The Seventh Avenger by ElrondsScribe

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Chapter 13: The Elf Gets a New Crypt

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All rights belong to Marvel Studios.

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If Glorfindel had thought for a moment that he would go back to dancing at the NYCB as if the Battle with the Chitauri had never happened, he was wrong. For one thing, the ballet company had to stay closed for another two full weeks after the week of the Battle of the Avengers and the Chitauri. But far more significantly, everyone seemed to want to see Glorfindel in the flesh for themselves - he was begged to make appearances on all kinds of shows based in New York, of which Good Morning America had only been the first, and to give scores of interviews.

People might have been much more skeptical of the existence of creatures out of adventure novels, if an army of aliens and dragons hadn't recently descended on them. The resulting craze over Glorfindel was almost instantaneous - his name and face were everywhere. People began to recognize him whenever he went out, and sometimes they swarmed him so that he couldn't move. Most of them were harmless enough, starstruck fans wanting autographs and selfies, but then paparazzi and reporters with microphones started descending on him like vultures.

And then, help arrived on the scene in a rather unexpected form. Virginia 'Pepper' Potts knocked on his front door.

Glorfindel knew who she was, of course - short of living in seclusion in the woods or the wilderness (as some Elves did), it was impossible to live in America and not know who Pepper Potts was. Currently she was the CEO of Stark Industries (and was apparently running the company very capably), and was rumored to be Tony Stark's girlfriend. Glorfindel started when the knock came on the door, and frowned when he saw her through the peephole.

He opened the door rather cautiously; the woman blinked up at him. She was dressed unassumingly (but just as expensively) in a short-sleeved blouse and khaki pants, with high heeled sandals. Her strawberry blonde hair was drawn back into a bun, and earrings sparkled by her cheeks. She was carrying an attractive tan leather handbag, and Glorfindel could smell her perfume - good stuff, as perfumes produced in modern factories went.

He felt rather wary - how on earth had she discovered where he lived? - but smiled nevertheless. "Good morning, may I do anything for you?"

"Oh my. . ." she seemed to be waffling a little at the sight of him, but she quickly recovered herself. "May I come in?"

Glorfindel stood aside to let her into the apartment. She cast her eye around the place as she entered, as if to ascertain that an ordinary four-room apartment could be inhabited by an Elf.

Glorfindel pulled out a chair at the small kitchen table, and offered the woman a glass of water. "I'm sorry I have nothing better to offer you," he apologized.

Pepper Potts smiled. "I'd be honored to take what you have," she said, taking the glass and sipping from it.

He sat down across from her. "Miss Potts, may I ask how you knew where I live?" Fury, being the head of SHIELD, was probably privy to all kinds of personal details about people he was interested in; how had a businesswoman found him out?

Her smile this time was warm and genuine. "Pepper, please," she said. "And to answer your question," a hint of wry humor crept into her voice. "I live in a tower built by Tony Stark, run by the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world."

Glorfindel remembered the disembodied voice with the prim British accent. "JARVIS runs Stark Tower too, then? I should have guessed so. We were introduced during the Battle," he added at her inquiring look.

"Yes well, JARVIS runs pretty much everything that has to do with Tony Stark," said Pepper. "Including the Tower. Which brings me to the reason I'm here, actually. Tony's extending an invitation for all the Avengers to stay at the Tower, for as long as any of you feel like staying."

Glorfindel began to smile. "That's very thoughtful of Tony," he said, with no doubt in his mind as to who was really extending the invitation.

Pepper didn't rise to the bait. "I thought the idea might appeal to you in particular," she said. "The Tower has the best security in existence, and all kinds of safeguards against all those prying cameras."

That clinched it. "Really?" Glorfindel stood up. "How soon can this happen?"

"I thought you might say that," smiled Pepper. "There's a car waiting at the front of the complex. You can move today, if you want to."

Glorfindel's more valued belongings were mostly being kept for him by Turgon (who had a skyscraper tower of his own in Chicago), so it took him less than an hour to pack up everything he wanted to take with him into two suitcases and a laptop bag. Everything else then went into the trash, except for the appliances and pieces of furniture, of which Glorfindel snapped pictures with his phone to be sold or Freecycled later.

He then went down with Pepper to the first floor and turned in his key at the front desk. The receptionist, a bored-looking woman in her fifties, let him cancel his rental without much comment (she did not seem to recognize either him or Pepper). He called the landlord to let him know he was canceling, and then followed Pepper out the door and down to the car that was indeed waiting for them. It wasn't a sports car like the one Tony had driven on Saturday, but was instead a silver Mercedes-Benz SUV. A solidly built man with dark hair and a humorously self-important manner emerged from the driver's seat.

"This is Harold Hogan, our bodyguard," said Pepper. "Happy, this is Glorfindel."

"Happy?" inquired Glorfindel, even as he stood up one of his suitcases to shake the man's hand.

"We call him Happy," said Pepper brightly.

The man called Happy blinked up at Glorfindel. "Wow," he said. "I'm not feeling like a woodland creature at all here. You want me to get your bags?"

"Oh, that's all right," smiled Glorfindel, proceeding toward the backseat of the car with his things.

'Happy' followed him. "You sure about that?"

"Thank you, Happy, but I've got it," said Glorfindel pleasantly, opening the door and easily chucking his bags onto the seat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pepper biting her lip, vainly trying not to smile.

Happy seemed a bit wrong-footed. "Uh, great, okay," he said, watching while Glorfindel climbed up into the back seat beside his bags and buckled himself in. The Elf did not bother to shut the door behind him, leaving Happy scrambling to do so while trying to look as if he had anticipated the whole thing. Pepper climbed into the front passenger's seat, and Happy went round to the driver's seat and drove off.

About two hours later (New York traffic is famous, and never more so than when the city is under heavy construction), Happy pulled around the back of Stark Tower. A guard sitting in a booth let them through a remotely powered gate down into a garage, where Happy parked the SUV. This time he insisted on handing Glorfindel his bags.

"Thank you, Happy," said Glorfindel as he accepted them, and he followed the two Mortals to an elevator, which slid open as they approached.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Hogan, Miss Potts," said the voice Glorfindel recognized as JARVIS as they entered. "Welcome to Avengers Tower, Lord Glorfindel."

"Just Glorfindel will do," said that gentleman as the doors slid shut and the elevator began to ascend. Bodiless voices speaking to me from the walls, eh? I am sharing a roof with Tony Stark, after all, an artificial intelligence should really be the least of my worries. Unless it's so advanced it has an autonomous will. "Did you say Avengers Tower?"

"Tony's idea, he's renaming it in honor of Loki choosing the Tower to run the skybeam from," said Pepper. "JARVIS, please let Happy out at the ground floor, and then take Glorfindel and me to the uppermost guest floor."

"Already on your way, Miss Potts," said the cultured voice, and almost at once the elevator came to a stop.

"Anything you need from me?" asked Happy.

"I think that'll be all, Happy," said Pepper.

"If you're sure," said Happy Hogan, and he walked out. Glorfindel caught a glimpse of a large front desk and a maze of offices as the elevator doors closed again.

"On which floor am I staying?" asked Glorfindel of Pepper.

"Well, the top ten floors are all basically Tony's lab," said Pepper. "But there are twelve floors designed for guest residence, and one of those floors now belongs to you."

"That's where my room is, then?" asked Glorfindel.

Pepper smiled at him. "Oh, you're getting the floor," she corrected him.

"The floor?" asked Glorfindel incredulously. "You're giving me the whole floor, to myself?"

"We don't do anything by halves here," said Pepper, obviously enjoying his surprise. "Obviously you can share your floor if you want to, but that's entirely up to you."

It had just begun to dawn on him just what kind of over-the-top luxury he really should have anticipated when the elevator came to a stop again. When the doors opened this time Glorfindel's jaw fairly dropped.

The room that the elevator had opened onto appeared to be some kind of entertainment room. It was a massive space, with a twelve-foot-high ceiling and a vibrant, modern color scheme of soft blues with splashes of bright reds, yellows, and greens. The floor was dark brown hardwood, with colorful rugs in front of the enormous sofa, chairs, and ottomans. There was a large screen against the wall to the left, facing the sofas and chairs. Off to the side there was a bar, with an array of dark wood cabinets behind it and a row of bar stools in front of it.

Pepper had already left the elevator and was crossing the room, and Glorfindel hastily grabbed his suitcases and wheeled them after her.

"This is the living room, as you can see," she was saying. "We made it a little small, because we didn't think you were really into that kind of thing." She peered anxiously over her shoulder at him, waiting for his approval.

This is small?! "It's more than big enough for me," said Glorfindel truthfully.

"Good!" Pepper looked relieved. "The master bedroom is this way," and she led the way to the back of the entertainment room to the right of the elevator they'd stepped out of. The door they came to didn't seem to have a lock, but Pepper indicated the little pad by the handle. "Put your thumb on it."

So the Stark servers will have my thumbprint. Well, if SHIELD has my retinal scan, I guess I'm compromised already. Glorfindel put his right thumb to the pad, which lit up when he touched it. After about a second and a half, a little green light flashed above the pad. He removed his thumb, and the words WELCOME GLORFINDEL appeared on the pad in white letters.

"Please enjoy your stay," said the voice of JARVIS, and Pepper pulled the door open. Glorfindel wheeled his suitcases into the short hallway, which also had hardwood flooring, off which three doors opened.

"The furthest door down there leads into the actual bedroom," said Pepper helpfully. "The bathroom is on the right and there's a study on the left."

"Thank you again, Pepper," said Glorfindel. "I think I can take it from here, if you're busy."

Pepper smiled. "Well, I'm always busy," she said. "If there's anything you want or need, just ask JARVIS and someone will get it to you." And she turned and walked back out into the entertainment room toward the elevator, while Glorfindel pushed open the door to the bedroom and advanced inside.

The bedroom was also enormous and lavish, with a color scheme of gentle mint green with cream and dark brown accents. There were two big walk-in closets, and to the left and right respectively were doors that led directly into the bathroom and the "study," so that Glorfindel would not have to leave the bedroom to access either room if he didn't want to.

His immediate attention was drawn to the bed, which was much longer even than a king-size mattress and easily as wide (definitely made for two). He grinned, imagining himself lying full length - full length! - on it as he slept. No more curling up or dangling his legs off the side of the bed because it was too short!

Next he investigated the closets. They were each probably the size of the entire apartment he'd last lived in, and each one had two rows obviously placed to accommodate very tall people. He left his suitcases in one of them, and padded into the bathroom.

The spacious bathroom was all white tile and light grey was an entirely closed-off cubicle for the toilet, in addition to a big shower stall with two shower heads (placed very high up) and a full-size jaccuzzi which was very deep. There was a beautiful double vanity of light grey marble and flawless chrome, and two sets of towels on the racks.

Then Glorfindel left the bathroom and crossed the bedroom (it was quite a crossing) to the "study." It was as spacious as the bathroom, with more hardwood flooring. There were two work stations against the far wall, but these were clearly more of an afterthought. The room was filled with various instruments - a big pedal harp, a violin, a guitar, a set of drums, a recorder, a trumpet, and an upright piano.

Glorfindel shook his head, trying not to imagine how much they all must have cost, as they looked both brand new and of good quality. "JARVIS," he asked experimentally. "Did Pepper choose all these instruments?"

"Ms. Potts was of the opinion that you would enjoy having them readily available," said JARVIS.

Merilin would love them, thought Glorfindel with a sudden pang. He hadn't seen his wife since she had gone to stay in Finarfin's secluded safe haven nearly a hundred years ago when the Great War (of the First World War, as the Mortals were now calling it) had broken out. She hated strife and bloodshed and intrigue, and as truly as she loved and accepted and even understood him she had never shared in his desire for battle and action. He wondered if she was happy where she was. Everything about the master suite seemed to scream "made for two," and it made him feel unexpectedly lonely, as he had not felt since their last parting.

He went back into the bedroom, and instead of open and spacious it now felt vast and empty, even cold. The thought of all the empty space on "his" floor with no one to occupy it but himself (presumably) with only the voice of JARVIS for company was nearly unbearable. His apartment back in the complex had been filled with people, and he'd had neighbors who were up at all hours arguing and partying; and when he hadn't been at his apartment he'd mostly been at the company surrounded by dozens of dancers. He'd almost forgotten what long periods of peace and quiet were actually like.

And then, a thought came to him like a thunderclap, and he laughed aloud. Pepper planned the design of the master suite on purpose, didn't she? She knows damn well I'm married, I've certainly said so in public often enough. That meddling woman, Varda bless her! All right, Pepper, I can take a hint.

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Wow, and just like that I'm filled with the feels!

Yes, Glorfindel is married in this 'verse! The name Merilin is the Sindarin for "nightingale," in case you wanted to know. And yes, Tinuviel translates to 'nightingale' too, but I wanted Merilin and not Tinuviel for the character who decided to walk into my headspace last month. (She wasn't at all loud or emphatic about it either - just knocked quietly on the door and waited patiently for me to start properly paying attention to her.)