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The main lobby was busy, and Loki worked his way through the groups of people and under the large banner that announced the first ever "Bring Your Kid to Work Day" at Stark Industries. Tony had been talking about it for entirely too long, and as Loki dodged a father with at least three children in tow, he thought he understood why there had never been one before. Business was supposed to continue as much as possible, and with any luck, Loki thought, the chaos would die down before long as the tours got started and people went back to offices and labs with their little ones excited and chattering like magpies.
He took the stairs two at a time, already dreaming of a quiet office with a locked door and a cup of tea, remembering to nod and smile as he went. Down the hall, past another group of youngsters clustered around one of the displays, up another short flight and across another hall, and he breathed as he reached his own door, the tasteful nameplate and Out of Order sign standing as a beacon of normalcy.
He swiped his badge quickly, then entered the room, flipped on the light, stopped and stared with his mouth slightly open.
Goats. Three of them. Small, fluffy and clearly at home, if the straw scattered across the floor was any indication. One was on the back of his couch, staring out at the Malibu skyline, another was perched on his desk; the third, a black one with a white star on its forehead, lifted its head from where it slept on his chair and gave a tiny, resentful bellow.
Approaching carefully, he noticed that the one prancing atop his once-pristine desktop had a note tucked into its collar. After a few moments of negotiation (and one near miss), he extracted the slightly-chewed paper.
Didn’t want you to feel left out. 930 tour time, starts at the reception desk. Happy Kids’ Day. - T
He crumpled the note in his fist; behind him he heard a few beeps as his door was bypassed. She looked at him a little frantically.
“Thank heavens,” she said over the bleating of the two furry, wriggling bundles in her arms. “I thought it was just me.”
***
A tiny alarm, and Tony glanced up. 925. He surged from his chair, nearly spilling his coffee, and Pepper made a grab for the proposal he had been reviewing.
“Leave it,” he said, pulling her to her feet and ignoring her protests. “Won’t be a minute.”
He scampered into the hallway, practically skipping along the corridor and dragging Pepper behind him. It was a short walk to the mezzanine overlooking the main lobby, and he casually leaned against the balustrade to survey the chaos below. His jaw dropped.
“Well I’ll be double-damned on a sandwich,” he heard himself say, as at two minutes to the start of the tour, Loki strolled into the main lobby, not a hair out of place and followed by not one, not two, but five small goats, including the ones Tony had foisted on Kindle at the very last second. Every single person in eyeshot stopped and stared at the sight, six feet four inches of regal iciness leading an orderly line of fuzzy little kids who trotted with heads held high, and Tony had never been more proud of him. Those keen blue eyes lifted, unerringly finding Tony where he rested against the railing, and there was an unreadable sort of smile on Loki’s face.
Tony gave him a tiny salute and earned a fraction of a nod in return. Loki turned his attention back to the reception desk, an obvious flourish in his movements as he signed the register for the five visitor badges Tony had thoughtfully reserved for him. Pepper shook with silent laughter, practically vibrating against his arm. Stark couldn’t take his eyes off the lobby, and he stared at the design in the floor for a long minute after Loki and his little menagerie followed the docent in charge of the 930 tour out of sight.
“Check and mate?” Pepper asked, her voice a little breathless from stifling her giggles.
The smile. It was the smile that unnerved him. A few too many teeth to be considered precisely friendly.
“No,” he said with a sinking feeling. “I don't think it's even close.”
***
Tony yanked off his shirt and threw it to one side, buying himself just enough time to kick the door shut as carefully and rapidly as he could and drowning out the cacophony outside. He stripped down to his boxers as he stormed through the living room, tossing clothes right and left and not caring if the King of Wakanda himself was sitting on the sofa with a cup of chai and eighteen kilos of free vibranium.
“Welcome home, s-”
“Oh, no,” Tony said. “Don’t you give me that.” He scratched gently at a spot above his arc reactor. "Are you or are you not programmed to sweep me for anything out of the ordinary when I leave and enter the house?”
“I am, sir.”
“And are your sensors fully calibrated?”
“I ran diagnostics not twenty minutes ago, as per schedule.”
“Then tell me, if you would,” Tony said over the noise of rushing water as he stepped into the shower and reached immediately for his shampoo, “how you managed to miss the fact that I went for a run this morning wearing a shirt that was apparently laced with female cat pheromones.”
“Heat-activated synthetic cat pheromones, actually. I suppose it's too late to apologize?”
“I was like the Pied Piper out there," Tony went on, ignoring the AI. "Worse. It was the Stray Cat Strut, up to and including Brian Setzer and his whole damn orchestra, but why stop there? Stray cats, tame cats, big cats, small cats, black cats, orange cats, tabby cats, and I’m pretty sure one of them was a full grown cougar because no self-respecting housecat is that big and what the hell, J?”
The AI remained silent for a brief moment, and Stark rolled his eyes as he grabbed for the body wash.
“You’ll want to pay close attention to your feet and ankles, sir,” came the AI’s voice in response, and Tony could swear there was the barest hint of meekness in it. “It was also on your socks. We- he wanted to be absolutely certain.”
“Well that goes a long way toward explaining things. Heat-activated synthetic cat pheromones,” he mimicked under his breath, punctuating each word with a scrub between his toes. “I didn’t even know we made that stuff.”
“A side project, sir. One of the scientists in the biochemistry department. He’s been developing traps for the local humane societies in an effort to capture feral cats for sterilization and release.”
“Then tell him it works,” Tony said, voice distorted by the shower’s spray. "Maybe a little too well."
“He’ll be pleased to know that, sir,” said the AI as Tony shut off the water, then thought better of it, turned it back on and picked up the soap again.
“So what’d he offer?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Jarvis. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out again. What was it? Fame? Adoration? A new Xbox? Nuclear codes? All things I’d give you, J. Free of charge. No strings. How’d he do it?”
There was a slight pause. “An expansion of my linguistic databases, sir.”
“Oh,” Tony said over-graciously and with a slight bow as he swept a towel from the warmer rack. “He taught you a language.”
“Six, actually,” came the reply without a trace of apology. “None of which have even been heard on our planet, and including one that he could only write down because he lacks the physiology to speak it.”
Tony wrapped the towel around his waist and headed to the kitchen. “What, not enough tentacles?”
“Something to do with the vocal cords. Apparently his powers were such prior to his banishment that a simple adjustment of the larynx was sufficient, but he no longer has that ability.”
“Pity.”
“Indeed, sir,” Jarvis replied.
“I did program you to appreciate sarcasm, right?”
“Indeed,” he repeated smoothly. “I’ve also taken the liberty of scrambling any of the images of your aborted run I’ve been able to find, but as you well know, it might already be too late.”
Tony flopped into the couch, water bottle in hand. “Well, we’ll spin it if we have to. Support my scientists, human trials, whatever. Make it work.” He leaned back, arm across his face as he did his best to talk himself out of what he wanted, but after a moment, he gave in.
“Jarvis?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t lose all the videos. I want to see what it looked like from the other side.”
“Very well, sir. I’ve already got-”
“No, that’s all right. I don’t want it just yet.”
“Too soon, sir?”
Tony idly rubbed at the tiny scratch marks on his leg. “You could say that. And J?”
“Sir?”
“Set me up for a tetanus shot, would you?”