Of Numbers and Strange Friendships

Chapter 9

"Hey, Loki," Peter greeted Loki as he came into the common room of the tower, tossing his school bag on the couch carelessly. It had been over a week since Loki had been invited over to family dinner. Loki was still surprised every time when Peter no longer called him 'Mr.' He kept waiting for the formality to come back and it never did.

He didn't understand why it never came back.

And he couldn't help being pleased by the development.

Even though Loki was having a bad day.

"What's the number today?" Peter asked as he fwumped comfortably onto the couch, pulling out web fluid notes to go over with Loki to see if they could improve the formula.

"Six," Loki replied, then paused, considering the day he was having with Stark being an ass. "And a half,"

Stark huffed from nearby and rolled his eyes. He was the one getting on Loki's nerves today. He kept poking and prodding at Loki's temper, especially right before Peter was due to arrive. "Why? How are they friends? And how do we make it stop?" He whined. He wanted Peter away from Loki's bad influence.

Thor clapped Stark on the shoulder. "Fear not, Man of Iron. The friendship is good for both of them. As to how," Thor shrugged "Relatively speaking, they are of an age,"

"What?!? He's like a thousand years old and the kid is 15!" Stark protested.

Thor laughed. "We live for roughly five thousand years. By Midgardian standards, Loki would be roughly a few years older than the young spider, but not unreasonably so for them to be friends,"

Peter smirked and got to his feet, donning his Spiderman suit a moment later. He took Loki's hand to haul him to his feet. "C'mon, let's go patrol," he told Loki and dragged him out of the tower while Loki laughed and let his armor shimmer into place.

They patrolled for petty crime, which was ridiculous and silly. And so... petty. And yet, it made Peter so happy to help normal everyday people with normal everyday problems. It wasn't fighting Hydra, monsters, and aliens. It was stopping robbers and pickpockets. Helping retrieve cats from trees. There was always some petty crime going on in New York, so they always found something to do.

Loki didn't mind helping out especially since, if he was having a bad day especially, Peter wouldn't say anything if he had a little fun with his victims when they left them for the police. Peter did insist on rules about Loki's fun, which made it slightly less enjoyable, but even he had to admit the rules were... reasonable. Loki wasn't allowed to permanently harm, disfigure, or kill, any of the criminals.

So Loki had to settle for mischief and embarrassment.

Which led to a LOT of naked webbed up criminals with magically dyed hair and mustaches drawn on with sharpie. The notes of their crimes were very conveniently placed, but the criminals were thoroughly embarrassed and Loki had his fun.

*

One Monday, Peter didn't come by after school. That wasn't too strange. Peter didn't come by every day.

Just basically every day.

In fact, Loki couldn't remember a day that Peter hadn't come by at least for a minute to grab a bite to eat. The fridge was always full and growing boys on every realm were starving creatures.

But...

Had Peter seemed off the last couple of days?

Had Loki not noticed something?