5 Chapter

Shawarma Time! More about where Loki and Brittany have gone and what they are doing as well as a slight accident at the shawarma restaurant.

'Shawarma Day,' Leah thought to herself on Thursday morning, stretching and snuggling back into bed. 'But I can't be fucked getting up.'

It had been three days since Loki and the Light Elves had attacked downtown Manhattan and as of yet, they still hadn't returned. Which was a plus because the left the Avengers to hang out. It was bad because who knew what Brittany, Loki and the Queen were planning.

Her phone vibrated on the bedside table and she groaned as she reached for it.

"Hello?"

"Where are you?"

"At home, sleeping. Who is this?"

"It's Steve." Leah sat up immediately, making her head spin.

"How did you get my number?"

"I got it off Brittany's phone," he said guiltily. "She left it back at her apartment, so I took it."

"Okay." She rubbed her face with her free hand, sighing. "Why are you calling me now?"

"We're all going out for shawarma, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Leah slid her legs out from under the covers and set her feet on the floor. "But what about it?"

"I was wondering if you wanted me to pick you up, so that we can go to the tower together," he asked shyly as she stood up.

"Oh. What's the time?"

"It's around 9." Leah rubbed at her eyes, yawning.

"Uhm, I'm not exactly dressed or anything. Pick me up in an hour, maybe."

"Oh, okay." She could practically hear his blush through the phone.

"Bye, Steve." She hung up and threw her cellphone at the bed. He must like her if he was offering to pick her up in the morning. She almost began dancing around the room.

There was a knock on the door as Leah stepped out of the bathroom, drying her hair with another towel similar to the one wrapped around her. 

"Gimme a minute!" she shouted to him, rushing to the wardrobe and pulling out clothes. He had to be early.

There was another, more cautious knock as she pulled on her jeans and threw a t shirt on. "Okay, I'm coming!" She ran into the lounge, skidding so she could run to the front door. She threw it open.

"Sorry," Steve said, shuffling his feet. "I didn't mean to rush you."

"It's fine." He looked her up and down. 

"Er, uh.." She looked down and realized that her t shirt hadn't been pulled on properly and that it had ridden up above her stomach.

'Oh, s**t.'

"Come in, sit on the couch, I'll go get properly dressed." She rushed away, pulling down the top and cursing herself.

She returned some minutes later to see Captain looking at the photos on her bookshelf.

"Is this your family?"

"I thought that they were my family. Now, I just don't know anymore."

"Do you think that maybe they hid the truth from you to keep you safe?"

"They should have told me." He turned back around to her.

"I guess that we should get going, so we aren't late to the shawarmaing." Leah smiled at him.

"Did you bring your motorbike?"

"Of course," he said, picking his black leather jacket up off the armchair and sliding it on. "It's my pride and joy."

"Do you think that they're coming here together?" asked Clint, reclining on the couch casually.

"I think so," answered Dr. Banner, back on his laptop. "Who knows, maybe they spent the night together."

"Bruce, that is disgusting."

"What? They could have!"

"I'm pretty sure Cap is still wearing a promise ring," said Tony, looking away from the T.V. "You know, those really old things that stopped you from having casual sex?"

"Guys, can we stop talking about this?" Natasha went to block her ears. "I don't want to hear about it."

"What else are we going to talk about? How you and Hawkeye-"

"Don't bring that up either."

"Oo, touchy subject."

"Be silent, they're here." Sure enough, Leah and Steve had arrived together, making Clint say,

"I told you so."

"You guys are late. It's 11 and we're supposed to be going to a foreign shawarma restaurant."

"Tony, just because it's in Jersey doesn't mean that it's any different from the one just around the corner."

"Whatever," he said, crossing his arms. "Let's just get going. And Steve, are you wearing leather again?"

"I like my jackets."

"Leah," sighed Stark. "Promise me that one day you'll take him shopping for some other clothes."

"I can try."

"Thank you. Now let's get going."

"Shawarma is one of the world's greatest creation," sighed Bruce, already well onto his third. 

"You're going to get fat with all of those," said Natasha, poking him in the side and laughing.

"No, I won't. Hulk will take care of all of that."

"Sure. You just keep believing that, Banner," said Thor, taking another bite out of his own.

"I don't see how fair it is that Captain has a fast metabolism and I don't," muttered the scientist.

"That would be because I have super-soldier serum running through me." Steve sounded especially proud as he said this.

The seven of them were sitting in a diner-type booth in the restaurant, all with shawarma baskets and feeling slightly cramped.

"If you're so unhappy, then why don't you just make yourself a fast metabolism serum or something?"

"Because I have more important things to work on, if you haven't noticed," Bruce said, sounding cold for the first time since Leah had met him.

"I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine, Natasha," he sighed. "It's my fault. I'm just too tightly wound, that's all."

"What are we even doing here?" wondered Clint out loud. "We all have more important things to do, like find out where Brittany is."

"We're here because it's Shawarma Day," replied Tony. "We only do this once a month, so we should enjoy it."

"But there are things that we should be doing instead.

"Well then, Clint, why don't we do what you want for a day? Because that would be fun."

"Maybe we should then."

"Stop fighting," whispered Leah, prodding the remains of her kebab.

"And who asked you anything? Who said that you could interfere and tell us what to do? You don't even know who we are."

"Calm down," said Black Widow, laying a hand on his shoulder to calm him, but he shook it off immediately.

"You still haven't answered."

"Maybe I don't have to answer you," she said, looking up at him defiantly.

"Avengers. Escape mode activated." Tony slid out of the booth and a few feet away, with Thor following after; Bruce ninjaed under the table to stand by them; Natasha did the same; Captain slowly slid away as well.

This left Hawkeye and Leah to sort out their differences.

"What is this place?"

"This is a place where I like to call my home," Loki answered, pulling her off the circular stone slab and down into the forest; a very faint path could be seen, almost seeming to glow.

"It's so beautiful," she said, breathless at the almost perfect atmosphere around her; yet it was so that she felt as though there was an evil that rested here.

"You seem to say that about everything," he said teasingly, leading her even further into the forest.

"Where are we going?"

"There's someone that I want you to meet." She refrained from asking anymore questions, not wanting to annoy him, or worse, anger him. "You do not have to remain silent on my behalf. Ask away."

"Can you read minds?"

"Only surface thoughts. Don't worry, your secrets are safe." 

"Can you teach me magic?" Brittany asked cautiously.

"It depends if you have that 'spark'." Not a definite answer, but she had no time to think about it as they exited the forest into a deep valley.

She bit back on her thoughts, not wanting to sound like she always did. Stupid.

"Don't think that," Loki whispered to her, swinging her around so that her front faced him and her back as to the valley. "Know this. I will never abandon you," he said fiercely. "On that, you have my word."

"You're a traitor, Loki," she smiled. "Why should I trust you?"

"Because I have never given my word to anyone before." The girl stayed silent and looked at her feet instead of into his eyes. "Do I embarrass you with these words?" he implored her.

"Everyone breaks promises. It's human nature."

"But I'm not human, that is what you forget. I am a god."

"And you do what you want," she whispered, pulling away from him and skipping away. She turned her head over her shoulder. "And so do I."

"Sorry, Hawkeye," she apologized profusely once again as Bruce wrapped an arm around his shoulders and helped him out to the van.

"I was being a prick, it's fine."

What had happened in the restaurant was an accident. After the other Avengers had retreated from the table and away to a safe distance, Clint had said to her,

"You're just an accident that just so happened to get the very rare charity of Tony Stark." This caused Leah to retaliate with,

"Confringentur enim manu malorum."

And rather abruptly, by unknown forces, the man's hand had been broken. Badly.

Leah was still trying to apologize for the mishap n the restaurant, knowing just how much Hawkeye needed his hands to fight.

"I shouldn't have done that, I over-reacted."

"No, you didn't." He hissed in pain as Dr. Banner shifted him into the van and onto a seat. The girl felt so bad about it, and she didn't even know how to correct what she done, her learning of Latin still very limited. "Stop worrying about it."

"We'll sort this all out once we get back to my tower. ALL of it, said Tony, staring pointedly at Steve.

Author's Note

Google translate time!