This is my first time posting and this story has been on my mind for a few days. Honestly, I have absolutely no idea where this will take me but I have a few ideas. I hope you enjoy and if anyone has some great ideas, let me know!

Disclaimer - This is a story takes place in the Marvel Universe and all Marvel Characters belong to Marvel/Disney/the-genius-that-is-Stan-Lee. Max is an original character and while Loki belongs to Marvel, this story will take place mostly outside all of it.

-Beep- Beep- Beep-

The sounds of the machines were starting to grate on my nerves. The needle in my arm was becoming irritating and … itchy. The nurses hovering and fussing at the saline bags attached to the itchy IV have passed beyond the sphere of politeness and straight into the black whole of pestering. And worst of all was the non-stop chatter of Liz, asking me every 2.5 seconds if I was in pain or feeling nauseous.

I have had diabetes for 20 of the last 24 years; the pain and nausea have become quite common after year three. However the new found addition of dialysis to my torture regime has always puts me in a foul mood.

Closing my eyes, I lean my head back against the head rest of the stupid armchair I am hooked into in an attempt to focus my breathing. Hoping that by taking deep breaths, I can stop the scream that is threatening to tear from my throat.

"Max? ... Max…. Maxine, are you even listening to me?" Her voice cutting through the stream of negative thoughts the way a saw cuts through wood.

"Yes, I am fine. No, I do not want orange juice. No, I don't feel dizzy and no I do not want to go out to eat after we leave." The automatic replies coming easily to my lips. In all honesty, I had not heard a word of what she was yammering on about but after the last six weeks of hospital visits, I have memorized the answers to most of her questions without really having to be an active participant in the conversation.

There is a sigh from the chair next to me and shuffling of papers. She must have found the answers harsh but instead of pestering me about it, she probably took out that book she has been attempting to finish for the last month.

Taking another deep breath, insuring that the scream wouldn't escape, I turned to look at the woman who has faithfully looked after me. My aunt Liz, while not my biological aunt but has rightfully held the title for as long as I can recall, is a striking woman. While not in possession of the exotic Spanish beauty that comes to most Icelandic peoples mind, she is still beautiful. She is about five-foot-three (though she feels like she is taller than that), long brown hair that hangs to the middle of her back, chocolate colored eyes, and a smile that takes up most of her face.

When I see her, I don't see any of that. It's her personality that I see when I look at this woman. I see her love of the world around her. I see the wall in her study where there are pictures of her traveling the world. I see the gentle light in those chocolate eyes when she tells me stories about my parents and the hell they used to get up to when they were my age. I see that same light turn to steel when she is talking to my doctors and they tell her something she isn't ready to accept.

You see, my aunt Liz and my mother were best friends. They went to college together and traveled the world. When my mom was ready to settle down and have a family, Aunt Liz never stopped traveling but made sure that she was around for all the important moments and my mother still took at least one trip a year with her while I was growing up. She was in my parents wedding, she was there when I was born, and she held my hand through my first international flight. When my dad died, she held my mother through it and they became inseparable. Mama sold our house, her office, took me, and we followed my aunt around the world. Eventually Mama started travel blogging and made her living showing how the world looked through a widower's eye.

Mama died from the same disease that I am fighting now, except it was too late for her. During her last days we went back the beach on Kho Phi-Phi Island in Thailand, one of her favorite places. As we were lying on the beach, she said that she wasn't afraid. The pain had started to subside, which was a sign that the end was nearing. With a smile on her face and a glint in her eye, she expressed her excitement at seeing dad again. She told me that a long time again, he had promised her a vacation in the Bahamas and that she was late for it.

She died that night, holding a picture of my dad and me on the day I was born. I was sixteen then and Aunt Liz became my guardian.

I started university when I was seventeen in Iceland where my auntie Chris lives (another one of mama's college best friends) and that's when the pain started. A year later, I found myself in a hospital bed after passing out during a lecture,with Auntie Chris telling me Liz was coming to get me.

When the doctors told her that my diabetes was starting to affect my kidneys and that I may be in the early stages of Kidney failure, the steel in her eyes returned and she vowed that she wouldn't let the same disease take me away too.

So here we are five years, twenty hospitals, four countries, eight experimental treatments, one UNOS fall-out, one failed transplant operation, and 2 months of dialysis later, sitting in an uncomfortable chair as my blood is filtered in and out of my body.

"I was thinking," I whispered, trying to break the tension filled silence that settled over us, "Why don't we stop in at the Indian restaurant on our way home? I could kill someone for a Samosa."

"I thought you said you weren't hungry?" She replied, without even looking up from her book. Yup, sure sign that I had irked her.

Taking a deep breath, I tried again, "I'm sorry Liz. I didn't mean to snap at you but this place is just so.. so.. so I don't even know. I feel like screaming every time I walk through those glass doors." Exasperated, I tried to throw my hands up in frustration but the needle reminded me I was still attached to a machine. I scowled at the offensive object while silently cursing it and my traitorous body for not allowing me the ability to be dramatic.

Sighing, my aunt closed the book and look at me so tenderly that even in my irate state, I felt the warmth and safety that I have always associated with her. "I know honey," She said, reaching over and brushing a hand through my hair. "That sounds nice. We could always invite Chris over and have a movie night."

I nodded in approval and that was when the nurse came in. With crisp, practiced movements, she started to unhook me from the whirring machines, IV's, and monitors. Of course, the nurse couldn't have come in five minutes ago so I can have my moment.

Finally being freed from my bi-weekly torture chamber, Liz and I made our way out of the office. As the humid Florida air hit my face, I suddenly felt the dizziness that Aunt Liz was pestering me about earlier. The world swayed sideways, my knees buckled, and I could feel the spasms threatening to overtake me.

The world went black before I could hear Aunt Liz scream my name or the doctors running out to us. All I could feel were Liz's arms and the electric energy of the seizure.

In what felt like ten seconds, I opened my eyes to see I was lying in a golden ornate bed draped with gauze and in a room that was both foreign and horribly familiar.

"Good Afternoon, I think your kind would call you sleeping beauty." A smooth voice said from the corner I knew he would be in. "You've been asleep for a few days this time. I assume since you are awake again, those incompetent Midgardian healers are still unable to heal you. Pity that." He finished with a turn of a page.

I closed my eyes again hoping and praying that for once in his pathetically immortal life, he would just stop talking. Taking another deep breath, I answered the sneering God, "But if they healed me, you would be left bereft of the one person in the realms that will deign to listen to your complaints."

A chuckle came from across the large room, "A mortal from Midgard is not worth my time. The only reason we speak is simply because I am an outcast and Odin cannot comprehend an anomaly such as you."

"I feel like I should be flattered…" I whispered turning my head to seek out the voice that I know is sitting in the same wooden chair in the same room that he has been in every time I wake up here.

"Don't be flattered." Another turn of a page, "Most anomalies that Odin finds don't survive long enough to find their worth." A click shut and the shuffling of the chair singles that he is coming toward me, though the gauze curtains still obscure my view of him.

A slender hand breaks through the sheer barrier and suddenly, I am staring into bright green eyes that hold a mischievous glint that belies his nonchalant attitude, "I, however, intend to solve the mystery." Reaching his slender hand toward mine, he pulls me from the comfortable feather mattress into a sitting position. I have to crane my neck to look at his face. "At Midgardian who is physical form appears in Midgard and Asgard simultaneously could be of great use to me."

Smiling he pulls me up to standing and the green glint is still present. When I am awake, I am a prisoner of my body. Though in my sleep, I am chess piece in Loki's game. This God of Mischief has a plan for me.