A Whole Bunch of Loki's

The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

"Okay, so what about this one?"

Loki looked at the picture I held up, a profile picture of Natasha Romanoff, borrowed from a file in S.H.I.E.L.D's database.

"A skilled fighter and smart woman, though nothing I haven't encountered in Asgardian warriors."

Rolling my eyes, I set the picture aside and held up the one behind it, one that caused his eye to visibly twitch as he gritted his teeth.

"A worthy sorcerer in his own right, if not a little too invested in himself."

"Wow, you've really been hit hard, even if you can still slip insults in."

I snickered and set the picture on top of Natasha's, shaking my head.

"Hey."

We both looked up to see Peter walking over, smiling with all his usual awkward boyish charm, carrying a plate of nachos with some delicious looking sides which made my stomach growl.

"What's going on?" He continued.

"Loki can't lie."

"No way," he snickered, sitting down on the other end of the couch, "at all?"

"At all," Loki glowered, narrowing his eyes.

"That's crazy," Peter nodded, plucking up a nacho from his plate. "Hey, have you ever cried while watching one of those Disney original movies with the dogs in?"

Loki looked at the teen with a mixed look of utter shock and insult.

"No."

"Oh, yeah," Peter laughed, shuffling in his seat, "me....me neither."

We both stared at him before going back to the pictures.

"Okay, so-"

"Must we really continue this?" Loki sighed, "we have established that I can't lie, can we perhaps figure out a way to solve this."

"Is it really that bad? Did you lie that often?" Peter asked.

"No, surprisingly for the God of Lies, I told the truth quite often, I just had a way to weaving an amazing web of lies when needed."

Loki glanced to Peter with a wry smirk, earning a pleased smile from him and a laugh from me at the pun.

"It's more the title," he continued, "it's who I am, part of my identity whether I act upon it regularly or not."

"Right, gotcha," Peter nodded, "so what are we doing with the pictures?"

"I'm trying to see if I can kick in his natural instinct by showing him pictures of people he hates."

"So, everyone?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

He looked to Loki then back at me, his eyebrow raising in a little twitch.

"Even..."

The brief flicker of his eyes towards me didn't go unnoticed, causing my eyebrows to furrow as I look at him.

"What, Peter?"

"Yes, are you really asking my opinion on..."

"I am," he nodded, scooping up some guacamole onto a nacho before holding it out to me.

Loki's jaw tensed up as he shuffled in his seat, his fingers clenching onto the cushioning of the arm rest.

"I'd rather get back to the pictures of the insufferable ones, if we may."

With a shrug, I lifted the pictures from my lap and started fumbling to try and switch them out.

I'd only just managed to separate the pages of photographic paper before they were plucked from my hands.

Peter leaned back and started to flip through them, occasionally pulling a face that gave away his opinion on the person it was showing.

Once it reached a certain picture, he smiled widely then flipped the sheets around to display my face staring out into the room.

"Oh my god," I groaned, closing my eyes, "that's the picture they chose?"

"You didn't notice when you collected the photos?" Loki asked with a chuckle.

"No, I just selected a load of randos and printed them in a random order."

"Of course you did."

"Go on, answer it," Peter insisted, practically shaking the picture at him.

"You're rather pushy for someone too shy to kiss another," Loki sneered, though his tone was laced with amusement.

"Hey! I've kissed someone."

"Your aunt doesn't count."

"It wasn't May and at least I actually had the courage to confess to the person I like, who's the shy one now?"

In all the time we had known him, neither of us had ever seen him look as smug as he did in that moment and yet, somehow, it didn't come across half as arrogant as he had every right of being.

"I am not shy and I can confess," Loki practically hissed out.

I sat in my spot, looking to each of them like I was watching a game of tennis.

"Besides, we both know she totally snuck her own picture in there in hopes of catching you out."

I sputtered on my own breath and shot him a look of denial, one that even I could tell wasn't exactly convincing.

Everyone knew of his intellect, he was considerably smart for his age, but sometimes his observations were amazingly and annoyingly accurate for a boy who couldn't pick up on social cues around him at times.

Loki looked to me then back to Peter, his eyebrow quirking.

"You're being uncharacteristically pushy about this."

Peter shrugged, setting the pictures down on the table beside the others.

"Guys, I see us as friends and I like my friends to be happy and you two are so into each other it hurts and I just want this to work out."

"And?"

"And maybe everyone has a bet going on about when you're finally going to get together and I'm two days from passing my bet goal and I don't want Scott winning, so could you maybe help me out here?"

I sighed and shook my head with a laugh.

"Pete, you're a lovely guy and I'd love to help you with some harebrained scheme to help you win, maybe we can even pretend to, but there's no way that Lo-"

"No, he's telling the truth."

My head snapped towards Loki, my eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights.

"Excuse me?"

"What? A God can't have a crush on a mortal?" He scoffed though smirked all the same.

"Well yes, but you? Loki, the God who hates us mortals?"

Loki rolled his eyes then turned his attention to Peter.

"Tell the others we are considering an official date and that you had won the three months' supply of pizza."

"Yes! Thank you, Mr Loki, sir."

Peter grinned and jumped up from his seat, leaving his half-eaten plate on the cushion beside me.

"Hold on, this was over three months of free pizza?" I asked, looking between the two. "Wait, you knew about the bet?!"