ORANGE LEAVES
OLIVIA IS SITTING ON A SPINNY CHAIR IN THE LAB WHEN TONY WALKS IN. He blinks twice, seeing Bruce work as if he hasn’t even noticed her, while she focuses on her laptop. Faintly, he can hear the instrumental of some pop song playing.
“Am I missing something?” he inquires, confused. It’s only 8:30 in the morning. Olivia usually isn’t even up at this hour, much less at the tower and— for some reason— in his lab. The two Banner siblings look up at him simultaneously.
“Bruce invited me,” Olivia mentions with a casual shrug, returning her focus to her laptop. Bruce shoots her a look of betrayal when Tony shifts his focus to the elder of the two.
“We had breakfast earlier,” he explains awkwardly. “We’ve been… talking.” Tony gives them a weird look, but ultimately shrugs it off, heading to his work station.
“Why’d you say it like it’s a lie?” Olivia chuckles, glancing at Bruce. “We have been talking.”
“Well I just— we’re also working,” he replies, a little defensively. She grins with amusement, turning her head fully to watch Bruce struggle. “I mean it’s not— we’re talking about work stuff and I didn’t— it’s kind of quiet in here in the morning.” Olivia outright laughs at him now.
“You’re so weird,” she muses, grinning, as she returns to her work. He frowns a little in embarrassment, turning back to his microscope.
“You look weird,” he grumbles, probably louder than he intended to. Olivia looks at him again, this time raising her eyebrows as if to accept a challenge.
“At least I don’t look like a high school Biology teacher,” she bites back. Tony, on the other side of the room, snorts. Bruce turns to look at her with a face of utmost offense.
“I don’t look like a high school Biology teacher,” he denies, a little too defensively. Olivia laughs.
“No, no,” she agrees placatingly. “You don’t look like a Biology teacher, I was just kidding.” He stares at her for a long moment, then begrudgingly turns back to pick up a sample. She pulls a mug off the table she’s sitting at, taking a long sip of its contents— probably coffee.
“You look way more like a Chemistry teacher,” she finishes, struggling to contain a smile. Bruce puts the sample down abruptly, and at the same time, Tony bursts into laughter.
***
“Where are we going?” Loki pries for what must be the fifteenth time, following Olivia down the long road from her childhood home.
“I wanna try something,” she replies, pointing at a cluster of buildings that are finally coming into view. They probably belong to the ranch they’ve been walking alongside for the past 10 minutes. Sure enough, the entryway comes into view soon, and Olivia swings the unlocked gate open.
“What is this?” he inquires curiously, even as trek up to the barn.
“When I was younger, I lived down the road from this horse ranch,” she explains. “It was owned by one of my dad’s friends, so they usually babysat me when my parents were too busy. I mean, eventually I was old enough to watch myself, but I kept coming anyways for fun.”
She pulls open the barn door, revealing a bunch of horses waiting patiently in their stalls. Wooden nameplates hang from nails on the doors. Curiously, they’re all wearing saddles already.
“I figured out you can tweak stuff since it’s a dream,” she explains. “That’s why the walk here was so short, and they’re already wearing saddles. Anyway, pick a horse, I had an idea.”
Loki wanders down the stalls, looking at the horses. Honestly, he’s lucky she ‘tweaked’ the saddles on in advance. It would be very embarrassing to explain he doesn’t know how to saddle his own horse.
Olivia swings open one of the stalls, and he looks back to see her lead out and mount a brown-and-white horse. The nameplate on the gate says Ringo.
“Hurry up,” she encourages, grinning at him. “We don’t have all night.” Loki narrows his eyes at her.
“Don’t rush me,” he replies, nonetheless picking up his pace a little. After a brief moment he finds a jet black horse, whose nameplate dubs her Clover. He repeats Olivia’s process, mounting his horse and immediately feeling a little more comfortable.
Horse riding, he knows. He used to do it recreationally on Asgard, so it should be easy to do it here as well.
The two ride out of the ranch and start down the road at a comfortable trot.
On the way there, they settle into a debate about whether braiding a horse’s hair actually makes them look better or not.
The two pull to a stop once they realize they’ve come halfway up a hill, surrounded now by autumn leaves; apparently the seasons changed.
“I just don’t think braids look very good unless they’re small,” Loki sighs. Olivia shrugs, urging Ringo to start walking forward again, at a slower pace.
“I like them, personally, but nobody’s gonna force you to braid your horses’ hair,” she replies, as he falls into step next to her. An orange leaf falls into his lap, and he brushes it off.
“Now will you tell me where we are?” he prompts, a bit sarcastically. She smiles, pulling Ringo to a stop and sliding off.
“Sure,” she agrees, “just as soon as we get there.” He sighs, sliding off of Clover to follow her.
“Why we’re here, then,” he proposes. She nods easily.
“Sure,” she agrees. “We’re here to have a picnic.” They enter the woods, their feet crunching leaves with every step. He looks around a little in confusion.
“This doesn’t seem like the best place for a picnic,” he points out as night begins to fall. She waves him off.
“I know a good spot,” she assures him, “don’t even worry about it.” He looks around doubtfully again.
“Just because you tell me not to worry about it doesn’t mean it’s not worrisome,” he advises her, as she breaks through the trees.
“We’re here,” she declares. He steps out into a clearing and looks around. On one side is a small wood cabin, and on the other is a bunch of blankets laid out around a large tree stump. A tablecloth and some food have been placed on top of it.
The moon has risen by now, casting a small amount of light around the place. To improve the lighting, though, a few small electric lanterns have been placed around and lit up.
“…oh,” is all he can think to say. Olivia grins, satisfied with that, and settles onto one of the blankets.
“Right?” she agrees. “This is a little rental cabin in Canada; my parents and I stayed here on vacation when I was 14. We had to watch out for moose and bears and stuff, but it was cool anyways.” She points to one of the trees. “That is a Douglas maple tree; they’re native to this area, we don’t have any in Ohio.”
“I… didn’t know you liked things like this,” he admits, sitting on one of the blankets. She looks at him, and he rushes to elaborate. “I mean, trees and… horses.”
He was most surprised she could identify that tree. He knew she was smart, he just thought it was more the… other kind of smart.
She grins in satisfaction, sending him a wink before turning her gaze to the night sky above.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she teases. He stares at her for a moment.
She turns her gaze to the stump-table and reaches out to grab a paper plate.
“We have tuna sandwiches and we have ham and cheese sandwiches,” she informs him lightly as she serves herself some food. “Doritos are there, condiments are over there, and if you want carrots there’s some in the blue tupperware.”
“I’d like to,” he decides, completely ignoring her. She looks over at him confused.
“Like to what?” she hums. He looks away, a little embarrassed suddenly.
“Know more about you,” he elaborates. She puts the spoon back in the tuna dish, closing her sandwich back up.
“Okay, what do you wanna know?” she prompts. He thinks for a second, but comes up empty.
“Everything,” he eventually sighs. “Anything you’ll tell me, and everything you don’t have to.” He expects her to have some sort of reaction, but among the things he considered, he forgot ‘amused smile’.
“That’s gonna take a while,” she replies lightly. “I mean, everything is a lot of things. So, for now, maybe you should try starting with the sandwiches.” She offers him an empty plate, and after a brief pause, he takes it.
“Which one do you prefer?” he inquires. She grins widely, as though she was hoping he’d ask that.
“Well, it mostly depends on context,” she starts, launching into a complex breakdown of the atmosphere in which either tuna or ham and cheese are superior, respectively.
…yeah.
He’s glad he decided to see her again.