The sunny day turned the mostly abandoned industrial district into a fairly enticing place. She was grateful to the favourable weather, as she was certain any other kind would render this place creepy and make her turn on her heel without completing her "mission".

She was nobody. There was nothing special about her, apart from apparently being curious and crazy enough to attempt this: go find Loki to ask him a question. What was more, she wouldn't settle for less than an honest answer. Not that she expected this to work. But she had to try.

The sight of the huge red-painted metal door sent her heart racing and sped up her breath. She stopped, leaned against the crumbling white façade of the building she was passing, and took a few breaths with methodical determination. This seemed to work and she finished the walk to the red metal door and knocked three times with her fist, just loud enough for the people inside to hear, while maintaining an air of politeness.

For a minute, nothing happened. Then a man in a non-disclosing military uniform opened the door carefully, aiming a gun at her head. It should have frightened her, but she was well used to the idea that she was not getting out of this alive. Especially if she achieved her goal successfully. She raised her hands in an obligatory gesture.

"Who are you? What do you want?" the man asked suspiciously.

"I'm Adriana. Could I talk to Loki, please?" she said pleasantly. Her voice was childlike, smooth and somehow husky.

"What do you want with him?"

"Please. I'm unarmed, you can check. I'm no threat to you, or him. I just want to ask him something."

Loki was watching the interchange on a screen and eyed the girl curiously. Was she sent? Or was she really this insane to come "ask him a question" just like that? And yet, there wasn't a hint of the "special agent-ness" about her – she was short, thin, pretty enough, though far from beautiful, somewhat unkempt, he would say. Her straight long hair had been blown into disorder by the wind, she had no make-up on, her clothes were decent, but not even trying to look like the latest fashion. He wondered what led that vulnerable creature to his doorstep. What kind of a question could be so important that she was willing to risk being killed for it?

"Let her in," he instructed the guard at the door via coms.

"Are you sure, sir?" the guard asked carefully.

"Search her for coms and weapons, of course. But I would very much like to hear what she has to say," Loki confirmed his initial decision.

There was nothing the guards found on her. She came in completely clean; just an honest, ever so polite and innocent human being. When the guards escorted her to the back room, she looked even smaller than on the camera; petrified but determined. He was sure she would come and plead for her world, for its people he so despised. At the same time, the thought that someone so insignificant, just one individual in the countless masses, would do that, entertained him enough to hear her out.

She was studying him too, and was astonished at how cameras had distorted his looks as well. He was much taller than he had seem, and when he came all the way to her and looked down into her eyes, she felt something very close to drowning.

"So…" he began softly, "what did you come to ask me? That I spare your loved ones?"

"No," she shook her head and took him completely by surprise.

"What, then?"

"I came…" her voice faltered when his stare fixed on her again. She composed herself quickly, though, and finished the sentence: "I came to ask you a question, not a favour."

She was too late, however, he guessed the true reason of her nervousness.

"That is, if you wouldn't mind me asking. I thought I might as well try," she confessed simply.

Loki laughed. The girl was unbelievable. She just marched in there expecting a conversation with him like he was a professor at school she would come to for advice, not a God aiming to conquer her planet for his own benefit. And, what was more, she was the first person in a very long time who didn't give him a disgusted look when she laid eyes on him. She actually found him attractive, not a monster he was usually likened to.

"Sorry, I haven't got time for fangirls," he smiled mockingly.

"Is that what you think I am? A fangirl?" she laughed shortly with a significant portion of bitterness in her words.

"Well, if you're not, your body language is all wrong," he pointed out pleasantly.

"Oh my god," she rolled her eyes. "Just because I get thrilled when I see a beautiful person, doesn't mean my reason can't overrule my instincts."

"A beautiful person," Loki glared at her, certain she had to be messing with him, "really."

"Yes. You're good-looking and you're not all black-and-white like the rest of them," she elaborated. "Now, can I just ask you one question so I can go again in peace?"

"You've asked a lot of questions already," Loki reminded her.

"What do you want, Loki?" she asked a bit more loudly than she had meant to.

"I want for you to ask that stupid question of yours, of course," he retorted.

"That was the question."

"What I want?" he repeated, tilted his head inquisitively. It wasn't quite what he expected. "You want me to share my battle plans with you?"

"No. I want to know what you want. And I don't want to hear how you wish to rule this world as a benevolent god, either. All of that is an outcome. I want to know what you really want," she said, keeping eye-contact bravely with the last sentence, trying to read it from his eyes.

He suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable. His men were still in the room. Maybe he should have had her killed the moment she knocked on the gate. In any case, there was no way in hell he was going to answer that question.

"Lock her up," he ordered his men, who seized Adriana and escorted her into a small room with a barred window, which had long ago served as an office. They locked the door behind them, leaving her to ponder the implications of what she had done and what the outcome might be.