, or both of us, later," you finally explained, just spelling it out for him. It wouldn't do for him to get made fun of because Tony being mean.
Loki laughed and pulled out his phone to text someone quickly. He sent the text and put his phone away. "Natasha and I both told Tony that you would figure it out,"
"Figure what out?" you demanded incredulously.
"Apparently the group has gotten tired of waiting for us to initiate a 'proper' courtship on our own, so they have been planning this evening on our behalf. Tony now owes me twenty dollars for betting that you would not figure out that this is a...date." He tested the word, as it was unfamiliar to him. "Your room being destroyed was an actual accident, of course," he added quickly before I could get even more upset with Tony.
"You don't have to put up with their matchmaking..." you told him softly, afraid that since this was a setup, he might not actually be here because he wanted to be.
He gave you a soft smile. "My darling witchling, I would love nothing more than to court you, and would have attempted it sooner, had I thought you would be receptive to my advances," his words were kind, but hesitant, just as scared of rejection as you were.
"But you're...over 1000 years old and I'm 17, why would you possibly be interested in me?" you asked, finally voicing your fear. He laughed.
"Age does not matter where I come from. We live so long that as long as the people involved are old enough to make their own decisions, unless there is a 5000 year or more age difference..." he shrugged. "As to why I would be interested? You are an intelligent beautiful women who had been my first and best friend in a long as I can remember, why would I not be interesting in pursuing more than just friendship?" You couldn't help smiling giddily at that. "However, if that is not something that you are interested in, I would gladly step back and we can keep our friendship,"
"Gladly, huh? That's unlikely," you teased, needing to lighten the mood again. He chuckled and inclined his head, accepting your correction.
"The point remains that I would," he added, but had lightheartedness and laughter in his voice again.
"Good thing you won't have to," you smiled at him, feeling your cheeks redden again for finally admitting that you had feelings.
"With that settled, we should head to the next part of tonight's adventure." He stood and offered you a hand to help you to your feet.
"Um...don't we have to pay?"
"Tony already took care of it," Loki replied with a smile. You took his hand and let him walk you back to the car, and open your car door for you. Being treated like a princess all night was a lot of fun, though you hadn't thought you would ever experience it. Loki drove to your next destination. "We do have a bit of a walk to get there," he said as he pulled into a parking garage downtown that seemed to recognize Tony's car and just let you in.
"That's fine," you replied, curious where you could be going. The evening was cool, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable. The walk was only a couple blocks. As you were walking, you bravely reached out and snagged Loki's hand in yours. He looked at you with a mix of surprise and delight and you walked with him hand-in-hand.
You gasped in delight when you got to the building. It was the theater in town that played Broadway musicals. "Really?!" you asked him in excited joy. He chuckled.
"Yes, witchling, really,"
"I thought all the tickets were sold out!" You exclaimed as he held the door to the theater open for you.
"They are," he replied casually. "Tony got the tickets months ago. They were supposed to be your birthday present, but they are an apology present now. He knew how much you wanted to see this show,"
"How?" You hadn't said anything to anyone, and were very careful to only sing the songs from the show in the shower. You'd also only made Loki watch the Wizard of Oz once...
"Jarvis,"
"Oh." You had asked Jarvis to play the soundtrack about ten thousand times. Of course Jarvis would tell Tony. He'd probably also mentioned that he was bored in your taste of music and wished you would listen to something else.
Loki pulled the tickets out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket to give to the usher who led you to one of the private boxes. The view was fantastic. It was hard to be patient for the show to start and Loki kept fighting not to laugh at your glee just from being here. Before the show had started, he slipped off his suit jacket and placed it over your shoulders. "It is cold in here," he commented. You smiled and slipped the jacket on.
"Thank you." His jacket was too big, of course, but it was warm and he was right, it was cold in here. The cold didn't bother him, though. Perks of being a frost giant.
The second the show started you were entranced and filled with so much joy at finally being able to see it live. You had to fight not to sing every song and were sitting on the edge of your seat the entire time. You were one of the first to rise for the standing ovation at the end.
"That was fantastic!" you told Loki again as he drove you home after the show. It was nearly midnight. You babbled about the show the entire drive home.
"So I take it you enjoyed your evening out?" he laughed when you were in the elevator back up to the main floor of the tower, the one where the rest of the Avengers were waiting for the two of you to get home. They hadn't expressly said they were waiting up for you, but they were and they obviously expected you to stop by the livingroom before heading up to bed.
You got off the elevator, still holding Loki's hand. There were knowing looks from your gathered teammates. You flushed and dropped his hand, earning laughter from your friends. "Nat, you can accept credit for helping," you told her. She said they would accept credit if the evening went well. If not, they were pinning it all on Tony. You thanked Tony for the wonderful evening and actually gave him a quick hug. He stiffened, but you let go of him quickly enough not to offend.
You only had to socialize for a couple minutes, just long enough to reassure everyone that you were home safely before you could disappear upstairs to see your new room. Loki decided that he was going to escort you. Everyone wisely remained silent at that.
"If I am remembering my Midgardian courting customs correctly, after the evening's activities, generally dinner and a show, the gentleman escorts his lady back to her dwelling and kisses her goodnight," Loki commented innocently when you reached the door to your room.
"That is the custom," you replied, just as innocently, earning you a laugh.
You looked up at him, nervously as he closed the distance between you. He was a lot taller than you and had to lean down to be able to kiss you. You stood up on your toes to meet him halfway, your hands on his shoulders for support. He wrapped an arm around your waist, helping you to keep your balance and gently pushed your hair back from your face. His kiss was gentle, his lips cool reminding you of a crisp winter's day as they pressed softly against yours.
It was your very first kiss and it was absolutely perfect.