Who: Spider-man, Loki What: an art heist is foiled! When: first half of May Rating: Green
Peter was running late on his curfew - again - but this time he swore he had a good reason.
He'd been on his way back from Stark Industries when something struck him as a little fishy. He'd been swinging down blocks on his way to the Brooklyn bridge when his enhanced hearing caught a few filtered words here and there, most of it muddled but enough to get him to slow down. There were voices coming from a white van parked on a side street, and a few people in ski masks were moving what looked to be canvases covered in draping sheets of cloth. Peter perched up on the nearest fire escape and listened in, letting Karen intuitively zoom in his vision.
"So we've got a Van Gogh - a Monet, a Picasso. How much you think we can ransom for these?"
"Millions. People'll shell out just about anything for these glorified scribbles."
"No way," Peter whispered, trying to stay out of sight. “Karen, do you think this is legit?”
"The dimensions of the canvas match up to the original Starry Night. Coordinated break-ins were just reported at the MoMA and the Met."
Okay, so this was a problem. Maybe a little below the Avengers pay-grade, but it seemed on par with his.
"Droney, take out the van's tires for me...?"
The robot whirred and flew down behind the squabbling criminals, and Peter meanwhile crawled down the side of the building as silently as he could. He wasn't sure how to approach this without risking the paintings themselves - the last thing Spider-man needed was a lawsuit from some very pissed art historians on how he'd had a hand in destroying some iconic works. He could try to reason with them, maybe, or stall just long enough for the law enforcement to catch on, but -
A high-pitched scream jerked Peter out of his planning. There were wide, terrified eyes staring up at him from a few feet below, and he was startled enough to lose his grip and land on his feet.
"What the hell is that?" The same guy said, backing up several feet to his companions. Peter splayed his hands, trying for the whole 'I come in peace' approach.
"It's me? Spider-man? You know, the Junior Avenger? Not ringing any bells? No?" He was getting blank stares, which told him they weren't from around here. It wasn't like he was as well known as Cap or Thor, but most people in New York City at least recognized the mask.
"Jesus," the woman struggling to start the van stuck her head out the window to squint over at the scene. "That's a a kid in a jumpsuit."
"No, no, this thing is very high-tech, and anyway, that's not why I'm here! Is this an art heist? Really? It's cool when they do it in the movies, but have you ever seen that one episode of Doctor Who? The one with Van Gogh? Cause if that taught me anything, he just wanted his work where everyone could see it. You guys really don't know what I'm talking about? It's a tear-jerker, man, seriously, but-"
"All right, that's enough."
Peter was disappointed when the man pulled a knife out on him, cutting away the option of talking it out. He hopped up on the nearest dumpster, giving him enough of a spring to kick the blade out of reach. It was chaos from there - four more people piled out of the van and darted out into the street balancing another canvas, and Peter tried to keep his hearing focused on their footfalls while he hastily webbed the one they'd left behind - a Monet, he thought - to the building wall.
"Crap crap," he said, hoping the sticky fluid wasn't toxic to the paint. As soon as it was as stuck as it would ever be, he sprinted after the stragglers...only to find the road empty both ways. The sidewalk, however, wasn't. There was a man, and he was familiar. God, why was he so familiar? Peter's senses were suddenly on alert.
"Hey! Hey buddy, did you see where those people went?" He was talking breathlessly a million miles a minute, but the fate of the art world was at stake. "They had paintings? Probably wrapped up in cloth or something? They were on foot, I think?"
Peter was ready to take off whether he got a helpful answer or not, but that familiarity was bothering him. "Do I know you?"
It had been a quiet evening when Loki dared to go out for a walk through the city they would soon be leaving. His real reason was to fetch some iced coffee....which he absolutely was not addicted to. While most of the stores were closed, he managed to wander a few blocks north of the warehouse and buy one from a store of convenience. The other reason was that he would be too happy to get out of a city that he really didn't like looking upon.
Of course there was an illusion cast over himself from the time he stepped foot out the door, weaving enough seidr to look different and to exert the idea to those around him that he wasn't the God of Mischief. Almost like convincing soldiers that they were not looking droids even though the droids were in front of them. Midgardian movies were odd too, but Loki was rather fond of that Empire striking back. Far better than the other two films before and after.
At any rate, he was a very happy God at present. He was closer to escaping this place, and his footsteps were light as he strolling down the street. Feeling the tug of chaos in progress, Loki suddenly veered left when he should have continued straight ahead for the next four and a half 'blocks.'
Midgardian naming conventions were mind boggling. A lot of their 'blocks' weren't even square.
He abruptly came to a stop. It was in time to stand idly by and watch a few bumbling thieves running past, and soon after the superhero the televised news called Spider-man stopped and was addressing him. Well. This might be a bit of a fun. Although there was something familiar about this 'man' who really sounded much like...a boy.
Loki, disguised as a dark haired hipster, tilted his head slightly to one side as though listening for something unheard, and squinted his eyes as though trying to see clearly. That chaotic hum that surrounded this person was something he could almost put his finger on, but surely that couldn't be....
"Perhaps," Loki replied, his lips still around a straw so his voice was a drawl that was equal parts slithering and as soft as silk. Despite that, he looked off to one side in the direction the thieves ran off, their ill begotten artwork in tow. "Or perhaps not. Beg pardon, but do I know you?"
As he waited for the costumed spider hero to reply, Loki raised his eyebrows and blinked, wide-eyed, while sucking down more iced coffee. Helpfully.
Okay, no, Peter definitely knew him. The whites of his eyes on the mask seemed to narrow, scrutinizing the coffee-drinking hipster for a long moment.
"Peter?" Karen broke in, a voice only he could hear. "The person you’re speaking to isn’t exhibiting the heat signature typical of a resident of Earth." Man, Mr. Stark really had put everything in his suit.
"Crap, Karen, can you…" Peter spoke aloud before he remembered he had an audience, realizing that this one-sided conversation was likely looking strange. "Um, sorry, your name isn’t Karen, is it? Cause you look a little like a Karen."
It was only a split second later that something clicked. A brief glimmer of green and black was enough for Peter to recall where he’d felt that unique charge in the air before: the Asgardian warehouse, no less. Apparently he’d just sassed a trickster god. Again.
"Woah, you’re Lok-" Peter broke off and laughed nervously, backing up in the direction that had been very furtively gestured to. Not like following that lead was a particularly good idea when it came from someone who had a reputation for deceiving people. "-you’re low-key helpful! I like it, sir. Thanks a lot. Really."
It was a terrible save when he'd all but just confirmed he knew his name, and so he was relying on the assumption that Spider-man’s business would be 'below' Loki's lofty interests. He gave the illusion of the hipster a salute before making a hasty retreat by webbing down the street, turning down the two blocks to find, surprisingly, that he hadn't been lead astray.
The good news? He managed to stop three stragglers and webbed them and another canvas to the sidewalk. The bad? He'd used up his web fluid, and a replacement canister was in his backpack left in an alleyway about a mile away. That was especially concerning when the remaining art thieves were using the roof of an abandoned industrial storehouse to make a quick getaway in a landing helicopter.
Peter started to crawl up the side of the building. Without his webbing, he was going to have to get creative here.
Above him, a caped figure clad in green and black jumping from the top of one building onto the rooftop the helicopter was landing on. Covered in a faint green glow, several knives propelled into the engine of the helicopter as soon as it landed. The rotor slowed with no engine to propel it.
Loki looked down at where Peter was crawling up the wall, eyebrows barely raised. The iced coffee was still in one hand, and he paused to suck on the straw while the art thieves looked at a loss where to go from there.
One of Loki's illusionary doubles appeared in a shimmer of glowing green and gold light, perched on a window ledge. It spoke loud enough for only Spider-man to hear, and was surely a voice cast into it from its creator.
"My my, if it isn't young Peter Parker," it said, as though gleefully gloating in this newfound knowledge. The dead give away was seeing through an illusion that was only meant for those who were not part of the network. It was easy to put two and two together from there, and matching the voice and the buzz of energy, he quickly came up with the sassy teenager as the result.
"Do forgive my intrusion," the clone continued. "I grew weary of watching you try to catch up. Do you require aid in horribly maiming these thieves and collecting your artwork? Preferably without blood on it, I'd imagine. I'll do my best, but I make no promises."
Space Vikings. They typically skipped straight into 'weapon throwing murder spree.' Almost like their default setting was Instant Kill Mode.
From above on the rooftop, Loki left blades lodged into the knees of a thief, not bothering to lean away from a gunshot aimed at his head as he unrolled a canvas. The bullet harmlessly ricocheted off a seidr shield as he looked over a puzzle-faced Picasso painting. There was an uninterested 'meh' noise as it was tossed over his shoulder. Renoir or Van Gogh was far better.
It wasn't the time for art appreciation though. Loki gave the shooter a look like he really, really shouldn't have done that.
Oh, this was bad. The only moment that rivaled this in terms of sheer nerves was on Homecoming night when that blinking traffic light had turned green and an awful understanding dawned on Mr. Toomes' face. Good ol' Spider-man. Tony was always telling him to be careful, but sometimes Peter wasn't. He really, really wasn't.
"Shit," Peter quietly muttered to himself. He'd insist on denying his identity through a series of bad lies later, but for now he had to figure out how to wiggle out of this without any damage to the art or the thieves. He climbed up the rest of the building and leapt onto the roof, taking in the looks of fear on the criminals' faces and the impressively outfitted figure opposite them.
"Mr. Loki, sir, you can go! I have this all under control!" Peter burst out anxiously. Oh god, was that guy stabbed in the knees? Knives flashed and a gun clicked, and Peter threw himself in between the trickster and the idiot who'd fired before he could think of another option. He was trying not to think about how the Picasso piece had been tossed aside like garbage, but whatever. He was doing his best. And his best had very stupidly ended up with a gun jammed to the back of his head.
"No more maiming. From either of you guys. Bloodshed? Not cool." Peter wagged a finger at Loki like he was scolding a cat before a sharp tingle ran up his spine in warning. He acted quickly and elbowed the man behind him in the gut, ducking out of the way as another bullet was let loose. He tackled the one with the weapon to the ground after that, his foot swinging out to trip another trying to make a run for it.
"Hey!” Peter waved to try to get Loki’s attention, bogged down by a headlock. These art goons were determined, and without his web fluid, he needed a way to safely round them up. With no more stabbing, preferably. “Hey, can you summon a magic rope or something? Or a chain? I could tie ‘em up.”
While Loki was scolded, he was giving Peter the sort of face like he was a sweet summer child, blissfully unaware of what an honor it was to have a chaotic deity stooping down to help this young hero. And yet there was also a tinge of something darker there. This was a deity that hadn't dropped his illusion for the criminals. Those on the network would be able to see through, which the spell did when Loki thought he recognized who was behind the mask. The only reason the criminals feared him was due to what he was doing to them, not because they knew him.
So it seemed young Spider-man blurted out his name in front of these thieves. Sigh. That was problematic. There went hiding from those war criminal charges, if these people talked. He'd have to use a spell to scramble their minds now if they lived to see the dawn of a new day. How inconvenient!
As it stood, things could go one of two ways. The first was that it would end well and everyone was able to walk away relatively intact (minus some incomprehensible babbling on the part of the art thieves). The second was that it could all end with bloodshed, fire, and screaming. And since he'd been identified as Mr. Loki, the God of Mischief was found the second option very, very alluring.
"I could. But only if I can hang them with it," was Loki's smoothly spoken reply. A long link of golden chain shimmered into Loki's open hand, and he gave the criminals a withering look that nearly made one of them pee their pants. "I think I have a better idea."
Loki glared at a thief standing nearby and the man immediately disappeared into a cloud of wispy green haze. In his place, fat toad let out a loud and almost indignant, "RIBBIT!"
"Holy shit!" the thief yelped, letting go of Spider-man's neck in the process. They didn't have long before a shimmering green spell smacked the man in the face. He fell back onto his butt, hands pressed over his eyes, laughing like a loon.
"Now then. Is there anyone left?" Loki asked, still holding the chain and looking around. The pilot of the helicopter was left frozen in place, and Loki gave them a smile that was equal parts mischievous and malevolent. "Oh, I do like helping! Let us chain him to his machine and I'll kick it off the side of this building. What a fun ride that would be."
With two of his buddies in crime already turned into a frog and a giggle fit, the pilot looked like he was ready to wet himself.
If there was a bright spot in this scenario? The art's safe. So that's a thing.
What was it with Asgardians and frogs? Peter was going to have to pose that question once he was sure none of the art thieves were in danger of finding a rope around their necks. No way was he about to let that happen on his watch. He wasn't out to kill people or make them suffer - even criminals had families and people who would miss them if they were gone.
Loki's definition of help? It needed a lot of work.
Peter rushed to the toad before it moved to leap off the edge of the building, scooping it up in one hand. He wrinkled his nose beneath his mask, the slime already coating his glove. The thief who laughed uncontrollably at least didn't seem to mind having the frog deposited in his lap. If anything, it made him crack up all the harder.
"Laugh while you can, man," Peter said somewhat apologetically, helping him to sit up with a pat on the shoulder. "Hey, you too, over here-" He gestured to the helicopter pilot, who was still frozen in place. "Listen, the all powerful dude who turned your pal into a literal amphibian? He's not playing around. And I really don't want to have to fight him to save you from getting all froggy too. I mean, I would, but it's a school night, and..."
Apparently the exasperated Spider-kid act worked, because the pilot was soon scurrying over towards his rounded up companions - apparently he found Peter to be the lesser evil. Which was kind of useful, actually. Loki had unintentionally acted as the bad cop to Peter's good, and speaking of cops...
Sirens sounded from down below, followed by a command he'd heard one too many times. "NYPD. Stay where you are."
The paintings lay scattered where they'd fallen, and the thieves were huddled together as far from Loki as they could get. Maybe that rope Peter had asked for wasn't necessary after all. "You might want to get change them back to normal and get moving," Peter said to the trickster himself, miming the swishy magic hands as he backed away from the roof. It was time for him to vanish before the law enforcement burst onto the scene. "Unless you want the cops to know that someone else was here with me tonight."
Well, if Brunnhilde was with him, he would have conjured some popcorn while watching her bust skulls with her fists. But her temper and patience was shorter than his when it came to criminals, and Midgard had a odd sense of justice that didn't seem to include brute force. Didn't anyone ever get put to death or flogged here?
Regardless of that, the exasperated Spider-kid act did work, even on Loki. The thin chain disappeared and he waved a hand dismissively at the laughing oaf and the toad and they were both changed back into two very addled criminals. Two criminals that he warned with a low growl, "If you tell them any names, I will find you where you sleep and you will regret your mothers birthed you."
The finer details of that scenario were best not thought about. Frog Guy began to tear up at the thought.
Pleased with that, Loki nodded to the Spiderling and said to him, "I think we have more to discuss this eve, and you are out of your webbing to quickly escape. If it will help, though, I shall remove myself from sight."
He waved a hand and the criminals gasped and looked around for any signs of a super dangerous magician. One of them started to get up to bolt to a nearby fire escape, but Loki said loud enough to be heard, "I'll be taking that route, thank you. Kindly sit thy ass down and wait to be thrown in a dungeon."
The thoroughly spooked criminal sat back down, and the trio of would-be art thieves hugged onto one another.
Loki gestured to a nearby rooftop, in the opposite direction, whispering confidentially, "They'll never know. That's part of the fun. If you wish it, I can make you invisible too. Otherwise, I will wait there for you, once you are done speaking to this NYPD. Yes?"
"...Uh, hah, like I said it's...a school night? Got a physics paper due and got a curfew, y'know. Not sure I have the time to chat." Loki wanted to talk to him? The whites of Peter's eyes on the mask widened a little bit and betrayed his unease, and even the criminals looked over towards him with sympathy.
The sound of the sirens grew louder, and Peter's hearing picked up pounding footfalls in the stairwell beneath them. It was a minute tops before the NYPD burst here on the scene, and he didn't know how smart it would be to put himself between a group of cops without his webbing available for a quick and easy escape if needed. And it wasn't like they'd be particularly happy with him this time around, not when there were three visibly terrified thieves rounded up and historic art pieces scattered carelessly (but safe enough, at least) on the rooftop.
Peter weighed his options. Between waiting around to be interrogated by the NYPD as to how he'd frightened the criminals witless or sneaking off into the dark with a god of mischief...he decided to go with the devil he knew.
"Okay okay." Peter leapt up on the side of the building, looking over at Loki warily. The tingles - as Wanda had called them, and he didn't have a better word for his sense extension yet - weren't telling him to be anything more than cautious at the moment, so maybe the trickster wasn't planning on turning him into a literal spider and squashing him under his boot. Yet.
"Do your thing." He really hoped he wasn't about to regret saying that. "But no funny stuff, okay? I'm serious. You don't want Iron Man on your tail, right?"
It was a bluff; Peter was planning on doing everything he could to avoid calling for help when this mess was one of his own making. "And hey, before any 'discussing' happens? I'm grabbing food. There's a good hot dog stand a few blocks away from here." Peter took a breath before referencing their first conversation back at the Asgardian warehouse. He was all but confirming his identity, but Loki knew that already - and unfortunately, there wasn't any taking that knowledge back. "Your favorite, right?"
"Not particularly, but I will bow to your superior knowledge regarding such things. Until then? Please hold still, while I render you invisible."
Loki gave Peter a sly smile and flicked his fingers toward Peter, covering him with a green glow which disappeared instantly. He nodded in Peter's direction and began leaping across the rooftops, eventually letting Peter take the lead so they could locate hot dogs of all things.
For that, Loki disguised them as two non-descript teenage boys. And while polite, the only specifications he insisted on before paying was, "Anything my friend recommends is best, as long as it is not that vile bright yellow concoction."
With hot dog and drink in either hand, Loki looked at Peter questioningly.
"It seems we both knew the other," he told Peter with a wide smile. "My spell was meant for everyone not on the network, so it's no surprise that you eventually saw through it. Even then I could sense your energy, and your reaction gave you away. You're not overly cautious, are you?"
Peter tried to dampen his amazement at the illusion - because it was Loki, he didn't want to give him the satisfaction - but a 'woah' made it's way out anyway. So maybe it was just a little cool. "What'd mustard ever do to you?" Peter was balancing two hot dogs with his drink, already halfway done with the first. A patrol gone awry really worked up an appetite.
"No idea what you're talking about. I'm just the friendly neighborhood Spider-man," Peter claimed, even if they both knew full well exactly what Loki meant. That was the problem with the network and his identity; everyone within it was roped together by the divergent timelines, and that made hiding who he was difficult. Not so difficult that he shouldn't have tried harder to mask it from Loki in particular, though - that thought made him wince.
"And I'm...careful. Sometimes! It's not like you were part of the plan, man. Your stabbiness and magic was definitely not part of the plan." But miraculously? No one had gotten killed, the paintings were now in the hands of the NYPD, and Peter wasn't being questioned by a group of frustrated cops. All in all, it had been a success. A very narrow and messy one, but a success.
"You didn't seem to want anyone to know who you really were either. Is this where I try to blackmail you? Like 'if you tell anyone my secret, I'll tell everyone yours'? Or is that a stupid idea to pull when you could teleport me to space and leave me there? Cause I'm not really into the whole idea of being stuck somewhere like that again."
Loki, or rather, Kid Loki rolled his eyes at Peter's insinuations. He took a long sip of soda and twitched a couple of fingers out, casting a spell that convinced everyone else that chances by that the two boys were talking about video games. Ironically, ever since he had gotten a Station of Play, he learned quite a bit about Final Fantasy role-playing and shooting zombies with primitive Midgardian weapons.
Meanwhile, their own discussion was for their ears only.
"Such spells are simply a bending of light and sound in the manner I see fit," he explained, once he stopped sipping soda. "I assure you that I'm not about to deposit you in Helheim, Mr. Parker. I do not announce myself after the attack on this city.
"It was insinuated that they would give my brother what's left after they were done with me." At that, Loki arched an eyebrow. "I know not their meaning, but I have heard tell from the Historian Channel of Midgard's barbaric custom of alien autopsies. Suffice it to say, I'd rather not become a participant. Let us leave things with mutual blackmail possibilities and please explain what you had them put on this hot dog, so that I might eat it."
He nodded toward the hot dog in his hand, which he still seemed uncertain about.
As suspicious as Peter was - and probably always would be - of Loki after the damage his city had suffered after the Chitauri, he frowned when he implied there were people on this planet who wanted to dissect him like a frog in a biology class. "Uh, that's so not okay. That's gotta be against all kinds of laws."
He finished his first hot dog and tackled the second, mask pulled up just to his nose so he could eat. The street they were on was relatively quiet, but magic was a handy thing; he didn't exactly feel like waking up to a newspaper headline that read something like Spider-man and Loki caught touring the New York food scene - is the wall-crawler turning a new evil leaf?
"That's a Chicago style just without the mustard. So it's got relish and onions and pickles and ketchup. Hey - if you’re not a fan, I'll eat it. But I dare you not to like it." Peter turned a corner, slowly heading in the direction of the alley he'd left his backpack in. "And the mutual blackmail? That works for me. It's almost like a pinky swear but with menace."
"I've no idea what a pinkie swear is," the God of Mischief said, while looking at the hot dog in his hand. "Nor what relish is. I'm not sure this is a good idea Is it this the bright green that is on this hot dog?"
It was the only ingredient he didn't recognize. He took a tentative bite, found that it was actually quite good. Not that he was ready to admit it yet. That would be letting Peter know he was right about this foodstuff. It was apparent enough by how quickly it disappeared, albeit in a fussy and regal manner.
Afterward, Loki sipped soda through the straw, and asked, "I wonder at you. Do you set out every eve, catching these criminals, and never harming them although they would wish to do you harm?"
"It's like-" Peter wiggled both his pinky fingers, jugging his drink as he hooked them both together in a mime of the gesture. "You've got a good friend, right? Like Thor. Thor's like 'hey man, swear you won't ever turn me into a frog again' and you're like 'sure, let's make an unbreakable oath here' so you link pinkies like that and it's a promise."
If Peter was hoping to get a third hot dog out of Loki's distaste, that was dashed by the way it mysteriously was eaten like it wasn't an insult to the trickster's picky alien tastes. Peter barely restrained a 'hah' at that - he wasn't going to push his luck by pointing out Midgard wasn't so bad after all.
"Oh. Well, yeah," Peter said as if his criminal catching activities was the most normal thing in the world. "Cause the thing with bad guys is that they have families. Most of the time they have people who'd miss them." Like Liz and her dad, the Vulture. Thanos, however, was an exception to Peter's outlook there. "I just wanna make the streets safer for everyone. And sometimes criminals just need a nudge to remind them there's better ways of getting by. But that art heist? Things like that don't happen too often. Most of the time I just help cats cross the street and carry groceries for old people."
Actually, there were plenty of things about Midgard that Loki did like. Things such as how progressive they were in comparison to Asgard's rigid rules of what was considered normal to them. He was fond of their music, art, fashion, and other forms of entertainment. He quite liked French pastries and Italian pasta dishes, as well as Pop-Tarts. Now he could add Hot Dogs in the Chicago style on to that list.
Not that he was about to admitting that. Of course not.
As for what was said about criminal catching?
"That sounds tedious," mused Loki, who wadded up the wrapper in one hand and disposed it by flinging it to the side, where it disappeared in a flash of green mage-fire. "Such thieves would have been ran down where they stood, or been thrown in the dungeon for a century. Regardless? Let us partake in this Midgardian pact, to help keep one another's identity secret when encountering one another. As a show of good faith, should you need aid that is not so dull as helping cats or frail elders? I will do so."
Loki sucked the last of the soda through the straw. He held out his other hand, pinkie extended in the same way that Peter demonstrated. It seemed like a good way to curb his boredom, and he liked how chaos seemed to cling onto the good natured young Midgardian. Plenty of trouble would be afoot and getting into and out of trouble always made Loki smile.
"...All right, but you gotta also promise you won't get all stabby about it." Peter pointed out. "No knives unless super necessary cause we both know you can get way more creative than that. And in return I'll...I'll introduce you to the best places to eat around here. That hot dog wasn't half bad, right?"
Maybe it wasn't so smart to make a bargain with a mischief god, but Loki had helped him - if in a roundabout way - and here he wasn't the destructive threat Peter had always assumed he was. It seemed like they both had something to teach each other. "Deal." Peter hooked his pinky around Loki's, pulling his hand back after to close his fist, in a position to bump knuckles.
"We should probably seal it with a fistbump for good measure. It's another...gesture we earthlings do. You should totally greet Thor like this next time you see him." Peter only wished he could be there to film a moment like that, honestly.
Refraining from stabbing wasn't any fun, but Loki supposed there was a moment to stab and moments not to stab. Sigh. He would abide by those rules for a while, in return for finding out new foods beyond the junk foods that Brunnhilde ate so often, tacos, and the pop eyes. The most unfortunate named food in this entire realm. It didn't sound appetizing, but it was actually delicious.
"Very well. Tis a deal." He stared at Peter's fist for a moment and then closed his own, bumping them together so slowly that it seemed he was memorizing the motion for later. "I shall endeavor to do so, so that we might fit in more during our stay on this realm. You have my gratitude."
That was as close to a thank you that Loki would probably get for the time being. And this was surely the start to a whole lot of trouble wonderful chaos ridden friendship.