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"You touch it," Loki said, not bothering to take his eyes away from the pool of gelatinous sludge.
"No, you touch it." Banner countered, backing up as a bubble popped in front of him and almost splashing him.
"You touch it, I asked first"
"Yeah, but aren't you like... a god or something?" Banner had moved to hide behind him, but Loki wasn't having it. He performed a complicated maneuver, planting his feet firm, and pushed the Human in front, a meat shield if you would.
Banner balked, "And aren't you immortal?" Loki said as he found himself suddenly twisted around and merely inches from the most foul smelling substance he'd ever had the displeasure to discover.
"I'll touch it!" Came an overly enthusiastic offer from Thor as the two continued to struggle against one another.
"No!" they shouted in unison and ignored Thor as his face fell. It was a matter of pride at the moment, one of them was going in the sludge, and it damned well wasn't going to be Loki.
"What's it going to do huh? Kill you?" Loki said as he moved to push Banner even closer, hiding behind him.
"I can die!" Banner twirled around and started maneuvering Loki instead, smirking when he noticed Loki flinch at the smell.
He had to have been using at least some of Hulk's strength though, because ordinarily Loki would have been strong enough to simply lift the man above his head and toss him in. At the moment however, he felt Loki never would have guessed the hadn't been a born Asgardian himself.
"No you can't!" Loki dug his heels in, "What's the worst that can happen? truly?"
Bruce gave one more shove, but instead of finding himself pushing against the solid weight of an annoyed Loki he found himself tumbling off balance as his friend moved with him, using the momentum to his advantage and putting himself once again behind Banner.
"What's the worst?" Banner sputtered, he was no doubt to close for comfort, Loki could practically taste his success. "It could hurt!"
"Bah! Don't be such a baby." Loki was just about to make the final push when a frustratingly familiar orange light caught his attention instead. It cut an imperfect circle directly in front of the bickering Asgardians, opening a doorway across space.
Doctor Stephen Strange stepped out, onto an unfamiliar planet to see his... to see Loki, and smiled softly when their eyes met. It had been sometime, and though the device Loki had gifted him was convenient for basic communication, it was nice to see him in person once again.
"Strange?" Loki asked, his previous game with Banner forgotten as the man took his chance to slip away "what in Hel's name are you doing here?"
"Are you busy at the moment?" he asked, ignoring everything else around him, including the foreign environment and the spectators that had been gathered for Loki and Banner's earlier scuffle. No doubt they'd been hoping to see Loki get slimed, traitors. However, Strange's eyes refused to leave Loki's and the longer the silence stretched, the redder his cheeks became, causing Loki to wonder if he simply waited long enough would the poor Midgardian's head simply catch fire?
A morbid thought passed through his brain, but Loki shook it away, Strange was too cute to let something like that befall his face, it would simply be a waste.
Loki's eyes sought out Banner, finding him with his tall blonde boyfriend. He likely wouldn't be missed, so he allowed his full attention to fall back to Strange as the other Asgardians realized that their dreams of a slime covered Loki were for naught and went back to exploring the world, seeing if it was a good place to set up camp for a bit. Loki hoped it wouldn't be, the slime pits a little too common for his liking.
"not particularly, why?"
Strange's face lit up, even taking away some of the pink as he smiled and grabbed Loki by the hand in order to properly lead him through the portal. A nice change of pace from the previous times he had found himself falling through the man's portals.
"Wonderful," he said as they stepped through, "I have something I've been wanting to show you."
Loki just rolled his eyes, it was unlikely this Midgardian, as sweet and intelligent as he was, would be able to show him anything particularly exciting or new. Especially in comparison to the adventures he had found himself on as part of the travelling Asgardian refugees. Like the Enkar III incident.
he shuddered, causing Strange to glance at him. he simply shrugged in response and cleared his mind, he really didn't need to think back on it. It would be nice to go with Strange anyways, he wasn't averse to spending some time away from his brother on his honeymoon.
Okay, so it wasn't really his honeymoon, but it sure felt like it. Loki had made a mistake earlier in the week of going to the training room unannounced, and the image would likely haunt him forever. Forever.
Strange had been talking, "I just kept thinking about something you said while we were trapped in the maze. Honestly I found it more tragic than Wong's ignorance of Beyoncé."
Loki continued to be dragged along, down the streets of Midgard, enjoying the rough callouses of the man's damaged hands. He tried not to think about how he'd never had anyone go out of their way for him like this, at least not someone who wasn't Thor. But that was just annoying. Since it was Thor. Everyone else had always had a reason to do things for him, not always good ones or bad ones, but there was always something they wanted or needed and frankly it left Loki feeling more like a tool than a person.
"Honestly though, if I had to rate it on a scale from Matt- ah, here we are."
They stopped. Loki looked up at the building before them, it was a restaurant, probably, and Loki was more than a little unimpressed. Strange had been desperate for him to see..this? Did he not think other planets had restaurants They did, in fact, almost all planets did. Food was a relative constant in most species need for survival and the convenience of not needed to make food for ones own self was too pleasant not to be as common as it was.
Unless...
Unless this was a date and Strange just wanted to come up with an excuse to get him here, Loki thought as he held back a blush, Well, he supposed it would be rude to turn down free food, even if it wasn't exactly a golden apple.
"Golden Carral?" Loki asked, "Not very high brow for a dinner date is it?"
Strange's face went red and he seemed to be fighting with his own words, unable to form a clear sentence with the sudden attention put upon him. "This... it's not-" he shook his head and pushed open the door. "Just come on"
Loki shrugged and trailed in behind him, it was a rare opportunity to check out the man's ass without his overly protective cloak getting in the way. A shame, it was a nice ass.
The restaurant wasn't overly busy later in the evening and all the food was already set out in a buffet for the patrons to simply grab whatever they'd like. Loki found himself smiling at the feeling of familiarity, it reminded him of the great feasts they once had in Asgard, an endless supply of food set out to be taken. And while it was by no means an endless feast, the reminder of home was enough to warm him.
"Hi! Welcome to Golden Corral, What can I get you folks to drink?" The young woman behind the counter said in a chipper and rehearsed voice. She waited patiently as Loki looked at the options. He didn't really know what any of it was, but he doubted they held alcohol, or at least any kind that would affect him.
"Just two coffee's please" Strange said as he went to the register to pay.
"You don't know what I want" Loki snarked, not minding in the least. At least coffee would be familiar.
"Sorry, they don't serve wine here."
"Ha ha, no, we don't" came the chipper voice of the girl once more.
Loki wondered if he too wouldn't also go a little crazy if he had to deal with humans as much as she likely had too. Her smile didn't reach her eyes as she wished them an enjoyable meal and went back to gossiping with the other girl, the one at the register. Loki glanced back and saw a much more genuine smile upon her face as the two spoke in whispers. Perhaps, he thought, it was not all bad for the young Midgardian.
Instead of dwelling on it though, he simply followed his booty call. Because he refused to call him anything else, boyfriend was far too intimate and childish, but anything less and he'd truly be lying to himself. The two sat down at one of the smaller, more intimate tables and Loki immediately grabbed a plate and headed for the steak. They'd regret allowing an Asgardian into an 'All-you-can-eat' buffet. He hoped Strange didn't expect him to come back with a salad or something.
"Wait," Loki glared as he caught his wrist "come here"
Strange pulled him along and Loki debated just pulling towards the steak instead, it wasn't like Strange could force him somewhere, at least not with one of those damning portals. Instead, he allowed himself to be shepherded past perfectly good food, not that he was very hungary. He wasn't.
"Here we are," they had stopped by the desserts. A large section of the building dedicated to pre-packaged pastries and pies that Loki glared at. At least Bruce baked his cookies fresh, even if it was often with the dubious and random ingredients they were able to gather from one planet or another.
"trying to fatten me up Strange?"
"No," he chuckled, it was soft, and kinda cute. "Look over here"
He did.
And when his brain finally comprehended what he was seeing, it almost immediately switched off. His childhood memories of an ancient hope and crushing disappointment flashing through his thoughts. It couldn't be, he had thought... It didn't exist. there was no way.
A chocolate fountain. It was real, right in front of him. "So you said earlier that they didn't exist. And I did want to show you one that was more impressive, but I don't really have the budget for anything more than just this... turns out that they're really expensive with all the chocolate and stuff"
Loki kissed him, "It's beautiful and I'm going to need you to stand out of my way."
Strange's eyes went, a shaking hand held gently to his lips as he backed away. Loki allowed himself to go completely crazy, his plate a stack of chocolate covered everything from strawberries to marshmallows and these square rice sweets, then he realized he could dip an Icecream cone in as well an watched as the flowing cocoa rushed blanketed pastry after pastry. It took everything he had not to just stick his entire hand in, but he didn't want to be rude or worse, get the thing taken away from him.
Eventually though, his plate could hold no more, and the girl in the apron behind the counter looked like she was going to laugh at him, so he went to sit down. but not before she was able to snap a picture on a phone that he was fairly certain she wasn't supposed to have.
Strange was already sitting down, and seemed to be happily munching on a salad, in contrast to the disaster that was Loki's own plate. However, he didn't say anything as Loki sat down across from him and started to dig into his bounty, just smiled softly. The two continued to have a wonderful dinner as Loki eventually finished off his desserts and made good on his internal promise to eat them out of steak and their other various meats. Hel, Loki even found himself laughing along to some of his jokes and genuinely enjoying the company.
As they left the restaurant, Loki stole another look at the girls behind the counter, who had both quickly straightened up as they walked by. The one who had gotten their coffee was hiding a phone behind her back and wished the two of them a wonderful evening. The other girl was clearly trying not to laugh, or look at them, and Loki had a suspicion of what might be on that phone. His good mood the only thing keeping him from doing something more mischevious to preserve his dignity.
As the two left, he realized that they'd have to part ways and as Strange opened up a new portal, he stole one last kiss. A sweet, slow one that he could savor until next time. In fact, as Loki stepped through the portal, he thought about how Boyfriend wasn't such a bad word after all.
That is, if he hadn't stepped onto the precarious edge he'd forgotten he'd been standing on earlier, only to have a familiar pair of arms shoving him into a pit of foul-smelling sludge.
Oh, this meant war.