Loki (ikoloki) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-04-02 03:09:00 |
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April Fool’s Day was a day marked with a number of possibilities, many that the thought of delighted him, but it was also a day of skeptics and cynics and people being grumpy at the possibility of a good joke. Doing anything alone would only make him the target of naysayers and unspirited adults with no laughter in their heart, but if he assembled a band, the blame was less likely to be as severe. Kids having a good time were not quite as threatening as Loki up to his old tricks. Which was what brought him to the door of one of a number of spirited individuals he could think of in this place. With a cheery smile on his face, Loki raised a hand, rapping on the door as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet as he waited for it to be opened. The second it was, his smile doubled up as he peered up at Ms. Stephanie Brown, “I propose bacon and an alliance. Perhaps some sausage and pancakes as well. But the alliance is the important part,” He said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Name your terms.” Steph mostly wanted to be sleeping. As a rule, she didn't train on April Fool's Day. That was just asking to have some sort of mishap happen, and she wasn't the sort of person who courted disaster. Not much anyway. She planned to skip the day if at all possible. She wasn't scheduled at SHIELD, so she didn't have to worry about that. All she had to worry about was the person knocking on her door, seemingly with no care for the fact that she just wanted to sleep and not deal with people. Groaning, she got out of bed and made her way to the door. Opening it, she stared at Loki as he made a bunch of sounds that were probably words and...demanded breakfast? She was pretty sure he was demanding breakfast. And an alliance. It was a commentary on how nice she was that she didn't slam the door in his face. Or punch him. "My..." she shook her head. "I'm getting coffee. I'm getting coffee, and you're going to sit quietly while I get coffee. And in return, I'm not going to punch you in the throat. Okay? Okay." She made her way over to the coffee machine. "When I have caffeine, we can talk about breakfast. And...alliances." Next time, Loki really needed to bring caffeine. Coffee. He should have thought of that. Caffeinated beverages were often the way that Midgardians greeted the morning, and he had to say, while they were more than often unnecessary in his case, they were quite stimulating when one was running low on energy. It always made him wonder why they needed them in the morning most often, then, since wasn’t sleep supposed to enough energy in and of itself. Either way, she’d stated her terms, and one of them was him remaining quiet, so questions like that would have to go unanswered until she had completed the necessary steps in acquiring coffee. He really didn’t want to get punched in the throat. Following her inside and closing the door behind him, Loki made himself comfortable, finding a sit in the kitchen and doing as he was told, sitting quietly until she was ready to talk. It was all well and good. It gave him an opportunity to decide how he was going to convince her to join him. Steph got the coffee machine going, hitting the buttons harder than was strictly necessary and leaning against the counter as she waited for the coffee to brew. When it was done, she poured a cup for herself, adding sugar and creamer before took a long sip. She sighed contentedly, already feeling more awake than she had before and drained the rest of the cup. Much better. It was only then that she realized that she was still wearing what she normally slept in, an overlarge t-shirt. With a startled noise, she darted out of the room, running into her bedroom. She quickly pulled on a pair of jeans from her floor and made her way back into the kitchen area. "I hate you so much right now," she said. "You have no idea. Seriously. I was sleeping. Sleeping! Do you know how often I get to sleep in? I'm a vigilante who works for the government and freelances for a private security company. While taking college classes. I never sleep. And I had today off. To sleep. But no, you had to wake me up. And all so I can make you breakfast. And what did you even mean by an 'alliance' anyway?" While she said this, she had turned on the stove, letting a pan heat. She opened the fridge and got out some bacon, putting it in the pan. "How do you want your eggs?" she asked, making her own sunny-side-up. Even though she was annoyed, he was tiny and pathetic, so she would feed him. She just might also murder him afterwards. There really was some truth to what all the guys said. Girls were weird. Why she felt the need to dash out of the room merely to add a pair of pants which covered little more than had already been covered and mostly hid bits that were really unnecessary to hide, he couldn’t be the life of him fathom, but there were some mysteries that were too deep for even him mind to try and sort out. “I...never said anything about you making breakfast,” Loki said, knowing that the statement came about a second too late to really change the fact that she’d already started. Bacon in the pan. No way to really take it back now. “Just that we should have some,” He added before offering her a deceptively innocent smile. “But, if you’re offering, fried with cheese?” “As for the alliance,” Loki continued, leaning forward and resting his head on his hands, “I’m sure you’re well aware of what day it is. Few people let this one slip by unnoticed. Unfortunately, the idea of me having harmless fun isn’t really something most people can wrap their minds around. There always has to be some ulterior motive to it. Even when there isn’t. Now, if I try to do anything on my own, I’m likely to have people calling for my head by sundown. Of course, if I weren’t alone... I imagine you see where I’m going with this. Yes?” "I told you I would make you food," Steph said with a roll of her eyes, cracking an egg with what was possibly slightly more force than strictly necessary, "and then you came over at stupid o'clock in the morning, saying breakfast needed to happen. What the heck was I supposed to think you meant?" She thrust her coffee cup in his general direction as she worked on the eggs. "Refill this. Creamer. Two sugars." It was the least he could do, when she was busy making food. Once he had the cup in hand, she grabbed some cheese from the fridge and added it to his egg. Then she quickly mixed up some batter and heated up the waffle iron, getting the first waffle started. In the meantime, the eggs and bacon finished, and she plated them. She took the first waffle out, setting it on his plate and passing it to him. "There. Eat." She finished her own waffle, adding it to her plate, and grabbing butter, syrup and orange juice. "Does it meet your exacting standards, your highness?" she asked, though by now she was more awake and the tone was more teasing than grumpy. She listened as he spoke, rolling her eyes and taking a bite of her waffle. "So what you're saying," she said when she was done, "is you want to mess with people, but you don't want to actually deal with the consequences of messing with people. So you want someone else to share the blame?" She mused that dealing with Loki was simultaneously exactly the same as and completely different from dealing with Damian. With a sigh, she looked at him over her coffee cup."What did you have in mind?" Considering getting her more coffee was likely going to make her more pliant to his suggestions, Loki was more than happy to do it. Awake and aware was better than groggy and grumpy. Filling up the cup as instructed, Loki slid it back over to her as he sat down to the breakfast, a smile spreading across his face, “Just Loki’s fine. Not that I don’t mind people recognizing the fact that I’m a prince every once in awhile, my name’s probably more appropriate for this conversation.” Taking a bite of the eggs before breaking off a piece of bacon, Loki nodded at her assessment of his proposal. She was quite a bit more observant than others tended to be. “Pretty much,” Loki said after swallowing the bite. “I was thinking that we get together a small group and spread out. Tiny pranks are so much more fulfilling than large ones in a situation like this. Cover the most ground and leave as many people baffled as possible,” He said, gesturing with the piece of bacon before taking a bite out of it. “I’ve got ideas. But I’d rather keep them close to the vest until I’ve got a yes or a no.” The coffee was good, so at least Loki could follow instructions. That was a point in his favor, however small a point that was. She gave an amused snort at his comment about just Loki being fine. "That was sarcasm, dork," she said with a smile. "As if I'd ever called you 'your highness' with any sort of seriousness." Nope. She definitely wasn't that kind of girl. She was way too much of a smartass to show that kind of respect, especially to a guy like Loki. Seriously. Way too much like Damian for her comfort. "Now eat your breakfast." She took a moment to eat her own, dipping her bacon into the runny yolk of the eggs. "Don't want it to get cold." She sighed. This was probably going to be a terrible idea. But it wasn't like she had much else to do today. "I guess that makes sense," she said. "And smaller pranks definitely sound like a safer plan than anything huge." Or less likely, at least, to get anyone hurt. Or to get her into too much trouble. "If I agree to this," she said after a moment, stabbing her fork into her eggs, "and that's a big if, I get to veto any pranks I don't agree with. And you owe me a favor. Those are my terms. Taken them or leave them." She wasn't stupid. When it came to gods, favors were the most valuable currency you could exchange. She knew what she was doing. Usually Loki went into these sort of situations looking to get as much as he could out of it without leaving anything on the table, but as she looked across the table at him, he felt inclined to not try and manipulate this situation in his favor. People were often more willing to take you up on a deal again if they didn’t feel as though they were ripped off, and eventually, even the dimmest bulb in the world figured out that they had been double crossed when a deal was less than adequate. “I have other options,” Loki said, figuring he might as well make it seem like he wasn’t going to cave right away. Granted, the few options that came immediately to mind were just as likely to slam the door in his face as they were to accept his terms without someone else to vouch for his sincerity. She was his best option to actually believe he didn’t have anything else in mind except harmless holiday pranks. “I could always go and ask one of them. Even if they wouldn’t be nearly as inviting,” He said, grinning as he took a bit of his waffle. “Three vetoes during the day and two favors.” It seemed worth the extra favor to limit her ability to say no. She’d have to be careful which pranks she said that they couldn’t do then instead of just shooting down any idea that seemed dubious. "You might have other options," Steph said with a small smile, "but you came to me first. And that means that you want me to help you. Remember that. I'm not the one who came to you here." She was surprised that she was actually entertaining the thought of helping him, but now that she was more awake and less annoyed, she thought it might actually be fun. And she was pretty sure she could keep Loki from doing anything too destructive with her veto powers. It looked like she might have more plans than she had intended for April Fool's Day. She raised an eyebrow at his counter offer. Two favors. Three vetos. It was more than she had ever expected him to agree for, and two favors could go a long way. Yes, the limit on vetos meant that he could work around her objections, but she really didn't think he'd do anything that bad. And it seemed kind of fun. All in all, the pros were outweighing the cons. Still, she took a minute to really think about it. Rushing into this wouldn't be good. "I think that's a fair agreement," she said finally, holding out her hand. "It looks like we have a deal. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up regretting this later, but we have a deal." This so wasn't how she had expected her day to go, but then things rarely went how she expected them to. And, really, this could be worse. Though, by thinking that, she'd probably guaranteed this would turn into a complete disaster. Which...was pretty typical for her, actually. Loki beamed as he reached across the table and took her hand in his. It was a good deal even though those favors could easily come back to bite him in the ass if the situation they were used in ended up complicated. But as far as he saw it, they could have gone to someone much worse than Stephanie. “You might end up regretting it, but if you do, it’ll only be in the best possible ways. Promise,” He said, smirking as he took another bite of waffle, chewing it slowly as the ideas danced in his eyes. “So. How do you feel about glitter...and glue?” |