Abandoned Control

Tony had come to believe that Loki was once a ballet dancer in his past life. Or one of those deadly, graceful looking cats you see on nature programmes. Or Jim Morrison. But all he knew was that he couldn’t stop staring at him.

Progress had been made on the Loki front however.

He had bought Charles and Tony their alcohol and then joined the group for their film night after five days of ignoring Tony. Loki had been hesitant to include himself in the activity, but had overheard Clint and Natasha discussing Taxi Driver at dinner on the Thursday evening, Natasha had asked him if he owned the film on DVD, to which he replied, “Blu-Ray Special Edition.” And to the questioning look she gave him after, “It’s one of the best films ever made.” Clint then asked him to join them (giving pretty much no detail on who “them” consisted of) for the annual “Movies Steve Hasn’t Seen” night.

After he had said that he’d “think about it”, he didn’t think that they’d really expect him to turn up, let alone save him a seat. Next to Tony. Who then grinned at him for the first fifteen minutes of the film, until Pepper turned down the lights and still, Loki could feel Tony staring at him.

It was the same in fifth period English on Monday afternoon. Frost had made the decision at the start of Year 10 poetry to only let Loki read out sonnets, so it was no surprise to him that when he found Sonnet 130 in front of him, that of all people, he was the one reading it. He read with the usual enthusiasm and passion that he felt when reading Shakespeare aloud, but he felt himself become mildly irritated when he noticed Tony gazing at his hands, which appeared to have a life of their own when he spoke.

Tony frowned when Loki sat on them. His reading became strained and it then seemed like he was talking through clenched teeth. Frost looked worried and crossed her lace covered arm, perching on Steve’s desk.

Steve’s cheeks reddened as he found himself being forced to look nowhere other than her cleavage. He turned in his chair to look at the reader of the poem, who was twitching and had one hand clenched around a dark green biro atop his right thigh. Steve cocked his head a little, noticing Tony’s almost adoring look that was aimed in Loki’s direction.

As soon as he finished reading, Loki turned to Tony, muttered something, picked up his things and left with a harrumph. Steve turned to Bucky and nudged him to get his attention. Bucky’s eyebrow raised and he turned on his elbow, right cheek squashed by his palm. “You notice any of that?”

“What? Stark’s obsessive staring? Haven’t seen him this bad since Pepper got boobs.” He said with a yawn and a rub of his eyes. “Fuckin’ hate English, it’s so dreary.”

Steve nodded and pulled on his navy blue coat, eyebrows furrowed, almost as if he was trying to work something out.

-

Only about twenty people in their year actually did a technology lesson, which explained why they were mixed genders and were sixth period. Loki took a Graphics GCSE, which was taught by PE teacher, Maria Hill. She was terrible at teaching the subject; she’d gotten isometric drawing confused with isosceles triangles until Raven had pointed out that it would make no sense to draw triangles for an entire two years. Hill had sent her to Nick Fury’s office, looked up a definition on the internet and then said, “That’s what I meant.”

Loki had done the majority of the course with guidance from a teacher that wrote a blog. Apparently, he was A* potential.

But Maria Hill couldn’t give a shit about her Year 11 Graphic Products class, which was why she spent their lessons planning her BTEC Sports classes, filing her nails, emailing her pals from her past in the US Government (Fury and Coulson) and practising her frown in the window. This was how Loki actually managed to get his hands on a craft knife.

He needed to cut something off a board and found himself walking around the technology department for about fifteen minutes. He’d been denied three times (probably because of the mugshot-like photograph of him behind every teacher in the school’s desk ordering them not to give him any kind of potential weapon) until he walked into a seemingly empty Electronics classroom.

He knew as soon as he heard the lyrics to Dream On by Aerosmith being belted out that, perhaps, it was a mistake to try this classroom. Though there appeared to be no teacher in here. “Hey, hey; well if it isn’t the mysterious Loki of Graphicsland. What can I assist you with, chum?”

Loki rolled his eyes at Tony spinning around in a chair with a screwdriver in his hands. “Where’s your teacher?”

“Hammer - the pretentious fuck?” Tony snorted, “You actually want to see that retarded goose?”

“Yes.”

“I’m about 30 times more intelligent than that man. Not that you could call him a man. I’ve heard his wang is the size of one of those Milky Way fun size bars: when erect.” Tony laughed and punched the table, “No honestly, that’s what I’ve heard.” Loki smiled a little, “So, what do you need?”

“Do you have a craft knife in this room?” Loki queried, crossing his arms.

“I might do. But I’ve seen your face behind every desk in this school. How are we meant to trust the guy who stabbed Coulson with a fountain pen with a craft knife?”

“Because I intend to do my Graphics coursework. I’m also not feeling as murderous as I was, say ten minutes ago, when you were staring longingly at my left cheekbone.”

Tony let out an ‘ooh’ and stood up, walking over to the metal cupboard. “I’ll let you off this time, Kiddo. You have fun using this. It’s Hattori Hanzo stainless Japanese steel.” He handed Loki the craft knife and ran his finger alone the plastic yellow handle, “You should come do your coursework in here; wouldn’t want the lovely Miss Hill to be in your area when you have an offensive weapon in your possession.”

Loki smirked, “I might have to take you up on that offer. Put on some Led Zeppelin, look after my craft knife and I’ll be back momentarily.”