I forgot to mention…the timeline of this is roughly three weeks after the Chituari takeover attempt. Just in case anyone was confused. Yes, that does mean that right after the Chituari were taken care of, Bruce moved into Stark Tower and Tony dragged a poor, unsuspecting intern into it.

Chapter two: Alternative Locations

"What the hell!"

That was Tony's response to the situation at hand.

Not the response to the mess in the lab, which he would discover later, and when he did, his response would be a mere laugh and an "Oh, Brucie. Whatever will we do with you?" Which Bruce would honor not with a verbal reply, but with a well-deserved middle finger.

No, what he was responding to right now was Thor's presence in Stark Tower. In Tony's lounge room. On his bar, to be precise.

Tony did not like coming home after a long day to find a demigod, however friendly, literally sitting on his alcohol stash.

Thor immediately jumped to his feet. "Greetings, Man of Iron. I apologize for the disturbance of your tower, but I am in desperate need of your assistance." He sounded so eager, so sincere, that Tony's irritation vanished. It was hard to stay mad at Thor.

"Sure thing, Point Break. C'mon, have a seat," Tony said, gesturing to the stools lining the bar. "You want a drink? I'm having one." He went around behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of scotch.

Thor shook his head. "No, thank you, I have an urgent matter to discuss."

Tony froze, one hand on the bottle. Thor meant business. "Oh, okay. What's the problem, big guy?" He took his tumbler of scotch and came back around the bar, taking the seat beside Thor. He sincerely hoped that this "urgent matter" didn't have anything to do with the demigod he not-so-affectionately called Reindeer Games, but…well…

Hundred bucks says this has to do with Loki. Anyone wanna bet?

Thor took a deep breath. "My brother has passed."

It took a hell of a lot to render Tony Stark speechless. But this was one such occasion where he had nothing to say except a rather strangled-sounding, "What?"

Because, come on. Of all the things Thor could have come to him about. "My brother has escaped," or "My brother is trying to take over Asgard using nothing but a pita sandwich and some mice as his weapons," or "My brother killed my father." Anything but "Well, you see Tony, my insane alien brother who tried to take over your planet is dead, and I'm really sad about it, please play my therapist if you have the time?"

"My brother is dead," Thor repeated patiently, clearly taking the what literally. "We found him in his cell this morning. Cold. Lifeless. And, strangest thing of all—not blue."

Now Tony was really thankful he'd poured that scotch, because this getting through this conversation with his sanity intact was looking more and more dependent on chemical assistance. "Okay…I'm missing something here."

Thor's eyes went wide. "Oh, I forgot to explain—Loki was adopted. He is not of Asgard. He is of another species, called the Jotunns. His natural form, which All-Father believes he would revert to if dead, possesses blue skin which burns anyone who dares touch him with its freezing temperature. The Loki we found in the cell is unchanged. He retained his Asgard form. But we examined him thoroughly and there's no doubt that whoever was in that cell is, in fact, deceased."

Tony took another hit of scotch. Dammit, where's Bruce when I need him? Bruce had the patience to deal with a situation like this. Tony, on the other hand, was ready to shout at Thor, "Get to the point already!" Instead, Tony contented himself with saying, "Okay. So how can I help?"

"I haven't finished explaining yet." Thor waited for Tony's nod as an indication that he could go on. "Well, our gatekeeper, Heimdall, has not searched for Loki on Midgard for many of your Midgardian weeks now. He did not see reason to; he thought he needed to guard whoever was in the cell, which was certainly not Loki, as we can now confirm. But now he's found Loki—whom we believe to be the true Loki—here. In your realm. He hasn't threatened anyone, that we know of. He seems to have taken up residence with a young Midgardian lady whom Heimdall says you have regular contact with."

Tony actually groaned out loud at that. "Don't say Pepper. Please, Thor, I'm begging you."

Thor looked confused. "No, why would Pepper truck with Loki, however harmless he may seem? No, Man of Iron, it is not your betrothed." Tony nearly choked on his scotch at that, but Thor calmly went on, "It is the young lady who assists you and Tony. Casey, Heimdall called her."

"Holy fuck!" Tony nearly dropped his tumbler. "Jesus Christ, Thor—are you sure?"

"Heimdall sees everything," Thor said, as if it were something that any child should know.

This only served to further infuriate Tony. "Yeah, well, I think he missed something, because he didn't detect a freaking stunt double in your jails and the real McCoy on my planet! Jesus, Thor. Do you realize that if Loki were to try something right now—" Tony managed to stop himself. Thor did not take kindly to any aspersions cast on his brother, however well-deserved they may be.

Thor looked pleadingly at Tony. "I know, Man of Iron. I know you and the others believe him to be volatile, and you are correct, he very well may be. But something is happening here that I do not understand, and I believe that you and the other Midgardian warriors may be able to help."

"Yeah, well, let me go get Bruce. He lives here now." Tony paused, and then said, "And thanks for coming to me, Thor. You trusted me." He reached out and patted the ripped demigod on the shoulder. "Means a lot to me."

Thor practically beamed. "Thank you, Man of Iron."

Tony had to smile at that. "And for the love of God, call me Tony."

"All right…Tony." Thor paused. "Did you say Dr. Banner resides with you?"

"Yeah," Tony said casually. Thor's face immediately turned red. Tony raised his eyebrows. "Is there some kind of problem there?"

Thor shook his head. "No," he said quickly. "No, I will be very glad to see Dr. Banner again."

"Okay then. I'm going to go get him." Tony thumped Thor on the shoulder one more time and then, more confused than ever, he went to his lab to see if Bruce was still there. With any luck, Casey would be there as well; he could ask her what the hell she was thinking, keeping herself a pet crazy demigod under her bed.

He didn't find Casey, but he did find an opportunity to tease Bruce, and in his mind that was even better.

Five weeks ago

Casey dragged herself up the second and final flight of stairs. Jesus Christ, that's the last time I'm asking for a single. So not worth the walk. She flopped on her bed, facedown, too tired to even take her shoes off. Just. Fucking. Kill. Me. Now.

Her day had been long, and rough, and the frustration consistently boiling up inside of her had, at one point, resulted in bringing a streetlamp to life. Thankfully she'd managed to end it before anyone had noticed, but it was a close call, and she didn't like when that happened.

The way Casey liked to think of her fairly limited powers was by likening herself to Matilda Wormwood. She could animate things. She could make things spin, levitate, stop on a dime, whiz across the room, or crash through walls. This power was motivated mainly by emotion. When she was frustrated, angry, hurt, sad, or just generally unhappy, it was very easy to do. When she was over-excited or extremely happy, it was fairly easy to do. But when she was frightened—forget it. Nothing.

She had recently discovered that, with a good amount of concentration, she could read people's thoughts. (She was glad that one didn't come naturally; the last thing she wanted was to hear random thoughts coming at her all day long.) She wasn't exactly psychic, but she had an unusually strong intuition that had once led her father to dub her "the best judge of character on earth." She had mild empathy abilities; she could sense emotions, which took only slightly less concentration than reading minds, but she could not, as far as she could tell, change anyone's emotions—which, again, suited her just fine.

She wasn't exactly volatile. She'd learned to control herself, for the most part. But there were times when her power would get ahead of her. Every time she "slipped up," she was in danger. And she couldn't forget that for a minute. So when a crash sounded through her tiny room, causing the walls to vibrate and making things spill off her desk, it naturally scared the living shit out of her—not because she thought there was an intruder, but because she thought she'd caused it.

Casey sat bold upright and almost screamed—but froze in place when she saw the true reason for the crash: a slender young man with dark hair and very strange taste in clothes, in an unceremonious heap on her floor. She jumped off her bed, wary. She'd never, to her knowledge, conjured something like this—but it was entirely possible that she'd somehow summoned him through her open window; she'd done that unintentionally before (but never with a human, thank God).

She knelt beside the writhing heap of leather and messy ink-black hair. "Are you okay?" she asked timidly.

The man sat up and swept his hair out of his startlingly-green eyes. For a moment, an inexplicable sensation of warmth flowed through her, a comfort she hadn't known since she was fifteen years old. Whoever he was, he reminded her of home. "I believe so. Where am I?" He looked around her room, clearly bewildered.

"Um. You're in my room. Don't freak out, but I think I got you up here. I'm sorry, I—um—don't ask, okay? I'll just get you out of here and you'll never have to see me again. And, um, if you could—not—tell anyone—about this?" She knew she sounded pathetic on the last few words; she hated to sound like she was begging, but she didn't have much of a choice.

"I am in your chambers? I apologize, my lady, but—" The man took in her clothes, then took another look at her room. "What realm is this?" he asked, his face showing even more confusion than it had a moment ago.

Well, of course the poor jackass is confused, he's just been levitated through a fucking window—Casey began the usual process of scolding herself, and then one of his words hit her. Realm. "You're…not from around here, are you." No duh.

The man shook his head and, suddenly, jumped to his feet, quite easily for having been just crashed into the floor of a dorm. "No, my lady. I am Loki of Asgard." He made a very handsome-looking bow, reminding her of the stories her father had read to her as a child—princes and knights and centaurs and—wait—

Gods.

Loki.

Oh my God, I know that name.

Casey jumped to her feet again. "Loki? As in, God of Mischief? That Loki?" She ran to her bookcase before he had a chance to answer, and pulled down a book that looked older than God himself. "This—" She frantically ruffled the pages until she found a drawing of a man chained to a boulder, with a snake hanging ominously over his head. "This is you?" She showed him the picture.

Loki pulled a face. "You wish to torture me, Mortal? But yes…unfortunately, that is me."

Casey dropped her book. Her eyes locked hard on Loki. She realized, in that moment, one of two things was happening. Option one: This guy was a cosplaying whacko who wanted to mess with her head as a way of getting revenge for being hauled through a window.

Or…

Option two: He actually was who he said he was, in which case there was a fucking Norse God, standing smack in the middle of her fucking dorm room.

Well, that would certainly explain the sense of familiarity. How often had her father read her those myths and legends as a child? She'd been fond of magic even then, and he'd encouraged it. She was very, very familiar with magical legends.

Hesitantly, she edged towards Loki again. "So, you're real."

"I am," he said, seeming slightly amused.

"And you can, I'm assuming, do things. Magic, I mean."

"If I choose, yes."

Casey almost demanded a demonstration at that point. But she stopped at the last minute, knowing it was probably a bad idea to offend this maybe-god by saying, "Prove it." So instead, she said, "Could you show me?"

Loki smiled, it was clear he'd been expecting this. "Of course. Watch." He made the book she'd dropped fly from its position on the floor and back into the shelf.

Big deal, I can do that! Casey almost laughed. But she didn't. Instead, she locked her eyes on his, held out her hand, and made the book fly from the shelf and into her grasp. With so much adrenaline flowing through her it was actually much easier than she'd expected.

It was Loki's turn to be shocked. "But—you are a mortal!" he protested.

She rolled her eyes. "And you're clearly not. Your point?"

"Mortals cannot do such tricks!"

"Well, this one can."

"But—" Loki's eyes were the size of teacups. He stared at Casey, as though he expected her to turn into a dragon. "How?"

Casey sighed and turned her face from Loki's, uncomfortable under his intense stare. "I've been asking myself that for years."

Loki took a tentative step towards her. "You've no idea as to how you acquired such power?"

Casey shrugged. "I've been able to do it for as long as I can remember."

Loki's expression had subtly begun to change from shock to curiosity. "Is that so? And what is it, precisely, that you can do?"

"Move things. Make things come to life. Make things fly around the room, make things stop if they're moving towards me. Make things come to me if I want them. But—see—thing is, I do a lot of it accidentally. And—and I can sense emotions. And read thoughts. Those are the only things I don't do by accident."

Loki's brow creased. "But—the book—"

"It's mainly based on emotion. I was excited because I could finally show someone what I can do without the fear of being institutionalized. I had a ton of adrenaline in me, so it was easy to make the book move. I probably couldn't do it now. But—if you want—I can show you something else."

He moved a step back. She wondered if it was intentional or not. "Could you?" Doubt seeped into his face. "Reading thoughts is no small matter. Even many Asgardian sorcerers cannot do that without intense concentration."

"Oh, intense concentration is an understatement," she admitted. "It takes a lot of effort. But I can do it."

"Show me," Loki demanded.

Casey mentally noted that she'd been right about Loki not wanting to be ordered around; he clearly preferred to be the one in command. "All right. I need you to think of something. A word, a sentence, even an image or a memory if you'd like."

Loki smiled indulgently and nodded his consent. Casey took a deep breath and looked into his eyes, focusing every ounce of her attention on him until she'd almost forgotten her own identity, so intense was her concentration on his.

She closed her eyes. She was beginning to get something. A shimmering, half-baked outline, outer space, the dark sky barely discernible from the inside of her own eyelids, looking up, a man looking down from above, long hair, dangling off the edge of what looked like a rainbow—

So he was showing her a memory. Or maybe a fantasy. She was beginning to feel the emotions radiating off him now—a bit of doubt, mostly hope, with just the slightest twinge of fear. She frowned and almost broke her concentration. What is he afraid of? It can't be me…

She refocused. Imagined she was inside him. Imagined she'd possessed him, imagined she was him—saw, in that moment, completely from his eyes—

I am a monster, I don't deserve this, I have failed, I have lost—I let go. I hear Thor's cry of pain but it's too late now, I could use what magic I have left to fly back to him. I don't, they're better off without a failure like me

Then I fall, and fall, and fall for an eternity, I fall until I forget who I am and what I've done, forget everything except the sensation of falling

The landing breaks my entire self, breaks me into what must be a thousand pieces. I don't die, I can't die, all I can do is lie, helpless, while shadowy figures encircle me, and I feel their evil radiating but there is nothing I can do to save myself now

The creature in front of me holds his spear, his magical spear, that spear that has more power than I ever could and I back away in fear—I don't show fear—I never show fear—

The pain is intense, searing, unbearable. TELL ME WHO YOU ARE! I scream, a wordless, pleading sound, I don't know who I am anymore, all I know is that the pain must end or I'll die, now. IF YOU WON'T TELL ME—HAVE IT YOUR WAY!

My mind is invaded, images, memories, a thousand things flying up to the front of my mind—Thor beating me at everything, my so-called father torturing me with his punishments and what he insisted was "tough love," my fears, my failures, my wishes and long-lost dreams, everything that makes me who I am—and it hurts, I scream again, I beg him to stop he won't, I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying—

The memory of his pain shattered her concentration. She staggered backwards a step, gasping. "Oh my God!" She looked at him, tentative, almost fearful. "Oh my God," she breathed, almost reverently, staring at him with a new respect in her eyes. "You—you—oh my God, Loki—please tell me—that was pretend, right? You didn't actually—because no one, you don't—you can't have—no one could deal with all of that—could they? Did you? Oh my God…"

Loki waited for her babbling to end before he told her, his voice unusually gentle, "Yes, my lady, I endured all of that."

Tears flooded Casey's eyes. She'd learned to control her emotions fairly well. But this was more than she could've ever imagined; she'd endured her share of hardship but this—this was different. She didn't know how anyone could survive such pain.

And that was what made her run full-tilt into the demigod in her dorm room, and throw her arms around him in the tightest hug she'd ever given.

She drew back after a moment. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

He looked at her nervously, almost admiringly. "And why must you apologize? None of that was your doing, after all."

"I know. But—" She pulled back and wiped her teary eyes. "I want to help. I mean. I don't know how…I mean, you're a freaking god, and I—" She sucked in another deep breath. "If—if you need to stay somewhere—you can stay with me."

Loki's eyes lit up. "That is a very kind offer, indeed. As you saw, I was banished from my realm and ended up in a…well, a rather unforgiving place. I would be very pleased to stay with you, my lady."

He took her hand and kissed the back, making her blush and reminding her of those stories again—all the fairy tales she'd read as a child. It was—nice, to say the least—having this, her own little piece of a fairy tale, standing in front of her, interacting with her, treating her like a human, an individual, even after she'd let him see her deepest secret.

Besides—he needed her. Monster, he'd called himself in her memory. She knew better. She could sense it, just in his memories, in the emotions she'd felt radiating from him. "Best judge of character in the world," her father had called her. That memory strengthened her resolve. She was never wrong.

"I'd be happy to have you stay," she said, unable to keep a smile off her face. "And—and you don't have to call me 'my lady,' by the way. I mean—it's nice, but—no one does that anymore."

"Oh…I see." Loki paused, clearly waiting for something. It wasn't until he prompted her, "And what should I call you, then?" that Casey realized she'd never told him her name.

"Oh! Sorry, I forgot. My name is—Casey. Casey Kyle."

"Casey Kyle. An honor to meet you, Lady Casey." He kissed the back of her hand again. "I thank you again for your kindness. You shall not regret your decision."

And call it intuition, or insanity—she'd often been accused of possessing both—but Casey knew that was the truth.

A wonderful two weeks followed—two weeks of story-sharing and bonding, of catching Loki up on American pop culture and bringing Casey up to speed on Magic Controlling 101. Soon, she could actually control her powers to some extent—and even acquired some new ones. Loki taught her how to make things disappear and re-appear, which definitely came in handy for cleaning her room.

While she went to her classes, he would stay in her room, sometimes watching TV on her laptop, but mainly voraciously reading the piles and piles of books she'd acquired over the years. She'd come home and they'd talk about what he'd read. It was much nicer, Casey reflected, than coming home to an empty room every night.

And then one day, Casey came home from her eight AM class to find Loki in a panic. "Oh, thank the Fates," he breathed when he saw her walk through the door. "I very nearly left to look for you. We must escape. Now."

"What? Why?"

"Chituari. Here, in your realm. It's on your television."

Casey raced to the dorm's common room and turned on the news. Sure enough, Stark Tower—which was within biking distance from her school—seemed to be under attack, from a huge, dragon-like UFO that could probably have crushed her campus with one landing. "Oh my God!"

Loki appeared at her side. "Do you see? We have to leave, and quickly."

Casey turned to him. "And where do you propose we go? For all we know, all of Earth could be under attack."

Loki shook his head. "I used your internet." (Whatever she did, she could not get him to use the word computer instead of internet; they seemed interchangeable to Loki.) "There is a place called California, it's quite far away from here—"

"No," Casey said firmly. "Loki, calm down. We're staying right here, and we are going to turn off the TV, and we are not going to worry."

"Why?" he demanded.

"Because—you see that giant green guy, right there?" She pointed to the Hulk, currently hard at work smashing the Chituari like flies. "That's the fucking Hulk. And you see him, right there?" She pointed to Iron Man, flying through the sky like a stunt pilot without the plane. "That's Iron Man. And trust me—they've got this. I promise you, by afternoon, this will be over. All over."

"How do you know?" Loki demanded. "Did you not tell me that these men—this Hulk, this Man of Iron—are legends, just as I am to your fellow Midgardians?"

Casey smiled. "You're missing a vital point here, Loki. Yes, they're legendary. But they exist."

Loki looked at her apprehensively. Finally he nodded in consent. "Fine. We won't flee. But you must promise you'll stay by my side today."

"I wouldn't leave you for anything," she promised.

And as she'd predicted, the Chituari were gone by that afternoon. "See?" She smiled. "We do have heroes on Midgard."

"I am aware," Loki said with a little smile. "I've been reading your history books."

When she'd first got the internship with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, Loki seemed on edge, until she reminded him that Bruce Banner was the freaking Hulk, who had succeeded in killing most of the Chituari. "This is the guy who basically kicked the hell out of the people who tortured you," she pointed out. Loki agreed that was a good person to have on their side. So she went.

But she didn't realize that it would result in her waking in the middle of the night, with a gun pointed at her face, and a deep voice saying, "You have precisely five seconds to stand up and put your hands behind your back, before I blow you and your crazy pet alien to hell and back."