A/N: There is something very important missing from chapter one, namely the dedication, so:

For Glitchy and Razor

Chapter Two

Six weeks.

Six weeks since Halloween, the night of insanely bad luck on Loki's part and he was simple sure of one thing. He would save Peter Parkers life, repay the life debt, then he was going to kill him.

And he was going to make sure that it hurt when he did, no matter how insanely strong Parker was for a 17 year old Midgardian with a stupid hair cut.

Sometimes spending all his time with Parker was enough to make Loki almost miss his cell. Almost. The whole 'shadow' thing had started as Parker's stupid joke, now the name had stuck. On the first night, they'd broken into the abandoned building, established a main way in, an emergency way out, and then barricading all the other entry ways with furniture that had been laying around.

Parker had disappeared and then returned with a blue roll he called a 'yoga mattress', Loki wasn't sure who the Yoga people were, but he was sure they must all have pretty bad backs if that was what they slept on every night. He'd also brought Loki a blanket which zipped up on one side, a sleeping bag he'd called it, Loki of course pretended to know exactly what it was called because he didn't want to blow his cover.

Parker had also given him a passable pillow, a few spare pieces of clothing and some food and water. Enough to see Loki through the night he'd said.

Of course, with no where else to go, the abandoned building which bore a faded sign on the front which read 'ROBERTS FURNITURE' had now become Loki's more or less home.

It suited him fine. The bag was warm, and though the mattress wasn't exactly the standard he was used to, he'd had a lot worse. He made sure that at night no light came from the building, when he settled for sleep, but he did feel safe there. Parker had brought him a camping stove, showed him how to use it, since Loki had told him he'd never been camping, and Parker took this in his stride, apparently not that strange a claim to make.

Loki had given Parker the money which had remained in the stolen wallet to buy him supplies, Parker hadn't questioned why Loki couldn't buy supplies himself, he just did it, like a helpful little worker bee. Now Loki could boil water on the stove and make himself rice in a little pan, and tea, but Parker often brought him food from his own kitchen. Sandwiches wrapped in silver foil, or a dish, with a still warm meal inside it, always saying that his aunt had made extra, and it would only go in the fridge for leftovers if Loki didn't eat it himself.

Loki chose to always eat it. The stolen money was gone, his supplies were limited, and Parker was generous with his offerings of food, so he'd try and save his supplies where he could.

On their first excursion, 'patrolling' as Parker called it, Loki had absently grabbed a broom from a shop that was being robbed, and wielding it as if it was Gungnir, Loki had used it to bring the thief to the ground, Parker had strung him up by his webbing and hung him from a lamp post, bearing a hastily written note which read, 'From your friendly neighbourhood Spider-man and his Shadow.'

Both the broom and the name had stuck. Loki had removed the broom head and carried the shaft as staff, and he used it effectively. The newspapers, a copy of one Parker had brought for him, bore a blurry photo of the two of them on the front page, Parker in his red and blue Spider-man outfit, and Loki in his black clothes, his cowl covering his face, hood drawn up, the headline had read, 'Spider-man and Shadow save the day!'

Loki had glowered at Parker over that, but Parker had been unable to contain his excitement over the positive press and though the pictures of them in the papers which had followed had still been blurry, coverage of Spider-man and Shadow seemed to be largely positive. Well, at least in the papers Parker brought him. Occasionally Loki would find a paper carelessly left around the city from other newspapers and one in particular seemed to hate everything about Spider-man and his shadow, but then you couldn't please everyone.

At first Loki had been content to spend the days inside the Roberts building until Parker would arrive for patrolling with him at night, figuring that the kid would probably be able to be saved whilst he was out being reckless. However Loki had soon grown bored of this and one night he'd followed Parker back to his house, and watched from a distance through a window as he'd snuck inside, then Loki had returned early the next morning and had taken to, as discreetly as he could, following Parker to school and watching over him, to see if he got himself into any trouble.

Notwithstanding some schoolyard bullies, which Loki couldn't really justify as being able to 'save' Parker from, the kid largely put his head down and got on with things at school. Aside from following around a pretty blonde girl like a lost puppy, in school Parker was a very smart, but average kid, it was only at night when he donned his costume and became Spider-man, did the REAL Parker show his colours with his sarcastic mouth and sometimes quite frankly out of control antics.

Except for the one night a week when Parker would travel into the main part of the city to attend an internship, of sorts, which his aunt would no longer allow him to travel to by subway, so Parker would take out a bicycle, bid his aunt farewell, then web-sling his way across the city, Loki always following him, keeping watch. Waiting for an opportunity to save the kids life.

Though if Loki had bad luck, the kid certainly made up for it with good luck. No matter what seemed to happen, good luck seemed to follow Parker like flies around a honey pot, at least in Loki's eyes they did.

Loki now sat crossed legged on the floor of his room, carefully reading the previous days newspaper. He always read it carefully, he didn't want to miss any news that may be about him and especially not about Thor.

So far there had been nothing about either of them, well not specially about Loki and Thor, though there had been plenty about Shadow, and other Avengers.

Tony Stark appeared to be having some sort of crisis as there had been more pictures of Banner the monster helping Stark out of bars, Stark always grinning for the cameras, Banner always trying to cover his face. Loki couldn't help but wonder how two such individuals seemed to be such good friends. Loki regretted slightly not recruiting Banner properly, as he had recruited Barton. Banner was apparently loyal. Though the beast was an unpredictably mass of sheer power and just the thought of being pummelled into the floor again by it made Loki shudder.

Parker appeared at the window entrance, already in costume, holding a carefully balanced dish in his hand, silver foil covering the top.

"Good evening, Mr Stalker," said Parker, getting inside the window and pulling the mask off the top of his head. Loki always wondered how his hair managed to stay in that ridiculously spikey style, even after being pushed down by the mask.

"I thought I was your shadow," said Loki, grumbling, but accepting the dish as it was handed to him. He peeled back the foil, some kind of what was supposed to pass for cheese in this country, covered potatoes and what he supposed was meat. It was hot though and Loki was hungry, so he picked up a fork from his small collection of cutlery and mumbled a thanks, digging in.

"Well at this stage in our relationship, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive," said Parker, "I saw you today, how long have you been following me to school?"

"Almost six weeks," said Loki, shovelling the hot food into his mouth, he'd been hungrier than he thought.

"Look, Puck, dude, if you're gay for me, that's fine an all, but I kinda got a girlfriend," he said, "so put the fantasies in your spank bank and move on."

"I'm not 'gay' for you Parker," said Loki, washing down some of the food with a drink from a water bottle. "I'm just watching your back, like you said, and I'd hardly call that cute little thing you follow around your girlfriend. Generally people talk to their girlfriends. You talk to your bullies more than her."

"Dude, we should totally reconsider opening that detective agency," said Parker, with a grin, spinning a hammock out of his webs and dropping himself into it as it swung carefully back and forth from the ceiling.

"So what's the plan for tonight?" asked Loki, now halfway through his meal. "Regular patrol?"

"Nah, Puck, first things first," said Parker, "I'm taking you to my place and stripping you off."

"Now whose gay for whom?" asked Loki, quirking his eyebrow to no affect as it was beneath his cowl. "And I've told you before, I'm not taking off my mask"

"You can leave it on, makes no difference to me," said Parker, still grinning at him, "but dude if you don't get a shower, they're gonna start calling you The Stink instead of The Shadow."

Loki looked down at himself, his clothes were covered in dirt, sweat and grime, and whilst sometimes he did wear some of the things which Parker had given him when he was in his little 'home' he always kept to the same clothing when they were on patrol. Loki sniffed himself, he was starting to smell.

"Fine," said Loki, "but I can't exactly wear those clothes you gave me on patrol. I don't think blue jeans and a t-shirt with the words 'Han shot first'-" Loki had no idea who Han was or who he was shooting, but it mattered not "- is going to strike fear in the hearts of hardened criminals."

"Don't worry about it," said Parker, waving his hand causally, "saved my allowance, got you some spare pants and hoodies, you can wear some of my old shirts underneath, no one will see, but you'll be clean and not smelling like Oscar the grouch on a hot summers day."

Loki put his fork down, he'd consumed all of the food and he felt much better for it, "You shouldn't spend your money on me," he said, "I've seen your house, you could use all the money you have."

"Yeah well, I don't think they're hiring masked vigilantes at McDonalds at the moment," said Parker, "so unless you've got another way of earning yourself some scratch, consider it your birthday and Christmas presents. I'll wash the ones you got on now, the armour will probably wipe clean, we'll keep rotating them. I'll bring you more water you can heat on the stove for cleaning yourself, maybe some soap too, whatever floats your boat, but you need a real shower right now, dude. So like at least once a week, twice, if we've had a big night on the town, you come to my place, get cleaned up, ok?"

It was really neither question, nor request. Loki knew this.

"I could just steal some clothes," said Loki, breaking into a clothes shop would be easier enough, it wouldn't take much magic to simply unlock a door, he had enough for that.

"Yeah, because a life of crime is really the way to go for you," said Parker, "whatever it was that got you in trouble before, I don't care, dude, just stay on my side, have my back, don't steal anything, come to my place, have a shower, then we'll paint the town red and blue."

Trouble. That's how Parker always described it when it came up. Loki's trouble. As if he was hiding from the law from some sort of petty crime, and not that he was the mad Asgardian who'd tried taking over the Earth. If Parker only knew, Loki wouldn't be here, eating food his aunt had lovingly cooked for her nephew, he'd be back in restraints and gagged faster than you could say 'Prison Bitch.'

Parker snuck Loki in through his bedroom window, Loki really didn't want to run into Parker's aunt when they were both dressed the way they were, nor explain why her 17 year old nephew was sneaking a fully grown man into his room, and neither did Parker.

A bundle of clean clothing was shoved into his hands, and Parker told him to leave the dirty ones in the bathroom and he'd wash them later, and Loki gladly entered the bathroom, locking the door behind him with both the bolt and a little magic.

After weeks with only windows and puddles of water for reflective surfaces, he was glad to finally get a look at his reflection. In the bathroom light, he looked ridiculous, but Loki was sure that on a dimly lit street, he actually could look a little intimidating, especially with his height, and the broom handle staff in his fingers.

Loki stripped off, leaving the dirty clothes on the basket, but putting the cowl and armour to one side, since he'd have to put those back on. The new clothes appeared to be very similar to the old ones, Loki was glad. He transferred the things from his pockets, and then turned on the shower and stepped under the hot running water.

As soon as it hit his shoulder blades Loki groaned. It had been far too long since he'd had a real clean, and cleaning himself magically was just a little too indulgent, particularly if at any second he might have to use his magic for something a little more fruitful than clean smelling arm pits.

He inspected the bracelet locked around his right wrist. Magic couldn't free him from it, obviously. There was a small mechanism, Loki had poked and prodded at it with a small piece of metal that had been folded into a circle he'd found on the floor of his 'home', feeling it out, it was incredibly complicated and while Loki had always been good with magic, tinkering with toys like an engineer had never been his thing. He sighed, Parker was a smart kid, but this wasn't something he could ask him about either. The runes alone might be too much of a hint as to Loki's true identity.

Loki couldn't risk that.

But he had to find a way to get this damn bracelet off somehow. He sighed, problem for another day, he had a shower to finish and criminals to find.

Loki washed himself thoroughly, his washed his hair, his face - his eyes were constantly coated in black make up, the pot was still half full, but he'd have to talk to Parker about getting a replacement for that. When he'd finished, he almost didn't want to get out, but he knew he had to, so he towelled himself off, wringing as much water as he could out of his hair he decided it would be more comfortable, and less itchy at the back of his neck if he braided it, so he did, as best he could, at the back of his head, tying it off with a random piece of string he found in Parkers bathroom.

He sighed as he looked in the mirror, goodbye Loki, hello Shadow, he slathered on the black make up, then began pulling his new clothes on, saving the cowl for last, then pulled the new hood up and opened the bathroom door.

He found Parker sitting at his desk, doing what appeared to be homework, still costumed, save for the mask, he grinned at Loki, "Smelling like summer rain and fresh cut flowers again, are we?" he asked.

"The bottle said 'tea tree," said Loki.

"Close enough," said Parker, handing Loki his staff and then pulling his own mask on. "Let's go catch us some bad guys!" And Parker was already out of the window, and Loki was sighing and following after him, like his shadow.

x-x-x

"SO. MUCH. FUN!" shouted Parker above Loki's head.

Fun wasn't the first word which would have come to Loki's mind to describe what they were doing. Laborious, pointless and stupid, perhaps, but now that he thought about it for a moment, maybe it was a little fun.

They'd spotted three armed men running out of a convenience shop, arms laden with stolen items. They'd been on a short roof at the time, only three stories, so Loki had leapt over the top, flipping himself, landing on his feet, Parker had leapt and then caught himself on a lamp post using one of his web strings, and immediately then shot out more webbing at the three men, pulling their guns from their hands.

"Oh shit," one of them had said as they'd spotted Loki and Parker, "It's fucking Spider-man and Shadow, RUN!"

Loki had moved quickly and used his staff to trip one of them, whilst Parker had slung more webbing to grab their ankles, pulling the other two back. Whilst Parker strung them up and hung them from a lamp post, Loki had sat on the third's back, pinning him with both his weight and his staff pressed across the mans shoulders. Once Parker was free he strung the third man up, then held up his palm in the air to Loki.

"Come on, dude," said Parker, "don't leave me hanging."

Loki sighed, raised his own palm and slapped it against Parker's, "I don't know why you insist on making me do that, Spider-boy." When they were on the street, it was never Parker or Puck, not that it mattered much for Loki, but he noted how careful Parker was to never say his 'name.' Though when they were swinging through the air, or up high on rooftops, they were able to relax this unwritten rule a little.

"Because I'm trying to break you of being a stuffy old, dude," said Parker. They heard the noise of sirens blearing in the background. "Uh oh, that's our exit music, time to wrap up the acceptance speech."

He grabbed Loki around the waist and Loki grabbed onto Parker as he was suddenly pulled up and Parker was web swinging them quickly away from the scene, until they had gotten far enough away to drop onto a new rooftop and Parker let him go.

"I hate it when you do that," said Loki, glaring at Parker as he released him.

"Oh you love it really," said Parker, Loki could tell he was grinning, stupid kid, "admit it, all this crime fighting stuff is way better than what you were doing before. Way, way better."

Better than being in a cell in Asgard, with daily visits from his mother to look at him through the glass sadly, and bi-weekly visits from his father to tell him how when his punishment was over they could all go back to normal and everything would be ok again, and how much Thor would need him by his side, and some how would find a way to smooth things over with the Midgardians, and… Yeah, this was much better.

As Shadow, Loki was his own man. A man somewhat reliant on a 17 year old boy to bring him food and water and nag him into bathing, but still his own man. Parker made no expectations onto Loki other than to watch his back. Not a big ask considering Loki owed the kid his life.

Asgardian or not, being hit full force by one of those trains with no where to go but underneath it, if it hadn't completely killed him, he would have been discovered. Loki wondered how betrayed Parker was going to feel if he found out the man he trusted, trusted with his life, with his true identity, the local of his home, was really the man who'd brought an army of aliens to his doorstep, almost destroying the city in the process.

A lot.

Probably a lot betrayed.

Some nagging voice in the back of Loki's mind told him he didn't want to do that to this kid. The kid had been good to him when he'd had no reason to, and all the kid wanted in return was for Loki to not blab his name to the papers and make sure that he made it back to his aunt each night in one piece. And even in that, Loki wasn't even sure how much help Parker needed. The kid was strong and fast, he spun his webs and knew when danger was coming and Loki wondered if this 'watching his back' deal was again more for Lokis benefit than it was for Parkers.

Damn kid.

"Penny for your thoughts?" asked Parker, pulling a coin from god knows where and flipping it at Loki.

"This says 'subway token'," said Loki, looking at the coin.

"Well what would you do with a penny?" said Parker, shrugging, leaning on the wall of the roof, casting a casual glance over the streets below.

"I was just wondering why you keep me around," said Loki, honestly and depositing the coin in one of his zip up pockets. "You don't really need me, not really. You basically have to feed and clothe me, I have to be more trouble than I'm worth to you."

"Are you serious, bro?" said Parker, slapping him on the back, "Puck, you totally have my back. Come on, man, you follow me to school to make sure I'm ok, you give me an extra pair of eyes on the street. Do you know how much stress it can be, being a friendly neighbourhood Spider-man? It's not all buxom babes in trouble, sometimes it's getting shot at and getting your ass kicked. It's nice having someone to talk to about this shit too, you know, being able to be… well, me, around you, makes the job a whole lot easier."

"I don't know why you do it in the first place," said Loki, pressing the knuckles of his fists onto the wall and leaning on them. "You should be doing homework and following around that cute little girl you fancy. Not getting shot at, you're just a kid."

"Yeah, but when I'm Spider-man, I'm not a kid, and you don't treat me like one either," said Parker, giving him another slap on the back. "Besides when you got this kinda power, you should use it, to help people. You got a responsibility to look out for people who can't look out for themselves."

"Do you practise that speech in your head?" said Loki, throwing Parker a smirk. "So I need help and you help me because you should?"

"Nah," said Parker, giving his shoulder a rub, "because I can, not because I should. Besides, above everything else I always wanted an incredibly grumpy, English, big brother to follow me around and nag me."

"I nag you?" said Loki, incredulously. Big brother. Huh. That's how the kid saw him. Well that was… unexpected.

"Maybe we nag each other," said Parker, and Loki knew he was grinning at him again. "Now, come on, where's that smile?"

Loki shook his head and in spite of himself, laughed at Parker. "Alright, it's early still," said Loki, "let's get some more criminals strung up and if you behave I'll take you for ice cream."

"YAY, ICE CREAM!" shouted Parker, grabbing Loki unexpectedly and swinging them off the rooftop by his web shooters.

"DAMMIT, PARKER!" shouted Loki, clinging for dear life as Parker swung them high above the streets.