You had a bad feeling the second you saw the guy in the lobby. He was staring over all of the memorabilia all over the walls, which wasn't bad in and of itself, most people did when they entered the lobby. He didn't look over when you entered the room, even when your heels clacked on the tiled floor. That was the first strike against him. He was dressed...ok, though not your expectation of first date wear, slacks and a polo. You remembered men putting more effort into a first date when you were younger and actually had enough hope to actively date, but you hadn't dated in awhile, and the times had changed. Maybe this was normal now....

"Neil?" you asked softly, drawing his attention away from the wall of Avengers memorabilia.

"Y/N, are these things real?" he asked, gesturing at some of the team's old gear that was in display cases in the lobby.

This date was getting off to a great start.

You should have just given up then.

"Yes, it's all real," you answered instead, giving this guy a chance in case he was just celebrity shocked. It happened...right?

"Sorry, where are my manners? I'm Neil Smith," he gave you a smile that would have been more appropriate on a used car salesman. You introduced yourself, though unnecessarily and went with him to his car.

He didn't stop asking questions about the Avengers the entire dinner. Seriously, nothing about you or your interests, just kept asking about the team and trying to get an invitation out of you to meet everyone else. He didn't even say anything about himself or his work or anything.

While he was blabbing about some time he met Cap for a signature thing at comic con, your eyes roamed the restaurant. You thought you saw a pair of extremely familiar green eyes, as your eyes scanned the room, but that was impossible. Lokitty was at home, also a cat, and wouldn't be here. He could only teleport around the tower, or to the tower. Also he was a cat and refused to not be a cat.

You had to draw your attention back to the guy at your table when he actually asked you a question only to realize it was about Cap.

He also made you go dutch for dinner. You charged the meal to Tony's card, blaming Pepper for tonight's awful experience, so she could pay for it. That was the nice thing about having rich friends. You'd just have to whine at her about how awful it was later and she wouldn't care about paying.

You hoped that would be the end of it, but at the end of the meal he did finally start asking questions about you and seemed to show just enough interest that you felt obligated to accept his suggestion that you go out to get after dinner drinks.

You weren't afraid of getting drunk. You were a magical being and could outdrink almost everyone but Thor. You had learned how to pretend over the years so your college friends wouldn't think it strange that alcohol had no effect on you, but the point remained that you weren't afraid of the alcohol.

"You'll love this place!" Neil enthused as he drove. You were dreading whatever this was, your stomach sinking. You ended up at a club not terribly far from the tower. You walked in with Neil, reminding yourself that you could teleport home if things got worse. "Guys! I brought her!" Neil called, waving to a group of five or six big intimidating guys.

You were soon surrounded, being passed drinks and being grilled on details about the Avengers by Neil and all of this friends. They were all trying to get invites to meet the team while they fangirled over every single little thing.

You looked around the crowd, looking for a distraction and sensing magic in the air. Your eyes caught again on a familiar pair of green eyes, set in the face of, not your Lokitty, but a slim, extremely attractive man with long jet black hair. There seemed to be a faint shimmer of green around him. You turned away for an instant and when you looked again the man was gone.

The guys kept pestering you, kept trying to feed you drinks, and you couldn't find an easy way out of this. This was getting stupid, and dangerous. These guys weren't going to leave you alone, and Neil had already hinted more than once that he was expecting you to invite him into the tower for sex tonight.

You waved your hand over your purse so it made a beep. "Sorry guys, gotta check this," you told them innocently and pulled out your phone. They had already derailed your attempts to go to the ladies room, where you could teleport away safely, more than once. You were carefully vanishing the liquids in the drinks they were handing you instead of drinking them. You had lost what little trust you had started out with in these men, but also didn't feel that you could teleport away in the middle of them without them retaliating somehow. Even though you had magic, magic could be defeated, especially by big men with guns. You needed an excuse to get out of here safely.

-Thor, I could use a rescue- you texted Thor, knowing he was home and waiting for word from you. He was smart enough to ask Jarvis to find you. Jarvis could track your phone easily. He would also call backup if he needed someone more Midgardian for this rescue.

Thor burst through the doors of the club a few minutes later in his battle armor, Mjolnir in hand. He walked straight up to you, his presence and power parting the crowd as he did. You were never so grateful for his overprotective older-brother streak as you felt right that moment.

He took in the scene and realized that you just needed an excuse to get out of here, not for him to actively kill anyone. You had all played this card for the others on the team or in SHIELD on bad dates and other awful situations. "Lady Y/N, my apologies for interrupting, something has come up and we need you back at the tower immediately," Thor told you loudly. Since none of Neil's friends could see your face, you let Thor see the relief in your eyes.

You nodded at him and turned to Neil. "Sorry, I've gotta go." You told him, trying to sound apologetic. He tried to say something, either begging you to stay, or saying you should do this again. Neither of those events were happening. Ever.

You placed your hand on Thor's arm and walked out of the club with him. "Are you alright?" he asked when you were safely away from those guys.

"Let's just get out of here,"

"They frightened you," Thor commented, stopping so he could go back and beat those guys to a pulp. He wouldn't kill them, but he could beat them up and drive home the concept that they shouldn't frighten ladies.

"Thor, it was just a bad date. Please, let's just go home," you bid him, holding on to his arm. He looked you over, but saw the fear and tears in your eyes and decided that getting you to safety was more important. He nodded and led you the rest of the way out of the club.

"Hold on tight," he told you as he moved his arm from your grip to wrap it around you instead. You wrapped your arms around his muscled form, knowing what was coming next. He swung Mjolnir a few times and took to the skies, bringing you with him. Flying with Thor wasn't nearly as fun as flying on your own, but he didn't like teleporting so it was fair. It was only a minute before you were on the flight deck of the tower. "Are you alright?" Thor asked again when you had landed.

You fought back the emotions enough to nod. "I'll be down in the living room in a minute. I want to change before I devour my weight in ice cream," you told him. "Thanks for the rescue," you added.

"Of course. I'm just sad you needed it," he told you and gave you a hug. "I will be downstairs. Fair warning, Loki was in a right state when I left to get you, I don't know what mood he'll be in,"

"If you see him, tell him I'll be downstairs in a minute," you told Thor. He nodded agreement. You kissed his cheek, kicked off your heels and headed back to your room. A quick scrub of your face had the makeup off, your hair was yanked into an ugly messy bun, and you dressed in too-big pajamas with fuzzy socks.

Properly comfortable, you went downstairs. Thor and Lokitty were both there waiting. Thor looked anxious, even more so when he saw the tears in your eyes. "What did they do, Y/N?" he demanded, jumping to his feet. You sobbed in his arms as you told him about the awful evening. Somehow you ended up curled in Thor's lap, his warm strong safe arms around you, while Lokitty climbed into your lap. You held Lokitty tightly and he didn't complain about how wet his fur was getting while you sobbed and told them about your awful date and the feeling of fear of being around those men. Yes, you had powers, but nothing erased the feeling of fear of being in that situation, plus there had been nothing to say that they didn't have powers too. They could also have easily had drugs or guns which were perfectly effective on you. For all that you were 500 years old, there were still situations that made you feel like the twenty year old mortal that you appeared to be. Tonight was one of them, and you hated that feeling of helplessness and fear.

Your tears finally slowed and you scrubbed them roughly from your face with the back of your hand. "Sorry, guys. I shouldn't have gotten so emotional over a simple bad date," you told them. You scrambled off of Thor's lap and smoothed out Loki's fur. You realized he had been purring the entire time in that exact perfect soothing caliber that cats had a knack of using when their humans were distressed.

"They frightened you. There is no shame in tears or emotions, and despite the circumstances, I am glad that you trusted me enough to seek my company," Thor was searching for words.

You gave him a small smile while Loki made an indignant noise in your arms. "You're the brother I never actually had, Thor," you reminded him with a smile. Thor looked touched at that. You kissed the top of Loki's head, since he was still indignant. "Your brother adopted me as a little sister awhile ago. He's adopted all of us as family, actually, it's kinda what he does," you told Loki, who calmed when he realized that you weren't romantically interested in his brother. You settled Loki on your shoulders while you dug in the freezer for ice cream.

You put your favorite old romance movie on the TV and settled on your couch with Lokitty and the pint of ice cream in your lap. "Mrow?" Loki was investigating the ice cream curiously. You smiled and opened the pint of the triple chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. He watched you dig your spoon into it and eat the first bite. "Mrow?" he asked again, plaintively. You smiled and offered him the spoon once it had ice cream on it again. He licked it tentatively and you laughed when you saw his eyes light up in delight. You summoned a little dish for him and dished some of the ice cream into it for him.

"Why is your tongue blue?" you asked him while he was enjoying his ice cream. He made a grumpy cat noise.

Thor laughed. "Don't fear. He's fine. The cold does strange things to Loki. If he ever deigns to change back to his usual form, he can explain it himself. It is not my story to tell." You nodded, accepting that. Thor still had so much hope that Loki was going to change back soon.

"You're making Thor watch this movie, eating ice cream, and made me pay for your dinner. How bad was that date?" Pepper asked when she and Tony got home from their evening out. The rest of the team was right behind them and took in the scene.

"It was awful," you told them and went into exact details and retold the story for them while you ate ice cream and talked at the same time, fighting back tears again at the recitation.

The team commiserated with you and swore up and down that those men were awful, Neil wasn't worth any woman's time, and you would find someone better. Lokitty stood up on his back paws, bracing his front ones on your shoulder to lick your cheek. You smiled at him and kissed the top of his head.

You vanished the empty ice cream container to the trash and the spoon and dish clean to their cabinets. "Thanks for the pep talk, guys, but I think I'm going to call it a night."

"Mrow?" Lokitty jumped into your arms, expecting that you wouldn't drop him or let him fall. You didn't and cradled him to your chest instead.

"Yes, you can come," you told him. He didn't always sleep in your room. He seemed to float around, some nights with you, some nights sleeping on Thor's face, some nights in Clint's nest in the air vents, once or twice with Nat when she was having a bad night, and exactly once with Tony when Tony was having a particularly bad PTSD episode. No one spoke of that incident.

You climbed into bed and cuddled Loki to your chest, feeling pathetic for crying again. The evening hadn't been that bad or that scary, but it was just so...hopeless. Just like all of your dates had been in recent memory. That was what really had you crying at that moment.

Were there really no decent single men left in the world?