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It had been a long day for Peter, and when he got to the tower after school, he went straight to his room without saying a word. Usually, the boy would go up to Loki and chat away about whatever happened in his day. Today was not one of those days.
He tossed his backpack onto the floor and threw himself onto his bed face-first.
Loki stood at the doorway, looking at the gloomy boy.
"Do you want cookies?" She asked.
"Yes, please." He said in an instant, sitting on his bed. Anything to get his mind off of his troubles. "Sugar is the way to my happiness."
"Ok, well, let's make them."
Seemingly disappointed with her answer, he stood up, throwing his hands up in dissatisfaction. "Wh- I did not sign up for this."
She had a mischievous grin on her face. "Too late now; you already said yes."
Peter pulled up a recipe and started getting out all the ingredients, saying all the names. "Flour...sugar...butter....eggs...." He caught Loki's glare and said, "All right, sheesh. I'll be quiet."
They worked for a few minutes in silence until an eggshell dropped onto his bowl.
"Aw, crap!" Peter muttered.
Loki eyed his bowl, and in an instant, the piece of eggshell was gone. The teen gawked at her, and Loki rolled her eyes, even though she found it a bit amusing that the boy was still in awe of her powers.
Another few minutes passed, and Peter groaned. "God, this is way too much! Why couldn't we just buy these? It would save us a whole lot of time."
"Hush, Spider." She lifted her finger up to her mouth.
Before Peter could say something about the nickname, he heard a pair of feet enter the room. He turned his gaze to the intruders, and it was none other than Steve and Bucky.
He beamed upon their entrance. "Hey, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Bucky."
With weary eyes looking at Loki, Steve said, "Kid, I've already told you. You can call me Steve."
"And you can call me Bucky. Drop the Mr. Makes me feel old." He muttered the last part. "And are those cookies you're baking?"
"Yep. We're trying, at least."
"That's great, Pete. If you need anything at all, and I mean anything, you can call one of us, yeah?"
Peter nodded, and he had a feeling Steve was only saying that because of Loki.
After Tony found out that they were hanging out, the others found out, and well, let's just say they were in the same boat as him.
After Steve and Bucky went off to who knows where it was time to ice the cookies.
They made a rainbow of colors but realized they had messed the recipe up since the icing was runny. They tried again, double-checking the recipe this time, and finally put it into the piping bags.
Peter decided to decorate his cookies with trans, bi, and ace colors while Loki decorated hers with genderfluid colors.
She had discovered the flag when Peter had added her to a group chat of just the two of them named "Genderfluid/Trans Solidarity."
Upon telling him all about memes and sending some sexuality-related ones, Peter had learned that Loki was also a fellow Biromantic asexual.
That night, Peter sent Loki a meme.
Greenie:
What does that mean?
Spidey:
Biromantic asexual?
Well for me it means that I like people of all genders romantically
Y'know, without the sexual part of it
A few minutes passed, and Peter kept sending a few other memes.
Greenie:
I think I am biromantic asexual as well.
Spidey:
Oh, cool!!! Welcome to the club!
The cookies had turned out ok. Not great or bad, just. . .ok. The icing looked sloppy on the cookies, so they took a toothpick to better the design. At least they were edible.
With one look at the kitchen, they realized just how much of a mess they had made. Mr. Stark would kill them if he found the kitchen in its current state.
As if Loki was reading his mind, she quickly cleaned the mess with a simple flick of the wrist. Peter looked at her in awe.
She took an ace cookie and took a bite out of it. "This did take your mind off of your troubles, no?"
"Yeah." His smile slowly left his face as he remembered the day's events.
She cursed at herself silently. She shouldn't have brought it up.
With a huff, Peter started, "It's just, why does sex have to be so important to people? Ned, I love Ned, ok? He's my best friend, but sometimes he can be a lot. He keeps asking me if MJ and I have . . . done it, and it's just driving me insane. Like, is it so crazy that I don't want to?"
"Of course not." She simply said, frown visible on her face.
"And that's not all, this whole day has been wonky, and my ADHD's been so bad. I could not focus for shit, and everything was too much. I literally had to run out of my last class because everyone was so fucking loud."
Loki had never heard of ADHD, so she made a mental note to ask him about it later.
"Ah, so that's why you were home early."
"Yeah, don't tell Mr. Stark." He joked.
Tony had been on that business trip for the past few days, so thank God for that.
"Thank you, Loki." He finally said after a beat of silence. "For the distraction and being there for me."
She cleared her throat, feeling the familiar uncomfortableness settle in. "It's no problem."
Peter smiled at her and practically threw himself on her, putting his arms around her in a hug. It took Loki a few seconds to let her brain catch up with the situation and hesitantly put her own arms around him, relaxing in his hold.
It was almost midnight, and Peter had been messaging Shuri, Ned, and MJ about his baking session with Loki. Needless to say, they were absolutely living for the news.
Sure-e:
Duuude I need to meet her.
That's so cool!
You're literally best friends with the goddess of mischief
Arachnid:
Just come over one day.
Or we'll go over to you
Sure-e:
Nah Tchalla would freeeaaak
Speaking of the devil, he's calling me, so PEACE
He switched over to "The Chaotics" group chat.
Guy in the chair:
Duuuuuudde WHAT??
SO AWESOME
MoJo:
Cool
Petey:
Ikr!
Guy in the chair:
WE HAVE GOT TO MEET LOKI PLSSSSS
Petey:
Lol
One day
Guy in the chair:
Wait, is Loki your new best friend????
CAUSE HOLY SHIT A LITERAL GODDESS IS YOUR BEST FRIEND
But she better not replace us!!!
Petey:
Dw she's not replacing anybody
And idk if we're friends
We've only talked to each other like 4 times
MoJo:
Sounds like a friendship to me
You two literally baked.
I think that qualifies as friendship
Guy in the chair:
So cool
With a last goodbye text to his friends, he walked back down to the kitchen, wanting to get one last cookie for the day. What could he say? They did a good job, despite the cookies not being as visually appealing as hoped for.
As he walked down to the kitchen, he saw the lights dimly lit, and that's when he saw Tony eating one of the cookies decorated with the bi-colors.
Peter blinked, suddenly feeling his mouth go dry. "Uh, Mr. Stark, what are you- What are you doing here?"
Tony, whose gaze was set upon the cookies on the tray, turned to look at his kid. "Mm, the business trip was cut short, thank God. Now I can enjoy my time with you, Underoos. I was thinking we could cruise past the night, watch a few movies, maybe build some stuff with the legos I bought. What do you say?"
He didn't know what to say, so he settled on the next best thing, stuttering the words out of his mouth. "Uh, yeah, yeah, sure thing."
"These cookies are good," Tony said, mid-chew. "You make these?"
"Uh, yeah. Me and Loki."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. He was still a bit wary about Loki but surprisingly warming up to the idea. "I'm surprised you didn't burn this whole building down."
Peter rolled his eyes. "Oh, haha."
Tony shook his head, a slight smirk on his face, and looked down at the cookies. "This is the bi flag, asexual, and trans flag. Oh, and this is the genderfluid flag. I kinda looked at the term 'genderfluid' after Loki came out to me, and I went through a rabbit hole."
Peter bobbed his head up and down, taking that information in. "Oh, that's cool."
Tony eyed him suspiciously. "You ok, bud? You're looking a little pale."
The 'I so pale' meme flashed through Peter's mind, and normally it would make him laugh, but right now, nothing could bring his nervousness down. "No, yeah, I uh. I just want to tell you something."
"What's up? I'm all ears."
Just then, Loki suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Tony stumbled back, hitting the counter. "Geez, Reindeer Games, we gotta put a bell on you."
"I see you're eating our cookies."
Tony nodded.
"I was just about to tell Tony something." Peter told Loki, sending her a silent 'thank you.'
Loki looked at him and nodded at him, a silent 'you can do this.'
Peter turned back to Tony, seeing him stuff yet another cookie into his mouth (his third one now.) "Um, I'm trans."
That's when Tony started choking on the piece of cookie he had been chewing. Loki quickly lept to action, lifting her hand and making a motion. The piece of cookie went flying out of Stark's throat and vanished into thin air.
"Mr. Stark, are you ok?" Peter asked, quickly going over to him.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks, Loki. And thank you for telling me, Pete. I haven't been misgendering you, have I?"
"No, no, no, you haven't. It's always he/him."
Tony sighed in relief. "Good. Thank you for telling me. And thanks for saving me from choking, Greenie."
She nodded in response.
"So about these bi and ace flags?" Tony looked at the remaining cookies.
"Yeah, we're bi and ace too."
Tony only nodded and made a mental note to buy some pride stuff for his kid. "So, movie time? You can tag along, Reindeer Games."
"I would be delighted."
And so the three spent the rest of the day watching Star Wars and building randomness with Legos, that of which Loki was quite amused by since they didn't have Legos in Asgard.
Overall, the day had its rough edges, but when you looked at it whole, the bright pieces shown through, and that's what Peter would hold onto, remembering until the end of time.