Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 84

Loki really does not want to spend Christmas with the Avengers.

The last few days have been fun. He's enjoyed preparing for Christmas with them. He put up some of the decorations. He helped with a lot of the baking (and ate a lot of the dough in the process). It really has been fun.

He just doesn't want to join the actual Christmas celebration.

Unfortunately, the Avengers wouldn't let him ditch. Clint, obviously, couldn't care less, but the rest of them were insistent he join them like he did the year before. And ordinarily, Loki wouldn't mind spending the day with the Avengers, except that he knows that Jane Foster flew in last night.

He really doesn't have anything against Jane Foster. He doesn't get why Thor is so infatuated with this human woman, but that's no slight against her. The problem is that she doesn't like him, which makes it very uncomfortable for them to be in the same room. He made the mistake of joining the Avengers (sans Clint and Natasha, whom he assumes were at the Barton house, though they claimed it was a mission) for Thanksgiving dinner, and it was the most awkward ten minutes of his life until he excused himself so the tension didn't ruin everybody else's afternoon.

Today isn't going horribly, though the celebration has only just started, so that may change. Once again, Clint and Natasha are gone, but the rest of them—Pepper and Rhodey included—are all seated in a semi-circle around the Christmas tree, and Loki is as far from his brother as the arrangement will allow him to be, keeping as much space between himself and Jane as possible. He gets to sit with Steve, and Snowflake is running back and forth between him and Pepper, so he really can't complain about the seating arrangements.

"Alright, Dum-E," Tony says. "Who goes first?"

Dum-E looks over the gifts under the tree (something that really shouldn't be possible for a robot without eyes), then picks one up and drops it in front of Tony. He backs away, and Tony picks it up.

He sighs and looks at Dum-E. "It says Thor. See?" He taps on the tag. "So who should you give it to?"

Dum-E pauses, then picks the gift back up and brings it over to Thor.

"Much better," Tony says.

Thor surveys the room—trying to discern who his Secret Santa is, probably—before giving up and tearing the wrapping paper off. When he sees what's underneath, he furrows his brows and looks up at Tony questioningly.

Thor holds the box up. "What...?"

Rhodey snorts. "Somebody got you poptarts for Christmas?"

"Um..." Thor looks down at the box, then back to him. "It would appear so." He pauses. "What is a poptart?"

"It's food," Jane says. "It's, like, a breakfast food. They're good; I think you'll like them."

"Yeah, give one a try," Tony says. "They're great."

Thor sets the box down by his side. "I will do so later today," he says. "I would rather see everybody open their gifts first."

"You can eat and watch people open gifts," Tony reminds him.

"But I choose not to," Thor says. "Besides, I am far too eager for the cinnamon rolls we'll have later to eat anything else."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Okay, fine. Open it later. Dum-E, next gift."

Dum-E picks up another present and drops it in front of Tony.

Tony reads the name on the tag. "Okay, Dum-E, this says Pepper on it," he says, almost patronizingly. "So who should you have given it to?"