Paradigm Shift | By : AlexPhoenix Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 4077 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1 |
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. The only thing I own is Alex, Ronan, and their actions/thoughts. This is all for fun; not monetary values. |
Chapter 10: A Friendly Request
I almost threw my coffee on the counter, breaking into an unnecessary dead sprint to reach the phone that rested on my coffee table. In nearly half a second I had my fingers grabbing for the electronic. With the grace that I so naturally exhibited, I fumbled it like a football, and dropped it with a muffled thud onto the thin, gray carpet. Diving for it like I was jumping headfirst into a swimming pool, I crashed into the floor. My arms skidded across the rough carpet fibers, giving me what was probably going to be a nasty case of rug burn, as I pressed the answer button and shoved the blue plastic to my ear.
"Hello? Hello?!" I wheezed into the phone. I sounded like I'd run a mile and a half through the desert without any water. So much for me thinking I was in shape. Man, I was going to have to work out more if a nanosecond sprint made me huff and puff like a fat man who'd been chased through the Outback by rabid dingoes during the middle of an Australian summer while wearing a jogging suit made of polar fleece.
"Jeez, Lex. Did you run a marathon before you picked up the phone?" Ronan asked through the receiver. I could almost picture his full top lip curling in a playful sneer. I mimicked the expression for a moment with my own lips, trying to ignore the fact that the man seemed to have a direct line to my thought process.
"I'll have you know that I sprinted across my living room to get to this phone," I said. The left arch of top lip lifted ever so slightly, raising back up into the playful sneer as I spoke.
"I'll buy you a trophy. Do you want to know about Phoenix, Flash?"
"Jesus. First, I'm a super villain, then I'm a primary color, and now I'm a sprinter on speed. Can't you just pick one?" I asked, propping my elbow on the carpet to wave a limp hand around enthusiastically. I was stalling. Then again, I usually stalled when it came to possible bad news about my baby. I blamed that mechanic in Baton Rouge for that. He'd told me that she'd needed a new transmission, and I'd freaked out on him. Transmissions are not cheap parts for a car, and I had not had thousands of dollars to dish out for one at the time. In reality, the dude was a moron, and Nix only needed an oil change. How anyone, especially a mechanic, could confuse a transmission problem with an oil change problem was beyond me. That was an opinion that I'd belittled him so badly with that I'd actually left him crying like a blubbering baby by the time I drove away. Of course, he deserved it for scarring me for life.
"No," he said. "I can't pick just one when all of them fit you so perfectly. Phoenix is fine." Here I'd expected him to ease me into bad news. Instead he ripped off the bandaid to show me that the boo-boo was all better. I heaved out a heavy sigh, flopping backwards to sprawl myself across my living room floor. Silently, I thanked him for being an elephant in the china shop of my delicate, vehicle-based emotions.
"Oh thank God," I sighed again. I draped my left arm over my forehead like I was a 1950's housewife who'd swooned dramatically. I felt like if I had been standing, my knees might've buckled from relief. I honestly didn't know what I'd do if he'd told me that something was terribly wrong with her. I would probably go into one of my emotional shutdowns and have to have Loki take the phone from me. I was pretty sure neither Ronan nor Loki would like that particular plan. They didn't seem to like each other very much. I had a feeling that a bit too much testosterone was making them a touch more competitive than usual. Then again, I had no idea what Loki's usual competitiveness level was.
"I thought you were an atheist?" Ronan asked, breaking me out of the thoughts that tried to bludgeon my brain. Why I was suddenly thinking about emotional shutdowns and pissing competitions, I had no idea. Well, I did, but that didn't matter.
"Yeah, well," I started, flopping around the hand that was hanging loosely by my temple, "I didn't think it would be appropriate to say 'Oh thank fictional Jesus'." He was right. I was an atheist. There was far too much in my life that had pulled me away from the prospect of believing that an almighty deity was looking out for my well-being. Somehow an abusive family and tragic experiences that forever scarred my very soul just didn't seem like something any god would allow to happen. Especially if that god supposedly worked for the greater good of mankind. Come to think of it, my being an atheist made having a self-proclaimed god prancing around my house all that much more interesting. It also made the fact that I regularly thanked gods all that much more interesting, too. Again, I needed to work on my consistency.
"Since when are you politically correct?" the baritone inquired, shattering my cynical thoughts once more. I thought about it for a second, scrunching up my nose like a rabbit who'd smelled a rotting carrot. He was right. I was usually the first one to say something politically incorrect. I was also usually the first one to tell people to suck it up when they got pissy about my blunt opinion.
"Good point," I finally conceded. "So, she's okay?"
"Well, from what I could see this morning, yeah. It's like I thought last night. She just has a few worn down parts that need replacing, so I'm not expecting anything too bad to happen." I heard the distinct rap of knuckles on wood crack through the receiver. It was a bad habit that Ronan had no doubt picked up from me. I'm not generally a superstitious person, but when it comes to not jinxing stuff, I always knock on wood. I will actively seek wood out to knock on it so I don't blow my positive plans all to Hell. And if I'm feeling really unlucky, I'll bang out an entire cadence just to keep my good luck from plummeting into oblivion. Which, come to think of it, it was really stupid for an atheist to be superstitious, but hey, we can't all be consistent with everything.
"Good," I said, lowering my arm down to drape across my stomach. I stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, loathing the popcorn that was spackled there. It was a mess to get off, but until I got it off, I couldn't paint my living room how I wanted it. And I never had time to scrape the white nodules off of the ceiling. As I thought about the popcorn ceiling, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason my mind was so scattered was that I'd consumed too much coffee. That is, if two cups can be considered too much.
"But, I need you to come down to the shop," Ronan said. He drawled it out slowly, like he was reluctant to ask me to walk down there in the heat of near midday. I couldn't lie. I was reluctant to walk there, especially when I did not want to leave Loki alone in my house. There was no telling what he would do to the place. There was no telling if Andrea would pop by again and attempt to ravish him on my couch. I shuddered with the thought.
"Why do you need me down at the shop?" I asked. The second the words left my mouth, my thoughts of Whore Queen and Space King evaporated, leaving only cold, illogical fear. My mind finally stopped focusing on inane subjects, and instead pinpointed on one thought: something is wrong with Phoenix after all. Ice water spread outward from the center of my body, leaving tendrils of fracturing icicles behind in my veins. My mind raced with explanations of why Ronan would possibly want me to come down to the shop. He knew better than you sugar coat shit for me. And I knew that he knew better than to lie to me. He'd been punched many times for violating both of those rules. There had to be a reasonable explanation for why he wanted me to come down to the shop, but I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what that explanation was.
"I..." he paused for a half second before continuing, "just need you to sign off on some stuff."
In an instant, the fear sizzled out of my veins. His pause was not one of foreboding. It was one of stalling, like he was nervous for a reason that had nothing to do with my car. How I, a woman who had the people reading skills of a piece of lint, could figure that particular intonation out, I had no idea.
I gave the ceiling a look of prying frustration, as if I were staring into Ronan's eyes. It was the look reserved for stubborn children who insisted on lying when you knew the truth. "Ronan," I admonished him, attempting to forcefully coax out the real reason he wanted me to walk down to the shop.
He left out a soft sigh on the other end of the phone. "The guys want to see you," he mumbled.
I aimed a glare at the ceiling. "Ronan!" I said more adamantly. I was going to get the truth out of him if I had to run to the shop and beat it out of him. Even though running down to the shop to beat him would completely defeat the purpose of wanting to know why he wanted me down there in the first place. I wiped the thoughts from my head, focusing instead on giving the ceiling my best glare.
A growl rumbled around in his throat, exploding out of his mouth a split second later on a loud "FINE! I want to see you! Jesus, woman! Can't you just get your ass down here without nitpicking why you need to be down here?" he groused.
"You see, if I didn't nitpick everything to death, then I wouldn't be able to annoy the piss out of you," I reasoned with an impish grin. It was wonderful how my previously paralyzed logic had broken free of its fear-induced coma so I could mess with my friend. "So, no. I can't not nitpick."
"Say that five times fast," Ronan mumbled. Louder, he said "Just get your lily white ass down here." I opened my mouth to ask what I should do with Loki, when Ronan read my mind again and cut me off. "Bring British Boy with ya."
I smiled a little. It was nice, if not a little bit creepy, to have someone know what I was thinking before I even began to say the thoughts out loud. Of course, Ronan was a smart guy. My friend knew that leaving Loki in my house by himself wasn't the most intelligent thing to do. Never mind that he had no idea that Loki had almost given me a heart attack by turning inanimate objects into venomous crawlers. The man was using common sense. That seemingly tiny attribute made me love him more than almost anyone else I'd ever been friends with.
"Aye aye, Cap'n," I said. I really wanted to add in a little salute at the end of that sentence, but the motion was pretty pointless when he couldn't see it. Instead of wasting energy on moving my arm away from my stomach, I squinted a little at the ceiling and let a roguish smile quirk one side of my mouth up. I hoped that the little action would be conveyed through the phone, and was very pleased with myself when Ronan spoke again.
"See you when ya get here, Squinty McGee." Then the line went dead. I was pretty damn sure he never told anyone but customers goodbye over the phone. Despite his lack of knowledge when it came to the art of leaving a conversation, I grinned. He knew my little mannerisms well enough to know that I'd squinted at him through the phone. Actually, if I thought about it enough, that might have been a bad thing. I shrugged to myself a little. He'd known me for four years. We knew each other inside and out. Well, not really. He didn't know about my past, and it’d taken me this long to consider him to even be a friend, let alone a best friend. And he'd never literally been inside me.
The last thought sent goosebumps over my skin and a shiver down my spine. I liked Ronan a lot, but I could not see us being a couple. To his credit, though, I didn't see myself being in a relationship with anyone. Ever. Either way, sex with Ronan was not on the list of things I wanted to think about. What I needed to think about was putting away food items and telling Loki that we were going to walk down to the mechanic shop. Ugh, I was going to have to find him a different pair of pants. Sweatpants are great for household lounging, but they aren't that great for walking around in the heat of New Mexico. Well, they aren't that great in public, period, no matter what the temperature is.
Sitting up, I slipped my phone onto the table. I moved to stand up, bending my legs at an awkward angle to get my feet under me. It looked like I could've been a leg contortionist. I was pretty sure only people with broken legs or circus training could get their legs to bed sideways at an angle. Speaking of broken legs, I damn near broke mine when Loki spoke from the doorway of the kitchen and scared the hell out of me. My Gumby legs faltered, sending me toppling back down to the floor. My butt hit carpet, and an "Ooph!" hit my lips.
I sat on the carpet for a few stunned seconds, staring at my feet and trying to remember exactly what Loki had said that had triggered my loss of balance. I thought he'd asked if we were going somewhere. I looked back toward the kitchen doorway to confirm his suspicions, only to find that he wasn't standing there anymore. My head swiveled around to find him, making the room spin with a blur of motion. When I did find him, which was only half a second after I realized that he'd moved, he was standing in front of me, his pale hand extended in an offer to help me to my feet.
I followed the lean muscles of his arm up to his shoulder, neck, and face, finally finding his blue eyes. They stared down at me, glistening with their usual mix of humor and contempt. I squinted at him, confused as hell. This was the same man who'd refused to allow me to help him to his feet just a few hours earlier. And here he was, with a glimmer in his eyes and a smirk on his lips, offering to help me up with a simple gesture. And there I was, thoughtlessly smacking his hand away. Like a newborn giraffe, I awkwardly climbed to my feet. Unlike a newborn giraffe, I did so under one incredibly stunned gaze.
"What?" I huffed, casting Loki a sideways glance. "I might have pulled your frail frame to the ground. Can't risk that, now can we?"
"You honestly think you can-" he paused, his eyes widening ever so slightly as realization hit him. "Ah." He lifted his chin in an unfinished nod. It was as if he had suddenly come to the realization that he was not the only stubborn one in this situation. It was as though he grasped the concept that I was more of a handful than he'd anticipated, and that I was not above using previously uttered phrases to my advantage.
I gave him a sly smile, silently confirming his suspicions, and slipped past him to head toward the kitchen. I made relatively quick work of putting away all of the food items, talking to open air all the while. Well, I was hoping that I was talking to Loki. Eh, he'd walk in eventually and hear me babbling about my plans for the day.
"That was Ronan. He wants me to come by the shop. I hope you don't mind, but I said I'd be bringing you along. I figured we could buy you some clothes. I'm pretty sure you'd die from heat stroke if you walked around in your alien warrior suit in the middle of a New Mexico day. Plus, it doesn't look like you have any other clothes, so you're going to need some if you're going to be staying here," I rambled.
"Here? Do you mean with you?" Loki asked from the doorway of the cooking area. I, stunned by the question, almost dropped the carton of eggs I was moving to the fridge. Damn my crappy choice of words! Quickly recovering my lost composure, I shook my head.
"No, Loki. I don't mean with me," I said. To my own ears, I sounded disappointed that he wasn't going to be staying with me. Said disappointment was ridiculous, though, because I barely knew the man enough to have him in my house for one night, let alone longer. "I mean in town. On Earth. Whatever floats your boat. If you're going to go back to Asgard, that's fine and dandy. You won't need more clothes. But if you're staying here, you'll at least need a couple of pairs of pants."
Great. Now I sounded like I'd fully bought into his being-from-another-world mumbo jumbo, saying that he might go back to the mystical land of Asgard. But if I thought about it, really thought about it, maybe I was. The dude fell from the sky wearing some unknown fabric, looking for all the world like he belonged in some modern day adaption of ancient mythology, and he turned my bacon into a spider, for fuck's sake. Maybe he was telling the truth. Or maybe we both needed guys in white lab coats to come wrap us in hug-me jackets and whisk us off to bouncy house.
I looked back at Loki, who seemed rather displeased with my answer. Why would he be displeased by that? I was being rational, wasn't I? No, I wasn't. I sighed as I put away the last bit of food, and leaned my head against the freezer door. I had to be logical about this. If he didn't have clothes to wear, other than what he'd had on his back when we'd first met, then what in the hell made me think that he had enough money to afford to stay in a hotel for even an hour. I didn't have enough money to put him in a room for a day, let alone long enough for him to gain his bearings.
There was only one thing to do. Well, there were two, really, but one of them was incredibly rude. The incredibly rude scenario was to toss him out on the street and let him fend for himself. The nice thing to do, which is what I was planning on proceeding with, was to let him stay with me until he got enough money to either pay rent or get a hotel room. I suddenly hated that I was such a nice person.
"Fuck me," I whispered into the hard plastic. I pushed away from it, spinning around to face the now confounded Loki. "I'll explain on the way to the shop. C'mon. You're going to need jeans if you're going to be out in public."
While AFF and its agents attempt to remove all illegal works from the site as quickly and thoroughly as possible, there is always the possibility that some submissions may be overlooked or dismissed in error. The AFF system includes a rigorous and complex abuse control system in order to prevent improper use of the AFF service, and we hope that its deployment indicates a good-faith effort to eliminate any illegal material on the site in a fair and unbiased manner. This abuse control system is run in accordance with the strict guidelines specified above.
All works displayed here, whether pictorial or literary, are the property of their owners and not Adult-FanFiction.org. Opinions stated in profiles of users may not reflect the opinions or views of Adult-FanFiction.org or any of its owners, agents, or related entities.
Website Domain ©2002-2017 by Apollo. PHP scripting, CSS style sheets, Database layout & Original artwork ©2005-2017 C. Kennington. Restructured Database & Forum skins ©2007-2017 J. Salva. Images, coding, and any other potentially liftable content may not be used without express written permission from their respective creator(s). Thank you for visiting!
Powered by Fiction Portal 2.0
Modifications © Manta2g, DemonGoddess
Site Owner - Apollo