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….
"…" Tony froze with his mouth already open for an answer, but due to the sharp disappearance of the interlocutor, he looked utterly insulted.
"So, it turns out someone can have the last word in a conversation with Tony Stark after all?" Pepper teased him, smiling sweetly at the man.
"He ran away! That doesn't count!"
"It is very good that you are finally ready to tell me who that was," the girl leaned closer, never ceasing to smile.
"Yes, exactly, he ran away…" Stark noted with a new intonation, licking his dry lips and scanning the surroundings, clearly figuring out where to slip away.
"Tony?"
"Who wants to congratulate my fiancée?!" pretending not to hear her, this lout asked the whole hall.
"Tony," Pepper called him colder now.
"Come on, step right up! We have a celebration today!" the billionaire continued to clown around.
They both knew this was a temporary success and later it would be even worse for him than if he explained everything now, but that was Tony all over—he didn't look for easy ways…
….
Several days later.
Laura was staring wide-eyed at a brown rabbit in a cage. The rabbit chewed hay melancholically in response, lazily twitching its ears at the chirping of various parrots and canaries from the other end of the store.
Our tourist trip, both before and after Stark's birthday, proceeded unhurriedly and even a little lazily.
We stopped for a long time in one place, grilled meat, rested, tried to sunbathe, although my companions considered the weather too cool for this and even acquired fur-lined boots.
I pestered the child, showing her all sorts of cute things, like ways to catch desert snakes and skin furry game… listened to Sarah's weak protests that I shouldn't do that, smiled charmingly, but promised nothing.
Although Dr. Kinney protested mostly for show. If anyone knew, the scientist probably knew best that these amusements wouldn't harm X-23's psyche. Of course, that didn't stop her from pursing her lips in displeasure, but she knew, yes.
In local towns, we bought groceries, went to bookstores and souvenir shops, playgrounds, and movie theaters.
In short, I did everything to give my companions time to recover, think, and get used to each other.
The combat hamster was slowly socializing, no longer grabbing everything from the shelves indiscriminately, but showing the things she liked to her mom first.
Sometimes she even communicated with salespeople, explaining what she needed to see from the shelf.
With me, however, she still played the silent game. I don't know why, but a nod or a negative shake of the head was the maximum I managed to get from her.
Yet she didn't avoid me at all; on the contrary, she often watched and came over to see what I was doing.
However, she managed to speak even with Yuriko several times, although the latter tried to keep her distance and was quite the silent introvert herself.
It all looked very strange from the outside, especially one time when I was caught by the campfire in the morning and demanded to read a fairy tale from a recently purchased book while mom was sleeping.
Demanded silently and even without using facial expressions, just walked up, drilled a hole with her gaze until I turned to face her, showed the book, and started batting her big eyes expectantly, just like she's looking at the rabbit right now.
I don't know what she decided to get out of the long-eared one, but I read the fairy tale then… as well as several times after… Actually, I got roped into it, come to think of it…
Nothing changed at the mutant school during this time, and even the report on Stryker's shocking departure from life didn't cause much turbulence.
Charles, it seemed to me, suspected me of something, but this was expressed only in a couple of postponed chess games, allegedly due to busyness, but that was all. He didn't even probe cautiously in conversation.
In general, everything was going well, and today promised no surprises. Another small town, another shopping trip, not even to buy anything, but purely to look and show the child. Cute provincial people all around, small cozy houses, clear sky, everything was peaceful and blissful…
Until THIS rang out behind my back:
"I need a horse!" the voice of a new visitor swept imperiously through the entire store along with the slam of the door.
And I would recognize this voice even dead drunk, after several hours of battling trolls and receiving a good hit in the ear from a stone giant. No joke, there was such an episode in Loki's biography.
"We don't have horses…" after a few seconds of silence, interrupted only by the rapid steps of the man crossing the room, the seller responded sluggishly, clearly doubting the mental health of the interlocutor.
"Puppies, kittens, birds…" he listed further, as if hinting that a pet store and a stud farm are different enterprises.
"Only bigger, to ride," the visitor broke the poor guy's template with inimitable ease with his new remark.
And by the voice, it became immediately clear that he was in no way joking, absolutely without the slightest halftones or doubts.
Fortunately, a car horn from the street and a female shout into the open door saved the seller from the need to answer:
"Hey, need a lift?!"
The creak of the visitor's soles turning back, a couple of seconds of silence… and confident steps back. One, two, three… stepped onto the threshold… the clap of the closing door.
I turned sideways to the window very, very slowly, pushed Yuriko aside a little, and, looking furtively from behind the cages, saw the back of a huge blond man in a brown jacket climbing into the passenger seat of a small truck…
What the Surtur?!
What is HE doing here?!
"Sir?" Yuriko called out to me anxiously.
"Everything is fine," sharply peeling myself away from the window, I turned to my companions, who were looking at me in unison. "Everything is wonderful… Only I don't understand anything!"
With the last words, I bolted from the spot and ran out into the street.
The truck had already disappeared at the end of the road, heading for the exit from the town and leaving behind a light cloud of dust and my completely upset feelings.
What happened? Why is Thor here?
I didn't lead any Frost Giants into Asgard, didn't disrupt the coronation, didn't goad him into a campaign to Jotunheim and… what else was there in canon? Accusing Odin of being a senile old man, after which he flared up?
None of this happened! Loki was a good boy for once and had nothing to do with it…
What the hell?!
….
If you want to read ahead by 20+ chapters from here you can visit my Patre-on.
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