The tea kept being delicious until I finished it.

"So... I take it you're not evil anymore?" I asked, hesitant. I was thankful, yeah, but being charmingly having tea with Loki seemed a bit surreal.

Loki smiled.

"One could say that I have put my evilness on hold, at the very least."

I would have loved to hear something less vague, but come think of it, him admitting he was good would've been a lot more suspicious. No, vague was good. Vague was Loki not admitting he hadn't done anything grandiloquent in the last year.

I took a look at the house, surprised at how human it all looked. It was not excessively tidy - bordering on chaotic in some places. But I was taken aback of how human it looked. And British.

The tea.

The scones.

A Shakespeare's globe program.

A Doctor Who dvd-set.

And I was in his house. I tried to remember any major catastrophes in London over the last year. None came to mind. No terrorist attacks. No weird pranks. Nothing. In fact, in one of the Evening Standard's floating around the apartment the mayor boasted about the low criminality rate they had achieved. On the year Loki had been living there. Which made no sense at all. What the hell had he been doing if it was not mischief for almost a year?

I looked at him and there he was, my former enemy, going through the pages of a book of poems written by John Keats and subconsciously whispering some verses - O sorrow!- How could this be the same person that had attacked us? How could he be the one that threw Tony off a window?

There was still a touch on evilness, of chaos and craziness but the murderous intent seemed almost gone. I was staring at him, all green eyes and pale skin. If he was having such a nice life, why risk everything by helping me? I could alert the Avengers and have him arrested.

"Quit trying to figure me out, Dr. Banner. It is an already lost cause."

There was a ring on the door and he got up, saying he'd be back soon. I followed a bit after, curious about who might be on the door. Part of me wanted it to be Doom or another super-criminal, so this would start making sense. No such luck. It was an old lady.

"Jack, dear, I was wondering if you had the book I lent you last week? My grandson is asking for it."

"Sure, Mrs. Roberts, let me get it. And do come in, please! I just made tea."

I was rooted to the spot disbelieving what my ears had heard.

THAT. BRITISH. ACCENT.

Loki had a British accent. This was so surreal.

"I cannot stay" the old lady was saying "Ronnie is upstairs and... Jack, dear, I don't mean to alarm you but there is an intruder in your kitchen."

Of course. That woman had seen me and been concerned for Jack's safety. What the hell.

"Sorry, let me introduce you. Mrs. Roberts is my landlady and this is Dr. Rogers, a friend from the United States who has come to stay for a few days." That accent. And now Loki winked at me, probably so I would follow his lead. I was a prisoner only hours ago and then I had woken up in a parallel reality where a god winked at you and there's tea and poetry.

Live and learn.

"Charmed, dear." the woman said "Are you here to celebrate?"

"Celebrate what?"

The lady looked at me like it was obvious and then realization dawned on her. She shouted in Loki's direction while he found the book.

"You haven't told him! You humble boy, you!" and then she told me "Jack got his doctorate last week beating all kinds of records of speed and quality and excellence and so many more things. I'm so proud. Really. I have the clipping somewhere... No, this is from three months ago."

"Can I see it?" There was a picture of Loki in that paper, too, from The Sun from a section of shocking news. I was curious.

Local man gets a full degree of Chemistry -in only one year!

No one believed that Jack Connelly, a Londoner of 29 years, would fulfill his dream of getting a degree from Cambridge in less than nine months, and they laughed at him as he signed up for all the courses of the degree at the same time. But -who's laughing now? Connelly passed all his subjects - and with flying colours! "One would think there's some sort of trickery there" says one of his professors "but there's not. He's just an extremely intelligent person. A true gifted." Mr Connelly's studies were held back by...

"Surely this you knew, right?" The old lady said, suspicious.

"Yes, of course, but I didn't know about the doctorate. You should tell me these things, Jack!" I said, nervous. "He's always so mysterious, isn't he?"

"That he is. Too mysterious and too skinny if you ask me. Maybe you can convince him to eat better, Doctor. He pays no attention to me."

"I will try." I say with the best smile I can muster. Because getting Loki to eat should be primary concern. This was all so weird. So surreal.

The lady left and I looked at Loki, not knowing what to think.

"So... Jack. I hear you are a scientist."

"What can I say." He answered. "I was bored and the mortals of Cambridge had naught but kind words for me and my knowledge. I will admit, it was flattering. You can read my thesis if you like, it's on the top shelf." He said and handed in to me. I read the front page.

"You got a doctorate on applied chemistry and toxicology in three months." He nodded. "And what's the thesis about?"

"The use of arsenic in new medical techniques. Poison as a life saver."

"You're saying that something that was always considered toxic could be constructive." I say, suddenly noticing the similitudes between Loki and the arsenic. Toxic but capable of good things too, apparently. "You defend poison."

"In one thousand and nine pages of glory." He says with that accent.

"You're crazy."

"So I've been told."

After a while Loki left to do mysterious things and told me to feel at home. He gave me the number of a contact that could make me a fake ID (with any name I chose!) and assured me that he'd cast a spell so people couldn't recognize me. (I wouldn't want to be caught harbouring a fugitive, now, would I? he said with that accent). I stayed in the house for a bit. Suddenly I noticed the books right next to the door- books by Jack London and Michael Connelly. So that's where he got his alias. The sofa was really inviting so I took Loki's thesis (Too curious to ignore it) and lay there, reading it while the music kept playing.

A piece of heaven.

After a couple of hundred fascinating pages I went out to the city, to have some fresh air. Loki had given me his spare key so I could return when I wanted to. It was a beautiful, cloudy day and a bit rainy sometimes, but quite warm. I found myself enjoying the light english summer rain, the crowded streets, the coffee shops from a hundred and one different franchises. Ah, London. I sat in a park reading the newspaper, purposefully avoiding the news about me and my escape. Let them look for me. Let them.

After having lunch I went to see Loki's contact, Katia, who made me a bunch fake documents with my new name, Anthony Rogers. I learned that his friends called "Jack" Loki because he was a myth geek, and that they were all aware that he was a fugitive. In fact, she didn't even ask me why I needed the documents, but instead helped me contact Tony to tell them I was fine and to spread some false clues about my whereabouts. There were many anarchist posters hanging around, fight the system kind of things. The girl then invited me to a party that night in her house. So very nice. These english people were so polite.

"Fugitives of justice are more than welcome, so tell Loki to come by too." She said and shook my hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Rogers and welcome to London."

I walked near the river in the afternoon, amazed at how my luck had changed. I sat on the bench, watching the Thames go by. Finally free.

I returned home (well, to Loki's home) shortly after and looked Loki up on the internet, still a bit skeptic. All I found about Jack Connelly were Cambridge publications, the articles Mrs. Roberts had collected from the journals and an article on a history magazine signed by him, called "The unspeakable cruelty of Odin". Someone had daddy issues. I heated some of the tea Loki had made earlier and felt completely at ease. It was as if I had left Bruce Banner, the Hulk and their many problems on the states and I was finally free from everything.

Loki came back around seven and smiled at me.

"I am glad you are here Doctor Banner, because as soon as I change we are going to dinner and then to the clubs, to celebrate."

"Celebrate? What?"

"What else? That we are free, that we are intelligent and that the night is young."

A voice inside told me that going out partying with Loki was crazy and that I should probably get out while I had the chance. Escape. I ignored that voice. No one knew who I was with. This was only Dr. Anthony Rogers having some fun with his eccentric british colleague Dr. Connelly, also known as Loki.

Five minutes later Loki got out all dressed in black, wearing a Joy Division t-shirt, black pants and a black leather jacket that made his pale skin stand out even more.

"Dude, you are tight. Those clothes leave no room for imagination." I mentioned. Now I was talking to Loki as if he was an old friend of mine. Surreal, but nice.

"Like you mortals would say: I'm sexy and I know it."

We had dinner on a place called The curry palace and then went to the Soho to get, in Loki's words, a nice, long alcohol intoxication. We spoke about having horrible dads. About attempted suicide, and how to rebuild your life afterwards. About the feeling of being hated, the toxicity of people's hatred and fear. About the horrors of imprisonment, even if his had been quite worse (like in the myth, snake poison had been involved). From bar to bar, Loki would shout I regret nothing! into the night. Some times I found myself joining him. London knew we regretted nothing and was okay with it. Okay with our crimes.

And then we found a karaoke place and continued getting wasted there. Then it was Loki's turn, and the power and beauty of his singing had me almost crying.

"They can keep me alive,

'Til I tear the walls

'Til I slave your hearts

And they take your souls

And what have we done?

Can it be undone?

In the evil's heart

In the evil's soul"

And I stood and clapped and Loki winked at me and we drank and the night was perfect. I sang, too, more happy than I'd been in years, getting back at the world, getting back at my captors at all the people.

"Don't look at me that way...

it was an honest mistake."

Because Chicago had been an honest mistake. And I deserved this, I deserved London, for all my troubles. Not prison.

I found myself reaching epic alcohol levels and when I thought the night couldn't get better we went to Katia's party and it was ELO night. A band so cheerful that it only multiplied my euphoria.

The party was amazing.

It was smiles and laughter.

It was toasting and dancing and singing your lungs out.

And if ever the ghost of sadness passed through then the song stopped it.

"Don't bring me down!"

And we were dancing, and Loki's scar-surrounded eyes were saying this is our night and a young girl was flirting with me and I couldn't remember how long had it been since the last time people had looked at me without fear, with so many smiles. And suddenly Loki and I were dueting Turn to stone and people were telling us that we were awesome (after all the pain, after all the hate and the prison).

And I was so drunk I became overtly sincere. Excessively sincere. I patted Loki on the shoulder and started slurring.

"You know, yesterday in my... in my cell, I was pretty down. I thought, yeah... I thought if they have to kill me, then so be it... What do I have to lose? Everything just sucked. And suddenly I was here, in London, and it's been great... You, you showed me that.. you know, that is cool to be alive. So, thank you, Loki - kay? Thank you for helping me. You- you didn.. didn't need to, but you did. You're amazing, this city is amazing and thanks for helping me."

He flashed one of his smiles.

"I regret nothing."

He didn't regret helping me because he was awesome, my drunken mind told me.

And the night continued, and the music and the people and the booze and suddenly Last train to London was on with its happy lyrics (everybody was there, everybody to share, it felt so right) and I was smiling because it truly felt so right.

"But I really want tonight to last forever" I sang, even if it was tonight was almost over because it was morning already and then I collapsed on the sofa, still smiling.

I fell asleep soon after that and when I woke up Loki was drooling on my lap, softly snoring. Up close his face looked even more messed up. After a couple of hours of silent peace he stirred and we left the place after thanking the barely-awake hostess. I had the hangover of the century while Loki was still as good as new (Have you forgotten that I am a god, puny mortal?) but we both spent the day on the house reading, writing, discussing politics, eating, snoozing everywhere.

After that crazy night and the calm next day I turned down my skepticism and simply enjoyed the company.

The next weeks were incredibly pleasant. I kept expecting for Loki to blow up, to threaten me, to kill someone, or even tell me about his secret evil plan and probably ask me to join him. It didn't happen. He had all the mannerisms of evil Loki, he WAS evil Loki and regretted nothing, but he just wasn't doing evil things. He was still in favour of a main dominant leader for earth, he just didn't have the strength to try it again. Not after his failure had cost him so much pain.

I could talk to him for hours. Spill my darkest secrets and find a sympathetic response. He knew what it was to feel like a monster. To be truly alone. To live days and days, weeks, months in a cage. When I woke up sweating, imagining myself back at the cell, he would be there, offering some tea. Forget about it, he would say. And celebrate that you are free now. That we've been more intelligent than them.

At first, I thought he was handling his time in prison much better than I did - always so cool and detached, regretting nothing, pretending not to care. But he had nightmares, too. Once I found him asleep with tear stains on his cheeks. The scars were not only in his face, but everywhere. He ate very little and vomited more than once. I offered to give him a check up but he violently refused. I decided not to ask any further because it was a topic that clearly unsettled him.

But most of the time it was smiles and jokes. We went to the cinema, to the musicals, we ate out. I met a lot people. This is my american friend, Dr. Rogers, Loki would say and everyone was delighted to meet me. I was delighted to meet them as well. We talked, we walked, we went back to the karaoke. Loki used magic to get money, so it was never an issue. I finished reading his thesis and it was excellent. One thousand and nine pages of glory. Sometimes I would go to Tesco and buy some horribly sweet soda and popcorn and it was movie night. After some many years I had a flatmate and it was good. Of course, sometimes I missed home and sometimes Loki's smugness was a bit excessive, but most of the time he left me on my own and wrote ot left, or I would leave to take a walk near the Thames or have some beers in the centre. All in all, it was a nice way of living. Nothing to do with the high-security prison.

After two months, Tony and the others succeeded in making the governor absolve me so I was free to go back, with my own name. Of course when I went back I couldn't mention Loki because A) he was supposed to be in a cell in Asgard and B) my friends would want to use the info I had on him to hunt him down - and that was not happening.

He came to see me off at the airport and I was very touched by the gesture. Maybe it was just his impeccable manners, but after two months living with the guy it was nice to know that he cared, behind his snarky and aloof exterior. Just before he left I couldn't help myself and hugged him. He was stiff at first, but then returned the hug.

"Thank you, Loki. For everything. For inviting my into your house, for listening, for giving me this incredible holiday from myself. I have no words."

"It was my pleasure, Dr. Rogers."

And so he was leaving, clad in his black leather jacket, just the same way I was leaving London.

"Loki!"

He turned.

"I regret nothing."

He smiled and winked at me.

I felt a couple of tears falling as the plane took off.

Thank you, London.

A/N: This is like the less angsty thing I've written EVER, so forgive me if it's not too good. I was hesitant to post it (fearing that I would spoil a good oneshot with a mediocre continuation), but I had so much fun writing I decided to give it a try. The songs are Seven Devils by Florence and the machine (look up the lyrics and imagine Loki singing it, it's just gorgeous), An honest mistake by The Bravery and Don't bring me down and Last train to Londonby the Electric Light Orchestra. I really want to know what you thought because "happy" is not really my scene and I am very uncertain about this piece.

Anyways, REVIEW, for the love of Loki!