Scott Lang, Peter Parker and Loki talk about important things, like lotion and baseball, and Tony Stark's drinking habits. Because reasons.

The B Team

"You know what I don't get?" Loki began, polishing off the last of his beer. Midgardian alcohol lacked the potency he was accustomed to, but the flavor was certainly smoother.

"Hmm?" Scott replied, lazily. He noticed that his can also had very little beer left in it. He sat it down on the coffee table and rose to retrieve some more from the kitchen.

"I don't get lotion," Loki finished, leaning forward to set his can aside as well.

"What's not to get about lotion?" Peter asked, confused. He peered down into his own can, which unfortunately contained only Diet Coke. He glanced hopefully at Scott, who was returning from the kitchen with two more cans of beer. His hope dwindled, however, when Scott plopped back down on the couch and handed one of the cans to Loki.

"Aww...I'm sorry, kid," Scott cooed, sympathetically. "Did you want another soda?"

"Nah, I'm good." Peter shook his head, politely concealing his disappointment. He grabbed a handful of Cheetos from the bowl that Scott had set out for them, and began munching.

"So…is this going to be about masturbation?" Scott asked, also grabbing a handful of Cheetos from the bowl. "Because I really haven't reached that level of comfort with you two yet…and technically, he's a child. So that's kind of treading on dangerous territory, if you know what I mean…"

"Why would it be about masturbation?" Loki asked, looking mildly disgusted, both by the question and by the snack the other two were consuming.

"I don't know…you said lotion. That's just where my head went. It's like, you know, word association, or whatever. Go head, sorry."

"I'm talking about the fact that people on this planet are obsessed with moisturizing themselves," Loki explained.

Scott sucked the Cheeto dust from his fingers, and then cracked open his can of beer, gingerly tilting it to avoid spilling the overflow of foam.

"I think you're going to have to expand on that one for us."

"I mean…everything here has lotion in it. You have lotion for your face, for your body, for your hands and feet. You have lotion for lips. You have lotion for your hair. You have lotion in your soap…"

"Huh…You're right," Scott agreed. "I never thought about that."

"Is your planet so arid that people really are in constant danger of losing moisture? What happens if they don't have lotion? Will they die?"

Scott shrugged, reaching for more Cheetos.

"I guess it depends on how dry they get."

"My aunt has a lot of lotion," Peter confirmed, wiping his own Cheeto dust onto his pants, before reaching into the bowl again. "She orders this special anti-aging face cream from the Home Shopping Club. It's like a hundred dollars for this tiny, little bottle."

Loki raised his beer can in a mock toast. "You can tell her it's working."

Scott paused, before inserting another Cheeto into his mouth.

"Oh yeah? Is his aunt hot?"

"Eh..." Loki gestured with his free hand -palm wavering- the universal sign for maybe.

"Are you into older women?" Scott asked, while chewing. "Oh, except that she's not really older, right? Because you're like a thousand years old, or something…"

"Or something."

"Guys…" Peter attempted to interject, clearly not thrilled with where the conversation was heading. The two men ignored him.

"I have found that younger women are usually boring," Loki declared, "and they tend to lack experience."

"Huh...but she probably has a lot of experience though," Scott mused, grabbing another handful of Cheetos. "That's why she needs the face cream."

"Guys," Peter began again, this time more insistent. The last thing he wanted to think about was how much experience his aunt had doing anything.

"So sorry," Loki offered, turning to the other man. With a scolding tone, he added, "Mr. Lang, need I remind you that there is a child present?"

"I am not a child," Peter whined, placing his can of soda on the coffee table with a firm tap. Not terribly threatening, but the best he could manage with aluminum.

"Dude, you sort of are," Scott pointed out.

"Why are you in such a hurry to be an adult anyway?" Loki asked. "Being an adult is a dreadful circus of unexpected challenges and responsibilities. As a child, I had no responsibilities. Other people were responsible for me. It was glorious."

Peter's lips formed a pouty expression. He folded his arms across his chest, defensively.

"When you were my age you were probably doing way more interesting things than this."

Loki looked genuinely amused by the younger man's assumption.

"Such as what?"

"Ooh…slaying dragons," Scott offered, tossing his fist into the air, "medieval shit like that."

Loki rolled his eyes.

"Hardly...I didn't slay any dragons until I was at least two hundred years old."

Peter's eyes widened.

"Seriously?"

"No, I've never slayed a dragon in my life. Why would anyone kill such a perfectly lovely creature?"

"Still," Peter insisted. "You were probably doing something way cooler than this."

"When I was your age," Loki confessed, "I was sitting around, whining about being your age, pretty much like you're doing now. The only difference is that I was doing it in a castle...and I was much more well dressed."

"Same," Scott added, "minus the castle and the clothes. I went to school…then I went home. I played baseball, sometimes...Atari. That was it."

Loki raised a finger.

"Ah…that's the other thing I don't get."

Scott's brow furrowed.

"What, Atari?"

"No, baseball," Loki corrected. "What exactly is the point of that game?"

"The point is to hit the ball with the bat and to run around the bases," Scott explained. "How is that confusing?"

"There's a lot of sitting and standing around and waiting," Loki countered.

"So?"

"So, I prefer a game with movement."

"Baseball has movement," Scott insisted. "You hit the ball with the bat and you run around the bases. That's movement."

"I mean continuous movement. It doesn't qualify as a sport. You might as well be sitting at a table, playing chess."

Scott looked positively offended.

"You can not talk shit about the American pastime."

Loki pointed at him.

"See? You admit that it's a pastime, therefore technically not a sport."

He frowned at the other man's logic.

"Huh…I guess you got me there."

"Captain America loves baseball," Peter interjected.

"That's good to know," Loki quipped. "I needed another reason to dislike him."

"I don't know." Scott said. "He seemed alright. I mean, I only met him the once. It was kind of cool. He was certainly...polite."

"Well, politeness is definitely a very important quality to have when you're trying to protect your planet from the strongest force in the universe. Maybe he can challenge Thanos to a game of squash."

"Oh, they don't play squash in America," Scott pointed out. "They play racquetball, I think...and he also kicked Iron Man's ass."

"That's not much of a challenge," Loki declared. He scowled at his beer. "Do you have anything stronger than this?"

"Umm...maybe?" Scott replied. "I think I might have some bourbon."

"Good, because this is doing absolutely nothing for me."

"Are you trying to get drunk? It's only six o'clock."

"Pfft...hardly. I'll be lucky if I get mildly buzzed."

"You really should soak it up with something."

Loki tossed his hand, glaring at the bowl on the coffee table.

"You mean those awful, orange things? They taste like wood pulp. I'll pass."

"Are you sure?" Scott prodded. "You haven't eaten since this morning."

"I'm fine."

"Suit yourself."

Scott stood up and headed to the kitchen to fetch the bourbon.

"Can I have a beer?" Peter asked, throwing caution to the wind.

"No way," Scott shouted, over his shoulder.

"Eh...one can won't hurt him, will it?" Loki asked. "It's practically water anyway."

"Maybe for you it is," Scott replied, returning to the living room with a bottle and two shot glasses. "Not for him. His aunt would totally kill us."

"She might kill you," Loki said, opening the bottle and pouring them each a shot. "She's hardly a match for me, even with the face cream."

"Still, you heard what Mr. Stark said...you know, about corrupting minors."

"I make it a point not to listen when Stark speaks. Interesting caution, though, coming from a functioning alcoholic."

Scott looked up in surprise.

"Wait, what?"

"He has a well stocked mini-bar in every room of his house, even the bathroom."

"What were you doing in his bathroom?" Scott asked.

Loki shrugged.

"I was bored. Thought I'd snoop."

"Did he see you?"

"No, I'm not an idiot."

"Find anything interesting?"

"Besides the mini-bars? He wears thong underwear and has satin sheets. Also he has a statue of himself in the foyer, but I guess I can't really fault him for that one."

"Wow..." Scott commented, "that is so much more than I wanted to know about him."

"You're welcome," Loki returned, with a smirk.

"I wonder what they're doing right now," Peter mused.

Scott turned to younger man. "Who?"

"The Avengers."

Loki actually laughed.

"Who the hell cares?"

"I do," Peter admitted.

"Why?"

"Because it's like we're the B team," Peter explained.

"Dude, we're not the B team," Scott insisted, looking back and forth between the other two. "We're not."

"They don't trust us to do anything important," Peter pointed out.

Loki poured himself another shot, still chuckling. He downed it, before gesturing to Scott and himself.

"You do realize that the two of us have been in prison, right?"

"Yeah, if you think about it, it's kind of weird that they'd leave him alone with us, him being a kid and all. I mean, I was just a burglar, but weren't you trying to take over the planet at one point? What ever happened to that?"

Loki downed a third shot and reached for the bottle to pour another.

"We don't have the luxury of indulging our whims these days. The picture has gotten much bigger."

Scott frowned, uncertain.

"So wait, you're saying that you still kind of want to take over the planet?"

"No...that urge was borne out of forces far stronger than myself, and they have since left me. Besides, don't you watch the news? This planet can run itself into the ground just fine without my help."

"Oh, good." Scott sounded relieved, despite not fully understanding the second part of Loki's comment. It wasn't worth it to pry further. He eyed the other man, who had moved on to a fifth shot of bourbon. "Why bother with the glass at this point? Why not just drink it directly from the bottle?"

"You don't want any more?" Loki asked.

Scott hemmed and hawed a moment, glancing at the clock and back at the bottle. Was it too early to get drunk? Did it really matter at this point? It's not like he had anywhere to be.

"Eh...maybe just one more," he decided. "Then it's yours."

Loki poured Scott another shot and then proceeded to take a swig, directly from the bottle.

"I don't mean to be rude," Peter interrupted, watching the two men imbibe, "but I live across town. Which one of you is going to drive me home?"

"Oh, I called you an Uber," Scott offered. "Should be here at seven."

Loki raised an eyebrow. He had no idea what an Uber was, but he assumed it was a form of transportation.

"Neither of you can drive?"

"He's too young and we're not supposed to operate vehicles, while intoxicated," Scott explained.

"That's a shame," Loki noted. "I've done some of my best work, while intoxicated."

"Besides," Scott began, launching into a rant. "New Yorkers drive like their goal is to actually kill you...and it's not just the drivers, either. Everyone here is completely nuts. I'm seriously terrified to leave my apartment, most of the time."

"Mmm...that's not very reassuring. Aren't you supposed to be a super hero or something?" Loki lifted up two fingers on each hand and made air quotes when he said the words, super hero.

"Well, not officially. I mean, I'm more like a third party contractor...and I'm fine with the suit on, of course, but it's not like you can wear something like that to pick up your dry cleaning in."

"Huh...I don't believe you," Loki retorted, with a sniff.

"What? I am fine with the suit on. You've seen it."

"It's not that." Loki lifted the bottle and took another long swig. Realizing it was empty, he sat it down on the coffee table. "I just don't believe that you own anything that requires dry cleaning."

"Why are you always making fun of our clothes?" Scott asked, dumbfounded. He gazed down at his own ensemble, a t-shirt and a pair of khaki pants. It looked fine. Didn't it?

He didn't get an answer, though. Loki paused just then, bracing himself against the cushion with both hands. His eyes looked glassy.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked. "You look like you're going to barf."

When Loki didn't reply right away, Peter turned to Scott. "He looks like he's going to barf," he repeated.

"I'm perfectly fine," Loki said, insistently. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to lie on the floor."

After a few seconds, Loki literally slid all the way down the front of the couch, until his ass was on the ground. Then he curled up on his side, along the base of the coffee table.

Scott shook his head, knowingly.

"Dude, I told you...you should have eaten the Cheetos."

Peter got out of his chair and leaned over Loki, who appeared to be asleep. He whispered, softly.

"Did he pass out?"

"No, he did not," Loki mumbled, eyes still closed. "He's just resting."

"You'd better not hurl on my carpet," Scott commanded. He felt a sudden rush of confidence, seeing the ordinarily unflappable Loki in such a delicate state. "I'm moving back to California when this shit is over and I want to get my deposit back."

Loki didn't respond. The other two stared at him, for a few minutes, waiting to see if he would move or speak. He didn't. Scott poked him to make sure he was still breathing. He was.

"Do you think he wants a pillow?" Peter asked. He had never actually seen anyone pass out before. It wasn't as exciting as he'd imagined.

"I don't know," Scott said, not terribly thrilled to have Loki on his living room floor. He might have abandoned his goal of taking over the planet, but that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous.

"Maybe you should call Thor," Peter suggested. He pondered it briefly. His stomach felt tingly at the prospect of finally meeting the Avenger face to face. Of course it's not like he'd be able to tell anyone about it.

"Can't do that," Scott replied.

"Oh." This time Peter failed to conceal his disappointment. "Why not?"

Scott shook his head with disapproval.

"He doesn't have a phone."