We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful… Oops hehe, you didn't hear that…
Disclaimer: I do not on the Avengers or Maximum Ride, I think. I have personal identity issues. Ohh…wait… my imaginary friend told me I am not an actually author or director. Everything is good now. I may need a therapist though.
*Warning: this chapter contains changes in POV's*
This chapter is dedicated to the reviewer stardust light, nice job guessing and everyone else who got it right, you all did great too.
Nudge Knows How to Scheme
Max POV:
After coughing out the surprise of seeing the familiar face I realized that I still did not know the guy's name. So after receiving a funny sideways glance from Nudge I reluctantly stuck out my hand towards the man.
"Max."
I was extremely surprised when, instead of shaking my hand, he grabbed it and proceeded to bend down and press his lips to it. Nudge, ever enjoying my current obvious discomfort, started to giggle. My cheeks could have passed for a flat tomato at the moment. When he straightened back up he offered his name.
"Loki."
Instead of staying in the awkward atmosphere I made a beeline towards my car and allowed Nudge and Loki to trail behind me. When I was inside of the vehicle I started the engine and put the heater on as high as it would go, allowing my vents to throw cold air at me until the engine warmed up. Nudge, being the polite bird woman she is, allowed Loki to sit up front with me. I shot her a glare as she slid into the back seat giving me a sly grin. Something was certainly going on right now and I could already tell that I am not going to like it.
The entire car ride I felt tense. I may not be as suspicious with strangers as I used to, but I sure do not like them either. The entire time I listened to Loki trying to start conversation with me and Nudge was being oddly quiet. The best I offered towards the man sitting next to me was sharp glares. I can hardly drive inside my lane as it is and I was not going to allow small talk to get us in an accident.
Loki POV:
Why is this girl sitting next to me being so infuriating! I am a god and I will not allow some mortal to be so uncooperative! From what I know, which is more than this mortal's tiny mind can comprehend, humans are submissive. So why can she not do as I please and have a civilized conversation?
When I gave up on trying to talk to her I began to wonder why I came here. Ohh wait, it was that girl sitting behind us, the only thing I could do to get her out of my house after I invited her in was to agree to going to this silly event with her. She could drive a god to suicide by simply talking their ears off.
It is not as if I could just dispose of her either. I have to remain low key (get it?, sorry) if I want to get the information I need about Earth. Currently, I'm spying on the agency that has the Tesseract. While I could simply go on a full scale rampage to get what I want immediately, the Chitauri think that I should know more information before an attack.
In my free time I want to find out more about the mortals of Earth. When everything goes my way and I finally rule them I would like to know how they behave. Their culture is surprisingly interesting and it changes so quickly, just look at the last hundred years (that is less time than my early childhood). These people are adapting to their world at a fast pace and the books on Midgard that I have read in my childhood do nothing for my knowledge of mortal's culture.
Max POV:
When we got to the park I think Nudge was holding in squeals of delight. As soon as I shut my car door she had grabbed my hand and then she started running towards a crowd of people surrounding a tall oak tree. I almost tripped into the small layer of snow; I could barely walk with the heels on these stupid boots Nudge made me wear.
It appeared we had arrived exactly on time as I heard the person I assumed to be leading the event talk.
"Alright everyone, I am so glad you made it here today!" I rolled my eyes at the lady's cheery voice and when I looked to the side Loki was seen smirking towards me. I'm glad to be a source of entertainment.
"Just like every year we will be separating into ten groups to cover more area, there are seventy-three people here today so each group should have seven people and three groups will have eight. I have a list over here with your groups, based on your personal requests. Also, there are folders with sheet music on the picnic table to the left of me, each group will need four."
When she was done talking I looked around myself. Are there really that many people here? I shrugged it off quickly, it doesn't matter.
After standing still for five minutes, the crowd of people preventing us from moving, Nudge led me and our guest outside of the crowd. She immediately had us standing with five other people. After some long introductions we walked towards the section of the park we were supposed to be at. This was going to be a long day.
A man in our group spoke up once he had us standing in a straight line.
"Grab the hand of the person next to you."
I think I actually groaned out loud before grabbing Nudge's hand, and reluctantly Loki's too.
Four hours later and we were finishing up; it did not go as smoothly as it was supposed to. Loki kept stumbling over simple Christmas carols that even I knew. I pathetically tried to help him by singing a little ahead of the beat, causing the whole train wreck to become even worse. It was only two hours into caroling, we had gone through all the songs about twice, and he was starting to sound better than anyone else in the group. I found this to be completely unfair.
I felt miserable on top of everything else. My fingers felt numb through my gloves and my nose probably had icicles hanging from it.
After twenty minutes of Nudge saying farewell to all of her friends we started to walk towards a café.
I opened my mouth; in a very un-Max like way I was trying to start a conversation.
"Well, that was," I tried to search for the right word for a few moments, "okay."
Nudge shined a bright smile at me and Loki grinned.
"I knew you would like it Max! You should start listening to me more often. Remember the one time when you didn't believe me when I told you a stray kitten was eating our food when we were taking a rest somewhere in Kentucky? You thought I was eating the food! I may love food, but I would never come up with such a lie. Do you remember what the kitten looked like? It was all white and fluffy, we should have kept it. Max, do you think I could get a kitten for Christmas?"
I sighed, "Maybe," Nudge beamed up at me.
Fortunately, the monologue Nudge had took up the entire time of our walk to the café. Loki held open the door for us and the warmth of the room caused my face to flush. When we had ordered and all had sat down Nudge looked at her phone, looked at us, and then started standing up.
"I have to go! I'm sorry Max, but it's a work emergency!"
She flashed my keys at us and then ran out the door, not before throwing a wink back at me. I swear that girl is bird meat when I get my hands on her. I was in too much of a shock to chase after her.
"Well this is just great! I have raised a psychopath with a death wish!"
"Raised?" The man across from me questioned. I paled, realizing what I said.
"It's nothing." I replied shortly.
"It doesn't seem like nothing, that woman could be no more than five years younger than you."
I came to the quick conclusion that this conversation was not going to be dropped as easily as I wanted it to. Plus, this guy is my neighbor and with Nudge's like of him I will not be able to avoid him for, let's just say, forever. I was going to have to stretch the truth a bit.
"Well, Nudge and I were orphans." What a lovely way to start off Max, now where should I go with this. I drew in a sharp breath before I started bs'ing my way out of this. "We were taken in as babies by an orphanage that did not treat us properly. This orphanage was not run by the government and the activities that took place inside it were kept secret. The workers were all essentially evil, except for one. He broke us out of that place when I was eleven."
"He gave us-which included of me, Nudge, and three others," I left out Fang, "Well, he gave us a home, education, safety, he was what made us a family. A screwed up family, but a family all the same. One day he just disappeared and then it became my job to take care of all of them. I loved them like they were my children and I still do to this day."
He looked at me sympathetically and it appeared he was deep in thought. I wanted to pat myself on the back; my impressive on the spot thinking hasn't become worse with years of lack in practicing.
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want apologies. Nothing you did made my life the way it was. If anything I want the apologies from the people who made me what I am today." Right before I kill them, I added as an afterthought.
"I understand. If it makes you feel better life has not blessed me either."
I raised a single eyebrow at him.
"Either you tell me what happened or I pretend you did not talk."
I was taken aback when he threw a quick glare at me. All I could think was, holy crap, that look is terrifying. I made a vow in that moment to not use my death glare on anyone for a month…no, a week, maybe.
"That is none of your business."
"Neither was what I told you, but I'm not complaining."
"You gave into telling your story willingly."
I raised an eyebrow at him again.
"If your curious mind cannot be satisfied any other way I will share though. I was raised by a royal family." I about scoffed at him. "My older brother was everything my father wanted. He was strong, handsome, and he did everything right in my father's eyes. Whatever I did paled in the glory of my brother's most remedial accomplishments."
"No matter what I did, I could not earn the approval of my father. When I grew older I found out why. I was the blood of our enemy, he was not my father at all, he had taken me as a baby. He thought I could bring peace between our nations, father must of been so disappointed when he found out I could not even do that. A couple of years ago I made a terrible mistake in my family's eyes and my brother sent me away from our home, never to return."
Well, if all the screw ups would care to move to my neighborhood why don't we make the party of mistakes more complete? I interrupted my own bitter thoughts by slowly reaching my hand out to put over his. I was not going to make the same mistake he did by saying sorry.
"The best people in the world were made through hardships."
I felt awkward as the cheesy words flew out of my mouth. He laughed without humor in response.
"I am not a good person."
Not knowing what to say I stood up from the table, no money in my pocket to leave a tip since my wallet was in the car. Loki stood with me and we walked out the doors together. I felt my hand wrapped around something and realized I still had my hand around his. I shrugged it off, we were in New York City and we might as well make sure not to lose each other.
"I have no money for a taxi, my wallet was in the car Nudge took, so I guess we have a long walk ahead of us."
I groaned at my own words, realizing I couldn't just flip out my wings and leave him here. That would be suspicious. I guess we have a five hour walk ahead of us. After looking at my watch I determined we would be home by midnight. That is fantastic, right at the start of Christmas.
We managed to have an interesting conversation. It isn't like we were going to walk in silence for that long. I told him all about the flock, leaving out the fact we called ourselves "The Flock". He shared with me what it was like to grow up in a royal family. He, apparently, was quite the prankster as a kid. I could already tell I needed to keep him away from Iggy. There is no telling what their minds would come up with if used together.
The whole time I tried to ignore the fact I was still holding onto his hand. It would be too easy to lose him if I let go. When we were within three miles of our house and it was a safe distance away from the city I realized our fingers had managed to entwine themselves and separating them might not go as unnoticed as I wished. To delay the awkward moment sure to come I didn't move my hand.
Our conversation was starting to get stranger as tiredness began to take its toll on me. I asked him if he could be any animal in the world, what would he be. He seemed to be at a loss for words. In my idiotic state I answered my own question.
"I would be a bird. The freedom of being able to fly anywhere you wanted at the slightest of whims would be amazing. It would have certainly come in handy tonight."
I was smiling like an idiot after my confession and then I started using that inactive brain of mine. I realized I was an idiot. Arriving at my house could not have come at a better time. He walked by my side up to my door before leaning down and kissing the hand which was still in his.
"It was a pleasure to meet you Max."
I did not know what to say at the moment. I simply removed my hand from his, opened the door to my home, and as I let warmth rush around my body I was never more glad that we usually left the door unlocked (the flock and I figured that if anything really wanted to come in, it would). It took less than a second for me to realize Nudge was wide awake and she was sitting with her legs crossed on the sofa. What was she doing awake at midnight?
"How was your date, Max?"
My mouth opened and about hit the floor. She was definitely not getting a kitten.
So I hope you like it and I hope nothing is moving to terribly fast. We don't exactly want to move at snail's pace either.
How much of this do you think Nudge had planned out? She can be a devious little bird kid. I'm glad to have finished at exactly 11:08 tonight.
How many more chapters of Loki/Max do you want before the Avengers comes into play? I just want a few suggestions.
