It seems like summer's coming to an end, Tony Stark thought wistfully as he placed an armful of logs in the fireplace of his cabin at the lake. Already, the days were getting shorter and sometimes, he could feel a slight chill in the air. 'Loki, can you light the fire?' he said loudly enough to be heard in the kitchen where the Norse god was currently preparing a light snack for the evening.
'Sure,' replied Loki. He returned a few minutes later with a tray in his hands, placed it on the coffee table, and turned towards the fire place. Casually, he leaned over and murmured a few words under his breath. Then, there were green sparks arising from his fingertips and soon, a beautiful fire was burning.
Tony thought he would never grow tired of this show.
Soon, the couple cuddled up under a king-size woollen blanket that had been woven by Queen Frigga herself in the Royal Palace of Asgard. They were joined by Alpine, Cat of Barnes, who, as usual, ignored the ingenious toys Tony build for him. Instead, he carried a pair of Tony's Italian over-the-calf dress socks and immediately started chewing on them.
Tony sighed but felt this was still better than the toilet roll incident two weeks ago when Bucky Barnes' misguided tom redecorated the whole cabin with what looked like tons of paper scraps.
'Say, Loki,' Tony said after a while. 'This bilgesnipe of yours.'
'Yes? What about her?'
'We still haven't found a name for her.'
'Ah,' replied Loki. 'That's because she hasn't grown used to us yet. Rest assured that, when the time has come, she will tell us her name.'
Carefully, Tony took another sip of tea. After helping himself to some cheese and crackers he looked at Loki in a very pointed manner. 'Eh, what?' he said.
'Well, she must have had parents at one point of her life, has she not?'
'Yeah, right. Probably.'
'It would simply be terrible manners to go and rename her just because we're running out of patience. We need to show some respect for her heritage.'
'Sure.' Tony shrugged. Because why not? Show some respect for the animal's mater and pater. 'Anyway, what happened to her parents?'
'I'm not sure, to be honest. One morning, I found her in a meadow near Glaðsheim while I was trying to hide from Odin. She was quite devastated and crying so I decided to take her with me to Midgard.'
'Poor thing. Do you know what happened?'
'I think the trolls were at it again.'
'I should have known, I guess,' Tony said dryly and helped himself to more tea.
'They're always trying to invade Asgard and hunt down our wildlife because they think the hoofs and antlers can be turned into some sort of impotence remedy.'
'Good grief, that's appalling,' Tony, who had grown quite fond of the bilgesnipe, exclaimed. 'How can I help?'
'I set Thor on the case and we're in touch about the situation. I'm sorry, but you know how Odin feels about you and me. So no troll-hunting on Asgard for us in the near future.'
'What a pity! But maybe, when the problem is solved, we can return her to her home.'
'I'm afraid she's imprinted on us now, my dear.'
'So you (or we) accidentally adopted a bilgesnipe?' In the background, while waiting for more shocking news to unfold, Tony could hear the crackling fire in the fireplace and Alpine's rather feral hissing as he attacked his socks again.
'In a way, yes. You, I, and Gerald,' Loki told him.
'Very well.' And, while filling Loki's cup with more tea, he marvelled at all the wonderful things that had become part of his life since he met Loki.
'We might need to find a mate for her in a year or two.'
'Yeah, why not? Let's go and breed bilgesnipes on earth.'
Loki chuckled. 'My beautiful, reckless friend, time will tell, I guess. For now I think I'll save what's left of your socks.'
'Too late, I think. There's only a collection of rather impressive holes left.'
'I'll have another sandwich then.'
'Yeah, right. And then we'll need to talk about the preparations we have to make for winter.'
Because, even though life at the lakeside cabin was fun most of the time, sometimes one needed to talk about serious things, if only briefly like five minutes or so.