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It’s 10:30 on a Saturday night, and Pepper Potts is in her pajamas, sitting on her sofa watching television. Her hair is pulled up, she is wearing no make-up, and she’s eating chocolate ice cream directly from the carton.
On the television, Ted Allen asks “Whose dish is on the chopping block?” and with a dramatic flourish lifts the silver cloche to reveal the losing dish.
“No way!” Pepper protests, incredulous. “How could she be getting chopped when that other chef left an ingredient off her plate and that one guy burned his steak?”
An icy wind moves through the room, and she smells frost and ozone.
“I do have a doorbell, you know,” she says without turning around.
“Pepper Potts,” Loki says, and then: “We will dine.”
She picks up the television remote and mutes the volume.
“What?” she asks, and now she does turn to face him.
He is dressed in a black suit with an emerald and gold striped tie, and a black duster lined in emerald green.
“We will dine.” he repeats, and she realizes it isn’t a question.
“Um, already dining,” she tells him, and lifts her carton of ice cream to show him.
“Hmm.”
He’s frowning, though somehow she knows he’s not frowning at her.
“Come on, come sit down. Take your coat off. Have some ice cream.”
“My brother has informed me of Midgardian courtship rituals,” he says, still frowning. “I am expected to provide the food.”
“Midgardian… wait, what?” And then it hits her: “Loki… are you… are you asking me out on a date?”
His frown deepens.
“I know not of this ‘date’ of which you speak.”
“Yeah, I don’t think your brother really gave you the whole picture. For one thing, it’s customary to ask the girl to dinner, not inform her.”
“Oh… I did not… all right.” He takes a breath. “Pepper Potts, will you dine with me this night?”
He looks so earnest standing there and she can’t help it: she laughs.
“Loki, all right, sure, I’ll have dinner with you. But not tonight, OK? It’s kind of late, and I’m not really dressed for going out.”
“No,” he agrees, and his emerald eyes are hooded as he studies her. “You are dressed for the bedroom.”
She feels the heat rising to her cheeks.
“Yeeeeahhhh, OK, that’s one way to put it, I guess… ah…”
“I have said the wrong thing.”
“No, no, it’s… it’s fine. Really.”
He studies her for a moment longer, and then appears to come to a decision. He removes his coat and drapes it over the back of a chair.
She makes room for him on the sofa, and he sits.
“What is this ‘ice cream’?” he asks curiously, and she laughs.
“You don’t have ice cream in Asgard?”
“No.”
She takes a spoonful and offers it to him.
“Chocolate,” she tells him.
“Chocolate… yes. I have heard of your chocolate, but I have never tried it.”
She smiles. “You’re in for a treat, then.”
He sniffs the ice cream cautiously, and then takes it gingerly into his mouth.
His eyes open wide in surprise.
“It is sweet,” he says through a mouthful of ice cream. “Creamy. And…”
“Cold?” she asks.
He frowns.
“No. Not cold. It is quite pleasant.”
And then she’s mentally kicking herself, because obviously a Frost Giant wouldn’t think ice cream is very cold. A new thought follows this one, and the words are out of her mouth before she can reconsider.
“Do they have ice cream in Jötunheim?”
He is very still for a moment.
“I would not know,” he finally says. “I was taken – stolen – from there as an infant, and raised on Asgard as a Son of Odin.”
Oh geeze, Pepper, she thinks. You sure do know how to pick the wrong thing to say!
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. "I knew that. Oh God. I knew that, I did. I’m so sorry, Loki. It was a stupid thing to ask… it was… just stupid.” She closes her eyes. “Stupid.”
He reaches over and takes the carton from her hands.
“Your ice cream appears to be returning to a liquid state,” he murmurs.
He does something with his hands then, and Pepper thinks they briefly flash blue. When he returns the carton to her, the ice cream is frozen again.
He catches her eye and smiles slightly, and she understands that this is him saying that it’s OK.
“Thank you.”
He shrugs. “It is but a small thing.”
I don’t think it really is, she thinks but does not say.
She knows from previous conversations that he is uncomfortable with his heritage and she guesses from that that he probably doesn’t use his Jötun abilities very often.
“Well, you should enjoy the fruit of your labors,” she says instead, and offers him another spoonful of ice cream.
He swallows, and then takes the spoon from her. He dips it into the carton, scoops up some ice cream, and offers it to her.
Well, we’ve gone from sharing booze to sharing ice cream, she thinks as she eats. I wonder if this is a step up or down… or sideways.
“Your home has been repaired,” he says suddenly, glancing meaningfully at the now intact wall that an enraged Iron Man had once blasted him through.
“Yeah. It was really tough to get all that glass out of the carpet, too.” She pauses for a moment, and then continues. “You know… what you did that day… with the robot sharks? It was really amazing.”
“Do you think so?” he asks, and seems very interested in her answer.
“Yes,” she replies without hesitation. She gives him a shy smile. “You might not have noticed, but I kind of have a thing for really smart guys who go around saving the world with their superpowers.”
“Mmmm,” is his noncommittal reply. And then: “Stark was… impressively undone on that occasion.”
“Well, you know. You made him think that you and I are… together.”
His lips quirk up in amusement.
“And are we not together at the moment, Pepper Potts?”
She laughs. “Yes, we are. But not like Tony thought.”
“I would like to try something,” he murmurs, and gently touches her cheek. “If you will allow it.”
“What?” she whispers. She feels like she’s drowning in those emerald eyes.
He feeds her more ice cream, and then puts the spoon and carton on the coffee table.
“This,” he murmurs, and kisses her.
He’s so cold, and he tastes like chocolate.
It registers in her mind that he’d fed her ice cream before kissing her, and she wonders if he was trying to cool her mouth down first. Perhaps he finds her unpleasantly warm… but that doesn’t seem to be stopping him.
Finally, she quits trying to analyze it (and she can suddenly hear Tony’s voice in her head: You always have to analyze everything to death!) and just gives herself up to his kiss.
She isn’t sure how long the kiss lasts, but finally they break away from each other as if on some sort of mutually understood signal.
“Well, that was… it was… wow.” she says.
“Yes. Yes it was indeed.”
The corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles; she had never noticed that before.
“Not bad for a first date,” she says without thinking.
“Not at all.” He rises to his feet. “As you mentioned before, it is late. I have kept you from your bed... ahhhhh... from your rest long enough on this night.”
He moves across the room and retrieves his coat.
“We will dine?” and this time it’s a question.
She smiles. “Absolutely! It’s a promise!”
“I shall hold you to your promise, Pepper Potts.”
And then he is gone.
She finds the television remote and turns off the TV.
She picks up the ice cream and the spoon and goes into the kitchen. She puts the ice cream in the freezer and the spoon in the dishwasher.
She takes a deep breath.
She picks up her cell phone from the kitchen counter and makes a call.
“Yeah?” the voice on the other end of the line says.
“He was here. Tonight. He just… ah, he just left.”
“OK.” There is a long pause. “You all right?”
“Yes… yes, I’m fine.”
“You still think this is gonna work?”
“I do. Now more than ever, actually. What does Thor say?”
There is a sigh.
“That’s his brother. You know what he’s gonna say.”
“Well, they’re speaking again,” she says.
“Really?” She can hear the surprise.
“Evidently Thor is instructing him on ‘Midgardian dating rituals’.”
There is another sigh.
“God help us all.”
“Right? I'm going to have dinner with him.”
"When?"
"No idea. I told you before how he is: he just shows up whenever he feels like it."
“OK, I’ll let the others know.”
“Not Tony, though.”
“No. Project Redemption is strictly need-to-know, and Stark don’t need to know shit about any of this.”
“Good.”
There is a long pause.
“You know, we could be playing with fire here. You saw what he did to those motherfucking robot sharks. This could really come back to bite us in the ass.”
“I’m afraid…” she hesitates. “I’m afraid that if he finds out about this, he’ll see it as yet another betrayal. He’s had so much of that in his life already, and I don’t want…”
“To hurt him?”
“Right.”
“You really care about the crazy bastard, don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't.”
"You in love with him?"
She is silent for a moment.
"I don't think I want to answer that," she finally says.
"Fair enough. I just hope you know what the hell you're doing."
She sighs. “Yes. And let’s hope for the best.”
“Got that right. Loki’s a badass motherfucker, and I’d fuckin’ love to have him on my team.”
“That's... not necessarily my ultimate goal here. And anyway, it will present problems.”
“Don’t worry. If the time comes, I’ll handle Stark.”
“Yeah, good luck with that!”
Laughter.
“Good night, Miss Potts.”
“Good night, Director Fury,” she says, and terminates the call.
FINIS.